 Hello, welcome to the Vergecast for the week of October 22nd. I'm Nilay Patel. I'm not Joshua Tupolsky, but I have some people that combined make up for one Joshua Tupolsky. I'm David Pierce. I'm half of Joshua Tupolsky. Tom Warren. This is Tom Warren. It's Josh's wedding anniversary, so he is enjoying himself. So he only worked like three quarters of a day today. Yeah, exactly. So we let him go early. But we have Tom in from the UK, and we have David, and they have surfaces with him, which is very cool. I was just given a touch cover in pink, so I'm just going to type nothing today. It really is a good color for you. It is. I actually think it goes very well with my skin tone. It does. How's this blue one? It's pretty much the same. This is the color. No, the pink is much better. That's the color? Yeah, this is the Nokia color. So for the people who are listening, David has- I'm so sorry. Our deepest apologies. David has a surface with the type cover, or as I like to call it, not quite a laptop. Fair. Also the thing that you can actually functionally type on. Either one. And Tom has a blue touch cover, and we're going to try to run the entire show from surfaces today. And I have an imaginary surface, which is quite nice. So a huge week in news. Like monster. And it's funny because next week is equally enormous in terms of news. Yeah, it's crazy. It's been Marxist week this week. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But a ridiculous- Yeah. I don't know. It's all over. After next week, there's nothing left to announce. What can anyone possibly do? I don't know. Just chill out and- Yeah. So let's talk about- So on Tuesday, there was the Apple event, and we obviously spent a lot of time covering Apple, talking about Apple in depth. And so if you want to hear about the iPad mini, I think there's a show for you. You can- Yeah. If you're watching this, I'm sure you watched our iPad mini special on Tuesday. If you didn't, shame on you. Yeah. Yeah. Because it was you and Ross. It was me and Ross. Yeah. Good. Handsome. They are terrific. Yeah. You guys talked about- I screwed up Lion King references. It was awful. Did you talk about- I just embarrassed myself the whole time. I would expect- I literally- Ross got a tweet right after I said something being like, you just screwed up the Lion King. Yeah. It was awful. Well, a disappointing performance on day two. The rest of it was good, though. Ross was good. Good. It was a good performance. It was a good performance. Then yesterday was the official Windows 8 launch event and party. Oh, on the same day, yeah, the Surface launched, but the Surface reviews all came out on Tuesday. Yeah. Right. So it was- They've just been hammering it every day. They've managed it quite well in that sense. They've been in the news cycle every day. Let me ask you this. Yeah. This is actually important. So you say Microsoft has managed this very well. Because they have been in the news cycle every day. The marketing side, getting in the news every day, they've done that well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They've done that well. Yeah. But in here, I think this is... So on Tuesday, we ran Tom's Windows 8 review in the morning. Yeah. Which he gave an 8.8, which I think is very funny. And legitimately was not intentional. Yeah. Completely intentional. I have no doubt that that's what you thought. It was not, was it? It really wasn't. That was actually like he gave it a bunch of scores, and I was like, oh, all those scores make sense. Then he was like, oh, it adds up to an 8.8. I was like, that is done. No. It is done. It was just meant to be. That's not how math works. It was. So that was the morning, and then there was the iPad event, and then the evening, Josh's Surface review went up. And I know that you both influenced that review greatly, because you had one. Right. Right. Right. We both had one coming back. Yeah. So time passed, and then yesterday was this launch event. And we sent you to the launch event. I think Dante was there. We had our video guys there. And nothing happened. Nothing. Yeah. And I think that's what I'm curious about. And it was like six hours long, right? It was like the whole day. Yeah. So the event, you could go in at 10, and then it started at 11, and then it finished at 12 for the Windows 8 bit. And then the Surface stuff happened, started at half one, I think. Yeah. And then that finished at about half two. So yeah. A thing that had already been reviewed, and everybody knew everything about it. They were like, let's spend. Right. So this is the thing, because there was a controversy that I'd like to address. There was some controversy. We did not, we chose not to live log the Windows 8 launch event and the Surface event, because we knew, A, we had the products, we had reviewed them already. Yeah. And so there was very little that we could, it's not even an instinct. We were waiting for them to say, hey, this is the Twitter app for, this is the Facebook app. Well, and if we live blogging for six hours would literally kill them. Yeah, it is the worst. You would die. Yeah. Like, period. So I mean, we just thought, we're going to send Tom, we'll send Dante, we'll send video. If something happens, we'll be able to cover it. Yeah. And we were relatively confident that they're not going to retroactively change the Surface that we've already reviewed. Right. So we didn't, and then, but then, the same day, Apple had its financial call and I live like that because I always say crazy stuff on these calls. Yeah. And I got, they did not disappoint yesterday either. I got very, like people were freaking out at me. Yeah. So like, I was like, we would live blog Microsoft call if Bulma was on it, but he, he's very, very. And when he is on it, he reads the thing. I would actually listen to the call if Bulma were on it. Apple calls are like Tim Cook freestyle, right? Like, what do you think of this? He's like, well, I think it sucks. And like every time, every other company is like the CFO. Anyway, it doesn't matter. So the Microsoft event, tell us all about it. Yeah. So I mean, it was kind of like a recap. If you, if you were someone who didn't know much about Windows 8 and you went there, then you get a good sort of gist of what it's all about. But in terms of news, there wasn't any, you know, it was like, this is Windows 8, this is how we got there. And these are the vital statistics. So what was, what was Balmer like, how excited was Balmer? He was excited, but he was, he was talking about developers and I was like, he's going to say, you know, he's going to say, he's going to start pounding across the stage. He's going to like jump around and start screaming about developers, but he didn't, it was kind of like, it was tame. Interesting. And I'm mining you to speak into the microphone. Oh, okay. I'm not good at mimes. Yeah. I just see this like just doing, you're in a box. Yeah. So it was tame. It was like, like bordering on like being just pointless in the sense of for news cycle. But it was like the, you know, they're opening up to the broad audience now. They needed to do something like that, but I think they should have showed some apps. Yeah. They should, they, they should have done, you know, they showed like urban spoon and it's like, they've got angry birds space in the store today. They could have showed that, you know, I don't know. Yeah. Because that's the big question. They could have shown that store today, but they didn't have it yesterday. No, but they would have had it. It's a B roll of the event going on here. I mean, it seemed like an enormous party. Like there was like a vast city scape they built full of PCs. They had a bunch of windows eight PCs like out there. Right? Yeah. No, they had, they had this like, but New York city and all the, all the PCs were like stacked up and all around there. And then they had a massive area for surface as well. That was after the surface event. So yeah, they had a lot of PCs. It feels like a lot of companies just do these events so that somebody will hopefully cover that like so-and-so had an event. Yeah. Like counts as like Samsung had a thing this week for the galaxy note two, which is, has already been launched three dozen different times. You know everything about it already. Right. And there's, there's nothing new. We've already reviewed the phone. We know what carriers is coming out for. We know how much it's going to cost, but then they were like, uh, here's Kanye. And so Kanye came to this thing at the Samsung event. This is why everybody had pictures of Kanye. Yeah. Yeah. This is what happened. Yeah. So I ended up right. And so Dan Seifert, one of our editors and Ross went and Dan sent me a picture of him like nine inches away from Kanye's face and was like, Samsung's the best. And I was like, I guess that's why they have these events. Dan is fired. Dan, I'm sorry. Pack up your things, Dan. Just get out of here. I don't think he actually said Samsung's the best. I don't think I can see you looking smug behind that window, buddy. Ross is actually hanging out with Kanye behind that window right now. Kanye's just from Kanye would be a really amazing like book, like an introspective. It sounds interesting already. It's like the guy you sat next to Kanye in elementary school who grows up to be a truck driver. My career is like a failed rapper. The best I ever did was like near Kanye this one time. You're single bronze digger. That's awful. Yeah. I don't feel good about that. Never tell that. Wait. So, so last night then after this event. So yeah, so they did the event. They did the surface stuff was actually, although we knew, you know, we've reviewed it, so we knew all about it. Um, it was kind of interesting the way they laid it out. They had panels. Panayi who's like the surface guy. And he was quite a man of any services. Multifaceted. He was quite a good presenter. I think he was quite like not aggressive, but he had like a, you know, he very direct. So yeah. And then they had Sanofsky come out with like the skateboard and surface and stuff. So if you don't know what they're talking with, the skateboard is Microsoft is so proud of how strong the surface is. They glued skateboard. So you can stand on top of it and skate around and then they dropped the surface on stage, which is pretty cool. I don't know if we have any finger that, but yeah, they, they dropped in there like a pen. This was like, do you ever see anyone else do this? You know? So a clear, a clear like jabber Apple. Right. So saying they don't drop their stuff on stage. It was like, yeah, that's like, that's great. I mean, I, I like, I appreciate the sentiment and the burrito, but it's, I loved it if you dropped it on cement. Yeah. Yeah. I just, yeah. Did you see, uh, what was it? Um, I think Matt Honan and wired, he did a review of the surface and he was like, there's a gift of him trying to break the kickstand. Yeah. And he's like, he's like, I had to put my entire way. It's clearly a very well built product. So let's actually talk about the thing, the surface. So you, Jay, but I know you like deeply participated in the review and you just got yours like yesterday. Yeah. So I came into New York or the night before the event and I just went straight to the office at like midnight just to get the service. Yeah. Tom doesn't sleep. I don't know if everybody knows this about Tom. Tom literally just does not sleep ever. I don't sleep. So, and yeah, so I stole it and then we met at the hotel and sort of played around with it. But, um, yeah, I mean it's great. My first impression is it's great hardware, but the interface goes a little bit laggy. Occasionally there's, there's, there's some software optimization they need to do. That's for sure. But that's, that's, it's kind of a good thing in a way. It'd be worse if they brought it out with really bad hardware and then they couldn't fix that later. Right. True. I mean, but the thing is like to make such a like big splashy launch, I feel like you can't really afford even like these little things. Yeah. I mean, they're betting so much on like this day, like yesterday and today and this coming week or whatever buying. Well, okay. I want to make sure we focus on the surface, but I actually don't know if that's, I think they're betting on windows eight. I don't know if they're betting on the surface. Really? Yeah. I mean, it's such a limited availability product. You can get it online. You can get it in the Microsoft store. There's like 12 Microsoft stores. They're going to do these other pop-up stores, but I think the vast majority of people are going to experience windows eight somewhere else. I mean, that's true. Most people are going to buy another OEM product, but this is like the hero device, right? This is a device that they chose to go to Times Square with and open up a massive shop with just the surface on sale. Right. I mean, and you look at like the Microsoft stores where, and they are really trying to make those like a big deal in the same way that Apple stores are a big deal. Right. And they're almost all surface. It's like there are hundreds of windows eight PCs out there. And like, I forget what the number is, they told us when we were out visiting store zero in Redmond, but it's like 60% of the floor space is devoted to the surface. Yeah, just the surface. Yeah. Microsoft store. I mean, that makes sense. It's their product. Right. I think- Like they make so much more money. It's going to be Xbox and Surface, right? Right. But like no matter how much, how well it does, they're going to make more money on windows than on the surface, right? On the surface, yeah. Right. They have to. Yeah. So it's crazy that they're like going way out of their way to do this with the surface. I guess we don't yet know how much this thing costs. There's not been a, no one's broken it down. You mean to build? Yeah. So this is a funny story. So when we were out there, somebody asked, what are the price of the components? And Stephen Stonks got very angry about that. He hates the idea of these iFixit teardowns where they talk about, here's how much each component costs. No, that's not iFixit. iFixit's great. Oh, no, you're right. Sorry, not iFixit. It's iSupply. Yeah, iSupply. By the way, which I also believe is garbage. Fair. Because they're like, R&D in this product costs $8. Right. And it's the same thing as like the pharmaceutical things where they're always like, why couldn't these be more expensive? And they're like, well, they cost 8 cents now, but the first one costs $400 million. And he was making the point that it's kind of the same thing. And it kind of makes me look at all these things differently now where it's like, this little hinge costs 37 cents. And Sanofsky threw that out like it was a random number, but it definitely isn't a random number. But plus the millions and millions of dollars they spent on developing it. How dare you? It's cool. It's a tablet. I'll just use it like this. What's up? Just going to watch some movies. It's fine. See you later. No, I mean, yeah. I just like, I want to talk about the Surface more, but I think in the grand, and I think we'll come back to it at the end of sort of the Surface review conversation. I think the big lesson for me right now is that it's Windows 8 that is the product and Windows RT in this Surface is like the future. It isn't necessarily here yet. Yeah. Well, we talked about this a bunch of times in the office about like Microsoft may have been smarter if they had come out with RT a year from now when there's this huge app store and they've had some time to kind of tweak and improve the platform a bit. And then they say, well, here's like our full tablet thing. And I guess the argument is then they'd be a further, a year further behind the iPad. People want stuff that's 10 hours battery life as well. You're not really going to get that elsewhere without like additional add on. Yeah, I mean Intel, that's a Haswell chip away, right? I think RT is kind of like a stop gap until Intel can catch up in that sense. That's really interesting. So Tom, give me, like you've had a day or two now with this thing. What's your impression? Was Josh on target? Yeah, I think, I mean Josh's review first of all was very fair and very accurate. So, I mean this thing is kind of like odd in a sense that if you want to use it as a tablet it works, it works well, it works fine, but the screen size is a little strange. And if you want to use it in portrait, there's no point. Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous. And like a good example of that is that if you use it in portrait with the store, for example, you can't use that in portrait. And if you've got it in portrait and you switch to the store app, it will force you to horizontal. And sure iOS apps can do that, but why Microsoft's done that on their first party app is kind of odd. So portrait, yeah, not really worth it. But I kind of like the way that I could go out on the weekend and if something breaks, like an Xbox leak for example, which has happened on the weekend, I could take this with me and I know that I could put up a post about that. What I was out was if I took my iPad with me, I could do it, but it's not ideal. So I like that idea. But it's kind of, they're trying to do so much in one product, but it doesn't really do something really well, but it does everything kind of good. This is what Josh was saying. I mean, so the line from Josh's review is like, why did they make this? Who is this for? What is this trying to be? What was this line? I think it was, who is this for? Who is this for? Yeah. And I kind of understand having now played with it a little bit myself, I'm beginning to understand specifically what that means because I think there's a huge audience of people who want to run Office. Yeah. Oh yeah. A thin, light machine. Yeah. But it feels like they're still better served by an Ultrabook, right? Because they're running Office. Yeah. I think it, I guess it depends what people want really. I mean, when I was at the store last night and I was like, I was talking to people, I was just trying to make sure that people were genuinely there, interested. They weren't trying to look for a celebrity or stuff like that. So they were actually interested in the product. I spoke to a couple of girls there and they were like, one of them had pre-ordered it, so they were coming for accessories. And the other one was like, well, I'm kind of interested in it and I haven't like brought a tablet because I really need Office for my work. And I was like, okay, that's interesting. And then I started talking to other people and they were like, yeah, Office is really important. Like the main reason I want it is because of Office. I was just like, it's just crazy. Yeah. I guess I underestimated how much the importance of Office for women. I think I did too. I don't have Word on any computer that I use regularly. My whole life is just, I mean, I genuinely don't. I haven't installed Word anywhere. And it sucks because when companies send me stuff and I have to find a weird thing online, it's a whole different story. We can provide you with Office. That seems like a lot of work now. But I think I definitely underestimated how many people rely on Office. And like in the sense that like we talked about it being a compromise and like Tim Cook was like throwing out burns on the Apple call yesterday about like this fits, you know, it tries to do everything. So it's terrible at everything. The specific line, by the way, was you can make a car that flies and floats, but it wouldn't be good at any one of those things, which is like, a, okay, it's probably true, but it's still a part of flying. Like I drove a truck that was a yacht. It was awesome. Yeah, it's true. I did do that. And that's the thing. Like the thing I thought was funny about that is that he first of all, he, he said that you hadn't used it. It's like, you can't really judge something until you use it. Right. Right. I've never seen it, but I hate it. Well, it was like based on everything I read. So you read the reviews or more likely some intern at Apple like coffee to lay at the conclusion of every review. What should be awesome. I got to get that intern. I guess I got to get that internship. I bet they might hire you. Yeah. Maybe I got to get that internship. Yeah. I got to get that in. Somebody to summarize everything that happens in the world for me. No, but I think like that is, is maybe a more compelling argument than people realize. Like, you know, my car that flies and floats, but it's bad at both is still pretty awesome. And like if I need something that flies and floats, even if it's not perfect at it, like it'll still do it. If you really need to fly it like one particular point you can. Yeah. But like if I'm, if I'm a, you know, if I'm a businessman who wants something I can travel with and that uses office and that gets long battery life, like I want all of those things and the perfect example of all of those things doesn't exist. Right. So maybe you do want to take, you know, a C plus experience on all of those things rather than an A plus experience on two out of five. Right. Like I don't, I honestly don't know the answer to that. I feel like I end up buying devices that are A plus experiences on two out of five and it's why I own 400 different gadgets that I'll do more or less the same thing. You're also a professional gadget. Well, right. It's sort of what it is. It's also your job. No, it's nice. Yeah. But it's not, I can't complain. But it's also like, but I get the idea of like, if I just want to have one thing, I need it to do all of these things. And even if it doesn't do them all perfectly, it does all of those things. So my question, and this is the key question. Doesn't a laptop do all of those things? Yeah. Right. I mean, isn't that, that, and that, that to me is a thing from the surface RT reviews that I've, or the surface with windows RT reviews that I've read. Does your laptop do this? Does your laptop do this? Does it? Why would you want your laptop to do this? I will say that this, this is really cool. Yeah. You can like, you know, you can use this as a skateboard. No way. You're lying. By the way, they should have definitely made a laptop that's a skateboard. You just took that from me. That's fine. Yeah. What up? This is the story. This is the story of my life, by the way. Yeah. I have a thing and Neil is like, oh, it's mine now. Bye. Pretty much. I just want to try this. No, but I will say I've been, I've been also testing and reviewing a bunch of like true legit windows eight laptops that don't purport to be anything other than a laptop. And generally speaking, I like them way better. Like I like, I have a, the Lenovo yoga, the one that like flips all the way over. Yeah. And it's awesome. It's great. It's not as, you know, it's not as light and easy to pick up, but it's a way better experience as a laptop. Right. And you still get some of the tablet. Yeah, but as a tablet it's pretty, it's kind of strange. Well, it's because it's enormous, but they make. And you've got the keyboard pointer. Yeah. But I mean, by the time you're this big though, like this is big enough that it's really not that comfortable though. You can't hold it in one hand really at all. And even to try and hold them two, it's like, I was trying to play a game and then you're like, you know, double jointing your thumbs to try and press stuff on the screen. And like by the time you get to this size, I feel like a lot of people should just be willing to go bigger and get a better experience on some of the other stuff. Right. Just buy a laptop. Right. I mean, and, and you know, for some people, I guess tablets make sense, but this kind of even feels like a tweener there too, where it's like not a great tablet and not a great laptop. Uh, and yeah, I just don't know. It's this weird in between trying to be everything and like, maybe that's okay, but it doesn't work. Yeah. I mean, I think this is the fundamental question for Microsoft, particularly with RT. Right. Yeah. I kind of understand with windows eight proper. I understand. I think there's going to be a tremendous explosion of like form factor craziness. Yeah. Yeah. We're already seeing it. It's awesome. Yeah. I think it's going to be great with this product. It's like they built a tablet and because they wanted it to have office, they built it with a kickstand and a keyboard. Right. And that's, cause I don't know why you need this stuff apart from office. Yeah, true. I kind of don't. Um, because I've never wanted this stuff with my iPad. Yeah. I think once all the apps are there and like that's got to happen because otherwise this thing's going to fail. So, um, so once, once he gets all the apps and stuff, then it's kind of like, it does become more of a tablet then. Right. Yeah. So once you've got those, those, those, the key apps like, I know like Spotify and Twitter and Facebook and cause there's some Twitter apps, but they're not. So are those things coming? Cause that's, what's killing you right now. Right. It's you have a tablet and here's, and this is going to be a really harsh burn and I'm going to, I'm going to say this and I'm going to own it. And then you're just going to knock the surface. No, no. Here's what I think Microsoft has accomplished with the surface. I think they've built the world's best HP touchpad. They've like that level of not in terms of like running web OS or ID, but in terms of like the level of accomplishment, right? They built a new OS. It's got an app environment that happens to be built on like web technologies at a core level. It has no apps yet. It's a little unpolished in places. The ideas are great. Sure. It needs to be finished. Yeah. And it's, it's like everybody who picks it up is like, this is a great idea. Please finish this. Right. And the thing that the HP didn't do is they never finished it. I have every reason to believe that Microsoft is going to finish this. Yeah, me too. But like at this moment in time, it reminds me very much of the touchpad. Yeah. And actually I was talking to Matt Buchanan from Buzzfeed and he was like, yeah, that's kind of what, that's what I think. But the thing is like this, this has, this has a chance that the touchpad just didn't. I mean, I agree. I agree. I'm saying like, in terms of like level of accomplishment at this moment in time, it's the touchpad. Yeah. I mean the thing is, we love the touchpad. Everyone loves it. I'm not saying, but we love it. It's like as more and more time passes, I forget more and more things that sucked. I only remember things that were great. Cards man. Cards. Cards. Dude, I was, I don't remember if I was using Windows phone. I was in a meeting with somebody from Microsoft and I was using either Windows phone or, or Windows 8 and I was trying desperately to swipe something away and he looked at me and he goes, that was webOS. I was like, oh. That's sad. I think that this has got the biggest chance because they forced this new user interface on everything, right? So, and these apps run across Windows 8 as well. So, I mean, and yeah, they've talked a ton about like you build one app for RT and Windows 8 and Windows phone and like that's going to work. It has to work unless Microsoft gives up on this three months from now and is like, just kidding guys, we screwed up. Let's go back to Windows 7. This is going to work just by sheer volume and force of will and the fact that Dell is not going to make anything else that doesn't run this. It has to work. Right. Yeah. And like, RDO or Spotify or Twitter or whoever is ultimately going to look worse. Like on, nobody expects them to come out with apps for Blackberry because who cares? But eventually it's going to be like, well, there's a billion of these. Why don't you have an app? Yeah. Like that's going to happen. It could be the point where people say, I'm not using that service because they don't have an app. Right. And for a lot of people, that's the choice. Like, like we kind of get to pick, like I get to, I got to pick if I want Android or iOS based on the apps. Yeah. But most people don't get to pick. Most people are going to be handed this and then they're going to say, well, why isn't there a Spotify app? I'll just go use Pandora. And like Spotify has got to know that. Yeah. Well, so here's my question. Most people aren't going to get this. I don't think, I don't think businesses are going to hand out RT tablets. No. I mean, I mean, but as windows eight gets better, RT gets better too. I think businesses want it in limited cases like CEOs and you know, the top level employees might want something that's got this sort of battery life in office and they don't have to do too many other line of business apps on it. Then it works. But I mean, yeah, I don't, RT is not designed to be rolled out in businesses really. I think it's just, they felt like they needed to compete directly with the iPad. So let's, so let's start with seven. What we gave it a 7.5. This? Josh give it a seven. Seven. Yeah. I think that's fair. I mean, it's great. And you know, I was expecting a much larger explosion of hatred in our comments and it just didn't happen. We just deleted all those comments. It was just fair and reasonable and it showed that there's potential there, but it's just not quite there. And you know, I was talking to, I was talking to Joanna at the Apple event, also reviewing it in that time period. And she was like, yeah, this isn't finished. She actually, I don't know if you know, she came over to our office to test the one that I had because she was worried that some of the problems she was having were just hers. And we were talking about it and she was so sad and just so like bombed out that video looked terrible and was like, I just want this to be wonderful. And it just isn't yet. I think that that was a reaction from people who've been following the surface announcement stuff. You know, it's kind of like a little bit of disappointment when the reality is that it's not quite finished. But yeah, I mean, so here's my hard question for Microsoft. And just on surface, I think we actually have a lot to talk about with windows eight next, but for just to wrap up surface. And I think this is Microsoft's enormous problem right now. This is your open letter to Steve Ballmer. This is my open letter to Steve Ballmer and to Steven Sanofsky in a way. And everything that they're doing with windows right now, they have been in an endless state of transition for three years. Like just this endless iterative, like not iterative is the wrong word, but like painstaking. Here's a giant announcement. Come look at windows phone. Okay. Come look at windows point seven five. Oh my God. It's the Nokia 900. Oh my God. It's the nine 20. Oh my God. It's windows phone. Everything has changed 40 times. Everything has changed, but nothing has ever finished. And this product is supposed to be the summation of change. Here it is. Here's Microsoft's big step forward. And the consensus reaction is it's not finished. Right. When is it going to be finished? Is there a time when it's, when somebody is going to say, this is done, don't wait for the apps to come. Don't wait for the next version. We're not promising you an update. We're not going to snake the kernel out from underneath it, throwing your phone away. Like is what, where's the finish line? And I don't think they'd answer that question at all. I think Microsoft has, they've promised big things and delivered lots of little things that are interesting and impressive, but they never delivered the big thing. And the only big thing I think they've really delivered on is Xbox. Right. Outside of that, I don't know what it is. It's kind of interesting what they're doing with the export stuff on windows eight and RT. They've really leveraged that as like a core bit to this. Yeah. I mean, I think they know that that's probably the most successful and well thought of brand that they have. Where's Halo four for this thing? Yeah. They should have, they, if they'd have done that, that would have been, yeah. But then at the same time, they've got Angry Birds space there. That's not even a windows fan. Like that's, it sounds like it sounds stupid, but it's kind of a big deal in a way that the review has actually done that and that they've got that game. They've, if you can't get that rovio porting Angry Birds is like, it's yeah. Yeah. Angry Birds is built. It's like, they're like, Oh, you've got a new platform and new architecture. Like we can definitely do that. But they've also, they're also bringing the Star Wars Angry Birds at the same time as all the other platforms. So that's, that's kind of, I think once you get the one Angry Birds, you're in, you can just do the rest. All you need is the first Angry Birds. Yeah. It shows that they're serious about windows eight from a big name rather than the fact that they just totally know. I know, Tom, I love you, man. I completely disagree with you. Rovio porting Angry Birds to something does not show. I know it's not major, but it's just. Momentum or potential. It shows that Rovio is like willing to collect whatever money it can for a franchise that it is blood dry now for like five years. And it's cool. All the way to the bank. And I will say bad piggies. You could show me bad piggies on this mofo and I'll buy one. Although I have it. I'm like four, five years old. That game is the best game ever. Wait, but hang on back to your. Can I just point out that it's a game where you design, I don't know if you feel you should go buy it right now. No, like right now. It's a game where you design a car and then race it. The end. And it was made for me is like they like went in time. Like what is six year old Neil I but tell one and they figured it out. Also the center cars have TNT and you can make don't worry. You can make planes. It's the best game. But go buy it. And it's not not on the surface. I'm terrible at that game. I'm just gonna be honest with you. Have you ever played like Amazing Alex, which is kind of the same kind of game. It's another you don't build cars that fly, but it's the same kind of like build a car from A to B and like do physics to Tim Cook yesterday that in bad days you can build a car that flies and it's sick. It's sold. Yeah. And you can only do it on the surface. You can't. No, that's what I'm saying. Like, I mean, Tom, what's your sense of this? When are they gonna be done? Yeah, I was I was disappointed to see the performance really. Because they've hidden Windows RT and they've not shown it to anyone properly for like the last year. Really? So I think there was always that feeling that they weren't going to be quite ready with the performance there. And then when the reality hit that, yeah, there's some performance issues. It's like, yeah, not again. Like, but the actual software is well, the interface is good. There was a longer question. I mean, I think that all the Metro stuff. It's Metro. It is. They lost that battle. All the Metro stuff is great. But then there's this desktop and there's an office. And I'm confident that the next version of that will not have it. Yeah, I think they could have. The thing is, when I met with Tammy Raylor and one of the Windows engineering guys, and I asked them that quite a lot. That they're basically saying this because of the windowing. That's what they wanted it there for. And then there was the other aspect that if you're in a business and you want to run app vApps that are virtualized, then you have the windowing as well so you can run virtualized desktop apps, which is kind of interesting if you can do that well. So that was kind of their excuse, shall we say, for keeping in there. And obviously, Office, they know that people want to run IE10 desktop and snap it to the side and have your Office document on the right and stuff. But I don't know. There's better ways of doing that than exposing the entire desktop. That's not touch optimized. Right, that's what I'm saying. There'll be something there. Right. It'll still run. It won't be this way, this mode switching. I think that'll go. And I think that's when it's finished. I think if you had to pick one finish line, we are now so confident in Metro that we can do what is obviously coming and somehow deprecate the desktop to it runs Windows apps or windowed apps in this Office environment. Yeah, I mean, they can do that in RT, but I don't think I'd ever want to see that go away fully in Windows 8 unless they really change the interface for Metro because the snapping in Metro isn't really ideal. And I don't want to run an app full screen on a 27 inch monitor. I don't have a 27 inch monitor because I want to run one thing full screen. Right. I mean, this does in some ways... Giant web browser. Yeah. This does kind of feel like the canary in the coal mine where it's like, you know, people are going to get used to or start to get used to this interface, but are still going to have all their apps that look kind of the same. Windows 8 or Windows 7 is effectively still here. They just it just has a new thing that happens when you hit the start button. But that's all Windows 8. That's what I'm saying. So let's get away from the surface because, you know, we keep doing we keep talking about Windows 8 because it's fundamentally more like interesting. This is like I'm telling you, this is the touchpad. Keep working on this. Yeah, no, I agree. Please, for God's sake, please work on this more because it's great and the ideas are great. But everything else that's interesting about Windows 8 is actually Windows 8. Yeah. And RT is like you sliced off this chunk of Windows 8 and you said, here's your new computer. And you're like, I miss all the other stuff. And I definitely miss the performance of the whole computer. Yeah. I mean, and as it like as I've been writing about some of these desktops that are coming out and the ones that are powered by like the Core i5 and Core i7 chips, like all this performance stuff is gone. Yeah. And these computers, they run great apps launch instantly. Multitasking is great. Like it's really clearly an RT problem. That's why I was so surprised that we were having issues with the review because I've had the Samsung slate and it's been perfect. Like, yeah, we've never ran into any of these problems, do we? And yeah, and it's kind of Windows 8 proper, I think is is fantastic. So, Tom, you reviewed that and you've been playing with the Tynet devices. What I think is very and I said this in the last podcast, I think it's very interesting that Microsoft is tightly controlling the phone. They're obviously tightly controlling RT and the tablet. Yeah. Yeah. They're doing a little bit with the Surface Pro, but that's like vaporware right now. Nobody knows when it's coming or how much it's going to cost. Right. One million dollars. But so the Windows 8 proper launch is just up to these hardware partners who are doing all kinds of crazy shit. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk. Let's you talk about Windows 8 and you talk about what you're seeing. You go first. Yeah, I think Windows 8 is I mean, it's still it's got the Windows RT stuff like the interface is the same and, you know, it's all of that. But more because you've got the desktop, you've got your normal apps and, you know, it's a lot more functional given the state of the Windows store right now. There's I think it's like between five and seven thousand apps right now. So you just don't have the scope for the stuff you do. Microsoft keeps saying the most apps in any app store at launch. Really? Yeah, I've heard that. Didn't the rest of them have zero? Yeah, I've heard that. And wasn't launched like a while ago. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard them say it. Yeah. So Windows 8, I mean, it's not too different to RT in the sense like the start screen is identical and everything else about it is identical. It's just the desktop that's really, you know, the traditional thing. The Windows. Yeah. But it kind of still hides away in the background. Right. So they've they've if you buy Windows 8 and you install it, it still forces you into this mode. And you go into it straight away. And if you didn't know anything else, then you're not going to get to the desktop because it's a desktop on the left. But if you're not aware of that, then you're in that mode. Right. From the moment you buy your computer. And you're always in that mode every time you boot up. So they're definitely pushing people to to Metro in an effort to then obviously to get these apps on the platform that they improve the RT side. You got typewired. I'm swiping. I'm swiping. I'm swiping. Continue. But it's I mean, it's Windows 7 and then and then some effectively. I mean, you've got all the cloud sync in. That stuff's great. Like, for example, I like I signed in on your surface in the office with the Wi-Fi and then I set my service up and then I just connected to the Wi-Fi. I didn't have to put the password in the stuff. Yeah. All right. That's on the surface. But that's Windows 8. You know, that's right. And it's all it's really cool. They like this. It syncs your desktop backgrounds. It syncs all kinds of settings. It syncs all your accounts. It syncs all your apps. Like once you've set it up one time, all you do is log in and it just comes down, which is really cool. The one thing that doesn't come down is the Metro apps. Like you have to go into the store and go into your apps and stuff. I'd like to see an easier way for that to sort of come down. But yeah, you've got the desktop. They've improved that somewhat. Multi monitor support is a lot better. And that's probably the big sort of draw if you're a power user there. Aside from that, like they've done some changes with the ribbon. Obviously, it's controversial. Mostly mostly hiding it, which I think is the best thing. They're like, we just don't want you to ever see the ribbon. The idea that that. Oh, my God. It's funny. The office intro video. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Documents. Office. Twenty thirty. Greg, my themes and settings. Sorry. This is riveting right now. This is really loud. This is really awesome. It is really loud. This is great. I'm totally into this. I just did a 180 in 10 seconds. He understands what the surface all to exist. No, I don't understand that. I understand why people want to use Microsoft Word. Yeah. And so, yeah, Windows is everything about the art side, but then just more. And that's the easiest way to describe it. And the performance is obviously there. You'd hope it would be. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I can see the surface probe in a lot more. Why are you doing like it's form factor innovation? Yeah. Whatever you want to make. I think that's why this is I think the surface pro in that sense will be something that I could use like day to day. Yeah. With desktop apps and the service or to that customer service pro service pro. Yeah. You know, the people the tribe in our forums is they're putting together cash to buy Josh ahead about this like a four thousand dollar like a camera. That's like nine thousand nine. Yeah. Even if you use a service pro for a year, which is a bet they will lose because it is just a Windows PC with a crazy form factor. It's not even that crazy a form factor. This is a this is a crazy. Is that crazy? This is look at what I'm doing. Yeah, it's a Windows PC. I mean, it would be like saying like, we'll pay you nine thousand dollars to boot camp Windows on your Mac for a year. Right. Yeah. It's offensively the same. I'll do that. Anybody anybody wants me to do that? I mean, well, you've got I don't even need a nine thousand dollar. First you got to call it poison and deal with fanboys for rights. He paid his. Yes, he did. They actually just know him like three. I've been through it. Yes, it's true. The extra six is actually therapy. He's been I think the poison and it was like the Lumion on hundred review really. Which he was right about. Yeah, he was. Yeah. I mean, look, look now you're not getting Windows for an eight on it. So yeah, it's kind of you said it. But yeah, man, I hope we saw that on camera just now. Yeah. And I think we put out a story that was also around that time of the Lumion on hundred review shortly after the which was, you know, these devices on game. We know. So no one believed in them. Right. Because why would anybody screw their customers so badly? Yeah. Oh, wait. It's not that. I mean, it's literally just they're never done. Right. And Windows Phone seven, I think they've now pretty much said, like, we needed to be in the market. So we get whatever we need. That was a stopgap. And it's like, for sure. Don't do that. It's not doing that. But don't we I'm glad you brought this back up because don't we give Apple crap for doing the exact opposite for saying like, we have a thing that's pretty good. Let's never change it ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. So like, on the one hand, like, I appreciate the fact that Microsoft is taking big swings. Like I wish it would take fewer and stay with them a lot longer. But at the same time, like, no. So probably if we're going to go forever, this baseball metaphor, and I know very little baseball. Let's do this. I would say Apple is content to try to hit one home run, like every five years. Yeah. And then just bask in the glory of that home run. You know, for in, you know, and put out every year they're like, check out our home run commemorative edition trading cards. It costs $450. And they're like, yeah, that home run was awesome. Yeah, I'll keep buying it. Microsoft is like, we're just going to hit doubles over and over and over again. And we're never going to say like, we're taking the big swing. But then you get stranded on second. That's what they do. They hit doubles and then they got no second. Right. And I know this is about the end of my baseball knowledge, but that's what it feels like. I'm going to start naming players here. We're going to get serious here. I'm like tuning out right now. I just know like players from the Brewers and like the late 80s. People are going to be so into that. Robin Blount was amazing. So bad. No, but that's, that's like, that's not a great metaphor, but that's what it feels like. It's like. And then the other hand, like Google's probably going too fast in a way. So people aren't getting the stuff that they're doing. They're bunting. They're all doing different things. And Apple is obviously the most successful in certain products and you can't really knock windows for the desktop. That's like, you know, that's what I'm saying. It's if this product, I think the sense that I got from every reviewer was that if the Metro part of this product was great, they would have said, this is sick because there's office here if you need it. Right. You have a great tablet. Right. And for windows eight, it's, it's like the opposite thing. It's like the desktop is there. It's windows seven more or less. Yeah. You can stay out of Metro if you really want to. Right. And we actually have a lot of, um, Sean Hollister did, um, such a ridiculous comment thread. Sean Hollister, the windows eight buying guy. Oh yeah. That thing got crazy and got crazy. But like the first comment was Sean saying, well, you don't have to buy a new PC and you know, I have windows seven and I'm happy with it. Right. And I was like, why are you happy with it? Windows eight is so much better for all these reasons. And I never use Metro. And it's like, wait, that's not right. Uh, you know, that's great. You can get these incremental improvements, like the file explorer and all this stuff. Yeah. And there's no more arrow, which is amazing. Yeah. It doesn't look terrible anymore. Actually, actually like I put it on a via OP and I always had problems with windows seven running on that cause the, I don't know what, um, integrated graphics he's got, but it, um, and it was a little better. Yeah. Arrow is a crazy resource hog. Like people don't know that, but it was really bad. Right. But I'm just saying like the bet for Microsoft is all on Metro. Yeah. Right. And it's weird because the art, it's not, they didn't finish. Like I just don't, the thing that if they had just called this product, like if they had called windows RT Metro, Metro is an unfinished operating system and windows eight with Metro was the finished operating system. I think people would have like understood it would have felt very different. Right. They're hedging, right? So like windows RT is obviously going, it's coming out on touch devices, um, primarily, but there's also like the same that they could come out on laptops. Like we just saw on our base Chromebook like that, that could happen. So they're hedging in the fact that if Intel doesn't do what we think they're going to do and arm gets even better, um, then, you know, they've got that desktop mode there and the windowing and then who knows? I think the decision to keep that desktop was like probably a backwards and forwards one at Microsoft. So I don't think it's, I don't think it was something that they said like a year ago, we're keeping this desktop and you know, But don't do that. Don't do like make a tablet. But what happens if I'm like really does take, take hold and they need this windowing for like regular desktops and those sorts of things. Like why do you got to ship it? True. Like put it and put it out when you got to put it out. I mean personally I would like to have seen the desktop mode go away. Keep office, keep all that windowing, but in a way that you don't expose the desktop. Well, I mean there's already like this kind of multitasking stuff. Like you can move stuff around and like all they need to do is just expand the functionality there so you can move it anyway. That wouldn't be, that's not a lot of work I wouldn't think. But not, not finished. That's all I'm saying. Like I keep it's no, I think that feeling of like, Metro is finished. Like the UI that isn't Metro, but it's definitely Metro and I'm just going to call it that forever. It's finished. Like the basics of this operating system, even on RT are really good. It's smooth. The gestures work really well. Like it, but then it's, it's like they always tested without ever opening a single app because as soon as you do, everything just goes to hell. It was like that with Windows 7 too. Yeah. It was like, I'm opening app. It's 35 minutes later. Right. No, I remember. I'm not getting on with my life. I remember when you're on Twitter and like you go to the browser or you like scroll around and like, this is nice. And then like I try to open Twitter and like my battery dies before the, if you don't have a really great network connection, opening a lot of apps is just like, oh, it's a mess. Six hours. Yeah. I don't think the Xbox music app isn't a good, like I really think it's bad. Why? I think it's awesome. I think it's like one of the best things Microsoft's done with this. You mean like the app itself or like the whole idea? No, the idea is great. I mean, I think, and Nathan Ingram is writing our report on this for us. I think Microsoft is very smart to say, we're not going to try to compete directly with Apple and sell you files. We're going to go compete with Spotify. Right. Which is a game they can win. Because that's the future. No one wants to store an MP3. Yeah. Poor Nathan. He's been cranking away on this report and I just told everybody about it. Now everybody's excited. Yeah. But this comes with free streaming, right? Yeah. I think all that's great, right? Yeah. This is the best app. What are you listening to? This was, I tried to find the best stuff I could do to embarrass Josh in the review video. What is this? This is country music. I will say this, can I just say one thing about country music? I'm a man who loves guitar solos. I do. I love them. And like songs now don't have guitar solos. That's true. I try to listen to Billboard top 100. Yeah. Like, you know, like every couple of weeks. And I'm like, where is the guitar? Now it's just dubstep breakdowns. And they're like, Oh, guitar solo. You mean what? Country music, guitar solos. You get some breakdowns. Can't stop. Michael's laughing at me. It's true, man. They're always like banjo solos. Like, and I don't know anything about country music, but I, some of them have dubstep. Did you just add yourself as a country music fan? No, I don't. You just added yourself as a Taylor Swift fan though. Cause that's the song that has dubstep and is it really? Yeah. It's like a huge single right now and it has a guitar breakdown and dubstep. Paul is here. Need I tell Taylor Swift fan? Well, you know, she was done wrong and she's never coming back to this town again. I don't know what any of that means. What is happening now? This is terrible. Oh, I'm scrolling. Yeah. Oh, that's not cool. It needs a touch cover. That's what's happening. Right. That's the problem. That pink touch. I just don't, look. I fix everything. I think I'm on record now. It's not liking iTunes at all. Just slightly. I think it's a decaying piece of software, but I will say there's something very smart about having a list of your songs and this whole experience is like, everything about it is like, here's another new graphically intense view of music. It's like, I just want to listen to one song or search for one song or find one song and like everything about it that makes us hard. And I think, I know it's a new program, they're rebranding Zune and all this stuff, but that was the problem with the Zune software, which some people really loved. I always found like, I don't have any desire to use this. Everything about this is too complicated and insane. I mean, there's actually a lot of that in RT, I think. The Evernote app, and again, this is like developer's fault, but Evernote is really pretty, really nice to look at, especially if you have lots of photos, but you can only see like four notes at a time. And I have like a hundred thousand notes in my Evernote and it just becomes impossible to do or find anything, but it's pretty. And like, that's, you know, it's pretty, so that's good, but I can't really do anything with it. And this is crazy. Wait, no, that's, yeah, this is just slow. Neil is just tapping randomly on the screen and yelling about things that happen. That's what's going on right now. Linkin Park. Are you going to hate on Linkin Park right now? You can get a list of your songs like this. Maybe Linkin Park. Does Linkin Park have guitar solos? What? You can get a list of your songs if that's what you want. Yeah, but that's, look at that list. Look at the information then see that list. You can see six things. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's not actually a list. That's when you turn it into a portrait. You could see 10,000 songs. Yeah. It's the tallest tablet ever. I mean, the one thing we didn't really mention too much is it has the cloud matching as well, which they kind of mentioned, but they said it was coming. And, but if you download it, like if you just start playing an MP3, it'll just match it. And then you can then it's available on all your devices. Yeah. Which seems like it should be a much bigger deal than they're making it. Cause that's really cool. I just want to point out that I reject the Chris Brown comeback. I don't think it's appropriate. And I think Rihanna's making a huge mistake. Okay. Can we just talk about this for the rest of the time? Because I think. What? Look, my, my wife was a, she was a domestic violence attorney for years and years. I can't, I can't have. Did he do time? I was going to say he did his time, but I don't know if he did time. No, no. He's just a jerk. Yeah. How dare you Chris Brown? It's got an interesting tattoo on his neck. Hmm. The tattoo he's got on his neck is kind of interesting. Worst place for a tattoo. Yeah. Just the worst. I'm just saying, I mean, I, I'm just channeling Becky's rage because she really was a domestic violence attorney. Anyway, look, I'm getting off this. Yeah, you are. I'm taking this back. This is why we don't give me like computers during the Verge cast. So one thing you can do this, if you've got an MP3, if you play that MP3, let's say it's on your desktop, then it goes into your My Music bit and then it'll match it. And then it'll go into your My Music on any other Windows 8 PC you've got, which is cool because you don't need the MP3. It just comes down. No, that's great. It's look, I'm just saying like the app, the service, iTunes needs all that stuff. The service is great. I'm happy they're chasing Spotify and not iTunes because I think Apple is going to be forced to chase Spotify sooner or later. I just think the app, like the design of the app is not about like listening to music. It's about like having this like multi-sensory experience and you always have to, you have to constantly use it to make it do things. And it's like listening to music, I don't want to like screw with an interface. You just want to know what's playing and when it's finishing. What am I listening to next? Here's another collection of songs. And like that whole, like I just remember I had a Zune. I had a Zune HD. I have a limited edition Joy Division Zune, which I'm very proud of. It's never opened, but I still have it. Wow. That's probably worth like 20 bucks. Yeah, oh God. Yeah. Maybe like 18. Maybe. And I just, every time I use that software, I just like I want to shoot myself. It's very similar to smart glass, right? That's where they're pushing with this. So you can play a song here and you can play it to your Xbox and then you get all the biography and all that sort of stuff. So I mean, that's where they're going with this. The spark glass stuff is really interesting and, but not a lot of people are using it right now. So I'm kind of interested to see how they, they go, like where they go with that. So, cause they've obviously bringing it to Android fully and iOS as well. So it's going to be kind of interesting. They're going to bring it fully to iOS and Android? I mean, there's stuff they can't do, right? Well you can like the iOS app that's coming out, you can control your exports from it. You can use the, uh, I mean, it's all just done over wifi, right? It's not conceivably that difficult. No. And you're just trying to, you get the same experience, but you don't get the, well, we don't fully know cause it's not out yet, but I don't think you can like stream music up to the exports from your iPad, for example. I don't think they're supporting that, but, um, everything else, you know, you can do it. Yeah. So it's going to be interesting. I think the reviews I've read of smart class so far, I think, uh, Matt talked about it a little bit in his service review and I think somebody else did too. And it was just like, right now this is a little bit confused. Like you're always in like four different apps. It's not like integrated at the system level. It's like an app. Yeah. So you're like jumping in and out of apps. And I think that's like, yeah, it's not like, especially when you're streaming up from, from say this to the, um, like the exports, it's not quite like, uh, airplay, you know, it's, it's kind of different to that. So yeah, you like set up the connection and then you go back to the thing you want to do and then you go back and do something with the connection. It's not like you just switch the outputs. So actually this brings me to windows eight hardware, which I promised you we were going to talk about. Okay. Uh, but this is like my big concern. So Microsoft has built this very nicely integrated product, right? And really believes that this is what windows eight is supposed to do. Yeah. Right. So they've got the top to bottom integration. Right. And I, is it, are they demonstrating because they're, they're handing over the big part of the market to the OEMs, right? And the OEMs, they've always had it. They're just take, I mean the whole market was OEMs before, right? But in terms of this transition, right, fair, right. They're saying we're going to tell HTC and Nokia what to do with the phones, which they clearly are doing. Right. Um, and we're going to, we're going to handle RT with our halo product. And I think that's the reason pro isn't out yet. I think there's, they're saying that's like the, yeah, they give them that little like that gap for the holidays and stuff. Yeah. And I think that's why pros pricing hasn't been announced either. Cause I think if Microsoft does anything underneath, I think the OEMs are, they're all sworn out. I think it's that. And plus they're probably weighing for the chip sets and stuff. So I just think they're throwing, like they're literally like throwing Dell bone. Cause I think if Dell came out with some windows APC, well, Microsoft was like service, bro, it'll be $800. Right. Nobody would buy that. And it's also that the fact that Times Square last night, they had the, obviously the massive store, but they also had like all these little, um, OEM stands where they had all the hardware on. It's kind of like just in the corner of like Times Square. I mean, it's still a big deal, but it's kind of the big show is going on with the surface. Right. Right. So here's what I'm saying. So my windows eight is great and we've all experienced it from like raw installers. Yeah. We've seen how it progressed. Pure from like Microsoft's version. And you know, maybe they'll integrate smart glass, the system level, but same sense is going to come along and put like S glass on there. It's glass glass and they're going to ruin it. Right. And we've already seen the windows APC's and like in the staples flyer, whatever that already has a crap wear on it. You've reviewed a couple bad, uh, you've reviewed a couple that's already been junked up. Coming up. I mean, yeah, there's a, I have a, I have a Toshiba laptop that will either go up today or Monday or sometime in the future. Yeah. It's, it's brutal. There's a whole thing on the start screen. That's just like a big brick of bloatware apps. And then you go to the desktop and there's Norton and McAfee and like it's really bad. Uh, and it just, the problem hasn't gone away at all. And this is why they're doing surface, right? Right. And these signature PCs that get away from it. I mean, it's like, I think this is like the nexus stuff where they say, we're not going to sell a billion of these. That's probably okay. Yeah. But we want to prove to, you know, the purists that like this is how good it could be. And look at all those guys screwing it up. Right. But the problem is that it's not, it's not as good as it could be. I mean, if you want to make the nexus comparison, I'm happy to do it because most Android phones are Samsung phones and they're covered in carrier crap. Right. Right. And that is a problem for Android. Like no matter what you think about Android, you could love it the most. You could hate it the most. Right. And so Google has this thing. Verizon painting its logo on the button for the Galaxy Note 2 is a problem. Yeah. That's crappy. Don't do that. Everyone should be ashamed. Don't do that. Yeah. Like I look at that, I'm like, I feel shame for this industry. Like I didn't, I didn't do enough to make this not happen. Yeah. And I've done a lot like, damn it. You sound so sad. Yeah. It's like, it's like an angry, sad, sangry. Wow. Sangry. Just making up words. Let's do it again. I'm sangry. Oh man. Yeah. You just completely lost your train of thought, didn't you? You just got so mad. He's Samsung sangry. I was trying to combine furious and disappointed. Fear appointed. That's all I got. Fear appointed is more. Right. Look, no, but that's, so why is Microsoft handing over the big portion of the market to these OEMs who have literally proven that they cannot make hardware to compete with Apple? They're not doing a good job of that. On laptops, on the phones, you'd make an argument that there's all kinds of vendors doing great phones, but in laptops, which PC competes with the MacBook Pro? The ThinkPad. The ThinkPad. The ThinkPad. The one. Yeah. I mean, no, and it's like, I will say it's gotten a lot better. The picture in the last eight months is way better than it was before that. The track pads are getting better. Yeah. Track pads are getting better. They care about design. Like these sound like ridiculous things, but like it used to be this ugly thick thing that was $400. And I think the great lesson that Apple taught everybody is that people will pay for a better thing. Yeah. And if you build a better thing and charge more for it, more people will probably buy it. And so they're doing that. Lenovo's computers are getting more and more expensive. They're getting better and better. And I think we're going to see more of that with Windows 8, and that's part of what's really exciting is that they were like, throw out every design you have. We have this new thing. Like go nuts. And it does seem like these companies are actually doing decent things. Most of them are going to be terrible. There's like the Dell thing with the crazy spinning screen. And I haven't spent any real time at that yet, but it seems terrible. But there are a bunch that are going to be good. I mean, are any of the convertibles going to be good? I feel like the Ultrabooks and sort of the high end premium laptops, here's my sense of this, and you tell me if I'm wrong. There's going to be this explosion. And we saw this in phones, which is why I feel there's going to be this huge explosion of crazy form factors. And then it's going to be like, you get a laptop, or you get a tablet. Yeah, probably end up back. The tablet might have a keyboard. Or something in between that's kind of- That's going to be the third thing. You're totally right. And the third thing is going to be a bigger tablet with a keyboard. It's been this goofy niche thing before, and I think that is going to become a legitimate third form factor. But all the other stuff, like this Toshiba that I have, it folds down and slides over the keyboard, and it's like a 400 pound tablet as you hold it. People aren't going to buy that. I'm trying to think if there's... I might be wrong, but there's no Windows 8 tablet that's just a tablet, right? Or is there? You mean that doesn't have a dock or anything like that? Or HP has one, right? That doesn't have a dock and stuff. It's certainly not being promoted very much. Most of what we're seeing is with keyboards, right? Yeah. I mean, this- I think HP does have one. Yeah, it does. But this Asus thing I reviewed this week, it's mostly a tablet. It has a dock, but it's mostly a tablet. Dude, it has a dock and a keyboard. But it's mostly- What does mostly a tablet mean? But it's the transformer tablet. Wouldn't you call those laptops? Those ran Android, but they were the same thing. They had a keyboard and a dock. You only call them tablets because they weren't running a desktop operating system. I mean, I'm saying in terms of form factor, you know what happens when you dock a transformer? It looks like a laptop that runs Android, and you're like, oh crap. My laptop runs Android. That's all that happens there. Yeah. Then you're just sad. Yeah. Then you're fearpointed. Fearpointed. Fearpointed. And angry. I switch into Apple just briefly, but I think the- The Microsoft fanboys are going to be mad at you now. Go ahead. But I think the interesting thing with iOS is, imagine if Apple wanted to address the Surface and these sort of weird form factors. All they need to do is do this cover and add in mouse support for iOS. I don't think- I mean, they might- Like that. A mouse on iOS would be terrible. I mean, you can use a Bluetooth mouse on iOS, but it's just junky as hell. Look for the apps right now. Sure. If developers died. Well, no. Look, I always think about, and this is what I'm saying. This is such an edge case in my mind, but maybe this is what everybody wants to do. I think about my brother-in-law is an enterprise consultant, right? And he has Citrix on his iPad, and then he uses an iPhone as the trackpad, which is- That's amazing. Bonkers, right? And it's like, don't do that. Just buy a Surface. Maybe buy a Surface Pro, because it'll have- And that's great. I think that's- But I think- And I tweeted this out, is that Microsoft seems to have confused Office for productivity. And sure, maybe people love Office. But I think the bigger- I mean, but I don't use it. We don't run our business in Office. No. No, but we're a small percentage of people who use Google. When I worked at AOL, I never had to use Office. Yeah. But then Enterprise, and most people who go to work- Yeah, I'm sure that people who actually ran AOL were- I mean, I ran shit. I ran shit, you know what I mean? Nobody knows what that means, by the way. That's not- Now I'm just uncomfortable. You killed a lot of people at AOL. That's all I know. I did. It was very uncomfortable for me. No, I'm just saying there is a whole swath of people that don't need to use Office. And I think that that percentage is growing. Or is it shrinking? Wait. It's growing. The percentage who don't is growing. Yeah, it's growing. I mean, that's because the web versions of Google Docs and the Office- Yeah, the Office online stuff is actually really good. Fun fact. Yeah, I mean, it's obviously a lot better than Google Docs because it keeps the deleted documents and stuff. Right. But I think most people are probably using Google Docs because it's just- It's there. The way that they've integrated it- Yeah, it's there. It's better. Look, I'm not saying Google Docs should be the winner. I think what Microsoft is doing there is interesting, too. I'm just saying Microsoft seems to think that using Office is the thing. They've got Metro, but the big hedge is if you need to run Office, you can do it. And if you want to run Office, you need this keyboard and trackpad. And so all of the devices, they're never making the full-on tablet bet. Right. They're just saying it's a laptop and you can pull the screen off. This is a lighter, thinner way to use Office. Yeah. Like we were saying, that's the third form factor. That's the new way of doing things. Trying to put it into one device that can kind of do what you need it to do. And I also think that Microsoft's hand may have been forced here because what other trump cards does Microsoft have? Yeah. If you want to use Office, Office for Mac is awful. It's awful. Yes, terrible. Office for iOS is nonexistent. Office for a phone is the worst. Yeah. You have no choice but to use Windows. So this is their play. They come out and say, they make a huge deal out of Office, not because necessarily it's like the best use case for this thing. It's because they know people will use it. Right. It's that if you use Office, this is the only game in town. This is what you do. And they're just making sure you know that. Let's be honest. If you use Google Docs every day, you can use it for the basic stuff. But when you go beyond that, it really, if you open up a Word doc in Google Docs. You ever try to put an image in a Google Doc? It is the worst thing in the world. Oh, that's bad. But like- It's fine for text sharing and commenting and all that sort of stuff. I just have this image in my mind of Tom flying back to the UK and running his cement business on the side of Excel. For my surface. Just making PowerPoints. What else is on our list? I just got the- So before we go- How many more words can I make up? We've been here too long. We should talk, let's talk about- God, how long has it been? Next week. There's so much more happening next week. It's now, it's Monday. We've been talking since Thursday. How many of these touch covers should I use? I'm going to use the blue one. So let's go through next week. So what do we have next week? Has anybody cut one of these in half and made it? I feel like that's the clear, clear hack that needs to happen. And do what? A pink and a blue one. Yeah. That's actually a good idea. That's the worst noise ever. Here, this. Like this. This is what you need. They're surprisingly sturdy though. Yeah, I know. I just bashed it. I know. I just bashed it. I know. I just bashed it. You need this. I don't know how to- Half and half. This is like what I keep saying. This is like your obsession with the 8X colors. Yeah, it's like all these things- Three touch covers. All these things look great. One of the rainbow type covers. Together. They look great together. This is what I want. Buy me this. But it would have to have cool jagged lines separating the three colors. This is great. This is like- We're going to have to speak to the Microsoft Surface team. It's like my 90s bikini thing. Get my custom tough touch cover. Was it color wear? They'll make you one for like two grand. Yeah, look at how many keys I have. It's like a piano. Yeah, no. This is great. This is what they should do. They should make a piano for the Surface and you can just play the piano. This is like if- It's a good idea. I'm going to write that down. If the Surface was on Saved by the Bell, this is like the computer that I should use. Because it's like- Okay, I'm done. Sweet topical efforts tonight. So Monday. Monday is the day. I'm like, hold on. Tom doesn't have time for Saved by the Bell. So Monday we have, there's a big Google event and it's becoming increasingly obvious what's going to be there. Because- Because it's been reviewed. Who is it at Google that just keeps taking photos on his tablet? Oh, is it Vic? It's Vic. Yeah, it's Vic. He's just like, and I think the tagline or the caption on one of them was like, beautiful morning and it was like taken with my Nexus 10. Yeah. It was like, good job, Vic. Yeah. Nexus 4 has been everywhere. Yeah. And it's been reviewed. Right. It was reviewed. It was reviewed three weeks ago. Three weeks ago. Not a fair review. No. I mean, it's pre-production. And then I think everybody's expecting Nexus 7 with 3G. Right. Yeah. And 32 gigs, maybe? 32 gigs. Probably. 3G or 4G? I mean, we're assuming LTE, I guess. I don't know. I mean, can they not? Like, how do you not do- Well, they'd have to, but tonight. I mean, especially, I mean, I guess Google gets around, like they don't come out on carriers, so they can kind of do whatever they want. But if they're going to show up to AT&T and be like, you want to sell this? It's got to be LTE. Right? AT&T's not going to be like, hey, do you want our- Yeah. Well, sweet edge tablet. That's pretty cool. That'd be awesome. T-Mobile should do an edge only tablet. Just charge like $1 a month. Yeah. Well, no, I mean, that's what they're going to do. And I'm assuming that there will be only minor software stuff happening. Yeah. But this has to be- 4.2, supposedly. Look, I bought an i5. I bought an iPhone 5. All right. I'll just say it. I bought an iPhone 5 and it's fine. I have it. It's in my possession. Congratulations. I use it. It does phone things. I think I said this on a previous podcast. I think the app developers have done the job Apple didn't do and they've made the case for the bigger screen. Yeah. Because the apps are really nice on the bigger screen. The iOS is still like, here it is. Games and stuff. One more row of icons. Games. One more row of icons. Like sideways games. That's important stuff. Well, you know, I've got a couple apps that I had to swipe over to the next screen on the home screen now. Home screen management got so much better. Oh, God. Love it. So much better. Extra line. More room apps. But I have it. It is a tremendous piece of hardware. There's no- Yeah. Although, mine is- Mine is scuffed as all hell. It's really- I've got this thing. They took like 10 minutes. Let's see. Should we compare scuffs here? Oh, mine is as well. Mine's like, it's really bad. And I usually do this thing where I used to... This is why I'm glad I don't drive anywhere anymore. I used to always have my phone on my lap and then I would get out of the car and just fling the iPhone all over the street. I think if you're married it's even worse because you got the wedding ring and it just takes it out. Oh, yeah. No. My entire... Right where I hold it. Right where the ring. This whole line. That's where mine is. That's all silver across there. It's all scuffed off. That's why I shouldn't be married. That's why you shouldn't be married. That's why you're ruining my phone. You guys... It sucks for you guys. My phone looks amazing. But yeah, the hardware of the iPhone 5 is great and that's going up against like the Nexus 4 and the Lumion 920 is kind of thick and heavy. I don't know how that's going to... I love that phone. You're crazy. The 8X is like really thin. Yeah. So... I'm just saying like... Well, and so that's the other thing happening Monday, by the way, is the Windows Phone 8 of which Windows Phone 8. Oh, yeah. How could I forget? And then we're all going to sleep for like three weeks. Look, I'm just saying, although this hardware has now been abused, I'm willing to sell it for a full retail price to somebody. Signed by Neil Ipsum. Go sign the back. I'll make up some words for you and I'll write them in the back. Wow, this really is beat to shit. Yeah. And that's after like... How long has it been out? It's two weeks. Yeah. And a year. I'd like to point out that you're like, oh, this thing's beat and then just like flung it onto the table. Like, I know why. I don't take care of my things. Why would I do that? I mean, come on. Yeah, I know. It's just a ridiculous thing. Once you start respecting a gadget, start paying for it. I don't know if that means... I'm going to bang this on the table. No. Look, I'm very eager to get rid of this. I'm not. Me too. But man, all the hardware out there right now is not good. Yeah. I mean, it's some of the 1X, that's the only thing... Then Sense just makes sense. So look man, Josh has challenged Google to bring its A game. It's true. And I'm desperately hoping. There's like a GIF about that. Yeah. There is. But sadly, I don't think Windows Phone 8 is going to tempt me at all. Not initially, because I think it's going to be very similar to Windows Phone 7. You mean not finished? No, I'm just confused because they've been so weird and secretive, and it just seems like they're going to come out and be like, oh, it's basically Windows 7, but you can make the icons different sizes. Like people are going to be so disappointed if there's no big one more thing. Yeah. I mean, if we had the case of Windows 8 not having the apps there and the... So if they haven't got that for Windows Phone, it's going to be like these... What they've done is, with Windows Phone traditionally, is they've added in these unique features to make it different than any other operating system. But they haven't addressed the lack of features and just basic stuff like the multitask. That needs to change, and I think that is going to change, but only for Windows Phone 8 apps. So I think if you've got a Windows Phone 7 app that you're running, I don't think that's going to take advantage of the multitask. But then the part that sucks is this is going to feel like what Windows Phone 7 should have been a year ago. Initially, yeah. And then you'll be like, oh, well, now it's a decent first try. What's next? And I don't know what's next. If it multitasked properly, it's like, yeah, that's good, but that should have been there. That's fixing problems. That's not a new thing. So I think I'm interested to see, first of all, performance, because it's kind of like they haven't rebooted, but this is new hardware, this is new kernel, and it's going to be interesting to see what that's all about. And just how they've addressed these little points of problems. I think Josh brought up most of the problems in the Lumi 900 review. So it'd be interesting to see if they've kind of addressed those. I hope they just went line by line in his review and fixed it. They're going to call it. Anyone's even dented. OK, Neil's going to go inspect his phone. My Surface battery just died, so that means I'm done. How long have you been using that today? Like 400 hours. I don't know. Ross stole it. I didn't even check when I had it, by the way. I don't know what Ross was doing. I was like, I'm going to use this for these guys. This is the story of my life. People are like, can I borrow a phone? And then it comes back dead and broken, and it's the worst. I was going to break the kickstand. Yeah, well, I'll break yours. OK. Sure. You just paid money for it. It's fine. And no LT in those either? No. Maybe somebody asked Sanofsky when we were in Redmond, and he was like, it has Wi-Fi. And we're like, all right. Killer. But I bet it's coming. Carriers. Shutting it down. It's great. It's coming. Too bad for everybody who bought one already. What about Nokia's tablets, though? Or tablet? Or tablets? What are you saying, man? I'm saying. Nokia's not making a tablet. Yeah. You don't think so? No. You don't think so? No. They made a laptop once. Oh, lay money on a table that they're making. Really? Yeah. That's happening. Heard it here first. You think so? Yeah. It's happening. It's happening? I mean, do we need to... You want to write a post on your fancy service now? Let me just do that now. You're good on that type cover. Yeah. Not well, is what you're saying. It's an American keyboard as well. I got a lot better at it really fast. I don't think I've ever gotten to the point where I'm as good as on my laptop or even on this type cover, but I got a lot better really fast and was really surprised by that. It takes a while, but then it's kind of like... Once you get used to the fact that it's actually sensitive as well, what are you doing? That's a five-year-old. It's not a big deal. You can do it once. Thank you. It's the sound. Yeah, it's a good... Okay, we're done. Are we done? Yeah, we're done. Do we have anything else to talk about? Monday is going to be crazy. What else is going to be crazy? What else is going to be happening after Monday? Just refresh the Verge like every two seconds. We've got Build, but that's kind of... There's not going to be news on it. On the Verge. Next Tuesday. On the Verge. Tuesday? Tuesday. Tuesday? The 30th, right? Yeah, Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Paul went to NASA. Dennis Crowley's coming. Dennis Crowley. It's going to be amazing. I'm doing something which I think will be very interesting. He's going to break the kicks, then. No, I think it's going to be a good show. We have a lot of stuff to play with. Ross, are you going to say something to us? No. We're good. Okay, so that was Verge Cast. Anything else happening next week? On the Verge is Tuesday? Yep. Dennis Crowley, skateboarding on a surface. We'll be back. Ross, are we doing another Verge Cast on Monday after all the craziness? Probably not. Well, then it'll just be me. I'll just get on a live cast and just stare. Just love it. David will be on our deprecated Ustream channel by himself. It's going to be amazing. I can't wait. So that was the Verge... Oh, Polygon. Polygon. Holy crap. Polygon launch. You should go to it, Polygon. Can we get it up on the big screen? The little screen? Can I see the whole... It's just beautiful, isn't it? Polygon.com, it's a website thing, is the best thing ever. That's the best tagline for a website of all time. So our gaming hub... I'll just say it. So Polygon crew has been on Verge.com slash gaming for months and months. A while, yeah. They're finally gone. They're finally gone. You kicked them off the couch. Yeah, we made them get a job. Go get your own website. Polygon looks amazing. It's built on Chorus, which is the Vox Media stack. So you'll see a lot of things that remind you of the Verge and a lot of really awesome improvements because they've been building it. And we're going to brutally steal all of those things from them. We're going to steal everything, including editable comments, which I've been pronouncing as edible comments. Edible comments. But comments that you can edit. You could have those first. Which is... It's like a 30 second delay. So you write your comment and if you screwed up, you have 30 seconds to go back and fix it. This changes everything. It really does. It changes everything. The thing is we're going to have half as many comments on our site because they're all somebody who thinks, oh, I changed my mind. Do you know how many of my comments will just be swear words for 30 seconds and I'm going to change it to not swear words? What we need to do is whenever we get these editable comments, people just need to edit all their comments with Lumia920. No, but you only have 30 seconds. That's why. You get a window. So you leave the comment. They're like, oh my God, I had a typo. Or in my case, I used a number of swear words and then you change all the swear words to other words like banana. Just watch. It's pretty good. I had a friend on Facebook who used to go on and would say horribly, horrifically mean and racist things and then wait for people to reply and then he would delete his comments. So the thread made no sense but was horrible. Wow. So you were friends with Ross. Yeah, that was Ross Miller. Okay, so that was first cast. You should go check out Polygon. It is amazing. They've done a tremendous job with it. You can get a glimpse of the future of The Verge, which I'm assuming the dev team is just going to take a nap first and then maybe- For like four or six years. Yeah, they've been very busy. Oh, also resize your browser on Polygon. The design is responsive, so it's very cool. But anyway, that's The Verge cast. There's a bunch of stuff I'm supposed to say now that I don't remember ever. Twitter. So I'm Reckless. David Pierce. I'm Pierce David. Pierce David. Oh, I tweeted somebody else. Somebody else is very confused about what is going to happen to his body tonight. Tom Warren. Search for those tweets. At Tom Warren. You can also leave us a comment on the post. Vergecast and The Verge.com. We have a 900 number that Ross will talk to you for just $3 a minute. Or as many of you do, you can just run up to me on the street and scream at me that I hate Android or whatever it is that you think and you believe about my mind. And that is it. We're done. Do we roll music now? I don't know what happens. Rock and roll. Paul. Paul, there you go!