The beginning and end of the iPad

29:07That is an achievement. That's cool as hell. That's like I'm a computer nerd. I'm happy I did computer nerd stuff. but the ultimate problem which is you have to fight the computer to get it to be a computer remains as true for the iPad today as it did in 2013 when I was running iOS 7 and I think my answer to you then given that question is like I'd rather take the weird sideways windows because at least it's going to do everything that I want it to do without some like putting on armor and just going to war with your yeah just like running into like the brick wall of Apple's business model Apple's like we're gonna distribute all the applications to the app store we're gonna take 30 % of all those buttons like and that will and if we open that up on the iPad then we're terrified that we'll have to open it up on the iPhone we're already being brats about opening it up on the iPhone like no like it's gonna be like this this is the future of computing and then you're like is it it really doesn't, it feels just like they made a hobbled Surface device.

30:18Like, to be clear, my dream Surface device in 2018. But a hobbled Surface device, right? Down to the fact that you have to choose the processor, the storage, like the markups are high to make it functional. So the thing we don't know, the thing we don't know is like what's going to happen in June. That's true, that's true. When they rev iPadOS. And that's what, to me, David, I couldn't tell if while you were at the watch parties, and they had one in New York and one in London, like maybe the vibes are different all around the world. But for me, sitting at home, watching it in the glorious Dolby Atmos of my own home.

30:54Apple, by the way, did not stream this thing at any more than like eight megabits per second. So it was not in Sony Bravia Core. Yeah, it was at 48 kilohertz Atmos, which is great. But I mean, come on, where's the resolution, man? You're going to show John Ternus whipping around the BART holding an iPad? I want the full – anyway, I was like, man, like I can't wait until next month when they finish this product. Yeah. Exactly. It just felt like, OK, you've announced this thing that we've already seen before. We've already heard the pitch that this kind of computer is really good for creatives because that was the whole pitch, right?

31:30It was like, look, this is for creatives. I was like, yeah, I heard that from Microsoft and HP and everybody else back in 2018. I know that now. And you've heard that from Apple about the iPad. Yeah. It's like, okay, show me. And they're like, yeah, we did it. No, no, but show me where it's actually good for creatives now, where it's actually that useful computer. All you've done is like crush a bunch of stuff with a hydraulic press. Wait, I want to come to the crushing. We'll get to that. Yeah, yeah. That's another thing. I'm curious, David, if that came through at the whatever the – I mean it wasn't like a full event, but I'm curious if it came through there.

32:00I think it was hard to tell at the event whether this was the end of something or the beginning of something. And one way to look at this event is that essentially Apple like finished the job of the iPad, right? They said this over and over and over again. They're like, this is the magical pane of glass, right? Like that's the thing they've been wanting to build for a really long time. And like they built a really nice one. It has an outrageous amount of raw horsepower. It's really light. It's really thin. The screen looks awesome. Like you could make the case that they have been sort of working toward this particular iPad since the beginning of the iPad.

32:36And I think like they said over and over, this is the biggest day in the iPad since the launch of the iPad, which like objectively not true. But if you want to look at it that way, this is the end of that journey in a certain way. Like I genuinely don't know how much further you can push the actual details of the hardware here than what this is now until we get to like rollable displays and something. It's like, this feels like an end point in a real way. Or the flip side is this is the thing that is going to empower all of the things that Apple's going to launch in June. And that was all the stuff that they were sort of intimating with the AI stuff and talking about the features and, you know, leaning on we're going to have more to say about the future of the platform in June.

33:16I don't think this running Mac OS is the answer for the iPad. And there are a lot of people who are like, the evidence is everywhere. They're going to have Mac OS on the iPad. Like, no, they're not. It's just not going to happen. but if there is a next turn for what the iPad can be and do and like a fundamental shift in the use case that's when this feels like the beginning of something right and now they're like we have a different kind of hardware with a different set of accessories and a different performance envelope that can actually go do all of this new stuff and this is the story everybody has been telling us about AI for like damn near two years now and none of it's really been true so I'm not ultra confident that Apple is going to have like massively improved the state of the art of AI and has solved all the features for everybody in June.

34:03But this did, it felt very much like this is the vessel and we're going to fill it a month from now. And if not, this will feel like the end of an era of the iPad to me. How does AI fix iPad OS? Wait, I want to come to, I think that's where I want to end. Okay. I'm sorry. Sorry. I definitely want to end there. I just I just want to, before we get to that, because I think that's the right place to end for sure. And I think that's another hour of the show. I just want to call out the biggest day of the iPad since the iPad. Off the top of my head, I can think of three more important iPads than these that, like, move the needle.

34:41The iPad 2, which was, like, a shock announcement. And the design direction of the iPad 2 was basically the iPad until Monday. Yep. Like that ninth gen iPad with the lightning connector, like slightly different design, but it's an iPad 2. Yeah. They just flattened it a little bit. But it's the same exact home button bezels, the whole thing. That's an iPad 2. And that iPad 2 launch, Steve Jobs on a stage going like, I did it again. You saw the first gen iPad. Here's the second one. This is always my test. That shit made the local news. Yeah. Right? If you want a breakthrough in the mainstream, you need ABC7 in Chicago to be like, Apple announced a new iPad today.

35:24You got to do it. You got to get there. The iPad 4, which was the retina display and lightning connector. The iPad 3 had a retina display, but it was way too early. And it was thicker, and the thing ran so hot. The battery life was garbage. The iPad 4 was the good one. Huge. Big deal. Everybody I know who had an iPad immediately upgraded to that iPad. And then the original iPad Air. where they changed it to the boxier design and they gave it the extra capabilities, that was a big deal, which is why I was reading my 2013 review where they redid the form factor to make it that more square. And a form factor change is always just a big deal.

36:05Like none of the ones you mentioned, though, were when they got rid of the button. Yeah, because whatever. You don't care about the button. I believe that was the original iPad Pro. Yeah, I think you're right. That's the 2018 iPad Pro. And that one I would say was not a big deal. because that's when they added the keyboard and they got real surfacy. And I'm just using my local news test. That thing was really expensive. It tried to make it a laptop and did it work? Did it go on the local news? I'm just saying off the top of my head. If you're just ranking the biggest iPads, the things that made the iPad break through to the mainstream and cause a fuss, it's 100 % the iPad 2.

36:46Yes. Like easily the most – you're ranking the biggest moments for the iPad since the iPad. The iPad 2 is at the top of that list without question. Then I think it is the iPad 4 when all of the early adopters of the iPad upgraded because the hardware had a new capability in the retina screen that was worthwhile. Instead of the iPad 3, which again had a retina screen but was also a tiny nuclear reactor. And then the iPad Air, which was the big form factor shift that everybody upgraded to. and also pass the local news test. If Apple has a new iPad, it's thinner than ever before. Like that thing.

37:18I do want to tell you that, in fact, the event this week did pass the local news test. You're watching ABC7? ABC7 did, in fact, cover it. Oh, now it's covering the streaming bundle. ABC7 in Chicago. Just going. But, yeah, they were just like Apple unveils new iPad Pro with outrageously powerful AI-powered chip. All right. I'm not going to tell you why I think about ABC7 news. It is what my mom watches. Okay. But no, I'm with you. Like local news when it hits local news. So I'm genuinely surprised this hit. They need something. Yeah. It was a slow news week for them. Obviously, that's my test. And that to me is the – God bless the people at ABC7 News.

37:59Yeah. I'm in Chicago for New Year's every year and they do just a wild New Year's Eve thing. So that's why it's always on my mind. But it is true. That's the one my mom watches. But I think about that test. And it's like, did this pass the test where a whole bunch of new people are going to pick an iPad or are going to buy an iPad? And I don't think this hardware is that thing. No. Maybe at the top end of the scale, a bunch of people are going to get an iPad Pro because they want to do a barrel roll. I'm that person. I'm not a tandem OLED. Yeah, I'm in. Let's spend the money. I'm just – that's the thing I'm thinking about.

38:34And that's where I'm with David where I'm like, you got to reset your expectations of what the thing is capable of. Yeah. Which I think brings me to the commercial and all this talk about AI. Apple said a million times it's the most powerful AI computer you can get because of the M4. We've been doing the neural engine for years. Here's the thing in Logic where you can put in a song and it does the AI and it splits the stems into drums and guitars and vocals for you. That's cool. Here's some Final Cut Pro stuff. That's cool. By the way, Final Cut Camera on the iPhone they announced, they just slid by that they announced pro camera software for the iPhone.

39:12Just moved through it. That rules. That's awesome. But the thing is very powerful. And then they're like, we're going to have more AI. You can see they're going to announce a ton of AI features at WWC. And I think what is fascinating is maybe Apple's core constituency hates it. And then this ad just like lit the fuse. God, the ad was like unintentionally a flashpoint in what feels like some sort of new class warfare between like big tech and creatives. And we've been seeing it in Hollywood a lot, right? As Apple and Amazon and everybody goes and takes over streaming there, everybody's got really strong feelings about it.

39:52But to see it happen here, to see like Hugh Grant be like, this sucks. You're destroying the world. That was a really bad Hugh Grant impression. Yeah. Sorry. He's famously British. He's famously British. I'm not. The opposite of British. The opposite. So the ad is a bunch of stuff, like beautiful old creative stuff. Yeah, it's like paint and phones. There's a trumpet, I believe, at the beginning. Yeah, a metronome, a sculpture that I thought was like a sculpture, and then it was clay because it just smooshed all unsatisfyingly in the hydraulic press. And it was like a really good commercial, and it's the same thing they've done a billion times before where they're just like, what if all of this stuff was in the palm of your hand?

40:34And everybody's like, F off. Yeah. How dare you? Because I think it was that image of things being all crushed. Being destroyed. Like beautiful things being destroyed to make an iPad. And everybody out there in the world is really upset. There's a lot of anxiety around AI in so many creative industries. So to have that happen is like, ooh, you'll miss the mark on that one. Yeah. Can I just say, I think the overarching point of the idea that technology is literally flattening creative culture, good and fair and valid and worth fighting about. The reaction to this commercial in particular is so stupid, and I just wish everyone would get over it.

41:16It's so funny. I will say there was a great, I forget who did it, and I'm sorry, I can't give them credit for it, but there was somebody who literally just ran that commercial in reverse and was like, this is actually much more compelling. and sells the iPad much better that all of this stuff comes out of the iPad. And I think that's very funny because it wasn't much more compelling and uplifting version of the thing. But also the idea that everyone is like, Apple has always loved creatives and now it's destroying trumpets is like, come on, everybody. Nothing has changed. Apple is trying to tell you that there's lots of things that you can do in an iPad.

41:51And the fact that it smushed a trumpet to do so is probably fine. It's probably fine. Things have changed for a lot of folks, right? Like things have changed on the other side of it that was totally unrelated to Apple. Yeah. It really was just Apple just like stepping in it without even knowing that we're stepping in it. Because out there in the world, people are furious at technology in general. And then Apple was just like, look, we did a cool iPad. And everybody's like, you'll die. I agree with that. I think the broader story here is real, right? And Apple is out there talking about AI while everybody is rightly nervous about what AI is going to mean to their creative work.

42:25All that stuff is totally fair and valid. It just isn't about this commercial. No, that's what I mean. I think the commercial is like, dude, in a month, Apple is going to announce AI features across its operating systems, like huge, sweeping AI features. From the reports we've read, they're going to add the AI photo editing to photos. Just imagine the what is a photo conversation we're going to be having in a month when that stuff is built in at the system level to the iPhone. Four-hour Vergecast. It's never going to stop. We're just going to start Vergecasting right after the keynote ends, and we're going straight on to the end of the year.

43:03This is officially my two-week notice. Liam's out. But, I mean, like, they want to add generative AI capabilities to the products directly. And I think what they just learned is even a hint of breaking creative stuff is bad for them. I think the reaction he had is, one, don't destroy cool things that we like. David, it sounds like your disdain for trumpets is off the charts. Some people think trumpets are cool. There's ska bands across the world that are like, what are you doing? David's like, no to ska. Destroy all trumpets. There's a retro arcade console. It's just cool stuff, stuff people like.

43:45And they're like, smash. We're doing one of those TikToks with the hydraulic smashers. and now here's an iPad, this like sort of soulless corporate pane of glass, right? You take that anxiety just around this ad, just around the imagery of that ad and you hand it, you like point it at iOS itself in a month and it's like, oh, that's a powder keg actually. Yeah. It is and Apple has been, I think the extent to which it has misread the room about how people think about Apple, I think is what has been most telling about this because there was a time when Apple really did convince creative people that it was behind them.

44:27Right. And it was, it was making tool, even as it was disrupting the music industry and changing the way a lot of the stuff worked, people who made things used Apple products, like overwhelmingly that was the case. And there was the sense that like this company made good products in the right way and believed in creative people and cared about this stuff. And Steve Jobs was a Pixar investor, like all this stuff. and I think between the way that Apple's business model has been sort of aired out like dirty laundry over the last couple of years and the way we've come to understand what it does to developers and the way that all of this stuff is just in general getting subsumed inside of technology.

45:02Like there's the bigger story about what technology is doing to the world and to creative people that I think is interesting and important. But there's also a thing that has happened where people don't look at Apple the way Apple thinks that they do anymore. And I think to me, that was the thing that was most interesting about this was a bunch of people who otherwise would have been like, Oh, Apple's, you know, one of the good ones, they actually care about this stuff. It's a, it's a huge tech company that actually like does the right things the right way. That company does not get the benefit of the doubt anymore.

45:29And I don't know that that's coming back. And I think it's going to really hurt it with AI in a really big way. The thing that I have thought about the moment, like specific phrase that I've been thinking about during this whole commercial kerfuffle, which I agree is it's about something else. Yeah. Right? But I have been thinking a lot about Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone 4. And he held it up and he was admiring his own product in the way that Steve Jobs was wont to do. And he said, it's like a beautiful old Leica camera. And he meant it. Right? Like he was like, this is, I loved that thing and I made a thing that is like it.

46:08and this thing is actually meant to honor that thing. You just go watch it. You go watch the iPhone 4 introduction. It's funny because he dunks on Gizmodo at the beginning. I'm sorry, Alex. It's fine. Alex wasn't there yet. I wasn't there yet. But it's like a whole thing. Steve Jobs has to re-announce the product that has been so thoroughly leaked that it has already been disassembled on the internet. And he does a great job. But there's this moment that makes it work, that like makes it click where he's like, it is like a beautiful old, like a camera. And he's just talking about a piece of design that he loves that represents a way of doing things that he obviously respects.

46:47And that's now here's his iPhone. Contrast that to buy your mom an iPhone. Like that's the journey. But yeah, contrast that to buy your mom an iPhone. Contrast that to we're gonna smash everything into your iPad, right? It's like, oh, now we're a bulldozer. Yeah. We're not a participant in this thing, right? We're not gonna honor the past of creativity with blah, blah, blah, blah. We've commodified creativity. We are a bunch of accountants who are going to take our 30%. And that is bad. Like whatever it is – I'm sure someone is going to write to me about Apple stock performance now. Like whatever you want to think about that.

47:19That's great. They're dominant. People love them. But they don't – the benefit of the doubt where the company was led by an artist or someone who held himself out as an artist or a patron of the arts or whatever is gone. And I think this ad is actually a reflection of that. It's an ad. It's a very expensive ad. But it's not born out of a love of those things because if you truly loved those things, you would not smash them. And, like, maybe that's just a metaphor. Maybe it's silly. Maybe it's just a misfire. But a month from now, they're going to launch a bunch of AI features that are trained on a bunch of creative work.

47:59and they're going to have to answer a bunch of questions about whether or not they paid for that training data and whether artists are going to compensate it and whether if you type into GarageBand, make me a beat in the style of whoever, that person gets money. Are you ready for this? Because the reaction to this ad suggests that you are not. The same is true of Google. Next week is Google I.O. where they're going to announce a bunch of AI. It's just destined to happen. I can confidently predict that Google is going to announce a bunch of AI stuff at Google AI. We're going to talk about Gemini a lot.

48:34They're going to put Gemini in your face. And are they ready? Are they ready for that stuff? This week, OpenAI is the leaked details of how they're going out to publishers. And the publishers are like, you already scraped the data. This is a head fake. We don't trust you. And I think this whole industry is kind of like on a razor's edge. They don't understand that the lack of trust around AI is going to come to all of their products, including a relatively innocuous iPad ad. Yeah. Agreed. 100%. All right. I'm very curious now to see what iOS 17 brings in. By the way, David, what is the evidence real quick before we break that it's going to run macOS?

49:12Because that would be my dream. I don't know. There's just a lot of – I think a lot of people who are like, oh, the magic keyboard exists and feels more like a Mac. There's a bigger trackpad. People just want it. thus macOS. I challenge anyone to try and think about how you would touch the things in your menu bar. It's just not a good idea. We should have Mac apps that work. This rules. I'm just poking away over here. This is great. I'm trying to scroll down so I can get my menu bar. No, as far as I can tell, there is no actual evidence except this thing is stupendously powerful and when you put it in, it kind of feels like a laptop.

49:47Alright. That's my dream. If you're listening to me, Tim, I will trust you again if you put Mac OS in the end. It's a bad dream. Tim, don't listen. Turn off the podcast. Tim is in our YouTube comments. He's like, first. That's him every time. Alright, we gotta take a break. We'll be right back. And then Alex is gonna tell us about streaming. So buckle up. We'll be right back. Support for this show comes from LinkedIn. When you're a small business owner, your business is on your mind 24-7. So when you're hiring, you need a partner that works just as hard as you do. That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs.

50:23When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes it easy to post your job for free, share it with your network, and get qualified candidates that you can manage all in one place. LinkedIn's new features can help you write job descriptions and then quickly get your job in front of the right people with deep candidate insights. Either post your job for free or pay to promote. Promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants. At the end of the day, the most important thing to your small business is the quality of candidates. And with LinkedIn, you can feel confident that you're getting the best.

50:56Based on LinkedIn data, 72 % of SMBs using LinkedIn say that it helps them find high quality candidates. Find out why more than two and a half million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash track. That's linkedin.com slash track to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Oh, hey, welcome to gift wrapping. Whoa, Zoe Saldana. Hey, can you wrap these, please? Wow, iPhone 17s. You splurged. At T-Mobile, you can get four iPhone 17s on them. It's the perfect gift for everyone. I'm the worst. I only got my mom a robe.

51:36Well, it's better than socks. So I have to trade in my old phone, right? No, at T-Mobile, there's no trade-ins needed when you switch. Keep your old phone or give it as a gift. Incredible. In fact, wrap up my old phone too for my Aunt Rosa. Forget that. Aunt Liz will be jealous. Sounds like my family drama. Oh, I got it. I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with, hey, where are you going? To T-Mobile. Thanks, Zoe. The holidays are better at T-Mobile. Get four iPhone 17s on us. No trade in needed when you switch. Plus four lines for just 25 bucks a line. With 24 monthly bill credits and four eligible boardings on essentials for well-qualified customers.

52:12Auto pay plus taxes, fees, and$35 device connection chart. Credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel. Contact us. Finance agreement. 256 gigabytes. $830 required. Visit T-Mobile.com. Support for this show comes from LinkedIn. When you're a small business owner, your business is on your mind 24-7. So when you're hiring, you need a partner that works just as hard as you do. That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes it easy to post your job for free, share it with your network, and get qualified candidates that you can manage all in one place.

52:45LinkedIn's new features can help you write job descriptions and then quickly get your job in front of the right people with deep candidate insights. Either post your job for free or pay to promote. Promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants. At the end of the day, the most important thing to your small business is the quality of candidates. And with LinkedIn, you can feel confident that you're getting the best. Based on LinkedIn data, 72 % of SMBs using LinkedIn say that it helps them find high quality candidates. Find out why more than two and a half million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today.

53:20Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash track. That's linkedin.com slash track to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.

53:35All right, we're back. Alex, I feel like every time we talk about streaming, you say uncomfortably horny things about David Zaslav. It's true. So I would like you to just assure me that that is not going to happen today. I can't make promises. All right. Well, I tried. I did my best to protect myself and our extended listener family. You guys all love him, too. That's why you're listening. Don't worry. I get it. The good news is there's not a lot of direct Zaslav news. There isn't. No. They had their earnings. Disney's had their earnings. A lot of folks had their earnings this week. And they're doing okay.

54:13They're making money. And that's because they have things like ads. And they're running these companies like businesses that have to make money now rather than just like giving us all free content all the time, which was super sick. And I would miss those years like crazy. but the big stuff was like Disney, Hulu and Max are all gonna they're gonna get a bundle at some point this summer not your child you know she walked up to the TV the other day and said why is there an icon that said Max and I honestly I challenge you to explain that to a six year old in a way that makes any sense first of all kudos to Max can read, that rules, great job Max that's awesome, yeah did you start explaining David Zaslav to her I just challenge you to explain, like try Be like, you're six years old.

55:01You cannot start with there once was a company called Time Warner. That's what I was hoping. Right? You're just like, there was a mistake. That's a mistake. Is that how you write a children's book for Max just to explain that? There was a mistake. Inside of that icon rests a 4-3 Grayscale Batman movie. I just, I'm sorry, okay? Like, the entire, one day I will tell you the story of the American economy, and it will start with that icon. But for now, don't worry about it, Max. Okay, so this is where we get to Zaslav. Obviously, Zaslav runs Warner Brothers Discovery. He's been looking for money. He's been looking for growth.

55:40And what better way than to partner up with other companies who are also looking for growth and being like, if we get together, we can offer our stuff cheaper and also not have the FTC come after us constantly for having our own little, like, fiefdomes. So they're going to bundle this up and say, is it going to be two different apps? So I guess Hulu is already in Disney+. Right. Hulu's already in Disney+. That's why it's that gross color now. Yeah. They're just like, they smash the blue and the green together. So you sign up. I read the press releases. The press releases are like, we'll release more details later.

56:15Yeah, there really isn't a lot of details. It really is just like, it's coming. We don't know pricing. We don't know when. We just know it's happening. So you're going to pay some money to someone. Yes. They're going to figure it out, Nelai. David's very good at this. Zaslav, not Pierce. And then you're going to, I feel like if David Pierce was in charge of Warner Brothers Discovery. I was going to say, I honestly believe, like, to my bones that I could run the streaming industry more successfully than any of these clowns. Oh, you 100%. The user interface would work. I just let David do it. That's what I'm saying.

56:48You're going to log into two apps. You're going to have two apps on your Roku. Still. We don't know. We don't know. Yeah, we genuinely don't know most of this stuff. We know that it's coming. we know that they're they're excited about it i would say by the way that there is virtually no chance of this being a combined app like just from what we've seen on the right stuff alone like disney the work they had to do to integrate the hulu stuff with disney plus and those are two companies owned by disney yeah uh just the right stuff that wouldn't allow some things on hulu to be in disney plus so there are things that are in hulu the app that are not in hulu the tile and disney plus like imagine adding all of a whole nother company to that i just don't see how that's possible like this is this is good they're going for unified login which is a good idea is like the most ambitious thing i think comes out yes but the entire idea of these roll-ups to begin with disney buying fox buying out the rest of hulu from comcast disclosure comcast as a stake in our parent company vox media and also people hated comcast so much they rebranded their cable company to Xfinity, that's a real story.

57:56They don't like me very much, there's a disclosure. And then Zaslav just Zazzin' his way to merging Warner Brothers and Discovery. The idea there was always scale, right? Like the specific pitch for Warner Brothers Discovery was we will have HBO for your appointment Sunday night viewing, and then the rest of the time when you're like, I don't know, what do those Property Brothers do? And you'll just like turn that on and watch TikTok in the background. And they explicitly made this – this is the idea. Like the bundle will be so big that you'll subscribe to it. It will be great for you. But bundles can get bigger.

58:30And that's what – like this has run out. Yeah, yeah. Basically they need other content, right? Like it is unrealistic to expect people to only watch Netflix. It is unrealistic to expect people to only watch Disney Plus unless they're like under the age of five, in which case it's super realistic. But like – Did you see that stat, by the way? One out of every three shows in Disney Plus is a Bluey stream. Yeah. Wow. Is it just Max? Wow. It's like 30 % of all Disney Plus streaming is Bluey. That's insane. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. It's like this company is extremely beholden to an Australian dog. Wow. I don't want to talk about Bluey at this time.

59:09David, your kid isn't old enough to know, but when it comes time, it will be very sad for you as well. But so the bundles get bigger. Yeah. But why doesn't Netflix have this pressure? Because Netflix is huge. Like Netflix is bigger than kind of everybody else, right? They have that first mover advantage. So they can just be – they're so far ahead of everybody else when it comes to subscribers and stuff that they can just keep doing that. And they can keep asking for more money. And also – This is the Alex who put them higher on the Go90 scale than some of the other people. They've got hubris, right?

59:42Yeah. They still haven't partnered with Apple, so you don't really get that tight integration with the Apple products that you get with Disney Plus and Max and all these other ones. They don't partner with everybody else as often because they are the biggest. And oftentimes when you do that, your hubris catches up with you eventually. So I think it's kind of a mistake for Netflix to not try to do this, but I'm not surprised by it because it's also the most – Like these are entertainment companies. Yeah. Netflix is a technology company. So you made a YouTube video this week. You basically like the cable bundle is back.

1:00:18And that's what's happening here, right? You got Disney, the Hulu assets. They're going to put ESPN Plus in the Disney Plus app. That's the cable bundle. You're subsidizing all this stuff that you want that you don't necessarily want because I know you guys love sports. But you have to – you are just like ESPN will be here. Yeah, I'm furious that I'm going to have ESPN on my Disney Plus. And we don't know what the pricing will be. And then you get all the sort of Warner Brothers assets now too, plus HBO. Depending on what the price is, right? Like it could end up being that the price is the exact same.

1:00:49The only difference is that it's just more convenient to log in. Well, so we do have this quote from Zaz. I'm just so worried about – Zaddy. There we go. Sorry. I had to do it. I'm so tired. If I ever meet that man, like I can't. I just walk away. He won't let you. As somebody who's responsible for this newsroom and your friend. He's like, no, we can't. Go that way. It's just – can you imagine having to work with somebody every day who's horny for David Zaslav? That's what it's like here at The Verge. All right. Here's the quote from Zaslav. It's like the New York Times is like dealing with Kevin Roos being like, I banged 18 robots on AI and we have Alex.

1:01:35I'm just like, I love it. By the way, you should read the Kevin Rees article where he did make friends with 18 different AI personalities. Even from the jump, he's like, it's a little horny. It's good. Anyway, here's a quote from David Zaslav. There's a lot of irrationality in the market that's getting shaken out in terms of money spent. Ultimately, I think the business will look very different in two to three years. It will be much better for consumers. A lot of ideas in that quote. Yeah, like basically they're just bringing TV back. And in a lot of ways, TV is quite convenient. People loved it for 50, 60 years.

1:02:14It worked. And then everybody was like, we're tired of all the ads and everything else. And that's why we got streaming to begin with. And that's just what he's doing. I think he's very right in that there are a lot of bad ideas and they are being shaken out. That's why everybody is going to advertising. That's why everybody is bundling. That's why everybody is subsidizing sports and all of this other stuff. but I don't know if it'll be better for consumers in three years. I think the one other thing that's worth mentioning here is, uh, it's, it's very telling to me that what he says is in terms of the amount of money spent.

1:02:46Yeah. And I think if you want to talk about what's different about Netflix versus these other companies is Netflix can afford to exist. Whereas you have Disney, which spent way too much money to acquire Fox. You have Warner brothers discovery, which took on a massive quantity of debt in order to become the company that it is. These companies literally cannot afford to exist in the way that they currently work. Whereas Netflix, I think it was in 2021, 2020 or 2021, announced basically like, we're good. We have enough money now that we don't have to take external financing. And that puts you in such an unbelievable position of power to be able to just do whatever you want because you can afford your business.

1:03:26and what no one else has proven other than Netflix is that this is a business that you can afford. Or that has the margins to let you grow, right? Like Netflix is, actually, maybe the easiest way to talk about this is the Go90 scale of doom streaming services. So Netflix to me, I know Alex. I'm on the other side, but I get it. Completely thinks Netflix will fail. But by the way, Disclosure, I produced a Netflix show. It's called The Future of It. It's very good. Yeah, likely story to support them, huh? They really did rebranded Xfinity because everyone hated the complex brands. That is a true story.

1:03:57I heard it again recently. I put Netflix at zero. By the way, the Go90 scale, if you remember Go90, it's Verizon's failed streaming service where they thought children would join, quote, gangs. No, it's a cruise. It was something. They thought the kids would rotate their friends 90 degrees to watch YouTube, and they had no idea why anyone was watching YouTube, and it immediately failed. It was Quibi before Quibi. It was a lot. Now, to Go90 means to die. This is Virg House lore if you're unfamiliar. So the Go90 scale of German streaming services from zero to 90, you put them on a scale. Zero is alive, 90 is dead.

1:04:30Netflix, in my mind, is zero. It is the one you don't quit. No one churns off of Netflix. Right now it is 100 % zero. I would agree with you there. I will say Alex said it was a 40 at South by Southwest. Yes. It is a 40 in my heart and in the future. It is zero right today. Because you think the hubris makes them brittle. I understand the argument, but I think Netflix is very good. at programming its service exactly to make you never churn. They're like, here's one more John Mulaney special. Bridgerton's coming, man. I'm so excited. They're always doing that thing. You're like, ready to quit? They got one more thing for you.

1:05:05Good. They figured it out. Data. HBO, or now Max, whatever the hell it's called. Max is 45. like it is they're gonna they hit 100 million subscribers globally but they're about to hike prices again because of what David is saying they cannot afford to run this business it's programming is all over the place right they have HBO's programming but HBO's and one of its sort of like consistent sort of like dry spells I'm sure there'll be more stuff coming back but that's the history of HBO it runs hot then it runs cold there isn't some consistent slate of programming. Yes, there is. Those Property Brothers, people love them.

1:05:50Well, there's that stuff, but there isn't like the... I mean, we can't ignore it. It's something that maybe we don't talk about critically and you don't see people talking about it on threads and social media and stuff. But that is a big part of their business. That's why Zaslav could afford to buy Warner Brothers is because of how big that business is for him. And that's not going away anytime soon. But that's the discovery business. That's the discovery business. That's now in Max. Sure. Okay, I'm saying 45. Yeah, I know. Because you're not running around trying to make a deal with Disney if you think you're more alive than dead.

1:06:22Yeah. Is just my belief. Well, this is why the sports race is so intense right now. Because I think the Property Brothers will keep people subscribed to you. They're not going to win you vast tens of millions of new subscribers. But I also want to be wary of saying that this deal is an indication that Disney and Max are struggling. because I don't think – like I think this is as much about dealing with the fact that these are highly vertically integrated companies and there's currently a government that doesn't like that. And it's really useful to be like, no, we're partnering together. You think that in the absence of Lena Conn, Disney would buy Warner Brothers Discovery?

1:06:59If Lena Conn got sucked up by aliens tomorrow – If Trump gets elected. Yeah. And they managed to sell ESPN so they could make all their money. They would buy it in a heartbeat. No chance. No chance. With what money? That's why I put those clarifiers on there, right? Let's add your debt to our debt, and we'll give you 50 bucks, and then we'll all slowly die together. Wait, actually, David, when you describe it like that, that does sound like the media business. That does, in fact, sound how these CEOs think. That is basically fair. Let's lay off 10 ,000 people and have a bunch of debt. Somehow we will get votes.

1:07:37and is Zack Snyder available because we have a number of movies that should be recut as grayscale squares. Hollywood is built on debt. This way financing has worked in Hollywood from the beginning is on debt. Nothing is ever made with the cash they have in-house. It's made with the future. Usually the assumption has been that the properties will make money. Yeah. A problem that they are having. Anyway. I think they'll be fine. Okay, so I'm putting Max at 45. I'm putting Disney Plus at$45. That's my Go90 scale. I think these things are wobbly in the middle right now. No, Disney is massive. And streaming is a big part of Disney's business.

1:08:19Streaming is not all of Disney's business. Of all of these companies, it is super positioned because it's got a ton of very lucrative theme parks. I just want to point out that technically the Max app has already gone$90 several times. as it is rebranded from HBO to HBO Max. Every other month it goes 90. Like it keeps going away in some way. Well, I think this all sort of revolves around Netflix in a funny way, which is why Netflix is so powerful in all this. Because I think the case for Disney Plus going away is that Disney decides that actually, if we want our theme parks to succeed, the best way for us to do that is to sell shows to Netflix and not put them on Disney Plus, which I think is a not crazy conclusion to draw in a couple of years.

1:09:03You're going to decide it is so expensive and so wasteful for us to run our own service. What we actually need is for people to watch our stuff. And the way to do that is to put it in movie theaters and put it on Netflix. And I think it's possible that that is where this goes. We come back to this at the end of the summer if and when we find out whether or not there will be more Blu-ey episodes. It's all about Blu-ey. Because I honestly think, depending on that answer, Disney Plus goes in one or two directions. If you just look at the scale of how much that business is currently dependent on Bluey.

1:09:37It's not dependent on whatever horrible garbage Max watches otherwise. There's a show about the children of the villains. It's bad. Descendants. Why do I know that? I've never seen anything worse in my entire life. I've never watched it. It's like very safe if you have a six-year-old girl. You're like, watch this garbage. It's better than what's on YouTube, kids. But I'm saying depending on how Bluey goes, we should come back to that conversation. Okay, we should take a break. I will call out, by the way, that Sony is in the middle of discussions to buy Paramount. Oh, I hope not because it's with Apollo Management, right?

1:10:11Yeah, that's just Layoff City. That's what's going to happen. Yeah, that's— All the headlines about Sony and Paramount should be like, Sony discusses laying off Paramount's employees. But they're still also in talks with Skydance, which is owned by Larry Ellison's son from Oracle, and that could still happen. That's the one I'm mainly rooting for because I hate watching companies be bought up and broken apart. You love CBS. Also, I love, is it really because I'm concerned about Star Trek? Yes. There's a very good episode, by the way, of the Town podcast where they talk about this and basically land on, if you want good content, root for the Skydance deal.

1:10:45If you want a bunch of Paramount shareholders to make money and then all of this to go away, you should root for Sony and Apollo. I'm like slightly simplifying, but not that much. Yeah. That's 100 % correct. If you want Star Trek, root for Skydance. If you don't care about Star Trek and Taylor Sheridan's ranches, root for Apollo and Sony. Wait, that's a bad mix of things to care about. How do I get one but not the other? Okay, we got to take a break. We're going to come back with the lightning round, which actually has to be lightning because we are so over today. But it's going to be really long.

1:11:23We'll be right back with the French cast. support for this show comes from one password think for just a moment about the herculean tasks that your it security department has to handle there's keeping identities devices and applications safe then there's dealing with shadow it securely onboarding and offboarding employees oh also there's meeting compliance goals the point is it's a lot if you want to help lighten that load you can try try leka by one password try leka by one password provides a complete solution for SaaS access governance, and it's just one of the ways that extended access management helps teams strengthen compliance and security.

1:12:031Password's award-winning password manager is trusted by millions of users in over 150 ,000 businesses from IBM to Slack. Plus, 1Password is ISO 27001 certified with regular third-party audits and the industry's largest bug bounty. Take the first step to better security for your team by securing credentials and protecting every application, even unmanaged shadow IT. Learn more at onepassword.com slash vergecast. That's the number one password.com slash vergecast. Support for the show comes from Framer. Are you still jumping between a host of different tools just to update your website? Framer unifies design, CMS, and publishing on one canvas.

1:12:53No handoff, no hassle. Everything you need to design and publish in one place. Framer already built the fastest way to publish beautiful, production-ready websites, and it's now redefining how we design for the web. With the recent launch of Design Pages, a free canvas-based design tool, Framer is more than a site builder. It's a true all-in-one design platform, from social assets, to campaign visuals, to vectors and icons, all the way to a live site. Framer is where ideas go live, start to finish. Ready to design, iterate, and publish all in one tool? Start creating for free at framer.com slash design and use code VERGE for a free month of Framer Pro.

1:13:36That's framer.com slash design and use promo code VERGE. framer.com slash design. Promo code VERGE. Rules and restrictions may apply. Support for this show comes from Figma. Figma is the collaborative design platform where teams come together to turn ideas into the world's best digital apps, websites, and experiences. And now, there's a faster way to bring those ideas to life. Introducing Figma Make, an AI-powered prompt-to-code tool that helps you turn ideas into something real, fast. Figma Make is a different kind of vibe coding tool. With just a few prompts, you can turn any idea into a code-backed prototype or app that anyone can explore, iterate on, and share.

1:14:23And it's all connected to Figma. So you can start from scratch or from your design file. Figma Make is made for designers, product managers, and builders who want to move fast and explore more ideas. Try it now and see how quickly you can make your ideas real with Figma Make. Just go to Figma.com slash Vergecast. That's F-I-G-M-A dot com slash Vergecast

1:14:54Alright, we're back. It's the lightning round Which really for me is what I have taken to calling the victory lap round But let's begin with Alex Rains Yeah, not a victory lap for mine No, this is a bummer. Microsoft is currently going through it Tom Warren had a really great piece up this week and Ash Parrish, our game reporter, had a really cool follow piece on it. They've been closing studios. They've been laying people off. They had a big all-hands after they closed this one studio that made this really popular game last year called Hi-Fi Rush. If you haven't heard about it, that's because you don't play video games enough.

1:15:29Hi-Fi Rush was like a big indie darling and it was widely well-received. It did really, really well for them and then they said they laid off everybody. They closed the studio. and they're like, yeah, we need to make more games like that. And it's like, well, maybe, hmm. And so there's just a lot of chaos over there. And I think it's the same thing we're seeing. We've talked a lot about creatives in this episode. It's that same anxiety. It's the same issues that we're seeing with streaming where these people have spent a lot of money on acquisitions and growing during the 0 % interest days. And they grew a whole lot.

1:16:06And you can't grow. infinite content has to have infinite people watching it and paying for it. We don't do that in this human life. It is a remarkably similar trajectory. Like Microsoft saying, okay, we think this is going to move from a you buy a thing model to a subscription model. Thus, we need a lot of content. then oh God, we need a lot of exclusive content to, okay, maybe actually there aren't as many people who want to pay for all of this, especially given what it costs because all this stuff is expensive. Bail, bail, bail, bail, bail. And then, so you go from like, we have to grow to the size of the universe in order for this thing to work.

1:16:49And then you realize, oh, it's actually not possible for us to grow to the size of the universe. In the same way that everybody thought they were going to get a billion subscribers to streaming services. Like, no, it turns out there is kind of a local maximum to that. and uh people are finite yeah and it turns out i think microsoft is going to do the same thing now where it's like okay we if we build this unbelievable war chest of content and people and talent it will work and then all of a sudden everybody's like oh that's not a plan that's nothing and it all just kind of collapses and it's really sad because it's happening at like unbelievable scale and pace right now and it's also in an industry that i think was already unsustainable to begin with, with crunch and everything like that.

1:17:29This was an industry that's been creaking for a decade. It's having a massive moment and it sucks for all the people involved, but it's happening. I just want to point out that Microsoft fought tooth and nail to buy Activision. They were like, this will grow our business. This is the thing. Really, the question we should ask with all of these deals, how many people are you going to lay off? How many is it? It's always some wasn't it t-mobile that said in buying sprint that it thought the number of jobs were going to go up and everybody's like oh sick and then they immediately let off that immediately yeah like that's not true it's never true and i it's just like it's the thing like you combine two companies there are going to be a lot there's gonna be overlap it's it's gonna happen i interview a lot of executives you can just see the wheels turning boy i don't need double the back office staff like whatever you can just and they call it efficiencies but it's really layoffs and that's just like how it goes and then on top of it microsoft was insistent that it needed to buy activision because it was winning while microsoft was losing and they bought activision and they're like look at all these losers and it's like we should start asking the questions ahead of time how many people are you gonna lay off that's the only question right like that is the policy consequence of allowing these mergers at scale like really truly on the ground a bunch of people are going to lose their jobs.

1:18:50How many is it? And if they're not willing to answer that question, I honestly think like we should no longer give any of these companies the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, you don't get to just buy it. Yeah. I would point out that AT &T Buying Time Warner did allow Zack Snyder to employ a number of people to make a 4-3 grayscale Batman movie. Neela, do you get a cut of sales of this movie? Like what is happening here? We've officially tipped from like this is funny to like what's Neela's angle here? I just want to hammer at home for people that the Trump administration getting rid of net neutrality allowed AT &T to buy Time Warner and now there is a greyscale Batman movie and that is a direct line of events.

1:19:31By the way, net neutrality did pass. They got rid of the weird rule that would have allowed for 5G fast lanes. We now live in a world of net neutrality again. It's great. Sorry, Zach. Alright. Victory lap one complete. Victory lap two for me.

1:19:47This is the whole lightning round. Just knew I was right about you. I'm sorry. You will recall that Epic Games sued Apple for antitrust violations long ago. They mostly lost that case. They did. Mostly lost that case. I would say they might have set the stage for the current DOJ case for other cases. They made a bunch of arguments that are now being made again by the government. They got a ball rolling. Very much got a ball rolling. The one thing they won in that case was the judge applying California law because I think the judge was unwilling to rewrite United States federal antitrust law. But the judge interpreted California law to say Apple could no longer prevent app developers from what's called steering.

1:20:33So Apple has these things called anti-steering rules where you're not even allowed to mention that there's another website where you could buy stuff. Anti-steering rules struck down. I have this specific quote here. Apple is permanently restrained and joined from prohibiting developers from including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms in addition to the App Store. That's the rule. Judge passes rule. And Apple's response was to allow a app or a link, rather. Right. So the rule comes out, and I wrote a piece back then, 2021, saying Apple is about to end up in a fight over buttons and links.

1:21:13like they're not allowed to prevent buttons and links from going to external purchasing mechanisms when courts write two nouns they often mean for the nouns to mean different things so now you have buttons and you have links that they necessarily mean different things this is just legal interpretation 101 uh i would say the astroturf brigade attacked me some developers tried this they went in front of the court again the judge said i look stop it we'll figure this out when we get there. Apple has to issue its entitlements and do all this stuff, and everyone thought I was wrong. This is true. This is like a real sequence of events that I'm very hot about.

1:21:51The point of all this is Epic went to the judge recently and said, Apple is only allowing one external link to a fixed web page, and you are not even allowed to say it's cheaper on the web page. All of the rules about what you're allowed to do to get around anti-steering are basically anti-steering. You're basically allowed to say, this is a website. Yep. And it's at the very beginning of the flow. So if you have an app with other things you can buy in it, you are not even allowed in that area of your app to put links to an external website where you can buy stuff. It's beautiful. You are allowed to have one link.

1:22:27That link, when you click on it, if you're logged into the app, can't even pass your login info to the website. Yeah. I always think of the Kindle app as the easiest way to explain this because it's like the way it should work is you should be able to go into – I mean the way it should work is you should be able to buy Kindle stuff from your – but there should be a link on every book that says buy this on the web. That is explicitly against the rules. You can have one link in one place in the app that says books on web. That's basically the entirety of what is allowed. Or sign up on web, but not for 30 % cheaper or not.

1:23:01It's cheaper on the web because Apple charges us a fee. None of that's allowed. Do they get the preposition? Like is the preposition allowed, the on? I mean Apple is totally in control of this. Oh, by the way, if you click the link, you get a warning screen that says you're leaving this app where Tim Cook will protect you with sword and shield. Just a buff Tim Cook picture. This is all true. So Epic drags Apple back into court because the judge in 21 said, I will decide if Apple is in compliance with my injunction. Not Apple. I'm going to decide. So Epic drags Apple back to court. There's a hearing this week.

1:23:31I just want to read you some things that were said in this hearing to Apple as they talk about buttons and links. And this is to an Apple executive. Is it fair to say in today's day and age that everyone understands that www.url.com is an external website on the World Wide Web? That's just a question. Like, do you really think people are this stupid, Apple? Pete, in society, people make lots of purchases on the web all the time. Would you agree with that? Yes. And they understand that Apple trusts its users that the web is separate and apart from different, even on an iOS device, right? Yeah. Do people know that clicking on a link taking you out of an app takes you out of the app?

1:24:13That's where Apple is in buttons and links. And then there's the judge who interjects in the middle of a conversation about button design because Apple has constricted the design of buttons. I can't imagine a logical reason why Apple would demand that of competitor apps. What's a logical competitive reason for not suggesting but demanding it other than to stifle competition? I see no answer. Can you give me one? Buttons and links. Did they give them? It took three years. No, no, no. This is blah, blah, blah security. It took three years. But Apple is now in this fight over the design of buttons and links in its apps because that injunction is actually a big deal.

1:24:59And they have not actually provided a reason why they are constraining the design of buttons and links in their apps, which, by the way, are different. A button is supposed to just do something. A link takes you somewhere else, right? So these are different in terms of construction. And I think Apple and its hubris, all the stuff we've talked about, they've run into the judge saying, no, no, I meant something when I issued this order. And you can't give me reasons that are not just straight anti-competitive malicious compliance reasons. I don't know how this is going to turn out. It's just an evidentiary hearing right now.

1:25:31Maybe the judge is going to find Apple is not in compliance. Maybe this DOJ lawsuit is going to break it all open. I don't know. Maybe a bunch of Europeans are going to hurl cheese at Apple until they stop it. Something is going to happen. But I'm just saying that right now, three years after the Epic case, Apple's in a courtroom defending its own malicious compliance because it was inevitable that the buttons and links conversation would come back around. And it's been interesting to watch these fights get more and more specific over time, too. And I think this is the thing that is actually going to affect real change, right?

1:26:03Like we talked about this with the emulators the other week. that as these things get whittled down from these sort of big philosophical debates into like, here is a thing about the experience that is broken and you can't explain to me why it's broken other than you believe you deserve all of the money. That is actually the way that Apple is being pried open. And it is happening like in these little tiny pieces much more quickly than it's going to happen in some grand. Yeah. You're not allowed to be like this anymore way. So I think it's like the, the death by a thousand cuts thing is like very much underway in a really fascinating way.

1:26:36Yeah. And this stuff takes time. Like the DOJ lawsuit, that's a decade. Oh, easily. It's a decade. Like you can decide whether it is good or bad. You can have whatever feelings about the complaint you want. A decade from now, we will see the results of that case on the devices we use. It took three years from the epic case for us to be back in the courtroom saying, actually, your weird link entitlement idea might be anti-competitive. And that still has to play out. So I would just, you need some patience here, but I agree with you, David. It's like, it's starting in a way that Apple can no longer defend.

1:27:09I just spent a lot of this time on meta AI trying to make it show me images of a shredded Tim Cook protecting people from buttons and links and it wouldn't do it. I went to www.url.com while we were sitting here and discovered that url.com is for sale. So that's cool. I just think if you have your executives on the stand and the question is, people in society make lots of purchases on the web all the time. Would you agree? And the answer is yes. You're probably done for. Eli, in the spirit of kindness, I would like to bequeath you my lightning round because you have another victory lap I'd like you to take.

1:27:46I do. I do. I do. I'm very excited about this one. I'll make this one quick because, again, in this victory lap, nothing has happened. So we'll end the show where we begin. In Wisconsin. In southeast Wisconsin where I was a child. Were the cheese curds really squeaky? They're good. They're good everywhere in Wisconsin, particularly. Well, Madison. I would say Madison is where I enjoyed the cheese curd lifestyle the most. But President Biden was in Racine this week. He was announcing a data center to be built by Microsoft. It's going to be 2 ,000 construction jobs and then 2 ,000 permanent jobs to build this data center.

1:28:23This is, I would just say, politically opportunistic at its finest. Microsoft had already purchased this land. They had already announced the data center. They had already done all the permitting, all the stuff. Joe Biden just showed up and was like, look at the jobs I made. Great. I'm super excited for – like do politics. I'm happy for you. The point of this is that they are building this on the land that was supposed to be the Foxconn site. And Joe Biden's political opportunism is he's standing there and he's like – literally I think he said something along the lines of Trump didn't give you any jobs and I'm giving you actual jobs.

1:28:56jobs because it's the Foxconn site where Trump waved a golden shovel around and promised an LCD factory that was just putting 13 ,000 jobs to this region. And we at The Verge, someone famously always knew that was a lie, reported on it quite a bit. We won an award. Josh Reza won an award for his big feature on it. That feature actually, Chris Hayes read it on MSNBC last night. Like just straight up. He was like, Biden announced some things. You might remember this as Foxconn and then just read some of Josh's feature to the camera to explain what had happened. There are rules. Congratulations to Josh.

1:29:30He reported the hell on that story. The victory lap I would like to take is to remind everyone and to initiate our newest members of the audience. During that period of time, while we were doing all that reporting, I received a number of hilariously threatening emails from anonymous Foxconn executives telling us, reminding us, insisting that we leave them alone. Literally, the emails would say, leave us alone. And then they would try to explain to me what Foxconn's AI plus 8K plus 5G strategy was. Galaxy brain strategy. It was nothing. By the way, Foxconn has abandoned AI 8K plus 5G. This is true.

1:30:07They've abandoned it. If you go to the Foxconn in Wisconsin website now, which is literally, I believe, just foxconnwisconsin.com, you can see they have a new strategy, which is 3 plus 3 equals infinity. This is true. That's even worse. Why did they make it worse? It's 100 % true that their new strategy is 3 plus 3 equals infinity. And then there's a lengthy section of that website dedicated to how you can see the dome that they built from the highway.

1:30:37I don't know what to tell you. They built a little dome. It's like I keep calling it Timu Epcot. Like it's a little baby dome. It was supposed to be the dot of an I. They were going to spell Foxconn, F-I-I, Foxconn Industrial Internet. They were gonna spell it in buildings. That's a lot of letters. Well, it's only three. They only got to the dot, which is the dome. They insisted for years, this is true, that the dome was a data center. And I would have various conversations with data center people. Would you ever make a data center in the shape of a dome? Do you think that would be? And they would all be like, no, I don't know.

1:31:13We wouldn't. It turns out the dome was just like a party center. It was like where corrupt Wisconsin politicians would have drinks and take photos with the dome. The dome remains. That whole thing remains. I don't know what's going to happen there. There's some rumor that building servers. Microsoft is now taking all of the industrialization that was built up, the water, the power, to build an AI data center. All right. But I want to end here with one of the best things that has ever happened on the show. Okay. Which is all those emails I got about leaving people alone. I would read them on the show and then people would make memes and songs.

1:31:50in one of my favorite songs, which I thought about today as I watched Joe Biden dunk on Trump and his golden shovel. I was like, it would rule if Biden would just play this song that Vergecast listener Jackson Hayes wrote for us about the factory. Liam, can we play this song?

1:32:09Neelai, you didn't listen to me. But that's okay, because we're going to tell you what you already knew for months. You didn't leave us alone Leave us alone You didn't leave us alone Leave us alone AI meant new generation Mobility and self-driving cars Wait, is that the story we were running, Jeremy? Okay AK means smart, safety, and security through AK technology I mean, come on, Neil, you should know this 5G means pioneering Wait, medical? solutions? Crap, that's supposed to be. On some health cloud network. Okay. You didn't leave us alone. Leave us alone. It's catchy. It's good. You didn't leave us alone.

1:33:05Leave us alone. It was just A-I-A-K and 5G. Well, I see how that was hard to believe. You didn't leave us alone. It's a bot. Leave us alone You didn't leave us alone Leave us alone Now I just want you to imagine Okay, you win. Can't make that on an iPad. Well, with the power of AI technology, you can. So thank you to Jackson, one of my all-time favorite Furchtcast moments. I hope you're listening. I just want you to imagine Joe Biden announcing the Microsoft deal and then being like, as a reminder. Busting out his acoustic guitar. He'd just take a seat. That whole sequence, I just want to remind people, that sequence of reporting was like mid-pandemic.

1:33:57This was the weirdest time in reporting that you could do, and we were reporting on this weird factory that didn't exist, and I was getting these crazy emails. Just leave us alone. Just leave us alone. That was awesome. Leave us alone. Anyway, it's a data center now. There's a little dome. You can go look at the dome. I have pictures of the dome it's on the website that's it I think that's it one thing we didn't talk about TikTok sued the government over the bill to quote unquote ban TikTok we wanted to take some time with that so that will be next week's decoder Alex Heath and Sarah Jong are going to join me we're going to pull that whole complaint apart and see where the arguments are good and bad we just needed to take some time with it also they have our iPads come on that's a Vergecast everybody that's it that's a Vergecast rock and roll

1:34:45and that's it for the verge cast this week hey we'd love to hear from you give us a call at 866 verge 11 the verge cast is a production of the verge and vox media podcast network our show is produced by andrew marino and liam james that's it we'll see you next week