The Vergecast - Playstation 4 Pro, 4K, and for your entertainment

Episode Date: September 9, 2016

While Nilay, Dieter, Lauren, and Walt make a Vergecast out of Ctrl-Walt-Delete, this leaves Paul to head the show this week with Chris Plante to talk about the other thing that happened on Wednesday: the Sony Playstation 4 Pro event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I feel like there's like music, I bet. Hello. And welcome to the Vergecast. My name is Paul Miller. And I'm here with Chris Plant. What up? And this is the flagship podcast of the Verge podcasting Empire. And this is a hostile takeover.

Goodbye, Nilai. Had some fun times. I would like to let everybody know that this podcast is brought to you by Cizzer Vodka, Yeah, cut through the night. I miss you, Nilai. Sad that we had to tie you up and bound you and put you on a boat. But we still care about your dreams for a nightlife vodka brand. So what happened?

Here's the real true situation is that Apple is in San Francisco, and they're like, hey, come out over here for Apple stuff. So a ton of really cool people like Neely and Dieter and Lauren and Warren and Walt all went to San Francisco and we record the podcast on a Thursday and they're not back yet. And we got to have a Vergecast. So what you need to do if you want to hear people like Nilai Patel, my friend and boss, talk about Apple, who has actually seen the new Apple products, all of them, touch them, put the AirPods in his ears. You have to listen to Control Walt Delete this week.

We're really like selling people away from listening to the next hour or so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, this show is going to be, it's going to be rebellious, renegadey, wild, and unpredictable, but it's not going to be very much about Apple. So I just want you to know that there's a wonderful podcast that's part of the Verge podcasting empire, but not necessarily the flagship that will be all about Apple. And so you can track that down. You should probably subscribe anyways.

It's a great podcast. There's probably a chunk of the audience who were like, no Apple. Finally. Finally. Because what Chris and I are going to talk about and why I have brought him here for this hostile takeover is Sony. Oh, yeah. The only thing more controversial than what smartphone you use, video games. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. There's drama here. There is. There's a little like mid-generation console war brewing. and there's choices to be made and priorities to establish. Are you about gaming or do you just want home entertainment? Right?

Yeah. Don't you think, okay, so Chris, what is the actual news? Okay, so the news is, well, I guess I should set up with a little bit of Microsoft thing. Okay. To really throw off the Sony people. But Microsoft at E3 this year, the annual video game conference. announced it had essentially two new video game consoles, the Xbox 1S, which we've already reviewed on our site.

It's available in stores. It added HDR support and a little bit of extra power, but not like so much that I think it's a big thing. And that's available right now. And then they said, hey, we're going to release this thing called Project Scorpio. And it's going to have like so many terraflops that like you won't even know what to do. with it. Like, it's just going to be the new hotness. And people are like, cool, tell me more. And they're like, nah, let's wait. And, like,

we'll get to that in 2017. Okay, so that's like the backstory you needed, right? Right. So then Sony, the rumors were rumbling as they're want to do in this industry, that Sony had a thing called the PS4 Neo. And people are like, oh, the path of Neo. I remember that video game if it's anything like that, promise and tales. I remember Neo from the Matrix, and then I realized five years later that it's an anagram for one. Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah. It's also Eon. Hmm. Yeah. Man, five years after that, I learned it was anagram for Eon. So people were like, oh, okay, cool, cool. And then this, like, slim PlayStation 4 leaked ahead of all of this. So another console.

Like, we're just, we're overrun with video game hardware. Which, that's a regular thing. Like, this is around the time when you make a smaller, cheaper version of your original. The PlayStation 2 slim or smaller PlayStation 2 is, I think, one of the most beautiful pieces of hardware ever. Absolutely. Except for the lid. The lid is not well designed. Mine is busted.

Yeah, that's fine. Bring in an anecdote here. It's just great to look at, though. So, Sony, they come out on stage yesterday, and they say, real quick, hey, there's a slimmer PS4. We're not even calling it a new thing. It's just the PS4. It's slimmer.

It's $2.99 now. It's coming out, like, next week, essentially. And that's, like, our standard thing. And people are like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. And then they're like, okay, that PS4 Neo, it's actually called PlayStation 4 Pro. and it has 4K gaming, which is a big deal because we haven't really seen a console output at 4K resolution. That's a pretty big ask for a console. Like, nice graphics cards right now, that can be a struggle with some, you know, high-end games.

So this is like pretty exciting, I would say. And then they were like also, HDR, it will be available on this and all the PlayStation. And here's where we're going to, like, it's just going to start. like sounding just like words and letters and acronyms being thrown all about it'll be on all of them but this one will have 4k that that extra power and it will make some 1080p games look good if you don't have a 4k tv oh and also it's coming out november 10 and it's 399 which was my surprise of yeah that this sounds like like a 599 like start fresh high power spend all the money. But the $3.99 is, I mean, is Microsoft Scorpio with six terraflops?

Sony is saying they've got four-ish taraflops. They've got a better, like a new graphics card, and then they like, like sped up the clock speed of the processor. Yeah. This is, it's weird right now. Like my take on this like whole taraflops, which is more powerful? Is this like a generational leap, which I don't think it is? I, Microsoft has, I think, kind of almost a bizarre advantage at this point by so little being known about Project Scorpio or shown of its games that it can kind of play with our imaginations of like, oh, well, the number is bigger, so it must look a lot better. Right.

But really, we have no idea on a technical level how much better that system will like, or even really how much better this system will look than the PS4 normal. There's, I would say, an abnormal amount of questions that are not going to be really answered until we get this hardware in our hands for ourselves. Because there's all sorts of technicalities. Yeah, it was interesting watching the, I watched the live stream, and there was a lot of like, well, you definitely can't see any of the difference on this live stream that you're watching. but it's better on 4K with HDR. Here's what HDR is like, but you can't see it unless you're here in this room right now,

which apparently it did look good. Yeah, I mean, I'm just, I don't know, to be like really frank, I'm pretty darn skeptical of especially the 4K claims. And the reason I say that is with the Xbox 360 in the PlayStation 3, that was the generation that we were promised, you know, 1080P true HD gaming. Right. And we really didn't get it. And there were like two 1080P games ever made.

Like that has been kind of the home of PS4 in Xbox One. And even then, like, there's the question of actually hitting 60 frames per second, which is, again, we're going to get pretty technical in this podcast. But like, not a thing every game does already. And arguably. A more important thing for games than the resolution or even the fidelity and the fancy action on screen is making it really smooth. Yeah, and to give you an idea of how tough this is for hardware that's available right now, Quantum Break is a visually beautiful game that was on the Xbox One.

And it had to use some bizarre tricks to essentially fake 1080 to run OK. And like that's for the hardware that's out right now. So we're talking like to get beyond 1080 to 4K is a huge leap. To be clear, it's four times the resolution of 1080P. And you're not just if you're doing a true 4K, which Sony made it clear, they aren't doing like true actual 4K rendering, but they didn't make it exactly clear what they're doing. But if you're going to render a game from screen,

scratch in actual 4K, your graphics card's going to do twice or four times the work just because it's going to make four times the number of pixels. But then also the game's going to need higher resolution assets, like the textures and everything are going to... So need more RAMs. So yeah, everything needs to be about four times more powerful than what you need for 1080P. And this is, this console is not four times more powerful than the PlayStation 4. Yeah, and I mean, I will like cushion that with like, there are obviously things that people, developers can do with optimization that go a long way. I mean, that's why, you know, even at the end of its lifecycle, the Xbox 360 and PS3 were putting out games that looked, I mean, like Grand Theft Auto 5 that look really impressive with very little hardware to support it. but yeah the thing that I'm curious about is what what's the trick um because I have the

I have to have this for work I don't want to sound like a snob right now but like I have like the highest end uh graphics card you can have and like even with that on a PC and it's ridiculous uh you know hardware that's available to me even then running a game at maximum settings with 4K doesn't always work or work well. And I'm guessing you make this decision a lot. If you have that kind of setup, should I run this at like 1080P max settings or should I boost the resolution and lower the settings a little bit?

And I feel like Sony is presenting console gamers with that exact scenario because the PlayStation 4 Pro will, with certain games, will give you better graphics on a 1080p, like more detailed models or textures or anti-aliasing, like certain games that choose to optimize for 1080 peak will look better on 1080P. So do you want that or do you want more pixel? Yeah, and here's where we're getting all sorts of funny language and it starts to get complicated even more than it already is. They're saying that when you plug your

console into the TV, it recognizes which TV it's plugged into essentially, what and it selects for you. And it's unclear right now how much control you'll have over that. But then the other thing that's strange is they're saying that like the PS4 Pro won't be, like I get basically making games run faster on a 1080 TV. So like the way I would say this is on with a PC, right? If I have a really high-end graphics card, I could use the power that I'd use to, you know, push a game out at 4K at 30 frames per second to play it at like, I don't know, 90 frames per second at 1080.

So it's much smoother, is what I'm saying. But they're saying that it'll allow for more stability with currently available PlayStation 4 games if you're playing games at 1080P, but that they don't plan on it making them actually run faster, which is bizarre. And it also makes sense because one of the reasons that I think Polygon actually wrote about this was will people who play multiplayer games with PS4 Pro have a competitive advantage. Because if they had more frames per second on a multiplayer shooter, it's a smoother version of the game, which gives them an advantage. But by stability, you mean like the game has decided that it's a 30 frames per second game, but sometimes on the PlayStation 4 standard, it dips a little below that when there's a 1,000. thousand explosions. But the new PlayStation will still run it at 30 frames per second, but it won't dip below 30 frames per second. So that's still going to be...

It'll be a lot, is what they're saying. Yeah, it'll be... Yeah, but I mean, they've specifically said that they do not want games to provide a... or do not want the system to provide an advantage in multiplayer. I'm also guessing this isn't going to improve load times a lot. It's still got a regular hard drive in it. And I guess the processor is a little bit faster, but that's not really what. I mean, load times is mostly a hard drive issue. And I have noticed I'm on the Xbox one. I've got like multiple Xbox. My

buddy's got an Xbox one. I've got Xbox one. And my Xbox one always loads Overwatch levels slower. So that's like, that's something that I'm kind of wishing consoles would tackle right now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it kind of weirdly reminds me of

smartphones where I feel like I'm, instead of just getting the basic features that I want, I'm getting like extra superficial almost things that I don't necessarily need. Like I still want a better version of what I have. Like with a smartphone, I would kill for a phone that just had a much better phone capability and a battery that lasted for two days straight. Right.

And for a video game console, if I could like, I mean, you could technically do this by using your own hard drives as a whole technique to that. But like cutting down load times, putting more RAM in, so like open world games are huge and like a lot along for like better textures and putting that in larger open world games that sounds great like that was a huge headache that open world games ran into at the end of uh 360 so i i don't know it sounds like you want a pc i mean yeah that's why i have my pc right and that's the theory right that the Microsoft and Sony are feeling a bit of the heat from PC gaming which just keeps on being, kind of getting better in a lot of ways.

Because it kind of gets things first. It gets VR first. It gets like the open access stuff on Steam. It has Steam. There's just a lot about PC. And then like games like League of Legends, CounterStrike, Dota are very PC heavy. And then games like Overwatch are like PC preferred. Like there's a lot of momentum behind PC gaming right now.

And to wait another three years before the graphics got any better would be tough for them. Yeah. I do think it is that. I think there's, I would say, kind of like half of that and half of people have a 4K TV and they don't know why. And they're like desperate for a reason to, like, make use of this thing that they have. Yeah. And if you can get in front of people this holiday and you can say, hey, that 4K TV, you can play 4K games on it. And here's what go to your store, see what 4K games look like, finally do something with this machine other than watch, you know, like, the same however many Netflix series and a handful of videos that are available on Amazon.

Or, I mean, you could get a U.HD Blu-ray player and spend, God knows what, on the expensive discs. Speaking of, yeah. Just again, to reiterate the current landscape, Microsoft has already released Xbox 1S, which does not do 4K games. It does do HDR, but only with specific games. Oh, I didn't know the Xbox 1S to HDR and games.

Okay. It does do 4K Blu-ray. Yes, and the Sony PlayStation 4 and Sony PlayStation 4 and Sony PlayStation 4 pro do not do ultra HD 4K BlueRae So if you want to buy something right now Your only option is something

Like that has new capabilities Your only option is the Xbox 1S But for Christmas You're going to be choosing between 4K games And 4K Blu-rays Unless you've already just made up your mind To be like into PlayStation or Xbox This Generation.

Like if you're coming to this generation fresh Your choice is Blue Rays that are 4K or games that are upscaled to 4K and will actually probably look pretty great. Yeah. I mean, and both of them have 4K streaming, which, I mean, honestly. What Sony's been really pushing anyways.

Yeah. Like, I mean, if you live somewhere that doesn't have a really strong internet connection, Ultra HD Blu-rays might make sense. That's totally possible. But the market seems to be shifting. towards streaming and if you live in that area that's probably not the worst choice unless you're like a hardcore video file

and you're really gonna notice every difference and you have like you know a $10,000 TV in which case like yeah definitely but if you're that crazy you can buy one of those $1,000 4K Blu-ray players. Yeah or you can buy both Xbox. Yeah you can just buy both of those calls. I mean you are getting

a lot for $400 either way yeah I think if you don't have either of these already like, whoa, this is a pretty great time. Yeah. For me, I went Xbox this generation, and I've regretted it every month since because everybody else got a PS4. And so this is my chance to get a PS4.

And also, I felt like Sony did not talk about this very much. And I'm not really sure why. So maybe you can tell me why. But the PlayStation 4 Pro is going to be way better for VR. Yeah. They kind of didn't go too deep. into that? They mentioned, like, one game has like double the resolution, and I heard double the resolution,

and I was, whoa, that's great. Okay. So I'm going to goof this up. So go to Theverge.com and read our PlayStation VR coverage, especially by Addy Robertson, the, I think, best VR reporter in the business. And on the planet, the most knowledgeable person about VR, probably. Without a doubt. But from what I believe I understand.

is, again, Sony is using somewhat of like a trick to make VR work really well and that it's essentially doubling the frames so that you don't get nauseous. Like you need... Oh, like interpolation? Yeah, you need a certain number of frames per second

while you're using VR for it to feel real, I guess. And like if you do it with like your, you know, high-end graphics card. There's all these graphics cards on PC that say they're VR-ready. They're basically saying, hey, we can hit the kind of threshold that you're going to need on most games in terms of output. But a PlayStation 4 original obviously is not as powerful as a brand-new graphics card, so they've used some kind of tricks to make it work. So my guess is that with that extra power that's on the PlayStation 4 Pro, it might get it closer to just doing what it needs to do natively.

Right. Versus like using whatever kind of software trick they have come up with to make it work well. This is, again, if it sounds like I am like confused, yes. I am. I've only done a little bit of time with PlayStation VR, but it was a lot, if there's a spectrum that starts with like the gear VR and goes up to Oculus, It was closer to the gear VR end as far as what I was seeing with my eyes. Yeah.

I mean, the resolution the screen itself is just not as great. And there's something so convenient and relatively affordable about making your home console a VR machine. And any improvement to the graphics I saw could, for me, put it over the edge. So here's the thing that I think will be good about PSVR. and hopefully PS4 Pro makes it more enjoyable experience to use is the games. Like, it's that simple. Res, thumper, even Drive Club. There's, I think, 100 foot robot golf.

There are a number of games that look really appealing. And should, in theory, run easily on this hardware. And right now, that's what I crave with VR. Like, I have this Oculus Rift setting next to me, And it's like not getting used. So I think that might be the advantage there. But I mean, that has nothing to do with power or anything. That's just, we'll see.

I don't know. That's a whole different mess that I feel like is approaching and only a month. And I kind of haven't really heard much about I'm just realizing. The games. Or just PSVR. Like, that's next month. And I feel like I have not seen a ton of promotion from Sony. Maybe they felt like they needed to get the console.

announced and now they're going to like throw in the PSVR gear and start talking more about this before it's released. Well, they like sold out like all their pre-writers and stuff. So maybe they feel like they shouldn't talk about it because it was just frustrating people. Yeah, that's very possible. They learn their lesson from when the Oculus couldn't push units through. Okay.

Anyways, yeah. So I'm excited as just a human being who will probably get the PlayStation 4 Pro. That's kind of where I'm at overall, my verdict. Yeah, I mean, I think that, like, argument of, hey, this is a thing that, like, shows 4K things on your 4K TV is, like, a pretty compelling argument for a lot of people. Right. Including me. Like, I don't know if I'll actually buy it, but it is, I would like to have something that is 4K on my TV other than, what's the last thing I watched, the Get Down. I just watched that in 4K.

Oh, how was that? It was beautiful. That's my full review. Nice. Yeah, it always bugs me when I feel like I can't. I feel like the first time I ever saw 4K, I could tell. And like sometimes when I've seen 4K, like stream from Netflix or something, I'm not sure. It's like, wait, did I do all the settings right to make it 4K?

It looks good, but it doesn't look. Yeah. Well, I mean, the other thing is the first time you saw 4K, right? It was probably on a traditional older. 1080p TV, guessing like you were at a convention or something, next to a 4K TV showing 4K. And what I found owning a 4K TV, the Samsung is just normal HD looks pretty good on it. So when it does bump up, it's noticeable, but I'm not like, it's not like I have to have it, you know? You don't look like, it doesn't feel like you're looking into a way.

That was my first impression. It was like, well, I'm looking into a window that's showing me a Japanese garden, even though I'm in Berlin right now. Yeah. No, I can't say that I have that feeling too often. I have like a, oh, that looks really pretty. And then HDR, I feel like HDR is going to be an uphill. I mean, I know it's a great spec to talk about, but man, that's hard to convince people that a thing exists.

Yeah, it's really hard with HDR because, like, so. You've been telling me that I haven't been seeing all the colors. whole time, like my whole life has been a lie. Oh, and also there are two different versions of it, and everything you use right now corresponds to different versions. So it might not even be working on your TV. Oh, and when it does, there's not a signal really that lets you know it's working. Right. Like that was, I try to watch Marco, not Marco, is it Marco Polo? What is it? Yeah, I think that's right on Netflix, because they were like, oh, this is the first H-GR thing. And the whole time, I'm like, am I seeing it? Like, is this?

Is this really happening? There needs to be like a cool guy walks into the bottom and the screen. And he's like, hey, good job. You got 4K and HDR. You're doing it great. You're cool. You figured it out. You're so smart and rich.

You deserve a big dog t-shirt. You're a big dog. Okay. Well, let's bring Neli back for an advertisement that he is pre-recorded. This episode of the Vergecast is brought. to you by Autodesk Graphic. If you're looking for a professional vector design app, you should take a look at Autodesc Graphic. Graphic is a full-featured app for making icons, illustrations, UI, and UX design, and everything else you'd expect in a professional vector design app. Open, edit, and save

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2D design app you'll ever need, and it's available for the price of a few decent stock photos. Just visit graphic.com to learn more about Autodesk Graphic or check it out in the app store. And we're back. Thank you, Neelai, for that passioned rendition. Is that the right word? Passioned, impassioned? Sure. Sure. I bet it was great, though. So that's basically all we wanted to talk about. Chris, do you have any thoughts about Apple? I know everybody's actually supposed to listen to Control Walt Delete this week. And I don't want them to not do that by us talking about Apple. but did you have anything that you wanted to share? I mean, I can talk about a video game thing

because that's all I really know. Oh, yeah, Mario. Mario. Shigero Miyamoto takes the stage. A quiet falls upon the audience. I'm here to show you Mario, he says. I know. And then people are like, what?

Yeah, dog, I totally got goosebumps. I was like, I'll play that game for a while. I mean, here's the best thing about that announcement for me. They announced a game called Super Mario Run, and you hear that, and you're like, crap. They made a Super Mario endless runner game. Like every damn, like, intellectual property gets turned into on the iPhone. I bet I could find, like, an endless runner for, like, my bank. Yes.

Where I, like, collect, like, loans or something. Yeah, because apparently you work at the bank in this game. But then they show it. And it's not that. It, like, actually looks like a pretty fun game. So that was, that was, like, that was nice. That was a happy surprise. And it builds confidence for, they have a Fire Emblem game

and an Animal Crossing game that are scheduled for some time in 2017 now, I believe. Which sound like a much better fit. I mean, how is this Mario game supposed to control? That is a great question with your thumbs. I have, I have a theory about this. Because I saw Mario go to the left and to the right. Yeah. No, I don't know if they...

This is not true. This is like some serious tinfoil hat stuff. Okay. So everybody knows. This is 100% not true. But I think maybe there's an advantage to the game not controlling too well. So you'll be like, man, I love this Mario. Sure would like it to control a little better.

I better go buy a new Nintendo in every. when that comes out. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I do think truly, they've said in a shareholder meeting that they don't plan on, like, helping to bring a hardware, like a controller to the iPhone.

And I think that's like... I thought they said that they've considered it. I thought they said that it could happen, but they don't think that they would be part of it. I don't know. I could be wrong there. But... It looks like maybe there's an analog stick at the bottom,

like a virtual analog stick. That makes sense. I mean, those have gotten much better. They're not as terrible as they were when the iPhone launched. Maybe that's just a button. Left right button? No, like just a tap to jump. Although if there's tap to jump, then you don't need anything because you just touch anywhere on the screen like every... It was wrong.

That's true. I wish I knew how this actually played. I mean, you'll get to find out this winter. Wait, this before Christmas. I think that's how they phrase it. Before the holidays, there we go. And this isn't totally exclusive to... It was supposed to be exclusive to App Store.

That's our original headline, but then I saw something about coming to Android. Yes. So they did that thing that is maddening on stage where it's like, oh, it's exclusive to App Store. And then the press release comes and it's like available for a limited time on App Store or something like that. It's like a timed exclusive as they call them in the bands. Yeah. And then, of course, it will expand so that it can make even more money. But we'll see. I am more optimistic about Nintendo's mobile games than I was before they took the stage yesterday.

It looks like they did a good job. Yeah, I think they did fine. I am very curious about like the next year for that company. Because at some point they have to announce this new console that they have too. Oh, right. Yeah. How about tar flaps is that going to have? Oh, probably not many. probably the fewest number of flops that you can flop.

Yeah. But that's, yeah, that's supposedly coming out somewhere in March of next year. It's September. That's crazy. No announcement. And what games is it, man. I mean, here's what I think is going to be on it, Mario. Oh, ooh.

And maybe, you know what? I can't count on anything else. Wait, was there a, there's Mario 3D land on the week. right? Is it Mario 3D World? A 3D world? One of them is on DS. Yes, 3D World is on WiiU.

That didn't feel like enough of a Mario. I want a true 3D platformer again. I mean, that's fair. Like you mean like Super Mario Galaxy? Like a Galaxy or Mario 64 or Mario Sunshine? Yeah. I mean, you're not going to get another Mario Sunshine. I would take that thought and I would appreciate it.

beneath your toes. Yeah. But, I mean, maybe. That would be a big way to make a splash. Yeah. Man, it's so easy being Nintendo. Just make another Mario game, another Mario cart. Being constantly worried that your entire business can collapse at any moment.

I just, it was weird to me. Like, you had this, an Apple announcement for the iPhone, you know, and this is like, this is the most cutting edge. Like, it's like the A-10 fusion. or something like that, like the most powerful mobile processor ever conceived by a human being. And then, like, one of the biggest announcements is that a game that is almost identical, but probably lesser in features than a game that came out on the original Nintendo is going to be like a new flagship game.

Oh, that wasn't even as bad as the game they actually showed to flaunt the graphics. Because, like, Mario opened it, but then they were like, oh, by the way, This is this super mobile processor, you know, that we could never have comprehended in our wildest dreams. Oh, and it was not. And then they were like, and just show it off. Here's a Wizard of Oz role-playing. Like, imagine Wizard of Oz is a dark, gritty RPG, like the Witcher of Oz. And it's like that game could be good.

I don't know. But like, that was not. 400 flying monkeys. It was not what I would have chosen at all to show off. the power of your graphics on your video game. I don't understand Apple's relationship with video games at all. Like, Nintendo being there was maybe the most sense that they have made in the world of video games in a long time.

Otherwise, it just feels like whoever the people are up top who decide those things are like, yeah, Wizard of Oz, that's cool with the kids. Let's get that on stage. Wait till they see what Frank Baum is up to next. It is. Weren't those books like a commentary on like the gold standard or something like that? They were written at the Del Cornado and like San Diego by just a dude who was like, I don't know, drunk out of his mind. I'm going to get sued by the Frank Bama state.

Nothing of what I said is true and I'm not eligible for it. I bet Frank Bama's real nice man. All right. Well, so last week, I used to do this thing every week on the show where I would talk about. gadget that I love and I think is really interesting that everybody should know about. Okay. But then we had Ashley on the show and she totally showed me up at my own bit. So I'm going to have her back this week and she is going to tell you now in a special

thing that happens every week. It's a little segment that Ashley calls iPhone 7. Did you guys know that the iPhone 7 has dual cameras on its plus size? Did you know it has no headphone jack on both the iPhone 7? and the iPhone 7 plus. Did you know it comes in jet black, but that jet black sometimes scratches, to the point that Apple had to put a footnote on its release.

Did you know its camera is better? That's the iPhone 7. That's my weekly segment called the iPhone 7. Goodbye. Well, thank you, Ashley. I feel like I know more about technology now. This week's episode of the Vergecast, this renegade, rebellious episode, is brought to you by Squarespace. Chris, have you ever used Squarespace?

You mean building it beautiful? Have you built a beautiful website? You know what? Maybe? I know. It's probably not the right answer. It looks great. Yeah.

Well, so Squarespace has been part of my life for a long time. Yeah? Because I built a website like way, way back when. And then it turns out, like, everybody that I went to church with was all working for Squarespace. They were like the founder or like the tech support. Everybody at my church was somehow associated with the Squarespace. And then every single podcast that I've ever listened to has a Squarespace add in it. So I feel like I know a lot about Squarespace.

It is actually very easy to make websites. It's easy is a key point that Squarespace wants me to tell you about. You get a free custom domain. If you sign up for a year of Squarespace, you'll get a free custom domain for the website that you just signed up for. They've got beautiful templates. They've got seamless commerce tools so you can sell stuff using Squarespace with this website that you built with free domain. 24-7 customer support. Every member of the customer care team is an experienced Squarespace user working in a Squarespace office.

So these people really actually know about Squarespace. They're not just trying to get you to buy more things. They want to help you. And you can start a free trial today at Squarespace.com and enter the offer code verge to get 10% off your first purchase. And my favorite thing about Squarespace is that they always are coming up with new taglines. And this month's tagline is Squarespace set your website apart. Isn't that great?

That's so nice. I feel compelled. to make another Squarespace website. You're going to say another Squarespace ad. Let's just start from the top. From the top. Squarespace. Love it.

Websites, cool. Free. The internet. Domain names? If you get a year. Got it. All right. Thank you, Squarespace.

And that's our show. Hey, guess what? Apple killed the headphone jack. How does it make you feel? You'll never know unless you don't listen to Control Walt Delete this week. All right? I can't emphasize enough that that's an important thing for you to do. Because we all have to process our feelings.

I'm personally just completely enthralled and exhilarated at the lack of a headphone jack. But contraction, I can't let you know why because I'm not on control, Walt, delete. That's where you learn about the reasons for things. Also, Chris, you have your own show that maybe people don't know about. Can you explain? Can you give me the what's tech of what's tech? Yeah, once tech is a show where we explain, like a bit of technology every week. They're short, digestible, like 15 to 20 minutes.

But really, we just explain everything. So, like, you could be confused by all these video game things. There's an episode about mid-cycle video game relaunches. There's an episode about fan fiction. There's an episode on doxing. Pretty much, if you can think of it, or it's ever been on Thebridge.com. We have explained it. This week we talk about a proxema centauri B.

It's a earth-sized planet in the kind of orbiting the star, nearest our solar system. I need to listen to this episode because I read all the headlines and I'm very confused. Yeah, here's where I was like, I was like, oh, I have to do an episode about this. When I was talking to our colleague Lauren Crush about it, I was like, how long will it take humans to sense? something there. And she's like, well, there are two, two lines of thought. One is tens of thousands of years and the other is 20 years. I was like, tell me more. What of those sounds way better than the other one. Yeah. And you can find out on our show. Oh my gosh. What a tease. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So that's every Tuesday.

It's every Tuesday. Control Walt Delete is every Thursday with Walt Mosberg and Eli Patel. VirGESP is Friday with Emily Yoshida and Liz Lopato. So many choices. I hope you choose correctly. And I'm really grateful for you spending your time with me and Chris today. And I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I hope everything is well for you.

I hope you decide if you prefer 4K Blu-ray or 4K video games. Are you a gamer or are you just a couch potato? Something to think about. Couldn't possibly be both. I'm Future Paul on Twitter. Chris Plant is... At Plant. At Plant with an E.

Plante. And you'll have to listen to Control Wall to delete to find out everybody else's Twitter. Also, you could go to iTunes.com slash The Verge. If you loved this renegated podcast that you'll never hear again. And you could rate it. You say, like, put in five stars and then say, Loved Win. It was just Chris and Paul in the show.

That was cool. say that. Or put in five stars and be like, this is for all the other episodes. Please bring them back. Bring back the regulars. It's fun. We can take the criticism. Follow Verge on Twitter.

That's at Verge. Snapchat, Verge. Instagram, Verge. Facebook, you guessed it. Facebook.com slash verge. Today's episode was also brought to you by Autodesk. Autodesk graphic is the specific product that's sponsoring today's show. It's not just the whole company, but Autodesk,

Graphic is a full-featured app for making icons, illustrations, UI, and UX, or anything else you'd need out of a professional vector design app. Don't go consumer when it comes to vectors. Go professional. It's available on your Mac, phone, and iPad, so you can design without compromise on the go. It's the vector design app you've been waiting for for your iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. Visit Graphic.com to learn more about Autodesk Graphic or Fisperc.

it in the app store. And I added that thing about consumers. I'm sure anybody can use this. I bet it's great. I'm going to actually, I'm going to try it out because I actually love vectors. Thank you, Autodesk. And that's her show. Whoop, whoop.

I'm Frank Elbaum. I wrote a familiar book that you might enjoy. I'm also Mark Twain. Or Langhorne Clemens is my real name. Frank, did you ever envision that the monkeys that you envision with your mind's eye could be rendered with such graphical fidelity by a mobile phone processor. I must say I did. I am a futurist and I have once visited the future through a small hotel room in San Diego Bay. Why do you know where he wrote the book? I'm Frank Elbaal. I know where I wrote

my own damn book. All right. That's our show. Bye.