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Summer phone season kicks off with Samsung’s latest launch. Jake, Vee, and Allison talk about Samsung’s new lineup of foldables, including the very thin new Z Fold 7 and Allison’s disdain for the Z Flip 7 FE. Vee has impressions of Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch 8 lineup and its squircle-y new redesign. Then, it’s time to talk Big Tech shakeups. Apple’s COO is leaving, Zuckerberg is buying himself an AI dream team, X’s CEO is out — and its chatbot Grok is on a rampage. Finally, big things are in store for the Lightning Round… which shall henceforth be known as the THUNDER ROUND. Lots to talk about, including Lorde’s CD problems, Apple’s Liquid Glass changes, and HBO Max finally becoming HBO Max again.
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TechTranscript
00:00:00Hello, and welcome to The Verge Cast, the flagship podcast of everyone you work with
00:00:06having a baby at the exact same time and going on parental leave. That is right. Both David
00:00:12Pierce and Nilay Patel are at home with newborns. We are so happy for both of them. They're
00:00:17both going to take some time off, spend time with their families. They will be back later
00:00:21this year. And in the meantime, you've got me. I'm Jake Castronakis, executive editor
00:00:26of The Verge. I'm going to be joined by an all-star cast from across The Verge every week,
00:00:31starting with two of the best reporters in business. We've got B-Song. Hello. And Alison
00:00:37Johnson. Hello. We've got a lot to talk about today. There were some big executive shakeups
00:00:42at Apple, at Meta, at X. Grok went on a tear, called itself Mecca Hitler, I believe. Not
00:00:50good. I'm going to go on a little bit of a power trip now that Nilay's gone. I'm rebranding
00:00:55the lightning round. I love this. The lightning round is done as we know it. But first, we've
00:01:00got to talk about Samsung. Samsung was the big thing this week. They announced a whole
00:01:03bunch of new phones and smartwatches. The two of you were there. But first, I just want
00:01:09to, before we get into this, I want to read what Samsung said about Brooklyn and its press
00:01:14release. So they had their event in Brooklyn, and this is how they described Brooklyn, the
00:01:19borough in New York City. They called it, quote, a borough with extraordinary spirit and
00:01:24a distinctive history. Brooklyn is where visionary thinking and bold ideas shape the future, a
00:01:30place known for its culture, creativity, and collaboration. Did you guys get that feeling?
00:01:37Did you feel culture, creativity, and collaboration at Samsung's event?
00:01:41No.
00:01:41Not really.
00:01:42No.
00:01:42No. I mostly felt angry.
00:01:44Angry, hot, irritated. Yeah. So it was like a gazillion degrees with bajillion humidity
00:01:51on Wednesday when we went to Unpacked. So if you are a New York City native, and I tell
00:01:58you that this was hosted at a couple of warehouses in Brooklyn Navy Yard, you will be groaning at
00:02:06this point in time. But if you're not a New York native or you haven't been to this area
00:02:09of Brooklyn, it's the most inaccessible area of Brooklyn by public transit. So there's
00:02:14just a line of Ubers trying to get in and very stressed out Uber drivers. So, you know,
00:02:20that was, hmm, that was something.
00:02:22And then-
00:02:23I live in Brooklyn. I do not know how to get to the Navy Yard.
00:02:26It's like a high design.
00:02:28You're not meant to know.
00:02:29It's like a mile walk from any public transit station. So you either are going to make the
00:02:34choice of taking public transit to this event and having to walk a mile from the closest
00:02:40train station or braving the New York City bus system, which I'm a lifelong New Yorker
00:02:45and, you know, or you're going to take an Uber. And like the vast majority of people that
00:02:51I took, I took an Uber and I think the vast majority of people, you were stuck in, you were
00:02:56stuck in traffic for like-
00:02:57I was in Brooklyn trying to get to Brooklyn because they were doing road work outside my
00:03:02hotel. So I was in gridlock for the first, it was just a mess all around.
00:03:07We were texting like, are you there yet? Are you there? Oh my God. Like we're-
00:03:11It was just getting more and more desperate.
00:03:13Yeah.
00:03:13So what even is this venue? Like what-
00:03:16I said, Brooklyn Navy Yard is just a Navy Yard. It's like a bunch of industrial brick
00:03:21buildings, like shipping container type warehouse buildings, fully metal. So it was just, you
00:03:29know, Samsung branded, there was a lot of unpacked flags going in there, but it's also a maze.
00:03:34So you can go into the Brooklyn Navy Yard, probably have terrible signal and just be like,
00:03:39oh, there's a bunch of just brick buildings with numbers attached to them. And you're just
00:03:44hoping the GPS is going to get you to the right place. And I mean, there were signs and everything
00:03:49and you just had to follow the Korean influencers. There was a huge amount of Korean influencers.
00:03:56And I really, you know, and I was telling Allison this, oh, cause you know, Samsung has a history
00:04:02of inviting K-pop stars. So I was like, I did my makeup. I was like, there's an off chance
00:04:06that a K-pop star is going to come to this event. I love K-pop. We did not get K-pop stars. We got
00:04:12influencers that look like K-pop stars and the K-pop Demon Hunter soundtrack just blasting.
00:04:18And I was like, okay, I mean, I've heard good things. The soundtrack is fire. I love the
00:04:24soundtrack. It was great. That put me in a good mood. But then we were going into the, or I was
00:04:28going into the main, um, the main green, it's called Dougal greenhouse, this main where metal
00:04:34container thing that we're going into. And I have my hot box of water because they were being
00:04:39sustainable with the water bottles that they were providing for everyone there. My hot box of water
00:04:44was not cold at all, but I was like, I need to hydrate. This is hot. This is humid. I'm not
00:04:49dressed like a Korean demon hunter, grim reaper situation. These influencers, I'm telling you,
00:04:54they were just, they went all out. They went all out. Wait, I'm sorry. The influencers were like in
00:04:59cosplay for a phone launch. It's, they were dressed to the nines. There was this one guy, I pointed him
00:05:05out to, to Alice and I was like, I'm happily married, but look at this man. He had perfectly
00:05:10coiffed hair. I'm fairly certain he had beautiful, he, I was like, this man has to be wearing
00:05:14some sort of makeup. They were not sweating. They were not sweating somehow, but they were
00:05:17like in full, like kind of grim reaper regalia, like Korean grim reaper regalia. There was like
00:05:25this one girl and she had like huge heels on and just like this modern hanbok, which is like
00:05:30Korean traditional wear. And I was just like, we got some cosplayers. I was like a sweaty
00:05:36huddle. Yeah, we were, we were there going like, oh my God. And so you guys did not dress
00:05:40up. We did not dress up. We didn't wear our demon hunter costumes. We didn't wear demon
00:05:43hunters at all. I left mine at home. Yeah. Yeah. Like we were not aware, but then, you know,
00:05:48we're going into the venue because tech event, you got to run to grab a seat. And so I'm trying
00:05:53to get in with my hot box of water and the venue guys like, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am,
00:05:58no water, no beverages, no food. And I was like, and then we get in and it's super
00:06:05packed full of influencers. They had their own line and their own badge influencers.
00:06:10And then there was like the media section. And I don't know if you have this Allison,
00:06:13but there was a guy, like there's this guy, he didn't speak any English, but he's obviously
00:06:16Samsung staff and he's just like media section here. You can only sit here. And there were
00:06:22people inside with like little media paddles. And the one media paddle lady I talked to,
00:06:26she's like, if you find a seat, God bless, just take it. And so it was a little bit of a
00:06:32battle to get a seat. There were a bunch of people who didn't. So it was like super packed.
00:06:35The, you know, it's a metal container. So the wifi wasn't working. And I was like,
00:06:39oh my God, how am I supposed to live block this with no, no. I gotta say watching Allison
00:06:44though, she had the Z, the previous Z fold and she was blogging. I did quick posts to WordPress
00:06:51from the folding phone. This is inspiring. It was inspiring. I feel like you broke a law
00:06:58of physics to accomplish this. I was just like the entire time just looking at her doing it.
00:07:04And I was like, oh my God. Yeah. Samsung, you don't need this event. Just put a live stream
00:07:10on Allison. This is the best ad for a foldable phone you could possibly have.
00:07:15I'd be happy to provide that service. It was, uh, I'm amazed that it worked.
00:07:19It was inspiring. Yeah. Like hotspotting our computers to the phones was not working for some
00:07:25reason. V couldn't even airdrop a photo from. I couldn't, I was trying to airdrop. I had two
00:07:31phones cause I'm beta testing the iPhones right now. And so I had one with Apple intelligence and
00:07:36one without, and I'm just like trying to airdrop from either phone to my laptop, just a picture
00:07:40of Allison. It took like, it took 15 minutes. It was really bad. I'm glad you discovered a use
00:07:47for folding phones at the folding phone event. This is, this is like the big question. I like,
00:07:51they, they frigging look awesome. And I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing with that inside
00:07:55screen. I just know I want it. Okay. So what did we see on the foldables front?
00:07:59So we got three new foldables. We have the Z fold seven, the Z flip seven, and then the Z flip
00:08:06seven FE, which I continue to forget about, but basics are Z fold seven got super thin. It is 8.9
00:08:16millimeters thin. It's 26% thinner than the Z fold six. It's way lighter. You just, you feel
00:08:24it when you pick it up. The Z flip seven got a bigger screen on the front. That's the clamshell
00:08:30style foldable. And the, the Z flip seven FE exists, uh, for 899. It's like, it's a, the affordable
00:08:40version. We live in a world where that's affordable. Exactly. That's my problem. So big
00:08:48hardware changes. The inner screens like eight inches now, um, even more room to not know what
00:08:55to do with. Uh, but we lost in that process, the S pen support, um, which I know you can't
00:09:04like stick it in. They, well, they've never had a good solution for it. They were like
00:09:08supported the S pen, but you had to buy a special S pen because a regular S pen would
00:09:13like scratch the screen. And they've never had, like, you could buy a case that would
00:09:19hold the S pen, but it's not like the ultra where you can just pop it in. Um, so it's a
00:09:24little bit of like, and they're like, Oh, people weren't really using it. We could make
00:09:29the, the screen thinner if we didn't have that digitizer layer. So that's what they did.
00:09:34Um, so I'm a moment of silence for, you know, the S pen, but, um, other than that, it's
00:09:41got a 200 megapixel camera. Um, so it should be pretty capable. They got rid of the, it
00:09:49used to have a, on the inner screen, uh, an under display selfie camera.
00:09:55I actually think this is so interesting, right? They got, they got rid of the under display
00:10:00camera and now it's just a regular one, right?
00:10:02It's just a regular little hole punch. And honestly, it seems backwards, but I notice
00:10:08it way less with the hole punch because that under display always had like a weird kind
00:10:14of like rainbow tearing thing that would happen when I would glance at something at that part
00:10:19of the screen. And it looks to me like the, the aura you get when you get a migraine or
00:10:24like, so it like freaks me out. Like that's a me problem, but this, this feels like a good
00:10:30change to me. Cause I feel like for, I don't know, several years companies discovered under
00:10:36display cameras and this thing always happens where the tech is kind of bad, but it looks
00:10:42a little bit cooler. And so a bunch of companies run at it and that felt like what was happening
00:10:47with under display cameras and they were just universally like meaningfully worse.
00:10:52Yeah. And I, maybe it's just me. I don't think the hole punch cutout looks bad.
00:10:57Yeah. I think we're used to it. I would so much rather have a hole punch cutout and a good
00:11:01camera than like this cool slight ever so slightly cooler thing. Yeah. Like it's in the corner.
00:11:08It's not, so I'm going to cut you.
00:11:09I mean, it has to function first and foremost. Like I think if you're going to choose form
00:11:12over function, that's usually not the winning bet. It should be form and function. And if you have
00:11:17to only pick one, it should be function. Yeah. That's my, my, my spiel. Yeah. I am. I was glad
00:11:22to see the under display camera go. Okay. This is, this is the first time I've picked this thing up
00:11:27and this is incredible. This thing is wild. And I do have to do a big caveat that like if you live
00:11:35in a different country, that isn't the United States of America, you have access to folding phones
00:11:41that are roughly the size from like Honor and Oppo. So there's a little bit of the rest of the world
00:11:48being like, okay, you guys finally cut, like Samsung finally caught up for you.
00:11:54That's sort of only like a this year thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, it feels like a major
00:12:01turn is happening in folding phones. It's sort of funny. Like when this event was coming up,
00:12:05I was like, oh yeah, they're doing another folding phone. What are we on? Like, like the,
00:12:08the Z Fold 3. And it's like, it is the seventh one. They've been doing these for coming up on a
00:12:14decade now, which is crazy because they have like barely made a dent. Um, and you know,
00:12:22Alison, you had a story and you kind of pointed out, they really haven't changed much. And this
00:12:26year, and I think maybe even this model feels like the first time that they're kind of meaningfully
00:12:32changing and, and it's not like a major form factor change. They really just slim down a little
00:12:38bit, but somehow all, this feels so much nicer in your hand. Like, um, cause you know, I've never
00:12:45had a folding phone, but I've been to these events all the time and I like play around with them. It
00:12:49doesn't feel heavy. It doesn't feel fragile. It just feels like a phone, which is cool. Though the
00:12:54whole thing, like, I don't know if you can see it there, like it won't sit because of the camera
00:12:59bump being so ridiculous. So that's kind of rough. That's, that's rough, but I don't know.
00:13:06Maybe it's a good thing. Cause you put it face down then, and then you don't look at the screen.
00:13:10It does encourage me to put it face down and then I don't get, yeah, caught up in my phone.
00:13:14I think it was a year of like, I mean, like fold four, five, and six were kind of a snooze fest as
00:13:20far as like, they added a few millimeters here and they did this to it. Um, and basically the same
00:13:27on the flip phone, like I think maybe the four got the bigger cover screen, but they still,
00:13:35you know, um, so the flip, the clamshell style, um, this year got a full like edge to edge screen
00:13:43on the front cover. And previously it's sort of like, was this file folder shape that went around
00:13:48the cameras, which was just sort of weird and awkward. It's like Motorola gives us the whole
00:13:53screen. We're grownups. Like let us, let us have it. So this did feel like a year where
00:13:59Samsung was like, okay, like here, here's the feedback we've been getting. We're going
00:14:03to make these bigger moves. Um, and obviously, you know, like a lot of, um, R and D and time
00:14:10goes into making a phone slim like that. I, I heard that the, um, you know, the ad, the
00:14:17galaxy S 25 edge really kind of like paved the way for this. Like it wouldn't exist without
00:14:24making the slim bar phone first. Did people like the edge? I feel like the edge was like
00:14:30despised, right? That was one with the curving sides. No, no, no, no, no. There's a thin one.
00:14:35Yeah. That is, um, it's, it's the same case of this. You're like, is it really like, am I
00:14:43going to notice the weight difference? Is it really that slim? You know, you see the
00:14:48specs on paper, you're like, what, what's the big deal? And then you pick it up and
00:14:51you're like, oh, I get it. This, this really is tactile because I I'll admit to be one of
00:14:56the people that looks at those things and I'm just like, whatever it's thin. Do we not
00:15:00remember exploding batteries? What are you doing? Oh, Samsung remembers. Oh, Samsung remembers
00:15:05exploding batteries. But then you hold it in your hand and you can go like, oh, yeah, it's
00:15:09actually quite nice. It's, it feels kind of funny to say like, oh, you have to hold
00:15:14it or you have to see it. But I think you should. I know. I think you should. It is
00:15:19true. I'm seeing that a lot this year and it's irritating. It is. Well, it is like, I
00:15:25mean, there are probably a couple of things that are preventing people from adopting
00:15:29these, like, uh, the folding phones, at least this, this sort of fold out style. Um, and
00:15:36one is definitely the size, right? Like this one is, I think about as close as you can
00:15:42get to just a regular phone. I looked this up. This is what, um, I it's, it's not even
00:15:48a full, uh, millimeter thicker than the iPhone 16 pro. It's, it's like, there's a very small
00:15:55difference. Um, and so it feels like a regular phone, which goes a really long way. But then
00:16:00I think there are like two other things that I, at least like for me, I don't quite
00:16:04get. And one is, I love, I, I love it. It's freaking cool. Like if you could, if I could
00:16:09trade my phone out for a foldable right now, no problem. But like, I don't, I don't totally
00:16:15know what I would use it for. And then the other part of that is like the price. And this
00:16:21one, it is two grand. Is that right? Two grand. Yeah. Like that's, that's, uh, that
00:16:26is the price of two other phones, which it is. It is sort of two phones together. Yeah.
00:16:32Yeah. Which, you know, you can do some crazy things if you just, you know, tape a few phones
00:16:37together. Four pixel nineties. It's wild. Wow. I would love to see two phones taped together
00:16:43and see if that would work as a foldable. You know, are you finding it to be useful as
00:16:49a thing, as like a tablet? I mean, I can't believe you live blog in WordPress. No, I was
00:16:56trying, I was like, I was watching her do it and I was like, should I try doing it on my
00:16:59phone? I could not do it just because like of all the like little, I can't even log into
00:17:03WordPress on my phone. It was pretty rough. I was trying to do like, we have Okta. So
00:17:07I was trying to get the Okta code from one phone and putting it on the other phone. And
00:17:12I swear to God, I felt like this was the ad that Samsung should have, they should have
00:17:18just been zeroing in on me and Alison and just me being like, Oh, what am I doing? My laptop
00:17:24and two phones aren't working. And Alison's just like cool, common pose composed. I'm watching her
00:17:29take a photo and then like she had Slack on one side and WordPress open on the other side and just
00:17:35checking things. And then like what she needed to write, like, I'm sorry if I was stalking you
00:17:38watching this, but I was just like mesmerized watching her do this. I was like, Oh my God,
00:17:43this is the first time I've actually understood why I might want a foldable. Do I want a
00:17:47foldable phone? I don't know. Maybe, could this be a work experience? Like we just have
00:17:52like phones for live blogging. I was like, Oh, I approve that. You didn't get the memo.
00:17:59I decided we can all have a phone. Okay, cool. Okay, great. That's what I think so. I'll just,
00:18:05let me just check with a couple of people really fast. Nilay's gone. Like who's going to stop us?
00:18:10Now that I think about it. If it's the responsibility that's on me, then I have a problem.
00:18:17We do need to start expensing stuff before Nilay's back though. That's, that's what's important.
00:18:22Um, this is really like, it is true. You see this one and you go, okay, like this,
00:18:27listen, we're, the reasons we're all here is because we have a problem of looking at gadgets.
00:18:32Yeah.
00:18:33But like the, you know, this is the first foldable where I've really been like,
00:18:39that's a problem that like, it looks great. Um, okay. That being said, like the foldables that I
00:18:46see out in public, nine times out of 10, it is the clamshell style, which I feel a lot more popular
00:18:54than, than, uh, I, I don't know. I would imagine they would be. Um, yeah.
00:19:00I just think they're familiar, right? Cause we all, well, maybe not all of us, there might be
00:19:04youngins who didn't have the flip phones from back in the day, but I feel like a certain nostalgia
00:19:08with the flip. Also the flip is just really cute. Like you look at it in person, you're like,
00:19:13oh my God, that's so cute. And even with the Motorola phones, you just go, oh, cool. And then
00:19:16when it folds open, it's a form factor you're used to using. It's the same thing. Whereas with the,
00:19:21with the fold open, like a tablet, I mean, I think tablets as a device, even I'm not sure what to do
00:19:27with my iPad half the time. So I think that's the, I think that's the, the, the problem, the quote
00:19:33unquote problem with the tablets. So if you watch K dramas, there's always just a random person who
00:19:38shouldn't be able to like afford a foldable, just going like, oh, let me have my foldable.
00:19:43And use it in this way because Samsung, I mean, Samsung runs Korea. So like, they're just like,
00:19:49here we go. We're going to put foldables and random K dramas. And I, whenever it pops up,
00:19:53I'm like, that's not believable. Samsung, this is the poor girl being courted by the rich guy.
00:20:00How does she have a foldable? Well, she could buy the F E flip phone. I love that segue.
00:20:06$8.99 instead of $10.99. No, the, the flip phones, I think you're right. It is a really
00:20:12familiar form factor. They are a little less expensive. Like a thousand dollars is what a
00:20:17phone costs. So you're, you're not making that leap to like, I'm buying two phones. Um, and I
00:20:22think the use cases are a little more like immediate, like you prop it up, you take a selfie
00:20:27with the, the main camera that doesn't suck. And like, you get that immediately. Um, and I love
00:20:35them. Like I run apps on the front. I'm like starting my little Strava cycling rides. I,
00:20:42you know, check the bus schedule. I do all kinds of things on the flip phone really quickly. I just
00:20:46want to ask, why do you hate the F E so much? It's just, okay. I keep forgetting about it because
00:20:53this is a two phone event, you know, we have a flip and a fold. Um, but it's also
00:20:58like $8.99 is not that much cheaper, you know? Is it just last year's phone? Like it's
00:21:04like pretty much. Yeah. I think they, they maybe like rearrange some parts, but yeah, I'm
00:21:09like, okay. So you can buy last year's phone for $8.99. Motorola sells one for $6.99.
00:21:15Yeah. Come on. Okay. Okay. So then they did the phones, then whole bunch of watches.
00:21:20Yeah. All right. What do we see from Samsung on the watches front?
00:21:24So, uh, we saw a, the galaxy watch, uh, eight series, which includes the base galaxy watch
00:21:30eight and the galaxy watch eight classic and an extremely minorly updated galaxy watch ultra
00:21:36basically squircles are everywhere. Huge redesign. Um, and then Gemini is on the wrist now thanks
00:21:42to wear OS six. And there's a bunch of new health features. I think the big marquee one that
00:21:47they played up a bit was, um, a running coach. It's just a running coach. You take a 12 minute
00:21:53run test and it grades you and then creates an AI generated program for you. And then the
00:21:58antioxidant index, which is their foray into nutrition and kind of telling you, uh, are you
00:22:05eating healthily? You probably know the answer to that already. And then, you know, there was
00:22:10a bit of a price bump. So the, uh, eight got about $50 more expensive and the starting price
00:22:15and the classic unfortunately is about a hundred dollars more at four 99. So the ultra stayed
00:22:21the same, which is good news because it literally got a new color and a storage bump. So that's
00:22:27it. That's the squircle squad.
00:22:29It's a total redesign, right?
00:22:31Total redesign. So Samsung has always been known for these circular watches, which stand
00:22:36in complete contrast to the Apple watches, which, you know, I mean, I got it right here,
00:22:41right? So like the Apple watch is squarish and then we have this, which is confusing.
00:22:46Confusing.
00:22:47This is what I would say. I'm looking at it. I don't know what shape I'm seeing.
00:22:50You are seeing a squircle, my friend, because the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the.
00:22:53They couldn't decide and they did both.
00:22:55They couldn't decide. They did it both. This is the circle watch face on a square. What
00:23:00they're calling it is a cushion. It's a square cushion. And they have three reasons for
00:23:05that. Three reasons. One is that it allows the watch to sit flatter on your wrist. So
00:23:12better contact with the sensor underneath. Two, it allows it to be thinner. So this is
00:23:17supposedly 11% thinner than last year's. And then three, you can house a slightly bigger
00:23:24battery inside and don't get too excited. It's like, we're talking like 10, 10 milliamp
00:23:29hour more or like somewhere between 10 and 20 is what, cause I was going through the spec
00:23:35sheet and looking and I was like, Oh, that that's like an extra hour, maybe of battery
00:23:40life that we're looking at. Nothing too special there. Um, so yeah, squircles, I think, I mean,
00:23:47based on, on the comments that I've seen from people already, a lot of people hate it.
00:23:52Okay. I watched your video yesterday and I was like convincing myself. I was trying, I was
00:23:57trying to gear, I was like, you know what? Maybe I like this. Maybe this is cool. I was
00:24:02like, I'm going to come in and I'm going to be the positive one. And now I'm seeing it
00:24:05in person and I cannot do it. That's not great because I think this is the best looking of
00:24:10the squircle watches because it's slightly, well, this one or the classic, because on the
00:24:15classic, they have the rotating bezel. So I love the rotating bezel. It is such a storied
00:24:21part of the Samsung watch design because it, you know, it rotates and it's so satisfying.
00:24:26It's so clicky. And like, when you think about going through menus, you're not touching
00:24:30the screen with your grubby finger oils. So it's, it's actually quite nice. This is
00:24:34the base. Um, I will say the hardware looks really polished. It does look really polished.
00:24:40It's the design. Uh, I'm going to put a question mark, question mark.
00:24:44This is the sleekest looking of them. And when I had all of them in person and I had like
00:24:48the comparison to the last, um, six classic and looking at them, I was like, okay, you know,
00:24:53um, I don't know. I don't think it's Stockholm syndrome. Cause I had Alison try it on and she
00:24:57was like, yes, it does sit flatter and it is more comfortable. And I was like, okay,
00:25:01I could, it's not so egregious, but I still think that the ultra, which they, they basically
00:25:06took this design idea from the ultra. It's a go. It's fuck. Oh, yeah. It's really big.
00:25:14It's really big. Like not this one, but like when you, when I put the ultra on Owen, our video
00:25:18guy was like, wow, you could drive a truck through those lug gaps. Cause like here, you
00:25:24don't really see the lug gaps on my tiny little wrist, but on the ultra, I think last year I
00:25:30tested and I could stick three chopsticks in the gap. So like six total. It's too many
00:25:36chopsticks. It's, it's, it's a lot. Um, I don't feel Stockholm syndromed by this one. I think
00:25:42I could get to, uh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. It's, it's, it's, I think it's confusing
00:25:50because you look at it and you're like, wow, that's a really well-made confusing shape. Like
00:25:56it's like, they did a great job. I just don't know what they did. I think it looks best on
00:26:02this one because it's still maintains like a thin sleek look on the classic. It's just
00:26:08like, uh, I'm, I'm swayed by the rotating bezel. At least that's still there. And on
00:26:13the ultra, I, I still can't grok the ultra. Like I still can't, the blue color does make
00:26:20it look slightly better, but the ultra there's no, it's just, it just like a processor bump,
00:26:26but not even a processor bump. This is what you get. It's blue. It's blue and double the
00:26:32storage. Okay. That's okay. That's my main concern on a watch. So you can have more songs
00:26:39on there and apps, I guess. Uh, yeah. Double the storage. Uh, the classic, the only hardware
00:26:45updates, uh, on the classic is that it gets the ultra's third quick button, which is like
00:26:50a thing that you can use to launch an extra shortcut or something on that. And then all of the watches
00:26:56have a new lug system, which I know everybody loves a new lug system for easier swapping.
00:27:01It's always good when the lugs change.
00:27:03Oh, not, not always, because like I do have a bunch of readers going, well, there goes
00:27:07the investment I had in all of these straps. And which is why I say, be careful with how
00:27:14many straps you invest in and from where.
00:27:16Yeah. Don't fall in love with the strap.
00:27:18Don't fall in love with the straps too much because a lot of times they will change these
00:27:22designs and the lug systems. And then you're stuck with straps that can't be carried forward.
00:27:26Okay. I want to ask you something else. I saw that there is an antioxidant sensor.
00:27:31Yeah. And I, I, every year, like a new sensors added to smartwatches. And first I go, that's
00:27:38crazy. I didn't know we could measure that like on the skin. Antioxidants are on your,
00:27:44like through, I, I didn't know that. The next thing I go is I don't know what to do with
00:27:48that. Like, that sounds so cool. And I don't know what.
00:27:51Okay. So here's V's.
00:27:54Are the runners psyched for this?
00:27:56No. Here's V's runner, not runner, but here's V's health tech soapbox.
00:28:01Yes. So is it very cool that, so they introduced this new bioactive sensor last year, which has
00:28:08a bunch of different colors of LEDs. Normally it's red, infrared and green, but this one has
00:28:12stuff like purple, yellow, blue, and that's supposed to enable like new things. So the way
00:28:18the antioxidant thing works is that it uses a combination of a few of the sensors, I think
00:28:24like blue, yellow, maybe another one. And you actually have to take the watch off for
00:28:30this, this feature to work.
00:28:31Pass. Pass. All right.
00:28:32You have to take the watch off and you put your, your little thumb on it and then it reads
00:28:37the carotenoid levels in your skin. And carotenoids are a type of pigment basically that are, it's
00:28:44a type of antioxidant pigment in like beta carotene. It makes plants like orange. It's a thing in
00:28:53carrots that make them orange. It's the thing that makes bell peppers like red and yellow.
00:28:58And so when you eat, they get into your skin. You know, if you have too much carrots, you
00:29:03might turn orange. So it's picking up the carotenoids in that. And, you know, I'm there
00:29:09in this round table with the Samsung execs talking about it. And in my head, I'm going,
00:29:14okay, well, what if you eat berries? Because berries don't have carotenoids in them, but they
00:29:20have antioxidants and they're very good for you. Are they, is that going to show up in
00:29:23your thing? Because I went and I did the demo and it said I had very low antioxidants. I was
00:29:27like, that doesn't make any sense. I had so many berries over the weekend. It's because there's no
00:29:31carotenoids or like very low levels of carotenoids in there. And because it's reading it from your
00:29:36skin, it could take as many as a couple, like two weeks for it to actually show up. So fundamentally,
00:29:41what this thing is doing is saying, are you eating enough fruits and veggies? You already know the
00:29:47answer to that.
00:29:47Advertise this as a carot sensor. I would have been so much more excited. Like, let it be dumb.
00:29:54Let it be silly. Let it be unimportant. As of like right now, all the smartwatches, they just keep
00:29:59adding sensors that, and then being like, we don't know what to do with them. Here they are.
00:30:04Here's more quantified data for you.
00:30:05If they had just said carrot sensor, great. Like everyone would be like, cool. This, like
00:30:09it works as function. We, we, first off, I need you to test this.
00:30:15I will.
00:30:15I will be testing.
00:30:16A lot of carrots.
00:30:18Can you test it on a carrot?
00:30:19Oh my God.
00:30:21What will happen?
00:30:21I'll try.
00:30:22Okay.
00:30:22We'll see what happens. I'll just like smush a carrot into the sensor. That's, that's a thing
00:30:27I'm going to do. But yeah. So my, my main beef with this is that we all generally know
00:30:33that you should eat more fruits and vegetables. And so all this is telling you is whether
00:30:37or not you're eating fruits and vegetables to an adequate amount. And I think we all
00:30:41deeply know in our hearts, whether we are. So, I mean, they were saying that fevers or
00:30:48drinking alcoholic drinks could cause your score to lower. Well, you know, fevers and
00:30:52alcoholic drinks are, you know, going to maybe cause your data to dip. Like, wow. Wow.
00:30:59Thanks. Thanks. I think some people might enjoy it and find it useful, but I'm sort
00:31:06of like a duh.
00:31:09Squircles, antioxidants. Uh, I would, I'm going to say confusing year for, for the smartwatch
00:31:15lineup.
00:31:15And Gemini's on there, which I still think will confuse people because it's replacing Google
00:31:21assistant on the watches. Um, and now you have generative AI on your watch. What are you
00:31:28going to do with generative AI on your watch? Uh, Samsung is very like focused on diets
00:31:33basically. Uh, cause the examples they were giving me were like, start a run for, uh, for
00:31:39exactly the number of calories in a slice of pizza. And I was like, that's diabolical.
00:31:42Why? Does it have access to your health data?
00:31:46Um, theoretically, yes.
00:31:48Yeah. This is the zone.
00:31:50Theoretically, yes.
00:31:51So it could, it could, yeah. I like, from what I can tell, the Gemini aspect of it is
00:31:57that it can handle more complex queries that might require multiple apps in a sequential
00:32:01order. So you can say something like, find the coolest coffee shop near here and message
00:32:09the location to Alison. And it'll do that directly from the wrist, provided that you are logged
00:32:14in to all the relevant apps. Because, uh, in the demo space, I was trying it like away
00:32:20from the, the people who had the guardrail demos that where it would be guaranteed to
00:32:24work. And I was like, Hey, there's a little one with Gemini. Let me see if it works. And
00:32:27it was like, well, you're going to have to log into YouTube music, uh, to make this play.
00:32:32So I was like, Oh, okay. So you have to log into a bunch of stuff.
00:32:35You know, that reminds me of what Apple's Craig Federici said. He was talking to Joanna Stern
00:32:40from the wall street journal. And she asked him about open AI buying IO, which is Johnny
00:32:46Ives new hardware startup. And, you know, they're working on some sort of AI device.
00:32:52And Joanna's like, well, what do you got? And Craig says, Hey, I think we have a really
00:32:57personal device already. And he's like, you know, pointing to the Apple watch. And so there
00:33:01is something there, right? Where Apple is sort of pointing to actually the trajectory for
00:33:05AI is a wearable and Samsung is, you know, big asterisk, but like maybe, maybe getting
00:33:12there first sort of sort of getting there first. Yeah. I've gotten a few demos. So I
00:33:17got a demo with Google earlier this week as well for, and I was just like, give me ideas
00:33:22for what, and I would love if our listeners also had ideas to send me because it's such
00:33:27a fundamental difference in thinking, like writing AI prompts, you're kind of teaching
00:33:32your brain to have a different language and putting it on the wrist when your muscle memory
00:33:37is so strong to just like, Oh, I need to look at the thing. Let me just grab my phone.
00:33:41So now you're teaching yourself a different muscle memory. You're like, I'm not going to
00:33:44grab my phone. I'll just ask it on my watch. When would I do that versus just pulling out
00:33:50my phone, which is faster. And so I think that's going to be an interesting tension to kind
00:33:56of work with while I review it, but I'm not saying it's going to be bad. I'm just going
00:34:02to say, I think I don't know personally how it's going to work for me yet and like what
00:34:09part of the generative features will be most useful. So we'll see.
00:34:14Do you talk to AI or do you like to type?
00:34:17I like to type. So my thing is like, and you know, it's different for different people.
00:34:21I know low and blind vision people really value the voice aspect of it. But for me,
00:34:26I don't want people hearing my stupid questions.
00:34:29It's embarrassing.
00:34:30I have some very stupid questions.
00:34:31I don't even want to hear it myself. I would rather just keep it quiet.
00:34:35Yeah. And like the thing about Gemini that they're saying is that it's natural language,
00:34:38but then now I have to undo my muscle memory of how I talk to assistant. Because when you
00:34:43talk to assistant, it's like, Hey, and I'm not going to say the wake word because we've
00:34:47had enough of our listeners say, you said the wake word. So like, Hey, AI assistant,
00:34:54send message and then you have to dictate it. So like, I think one of the things that you're
00:35:00supposed to be able to do is like, be like, Oh, I'm late. Can you send a message to this
00:35:04person telling them I'm going to be late and make the tone polite or apologetic. And that's
00:35:09a thing that you can do. And it'll just write the message for you and you don't have to dictate
00:35:12it. And I'm like, cool, but I'm kind of used to dictating it. So it's really, I think people
00:35:20are just going to have to be open to changing their muscle like memory and then changing muscle
00:35:26memory is really difficult to do. So I think that's the big challenge with Gemini and the
00:35:31rest.
00:35:31That's real. Okay. There's one other Samsung thing that was like around the event, but
00:35:36not, I believe it was not at the event, which is, uh, there was a big leak that they're
00:35:40having a, a trifold foldable and they did. They, they didn't say anything about this.
00:35:45I was ready for it. Cause they've done what I want to see. They've done kind of a one
00:35:52more thing, but I guess that was at the January unpack cause they did it for the ring. They
00:35:56did it for the edge. Um, I was like, they were wrapping, they were wrapping up and Alison
00:36:04just has her thing up and she goes like, I don't believe you. I was like, you can't fool
00:36:10me a TM. Um, but yeah, they fooled me. There was no, there's, there's, there's more to come
00:36:15in, in Samsung foldables potentially even this year. It sounds like, yeah, yeah. It sounds
00:36:20like they told some, some Korean press, I think that they, they have it ready. They're
00:36:25just like hanging onto it for a minute or something like that.
00:36:29That's, that's fair enough. It would be extremely Samsung to be like, here's one high end foldable.
00:36:33Here's another that like embarrasses it. But so it's, it's, it's nice. It's nice for them
00:36:37to take a little break. All right. We should go to break. When we get back, we're talking
00:36:41about Apple, Meta, X, unfortunately Mecca, Hitler. We'll be back.
00:36:48AI is moving fast. So fast. It's hard to keep up. In fact, in ServiceNow's latest AI maturity
00:36:55index scores dipped 20% from last year, but that's okay because AI isn't a sprint. It's
00:37:02a marathon. You may be behind today, but tomorrow you could be a pace setter. Dive into ServiceNow's
00:37:09AI maturity index and see how you can innovate as fast as your ambitions. Visit servicenow.com
00:37:15slash AI maturity.
00:37:21All right, we're back. There were a bunch of really big executive changes this week at
00:37:26Apple, at Meta, at X. Grok went absolutely off the rails. A lot to talk about. I want
00:37:33to start with Apple where their COO, Jeff Williams, announced plans to retire. This is really interesting
00:37:40because Jeff Williams was, I guess until Tuesday, you know, one of the leading people who was
00:37:50seen as a possible Tim Cook successor if it came to that, right? And I think this is happening
00:37:56in like the most Apple way possible, right? It's a long, slow thing.
00:38:01I mean, does Apple do anything quickly?
00:38:03I don't think so. They're very intentional about everything, right? So yeah, no, but Jeff
00:38:08Williams, he's always in those like big presentations at the iPhone event. Like he's one of those,
00:38:15he's maybe not Craig Federighi where he has his own hair meme at this point where you go to
00:38:20DubDub and they're referencing his hair in the filmed parts, but he's pretty well known if you're
00:38:26into Apple. So that's a big one.
00:38:28And I think like as COO, COO is one of those, I think quieter, but actually mission critical
00:38:35positions at Apple. Like Apple is in many ways, it is a supply chain company, right? Like Tim Cook was
00:38:42the COO before he was CEO. And I think he has in many ways reshaped Apple around that role,
00:38:51right? Every single product is, you know, how do we make sure there are exactly three versions and
00:38:57we are optimizing the parts and we are using what came last. And, you know, it makes sense that they
00:39:03would have seen Jeff as the possible next guy. And I think like the going, you know, speculation from
00:39:11what I've seen is that perhaps Jeff Williams is a little, little too old, right? He was 62.
00:39:19Tim Cook is 64. And so if Tim Cook is going to step down at some point, I mean, I don't know,
00:39:24he could, he could Berkshire Hathaway this and like, you know, stick around like Warren Buffett until
00:39:30he's like in his nineties, which like, you know, if you're a shareholder.
00:39:33I mean, Tim Cook is secretly swole. Like if you look up the Slate article from the past,
00:39:41it's like, it's an investigation into how swole Tim Cook is. He's very swole. He like famously
00:39:46exercises a lot.
00:39:47Oh my God.
00:39:47He, a lot of the Apple watch stuff and the health stuff is because Tim Cook is like super into that
00:39:51stuff. So I don't know. He doesn't look like he's aged.
00:39:56Do we know his workout regimen?
00:39:58Um, I think he wakes up at like 4am and works out. Like he's, I don't know the exact of it,
00:40:04but if you look real close and zoom, he's very modest in his, his attire. But if you zoom in on
00:40:10those biceps, I am a believer that Tim Cook is swole. So he could be, he could be, he could be good
00:40:17for a while.
00:40:18He's good for, okay.
00:40:18I think he's good for a while.
00:40:20Yeah.
00:40:21He's a healthy dude.
00:40:22How swole was Jeff Williams?
00:40:24You know, honestly,
00:40:26no, no Slate articles.
00:40:27No Slate articles investigating Jeff Williams.
00:40:30Unknown level of swoleness.
00:40:31Yeah. No, that is one of my favorite articles though, is Tim Cook swole. I come back to it
00:40:35every once in a while just because the beat I'm on. And also because when I see him every year,
00:40:39I'm like zooming in with my eyes and just going like, yeah, no, I think, I think he's swole.
00:40:45He's real swole.
00:40:46Okay. So, well, I guess now I know why, why Jeff was passed over. I mean, you, right. This,
00:40:49this is what one assumes if you don't retire, if, if they're like, Hey, you might be CEO soon.
00:40:54Right.
00:40:55Yeah.
00:40:55Yeah. I, it, to be clear, like, it's not like there is a rumor that, that Tim Cook's retirement
00:41:00is imminent, but like, you know, he's, he's been doing it since 2012. Um, long time, long run.
00:41:06Um, and I think Apple, uh, you know, because they move so carefully, surely they're, they're
00:41:12planning this in the background. So their new guy, they're bringing in Sabi Khan, um, who Cook
00:41:18called one of the central architects of Apple's supply chain. Like they're clearly trying to be like,
00:41:23nothing's changing. We're all good. Everything is safe since they fans. Right. Um, he's, uh, you
00:41:30know, this guy again has been, he's, he joined Apple in 1995.
00:41:33Jesus.
00:41:34So, right. This is like, this is a, uh, still a jobs era guy who they're bringing in. Um,
00:41:40I mean, supply chain stuff is really important right now with like the, the, the ever looming
00:41:44tariff situation going on. And I don't know, I think you have Apple fans who are kind of split
00:41:52into romanticizing the jobs era and like the vision of it, the, the jobs and Joni, I vision
00:41:57of it all. And then you have other people who are like, nah, Tim Cook's the guy who gets
00:41:59it done. And like, he's a guy who knows supply chains and that stuff's boring, but that's
00:42:04what makes money. So I think having Sabi Khan there, it just feels stable at a time where
00:42:11supply chain is a thing that we think about and something that investors are super invested
00:42:17in, uh, is having a stable supply chain. So I think that is a signal there too.
00:42:24The, the Trump and tariff stuff feels like part of this too, right? Like they are, they're
00:42:27actually, this thing has been running very smoothly for a very long time. And now Trump
00:42:32is saying, Hey, uh, tariffs on everything. And so Apple is scrambling to move things around.
00:42:38Supply chain is actually more important than ever. There's a lot of work to do. If you're
00:42:44Jeff Williams, maybe there's a good, you know, it's like a cat and mouse game, right? Because
00:42:49they're like, ah, tariff on new country. And Apple's like, ha ha, we moved to this other
00:42:54country. And then they'll go, aha, tariff on that country. And Apple's like, aha, we'll
00:42:58move to this other country. Or like, that's what it seems like it's been happening. They'll
00:43:02find a way. And so they need, they need a supply chain guy to know what country to move
00:43:05the factory to. So love a supply chain guy. Okay. They, they do love a supply chain guy,
00:43:11which, which I think is interesting because, uh, you know, the, the going rumors of who,
00:43:16who, uh, might succeed cook again, like some years out whenever this happens. Um, I believe
00:43:21it's, it's Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, um, says that John Ternus was their hardware guy is the
00:43:28leading contender right now, which is very interesting, right? Um, that, that feels to
00:43:35me like there's potentially a very different shift in a world where he is leading it because
00:43:40Tim Cook, at least like my read on it is that he is not a product guy in the way that jobs
00:43:45was and probably not a product guy in the way that Ternus is.
00:43:48Yeah. And arguably that's what Apple needs too, because we're at a point where I think I
00:43:54was talking about this with Todd, uh, our reviews, uh, WD editor, uh, where the iPhone is like
00:44:00what, 17 years old. There are people who can vote and fight for our country who don't remember a world
00:44:05without iPhones. So it's like not a new product or technology anymore. So I think, you know,
00:44:12with the AI hype, everybody's looking to what's next. Maybe you want a hardware guy in there who can
00:44:18really shape what the next vision of that's going to be. So maybe if you think about vision,
00:44:24versus maintenance, maybe it's like a thought process with Ternus is going back from maintenance
00:44:29to vision again and doing the stuff that made Apple splashy to begin with. Who knows? I'm not a,
00:44:35I'm not a business forecaster. I don't have like a crystal ball, but I think that's maybe something
00:44:40that Ternus has. Yeah. And then didn't they change like the design team now reports directly to Tim
00:44:47Cook too? Yeah. So I don't know if, if those things are related, but it would make a kind of sense to
00:44:53have like, I don't know. Like Tim Cook is also surprisingly into sneakers. So like, you know,
00:45:01Tim Cook is a hype beast. Is this where we're at? He's swole. He's a hype beast. Oh my God.
00:45:06He had like these custom designer like sneakers a couple of conferences back. And like it was in
00:45:11the hype beast article about how he had these like special, I believe it was Nike's. And so,
00:45:16you know, on the face of it, Tim Cook has his uniform. You wouldn't tag him as like the design
00:45:23guy, but he's into sneakers and he's swole. Maybe they're, yeah, maybe they're making some
00:45:28sneakers. Maybe there's multitudes to cook that we haven't. Tim Cook, Tim Cook is going to retire
00:45:33from Apple, take over Supreme. Yeah. And have a, have a like whole second career after this.
00:45:40I love it. I, I believe it. You're, you're hearing it now. You have to do a hard pivot.
00:45:45Yeah. Yeah. He's going to be, he's just going to be on the board of gentle monster. Uh, which
00:45:51that's sunglass company from Korea with like the really interesting silhouettes. He's just
00:45:55going to, he's going to be a fashion. I would love this. I love this. I really want like
00:45:59Cook is the driest executive like in public. And if like, you know, steps out and is like,
00:46:06I'm going to live a different life now. He's earned it. A quiet fire to Tim Cook. This
00:46:12is my fashion. Quiet fire. So the next big piece of a corporate changeup happened last
00:46:20week while we were off, which is that Mark Zuckerberg finally announced his big AI super intelligence
00:46:27group. This is like, it is a super group of AI researchers, which I want to, maybe I think,
00:46:34I think sounds cool when you put it that way. Does it, it also could sound like the AI Avengers,
00:46:40but it is, it's the AI of he should. Oh no, that's terrifying. And famously when the Avengers
00:46:47created AI, it went well, right? Oh, that's not, that's not totally the plot of Ultron. That's not,
00:46:53you know, famed, beloved, critically acclaimed Avengers movie Ultron that everyone loved.
00:47:00I didn't know that. They didn't, they didn't, they, they hate that movie. I didn't know there
00:47:05was a movie. You know what? That's, that's the correct. It's, it's all right. It's all right. They
00:47:09made a, yeah. Um, so this is, this is weird. This is a little wild. Like Zuck is sort of just like
00:47:17power tripping here. And, um, first he paid $14 billion to buy half of scale AI, which is mostly,
00:47:27it appears that he can hire their CEO, um, Alexander Wang. Um, Wang is becoming Meta's chief AI
00:47:34officer. Sure. And then he's just paying out hundreds of millions of dollars to individual
00:47:42researchers. He's just going around to every AI lab, open AI, Google, Anthropic, and giving people
00:47:49these incredible offers that, that just like boggle the mind that you would pay somebody this much
00:47:55to convince them to come over, which tells you two things. Number one, it's hard to convince people
00:48:01to come work at Meta, right? Like Hayden Field, our AI reporter just ran a story where she talked to
00:48:07some people who got some of these offers. And the thing they told her was, yeah, we care about the
00:48:14mission, which is why we're staying at, you know, the ones who did turn this down, don't want to go
00:48:20to Meta and have to do whatever they want us to do. Oh boy. Oh, you know, you're, they're going to
00:48:25get paid. Okay. Anywhere. Um, but I Zuck is just spending boatloads of cash to build this, you know,
00:48:34huge team of super capable researchers, right? He's got the, the former CEO of GitHub. He's got a
00:48:40co-founder and the former CEO of safe super intelligence. He got people from Anthropic from
00:48:47Sesame. It's, it's all over the place. And these dollar figures are mind boggling. And what's really
00:48:54interesting is like, okay, okay, I get it. So you now have one of the most capable AI leadership teams
00:49:00in the, in the world. The idea is you will go and build some sort of fancy AI thing, super intelligence,
00:49:07whatever you want to call it with that. Um, but, but there is sort of a question, right? Like
00:49:11the technology exists or much of it does. People are building it. Is it these specific people or,
00:49:18or like, are they, do you just buy the people and therefore you get the good AI?
00:49:23I mean, that's obviously what his, his strategy is. He's just throwing money around. He's just like,
00:49:29I've got money, come work for me, do the thing. And, uh, I think he's getting grifted on some level
00:49:35because I know hate to any of these people getting these, what, $300 million over four
00:49:41year packages, like get the bag. I love that for you. This is your time. Uh, but at the same time,
00:49:48you look at that cost and it's just like, are you getting your money's worth? How, how much did you
00:49:54spend on that metaverse gambit, bud? I mean, this is what I'm thinking about, right? Where it's like,
00:49:59okay, let's think, let's think about the last time Zuck sort of like went ham and spent a ton
00:50:05of money on some initiative that we're like, I don't know if it's going to work out for you.
00:50:08It is the metaverse. Yeah. There, there's still no legs in the metaverse. So where did all that
00:50:14money go? I announced the legs, they announced the legs, but did the legs ever come? The legs
00:50:19never shipped. Can I tell you something? Nobody signed on to check. There could be legs. Like
00:50:24that's, you know, he made the wrong, but, but also it's not even that he made the wrong bet at
00:50:30the wrong time. Like that, that, you know, I feel like you could have easily foreseen that
00:50:34when talking about the metaverse. It's that he put in a boatload of money and it was bad.
00:50:40Yeah. Yeah. And like, they're kind of doing that with, with llama already. And this feels like number
00:50:45one, it's funny. They've, they've for, for months been talking up llama, how great it is. There was
00:50:52that scandal a few months back where they, uh, ran a special, like optimized version of
00:50:57llama to like game some tests. Um, right. If you've used meta AI, which I have, how is
00:51:04it V not great? I mean, on the one hand, so I mostly use meta AI through the glasses when
00:51:09I'm testing new features or whatnot. Um, my favorite thing about it is that I can make it
00:51:13sound like John Cena. Oh, it's not bad. It's not bad. Yeah. Yeah. But that's my favorite
00:51:18thing about it. Yeah. So, um, like I've tried the live AI, which has its pros and cons. Um,
00:51:25I think the multimodal thing is really smart, but, um, the live translations, for example,
00:51:31that, that was not, I tried, sorry, Alison, I have to talk about Amelia Perez again.
00:51:39Oh, it's my favorite. I tried, uh, months back just like seeing like, oh, could I use this
00:51:45to translate content that I'm watching? So I put on a clip of one of the terrible songs
00:51:50and Amelia Perez and it got some of it. And then others, but it was just so, it was John
00:51:55Cena just saying very wrong things about the Spanish. So yeah, in my experience, not great.
00:52:03It sort of feels like there's a moment coming. I don't know if it's like the chips are down
00:52:09or it's like, um, what's the game where you have to get a chair? You have to like musical
00:52:14chairs, musical chairs. It's like musical chairs and everybody's like, okay, it's about time
00:52:19to figure out this AI stuff. Like Apple, they're like, can we build it or should we just buy a
00:52:25company? And there's a little bit of that going on. And Zuck is like, I'm buying all these
00:52:30chairs. I'm covering all my bases. So I spent all the stuff on the metaverse and apparently
00:52:35that's not what people want. So I didn't spend everything on AI. So money, here you go. So
00:52:41that's, that's what this feels like. There you go. Uh, thinking about the Ray-Bans is really
00:52:45interesting too, because they're right now. It's like, it's this very simple product and
00:52:50we're like, Hey, these are nice headphones and they are really bullish on actually their
00:52:55AI glasses. And it's, is it right? Like they, in fact, they have to build the AI.
00:53:01They do in fact have to build the AI. So, you know, there are communities that really
00:53:06do love the, uh, meta glasses and the AI in them. Uh, spoiler alert, that's what my next
00:53:13host episode, uh, on Tuesday is going to be about. But, uh, you know, by and large, most
00:53:19people are not really thinking of it in that way, but I do every single time I write them
00:53:25as smart glasses. I, I've got a good relationship with the PR people at, uh, meta, but they're
00:53:29like, would you be open to calling it AI glasses? And it's like, no, they're smart
00:53:35glasses. But so to, to, to like, the reason I tell that story is to say that like, they
00:53:40are super bullish on glasses being a vehicle for AI. They really believe that glasses are
00:53:46like, what are going to get people thinking about AI. And you know, Google's kind of jumped
00:53:50on that train too with Android XR. So they still got to build the AI first. So we'll see.
00:53:58We'll see. Yeah. It's, it is, it is not a bet in a vacuum. It's, and it's like so easy
00:54:03to think of it that way. I think particularly because like open AI, like it is, it exists
00:54:07as a website. Like it is, it is a bot on its own. That's it. And meta is trying to productize
00:54:14it. Yeah. And the product is okay. And the AI is not okay. Um, yeah, I, this is going
00:54:21to be, I think just one of the clear, like give this a couple of years, obviously, but it
00:54:27is going to be a fascinating experiment to see if you can just buy your way to a great
00:54:33product. Cause I cannot remember, obviously people will just buy companies. I mean, it's
00:54:37funny, actually a lot of the big company acquisitions do not work. There is a culture clash. Um, right.
00:54:44I'm thinking of like Google buying Motorola, which like, and then selling it a few years
00:54:50later. Um, right. So this is sort of a version of that. He is just buying what he thinks is
00:54:56all the best people and who, by all, by all accounts are supposed to be, um, incredibly
00:55:00talented researchers. Can you buy your way to the best product? We're going to find out
00:55:05and it's going to be really interesting to see. And if it does not pay off, like, yeah,
00:55:11at least this is a better bet. I think than the metaverse.
00:55:14It is. Yes. I think that is, that is fair, right? Like there is a product to be had here
00:55:19that people want or something that some people want. Um, the question is, can, can they build
00:55:25something llamas is aggressively fine? I think that's the best way to describe it. Cause I've
00:55:31been using a bunch of them and it, is it the best one? No. Is it the worst one? Also?
00:55:36No. Yeah. That's a safely fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, speaking of AI, that is not the best.
00:55:46Oh God. Uh, the other big change this week happened at X where there was also some grok
00:55:54news, uh, to discuss. So, um, X CEO, Linda Yaccarino announced this week that she was stepping
00:56:00down. Um, Elon replied with a, a, I'm going to say terse, uh, tweet saying, thanks for
00:56:07your contributions. When Linda posted about her announcement, she was like, you know,
00:56:12look at all that we've done. We've done such a great job. Uh, you know, we made it the
00:56:16everything app we've like cracked down on safety. We've, we've done free speech. And Jay Peters
00:56:21on our team just looked at all these things. He's like, actually like under Yaccarino, none
00:56:27of this stuff has happened. Yeah. I remember, um, using the X app as an everything app, you
00:56:33know, just yesterday I ordered a pizza. I, uh, no, that's not true. She lasted longer than
00:56:39I thought she would though. Cause I thought like when she was announced that I was like,
00:56:44Oh, this will be over in six months. And she lasted four times that. So, you know, that's
00:56:48true. Yeah. I'm, I might just might be me, but I don't know if I could have lasted as long
00:56:55as she did. Yeah. Given circumstances. So we think she just got fed up, right? I think she
00:57:00just was like, I think she was just like, yeah, I didn't sign up for this. See, I, I don't, it
00:57:06takes a certain type of person to volunteer to work for Elon and she was pretty gung ho about it
00:57:11up front. Oh yeah. Yeah, she was. She was. So I, I don't know. I'm very, very interested in
00:57:19finding out what happened there. Do you think she knew about the whole like Trump turn that he was
00:57:24going to do doge and all of that? Do you think she just finally went like, I didn't sign up for,
00:57:29like I signed up for stuff. I didn't sign up for that. Yeah. And she's just finally been like,
00:57:34okay. And I'm done. It's, it's, I mean, she spent a lot of her time. I think so. Right. Cause
00:57:42she spent a lot of her time defending him. Um, and her job when she came on was advertisers are
00:57:48fleeing this platform because everyone hates Elon and he keeps saying inappropriate stuff. Right. Yeah.
00:57:53And so, you know, and she, uh, you know, didn't quite get that. Like there are some app that the
00:58:02platform still exists. It's there. But the other thing is that when she signed on X was an independent
00:58:07company. It is now owned by XAI. Um, which means there are even, you know, she was always a CEO and
00:58:13it always felt like it was an air quotes. Like Elon owns the place. Elon runs the place. Um,
00:58:18X also announced a new head of product recently. Um, they put, uh, Nikita beer in charge. He was a
00:58:25co-founder of TBH, which met a bot. And I believe then shut down and also gas, which was acquired by
00:58:31discord. I ha I, the apps, as I'm told, I believe are for teens. And so I did not use them. I don't know
00:58:39what that's just being age appropriate. The teens are the teen apps. Teens are using gas.
00:58:44Yeah. I'm not sure about that. I can't prove that. Um, so X, you know, it's got some, it's got
00:58:53some, they didn't announce a new CEO. They didn't, they didn't say anything. They're just like,
00:58:57Linda's gone. Okay. Um, and then in the background of all of this, uh, grok, um, I, I, I kind of,
00:59:06there's something about X as a platform right now where it just, there's sometimes there are rainy
00:59:13days and thunderstorms. And you're just like, Oh yeah. The chat bot that lives in the platform
00:59:19is being racist and calling itself Mecca Hitler today. And you're just like, well, where does
00:59:23it like to, Oh, it does that sometimes. And it's like that, this is the point we have gotten to
00:59:27with X where we're like, number one, it's still, it's still functions. Number two. Yeah. You can
00:59:33just ignore Mecca Hitler. Like they'll deal with it. It's fine. Do you remember when we used to call
00:59:39like back when it was Twitter, we used to be like, this is the main character of the
00:59:44day. Yes. And now grok is the main character of the day as Mecca Hitler, but don't love
00:59:50that. I, it, the, the Mecca Hitler thing is, um, perhaps the more, uh, the lighter part
00:59:57of it, it was being like actively super antisemitic and racist and offensive. Um, and just like
01:00:04going off for a couple of days and eventually they like shut it down. This all ends with
01:00:11Elon hosting a live stream to pronounce grok four, which may or may not be live at this
01:00:16point. It wasn't unless I checked it. I don't, I don't really get it. Like X as a product
01:00:23is, I think, bewildering to me at this point. Like I, I think the grand proclamations of doom,
01:00:30I guess I would argue did not quite. Yeah. There's like a ton of people who are still
01:00:36on X surprisingly, but like the, the 10 seconds I'm on there every so often, I'm like, Oh,
01:00:42right. So, and so I used to follow, they still be posting up a storm on X. So that's, you know,
01:00:49it's still there. People are still have not left, which is wild to me, but yeah. And like,
01:00:55you know, I don't want to, I shouldn't give them too much credit for this, but like Elon fired
01:00:58most of the company and like, it's still, you know, the, the website is still online most of
01:01:03the time, right? Like, okay. Okay. They've got that. Is it succeeding? Not right. The thing it
01:01:13has succeeded at is creating a whole bunch of competing platforms, including threads,
01:01:18which there was data out this week that it is like nearly catching up on mobile app usage.
01:01:25Wow. Right. Absolutely wild. Considering how awful threads is like, I'm sorry. Like I go to threads
01:01:30for very specific things, which is K-pop because apparently my algo there is just like, all you
01:01:35care about is K-pop. And I'm like, are they wrong? They are only partly wrong. I care about other
01:01:41things, but I'm just like, that's my entire feed on threads. It's just K-pop from, but like K-pop
01:01:46news from five days ago. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's what you go to threads for is something that happened
01:01:51five days ago. I wonder how much of it is meta just aggressively pushing people to threads,
01:01:58which has been, Oh, it's so aggressive. Yeah. Instagram now. Yeah. Scrolling through and you're
01:02:02like, Oh, do I want to look at a threads post from three days ago? I think I'm good. Threads also very
01:02:08aggressively pushes the like for you page or whatever it's called, the discover page. Whereas,
01:02:14you know, other platforms are nice and give you options or let you choose your phone. Right.
01:02:20I go on threads and I get frigging sucked in because it is just like showing me all this stuff from
01:02:25people who I don't follow. And it's like, this is why Facebook succeeds. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not,
01:02:31I'm not actually saying it's bad necessarily, but like, yeah, I see, I see why it's doing okay.
01:02:35Um, and somehow they've got enough stuff. They don't have a Mecha Hitler though. I, well,
01:02:42you know what? Zuck just spent a lot of money on. Okay. Okay. We might have Mecha Hitler down the
01:02:48line, but how close are we to Mecha Hitler? That's a new metric for, uh, Oh God, for your AI.
01:02:56That's dystopian. Yeah. Um, and on that happy note, on that happy note, it's time for a break.
01:03:03When we get back, we are rebranding the lightning round. Get ready for it.
01:03:12All right, we're back. So I have a problem. I have a problem with the lightning round. I don't
01:03:17know if you guys know this, but Neelai and David every week, they've got the lightning round.
01:03:22They've got a whole bunch of stories. And the point of the lightning round is you, you get through all
01:03:26this. It's fast paced lightning round, right? What happens? Goes long. Yeah. Goes long. They don't get
01:03:32to all the stories. They got to cut them. That ends today. Okay. We are changing. The lightning
01:03:38round is done. We are changing it. It is henceforth known as the thunder round. Oh my God. Let's do
01:03:48this. Okay. Here's what's going to happen. Unlike the lightning round, the thunder round gets stuff
01:03:54done. It keeps moving. We've got 15 stories, 15 minutes. And I have given Eric Gomez, our
01:04:03producer, the power of lightning. Oh, thunder. That one's wrong. Well, you have one, you have
01:04:10the other. Yeah. Okay. He's got the power of something to make us move along. And he has
01:04:17got to come in with some, some rolling, some crackling thunder, some crashes to keep us
01:04:23moving. If we, if we go a little too slow. I love this. Okay. So ready. I'm ready. I'm
01:04:29going to jump a million times. All right, people let's do this. The first ever thunder
01:04:34round. We're going to get through all of them. You ready? I believe in this. Okay. Story
01:04:39number one. I really want to talk about this. Um, Alison, you covered project Indigo, which
01:04:45is this Adobe camera app for the iPhone, right? Yes. It's kind of a beta product. It is a camera
01:04:52app. It's made by Mark Lavoie, who some people may remember as like the brains behind the pixel
01:04:58camera. The idea is it's computational photography, but it doesn't make your photos look like HDR
01:05:04hell. Um, is how I would say the sales pitches. And I played with it. It turned my phone into
01:05:10a, um, uh, a piece of fire. I don't know. It's very beta. It heats your phone up. Oh my God. Not a
01:05:19great, um, like everyday camera. Amazing photos. Like loved it so much. The photos in your story
01:05:25were so like, they had such intense mood and like a vibe. Like contrast. Like beautiful. I've
01:05:31liked really, this doesn't happen at all. The entire Verge newsroom stopped and was like,
01:05:36what, what, what are these photos? Yeah. From a phone. Yeah. I have not seen phone photos like
01:05:41this in, in years. Yeah. It's Mark Lavoie really feels like the guy who, who Google let get away.
01:05:48Like, I know what did they do here? And he's like a fellow at Adobe. What a gig. Yeah. You just hang
01:05:54out, make a camera app. Making the camera app we all want. Yeah. So was this like, were these like
01:05:59specially curated the photos that you posted or cause like they were incredible. Okay. Okay. Okay.
01:06:07Okay. So I, next story, we're going to move along here. Ikea announced a lamp with a speaker in it
01:06:13and it looks cool and it connects to Spotify. The main thing is they dropped Sonos.
01:06:18This is the correct move to drop Sonos. You like this? Like Sonos has had kind of a,
01:06:23Sonos has had a year. The app has not been great. And I think, you know, if you think about what
01:06:29most people use, they're using Bluetooth and they're using Spotify. So just go where their
01:06:33people are, make it cheaper. You don't have to have like a whole licensing issue with,
01:06:37uh, Sonos for this. And Sonos is like, you know, it's, it's, are they doing great jobs?
01:06:43Sonos and Ikea always felt like a weird pairing to me, right? It is the highest end of, of connected
01:06:49speakers and the like lowest end of stuff for your home. I mean, I love Ikea. That was not enough.
01:06:54Oh yeah. And Ikea is more expensive than they used to be, but yeah, it's, it's just, no,
01:07:00but that is like a weird dichotomy. And like Ikea's foray into the smart home has always been
01:07:05about simplicity and keeping things affordable. So kind of the speaker's cute.
01:07:11The speaker is that bad or that's not the lamp. There's a lamp. I would buy a bunch of these.
01:07:17Wow. I want some netbags. I was just shaking out.
01:07:22The thunder God does not appreciate speaker talk.
01:07:24V, do you want to take this one?
01:07:25Yeah. So perplexity has launched a Comet web browser. So a web browser for perplexity,
01:07:32which is the AI search engine, which fashions itself as, I always get confused by the pitch for
01:07:38perplexity over the other ones, but the whole idea is that it's researching things in real time. So
01:07:44you're supposed to be able to trust the results more. Sure. It has a web browser now.
01:07:48Love it.
01:07:49Have you used, have either of you used either like Gemini and Chrome or Dia yet?
01:07:54I haven't used Dia, but I am a long time user of Arc and the original Arc. So like I get the
01:08:01whole AI browser thing.
01:08:02Yeah.
01:08:03So my, okay. So AI browser is super hot right now. They also open AI is supposed to be launching
01:08:07an AI web browser too. My whole thing is like, they don't work yet. Right? Like I tried Dia,
01:08:14and I'm like this, it's just a permanent chat bot tab. Like why? What am I, I like, I'm like
01:08:19pretty on board with like chat GPT being useful, but it's like, you just, you just added a tab
01:08:26to my browser.
01:08:27Yeah.
01:08:27I get it. They're trying to, they're trying to beat Google. They're trying to replace it.
01:08:30And to do that, you got to be the default.
01:08:32It's just like a different version of AI overviews, I feel, which is, eh.
01:08:36It's more aggressive.
01:08:37It's much more aggressive.
01:08:38AI mode.
01:08:39I will say like sometimes in the Arc browser, when I have like a thing that I'm looking
01:08:43up and it gives me the summaries, I'm like, oh, it's helpful to have summaries, but now
01:08:46I got to look it up and make sure it's like accurate.
01:08:49Yeah. So you got to check it's work.
01:08:50Yeah. It's work.
01:08:51AI mode is like, what if you could talk to and interact with a page of search results?
01:08:56I'm like, I don't think I've ever wanted that.
01:08:59No, no, no. That's what I asked for.
01:09:01Yeah.
01:09:01Cool.
01:09:02Oh, right.
01:09:02Okay.
01:09:03Sorry.
01:09:04I brain froze. But anyway, so yeah, AI browsers, they're not.
01:09:09Not sure we like it.
01:09:10Not sure we like it.
01:09:11Allison. All right. E-Ink.
01:09:13Okay. E-Ink is on a laptop for some reason. So there's a laptop, but instead of a touchpad,
01:09:21it has an E-Ink e-reader for AI apps.
01:09:25I hate this.
01:09:26Why?
01:09:26I hate everything about this.
01:09:27This felt like they were just trying to find an angle on their own. They were like, we
01:09:32could put an E-Reader on the trackpad. And they're like, nobody's going to buy that. What
01:09:38if we put AI next to it? Why would you want to read on your trackpad?
01:09:44No, I don't.
01:09:45There's no reason for that. And then also just, okay, I'm sorry. I'm going to quote Ron Swanson
01:09:50from Parks and Rec. Whole-ass one thing. Don't half-ass two things. This is two half-ass
01:09:57thing. I have an E-Reader. I have a laptop touchpad and AI is in everything. But I don't
01:10:04want to read on my touchpad where my fingies go.
01:10:09No, because sometimes you're eating.
01:10:11Sometimes you're eating.
01:10:12And then you're going to get it all smeary.
01:10:13And then it's going to be on your AI E-Reader in the middle.
01:10:17Just get a folding phone.
01:10:18Then you have a bunch of screens.
01:10:21I don't know if I'm going to go that far, but yeah.
01:10:23Get a $2,000 folding.
01:10:24Whole-ass one touchpad. That's my spiel.
01:10:28There you go.
01:10:28I support that.
01:10:30Okay, okay, okay. Next thing. Did you guys see, or can I say, did you not see Lorde's
01:10:36new CD, which is transparent.
01:10:38It's transparent.
01:10:39She made it transparent.
01:10:40Okay, so it turns out when you put a CD into certain CD players, I mean, I guess they all
01:10:47use infrared to read it. But it seems like some of them maybe also use infrared to register
01:10:52that a CD is really going in. And they can't see it. And so they just eject the CD and they
01:10:59won't put it in. Andrew Marino on our team went out and these things are sold out, but
01:11:05he managed to find one and he tested it in a bunch of CD players. So you have like a clamshell
01:11:09one where you just like put it in and close it. Or I guess maybe like a disc tray.
01:11:12Yeah, that will work. But otherwise, these Lorde fans are really upset because...
01:11:16You know what? Fair. They paid for this music and now they can't listen to it on their car CD,
01:11:22which, you know, like that's one reason to buy a CD if you have a car that still has those things.
01:11:26So I totally get what they're saying. But at the same time, it is kind of cool to have a
01:11:30transparent CD.
01:11:31Okay, I'm moving on with this one because I don't want to get crashed. A federal appeals court
01:11:36struck down the FTC's click to cancel rule this week.
01:11:40This is... Bullshit. That's what this is.
01:11:42Yeah, this is the thing that was going to let you cancel your gym membership.
01:11:45This was...
01:11:46This should be a bipartisan issue if there was ever a bipartisan issue.
01:11:50Why did they... Does anyone like it when you're trying to cancel a thing and they're like,
01:11:55actually, you have to call an email. Nobody likes this. Nobody wants this. This was a bipartisan...
01:12:00It's devastating. This is absolutely devastating.
01:12:03We should have gotten this done. Who's responsible?
01:12:05Yeah, who is responsible for this? Why would they...
01:12:08Like, I'm sorry. Like, even...
01:12:10Okay, they said the FTC did a bad job making the rule.
01:12:13So it's not like...
01:12:14Wow.
01:12:14They can still do it. It's just like, will the new FTC do it?
01:12:19Oh, great.
01:12:20No, they won't because...
01:12:22I don't know. Maybe I'm being mean, but I feel like it's capitalist to be just like,
01:12:27no, make it hard for them to cancel because then we can get revenue.
01:12:30Because these people can't remember to cancel their subscriptions.
01:12:34I tried to cancel pet insurance once and it was the most... I just gave up and paid another year for pet insurance.
01:12:41Oh my God. No.
01:12:42That's a lot of... No.
01:12:44You had to, like, write a handwritten note, mail it.
01:12:47That's insane.
01:12:47Call their CEO.
01:12:49I...
01:12:49It's good news for your pet, I suppose.
01:12:52Yeah, he was all right.
01:12:53Oh.
01:12:53Oh.
01:12:54That was...
01:12:55Oh my God.
01:12:55He was dead.
01:12:56Thunder crash.
01:12:58Okay.
01:12:59Vicky was moving.
01:13:00Okay, so Nothing's first true flagship phone plays it a little safe because, you know, Nothing.
01:13:06We know Nothing for...
01:13:07Oh God, you got to stop me with the Nothing pons.
01:13:09Oh no.
01:13:10But Nothing has something going for it, which is that it's known for its forward design and this is not cool.
01:13:16Yeah, it has.
01:13:17So instead of, like, all the lights on the back, that was, like, the glyph thing, which looked cool, wasn't super useful.
01:13:25I didn't find it super useful.
01:13:27It has a little tiny, like, programmable, like, LED thing, sort of like the Asus, like, ROG phones, where it can be a little icon.
01:13:39It can be an emoji icon for, like, a certain app.
01:13:43It makes more sense to me because you could assign different notifications to different glyph patterns, and I would be looking at it, like, I can't remember if that thing lights up.
01:13:52Do I have a phone call or what?
01:13:54This is, like, a more clear, like, you could put a little poop emoji when the phone rings or something.
01:14:01I don't know.
01:14:02People were hating on it.
01:14:03I don't know.
01:14:04I think it's a good idea.
01:14:05It's because they demoed it with, like, a spin the bottle thing.
01:14:08Oh, that's dumb.
01:14:08Okay, hear me out.
01:14:10I'm actually super...
01:14:12It's the carrot sensor.
01:14:14They're just like, they're like, no one is going to use this.
01:14:17Here's your carrot.
01:14:18Yeah.
01:14:18And I love it.
01:14:19I love it.
01:14:20Maybe they should have just put a little more whimsy into it.
01:14:22I don't know.
01:14:22I think people have expectations, so this didn't meet their expectations of what they wanted from nothing.
01:14:27I guess.
01:14:29Meh.
01:14:29They wanted something from nothing.
01:14:30They wanted something from nothing.
01:14:31That doesn't work.
01:14:35We deserve this one.
01:14:37We deserve that one.
01:14:37We deserve that one that crashed.
01:14:38Yeah, yeah.
01:14:40The government is still suing Apple for antitrust.
01:14:45Yeah.
01:14:45Good.
01:14:46Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:14:47No, I'm very pleased to see that's still happening.
01:14:52Apple tried to get it dismissed, and the judge was just like, yeah, seems like they've got a case.
01:14:59I love that.
01:15:00They didn't rule on it in any meaningful manner.
01:15:02Apple is so litigious, right?
01:15:04They do this all the time with everything.
01:15:06I mean, this is...
01:15:07Well, okay, so the government was like, hey, Apple, your entire business model is anti-competitive.
01:15:11And Apple's like, that's not true.
01:15:13And this judge is like, let us at least find out.
01:15:15Yeah.
01:15:15So that's it.
01:15:16That's good.
01:15:17That's good.
01:15:17I want to see this play out.
01:15:18I think there are huge repercussions, potentially.
01:15:21So it'll at least be a fun time in court.
01:15:23Yay.
01:15:24Yeah.
01:15:24All right.
01:15:25My turn.
01:15:26So adding calendar events with a screenshot is AI at its finest.
01:15:30Hard agree.
01:15:31Oh, yeah.
01:15:32Someone also testing the death data of iOS 26.
01:15:35It actually works now?
01:15:36Hard agree.
01:15:38Yeah.
01:15:38For the most...
01:15:39It does the thing that you want it to do.
01:15:41It's kind of like, oh.
01:15:42Yeah.
01:15:43Yeah.
01:15:43So on iOS 26, you take a screenshot of something and you'll get a little prompt.
01:15:50It'll say add to calendar and it'll use generative AI too.
01:15:55And it already did a version of this, but it wasn't...
01:15:58It was pretty like, find the date, use the email subject line as the calendar thing.
01:16:04And that was kind of the end of it.
01:16:05I will say, Gemini does this a lot better.
01:16:09Like, we'll add multiple events.
01:16:11We'll ask you follow-up questions like, did you want to add this or this?
01:16:15And it understood time zones.
01:16:17Oh, that's a big one.
01:16:19Really good.
01:16:19That's a big one.
01:16:20I think it's a win all around.
01:16:22I'm like, free us from the tyranny of calendar apps.
01:16:25Yeah.
01:16:26That's what I say about that.
01:16:28Yeah.
01:16:29Sold.
01:16:29Good.
01:16:29Yeah.
01:16:30Absolutely sold on it.
01:16:31Hey, we beat the clock.
01:16:32Yeah.
01:16:32Wow.
01:16:33Don't push it.
01:16:34Now I'm raised for thunder.
01:16:37Should I take the next one?
01:16:38Oh.
01:16:38No.
01:16:38They just want to keep us on our toes now.
01:16:41We've made Eric too powerful.
01:16:43Apple's second generation Vision Pro might launch this year, according to Bloomberg.
01:16:49Supposedly, they're just going to do the pretty much the exact same thing, put an M4 chip in it.
01:16:53I mean, the Vision Pro is a Mac on your face.
01:16:58And yeah, it's rough when it's $3,500 and an M1.
01:17:03And it's a heavy Mac on your face.
01:17:04So this is the other thing.
01:17:05Supposedly, they're going to do some sort of new strap, which I feel like everybody I've talked to about the Vision Pro is like, you've got to get a different strap.
01:17:12You've got to get a...
01:17:13So there's two straps now.
01:17:15There's the solo knit and there's the one that looks like a harness.
01:17:18I forget the name of it right now.
01:17:19But I keep switching between both of them.
01:17:23Neither of them help.
01:17:24It's just I can't.
01:17:26I'm not calling the people who believe that you can wear it for hours liars, but I have never been able to do that.
01:17:34Okay, I'm going to keep us quick on this next one, too, as we move forward.
01:17:39NVIDIA briefly became the first $4 trillion company this week.
01:17:44The thing that's interesting here, Apple was the first to $1 trillion.
01:17:48Apple was the first American company to $2 trillion.
01:17:52Apple was the first company to $3 trillion.
01:17:54NVIDIA wins with $4 trillion.
01:17:56It's AI, right?
01:17:57It's the AI.
01:17:58It's the AI chips.
01:17:59The chips need to...
01:18:00The times have changed.
01:18:02Apple is merely a $3 trillion company.
01:18:05I'm ashamed.
01:18:06So our thoughts are with Tim on these trying times.
01:18:09These trying times.
01:18:10He has his biceps to keep him company.
01:18:13Yeah.
01:18:13Okay.
01:18:14Do you know Cameo is still around?
01:18:16I did not know it was still around.
01:18:18Cameo not only is still around, they launched a new app this week for tracking your friends' birthdays.
01:18:23It's a calendar, but it only does birthdays.
01:18:25Do we need that?
01:18:26That's dumb.
01:18:26And I don't...
01:18:27And Cameo is doing it.
01:18:28Why?
01:18:29Oh, I guess is the idea that then you're like, oh...
01:18:32Oh, it's my friend's birthday.
01:18:33I should get them a Cameo from that random select.
01:18:36Oh!
01:18:37Yeah.
01:18:38Okay, that's kind of genius, but also, no.
01:18:41No.
01:18:42I will say, and like, apologies to, I don't know, all of my friends, everybody I know.
01:18:46I only remember birthdays because they're in my calendar.
01:18:50Oh, yeah.
01:18:50If they're not in there, I don't know that you were born.
01:18:53I'm an astrology nerd.
01:18:55Like, it's how I cope with everything now.
01:18:58So, I just find out people's signs and then know the general time of when their birthday is.
01:19:03You just get a sense.
01:19:04I just get a sense.
01:19:05They're like, oh, you're a Gemini?
01:19:06Oh, you're birthday fast.
01:19:07Like, that kind of thing.
01:19:08That was true.
01:19:09That was right.
01:19:10Yeah.
01:19:10Yeah.
01:19:11There you go.
01:19:11It's good.
01:19:11It's working.
01:19:12It's good stuff.
01:19:14So, Apple just added more frost to its liquid glass design.
01:19:17That's because it's liquid ass.
01:19:18I'm not a fan.
01:19:19Oh, she said it.
01:19:21Wow.
01:19:21Okay, here's my hot take.
01:19:23I think it's kind of okay.
01:19:25Like, I've kind of gotten used to it.
01:19:27No.
01:19:27I have bad eyes.
01:19:29Like, I have truly awful eyes.
01:19:31And anyone's ever read my smart glasses review or anything that has to do with vision know that my eyes are garbage.
01:19:36These are garbage eyeballs that my parents gave me.
01:19:39I legitimately had a really hard time reading.
01:19:43Yeah.
01:19:43And, like, and obviously it's dev beta.
01:19:45It'll be different when it comes out.
01:19:46I'm pro more frost, but then it's not glass.
01:19:50Yeah.
01:19:51No, it's frosted glass.
01:19:52It's frosted glass.
01:19:52I had to put the little outlines on all the buttons, which make the whole transparency thing not.
01:19:57Because, like, if you go into the messages, you can't see any of the buttons.
01:20:01Yeah.
01:20:01And then there's just, like, a slap.
01:20:03It's terrible.
01:20:04I don't like it.
01:20:04You guys know I watched Minority Report for the first time, literally for the first time this last week.
01:20:09Oh, wow.
01:20:10And they're putting all the glass in front of glass.
01:20:12I was like, there it is.
01:20:14We made it.
01:20:14We made it.
01:20:15The future is here now.
01:20:17And, yeah, it seemed like everything worked out nicely in Minority Report.
01:20:20Oh, yeah, it was good.
01:20:22Technology is really good.
01:20:23Good to hear.
01:20:24All right.
01:20:25We've got two more?
01:20:27Two more.
01:20:27We're going to make this.
01:20:29Oh.
01:20:30Is it my turn?
01:20:30Yes.
01:20:31Yeah.
01:20:31Nintendo is ending its cost-saving Switch game vouchers.
01:20:35I didn't know there were Switch game vouchers.
01:20:37How do I get one?
01:20:38And I can't anymore.
01:20:40So, I guess, V, did you ever use these?
01:20:42I did not.
01:20:42These were, like, okay, these were, people love these things.
01:20:45They were such a bargain.
01:20:47It was this weird thing where Nintendo was, like, if you subscribe to Switch Online, so you have to be a member.
01:20:52But for $100, they'll sell you a voucher.
01:20:55And you can use it to get two full-priced Nintendo games.
01:20:59And so, you could lock in the price of a game at $50, basically.
01:21:02Which, if you're going to buy two Nintendo games, it's like, yeah, great.
01:21:04You're just, like, you're saving, like, $20 or more.
01:21:07Particularly as you're, like, these things are creeping up in price.
01:21:10This is, they're, like, Tears of the Kingdom or whatever the next Zelda is, is going to be $90.
01:21:15Okay.
01:21:16Last story.
01:21:17We made it.
01:21:18We're doing it.
01:21:18HBO Max is officially, drumroll, HBO Max again.
01:21:24Thank God.
01:21:25And the world is restored.
01:21:28We're safe.
01:21:30I actually...
01:21:31Not from Eric.
01:21:33Not from Thunder.
01:21:34Not from Thunder.
01:21:35But we did it, everyone.
01:21:36We did it.
01:21:36We made it through all of the stories.
01:21:40I'm going to declare this first version of the Thunder round...
01:21:42Successful.
01:21:43Mostly successful.
01:21:44I think it was successful.
01:21:45We made it.
01:21:45We made it.
01:21:46I feel good.
01:21:47We accomplished what we set out to do.
01:21:49Exactly.
01:21:50There you go.
01:21:50There was Thunder.
01:21:51There was, yes, there was perhaps a lot of Thunder.
01:21:55There was some aggressive Thunder happening.
01:21:57I feel like Eric maybe got a little Thunder happy.
01:22:01That's it for the Thunder round, and that's it for the Verge cast.
01:22:04We'd love to hear your questions and feedback.
01:22:06Do you like the Thunder round?
01:22:08I hope so.
01:22:08Email us at vergecast at theverge.com or give us a call 866-VERGE-11.
01:22:14The Verge cast is a production of The Verge and Vox Media Podcast Network.
01:22:17Our show is produced by Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, Andrew Marino, and Travis Larchuk.
01:22:23See you next week.
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