Diving into Apple’s Liquid Glass

30:04Unfortunately, it's just, come on. It's just the reality of gaming. They're gonna make gaming happen on the Mac. They're gonna make it happen. Ray tracing. It's so aspirational. I want them to. I actually, I genuinely want them to. When I reviewed the most recent M4 Max MacBook Pro, I'm just like, I'm sorry. I have to say, the elephant in the room is like, it would be so nice for someone who's creative. like people i work with like photographers i work with that buy these kinds of like heavy duty macs for like a mac studio or a macbook pro like they would like to actually play games on them and it's like but ultimately like they're just it's just still not enough if if they if apple could really get their get their stuff together with like a proton layer like setup like i know they have their game toolkit um but it's not a porting toolkit but it's not fully there obviously you need developers to to you know sign on but like i don't know man just try with more developers than like hideo kojima and like capcom and i guess now cd project red again cool cyberpunk on on the mac cool but you know again so the games app is just like rough when nintendo beats you to cyberpunk that's that could not have foreseen that um okay v i want to about um watch os 26 there's a a new fitness coach what is this so you know apple intelligence right at dub dub they were just like it's on our ecosystem of devices because you know watch got left out last year you know didn't have apple intelligence on the watch last year now they're like yo apple intelligence is on the watch this year and work out buddy i don't know if i don't know if that's like a threat or an upgrade it's a thing it is yes it is a thing so like in like in the keynote and the sizzle reel for workout buddy you see this woman and she's running and the workout buddy's just like nice crushed the pace and you know the the thing that happened to my phone in real time while i was in that watching the keynote was people going like am i gonna hate this am i gonna hate the what's going on am i gonna get yelled at by an ai you're not going to get yelled at by an AI.

32:16It's actually kind of like not really there for a lot of workouts. So the thing that's AI... Is this like Spotify's AI DJ where every once in a while it's just like, yo, V, good pace. Kind of. And you're like, oh, I didn't need this, but... Yeah, it's kind of like that. So basically the AI elements of it, you do need to have an iPhone that is capable of Apple intelligence, which is why I needed two iPhones to basically test this beta. VK's office today and she's like, got a light day, only two phones on me. Only two phones on me? And only two watches on you. Only two watches on me. Well, there's only one for each wrist, but I have been carrying around three phones for the last couple of weeks like a psycho because my main iPhone is a 14 Pro Max, does not have the Apple Intelligence features.

33:07Therefore, I could not test Workout Buddy on the watch that was paired to that. I needed my iPhone 16, which was paired to a different Apple Watch just to test Workout Buddy. So that's my dedication to all of you. But Workout Buddy basically has three voices that are trained on the Apple Fitness Plus trainer's voices. So you can choose your version of Peppy, a Peppy voice in your ear. And then when you go on an equivalent or like not an equivalent, when you go on an eligible workout, you're going to get a little summary at the beginning where it's just like, hey, V, you're about to go on an outdoor walk.

33:47That's great. Love that for you. You are kind of ahead where you would be at this time of day for your rings in terms of closing it. Go and crush it. And then depending on the workout that you're doing, you may get motivational tidbits in the actual workout itself. So if you're going on a walk, you ain't going to hear shit. But if you're on a run, on a run at the mile pace, it's like you crushed that mile and insert pace here. You were listening to Stray Kids when that happened. Love that for you. Keep going. uh and then if you hit a pr or a milestone like that was your hundredth mile of the year love that for you and that happens and then at the end of the um the workout you basically get a you did great you totally closed your ring and i'd love this for you and that's workout buddy this feels like like upbeat and pleasant but not helpful is that like it's it's okay like this is exactly how i feel about spotify dj where i'm like i don't know why this ai voice is talking to me this is like this is just a playlist but it's actually there's less music but like okay it's fun it's fun i'm like i did just listen to that song yeah no apple told me that the idea was to bring more delight and motivation into the workouts yeah let's let's face it working out kind of sucks like it just does listen i've never wanted an ai therapist but a wall i'm working out is the time.

35:14I'm never happy when I'm working out. And if somebody could work through that with me, I think that might. It's not the worst thing in the world. It can be a little chatty. You do have the option to turn it off. Is it better than other workout apps that have had voices telling you to pick up the pace or to do whatever? Not particularly, but it does have more of your historical data. What I wish it would do was it'd be like, hey, you're going pretty fast on this first mile that you have planned out right now it is 86 degrees out with 92 humidity slow down girl you're fine like that's what i would love yes um from that and it's not an ai chatbot it's not any of that sort of thing so this is the thing it's just so it's like not even v1 it's like v0 right none of them actually have the data yet to sell you the smart thing yeah or like the really smart thing there's it's just like one yeah or like one and a half turns short of where i would like really find it helpful and useful.

36:13But as far as like a motivational thing goes, it's fine. Can you talk to it? Like, can you talk back to it? No, you can talk back to it. So like, that's the, that's kind of like the disconnect where, you know, like, is it actually AI? Well, yes, but not in the way that you're probably thinking, but pretty on par for where fitness AI is in general at this point. But they like marketed this as the big marquee thing of watch os 26 what i think the real star of watch os 26 is is the wrist flick and or the flippy flip because we have the pinchy pinch coined by the verge uh dan seifert uh for the double tap which is the gesture that lets you just like go through the the the widget menus if you wake up there there we go in this watch wake up so you can double pinch and you can go through all that stuff now you have the flippy flip or the wrist flick where you just dismiss stuff so if you have notifications that come in and you're just busy you can just go like that and it'll dismiss it for you so you can that's actually like legitimately huge so like with a software update like add like an entire new like button effectively like that's because you're you're out and about you got you got stuff going on you're like i can't take this boop it's gone you're like oh love that love that and then the other thing is the smart stack now has a little icon so the smart stack is like i bring up this little widget menu there's all these widgets it'll surface the most relevant thing to you in that moment and there's a little icon so when i was taking a picture for the thing it was like a little icon of my camera so i could bring up the remote the camera remote on this thing and can i tell you something i think liquid glass looks all right on the watch it does it's fine on the watch it's on the phone again you don't notice it Yeah, it's just so discreet.

37:57It's so interesting because liquid glass is like the big splashy feature that everybody's paying attention to. But there are so many actual like powerful functional updates. And the one we haven't talked about yet is on the iPad where you can now have free floating windows. Right. It's not the weird stage manager thing anymore where Apple will control the windows for you, which I think is like very delightful that they spent years building this alternate multitasking system because like we cannot. the people can't handle windows windows are too much for them we have to control the windows for them and finally finally they're just like all right let's see what happens let's go crazy it's great and they have there's a mouse there's a mouse pointer on the ipad now they before that this they were like you can have a circle you get like mouse that doesn't exist a pointer no i think it's you know because it's really funny because this is the thing that everyone has wanted for ipad to be more like a Mac because of, you know, there's always someone who's like, oh, I want to use my iPad as a Mac because I don't actually want to buy a Mac because money and price points and whatever reason.

39:04And they finally gave it to us. And I was just like, I still don't know if this is going to work, but I love that it's there. The thing that drives me crazy is I think that Apple's like hardware innovation has leaned so heavily on the iPhone, iPad side of the house and the Mac has lagged behind in some ways. Not talking about the processors, but the functional extra features, right? If you look at the iPad Pro, right, you've got this great front-facing camera, you've got Face ID, you've got all these rear cameras with LiDAR. I don't even want this. And I think the operating system is just very lovely to use in a lot of ways.

39:43It has a touchscreen, but the problem is that the iPad software has not allowed you to use it like a laptop, right? So every time that I'm looking and saying, I need to buy a new main computer, it's always gonna be a Mac for me, right? Because it just can do things in a regular way for all tasks. And the iPad is like maybe finally getting there. And we'll see, right? There are still limitations. It's funny, I like plugged my iPad into my monitor slash dock last night. And it's like, oh, the wireless mouse doesn't work because it docked through the monitor. And it's like, look, these are like, you know minor extraneous things um right but you know the ipad is finally getting background tasks it finally has windowing and it's like okay maybe i can actually use this as a computer and it's really nice to see the power of the mac increasingly coming to the ipad so that you have an option if you are somebody who like me is like a big hardware nerd and like wants to get all the cool features give the people what they want that's just what they should do and if people have been wanting this for iPadOS for ages at this point.

40:47So, yay. Give them windowing on an iPad and give them a touchscreen Mac. And then people will be... I mean, the buttons have... For years, the buttons on the Mac have gotten more and more touch-looking, touch-friendly. And Liquid Glass is just even furthering that. Again, look at that control center on Tahoe. You know, so this could... Maybe, maybe they're very, very slowly converging. Into a circle. Yeah. And people will be happy. Antonio, it'll take 10 more years probably, but maybe. It's so funny. Todd Hazleton wrote for our website about iPadOS 26 beta. And he talks about the stoplight buttons in the corner.

41:24And he's like, yeah, when my finger gets close to the tiny button on the iPad, it just gets bigger and then I can touch it. And he's like, Apple has no excuses to not just put a touchscreen on the Mac. Like they solved it. Like it's easy. It's doable. They figured it out. Like let's make it happen. Give the people what they want. Give them what they want. We'll get there. We'll get there someday. All right, we've got to take a break. Antonio, thanks for joining us for this segment. When we get back, we'll have Verge Transportation editor Andy Hawkins and Eater LA's Matthew Kang to join us to talk about Elon Musk starting a restaurant.

42:03He started a restaurant. Sure. We'll be back. Let's be honest. Are you happy with your job? Like, really happy? The unfortunate fact is that a huge number of people can't say yes to that. Far too many of us are stuck in a job we've outgrown, or one we never wanted in the first place. But still, we stick it out, and we give reasons like, what if the next move is even worse? I've already put years into this place, and maybe the most common one, isn't everyone kind of miserable at work. But there's a difference between reasons for staying and excuses for not leaving. It's time to get unstuck. It's time for Strawberry.me.

42:48They match you with a certified career coach who helps you go from where you are to where you actually want to be. Your coach helps you get clear on your goals, create a plan, build your confidence, and keeps you accountable along the way. So don't leave your career to chance. Take action and own your future with a professional coach in your corner. Go to strawberry.me slash unstuck to claim a special offer. That's strawberry.me slash unstuck. All right, we're back. We've got some new people in the studio. Joining me and V is Verge Transportation Editor, Andy Hawkins. Hello. And joining us from LA, Eater's lead editor for Southern California, Matthew Kang.

43:32Hey, how are you? Good. Thanks for joining us. I'm really excited to talk about this. This is sort of a surprising one, right? So Tesla, it's had a weird week, right? They just had their largest revenue drop in years, which is not like great news to share. And the same week, they announced that they opened a restaurant, which is like maybe not what their investors are asking for, maybe not what their customers are asking for. but is you know more positive news i guess andy like what is the state of tesla because i feel like it has been very like frantic since musk stopped doing doge and went back to work right there's been the robo taxi um there's the diner now yes but how how are things over there it's been a it's been a crazy half year for this company but no yeah the the diner announcement was very interestingly timed, I want to say.

44:26I feel like it opened right before this earnings. I don't want to suggest that it was strategically done this way, but it certainly seems to have been intended to overshadow the incredibly bad news in this earnings report. You have this shiny new diner that's opening up. I can't wait to hear what Matthew has to say about it, but it's just like the timing right on the heels, right before this horrible earnings report. It just seems really convenient, is all I'll say to start out with. But yeah, no, terrible earnings report, third consecutive drop in revenue, in earnings, in sales, and it's getting worse.

45:05Why are they falling apart? Because I thought these cars are wildly popular. No, they're not. I have a car guy for a spouse, and they are not well put together. That's a whole other issue. issue. The quality of Tesla's vehicles has been a long, like simmering problem for that. But the problems the company is currently facing have everything to do with sort of the Elon of it all, as we like to say on staff, right? Like, you know, he came out in support of Trump last year. He spent $300 million to get him elected. Then he took over Doge and he made some fascist hand gestures and everything that's been going on up until this point.

45:45And then we saw the Tesla takedown protests and sort of a very concerted effort by people who are very concerned about the direction this country is going. And they decided to organize around protesting Tesla, boycotting, trying to basically make the brand toxic. And I would say that they have been successful in that as we've seen in these earnings. So Tesla right now, they're in what's called double-digit territory where they are down – the revenue is down double digits. Their profits are down double digits and their sales are down double digits. And that's just not a good place to be for a company like that.

46:24This is really nerdy, but there's this thing in your story that you kept talking about where they have this regulatory credits problem that seems to be sort of one of Elon's own making too. Can you tell me, what are these credits and what is about to fall apart here? Yeah, the credit situation is really fascinating because it's really an under-discussed aspect of Tesla's success over the years. So we have, you know, in the United States, something called the CAFE standards where automakers need to meet a certain threshold for emissions sort of across their fleet. Right. And so the idea is that, you know, if you increase emission standards, cars get useless gasoline, emit less carbon emissions, less pollution and we're better off as a society.

47:08And so for many, many years, Tesla is an exclusively electric vehicle company, has no emissions across its fleet. So they were able to sell these credits that they were earning from the government to other automakers that have more of a mix of gas-burning vehicles and electric vehicles, mostly gas-burning vehicles. So they would sell their credits to companies like Ford and GM and Dodge and Chrysler and all these other ones. And that was a huge, huge, huge source of revenue for the company. You think of Tesla as a successful company based solely on the fact that they make these electric cars that people like.

47:43Well, actually, they, I think for the past decade alone, have been earning around$11 billion from regulatory credit sales. 11 billion? 11 billion. And last year, it was like$2.5 billion, which made up almost 50 % of the company's overall net income or profit, essentially. So half of their profit came from the sale of these regulatory credits. That's about to go away because Donald Trump and the Republicans decided that this is not a good thing anymore and they're going to get rid of it. It's just so rough where it really does feel like so much of Tesla's challenge right now is of Elon's own making, right?

48:19He made cars that people like, and then he made people not, at least he made the people who really like electric cars, right? A good chunk of that segment, not like him. And then he helped elect the people who are going to get rid of the money flowing to environmental causes. And so, you know, now he's just got to be an automaker and compete on that. And like it really cannot be underemphasized, the amount of of a face plant that this is for something. This is a historic level face plant for a human being like to spend 300 million dollars to get one guy elected and have that guy come into office doing exactly what he said he was going to do during the campaign, which was eliminate all of these incentives and credits and all of these things and have that be such a negative effect weighing down your own company.

49:09And that is the primary source of his wealth, popularity, his status, his reputation, SpaceX and whatnot. But Tesla is really like, that's the money bags for him. So I will say the one thing that you can't knock Elon for is his ability to do maybe too many things at once. Not always to their full potential. The robo-taxi rollout has started. But at the same time, right, this week he launched the Tesla Diner, which, Matthew, you actually went there. Matthew, can you give me like a like what is this diner? This is a real restaurant. Like he's serious about this. It's not just some some pop up. Oh, no, this this this restaurant was sort of based on a diner model, like car hop, Sonic, that kind of thing.

49:58And he announced it actually was announced in like 2018. so back then certainly we're like oh this is this restaurant is vaporware and and we're never going to see it um and so seven years later um they announced that he was partnering with a very competent restaurateur and a well-known la chef and and it opened basically surprise open uh they didn't invite anyone in they didn't do any like media nothing um and so monday morning uh i schlepped out to Hollywood and beheld this two-story kind of rounded it looks like you're at Tomorrowland in Disneyland kind of a thing and there's like robots serving popcorn and they have screens where you order and at the end of the day it's just like it's diner like they have burgers and and fries and and pie shakes like just kind of like just real normal food it is shockingly basic considering it's a Tesla product.

50:56There are also like 80 charging stations next to it. So I guess the idea is that it's going to be a model of an amenity for charging stations that could potentially open all around the world. That's kind of the innovation here is that, you know, he has long talked about, you know, the fact that like, you know, charging stations in America, especially the supercharger stations, they're kind of like in the middle of nowhere. Often they're in, you know, big box store parking lots or, you know, along highways. And they're not real destinations. And I think what he was trying to go forward with this is, you know, you have to plug in your car and usually it takes like 20 or 30 minutes for you to get like a decent amount of charge.

51:33Why not get something to eat? Why not, you know, mingle with other Tesla owners? Like the idea behind it seems pretty solid. It's actually a pretty good idea because I went on a road trip in one of the fully electric BMWs around the holiday season and trying to find a charger that would work got increasingly dicey as we were going. It's just like, oh, I guess we can go to this mall. And there was a line at the mall of all of these Teslas trying to get the thing. And it's like, well, we have 23 % charge left on this BMW. Are we going to find, we got down to 7%. We got down to 7 % at a Wawa. And this Wawa had only one working charging station.

52:17so i could we were we hungry by the time we got to the bubble yeah so i could see this working but at the same time no just big no i i've done that i've sat in the walmart parking lot for a couple of hours while on a road trip and it's like it's not the most fun it's not those it is but like this sort of makes sense right you can do this in la it feels hard to imagine this existing on the side of like the PA turnpike. I'm like, you know, this is like a destination. It's so interesting. All the photos I've seen of the Tesla dinosaur far, every single parking spot has a Cybertruck. Yeah. Which I can't tell if they just like parked them there or if it's just every Cybertruck owner in LA, like an alarm went off and they're like, here, now, go.

53:09They got notifications on their infotainment screen. Well, there is, Matthew, you were telling me there is some like special feature where if you have a Tesla, So you can like roll up and it will like auto order for you? Not quite. So basically, probably in a car industry first, you could place your order on your car screen. It doesn't matter where you are. I live in Torrance, like 30 miles away from the restaurant. If I pull up the app, the diner app on my screen, then it will look exactly like the screen that you would see in the restaurant, like to order food and drinks or whatever. And I think we're pretty used to ordering food that way now.

53:46because they want to get rid of staff at the counter to take your order. And all you need to do is put your order in, and I guess your payment stuff is already in there because of your charging. And when you cross a geofence, as they've called it, it's like 0.6 miles, about 15 minutes. In LA, that could take forever. But 0.6 miles, once you approach the diner, then they'll get a notification to start making your food. And then once you, I guess, park in a... If you park in the lot and you start charging your car, you'll get an option like, hey, do you want to get your food in your car or do you want to come in the restaurant?

54:20Something like that. It hasn't actually launched yet. I don't think it works in the way they've quite intended. But I think this feature was supposed to be one of the more important aspects of the diner. That does like lend to the idea of like this is sort of this amenity for charging, which is so interesting. I think like you hear there's a restaurant, you see these photos of like the interior looks lovely, right? It looks like this like, you know, retro futurist. And I guess like other non-Tesla EV owners can charge there if they have adapters or if they have cars that have supercharger ports on them.

54:53I refuse to have the adapter. I don't think that some of these like menu features would work on the BMW, for example. But, you know, it does sort of speak to like this future that Tesla has imagined where you can just do all these things seamlessly and it's all integrated. All your information is right there. I do think that that's, if it ends up actually working, would be a pretty cool thing. Okay. But my big thing is, how was the food, Matthew? Because this is a diner. That's the most important question. You know, like restaurants, sometimes you go to a restaurant for the vibe. I will not be going to a Tesla diner for the vibe.

55:26I will be there because I need to charge a car and I'm hungry. So of those two components, how is the food? because I looked at the menu, epic bacon,$12, hot dog,$13 for a hot dog in this economy. I mean, I don't think the, first of all, the food, you know, I'll just, let me just preface all of this by saying you cannot imagine the amount of hatred and like negative feedback that I have gotten, like just covering this restaurant. Like people are so upset. And if you look at the Eater Instagram comments, there is an incredible amount of, I guess, anger, just the fact that we're covering it. Like we should have just passed on it or something like that.

56:11But I mean, there were hundreds of people waiting in line for it to open. Some people waited hours. It's a 24-7 restaurant so that you could, you know, the birth of a new 24-7 restaurant in any big city is kind of a big deal now given where, you know, costs and labor are. So either way, like we were going to cover this restaurant. And of course we approached it with as much, you know, knowing who Elon is and what he's done and, and everything that the company represents. At the end of the day, we're like, look, they hired Bill Chait, who is a prolific LA restaurateur. He's behind Republic and Bestia and Tartine.

56:47And he's very competent as an operator. I've known him for a while. And they hired Eric Greenspan, who's, you know, I think claim to fame. He opened a grilled cheese restaurant like 10 years ago in L.A., but he also was the chef behind a bunch of ghost kitchens like the Mr. Beast Burger. And he was like, when I saw Greenspan there, he was like, oh, this line's nothing. We served 10 ,000 people when Mr. Beast Burger opened. And I was kind of like, well, Mr. Beast Burger is kind of dead now. And Mr. Beast, the guy like is suing the company for it. Just like it was a disaster. Right. So I'm thinking, OK, is this going to be a disaster?

57:24We order the food. We take it upstairs. We paid for everything. No special treatment other than did get to kind of skip a few places in line to expedite our reporting. And honestly, the food is fine. it tastes like sort of slightly better than shake shack slightly better than you know regular fast food is it it's probably better than denny's you know it's better than your like average roadside spot and i think that's probably because like everyone's all hands on deck it's the first day it's open as we all know restaurants are a tough thing to operate day in and day out and especially 24 7 and so do i think it's going to maintain that quality five eight months from now you know So two years from now, I have no idea, and I'm very skeptical of that.

58:10But on day one, they were making good food. The burger was not amazing. It was kind of dry on the edges. The tuna melt was fantastic. We all loved it. It was like heavy and dill and like well-toasted. They're all served in like these cyber truck happy meal boxes. You just ruined it. No. I think that's kind of a negative. but you know they're going with the theme also the all the silverware or the utensils are like these wooden pieces that look like they're like chiseled out of a cyber truck you know frame or something and you know opportunity for the windshield wiper like they're trying to reinvent utensils and i'm like oh my god okay not everything is reinvented but like i think you know that they have for breakfast you know they have actual breakfast items um they had a biscuits with red gravy and the biscuits were fantastic you have an organic egg like all the all the ingredients is another aspect they they say that they're sourcing everything within a tesla range like one single range of a Tesla car so everything is sourced within like 300 miles which you know like there's something to be said about that like most diners probably cannot say that they source their items from you know within 300 miles and so that there's like this sliver of like sustainability and like okay good that sounds kind of woke to me it's it's yeah that's why they minimize it it's like buried on the bottom of the menu but like epic bacon is the headline the heritage farm that it comes from is not not mentioned as much i talked to bill chate and he was like, Elon himself came in a week and a half ago and personally tried everything.

59:49He's like, if it's going to be on the menu, it has to be Epic. And I was like, how do you make every single menu item Epic? How do you make like, you know, a hot dog Epic or a burger Epic? But the Epic logo is only on the bacon and the bacon. Well, I think it was a matter of preparation. It has the potential to be Epic. There was certainly four thick slices of like well-smoked, like high quality bacon like it you know just maybe that day it was off but i i think for 12 bucks honestly i i would pay that that's three dollars per piece of bacon but like that's what food costs now i don't know what you how did they prepare this bacon like food costs it's it's not cheap to make you know well-sourced food and i think that they're doing a good job of presenting people with decent quality, like well-prepared food at a reasonable price.

1:00:47And what's interesting is all the, like they don't accept gratuities. Like the company is actually paying all the gratuities for service staff. So if you go there, like the level of service you get is incredibly nice. Like everyone's very jolly and happy and, and like attentive. And I don't know if that's because it's the first day again, or like if it's a thing that I think of seasoned restauranteur is like, hey, we're going to approach this professionally and as well done as possible. You have to go back at 3 a.m. to see if it's still the same level. Yeah, you got to go there in the middle of the night to see if they'll still be happy.

1:01:21But at the end of the day, I think it is a bona fide restaurant. It is worth covering. It was worth for us to go and see what it was like. Do I expect that I'll be there frequently? I don't think so. But I was honestly shocked by the number of, quote unquote, like Tesla fans. live in Los Angeles, that despite all of the Elon, you know, hatred and vitriol, like I think people were there. They were, they showed up and they were, they were pretty happy. So, I mean, that's what it is. Yeah, that to me is kind of the key point. Cause I, I, I think Wired had a good story about this too, where they talked to some of these folks and a lot of them were Tesla owners who didn't like Elon Musk.

1:02:02And it was kind of like getting to your point about how this is, you know, the people that they typically used to sell to a lot for many years were coastal liberal types, progressives who, you know, want to save the environment. And those people hate Elon Musk now. But it seems like they can, you know, they're doing some sort of mental, you know, sort of calculation to kind of separate these things. And, you know, they can still be supportive of the brand or, you know, still love their car while also still holding their, you know, political opinions about him. So my question is, right, like, you know, you have, you have, you have, you have, you You know, Matthew, you went, you had this nice experience.

1:02:38I think, right, a ton of people showed up. Can they scale this, right? Can you scale like a, you know, fancy diner chain that only goes to a couple of different, like, what is the end goal here? I don't know if you're sourcing within a one charge range of a Tesla, right? Because there are some places, you know, California has a lot of farms, but there are places out there where corn sweat is an issue in the Midwest. where temperatures are awful because the corn is raising the humidity. So I don't know if you're going to have the same gimmick across the entire nation. I don't know how horrible that is.

1:03:19I mean, even just charging infrastructure is hard. So getting the charging infrastructure and the food infrastructure and finding a place where it makes sense for Tesla owners or EV owners. I am curious, Matthew, do you get the sense that Bill Chait and the team over there are preparing to do more? Are they like, we've got this one. We will see what happens. That's a great question. I had, I certainly have my doubts about that. Like how much can you replicate this? You're in the middle of Hollywood. There's all the resources, labor, you know, demand for a hundred, almost a hundred charging stations.

1:03:54But like I've taken road trips. I actually own a Tesla and I have taken it. I hate it as a road trip car because I have to charge all the time. and I've charged in the middle of the desert on the way to Vegas, just nothing to do. I wonder, okay, if they open one in Barstow, right? There's like 100 Tesla chargers in Barstow scattered about. It's the main city between LA and Las Vegas. I think they can source, depending on what their menu looks like, is it going to be as ambitious as the Hollywood one with like 30 menu items? Maybe not. But if they have a burger and a hot dog and fries and shakes, I mean, what more do you really need?

1:04:34And can you do that? Look, there are gas station restaurants all around the country and they serve, you know, basically reheated frozen pizza and hot dogs on those like steel rollers and they make it work. and I think it's certainly possible. I think their intention is to open, I think many of them, opening a restaurant as they probably realize is very difficult given the regulatory situations of each place that you're doing it. But other countries are different. Like if they, I don't know, like I just came back from South Korea. I didn't know this. You could open any restaurant in South Korea and in Seoul and there's no permitting.

1:05:12You just like open, you just like build stuff and then you open and then you're open for business and you serve people. Like if they had that ease in other locations around the world, then they could probably open more of these diners and make them, you know, these kind of like destinations. Restaurants are, they're places that people talk about. You know, they're not like, it's kind of like the Apple store, right? I mean, when the first couple Apple stores came out, they're like, oh, how many of these are going to open? And now they're ubiquitous, right? So it took a generation. I think these diners could be a place where it makes Tesla continue to be relevant and separates themselves from other car makers and, you know, gives again a place for people to engage with the brand.

1:05:55And so do I think, I think it's actually smart. And I think it's interesting that they opened it in California, in Los Angeles, a place that obviously has very mixed feelings politically about its CEO. I'm like, why did they open in Texas? Why did they open in Florida or whatever? Like in places that might be more receptive. But I think they're also trying to make a statement by putting it in Hollywood, putting it in a major world city and making a statement that way. They're definitely going to attract protesters. I spoke to an organizer who has been part of the Tesla takedown movement and he's, you know, they're planning on coming out this Saturday.

1:06:35And he says that the intention is to keep coming out, you know, they're going to keep at it. You know, their mission is to continue to protest the company. They don't care that he stepped away from Doge and yada, yada, yada. Their intention, they see, they've been seeing success, obviously in the earnings report. And I think that they want to continue that. And something like a diner is so much more impactful in the moment. Like there are customers who are trying to show up and have a pleasant meal. And you are going to disrupt their ability to do good business. Yeah. Nobody's going to want to walk past them.

1:07:09It's hard not to see this also as maybe an attempt at some brand rehabilitation by Tesla, right? To like kind of say, you know, we're more than just the guy making the salute, you know, at Trump's inauguration. We're also, you know, we got these fun robots that are serving popcorn and, you know, we're going to Mars and all these other things. They've got like a movie screen. The huge, the, okay, so the drive-in screens are gigantic and they're right in front of an apartment buildings with balconies that have just had their views completely blocked. And I am so curious to hear what the people who live in these buildings think about this.

1:07:45Free movies. From the back? Okay, maybe not from the, nevermind. But you know. I gotta know who you're programming. You gotta track down some of these people who live in these buildings and find out what they think because I gotta know. I mean, that was what I immediately thought about. I think that in most, first of all, you don't live in like Hollywood for quiet and comfort. That's a good point. You know, nobody is forcing you to live there. Granted, there are, again, ginormous billboard-sized screens pointing at your balcony now, and that's probably very annoying. I do think that I actually find, I was trying to find out what time they turn off.

1:08:19There's probably like a mandated time. Oh, yeah, I think it's 11 p.m., they said. Yeah, I think it's 11. That wasn't confirmed. I actually wrote that like kind of like, but it wasn't confirmed. I'm pretty sure that's like, we don't have billboards going 24-7 here unlike New York. New York City. Yeah, baby. Number one. So, yeah, it's certainly very annoying and it's comical. I think when you go there, it wouldn't make sense to behold the whole facility like in the middle of the desert or in the middle of a cornfield or something. But, like, it's in the middle of Hollywood. There are a lot of buildings.

1:08:56It's just, like, jarring because I'm like, why do they have to do these ginormous screens? um so there's a little bit of it i think the whole uh what i'm learning now is that i guess the project is uh franz von holzhausen yeah kind of designer of tesla yeah he's a lead designer of tesla and like i was i think what i've been told now and this is not confirmed but like he lives in los angeles the tesla design center is based in hawthorne in los angeles and i think that's probably why the first location was here it's really like if you think about where the company split up there's like production in fremont in northern california and offices and whatnot that's kind of where they started but then now they've like sort of moved the headquarters to texas and to austin but like i think at the end of the day for this project it's really a tesla design project it's like a way for them to like it's like the flexing part of the company it's it's not quite the nuts and bolts like making batteries and boring stuff like that this is the sexy thing and so yeah i think it's it's it's a it's an attention getter um and i think yeah people will protest it uh there's ginormous screens but i don't know it's la like we're kind of like used to crazy stuff happening and then we're gonna move on and find out what else i mean over like six months people would be like yeah there it is yeah exactly you know If nothing else, Elon knows how to get attention, and the diner is certainly effective in that.

1:10:23Matthew, thank you for coming by. We've got to take a break. When we get back, V and Andy are going to take on the Thunder Round. Stay tuned. Morning, Zoe. Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage? I want to be in a T-Mobile commercial like you. Teach me, Sildana. I couldn't possibly. At T-Mobile, get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system. Impressive. Let me try. At T-Mobile, you can save up to 20 % versus the other big guys. You heard them. T-Mobile is the best place to get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible trade-in in any condition.

1:10:59Check them out to see how much you can save versus the other big guys at T-Mobile.com slash switch. All right, we're back with the Thunder Round. There it is. That's right. For those who have missed it, I am on a power trip with Neelai and David gone. The lightning round, it's done. It's gone. I'm over it. That's so old news. Here's my problem with it. I don't know if you guys have listened to the Vergecast a lot. I hope you have. That's very good. They never get through all the stories. And so I have given Eric Gomez, our producer, the power of thunder. He will, I don't know the term, rain it down upon us.

1:11:39It's not crashing. he'll do a Thor a little Thor there we go he channels Thor and tells us politely to move along so this is what we're gonna do five stories five minutes he's gonna a little rolling thunder when we need to move along and then it's gonna crash down or something we're still fearing this out the thunder round it's new and improved it will continue to improve as time goes on alright first story Let's roll. Andy, it's over to you. All right. So my first story is the return of Faraday Future, kind of. Faraday Future, an electric vehicle company that we've covered for a very long time.

1:12:21A company most associated with the term vaporware, I think you can say. They are one of those companies that promised the moon. Super fast electric vehicles and all this sort of interlocking media and all these things, and it never really panned out. uh and uh they're back they introduced a new vehicle um called the fx uh i'm sorry the sub brand they have a new sub brand called the fx uh and this new vehicle is the fx super one and it's basically just like a luxury minivan but it has something that's distinctive about it uh it has a face um so instead of a grill in place of a grill there is a digital screen on the front of the vehicle that um projects uh like an ai generated face so you can put like a smiley face on there you can put like you know i'm sorry i scrolled past this image in your story and i i thought i was like oh this is one of those things where like you know they're like covering it up so we don't see yes but no that's a screen yeah it's a legit screen uh like a full-on display like we have to you know get you know our tv reviewers on this immediately because this is going to be the next big TV, I'm assuming.

1:13:32Can you watch Top Gun on this? You can watch Top Chef on it. Oh, no. Right in front of the minivan. Obviously, this is a terrible idea because if you think about if you're driving a vehicle, what often happens is the front of your vehicle gets very dirty. It gets covered in bugs. It gets chipped. Pebbles and rocks and other things fly up in the face of it. It's not something that you can ever really keep completely blemish-free. So the idea of having a cracked screen with broken pixels all over it sounds insane to me. It's called Front AI Communications Ecosystem. FACE. FACE. Oh, my God. Yeah, so this is also, like, another thing that Faraday Future is always very good at, which is giving things terrible brand names.

1:14:14So, yeah, FACE is an acronym that stands for Front AI Communication Ecosystem. And if you're a business, you can, like, project your logo on it. If you're an artist, you can project your illustrations on it. Again, I cannot stress this enough. This will never ship. What happens if you get into a car crash, too? Can you imagine how much that would cost? It does a frown. Yeah, it does an ouchie face, right? It tells you it's pain level. I have a question about, I thought minivans were not cool anymore. Well, so if you talk to like auto riders, they all love minivans. They, you know, they feel like it's a very practical vehicle that has fallen out of favor with the public.

1:15:01As our SUVs have become larger and more hulking and bigger and, you know, sort of all those things, you know, the minivan has been sort of like left to the side to, to, to Mulder. Like, you know, the Chrysler Pacifica is like the only like US based minivan anymore. anymore there's still like you know a few there's like your honda odysseys and your uh your kia minivans but for the most part minivan sales have have plunged so if you're a company that is swearing you're gonna make a car and gonna make money on that car but you've never made a car why are you going to minivan first it's it really it boggles the mind but that's been sort of like the theme with faraday future over the years is that they just they don't do things that make sense.

1:15:45This is a company that has been in existence since 2014, has spent$3 billion to ship 12 cars. Oh, you know, that's a great return on investment. That's all gone to like investors and like influencers, basically. This is not a real company. If anything, it's just a, you know, it's a way to like light a huge pile of cash on fire. It's a grift. You know what? I respect it. I respect the grift. We need more grifting in our minivan. industry. I do think if they are going to make up a car that they're not really going to ship, I think they could have thought bigger. I think not like physically bigger.

1:16:24The minivan is already quite large. I think they have a TV on the front and that's where it ends, right? They have these little reclining chairs in the back with really poorly photoshopped bottle of wine, champagne. It's so poorly. I just learned that there are cars in China that can jump. Oh, yeah. The BYD. Yeah. If you're going to make a fake car, like promise me the moon. China, very, very ahead of us in the cars that jump race. As soon as jumping cars make it to the U.S., I'm never leaving my house. We need those in New York of all the potholes. You need a car that can jump over the potholes.

1:17:05I don't think Americans are responsible enough for this. I'm really sorry. No. I mean, I still, you know, just as you like chaos with liquid glass, I want chaos on the highways. You want Road Warrior. I want Road Warrior. You're full on, you're like ready to go Mad Max. I'm ready to go. Yeah. What a beautiful day. Twisted metal. Okay. Bea, you've got some news for us. Yes. Amazon has bought BAI. And BAI is this wearable that I tested. This is B-E-E. E-E-E. Okay. B-E-E. Like Buzz Buzz. Buzz Buzz. Like, so, yeah, no, B by V. I wrote that review. It's basically like this little Fitbit type thing, and it listens to you always.

1:17:48And it's basically supposed to be your AI memory. And it wrote fan fiction about my life. It recorded some very embarrassing moments, like when I went and I had a particularly healthy bowel movement, and I looked back and I went, oh, shit. And then it said, V said, oh, shit, in this transcript. And it was making these like to do list. It was it was like truly dystopian. Good God. It has so it learned so much about you that is incorrect and correct at the same time. And now Amazon has bought it. OK, you've just instantly turned me off of everything about this. Like I just always listening. But on you like what?

1:18:29No. Yeah, this is like this new class of AI wearables where it's just like listening and we'll create transcriptions. And this takes it a bit further because it'll it'll the promises that like, oh, that thing you said you were going to do that you forgot to do. It's in a to do list that it created because it's listening to you all the time, all the time, all the time. I feel like that's the thing that most people say that they don't want from their technology. Given the sort of the prominence of the various conspiracy theories about people's phones listening to them and how that makes people feel like why would you actively buy something that does?

1:19:06You know, because I really do think there's a forgetful contingent among us and like people who want these like notes taken. But like this thing couldn't tell that I was not a Philadelphia school teacher working at Abbott Elementary. so it was telling me things like get ready your classroom for the septa strike uh and those were just like things that were populating my to-do list but you know to your point amazon got into a bunch of trouble a number of years back because the echo was listening to everything and you know like i've spoken with the people who've made b uh they like when i wrote my review they were like oh privacy is at the forefront and i'm just like well we don't know how much amazon bought before But this is the big first, like, this is the first big tech company that's buying these always listening AI devices.

1:19:55Yeah. This is like a very confusing acquisition to me. Like, I understand that there are a lot of tech companies looking at AI being like, we got to do an AI gadget. We got to do something. And it does seem like the current idea is just like, oh, I'll just listen to you all the time. So, like, okay, I'll give that to them, even though I think it's not the right idea and seems unpleasant. But the hardware and the software of this fundamentally don't seem very good, right? Like Amazon could just make this themselves. Why do they need to buy this? It's just a little thing around your wrist with a microphone.

1:20:29It's a little thing or you could wear it as like a clip. I wore it mostly as a pendant because I have limited wrist real estate at any given point in time. But yeah, I think it's just the concept of what they're doing. You know, they're saying Alexa Plus is going to be agentic and they call B something that's about to be agentic. I don't do. There's like this aspect of you talking and it automatically adding things to a to do list, which, you know, I went on the New Jersey transit bus and it was just like, you've got a patient in Louisiana that's about to die. Make sure to check in on them. And I was like, what?

1:21:02No. What the – either someone was watching like a medical drama on this bus and I didn't hear it or I just violated someone's HIPAA rights. I don't know. But I just feel – You're in the pit now. My conspiracy theory is that this has something to do with Alexa Plus. Amazon clearly wants to put Alexa on your wrist, right? They've been trying to put it on your face, in your microwaves, in so many different ways. I just feel like they're like, what if we put Alexa in it and what if it's listening at all times? and it can control your to-do list and then it can control your shopping cart. So it kind of makes sense to me, but it also makes me just go like, oh no.

1:21:41It's coming for you. Oh no. B by V in 20 years is just going to be Alexa writing fanfiction about my life and all the things that it misinterprets. You should have seen the transfex it had when I was watching Severance. Oh, honestly. Severance from my life. And it was just like, oh. the numbers are important and mysterious. How does it even tell you? It doesn't have a speaker, right? You have to check another app? Yeah, there's a companion app and it just collects all the stuff. It has like fact tinder, so it'll learn stuff about you and you have to verify things. Oh my god. You swipe whether it is accurately surveilling you?

1:22:19Yes. That's disturbing. I got a lot of really funny fact tinders, which you can check my B by V review And you can see that it thought that I knew someone named Kendrick, Kendra Montesha, because I was listening to the Kendrick album. Well, okay. Room for improvement. Good luck to Amazon with that one. And right under the. We did it. Right under the. We did it. Yeah. Almost got there. Almost got there. Okay. I've got one for you. This week, Apple launched a new service called AppleCare One. Apple, I think, if you guys have been paying attention to their earnings, they love services. They love recurring revenue.

1:23:02And they're turning everything into a subscription. Who doesn't among us? I do. I do. This is actually... Love it. We have no subscription service. What is it jobs if not a recurring subscription? Subscribe to the rich.com? Yeah. So Apple service, you pay$20 a month. and they'll offer, you know, warranty, extended warranty protection coverage for, I think, like any three of your Apple gadgets. And there's some restrictions. The max is three? Max is three. You can add more for$6 each. And I think maybe the deal starts getting worse. So it's very interesting because some people, it's$20 flat. Some people, if you're the kind of person who wants a warranty, are going to make out.

1:23:43Do you know how much the warranty is on a Vision Pro if you're paying by month? a lot it is 25 so you're immediately saving five dollars a month and covering two other gadgets if you're a vision pro person and listen if you're a vision pro person who's like that throwing this thing around town oh yeah okay well you want it because like like when i had my first vision pro um demos they were like you have to pick it up a specific way because it attaches by magnets like the the different the light seals attached by maggots so if you're not careful and then that glass screen is going to go and then that's$3 ,500 down down the hole but not if you have if you're saving$5 on this apple one you still got to pay you still got to pay the the service fee so okay it is less of a deal if you're if you're covering cheaper gadgets right if it's just your phone your laptop your airpods you're like maybe breaking even here's my question though do are either of you like extended warranty people because i i'm always like i'm not taking like i didn't for a long time and then butterfingers v mcgee uh dropped her phone three phones in a row cracked the screens and i was like oh no and i tried to go i'm like fix screen please and they were like no you don't have a warranty so for a number of years i did but it has since expired see that would do it that would i i'm i'm always like i'm gonna take this risk because with apple in particular like you got to pay for the warranty and then you got to pay for the service on top of that and i'm like i gamble this i let my extended warranty expire so when i went to replace the battery on my uh 14 pro max i was like free battery please and they're like it's expired so 100 please i was like i have a question about the warranties as as you know we have these you know uh right to repair uh there's the right to repair movement right and there's states that are adopting laws around right to repair um and apple and the other tech companies are pushing back against it i'm curious to see if we get like sort of widespread right to repair approvals you know maybe even like on a national level like what that would mean for like a warranty or like long term because if you if you're suddenly you're like you know you can like update your battery you can like update your screen over the years like you know maybe that warranty becomes a lot more useful or a lot more valuable to have if you can like do these things to your phone that people typically haven't done or i guess like alternatively i wonder if if those things are really effective right like maybe you don't need it because you can actually go kind of anywhere to get a fix yeah it's like a third party or yeah whereas right now like third party repairs with apple like it's very limited it's still to the authorized repair thingy.

1:26:27And it's like, eh. They really have a lot of control over it. My worst, I guess, like Apple, like, you know, failure to have coverage story was I had the first Apple Watch and I was like working out one day and then it was just like, I'm done. It was like that. They were like, we had a good time. And that's it was only like, like, it was not very old. And so I went to the Apple store and I'm like, I think like maybe we can just like, you know, reinstall the OS. And they're like, I don't know. We got to send this thing off and it's out of warranty. I'm like, okay, send it off. See how much it would cost.

1:27:01And they got back to me. They're like, you can buy a new Apple Watch. And I'm like, well, that was, we had a good run. I mean, that's ultimately what they want you to do. They just want you to keep buying new products. The watches in particular are really hard to repair anyway. So anytime anything breaks, they're basically going to be like, how would you like a new watch? Yeah. That's the thing. I don't think these devices would look the same if we had some, you know, some sort of widespread repairability, you know, like mandate. That's very real. Like, I think, you know, if you look at the Fairphone, actually, it is getting a lot nicer looking.

1:27:36But I do think a lot of these repairable gadgets, like, they kind of, you know, they got to make their tradeoffs. They got to make their tradeoffs. They chunky. And some of them, they do it and they look nice. And I think, like, Apple, like, they're not going to make that trade, which, you know, they want to give you a reason to keep paying them money. Right. That's great for them. I'm going to keep taking the risk. I don't think I'm going to sign it up for this. But Vision Pro early adopters, this is your moment. It seems like it might be a worthwhile thing to sign up for. I just think you have to math it out.

1:28:08Yes. Very real. Very real. Okay. Andy. Yes. What have you got for us? All right. Next one is that Uber announced that it was rolling out a new feature that it's had in a lot of other countries, but now it's going to be coming to the U.S. It's a driver preference and a rider preference feature for women. So if you are a woman who uses Uber and you would prefer to ride with a woman driver, you can set that preference now in the Uber app. Hell yes. And vice versa. A driver, if you're a woman who drives for Uber and you want to prefer to have women passengers, you could set that preference as well.

1:28:43Uber acknowledges this is likely to increase wait times because as of today, the vast majority of Uber drivers are men. It's something like three to one. But it does seem like, you know, they rolled this out in Saudi Arabia many years ago. It was very popular. And then they brought it to other countries in Europe and Asia. And now it's coming to the U.S. It's going to be in Los Angeles, Detroit, and San Francisco. And then they're going to try to roll it out across the rest of the country after that. I would love if you could make it so that after a certain time of day, you could switch who you want driving you.

1:29:18because I have had some dicey Uber drivers in the past. You are not alone. I have had some dicey Uber drivers in the past. Like, I've, you know, also had situations where, like, our Uber was stuck in traffic and then I got a phone call because they were like, you've been stuck in traffic. Are you safe? Are you going to be, like, unalived? And I was like, oh, that happened to me recently, actually. And I was like, oh, well, that makes me feel slightly better, but also not at the same time. And I will say that I think road rage is less common in the New York City area when I've had women drivers.

1:29:56Just the GWV pissing. No, yeah. Statistically, women are safer drivers than men in a lot of cities and countries. Yeah, it's, you know, I think what it does is it speaks to a larger problem that Uber has been having and Lyft as well. and just really anyone in the ride-hail taxi business, which is that assaults, sexual assaults, harassment, violence, still a big problem in this industry. I think in its last report that was released in 2024, Uber Safety Report, covering the years of 2021 and 2022, there were 2 ,717 incidents of serious sexual assault and misconduct in its vehicles. This is either drivers assaulting passengers, passengers assaulting drivers.

1:30:43That's down from the previous period, but still a big problem for the company. And they're trying to make things safer overall, it seems like, for people. I do wonder if on a long enough timeline, this could actually increase the number of women who are driving for Uber. I think it could, right? Because now there is a specific audience for them. And they're going to presumably have a safer time driving. I cannot, in memory, you know, remember having a woman driving Uber that I've got. I've had a lot recently. I've had a few, too. Okay. But, no, it is certainly the case that for women who drive for Uber, you know, we ran a feature in 2022, which I would encourage you to read.

1:31:24It is an extremely tough read. But the reporter, whose name, hold on, let me see. Anna Betts, she wrote this story. This is a great story. She interviewed like a dozen women who drive for Uber and Lyft. And the stories that they told were horrifying. Horrifying. Just, you know, I'm sorry to say, but men are terrible in many, many contexts. And one of which is in an Uber vehicle. So, you know, she talked to these women, you know, and you can't imagine. Or it's easy to imagine why more women don't drive for these services because of how horrible these experiences are. So I do think it could have the knock-on effect of getting more women to sign up to drive.

1:32:08The hope is that it's just still a good enough experience in the meantime. Because, like, I mean, honestly, the wait times are rough in general sometimes. And if you have to wait for one of a subset of drivers. I wish it could be just like, yes, that's my preference. But if there are none within this time period. Okay. They do let you. I'll accept a man. Yeah. They said that you can, as you're hailing the ride, you can say, I'd like this to be a woman. And that's also the case that Uber, you have to verify your identity. So they're making sure that men are not like falsely impersonating to, you know, they're not, you know, and if something like that happens, they encourage people to report it to Uber and they'll kick them off the app essentially.

1:32:51But yeah, if they say that if you see the wait time and it's like an hour until your car comes versus two minutes for Joe the driver to swing by. Sometimes you'll take that risk because my last Uber driver, I will say, I do feel like a female Uber driver would have a better smelling Uber because the last Uber I got into, the man I got in, I was like, he clearly crop dusted right before I got in. Not good. This is the most scatological Vergecast I've ever made. No, but I think it's also what it speaks to that's interesting to me, just to wrap it up, is that Uber thought since the beginning that this five-star system was going to be the end-all, be-all.

1:33:30You rate the driver, they rate you, and this is going to weed out all of the bad apples. Clearly, that has not worked out at all. And if anything, it has offered more opportunities for predators and other people who commit these types of violence to continue to do so. So hopefully, as they continue to tweak these features, we can see some more safety in the system. All right, Dee, you've got one last story to wrap this up. La boo boo. Hell yeah. Let's go, baby. Let's go into la boo boo. So Mia wrote a really great just write up of how hard it is to get a la boo boo and how these little freaky ass toys have gotten so popular in the last few months.

1:34:11And, you know, I am not saying that I wanted a labubu, but having read this and watched the social video, I definitely do not have it in me to get a labubu. Can I just ask you really, really quick? I refused, refused to learn what a labubu is for the longest time. What is a labubu? A Lububu is a creepy little doll that has these little ears and they're fuzzy on the outside and they have these little angry, toothy grins. They're part of the subsect of a thing that the Japanese term for it is Kimo Kawaii, which is like ugly cute. So they're ugly, but they're kind of cute. And they're just the next collectible craze.

1:34:58People are going crazy for them. like blind boxes if you've ever had a blind box which is like a little box that you go at like these that seems to be the thing that is really driving the crazy yeah yeah the mystery of it it's a mystery of it it's a little box you can get one of x amounts of figurines you open it and you're like oh what a surprise and then it like triggers into this primal collective urge that you gotta get them all like a pokemon uh so people are just going nuts over these labubus to the point where they're so hard and it's like artificial scarcity right so they're so hard to get there's labubu drops and people are just trying to get these labubus but they're also the thing that floored me watching mia's video right the drop there's like a drop and you have to like go into this app and you can't it was so it was gamified it's gamified yeah uh but you know a point that i really liked was that some people just don't care so they get lafufus and lafufus are the dupes they're like the the knockoffs so now like i see these tiktoks all the time people They're like, that's not a la boo boo.

1:35:59That's a la foo foo. And they're like, don't insult my la boo boo. That's a la boo boo. It's not a la foo foo. And I just have been like, what the hell are these things? What are these? So now we have a 3D printed la boo boo in our office. I did see this and it was beautiful. It's gorgeous. It's gold. It's there. We're not worshiping it. Just to be clear. We're not worshiping it. It's not a new idol in the office. But to be clear, we were jealous. And so, yeah, we made a we made it. We knocked her off our own. We had to. Because Mia did get a labubu. I don't know. It's going to take two months to get the labubu.

1:36:34I do not understand. Fundamentally, like, what is this mechanism to buy them? Why do you have to keep tapping things? It's just drastic. This seems like worse than buying concert tickets. Like, at least with concert tickets, you go in and you're like, I'm going to find out instantly the bots got them all. I'm going to be upset. But like, at least at least it will be over quickly. And this seems like you spend like hours like tapping your phone screen. I will not be, that's a little much for me, but just as an observer of the human condition, the labubu has just been like, what the, wow. I went to a Stray Kids concert in June, and my bias, which is your favorite member, he was up there, Felix, and he had a blue labubu on him.

1:37:14I was like, they got you too? They got Felix? Felix got a labubu now? Oh my God. And I was like, I guess I got to look up what a labubu is for real. Well, you know who has a blue labubu to flip? Mia. Mia has a blue LeBoubou now. I don't want a LeBoubou. My bestie, her parents went to the Louvre in France, and apparently they were selling a full LeBoubou as artist blind box set. Oh my God. And so it's like LeBoubou is indifferent, like a Van Gogh LeBoubou, Starry Night LeBoubou. And I went over to her house and she just had them all displayed. And I was like, Like, when did you get into La Boo Boo's?

1:37:53And her parents were like, we had to get them because they were at the Louvre. And I was like, they have La Boo Boo's at the Louvre? I just want to describe the experience. I'm watching Mia's video right now. And it looks like a pentagram appears on the screen and is swirling. They have to summon the La Boo Boo. And now you've got these stores saying that they're not going to sell them because they think that they're satanic. La Foo Foo. That's the La Foo Foo. I don't know. It's also just really fun to say. La Boo Boo La Foo Foo. la goo goo, la voo voo. We're like, I don't know, two weeks away from something truly horrific happening, I feel, with this trend.

1:38:29Either that or they're going to be the hot new Halloween costume in October. I mean, it's slightly better than the Sunny Angels, which are like the naked babies that come with Cupid, like Cupid mayonnaise. I'm old enough to remember the Beanie Baby craze. My grandmother got sucked into that, and when she passed away, we inherited her Beanie Baby collection, which was literally a trunk full of these that's what this is the boo-boos are the beanie babies of 2020 okay I thought they were maybe like the tiktok version of Funko Pops they are they're like yeah there's an element to that as well they're definitely they look more like Funko Pops especially if they're doing like different versions of them like a Starry Night one like that's that's the Funko model you're like I'm gonna do this branded one for like each character yeah it's gonna happen I like that there are dupes though I feel like that that That is a sign of a culture that is evolving.

1:39:24They also have lore. There's like the boo-boos have boyfriends and there's a mo-coco. And there's a whole lore. I went into it and I went like, I'm too old for this shit. But I appreciate that it's there. V, I'm going to need you to chase this down. Report back next week. We got to know, are the little boo-boos satanic? Are they corrupting our children? will somebody put a mic in them and make them into AI gadgets? Oh, that's inevitable. That's the future. That's it for the Thunder Round and that's it for the Verge cast. We are off next week. Miyasato will host Tuesday's episode when we come back on August 5th.

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1:40:40Our show is produced by Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, Travis Larchuk, and Andrew Marino. See you next week.

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