The Vergecast - Unlimited data, Galaxy Note 7, and a merch store

Episode Date: August 19, 2016

This week on our flagship audio experience, our cast of tech luminaries Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, Paul Miller, and Dan Seifert break down new unlimited data plans and what they really mean for the consumer. Dan also details the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 after reviewing it this week and Dieter and Paul talk about Google, including the new Nexus phone arriving this year and a new operating system Fuchsia. Halfway through the show we bring back the enlightening Nicola Fumo to give us her take on the tech world this season and what is changing in pop-up shops and tour merch. 02:25 - Data plans 25:38 - Galaxy Note 7 31:34 - Nexus phones 36:15 - Google Fuchsia 41:37 - Hangin' with Nicola Fumo 47:50 - Kanye and Square 55:35 - Apple watch 59:56 - iOS 10 1:04:05 - Paul's "Kobo hype" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship audio experience of theverge.com. The Vergecast is brought to you by a long-running joke that half of you hate. It's just a vodka. Cut through the night. It's just a fact. This is so true. Some of you love it. Others of you hate it.

Did you know that there's a second made-up alcohol that now sponsors the Virdcast? Rock Scotch. Rock-scotch. That's Dieter's management style. Crash in the morning. What is this voice, though? I hear so close in my ear and I look to my left and I see in the flesh. It's Dieter Bone. Hey, hey.

I'm here in New York. Live in New York. I'm Neil Lafitteau. That's Dieter Bone who's here. Paul Miller is here. Paul. Hey. Paul.

I try to order at Chick-fil-A today. Oh, hey. Chick-fil-A line has, they should meet you in the line with iPads. Take your order. Ask me my name. I get to the counter. I'm like, I'm Paul. and they're like, we don't have a Paul.

We have a Bob. They've got it wrong. So the struggle continues. Dan Seafrit's here. I am. Dan, halfway through the show, will magically turn into a special guest. Ooh. That's going to be something.

Who's it going to be? I bet you're already guessing. I bet you already know. Because you're smart. This audience. Anyway, I'm going to like a feisty. It's Tim Cook. Cranky.

Yeah. Tim Cook and I are going to get down. We're going to talk about vodka together. I'm in like a cranky mood lately. I just don't be honest with you. Dieter's noticed. I've gotten yelled at. Yeah.

Oh. I don't usually yell. I'm not like a yeller. I do a good show of yelling. I always hurt the ones we love. I don't know. I just wear it like the slow period in August. I feel like, I don't know.

My instinct is just blow it all up. I'm mad too. I tweet storm today. I didn't put it on the site. I put it on Twitter. What's up? Come on, man. Off platform publishing at its finest.

What did it? Storm about it? About T-Mobile. Nice. Let's start with that. Yeah? Yeah, because I had a two tweet-tweet storm yesterday, and you had, what, like a 7-10, 12 tweet storm today?

It was like six. Yeah, all right. It was properly numbered and threaded and everything. Powers of two. Did you reply to yourself and remove your own name? I did. Oh, threaded. Yeah, so professional.

Tweet tech does that automatically now, by the way. Let's start with data plans. So, what was a couple days ago, AT&T, put out some new ones. Yeah, so they explain. these AT&T things to me. So the biggest change with AT&T was that they are no longer charging an overage when you exceed

your data plan. So if you have a 6 gigabyte data plan, yeah. Instead charging you $15 for another gigabyte, they will automatically throttle you to 128 kilobits, which is like half of 2G. Verizon started doing something similar not that long ago. Verizon has a thing that they call like safety

mode and you have to pay five bucks a month for the privilege of being throttled. Is it really called safety Mo? Yes. So AT&T doesn't charge you the $5 a month. Wow. Good for them. And if you do want more data, you can buy it. It's just not automatic anymore.

How do you buy it? You probably go to the app or they send you a text message and whatever, you know, the usual stuff when you hit the end of your... The usual bad user experience. No, no, it's not going to be a pleasant user experience. Actually, before we get it, we should also, I mean, if we're going to go through the big four, we should also mention that Verizon, there was a report this week that, like, ads, Age reported that they talked to a bunch of app developers and Verizon's like, yeah, if you want to get on deck, we'll, you know, pay us, we'll pay us like one or two bucks a phone and we'll let you just be crapware, have fun. Yeah, Verizon will pimp out your phone for one or two dollars per app.

That's actually kind of like a lot of money. Can you pick like, I'll give you $500. So according to my app on like 500 random Verizon phones. According to the Ad Age article, I don't think any developers actually took them up on it. It was like their strategy to try and like, they were trying to monetize preloaded crapware. And instead they're going to monetize by tracking everything that we do and building that data into their new super combined ad network of AOL and Yahoo. What about an opt-out feature that you can add to your bill called protection money? I would love it if Google would go to carriers and do the same thing that Microsoft does with their Windows stuff.

What's it called Windows Certified? No, it's not certified. It's something, yeah, it's like... You can pay an extra 50 bucks to get a Windows machine that doesn't have garbage on it if you go to the Microsoft store. You can get the regular one or like the cool one. The Microsoft experience, I want to say, something like that. Windows experience, that's what it is.

Yeah, and I would love it if Google would just be like, yeah, everybody who makes an Android phone has to offer that version. They tried it. Nobody bought them. Yeah, I know. I had an HTC1. I had one of those. So Sprint and T-Mobile. So, okay, well, AT&T, so the other thing that AT&T did was it raised the

prices on its lowest data plans and lowered the prices on its higher data plans. So if you are on a, like, five gigabytes are up, you save a little money. If you're on the poor one gigabyte plan, you're actually paying more now than you used to. Right. And AT&T's line is. Everyone just uses the bigger ones anyway. Because it's obviously, like, economically viable. It's a better decision. I got to say, every time we do a data plan story, two things happen that surprise me. One, they blow the hell up. Yeah. We can't write enough about data plans. Just because they're confusing as hell. And they change every three months.

I think that's something they're talking about with T-Mobile. Fundamentally, it's like, that's why it's surprising to me. It's all we're doing is like a new shell game has emerged. Yeah. Like, the carriers are hiding money from you in some new and more devious way. I mean, they're all bullshit as far as I can tell. They're all smoking mirrors. And now they're more nefarious bullshit than ever before.

Which is insane. We thought this was going to get better when we got rid of the two-year contract. And it's just gotten so much worse. Yeah. Right, because they're no longer, they can no longer guarantee the extra money from the subsidy, and they're trying to milk more money out of the phone. So AT&T is doing it by throttling you. Which is, to be fair, what T-Mobile and Sprint do as well. Until today.

We'll get to T-Mobile. No one gives a shit about Sprint. Anybody from Sprint listening to this, please call me and tell me why I should give shit. Oh, man. Remember back in the day, though, and they had all the HTC phones, and it was like super cool to be a Sprint family. The EV-V-D-O, Rev 2, or RevB. It was a big deal to be a sprint fan. Wasn't the pre?

Yeah. Yeah, that was kind of like passed there. Yeah. No, that was like that was the moment. No, no, no, no, no. That was the end of the moment. I just remember I got a pre and I tried to call my mom on the pre. And it was like, I can't hear you really well.

Which piece of this is garbage? Is it the phone? Is it the operating system? The network. There's garbage in your somewhere. It's like, no, mom, all the apps. They're just like web pages. And all your messages are threaded.

By the way, no one's doing that. Okay, I'm sorry. They're all doing it somewhere. Anyway, but that's, it's consistently surprising to me that people care about data plans as much because it is a shell game. I mean, like, I think people care. Data plans are like, you know, the other thing that we always get surprised at is how much interest there is in routers. Because, you know, crappy Wi-Fi and a router is something that everybody relates to. And everybody relates to the pain of paying their cell phone bill.

So, like, when there's new data plans, when there's new options, people want to, you to know what they're going to pay and how much it's going to cost them and how much they're going to get screwed out of every month. I'm guessing, I know I have the same experience with a router and with a data plan where it's like, I saw the ads. It seems like somebody has great Wi-Fi. And maybe most people have great Wi-Fi and great deals on their cell phone bills. But I'm just doing it wrong. And so I've got a bad router and a bad deal. You know? Like, I just didn't know how to, but I'm guessing probably a lot of people end up with bad routers and bad. I mean, because both of them are pretty much like black boxes, unless you deeply nerd out into them. Because they're not, like, accessible.

They're not, like, understandable. I mean, the AT&T will throttle you. Like, the fact that AT&T will make your phone unusable is not the right answer. Well, it's, it's like, I mean, you tweeted this yesterday and Eli that about the fact that they charged by the gigabyte. It makes no sense. It's, it is like the ultimate capitalist, whatever like capitalist came up with that. The defense here is if they don't charge by the gigabyte, people will just use it for their internet, like, at home. Because LTE can sometimes be way faster.

And if everybody does that, the networks will, in fact, not be able to stand up to it. Yeah, what are you saying they should charge by the minute? I don't know. I mean, all I know is, like, there are people that have got legacy Verizon unlimited plans that they're like just hanging out. And they're just using it. They're like, because, you know, Storyo come up would be like Verizon went after a customer that managed to use like 50 gigabytes in a month. They're like, how did anybody do that? That's impossible.

And like a couple quiet people, some of whom work at the verge, quietly raise their hand and be like, I do that all the time. I think we have lots of listeners to do that stuff. Yeah, yeah. Like, people are just like download podcasts and videos all day along on their phones. No, they watch, they like watch TV. I mean, I'm not debating that those people exist and we know them, but like the percentage of people that actually do that, though, is so small.

No, no. The percentage would be huge if we'd got rid of it entirely. Because this is a really good entry point in a T-Mobile. So, Paul, my point is not that they shouldn't meter something and charge you by whatever they meter. But in fact, over time, the rational reason to meter data usage has completely fallen away. And very few people can provide a great answer for why you should meter that other than it's an easy thing to meter. So the cost, like right now you're not using your phone. but the phone network

is connected to your phone. And the electricity it costs to run the equipment that connects to your phone is... It's not like the thing is like... There's not like a pump that's like pumping faster, right?

Like, it's electricity and radio waves and they're connected to your phone. And if you start using data, you might use some fractionally higher amount of electricity. But... The towers don't quite work like that. No, no, but like...

Right now my phone knows where a tower is and a tower knows where my phone is. And they could send a message to each other, but that's different than having, like, I don't have a full slot on their tower right now. No, I know, but what I'm saying. Which is how you can have like full bars sometimes, but not have service if all the slots are full.

I get what you're saying, but it's over time, the cost of delivering the data to you falls to zero, right? The amount of investment they have to put into their network is almost on a fixed curve. Right. Right. They know how much bandwidth. We all as a class are using today.

They can predict with some moderate level of accuracy how much we'll use tomorrow. And then something like Snapchat will happen. And now it's like redo their model. But like they can reasonably predict it. So they're on all their costs are on the front end of the building. And so I get what you're saying about towers and slots. But it's not like when everyone starts using the thing, suddenly the cost of running the network explodes.

They're still paying for all of that stuff. And so if they get more subscribers, the cost of running the network will go up. But the existing subscriber base using the network as it goes up and down, their general amount of cost stays within a fairly fixed window. Yes. Yes. And that's, it's like, so why are we metering gigabytes? There's no, there's no like rational connection to the cost of providing you an incremental

gigabyte and the cost that you pay. Well, I do think... The 21st gigabyte. That's my hypothesis. The 21st gigabyte happens when because you see no repercussion for watching Netflix all day, you do watch Netflix all day. So it's a penalty. That's what I mean. It's not for most others, the 11th gallon of gas, you understand why you're paying the additional fee.

Right. Because it is a true product. It's a tangible thing, yeah. But the 21st gigabyte, by the way, that... That's, if I ever write a pop business book, it will be called the 21st gigabyte. Living is a nerd in the 22nd century. The tragedy of the digital comments. That's it.

21 gigabytes. That's like the worst Springsteen album. I think you nailed it. It's a penalty. It's a penalty. It's not a buying something. It's a penalty for using is what it is. That's like, that's what makes me, like, cranky.

It's like they've set up the system to make you want to use the phone more such that they can, impose penalties on you for using it as much as you want. And speaking of that, you know, I know I have non-standard thoughts on that neutrality. But this is like one of my favorite arguments. Because I don't think the government should be imposing a rule on carriers or providers necessarily of how to run their networks. That said, I hate the way T-Mobile. Right, so this is a same way. As a customer, because they are, by zero rating, video services, but not something like Snapchat, they are, like, promoting this passive consumption.

It's like, you know what you should spend all of your time on? What's safe to spend your time on? Leaning back and watching Hulu. Right. But don't create. Don't upload. Don't create. Be state.

Don't be social. Via vegetable. Well, it's not on that dial. That zero rating thing applies to. to MTV get off the air by the dead communities. That applies like the previous, however many uncarriers that they do. By the way, the uncarrier thing, this one in particular

is the one that reveals that it was there was no like revolutionary motive behind any of it. Not that we ever really thought that there was. Walk us through it. Okay. I believe this is on carrier 12. Yes. Since we're talking on carriers. Team mobile announced today since we're using the base

uncarrier system. Uncarrier a dozen. Team mobile announced today. that it is getting rid of the tiered plans. We're just talking about AT&T's tiered plans and how they throttle you. So now T-Mobile says it's going to be unlimited for everybody and all the time.

They used to have an unlimited plan. They had an unlimited plan, but now they are introducing a new unlimited plan and getting rid of their tiered plans. So your only option is unlimited. It's unlimited data. There's got to be another option. Unlimited text, unlimited messaging.

From the understanding that we have from the announcements today, when these new plans launch, the entry-level cost to get on T-Mobile is going to be $70. Okay. Which is more expensive than their tiered plans were. But the reason this is like zero rating, but it's like the sneaky, creepy way to zero rate is embedded into this unlimited plan are two caveats.

One, you can only tether over 2G. Unless you pay $15. Unless you pay an extra $15 a month. For five gigabytes of limited tethering. Oh, and they charge your rate on a different... Yeah. They put a data cap on your tethering. So they tier that.

And then two, they are putting all of the garbage restrictions on video that they put on their free video plan where they throttle down the quality. Unless you pay $25 per month per line, you can get on HD video. $25 per month per line. Unlimited HD video? Unlimited HD video. But that's per month per line. So the pricing structure on this is kind of crazy. It starts off at like $70 for your first line.

Your second line is $50. The third line is $30. and I think fourth through eight is $20. By the way, John Ledger, like, not eight months ago was like family plans are bullshit. They're just contracts by a different name. Yeah. And now they're pushing everybody towards multiple line contracts. Yeah. So this

is more, it's more expensive to start a line with T-Mobile now than it used to be. You have restrictions on how you can use that data unless you pay more for it. And you have restrictions on what quality of service you're going to get unless you pay more for it. For the content concepts, but this flips

the script for me, because now Snapchat will be unlimited and fine quality, and they'll just degrade my, like, Netflix. Yeah, I mean, depending on your perspective, and that's how it's always been with T-Mobile's zero-rating system, you know, it's either a benefit, or you can look at the long game and see how you're going to end up being screwed by this. Right. But like... So, but the real problem for me is if I want to start, if this thing becomes the norm, like the Contean categorical imperative of wireless plans, choose your action as if you wanted it to be a universal action. If this becomes a universal way that data works, then I want to start up Dieter's cool video site next year, right? Go 95.

Dieter's Sweet Skateport Tricks.com. Now streaming on Go 95. Dieter'sweet skateboard tricks.com. But I want to serve the video myself. I'm not going to use YouTube or whatever. In order for me to run a brand new, successful video or music streaming business, I have to start it up. and then I have to make a business partnership with all of the carriers to ensure that I am part of their video plan. Well, wait, but isn't it the opposite of that now?

Well, I don't know. Oh, it's also working that. How are they going to detect Joe's sweet video service? Wait, let's say it is the opposite of that, right? So let's say they can, they're just automatically all video, they're going to throttle it. Yeah, do they downgrade all video? Do you want people deciding for you? Yeah, do you want your carrier inspecting your packets and making decisions about what those packets

represent and then changing those packets. No. This is why people are ultimately like net neutrality is a free speech issue. I think the Kantian idea, do I want everybody, every company to act like this? Yeah. No. Well, then why are we okay with? I want that's exactly.

I want a market where different companies can come up with different ideas. But like the, we're going to get deep into like our political differences here. But like fundamentally this is not a. free and open market because it is a scarce resource called wireless spectrum that only a few large companies can get. And so your dream of like competition of the marketplace is never going to come to pass. Also, well, that's true. But also, T-Mobile for the longest time, who was the most upstart challenger to the incumbents.

So they were providing the real competition. They were the only company providing real competition to AT&T and Verizon who have effectively the same plans in market. And when one does something, the other does it. Inevitably, like, AT&T and Verizon mirror each other to the point where the FCC has actually looked into whether they collude. So T-Mobile was the national market competitor to them. They were the upstart. And then over time, John Ledger has revealed himself to not be Steve Perry, renegade up, like, rock star of the people.

Well, that was obvious. But to be Joe Belfiore, corporate executive of a large corporation. Sorry, I'm just naming guys with long hair. A very important phone call. Dieter's calling Joe Belfiore, I apologize. A couple minor details here. So, T-Mobile will throttle you if you exceed 26 gigabytes.

Oh, 26 gigabytes. Fine print. Fine print. And, you know, the thing is, with unlimited data plans, I know that we talked about the, you know, if you have a cap, you are conscious of it and you don't do things that you would do if you didn't have the cap. But the reality is,

I don't think most people are conscious of their caps, I think, and they look at their average usage for what they use their phone for, and it's like three to five gigabytes a month if they're a heavy user. You have your certain customers who go way above that, but like the unlimited pitch is such a red herring and so disingenuous to like switch people over into a higher cost model that they don't need with restrictions that their capped plan doesn't have. And that's like why this is like just so icky to me from the outset. that. It's a shell game. Weird to me. Yeah, I definitely think the companies are always going to find a way to get their existing subscribers to pay a little more while it also looks to people from a different service.

I think that everything you guys said in the last two minutes when I was totally in the room was absolutely right. So this is like what Dieter was saying about Verizon is really interesting to me, right? All of these companies are desperate. They know that the money, and this is true of like the broader tech industry. The money is no longer in mobile. There's not a growth market. Yeah.

This is fundamentally why Verizon bought Yahoo. Right. They bought AOL and they bought Yahoo and they're like... Yeah, they're just trying to squeeze more blood out of it. Disclosure, our company is invested in by Comcast. Yeah. Comcast was a cable provider that bought NBC and then NBC invested in Vox Media because they understood that the money in growth was not in providing cable television and wireline internet anymore. And if they could own some chunk of what traveled over their pipes, they could print.

they could probably cut sweetheart deals with themselves, which the FCC prohibited them from doing, but who the hell knows what they do, they could cut sweetheart deals with themselves and eke more margin out of every additional customer on their network. Verizon's doing the same thing, only instead of buying hip new mobile companies, they're making Go-90.

They made Go-90, and they bought fucking AOL. It's just like, I don't quite understand what the idea was there. But you can see, like, all of these wireless companies, T-Mobile's monkeying with their data plans. T-Mobile is playing the squeeze more blood out of an ever-shrinking stone. Like, it's like they're trying to squeeze more profit. And Deutsche Telecom has said T-Mobile is currently running unsustainably. So the pressure on T-Mobile is a business unit.

And that's why we see T-Mobile with new data plans literally every three months. Well, but there was a ton of people. Hang on, it's not just T-Mobile. No, but everybody's on this churned since, like, the two-year contract. Like, we, AT&T is changing their plans every two, three months for sure. But ATDs... Wait, wait. So, wait.

To one... Just to bolster Paul, because I generally disagree with him at net neutrality, but I'm throwing you a bone here, buddy. Part of this is, we got what we wanted from phones. All the phones are the same. They're all... You can buy almost all of them unlocked. Yeah.

Yeah, but you can't. Paul's... I was so sure I should have on silent. John Leisure's calling Paul Angrily. I heard you're a customer. You can buy them virtually all of them unlocked, and you can put virtually all of them on every carrier, depending. Yeah.

We're not quite there. It's like a little squishy. We're getting there. You can do it with the Nexus. You can do it with the iPhone. You can do it with a big player. Actually, like some of that is regressing. The current iPhone is not like universal bands.

Like you need to have the band. This is why I went on my rant about like, if you really do think that the internet is utility, or you think that should be the goal, everything that the wireless carriers are doing is antithetical to that. They're changing the plans for three months. Imagine if your electric bill did that. Like your electric bill plan was completely insane. there is, in fact, lack of compatibility because of this band issue. And, like, it's just bonkers.

And they're deciding what does and doesn't get to get treated on their network equally. So are we, is this an inflection point time, or is this the new normal? Right? Because I would argue. That's the purpose of Uncarrier is to distract you by thinking, oh, my God, revolution. This is great without actually making you realize that it's like, they're just trying to keep it from becoming a utility a dumb pipe that's the point of uncarrier

is to make you think that it's a revolution podcast listeners will know that the only shirt I ever wanted that podcast to have was you're a dumb pipe stupid I will tell you that it is my dream to open a t-shirt shop at the verge we're going to do it one of these days plans are afoot Ross Miller

looking at you buddy it's your job how you doing buddy and I will put that shirt in the store because god damn it you're a dumb pipe Anyway, let's talk about the Galaxy News stuff. I have a bunch of trash to talk about Verizon and AOL, but like in Yahoo. But I mean, that's just about owning the icons on your phone, right? No, it's about ad networks.

The Verizon thing in particular is about ad networks. They need to build an ad network that's competitive with DoubleClick and Google. And they get scale out of both Yahoo and AOL combined to gather more data to sell more targeted ads. And they want their dream is to combine. bind that information with the information they gather about you from your phone and put all that together into like a kick-ass data network that not only knows who you are when you browse the web, but also when you move around in meet space. I just wish I knew what the final nefarious purpose of that was.

Is it like, and then... It's to make you click on a Mac Weldon underwear app. Yeah. Like, that's it. If only we had a Mac Weldon hat on the show today, which we do not. But great underwear, I have to say. They sponsor control ultimately. Great, so it's so comfortable, anti-microbial.

I don't remember the ad read. That's a free one, Mac. I don't know. To me, it's just like they're done with the phone. Yeah. And now Verizon's trying to get on the screen of the phone and monetize what's on the screen of the phone. Yeah.

The way that Comcast was done with TV, and then they got on the screen of the TV. It's the same terrible process. All these carriers are done. But that said, the shit that connects to these god-awful networks run by greedy corporate operatives, it's getting real good.

Yeah. This is the positive side of the wireless world. Yeah. Is things like the Galaxy Note 7. So I'm just going to put it out there. I'm going to say it right up front, and we can break into it. Dan scored the Note 7 higher than the iPhone success. The iPhone success, I like to call it.

Got a 9. I gave it a 9 last year. The new ones obviously around the corner, but you give the Note 3 a 9.3. I did. They're Note 7. Yeah, Note 3 went back in time. Now that we know everything that we know. I believe under our current reading system, the Note 7 is the highest rated cell phone we've ever reviewed. That makes sense.

And it's an excellent device. I think it's very worth that praise. It's an excellent design. It's just too expensive. It's beautiful to look at. It's got a gorgeous screen. It's got really fast processor. This screen is so intense that it's hard to look at.

You have to adjust yourself to the screen. We have talked a lot about pixel density and screen lamination, and it's, they got, all the way there where it looks like you're touching a glowing piece of paper. It's wild, yeah. And I mean, you're getting the best camera you can get right now on a cell phone. You're also getting water resistance. And if you want it, you also get an S-pen that does some funky tricks if you're interested. The whole gif thing where you can like capture a video to make a gif.

The fact that that requires the pin. It's ridiculous that it's tied to the pen. But it's a cool trick. And it'll scan your eyes, which is another cool trick. Does it work? No, that's a stupid trick. Oh, that's a stupid trick. Sure.

I'll give you that. You've played with this? But, you know, the thing that that gets me about the Note 7 more than anything else is, I know that there's a couple people who disagree with me on this, but like, as a beautiful, well-designed object, it is so radically outclassed the last year's iPhone that I don't even know what to say about it. It's like, it is bonkers how much better Samsung's design is than Apple's design. And not only is it a good-looking design, it's, like, remarkably efficient.

And you put it next to an iPhone or iPhone 6 Plus or another big screen. phone and the Note 7 is like way narrower, way smaller, but it still has the same big size screen. It fits in your hand so much nicer. Nobody's beat the 5 yet. Yeah. No, that's 4. Are you kidding me?

Five is better than the 4. iPhone 5. Crazy. iPhone 5 is better than the iPhone 4. All of you are crazy. The better screen proportion. But the 4 was more beautiful. No, the 5 was more beautiful.

You're all of them are crazy. You're a dumb pipe. You're all nuts. I just love the 5 because I got mine, I got mine Rianna-Dy, so it was orange. I mean, just, that was cool. It's like if you saw them a little bit farther apart, the 6S plus, they kind of seem like the same size. Until you hold them. And then you hold them and you get them close.

You're like, oh, the iPhone's a surfboard. Yeah. Like, I'm going to catch them ways. This thing is beautiful. Yeah. But tell me about Samsung's software problems. So, Samsung's perennial software problems are twofold. One, its modifications to Android are not as elegant as Android itself.

And two, But they're like way less, though. We should sit with that. Does it still make water drop sounds or do you fuck with it? Every year, Samsung tells us that they've cleaned up and made touch with simpler. And every year are like, really? And then we look and it's like, okay, yeah, a little bit. They're like, they're making small, like, subtle changes to it.

But it's still, like, fundamentally, like, a little bit touch-wiz. Yeah, I mean, it's not to the point where it gets in the way. A little bit touch-wis. Of, like, the experience of the phone. The more nefarious problem is Samsung is still in the pocket of every U.S. carrier. and every phone that you can buy right now or tomorrow when it goes on sale, we'll have crapware from Verizon or T-Mobile or Sprint or whatever. They won't even offer it unlocked.

They will offer it unlocked. But not right away. Not right away. We don't know when. They did tell me that they're going to come out with an unlocked version. They would not say when. Yeah. I mean, just scrolling on Google Maps on this screen because of the curve.

Uh-huh. I mean, the curve is useless, but then it's also the best thing. Yeah. Well, so it isn't useless because it makes the phone narrower. You use the S7 edge, right? Somehow I am less, I'm getting fewer edge taps on this than I did with the S7. Yeah, I would agree with that because the curve on the note 7 is less aggressive. It's a, it's a tighter curve, and it's not as obvious of a curve.

Right. And I think they also tweaked a lot of the software. To just bezelist. It's pretty much on the sides. It's virtually bezelist because of the curve. Paul just looked up the Aza Salon. Oh, I did not do that. It's an accident.

A hot new cut? I actually do need a haircut. You should get the Mr. Robot cut. I think you'd look crazy with that haircut. Like totally shave sides and then just a really long wild hair on the top. You can do it. I'm trying not to go very aggressive. I'm in my 30s now.

I want this phone. So, let's see if I can take a picture of you and John here. I don't know what the iPhone 7 is going to be like. But if you're buying a phone today, you really can't be the next seven. Also, if you're buying a phone today, stop it. The Note 7 is legitimately might be the most beautiful phone I've ever held, but the iPhone's coming out and the Nexus phones are coming out real quick. Just hang on for a month or two.

That's not to say that there's a guarantee the iPhone and the Nexus phones will be better. The No 7 might end up being King of the Hill, but at least see what's out there. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I just feel like we kind of know what's going on with the iPhone. Yeah. Yeah, we do kind of. And it's just getting uglier.

Like every new leak, it's like, come on. Yeah. Did you see the blue one? Did you see the blue league? I didn't see the blue league. Oh, it's so bad. And like the 6 plus just looks, it looks like God off. It looks like if Best Buy had like a Best Buy edition color.

It's going to be the 6S.E. Plus. You think so? They're saving that 7 for a real thing. You believe it? I've totally believed it. But like what about next year when it's the 10th iPhone? They're not going to do an iPhone X?

What if they call it the iPhone 10? Yeah, the iPhone 10 with an X. You think they would go to 7 to 10? I mean, I mean, it's been dumb. I guess no Windows Windows went to 10

oh man that's like the saddest to Microsoft fanboy burned Apple is like you went 7 to 10

we got all the way to 8 for well tell me about Nexus phones so I'll buy one on the show

eventually where that happens every year I also do want to talk about a few shows yeah yeah no we're on the list

don't you fret the leak came out on Android police I believe so yeah they had some photos that were like hilariously cropped so you couldn't do the table was and it's like all metal

there's like glass on the top on the back it's got it looks it's made by hTC it looks like a like a better looking it looks a six p it looks like an hcc a nine it's a recycled a nine design it looks like a nine but with a fingerprint skinner on the back the big one and the small one are going to supposedly have identical specs um and you know we all assume it's going to be the first like full on like, yo, we're a daydream phone now. Yeah. And I mean, that's kind of all you need to know. I mean, we'll see what they decided to do with the processor.

But, like, it, like, basically, like, ever since, I don't know, the Nexus 4, there's been, like, I don't know if I trust that the Nexus phones are going to look good. And then we got the five and everybody's like, that looks cheap. Oh, wait, I love it so much. Yeah. And we got the Nexus 6, which is like, the most insane phone. Everyone yelled at me. Like, there are still people out there on Twitter who are like, the Nexus 6 was the best

phone ever. Oh, it was just, and then, you know, they, like, they recovered and they made the 6P and the 5X and those are great. So, but there's, like, no guarantee that the next Nexus phone is going to be, like, a reasonably good-looking phone. It's like HCC's last shot. Yeah, this is why, I mean, do you, HECC just doesn't. So the rumor is that, you know, HGC's logo is not going to be anywhere near this.

It's going to be brand at Google. Yeah. So HGC is, like, going back to its white label ODMVs. Is HGC's camera going to be anywhere near it? The camera? I'll give HECC. You know, I was pretty critical about the HECC10 because I don't think it did enough to stand out this year, but its camera is not, its problem. Its camera's fine.

It's not Samsung good. Okay. It's like compatible with the G5. It's as good as the iPhone's success camera. Okay. Last year, now that the M9, that was a dumpster fire camera, and every camera before that. All right. Yeah.

I'm going to end up buying all of these phones. I don't even know why I pretend on this show anymore. I traded my 6P 4 or 5X. You're a maniac. I feel pretty good about it. What are you got a six? I got to be honest. You're wearing an Apple launch.

What do you got? I got an iPhone 6 in my pocket. The 6D design has not aged well with me. Really? It's so big and clumsy, especially now that you have things like what Samsung's doing with efficiency and size. And it's like the 6P is like, you know, you describe the iPhone as a surfboard. Yeah.

It's exact same way. I just can't believe Apple's just can charge into another year. I mean, they're going to make a big deal out of the camera. That's my feeling is they'll make a big deal out of the camera, right? That's all the leaks show this huge, bulky camera. That's because Samsung's eating their lunch. on the camera. Since the iPhone 4, Apple has led the smartphone camera race.

And in the past year, they're not leading anymore. And so, like, they have to, like, if they want to reclaim that title, put all their weight in the camera. Just what does Johnny have doing? That's all I want to know. What's he up to? Does he look at the phone? Does he ever come down there anymore?

He's only on a basement of the spaceship. You see that we made a phone. He's trying to make a car out of glass. I can do it. I know it's possible. I believe it of myself. Is that tweet from Rans? I think it was like my most retweeted tweet,

but I just retweeted him. He basically took a picture of the Apple mouse with the lightning port charger on the bottom. And he said like, looking at this, it's totally possible that Apple screw up the headphone jack situation, right? I'll admit, I'm just going to,

I'm going to wait for the new iPhone and I'm going to get it. That's the kind of terrible person that I am. Which one do you have now? You have a six? I've got a six with a broken screen. You got headphones plugged into your phone right now. The charging port hardly,

like ever works like the lightning connector is walking. I'm confused why you have headphones plugged into your phone right now. I don't know. What are you listening to? I was listening to a podcast. You're on a podcast. Oh, you're not wearing those headphones. All right. Here's what I was just listening to another podcast.

Battery life. I'm listening to what stack right now. Battery life. I'm using this Apple battery case. Yeah, I would not expect any difference. They're going to make it thinner. It's going to have worse battery life. There's a quick charging rumor. There's a wide. Well, water, I mean, we've talked about these rumors. Did you say there's a well water system?

There's a water resistant. Oh, it has well water. That'd be great. Yeah, I feel like I could get really mad in a couple years, but right now I'd just be, I'd just be fine with getting a phone that's not old. We've got to talk about two more Google things. Fuchsia. Tell me about Fuchsia, and we got in Dieter reviewed duo. I've been wanting another operating system from a big player for a long time.

MacOS 10 is at this point almost as old or older than the classic Mac operating system was when they switched it to 10. But it's based on Unix. Windows is old. Linux is a clone of Unix and that's what Android's on. Wow. It is. What do you think? I'm not saying it's wrong.

That's not throwing shade. That's just like exactly why Linus built it. Yeah. It's a clone Linux. or clone units. They've progressed in different directions. Oh, sure, sure. But I'm just saying there's like,

our operating systems are based on very old ideas and there's got to be new ideas out there. So when is a big company going to make a new operating system and try some new ideas? And Google, it might just be a side project, might just be a weird thing, who knows how important this is to the company. But they are making an operating system.

It's based on like a tiny little micro-colonels, like 15-kilabyte kernel. And it sounds like a lot of the design is based on, well, kind of like based on real-time operating systems. So it could run on really small, low-end hardware. It could probably run in cars. It could run on a Google Glass, I bet. It's going to run on desktop and phone. So they're taking basically an operating system, a kernel called LK that was designed for just embedded devices, like doing one-off programs.

and then they're adding all the features into it to make it a full operating system that would run on phones, desktops. It's going to be running on a Raspberry Pi pretty soon. It actually works. I compiled it and ran it on my computer, which is crazy for like an operating system project to be something you can download and compile

without too much struggle on afternoon. Like it's very minimal and slick and modern in a lot of ways, which is cool and exciting. What's it for? That's the $10,000. So one of the things that they're doing, you guys know React Native? No. So Facebook made this framework called React for making web apps.

But then they made this thing called React Native where you can use JavaScript to design apps and use kind of very similar tools and code to write your iOS and Android app. Google is doing a similar thing with their Dart programming language that you can make apps that with very little modification will run on iOS and Android. And that platform, it looks like, is what they are building support for in FUSHA. So it does seem like they are going to want

iOS Android-type apps on this, so whatever that means. Also, it's being built by two people who worked on, one of them worked on WebOS, both of them worked on BOS, one of them worked on Danger, Hip-Top. So just not, I'm just not a grand history of massive success. Oh, they also worked on Android.

They, well, yeah, of course. Is it Matthias? Is he worked on? No. They're definitely not at the, can I ask a question? They're not the UI line. Yeah, I mean, they haven't even gotten to the point where Matias would come up right. Where's Matias been at?

He's been doing design conferences and like. Dude wasn't at Google I.O. He wasn't an I.O. But they didn't really do anything in Nugut, right? No, the design is pretty much the same. Yeah, and he, like, invented material. design and now he's on a boat. We're wearing a sweet shirt.

If I had been like, you know what? Material design. The entire industry will look like this tomorrow. Which is effectively what happened with material design. I talked to him about a year ago. There was Google held a design conference in New York. And his job now is to make sure the rest of Google understands material design. It's like what I got out of him.

I mean, it is the dominant design language. Pieces of it are everywhere. Yeah. Like, even like Apple's stuff is starting to like, Do the layering thing in that way and they obviously don't want anything to do with like they're very different But that concept of like layered information is just appearing constantly everywhere as far as I can tell He just did a profile with Fasco talking about material design cards I'm saying if you invented material design Where do you go from material design?

Inmaterial design you go to a bone intangible design intangible immaterial design. That's good. All right we got a break for an ad Dan, it's been a pleasure. I'm going to turn into a special guest. Can you go ahead and just do a spreadsheet of carrier data plans for me? It'll be the top post on the site for a week. Go get it done, man. You stuck your own grave out of that joke. Get out of here.

And now, Citibank. The Vergecast, as you know, is supported by CityCards with Android Pay. How cool is it that we live in a world where you can use the same device to listen to the Vergecast and buy your morning coffee, groceries, and more? Did I mention that it's a super fast way to pay? Just use your city card with Android pay at the register. Get in, get it, and get going. Download the Android Pay app on Google Play

or visit city.com slash Android Pay to get started. Android Pay is available for eligible city, consumer, credit, and debit cards. Guess who's here? Nicola Fummo is here. She's back. I'm back, baby. Gracing the offices of Vox Media with her presence. Dropping in.

Yeah. You were just here. Like literally, Andrew is like, Nicola's going to be here tomorrow. I know. Well, I'm doing a process. for RACT that requires a little bit of in-office time. Yeah.

So I was like, well, they're recording Bridgecast. Come say hello. I'm happy you're here. I'm happy to be here. I think the audience is crazy. They're in their cars right now, swerving all over the place, screaming. What's going to? I feel like literally the segment on the sheet here is titled, Hangin' With Nicola Fumo.

I think it should be called Fumo Update. Where have you been? What have you been, like, wandering? Yeah. Last I left you, I couldn't buy a laptop and I was leaving for a month. Now I'm back. I own a laptop. I'm leaving for another month. Where are you going? I'm going to temporarily relocate to Los Angeles. It's all happening.

But nothing about that relocation is temporary. Yeah, that's what everyone keeps telling me. I don't know if the listeners know this, but the two great axes of creative person migration in this world right now are New York to L.A. and San Francisco to Portland. Yeah. And eventually the Portland people are going to move to New York. York because that someone has to live here. Honestly, I'm dying to find what is the Portland Austin right now that isn't where they are.

Like, well, I don't know what that, is it Detroit? I don't know what that city is, but I really want to find it. That's where I want to go. Detroit's like a great city, good Midwestern, tough town. But like Austin is like warm weather, cheap wranglers. That's a thing. Tacos. I don't know what cheap wranglers, but it's in my mind.

That's more of like an Arizona state thing. And Portland's like beautiful scenery. Yeah. Yeah, because you got to get that nature element in with. Yeah. Okay, so where I've been? Minneapolis. The nature element of Minneapolis is like, it snowed, so we built a system of tunnels.

Yeah, they also refused to let anybody build houses next to the lake because they wanted it to be public land. And so all the lakes in Minneapolis have walkways and parks around them. Don't you have like 10,000 lakes? Actually, it's like 15. They undercoded. I'm just saying, why be superfective of one lake? 15,000? Yeah.

There it is. I went to Minneapolis. and enjoy a lake. The gold little Macbook. It happened. It happened. Can I actually do all the things that you wanted to do now?

Yeah. We are getting along. We're getting along. Yeah. All right. I bought it a case. You know what I mean? Treat it good.

It treats me good. Because you bought that computer and you gave it back. Yeah. And then I bought more computers than I gave them back. Which one would you buy? Various other iterations of the MacBook. And then I bought.

I bought this current one that I owned while I was home in Milwaukee from a Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin Apple store, which was a delight to walk into. And I saw so many moms with Apple watches. And this one mom and her teenager were trying to buy a new phone. And the mom was clearly all up on the tech news. And she was like not letting the girl pick it out. It was like watching a mom not let the girl pick out her prom dress style oppression about the iPhone. Really? Which one did she end up buying? I don't know. I wasn't listening to that close.

My mom, I was just home. My mom went to go trade in her iPhone 5. And she was like, I want the 5S.E. Mm-hmm. And Apple refused to sell it to her. What? Why? She's like, the Apple store guy was like, why do you want this phone? Like, if you get a new phone, you should get the 6S because it has like, it's bigger, a faster, better camera.

He's like, this is basically the same thing. And she's like, okay, I'm going to go. Oh, my God. I was like, how do they blow it that badly? That's insane. You could have sold a phone. Isn't your job to sell a phone? That's weird.

Yeah. So she has this like broken five and I just like send her back to the store to get a new one. But they sent her away. Like she came back. I was like, do you get new phone? She's like the guy told me not to get it. That's weird. It's like Apple though.

They're building trust to sell you the more expensive phone. Uh-huh. Anyway, what phone did the mom and her daughter under buying? I don't know. I wasn't eavesdropping that hard. I just was like, it was something I couldn't avoid and then I was like, oh, it's this weird. Oh, I have a question for you. Did you see the story today about Apple stores?

No. no longer call them Apple stores. Oh, what are they? It's not Apple Store with Capital S. It's like Apple the Grove. Apple Midtown. Oh, Apple Spring Street. Yes.

And so it is an Apple store, but it's not the Apple store. Oh, that's very fashion retail. So, call it by like the city name or the city name. So if you go shopping for an iPhone in Soho at one of those stores, would you say, I'm going to Apple? Yeah. Or would you say Apple's, I'm going to Apple Soho. Wait, is it the location? Can I just say that trying to get the headline for this story was a blast.

Apple stores are still Apple stores, but they're not Apple stores. That's good. Yeah, because people on the internet really read into capitalization. Yeah. Would you call it the one in Williamsburg is in a formal bagel shop? Wait, has it opened? It's open. Oh, yeah.

Oh, it just opened. It's very insane. And I just think of it as like where the bagel store used to be. So it's like really weird to walk down the street and be like, that 100%, you can still kind of see where, like, the sign was. Used to be bagel, now apple. Well, it's Apple's apple bagel.

Apple bagel store. Oh, wait, the bagel store. Yeah. I used to eat there when I lived in Williamsburg. Well, now you could buy and return any number of computers there. Oh, that's so weird.

You know how, like, in, like, when you're driving and you see, like, a McDonald's next to a Taco Macs at KFC or whatever? The New York City equivalent of that is a Whole Foods, an Apple store, and an equinox. And all three of those opened, like, together, hugging in that area of Williamsburg. I live in in New Jersey Mall. Yeah. Like it's like you walk down the street, there's a G-star Raw, there's a Levi store, there's an Apple store, and there's like

a very nicely done Dunkin' Donuts that makes it look more like it belongs there. That is the funniest Dunkin' Donuts. I call Williamsburg the West Village of Brooklyn and that it feels okay. No, the West Village is definitely cooler. Like it's a New Jersey mall. It's fine, which is fine. You don't like to accept Williamsburg for what it is. Like you can't fight it and then everything's fine. It's time to leave there. That's what I know. So you've got a story here that you want to tell us about, about Kanye and Square. Oh, well, Kanye, I'm so sick of talking about merch this summer. Oh, my God. I wish I'd never had to say that word again. Kanye is opening 21 consecutive pop-up shops this coming weekend, Friday the 19th, just Sunday the 21st, all over the world. And the exclusive payment method

in the way that you would have like a party, like sponsored by Baccar, you know what I mean, the exclusive is Square, which is at first I was like, oh no, but how are like kids who don't have checking accounts going to pet, you know, they have cash whatever, but I emailed Universal Music Group and found out you can give them cash. What will they do with it? I mean, that's the thing that's like, who is the

bank, who is the Monopoly Man bank teller? Like, who's going to collect and store this cash at these Kanye stores? I've accepted cash payments with Square. Yeah. Feels really weird. Yeah. Because they need to put the cash somewhere. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's the thing. It's just like. I didn't have a cash issue, so I just like made a little pile of cash on the lab? Like, are they going to put it in a bag? Was this back when you were like a potato farmer? No. Okay. No. Oh, you run at the art gallery.

At the art gallery. So what you're hearing on the show is Paul's art gallery. There's just a stack of cash somewhere. Somewhere. If you can find it, let me know. Well, that's like, that's very Kanye, right? It's like very future retail. Yeah.

You wave your phone at it and what's he selling? Just easy stuff? Imagine like the same that has been all summer, like t-shirts, jean jackets, et cetera. Do people normally buy these things online? Well, so we're in a merch revitalization, Aaron. So since... All of us are looking at each other. Meanwhile, literally yesterday I wrote like, it's over and you're all looking at me like, huh?

So I guess... That's why you're on the show. That's why I have to keep talking about it. Can I ask a fashion question? Yeah. So I want to get the Levi's commuter jean jacket that comes with like the... the technology in it, the fabric, touchable fabric stuff. I'm very excited about it.

But I'm very bad at fashion, obviously. And up to now, like, my daily driver is a blue pair of blue jeans. What do I do about the jacket? Because I don't want to be wearing denim and denim. Do I need to, like, do I need to completely blow up my pants strategy? Don't they have a darker jacket? Buy the darker jacket. I don't know. I wonder if you could get, like, a really dark rinse for the jacket.

Yeah. And or you might need to alter your gene color. That's what I'm saying. I got a darker jeans or black chains. Or I could go full data. Actually, has living in SF changed your style at all? The last time Joel Johnson was here,

he was full Canadian tuxedo. Really? Just denim on denim on denim. That's amazing. And then he was like, I want to write for the first. Like, sent Paul pitch. No. Put up a post.

No, it's open. Wait, tell me about this merch thing. What is a merch revitalization? Oh, my goodness. I don't know what either of those words we do. Merch, as in tour merch as in concert merch, has gotten this kind of like fashiony makeover. So everyone from Kanye, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez,

is selling like T-shirts that aren't just like a screen print. They're like a whole, like they're getting designers to design them for them. And they're working with artists and they're selling like, Selena Gomez is selling jean shorts with patches on them, her show. Like whereas you used to go to a show and you'd buy like a T-shirt. Now you can buy all this. You can buy everyone of Selena Gomez's tattoos as a temporary tattoo. You can, it's like kind of crazy.

So it's basically, are they like limited runs? So that's what Kanye's been doing is like each location will have a short term. We'll only have like what you can get there that day. And then he'll release like one shirt online. You know what I mean? So it's still, when it started out in like February, March, April, May, it was rarefied because it was like they only sold this. I have it. Like no one else has it.

And it was cool because it's kind of like a low entry point. But you can still get that luxury thing where it's like, but I haven't, you don't because there's only 200 or something. But it costs $40. Well, but now it's becoming so, like Justin Bieber has tour, Justin Bieber's tour merch, not like Justin Bieber as a designer, is sold at Barneys, at Urban Outfitters, and starting Monday at Forever 21. So to me, it's like, well, that's just completely diluted.

In less than a month, you went from Barney's to Forever 21. So now wearing like a purpose tour shirt doesn't, it doesn't mean literally anything. Yeah. You know, my dream for The Virgin is to start a merch store. I want to run it. I want that to be my next full-time job. My favorite. I went to a meatloaf concert after Robo Cup in Mexico City.

Chill. And I've got knockoff meatloaf tour merch. I got a black t-shirt with Bad Out of the Hell on it. And it's a very important item to me. It's a cool look. It's a current luck. At that specific moment, could I have gotten that specific knockoff? Yeah.

T-shirt. Yes, it means something in that moment. Yeah. Give me one second. We're going to come back. Did you know the single router model just doesn't work for our increasingly high bandwidth world? It's simple physics, like light waves. Wi-Fi waves don't go through walls well.

Imagine asking a light bulb in your living room to light your master bedroom. What you need is a distributed system. What offices have had for years? Considerable work and expense. IT guys. probably the people listening to this, putting in APs, you know, those things. But you can just buy ERO, which gives you enterprise-grade Wi-Fi system your home just a few minutes. You just download the ERO app in your iOS standard device and it'll walk you through each step of the process.

It's quick, easily, and painless. Actually, I just did this. I just put this in my parents' house. It was those things. Was it amazing? It was quick? It's quick. Is it Wi-Fi that works?

Yeah. That's all I want. It's so much better than what they had before. It's actually They're getting all of the bandwidth Out of their terrible 18T for subscription Like you can actually get 25 down Out of their system now

Which is never before And it's like a big ramly of the house Anyway, you just down this app you put it You put it in, you drop the ERO's where you want You push the button, you say I'm adding an ERO The ERO like looks around And the app says this is a good place for it Or this is a bad place for it

And you like move it. It's super simple It's also really easy to manage You manage network from palm of your hands So you know how many devices are connected at any given point, as well as the internet speed you're getting from your service router. You can also easily create and share a guest network. There's also profiles, which I didn't use with my parents, because I don't see any reason to window their phones with access.

But if you have a family, you can, like, set up profiles and put people's things in a profiles and set timers and limits and alarm clocks. You can cut off your kids. That's all I'm saying. Any way you want. Eros protected with state-of-the-art WPA-2 encryption. Controls the hardware and the software in the entire network. and ensures you're always secure.

Traditional routers don't push software up to the customers, so they left vulnerable to cyber attacks, scary phrase, just to feel the fear. But ERO updates automatically so that you not only have the latest features, but the latest security at all times. They also have incredible customer support. The customer is really invested in the support. You can call, get a hold of a Wi-Fi expert within 30 seconds.

If you have any worries about your other connected devices during setups, ERO's experts will walk you through it. And they can also help you if you're not sure how many EROs are right for your home. So there's, like, the one pack and the three-pack, but you can, like, add as many as you want. 90 euros. So if you have like pretty flaky Wi-Fi, just like buy an arrow. Pretty good. If you a big house, get an euro. It's like the thing to do. So go to eero.com, select the amount of euros that you wish to buy. Get ready to pay for those euros. Then select free shipping or

overnight shipping and then enter the code verge and then the shipping will be free, but you'll still pay for the euros. But then your Wi-Fi would be better and you'll be happy to spend money. So you're getting a deal on shipping because of your buddy's at the verge. I like it. All right. Euro stuff. Nicola, I got other stuff on this list with you. Yeah. Okay. Why do you want to talk about?

What do we have time left to talk about? So I actually saw a note today that the Apple Watch, you and I have like a long history with this watch. Oh, that's where it all begins besides roller skating. That's true. The Virgin Rap team went roller skating together. Nicola and I became friends. But the watch is like. That's where our professional relationship.

Yeah, that's where it really came together. The Apple Watch, I don't think we wrote about this. I think I just saw it on one of the Mac sites. Sold out everywhere, every color, every configuration. Not available right now. It's like... Is that just because they didn't restock it? Yeah, because there's a new one coming out.

Yeah. So it's going to have the GPS. They wanted to put the cell radio in it and decouple it from the phone, but they couldn't pull it off in time. And so that's the story with the Apple Watch. Yeah. You sound like you're really tired of talking about it the way I'm really tired of talking about merch. We talked about it last week.

and like, I don't know, I'm having a super hard time getting super excited about it. I've been wearing my Apple Watch every day since July. Yeah. Tell me about it. I don't know why. I was going on this trip and I don't know why I brought it with me because I famously hated it. Yeah. And I started wearing it every day and I think I started to expect less from it and I treat it more like a fitness tracker that's going to let me know about text messages and emails than I, I don't know.

like what I wanted from it before, but now that I expect less, it delights me more. And I tweeted this and I got so many people saying back the same thing. Yeah. And our beloved Sam Sheper also, I think, said something similar. And it's just in the air. I think the Apple Watch is in the air. No, I think the expectations around the Apple Watch went launch were sky high. It's going to be the new iPhone.

It's going to change everything. It will replace your iPhone. We'll have apps. It'll do. And no one uses any of that stuff. And the two features that work, people sort of like. It has notifications and it measures your heart rate from time and time. Which, by the way, you can get from like a $100 fitness tracker.

Of course. Yeah, you used to have a pebble steel, right? I had a pebble round. Pebble time, steel round. This Apple Watch guy gets more activity information than the pebble. So that's why, even though I aesthetically like the pebble better. Yeah. Which Apple Watch do you have?

It's black sport. Yeah. Murdered out. black on black. Wait, is that the sport? No, you have the nice one. You have the stainless steel one. That's like the sport is not shiny.

That's a thing I do. Well, I have a sport band. Yeah. Is that the only band you use? Yeah, I have a colorful one that I picked out that is a bad choice that I made. It's the purple and blue one and doesn't make any sense with anything I wear ever. And then I have the black metal one. Yeah.

But I don't really use that because I look like a businessman. man. Which couldn't be. So why do you say it's research? You're just seeing it everywhere. Yeah, and I started noticing it everywhere. And I don't think it's just because I'm keeping my eyes out. I think it's real.

I think more people are wearing Apple Watches. Do you ask them what they do with it? Because I always ask everybody I see it. And now I see a lot of people with it, so I have stopped asking. But the answer that I consistently get notifications, everyone's like, I run around a lot at work, so I just look at my wrist. or it tracks my heart rate. When I was on my big trip and using a car,

it was also very nice to drive a car wheel and see like a buzz and be like, oh, what's that? Okay, now I know we're not meeting anymore. You know what I mean? The thing has changed. Because I definitely do not know how to drive and look at a phone at the same time.

So the Apple Watch is terrible for me for driving because however I hold the steering wheel in order to get the screen to turn on to actually see it. I'm like, You put it on the bottom of the wrist. It's a big move. Androidware is way better for that.

Yeah. Well, so I will buy a new one if they have an always on screen. It's not going to happen. You have anything that's going to happen? What would make you buy a new one in September when they come out of any ones? I probably won't. You probably won't. No, probably not.

There's no one feature that you want from this thing would make you buy a new one. If they put an always on screen on it, I'd buy a new one instantly. I'm happy. Yeah. All right. Apple Watch. Happy enough, you know. Yeah.

And then you have an iOS 10. line here. Tell me what your thoughts? Well, I remember when I first opened it. Yeah. And I was excited. So you have it on your phone. You have the beta? Yeah. And I wasn't crazy about it. I don't really love that notification screen. And I think it's weird how many clicks you have to do to get to where you want to go. And I feel like the camera opens really slow everywhere. But it's a beta. But yeah, I think that's hopefully not forever. So I have a problem with the notifications. I have always had a problem with notifications in iOS. I thought iOS 10 would fix it.

It did not. So when you're on your lock screen and you get a notification and you want to look at it, you slide it to the right. Yes. And then you unlock your phone. Uh-huh. When you are in your notification screen and you want to do the same thing with the notification and you slide it to the right, you end up in the widget screen.

And so instead you tap it. And so it looks exactly the same on the lock screen as it does on the notification panel. And so if you're looking at a notification, you have to just know whether or not your phone is unlocked. And I am constantly like trying to do a thing to a notification and guessing wrong. Yeah. I know, me too. And it never really opens in the right place anyway.

It's like, here's that email. It's like, oh, that email. And then it's like, okay, I'm on Outlook. Like, let me get to that email. I think the best iOS was the late, probably 2014 into 15. And that's when it, like, the phone was still delight. you're like, oh my gosh, it could do that. Like, that's when I remember being like, wow, like this is, this is surpassing what I think a phone can do.

And now it's just kind of like, why isn't Snapchat opening? I don't think I've, I don't think I've been able to take like a speedy, like a speedy snap since downloading this thing. I mean, yeah. But now Instagram stories. Beta is a beta. Yeah. Oh, Instagram stories. Are you converted?

Are you converted? I honestly don't know what to do. I love Instagram stories. Yeah, you've been using them. I mean, I went on a trip and I was like, I should use them. I used it. I haven't used it since I came home. I was home.

Yeah, I was back in Madison. Madison's fucking weird now. Why? Well, I don't want to give away this whole story. Wait, I went to mad. Okay. Yeah. But it says home.

It's like my 10-year law school reunion and all my friends. Madison is exactly the same, except it is basically Silicon Valley now. Tell me more. There is a huge. No. Stop it. It's not like a secret. It's going to go up a day.

I gotta write this whole thing. It's not like a secret. There is a major software company in Wisconsin. There's a huge software company in Wisconsin. I won't name it for Dieter, but everybody listening is going to figure it out. The huge software company in Wisconsin, they own a huge chunk of a particular enterprise market. What? What are you doing?

It's not a secret. Anyway, so I'm back in Madison, and they have exploded. They built a new campus. The architects were the guy who designed Microsoft's campus and the guy who designed Disney World. There's a working farm on the campus. It's a little bit out of Madison. But the employees, for all software engineers, they're building, like, crazy high-rise apartment buildings all over Madison to house them. There's, like, fancy restaurants all over town.

But they don't want to drive to work, so they run the same kind of white unmarked buses they have in the valley. They run to Facebook and Apple and Google. They run them to this campus. Wow. And it's like the whole town is, like, buzzing about this. I want to write about it, so Dieter's not only say what it is, but anybody can figure it out. I went to Madison, but I went to a queer dance party at night in a theater, and then I went home.

Yeah, that's the thing to do. There was a club. I don't remember where I was. There was like one gay bar in Madison. One time I went there and listened to it. It was cool. Everyone had pool floats, though there was no water, but that's fun. Like the little arm?

No, like the big circular docks, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's a thing. Anyway, I think that's our show. Nicola, what else is going on? L.A. people, hit me up. I need some friends.

We got to do... Oh, he paused the gadget of the week. Yeah, every week I do a section called Cobo hype where I hype up the latest news and rumors about Cobo hardware devices. You know why Kobe was actually awesome, right? Why is that? Genuine kick-ass pocket integration. Ariel was talking about that like the last time we had her on.

Anyways, Kobo's coming out with a new e-reader. I've been trying to make a cobo hype a thing in the circuit breaker slack room because we got a couple rumors. We got like some teaser shots where we could just see the back of it and it was on some pebbles. And it's like, let's get excited about cobo. And then they announced a new cobo. It was Sean? Yeah, Sean checked it out. It's got, it like, checks all the boxes.

It's got actually a pretty big screen. It's got a light that changes like based on time of date. Like, you can change the color temperature. It's waterproof. It's high resolution. It's still made by Kobo, so you can't get all your Kindle books on it. So maybe there's no point for this to even exist. But it's cool that a company that's not Amazon can make a really good e-reader.

Well, they're doing the things that Amazon should be doing with the Kindle. They're making it waterproof and they're adjusting the color temperature. That's a big deal. Yeah. So anyways, Kobo hype. Cobo hype for real. Is there a good store against the Kobo? Maybe that's the thing

Like the Kindle Like the Kindle always wins for me Because I can just buy books on Have you been using the Kindle lately They have turned the interface in that thing Into just a confusing garbage fire Yeah It is hard as hell to figure out

What the hell to do on a Kindle home screen anymore Yeah I actually buy all the books in the web Because that's like the thing to do Is like you're like I want to buy some books for a trip And then you're like run around And push all buttons And then you just have to get to the library Also my wife and I share

A Kindle account somehow I don't know how that's possible It's just happening. Oh, yeah, you can do that. You can set up a family plan. But we didn't want to do that. So it just seemed like I think she buys the books on my account. It's very confusing.

Okay. The Kindle has no idea what I want to read and no idea what she wants to read. It's like, would you like this random like corporate pop psychology book or would you like this random chicklit lawyer book? Because that's what she likes to read. This is happening to me on Netflix because I Airbnb'd my apartment out and I graciously left my Netflix on. Wow. And the basic bitches who. stayed at my spot.

They watched like Made in Manhattan and Friends and like all this stuff. We're like now it has the worst recommendations. Like I don't want to watch this. Jennifer Lopez rom-com. Why don't you just make a second account? Or just open up your heart to Jennifer Lopez. Yeah, maybe it's a sign. To answer your question, their store has like five million books and they also do like the library

ebook lending thing. But as far as I can tell, you get a cobo because you want to like download project Gutenberg e-pubs or steel books or or you like read a lot of PDFs or pocket. Yeah. And you get a Kendall if you want to read real books. That's my, I'm locked into Kindles. That waterproof candle has to be coming. Yeah, I've been saying that for two years now.

Don't they still have like, what was the company, Captain Seaworthy, like spray? Yeah, I wrote about this like ages ago. Yeah. And then gadget. There was like a company like send them your stuff and they would like coat it and then it'll come back waterproof. Yeah. I thought that you were talking

about e-book company. Oh, Captain Seaworthy's great e-book store. That's my favorite e-book. They're on Kobo, actually. It's the best thing about Kobe.

I love Captain SeaWood. Good pirate tales. All right. That's the show, Nicola. It's got to be it. It's got to be it. I'm sorry. I'm happy you're here.

I'm happy to be here. Well, I'm going to be far away, so see you in October. Screw you guys. Well, if we open that merch store. Yeah. I'm not kidding. I want to run that.

I want that job. Everyone wants Verge merch. It's a real thing. Everyone wants Verge merch. Yeah, it's a real thing. And I'll put this out there. Some people do come back from L.A. One person, no, wait, no.

Waterfying. They will waterproof a Fitbit Blaze, a iPod shuffle, a Kindle paper white. They claim to be able to waterproof in an Apple watch, but I don't believe them. Anyway, look, follow the Virgin Twitter at Verge on Snapchat, Verge, Instagram at Verge. Tweet at me at Recklist.

Tell me if you like Snapchat or Instagram stories. been doing a lot of Twitter collecting of this information. Kid us up on iTunes. Give us five stars. Love that. What's Tech? Our other podcast, other podcast, What's Tech is on Tuesday with Chris Plant. Control Out Delete is on Thursday with me and Walt. We're actually off this week and next week, so whatever. Set that aside. Come back to it a couple weeks from now.

Virg. GSP is I read Fridays with Emily and Liz. And Paul has a new podcast. Tell him about it. Rogue podcast. 1,000 words. It's just one episode so far. I don't know if we're going to do more. I think you should do more. It was really fun. I had fun listening. Domi and I described pictures from the internet.

Yeah. And like binaural stereo audio, so it sounds like you're there. I listened to the whole thing. And then I went and looked at every picture and none of them were what I thought they were going to be. Yeah. It was crazy. It's amazing how hard it is to describe pictures. But you know what was really uplifting for me?

Because I just did it because I thought it was a dumb idea. So this would be funny. Someone in the comments was like, this would be great for blind people. Yeah. I was like, oh. It's kind of like reverse pictionary. Yeah. I listened to it.

Oh, really? Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. Well, you'll be on the next episode. Anyway, I'm at Reckless Paul's future Paul. Deidors Backlon. Nicola. underscore.

Fumo. Yeah. Hey. That's the Verge cast. We'll be back next week. Rock and roll. Paul. You guys still got it.

That was beautiful.