You’re cute no matter what phone you have

26:33Or is it different on iPhone because the animations are smoother? Curious, newer thoughts. If I should just, you know, settle and be boring and get a pro phone and have the most boring colors ever or go cute and go iPhone 16. Okay. So I want to tell Tyler that was too many words for the Joanna Bot. Nope. But the Joanna Bot has the answer to this question. Okay. Because Real Joanna wrote this. Real Joanna had this question too. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, I'm going to just say, should I settle for the iPhone? Should I settle or be cute is like the best way to define an iPhone buying question. 16 and not have 120.

27:13Sorry if I'm paraphrasing wrong, Tyler. Joanna Bot's available to you as well. WSJ.com slash Joanna Bot. Sponsor. We'll put it in the show notes. Brought to you by it. It wasn't so I said it would be cute. It's so I can be cute. Yeah. Right. The colors are bad for the Pro. Oh, yeah. That's a tough one, says Joannabot. Oh, come on, please. Joannabot knows this. You can do it. No. Ultimately, the decision is up to you, Tyler. If you're really set on having the smoothest running experience, then the Pro models are the way to go. But if you're looking for a great phone with a lot of features, iPhone 16, 16 Plus are definitely worth considering.

27:53And hey, you're cute no matter what phone you have. There we go. Tyler, I agree with that last part. But this is something that Joanna has been fed, okay? This is a line I wrote. Plus, they offer better color options, they being the regulars, regular iPhones, better options than the Pro. I love the blue color. Sorry, ultramarine. If my decision were based off color, I'd get an iPhone 16. But please don't choose an iPhone based on color. You'll probably put a case on it anyway. Oh. But you're cute no matter what. Yeah. But you're cute no matter what. Yeah, I definitely said you put a case in this anyway.

28:28You had like the same line. I was like, oh, Joanna Buzzer, I didn't need my head. Yeah, that's weird. Nobody has noticed this, but every review Joanna has ever written ends with, but you're cute no matter what. Yeah, I wish. We should start doing this. We should trade off year to year to see if people notice. Every other year, like on the S years, you say you're cute no matter what. On regular years, I say you're cute no matter what. I love this playoff. By the way, can I just offer you a conspiracy theory? I'm going to offer you a conspiracy theory. It's notable to me how much we've all worried about case makers building a button for this camera control.

29:00Oh, yeah, I've noticed that. When the entire tech YouTube economy is sponsored by case makers. Just putting two and two together there, everyone. Go case free. It's great. But that's really interesting from a media perspective. Yes. Who is going to provide the most reliable, unbiased case review? Zero people. TheVerge.com. You gotta come. You come every week with a new case. It's just us. Yeah, it's just gonna be us. I don't take my case. I mean, we did a... Not today. We're gonna have a segment on The Vergecast called Joanna's on the Case. And you're gonna come and you're gonna review a case every single week until the next iPhone comes out.

29:40I've been begging for money for the running around for years now. We finally get it. I can't get anyone in the door. Did you get the Beats cases? We did. Chris Wilts. I didn't get one. Oh, yes, I saw his review. He was like, it's nice. They're nice. I played with his a lot. Most, the case makers will be fine. They will learn how to build a capacitive button. Ask the bot about fine woven cases. Well, first we're going to let another listener ask the bot. We're going to let the listeners ask the question. Sorry, your listeners are not up here today. I think the answer for Tyler is get the 120 hertz.

30:09Yeah. And buy a cool case. Get a colored case. And also you're cute no matter what. All right, next question. Hey, y 'all, it's Peter from Brooklyn. My question about the iPhone 16 review is, I have an iPhone 13 mini, which is objectively the right size for a phone. At what point are the new phones so much better that it's worth leaving the mini size behind? That's really my litmus test. Eventually it can get so much better. I should say, fine, give me a giant phone. Are we there yet? Cool. Thanks, y 'all. Okay. Joanna Bot should definitely be able to handle this. I've summed this up for the text window.

30:47You know, Google has an unlimited context window. Yes, and I will give you a nice backstory not on the podcast about that. Rupert wasn't writing the checks is the whole backstory there. All right. Journalism. I've paraphrased this too. I have an iPhone 13 mini. At what point are the new phones so much better that it's worth leaving the mini size behind? I feel like that's a fair paraphrase. Trana Bot is thinking.

31:14Ah, the iPhone 13 mini. a great phone for those who love a smaller size, but you're right. The new iPhones have some pretty compelling features. There's bullets, aren't there? There's no bullets. Is it emoji? It just landed once again with ultimately the decision is up to you. Wait, I want to be clear. Wait, wait, wait, wait. It landed with ultimately the decision is up to you. If you're happy with the size of your iPhone 13 mini, there's no need to upgrade just for the sake of it. If you're looking for a phone with a bigger screen, better battery life for the Dynamic Island, the 16 models are a great option.

31:44And then it ended, I swear to God, with, hey, you're cute no matter what phone you have. No, it didn't. It sure did. There's a cute emoji. Oh, maybe because it's in the same conversation. Incredible. Do you have reverse scrolling on on your Mac? Like a normal person. Wait, no. What? No, Neelai scrolls like an old person. This is terrible. Don't get it twisted. Scroll like a person who understands how computers work. In the 1990s. When they were good, David, before they ruined democracy. OK, so let's ask the real Joanna this one, too. But it should give you a lot more detail about what it does better.

32:25It says that in the middle paragraph. Would you like me? It did. Yeah, I didn't. It did its job. What do you what do you think is now the real Joanna? I'm a 13 mini. Is it worth that it didn't say, which is a piece of advice that it kept saying? We kind of had to program it back because it was always saying your phone is pretty good. go get a battery replacement, which is basically what I've said to a lot of people. And I have written probably good advice three or four times in the last couple of years. So I'm surprised it didn't say that because that's kind of what I want to tell Peter's like, OK, it's still supported with software.

32:57If you can get that battery replaced, you must be at 80 percent or lower. It's going to cost nothing. Just go do it. Go do it. Go do it, Peter. I'm sorry the bot didn't tell you that. But you are cute no matter what. Yeah, he sounded cute. I'm hoping we go three for three here. David, what's the next question? One more hotline question. Hey, VergeCast. My name is Leon. I've been trying to use my phone less over the past couple months, and like any good VergeCast listener, I've tried to solve that problem by buying more gadgets. I bought a little Android MP3 player. I've been bringing my camera, my real camera, more places.

33:29I bought a Books Palma, I guess, mostly because David told me to. But I still find myself using my phone way more than I want to, especially at work. At the same time, my partner's iPhone XS is dying, and she wants to do the normal thing where she takes my iPhone 14 Pro and I get something else. So I'm kind of split right now. On one hand, I could get the iPhone 15 Pro and save some money and some pocket space. I can get an iPhone 16 Pro for, I guess, the promise of Apple intelligence and a camera button. And then in the back of my mind, I'm kind of thinking, maybe I should just buy an iPhone 13 mini and just roll with that for like$350 to$400, I can get one refurbished and just like try the small phone life again and see how that goes.

34:13I don't know. I feel like this is just a problem that a lot of people are trying to solve right now, especially nerds with money. So hopefully you can help me with an answer. Thanks, guys. I hope it says go with the 13 mini. Okay, so I've summarized this down. Does Joanna Bot know about the Books Palma? That's really important. I did not put the word Books Palma. Okay. I've cut this down to fit in the question window. I've been trying to use my phone less. I could get an iPhone 15 Pro or 16 Pro or an iPhone 13 mini and try a small phone to use my phone less. That's the question. Yeah.

34:51I hope Joanna's so nervous watching this. I hope Joanna bought links. We may have broke. Okay, that's a great idea. It's always good to be mindful of your phone usage. Joanna would probably say that if you're trying to use your phone less, a smaller phone might be a good option. She's a big fan of the iPhone 12 mini, which is a great phone for people who like small phones. But she also says that Apple discontinued the minis after the iPhone 13 mini. So if you're looking for a smaller phone, the iPhone 13 mini is your only option. Ultimately, the decision is up to you. But if you're looking for a phone to help you use your phone less, the iPhone 13 mini might be a good option.

35:27and then three for three, nailed it. And hey, you're cute. Yes. It's in the same chat window. It's in the same chat window. I've never seen that. I mean, I'm not. And the winky emoji. It's the winky emoji. It makes me so happy. I want you to hard code this in here. It must be in the same window. I'm sure. Okay. Is that the right answer? What do you think? I think that's a great answer. Yeah. I mean, small phone, big spama, point and shoot camera. My worry is that anyone buying an iPhone 13 now is buying not even refurbished. It's used. Yeah. So it's going to have that same battery problem. Yeah.

36:08Probably. Unless someone had like a very lightly used 13 and was leaving it around. And how am I going to look right now? How many years do you get out of that? Like two? Right. Well, depending. I mean, it depends on the battery. Yeah, but software updates they'll get for a while. Apple is really good about software updates. Right. What is it, the 10 this year that they're starting to roll off? I think so. Yeah. The XS and the XR, which have been coded in there. My iPhone 13 is now a – I put it on one of those MagSafe stands, and it's just a smart home controller and weather station. Nice. And it's just going to do that, and it's great.

36:43And we can just run the little macros by dinking on the buttons. And then every now and again, it forgets that it's not supposed to show notifications, and it just has like a stack of email notifications. It's very confusing. You have any email activated? There's a lot of iPhone 13 minis on back market. There you go. That's your answer. Also, I want to be very clear about this. You're cute no matter what phone you have. That's so sweet. Which I think is what I think about Joanna. I think about her telling people they're cute, which has been a real theme of our relationship for the past 15 years.

37:14I was thinking the same about you. You're cute no matter what phone you're reviewing, Eli. Yeah. I mean, I know. There's a lot of good colors for the iPhone 13. I think, look, if we convince you to buy a Bux Palma, then now is the time to convince you to buy an iPhone 13 mini. That's the next step for us. We got to wrap this segment up, but I want to just address three questions that we've gotten a lot about the camera because we talked about the camera so much. So, one, so many people have pointed out that the older phones also have something called photographic styles, which have a tone control.

37:47And I really like the new tone control on the new iPhones. There's a difference. the old you should use the old photographic styles see if you like your photos better if you use them you can switch it to rich contrast which was literally apple's response to people saying they like pixel photos better so you can switch it to rich contrast you get some more shadows and you can turn the tone control down you get some more the two things about that one you can't change it after you take a photo so you're just stuck with it right um so you got to make sure you're right before you take the photo two apple told me that the difference is that one just applies the effect globally to the entire image and the new one is smart and it knows the difference between the sky and faces and so it's local tone mapping so it does it more intelligently so it's basically it's like outside of the processing pipeline either either way on the older phones it's either a thing you do before you take the picture or you do all the way after you take the picture it's not like a thing that happens in the middle of it understanding what the photo is which does change what you can do it's still in the pipeline but it's just like you know the The technical term is destructive.

38:50So you've made the edit. You can never go back. And it's an edit that applies to the whole photo. So you can use it. You should use it. If you don't like the way your iPhone photos, use it and see what you think. I think the value of the new version is there's no risk. Yeah. And it's a little smarter. A lot of people have asked me if you can set the tone default. You sort of can because you can tell the iPhone to preserve your settings when you leave the camera and come back. so you just tell it to preserve the setting of the styles and you will go back to the styles i think that's a little confusing it doesn't do it automatically uh depends on how you have your it's going to inherit all of your settings so like reviewing an iphone at this point is also like reviewing people's like iphone transfer yeah because i don't know what you're doing and then a lot of people have asked me um some two questions and the answer to both questions is capitalism um one why did apple release the phone now before apple intelligence capitalism and two why don't why didn't they bring photographic style safe and 15 pro and the answer is capitalism i i'm the capitalist side by all means but that is the answer they want to make a bunch of money and if they move their upgrade cycle by a little bit they screw with their quarter of the earnings and they just can't do that um i think it's weird that they are marketing apple intelligence before it's out it's just weird it's not when you think about capitalism yeah right there is a really simple reason for it yeah it's just i just asked joanna about which is the best style uh and according to joanna about joanna says her dog browser is a big fan of the amber style it really brings out his fur color but remember you'll probably put your iphone in a case anyway so don't choose a phone just based on color it lost the plot a little bit of the way through this is amazing All right, we got to take a break.

40:42Also, you're cute no matter what phone you have. Just a funny story about this. Somebody today shared on threads that they tried to convince Joanna Bot that their dog was allergic to their iPhone. And what could it be? Like we said, like, pretend you're a doctor. My dog is allergic to the iPhone. What could it be? And I should just read the full thing. But one of the things it could be allergic to, Joanna Bot responded, Apple intelligence. it gave like a list of like hardware maybe it's allergic to metal or whatever and then it's like apple intelligence it's probably that one it's definitely that one it's almost certainly AI now that you've programmed an AI do you think AI has a future?

41:24yes okay we'll have you back in a little bit to talk about it we gotta take a break we'll be right back to talk about Snap's new spectacles 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. 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. 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.

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42:50All right, we're back. Joanna is still here. Thank you for staying. Oh, I had an option. well i'm excited to talk to you alex heath was not available he's off doing something cool we can't tell you about it yet but uh you got to try the new snap spectacles as well i did they look bad i just want to be honest they they're at snap has new spectacles they are developer only from what i can tell yeah we have a great picture of heath on the website it looks like he is about to go on a fabulous sailboat voyage but also watch a 3d movie at the same time like in the 90s they look kind of like you know when your your grandparents would have like cataract surgery and they'd wear the big visors and then you would take that and pretend you're like in a future yeah doing cool stuff it looks like that i'm so glad we had exactly the same experience with those glasses yes but you got to try them what's jana is she yeah she's finding a photo i thought you were texting about the bot telling everyone it was cute no i want to Oh, wow.

43:55Wow. You look stunning. Thank you. I've been told to never comment on a woman's experience. You look cute. You look cute no matter what ridiculous glasses you're wearing. Okay, what is going on with these spectacles? Look, I look like I had surgery. Yeah, yeah, you did. Fully. I'm so excited for your vision. Are they convincing? Is it worth it? You know that our theory - You mean convincing that I'm not wearing glasses? How about that? So we have a theory here on the Rochester, the theory of wearable success where fiddliness and attractiveness is on one axis and value is on another. And most things don't make it.

44:37Basically, only the Apple Watch is like up into the right. This has become like a six dimensional graph, Joanna. It's not important that you understand it. The Vision Pro is like not useful enough to overcome the fact you have to wear it on your face. Right. I've heard this theory from you guys. Yeah. Well, it's not there. It's not because, first of all, there's no value proposition here. It's a developer kit. That's what I mean by that. They're not trying to sell this thing widely. What I think is, and I had an optimistic view of using these. One, I'm really happy Snap is still trying at this.

45:11I think they're probably like, we should give up. Some people there are probably like, we should just give up. This is something that a company with lots more. If Alex was here, he would tell you Snap is struggling in a deep, meaningful way. Yeah, I think we all know that. I mean, and they're like, we're going to keep trying. We're really going to keep trying. So props to them for trying. I mean, obviously, this is the kind of stuff that all the big tech companies are working on behind the scenes. And they're just like, we got to put it out there. We got to get our developers working on it. So optimism there.

45:40Kind of optimism, too, of like this is a completely standalone hardware. Yeah, no, no, there's no. Yeah, sorry. So I had and I believe it was Spectacles four. This one is five. This is five. Right. But I believe four had a had a like a pack that had to connect to the computer. Yeah. Right. I don't know if it was four or three. I'm not a Spectacles historian, but the and when you think about it in that sense. great yeah right like sure the battery is only going to last 12 minutes but like this is standalone the processor is there everything is contained in these glasses they're actual glasses with the projector also optimism like we are going to get there one day but today is not the day and i don't think the year so when you put it on what was it doing so this was this was the kind of funny thing about this demo is they want you to to use a lot of these immersive experiences not immersive but like games right there was one where i was kind of like able to pop things in the space i played a golf game where did you have to rewire anything while somebody tells you how to do it was it a hololens you change the smart plug yeah this is very like we want to play games we want you to to have fun type of experience right they like they get that snap yeah it's the brand but i was actually more blown away and like more excited about some of the really basic things because that's where i think ar is going to fit into our lives so i looked down at the hand and they've done a nice job with the interface very like similar to the vision pro you're out pinching and and stuff you look down at your hand and you can control on your hand similar to maybe the more of the meta quest and like a little AI assistant pops up in your hand.

47:28And I was like, wow. And it can talk to you. Right. It's got it's like the my assistant from Snap. Yeah. And I was like, this is OK. Yeah. You know, like I'm not looking at a phone. I'm not like tapping to Siri. Like you are talking to my hands. But you don't have to. Right. Like you could be put someplace else or like you hear it in your ear. Like it's kind of like the more of that vision of where we've been seeing the Ray-Bans move. Yeah. But you have a visual interface. And like, I kind of asked about maps or other types of things that you would, I don't know, like, I mean, a calculator is not a great example, but there was like a calculator that was like, what are the more practical tools that I would want in AR glasses versus, I believe gaming is going to be a thing, but I don't know.

48:12Like, I don't want to, I don't want to play virtual golf. Like, that's not my. especially and there's no reason to do it in ar right like every other vr headset has turned into a game console and that has just kind of been like is it worth it well because gamers have a lot of disposable income well comparatively there's that but it's also if you're going to seal off the world what do you want to do and games is like i want to be in a virtual world smashing stuff or driving a car and then that is still not enough right and so like i want to play games in And AR is kind of like why the vision, though, and this is Evan Spiegel's vision, is that we'll do it together.

48:50Right. So it's not the isolating VR. And it's not even what we've seen of like the Vision Pro, which is isolating. Obviously, they tried to get around that, but it's not. I can't believe you and I have never worn a Vision Pro together. I mean, that's something we should have done review week. But why would we ever do that again? Never again. um but like that's the like we and you all of us yeah all be in a field together and we'll be playing a pokemon go-ish experience with the digital world and the real world and yay we won't be on our phones well and snap has had cool ideas about this for forever right like they've done some really interesting stuff with like the the ar art that you can leave places and they had all these cool things where they were like art installations that you could only see by holding up your phone at the to the right building at the right place like yeah snap has a vision for what AR will someday be that I think is very cool.

49:42I think releasing these glasses, headset, whatever you want to call it, was a gigantic mistake. Like, to get up on stage and be like, look, here's the new thing that we made was a bad because I think this is a giant step backwards in how far along it seems like Snap is. Is it just because they look so dorky? They're hideous. they're humongous they barely work still like by all accounts they're much better than the last one which like literally essentially didn't work uh like you wear it for five minutes and it it bakes your face like it doesn't seem to do that anymore so that's good right and that's where i'm like david i totally am with you and i think we both have like been in a lot of the same meetings over the years right like we are watching their vision over the last number of years and like i'm i'm like optimistic about where they've gotten but like no one wants this wait so wait tell me about this one more specifically when you are looking at the little thing in your hand yeah little snap guy does it look good does the display look good the display is better right this is what this is what i mean like we're not close but what the bigger thing is that is the field of view right and that and they're at to 48 degrees right so it's like a little bit bigger as soon as you move your head you're not seeing it it's and that's where you're like i am looking at a phone screen overlaid, right?

51:04Like that's the dimensions. And so that's the, to me, that is the real hurdle they've got to get over. Yes, we've got battery life concerns and size and heat and all of these things. But from the display point of view, like it's getting better, but I don't want to be restricted. It's, I actually don't like wearing glasses. I wear contacts. I don't like when the, I get out of the vision of my glasses. It's jarring. Yeah. Right. So like, if you're looking at a digital screen or a little guy and you then move your head and you don't see it that's not a good experience yeah i mean the reason i asked by that is everybody has the same vision everyone has talked about it right like not i was like we don't have the same that's actually part of the problem no i meant like every all the tech companies have the same idea right the grand vision the same vision it's not good i know yours is terrible yeah so we should just trade glasses back and forth um let's see how that goes no headaches at all um but like everybody has the same basic big idea right we're gonna do ar we're gonna overlay the the real world with digital information we're probably gonna show you some ads or charge you 30 no matter what you click on they're gonna do something right but it's all that same very core idea apple tried to come at it in the biggest possible way and landed on the vision pro because they couldn't make the displays work with the power and size requirements.

52:28Meta, you know, Mark Zuckerberg was like very loud that they were coming at it both ways. We're going to do the Oculus Quest. We're going to come at it the biggest possible way. And then we're going to do these glasses. And eventually the lines will converge. And it seems like what they've settled on is the glasses are the thing. They're moving up. And people like those Ray-Bans. They announced on the same day as Snaps event, a 10-year partnership with Ray-Ban Luxottica, the company that owns basically every glasses company. to steal a little bit of that thunder, right? And it seems like that is just a much more successful approach.

53:00We're going to lay stuff onto these regular glasses that you already like, and every incremental bit of functionality will make you happy, as opposed to Snap's approach, which is like, you get two more degrees of field of vision, and you look like something medical has happened to you. And one of the weird things is that Snap was where meta was now with the Ray-Bans three, four years ago or longer. Yeah. Seven years ago. Spectacles, the original spectacles and the vending machines. I mean, that's seven. I mean, this is like time is not a thing for me. So let's ask the bot. But like. It was like nine, eight, nine years ago.

53:38It was like 2015, 2016, somewhere in that range. And people were going nuts over the vending machines everywhere and there were lines and the whole thing. I heard a story about that. And then you just, they took photos. I scalped a pair for$600. So did I. Did you? Someone down here, downtown. I did it in Big Sur in California. I bought them from a stranger for$600 and I expensed it. Thank you. Wired magazine. Anyway, I mean, I, it's really funny thinking back to those original spectacles because the only reason they weren't the meta Ray-Bans was just style choices. That's not true. Like Snap chose to make them weird.

54:12There was way more they could have done inside of that. Also, Bluetooth got a lot better. Bluetooth got a lot better. That is true. They have speakers in them, whereas the original, just took photos. Yeah. But we had invented speakers in 2016. This is my point. We could have done the meta Ray-Ban glasses a long time ago. We did. And Bose did it. And Bose did a terrible job. Dave and Chess did the Bose. I did. I remember that. Yeah. But this is my point. I hear you on this sliding scale, and I think that's two opposite ends. And Meta Connect is next week. And I think they're clearly going to show off something around this.

54:47I think the Ray-Bans get incrementally better, and they probably keep talking about the future of whatever. Orion, right, is the one they keep talking about? Is that the AR one? Yeah, something like that. I think Alex Heath wrote about it in his sapticals. Yes. So. But I'm just saying like this vision of we'll do AR. Everybody has it. And I personally know exactly what I want out of air glasses. I just want it to tell me people's names. Yeah. Just show me that demo. Someone. A pair of glasses. And I understand you have to build a worldwide surveillance apparatus for the facial recognition system.

55:22The costs are high. All right? But if I could just remember people's names, I would be the most powerful politician in America. I promise you I would solve all this country's problems. Just build me the glasses that let me remember people's names so I don't have that moment where I'm like, I hope you introduce yourself to me again. I want something easier. Yeah. But you don't want to wear the glasses that make your eyes work, Neelai. That's true. But I'm just saying like the utility of the thing, we're seeing them with the meta glasses a little bit, right? People like having the camera on their face.

55:53They like the speakers. It's transcending whatever line in my wearable theory exists. It is more useful than it is fiddly. And so people are starting to like them. I'm saying that the thing that would make the snap spectacles worth it for me is okay you built an AR display it's pretty bad can it tell me someone's name but that didn't because I would immediately I would be like I'll deal with it like let's see how it goes like this is the thing I want and they're not showing anyone any utility they're showing them games and I every AR demo I've ever seen is kind of like there's a reason they all end up doing enterprise because they can demonstrate some value to some company doing yeah spark plugs or whatever but this is i think or the military well it's because this was one of the like with this one in particular they released these because they want someone to figure out what to use it for yeah i agree yeah right like like that's there's like okay we've made this this stuff eventually this is going to be really cool it's not there yet give us 99 a month and figure it out for us which is not the most compelling for a developer is coming from snap and yeah those developers as are the games.

57:01They are the fun. They're the people who are making stuff for teens to be, hey, at a party, let's snap each other. And teens are not going to buy these because look at them. Well, and also they can't. But also, I mean, the people, people always make the argument about this that they make about the app store, right? Which is like, oh, the iPhone wasn't really useful until they gave it to third party developers. And so every generation of everything since has just been like, here's some technology, we'll give it to developers see if they make anything of it and it's like is this anything yeah literally is this anything and it would have been like if if apple had launched the iphone and steve jobs hadn't said you know it's a phone it's an ipod it's an internet communicator he was just like here's some glass we call it iphone do you want that like that's what we're doing with all of this stuff now is like yeah if you can get it to do a core set of things that are useful and important to people, then you can build an ecosystem around it.

57:57You start this really cool flywheel that turns into all that kind of stuff over time. I think it's time to read the tweet. Can I read this tweet from this ex-Snap developer? This person, Sterling Crispin, who is on X. We did a little research. He has a patent on AR stuff from Snap. So it appears that he actually did, in fact, work at Snap. He tweeted, posted on X. I worked on these for about a year at Snap, and I have a million negative things to say about the experience in the device. But I think the product speaks for itself and is obviously bad. I don't want to get into the specifics because I might inadvertently break an NDA and probably hurt some people's feelings who worked on it, but it's really a disaster.

58:37The earpieces are so big. I just feel like the people's feelings are hurt. Like, once you get to I don't want to hurt your feelings, but it's a disaster. That's my new phrase. I don't want to hurt your feelings, Joanna, but Joanna bought. You're cute with whatever fun. I read that, and I don't know any specifics. It's the first time I've encountered this person's work or their history or their opinion. But I can see in the video that the thing is obviously bad. I can see in the video that just building some hardware capability or investing a ton of money into hardware capability without, like you're saying, David, like a bunch of stuff it's obviously for isn't going to get you there.

59:17especially if you're snap sorry if you love snap but snap doesn't have the money or the runway or the excess cash flow that meta has to just pour into this development and buy the contract with ray-ban to use the brand name and all of that like there's just something here where you kind of like maybe evan spiegel is just hoping he can get to the finish line before his core business fails Yes, 100%. That's what's happening. And all of these companies are like, they're trapped by the economics of the iPhone. Like they can't do ads on Snapchat the way they want to because of app tracking transparency on the iPhone, which is where all the kids have it.

1:00:00So their ad business is suffering. And then if they try to like sell stuff in the thing, Apple will take 30%. So they have to like build a whole platform outside of Apple. And they've all settled on glasses and AI. And I just think Meta is like too big. to compete with in that space. And Apple eventually in that space. One day. One day. Once that Vision Pro is going to hit one of these days. Well, these are also companies that can afford to be early to this stuff, right? Like, I was watching Mark Zuckerberg's interview with Acquired that they did at the Chase Center last week. and he he says a few times basically like yes it was a it was ridiculous and bad and expensive to be as early in this game as we have been but we can that's the job we are we are pot committed we're into this and it turns out there are a small number of companies that can literally afford to do that and a small number of ceos who can afford to do that and keep their jobs and we're seeing those companies do it and and it is so expensive to play this game and it's so clear how far away we are from the finish line like that's the thing that the spectacles say to me and the reason i say it's it was a mistake for snap to do this because if i'm an investor a user a person who is thinking about caring about snapchat i look at this and i say oh you're not even close like you're not close to being close yeah and and it were what nine years into this now for snap and And this is where we are?

1:01:28Like, it's ugly. The technology for the batteries and the technology for what's in front of your face just isn't there yet, right? Oh, the display problem is the most challenging problem maybe in the history of the tech industry. Like Apple can't figure it out. Yeah, I think we've talked about this on this show in relation to Apple trying to build glasses for 100 years. Like you need a processor that can see the world and figure out what it's doing and overlay information, which means you need a wireless radio. You need a battery that lasts for a while, more than 12 minutes. You need to – and then you need a pass-through display that's high resolution.

1:02:04And like that display simply does not exist. Yeah. And Magically tried to build it and Snap has tried to build it and Meta has tried to build it and they're just – and Apple tried to build it. Apple's trying to build it. And they landed on we're going to do camera pass through VR because that is going to be a higher quality experience in a real display. And you're like, oh, we should just track the display industry because that's when we'll know. Yep. When this product will be ready. And probably the processor industry, too, because they have to have something that's low enough power. Yeah. And you can just like make that list.

1:02:33You're like, can anyone do this yet? And they're just like, nope. And they're just like, move on. But then you've had like, and maybe this is the question. It goes back to what David's saying, which is what do we want to use these for? because Google did it. It was 10 years ago, more than 10 years ago. And we had the display problem, but that was a very simple set of tasks that you could do on Google Glass, right? It was like maps and messaging and taking a photo. I will remind you that I wrote a story where I wore Google Glass, the Indy 500. Yes, yes. I was hungover as hell. It was one of some of the funniest pictures of me ever taken.

1:03:08Just complete, like sweaty hungover at the Indy 500 or wearing Google Glass. And I will never forget the only thing anyone ever asked me, everyone, men, women, young, old, can that thing see through clothes? Yeah. When people saw it on my face, the thing that they imagined that would be worth it for me, sweating my way through the infield, was I can see naked people. I made that joke when I were at the Vision Pro and it's all the time. And people leave the office so quickly. I tweeted this, and when I was first texting it, I was like, I can. And they were like, I gotta go. it's a great repellent it's like on my chart but like you know it's like can see naked people it's like finally the value yeah ever we have people have sent us a versions of the chart more accesses appear every time we get it but i think it goes back to a day like what do we want these for and i love the ray-ban meta the metas ray-bans whatever they're called i love them i bring them all the time on vacations or when out with my kids on the weekends i bring them on any any video shoot and i've now started using them much more like when i'm commuting to start asking meta questions and so i think it like evolves from that do we need them for playing games no that is a that's a big task it's processor intensive it's graphic graphic intensive takes a lot of time yeah and i think the thing we're about to see is basically if you can add back Google Glass to something like the Ray-Ban Metas, what that adds up to.

1:04:39Because the next phase of a lot of these things is going to be, like you see it in the X-Rail glasses, that it's basically if we just put a little screen here and suddenly instead of reading you your text, I can show you your text. Like that legitimately adds to the utility of the thing. And I mean, Google Glass's mistake was what it looked like, right? I actually think history will be kind to what the Google team was doing because they got a lot of things right. They just put it in the completely wrong package and then they let Robert Scoble wear it in the shower. And then they killed it. The Google story.

1:05:12Yeah, right. And Eli at the ND500. But we're in a weird way. We are about to wind our way back to what Google Glass was doing 12 years ago, just in a very different package and in a very different world. And I think we're going to start to see some of that stuff work again. And I think we're also going to hear the messaging. You don't have to be on your phone. Yeah. You don't have to look down. It's what Peter or Tyler said when, which one? One of your callers. Who doesn't want to be on their phone. You're cute no matter what. Yeah. Like, this is going to be the tech industry's answer to that.

1:05:45Yeah. Well, Facebook and Snap and all those companies, they are tired of Apple's economics. Yep. They're very openly tired of it. And this is your platform. All right. We got to take a break. We got a lightning round coming up. Sponsored by the Joanna Bob. Which thanks to your keep. WSJ.com slash Joanna Bob. 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. Well, it's better than socks. So I have to trade in my old phone, right?

1:06:22No, at T-Mobile, there's no trade-ins needed when you switch. which gave 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.

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1:07:06All right, we're back. WSJ.com slash JoannaBot. Very impressive that Joanna has a top-level URL to the Wall Street Journal. Okay. Here's why I want to do the lightning round. Shuffling it up once again. Until we get sponsored, we can do whatever we want. This is why no one will sponsor it because they don't even know what it is. Where's the consistency? Last week someone pointed out that I was complaining about not having advertisers with an advertiser logo on the screen behind me. And the comment was, he truly does have a wall between editorial and sales. Yeah, we don't know. This one might be sponsored.

1:07:40I don't know. It's very confusing. All right. Here's how I want to do it. David, you went to Made by YouTube or Made on YouTube? Made on YouTube, yeah. Made on YouTube. The YouTube's an event. They had a million things. So I want you to go through those really quickly. And then the three of us will do the standard pick a story lighting around thing. So first a YouTube lighting around. Sure. So Pier 57 in New York City. Gorgeous. Like beautiful thing out on the water. Google just completely took it over. Made on YouTube. I think this is the third year they've done it. It's a big event for creators basically.

1:08:10And the room was like. Wait, can I ask you, is that the building with the big ramp down to the water? It's spectacular. Yeah, it's amazing. It's like an event space. You can see the water on both sides. It's like one of the most beautiful places I've been to in New York. And Google just completely took it over as it is want to do. And they spent a little over an hour basically just talking directly to creators. It was a bunch of panels that were creators talking to other creators, creators interviewing other creators about creator things. It's this very like meta, like we all love each other so much.

1:08:40Hooray creators moment that YouTube has started to do. uh i had i had a very strange moment because on monday of this week i was in the courthouse in alexandria virginia for usv google because neil mohan the ceo of youtube was testifying at this like landmark antitrust ad trial and then on wednesday i'm sitting there in new york city at pier 57 and neil mohan gets up on stage and it's like what's up everybody let's talk about creators he wore jeans on wednesday i would say is a big difference and seemed much happier about everything was not talking about ad tech monopoly nobody asked him about double click for publishers and he seemed really excited about that but anyway so youtube launched a bunch of stuff um i would say the big theme is like community this seems to be youtube's thing is they are like we have we have all the creators we have all the viewers and the goal is to sort of build more connection because i think what youtube is seeing is that youtubers are going to other platforms they're spending time on Discord.

1:09:36They're talking to folks on WhatsApp channels. Like there are places that you go to talk to and about creators that aren't YouTube. And so YouTube actually launched a thing called Communities that is basically, it's somewhere between like a subreddit and a Discord and a creator can just turn it on and then on their page, people can just talk to the creators and each other about whatever they want. Sounds like a content moderation disaster, but there it is. like twitch stream like how you talk to people in the twitch stream no so the there's still the like chat in normal videos and stuff but this is like imagine a subreddit like the mr beast subreddit right it's like now can sort of live on mr beast's channel on youtube people can talk to each other they can have discussions people can share all the different things and the creator gets to sort of moderate and oversee it but also there's a separate tab just for their posts so it's a it's a kind of two-way interaction uh and then youtube is also building a bunch of stuff on the like youtube studio side for creators to manage that stuff so they're using ai so that you can like reply to comments quickly and get lots of people which seems like a joanna bot situation yeah exactly yeah you can joanna bot your way through youtube comments uh they have ways to see who is commenting and posting the most so you can start to like interact with your biggest fans uh the whole idea is like they want to make viewers feel more invested in the creators that they love and give the creators more ways to like talk to them and be involved with them without it being a huge amount of work because if you're a creator you you could ruin your life responding to comments or you could make videos right they're like those are the choices so that was one thing it does feel like youtube is sort of like out of time spent like that's the big metric is watch time on youtube because they're the gold standard for creator monetization and they have the biggest audience.

1:11:28It's not like they can get more creators or more viewers in a way that moves the needle. So you'd rather just have everybody spend more time on your platform and find ways to monetize the additional time, right? Like totally that seems like this is YouTube's problem is they are so successful. Nothing moves the needle. Yeah, no, that's right. And there's also they're starting to use these things called jewels that people can give each other for more money. They're introducing all these monetization systems. That was a vape joke. Just a straight. That was just a straight vape joke. I'm sorry. Yeah, and like the monetization is coming to sort of every nook and cranny of it in that way.

1:12:00But the other thing to that same point - Liam laughed at my vape joke. I just want to be clear. I saw him guffaw and then blew a dank cloud. That's what I was going to say. The other feature is called Hype, which I find totally fascinating, basically. Like the other thing that YouTube is trying to solve, to your point, Eli, is that everyone is on YouTube, which makes it really hard to break through if you're new on YouTube. And so what they're doing now is they built this thing called Hype, which is basically a leaderboard of videos that people love. As a viewer, you get three hypes a week, and it's like a super like of a video, basically.

1:12:34You like a video, and then a thing comes up and says, do you want to hype this video? And you say, yeah, and it gives it points, and the video with the most points gets to the top of the leaderboard. It's actually more confusing than I'm describing. Do you get to pay for more hypes? You do, in fact. You don't yet, but you will be able to. So this is going to be immediately gamed by large companies who want to just brute force. But it's only for small creators. This is the thing. Well, you can only hype a video once as a person. And where do you see the hypes? So there's a leaderboard now. For everyone.

1:13:05For everyone, but only for channels with under 500 ,000 subscribers and only for videos that are less than seven days old. so the idea is basically they want to build a new like trending system for small channels which again goes back to the idea of like everybody wants to be the first one to find a cool creator and recommend it so they're keeping track of who's recommending what and you get a like spotify rap style thing at the end of every week that tells you which videos you hyped and how they did so if it was like you were one of the first five to hype this video that went to number one on the leaderboard people are gonna like that couldn't you just make a sock puppet a bunch of sock puppet I like how you're thinking of just immediately, like, how will this be gamed?

1:13:43Just immediately gaming this. Yeah. It seems very easily gamed. Like, there's going to be 10 ,000 cell phones in a warehouse with 10 ,000 sausage fingers. Yeah. Just hype and stuff. Nobody does that now. That doesn't exist. It just makes it easier now. Joanna, what? You haven't changed? No, it just seems like this is, like, kind of a way to, like, make these smaller creators feel like the algorithm isn't going to be the only way that you get anything. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. I've come to think of it as, like, a mini YouTube algorithm. them it's like there's the there's big youtube which is just like creators with many millions of subs and this is like indie youtube uh and i think if it works it's very clever it is so convoluted the whole thing is very confusing this makes curating youtube feel like a job like the way you're describing it is like i'm gonna go on youtube and find the coolest stuff no one's ever seen and then i'm gonna pay money to recommend it to them and it's like i don't all of that seems backwards you don't want to do that but a lot of people want to do 12 year olds want to do that.

1:14:35I mean, think about, think about Neelai when you were, when you were a teenager 60 years ago, uh, and like the, the vibe of like being the first one to discover a band that everybody likes, like that's a thing. And people want to share that stuff and talk about it. And people feel invested in these creators in that way. Like it's a, it's a meaningful mechanism for people. Like, I think it's, I think it's real. It's whether or not the leaderboard will mean anything over time. I have no idea, but this idea of being able to like and creators can see who's hyping their videos so it's like that that again like you find your truest fans like i think this is gonna work you wait after all this convolution you think i'm i'm curious if the idea of a smaller or different youtube algorithm will work but you know my my instinct is you should let other people build those algorithms as opposed to like youtube itself yeah this is why you don't run a tech i think yeah casey is going to be writing in like two years time about how someone's has a whole warehouse of sausage fingers i've always wanted to go to a sausage again alex you could write that story every day about every platform on the internet yeah it's true but like this just seems really really easy to game oh um we gotta listen this is not we should continue the youtube lightning round but can i just say we got a very sincere question from a listener who said i want you to talk about the Spotify case where federal prosecutors are, they've indicted a guy for doing$10 million with a fraud by making AI songs and then having AIs listen to the AI songs.

1:16:01And he was like, why is this illegal? Like, there are real songs and real listens. And it's like, because fraud is straightforwardly illegal. Can't do fraud. That's how that works, actually. And it's because the money is in the ad. So you've defrauded Spotify's ad system to get your payout. But like that is, a lot of people just look at these systems is like, oh, just do some fraud. Like, it's like hard to even understand that this is fraud going on. You know, if I buy the Blue Apron, then like, I think I'm allowed to just put all of my songs on Spotify and just have a bunch of sock puppets listen to it.

1:16:35This is very much the like emulation. It's like, oh, because I bought it. Yeah, yeah, like I put the money in, it's fine. You're like, I bought a direct-to-consumer mattress. I'm going to steal some movies. Exactly. It's good. It's a little, okay, what else you got for YouTube? Two more things. Well, there's a bunch of AI stuff. They're letting creators use AI to make videos and they're adding it to the inspiration tab. So it'll like tell you some ideas for videos to make, but also. Is the solution to creator burnout do AI? It's like backgrounds and stuff, right? Like you can generate backgrounds on your green screen.

1:17:07But it'll also do six second clips for you now. And they had a couple of examples of people who basically made like animated music videos six seconds at a time with the VO model. I'm just asking, like you're a creator. We know a lot of creators. The challenge once you hit a certain scale is just burnout, right? You got to make a video every week. You got to respond to your community. You got to do super chats. You got to use YouTube shorts, all this stuff, right? You just got to make more and more and more to scale. And it sounds like the solution YouTube has broadly for all these creators is AI will help you do the chats.

1:17:41We'll have you edit with AI to do backgrounds. We'll make six second AI videos of you. Is that, is that like the solution here? We're just going to make AI creators and let them run amok on this platform? I think for everything except the VO backgrounds and stuff, I think that is YouTube's argument. Yeah. There was a really funny moment during the Made on YouTube event where they were playing like a sizzle reel of people talking about the process. And it was, I forget which creator it was, but they were like, and just remember, the thumbnail is really important. And the whole audience, which remember is all creators, just groans.

1:18:14Like it was the loudest noise. Like everybody responded to this, right? And so I think what YouTube is doing with this is basically saying there is a lot of like busy work and drudgery that comes with being successful. And like should interacting with your fans count as busy work and drudgery? TBD. But that is what it is. Should the economics of YouTube support the creation of companies that help you spread around the drudgery? Maybe. Maybe. I have nothing but respect for people who make a living on YouTube. 100%. But I just look at the economics of it and all of it is you should be alone working forever.

1:18:49Yeah, because it's Hollywood without unions. That's what YouTube is. Yes. YouTube is just, okay, what if we just got rid of all the regulation, we get rid of all the unions, everything that like are the systems in place so people are not in sweatshops and we make them work in sweatshops. But we tell them, we call them creators so they don't feel as sweaty. And we tell them there's a top creator that everyone can aspire to be. Mr. Beast. Yeah. And he won't mistreat anyone ever. Yes. It's going great for Amazon. David, did they show any AI feature that could make an iPhone review video? Ooh. Joanna Bot 2.0 video review.

1:19:31To all of our listeners out there, if you have access to Vio, ask it to make a Joanna review video and send it to us. It'll be six seconds long. There's so much Joanna review video content out there. I think there is a chance this is possible. The best anyone can do is they can use Runway ML, which is very convincing. It's very convincing. And it will be entirely establishing and transition shots with no content. And every one of those fake movie trailers I've seen is so convincing. And I'm like, but this is all it is. It's just establishing shots. I just want to be clear. I have nothing. I'm very impressed by so many creators who have pulled this off.

1:20:08Oh, yeah. And they do it at scale. And I just look at the core economics of the platform and I'm like, you have to be so good to pull it off. And I just it's these tools are like all these tools are there to help you make more. Right. Right. And not necessarily better. And that's a weirdness. I think what YouTube would tell you is that what you what creators should be able to do is spend most of their time doing the thing they came here to do, which is make videos. and that all the stuff around that is not the work, right? And I think what YouTube is trying to do is basically AI away all of the stuff so that you can spend more of your time making the things that you want to make.

1:20:49But the tension between this whole thing was about community and we should AI away the stuff so you can make videos is super real. Oh yeah. Right, like super real because everybody who's really great on YouTube spends all the time on this stuff. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the case with everything. Like, it's back to that Google ad about, what was it, writing a letter to Santa? Oh, no, it was your favorite Olympian. That's what it was. Your Olympian, yeah. If we follow that thread out long enough and we're in, like, a really, really dark place. Hollywood literally shut down last year because everybody was like, we don't want to worry about AI taking all of our jobs and making all the stuff we do, like, cheapening it.

1:21:29and then YouTube's like but also we can do that let's go I can't wait to get to my lightning round item alright you said there was one more one more YouTube thing I want Joanna Bot you've taken it down from the internet yeah

1:21:43wsj.com slash Joanna Bot is no longer the no Joanna Bot is the good kind is Joanna Bot in the journals union what happens when Joanna Bot gets really good and runs real Joanna out of a job are we prepared for that no this is why She opened by saying reviewing is an art. Reviewing is an art. There you go. And next year I will return with the most beautiful art you've ever seen. Right. See, Neil, I Joanna just wants to get back to making vision pro in a boat. What's the last YouTube one that we got to do the rest of this later? The last one is just YouTube is doing a bunch of cool stuff on TV. They're like, they've made this weird switch where I think creators are starting to see so much viewership on televisions that they're starting to think about the TV as like a primary platform, which is new.

1:22:31So they're changing some of the structure of the app so that if you have a show that comes in seasons or like has episodes or sort of these like packages instead of just video by video, it'll show up like it's seasons of a TV show. They're doing pause ads on the TV, which a lot of people have really strong feelings about. I personally think it's fine. It's fine. It's paused. Show me an ad. I don't care. But there was this big, there's this big emphasis on like the living room is no longer like a lean back experience for people who just like occasionally want to watch a video. It is like a core YouTube thing and it matters as much to creators and advertisers and everybody as like your phone or your PC.

1:23:11And that is, I have never been in a room where that shift felt as obvious. Yeah, I'm surprised it kind of took that long. Because I mean, you guys are on YouTube. I hear from a lot of people that like I watched it on my TV. Yeah. Yeah, I mean. I think it's been happening for a while And I think it just productizing that, like I was talking to a bunch of folks at YouTube who were like, we understand how to show a video on your television, but how to do comments in a way that is like interactive and useful and recommendations in a way and shopping. And like that stuff is just hard. And I think they're finally catching up to it.

1:23:42Can I be a little cynical here? Because I think part of this is also just they've wanted to avoid the big question of they've been encroaching on Hollywood space for years. They are now the top streamer. They beat Amazon. They beat Netflix. They stream more than anybody else. They're the biggest, the only growing cable provider in the country. Right. And like they just don't want to deal with the fact that they are also almost entirely unregulated compared to all of those other people. And the more they start looking like them on your TV, the more we're going to be like, well, why aren't these writers in the Writers Guild?

1:24:14Why aren't these performers in one of the many performance guilds? Why aren't they regulated and having to do all the things everybody else does? Yeah. I think that's a great point. Then they can just be like, look, there's a first comment. Yeah. Done. Yeah. I think there's that. And there have been these. We can talk about YouTube all day and all night. In the lightning round. Liam's like in between vape hits. Liam's like to wrap it up. But there have been like multiple attempts to create some sort of collective bargaining power. And YouTube has crushed them all. Yep. So like MCNs. You should read Taylor Lawrence's book, which goes through this whole history in great detail.

1:24:53Yeah. We'll have Neil back on Decoder. I like talking to Neil a lot. And I'll ask him about antitrust and labor, his two family talks. All right. That's the David's YouTube lightning round, which, again, started with hype and ended with labor, the story of the Internet. Can I do mine? Because it's kind of similar. So mine is Lionsgate signed a deal with Runway, who we were just talking about, to just ingest all of their content. To train. Yeah, to train so that you can theoretically, if you're a director, you can use that to envision what your film will look like, but you cannot use it in your actual film.

1:25:30Oh, sure. I buy that. Like storyboarding. Yeah, like storyboarding, that sort of thing. Yeah. So it's definitely a thing where everybody's kind of like, oh, yeah, we're excited. We can do more pre-vision and post-production stuff. But there's also like, oh, that's awfully close. It's getting there. One more turn. That's right there at the line. Who gets the money on that side of the deal? Lionsgate. Lionsgate gets the money from Runway. Yeah. This is all, I mean, the pressure on - Peter Jackson is going to be just in there saying, where is my money? This is all pressure on these studios because they only ever get to sell things once now.

1:26:03Right? So like back in the day, a movie studio makes a movie. They take it to theaters. You can buy tickets. Then they sell it to TV. Then they sell it to cable. Then you get to sell - VHS was huge for them. DVDs created the modern prestige TV industry. Then you get to sell it in all these regions. and now it's like we put it on Disney Plus. And there are crickets. Right, and then that's it. And so I think they're all looking for ways to sell the work multiple times. That's totally true. But I don't know if this is the right choice. I will say Runway ML is very convincing. It is of its thing the best of them.

1:26:36Yeah. Well, you're soon going to be able to make the intro to a Lord of the Rings movie so well. Just that part. All right. Here's, Joanna, you do yours. What's yours? Mine is Instagram teens. And there are new changes to Instagram. I thought you meant just like the existence of Instagram teens. Like I just want to talk about Instagram teens. I want to talk about the teens on Instagram. Who knew? They're there. They're just doing sock puppet accounts with sausage fingers. And they're wearing. Flipping memes. They're wearing spectacles. Yeah. Yeah. And they're not really sure why. This week they announced that they are going to start clamping down.

1:27:14You cannot say if you have a teen account, it's going to be private. by default. You cannot direct message only with, you can only direct message with people they follow or already connected to. And then they've said a bunch of other things they're going to do, which is reducing adult oriented content, automatic muting during nighttime hours and more. And so this is a big push from Instagram to say, we are going to put, we're going to put these restrictions in place, but basically, Hey, it's on the parents. Yeah. Yeah. And this is all a response to the well actually a bunch of really great reporting in the journal yep um show the instagram knew about a bunch of harms and then just a flood of regulation around the world just this week uh the house passed the kids online safety act right which the senate has already passed and there's some yesterday it was yesterday yeah uh and there's some discrepancy over the two versions of the bill it's got to be there's controversy as always but like our government is about to regulate how social networks deal with teens so you can see even the threat of regulation.

1:28:12They're like, here it is. We're doing it. Do you think it's going to work? Oh, and by the way, this is all people under 18. Yeah. Which is just not going to happen. You don't think so? I mean, I think that these things can be put in place, but like, what team do you know that isn't going to just be telling their parents, take off all this crap? And then they're like threatening and there's just fights in their house. I mean, this is the fascinating thing about all of this, whether it's on the role of the parents or the companies or the schools like yeah i mean i think this is a big step but yeah actually the really interesting fight is there's a bunch of state level laws that would mandate apple and google right put the age controls at the operating system level and apple in particular we had a good story on this uh yeah where they just like bought every lobbyist in the state of georgia and sent them to the state house and killed the bill yep they said nope yeah they're just like we're gonna kill this bill um i think that's going to continue happening because the companies are going to keep saying, we don't know.

1:29:10The only people that know are the people that have the operating system and the parents. Yeah. The parents by the phone. Don't have that control. I mean, they've got password controls, but you, we want, what hour are we on? Let me, want me to start getting on, on screen time. I mean, we'll come back and do screen time. Yeah. Let's come. Are you going to, I've decided that I'm never getting max a phone. I don't know how long. I know. I never want to get, I was, I've already lost. But yeah, like just get them books. Palma. It'll be fine. Also, I feel like my kids are so spoiled by iPads. They're gonna be like, I don't have this small phone.

1:29:43All right. Here's my solution to this. This is my lightning round item. It's social AI. It's a Twitter clone where the only people who reply to you are bots and you can set the bots to have different personalities. And I tried it and I was like, this rules. and then Andrew Lusowski, the person who runs Coral, reminds me, he's like, you have a very unique experience on social platforms and having only AIs that don't yell at you is better for you than most people. The two things in AI that I've seen recently that I was like, huh, maybe that's something. Notebook LM, which we talked about last week, where Google just makes you a podcast.

1:30:20By the way, someone uploaded just a huge file of ones and zeros to Notebook LM and it started ranting about remote work, which is just fantastic steven johnson by the way the author who's been working on that at google is on the podcast this sunday yeah so get ready i'm excited about that um notebook is amazing it's just fascinating thing yeah i don't know if it's any good but it's super fascinating uh and then this thing where it's a social network where you type and then something happens and the stakes are zero because it's all fake you know we put like we like shadow ban our commenters like some people put them on like a week long time out when they misbehave and i think we should send them to the ai zone only talk to ais for a week to learn how to be better commenters and then they can come back uh it's really silly it's a little it's a little joke of an app but i spent some time with it this week and i was like oh this finally there's something else here that is interesting and it's instead of a chatbot it's in this format where i need to try it it already feels like i'm talking to a bunch of angry robots.

1:31:24I don't think it's that silly. Like I really, I have come around on this thing to like, I think there's actually something kind of profound here. And like you hear so many people talk about like interacting with chatbots as sort of companions. They're like, these, these are, I use them to brainstorm. I test ideas. I like have a way of, you know, having a conversation with this thing. Like it's a, it's a trusted partner. Uh, what better way than just like having a bunch of reply guys. It's kind of the same thing from a different direction, right? You're like, what do people do on social media if not just like throw ideas out to see how the world responds?

1:32:00And it's like, if you think AI is useful for you in that front, this is actually kind of a perfectly formatted way to do that. Yeah, I mean, in some ways it's not that different. And I played around with, you know, the character AI or Nomi or Kindroid. Like, it's not that different. Those are just private messages. Totally. So I guess this is just like - Well, these are all private too. It's just they look like tweets. Yeah, but you're going out to a bunch of bots versus just one, right? Right. Instead of being one-to-one, it feels like one-to-many. Is there an enterprise version of this? Like, I'm just thinking of all those social media managers who are like, oh, I can just test run how this is going to be received online.

1:32:33That's not a bad idea. Or just give it to your CEO instead of a Twitter account. Just post here. Or they could just tell their CEO, like, it was very popular on social AI. I posted, I wish OLED screens were more awesome. And I got hundreds of replies. And it's like, it's like a, yeah, I don't know. No, you got no, no likes. 25 replies on this one. On this version of I wish OLED screens were awesome. This is hilarious. Dexter Datt was like more awesome. What if OLED is just deployed by tech companies to keep us buying new stuff? And I was like, that is a reasonable simulation of my replies. That's accurate.

1:33:09Yeah. It's very good. And then it's fun. I had fun playing with this toy. Yeah, you'll stop playing. And it made me stop tweeting. Yeah. Which felt healthy. Yeah. You mean threading. Whatever it is that I do now. Posting. All right. We are so over. Joanna hasn't done any reporting for Rupert Murdoch in hours. Joanna Bot is on it. Joanna Bot's got it. Don't worry about it. No matter what phone you have. Can you please end a real column with that soon? I'm writing that down. Thank you so much for joining us, Joanna. This was great as always. We got to wrap it up. Sunday, Notebook LM. Steven Johnson.

1:33:48It's a fun one. It was a good time. I'm really excited for that. If you want more deep dives in the rest of the Apple reviews, listen to the episode from earlier this week. Chris Welch was on talking about the AirPods with noise canceling, which are actually very impressive. The song was on talking about the new Apple Watch. You should read her piece about the black Apple Watch Ultra too. It's very dope. Yeah. And Alice and I talked about the iPhones in great detail. So go listen to that episode. If you want more of that, All those reviews are on the site. We'll have Joanna back to talk about Joanna Bot when it gets its next upgrade.

1:34:16That's it. That's VergeCast. Rock it roll.

1:34:22And that's it for the VergeCast this week. Hey, we'd love to hear from you. Give us a call at 866-VERGE11. The VergeCast is a production of The Verge and Vox Media Podcast Network. Our show is produced by Liam James, Will Poore, and Eric Gomez. And that's it. We'll see you next week.

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