Sometimes you want more tech in your life — and sometimes you want a lot less. This episode is all about less. First, Tim Stevens joins the show to talk about his story about the Slate Truck, an ultra-minimal electric vehicle that has almost no features to speak of and yet still promises to reinvent the way we think about cars. After that, Casey Johnston tells us about her journey in managing her screen time. She has tips for how to get the most problematic apps of your phone, is a big proponent of a factory reset, and has seen first-hand what happens when you look at your devices just a little less. Finally, we answer a question on the Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com!) about whether there's a MacBook Air equivalent in the Windows world. The answer surprised us, and it might surprise you too.
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TechTranscript
00:00:00welcome to the verge cast the flagship podcast of trucks that have no stereos and no paint
00:00:08and like no features of any kind and i still want it very very very badly i'm your friend david
00:00:14pierce and right now i'm doing some headphone testing so i have a blue set of airpods max
00:00:19uh that frankly i just hadn't used airpods max in a while so i picked up a pair um don't tell
00:00:24anybody but i have every intention of returning these to the apple store but just wanted to try
00:00:28them out for a while uh and then i got these they're called the pickin f5s and they are just
00:00:34the most incredible blatant airpods max knockoff you've ever seen in your entire life um i am
00:00:41fascinated by these things the airpods max are 500 these are like 50 and uh i'm gonna have a lot more
00:00:49to say about these because i actually think there's a really interesting story behind these headphones
00:00:53and the tiktok shop and the way that we buy and find electronics now but i will tell you
00:00:58these sound a lot better than a tenth as good as the airpods max more on that to come anyway on this
00:01:05show we're gonna do two things today first we are going to talk about the slate truck which launched
00:01:10last week it is one of the most interesting new vehicles we've seen in a very long time tim stevens
00:01:16wrote about it for us he's gonna come on the show we're gonna talk about it after that i'm gonna
00:01:20talk to casey johnston who writes a newsletter called she's a beast about how to use my phone
00:01:25less i have been on this slow journey to try and downgrade my screen time a little bit not because
00:01:32i think phones are inherently bad and that looking at screens is inherently bad but just because i find
00:01:36myself like picking up my phone to look at tiktok while i walk to the bathroom six feet away and that
00:01:42just doesn't seem quite right so casey has some really interesting ideas we're going to talk about
00:01:46all of that we also really fun hotline question about laptops that caused a sort of small existential
00:01:52crisis among a bunch of us lots to get to this is a really fun show uh this is like extremely up my
00:01:58alley all of this stuff it's been very fun all of that is coming up in just a second um but i just
00:02:04realized i have like six pairs of headphones connected to my phone now and i have to walk the
00:02:09dog which means i have to go solve a bunch of bluetooth problems in order to listen to podcasts
00:02:13while i walk i'm gonna figure that out we'll be right back this is the verge cast i'll see you in
00:02:18a sec welcome back tim stevens is here tim welcome to the verge cast hey david thanks for having me
00:02:26tim you are a freelance tech and auto writer uh you and i have been tech blogger enemies for many years
00:02:33uh frenemies i'd like to say a frenemies is good i'm good with frenemies um you also write a
00:02:38newsletter called around the next bend uh but last week you wrote a story for us about i honestly
00:02:46think i have been thinking about this a lot i think i can say this without hyperbole the most
00:02:49interesting car i have seen in years yeah i would totally agree and i think what makes it interesting
00:02:55is how bare bones how basic it is and and what's also interesting is how well it's resonating given
00:03:01how little it actually has and and does if if that's not saying too much totally so yeah i want to
00:03:06talk about there's kind of the the car the company and and why everyone is into this but let's just
00:03:11talk about the car first yeah so describe the slate truck to me so the slate truck is basically an
00:03:17attempt to kind of reboot what a car could be it is a very very basic machine on on many levels starting
00:03:23with the paint for example there is no paint uh it's basically made of molded plastic all the body
00:03:28work is which has a lot of benefits uh if it scratches it doesn't matter because there's no paint
00:03:33layer to scratch off so it's just going to stay the same color but it was designed interestingly
00:03:38to be a great surface for receiving vinyl wraps which is a very common thing that people are doing
00:03:43these days you can get it in any color you want to you just got to kind of diy it uh it is an electric
00:03:47truck uh seats two it is not like a king cab kind of thing where you can have comfortable seating
00:03:53in the back um but interestingly if you do need seating for more people you can buy an upgrade kit
00:03:59which basically bolts a couple of seats in the bed and turns it into an suv uh you can probably
00:04:03catch the the theme here is customization that's that's a big thing for sure it's fully electric
00:04:08rear drive relatively small battery between 150 and 230 miles of range depending upon which
00:04:13configuration that you go with fairly low power um you're not looking at you know crazy sort of 60
00:04:18times or anything like that it doesn't have a lot of towing capacity about a thousand pounds there
00:04:22payload i think is about 1500 pounds which is comparable to something like a ford maverick
00:04:27uh so you know you're looking at a kind of bare bones ev but the the really interesting things i
00:04:33think is what it doesn't have again doesn't have paint does not have a touchscreen doesn't even have
00:04:37a car stereo of any kind uh it doesn't have power windows you've got to crank the windows down in a
00:04:43very old school kind of way uh and so it is again a very bare bones machine which i think makes it
00:04:49very compelling because the biggest story of course is that they want this thing to cost less than
00:04:5320 000 after federal incentives which means the full price of the thing is probably on the order
00:04:58of 25 to 27 hundred dollars how much do you think the story here starts with price like can you work
00:05:04backwards from we wanted to get this thing to be 19 999 and sort of tell the rest of the story yeah
00:05:10yeah for sure i think the price is definitely something that um they had in mind when they were
00:05:14beginning this company about three years ago and they started in the initial designs and to get such
00:05:19a radically low price on an ev in you know the current state of the world the current state of
00:05:24the economy requires you know you make some drastic cuts like power windows for example or touchscreens
00:05:29or radios but it also really required the team the designers of slate auto to come up with a way of
00:05:36not only cutting back on features in the vehicle but also cutting back on the production the development
00:05:42and the design costs of the thing so for example you know we're talking about the lack of paint being
00:05:48an advantage potentially if you have something that gets scratched that kind of thing but it's also a
00:05:52huge advantage from a production standpoint because if you're creating aluminum body panels or steel
00:05:57body panels that requires these massive stamping machines that are like three stories tall they
00:06:02cost millions of dollars but if you're injecting molding plastic you can basically do that in any
00:06:07kind of building you can do that in your apartment if you want to and the fact that it's not painted
00:06:11means that they don't need a paint shop and paint shops are incredibly expensive too
00:06:15so those two things right there makes them getting off the ground much easier and it again takes huge
00:06:21amounts of cost out of the design and development of a vehicle like this so when you look at a lot of
00:06:25the changes a lot of things that are missing they have obviously an impact in terms of the cost of the
00:06:29vehicle itself but they also have a huge impact on the ability for the company to get to production
00:06:34quickly and cheaply which again then just factors into keeping the cost of the vehicle low
00:06:39so does that feel disingenuous to you at all like i look at this thing and it's like okay it's it's
00:06:45it's twenty thousand dollars great i would like my car to have a stereo that that seems like a
00:06:50reasonable thing to ask for in a car uh you have to you have to pay more money to put your kids in
00:06:56the back seat right so i think is this is this sort of a bit that this company is doing to be able to
00:07:03say we're selling a truck under twenty thousand dollars which i think for a lot of reasons we should
00:07:06talk about is a meaningful thing to be able to say yeah for sure or is this a real sort of
00:07:10honest to god just different and interesting approach to how you even think about making a
00:07:15car yeah you can definitely take a look at this from the cynical or the optimistic approach from
00:07:19the cynical approach you know this is the low-cost airline approach of evs where even if you want a
00:07:23sandwich then you got to pay extra for it that kind of dollars for a tray table is like if you want
00:07:28to be able to put both your feet under the seat in front of you you got to pay extra for that kind of
00:07:30thing um you can definitely look at it in that way and i think that there is some truth to that as
00:07:34well but but you know in the time that i spent speaking with the executives and the designers
00:07:37and everything else they do genuinely feel kind of emotionally attached to this idea of of rebooting
00:07:43motoring and and creating something that is attainable by everybody um so i think you can come
00:07:49at it from two different ways but i think the what i like the idea here is that you've got one truck
00:07:55in one spec um this isn't an upsell kind of thing you can get a stereo if you want to they'll sell you
00:08:01an upgrade kit for that they'll sell you upgrade kits for all sorts of things on the thing if you
00:08:05want to but unlike a lot of ev startups like elucid or even tesla in the early days where you
00:08:11had to buy their new ev in like this super souped up package with all the options and it cost twice
00:08:16as much as it was supposed to this is just going to be a bare bones thing to begin with and then you
00:08:20just add on the things that you want to and i think the other interesting thing is that a lot of
00:08:23this is really i don't want to say open source but it's going to be pretty easy for a lot of people
00:08:27to do this on their own you'll be able to 3d print components if you want to put that in there
00:08:30you can mount your own bluetooth speaker if you don't want to use theirs it's not the kind of
00:08:34thing where you're going to be forced down an upgrade path with huge high premiums on there you
00:08:39can kind of do this stuff as you want to and you can do it as you can afford to as well so if you
00:08:43can only afford the truck up front but you want to add that stereo system down the road 12 months
00:08:46later after you save it some money you can do that and i like that approach why do you think it's
00:08:50a pickup truck i think a lot of the sort of sensibility you described strikes me as making a lot
00:08:56more sense if you were making something that looked like a nissan leaf or like a or like a
00:09:01really cool scooter right like we've seen all these things where people are basically like
00:09:05what have i just built a thing with two wheels and some wild ideas around it and maybe that's the
00:09:10future like so much of what you're talking about feels like it suits that better than like what
00:09:14people have in their mind when they think of pickup truck so why is this thing a truck yeah that's a
00:09:18good question david i think um i think for one thing it is cheaper uh you know you've only got half
00:09:23the interior to worry about that saves some money there too i think from a pure you know if you go
00:09:27to that concept again of something that is that you can wear into part of the idea here is something
00:09:32that evolves with you and that gets better with age you know i looked into one of their uh design
00:09:38boards at one point it had this picture of a shark on there that was covered in scars and the shark was
00:09:43old and beat up but it looked cool as hell and that was part of what they wanted the aesthetic of
00:09:47this vehicle to be that it gets better looking with time like an old pair of blue jeans i like a leather
00:09:52wallet that kind of thing um and i think that that concept works better with a truck than than with
00:09:58a car simply because we're used to trucks being at job sites you know hauling mulch and lumber and
00:10:03that kind of thing um but whether again that could be an optimistic or pessimistic thing did did that
00:10:07concept come about because they decided to have a truck and they wanted to come up with a good way
00:10:11to spin it or is that really part of the concept of the vehicle to begin with and that you could go
00:10:15either way but the other thing is i think that this functionally makes a lot of sense for a lot of
00:10:21people the idea if i think a lot of people would love to have a small truck that they can go get
00:10:24some mulch they can go get some lumber um or they can even put their muddy dog in the back if they
00:10:28want to without getting it all over the interior um and i think that makes sense too but also the
00:10:32idea that you can then convert it into an suv which is the most popular category of vehicles right
00:10:36now without too much effort um means that this could have enough flexibility to work even if you
00:10:41don't want a truck but um but i'm curious to see what the uptick is and how many people actually
00:10:45decide to get the suv kit for it okay how much are you a truck guy in general i know you you wrote in
00:10:50the story that you like many people find ridiculous how enormous and tall trucks have become uh but
00:10:58are you like on the slide just driving around in your f-150 yelling at people out the window like
00:11:03are you you're not a truck guy generally i i've owned trucks i've spent years living with trucks i think
00:11:09trucks are great um i would love to actually have a truck but i have too many vehicles as it is right
00:11:13now the truck doesn't quite fit in there but i think one of the main things that stopped me from
00:11:17getting a truck is that there aren't many small cheap options like this anymore you know it used
00:11:22to be that you could go buy a really basic toyota t100 or a nissan frontier for you know under twenty
00:11:29thousand dollars and have a basic truck that sat two people had a manual transmission and crank windows
00:11:34and i can't tell you the number of people who have been asking me when is ford going to bring back
00:11:40something like the old ranger in the 90s which a lot of people loved which was very much that kind of
00:11:44truck but it was still cool because it had like flare sides and cool graphics and stuff like that
00:11:47um and so what i would love to have would be something like a k truck which is the small
00:11:53japanese trucks that a lot of folks are importing which are unfortunately basically not legal here in
00:11:58new york state right now which is preventing me from getting one um something super basic that i could
00:12:02beat the hell out of that i could take to home depot and put a bunch of pavers in the back and not
00:12:07care if it scratches up the paint um if i could buy something like that for cheap i probably would have
00:12:11one so that's why i'm personally excited about a slate but yeah i've spent a lot of time in trucks
00:12:15i've done a lot of towing and hauling and that kind of thing and so i respect them but i think
00:12:19the big problem right now with the consumer truck industry in the united states is that these trucks
00:12:23are just gotten simply too big if you look at something like silverado 2500 uh around 3500 you could
00:12:29literally put a sixth grader standing in front of that truck and the person in the driver's seat could
00:12:34not see that child just because of the height of the hood these things are unnecessarily large and
00:12:39they're hugely expensive with the average price of 60 000 in the u.s um and that i think is too much
00:12:45and so i hope that slate is a huge success and that makes these other truck companies think well
00:12:50maybe it's time for us to deliver something small and cheap as well so the analogy that that makes me
00:12:54think of uh and you are a perfect person to litigate this analogy with me uh is the people who want
00:13:01small smartphones and i think we've been on this inexorable march to bigger more expensive
00:13:08smartphones for a decade and there has always been this group of people who is like no i want the
00:13:14iphone 4 i want something that fits in my hand these things are preposterous and yet i every bit
00:13:21of available evidence suggests that what people actually want when they vote with their dollars
00:13:24is the big smartphones and i i have to assume that the same is true in the trucking industry which is why
00:13:29they keep making bigger taller trucks so is is slate like the the iphone se and that it is like sort of
00:13:35adorable but not real for most people or is is there something different going on here yeah it's
00:13:41a great analogy um obviously consumer demand is what has pushed the truck industry to where it is
00:13:46today it's not like you know ram and chevy and ford are forcing these giant trucks down the throats
00:13:51of anybody people aspire to own a bigger better faster more powerful truck and so people go out and
00:13:56buy them i think that's happening on the smartphone world as well but i i am sure you as well know a lot
00:14:01of folks who are still hanging on to their older iphones because they don't want something that's
00:14:04too big and i think the problem in the smartphone industry is that you know nobody else can release
00:14:10an iphone uh only apple can so if apple decides that big phones are what's it um and they're not
00:14:16going to make small phones anymore nobody else can do that on the android side obviously it's different
00:14:19but a lot of folks are very tied into the apple ecosystem and they're not going to go anywhere
00:14:23on the auto side it's a very different story there are really there are ecosystems as such but
00:14:27they're not nearly as powerful as as you know as apple or android or something like that so
00:14:32for someone to switch brands for someone to have a conquest and go from one brand to another it's
00:14:36not that big of a deal especially it's easy with the slate because you know there's no software really
00:14:40to worry about anyway so it's it's kind of a new it's greenfield territory and um i am that i think is
00:14:47the biggest question for me is are people really going to put their money where their mouth is you know
00:14:53like i said people have been asking me when is ford going to make a small ranger again when is
00:14:57someone could bring out a cheap frontier or a cheap tacoma and uh this is their time to put
00:15:03their money forward and say this is what i actually want uh the interest in the article has been huge
00:15:08and that's encouraging um but we also saw a huge interest around the cybertruck when that was unveiled
00:15:13and that obviously has not landed quite so well so i'm curious to see how how this lands when it does
00:15:17ship uh hopefully toward the end of next year okay yeah we're gonna come back to that because i've i've
00:15:21heard i've heard that phrase so many times that i've come to not believe it but we're gonna come back to
00:15:26that um the last thing i'm trying to figure out about the truck is slate seems to imagine kind of
00:15:32the ecosystem of a car very differently from your average company like what was your sense of how
00:15:40they're thinking about it in terms of like okay i do want to add a stereo is that something slate is
00:15:46going to make is that something that they're imagining i can just like walk to best buy and buy
00:15:50am i gonna am i gonna do the repairs on the car myself which is a thing i think an executive
00:15:55hinted to you as part of their plan like the sort of car world is enormous and much bigger than just
00:16:01the car that you own right is slate trying to fit into that or sort of reimagine that yeah slate is
00:16:08really rapidly or radically i should say embracing the diy mentality both in terms of right to repair
00:16:13and also in terms of customization so you know again it starts on the outside with these vinyl wrap
00:16:18kits that slate will offer but they'll also make it pretty easy to do your own with templates that kind
00:16:22of thing um so customizing the look should be more easy than any other vehicle out there but yeah when
00:16:27it comes to customize the interior um there are provisions in there for connecting usb devices
00:16:32power for speakers that kind of thing so you can pretty easily bring your own devices there or they
00:16:37have said that they will offer some upgrade kits as well to bring speakers into the vehicle but i think
00:16:42the idea by and large is for you to be doing this work yourself or to work with some kind of
00:16:48aftermarket installer if you want to but they're going to be creating something that they call slate
00:16:52university which is basically like a like a big online fact a knowledge base kind of thing where
00:16:58you can look up information on how to install speakers in your vehicle how to do a vinyl wrap
00:17:02and even how to do some repairs so for example if your mirror breaks and that's covered by warranty
00:17:08instead of you having to go to a shop to replace that mirror they want to basically send you a new
00:17:13mirror and tell you how to install it which on one hand feels kind of um feels kind of basic to some
00:17:19degree like shouldn't someone do that for me because the um the company screwed up for but also
00:17:23on the other hand it sounds a lot nicer for me to just go out in my driveway and take off the old
00:17:28mirror and pop on a new one rather than driving it down to the dealership dropping off in the morning
00:17:33maybe getting a courtesy car or maybe just spending four hours sitting in the waiting room reading golf
00:17:38digest for four hours waiting for uh this thing to get done that i could have done myself into five
00:17:42minutes um so i think again there's an optimistic and a pessimistic way of looking at this i personally
00:17:47am someone who likes to work on my cars and to have a company that is going to be actively supporting me
00:17:53doing that is is quite novel most companies don't want you to do that because their dealers make so
00:17:57much money on aftermarket service and sale support that they don't really want to cut that off
00:18:01it's funny part of the reason i ask is i had this i had the experience you described
00:18:04literally on friday like just a few days ago i had to drop my car off and they were like oh uh it's
00:18:11a pretty simple thing to fix the problem is we don't have this one gasket that we need and i was
00:18:16like well can i just go to like autozone and buy the gasket and bring it to you and he was like no
00:18:20if it doesn't come from this specific place it's not covered in your warranty and then it's
00:18:24technically an out of warranty repair so they sent me home and now i have to go back and do this whole
00:18:28process again later this week just so they can put a gasket that looks like every other gasket
00:18:32on my car and so there is there is something about that that i would love to break apart even though
00:18:39the idea of sort of encouraging everyone to try and fix their own car has some pretty obvious
00:18:46scary downsides right and they've said very clearly to me that anything that is dangerous
00:18:51will not be allowed to be done so so anything involving the high voltage system for example if
00:18:56you want to get the larger battery pack it's actually going to be a second battery pack that
00:18:59you'll install in the vehicle but you won't be doing that yourself because a it's going to be
00:19:02incredibly heavy but b at that point you'll be interfacing with the vehicle's high voltage system
00:19:06so that kind of thing you'll have to take it to somewhere else to have done but upgrades and minor
00:19:10repairs things like that they want you to do yourself and i think that that again a lot of folks will
00:19:15find very empowering and to have the support to do so and i can only imagine what the you know the
00:19:19user groups are going to be like um i'm big in the 3d printing community as well or i should say i'm quite
00:19:25actively involved in it and it's really interesting to see the kind of support and and help that you
00:19:30see when people are trying to figure out how to get a new filament to print on their new printer
00:19:33and the kind of advice that they get and i'm really looking forward to seeing that kind of approach
00:19:37brought to a car because it's not the kind of thing that you typically see right yeah what's your
00:19:40sense of how mainstream an idea like that really is because i actually think that the 3d printing
00:19:46community is kind of a good way to look at this right where lots of people have 3d printing it is
00:19:51more it is more accessible than ever it's more useful than ever but it's not there was a time
00:19:56many years ago when when you and i were covering tech and everything was like we're all gonna have
00:20:003d printers in our house and that didn't pan out um and there's something about this idea that seems
00:20:05like it's obviously going to appeal to a specific kind of you know raspberry pi owning tinkerer who
00:20:12sort of enjoys the process of all of this stuff and thinks that putting the mirror on their car is fun
00:20:17and doing the vinyl wraps is fun and interesting and there are a lot of those people but there's a
00:20:22much bigger group of people that has traditionally not wanted to do those things um is slate after
00:20:27those people i think so for sure yeah as you said i think the maker community is really going to
00:20:32resonate with this vehicle and i think that's some of the biggest excitement i've seen online so far
00:20:36for the vehicle is in that community but for sure slate wants to deliver a fully functional vehicle
00:20:41uh it may be limited in function in terms of many other vehicles but you know it's the kind of thing
00:20:45that you'll be able to drive and use without having to do anything to it if you don't want to
00:20:49and then it's just going to be up to you if you want to learn how to do these other things or
00:20:52pay someone else to do these things for you to do the upgrades and that kind of thing so for sure
00:20:56it'll be a fully functional vehicle and slate for sure definitely wants to be targeting
00:20:59you know they want anybody who's right now stuck in a six or seven year car payment cycle on a vehicle
00:21:06that is going to be you know maybe not even drivable by the time their loan is up they want someone to
00:21:11have a an affordable practical option um that's that's far better for them on the daily even if
00:21:17they're not you know a 3d print enthusiast that kind of thing so for sure they want to target that
00:21:21audience but whether or not this car resonates with that audience that i think is a big question
00:21:24yeah i it's the the like pickup truck diy sort of enthusiast world is is just fascinating and we've
00:21:34just never seen somebody try to kind of do all of that at once and i think part of the reason i am so
00:21:38interested in this truck is it is it is like speaking my language in so many specific ways
00:21:44and yet i'm just it's it's just hard to see who is really going to resonate with it um let's talk
00:21:50about the company a little bit because i think it's it's timing is fascinating um but obviously
00:21:56this this truck has been in the process longer than trump's tariff regulations have been happening so
00:22:02the idea of like we spun up an american manufacturer to make cars is is like true but not sufficient right so
00:22:08tell me a little bit about this company where did slate auto come from yeah this is part of what um
00:22:14i have to be a little bit cagey on because i don't know all the details yet in terms i've asked a lot
00:22:17of questions in terms of funding and that kind of thing and certainly you know there have been a lot
00:22:20of reports out there that have some interesting information out there but from what i can say you
00:22:24know the company's been in development for about three years now uh ceo is chris barman who's a
00:22:29former executive at fiat chrysler um and so she was there for a long time and now she is taking
00:22:35over things uh lead designer is tisha johnson who was at volvo she headed up volvo's interior
00:22:40design for a long time so they've got some very talented people who are behind this and uh and
00:22:44this you know the idea was definitely fundamentally to create this low-cost vehicle from the beginning
00:22:48so this is something that they kind of stumbled into the impression that i've gotten and said this
00:22:52was really the idea from the beginning okay so they started with not like we want to build a new
00:22:56company but they started with like we want to build this car that's my impression yeah and then so
00:23:00the company i believe is actually headquartered in michigan but they have a design studio in the la
00:23:04area um so i think the majority of the work is happening in michigan in terms of production
00:23:08indications are that they'll be producing the vehicle in indiana the exact details of that have
00:23:12not been disclosed yet um but again the advantages of the production we were talking about earlier of
00:23:18injection molding versus stamping that kind of thing means that they can have a relatively small
00:23:22footprint and basic factory compared to what you know if you look at the tesla fremont facility for
00:23:27example that thing is a massive sprawling thing uh slates beginning investment should be a lot lower
00:23:32and their factors should be a lot simpler and smaller than that uh and then when it comes to
00:23:36funding obviously you know there's a lot of talk about jeff bezos being involved uh i asked rather
00:23:40pointedly you know is this a facet of amazon is a spinoff of amazon are we going to see these with
00:23:46them stickers on them doing deliveries will you be able to go on amazon.com and buy them and um they
00:23:53downplayed that quite a bit this is definitely not officially part of amazon
00:23:57um but when i asked them will you be able to buy these on amazon they kind of shrugged their
00:24:01shoulders and said who knows maybe so you know don't think of this as an amazon subsidiary
00:24:05um but there may be some family ties in there due to jeff bezos's involvement if that makes sense
00:24:10yeah our old friend sean o'cane has done some very good reporting on this at tech crunch
00:24:14we'll link to all that in the show notes yep in fact he had a new report that just dropped i think
00:24:19two days ago on that factory so he's got some more details there as well which
00:24:22given the strength of the reporting so far i think uh i think it sounds legit to me okay yeah
00:24:27well we'll put that in the show notes for sure um what do you make of the timing this company's been
00:24:30i would say in sort of remarkable secret for three years as you described why why do you think it's
00:24:36it's coming out now especially with a car it's not planning to ship for you know a year and change
00:24:40yeah it's impressive how quiet they've been um when i learned about slate i had i was invited to go
00:24:46see this thing and i had no idea what it was so i kind of went on faith of some of the people who i knew
00:24:50were at this company but i knew nothing about it and to be able to keep um you know it's hard
00:24:55enough for a car company to keep a new model secret for that long but to keep an entire company
00:24:59secret for that long it's quite impressive and this is a pretty unusual looking vehicle right like
00:25:03in person it's not you're not going to mistake it for something else pretty quickly right yeah i
00:25:08talked to them about that and they actually have not done any open road testing on the vehicle at
00:25:11all which is part of how they did that because otherwise yeah we would have seen i think people
00:25:15would have speculated that it was a new you know 40v or something like that if it had come out but
00:25:18anyhow um so that was part of how they managed to do that but i think the timing now makes sense
00:25:23because uh you know it takes four five six years to develop a new vehicle you want to get some
00:25:28interest in it in time to um you know to get some prayers going for them to get an idea of what the
00:25:34demand is going to be like and where the demand is going to be you know they need to come up with
00:25:38fulfillment centers delivery centers and service centers for these vehicles uh and so they need to know
00:25:43where to you know centralize those things so i think that gives them enough runway to figure out
00:25:48what they need to do from a logistics standpoint which is another huge part of this you know
00:25:51launching a new car company that can be very complicated well and just on the on the logistics
00:25:55piece it seems like the logistics piece is where a lot of these sort of would-be car startups get
00:26:00screwed exactly right and i think uh do you have a sense of what slate maybe has learned or is trying
00:26:07to do differently i mean it seems like again to your point about the manufacturing just making the
00:26:11thing easier to make goes a really long way because if there's one thing we've learned
00:26:14over the last 20 years of evs it's that they're hard and expensive to make and that that is the
00:26:20thing that will kill you uh is it as simple as that that that's their move to try and do better here
00:26:24no there's a whole lot of interesting stuff going on the delivery fulfillment dens and service and
00:26:28support side as well so direct sales for one thing which is probably not a surprise at this point but
00:26:32that does add a lot of complication there are different rules in different states in terms of what
00:26:37you can and cannot do for delivery centers uh it's pretty restrictive in many states in the u.s so
00:26:42there's a very good chance that you won't be able to go around the corner to a slate store as such and
00:26:47pick up your vehicle chances are you're probably going to be driving a fair distance or slates has
00:26:51said that they will deliver them to you but interestingly from a service standpoint they're
00:26:55actually partnering with some nationwide service center or service centers uh to do all the warranty
00:27:01work on their vehicles they haven't said exactly which one it is but they'll think of something like
00:27:05a minor key um you know your local muffler shop that kind of thing it'll be something like that
00:27:10where you'll be able to take your vehicle to get a service and they said that they've got basically
00:27:13the entire country covered or they will have the entire country covered on day one which is
00:27:17interesting and very different again than what we've seen before um and then you know from a
00:27:22logistics standpoint not having dealerships means that they get the full cost of the vehicle there's
00:27:27no dealership taking a cut um same thing with accessory sales you'll be getting those directly from
00:27:31the company typically a dealership would take a cut of that as well if you're buying accessories
00:27:35options that kind of thing um so again that just helps their margins which helps them get to that
00:27:39that low price point okay how would you handicap the odds of this thing actually hitting the road
00:27:43in late 2026 i think we've been burned by this many times and even i think there's even a question
00:27:48of like is any of this real right i think i think i i'm actually pretty willing to give this the
00:27:54benefit of the doubt in part because i want to and in part because it actually a thing that they've
00:27:59done is make it make a car that's easy to make which i find very compelling and also like i'm more
00:28:04willing to bet on the existence of this thing than your average 120 000 new you know roadster
00:28:10competitor yeah for sure yeah i i'm quite bullish but i was if i were in a position where i had not
00:28:17seen the thing if i had not talked to the executives if i had not been to some of the facilities to see
00:28:20these things i would probably be extremely skeptical myself because we've been burned by
00:28:24you know your apteras your canoes that kind of thing over the years viskers even um and so
00:28:30there's a lot of reason for skepticism here and i think that that's fair especially you know we're
00:28:34talking about even if it is a relatively affordable car it's still going to be a big investment for
00:28:38people and so it makes sense to be skeptical about where you put your money um and so for that reason
00:28:42i think that's fair but having having seen the vehicle having sat in the vehicle having talked to
00:28:47these executives um and having really looked deeply at how they've engineered not just the
00:28:52vehicle but the company to support this short runway um quick path to to profitability uh i think
00:28:59that they are in a much better shape when it comes to launching a new ev brand than just about
00:29:05anybody out there and they haven't had to go to extremely questionable lengths to get funding to
00:29:09continue to give them the money that they need to so the only question mark in my eye is what is
00:29:14the consumer reaction going to be obviously it's been very positive so far um but again we've seen
00:29:19that with other evs in the past that haven't gone very far so if the demand is there i give the
00:29:24company um a good chance of success but as you alluded to before trump tariffs and everything
00:29:29else going on right now um ev subsidies are very much a question mark hanging over the current state
00:29:35of the industry there are definitely some roadblocks to um to overcome but i would say we're probably
00:29:40looking at a 80 to 90 success chance of them actually getting a vehicle to production i would say
00:29:46which which to me is is quite high given the i'll take that yeah yeah but in terms of the long-term
00:29:52success of the company at that point i think it's anybody's guess after that yeah that's fair yeah
00:29:56i mean is there a 90 chance we're all going to be here in 18 months who knows so i'll take
00:30:01last thing and then i'm gonna let you go is the car nice like you've you've you've touched it you've
00:30:07sat in it i'm so there's so much about this that is designed to be you know minimalist and cheap
00:30:13and straightforward but it also like the whole thing falls apart if it's not like fun to sit
00:30:17inside and drive right is it fun to sit inside i have not driven the car yet and i think that
00:30:21that that's the big caveat but in terms of actually getting in the vehicle it is actually
00:30:24quite nice yeah the interior is extremely basic as you can imagine but it's comfortable um i am
00:30:29fairly tall at six feet but i have short legs which means i sit very tall which means i often have a
00:30:33hard time fitting into a lot of cars in terms of headroom i had no issue at all you know there's
00:30:37no sunroof here so that helps but i had plenty of headroom in there and even i got to sit in one of
00:30:42the suv configurations of the vehicle and i was shocked that i was actually okay getting in the second
00:30:47row as well it was a little bit clumsy to get in there but once i was in there i was pretty
00:30:50comfortable which was quite surprising to me so from an overall room comfort standpoint that um
00:30:56that was fine and even things like the bed for example the truck bed is extremely low uh which
00:31:02on a lot of modern trucks f-150 silveranos the bed height is kind of at chest level almost if you're
00:31:08loading hay bales in there that kind of thing that's very awkward but yeah i'm quite comfortable
00:31:11in the truck but the big question is driving that changes everything and i have no idea what it's
00:31:16like to drive yet in fact most people at slate don't either because they haven't done any open
00:31:18road testing so that's a big part and presumably now that it's out there part of the point of
00:31:24getting it out there i would assume is to be able to start putting this thing on the road yeah they've
00:31:27got a lot of miles ahead of them in cold weather testing hot weather testing all sorts of towing
00:31:32conditions you know to publish a towing rating in the u.s requires a lot of regimented testing at
00:31:37grade at high temperatures that kind of thing so they've got a lot of work ahead of them over this
00:31:42next 18 months or so um but yeah i think from where they're at right now things are things are
00:31:47looking quite good i'm excited i i confess i am in absolutely no way a truck guy like i i live in i
00:31:54live in a townhome in in the suburbs of dc like no one needs a pickup truck less than i do but i have
00:32:00spent a lot of time looking at this thing over the last few days being like i could buy this car
00:32:03yeah i think it solves a lot of problems or it offers a lot of aspirational hope for a lot of
00:32:09people who don't want the burden of a giant truck sitting around um but who would like the ability
00:32:13to go you know to go to yard sale to go to an antique shop to get that kind of stuff and not to
00:32:17worry about the logistics of renting a truck or borrowing a truck uh and i think it'll it'll find
00:32:22a home for a lot of people i hope it does and there does seem to be a thing where people people want
00:32:26a car to believe in in a in a sort of real like human moral way and this seems to have hit that
00:32:31note pretty well for a lot of people right i think most people right now if you're car shopping you
00:32:35kind of pick a car that matches your personality and as we're seeing certain brands are changing
00:32:39their personality rather dramatically and so i think people have seen that that can have a
00:32:44negative impact if you've already owned the car that no longer suits your personality the idea
00:32:48with slate is that you can change the car's personality to match yours you can even go so far
00:32:51as to change the lighting patterns on the nose which is really kind of like the the
00:32:55identification mark of the vehicle is really that nose and slate will let you change anything
00:33:00on there that you want to so i think this will be something that people can really find personal
00:33:03ownership and commitment to i love it all right well when you drive it you're coming back we're
00:33:07going to talk about it sounds very good i look forward to tim stevens thank you so much thanks
00:33:10david all right we got to take a quick break and then we're going to come back and talk about how to
00:33:15use your phone a little less because i think we could all stand to use our phone a little less
00:33:19we'll be right back
00:33:20so i was i was gonna try and like introduce you and explain what you do and then i realized i don't
00:33:29i don't know how to introduce what you do so before we get into all the phone stuff just tell
00:33:34the people what you're up to these days yeah um so yes i'm casey johnston and i'm a writer
00:33:39and editor and author um i have written about tech and health and science my whole career started
00:33:48out as a tech blogger which is how i know david and i have a book coming out next month called a
00:33:53physical education that is about my experience getting into lifting weights the science and
00:33:59psychology thereof um and i write a newsletter called she's a beast that's about health strength
00:34:07body stuff food stuff all that good stuff see that's i started describing she's a beast and basically
00:34:14did the same thing i just started saying words so i'm glad to know that that is the official
00:34:18explanation for what she's a beast is it's difficult to sum up something i i cover a lot of ground but
00:34:24it's just like i promise it's good so just you know see it for yourself if you like it don't rely
00:34:30on my description just just check it out and then if it's for you you'll know when you see it so
00:34:36i i trust you all right so the reason i have brought you here today is because i think
00:34:41uh you have done as like thoughtful and complete a sort of excision of your smartphone from your life
00:34:48as anyone i've seen and i just want to talk through a bunch of the like process and what has actually
00:34:53worked for you in all of this but i just let's let's rewind a little you've been writing about this
00:34:58for months now but like was there an impetus where you were like i am looking at my phone too much i need
00:35:04to i need to quit it with the screen time was there like a thing that happened i don't know if there
00:35:09was a particular event but i was getting to a point in the fall of 2023 early 2024 where i just felt
00:35:19like i have no control over how much time goes into this thing like it's just disappearing down the hole
00:35:28of my phone screen and i actually started pulling out old phones like do you save phones ever oh sure
00:35:36yeah um i know some people just like get they they do like the swap program but i like every once in a
00:35:43while in a cycle i will keep one and not resell it because i break my phones often also like
00:35:50breaks crack the screen and then and then you're out of phone so i started pulling out my old phones
00:35:56being like is there some sort of like solution and going backwards somehow and i was of course reading
00:36:03every every article that ever came out that was like i went back to a flip phone and like here's
00:36:08how it went because i was just like dreaming of having a more um i don't know just a better handle
00:36:18on this situation and at one point i popped my sim card into a iphone 4s and it was just like this is so
00:36:26small and so cute and it like it's so much it's like the screen they're like the phones are
00:36:31unmanageably large now and when i put this the sim card in it was like there's something that didn't
00:36:38work i think phone calls didn't work but it could message and it could do maps and i had no apps
00:36:44installed on it and i was like this is sort of ideal like the the key seems to be stepping back and i
00:36:51noticed that in every flip phone article um where people go back to like t9 texting like they go all
00:37:00the way back the main things that they miss are group messaging and like the sort of convenience of
00:37:05messages that sync across your devices and and the mapping you know there's no substitute for google
00:37:11maps you have to like draw yourself a map so i was like what if i made a version of a sort of like
00:37:19as make my phone as dumb as i can retain those two important things because it's like the thing
00:37:26that prevents us from going all the way back to flip phones is basically like those two things
00:37:30occasionally like uber stuff like that right it does strike me it's such a slippery slope though and i
00:37:36like because i think i've been through this too where it's like okay the first thing i'm gonna do is
00:37:40just delete all of my apps right and it's like okay well then i'm gonna i need i need a couple and
00:37:45then it's like oh crap i'm gonna travel so i'll put uber back and then it's like oh well i should
00:37:50probably put ticket master back because i'm going to a concert in a couple weeks and then all of a
00:37:53sudden like 10 days later all i've done is like a bunch more work to reinstall most of the apps that
00:37:58i already had and i feel like the the thing that is like alluring about going back to a piece of junk
00:38:03phone is that it prevents you from doing that there is this idea that like if you don't want to use
00:38:08your phone so much just don't use your phone so much just like be disciplined you jackass right
00:38:13like be a better person and it'll all be fine and i feel like this is a thing you think about in
00:38:17in another part of your life a lot and i feel like you seem to have brought some of that to your
00:38:22phone where it's like you just you have a phone that could be more and you just sort of stared at
00:38:26it one day and you were like i will not let you do it right i mean it's it's difficult because
00:38:34the technology has insinuated itself in so many ways even to the point of you know in this article
00:38:43that i wrote it's like it's our clock like how many times we have these stats about like people
00:38:49pick up their phones 100 times a day 200 times a day whatever but how many of those times am i just
00:38:54trying to see what time it is like i'm not even necessarily always going to the well wanting
00:39:02to go on the social media apps i just want to find out what time it is but it's like i go to
00:39:07look at the time and then i have a notification for instagram so i check that out and then i'm
00:39:11scrolling the feed and then i'm liking things and then i switch to another app and i'm scrolling that
00:39:17feed and it just sort of like becomes this waterfall situation when and it all got started because i just
00:39:24wanted to know what time it was so i realized the questions that i wanted to ask are like
00:39:29what are the essential functions what am i trying to do with this thing which of the things are unique
00:39:36offerings to the smartphone is another important question mapping technology that is in your pocket
00:39:42that is a thing that i think that it would be difficult to excise from our lives at this point
00:39:48but like the clock is not in there the clock doesn't have to be in there the clock could be a watch
00:39:52you know so there's sort of like trying to back up and figure out what is truly additive about the
00:40:01smartphone versus where has it inserted itself that it doesn't need to be was a crucial question for me
00:40:08was that line pretty obvious for you as you went through it i think so i mean i think honestly the
00:40:13browser app is on the line where it's like probably 80 percent of the time i'm in the phone's browser
00:40:22i don't need to be and i'm just sort of like indulging a curiosity or like you know logging into my email
00:40:30but sometimes but sometimes i do need it because it's like oh uh i'm at a concert and i was emailed the tickets
00:40:37and i didn't print them out and now i need to go into my email and get the tickets um so i have to
00:40:46kind of hold the line at that point and be like oh i could reinstall like an email app and have the
00:40:53whole thing on there but i try to keep a lot of my activity that used to be through apps in the browser
00:41:00and then at least you are not setting yourself up for notifications in any way that makes sense yeah i
00:41:08mean the browser is an interesting one to me because i think the argument for it in a lot of
00:41:13cases is just it's just a little more friction like it's a little more annoying to look at social
00:41:19media in a browser than it is in an app and that that's probably a good thing yeah and i think i buy
00:41:25that but i also uh at least in my own life have discovered that i am perfectly willing to put up
00:41:30with that friction uh in order to stare at twitter on my phone like i was like oh i could use the app
00:41:36or i could use the web app and then once i'm logged into the web app it's not so much more work that i
00:41:40can just i'm just gonna go do it and so i've struggled with the same thing of like the browser is
00:41:45it does make my phone worse but i'm not convinced it makes me use my phone any less but then without it
00:41:52i'm like i feel lost whether that's real or not i don't know but i feel i feel bad about it i still
00:41:58try what i used to do pre pre phone wipe which is what i did delete i just did a factory reset on my
00:42:06phone and then tried to be like super super super um discerning about what i reinstalled
00:42:13and even like deleted everything that came out because it now comes with a ton of stuff
00:42:18yeah and just tried to move it all away or or delete the apps or whatever um but i
00:42:26yeah i hang on to the browser where was i going with this i don't even know we're
00:42:33i hang on to the browser and i don't want to oh what i do is what i used to do was um
00:42:39i try and hide the apps in the other apps like if i used an app too much i would just like hold it
00:42:46down drag it like 10 screens away and plop it there and be like okay now i can't find it
00:42:50and then at least you have to make yourself do like a hilarious amount of work to go open the app
00:42:55that comes for something or you search but like that's cheating yeah i think you should turn all
00:43:00that stuff off um tell me about the factory reset thing because that's one thing you recommend that
00:43:04i have not seen other people who have done this experience uh recommend so why why wipe the thing
00:43:10and start over yes so another problem i had was i would be like i'm too involved with apps there are
00:43:16too many apps they're doing notifications i can't turn them all off because i don't even it's like you
00:43:22don't even realize you're getting the notifications and they pop up and they go away and you're like who
00:43:27bothered me i can't even remember so i would try and delete apps one by one but i had so many apps
00:43:35and then deleting them one by one did not work because i was every time i would be going through
00:43:44and be like oh do i really need to get rid of this like it's not doing anything it's not hurting me
00:43:49and then it would you know that would repeat for every for most of the apps and i would only delete
00:43:54like five of them and it just took so long so i was like i just need to
00:43:59start over and let go of all of my archaic apps that don't work anymore as well as the ones that
00:44:08are bothering me but i'm having trouble articulating like i needed to
00:44:13just like go back i need a tabula rasa just like go back to zero and let things come back into my life
00:44:24as needed and being careful about what i let back in um and some of that was that's scary because also
00:44:33there will be apps that have like data in them and you're not sure if you like got everything out
00:44:40um so i did you want to do an emergency backup um just in case you do realize oh shoot i do have that
00:44:51app that i need things from and i didn't i didn't get everything out of it the one that you really
00:44:57need to be careful about with this is if you have an authenticator app oh make sure you like figure out
00:45:05how you're going to set it up on your new phone because it can you can just get stuck i think with
00:45:10all of your accounts um so that's a big one but everything else most things now are through the cloud
00:45:18like you have an account through the app and you just like log back into your account with whatever
00:45:23the app is and then everything you have is there one of the things you wrote that has stuck with me
00:45:29the most is uh you like went out of your way to make your phone worse which i think is really
00:45:36interesting because like for me the thing i've always tried to do is like i put a picture of my
00:45:39kid on my home screen as like a reminder that i should be looking at my kid and it's like this is this
00:45:45is more important than my phone and you're like no no screw that make it like black and stupid so
00:45:48that you don't want to look at it at all you made this switch from like my phone is this sort of like
00:45:53charming companion that i have that reminds me of things to like this thing is stupid and boring and
00:45:57i hate it and that that shifting that mindset actually ends up being really useful which i had
00:46:02never thought about but now and people say this with like making your phone grayscale so that you
00:46:06don't want to look at it and stuff and like i have sort of mixed feelings about that it like kind of
00:46:11works but it also just makes everything kind of more annoying without much upside in a lot of ways
00:46:15but the idea of like what if i just made my phone worse actually strikes me as really compelling
00:46:21okay yeah i yeah the grayscale thing never really connected for me either i definitely tried it at
00:46:27some point but when people first discovered it when it was like a assistive technology thing maybe
00:46:35so i remember that and it was like this doesn't really do anything um but yeah as i was
00:46:41some of these things come to me like as i'm writing or just like in the middle of doing this i think
00:46:46when i set up this phone again i was just like sure whatever default default screen um default home
00:46:53screen whatever you do and then i realized oh it really the phone is really trying to endear itself
00:47:01to you with these like serving you memories of your of your memories like you know through the photos app
00:47:07and like the you know my husband has a his home screen rotates through photos that are i think are maybe
00:47:15curated by the photos app and they're always so cute it's like our baby our cat our dog the two of us
00:47:21like it's and it's the way i put it in my article was don't let it wear the skins of your loved ones
00:47:28because it's like it is trying to manipulate you they know what they're doing when they when they
00:47:35make the the phone screen able to be all of your most cherished memories you know yeah put those
00:47:41somewhere else i think is a is a useful place to be and speaking of you uh another thing you advocated
00:47:47for and this is a thing i want to talk through a little bit because this is something i've been sort
00:47:50of intermittently trying is like you set yourself up a second device uh or like and and i think i think
00:47:57if i have this right you set up a device that is like always plugged in or like has a has a place
00:48:02that it lives and if you want to do some of this other stuff you have to go to that place to do
00:48:07those things is that am i characterizing that right yes that's correct i mean i so the ideal second
00:48:13device i think is a is an old former phone ideally one that has like no battery life left anymore
00:48:20so that you have to keep it plugged in see mine is actually i keep it at my desk which you would
00:48:26think is bad but it really the phone is so useless see now it's dead because it wasn't plugged in
00:48:31but you have a second device this is a iphone 11 maybe um and you put all of your problematic apps
00:48:43on there so for me like one of my big hesitations in going off social media was this is part of my job
00:48:54like i work in media i post on twitter i post on instagram i have a lot of followers how will how
00:48:59will anyone know about what i do if i don't post so it was very scary to let go of the let go of both
00:49:08my ability to post when i felt like i needed to and also to be able to scroll the feeds in order to
00:49:16see what other people are doing and like how i gotta be on the trends and all these things so what
00:49:21would happen when i would try and delete say instagram from my regular phone is that eventually
00:49:27i would be like oh well i gotta redownload it because i have to like message this person and
00:49:31um i'll just you know i'll just put it back on my phone and log back in and then and then you don't
00:49:37want to delete it again so what i did was put all of the problem apps on a different phone
00:49:43and that made it so if i had some sort of instagram task that i thought i had to do
00:49:51i would have to sit down in the phone spot with my phone that only works i mean this because as no
00:50:01sim card it only works on wi-fi and um i would do it it would be a sort of discrete task in a location
00:50:08on a specific device and what ended up happening was that i just sort of stopped posting like i
00:50:18it completely did away for me the temptation because most of the scrolling i did i think
00:50:24honestly was not i do a lot of scrolling at home but removing it from like the couch where i usually do
00:50:33it or like in in bed before i go to bed or when i wake up in the morning um and having it be in a
00:50:40specific somewhat uncomfortable location or a location where like at my desk i'm usually kind
00:50:45of busy doing other stuff you know that broke that that broke the pattern for me at least um and i was
00:50:56never really tempted to reinstall instagram when i knew it was already installed and logged in and
00:51:00everything on this phone that's like usually only 10 to 40 feet away from wherever i am in my house
00:51:06because my house isn't that big so i was able to just offload that little piece of like mental weight
00:51:14onto this other device yeah and now the result has been that i barely use this phone yeah at all so
00:51:21which is i would argue the correct outcome i've i've tried offloading all that stuff to uh an ipad
00:51:27at various i've heard of people doing the tablet yeah it works for everything except social media
00:51:33apps uh because social media like those apps are trash on ipads which is a problem uh i've also
00:51:38tried to do it on my computer which kind of works and sort of applies to that same like it's in a place
00:51:42thing but i really like the idea of just having a having a problem phone that like lives far away
00:51:48from where i normally am when i or and and that's i like this a lot but the the social media thing is uh
00:51:54one of the things i wanted to ask you about because i feel like the the through line of a lot of the
00:51:58stuff you've written about this is that kind of quitting your phone and quitting social media
00:52:03i think are like we're like kind of the same thing in your experience or at least like fed each other
00:52:08in a really interesting way like if you quit social media have you effectively quit your phone
00:52:13well it's like what do you do on your phone that is problematic and addictive that's not social
00:52:20media you could one one could do you know i don't know you could be really invested in like
00:52:26clash of clans or something if you're like spending a lot of money and like a lot of hours and
00:52:32trying to accumulate resources on there um but that's not the problem i have i think for me they're
00:52:39pretty one-to-one what draws you in is on your phone is the question for me it was a lot of social
00:52:45media but it wasn't always sometimes what draws me in is like a new york times push alert which they
00:52:51treat very irresponsibly sometimes it's really breaking news yeah sometimes it's breaking news and
00:52:58sometimes it's like a recipe and it's like okay come on and i i'm susceptible to the recipe you know
00:53:05so but it feels that's this is like how they get you is that you turn on the push alerts because
00:53:13what if i miss something what if breaking news happens and i am not aware of it and then you have
00:53:22to leave them on and then you're getting the recipes and you're getting the breaking news so it's like
00:53:26i think part of the what had to be let go was the notion of like if there's breaking news
00:53:34i will find out in a way that's not like gonna ultimately um hamper me in my life like
00:53:45what could i find out from my phone that i need to know right this second that i won't find out
00:53:51eventually and that was difficult for me coming from a news background as i'm sure you also feel
00:53:57where it's like you feel like you gotta know everything as soon as possible because you gotta
00:54:02like come up with your takes or whatever and not everyone's in that position and i'm not in that
00:54:07position anymore so i think we've gotten to the point where we feel like well if we can know as soon
00:54:11as possible we should and that is not true at all and i think i've tried to encourage more people lately
00:54:17to at least consider trying seeing what it's like if you don't find out about everything right away
00:54:27and it feels problematic to um encourage people to know less in our world right now and i understand
00:54:36the objections to that but i think you should feel encouraged to control that flow a little bit
00:54:44more and you might not realize how much you will still know how much you will still be apprised of
00:54:50what's going on without feeling like you need to be like an open just like lying back and letting
00:54:57everything like wash over you constantly which i think is pretty clearly a and not necessary for
00:55:04most people and be not healthy like it just overwhelmingly the feeling i get is that like the
00:55:10the thing where we all feel like we need to know everything immediately all the time it's just it's just
00:55:14bad like it's just unhealthy in ways that i think we're only beginning to fully understand right
00:55:19right it's like you can take seriously all of the all of the data that's come out on this and the
00:55:26research it's like there have not been a lot of redeeming studies science about screens and like
00:55:36social media and i think we can you know even what i'm describing is not is not like throwing the
00:55:45entire thing in the trash and like living in the woods like you're still in the in the world and
00:55:50you're still going to get information but you're allowed to control that relationship you should
00:55:56feel empowered to control it a little bit more yeah yeah i think that's i think that's exactly right
00:56:02how long did that adjustment take for you because i think uh the the struggle i've had candidly is
00:56:08like i will i will try these things i'll run the experiment and it feels really bad for three
00:56:15days and like weird and i'm like okay i'm not actually solving any problems here am i maybe
00:56:19this is just maybe i'm not doing anything better here i'll just go back to installing all my apps
00:56:23it'll be fine and like somehow i end up on reddit again you know what i mean uh so i'm like what is
00:56:30uh what did it take for you to kind of get through that first hurdle was there even that first hurdle
00:56:36yeah um there definitely was a hurdle i remember in the first few days like so many moments of
00:56:44experiencing some like mild discomfort of i'm not being entertained right now i'm like in the line at
00:56:53the grocery store or i'm like you know i was i think i was at a basketball game and nothing was
00:56:59happening in the basketball game and i was like well i'm gonna pull up my phone and scroll instagram oh
00:57:03wait it's not there did you do a lot of picking up your phone and realizing you had picked it up for
00:57:08absolutely no reason oh yeah oh yeah i was pulling it out and looking at it and opening it and being
00:57:13like there's nothing here yeah those are the moments i feel like a true lunatic where i'm like i this is
00:57:19for nothing i just this is a pure like addictive response that i just had yes to grab my phone that
00:57:24didn't make a noise and has nothing for me but i'm just looking at it now yep oh yeah it feels bad
00:57:29and it's also like there's the pit of like well what am i gonna do now i have nothing to do
00:57:36which is like we used to live like you and i are old enough to remember you know there are people who
00:57:44have not lived in a world this makes me um feel so sad and crazy there are people who are like
00:57:51adults full adults now who have never lived in a world without smartphones right yeah we're both in
00:57:56our 90s now yes we are 100 years old and we remember the telegraph so it's like you know this
00:58:03has been a lot of change for us but seriously we remember being you know if you were if you had
00:58:08nothing to do you just sat there you know which feels silly to say or you just sort of watched what
00:58:14was going on around you so that was part of my like rehabilitation too was like i mean especially
00:58:21for me i work from home so i have a lot of control over my schedule and like where i go but in a way
00:58:29but that also means that i'm not even like in the world that much so when i get to be out in the world
00:58:33i tried to be like you know what i'm out in the world be in the world don't be on your phone what do
00:58:39you do when you're waiting in line at the grocery store now i look around see i want this is the
00:58:43problem you know i honestly this is this is gonna really make me sound like a terrible person but i hate
00:58:47that answer like there's just something about that that is like there's so many things where i'm like
00:58:51okay i'm like i should be hanging out with my family instead of looking at my phone fully agree
00:58:58i should be driving instead of looking at my phone fully right like there's a million things where i
00:59:02think it's like an unequivocally good thing but then i'm like is it is it okay to look at my phone
00:59:06while i'm standing in line at starbucks like intellectually no but like also yes i don't know and and this
00:59:14is this is where i'm like okay well i'll just keep this one app on my phone just to look at while
00:59:18i'm in line at the grocery store and then the whole thing falls apart so it's like maybe you do just
00:59:22have to draw the line somewhere past in line at the grocery store but i don't know like it's it's so
00:59:28boring waiting in line well we solved that problem i think yes so part of the problem is like you're
00:59:35just like i'm bored i'm bored i'm bored what do i do if i'm bored i need i need i can't be bored
00:59:40and but i think you do need to be bored i think i found like even just doing a couple sessions of
00:59:49pre-deleting everything from my phone where i would be like i'm gonna just like hard line put my phone
00:59:57down go outside without my phone and just sit there and just sit there and just like try and be without
01:00:05my phone for like 30 minutes and be without anything be don't don't be entertained you know
01:00:10and i would do that and at first it would be like you know something could be happening on my phone
01:00:17right now and i don't know about it and this is very uncomfortable but then after i sat there for
01:00:2210 15 minutes and it would get to like 45 minutes it'd be like okay i'm having like literally so many
01:00:28thoughts i'm thinking of so many things having i for me having ideas is huge i need an idea my my
01:00:37business thrives on ideas you know having so many ideas and it sounds stupid but like that's sort of
01:00:45the point is that it's not supposed to either sound awesome or like legible even to anyone but me
01:00:53i'm just like having an experience i'm in my own head thinking about stuff like i think we need that
01:01:02time to sort of like it's almost like what sleep does for us where it's like we need time to sort
01:01:07of like let the thoughts tumble it's like a what are those things like a rock like a rock tumbler
01:01:12it's it's sort of we're putting the the raw craggy rocks in and smoothing them out just by giving
01:01:18them time to roll around in there and that's i think we need that some time to just sort of
01:01:25let let our eyes go out of focus and just have that time so that was like a useful experiment i
01:01:33think at one point was to allow myself in a comfortable place like i was in my own home
01:01:39not in a grocery line i feel like you're describing like your first acid trip where you're like i had
01:01:43i had a i had a spiritual guy honestly not that different from from that where it's like oh there
01:01:50are your brain there's so much going on in there and you don't realize because you're always trying
01:01:55to like push it down with everything that's going on in your phone um that i don't know there were
01:02:02just it was like i had a backlog of stuff to sort of percolate that's how it felt i was like oh i have
01:02:08so much to think about that i haven't gotten a chance to think about like how am i gonna i don't know
01:02:12do this thing or what should i how should i approach this like topic or oh i forgot this
01:02:20person said this thing to me that was crazy what what really did i think about that because it
01:02:24happened sort of in passing and i didn't have time to sort of process it um so i recall that feeling
01:02:30pretty pretty vividly so i think if you like are interested in experimenting with this that might be
01:02:35a good thing to try is like put your phone away separate yourself from it for you know you don't
01:02:44have to do a really length big length of time you could do like 15 minutes or something and just sort
01:02:49of give yourself a little space and see what happens see what comes from that yeah that's a good one how
01:02:56long did it take before you stopped checking your phone when nothing was going on okay good question i
01:03:02think it was uh three days sounds kind of like okay that feels about right in terms of like how long
01:03:08it took to stop like pulling it out of my pocket as a reflex but i think i can like just because it
01:03:17makes you feel so dumb to do so but i think i still felt that discomfort and urge of like i'm i'm like
01:03:24bored and i wish i had something to do and i have nothing to do
01:03:28and that took a little longer i don't know i think i still feel that way sometimes so it is like
01:03:37a kind of boundary you have to have with yourself in a way like when we have there's just always we're
01:03:46so used to having a lever to pull to entertain us and take us out of ourselves so it's kind of like
01:03:51an active ongoing negotiation i can tell you from my life experience that i've gotten a lot out of
01:04:00trying to be more deliberate about those types of patterns it is a pattern that is deserving of your
01:04:10like attention and energy i think i think if you do give yourself the space to stay with yourself in
01:04:18those moments you will find it pays off you know if you love using your phone and you don't have
01:04:25a healthy relationship with it then it's like fine go go be yourself this is for me who has an unhealthy
01:04:34relationship with it and for anyone else who does who wants it to be different you know yeah which is
01:04:38that's i am also very much one of those people uh yeah i think for me it's it's the factory reset thing
01:04:45is very compelling that i'm like maybe it's just i'm just gonna do a full start over and just see
01:04:51how far i could get and that feels like because the the next phase in my own journey i've like i've
01:04:56hit the point now where i charge my phone in a room that isn't my bedroom which is itself a victory
01:05:00like good good first step very much enjoying that very good and the next step was like what if i just
01:05:04delete all of my apps and now i'm like never mind i'm just gonna factory reset my phone and start
01:05:08from there because i actually think it'll it'll feel better that way what else have you tried i think i saw
01:05:12you tried the light phone maybe i've tried the light phone that that one's tricky because for
01:05:17like a bunch of wireless carrier reasons i can't just like put my number on the phone and then i
01:05:22message a break and it would be a whole thing so i can't fully commit to the light phone life even
01:05:27though i think it's actually it's like very close to being yeah see this is the problem is that they're
01:05:30all just like a little bit off in significant ways it's like two apps away from being the right thing
01:05:36for me but those two apps turn out to be very important um i think that for me it's actually very
01:05:41funny so i i am perpetually like needing to test new phones and as you were talking about the second
01:05:47phone idea i'm like oh i'm gonna keep the iphone as my like normal phone and then i'm gonna just
01:05:51like cycle in android phones as my like problem apps phone okay and this actually solves a bunch
01:05:55of like work problems for me okay good well also uh meaning i just like take instagram off of my phone
01:06:02and put it somewhere else there you go um the thing i just like an hour before we got on here
01:06:07bought the brick i don't know if you've seen this the the thing so it's like a little nfc device and
01:06:12you tap your phone on it and it locks you out of everything except the apps that you've decided are
01:06:17allowed and you have to go back to it to unlock it and i think there's like there's something very
01:06:22powerful in that to me that it's like have you ever been to the concert where you get like the the
01:06:25yonder case that they put your phone in i've heard of this or they have them for like schools now i
01:06:30think too yeah so i got i the only time i've had it happen was at a john mulaney show for some reason
01:06:35john mulaney like didn't want us to record him doing oh right yes uh and so they put it in the
01:06:40bag and i was sitting there holding the bag and at first i was like mad at the bag but by the end
01:06:45of the concert i was like this is great like i have a thing that actively prevents me like a person has
01:06:50to allow me to use my phone again and there was something wonderful about that so i'm like how can i
01:06:54outsource this challenge a little bit and that's that's the next thing on my list so we'll see how that
01:07:00one goes okay the brick i'm gonna have to look into this yeah i've like opened the page for the
01:07:06light phone and like the books various books devices so many times being like is this the answer
01:07:11and i think ultimately i was like it just isn't or i think it will have issues along the lines of like
01:07:18maps maps don't work or you can't transfer your phone number or something and then that's always that's
01:07:24such a killer it's or like with a flip phone too it's like i would love to just have a flip phone
01:07:28again but then it breaks too many things about how we live our lives now i feel like i gotta let you
01:07:35go here but plug your book and then we're gonna go oh yes okay so i have a book coming out next
01:07:39month it's called a physical education um please buy it it's really good if you've ever thought about
01:07:45like if you've if you've ever hated your relationship with exercise or food or your body
01:07:50this book is for you i promise it will it will be very it will be satisfying to read i think in a lot
01:07:57of ways for somebody like that which might be a lot of your listeners or so i hope i i suspect so
01:08:05yeah uh we'll put the link in the show notes casey thank you this is so much fun yeah thanks for
01:08:09having me all right we gotta take one more break and then we're gonna come back and take a question
01:08:13from the verge cast hotline it's about laptops and it is causing me a lot of feelings we'll get into
01:08:19it we'll be right back welcome back all right let's get to a question from the verge cast hotline
01:08:29as always the number is 866 verge 11 you can email verge cast the verge.com we love all of your
01:08:34questions antonio di benedetto is here to help me with this one hi antonio hello i have a question for
01:08:40you that i think seems easy but is going to be sneakily complicated and may take us a very long time to
01:08:45come to an answer it's from our email let me just read it it comes from sir rob it says i'm usually
01:08:51the gadget recommendation guy amongst my friends and family and i am also a mac user the macbook air
01:08:56has been my go-to laptop recommendation for years but some of my friends insist on having windows
01:09:00i was wondering if there's any consensus at the verge about what the go-to rock solid windows laptop
01:09:04recommendation is is it surface is it whatever dell is calling their xps line now is it an hp envy is it
01:09:10sam asus i have no idea antonio i also have no idea i realize this reading this email i literally
01:09:16don't know even where to start with this question so let's you're you're here to help let's let's help
01:09:21sir rob here yeah i'm happy to help uh it's it is a it's an unfortunately a more complicated
01:09:27answer than it should be but the good news is there are a lot of good answers it's just that there's no
01:09:34good answer for like everyone like there is with the macbook gear no i reject this premise we're not
01:09:39doing this no no you can't you can't do the thing where you're like okay i'm gonna ask you a thousand
01:09:43follow-up questions we have to arrive at an answer at the end of this and i think this is a useful
01:09:48exercise honestly because for a long time it was just the xps 13 right like it would you agree with
01:09:53that that for a bunch of years it was like if you just want a very good windows laptop and i don't
01:09:57have to ask you any follow-up questions it's probably the xps 13 i think for a while it was and then
01:10:02they ruined the keyboard and i think a keyboard is kind of important for a laptop because it's kind of
01:10:08one of the main ways you use it yeah when you say ruin the keyboard what what do you mean
01:10:13all right so it's it may come down to taste i know some people may be fine with it but they use
01:10:18what they call like a latticeless keyboard it's basically a keyboard that's like like gapless
01:10:24right between the keys oh sure and it looks very nice and then you touch it and it feels awful and i make
01:10:31so many more typos i use the xps 13 a ton and i i was not happy to give it such a bad review but i
01:10:39just found that it the keyboard was just a nightmare but that's that that used to be a really good go-to
01:10:44option now maybe maybe dell will recover itself once it you know starts releasing them under like
01:10:50dell pro premium plus max whatever if we can i'll ignore the names when the laptops deliver you know
01:10:57what they used to deliver yeah that's you can get away with having stupid names when you have good
01:11:01laptops so the answer right now i think is not the xps 13 i will say a useful thing to do is probably
01:11:06go see if you can like type on one in a store uh and it is because there are probably people who will
01:11:12not hate this keyboard i agree with you i think the gapless keyboards in general i find unusable but
01:11:17it's like if it works for you fine knock yourself out what else even might go on the list of like
01:11:22just sort of default recommendation laptops right now okay so i know you're not going to like this
01:11:28but i i came with i came up with three uh and the reason there are three is because see in the mac world
01:11:34it's obviously easy it's m chips all around right and um as like david you always say like buy the
01:11:41best thing you can afford and it'll last you however long so i think a lot of windows laptops
01:11:46uh are competitive and good in that thousand to thirteen hundred dollar range and i think it
01:11:53really comes down to your use case based on the chips that are in there so um for example the
01:11:59microsoft surface laptop uh seventh edition or just surface laptop seven if you want to call it that
01:12:04for shorthand uh that's microsoft's answer to the macbook air it is a very macbook air like windows
01:12:10laptop um comes in some nice colors even it's very thin and light um it's got a snapdragon x
01:12:16processor that's a blessing and a curse because the blessing is that you get macbook air levels of
01:12:22battery life standby time and that's one of like the macbook airs like strongest points but with the
01:12:29snapdragon x you're also you're running windows on arm which is so much more fine than it used to be
01:12:35but it's not like you can just give this to anyone and it's going to use work for every use case
01:12:41there are some apps that may not be compatible there are of course games that are not
01:12:46compatible i know if anyone's hearing this like oh like who's gaming on a thin and light laptop but
01:12:50you know what thin light laptops can do a little light gaming just like a macbook air can do a little
01:12:54very very light gaming and there is something to the like it will just run all the things that i need
01:13:00it to run right like and i think exactly to some extent the thing for me with the surface laptop is i
01:13:04think if it's not the right thing for you you probably already know if that makes sense like there
01:13:09there's this gigantically long long tail of software that will not work well on that computer
01:13:15but like if you just if you just want to like run a browser most of the time which i think is
01:13:20frankly what most people do on most of their computers it's going to be fine so i think that
01:13:25one is an interesting one for me where i think most people will sort of self-select in or out of that
01:13:30but it also kills me that windows on arm is like it's so close but it's not there yet it's so close
01:13:36yeah so another option with an amd chip i just reviewed this the new framework laptop 13
01:13:42the new model with the ryzen ai 300 series chips this is i'd say the most charming laptop around
01:13:50uh it's also a very very good laptop and it may seem daunting to recommend this as someone because
01:13:56it's a it's repairable it's modular you know it you can get it as a diy edition which i do
01:14:03recommend to people if you you know feel comfortable like putting it together but you're not i mean you're
01:14:08just plugging in the ram and like putting in the ssd and that's been like attaching a couple things
01:14:14it's really really simple i had i i took like 20 minutes to do that or less it took longer to install
01:14:19windows but you can get it as a pre-built uh for a little more money and it comes ready to go there's
01:14:24no window the windows is already installed um and yeah it's a no-nonsense uh laptop it's very good
01:14:31it's very macbook air like but the coolest thing this is so cool you pick the ports right you get
01:14:37four ports and you pick the expansion cards that you want for it you can do all four usbc you can do
01:14:43uh two usbc an hdmi and a usba you can do a micro sd if you want you can do an ethernet
01:14:50jack like that's so cool and you don't get that i mean the ethernet port kind of sticks out because
01:14:55it's you know it's a thin and light laptop but you don't normally get that on a thin light laptop
01:14:59you normally need like a beefy gaming laptop to get an ethernet jack and that could be kind of
01:15:03helpful battery life is like not the best but it's pretty good i think you can get through
01:15:07a day of work and maybe if you work a little too hard you might have to you know keep it juiced up
01:15:12i know a lot of people do work plugged in anyway um and yeah it's just it's a very good laptop it's
01:15:19also just so freaking cool to pick your ports you can even do some customizations like have a
01:15:23translucent bezel you can install and it's like it's magnetic it just like drops in and out very cool
01:15:28okay so i did not expect to find that a compelling possibility here but i like that a lot so what's
01:15:34what's your third one okay so my third one is the acer swift 14 ai it's not the prettiest laptop
01:15:40it's not the i think the quality overall is quite fine it's nothing that's really going to blow you
01:15:46away like a macbook air or even like the surface um but it's a very uh function over form laptop
01:15:52the screen is just okay it's a it's a 1920 by 1200 p screen nothing special there but what it is nice
01:15:58about this is the balance of performance and the ports you get two usb c and two usb a and an hdmi out
01:16:06on a 14 inch laptop that's pretty small pretty compact again not as compact as a macbook air but
01:16:12it's a thin and light and the lunar lake uh chip gets the job done you can you know do pretty much
01:16:18everything you need with it it's a good performer it doesn't benchmark as high as amd stuff but it
01:16:24doesn't last quite as long battery life wise as uh as snapdragon but it's kind of a goldilocks it's
01:16:30kind of that's just just the right balance and um actually lunar light can do some decent gaming for
01:16:35integrated graphics not counting like strix halo which is like a different beast uh for integrated
01:16:42graphics but um yeah that's a that's a solid all-rounder happy medium um and a decent asylum
01:16:49a decent laptop i just googled this by the way and it is the most boring laptop i've ever seen
01:16:54in my life and i kind of mean that as a compliment yeah it's not compelling i've come around to like
01:16:58i don't actually need my laptop to be like thrilling and have new ideas about how things should look
01:17:03like just give me a decent looking set of ports and a body that doesn't feel like it's about to fall
01:17:11apart and and we're cool and i think for a long time acer failed the uh make it not feel like it's
01:17:17about to fall apart test um but but it sounds like this one's a little better they've like they've
01:17:22learned how to make a solid thing even if um they don't know how to design anything yeah yeah it's
01:17:29again it's not attractive but it's it's kind of just fine all around um decent keyboard decent trackpad
01:17:34um you know those things are important of course and then if you can spend a little more
01:17:39uh check out the asus acer but asus zenbook s14 we've reviewed the 16 inch version which had the
01:17:47ryzen ai chip which is an awesome machine but much pricier but the zenbook s14 comes with the lunar lake
01:17:54chip from intel and it's much more felt and very nice looking um a lot more of a design object than
01:18:02especially the acer um and you get an oled screen that's a really nice panel to look at so if you can
01:18:07spend a little more and you still want that happy medium uh with a lunar lake chip then yeah
01:18:12zenbook s14 i snuck in a fourth sorry no this this is a really good list and i think uh both speaks to
01:18:20how sort of interesting the windows landscape is right now but also how very confusing the windows
01:18:26landscape is right now because it's you're probably right that there are a bunch of like chip reasons
01:18:31actually that it's really hard to have one single pat answer to this question there's just so much up in
01:18:36the air about sort of which of these configurations is the correct windows path forward and my guess
01:18:44is we'll have a much clearer sense of that in like 18 months than we do right now but especially with
01:18:49qualcomm and the copilot plus pc universe that all just feels very new and interesting but not
01:18:55not quite finished yet but we asked for one answer i think i know which of the four i if like if i'm
01:19:02standing in a store and i'm like just buy this one and leave me alone to me i think i think the answer
01:19:07is actually the framework laptop it is the easiest to like undo the decision if you've made it you can
01:19:11just like put in new ports uh it'll upgrade over time it'll last a long time people really love it
01:19:17uh i haven't used the the keyboard on the new ones in in a while but i keep hearing good things like
01:19:22this is a terrific computer would we be crazy to just call that the the sort of macbook air of the
01:19:28windows ecosystem for very different reasons but it does feel like if i'm just going to give you a
01:19:33computer i'm pretty confident you're going to like that feels like a good place to start yeah i think
01:19:37i think it's i'm fine with saying that it's uh the framework is a great laptop and yeah it's just
01:19:42the keyboard is good it's a little the key feel is a little spongier than i like but it but it's
01:19:48great to type on um trackpad is i think good but you know it feels a little cheaper than some
01:19:55other trackpads not it's not the fanciness that you know apple has in my opinion apple has the
01:20:00best trackpads the haptic trackpads from apple are really still the best as long as you don't
01:20:05mind that it doesn't physically click i'm i've gotten used to it over the years i'm fine with it
01:20:09um yeah the framework laptop is a good all-rounder and again just picking the ports is so cool and
01:20:15having something that you can feasibly get repaired or repair yourself uh more easily and replace i mean
01:20:21you can upgrade the ram you can upgrade your ssd later you can yeah change your mind on the
01:20:25ports you can you can bring an extra port with you that's just kind of weird you know like it's
01:20:30you can't do that anywhere else so yeah i don't mind it being the the recommendation even if it's
01:20:35got a little asterisk of like you may have to do some it or maybe maybe some little bit of a weird
01:20:39pick but it's it's cool ass laptop all right antonio thank you appreciate it so rob i hope that helped
01:20:45thank you all right that is it for the vergecast today thank you to everybody who came on the show
01:20:49and thank you as always for listening if you have thoughts questions feelings other features on the
01:20:55slate truck that you would like to see please tell us about everything i i truly there has not been a
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01:21:05the verge.com call the hotline 866 verge 11 also i'm running a bunch of experiments on myself about
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01:21:21hit us up this show is produced by will poor eric gomez and brandon kiefer the vergecast is a verge
01:21:26production and part of the vox media podcast network nila and i will be back on friday to talk about
01:21:30open ai and the trials going on i'm going to be in court a bit this week for the google trial lauren
01:21:36finders in court for the meta trial we have lots to talk about lots going on we will see you then rock
01:21:41and roll