Apple and OpenAI make a deal | The Vergecast - video Dailymotion

The Verge

The Verge's Nilay Patel, Alex Cranz, and David Pierce discuss takeaways from WWDC, this week's gadget news, and Elon Musk dropping his lawsuit against OpenAI.

Transcript

00:00:00Hello and welcome to Vergecast, the flagship podcast of thinking we should have a handheld

00:00:06too.

00:00:07We should have a handshake.

00:00:08We should.

00:00:09I would be awesome.

00:00:10I'm going to make one.

00:00:11We should do it with an LCD screen that we claim is an E-Ink screen.

00:00:16Just play games.

00:00:17That's coming for later.

00:00:18But if you know, you know, I'm just hinting towards there's going to be a real theme on

00:00:24Vergecast this year, which is, are you telling the truth?

00:00:28And then we just look into the camera.

00:00:30Does it work the way that people think it works?

00:00:33Or does it work?

00:00:34Not at all.

00:00:35Hi, I'm your friend, Eli Alex.

00:00:38Kranz is with me in the studio.

00:00:39Yeah, I'm your friend who's excited to talk about all the gadgets that are definitely

00:00:42real and work.

00:00:44It's a 2024.

00:00:46It's probably broken.

00:00:47I don't believe you.

00:00:48David Pierce is here.

00:00:49Hello.

00:00:50This was more fun when we were all sitting in like a needlessly fancy house together.

00:00:53Can we just do that?

00:00:54Like officially as the Vergecast?

00:00:55But with air conditioning.

00:00:56Yes.

00:00:58So if you watch this on YouTube, you probably saw us glistening.

00:01:01It's because that house was 5,000 degrees when we were doing that episode.

00:01:03When we stopped recording between segments when they went to break and Liam, our producer,

00:01:08hands me a paper towel and goes, from this angle, your head is a mirror.

00:01:12And I've been thinking about that for four days now.

00:01:15This is what we need.

00:01:16That's what we do to make the Vergecast for you.

00:01:18I don't.

00:01:19I don't want to go too far down this road.

00:01:20I'm saying this is why you should do bangs.

00:01:25David would rock some bangs.

00:01:28I would say there are several things preventing me from growing good bangs, and I'm happy

00:01:32to talk about them anytime you want, except for right now.

00:01:34That's a whole episode.

00:01:35David gets bangs.

00:01:36That's what AI is for.

00:01:38If someone can make an AI-generated image of David with bangs.

00:01:41I have very bouncy, curly hair.

00:01:44There's a lot of stuff in my hair to make it not do that.

00:01:46But we watched The Fall Guy, and I came out of the bathroom the other day with just full,

00:01:50floppy bangs.

00:01:51And I was like, Beck, should I do this?

00:01:54And she was like, no.

00:01:55She was like, just don't.

00:01:57Just sit you right back in the bathroom.

00:01:58Yeah.

00:01:59I appreciate that you, like me and most men, watch Ryan Gosling for an hour and a half,

00:02:03and then it's like, what if I changed everything about myself?

00:02:05Could I be more like him if everything about me was different?

00:02:09I've had a lot of those moments recently.

00:02:12Becky met me when I had blonde highlights in my hair.

00:02:16So I think there was like an immediate, she's like, I can't go back there.

00:02:21I suffered through this already.

00:02:24All right, a lot to talk about.

00:02:26We promised an entire episode of the show not about the AI stuff Apple announced at

00:02:31WWDC.

00:02:32There has also been a ton of gadget news.

00:02:35And then Lightning Round, unsponsored.

00:02:39And I've seen the tweets from people who are like, I'm trying to sponsor the Lightning

00:02:42Round.

00:02:43Quite frankly, you've got to just bring a suitcase of money to our office directly.

00:02:47Yeah, you're not trying hard enough.

00:02:49That's all I'll say.

00:02:50You can't just be tweeting at me or posting on threads.

00:02:52Apple money in a suitcase.

00:02:53A good suitcase.

00:02:54Yeah.

00:02:55I don't want Amazon Alphabet suitcases.

00:02:59We want to see you in the lobby.

00:03:01Just make icons.

00:03:02Samsonite, Toomey, you know, like good suitcase.

00:03:05That's actually, it's not the money in the suitcase.

00:03:07You just want the suitcase?

00:03:10Do you need a new suitcase?

00:03:12This Lightning Round is not sponsored by a suitcase company.

00:03:14I don't know any other luggage brands.

00:03:16American Tourister.

00:03:17Topo.

00:03:18Do they make Topo?

00:03:19Yeah.

00:03:20I don't know.

00:03:21It's probably Away.

00:03:22But we wrote that story about Away one time and they threatened to sue us.

00:03:25She doesn't work there anymore.

00:03:26She's not the CEO.

00:03:27Anyway, that's deep Verge lore.

00:03:28We can set that aside.

00:03:29All right.

00:03:30So we should talk about all the other stuff from WWC that isn't AI.

00:03:32But first we should mention two quick things about Apple AI, Apple Intelligence, if you

00:03:37will.

00:03:38Oh, yeah.

00:03:39One, we talked last week about the confusion over who was paying who and the way Apple

00:03:43was treating open AI, which was just a plugin to their system to basically do all the risky

00:03:48stuff.

00:03:49Apple will do a very small set of things.

00:03:51And then if you're like, this might create horrible brand risk for us by telling you

00:03:55lies.

00:03:56So would you like to use chat GPT?

00:03:58And then they had said, well, eventually you'll plug Gemini into this and maybe some other

00:04:03models.

00:04:04So it seemed like they were just extending the capability of their system and we couldn't

00:04:07tell who was paying who.

00:04:09Mark Gurman has reported no one's paying anyone.

00:04:12Apple is paying open AI and exposure.

00:04:15And the idea here sort of makes sense.

00:04:19Yeah, like everyone in media starts there.

00:04:22You get paid in exposure.

00:04:23This is just like...

00:04:24I haven't paid crayons in a year.

00:04:25Yeah.

00:04:26I just live off of like McDonald's that I steal from dumpsters.

00:04:30It's great.

00:04:31No, but the idea, right, is people see the chat GPT logo, they'll see the capabilities,

00:04:38they'll want to go and log in.

00:04:41This is where it gets real fuzzy.

00:04:42And then they will pay for chat GPT, the 20 bucks a month or whatever.

00:04:48And then Apple will take 30%.

00:04:52It's always in the background.

00:04:54What's Apple's plan?

00:04:5530%.

00:04:56Yeah.

00:04:57That's...

00:04:58You walk into an Apple store?

00:04:5930%.

00:05:00Show up with a Samsonite.

00:05:01You know?

00:05:02Yeah.

00:05:03That's Tim Cook's vibe.

00:05:04Yeah.

00:05:05And I don't know if that's going to work for a few reasons.

00:05:08One, I asked very specifically while we were at WWDC, is there going to be an interface

00:05:12for people to sign up for the chat GPT subscription?

00:05:17And the answer very clearly was no.

00:05:20Yeah.

00:05:21Can't confirm.

00:05:22The Safari is available to you.

00:05:24You may go and sign up over there.

00:05:26So they need to build the flow, which means Apple has to upsell you to someone else's

00:05:31product inside of its own interfaces and then take 30%.

00:05:37Lots of question marks there.

00:05:38Does that exist anywhere?

00:05:40I'm trying to think of a version of that that exists currently on iOS, and I can't think

00:05:45of one, where you're buying someone else's product inside of an Apple product and how

00:05:50that flow would work.

00:05:51I don't think that exists.

00:05:52Oh, streaming.

00:05:53They do it for some of the streaming channels.

00:05:55That's fair.

00:05:56That's probably the closest analog.

00:05:57Yeah.

00:05:58Yeah.

00:05:59That kind of works.

00:06:00That's all I got.

00:06:01Yeah.

00:06:02Yeah.

00:06:03I don't know.

00:06:04It's new, right?

00:06:05But the economics, as reported by Mark Gurman, would look like you use the stuff.

00:06:08You like it so much, you say to yourself, I wish this robot would remember me.

00:06:15And then you go pay the money.

00:06:16So it has statefulness, which is the thing you would basically pay for at this point.

00:06:20Aren't people kind of like getting fed up with paying the robot for money?

00:06:23Yeah.

00:06:24I don't know.

00:06:25I think the question here, how this works out, is if you're getting the basic version

00:06:30for free, which you are, the full GPT 4.0, all of its features somehow for free, what

00:06:37you are not getting is, does it remember you?

00:06:40Can you use the chat GPT app on your phone for free?

00:06:44I think not.

00:06:45I think you get to use it inside of Apple's experiences for free.

00:06:48That's right.

00:06:49All of the custom instruction stuff doesn't work.

00:06:51It seems like the custom GPTs wouldn't work.

00:06:54So there is a lot of stuff like the access you would get, as far as we know, through

00:07:00the OS level thing is very limited.

00:07:03And so the upsell for chat GPT seems plausible.

00:07:07What seems wild to me is how expensive the customer acquisition cost there is going to

00:07:13be.

00:07:14If I'm open AI, I can see two things going on here.

00:07:16One is that open AI is going to launch a search product, which I think everybody believes

00:07:22to be true and seems to be true.

00:07:26And it's possible that that is going to be part of this, right?

00:07:29Maybe one thing Apple will be happy to do is kick you to the web through open AI's search

00:07:35product.

00:07:36And one very good thing you can do there is have ads.

00:07:38So there is maybe a version of that that is a direct correlation to Apple's Google deal,

00:07:44where when you search, you look at ads, and Apple gets some of that revenue.

00:07:49That's very straightforward.

00:07:50That product doesn't exist.

00:07:51We have no idea what it's going to look like.

00:07:52So who knows?

00:07:53We'll see.

00:07:54But the other one is, this is just like open AI spending a tremendous amount of money giving

00:08:00you free stuff in the hopes that it can find some way to get you to pay.

00:08:04And I think it's going to be so fascinating to see how Apple implements that because you'll

00:08:10be able to tell everything you've ever wanted to know about Apple's priorities by when it

00:08:14tries to upsell you.

00:08:15You know what I mean?

00:08:16Like if the first time you do it, Apple's like, wouldn't it be better if you had, then

00:08:19it's like, oh, this is a 30% company.

00:08:21Like this is, this is what you're after.

00:08:23You are immediately trying to get me to pay more money to do a thing that you have promised

00:08:27me is baked into the operating system.

00:08:29Or if Apple is like happy to push this all the way out and just make it a teeny tiny

00:08:33box you can find in Safari if you want to.

00:08:36That's very different.

00:08:37And I think that that tension between these two companies and that product is going to

00:08:41be so weird and so interesting if this is the actual business dynamic here.

00:08:46And it ramps up even higher if you can just switch it to Google Gemini or whatever next

00:08:51model in China they have to use or whatever models come out of Europe or whatever, right?

00:08:55The idea that there's this other architecture beyond Apple intelligence that these companies

00:09:00can plug into and that will drive them customers sort of also implies that Apple believes the

00:09:05economics of all these problems are subscriptions.

00:09:09You plug Google Gemini into this, but how's Google going to make money?

00:09:12Well, it's not Apple paying Google.

00:09:14It's hopefully they, you sign up for Gemini at $20 a month.

00:09:19I don't know if that's the way it will actually play out.

00:09:21I think there's not a lot of risk for Apple in this right now.

00:09:29If they're paying for exposure, then if chat GPT just sucks and nobody uses it, which probably

00:09:36won't happen but could, then it's fine.

00:09:38Apple's like, OK, yeah, there's something that will close down in a couple of years

00:09:42when everybody stops talking about it.

00:09:44But if it actually takes off, OK, they make money and it's just like, OK, we get free

00:09:48money now.

00:09:49It doesn't feel like there's a huge risk for Apple in this.

00:09:51You know who you sound like, Alex Kranz, is everyone who argues that Apple is a monopoly

00:09:55that needs to be broken up by antitrust law.

00:09:57That's true.

00:09:59I totally agree.

00:10:01Apple is an incredible leverage point where it has the distribution and nobody else does.

00:10:05And if you're open AI and you want to get in front of a lot of people who are not otherwise

00:10:10likely to go to your website or your app, this is your move.

00:10:15And that gives Apple all the power in the world.

00:10:17This is huge for open AI, right?

00:10:18Like they have that first mover advantage and that's it.

00:10:22Scale everything else.

00:10:24Everybody, all their competitors just have it all.

00:10:27So they need this.

00:10:28Well, except that their big competitor is Google and Apple has been very clear that

00:10:33Google is coming to the same plug-in system.

00:10:35Yeah, but not yet.

00:10:38So this is my second point.

00:10:39So that was point one on Apple intelligence is it appears we understand the economics

00:10:45based on March reporting.

00:10:46No one's really refuted it.

00:10:48Apple's not saying it doesn't seem like anyone at open AI is running around crowing

00:10:53about a windfall of profits.

00:10:56That's what we know so far.

00:10:57I will say, though, everyone at open AI is running around pretty aggressively overstating

00:11:02the extent to which they're involved in all of this.

00:11:04There have been a bunch of people tweeting like, we're so excited to be working with

00:11:07Apple to help power all of the AI experiences on the iPhone.

00:11:11And it's like easy buddies.

00:11:13You're a last resort checkbox kind of situation here.

00:11:17Let's pump the brakes on what's happening here.

00:11:20We're so excited to bring the voice of Scarlett Johansson to Siri.

00:11:25But only if you get past three pop-ups.

00:11:27It's going to be great.

00:11:28You're going to love it.

00:11:29So that's one is we seemingly understand the economics to actually directly right.

00:11:34So what you just said, Alex, it is important, I think, to note that no one has seen this

00:11:41work yet.

00:11:42Yeah, there have been some briefings.

00:11:44We've talked to a bunch of reporters.

00:11:46Apple had briefings.

00:11:47They showed a bunch of stuff on rails.

00:11:49Great, very cool.

00:11:53Love a control demo.

00:11:54Yeah, but having just gone through this with the Vision Pro.

00:11:59And the rabbit and everything else, I would just caution everyone.

00:12:07That there are only two kinds of news where the truth just comes out.

00:12:12One is sports and one is tech products.

00:12:16One team wins or loses.

00:12:17And you just that you get an answer or the gambling economy forces the wrong answer.

00:12:23But that's like saying that's whatever.

00:12:24There's another thing happens over there.

00:12:25But like at the end, you get a result, right?

00:12:27It's like there's not a lot of dispute about what happened at the end of the Super Bowl.

00:12:32In tech, the products work or they don't.

00:12:34And then real people get them.

00:12:36And then all bets are off.

00:12:37And I've said this a million times down the show this year.

00:12:40All bets are off once you start shipping the thing to thousands or millions of people.

00:12:45They're just going to do stuff you never expected.

00:12:47They're going to break it in extremely esoteric ways.

00:12:50They're definitely not going to read the instruction manual.

00:12:52Nope.

00:12:54All of your great ideas just fall apart once like millions of regular people get this stuff.

00:12:59Apple is going to ship this to a billion people.

00:13:03The Oprah line.

00:13:04They're in a billion pockets, y'all.

00:13:05That's what Oprah said when they announced Apple TV Plus.

00:13:08Why did you make this deal with Tim Cook and Apple, Oprah?

00:13:10They're in a billion pockets.

00:13:12That's a real quote.

00:13:12You can go look it up.

00:13:13Yeah, I remember.

00:13:15You put this in a billion pockets.

00:13:18Some weird stuff is going to start.

00:13:20I guarantee you some weird stuff is going to start happening.

00:13:23Tim Cook said to the Washington Post opinion section,

00:13:26we are not 100% sure they can stop AI hallucinations.

00:13:29And he would never make a claim because you can't.

00:13:33Don't worry about hallucinations.

00:13:35It's fine.

00:13:35It's just going to lie to you sometimes.

00:13:37That's what you expect from your iPhone.

00:13:38It's just some creative lies.

00:13:40Kevin Roos was at the event just waiting to see if Apple Intelligence would make love to him.

00:13:45By the way, I saw him at the event.

00:13:46I apologized directly to Kevin for getting so much mileage out of that joke.

00:13:50And he's like, no, everyone is.

00:13:52So I love you, Kevin.

00:13:54Including his family, he said.

00:13:56So that's good for everybody.

00:13:59Rest assured he knows I continue to make the joke.

00:14:02We haven't concretely seen the phone handoff from local inference

00:14:07to the private cloud inference that Apple wants.

00:14:11We just haven't seen any of this work outside of a very controlled context.

00:14:16And I'm just reminding everyone gently,

00:14:21the AI economy so far has largely run on hype.

00:14:26And then they ship it.

00:14:28And it's like, you should put some glue on your pizza.

00:14:32And I'm not saying Apple doesn't have a better track record than everyone else.

00:14:35I'm not saying that it's wrong to believe that they can out-execute most of their competitors.

00:14:42Apple can definitely out-execute most of its competitors.

00:14:45The last time the company out-executed most of its competitors,

00:14:48it shipped the Vision Pro, which is easily the most technologically advanced VR headset ever made.

00:14:53Yep.

00:14:54It's still a VR headset.

00:14:55It has all of the problems of the category.

00:14:59It does not have a bunch of really novel solutions to them.

00:15:02It is just the best engineered, most complete version of the thing that it is.

00:15:06We have yet to see it.

00:15:07So I'm just...

00:15:08Yeah.

00:15:08Didn't Apple also have the disclaimer of like, sometimes it lies?

00:15:11Yeah.

00:15:12So yeah, it's right in the interface.

00:15:13Chat TV sometimes check this info.

00:15:15Just built right in.

00:15:16So I'm not saying it's not going to work.

00:15:17I just want to call that out gently.

00:15:21Gently.

00:15:22We have months to go, like maybe even a year or more to go before all of the features we

00:15:28saw demoed at WWDC ship, ship to thousands, if not millions or billions of people.

00:15:34And then a bunch of stuff that no one anticipated happening is going to happen at massive scale.

00:15:41I'll give you an example.

00:15:42Casey and Platformer wrote, Apple is now in the business of content moderation at scale.

00:15:46And I wrote back.

00:15:47I was like, they have the App Store.

00:15:48He was like, no, no, no, no.

00:15:49Someone's going to ask this thing to draw a gun and Apple won't do it.

00:15:52And then Tim Cook is going to end up in front of Congress.

00:15:54Like that is the level of chaos that is coming for these systems.

00:15:59They have to bear the pressure.

00:16:02And so it doesn't mean they've won.

00:16:03It doesn't mean they're ahead or behind.

00:16:05It just means like we came off a very good show.

00:16:09And now we have to get the thing.

00:16:11And I keep saying like there's only two categories where you definitively know at the end if

00:16:16it worked or not.

00:16:18It's sports and tech.

00:16:19Like I would even say a lot of people when I bring up this comparison say politics because

00:16:24there's elections.

00:16:25Look around, man.

00:16:27Like a lot of people don't think that's one of the categories anymore.

00:16:31I think this will probably be the same thing, too.

00:16:33I think a lot of people are going to debate it because, you know, well, I've heard this

00:16:37a lot.

00:16:38I'm very vocal about thinking hallucinations are an enormous problem and everybody is

00:16:43glossing over them and should stop.

00:16:44And I get a lot of comments being like, don't worry about it.

00:16:47The goalposts on hallucinations have fully moved.

00:16:50Yeah, I've noticed this recently.

00:16:52We just had the CEO of Cohere on Decoder.

00:16:54He's one of the people who wrote Attention Is All You Need at Google, the paper that

00:16:59famously described Transformers, which Google loves reminding everyone of.

00:17:03And I was like, can you can you fix it?

00:17:06If you program a computer and it delivers some answer to you and sometimes it's wrong,

00:17:11like that seems like a bad computer.

00:17:12And he was like, well, you get stuff wrong, too.

00:17:14Sure.

00:17:15And he's not that's a totally correct answer, but it's like that's why I have a computer.

00:17:20Yeah, is to be far more reliable than my computer does the math correctly.

00:17:25Like, that's I feel pretty good about that every single time.

00:17:28Yeah.

00:17:30The example I gave him was like, I would not let an L and like an F-22 cannot be flown

00:17:34without a computer, like a human being cannot operate an F-22 fast enough to keep it stable

00:17:41in flight.

00:17:41And so you would just not give it to an L and F-22.

00:17:45He did make the point that the rate of hallucinations coming down and importantly, in the context

00:17:49of Apple, Apple intelligence is doing such little stuff.

00:17:54They've scoped down what they want it to do, what they want to be responsible for so far.

00:17:58And then anything else is chat GPT, which can lie to you.

00:18:01Which I think that's a smart way to do it.

00:18:03So, like, I think chat GPT is being hugely irresponsible by being like, yeah, use this

00:18:08for everything.

00:18:08But Apple, that is a much more responsible like approach, right?

00:18:12Saying, you know what?

00:18:13It's bad at that.

00:18:14So we're just not going to let it do that.

00:18:15We've let some of Siri's, we've improved some of Siri's natural language processing.

00:18:19What if it like hallucinates meetings for you?

00:18:22Oh, that'd be great.

00:18:24Because if I could, if I could incorporate a lying robot into my meeting scheduling,

00:18:30I'd take it.

00:18:31But when speaking of scoped all the way down, this is another really important piece that

00:18:35I didn't even think about.

00:18:36While we were there, but Gentoo, he has a piece coming up on the site, but it'll be

00:18:39up by the time you read this.

00:18:41The new Apple intelligence, the new Siri won't work on the home pod.

00:18:45It won't work on the Apple TV, and it appears it will not work with home kit.

00:18:49Wait, it won't work with home kit at all?

00:18:51Like the devices thing makes sense, but to not even be part of home kit is really fascinating

00:18:55and seems bad.

00:18:56It'll like fall back to the old Siri.

00:18:59So you'll be like, turn on the lights and I'll like do it's not going to not work.

00:19:02But the complicated orchestration piece, where you're like, I'm just talking to my phone

00:19:07and stuff is happening.

00:19:10It's fuzzy.

00:19:10We don't know yet.

00:19:11It's all of this AI afication of Siri going to improve the fact that Siri doesn't understand

00:19:18me half the time.

00:19:20So I think this is like the thing that they're going to fix.

00:19:22Yeah, that was my impression is that they're going to fix that.

00:19:25But that is the thing I'm most confident about with new Siri is that like, they're going

00:19:29to fix it.

00:19:30New Siri is that like text to speech and speech to text have gotten very, very, very good,

00:19:36very fast.

00:19:36And I think if Apple can't do that better with Siri, it's just a gigantic failure.

00:19:43Like I have a lot of faith in Siri recognition being very good and the transcription stuff

00:19:49being very good.

00:19:49Like there's no excuse for that stuff not to be very good anymore.

00:19:52The state of the art on that is really good.

00:19:54Does this mean that it would work or not work with home kit?

00:19:57I guess we'll just have to see.

00:19:58Right.

00:19:59So I think that you pick up your phone, you open Siri and say, open the garage door.

00:20:04That appears like it will not get routed through the Apple intelligence version.

00:20:08The command will get recognized and I'll go to like whatever I was having.

00:20:11And hopefully they've kind of like made all of Siri.

00:20:15And then old Siri will say, here's what I found on the web for turn on garage lights.

00:20:19Yeah.

00:20:19So again, we don't know because it hasn't shipped.

00:20:21But the idea that home kit is not yet part of this appears to be like what Jen has.

00:20:28That's what she's writing about.

00:20:30And I think that's really fascinating because so much of what you want Siri to orchestrate,

00:20:35all the examples they gave, the canonical example is tell me what time to leave for

00:20:40the airport to go to my daughter's dance recital.

00:20:42Right.

00:20:43And it's always made up very transactional thing you want to do.

00:20:47Yeah.

00:20:48Right.

00:20:48Like I'm going to go to a place because I'm cool.

00:20:51I have a family and a means of transportation.

00:20:54I leave the house.

00:20:55My daughter's in dance class.

00:20:57Uh, it's, this is all very, you sleep in a race car bed.

00:21:03I've got a phone.

00:21:04Um, but like one thing you would want to do is like,

00:21:08tell me when to leave the office to catch the train.

00:21:11Also turn on my thermostat.

00:21:13Yeah.

00:21:14Right.

00:21:14It's like you would just add that in or like a very common thing people script in the home

00:21:18kit is like turn on the lights by the time I get home.

00:21:20Like you can see how you'd want to have this more complicated conversation about stuff

00:21:26in your house.

00:21:27And that all feels like not yet.

00:21:30Yeah.

00:21:30Well, and that's also one of the big things they're talking about with Apple intelligence

00:21:33is context awareness.

00:21:35And the, the deep rabbit hole of context awareness is like inside of your smart home,

00:21:41right?

00:21:41Like knowing where you are and what you're doing and how you're feeling like that's the,

00:21:44that's how we get all this stuff going down the road.

00:21:47So I, I'm actually surprised that that wouldn't be like a flagship feature of this,

00:21:53but they'd really didn't come up at all during the keynote.

00:21:55So I guess I'm not tracked.

00:21:56Yeah.

00:21:56And that is more or less what Jen's entire piece is about.

00:21:59But by the way, there's also another piece in business insider that came out today,

00:22:03registered to where we started recording, um, about the Alexa unit at Amazon.

00:22:07That is like ringing the bell about how bad Alexa is at this stuff and how Amazon is under

00:22:12invested in it.

00:22:13And the pivot is just not easy to do.

00:22:16Yeah.

00:22:17Like you can't have had this thing and be like, we're going to turn it off.

00:22:21And here's a somewhat unreliable, extremely horny robot.

00:22:25You're just going to like brick a bunch of Alexa devices that people depend on.

00:22:29So it is a very hard pivot.

00:22:31And I, you know, because Apple is Apple, I can just do it.

00:22:34Especially because Siri is bad.

00:22:36Like, I feel like most people are like, oh, Siri is bad.

00:22:39Yeah.

00:22:39Here's a newer, hornier Siri.

00:22:41Fine.

00:22:41Let's try that out for a while.

00:22:42Whereas I think Alexa exists in your house in nowhere, in no other context.

00:22:48And you cannot break people's houses in that way.

00:22:50Right.

00:22:51Okay.

00:22:52That's enough on the AI stuff.

00:22:53There's a bunch of other stuff that we promised people we would talk about from DubDub.

00:22:58You want to do the small updates?

00:22:59Yeah.

00:22:59There's a bunch of stuff that we found, like that people have found.

00:23:03Some of it we already talked about, like the buttons, the volume buttons,

00:23:06when you press them, there's like a cool little animation.

00:23:08And now that I've seen it, it looks sick.

00:23:11It does.

00:23:11But they're definitely going to take the buttons off the phone.

00:23:13I don't want to talk about it.

00:23:16I'm fine.

00:23:17It's okay.

00:23:18But also, bilingual typing is going to be a thing now, which I'm super, super excited about.

00:23:26Because some of us speak a little Spanglish, and it sucks when it tries to auto-correct you.

00:23:32And you're like, no, I know I'm bad at Spanish.

00:23:34But like, come on.

00:23:35I knew this one.

00:23:37And it won't just work in Spanish.

00:23:38It will work with a lot of other languages.

00:23:40And so that's going to be really, really cool.

00:23:42Also, the flashlight, only on the iPhone 15 Pro,

00:23:48you'll be able to control the beam of it and the brightness of it.

00:23:52The interface for it looks awful.

00:23:54Cool feature, but it looks insane to try and manage.

00:23:58I am excited to watch people use that in the movie theater

00:24:02when they're trying to find their seats.

00:24:03That's going to be a really fun time.

00:24:05If they can make a shortcut to just do a movie theater mode, that would rule.

00:24:10The widgets are going to be a little easier to customize,

00:24:12which I think we saw a little bit of that during the event.

00:24:17But it'll be nice.

00:24:18Wes, our Vision Pro lover on staff, is super excited that he can see his keyboard now.

00:24:30If he puts the headset on, he'll be able to see his keyboard.

00:24:32Whereas before, I guess he just typed in Oblivion and hoped he was right.

00:24:36Yeah, that's very much the Vision Pro experience until recently.

00:24:40So less Oblivion.

00:24:41Also, you can use any Bluetooth mouse you want.

00:24:43Yes.

00:24:43Which incredible future update for a $3,500 computer.

00:24:48Now you can use your own inputs on your computer.

00:24:51I mean, as we heard Tim Cook say to Marques this week,

00:24:54he loves the Magic Mouse and it's perfect and nothing has ever been wrong with it.

00:24:58So it's surprising that they would allow this at all, frankly.

00:25:01He didn't.

00:25:01I'm sorry.

00:25:02He didn't.

00:25:02I don't want to be pedantic about this.

00:25:04That was more information about the Magic Mouse than existed in Tim Cook's brain at that time.

00:25:09I encourage everyone to go watch that clip.

00:25:12We posted Marques' tweet of that clip.

00:25:14He was like, rank product launches.

00:25:17And he did a bunch of easy ones.

00:25:18And you see like the devil on Marques' shoulder like the Magic Mouse.

00:25:24And you just, the grin on his face.

00:25:25It's very good.

00:25:26And then Tim Cook, very good.

00:25:28I interview a lot of CEOs.

00:25:30I watch them scramble.

00:25:31And you just, the dust in that man's brain where he was like, what's in this file cabinet?

00:25:37Is it anything?

00:25:38He's like, Magic Mouse.

00:25:40And then, yeah, he came up with ergonomics.

00:25:42He's like, what's a word I can say about mouse?

00:25:44Yeah.

00:25:44It wasn't, we love the Magic Mouse.

00:25:47That's true.

00:25:47It was ergonomics.

00:25:49Are they good?

00:25:49Are they bad?

00:25:50They're ergonomics.

00:25:50He's like, it doesn't stab you when you hold it.

00:25:52That's the Apple design.

00:25:56Low bar.

00:25:57Low bar.

00:25:57They sat there.

00:25:59There's also going to be some new wallpapers that are like very retro looking and look

00:26:03kind of cool.

00:26:03I personally love the one that's the green and gray.

00:26:06Of course you do.

00:26:07Yeah.

00:26:07I was like, bring me back to that 80s monitor experience.

00:26:10We know.

00:26:11You know, you know.

00:26:12After last week, everyone else knows too.

00:26:14I just, sometimes there's like listeners who might've skipped an episode.

00:26:17Why?

00:26:17But I want them to know as well.

00:26:20But they're like animated.

00:26:21They look really sick.

00:26:22So you got to, we did a whole story kind of chronicling a lot of these things.

00:26:27And there's a video in there and it just looks, it looks dope.

00:26:29Yeah.

00:26:30Like it.

00:26:30The Susan Kerr wallpaper.

00:26:32She was an original Mac designer.

00:26:33They have a lot of her iconography.

00:26:35It's very cool.

00:26:36It's very, very cool.

00:26:37And then now when somebody leaves you a voicemail, it'll like just transcribe it.

00:26:43So it looks almost like a text in your phone.

00:26:45So that'll be really cool if the transcription actually works, because if it's anything like

00:26:51the Google transcription, it does not understand my mall.

00:26:56Interesting.

00:26:58It also, my best friend who says mayor, mayor, the same way that the horse and the office,

00:27:09those came up the same way as Siri.

00:27:11She was telling me yesterday.

00:27:13Cannot comprehend that.

00:27:14Wait, she often talks about mayors and horses.

00:27:17She often talks about the mayor.

00:27:19The problem is that they're confused.

00:27:21Yeah.

00:27:21And so it's always like, yeah, there's a lot of mayors in your area.

00:27:24And she's like, cool.

00:27:27Okay.

00:27:27So just to confirm, you have a friend who calls you and leaves you voicemails about the number

00:27:33of horses in your area, in her area.

00:27:36And the problem that we have identified is that Siri thinks that she's talking about

00:27:41local elected officials.

00:27:43Yeah.

00:27:43It's just checking that.

00:27:44I understand.

00:27:45Like I said, if you're listening, that's right up there with magic mouse.

00:27:50Like, let's fix it.

00:27:50Well, it does struggles with like, she was telling me she's got a really strong Texas

00:27:55accent and it like, like Siri does not comprehend.

00:27:59Yeah, that makes sense.

00:27:59But then she's got, she speaks Spanish and she has like a lovely Mexican accent in Spanish

00:28:04and it understands it perfectly.

00:28:06So a lot of times she's just like, I'm just going to talk to Siri in Spanish because otherwise

00:28:11it's going to be like, let's talk about elected officials.

00:28:13I don't know how to say female horse in Spanish, but if I did rest assured, I'd be doing it

00:28:16right now.

00:28:17Same.

00:28:17I don't know either.

00:28:19And I'm going to try to keep it that way for as long as possible.

00:28:23Don't, don't tell me.

00:28:24My friend will tell me and I don't care.

00:28:30But there's also, there, there's going to be, there's more options for charging too.

00:28:34So I guess you're going to be able to like change how you want your phone to charge.

00:28:38Oh, right.

00:28:38Like limits, like to save the battery.

00:28:41Which is nice because we've been able to do that on computers.

00:28:45A lot of Android features here.

00:28:47Yes.

00:28:47Or, yeah, like everybody, thanks Apple.

00:28:50I appreciate you bringing parody.

00:28:53So there's still a lot more.

00:28:54I know people are really looking into it.

00:28:56And if you see something cool, like tag one of us, um, mainly David.

00:29:00There's just a lot of like useful quality of life stuff.

00:29:06Like the, now, if you, if you paste a link into messages, it'll show you the link preview

00:29:11before it sends the message, which is like, it's one of those things that's like, am I

00:29:15going to send a link that is 90,000 letters long, or is it going to do the nice preview

00:29:20thing?

00:29:20And now, you know, before you send it, there's just, there's just a million of those.

00:29:24And I think that's great.

00:29:25I will say the one I'm most excited about is that you can make the app icons bigger and

00:29:29get rid of the label underneath it.

00:29:31So instead of saying like having the Safari logo and then saying Safari under it, you

00:29:34can have a bigger Safari logo and it doesn't say Safari under it.

00:29:37It looks nice.

00:29:38Unbelievable.

00:29:39This is the stuff.

00:29:40Like, I really, I cannot shake the idea that Apple had a whole two hour long WWDC planned

00:29:47that would have just been all this stuff.

00:29:48And they would have told us about all of it.

00:29:49And it would have been a very normal WWDC.

00:29:51And then at the very end, they were like, we have to do a chat GPT thing and just like

00:29:54blew it all up.

00:29:56I'm sure that's not what happened, but like, we're finding out about much more of what's

00:30:00going on on these platforms than we typically do after the keynotes.

00:30:04And Apple is the last few years, they were doing kind of a thing, right?

00:30:07Where one year it'd be like small updates, like they're nice, but smaller.

00:30:12And then the next year it'd be like, oh, there's some really sick stuff in here.

00:30:15And this year was kind of going to be one of those years where it's like, okay, we had

00:30:18a kind of smaller year last year, really sick stuff this year.

00:30:22And then also Apple intelligence.

00:30:25Yeah.

00:30:25So I think I'm totally in this like theory with you, this conspiracy, David.

00:30:31All of my productivity nerd friends are so excited that you can now see reminders inside

00:30:36of calendar.

00:30:39I'm like, it's so much done.

00:30:40He doesn't even know.

00:30:41The installer audience is freaking out.

00:30:44They literally are.

00:30:46It's very exciting.

00:30:47Well, what's interesting, Jay Peters, Jay Peters from The Verge, who's back from parental

00:30:52leave, congratulations, Jay.

00:30:54He wrote that the AI upgrade cycle is here for Apple.

00:30:56So a lot of this stuff would have never driven an incremental upgrade.

00:31:00You've got an iPhone 13, you can see reminders in calendar, you're not buying an iPhone 16.

00:31:06Except now maybe Apple intelligence is going to make you excited to buy a new phone.

00:31:11And Apple's kind of banking on this.

00:31:13I mean, they need to that like that cycle has gone down, right?

00:31:17Like people just don't upgrade as often anymore unless they're Verge listeners, in which case

00:31:21they're like, who?

00:31:23Yeah, we have eight gigs of RAM.

00:31:25Yeah.

00:31:25Disgusting.

00:31:27Gross.

00:31:28I have more mares than that at home.

00:31:30Which ones?

00:31:32Eric Adams?

00:31:33Who's there?

00:31:34Eric Adams does not have eight gigs of RAM.

00:31:37I don't know exactly what kind of insult that is, but I know it to be true.

00:31:42No, but the idea that these features that are cool, that we're excited about, I think

00:31:48regular people are going to experience and be happy about the theming.

00:31:53Yeah.

00:31:53Get ready for just a wave of just bananas themes and all the phones around you because

00:31:58people are excited about those things.

00:32:01If Apple gated theming to the next generation of phones, one, that would be outrageous.

00:32:04Two, it would not inspire one person to buy a new phone.

00:32:07Yeah.

00:32:08But if they gate, you can talk to Siri naturally to the next generation of phones and it can

00:32:12do all this stuff for you and we can make ads about it and market these new capabilities.

00:32:16That might drive the cycle.

00:32:18So you can see why they sort of like put all the stuff aside.

00:32:21Yeah, because they did it for that.

00:32:22They did it for the watch.

00:32:23The watch is like the new update is not going to work with the Series 4 and the Series 5.

00:32:30So it's just like, I think iPads too are affected.

00:32:33If the iPad doesn't have an M1 in it, it's not going to get a lot of the AI features.

00:32:36Oh, they finally got me.

00:32:38They got you.

00:32:38Or did they?

00:32:40Go get it.

00:32:41It's so good.

00:32:43Zero regrets.

00:32:45Spend all of your money irresponsibly on iPads.

00:32:48I've bought so many speakers this year.

00:32:50I can't be buying iPads too.

00:32:51You kidding me?

00:32:52Your wife's just like, no.

00:32:53No more stuff, please.

00:32:55But yeah, it's very interesting that they're pushing it this way, but they also got me

00:33:00because I'm on an iPhone 14 Pro and I'm like, okay.

00:33:03You're going to do it.

00:33:03Yeah.

00:33:04And I was going to hold out for the folding one.

00:33:06I just, in my heart of hearts, I fully believe it's any day now.

00:33:10And I mean, any year now, not day.

00:33:14But instead, I will get it.

00:33:16Do we think Apple is running out of things to take 30% of?

00:33:19And that's why we're back here.

00:33:21I think the European Union is taking away things it can take 30% from.

00:33:26Fair, which is then it spins back to now we have to keep selling you an iPhone every year.

00:33:31Because Apple has been on this run, for good or for bad, of saying, you know,

00:33:37hold on to your hardware longer.

00:33:38Like, you know the thing Amazon has always said, like, we don't make money when you buy

00:33:41your hardware, we make money when you use it.

00:33:44Apple has always been a hardware company, but has increasingly made money when you use it.

00:33:47And so I think they've always pushed you to make new stuff, or to buy new stuff, rather.

00:33:51But I don't think it has been as existentially important for you to upgrade your iPhone every

00:33:55year, as long as Apple keeps getting 30% of everything you do.

00:33:59But I mean, they were still feeling the pressure on this.

00:34:01This was like something we'd see earnings after earnings after big iPhones.

00:34:05It'd be like, okay, they did it, but not as many people bought it this year.

00:34:08It is fine.

00:34:08Because, you know, I don't know that I think we everybody kind of got used to that.

00:34:12And it was it was the services revenue was coming up to I think we got used to that.

00:34:16I think Tim Cook was always probably looking for, okay, what's that thing that can drive

00:34:21that next step?

00:34:22Well, sure, he invested $10 billion in a car and is now trying to build like home robots.

00:34:27Tim's got a lot of plans.

00:34:28They don't have a lot of plans.

00:34:29Yeah, they don't have like post phone hardware plans.

00:34:32Right?

00:34:32Yeah.

00:34:32Right.

00:34:33But yeah, so that's kind of my point is like, I think it does seem like Apple in a very real

00:34:36way is back to we have to sell you an iPhone as often as possible.

00:34:39And it feels like the move for a bunch of years has been away from that.

00:34:42And now it is like back to that in a real way.

00:34:44Yeah.

00:34:45As someone who loves gadgets, I love that.

00:34:47Maybe there'll be like cool stuff.

00:34:48Do you think that's why Apple made the iPhone 15 Pro scratch so easily, which is why mine

00:34:53is scratched to bits.

00:34:54And now I desperately need a new one in September.

00:34:56If they would just make a phone whose battery consistently landed lasted for a whole day,

00:35:01six months into it.

00:35:02I'd be very happy.

00:35:03Yeah, my 15 Pro is like, I'm done.

00:35:05I'm out.

00:35:06You want screen time controls?

00:35:08What if I don't turn on?

00:35:10That's good.

00:35:11Okay, well, we should take a break.

00:35:12One more thing I want to call out.

00:35:14Something I noticed when they were talking about customizing control center.

00:35:18You see all this?

00:35:20They added one control from one app that I thought was very interesting, which was the

00:35:24FordPass app.

00:35:26And you can lock your doors and start your car, turn on the AC right from control center

00:35:32because FordPass has a thing.

00:35:34And then Jim Farley, CEO of Ford tweeted, we're excited to partner with Apple and blah,

00:35:38blah, blah.

00:35:40I think there's GM walked away from car play towards getting tighter.

00:35:46Are you saying that they're going to make an Apple like making the Apple car?

00:35:53You just did the Brian Windhorst on ESPN.

00:35:56Like, let's see.

00:35:58I don't have it.

00:35:59Do you understand?

00:36:00I don't have it all the way.

00:36:01I'm just I'm suggesting that if somebody does know this information, I'm going to

00:36:08somebody does know this information.

00:36:09They should tell me this information in a way that I can report it.

00:36:12So there's a skunk works team inside of Ford that is building good cars instead of stupid

00:36:17ones.

00:36:17Is this for red?

00:36:18What if that's just Apple?

00:36:19There actually is the skunk works.

00:36:22I know this is what I'm saying.

00:36:23What if all those people are just Apple moles?

00:36:26No, I I'm saying GM walked away from car play and the other giant American automaker is

00:36:32like, what if we integrate more tightly with Apple software?

00:36:36And that is suggestive that they might do something else.

00:36:39And if you are a person who might know what that something else is, they're going to

00:36:43bundle a phone with the car.

00:36:46They're going to buy Verizon, whatever.

00:36:49Look, you know, buy an iPad, get a Mustang.

00:36:52Look, I would do that as a person with a used iPad and a used Mustang.

00:36:59If that's there's a super cycle, you know, if you know what I'm we got to take a break.

00:37:05We got to take a break.

00:37:11We're back.

00:37:13The Verge cast.

00:37:15In case you missed.

00:37:17I don't know what you were doing.

00:37:19I like I just know that there's a button that makes you go from the end of one segment to

00:37:24the beginning of this segment much quicker than we think that happens.

00:37:29Welcome.

00:37:30Sponsored lightning round.

00:37:31All I'm saying is just keep us keep us afloat.

00:37:33We're just going to start integrating ads at completely unpredictable moments of the show.

00:37:37There was one.

00:37:37We got a bunch of tweets from somebody.

00:37:40I think it was two weeks ago in the episode.

00:37:42You guys see this where the way the dynamic ads were happening was such that it we hit a pause.

00:37:48And then you said, we're back.

00:37:50And then the ad started.

00:37:52It was just a perfect like, oh, you thought you knew when the ads were in your face.

00:37:56The ads are now.

00:37:58That's the pop up ad of broadcasting.

00:38:01It was great.

00:38:01I enjoyed it very much.

00:38:02All right.

00:38:02Lots and lots and lots of gadget news this week.

00:38:07Starting with Xbox, I think, but I really want to talk about what's going on with Google

00:38:10and Android and Chrome OS.

00:38:11David, you want to run us through all this?

00:38:12Yeah, let's start with Xbox, because on on Tuesday's episode, I promised we were going

00:38:16to talk about the stupid Xbox.

00:38:18And I got some questions about what the stupid Xbox is.

00:38:21So let's talk about it.

00:38:22Basically, there was a there was an Xbox event earlier this week, got a little bit overshadowed

00:38:27by WWDC, but lots of interesting stuff, new games, all kinds of stuff.

00:38:30But I think for our purposes, the two big gadgets that were talked about were a new

00:38:37white diskless Series X, which looks very nice and is inexplicably not shipping until

00:38:43the holidays.

00:38:44It's just like a thing that is should be sitting there.

00:38:47And for some reason, they're not shipping it for eight months.

00:38:49No internal upgrades.

00:38:50It's just it's just white.

00:38:52Yeah, just give me give me it.

00:38:54Yeah, cool.

00:38:55It's so weird.

00:38:57Anyway, but I think the way more interesting thing is Phil Spencer, who runs Xbox at Microsoft

00:39:03has been, I would say, like, aggressively and loudly hinting that Microsoft is going

00:39:08to build a handheld gaming device for a long time, and then just said out loud in an interview,

00:39:13I believe, with IGN, quote, I think we should have a handheld too.

00:39:18So like, there it is.

00:39:20Basically, like this is this is a time we're doing software, we're talking about games.

00:39:24They also talked about bringing more games to other platforms, which made a lot of Xbox

00:39:28people mad in the way that it did before.

00:39:30But he's just they're just making a handheld like it's just coming.

00:39:34I think the big difference here is we've heard these rumors about a handheld from them for

00:39:38ages, right?

00:39:39Like when they were really pushing cloud gaming right after the Xbox Series X was launched.

00:39:45Everybody's like, OK, yeah, they're going to do like a cool cloud console.

00:39:48And then that didn't happen because the cloud gaming stuff just didn't kind of take off

00:39:53as they wanted.

00:39:53Right.

00:39:54There was that there was also the streaming box and it got killed.

00:39:56And so all this stuff got killed a couple of years ago.

00:39:59And it's like, OK, you're going to make a handheld now.

00:40:01Cool.

00:40:01You've been saying that for like half a decade at this point.

00:40:05But the difference now is it sounds like it's going to run Windows.

00:40:09And that dream as someone who uses these little consoles, that's awesome because the current

00:40:15version of like Windows on one of these little game consoles sucks now.

00:40:19What makes us confident that Microsoft can overcome the nature of running Windows on

00:40:24a handheld?

00:40:25Nothing.

00:40:25Have you heard about our Lord and Savior ARM processors?

00:40:29Yeah.

00:40:29I mean, it is like it is the ARM processor.

00:40:31And we think that games, well, I guess you can run them down, right?

00:40:34You're not trying to run them at full quality.

00:40:36Yeah.

00:40:36Like the Steam Deck automatically resists this stuff down.

00:40:39Right.

00:40:40And so the idea here is that it would do this.

00:40:42We've also we were hearing rumors about like NVIDIA getting back into the ARM stuff.

00:40:46They used to do the Tegra, which notably powers the switch.

00:40:50There's also MediaTek.

00:40:52You know, everybody knows MediaTek.

00:40:54There's a MediaTek processor within 50 yards of you right now.

00:40:57Yeah, probably within like 50 inches.

00:40:59Is that a threat?

00:41:01Everywhere you are, there's a MediaTek processor.

00:41:05That TV right there, guarantee you there's a MediaTek processor.

00:41:07100%.

00:41:08You guys can't see it, but there's a TV there and it definitely has MediaTek in it.

00:41:11But MediaTek is also like going to be doing the processor stuff and doing ARM processors.

00:41:16And there's even rumors that MediaTek.

00:41:18Just to be clear, they already are because they're everywhere.

00:41:21They want to make good ones.

00:41:24Thank you.

00:41:24That is an important clarification.

00:41:27They already make ARM processors.

00:41:28Now they want to make the ones that don't suck.

00:41:30And there's rumors that they might be partnering with NVIDIA.

00:41:34There's something happening there.

00:41:34So like the potential for it.

00:41:37The MediaTek NVIDIA combo is like, oh boy, that dude probably has a lot of money.

00:41:44Right.

00:41:44Like that's not a.

00:41:46Yeah, that is NVIDIA being.

00:41:47It's the Rock and Kevin Hart.

00:41:48Is that what you're saying?

00:41:50Right.

00:41:51There's a movie called She's Out of My League.

00:41:57Yeah, this is accurate.

00:41:58This is accurate.

00:41:58But I think that's kind of all is what's driving some of this hype for a new Xbox handheld console

00:42:07is there's a lot of potential that could change, but they also have to make Windows not suck

00:42:12visually.

00:42:14Like I don't I don't care about how it runs.

00:42:16It needs to not suck.

00:42:16Like just run run the Xbox app like done.

00:42:21It's just sitting there like all that software is just sitting there.

00:42:24That's true.

00:42:24Microsoft could do it and it just hasn't for some reason.

00:42:27Well, I mean, theoretically, the Xbox itself is running a version of Windows, right?

00:42:32Remember that?

00:42:32Right.

00:42:33Yeah, yeah, it does.

00:42:34And they just cut it down to run one app.

00:42:37Well, right.

00:42:38Yeah, they could do that again.

00:42:40And then all of these other consoles, which suck so much with full Windows on them, could

00:42:45suck less.

00:42:46That's what I really want.

00:42:47I'm if you can tell there's stuff already out there that's really sick.

00:42:52And the software is garbage.

00:42:54So that's the thing, right?

00:42:55And I think to me, the reason this is very exciting is that we really haven't had Sony

00:43:01or Microsoft make a really, truly like first class competitive handheld.

00:43:09Yeah, I'm sorry.

00:43:12And the Vita.

00:43:13I mean, come on.

00:43:14The PSP was incredible.

00:43:17It was.

00:43:17I don't doubt it.

00:43:18I know that fans are out there years ago.

00:43:23You like a lot of movies on your PSP?

00:43:25No, no, no, no.

00:43:26But it had a Sony disc format, like a custom.

00:43:28Yeah, yes.

00:43:30Those are the days.

00:43:31It's right up there with Megabase.

00:43:34By the way, shout out to all the people wandering through Best Buy, sending me photos of ULT

00:43:39speakers.

00:43:40There's a Sony marketing person who's like, this is off the charts, and that's because

00:43:44of us.

00:43:45The chart was flatline below.

00:43:46Just to be clear, the chart is five, but we're doing it.

00:43:50We're making a difference.

00:43:53We're just like, that's so weird.

00:43:55Nobody ever presses the button yesterday.

00:43:56Six people press the button.

00:43:58What's happening?

00:43:59But yeah, that was all the Xbox stuff.

00:44:04My guess would be, I just feel like if you're Phil Spencer, you don't say that if there's

00:44:10not something happening.

00:44:11Yeah, he is a considered man.

00:44:13Yeah, and he's been sort of sneaky about this.

00:44:16He's liked tweets and has sort of intimated that this is a thing that he thinks is interesting.

00:44:21But I think you look at the continued success of the Steam Deck, the fact that Nintendo

00:44:26has a Switch 2 coming that everybody's very excited about.

00:44:31This idea is not going away.

00:44:33I think handheld gaming is going to be the next big thing for a very long time, and it

00:44:38seems very clear that Microsoft also believes that.

00:44:41But they will also happily ship you a white version of the same thing they already have

00:44:45seven months from now, if that's what you'd rather have.

00:44:47Congratulations.

00:44:48Microsoft, Phil, has been very direct, being like, we did not do well in this generation

00:44:53of the console wars.

00:44:54This is why we had to go buy Activision and figure out a way to compete.

00:45:00We just did an episode of Decoder with Ash Parish about the game market, and she was

00:45:03like, desktop PC gaming is going down.

00:45:05And then a million people wrote us an email to point out that it's going up if you count

00:45:11the Steam Deck.

00:45:13Right?

00:45:14That's where the growth is in that part of the market.

00:45:17So if you're Phil and you're like, OK, we're not going to magically start a new console

00:45:21generation tomorrow and win against Sony and its various advantages, we are looking

00:45:27at Nintendo going to launch a Switch 2.

00:45:30I really hope they call it the Super Nintendo Switch, by the way.

00:45:33It'd be great.

00:45:33That will be a dominant moment.

00:45:34Where are we going?

00:45:35Where's the action?

00:45:36The action is mobile.

00:45:37Good.

00:45:37We bought Candy Crush.

00:45:39Settled.

00:45:39Yep.

00:45:40Well, and then the action is in these handhelds where we're getting growth against PCs,

00:45:44gaming PCs, or I think we can maybe get some action there.

00:45:47And also, a lot of the Switch's success has been on the backs of indie developers, right?

00:45:52And Microsoft actually has a pretty good relationship with indie developers.

00:45:56They put a lot of these games out on the Xbox in general.

00:45:59And people are like, I would like to play that on a handheld.

00:46:02And maybe not the Switch.

00:46:04And that would be like, oh, I can play big AAA Xbox games that aren't exclusive because

00:46:09Xbox apparently doesn't make exclusive games anymore.

00:46:12And you can play like Hades 2.

00:46:14That would be sick.

00:46:16Well, I think the exclusive game strategy just didn't sell off Xboxes.

00:46:19Yeah.

00:46:19It's like the other way around.

00:46:21They're like, all right, fine.

00:46:22Just play our games on your PS5.

00:46:23Yeah.

00:46:25Buy some stuff in this game.

00:46:26We'll be happy.

00:46:26Yeah, because all the ones that they want to make exclusive, the FTC will be like, I'm

00:46:30sorry, what?

00:46:30Yeah, now they got other problems.

00:46:32Yeah.

00:46:32Anyway, the idea that they made a white one and they just won't sell it is like, this

00:46:37is your big holiday marketing push?

00:46:39You're going to build demand for the white one?

00:46:40Kills me.

00:46:42Kills me.

00:46:42Anyway, the next one I want to talk about while we're just rolling through gadgets here

00:46:47is Jabra, which put me on a real emotional roller coaster this week.

00:46:51It launched a pair of headphones, two pairs of headphones, the Elite 10 and Elite 8 Active,

00:46:56new versions of it with a very cool feature that I was very excited to talk about on this

00:46:59show and then promptly announced that they're not making headphones anymore.

00:47:03Within a couple of hours, they were like, here's this dope new thing that we made.

00:47:06Never mind.

00:47:06We're out.

00:47:07Goodbye.

00:47:08Well, they're still making it.

00:47:09It's still going to come, but that's it.

00:47:11Right.

00:47:12They're closing the door behind them.

00:47:14We'll support these for the next few years.

00:47:15And on the one hand, I'm like, OK, do I need ongoing software support from my Bluetooth

00:47:20headphone manufacturer?

00:47:21Not really.

00:47:22But on the other hand, the last death knells of a company's headphone lineup seem like

00:47:29a silly thing to recommend to people.

00:47:30What's the cool feature?

00:47:31So the cool feature is these are wireless earbuds and they come in a case and you can

00:47:36plug in the case to an audio source.

00:47:39You can with a head.

00:47:41You can plug it into a headphone.

00:47:42So they're a Bluetooth transmitter.

00:47:43Yeah, they're a Bluetooth transmitter.

00:47:45And so they'll they'll turn any wired thing into a Bluetooth thing that then streams

00:47:49directly to your earbuds.

00:47:51This would have been great.

00:47:52Unbelievable.

00:47:53Like years ago when planes still had.

00:47:56No, they do not.

00:47:58Well, you're a fancy dude.

00:48:00I was on a United flight yesterday, and not only did they have a screen that the screens

00:48:05had Bluetooth and you could pair your AirPods to the screen.

00:48:09But if you had ever done it before on a United flight, the first thing you had to do was

00:48:13go in and forget it and go repair it.

00:48:17So this poor flight attendant had to give us like a four minute speech about how to

00:48:21connect your AirPods to the screen in front of you.

00:48:24But it's a thing you could do it.

00:48:25It was the first time I'd ever encountered that.

00:48:26And it was very exciting.

00:48:27Well, now I'm just disappointed in Alaska and American that United is a trash airline

00:48:33with one good plane was, I would say, my experience so far.

00:48:36You were just on the one plane.

00:48:37I was on the one good plane.

00:48:39Wait, can I issue a very, very small complaint about Delta?

00:48:43Yes.

00:48:43And actually, in general, a thing that I think should be legal because I flew home on Delta.

00:48:47Yeah, they had Infinity War, but not Endgame.

00:48:50And because you get on the plane, you're like, I got to kill five hours.

00:48:53And that's sitting right there for you.

00:48:55You're not in and out.

00:48:56Yeah, I was telling Alex I'd won too many drinks in the plane home.

00:48:59You know, it's one of those fights that started afternoon, but ended late in the evening.

00:49:03Oh, yeah.

00:49:03And you're just like, I'm just gonna ride this way.

00:49:05You just go.

00:49:06You have to have both.

00:49:07I think Lena Con should get involved.

00:49:09You have to have both.

00:49:10Yeah.

00:49:10That is consumer protection right there.

00:49:14Even though I've seen both of these movies.

00:49:15I was like, do you know what happens?

00:49:18I believe, you know, the Avengers do a good job.

00:49:25Eli recaps.

00:49:28New segment.

00:49:28The first one, they don't do a good job.

00:49:32And in the second one, they do a good job.

00:49:38That was a really good spoiler free recap.

00:49:42I appreciate it.

00:49:42Well, I did spoil the first one.

00:49:43But if you haven't seen the first one, here's what you do.

00:49:45You get on Delta because that's all they got.

00:49:50I'm actually I was talking to Chris Welch about this story yesterday.

00:49:53And Liz Lopata was there and she was like, I believe that taking the headphone jack

00:49:57away from phones led to the proliferation of people just listening to stuff out loud

00:50:02on their phones.

00:50:04It's such a Liz Lopata take.

00:50:06Yes, it is.

00:50:07No, but she's she's correct.

00:50:08Because the path train, people are like, no, you're like, whatever.

00:50:11My headphones are dead.

00:50:12I don't want to dink around with these.

00:50:13I'm just listening.

00:50:14Yeah, you're going to enjoy whatever I'm enjoying and suck it if you don't.

00:50:18All right.

00:50:18New idea for a phone.

00:50:20No speakers, just headphone jacks.

00:50:22Yes.

00:50:23Yeah.

00:50:23There's your courage, Apple.

00:50:24Don't get rid of the headphone jack.

00:50:27Get rid of the speakers.

00:50:28Yeah.

00:50:29Give me a power button and no speakers on my phone.

00:50:31Done.

00:50:32Let's do this.

00:50:33I'm ready.

00:50:33It's the opposite.

00:50:35It's like the Schiller nightmare.

00:50:36He's like wakes up in a cold sweat.

00:50:38He's like, what's happening?

00:50:41Speaking of weird phones, the light phone, people love talking about this phone.

00:50:46They do not love buying it.

00:50:49From what I understand, they love looking at it and talking about it.

00:50:53David, you saw it.

00:50:54The Light Phone 3.

00:50:55I haven't seen it.

00:50:55I've seen it over Zoom, but I talked to Kai Tang, the co-founder of the company,

00:51:01and I've talked to him a bunch over the years.

00:51:04The weird thing about the Light Phone 2 was that it was never a huge hit,

00:51:10but also, according to him, it has sold more units every year it has been around.

00:51:14This thing is five years old, and it sold more this past year than it did in its first year,

00:51:19which I think is fascinating and is not something you normally see from a phone.

00:51:23They're in this position now of the sort of intellectual idea that I would like to

00:51:29change my relationship with my smartphone, I think, is bigger than ever.

00:51:33We are also more invested in our smartphones than ever.

00:51:37What they tried to do was basically figure out, okay, how do we

00:51:40get away from the idea that what you need is a phone that doesn't do anything at all

00:51:45and give you a phone that just does the right things and not the wrong things?

00:51:49Actually, that is the dream of the sort of minimalist smartphone and has been forever.

00:51:54There are a lot of people who say, oh, why do you need any of this stuff?

00:51:59Just have more discipline and be more responsible on your phone, to which I say,

00:52:03that's a stupid argument.

00:52:06It's true, but it's also like if just discipline was the answer to all of our problems,

00:52:11the world would be a really different place.

00:52:13And what it actually is, is like the one good thing about The Social Dilemma,

00:52:19which is an otherwise, I think, disaster of a documentary,

00:52:23was that it framed the ideas like you against thousands of engineers trying to destroy you.

00:52:28And I think that is like a pretty correct way to think about your smartphone.

00:52:31And so Light Phone's idea is like, how do we just reset that balance, right?

00:52:35So they've, they added a camera, but gave that camera much less to do.

00:52:39They added NFC, but they're only going to do payments with it.

00:52:42They have a better screen,

00:52:45but it's because apparently people were having trouble with e-ink.

00:52:48Like one of the things Kai said to me was that the single biggest issue

00:52:52people had with the phone, that like 50% of the reason people returned it or stopped using it,

00:52:57was because of the refresh rate of e-ink, which I thought was really interesting.

00:53:00There's just something about it that just didn't work for people.

00:53:03So instead, they switched to a matte OLED, which should refresh much faster,

00:53:06should be much easier to type on, should look a lot better,

00:53:09but should have some of those same kind of monochrome, not quite so blaring properties.

00:53:15And battery like support, right?

00:53:18We'll see about battery. The Light Phone 2 lasted forever.

00:53:21This thing is, it's substantially bigger, so it definitely has more battery,

00:53:26but it does run that screen, but it's not doing all that much with it most of the time.

00:53:31And since it's OLED, it should only have to power some of the pixels and not the others.

00:53:34So I have reasonably high hopes for this thing.

00:53:37But at least according to the traffic to our website,

00:53:40people are very interested in this thing.

00:53:42It looks like I don't need it and I want it. I will never use it.

00:53:47I know that, but I'm still like, oh, this.

00:53:49So I would love to get to a place where I could just

00:53:53take a phone out of the house, depending on my mood.

00:53:57Like sunglasses.

00:53:59Yeah.

00:53:59And it would just like have my phone number and take my messages.

00:54:02And like, I don't think any of the carriers or smartphone operating system vendors

00:54:07or smartphone makers want that to happen.

00:54:10And it's funny because if it did happen, I would buy like six phones.

00:54:13So the reason it's the carriers, I have been like meaning to write a piece

00:54:18and I need to just sit down and write it,

00:54:19that the reason dumb phones won't work is because Verizon won't let them.

00:54:24I've had this moment recently, actually, where I got the new iPad Pro

00:54:29and just turned it on, logged into my iCloud account.

00:54:32And all of a sudden I had LTE on it.

00:54:34And it was like the most magical experience.

00:54:37And it was, it was my data.

00:54:38It's connected to my account that it was just like, it was like,

00:54:41oh, because all this eSIM stuff works,

00:54:44I just have all of my stuff on this new device and it is connected through my account.

00:54:50And it's like, oh, that's how all of this should work.

00:54:52And it just super doesn't.

00:54:54And even you go to a place like Europe,

00:54:55where like physical SIM cards are much more important

00:54:57and you can just pop your SIM out and pop it into another thing.

00:54:59And that kind of works.

00:55:00It's just not how it works in the US.

00:55:02And it sucks.

00:55:04And so as a result, I think what Lite is trying to do

00:55:08is buy a phone that actually becomes your primary device.

00:55:12Like I think the Lite phone plus laptop or Lite phone plus iPad

00:55:17is very much the thing that they're going for.

00:55:19They want you to have this sort of simple,

00:55:21minimal thing that goes in your pocket,

00:55:23that has like music and podcasts and directions.

00:55:26And that's about it.

00:55:27And then if you want to do more stuff, you sit down at something else.

00:55:30And I think in a certain way,

00:55:31that's actually like a much healthier way to use technology

00:55:34and to think about all of that.

00:55:35But it's probably, I mean, it's not probably,

00:55:38it is definitely still not realistic for most people.

00:55:40Did they show you like the photo app?

00:55:44That's I just want to know, is it showing photos in color or monochrome?

00:55:47I don't know.

00:55:48That's a really good question.

00:55:49I would assume it's showing them in monochrome.

00:55:52Yeah.

00:55:53Because what, and he said this very pointedly,

00:55:56that they don't want you spending a lot of time

00:55:59on your device, looking at your photos.

00:56:01Apparently the thing that they heard,

00:56:02one of the biggest reasons they put the camera on

00:56:03was to have a QR code scanner.

00:56:06And most people like to take pictures of receipts.

00:56:07And it's just like the little sort of tools-y things

00:56:10you need to do with the camera,

00:56:11rather than I want a thing to take lots of beautiful photos.

00:56:14They're like, their idea is again,

00:56:16like you should not be looking at your screen very often.

00:56:18And even when you're looking at something through it,

00:56:20you're still looking at it, right?

00:56:23And so, yeah, the way he described it is like,

00:56:25it's about documenting, not about like fiddling.

00:56:29And so my, I, again, I haven't seen it.

00:56:31This thing's not shipping until next year,

00:56:32which is a real bummer.

00:56:34But yeah, exactly.

00:56:37But I think the idea definitely seems to be like,

00:56:40get in and get out as quickly as possible.

00:56:44I'm utterly fascinated by this,

00:56:45but I just am laughing at the idea that

00:56:48the good computing outcome is you have

00:56:50a pretty useless phone and then an iPad.

00:56:53And at some point you're just like,

00:56:54none of this shit can do anything.

00:56:58I mean, iPad is probably the wrong idea.

00:56:59I gotta sit down with this iPad and not do a whole lot.

00:57:05Not looking at Instagram on that.

00:57:09It's very good.

00:57:10But the idea that you like pick up a phone to like,

00:57:12push a button that's like, this is my phone right now.

00:57:14Take my calls, send my messages.

00:57:16You should be able to get there.

00:57:18Yes.

00:57:19But you can switch between laptops more easily

00:57:22than you can switch between phones.

00:57:23And some of it's carriers because of phone numbers

00:57:26and where you're going to route calls.

00:57:27And some of it is RCS and iMessages

00:57:29and all that sort of thing.

00:57:30I mean, even switching WhatsApp devices is a pain.

00:57:33It's gotten better, but it's still tough.

00:57:36Yeah.

00:57:37But that is like ultimately the dream.

00:57:39And I don't know, maybe Apple needs to make the cut down phone

00:57:43or just make it easier to put an iPhone

00:57:45into a mode like this.

00:57:46Apple will never do that unless they can figure out the apps.

00:57:4930%.

00:57:50Just 30%.

00:57:51Just like Tim.

00:57:51For $20 a month, we'll give you a chill phone inside of your phone.

00:57:56You know, given the interest in the light phone.

00:57:59Yeah.

00:58:00It's real.

00:58:00It might work.

00:58:02So, all right.

00:58:02Yeah.

00:58:03We should keep going.

00:58:03Alex, the next thing on my list is literally,

00:58:05I should have just put these two links

00:58:08as just ask Kranz, is any of this anything?

00:58:12Two different chip stories.

00:58:14One is basically MediaTek, the flower of the verge.

00:58:20Our favorite chip company is claiming it's out here

00:58:25doing Qualcomm level things.

00:58:27And everybody is out here basically being like,

00:58:29we now have fast chips too.

00:58:32And then there was this company, Flow Computing,

00:58:34that just published a white paper being like,

00:58:36we haven't made any of these chips,

00:58:38but we know how to make chips that are 100 times faster.

00:58:41Yeah.

00:58:42The Flow thing is interesting in that they're basically saying,

00:58:46we want to compete with Arm and you buy our engineering

00:58:51that we have never actually proven.

00:58:54And then you go and you engineer and do cool stuff.

00:58:56Yeah.

00:58:56That's my idea too.

00:58:59Look, if you want to make a chip that's 100 times faster,

00:59:01you just come talk to me and then you do the work.

00:59:04Yep.

00:59:05But Neal is going to be like, yeah, that looks good.

00:59:08Yeah.

00:59:10Good job.

00:59:11I have an idea for a building.

00:59:12If you bring your architect to me,

00:59:14I will describe that building to them in extraordinary detail.

00:59:17Well, it's kind of like they are the architects

00:59:19and now they're looking for someone to go build the building.

00:59:21No, that's normal.

00:59:23That's much more normal than I think what this is.

00:59:25Yeah.

00:59:26Yeah.

00:59:26I guess it is in a weird spot, huh?

00:59:27Yeah.

00:59:28I don't know what the comparison is.

00:59:29It's one level away from like, we've done it.

00:59:31Yeah.

00:59:31And more like, we have an idea for how to do it.

00:59:34Yeah.

00:59:35We know the architect firm we want to hire.

00:59:39And it's you.

00:59:40And it's you.

00:59:40And then also, can you find someone to build this?

00:59:43So yeah, that one is very interesting.

00:59:46Their claims are really, really big.

00:59:48I know a lot of people are talking about it right now

00:59:50and trying to figure out if it is anything.

00:59:52And I think it's a little bit of the verdict is still out there.

00:59:55But the idea here is that they have a new thing.

00:59:58Yeah.

00:59:58Parallel processing unit that it can be inside or outside the chip.

01:00:04And you can run parallel workloads through that much faster.

01:00:08Right.

01:00:09Than any other chip that exists today.

01:00:11Right.

01:00:11This is the core of the claim.

01:00:13Yes.

01:00:14But it's also weird because parallel processing is having kind of a moment right now.

01:00:19Or like, people are rethinking it.

01:00:21So there's just, I want to say verdict is still a little out on this.

01:00:28Just because most of like, I know enough to be like.

01:00:33Yeah, I'm going to stay in that headspace until proven otherwise.

01:00:36Yeah.

01:00:37But I think the media tech thing potentially exciting.

01:00:41There's no reason everyone couldn't start making good arm chips.

01:00:45If this is the thing that's out there.

01:00:47More power to look.

01:00:48Anytime somebody is saying, hey, let's compete.

01:00:50That's always good, right?

01:00:51Even though it's media tech and they are not known for their super powerful processors.

01:00:57This is it's going to be kind of cool because they're saying that they'll be as fast.

01:01:02They'll be capable of doing copilot PCs.

01:01:04And that means that they have to do their MPU has to do at least 40 tops.

01:01:09And while we still don't fully understand what tops means in this context.

01:01:14That is still like 40 is the number Microsoft gave everybody.

01:01:18And so if media tech can get there when like even Apple, the M4, they were claiming 38.

01:01:23So if media tech can do that.

01:01:28Cool, great.

01:01:29Will companies put this in?

01:01:31We'll see.

01:01:32What are your thoughts on tops in this context?

01:01:34Wow, you guys.

01:01:35I know what you can do with 13 times.

01:01:42I've been given an answer.

01:01:44You go to Fire Island.

01:01:55Well, there's the title of the episode today.

01:01:58No, no, I do.

01:01:58I actually have a real non.

01:02:01Yeah, what is family friendly answer?

01:02:05What is 13 trillions operations per second?

01:02:08So we had we had someone wrote to us.

01:02:13Not about the other interpretation of what you can do with an incremental.

01:02:16We should say lots of people wrote to us about the other interpretation.

01:02:18Yeah, lots of people made jokes about one thing.

01:02:23Although I will say that no, regardless of context,

01:02:25no one has said what you can do going from 35 to 38.

01:02:28Just saying that's fair.

01:02:30Hasn't been proven out yet.

01:02:31But hey, the Raspberry Pi has 13 trillion operations per set.

01:02:36We're like, why?

01:02:37So we got an email from Scott.

01:02:40And he's like, look, there are lots of IOT applications

01:02:43where you have a sensor and then you have something like a camera.

01:02:46And you want to know what happens.

01:02:48So the sensor detects motion in a parking lot.

01:02:50And you're like, is that the right car?

01:02:52And you can take a picture of the camera.

01:02:54So the sensor fires the camera.

01:02:55And then you got to send a bunch of data somewhere to do image recognition.

01:02:59And if you can bring it down to the edge,

01:03:01you're only sending bytes of data instead of megabytes of data.

01:03:04OK, that's that's a good one.

01:03:06That's a good one.

01:03:07That's extremely good.

01:03:08Yeah, good.

01:03:09I'll take it.

01:03:09We go.

01:03:10Yeah, I think the idea that there is some sort of like race to put all of like,

01:03:18that's great.

01:03:19That's a great workload.

01:03:20I like I like it.

01:03:21Yeah, you can see how people can do all this stuff in all kinds of places.

01:03:26But Microsoft is like, this is how many you need.

01:03:29Yeah, they haven't.

01:03:30They have not done even that example.

01:03:33We can detect a car like that's the that's fundamentally the example.

01:03:38We this computer can now recognize a car in a parking lot.

01:03:41Microsoft has not come up with one of those things on a Windows PC for consumers that

01:03:45matters yet.

01:03:46I can recognize a car in a parking lot, too.

01:03:48So many people can recognize a car in a parking lot.

01:03:51Yeah, a lot of them.

01:03:52It's true.

01:03:54But Microsoft is just out there being like,

01:03:56you need this many because it's going to unlock what exactly the future down the line.

01:04:02Don't not right now.

01:04:03Just the future.

01:04:07Last thing we should talk about before we take a break is this bit of Google news that

01:04:13is either a small piece of news that ultimately doesn't matter that much or the like little

01:04:20tiny butterfly flap of something sort of enormous.

01:04:25And basically, the news is Google announced that it's going to be putting a lot more of

01:04:29the underlying Android stack inside of Chrome OS.

01:04:33So essentially, slowly but surely, they're going to build Chrome OS to resemble Android

01:04:40in such a way that they can build stuff faster that will work on both platforms.

01:04:44I find this fascinating because there are lots of rumors that say essentially, well,

01:04:49I mean, there have been rumors for Jesus like a decade saying that Google is going to merge

01:04:54Chrome OS and Android is not what was that fuchsia?

01:04:57I can't remember all the codenames.

01:04:58Okay, so there's fuchsia, which was, I think, even showed up on like a random

01:05:02nest device or something, and then that got killed.

01:05:05But these things have been separate projects that should never have been separate projects.

01:05:08And then there have been rumors that there's going to be some combination of them that

01:05:12gives you like a desktop mode on your Android phone that essentially looks like Chrome OS.

01:05:17And it's just all these little pieces are coming together that is like, maybe we're

01:05:21actually going to get this cross device single thing combination that we should

01:05:25have had a really long time ago.

01:05:27Boy, do I disagree with you?

01:05:29Really?

01:05:29Tell me.

01:05:29Yeah.

01:05:30Fight.

01:05:31Well, I mean, it all just comes down to like how complicated you want a Chromebook to be

01:05:35in the end.

01:05:36Right.

01:05:37So like an Android phone is a lot, right?

01:05:40It has like a full app model.

01:05:42It has a bunch of capabilities.

01:05:44It is just a it has interface metaphors galore, right?

01:05:49It's more of a computer, actually, in a Chromebook, which initially was Linux running Chrome.

01:05:56And the whole model was like, all you need is a browser.

01:06:00Then I think they realized, and I think that's great.

01:06:03I think for a lot of people, that is actually what you need.

01:06:05But then you got to add things like windowing and background apps and blah, blah, blah, blah,

01:06:09blah.

01:06:09And you end up being like, ah, shit, we made a computer.

01:06:12Now this thing is just Windows with the app model instead of Win32 is Chrome.

01:06:17And then you're like, ah, but we have this other thing.

01:06:18We should let it run Android apps.

01:06:20Oh, we need to put Google now in here because that's what we decided to announce.

01:06:24Like, whatever.

01:06:24And you just like end up junking up Chrome OS.

01:06:28And so then you come to this like final place where like, it's just an Android laptop.

01:06:33Yeah.

01:06:34Okay.

01:06:34Like, fine.

01:06:36But you're just I think you're just so far afield of the initial vision for that product.

01:06:42But the initial vision for that product.

01:06:45Was kind of bad in that not like the just this is a browser go forth.

01:06:50I think that was a great vision.

01:06:52Execution was bad because it was always like, oh, the idea was that it's only the browser.

01:06:59Therefore, it's super cheap.

01:07:01But that cheapness also meant your monitor was garbage.

01:07:05Your keyboard was garbage.

01:07:06Everything was garbage.

01:07:07And so people kept saying, well, I want a more power.

01:07:09Like, I don't want it to be garbage.

01:07:11I would like a pretty display.

01:07:13And they're like, okay, well, that's going to cost you more money.

01:07:14And so it just kind of creeped up.

01:07:16Right.

01:07:16And then you go, oh, what?

01:07:17But it's only a browser.

01:07:18Why would I pay all that money?

01:07:19And then it was it was always this this fight back and forth.

01:07:23And so it was I think for a long time, it's been like, well, just just make it Android,

01:07:27guys.

01:07:27Come on.

01:07:28Like, stop.

01:07:28Stop messing around.

01:07:30You're not you're not doing this other thing.

01:07:31That was a really cool idea that doesn't actually exist in a world where you have different

01:07:38partners who want money for the things they provide you to put into that computer.

01:07:42Yeah.

01:07:43Yeah.

01:07:44I mean, look, as one of the few people in the world who's ever bought a thousand dollar

01:07:47Chromebook Pixel, it worked really well when you threw windows like high end windows horsepower

01:07:54at it.

01:07:54Yeah.

01:07:55Like that Chromebook Pixel, I believe, an i5.

01:07:57Yeah.

01:07:58Like 16 gigs.

01:08:00It was a beast.

01:08:01It was it was great for its time.

01:08:03It's still going.

01:08:03My mom still uses it.

01:08:05But no one's going to spend that much money because then you think you need a whole computer.

01:08:08But I would challenge you.

01:08:10I'm looking at my Mac right now.

01:08:11It's running Chrome and then like mostly Electron.

01:08:14Oh, my God.

01:08:16You're just that's just screenshots.

01:08:17You can make them go away.

01:08:19Oh, my God.

01:08:19That was it's really upsetting.

01:08:21Oh, let's be OK.

01:08:22It was just an open stack of screenshots.

01:08:25But like the only native app really in my dock is Lightroom.

01:08:28And like most people are not running Lightroom.

01:08:31And just look at that.

01:08:31Like, oh, this is just a bunch of electron apps.

01:08:35Fine.

01:08:35But I don't think Google I mean, Google, like, what else do I have to say?

01:08:39Like, they never ran the idea to completion and used the ecosystem.

01:08:42So now they're shuffling up all those teams.

01:08:45Right.

01:08:46Dave Burke, who ran Android for a long time, is gone.

01:08:49That's today.

01:08:50That news broke today.

01:08:51Hiroshi, who was in charge of the whole thing, left.

01:08:55Right.

01:08:55He's he's off finding himself and some other projects at Google.

01:09:00And like they're just shuffling up those teams.

01:09:02And this seems like a natural outcome of that.

01:09:04Yeah.

01:09:05You recall, like they a year ago or two years ago, they're like Android tablets are going

01:09:09to make a comeback because of folding devices.

01:09:13Hey, the pixel tablet is cooler than people think.

01:09:16That's that's my hot take for the day.

01:09:18But I will say, I mean, on this front, I think the Google sort of stated reason for doing this

01:09:22is it lets them roll out AI stuff across these two platforms faster.

01:09:27And I think that's fair, right?

01:09:29Like you look at some of the stuff Google is already doing with Chromebook plus devices

01:09:33like the it has the journey of AI wallpaper and the magic editor and Google photos like

01:09:38that stuff you want to do on device as much as you can.

01:09:42And so building that into the stack for both of those platforms makes a lot of sense.

01:09:47Neil, to your point, I'm I'm very bullish about this combination for Android phones,

01:09:52and I'm very skeptical about it for Chromebooks.

01:09:54So I'm kind of with you in that, like the idea of being able to blow up my Android phone,

01:10:00whether it's for Android tablets or foldable devices or whatever, like a thing that gets

01:10:04more Chrome OSC, the bigger it gets, I find very compelling.

01:10:08But a Chromebook that looks more like Android is an experiment that Google has tried many

01:10:13times, and it has typically gone very badly.

01:10:15Right, because Android developers do not want to put their apps on a laptop in that way.

01:10:19Right.

01:10:19And it's and it requires a huge amount of work to do it well.

01:10:22And when you don't do it well, it kind of sucks.

01:10:24And it mostly doesn't get done well.

01:10:25And I yeah, so I agree.

01:10:26I think this is a thing that for Chromebooks is going to be complicated if we are, in fact,

01:10:34getting the sort of big combined user interface thing that might happen here, or Google is

01:10:41telling the truth.

01:10:42And this is just like the bottom of the tech stack so that they can get Gmail's help me

01:10:46write to run 4% faster on your Chromebook, which is fine.

01:10:51Love the idea that they're going to put like full Android on a Chromebook and then just

01:10:55completely dumb it down.

01:10:57Just like, no, you only open the Chrome app.

01:10:59That would be hysterical.

01:11:00They've been there before.

01:11:01Yeah.

01:11:01You know, what's funny about that is the Chrome app for Android is so, so, so much worse than

01:11:08Chrome on Chromebooks that like what an unbelievable Chromebook downgrade that would be if they

01:11:13did that.

01:11:14Yeah, because they had to make Chrome on Chromebook a real browser.

01:11:17Right.

01:11:18Because that is the application.

01:11:19The best version of Chrome that exists in the world.

01:11:21Yeah.

01:11:21I know a lot of designers who run Figma and expensive Chromebooks.

01:11:25Oh, and expensive is like a but they but they just like don't have MacBooks anymore.

01:11:31They're just like, we just run.

01:11:32We live in Figma.

01:11:34We might as well have a Chromebook or someone have Chrome boxes that Chrome desks up.

01:11:38Yeah.

01:11:38Fancy monitors.

01:11:39And that's just the end of that.

01:11:40And it's like, that's the application model.

01:11:42And if you bring a browser of that capability to a phone or a tablet, you can't take your

01:11:4730% anymore in that.

01:11:50And that's why the iPad browser sucks.

01:11:51Everybody.

01:11:52Yep.

01:11:53All the way around.

01:11:55And that's also why Android tablets have the not great version of Chrome instead of the

01:11:59Chromebook version of Chrome.

01:12:01There's no reason a powerful Samsung tablet shouldn't run full on Chrome.

01:12:06Same business pressure exists.

01:12:07Anyway, that's totally separate.

01:12:09It's fine.

01:12:1030%.

01:12:11Bring me a suitcase.

01:12:14Actually, Apple and Google, I would pay a subscription fee for a full desktop class browser

01:12:19on my mobile devices.

01:12:21That'd be one thing you want to get me to pay a subscription fee for Apple one or Google

01:12:25one.

01:12:26But what if it's the same garbage?

01:12:29No, it has to be the good.

01:12:30It has to be a good browser.

01:12:31All right.

01:12:32Arc.

01:12:34What if instead of a browser, it's just a chat bot that lies to you?

01:12:39Can I interest you in that instead?

01:12:40Is it sexy?

01:12:42All right.

01:12:43We got to take a break, everybody.

01:12:44We'll be right back with lightning round.

01:12:50All right, we're back.

01:12:51I will say that there was not as much horniness in the history of the Verge cast until AI

01:12:58hit the scene.

01:12:59True.

01:13:00We've done the show for 13 years.

01:13:04You know, a wide variety of people.

01:13:06David has come and gone from the show and returned.

01:13:10It's only until AI hit and honestly, Kranz.

01:13:14You're welcome.

01:13:14Just like butts.

01:13:17They're inherently funny, man.

01:13:20People are giving me like beautiful horses.

01:13:23That horse is not beautiful.

01:13:24There's also a shocking increase in the amount of horse talks since Alex showed up.

01:13:29It's the friend that the mares and the mares.

01:13:33It's time for the lightning round is always unsponsored.

01:13:37This is your shot, right?

01:13:41I'll sell out.

01:13:41You just tell me what to say.

01:13:43You show up.

01:13:45No one's fired the gun.

01:13:46It's a problem.

01:13:47All right, David, what's your lightning round item?

01:13:50I think I want to talk about this survey that Pew did about how people get news on social

01:13:55media platforms.

01:13:57Uh, we've talked obviously a lot about this.

01:13:59This is like the only thing anyone on threads ever talks about is news on threads because

01:14:04Adam Asari, like keep saying how much he hates news, but loves news, but hates it, but doesn't

01:14:08want it, but loves it.

01:14:09Uh, and so Pew did a study basically looking at four platforms.

01:14:15So it was, uh, X, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram.

01:14:18And essentially asked people, do you get news on this platform?

01:14:22And is it like a primary reason you come here?

01:14:25And the numbers are sort of fascinating.

01:14:29Like in almost every case, like I'm looking at this now over 80% of people on all platforms

01:14:34see news content on all four of those platforms.

01:14:36So like on, on X, uh, they call it news related content and it's, it's sort of like news and

01:14:42news adjacent things.

01:14:44And 92% of people on X reported seeing it.

01:14:47It was 90 and 91 for TikTok and Facebook, Instagram, the lowest at 82%, all huge numbers.

01:14:53Um, but in almost every case, most people said it's not the primary reason they go to

01:14:59the platform.

01:15:00Uh, X was the exception.

01:15:01Two thirds of people said it was either a, I think it was a major or minor reason to

01:15:05go, but TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram all somewhere between like 30 and 40% of people

01:15:10said that's even a reason they think about going to those platforms, which I just think

01:15:14is very telling, right?

01:15:15We talk a lot about news and these companies keep telling us news is a tiny percentage

01:15:19of what people do and people don't actually care and they're not here for news.

01:15:22And the only people who care about news are the people who report on the news and everybody

01:15:26should just shut up about the news for once.

01:15:28And this was, I just thought this was a really interesting, uh, way of looking at that.

01:15:34And Pew has also come out and said over and over and over again, that for young people

01:15:38in particular, TikTok is where they're seeing a lot of their news, even if they're not seeking

01:15:41it out.

01:15:42That's how news finds them.

01:15:44So there's like a, there's just the amount of like accidental news consumption that is

01:15:48happening on social media right now.

01:15:49Just fascinates me, especially in an election year.

01:15:52All of this is going to get very weird.

01:15:54I just thought it was really interesting.

01:15:54Well, particularly because the news isn't always packaged well, right?

01:16:03Like, like it's always, it's, it's frequently packaged in to, to get you as upset as possible.

01:16:08Can I, can I just like roll this into my lightning round item?

01:16:11Yeah, go for it.

01:16:12Uh, so mine is a bunch of Elon stuff.

01:16:15Um, so one is just a victory lap for me.

01:16:17Elon dropped his lawsuit against opening.

01:16:19I shock because he didn't have a contract and I'd super told you so.

01:16:22And if you can't find a contract you don't have, would you say that's a fair legal?

01:16:26And literally I went back and looked at that post hundreds of comments being like, you're

01:16:29going to assemble a contract on it.

01:16:31And it's like, no, you can't.

01:16:32You just can't.

01:16:33You have.

01:16:33And if you could, you w you would, if you wanted to, he would.

01:16:38Yeah.

01:16:44So whatever.

01:16:45If you want to sue someone, come up with a good idea.

01:16:50One, but two bunch of stuff about space X this week, the culture at space X, that actions

01:16:56towards women at space X, the sexist culture at space X, uh, in two stories, one, the wall

01:17:02street journal, a big expose talk to a number of people.

01:17:07And then the second one, uh, a lawsuit from former space X employees saying it's a culture

01:17:11of harassment.

01:17:13We wrote them both up, right?

01:17:14What you do.

01:17:15And the headline we wrote on the wall street journal one was not as just aggressive as

01:17:21people wanted.

01:17:23Uh, and I got tweets about it.

01:17:24And it was like, we have to be really careful.

01:17:26Um, when we write these headlines, especially when it's not our reporting, right?

01:17:32We're talking about a wall street journal story.

01:17:33And if you look at the wall street journal story, the journal story is very carefully

01:17:37reported.

01:17:38And it's mostly about one woman, an intern who lawyered up with the same lawyer as Elon

01:17:46and space X to refute the story.

01:17:50And she sent a bunch of affidavits in which confirmed some of the reporting of the story.

01:17:55But she's like, none of this is true, which is weird.

01:17:57Like the construction of that story is weird.

01:17:59And the thing you're saying, David, is like people encounter their news.

01:18:03And then the thing Alex is saying is that news is not packaged well.

01:18:08What everyone wanted us to say was like, look at how bad this is.

01:18:14And indeed, there's a lot of bad stuff in there.

01:18:16If you're rolling around your own company being like, will you have my babies?

01:18:19Don't do that.

01:18:20And then you retaliate against the women who say no.

01:18:22Like that is very bad.

01:18:24When the president of your company, who's a woman, retaliates against a woman who was

01:18:28helping to plan your birthday party because she suspected that the phone call from the

01:18:33husband to the woman was evidence of an affair as opposed to the planning of a birthday party.

01:18:39That's bananas.

01:18:41Maybe that should have been a birthday party affair situation at space X bananas.

01:18:48But this tendency to overread the news for maximum emotional value or to assign some

01:18:55emotional value to something, even if that's not what the evidence of the news, like that

01:19:00is the thing social media does.

01:19:01It is, in particular, the thing that threads does, because that is how you get engagement

01:19:06in that algorithm.

01:19:07So there's no news there.

01:19:08Adam Massary is like, we refuse.

01:19:11He's like, we just want people to talk about politics.

01:19:14He's like, we don't want people to talk about politics.

01:19:15We just want them to talk about things that are not politics, like sports and fashion.

01:19:19It's like, I don't.

01:19:22OK, there's no politics in sports, famously.

01:19:25Yeah, no politics there in either of those.

01:19:27Nothing about the fashion industry has anything to do with the way the world works.

01:19:31Anyhow, all I'm saying is that then you look at the threads algorithm and it's like just

01:19:35rage bait like that is algorithmically what it will show you.

01:19:38Yep.

01:19:39It's like old rage bait lately.

01:19:41And I just like that little bit where it's like, are the people that are being serviced

01:19:46here being careful?

01:19:49And maybe we're too careful and we'll accept that criticism when it's I don't think you

01:19:53can.

01:19:53That's our story is written by Liz, by the way, like the Virgin Liz Lopato are too easy

01:19:58on Elon Musk is a very hard case to make based on our work.

01:20:03We are careful because we want our shots to land and we're especially careful when it's

01:20:07other people's reporting.

01:20:08Right.

01:20:09That's just the way it goes.

01:20:11But I would just say like what social media has done is allowed a lot of people who don't

01:20:16have to practice that care to participate in the media ecosystem, which is great.

01:20:19But it is also like.

01:20:23We are like, I think people are confused.

01:20:24So you accidentally encounter a lot of news.

01:20:27But you you there's not the part of the other end where it's like, I know how this was made

01:20:32or I am being careful.

01:20:34It's like if you optimize for engagement, you will get engagement.

01:20:37Yeah.

01:20:37And oftentimes that engagement is done to like it's just really explosive, right?

01:20:42Like it is just I see it on tick tock a lot because I went through and was like we were

01:20:48hearing a bunch of different news was popping up on tick tock.

01:20:50So I went like search that news.

01:20:51So now my feed is just all of that news and the stuff the rhetoric is really heated.

01:20:56The rhetoric is very different than how you would normally report on a story where you

01:20:59would be really cautious and careful without every single part of it.

01:21:02Instead, it's just like, yeah, these people suck.

01:21:05This is evidence.

01:21:06Let's just get into it.

01:21:07And I'm like, well, no, you can't.

01:21:10That's not how you cover this stuff.

01:21:12And there's a lot of reasons we cover it that way, both because we want to be accurate and

01:21:15honest and because we want to like, yeah, there's just a bunch of reasons to do it.

01:21:19And and these people don't seem to have the same concerns.

01:21:22Well, and there's also I think one of the things that really jumped out to me in this

01:21:26Pew study was that I think across platforms, somewhere between like half and three quarters

01:21:33of people said they pretty frequently see inaccurate news on those platforms.

01:21:40And at some point, the only response to that is just total nihilism, right?

01:21:44Like you just assume nothing is real.

01:21:47Everything is chaos.

01:21:48You can't trust anything.

01:21:50You can't believe anything.

01:21:50This all came to you by accident, right?

01:21:52Like it's it's killing the idea of sit like sitting down and reading the news like that

01:21:56as a behavior that people do on purpose is dying because this stuff is just bombarding

01:22:01at you all the time.

01:22:02And so like it's hard to be a news consumer now.

01:22:05And so I think all these people, especially when these things are coming up, they're used

01:22:08to that inflamed rhetoric.

01:22:09They're used to have this stuff being wrong anyway.

01:22:12And so you don't know the provenance.

01:22:13You don't know how this stuff works.

01:22:14You don't know the story.

01:22:15It's just all sort of happening around you.

01:22:17And it's like, how on earth are you supposed to make heads or tails of anything in that

01:22:20ecosystem?

01:22:21Wait, what is the what is the source of truth, right?

01:22:24Like all these platforms want to say they don't want to be arbiters of truth.

01:22:27Mark Zuckerberg famously, I don't want to be the arbiter of the truth.

01:22:29But then you need a place to go, right?

01:22:31And that's what media institutions are supposed to be.

01:22:34I'm not saying any of us do a good job of this.

01:22:37Like that is the thing that we have allowed to wither away in the platform era.

01:22:41But it's stories like this.

01:22:42Like if you go look at the comments of the Wall Street Journal article, the comments

01:22:45are full of people being like, this is just a piece, right?

01:22:48Like their own comment section is a disaster of people being like, I don't even read this.

01:22:52I think it's bullshit.

01:22:54Because we've now conditioned a bunch of people because of social media to believe that everything

01:22:57is overdone or sensationalized or just done for outrage or just done for clicks.

01:23:03And in this case, what you're looking at is, boy, the culture at SpaceX appears to be a

01:23:09disaster.

01:23:10Like from top to bottom, there are a whole bunch of very unhappy women.

01:23:15There are women who have been retaliated against by the most senior woman at the company.

01:23:21None of this is like, when I first saw the story, I was like, oh, didn't we cover this

01:23:25already?

01:23:26Because we've seen this story from SpaceX before.

01:23:28Lauren Grush used to cover it a lot for us.

01:23:31And to just see it crop up again is like, oh.

01:23:35And now there's all this additional reporting in the journal where it's like,

01:23:39I just like, again, if you're listening to this and you think about starting a company,

01:23:42one thing you should not do is walk around your company asking employees if they will

01:23:47have your children.

01:23:48Just don't do it.

01:23:49It feels like a very basic rule that we have to lay out at this time.

01:23:52Yeah.

01:23:53It's not a rule that appears to apply to Elon, against whom there are credible allegations

01:23:59that a woman who accused him of sexual harassment, he responded to by offering her a horse.

01:24:06It does come back to horses a lot.

01:24:07It always does.

01:24:09Oh, on that note, Alex, I actually have a question for you.

01:24:12What's your lightning round thing?

01:24:14My lightning round thing is also related to horses.

01:24:18Yeah.

01:24:18Because did you guys ever, did you guys go to Alamo draft house?

01:24:21Either one of you?

01:24:22Yeah, all the time.

01:24:24They just opened one like a mile from me, maybe a year ago.

01:24:28And it's now my go-to movie theater.

01:24:29So I'm going to be real old right now.

01:24:32Um, in my twenties, I spent a lot of time in Austin, Texas, which is where Alamo draft

01:24:38house started.

01:24:39Um, I went to a lot of screenings, went to a lot of parties, went to a lot of things,

01:24:42sort of new Tim league.

01:24:44Is that the one that's also like a movie museum and they have like the most incredible collection

01:24:47of old stuff from movies?

01:24:50The Alamo draft house there?

01:24:51I think it is.

01:24:52But I could be wrong.

01:24:53One of them might be, there's a bunch of different ones.

01:24:55Say they, some have come, they've gone.

01:24:57Um, it is great.

01:24:58Every time I go to Austin now, I'm like, Oh, that draft house is closed.

01:25:02And I once saw people run for their lives because they didn't want to talk to the audience

01:25:06because we were so mad at them about the movie.

01:25:09Um, it was super cool.

01:25:10Poughkeepsie tapes.

01:25:11But, but so Alamo draft house, famous, famous institution, one of like kind of the core

01:25:18movie, uh, theater franchises and very terminally online.

01:25:22It ran its own blog for years.

01:25:24Badass digest.

01:25:25It, uh, really, it was famously huge friends with Harry Knowles, who is like the original

01:25:31movie blogger.

01:25:32We don't talk about him anymore.

01:25:33You can go Wikipedia.

01:25:34Why?

01:25:35Um, and, and they have been in a lot of trouble the last few years.

01:25:39There was allegations of, um, labor issues there and sexual harassment and, and lots

01:25:45of sorts of things.

01:25:46And then COVID hit and they like every movie theater front, uh, company got bodied really,

01:25:54really badly.

01:25:54They filed for bankruptcy in 2021 whole new, like reorg happened, got in a bunch of investors.

01:26:01Tim league was still in charge.

01:26:03Then last week, I believe they suddenly closed a whole bunch of their, uh, theaters in Dallas.

01:26:09And that was a real bummer because I was planning to go to them and it was, it's fine.

01:26:14I'm through it.

01:26:15And then this week they announced that Sony has purchased them.

01:26:18So, so yeah, Alamo is now going to be completely owned by Sony.

01:26:22I assume you're going to see some Sony movies there, but you should probably still see all

01:26:26the other ones.

01:26:26Cause like Disney still has the biggest market share of, of films.

01:26:30And I don't think Disney, like, excuse me, I don't think Alamo is going to be like, no,

01:26:34we're not going to screen a star war.

01:26:38Well, I think the, you know, Netflix owns a bunch of theaters and they do limited theatrical

01:26:42runs cause they got to keep the stars happy and get them awards.

01:26:46Yeah.

01:26:46That's, it's all for awards.

01:26:47Uh, I think Sony actually wants to like have a chain of movie theaters.

01:26:51I think it's very different.

01:26:52It is very different.

01:26:53Like Sony is just like, no, we want this to be a business again.

01:26:57And there was a reason it wasn't allowed to be a business.

01:27:02And, and the ramifications of the Paramount decree were huge, right?

01:27:05Like we got independent film.

01:27:06We got, uh, we got more queer film.

01:27:08We got more women in films, more people of color in films.

01:27:11Uh, there was just like miscegenation was illegal to show on film.

01:27:15And then the Paramount decree came out and they started to soften those rules a little.

01:27:19It took a long time.

01:27:20But there's just the Paramount decree was very, very important for competition in the

01:27:25filmmaking industry.

01:27:26And the fact that it has gone now has always been kind of a bummer, even though streaming

01:27:30has really taken a lot of that audience.

01:27:33And Sony is like, okay, we're just going to follow back.

01:27:35And it's 1938.

01:27:37Well, yeah.

01:27:37But just to make the argument, times have radically changed.

01:27:41Yeah.

01:27:41There is not a booming theatrical business anymore.

01:27:43It seems to be declining.

01:27:45Does Alamo Draft House even exist unless a studio like Sony shows up?

01:27:48Like Sony doesn't have a streamer.

01:27:50Yeah.

01:27:50They have Crunchyroll.

01:27:51They got Sony Picture Corp.

01:27:53I was like.

01:27:54Bravia Corp.

01:27:56Wow.

01:27:56Just like, just really hurting yourself there.

01:28:00But they were like, do you want to watch Madam Web at 80 megabits per second?

01:28:03And I said, no, sir.

01:28:04The only way to do that, it's going to be at an Alamo Draft House.

01:28:08Like at 2 a.m.

01:28:09A little drunk.

01:28:11No, I think the answer to your question, Eli, is no, it doesn't.

01:28:13And I think the idea that we have to protect the movie industry from the big bad studios

01:28:21and theaters is like such a long gone phenomenon at this point.

01:28:25I disagree.

01:28:26What we desperately need is someone with real money trying to get everyone back into movie theaters.

01:28:33Yeah, but I don't think it should be the movie theater.

01:28:35I don't think it should be the people making the movies.

01:28:37But no one else is incentivized to do it.

01:28:39Alamo's issues were not necessary.

01:28:44Like some of Alamo's issues were declining viewership.

01:28:46That's totally true.

01:28:47A lot of Alamo's issues were overextending themselves.

01:28:50They've got a theater in Fidei, and I can always get a ticket to see a movie there

01:28:54because no one goes to see the movies in Fidei.

01:28:57Why would you go to the financial district?

01:28:59That's everywhere.

01:29:00That's not true.

01:29:01It's like a handful of blockbusters that get sold out and then no other movies.

01:29:05Alamo has famously been very good at programming big events around their other movies,

01:29:10and they were really, really good at it, but they've overextended themselves.

01:29:13They never recover from 2021.

01:29:16And I don't think it necessarily needed to be Sony that went and did this, right?

01:29:21I don't think it should be these movie theaters because they already control.

01:29:25They're already so vertically integrated.

01:29:26We shouldn't just add more on and give up.

01:29:28We should, in fact, say, hey, you shouldn't be able to own everything all the way down

01:29:34because it does actually measurably make the entire industry worse and less creative.

01:29:41Yeah, they didn't buy AMC.

01:29:44They bought Alamo Drafthouse.

01:29:45I know, and I went there so much.

01:29:49I'm with you, and I'm usually the one who's the most pro-diversified competition on the show.

01:29:54Is this just me being super film nerd?

01:29:56We are diversified, though.

01:29:58The idea that the movie theaters is this gigantic business that we can't possibly

01:30:02let the studios back into is just not how it works anymore.

01:30:07If anything, we should be saying Sony can't own a streaming service.

01:30:11That's the scarier way to take too much control of the industry right now.

01:30:15What's already happening in the industry.

01:30:17Right, so be mad about that.

01:30:18I mean, I am mad about that, honestly.

01:30:20Again, I just want to remind everyone that the streaming companies that Sony owns

01:30:24are Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures Corp., which I use because it streams-

01:30:28That is crackle erasure, and I will not stand for it.

01:30:31It streams at 80 megabits per second only to Sony televisions.

01:30:36No, it does not, sir.

01:30:37Crackle has long since gone 90.

01:30:40No, how dare you?

01:30:41I can still make a free account on crackle.com, sir.

01:30:43To do what?

01:30:45You can watch-

01:30:45There's the Alfred from Batman prequel where like Alfred, I never watched it,

01:30:51but apparently he solves crimes.

01:30:53I swear to God, Crackle.

01:30:55No, Crackle still exists.

01:30:56Doing what?

01:30:57I'm literally on their website, and I'm not positive it still exists,

01:31:00which is telling-

01:31:01Are any of those things real?

01:31:02But it's here.

01:31:02I can watch-

01:31:04I can watch-

01:31:05You have to name a movie that actually exists.

01:31:08Can I interest you in season one, episode one of Dominion Creek?

01:31:12That's not true.

01:31:13That's AI.

01:31:14You have to give me something that doesn't sound like-

01:31:15Abandoned, colon, Angelique's Isle.

01:31:18How about that?

01:31:21What about ICU, but it's spelled E-Y-E, and it appears to have Celeste Stallone in it?

01:31:26Okay, that's a real person.

01:31:28All of this is fake.

01:31:29I don't believe this website is real.

01:31:33Sorry, I have to stop looking at crackle.com.

01:31:35This is too much.

01:31:35I'm enjoying this too much.

01:31:39Okay.

01:31:39Everybody makes scripts on there.

01:31:41I just want to point out, Sony exited Crackle

01:31:45and sold it to a company called Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment.

01:31:49Which also owned Redbox, and I think is also in the middle of going out of business.

01:31:53I'm just going to say, that counts as going 90.

01:31:57All right.

01:31:59It's not.

01:32:01It is SEO honeypot now for self-help content.

01:32:05Fully gone 90.

01:32:08Although it's now David's preferred streaming service, from what I understand.

01:32:10You watch Ghost Squad.

01:32:12It's something called Crossbow.

01:32:13Angelique's Isle is my favorite movie.

01:32:15When you click on the Crackle FAQ, this is a real thing that I did.

01:32:17I clicked on the FAQ, assuming that it would tell me who owned Crackle,

01:32:20but instead it showed me a list of trending support topics, and one of them,

01:32:25number two on the list of trending support topics in the Crackle FAQ.

01:32:29How many Vizio devices can I add to my Crackle?

01:32:36This is real.

01:32:37I'm not kidding at all.

01:32:39The other one is, how do I troubleshoot issues with my Xbox Series S?

01:32:42I think we know a lot about this version of Crackle.

01:32:47Yeah.

01:32:48All right.

01:32:49Crackle has gone 90.

01:32:50That's one thing we've learned about this.

01:32:51I'm with you that consolidation is bad.

01:32:54Yeah, I'm mainly just bummed to see Alamo go this way.

01:32:59I spent a lot of time there in my 20s seeing some of the worst movies.

01:33:05I got to see Marauders, Metropolis there at a 24-hour movie festival,

01:33:14colorized, absolutely spectacular.

01:33:17But I also saw Poughkeepsie tapes.

01:33:18And again, we chased the filmmakers out of the theater.

01:33:22I'm just saying, when I was in law school, I got absolutely hammered with my friends

01:33:25and went and saw Broken Lizard's Club Dread.

01:33:29You can have experiences at movie theaters.

01:33:32It's great.

01:33:32All right, that's it.

01:33:33We got to re-interact this up.

01:33:35We're like 500 years over time.

01:33:37There's still so much to say about Crackle.

01:33:40We're just doing a whole episode about it.

01:33:41We'll do that next week.

01:33:42By the way, one thing we didn't get to is, as we speak,

01:33:47the Tesla vote to give Elon his money or not.

01:33:50His money is still ongoing.

01:33:51It looks like he might win.

01:33:53We'll cover that on another show at another time when that is over.

01:33:57But now we have to rest.

01:33:59We have to go and watch Crackle at 80 megabits per second.

01:34:02That's it.

01:34:02That's The Verge Cast.

01:34:03Rock and roll.

01:34:07And that's it for The Verge Cast this week.

01:34:09Hey, we'd love to hear from you.

01:34:11Give us a call at 866-VERGE-11.

01:34:13The Verge Cast is a production of The Verge and Vox Media Podcast Network.

01:34:17Our show is produced by Andrew Marino and Liam James.

01:34:20That's it.

01:34:21We'll see you next week.

Apple and OpenAI make a deal | The Vergecast

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