Ahead of I/O, we tried to make sense of this moment for Google, and the many threats the company faces. And then we talked about phones, foldable phones, tablets, and what’s up with Google gadgets. Google’s a weird company, and it’s a weird time to be Google!
Google is moving slowly and carefully to make AI happen. Maybe too slowly and too carefully for some people. But if you opt in, a whole new search experience awaits.
As always, if you’re not a fan of The Always Sunny Podcast, it’s time to change that. This week’s a good one even if you’re not into It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, though, because the gang talks about BlackBerry, which stars Glenn Howerton as Research In Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie, and comes out this Friday.
The BlackBerry stuff starts about 30 minutes in. It’s got lots of fun takes on the iPhone, and behind-the-scenes stories about the movie.
Google promised to create a better, faster web for media companies with a new standard called AMP. In the end, it ruined the trust publishers had in the internet giant.
Those and other big questions — questions like, “why is Microsoft so weird about Edge?” and “why are there blue checks in Gmail now?” — on this Friday’s Vergecast. Like and subscribe!
I refuse to believe that they’re actually skeets now, but the Bluesky momentum seems to be real. And also insane. Plus, if the godfather of AI is worried about AI, should we be too? All that, and a bunch of laser bongs, on the show today.
Not the new ones, whoever is making those now. I mean a new version of the old idea, about a phone that made you more productive but didn’t try to capture all your time and money. BlackBerry director Matt Johnson, who we interviewed on The Vergecast this week, thinks you might. I kind of think I would.
(This whole episode is really fun, by the way: we talked about computer-screen movies, directors commentary, and much more. Check it out!)
I don’t agree with all of it, but this n+1 takedown of the modern internet media experience — the paywalls, the focus on insiders, the newsletterification of everything — is if nothing else a fantastic read.
One sometimes finds oneself in the debased position of opening a new article, immediately selecting all, and pasting the results into an unformatted Google Doc before the paywall finishes loading. This kind of subterfuge can only generate sheepishness — but then again, how many subscriptions can one person handle?
