The Vergecast - Soccer moms racing turbos

Episode Date: October 2, 2015

Dieter Bohn, Nilay Patel and hype-seater Kristen Frisina are joined by Chris Ziegler and Lauren Goode in a rare five-seater that eats up the week’s news, including the new Nexus phones, the Chromecast dongles, the Pixel C tablet, the new over-engineered Tesla, and Dieter’s nefarious plan to sprinkle gluten over the food at Google events. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome to the Vergecast. Today's a day. Just the day like any other. But on this day, we're going to talk about technology and culture. Someone's going to have a cat on the show. That's going to be great. I am Nealai Patel. This is October.

I don't know what I'm doing. Hey, welcome to Verge Cast. You did a really good job. That was really good. That was weird. That was weird. It was fine. Whatever.

I'm Neelai. Dieter is here. Hi, Dieter. And we've got like a wide variety of new people. A clown car. A clown car. There's a cloud car bullshit on the show. Chris Ziegler's here.

Hello. Chris is just back from a Tesla event. It's true. This is true. So we're going to talk about that. On Skype, Lauren Good is here. Hey, Lauren. Hey, Lauren is literally just playing with her cat, Nuggett is playing with a Chromecast.

I'm hoping that we get to hear. It's a Chrome cat, Peter. It's the Chrome cat. Oh, my God. See, that's why I try to start it really low because I knew we were going to get to crazy really fast. And so we did. And then in the hype seat. Kirsten is here.

What's up? How's it going? Good. I moved this week. I'm tired. I'm tired. Speaking of moving, move that microphone closer to your face. Yay.

Oh my God. Yay. All right. If you've been watching any of our social video accounts, you've been seeing Kirsten, just nonstop the past week. Just crawling around. So Periscope, Snapchat. Have you invented a new one yet?

You were like a real beam fan girl for like a minute. My beam is broken right now. Really? Yeah, it's been messed up for like a week, so I haven't done a beam in a week. I've never beamed. Well. I don't know how to feel about that. You're just not, you're just not an old.

I thought it was. I'm super in old. I thought it was Bameh with like a swoopy on the E. By the way, the trend of, instead of like, hype checking and Kirsten's just going to be old checking, we got in an argument of whether PWN is pronounced own or Pohn. It's Pohn. No, it's own.

Originally it was pronounced own. Oh my God. Yeah, in the 80s. I don't know. See? A decade in which I was not alive. Nothing but sick burns. Today I heard two people. They're not, they were not verge people, but they were other people of box media

heatedly discussing what a yuppie was. Like, what it, what is, like, literally a conversation. Like, what is yuppie? And I think it stands for, like, young, like an 80s guy. It was like a thing, like it was a conversation that occurred. And the whole time I was like, I'm literally aging in real time in front of you. These are my last days. Please observe them with.

respect. It actually is an acronym, isn't it? Yeah, it's young urban professional. It was just super funny. It was just like one of the, yeah, no, it's an acronym. It's like a very 80s, but it was just, it's, it's like an anachronism now. Yeah, no one says it anymore. We should bring it back. We should bring it back yuppies. We could do like beef or bust for yuppies. It would be like huge cell phones and like shiny gray suits. Yeah. And like testeros. Oh, and we can take out the new Huawei watch that Dieter called a Gordon Gecko watch. Oh. Perfect. It's perfect.

All right. All right. A bunch of stuff happened this week. We should get into the news and not just burning Sam. May he rest in peace. No,

we should get to these. A bunch of stuff happened this week. Stuff. Stuff. I'm trying to stay away from that explicit tag on the license. So Deeter and Lauren went to the Nexus event.

Saw a bunch of two phones. Lauren's got Chromecasts with her. They look insane to me. Yeah. They're just the weirdest. There's new people. pixel C Android tablet, which I have many theories about. Actually, so it's all that stuff.

And then Chris went to Tesla and drove the Model X. And actually, Casey went to Google and drove a self-driving car. And in the middle of this, in the middle of like the Google event, Apple released a new privacy policy just to fuck with Google a little bit. Man, you're doing real good about that explicit tag. Well, you know, I keep it real on this show. Deeply, deeply real. Yeah, so let's start. So you guys run to Nexus, man.

Lauren and Dieter, tell me about it. So the event was, I'll, I'll, like, set the scene, and Lauren can actually talk about the phones a little bit, and we'll go back and forth. The event was like a chill. It was a chill, Google event. It was down in, like, the dog patched neighborhood of San Francisco. I don't know if you know what that means, but it meant that it was into, like, a room that was filled with, like, colored yarn. And it was, like, 50, maybe, maybe 100 reporters, like sitting at little round tables. And, like, sooner gets up wearing, like, all black.

Definitely sounds like a kindergarten. run by an evil dictator. It was weird. It was like white and then weird colored yarn. And it was like super chill. Sundar got up and he's like, hey guys, we made some stuff. It's cool. We like people to use computers. We believe in computers. And then he like chills out and leaves. And then literally every single Google employee got on stage. All of them. All of them got on stage and announced something in rapid succession. Like everyone was mad at me because I kept on in the live long saying, are you keeping up or you keep it up? Can you keep up?

because it was impossible to keep up. They just in an, I don't know, hour 15 or whatever it took, they ran through two phones, a new tablet, two new Chromecasts, a new, like, parent stuff on the Google Play Store randomly, new updates to photos where you can like work with groups and share pictures with people more easily in albums. And probably something else. A little bit on tap stuff too.

Now on Tap was there. Just the event was just like, and then the... Yeah, you really did. Steamroll. Yeah. And then the hands-on rooms were too small. But the hands-on-rooms were Chromecasts were, like, super chill and open. Just like Google itself.

Yeah. It was, like, lots of fighting to, like, get pictures of stuff. And then we were out. It's like, ever since the Alphabet thing happened and Google can just, like, be more Google. Yeah. They're like, you know what? We are just basically for kids. Right.

Like, it is just to relax. It's a Montessori. Let's be clear. It's a Montessori school. Like, that's what it is. Like, their logo's super dumb now. There's like, y'all. yarn rooms.

Everyone sits at small tables. I'm pretty sure Google always had yarn rooms. Let's be real. Everything about Google's new logo makes them seem 100% less serious about life. I mean, hang on, the old logo wasn't exactly serious. Yeah. The old logo, I would say the old logo is like, how do I put this? The old logo was like Google's mom.

Google's mom. No, but the old logo is like Google's mom did their homework for them. Right. So like at least you knew an adult was involved. this logo is like they're out of the house they're on their own they don't have a job i mean it's not comic sands get cut it's so close oh man all right anyway loren tell me about the phones i'd rather talk about the logo the logo is awful like every time i log into anything their self-driving cars look kind of like our those little play school cars yeah they do they do

have when we were kids no it really is a kindergarten i don't know or or they're like evil and they're they're teaching up they're making us regress like they're like they're they're of the world is everyone has a child whose data is controlled by Google and you don't even know it. You didn't know. We did a whole video on how people are going to be wearing one season drinking soilent and everything. And you think about all of the top services that these companies offer, it's like basically how much can we mother people? We'll do your laundry and we'll cut your hair and we'll drive your cars for you and we'll just do everything for you. That sounds wonderful.

Anyway, we're so ready for that. Bring it on. What we all billions of dollars in technology, trillions of dollars in infrastructure and we're replacing a mom from the 50s. That's all we're trying to do. That's a perfect theory of Silicon Valley. Everybody just misses their mommy. Oh, God. All right.

Lauren, tell me about the phones. So I got to play with the 6P. Deeter took the 5X. I took the 6P. We divided and conquered. And the first thing, I put this in the hands on,

which is on the verge, but the first thing that I thought when I felt it was this feels like a really nice nexus phone. I feel like a couple years ago was when, I think actually you guys wrote it then like, okay, Google's a hardware company now. Like, Google, of course, is a software company, right? And Google makes all of its money off of search and search advertising.

But they have this hardware, these hardware products now that are actually getting quite good. And I felt the 6P was sort of the embodiment of that. Like, this actually feels like a good phone. It has a nice camera. It has, you know, it's full body metal. It's, it's got a nice display. It has a fast processor. Like, I was pretty impressed by it overall. But it's a Huawei phone, right? I mean, like, it's a full body metal. It's a It's always hard for me to tell with these Nexus phones. Like, they actually make them. So the claim this time around is that Google was, like,

they always say that they're super heavily involved. But there are some Nexus phones are like, yeah, you rebranded a Galaxy S. We can see it. We're looking at it. We know. Yeah. And so this one is, I think, of the Mades. Yeah.

And so there's a bit of that. But, like, they were more involved in setting up that special, you know, whoa, what was that? That was my doorbell. Yeah. So the cat is now. like inviting people over. Should I answer it? It's like his cat friends are.

Check out this Chromecast, guys. I thought that was a sound for me to stop talking. I love a French cast. Go get the door. Dieter's going to keep yelling about Nexus phones and you, you can invite your callers into the Vergecast. Oh my God. All right. Dieter, continue.

So this time around, they, they've made like a co-processer, whatever, like to detect your movement. Yeah. In other words, they made an. Apple M. Yeah, exactly. They were involved in creating and making sure that the fingerprint sensor worked,

which they called Nexus imprint, which I don't know why it needs a brand, but it needs a brand, and it's called Nexus imprint. And then they also, they said that these have Sony sensors on stage. These are Sony sensors. And I think that they were deeply involved

in the whole camera situation here because I think they've finally heard everybody, myself included, yelling about the cameras. And so I don't know if Huawei or LG if left of their own devices getting to even left their own devices would have gone with a Sony sensor

but Google like Cowboyed in and said Nope, it's going to have this camera sensor It's going to have this fingerprint sensor It's going to work this way So is it Google hardware or Huawei hardware? I would say like sometimes it's mostly the other company's hardware but this time it's like actually a pretty solid mix

Yeah I mean So the thing only like I keep saying I'm ready to switch to Android. Yeah, they never do. And I never do. Yeah, you've been saying that for like years. I know. Hype check, Eli, switching to Android.

It's going to happen. And why don't you? Is it because you just can't find the great hardware that you're looking for? Is it because you're just so tied to the Apple ecosystem? First, I want to hear this hype check. It's never going to happen. Android is always like two seconds away from being like what you want it to be. It's like we almost have now on tap, but we don't.

So I'd rather keep using iOS 9. Yeah. I'm just like, I'm pretty, it's. So Lauren, I answer your question. The reason I want to switch is, like, I'm beginning to feel like Apple's services are now so required to use this stuff. Especially with El Capitone. Right. Like, I don't think I'm going to switch.

I don't think I'm going to upgrade this computer. I skipped Lyon. And I don't think, and that was, like, a great decision. OSTon Lion was like a garbage fire. But El Capiton, from all accounts, is, like, very fast, very stable. But it really wants you to use the rest of Apple stuff. And it really wants you to change your workflows around it. And I just, there was a time in my life.

where I would sit around all the time and just like screw with my computer and be like, I'm gonna make this better. I'm gonna like install some other garbage I found. And like, you need to d or bone your computer. Yeah, I was gonna bone it up. Yeah. That's a weird phrase. Okay.

That's the thing that just got said. That's fine. Bown it up. That's totally cool. But I don't have that time anymore. And like I'm like very happy with how this laptop works right now. And so like the idea that I'm gonna install, Al Capitana on it

and then I'm going to have to deal like either avoid Apple services or switch my life to them is weird and then with the phone the phone definitely feels that way like the phone is pulling you into its universe constantly so I'm like I live my whole life in Google services anyway why don't I just do that and then I pick up any Google phone

and I'm saying Google phone just as a burn on John Chen from Blackberry held up the priv and can repeatedly set it runs Google which is hilarious but you pick up any Android phone and like they're you know with like a Samsung phone it's like use all the Samsung garbage and I'm like well if you're going to force me to use your garbage I'm

just going to use Apple's garbage because their garbage is usually moderately better yeah and then with the nexus is it's always the camera it's like always always always the camera and like who knows yeah yeah I don't know I mean I tried the camera on both but it was in the hands-on area so who knows I do know it's fast yeah and they do claim it's better a lot of people were tweeting me that they think this is the same 12 megapixel sensor that is in the 6S. Teter, you ordered one, didn't you? Yes, it did. This is my yearly.

I'm going to order a Nexus on the Vergecast. If I can log into my Google account. Yeah. Yeah, I ordered, I honestly, I got the 6P mainly because I'm, I realized that I'm really angry that nobody makes just a proper black phone anymore and you can get the 6P in graphite. Yeah, it's like, oh. It's just super black. It's about time to get.

A ninja phone. Just get a murdered out phone. Remember, like the black iPhone? We're like, oh, man, that's so murdered out. We're all excited about that things being murdered out. Yeah. And you can't get a murdered out phone anymore. Yeah.

I wanted a phone that said murder. I wanted people to look at me on the phone and be like, that guy is a murderer. You are definitely going to look at that year. No, the 6P. Oh, yeah, you should definitely get the 6P. Oh, yeah, you should definitely get the 6P. So the 5X is, it's like the refresh of the Nexus 5, which everybody loved. Except for the camera.

I was right. Anyway. You were right in that what? The camera on the Nexus 5 was terrible. But the 5X has the same sensor as the 6P for the camera, but like the processing and the other chips behind it aren't quite the same. So neither one of them has optimal image stabilization, by the way. But they shoot 4K.

But they don't know, whatever. I just do not care about shooting 4K. I really don't. Somewhere Mike's Brownlee is crying. Convince me I should care about a phone shooting 4K. I'm going to buy you a 4K TV in that. and it's all you're going to care about. Yeah.

What 4K plasma are you getting me like? Tell me. Come on, man. No, it's great. We're all going to get 4K TVs together, and then we're all going to watch each other's 4K movies. No, it's like we're not going to care about 4K until, like, all of the content is out there, and until all of our screens play 4K.

TiVo Bolt. It's here. Oh, God. Here we go. So the 5X, it's super light, but I feel like the bezels are really big, and your 16 gig is like 380, and I, It's like 50 bucks more to get the 32 gig. You really ought to get the 32 gig.

You really are buying an Exus on air. Yeah, I'm doing it right now. It's amazing. I got my credit card out. It's like five to six weeks out before it ships as of when I bought mine. But, like, I don't know, like, am I going to spend $430 on a phone that's pretty good, maybe not quite as high end as I would like? Or am I going to spend, you know, an extra $150 bucks and get a 6p, which is, like, definitely

top of the line. Like, you can get a MotoX for around the same. same price. And presumably the 5x is going to get a better camera and probably be an overall better experience. It's basically got the same specs on the inside. I am surprised that you have not brought off the size difference as a make or break feature yet. For me, it's just I don't want to carry around something that's five point has a 5.7 inch display all the time. Because if we're working at I have small hands. Yeah. Hi. Hi, girl hands. And you use your phone to work out or do anything active, it makes it really difficult if you've got a large screen.

Yeah. And it's just like to me, if you're looking at the two devices, you're not looking at the feature set necessarily to side by side and saying, oh, but this one has slightly better front-facing camera and oh, do you want a big phone? Yeah, so you just pick on screen sides. I did it. I bought one. To the answer, the answer to question, Lauren, is I do want a big phone.

I know how you think about it because I don't think phones should ever go back. I think everyone's screwed. I think we're all, I think big phones, I think the iPhone 7 will start at five inches or above. You don't think they'll have a small option though? No. They have to. I think all phones from now on will be five inches or above. No, because people with small hands cannot hold a five inch phone.

Like, it's not a thing that works for them. You have, you have, I mean, I don't know. I haven't like thought about your hands a lot, but it's a weird thing to say. Would you creeped out if you had. Yeah, but you have a big phone? I have a big phone, but I have actually fairly like long hands for a girl. And I, for me, this phone is. This phone, by the way, is the iPhone 6S plus.

Yeah, and I had a 6 plus before this. So here's the news. The Nexus 6P has a 5.7-inch screen, and it feels way smaller than that. Because they stuck the fingerprint sensor on the back, which means that there's less room for bezzles. The bezels are way smaller. It covers, the display covers, what is it, more than three-fourths of the entire front of the phone. Yeah, I forget. They put the percentages up on the screen.

Right. I just think, my, I don't think the phone. physically are going to stay huge. I think the screens will stay big and they'll learn to package them smarter. Oh yeah. Right. Well, see, that's one of my problems with the 5x is the 6P pulls off the magic trick of like how do they fit a screen this big into this phone. It doesn't seem physically possible. But the 5x feels like it's screen size because it's got a big bezel on the top of the bottom because it's got those, you know, those speaker lines on the top and the bottom. So let's talk about the 5. So the Nexus 5 is like everyone's favorite phone.

As far as I can tell. It's like a bunch of people on our product team have one. I have one. Like everyone has one. Vlad writes every like three weeks, Vlad writes a love letter to the Nexus 5. So tell me about 5X. Is it a worthy successor? I mean, I don't think it's spent like 15 minutes with it. I think so.

I don't think it's going to elicit quite as much like love. It's super light. It feels like it should be way heavier than it is. And I think it's got like a 2,400-million-a-b battery in it. So it should actually laugh. along with those. I've got really high hopes for battery life for both of these nexus, which I'm sure I'm going to get burned on. But I really do hope. I don't know. I think that it's it deserves, it will elicit some affection and it is a worthy successor. I just think that I was expecting it to cost literally a hundred bucks less. Maybe not a hundred, but at least 50 bucks less. Yeah. And, you know, if you're going to go all the way up to 430 to buy the 32 gig version, It's like maybe think about your choices. Like maybe you wait another couple of months and get like the actual high end one.

What do you think the actual high end? The 6P. Yeah. But that's, but like if you want that, but if you want a phone, an Android phone at the size, your like your genuine choices are like the Samsung Galaxy S6 and this.

And what about the, is there going to be a Z5 compact? The Z5, whatever. There's like 15 versions of the Z5. I don't know what it's called. Well, I assume one is called the compact. Yeah.

There's always a compact. Okay. If you live in America, you can be a crazy person and try and get a Z5 compact. Evan Rogers are speaking directly to you. Go way out into Brooklyn, meet some shady dude who has Z5 from Russia. Evan's building one in his basement. But otherwise at the size, you're looking at the 5X and the S6. And the SX has way better build quality.

And probably it'll have a slightly better camera, although we'll have to wait and see. But it has more crap. But it's got more crap. And it's like also good. probably like I think this thing will be pretty durable because like it's got like a the plastic back is reminiscent of the Nexus 5 plastic back and it feels crazy light. So it'll be a good like it'll be a good knock around phone. That's what it is.

It's a knock around phone. So Lauren, I'm asking you a question. If you had to buy an Android phone right now, which one do you buy? And assuming they all ship to you now, like obviously like for example I just bought a 6P it's not going for three and a half weeks. Three and a half? That's what's it. Son of a bitch.

Yeah. So I really liked the build of the 6p, but the size is an issue for me. Yeah. So I've also been using the Samsung Galaxy Note 5. And considering that the note was sort of what kicked off the fablet trend here. And now when I hold it, when I hold it, it doesn't even feel so much like a fablet. I mean, they've really slimmed down the body so much. I'd probably go with the Note 5.

Note 5? Yeah. Do you use the pen? No. No, it never does. Mm-mm. No. Why it's not coming until November?

Did you just buy one? No, I bought one like yesterday. And it's not coming until November. Yeah. Did you get the graphite? Uh, yeah. Why is yours coming before mine? Google.

What the hell? Well, I mean, three, maybe it's, it's, it's, it's coming November 5th. Mine, mine's probably going to get delayed. It's going to be fine, dear. This is the worst. If mine comes, I'll let you look at it. So, I don't know what Android fun. I think I'm, I'm just like, I'm just tired of,

like Apple just feels like it's just swallowing everything and like a really weird like Apple hates Google. Like it's very obvious to me. Yeah. And they're just like trying to push out everything that isn't their ecosystem, which just is annoying. That's the way that they've been. No, it's new. It's new in how like aggressive it is. What are they doing that's new that's more aggressive?

So like iOS 9, like everything about iOS 9 is about keeping you out of the browser. Yeah, but that's been like. Yeah, but they've stepped it up a notch. Yeah, it's just up a notch. Like the watch, like everything about having an Apple Watch is about keeping you internal to Apple's ecosystem. The Apple TV doesn't have, like, any web rendering engine in it whatsoever. So you have to, like app developers, which they say are the future of the TV, have to just live in Apple's like TVOS ecosystem. Yeah, but again, that's not a change.

That's like Apple's. Well, these are new things. Like they're, Apple used to. I just, I don't think that the severity of it stepping up, they're just kind of, continuing to do what they've always done, which is... I think Christine is right. I think... Kirsten, it's Kirsten, by the way.

Oh, my goodness. I got your name wrong. It's okay, don't worry about it. Lorraine, I think you should get her name right. So sorry. It's okay. I'm just going to lock off now. Lorien. Lorraine. Look, Lorian. We're all...

Everybody gets... It's in a very long week. Wait, she was saying I'm right. Let's let her talk. Oh. I just completely lost my train of thought. now. It's okay. We're definitely going to edit this part of the podcast.

What Kirsten was saying is absolutely right, this idea that Apple is keeping things sort of behind, you know, a wall in a sense and wanting to keep their users in their ecosystem is not a new thing. It's just that everyone else seemingly is getting a little bit more open or at least cross-platform. And so by comparison, you kind of feel like you're stuck. I buy that. That makes sense.

No, it's, okay, you're not wrong in that the severity. of it, like, the intensity of the effort has not necessarily changed. You loggerfelding, bro? Totally logger-fellate. Oh, yeah. This motherfucker has been dead fuck three weeks. You were the first person. I want to give you an award.

I've been wearing a dead Apple watch for three weeks. Chris Sigler on the show is the first person who has even come close to noticing. It's not like you can tell if someone's watches dead. I know. It's like my little social experiment. What's the point? I don't know. It's just been really funny.

Like, it's just been like this joke I've been telling myself. Anyhow. Because I did, you know, I did watch rest too and played with it for a while, and I was like, that's kind of the same. And then it just died and I just kept wearing it. Anyway, no, it's the intensity of the effort is not increasing, but they have now reached a point where the impact of the effort has like a new amount of affect on me. Yeah, well, and the part of it's like they've gotten better at it. So like with Al-Copy 10, like the notes app is like good. It does all the stuff that I would want out of Evernote and doesn't advertise to me like Evernote does because Evernote is the worst right now. And so it's like the stuff that they're making is more tempting to just use.

This is like the I message story, right? Right. Like everyone's mad at me because I like I turned it on and turned off and nobody can text me anymore. But if you, as soon as you update an OS on a phone, it turns on I message. As soon as you attach a watch to it, it turns on I message. They really want to use I message. And the stuff has gotten to the point where it's good enough to make. you want to use it and to the you know and stop using the stuff that's outside of

Apple's ecosystem and so it it feels grabby now the flip side of this is don't think that Google isn't moving in the same direction they're just not as good at it right right like more and more an Android phone without Google services doesn't count right and they're like they're putting security updates through Google Play they're putting browser updates through Google Play they're putting all sorts of other stuff through Google Play services and if you don't have a Google Play Android device, you are like, you are seriously missing out on not just like their app store, but a bunch of other stuff that they're doing to try and bring the ecosystem

up to par so you're not living in a world where stage fright destroys your phone. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. There's, there's just, it's just stuff. Like, it's like, I don't think Google cares about Google Play music. Like fundamentally, they clearly don't. They just don't, right? So like, everybody I know with an Android phone has Spotify, and Spotify is its own service, and it's, like, moving its own path. And it's like, it's this idea of, like, redundancy. And that's, like, the wrong war. It's like, it's not having a single service provider. In my mind is safer, right? So, like, with Apple, it's like, Apple really wants me to use Apple music and Spotify can't talk to Siri. It's Thomas Strick I wrote about this this morning, right? But with now on tap, it feels

like Google Services, or at least cognizant of the idea that I may wish to use non-Google apps, and it would be nice if Google Services could know about that, so they could deliver me interesting other experiences. And like, it's just that, right? It's just the notion that Google's aware of other people, and Apple seems very like, you know, like there's stuff we're going to do, and we're going to make sure our users use our services because this integrated stack is better. And if you, IBM, would like to make some enterprise bullshit, that's cool to. too. And I don't know, like, Apple Music is bad, right? But Apple wants you to use it. So everything about its ecosystem funnels you into a bad experience. Yeah. Series especially. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, you're going to say something. Well, it's going to say, I mean, the question becomes, like, can, even though Google is open and the developers can make stuff, will they actually make it that works as well? Like, right now, I am using Apple Music because I can say, hey, Surrey, play me exact song title, exact name of artist, and it will pull it up for me. And I don't even have to open my phone. So, like, until I can get a similar experience from pulling out my Android phone and saying to Google, like, I want you to play me this exact song. Oh, sorry, just turned on. Then for me, it's like, it's great that the opportunity to create those kind of things in the Android ecosystem is there.

But until they're actually working. Wait, you can't play a song with OK Google? Can you? I find that hard to believe. Oh, God damn. Your phone just went off. Well, try to play a song. What song should I try to play?

How about this ad for Soft Player? Okay, Google. Play me a song. Wi-Fi ears not so good. All right. Google Play music just launched. It did nothing. I'm feeling lucky radio.

Okay, Google. Oh, my God. This is the worst. Let's do an ad. Oh, my God. And Lauren's talking to five wearables. Play Taylor Smith. Taylor Smith?

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Whatever. Just riding dirty with SoftWlair. SoftBlast. Okay. Riding dirty with SoftLayer is going to be their new. I'm just trying to hip them up. People are always asking. I get these tweets.

You suck at the ads. Why do people keep hanging for them? It's because we make them cool. We make them hip. The cool kids at school on somewhere. Hey. Lauren, let's talk about the Kronkast. Real quick.

Blair Pulaski, happy birthday. Oh, hey, look at that. There's been a lot of, like, specific human callouts on this verge. Yeah. Two people we know and one person we don't. And also Taylor Smith. All right. Lauren.

I just like to say that if I had met Kirsten, Kirsten. Kirsten, like you're saying. We're never going to tell you. If we met in person, I would have gotten it right. Oh, yeah, we haven't met in person yet. It's totally not fair at all. All right. All right.

We're going to each other through the socials. And just like if I had ever met Taylor Smith in person. Taylor Smith, name of my high school boyfriend. Okay, tell me about the car which you have. Are there two of them? I am both here. Hold on. Okay.

How are they different? Does it one have treads on it like a record? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Lauren, how are they, everyone keeps saying there too, but they don't, they, they, They do the same thing, right? Am I crazy? No, they do different. I will let Laura explain that.

Yeah. All right, go ahead. Although, we did ask a question of Google, which is why didn't you just build the same capabilities into one dongle? And they gave some really fancy answer about how they're so different, but really they want to sell them. So, this is Chromecast for video, Chromecast Second Generation, which now supports modern Wi-Fi. It's 8.02.11AC Wi-Fi.

I used it last night to watch Narcos. This is pretty good. And then this is Chromecast Audio, which has an auxiliary RCA and optical, what's it called? Input. Thank you. Jack, input, whatever you want to call it, so that you can plug us into the back of a speaker amplifier and then make a non-wifi-connected speaker, Wi-Fi connected. So the idea is if you have fancy speakers at home that aren't connected to Wi-Fi, or let's even say you have a Bluetooth speaker, and we all know the Bluetooth audio quality is sometimes pretty,

crappy, you can then use something like this sticking it to your speaker and then stream music. But it needs power. It needs power? It needs power? Just like, I mean, just, yeah, like this hangs out of the back of your TV, right? Like this from the H-DMI port.

And then you have to plug it into power as well. The HTMLI one needs power too. Yeah. They both need power. H-DMI doesn't power things. Yes, it does. No, not enough to power a dongle though. Yeah.

The original Chromecast didn't need power if you had the right kind of TV. If you had the right kind of TV. And most people now presumably have the right kind of TV. If you have the right kind of TV might not. Your original Chromecast is you would stick another wire into USB at the same time. So if you had the right kind of TV that had a USB and H-DMI juxtapose next to each other. No.

No. There's power over each. Some HTML ports have power. Yeah. Like in newer TVs. Yeah. And the original Chromecast did not need power if you had one of those TVs. And the USB thing was like a hack.

Are you sure about that? Absolutely sure. And the USB thing was like a hack. hack because many TVs have USB ports that are completely unused. And then you could also plug it in the wall. And then presumably this new Chromecast is exactly the same way. And then I'm assuming the audio one needs power because headphone jacks don't provide power. Unless you're crazy.

The only step that I know of that would draw power from the TV was the original Roku stick, which was using a standard called MHL. Yes. But NHL was such, it was not in enough TVs for them to really. The Chromecast used MHL, too. Everything, yeah, MHL is like the... You kind of have a TV with MHL,

but how many people actually have that? I'm sorry. Oh, this motherfucker. I'm sorry, Eric, I can't throw us in here. Did she call me Derek? By the way, on this show, I've tried to make cloud services and NHL seem hard.

And not possible. Just not possible. For me, the most exciting thing about the Chromecast is actually maybe the new software because it actually does universal search across a bunch of services. Yeah. Which Android TV still sucks at.

Oh yeah, which isn't here yet. And neither is the Chromecast audio working like a son-play. Oh, it pre-cashes video. You know, the TiVo has a crazy mode called Quick mode. Yeah, it's not that.

Okay, the TiVo Bolt will literally record a show and play it back 30% faster. Yeah. Which is awesome. Yeah. Because most of the shows I watch are garbage. Like the idea of watching Bar Rescue in like eight minutes flat.

They're like, they rescue the bar. on to the next one. I'm like super into that. What is happening? Am I playing music? It's playing bar-resius fast. You're just admitting music. But my, my, wow.

Okay. I have a question about the Chromecast audio with the Sonos stuff, so it's not going to be able to do that Sonos stuff at the beginning when it first shows? Define sonor stuff. No, like multi-room support. Yeah, because that's why I'm interested in it. So two things. First is that you have to have one of these pieces of hardware

for every single speaker. So if you have speaker system that's connected on some type of Wi-Fi mesh network and you only plug this into one, it doesn't matter. You need one for every single speaker. And then in terms of walking into a room and playing a different track in your living room that is in your bedroom and that sort of thing, it doesn't support that yet, but it will later this year. But it will synchronize all of your speakers, though. If you have a Chromecast in every speaker. Yeah, if you did. And every speaker. Which could be cheaper for some people than doing Sonos potentially. Yes. If you already had a lot of speakers. Well, no, Sonos you'd have to replace all the speakers.

No, I know. What I'm saying is, like, if you were a person who already had a bunch of speakers in your house that weren't Sonos, which is my setup, then buying, you know, three or four of these could be cheaper than doing your entire house and sonos. I have two sonos in my house and obviously other speakers. But the Sonos in my bathroom has been wired to only play Z-100 in New York for like three months. So it's basically just the world's most complicated and expensive radio. Because you get played and it just like plays the radio at you. that's what sounds is good for how much do they cost learn $35 a piece same price as last Chromecast yeah so and the video one does audio too right presumably

the video one supports some music streaming apps as well like beforehand you could cast some music apps to Chromecast video I believe I think hold on let me see I have a list here of the apps

well anyway I was going to take up too much much time doing that. So let me ask you a question, and this is a real question. And it applies to the Pixel C, which we should talk about to for a minute. Why do they make these? Why do they make the Nexus and why do they sold 20 million of them of the Chromecasts? Do people use the Chromecast?

Do they say people? But every, like, they're $35 in there in front of every Best Buy. Like, yeah. I feel like if you made any product at that price point and put it in that location, you'd sell 20 million of them. Right. And it's a pitch is like, watch TV, like, watch free TV on the internet. And like, it's cheap and like, it's small.

And it says Google on it. You just keep answering your own question. But like, do you use, like, do people use that? I have four of them. I never use any of them. Because you're an Apple TV guy and you're locked into the Apple TV system and love airplay. Okay, so to answer your question, Chromecast Audio works with Spotify, Google Play Music, Pandora, Tunein, NPR One, a whole bunch of others. And then Spotify actually works with both Chromecast and Chromecast.

Interesting. But what Google says, so we've asked them this, like, every which way until Sunday. You know, why Chromecast? And also, if you have Android TV, why you're doing both Android TV and Chromecast? And their answer is always that they're just, it seems that they're just coming at it from two completely different directions because nobody really knows where the streaming video experience is ultimately going. And so if you're sort of just like throwing a bunch of mud at the wall and seeing what sticks, there are two different ways to do it.

One is that they, you know, one is this idea that you believe that everything's going to be cast from our personal devices. And so if you've got 75 apps already on this device and some of them are media streaming apps, then it's probably better just to take those and throw the content or send a URL and then your cloud device pulls it down. And that's the best way to experience it. And then the other way to look at it is that you plug in some type of boxer stick that basically creates an OS, you know, an interface, an OS on your TV screen, and that's the other way to approach it. And it seems to me as though Google just doesn't really know which one is ultimately going to shake out. and so they're doing both.

Right. Well, I think the reason they're doing the Chromecast is Android TV has been an unmitigated disaster. I mean, Google TV was. Android TV maybe isn't, although the first version of it was not very good, but now nobody's making them. Like, Nvidia makes one. All the new Sony TVs are Android TV. Okay, fine. Yeah.

And then actually over. I'm getting you a 4K Sony Android TV. It's going to cost like $17,000. I need a so expensive. I need a new TV. 4K men. The funny thing is that with all of these new streaming sticks and boxes that we're seeing this fall, like I kind of feel as though no one has really dealt the death blow yet to the cable experience.

Because if you look at, Android TV actually exists as the OS on cable set-top boxes overseas in some countries. And the same with Roku, for example. Roku is the OS on some set-top boxes overseas. But here in the States, like the cable industry, it's just, It's such a mess that right now we've just got these sort of interim devices. And personally, I just want to see somebody come in and say, I'm changing the whole experience. I'm changing the cable experience. I'm changing the over-the-top experience.

And here's that box. Yeah. Like, no one's really doing that yet. Imagine if Apple had... Imagine if that had been the announcement. I've checked the Chromecast. Sorry, I get kind of fired up about that. Like, I think that the audio ones are interesting.

All right. I think that I really like the way that they're. they look a lot better than the older ones, to be completely honest. They just hang there. It's so weird. Yeah, but the thing is, like, do you want to have to plug in a stick that's going to stick out, like, three inches from the back of your thing? Or would you rather have, like, a little dongle that you can plug in with a nice little cord

that hangs down so you can, like, mount your TV against a wall? I just think they're prettier. They're way easier to set up. And they have fancy intends in them. Yeah. And they're actually, like, able to connect a real Wi-Fi now, which is solid. We should probably do with an ex-old. I'm very confused about how the Chromecasts in the back of my TV.

Everyone is telling me that the Chromecasts didn't run on an MHL, but I know for a fact, the Chromecast in the back of my TV is not plugged into anything but itself. And it works. H.L is a controlling standard, not a power standard. When is the last time you used it? Maybe the battery is just dead. I used it like two weeks ago to cast a weird video.

I think Gators right. Like powered HDIMI has nothing to do with MHL. Yeah, those are two separate things. It's just powered HTML. That might be it then. All right. Whatever. Like USB.

Please tweet at me with your pedantic corrections. I'm ready and waiting for them. We start with the Pixel C. Pocket with Pixel C. There's a new Android tablet. Google itself makes it. Oh, that's weird. The Pixel team who makes the Chromebook Pixel has made a Android tablet.

It has the fancy NVIDIA X1 processor. Yeah. And it has a keyboard that they're very proud of that I'm not that impressed with. Has NVIDIA made a serious processor that we care about in quite some? some time. Well, the X-1, I mean, we sat through an 18-hour keynote at CES this year about the X-1 processor. Don't you remember when a video, like, we're like, screw it, we're making arm chips

and then everyone's going to use our arm chips? Yeah. And now they keep doing it. Yeah. We'll see. It's like, it looks like a very powerful, slightly too thick Android tablet. It makes me very mad that I bought a Nexus 9 because this thing makes the Nexus 9 look like the garbage that it always was.

And then there's a keyboard that's actually really clever. It's Bluetooth, but it charges inductively off the tablet. Oh, that's cool. So when you have it, you know, you know, close, it just charges up the Bluetooth a little bit. And then it slaps on there with a magnet, tilts up. Google's very proud of like the way they designed the keyboard. It feels a lot like the classic MacBook keyboard, although just narrower. And then they made the button, like the return and caps lock keys really narrow so they could try and get closer to full size and the rest of them. It was fine.

It felt a little small. Why did they make it? That's a great question. And can we talk about the fact that every tablet maker has just come back to making laptops. Yeah. They all have. Yeah. That's where we're at now. Yeah. Except for Apple, which is like, but what if we make this more like a laptop?

Microsoft's like, I hear you. But the pixel seat, like, I don't get it. I don't get what Google wants to do with laptops. You know, I call it expensive because it's 500 bucks for the base model plus 150 for the keyboard. And I just, like, I can, if someone wants to spend 500 bucks on an iPad Air 2 or an iPad, or an iPad Pro. Like, yes, I get that.

Like, there's, you can do a lot of stuff with that. Where can I spend $500 in an iPad Pro? I was just going to say. Yeah, more. Or at like $1,200. An Android tablet, like, you can do most of the same stuff, but it doesn't have as many apps.

It definitely doesn't have as much, like, really deep apps. And it also, right now, Android doesn't multitask as well as iOS on a tablet, which is nuts. I brought this up to Google and they're like, well, you know, we're planning on updating the OS quite often. I was like, okay, well, we'll see. But like, they need to, they need, like, if I'm going to be able to justify an Android tablet, it needs to be a workhorse. That's a, and watch videos. Like, that, that machine is designed to be a work machine. And although they have office and they've got Google Docs and et cetera, et cetera, if I'm going to get work done on a tablet, I want to be

able to have some kind of basic level of having two apps on the screen at once. Right. So is this just one giant experiment to see if a merge of the Android and Chrome OS, operating systems is possible. Dun, dun, done, done. It's the pixel team, right? They've only made Chromebooks before. I feel like they were just bored. They just were like, eh.

Yeah. It's kindergarten. It's Montessori. They're like, oh, we were supposed to do our reading homework, but we made this pixel instead. It doesn't matter because there's no rules. And you get a snack. And making it well.

Nap time. It is, I mean, it's probably accurate. I'm going to sneak into Google's campus, and I'm going to speak. I'm going to sprinkle gluten on top of all of their snacks. Oh my God. Just like powder gluten. Oh, those poor nerds.

Dieter. How will they make minor changes to crime? Dieter, literal murderer. Yeah. You can't murder somebody with gluten. Yes, you can if they have, you could, if they were, like, really allergic. Like, all the way murder? I mean, maybe.

Okay. Full murder versus harsh. Like, you could cause, like, you know, like some swelling and, you know, maybe some, like, crankiness. But, like, a full-on murder? Like, if anybody. has ever been, like, directly murdered by gluten? So gluten allergies just make you cranky. That's the symptom.

No, like New York hipsters get cranky when they eat gluten. Well, yes. They have no real reactions. Yes. Glute allergic gluten, clearly, and I sympathy goes out to you, if you are indeed truly allergic to gluten. If you get pulled over- And not just a resident of my neighborhood.

If you're a casualty of Dieter's evil scheme, we apologize. But I, I'm just doubting, and I can be wrong, and I'm willing to accept it, that anybody has ever been murdered by gluten. that one human being has ever used gluten as the agent James Bond plot he's got a vial in his watch and he like just tips over the gluten

and he's like watching he's like watching from afar and he's like I don't know they're just a little more bloated than before must not have been allergic to gluten that is the next James Bond plot there you go I don't know he's just he just seems sluggish like it's not by the way

for those of you listening I'm making hand binoculars so that's what's happening right now You guys, I just Googled it, which Google already knew because they're Google. And now I'm going to be chased around by, like, gluten-free ads for the rest of my life. However, you can die from celiac disease. Wait. You can die from that, but you have, like, that's a, you can't, has anyone been murdered by gluten? Yeah, murder by gluten is what we're asking.

But you could murder someone with celiac's disease with gluten. Right. How much gluten? Extreme damage to the intestinal lining could lead to death through dehydration. Yeah. All right. You could definitely die. That's uncomfortable.

Do you want to die for dehydration? You can Google anything. You can Google anything. Like in six clicks, you will die. That's true, yeah. I'm not saying can you die? Obviously, yes. I'm saying can you be murdered with gluten.

If you can die, then you can be murdered. That's a good point. If you can die, you can be murdered. By the way, I just disagree. That's the title of this episode. If you can die, you can be murdered. Who's playing music now? Me.

No, no, no, this is Taylor Smith. All right, I'm going to read an ad and then Chris. We should talk about this Model X, yeah. All right, hold on, hold on. Are you a tech professional searching for new companies share your tech skills with or perhaps learn to be a murderer with? Then you should check out Hired. Hired connects talent with top tech companies.

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about to point that out. So what are you waiting for besides that embarrassment to fade? Check out higher.com slash broadcast now. What? Let's talk about the Tesla. Yeah, let's talk about a car. But the gluten people

are going to be so very angry at me now. Yeah. Big gluten. Big gluten's cutler or big anti-glutin. Yes. So Model X, this car has been in the works. So you were there? You set up, set the stage. Yes.

So we were invited out to Fremont, California, which is where Tesla makes all of its cars. They have a very large facility there. Is that where they're building the gigafactory? No. The gigafactory is in the middle of nowhere in Nevada. Okay. Because they were offered an extraordinary level of tax incentive to do so. Right. But so we went out to.

the factory to see the production Model X for the first time. This is, of course, their crossover-ish SUV that has been in the works, basically, since the Model S has been on the road. And they've shown it in concept form for as long as I can remember, but they've never shown a production vehicle, and it had been delayed and delayed and delayed because it's Tesla and everything is delayed there. But they were finally ready to show the production car, and they actually handed out the keys to the first, I think, seven buyers, the first seven people who, who reserved the vehicle on stage, one of whom was Sergey Brin, who is sitting about 10 feet away from me, but he did not come on stage. He sent an assistant up on stage to get his

key, which I thought was cute. So, but yeah, Sergey Brin has a Model X now. So this, of course, being Tesla, it is not just an SUV. It does a million insane things. We had a chance to ride it for a little bit. And the first thing you notice, and this sounds stupid. I acknowledge that this does not sound like an interesting feature, but Elon Musk touts the fact that this car has the largest piece of glass ever in a production car. And what that means is that the windshield starts in the normal place, but then it goes all the way up over your head behind. your head. So when you look straight up, all you see is sky. And the, um, uh, the rearview mirror is mounted in the normal place. But then there's a wire that is runs along the windshield up into

the headliner, which is a little awkward. But, but looking straight up, it's, it's just a really surreal experience because you don't feel like you're in the vehicle. Um, you're just surrounded by the outside. Um, what? You know, sun visors. So they, that's a good point. So Elon spent, I would say, a good five minutes talking about the mechanism for the sun visor that they had to engineer for this vehicle. So there is a sun visor that extends downward. But he's very proud of it. And he had this reflective moment while we were talking about the car where he was like, I wonder if maybe we shouldn't have spent so much time overengineering this car.

Like he was having this moment on stage. where he's like, I think maybe we spent too long. Like, we didn't need to do any of this stuff. We should have just made a normal SUV. It has these insane doors that go upward like a limbo. The falcon wings. And there is no real value proposition to these things. So the claim is that, one, they can open in a really tight parking space, cool, I guess.

Two, you can stand up in the door, which I guess helps you put a car seat in and take a car seat out. but like come on like you didn't need to do this they just look cool so it has those of course it has the same power train yeah as the dual motor model s so it is ridiculously fast the um if you order with ludicrous mode which is on $42,000 it does zero to 16 3.2 seconds which is the same as a 9-11 turbo yeah so you're in a giant soccer mom family vehicle yeah and you're raising 9-11 turbos so every time I think about the speed of the car. I think about somebody, like, racing from danger to get to their very fast car. Yeah.

And then waiting for the door to open. And just being like, come on. Yeah, how long does the door take to open? It's a long time. Yeah, the falcon wings are not fast. But those are just the rear doors. How not fast are they? I don't know the exact second.

I watched a vine and they weren't done opening by the time the vine looped. That is insane. Yeah, well, so the- That is dumb. The way the question was posed, on Musk was, um, let's say you're, you're running down an alley and there's someone behind you the packet of gluten. No.

Will they, will they catch you by the time you go to the car? Let's just say, you want to get your kid in the car. And you have to wait 10 seconds? I would, I would put it closer to seven. I didn't time it with a stopwatch, but it's, yeah, it's not fast. But the front doors are also both motorized. Um, so as you approach the car, it has a electronic chauffeur, I think is the way they call it.

or electronic valet where the door automatically opens, then when you put your foot on the brake, the door closes itself. And you can pull the door open if you want to and pull it shut, but it'll open for you. So this car is extraordinarily over-engineered to the point where Elon Musk had this existential crisis on stage. But it's here.

If you order one now, you're going to be waiting a year to get it, because that's classic Tesla. That's the way it happens. But it is actually in a few customers' hands now. But why do they make it? I feel like this is the theme of the show. That's a good question. They made it to protect people from bioterrorism.

Completely the best feature of the car. Absolutely. It's almost Tony Stark-like feature. Elon Musk is so proud of the weirdest thing. So he actually had an assistant bring the actual air filter from the Model X on stage. He's like, look how big this air filter is. It's like, come on. Well, explain the feature.

So he touts that it is the only car in the market with Trump. true heppa air cleaning. So there's no particulate whatsoever when it's in the maximum air cleaning mode. They call it biohazard protection mode or something. You know, because it's ludicrous mode, you know, they really like clever names for features. So if you put the, the, the, never mind. Well, I was talking about. When you go on a long-ass road trip, you and you have all the air from the outside blowing in.

Yeah. You end up with a lot of boogers. Because you're breathing the road dust. So I was still annoying. So, like, I would like that. Fair, fair. I was talking to Ezra Klein yesterday. About bogers?

Yes, about boogers. That's what we talked about when he gets together. No, he was like, you was congratulating us on our traffic. We had this record month. And I was like, oh, you know, we got this big kick at the end with his Tesla stuff. It's awesome. And he's like, telling me how that I was like going through all this stuff. And I was like, it has this biohazard defense mode.

And he's like, do you think Elon Musk is planning an attack in the United States? Because he owns also a space company. Like he's making missiles and then he's making cars that can protect you from airborne weapons. Yeah. And they can just see him be like, no one is safe except for the owners of the Model X, who I have chosen as a member of my master class. Well, he also, yeah. Yeah, the way he said it on stage did not allay any fears either.

Because he said something like, you know, for the eventual apocalypse or something. Like he made it sound like it was inevitable in some way. Well, he thinks it's inevitable. Yes. Rolling my eyes. He called the car a fixer upper, though, because that would be a bigger concern. That's what he says every time someone asks him about Mars. Well, it's a bit of a fixer upper.

It's a bit of a fixer upper. Yeah, yeah, we need to terraform the Model X before we can drive it. Yeah, so you asked who is it, but why did they make it? Why do they make it? So Tesla is using sort of this multi-tier approach in the hopes that they'll eventually be able to get to scale that allows them to produce this 35-5. this mythical $35,000 car, the Model 3, which will commoditize the electric vehicle, the practical electric vehicle with over 200 miles of range and make it so that everybody can feel like this is a car they can actually own. The Model S doesn't get them there. Elon said

that their demographics on the Model S trend heavily male. It's over 75% male, I think. And of course, it's a rich person's car. Yeah, the only people who drive a Model S are the people who wear a dress shirt and a blazer without a tie. Just think about that. That's a car. That's That's who they all are. And they all have a streak of white hair. Yes. So you're describing Eddie Q. You are talking about the Palo Alto mascot.

Yeah. They're grabbing up and down Sandhill Road all the time. They all live in Palo Alto and they're like, you know what? No fucking tie today. Yeah. Eddie Q. Eddie Q. Also, I'm riding a skateboard.

Yeah. An electric skateboard. Yep. Electric skateboard. Everything's electric. Everything is electric in this mythical person's life. No, so the, not mythical. Protypical is the word I was looking for.

So the Model X, they expect to trend more 50-50 male-female, but it isn't any cheaper, right? The signature edition is $132,000, an extra $10,000 for ludicrous mode. And you know all these people are going to have to spec it up with ludicrous mode because that's what you do. So it doesn't push them any further down market, but it does allow them. to address a market that the Model S isn't necessarily appropriate for. Elon feels pretty strongly that, and we'll see if this ends up being true or not, but he doesn't think it's going to cannibalize Model S sales at all. So they've effectively doubled, if what he believes to be true is actually true,

they've effectively doubled their addressable market, which gets them one tier closer to the Model 3. Now, they want to show the Model 3 in 2016, like early to mid-2016, launch it in 2017, we'll see. that still feels really aggressive to me. Because it's a big jump between $130,000 car and a $35,000 car. Yeah. But yeah, they look at this as like this is the next, this is something that we can make, we can afford to make right now that buys this additional addressable market and puts more dollars in our pocket.

Yeah. You know. It makes sense. But they lost all their profit margin engineering with doors. Right. Exactly. And two years. Like this thing was originally supposed to launch in 2013.

Here we are in late 2015. and they've put seven in customers' hands. And if you order one now, you don't get it till then to next year. And where's these seven, like, hand-built by the engineers? Probably. I mean, yes, probably. Like, they weren't. There's not on an assembly line, obviously.

Well, so they are building them on the same assembly, or at least in the same factory as the Model S. But, yeah, I don't know if it's fully tooled up yet. That I don't have the answer to. So I was like when you're in it, you know, a couple of minutes, a couple new minutes. What was it like when you're in it? It's, um, so ludicrous mode.

I was, they had a mix of ludicrous and not a ludicrous model X's. Ludicrous mode is the thing that accelerates like a maniacic. Exactly. Without ludicrous mode, it's still insanely fast. It's zero to 60 in 3.8 seconds in performance trim 3.2 with ludicrous. Either way, that those are supercar numbers. Mm-hmm. But we had the ludicrous mode one.

And when you punch it, it's still that sense of like, oh my God, what the hell is happening to me that I had when I when I was so torquy yeah exactly that I that I that I that I had when I first rode the P85 D and Phil our camera guy was in the back and I punched it without telling him and he he kind of went he went flying back and the camera went back he's like oh my bad I'm like no keep that that'll be good that'll that'll sort of like convey the feeling that you're experiencing right now so there's that and that's that's very cool and that's not something that you tend to get from an SUV of all things um the windshield is super cool The dashboard, I could take it or leave it.

Some people feel really strongly about the giant touch screen in the center. I still think it's not the best interaction method for a driver. But it is what it is. Look, it's a Tesla. And the interior is, you know, meticulously designed. The monopose seats are really cool. It has a true third row. So if you have a big family, if you keep having children.

If you need to accelerate your children. The second row doesn't fold down. The second row doesn't fold down. but there's a button on the side of the second row that pushes it all the way forward and tilts it so that it's really easy to get in and out of the back which seats two more adults. Probably can fit three tiny children.

So yeah, I mean, it's a more practical model S, basically, in almost every sense of the word. I just want to see, like, an anti-Tesla ad where, like, a bio-weapon goes off and the cloud of particulate matter is, like, racing towards somebody. Yeah. And they're just waiting for the door to open.

Just think about that. And they can't make it. That's all I can think about is that image. If I can only get in his car, the bioweapon defense shield will save me. But this ridiculous door is not opening and closing. But if you park. And then like years later, like an explorer is walking through the civilization and they see the one falcon wing door open and the guy is like in the car. The skeleton is laying next to the model Xx.

And he's like, oh, what a tragedy. That's really dark. This is a really dark verge cast. We've murdered a lot of people on this show today. We have. No, but no, the Model X is, you know, I think that, look, the Falcon Wing doors are just the rear passengers, right? So it doesn't matter. Like, you can still get into the front.

It doesn't matter? No, you can, but if you're trying to open the door, you have to be, who has a, who solo drives an SUV, unless it's me in my 2006 escalade? Literally anyone in Silicon Valley who's buying this car. That's who. Fine. All right, we need to end the show because I have to, we have to end the show. Thank you, Chris, for being here. Lauren, I know it's always difficult to be on Skype.

Thank you for being with us. It was fun. Thanks, guys. Christine, you rock. All right, let's get through this. Deeter has taken out my script at the end of the show and just written stop making murder jokes. It's Google Talk. But that was our show.

Thank you so much for listening. I want to thank Braintree for sponsoring today's episode of the Vergecast. Braintree gives you a full-stack payment solution. It supports basically anything you can pay with. Android Pay, Apple, PayPal, Bitcoin, Venmo, cards, whatever's next. Single integration. Just plug it in. across all the platforms with superior fraud protection, customer service, and fast payouts.

Check it for yourself. Braintree, payments.com slash vergecast. Just do it and then take everyone's money. You can follow at Verge on Twitter on Snapchat where the real Verge, where Kirsten has been doing an excellent job. We've been pariscoping like every day, basically. Yeah, we're going to try to pariscope every day. So that's been pretty fun. Hit us up on iTunes.

We have all kinds of new shows. There's Verge ESP with Emily and Liz. There's What's Tech with Chris Plant. Secret. Jim Bankoff, the CEO of Vox Media, was on What's Tech. He recorded it yesterday to do what's online advertising and explain how ad blockers work on our site and what they're going to kill us.

I listened to it. It was great. And then I have a new podcast with Walt Mossberg called Control Walt Delete, which was featured yesterday in iTunes. And Kara Swisher has a great podcast called Recode Decode, which everyone loves. Lena Dunham was just on it last week. So listen to all that.

You can see it all at iTunes.com slash The Verge. YouTube, you can hit us up at Vergecast. I am reckless on Twitter, Deeter's Paclon. I'm at Kirsten Fricenna. Good luck spelling it. Lauren is Lauren good Chris is with me And Chris is Z power

That's it That's a rich cast Thank you so much for listening Rock and roll