HBO's no good very bad rebrand

27:23You can win and it works. It's hard. It's very hard and you cannot manufacture it out of nothing. But the fact that HBO has like built the culture that keeps this stuff coming is very impressive. And so to look at that and be like, oh, we're just going to sort of cast that off to the side. Then to only several years later turn around and realize, oh, people like good shows. It's just so backwards and insane to me, like to just completely ignore every actual asset you have and then turn around and be like, oh, we have these assets. Those are cool. It's like, what are you doing? Just drives me insane.

27:58The story of HBO is super fascinating and where it came from and this challenge of constantly trying to re-up the creative because the show's end. Right? It's just like it's over now. Like the White Lotus has to exist because the previous HBO – because succession is over. Right. Right? Like that has really always been the engine of HBO. We did a Decoder episode with Felix Gillette and John Koblen who wrote a book called It's Not TV, The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO. It's a great book. Which just details it. We'll link that episode. You should go read that book. But they've got to get back to that.

28:32It's not clear what engine makes the next White Lotus at HBO anymore. That's the problem. And if they are trying to sell it, it's also not clear who would buy it because that's just an expensive, risky proposition compared to here's a bunch of cheap stuff. We hope you watch it, which is kind of what they're all doing right now. I think Netflix should buy it and just rebrand as HBO just as for one day as a bit just to really knife David Zaslav again. Zaslav should be fired. I'm just going to say it. This has been such a disaster. Yes. That whatever board, and I realize he's the one who bought it and his company and his deal.

29:11And if you read the TikToks of the deal back when he bought Warner Brothers, he was the savior, right? He like pitched AT &T on this deal. AT &T needed out because they woke up one day and realized they were AT &T and this had been a huge boondoggle and he rescued it by engineering this deal he's obviously the source in all these stories all these stories describe the ballrooms and restaurants that they made the deal in and it's like dude you sucked so bad everyone saw it coming you pissed off everyone by canceling shows right away by taking tax breaks on things that were already done whether or not they were good just a mess, a creative financial mess from the start because this man does not know what he's doing.

29:56And if there's a board of directors there, in the same way that maybe Tesla's board of directors should take a hard look at how the company is going, and they won't, it feels like the Warner Brothers Discovery Board should take a hard look at what has happened to that company under this management and be like, maybe somebody else should do this. Maybe when we sell Warner Brothers, we ought to rethink this whole situation because this style of management is effectively the only product they have consistently shipped is layoffs. And Jake, to your point, it's not like this is a thing that is only obvious in retrospect.

30:30Everyone who was paying attention has been saying this the whole time, including their competitors who don't normally say things out loud about things like this, but who were happy to be like, boy, it seems weird that if you have HBO, you'd just stop calling it HBO. I really can't think of any other company that has had such a like obstinate position, right? Like, Eli, to what you're saying, they've just been fighting with everybody, right? Everybody's telling them this name change is bad. Everybody's telling them, hey, maybe you should release that movie everybody wants to watch. And they're just like, no, we're just going to like pocket it, right?

31:07We didn't, we're going to save a little bit of cash by not finishing it. Dude, they lost Christopher Nolan. Right, right. Like that is heads would be spinning at like any other functional studio. Like people would be would have lost their job over that. Right. People put so much work into curating a roster of directors that they can rely on and getting the best, you know, movies and shows and, you know, creators to their studio. those things take like ages to build and they just lost it in in i mean weeks right like he just right out the door and it's just been a few years of that and it is puzzling um what the strategy is supposed to be there yeah the fact that i had to watch oppenheimer on peacock is maybe the worst thing that david does left it okay now you've mentioned peacocks i need to disclose all right roundabout way their usual block of entertainment disclosures uh nbc universal whose parent is comcast is a minority investor in rox media they they hate us um or the comcast does and we'll get to why shortly um uh because we cover them as an isp like the thing that we do um uh i executive produced a netflix show which you can watch called the future of uh it pays us no money when you watch it so fine that deal that deal is long since over uh and in general we subscribe to all these streaming services i think there used to be more and we have a tiktok account it's at dakota pod it's like whatever you want it's we're we're all tied up in all these things um but you know it's not like these companies have any love lost for our coverage uh the nolan thing is like particularly interesting right like you have a director whose name alone allows you like we're going to spend 400 trillion dollars on a series of movies that are a deep introspection on the nature of love and memory and then they will all be hits cool it's like you don't lose that guy no one will understand any of them what and usually what we're just gonna we're gonna let that guy walk and it's because they insisted on on releasing day and date with the streaming service because they thought the streaming service was the point and if you are warner brothers the point is making the movies if you're hbo the point is making the great shows not the streaming service yes you need to have the business to support that effort but the thing that's valuable is the work you know When we talk about Netflix, they're quickly coming to a place where the thing that's valuable is the service and the work is just sort of fine and it's medium and it propels it along.

33:42And everyone is jealous of that. But you can't get there unless you have their scale and you never will. Even Netflix is starting to run into troubles with that, right? Like there was all this reporting a while ago about the after the huge Barbie hit Greta Gerwig is doing Chronicles of Narnia movies. And they had this big fight over Greta Gerwig wanted it to be in theaters because people who make films want them to be in theaters. Netflix was like, no, we don't do theaters. And so they had this big fight and eventually Greta Gargoyne won and it's going to get a theatrical run. So Netflix is desperately trying to get away from the work mattering in a lot of ways, but I think is still able to play that game the right way.

34:19And all David Zaslav seems to be able to do is just swing from zero to 100. Those are his only two moves. I don't really know what's in Netflix's interest at this point to not allow those theatrical runs, right? Especially if you're going to make movies that are allegedly supposed to be big budget hits. That's how you build buzz. People like seeing things in theaters. Don't get me wrong. It's great. During the pandemic when I could just be like, boom, Zoom, boop and watch Dune on the first thing. It's great. Love it. But if you're going to upset an entire community of people who you need to rely on to make the stuff that makes your business.

35:02Maybe you should do that. Right. Especially if it's going to make you a lot more money. There's just a vanishing number of people with the leverage to do that. Yeah. Like and I think it's in Netflix's interest to make sure there is never another Christopher Nolan. I mean, the F1 movie this summer is going to be a really interesting test case here because it is it is such a big swing. It's a big movie. It's going to be in theaters. It's Brad Pitt. a lot of people are paying attention that like it's going to be super ugly for apple if this doesn't work and i've heard a bunch of people who are really concerned that it is not going to work and unless this thing is a big giant hit uh it's gonna i suspect make every streamer look even more sideways at the idea of like really giving these things a public run like they don't share numbers for a reason and you have to when it goes to theaters yeah i have a lot of feelings for that f1 movie uh i suspect it will not be a hit just having watched the trailers i think they're trying to days of thunder f1 you know what i mean yeah and like days of thunder only worked because it was it was top gun again like literally it was just they were like well that was a great movie we haven't invented sequels yet it's the 80s we're gonna do top gun too but gun but on the ground yeah and it was like way more expensive and way worse and like lots of ways and whatever but like structurally that movie worked because you're like what Tom Cruise is going to do is drive faster than everyone else at the end of this movie and like F1 fans know that that is not a thing an F1 car can just do do you know what I mean?

36:39yeah they're all pretty much going as fast as they can all the time right and the cars are different in a way that NASCAR cars are like there's like a literally like a plot point in in Days of Thunder where they're like, you have to learn how to drive the car. And he's like, sure. And you can't do that in F1. Like, this movie is going to make no sense because they're going to try to Days of Thunder F1 and every F1 fan is going to be mad. Yes. We'll just see how it goes. It's going to go great. What could possibly go wrong? Also, the last Brad Pitt movie, the George Clooney, Wolves, on Apple TV, it was fine.

37:14It was extremely fine. It was the most plain movie I've watched in a long time. Yeah. I mean, it was like so deeply in a way that like you get the sense they were trying to make Mr. and Mrs. Smith again, but like George Clooney was Angelina Jolie. And you're like, well, there's still an odd amount of sexual tension here. Like, much more than I expected. Oh, yeah. I ship the two of them for sure. Yeah. Anyhow, we'll see how that goes. There's more streaming news in this zone because none of these people can stop asking you for money. Speaking of plans that have gone away and come back and once again risen, ESPN is launching its own app for$30 a month because I think they've realized the cable bundle can't save Disney.

37:58It's over. Fox is going to launch its sports app. It's called Fox One. It's going to launch for the NFL season. That's when you would do it. It's not technically just sports. It's also for, you know, right wing propaganda and various other things. But it's mostly for sports. All of these are mostly for sports. Yeah, because that's what they have the rights to. Right. And they've all spent billions of dollars buying these rights. Yeah. And, like, there's just moves that are – YouTube has Sunday Ticket. They're going to stream an NFL game for free when the season kicks off. There is just a thing here where, like, live sports is the last thing that can bring everyone together.

38:36Like, it's not even award shows anymore because no one's seen any of the movies. Yeah. Like, there's just a thing here that's, like, really happening. and it's at the end of this you're kind of like man that we're going to be paying substantially more than capable of those ever were oh yeah and there was a there was a great thing going around uh the other day after all this got announced because to your point that's you just named three new places to watch football this coming season uh and and now it's like you're up to legitimately like 10 streaming services you're gonna need if you want to watch all the games next year of the NFL season.

39:11Because like Netflix has Christmas games again. They're spread across all the different services again. Like it's awful. And it's only going to keep getting worse because that, to your point, is the only thing that these companies have found that lots and lots of people will reliably go to on purpose and jump through whatever hoops they have to. Like I will do whatever is required to watch football is only true about football and basically nothing else. There's also something interesting there. in that I can't think of anything else where like the rights are so spread out like that, right? Like it's not like YouTube can get one Spider-Man movie.

39:48Like that's just not a thing, right? With IP. But the licensing deals for all the different networks are so spread out and split up that you have the situation where I have no idea why YouTube was only able to acquire one NFL game. But people are gonna go find it there because they like football, they like the NFL, they're going to watch it. And you just can't do that with anything else. So they're able to get the property onto their platform and it just works, like beyond the fact that, yes, obviously sports is incredibly popular and people would watch it no matter what. Well, also, you know, the rights holders are differently situated.

40:26So if you are like, it's funny because Disney owns everything now. But at the time, if you were Marvel, you could sell spider-man to to sony and x-men to fox and the rest of the characters you would like make your own weird movies on with john favreau and that turned out to be a really big deal and they didn't know what would work and what wouldn't work right sports leagues every game is like it has a value in a moment of time and then that value goes to zero and so they are very much incentivized to not sell like franchises or long-running things to let people go and try to get value out of over time.

41:07They're very much incentivized to be like, alright, you can have Thursday and you can have Sunday and you can have the slate of games during the week because after it's done, there's no residual value. Right, they have to make an event of it. And that incentivizes them because they have to pay for that day. There's no catalog value. You can see they don't even really care about old highlights. something like right like they're just like whatever you can have it because all that is just advertising for whatever's gonna happen next in a way that like you know marvel gets tons of values from avengers endgame continuing to exist forever and it's like it's just a very different posture for the leagues and they are they have become incredibly good at milking it in a way that I would say has forced many people to consider sailing the stormy seas.

41:57And it's easier and easier all the time to do so. But no, I mean, and you look at it. You can get a boat for nothing. And like the way that you get all of this stuff is like the NFL in particular has done a really good job of getting around its own contracts. Like they keep coming up with new days to have games. They keep calling the games new kinds of things. They keep putting them in new places because they have these incredibly specific deals about where things can be and when. And I mean, if you remember, it wasn't all that long ago that Verizon had NFL games specifically on mobile, but you could only watch them on your phone because that was the deal that Verizon had made on mobile.

42:39So if you wanted to watch NFL games on your phone, you had to have Verizon. But if you had Verizon, you couldn't watch NFL games on anything other than your phone. Like the NFL is now worth so much money and it is the only thing that actually can claim to be an event that way. Like you're seeing baseball deals go down and other sports leagues are going down in their deals because no one is tuning in in that way. and people will not jump through hoops to sign up for Amazon just to watch a Cincinnati Reds game anymore. But they will with football games. And so the price keeps going up and they keep finding new ways to slice and dice it.

43:13And it is truly, truly awful as a fan, but as a Harvard Business School case study is pretty spectacular. It is very funny that even the NFL is slicing and dicing of its schedule into different days. The days have gotten reputations. like you just know that you can drink your way through a Thursday night football game that we find. Like the value of these different things it's funny how they just like sort themselves out. All right. We got to we want to end here again just remind everyone the only thing David Zaslav has ever created is layoffs. Yep. And Max was a disaster and he stole my child's name which I'm still pissed about.

43:54But now it's back. You're going to name your second child HBO right? Just to really bring it full circle. Baby boy Peacock Patel. Oh, I like that. Naming this kid's hard. It's very challenging. I will accept your recommendations. Max actually has a very strong point of view. And she's going to win because we have nothing. We have nothing to stand up to her with right now. So let me know what you think. All right, we've got to take a break. We're going to come back. There's lots more to talk about on this episode of The Verge House. Let's be honest. Are you happy with your job? Like, really happy?

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47:21All right, we're back. We're going to do it. We're going to pay off the thing that we teased in the intro, which I would say we have a 50 % success rate. Yeah. Seems generous, but I'll take it. We're going to do it. Lots and lots of news this week. Lots of gadget news. Lots of tech news. We got to start with like a finally. I feel like a finally is worth it. Apple has announced that what it is now calling CarPlay Ultra is going to arrive. It's shipping first on new Aston Martin cars. And then if you have a newer Aston Martin with the latest infotainment system, you can go to your dealer and get a software update.

48:00And then you too will have CarPlay Ultra. Then they announced, it's coming to a bunch of other car companies. Porsche is supposed to do it. They announced that Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis would also get it, which are new partners. No timelines in any of this stuff. CarPlay Ultra is a concept we've covered very closely. like so closely that when i was searching for our own coverage and i typed neil i patel carplay google generated a full ai summary of my opinions about like we there's a lot of us talking about over the years so several years ago with 2023 i want to say uh apple announced next gen carplay and it was just a picture of the you know an interior of a car with lots of screens and it was all carplay and we're doing it and they put up a slide if you remember this they put up a slide with like every carmaker's logo.

48:49And what we learned is that many of those carmakers were surprised by their inclusion on this slide. Like, they're like, what are you talking about? Because they all had regular CarPlay, which people like. And Apple was just like, of course they're going to do what we tell them to do. And they were not ready for this. A year later, last year, Apple had announced no partners for Next Generation CarPlay. They had said that Porsche and S-Martin would do it by the end of last year, and that didn't happen. And then like sneakily removed that mention from their website. Yeah, it got further and further away as time went on, it seemed.

49:24And then they announced a bunch of technical details about how this next generation car play would work. I wrote a lot about that. I took a lot of meetings. I've had a lot of car company CEOs on Decoder and asked them straight up, are you going to do this? And most of them have said no. Famously, Mercedes CEO Ola Kalanias said no. Rivian CEO RJ Scringe said no. We've had the heads of product from GM on. He was not impressed by this. There's a lot of car companies that are like, we are not going to give up our interface to Apple. We have our own ideas about software and services. You might think they're horrible ideas.

49:58And in many cases, they are. But they are their own companies and they would like to own their own relationships with customers. So Apple had to re-architect all of this from, We're going to take over all your screens and CarPlay will be the future of the car. To this literally multi-layered approach to what the car companies control and what Apple controls. All these like hybrid bits and bobs in the middle. It has taken them forever to get even one of these cars shipped with these deals in place. And the way I would characterize it is that it's a complete walkback. Like they're announcing CarPlay Ultra.

50:32And yes, there's all this stuff you can do in the car with your phone now. but if you just take a minute to like look at what it is you're like oh they it's kind of nothing like i i don't want to be like too rude it's it's something it was obviously took a long time and they had to do it but the actual the practical effect of it is so small i'm genuinely confused what they have put in all of this work for carplay makes a ton of sense right it is fantastic you can use your phone to control things in your car it gets rid of a bunch of the worst parts of car controls carplay ultra like do i need an ios themed speedometer like i that seemed like what else does it do what does it do for me that meaningfully improves the car experience what does it do for apple so i know exactly what it does for apple which is as you're using your apps in the car and you're pushing the buttons in the apps those apps are actually running on your phone and apple is collecting its 30 cut that's what it does for apple right it puts their operating system and their business model front and center as you're operating your car.

51:35That's a big deal. That's their business. And it keeps the automakers from putting their business models front and center of the car, which is the entire tension. GM's entire conception of itself right now is like, we're a software vendor. And it's like, are you? And I don't know if that's real or not, but that's what they want to do. They want to have services in the car. Tesla's conception of itself is very much as a software maker. So is Rivian's. They believe that they should own a customer relationship of people doing stuff in the car, particularly as a carster driving themselves. So for Apple, CarPlay Ultra is if you're going to buy stuff in your car, we want 30%.

52:10Apple, what else is their business model? I see. So this is a long play, right? I'm not playing angry birds in the car right now, but eventually, and it'll theme itself based on how fast my car is automatically driving right the idea is that that there shouldn't be another software ecosystem that you participate in your car right and you can not address straight line like people like carplay like we should do more with carplay and then there's this real tension in the industry over well eventually the cars will drive themselves and we're going to turn the all these screens into shopping malls and who gets the money and who gets credit cards and and that's just going to play itself out.

52:51What the automakers have really been wondering about is like, hey, we don't want all the cars to look the same. Right? You get into an Aston Martin, it should look different than a Porsche. It should look different than a Hyundai. So we need all this design control, which Apple did not want to give up initially. And so they ended in this place where I suspect CarPlay Ultra will just stop being relevant very fast. Because what they've done is they've broken the car's UI into layers. And so there's one layer that runs locally in the car that has nothing to do with your phone that has been themed by Apple and the CarMaker together that's like your speedometer, your turn signals, the odometer, which you can't screw with federally, right?

53:36Like there's some stuff that you just can't connect to a phone. Like it has to be there. So then the automaker gets that locally. Then there's the first time you plug your CarPlay phone into your CarPlay Ultra car, it like downloads a bunch of themes and graphics packages that Apple has designed in connection with the car maker, right? So I'm guessing what that means is Apple designed it for them. Knowing Apple, they did it for the car maker and that downloads to your car and then you get a bunch of themes through the speedometer and other stuff that are still local, like the car is doing them, but the design comes over the air from Apple through your phone and then you can like click through it.

54:17And then you get stuff like maps in the cluster and all the stuff. And then the last piece, which is, I think, super interesting because it's the thing that Apple, I think, had to give up is called punch through UI where the car maker has a bunch of stuff that it wants to do. The rear view camera, the controls for a fancy audio system, the massaging seat controls, like a lot of this stuff where it doesn't want to make it twice. right here's whatever custom fancy feature we've built for this car we don't want to redesign it with apple that just comes through carplay it punches through the carplay interface and so you push a button and you just see the carmaker's ui so now you have this like mishmash of stuff which is exactly ends the promise of apple will take over all the screens in your car because now it's gone from at least it's bad but consider now it's because now it's gone from it's bad carmaker ui but at least it's consistent to it's mostly apple design stuff and if you hit the wrong button the carmaker's bad ui shows up and you've got to use that screen and i don't i just like don't know how that's going to play out do you remember back in the day with like smart tvs everybody would do their really like overwrought skin on top of android but then you'd open up settings and it would just be like the basic honeycomb android thing like that's what this is And it's not good UI.

55:41But I also feel like there's been this macro shift since Apple launched this the first time three years ago. People want buttons. I just went back and looked at, there's a picture in Apple's press release happily announcing that it has launched CarPlay Ultra, which, sure. compared to the picture that they showed off when it was called Next Generation CarPlay at WWDC. Back in 2022, it was even earlier than I remembered. And the thing from 2022 is just screens everywhere, right? So the way it imagines this is sort of one wide horizontal screen all the way across the front of the car. And then big, huge infotainment thing in the middle that looks sort of like standard CarPlay only more so.

56:31So that was the idea. And that was how everybody was showing off concept cars back in the day. The Aston Martin one is a pretty small screen in the center of a console with a bunch of buttons. Like it just looks like a car screen. And so it's actually like a pretty small CarPlay display. And then Jake, to your point, the only new thing here is a speedometer that Apple designed that you can put Apple Maps in the center of the instrument cluster so that you can see it. You get a little tiny heads up display. And there's a couple different color themes. Yeah, like the ambition of this thing, at least as it's been rolled out now, again, there might be more cars, there might be other stuff going on.

57:11But at least this first instantiation of it is so much smaller than what Apple was pitching at the beginning. that it's kind of if it had just described this we would have been like oh sure that kind of makes sense that that's cool it's like a it's like an extension of the look of carplay onto the other screen that you look at in your car but again functionally it is not right the thing you're going to get from we skinned the cluster is between the speedometer and the tachometer is a middle display that can show another view of carplay apps yeah which lots of cars already have now right so like functionally yep the apple designed the speedometer and the new estimate is like oh that's that's nothing right like right and then it's the center carplay experience is still the same as it was if you look at the picture it's still just a grid of icons it is it's not meaningfully new in that way except some more controls have been integrated into carplay and because of punch through ui you can push a button and like adjust the fancy speaker system using the native interface of the car maker.

58:16But that was a click away before, right? It wasn't that. It was just like functionally, it's not that much more different at all. If Apple had announced that in 2022, it probably would have shipped in 2022. You know what I mean? Like if it had just explained it that way, the way that you just explained it, all the automakers on that slide would have been like, yeah, sure, fine, whatever. You want to let it show Apple Maps between the speedometer and the tachometer while you're driving? Sure, great, fine. And they did because the original CarPlay, which by the way, will continue. Yeah. They're just going to keep making regular CarPlay.

58:47This is CarPlay Ultra. That is going to continue where you still get mirroring of maps onto the center cluster. And lots of cars have that. And in fact, every time another car is launched with it, people have been confused because they assume that that is next generation CarPlay. And we have run story after story being like, no, that's just regular CarPlay. Next-gen CarPlay is when your phone begins to operate the interface of the car directly. All of the screens directly in this weird hybrid fashion are operated with Apple-designed products that come from your phone. Right. The idea was that you should be able to control the temperature of the cabin through CarPlay.

59:27Right. And so that's one that's really interesting. If you look at Apple's own designs of what an HVAC screen should look like, it's not some beautiful Johnny Ive reinvention of an HVAC screen. It's not Steve Jobs showing all the old smartphones and being like, here's why they suck. Like, here's the new idea. It's just an HVAC screen. Yeah. Like, down to, like, the weird sliders and the sync button for the multiple zones that, like, every carmaker has. Like, they didn't actually do it right. It's just Apple design riff on a very standard HVAC screen. So if you're a carmaker, as these cars come out, I would say the HVAC screen is the thing to look at to see how important this is.

1:00:06because the car makers give that to Apple, then they think there's some value there. If they do the punch through UI where they just show their own HVAC screen, you will know they do not give a shit. Yeah. That this is just another feature on the spec sheet. Every car YouTube review that I've ever watched that literally, whoever, it doesn't matter who it is, Doug DeMuro, Forrest, Marquez on the autofocus channel, they wave at the center screen and like, it has CarPlay and Android at them. And they just move on because they don't care. Yep. Right? And like, that's how you will know that this thing matters or doesn't matter if everyone just punches through their own HVAC controls.

1:00:41But the other thing that has happened is we've gone back to buttons. Like, again, you rewind three years ago and there was this idea that actually what we want is a car cabin full of screens. And overwhelmingly, customers told car companies, no, you know what I want is buttons. I want to I want to be able to feel the temperature control so that I don't have to look for it while I'm driving down the highway. and like company after company has gone back to saying, okay, we're going to actually have physical controls in the car. I think there's one other thing driving. I agree. Buttons are great.

1:01:43buy a car with buttons, It has a music widget that is just like the progress bar of the song. It's got to be three feet wide. Yeah, it's incredible. You know, we have a passenger screen in our Grand Cherokee. We've never turned it on. I had all these dreams that Becky would drive me around. I would watch football on the passenger screen. And it's like five HDMI dongles later. I'm like, nope, I'm just going to watch it on my phone, which is almost as big as the screen. I test drove a Cadillac Vistic for a weekend. It's great. So their new three-row electric EV. I'm going to write about it. It's great.

1:02:16It's a great car. It has huge screen in it. Like one of those big curvy Cadillac OLEDs. And I was just like, what is all this? What do you, I have three maps open right now. I have a three foot podcast time elapsed slider. Like, what is this for? The new Escalade IQ, which is even bigger and has even more screens. You're like, oh, this is, it's 10, it's 10 maps. like maybe maybe like three different app applications like why not let's have a good time and i think they realized the utility of these screens was dropping like there was nothing to use them for really people weren't using apps and shopping on them and the customers were like we hate touching these screens yep and yeah i think apple got caught into that like larger trend but i also think they they just oversold what they were trying to do and all the car makers like why would we give you our customers this way and all the customers were like i don't care about any of this yeah and we still get a lot of notes whenever we cover carplay um i'm not a carplay fan i we we use it in our older cars i bought a box i have this like 2016 mercedes c43 it does not have any like it's the worst screen in the world uh and i bought a box i literally unplugged the radio and i bought a box that sits you plug the radio into the box and the box into the screen and it hijacks the screen to put CarPlay on it.

1:03:39That's great. This is like I upgraded. It's a total hack. And that's like fine, right? Sure. But we don't use it in our cars that are good. Like my not garbage cars, we don't use this thing. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And kind of the number one is CarPlay is a single application interface. You can get widgets, right? So you can have a music player and the map open at the same time, but they're both widgets. They're not actually the apps. Right. And what we want is the map open and the music player open so you can, like, screw with it. So we just mount a film like everyone does. And this doesn't solve that core problem.

1:04:15Hold on. Hold on. Statistically, everyone uses CarPlay. This is not true. It's not true. Lots and lots of people. Now I'm just going to issue bug requests to Apple. What is this show for? So if you look right now on, like, various support forums, they just changed CarPlay so that no matter what you're doing on your phone, phone, it happens in CarPlay. And the thing that a lot of people have figured out was you could take Google Maps out of CarPlay. You can open a CarPlay preferences on your phone and you can take Google Maps out. You just hit the minus button. So then you have Google Maps open on your phone and your music or podcast or whatever running on CarPlay, which was the number one use of CarPlay.

1:04:58When we hear from listeners or readers about why they like CarPlay, it's, I have 45 audio apps. Yep. Right. I have whatever ebook reader I'm doing. I have not my podcast apps. Like they're all perfect. I don't want to mess with them. I don't want to log in to GM's weird Android instance. Like I just want to use my apps. They curated my phone. They all have CarPlay. They go on that screen. That's fine. And then a lot of people were taking Google Maps out. So they could basically have two monitors. Yeah. And they would mount the phone with Google Maps and they would have the music and CarPlay. And Apple broke it.

1:05:30So you can take Google Maps out. And then the phone is still like, no, we're sending this to CarPlay. And there's like furious forum posts about it. Because that's a lot of people were still using that to have two different screens at once. Sure. Including me. And I'm very annoyed about this. I'm just complaining about my almost 10-year-old car. It gets me nowhere with anyone. But like there's something there that's really powerful that Next Generation CarPlay doesn't solve. But that even like GM's like crazy, like giant curved screen kind of solves. because you can put Google Maps in the cluster and it's just Google Maps.

1:06:05And then you can have the music player and it's really big. And it's like, oh, with all the screens, you should just let me run two apps at once. And they haven't quite gotten there. Maybe they will one day. I mean, this is from the company that makes the iPad. Are you shocked by this fact? Again, it's like your point about buttons is there, but it's like, oh man, they put in all these screens in the car and they forgot to build any apps for that. And they forgot the number one, like why do people have three monitors? It's not to run one big app.

1:06:33you want to run like that's what you want lots of windows like i want three linear feet of one app in my car i just want to call one thing out apple gave one publication early hands-on with car play i believe it's top gear we embedded the video top because you can watch it it's great almost everything is our reporting like down to like mercedes ceo like alania said he wouldn't use that's us that's dakota and then the explanation in that video of how it works, that's us. We wrote that story. Again, when you just ask Google about CarPlay, it's like, Nila hates it. It's very fun. So we're going to get our own hands on soon.

1:07:10I'm excited to play with it. WC is coming up around the corner. Very interesting they announced this weeks before WC. In another world, this is a highlight announcement, right? And there's an Aston Martin sitting there and everyone does hands on the Aston Martin. But they announced it early. You wonder if they're going to have more at WC or if this was a distraction from that. All right. I can continue complaining about CarPlay. Let's not. Are you sure? I got another 20 minutes. That's what Decoder is for. That's true. Go watch the CarPlay. Literally no shade of Top Gear, people. It was just very funny.

1:07:43I was like watching this video. I was like, oh, that's just, that's source testing it. There was one thing in that video that I really appreciated, which is that he too is confused about when it's wired CarPlay and when it's wireless CarPlay because he plugged it into his car and it launched the thing that said set up wireless CarPlay. And it's like, which one did I do here? Which is a feeling that I have constantly all the time. Next, CarPlay Ultra is only wireless. That plugin is just the initial download of assets. So you plug in your phone. I see. The phone is like, I've got a library of assets for car makers that Apple has designed with everybody.

1:08:16We're going to go update the database of assets and then download the right ones to your car. I so fundamentally do not believe in the idea that I should have to have an iPhone in order for my car to work properly. Like you're just, this is the problem with CarPlay Ultra that I have always had is that does not make sense to me. The fact that my car is somehow not feature complete unless I own an iPhone is just backwards. This is the other thing that why is Apple with this? They could just throw in an iPhone for the cost of an Aston Martin. That's not a huge... Honestly, anyone who buys an Aston Martin can afford several iPhones.

1:08:55Like it's a it's a principal thing for me, like my my phone and my car should not require each other to have a complete experience. I'm fine if one wants to add to the other, like, sure. And CarPlay and Android Auto are like interesting competitive experiences or whatever. But if my car is not feature complete without my phone, we have done something wrong as a society. Fundamentally, I agree with you and you are correct. as somebody who primarily experiences cars via rentals um it drives me crazy when it has a baked in thing um i just right my phone has everything on it it's fully up to date it has all my preferences boom plug it in easy done um i am like i find that to be just delightful um sure you are correct that uh a car should function um david i can get you in a 2008 db9 for 17.5 tonight and then i can buy the carplay screen on tiktok and we're good to go i'm cooking yeah all right just in honor of the fact that it's a very chest i'm gonna quickly shop for cadillac escalades uh while david moves on to whatever's next uh we should talk about the android announcements just for a couple of minutes here uh so google io is next week uh and i think google just has a lot of other ai stuff to talk about so they just did all the android stuff early um they announced a bunch of new stuff for android 16 including a whole new design language that they call material 3 expressive which is a stupid name for what i think is actually like a very cool yeah looking thing like it's just really funny that looking at phones have gotten they've gotten so much more like sterile and straightforward over time and google is like what if it's like playful and colorful and everything was purple.

1:10:43And it's very Gen Z and I'm like very cool and young. So it worked for me too. And I just, I don't know. I like it. They're making the animations more playful. There's a lot more for developers to do in terms of like fonts and widgets and sizes and shapes of things. And users can customize it a lot. And I've given Material U kind of a hard time over the years because it was just like, oh, your wallpaper has some brown in it. What if everything was brown? But there's something about this and the idea that actually, yeah, I should be able to make everything look the way that I want instead of just Apple's weird idea about tinting that I've come to really like.

1:11:22And I think Google is like onto something here. Yeah, the new design is really fun. I am a little skeptical of the implementation. Material U, it is not a big jump from Material U, right? It is fundamentally the same thing, just made a little bit wackier. And if you use lots of different things on an Android phone, um you know the the implementation of material u has not changed i think basically at all since it was announced like four years ago right it's the same five widgets right and you still see in the material three expressive whatever it is uh you know demo slides that they're showing uh it's this it is the same weather widget and the same clock widget that we saw four years ago right those are still on my home screen because those are the only widgets that theme themselves properly right like I really want a step counter widget, right?

1:12:13Google owns Fitbit. They have Google Health or whatever it's called. Neither of those have a material expressive whatever widget, right? A lot of apps now do support the icon theming, which is great, but not all of them do. And there is something truly awful, by the way, about when your home screen has a bunch of apps that all fit the theme and then like two that haven't updated. And it just there's nothing that kills a vibe quite like the one app that steadfastly refuses to play nice with the operating system. Yeah. And I think like unlike on look, Apple has made some, I think, some errors with the way they have done theming.

1:12:47But I do think that one thing Apple has to its advantage is when they do something, their developers listen. And so when Apple changes the theme of its operating system, which we may see next month, I suspect you'll see a lot of app developers, you know, moving forward to update and theme in that style to reflect what the operating system is supposed to feel like. And I don't know using Android apps that most of them reflect the feeling of material you or material design or, you know, whatever is coming next. Android feels different and it's nice and I think it looks lovely. And there are places where those effects are able to be added into third-party apps, right?

1:13:27Like I see the little squiggly playback line on the Spotify widget in the notification shade. It's great. It's nice. I want to be clear. I think the design is really fun. And I think the Android has become sort of a much more lively-looking operating system in that way than iOS. but I think like coming up with this big design refresh is step one and step two is following through with it. It is having people make widgets. It is having people support theming and Google did not do that with Material You and it is not clear to me that they have a push behind Material 3 Expressive either. So that is where my skepticism is and I hope that they are able to get some people on board with it because it would be really fun and delightful to have all my icons be the same color and have all these fun, you know, widgets.

1:14:20The bar is on the floor, Jake. Yeah. All my icons be the same color. Right. It's not happening. This to me is so indicative of how weirdly Google has started to handle Android. Like for so long, Android had versions that it launched that were a thing. Like Google would do a bunch of updates to Android at once and be like, look, a new version of Android. It had a dessert name. Like it was a thing. And that has just stopped now. Like we don't even really pay attention to new versions of Android anymore, which is like maybe a failing of ours, but I think it's mostly a failing of Google's. No, no, no.

1:14:54I mean, this is the thing. A couple of years back, we were like, hey, we reached out to Google. We're like, hey, did you guys say the word Android during this Google I.O. keynote? And they're like, uh yeah you know and then it's okay that we had we had missed but they were specifically not mentioning android version numbers because they want to blur it they want it to just be like they're these iterative things well it's because it is such a disastrously fragmented yes thing that if if they don't tell you what version number it is you can't put up the chart with how low the updates have been to that version number right and like apple made such a meal out of it every year showing all of the phones that have been updated to the new iOS versus all of the phones that have been updated to the new Android.

1:15:37And it was always ugly. And I think Google just rather than try to fight, just kind of gave up and decided to hide. And I think that is a bummer. There is a back and forth there, right? The cynical view, which is correct, but cynical, is that Google is largely a base operating system supplier to Samsung, at least expressed in this country. Samsung is all the Android market share. And it doesn't matter what Material 3 expressive is because Samsung is going to put one UI on top of Android and that's what you get. And all that really matters is does Google push security updates fast enough for the people of Samsung phones as the operating system vendor.

1:16:15And the capabilities of each successive operating system version are now very small, even in iOS world, right? The real differences between iOS 13 and 14 are nothing. Right? It's nothing. Like there's some stuff your phone will insist on summarizing your text messages even if you turn Apple intelligence off. That's a feature that exists on iOS now. But the sort of like incremental value to app developers to users for successive operating system versions is just smaller and smaller every year. Okay. So that's like the very cynical view. Like Google has blurred these version numbers because really it just has to provide base Android to Samsung, which will then do One UI stuff, and it doesn't matter because the whole point of Android is search volume.

1:17:04Sure. And now maybe Gemini queries, right? And there's a whole interest route about that. The less cynical version of this is that actually creates freedom for Google's design team to say, it all looks different now. Right? We're pushing the boundary of what Android can look like and feel like with things like Material 3 Expressive because no one will be mad at us when we change it because no one has it. Right? A bunch of Pixel owners will be excited because they signed up for this. This is why you buy a Pixel. At the end of the day, is to get Google's vision of Android. So if we make it different, they'll be excited because they got something no one else has and that will create whatever exclusive you're on with Pixel.

1:17:44I don't know if that actually works out, but that's the argument you would make. It's like the less cynical argument of like the opportunity that's created by the fact that Samsung is the volume player in Android and Google can be like the very tip of the spear. Has Google done a great job being the tip of the spear of the Android ecosystem? It has not. No. And I think that's the opportunity they're missing. Those can both be true at the same time, right? That is, Google has lost control of its destiny in that way. But it has moves it can do even as kind of a bit player in its own universe. And that's - That's so sad.

1:18:18I mean, that's what it is. But that's, and that's fine. But I think, Jake, to your point, like the challenge for Google has been to like propagate its good ideas. And I think just pitting what Google launched this week next to all of the stuff we've seen about what's coming from iOS, which is this like Vision Pro based everything in sort of 3D space, even more like cold and sterile and space agey look. I'm vastly prefer Android. Like the ideas about what your phone should look like, I resonate with what Google is up to so much more than what Apple is up to. But until and unless you get at least enough people to buy into this, that it feels coherent and good, it's going to feel the way Android always has, which is like a mishmash of a decade's worth of ideas.

1:19:09And that feels bad. And so it's like that Google has always struggled to get to that tipping point where it's like, OK, I actually understand what this thing is trying to do. And it feels consistent no matter where I am. And Android never feels consistent. They have guaranteed that the home screen on Pixel phones is going to look really cool for the next three years. Yes. And I think it's very possibly going to end there. And I hope it doesn't. But that is what it is. Yeah, no, I think that's right. And it's the thing Google is invested in, in like a real way, is making sure Gemini is everywhere.

1:19:43And Google is fine if you don't take its aesthetic ideas, but it is going to beat you up until you put Gemini everywhere. Or pay you lots of money, which it's paying Samsung lots of money. Yeah, it's going to beat you up with dollars. Just throw money at you. Mr. Beast at the YouTube up front Mia Sato was at the up front and she said Mr. Beast got on stage and says no one tells you how heavy money is which is an all time quote because he's the one with two cases full of money and that's Google they're like Samsung would you like to know how heavy this money is do you think he understood the true emotional depth of that sentence no one understands how heavy money is he's like wow we'll see I'm excited for IO.

1:20:26I think from everything we've heard, there's going to be a push towards Google's next set of platform ideas around AI, around mixed reality, around all this stuff. I think that stuff would be exciting. It's weird because Material 3 Expressive, there's an argument that skeuomorphism is coming back. These very tactile, very real feeling textures. And I don't know how that plays with all of the other kinds of experiences that all these companies want to build. You don't want a bunch of like weather and felt in your AR glasses. Like that's really weird. That's just super goofy. And I think that's why Apple is headed towards this like sterile, like literally it looks like Aero glass from Windows back in the day.

1:21:06Like they're headed towards computer interfaces because if you want the real world to come through your glasses, you want computers on top of it. And Google's in this other direction. And we'll just see. I'm sure they have some idea about how it comes together. That's kind of what I'm interested to see at IO. Yeah. Agreed. All right. We should move on. Wait, hold on. Before we move on, we just need to just brief shout out to the public reemergence of our good friend and former colleague, Dieter Bone, who was on stage, virtual stage, stage, quote unquote stage, doing stuff. And boy, were people excited to see Dieter.

1:21:42Yeah, basically just doing phone hands-ons. Yeah, he just did phone hands-ons. He just was, he remains Dieter. It was nice. And he was like the surprise treat at the end of the video. You should go watch it. It's great. Yeah. But he's like, look, this one opens. That one closes. It's very good. Dieter still loves phones, and I will forever love Dieter for loving phones. Yeah. I'm excited for IO. I assume IO this year, this is next week, is just going to be Gemini Talk, like top to bottom. Like, here's everything we do better than ChatGPT. Yep. That is certainly the vibe that I'm getting from all the rumors and reporting so far.

1:22:19as like Google is, I think, clearer than ever about what it's about as a company. And the thing that it is about is Gemini. Feel about that however you want. But Google is going to the pivot to Gemini is very, very real. There's this got unearthed in the docs of one of the Google trials, internal notes from Google meetings that they are thinking of redoing the entire search stack with an LLM as the base. Oh, wow. This is a big deal. That's where we're at with Google and Gemini. Yeah. So we're going to go there. I'll be there. Our team will be there. Lots of interviews, lots of hands-on, lots of probing questions about whether the web.

1:23:02That's my job at Google. I just walk around being like, what about the web? We'll see how it goes. Love this. It's going to be great. All right, we got to take a break. We'll be back. It's a lightning round. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin? Or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app.

1:23:38Download today. Every great company's story is defined by moments when the founders make bold decisions. These are high-stakes moments that risk the business, but can lead to greatness. I'm Rulof Boota, managing partner of Sequoia Capital and the host of Crucible Moments. We're returning for a brand new season. Join us as leaders from Stripe, Zipline, Palo Alto Networks, Klarna, Supercell and more. Share what it's actually like to navigate the make or break decisions. Crucible Moments is back on October 23rd. Until then, catch up on seasons one and two wherever you find your podcasts.

1:24:25Morning, 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. Check them out to see how much you can save versus the other big guys at T-Mobile.com slash switch.

1:24:58All right, we're back. The lightning round. Unsponsored for flavor. Can I actually, can we do a digression about sponsorship and flavor? Sure. I have a lot to say about what's going on in the world of advertising. I always say that we're unstopped for flavor because I want people to think when they hear sponsor integrations, oh, there's less flavor here. You can't pay to tell us what to do. You can go read our ethics policy. Our ethics policy is basically you can't tell me what to do. Which if you can get into a line of work where the thing you're selling is the inability of anyone to tell you what to do, like I highly recommend it.

1:25:35I'm not saying digital media is a great or stable career, but one thing it does offer is the ability to say, you cannot tell me what to do. It's good. That's what I like about it. And that's what we sell here. Subscribe to The Verge. That's what you're buying from us. Everything else is turning into the worst kind of marketing integrated sponsorship that I can possibly think of. Yeah. And it's like everywhere now. So we were talking about Warner Brothers Discovery and Upfronts and all these media companies are having them. Warner Brothers launched Storyverse this week where you can just buy their IP library and make ads out of it.

1:26:13I hate this so much. Like, you know how they did Bateman versus Batman? That's part of Storyverse where State Farm showed up and they're like, we'd like to buy some Batman stuff. And Warner Brothers was like, yeah, you can make ads out of this. That's what this is for. It's to turn it into advertising. And now they've done a couple of these pilots. And I'm not saying these ads were bad. but like their business model is now we make this ip and you can show up and turn whatever is in our catalog into advertising this is the thing that makes the most sense of all of the zazz love actions right like it all comes back to this right like oh we have things that people like that we can wring more money out of yeah absolutely and you know it's funny they announced this name change and we were looking at all their press releases and emma who like was covering this i was like The actual story here is this ad product where their catalog, the whole Warner Brothers catalog is now able, it's for sale, to be remixed into advertising.

1:27:11That's what it's for. We're so few steps away from, and we've uploaded a bunch of assets for you to use generative AI to just make ads against. Put this right next to Mark Zuckerberg's thing that he was talking about where he's like, we're going to let you make AI ads. And it's like, we're going to let you make AI Batman ads. It's just right there. And it's right there. It's been there in the background of all these companies for a long time. So NBCU, Comcast, our favorites, their sponsors for SNL 50 this season were getting sketches on air. So like Maybelline was a big sponsor and they did a bunch of stuff with the cast.

1:27:47And VW was a big sponsor. And every episode of SNL had that sketch, The Californians. Yep. But it was just a VW. But that was marked as advertising. You know that sketch, the Jennifer Coolidge, Ariana Grande? everyone's Jennifer Kulidge sketch I think Dana Carvey was in it Maybelline Maybelline is a title sponsor of SNL 50 and they got a sketch on air that went viral because it was very funny but that's just integrated brand advertising and what is that sketch? It's just all of them saying Maybelline 50 times like what and that's like whatever it's a comedy show integrate the brands, product placement, all you want okay here's the last one this one like drove me over the edge this week there's a new documentary f1 documentary on netflix about kimmy antonelli the new driver for mercedes it is literally a whatsapp commercial like when you open it on netflix the interface you know where it says like what the show is about the first words are sponsored by whatsapp it doesn't even tell you what it is the like literally the first things you see are sponsored by whatsapp and then it's like the story of kimmy antonella taking over lose hamilton seat in the mercedes and then you start the show and you know it's just like a 40 minute documentary about like the 17 year old kid getting to drive a car like this is catnip for me and like in the title sequence it's like presented by whatsapp and then the the the doc is tons and tons of fake whatsapp conversations and staged WhatsApp video calls.

1:29:21Oh, that's really weird. Right. So everything you said until that is like, I'm like, fine, whatever. Like get your money to make your documentary however you want. Art and commerce shirt, knock yourself out. But then. Yeah. Like Toto Wolf calls Kimmy Antonelli to tell him to take, you know, he's getting the job. And the first words he said in that call are we've set up this WhatsApp call. Oh my God. brutal also the video quality i call horrible horrible advertising and like you know i like post on blue sky about this and people are like you know race cars are all about advertising and like um you know the team speak button on the steering wheel in mercedes is a whatsapp icon because they have a long fine whatever get your bag i don't care i'm just saying the actual content is advertising now yeah like these things have collapsed like we are just viewing advertising to a point where the first line of the description of the thing is this is a whatsapp commercial and then you watch and you're like oh this is super a whatsapp commercial i have a friend who's been in like every kind of video production like movies tv shows advertising uh and his he's like the end of this is someone is going to win the academy award for best picture and the producer who accepts the award will be an advertiser right the the end of this collapse of everything turning into marketing everything is an ad for everything on youtube is an ad for ag1 like that's all it is like everyone's just trying to build these channels so that they can do branded content integrate in the thing and at the end of it you're gonna be like best picture goes to coca-cola it's this is his theory and i have laughed at him for years and i watched this whatsapp thing i was like that feels that feels kind of right anyway unsponsored for flavor do you know i mean so okay here's there's WhatsApp can't tell me what to do.

1:31:12This whole conversation, we're going to run this episode as a WhatsApp video call. I have said WhatsApp enabling a lot. So you never know. We don't even get paid for it. Maybe we're the idiots. I mean, in many ways, we are the idiots. Everyone else is like driving their Aston Martins around. That's all I'm saying. I'm buying$200 boxes from Amazon to retrofit CarPlay into my 10-year-old car. It's a very different world we live in. But I much prefer not being told what to do. And I assure you, all the people who do these integrations, they get told what to do. The best career advice I ever got was from somebody who told me that every time you do well in your career, you're going to get to choose between power and autonomy.

1:31:58And you should always choose autonomy. That's pretty good. That's good advice. Anyway, if you'd like to continue to support us, just yelling at companies and not being able to be told what to do, you can subscribe to The Verge. That's the engine that powers this whole little operation. That's how Eli gets his Aston Martin. Look, I'm telling you right now, I can get you into a 2007 Escalade with 159 ,000 miles on the clock for$89.95, David. I mean, I'm down. We go splitzies, the three of us. If you want to go up model, if you want to spend a little bit more, I get you into 2014 Platinum. platinum slayed now 98k on the clock 16.9 no i think i think we go we go smaller because we're going to retrofit it as our mobile podcast studio so you're going to rip out the inside yeah because we don't need the fancy stuff every time i despair about the car industry i remind myself that you can just buy an old escalade for no money and that is a viable option it's like the best thing you can do with your your car budget is like i'm i'm buying an old escalade i'm not saying because it's like a great or reliable car that the previous owners have treated them well.

1:33:03I'm saying that at any moment, if you're like, I'm a little in the dumpster, I can just buy an Escalade. That does make, I feel better. Do you see what I'm saying? That's real. Like, I can get one. $89.95. All right. David, it's time. Oh my God. Now we have a countdown of these. We only get to do so many of these until we have to stop for a minute. Both of my children will be doing them. It's time for America's Favorite, Podcast Within a Podcast. Brendan Carr is a dummy. All right. This week on Brendan Carr is a dummy, we have what I can only describe is a moral dilemma. Unlike, I guess the other ones are not moral dilemmas.

1:33:40It's just moral outrage. It's moral outrage. Usually on Brendan Carr is a dummy, we present but one story, which is Brendan Carr, who is a traitorous moron, shows up and says, I would like to use the power of the government to chill your speech. And then we point out that the First Amendment exists and Brendan's ideas are bad and that he should feel bad about himself. And then we essentially threat invite him. to come on the show and defend himself. Yeah. That's the, that's the structure of the thing. It's, you know, you buy the box of cereal, you get the marshmallows. Everyone's happy. We, we sell what we sell here.

1:34:09That's the structure of running cards. I'm, I'm, I'm aware, right. You got to hit product. You got to sing your hits, you know, today, this week, we're changing it up. All right. We're going country. Uh,

1:34:25because it's, it, I can't identify who the villain of the story is, except for everyone. And then you have no idea what to do. So this week, our boy Brendan threatened to investigate DISH Network for not using the spectrum it obtained after T-Mobile bought Sprint. And it was given Boost Network to run as our nation's fourth wireless carrier. Oh, we have a real worst person you know makes a great point kind of situation. You see? Don't worry. There's a twist coming. Okay. But that's the heart of it, right, is Brendan woke up and he realized, for a reason that I will come to, that it turns out Dish Network is not a viable fourth wireless carrier in the United States.

1:35:14that Project Gen5Sys, their plan to somehow use AWS and a technology called OpenRAN to very quickly build a fourth national wireless carrier came to nothing. By the way, it's called Gen5Sys because it's called Genesys with a five. This is a real thing. I'm not kidding. We've done a lot of coverage of Project Genesys over the years, Project Gen5Sys. And it has effectively come to nothing. It launched in like two markets with one phone, like a Motorola Edge. We sent Mitchell Clark to like use this phone back in the day. And he was like, this sucks. This is in 2022. Nothing has happened since. 2022.

1:35:54At one point, there was an entire crypto scam grafted onto the back of Project Genesis. Like everything except building a network. And if you'll remember, this all came about because Brendan's predecessor at the FCC, Ajit Pai, under the first Trump administration, rubber-stamped T-Mobile buying Sprint. And the solution they came up with to the reduction of competition in the United States was to say, okay, you can buy Sprint and you have to sell some spectrum and boost to Dish Network, which is going to wake up and realize that it's a viable national wireless carrier and preserve competition so that we will still have four national carriers in the country.

1:36:36This was their plan. They allowed this merger to happen, which resulted in thousands of layoffs and higher prices because we reduced competition. And they said, Dish Network will fix it. Dish Network is going to stand up a new network using this new technology called OpenRAN, which is interesting. Open RAN is the idea that the hardware and software inside of a cell tower should be more interoperable. So more companies can provide it. And this is the way you avoid big dependencies on a company like Huawei, which is controlled by a Chinese government. This is a real problem. And the way we're going to do it is by making things interoperable to promote competition.

1:37:12That has not played out. I would just point out. It's like none of this happened. It was all a good idea. It's probably the kind of stuff. Dish Network did not build the network. So Brandon has noticed this has happened. And he wrote a letter to Echo Star, which owns Dish Network. And he said, I've directed agency staff to begin a review of Echostar's compliance with its federal obligations to provide 5G service throughout the United States per the terms of its federal spectrum licenses. They hold a number of FCC spectrum licenses that cover a significant amount of spectrum. You haven't used them.

1:37:40Obviously, Echostar says it warned its investors that we have made a wireless network. No one can see it, but it's there. And then it, quote, cannot predict with any degree of certainty the outcome of the FCC proceedings. One, because I think it can predict the outcome. And two, because you can't predict Brendan. Right? Like, Brendan's going to be like, have you thought about being 25 % more racist? You'll be fine. Like, that's like a normal outcome of a Brendan Carr investigation. Okay. So here's the twist. First, Brendan is investigating a deal his own predecessor made. And no one can predict the outcome.

1:38:13At least all the company. So that's one. That's weird, right? Why is Brendan doing this? Come on. You already know. Everybody knows why. because SpaceX wants the spectrum and Brendan wants to give it to his buddy Elon Musk. This is getting so boring. It's like at least, like I was genuinely in this moment rooting for Brendan to have like made a good decision that it's like, and in the name of journalistic credibility, we're like, we got to give Brendan one this week. But no. But I don't know. It's true that I've railed against Dishnour. Sure. Stupid idea for years. But where did this come from?

1:38:49What's the evidence that Brendan is tying this investigation to? SpaceX said one of its satellites measured the power spectral density levels in the bands that DISH Network has and found that DISH's use of those bands is diminished at best. So just SpaceX is like, look, hey, we took it upon ourselves. We pointed one of our satellites at the entire country and measured the spectrum usage. And trust us, bro, they're not using it, so can we have it? And Brendan immediately fired off a letter saying, you're not using it? I've opened an investigation. SpaceX says, SpaceX said the spectrum that Dish is using remains ripe for sharing among next-generation satellite systems that seek to finally make productive use of the spectrum for consumers and first responders.

1:39:32First of all, the spectrum was being used before they sold Sprint to T-Mobile and gave the spectrum to Dish Network. I'm not saying Sprint was a great company. They sucked in a variety of ways. But it was, in fact, using the spectrum. But it was using the spectrum. People did. Yeah. And then finally make use of this spectrum for consumers and first responders. It's like, yeah, all the other companies exist. Like if you would like to get first responders better cell coverage using the spectrum, you would give it to one of the companies that actually operates a wireless network. Right? That would be the outcome.

1:40:06You wouldn't be like SpaceX. Can you horsepower up a new solution? The same way you ask Dish Network to horsepower up a new network. What are we doing here? So we'll see what happens. There's a bunch of reporting about this. We'll link to it. But this weekend, Brandon Carr is a dummy. He has done the right thing for the stupidest possible reason. And the funniest thing about this is it's his predecessor's deal. They promised us when they made this deal, allowing T-Mobile to buy Sprint, the Dish network would meet its commitments to stand up a fourth wireless network using the Spectrum, using the Boost assets.

1:40:44and everyone knew, just like we knew with Max, that this would never happen. Never in a million years would this happen. And every time we reported on it and the reporting consisted of, we're going to go to Las Vegas and see if there's a wireless network there. They would be like, you don't know what you're talking about. Ridiculous. Don't let the mergers happen. This is just more merger chaos. Do you know what the best thing to happen to the American wireless industry is? the single best thing that's happened in the past 15 years to the American wireless industry, AT &T was blocked from buying T-Mobile.

1:41:19Yeah. That's by far the best thing that happened to the American wireless industry. And then they uncarriered. Yep. And they hired John Ledger. AT &T had to pay a bunch of money in a breakup fee at T-Mobile. So T-Mobile got recapitalized. Important. Important piece of puzzle. But that only happened because they were blocked from buying it. And then John Ledger showed up and said, what is this industry? I have to be competitive now. I'm going to do a bunch of stuff to make this industry more competitive, to win some customers and try to succeed instead of just cashing out and letting AT &T burn money making four, four, three grayscale Batman movies.

1:41:54Compete. It makes everything better. As always, I would respond to the many critics who show up to say that I'm just some woke DEI hire by pointing out that the only consistent opinions that I expressed on the show regarding politics are that free markets are good. competition makes for better products and you should be a little bit less racist than brendan and that's all i'm really asking for if you think that's super liberal that's fine but i i don't know about that uh anyhow that's been brendan cars of dummy brendan as always if you have the wherewithal the emotional fortitude or even the raw intelligence to show up and defend these back ass words decisions you're welcome on our shows you the fanciest ceos in the industry show up on decoder and defend themselves to me and they're able to do it i don't think you can do it.

1:42:37I don't think you're going to show up. I think you're a dumb coward. But if you want to, the door is always open, my friend. Maybe he has Project Jenna 5, sis, and just can't access this podcast. Yeah. He's out there collecting one quarter of an NFT at a time every time he sends a text message on his boost mobile phone. That's been Brennan Carr's Dummy, America's favorite podcast in the podcast. It was a great one. I treasure them all even more now, knowing we will have to take a break because God help Jake if he has to do this every week. I'm going to have Neelai just do a little voice memo on his phone.

1:43:09I assume he'll have some crazed moment in the middle of the night when he needs to let out some steam. We'll just play that right into the mic. Can you imagine if you could send a letter to the FCC being like, I've graded my own homework and I should get the spectrum. I mean, we should have just been putting that at the end of all of our articles. Like, hey, this dish thing isn't happening. Can you give it to us? like we'll use it yeah i it's just very funny that you pointed a satellite who knew that works and just like measure this guy's user it's like you don't have to do that much work man you just have to be like does this exist yeah you can go to the website project jenna5sys.com it's still there it's it's called the jenna5sys5g.com and the the last media and press update Like the newest one is from 2022.

1:43:59And the headline is Dish adopts Verica's chaos engineering platform to test and ensure reliability. It's like, oh, God. First of all, chaos engineering is the new name of our product design firm. And I'm very excited about it. It's like teenage engineering, but like much worse. It's chaos engineering. And that's us. I believe it's a riff. You know, Netflix used to have the chaos monkey. Oh, yeah. which was its reliability tester where it would simulate just like people pulling servers out of the racks. I think that's what this is, but it's just very funny that they put out a press release. I don't know, man.

1:44:39Anyhow, Brandon, if you're listening, I can get you into a 2015 Cadillac Escalade luxury for 18.7 out the door. All right? Let's talk. Yeah. All right. We need a power cleanser here, David. What do we got? Can we talk about Airbnb, which is like all the only thing I can think about the last 48 hours? So Airbnb this week, basically like it wants you to think it completely pivoted the company. And Brian Chesky is out here. Stephen Levy had a big piece in Wired. Amazing photos in that piece. Oh, they're very good. And it says the headline is something like Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode, which I'm sure Airbnb is not wild about.

1:45:17But it's kind of true. And it describes this like fever dream that Brian Chesky had in which he decided to completely change what Airbnb is doing. Ironically, in the middle of all of the open AI chaos that we covered, he was like a central figure in sorting all this stuff out and was like somehow inspired by this to go create similar chaos at his own company. so they go through this whole thing and Airbnb is now trying to pivot hard into being more than just places to stay but they're doing experiences which they've kind of done in the past but they're doing much more aggressively now and then services like local services where you are I guess I just find this all very weird like Airbnb seems to want to be fancy Yelp but with transactions in it that's the difference you never transact in Yelp.

1:46:10Yelp is a search engine. And you're like, find me a hairdresser. And then it shows you a list and there's reviews and whatever. But you don't do anything else. You just use it. And people have a list. This is very much more like, I need a haircut. I'm going to open Airbnb and some vetted barbers and hairdressers will be available to me and they will come to my house and cut my hair. While you're on vacation. Or if not. I do think the single most interesting thing that they changed here is when you open the app, there's three tabs it is like places to stay uh experiences services the default tab that it opens to is the experiences tab which is just not what airbnb is known for um so i i think like you're right nila they are pushing this very hard and um there's a world where you just open this and you order a private chef for the night to your house where you live even when you're not staying uh somewhere on vacation i i think it's sort of a weird concept um but it makes a lot of sense right Like if you're only using Airbnb for one thing, then it's only one place that they can make money.

1:47:15But now if they can sell you experiences to do while you're in that place, if they can sell me experiences to do while I live here in New York City, like that is a big new market for them. And that is actually that is a market no one is doing a very good job of. Like, I don't know if you guys ever have this experience, but I have it all the time where it's like, oh, what's going on near me this weekend? And the answer is you check 58 websites and you end up on like an event bright listing for a thing you've never heard of. And that's the best you can do. And at various times, different companies have tried to tackle the like what's going on around me problem.

1:47:48Nobody's ever done a very good job of it. And I think you're right, Jake, that there is a big opportunity and a big business there in being the one that is like anywhere you are, even if it's at home, if you want to like explore and find stuff to do, come here. Airbnb makes a certain kind of sense as that platform, except that it's been trying to do that and failing for a really long time. And so now to double down on that, but then also add like, I just don't know that I'm on vacation and I want to find a place to get a massage is like an unsolved problem. Right. And it's everything on there is like a little hokey right now.

1:48:26And admittedly, it's touristy stuff. Like, that's fine. Right. But it's like, do a pizza tour. Right. Get a photo in Times Square. Well, I mean, you're in New York. I was like, that's what you're here for. It's fair. You may as well do it there. But yeah, I'm not sure if that is what is going to solve it for people, right? They have offered these things already. And maybe it just feels more legitimate because it's now front and center in the app. It's certainly more convenient, right? You were probably going to go on that pizza tour. I mean, I'm thinking about it. Brian Chesky is actually on Decoder tomorrow.

1:48:59As we're speaking, I'm preparing to interview him tomorrow about all this stuff. This is, I think, his third time on the show. He's great on Decoder. He loves explaining how he thinks. So I'm very curious if he's doing the same thing that I've seen from other companies. Like Uber just had an event this week. Dara Coaster, Shaiway, the CEO of Uber, also taped to Decoder this week. And, you know, their whole thing is like route sharing and scheduling your commute and Uber One subscriptions. And all of these companies, they were kind of like push a button for a service one time or a few times a week or in Airbnb's case, like maybe a couple times a year.

1:49:33They're like, we want you to use this every day. Like that's how they're going to grow. They all think they're going to grow in this way. Like you need a relationship with Uber. And you're going to schedule a commute in Uber that you do every single day. And you're going to have this like ongoing relationship with Uber. That's a big part of their growth, right, for revenue anyway. It feels like the same move for Airbnb. Well, and in the same way that they're like, we have this core underlying technology that like Airbnb is fundamentally like a guest and host matching platform. Right. And it's like, if you, if you just expand that out, you get to, well, people need to book things and people need to have things booked.

1:50:09So sure, we'll do that. But like, there's a lot of those out in the world. I don't know. I just, I'm, I am. Maybe you're right, Nilay, that being the one that processes the payments and manages the payments. as it all is meaningful. But I'm just not sure. I'm like, if I want to find a place to have dinner near my Airbnb, I have a hard time imagining that the first thing I'm going to do is open the Airbnb app. Well, I mean, that's their challenge. I got to teach people to do that. I think that side of it is like different because there's 10 chefs available in my area and it's like, yeah, I have no idea how to get a private chef, especially if I'm on vacation.

1:50:51And I think there's a lot of people that are like, okay, my whole friend group is going to rent a house. And it would be sick to have a private chef. And now it's a button. And if you can just build that muscle that's like, oh, I could do that at home. There's something there. Again, I'm excited to talk to Brian Amar. I share a lot of these same doubts. Will you ask Brian if he has any friends who aren't billionaires? Because the thing you just described is a billionaire problem. I don't think it's a billionaire problem. I think the reason people get big Airbnb houses is because if you can split the cost with enough people, it starts to feel reasonable.

1:51:26Right? And I've never actually booked a private chef. I don't know if the math works the same way for a private chef. I'm still scrounging pennies to buy a Cadillac S for$89.95. But that's how that math works for a lot of people. Right? We can all get our own hotel room or we can pool our money and get a sick house for a weekend. Like I hear that all the time. if you can add on to that i mean this is my entire thesis about limos in las vegas right like it's no fun to be in a limo by yourself like that's the saddest you can be is drunk in vegas alone in a limo like that that is as drake as i've ever felt my entire time but you you put 10 people on the other day this is the best experience i've ever had right and there's just something about that that you can see them trying to tap into here I don't think it's I need to find a restaurant near me I think it's some other thing that's like can we make this a little bit more special as a group that's fair and I can see that working I just don't think that road is very long like there's just not the list of things that qualify under that rubric just isn't huge I do want to make one addendum to my limo comment which is one year at CES I got a Cadillac Escalade limo from the airport by myself and I took it to Shake Shack by myself.

1:52:45And that ruled.

1:52:50Las Vegas is the only city in America, in the world, I think, where you can just summon an Escalade limousine. You just walk outside of a building and be like, do you have a giant limo? And 10 guys are like, oh yeah, here I am. Can't have that experience anywhere else in the world. That's what it's for. I mean, I know other people think Vegas has other purposes, but - No, that's it. That's the one. there yeah it's that's what it's for all right we gotta we interrupt this up i'm gonna ask brian jesky how many people he's ever if he's ever been drunk alone and alone tomorrow that's good let me know if you've got your choice by the way uh party speaker update um speaking of that many many many photos of party speakers this week uh on on like on transportation we got one on an airport shuttle which seems deeply rude like don't do that no confined spaces are not where party speakers go lots of Nashville bachelor party bike buses with party speakers on them.

1:53:43That's a thing. And then here's the thing I want to know just to wrap this up. So many pictures of party speakers, maybe a company called Ion, which I believe is a house brand of one of the major retailers. I'm not sure if you know what Ion is. If you know who run Ion, let me know. That's the next phase of our investigation. Cause I think they'll talk. I've been trying to get onto the Sony party speaker team for years. like I've gone to the highest levels of the Sony Corporation and been like I know people in Japan I will send them to the party speaker team and they're like not today that's some like Apple Design Lab shit you know what I mean like the room where they put the cup holders and the party speakers and guy people alright that's it that's Verge Cast and that's it for the Verge Cast this week and hey we'd love to hear from you give us a call at 866 VERGE11 The Vergecast is a production of The Verge and the Vox Media Podcast Network Our show is produced by Will Poore, Eric Gomez and Brandon Kiefer And that's it, we'll see you next week

1:55:07or this tea time you, or even this tea time you. So did you hear about Dave? Or even tea time, tea time, tea time you. So update on Dave. It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great. And Doug. Here we have the Lemo Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. fascinating it's accompanied by his natural ally doug uh limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us cut the camera they see us only pay for what you need at liberty mutual.com liberty liberty liberty liberty savings vary underwritten by liberty mutual insurance company and affiliates excludes massachusetts