0:02

Welcome to the VergeCast, the flagship podcast of

0:05

the correct height to width ratio of a

0:07

foldable phone. I'm your friend David Pierce, and

0:09

I'm back. I was on vacation for the

0:11

last two weeks up in

0:13

New England, looking at leaves and

0:15

frolicking in fields and drinking fancy

0:18

coffee and doing all the things

0:20

that you normally do on vacation.

0:22

I missed a shocking amount of

0:24

news for like late July and

0:26

early August, truly bonkers how much

0:28

stuff is going on. But

0:30

now I'm back. The team did an awesome job while I was

0:32

out. Thank you to everybody who sent us feedback on

0:34

the pilots we've been doing. We have lots more fun stuff

0:36

coming up on that front, but it's gadget season

0:38

friends. So we have a lot to do today

0:40

on the show. We are going to talk all

0:42

pixel all the time. The reason this episode is

0:44

coming out a little bit late is because Google

0:47

is having an event today potentially right now as

0:49

you're listening to this announcing all of its hardware

0:51

for the year. We've gotten

0:53

some of the hardware already, the new Nest

0:55

thermostat, the new TV streamer, but

0:57

all the phones, all the everything that's been leaked and

0:59

talked about for months. It's all coming out right now.

1:01

A couple of folks on our team have seen this

1:03

stuff. They've been briefed on the news. They know what's

1:05

coming. So we are going to talk about all

1:08

the new stuff coming from Google and what it means.

1:10

I really can't figure out Google as a hardware company.

1:12

I've spent a long time trying to figure it out

1:14

and we're going to try and do it all at

1:16

once on this episode. So that's

1:18

what this episode is. It's all Google all

1:20

the time. It's the pixel special. We're going

1:22

to get into it. But first, I

1:25

just have one quick PSA for you. And I

1:27

learned this again. I've learned this a hundred times

1:29

and I keep forgetting every time I go on

1:31

vacation, the buffer day is everything.

1:33

When you get home from a trip, make sure

1:36

there is one whole day between the

1:38

end of that trip and whatever thing you have

1:40

to do next, back to school, back to work,

1:42

whatever it is you're doing, come home on Saturday

1:44

instead of going on Sunday at night and then

1:46

going back to work Monday morning. That's

1:48

awful. Didn't do the buffer day, regret

1:50

the buffer day, all hail the buffer day. Let's

1:53

talk pixel. This is the VergeCast. We'll be right

1:56

This episode is brought to you by

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3:01

Council. C-O-U-N-S-E-L. Welcome

3:05

back. There's lots of Google news to get to.

3:08

So let's just get to it. I have a

3:10

crew of people who by the look of it

3:12

are very few of you are where you normally

3:14

are when we do this. So let's just go

3:16

around and figure out what's going on. Vsong, hello.

3:19

You appear to be where you usually are. I

3:21

am in my normal spot. This is good. I'm

3:23

very happy. Allison Johnson, I

3:25

can't even begin to guess where you are

3:27

right now. This is lovely Mountain View, California.

3:29

Chris Welch, hello. Where are you right now?

3:32

I'm in Brooklyn. All right. So you are

3:34

the people who know what's coming from Google.

3:36

And I should say just for people who

3:38

are curious how this all works, we're recording

3:40

this on Monday. Google's event and the embargo

3:43

are on Tuesday, but you all have because

3:45

of your wiles and excellence as reporters. You know what's

3:47

coming. You have seen the things, you have talked to

3:50

people about the things. So we're going to talk about

3:52

the things. And I have a list of

3:55

gadgets that I want to talk about. And first, what's

3:57

going to happen is I'm going to give you the

3:59

list. And then you're going to tell me if there's

4:01

anything that I'm missing that are surprises, because I'm coming back from

4:03

two weeks of vacation and I missed a lot of things. And

4:06

then I have ranked the things in the

4:08

order in which I am interested in them, and then we're

4:10

going to talk about them. That'll sound good? Great.

4:13

So here's my whole list. I have the

4:15

Pixel 9, the Pixel 9 Pro, the

4:17

other Pixel 9 Pro, and the Pixel 9 Fold. Are

4:19

those all the phones? Did I miss any phones?

4:22

Those are the phones. Okay, I have a Pixel

4:24

Watch 2 and Pixel Buds. Pixel Watch

4:26

3. Oh God. David. Is

4:28

it the Pixel Watch 3 already? It is the Pixel

4:30

Watch 3 already. Okay, all right. Oh, and there's

4:32

two of them. So we have the Pixel Watch 3 and the other

4:34

Pixel Watch 3. And the Pixel Buds

4:36

with a number attached that I can't be bothered to

4:39

worry about right now. We also

4:41

have the Google TV streamer, nay

4:43

Chromecast, RIP, which I want to talk about. Those are

4:45

all the gadgets, but I also have, I have a

4:47

Nest thermostat, I guess. We'll touch on that, but we're

4:49

going to get to that with Jen later this summer,

4:51

I think. And I have the Pixel

4:53

screenshots thing, a bunch of AI, and just some other

4:56

random nonsense to get to. Am I missing anything before

4:58

we dive in? I don't think so. Think you got

5:00

it. Probably, but we'll get to it. We'll get to

5:02

it. Yeah. This is Google, like

5:04

there's probably several gadgets that the leak between now

5:06

and the event on Tuesday when folks are doing

5:08

this. So for anything we missed, I

5:11

apologize. Blame suit, arbitrary. Let's start with the funds,

5:13

because I feel like this is just where we

5:15

have to start. Again, this is all new. I

5:17

don't know any of the specs of these things.

5:19

So the first thing you're all going to have

5:21

to do is kind of give me the rundown

5:23

of what's going on. And then we're going to

5:25

talk about our feelings about all of it. So

5:27

let's start with the Pixel 9. Alison,

5:29

tell me about the Pixel 9. Yeah, Pixel

5:31

9. So we used to have

5:34

two phones. Wow, two phones that

5:36

didn't fold. Now there's three phones that

5:38

don't fold in half. So Pixel 9

5:40

is still the entry level. It is

5:42

$100 more expensive this year, which

5:45

seems to keep happening to

5:47

this phone. Yeah, remember when the Pixel

5:49

was like the cheap flagship? That was like its

5:51

whole thing. That is where we're coming. I looked at it. Pixel

5:54

is $599, and we are $200 further away

5:56

from that. So

6:00

this year it's got 6.3 inch screen, which

6:04

is like, they keep making it a tiny bit

6:06

bigger without making the phone like meaningfully

6:09

bigger. So it's still like this

6:11

small phone of the pixels, like

6:13

do with that what you want.

6:16

But there's more RAM this year, upgraded

6:19

ultra wide camera, a little

6:21

bit bigger battery, that

6:23

kind of thing, like incremental stuff. And

6:25

then there's all the AI,

6:27

you know. There's a new chip,

6:29

right? That's like, I would assume for all the

6:31

AI stuff they're trying to do, that ends up

6:33

being like the big spec bump here would be

6:35

the new chip. Tensor G4 and that's across the

6:37

board in all of them. That is

6:39

one thing Google does that I really like is have

6:42

the same chip in everything. And they

6:44

claim it's an AI thing and that sort of makes sense, but

6:47

at least your phone should perform very well

6:49

no matter which one you buy is a nice and

6:52

not always common thing to have going on.

6:54

Yeah, good job, Google. Not

6:56

a lot of enthusiasm coming from you on the

6:58

Pixel 9. I gotta say, like I'm just, it's

7:01

just, it's those not brimming with excitement. Yeah,

7:04

it's the boring one this year. I

7:06

think mostly because there's now a pro

7:08

version, like

7:10

pro phone that's basically the same size.

7:12

And I get excited about this size

7:14

phone. So I want to see

7:16

the Pixel 9 Pro. Unfortunately, it

7:19

is shipping much later

7:21

than the other ones. So it's

7:23

going to be TBD on like

7:25

opinions about that one. The colors

7:27

are nice this year on the

7:29

small phone, the boring phone. Are

7:31

they? What are the colors? You

7:33

know, there's always the two boring

7:35

colors and then there's this winter

7:37

green and peony. So it's

7:39

very like pink and green. It's

7:42

a vibe. It's a very happy pink.

7:44

It's pink. It's not like here's a

7:46

drop of pink. It's basically white. They

7:48

went for it. They went for it.

7:50

They were just like colors. We love

7:52

them. I actually appreciate that from Google.

7:54

I feel like everyone else is out

7:56

here trying to like come up with

7:58

fancy names for beige on their phone.

8:00

every year and Google at least is

8:02

committed to the bit of do you

8:04

want this green phone yeah and I

8:06

do want this green phone yeah like

8:08

I do Google yes thank you all

8:11

right so let's talk about the the pro because the my

8:14

guess would be that the

8:16

pro is going to be vastly more interesting

8:18

to most people than the regular

8:20

pixel 9 especially because the pixel

8:22

9 is not so cheap anymore as to

8:24

be kind of a tiebreaker for money reasons

8:26

for most people so what and and like

8:28

you said you can now get a pixel

8:30

9 pro at the same size as the

8:32

pixel 9 which I think is also

8:35

a big deal so what's what's the story of the pro

8:37

here yeah the pro

8:39

so all three other

8:41

phones are pro something there's the 9

8:43

pro that's the smaller one 9 pro

8:46

XL which is a 6.8 inch

8:48

screen which is up

8:51

in you know Samsung Galaxy S24

8:53

ultra territory it's like a

8:55

big one and then the the fold the pixel

8:57

9 pro fold is

9:00

a pro phone this year and as best I

9:02

can tell I made a spreadsheet of

9:04

the specs pro means it has 16

9:07

gigs of RAM that's the only

9:09

like through line on the phone

9:11

phones so like you said they all have 1034

9:13

you have two choices

9:16

of pro phones that don't fold in

9:18

half super big screen or

9:21

reasonably size screen

9:23

the 9 pro is

9:25

999 so that's no it's

9:27

not a price increase even though the phone

9:29

is small it's weird comparing the 8 pro

9:31

to the 9 pro because it's you really

9:33

want to compare the 8 pro to the

9:35

9 pro XL it's

9:38

real wonky yeah Chris Chris can you make sense

9:41

of this lineup for me because you're the person

9:43

I trust to want the most phone at all

9:45

times possible and I appreciate that about

9:47

you what do you make of this lineup it

9:49

feels pretty conventional like once you just look

9:52

at the 9 and 9 pro

9:54

XL which are gonna come out first so that's

9:56

kind of like the usual playbook for Google and

9:58

then 9 pro be out sometime

10:00

next month, they say. But yeah, I

10:02

mean, I want the fold, obviously, for no

10:04

reason other than it's very pretty. And

10:07

they got the screen size right. And yeah, there's

10:09

lots of like about it this year. Let's just

10:11

get into that. Because I feel like I wanted

10:13

to start with the Pixel phones, because I feel

10:15

like a, they are the ones that most people

10:17

who want these phones will buy. But also, they

10:20

are what they are, right? Like we're in a phase with

10:22

all of these phones, no matter what company you buy from

10:24

where you can pretty much write down a list of what's

10:26

going to happen next year. And you're almost always right. So

10:28

let's move on from that, because I agree, it seems like

10:30

the fold is probably the

10:32

most different and maybe most compelling

10:35

thing in this phone lineup.

10:37

And Chris, I particularly I want you

10:39

to explain this phone to me, because you just wrote a thing

10:41

that I would call like a

10:43

deep backhanded compliment to the Pixel fold,

10:47

where you're kind of like, I love this thing, it

10:49

sucks, I can't wait for them to do it better.

10:52

So tell me about the new Pixel fold and

10:54

what it seems like Google maybe did right this

10:56

time. So they changed the whole form factor. So

10:58

the first fold is like a passport style, like

11:00

short and squat. And that was fun. Like the

11:03

outer screen was like, not quite as tall as

11:05

most phones, you can use it with one hand

11:07

very easily. And then when you opened it, it was like

11:09

a very wide like inner screen. Now they're

11:11

going towards like the one plus open direction, where it's like

11:13

a very tall outer screen, it's like a normal phone, it's

11:15

like a 6.3 inch display, like just like the Pixel 9

11:17

display, essentially, it's like the same size. So you've got like

11:20

a whole phone on the outside now. So you're not really

11:22

like making any compromises there. And then you open it up,

11:24

it's just like a giant like whole tablet

11:27

now. So the first hold I like had

11:29

a ton of like black bars with many apps on the

11:31

sides, because they it's Android, no one

11:33

actually like, you know, cares about like one device.

11:36

So hopefully now Google's gonna say, like all these apps

11:38

are gonna like open the full screen by default now.

11:40

So it's gonna have like better app compatibility. And

11:42

it's way brighter to like the first fold wasn't

11:44

that bright outside this one is like, very, very,

11:46

very bright. So they like fixed many problems, the

11:48

cameras are still nowhere near as good as the

11:50

pros. Obviously, that's the main issue. There's

11:53

just like not much room to fit. Super nice cameras

11:55

in there. So that's the main compromise

11:57

you're gonna make if there is one, but it just seems

11:59

like a super refined, nice version of the

12:01

first fold. It's like what the first fold should have

12:03

been essentially. But it's now

12:05

$1,800, which is extremely expensive. Improved

12:10

flatness. It is very flat. Yeah,

12:12

just the price kills me. And it's like Google,

12:14

if they made me the CEO of Google, I

12:17

would be willing to lose so much money on

12:19

Pixel Folds just to, this

12:22

is your chance if you're Google. And

12:25

we're gonna get back to some of the big

12:27

picture, where does Google fit into this universe stuff

12:30

in a minute? Because I wrote a

12:32

bunch of years ago when the first Pixel came out

12:34

that this was the best phone on the planet. And

12:37

I believed it then, and I think Google has the

12:39

potential to do it now and just

12:41

keeps getting in its own way in a thousand ways. But we're gonna come back

12:43

to all of that. But this is, if

12:45

I'm Google, this sounds like a real

12:48

chance for this company to be like we have

12:50

done the thing. We got

12:52

it kind of right. Samsung is getting a little

12:54

closer to getting it right, but is

12:56

doing sort of a series of boring iterative

12:58

upgrades. And Alison, I remember at I.O. last

13:00

year we were talking and it was like,

13:03

okay, this Pixel Fold feels like it's

13:05

almost there, but it's not quite there. And the

13:08

clear vibe from the first Pixel Fold was like, I

13:10

cannot wait for the next one when they have another

13:12

year to push at the hardware, another

13:14

year of trying to convince people to make these apps. And it

13:16

feels like this has a real shot of like, this

13:19

might be the one. Like in terms

13:21

of the closest foldable phone to getting

13:23

it fully right, we might be

13:25

almost there from Google. Am I too excited

13:27

about this? I

13:30

think I'm just like slightly less optimistic.

13:32

It does feel like the move they

13:34

should have made and like the phone

13:36

that we wanted last year is here.

13:38

I love the OnePlus Open form

13:41

factor. So like moving towards that, I

13:43

think is a great move. That

13:45

my biggest complaint about the

13:48

original Pixel Fold is so heavy, it was

13:50

just uncomfortable to hold it

13:52

for a while. And then it

13:54

can be the best phone in the world, but if you don't wanna

13:56

hold it, there's a problem. So

13:58

this one's the signature. I think those are

14:00

all really good things. I

14:02

think I'm still confused by the, like I get that

14:05

they have to make trade off for the camera. But

14:08

if you're putting pro on the name of

14:10

this phone and you're still

14:13

having to compromise on the camera.

14:15

You're also charging $1,800, which

14:17

I feel as the

14:19

person who says prices very loudly occasionally on this podcast. It's

14:21

$1,800. That's so much money. I

14:26

know. That's like the going rate for a folding

14:28

phone, I guess. Which is like fine.

14:30

I get that that's they're expensive and that's what they seem

14:32

to cost. But like, I just don't and I feel this

14:34

way with everybody. I don't think you get to make any

14:37

kind of significant compromise and get away with

14:40

it at that price. And Google is going

14:42

to say it can do a lot

14:44

of stuff in software for the camera. And that what a lot of

14:46

people are doing with the camera is not taking photos. They're doing all

14:48

this stuff and that's all well and good. But

14:51

I do think the we are going to end up

14:53

pretty rigorously stress testing this thing. And I think there

14:55

is absolutely no room for error in the camera in

14:57

these folds. Because they're just too

14:59

expensive. Agreed. V, are

15:01

you a folding phone person? I don't feel like you and

15:03

I have ever talked about folding phones. It's too expensive

15:05

for me. I am a cheap ass

15:08

with my phones. Well,

15:10

not really, because I have the iPhone Pro Vax.

15:13

You know what I really don't like is

15:15

I don't like how they keep adding adjectives

15:18

to the ends of these phones along with

15:20

numbers so that it's like an alphabet soup.

15:22

But like I'm always intrigued by them. I

15:24

just so I take my phone running and

15:26

I have this feeling of if

15:28

I drop this while I'm

15:30

running because I have eaten it while running

15:32

before I'm just going to sit there and be

15:34

like, oh, I'm

15:37

bleeding. But also the repair

15:39

bill is I'm

15:41

bleeding both my blood and money.

15:44

So that's why I haven't gotten

15:47

any kind of folding phone yet, because then

15:49

I would feel the need to have like

15:51

a safe phone for running. And then that's

15:53

we're getting into two phone, three phone territory.

15:55

I'm already have it. I'm all I'm already

15:58

dual wielding phones. because

16:00

they've decided to make it so that

16:02

Wear OS watches don't work

16:04

with an iPhone. I used to be able to

16:06

get away with one phone and test all of

16:09

these watches. Nope. I have to have two fricking

16:11

phones at all times now. Oh,

16:13

welcome to my world. I

16:15

don't need a third folding phone, even though I

16:17

would like one. I just want to play

16:19

around with it. But I'm still mad at you, David, for

16:23

talking about the books Palma so much. So stop

16:25

asking me to buy more things. I talked about

16:27

it once. Everybody needs to leave me alone

16:29

about this. I got very excited

16:31

about it one time, and

16:34

I was right. And now this is

16:36

somehow my legacy as I have convinced

16:38

too many people to buy this deeply

16:40

overpriced, adorable little gadget. And to all

16:42

those people, I'm not sorry at all

16:44

remotely. Sorry. Just be glad that they

16:47

didn't release a Pixel ring, because

16:49

I literally had the thought in going through this that like V

16:51

is going to run out of fingers. Like it's just it were

16:53

just we're toast here. So like I'm basically

16:55

testing all of these and I've narrowed it down

16:57

to the three that I think are the best

16:59

if they came out with a Pixel ring. That's

17:02

probably next year. But if they came out with a

17:04

Pixel ring this year, I would be in

17:07

so much trouble. I already

17:09

have six ring tans. It's bad.

17:12

So let's actually move on to the wearables because while

17:14

we're just running through the news, let's run through the

17:16

news. So the Pixel Watch 3, which I am reliably

17:18

told is the new one. What's

17:21

the deal with the Pixel Watch 3? Well, there's a

17:23

new size now there after everyone

17:25

complained that the 41 millimeter is too

17:27

small. They have now come out with a 45 millimeter.

17:30

And then they were like, OK, so the

17:32

hardware, it's basically going to look the same

17:34

as last year, except we're going to add

17:36

an ultra wide man chip and actual

17:39

displays. They're bigger, brighter, bolder now.

17:42

Yeah, sure. They look the same. Most people looking

17:44

at the watches are just going to be like

17:47

that. That sure is a watch. The bezels are

17:49

16 percent slimmer. Love that. And

17:51

then they were just like, and here

17:53

is a laundry list of software updates

17:55

that there's it is physically impossible that

17:57

I will remember every single bit of

17:59

software. that they've crammed into

18:01

this thing. And it's like actually

18:03

quite impressive the amount of software

18:05

updates. There's like, you can

18:07

stream your Nest doorbell or cam feed

18:10

straight to your wrist, you can unlock

18:12

your BMW if you have a BMW,

18:14

you can also unlock your Pixel phone,

18:17

you can do custom

18:19

runs now, which, you

18:21

know, other watches have been able to do

18:23

for a long time, but now you can

18:25

program your actual thing. It's very Garmin like

18:27

you have a morning summary of all of

18:29

your stuff. There's an auto sleep mode. There's

18:31

cardio load. It's a lot. So

18:34

Google is deep in the like health

18:36

and fitness race now. Google, there was a minute at

18:38

the beginning of the pixel watch where Google was doing

18:40

that, but also had some big ideas about like the

18:43

assistant and this is an AI thing. And it feels

18:45

like they're getting away from that and just pushing towards

18:47

this is a health and fitness device. I actually

18:49

think they're they're pushing equally

18:52

towards the productivity stuff and the health

18:54

stuff. It was very heavy on the

18:56

productivity stuff first, I think, because they

18:58

were mostly coasting on Fitbit exists. This

19:00

is a Fitbit platform. Sure. Now this

19:02

time around, they've basically gone, what is

19:05

Garmin doing? And let's just add it

19:07

to the watch. So there's like a

19:09

morning summary now, you

19:11

know, Garmin, a couple of generations

19:13

ago, they introduced this thing called morning,

19:16

morning report, and it'll tell you like your

19:18

overnight stats and the weather so that you

19:20

can wake up and go like, oh, it's

19:23

90 degrees time to die on this five

19:25

mile run. So now

19:27

the Google pixel watch three is going to do

19:29

that. And then, you know, they're

19:31

adding something called cardio load. Now, I think

19:33

if you've ever used a Garmin or a

19:36

polar or just like a multi sport watch,

19:38

you know what cardio load is. But

19:40

that's not really something we've seen on these major

19:42

flagship watches to be like, what's your

19:45

cardio load and cardio load is basically

19:47

how intensely your heart has been working

19:49

in your workouts over

19:51

a period of time. And it's kind of

19:53

a gauge of like, oh, you know, maybe

19:55

my cardio load is really high, I should

19:58

ease off or just do more like I

20:01

hate this, but like zone two training,

20:03

it's very triggering to hear zone two

20:05

training for me. So, you

20:07

know, that's what that cardio load thing is. And then, you know,

20:09

custom running workouts and

20:12

running metrics like vertical oscillation,

20:15

stride, cadence, vertical oscillation is the most useless metric,

20:17

by the way. I don't know what you're supposed

20:19

to do with that. It just tells you how

20:21

far up and down you move while you run

20:23

and like the less the better, but you're just

20:25

gonna, what are you, what are you going to do?

20:28

I'm a bouncy runner. How are you going to change the

20:30

fact that you're a bouncy runner? Anyway, but it's going to

20:32

tell you all those things. There's a new running dashboard within

20:34

the Fitbit app. It's

20:37

a lot of stuff. And just like,

20:39

oh, the biggest one that I haven't mentioned

20:41

that yet is that it can now detect

20:44

a loss of a pulse and

20:46

call emergency services for you. That seems

20:48

good. Loss of pulse. Like,

20:50

it's basically like, are you dying? Yeah.

20:53

Loss of pulse is such an amazing euphemism. Yeah,

20:56

that's a serious one, right? Yeah. It's

20:59

very serious. So it's like, you know,

21:01

if you overdose, if you have a heart

21:03

attack and you're alone, it's going to call

21:05

emergency services for you in

21:07

the EU, not in the US yet. Because

21:09

obviously this needs regulatory

21:12

go ahead for that because the potentials

21:14

for a false alarm are

21:16

very scary. I talked to Google and

21:19

they were like, sensor fusion. Don't

21:21

worry if you just take your watch off,

21:24

which is a loss of pulse event. It's

21:26

not going to call emergency services. But you

21:28

know, that's like kind of an interesting thing

21:30

from Google because thus far they have pretty

21:32

much been playing catch up in the smartwatch

21:35

space. They are very late. We're only on

21:37

iteration three of the Pixel watch Apple

21:39

Watch. We're coming out with number 10

21:42

and Samsung's fucked up their numbering such

21:44

a long time ago, but we are

21:46

already on seven. So you

21:48

know, there are several generations behind, but

21:50

they are coming out with a health

21:53

feature that nobody else has by Gen

21:56

three. And you know, they say it's because the

21:58

Pixel watch samples your heart rate. at

22:00

a much, much, much higher frequency than

22:03

other flagship smartwatches, which is true, because

22:05

they're doing it every other second, most

22:07

other smartwatches, unless you are in the

22:09

middle of a workout, we'll do it

22:11

once every five minutes or so. So,

22:13

you know, it is something that

22:16

they can differentiate themselves with. So

22:18

many updates. I'm sure I

22:20

forgot like five or six software updates in

22:22

there. Yeah, but there's an interesting theme there,

22:24

which is like down this deep

22:27

tracking yourself rabbit hole, which is kind of what everyone

22:29

has leaned into in this space, which makes a lot

22:31

of sense. Two more questions on this, and then we're

22:34

gonna take a break and then we're gonna do the

22:36

rest of these gadgets. Question number one, Fitbit,

22:39

where? Fitbit

22:42

is increasingly going the way of Nest in

22:44

that like it is a word that we

22:46

use. There's a lot of history there. Technically,

22:49

you still are using the Fitbit app, but

22:52

it's all Google now, baby. That's what it

22:54

seems like. The Googlefication of Fitbit is, I

22:56

think, almost complete. I think

22:58

next year is the deadline for migrating

23:00

all of your Fitbit accounts over to

23:03

Pixel, or Google accounts rather. And if

23:05

you wanna buy the new watches, you

23:07

gotta migrate. So, ee. My

23:10

absolute hottest take on all of this is that

23:12

Google branded these exactly wrong, that it should have

23:15

gone all the way into the Fitbit brand.

23:17

And all of these products should be

23:20

called Fitbits, which were like, Fitbit was

23:22

like Kindle and Kleenex for the longest

23:24

time. And Google was just like, nah,

23:26

nevermind. Nobody knows what Fitbits are. They're

23:28

like Pixel watches. Yeah, it's weird because

23:30

they still have some Fitbits. It's just

23:33

this main flagship Fitbit watch that's actually

23:35

a Pixel watch. And I think that's

23:37

just probably part of their ecosystem play

23:39

because you do see it working

23:42

more with other Google services, offline

23:44

maps. You have Google maps, offline

23:46

maps now. So, that's why, but

23:48

at the same time, it's just

23:51

very confused. And

23:53

it was more so confused with the original and

23:55

the Pixel watch too. So, yeah. OK,

23:57

last question on the Pixel watch. If

23:59

memory search. we have broken

24:01

our review unit both years

24:03

of the Pixel Watch, I believe. Chris

24:06

cracked the first one, I cracked

24:08

the second one. Oh, Chris, that was you the

24:10

first time? Yeah. Yeah, and if memory

24:13

serves, it was one of those like, you

24:15

didn't do anything, and then it was cracked.

24:17

That's how it went? Yeah. Yeah. That Google

24:19

doesn't believe me, put it on a charger,

24:21

looked at it, and I was like, why

24:23

is it scratched to hell and back? And

24:25

everyone's like, there's no way you got those

24:27

scratches without knowing what you did. I don't

24:29

know what I did. I woke

24:31

up and it was scratched. So, yeah. And

24:34

that to me is like the bar for me, right? It's

24:36

like if I fall on the ground

24:38

and scrape it against concrete and it scratches, like

24:40

I understand how that happens. But if I don't

24:42

even know how it got scratched and it scratched,

24:45

that's a you problem. It's just a very

24:47

fragile design, you know? It's like a glass

24:49

dome that's going to happen. Totally. And it's

24:52

not sapphire. Yeah. I will say I wear

24:54

a Pixel Watch with most of the Android

24:56

phones I review, and I'm just the dingus.

24:58

I'm like always ramming it into like a

25:01

doorway. Allison is seven feet tall is an

25:03

important thing. I'm just like flailing all the

25:05

time. It's okay. I don't have any scratches.

25:07

I don't know. I was totally fine with

25:10

the first one. I legitimately am telling you

25:12

I went to bed and I either put

25:14

it on the charger or I was wearing

25:16

it. I don't remember a zero ago. I

25:19

woke up. It looked like my cat went to town

25:21

on it, but my cat did not go to town

25:23

on it. So I don't know what

25:26

happened. Google actually took the watch

25:28

from me and they sent it to a lab

25:30

and they were like, abrasions happened. I was like,

25:32

well, no, we don't know what they were. Abrasions

25:34

happened is the title of your memoir, by the

25:36

way, just to put that out there right now.

25:39

Any word on if this one is going to

25:41

be better at that stuff? Do we have any

25:43

like we've been saying since the jump that one

25:45

of the words of this design was that it

25:47

would be more fragile. And that is clearly, I

25:50

would say, proven out over time. No

25:52

changes this time. No changes. I'm very excited for

25:54

the big watch, but like that's even more like

25:57

surface area for it to be damaged. So right. See.

26:00

All right, all right fair enough. All right. Well, we gotta take a

26:02

break, but we have a couple more gadgets to get to Fox

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29:54

right, we're back. We have more gadgets and

29:56

I would say these are the two that I

29:58

am maybe most interested in. which

32:00

is the death of Chromecast. This

32:02

is the real story here. I

32:05

went on vacation, Google lost an antitrust

32:07

trial and killed Chromecast and it was

32:09

just, like I don't know how

32:11

I'm supposed to deal with this when I don't have

32:14

a podcast on which to talk about this. So Chris,

32:16

give me the quick rundown both on the new thing

32:18

that is coming out and the old

32:20

thing that is dying. What's going on here? Yeah,

32:22

so the new thing is the Google TV streamer,

32:25

quite a name. Terrible name, by the way, just

32:27

before we get into it. Awful,

32:29

awful name. Chromecast had

32:31

brand recognition, but now let's do Google

32:33

TV streamer. Just flows right off the tongue.

32:36

It really does. What if we had

32:38

more Pixel streamer? Pick anything. So

32:40

it costs a hundred bucks. It's a box

32:42

now, it's not a dongle anymore. So it's a

32:44

set top box. It's nice, it's pretty.

32:46

It's got like a built-in ethernet

32:48

jack, which is nice to have on streamers all

32:51

the time. But it runs the same software as

32:53

the most recent Chromecast. So you're

32:55

gonna have all that. It'll have Gemini AI

32:57

features, sure, it's gonna be 20%

32:59

faster than the Chromecast. People have always

33:01

been waiting for a fast Chromecast. And

33:04

so they claim that the Nvidia Shield

33:06

was their main goal post here to

33:08

reach. I don't think it's gonna reach

33:10

that. It's like 20% faster than the four-year-old

33:12

Chromecast with Google TV is still not gonna

33:14

be a barn burner of a device.

33:17

And most of our comments were like, that's not gonna get it done

33:19

for me. I'm gonna just go buy an Apple TV, yada, yada.

33:22

But the Chromecast is dead, but the casting feature is

33:24

still alive and well, obviously. So you can still cast

33:26

to the box, do

33:29

all the same stuff, but the name is now gone.

33:31

Quick poll before I get it. How

33:33

do all of you do your smart TV stuff? Like

33:35

V, what's your smart TV situation? Like when you wanna

33:38

watch Netflix on your TV, what do you have? I

33:40

got two Apple TVs. Okay,

33:42

Alison, what about you? We have a Samsung

33:44

TV, we do all the built-in apps.

33:47

Oh my God, that's so brave. No, we'll see,

33:49

okay, we're gonna come back to that because I think

33:52

this is the whole point of this device. Chris,

33:54

what's yours? I mean, I have everything. So I've

33:57

got the Apple TV, Fire TV Cube. Roku

34:00

Ultra. What is your like man when you're like not

34:02

thinking about work and you're just like, I just want

34:04

to sit down and watch something, which remote do you

34:06

grab? It's the Apple TV 4K. Okay. So

34:09

if I were to like big picture, try and

34:11

explain what Google is doing here, it seems like

34:14

the thesis is, if you

34:16

want just a simple kind

34:19

of cheap, don't really worry about it

34:21

way to stream shows. Performance isn't

34:23

amazing, but you just like need a thing

34:25

that plays your shows. You

34:27

kind of have infinite choice, right? Like your

34:30

TV probably does it. You probably have a dongle

34:32

that does it. You probably have a box that

34:34

does it. Your cable company will happily give you

34:36

one. Like there's a million ways to do it.

34:39

And so if you want to differentiate and win,

34:41

you have to do better, right? And we've

34:44

been in this weird space for the last

34:46

few years where the only ones doing better

34:48

have been the Apple TV

34:50

and the Nvidia Shield, both of which are like

34:52

old outdated devices at this point, but both of

34:55

which were so far beyond everybody else that they

34:57

continue to be the only options if

34:59

you're like, I want my TV to be fast. And on the

35:02

one hand, I think that the idea of let's compete

35:04

at the top end and make them better and make

35:06

people want to buy them instead of just the default

35:08

thing that they have is very exciting. But

35:11

I do, I kind of agree with our commenters in the

35:13

sense that I'm not sure, at least from

35:15

what we've seen so far, we'll have to test the thing

35:17

and see that this is

35:19

that thing. Like if Google had come out and been like, we have 5X

35:22

to the performance of the Chromecast, it's gonna

35:24

blow your freaking mind through the back of

35:26

your head. And it's $500. People

35:30

would have freaked out. Yeah. But

35:32

am I thinking about this the right

35:34

way, Chris? Like, is that your read on the situation too?

35:36

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think they're saying prices like they're

35:39

sealing for like what they can do as far as like

35:41

a device, which is fine. But even then I think you

35:43

could have squeezed some out. Just toss like a two year

35:45

old tensor in there, like what's the issue here? Like you've

35:47

got your own silica, like toss a tensor G1 in there,

35:50

or whatever they are. And just, yeah, so like 20%, I

35:53

mean, it's not nothing that's got like twice the RAM, which should

35:55

also have about quite a bit, but as far as like a

35:57

speed demon, this is probably not gonna be quite

35:59

that. We could see a new Apple TV this

36:01

fall. So that would just be

36:03

like Apple just kind of like lapping them again very

36:06

quickly. So we'll see how that shakes

36:08

out. Allison, is there anything here for you? Are

36:11

you excited about this at all? They're

36:13

going for you, right? Like you're now the person who

36:16

is not going to buy a Chromecast. And

36:18

because your TV does it fine, they're

36:20

trying to give you something else. Okay. You know what

36:22

they don't have is there's all

36:24

the like 10,000 free, you know, and

36:28

supported channels on the Samsung TV. We

36:30

have one called Ocean Vibes. And

36:33

that's just plays when we turn the

36:35

TV on. It

36:37

is the best thing in the world. There's

36:39

just like fish swimming around and coral reefs.

36:42

And you just sit there and you're like,

36:44

yeah, this is all right. So

36:46

talk to me. No,

36:49

talk to me when you have Ocean

36:51

Vibes, Google. That is so diametrically

36:54

opposed from the answer I was expecting

36:56

from you. I love it. That's great.

36:58

That's fantastic. Fantastic outcome. But yeah, I

37:00

mean, and I think to some extent,

37:02

Chris, like this is the thing here,

37:04

right? If I'm Google,

37:07

and I am curious what they've been telling all of you

37:09

about the AI stuff coming in general here, because

37:12

I'm very excited about the Pixel screenshots feature, which

37:14

is like a sort of managed AI

37:17

organized library of all the screenshots you take. I think

37:19

that's very smart. But

37:21

in general, the idea here is like we're going

37:23

to put lots of new power into these new

37:25

devices, dot, dot, dot, AI.

37:28

And I don't know, at least from what I've seen so

37:30

far, again, it's Monday as we're recording this. The event is

37:32

on Tuesday. I'm very curious to see if they can find

37:34

a way to make a really compelling AI case

37:37

for this stuff. But with the TV streamer

37:39

in particular, I'm like, OK, you're giving me

37:41

theoretically more power other than

37:43

my apps launch faster, which is meaningful to me,

37:45

but not to most people. You can use Gemini

37:48

to make screensavers, which is interesting,

37:50

because they see like how well the frame TV is

37:52

doing. So they're like, you know, we've got this whole

37:54

ambient mode. So Gemini can make you open ocean

37:57

vibes. Oh, no, no.

37:59

That'll be an ocean vibe. I want

38:01

real ocean, I don't want your AI

38:03

ocean vibes. So there's

38:06

that and also I guess they're

38:08

gonna do summaries now. So they already show you like

38:10

the Rotten Tomatoes scores for movies, but now it's gonna

38:12

like a spring in content from across the web. So

38:14

it might be like, here's what someone on Reddit said

38:16

about this show, hopefully not that, but you know, we'll

38:18

see. Oh God. So that's the other

38:20

thing is like summaries for everything that you were

38:22

like seeing and browsing. But

38:25

beyond that, you know, not too much compelling.

38:27

Which kind of brings me back to like,

38:29

I'm very sad that Chromecast is gone because

38:32

I continue to think the Chromecast was

38:34

a really good idea because I

38:36

think this might be an unpopular

38:38

opinion. I have no idea how people feel. I think

38:40

Google TV is like by a mile the best interface.

38:43

Yeah, I like it a lot. It

38:45

does a really good job of like, it's very

38:47

content first but it also makes getting to the

38:49

apps easy. Apple is super

38:51

app first. I think the

38:53

Fire TV is mostly just trash. Roku is

38:55

super app first. And I think Google TV

38:57

like does a pretty good job of showing

39:00

you everything you would want to see relatively in one

39:02

place. And so for me, like I

39:04

have a Roku TV and I bought an Apple TV

39:07

that I just use instead on my Roku TV.

39:09

So my Roku TV's one job is just to

39:11

take me to my Apple TV because it is

39:13

like an unusable interface on this trash TCL TV

39:15

I bought at Costco a million years ago. That

39:17

is probably true for many people these days. Yeah.

39:20

Right. So I think if I'm Google, I'm

39:22

like, okay, keep pushing and get this idea of like

39:24

a 30, $50 way to give you Google

39:27

TV, which is better. And

39:29

I feel like what Google is instead doing is saying,

39:31

okay, we want to, they're like splitting a weird difference

39:34

between make it easy to get Google TV and make

39:36

a really powerful box. It seems like they're kind of

39:38

in a middle ground that I'm not super

39:40

positive is gonna work for them. Yeah, they're not

39:43

gonna make anybody happy. It's like not quite the

39:45

full speed box and not the

39:47

cheap thing that the Chromecast was either. So we'll

39:49

see. I mean, I'm looking forward to checking it

39:51

out. You know, if it's faster, that'll make a

39:53

big difference. But yeah, I love Google TV like

39:55

you, David. The ads aren't as in your faces,

39:57

Roku or, you know, so there's that, but. Yeah,

40:00

we'll see. I'm excited to check it out. It's shipping

40:02

like last month, all these devices in like late September.

40:04

So it's going to be a while before we get

40:06

it in our hands, but it's coming. Yeah, it's going

40:09

to be an interesting fall for a lot of that

40:11

stuff. So, okay, any other announcements

40:13

coming? You all have gotten all the news, seen

40:15

all the things, any other like newsy cleanup we

40:17

should do here before we talk big picture. What

40:20

is the future of Google and everything? No.

40:23

Have any of you tried Pixel screenshots? They

40:25

showed me it very, very briefly. It seems cool. They

40:28

did a search for like someone's wifi password that

40:30

someone had like sent like a screenshot of. That

40:32

seems to be like the example every company shows. But

40:35

it's a separate app, right? Yeah, it's a separate

40:37

app. Okay. Oh, it's its own app. It's

40:39

not like, I assumed it was like in the photos app.

40:42

Interesting. That's what I'm so curious about is

40:44

like, that sounds great. We've

40:46

got that feature over there. Like how do

40:48

you bring it all together? Is it going

40:50

to be Gemini? Is it going to,

40:52

am I going to have to pay for a version of

40:54

Gemini that's going to do all these things? I don't know.

40:57

That's where I am with AI on

41:00

Pixel phones right now. It's like, show

41:02

it to me. My thing is like, I was thinking

41:04

about this recently. My go-to use case

41:06

is, so we live maybe like

41:08

a mile down the street from the library. And

41:11

I'm frequently walking past the library and every once

41:13

in a while they put up a banner with

41:15

the dates of the book sales that they're doing.

41:17

And every single time I take a picture of

41:19

the banner, cause I'm like, oh, I have to

41:22

remember when the book sale is. And every single

41:24

time it just goes into my camera roll and

41:26

disappears. Like all of those photos and screenshots and

41:28

that kind of stuff does. Where

41:30

I'm like, oh, this is a thing I should buy. And

41:32

then it goes into my camera roll and disappears. And so

41:34

the idea of like, I can just sort

41:37

of constantly tell my phone, this is the thing I

41:39

think is interesting. And then it can make sense of

41:41

all that for me is so compelling to me. And

41:43

I think makes way more sense than all the recall

41:45

stuff is like, all I have to do

41:47

is tell it, remember this for me and it will

41:49

do it. That is perfect. But

41:51

I think to your point, Alison, like

41:53

how you integrate that with everything else makes a lot of sense.

41:55

Cause if I have to take a photo and then put it

41:58

in the screenshots app, I'm going to forget to do that. do

42:00

that and I have now solved none of my problem. So

42:02

I think it's going to be a really

42:04

interesting like push and pull there trying to figure out how

42:07

do you make this not creepy, but

42:09

really seamless but not too in your

42:11

face as you're trying to do other stuff, which I feel

42:13

like it's kind of the story of all things AI and

42:15

Google right now. Yeah, that is

42:17

the thing I want. I want to

42:20

be able to look up the door

42:22

code for the Airbnb without like digging

42:24

through emails or logging into Airbnb or

42:26

whatever. I don't

42:29

need to put a hat on a

42:31

picture of a bunny that I took.

42:34

What do you mean? To be fair, you have

42:36

been doing that nonstop for weeks. Which I have

42:38

been. It's a blast, but

42:40

honestly, it's where we're at I think

42:42

with Apple intelligence, which is still, you

42:44

know, in developer preview, blah,

42:46

blah, blah. It's like it's still

42:49

missing that thing of like, what is

42:51

going to tie it all together? And am I just going

42:53

to be able to be like, John, can

42:55

I put the book sale on my calendar?

42:57

Tell me if I have a conflict or

42:59

something or is it going to just

43:02

be like, I don't know. Yes, I

43:05

think the latter. Yeah, based on

43:07

the history of AI features. Yeah,

43:09

I'm so nervous about it because

43:11

I got I'm doing the labs

43:13

for the labs like preview for Gemini

43:16

in your Gmail they find which they've

43:18

like finally integrated and I was like,

43:20

great, I'll search for this order number

43:22

for my shoes and it does its

43:25

thing. It's like thinking it's like there's

43:27

no order number for your shoes. I'm

43:29

like, this is now you've had one

43:31

job like it was right there and

43:34

like I tried to again later and it's able

43:37

to do it. I don't know why you got caught

43:39

up that time. It's like it feels that one time

43:41

for you and you're like, why am I going to

43:43

try and use this again? I'm not. Yeah,

43:46

it is really funny. We're in this phase with so

43:48

many of these features where like because

43:50

I have this specific problem that these things can

43:52

solve for me, I'm willing to try any of

43:54

them. But the tech

43:57

broadly speaking just isn't there. And so

43:59

like You try it twice and it

44:01

doesn't work. And it's like, well, that's

44:03

pretty much that. Yep.

44:05

Or you could get neged by

44:07

it. Oh, yeah. Oh, my god.

44:09

Google is just basically also kind

44:11

of following Samsung's lead. And I

44:14

forgot, but they're adding AI-suggested workouts

44:16

to the Pixel Watch 3 based

44:18

on your metrics. My suggestions are going to

44:20

be like, just do anything. Just stand up.

44:24

What if you just walked around for once in your life?

44:26

But they were showing it to me, and they were like,

44:28

oh, you haven't really been pushing

44:30

it in terms of cardio load. And you

44:32

took a rest. So why don't you do

44:35

a bunch of sprints? And it's

44:37

just like, oh. Get out of here. Fine.

44:39

I mean, it's hard. Building a

44:41

training plan is hard, but that I was just like, OK.

44:44

If my Pixel Watch tells me I'm going to

44:46

throw it into the sea. Yeah.

44:48

Wait, Vi, can we talk about the notification

44:51

you got from your Galaxy Ring? This is

44:53

just a little diversion into Vi's experience. I

44:55

was about to say, so I'm syncing my

44:57

ring this morning, looking at the energy score.

44:59

And it's like, hey, you need to move

45:02

around, or you might start gaining weight. No.

45:04

And I was like, excuse me, what? I

45:07

ran three miles this morning. Go to jail.

45:09

Wait, is that literally the words that it

45:11

said, or you might start

45:13

gaining weight? Yeah, hold on. Let me

45:16

look at that. Absolutely not. Your active

45:18

time has decreased compared to your usual.

45:20

Insufficient activity may result in weight

45:22

gain and other health issues. Try

45:25

standing up, moving around, and reducing

45:27

your sedentary time. And it's because

45:29

I let the dumb ring die

45:32

yesterday, so it didn't

45:34

basically capture my three-mile

45:36

run yesterday, too. Because

45:39

I'd be out here doing 10 hours of workouts

45:41

a week, but it

45:43

thinks I missed one day, and it's like, get

45:45

up, ho. Move around. Oh, my

45:47

god. You might gain weight. And

45:49

I was just like, yeah, but what

45:52

if I want it? I'm trying to get jacked. I

45:54

want to gain weight because muscles are heavier. So

45:57

there's a lot of nuance and

45:59

context with health. that AI just

46:01

completely shits the bed with. It's

46:03

like the worst possible combination too,

46:05

because it's like, do you remember

46:08

the Carrot apps that used to ruthlessly make fun of

46:10

you all the time? That was like their whole shtick.

46:12

They had a character who would

46:14

be like, oh, what if you

46:16

checked something off your to-do list today, dumbass?

46:18

It's like, if you're gonna do that and

46:20

make it a bit of being mean to

46:22

you, that I actually, I could get behind.

46:25

If my Apple Watch is going

46:27

to actively neg me, that's

46:29

actually pretty funny. And it's a thing some

46:32

people would find useful. But this like

46:34

concern trolling trend from wearables where it's

46:36

like, oh, I'm so

46:38

sorry, but if you don't do better,

46:40

you're gonna die. Like potentially tomorrow. That's

46:42

so embarrassing for you. It's like, screw

46:45

you, leave me alone. It's like

46:47

too heavily reliant on HRV, which

46:49

is the proxy for your autonomic nervous

46:51

system. So it can tell whether like

46:53

how strained you are. Dude,

46:55

if I have a calf cramp, these

46:59

things can't tell. These things have never

47:01

been able to tell when I'm like injured. So

47:04

it's sort of like, okay, you can just

47:06

go away now. Like I'm not a big

47:08

fan of AI and fitness. I get what

47:10

they're trying to do because it is very

47:12

hard to know what you should be doing

47:15

and crafting a training program if

47:17

you're new to it or if you have new goals,

47:19

but this ain't it. I

47:21

can't wait to see what it tells me

47:24

my AI workout should be. It's just gonna

47:26

be like run up a giant hill.

47:29

I already do that, go away. Run up a giant

47:31

hill or just say that. When you wake up in

47:33

the morning, it's like, what's up V? Time to run

47:35

up a giant hill. Fine,

47:37

great with that. Run up a hill,

47:39

yeah, it's gonna be all cake bush on me. Love

47:42

that. All right, we gotta

47:44

take one more break. And then I wanna

47:46

talk just for a few minutes about some

47:48

like big picture Google stuff on the heels

47:50

of the announcement. And then we'll get out

47:53

of here. We'll be right back. This week

47:55

on Profji Markets, we speak with Mark

47:57

Mahaney, senior managing director and head coach.

48:00

head of internet research at Evercore, we get

48:02

his take on the global market sell-off, and

48:04

we also learn why he doesn't think we're

48:06

heading into a recession. For right

48:08

now, I don't feel like these recession fears are

48:10

warranted. I don't have that, I don't have any

48:12

great proprietary view. I'm not going to make something

48:14

up into the jobs market. What I do have

48:16

a view on is a couple

48:18

of companies that I think give you

48:21

very large macro data points. So if

48:23

you cover internet stocks and you cover

48:25

names like Amazon and Shopify and eBay,

48:27

you're privy to about a trillion in

48:29

retail sales. That's a pretty large

48:31

data point. You can find that conversation

48:33

and many others exclusively on the Prof

48:35

G Markets podcast. It's

48:38

officially mid-August, which in my mind

48:40

is peak summer, but for college

48:43

students across the country, it's time

48:45

to start thinking about returning to

48:47

campus. And for college professors, it's

48:50

high time to figure out where you stand

48:52

on artificial intelligence in the

48:54

classroom. Students

48:58

using AI to write their papers, lack

49:01

of clarity in some classes, both mine

49:04

and others about what the official university

49:06

policy is, what a department policy is,

49:08

what an individual classroom policy is around

49:10

the use of chat GPT to do

49:13

student academic work. Sounds kind of stressful

49:15

to be honest, does not feel very

49:17

summery. And so going into

49:19

this summer, teaching my own class, I decided

49:21

to write my own AI

49:23

policy, prohibiting AI in my classroom. How

49:29

professors are readying themselves for the

49:32

robots this semester on Today Explained

49:34

this week. The

49:38

Walt Disney Company is a sprawling business.

49:40

It's got movie studios, theme parks, cable

49:42

networks, a streaming service. It's a lot.

49:44

So it can be hard to find

49:46

just the right person to lead it

49:48

all. expect

50:00

what will happen. The

50:02

problem is, Disney CEOs have trouble

50:04

letting go. After 15 years,

50:07

Bob Iger finally handed off the reins in 2020.

50:10

His retirement did not last long.

50:13

He now has a big black mark on

50:16

his legacy because after

50:19

pushing back his retirement over and over again,

50:22

when he finally did choose a successor,

50:24

it didn't go well

50:26

for anybody involved. And

50:28

of course now there's a sort of a

50:30

bake-off going on. Everybody watching, who could it

50:32

be? I don't think there's

50:35

anyone where it's like the obvious no-brainer. That's

50:37

not the case. I'm

50:39

Joe Adalyan. Vulture and the Vox Media

50:41

Podcast Network present Land of the Giants,

50:43

the Disney dilemma. Follow wherever

50:46

you listen to hear new episodes every

50:48

Wednesday. All

50:54

right, we're back. So another year, another

50:56

bunch of Google devices that I would

50:58

say by and large

51:00

seem to be very good. Kudos.

51:03

Right? Like this is whatever

51:05

year. We're almost a decade into Google

51:07

appearing to genuinely, earnestly care about making

51:09

hardware. I think for a long time

51:11

we were all skeptical if this

51:13

is going to be a thing Google kept caring about for

51:15

a long time. I think to its credit, Google has kept

51:17

caring about it for a long time. Never

51:20

say never with Google, but it feels

51:22

like this matters to Google in a very

51:24

real way. What I still wonder and what

51:26

seems to be true is that Google has

51:29

not made any kind

51:31

of like mainstream dent as

51:33

a hardware company yet. I think ironically, like the

51:35

Chromecast was probably the most successful piece of hardware

51:37

Google ever made. It was a huge hit, especially

51:39

at the beginning because it was cheap and it

51:41

worked really well. And there's really

51:44

nothing since then that feels like

51:46

a sort of gigantic mainstream winner.

51:48

Like there is still very much

51:50

Apple and Samsung, especially in the

51:52

United States, and then like gigantic

51:54

gap down to Google. I would

51:56

argue that the Pixel Watch is

51:58

actually kind of the... opposite.

52:00

Like, I think Samsung is hurting a little

52:02

bit and they're having to actually bring up

52:04

their game a little. And because the Pixel

52:07

watch was wildly popular when it first came

52:09

out to the point where Samsung was like,

52:11

uh, oh, I got to do things. Here's

52:13

the copycat Apple watch ultra and a ring.

52:16

So, you know, I think that's surprisingly

52:18

one area that it's doing pretty well in,

52:20

but you know, smartwatches are kind of

52:22

bifurcated into iOS and Android at the moment

52:25

anyway. So it didn't have to really compete

52:27

with Apple at all because people on

52:29

Android can't get an Apple watch. It only

52:31

really had to compete with Samsung, which

52:33

is weirdly its partner in where

52:36

a West land, but it's kind

52:38

of been eating Samsung's lunch for a

52:40

little bit. Cause it's, I don't know.

52:42

It's, it's, it's interesting. They're doing weird,

52:45

interesting stuff there. And it's kind of

52:47

ecosystem me in a weird way. Yeah.

52:50

I mean, I think the, the pixel watches actually

52:52

is, is a good example. And it does seem

52:54

like at least on that front with the first

52:56

one, I remember people being so excited just about

52:58

the way it looked that it was like, this

53:00

is the first smartwatch that doesn't sort of scream

53:02

technology at you. And that was, that was a

53:04

big win for Google. So maybe that's one

53:07

of the answers to my question, which was going to be, do we

53:09

see anything here that feels like it has kind

53:11

of breakout potential? I think I'm maybe the most

53:13

bullish of the four of us on the possibility

53:15

that the fold could be a winner. I think

53:18

at $1,800, there's a pretty

53:20

big within low cap on how

53:22

big a winner it can possibly be. But from

53:24

the stuff that you've seen and you know, y'all

53:26

have been testing and talking to folks about these

53:28

things for years now, do we see

53:30

anything that's sort of a possible

53:33

kind of game changer in the Google hardware business? Screenshots

53:36

app. Really comes down like past years have

53:38

always been, oh, the camera's great, which it

53:40

still is like people know the pixel camera

53:42

is great. Like that's, it's like main

53:44

thing. But this year it feels like all this AI

53:46

stuff, like if it works, it's going to be great.

53:48

You know, like if it doesn't, then

53:50

it's going to be meh. Like I see pixels out in

53:53

the world. Like I think they're selling some, they are selling

53:55

a few. So I think like, you know, they've got a

53:57

base of customers, but it's like, how do you get them

53:59

to upgrade? hardware is all the same

54:01

year over year. All these Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel

54:03

9, there were some Tensor

54:06

G4 benchmarks, it's barely faster than last year's chip.

54:08

So it's not going to be like that.

54:10

That's not why you're going to upgrade. You're

54:12

going to upgrade for Gemini potentially, for some

54:14

of these new camera software features. It's like

54:16

software, software, software this year. And

54:19

so if the Screenshot app works, that's going

54:21

to be great. And if it doesn't, then I'm going

54:23

to buy the Fold. And for the next five

54:25

years, that will be my phone, because I can't

54:27

afford an $1,800 phone. I was

54:29

going to say. And you are historically

54:31

representative of people who buy smartphones. That

54:33

makes perfect sense. Exactly. I mean, the

54:35

AI thing I think is a really

54:38

interesting point, because the bet from all

54:40

of these companies really is that they

54:42

can take a bunch of little AI

54:44

things, whether

54:46

it's in the camera, or in the productivity stuff,

54:48

or in some of the wearables. And that all

54:50

of that adds up to something that is kind

54:52

of a tiebreaker to other devices. And I feel

54:55

like, Alison, this has been a theme of a

54:57

lot of the coverage you've been doing recently. Does

55:00

all this AI stuff really add up to anything? And

55:02

I'm curious how you feel. Obviously, we have to review

55:04

all these things. There's still lots to be seen, and

55:06

this is all changing really fast. But

55:08

do you have an early read of is

55:11

there a kind of hole greater than the sum of its

55:13

parts in the AI story here? I

55:15

wish I did. This is just one of those,

55:17

I feel like you've got to live with the

55:19

phone a little bit to see if it. I

55:22

think we all bought a

55:24

Chromecast, because it solved a problem where this

55:26

is incredible. It's $20, and you're just plugging

55:28

it in the back of your TV. I

55:32

don't see anything like

55:34

that in the

55:36

Pixel phone series right now. Gemini

55:38

could be that thing if

55:42

it really could bring all the

55:44

AI pieces together and make your

55:46

life easier. But I think

55:48

we're going into this ecosystem era

55:50

is really going to like we're just going

55:52

to drill down on it, because so

55:55

many of these things are going to be

55:57

wrapped up in your Google One subscription or

55:59

your Apple. subscription and totally agree.

56:01

If you want smart Siri, you

56:03

need the expensive

56:05

iPhone and probably an

56:08

Apple subscription plan at some point.

56:10

I'm nervous about AI

56:12

subscription hell. I think it's just the

56:15

whole ambient computing thing. Like

56:17

I think completely to your point, it's

56:19

going to be the whole ecosystem play

56:22

because, you know, the Pixel, I'm just, you know,

56:24

wearable lady. So of course I think in wearables,

56:26

but like the Pixel watch when it came out,

56:28

they're like, this works for anyone with any phone

56:31

and just increasingly year by year, more

56:33

and more features are just going to work better if

56:35

you have a Pixel phone with your Pixel watch. So

56:38

like this year, it's going to be pixel recorder

56:40

app on the watch. It's going to be seeing

56:42

your doorbell feed and it's just going to be

56:45

one of those things where I

56:47

think it's just what do

56:50

my gadgets play well with? And that's how

56:52

we win dominance. So if the pixel watch

56:54

is great and it works

56:56

with other pixel hardware, that's Google saying,

56:59

suck it, Samsung, because who uses smart

57:01

things? Honest to God, I think

57:03

that's like kind of what they're doing and

57:05

why they just go ambient computing

57:07

when you're now watching every once in

57:09

a while, wank, wank, nudge, nudge. Well,

57:12

and I think that's that's what's been

57:14

so sort of backhanded about Google's entire

57:16

hardware strategy over the years is that

57:18

like the reason people end up in

57:20

the Samsung ecosystem is because they buy

57:23

Samsung phones. And so then then they're

57:25

forced to use smart things. Google is

57:27

trying to convince you that there is

57:29

some like essential googliness that is worth

57:31

buying into the ecosystem. And it

57:34

has just always felt like they needed the

57:36

one hardware victory to get

57:38

there. And it's like people

57:40

people want the gadget and then they

57:42

buy into the software. And Google is trying to do that backwards,

57:44

which I think is really interesting, but doesn't

57:47

really seem like it has worked in a huge

57:49

way. Obviously, time will tell and the reviews will

57:51

be really interesting. And I'm like, I

57:53

think it's not crazy that the pixel fold might be a

57:55

way a lot of people actually end up in this ecosystem

57:57

because I think there is like latent interest in this. All

58:00

right, we all need to go. You guys have

58:03

things to do and phones to touch and

58:05

more watches to wear, I'm sure. Are

58:07

we excited? Happy times? What's the, are

58:09

we bullish or bearish on Google heading

58:11

into this fall? This feels

58:13

like a, I'm a little like overall kind of like, yeah,

58:15

it seems fine, but that seems to be where we are

58:18

in so many gadgets this year. Optimistic

58:21

with reservations. Yeah. I'm

58:24

surprised because I was expecting

58:26

nothing but a hardware refresh and

58:28

then they're like, wham, hit me

58:30

in the face with all the software. So

58:32

I'm curious to see how all the software

58:35

works. My smart home is mostly Google based.

58:37

So if this Pixel Watch works with my

58:39

smart home in a meaningful way, I'm just

58:41

gonna be really shocked. I like it. Yeah,

58:43

the Pixel Watch 3 being the star is

58:45

not something I would have had on my

58:47

bingo card, but me neither. I'll take it.

58:50

All right, thank you all. Super fun,

58:52

appreciate you doing this as always. Thank you.

58:55

Bye. All right, that

58:57

is it for the Vergecast today. Thanks to

58:59

all the folks who came on and thank

59:01

you for listening. We have tons of coverage

59:03

of the whole event, all of the new

59:05

devices, everything on the verge.com. I'll try to

59:07

put as much as I can in the

59:09

show notes, but actually we've been covering this

59:11

Google stuff for months now. The leaks have

59:13

been really fascinating. So actually go back and

59:15

look at the way this stuff has trickled

59:17

out over time. It's been really interesting and

59:19

I have this odd feeling we're not done hearing

59:21

what Google is up to this year. I have

59:24

no evidence to base that on, but I think

59:26

it's true. Anyway, as always, if

59:28

you have thoughts, questions, feelings or foldable phone

59:30

specs that you think are more important than

59:32

I'm realizing, you can always email us at

59:35

vergecast at the verge.com or call the hotline

59:37

866 Verge 11. We

59:40

love hearing from you. We love hearing all

59:42

of your thoughts and questions about all things

59:44

tech. I'm still looking for some tiny tech

59:46

mysteries. We've gotten a few, we're working on

59:48

some fun stuff, but keep them

59:50

all coming. This show is produced by Andrew Marino,

59:52

Liam James and Will Poore. The Vergecast is a

59:55

Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast

59:57

Network. Neelai, Alex and I will be back on

59:59

Friday to catch up. up on just again a

1:00:01

truly crazy few weeks in the news. We have

1:00:04

a what is a photo apocalypse, we have a

1:00:06

bunch of AI stuff going on, lots to talk

1:00:08

about. We will see you then rock and roll.