 Hey, and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of... The 17th, bro. The 17th of what? The week of September 17th, 2012. Do I need to tell you? Yeah, yeah. Are you that broken? Josh hasn't slept, I would say, in like three days. Are our mics on? Because I just don't hear anything. No, I was up late last night. No, it was on. It was working before, don't... And I got up early today. Okay, hey, and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of September 17th, 2012. Can I just about... I'm Josh Tapolsky. I'm Paul Miller. I'm Nilay Patel. And I would just like to say for our loyal Vergecast viewers slash listeners, Josh is going... He's Hollywood Josh now with the iPhone 5. He's just on television late at night, early in the morning. Josh Hollywood. Midday. Josh Hollywood. I actually appeared on The Bold and the Beautiful. I came on, there were two people involved in a huge argument about cheating. And I walked on and had the iPhone with me. And I said, you know, I think we can use Siri to settle this debate, guys, on the new iPhone 5. And then I settled the debate and I walked off. And then I walked immediately to the set of General Hospital where I did a similar gag. Queer character. That was my midday TV. And they're considering replacing Whoopi with you on Hollywood Squares. Whoopi. And there's gonna be more rows. I will be the center square in a new increased tall, increased height. A whole new row. Hollywood square. It actually is now Hollywood rectangle. It's one extra row of iPhones. That's exactly right. You're stealing Paul's joke. Sorry. One extra row of celebrities. Quasi-celebrity. My problem with that joke is I thought it so far ahead that it just did. It was never going to land well. Paul's been workshopping that joke for three months. It was like the spruce goose. For the guy who's... The spruce goose was a large wooden airplane. There was never a right time for the spruce goose. Howard Hughes wasn't like, oh, I'm busted. What I did was overwrought. You know? At the point that it was ready, it was too late. Yes, the tight hour we envisioned has been blown to pieces. All right, now listen, guys, hold on. It flew. The spruce goose flew. Did you not see the aviator star? Starring who? Leonardo DiCaprio. Can I talk for a second about... Now, listen, I've gotten some feedback from podcast listeners, Verge cast listeners, and they say that we sometimes talk over each other during the broadcast. And I just want to say, I don't expect that that's going to change or anything, but I want you to know that we hear the feedback. We're not going to do that. We're never going to... The feedback is... We're not going to talk over each other. We're receiving the feedback. If we could control ourselves, God knows we would. If we could do anything to control our mouths or bodies, this certainly would happen. What we're looking for is tips. Yeah. Tips on control. Turn my volume up here a little bit. But oh, that's not the right knob. Hi. Check, check, check. Oh, that's the right knob. Good. Great. So, we're going to talk about technology culture and culture, culture, and also a culture club reunion. Is that happening? It's a story, man. Yeah. So, this is a big week in technology news if you are following technology news, that is. And even if you're not, because it's a big week for our world and our culture. The iPhone 5 is out. It's out today. Today is Friday, September 21st, 2012. If you listen to this later, then it is not out today. It was out a few days ago or yesterday. If you're in Australia, you've been using it for two weeks. Yeah. Anyhow, so the iPhone 5 is out. I've got one. He's sitting here. Let me just do this. This is not special anymore because now everybody has one. Can you just get a feel for how thin this is? I know it's out of focus. Let me put it near my head. That looks really weird. This does not look right. It looks like a different hand. Hello. Why else I do? So tiny. My what? In where? That could be about anything, by the way. Yeah. Anyhow, the new iPhone is out. I did get three hours of sleep last night because I had to get up super early for the Today Show. That is a humble brag, in case you're wondering. Where I hung out with my good friend Al Roker, Rokeman, she liked to call him. So Michael Shane told me Al Roker was like hardcore journalist about the maps. Al Roker dove in on the maps. He was like, it cut me off. I was saying something about the phone. He's like, all right, here's maps are a problem. Yeah. I was like, oh, yeah. You know, that was like the there's a cover story on the Times and then below the Earth. No, was the journal. It must have been the journal. Yeah. No, the fold was was. Oh, my gosh. The maps are a problem. The maps are a big deal. So any of you have Dan on the covers? We're bringing on a Skype person on the cover of a newspaper. There's a story about how the maps suck in a new phone operating system. So that's how mainstream. Can we actually talk about something? Let's start at the beginning. Well, first, we should find out if Dan is going to join us and talk about the OS because he reviewed iOS 6. He did review iOS 6. I also, you know, gave some of my overall impressions of iOS and he did the deep dive, the big review. Dieter also worked on that, I believe. I'm not sure who worked on it. No, it was Dieter and Dan. I've been kind of out of touch with the world lately. Anyhow, but so we put our iPhone review up last night. I was also on late night. The two events were, you know, close together. And it's good to finally have finished it and show it to people and to tell them what I think, which is it's the best iPhone ever. And I think there's a, you know, just, you know, there's I think there's a big market for it. Every market buyer wants this phone and I think it's very good at, you know, much of what it does. But I have to say, I think that I'm perplexed by some things about the iPhone 5. I mean, I don't think the software has moved really at all. I mean, I just feel like the software is in stasis right now. But I'm perplexed. The thing that I keep coming back to is I don't know why they made the screen bigger. They have not really given a single justification for the increased screen size. And there is no part of the OS or the functionality of the phone that takes advantage. I mean, yes, yes. You can see one more email or another row. But in all honesty, I am, I am truly perplexed. Hold on. Yeah. I mean, I know. I'm holding on. But isn't that just Apple's, that's just Apple's history catching up. Cause Apple wants to present itself as this very deliberate company that always makes the right decision. And then there's this army of Apple's sycophants who are like, the iPhone is perfect at 3.5 and you know, they scientifically measured the radius of your thumb. Yes. Scientific fact that a phone over 3.5 inches is impossible. Right. And that's like great. But we don't ask questions when Samsung releases 50 different screen sizes, except why don't you just pick one? I've been asking questions. And we don't ask, we don't ask questions when HTC makes a phone with the slightly, I mean, the market wants phones with bigger screens. The market wants phones with LTE. Apple made one of those. But LTE is, LTE is. I don't know why we're like setting. But LTE has a verifiable, well-documented and well-discussed use. Right, but so do bigger screens. But not from Apple. Every time Apple introduces something, they'll tell you about why they did it. Apple's really, has been historically very good at this narrative building. But they're good at saying with 3G. But the narrative building here is like that's what the people want. But they're good at saying with 3G with LTE. I think they're good at saying like, we have better battery life here. It was finally time to do it. We found the right way to do it. The screen is not that. It's not that story. It's not like it was finally time to do it. It was like the screen's bigger, moving on. That's what it's like. To Eli's point though, and that seems like a failing for Apple, but what has Samsung ever explained to us exactly why? Yeah, they're like, we make phones at 4.5, 4.7, 4.8, 5.2. Certainly there have been, I don't think, first of all, I don't think it's right to use Samsung as the only example. Well, they're the only other company that makes money. I'm not worried about people who make money. I'm worried about people who make products. Okay. If you have a phone manufacturer that came out with a 3.7. All I'm saying is my only point that I'm trying to make here- The Lumia 800 came out. The Lumia 800 came out. It was 4? 4.3. The 800 is 3.7. Something weird. 3.7. Yeah, and then the Lumia 800 is like 4.3. 4.3. Or Lumia 900. 900. 900. 900. 900. The Lumia 900. 900. 900. You ask in your review, why did they make the screen bigger? I mean- I mean, we asked why did you make the screen bigger without increasing the resolution? I think that might have been- But the sheer size of the thing. Yeah. Yeah. What's the functionality that they added? Right. But people- But their screens have always been, those screens, no, no, I understand that. I just think that what is unusual, I get that other people do this. Make arbitrary decisions. It's weird for Apple to do that. What I'm saying is when I first saw the taller screen- Yeah. I thought there's got to be a reason. Apple always has a reason. That was my first thought. Apple always has a reason for doing stuff and they'll tell you why. They don't just throw stuff in there. I mean, let's like the microphones, right? They'll tell you about why they added a third microphone. They love that. They love to show people why they're doing something because it makes them seem special and different and better. What's bizarre to me is that when they talk about the screen size, they don't say, you know, people made bigger phones, but there's no reason. They don't give you a reason. Like this is what Apple should do. We need to study the perfect number of emails to be shown at the same time. It was like, right. Even that. Before we thought it was six, but everybody's so busy these days, they need seven. I think what's most, I think the thing that's most irksome to me is that despite this new real estate at the top of the phone, I'm still like watching, I'm still literally stopping my thumb from going down on a button on the navigation of an app because a notification flips down over top of the, right. You were telling me about this. It's crazy. So the other thing is that when you, when you're in an app that has, that is not resized for the new screen, the notification takes up exactly the area that is left open above the app. Yeah. Which to me seems like you gave developers this new size, 1136 by 640. Why not just do something with the area up top and, and, and add a little space to the bottom? Like, why not? I mean, it's like, if you're gonna, if you're gonna make an arbitrary new size, I mean, it's not arbitrary, they could have made it a 4.2 inch, you know, they could have given it even more pixels up there. I just don't understand why they're not, this is one of my biggest, like, by the way, this is a nit nitpick. It's amongst so many, but, but I think, look, look, I'm just saying there are things they could have done with that space. Let me give you a few examples, okay? They could have given you that, not given you an extra row, but given you a space where it shows you, let's say, I don't know, the weather and hold on the weather and all of your notifications. And when a notification comes in, it'll show you detail and then it'll turn that into a little icon kind of like Android does or some variation of that. They could have given you a space that you could have your, just your notifications and you know, the date and some other, you know, they don't show all of the information on here because like the date, for instance, you can't see on your phone. Yeah. It's not shown when you're just like using it. Yeah. So they could have given you other information and then you might've been able to say, instead of doing that double tap and swipe to the left to get your music controls, maybe that area you could swipe to the left to get your music controls, swipe to the right to get your weather widget. I'm just by the way, throwing things out. What about clipboard? I don't understand. Whoever looks at the clipboard on any device. No, I'm saying, well, you've got, you've got a device, you like click and hold on a picture and then you drag it up into the little drawer and then you take, open up paper and you drag it out of there. And you're somebody who's been creating content exclusively on an iPad for four months. Oh, you know, it's a good idea. I'm just saying, I'm just saying that in studying it and thinking about it, it really, the one thing that stands out to me, I mean, there are, I think there are many things like there are very lots of good stuff about this phone. It's very good. Read my review if you want to hear all about it. But the thing that stands out to me is, is this, this bizarre situation with it where the notifications are just, I have a question if you could just answer me. So the developers are going to have to make the bigger apps, right? But they're still going to have to support the smaller screens. That's the majority of the devices. That's correct. Is there an app version that's just elastic? No, that's what they should have done with the notification. That is the simplest thing that they could have done. You mean like it stretches it. You know, you make one app when it's on the iPhone four S it gets covered over by notifications when it's on the iPhone five, the exact size of the forest. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of ways or there's a clipboard that is one of those things. Drag a picture up there. That is one of the things that I know how, you know how apple does, you know, Apple courier, you'd stick stuff in the, like the fold. The courier wasn't a real thing. I mean, it's, you can't compare. That's like, I had a dream that you could do this thing. How come it doesn't do that? These aren't crazy. Joseph Joseph had dreams, but Dan, Dan, we should bring the, I just want to say one thing before we bring Dan on. Yeah. It came true. And I don't know if he can hear us now, but I'd like for him to like pick up on this one. He was coming down. Sometimes the, the, this was a place, I do feel like just this thing with the new screen size, it was a place where they could have said, if you're an iPhone five, you know, new owner, we have this great new feature. Yeah. It's only available on the iPhone five clip. We made notification center even better with clipboard. Yeah. No, but you know, they could have done a bunch of stuff up in this space and said like, this is why we gave you this extra height. Now you have all this stuff you can do, all kinds of new things. Somebody sends you a text message. You can, you can take action on it right up from the, up in the, you know, whatever. Why am I even talking about it? They didn't do it. Let's move on with our lives. Sticky notes. Dan, Dan Seaford. Yeah. Hey. Is it Seaford or Seiford? I never, I got the bottom of this. It's Seaford. I thought I was right the first time. Am I here? You're way delayed. Can you hear us? I can, I can hear you guys loud and clear. This guy's loud as can be. You're very delayed. Are you aware, guys, are we aware of how delayed this gentleman is? Do you have a slider back there to fix it? You do? You fixing the delay? That's tight. Are we fixing my delay? I hope so. Otherwise, otherwise people are really going to hate us talking over each other. That was a really delayed laugh. I said that in moments ago. We had to think about the joke a bit. It was pretty cerebral. Try clapping your hands. I wasn't, I wasn't sure if I needed to laugh or not. Oh, okay. Dan. Can you make it so that he says his words in the future? Does that slider go in the other direction? Dan. You know what we should do is ask Dan a really great question that he then monologues on for a little bit. Dan. Yeah. You reviewed iOS 6. Can you give us- I did review iOS 6. Can you give us your impressions? Can you talk about your takeaways for iOS 6? What I got away from iOS 6 was that it is still a very solid, very complete, very reliable, very fast platform that does what most everyday average users need it to do. But it didn't really break any new ground on the wireless industry or in this kind of market here where we're seeing things iterating and changing a lot or changing quickly. iOS 6 didn't do that for me. Every other version of iOS update, whether you're going from like the original iPhone OS to iOS 2 to iOS 3, et cetera, those all had some major usability updates that changed the way that you actually use the platform with notifications or multitasking or whatever it might be. But iOS 6 doesn't have that. It essentially feels like iOS 5 with some very, very minor tweaks and a new maps platform. It really does. And I will say, by the way, and I know there are going to be, there are apologists and haters that are going to say, you just want them to do new stuff because you think that that's a sign of progress when it's just adding new features. People love to point out face unlock on Android as some kind of throwaway feature, not like the cards app, for instance, where you can mail cards to people. That wasn't a throwaway addition. That's a real thing that lots of people use. No letterpress cards, man. It wasn't like ping, where you would serve as a nobody use. I sent you a letterpress card last night. Because only other companies make mistakes. So you're saying you did not get my letterpress card. I did not get your letterpress card. I did receive several from my wife though. But this is not, I don't think Dan is saying this in his review. I don't think he was saying it. I wasn't saying it in my review. I do not want innovation for the sake of saying, I have innovated this thing that maybe didn't need to change or was working great. My thing is, and I think Dan will agree with this, there is real innovation happening. There are real things happening that are making these phones more useful and more powerful and easier to use and more delightful. That's not, I expect that from Apple. I think Apple's the company that leads that. And I feel like they have crawled to its kind of stasis point where, and I said this before, I just think that they're kind of in a holding pattern. And it's frustrating because you see how it could be better or different. And or just you see like places where you could do innovation. It seems like, Dan and I were talking about this last night, it seems like they've done an extraordinary job polishing the platform, the existing platform. Here's the iPhone. Now we're going to polish it. Not make changes. We're just going to like refine things. I mean, by polishing, we're going to put, when apps get updated, we're going to put a new badge on them. Yeah. I mean, if you, but that's really surface. Like the thing about that, but polish can also mean like we made things cleaner and clearer and simpler. Like we tightened up places that might've been a little flabby. This was like, yeah, the, you know, you added the new Polaroid refresh with the new Polaroid refresh animation and you added, you know, when you tilt it, when you're in the music app, the little metallic slider changes as if it's really reflecting something. But there's still like, just, you know, I talked about this in the review, the set, the way settings are handled and certain functions of the refresh. And this, this kills me. Polaroid refresh came out in Tweety for the iPhone, right? The first one sounds possible. Yeah. It was like Tweety two maybe. Yeah. Tweety, Tweety innovated that. And that was what, maybe 18 months ago, maybe even two years ago. He really shouldn't have pat, he should have patented that. He did patent it. Oh, he did? Twitter has a patent on it. And the Sparrow guy's like specifically licensed it. Yeah. Twitter gives it to everyone. But no, that's great. So it came out, it's like, this is a really good idea. And then everybody used it. Everybody updated their apps within six months to use it. Apple took two years and a major OS update to push, to put Polaroid refresh in mail. And it's like, why? Especially since they do Delta updates of stuff and they could, I mean, that's like an update. That's a make the app better kind of update, right? It's not a, this requires iOS six update. And yet it's a highlight iOS six feature because it's fun. Right? But it's trivial. And if you look now, well, a lot of people notice it because it's easy to notice. It's got an animation. You could have put that out in whatever OS. And now every major app is doing these sliding panels. Like so Twitter does it. Facebook, I mean, it's everywhere. Well, Twitter doesn't do it anymore. No, no. I mean, the iPad sliding panels, but the, there are no sliding panels in Twitter. Maybe I'm just thinking of Facebook. You wish there were sliding panels in Twitter. I have like four apps that do this sliding panels. Evernote does it. Evernote, my Gmail app does it. Twitter and Gmail are like where I flip between the front. Facebook. They're all, it's all, but none of the apps. Michael, were you shouting something? Path. Path does it, right. And that is like, that is now a dominant iOS UI paradigm. It's everywhere and it's come from other platforms and Dieter was pointing out it's been on web OS forever. And it's like, well, it's also, it's actually also part of the hollow like motif, the hollow guidelines, but you've got all this UI innovation happening. And Dan, this is in your review, I would say, right? You and Dieter were talking about this in your review. You've got all this UI innovation happening, but none of it's coming from Apple anymore on their phone with Apple. It's like, how can we make this bookcase more like a bookcase? And I think, Dan, sorry. I know you've been sitting there now talking and Neal, I just direct to anybody. I just to add to that, I will just say one thing. You have not only them not doing that kind of innovation, but they're now deferring like in maps, they defer to other developers and other applications for things like transit directions, which I said in my review just seems like a uniquely unappled thing to do. Like before it was like, we make the best stuff to get your things done and we don't even want you. And that's really exciting to me that they would start like with Siri, that they're opening that up. But they're not opening Siri up. They're opening Siri up to selected partners. This is something where they're like, they didn't have it. So they punt it to someone else's app. So Dan, what's your take on that? So talking to that point, it's kind of interesting because when iOS was first introduced in a number of years, it always had the best stock apps. It had a really easy to use and simple mail client, a great calendar, all these other stock apps that came out of the box. And nowadays, because innovation has happened so much on the third party app level, a user like myself, the first thing I do, and I know Neeli does this too, is replace almost all of the stock apps with third party options from the app store because they're better designed. They've got newer features that I'm looking for that don't happen in the regular iOS apps from Apple. So it seems like even though Apple's included these things like pull the refresh and a VIP inbox on the email client, it's not nearly enough to make up for what's going on on the other end on the third party apps that are just innovating so much quicker. You're looking at something like Sparrow or... I mean, you know, you look at... Well, no, it's my home screen. I've replaced mail with a Gmail app. And there are so many complaints about Google's Gmail app, but it's still better for me than mail, which is great. Well, you're a Gmail user, so that's kind of a specific request. But if I'm an Outlook user, shouldn't I get to use an Outlook app? I mean, like, if you know... But I've... Yeah. So anyway, so replace that one. Sure. I don't use music. I use Spotify. I don't use weather. I use dark sky. I don't use notes. I use simple notes. It's like every single one of these apps... Well, the weather widget is helpful. That's another perplexing place to me. Like, and maybe this is the thing... Oh, God, 73 degrees and sunny. No, I mean, you know that, yeah, I mean, I'm not... Why even go into the 73 degrees and sunny icon? I mean, it's so absurd to me that after all these years, they still... Like the one thing I think... We've been talking about this, by the way, since like 2008. Wait, is it still 73 degrees and sunny? Yeah. It's always 70. I thought they changed. No. The one thing that I think... What are they gonna make it cloudy? Has been... I feel like it's a universal thing that I see everybody... 64 degrees. That I see... I've talked to so many people about it and it's the thing that like most... It's so obvious to everyone. The thing that everybody always shows off when they show off, like they're like, our widgets or our live tiles or, you know, look, you can glance at the information. It's always like the weather. Yeah. Like the thing that I look at most when I'm leaving the house is like, what's the temperature outside? And it is bonkers to me that Apple's lock screen will be like... All you need is, you need eight different icons, skins, and the number needs to change. This is a phone that will understand that when you're in a Walgreens to show you a loyalty card on the home screen, but will not show you the temperature. And now they've introduced this widget, but then that gets this other problem where like... You can't make the argument that the weather... They have a weather widget. It's in the notification. You've seen this. You can see this. Okay. So it's information from the internet. It's information about your... But it's been, but it's already been down... Paul, do you know it's 73 degrees here? And sunny? It actually is 73 degrees. It's already been downloaded though. It's now on the device. Right. But like when you browse to a website, it's downloaded onto the... Trolling Paul. Look at it. Look at it. You want to look at this mockup that I did of the clipboard? Can I draw you it? Did you make a mockup of the clipboard? Anyhow, some great new emails. I was like covering it up. Hold on. Wait a second. But so they do have a widget. They have a widget. They have a weather widget and a stock widget. Stocks. That's great. And that's it. Yeah. Have you ever used that Yahoo stocks app? Yeah. For my stocks. You mean the one that they include in the phone? When it came in, like the Yahoo, like when it came out in 2007, I added Apple, Google, and I worked for AOL. So I added AOL. Yeah. They're still there. Yep. That's it. That's all I've ever done with those stuff. I mean, it's like, you know, we're not allowed to invest in tech companies. So my other options are like, well, you also have to know how much they're making. Dove, Soaps. Let me see how Apple is doing. Soaps are going to be big. Any number of like big 80s conglomerates. Do those still exist? Like a company that makes like missiles for the defense department and rubber duckies. It's been a roller coaster ride day for Apple stock. Some real Michael. Roller coaster week. Martin Sheen. They care for your children and then they send them off to war. Yeah. What are you talking about? Do they still have like 1980s conglomerates like in Wall Street where they make like they make them like duckies and like missiles. You mean Seagram's or Johnson and Johnson or Johnson and Johnson Mitsubishi. Do you think Dupont makes the best Dupont for all that? Yeah, but there are more. I mean, Mitsubishi makes like cars and like turbines. JZ is into all sorts of things. Samsung is the obvious one. I mean, we have people who you're gonna make companies that make like they make like soap and they make cars and they make like weird industrial stuff that nobody's ever heard of. There are plenty. Dan, what were you saying? There are plenty of those. I was just saying Samsung as well because they make, you know, refrigerators and TVs and washing machines and mobile phones. That's all. That's all. Those are all electronics. I mean, long. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. There are plenty of yes. I don't know how we're on this topic. I have a question. Is it Siri? Is is that going anywhere anytime soon? Yeah, I think it's actually gotten better. It's gotten better. Even on my four. I mean, I'll say this. What they've done is they've added some things that she can do. It can do. And and additionally, because the phone has LTE, it seems to work faster. Yeah, I think that I think one of the big issues is that you're trying to push a bunch of data up and down on 3G networks that are really are not that good in this country. Yeah. And it's painful. And now with LTE, it seems slightly less serious. It's been slow for me. I think I think they did a lot of under the hood stuff with iOS six, though, too, because I practically live on Wi Fi networks all the time. And when I was using iOS six on my four s, Siri was noticeably faster than it used to be. So I think it's a combination of the LTE and the extra performance enhancements that they added with iOS performance enhancing drugs. They've been doping. Do you guys actually use Siri beyond just testing your phone? Or is there something you really know? Are you serious? I actually will say this. I truly think it by the way, and I think that I only like really felt this way. I thought Siri was a cool experiment with the iPhone four s and I think I say as much in my review with this when I was testing it, there were moments where I like specifically like I parked my car in this in this lot. It's like a few blocks away from my house because I get tickets all the time. And I was I walked down there to get my car and I was like unlocking the I was unlocking the lock to the to the lot. And I had my bag in one hand. And I think I had the I was doing I don't know how I had and the phone in the same hand as the bag and I needed to get a phone number for I was late to get my hair cut and I need to call and I'd have the phone number. And I use Siri I was like, you know, get me the number for this barber shop. And it was like a moment where I was like, Oh, yeah, this is what Siri was that in your house book? Yeah. No, it went in search for it and then gave it to me and then I called it. And it was like, this is what Siri supposed to do. Like I literally had my hands full. There's no way I would have had to put my bag down, put the key down and like sat there and typed it out. And I thought like, yeah, this is what the phone should be doing. It was kind of amazing. Yeah, it's really helpful. And it was fast because otherwise it's just faster to pull up a browser. And no, I mean, Siri like has real uses and I use it to do phone stuff all the time. Like what I set alarms with it like every night. It can open apps now, which is kind of it can tweet or do Facebook. Yeah, Joanna has been tweeting from Siri like nonstop, which is hilarious. I mean, I use it to I mean, it's easier to set a reminder with Siri than it is to deal with reminders. Yeah, I mean, all that stuff is better. Sometimes that's true. It gets like when you get into the details with her can be some kind of times like you're like, no, I want to hear is a bit disorganized. Yeah, like I'll set a reminder for this. She's like, I'll set a reminder for this at the time. She is actually like a personal assistant. Yeah. She's like, Oh my God, but but but no, I do think she's always out to dinner with her dad. I do think and I think that you're right, Dan. There have been some guys. Can you knock off this banter over here? Look, don't worry about it. I'm addressing Dan, our buddy here. He's just sitting here. Dan, are you there? Dan, I'm here. I'm waiting to be addressed. I agree with you that that even with the 4S with iOS 6, I think that there do seem to be some under the hood improvements that are making it a bit faster. But I do think I also think the LTE is you can't mess with. Paul DeRue Frache is three years old. Somebody just tweeted. You know, I've never had Siri on a device that I own. Yeah, it's really sad for me. Well, your next iPhone. I'm really excited. Well, I'm hoping to make it to the iPhone 5S and then Siri is gonna be so cool. And I think Siri is a great example of the stuff that is well, first of it's great for everybody. Yeah, I think when it works, it's really, really good. But I think that's one of those examples of things that I think for the for the big market out there. It's a cool feature. It's useful. And once they get it, you know, they seem to be getting it working well. That's the kind of thing. It's like, awesome. You know, like Siri doesn't do things that Google now does that I find incredibly useful. Which will it will preemptively tell me where I need to be and how to get there. Which is stuff that's like, to me is super futuristic. Siri is very futuristic in one way. And this stuff is futuristic in a completely different way. I think that like, I'm excited about where the technology is going where it's kind of like this predictive, very responsive, assistant technology. I wish I could like combine Google now and Siri. Speaking of assistants, I have friends, I have friends who are personal assistants and they literally have to leave their notifications on like a super loud alarm noises. So if their boss, you know, emails them at 2am, they need to wake up. So that means Michael Shane has a beeper. If anybody emails them at 2am, they wake up. A beeper? Yeah, you should give them a beeper. I'm not giving anybody a beeper. I'm just saying VIP is very exciting feature for a small sphere. Oh, I see because you can set custom tones. It shows you. And then finally their boss wakes them up. So Dan, what are you? Michael, are you hearing this? You told me that, no, I was asking Michael, Dan, I don't care about what you're hearing. Dan, you're in my VIPs. Michael actually told me that he added me to his VIP. Didn't you tell me that? First VIP. Better not be any other VIPs in there. Michael, I'm getting you a pager. I'm just letting you know. But I mean, Dan, what, I mean, you know, we kind of got the overview. Do you feel like, I guess what is your impression of what's happening with Apple? Is this just like a, you know, everybody talks about this TikTok. I think Gruber came up with the TikTok. Intel came up with the TikTok. Was it Intel? Well, Gruber certainly applied it to Apple where he talked about the TikTok schedule of releasing things. And this is the, is this the tick or the talk now with the, with the five, the phone? Is it the, is it the, it's the talk? Well, the phone, well, it's supposed to be the tick because it's definitely the tick. Okay, so last generation with the talk. The software, the talk is like the iterative version and the tick is the new version. The software is, the software feels like it's, it's now talking. The software is a talk. Talk. Yeah. The software is talking. Do you think that, I mean, do you, does your impression that they're going to tick for the next version? I feel like they kind of have to at this point. Yeah, I agree. I think that it would be really great if they did do something to, you know, blow our minds. Something that would really impress us more so than, than what we're seeing with iOS 6, at least with the new stuff in iOS 6, I should say. Right. I mean, I feel like, and I think everybody's now saying this, I mean, maybe, maybe it's because in my review I go particularly hard on the software and that I'm seeing the comments and people tweeting at me talking about it, but it was like, that's all going to change in iOS 7. I mean, that is, okay, no, don't do that. Don't, can I just say something about this phone? This phone and our criticism of it has turned Apple fanboys into the worst kind of Android fanboys straight out. It is the same arguments. It is the same nonsense. Like you just don't understand. I have been told now that I don't understand Android at a fundamental level. And now I don't understand Apple at a fundamental level. You haven't been told you don't understand Windows. Apparently it's nothing. What about Windows phone? I definitely don't understand Windows. No one understands Windows. I've been told repeatedly that at a fundamental level I, I fail to grasp what Windows phone is about. Yeah. Cause you're not, you know, it's... I'm not getting in, getting out and getting on with my life. Yeah. You should get on with your life. You should ignore the phone. I'm getting right in and never getting out. No, it's like, it's don't wait for, look, a lot of people love the iPhone. They made an iPhone with a bigger screen. That's lighter. That's a longer battery life. Whatever. And it has LTE. Lots of people are going to buy it. It's a terrific phone. I would buy this. It's a great phone. I'm still an iOS guy. But I would buy this in the hard-core. I can't stress this enough. It's a terrific phone. It may be our highest rated phone on the site at this point. It just, it just is a terrific phone for everybody but me. I mean, it's... No, it's not that. It's Apple very clearly decided that their software was good enough that they didn't have to add anything major to this phone. They focused on the hardware, which was a big advance, which is great. And they focused, I think they spent a lot of time with these maps because they wanted to get away... You talked about maps. Right. And you know what? You know the biggest changes to iOS 5 for most people are going to be, or to iOS 6, is going to be they're going to load it up. They're going to have not Google Maps and there's not going to be a YouTube icon on the front page because Apple got rid of Google. Yeah. Right. And that partnership ended and that is the biggest change in iOS 6. And when you open the Settings app, the menu bar is a really ugly blue color. Yeah. I don't get that. I would assume those two apps are pretty heavily used, but I don't have statistics on that and Apple doesn't share them. Dan, what were you going to say? Well, I was going to say that we haven't really talked about maps at all yet, but there's the theory that so much work was involved, and I know we talked about this in our coverage of the maps, that so much work was involved in developing this map system from the ground up that any kind of new innovations that could have come to iOS 6 were possibly pushed to the wayside. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what we needed. You can't do what they did. I mean, every app that used to use Google Maps now seamlessly uses App and Maps. Yeah, but that's just because they plugged it. They... Right. But that's a lot of... It's not just like a simple... Well, let's talk about maps, seriously. Let's talk about maps. I mean, maps are... So I do think that there's a level to the hype about the problems with maps that is like it's really blown out of proportion. I think there are some extremely serious problems with maps. I think the problems are exacerbated outside the United States. I think that's what we don't see. I think they're worse outside the United States, for sure. Some of the things I've seen look pretty bad. There are issues in the United States, certainly. My experience with maps was relatively frustrating because I actually use maps to get things like subway times, and I'm actually very accustomed to the Android maps, which are... I would... I dare say... Yeah. I don't even dare say, I'll just say they're the absolute best mobile map you can get, in my opinion. I mean, they are chock full of extremely useful information. They're consistent. Their directions are excellent. It's like everything you really could think of, they got in there. But those have started to fragment away from iOS maps since the first Droid. Oh, yeah. And there's no question. Oh, yeah. They've developed that hard. I mean, I'm sorry, I don't know that Apple couldn't have taken advantage of some of that stuff, but I think Apple had other plans. Apple started working on maps. I mean, how long was it? Five years ago. Five years. That's what I'm saying. I mean, they bought a lot of these... They bought, what is it, C3 five years ago. What? C3, they might have bought sooner. More recently. They've been buying these little companies. What was the other one? The other big map? It doesn't matter. The point is they've been doing this for years, so they obviously had something in mind. So maps were frustrating for me. I had some issues. The turn-by-turn stuff is actually really elegantly done and worked for the most part really well. I did have some issues where it stopped on me or kind of didn't... There were a couple of times I used it where it stopped navigating. It just held in one place and didn't tell me the next move. I don't know if it was a GPS issue or a maps issue or a road... It was because you stopped in your car. Or because I pulled over and thought it would keep going. But the big thing is that it's just lacking a ton of data. Josh, just don't worry about driving for the next year and then iOS 7 will fix it. I think the biggest issue with maps, I'm just ignoring that statement and moving on. The biggest thing with maps is it's lacking... It just doesn't have the data. You have to have the data and Google has, love them or hate them, you cannot knock their incredible collection of data they have for maps. I mean, Street View, they have indoor maps for things like museums and stores. They've got their traffic information is incredibly vast. Comparatively side by side, the traffic information in maps on iOS is non-existent, not there. The points of interest, I mean, the shops, the restaurants, they have Zagat, which is incorporated into the restaurant stuff. It's just the sheer volume of data makes them incredible for a user. I think Apple will get there at some point, but they are not there now, not even in the vicinity. Can Apple get there? I mean, Google has a lot more. Google has a hundred billion dollars in the bank or something like that. Sure, sure. Google has a lot more invaluable information gleaned from what Google is as a company. No, but Microsoft is really good at maps. Well, they're good. But they're good. Nokia is really good at maps. But they're still not, Bing and Nokia still are not what Google Maps is. Yeah, but they're good though. They're good. They are good. They're service. I don't think anybody in Windows. Man, remember MapQuest? Yeah. I just remembered that MapQuest exists. They should have bought MapQuest is what they should have done. Because isn't that, whatchamacallit? The map quest for sale? The SNL. Apple, I have an idea. I bet AOL, man. I bet AOL took Apple's map. Talk to this guy, Tim Armstrong, not from Rancid, but from AOL. What was the Yahoo Map service? They own a company called MapQuest. What was the Yahoo Map service? Yahoo Maps? Yahoo Maps. It might have been MapQuest. I think they own MapQuest. Does it matter? No, AOL owns MapQuest. Well, look, so Dan, what is that? Verge should buy MapQuest. I'm waiting for the nerds to tell me what the Yahoo Maps service is. What would the Verge do with MapQuest? I don't know. Directions to nowhere. Hold it over Apple's head. Directions to the internet. Directions to the intersection of art, technology, culture, and science. Dan, talk about maps. Dan, wait, so Dan, you've been using this... Yeah, I mean, Dan lives in a more rural area. He lives on a farm. He raises chickens. I think there's a little bit of a divide between what the experience is for somebody who lives in an urban environment versus maybe more of a suburban or rural environment because if you're in an urban environment, you need a lot more data there. There's a lot more points of interest. There's things like transit directions and stuff like that. But if you're living outside of a big city, a lot of that stuff either doesn't exist already from Google Maps or isn't all that helpful to you. I think that the turn-by-turn directions that are offered in iOS are actually pretty good comparatively, just as far as how they work. In my test when I was driving around with them, the app itself was much smoother than Google Maps was. The frame rates were better. It was just kind of more of a pleasant experience. But it still had some issues when I needed to make a left turn and it wanted me to drive up a mile and a half and make a U-turn and then do this other nonsense. So the data sets are still not quite as good as Google Maps. But I think a lot of people who are upgrading from iOS 5 to iOS 6 or buying an iPhone 5 and don't live in a big city are going to probably be pretty happy that the turn-by-turn directions are now finally there. Right. The turn-by-turn is a great addition. I mean, there's no question. By the way, I did do some of my maps testing in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, which is pretty rural. Yeah. So it just looked bombed out. You're like, oh, this is- It's like, you don't want to go there. This is in fact a nuclear apocalypse. Don't do that. No, but I mean, I tested in a fairly suburban area. So it wasn't all just in midtown. And that is actually one of the places I had some issues. Maybe it's just- Either way, Apple- They're like, we're not even bothering with Pittsburgh. Apple had to get turn-by-turn. Well, I think that when everybody else is offering it for free- Since the Motorola droid. Yeah. But it hasn't really slowed down sales of the iPhone. But you know, that's the thing about this- It's still such an important question. It's great. Nothing has slowed down the sales of the iPhone, but they still need to innovate. Right. Or they need to keep up. So there's been a lot of... It's just funny. It's like understanding why Apple took out a feature that its users generally loved. Right. Nobody complained. They didn't have turn-by-turn. They both did. And they gained a feature that some of its users want at the expense of reducing the experience for everyone in significant ways in some places. It's not a story about- What was their choice? Can you tell me? Like 95% of Americans have a car. The choice was to strike a deal with Google, which is clearly not- Wait, that's one choice. Okay. Or strike a deal with Microsoft or strike a deal with Nokia. Which by the way, Amazon has done. Amazon is a big company that is very good at handling large amounts of data. They're like, screw it, and they signed up with Nokia. Right. Or make sure the product is good before killing the Google deal. They might not have been able to do that because I think that- So I will say, I think- Let's assume that the deals are rather lengthy. They don't just sign a one-year deal. There's no way for us to- I'm speculating. That's called speculation. It's speculation, but they're like, they're real companies. It's Apple and Google. They get to do whatever they want. Well, so what do you think? Is it just their desire to get away from Google as quickly as possible? So I think it's both. And I think Apple made a decision that their product was good enough. And I think, remember in June before WWDC, Google just randomly held a pretty minor maps event like the weekend before. Yeah, they were trying to- They hastily called. It was like they gave us three days notice. We're having a maps event. Right. But it was also on the eve of everybody saying, oh, Apple's going to unveil its new maps. Right. But I'm assuming at that point Google knew and they were a little bit taken aback because- I'm sure Google knew way before that. No, I don't. I don't think you called the event four days before you have it. So you think Apple called them up, Tim Cook called up Schmidt. I think negotiations failed. And he was like, listen, we're going our own way on this one. There was a certain amount of hastiness to Google's actions there. And now I think Google is very, very pleased with the bad reaction to maps. I think there's a reason they have not put out an iOS Google Maps app. Here's what I want to know. Is this another Antenna Gate though? No. I mean, I feel like- By the way, Antenna Gate was a totally meaningless contribution. No, but let's put it this way. Antenna Gate, some users- Some minority of users. Some minority of users. Yeah. This did not slow down sales of this phone. Let me finish. Yeah. Some minority of users. You had the best gate of all time. What? I'm going to let you finish. Don't worry about it. Some minority of users during Antenna Gate saw something in their phone they didn't like. They felt that it was dropping signal. Certainly we had division on our team. Some people could get it to happen. Some people couldn't. There was a lot of, I mean, I didn't have Antenna Gate issues. Other people did. And it rose, the controversy rose to a fever pitch spurred by blogs essentially and some very vocal angry users. Definitely without question, a minority of the total users, hold on, of the iPhone 4. And Apple called this press conference. They said, we realized there's some issues with the way we display signal. There's some other stuff. They kind of said, look, we get it. They kind of did something like what they're doing now with maps. They're like, look, we get it. It's not the best experience. We're working hard to improve it. Here's a lie about how it's cloud-based. Well, whatever. But that didn't, to the majority of users, that wasn't really a thing. They weren't like, my iPhone keeps dropping calls every day. The majority didn't say that. They were like, this new iPhone's great. You know what happened is everybody bought a case and I'm wondering, I've never thought of this before. Apple also gave cases away. Do you think case manufacturers drummed up the controversy a little bit? Because man, those guys cashed in. No, not in case just raking in so much money because of Antenna Gate. I don't think, I mean, they gave away free bumpers. I think people were, but they also gave away free in case. Yeah, but I think, you know, case makers made more money on people who were worried about dropping their phone. I think they're making a joke, funny conspiracy theory, but it's awesome. I mean, it's actually, there's possible they helped, but the point is Antenna Gate was a small group of users. It got very bad at one point. It was on the front page of papers, you know, Apple's new phone is flawed. They sold more than ever. They introduced this phone with the same design and said, hey, we fixed it. Sold more than ever. I mean, I feel like there is some element here. And by the way, like I've used the maps, I think there are major problems with them. And let me be clear, I don't think the maps are good. Yeah. I'm disappointed. Have you looked at flyover of the Brooklyn Bridge? I mean, look, flyover to me is a complete confection. It is not a real thing. It's beautiful. It's interesting. It does really cool stuff. It makes people on, I hear on national television when you show it to them, they, they ooh and ah at flyover, but that is the only function of flyover as far as I can tell. Like I'm not going to take a tour of Manhattan using flyover. Like that's not my, that's not my bag, baby. It's yeah. Austin power slang. It's coming back in. No, it's not. You heard it here first. Yeah, baby. Um, anyhow, uh, by the way, not the first time I've tried to get Austin power slang back into the vernacular. Uh, but what I'm saying is, okay, fly over. Yeah. So maps are not good, but I also think that it's a lot of it is like internet rage and not necessarily like reflective of what most people are experiencing. Well, I think what to Dan's point, who is still with us, Dan, I'm so sorry. Yeah. I'm still here. Yep. I mean, I think users are like, Holy crap, I have turn by turn navigation for free on my phone. Now that is awesome. Yeah. And that's their whole bass experience. Right. Cause they drive everywhere like most Americans until the turn by turns screws up, which it's been doing for people. I mean, turn by turn, uh, did lead to me killing an entire family. No, it was, um, but it happens. Well, like I should say that, you know, I've used a Google's maps turn by turn on Android for years since it like came out and that's by no means perfect. No, that's screwed me up. I've been totally screwed by, by turn by turn on in Google maps, though. I will say lately it seemed really, it seemed really accurate. I have been led to many mysterious desolate areas. Like Pittsburgh. I started out and it got me, it drove me to Pittsburgh. Um, and where is everybody? Uh, no, Pittsburgh's wonderful town. I love it. Uh, disclaimer. Yeah. I'm originally from Pittsburgh. Uh, yeah. Google, Google maps has done the same thing. Yeah. But it's just like, it did seem like it does seem like right out of the gate. I mean, I was, uh, I think I saw John Pacowski from all things D tweet Pacman. He was like, I was using iOS beta six during the Samsung trial and I tried to get to courthouse and it got me lost. Which is like, I mean, I know it's like, you should, that's like a, the courthouse hasn't moved in a long time. You know, it's like, that's right there. There's definitely some, some work to be done. I'm not trying to defend the company. I'm saying that like the internet has a tendency to, um, to what? No, I agree. It's grown up. It's a tendency to like, to, um, amplify. And it's conflict and like conflict drive stories. Right. And, and, and, and I mean, that's why Al Roker's like, Oh, I heard about these maps. You know, that's juicy. That's what the customer, I mean, here's what they asked me about. If it bleeds, it leads. No. And here's what on today's show, I had a minute and 30 seconds. Yeah. They're like, Oh yeah, we were talking about honey boo boo. So your segment got cut down and I'm not kidding. Um, and I wish that that was a joke, hilarious joke. And, and, and, and it was like, tell us about the phone. And then like, as I was talking about what's new about it, they were like, what about this doc connector? It sounds like a lot of people are pretty upset about it. And then, Hey, these maps are screwed up. Right. And then catch you later. So that's what now about the honey boo boo. It was by the honey boo boo name generator and God, I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. Um, great idea. You didn't even know who honey boo boo is. I've heard of this person. Uh, but so I do think it's like, you want to go for it. If it bleeds, it leads. And that's going on a lot right now. Um, but look, there are real problems. We've written stories about it. No, so here's the story that, that Addy and I worked on yesterday, which is great. It feels so long. It's been a long week. Uh, Apple like one, it's a goal, right? They got Google off its phone. That's that's what they wanted. Yeah. And all the politics aside, right? Whether Google wanted to track every iPhone user and a blood, whatever they wanted blood samples was going to say, yes, blood bath, did they improve the experience by doing this? No, they added one feature. Turn by turn. They could have partnered with Tom Tom and added turn by turn anyhow. Yeah. Turn to my turn to Google's maps. No, they could have just had, Hey, we're including Tom Tom, a bundle Tom Tom app. We've partnered with them and you now you have turned up by turn directions and you can jump out of maps into it. I'm sure they could have done that programmatically pretty easy. I mean, I'm just saying, I'm saying there were other, they could, if turn by turn is the one thing they added, that's awesome. Fly over is not, it's an ooh and ah, but it's not like if there was a shortcut to getting turn by turn on your phone, I think they would have done it a couple of years ago. I don't know. That's the thing. They, you know, they didn't accomplish this is a very long bet for Apple and it's like, and so they're going to probably more than likely achieve parity in maps in the next few years. It's crowdsource. Although that is like a crazy lie. Well, but in order to crowdsource, you have to have a lot of stuff going for you. You have to remember that Google maps is like the map on the internet, you know, Google is, you know, search. Okay. And when you're searching for maps, use Google maps. They're collecting a lot of data. This is what I was calling a lot of data and you know, they've actually made some incredible partnerships happen. You know, I mean, I get as a good example, they bought, they bought, they bought fromers travel guides, right? Yeah. Um, just, and that's just an example. They have, you know, at least in New York, you know, I don't know how it is in, in lots of other cities, but in New York they've clearly, they're pulling the MTAs and that's, I guess, an open API you can pull for apps, but they're pulling MTA info. I know when I look up my local, you know, my station nearby, I know if there's a train to LA, you know, that kind of stuff is Apple can do that. I mean, Apple could have done it and should have done it before they released these. Um, but there's some stuff they won't be able to get. I think Yelp is a poor substitute for zag. Like I'd rather have a professional restaurant. I know a lot of people share with you. No, I know that. I know that. But I, but I think that Yelp is, is often misleading and unhelpful like on Yelp. So wrong. Yeah. Here's what I see on Yelp. I'm like, do not eat here. This is the worst restaurant ever. Seriously. I got food poisoning after eating at this restaurant. Next review. I love this place. I go here all the time. Best food in New York. Five stars. Like, thanks. I totally, I know what you do now. And then like, you know, yeah, you can average it out, but that doesn't work. Like a new restaurant. Everyone on Yelp is always going places for people's birthday parties. Every, every review for me is always breakfast. I came here for a friend's birthday. If I can be painfully, perfectly honest with you, I kind of gave up on using Yelp after having experiences where I was trying to get information. The number, like the percentage of food poisoning reviews. We should, cause I feel like if you get food poisoning at a restaurant, it's like, I'm going to Yelp as soon as I start, start, you know, stop barfing into the toilet. I'm going to Yelp. We need a Yelp like data parser that can find that information for you. Paul Miller eventually helped. I would like to see restaurants with multiple occurrences of food poisoning. Yeah. That would be like red flag. Food poisoning. Serious red flag. Or if you think you have a stomach of steel, like we dare you to enter this restaurant. I'm in a very different, I can't suggest a restaurant unless, to Becky, unless I've already, unless there's been Yelp. She doesn't care. I'm like, I heard about this restaurant. I saw it on the news or like I read a paper or like somebody told me how it, she's like, yeah, what does Yelp say? And that's, that's it. I think Becky's putting a little bit too much faith in the crowd. But you know, in my like, yes, counseling. Dear counselor. Is that how you start a counseling session? Where is that? Like you're writing a letter? Is that in France? I don't understand that. Dan, I'm so sorry that you just. Counselor by counselor. I feel bad. We brought Dan on and we're just rambling. Well, you know, we should, we can move on. Dan, do you use Yelp? Because Dan did something else. Yeah. What's your, what's your Yelp feeling? Did you get food poisoning? I don't, I don't use Yelps. I mean, I live in the suburbs, man. It doesn't work as well. Okay. We get it. We get it. You get it. You live in beautiful rolling countryside. You don't have to deal with rude Manhattanites. We just have home cooked meals, man. We go to the, we go to the farmer's market and you know, we kill our own chickens and have you had chickens? Have you killed this week? You know, were we keeping count? You think you would keep count if you had your own? Dan did something else. What could I want to talk about? Well, are we, cause what else can I say? I am so bored with the iPhone of no, of phone and tablet operating systems. I know there are some things that can be done. I know they can be improved. We can add a clipboard, which I've diagrammed here and it's really great. I'm getting you a patent. Go ahead. Go ahead. I don't know that I want to call it a dead end, but maybe a plateau. So here's actually, I have a plateau. I really want to get to the phone operating systems are like, are like the experience writing in commercial jet planes. It's just, it gets, there's a tweaks sometimes. It gets a little better. No, no wrong. Sometimes the seats are softer. I actually think when you look, I actually think when you see something like Siri, it, it perfectly illustrates shining example. It perfectly illustrates how little we have actually done and how far we have to go before these things really are natural and, and, and do what we will, what they could do, what their potential is. Cause I think we're like just scratching the surface. I mean, I avoid doing things on all phones cause I know they won't be good at doing them and that could change. And if it did, it would be very exciting. There are certain things I'm just like not interested in trying to do, you know, that could be done really well. Like copying and pasting photos and texts from a website. Can I just, you know, I actually avoid copying and pasting. Yeah. Yeah. So let me, can we hear about your clipboard idea? Zoom in on, can we zoom in on this? They can't zoom in on it. They can't see them on this. Oh gosh. Wow. You just knocked that camera badly. Cut to the, what are we trying to do here? Can we get this shot for Paul? I like that it's on me. I'm like, I'm like falling asleep. I'm so tired. Oh my God. Oh yeah. Macro. This is terrible. This is the worst television. This is the worst. No, I'm just going to tell you guys. Here we go. Here we go. Oh God. So we got up here. You're on a webpage, right? You tap and hold, drag it into the clipboard that is available, available to you now that the iPhone five has so much more screen real estate. Yeah. Drag your photo up in there. Where am I? Am I in a webpage? Yeah, you're on a webpage. You're just surfing around. You're in the ideation time. I'm just surfing. You're just going through all sorts of websites, drag them into the clipboard, getting the raw material. The clipboard is a, is a holding area. Yeah. It's a holding area. Come on, leave his, leave his down. And then you get over, you get in and over to paper. You pull some stuff out of your clipboard into layout and you like, and then you courier, you courier all over it. You're like, you're like cool shoe idea. I saw this, I saw this fire hydrant. Check out this awesome. I thought the color would be great for the soul of the new shoe I'm designing. Yeah, absolutely. So then check it, check this out, check this out. So you're like chatting, you're chatting with somebody cause their notifications come up in the top and then you can reply right in line. You're in your photos app, drag photos into the clipboard. No, no, no. This is just your, this is a different version of like, this isn't the clipboard. This is like, uh, this is just the fact that you can drag things into this tray. It's a behavior of dragging these in the tray drawer. It's a drawer for dragging things into line. It's lined with, and this is an action. Why don't they have a drawer? I'd like to see the actual like handle. All right, great, great job on that. You were, can I just say one thing? Let's move on. Let's move on from this actually ties into this very well. Cause I, Dan went to a huge windows fun event this week. Oh wow. So I want to talk about that. By the way, I just want to give everybody bad news. We have to wrap up soon because we have on the verge rehearsals and also I'm dying. But no, here's with your mobile operating, like what's become very clear to me, especially with iOS six is that these things are just windows into like manufacturer ecosystems. So like you can be in the Apple ecosystem and use iCloud and buy your music from iTunes and do all this other stuff they want you to do like shared photo streams instead of Facebook. Or you can be in the Google ecosystem and use like Google calendar and Gmail on Android. I mean, Android is like designed to work best in that ecosystem. Or you can be in the Microsoft ecosystem and use outlook and Bing and all this. And it's like you, we are now getting to the point where instead of picking a piece of hardware or picking an OS, the thing that you actually need to pick is like how Googled up am I? How much do I want to pick a life? Yeah, you literally have to know. I was like, I was complaining about this the other day. I wanted to buy a movie on my Xbox and they had like, you know, refill your Xbox points. And I was like, I will happily give you a credit card and you can charge whatever amount of money you need to charge on it. Just show me the amount. And I was like, this sucks. And I ended up buying on the Apple, on Apple TV. And I was thinking about like, I really do have to choose. I have to make a decision here. Like I'm going to be one thing or the other and it sucks. Yeah. It's like, I don't want my whole life to be planned out because I bought a phone. Right. I want to have choices. Yeah. I want to break free. Just keep going. No, but you know what I'm saying? I want to, I want to be able to drink Pepsi or Coke. I want to mix Pepsi and Coke in the same glass. What you're describing to me though. And a little twist of lemon maybe. Why not? What you're describing to me does not sound like some wild new playground that we have. It sounds like a settling down, like a good settling down. No, it's a bad settling down. No, he means the thing where you get to choose. Right. No, I'm just saying, yeah, so we have these choices or whatever. When I buy this, it's never like. I want to hear Paul's point. Sorry. Because my original thing was talking about, you know, how rapidly are these innovating anymore and are we kind of plateauing? I think the phone operating system has matured. I think it's really, really good. Yeah. I mean, there are choices between different ones, different ecosystems for sure. But that's the real choice. And I'm saying that's the thing. But that's a choice, but I'm talking about innovation. Right. But what you, what I would rather see is the phone operating systems as independent platforms that allow me to pick whatever ecosystem I want. So I really like iOS because it's polished and great. I would like to be able to plug in the Google ecosystem and say, I like that better. But that's rearranging the chairs. No, it's decoupling. No, I actually decoupling all of the services to the point. Let me OS that I use to the point. Let me give you a few features. Let me give you, let me give you an example of this thing that is happening right now that is freaking brilliant. And I use all the time. And I wish that everything was like this. Kindle the Kindle bookstore and Kindle reading. Okay. I have a Kindle app on an Android phone, on an Android tablet, on the iPad, on the iPhone, right on, you know, there's a reading app for the Kindle fire. Spotify is another good example. Spotify, RDO. Yeah. They are platform agnostic, essentially platform agnostic. And actually the same goes for Amazon movies in a lot of ways. I mean, they, they won't let, well, you're missing the prime stuff. Well, you're missing the prime stuff. You can't download. Well, it's on, it's on TV. No, no, no. It's on TVs and on boxes. It's not on phones or tablets really. Right. It's on Spotify. But, but the, but the read, the books are, you know, platform agnostic. I can install it on whatever I want. My books sync everywhere. They're missing one feature. They're missing the Kindle lending. Okay, fine. But I'm saying, even Amazon is like constantly dancing into this world. Platform agnostic. I can pick it up from wherever I am. I don't need to like be plugged into one person's thing or another person's thing. But like a lot of this would be solved, could be solved by simply saying, okay, I don't expect Apple to make a, the best Gmail experience ever. Here's what Apple could do. We've created a way for you to make an email application. You can have the email application do whatever you want. We've got some protocols we want you to use. There's some constraints to it. Just like they do on the Mac. And then you'll be able to say which client you want to use, like a computer. And you could do it, by the way, there are innovations. Right. Chrome is at a support. You can do a certain type of app, like a set group, like not just everything. Like you don't have to pick it for every single thing. And by the way, I think all phones should do this and there should be guidelines, but there, and there could be very simple ways to do it. You know, there could be a switch. I mean, Apple has God knows they have enough settings on their phone. Okay. It is like nothing, but it's like settings all the way down and like, you know, make a setting, a list that says default apps and say, here are your options. And you know what? Oh man, I don't know what's going on. My email app change restored to default. Boom. You saw your problem. I hate to keep bringing up webOS, but webOS had that exact feature and it was never actually implemented well enough before the demise of webOS, which is a shame. Mathias Duarte drew a picture of every dream screen he would want on a phone. No, Dan's right. WebOS was the best. And it was ruined by HP. It had all of these like great settings. Here's all the stuff you want to do. And Mathias was like, here's all the stuff I want to do. And then like a barrel of monkeys was charged, like building it. And then they were never given enough money. But I will say, I mean, there was like, you know, regardless of historical, you know, things we can talk about to discuss what was better or not. Meg Whitman said, hey, she has to build a phone. They have to build a smartphone. She's on her way. She's following Leo out the door. I think. All right, Dan, let's talk about Windows Federal. I just want to say, I do want to say, but I think this point is really crucial and really important. And you kind of just made me like the light went on. You're right. Like when you buy a phone, you're no longer saying, I want this great phone with these great features. You're like, okay, what thing will I plug into for the next two years? Like what will be on my TV? What kind of tablet will I have to get? What kind of computer will I use? What software am I going to use? Because all of a sudden, if you want to do things like movies or music or books or like all this stuff. If you want to sync your stuff, like if you want to make sure your files are kept in sync in certain places or your settings are kept in sync, you know, that is all like, you got to pick something and go with it and then you're done. And if you have to get out of that, it's like lock and we've talked about this before, but the lock-in sucks, man. It sucks. Like it's not good for users. It sucks for users. What people should be doing is making ways for stuff to talk to each other. Like the stuff should talk. What it's not doing is, what it's doing is not talking. You know what I thought was amazing when Apple said we're going to open up the FaceTime standard to anybody to use. That was three, like what, two, three years ago. Like three, it was three years ago Apple said it's going to be a standard that anybody, you know, you'll be able to make an Android app for it. I think we even asked them at a Q and A, it might've been my question. They said, yeah, you'll be able to make an Android app for it once we open up all the stuff. You know, it never happened. It was an awesome idea though. Because what you should do for users is not give them fewer options. You should give them more options and you should make those options easy and understandable and not force them to use the things that you want them to use because it's better for your bottom line. You know what's good for, you know what makes users happy and makes them want to come back to your product? It's giving them things that they want and need and doing it in a way that's elegant and delightful and amazing. And I feel like companies are more concerned about like, do Google need the Play Store? Could they have done, like could they have leaned on Amazon and partnerships there? Maybe. I'm just saying it's not just Apple's problem. It's a problem across the industry. Right. All right. I'm done ranting. No, I mean, I just think we're at a place where, especially now that they've pushed you particularly maps off the phone, which is a core feature. We're at a place where it's like, do you prefer to use Google services? You're better off getting Android. And that is just true now. I agree. I think, I think this, if you use Chrome and use Gmail and use Google, use Google calendar and use maps, I don't think your experience will be better with iOS. And I don't think that iOS offers so much otherwise. It has an ecosystem of apps. It's unparalleled. The ecosystem of apps is unparalleled, but there have only been a handful of, I mean, at this point now I can count them on one hand probably where I was like, Ooh, I really need this app and they don't have it. You know, I'm not the average user. So this actually is going to lace through what we're going to talk about next. And we have to, this will have to be our last topic unfortunately. Okay. So let's talk about Windows phone and then we're going to talk about Baxter. When I wanted to talk about, you know, the problem with, you ever heard about Baxter? Okay. You're what was Baxter? The new robot. No, we're not talking about Baxter. Read my original report on the verse.com, which is it's, Oh man, Baxter is exciting. Go ahead. I'm just saying I'm bored of phones. I want robots and we're just rearranging these things. We're not just rearranging. It's not just rearranging these phones. Dan has something to tell you about HTC. Dan, go. Let me hear it. Oh, I do. Yeah. So HTC, you know, this week debuted its big Windows phone eight devices and it's big new partnership with Microsoft to be the signature lead Windows, Windows phone eight partner, which was kind of a shock and surprising. And there's some interesting reactions from Nokia. Yeah. This is an insane situation. So just to be clear, remember last year, actually I think it was this year when, when Nokia at like CES was talking about how they're just, they, they, this is the real Windows phone. You haven't seen Windows phone yet because now they've got the real Windows phone devices and talked and Ballmer came on stage and Elop and Ballmer talked to Ball about their tight, tight relationship and how the ads were like all phones before this have been beta testing. Yeah and Nokia was, Nokia was like the first party basically for Microsoft. Like we're going to be leading the charge. We're the company. Microsoft just pulled a total, like basically pulled like an Android move on them. Yeah. They're like, all right, now we're blessing HTC as the flagship. Dan, they're, they're actually called Windows phone, right? HTC phones, right? Yeah. Wow. Microsoft like worked with HTC on this a lot for the naming and the marketing of these particular phones and Microsoft told them to put Windows phone eight X and Windows phone eight S in the name of the devices. And like the, the point was that the companies were like, when you go to a store and be like, I want a Windows phone. Well, those are the Windows phones right over there because it's right in their name. Right. And then the Lumia phones will be off in the corner. I mean, this is what's crazy is that Nokia just got on stage and was like, we have these awesome new with Steve Ballmer, with Steve Ballmer. So he was only on for the tail end. Yeah. We've got these awesome new, the flagship phones were like, oh boy, here come the new badass flagship phones from Nokia and here's HTC. And by the way, the phones have a lot in common. They're like, yeah, super colorful, very similar. They've got bright colors. Yeah. I mean, the HTC phones look really good. I mean, I thought the Lumia looked good or so Dan, you have this theory. What were you saying? Windows phone, Microsoft's kind of pushing these bright colors. Yeah. So I just, it's kind of a funny thing because if you look at like Android or iOS, obviously the only thing you really see are white or black color schemes. And here's Windows phone with these like super bright colors. Nokia has been doing it for a couple of generations and now HTC has like a literally, they call it a limelight yellow and it looks like every single runner's shoes that were at the Olympics. And it's like the brightest phone I've ever seen on the face of the earth. Can I just say, I think this is such an awesome, such an awesome moment in, I mean, I think that we're, I mean, at least look, look, I'll say the Windows phone devices are starting to look really amazing from a hardware standpoint. I think it is so refreshing to see people getting playful with hardware design. I mean, I actually think, you know, I, I tell a lot about this, the iPhone five is very familiar, very familiar looking like, like seriously, I mean, if this were the white one, I could easily tell you this was the four S and at this distance, like you probably wouldn't know the difference. But it is beautiful hardware. I mean, just gorgeous, beautifully made, but I will say it's not like, wow, I can't believe this. It's like a better version of the iPhone four S I think these, I think the Lumia and these, these new HTC phones are, they're just doing something cool and different. They just, they feel different. They look different. What's funny is Nokia has been doing these crazy colors since for a long time. Nokia has always been really daring with design. Do you remember the crazy designs they used to do when they were doing, you know, just straight Symbian stuff. Yeah. Right. I mean, they've always been daring and they were doing some of these brighter colors though. And uh, I mean, just as far as Nokia being pissed off right now, I can't imagine. If I was Nokia, I'd, it's like, Oh great, great Microsoft. HTC's doing great. They had some work. Cool. No, but you know what I think this is? It was Dan and Ross, I think we're, and I were having this conversation. It's there is in this world, there's Apple and Samsung and then there's a parade of losers. Right? Well, no, it's true. There's Apple, there's Samsung. And then, uh, you know, everyone else is trying to catch up. Right. And those, I mean, it's HTC hasn't really made any money with Android. Motorola was a failure with Android. They had to sell themselves to Google after threatening patent lawsuits, uh, LG's they're, they're making square phones, which is like, why are you doing that? Some of them are confusing. Uh, I mean, it's just, they've got to make a smartphone. And it's just like, you see, you see HTC saying, okay, well we have failed to compete with Samsung on Android. We're Microsoft, we're back. Microsoft is like, cool. Another buddy. And it's like, and now Nokia and HTC are in this place where it's, they are, they are partners against Samsung and then rivals for whatever's leftover. And they're, that's not a, Microsoft is just like everybody else, like come back because we're charging you license fees to build Android phones anyway. Right. Why not pay an extra dollar and take windows phone and make your phones red and Nokia had to be thinking like, well, if we're just basically the first party, we can get almost all of this market share, even if it's a small market share. And it just, to me, it's, that's, that's dangerous. I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, but can you imagine a laptop that's called like the Dell windows XPS? Um, yes. Are you kidding me? I'm sure that has been, I'm sure that has been brought up many times in meetings between Dell and Microsoft. It's just like, let us call a laptop the windows S the windows seven laptop. I just think, um, I don't know why that picture is up in that screen in there, but I just think that, um, or Mac, Apple calling a laptop like the Mac OS, uh, a lion. No, but windows phone is like a thing. It's like you can describe a windows phone. That is also a description of what it is, right? Or you can call it Mac lion, but like, but, but, but that's not a description of what it is. It's a windows phone. You mean like it's a phone that runs windows, which is what it is. Yeah. This is a Mac. So like, no, a lion Mac. Anyhow, um, here's what I think. And this gets into the conversation we've had many times. I do think, I do think we have an oversaturated market. I think we've had a big upheaval in a state of flux where everybody's thinking like, we can do this too. Like they're like, Oh, Apple's doing this. Well, why don't we just get in there? Because now everybody can do it. And you know, inevitably this is going to be whittled down to a variety, small variety of players who really are good at doing, you know, not everybody can do everything. Getting back to, to circle totally back to our conglomerate conversation. Not everybody can be Dupont. Is that who, is that who he said? Yeah. Or, or Johnson and Johnson or, you know, Seagram's or whoever these companies are. Like some people are just, uh, some other smaller companies. I'm trying to think of a very focused small company. Juju. No. That was fusion garage. First garage. So people are just, um, who's the company that makes, what's the company that makes one thing really well? Like, like, uh, that's okay. Fine. Like, uh, I wanted something a little more like traditional Carl Zeiss, uh, Carmix, Rolex. It's pretty good. Carmix, Rolex, Rolex. They make watches. I bet Rolex also makes like, like bombs on the side. Like super Rolex, we make the best watches in the world and bombs. Guess what time it is? Time to die. Rolex, Rolex, Rolex bombs. Time to die. Um, it's good. It's good stuff. Uh, it is time to go, but I just say like, you can be, you can be Rolex. Yeah. Not everybody's gonna be Seagram's. Yeah. We're going to find the Rolex's. The Seagram's are few and far between. Yeah. That's the bird cast for this week. Wait, no, Dan, that's the bird cast. Sorry. Go ahead. I just want to say one thing about how Microsoft's strategy with these colors is, and it's like a polar opposite of what we've seen happen with Android for a long time where Android manufacturers were essentially, you know, mimicking, especially Samsung were mimicking what Apple was doing. And then when you walked into a store, you saw, you know, a sea of phones that all looked almost the same. Yeah. I've been talking about this for a while. Sorry. I mean, I, I, this is something that it's like not just a sea of phones that look the same, but a sea of ugly ass phones. Like a sea of phones with no design, like no skill. Like, I just think there should be like a, there needs to be like an IQ test for phones. Is this the droid chart? You have failed. It needs to be like, is your phone off or something that is not just like a reskinning of something, but doesn't add any cool stuff that's actually useful. Or like, is your phone just another black rectangle? Yeah. Like it's like a silver band around it. Like you're not allowed to sell your phone in America. You can sell it somewhere else, but like, I live in America. I don't want you to sell it here. Ideally our like completely monopolistic carrier controlled market would filter that stuff out. And I think Verizon's like, you know, we need is the droid chart. I think it's great to be influenced by things. You know, we design. Dan thinks it's funny that I keep ripping on the droid charge, by the way. I keep seeing cracks on my phone. Look, we, look, when we designed the verge, we were influenced by a lot of different stuff. And, but I think ultimately we came up with something that, you know, love it or hate it. It's different. It kind of looks like an iPad. Yeah. Kind of just like an iPad. Basically it's got rounded at, no, but you know, love it or hate it. It's unique and we're working to, you know, continue to make it unique. But like, and like, so I understand like going through the design process and going like, oh, I love this. Like let's do something like this. And then going like, well, what can we take from that? That's really good. And mutate it and change it to make it something else. But like, so do that, but have an idea, have like an original thing you're going to do. Like make it stand out, like make it look different. You know, I have to say like the HTC phones and the new Lumias really excited me from a design standpoint, from a hardware standpoint. What doesn't excite me is like, you know, I mean, it's like the galaxy Nexus is the phone I use despite its hardware. Yeah. It's like the iPhone is the phone that I would use kind of despite its software. You like, there are things about software that I don't like or enjoy now, but it's like such a tight package and like it works, you know, works well enough. And it's got such an awesome industrial design that I'd say like, well, there, I could see myself using it. But I don't want to feel that way about do something great in software and do something great in hardware design. Like you would need needs to be there one way or the other. So you made a good point. Yes. Google's got a lot riding on this Nexus. I mean, I've heard rumors that Josh, yeah, I think Dan was making another point. You made a good point, but Dan, Dan, were you saying something? I'm not going to interrupt Dan. Well, I was saying as you know, Microsoft strategy to get people to notice windows phone eight. And when they walk into a store and they see like, you know, four phones that are these really loud, bright colors that would, you know, catch their eye because most people walking into a phone store are probably walking in looking for either an iPhone or some Android phone like a galaxy S3 because they haven't heard of the 8x and they haven't heard of windows phone, et cetera. But these really loud beyond just like a marketing display, but right down to the phone itself, like screaming at them, like, Hey, look at me. It's an interesting strategy that's very different than what we've seen from the other phone manufacturers in the past. They should make that. It's a good idea. The screaming, they should make their proximity sensors like start screaming when you get near them. I should tell the people with the Nexus cause they're freaking out. No, and Dwayne Reed when I walked by certain aisles. Oh, that's right. And I would say about how it's like the Santa technology where you walk past these people really are freaking out about the neck. You want to finish your rumor conversation about the rumor. We've heard some rumors. We've heard, you know, there's whispers. There's rumors that, uh, you know, October is going to be, look, it's the year October 19th, which is my birthday. Send gifts to the verge folks. Um, was when they announced the galaxy Nexus. Uh, I have strong reason to suspect that there will be something in October because Google knows it's my birthday month. You know, they want to make me a happy guy. Uh, so look, I mean, I really hope, I really hope I will say this. I swear to God, if this is a cheap plastic galaxy Nexus type piece of crap with a, with a, with a, yeah, with a pen tile, amoled screen and a shitty camera, like, guess what? You're up against the iPhone. You need to, you need to, uh, bring your, you need to bring your, I really want to swear. I really want to swear about something you didn't bring. I'm going to swear. You didn't bring your in a game like seriously, this is not a joke. Google, you want to, you want to, you want to battle Apple. I'm just saying this as a guy who loves technology. The galaxy Nexus is not the egg. The software is your a game. The hardware is like your D game, C game. Like it's, it's, it's kind of annoying. There are things about it that are good. It's fast. You know, it's, it's fast. I like it. I like the screen resolution. I think it's a little bit too big, but whatever. But you know, bring your a game. I have to say, I think HCC and Nokia just brought their a game when it comes to phones. You know, they're making, they're taking the newest version of that software. Like it's what they have. Like they can't suddenly come up with a newer version or better version of windows phone, but you know, eight is supposedly better. The hardware design looks good. The specs sound good to me. These are phones I'm legitimately interested in. Like maybe these will be phones that I'm going to want to use. I don't think the same can be said. Like I look at the S3. I know a lot of people have them and like them. I look at the S3. I don't think that someone's a game on hardware. I think it's like you threw this together quickly in like, I don't know what, to avoid a lawsuit. I mean, alphabetical game aside, like can Google have its own like phone look like Microsoft has a phone look. Apple obviously has one phone and then there's Android. Can Google carve out its own look? I think they need to. I mean, at this point, and by the way, I wish that Google would have to take much more control over the manufacturers than it has in the past. I mean, Microsoft is taking control with HTC and Nokia. Or they can make an awesome phone with glitter and that people like and are like, yeah, this is pretty boss. Like it comes preloaded. And find a way to sell it so that people buy it. And then other people will be like, oh, we should do what they did because that had a lot of success. Just like people saw the iPhone having success. They were like, we should do what they did. You know, by the way, we're unexplored territory big time. And like, where are the wood? We're covered, you know, we've been covering this ad zero phone that, you know, I mean, we covered it a little bit. It's made of bamboo or something. Where are the wood phones? Where are the phones with like leather backs? Like where are there? Is there only one material? Virtue made all those. No, no, no, forget virtue. Get that out of my face. Blackberry did a leather back. They did a fake leather. And fake leather is fine too. But like, there are other materials one could use. There are other like use, like, let's do something interesting. No, I don't care about carbon fiber. As Michael suggested, Michael just mimes what we don't need. What we don't need is like the molded plastic, the molded plastic curve. Are you drawing? No, we got to round up. We got to round up. I have an idea for a phone design that's really different. Does it have a clipboard? I don't know. Does it have a keyboard? No, it's got it. It's got like a real mic. You see, you know how we get the sound quality from having real microphones? Yeah. These phones have these tiny, tiny little mics, but to get good sound quality, is that a giant microphone? It's a giant microphone. That's not, it's a giant microphone. And then you've got a giant speaker up here, like a good headphones speaker. That's the Vergecast for the week. If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at vergecast at the verge.com. You can leave a comment on the post when it goes up. And of course you can, you can find us on Twitter. I'm Joshua Topolsky. Paul is future Paul, though he's not online. Whatever. Deelai is reckless. Dan, what is your, what is your Twitter handle? DC Seaford. Oh, that's so great. And if you want to talk to me about cool, original, futuristic ideas, you can send a letter. I'm Paul Miller's dream phone. Okay, go on. You can send a letter to PO Box 501, New York, New York, 10276. And I will talk to you about cool things. Maybe I'll draw you a picture. He probably will draw you a picture. He's not that busy. Dan, thank you so much for joining us. I know that, I know that we didn't let you talk that much. And when you did get to talk, we immediately interrupted you. So I apologize. And of course I apologize to our, to our listeners, who we once again punished for what seems like an eternity. And on that note, we'll be back next week. Also Oh, tomorrow Manhattan center in New York, 5pm on the verge. And we've got a really cool, I have to say, I'm excited. We've really cool on the verge. We kind of took a sci-fi theme with this one. We have, we went to ILM and did a tour there, which is very cool. We have some awesome, we have an awesome demo coming from Microsoft research and, and we'll be talking to one of the researchers, which is exciting. And it's going to be a fun show and it's going to be just loose. We'll be hanging out. We're having a good time. I think you guys should come. But of course, limited capacity. So get your tickets early. Yeah. And the information's on the website. What do you want me to say? I was pointing at the computer. We're all doing this. Where are you at Dan? Can you get your hands up? Can you, can you just, no. All right. That's the verge cast. As always, I wish you and yours the very best for the weekend ahead. Paul. Paul. Paul. Paul. Paul.