The Vergecast - Apple gadgets, ranked

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

Apple makes a lot of gadgets. You've probably heard of some of them. Most of them are very good! Few companies in tech, or anywhere, can claim a track record as impressive and consistent as the folks in Cupertino. But only one Apple product can be the best Apple product. The Verge's Victoria Song and Allison Johnson join David to rank Apple's nine product categories — iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Vision Pro, AirPods, AirTags, HomePod, and Apple TV — in order of their best-ness. The gang agrees on a few, disagrees on a few, and gets in one argument that threatens to end the show forever.We want to hear what you think of our ranking! If you have thoughts, on Apple gadgets or anything, you can always call the Vergecast Hotline at 866-VERGE11 or email us at [e-mail]. Further reading: Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not Apple HomePod (second-gen) review: playing it safe Apple TV 4K (2022) review: unmatched power, unrealized potential Apple Watch SE 3 review: major glow-up Apple iPad Pro (2025) review: fast, faster, fastest AirTag location trackers are smart, capable, and very Apple Apple iPhone 17 review: the one to get Apple iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max review Apple AirPods (third-gen) review: new design, same appeal Apple MacBook Air M4 review: a little more for a little less Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed.We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to [e-mail] or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of trying to compare $29 products to $3,000 products. I'm your friend David Pierce, and I am in my new studio. This is my new studio. It's also in my basement in my new house. It's also technically the guest room. It's also right next to the utility room where the laundry is. But I'm calling it the studio because that sounds fancy. We just moved in.

It's all very new. If you're watching this and want to tell me what to put behind me, I would absolutely. love to hear from you. Right now it's my wife's artwork. I think it's very cool. Um, but this, this needs to, you know, feel a little more studioe. I'm a YouTuber now. You know what I mean? Like, help me out. Help me make this look cool. I will be very grateful. But we're not here to talk about that on this episode. On this episode, we are going to try and figure out what the best Apple gadget is. We did this a while ago with Google where we tried to rank all of the gadgets Google makes. It was really fun exercise to figure out like what matters, what's good, what's bad,

what is actually sort of moving the needle for Google. I suspect Apple is going to be much harder because Apple both makes a lot more products and tends to make much better ones if we're being honest with each other. So V-Song and Alison Johnson are going to come back. They're going to help me do this. We're going to rank all of the Apple products we can find.

It's going to be a blast. All of that is coming up. But first, the laundry just started, so I have to stop that before we actually record. This is the Vergecast. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from Retool. Too many companies run critical operations,

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build me a revenue dashboard on our Salesforce data. And Retool actually builds it on your company's data and your cloud with enterprise security built in. Go to Retool.com. slash Verchcast. We all need to retool how we build software. What's up, y'all. I'm Skylar Diggins, seven-time WMBA All-Star, Olympic gold medalist, and mom. And I'm Cassidy Hubbard, host and reporter for nearly 20 years covering the biggest names and stories in sports.

And mom. And this is Am Mom, a community for athletes, game changers, and moms of all kinds. Dropping May 14th. Tap in with us. Do you ever wonder what's in your lotion? If you look at the back of the bottle, it could contain more than a dozen ingredients. And they may not all be regulated. The threshold is so high that only 11 cosmetic ingredients have been restricted by the FDA since 1938.

This week, unexplain it to me, the chemicals lurking in your cosmetics. New episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back. This is not going to be controversial. It's not going to get any of us in trouble. Let's rank Apple gadgets. V Song is here. Hi, V. Hello. Allison Johnson, also here. Hi, Allison.

Hello. So we did this with Google a few weeks ago, and I would say I got somewhere between a few and many emails from people just reminding me that I'm very dumb and all of our picks were bad, which means we're doing great. And I feel very good about what's about to happen here, too. But for anybody who didn't listen to the Google episode, what we're going to do here is we're going to rank Apple's gadgets. I believe I have nine gadgets on this list, and we are going to rank them one to nine. And the word we're looking for is best. And best is deliberately all-encompassing, right? It's not most successful. It's not most lucrative. It's not highest tech, whatever. It is all of those things and many more. It matters what it costs. It matters what the competition is like.

this is a pure ranking of Apple's best to worst products. Does this make sense? Any questions? Are we ready for the hate? We are going to get so much hate. We're not ready for this. But bring it. Bring it, nerds. So before we get into it, though, I am curious how easy or hard you both found this process. Because I'm assuming you're coming in with some ideas about where things go. Was this, was this an easy thing to put in order or extremely difficult somewhere in between? Yeah, I feel like I locked in the top few in the bottom few pretty easily. In the middle is just a big question mark. And I'm going to see what you nerds do. Okay. That was kind of my experience, too.

I feel like I arrived at my bottom two and my top two pretty fast. And then I like my middle ground, but I'm willing to be talked out of it. I also suspect one of my top two is going to cause large disagreement. And I'm very excited about it. But I also feel very strongly about it. here are the nine. I'm just going to read them. This is in no particular order.

I took great pains to make sure this is not the order in which I believe they are ranked. The nine products, and I mostly, for the record, lifted this just straight from Apple's website. This turns out to be roughly how Apple categorizes its own products, so this was easy. We have the iPhone. We have the iPad. We have the Mac, which is all-encompassing. Max, MacBooks, I-Max, the Mac line. We have the Apple Watch.

We have AirPods. We have Apple TV. which in this case, to be clear, is only the hardware, not the dozens of other things also named Apple TV. This is the gadget Apple TV. We have HomePod, we have Vision Pro, and we have Air Tag. Airtag was a surprise to me that belongs on this list, but it got a category on Apple's website,

and I think that's fun, and so on the list it goes. But anyway, let's get into this. So if you're watching this, you're going to see the Rancomatic, our producer Travis, who is now an expert vibe code, built this for us. If you're just listening, it doesn't matter. This is just a way for us to visually rank all nine of these things as we go here.

Let's start at the bottom. V, hit me with your ninth place finisher here. Vision Pro. I mean, this one's easy, right? This one feels easy. So easy. Yeah. Sorry.

Sorry, not sorry. The caveat I'm going to give is I recently did a story called who is buying all of these XR and VR headsets and I talked to so many passionate Vision Pro owners who waxed both lyrical and poetic about how good the hardware is and what a leap forward this is. It's still going in number nine for me because it's $3,500. It's very uncomfortable. It's also for nothing. It's there's, it doesn't, it, it has no purpose. It's not a consumer product. Well, They would argue with you, David. They would say that it has reason to exist for a future that does not yet exist.

And here at the verge.com, we do not rate products based on what they might do in the future. We rate them on what they do now. And what it does now is not for the average person. So ignore the marketing that says that this is, you know, for the average per—it is not. It is for enterprise and developers who are trying to make. this XR future happen. It's a science project. It's a science project.

It's insane to me that you're being too nice about this thing, but you're being too nice about this thing. This is a total failed product. It's because I have to cover this space and I need these people to talk to me. They all should. But, you know. Everybody talk to V. V is great. The Vision Pro is a bad product. Like it's a really impressive piece of technical engineering.

It is a terrible consumer product. It has no killer app. It's way too expensive. It has not gotten meaningfully better in two years. Like, there is no reason a person should own this. If you own it and you have found something good to do with it, terrific. Go with God. No one should buy the Vision Pro.

Like, I sincerely believe that. They really made it, like, kind of worse, too. They were like, what is a key complaint people have about this? It's heavy and uncomfortable. Great. This one's heavier. Like, I don't know. What's going on here?

Look, look, Allison, it's offset by the new dual knit. I can't even say that. seriously, but yeah, you know, it's just, it's just not a consumer product. They are, you know, marketing and selling it like it is, but it's not, it's not that. It's a death kit. And so in number nine, it goes, I think we are all unified. The fighting has not begun yet, is what I'll say. Alison, I'm assuming you also had this last. Okay, I had that, yeah, this and my number eight were kind of like, I could go either way but yeah

Vision Pro dead last makes The Vision Pro for me is like I was thinking about this and I was like okay if the Vision Pro were half the price would it still be last? And I think the answer is yes Which to me is like 100% correct yes

Handily on like this thing just belongs in last place Like I cannot Even if this thing was a thousand dollars I still wouldn't tell people to buy it Like why? What are you getting for your $1,000? It's like a cool screen that does nothing on your face fine

anyway let's move on because I do think we all agree Allison I have a guess as to what what you just said means your number eight is going to be but tell me what's what's number eight I've got the home pod because with you so far first of all I sort of forgot it existed so at Apple for a while there

yeah second of all I was I was on Apple.com looking up the home pod just recently one of the top things they list for it is an intelligent assistant. I'm like, you're putting Siri at the top of this like feature set? Like, I'm sorry. We all have that on our phones and it is not good. Yeah, it's just hard to argue with like the way that, you know, Amazon just kind of dominated the space sort of makes the home pod feel like a weird footnote. in, you know, in the home space. It was just a bad speaker when it came out.

It flopped super hard. They improved it slightly by making it smaller and cuter. But Apple and the smart home, it's not really a smart home player in any respect. And the home pod that I had was haunted by a ghost and would always play Dolly Parton at random times that I didn't need it to. so it was very cursed. The thing for me about the HomePod, I actually struggled with this one a little bit because the HomePod,

all the things you both just said are very true, except it's actually, it is a very good speaker. And a thing I've heard from people many times, and my own experience bears this out, is that, like, the HomePod Mini in particular is a better speaker than almost anything else you can buy at that price. Like, just on pure audio quality.

Like, it sounds really good. You compare two of them, together and actually have a pretty solid set of stereo speakers. Like, even the homebot itself is like, it sounds really good. It's expensive for what it is, but it sounds better, again, than most things than it's price range. This to me is like purely a referendum on Siri. Siri sucks so bad that I cannot in good conscience tell you to buy the series speaker. Like I would be more compelled by the home pod if it were just a Bluetooth speaker, which is insane. Damning. Yes. But also like, you know, I think we have to be mindful that a lot of of the products that Apple does put out are really high quality and in many ways. Like, again, the Vision Pro is one of the best XR headsets you can buy. It's still not a thing. It's still not the best. It's still not like.

Well, I would argue the, like, average human utility of a speaker in your living room is a little higher than the Vision Pro at the moment. A little. But if we're just saying, like, but it's good. I think we could say that about all of these products. You could be like, but it's good. It does. what it says it's going to do a lot of the time. And I just think that's not good enough to propel the home pad post all, like, if it's weaknesses.

Yeah, I tend to agree. And I think this is where I landed too, that the home pod belongs here. But even this one, I was like, there was a minute where I was like, okay, there is actually a use for this thing at which it is very good. The problem is Siri. And Siri, not only is Siri bad, Siri continues to just feel like, it's getting worse. And so here we are. It's going to be very funny if Apple chooses this fall to put out a new set of home pods, which we have been waiting for for a long time. I think Siri will probably still destroy the appeal of those things. But if Apple can actually find the way to make

these things like just as good or better and cheap or cheaper and like not so Siri reliant, this has a real shot to move up the list for me. But for now, I think it is correctly in the eighth spot. I would argue this immediately gets hard. Do you agree? From here? Yeah. I'm already torn on my choices from here on.

Hmm. I think I'm more torn towards the upper half of the middle, but the lower half, I have strong opinions on. So let's get into it. Hit me with number seven, V. What's yours? My number seven is the Apple TV. Oh, same.

Yeah. Just a product where I'm like, it's good. I have multiple of them. But if it were to go away, I wouldn't cry about it because there's so many different options out there that cost less. And, you know, if you are a crazy person and willing to just use your smart TV's native software, there you go. You don't need this thing.

That's me. You don't need this thing. Is it nice if you have it? I guess. Do I feel like if all of my Apple TVs went bye-bye overnight? Would I cry? No. do I have feelings about the Apple TV remote?

Yeah, it fucking sucks, bro. So, yeah, that's my take. Apple TV number seven. Pointless is actually a very good argument for the Apple TV being here. Because I think the thing that is true is it probably is the best set top box you can buy. There are a bunch of like Nvidia Shield owners out there who just started yelling at me when I said that. And please know that I hear you. I think the Apple TV is probably like very slightly more powerful than the new Google TV streamer.

It's also substantially more expensive. And it does less stuff, right? Like Apple has been at various times, like has tried to make this sort of a full, complete thought. They were like really into games for a minute. And then they were like, we're going to do a universal search engine for a movie. And it's like if they had just done all of their ideas, I would move this thing way up the list. But then every time Apple seems to like remember that most people are not going to spend $150 on a set top box and sort of forget about it. I don't know.

Allison, is this where you had this too? Yeah. And I feel like the margin between like this is a great set top box and, you know, the software that's built into my Samsung TV from seven years ago, like sucks hardcore. But it's fine. Like, no, no, no, no, no. It plays Netflix. In good conscience, I cannot let you say that on this podcast. No.

Okay. My smart TV is fine. Goes against the official stance of the French. I am writing that up. I'm going to write 800 words about how my smart TV is like. Listen, Alison, it hurts me. You know what? It hurts me.

It hurts me to hear you say that. Dozens of us who love. But no, there's thousands, if not millions of you out there. I know so many. of you out there, which is part of, yeah. Counterpoint, your TV already does this. And like, you don't have to go buy. You can buy a set top box.

You can buy a very nice one, but your TV already does this. And you know what? You don't like combust if you use your. This is like, Alison, we use Slack at work. Do you want to switch to Microsoft Teams just because it's kind of there? Okay. Like, it's kind of there is such a bad argument for a problem. No.

But it doesn't, you know, just to play devil's advocate for the psychos like Allison out there, you know, if push comes to shove, what you're going to do is, you know, deal with Microsoft teams. There are people who are just like, ah, do I like it? No. Does it get the job done? Yes. Do I spend a whole lot of time thinking about it? Also, no. And is Slack substantially better than Microsoft Teams?

maybe at erasing the border between work and life balance. But, you know, as far as as as far as just, you know, does this radically improve my life to have an Apple TV when I could just watch a bunch of Roku ads. Yeah. See? V, aren't you wearing like 100 smart rings right now? Like, what are you talking about?

They're actually all charging right now. You have to charge your rings. Oh my God. That's so funny. Yeah. But no, but, you know, what really for me, puts it in number seven is that fucking remote and how awful it is. It's just so bad. Bad and terrible. It's gotten better over the years, but it's still, it's gotten better.

I know there are Apple TV remote apologists out there and I want you to look at hard, look at yourself hard in the mirror and think, why am I defending this stupid interface that doesn't work well? I hate that remote more than I hate the native TV. You don't even want to hear about my remote. So the original remote with the Samsung TV stopped working. We bought a universal remote off of Amazon. But see, you can do that. You can do that. You can just live a happy life without this thing.

There's like three buttons on it that work. I've spent a lot of time with the two of you in the last few years. And I like really like both of you and I really respect both of you. And all of it is just going out the window right now in real time. As you say, the horrible remote I bought on Amazon is just fine on my slow television that takes eight minutes to load the Prime Video app. You know what? It makes you really think, do I want to actually watch this? As you're typing out every individual character of the words, paw patrol.

Yeah. So what you're saying is this is a pro-friction argument. Yeah, yeah. What if all my products were worth? This is a parenting tactic. I'm like, I don't know, Lennox is going to take a little bit for me to search for that. Well, if that's the case, then Roku is making the greatest products on planet Earth. So great job to Roku.

I don't even know why I'm arguing this. I also had the Apple TV here. Why are you arguing with David? We're correct. My problem is, and this is why this is where this got hard for me is, I think the Apple TV is a very good product. And like, unlike the Vision Pro where it's like, if you gave me a, a Vision Pro for $1,000 bucks, would it,

you know, almost immediately start collecting dust on a shelf in my house? 100% yes. If you made the Apple TV the same price as the Roku, I would tell every person

I've ever met in my entire life to go buy it. Right. Like, to me, it's, this is purely about what is the cost of the thing and you're adding a new box to your setup, which is,

which is not nothing, right? Like, I, I, we just moved and we now have this like very careful lovely setup and if I just like dangle an Apple TV from the bottom of our new television, my wife will kill me. So like it's a meaningful thing to add something to your setup, right? And to say it's more expensive, it just doesn't, it doesn't quite earn that for me, despite being a very good

product, which is why I struggled with this. But like I said, I have it at seven. So I hate both of you, but we'll put this here because it's fun. Come fight us in the comments, bros. Like, again, I have Apple TVs. I enjoy them immensely. But just compared to everything else on this list, I'm sorry. It's a number seven. Someday the three of us are going to do a vergecast where I just make you do tasks on your televisions. And we just see how long it goes before you both completely. Oh, my God.

I'll still be booting up the home screen. I'll pull out my Kindle. I'll pull out my Kindle and whack away at my To Be Red list. So this is a pro for me, honestly. Yeah. Smart TVs are fine. All right. I'm like looking at my own pick and I think I already hate it.

Allison, what do you have at sixth place? I don't feel good about this, but I have an iPad there. Correct. This is correct. Thank God. Because it's another thing is like, yes, the iPad is great. It is a great tablet. It is kind of ubiquitous.

Like, I think there are iPads in many homes of people who want a tablet-shaped thing. But it doesn't feel essential the way that some of the other things on the list do. I don't know. Okay, wait. You raise an interesting point because I will spoil this. I have the iPad much higher. Oh, okay. And I think if you're going to make the is this essential to my life argument,

your numbers one through five better all be the iPhone, right? Well. We have air tags still in the list. We have Apple Watch still in the list. We have AirPods still in the list. If the argument is like you require this to live your life, I'm not sure the iPad is further away from than any of those other things. I think of the iPad as a niche device for children and elderly people. Just mainly because I have iPads. I've had multiple iPads through my life. And just they are always out

of battery because there's something else that does it better. One, having a phone with a bigger screen, mostly the same function. It's never going to replace my Mac, even with all the strides that it's taken towards that. inevitable future as a laptop replacement. It's just never going to, I'm just always going to reach from my laptop and maybe that's my curse as a millennial, whatever. But also I think it's contributing to the degradation of our children. No, stop. I'm just being inflammatory right now. I'm being in line if that's your argument. No, get out of here. I am being a little bit of a shitster right now. But like I, no, I see my cousin's kid with her iPad, and she's just using it in a way that truly it invokes horror into my deep soul. When my mom was alive, she was using this thing to take Dutch angles of all of her vacation photos.

And it was just infuriating. But really what it is is I think Apple's lost sight with the iPad in the last couple of years. I don't know which iPad I would buy if I was going to buy one to the point where it's like, I don't know, do I get an iPad mini? or do I get an iPad Pro or do I get the base model? What do I even get as an iPad at this point? And unless you're an artist or a child or an elderly person or just my mother and father-in-law, they love their iPads, I bless them for it. I just think it's one of those second choice devices unless you happen to be in one of those buckets of people. I think what you just described is that Apple made a really great computer for normal people and you're mad about it.

Oh, no, my mom loves her iPad. What a horrible problem. I don't know. Okay, let me make the argument for the iPad. I will just spoil this. I have the iPad second. Oh, whoa. Too high. So for two reasons. One, I think if the rubric is like compare this thing to its competition, the iPad is the most, well, actually in my mind the second most superior product to its competition in its class. Like there, there's the iPad and then big gap and then everything else. The tablet market is a huge one. It's not as big as the phone market, but it is there are a lot of people buy tablets. The iPad is probably the four best tablets on the market. And that's that is a huge victory. And I think I agree with your point

V that Apple has kind of lost the plot. I think, uh, an argument a lot of people make that I have come to find very compelling is that Apple only hears about the iPad from people who wish the iPad did more stuff. And so it has tried to turn the thing into a laptop. Some of that I think is very good, like putting the camera in the right spot on the landscape side of the iPad. Terrific. Much better that way. Making it work better in a keyboard case with a track pad. Also great. Hooray. I think the iPad is not supposed to just be a laptop that works like a laptop. And I wish Apple had like spent more time trying to have new ideas about how it was supposed to work rather than just like lugging it towards the Mac over time. That said, the fact that like my aunt sits down every morning

and does Spelling Bee sitting at her iPad is like a tremendous victory for Apple. This is like, it's a real thing. They have it, they have like a notebook on the side where they write down all the complicated words to make sure that it's, they have a whole spelling bee thing that I find very impressive. Strategy. It's, it's a lot. Um, But to me, like, the iPad is, yes, a little bit of a tweener device, but is also like undeniably a huge success story for Apple. I just like, I don't know how you can see it as anything else.

Because I've had so many and they just don't ever have a charge. There's maybe this is a me problem. Maybe it's a specific sect of people. But it's just one of those devices that the only time I reach for it is when I'm going on a flight. And then I'm like, ah, shit, I got to update it because I haven't updated it in like two years because it's never got charge in it. And what am I going to do? Watch a video on it.

I'll download it on my phone. I'm one of those crazy people. Do you bring it with you and you travel? You know, I went on vacation recently and I thought about it and was just like, eh, I'll bring my laptop. So a funny thing, a funny thing that has happened, I think is that as MacBooks in particular have gotten better,

like the battery life on the MacBook is so good now that I find myself needing my iPad. less and less. Like I was just, I live in D.C., but I was just in New York, and that's like two, three and a half hour train rides each way. And that used to be pure iPad territory, right? Like, set the thing up, watch a movie, watch shows, whatever. But now I can like download the Apple TV app on my MacBook. I can download the Prime Video app and they'll let me download stuff offline. Battery is super long, screens even bigger. It is like, it is, I need my iPad less and less. Yeah. But I don't know.

That's kind of where I'm struggling with it. Like my parents are big iPad users. They do not have a MacBook. I've been issued a MacBook at every job I've had for the last two decades. You know, it's like just been a, I haven't even like invited one into my house. And I've just had it all the time. And that, yeah, the MacBook Air. I'm still rocking the M1 MacBook Air.

The battery life is still pretty good. I, if I'm leaving the house, I don't worry about bringing a charger. So I think, yeah, I struggle to see it. Like, if you live in a world where you don't have a MacBook just sent to your house by IT, yeah, I can see it. Also, all these parents who are like, I don't need a laptop or a computer, I'll just use my iPad. Who are they going to call the second they need tech support or something slightly more complicated that they can figure out to do? They don't need tech support. They call me the person with a laptop to figure out how to buy the thing.

Because all of a sudden there's one random thing about iPad OS that can't be handled with their browser. And then all of a sudden we got to figure it out for, you know, millennial children. Just making up for all the iPad's shortfalls. This does feel like this list is devolving into V's petty grievances with Apple products. No, I agree. I think this is the millennial tendency to, like, resent the iPad. It's like, like, my parents are so hooked on it. My child has one. It's the most coveted item in the house. We hide it at all times. I'm just like, you know, I don't, I don't need that. It's, it could have, this iPad could have been a fire tablet, honestly, is how I feel. Okay. Let me just tell you. what I had in sixth, and then you guys can feel free to agree or disagree. We're doing majority rules here, by the way.

So I'm going to lose this two to one, I think, even though I'm clearly right, and I look forward to our entire audience telling me so. I had air tag here. Because I think the air tag is a very good product, and Apple deserves a lot of credit for like sort of making this into a thing.

It's also completely replaceable. There are a bunch of other things out there that use Find My that have the same look, Pebblebee does stuff that also runs with Google's network. Like, an air tag is sort of a perfect Apple product in that it does its job very well with absolutely no thinking about it. Buy the thing, turn it on, put it in a bag, done forever. But there are a million other things that also do that now. And so to me, it's like I give the air tag credit, but also like I wouldn't tell most people to buy air tags because you can buy like the little credit card size thing that sticks in your wallet and works on both Google's network and.

Apple's network. As soon as you're explaining that to someone, like, I'm just thinking of my husband, he can grasp an air tag. I'm like, look, it's, what do they cost? $25? 20? They're 29 and you can get a pack of four for a reasonable price. Yeah, they're not that expensive. And I'm like, look, you log into your Apple account. It, like, makes you set it up. It's so brainless and so the benefit in the upside is so easy to see that it's something like, it sort of breaks the containment. of like people who are just super interested in tech and we'll go to the trouble of, you know, buying an Apple TV or whatever. It feels like a bigger product in that way than the iPad. Also, like to your point, David, I feel like air tags were just such a wild card product

because in me trying to think of where I was going to put the air tag was actually the biggest headache I had in coming into this ranking because like we're the, the frick does this thing go? It's like not number one, but it's surprisingly iconic. Like, I don't know. It is like Kleenex-E in that sense. Like everybody calls the other ones air tags in a real way.

And, you know, I've tested so many of the other ones. I wrote our buying guide on it. I'm sorry. None of them are as good as the air tag. Even though they exist, like Pebblebee's great. But, you know, the way that the air tags work and find my, listen, I bought cases for, are shitty Apple TV remotes that have air tags in them, like a little case for the air tags.

And it has been a game changer. I don't know if you watched the season three of the summer I turned pretty. There is an episode that is just one giant air tag commercial because our protagonist, belly goes to Paris and she doesn't use common sense and gets pickpocketed. Her bag gets stolen. And in a wild chase through Paris, she finds them because why? She had an air tag in her bag. And I was like, you know, having tested it extensively, yeah.

Like it's a little scary how well these things work and fit into your life. And I think it's universally beloved, whereas the iPad is not universally beloved by millennials. So here you go. The millennial vote. The millennial vote is just going to put the iPad at 6. I'm sorry. But then it is tricky. Like the air tag, I could argue for number 2 through 5.

Like it would make sense in any of those spots, I think. All right. I'm, this feels bad. But all right, iPad goes in sixth place. Let's take a break so I can collect my own emotions. And then we're going to come back and we're going to do the top five. We're right back. Support for this show comes from Shopify.

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developers for developers. MongoDB. It's a great freaking database. Start building at MongoDB.com slash build. All right, we're back. I'm not over it, but we're moving on. I just, I already know this one's going to be a fight too because I,

V, what do you have at fifth? I actually have air tags at five. Okay. Even after all that fighting. I know. You love Airtag so much that you put them fifth. place. No, it's just because, like, you know, compared to an iPad, I think the air tag is more iconic,

more universal, better as a product. But compared to everything else that remains on this list, I actually put air tags at five. Yeah. You think air tags are more iconic than the iPad? I'm so hung up on this still. Listen. You think if you just went up to like a random hundred people and you were like air tag, more of them would know what you're talking about than iPad.

Yeah. No chance. No chance. Listen. You are out of your mind. I think. I am not out of my mind because I actually had a conversation recently with a friend who had been with T-Mobile for freaking ever. And they were like, you know, should I get an iPad?

I don't know. Like, I just don't know what to do with it besides watch things on TV. Yeah, but they're asking you if they should buy an iPad. You've already proven my point. No, no, no, no. They were asking if they should accept an iPad for free, from their carrier. And you know what they did?

They said, nah, I'm good. Uh-huh. That was dumb. Oh, you know what? That's how my parents. To be clear, everybody, if anybody offers you any of these products for free, you should say yes. No, unless they have a cellular plan attached to them, in which case you are my parents. And that's how they got those goddamn iPads because they went to the Verizon store.

And they were like, here you go. And now they're paying for these things for the rest of their lives. And, yeah. Listen, she, she was just like, uh, uh, uh. the only time I'd use them is on an airplane and I don't go on airplanes that often. So she turned down a free iPad and then bought air tags.

So that's really just thinking about that. I was like, obviously that's only one anecdotal case, but I was like, I would do the same thing. I would do the same thing. So that's why I put the air tags ahead of it. Though I will say it was a wild card. Allison, is this also where you had it? Can we keep talking about the iPads?

pad for 30 minutes? No. I could, yes. No, this is a tough spot. I think I do put air tags here in number five. You guys agreeing on everything, by the way, really starting to bum me out. I don't like this. I'm feeling very gag-up on right now.

We did not collude before this episode, not one bit either. We were not side-channeling. No, okay. I'm going to talk about the iPad again for a second. Like, if you, if I presented my husband with an air tag or an iPad, and I was like, which of these things do you want would be useful in your life and you actually want to have, you would take the air tag. Like, I think you would just not understand or care what to do with the iPad. I think, yeah. So, but, but then it's like, it's just so wrong.

It's, it's hard to put it higher though, because. Do you know what an iPad can do is also? locate you. Like if you just want to have an iPad in your bag, I'll be able to use Find Might and know where you are. Attached my keys. It's basically an air tag. To my app, to my iPad. I do have an iPad mini. The original like iPad mini. I just found it. It was in a closet. It's been there for at least five years. Exactly. Exactly. This is. Okay. Granted, the two of you, gadget reviewers who spend all of their time, sitting at a laptop and using 400,000 phones may not be iPad people.

I'm not disputing this fact. I'm arguing that maybe you're not the normal computing person in the world. But we are the people who are ranking Apple gadgets. Allison, how many phones do you think you could pick up and show to the camera right now in the next 30 seconds? Is it more than six? Oh, it's so many more than six. It's a disgusting amount. I can pick up the iPad Mini.

Then you not caring about the iPad mini is not a good case. Yeah. Okay, but I stand by it. All right. So I'm okay with Airtag being five. I had it at six. I'm fine with it being at five. I'm not going to tell you what I had at five because I just,

I can't deal with that fight right now. And it's going to come back up. I'm good with the air tag being five. We'll put it there. And to be clear, I love the air tag. I just think it is like one of the more commoditized. versions of the things that Apple does. And also if you want to talk about why the air tag is better,

it's also like a perfect summation of Apple's like walled garden monopoly powers. But that's a whole different story. Allison, what did you have in fourth? Okay, I'm going to put the Apple Watch. And I think it's just, it's like kind of mixed up with like two, three, and four, I think could kind of go any direction.

Yeah, Apple Watch is also, you know, Feels like the category leader in the way that it is just kind of the best version of the thing that it is, maybe also due to some wild garden things. Yeah. The benefits, like, but I know, I know fewer people who have gone out and gotten an Apple Watch and they love them. Like, I'm a convert. I'm a smartwatch, like, person now. And I, but I can, like, I know the friends that I have. I could list them off right now. Like they have an Apple watch and they love it. But it's not so much the thing you seek out, you know? I just want to reset the rules here a little bit because this is important. I worry we are coming to a place where we're going to put the iPhone first because it is the most successful.

Oh, don't worry. And that is not the rubric here. Number one in my list. It is not. It's not number one on my list either. But I think like, oh, we're going to fight. We're going to fight real hard. Okay, I'll just say you this now.

I had iPhone at five. What? And I am prepared to make that case. The iPhone? Steve Jobs is... No. It is definitively not Steve Jobs' iPhone anymore. Okay, okay.

I love the chaos. The rubric here is best device. And I actually think, like, I think there's a case for the Apple Watch to be here. I actually had the Apple Watch here. But I think you could also make the case that the Apple Watch should be hired because the Apple Watch is a terrific product that lots of people like that is still I think the Pixel watch getting as good as it has is like a little bit of a ding in the case for the Apple Watch because there is now like a meaningful competitor in this space, which there hasn't been for a long time. But like people who have an Apple Watch like love it.

Like it is it is a it is a like beloved personal belonging in a way that maybe none of these other gadgets are for people. It's we might be weird as the wearables lady that I actually. had the Apple Watch in my list at three or four, depending on how this ranking was going to go. But, you know, I can agree with it being at four just because, one, it is a fairly specialized in niche device in a way that a lot of the remaining gadgets are not. It is still a thing where I have to talk to people who will be like, well, I don't give a crap about fitness tracking. So why would I ever have it that I think for me, even as a wearables person, I would have not put it in the top two. And also, to your point, David, the fact that the other smartwatches in this space

have been catching up, whereas, you know, I just reviewed the Apple Watch Ultra3, the series 11 and the SE3 and the SE3 being the standout among them. I was kind of like, what are we doing here a little bit. I feel like they have been coasting a little bit as far as wearables go because they were the best for so long and people do love them

but for people who are really, really, really crazy into the self-quantified space, actually Garmin, I think, is probably a little more beloved. Android smartwatches are doing more interesting things partly because series sucks so hard

that, you know, I think it's a little difficult for Apple to really take the next step with the watch as far as like non-fitness tracking or health tracking features are. So for me, I actually think four feels right for the Apple Watch. It's a obviously Apple Watch, great smart watch, like one of the best smart watches you can have. But again, Android users can't have it in a way that, you know, some of the other devices on this list can be used outside of the Walt Garden. Like an iPad, you don't need to ensconced in the rest of Apple's, you know, maybe that's, I'll give that to the iPad. You don't need to be ensconced in the Walt Garden to use an iPad or a HomePod or an Apple TV,

but you really need an iPhone just from a based functionality level. You need to be an iPhone user for the Apple Watch. And, you know, I think for as the wearables reviewer, it feels right to me based on this list, which may be surprising, may not be surprising, but that's where I put it. No, I think I think that's a good case. And I think to me, the fact that Siri continues to sabotage a bunch of these devices is super fascinating. And also, I do agree that what we're starting to see is upside from other companies and other products. Like the Pixel Watch is just doing more interesting stuff. Like you said, the Gem and I think gives it new ideas and new features

and new stuff it can do for you in a way that like Siri just can't. And I'm also sorry to everyone who has had their devices go off. Mine has gone off twice during this particular conversation. I'm good with the Apple Watch here. I think the Apple Watch is really good and has been like the standard bearer of its ilk for a long time, but probably belongs in this spot. So I'm good at that. So now we're down to the top three.

Okay, let's pause here because what I think we need to do is just all say our top threes and then fight about it. But before we do that, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from LinkedIn. If you're a small business owner, you know that every hire counts, but time and resources are limited. Finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates takes up valuable time you could be giving to your customers.

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buzzwords like progressive and affordability are thrown around all the time in politics. But what do they actually mean? For me, being a progressive means at least two things. One, being willing to unite lots and lots of people, all of the folks that are getting screwed over against the powers that be that are making your life worse. And then second, being progressive is essentially a hopeful enterprise that you think, I think that the world can be much better that we don't have to settle for crumbs or settle for the status quo. And is there a difference between what it means to the elected officials and what it means to the people?

So money is essentially the root of everything. I don't care if you're gay. I don't care if you have all that. That's like secondary. Third, that doesn't, that's not a priority. That's this week on America Actually. Let's begin. This week on Networth and Chill, we're diving into another edition of Am I the Asshole, Finance Edition?

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All right, we're back. So top threes, let's just name them all, and then we can sort it out together. Let's do it. My top three were AirPods, Mac, iPad, not in that order. But I'm fine with having the iPhone in here. Whatever. We can talk about it. Allison, since we already know what your number one is, because we're going to argue about

that in a minute. What's your number three? I think I put Mac at number three. Okay. More as a function that I want to put AirPods at number two. Interesting. Okay. All right, we're going to have to fight about all three of these.

Oh, no. So hard. Let's just do this and then we're going to hash this out together. Allison, just reveal your top three right now. Okay. Number one, iPhone. Steve Jobs' iPhone. Number two. Okay, thank you, David.

AirPods, number two. Feel very strongly about that. And three is the Mac. That's why I've got. Okay, V, what are your top three? Mine might be chaos, but number one, I put the AirPods. Two, I put the Mac. And three, I put iPhone.

Oh, God, this is so fun. We all disagree. I have the Mac number one, which was the single easiest choice I made of all nine of these, putting the Mac first. And I have, I guess if we're going by this rubric, I would have AirPods second and iPhone third. Oh, my goodness. Wow.

Let's just fight about first place because we all got, we all have different things in first place. But it does sound like one thing the two of you share is you both believe in AirPods very much. Alison, what's the case for AirPods at being near the top of this list? I think it kind of pioneered the category, you know. there was a time when it feels not that long ago when the AirPods came out. We were like, those look stupid. They will never catch on. You remember when you walk around to see someone with AirPods in?

You're like, oh, that idiot. Like, what a dummy. Can I tell you a fun fact that I remembered prepping for this? So I reviewed the first AirPods. I was working at Wired at the time. And I reviewed them. And one of my cons, I just wrote U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi. and somehow that made it into the story.

So that's just now published on wire.com. And I was right and I'm still right and it just absolutely didn't matter. Yeah, exactly. It's like I can't think of any other. I mean, it's up there with consumer products that have just like steamrolled a category where, you know, the knockoffs look like AirPods.

They're, you know, you can get a decent, inexpensive pair. You can get a more expensive, like a very good pair. There's, it's hard to think of someone I wouldn't recommend them to. Like my sister finally got a pair and she's like, oh, these rule. They're really good. Like, yeah, they're in my ears like all the time. V, anything to add? You had this thing number one.

I have at number one just partly because I think they are doing interesting things on the AirPods. Like I just reviewed the AirPods Pro 3 and translation coming to them is. You know, did it work in a one-on-one conversation with my cousin who speaks fluent, a cousin's husband who speaks fluent German? Yeah. And that was kind of wild. Do they work as over-the-counter hearing aids? So an accessibility device? Yeah, they do. Do they help me block out the world when I need to? Absolutely. It's just like an all-rounder product that you can recommend to anybody. And they just immediately understand that this is like the, the, goat and it is a thing that I never have to convince anyone to buy, really. Honestly, the only times where it is a thing is when I'm talking to audio files and they're like, oh, you know, such and such has better XYZ. But I see these at the gym. I see these on the subway. I see these absolutely everywhere. And even people I know who hate Apple really like AirPods. So it's just one of those quiet little devices that I feel like everyone I absolutely know has and has very

little complaints about and is if their AirPods were to die, they're 100% going out and buying another one and not really thinking about, am I going to switch to, I don't know, the PixelBuds or the Samsung version of this or the Beats Fit Pro, whatever the very good alternative is and there are several very good alternatives arguably with better sound quality. They're just going to go out and buy another pair of AirPods. So it's, it's one of those, like, products that is not only iconic, not only the best in its case, it's doing interesting things. And as one of the few things where Siri's sucking doesn't absolutely kneecap it, because it just, it's just a good little product. And, yeah, and you can buy so many cute little accessories for it. There's a whole market

to make your AirPods case look like something else. And I don't know, every little update. I'm just like, oh, yeah, these are the best. No question. Hands down. Love these things. I have so few complaints about them, just universally beloved. So that's why they were my number one. So I agree with all of that. And I think the thing that really tipped it for me, because the case against, I think as far as I can tell, is basically just that they're very expensive. And they are very expensive. You can buy very good headphones for a lot less money.

That's actually less true than it used to be because all the other headphones are getting more expensive as they add more features. And so the gap between like AirPods knockoffs and AirPods is less than it used to be. To me, the thing that really does it is I think if you ask most people, there's AirPods and there's AirPods knockoffs. Like there is not another brand that actually plays in this space. You either have AirPods or you

have something that kind of looks like AirPods. And that's not to say there aren't lots of other good headphones. I have a pair of the Google PixelBuds 2A that I actually like love to bits and wear all the time, despite the fact that I have the most recent AirPods Pro here all the time. But I, V, I think you're right that like if I look at all of these, and the question is, where is Apple having the most consistently good ideas about how to make its product better? I think it's actually the AirPods right now. Like, I mean, let's look at their latest launch. They've got so much better in just the last couple of years in a way that, like, basically no other Apple product has. Yeah. Look at the last launch. Like of the three iPhones that

they launched, the three Apple Watches they launched, and the AirPods Pro three, hands down, they didn't steal the show at the event. But hands down, I think afterwards, we were all like, I think the AirPods Pro 3, like, low-key, the best product, just the best of all of them. And just, you know, from people I was talking to during that time as to like, I had so many friends go like, yeah, fuck the phone. I'm not buying a new phone. And whatever. I don't need to upgrade my watch. I am very tempted at buying a new pair of AirPods Pro 3. And then they did. So it was just for, you know, going into this, what I was thinking about, I actually was thinking about the most recent launch and just how universal that was in my DMs, my comments, my life. So that's why I put them at number one for me.

Allison, I'm not convinced to put it first, but I like them at second. Do you still like them at second? Yeah. Okay, good. So we're going to put AirPods at second. Finally, David wins one. Has that feel, V in your face. So now we're going to fight about the Mac and the iPhone, one of which is going to be first and one of which is going to be third. I think we've all laid out our arguments here a little bit. But Allison, just, I want you to know that I think the iPhone possibly should have been as low as fifth or sixth. Convinced me it should be first. Because it is iconic. No.

No, it's not? Oh, my God. I just like four words. I'm just saying that's not good enough. Just like that's not good enough for it. Okay. Iconic. Never heard of it. It is also like the AirPods.

And I need to caveat that this is like very U.S. centric. But my husband has an iPhone. He's not giving a second thought to like when it doesn't work anymore. Is he going to shop around? He's just like, what's the new iPhone. But that's sure no matter what phone you have right now. Lock-in is not an Apple specific feature. It's because that's what happened to phones.

It's, I just think the way that Apple, and it maybe is kind of a little cunning in the way that Apple has engineered it to be such a like easy thing, easy and comfortable device to step into and will last a hell of a long time. There are people walking around this earth with iPhones that still have home buttons. Just using them every day and they're fine. They probably also use their smart TVs. And they're like that interface, totally fine. No problems at all. We're saving hundreds of dollars by not buying a set-top. That's true.

No, you can't beat it. It is the icon. It's the goat. It's, you know, is it the greatest phone at being a phone? I don't know. Like, any phone is. That's not a reason to be number one then. A thousand dollar phone is good.

So here's the thing, Alison, I actually, I love the way you just framed it because is the iPhone, the goat, like indisputably, yes. Right? Like, it is, if we are just saying what is the best smartphone ever, it is like obviously the iPhone. Not debatable. I think you could make a very good case that the, the current iPhone is like the third or fourth best phone on the market. And like, it's just the idea that it is like notably better than the rest of its competition, which, like kudos to Apple, it generally makes the best product in its category, right?

Like it has a long history of doing that. Sometimes the category is dumb and bad, like the Vision Pro. Sometimes it's, you know, for normals. And so you guys hate it like the iPad. But sometimes it's way over expensive set top boxes like the Apple TV. The reason I initially had the iPhone so low is like I think, I think A, it's been a while since the iPhone was sort of like capital I.

interesting. And I also think it might not be the best phone. And I think it just makes it very hard for me to put it in first place that like I might like the Pixel 10 better than I like the iPhone 17. I'm with you 100% David. Because guess what? I had to upgrade my phone this year, not because I wanted to. I would have, if it were up to me, I would have kept my iPhone 14 Pro Max for another however long, but because I have to test Apple intelligence. That is the only reason I upgraded. And when I got my iPhone 7. You're the only person, by the way, who ever bought a phone explicitly to get Apple intelligence. Congratulations. Somewhere at Apple, somebody just got a bonus because you just said that. This is against my will. This is precisely just because I have to test these things and be aware of the product. If I was a normal, I wouldn't have bought one of these. I just want to make that intensely clear.

I had zero desire to upgrade, and I only did so as part of professional calculus. I bought this stinking phone after arguing whether I was going to buy the bigger ProMax or the smaller one, which that'll be a blog, this whole existential crisis I had for a month. I bought the phone. I set it up and I went, okay, fine, I guess. It's a phone. I don't care. Screw liquid glass. I was genuinely, and I have the pixel 10 charging upstairs. Pixel 10 Pro XL and I was like, I don't know, man. I kind of just want to use this as my daily driver because I have to use it anyway to test the pixel watch 3 and all the freaking AI things on there. And I don't know, it's doing more interesting things.

This phone sparks no joy. No joy. I do not like the camera button. Zero joy whatsoever. So that's why it's three for me. I think those are the reasons that people love the iPhone, though. you know, it's like, it's boring. Which is, I think, maybe a good thing in a phone.

I don't, not as, not from the perspective of like, I write about phones and I want them to be better and cooler and more interesting. But like, I think the iPhone is sort of in the position that it is because it is so easy to just switch from one to the next and be like, great, a phone. It's still. It's ugly. Everything I needed to do works. Not a fan of the camera bar. Okay. Okay, if we're going on ugliest phone.

V's petty grievances. We have a whole other. How much time do we have? They're petty and their grievances, but I think a lot of people will agree with me. Okay, why should the iPhone be so low, though? Listen, it could have been lower if David had his way. I am, I think putting it at three acknowledges the historical iconicness of the phone while acknowledging, while acknowledging the modern, foibles that make it so fricking boring.

I think the fact that the iPhone has all of that iconic history is part of the reason it's not that interesting anymore, right? This to me is like the, I forget who it was, but somebody at Microsoft years ago was like the reason Microsoft Word is so ugly is because anytime we move a button, you know, some small percentage of our users revolt, but it turns out some small percentage is millions of people because millions of, that's how many people, use Microsoft Word. Like, I don't mean to compare the iPhone to Microsoft Word, which I think is like a slightly

more brutal comparison than I mean. But like, I don't think, I just don't think this is like the sort of peak of what Apple is capable of right now, nor is it like the peak of the market right now. Like I just think Apple, where you look at Apple's most interesting work, it is almost entirely not happening on the iPhone anymore. Apple's trying weirder and more interesting stuff on the iPad than on the iPhone. it's not all good, but it's, it's happening. Like, the iPhone has just been coasting to me, like for years.

And to some extent, that's fine. Like, I think you're right, Alison, like, we probably should be treating these things as sort of appliances, that your phone is like your refrigerator, where you buy one and when it breaks, you buy another one. And actually, the less you spend thinking about it, the better in a lot of ways. But I just, I have such a hard time.

This is obviously Apple's flagship product. It's responsible for most of its business. It is the reason services exist. It's the reason it gets all that money from Google. Like without the iPhone, Apple, as we know, it does not exist. Period. Like, it's that straightforward. And that continues to be true, you know, every day and every year.

But I don't care about the iPhone anymore. Like, in a very real way, I just don't care about this thing anymore. And to me, that just, it's a ding on it. Also, like, people are just holding onto their phones for longer because they don't care about It used to be a thing that we were upgrading every two years because you had to have the new thing because the new things that were coming out were so exciting. I think it speaks to a greater malaise with phones in general and just I was not happy about this purchase. Not because I think it's bad. But because it's fine. It's fine.

Because it's so fine. You're going to like your iPhone. I'm going to be fine with it. It's just I have it because I need a phone. that is exactly why it is number one because it is reliable. It is the goat. It's the one that people don't even think about it. We're almost like blind to it.

You know, it is it is so dominant. And it's so good at so many things, like, which is why it's, you know, kind of hard to see it that way. It's a really great case you're making for the iPad should have been much higher on this list. Listen. Listen, I think the rules are majority rules. And I think David and I had the iPhone at 3. V, I will just say what this means if you go with me here is that we are putting Mac number one. Are you comfortable with putting Mac number one?

I'm comfortable with putting Mac at number one because if we are going to go with the iconic fabric of your life has been around forever, Apple wouldn't be where it is today. without it. I mean, come on, it's the Mac, too. Like... Allison, make the case against. Why not the Mac? I think because it doesn't have that like stranglehold on, you know, the minds of people buying a laptop. I don't know. It feels like you were sorted into your Harry Potter house of like you buy a Mac every year or you go buy a Dell or whatever. and people are just kind of fine with that. I don't know. It doesn't feel like the one that you go get.

So, okay, let me, here's, here's why I put Mac first and why I had a very easy time putting Mac first. I think starting with the M1 and the switch to Apple Silicon, the MacBook in particular, became so vastly superior to all of its. competition in terms of like what a what a most people want from their computer obviously if you don't like a gaming PC you're doing a different kind of thing and that there's sort of a world for that but for like a average everyday mainstream computer use the mac has so utterly left its competition behind it is much more powerful the battery lasts much longer it's nicer hardware all those other computers have gotten more expensive too as chips have gotten harder to get and like the the the difference between what

what Apple is trying to do and what all of these Windows manufacturers are trying to do has actually shrunk, except that Apple is just better at it right now. And it has built such a lead in particular because of Apple Silicon that to me, I went through all of these. And it's like, okay, if you want to buy any of these products, you're like, which one should I buy? I'm going to have more questions for you, right? Even if you're like, what phone should I buy? I'm going to be like, you know, what phone do you have now? What features matter the most? you are you a Google person or like whatever the Mac is just the laptop you should buy if if you're like what laptop should I buy I literally don't have any more questions you're going to have to

talk me out of recommending you a MacBook because it is just by a mile the best laptop on the planet and I think the the Mac Studio is also really good the Mac Mini the M4 Mac Mini is like my favorite computer on Earth which slightly biases me it's what I'm using right now it's teeny tiny it's super fast, it's cheap, it's great. All the way down to like the M1 MacBook error that you can still buy at Walmart is still better than just about any PC you'll find anywhere. The Mac just like one. And Apple had a bunch of weird ideas about it for like a decade and then fix them all. They put the ports back.

They fixed the keyboard. They improved some of the designs. It's just, they're just excellent devices. And they are so much better than anything else out there right now that to me it was like the Mac line is just. just absolutely crushing it in a way that I can't think of anything else at Apple crushing it, except apparently the air tag, which is like Coca-Cola and Air Tag are the two biggest brands in the world, apparently. Kleenex.

Yeah. No, I think, all right, I can be convinced here because I'm sorry to say this out loud on the Vergecast, but I don't really care about laptops. Like, I don't care about a computer. Okay, you just got all your credibility as a phone reviewer back. So congratulations. Okay, no. But I got this MacBook Air, the M1, and I was like, holy shit, this is a great computer.

I love this. And I don't, I've not had feelings about a laptop computer like that before. Was it the battery life? Like the thing that happens when all of a sudden you stop thinking about where you're going to charge your computer next is like genuinely kind of life changing. Yeah. Like I walk into a coffee shop, everyone's crowded around the outlet. And I'm like, I'll sit at the bar because it doesn't matter. Okay, and also I'm going to, I will ding the iPhone because of what you said about the Mac Mini,

because if we had that for the iPhone, like a smaller, less expensive, basic version that's great. I think that would, that is something that the iPhone lineup is missing and has had in the past, but the iPhone 16E kind of sucks. I'm like annoyed that that's the thing I have to recognize. recommend when it's like, you don't care about your iPhone. You want to pay out a pocket. You don't want it to be out $1,000. Like, okay, buy iPhone 16E.

You're going to get more years of software updates and whatever. Well, that one is like, if I, when I think about the iPhone 16E as opposed to like the Pixel A series, the A series is Google making a bunch of thoughtful decisions about what features you sort of do and don't need. And it doesn't always get them right, but it is at least sort of, it's saying we're going to give you the best. of some stuff and much less of other stuff in order to give you like most of the phone for a lot less of the price. Apple is just like here's old shit in a phone. You can have it.

And that's just that feels worse. Like it's less of everything, not less of some things. And that feels like a worst tradeoff. All right. We're putting this in. We're just all going to look at this ranking and see how it makes us feel. Right now we have Mac number one, AirPods number two, iPhone number three, Apple Watch number four, air tag five, iPad 6, Apple TV 7, HomePod 8, and Vision Pro 9.

We're all just going to look at this for a minute and decide if this feels right to all of us. I can live with this ranking. It's not the one I came in with, but I can understand why we landed where we did. I still staring at this now, if you just left it up to me, I would just swap iPhone and iPad and feel perfectly happy about it. But we're not going to do that and I'm going to get over it. You want to talk about the iPad for another 30 minutes? I'm over it. It's fine. All the Delta pilots who used to yell at me about how they love to use iPads are going to start to yell at you.

And I think that's a terrific outcome of this podcast. So we're going to be just fine. Anything on here feel wrong to either of you. This is your last chance to really get your thoughts out there. I can live with this. I still think AirPods are number one. But as long as iPhone is not number one, I can live with this. Oh, can I tell you the other reason.

I didn't want to put AirPods first is I think the AirPods Max deserve to be punished. And no company that makes AirPods Max is allowed to be number one. Yeah. You know what? I can live with that. I forgot about the AirPods Max until you mentioned it. But I will say a surprising number of people on the New York City subway wear that out and are very passionate about it, even though I think it's not a great pair of headphones. So, Matt.

I also just, like, aesthetically, don't love the AirPods Macs. This is purely a personal opinion. I know lots of people like them, but there's just something about the blockiness of it. Eugenomically. As far as over-year headphones go, I think they're way too heavy and not great for long-term wear, which you kind of need in a pair of over-ear can. So I, you know what? Lock it in.

I'm happy with this. All right. Allison, feel good? Yeah. Are you mad about the iPhone? You can say it. No, I'm just disappointed. I started thinking about iPhone 16E again.

It's making me sad. Yeah. So you're saying if the iPhone mini were still around and were awesome, you would be like all in on iPhone number one. All right. I have a new number one. It's the iPhone mini and it cannot be topped by any of these other devices. But it's not an actual product. It's like the theoretical iPhone mini.

I know. It's like the iPhone mini Apple refused to actually give us. Yes. gave us and took away. Fine, fine. I can move with that. Because if you were talking about the real iPhone mini, I'm just going to say two words, battery life.

I will charge that so many times a day. I don't care. I love it. If you want that, you can just have my iPhone 16, which now dies at about 4.30 every day. Oh, no. Let's see. I've been using it all day.

I'm at 31%. And it's 223 in the afternoon. No. Doing great with the iPhone 16. All right. Do win great. Another reason. And it deserves to be at number three.

The battery life on these things has gotten shittier over time. Let's kick that down to number six. What do you guys think? Should we move the iPad up a little bit? You are trying to sneak the iPad up there and I see what you're doing. No. Stop it. The farthest the iPad goes is five, buddy.

I do think there is like a sneaky world in which we sit here for a while and eventually the air tag just goes to number one. Like I think the longer we look at this, the higher up the list, the air tag might continue. The Air tag does not go beyond four, just as the iPad does not go beyond five. Yeah. Fair enough. All right. Well, just to recap, at number nine, we have Division Pro. At number eight, we have the HomePod.

Those are easy. At number seven, we have the Apple TV. Number six, we have the iPad. Number five, we have Air Tags. Number four, we have the Apple Watch. Number three, we have the iPhone. Number two, we have AirPods. And number one, we have Mac.

I feel good about this. I'm good. I've come around. I've put all my feelings into myself and now we're good. I've come out the other side. I've done the five stages of grief for the iPad. And I feel good about it. I think we did it. All right. This was delightful to anyone who wants to disagree with us. Don't email me. Email V and Allison. But if you want to get out of us, tell us what you think, what we missed products that should have been on here next year polishing cloth. Who's to say? Call the hotline 866, verge 1-1. Email us. vergecast of theverge.com. We would love to hear from you. Alison V, this was delightful, as I hoped it would be. Chaotic. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That is it for the Vergecast. Thanks again to V and Allison for doing that with me. And if you have thoughts or feelings or think we should have put different things in different orders, I genuinely do want to hear. This is a really fun exercise because it makes you think differently about like what matters and who cares about things.

And we all came at it with really different sort of rubrics about what matters. And I want to hear yours. Like I said, call the hotline 866.6.6.1. Send us an email, vergecast at the verge dot com. All of your thoughts. We want to hear everything. Until then, the Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. The show is produced by Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, and Travis Larchuk. We will be back on Friday with just all of the news. It's somehow, it's the holiday season, and there just continues to be news because the AI companies keep doing AI things, and we have a lot to talk about. We'll see you then. Rock and roll.