Our hottest and coldest 2025 takes

25:08What is Menards? Is this like a Midwest thing? Do we need to talk about this? I gotta stop hanging out with East Coasters. This is like the most deeply Wisconsin store in the world. Is that your version of Home Depot? It's superior. It's your version of Lowe's? Home Depot is corporate. Yeah. This is like I knew Menards when they were in the first album. I see. It's a hipster Home Depot. Home Depot is the chain smokers. I want to be very clear about the comparison that I'm making here. That works for me. I'm actually in on this one. I like it. I think somebody is going to buy TikTok. Yes. And I feel like Walmart's as good a bet as any.

25:41So I'm in on this one. And I just believe TikTok survives. So sure. That's your medium take. No, that was my like one. Yeah, the mild take would have been TikTok survives. That was my mild take. It was like all the social media survives and we get more. Right. Sure. Walmart seems nice. All right. So you're in. We're all in. Sure, I'm in. I love it. All right. I'll go next. My medium prediction, which I actually think might be spicier than I realized, is that someone in 2025 is going to make an AI gadget that like actually kicks ass and it's going to be a huge hit. This is your medium. This is my medium.

26:15Compared to my mild of Alexa is okay. Yeah. Like, I don't know. It probably won't be the Rabbit R2 or the Humane AI Pin 2 or, but like maybe it's the next meta Ray-Ban smart glasses that go like deep into more AI stuff. Maybe it's like AirPods something. I don't know. Somebody is going to make a gadget that is like explicitly about AI and it's going to be awesome and tons of people are going to want it. Okay. Actually, mine is similar to that iMedium take, but we should all vote on yours first. No. No? It's not going to happen? What about this Sam Malt and Johnny Ive thing? This is deeply related to one of them.

26:57I don't think the Johnny Ive thing is coming out this year. I have like three spicy takes and this is deeply related to one of them. Okay. Well, then you're not going to give it to me. So what was your spicy take that you're... Oh, sure. Yeah. Well, I'll just do it now. I'll just roll this. Yeah. This is a rebuttal. Yeah. Okay. That's a good order. AI conclusively proven to be a bubble. Ooh. Okay. It's Bluetooth. It's just, it's Bluetooth. Next year, Bluetooth is going to be great. AI is Bluetooth? AI is Bluetooth. Everyone talks about it the same way. They make the same lofty predictions about what Bluetooth is going to do.

27:28When did they do that? All the time. They were like, these headphones are going to rule. And then you're like, well, Apple had to hijack the entire Bluetooth protocol and make their own Bluetooth. Isn't it more like a different memory of Bluetooth? Isn't it more like AI's 5G in that case? Sure. Whatever garbage wireless protocol you want to use. Whatever garbage wireless protocol you want to use. Go for it. But Bluetooth in particular was like an enabling technology that never panned out. right that you would have an ecosystem of products all over you around you that were all bluetooth together the smart home would run on bluetooth low energy all that stuff exists it's there yeah because that's where i would think you were going you can go to the bluetooth conference you can go to the blue can you still yeah the sig do you remember still around do you remember when everybody was obsessed with the like retail bluetooth where you would walk into a store and it's like it would like bluetooth all the coupons yeah yeah oh yeah they still do that by the way just to track you that is super happening every time you walk through the door of a store in the mall it's like we found you again yeah and then people wonder why it sounds seems like everyone's listening to them no it's just because you existed with your phone and bluetooth which again the core benefits of bluetooth pretty mild because apple had to invent their own special bluetooth to make airpods work okay i have a lot of feelings about what he's saying do you See what I'm saying?

28:51AI is on the exact same trajectory as Bluetooth, only 10 ,000 times more expensive. Okay. There's not one product that is bigger than chat GPT that you can make with AI today. Okay, I'm not with you and I'm not with you. Okay, then where are you? I like that you just keep announcing this. Yeah. Where are you then? That's my job here. No and no. Mine was just a rebuttal. It's not a prediction. You did your prediction now. Well, but if yours is true, mine can't be. Okay. Right? Because if we get to - That is your spice. You chose your spicy. That's what you chose. No, that's not your spicy. That's a reject spicy that he's rebutting.

29:24Oh, so now you are getting two spicies? No, no. That's not a prediction. No point. If AI is a bubble, I get no points, which is I'm giving that up now in order to rebut David, who says the humane pin is going to be good. What kind of restaurant is this? You got so... Mila's just sneaking dishes in here. This is my new restaurant called Menards. No, he's saying, he made his prediction there would be a good AI gadget. And I'm saying that requires Bluetooth to be good. I'm going to get too spicy. I'm just explaining why I'm not signing up. Yeah. Okay. I don't think we're going to get a great AI gadget that everyone buys.

29:58Okay. Can I do my medium now? Sure, please. So you're both out on mine. I would like to respond to you. Just pick that as your spicy because then we can come back to it. Okay, fine. I'll add that to my spicy list. Pretty spicy. An appetizer. A Chili's too. Okay. My medium was that Meta releases another pair of the Ray-Ban smart glasses, but it has a display in it. It's like a heads-up display. There's been rumors of this. And I guess the more spicy version of this is that Meta continues to outpace Apple in the race for smart glasses. Oh, I'm extremely in on that one. Every day I become more radicalized that Meta did this right and Apple did this wrong.

30:47like the story of 2024. I am writing a column about that right now and I believe that. I love the Ray-Bans. I think the path they are taking is better than the path Apple has been taking. Okay, I agree with Meta continues to outpace Apple. Yeah, you agree with me on something. I don't think the Ray-Bans are any good. I sent mine back. That's because you have a big head. Yeah, you don't know how to use them. That's not Ben's fault. Those are different ideas. You can't agree with him. What she said, big head. Yeah. You have a big head and you don't know how to use them. You're dumb. There's big head, tiny brain.

31:23I get it. I understand what you're saying. Yes. Look, all of those things might be true, but I use them. And this is some Apple stuff, right, where they won't let the photos automatically go to your phone if you have iOS. They will let you on Android. I think the camera is, like, just fine. The AI stuff is, like, extremely medium. I could take the rest of this podcast to show you videos of all of the great moments I had with my kids in the Ray-Ban. While you're wearing sunglasses. Yeah. Do you not wear sunglasses outside? So you're only outside. So you have a - Inherently limiting product. You have a big head, but perfect eyes that are not bothered by the sun.

32:01Look, I listened to that Corey Hart song a lot when I was a teenager, and I stopped wearing sunglasses indoors and at night. I spend a lot of time outdoors. Yeah. I go running, tubing, skiing. I'm very active. Yeah. Very active person. I don't do any of those things. That's why transitions are great. The real legacy of the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses is making transition lenses. No, they did that in higher... Yeah, those transition lenses are not good. Those are terrible. Was that in a journal they did the story about how the transition lens company was going to take off because of Meta Ray-Ban?

32:35Someone tried to do a story. I thought it was a journal. Someone did a story about how transitions were in now. No, they're terrible. Because of the Ray-Bans. And I got the clear ones with the transitions. And I was like, these are still pretty bad. They're really bad. And then I boxed the things up and sent them back. They definitely still do the thing where you go inside and you still have sunglasses for 10 minutes. There was a kid in my high school that had transition lenses. And you know that is not good. And hopefully he's not a VergeCast listener. And every time I see them on the Ray-Bans, I think of him and I'm like, I look like this kid.

33:04And he was cool and handsome and is now in the NFL, right? Yeah, I'm hoping he doesn't listen to the VergeCast. I just want to be clear. I agree with the prediction. It could have been you. You could have been the one he broke up for. I agree with the prediction that Meta remains ahead in this category only because I think Apple will not launch something that is as good as the Ray-Bans, by which I mean they will have to make something better because the Ray-Bans are just medium. And Apple is a camera company, as Snap wants to say they are. But yes, I agree. I think that's true. I think Apple's likely working on this.

33:42And yes, it was the Wall Street Journal. The headline. These glasses were once a styled joke and now they're for cool guys. It's like, no, you're just a bunch of old guys. Oh, no, that was in 2024. Yes. Oh, no, that's right. When the right when the meta came out. That's wrong. Thanks to significant technological upgrades. Transition lenses are supposedly suave. Are these once dorky two-in-ones now the ultimate glasses? No. Okay. Did a transition lens write this?

34:16It's very good. It's very good. Vogue has a story from a... The cortical of transition lenses. They're terrible. Vogue has a story called transition lenses from now my entire personality. Someone is... The big transition is on the case. The transition lens... I don't know. How like there's and I'm still trying to do some reporting on this. If you work at Meta and want to get in touch. They're working on the heads up display in a pair of Ray-Bans. I think they'll probably be sunglasses, but maybe. Well, they'll probably have to use transition lenses. The display thing is going to be a big swing, too, because if that sucks, it actually it not only doesn't add more appeal, it actually kills a bunch of appeal.

35:00Because the thing that's nice about the ones now is they are mostly just sunglasses. Totally. I think they have to do something in between what they've been showing with Orion and what they've been doing with the smart glasses. And that is very basic information in your line of eye. And so. Just show me a text message. Right. That's it. And that's where I think there's going to be AI potential. I don't think that's a killer. I don't think people buy them because they have AI. Okay. So I'm with you a little bit on the like these gadgets are going to get better. And I've said repeatedly, the Meta Glasses are the best AI gadget you can get because they're not only about AI.

35:35So, okay, wait, for you, we're going to move on from this. Yes, we should move on. But the Ray-Bans, it feels like it's the three things are camera, mic slash speaker, AI. AI. Rank those three things for you personally. Camera, AI, audio. Interesting. So for me, it's audio first by a mile. Oh, and that's the thing. And then camera and then AI. Yeah. like I love them as like a pair of headphones or for like making calls and stuff like and but I've found other people are like why would I just want to shout into the air when I have yeah I can just wear AirPods it'll be fine Neil I sent his back so you don't get you don't think that this is going to run into the I use it to play music and set timers problem no I think it might but there are there are worse things

36:22like smart speakers we're supposed to do all these things and it's music and timers and you're like oh and then this category kind of just died yeah and now it's on my face yeah yeah like i don't know if there's a worse thing than the we spent a lot of money to set timers problem fair and i mean amazon has been trying to find places to put alexa on your body for a long time and has not found it yeah uh so all right we're we're all in on the specific one of meta is going to continue to outpace apple on glasses but only because apple's not going to launch anything that's my caveat there aren't no this is 2025 so the other bet that you're making inherently in this is that Apple isn't going to launch another thing in 2025.

37:00A face thing. I think Apple has done face computers. People will be launched something. They're like, okay, we put one computer on your face. Everyone breathe. Let's figure out what our next face computer is going to be. And then we're going to take it from there. Maybe they dropped the price? Of the Vision Pro. Yeah. Yeah, I'm saying. I don't think they're going to launch another face computer next year. Okay. And so, but definitionally, then I will stay ahead. Yeah. All right. I'm into it. All right. We're going to take one more break, and then we're going to do spicy takes. We'll be right back.

37:30Morning, 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 and see how much you can save versus the other big guys at tmobile.com slash switch.

38:02All right, we're back. Spicy takes. These are the ones, again, there should be a chance that this comes true, but if it does come true, you're not going to shut up about it. Yep. Okay. Good? Do we feel good? All right. I guess I get to go first this time. My spicy take for 2025 is that everyone is going to give up on matter and bail on the smart home. And that we're just going to get to the end of the year and we're going to have individual smart gadgets and that'll be fine. But this idea of the big, beautiful, interconnected smart home is going to cease to be interesting to almost everybody. Okay, Joanna, do you want to respond to this as someone who just fixed your garage after weeks of effort?

38:45Oh yeah, we should talk about this actually. Can we just, let's just do a one minute Joanna interlude on the garage because the people do want to know. Okay, can we get a music? Yeah. Can we get a music track under here? Just assume there's music playing now. Okay. It's happy. Like, it needs to be a happy track, like a little bit, like, whimsical. Like the Six Flags theme song. I will pick the music at a later time. You tell it the story. I'm producing. I'm producing. I'm producing right now. It happened. My garage now opens. I can't say it because if I do, my phone will open my garage at home.

39:22But when I say, hey, blank, open the garage, it happens. This is after many weeks of texts to Neelai, who responded three minutes exactly after because he scheduled them. This is after many weeks of people responding on threads. Ed's, thank you to all your listeners. We got a lot of feedback on the garage door. Yes, and I would like to apologize. Which ranged from you, idiot, this is simple, to this is the hardest problem in the history of the universe. To outright conspiracy theories about Fred Figuerini's garage. Yes. Well, I believe those now. I've come to, I understand this landscape better than anybody.

40:04Yes. Maybe not as well as you. And it is a very hard problem to solve. So those people that call me an idiot, you are actually an idiot. But I just thank you to the listeners. I did it. What did you have to do? Oh, we can't. It's too long. It's longer than a minute. Just explain the little adapter that they say. Okay. I got the Miros. Miros? How do you pronounce it? I think I always say Miros. Miros. Okay. I got the Miros adapter. I get up on a ladder. I sent Neelai a picture. I was wearing my Meta Ray-Bans for both music and for just taking photos and video of it. Therapy. Therapy. I was using the Calm app.

40:40Then we should get them as a sponsor. That's a good idea. Yeah. I get up there, I get everything all set, plug in into the sensor, put the sensor on the door. This is a whole complicated kind of wiring, not that, and it doesn't work. And it turns out because my LiftMaster is a newer LiftMaster from 2018, it is using some proprietary protocol to talk to the door opener on the wall and it will not work. They have DRM'd the garage door button and they have labeled it a security feature. And it's very good. They've DRM'd the hardwired garage door button. I guess there was a way I could have known this earlier, but I didn't like go through all the support forums to know because my learn button on my LiftMaster is yellow.

41:28And it turns out if you have the yellow button, you cannot use this. Then you have a DRM. But Miros, the geniuses at Miros who I've not gotten in touch with, but you are great people. Great people. They made a little adapter, which is really just the opener, like the opener you'd put in your car. It's a hacked opener that connects to the Miros. And so I get it. They sent it to me in the mail. And one week, again, thank you to the people at Miros. Please sponsor this podcast. I just love them. Apparently. They don't have enough money. They're making one hacked garage door repair. One a day for me.

42:13Anyway, they send this to me. I set it up and it works perfectly now. I just can I can I explain what's happening? I'd sent Joanna like a paragraph, excited paragraph of nerd speak. So they're like, OK, we can't push the hardwired button because it's DRM. Yes. But we can take a regular garage door opener that is DRM compatible with this and we'll just put a wire in the actual button of that garage door opener. Oh, wow. So that when you tell Siri to open the thing, our thing will push the button on the garage door opener. So there's just a wire coming out of a garage door opener. Because that is crazy.

42:49Can you imagine Craig Federighi knowing any of this information when he's like, the future of AI is my smart home? This is validating my entire prediction. I just want to tell you, David, that I told you I wouldn't do this, and I did not want to go down this route. I just wanted to thank everyone and tell them about my success. She's very proud of herself. I'm psyched for you. I'm very proud of myself. I now have a wire. Can you explain the one other bug that you had to explain to me, which is perfect? It didn't work right away, and why? Well, that was with the—oh, no, that was with that. It's very good.

43:18Okay, so I go away. Well, I don't even know why. I was in L.A., and I set everything up, and I thought it's working perfectly. but yet the garage door keeps opening and closing randomly. And my wife is texting me saying, who is opening and closing the garage door? And I'm like, not me. It should be working. It turns out when I pressed the learn button, it started picking up some signal from someone around the neighborhood. So whenever they opened their garage, it opened my garage, which almost led to divorce. So I had to get a garage guy who then came to the house It's very good song, perfect.

43:56And now it all works perfectly. All because you can't be bothered to push the button when you pull into the driveway. But you know what? The amount, like, this is where we need some music. The amount of happiness and true pride I feel now when I pull out of my garage and say, hey Siri, open the garage door, is, I may have never felt it before. And then 15 minutes later it just starts randomly closing and opening on its own. that hasn't happened in at least two weeks. I'm thrilled for you. We really, the smart home is getting to the point of humanoid robots to stand in your garage and push buttons.

44:33And that is stupid. By the way, this is doorbot. Yes. You could have just put a doorbot on the actual garage door button. But just back to what you're saying, this is why I don't think... Switchbot, not doorbot. I don't think Matter disappears. I think we actually see these tech companies double down on it. I think they're all going to start talking about how AI is going to be great for the smart home And we're going to hear it with that Alexa announcement. It's just like all these things. And this is the dream and our robots and the and the house is connected. And none of it is actually really material to real people because they have old shit.

45:05And they have different standards. And there's DRM in the freaking button on the wall. And it doesn't work. And I think we're going to hear from Apple this year because they're apparently working on this home tablet. And I think they're going to push matter and they're going to say they have to push. They have no choice but to push matter. Right. And no, no, they will not get an ecosystem of these devices. And a lot of these devices don't even have matter. Yeah. Anyway, you just think they're going to give up. You think? I don't know that they're going to. I just think everyone is going to stop caring in every like.

45:36I think they did stop caring. Maybe. But I like even the companies themselves who have been making these long, elaborate bets that eventually the smart home is going to become a thing that is like mainstream useful. I think everybody's just going to start walking away from that next year. because it's just not going to happen. Yeah. I mean, when you get a new house... Light switches kick ass. It's probably fine. We've probably solved light switches. I don't know that we need to worry about them anymore. No, enough of the light switches in our house are smart and do things just all on their own that actually once you get used to it, you're like, oh, this rules.

46:10Yeah. Right? Like, there's one level up. We're like, oh, this is great. My Rube Goldberg machine works really well. It's like a perfectly viable... But it's not a Rube Goldberg machine. I just bought some Lutron casetas and put them in the wall. And now when the sun sets, our house lights up. Will they sponsor this podcast? I don't know. Well, they have so much money that they own a custom slice of RF Spectrum, which is why their products work the best. It's a real thing. But I don't know if they want to spend the money on us. Those don't even go on sale on Black Friday. They just don't go on sale.

46:41Yeah, because they have their own RF Spectrum and they are the best product. What are you going to do? This is a real thing. They bought their own slice of RF spectrum that Brendan Carr, Trump's new commissioner in the FCC, is going to turn over to Elon Musk. When you interview him, I want you to ask about Lutron Casetas. Brendan, if you're listening, and I know you are, come on the show. Yeah. I'll ask you about Lutron Casetas. We'd love to have you. Tell me how your garage door works. Do you own a house? I do. You own a house? Yeah. Okay. I was going to say, like, if this is the year 2025 that David buys a house.

47:09Actually, a good prediction here, like an ancillary prediction to yours, is no one will come up with a smart home idea that compels you, David Pierce, owner of the most garbage TV in America, to do any smart home thing. Yeah, I love that. Right? Because I have a whole smart home. It's just doing stuff all the time. And I'm slowly trying to be Neelai. He's my mentor of the smart home. Nilai has never once described a use case and an amount of work to get to that use case that has ever made sense to me. I just described the garage to you and it is perfect. It's super not good enough. It is so good.

47:49What do you mean? I just sat next to you. My wife texted me and said, why is the garage door opening and closing by itself? But then our wives can talk to each other. Not a workable solution in my house. They can be friends. You don't want to build a relationship on that. that's not the foundation of a relationship that's good for anyone's marriage. It's bad times all the way around. All right. So you're both out on mine. This is great. Joanna. I do believe it's going to be a big topic next year. So that's... I hope so. I mean, to be clear, David's prediction is everyone walks away from matter.

48:23That's your specific prediction. I'm out of here. Yeah, I don't think that. I'm out of here. They're all in on it. Yeah, they can't. They have nothing else to do. I wish. I mean, I don't wish. I don't... Anyway. Okay, my spicy one. the mac gets a touchscreen we've done this like every year every time we've done predictions together someone has done this i know and we'll go i think i was trying to find the verge cast transcripts of the time i predicted and i can't find it but i believe i said by the end of 2024 i think the last time we did this we we set timelines and we were all wrong we were dieter was on the on the podcast yeah and um but i i i think we are coming towards that time One day we will get there.

49:03And I think... Is it just a Mac as you currently imagine it, but it's a touchscreen? Or does it change more meaningfully than that? They'll have to do something. What do they do? I don't know. Does it run iPad apps? It already runs iPad apps. But like, does it just get the iPad app store natively? No, I think they just keep it that way. Okay. I'm just looking at these touch targets being like, I don't really want to poke my menu bar. Yeah, I don't think they do it until they know why they're doing it. I want to scroll. I don't know that they even know why they make the iPad. Right. Like the iPad is an application environment.

49:43They're not like, here's why. They're just like, well, that keeps happening. And I don't think they're going to add cost and complexity to the Mac unless they have like a great reason to do it. And they seem to be selling enough Macs. I'm walking this all the way back. because I thought the last time we did this, I thought that they had reached a point with the Mac and the iPad where bringing them closer together was the only choice. Yep. And they have not only resisted that, they've pulled them further apart to the point where everyone's just like turn this iPad into a Mac. I think Apple Silicon changed that.

50:17Like I think if Apple hadn't solved like laptop processing, it would have been different and the Macs would have started to look more like the iPads. and vice versa. But now, like, the Mac lineup is easily the best it's ever been. Yeah. And is so compelling to so many people. Like, yeah, I tend to agree, I, years ago, would have thought that eventually the MacBook and the iPad in particular would eventually be the same product. I don't think that anymore. I, the spicy follow-up, whatever that is, the dip, condiment, hot sauce. If, if you could turn your mac into an ipad and gain touchscreen support yeah or you could turn your ipad into a mac and lose touchscreen support which one would you which one would you pick i can take my mac well it's the first option so you have your mac sitting right here and i can i can push a button and be like now this is an ipad and you get a touchscreen and i can take the screen off no whatever it's it's just that they can run ipad apps but it has a touchscreen it's an ipad And the other one is you got an iPad and a keyboard case and you're like, boom, hit a button.

51:24It runs Mac OS, but the touchscreen stops working. It's that. I guess that. See what I'm saying? I want a dockable iPad much more than a touch Mac. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a bunch of stuff you have to do. Like it would have to essentially like run the two operating systems side by side. No, I'm saying I'm making this hardcore. Okay. You push the button. This is now runs iPad OS. Yeah. With a touchscreen. With a touchscreen. it's a Mac but then when you run Mac OS it disables the touchscreen no it doesn't run Mac OS I'm saying this just becomes an iPad or you could take your iPad and you can run Mac OS and it disables the touchscreen so it's definitely an iPad with Mac OS see what I'm saying and I think this is same this is just the end of the argument I think for a long time because they don't know why any they don't know why any of these products have touchscreens except for the iPhone I know why the iPhone has a touchscreen they have not yet solved the problem of why the iPad So maybe I'm changing mine to that the iPad can run macOS.

52:24Yeah, that's the only rational answer. But that to me seems to the same thing. Mac gets a touchscreen, still macOS getting a touchscreen. I'll give you both as one prediction, that one of those two things will happen. That the Mac, I mean, it's really, it's like the Venn diagram of the Mac and the iPad smash into each other. I think they have figured out they can sell a lot of both. They don't have to solve this problem, and there's no pressure on them to solve the problem. until there's some sort of Windows tablet or Android tablet that provides an ounce of competition to the iPad. And I know there are Windows tablets and people like them and the Surface exists and that's a whole thing.

52:58They're not competition to the iPad. They're competition to the MacBook. To the Mac, yeah. Until there's one sliver of competition for the things that people use iPads for, they are just going to stay exactly the way they are. I tend to agree. Yeah. I was my other spicy one. You can't talk yourself out of your own prediction. No, I really want that to happen. That's why it's spicy and that's why it's there. But my other spicy was going to be that Tim Cook steps down and then the Mac gets the touchscreen. Ooh, Tim Cook can't step down when Donald Trump is president. I know. It's like, it's really unrealistic.

53:27He's got to call him every day and be like, I need you to not do these tariffs. No, I think they just brought him. Do you understand what I'm saying, Donald, that this time you cannot do tariffs? You like your iPhone, right? I can turn that off. No tariffs. And he's just got to do that every single day. Yeah, I think he has to stay. All right, last but not least, Neelai, what is your spiciest prediction? This is wild. Full spice. This is wild. Hit me with it. Google breaks itself up.

53:52Okay. They're just like, you know what? This is not worth it anymore. We're just going to spin off our own companies. Okay. This is the opposite of merger mania, which is a thing big companies do to create shareholder value when they're out of ideas. I think Google is just going to look at the marketplace and say that we're under a lot of regulatory pressure. And you know what? If we just spun off YouTube, just put it over there, signed a big lucrative AI training data deal for Google AI, and let this thing go be cable, the future of cable television and compete with TikTok and whatever. And that'll go public and the stock will go up and Google's stock will go up and everyone's stock will go up.

54:37And that's all anybody cares about. You can make the argument today. Absent the antitrust pressure. And you get to take YouTube away from the antitrust pressure. Right. And the regulatory pressure. Because now it's just YouTube. Does that solve Google's antitrust problems, though? I have no idea. This is my spicy take. Okay. But, like, does that solve the scrutiny of Chrome and the ad? Right. So all that's noise. Right. It doesn't solve those problems. It just takes YouTube away from them. Right. And let's Google say we've made ourselves smaller and less powerful. because now the second most powerful search engine on the internet doesn't belong to us anymore.

55:11It's over here, it's YouTube. And we can, you know, the fact that we all work together and we're friends and some of them in college, they're on the phone. And who knows what messaging app we're using to communicate because we not only delete all of our records, we have too many messaging apps for you to see. That's my spiciest take is Google solves this problem the way that big conglomerates solve this problem. What if Google does all of its like secret messaging just on Allo because they know no one is paying attention. Like no lawyer would ever think to like subpoena the Allo messages. So that's just where Google is now.

55:43They're just like one of their, this is why they've had so many. Right. Was Allo before chat or meet? No, it was after. Allo was with Duo. They launched Allo and Duo together. And Allo was the first one that was like, we're going to put AI inside of your chats. So when you say, do you want to go to the movies? It's like, oh, would you like to buy movie tickets? And that was a super good idea that everyone liked. and it went really well for google that was 10 years ago yeah the number of deter bone we have sorted out google's messaging strategy stories that we've written here it is here's the plan by deter uh none of them came to pass that's my spiciest take that's pretty good um i'm out on that one yeah it no one should set up i think i think if you had said to your point if i'm right no everyone will know you'll never hear the end of this yeah you they have to make you the ceo of youtube if you're right now officially they have to do it yeah i think i think if you had said google breaks up in 2025 i might have thought long and hard about signing on but google does it of its own volition that's why i love it someone breaks up google yeah fine that's it's we're headed that way google itself is like you know what this is really hard yeah just youtube you go have fun create some shareholder value it's for the good of the people yeah uh all right this is great stuff all right let me review then we're gonna get out of here uh joanna's predictions her mild prediction is that a year from now we're all still going to be posting to a million social accounts uh i'm in on that nila's out your medium take is that meta is going to continue to outpace apple on glasses nila and i are both in and your spicy one is that the touchscreen Mac and the iPad with Mac OS, some smashing together thing is going to happen there.

57:35Neil and I are both out. I hope to, the one I most hope I'm wrong about is that one because I want that to happen so bad. If that happens and we're at an event together, I will stand up and cheer. I deservedly so. That will be a good victory lap. Like imagine if Apple had made a television how insufferable Gene Munster would have been. Like that's what I want for you. I have never clapped at an Apple event. I believe the only, sorry, I would take that back. I believe I might've clapped when they announced multiple timers. And I've never, ever clapped at an Apple event other than that. But I will clap.

58:08I will. But then you have to say out loud, to be clear, I'm clapping for myself. Journalism. I love it. All right. Neelize predictions. The mild prediction, Alexa is going to be fine. Yeah. I even put the ellipsis in here. It's going to be fine. Fine. It's fine. I'm out and Joanna's out. That's rough. I think it's probably true, but I'm hoping I'm betting against. The medium take is Walmart is going to buy TikTok. Strangely, Joanna and I are both in on this. I love it. And the spicy take is that Google breaks itself up. We are not in. I'm giving you all versions of breakups, even though you specified YouTube.

58:47I think Google breaks itself up in any meaningful way is spicy enough that I'm giving you the whole take. As long as it's by its own volition. Correct. That's nice. And Joanne and I are both out. But that means I will take any little thing. Yep. Right? Because Google is also Alphabet. That's right. So if Waymo. Right. Yeah. Waymo. Waymo's not part of Google. It's part of Alphabet. And I don't think that's ridiculous. You have to decide. No, I'm still out and I'll still give it to you. Okay. Any alphabet company, but not one of the stupid moonshots that loses billions of dollars. I'll give you Waymo.

59:27That's basically the only other one I'm willing to give you. Fine. My predictions are, my mild prediction is that cable TV is going to pretty much totally die. Neal is out. Joanna is in. I still don't know what that means. I'm in if the most generous reading is like we stop talking about it. If I just make it the cable box business is dead and boring, would you be into it? Yeah, because it's already true. We should all just take the point today. It's not true. It's boring already, but it's not dead. And I think it got boring faster than anybody expected, and I think it's going to get dead faster than anybody expects.

1:00:05I think our minority investor Comcast requires me to tell you that the Xfinity X1 box is cool. Also, Disclosure, Neelai produced a Netflix show? Yeah, something. Subscribe to The Verge? I don't know. It's pretty good. All right. Do you want in on this one? This is your last chance. Yeah, I'll take it. Keep in mind that I'm deciding who wins and loses at the end of the year. Yeah, I know. You're going to give yourself this point somehow, and it's like, fine. All right. Neelai's in. Joanna's in. My medium take is that someone is going to make an AI gadget that actually kicks ass. You're both out.

1:00:39And my spicy take is that the industry and the world are going to collectively give up on matter. and you're both out. Out. Super out. Love it. All right. I think a thing that I don't understand is how many points have we all potentially signed up for? I don't understand this game at all. Who's to say? I got 12 months to figure out the answer to that question. What do you win if you win? I'm saying if Google breaks itself up, I win. Whatever that is. If I call that one right and Google does a voluntary spin of YouTube. Should there be more points for spicier takes? But if, yeah, he had so many spicy takes and then he also had that, I think that should be disqualified.

1:01:12Joanna's so mad at how much you got to talk. I've already won. The AI means nothing and AI is a failure. What was your other one? Yeah, the bubble pops. The bubble pops? No. That's not on the list. No, Eli doesn't get to have that one. Yeah. Okay, good. That's just... AI is Bluetooth. We should delete it from the podcast. AI is Bluetooth. Yeah, Bluetooth. That's too spicy for this podcast. It's funny because Bluetooth like never had a bubble that popped. Everyone was just kind of like, yeah, it's just not happening. I think a lot of people think Bluetooth happened. Do you find one person who thinks Bluetooth happened?

1:01:42like in the way that people thought it would happen right bluetooth happened in the sense that it's here and you use it right sometimes it works in your car and some people have one of those ue boom speakers but like and that's it is there a hundred billion dollar bluetooth startup out there like probably not right if that is you please email me like bluetooth was at the point where they're like meaningful bluetooth security threats yeah remember there's like blue snarfing yeah i do remember there was a whole ces where it was really just bluetooth stuff bluetooth stuff the happy fork yep bluetooth and it just didn't happen yeah i mean but some of it really did happen i once sat through an entire press event where they told me that they would combine bluetooth and wi-fi so that you would use bluetooth to pair to a gadget that would then provision it for wi-fi and then you would get the best of both worlds look at apple's whole strategy and maybe that sort of worked and maybe it exists it did not i know that you want to say like okay yes apple added their things to bluetooth to make it better clearly but airpods right they made up a forks bluetooth and layered it on top of bluetooth and no one else gets to use it but without bluetooth and their entire their entire explanation for why they have locked down the what's it now they're on like the h2 chip yeah is because bluetooth isn't good enough so they had to make their own Bluetooth in there.

1:03:04Apple would love to get rid of Bluetooth and just connect the Apple devices to the Apple headphones. The Apple Watch. I mean, these are massive businesses that Bluetooth were... I get what you're saying. It's not just the one thing. Apple made a set of proprietary extensions to Bluetooth in order to make those things happen. There's a Bluetooth underpinning. Alright. And maybe one day there'll be an AI underpinning. I'm giving us all... AI is Bluetooth is a take. We're all in. AI is not Bluetooth. Joanna's out. The bubble will pop on AI is actually the thing, and I'm just making a comparison. I'm saying, okay, AI is Bluetooth.

1:03:36We're all in. In the specific comparison. So we're not putting that in. That's not even a spicy take. It's not allowed. And all that's going to happen is we're going to be here next year. We're going to talk about this take. And someone's going to say, well, it'll be better next year, which is all they ever said about Bluetooth. That's the only comparison that makes. Okay. I like it. All right. We're going to do one more of these next week. We have some other fun 2025 prediction stuff to do. But for now, we're done. Thank you all. Appreciate you guys doing this with me. That's me clapping. I already won.

1:04:05All right, that's it for the Vergecast today. Thank you to Nilay and Joanna for playing this very silly game with me. And thank you, as always, for listening. There's lots more on, frankly, all of the stuff we've been making predictions about all over theverge.com. I'll put some links in the show notes, as many as I can think of, but keep it locked on the website. Clearly 2025 is going to be a year. We have a subscription now. Fun time to subscribe to The Verge. There's just a lot that is coming. And as always, check out the homepage. It's free. It's awesome. Have a peek. And if you have thoughts, questions, feelings, or other predictions for 2025 you'd like to get off your chest, you can always email us at vergecastattheverge.com or call the hotline 866-VERGE-11.

1:04:45We truly love hearing from you. Thank you to everybody who's called in with questions for the meta hotline that's running on Tuesday. Tons of fun stuff. That's a really fun episode. Really enjoyed doing that. And if you have more questions, keep them coming. We have a backlog of really, really fun ones we have plans to do stuff with. Hit me up. I'm ready for it. This show is produced by Liam James, Will Poore and Eric Gomez. VergeCast is Verge Production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. We'll be back on Tuesday with the meta episode that we've been talking about for a while and then back to our regularly scheduled programming for a couple of weeks before the end of the year.

1:05:15We'll see you then. Rock and roll.

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