 Hey, and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of March 25th, 2013. I'm Josh Dupolsky. I'm Neelay Patel. I'm Ross Miller. And we're back for you and only for you, Joe. If your name is Joe, you just got really happy. This is your cast, the Joe cast. Anyhow, we're back on the Vergecast where we discuss the week in technology culture, internet culture and culture culture, which is currently developing. There you go. It's always developing. It's always developing. And we had a big week, interesting week, crazy week, sexy week. A week I would say drenched in sex and love and also in other things unrelated to either of those. What are we talking about this week? What did happen? We had a very sexy week. Your week was way different than the previous. Because I was celebrating the Lord smiting the Egyptian people with plagues. I had a Passover, sorry, I was going to talk about this a little bit, then we'll get into it. I had a Passover. I was back home for Passover for a Passover Seder, which is the traditional Passover dinner, which goes on for 15 hours straight. And I have to say, I really enjoy, there's a part of the Seder where you list off the plagues that were visited upon the houses of Egypt. It's like locusts, famine, death of the first born, of course, is the most important one. Yeah, that's obvious. Blink feed. Blink feed, boom sound. You got a phone, you got a Windows phone that only can be upgraded to 7.8. It's one of those. And at that point the pharaoh says, no more. Yeah, sexism on the internet. You're a woman on the internet. It's one of the plagues that was visited. It's just an interesting thing to do. It's a very morbid, I mean, a lot of the Jewish holidays are very, and by the way, I'm an atheist and not really, I'm not a practicing Jew. I was raised, so I got, you know, my parents give me a big guilt trip if I don't participate. But it's just a morbid holiday full of horrible stories and you can't eat bread. It's not the best. I did get pretty drunk though. Yeah, I think that's really the point. Drunk on, we drink a type of alcohol called slivovitz, which is like a family tradition. It's a, I think it's a plum brandy. It is disgusting. It will burn your insides. It definitely sounds like you've been drinking enough of it to stop, forget that you've been drinking it. Yeah, we also, my father, my brother, ow, I just had a terrible pain in my leg for no apparent reason. Slivovitz. It's finally catching up with me. That was incredible. This is pain as it's going on too. No, my father, my brother made a horseradish. Yeah. Okay. Horain as it's known. Yeah. And I doctored it a little bit because it tasted really bad when they finished with it. I had to like spice it up a little bit, but it was extremely. You just spiced up the horseradish. Well, yeah, you put a little vinegar and salt in it to give it a little bit of flavor because otherwise it just like burns. It's just burning. It's just a burning sensation. Ow, I don't know what's going on in my head right now. I'm going to stretch it out. I'm going to, you know what? I was driving yesterday, so maybe I did something. Like I don't know what, what? How long was like the trip? Like six hours. Yeah. Six and a half. I don't know. Yeah, that's weird. Can we get a shot of Slivovitz? Can you get me? I would love a shot of Sliv, right? Sliv as we call it. A Sliv. Anyhow, this is totally unrelated to anything that we're supposed to talk about. Actually being drunk is related to our first story. It is. Let's do it. Or potentially related. I would say so. So I would say the news of the week without question was T-Mobile's relaunch of itself. Bullshit. Bullshit. But nothing about the news of its relaunch was actually news. They announced that the pricing plans were available. You know, the iPhone 5 is like great, another carrier with the iPhone 5. They said a bunch of this stuff at CES. What was news about it was they're incredibly aggressive, like marketing around it. And then the CEO, the new CEO of T-Mobile, John Legere. Oh, it's Legere? Legere. Very sexy. He came onto stage and just began ranting about the wireless industry and actually said at one point, we have to stop the bullshit. Yeah. He swore within the first minute of being on stage. He swore a lot. He said that the way, you know, how carriers are nice to you is a crock of shit. And it was very, very, I was very, I was very raw. I was very, you know, kind of unprecedented in this industry. We have a little bit of a super cut. Yeah, we have a super cut of this. Take a look at, take a look at what he was up to on stage. Any second. There we go. We're unleashing everything. We're going to talk about this today, but please stop the bullshit. Sorry. I promised myself I wasn't going to swear today. Elizabeth, wherever you are, your father didn't mean that. I've been at this business for about 33 years, but I don't have wireless industry experience. And after a while I went home and I said to myself, holy shit, I don't have wireless industry experience. What am I going to do? And it suddenly dawned on me. There's not a goddamn person in the world besides a wireless industry person that would understand why the hell this mess works this way. And the worst fear of the wireless industry is that somebody from outside Oz comes in and starts looking at their industry. I've already told you about the spaceship and the aliens coming in. It doesn't make sense. Unbelievable high prices. How the hell can that cost that much unless you're going to drive it? I mean, come on, that nasty guy on the end, that's sprint and you, you got to see that. The day you go in that store, they love you. It's like, you know, oh, you got to have this phone. We're going to be so good to you. Here's a free t-shirt, some balloons. By the way, you need a back rub. Maybe that's just me. You pay so much for your phones. It's incredible. Everybody's blogging. Holy crap. I can't believe he just said that. Oh, he said shit. That's how I lost the family pool. I bet he'd only swear five times. It was very spirited, very good stuff. Unfortunately, here's the thing. And we did some math and I did some personal math because I was like, this is, I'm fired up. They got LTE, they're expanding their network. They have these new pricing plans. They're selling the iPhone for a hundred bucks. They're selling the one which I'm using for a hundred bucks. This is great. I'm switching. And then I went and I did some math and it's actually would be more expensive for me to switch to. Because you have a family plan. No, I have a regular, a single guy plan. A regular cool bachelor plan. For me, there's four people on my family plan, multiple devices, iPads and all kinds of stuff. If you get an iPhone, it's like the unlimited plan is 70 bucks plus 20 for having an iPhone plus 20 for having their 4g service. Here's the thing that plus 20 driving the iPhone. That's the big thing that they're doing is they're saying we're no longer just pricing in the subsidy for the phone and to price of the plan. Because AT&T you pay however much per month for the service and there's a subsidy built into that always. T-Mobile is saying you can either pay the 20 bucks a month for us to subsidize your phone or you cannot pay it. And if you don't pay it, the phone is $600. But if you already have a phone, or if you get to the end of two years and you're all the way paid off or you find a hundred bucks on the street and you pay ahead. Okay, fine. If you take out the 20, you're about the same as Verizon and AT&T. They're charting this middle ground. Most people come and don't have a phone. They're not bringing a phone. They're like, I want to get new service and I need a new phone. I think what T-Mobile is here is they're not trying to be cheaper. They're calling themselves cheaper because everyone does that. Well, they already are. They've always been cheaper. Well, yes and no. It's pretty close though. It's just more transparent. I know what I'm paying for. We're looking at this yesterday. And what's the deal? So hold on. So I get an iPhone. I pay $100 for the phone upfront. I'm paying the $20 subsidy fee. I'm paying the $70 unlimited everything. I'm paying the other $20. There's another $20 for their 4G service. For the hotspot. Yeah. No. Oh, that's right. For the hotspot. For the hotspot. For four gigs of hotspot, which is lower than, cheaper than what you pay. But somehow it still worked out to more money for me because I don't need unlimited minutes and unlimited messages. That's the trick. Okay. What I really want is like 900 minutes and a thousand messages because I'm not ever going to use them. Right. But they don't do that. So it ends up being more expensive because you think you're getting more. But long and short is, I'm on two months. I'm on T-Mobile. I hate it. Yeah. I'm like, I don't want this anymore. What happens? You don't have a contract. So that ends. Yeah. And then you have to give your phone back to them. Okay. And they give you a fair market credit for it, which they refuse to explain. Now that's going to work. Right. And you're on the hook for whatever the difference is. But that credit has to go to T-Mobile. Wait, you do give the phone back to them? Yep. And then you have to pay for the phone? You have to pay for whatever the difference between the remaining. In the end, you pay $579 for the phone, right? So you're saying after two months, I get my iPhone. After two months, I'm like, I hate this. I'm out of here. Right. I say, you can have the phone back. Yep. They're like, give me $500? Well, no. No, no. You'll get. They'll give you some credit, which they're calling a fair market value credit. So that's a mystery amount. To what? For what credit? Of what? For your phone. Yeah, but the phone is, you only paid $80 for it. You're giving them the property back, right? Yeah. So then you only owe them what they're saying the difference between the market value of the phone is from the $500 that you owe them. But they're giving you money is what you're saying. No, you're just paying them less money. You're giving them some money. Yes. Right. So you're just paying them $400 instead of $600. You're leasing the phone, essentially. But if you give them the phone back. Yeah. You still have to pay it off. You have to pay about some amount, but they're not clear what that amount is going to be. That doesn't sound like a great deal to me. That doesn't sound like you're getting out scot-free. You have to pay for the amount that you've used the phone, right? I mean, like the phone's value has decreased. I guess so. It's true. I don't know. I thought T-Mobile was different. So they're going to let me have a phone and do whatever I want with it and then give it back and not have to pay anything. Well, so the ultimate goal here, and I think this is interesting because the ultimate goal here is that you buy a phone the way you buy a laptop. Yeah, you decouple. You decouple it. You decouple the phone purchase from the service purchase. They can't do that straight away, right? Because they can't say our phones cost $579. They would suicide. So they have to provide some sort of path. They want people like me who have a One. I'm like, you know what? I'm not getting off AT&T. I hate the service. And the iPhones are going to work across AT&T and T-Mobile, assuming you can get it unlocked. If you have an iPhone in AT&T and you get it unlocked and you go use it on T-Mobile, they're scrambling to make part of a network compatible with AT&T's 4G and LTE. So there's some stuff there. When do we see a viable new network from T-Mobile? How far off? I feel like we're dealing with end of 2014, maybe, you have a T-Mobile network that can compete. Right. So what they're saying is it's 100 million customers that will have LTE access, or at least 100 million citizens that can have it by first half of the year, 200 million by the end of the year. I mean, here's the thing. I have AT&T, LTE. Their service is, their coverage is pretty bad. It's bad. You go a few seconds outside of any major metropolitan area. I was outside. It was 10 minutes, in midtown Manhattan. That's where we are. I walked 10 minutes away from the office to run errands today and I had 4G the whole way. And it's like, I didn't- You mean 4G, fake 4G? Yeah. No, I mean, I have, in my neighborhood, I get 4G when I'm going over the bridge and stuff. It's just like, it's gone. Yeah. And even a little bit further out into the neighborhood, it's gone. So Verizon is amazing. I mean, Verizon's network is, their penetration is amazing. Right. So T-Mobile, I feel like, is so far off. They're a ways to go. They can say 100 million, but they mean like 100 million people who might drive through a certain area. Well, it's pretty much- Like if cars come near here. Well, the big market. So, I mean, look, they've got a long ways to go. I think what's really interesting about this whole story from the beginning is not, there's no way for them to win now. Right. But I think, Wajir has like put himself on the map. Like he's famous now. Yeah. He stood on stage and called all of his competitors, literally called bullshit on all of his competitors. Yeah. And the problem is that he didn't back it up with really any kind of astounding savings. I think what would have been amazing is he said, like, look, you're going to save a thousand dollars over two years, but you're not. In some cases you might, but overall it's the savings are like a couple hundred bucks. Well, I think if you're the sort of person who buys, who wants a new phone every year, and I think a lot of people listening to this podcast probably want to buy a new phone every year. I think that there is some savings built in there for you because you get to give the phone back and you don't have to pay the $700 for the, you know, the off contract. That's true. Yeah. And I think you have to have T-Mobile service. You have to deal with T-Mobile. I mean, I don't know anybody who's like, I love, I mean, I see people all the time tweeting me T-Mobile is so great. I love it. It's awesome in my area. But all of the people that I know, people who live in New York, people who are in our industry, I've never heard anybody really say anything effusive about T-Mobile. It's only people who work for Google because they put out the Nexus 4. Yeah, but I feel like on the Google campus, I feel like on all the, so you're not paying $20 per month anymore. Right. And I feel like on the Google campus they've got just like towers everywhere and they're just going for it. And it's like literally a bubble. Yeah, no, I talked to, no, I talked to people at Google when they released the Nexus 4 and it was like, they're like, oh, it's really fast. They're like, what are you talking about? It's great. I get 21 down. It's like, yeah, on the Google campus, which is like almost literally a bubble. Yeah. You know, in the real world it's like one. Yeah. No, it's terrible. I mean, they brag about this 42 down, but it's not there. Yeah. Yeah, I've never seen anything remotely. But I think it's a baby step. You know, I'm like, this is what Google has been trying to do with the Nexus program. They've utterly failed to do it because they're not a carrier. It makes sense why Google couldn't do it and T-Mobile can do it, but the idea that you will buy a phone and the age of the custom high-end phone is like kind of over, right? It's no longer the AT&T Captivate and Verizon Fascinate. It's just the GS4. I can tell that AT&T and Verizon, which whose phones are littered with AT&T and Verizon crap are made only for AT&T and Verizon, like the Droid DNA. Well, yeah, but that has to come to an end. Does it? Not if Verizon AT&T stay on top. I mean, but the phones are the same. The GS4 is the same. The iPhone is obviously the same. Well, it's the same, but you can't buy a- The one is the same everywhere except for Verizon. Of course. Well, let's define the same. It's just sad. The GS4 is going to have different radios for the Verizon model. You won't be able to take it to AT&T. Right, but this age of you can only get certain phones on certain carriers, at least from the perspective of the average consumer, it's already been decoupled a little bit. Well, I mean, what we need to do is just come up with real prices for phones and just say this is what it's going to be. So I think that- Consumers won't buy it. This is the first step, right? If you get an iPhone for free or $99, you're not going to buy an iPhone for $500. You're always going to take the... Look, at least in this country, I can't speak to everywhere else, but I think this is a country that loves credit. We love being on credit. We love getting buy now, pay later. I just signed up for this PayPal service. It's called pay later. It's called pay it later. The whole idea is you don't have to pay for it now. We got you covered. I don't know even know why. I didn't have to sign up for it. I just wanted to not pay now. I wanted to not give anybody money at this moment. It's like a kind of a procrastination thing. I like long walks on the beach. I love ice cream and I love paying at a different time. Paying later. Paying later. That's my thing. All right. But I just think until people break themselves of that habit. But it's also tough. It's a lot of money. $500 for a phone is a ton of money. But you think if you actually get people to pay, you create a market. Once you create a market, prices go down. If you can do the Nexus 4 at 250, is that what it is? Yeah, 279, something like that. No, the 8 gig is 250, I think. 249. Wait, somebody just say something? Yeah. No, 300? The 8 is 300? I think it's 249. My high, maybe it is 300. I think it's 249. Our producers whispering in our ear. It's 299. It's 299. Okay. But still, yeah, $300 for a phone. Still, it's way cheaper than a $600 or $700 phone. Right, but it's a front. If you look at Verizon, the Droid DNA is like $700 if you buy it off contract. So here's the thing with that is you have to get consumers to act in their own self-interest. You have to basically trick them into doing it. And AT&T and Verizon are really good at tricking you into acting against your interest by saying the phone is free. Just sign this two-year contract and we've baked in these huge subsidies. I'm always worried why people don't act in their own self-interest. When people vote for Republicans, I'm like, I think, why are you doing this to yourself? Why do you want to have a worse time? Do you want to just say Windows is poison right now? No, I love Windows. I love Windows. No, I'm just saying that there are a lot of, let's just say across the political landscape, there are many politicians, Democrat and Republican, who will, people are like, I'm voting for this guy because this weird thing that they really want to push. And it's like that issue is actually really bad for you. And they're like, I don't care. I just, he said it's good. So I'm going to vote. No, so I mean, this is basically T-Mobile trying to, I'm coming back. Yes, please do. You don't want to talk about my deep hatred for all Republicans. So if you look at the fantasy land. I'm kidding. Listen, I love all people in America. All Americans. Outside of America, get out of my face. Not interested. Sorry, I played Bioshock Infinite like for hours last night. Don't spoil it. Let's just say it's about America. Yeah. And only America. We're doing, I won't spoil it. It's definitely on my mind from that game though. Yeah. Okay. The state of America. You know, I have the first Bioshock that I bought for like $10 on Amazon. I still haven't played it. You've not played the original Bioshock? It's only one of the greatest video games of all time. I have a stack of video games that I'm meant to play and I haven't played any of them. Anyway. It is so good you should play it. Yes. So we have Top Shelf coming up after the show, right? I was desperately trying to pull out of this Republican house. Yesterday I went around wandering around New York talking to people about their cell plans for Top Shelf. And I ran into one guy who's from London. I was like, how much do you pay for your service? And he's, I was like, would you switch for cheaper service? He's like, yeah, I pay $10 a month for my cell service. What? It's unlimited everything. London is like the size of Rhode Island. Wait, what can you do? London is the size of Rhode Island but it's because they buy the service separately from the phone. The whole of England is like the size of Rhode Island. He had a Lumia 920. I told you how I felt about it. It was awesome. Really? He's like, I love this phone. It's totally sold out all through the UK. Which is crazy. Well, I guess Microsoft was right. They're selling phones. But see, that's actually interesting, right? I mean, that's part of this is Microsoft would have an easier time competing in the market. I mean, you found somebody with a Lumia. That's really interesting. I mean, it was really easy to find him. It was like bright blue. I was like, that guy. He ran towards him. He had a blue one? Yeah. From England? Yeah. Huh. It was bright blue. It was awesome. Literally, we saw him. All of us, Jordan and Billy and I were walking around. We're like, that one. We charged it. He's wondering, how much did he pay for that Lumia? Full price. What is that? 450? 500? I mean, in pounds, I don't know. Right. So there's a competition for those devices as well. Car phone warehouse in the UK sells it cheaper than Tesco. That's wonderful. I love that. They have pricing competition on the phone. You mean like- Because the carriers are in pricing competition against each other because people can just swap the devices. You mean TVs and computers. You mean like every other product you buy. Yeah, everything that we buy. Like cars, for instance. Right. And so this is like- You can get a car from a different price from a different dealer. Right. For a different price from a different dealer. Like everything else. But it's funny because the cell carrier, I mean, we've been ranting about this forever. They've completely insulated themselves in this real market. It's so boring. Yeah. I mean, all the FCC needs to do is just smash this whole thing. Just say like, you can't do this anymore. Julius is out, man. Yeah, I know. Who's going to step in to fix it? Some lobbyist, some Verizon lobbyist. No, because that's who it's going to be. I would like to be- It's going to be the former, former Verizon lobbyist. Have you heard of Chris Ziegler? Yeah, Chris Ziegler for- One of the only humans followed by the FCC Twitter account. Chris Ziegler for FCC chair. I would support that. And I believe though his background is riddled with drug abuse, I think that overall he would be a great candidate. Just don't ask him about that incident in like 1996. Don't ask about 1996 at all the whole year. Yeah. Anyhow. He won't remember anyway. I do think the T-Mobile thing is a good sign. It's a baby step. And we should wrap this up, but I think the T-Mobile thing is a good sign to recap. It's good. It could be better, but I think it's a step in the right direction. I don't have a problem with Republicans, although I do have a problem with some of their policies, this policies of the Republican party. And I love all Americans and I hate everybody who's not an American. Okay. All right. Okay. So you have a choice of your next topic. Yes, next topic. You can either talk about the Wachowskis doing Netflix's next new series, or you can talk about some crazy dystopian drone stuff. Let's do Wachowskis. Okay. This is all Ross. Right. So the story as it is, actually about six months ago, Wachowskis and the Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Stravinsky- Can we set the stage in case you don't know who the Wachowskis are? They directed the Matrix. They made the Matrix. And then they made the other Matrix movies. Yeah. And then they did some other- Just act like- And then the Speed Racer thing. Just act like they just made the Matrix. Yeah. Right. The Matrix 1 creators are doing their second movie ever. This is it. They're finally following up the first Matrix. It's a TV show. They're finally following up the only Matrix movie with a project with Netflix. With a 10 episode series called Sense8. We have no idea what it's about. All 10 episodes are going to come out. It's probably about a new HTC interface. That's amazing. It's about the HTC interface, like way in the future. In like four years. The clock is back. Yeah. So we heard about- But it's digital and analog. You can turn it around. You can see the insides of the clock. Don't blink feed. Yeah. Ooh. That's good. That's good. Sense8 brought to you by HTC. So six months ago, they were shopping us around for TV networks. That's how the story goes. Yeah. They settled not on TV. They settled on Netflix. So it's coming out next year at some point. All 10 episodes, of course, at once. And this is, I think it's going to be ninth or 10th Netflix original series by the time it comes out. So they've got- They did- The House of Cards. House of Cards. Well, don't forget, they started with Lilyhammer. Lilyhammer, which is not good. I watched a little bit of it. Not at all. I mean, it was okay. I didn't want to keep watching it. House of Cards. House of Cards. Arrested Development. Before that, Eli Roth's Hemlock Grove. That comes out next month. Oh, yeah. Hemlock Grove, which is based on a book, which is written and it takes place in- Oh, is this a trailer for it? Mm-hmm. This is Hemlock Grove? This is. So this is actually based on a book written by, I think, a guy from Pittsburgh or who went to school in Pittsburgh, and it takes place outside of Pittsburgh. So this is what Pittsburgh's like. I've never been there. Yeah, this is exactly what Pittsburgh is like. Right here. Okay. This is it. By the way, that is definitely what Pittsburgh is like. Right here. It's all. A formerly beautiful woman, peeling off her wig. This looks amazing. My only hesitation is from director Eli Roth. Right. Yeah. Right? Am I right, y'all? It also seems like just like an ultraviolet, like, werewolf Twilight. Nothing wrong with that. It's not to Twilight, man. Trust me. All right. I mean, I'll take your word for it. I'll see it. It's on Netflix. It makes me want to read the book now. I started reading. I'm like, I'm going to read it instead of me. But you know, like, this is like, this is the thing that like Reed Hastings has been talking about, the Netflix CEO. It's definitely nudity here in this trailer. No, it's just a butt. Yeah. A butt is nudity. I think, I think butt is. By my puritanical standards. Hold on, hold on. I think even the word butt is nudity. You remember like NYPD Blue started doing butts back in 2002. Remember that? You remember when NYPD Blue started doing butts. Yeah, it was a big deal. It was a big deal. It was a big deal, man. If you were discretion advised, you didn't see David Caruso's butt. Was it Caruso's butt or Jimmy Smith's butt? No, both their butts. Also, also who was his partner? Like the bigger guy? His butt was also, Sipowicz was the character's name. His butt was all over. Sipowicz's butt. Okay. All right. They're like, this Thursday, Sipowicz's ass will be all over your TV. So what we're really admitting to here is that we barely watched NYPD Blue. I've seen a lot of NYPD Blue. Really? I was not a, maybe it was the butts. I only remember the butt story. That's okay. Anyhow, anyhow, but. Let's try. So Hemlock Grove. Let's do our best. Hemlock Grove, rest of the development's in May. Yeah. There's a bunch of like animated series, science fiction, comedies are coming out. This is a huge deal. It's like there are seven shows happening in 2013. So the Wachowski's said, we're not gonna take this to a network, we're not gonna take it to HBO or Showtime. They haven't talked about that directly. It's just like six months ago. But they're doing it with Netflix. They're doing it with Netflix. That's the long and short of it. Exclusive. Yeah. So we don't know anything about it. Other than it's science fiction. Is this the entire story? That's pretty much the entire story. This is a horrible topic. We don't know anything about it. It does show Netflix still attracting huge talent. Well, they made The Matrix and then the other two Matrixes and then Speed Racer and then something else. No, no, they just made The Matrix. Oh, oh, oh. Didn't they do, they were co-directors of? Cloud Atlas. Cloud Atlas. Yes. A great hit. Another successful product. No, but I'm just saying like they kind of like, you know. No, they didn't. Did you watch all of House of Cards? Not yet. Okay. Is it good? I just finished it. I think it's really good. No spoilers. No spoilers. No spoilers. I will say that it was very strange to watch that much of a show that tried so hard in the beginning to not be a TV show and then so thoroughly turned into a TV show. It's a TV show. Right. But like they want, the first three episodes are like, this is not a TV show. So I think that's why I had trouble watching it. I hear the first couple of episodes are very slow and then it kind of picks up. Well, a little bit. Yeah. I mean, it's like nine episodes of exposition. Okay. Please do not spoil this. Please do not spoil this for me. Not spoiling. Yeah. But see, that's the thing. Like I marathoned that thing in three days, afraid someone's going to spoil it. Yeah. And then I don't know who's seen it, who's not. I'll tell you who was spoiling it for me. I had to stop following her. It was Retta. Really? Yeah, from Parks and Rec. She was like spoilers all over the place. I'm like, Retta, please. Yeah. I started to follow you because I thought we'd have something special going on on Twitter and now you're ruining House of Cards for me. Well, you know, this was like, so this is the thing, you know, I think Netflix has a problem. The only thing you can say about House of Cards is like, have you seen House of Cards yet? Yeah. Because you don't know. No, Netflix is like, this is everybody has to watch. Everybody alive has to watch House of Cards so there can be no spoilers. I mean, that's, you know, Twitter just needs like a spoiler alert button. Yeah. Right. Or like the blackout text. Yeah. But it needs to be like, I'm going to do a spoiler so now your text won't be, you'll say I got to click on this to see it. I also found myself wondering why House of Cards has intro credits because it's like, I'm watching all of these. Why do I need to watch this? Maybe you're going to revisit an episode. Maybe they'll syndicate it. Maybe they'll put it on television. That would be amazing. It's totally, totally possible that somebody would want to pick it up to, to for syndication. I mean, that's not the craziest idea, is it? It's kind of the craziest. I mean, that completely goes against Netflix. I mean, in five years, somebody might, you know, say two years. They can't staple the credits on then? Why do I got to watch them now? The whole point is you binge watch the show. I don't know. I don't know. You're right. I don't have a good answer for this. For the first time ever. The music is really good. Should we talk about drones? Let's talk about drones. Yeah. Okay. So did you, did you hear Bloomberg's quote from over the weekend? Yes. Okay. Get used to it. It says Mayor Bloomberg. I got to say I like Bloomberg basically, but I'm not sold on his get used to it angle. Here's some of these quotes. We re-ran the piece. What's the difference? And I, it's funny because you can tell Bloomberg doesn't quite know what he's talking about. I can't wait. A politician doesn't understand technology. That's insane. What's the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building by which he presumably means a camera is on the building, not a drone that is like, it's the Spider-Man of drones. One can chase you down an alley. One can follow you to your house. We're going into a different world. Uncharted. You can't keep the tide from coming in the tide, by the way, being pervasive surveillance by the state. It's not just like an army of drones. It's like going through traffic. It's not a question of whether it's good or bad. I just don't see how you can stop them. No, really? That's a great, by the way, you want your leaders to say it may be terrible, but there's really nothing I could do about it. So just let it happen to you. That's one of the great like action movie taglines. It's not a question of whether it's good or bad. We just don't know. He actually followed up the what's the difference whether the drone is up in the air on the building with, I mean, intellectually I have trouble making that distinction. Which is, he's like, I don't even want to think about this. His point is he's saying, look, there's CCTVs, which by the way, are not, they're not owned by the state. They're not owned by the city. They're not monitored in a vast network of collected network of. Okay, but hold on. So I think what he's saying is like, look, CCTV cameras are watching you. These things will be watching you. Private eyes. Private eyes are watching you. I'm not going to hear you. I'm not doing it. I can't remember the line either. That's the next one. Thank you. It's, it's what is it? They're watching your every move. I don't think it's watching your every move. I think it's like making your every move or take taking your every move. It's not there. Well, the next one is definitely private eyes. Yes, that's for sure. That's what I was thinking. But I think he's basically like stupidly, they see your every move. Thank you, Brendan. Very helpful. I was like, should I do it? That wasn't Brendan. I think it was John. Was that Will? Will, okay. Someone in our production staff only knows Hall and Oates. But he's saying, he's saying, look, cameras on you. Get used to it. Okay, fine. I can get used to it. But, but, but, you know, I'm going to get less used to the camera that flies through the air and can follow me everywhere than I am to the one that's stationary on a building. Yeah. Like, or in a business. Yeah. Like, I can, I can, I'm not, I'm not loving it. But I also think that they're very helpful. I mean, there's no question that CCTVs harm, they harm slightly in terms of our privacy, but they do tend to be very effective when a bank gets robbed and they're trying to identify somebody. So in New York, and this might have explained. Of course, Josh Koffstein would definitely argue that it's okay to rob banks. So in New York, the police department runs a system called the domain awareness system. That's definitely innocuous, which is 3000 cameras on the street in Manhattan. Yeah. So they already have. Are they already networked? Yeah. They're all they're watching. There's a room somewhere that's like one of the lost bunkers with the, all the cameras and this, that switches. There's just a guy with a joystick. And they have that, they have that thing. And there's one guy just like, do I say enhance now? Yeah. Enhance. Enhance. He's like just ready at all times. But he has an enhance button. And they can read license plates. I mean, there's all kinds of, I mean, we've been running stories. After stories on this about like, um, there's the, the Argus global awareness system that can like track you up to six inches on the ground from the sky. Yeah. So like, well, we just hit this and we just hit this LIDAR system, the city scan, which is taking laser mappings of a city and then knowing if you're anything's out of two centimeters out of place, which is definitely the end, the end times. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's crazy. So I think the idea that the mayor of New York is like, screw it, it's over. There's nothing you can do about it is a little bit terrifying. It's bad. It's bad. I mean, you want, I think into Josh's point about the thing that you should read it. Uh, Josh Copstein wrote a piece today that is, or published a piece today that is, um, mayor Bloomberg's, uh, what is the title? Mayor Bloomberg's vision of a drone filled city doesn't fly or why it doesn't fly. And it's really good. And it kind of makes this argument, you know, he, he wrote this piece a while ago that, um, it's not okay for Congress to not know how the internet works. And this is like, to me, very much in the same, it's like, we need smarter politicians. Like, I'm sorry, but you're supposed to be the smartest guys in the room. You're supposed to be the most informed guys in the room. Like it shouldn't be up to other people to have to explain this stuff to you. You're supposed to go like, I need to know this issue because it affects the people in my city or in my state or in my country. And I'm going to learn about it. I'm going to figure it out and I'm going to be able to speak about it intelligently. And if you can't do that, if you're like that, CCTV and drone, basically the same thing. That's your attitude. It's time for a new mayor. And that mayor should be young, maybe have a beard. I'm thinking glasses, tall, maybe a Y on the end of his name, last name. I'm running for mayor vote for me. Whatever year, whatever year the next phase of the verge is you as mayor, whatever year Chris is elected in New York. That's the year I'm running next. I will say house of cards has made me want to run for Congress in a really weird way. He'd be great in Congress. Yeah. Cause I would definitely kill that dude for nothing. Hey, Hey, did you just spoil something? He didn't spoil anything. No. Also, I don't think you should make threats about people in Congress. My campaign for mayor begins now. Okay. So here's what I'll do for you, the city of New York. One I will tell you, I will learn about how drones work. I will tell you, I will be able to tell you, I will be able to tell you, by the way, am I in this camera, the one that I, that I was in originally? I just want to make sure I will tell you if a, if there's a, if it's a drone or a CCTV camera, I'd be able to distinguish between those two things. That's my first promise to you. My second promise is that the city, that the skies of the city will be blacked out with swarms of drones that we watch it, everything that you do at all times and no sunlight shall break through my drone swarm, which will, which will be on you like white on rice. Mr. Balsky, I have a question. Yes. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, do you have a question? Yeah. These guys like reporter voice. Excuse me, do you need a hat with like a press thing in it? Can we get one of those really quick? Can we get, can we get from the wardrobe? Go ahead. So real quick, can a, can a large drone give me a really big large soda? Uh, well, I of course will allow all sizes of sodas and I will actually have a law that there has to be more sugar in them. So people are, uh, you know, more awake and ready for action. You have an answer for everything. Because of the drone, because of the drone swarms, you gotta be on your toes when those things come. Oh, did I mention that my drones will be armed and they will also have claws? Yeah. Okay. They'll be armed with, with, with guns as well as sharp claws. And the drones will be making sure that you're drinking sugary drinks. Some of the drugs will actually deliver the sugary drinks to you as a citizenry of New York will be hand delivered, drone delivered claw delivered. Actually the claws will have like little syringes and they'll inject the sugar as they come, as they swooped down. Did I mention that the drones will be painted to look like weird Hawks? They'll be like, we have like lots of extra metal on them. Yeah. It'll be pretty cool. And yeah, that's the thing that I can promise to you as that I will do as mayor of New York to be weird Hawks drones. Hawks drones that, that can kill and serve you a drink that black out the, that blot out the sun. Yeah. And that I could also tell you which one is a drone and which one is not a drone. Hold on one second. So I just, I just noticed something that I didn't see before. Someone in the booth apparently did a Josh Dupolsky for mayor ban. Oh my God. What? That was fast. Yeah, there we go. Okay. Yeah. 2014 is going to be our year. Yeah. Also free wifi everywhere in New York. Oh, good. I'm going to be surrounded by drones. Maybe. Well, there'll be a mesh network of drone, drone based, drone based wifi. That's right. Drone net. Drone net. I like that. Maybe you could be on the cabinet. All right. I'll be your speech writer. Okay. Sounds good. Great. All right. I think the merch has done. We have one more. The iCloud. Is Ellis here? Ellis will be here. Did you just say the iCloud? The iCloud. Yeah. I read about it on the Google. The drone system should be called the iCloud. Just to really step on that. Yeah. It's got a ring to it. What are they going to do? They can't come here and fight me on that. Right. Because the drones will murder them. That's right. Drones are impervious to copyright and patent law as well. That's amazing. I do know about drones. So wait. Is Ellis Hamburger going to come in? Ellis is going to come in. We're going to play a clip. Oh, okay. This is... This is a big setup. Yeah. The big setup. Yeah. So Ellis did this great report this week on iCloud, how it just, you know, it doesn't just work. So we're going to bring him in here. That's a... You're saying iCloud should just work. It should just work. It should work with quotes, but it doesn't. And then Ellis wrote a piece. He talked to a bunch of developers that like basically it doesn't. Like here's what's wrong with it. So we have a clip. We have a clip from Steve Jobs introducing iCloud. Yeah. And then when we come back, I won't be here. I'll be gone. You'll never see me again. Or you'll just be wearing an Ellis Hamburger suit. Yes. I'll be wearing a Hamburger suit. Creepy. HamburgerSuit.com. All right. Can we roll the clip? I'm going to run away. HamburgerSuit.com. And we call it iCloud. iCloud stores your content in the cloud and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices. So it automatically uploads it, stores it, and automatically pushes it to all your other devices. But also it's completely integrated with your apps. And so everything happens automatically and there's nothing new to learn. It just all works. It just works. Now, you might ask, why should I believe them? They're the ones that brought me MobileMe. It wasn't our finest hour. Let me just say that. Yeah. So funny at the time. Oh, Ellis, by the way, here's Ellis Hamburger. I just teleported right in. Just teleported in in place of Ross Miller. So obviously Steve Jobs was very bullish about iCloud. Why would you believe us? We're the ones who made MobileMe. We're the ones who made MobileMe. We figured it out this time. And it's not that it's... There's a different set of problems. It's not the same kind of consumer facing problems that... I mean, it ultimately rolls down to ends up being a consumer facing issue. But explain the issue with iCloud right now. So the problem is Steve Jobs says it just works for everybody. And so people expect all their apps to tie in perfectly with iCloud. And two years later, customers are angry because their favorite apps haven't rolled out iCloud integration. Everybody's leaving bad reviews in the app store and these developers are upset. I've been hearing so much over the last year saying, hey, if we wanna do anything more complex than just syncing a list of files or to-dos, Apple's way to do it is horribly borked and just completely... Do they actually use the phrase horribly borked? That was me. Okay. But they apparently totally blew it. And the problem... So developers are angry about the implementation. Yeah. And the problem is that Apple doesn't provide any support. I've heard that they only have four guys working on core data, which is how Apple wants you to store your data in iCloud for complicated apps. So we should be clear here. iCloud is a marketing term for consumers. It encompasses like 50 things. Everything from you can redownload your songs on iTunes to when you put an app on your phone, it shows up on the iPad. And that stuff is very simple. And a lot of people assume, hey, plug into iCloud, it's as easy as adding some of these other iCloud features. Right. It's that I make a change in my document on my phone and it automatically shows up over here in my iPad or my Mac. That stuff doesn't work across any apps except really Apple's, right? Right. Which we can assume are augmented in some way. They're not just... This is not just... Or built for whatever their exchange is. And that's what I've heard is that a lot of the Apple apps, like let's say Keynote, are using the document-based syncing, just like a list of files with changes. And that apparently works really well, especially as of the last couple months. But they don't use core data, which is for databases. And that's what a lot of developers were most looking forward to about iCloud. And they don't even use it except for their trailers app, which doesn't work too well. I think it's interesting to see the juxtaposition between Google strategy here and even Microsoft in some way, where they really are providing this gateway, this... It's not all in the background, essentially. The data syncing is in the background and ultimately you're syncing content back and forth between devices. But in many cases, you're looking at web views where the data is in one place to begin with. Right. But Google's an obvious example, but on Drive or Google Docs. That data, when you open it up on your app on your Android phone, that data is, as far as I know, is some web view of the data that you're dealing with. I don't know all the details of it, but it doesn't feel like there's this push-pull situation which happens with iCloud, which makes it, I think, more complex, seems to make it more complex for developers to plug into. They're not saying cook up a web view and that will be displayed in both places. They're saying exchange data back and forth between three different places. Take it from one platform up to the cloud down to another platform. So what's interesting is I've been reading some of the follow-ups from Ellis's piece and it's developers saying, well, A, this doesn't work, and B, what are the benefits of doing all this engineering work to lock myself into Apple's sync ecosystem? Because what if I do want to build that web view, I can't do it with Apple's system. What if my app gets really popular and I want to go get the Android audience? Definitely can't do that with Apple's ecosystem. So there's this like- And it also means you can't use it from a buddy's computer who has an internet connection. Well, it just seems like what Apple really wants to do is, or what they should be doing is standardizing around some, sorry, not standardizing, but using some standards, the preexisting standards here and opening that saying like, hey, look, there's all this stuff to build. In a way, like what they did with Safari and WebKit where they're like, hey, here's WebKit. And so the parts of iCloud where they do do that work, right? So like the calendar syncing is CalDAT, so it works well. The contact syncing is CardDaf, right? People also know how that stuff works. Those are open standards and these are things that they couldn't be less transparent about. I mean, it took them a year to even offer sample code. Do you think there's any, is there any, did you get any sense here that this is a competitive issue alongside being just a kind of a technical issue or manpower issue? Like is there something here where Apple's kind of like, hey, we don't want the open, not open office. What is the popular office app? Quick Office? Quick Office. Google, Google, Google. These guys to have the same kind of access that are, that Pages has or Numbers has. Do you sense that there's anything there or is it really just a question of like they're not throwing enough manpower and they don't have their like technical side of stuff in their ducks in a row there? I think that's exactly it. I mean, they don't have their ducks in a row. They announced this as a feature. Steve Jobs said, it's going to be easy to tie your apps in. It's so weird. Two years later, it just sucks. It's kind of like FaceTime. It's a little bit reminiscent of FaceTime when they made a big deal. I mean, I thought they made a pretty big deal at the FaceTime announcement. They're like, we're going to open this up. It's going to be a standard. If you want to make, I mean, somebody, I think specifically asked somebody at Apple, if I want to make an Android app, I think they may be, maybe Jobs even said it on stage. It might have been Q and A. Or Q and A or something. Yeah. And it was like, it was like, no, it was like, yeah, if you want. You know, and then he probably sure said something about how horrible Android is and you know, why would anybody do that? But, but the point is that it's like one of these things where Apple's saying like, hey, we're creating the standard and we're going to open it up to people and it can be easy to use because we're Apple and we know how to do this stuff. And they're not, you know, I don't want to like beat them up any more than necessary. But I think for developers, this is becoming, you know, the cloud, you know, it's funny. And I go, but we've talked about this before where Jobs said, you know, it's not just a hard drive in the sky. It's not just a, you know, your files don't just go up and then come back down. But like weirdly iCloud seems most like that out of all of the services that exist, you know, it just seems like the least easy to plug into as a real cloud, as a real cloud service suite. I mean, I've to this day people are like, what is iCloud? I'm like, I don't know. It's also vague. It's like iTunes match is part of iCloud, right? It's like my app stuff. What is iCloud? Yeah, what is iCloud? It's a marketing term. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty much it. Yeah, but to market what? To market. That's the question. Like, cause, cause I. Automatic solution for music, movies, you know, documents in the cloud. Yeah. But I find like, I find like the photos thing totally daunting, you know, it's so weird. I will say photo stream works well. Photo stream works okay, but it requires that you does this thing where like you think that there would be a process somewhere that pops open every once in a while in the background and downloads your, your photo stream photos to iPhone. But it doesn't, you can't see your photo stream photos until you open iPhone and watch them download. Yeah. And it's like, I'm so used now to, I take pictures on my phone. They get automatically uploaded to Google plus, which is Picasa into a private folder and they're just there when I'm, when I'm done, you know, the process doesn't seem like there's a more of, there's much less of a seamless process and managing you're like, what are these? Did I, you know, did I hit a limit? Did I, I don't know. It's just weird to me. Like it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel as cohesive as they sold it. And I, and I think that like they're, they're butting up against their kind of Apple's has had a lot of problems with the internet. Yeah. Apple doesn't like the internet. They like their apps. And that's what one developer named Greg from agile tortoise told me. Agile tortoise. Agile tortoise. They make that app drafts. That's really great. And what he said was with Apple, there is no truth in the cloud. Like you find with Google, there's not like one server that holds all this stuff. It's just trying to sync between the clients. Yeah, he said that. Right. And that hasn't been that way. It's like, if you want to send that stuff to Google, that's fine. But photo stream, for example, it's like they need to hold it for you and then push it down to this app effectively, which is a whole other challenge that they just haven't been able to do. I think this is part of the untangling of like, I'm very interested to see what happens to WWDC because I think this will be part of it. I also think that just the untangling of interaction in the OS, in iOS is one of the things that is like their biggest challenge right now. You know, it's like, how do you untangle the interaction for an app developer when you want them to be able to, you know, effectively move a file here or there or move data here or there or share something to another app or open with another app or do this kind of like the stuff that has become so weirdly fluid and easy on Android when it's like, hey, you can do this with three different things. Which one do you want to do it with? Like, do you always want to use that app or do you want to use something else? And it just like, you just get into a flow of using that. Some of these developers are telling me they're like, that's one of the things about iOS is that all the apps are sandboxed. There's not one file system you can really look at unless you're going to plug it into your computer or jailbreak. And that's something you get on Android that is in a lot of ways really nice. I mean, I think that, I think that they, you know, Apple had a lot of runway because they were so very deeply revolutionized mobile computing. And now they've like, you know, they kind of started way high up and have, and have stayed there in that. But now stuff has risen and gone beyond it in terms of like ease of use and, and data portability. And I think that, and, and, and cross system functionality. I just made that term up by the way. I'm pretty excited about it. And I think that, and I think that now it's like time for them to meet those challenges. It's definitely like a light in an eighties movie when you like turn on a robot and like cross system functionality. Oh yeah, absolutely. Lights up. Yeah. And then the movie starts flickering. Yeah. Like the one mic falls off. Something's wrong with the robot. It can't sync. Oh my God. Our cross system functionality is down. No, but I do think it's one of the challenges I'd like to see them meet at WWDC or whenever they announce the next version of iOS. I mean, they really, there does seem to be this like big ball of confusion from developers, from users, you know, even from. I think they need to take some accountability. Yeah. I mean, there's been these developers that, I mean, the way that they put it is we have to throw our bugs into the radar black hole is what they say. And you know, these guys aren't brats. It's like, yeah, this is a free service, but they were all so geeked about it when Apple talked about it. Right. Cause syncing databases is really tough. Sure. I mean, you ever try and sync your iPhone with Dropbox, your computer is purring until you shut iPhone. No, you want, you want, I mean, it's good. Extensively would be a good thing for developers to be able to easily plug into this. I have no doubt that that's the case. And I'm sure that this frustration, I mean, and what you wrote, I think you see that frustration is about, Hey, you built something kind of half-assed. It's not really working. And our customers expect it. Yeah. And you promised it. And like, what's going on? I mean, that's totally reasonable to me. That seems like not unreasonable at all. Yeah. And these guys really, their only opportunity is at WWDC. And Apple won't talk about it. I mean, Apple won't address it. I mean, Apple doesn't address stuff until it's absolutely the worst possible situation. Right. Until you can type in a URL and steal someone's password. Right. No, I mean it is, but it is like, you know, with stuff like Antenna Gate, you know, it was like, had to get really to a fever pitch before Apple addressed it. And boy, did they address it. Well. Ish. I mean, they were like, we hear you say, I have a free bumper. We were going to make a ton of money on these and now a little bit less money. We're still going to make more money than ever before. And like the maps thing, I mean like the maps, you know, I mean, maps, the maps one was a little rare where they, but it did take an enormous amount of noise for Tim Cook to say, Hey, we messed up. We could do better on maps. I don't know if that's happened yet. I used maps the other day and it was not good. It's not good. It was not good. But anyhow, but they, the internet data and the internet is like something that Apple needs definitely can be better at. Well, no, so here's my theory. I don't get their internet relationship. I'm just going to keep saying this until it's not true anymore. But I think Apple, they made a little computer and it's like the little computer they wanted to make and they never wanted to have apps on it and they, you know, Steve Jobs original idea was you'll run some web apps and like, don't worry about it. Shut up. Uh, and it, it's like the app store actually surprised them. Did you really think their plan was not to have apps? See, I've talked to people. I mean, that's the line in the book, right? In a, in a, the Walter Isaacson book where he's like the, the, the board member from Genentech who I want to call Arthur Clark, that's not his name. Uh, whoever the board member from Genentech was like begging Steve Jobs to put apps on the iPhone. I feel like there was always kind of a, maybe it was a skunk works thing or maybe it was just brewing kind of down in the background. But I, I, I can't imagine that the plan was to not do native apps for the, maybe not as fast as they did, but I think that's the thing. Maybe not third party. Yeah. Maybe in there, cause you know, there's, there's still catching up to the reality of what they made, which is it's not just a little computer, right? Like it's not a Mac where no, you know, I think it's actually really interesting that they've never made a Mac with an integrated data card in it. Like they've never, they've never been like, we're going to put the internet right in the damn thing, right? Whenever we're going to, you can't buy a Mac with like a 4g mode a minute or an LTE mode a minute. Oh, you mean the Mac book? Like a Mac book. Yeah. I was very confused about why you would want to have LTE and you're like home computer. Why not? I can think of why not. Cause it's in your house. Yeah. Fine. Whatever. Yes. Except that. Well, no, no, no. I see what you're saying though. No, you're right. They've never, they've never like integrated the internet into their products in that way. I always took that as more of a, um, not wanting to deal with carriers in any material way. They deal with their other product. I think it's interesting. Like they, they were like, we built a computer and it's here's our iPhone as a little computer and Google's like, we're building a platform that is like designed to put you on the internet. I think that there was this idea. It's designed to give you views. I think there was this idea that like, Hey, it's great for getting on the internet. It's great for getting on the internet in your web browser. It's a really, really amazing mobile web browser still to this day. The best, I think. Yeah. Isn't that enough? Yeah. You can get on, yeah, you can go look at web pages. All right. I'm interested to see cause Apple and Google have such different approaches. If you look at something like a Chromebook, it's like the opposite of an iPhone. I mean you need, you need the internet for everything. You're looking to the internet for everything. Whereas Apple is thus far been very comfortable with these local apps. Yeah, look outward. I mean, I think local, I think local app functionality is absolutely needed and necessary for a lot of this stuff. I mean, but there has to be some material fluid back like data backend into the internet and off to what you like. If something doesn't sync for me, if it's data related, if it's not like a clear sinking situation, I mean I'm bouncing back and forth through my phone and a tablet and my laptop all day long depending on where I am and what I'm doing. And like to see the seamless sinking between something like Gmail on Gmail, particularly when you see the seamless sinking where it's maybe a few seconds here or there, but it's like, you know what you do on the phone is absolutely related to in part of what is happening when you're on your, in your browser. That to me is the sense of confidence that it builds is huge. You know, same thing for same, same thing for Google docs. And even Microsoft has gotten the message with this stuff, you know, with a lot of what they're doing. I mean, they're running on like pimping their Azure web services for iOS. Yeah. I mean, they're telling developers our data solution in the cloud is better than Apple's use it. I just saw an ad that's like all about that kind of like cross platform sinking and it is, they do kind of get it better. Right. You know, and it's like Apple needs to take a hard look at itself here. I mean, there's also some security too. I mean, you, you know that Gmail is going to have your stuff even if your app goes to Apple, even if you light your Chromebook on fire. The idea that on a Mac there's still this management of contacts the way they do it seems so hopelessly outdated to me now. Like I never think about my contacts anymore. Google has gotten so good at just kind of like figuring out who I contact, like adding the things. I mean, I add, I do hand add people, you know, when necessary, you know, getting rid of duplicates, dealing with email address, multiple email addresses and phone numbers. I never think about anybody. The only time I ever think about it is if I ever have to open a dress book on my computer, which I sync to Google and it creates all of these like annoying sync problems. And it's like, it really needs to just work more than it, than it, than it, than it just works. Well, I think Apple needs to become an internet company. This is what this WWDC should be about. They've been a very good computer company. They've been a really profitable computer company. I think the next stage of evolution and the computing industry is about the internet. They've got untangle the web. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. If you look at iCloud.com. They've got untangle the web, Ellis. If you look at iCloud.com and you see the icons for those apps, you're like, am I looking at the internet right now? No, no. They tried to make iCloud feel and act and look like a desktop app. And that's like the craziest mistake of all is that, is that thinking that what's happening in your, at this moment at least, what's happening inside of your browser should just be 100% the same as what happens on your native apps. I think that, I think, yeah, look and feel is fine, but it shouldn't be all about trying to trick people into thinking that they're using a native app. It should be like, what's best for that environment? What makes the most sense? And I think that that's a minor issue. That's a design issue. I have much less of an issue with their, it's funny we were talking about this earlier, but people say Apple's design, there was an article in the journal, I think about them doing more flat design or Johnny Ive. It's like, I'm not, the stitch leather is annoying and stupid and the stuff where it's like the skeuomorphism. It's not as killer as much as the, the functionality. It's the functionality. There's nothing more frustrating. And this is Google's app and iOS, but it's, there's nothing more frustrating to me than when I get the Gmail notification on my phone and then I open Gmail and it just sits there loading. Yeah. And I'm like, I know I can read half of this email and notification center and I'm waiting for this app to like, to load it. Yeah. To figure it out. No, I mean, I mean, why didn't, what? It's not that the notifications look bad. It's that they're, they interfere with the top of your display. This is like a number one pet. Well, that's why it's one that I find incredibly bizarre. I just think it's crazy. I don't know about their own notification. No, no. It's that. And it's also, that's right. And also, um, you know, things like their sharing panel that they had created. Yes, it is ugly, but what's more frustrating is that it doesn't share the way I want to, right? It's like adding a photo to an email is still a ridiculously silly process. Right. You know, it's like, it's like, it's not so much that your stuff looks bad. I think it looks fine. Honestly, keep it the way it looks, make it work better. Like make the function. And this is the, to the iCloud thing. It's like the apps look fine. The service is at its fundamental, at a fundamental level. It's basically good ideas and it looks fine. It just doesn't work the way you want it to work that it's way it should work. Developers and customers. I think that's a problem. So what's the fix Ellis? What do they gotta do? And then we gotta wrap up cause we're doing. We're running out of time. What I'm hearing from the developers is that one, they want some communication from Apple. Hey, are you guys actually fixing this or is this something that you're kind of leaving over here if people want to use it and you're going to let it be? Or and they're saying, well, if you're not doing anything, get rid of it. You know, get rid of it. Like you got rid of RSS or I web. Just leave it out of the picture because if it's in the picture, our users will demand it. Right. Right. And, or they could step it up and double their team. I mean, they have billions of dollars to hire another guy. Yeah. They could hire two. I think they get hired. We've hired one guy. We're paying him a billion dollars to fix iCloud. They get hired already. He's really, really good at the internet. And you know what? These developers, they love Apple and they want this all to work so badly. And I mean, when you look at the support forums, it's a lot of people complaining and it's a lot of developers helping fellow developers and like they want to make it work. Devs helping devs. Devs on devs. Look at how, look at how you use so much passion and, and, uh, emotion talking about these developers. He's been hearing their pain. I know. And now you can tell he really loves these guys. He really feels for their, for their plight. I do. And I do through you. I also feel for them. I feel for nothing. Please help. Please help these guys. Apple just help them out. They're drowning. Yeah. And you're shoveling water onto them. And you know what's weird to me? It's not that bad, but they, they don't treat the developers like they treat us, but it's something similar. It's something like we can't really talk about that or do you know, stay tuned or something like that. Right. And they get, they're not going to share information with developers. See, you'd think they might in a little way in terms of the underlying frameworks. Having worked with Apple for many years, I would not think that they would share information with anybody. Or just be like, I mean, they're very, they keep it, you know, they like to keep it under lock and key till they're ready to talk about it. Yeah. Which is understandable, but, but for developers, you would want a little more transparency probably. Right. Do we have any other topics? We're done. That's it? That's it. Really? Short show. I feel like we should have at least one other thing to talk about. Didn't something else happen this week? Ellis, what else happened this week? It's a really slow week in news actually. I wasn't paying attention. I'm just. He's just talking to developers. In the iCloud, you know. Patiently waiting to sink. Just waiting to see what Apple brings. Alright, that's what I, last week the, the, the drawing challenge was a sad Android at a crossroads. Yeah. This week I want sad Ellis in the iCloud patiently waiting to sink. Sad Ellis in the iCloud. Patiently waiting to sink. Patiently waiting to sink. I can make a face. Yeah, go ahead. That's pretty good. Well done everyone. And that's the Verge cast. Really great. That's our Verge cast for this week. If you'd like 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 or you can find us on Twitter. The Verge is at Verge. I'm Joshua Topolsky. Neelai is Reckless. Sorry, at Joshua Topolsky. He's at Reckless. Ellis is at Hamburger, which is really the best Twitter name. I don't know how he got it. It's the only reason I was hired. Ross, who was on his Oh No Roscoe, no E on the end. Oh No Roscoe, no E. And yeah, that's the Verge cast. Wow, that did not even pull that off remotely. You got to stick the landing. Top Shelf will be starting at six today? Yeah. Top Shelf was supposed to follow us up at 530. Sorry, is that right? Yeah, at 530, but it's actually going to be at six, but it will be live streamed. Yes. And that will be available on the front page of The Verge. And you should stick around for it because Top Shelf is awesome. Also a lot of people have been asking, I'm just going to give you, a lot of people have been asking about On The Verge and whether it's dead or if it's coming back. It is coming back. I think that we're going to, I don't think, I know that we're going to do, I think you're going to see more On The Verge soon. Somebody told me there's a new segment with Ryan Seacrest on the Today Show called On The Verge. I thought you'd just been doing it in your room? I'm very upset about that. You'll be hearing from my lawyer, Seacrest. But anyhow, it is not gone and it's coming back in all sorts of new and exciting forms. I really like that we're at the point in our careers where we feel comfortable just openly threatening Ryan Seacrest. Yeah, Seacrest is done for. Hope you enjoyed your reign of terror because it's about to end. Anyhow, that's the show. We'll be back next week. Handsome Terror, the Ryan Seacrest story. Just wanted to get that out there. And as always, I wish you and your family the very, very best this week. And may all your files sync the way that you would expect them to. Just the only end of the show here. Look at this guy. You hamburgered in the face. And you didn't even have a good closer. Oh, yeah. Boy, it makes me long for the days of Paul. Paul here. Paul. Paul. Paul. Paul. Goodbye. Goodbye, hamburger. Here's another juicy finish for this one.
 Hey, and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of March 25th, 2013.
 I'm Josh Dupolsky.
 I'm Neelay Patel.
 I'm Ross Miller.
 And we're back for you and only for you, Joe.
 If your name is Joe, you just got really happy.
 This is your cast, the Joe cast.
 Anyhow, we're back on the Vergecast where we discuss the week in technology culture,
 internet culture and culture culture, which is currently developing.
 There you go.
 It's always developing.
 It's always developing.
 And we had a big week, interesting week, crazy week, sexy week.
 A week I would say drenched in sex and love and also in other things unrelated to either
 of those.
 What are we talking about this week?
 What did happen?
 We had a very sexy week.
 Your week was way different than the previous.
 Because I was celebrating the Lord smiting the Egyptian people with plagues.
 I had a Passover, sorry, I was going to talk about this a little bit, then we'll get into
 it.
 I had a Passover.
 I was back home for Passover for a Passover Seder, which is the traditional Passover dinner,
 which goes on for 15 hours straight.
 And I have to say, I really enjoy, there's a part of the Seder where you list off the
 plagues that were visited upon the houses of Egypt.
 It's like locusts, famine, death of the first born, of course, is the most important one.
 Yeah, that's obvious.
 Blink feed.
 Blink feed, boom sound.
 You got a phone, you got a Windows phone that only can be upgraded to 7.8.
 It's one of those.
 And at that point the pharaoh says, no more.
 Yeah, sexism on the internet.
 You're a woman on the internet.
 It's one of the plagues that was visited.
 It's just an interesting thing to do.
 It's a very morbid, I mean, a lot of the Jewish holidays are very, and by the way, I'm an
 atheist and not really, I'm not a practicing Jew.
 I was raised, so I got, you know, my parents give me a big guilt trip if I don't participate.
 But it's just a morbid holiday full of horrible stories and you can't eat bread.
 It's not the best.
 I did get pretty drunk though.
 Yeah, I think that's really the point.
 Drunk on, we drink a type of alcohol called slivovitz, which is like a family tradition.
 It's a, I think it's a plum brandy.
 It is disgusting.
 It will burn your insides.
 It definitely sounds like you've been drinking enough of it to stop, forget that you've been
 drinking it.
 Yeah, we also, my father, my brother, ow, I just had a terrible pain in my leg for no
 apparent reason.
 Slivovitz.
 It's finally catching up with me.
 That was incredible.
 This is pain as it's going on too.
 No, my father, my brother made a horseradish.
 Yeah.
 Okay.
 Horain as it's known.
 Yeah.
 And I doctored it a little bit because it tasted really bad when they finished with
 it.
 I had to like spice it up a little bit, but it was extremely.
 You just spiced up the horseradish.
 Well, yeah, you put a little vinegar and salt in it to give it a little bit of flavor because
 otherwise it just like burns.
 It's just burning.
 It's just a burning sensation.
 Ow, I don't know what's going on in my head right now.
 I'm going to stretch it out.
 I'm going to, you know what?
 I was driving yesterday, so maybe I did something.
 Like I don't know what, what?
 How long was like the trip?
 Like six hours.
 Yeah.
 Six and a half.
 I don't know.
 Yeah, that's weird.
 Can we get a shot of Slivovitz?
 Can you get me?
 I would love a shot of Sliv, right?
 Sliv as we call it.
 A Sliv.
 Anyhow, this is totally unrelated to anything that we're supposed to talk about.
 Actually being drunk is related to our first story.
 It is.
 Let's do it.
 Or potentially related.
 I would say so.
 So I would say the news of the week without question was T-Mobile's relaunch of itself.
 Bullshit.
 Bullshit.
 But nothing about the news of its relaunch was actually news.
 They announced that the pricing plans were available.
 You know, the iPhone 5 is like great, another carrier with the iPhone 5.
 They said a bunch of this stuff at CES.
 What was news about it was they're incredibly aggressive, like marketing around it.
 And then the CEO, the new CEO of T-Mobile, John Legere.
 Oh, it's Legere?
 Legere.
 Very sexy.
 He came onto stage and just began ranting about the wireless industry and actually said
 at one point, we have to stop the bullshit.
 Yeah.
 He swore within the first minute of being on stage.
 He swore a lot.
 He said that the way, you know, how carriers are nice to you is a crock of shit.
 And it was very, very, I was very, I was very raw.
 I was very, you know, kind of unprecedented in this industry.
 We have a little bit of a super cut.
 Yeah, we have a super cut of this.
 Take a look at, take a look at what he was up to on stage.
 Any second.
 There we go.
 We're unleashing everything.
 We're going to talk about this today, but please stop the bullshit.
 Sorry.
 I promised myself I wasn't going to swear today.
 Elizabeth, wherever you are, your father didn't mean that.
 I've been at this business for about 33 years, but I don't have wireless industry experience.
 And after a while I went home and I said to myself, holy shit, I don't have wireless industry
 experience.
 What am I going to do?
 And it suddenly dawned on me.
 There's not a goddamn person in the world besides a wireless industry person that would
 understand why the hell this mess works this way.
 And the worst fear of the wireless industry is that somebody from outside Oz comes in
 and starts looking at their industry.
 I've already told you about the spaceship and the aliens coming in.
 It doesn't make sense.
 Unbelievable high prices.
 How the hell can that cost that much unless you're going to drive it?
 I mean, come on, that nasty guy on the end, that's sprint and you, you got to see that.
 The day you go in that store, they love you.
 It's like, you know, oh, you got to have this phone.
 We're going to be so good to you.
 Here's a free t-shirt, some balloons.
 By the way, you need a back rub.
 Maybe that's just me.
 You pay so much for your phones.
 It's incredible.
 Everybody's blogging.
 Holy crap.
 I can't believe he just said that.
 Oh, he said shit.
 That's how I lost the family pool.
 I bet he'd only swear five times.
 It was very spirited, very good stuff.
 Unfortunately, here's the thing.
 And we did some math and I did some personal math because I was like, this is, I'm fired
 up.
 They got LTE, they're expanding their network.
 They have these new pricing plans.
 They're selling the iPhone for a hundred bucks.
 They're selling the one which I'm using for a hundred bucks.
 This is great.
 I'm switching.
 And then I went and I did some math and it's actually would be more expensive for me to
 switch to.
 Because you have a family plan.
 No, I have a regular, a single guy plan.
 A regular cool bachelor plan.
 For me, there's four people on my family plan, multiple devices, iPads and all kinds of stuff.
 If you get an iPhone, it's like the unlimited plan is 70 bucks plus 20 for having an iPhone
 plus 20 for having their 4g service.
 Here's the thing that plus 20 driving the iPhone.
 That's the big thing that they're doing is they're saying we're no longer just pricing
 in the subsidy for the phone and to price of the plan.
 Because AT&T you pay however much per month for the service and there's a subsidy built
 into that always.
 T-Mobile is saying you can either pay the 20 bucks a month for us to subsidize your
 phone or you cannot pay it.
 And if you don't pay it, the phone is $600.
 But if you already have a phone, or if you get to the end of two years and you're all
 the way paid off or you find a hundred bucks on the street and you pay ahead.
 Okay, fine.
 If you take out the 20, you're about the same as Verizon and AT&T.
 They're charting this middle ground.
 Most people come and don't have a phone.
 They're not bringing a phone.
 They're like, I want to get new service and I need a new phone.
 I think what T-Mobile is here is they're not trying to be cheaper.
 They're calling themselves cheaper because everyone does that.
 Well, they already are.
 They've always been cheaper.
 Well, yes and no.
 It's pretty close though.
 It's just more transparent.
 I know what I'm paying for.
 We're looking at this yesterday.
 And what's the deal?
 So hold on.
 So I get an iPhone.
 I pay $100 for the phone upfront.
 I'm paying the $20 subsidy fee.
 I'm paying the $70 unlimited everything.
 I'm paying the other $20.
 There's another $20 for their 4G service.
 For the hotspot.
 Yeah.
 No.
 Oh, that's right.
 For the hotspot.
 For the hotspot.
 For four gigs of hotspot, which is lower than, cheaper than what you pay.
 But somehow it still worked out to more money for me because I don't need unlimited minutes
 and unlimited messages.
 That's the trick.
 Okay.
 What I really want is like 900 minutes and a thousand messages because I'm not ever going
 to use them.
 Right.
 But they don't do that.
 So it ends up being more expensive because you think you're getting more.
 But long and short is, I'm on two months.
 I'm on T-Mobile.
 I hate it.
 Yeah.
 I'm like, I don't want this anymore.
 What happens?
 You don't have a contract.
 So that ends.
 Yeah.
 And then you have to give your phone back to them.
 Okay.
 And they give you a fair market credit for it, which they refuse to explain.
 Now that's going to work.
 Right.
 And you're on the hook for whatever the difference is.
 But that credit has to go to T-Mobile.
 Wait, you do give the phone back to them?
 Yep.
 And then you have to pay for the phone?
 You have to pay for whatever the difference between the remaining.
 In the end, you pay $579 for the phone, right?
 So you're saying after two months, I get my iPhone.
 After two months, I'm like, I hate this.
 I'm out of here.
 Right.
 I say, you can have the phone back.
 Yep.
 They're like, give me $500?
 Well, no.
 No, no.
 You'll get.
 They'll give you some credit, which they're calling a fair market value credit.
 So that's a mystery amount.
 To what?
 For what credit?
 Of what?
 For your phone.
 Yeah, but the phone is, you only paid $80 for it.
 You're giving them the property back, right?
 Yeah.
 So then you only owe them what they're saying the difference between the market value of
 the phone is from the $500 that you owe them.
 But they're giving you money is what you're saying.
 No, you're just paying them less money.
 You're giving them some money.
 Yes.
 Right.
 So you're just paying them $400 instead of $600.
 You're leasing the phone, essentially.
 But if you give them the phone back.
 Yeah.
 You still have to pay it off.
 You have to pay about some amount, but they're not clear what that amount is going to be.
 That doesn't sound like a great deal to me.
 That doesn't sound like you're getting out scot-free.
 You have to pay for the amount that you've used the phone, right?
 I mean, like the phone's value has decreased.
 I guess so.
 It's true.
 I don't know.
 I thought T-Mobile was different.
 So they're going to let me have a phone and do whatever I want with it and then give it
 back and not have to pay anything.
 Well, so the ultimate goal here, and I think this is interesting because the ultimate goal
 here is that you buy a phone the way you buy a laptop.
 Yeah, you decouple.
 You decouple it.
 You decouple the phone purchase from the service purchase.
 They can't do that straight away, right?
 Because they can't say our phones cost $579.
 They would suicide.
 So they have to provide some sort of path.
 They want people like me who have a One.
 I'm like, you know what?
 I'm not getting off AT&T.
 I hate the service.
 And the iPhones are going to work across AT&T and T-Mobile, assuming you can get it unlocked.
 If you have an iPhone in AT&T and you get it unlocked and you go use it on T-Mobile,
 they're scrambling to make part of a network compatible with AT&T's 4G and LTE.
 So there's some stuff there.
 When do we see a viable new network from T-Mobile?
 How far off?
 I feel like we're dealing with end of 2014, maybe, you have a T-Mobile network that can
 compete.
 Right.
 So what they're saying is it's 100 million customers that will have LTE access, or at
 least 100 million citizens that can have it by first half of the year, 200 million by
 the end of the year.
 I mean, here's the thing.
 I have AT&T, LTE.
 Their service is, their coverage is pretty bad.
 It's bad.
 You go a few seconds outside of any major metropolitan area.
 I was outside.
 It was 10 minutes, in midtown Manhattan.
 That's where we are.
 I walked 10 minutes away from the office to run errands today and I had 4G the whole way.
 And it's like, I didn't-
 You mean 4G, fake 4G?
 Yeah.
 No, I mean, I have, in my neighborhood, I get 4G when I'm going over the bridge and
 stuff.
 It's just like, it's gone.
 Yeah.
 And even a little bit further out into the neighborhood, it's gone.
 So Verizon is amazing.
 I mean, Verizon's network is, their penetration is amazing.
 Right.
 So T-Mobile, I feel like, is so far off.
 They're a ways to go.
 They can say 100 million, but they mean like 100 million people who might drive through
 a certain area.
 Well, it's pretty much-
 Like if cars come near here.
 Well, the big market.
 So, I mean, look, they've got a long ways to go.
 I think what's really interesting about this whole story from the beginning is not, there's
 no way for them to win now.
 Right.
 But I think, Wajir has like put himself on the map.
 Like he's famous now.
 Yeah.
 He stood on stage and called all of his competitors, literally called bullshit on all of his competitors.
 Yeah.
 And the problem is that he didn't back it up with really any kind of astounding savings.
 I think what would have been amazing is he said, like, look, you're going to save a thousand
 dollars over two years, but you're not.
 In some cases you might, but overall it's the savings are like a couple hundred bucks.
 Well, I think if you're the sort of person who buys, who wants a new phone every year,
 and I think a lot of people listening to this podcast probably want to buy a new phone every
 year.
 I think that there is some savings built in there for you because you get to give the
 phone back and you don't have to pay the $700 for the, you know, the off contract.
 That's true.
 Yeah.
 And I think you have to have T-Mobile service.
 You have to deal with T-Mobile.
 I mean, I don't know anybody who's like, I love, I mean, I see people all the time tweeting
 me T-Mobile is so great.
 I love it.
 It's awesome in my area.
 But all of the people that I know, people who live in New York, people who are in our
 industry, I've never heard anybody really say anything effusive about T-Mobile.
 It's only people who work for Google because they put out the Nexus 4.
 Yeah, but I feel like on the Google campus, I feel like on all the, so you're not paying
 $20 per month anymore.
 Right.
 And I feel like on the Google campus they've got just like towers everywhere and they're
 just going for it.
 And it's like literally a bubble.
 Yeah, no, I talked to, no, I talked to people at Google when they released the Nexus 4 and
 it was like, they're like, oh, it's really fast.
 They're like, what are you talking about?
 It's great.
 I get 21 down.
 It's like, yeah, on the Google campus, which is like almost literally a bubble.
 Yeah.
 You know, in the real world it's like one.
 Yeah.
 No, it's terrible.
 I mean, they brag about this 42 down, but it's not there.
 Yeah.
 Yeah, I've never seen anything remotely.
 But I think it's a baby step.
 You know, I'm like, this is what Google has been trying to do with the Nexus program.
 They've utterly failed to do it because they're not a carrier.
 It makes sense why Google couldn't do it and T-Mobile can do it, but the idea that you
 will buy a phone and the age of the custom high-end phone is like kind of over, right?
 It's no longer the AT&T Captivate and Verizon Fascinate.
 It's just the GS4.
 I can tell that AT&T and Verizon, which whose phones are littered with AT&T and Verizon
 crap are made only for AT&T and Verizon, like the Droid DNA.
 Well, yeah, but that has to come to an end.
 Does it?
 Not if Verizon AT&T stay on top.
 I mean, but the phones are the same.
 The GS4 is the same.
 The iPhone is obviously the same.
 Well, it's the same, but you can't buy a-
 The one is the same everywhere except for Verizon.
 Of course.
 Well, let's define the same.
 It's just sad.
 The GS4 is going to have different radios for the Verizon model.
 You won't be able to take it to AT&T.
 Right, but this age of you can only get certain phones on certain carriers, at least from
 the perspective of the average consumer, it's already been decoupled a little bit.
 Well, I mean, what we need to do is just come up with real prices for phones and just say
 this is what it's going to be.
 So I think that-
 Consumers won't buy it.
 This is the first step, right?
 If you get an iPhone for free or $99, you're not going to buy an iPhone for $500.
 You're always going to take the...
 Look, at least in this country, I can't speak to everywhere else, but I think this is a
 country that loves credit.
 We love being on credit.
 We love getting buy now, pay later.
 I just signed up for this PayPal service.
 It's called pay later.
 It's called pay it later.
 The whole idea is you don't have to pay for it now.
 We got you covered.
 I don't know even know why.
 I didn't have to sign up for it.
 I just wanted to not pay now.
 I wanted to not give anybody money at this moment.
 It's like a kind of a procrastination thing.
 I like long walks on the beach.
 I love ice cream and I love paying at a different time.
 Paying later.
 Paying later.
 That's my thing.
 All right.
 But I just think until people break themselves of that habit.
 But it's also tough.
 It's a lot of money.
 $500 for a phone is a ton of money.
 But you think if you actually get people to pay, you create a market.
 Once you create a market, prices go down.
 If you can do the Nexus 4 at 250, is that what it is?
 Yeah, 279, something like that.
 No, the 8 gig is 250, I think.
 249.
 Wait, somebody just say something?
 Yeah.
 No, 300?
 The 8 is 300?
 I think it's 249.
 My high, maybe it is 300.
 I think it's 249.
 Our producers whispering in our ear.
 It's 299.
 It's 299.
 Okay.
 But still, yeah, $300 for a phone.
 Still, it's way cheaper than a $600 or $700 phone.
 Right, but it's a front.
 If you look at Verizon, the Droid DNA is like $700 if you buy it off contract.
 So here's the thing with that is you have to get consumers to act in their own self-interest.
 You have to basically trick them into doing it.
 And AT&T and Verizon are really good at tricking you into acting against your interest by saying
 the phone is free.
 Just sign this two-year contract and we've baked in these huge subsidies.
 I'm always worried why people don't act in their own self-interest.
 When people vote for Republicans, I'm like, I think, why are you doing this to yourself?
 Why do you want to have a worse time?
 Do you want to just say Windows is poison right now?
 No, I love Windows.
 I love Windows.
 No, I'm just saying that there are a lot of, let's just say across the political landscape,
 there are many politicians, Democrat and Republican, who will, people are like, I'm voting for
 this guy because this weird thing that they really want to push.
 And it's like that issue is actually really bad for you.
 And they're like, I don't care.
 I just, he said it's good.
 So I'm going to vote.
 No, so I mean, this is basically T-Mobile trying to, I'm coming back.
 Yes, please do.
 You don't want to talk about my deep hatred for all Republicans.
 So if you look at the fantasy land.
 I'm kidding.
 Listen, I love all people in America.
 All Americans.
 Outside of America, get out of my face.
 Not interested.
 Sorry, I played Bioshock Infinite like for hours last night.
 Don't spoil it.
 Let's just say it's about America.
 Yeah.
 And only America.
 We're doing, I won't spoil it.
 It's definitely on my mind from that game though.
 Yeah.
 Okay.
 The state of America.
 You know, I have the first Bioshock that I bought for like $10 on Amazon.
 I still haven't played it.
 You've not played the original Bioshock?
 It's only one of the greatest video games of all time.
 I have a stack of video games that I'm meant to play and I haven't played any of them.
 Anyway.
 It is so good you should play it.
 Yes.
 So we have Top Shelf coming up after the show, right?
 I was desperately trying to pull out of this Republican house.
 Yesterday I went around wandering around New York talking to people about their cell plans
 for Top Shelf.
 And I ran into one guy who's from London.
 I was like, how much do you pay for your service?
 And he's, I was like, would you switch for cheaper service?
 He's like, yeah, I pay $10 a month for my cell service.
 What?
 It's unlimited everything.
 London is like the size of Rhode Island.
 Wait, what can you do?
 London is the size of Rhode Island but it's because they buy the service separately from
 the phone.
 The whole of England is like the size of Rhode Island.
 He had a Lumia 920.
 I told you how I felt about it.
 It was awesome.
 Really?
 He's like, I love this phone.
 It's totally sold out all through the UK.
 Which is crazy.
 Well, I guess Microsoft was right.
 They're selling phones.
 But see, that's actually interesting, right?
 I mean, that's part of this is Microsoft would have an easier time competing in the market.
 I mean, you found somebody with a Lumia.
 That's really interesting.
 I mean, it was really easy to find him.
 It was like bright blue.
 I was like, that guy.
 He ran towards him.
 He had a blue one?
 Yeah.
 From England?
 Yeah.
 Huh.
 It was bright blue.
 It was awesome.
 Literally, we saw him.
 All of us, Jordan and Billy and I were walking around.
 We're like, that one.
 We charged it.
 He's wondering, how much did he pay for that Lumia?
 Full price.
 What is that?
 450?
 500?
 I mean, in pounds, I don't know.
 Right.
 So there's a competition for those devices as well.
 Car phone warehouse in the UK sells it cheaper than Tesco.
 That's wonderful.
 I love that.
 They have pricing competition on the phone.
 You mean like-
 Because the carriers are in pricing competition against each other because people can just
 swap the devices.
 You mean TVs and computers.
 You mean like every other product you buy.
 Yeah, everything that we buy.
 Like cars, for instance.
 Right.
 And so this is like-
 You can get a car from a different price from a different dealer.
 Right.
 For a different price from a different dealer.
 Like everything else.
 But it's funny because the cell carrier, I mean, we've been ranting about this forever.
 They've completely insulated themselves in this real market.
 It's so boring.
 Yeah.
 I mean, all the FCC needs to do is just smash this whole thing.
 Just say like, you can't do this anymore.
 Julius is out, man.
 Yeah, I know.
 Who's going to step in to fix it?
 Some lobbyist, some Verizon lobbyist.
 No, because that's who it's going to be.
 I would like to be-
 It's going to be the former, former Verizon lobbyist.
 Have you heard of Chris Ziegler?
 Yeah, Chris Ziegler for- One of the only humans followed by the FCC Twitter account.
 Chris Ziegler for FCC chair.
 I would support that.
 And I believe though his background is riddled with drug abuse, I think that overall he would
 be a great candidate.
 Just don't ask him about that incident in like 1996.
 Don't ask about 1996 at all the whole year.
 Yeah.
 Anyhow.
 He won't remember anyway.
 I do think the T-Mobile thing is a good sign.
 It's a baby step.
 And we should wrap this up, but I think the T-Mobile thing is a good sign to recap.
 It's good.
 It could be better, but I think it's a step in the right direction.
 I don't have a problem with Republicans, although I do have a problem with some of their policies,
 this policies of the Republican party.
 And I love all Americans and I hate everybody who's not an American.
 Okay.
 All right.
 Okay.
 So you have a choice of your next topic.
 Yes, next topic.
 You can either talk about the Wachowskis doing Netflix's next new series, or you can talk
 about some crazy dystopian drone stuff.
 Let's do Wachowskis.
 Okay.
 This is all Ross.
 Right.
 So the story as it is, actually about six months ago, Wachowskis and the Babylon 5 creator
 J. Michael Stravinsky-
 Can we set the stage in case you don't know who the Wachowskis are?
 They directed the Matrix.
 They made the Matrix.
 And then they made the other Matrix movies.
 Yeah.
 And then they did some other-
 Just act like-
 And then the Speed Racer thing.
 Just act like they just made the Matrix.
 Yeah.
 Right.
 The Matrix 1 creators are doing their second movie ever.
 This is it.
 They're finally following up the first Matrix.
 It's a TV show.
 They're finally following up the only Matrix movie with a project with Netflix.
 With a 10 episode series called Sense8.
 We have no idea what it's about.
 All 10 episodes are going to come out.
 It's probably about a new HTC interface.
 That's amazing.
 It's about the HTC interface, like way in the future.
 In like four years.
 The clock is back.
 Yeah.
 So we heard about-
 But it's digital and analog.
 You can turn it around.
 You can see the insides of the clock.
 Don't blink feed.
 Yeah.
 Ooh.
 That's good.
 That's good.
 Sense8 brought to you by HTC.
 So six months ago, they were shopping us around for TV networks.
 That's how the story goes.
 Yeah.
 They settled not on TV.
 They settled on Netflix.
 So it's coming out next year at some point.
 All 10 episodes, of course, at once.
 And this is, I think it's going to be ninth or 10th Netflix original series by the time
 it comes out.
 So they've got-
 They did-
 The House of Cards.
 House of Cards.
 Well, don't forget, they started with Lilyhammer.
 Lilyhammer, which is not good.
 I watched a little bit of it.
 Not at all.
 I mean, it was okay.
 I didn't want to keep watching it.
 House of Cards.
 House of Cards.
 Arrested Development.
 Before that, Eli Roth's Hemlock Grove.
 That comes out next month.
 Oh, yeah.
 Hemlock Grove, which is based on a book, which is written and it takes place in- Oh, is this
 a trailer for it?
 Mm-hmm.
 This is Hemlock Grove?
 This is.
 So this is actually based on a book written by, I think, a guy from Pittsburgh or who
 went to school in Pittsburgh, and it takes place outside of Pittsburgh.
 So this is what Pittsburgh's like.
 I've never been there.
 Yeah, this is exactly what Pittsburgh is like.
 Right here.
 Okay.
 This is it.
 By the way, that is definitely what Pittsburgh is like.
 Right here.
 It's all.
 A formerly beautiful woman, peeling off her wig.
 This looks amazing.
 My only hesitation is from director Eli Roth.
 Right.
 Yeah.
 Right?
 Am I right, y'all?
 It also seems like just like an ultraviolet, like, werewolf Twilight.
 Nothing wrong with that.
 It's not to Twilight, man.
 Trust me.
 All right.
 I mean, I'll take your word for it.
 I'll see it.
 It's on Netflix.
 It makes me want to read the book now.
 I started reading.
 I'm like, I'm going to read it instead of me.
 But you know, like, this is like, this is the thing that like Reed Hastings has been
 talking about, the Netflix CEO.
 It's definitely nudity here in this trailer.
 No, it's just a butt.
 Yeah.
 A butt is nudity.
 I think, I think butt is.
 By my puritanical standards.
 Hold on, hold on.
 I think even the word butt is nudity.
 You remember like NYPD Blue started doing butts back in 2002.
 Remember that?
 You remember when NYPD Blue started doing butts.
 Yeah, it was a big deal.
 It was a big deal.
 It was a big deal, man.
 If you were discretion advised, you didn't see David Caruso's butt.
 Was it Caruso's butt or Jimmy Smith's butt?
 No, both their butts.
 Also, also who was his partner?
 Like the bigger guy?
 His butt was also, Sipowicz was the character's name.
 His butt was all over.
 Sipowicz's butt.
 Okay.
 All right.
 They're like, this Thursday, Sipowicz's ass will be all over your TV.
 So what we're really admitting to here is that we barely watched NYPD Blue.
 I've seen a lot of NYPD Blue.
 Really?
 I was not a, maybe it was the butts.
 I only remember the butt story.
 That's okay.
 Anyhow, anyhow, but.
 Let's try.
 So Hemlock Grove.
 Let's do our best.
 Hemlock Grove, rest of the development's in May.
 Yeah.
 There's a bunch of like animated series, science fiction, comedies are coming out.
 This is a huge deal.
 It's like there are seven shows happening in 2013.
 So the Wachowski's said, we're not gonna take this to a network, we're not gonna take it
 to HBO or Showtime.
 They haven't talked about that directly.
 It's just like six months ago.
 But they're doing it with Netflix.
 They're doing it with Netflix.
 That's the long and short of it.
 Exclusive.
 Yeah.
 So we don't know anything about it.
 Other than it's science fiction.
 Is this the entire story?
 That's pretty much the entire story.
 This is a horrible topic.
 We don't know anything about it.
 It does show Netflix still attracting huge talent.
 Well, they made The Matrix and then the other two Matrixes and then Speed Racer and then
 something else.
 No, no, they just made The Matrix.
 Oh, oh, oh.
 Didn't they do, they were co-directors of?
 Cloud Atlas.
 Cloud Atlas.
 Yes.
 A great hit.
 Another successful product.
 No, but I'm just saying like they kind of like, you know.
 No, they didn't.
 Did you watch all of House of Cards?
 Not yet.
 Okay.
 Is it good?
 I just finished it.
 I think it's really good.
 No spoilers.
 No spoilers.
 No spoilers.
 I will say that it was very strange to watch that much of a show that tried so hard in
 the beginning to not be a TV show and then so thoroughly turned into a TV show.
 It's a TV show.
 Right.
 But like they want, the first three episodes are like, this is not a TV show.
 So I think that's why I had trouble watching it.
 I hear the first couple of episodes are very slow and then it kind of picks up.
 Well, a little bit.
 Yeah.
 I mean, it's like nine episodes of exposition.
 Okay.
 Please do not spoil this.
 Please do not spoil this for me.
 Not spoiling.
 Yeah.
 But see, that's the thing.
 Like I marathoned that thing in three days, afraid someone's going to spoil it.
 Yeah.
 And then I don't know who's seen it, who's not.
 I'll tell you who was spoiling it for me.
 I had to stop following her.
 It was Retta.
 Really?
 Yeah, from Parks and Rec.
 She was like spoilers all over the place.
 I'm like, Retta, please.
 Yeah.
 I started to follow you because I thought we'd have something special going on on Twitter
 and now you're ruining House of Cards for me.
 Well, you know, this was like, so this is the thing, you know, I think Netflix has a
 problem.
 The only thing you can say about House of Cards is like, have you seen House of Cards
 yet?
 Yeah.
 Because you don't know.
 No, Netflix is like, this is everybody has to watch.
 Everybody alive has to watch House of Cards so there can be no spoilers.
 I mean, that's, you know, Twitter just needs like a spoiler alert button.
 Yeah.
 Right.
 Or like the blackout text.
 Yeah.
 But it needs to be like, I'm going to do a spoiler so now your text won't be, you'll
 say I got to click on this to see it.
 I also found myself wondering why House of Cards has intro credits because it's like,
 I'm watching all of these.
 Why do I need to watch this?
 Maybe you're going to revisit an episode.
 Maybe they'll syndicate it.
 Maybe they'll put it on television.
 That would be amazing.
 It's totally, totally possible that somebody would want to pick it up to, to for syndication.
 I mean, that's not the craziest idea, is it?
 It's kind of the craziest.
 I mean, that completely goes against Netflix.
 I mean, in five years, somebody might, you know, say two years.
 They can't staple the credits on then?
 Why do I got to watch them now?
 The whole point is you binge watch the show.
 I don't know.
 I don't know.
 You're right.
 I don't have a good answer for this.
 For the first time ever.
 The music is really good.
 Should we talk about drones?
 Let's talk about drones.
 Yeah.
 Okay.
 So did you, did you hear Bloomberg's quote from over the weekend?
 Yes.
 Okay.
 Get used to it.
 It says Mayor Bloomberg.
 I got to say I like Bloomberg basically, but I'm not sold on his get used to it angle.
 Here's some of these quotes.
 We re-ran the piece.
 What's the difference?
 And I, it's funny because you can tell Bloomberg doesn't quite know what he's talking about.
 I can't wait.
 A politician doesn't understand technology.
 That's insane.
 What's the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building by which
 he presumably means a camera is on the building, not a drone that is like, it's the Spider-Man
 of drones.
 One can chase you down an alley.
 One can follow you to your house.
 We're going into a different world.
 Uncharted.
 You can't keep the tide from coming in the tide, by the way, being pervasive surveillance
 by the state.
 It's not just like an army of drones.
 It's like going through traffic.
 It's not a question of whether it's good or bad.
 I just don't see how you can stop them.
 No, really?
 That's a great, by the way, you want your leaders to say it may be terrible, but there's
 really nothing I could do about it.
 So just let it happen to you.
 That's one of the great like action movie taglines.
 It's not a question of whether it's good or bad.
 We just don't know.
 He actually followed up the what's the difference whether the drone is up in the air on the
 building with, I mean, intellectually I have trouble making that distinction.
 Which is, he's like, I don't even want to think about this.
 His point is he's saying, look, there's CCTVs, which by the way, are not, they're not owned
 by the state.
 They're not owned by the city.
 They're not monitored in a vast network of collected network of.
 Okay, but hold on.
 So I think what he's saying is like, look, CCTV cameras are watching you.
 These things will be watching you.
 Private eyes.
 Private eyes are watching you.
 I'm not going to hear you.
 I'm not doing it.
 I can't remember the line either.
 That's the next one.
 Thank you.
 It's, it's what is it?
 They're watching your every move.
 I don't think it's watching your every move.
 I think it's like making your every move or take taking your every move.
 It's not there.
 Well, the next one is definitely private eyes.
 Yes, that's for sure.
 That's what I was thinking.
 But I think he's basically like stupidly, they see your every move.
 Thank you, Brendan.
 Very helpful.
 I was like, should I do it?
 That wasn't Brendan.
 I think it was John.
 Was that Will?
 Will, okay.
 Someone in our production staff only knows Hall and Oates.
 But he's saying, he's saying, look, cameras on you.
 Get used to it.
 Okay, fine.
 I can get used to it.
 But, but, but, you know, I'm going to get less used to the camera that flies through
 the air and can follow me everywhere than I am to the one that's stationary on a building.
 Yeah.
 Like, or in a business.
 Yeah.
 Like, I can, I can, I'm not, I'm not loving it.
 But I also think that they're very helpful.
 I mean, there's no question that CCTVs harm, they harm slightly in terms of our privacy,
 but they do tend to be very effective when a bank gets robbed and they're trying to identify
 somebody.
 So in New York, and this might have explained.
 Of course, Josh Koffstein would definitely argue that it's okay to rob banks.
 So in New York, the police department runs a system called the domain awareness system.
 That's definitely innocuous, which is 3000 cameras on the street in Manhattan.
 Yeah.
 So they already have.
 Are they already networked?
 Yeah.
 They're all they're watching.
 There's a room somewhere that's like one of the lost bunkers with the, all the cameras
 and this, that switches.
 There's just a guy with a joystick.
 And they have that, they have that thing.
 And there's one guy just like, do I say enhance now?
 Yeah.
 Enhance.
 Enhance.
 He's like just ready at all times.
 But he has an enhance button.
 And they can read license plates.
 I mean, there's all kinds of, I mean, we've been running stories.
 After stories on this about like, um, there's the, the Argus global awareness system that
 can like track you up to six inches on the ground from the sky.
 Yeah.
 So like, well, we just hit this and we just hit this LIDAR system, the city scan, which
 is taking laser mappings of a city and then knowing if you're anything's out of two centimeters
 out of place, which is definitely the end, the end times.
 Yeah.
 I mean, it's, it's crazy.
 So I think the idea that the mayor of New York is like, screw it, it's over.
 There's nothing you can do about it is a little bit terrifying.
 It's bad.
 It's bad.
 I mean, you want, I think into Josh's point about the thing that you should read it.
 Uh, Josh Copstein wrote a piece today that is, or published a piece today that is, um,
 mayor Bloomberg's, uh, what is the title?
 Mayor Bloomberg's vision of a drone filled city doesn't fly or why it doesn't fly.
 And it's really good.
 And it kind of makes this argument, you know, he, he wrote this piece a while ago that,
 um, it's not okay for Congress to not know how the internet works.
 And this is like, to me, very much in the same, it's like, we need smarter politicians.
 Like, I'm sorry, but you're supposed to be the smartest guys in the room.
 You're supposed to be the most informed guys in the room.
 Like it shouldn't be up to other people to have to explain this stuff to you.
 You're supposed to go like, I need to know this issue because it affects the people in
 my city or in my state or in my country.
 And I'm going to learn about it.
 I'm going to figure it out and I'm going to be able to speak about it intelligently.
 And if you can't do that, if you're like that, CCTV and drone, basically the same thing.
 That's your attitude.
 It's time for a new mayor.
 And that mayor should be young, maybe have a beard.
 I'm thinking glasses, tall, maybe a Y on the end of his name, last name.
 I'm running for mayor vote for me.
 Whatever year, whatever year the next phase of the verge is you as mayor, whatever year
 Chris is elected in New York.
 That's the year I'm running next.
 I will say house of cards has made me want to run for Congress in a really weird way.
 He'd be great in Congress.
 Yeah.
 Cause I would definitely kill that dude for nothing.
 Hey, Hey, did you just spoil something?
 He didn't spoil anything.
 No.
 Also, I don't think you should make threats about people in Congress.
 My campaign for mayor begins now.
 Okay.
 So here's what I'll do for you, the city of New York.
 One I will tell you, I will learn about how drones work.
 I will tell you, I will be able to tell you, I will be able to tell you, by the way, am
 I in this camera, the one that I, that I was in originally?
 I just want to make sure I will tell you if a, if there's a, if it's a drone or a CCTV
 camera, I'd be able to distinguish between those two things.
 That's my first promise to you.
 My second promise is that the city, that the skies of the city will be blacked out with
 swarms of drones that we watch it, everything that you do at all times and no sunlight shall
 break through my drone swarm, which will, which will be on you like white on rice.
 Mr. Balsky, I have a question.
 Yes.
 Mr. Mayor.
 Mr. Mayor.
 Mr. Mayor, do you have a question?
 Yeah.
 These guys like reporter voice.
 Excuse me, do you need a hat with like a press thing in it?
 Can we get one of those really quick?
 Can we get, can we get from the wardrobe?
 Go ahead.
 So real quick, can a, can a large drone give me a really big large soda?
 Uh, well, I of course will allow all sizes of sodas and I will actually have a law that
 there has to be more sugar in them.
 So people are, uh, you know, more awake and ready for action.
 You have an answer for everything.
 Because of the drone, because of the drone swarms, you gotta be on your toes when those
 things come.
 Oh, did I mention that my drones will be armed and they will also have claws?
 Yeah.
 Okay.
 They'll be armed with, with, with guns as well as sharp claws.
 And the drones will be making sure that you're drinking sugary drinks.
 Some of the drugs will actually deliver the sugary drinks to you as a citizenry of New
 York will be hand delivered, drone delivered claw delivered.
 Actually the claws will have like little syringes and they'll inject the sugar as they come,
 as they swooped down.
 Did I mention that the drones will be painted to look like weird Hawks?
 They'll be like, we have like lots of extra metal on them.
 Yeah.
 It'll be pretty cool.
 And yeah, that's the thing that I can promise to you as that I will do as mayor of New York
 to be weird Hawks drones.
 Hawks drones that, that can kill and serve you a drink that black out the, that blot
 out the sun.
 Yeah.
 And that I could also tell you which one is a drone and which one is not a drone.
 Hold on one second.
 So I just, I just noticed something that I didn't see before.
 Someone in the booth apparently did a Josh Dupolsky for mayor ban.
 Oh my God.
 What?
 That was fast.
 Yeah, there we go.
 Okay.
 Yeah.
 2014 is going to be our year.
 Yeah.
 Also free wifi everywhere in New York.
 Oh, good.
 I'm going to be surrounded by drones.
 Maybe.
 Well, there'll be a mesh network of drone, drone based, drone based wifi.
 That's right.
 Drone net.
 Drone net.
 I like that.
 Maybe you could be on the cabinet.
 All right.
 I'll be your speech writer.
 Okay.
 Sounds good.
 Great.
 All right.
 I think the merch has done.
 We have one more.
 The iCloud.
 Is Ellis here?
 Ellis will be here.
 Did you just say the iCloud?
 The iCloud.
 Yeah.
 I read about it on the Google.
 The drone system should be called the iCloud.
 Just to really step on that.
 Yeah.
 It's got a ring to it.
 What are they going to do?
 They can't come here and fight me on that.
 Right.
 Because the drones will murder them.
 That's right.
 Drones are impervious to copyright and patent law as well.
 That's amazing.
 I do know about drones.
 So wait.
 Is Ellis Hamburger going to come in?
 Ellis is going to come in.
 We're going to play a clip.
 Oh, okay.
 This is...
 This is a big setup.
 Yeah.
 The big setup.
 Yeah.
 So Ellis did this great report this week on iCloud, how it just, you know, it doesn't
 just work.
 So we're going to bring him in here.
 That's a...
 You're saying iCloud should just work.
 It should just work.
 It should work with quotes, but it doesn't.
 And then Ellis wrote a piece.
 He talked to a bunch of developers that like basically it doesn't.
 Like here's what's wrong with it.
 So we have a clip.
 We have a clip from Steve Jobs introducing iCloud.
 Yeah.
 And then when we come back, I won't be here.
 I'll be gone.
 You'll never see me again.
 Or you'll just be wearing an Ellis Hamburger suit.
 Yes.
 I'll be wearing a Hamburger suit.
 Creepy.
 HamburgerSuit.com.
 All right.
 Can we roll the clip?
 I'm going to run away.
 HamburgerSuit.com.
 And we call it iCloud.
 iCloud stores your content in the cloud and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices.
 So it automatically uploads it, stores it, and automatically pushes it to all your other
 devices.
 But also it's completely integrated with your apps.
 And so everything happens automatically and there's nothing new to learn.
 It just all works.
 It just works.
 Now, you might ask, why should I believe them?
 They're the ones that brought me MobileMe.
 It wasn't our finest hour.
 Let me just say that.
 Yeah.
 So funny at the time.
 Oh, Ellis, by the way, here's Ellis Hamburger.
 I just teleported right in.
 Just teleported in in place of Ross Miller.
 So obviously Steve Jobs was very bullish about iCloud.
 Why would you believe us?
 We're the ones who made MobileMe.
 We're the ones who made MobileMe.
 We figured it out this time.
 And it's not that it's...
 There's a different set of problems.
 It's not the same kind of consumer facing problems that...
 I mean, it ultimately rolls down to ends up being a consumer facing issue.
 But explain the issue with iCloud right now.
 So the problem is Steve Jobs says it just works for everybody.
 And so people expect all their apps to tie in perfectly with iCloud.
 And two years later, customers are angry because their favorite apps haven't rolled out iCloud
 integration.
 Everybody's leaving bad reviews in the app store and these developers are upset.
 I've been hearing so much over the last year saying, hey, if we wanna do anything more
 complex than just syncing a list of files or to-dos, Apple's way to do it is horribly
 borked and just completely...
 Do they actually use the phrase horribly borked?
 That was me.
 Okay.
 But they apparently totally blew it.
 And the problem...
 So developers are angry about the implementation.
 Yeah.
 And the problem is that Apple doesn't provide any support.
 I've heard that they only have four guys working on core data, which is how Apple wants you
 to store your data in iCloud for complicated apps.
 So we should be clear here.
 iCloud is a marketing term for consumers.
 It encompasses like 50 things.
 Everything from you can redownload your songs on iTunes to when you put an app on your phone,
 it shows up on the iPad.
 And that stuff is very simple.
 And a lot of people assume, hey, plug into iCloud, it's as easy as adding some of these
 other iCloud features.
 Right.
 It's that I make a change in my document on my phone and it automatically shows up over
 here in my iPad or my Mac.
 That stuff doesn't work across any apps except really Apple's, right?
 Right.
 Which we can assume are augmented in some way.
 They're not just...
 This is not just...
 Or built for whatever their exchange is.
 And that's what I've heard is that a lot of the Apple apps, like let's say Keynote, are
 using the document-based syncing, just like a list of files with changes.
 And that apparently works really well, especially as of the last couple months.
 But they don't use core data, which is for databases.
 And that's what a lot of developers were most looking forward to about iCloud.
 And they don't even use it except for their trailers app, which doesn't work too well.
 I think it's interesting to see the juxtaposition between Google strategy here and even Microsoft
 in some way, where they really are providing this gateway, this...
 It's not all in the background, essentially.
 The data syncing is in the background and ultimately you're syncing content back and
 forth between devices.
 But in many cases, you're looking at web views where the data is in one place to begin with.
 Right.
 But Google's an obvious example, but on Drive or Google Docs.
 That data, when you open it up on your app on your Android phone, that data is, as far
 as I know, is some web view of the data that you're dealing with.
 I don't know all the details of it, but it doesn't feel like there's this push-pull situation
 which happens with iCloud, which makes it, I think, more complex, seems to make it more
 complex for developers to plug into.
 They're not saying cook up a web view and that will be displayed in both places.
 They're saying exchange data back and forth between three different places.
 Take it from one platform up to the cloud down to another platform.
 So what's interesting is I've been reading some of the follow-ups from Ellis's piece
 and it's developers saying, well, A, this doesn't work, and B, what are the benefits
 of doing all this engineering work to lock myself into Apple's sync ecosystem?
 Because what if I do want to build that web view, I can't do it with Apple's system.
 What if my app gets really popular and I want to go get the Android audience?
 Definitely can't do that with Apple's ecosystem.
 So there's this like-
 And it also means you can't use it from a buddy's computer who has an internet connection.
 Well, it just seems like what Apple really wants to do is, or what they should be doing
 is standardizing around some, sorry, not standardizing, but using some standards, the preexisting
 standards here and opening that saying like, hey, look, there's all this stuff to build.
 In a way, like what they did with Safari and WebKit where they're like, hey, here's WebKit.
 And so the parts of iCloud where they do do that work, right?
 So like the calendar syncing is CalDAT, so it works well.
 The contact syncing is CardDaf, right?
 People also know how that stuff works.
 Those are open standards and these are things that they couldn't be less transparent about.
 I mean, it took them a year to even offer sample code.
 Do you think there's any, is there any, did you get any sense here that this is a competitive
 issue alongside being just a kind of a technical issue or manpower issue?
 Like is there something here where Apple's kind of like, hey, we don't want the open,
 not open office.
 What is the popular office app?
 Quick Office?
 Quick Office.
 Google, Google, Google.
 These guys to have the same kind of access that are, that Pages has or Numbers has.
 Do you sense that there's anything there or is it really just a question of like they're
 not throwing enough manpower and they don't have their like technical side of stuff in
 their ducks in a row there?
 I think that's exactly it.
 I mean, they don't have their ducks in a row.
 They announced this as a feature.
 Steve Jobs said, it's going to be easy to tie your apps in.
 It's so weird.
 Two years later, it just sucks.
 It's kind of like FaceTime.
 It's a little bit reminiscent of FaceTime when they made a big deal.
 I mean, I thought they made a pretty big deal at the FaceTime announcement.
 They're like, we're going to open this up.
 It's going to be a standard.
 If you want to make, I mean, somebody, I think specifically asked somebody at Apple, if I
 want to make an Android app, I think they may be, maybe Jobs even said it on stage.
 It might have been Q and A.
 Or Q and A or something.
 Yeah.
 And it was like, it was like, no, it was like, yeah, if you want.
 You know, and then he probably sure said something about how horrible Android is and you know,
 why would anybody do that?
 But, but the point is that it's like one of these things where Apple's saying like, hey,
 we're creating the standard and we're going to open it up to people and it can be easy
 to use because we're Apple and we know how to do this stuff.
 And they're not, you know, I don't want to like beat them up any more than necessary.
 But I think for developers, this is becoming, you know, the cloud, you know, it's funny.
 And I go, but we've talked about this before where Jobs said, you know, it's not just a
 hard drive in the sky.
 It's not just a, you know, your files don't just go up and then come back down.
 But like weirdly iCloud seems most like that out of all of the services that exist, you
 know, it just seems like the least easy to plug into as a real cloud, as a real cloud
 service suite.
 I mean, I've to this day people are like, what is iCloud?
 I'm like, I don't know.
 It's also vague.
 It's like iTunes match is part of iCloud, right?
 It's like my app stuff.
 What is iCloud?
 Yeah, what is iCloud?
 It's a marketing term.
 Yeah.
 I mean, that's pretty much it.
 Yeah, but to market what?
 To market.
 That's the question.
 Like, cause, cause I.
 Automatic solution for music, movies, you know, documents in the cloud.
 Yeah.
 But I find like, I find like the photos thing totally daunting, you know, it's so weird.
 I will say photo stream works well.
 Photo stream works okay, but it requires that you does this thing where like you think that
 there would be a process somewhere that pops open every once in a while in the background
 and downloads your, your photo stream photos to iPhone.
 But it doesn't, you can't see your photo stream photos until you open iPhone and watch them
 download.
 Yeah.
 And it's like, I'm so used now to, I take pictures on my phone.
 They get automatically uploaded to Google plus, which is Picasa into a private folder
 and they're just there when I'm, when I'm done, you know, the process doesn't seem like
 there's a more of, there's much less of a seamless process and managing you're like,
 what are these?
 Did I, you know, did I hit a limit?
 Did I, I don't know.
 It's just weird to me.
 Like it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel as cohesive as they sold it.
 And I, and I think that like they're, they're butting up against their kind of Apple's has
 had a lot of problems with the internet.
 Yeah.
 Apple doesn't like the internet.
 They like their apps.
 And that's what one developer named Greg from agile tortoise told me.
 Agile tortoise.
 Agile tortoise.
 They make that app drafts.
 That's really great.
 And what he said was with Apple, there is no truth in the cloud.
 Like you find with Google, there's not like one server that holds all this stuff.
 It's just trying to sync between the clients.
 Yeah, he said that.
 Right.
 And that hasn't been that way.
 It's like, if you want to send that stuff to Google, that's fine.
 But photo stream, for example, it's like they need to hold it for you and then push it down
 to this app effectively, which is a whole other challenge that they just haven't been
 able to do.
 I think this is part of the untangling of like, I'm very interested to see what happens
 to WWDC because I think this will be part of it.
 I also think that just the untangling of interaction in the OS, in iOS is one of the things that
 is like their biggest challenge right now.
 You know, it's like, how do you untangle the interaction for an app developer when you
 want them to be able to, you know, effectively move a file here or there or move data here
 or there or share something to another app or open with another app or do this kind of
 like the stuff that has become so weirdly fluid and easy on Android when it's like,
 hey, you can do this with three different things.
 Which one do you want to do it with?
 Like, do you always want to use that app or do you want to use something else?
 And it just like, you just get into a flow of using that.
 Some of these developers are telling me they're like, that's one of the things about iOS is
 that all the apps are sandboxed.
 There's not one file system you can really look at unless you're going to plug it into
 your computer or jailbreak.
 And that's something you get on Android that is in a lot of ways really nice.
 I mean, I think that, I think that they, you know, Apple had a lot of runway because they
 were so very deeply revolutionized mobile computing.
 And now they've like, you know, they kind of started way high up and have, and have
 stayed there in that.
 But now stuff has risen and gone beyond it in terms of like ease of use and, and data
 portability.
 And I think that, and, and, and cross system functionality.
 I just made that term up by the way.
 I'm pretty excited about it.
 And I think that, and I think that now it's like time for them to meet those challenges.
 It's definitely like a light in an eighties movie when you like turn on a robot and like
 cross system functionality.
 Oh yeah, absolutely.
 Lights up.
 Yeah.
 And then the movie starts flickering.
 Yeah.
 Like the one mic falls off.
 Something's wrong with the robot.
 It can't sync.
 Oh my God.
 Our cross system functionality is down.
 No, but I do think it's one of the challenges I'd like to see them meet at WWDC or whenever
 they announce the next version of iOS.
 I mean, they really, there does seem to be this like big ball of confusion from developers,
 from users, you know, even from.
 I think they need to take some accountability.
 Yeah.
 I mean, there's been these developers that, I mean, the way that they put it is we have
 to throw our bugs into the radar black hole is what they say.
 And you know, these guys aren't brats.
 It's like, yeah, this is a free service, but they were all so geeked about it when Apple
 talked about it.
 Right.
 Cause syncing databases is really tough.
 Sure.
 I mean, you ever try and sync your iPhone with Dropbox, your computer is purring until
 you shut iPhone.
 No, you want, you want, I mean, it's good.
 Extensively would be a good thing for developers to be able to easily plug into this.
 I have no doubt that that's the case.
 And I'm sure that this frustration, I mean, and what you wrote, I think you see that frustration
 is about, Hey, you built something kind of half-assed.
 It's not really working.
 And our customers expect it.
 Yeah.
 And you promised it.
 And like, what's going on?
 I mean, that's totally reasonable to me.
 That seems like not unreasonable at all.
 Yeah.
 And these guys really, their only opportunity is at WWDC.
 And Apple won't talk about it.
 I mean, Apple won't address it.
 I mean, Apple doesn't address stuff until it's absolutely the worst possible situation.
 Right.
 Until you can type in a URL and steal someone's password.
 Right.
 No, I mean it is, but it is like, you know, with stuff like Antenna Gate, you know, it
 was like, had to get really to a fever pitch before Apple addressed it.
 And boy, did they address it.
 Well.
 Ish.
 I mean, they were like, we hear you say, I have a free bumper.
 We were going to make a ton of money on these and now a little bit less money.
 We're still going to make more money than ever before.
 And like the maps thing, I mean like the maps, you know, I mean, maps, the maps one was a
 little rare where they, but it did take an enormous amount of noise for Tim Cook to say,
 Hey, we messed up.
 We could do better on maps.
 I don't know if that's happened yet.
 I used maps the other day and it was not good.
 It's not good.
 It was not good.
 But anyhow, but they, the internet data and the internet is like something that Apple
 needs definitely can be better at.
 Well, no, so here's my theory.
 I don't get their internet relationship.
 I'm just going to keep saying this until it's not true anymore.
 But I think Apple, they made a little computer and it's like the little computer they wanted
 to make and they never wanted to have apps on it and they, you know, Steve Jobs original
 idea was you'll run some web apps and like, don't worry about it.
 Shut up.
 Uh, and it, it's like the app store actually surprised them.
 Did you really think their plan was not to have apps?
 See, I've talked to people.
 I mean, that's the line in the book, right?
 In a, in a, the Walter Isaacson book where he's like the, the, the board member from
 Genentech who I want to call Arthur Clark, that's not his name.
 Uh, whoever the board member from Genentech was like begging Steve Jobs to put apps on
 the iPhone.
 I feel like there was always kind of a, maybe it was a skunk works thing or maybe it was
 just brewing kind of down in the background.
 But I, I, I can't imagine that the plan was to not do native apps for the, maybe not as
 fast as they did, but I think that's the thing.
 Maybe not third party.
 Yeah.
 Maybe in there, cause you know, there's, there's still catching up to the reality of what they
 made, which is it's not just a little computer, right?
 Like it's not a Mac where no, you know, I think it's actually really interesting that
 they've never made a Mac with an integrated data card in it.
 Like they've never, they've never been like, we're going to put the internet right in the
 damn thing, right?
 Whenever we're going to, you can't buy a Mac with like a 4g mode a minute or an LTE mode
 a minute.
 Oh, you mean the Mac book?
 Like a Mac book.
 Yeah.
 I was very confused about why you would want to have LTE and you're like home computer.
 Why not?
 I can think of why not.
 Cause it's in your house.
 Yeah.
 Fine.
 Whatever.
 Yes.
 Except that.
 Well, no, no, no.
 I see what you're saying though.
 No, you're right.
 They've never, they've never like integrated the internet into their products in that way.
 I always took that as more of a, um, not wanting to deal with carriers in any material way.
 They deal with their other product.
 I think it's interesting.
 Like they, they were like, we built a computer and it's here's our iPhone as a little computer
 and Google's like, we're building a platform that is like designed to put you on the internet.
 I think that there was this idea.
 It's designed to give you views.
 I think there was this idea that like, Hey, it's great for getting on the internet.
 It's great for getting on the internet in your web browser.
 It's a really, really amazing mobile web browser still to this day.
 The best, I think.
 Yeah.
 Isn't that enough?
 Yeah.
 You can get on, yeah, you can go look at web pages.
 All right.
 I'm interested to see cause Apple and Google have such different approaches.
 If you look at something like a Chromebook, it's like the opposite of an iPhone.
 I mean you need, you need the internet for everything.
 You're looking to the internet for everything.
 Whereas Apple is thus far been very comfortable with these local apps.
 Yeah, look outward.
 I mean, I think local, I think local app functionality is absolutely needed and necessary for a lot
 of this stuff.
 I mean, but there has to be some material fluid back like data backend into the internet
 and off to what you like.
 If something doesn't sync for me, if it's data related, if it's not like a clear sinking
 situation, I mean I'm bouncing back and forth through my phone and a tablet and my laptop
 all day long depending on where I am and what I'm doing.
 And like to see the seamless sinking between something like Gmail on Gmail, particularly
 when you see the seamless sinking where it's maybe a few seconds here or there, but it's
 like, you know what you do on the phone is absolutely related to in part of what is happening
 when you're on your, in your browser.
 That to me is the sense of confidence that it builds is huge.
 You know, same thing for same, same thing for Google docs.
 And even Microsoft has gotten the message with this stuff, you know, with a lot of what
 they're doing.
 I mean, they're running on like pimping their Azure web services for iOS.
 Yeah.
 I mean, they're telling developers our data solution in the cloud is better than Apple's
 use it.
 I just saw an ad that's like all about that kind of like cross platform sinking and it
 is, they do kind of get it better.
 Right.
 You know, and it's like Apple needs to take a hard look at itself here.
 I mean, there's also some security too.
 I mean, you, you know that Gmail is going to have your stuff even if your app goes to
 Apple, even if you light your Chromebook on fire.
 The idea that on a Mac there's still this management of contacts the way they do it
 seems so hopelessly outdated to me now.
 Like I never think about my contacts anymore.
 Google has gotten so good at just kind of like figuring out who I contact, like adding
 the things.
 I mean, I add, I do hand add people, you know, when necessary, you know, getting rid of duplicates,
 dealing with email address, multiple email addresses and phone numbers.
 I never think about anybody.
 The only time I ever think about it is if I ever have to open a dress book on my computer,
 which I sync to Google and it creates all of these like annoying sync problems.
 And it's like, it really needs to just work more than it, than it, than it, than it just
 works.
 Well, I think Apple needs to become an internet company.
 This is what this WWDC should be about.
 They've been a very good computer company.
 They've been a really profitable computer company.
 I think the next stage of evolution and the computing industry is about the internet.
 They've got untangle the web.
 Yeah.
 It's kind of crazy.
 If you look at iCloud.com.
 They've got untangle the web, Ellis.
 If you look at iCloud.com and you see the icons for those apps, you're like, am I looking
 at the internet right now?
 No, no.
 They tried to make iCloud feel and act and look like a desktop app.
 And that's like the craziest mistake of all is that, is that thinking that what's happening
 in your, at this moment at least, what's happening inside of your browser should just be 100%
 the same as what happens on your native apps.
 I think that, I think, yeah, look and feel is fine, but it shouldn't be all about trying
 to trick people into thinking that they're using a native app.
 It should be like, what's best for that environment?
 What makes the most sense?
 And I think that that's a minor issue.
 That's a design issue.
 I have much less of an issue with their, it's funny we were talking about this earlier,
 but people say Apple's design, there was an article in the journal, I think about them
 doing more flat design or Johnny Ive.
 It's like, I'm not, the stitch leather is annoying and stupid and the stuff where it's
 like the skeuomorphism.
 It's not as killer as much as the, the functionality.
 It's the functionality.
 There's nothing more frustrating.
 And this is Google's app and iOS, but it's, there's nothing more frustrating to me than
 when I get the Gmail notification on my phone and then I open Gmail and it just sits there
 loading.
 Yeah.
 And I'm like, I know I can read half of this email and notification center and I'm waiting
 for this app to like, to load it.
 Yeah.
 To figure it out.
 No, I mean, I mean, why didn't, what?
 It's not that the notifications look bad.
 It's that they're, they interfere with the top of your display.
 This is like a number one pet.
 Well, that's why it's one that I find incredibly bizarre.
 I just think it's crazy.
 I don't know about their own notification.
 No, no.
 It's that.
 And it's also, that's right.
 And also, um, you know, things like their sharing panel that they had created.
 Yes, it is ugly, but what's more frustrating is that it doesn't share the way I want to,
 right?
 It's like adding a photo to an email is still a ridiculously silly process.
 Right.
 You know, it's like, it's like, it's not so much that your stuff looks bad.
 I think it looks fine.
 Honestly, keep it the way it looks, make it work better.
 Like make the function.
 And this is the, to the iCloud thing.
 It's like the apps look fine.
 The service is at its fundamental, at a fundamental level.
 It's basically good ideas and it looks fine.
 It just doesn't work the way you want it to work that it's way it should work.
 Developers and customers.
 I think that's a problem.
 So what's the fix Ellis?
 What do they gotta do?
 And then we gotta wrap up cause we're doing.
 We're running out of time.
 What I'm hearing from the developers is that one, they want some communication from Apple.
 Hey, are you guys actually fixing this or is this something that you're kind of leaving
 over here if people want to use it and you're going to let it be?
 Or and they're saying, well, if you're not doing anything, get rid of it.
 You know, get rid of it.
 Like you got rid of RSS or I web.
 Just leave it out of the picture because if it's in the picture, our users will demand
 it.
 Right.
 Right.
 And, or they could step it up and double their team.
 I mean, they have billions of dollars to hire another guy.
 Yeah.
 They could hire two.
 I think they get hired.
 We've hired one guy.
 We're paying him a billion dollars to fix iCloud.
 They get hired already.
 He's really, really good at the internet.
 And you know what?
 These developers, they love Apple and they want this all to work so badly.
 And I mean, when you look at the support forums, it's a lot of people complaining and it's
 a lot of developers helping fellow developers and like they want to make it work.
 Devs helping devs.
 Devs on devs.
 Look at how, look at how you use so much passion and, and, uh, emotion talking about these
 developers.
 He's been hearing their pain.
 I know.
 And now you can tell he really loves these guys.
 He really feels for their, for their plight.
 I do.
 And I do through you.
 I also feel for them.
 I feel for nothing.
 Please help.
 Please help these guys.
 Apple just help them out.
 They're drowning.
 Yeah.
 And you're shoveling water onto them.
 And you know what's weird to me?
 It's not that bad, but they, they don't treat the developers like they treat us, but it's
 something similar.
 It's something like we can't really talk about that or do you know, stay tuned or something
 like that.
 Right.
 And they get, they're not going to share information with developers.
 See, you'd think they might in a little way in terms of the underlying frameworks.
 Having worked with Apple for many years, I would not think that they would share information
 with anybody.
 Or just be like, I mean, they're very, they keep it, you know, they like to keep it under
 lock and key till they're ready to talk about it.
 Yeah.
 Which is understandable, but, but for developers, you would want a little more transparency
 probably.
 Right.
 Do we have any other topics?
 We're done.
 That's it?
 That's it.
 Really?
 Short show.
 I feel like we should have at least one other thing to talk about.
 Didn't something else happen this week?
 Ellis, what else happened this week?
 It's a really slow week in news actually.
 I wasn't paying attention.
 I'm just.
 He's just talking to developers.
 In the iCloud, you know.
 Patiently waiting to sink.
 Just waiting to see what Apple brings.
 Alright, that's what I, last week the, the, the drawing challenge was a sad Android at
 a crossroads.
 Yeah.
 This week I want sad Ellis in the iCloud patiently waiting to sink.
 Sad Ellis in the iCloud.
 Patiently waiting to sink.
 Patiently waiting to sink.
 I can make a face.
 Yeah, go ahead.
 That's pretty good.
 Well done everyone.
 And that's the Verge cast.
 Really great.
 That's our Verge cast for this week.
 If you'd like 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 or you can find us on Twitter.
 The Verge is at Verge.
 I'm Joshua Topolsky.
 Neelai is Reckless.
 Sorry, at Joshua Topolsky.
 He's at Reckless.
 Ellis is at Hamburger, which is really the best Twitter name.
 I don't know how he got it.
 It's the only reason I was hired.
 Ross, who was on his Oh No Roscoe, no E on the end.
 Oh No Roscoe, no E. And yeah, that's the Verge cast.
 Wow, that did not even pull that off remotely.
 You got to stick the landing.
 Top Shelf will be starting at six today?
 Yeah.
 Top Shelf was supposed to follow us up at 530.
 Sorry, is that right?
 Yeah, at 530, but it's actually going to be at six, but it will be live streamed.
 Yes.
 And that will be available on the front page of The Verge.
 And you should stick around for it because Top Shelf is awesome.
 Also a lot of people have been asking, I'm just going to give you, a lot of people have
 been asking about On The Verge and whether it's dead or if it's coming back.
 It is coming back.
 I think that we're going to, I don't think, I know that we're going to do, I think you're
 going to see more On The Verge soon.
 Somebody told me there's a new segment with Ryan Seacrest on the Today Show called On
 The Verge.
 I thought you'd just been doing it in your room?
 I'm very upset about that.
 You'll be hearing from my lawyer, Seacrest.
 But anyhow, it is not gone and it's coming back in all sorts of new and exciting forms.
 I really like that we're at the point in our careers where we feel comfortable just openly
 threatening Ryan Seacrest.
 Yeah, Seacrest is done for.
 Hope you enjoyed your reign of terror because it's about to end.
 Anyhow, that's the show.
 We'll be back next week.
 Handsome Terror, the Ryan Seacrest story.
 Just wanted to get that out there.
 And as always, I wish you and your family the very, very best this week.
 And may all your files sync the way that you would expect them to.
 Just the only end of the show here.
 Look at this guy.
 You hamburgered in the face.
 And you didn't even have a good closer.
 Oh, yeah.
 Boy, it makes me long for the days of Paul.
 Paul here.
 Paul.
 Paul.
 Paul.
 Paul.
 Goodbye.
 Goodbye, hamburger.
 Here's another juicy finish for this one.