Apple’s AI moment is coming | The Vergecast - video Dailymotion

The Verge

The Verge's Nilay Patel, Alex Cranz, and David Pierce discuss what they expect to see next week at Apple's WWDC, or "dub dub" as it's more affectionately known. But first, we take you through all the gadgets previewed at Computex.

Transcript

00:00:00Hello and welcome to the First Cast, the flagship podcast of defense contractors selling game

00:00:06boys.

00:00:07There you go.

00:00:09It's a weird time we live in.

00:00:12That's that's a real thing that I said.

00:00:14Yeah, Northman.

00:00:15Northman Crum is doing it.

00:00:17I've been meaning for years to like keep track of on a scale of one to 10 how plausibly we

00:00:23could be the flagship podcast of whatever thing we are the flagship podcast of 10 out

00:00:27of 10 today.

00:00:29Easy 10 out of 10.

00:00:30We have no competition on this particular front right now, and I'm very excited about

00:00:34it.

00:00:35The other one I was going to say is the flagship podcast of multiple device management solutions.

00:00:40See, there I think we have some competition.

00:00:43There's definitely other MDM podcasts in the world.

00:00:46And if you're out there, please keep doing what you're doing because we are not going

00:00:50to serve your market, you know, by all means.

00:00:55Let's talk about lots of things not connected into any coherent whole, which I think is

00:01:02choice for us.

00:01:04That's where we shine.

00:01:05Next week is WWDC.

00:01:06We got to do a preview of what we think Apple is going to do.

00:01:09And then another disconnected set of news to talk about.

00:01:14Yeah.

00:01:15I'm your friend, Nealey.

00:01:16Alex Kranz is here.

00:01:17I'm your friend who's just excited.

00:01:18Yeah.

00:01:19Just thrilled to learn more about defense contractors who also moonlight as game designers.

00:01:24This is a real thing.

00:01:25And I promise you're going to talk.

00:01:26If you can already guess what it is, God bless you because you are spending too much time

00:01:30on the internet, which means you're our people.

00:01:31David Pierce is here.

00:01:32Hi.

00:01:33How's it going, buddy?

00:01:35It's good to be here.

00:01:36Are you excited to manage multiple devices in an enterprise environment?

00:01:40Listen, I did choose one of the stories in here that is about Windows app virtualization.

00:01:45And I am surprisingly excited to talk about it.

00:01:47So I'm going to say I'm a hard yes on that front today.

00:01:49All right.

00:01:50So we're opening with a lightning round.

00:01:52The gadget lightning round.

00:01:53I have proposed that we do it a little differently than normal.

00:02:00Usually when we have a lightning round, we have a bunch of stuff, and then we all pick

00:02:02one.

00:02:03Yep.

00:02:04Rest assured, that's how we're doing the third lightning round.

00:02:06I got my name next to my little thing and everything.

00:02:09I feel like that is not how lightning rounds work.

00:02:14We have just made up an alternative to lightning rounds.

00:02:17Really what we're supposed to do is look at all the headlines and go through them as fast

00:02:19as we can.

00:02:20And I suggest we do this, and then David pooh-poohed me.

00:02:25It's not so much that.

00:02:27It's just that you have many skills in life, and one of them is not doing several things

00:02:33in a row quickly.

00:02:35And so we have, I would say, I don't know, probably 10 headlines here.

00:02:41This is going to take us four and a half hours, and everybody should just buckle up for this.

00:02:46People love buckling up.

00:02:47I'm not mad at it.

00:02:48You claim to have a train to catch.

00:02:50That's true.

00:02:51I do.

00:02:52You're going to miss that train.

00:02:53I'm supposed to leave today.

00:02:54I'm just saying, I'm going to quote our transportation editor, Andy Hawkins, who every time he puts

00:02:58the phrase buckle up in a headline, the story goes viral, and then he says, people love

00:03:02buckling up.

00:03:05So buckle up.

00:03:06Buckle up.

00:03:07That's what I got for you.

00:03:08Lightning round time.

00:03:09All right.

00:03:10We're going to go through these as fast as we can.

00:03:11Okay.

00:03:12Like speed run them?

00:03:13Yeah.

00:03:14It's Computex week this week.

00:03:15Intel showed up after NVIDIA announced all of its new chips and announced something called

00:03:20Lunar Lake.

00:03:21And the thing that I understand from this, Kranz, is that they're trying real hard, but

00:03:26they've also gotten rid of upgradable memory.

00:03:29Yeah.

00:03:30So their typical way of building chips wasn't working for them.

00:03:35So they've got a whole new route, and this is Lunar Lake.

00:03:37It is just for mobile devices.

00:03:39It's not going to be in big desktops and stuff like that.

00:03:41Wait.

00:03:42Laptop mobile devices or phone mobile devices?

00:03:44Laptops.

00:03:45Okay.

00:03:46Laptops.

00:03:47Because Intel being like, we're doing phones again, that's a straight line down.

00:03:50Yeah.

00:03:51Straight line down.

00:03:52I would say maybe 80%, 90% of what is in this chip, like the little chips within the chip,

00:03:57not made by Intel.

00:04:00It's based on a TSMC node.

00:04:03So they just fully were like, yeah, we can't do it.

00:04:06You do it.

00:04:07So there's all of that.

00:04:10Then they've just changed it all up.

00:04:13And one of their big things is like, we need it to be faster.

00:04:15So we're going to put the RAM on the chip, which will make it faster.

00:04:18Yeah.

00:04:19Famously, Apple's move.

00:04:20Yeah.

00:04:21People like to upgrade the RAM on their devices.

00:04:24So we'll see how that goes.

00:04:25Yeah.

00:04:26The PC market less compliant than I think Mac users.

00:04:30Yeah.

00:04:31So we'll see how it goes.

00:04:33They're claiming 48 tops for their AI chip, the MPUs specifically, 48 tops.

00:04:39Trillion operations per second.

00:04:40Yes.

00:04:41Trillion operations per second.

00:04:42And this only matters because everybody has decided that this is the way we're going to

00:04:45calculate how good things are at processing AI workloads.

00:04:49Has anyone figured out what to do with AI on these computers?

00:04:54You can take a thing in a photo and move it over here.

00:04:58Yeah.

00:04:59I think that's about as far as we've gotten.

00:05:00And now you can do it very fast.

00:05:02And some of them have like a little chat bot powered by chat GPT.

00:05:06And you can be like, hey, it'll be like, hey, that runs in the cloud.

00:05:10That's not even anything.

00:05:12That's fine.

00:05:13But that's like over there.

00:05:14But it could one day.

00:05:15It could one day.

00:05:16Yeah.

00:05:17Run on a laptop powered by Lunar Lake.

00:05:18That's true.

00:05:19When Oregon Trail tries to bang you, that's happening in Azure.

00:05:23I'm just putting, I'm just saying.

00:05:26Yeah.

00:05:27There's no like local banging happening.

00:05:30Intel, we got a new marketing message for you.

00:05:34We helped.

00:05:36This computer will try to get it on with you.

00:05:38No internet required.

00:05:41Local dimming is out.

00:05:42Local banging is in.

00:05:43I'm just saying.

00:05:44So far, the biggest consumer success of the AI industry has been the fact that it's a

00:05:49little bit horny.

00:05:50Fine.

00:05:51Yep.

00:05:52Okay.

00:05:53Do we think Lunar, based on what we saw from Qualcomm in Windows, and then NVIDIA, NVIDIA

00:06:01was not a Computex event.

00:06:02It was just before they announced like 500 new chips, like a whole roadmap.

00:06:07And they said, we're doing this every year.

00:06:08It was very aggressive.

00:06:10Jensen Wang looks very proud of himself.

00:06:13Is this competitive from Intel or no?

00:06:15This is different.

00:06:16So this is not, like NVIDIA and Intel don't compete in this space.

00:06:20No, I meant with Qualcomm.

00:06:21Oh, with Qualcomm, yeah.

00:06:22Like we're seeing this thing happen where- With Qualcomm, definitely.

00:06:26Right.

00:06:27Qualcomm, like Microsoft wants to say, these new Qualcomm Windows laptops are faster than

00:06:31the MacBook Air, they're better than the MacBook Air, they've got AI built into them.

00:06:35And then our data centers full of NVIDIA chips are rocketing into the future, and none

00:06:40of that has Intel in it.

00:06:42Yeah.

00:06:43Yeah.

00:06:44This is definitely their attempt to like catch up with everybody else, because I think they

00:06:48just got bodied by Apple for a long time in this space, in this laptop CPU space.

00:06:54And so this is their like, they've just changed their whole strategy.

00:06:57It's all about power efficiency first, soldering the RAM directly onto the chip so it'll go

00:07:02even faster.

00:07:04Everything is about how can we get every single piece of power out of this thing, while also

00:07:09keeping it as energy efficient as possible.

00:07:12And their claims are really big, right?

00:07:14They're saying like 50% better GPU performance, they're saying 60% better battery life, which

00:07:19is huge if true, but it's also if true.

00:07:24We still have to see these chips, we still have to see them in a laptop, we still have

00:07:26to test them.

00:07:28There's a lot more to come.

00:07:29Intel always likes to make huge claims.

00:07:32And then it's like, okay, but what is reality?

00:07:34Yeah, Intel has even less credibility for making some of these claims right now than

00:07:40Qualcomm does, which is tough, because we're still in the, you know, let's see if it's

00:07:47real phase for what Qualcomm just launched.

00:07:50And Microsoft also at that event was like, we have stuff coming from AMD and Intel to

00:07:54this copilot plus P thing, it's PC thing is going to be real, everything's gonna be great.

00:07:58I found myself reading about all of this from Intel going like, yeah, okay, sure.

00:08:03And I hope it's great.

00:08:04Like I really do.

00:08:05And I think Intel is right to do it this way.

00:08:07And I think the overlap of people for whom this chip would be useful and people who upgrade

00:08:12their RAM is like zero.

00:08:13So I think that's actually fine.

00:08:15But I just, I think Intel is lying until proven truthful in a pretty real way about some of

00:08:24its chips right now.

00:08:25Yeah.

00:08:25I also want to know what I can do with 40 tops that I can't do with 25.

00:08:31Or two.

00:08:34Right?

00:08:34Like, yeah.

00:08:35What is it?

00:08:37Is it something?

00:08:38Because we seem to be in a spec war over nothing.

00:08:41And I love a spec war.

00:08:43Don't get me wrong.

00:08:44You want to take me from 12 to 14 megapixels, I will talk to you all day about that.

00:08:48You want to go from HDMI 2.1 to 2.1a, we'll give you an hour.

00:08:52That's what we do here.

00:08:54I just, what is it?

00:08:59I don't need generative fill in Photoshop to go that much faster.

00:09:03And on my computer anyway, that's CPU bound.

00:09:06It's not even GPU bound.

00:09:07So what is the thing?

00:09:10And I don't think there's a great, broad consumer answer to that question.

00:09:15Yeah, I would say 100% you're correct.

00:09:17I think most of the answers are for engineers and stuff like that.

00:09:22They'll probably see some advantage from this.

00:09:24By the way, not generative fill.

00:09:27AID noise in Lightroom.

00:09:28That's the one on my computer anyway.

00:09:29That's a good one.

00:09:29CPU bound.

00:09:30Surprisingly good too.

00:09:32That works remarkably well every time I use it.

00:09:34Every time I do it, I realize I'm committing heresy against what is a photo.

00:09:39The Pope should come to my house and bless me.

00:09:41But it's only like gentle heresy.

00:09:43You know what I mean?

00:09:44Yeah.

00:09:44It's just a good hearted heresy.

00:09:47It's fine.

00:09:48Yeah.

00:09:49We should keep going.

00:09:50We're already growing.

00:09:52All right.

00:09:53Lunar Lake.

00:09:53Who knows?

00:09:54Question mark.

00:09:54Number two.

00:09:57Humane is trying to sell itself to HP for a billion dollars.

00:10:00This is perfect.

00:10:02David, the reporting from CNBC says there's also at least one telecom company in the mix.

00:10:08Yeah.

00:10:08So one of the things that Humane needed really early on was telecom support.

00:10:14And it has been working with different telecoms around the world.

00:10:18I think it made a deal in Japan fairly recently to launch the device over there.

00:10:22Getting the AI pin on these networks is crucial to it working.

00:10:25So in a certain way, if you're Verizon, you're like,

00:10:29oh, all we do is sell other people's stuff.

00:10:31We are desperate to be more than a dumb pipe.

00:10:33You can see how you have that meeting, right?

00:10:35And I think I would not.

00:10:36This is how Verizon ended up buying blue jeans.

00:10:38That's what I mean.

00:10:39And they will keep buying startups until morale improves.

00:10:43You know what I mean?

00:10:45This is just what they do.

00:10:46So I would not be shocked by that at all.

00:10:49The HP one seems very strange to me.

00:10:53HP just can't do this and seems to have finally understood that being cool is not HP's thing.

00:10:59And that's fine.

00:11:01And yet, here we are.

00:11:02Yeah.

00:11:03You know what?

00:11:04You never like, as you get older, you always have those moments where you're like,

00:11:08yeah, I can pull that off.

00:11:10Right?

00:11:11No, HP already had that moment.

00:11:12I want to be very clear about that.

00:11:13We all have that moment.

00:11:15I thought I could pull off a leather hat.

00:11:18I couldn't do that.

00:11:19When did you think you could pull off a leather hat?

00:11:22It was too long ago.

00:11:23Yeah, it was last week.

00:11:24Tuesday.

00:11:25Last week.

00:11:26I thought I could pull off skinny jeans.

00:11:30Like you always have these moments.

00:11:31So I just want to point out in this comparison very directly.

00:11:34Yeah.

00:11:35I'm comparing buying humane to buying skinny jeans.

00:11:38And that's great.

00:11:39I'm running with you.

00:11:40I'm just saying HP went through its skinny jeans phase when it bought Palm and had an

00:11:46entire event that I went to in San Francisco on the water.

00:11:49It was beautiful.

00:11:51No, this is like-

00:11:52Where they were like, here's the HP touchpad, our webOS tablet that will compete with the

00:11:56iPod.

00:11:57Jimmy Iovine was there and he got on stage and was apparently so blown away with the

00:12:03level of innovation on display that he just went off script for like 10 minutes.

00:12:06Yeah.

00:12:07Paul Jacobs, who's the CEO of Qualcomm, spoke right before.

00:12:09This is a real, I want you to go watch this video.

00:12:12I remember.

00:12:13He was like, Dr. Paul Jacobs was incredible.

00:12:15I was supposed to say something about music, but you know, what's beats?

00:12:19We don't make chips.

00:12:19Like it was nuts.

00:12:21Nuts.

00:12:22And then they canceled the touchpad.

00:12:24No, this is like-

00:12:25No one has one except for Dieter.

00:12:26And I don't think he's allowed to admit it anymore because he works at Google now.

00:12:31I would say that this is like-

00:12:33Those were the skinny jeans.

00:12:34These are, yeah, that's skinny jeans.

00:12:35This is like when you hit like your 60s and you get the motorcycle and you're like, I'm

00:12:40going to be a guy that does motorcycling on the weekends.

00:12:43They're going to be a company that does humane.

00:12:45This is the midlife crisis.

00:12:47This isn't the cool kids phase.

00:12:48This is the midlife crisis.

00:12:50No, that's the skinny jeans was the midlife crisis.

00:12:53This is your-

00:12:54Retirement.

00:12:54It depends on when you think the 60s are.

00:12:57Fair.

00:12:57I would say it's midlife now that I'm in my 40s.

00:13:00This is, you're saying this is the Harley with a windshield.

00:13:03Yeah.

00:13:04That's humane in this context for HP.

00:13:07I understand.

00:13:08Totally nailed it.

00:13:09Understood.

00:13:10Harley with a windshield.

00:13:11I grew up in Wisconsin.

00:13:12There were a lot of Harleys with the windshield.

00:13:14It's like, look at that lawyer go.

00:13:16He bought that Harley last week.

00:13:17If you're a Harley person, you have a windshield.

00:13:19I want, it's America, you know, live your life.

00:13:21You go real fast.

00:13:23I'm a sports person.

00:13:25Okay.

00:13:26They also humane, the gift that keeps on giving.

00:13:30Recalled their battery cases this week.

00:13:32This is a really tough week for humane.

00:13:34And it's actually humane has entered that rare phase where everyone has gone from making

00:13:38fun of them to feeling bad for them.

00:13:41And it is, it's a tough time at humane, but yeah, they had what sounds like one incident

00:13:46with a charging case, which is a little like egg shape thing that they ship with the AI

00:13:51pin because the battery life is awful.

00:13:54And because of that one incident, they are getting rid of that supplier and giving all

00:13:58of the AI pin owners, two extra months of service.

00:14:02What they're not saying is whether they're going to replace anybody's charging case,

00:14:06how they're doing better with the charging case.

00:14:08Like, it just seems like this company is scrambling in a really bad way.

00:14:12And I think correctly realized like, Oh, something bad happened.

00:14:15It could happen again.

00:14:16We have to stop it from happening and did that before it made any other plan, because

00:14:20I don't think there is another plan because I think they're just trying to sell as fast

00:14:23as they can and get out.

00:14:24It's just bad times all around.

00:14:26There is a very long times article about the inside of humane during this period.

00:14:31And there's a lot of people saying, this isn't as good as we think.

00:14:34Should we launch it now?

00:14:36And apparently being shut down and fired slash fire in one case being fired.

00:14:41Go read that.

00:14:42But we'll see.

00:14:43I will say the idea of either of the founders of humane working for Verizon.

00:14:50Very funny, very funny or AT&T.

00:14:52And I will say just I know we have to move on because it's lighting around.

00:14:56I will say once again, a workable antitrust policy for the United States is to prevent

00:15:01AT&T from buying anything.

00:15:02But if you get a humane, it's like an anti-monopoly because it will just drag it down into the

00:15:08muck.

00:15:08It's fine.

00:15:10That would work.

00:15:10You could, Joe, if you're listening, Donald, you know, you're in the mix.

00:15:15Let's see what happens.

00:15:16Yeah, let's get it.

00:15:17You didn't want them to buy Time Warner and you were right, my friend.

00:15:20Do you think Donald Trump has ever watched the 4-3 standard?

00:15:24He 100% dead.

00:15:25Wait, before we do move on, I'm just curious.

00:15:27The number in the Time story was that humane has sold 10,000 A.I.

00:15:31Pins.

00:15:31They were hoping to sell 100, but they have 10.

00:15:33And my question for the two of you, is that more or less than you would have guessed?

00:15:37More.

00:15:38More.

00:15:39Same.

00:15:40Actually, I, I, I, what I wonder is how many of those were pre-orders and how many of those

00:15:45came after the reviews and after the thing shipped.

00:15:48And I would be shocked if a thousand people have bought that thing since it shipped.

00:15:51Wasn't 10,000 a number of rabbits, too?

00:15:53No, they sold, they sold like 100,000 rabbits.

00:15:56Oh, because they were cheap.

00:15:57Yeah, it was.

00:15:58I think you said on the show when we heard the rabbit number the first time, like you

00:16:04could probably sell that number of $300 anything.

00:16:07Yeah, I really believe that.

00:16:09It's orange.

00:16:12Speaking of extremely odd A.I.

00:16:13News, someone just explain this to me.

00:16:15Raspberry Pi is getting A.I.

00:16:17Features.

00:16:18Yeah, they're getting, I believe they're going to have a little like add-on accelerator

00:16:23that's going to give you 13 tops.

00:16:28Again, someone tell me what to do with one top.

00:16:30We, no, but, but Nila, the thing that's great about this is now every other chip maker on

00:16:35Earth is going to have to convince you that they can do more than your Raspberry Pi.

00:16:38This is perfect.

00:16:39Raspberry Pi is, the thing is $70.

00:16:42And this is the bar now.

00:16:44Like in order for me to buy your thing, you have to be more compelling than a Raspberry

00:16:48Pi, which I love.

00:16:50I love this because if anyone can figure out why tops matter, it's, it's people using like

00:16:56Raspberry Pis for stuff.

00:16:57All that's going to happen is a bunch of people are going to like hook a Raspberry

00:17:00Pi up to their video doorbells.

00:17:01And that, yeah, it's like unhinged LLM horny responses from video doorbells will happen.

00:17:08Or what if like Pi-hole gets better?

00:17:10What if like Pi-hole can do something with A.I.?

00:17:13With A.I.?

00:17:15I don't know what.

00:17:17I'm just saying.

00:17:18What if the routing on your network was a little bit less reliable than it was today?

00:17:22Yeah, it's just going to start making stuff up.

00:17:24It's going to be like, eat the cheese, Alex.

00:17:26It's got glue in it.

00:17:29Like at the network level, it's telling lies.

00:17:32I'm into it.

00:17:33It does feel like the $70 for Raspberry Pi is expensive.

00:17:36That's not where they started.

00:17:38Yeah.

00:17:38And so it feels like this push is just, it's making everything more expensive.

00:17:42I'm just begging for one.

00:17:45What's it?

00:17:4518 tops?

00:17:4713.

00:17:4813.

00:17:50Just, just tell me what 13 tops are for.

00:17:52If you want to max out on a Raspberry Pi compute environment.

00:17:56I mean, I do know what 13 tops are for, but it's a different time of tops.

00:18:01The trading cards are actual spinning tops.

00:18:03We'll keep going.

00:18:04All right.

00:18:05Moving on.

00:18:06Liam's going to love this.

00:18:07This is maybe a perfect Verge scoop.

00:18:10I'm very happy Gen 2 got this scoop.

00:18:12Yes.

00:18:12When I think, when I think of reasons the Verge exists,

00:18:17we found a secret thread radio in every Mac.

00:18:20It's right at the top of the list.

00:18:22Like we had to manufacture the reasons people care about this.

00:18:27But Gen noticed in a bunch of FCC documents that there are in fact thread radios in a

00:18:33bunch of Macs and iPads.

00:18:34This follows on Apple announcing a thread radio in the iPhone 15 and 15 pro, which they've

00:18:41never done anything with as far as we can tell.

00:18:44Yeah.

00:18:45Or even explained why it would be there.

00:18:47Well, no, what they said about the iPhone was this is for future home app integrations.

00:18:51Right.

00:18:52Cool.

00:18:53Sure.

00:18:54This sort of like makes sense, like in the world of chip design at Apple scale.

00:18:59Maybe you just bought a bunch of Wi-Fi chips and they have thread radios.

00:19:02You might as well have them.

00:19:03But they've said nothing.

00:19:05They tested them, which means they can be used.

00:19:08They're not just like dark on the chip die.

00:19:11But why?

00:19:13Apple said nothing to Gen.

00:19:14Gen ran around and asked everybody what it's for.

00:19:16There's a bunch of reasons.

00:19:17You could have faster setup.

00:19:18You could have a low power thread network in your house.

00:19:22That'd be cool.

00:19:23That'd be neat.

00:19:24And have the devices serve as border routers between Wi-Fi and thread.

00:19:28Although you want that usually to be stationary.

00:19:31Like having your thread border leave your home with your laptop or your iPad.

00:19:35Not great.

00:19:35Or your iPhone.

00:19:37There's a bunch of other little ideas people have.

00:19:39But Apple hasn't said anything.

00:19:40I'm kind of hoping we find out at WWDC.

00:19:42That's Gen's hope, too.

00:19:45We'll see.

00:19:46It also there is like we're going to talk about this in the next segment.

00:19:49But if you like push this into the big like AI makes your life easier narrative of Apple.

00:19:56Like pushing into smart home stuff.

00:19:59And like sensors and letting your devices talk to each other makes a lot of sense.

00:20:03I still think the like Occam's razor explanation here is that they got that

00:20:07chip for free inside of these tri-band chips that are in a lot of devices.

00:20:12But I hope it's more interesting than that.

00:20:15I was just trying to see if thread radios have tops in them.

00:20:20So far, it seems no.

00:20:21Not even a single top.

00:20:22No tops.

00:20:23And also very few uses for thread.

00:20:28We have to create the conditions by which people care about these scoops.

00:20:31But a perfect verdict scoop from Gen.

00:20:33Speaking of Apple, another weird one.

00:20:36They misstated the core count.

00:20:39The number of GPUs on the M2 iPad Air.

00:20:42They said it was 10.

00:20:43It's actually 9.

00:20:46How do you make a mistake like this?

00:20:48Like, yeah, that's just the thing.

00:20:51This is very surprising to see from Apple.

00:20:53Because they have a whole marketing department, a very good one,

00:20:56when it's not like crushing all of art.

00:21:00So like to screw up, which I think is fair to say that's a screw up,

00:21:04is to put the wrong number of cores on all of the marketing materials.

00:21:09That's a pretty big one.

00:21:10Yeah.

00:21:10And you think that the engineers, the chip designers,

00:21:12because the way these work is they pixel bend the chips.

00:21:15Yeah.

00:21:16So they try to make the chips with the most number of cores.

00:21:18Some of them don't work.

00:21:21And they pixel bend them.

00:21:22And they cut down the number of cores that are active to just the ones that work.

00:21:25And off you go.

00:21:26Good.

00:21:26Every manufacturer does this.

00:21:27Maybe someone just forgot to be like, yo, we pixel bend that one.

00:21:30And then it was up on the screen.

00:21:31And they're like, oh, dang.

00:21:32I forgot to send that email last week.

00:21:34Right.

00:21:35And then Apple's email system is like archaic.

00:21:37Yeah.

00:21:37And it just didn't go through approvals.

00:21:39Yep.

00:21:39Webex was down that day.

00:21:41They do use Webex.

00:21:42I will say, this is not in our show in our line.

00:21:44We had the CEO of Zoom on Decoder.

00:21:45And he used to work at Webex.

00:21:46And I asked him if he used Webex in the past year.

00:21:48And he was like, I don't.

00:21:49Mm, no.

00:21:54Truly weird.

00:21:55They haven't said that they're going to make it right.

00:21:58Because they say the performance that they're offering is the same as what they said.

00:22:01So they just got the number wrong, but the performance right.

00:22:03Well, and even apparently the listed performance is right.

00:22:07So the only mistake that they made was a 10 instead of a 9.

00:22:10Which, if that's true, is like mostly it's just weird that it happened.

00:22:15Yeah.

00:22:15But I do.

00:22:17Yeah.

00:22:18I do typos all the time.

00:22:20This is what happens when you let the AI write your spec sheets for you.

00:22:24It just made stuff up.

00:22:25And I'm like, oh, crap.

00:22:27See, lightning round.

00:22:28This is all the more that needs to be said.

00:22:29Moving right on.

00:22:30Samsung had a leak.

00:22:32Potentially a cheaper Galaxy Watch.

00:22:33Yeah, yeah.

00:22:34Samsung loves to leak things.

00:22:36They're not as bad as like Google.

00:22:37But they're up there.

00:22:39So there's new Galaxy Watch.

00:22:41It's going to be like their founder's edition.

00:22:43So the FE edition could cost about $200.

00:22:47Has a lot of really pretty colors.

00:22:50Seems really neat if it's real.

00:22:52And it probably is.

00:22:53So I think like Galaxy Unpacked is happening very, very soon.

00:22:56So we should know a lot more very, very soon.

00:23:00But now we know a lot.

00:23:02It's going to probably be $199.

00:23:04It's got an Exynos W920 chip in it.

00:23:091.5 gigabytes of RAM.

00:23:1016 gigabytes of storage.

00:23:13What do you do with 16 gigabytes of storage on a smartwatch?

00:23:15You put only music.

00:23:17I think that's the real answer.

00:23:18All the time.

00:23:19Like download.

00:23:20You just download a bunch of playlists.

00:23:22And you're off and running.

00:23:23People need their, like that was always a weird thing when I was reviewing watches years ago.

00:23:28People would always be like, yeah, how many songs can I get on that watch?

00:23:30Because you want to go for a run without your phone.

00:23:32Yeah.

00:23:32And I'm like, why are you running?

00:23:34One, why are you running?

00:23:36And then you're just going to use your watch?

00:23:38People do it.

00:23:39Yeah, a lot of people do it.

00:23:40And I respect them for it.

00:23:42This is why we have Vee on our staff.

00:23:44That's why Vee runs.

00:23:45Thank you, Vee.

00:23:46Vee begrudgingly runs, which is the correct way to review products, I think.

00:23:49And I love that about Vee.

00:23:51Unpacked is usually, what, like early August, right?

00:23:54Yeah.

00:23:55I think it's going to be a really interesting one.

00:23:56Like the Galaxy Ring seems like it might be a pretty cool.

00:23:59This is coming.

00:24:00You know Samsung is going to have hundreds of thousands of weird ideas about AI.

00:24:04Samsung will answer your top questions, Nilay.

00:24:06Samsung is going to figure out what to do with tops.

00:24:09Will they be good ideas?

00:24:10I don't know.

00:24:11Will they be branded milk?

00:24:12Like maybe.

00:24:13But they will.

00:24:14They will use those tops.

00:24:16And I think it's going to actually be a really fun event this year.

00:24:18They're going to have the most unhinged digital assistant, right?

00:24:22Like it's going to have like a face.

00:24:24Like Bixby with a face.

00:24:25Yeah.

00:24:26It's going to talk to you.

00:24:27It's going to make you feel very uncomfortable.

00:24:29I'm so excited.

00:24:31I feel like this WWDC, and we'll talk about it next time.

00:24:34We're leading into what I have begun to think of as the what is a photo apocalypse.

00:24:39Because Apple's just going to let people start.

00:24:41But like it's when Samsung is like, this is what the tops are for.

00:24:46All bets are off.

00:24:47We just made a new moon.

00:24:48Yeah, just straight up.

00:24:49Like two moons, fine.

00:24:51That's what the tops are for.

00:24:54Each tops gives you another moon.

00:24:57Speaking of AI, more AI, nothing.

00:24:59It has the phone three.

00:25:01David, you looked at it.

00:25:02Apparently just AI apps for days.

00:25:03Yeah.

00:25:04Did you guys see this teaser that Carl pay the CEO of nothing put up?

00:25:08He basically, it's like him sitting in an armchair being like,

00:25:10we believe that smartphones are the future of AI.

00:25:12And it's like, cool, Carl, like great job.

00:25:15But then they show off a couple of things they've been working on.

00:25:17And one of them is just like straight up, like GPT 40 rip, like push the button,

00:25:23talk to the assistant looks very cool.

00:25:25But they also had this prototype they've been working on of a dynamic personalized

00:25:30home screen.

00:25:31I guess you'd call it.

00:25:32It's like a little bit newsfeed, a little bit sort of live updating widgets with all

00:25:36the information you care about.

00:25:37And Carl has been saying for years, including on this show, I think almost exactly a year ago

00:25:43that their big idea is like, okay, smartphones are still the thing, but the app model is wrong.

00:25:49And how do we start to push past this idea that all of life is just siloed off into a

00:25:53million apps?

00:25:53And I happen to agree with that more and more every day.

00:25:57And so I think it was interesting to see what they were working on.

00:26:00And he just sort of said, we're going to start working on this stuff on the phone.

00:26:03Three, like not surprising that there's going to be a thing called the phone three,

00:26:07but interesting that he said it.

00:26:08And presumably it's going to be launched this summer.

00:26:11Very curious to see what they do.

00:26:13Cause they've been kind of like forward looking in some of their designing stuff,

00:26:18but have mostly just made like pretty straightforward cell phones and headphones.

00:26:21Like it's a, it's a design around a pretty straightforward product.

00:26:25But if they're gonna start doing this stuff, it might be more of a push into something

00:26:29different in the Android world, which I think would be pretty cool.

00:26:31Does it give you guys kind of like a windows phone vibe?

00:26:34Yes.

00:26:34I was gonna say, this is the episode of our chest where I brought up the fact that I lived

00:26:38through the touch pad.

00:26:39And now I have to be here being like, this was the, this is windows phone.

00:26:43Yeah.

00:26:45Like we're just, we're just doing and gadget again.

00:26:48Yeah.

00:26:49I mean, this is how I spent my time back then.

00:26:51Hey, it is just 2004 again.

00:26:53I would point that out.

00:26:55But also like it's really, it's long past due for us to just admit that live tiles were

00:27:00a good idea and Microsoft should have stuck to them because they shouldn't have stuck

00:27:04to windows.

00:27:05They should have stuck.

00:27:06No, no.

00:27:06They should have, they should have changed every other thing about what they were doing

00:27:10except for live tiles, which were a good idea.

00:27:14There's a real like baby bath water situation.

00:27:16Like this is like less attractive live tiles.

00:27:20There was a Microsoft event in Vegas where they announced like the next version of the

00:27:25app model of windows phone.

00:27:27I'm just saying that's where I fell in love with teeterbone.

00:27:30We were there being like, we drank a lot.

00:27:36We drank a lot and I was like, we will be friends now.

00:27:41You belong to me.

00:27:42We lasted a lot longer than windows phone.

00:27:44I'm just saying it's beautiful.

00:27:46It's true.

00:27:47But the idea that Microsoft should have stuck to windows phone because Carl pay is out here

00:27:52with nothing.

00:27:53I mean like what if we did this idea again?

00:27:55What if we expose the apps to another interface in the home screen?

00:28:00Yeah, man, I don't know.

00:28:01Like everyone wants to do this, but the app makers don't want to do it.

00:28:03They want you in their app, right?

00:28:05I mean, it's, we've seen this even like, again, WWDC is going to be interesting in that respect

00:28:09because we spent a lot of time last year talking about these live updating widgets and the

00:28:13interactive widgets and the dynamic island and this idea that like, oh, you can pull

00:28:18information out of the apps and onto the home screen of your phone.

00:28:21I think we've gotten to like a two out of 10 on where that could have gone.

00:28:25And it's been a year.

00:28:26And like, I don't know how many live activities y'all interact with every day, but my answer

00:28:30is pretty damn close to zero.

00:28:32Once a week when I get Uber Eats.

00:28:34Yeah.

00:28:34There you go.

00:28:34Countdown timers for various things that are going to happen.

00:28:38Yeah.

00:28:38All very good.

00:28:39Yeah.

00:28:39But it's also kind of like, yeah, I super know the plane is going to land in 45 minutes.

00:28:44I mean, like the Uber Eats one is great.

00:28:46I'm like, wings almost here.

00:28:47Yeah.

00:28:48And then sometimes it goes up and I'm like, wings took a wrong turn.

00:28:52Come back wings.

00:28:53All right.

00:28:53We're going to get through this whole thing.

00:28:55We're almost there.

00:28:55We got two left.

00:28:56The Asus Rogue Ally X.

00:29:01Sean looked at it.

00:29:02Alex, what do you think?

00:29:04I love Sean's enthusiasm for this thing because he went to look at it originally.

00:29:09ROG or Rogue?

00:29:10ROG.

00:29:10That's right.

00:29:11I know.

00:29:12It stands for Republic of Gamers.

00:29:14I'm aware of that.

00:29:15Which was a gaming company that Asus bought because all of the cool ones they bought.

00:29:18All of this stuff is in my brain.

00:29:20It's just right next to Windows Phone.

00:29:22Yeah.

00:29:22Windows Phone was really loud.

00:29:24You got to spin up the drive.

00:29:25Just really loud.

00:29:27No, I'm really optimistic.

00:29:31I mean, we both talk about this a lot.

00:29:33Sean and I's DMs are just more Steam Decks and more Steam Decks clones.

00:29:37We've designed about four of our own.

00:29:39This is how it starts.

00:29:40Yeah.

00:29:41Someone call us.

00:29:42We've got great ideas.

00:29:43This thing is definitely still pretty heavy.

00:29:46It's definitely beefy in a way that I think people will not find always so pleasing.

00:29:53Is the Steam Deck still just the prototypical one of these?

00:29:58Yeah.

00:29:59And it's primarily because most of these run on Windows.

00:30:04And that's not very good.

00:30:06For this platform, right?

00:30:09I think that's the thing that Steam Deck has done really, really well,

00:30:11is they built this really, really good platform.

00:30:13So you can just pop in and start downloading games and go.

00:30:16Whereas everybody else, you have to futz with it.

00:30:20There's always something.

00:30:21This is like a sneakily exciting reason to be optimistic for all these new chips, right?

00:30:25That if they are as good as advertised, suddenly building a device like this that is

00:30:30light and good and lasts a long time and still does the stuff you want it to do

00:30:33becomes a lot more plausible.

00:30:36Whereas right now, you basically have to just shove as much of a gaming PC as possible

00:30:41into as small a box as possible.

00:30:43And that is just physics.

00:30:45And physics is hard.

00:30:46But I will say on this front...

00:30:46All the while, Microsoft is like, what if Windows just watched everything you did

00:30:51and wrote it down in a plain text database?

00:30:54And it's like, I don't...

00:30:55It'll be fine.

00:30:56But that's one of the reasons.

00:30:57That's the advantage Steam Deck has, is they were able to cut down the operating system.

00:31:01Right.

00:31:02And this one, their way of doing it is like, well, we're not going to fix Windows.

00:31:08But we're going to make the battery a lot bigger.

00:31:10So that could be really cool.

00:31:12This thing should have probably, I think, the biggest battery of all of these kind of deals.

00:31:16But we'll see.

00:31:19Every time I get one of these in, I'm like, oh, this is going to be rad.

00:31:22And then I meet Windows, and I'm having to use a joystick to move a mouse around the screen.

00:31:27And it stops being rad real fast.

00:31:29Yeah.

00:31:29All right.

00:31:30Let's end it where we need to end it, with the promise we made at the top of the show.

00:31:35There's a defense contractor who made a Game Boy.

00:31:38It's Palmer Luckey, everybody.

00:31:40What a surprise.

00:31:42Of course.

00:31:44This is a long and twisted tale.

00:31:46Palmer Luckey, we met when he was a literal child.

00:31:48Speaking of things that happened a million years ago,

00:31:50we saw the first Oculus prototype in our trailer at CES.

00:31:572012, right?

00:31:58A hundred million years ago.

00:32:01It was a young, fresh-faced Palmer Luckey showing us the thing,

00:32:04talking about OLED refresh rates, and how he'd built the thing in forums,

00:32:07and met John Carmack in the forums of the OLED nerds.

00:32:10It was very virtual.

00:32:12Many things have happened to both Oculus and Palmer Luckey in that time.

00:32:17He grew a little mustache.

00:32:20Facial hair is, we're going to set it aside.

00:32:23You're allowed to make whatever choices you want with your facial hair.

00:32:25It's true.

00:32:26If you want to make those, we will just note them and set them aside.

00:32:31Meta bought Oculus.

00:32:33That turned into the Quest line.

00:32:35They fired Palmer Luckey for being kind of weird.

00:32:39Palmer Luckey made a bunch of weird donations to the Trump campaign,

00:32:42mostly in the form of inflammatory billboards, I believe.

00:32:46This is all real.

00:32:46It's just like in the past.

00:32:48And then he started a defense contractor named Andrew,

00:32:50which makes drones with guns on them.

00:32:52And is also named after a J.K.

00:32:55No, not a J.K. Rowling.

00:32:56Named after a J.R.R. Tolkien.

00:32:58Oh, sure.

00:32:59Like Lord of the Rings stuff.

00:33:01He's also cosplayed as Quiet from Metal Gear series.

00:33:04A real thing that you can go look at a photo of.

00:33:06One of the great sightings of my life was in San Jose.

00:33:09I was at a bar with my wife watching the NBA playoffs,

00:33:12and Palmer Luckey comes walking in with a tail on

00:33:15and just sits down at the bar and orders a drink.

00:33:18Just a delightful day.

00:33:20He's been spiky with us.

00:33:21Whatever.

00:33:22This is all Palmer Luckey stuff.

00:33:24And it's in the people arguing about the merits of spending money

00:33:27on Palmer Luckey devices in our comments.

00:33:30But it is true that he's made something called the Chromatic.

00:33:33And it looks sick.

00:33:34Which is $199.

00:33:37And apparently it's just like, what if you finished a Game Boy?

00:33:40Like, what if you took a Game Boy to the most Game Boy conclusion it could be?

00:33:44Yeah, what if you took all of the technology we have in 2024

00:33:49and made a Game Boy from 1989?

00:33:52That plays Game Boy cartridges.

00:33:55It is exactly what I want it to be.

00:33:57And it's like...

00:33:58Or excuse me, Game Boy Color too.

00:34:00You're right.

00:34:00Yeah.

00:34:01It has a color matched screen to the Game Boy Color, right?

00:34:06Super bright, really good screen.

00:34:08The colors look awesome.

00:34:09Like this thing.

00:34:10Yeah, you're right.

00:34:11All the pedigree of it aside, this thing looks awesome.

00:34:15And it's 200 bucks.

00:34:16And I think people love the stuff that Analog makes.

00:34:19And at least from the little bit we've seen so far, this belongs right there.

00:34:24Yeah, Analog, I would say, is for modern nerds who want to get into retro gaming.

00:34:30This is for you are in retro gaming.

00:34:33Because this is like, what if we could make it as accurate as possible but modern?

00:34:37So the pixels and everything, it's not a super high resolution display or anything like that.

00:34:42It is meant to be the same resolution as the Game Boy Color.

00:34:46Which came out.

00:34:48And then also it comes with a side of deep moral ambivalence.

00:34:52There you go.

00:34:52And Tetris.

00:34:53Don't forget Tetris.

00:34:54And Tetris.

00:34:55Very confusing product.

00:34:57Just all the way around.

00:34:59I don't know that I'm going to spend $200 on it.

00:35:01I know that...

00:35:03Boy, would I love to spend $200 on something just like it.

00:35:06Yeah.

00:35:07Yeah.

00:35:08Deep moral ambivalence.

00:35:09That's what I would say.

00:35:11A defense contractor.

00:35:13Although if Lockheed Martin was to make a $200 Game Boy,

00:35:16would we cover it?

00:35:17I think the answer is assuredly yes.

00:35:18Yeah.

00:35:19Lockheed, you have your orders.

00:35:20Yeah.

00:35:21Agreed.

00:35:21I mean, it is interesting.

00:35:23Palmer Luckey is documented as having been into this for a really, really long time.

00:35:30Again, all of the feelings about Palmer Luckey aside,

00:35:33he's actually a person you would think would probably do a very good job of this.

00:35:37Yeah.

00:35:37It's going to be really interesting to see.

00:35:39He's also apparently about to launch some new headset.

00:35:42Palmer, he's just running around doing stuff now.

00:35:45It's very odd.

00:35:46Yeah, I mean, that defense contractor money really helps out.

00:35:48Yeah, seriously.

00:35:49But that's the challenge of trying to wear as many hats as he does,

00:35:53is that people don't like a lot of those hats.

00:35:55And one of those hats is reprehensible politics.

00:35:57Okay, that's the lightning round.

00:35:59We finished.

00:35:59We did it.

00:36:01I don't know how long.

00:36:02Neal, I'm really proud of you.

00:36:02It took 45 minutes.

00:36:03You did a good job.

00:36:04It was so long.

00:36:04I only had to delete two things from the list.

00:36:06That was really good.

00:36:08Because we win.

00:36:09All right, we have to take a quick break.

00:36:10We'll be back.

00:36:11Preview of WWDC.

00:36:13And then a second traditional lightning round for you traditionalists.

00:36:17We'll be right back.

00:36:22All right, we're back.

00:36:24We got to talk about it.

00:36:26WWDC.

00:36:27Yeah.

00:36:28I was at a conference earlier this week and I called it Dub Dub

00:36:30and someone looked at me and said, you actually call it Dub Dub.

00:36:33It's so much easier.

00:36:34Like my friends roasted me about this last week too.

00:36:37I was like, oh yeah, I'm going to Dub Dub.

00:36:38And they were like, you called it that?

00:36:41And I'm like, look.

00:36:42They really did make it happen.

00:36:43They manufactured calling it Dub Dub.

00:36:45And it's less syllables than WWDC.

00:36:49That's true.

00:36:49But it's coming.

00:36:50We're going.

00:36:51We'll be there.

00:36:51We're going to verge cast from there.

00:36:53Apparently there's a sick house we're going to verge cast from.

00:36:56Very excited about this.

00:36:57And then I'm told that we're going to have tacos.

00:37:00This is all of the more planning for WWDC.

00:37:01That's your WWDC preview.

00:37:03It's going to be great.

00:37:06This feels like a big one.

00:37:08So there's been a bunch of reporting leading up to it.

00:37:10Obviously some news about AI and all the platforms,

00:37:13potentially an open AI partnership.

00:37:16Mark Gurman reported there'll be no hardware,

00:37:17which is really interesting.

00:37:18Traditionally, we've seen Mac Pros,

00:37:21other sort of developer look ahead hardware happen at WWDC.

00:37:25We also got MacBook Airs a couple of years, didn't we?

00:37:27That was like.

00:37:28Well, that's when they did chip bumps.

00:37:29They were just like.

00:37:30Oh yeah, that's true.

00:37:31Right.

00:37:31This is a moment to just like get some stuff out in the world

00:37:34and make some noise.

00:37:35And it seems like they did the hard.

00:37:36This is where you would have done the iPads.

00:37:38True.

00:37:39This would be a great place for iPads.

00:37:40But they moved that stuff out of the way.

00:37:42I will say Apple keeps advertising the new iPad

00:37:45as the thinnest iPad, the thinnest Apple product ever,

00:37:48which just really implies there's not much else to say.

00:37:52Like that's the advertising.

00:37:53Just iPad.

00:37:54Yeah, here it is.

00:37:55It's thin.

00:37:56It's iPad.

00:37:58That makes sense.

00:37:59There's no hardware at this one

00:38:01because you want all of the focus

00:38:03to be on what the software can do now.

00:38:05If you're going to put AI all through the software

00:38:07and you certainly don't want to tie that

00:38:09to the idea that you need new hardware to do it, right?

00:38:14Because Apple has been on that cadence in the past

00:38:16where they're like, here's a new iPhone.

00:38:19We've gated some camera feature

00:38:21that you could definitely do on the old iPhone

00:38:22to the new iPhone.

00:38:23But here, this is about the future of iOS.

00:38:25It's about the future of Siri.

00:38:27It seems like you need all of the focus

00:38:29to be like a great upgrade that's coming to everybody

00:38:32with a recent iPhone AI.

00:38:34Yeah, Apple does not want to be talking about tops.

00:38:37Not just because their processors have the fewest,

00:38:40but yeah, that's not a thing they want.

00:38:43They never want to talk about specs.

00:38:44Yeah, they never want to talk about specs.

00:38:45But Alex, that's true and it isn't, right?

00:38:48Because it is true that Apple is maybe losing the tops

00:38:52where it's also definitely true that Apple

00:38:54is going to have the most devices

00:38:58that this stuff can run on by a million miles on day one.

00:39:02And that's the flex Apple is going to want here.

00:39:05Not we launched a new AI thing,

00:39:07but we made all your things AI things.

00:39:09And if you're Apple and the world feels

00:39:11like you need to catch up in AI, that's how you do it.

00:39:14Yeah, I totally, totally agree.

00:39:16And especially because as we know,

00:39:18we have no idea what tops actually do,

00:39:21so they don't need to care about it.

00:39:24Well, so what are tops for?

00:39:26A good question.

00:39:27Apple has an opportunity to answer that question.

00:39:30Maybe not by saying tops,

00:39:32but by saying here are a bunch of features

00:39:34in the operating system.

00:39:35Apple very famously has so much headroom

00:39:39in terms of performance that it can just put out features.

00:39:43It can weigh cycles, basically.

00:39:46Again, to just sound like an old man,

00:39:48when Apple first announced OS 10,

00:39:51and it was like beautiful and had extra animations,

00:39:53everyone would complain that they were just like

00:39:55running a processor all the time.

00:39:57And Apple is like, yeah, it's pretty.

00:39:59That's what we do here.

00:40:01It's delightful.

00:40:02That's what the processors are for.

00:40:04And now they have so much headroom,

00:40:05they can do a bunch of stuff.

00:40:06So there's just a bunch of stuff.

00:40:10There's AI-generated emojis rumored to be announced.

00:40:14There's AI-powered voice transcription

00:40:16in voice memos and in notes, which sounds great.

00:40:19I love it.

00:40:20Just put that in the operating system.

00:40:21Sorry, a bunch of indie apps

00:40:23that are offering that right now.

00:40:26The idea that Siri will be able to just like

00:40:28go into your apps and do things.

00:40:30An idea that we have talked about for a long time,

00:40:32programmatically with Bixby,

00:40:34programmatically with Siri,

00:40:36with shortcuts in implausible

00:40:40and ultimately fake ways with Rabbit

00:40:42and the large action model.

00:40:44Like the idea that an assistant

00:40:46can just use a computer for you,

00:40:49that is the dream.

00:40:50If Apple can get to somewhere

00:40:53farther than we are now with Siri on the phone,

00:40:55that's a huge step forward.

00:40:57Yeah, if I can just go,

00:40:59because we all have like what?

00:41:01Four different music and podcasting

00:41:03and audio book apps on our phones.

00:41:05And so when you're like,

00:41:06yeah, I just want to listen to my book.

00:41:07It's like, okay, would you like to buy it

00:41:09from the Apple store?

00:41:10And you're like, no, I have it in like Libby

00:41:12or Libro FM or whatever.

00:41:13And the idea to just be like,

00:41:15hey, play that, go do it.

00:41:18And it would just do it.

00:41:19Oh my God, that would be incredible.

00:41:21Will that actually happen?

00:41:23Or will Apple still try to get you

00:41:24to buy a book from the iBook store?

00:41:26Yeah, I think that's going to be the real issue

00:41:30for that particular use case.

00:41:32So I think the question is exclusively

00:41:36what you just said, Neil,

00:41:38which I think is really fascinating, right?

00:41:39Because until now,

00:41:40there have been a million problems, right?

00:41:42One of which is the underlying machine learning

00:41:44technology is not very good.

00:41:46One of which is that Siri is not historically

00:41:48very good at speech recognition.

00:41:50One is that the processing stuff

00:41:52has not been as fast as it needs to be

00:41:54to be useful for stuff.

00:41:55But the biggest one has just been

00:41:57that Apple won't let developers do stuff.

00:41:59And if you're Apple,

00:42:02the question now is like,

00:42:03what are we going to expose to developers?

00:42:05Because the way it's been for a long time

00:42:07is developers would have had to do all the work, right?

00:42:09So Apple just says like,

00:42:10here's what Siri can do.

00:42:11Plug it into your app, however you'd like.

00:42:13But if this new AI thing can work

00:42:15the way that it might,

00:42:17or at least that it's been reported to work,

00:42:20all developers have to do is basically

00:42:22just like expose their app to Siri

00:42:24in a way that could become very powerful

00:42:25in the way that it's like,

00:42:27I don't know, Google search

00:42:28is a good example of this, right?

00:42:29If you just write a recipe

00:42:30on your website in a certain way,

00:42:32or you structure the page a certain way,

00:42:33like Google can understand it

00:42:34and index it and do stuff with it.

00:42:36And if Apple can say,

00:42:38hey, Spotify, Libby, whoever else,

00:42:42you want somebody to just be able

00:42:43to listen to their podcasts in your app,

00:42:46just turn these three flags on that say,

00:42:48here's how you play a podcast in our app,

00:42:50and we're off and running.

00:42:51Like, if everybody wants this to happen,

00:42:54it could happen.

00:42:55But that's not the AI of it.

00:42:57No, that's-

00:42:57That exists sort of today.

00:43:00Like you can kind of get there.

00:43:02My favorite example of this,

00:43:04I'm just going to admit to being a dad

00:43:06who buys chicken nuggets

00:43:07in a McDonald's app all the time.

00:43:09It's like a real thing that happens.

00:43:12Counting those points,

00:43:13we're going to get six free nuggets

00:43:14one of these days.

00:43:17And every time I make this order,

00:43:18it's like, do you want to make a Siri

00:43:19shortcut for this order?

00:43:20And I have like a total moral crisis

00:43:23about voice ordering chicken nuggets.

00:43:26Like, but it's like,

00:43:28those flags already exist.

00:43:29No, but this is my point.

00:43:30Walk me through that process.

00:43:31Tell me every step you take to do that.

00:43:34You literally hit a button in the app

00:43:36that's like, just say this as a favorite,

00:43:38and then you can be like Siri.

00:43:39No, I mean to order Siri or to,

00:43:41oh, wait, wait, you order McDonald's,

00:43:43and then it says,

00:43:44do you want to order McDonald's with your voice

00:43:45and you can't bring yourself to do that?

00:43:46If you make me open this app

00:43:48on this podcast right now-

00:43:48I would like you to do that very much.

00:43:50My God.

00:43:50I would like you to do that very much.

00:43:51No, because one thing,

00:43:52I should have said this at the beginning

00:43:53is there are going to be a lot of people

00:43:55listening to this who are like,

00:43:56shortcuts solve this.

00:43:57And no, it doesn't.

00:43:58No, it doesn't.

00:43:59Shortcuts is a bad app

00:44:00that no one can figure out.

00:44:02And if you figured it out,

00:44:03congratulations, and I'm proud of you.

00:44:04Shortcuts is not the solution to this problem.

00:44:07I say shortcuts is a solution

00:44:08if you're a programmer

00:44:09and you have a really strong grasp of programming.

00:44:12If you want to write code,

00:44:13you can solve a lot of your problems,

00:44:14including in shortcuts.

00:44:16Absolutely true.

00:44:17I don't want to write code.

00:44:18If you know what an X callback URL is,

00:44:20congratulations, you can use shortcuts.

00:44:22Most people don't.

00:44:24And that's fine.

00:44:26I don't think you can set up Siri

00:44:27on the McDonald's app

00:44:28unless you order McDonald's.

00:44:35But it is true that you can set up a Siri thing.

00:44:38It might use shortcuts in the background.

00:44:39Right.

00:44:40But like the hooks for

00:44:42have Siri do stuff in the app,

00:44:44programmatically, semantically,

00:44:45like you're talking about with Google,

00:44:47they exist.

00:44:48The opportunity for Apple is to say,

00:44:51we control this operating system top to bottom.

00:44:53We control the app store top to bottom,

00:44:55at least in this country.

00:44:58And we can now use your phone for you,

00:45:00which is more or less the promise

00:45:01Samsung made with Bixby a million years ago.

00:45:04And more or less the promise

00:45:05Microsoft is starting to make with Windows.

00:45:07Yeah.

00:45:08Right.

00:45:08We just sit over the top of everything

00:45:11and we'll click around for you.

00:45:13And if Apple can get there,

00:45:15which I don't know if they can,

00:45:17but it's certainly the promise

00:45:18that's been reported by German and others,

00:45:19they will get there in their own apps,

00:45:22that you will just be able to talk to Siri

00:45:23and it will take action in Apple's own apps.

00:45:25And there's obviously privacy and security concerns,

00:45:27all this stuff.

00:45:28But if they can get even a little bit farther there

00:45:30on the phone with AI,

00:45:32so it's not this like very manual,

00:45:35set the flags of what you're allowed to do

00:45:37and here's how it works,

00:45:38but much more where the computer

00:45:40is going to use the computer for you.

00:45:42That's a huge deal.

00:45:43Oh, I agree.

00:45:44I don't know how much processing power you need for that.

00:45:46I don't know if...

00:45:47Well, you're also going to run into Apple's desire

00:45:50to have you use their stuff so that they get money.

00:45:54Right, and then once you're using Apple's stuff

00:45:56and Apple's ecosystem,

00:45:58whether or not it even is AI,

00:46:00like starts to get fully obfuscated

00:46:02because once you control everything,

00:46:05you just like fake it more or less.

00:46:07So there's a million questions in there.

00:46:09And then there's obviously the big problem

00:46:11of how many tops do you need to pull that off?

00:46:14Can they run locally on the phone,

00:46:15which is power-constrained, network-constrained,

00:46:17all the stuff, heat, thermal-constrained?

00:46:22Yikes.

00:46:22And then do you want your phone

00:46:23watching everything you do?

00:46:25Like just like a series of escalating yikes problems.

00:46:28I'm very curious to see how Apple talks about this stuff

00:46:31because this sort of like chatbot-esque part,

00:46:35where you're like make a custom emoji for me

00:46:37or like do a voice transcription,

00:46:38like these familiar things all make sense to do.

00:46:42The part where they're like,

00:46:43we control everything and we can do things

00:46:44that no one else can do.

00:46:46Wild.

00:46:47I'm also going to be curious

00:46:48if they can even like roll it out

00:46:51as fast as they want to, right?

00:46:52Because I think technologically they can,

00:46:54but I'm just thinking of what we've seen

00:46:57again and again and again

00:46:58is that these companies are pushing these things out

00:47:00and not considering the edge cases.

00:47:02Because I was just sitting here being like,

00:47:03oh man, I'm totally going to have it make

00:47:05an ugly Sonic the Hedgehog emoji

00:47:09that looks like Raccoon Girl,

00:47:11which is like, that is a whole thing.

00:47:16I think any AI would struggle with that.

00:47:19Siri would struggle with that.

00:47:20There's a red team at Apple right now

00:47:21listening to this podcast being like,

00:47:22did we test Raccoon Girl?

00:47:24I hope you guys did.

00:47:26Please hire Alex Krams for all your edge case red teaming.

00:47:30Yeah.

00:47:31That's a service we can provide on this show.

00:47:33The glue thing happened because they were like,

00:47:36how do I get the cheese to stick to the pizza?

00:47:37Can I say the funniest thing about the glue thing?

00:47:40What?

00:47:40Did you do it?

00:47:41I have not.

00:47:41Katie Notapolos at Insider did it.

00:47:43She said it was fine.

00:47:44But, you know, you have to trust her that it was fine.

00:47:49So Google is manually deleting the bad results.

00:47:52Or Google contractors in some other country

00:47:55are manually deleting the results as people see them.

00:47:57But because so many people have now searched

00:48:00for how to keep the cheese on pizza

00:48:03and then proactively clicked

00:48:06on Fucksmith's comment on Reddit about the glue,

00:48:10the regular Google search algorithm now is like,

00:48:13that's the answer.

00:48:14So Google, AI, Google bombed Google.

00:48:17Yes.

00:48:19If you, at least I have a screenshot of it,

00:48:21but when I searched for it the other day,

00:48:23no AI result.

00:48:25But straight up, it was like,

00:48:26here's a Reddit answer from 11 years ago

00:48:28by a user named Fucksmith,

00:48:31who's like, put the glue on pizza.

00:48:33You got it, didn't you?

00:48:34I just immediately got it.

00:48:35That was the first thing I got.

00:48:36The regular Google algorithm is now broken.

00:48:41That brings me so much joy.

00:48:44It's like, what are you going to do with this, man?

00:48:46You can put the glue on the pizza.

00:48:49And it's funny because with the Google leak

00:48:51that we were talking about last week,

00:48:53we know it's because of the clicks.

00:48:57We know that so many people have clicked

00:48:58on this answer as a goof

00:48:59that regular Google got confused.

00:49:01Yeah.

00:49:02Oh, it's beautiful.

00:49:03It's good.

00:49:03Anyway, back to Apple.

00:49:05Can Apple's brand sustain that kind of error?

00:49:09It seems like they're not going to do

00:49:10an open chatbot in this way.

00:49:11Yeah.

00:49:11But that brings us to whatever

00:49:13this OpenAI partnership is going to be.

00:49:16I feel like I'm going to disclose now

00:49:17that Vox Media has a content deal with OpenAI.

00:49:20Yep.

00:49:21It's the first time we've done it

00:49:22in the course of the show, like in the flow.

00:49:24Quick, somebody bring up Netflix.

00:49:26I made a Netflix show.

00:49:29Hi, Hollywood Mattel over here.

00:49:31It's called The Future Of.

00:49:32It's a great show.

00:49:33I encourage you to watch it.

00:49:34It was number one for five minutes

00:49:36and then immediately other shows were number one.

00:49:42Anyhow, what are they going to do with OpenAI?

00:49:45It feels like this is where OpenAI launches

00:49:47a search product or another kind of integration.

00:49:52Who knows?

00:49:53David, do you have anything?

00:49:54It's going to be a chatbot.

00:49:55You think it's just going to be a chatbot?

00:49:57Well, no.

00:49:57So there's a bunch of things going on here.

00:49:59One is that like.

00:49:59No multimodal for a search.

00:50:01There's going to be some of that, right?

00:50:02And to your point about how Apple does this

00:50:06on device Siri thing, there's this research paper

00:50:08that Apple put out, I think earlier this year.

00:50:11It was either very late last year or early this year

00:50:13about this thing called Ferret, which is basically

00:50:16the like academic version of some

00:50:18of what we're talking about.

00:50:19It's basically how to teach a language model,

00:50:20how to understand what's on a screen.

00:50:22And one of the things they say in that paper

00:50:26is that GPT-4 is very good at sort of conceptually

00:50:29understanding a page, right?

00:50:31Like you show it something and it says,

00:50:33this is an image of people on the beach.

00:50:36But if you zoom all the way in and you're like,

00:50:37what's this little thing on the sand?

00:50:39GPT-4 is not good at that.

00:50:40So what they built is this thing Ferret

00:50:42that is very good in these small spaces.

00:50:44And what they say in the paper is this combination

00:50:47is going to be very useful for us

00:50:48because we have this one simple system.

00:50:50They can just say, this is the Discover Weekly

00:50:54playlist on Spotify.

00:50:55And then you have this thing Ferret that can drill down

00:50:57and be like, okay, that's the song

00:50:58that they're looking for.

00:50:59And so I think that is probably more

00:51:02what you're gonna see that GPT-4

00:51:05and this Open AI Partnership

00:51:06is sort of the big, broad strokes,

00:51:09like let's do the first 80% of the AI job

00:51:12with a lot of the stuff.

00:51:13And then Apple's job underneath it

00:51:15is going to be to fix all of the things

00:51:18that GPT-4 either can't do or doesn't do very well.

00:51:20Which actually in a lot of ways is really smart

00:51:22because you don't need to reinvent

00:51:25all the quote unquote easier stuff.

00:51:28Apple can just build features on top of it.

00:51:31It's like all the browsers building out of Chromium now.

00:51:34We've more or less finished the job

00:51:36of how to do the very small, simple basics.

00:51:40All the interesting stuff is the interface

00:51:42and the last mile stuff.

00:51:43And so I suspect that's what we'll see a lot of

00:51:46all over iOS.

00:51:48But where is it gonna happen?

00:51:49Because if you're relying on GPT-4.0

00:51:52to do some stuff, you have to go to the cloud.

00:51:54You probably have to go to Microsoft servers, right?

00:51:57Because most of that runs in Azure.

00:51:58If you want the full model, yeah.

00:51:59I also, I don't pretend to have a ton of knowledge.

00:52:01But I'm confident that OpenAI is working

00:52:04on smaller versions of its stuff

00:52:05that works on device and locally and all that stuff.

00:52:10But I think if you look at something like,

00:52:12what's a good example?

00:52:12Voice transcription.

00:52:13We were just talking about why on earth

00:52:15if you're Apple would you try to rebuild Whisper

00:52:18when Whisper is really good and OpenAI made it already?

00:52:22Whisper's maybe a bad example

00:52:23because it's actually open source

00:52:24and Apple could just take it.

00:52:25But that's the sort of thing that's like,

00:52:27OpenAI is sitting on a lot of very good technology

00:52:30that is not being made into very good products.

00:52:32And I think if I'm Apple,

00:52:34what I'm doing is looking at them and saying,

00:52:35I know how to make products.

00:52:37I'm just gonna take your sort of base level

00:52:40infrastructure technology and build on top of it.

00:52:43I do think the what's going to happen on device

00:52:45versus what's going to happen in the cloud thing

00:52:47is gonna be messy for Apple at first

00:52:50and has been messy with Siri over the years, right?

00:52:52Like for a long time,

00:52:54one of the things that sucked about Siri

00:52:55was that it went to the cloud for basically everything.

00:52:58And progressively over time,

00:52:59Siri has gotten to do more stuff locally

00:53:01and has gotten better and faster as a result.

00:53:03And so I think we're gonna see a lot of that

00:53:05sort of calibration of that sliding scale again

00:53:08from Apple here.

00:53:08But if they get to the point

00:53:09where they're sending what's happening on your device

00:53:13to a cloud server,

00:53:15especially one that Apple doesn't own,

00:53:18that is Apple walking away from some of its privacy promises.

00:53:21They made a Google deal, dude.

00:53:22This is what happens.

00:53:23No, but I'm saying if they do the thing

00:53:25where you're like Play, Spot, Discover Weekly

00:53:27and GPT-4 in an Azure server is looking at your screen

00:53:30and then locally it's something else.

00:53:35There's a line that I don't think Apple will cross.

00:53:39We don't know the full terms

00:53:40of the OpenAI partnership, right?

00:53:42And Apple would be very, very, very, very, very stupid

00:53:46to throw away that privacy marketing that they have.

00:53:50So I could totally see them being like,

00:53:52we have OpenAI, but we're gonna use it on our servers

00:53:55and it'll go through our stuff

00:53:56and it's all gonna be through your iCloud

00:53:58and all of that stuff.

00:53:59I think that's probably what it is.

00:54:00I think this is going to be less like

00:54:03we wanna run this stuff

00:54:04on the back of OpenAI's server infrastructure,

00:54:07which is literally, as you said, Azure.

00:54:09And more like we're going to take some of their technology

00:54:13and we're going to run it on our servers.

00:54:14And it's just gonna be like a white label licensing deal.

00:54:16And we've heard rumors about Apple

00:54:19like building their own processors and stuff.

00:54:21No, they're putting M2 Ultras.

00:54:23Yeah, that's it, that's it.

00:54:24In a rack.

00:54:25Yeah, and that's what it's for.

00:54:26How many tops on an M2 Ultra?

00:54:28Some.

00:54:29Some?

00:54:30Some to 30.

00:54:31I mean, look, if there's one company,

00:54:33like you said, David, that can say like,

00:54:35this is what all the headroom on the phone is for.

00:54:3831.6 tops.

00:54:40That's pretty good.

00:54:42That's an amount of tops.

00:54:44That is more than a raspberry pie.

00:54:47Two and a half raspberry pies right there.

00:54:50That's brutal.

00:54:51If you can tell us what incremental tops are for,

00:54:55please leave us a note.

00:54:57But you can't be an AI researcher.

00:54:59Like if you are building a consumer application,

00:55:01we're like, oh man, when phones have at least 27 tops,

00:55:07like the world will, like you let us know.

00:55:09I'm dying to know the answer to this question.

00:55:11Snapchat is writing you as we speak to be like,

00:55:14we can map weird stuff to your face so well with more tops.

00:55:18But if Evan Spiegel is like up at night

00:55:20because the average phone has 20 tops and he needs 27,

00:55:23like you, that's what I'm looking for, Evan.

00:55:25I love it.

00:55:26This is such a good conversation for the beginning of Pride.

00:55:29I love it so much.

00:55:30Oh my God, Alex.

00:55:33I just had to say.

00:55:34What's randomly hornier, Alex Kranz or an AI?

00:55:38Only a top can say.

00:55:39We'll find out.

00:55:40That's going to be a head to head on a later Verge cast.

00:55:43All right, what do we think is like the big thing

00:55:45that we're looking for from WEC?

00:55:47Let's wrap it up this way.

00:55:49What's yours?

00:55:50Like wishlist style.

00:55:52Ooh, I don't even know because I like,

00:55:56as David well knows, I started using Arc.

00:55:59And so now that's all I care about on my Mac.

00:56:02So like, I'm like, yeah, I just want it to like look nice.

00:56:06I want better control over my, the appearance of my device.

00:56:10I would love if the AI would just, I'd be able to be like,

00:56:12I want it to be like cool cyberpunk green.

00:56:14And it would just be like, got you.

00:56:17That's my wishlist.

00:56:19Get a cyberpunk green.

00:56:21Yeah.

00:56:21I want it.

00:56:22I want, I want Mac OS and Siri to make my computer look as ugly as possible.

00:56:27AI powered theming is an incredible.

00:56:29I'm not, I don't think it's Apple.

00:56:31That was like a Samsung Saturday.

00:56:33There has been some reporting that Apple is going to like,

00:56:36really open up the possibilities for what you can do with your home screen.

00:56:40Like they're going to let you put app icons wherever you want, which like,

00:56:44oh my God, what, how did no one think of this before?

00:56:47It's unbelievable.

00:56:48Incredible.

00:56:49But like, maybe we're not that far away from you.

00:56:52Just being able to tell Siri, like just up my phone.

00:56:55It's no big deal.

00:56:56And it'll just happen.

00:56:56That'd be amazing.

00:56:57That's what I want.

00:56:59All right.

00:57:00That's Alex's David.

00:57:02All of my stuff is spotlight, which I would very much like to,

00:57:08that's where I want all the AI stuff to go.

00:57:10I think the like little AI features, voice transcription,

00:57:13all that stuff is going to be very cool for me.

00:57:15It's like, if it can get very good at me just being like,

00:57:19what was that picture of the sign that I took a few days ago?

00:57:22And it'll just be like this one or like the,

00:57:25the thing in Google photos where you can just ask it about things in your photos.

00:57:29Like I want that locally on my phone and also with access to all of my stuff,

00:57:34right?

00:57:34Like spotlight knows everything.

00:57:36It sees the internet.

00:57:37It has all this stuff on your device.

00:57:38There's been some reporting,

00:57:40I think from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg,

00:57:41that it's going to be able to do more stuff inside of files and with documents.

00:57:44And I just want to be like,

00:57:46I want to just live my life inside of that spotlight search and just have it

00:57:49understand everything on my phone all the time.

00:57:52Like that would be cool.

00:57:53That's the AI job here.

00:57:55As far as you want.

00:57:56Rewind basically, but, and it's just sitting here.

00:57:59This is one of the people who's like, just do all already does.

00:58:02It's already like, do you know what?

00:58:04Already knows everything that's happening on my phone is my phone.

00:58:07Like just do it for me.

00:58:10And again, like, I think the interesting thing about the recall thing is that it's like.

00:58:16The worry is that somebody can get all the stuff on your device, right?

00:58:20Malware exists on windows that just lets somebody look at that plain text database

00:58:24that is sitting on your device, way less of a threat on the iPhone.

00:58:27And so for me, like all my stuff is already here.

00:58:31And if you get my phone and my passcode, I'm screwed already.

00:58:34So I'm like, let's at least make use of the fact that this device

00:58:38essentially contains every piece of my life and existence

00:58:41and make it useful to me because I can't help what it already is.

00:58:44I love this because I have like a whole reservoir of horrible

00:58:47photos and GIFs and it would be real.

00:58:50It would rule to just be like, Hey, Siri.

00:58:52Again, if the Apple's red team is available.

00:58:55I got you.

00:58:56Alex Kranz is also available.

00:58:58If I could just be like, where's the Wilmer Valderrama gift where he does the,

00:59:00I love you with his hands and it just shows it to me.

00:59:02Like, that's what I want.

00:59:03That's the dream.

00:59:04Yes.

00:59:05Yeah.

00:59:05That's that.

00:59:06I love this stream.

00:59:07Okay.

00:59:07I'm on board.

00:59:08I switched mine to David's.

00:59:10But also I want to make my phone ugly with one command.

00:59:12I'm with Alex too.

00:59:14Nilay, what's yours?

00:59:16I feel like the, the, Hey, don't share Wilmer Valderrama gifts anymore.

00:59:22Warning is something that you need from an AI system in this context.

00:59:26Like, Hey, you're a little out of date.

00:59:28There's been some news just helping you out there, bud.

00:59:34Okay.

00:59:34Mine is very small.

00:59:35It's not really a wishlist of a feature.

00:59:37Okay.

00:59:38I am dying to see how Apple addresses adding RCS to messages.

00:59:43Oh yeah.

00:59:44Is it an announcement?

00:59:45Is it a bento box slide?

00:59:47Is it the world's smallest type?

00:59:48Is it just Cred Fegariti being like, we've added the letters and it's like moving on.

00:59:52Like it could go a million different ways.

00:59:56It's going to be bento.

00:59:57It could be a full thing.

00:59:58Like we've now added support for the standard that everyone's been waiting for.

01:00:03I figured it out.

01:00:04They're going to talk about the emojis that they can make with AI and then be like,

01:00:08and you can even send them to your friend on Android because we've introduced RCS.

01:00:14Any number of ways.

01:00:14Will they show green bubbles on that stage?

01:00:19Yeah.

01:00:20Anything could happen.

01:00:22Oh, it's going to rule.

01:00:23And I'm just like, that's the thing that I'm, or, or they could do nothing.

01:00:26I love this, Alex, because like, do you remember a million years ago when

01:00:31Paul Pierce sent that tweet where he tried to send an emoji, but he actually sent a picture,

01:00:35like a JPEG of the rocket ship emoji.

01:00:38That's what it's going to look like when you make a custom emoji on an iPhone and send it

01:00:41to an Android person.

01:00:42And that is how Apple gets to support RCS and still kind of knife all the Android users

01:00:47all at the same time.

01:00:48That's good.

01:00:49These new features are for, for message users, messages, users, and for Android users.

01:00:54You get a JPEG.

01:00:58I love this.

01:01:00Like I've just, anything could happen, like literally anything from that, like open cutting

01:01:06warfare all the way down to, we've put three letters in like the tiniest box of the other

01:01:12features in iOS.

01:01:14They might not even call it RCS.

01:01:16Like, yeah.

01:01:18Rich messaging.

01:01:19What did they call it on the Apple home app?

01:01:21Like new architecture.

01:01:23Maybe they'll just call it new architecture.

01:01:25Rich complex messaging.

01:01:27Yeah.

01:01:28So whatever, they'll just literally anything is possible.

01:01:31Yeah.

01:01:32But like, I cannot wait because they've announced they're going to do it.

01:01:35Yeah.

01:01:36And this is when they roll out the new operating systems.

01:01:38This is when they might do it.

01:01:40They just don't say anything.

01:01:41I'm on pins and needles.

01:01:42It is really interesting, by the way, how little we've heard about non AI stuff coming

01:01:49this year.

01:01:49Like the non AI reporting so far is basically like new settings menu and some more native

01:01:56apps for the vision pro.

01:01:58And all that stuff is well and good, but there is surprisingly little, at least from what

01:02:03we've heard so far, that is not going to be about AI.

01:02:06And I think both for just how the presentation goes, but also what these things are, it's

01:02:10going to be really interesting to see if basically whatever 12 months ago, Craig Federighi was

01:02:16like, we only do AI from now on or not.

01:02:20Like, it's just, it's, that's the thing I'm going to be watching the most for is like

01:02:23how much non AI stuff is there, which I think is very telling for how much Apple is going

01:02:28to feel like it has to do with AI.

01:02:30Yeah.

01:02:31I'm telling you, it's going to be RCS.

01:02:32All right.

01:02:33We got to wrap this up.

01:02:33We're going to be at WWDC.

01:02:36He's so sad.

01:02:37What?

01:02:37I was going to get in there.

01:02:38Oh yeah.

01:02:39Liam's got one.

01:02:40Okay.

01:02:40All right, Liam, we, we bonus round.

01:02:42Okay.

01:02:42This one has technically been announced already, but the thing I'm most excited to try next

01:02:47week is the motion sickness feature.

01:02:49Oh yeah.

01:02:50I'm one of those people that like, when I'm in an Uber, I can't read my phone for more

01:02:54than a few seconds because I get horrible motion sickness.

01:02:57So I really want to try this if it's in beta and hopefully it works.

01:03:01Yeah.

01:03:02All right.

01:03:02We're going to get Liam in a car.

01:03:05Zooming around.

01:03:05I'll drive.

01:03:06This is a vodcast that we should do.

01:03:08Liam and I are going to get in the back.

01:03:09We're going to both look at our phones and we're going to see who pukes first.

01:03:12And that's, that's the vodcast.

01:03:14I'm just going to be doing figure eights in a parking lot.

01:03:16That's also sponsorable.

01:03:17You've been considering plenty of ads.

01:03:21Who boots first?

01:03:24All right.

01:03:24That's it.

01:03:24We're going to be there next week.

01:03:26Sick house.

01:03:27Again, I've been told there will be tacos.

01:03:29I'm not 100% sure how we're going to work the tacos.

01:03:31A lot of horses are going to be everywhere.

01:03:32It's just, it's just what I know.

01:03:34I'm excited to see everybody.

01:03:35I'm excited to be out there.

01:03:37We got to take a break though.

01:03:38We're going to come back with lightning round.

01:03:39We'll be right back.

01:03:44All right, we're back.

01:03:45Yeah.

01:03:46This has been a very family friendly episode of the Verchast.

01:03:49There have been no Alex Kranz moments to speak of.

01:03:52None.

01:03:53But we got to talk about HBO max.

01:03:54So it's zaddy report.

01:03:58I'm sorry.

01:04:00Zaddy report.

01:04:00I should say also sponsorable, but only by one company.

01:04:04You know who you are?

01:04:05One.

01:04:06I want to see the check handwritten.

01:04:13It's a traditional lightning round,

01:04:15which means we have a list and each of us is going to pick one thing

01:04:18and then we're going to get out of here.

01:04:21Alex, I'm going to, I think we just got to get this off, off our plates.

01:04:26Yeah.

01:04:27Just move it on down the line.

01:04:28What's your lightning round?

01:04:29Um, Max, sorry, not HBO max.

01:04:32Max is about to be a lot more expensive.

01:04:35I mean, she, she already was, but my daughter's name is Max,

01:04:38but this is a horrible situation for me.

01:04:40Yeah.

01:04:40She, she's like, she's going to be able to afford a lot more chicken nuggets

01:04:44because she's going to be charging 1699 a month.

01:04:48That is too much money for Max.

01:04:49Yeah.

01:04:50Straightforwardly too much money.

01:04:51Does that get you 4k?

01:04:53Uh, no.

01:04:54The 4k plan is 2099 a month.

01:04:572099 for 4k.

01:04:59Uh, so it goes up about a dollar.

01:05:01Everything's just going up a dollar, but that's at $1.

01:05:04It's like how when you get a, when you got a 92,

01:05:06$21 a month for HBO max.

01:05:09Yeah.

01:05:09Cause you have to have the 4k plan in my opinion.

01:05:12What are you doing?

01:05:13It's the only way to watch.

01:05:14That's too much money.

01:05:16No.

01:05:16Yeah, it is.

01:05:17It is.

01:05:18It is a lot.

01:05:19And it's, it's set off a lot of people just very upset and their feelings about how expensive

01:05:23all of this is.

01:05:25And no, it's not going to stop anytime soon.

01:05:28Yeah.

01:05:28Is, is the unfortunate reality streaming is just going to continue to get more expensive

01:05:34until they figure out how to make money.

01:05:37Yeah.

01:05:37I don't think they know.

01:05:38It also just seems like at some point paying 80 bucks a month or whatever YouTube TV is

01:05:46just becomes the better deal.

01:05:48Yeah.

01:05:49But that's not where all the content is, right?

01:05:50Like so much of this content now is exclusive to these streaming services.

01:05:55So.

01:05:56Right.

01:05:57But you're still just like, I'm going to like HBO or max, I'm sorry.

01:06:00Yeah.

01:06:00Is now just full of a bunch of weird discovery reality shows.

01:06:03Like that's, that's the value for dollar there.

01:06:06Yeah.

01:06:06It was like, you want to watch house hunters here it is.

01:06:10And that stuff is still super available on a cable package.

01:06:13Yep.

01:06:14And, and the cable package is probably going to be a nicer experience where it'll be easier

01:06:19to find the episode you want to watch and get started because the, the max UI is still

01:06:25hot, hot garbage.

01:06:26So my max is still paid for because as you know, AT&T, AT&T, that's not incredible.

01:06:34Everyone named max got free max.

01:06:35That would actually be great.

01:06:37Yeah.

01:06:37It would justify the bad name.

01:06:39No, as you are aware, AT&T bought Warner brothers.

01:06:42I did know that.

01:06:43Yes.

01:06:44A deal which led only to the release of the four, three Snyder cut.

01:06:49Sorry.

01:06:50But also a bunch of grandfathered plans.

01:06:52And I have one that is the same money as a new AT&T plan.

01:06:56It just includes.

01:06:58Max.

01:06:59But in 10 ADP.

01:07:01Oh, that's brutal.

01:07:02And so I'm just like stuck with free 10 ADP max until someone will notices at AT&T, which

01:07:08they never will.

01:07:09Yeah.

01:07:09They just want, they're just not going to notice.

01:07:11They're like, you enjoy 10 80.

01:07:13No, they're going to be like a grandfathered AT&T plan.

01:07:16You're not churning.

01:07:17You may have it forever.

01:07:18Yeah.

01:07:19Until you get a, until they get to six G that's when they turn you.

01:07:22Yeah.

01:07:23You're done then.

01:07:23But I'm stuck with this horrible plan.

01:07:25I'm sorry.

01:07:25David, are you, are you paying 21 bucks?

01:07:27No, I'm switching to ads over and over again.

01:07:29Uh, and it's just, it's just fine.

01:07:32Um, and the thing that I have realized.

01:07:36Increasingly is that the idea that people are churning is less real than people think.

01:07:41And I think these services are stickier than people give them credit for.

01:07:45Like I was, I was reading something the other day about how, uh, one of the big reasons

01:07:49these companies get sports is that people sign up to watch one game and then like an

01:07:53overwhelmingly large percentage of those people keep the service.

01:07:56Like it's actually the, this idea that people are coming, watching the thing and then canceling

01:08:00until that thing comes back a year later is largely not the behavior.

01:08:05And as a result, once you're in, you're kind of in.

01:08:10And I think these companies have figured out that a dollar at a time is not terrifying.

01:08:15Like I think if, if max suddenly went up $10 a month, people would freak out and leave,

01:08:20right?

01:08:20Like I think I've been watching Evernote for this.

01:08:23I don't know why this just came into my head, but I've been watching Evernote over the last

01:08:25couple of years.

01:08:26They basically just doubled their subscription price.

01:08:28And we're very honestly like, this is the only way this is a sustainable business.

01:08:31Here we go.

01:08:32And people freaked out.

01:08:34That's how you turn people.

01:08:36But a dollar a month at a time, just there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence that

01:08:41that costs them anything and it gets them more money.

01:08:44And also what they want is either for you to pay $50 a month or get ads and they will,

01:08:51they will keep raising the price until those are the only two options left.

01:08:54I really believe that.

01:08:56I totally agree with you.

01:08:57I mean, it's, it's just the frog in the boiling pot, right?

01:09:00Like it's the water.

01:09:00Yeah.

01:09:01I'm stuck with an AT&T plan.

01:09:03You're, you're stuck with 1080p forever.

01:09:07I'm sorry.

01:09:10All right, David, what's yours?

01:09:11Mine is, uh, maybe the wonkiest thing I've picked on the Verge cast in a while.

01:09:18Uh, Google bought this company called Cameo with a Y not the Cameo where you can get famous

01:09:22people to like tell you you're terrific.

01:09:24It's a, it's a company that does windows app virtualization on Chrome OS.

01:09:30Uh, and I thought this was very funny because this happened this week after I had a very

01:09:35like related Cameo experience.

01:09:36My wife is in grad school and she's taking a, like a statistics class right now.

01:09:41And she had to download this unbelievably like esoteric old app called our studio.

01:09:50I think that looks like it has not been updated since 1994, uh, runs on windows, Linux and

01:09:56Mac and not Chrome OS.

01:09:58And she has a Chromebook for her like personal use.

01:10:01And, uh, so she spent, I would say the better part of a day trying to install Linux on her

01:10:07Chromebook in order to do this.

01:10:09And it was, as she got like most of the way down, I was actually very impressed with how

01:10:12far down the like running a Linux distro on a Chromebook she got.

01:10:16And then eventually just gave up and was like, it's not worth it.

01:10:18Do you have a windows computer I can use?

01:10:20But the thing that we found was like, oh, the best answer to this is this app called

01:10:23Cameo, which just lets you run windows apps on your Chromebook, but it's prohibitively

01:10:28expensive and like explicitly not designed for just like regular people.

01:10:31But now as part of Google, I think this is super interesting.

01:10:34It gives Google like a new inroad into businesses with Chromebooks where it has traditionally

01:10:38had trouble.

01:10:39It gives Chromebooks a lot more to do because if this works well, you could start to just

01:10:45do more windows stuff inside of Chromebooks.

01:10:47There's a lot left to shake out here.

01:10:48This acquisition like just happened, but I actually think it's super interesting.

01:10:52And as like the one person on earth who still really, really, really, really wants Chromebooks

01:10:56to be cool and succeed.

01:10:57This makes me happy.

01:10:58Yeah, the best thing I've ever bought from my mom is a Chromebook.

01:11:02Really?

01:11:02Yeah.

01:11:03Because a regular computer, a regular Mac or Windows PC is like 55 different operating

01:11:08system metaphors all at once.

01:11:10This is called Launchpad.

01:11:12Why?

01:11:13And you get a Chromebook, like use this browser.

01:11:16They just use it and it's like fine.

01:11:17Does your mom know when you say?

01:11:19I wrote a whole article about it ages ago.

01:11:20Does she know like what the box is to where to type things in?

01:11:23Yeah, it's just a browser.

01:11:24It's like this is Chrome.

01:11:25You like Chrome, right?

01:11:27Go to YouTube.

01:11:28Your mom is so much more advanced than my mom.

01:11:31But like now what I worry about with Chrome OS is they added Android apps.

01:11:35Now they're adding Cameo.

01:11:37They're getting the same place where you're like, oh, there's multiple competing application

01:11:40metaphors at once.

01:11:41Yep.

01:11:42Okay, but I still love a Chromebook.

01:11:45Oh, and Chromebook pluses now have all the stuff, man.

01:11:49It's like I just want a browser, man.

01:11:50That pixel book was such.

01:11:52It was very fun watching everybody argue in our comments about sort of the overall Chromebook

01:11:58thesis.

01:11:58And like one of the things obviously Chromebooks have done is they've been hugely successful

01:12:02in schools.

01:12:03And there were a lot of people in our comments who were like, yeah, I had a Chromebook in

01:12:08high school and it ensured that I will never, ever buy myself a Chromebook because it was

01:12:11a piece of junk.

01:12:13It's like, yeah, maybe at some point Google and others should have invested in making

01:12:17Chromebooks good.

01:12:17And then people would want them.

01:12:19Like what a crazy idea that would be.

01:12:21Yeah, they should put arc on it.

01:12:23I had a, I bought my mom a Chromebook pixel, a thousand dollar Chrome laptop.

01:12:27People thought I was nuts.

01:12:28It's still rocking because it has like 16 gigs of, yeah, that thing has 10 times the

01:12:33power it needed.

01:12:34Such a good laptop.

01:12:35Like an i7.

01:12:36It was amazing.

01:12:36It's still going because it just runs.

01:12:38All right.

01:12:39Mine is a last minute game time decision.

01:12:42We just put this story up.

01:12:44The chair of the Tesla board is warning shareholders today that if they don't approve Elon's $56

01:12:52billion pay package, he might leave Tesla.

01:12:55Oh, no.

01:12:58Oh, that's terrible.

01:13:00Elon is not a typical executive and Tesla is not a typical company, he says in the letter,

01:13:05which was filed to the SEC.

01:13:06So the typical way in which companies compensate key executives will not drive results for

01:13:10Tesla.

01:13:11Motivating someone like Elon requires something different, he says.

01:13:14To be fair, I would also be very motivated by $56 billion.

01:13:18Like, I don't know that that's different.

01:13:20That's the same.

01:13:20So somehow, he says, and it's not about the money.

01:13:24It's like following up, you got to motivate Elon somehow and then it's not about the money

01:13:29when the letter is about approve the pay package.

01:13:31Didn't he just like...

01:13:32Thread in the needle there, buddy.

01:13:34Didn't he just screw over Tesla by having a bunch of like H100s from Nvidia shipped?

01:13:40Yeah, he sent them to X instead.

01:13:43Matt Levine at Bloomberg made what I thought was a very good point about this, which is

01:13:47that what this the initial read on that is like, oh, this is a sign that Elon Musk is

01:13:53not paying attention to Tesla.

01:13:54Why would you give him the money?

01:13:56The galaxy brain take is, oh, this is a threat that if you don't give Elon Musk his money,

01:14:01he will stop paying attention to Tesla.

01:14:03And this is what will happen.

01:14:04And I think that is a fun like war games version of this story that is just going to keep getting

01:14:13where he's obviously going to get the money, right?

01:14:15Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:14:20This vote doesn't even guarantee that you could win this vote and still not get the

01:14:23money.

01:14:24Okay, that's fair.

01:14:25I think he'll win the vote.

01:14:27Maybe I think I think they're worried.

01:14:29I don't think the chairman of your board sends letters about how you have to motivate

01:14:34Elon, which, by the way, is hilarious.

01:14:36That's a letter you send about like a like me in eighth grade.

01:14:41Do you think $56 billion would have done it for you?

01:14:44I don't know.

01:14:45I was not a typical eighth grader and I did not respond to typical motivations.

01:14:51Right.

01:14:52We have to challenge him.

01:14:52We got to keep him involved.

01:14:55Otherwise, he's going to light yet another classroom on fire.

01:14:58Like, that's a crazy letter.

01:15:01Yeah, it really is.

01:15:02That's too much.

01:15:03And I will point out, Chancery Daily has been in great work on this.

01:15:06We've been following.

01:15:07They've followed a lot of the Tesla and Twitter back and forth.

01:15:11Yeah, like the court in Delaware said this pay package is illegal.

01:15:15Like this vote doesn't cure the problem.

01:15:19Actually, it's like a weird dance.

01:15:22Who knows, man?

01:15:24I just think he said the need.

01:15:28The thing that caught my eye here is all this preamble about how it takes something special

01:15:33to motivate Elon.

01:15:35It's not money.

01:15:35And it's like and also vote for the money.

01:15:37Yeah, it's very good.

01:15:40All right.

01:15:41We're going to WWDC.

01:15:42We got to get out of here.

01:15:43That vote, by the way, is June 13th.

01:15:45Andy and Liz are primed to, as you can imagine, primed to cover it.

01:15:50It's going to be I think it's going to be what I think the future of Tesla and X and

01:15:54SpaceX kind of all tied up in this one little very odd moment.

01:15:58Yeah.

01:15:59So they'll be covering that next week while we are headed back from DubDub.

01:16:02I think there's going to be a lot of stuff to cover out of DubDub.

01:16:05I was saying this to our team today.

01:16:08People have a lot of feelings about AI.

01:16:09Yeah.

01:16:10And Apple putting AI all over its operating system.

01:16:13If you just look at the response to that ad that Alex mentioned before the crush ad,

01:16:16that ad was not about AI.

01:16:18That was just about iPads.

01:16:20Yeah.

01:16:21You actually do the thing where the photo editing gets easier or the copy is easier to write.

01:16:27I think people, Apple has a lot of creatives who care a lot about this company.

01:16:31It's going to be a weird time next week, I think.

01:16:32Yeah, I would agree.

01:16:34So all that covered.

01:16:35That's why The Verge exists.

01:16:36Why do we exist?

01:16:37That's why.

01:16:38To figure out why we make art with computers.

01:16:41And the answer, according to Alex Tranz, is to do weird horny stuff.

01:16:43Yeah.

01:16:44That's The Verge cast.

01:16:45Rock and roll.

01:16:51And that's it for The Verge cast this week.

01:16:53Hey, we'd love to hear from you.

01:16:54Give us a call at 866-VERGE-11.

01:16:57The Verge cast is a production of The Verge and Vox Media Podcast Network.

01:17:01Our show is produced by Andrew Marino and Liam James.

01:17:04That's it.

01:17:04We'll see you next week.

Apple’s AI moment is coming | The Vergecast

Category

Transcript

Recommended