| Thank you to everybody who came out to the live Vergecast in San Francisco last night. It should be hitting your podcast feeds soon, and I think it was a really interesting conversation. I very nearly managed to stir up some shit between the product manager for the Pixel camera and the product manager for the Instagram camera over aspect ratios, but in the end it turned out to be a very sweet moment of aspect ratio collaboration. Classic Vergecast, in other words. - Dieter Some lovely Verge features + The lonely ballad of the fuck button Megan Farokmanesh has written the story I've been hoping for ever since all of social media started making fun of this Kickstarter campaign. Everybody missed the point of this thing -- and that's not necessarily a defense of it -- so I knew there'd be a more interesting story than some Twitter dunks. + The Verge Guide to the Apple Watch We have been putting together these large Guidebook pages for lots of different software platforms. And by "we" I mean "Barbara Krasnoff," who has been doing excellent work creating How-To articles that appeal to beginners and power users. Even if you think you know everything there is to know, I bet there's something in here you will find useful. + The Moon Channel: a short horror game about smart home gadgets Adi Robertson has made something super incredible and you should try it! + In the hot seat This is a wonderful profile about Sean Evans and Hot Ones by Bijan Stephen. I love how sometimes internet skits turn into truly big media properties. Not so lovely copying + Huawei's next tablet might look like an iPad Pro This isn't a super popular opinion but I don't think the current iteration of the iPad Pro is especially great looking. It looks like a CAD file come to life without any regard for the realities of real physical computers. That's a remarkable achievement, but it also makes the iPad Pro feel a little soulless. What I am saying is that Huawei is copying an uninspiring design, which is much worse than copying a great design. + Xiaomi mimics the Apple Watch with its first smartwatch Equally shameless and equally a bummer. Not because the Apple Watch has a soulless design, but because there are so many unexplored opportunities in smartwatch design. Streaming Wars + Walmart is reportedly looking to sell its Vudu streaming service I got a five dollar bill sitting in my key bowl by the front door think they'll take my call? + Do Apple TV Plus shows have to be good to succeed? Everything happens so fast so much that it's easy to forget that success is often measured on a longer time scale. Julia Alexander provides an excellent history and context which illustrates that lesson -- and might help explain just what's going to happen with Apple's new service. + New trailer for Netflix's Witcher confirms December 20th release date I was all set to make a stupendous joke about how the acting in this trailer was as stilted and awkward as the game controls on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and we all would have chuckled quietly to ourselves about my cleverness. But then I watched the trailer and it looks alright? You can definitely tell it doesn't have the effects budget (or the wig budget I mean really) of Game of Thrones, but it looks like it might be fun. It's still inexplicable and a tragedy they didn't cast Mads Mikkelson though. More from The Verge + AirPods Pro teardown confirms that they're just as disposable as ever A couple corrections from earlier newsletters. 1. I referred to AirPods having a W1 chip instead of an H1 chip. 2. I credited just Samsung for using somewhat replaceable batteries in its earbuds as though it uniquely did so, but Kyle Wiens at iFixit reminded me that Sony has also been a fairly good citizen in this regard. + Xbox Elite 2 controller review: Microsoft's best Xbox controller just got better Microsoft has refined every aspect of this controller and added some great new additions like adjustable-tension thumbsticks, even shorter hair-trigger locks, USB-C, and Bluetooth connectivity. With a new, lighter design that includes wraparound rubberized grips that reach up to your thumbs, the Elite 2 is even more comfortable to use for hours of gaming than the original. + Motorola's foldable RAZR phone appears in leaked images I have been zooming in on these images obsessively all day, trying to see if there's a gap when it's closed and if so how big and if not, why not? It seems like there's no gap, which has me very curious about how Motorola got the bend radius to work inside the hinge and whether the screen needs to have some movement to accommodate it. This engineering challenge makes the Galaxy Fold look easy. I'm only slightly bummed to see that the rumored processor isn't exactly Qualcomm's fastest, but we should definitely hold off judgment until we get to try it for ourselves + The Loupedeck Creative Tool is a physical control deck for creative apps $549 is a lot but it's also nothing if you work all day, every day in Photoshop or Final Cut Pro or whatever and this (very cool) gadget helps your workflow in a significant way. There's also a giant customizable touchscreen wheel, which doubles as both as a touchscreen display for controls and a programmable dial for things like scrubbing through a track or adjusting an image. + Software's Fall of Fail won't stop, after all: iOS 13 is killing background apps more frequently, iPhone owners report | 
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