Apple (grumpily) opens up the App Store

27:58That's the actual spot, yeah. But it was like a huge, and everyone knew it. It was just like unspoken, well, Apple wants the HBO Go app here, and HBO's like, our whole catalog's here. Including that part of it. Huh? Yeah. Everyone's like, why is this here? Don't worry about it. No one would ever talk about it. It's gone now. The late night Skin and Max section of the Max app does not exist. But that was the level of loophole that existed. Yeah. Now it's a free-for-all. But I'm just going to come back to game streaming. I think that's going to be the same deal. Right? You have a catalog. We're going to spot check the catalog.

28:36Once you get to Microsoft and the entire Xbox library, there's just no way Apple's like, we're enabling this globally. They're enabling because they think there's going to be a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow. They're going to find some way to charge money inside of that app. They want it to be successful on the iPhone. They also rolled out that thing. One of the payment structures, I think, in the EU now is if you have over a million downloads, you have to start paying a monthly 50-cent fee or something per download. Maybe it was per annual? Yeah, it's once a year. Once a year. And so, like, game streaming really takes off in the EU.

29:10That could get pricey. They claim that most people aren't going to have to pay that, though. I think what they're anticipating is there's Xbox Cloud Gaming, and that's an app on your phone. And to get Xbox Cloud Gaming, you've got to pay$40 a month. I don't know. Some number. Yeah. $20 a month. It starts at, like,$20. Yeah. And the best way to get that customer to convert is for them to sign up with an in-app purchase and a subscription. And so Apple's just going to take that money. It's great. Here's a thing we want you to do. Apple looked at this and said, people are going to get this subscription one way or another.

29:44Why don't we make them do it on our phone? Why don't we take our 30 %? Do you think there's just a line of people outside of Tim Cook's office that was just like ideas to collect 30 %? A hundred percent. You know, there's like the VIP line for the executives that he knows. There's like water. There's like people I know, problems I have to solve, ideas to take 30%. And just like one after another, they just have three different tickets. And, you know, his receptionist is like now serving 56 and ideas for 30%. And someone just like shuffles in. This is my time to shine. Eddie Q is just like tapping his foot.

30:21Just like waiting. because that they want apple to and google now as we know from google's own antitrust trial every button you push on your phone is an opportunity for them to make money and if they don't make the money they're mad and i think that should bring us to how mad they are at the european union because you mentioned the press release and we haven't even read the we're mad lines in their press release. Well, so Apple's big story has always been that only Apple can provide a protected, good, curated, successful experience for everybody that makes everyone happy and doesn't steal all of your information and kill you and leave you in a ditch.

31:05Like those are the two options. It's it's Apple or ditch, right? Like that's in Apple's world. That's what uh there's never been any real evidence that that is the case but here we are uh so with the with the browser one um one of the things that happens with the browser now is the first time you open safari after updating to ios 17.4 you're going to get a choice screen which we know for sure apple hates apple has testified under oath that it hates choice screens and you're going to boot up safari and it's going to say what do you want to be your default browser this is again only in the eu and you're going to be able to pick safari or a list of other browsers i think to be named later um and apple says this change is a result of the dma's requirements and means that eu users will be confronted with a list of default browsers before they have the opportunity to understand the options available to them the screen also interrupts eu users experience the first time they open safari intending to navigate to a web page it's just this like passive aggressive like this is a bunch of bullshit.

32:06Look what you guys are making us do. This is stupid. I hate it. That's the vibe. I love it. Here's what I will point out. One, that is true. And it's great to just go like, I'm not saying you should do this. Go get an AI voice clone of your favorite Apple executive and have him read that copy. It's great. Don't do that. That's totally illegal and morally questionable. But in the new EU app stores, totally available to you. the thing that's funny about that is Apple is 100 % correct in the context of choice screens as we've known them up until now they've been putting choice screens on Android and Windows in the EU for 1 billion years and you know what people are still using Chrome they use choice screens in app like macOS right now if you go and you open a new browser and you're like I want to use this one they're like you sure?

32:56they still double check that stuff Well, every browser wants to be the default. Yeah, they all want that. And Apple's always like, hmm? Really? So it's one of those things where I was like, okay, I get it. You guys are mad. But also, choice is good. Well, no, but this is the thing. So the argument is the EU has been trying to get people on Windows and Android to not use Chrome or Google Search for one billion years. Like, you open it. It's like, what search engine would it like to use? Your choices are Google and 500 choices. And everyone's like, I don't know, Google. Or you open up a thing and it's like, what browser do you want to use?

33:33Your choices are Internet Explorer, Chrome, or 5 billion other options. And they're like, Chrome. And that's very interesting in this context because people are going to open up their iPhones and it's going to say, do you want to use Safari or Chrome? The thing people in the EU have been picking over and over and over again for 1 billion years. See, I don't think that's what's going to happen. I think it's going to be Safari, Firefox, Opera, Arc, DuckDuckGo probably has a browser. Yeah. And then like when you scroll down past the top, there will be Google. Like spelled wrong and in a different font.

34:11The cutting edge of European politics is that these choice trains are legally required to be randomized. And everyone still picks Chrome. I just want to be clear. People, they've tried. They're like, what if it was a random choice screen? What if the choice screen paid you$5 to not pick Chrome? And they're like, Chrome. And so this is the first time you're going to get the experiment where the goal is to get people away from the default to the other default that the European Union has been trying to get people away from forever. And I am dying to know what happens. I hope somebody chooses Internet Explorer.

34:48Somebody go make that app right now. Just an old school Internet Explorer? Yeah. But the old Mac version with like the aqua blue bars and the tabs. I would pick that. Absolutely. Sold. Just old ass browser should be one of the options. IE3 is going to be rocking and rolling on this thing. Wait, can I just read you one more saucy line from the press release? So this is the big like omnibus giant press release from Apple announcing all of the changes it begrudgingly made. At the beginning of, or sorry, at the end of the first paragraph, it says, across every change Apple is introducing new safeguards that reduce but don't eliminate new risks the DMA poses to EU users it's like the DMA is trying to ruin your life and Apple is doing its best to stop it but we can't solve everything thanks to the EU there's a real dichotomy here right like Apple's pissed the EU is those European regulators are telling us how to work our phone and then inside of that is buried because you're too stupid to figure it out yourself right it's like i don't know man uh i have a mac i can do whatever i want on this mac it's going pretty good you know like the mitigations you put on the mac working pretty well why can't my phone work this way and i i think that moralizing when we should talk about this in the context of like vision pro apps or we have talked about in the context of vision pro apps like Netflix and YouTube just like not being there.

36:15All those developers are pissed at Apple. They do not have the goodwill to make this argument. And people have had phones for a very, very long time. And they know that Apple's like more, like they understand how the phones work. Like Apple's moralizing is kind of like falling on deaf ears. Weird. It's just a weird moment for Apple, which historically has gotten developers to do whatever it wants. That was actually one thing about this announcement that surprised me was how little of an olive branch to developers it actually appeared to be. You would think at this moment with the Vision Pro coming out, and I think there's real momentum behind the idea of not playing Apple's developer games anymore.

36:56I mean, Netflix has been kind of an edge case for a long time. Spotify and Epic have been mad for a long time. But like YouTube and others saying we're going to wait and see. And the line they all give is, we don't know what this platform is going to be. I think Netflix co-CEO. Yeah, Greg Peters this week was like, we'll see if it actually takes off. We might consider it, but we're not going to invest time and money into something that's not guaranteed to be good. Right, which is a perfectly valid excuse, but it's also not what people say about Apple. Do you remember when the iPad came out and everyone on Earth fell over themselves trying to get on the iPad App Store?

37:33It's like that is the thing Apple is very good at. and this is the opposite of that. And so I would have thought in this moment, Apple would have said, what can we do that will, in reality or in appearance, feel like kind of a love letter to developers in the same way that like every five years they release a new Mac Pro to remind people that they love people who have Mac Pros. And there just didn't seem to be any of that. Well, when you're an effective monopoly, you don't have to do that. You don't have to play nice because they're still one of the biggest app stores. They're still one of the biggest platforms.

38:07They can just say, yeah, do it. Netflix is still going to have to be on the iPhone. It's still going to have to be on the iPad because those are huge. So, like, this is definitely one of those moments where I feel like 10, 15 years from now, if there's some additional turns, we're going to look back on this moment and be like, oh, this is where Apple really started to, like, its hubris started to show and it really started to have, like, kind of a decline. But I don't know if that's actually going to happen. But I could certainly see talking about it in a podcast 15 years from now. Well, I think we should end it by figuring out how do we measure success here?

38:41Here's the thing. I think we have a big team in Europe, and they are very quick to remind me that, one, they get more holidays. They get health care. It's on top of that. And then they pay nothing for internet service. If you want to buy broadband in Europe, you're not paying as much money as if you want to buy broadband in the United States. And it's faster. But no air conditioning. What's that about? What are you guys doing over there? Well, climate change has arrived for the Europeans. We ran a great story several years ago about air conditioners in France. We'll dig it up and link it in the show notes.

39:13But there are ways to measure how European regulations raise or lower prices or lead to different outcomes. Some of them are worse than here. There are some aspects of European regulation that have led to less vibrant marketplaces, for sure. Like we have big tech companies. Europe does not. That's just true. Yeah. You can read all kinds of academic literature on why that has happened. But it mostly is because you can just go start a Google in the garage here and then maybe take over a giant market. Right. You can just monopoly your way up to that position if you want here and we won't stop you.

39:53And in Europe, they just like don't. It doesn't happen that same way. Labor unions sit on the boards of big European companies. That doesn't happen here. So you just end up – you can make lists of pros and cons. But in this case, I think we don't know what success looks like. I don't know that the Europeans – they're just like competition is good, which is great. I love it. I'm all about competition. But it's like at the end of this, is it you need to download a different app store to get Spotify and Netflix in the Kindle app? And then there's a bunch of weird stuff in the Apple app store? Is that success?

40:24Yeah, I think success is, oh, I can just go buy a book or an audio book or a movie or whatever and just do it and just be done with it on the app I choose. I think that is a victory. And, oh, I can just go have real Chrome on my iPhone. Agree there. So I think, yeah, I think we're going to pretty quickly see the victories. I think what's going to be interesting is all the economics afterwards. And then we'll see the losses of like, oh, we just have like a whole really gross revenge porn app. Just hanging out on a store and now we're going to be having to write a bunch of stories about this app store who refuses to take down the Revengeborn app.

41:04That's going to suck. That's going to happen. Don't do that. Don't do it, people. But when you do, I hate you. Just know that. Yeah. I think figuring out what does it look like if this worked? What are the tangible improvements we want to have with our experiences with our phones? And yeah, I just want to be able to buy stuff. I want the user experience of buying content to be simpler and easier and not feel like Apple's just taking a 30 % cut from whatever creator. That's pretty good. I'll take that. On the flip side, if to do that, you do need to go download a separate app store for every kind of content app.

41:40That's like obviously worse. And I think Apple is leaning towards it's going to be chaos and you're going to want to be here anyway. And I think we're all leaning towards the pressure on Apple will be enough to change the actual app store and make it better. Because that's what competition does. I don't know where we're going to net out. I would just say, like, at this moment, regardless of how you think, you should just think about, like, what does success for this thing look like and how do you get there? As opposed to it's definitely going to win or it's definitely going to be a disaster. Because, like I said, they've been putting choice screens on Windows and Android for years.

42:13like one decade of antitrust regulation in europe around google has resulted in no change chrome's just great uh i think it is going to be wild to put the chrome icon on a choice screen and iphone and see if people still pick safari that's a really interesting test case here right like the the thing that i think is interesting here is we've been talking sort of in theory for a long time about whether people would just pick the app store, both developers and users, because it's easier, right? Like, I think you can make a very compelling case that all of the stuff that it's going to entail to go to the website of an app marketplace, download it, go through the hoops to get it installed, say yes on that scary screen that's like, you're downloading another app store, you might die.

43:00And then download the other apps, do all the stuff there, maintain those things like that might be arduous enough that most people will continue to choose the app store, which is what Apple has said all along is the case. And now we get to find out like, that's the thing I'm excited about. And, and the Chrome example is a perfect one because Google's whole defense in its antitrust case has been people use us because we're the best product. And we know because when people get to choose, even when they're bullied into choosing, they choose us. And that's a pretty good antitrust defense, or at least it has seemed like one so far.

43:33and in this case Apple is is gonna have to put up or shut up along the same lines like we're about to find out how many people use Safari on purpose and I think that's cool yeah it's me all right that's a great place to end it because I'm dying to the answer and we just won't know until our European friends tell us we gotta take a break we're this show is already way over we'll be right back support for this show comes from LinkedIn when you're a small business owner you're business is on your mind 24-7. So when you're hiring, you need a partner that works just as hard as you do. That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs.

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47:34All right, we're back. We still have a lot of time. This show is going to go. It's five hours. Yeah. But there's like a lot of streaming news this week. Kranz, what's going on? Okay. So Netflix had their earnings, but before their earnings, they had a bunch of other stuff. So first up, Scott Staub, who was the chairman for Netflix Films, announced he was leaving. That was the day before. And Scott is like not the only reason that Netflix has a really successful film slate, but was a big reason that they were like the most nominated film studio for three years in a row. so him leaving surprising then the morning before their earnings they announced that WWE Monday Night Raw was going to be coming exclusively to Netflix and not only Netflix in the United States but worldwide which is apparently very huge according to Chris Welch our resident like WWE super fan I had to go to him repeatedly this week being like explain this wrestling thing to me but so So those are both like big things.

48:37And then they announced at their – during their earnings report, they announced that they were going to be getting rid of the$1 ,199 basic plan, which they had already been like phasing out, I believe, in the United States and a couple other places. Now it's going away everywhere. Before, like you couldn't even subscribe to it. But if you had already subscribed, you were fine. now you're going to get bumped either to$6.99, which is the ad version, or you're going to get bumped to$15.49, which is the ad-free version. Oh, my gosh. So it just got a lot more expensive, basically, to go without ads on Netflix.

49:12I just like to say – That's the real just. I just like to say I theorized that that was going to happen on this podcast. Yeah. And oh, my God, have I been right, that they're just going to price you to pieces if you want ad-free and you want 4K. and they're going to keep the ad-based one cheap and eventually they're just going to shove everybody down to that one. And that's not entirely their plan, but that's a big part of the plan for them. They've got about 23 – it sounds like they've got about 23 million monthly active users who are currently on advertising. They really, really like it. All those people love it because they pay$6.99 and they get two screens and they can watch it.

49:50But now they're going to have to pay$15.49 if they want those two screens and no ads. And then if they want four screens and 4K, they have to pay$22.99. And then for each additional user, so like when Max goes to college next week,$7.99 per user per month for those higher ones. I find it disgusting that they charge per user and per screen. Yeah, it's a lot. I'm really curious. Even the cable companies weren't like per screen. I mean, they kind of were. You had to get another box if you wanted another screen. Yeah. No, they were. Yeah. You had to get the box. And they'd be like, that box is$100.

50:33Yeah. Well, basic cable was not per screen. I never. You could put, you could basic, you could splitter a basic cable subscription to 5 ,000 screens. I never lived in a region where I could do that. It was always, I had to have the little box. Yeah. Neela, you're definitely the kind of person who would have like pirated TBS for your whole neighborhood growing up. Like that, that feels right. I am 100 % the kind of person who figured out how to steal cable in the dorm and met his wife that way. I'm just letting you know. I had a little coax crimper, the whole thing. It was a drum ceiling. I just looked in the ceiling and I was like, there it is.

51:07Let's see what happens. It was a real cable guy moment. Sorry. I was a cool cable guy. All right. But wait, Alex, you and I had basically the same exact reaction to this, which is just that Netflix is just a whole ass cable company now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so Netflix is effectively cable because Ted Sarandas, the CEO, Greg Peters, the other CEO, and the CFO are all like, well, yeah, we have all the secondary programming, i.e. the suits, the young Sheldon, the stuff they're not making and they just buy a license for. And that makes them a lot of money. And with advertising, that makes them more money than original programming where they're having to spend billions of their own dollars to make it.

51:43And even though original programming is the most of their top watch stuff, it's not all of their top watch stuff. and your business. It's cheaper to buy Young Sheldon and throw that up to your 200-something million. The 45th time CBS has sold Young Sheldon, they're selling it for cheap. Yeah, and you can still watch Young Sheldon on Paramount Plus if you want. Because I do. I don't. I watch lots of things there, not Young Sheldon. Suits, can I just say Suits is a scourge upon the Republic? It's a danger to young people everywhere. I love Suits. I'm so ashamed of how much I like that show. Suits is the stupidest show in the entire world.

52:19Is this the lawyer you're talking about? Yeah, it's unwatchable if you are a lawyer. But my little niece, it's her first semester of college. She was in her first finals in college. And she texted me and Becky and was like, should I be a lawyer? Because it's first finals and she's a STEM major. And I was like, are you just studying for your chem final? And she was like, no, I was watching Suits. And I thought, if this doesn't go well. And we were both like, no! Do not be a lawyer because you watch Suits. It's going to be like it's not like that. If you take one thing from my entire career at The Verge, it's that being a lawyer is not like being on suits.

52:59Unlike the West Wing, which is a perfect representation of what it's like to be in politics. No, it's closer. Like the people in politics would like their lives to be like the West Wing. Lawyers are not like, I wish it was more like suits. I will say I've only watched like the first season of Suits so far and A, I love it very much and B, no one ever does any lawyering in that whole show, I don't think They give speeches The entire plot is that Meghan Markle has to find cases for the guy What are you talking about? This show's horrible I watched five episodes I was like, never again But like Gina Torres I'm saying I'm going to cancel Netflix so they keep making Americans watch Suits But what's funny is that USA, which is part of Universal, which owns Peacock and I think was maybe an investor in us at some point.

53:51I don't remember. No, I have a better disclosure about Suits. Okay, go for it. Okay, right. Suits was on USA, right? Yeah. It's owned by NBCUniversal. NBCUniversal is an investor in Vox Media, a parent company. Whatever. The real disclosure is that Suits was the lead-in to Mr. Robot, and I hosted the Mr. Robot after show for many years. And I had to watch the tail end of every episode of Suits waiting for Mr. Robot to start so we could have the Mr. Robot show. And then you see what I'm saying? This is a real problem. This is my antipathy towards Suits. That's fair. I would have that, too. It was fine.

54:27Yeah. Mr. Robot's great, though. And I don't know if you can still watch the after show. We taped it in the studio right over there. Emily Yoshida was my co-host one season. It was great. Megan Farrowkman, actually, my co-host the second season. Russell Brandon was there. I would leave it on while I was writing my recaps of Mr. Robot. it was a lot of fun but Netflix back to Netflix back to Netflix back to Netflix like I went through and Alex you wrote a really good piece about this basically Netflix cable turn uh and especially after the WWE thing but it's kind of amazing you make the list of like okay what is on cable there's you know reality TV and all the sort of like nonsense background TV that people watch all day like Netflix actually has a ton of that it doesn't talk a lot about it but it has a ton of it it's deep in the dating show game now it is like it's pretty good at this game you have the the sort of endlessly rewatchable reruns of stuff netflix that's the suits and kind of stuff you're talking about and actually netflix is unusually good at making that stuff popular again you have the prestige stuff netflix has lots of that uh you have movie channels netflix has lots of that and then what's the last thing is sports and sports is the one thing netflix so for so long was like, oh, we're probably like live and sports don't really feel like they're us.

55:38And now Netflix is just fully all in on both live and sports. Yeah. And specifically wrestling, which is like extremely lucrative. I don't think it's probably I have no idea, actually, if it's as lucrative as baseball. Oh, it's super lucrative. But it makes a ton of money. And it does very, very well in the United States. And one of the things that the people at WWE were talking about was they were really excited because now they were going to be able to spread it internationally a lot easier. Instead of having to make all these different deals and compete with local wrestling leagues and all of that stuff, they can just be like, no, anybody can just turn on Netflix in any country and they can just watch Roman Reigns because that's like the big wrestling guy now.

56:18Did Chris Welch teach you about Roman Reigns this week? Yes, yes. I love that. I love this for you. I was like, who's like the rock now of WWE? And he's like, Roman Reigns. I was like, thank you. I actually feel like you would love wrestling. I like the idea of wrestling and I loved Glow, but wrestling itself I haven't liked since I was a kid. And then once I worked at a company that got bodied by a professional wrestler. Oh, yeah, that's fair. That reduced my life. That would do it. Or not my life. That reduced my like of wrestling. But it's cool. I like that they slap each other. They like slide across the ring.

56:50I like that they slap each other. Yeah, and then they like have big dramatic moments. I'm like, yeah. Yeah, so you would like it. Yeah. In theory, this is. In theory, but like it's shot like garbage. It looks so ugly. I don't know. I don't watch it. My freshman year roommate in college had both a Stacey Keebler poster and a rock poster. Yeah, that was like my brother had had lots of like The Rock and then Stone Cold Steve Austin in his room. And I was like, what's up with all these posters of half naked men all over you? Yeah, it was a real distinction between the Stacey Keebler and the I was that was when that was Stacey, I think, was wearing more clothes.

57:22The women started to appear on my brother's wall shortly after. Look he was very happy with his fandom by the way both Chris Welch and Casey Newton huge wrestling fans And I have managed none of it. It just doesn't look like anything to me I love it is huge and I think from what I understand Wrestling fans have had a hard time of it because there was a dedicated wrestling app that got merged in some other streamer That has been a disaster. Yeah, a lot of it's been like on Peacock. Yeah, and And, you know, it's Peacock. And I think they're very happy that Netflix might try. That's the read I get.

57:59What if Netflix does a good job is like people are excited about it. Yeah. And it sounds like Netflix is very interested in like doing a lot of the extra programming around it. The after shows and the let's do a whole let's explain to Alex and Neelai and everybody else who Roman Reigns is kind of documentaries. Maybe I'll watch one because who knows? Take suits off your service. I'll watch anything Netflix. I'm just saying do it for America. Yeah. I think Netflix is gonna end up looking really smart here is like the there's been rumors forever that every time TV rights come up Netflix is supposedly gonna bid this there was a big story about it for Formula One because Drive to Survive is so successful they're like oh maybe they'll just buy the rights but then they did the weird thing where it was just like that golf tournament with a bunch of golfers and a bunch of F1 stars and that was their big first foray into live sports it wasn't good but I guess it did well I don't know but this is like what was it a five billion dollar like 10 year long deal or something like this is serious yes it's five billion dollars it's 10 years after five years they have the right to be like never mind and they get everything just fully packaged and sent to them they're like like wwe has done kind of everything it's very turnkey for Netflix similar to a lot of their secondary licensing stuff so it's like on the one hand I I love original programming.

59:18I love thoughtful new original programming. On the other hand, we've talked a lot about how that was just going to stop when advertising became more popular. So it makes sense that Netflix kind of becomes USA Network or TNT. Yeah. Whatever network you were really fond of. Spike TV was the one I keep thinking about. Oh, boy. And that's just what it's going to be now. And it's like a good value proposition for most people. You spend$6.99 a month and you get cable effectively on demand. I see it slightly differently. And to me, it feels like the risk for Netflix, as far as I can tell, is just that it's going to get out over its skis trying to do everything all at once.

1:00:02And like it's deep into gaming now. It's doing live sports. I hate that, by the way. It's doing all of these dating shows. It was like Netflix for a while felt sort of understandable and focused in a way that I think worked for it. And it was doing a streaming service and only a streaming service in a time when lots of other companies were trying to do a streaming service and lots of other things. And it actually helped Netflix and hurt those companies. And now Netflix is trying to sort of do too many things, it feels like. I think that's the strategy for Netflix, though, because think about it.

1:00:38If you are right now, I believe the second largest streaming service after Amazon Prime, which kind of has big asterisks. It's the largest streaming service. Yeah. So so Netflix is effectively the largest. And they're just under the impression they're like, yeah, you'll probably you might go get Max. You might go get Disney. You might go get Paramount, LOL. You might get Peacock, whatever. But you're going to get Netflix. And so we're going to like you're going to spend at least six dollars and ninety nine cents a month with us. So just look, look at all the crap we can give you. We can give you a bunch of stuff.

1:01:07They're the Microsoft Word of streaming services. And so that's why I said they're like the TNT. They're just the basic cable. It's just all of basic cable now in one place. And the app is terrible. So you're constantly, anytime you open it on your iPad, you just get a bunch of games. And you don't want to play those on your iPad on like Netflix app. But you're going to because they keep pushing that on you. And that's really annoying. But that rant goes into, I think, Netflix next turn is they need to figure out their recommendation engine. It's really bad right now. They need to figure out their user interface.

1:01:38It's not great right now. They've got a lot of work to do to compete in that space. Because eventually, if all it does is repeatedly recommend Suits to Neelai, he is going to unsubscribe. And for a good reason. I'm going to do it right now. Yeah. You show me Suits one more time. By Microsoft, this is why I mentioned Microsoft Word. I know people at Microsoft would love to take stuff out of the toolbar. They can't because Microsoft Word is not focused. It's not one thing It is a million things to a million different people and it now just has to be a million things so if Netflix wants to be suits and live TV and wrestling and F1 docuseries and games like that's a lot of things and Like it just has to be all the things to all the people all the time.

1:02:26Yep. I do think that Like it's I agree that it's becoming it's becoming more and more of what looks like a cable bundle The part where like they're doing the worst of cable pricing per screen, that's why people started to hate the cable companies. Yep. Fully why people started to hate the cable companies. And like that's the danger. And they're just really hoping – because that per screen is only for the ad-free version. So under that, it's two. That's it. And you get two screens. And if somebody else in your family is like, oh, I also want to watch because you have a big family, then you better go get another subscription.

1:03:01And that's the ad version. The ad-free version is the$7.99 a month. So I can see them being like, you don't want to deal with that? It's a dollar cheaper, and you just have to sit through some ads. And I personally will hate that because I cut the cable in like 2007. I can't get rid of one streaming service. I keep suggesting, like, let's get rid of this one. And Becky's like, some comedy special I want to watch is on that one next month. And it's like, oh, that's. Criterion is so good. You can't get rid of Criterion. Okay, wait, that is actually a perfect segue into the other streaming news this week that I thought was interesting, which is that Verizon made another one of its like we're bundling a bunch of streaming services together announcements.

1:03:40And then there was a story in the information where a bunch of Verizon people were talking about like, we think that the value add here is to be the management tool on top of all of your streaming services. And it's like, well, that's cable. And that sucks. Like, you know, what I want is like a harder company to get a hold of to deal with all of my stuff. But I think the next turn for all of this with these companies is like the rest of the ecosystem around this. Like we're going to start to get more and more apps that are like, we're just going to make it easier for you to search stuff. And we're going to get all these companies, Verizon's doing it, Amazon's doing it, Apple's doing it, that are like, just use us to subscribe to these streaming services.

1:04:17And I actually think a real value to provide is like, we will just give you the button you can tap to turn on your subscription or turn it off to a thing. And I think there's going to be real competition around that. Like I just signed up for Paramount Plus so that I can watch three weeks of football. And God help me if I get to that fourth week and accidentally pay for another month of Paramount Plus. And there's going to be a crazy competition to give me a button that I can press to turn off Paramount Plus. I could have just shared my login with you. I don't want your login. Be careful. It's going to be like, oh, do you want to watch Star Trek?

1:04:54If you do that, then Kevin Costner comes to your house and shoots you.

1:05:00Puts his hat back on, walks out the door. That's why people have Paramount Plus, is to watch Yellowstone. The show where there's Dad. Who murders people. Murdery Dad. There's the good son who died. Yeah, who murdered people. He was also kind of murdery. Drunk daughter, murdery. Yeah. And then Call of Duty's son. And there's another son who's only like a half son. All murdery, though, yes. No, but the Call of Duty's son is like the funniest part of that whole show. They're like, what if one guy... I'm not saying I didn't like it. I'm just saying like every couple episodes, like do some Call of Duty shit.

1:05:34He's like, all right, dad. He puts on like all his old army gear and is like, let's mess him up. See y 'all later. I guess that just does Call of Duty stuff. Montana. It's good. Look, I wish you well. Don't fuck with the Duttons. We got to take a break. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from Crucible Moments, a podcast from Sequoia Capital. We've all had pivotal decision points in our lives that, whether we know it or not at the time, changed everything. This is especially true in business. Like, did you know that autonomous drone delivery company, Zipline, originally produced a robotic toy?

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1:09:14All right, we're back. Five hour Vergecast. It's happening. We're going to do a quick lightning round. Okay. I will say we've had some listeners offer to personally sponsor the lightning round, which is money that we will figure out how to accept. in the absence of these ignorant brands who won't pay us millions of dollars to have the lightning round sponsored by the refrigerator companies. Individual of our chest listeners have offered us upwards of$45. We will find a way to take that money. However, this week is the 40th anniversary of the Macintosh. And listener Samar Sikka, it is his 40th birthday.

1:09:57And so he offered to sponsor lightning, but because it's her birthday, We're giving you this one in the house. But only this one. Happy birthday. But yeah, the next time you you march into your CMO's office, you get us that check. You hear me? That's that's your goal for your 41st birthday. Get us that check.

1:10:21Happy birthday, man. Thank you for listening. Thank you. It is very funny that people have offered to individually sponsor the Lightning Round. I love it. And we probably will find a way to take that money just because it is hilarious. I love you guys. And we'll do something good with it. All right. Lightning round. The Mac, by the way, did turn 40. David, you had Walt on the Wednesday show. Yeah. Walt Mossberg, who has, I would say, more stories about the history of Apple and the Macintosh than any single other person on planet Earth, just came on and told us some stories about the Mac. It was super fun.

1:10:50He's a good hang. He hasn't been on the Verge cast in a long time. And he told me he's personally very upset with you about it. we cut that out but he said a lot of really mean things about you so we're gonna have to have him back soon uh i will i listened to it i was on a plane i listened to it when i landed and uh david i'm very disappointed in you that you did not know what the apple 2gs was i owned an apple 2gs it was a very weird computer uh and it was walt mentioned that he'd owned one and you're like i've never heard of it i was like screaming at my phone i literally googled it because i was like is he saying the name wrong like i thought i pretty much knew most no he was right i was wrong i've never felt what it's like to be a Verge Cast listener more than I was waiting for an Uber, just like screaming at my phone.

1:11:29You don't know what that is. Yeah. And I won't. I refuse to learn.

1:11:36That's right. That's how I feel. All right. Karinz, what's your lightning round? I got two, actually. So I'll go serious first. Okay. There's a baby that's covered in technology. This is the serious one? Is the baby okay? It's not a real baby. Okay, good. Important note. They're doing fashion in France, and Schiaparelli, the fashion house, was showing off all their new looks. And a woman comes out, and she's wearing this gorgeous gown covered in, like, Intel fans from, like, 2000. Yes, look at this dress. It's sick. It looks so cool. And then someone else came out in an outfit called The Mother, which appeared to be primarily like a white top and like a white, white bottom.

1:12:26And then they were holding a baby made out of old technology. And it was just it's a beautiful baby. You got to when you're not driving, take a moment. Go look at the baby. I love it. This is a pull over your car and Google this thing. Like whatever you're thinking in your mind right now, the reality is 50 times wilder than that. Both of these models are making catwalk face. Yeah. You know, but in the context of these outfits and that baby totally recontextualized catwalk face. Like, yeah, just a what is going on here? Sometimes you just got a baby made of tech. If you are listening to this and you could acquire one of these outfits and bring it to us, one of us will wear it on the Verge cast, I promise.

1:13:14Rosemary said the toddler was a reference to the Alien movies. Rosemary is the creative director for Schiaparelli. Yeah. So Daniel Rosemary, he also said that now that the technology I grew up with is antiquated, that so it's so antiquated that it's almost difficult to source a certain as certain vintage fabrics and embellishments. So that's why he did it, because he was basically like, it's really hard to find old fans for Intel processors. And, buddy, you just get a new set of friends. Yeah, I got a closet full of laptops that would say otherwise. Like, we got you. The Verge listeners got you.

1:13:50Like, you need sourcing for this stuff. You can pay us instead of whoever you paid for all of this technology. Have you seen our gadget closet? 20 years, dress made entirely of USB-A cables. We got you. You want to talk about measuring success? All right, David, what's yours? Mine is that the Pixel 9 leaks are already starting to come. So presumably we're going to get a glimpse of the Pixel 9 in May or June, whenever Google I.O. is, and then the real thing in the fall. But the leaks are already starting to come out because Google is just completely incapable of hiding a product, it appears. And it looks kind of nice.

1:14:28We'll put the links in the show notes, but they redid the camera bar on the back so that But instead of being like a visor, it just looks like a camera bar on the back. It's giving some iPhone edges to it. Yeah. At least I thought it's got the sort of rounded rectangle thing going on for it. It looks nice. And mostly I just wanted to bring it up because I said, I think it was last week that after the Samsung announcement, I am, I'm bearish on the future of the pixel. And so a million people sent me this and were like, what about this? New pixels coming. And to all of you, I want to say this looks great.

1:15:01And I sincerely hope it is the greatest phone in the history of the universe. I also think it's possible that no one at Google knows it's being released. Yeah. Which is why it's leaking out. Yeah. There's like one person on the Pixel team who's like, let's show it to people. Yeah. It's just like, what is this phone on my desk? It seems neat. Should I show somebody? Very good. What's yours? Well, I got two. Okay. But you had two. I do have two. So I'll go, then you. Sounds good. And then, right? That's how we're going to do it? And I'll just be here. Yeah. Well, you started. You had Walt. Your lightning round was I did another Verge chest that was better than this one.

1:15:42Okay. So Apple is all in on spatial audio. Probably because of the Vision Pro. It's all around you. Yeah. So they're going to start to pay artists 10 % more for the spatial audio streams. Give me Paige. So pennies per stream more if people stream the spatial one. which is designed to incentivize artists to both make the spatial mixes and then promote them on Apple's services, spatial mixes. I hate this. I hate this so much. One, because I think, I think the math doesn't actually kind of work out. So I was looking on, on like random artists, sort of like job boards, a spatial mix. People are buying them for 500 bucks.

1:16:25Like you're like fire off your files to some poor engineers, like never heard your music before. They will just generate a spatial mix. most of that sounds bad yeah and i know that people are always arguing with me they think some of them sound good i know some of them sound good i'm a man who owned a super audio cd player that could play the beatles and quadraphonic sound all right i i understand is that also how you try your wife no that's what's that's what's driving us apart day by day uh i'm just telling you i believe you i've been playing with surround audio since the beginning uh yeah if you do a good job having more channels or more objects or however atmos wants to work now whatever having more is better great if you do it like crap it sounds worse which is why people are all like always get reverted to stereo like it's the easiest thing it's the most uh addressable thing There's more stereo devices on the market than anything.

1:17:25And especially when you're like farting out at$500 pop, like it's not going to sound good. And most spatial mixes are that level. And Apple incentivizing it because they want their headset to go off is just, oh, it's bad. I'm just telling you it's bad. It's going to make more things sound bad than sound good. Which is worse, that or when DVDs were really into pan and scan? that's kind of where we're at yeah that's a good comparison right it's like what if we just shove this into that box you're like no that's gross stop it yeah look there are some i know there are some good ones but even on apple's playlists there are there are really bad spatial mixes and it's because there just isn't the volume of people who care enough there's not the volume of artists who are like i'm gonna sit down and make a spatial audio record they're more like i'm on tour forever because that's where the money is.

1:18:21I'm going to buy some loops and do a rap in my hotel room and hope that's a hit. Like that's the reality of most artists right now. And I'm not saying that's good or bad. Like that's just where the music industry has forced most musicians into money, right? They make their money with syncs. They make their money like ads and movie sync. They make their money, uh, on selling their old catalogs to billionaires who then do more weird stuff with them. They make their money on tour. They do not make their money selling records. And so if you are like, now, to make your record more complicated, then we'll pay you more money.

1:18:58Like, that's... No one's gonna do that, yeah. It doesn't seem like they're doing it now. Maybe I'm gonna be wrong. I just, like, look at this. I'm like, are we gonna make music sound shitty so a headset sells more? I mean, it's MP3s all over again. It's weird, man. It's weird. all right i know someone's gonna send me some facial mix right george harrison's creeping up behind you yeah i i've been there all right all right what's your other one um have y 'all heard of pal world this pokemon with guns yeah it's pokemon with guns yeah that's that's all it is pokemon with guns i just love that those are exactly the words in exactly the order i was gonna say this is like the unofficial tagline of pal world now uh it is it is so pokemon with guns that there was a YouTube creator named Toasted Shoes who was like, look at this.

1:19:45I made it Pokemon with guns. I put in Pikachu and everybody. I modded all the little creatures that you can capture and made them Pokemon and you can play as Ash. And guess what got shut down real fast by Nintendo? Our boy Toasted Shoes. It's unclear how he was modding it because it doesn't yet allow mods because it's still in like alpha release. It is blowing up the charts on Steam, and people are loving to try it out. There's a lot of weirdness around it, but it is essentially, what if you had Pokemon, and what if you had guns? And also, like, had to do some survival stuff. Just a dash of survival stuff.

1:20:23Just a little dash, just a little sprinkle. And apparently people are really, really into that right now. Is Nintendo going to take down the main PAL World game? The mod, I understand, because the mod was just like, what if I stole your characters? They're like, no. Yeah, that's like pretty cut and dry. Yeah, he hadn't even released the mod. He'd just been like, I'm working on it, and like showed some videos, and Nintendo was in his inbox immediately like, you're not. You're going to stop that work right now. The Pokemon company says it is going to investigate Pal World because it feels like, oh, you do cute creatures that you can capture?

1:20:55We do cute creatures you can capture. You use guns? We don't, and actually have a problem with you doing that. So it'll be a very interesting situation. But it's not actually the Pokemon. They just look a lot like the Pokemon. Yeah, they just, yeah, they're very similar. Is it like... They're very cute. Freakachu? Yeah, no, they vibe like Pokemon in a very real way. Like, if you didn't know the difference and you just shoved these into a photo of a bunch of Pokemon, they would just fit. Yeah, yeah. So it's close enough that we're going to have a three-hour special episode of the Verge cast with Neelai explaining...

1:21:33Everyone loves copyright. The copyright of this situation, because it's kind of weird. But yeah, Nintendo is not crazy about Pokemon with guns. It seems like they wouldn't be. It doesn't seem like they would. That's not their thing. But the whole rest of the world seems to be. Didn't I read that it's on pace to be the most popular game on Steam ever? There's a bunch of different metrics Steam uses, and one of them is most concurrent players. and for years now, Player Underground Battlegrounds. Was that the name of it? PUBG, yeah. Like only nerds use the whole name. I hate to be the one to, you know.

1:22:08So PUBG has been the most played game concurrently and it seems like, excuse me, not Pokemon, Palworlds could take that title and pretty quickly too. So we'll see. But also how long will people play it? Unclear. Everybody's really into it this week. They may not be into it next week. There may not be a game to play next week. Nintendo may have just shut that down. We'll see. Touches the nature of Steam popularity, it feels like, right? Yeah, a lot of times. All right, I've got one last one, which is actually an old story that David already mentioned, but he forgot to mention the most important part.

1:22:51so David did mention that Tim Sweeney had replied to the app store changes and Apple's responses to them and it's true Tim Sweeney did refer to them as malicious compliance what David failed to mention was that he also called them hot garbage yes and uh quote uh it will take more time to parse both the written and unwritten parts of this new horror show it's very good but can i can i drop some breaking news on you uh fortnite just tweeted that it's coming back in the epic game store uh fort says later this year fortnite will return in europe on ios through the epic game store shout out dma

1:23:36so it's like yeah tim sweeney hates it and is going to uh take advantage of it at every available turn bless tim it's good you need more idealistic yeah fortnite makers i will say we've seen at least two just in the time we've been recording this podcast at least two alternate app stores announcing that they're already beginning the process of becoming an app marketplace on how How much porn? Unclear. Okay. I can tell you one of them is, it's called the Alt Store, and it started as this app, Delta, which originally was an app called GBA for iOS, which is a way to play Game Boy ROMs on your iPhone, which is a thing Apple explicitly does not allow.

1:24:19And now, in theory, under this rule, would be perfectly allowable to do through an app marketplace. So that's coming. That's one of the ones that announced they're already working on this. I'll finally have a reason for that controller that you can put on your iPhone I never do it because I'm like I only want to play ROMs and I don't want to do that on that I legally own the games of course you should always legally own the games I'm 100 % certain that it's still not legal and that is just some folk wisdom but the ROM market is not big enough for anyone to care yeah so please don't sue me for that I supported you and your pal worlds it's okay yeah Nintendo has bigger fish to fry at the moment so you're fine leave me alone oh my gosh alright well I'm going to start a gambling story from what i understand gambling is very lucrative uh so catch me in the gambling store neil's porn crypto and gambling depot coming to ios in 2024 just historically lucrative ideas who wants to talk uh wouldn't i be good at i don't even gamble first of all uh this is true every year at cs i go to vegas and whatever money other people are spending gambling.

1:25:27I just use that money. I spend the same money, but I buy limousines. And I promise you, this is true. I've been doing it for years. I can vouch for this. We had a limo this year, and everyone talks more about the limousine than they talk about gambling at the end. It's true. I drink Bud Light out of a champagne cream. It's beautiful. It's a wonderful moment. It was a good limo. Except when Andrew took over the aux and started playing some deeply weird shit in that car. That's it. That's a Verge cast. We'll be back next week. Tech news season is here. We have just started the year off to the races.

1:25:59We'll go back next week. Oh, wait. Also, wait. Before we go. We, next week is when the Vision Pro comes out. And at some point, when it makes sense, we're going to do a whole Vergecast about the Vision Pro. And if you have questions about the Vision Pro, send them to us. Call the hotline, 866-VERGE11. Email us, vergecasts at theverge.com. All of your Vision Pro questions, as soon as we can answer them, we will answer them. And we're going to do a whole Vergecast about it. It's going to be really fun. looking at you with the eyes just staring at you with our undead eyes that's it that's Vergecast rock and roll

1:26:39and that's it for the Vergecast this week hey we'd love to hear from you give us a call at 866 Verge11 the Vergecast is a production of the Verge and Vox Media Podcast Network our show is produced by Andrew Marino and Liam James that's it we'll see you next week

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