 Hey, and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of what's the week? No, no, something June something June 18th, June 18th, 2012. I'm Josh Topolsky. I'm Nilay Patel. I don't think you are. That's Ross Miller. Ross Miller. And Ross Miller is also with us. That is TC Sadek, or Sotek as I like to refer to him. That's not actually how you pronounce his name. This is TC. You may know him from the internet website, theverge.com. Great website. One of our editors, one of our guys, one of our news guys, and now he's here in person jamming. Nilay Patel. Oh, and also Tom Warren. I almost forgot Tom Warren on the big screen back here. Hello. Tom Warren from South of London. Does that place have a name? South London. South London. South London. South of London or South London? South London. South London. I don't know that area. I'm sorry. I don't mean to mock him. Now that Microsoft guys are going to be like, look at the way he mocked Tom on the Vergecast. He really hates Microsoft. Wow. That's a great transition to this week's topic. Anyhow, this is the Vergecast where we discuss the week in technology culture and regular culture and it's hot as can be in New York. Don't come to New York. If you're not in New York right now, don't come here. The Vergecast this week is brought to you by IE9, Internet Explorer 9. It's the ninth version of Internet Explorer. It's the one that came just after Internet Explorer 8 and I think is vastly superior to that version. And will be until IE10. Yeah, they're actually running really cool ads on the site that are like less browser, more Verge. And I had no idea they were going to appear and they appeared on that. I was like, oh, that's cool. They know who Internet Explorer ad guys know who we are. And then I took their money and I spent it on drugs. No, I'm kidding. I didn't do that. I would never do that because drugs are bad. But you know what isn't bad? IE9. Check it out. And there's the end of our sponsorship. Well, you know it happens. It's a new tagline. IE9, better than drugs. Better than drugs. It gets you higher than drugs and it's legal. You're way in the cloud now. I'm in the, you know, I think I'm more like digging a hole. I don't think I'm in a cloud. Imagine what IE10 is going to be like. Yeah, you're going to get so high into the cloud off of IE10. Mile high skydive. Snort a line of this URL bar. Snort a line of this preferences setting. I don't know what's happening. Snorting it off a smart glass. I ran over here from a meeting. I'm very hot. I'm very hot. I'm out of it. I haven't eaten anything today. I'm going to have to get out of my custom when I do the Vergecast. So a big week this week, but largely a week about Microsoft. I mean, was there any other news this week besides Microsoft? There's one or two things. We'll hit them toward the end. One of those. But there was the surprise press conference on Monday. We talked about it a lot last week. Yeah, surface. Did anyone actually guest tab? None of us. Well, we said tablet, but we thought it was going to be a media partnership. Anyhow, let's do you want to start with Monday? Let's start with Monday. All right. Microsoft did an event on Monday. Oh, geez. Are you kidding me? Nilay Patel is here. Much to everybody's... All right. It was nice knowing everybody. Much to everybody's chigarit. PC, it was glad to hear from you. I heard so much inside of Microsoft. Are you serious? You're going to roll it out? Can we get a chair over here for Nilay or something? No? You suck, Sonic. Listen, man. Wow. This is weird. You're fired. Anyhow... I'm in the chair now. You can't... Yeah, that's true. He does have firing power in that chair. Hiring, firing authority. Catch you later. I did your job by sitting in your chair on the vergest. That's true. Yeah. I heard about that. So are we going to actually put Nilay in now? You don't want to be... Well, I mean... You can stay for a little longer. Yeah, stay for a little longer. Just take it cool out over there. Go get some Subway. We love Subway here. Yeah, Subway. Eat fresh. Go have a six-inch. Foot long, you mean. Foot long. What's happening? By the way, there's so many comments on this. You know what? The small talk. Enough with this banter and small talk. It's getting a little old. Just talk about specs, okay? That's what all commenters sound like in my mind. So Microsoft had an event on Monday. I was there. Dieter was there. One of our shooter video guys, Jason Miller, was there. And they introduced a product called the Surface. And the Surface is... There's two members of the Surface family. There's the Surface for Windows RT and there's the Surface for X86 or the Intel Surface, basically. And they're tablets. They have special covers that also have keyboards. They're called like Touch Cover and Type Cover, I believe are the names. And they have a built-in kickstand. They're a Microsoft-branded product. We don't...I mean, presumably Microsoft is building them via a Chinese factory. We don't know. They did tabletop. We're not gonna be building Redmond, I can tell you that. Yeah. I mean, they're engineers making it. They're not like we're gonna have a new factory in Redmond where you build tablets. Anyhow, they did a big event. Steven Sanofsky was there. All the Steves were there. Steve Ballmer. Tom, you're our resident Microsoft fanboy slash expert. What is your take on the Surface? What do you think? I think it was a surprise, but I think it surprised everyone. But I guess we were expecting a tablet or something similar. Except for Ina Free. Of course. But not like an iPad competitor. So I think it's surprising to start off with. But yeah, I think it's good. They've obviously looked at this in a way where they've come at it and said, look, this is how we want to do a tablet. And this is how we want our OEMs to do a tablet. I think it's interesting that they obviously didn't do the price or the sort of when they're gonna bring these things out. It's gonna be a while. They did mention... Sorry? It's gonna be a while, though. I mean, Windows 8 isn't launching until like end of the year. Yeah, I'd expect it's gonna be... I mean, from what I'm hearing is that mid-October for Windows 8. So I'd expect they'd come along at the same time. I've heard similar. I think everything's pointing towards like October for Windows Phone 8 as well. No, I think I've heard the same thing. I'm hoping they target my birthday, October 19th. Because last year, October 19th was the launch of the Galaxy Nexus. And I'm hoping that we can make that kind of a day when cool stuff gets released. But we didn't get a chance to... At the event, we didn't get a chance to play with it very much. We did a little bit of a hands-on... I said this on the show last night, but they wouldn't let us really take photos. And they would hold it for you. They actually were yelling at people not to shoot video. I just saw SlashGear shot video. Vincent is a little more clever than we are, I guess. He just got in there and went for it. But anyhow, we didn't really get a chance to use it. They showed it off doing a couple of things that we've already seen Windows 8 do. It wasn't like it was doing something new that Windows 8 hasn't done before. It crashed on stage when they were demoing it. I saw it for the browser, actually. I don't know what happened with that. It looked like the whole tablet froze and he went back to get another one. Yeah. Well, I mean, Windows 8 is not finished. Right. I mean, that happens. I would not fault Microsoft for the fact that they have a beta product. It's not out yet. I mean, my iPad crashes on a relatively regular basis, and it is well out of beta. That's why they have backups, just in case. Right. No, I mean, I was actually astounded. I was using my iPad the other day, and a couple of times in a row, it just full on froze and crashed in Mail and in Safari. Wow. First party apps. Anyhow, the point is technology is not perfect, but it is a little shocking when you see it fail out on stage. I don't think Sanofsky was super psyched about that. But I don't think... There are people who are like, look, it couldn't even run the demo on stage. It's like, you know what? Shit happens. Right. And so, LeVar Burton was on the show last night, and we tried to show the Reading Rainbow app, and it was working fine in rehearsal. It was working fine in rehearsal, and then as soon as we opened it, it started doing all kinds of weird stuff. So... I really wanted to actually hear him read the Piper story on stage, actually. I have to say, the price point... There have been a lot of rumors about the price point today. Some people are like, it's gonna be $600, the RT version. If it is... By the way, this rumor comes from DigiTimes, who is the least reliable. Not the least reliable, but one of the least reliable sources. I mean, I wouldn't trust anyone with prices right now, because it's so far from release. Right. It's ages off. I don't think they wanted to play their hand on pricing. And they may not... Frankly, in four months, prices on components change. Supply chains... There can be changes on supply chains. It's like when you order the fish of the day, market price. That's right, market price. I don't know if it's quite that serious. I don't know what Ivy Bridge is gonna go for in three months. I'm less interested in the Intel version and more interested in the RT version. Tom, what's your take? Do you have a... Which one, if you were gonna go to a store and buy one of these today, what would you buy? I think, personally, I'd want the Intel one, just because you get the desktop apps. At the moment, we haven't really seen a lot of the Metro apps, because they haven't really opened up the store fully to developers, so we don't really know what's out there. I think I'd still want a desktop app. I think I'd want them anyway. But I see the Intel one's a bit bigger. Let me ask you, Josh. Do you want the RT version more? You're just getting less functionality. I want a device with great battery life. I don't believe the Intel and the ARM version will have the same battery life. I want a device with great battery life. I want a device with a great tablet experience. By the way, I don't know if I'm gonna buy either, because I haven't used either one of them yet. You will. I will use them. Oh, I'll use them, but good. But I want something that's got great battery life, that can deliver a great tablet experience, and then has enough of a, I feel like enough of a desktop or a proper, like a regular OS experience, that I can get some deeper level work done. And by the way, my work is not Photoshop. Occasionally a Photoshop, but mostly my work is writing and triaging email. That's basically what I do. Write and do email all day, every day. Sounds about right. So you know, and I think that like the things that'll be really instrumental for that are the type cover, the touch cover, and having like a full featured browser. So how much of the type cover and touch cover did you actually get to play with? We got to touch them quite a bit, but we didn't get to use them like in conjunction with the Surface. So you didn't get to see, you know, the typing. I mean, Stevie Batiste, afterwards brought out. The other Steve. The other Steve. Yeah, there was another Steve. Brought out the type cover and the touch cover for us to play around with after everybody had kind of left. And we talked about it quite a bit. And he was like, you know, very psyched about it. And you know, I said, I wrote a thing about this and have you ever met Tom, have you ever met Stevie Batiste? I haven't actually, no. I know of all the stuff he's done. You know his work. Yeah. I actually, in the article I wrote about the Surface, I said like, here's a guy at Microsoft who's doing some really innovative, crazy stuff and he seems like he is a really engaged, smart, weird, funny guy. And I get a really good vibe from him. And there are people like that at Microsoft. I think people think of Microsoft as this company that, you know, is just like, oh, you know, they don't know how to do stuff, execute the right way. They don't have good design sensibility. But I think like we've seen that change in Windows 8 and Windows Phone. And I think if guys like that are more at the forefront of designing these products, I have a lot more faith in their ability to make great products and execute on them. So I have to ask, so Steven Petit, he's like, things you saw at Research Lab, he's done all that Connect stuff, a lot of camera stuff, right? Yeah. There's a camera on here. Did he do anything special with that? Do we know? I didn't ask. Like, my crazy wild theory is that there's some Connect functionality and this little like... I don't think that's... I would love that. I don't think they're even remotely think... that's truly a wild fantasy. It is a wild fantasy. I don't think they're doing anything of the sort. Which brings to my follow up, what makes this special besides Microsoft's making it and there's no crapware? What makes it special is that it's a hybrid, right? And if they could pull off the hybrid... I mean, to me, this is one of the other things I was thinking. I've seen these like, they showed us Windows 8 on like a demo, a Samsung tablet that's like clearly not designed for Windows 8. It just is a tablet that exists for Windows 7. And we've heard about this kind of hybridization that will occur, but we've never seen it illustrated clearly. And I feel like Tom, you mentioned this a little bit. This is actually them kind of trying to light the fire. And Balmer said as much to me, he was like, we want to prime the pump for Windows 8. And I think, I know it's sexy sounding, but I do think this is part of this is like, they're like, hey partners and hey world, like this is what we're trying to do. This is what we envision as the thing. It's almost like a reference design in many ways. To say like, this is what you can do with it. I think the important thing is that when they're releasing this, they're releasing it in limited online stores and in their Microsoft stores, which kind of says to you, this isn't going to be a Best Buy or in your Walmart or anything like that. They're managing this in a small way to start off with. I literally think that they're doing this to say to OEMs, you need to up your game. You need to bring something like this out. Do it. I think that's a real possibility. I've always thought that should be Microsoft strategy anyways. Whenever I've gone into Best Buy, they don't know how to talk about Windows or Microsoft products or show you all the things that they can actually do. So that's probably a good strategy. No, it's funny. I was just having this conversation with somebody else. Retail is super important. I mean, the fact that they are not saying like, we're going to put this. I mean, maybe they will do brick and mortar, big box stores. But I think that they do, you know, I think it kind of you look at what they do with Windows phone, not to say that it's been a success, but they tried to say, we have a vision. We want you to help execute on the partners. We want to help execute on the vision. And we're going to do some things to kind of jumpstart that. I think that's what they're doing. You know, there's been a little kerfluffle on the Internet, on Twitter, because people are speaking positively about this. Om Malik, for instance, was giving me some shit because I said that it was impressive on Bloomberg and Gruber, I think, is up in arms about it. But you know, people I don't get the threat. Like you got your Apple stuff. That's fine. It's great. Everybody knows it's great. But it actually looks kind of impressive to me, you know, and I feel like it's weird to judge it before anybody has had. Why not? It's like glass half full or glass half empty. You can look at it and go like, that's obviously going to be a piece of crap. Or you can think like, oh, it could be good, you know? And I think that I do think what they've shown has potential to be good. I mean, I actually see a way that it could work for me in my life. And by the way, I'm not a Windows fan, in case you hadn't heard. I don't use Windows. I have a MacBook Air. You know, that's what I use as my laptop OS. And I have an iPad. And I've gone through a number of Android tablets and never been happy with them. I have a lot of reservations about Windows 8. But for the first time, I see a product where I think I get the fit. I get where it fits. And it's like, if Windows 8 doesn't suck, and this product, the hardware doesn't suck, those are big dozens, by the way. Right. I mean, so Metro is interesting because... I was saying it could be cool. I was saying it's interesting because it's not only just a design aesthetic, or aesthetic, rather. Yes, either one. Yeah, aesthetic. It's a hermit. Metro's a hermit. Yeah. It's not only that, but it's a strong strategy on Microsoft to unify their ecosystems in a way that they can leverage all three. You like Xbox? You might consider Windows Phone now, or the Surface. I think the Surface, more than Windows Phone, could be a place where that stuff is unified. You've got... You know, Xbox music is now a thing. I assume that encompasses video. I mean, right? Does that encompass their video? Obviously, they have Zune video. I have no idea. Tom, do you know? Wait, does Zune video even exist anymore? I mean, they have video on the Xbox. Right. It's like a first party video service. Yeah. Well, they had Zune on the Xbox for a while. Right. I don't know if it's a call Zune. No, no, no. What I'm saying is, what do they call... How are they transitioning video if they have Xbox music? What is the video component? Yeah, they haven't talked about that at all. I mean, at E3, it was just Xbox music. So I mean, the video stuff is like... I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they're going to call it Xbox video. Yes, I think I agree with you. The long and short of it is, by the way, it is boiling hot. It is really hot. I mean, just terribly hot. But you know, you've got Xbox music, Xbox video or whatever. You've got their partner stuff. They're doing Hulu, HBO Go, Netflix, Smart Glass, interplay between the tablet and the Xbox, all those services across platform. You have the full ecosystem, the full offering. In some ways, by the way, their music offering, they need to push it and promote it and not as part of the Zune brand, is a pretty good music offering. I mean, are they taking it cross platform? Are they taking it... It seemed to. Like it looked like it was working. Are they taking Xbox music to iOS and Android in any way? They didn't officially confirm it at E3, but that's what we've heard. Basically that it's going to be browser based as well. So it'll be cross platform. So I think that you start to look at this and it's actually a pretty attractive offering. I use audio to listen to music. I once in a while will download, now I'm from iTunes, but that's audio or Spotify is what I'm doing. And I listen to music that I've downloaded when I'm offline. And the Xbox brand itself is now an entertainment brand. It's not just gaming. It's anything you're doing, it's not work. It's a great brand. It is. It's a good brand. I think they've realized that it's their only brand that's really consumer focused and what consumers love. So they're really honing in on that now. Yeah. TC, are you leaving us? You just want to get out of this hot room. Just get out. It's hot as hell. I'm seriously envious. I might leave too. You want to go? You're just going to leave me in the elevator? Can we do more like a kind of chillaxed style podcast? Chillaxed by the way, that's a word. Just start taking off the clothes and just... It's really... It's pretty hot. We have passed out on this one. Anyhow, I feel like I've been talking about Surface so much this week. Like I have. I'm sick of it. What is happening here? I'm panning it. Do you see a Surface? You're really just stalling while Neelye gets settled. Surface sucks. Neelye Patel everyone, check them out. Back from marriage. Garbage. Show off your jewelry Neelye. Check it out. Look at that. There it is. It's very plain. I've noticed that Becky got a beautiful ring that I purchased for her and I received what appears to be a washer. It makes sense that Neelye would be kind of like bummed about not getting the more beautiful diamond studded jewelry. Well, you know. It's weird. I've never sat on this side of the room before. You haven't? I mean, if it really matters, you can switch with me. It doesn't. It truly does not matter to me. What does it feel like? I feel like Paul. I feel like I'm about to quit the internet. Don't do it. I'm generally Paul's... Please don't do it. I will say this. Paul is the happiest person I know right now. He is like above and beyond. Guys, it turns out that being on the internet might not be good for our happiness. I mean, I've never seen anybody who is happy. He's riding bikes. He's dancing with sticks. He's... It is a little annoying. It is a little annoying to say. Dancing with sticks. So Tom... He's dancing with sticks. Tom, so we also have some other announcements from Microsoft this week. Windows Phone 8. Oh my God. Can you take us through... Tom, take us through Windows Phone 8 and the surrounding announcements. Can you just give us an overview? Yeah, so they finally unveiled it. We'd obviously seen a lot of leaks around the Skype integration and the hardware support, and they basically confirmed all those leaks. So there's dual core. There's quad core. Skype's gonna be sort of integrated in but not built in. So you have to download an app and then it will extend into the people hub and the dialer and stuff. But they made a point to say that the VoIP integration is gonna be... They're kind of introducing a bunch of APIs that let you plug into essentially the phone system with your... So if I made a separate VoIP app that was not Skype, I could essentially have Skype type integration to the phone. Yeah, exactly. And I think it will come up as a dialer so it'll look the same as if you were receiving a regular call. Yeah. So will my Google Voice work then? It'll be pretty cool. I mean, you don't get that on other platforms. No, no, no. That's gonna be a real... Carriers are gonna love that. I'm sure. Yeah. I think they call it RCSE on the carrier side so they can integrate all their services in and stuff. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. And so what else? New home screen? Yeah, new home screen. So the start screen. They didn't really show off a lot of the UI, if there's any other UI changes, but the big ones at start screen, so you got small tiles, medium tiles, and large tiles now. Yours used to have medium and large, but these smaller ones sort of basically fit into the size of a medium tile, so you get four split down. So Tom, I have to ask. So all apps will have all three sizes. Is that the case? Yeah. So if you've got an app at the moment, it will have a small size and a medium size. They won't have a large because the large tiles were only reserved for OEMs. Oh, really? The first Microsoft stuff. But if a developer goes back in and updates their app, they'll be able to have a large tile as well. But Microsoft's generating small tiles automatically. You can do a lot more with a large tile, presumably. I mean, you could display a lot more information in there. Yeah, exactly. I mean, still function, it's still pretty much the same. It flips over and there's a lot of information, but you can obviously display a lot more. Right. And I mean, in general, this seems like they're really bringing a lot of features up to parity with the competition now. I mean, did they talk about multitasking at the event and how they would, are they going to handle multitasking differently or make it, I'm wondering if there are any changes there. Yeah, they didn't. And I think that is one of the big things that they need to improve. So the multitasking is there. They obviously introduced that in Mango, but it requires you to hold the back button down to access an interface and then to go back to the app. And it's just not very, if you're just a regular consumer, you probably would never notice it was there. And arguably, you probably don't notice the multitasking bar on iOS and that sort of stuff, but you shouldn't be forced to use that. You should just be able to hop in and out of tiles and have the app. Tom, have you found that thing useful though? Because it only goes back like five or six. Sometimes there's multiple panels for each single app. You can't take and close them individually. And he's right about the icon versus the tab or whatever. So hopefully they're going to use that. Tom, I was under the impression that they're adding some kind of iOS style APIs for backgrounding tasks, right? Where you can, if you have a void app, it can keep running in the background. Yeah. So they've extended them so the location stuff will work outside in the background a lot better. But they didn't really go into the multitasking stuff too deeply in terms of how you actually multitask. Here's my biggest question with Windows Phone 8. They made a big deal, shared code base with Windows 8, bringing over a lot of features. Yeah, we didn't get to this. Yeah, but that's like kind of the next big thing. That is the big thing with Windows Phone 8. Right. And then at the end, Joe Balfiori was like, and this is how it's going to help people. And I found myself wondering, well, you haven't actually explained how it's going to help people, right? I mean, I understand like I'm a big nerd, so I understand that moving into a more modern and unified code base is probably great and offers you flexibility. Vlad wrote a great editorial about DirectX and making games better. Yeah, which is a big deal for porting. It's a big deal. Yeah. But that kind of to me is like this huge, we're making this huge change to the foundation of Windows Phone. And then getting from that to this is going to be great for consumers wasn't really made very clear to me. Right, right. And Tom, I'm wondering if you kind of have a better sense of how that works. Yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess they're also supporting native code. So in terms of if you're using an app, it's always going to be a lot better performance. I mean, I think one of the things I've had complaints about and I know Josh has is the scrolling and just generally the apps aren't too responsive sometimes. Just because they're running on that layer, that silver layer. So that's going to be there that all the apps are going to be compatible. But if you're a developer and you just want to specifically target native code in Windows Phone 8, then you can do that. And I'm expecting the apps are going to be a lot better because of that. And also with games and DirectX, people can port their Windows games across the Windows Phone. I mean, it's not going to be you can just click and it's done, but it's going to be a lot easier than it was before. It's incredible that like that Android, Microsoft and Palm did the same exact thing where they were like, we're going to offer this way to develop apps. It's really easy and you can get right into it and no problem. And without really like native access. Yeah, right. Paul talked about this for years, remember? And Apple did it right out of the gate. And you know what? Their apps were amazing right out of the gate. There were some clunkers obviously, but they had some really impressive stuff early on. And all of these platforms have been like taking forever to get to this point where it's like, yeah, you can target native and you can do much deeper, much better stuff that's going to like feel better for the user and actually be more functional. But I mean, with that said, I mean, Microsoft is doing it right though, because there are ton of Windows 8 developers already. There are tons of Windows developers already. And now they're making it super easy just to port it over. Is it super easy to port from between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8? That's what I, that's my- That was my understanding of it. They did some demos of that stuff. Yeah. Because I think that's going to be a big thing. It's like you can make an app for Windows 8, which will have millions and millions and millions and millions of users automatically, because people are going to upgrade or people are going to, and they want, by the way, I talked to a rep from the company at the Surface event and he reiterated to me, he was like, if at all possible, we want people developing from Metro. Yeah. Right. They, they not, they are not pushing people to develop for the desktop. Not at all. They're pushing developers to make Metro apps. My, my impression is, and by the way, I don't know how that works because does that mean that you can do native code in Metro now? Is that, I mean, explain to me how that works. I thought Metro was all about HTML5 and- Well, I think that's the difference between Windows Phone 8, at least at this point. Yeah, but that's stupid. Right. Like if you're going to do a game, don't they have DirectX support in Metro? They do, right? On ARM? Yeah, on ARM. I don't think so. Tom? Tom? How could they- I don't think they do. I'm not too sure. But how could they not if they're doing it on the phone? Well, I mean, the two platforms are different. You can definitely do native code in Metro though. Yeah. In Metro for desktop? No, no, no. As in Metro, like- In Windows 8. Basically, you can code obviously HTML5 and they support all like C++ and all that stuff just wrapped into their runtime. I mean, whatever Metro is now, I mean, that's going to, it's going to keep growing. You know what I mean? I mean, my, my, my, I guess my point is, and by the way, I don't, I'm not pretending that I know all of the details of this. I'm not a developer. I do not code, but my question, my ultimate question is, I'm a developer. I'm going to make a 3D game for that will run on both Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. Like as you can see clearly, Mac app developers are taking the stuff they did on iOS and simply porting it to the Mac app store. It's clear that the port time does not require a lot of, it's not long and it doesn't require a ton of- It's not arduous. It's not arduous. Thank you. So, so I'm wondering if they're going to offer the same thing because I think that's kind of a, a big deal. Right. So I mean, I think the story, and they showed some games. I, I, unless I'm like, was dreaming. I'm pretty sure they, Microsoft showed games on Windows 8 being quickly ported to Windows Phone 8. Yeah, they did. They, they showed how, how it'd be easier basically. And that people would obviously have to change assets and stuff to target. You know, I know you guys talked about Surface right before with TC. Yeah. You know what, what I'm getting from all this from Microsoft is they have Metro. I think the desktop is Microsoft's legacy environment. Yeah. I think they're doing everything but saying it explicitly. Right. Oh yeah. I completely agree with you. And based on talking to people there, they are- Yeah, no, they've heard it as well. They're not even like, they're not even like trying to hide it to me. It almost seems like they're just saying like, obviously. But so to me, all this, all these events, all these endless barrage of Microsoft events- Are there any more this month? I'm really getting tired. Yeah. To me is, I mean, there, I think Surface and Windows Phone 8 are a bigger bet on the future of computing being touch and tablet and looking like this than actually anything Apple is doing. Right. Apple's still making like radically new kind of laptop computers. They are, they are, they are in a half step away from where, where Apple is in the sense that Apple has yet to say, here's the new MacBook Air with a touch screen and you can, you know, interact with it like an iPad, which is essentially what they're doing. Yeah. They're saying, here's our new computers, our new OS. And we want you to interact with it like a tablet. Yeah. And we want you to build tablet apps for it. Yeah. And kind of, you know, obviously the Intel stuff is legacy support. That is my vibe that I'm getting from them. So rough. Yeah, I don't know about that. I mean, cause there's a lot of, I mean, that was an empire. You know- The condition is they're like, they're like, don't worry enterprise. Yeah. Don't worry people who need some specific app that you ran on Windows 7 application. You'll have it. You just buy the, you buy the Intel version. Yeah. But for the, for the, for the broader like consumer, I feel like if they do surface at 500 bucks, which if they do it any more than that, it's a complete miss in my opinion. They do the RT version, the ARM version. Certainly it's like, well, you get a full computer if you need it. Yeah. You got this tablet stuff and this is where we want consumers to head. I mean, I feel like they should have almost done like separate names. But that's, that's the thing we're still trying to wait to see is like, what are the RT apps? Right. And if, Craig may be wrong, DirectX is still not Windows RT. Once they get that ported over- But how could they have DirectX on Windows? Well, they're separate platforms. I know, but they share. They share. So we're told. I mean, who knows? Tom, what were you going to say? I was going to say that I think the naming of them is really confusing because they got Surface for Windows RT and Surface Windows 8 Pro. And like as a consumer going into a store, okay, they're obviously only going to be at the Microsoft stores initially. But who knows from then on. But it wouldn't it just be easier just to call them Microsoft Surface and Microsoft Surface Pro? Yeah. Yeah. But that implies- Why is Windows RT- But Pro implies that it's better. And I don't know that the Intel version is necessarily better. I think it's better. I think it's better. I think it's better. I think it's better. I think it's better. I think it's better, though. Yeah, but you know. But like Microsoft Surface- I think it is better in the sense that it's obviously got the touch and the pen input on there and it obviously supports all the legacy apps. So if you're going, it depends what you're getting as a consumer. You're going in and you want that touch and maybe you want those legacy apps. That's right. There's no pen input for the Windows Surface Basic. Or whatever. Surface. Surface. Surface Basic. Surface for Windows RT. Surface Silver. Surface. Surface Silver. Surface. Surface Silver. Surface Silver. Surface Silver. Well. But you know. I don't think that's a big, I mean, are the Galaxy tab 10- Yeah, it does feels arbitrary. Yeah. With pen input flying off the shelves. I'm buying that Galaxy note man. That big one? It's saying that DirectX is in Windows RT. Oh. Commentors are- Okay. No. Okay. So, because I'm not looking at chat, but people are saying that DirectX is in RT. Indeed, they are. And support in Metro. Very loudly. Okay, good. So. Okay, good. So that solves my one question. question which is the moving those apps back and forth I mean essentially you're making them for you have the possibility to make them but I mean I this whole thing that the whole thing that Microsoft is like maybe these products will suck we don't know I mean I barely got a chance to play what do you do what do you do you have to give the enterprise and you have to give legacy customer something right there's no choice but then how do you how do you stay attached to what you're giving them I guess they could have I mean they could have waited another cycle yeah and given and done like an arm like we're moving to this platform and it's not gonna have legacy stuff and you just yeah you know that is that kind of what Apple did with I mean even Apple had a solution right they had what was the thing called where you could emulate Rosetta Rosetta yeah right so you could do OS 9 in OS 10 and it worked reasonably well for most of the things you had to do I mean they had a real solution this is kind of a solution wait wasn't hold on there was classic and then Rosetta was you could run the old code on the right or was that universal code yeah I don't know Universal was something different Universal was it had oh that was really bad that was the Intel the other one was was what was the one where it was like essentially emulating OS 9 that was classic that was called so called classic but the difference though was like mac OS 9 did not have a huge enterprise backing like a lot of people were using it. Mac OS 9 had no users yeah so I mean there were 10 people in the world who use Macs this guy you know but you have to remember at the time again Windows dominant 95% of the market whatever even more maybe then it might be 98% not that many people had Macs they were completely obscure you didn't see people with Mac books out there were no Mac books there were no I mean nobody used them so it was a little bit easier right this is like going to be many generations like telling the entire world that they have to like drive on the other side of the road yeah it's like it making everybody British it's very wrong can you imagine that be horrible you know the British tried that the history is literally the British trying to make everybody British yeah look how it turned out you're okay I'm saying they had an empire I don't know yeah remember it was all if I don't actually I wasn't a lot look out look out turned out it's been there's a lot of competitors for the empire yeah competition in for the Empire yeah and now there really are no empires no except for the one um you know the new American Empire or the new American yeah with such an empire we're in true let's let's get this back we're in great just a few look I look at all this stuff and it's you know the thing with surface and the thing with the phone is they've got enormous you know this this rumor that they're not gonna do three or four three G or 4g versions of the tablet yeah I think it's very interesting Microsoft kind of has bad relationships with the carriers right now and so the phone you know they've got to get the carriers on board to make the phone successful the tablets millions of questions about the tablets kind of wide open but all I see in all of these announcements is there Microsoft is like we have to change and like we don't know what the end results are necessarily going to be or what they look like yeah but they are more committed to like radically changing how their business works and any company I've really seen you know Apple has done they're really great at these like here's this revolutionary product and will incrementally improve it look at a relentless pace right and they're doing a great job incremental at a relentless pace that's true they just keep making these little changes like every call the page relentless every single year relentless yeah I mean even OS 10 now is on a yearly upgrade that's hard and they get and they get all of their user base to get to that new version very quick right which is pretty no one else and they're making far less sweeping changes I mean they are I mean Microsoft is at the point where Apple was 2007 I mean I would say with with the iPhone no they're at the point where Apple was with OS 10 you think so yes yes I do think so they're there they're in the process of changing the platform that their OS is designed for that the hardware through us is designed for and changing like and changing that's what I mean and changing the fundamental way the OS works mm-hmm and the way you think about doing things in it I mean that's what happened with OS 10 right I mean they went they came in and said we have this legacy piece of software it's old it's clunky it's it's bloated we got to do something different and by the way make it make a point of these guys getting up on stage and saying are we've lowered the requirements for Windows 8 yeah versus Windows 7 right isn't that what they're saying all the time they said it for Windows 7 too well right so so so they're making it less bloated they're making it run on lower powered processors and run well and they're also trying to upend the whole way you interact with it yeah to me that's this is there at the point where where Apple was ten years ago however long it's been since they announced OS 10 the difference is the break is you know what it's about the same I mean they're still gonna upset a lot of users they're still trying to cling to some legacy support which is gonna be done in a ham-fisted way but they might have done it with just the Intel stuff right yeah they're doing like cuz Apple didn't go they didn't know how to say I had a power PC and they were on power PC and then at some point later they were like we're gonna switch to Intel yeah we're gonna switch to x86 but but they they didn't do both at the same time right and it might just trying to do both the same time they're making up both the same time while simultaneously doing the old thing as well in right no there's a lot and that to me is pretty muddled right it is it is muddled and I don't know and you know and it's not I'm curious I mean you've been watching Microsoft for a long time I mean is my is my sort of feeling about this correct is this the most change the company has gone through yeah definitely I mean the the biggest changes the whole Metro stuff right is that I don't that hasn't been tested in any sort of large mass volume way I mean they've obviously had a Windows phone out there but it hasn't done like more or less and also Windows phone is is that's the entire experience right right the entire experience is you can't skip out of that right yeah right back to a desktop mode or something so so it is like a huge gamble right to say to all of your users yes what no more start menu right you have this new thing it's also a huge gamble that to say to your OEM partners we don't think you're gonna make good enough hardware for this version of our OS right we're gonna start doing yeah well they must have seen Computex so we're trying to I think it's definitely a call to you know they're standing up they're saying yeah we're awake and you know Google and Apple we're coming after you sort of thing I mean that surface event was very much like that you know it's the most awesome about the surface tablet though there's no crapware well we don't know it's actually really funny so I just went and did a piece of Visio which is great you know and it's funny because that to me feels like that's what the Wintel promise was always supposed to be right that's like you get a really good systems integrator who pulls like the best parts and components from all these other vendors they take the software from Microsoft they make a beautiful design here's a computer that isn't you know completely screwed up you know and it's like that happened right at the moment when Microsoft is like this totally isn't working yeah like and I you know I asked them well but there may be we may see a rise of certain players that are doing it better than others right right you know I mean you can only do the same thing for so long yeah until I mean I don't know if it's working PC sales are down I think consumer confidence and brands like Dell and HP are probably pretty low right now yeah I think they're looking at brands like no I mean Dell has completely become an enterprise company if you look at the way they talk and the way they act right they they're not running around trying to get consumers you know a few years ago Asus was not a brand that anybody ever heard of at all and now you know they're making some pretty decent products some pretty nice looking products and putting them in stores right I mean you see Samsung making some pretty nice laptops I just think but I do think you're gonna see a shift in who's making what yeah and I also think Microsoft may drive some of may dictate some of that stuff right I mean I think that Microsoft you don't just make one what it was a quote but you want to prime the pump is our bomber said to you yeah I don't think you make one tablet and call it the surface and say okay they can say is a family of products right but I think it's a family products that will persist right I don't think they're gonna say we prime the pond they have any success well it's their nexus I mean it's it may not do as well but you make the next surface why not it's a good idea all right so we want to try to keep this this show tight today so we were thinking about taking some phone calls towards the we're getting towards the end of our hour I know it seems like it's flown by and I know we started 10 minutes late so we're gonna go ten minutes over but I want to keep it tight to an hour so I also have some ranting about review scores to do oh yeah you were so why was I was did you did you see oh Malik what is up with him I don't know but can I can I just say yeah every little bit of success that we've had has come from treating our readers like they're thoughtful people who are smart yes in any criticism that is directed at us that is founded in people are stupid and you should treat them like they can't understand more than two pieces of information yeah will fall on completely deaf ears to you to me it just doesn't make any sense like yeah there's a score and there's a review I read the both together and synthesize the two things and I trust that people are capable of doing and I also think there are people who will skim something and look at the score and go I have a sense of what this is like and I don't need to you know you were arguing about the lightro I mean that is the dumbest argument but you know light rose like a ridiculously revolutionary product like if you if you know anything about technology and like actually look at a lot of different technology yeah I think a lot of this comes from like the my the myopic viewpoint of people who don't actually encounter that much technology and are you know focused on very simple things and you look for very they look for beacons of things you know I think that's like why people were people are like shocked that people are saying positive things about the surface and they're like yeah but they didn't say a price and it's just vaporware and it's like you don't know how the technology industry works or what Microsoft has to do yeah I mean they're not releasing their software until October they can't release a product until October they literally physically can't give you something because their software isn't done yet just the way Apple won't give you a product with mountain lion until mountain lion is ready but mountain lion and lion are the same thing with a couple of cosmetic changes essentially this is like a completely new world for them they have a tablet OS suddenly which they've never had before but but so so there's that and there's also the fact that there are reasons Microsoft wouldn't want to announce the price right now because the landscape can change you know because because another company may come out you know Google may announce a tablet for $300 or $200 they may not a $200 7-inch one and a $500 10-inch one or whatever and you know an Apple and and Microsoft are gonna look at what they're doing and go well let's evaluate what you know where we are in the marketplace so I think that there are a lot of reasons I think it's weird to you know the thing about the review scores I mean we've heard about this you know we did them at end gadget we added review scores after we left they took them away when I look at their reviews now I don't know I don't actually know where they fall on it like I can read it and it's sometimes it's so vague mm-hmm that I don't get a sense I mean talk about people making calls on things you know I had a Twitter conversation with somebody earlier today and it was like you guys need to say you know what's the best and it's like well the galaxy Nexus and the iPhone are both the best of their breed yeah they're for different users they're very very good for different reasons you know I'm not gonna say like I the iPhone is just the better one that's all there is to it because that's not the world we live in yeah you know it's like saying like what John Carpenter movie is better you know the thing or Prince of Darkness they're both really good movie but it's the thing no it's it's quite clearly to me Prince of Darkness so there you have it I mean or they live really they live is amazing pretty also amazing they're also good even in the map up up through in the mouth of madness if you haven't seen in the mouth of madness by the way no seriously really really good movie it will it will mess you up bad I bet don't watch it on acid that's my suggestion also you know the thing about watch anything on acid thing drugs are bad you should watch an ie9 on I drugs watch it in a browser you weren't here for the clearly not you program with that's like what is going on those like why am I what's happening he's right now you hear us Tom yeah I'm still down one last thing yes I mean our reviews program Joanna like coined the the meme he coined a meme nope nope created the meme for $200 more you can get the MacBook Air yeah and it like our views program is all about telling you if you should buy something or not yeah and like I don't understand why people are fixated also also we write thousands of words reviews aren't always about like here's what you should do at the end of it yeah I mean if you've ever read a review of anything you know that they're not like they many of them and many of the best reviews don't end with and this is what you need to do next yeah they end with here's what we here's information about this thing here's the good stuff here's the bad stuff and we think you're smart enough yeah to take the score to take our breakdown of the score which has multiple factors to take the here's our information the words that we wrote the photos that we took the video that we did and make an educated decision based on information if you can't make if you think that so if you're a person who thinks that our readers can't make an educated decision you're you're stupid because they can't because they can and and if you think that an average reader can't make an educated decision you're wrong right I'm never I try saying I trust in readers to be able to make an educated decision to understand what a seven on the Lumia review means of course that's a bad example it's a terrible but but you know I think I think when you look at the if you look at the 8.6 galaxy nexus review that I did for the GSM the international version and the 8.6 that I did for the iPhone 4s you can understand where the good stuff and the bad stuff isn't both those you can look at the scores and go well now I know which one I want to get yeah you know or I'm gonna get one of these I maybe I'm not entirely sure that one will be better than the other because they have both very favorable reviews and I sure there will be a ton of stuff to like you know it's not like you you know a review isn't just like give me an a give me a black or white answer right now it's tell me it's tell me something the review is designed is designed in modular it's designed layers if you have two seconds you get a score you have five seconds you get the score plus yeah good plus the bad right you have the wrap-up after that if you have time you've got the whole thing you have five minutes watch the video and get a feel for that one when we were when we started the verge and Joanna and all of us were having the first conversations about the reviews program it was always we want to have multiple reviews we want to write three reviews are we taking calls do it I don't even know these calls are for promise calls we should take them caller you're on the air nope you're not on the air I lied are we taking calls 8 8 8 4 1 8 4 0 7 4 what are we taking calls on what a windows Microsoft Windows Microsoft life you can sign a sign Ross review scores what euro no I don't want to talk about sports do I mean there's some there's some sports turns out there I have no interest in discussing sports no offense Tom yeah he's here hi Tom Tom your first caller how you doing he's writing a post right now Tom and I are in the in the verge weddings club this year man everybody's getting married you wrong Ross Sean I guess Sean Hollister is getting married in August that is true what Oh Sean Hollister's birthday today happy birthday please send best wishes to Sean Hollister he's on Twitter his Twitter handle is star fire oh god five five two five eight four two two five eight two two five eight five eight two two five eight god Sean can you just be Sean Hollister it's a it's a reference I can't remember what it is starfire to reference to him being 13 years old and coming up with an aim and we have a caller on the line caller you're on the air what's your name and what do you want to chat about with us hi this is for us I guess first of all congratulations to me life thanks it was a lot of fun I wouldn't yeah I wanted to speak about the what you were talking about the reviews and I noticed that in gadget recently they did away with the review scores entirely yes I mean I know I know most people are intelligent enough to know that what they want from a device like I usually will buy a device based on what my needs are and I'll buy it even if it has a seven and the computing device has a 8.9 so okay so you say you don't you don't like scores or you do like scores it doesn't have to be by the way I mean not have to be a black or white answer you can like them for some reasons and not like them for others no I like scores I think the breakdown of scores on the word just perfect because you can see exactly what the score is given for yeah and I think they help a lot but I think people are smart enough to know that the scores and everything and what you want out of a device could be like your preference could be for a fixed device or a 7.5 device and it doesn't matter on the score but the scores are good and they're there just for a convenience yeah I mean it's interesting do you when you read engadget reviews now do you still feel like you're getting utility out of them that you can read it and know you know kind of look at it and say I know how the reviewer felt about this I mean obviously some are stronger that's more strongly worded than others but do you feel like that not having the score there takes anything away or I'm just kind of curious well I initially I thought it was a great idea and I thought the reviews like it made you want to actually put more effort into understanding them and like looking for the information instead of just skimming them over but I realized over time without the review score it kind of gets really really weak as well so you don't really know where the person is leaning and sometimes reviews are really really ambiguous in their conclusions so in those circumstances the score really helps well that actually was was one of the things I remember when we were first thinking about the scores that we would write these long reviews at engadget we would write these long reviews and it wasn't like go buy this thing right now because that's not in my opinion not the kind of review that I write is not like you know if it's something that's just so incredible as they just go don't hesitate but when you think about the factors like if you're talking about a phone all the things that a person has to consider what carrier you on and how much do you want to spend at the outset and do you need LTE or not and do you prefer a more complex interface or a less complex interface do you like the way Motorola designs its phones like all these different factors and so you come up with this conclusion that's like here are the things I thought were really great about this and here are the things I think are big yeah problems right and when you when you do that when you've got all of those factors then you kind of conclude is sometimes is kind of really helpful to be able to say and on our scale amongst all of the other competitors in the space at the current time here's where it fits on the scale you know and that is like to me was it was always helpful when I was reading reviews elsewhere was okay I know how you feel about it I get all of the pros and cons but like where does it where does it kind of sit on that scale and then you know when we were building the verge reviews program we added all these other categories yeah because the overall score fine you know it contains a lot of information yeah I was then like maybe I want a phone with a better camera right one of the one of the one of the the complaints that we heard on a regular basis at Engadget was what is your score mean like can you can you explain better what the score means and so we made a point to say let's break down it the score and we also have explanations for all of those those pieces and and why you know how we factor so all right we're gonna move on thank you for calling in those very interesting comments on line three line three hello you're on the air what is your name and what do you want to chat about I understand it's Microsoft related hi I'm Jamie yeah I actually like to talk a little bit about the surface and just how one I'm really excited but I probably won't buy one and two why I think it's really smart that they actually did a Microsoft branded hardware for a couple of reasons but yeah I think the very first thing that really struck me was how how big of a splash it actually made I remember going on to reddit that day on Monday and the very first thing in all of reddit was Microsoft introduces the surface yeah and like when's the last time a Microsoft announcement ever made that big of a splash you know I can actually add to add to that if I'm not mistaken I haven't looked at the the final numbers that may have been that Microsoft day may have been our biggest traffic day ever yeah it's pretty or it's or it's very just behind the the iPad launch event like like so close it's around almost a rounding error so interesting that Microsoft can because we've done Microsoft events where we saw the traffic was like well it's a little bit of a bun yeah it wasn't crazy but people were really well first off there's a lot of mystery so that helps it's amazing how well that impromptu invite actually worked in there yeah it's shocking you only get to pull that so many times but you know it's gonna happen again just be ready I am yeah the next time it's gonna be like we were announcing new content partners for the Xbox time it's gonna be a Ross and Neal I joined if they're now if they better buy on the next time I'm keeping to that bet so why won't why won't you buy one why aren't you why does it seem like not something you want well one just because I think to me Windows 8 looks really cool but doesn't look that useful and I mean I don't I don't own an iPad either but it's like if I went to the store from what I know about Windows 8 and which is I mean little at this point but from what I know the Windows 8 and what I know about iOS I was like oh yeah definitely getting the iPad one because it's got much much bigger ecosystem but as well it's like I don't even if I'm get like the the x86 version of the of the tablet like I don't care about legacy apps like I have an actual PC right that I like and you know I just wish I still feel like they're just they're dipping their toes and in this in the water yeah I mean just I feel like they just need to jump in and it's a little bit frustrating yeah this sort of this sort of paradigm with the two tablets you know yeah I I said this this is the thing that Ohm was saying because I said that it was impressive on when I went on Bloomberg I said it was impressive but I said oh what not that whole conversation was infuriating it's insane I mean well first off it wasn't a review here's some weird bone to pick me I don't really know why but but it wasn't a review but the point is I said it was impressive but I also said to your point that you just made to execute on this to me to make me buy you have to have apps you gotta have developers on board yeah you have to have the ecosystem in place and right now Microsoft doesn't really have any of that I mean they have their Windows ecosystem but they do not have a tablet ecosystem they not have the apps but I'll tell you this if you showed me the surface the RT version and it was you know as buggy or bug free as the iPad and had the same apps but did what the surface does yeah and in the way that it does it versus the iPad right I would buy the surface if it had the same apps if it had the same apps and the same a level of polish all things being the same I mean yeah I would go for the one that also has like a full desktop environment and a browser and and and has this interface which I think I think is more useful from at a glance than what the iPad offers which is a very big dumb interface for accessing information people love let's keep that about people love it because it's it's straightforward Tom sorry Tom go ahead I was just saying the thing I like about the service is obviously the hardware as well I mean the annoying thing about when I travel is I always take a laptop and an iPad yeah I'd love to just pay to take one you know right so I can't see the Apple by the way I'm sure it but people will I mean I know they don't want people to make ARM desktop apps but I'm sure there will be a development community that starts making desktop apps down right I mean they also lock down the iPhone and it can be jailbroken you know it's actually funny Tom about your point is I was home for the wedding because at my sister's house and my brother-in-law is an IT consultant I met him he's great we chatted for a while he's awesome yeah and he was unboxing like his 50th iPad keyboard case and my sister is like why do these keep coming to our house no I see these on planes all the time people are like and he's like well I have to test them because all of my enterprise clients they're all he works for a lot of law firms all these attorneys they want the iPad but then they have to run Citrix to get the Windows desktop remotely on their iPad and they need like but then I was like but wait that doesn't make any sense like you have a keyboard but you need a mouse he's like yeah they all pair their iPhones with the Citrix app and they use the iPhone screen as a mouse and I was like this is the dumbest thing that is sounds like hell and he's like this is enormously popular are we there's also there's also one thing we haven't talked about with the surface is that it will see supports USB and USB case yeah and that's like a big thing for consumers when they go in and look at the iPad and they say can you plug in something to it does it does it have an SD slot I think it does yeah does it it should it's I think it's still soon enough in the in the process they can add one Microsoft please add an SD slot all right I'll call her thanks for calling and we're gonna take a couple more and then we're gonna move on thank you call you're on the air what is your name and and what do you want to talk about yeah this is Dan hey I was just I was just thinking with with Microsoft with the service with surface the glass Windows RT arm versus Intel you guys are always talking about fragmentation it seems like that's kind of gonna get consumers all jumbled and then also where they making the money at it's gonna be on the hardware they're gonna be on the software side they're gonna be like services like the music service or I can't imagine they're gonna make money off the hardware I don't think the hardware is a moneymaker at first I think it's a loss leader I think that they want to put it out there and get some polish from it I think it can make money I mean they can definitely make money off of hardware if they do if they sell it in enough volume and and they are not spending too much to actually produce it they will spend too much to produce it and will not sell in volume at the outset so I don't think that's an immediate moneymaker for them the software will continue to be a moneymaker for them certainly in the enterprise not on their own yeah not on their own you know Microsoft has like I mean they've got Dell and HP and I mean they've got they have the power yeah I mean they can do whatever they want Dell's not gonna make Android laptops yeah there is no other platform for them right they're not gonna make Mac laptops yeah Linux they're not gonna make Linux laptops right I mean like they have too many customers who are died in the support I mean you have to understand there again like it is like 95% or 92% whatever the current percentage could they go to Google and they're looking at Google and they're worried about Google if you if you see anything that they do it just all follows a pattern of well I think you're 10 years away I'm talking about Microsoft concerned about Google I mean very concerned about good yeah I know they're concerned about office and they're concerned about yeah enterprise I mean you think you think they could go to Google you think the Chrome stuff getting fairly good and it looks like Windows 7 right it's not getting that good if you just need a thin client to do something really basic like you've just got your CRM or whatever it is and it's like I mean you're opening a browser yeah that's like Schmidt's dream it is Schmidt's dream no but I mean look we use Google Docs exclusively right we don't I mean I have office I open it because I mean I open it when people send me things that I can't open elsewhere but we're a very small very forward-thinking business yeah I can't imagine a world where we go back where we would go back to using office for any reason yeah so but again we're very small I mean we're very small I can't and the things I mean that office for fortune 500 companies believe me they are far away and I don't think pages and numbers and those are realistic to those guys at all like I don't think they look at those as real productivity apps not at this point but yeah Google is a threat yeah Google is a threat I have a we have to we're gonna have to wrap up though unfortunately because I have to leave yes what about that what about the fragmentation like just well the fragments are you sir last Windows RT on an Intel our consumers gonna know us up well okay so smart glass is just a component right Xbox music is just a component the to the real fragmentation happens between the Intel and the arm sides right the fragmentation happens when you've got customers who think they're getting Windows and you know you can't put Photoshop on it because it doesn't exist there's no Microsoft isn't making that clear even with surface right they're saying surface for Windows RT right what does that mean to me it's a branding issue you know yeah like they could have called the surface like surface Metro and then they could have called the other one like surface Windows Pro I mean they both have Metro though but you're right though you know what I'm saying like give it a name I mean there is this will be like Windows Phone 7 series when they hit the shops it will be surface and surface Pro yeah but they really need to drop that like but but regardless regardless surface and surface Pro doesn't tell a user that one literally can't run the apps that the other one can't I mean this is let's see you worse than Android why is the pro one better this is worse than Android fragmentation this is like well we don't we don't know that yet because we haven't really seen what what the RT apps can do but we know it's exactly the same as the Intel Metro apps right so there's no difference but we haven't seen how much you can do but as a user you can't get into your browser first off you can't go on ie and go download Chrome for our for our for arm because it doesn't exist not the desktop version but it might it might make a lot I make a Metro version but I'm saying but you can't go to a website and say oh yeah I want to get um I don't know think of a thing you might download on the Internet that's a piece of software any piece of software like I use fantastic Al it's a calendar utility like oh yeah I use this calendar utility for my old Windows machine I'm gonna go download that for my new surface my new surface and you go to the website it's like sorry not compatible with it you're not gonna do that you're gonna go to the Windows Store and it's gonna show you some people will but you'll also I don't just go to the Mac App Store I still download stuff on I think the idea from Microsoft well that's the same idea for Apple that they're moving away from it and that's a wonderful dream and I'm sure someday it'll happen but people still do try to download stuff from the Internet to use on their computer but they don't the same way if you've got an iPad and you visit a link to get an iPad Apple or you're just trying to get you know trying to get Chrome when your iPad say or no Skype they say you'll hit that link and then it redirect you into the App Store right you know they're supporting that as well yeah so that so that'll be a Microsoft support code out the way it does it does create real fragmentation in the industry all right caller thank you for calling in we have we have one more on the line I'm just gonna take this quickly just quickly call you're on the line give me your name what do you want to talk about and we have like two minutes so no right it's a Devron and I'm real quick two quick questions about the review I have promised to be 30 seconds hey oh guys hey this is Devron listen first of all huge fan and I always wondered when I read the reviews first of all we kind of know who you are but at this point what your voice is so Josh clearly we know you know what you like we know what Neil I like you know I are blasted you've got this issue and I read the reviews and it's always from the perspective of we like we like this no we don't do that anymore no we do reviews from we actually stopped we stopped after we left and gadget we decided that we don't do reviews from the Royal we we write news from the Royal we we do reviews from a personal perspective if you look at our reviews there I like this I didn't like this this is annoying and if anybody's doing we then they're then they're fired okay one other quick point and again definitely appreciate all the stuff you guys do the gaming industry kind of went through this same review score thing I kind of you know reviewed or looked at several different outlets there and I'm one of the things they arrived at was just an ABC score like a like a grading score because honestly when you look at the numbers for a phone review it just screams compare you know and then you're talking about looking at reviews over the course of several different years so it's an eight now the same as an eight later like right you just well let me stop and ask you quickly you saying V arrived at it and I'm still looking at game review scores and it's still yeah I mean I just want to 100 or 1 to 10 movies still figured out TV's do for episode by series I don't think I don't think it's a hard and fast one but I will say that that that you're right about the comparison what I'll say is you got to use some of this you got to use your head and by the way we have we're working on new iterations of our comparison tools of our database tools of our product and review pages and so we're gonna have we're gonna have in the coming months we'll have big changes you know update to that stuff where it's actually more effective part of our thing was we know that these are dated like these are in cycles right and so we're gonna try to find ways we're gonna hopefully find ways to combat the confusion among cycles right so you know like the galaxy nexus the iPhone 4s are in the same cycle the the the the droid razor max and those phones are in the same cycle but do the bite is the bionic in the same cycle I mean it kind of is but we're gonna try to find better ways that's a big issue actually for everything for anything that you're reviewing if it's a product is like how do you identify like if I go to Consumer Reports and they're like I'll show me your refrigerator reviews and I don't know when the refrigerator reviews are really what refrigerator cycle they're on no because there are look they release refrigerators like they release cell phones you know they have a every year they'll do a new set of models but like there's no real indicator that that this year's model so you really have to get a sense of like where you are in the in the timeline of these things and and I think hopefully like that's something we need to work on and everybody needs to work on hopefully we can find some way to solve that because what we don't want is people going like you gave the iPhone 4 a 10 well we didn't you give the iPhone 4 an 8 or a 9 or whatever and then you gave this phone at a 9 and they're from different eras and the iPhone 4 doesn't have this thing and it's like yeah that doesn't help anybody you need to be able to show people where does it sit on the time I think you our overall goal is to ride people with more information more information not less and let them and more kinds of information yeah and that point yes I just want to say really quickly I mean we know you guys so much from the character and stuff that you've done even dating back to the engadget days I almost wonder and I know the volume of products you review probably doesn't lend to this but can you possibly do like a two-person review for something huge like when I phone 5 comes out you know people gonna you know what is the verge opinion on that on that phone I would love to hear what what knee-high says versus what you say and it may be very different things and I think this kind of forces people against that paradigm of well here's what the verge said no no here's what Josh feels about yeah yeah we've done a few of those we have had we have done a couple of things like that yeah we did it and engage it after the droid came out yeah we did a meta review with that four or five people you know that was at the end 97 I think but the one thing is the one thing the one thing and this is and the reason we went to the I versus the we you know we entrust the people that we have reviewing things to do the job that they're paid to do which is to provide an informative helpful review I think there are voices that you recognize but you know a review is not it's not empirical data you know I mean some of it is a battery test this is how long it went you know the screen looks like this compared to the other here's what the display right you know those are those are facts right those are real things but a person's opinion is not a fact and like my right I might tell you I mean Gruber would tell you that the iPhone 4s is without question the best phone that's ever been created I have no doubt you know right that is not a fact it is one person's opinion when I tell you about a phone that I like it's not a fact it's one person's opinion and when Walt Mossberg or anybody or David Pogue or anybody else out there tells you about what you they think you should buy they are not telling you that because they have achieved some sort of scientific breakdown of of all of the possibilities have come up with this one answer we're saying it as a human being across the void to another human being here's my opinion on this stuff I like this I didn't like that reviews are just so such gray area I mean I think that is the thing at the core of all of this I'm gonna be late for this meeting at the core of all this reviews are gray area and to try to ascribe a black and white mentality to them to try to say that there must be a best and a worst yeah is is I think a very short-sighted and very limiting view of a human understanding and communicate and that that that results in you publishing all caps headlines that say is this an iPhone killer right which is like I don't I live I live in I believe in subtlety I think subtlety is is key to communication to getting information to understanding information subtlety is key and to when you read our stuff I there is an appropriate level of subtlety and there's an appropriate level of excitement I'll tell you that as a viewer and I know you got it you're gonna be late but just last thing I'll say and then I'll go is you know we definitely see this the fact that you know over the years I've seen what you said about web OS and stuff I think your opinions have kind of added to the anxiety for Wow you know his opinions are pretty much in line with what I think yeah I'd love to hear what he has well you know you know it's funny it's funny well Ohm again Ohm said something about how I mean I said first of all he said I said Windows Mobile was great which I don't recall ever happening and is a is a lie and and I said you know web OS web OS was incredible when it was released it was an incredibly exciting platform and and you know it's great hindsight is 2020 isn't it it's great for somebody who never said anything about it or who didn't really have have to have an opinion about it to look back and go yeah look at web OS it didn't really work out that well it actually turned out to be a pretty crappy platform but the the fundamentals of that platform and by the way much of what they tried to pioneer in web OS is now becoming the norm in other platforms you hear everybody talking about adaptive responsive design and HTML 5 apps you look at what the Financial Times is doing with a completely HTML 5 based app that they they've stopped releasing their app for iOS and they're doing that and it's actually quite good that stuff that was pioneered in web OS and when you look through the when I look through the lens it's raining okay great when you look at that stuff you know I stand by I stand by what I said about web OS and and if the if those products have been fully realized as they should have been I think it would be a very serious competitor to the current crop of smartphones they weren't realized they were you know as a company in peril frankly that's unfortunate but you know what if you can't look at something and see the potential you shouldn't be reviewing you shouldn't be talking about products if you can't look at something and see what the point is and think that it's a good idea or a bad idea you know I don't know what to say but it's like you know anyhow this is all just inside baseball stuff I mean at the end of the day like we're trying to write good reviews people that are help that help them buy a product and this isn't thank you this isn't this isn't we're not talking about World Wars we're not talking about there are much more serious things we're talking about like consumer products do you like them do you not like them that's the reality and on that point caller thank you for for calling and we gotta wrap up Tom Tom thank you for joining us I know that you've been stuck on Skype and just screen for the last half an hour Tom what would you rate this podcast a seven seven really this is an outrage anyhow that's the verge cast this week you can get in touch with us at you can email us at verge cast at the verge calm you can find us on Twitter the verge is at verge I'm Josh Dupulsky Nila is reckless Ross's Oh No Roscoe with no e on the end who would use an e TC Sonic is what is it TC laughing so laughing stoic right laughing stoic of course for TC Sonic and Tom Warren is is is Tom Warren which is the best yeah and you can and if you want whatever that's the show we'll be back next week thanks much for joining us and as always I wish you and yours the very best over this holiday weekend it's not a holiday weekend that does why do you sound like Vincent Price goodbye I'm gonna Paul