Vergecast

Lots of gadgets this week! We talk headphones and laptops, chatbots and other chatbots, and get way in the weeds on both copyright law and Tree Law. Which are both very important.

We all decided after recording this episode that we probably should have said more nice things about the classic TiVo remote, which was a true thing of beauty. But we all have our favorites! Plus, don’t miss Nothing CEO Carl Pei talking about phones, glasses, and the hopefully-very-exciting future of gadgets.

Mainly the Nothing 2, because have you seen how pretty that primarily black and white UI is? It’s practically E Ink! Besides geeking out on gadgets we also talked about what FTC’s loss in the Microsoft case means for gaming, and for the FTC’s big to fix antitrust laws. It was an extremely Vergecasty Vergecast.

Other than totally crushing my battery, and a weird keyboard bug in iOS 17, Apple’s new betas have been pretty solid! We dug into what we’re seeing in them so far, then had a long philosophical debate about LLMs and GPTs, before clearing our calendars for the games of the summer. But mostly this episode is about my deep loathing of the Wimbledon AI commentary. It’s The Vergecast!

Is Instagram Threads going to become the fastest-growing app of all time? Sure looks like it. Will Meta care about it long-term, will it ever launch in the EU, will Threads ever actually embrace the fediverse? Who knows. Are ads coming to Threads? You betcha.

We talked a lot on this episode about what it means when the web is overrun by AI — the news sites, the social networks, the search engines, everything. It’s robots all the way down, y’all. Then we talked Macs, AirPods, Call of Duty, and much more. Alex may have brought up Plex a few times.

The FTC’s trial against Microsoft continues to rage, as do the fights in Congress over how best to protect kids online. Meanwhile, is the Pixel Fold the foldable we’ve been waiting for? And can the Razr be the coolest phone on the planet again? All that, and a lot of feelings about IP ratings, on this episode of The Vergecast.

If you haven’t read Josh Dzieza’s story on the grueling, extremely human work required to make AI systems work, you really should. And then you should catch up on all The Verge’s Smart Home Week coverage, because we have some big ideas about garage door openers on this podcast.

Reddit needs to make money. That’s fair! It’s a company! Companies that don’t make money stop being companies! But Reddit is also more dependent on the good will of its users than most companies — and is at odds with some of those users as we speak. Can Reddit the company and Reddit the community both survive? That’s the question of the week.

The Reddit blackout rages on, so we spent some time with Apollo developer Christian Selig figuring out why. Plus, is Threads the future of Instagram? And is a 15-inch MacBook Air the one we’ve all been waiting for?

If you didn’t catch the recent podcast bonus episode pitting the Vergecast crew against Waveform in a round of tech trivia, it’s a great Friday afternoon listen.

It’s the mid-2000’s again, apparently, because widgets are back and everybody’s bumping their phones to share contact information. So we spent the show debating which of Apple’s new-old ideas might stick around this time — plus where the new set of crypto scandals might lead the industry.

David, Nilay, and Dan hopped into a studio in Cupertino so we could talk about their impressions of the Vision Pro, and then, the WVFRM crew stopped by for a deeply fun and chaotic lightning round. But stay tuned, because this is just the first of many Vergecasts this week.

Meta’s got a new headset. Apple’s almost certainly got a new headset. Can I interest you in a headset? What do you look for in a headset? When I say “headset,” what do you think of? What’s it gonna take to get you into a headset today?

Next week, we’re pretty sure Apple’s going to launch a headset. But this week, we’re interested in the early days of the company — we have two stories, one about a huge success and one about a huge failure, both of which help explain why Apple is the company it is today.

An AI that helps you use your computer? What a concept! Also, do you think Max is doomed, or is it the streaming service to beat? Everything old is new again this week.

Seriously, it’s like, why doesn’t everyone just make really great, beautiful, complicated, glorious games like Tears of the Kingdom? That and other super sophisticated questions, today on the show. (Plus a fun chat with Senator Ed Markey.)

but are those changes going to destroy Google and a lot of others in the process? This week on the Vergecast we talked about that, the shockingly good looking Pixel Fold, and everything else announced at Google I/O.

Fresh off the Google I/O keynote, we tried to make sense of what it all means — and whether the company’s relentless push toward AI is going to completely change the internet as we know it. Or at least make all your emails long and unreadable.

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!

Ahead of the big Google I/O keynote later today, we have this segment of The Vergecast, as Nilay, David, and Alex discuss some of the issues facing the tech giant (like setting a YouTube promo ad for the Pixel Fold to premiere at the correct time) and how it might address them with AI news revealed during today’s event.

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.

We’re calling it The Director’s Episode, because it turned out to be all about how tech changes the way we make movies... and the movies we make about tech. It’s a fun episode, even though I don’t think we’ve solved the commentary problem yet.

processed the latest Apple mixed reality headset news, and Andy joined us for a super-sized segment on electric cars after GM canceled the Chevy Bolt and Toyota showed off a pretty Prius.

Plus, that Humane demo at TED. It can’t be real, right? Where’s the Qualcomm chip? After all, The Vergecast is nothing if not a place to ask deep questions about the location of Qualcomm chips.

Seriously, if you’ve never checked out Forecast Advisor, you gotta try it. And are you Team Bluesky or Team Mastodon? Eventually, you might not need to choose — that’s the whole idea — but right now they seem to be chasing one another in a big way.

Becca Farsace’s series Full Frame won both awards for technology video, and The Vergecast won People’s Choice for technology podcasts! Thanks to all who voted for us — our funky spring-shaped trophies are all thanks to you, and we couldn’t be more grateful.

Does this episode of The Vergecast feature several of the world’s best-known rappers? That depends on how you define “feature,” which turns out to be a pretty thorny question. This episode definitely features laser bongs and Snapchat bots, though. But not blue checkmarks or Netflix DVDs. None of those anymore.

I could not be clearer. Its a bong, there are lasers, and now thanks to Charlie Harding from Switched on Pop there’s a song sung by the AI version of Drake. The future is wild.

TikTok’s probably not going away anytime soon, but will that stop governments around the US from trying? Why is it that only two companies make Android phones worth buying? And can Chris Welch convince you to spend $3,000 on a new TV? On The Vergecast, these and other big questions. Like: what is a quantum dot?

Listen, I’m just saying, CNN Airport would definitely be a better name for a streaming service than Max. We tried to figure out what’s next for this service, then looked into Twitter’s big fight with Substack, Sony’s cloud and mobile gaming plans, and more.

Do you have thoughts on CarPlay, MagSafe magnets, handheld gaming, or the pros and cons of the Blue Check Life? This is the Vergecast for you, my friends.

Microsoft just can’t quit this whole Office Assistant thing, it turns out — but it might get it right this time. Plus we catch up on Amazon Sidewalk, Matter, and the best laptop microphones money can buy.

Did Pope Drip fool you, too? What does it mean that it worked so well? What will the aliens think when they find the Balenciaga bishop among the remains of our civilization? There’s a lot to talk about this week.

We spent the whole hour answering your questions: about tablets and laptops, routers and modems, privacy and gadget reviews. Also doorbells.

We have... a lot to say about yesterday’s big TikTok hearing, and everything we learned about the app’s future. And grapefruits. And your home Wi-Fi network. And eyes. Plus, we talk Bard and GPT-4 and whether text boxes are the future of the internet.

Did you know that a TV antenna is a useful thing to have, in this the year 2023? I sure didn’t. But we talked a lot about what ATSC 3.0 promises, before getting into how to fill your backpack for a 2,600-mile hike, and which iPad(s) you should buy. This episode is going to cost me a lot of money, I think.