The Vergecast - Morning Computer

Episode Date: February 5, 2016

This week on The Vergecast, Dieter and Nilay are joined by Dan Seifert and Racked style editor Nicola Fumo to discuss the iPad air 3, Amazon Echo features, the new Uber logo, Apple software and lots more. Also, what would happen if ALF and Urkel met? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, and welcome to the Vergecast, a show about our dreams and hopes and wishes and fears, all relating in some way to technology. I'm Neil I Patel, your friend, I think. I'm joined here by Dieter Bone. Hello, hello. I joined and I will not be here for the next two weeks, so soak it in. The ever-humble Dieter Boe. Get a load of me!

Dieter's getting married next week. Yo. It's like a... Again. Yeah. Dieter got social media married. Right. And now it's the party.

Now I'm getting sick and married. Yeah. But I'm going to be on at Dieter's wedding next week. Peter's second wedding. That's the hashtag right, Dieter's second wedding. It's the party for Dieter's wedding. No, there's actually a wedding. Yeah.

And I will say this. The only reason I had the first wedding is because I needed the papers because they wouldn't actually hold the ceremony without the papers. Deeter's party wedding. Right. That's a terrible hashtag. Also, doesn't mention the bride. No, it doesn't.

Who is wonderful? Actually, I can tell you what the hashtag was. Dieter's Palm Pilot Love Story. Oh, my God. It's good. It's actually not bad. Palm Pilot Love Story is also really good. Anyway.

No, the hashtag, I made a joke. I was like, oh, we're on a beach. We're going to be like, you know, just chilling out. Maybe it should be wetting and chill. And I thought it was just like a bad dad joke. But like, it took off and now it's the hashtag. There's no way no one else has done wedding. I know.

Wait, really? Yeah. I'm sure somebody has. Oh, okay. You didn't look into it? The best, the less, the less I look into it, the better. Dieter's bride. Bride.

I mean, fiance wife. It's somewhere in the middle of those two things. Wifonce. Lovely human, by the way. Dieter's Wiponsei, Lisa, has specifically requested that I fly the rings down the aisle with a drone. Yes. So I took the Verges Review Phantom home with me, and I'm going to have drone practice this weekend.

It's a real situation. I love consistency, and I love the consistency of this union. I love that there's going to be drone rings. I mean, everything's perfect. I'm not making any promises with the drone rings. I'm saying I'm going to try. I'm also saying bride and groom might be horrifically injured by the time this is over. I'm just saying, we're going to give it a shot.

Do you have to bring a drone on the airplane, or is it going to get there itself? gonna fly there all by itself yeah we're gonna put it in follow me mode we're gonna tether some power of the dream miner battery a drone in following mode when you're on a super hot jet just like sadly like I'm gonna get there

we should there should be a movie about a sad loss drone trying to get home there should be a movie where we tie like 30 drones to Ben Popper and see we can get him in here wait did I tell you that I heard about a drone that I think is a good idea what's that my friend invented it it's called vibe drone

and it goes to a bar or a party to check out what the vibe is and report back to you. Oh, that'd be great. That would be great. Vib, drone. That would be awesome. I'm totally into that. Yeah. Sometimes you're like, oh, I want to go to this bar they like. But like, is it going to be?

Are they playing the good music? Are they playing the crap music? Yeah, or like I'm going to go to the party. The last time a startup tried to do that, it turned into a horrible. That was like a surveillance nightmare. Yeah. By the way, to be honest with you. We have other people.

We didn't get through it. Dan Seifert's here. Oh, yes. I am here. Dan is here because we're going to argue it. I think we're going to heed it agree about the Amazon Echo. We're all very excited about the Amazon Echo. Anyway, and Nicola has already made her presence known.

I'm here. What's up, Nicola? A lot is up. Just tons, yeah. What's going on? It's been a loaded week. Yeah. You know, I realize we've had you on the show basically for two months now.

You haven't hyped checked anything. What? You've been in the hype seat. You've got the Fern. Today, Nicola, I saw in our Slack room hatched a plan to just slyly redecorate while Dieter and I are gone. I'm thinking about themes. think anyone who doesn't watch the YouTube version is dumb.

And everyone should watch the YouTube version. They're in their cars. I know, I'm sorry. I'll make it worth your while because I'm going to start decorating the set different every week and you're going to want to tune in. There's going to be a 10-minute pre-show where Nicola just does an audio narration of how she's decorated. I just think this podcast needs more visuals.

That's all. Hype check your lack of hype checks. The thing about the hype check, I thought about it, is that that's really Sam Shepard's thing. It's not really me. I need my own thing. All right. Well, she's at Nicola underscore Fuma, everybody. And if you can think of a thing for her to do consistently on the show that is as funny as hype checking. You'll have like, Neeline Dieter will be gone next week. So you'll have a good week to think about it and come up with something. Yeah, next week you should just prototype new things. Like if lit weren't already off the, if we weren't at the end of the curve of that peaking. Like I need a new word. Oh, man, we're at, we're post lit already. Yeah. It's gone. It's gone dark. All right, we got to get into it. We actually got to talk about stuff. We got to get into it. Yeah.

There's a bunch of depressing things here. I blame Dan. I got to say this list is real. It's a lot of downer stuff. Look, lots of happened. Can we start with the Spotify thing? No, that's the whole second half of the show. Yeah, there's a lot to talk about there.

If you are wondering if we were ever going to devote half an hour of the Vergecast to the Amazon Echo playing Spotify, today's your day. I think half an hour is very conservative. It might be much longer into that. Yeah. Everyone has a lot of thoughts about it. Okay, save it. Save it for the podcast. All right.

Let's start with some news. All right. Some real news. Let's hear it. Hard news. Hard news. We have been told, rumors, confirmed by BuzzFeed News. It started with Mark German.

Yeah. Apple event. March 15th. The Iads of Apple. Yes. In the middle of South by Southwest. Johnny Ives, Sabs, Tim Cook. Pooke.

Poole. Ives of Apple. The Ives of Apple. Oh. Think about it. Well, good. I'm glad that someone has finally found their one. fanfic dream.

No, that's great. Someone somewhere is like already typing. We've already got the URL. Johnny Ivan Otoga, by the way. You think it's going to be slash, but then it's murder porn. I don't know. The Ives of Apple? You think it's going to be some Johnny Ives?

That's true. I'm just imagining Johnny Ivind of Togah. It's like, it's really relaxed. It's a trilogy called the Unapologetic trilogy. The first one is, it's the Ives of Apple. The first one's called Unapologetic. Dan Seifert's Unapologetic trilogy. All right.

So we have at this event New watch bands Woo! I don't even So the new watch bands are supposedly like going to be a black Milanese loop Some other colors.

There's rumors that there's different Hermes, Hermes, colors? Irmez, thank you. Wow. I've checked that pronunciation right there. It's uncheckable. Can you even?

Oh, there's a good one. Nope, that's not going to be good. All right, so new watch bands, including some new designer ones. Yeah. Which is whatever. Like, leaking new watch bands. They're just trying to juice these, like, not sales that aren't happening. No, they said they had a big town hall today, and German leaked that they, you know,

apparently the watch is doing fine. Right. Yes. Of course. But, like, I think they need to talk about the watch at every event. That's my, that's actually my belief. I mean, like, they are the world's biggest watchmaker now. So that's like a really big thing.

But like in the terms of like Apple's business, the watch is still a very small thing. Because Apple's businesses are just so. There's some, there's some rumors that they'll do some software tweaks. Yeah. They'll add another complication of the days, right? Well, there's going to be, presumably there's going to be a whole second one later in the year. Anyway, it's new watch fans. Yeah.

Right, right. Then new iPad Air 3. Which I'm super excited about. Yeah, I just bought an iPad Air 2 like a month ago after I went on my, my saga of trying to pick a tablet that represented the future of computing, and I gave up. Yeah, that was a real saga. And now I, like, they're going to release a new iPad. Here's what I want from the air.

So I'm thinking, I'm going to give it away and buy it my one. The only thing I want is pencil support. Yeah. I want pencil support, and I want to be able to take notes on it. Yep. And if it doesn't have that, I'll be very upset. I don't think you're going to get it. I really want pencils support.

I also, I also, and this is going to sound crazy, I want 3D touch on it because I don't think you're going to get that either. The whole point of 3D touch is to, like, make it more like a computer. So what could they, if they don't add pencil, and they don't have 3D touch. They're going to add the little jibberjabbers on the bottom to plug a keyboard into it. Okay.

Yeah. And a flash and a flash. Okay, I'll give you better odds. iPad 4 to the iPad 3. I'll give you better odds on the pencil than I would, well, on 3D touch. Yeah, I think that's probably right. I mean, like, I don't know.

I'd be surprised at it. They got to add pencil support. They got to. You just got to. Nah. I mean, it's, it is the feature of the iPad pro. That's true. Yeah.

Well, yeah. You got to give the pro a year. You can't be like, artist, you can draw on it now. And then now there's a cheaper one. You know, you got to give that one since. Well, I would say yes, except for the fact that the pro doesn't come with the pencil. And they are sold separately. And there's separate leaks.

Like, the window is there for them to sell other products that can use the pencil. Yeah, I'm saying, I'll give you better odds in the pencil. I don't think you're going to get 3D touch. Oh, man, then I'm happy with my iPad Air 2, straight up. I love my iPad. It's going to be faster. I mean, the Air 2 is like a, great tablet.

Like, that's what I mean. Like, if they don't do the pencil and they don't do 3D touch is the only thing really going to be the connector for the keyboard, like, that's not a super exciting update. The iPad 2 is the perfect morning computer. It's a perfect, like, wake up, uh, what's going on, use the iPad or 2. Yeah. And the problem with it is, like, the morning is the only time my cat doesn't want to murder me. And so, like, I'll wake up, walk into the living room.

And they're like, oh, hey, I like you today. I'm like, oh, great. I don't know how to adjust the cat in the iPad. It's rough. My life is rough. I feel like saying like morning computers, the equivalent of being like, the best like morning pajamas versus night pajamas as if like you were going to like. Like it sounds like an absurd. It's a very absurd thing.

Like the idea of like at this feeling time, I want this. But that's true though. Like I mean, our life is surrounded by computers. Like this is not the only computer in our lives. This is a computer. This is a computer. Tablet's computer. A refrigerator's computer.

Dan, by the way, for the podcast listeners, Dan just literally pointed at everything. He pointed at his wrist. He pointed at his face, he pointed at the desk. He almost pointed at the beer. He like, he's like, this is a computer, I think. At some point he pointed at his crotch, and I don't know what that means at all. It was the belt. Wait, what computer do you use in the morning?

It's your phone, right? Yeah, my phone is my morning computer, I guess. Right, but so many years ago, my morning computer is my laptop. I'd, like, haul it over. And I was like, I'm computing in the morning. Although I had a new morning computer experience today, because it was my first morning waking up wearing a smartwatch. Well, you wore it.

You did, which one? And it felt so weird. Yes. It's great, right? Alex, really, do you like it? Yeah, I do. I like it so much. I like it so much more than I thought I was going to.

Really? And the first, this is amazing. The best thing in the world is that the first notification I got after I, like, charge it and put it on was that Dan had like tweet replied to me about Kanye West. And I was like, yeah, this is the best. Everything is here on this right now. But it's amazing because, like, I was at a bar last night and I was like seeing Kanye's tweets, like telling my friend, like, oh, Kanye just said this, right? So the only thing that it could do that would be better

would be let you like those tweets from your wrist, right? Yeah, because the thing is, and then I had to write Dan back on a computer. On the iPhone, can you? I don't know. What if it had had no features except for showing you in real time Kanye's Twitter feed?

It'd be like a peak you wear on your wrist. I love that as an art project. I think that would sell well. Just to watch that all it does was show you on his Twitter. And, you know, he kept deleting them and reposting them, but I kept seeing them. Yeah.

Like, I was beating Kanye. Did you see the Rolling St. Cover? Of course. I mean... Trolling Stone. Yeah. That's his own hashtag.

He wrote that. I didn't get that far. There's a backstory to that because Rolling Stone wrote a... Actually, publish an article. Yeah, do the whole thing because they won't know. Words who listen. They publish an art...

Because Kanye's got his new album come out called Waves. Rolling Stone published an article yesterday saying it might not be good. Might be the first bad Kanye album. So Kanye did a little trollingstone on Twitter with a fake trollingstone. Rolling Stone cover. Yeah. He shot a fake Rolling Stone cover photo.

Who was it that shot at Tyler, the creator? Yeah. And then put like the logo over and I was like, here's when you cover. And it was a really bad photo just like a, no, like. Yeah, it was, like, but it was like bad in the way that like Rolling Stone would intentionally make it right. Like if your magazine. Like it was over exposed.

Yeah. It was like it was intentionally that thing. Right. And then like literally other music magazines had to be like, this isn't a real Rolling Stone cover. And then he started adding Bill. Rolling Stone tweeted. Well, yeah. This isn't real.

But then he like, added Billboard, and he was like, at Billboard. How is this not real? Did you not see it? Does it not exist? It's like, what the fuck? Tonya Twitter in the past week has just been like the most entertaining thing. He's flip-flop from pure insanity to like humble yay, where he's like, wait a minute, it's not the greatest ever.

It's just really, really, really great. Ty was just not real. Trolling Stone. Did you not see? It's like the, and he's like just random. I don't know. I don't know. I just want to do a series of.

real people using Twitter. Like, I would love to take a photo of Donald Trump with an Android because he uses Android. It's on Twitter for Android. He's just a Samsung, actually. Like, tweeting. Like, what a weird, or like a picture of Kanye just, like, busting out the iPhone.

I mean, like, at Billboard. You know, I think that's a lot better in your mind than it is in reality. No, I just, I have this whole theory. It's just a guy with the phone. I don't know what you do on. No, I have this whole theory about. Celebrities are people, too.

Damn. But, like, all the people are using this one crappy social network. Um, no, I have this whole theory about how media has changed because we all use the same tools to, like, communicate. Uh-huh. Right? Like, they are, it's still phones, right? Like, the president taking a selfie is, like, still using the same camera as you are when, like, he also has access to, like, broadcast cameras. But, like, we've chosen.

You could wear the same fitness tractor as the president of the United States for, like, $250. I saw this great. What does he wear? He wears the Fitbit. Surge. He wears the watch. The big, the big, ugly Fitbit. He wears the surge.

That was part of my week, too. There was a whole... We should talk about the Alta. But there's a whole hashtag on Twitter that was like Ted Cruz, two watches. Because everyone thinks he's wearing two watches, but it's a surge. Right. Yeah, it's another Fitbit. Yeah.

Presidential candidates. Wow, they've really cornered the market. So the third... The politician market. The third thing at the Apple event is the iPhone 5 SE. Yeah. Which I have literally nothing to say. Yeah.

I'm in the same place. Like, I do not understand the move with this. So I'm, like, back in the world of being a two phone guy. Yeah. I got two phones that I carry around on iPhone and Android. Morning computer. Morning computer. Two phones.

More like right-hand computer and left-hand. Dieter's got, like, I got a morning computer. I got a morning computer. What do you want for me? So I'm tempted. I'm tempted by the little guy. I'm thinking about it. Oh, I see.

Thinking about getting a little phone. Yeah. Be my party phone. Yeah. Your eye message phone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm a part of my eye message phone. That's what it'll be. That's why you have two phones. I'm not turning eye message back on. Yeah, you are. I know. Do it. God damn it.

Everybody wants you to do it. I hate everybody. So that's the Apple stuff. I will say Walt wrote a thing this week. Very good thing. We extensively discussed in a podcast yesterday. So if you want to hear 45 minutes of two people talking about Apple's declining software quality, I encourage you to listen to Control Wall Delete because Walt gets into it.

I think it's up right now. It's up. You don't stop listening to them. Well, listen to them both at the same time. The other thing. And the YouTube. Because you're an idiot if you're not listening to the YouTube, apparently. The other thing about Walt's thing is, you know, it, like, set off a series of posts from a bunch of, like, Apple bloggers.

Like John Gruber and Jim Dahlgrenpole. And literally, everybody's like, yep. Yeah, it was a lot of head nodding. Nobody's like, no, it's fine. It's great. Everybody's like, yeah, it's. So, well, here's what I'll ask, Walt yesterday. All right.

And then we'll move on to that. Okay. And it's a hard question to answer, but. Is it, does your Apple TV, new Apple TV crash all the time, Dieter? The answer is yes. So there's that. Okay. There used to be a guy at Apple who would, like, use every product and say, this sucks, change it if it sucked.

Yeah. Who do you think that person is now? Is it Tim Cook? Is it Johnny Ive? Is it, right? Who's the person who has the power to say? Federegi. Right.

Maybe. But, like, I think that's the problem. Like, Steve Jobs, like, use it. He'd be like, there's too many fucking buttons here. Or, like, he'd be like, this isn't brushed leather enough or whatever the hell. And then you would, like, throw up. back in the ocean. Right? And like he, whatever his taste was, whether it was good or bad, or whatever, it was

the taste of the company. Yeah. And now that's clearly, they're counting on like a committee and like the institutional memory of Apple to preserve those standards. It's, it's unique to the software side of things too. Like I don't think they really have the hard, hard problems with their hardware design and they're like, you know, I mean, I guess the watch would be the best example where it has a bunch of different ways to interact with it.

That's kind of weird and confusing. but the phone is really good the tablets are really good the laptops are really good the core products that people actually buy are really good but it's like a different story on the software side the core products mail safari iMessage

like iCloud like all of these have pretty big flaws for a lot of people yeah I just think that's the thing like it is the question that they didn't want to answer when he like died and for good reason like get a 100,000 person company around him

and like clearly they knew what to do. But it's many years later, there's been some turnover. They have some new management place. Like Forstall's gone. They've shuffled the decks. They've added all these fashion people. Like it's just a different word. Johnny Ive is like literally designing spaceships and cars

and VR helmets apparently. And he's wearing a toga the entire time. It's super weird. It's a linen toga. Like a thousand years from now, they'll be like, the ancient Californians, they knew the spaceships were coming. And it's like they're drawing Ivan atoga

because they don't know any better. But he's so, he's so gentle. Can't you imagine him in a toga? Like, isn't that like an ancient Roman senator? I really feel like they're... Wait, ancient Roman senators weren't gentle. Yeah, they were.

They weren't stabbing each other. They were like spirited debate. I don't know, man. Anyway, I don't think... Look, all I'm saying is based on my extensive knowledge of Rome history. The Senate was... From watching HBO's Rome five years ago. Look, it was a good show.

I'm just saying, I thought, my impression of the Senate, uh-huh, is that that is where the world's finest minds debated the future of democracy. I don't know. Who knows? All right, talk about debates. Yeah. You debated me live for a long time. What computer to buy your mom?

And you bought her a Chromebook. He wrote about it. Did I talk about it on this show? A little bit. You have, yeah. Okay. I did. So I bought my own Chromebook.

You wrote that. It's great. I will say that I apparently threw the company of Citrix into a frenzy. Because I said that shit didn't work. That's something. So my poor mom is being accosted by Citrix chips, which is great. I didn't buy her a Mac. Or an iPad.

I think that was the other thing that surprised people was that. She has an iPad. She didn't want a real, she wanted a computer. Right. she wanted a keyboard and a she wanted a laptop she wanted the form factor she wanted a big screen and she wanted a real browser

those are like the things that she wanted and the iPad just wasn't getting done for her she has an iPad or too she likes it you know she has an iPhone she loves this thing but I told Dieter the story like on Christmas day because it was so incredible

my mom like loves Steve Jobs like where did she grow that why I don't know she just she loves her iPhone, like the iPhone democratized commuting for her. She like loves it. Loving Steve Jobs isn't like a mold. No, no, but like how did she like arrive at that? Like my mom doesn't know her care about that. Yeah, I don't know. She just does. She's like, I have my career. She's like vaguely interested in technology. She's like a gadget nerd who's

bad at gadgets. It's like the greatest. So like I bought her an echo too. She like loves the Amazon Echo. But she always wants the new thing. Um, so that's great. Um, and she likes things that are sleek and minimal and like so she had an iPhone and we bought her an iMac and chick loves apple stuff and you know she's a person who like doesn't know why they're in an apple store because they already own every product in there and then they leave like she does that so bought her to this Chromebook and I was like I didn't buy you a Mac and she like opens the box and she just like stares the box she's like but I want to be loyal to Steve Jobs there's a crazy crazy moment and my sister and I like my sister just looks at me and she's like you knew this was going to happen and I was like you just

got to try it like just trust me on this and she's like why I just I want to to support his company. Like, it was, like, a moment, like, a hard moment. It was crazy. So, like, later on, like, open the box. She looks at it. She's like, it is very pretty. I gave her, like, the old soft shoe. I was like, it's Google's computer. Only, like, 10 people have them because only Google executives have, you know, like, the whole thing. And she's like, well, that's kind of cool. And then she, like, played with it. And, like, the second she touched the screen, it was all over. She's like, I love this. She, like, touched the screen. And she doesn't get, she's, like, browse the web. It's, like, somewhere between an iPad and a laptop.

She loves it. Can't get enough of it. They did a good job. And she's like, she uses the hell out of it. She uses it more than her iPad. She uses it almost as much as her fun. So like, I think that's really something because this conversation on Apple's software quality is linked in my mind to how complex it's getting and how many services they're trying

to layer onto the Apple experience because they're just always begging. I think El Cap is like needy software. So like you start up a new Alcapitan computer and it's like, welcome to ICloud, try this music. thing, put your photos here. It's like always telling you to do something. You set up a Chromebook, it just doesn't do anything. Apple needs to figure that out because, like, Dan wrote the story to have we reached peak iPhone or not, right?

And the Apple earnings and it was like, oh my God. And like, they made the most money of any company ever in history. Everything is horrible. They're going to die. But it seems really clear. And actually, this town hall thing that German has the inside story on, they're talking about maybe moving more services to Android. Yeah.

Anyway, so Apple needs to move from like, just making all of its money off of selling ever more iPhones to making its money off of the iPhones that are already out there, right? They need to like, Google makes its money off of ads. Amazon does what it does. And so Apple needs its thing to like start squeezing more money out of the phones that are already out there. And they need to figure that out because right now the stuff that they're doing

isn't as good as it needs to be to really take off. Right. And like so this combination of it's getting more complicated and the software quality is maybe dipping is like dangerous. Bad mix. Yeah, right? That's a terrible mix. And like,

I don't think a Chromebook is for everybody. Right. But if you are just, if you, it's a good minding computer. No, my wife used the Chromebook for two years. Yeah. I mean,

I think I could use it. I mean, I used my mom's for a bunch of time. And I was like, I could probably get away with this. Yeah. Like, there's a whole bunch of stuff I can't do,

but, you know, what's that thing where you just throw everything away and you're tidying. Oh, do you hold the thing in, does this give me joy? Does it give you joy? And then you chuck it if it doesn't.

Yeah. I literally threw away shirts last week with the does it give me joy method. No, you did not. Most of my shirts. Marie condo. Yeah. Marie condo. Yeah.

It was like, I literally stood in my closet and, like, held it with the shirt. And I was like, this shirt does not give you joy. And I threw it on the bed. Wow. And then Becky looped through and was like, I like you in the shirt. I'm not giving you joy, but. You know, and then she threw away a bunch of shirts. And I was like, but I like the shirt.

and we went in a circle for a while. I ended up throwing away a lot of shirts. Because I like, you know what? It doesn't give me your way. That's me in software right now. Wow. I was like, I could use this computer because I'm surrounded by junk. Like this Twitter app that I'm staring at on my computer right now.

Garbage. Garbage, but I'm not using Twitter on the web because I'd rather use an app and it's still here. So I'm using this garbage experience. If I had a Chromebook, I just have to use that. Yeah. So I had to get a computer. Sorry. What?

It just, I was bopping along. I had to finish the meter. I didn't do it. No, I just did that. We need to give you a hype check replacement. I'm really... You gotta get there. I'm thinking about it.

All right. I had to replace my Mac for a whole thing that's on the verge.com. But I didn't restore my old stuff. I started fresh and I've got maybe like a quarter of the apps that I had on my last computer here and it's fine. Yeah, see? It's totally fine. You can just throw a bunch of shit away. Does it bring me joy?

We should do a thing where we con Mario the apps on an average computer at the verge. Wow. And we're just like go through it. We're like, does this, I mean, let's just do it right now. What's on this piece? This is super compelling. It's a super compelling radio. Now I'm just going to start reading the names of apps.

Because it's like what he's been on here, airfoil speakers. That app doesn't even work anymore. App Store, get on my face. I do. Automator. Oh, man, I just deleted boxy. It feels really good. Boxy app.

Actually, some of these are really good apps. What's bringing you joy? What's bringing you joy? I'm bringing you joy. I'm two apps that bring you joy. Alfred brings me joy. and go-to-assist

customer version 758 does not bring me joy what the hell is that that's got to be a go-to-meeting thing yeah go-to-meeting in a folder with 12 copies of go-to-meeting in it doesn't bring me joy you know what doesn't give me joy is lunchpad

I think go-to-meeting is an advertiser today try and move an icon into a folder like just look at what I'm doing it like the folders here on the right-hand side edit it's the radio it's the radio here's what

Here's what it looks like on Deeter's computer. Like, pay the Peele Pee was chasing the cat around. Is the fact that Deeter says that he has a quarter of the apps on his computer is pretty stunning because Deeter is the king of, I can't believe you're not using this

insert utility to get something done. So I think that is, that says something. I guess I actually have a really good and well curated list of apps on this computer. I got to say I'm good at computers. You know what gives you the most joy in my computer is going to be good.

I got pewter's Putin. All right. I'm going to read the thing. Yeah. And we should talk about the echo, and then we should have a lightning around with a bunch of this stuff. That's a good idea. You know what I miss is Alf. Oh my God, you're doing this?

No, I think you're doing this. No, I'm not. No, I'm not doing it. I just can't. Sorry. Andrew wrote us an ad copy. But sorry. Andrew, if you want to read the Alf story, I'm going to make you do it.

This week's episode of the Vergecast is brought to you by Squarespace. So you're going to read the Alph story. Squarespace makes it easy to build beautiful websites without breaking a sweat. You know, back in Andrews Prime, we need music over this. He used to run a blog about the crossover misadventures of Steve Urkel and the puppet, Alf. Alf is a puppet, by the way, not a Muppet. That's a specific trademark term. I'm just saying, is there music over this right now?

Al would go under disguise to check out a science conference or something, and he'd run it to Steve. And Steve, who's friends, by the way, call him Erkel, would later learn that Alph is actually an alien from another planet and eventually helps repair Alth's spaceship. so that he can return to the planet Melmick. Where they started a website on Squarespace is really the thing that we're missing from the ad right now. Okay. The show really writes itself, is the bottom line.

But it was really hard to keep up with all these misadventures and put them on Andrew's website. And if he had had Squarespace back then, it would have just come in really handy. He would have been able to make the adventures of Alph and Erkel. We got there.

Way better. I'm not saying he got there. time or in a logical fashion. I mean, here's the thing. Squarespace makes websites that look professionally designed regardless of your skill level, and there's no coding required. And you could even eat a cat while you're using Squarespace to make the website. Not only does Squarespace provide you with intuitive and easy to use tools to create your website.

Did we just slide through the Alfi's cats? It also has state of the art technology powering your site to ensure security and stability. And you know you can trust in Squarespace to build your website. when millions of other people and some of the most respected brands in the world trust in them too. Also, you can get a free domain if you sign up for a year.

I wonder if Alf meets Urkel is taken yet. Alf meetsircle.com. Look it up. Seriously, I've never seen Elf. You cannot beat the ease and simplicity of Squarespace. It gives you 24-7 online support and a beautiful website.

So what are you waiting for? Yeah, that's a new tagline. Yeah. Do you want to do it for you? No, I'm just, Andrew had a joke in here that I just can't pull off. You can start a trial with no credit card required and start building your website today. When you decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure you use the offer code Verge to get 10% off of your first purchase and show your support for the Vergecast. We thank Squarespace for the support of the Vergecast.

That's squircle. The Squarespace. You should. Is somebody going to drop a, did I do that? No. But I will say that, Andrew, that last Andrew joke. I get what you were saying. Yeah, it was a rough one.

All right. I think the audience should vote whether we do the house story ever again. Because I don't know what happened there, but please. Actually, it was a really good story. Please God sign up for Squarespace. I got a thumbs up from our producer, Andrew, just now. I'm just saying, if you don't sign up for Squarespace, Andrew, Andrew is dead. I don't know what it means.

What? There was that old magazine cover. If you don't buy this magazine, we'll shoot that. this dog. You don't know what I'm talking about, do you? There was a famous, I think it was Mad Magazine, and they put a picture of a puppy on the cover with a gun, and the headline was Avino Pets.

How mean? It's a terrible class. It was the 70s. It was back when there's shows on TV with aliens eating cats. That was the 80s. That was it, whatever. I'm tired of this. Let's talk about GoPro for five seconds.

GoPro? Yeah. Womp. They're in the Hurt Locker this year. Yeah. They're going to have a rough year. Yeah. Because GoPro makes a niche product that is actually very cool and fun to

watch from the outside, but nobody really wants or buys, unless you participate in those niche activities. Right. And so they are kind of coming on the reckoning of that. Right. There's enough gopros in the world. Yes. And you can't.

The people who have gopros aren't like, I wish this GoPro is better quality. Well, I mean, the quality's gotten better. I think they wish that they had better battery life. That would be the big thing that maybe would get people to upgrade their gropros. But once you have like three or four gopros and you're snowboarding ground a mountain, how many more gopros are you going to buy? The GoPro story. Have we put up a headline that's called Enough Go

Pro's. Enough gopros already. And it's just a chart of like, gobro hitting the amount of gopros, it's enough gopros. I mean, GoPro knows it. Like, they said that they are going to only sell like three this year.

Like, they're cutting down their product line a lot. There's three total. There's just three bros on skateboards that don't have one yet. What about not enough gopros? Too few gopros. All right. Let's get in the echo.

Echo. All right. So I just want to say, I looked up in, well, I just want to say in the past, like, since the middle of January, we've written about the Echo at least half a dozen times in terms of getting new features and capabilities and stuff like that. And they're all like really fun stuff. Some of it's super silly this week. You can order a Domino's pizza with it by yelling, order me a pizza.

It's more complicated. Alexa, order me a pizza. Yeah, you actually have to like say this crazy convoluted thing to get the pizza thing to work. It's kind of dumb. But today, the big exciting news. Okay, Google. Alexa put 60 pounds of cheese

on my shopping list. Today, the big news is that you can now stream Spotify music to it. Yeah. Which is super exciting. I'm thrilled by this. I'm switching to Spotify. Who boy?

From what? From Google Play music. Oh, God. Oh, the haters are coming for you. It's a Deter this week. Boys, get him. I haven't said a word. No, this is like the missing link. Right.

This is the thing that will get me to listen to music. on my echo, which I've had for, I don't know, almost a year now. And yeah, it supports Pandora, which I don't use, and it supports Amazon Prime Music, which has, like, nothing to listen to. So, and I don't want to ever use it as a Bluetooth speaker because there's a bunch of pain and neck headaches with that. But now I can say, Alexa, play Spotify, and it literally picks up the song that I was listening to on my phone last, where it was stopped, and just resumes it.

Do you want to hear your story? Oh, this is the best story. This is a very good story. So we were ever. We have an echo in the office and, like, came in the office this morning. and we were doing something with it. And I couldn't... It's very mysterious, Neely.

To find out on Friday. So I was doing something with it. And I couldn't get any of the music to work. I was like, screwing my phone, screwing the app. We took it off the Vox network here, the corporate network. We put it on Jetpack.

And finally got it to work. Whatever. It's all that. Hours later. Hours and hours later, I got a call for my wife. And she's like, Are you at the office?

Of course I'm at the office. But I just got a really weird call from the cleaning lady, and I don't know what's going on. I was like, are you okay? Is she okay? She's like, you're definitely not at home. And I was like, panicked. She's like, I'll call her back.

I was like, someone's in our house. We're getting robbed. And she texts me. And she's like, the cleaning lady just sent me this text, and all it says was, the music is blasting, and Eli won't answer the door. I was like what the hell is going on

I was got I have no idea In like in mid text reply I was like oh shit When I was screwing with the office echo this morning I had selected the wrong one And I turned on the echo at home And I like looked and it has just been playing Usher For like seven hours

Just like a top volume And the cleaning lady's like knocking on the door And it's just blasting Usheret Wow I want one of these He's only to listen to Usher for seven hours. Well, no, I'll be there. If Usher plays in an empty home, does anybody get an hour?

Anyway, so I'd call Becky back, and I was like, I'm so sorry. I know what happened. It turned on the, it was just blasting. Did I tell the story? The Amazon Echo app is the perfect troll machine. So I was yelling at the Echo, again, I'd play music, and it would stop, and I'd tell it to play again, and then I was like, okay, stop. And then it would start playing on its own.

I couldn't figure what's going on. My fiance was in the next room. I was seeing me yell at the Echo and then just had the app open and every time I told it to do something, she'd like hit a button and make it do something else. Oh, that's awful. For like a half an hour. Oh, that's awful. You go to other people's houses and add things to their shopping list?

Yes. Or order things from Amazon on their Echo? Trey this morning tried to order an echo for my Echo. Meta. All right, why are you so excited about Spotify? It did not work. Are you kidding me? Like, why that's the best?

That would be the best. to be like doing stuff and be like, okay, play the thing. And then it just does. Yeah. And not have to touch anything. It'd be great. Yeah. There's something, I mean, I think we have all been talking about the Echo.

I think Amazon, I think this was an accident that they made what I think is the most compelling product. I want to give them a little more credit than that. Because they had to build, they had to build the infrastructure to make this work. And they kind of had to have an idea of where they wanted it to go. The infrastructure is not that hard. Oh, Deter is super. Well, no, maybe the infrastructure is not that. hard.

Wait. Professor Bones' classes in session. The voice recognition side of things is. Yes. And like, so they had to build that

and they had to build A, the hardware to make the microphones work really well and really quickly and then the processing to make it understand you when you mumble

something across the room. So like that stuff is really hard. How much that processing happens locally? I don't know. Yeah. That's good question. But they had to figure it out

whether they do it locally or they do it on S3 or their cloud service or whatever. But all the stuff that they've been able to make it do is really easy. Oh, by the They do it in the cloud.

Do you know how I know they do it in cloud? Because everything that you say to it gets recorded and you can play it back from your phone. There you know that you can do that with, um, uh, OK Google? You can, there's a website that you can go to that will play back everything you've asked Google on your Android phone. Yeah. There's a website where I clearly sound like an insane criminal. Just a completely insane criminal. Just to be clear, it's not a like random website.

It's a Google website that you log into and access to your account. Yeah. Yeah, and it's the one that they will subpoena first. Sir, we need your password. Why did you ask the age of Nick Jonas 47 times in a row? Can you kill someone with jalapenos? Convenient.

Conveniently timed question. No, I never, by the way, have never asked that. Not have never. Which one? Have you ever killed someone with jalapenos? I just want to, like... Hey, Siri, can you kill someone with jalapenos? Alexa, order me a pound of jalapinos.

All right. Alexa, order me enough jalapenos to kill. Okay, Google, turn off my Wi-Fi. Oh, this is how we lose all of our listeners. Okay, Google, turn off my Wi-Fi. Some evil shit. That is some evil, evil shit. So, anyways, back to the Echo.

So this is what I use the Echo for in my house. I have had, on my nightstand, I use it as my alarm clock. So I say, Alexa, wake me up at 6 a.m. tomorrow and it says do do do okay and then when it goes off i say Alexa snooze and it snuses for 10 minutes and then Alexa dismiss when i actually get out of bed and then i also use it to turn the lights on and off my bedroom but like you can do a million other things with it like i know other people use it for other things the thing that i'm super excited about and i probably want to actually use this but i just like the idea that i can like be walking home i have headphones on listening to music

on my phone pause it open the door and say Alexa play spotify and it picks up where it left off my head ones like like that is like some future shit right there and like that is like really cool But I'm saying, I think they accidented into this. I think they built Alexa for their fire phone. The fire phone was, because you need it to be competitive for making a phone. That thing was a huge flop. Alexa never made it to the fire phone. Right, I think, but they had to start building it to get it on the phone.

That thing was a massive flop. They had all of it ready to go. And like, someone was like, well, I'll put on a speaker. And then they engineered the voice recognition because that's cool. Yeah. Because when it came out, it did not, it did not have any of these capabilities. Right. It was really dumb when it came out.

And I remember when we did, we even did like a six-month, like, revisit on it last year. And the part that I wrote, I was really bearish on it because I, like, didn't find a need for it in my life. It wasn't working very well. It was confusing for my family and stuff like that. And now I've, like, completely turned around because it does like a bunch of stuff I wanted to do now. Right. And it's, I mean, the Spotify thing is, although I will say, I tweeted this this morning, I, like, saw the Spotify news and I sent it to Becky. Because I'm always trying to get her to use it.

And she's like, the music sucks. It never. because it does the music. It only plays Wilco from your Amazon album. Yeah. No, but like, I have literally thought about signing up for, like, Amazon's cloud locker to just try and improve how bad it is. And I was like, it's got Spotify.

And she texted me a photo of her, like, Logitech Ui Boom. And she just goes, this always works. So I was like, that's pretty rough. I mean, that's a fair argument. I think a lot of people often say to me, you know, one of our video directors today, Mark was asking, well, what's the difference between that in a Bluetooth speaker? and like if you are in an apartment or if you're listening to music in one room, a Bluetooth speaker is great,

but as soon as you like have multiple rooms and you want to move in between them and stuff like that, a Bluetooth speaker becomes kind of a pain in the neck. Were you saying that you could pair the echo to any other speaker? No. Someone said that to me. So I think people wish they could do that. That would be great. Because it's not a great speaker.

I'm not, no, it's not, I mean, you don't buy this for the audio fidelity. You buy it so you can yell at the thing and it will play music. My only one real question is, do you have to say, can you tell it what you want to listen to or you just say. So there's a few things at work. I tested it this morning. You could say Amazon play Spotify. It'll pick up whatever you were listening to me for. Oh yeah. That's right. You can you can say Amazon or Alexa. You can also call it Echo, which I think is really cute. Can you give it a name? Can you like I want you to be called George? You can call it. You can call it. No. No, you can't call it echo. No, you can't call it. One hundred percent. Don't make me turn

on my home again. Don't make me open this app and do something stupid. They add it. Tweet it in Eline. Tell me he's wrong. I'll show you. Or maybe they added it. They definitely added echo. So you could say play Spotify. You could say play a Spotify playlist on Spotify and it'll play that playlist. Like one of the ones that they have or one of the ones that I have. Whatever's on your account. So if you created one or if it's one that you follow or one of the ones that they have.

But mine are all named with emoji. You might be in a little bit of trouble there. You're such a millennial. Ooh. So are you. I know. I know. I think Dier's the only true Xer here.

Yeah. And I pretend. Look at this flannel shirt. I am definitely Gen Xer. Yeah. When he goes home, he only watches Empire Records.

That's it. The only movie Deodorones. And high fidelity. I feel like Gen Xers love high fidelity. Oh, this is my theory. Because records are back. Finals back.

They're going to remake High Fidelity. Who would you cast as John Cusack in the new High Fidelity? Whoa. Yeah, it's tough. And then the harder one is who would you cast Zane? It's rough.

Zane? Really? Can you imagine? Zane doesn't go through breakups. Anyway, at least my theory. By the way, I said that only to troll Caitlin, who I know is watching the subsumes. I don't know what Zane does.

Maybe Zane goes through breakups. Who the hell knows? I think he just admitted to a relationship this week. He's ineffable. That's his quality. Zane news. Inethability. Johnny Ivan Zane, Waringutoga.com.

Weird. Can't imagine those two in the same room. Not even possible. Johnny Ivan Zane. in Johnny Avastin Martin driving way too fast, saying the words minimal over and over head, just in their accents, just saying,

just pronouncing aluminum any way they want, because they can. Who would you cast as Jack Black? I think Jack Black comes back as Jack Black. 90-year-old Jack Black? I think that's fine. Jack Black comes back in high fidelity too. No, it would be a reboot in like a new universe, right?

Like, you like, JJ Abrams it. You're like, it's the same universe. and they walk through the door. It's all of them but way younger. And he's like, what happened here? He's like, top five reasons for going to an alternate universe. Who would you cast? Who's the John Cusack and High Fidelity?

I don't know. Yeah, it's tough. I don't have a top of mind. Like, that's definitely the guy. Right. Because those are the only two characters that matter in that entire movie. So, like, John Cusack was. And also, I don't know their names.

I just think of them as John Cusack and Jack Black. When was High Fidelity? 99? So, like, John Cusack was kind of old though then. Like, he wasn't, like, in his early 20s. So you can pick somebody who's in their early to mid-30s, I guess. Got, I love John. Wait, so you can tell it you want to listen to a specific play.

Yeah. God, I'm trying to get some information here. I'm trying to get some tech news out. You could say a specific song or album, but you can't do like a station. So if I said Alexa play the national, it won't just play the artist station. That's because it knows better than you. The national. Come on.

I mean, Dan goes home. He's like he's got the children. He's like playing with his two beautiful daughters. He's like, play the national. Let them know these dreams will end. But I think they're going to add that at some point. The impression that I got using it was that it's just like not supported right now. This is cool.

Should I get one? Yes, totally. And then you can get some lights that you can control it. I think they're still in a delay. You just go in and like go full in. You know my apartment is like 10 paces. Like I can get to the lights. Perfect for you.

Yeah. Chris Sigler has an election. He's like, I love it. He's like, I can tell it to turn my room purple. It's like, I don't know what you're doing, Chris. Oh, wait, it was on a shipping delay, but now it's not. You can still get one by Monday if you bought it right now. Wow.

If you're in Chicago, if you have Prime Now, they'll just deliver it to you within three hours. We're in New York. There's no Prime Now in New York. Yes, there is? Oh, in Manhattan. There's not in Brooklyn. Alexa, deliver me in Alexa in one hour. Yes.

You could literally live the full Amazon lifestyle and have it primed out to you so that you can talk to a robot in your home. Me and Amazon got in a fight earlier this week when I tried to order something in one day and it came in two days. You know, I'm going to do a favor to our listeners. Yeah. Are you going to provide them an offer code for an echo? No, I think that, I think that like, you know, you gave your mom a Chromebook.

Yeah. So, okay, Google, call my mom. Aw. And turn off for Wi-Fi. All right. Is that enough? I will say I do think, I think everyone was searching for the, next big hit disruptive product and Amazon snuck in the door with something that everyone

loves. Everybody who has one now is like, kind of love this thing. And it's like, it's become such a thing where like every week, every Friday, they come out with some new stuff. Last Friday it was you can set Missy Elliott or Alec Baldwin as your alarm clock. So like you can wake up to Missy Elliott yelling at you through the Amazon Echo, which is crazy. Do you keep an echo in your bedroom then?

I mean, that's where I use mine is my love. Does it do like the Sono stuff where if you've, got like five of them in your house they sync to each other? No. But the cloud sinks to each other. So they all know what they're doing. Okay. But you have to do it from the app.

Right. Yeah. But like the way that they keep adding cool stuff to it. Like in this thing that's a year and a half old now or getting to be a year and half old is like getting better and better and better and better. And I mean, it was the most interesting thing out of CES too, which is like it wasn't even at CES. Yeah.

I just think they accidented into a new user interface pattern. I have this whole thing that I keep talking about which is like cost versus value Yeah I mean the user interface thing The reason that the echo is so fun to use Is because when you use hey Siri or okay Google on your phone You go okay Google And you got a way to beat for the phone to wake up and do it

Or you do hey Siri and wait a beat for it to wake up The Amazon or the Alexa you can just say Alexa turn on my bedroom light I just don't wait a little bit No you can just give it all at once And it will take a second And then it'll turn the lights on Yeah

So it's like it Because it's powered on all the time, because it's always listening and being a creepy SOB, you know, it's just, it's much more natural to talk to that than to talk to my phone. My favorite part about talking to the echo is the little light ring where you, like, you say, Hey, Alexa, and then like the light ring goes brr, and then it like points at you. Points at you. Like, ah, I see you. What's up? Being recognized. I will say, I will say it does fail from time to time. Like, there's four lights in my bedroom that I've connected to it. And last night I tried to turn them off.

And then it was like, which one do you want to turn off? And I'm just like, so I just started off. It's like, I'm just going to turn these off for you. There, there. You've been drinking. No, I just think, like, the, it doesn't ask anything of you. You leave it plugged in the wall. If you don't use it, you don't touch it.

Nothing more about it will go wrong, right? Other than the $150 you spent. Yeah, but, like, whatever. Like, you spend the money, you plugged it in, like, you buy a watch or a wearable or whatever. And it's like, you have to plug it in and care for it and wear it and think about it. And it's got to sink to your phone. that connection, like, you have to care about it. A phone, you have to, like, baby constantly for the battery.

I just think that, the idea that the care number is zero and the value number is high when you're using it, when you're engaged with it, it, like, offers, that's, like, a powerful. So, related to my article last week, the other thing that's great about Alexa is it is way more open than Siri or OK Google. Yeah. Like, there's still partnerships, and I still wish it would do, like, there was, it was. They're not really partnerships. No, there's some if this and that so you can do whatever.

But there's like there's like there's like a little bit of deal. It doesn't directly talk to the nest, which is annoying. So I want to say turn my test. The cadence of stuff that it has that Amazon has added to what Alexa can understand is way faster. Right. And what Syria or Google have done on their services. And that's like that's important. Yeah.

Why it's exciting. There's one. But there's also like there's obviously like independent developers just throwing skills into that little story. Like there's one where you can just be like Alexa. There's really dumb ones, but there's really cool ones. So like, there's a New York subway one where you're like, Alexa, what's up with a subway? And it just tells you what's broken. Oh my God.

I think I'm going to get this thing. Yeah, it's cool. And then there's one that's just called L train. You're like, Alexa L-Train. And it's like, it's just like broken. So crowded. It is delayed. There's like three or four subway ones.

And you like pick, but there's like a bunch of that stuff. Yeah. Which is the little like churn that is indie developers. Yeah. And they clearly don't have. have to make a deal to get in this. You could also get cat facts. Yeah, there's like trivia.

Like there's, I just think they've stumbled on to something that is, if you're listening to this podcast, you are probably a gadget nerd. And I would say, just like, if you're a gadget nerd, you should definitely think about buying this thing because it's more interesting as a gadget

than almost anything else we play. So I got a question just to wrap up Alexa. What do you want from the next Alexa? Do you want a smaller portable one that you can take out of the house, or do you want a bigger one with better sound? I would take better speakers, but I'd actually rather have what Deeter just said,

which is a second, like, a system that lets multiple of them talk to each other. Yeah. But you could buy one. I would pay, I would pay, like, 300 bucks for,

like, a better sounding one that I could put in my living room. If I made an Alexa sound bar, I would buy it tomorrow. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Or, yeah, one that could talk to my existing speakers or whatever.

Yeah. Like, the speaker, that's clearly its weakest, shittiest component. Yeah. And convenience, like,

just overrides it because I'm always using in the kitchen. Also, how dumb does Google feel right now? Yeah. Where's the Google now? box. Yeah, the Google Nowbox should be piping up and talking to you all the time. Yeah.

Like, you have a flight. Leave the house. Yep. Like, that's what it should do. Like, are you leaving? That's what Google should make. A box that just commands you to leave that. Well, yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Oh, sorry. That's what's really mean. I didn't think I would hit you that deep. It's so real. It was a backhandic way to say it was so bad. Well, I am.

When I was in college, I used to think to myself, what am I do? doing. I'm just going to use a computer in class because I would just sit at home and like Potter and be like, oh shit, I'm late. I'm like, why didn't I just go there and use it there? Like, that's what I was going to do then. And back then, this was your only computer. You dragged your laptop around.

It was your morning computer, your class computer, your night computer. My morning computer. It's like 20 pounds. You know, I'm older than I didn't have computers in class college? No, I meant law school. Oh. Yeah. Well, same for me in grad school. I had a G4 tower. Yeah. We didn't have Wi-Fi.

I met law school, though. to put it in at the very end. My last year, we're like, everyone was like... Are we going to do a lightning round? We have a little time, but we should. All right, yeah, we got four minutes. True lightning. What do I got?

What do I got? Hold on, hold on. Nicola, you left Facebook. Tell me about it. I left Facebook in 2010. But you're back on it. It's just on here. I don't know why it's on here.

That's it. Because we mentioned it. We've been promising to talk about Nicholas side with Facebook for like five episodes. The very short version is I left it in 2010 because I was like, this ship has sailed. Trust me. Because I also was first to leave Myspace

and I was right, and Live Journal. So I was like, all right, I called it, Facebook's done, we're done. And then it keeps, like, being around, and then I rejoined it when I decided I wanted to be on Tinder and two years ago and would, like, go off of it, and then go back on, and then go off of it.

And then, yeah, now I'm off of it again. And it's so freeing, because it's one less place for people to bother you. Yeah. Lightning strikes. Dan, you bought a new TV for the Super Bowl. I bought a new TV to watch. I bought a...

Oh, because you're a Broncos fan. I'm a Broncos fan. I was in the market for a new TV anyways because I had a 720P plasma, but I'm just going to watch Peyton get pummeled. What did you get? What'd you get? What'd you get? I got a 55-inch Vizio 4K. Yeah, it's very well rated. So I like it.

It's big. It's cool. New Uber logo. No. Yeah? Pass. Why don't you like it? It disappears on my phone.

I can't because the white and the black were so easy. Oh, there it is. Like now I'm like, ah, too. So it's also why is it sideways? So here's just a circle with a, with a, it's a circle with a, with a little black thing in the middle of it. And then surrounding it are four, like, lines, like curved lines. And so if you can, if you're driving, don't do this, but if you can, look at the Uber logo on the icon, look closely at it.

And I can't take credit for this idea. But just briefly consider that it's an illustration of four people trying to share a single toilet. I mean, you can look at it and see. Four people playing cards around a card table? No. There's like, there's four butts and there's clearly some streams. Oh, wow, it's definitely four buds. Quattro butts.

Yikes. Yeah. That's real bad. Sorry. Okay. Well, there's that. Yep. Hang on.

Let me go back to this list. Alphabet news. Big spending. The biggest company, I don't know if they still are. They're not anymore. They're not anymore. They work briefly for a minute. Back and forth with Apple's biggest company in the world.

They're spending a much money on their big bets and whatever. Here's my question. Why don't they break out Nest? Is it like a consumer hardware company? Yeah. Why is that in the other bets section? What is, what's going on with Nest right now?

That's a solid question. Yeah, no one knows. Like the, the bought Drop cam and then they're just like, yeah, we're around. In 2015, they refreshed their entire lineup of products. Like they came out with new thermostat, new smoke detector, new camera. But I get the feeling that protect is still really buggy. Yeah.

The new one is better than the original one. Right. Still, though, why is... Not a product I would recommend. Why is Ness not just dominating the internet of things? Why is their like... Brello and something and then HomeKit and like... Because Amazon's eating their lunch.

I guess. Fair. I don't know. I feel like I need to see something new from NIST. Android Wear marshmallow update. Don't even know what that means. So they've been sneakily, like, just like the original, a bunch of the original Android watch.

has had Wi-Fi. A bunch of the newer Android watches have speakers. Like this Huawei watch that Dan's wearing. And so they are starting to push out the update that lets the speaker work so you can make phone calls with it. They're also adding some goofy new gestures. Well, yeah, but the gestures like we're on the last update and now it's for other ones. There's more gestures. There's more gestures. But the irony of this to me is that the watches are getting marshmallow before 99% of the phones that are in use have marshmallow. Yeah. It's called the Viophone Bid. If there was any better talisman for the death of Windows phone, I think the Vio Phone biz is it. So just to let the audience know. Viophone Biz. The Viophone BIS.

Sony used to have a laptop line called the Vio. It was like the coolest Windows laptops for Vio, in my opinion. Laptops didn't make Sony any money. They spun out Vio as its own company. Vio, it's not its own company. It was like last year, right? Yeah. And now it made a phone.

Now I made a Windows phone. For business professionals. I don't know if it's for... It's for... It's for... I don't know. It's for doing business. But it's called the bid.

But it's called the biz. The B-I-Z. The Vio is spelled in all capital letters, V-A-I-O. Phone with capital P. B-Z with a capital B. And the phone itself looks like something out of like 2011. It looks like an H-E-C. Sam called it the sleekest Windows phone ever,

which is like coming in first place at the... I mean, they were all plastic. Now they made one I made out of metal. Viophone biz. Bios. Only in Japan. Really? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's like, there's something about it, right? Like, this weird zombie company making a weird zombie phone with a zombie platform. It's super crazy name. Right? It looks like other things. Yeah, I mean, it looks like a phone.

It's very generic, yeah. But that picture is bonkers. Okay. Dieter, I'm just going to say these words to you. Oh, God. USPC. Oh, God. Yeah, Dieter's had a time.

Yeah. Dieter proffered me a cable that would kill my computer. I did. I told you not to plug it into your computer. He gave me a cable. He's like, never plug this into your computer. And I was like, what should I use it? He's like, use it, charge your phone.

I was like, it'll kill your computer. It killed my computer. Yeah. What? Yeah. So the deal is, like, bad USB cables could fry anything. But traditional USB devices don't pull that much power, but USB devices can pull as much power as they want.

And so they can, like, break stuff. and Amazon especially, but also the USB implementers forum, the standards body that's in charge of the Universal Serial Bus Standard, is doing a terrible job protecting consumers from these terrible products. And everybody involved, Apple, Google, USBIF should have seen this coming. Of course, if you make a cable that you can just like any rando can like solder some crap together and sell it, people are just going to do that and then people are going to buy them. If the cable has to have resistors and protective bits in it, then, like, demand that. So I'm real mad at a bunch of companies for not being more aggressive and more, I don't know, having more foresight that this would be a problem. Do you just have a picture of a USB port open on a computer? It's the Vio biz.

Yeah. It's using micro-USB. All right, Nicola, you get one lightning round. You've been quiet the whole lightning round except the first one. Are you going to assign me something? No, just throw it out there. Anything in my head? Give me a new set.

Yeah. Give me a lightning news hit. Make me lie. Phoebe Filo's leaving Celine. It's crazy. These words mean so much to you. Just like all of the words you've said mean so much to me. That's the big news.

I want to know what you think about the new Fitbit. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I also want to know what those words mean. The new Fitbit. It's called the what? The Fitbit Alta. Is it only for tall people?

Why? Never mind. Dieter just made a Latin and Joe? Spanish. Maybe. I don't know. But it's their most fashionable device. Yeah.

That's their language. They dressed up their old ones, right? It's like, yeah, it doesn't do anything different. I mean, well, they say it does some things different, but not things that you can't accomplish on other devices. But they made some pretty bands for it. It's very slim compared to the other stuff they have, but it's still not like the slimmest or like the cleanest looking one out there, but they are, they're going to do Toribert's

edition. They're also going to announce another fashion. designer collaboration during fashion week, and I'm extremely interested to see who they work with. So I have one thing to say about Fitbit, and it's like, obviously they have a very successful business. They're doing very well. But Nick Stapp pointed this out yesterday. If you go to Fitbit's website, there's like a bunch of Fitbit's that are marginally different and a hard, really, like, almost impossible to tell apart. And like I don't understand that at all. I feel like in person though, the sizing is pretty, it's like, oh, that's, that one's big, that one's really big. That

one's not as big. Like you can tell. But I know, yeah, in the pictures, they do kind of all look the same. Lauren Good wrote a really great story this week about how the fitness tracker industry just keeps powering along regardless of Apple Watch. FitPits are a thing. I think all the other ones might consolidate or fail or disappear. Or get bought by bigger companies. Like, Misfit was bought by Fossil. Right.

But like FitPit has a brand. Like people know. Yeah. I mean, it's like this new one is going to dress up the inside of your drunk drawer really well. You're wearing it right now. No, no, I'm wearing this pebble watch. Oh, you're wearing a pebble. But I have been wearing a job on up band.

Pretty bad. Really? Yeah. Well, I'm only one day in there. Well, they just updated it. Maybe it's a little better. Okay. But I've been wearing the jawbone up too,

which I think is the least offensive, like most like fall in line kind of, uh, tracker that there is. I really like that new misfit that we saw a CES. Oh my God. Yeah. But it's not out yet. Yeah. So it's not really an option. But I want that one for sure.

But yeah, I've been wearing that one and liking it. And I've been deep in dueling with my friend Claire. And I don't know how she's doing it because she's a freelancer and she is getting so many steps. Wait, you call that your friend, Claire, is she going to listen now? No. No, but she, okay, well, whatever. Get into it. Get into it. She loves referring to me as like, like, she'll tweet, like, I'm in a foot duel with, like, fitness wearables expert. Like, she assigns me these ridiculous titles. It's so good. And I know she gets so much joy out of beating me. Yeah. Yeah,

it's real rough. Wait, tell me, tell me about the Celine News and we're going to wrap it up. Oh, I mean, so... Do it for the normals. You can do it. I know. I'm working really hard. Phoebe Phyllis, rumored. Rumer.

Who is that? She's a designer, fashion designer. It's rumored to be leaving Celine, French fashion house. I'm trying to think if there's any tie-in that I can give you that would give it context. Does Celine have, like, Celine clothes are their own branded thing, or do they own other brands? They're their own thing. I think they're part of... Fuck, I'm going to get this wrong.

I mean, they're part of a larger... luxury group, but I don't want to misspeak. But yeah, like Kanye West loves hype checking, hype checking, referencing Phoebe. Like, Phoebe is like one of those words. It's like one word, like Phoebe. And everybody knows who that is. But rumor to be going to Alaya,

which would be interesting. But there's a lot. That's another fashion house? Yes. We got to get me on the show with Micah is like what I'm here in this conversation. Yeah. I got, we got to meet.

We got a meet. You haven't met Micah? No. It's real. It's a situation. I think so. Make it happen. You know, Jameson's going to be here next week.

My guys. Oh, Jameson can be on the Vergecast. There you go. Well, I won't be here because I'm going to be at Kanye. Oh, my God. Who's going to be on the show? Ziegler and Jameson. Chris, Jameson.

I don't know. Free for all upstairs. Fight to the death. Mice will play episode. It's going to be crazy. Next week on the Vergecast, I always say, next week at the Verge, going to be insane. Yep.

Dieter's gone. I'm gone. We're all going to his wedding. Helen's gone. Ross is gone. T.C.'s gone. Casey's gone there are other people on vacation

Trey's gone Michael's link like all the people in charge of the verge like gone next week Why are you telling them There will still be content on the verge I just want to say that There will be content

But my instruction is that I think next week should be the weirdest possible week I wish I could be here for it But just let people wild out Who knows what's gonna happen next week man At this time next week Kanye will be doing his

Madison Square Garden Simultaneous The album being played in full presumably by him, but that's not confirmed. And the fashion show, his third collection. Yeah. So it's like going to be, it says it's 90 minutes long. I don't know how long it will really be.

But I'll be there. You're going to be there. Yeah. Are you dual filing for Act on the Verge? Oh, I'm doing shit for you. And that was Vergecast, everyone. Ended on a little sharp bite of hostility. That's how you want to end a show.

Bye. Who knows if we'll be here next week? No, you got to do your socials. Oh, God. Don't you? Go follow Google the Verge and find the thing you want to find You know like that's what it is

Do you know how to use stuff It's Verge everywhere Do you know how to use stuff dot com And then just find that Here's what I will say You should follow the Verge on Instagram Search a version of Instagram Or Instagram game pretty good

They started following me this week Well not so good then Instagram Instagram Best be bigger than wired Instagram It's the thing I was gonna wait I'm gonna slow play that No, I'm just in the game.

It's a win. Just get on there. Find your friend's phone, pick it up, and subscribe to us on Instagram. There's a million podcasts you can listen to. There's Control Walt Delete, which I mentioned earlier. ESP is every week now, which is awesome. What's Tech is also awesome. And over at Recode, Peter Kafka and Recode Decode just interviewed Chet from Starry about his

insane internet millimeter wave thing. And that is a good listen as well. And yeah, you can find all that. stuff over at iTunes. That's where, you know, even if you don't use iTunes and really, you shouldn't go there and give us a review anyway. I am at Backlon. Nilai is at Reckless. Dan is at DC Seafurt with an EI. Nicola is Nicola underscore Fumo Fumo Fummo Fummo. I still think there's an extra O in there. I don't know why. Thanks everybody. Fumu. Rock and roll.