The Vergecast - Google's AI-stuffed Pixel 10 event

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

It’s Pixel week. Jake, Vee, and Allison are chatting about all things Google. First, there’s the Pixel 10, 10 Pro, 10 Pro XL, and 10 Pro Fold, which get a mix of hardware upgrades (dust-proofing on a foldable!) and downgrades (a worse camera on the Pixel 10?) and a ton of new AI features, including Magic Cue and Pro Res Zoom, which puts AI right inside the camera app. Next, there’s the Pixel Watch 4, Fitbit’s AI fitness coach, the Pixel Buds 2A, and a tease of Google’s next smart home speaker. Finally, we wrap it up with the Thunder Round and a discussion of Hank Green’s Focus Friend, Ricoh’s GR IV, Netflix’s new content strategy, Masimo’s attempt to sue over the Apple Watch again, and most importantly, Chipotle’s drone delivery. Further reading: The Made by Google event felt like being sucked into an episode of Wandavision The Google Pixel 10 and 10 Pro come with magnets, a new chip, and AI everywhere The Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold is the first fully dust-resistant foldable  Google says the quiet part out loud: IP68 protection doesn’t last  The best new features of the Pixel 10 lineup The Pixel 10 Pro puts generative AI right inside the camera  The magnets are the coolest thing about the Pixel 10 Google is launching its first magnetic wireless charging accessories  Building a more empathetic big phone.  The Pixel Pro 10 phones include a certified Thread radio. Google’s Pixel Watch 4 has big ideas — and an even bigger focus on AI  Fitbit’s AI health coach is the first I might actually be interested in The unbearable obviousness of AI fitness summaries Google’s Pixel Buds 2A add Gemini, noise cancellation, and a replaceable battery  Google’s Pixel Buds Pro 2 are getting new AI-powered features in September Gemini for Home is Google’s biggest smart home play in years Is that a new Nest smart speaker I spy? Hank Green’s Focus Friend swapped my screen time for bean time  Now Masimo is suing US Customs over Apple Watch imports  Ricoh GR IV will cost $1500 It's Raining Chips & Guac: Chipotle Is Testing Drone Delivery YouTuber Mark Rober is getting a Netflix series YouTube star Ms. Rachel is coming to Netflix The Duffer Brothers are joining the Paramount family Email us at [e-mail] or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This week on Explain It to Me, the chemicals lurking in your cosmetics. New episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to the Virgecast, the flagship podcast of things that look like photos, but may or may not actually be photos. I'm Jake Kasternakas, executive editor of The Verge. Nilai and David remain on parental leave. They'll be back later this year with me in the studio today, the song. Hi.

And from Seattle, we've got Allison Johnson. Hello. And Allison is hosting Tuesday's Vergecast episode too. So tune in for that. It's going to be a good time. That's all right. Yep, my first episode. Stoked.

Very exciting. Today is pixel extravaganza. We've got a ton of pixel stuff to talk about. Like literally too many pixel things to talk about. Non-stop series of announcements on Wednesday at the Made by Google event. It was four pixel 10 models, some new earbuds, some new smartwatches, a ton of AI, way too much AI. V and Allison got a chance to play with all this stuff.

Before we talk about the phones, we have to talk about the event. Because this is the single weirdest announcement event. You know, can I say the first episode that I think we were doing without Neelai and David. Yeah. I believe began with UV going to the same venue for. Same place. Same place. Okay.

Same place different venue. And saying that was a chaotic time. I don't want to do this again. And now Google's made you go back. Yeah. To the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I was not pleased finding out of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I was like, really, guys?

Really? Really? It was slightly better organized, though. It was at this place called Steiner Studios, which is a movie studio, which, you know, really should have, like, clued to us before what this event was going to be like because I just remember, like, when the run-up, some, like, inside baseball in the run-up to this, we're like, what is this event going to be? And Google will be like, it's a surprise.

It's a surprise. guys, and I was like, but why does it have to be in Brooklyn Navy Art? And they were like, ah, well, it's a surprise. And I was like, oh, my God, guys, really, for real, for real, for real, off the record, you can't tell me nothing. And they're like, it's a surprise. And I was like, okay. It was a surprise.

It was a surprise. It was a surprise. So for folks who didn't watch this event, normally, I think everybody knows what a, you know, a keynote looks like the executives get up. on stage, they kind of do a deep dive. They talk to you about the ins and outs of the phones and the new stuff. There's a bento box after the end of the beach. Yeah, there's a bento box.

Yeah, it's, you know, it's pretty nerdy. It's for us. It's for fans. It's like it is to tell you about the ins and outs of these products. Google didn't do that. No, they did not. What did Google do? Google usured a bunch of us into this little studio.

And, you know, there was an applause sign up in the rafters. And there was a warm-up comic. And he was like, hey guys, are you guys pumped for pixel phones? Look at you nerds with your laptops on your thing. And you love phones, don't you guys? But I need you to get loud for Jimmy Fallon. He's backstage. Is this all you're going to give for Jimmy?

Is this the energy you have for Jimmy? What publication do you work for? And I'm sitting there going like, what the fuck is happening? Where am I? I, what is happening? And so then, you know, Jimmy Fallon comes out and he is joined by Rick Osterlo. And they sit on a couple of comfy couches. And I'm in the front row for this.

And I look up and I'm like, oh, my God, there's a teleprompter. And I can read everything they're going to say before it happens. What is happening? And then all of a sudden, Jimmy would be like, tensor and clapping his hands like a seal. We're going to talk about tensor chips. We're going to talk about. IP numbers. And I was like, I feel like I'm in an episode of Wanda Vision because I don't know, like, if you've

never been in any kind of filming situation, you kind of really have to be like keyed up. You have to be like, rah, I just had a red bull and here's my energy because any energy that's in studio that feels way too much is hopefully like, it's not hopeful, but it is going to get like diluted and filtered when it finally gets across your screen. But like when you're in the studio audience, you're like, oh my God, it's hitting me in the face, all of this energy that's happening. All of the artifice and the stageness of it. And I was just like, oh, my God, Cody Rigsby from the Peloton instructor who was very famous and was on Dancing with the Stars is there. And he's going like, hey girl, let's do a workout.

I was like, no, no, please. So they like, they basically made a fake episode of the Tonight Show, right? But it was all about the pixels. They had, they even had like special guests. They had special guests. They had a QVC segment. Like, yeah, there was a, right. There was a segment where they were there.

And I was like, I'm either watching Good Morning America or QVC as they go through the entire lineup. They're making a lot of digs at like Apple. At one point, one of the Googlers was like, we can say the A word. Oh, my God. It was really for real. Right now, what is happening? What is happening? So we saw, well, we saw Steph Curry, Alex Cooper, the Jonas Brothers, Kareem from Subway Takes.

Yeah, they have a big list. The Jonas Brothers made a music video on their pixel phone. It was very much like a, well, they do shot on iPhone. What about shot on pixel? And I was like, oh, God, okay, here we are. I think what's, like, interesting about this and maybe a little confusing about this is like, this was clearly meant for a bigger audience. But, like, Allison, I'm curious having watched this remotely.

like is this, did you think that this is a thing a normal human would watch? Like, I'm curious, like, if this actually is going to connect with people more than a traditional keynote would. Yeah. I mean, I think we all get that. We're like, this event wasn't for us. They had the embargo lift an hour beforehand. So, like, all of us nerds could see the specs, talk about it, think about it. And then there was this Jimmy Fallon thing.

And like I know that logically. I was still sitting there watching it just, just like cringing, you know? It was like the thing you said to me about the energy level. It felt very keyed up watching it. Oh, well, trust me, it was more keyed up in studio. There's a lot of tech journalists who I am friends with. And we were all just looking at each other like the fuck is going on. And then I, one of, before the warm-up comic was just like, and just so you guys know, once filming starts, you cannot get up to pee. And then one of my journalist friends messaged me and he was like, oh, my God, they were serious. I have to pee and they would not let me go. Okay. First they came for our water bottles.

First they came for our water bottles. Now we can't pee. Oh, my God. Now we can't pee. And I was, I felt honest to God, like I was in the twilight zone and that I was losing. it. I just, you know, between the flashing applause signs that went off every time Jimmy made a joke. He could not find a pixel device that he was not wowed by. Marquez pointed out in a tweet that at one point he is holding the pixel fold upside down.

It was for my story. Yeah, that was, yeah. And just thrilled, like so excited to look at that upside of pixel phone. IP numbers. First, I was like, IP numbers. Doesn't he mean IP addresses? But I think he was actually talking about the dust and waterproofing IP numbers. So I was not convinced that Jimmy knew actually what a big deal it is for IP 68 on a foldable. I was not convinced. And I was like, there's no way on earth. Jimmy Fallon is that excited about tensor chips. This is a thing. Let us be excited about IP rating. Someone is, it's not Jimmy. He can't encroach.

on our space like that. So, okay, do you think, like, do we think, do you think that they will try this again, right? Because, like, the keynote has been changing, right? Like, Apple sort of invented this format. And then more recently, Apple has already kind of shifted away from it with their pre-made videos, which are maybe, like, halfway between a traditional keynote and, like, hey, everybody watch this big, long commercial. Like, do we think that Google keeps trying this?

I mean, you know, I did talk to. a lot of Googlers on the ground, some of which, you know, fans of the show will know. And, you know, everyone was very curious to know what the reaction was. And I felt bad because I was processing it in real time. And I was like, it sure was a show. And the thing that I kept hearing over and over again was that they were trying to reach a new audience. And I'm not sure they know what that new audience that they're trying to reach is because, like, who exactly is this? It's not for us. I know it's not for us, like the tech nerds and the tech journalists. I do think it's for a new audience, but I'm like, who?

Because the grandmas are not going to stream this at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, even though they might like Jimmy Fallon. And then the kids on TikTok are 100,000 percent not going to stream this live, even if they like the subway takes guy and call her daddy. So who is this for? Yeah, it sort of feels like the late night format lately is sort of, you know, Mia talked about this on her episodes, is like built to get those little TikTok clips out of whatever's happening. And I don't know if that there was anything that happened that would be interesting in a different context. Like none of that. I don't know. That's actually really interesting. Like maybe this was just designed to get a bunch of viral TikTok moments. I think it, you know, like, and I get it to it into my piece, but I think they're just realizing that, you know, in the jobs era, they needed media to create the buzz. They needed the, you know, traditional outlets. They needed the diehards to create that buzz online to talk about the products.

And now they can just skip us entirely in some, not entirely because, of course, we were invited. They want us to talk about these products. But like, they can also go around us a little bit and go straight to the people online through. the relationships that they have with these viral influencers through the relationships that they have with these celebrities. And, you know, it's been really interesting to see the reaction on, online about what people thought because, you know, there were some Apple fanboys who were like, oh my God, Google's so cringe. Like, the Apple is so much better. And then the Google fanboys boys going like, no, this was so much more entertaining. And just like a mix of people who are

like, I hated that. That was awful. Why? Where are my specs? Where are my bento boxes? Who, who, what? Then people going like, you guys broke NDA. I'm like, no, we didn't actually. It just was set for an hour before the thing. Well, and that's sort of the secret here, right? Like, Google, you know, we're not here. We're not complaining that Google, like, didn't, like, left us out.

Yeah, no, they actually leave us out. Right, no, we were briefed. We got hands-ons. And we were able to run that stuff before this event. I think that sort of is the secret here, right? They can talk to media with one hand and then talk to the, audience with the other. And I think they're sort of redefining the keynote.

It's like, we're going to talk to the media. Why do we need to do this thing? And it's weird because those things were also for fans. And now it's like, it's not quite the fans. It's not, like, I don't think it was for the fans. No, I don't think it was for the fans. It was for someone else. Whether they know who that someone else is, I'm not sure because I felt like there

was a little bit of mixed messaging throughout. A lot of like, come on over, leave the iPhone message. And they're like, you know, I forget who exactly said it, but they're like, we're done with the green bubble conversation. I'm like, well, I'm glad you guys are done with it. The people in the real world are not done with that conversation. But yeah, it looks wild. So lots of stuff announced. Obviously, the headliners were the phones.

Allison, there were four of them. Can you give us the highlights here? Four phones. We've got the regular pixel 10, still 799. that's great. Pixel 10 Pro 999 pixel 10 Pro XL. God, there's so many. That one technically not more expensive, but there is no longer a 128 gigabyte option. So it's 1199. And then of course the Pixel 10 Pro Fold 1799 expensive phone. the kind of higher level, they look exactly the friggin' same as last year's phones. Like, just get that other way.

You can't tell the difference unless you work at Google. But on the inside, they all have TensorFlow G5, which is a moderately big deal. First chip that is made by TSM and not Samsung. So there's a lot of interest in like how that's going to shake out. and they have Chee 2. Our national nightmare is over. We finally have proper Che2. The magnets are here.

Yes, the magnets, the charging seat, everything is built into the phone. You don't need a case. So I think those are, and without getting into AI, which we will, those are the high level. Here's why these are new phones. So, okay, this is really interesting.

The pro models feel like they are basically the same phones, right? Slightly brighter display, slightly bigger battery, new chip, right? But they look the same. It's the 10 and the fold that have the biggest differences. And both of them are like really interesting ones. So the 10 is maybe where I want to start, right? The pixel 10 is getting a third camera for the first time. It's getting a telephoto.

But they're downgrading both. of the other cameras in the process, which I think is such a fascinating trade-off. Because the differentiation between the lines, I guess I don't know where it is now. Like if you look at them, they look identical. But if you care a lot, there's a pretty big difference. Yeah. I think it just says a lot about where Google thinks it can get away with enhancing stuff and software and where you just need the hardware.

So, yeah, typically the regular pixel phone just has the ultra-wide in the main camera. Part of the kind of sales pitch was you get the same, like, big sensor, nice lens as the pro phones, which was cool. But yeah, they added that five times telephoto camera, which is the same one as on the pixel fold, not the same one that's on that pro phone. It's like, what does a pro phone mean is completely, like, confusing this time around. But, yeah, they did kind of, like, downgrade the hardware on the main pixel, on the main camera and the ultra-wide. Because I think they're just, like, we'll just software it. Which, like, I think it's the same cameras as on the 9A, which admittedly, like, they're not bad cameras. They're good cameras.

Yeah. Yeah, they're fine. and Google gave me some kind of fluffy answer about how magical and special the camera hardware is, even though it is probably just the same is on the 9A. Yeah, it just, if you look across the series just at camera specs, it gets more confusing because you've got the most expensive model, the fold, $1,800, you get kind of worse cameras. And then there's the pro models, the slab phones. those get you the best cameras.

And then you kind of take another step back on the regular models. It's a little confusing, I think. I've turned into that gif of the lady who's just really confused as math symbols float around her head. That's just right now. That is Google trying to justify. Like, what is a pro phone? The only reasonable explanation last time around was it had a telephoto lens because that's what all three had. That doesn't exist.

anymore. I don't. I'm accepting any answers. That makes sense. Right. So now, now the pixel 10 has more differentiation from the 9A or, or, you know, probably the eventual 10A, because there's three cameras instead of two. But it is true. If you're just like, if you're in the store, you know, like, should I buy a pixel 10 or a pixel 10 pro? Like, they, they look identical, which like, I don't know. Is this to compete with the baseline iPhone, which doesn't have that third lens. I don't know. I know. I think Google loves being like, look what we do that the iPhone doesn't. Like Samsung has the telephoto on its, on its regular. So maybe it's more trying to offer some parity there. I don't know. Like I like a dedicated telephoto. So I think it's a good

change. I'm going to try it out. Yeah, it's a really interesting tradeoff. So that's on the low end. and then the high end, the fold, maybe like the single most exciting upgrade. Yeah. They made a fully dust-resistant foldable. It is IP-68-rated. As we heard Jimmy Fallon excitedly. I don't believe. The IP numbers.

I believe that he plagiarized you beforehand. That's my conspiracy theory. That's my conspiracy theory. He learned about dust resistance on foldables about 10 minutes before you. went and did that. But it's a big deal. I talked to, so Samsung has kind of gone into like, we're making a foldable really thin with its last fold phone, which was cool. Still not quite dust resistant. Had an IP 48 rating, which means you can't poke it with a little needle or something. The 68 means full dust, sand, bring it to the beach, it's going to be okay probably.

With all the usual disclaimers of IP ratings and once they leave the factory, they degrade over time, like blah, blah, blah. That's true of all all IP ratings on devices. But it's a new hinge. It's a gearless hinge. I think Google's like kind of, they could. could be playing it up a little more. Maybe I'm just super invested in this, but I'm like, I want to hear more about

what made this possible. There's like two directions they can go here. And one is the Samsung route where they go thinner, thinner, thinner. And like, don't get me wrong. That was a nice, thin, foldy phone. It was a very impressive. It was very impressive.

Very nice. And you look at that and you go, if everybody else is bigger than this, like they lost. And then I look at the pixel fold. And I'm like, okay, you know, yeah, it's a little chunkier, but it like promising that level of security on a device that expensive that is seemingly pretty fragile. Like, that's actually a pretty smart area to run at instead of racing to be as thin as you can go before you get there. I still think that the best way to sell these phones is to find the tech journalist in the event who is blogging from their pixel fold. and I sat, I ended up sitting next to Sam from Engadgett,

who was doing that with a pixel fold, like the older one. And I was just like, oh, my God, last time it was Allison, this time it's Sam. Oh, my God, do I need, because I was having trouble with the Wi-Fi again, because it's a tin can in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a deja vu. And I was like, oh, my God, they're having no problem with these foldy phones. Maybe this. They don't need these keynote events. They just need to find the one.

tech journalist in the thing while all everyone else is suffering going like oh my god can you get Wi-Fi in here and the one journalist with the pixel fold or the Samsung fold just blogging away super fine having no issues and I was just like damn do I need a fold-y phone there's the only two times that I've wanted a there's also the only two use cases I've ever heard for foldable like don't get me wrong I am obsessed with them I want one I have no idea what I would do with it and this is this you're you're like you can blog the heck out of anything you want. You can block the heck. You know what?

That is our job. WordPress. Like a dream. I have seen these things handle many of finicky CMS. So I'm just saying they're great for journalists. Yeah. Okay. Jimmy Fallon.

So we talked a bunch about the cameras already. But we have, there's a lot more to talk about with these cameras. Because the Zoom gets a little. So freaky. A little interesting. It's a little interesting. So we need like a sound the alarm, like break glass in case of emergency. Like so they put AI in the camera is the short version.

This is only on. We need to pipe in Nilai screaming. Like do we not have like a sound board for this? I can kind of hear it in my own head. Yeah. So this is only on the pro in the proxel and it's only in the. this feature called ProRes Zoom, which is a kind of digital zoom. It's when you get past 30x all the way up to 100. So typically like garbage territory of like you're not getting a good

photo from that. There's just not enough information for any kind of processing to do anything with it. So Google was like, what if we put generative AI in here and had it try to figure out what you're taking a picture of. And so that happens on device. It's in the, right in the camera. It, um, you can see it running after you take the photo and it does retain like the original photo you took. So you do know something is happening. Um, does not work on people. So like, thank God. The demo was really wild. Like, because we both, we were at the demo and like we were at Google's office and they took us out on the balcony and they're like, do you see that white house across the river?

Boop? Took a picture. And they were like, Alison, would you like to take a picture of the museum over there that's like really far away? Whoop? Took a picture. V, do you want to try that water tower? Took a picture. The thing they don't tell you is that you really need a steady hand.

Oh, it's hard. Yeah. It's really hard. It's like, move a millimeter. Well, you're not in focus anymore. And you just have to like, you really need the steady hands. Right, because you're on 100X controlling this, like, super tiny. There's like a little picture and picture window so that you can just like tap to refocus on the place that you want to take a picture of.

It was weird. So I, last night, I watched like every YouTube video of this that I could find. And it was blowing my mind. Right. Because there was, I think it was Petapixel had one where they were, I think they were zoomed in like past 50X on this like boat way out in the harbor. and they show the original and it's like fine, just the grainy and ugly

and then boom, there's the AIed version and if you had not told me AI was involved, I would have been like, oh, okay, just some nice camera processing. Like, it, I was like trying to, I was doing a spot the difference between them. I'm like, where did it invent something?

Where did it screw up? And I could not find it. And okay, well, obviously this is early. You know, there's one image I saw, but it just looked like a, cleaner, crisper version of what you're actually seeing. Like, it looks like it is really just fixing it, cleaning it up. It's wild. Yeah, I totally agree.

I talked to Isaac Reynolds, who heads up the pixel camera team. And I was, I was like, okay, what are you doing here? AI in the camera, what is a photo? Like, put him through the gauntlet of questions. And he was really like, you know, this is an algorithm. like we've, in a similar way we've used in the past, it's just really good at, like, getting rid of the artifacts that you would see from the upsampling and the, you know, image processing pipeline. And that, you know, his claim is that is not going to do anything you wouldn't expect from a camera.

Because that's where I'm like, what? Is it going to invent stuff? Is it going to, you know, put different things that weren't there? like Lochness monster out there. It was like a weird, you know, because there were instances where we're getting pictures of people versus like the things and the buildings or the architecture or whatnot would be kind of unnaturally clear for something taking that art. And then the people would just be blobs.

And I get why they're not doing the people. That's like very important that they're not doing the people. But that was the one thing that I was like, this is a blob. Yeah, it does. So there'll be a blob within your CRISPR, everything else. Oh, that's, okay. Yeah, it's weird. Right.

I guess they, because that would be creepy at a minimum. If you're at like 100x. Okay, yeah. Creepy at a minimum, dangerous in a different context. This is wild. It's, I'm curious where it goes from here and if it's, if it is like limited to this Zoom function. Because this like got my mind racing on whether I'm like, okay, is like the few.

of the pixel camera, just everything gets like diffusioned and they use this, right? Like, why not enhance details elsewhere, right? They know what a proper DSLR photo is supposed to look like. Forget portrait mode. Why don't they just like, can they just diffusion it? I mean, there were so many camera features that like when Alice and I were getting the demos, I was just like in my head, like, you know, just smiling to be polite in person. And in your head, I'm going like, A, T.S. E. Ray, everything is what is a photo. Oh, no. Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, ha. Like that, that was in my head happening at the time. It's very impressive. But at the same time, if you're thinking, if you are contemplating what is a photo, there's just a lot of screaming that's going on.

And in fact, actually, now that I say it, there are other parts of the camera where it is inventing photos. So there's this new camera coach thing. And it invented. And it invented. photos and tells you to go take them, right? Like this is, did you need to demo this? Yes. We did. And you kind of get into the camera coach mode, so it's separate. And then I believe you take a photo in it, it invents some like potential photos you could take. That would be better.

So it's negging your natural photo taking ability too. Right. But importantly, you pick one and then it takes you through the steps. It's like, okay, well, now get down. lower or compose it this way and you end up with your photo and the AI one gets thrown away. But it is like you're seeing that little glimmer of like, okay, what's coming next if this is what you're doing right now? Right.

That's so interesting. It's like you, I have to go take it. But like actually, you already made it. You're like, it's already here. Like, do I, did I need to take it? Yeah. I would prefer to take it. I will say like the camera coach thing seems like one of those very impressive.

like AI is crazy. Look at all these things it can do. We can analyze the scene live and teach you how to like take it. I don't know who's going to use it or why I don't want to use it. They told us it was for like people who are intimidated by photography or who take like really crappy pictures but want like that Instagram worthy like cool looking picture and learning about composition and lighting and how to do that stuff. But it's also like they should have thrown a gnarly flash on the back of this thing. And force it to be on at all times if they wanted to appeal. To be like, nobody's trying to take Instagram photos anymore.

You know. This isn't happening. That's why it's a coach, right? Because they were like, this is for beginners. It's not for people who already know how to do the photography stuff. And I, you know, I was the model for Allison's demo. And boy, did I get a quad workout because it kept telling me to, like, do a dynamic pose or whatnot. or like Allison, through the thing, was telling me to do that.

Yeah. Yeah, why did you be dynamic? Yeah. My legs were hurting. So thanks, AI. Okay. Last thing in the, about the cameras, last big thing is it is building in credentials, saying it's tagging them as AI, right?

Yeah. When you do these, I guess not the camera coach, but if you're doing the Zoom, if you're doing the crazy Zoom thing, it's going to tell you in the data this AI, right? And more importantly, like I talked to Isaac, and it's tagging every photo you take with the camera, not just the AI ones. If there's no AI used, it just says something like taken with a camera. It'll say something like if you take it.

Why does that have to be established? Well, here's the alternative. Because we live in a dystopian future where. No. Yeah. There's no such thing as a photo that is not taken by a camera. Right. Am I, is there something I'm missing here?

Okay. So the rationale for this is if you only tag the things that are AI, then it gives the appearance that the untagged thing is real, which may not be the case. Okay. Okay. We just don't know if it's AI or not. So this is a little bit of like Google is going to set the good example. And hopefully every, you know, you know. Instagram will have all kinds of tags about this was taken with the camera.

We'll see how that pans out. But I appreciate that they're doing it. And I get it. It's weird. You know, sometimes this what is a photo question is like impossible to answer. And other times I'm like, yeah, it's a camera. It's like it's was there a camera? Like, yes.

Yeah. If it wasn't taken with a camera, I feel very confident. It feels like unimpeachably not a photo. If Vergecast at theverge.com, email me if you can figure out what a photo is. It's not taken by a camera. Yeah. Well, it's just a picture. It is.

But we wouldn't call it a photo. We just wouldn't call it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is a photo realistic painting that it's not. It's not. It's a picture. A picture versus a photo is going to be, okay.

Yeah, this is. It's a robot's memory of a tree that it saw one time. I'm just saying we should do a what is a photo package and just have everyone on staff contribute and lose our minds collectively and just let that live online. That's the end state of the verge because all of us become hermits afterward. We'll be released. We'll just, you know, we'll do this one last, what is a photo?

package and then all of our souls will be released to Valhalla and we'll retire. Exactly. The other thing we have to talk about here is Magic Q, which is like maybe the flagship feature from the AI standpoint, at least as Google is pushing it. Allison, like, is this thing actually going to be helped? Like, this is their attempt to make AI actually maybe potentially useful. Yeah. And it's the demos we saw were really interesting, but they were on rails.

So just to explain, this is sort of a contextual, always there, AI that can kind of prompt and auto-fill things that might be relevant. So the, I think demo everybody saw was a friend texts you like, hey, do you have the details about our dinner reservation tonight? And Magic queue will kind of take that and go to your genius. email and come back with, you know, the relevant details in theory that it's like the name of the restaurant. And it'll, it'll kind of present that as a thing you can just potentially like paste into the conversation. So there's a little bit, it's, I think, was described to us as

ephemeral. That was like concerning. They're like, we're not storing all of your data forever. We know all of it. We just might not hang on to it. This is like, this is the dream, right? Like this is, I mean, this sort of gets at what Apple was trying to promise with Siri, where it's like, it knows everything, it sees everything. It surfaces it for you at the right time. It's not entirely clear. Like, I love the pitch of this, right?

Like, those are the things that are super annoying to, like, juggle and look up. Can it actually pull that stuff up? Can it do this in every app? Is it just like these select Googly moments? No. It is a handful of, like, Google. apps like Gmail, calendar, messages. It is in Gboard, so it can kind of work a little bit outside of just those core apps where if you were looking at something in Chrome and it senses you went to

a shopping app. It's like you open up Amazon. Yeah, that's the example we got. It can suggest text in Gboard that you might want to paste in. It is all happening on device. which is good from the scary privacy perspective. And it incorporates some of like some of your very recent activities. So like in that example of something you were looking at and sort of feeds that into what you might see as suggested activities, but it's not saving those for super long. We didn't get exacts on any of that. But just enough to feel like maybe this isn't too scary.

It's cool if it works, but the question is, is it going to get the right reservation? What if you're someone who's like a social butterfly and you're meeting some of the same people in the same group chats but in different group configurations? Like, can it handle that? Yeah. It's interesting too because Google sort of already like has pieces of this individually within apps, right? where it's like there's stuff with this that you can just hardcode. Gmail already surfaces your flights at the right time. It started doing this thing that honestly, I find very annoying.

But it's like, it'll be like, hey, you've got a package coming. And we're going to put the package thing up so you know that your package is coming today. Right. So it's like already reading your emails. It's figuring out when you need them and surfing the right moments. It's like being able to do that, take it to another app, read what's happening in the app, give it to at that time. Like that is that's a lot of juggling to do and it's like okay flights got it that's a good use case

this feels like a thing that they've probably programmed a few specific things for and I maybe it expands over time like I think the idea is fascinating and it's just not clear to me if they can actually execute this yeah it'll be interesting like one to try it out and see if it actually works outside of these demos and two like it sort of gets at that thing of, are they just going to circumvent us going into apps? Are app developers going to love that? In the engagement economy, that's going to be interesting. I know. I mean, presumably app developers can just be like, no, we're not going to open this up to Magic Q, you know, if that ever became an option. But yeah, I wonder, I sort of wonder what the limits are on something like this. But it's got to work first. I'm really curious.

They also have this daily hub thing that like pops up with like a bunch. Like here's all the stuff for you to do today. And I'm like I'm super interested in what this is actually capable of because it keeps it's like here's all the stuff on your calendar today. And I'm like, oh, okay, that would actually be really interesting for me because I like, I used Google Calendar a little bit at work. But most of my life is in Tick-Tick, the To-Doo app. And if it can't access Tick-Tick, then it's actually just like useless to me.

Yeah. And this is kind of a version of something Samsung has. They call it like the now brief that I have found to be just completely useless. Honestly, the funny thing is that it feels like they sort of also took this from smartwatch features, which are morning report. And like you wake up on your smart watch first thing in the morning and it tells you the weather. It tells you what workout you're having next. And it tells you everything on your calendar. I like that, honestly.

Like, I honestly don't think it belongs on your phone. I think it belongs on something like that. That's my, I'm biased, but that's my take on that. We'll see. I want to make sure we talk about one more important thing on the phones, which is that there's some magnets. There are magnets. Oh, yeah. Touch on this a little bit.

But Chi-2 is real. It's happened. It's the only other phone was the HMB skyline, which is more of a punchline than a actual product. This is great, right? Like, this is, it is exactly MagSafe. Now it's on pixels. They build it into the actual phones, a bunch of accessories.

Like, is there more to this? It's just good. It's like they did it. It works. I think so. They said it in the show. They said, you can use MagSafe and Apple stuff. And Jimmy Fallon was like, can we say the A word?

So that's why he said that. So, yeah. I will say, like, this is, I, I, There's a lot of stuff I will criticize Apple for, like, keeping lockdown. And I marvel at the fact that they opened up MagSafe to the Chi ecosystem. And this seems right now it most seems good for Android. Yeah. I assume this helps all their partners who make all these accessories because they're going to get to sell a whole lot more of them.

And there's so much money. Yeah. And I think they're just like, they weighed the pros and cons because in my mind, Apple just has like a bunch of supply chain people. and like those math nerds who are like the pros and the cons of how much money gets into our pocket by making it open versus closed and they just did the beep boop boop math and they were like, oh, we get so much more money

for like opening it up. Let the pixel have the mag safe or whatnot. That's just like how I think it went. Meanwhile, green bubbles. They're like, seems like all downside. Yeah, that one's still not happening. All right.

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All right, we're back. And we've got a load more stuff to talk about from this pixel event. Now, V, we're over into your wheelhouse. You're in my house now, guys. I would say, I was not expecting this to be a particularly exciting year for the Pixel Watch. I was, I was just like, I wonder what they're going to do this year because the first two years, they were, first year they were like,

we finally did it, guys. We did a Pixel Watch, and everyone's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll be in a Google Graveyard next year. And then Pixel Watch 2 came out, and they're like, we did it, guys, we're catching up, we fixed all the stuff that was bad about the first one because it was a first gen device. And then the third one came out, and I was like, we're done catching up, guys.

We're here now. We have arrived third times of the charm. And so I was like, yeah, so like, what are you going to do next year for the fourth? And then they were like, how about we blow your mind with AI? And that's Which is honestly what No man wants to hear No one wants to hear that

But it was actually like A substantive update When I was writing my hands on I was just like Oh Jesus Christ I forgot about this feature Oh Jesus Christ I forgot about that feature

Oh I have to do two Separate hands-ons Because there's also an AI coach That's coming And that deserves its own 1,200 words of talking about So it was a lot Right so okay

So there's like a mix of things going on here There's a bunch of like small but meaningful hardware updates, right? It's the screen is 50% brighter. There's a domed display. So, you know, the glass is domed because they have this little, what they call a rain droplet design. It looks like a little bead of water on your wrist, and that's their design ethos. So that display is the glass is domed.

Now the display, the actual display underneath is also domed. And that enables a couple of different things. It's 50% brighter, 3,000 nits. and then the bezels are 15% thinner than the last generation, and the active display area is 10% larger. So, like, just by making it domed, they did all of that stuff. Like, that sounds very silly, but it's actually, like, a very meaningful... It is, and then, like, we...

I got the chance to look at, like, the pixel 2, 3, and 4 side by side with the flashlight on so that I could see, like, the difference between both the brightness and the bezels, and I'm like, if you look at the progression of it, is quite impressive. So that was just like, oh, nice, nice hardware, guys. Yeah. Good job.

Some, like, meaningful hardware improvements. Also, like dual frequency GPS, if you like satellite SOS, what we can talk about, the repairability a little bit more later, but it's more repairable than any other watch. And then there's the AI. The AI is all the other stuff, right? There's just, like, so much on there. There's, like, well, like the Samsung watches, the Gemini is now on the rest. But also, like, you have smarter contextual replies so that, you know, so one of the things about smart replies on the smart watch is like someone texts you and you can just go boop and quick reply back.

And usually they're pretty canned responses, right? They're like, yes, no, on my way. And like when I was talking to the pixel watch team, they're like, you know, most of the time people only use about 30% of the time for conversations. It's not that helpful. So now that there's like an on-device LLM model on there, it will give contextual replies based on what was texted back. It was like, oh, so if someone texts you about a game, it could be like, yay, I'm really happy we won. And like that's the response that you get to send back. And it's not limited to the default messages app.

So if you use a different one, like WhatsApp, if you use, I don't know about Signal because there's privacy stuff there. But like Kacao Talk, which all my Koreans know, that is the, the, the, text messaging Apple's choice for Korea and Korean Americans. And you know, you'll be able to have those contextual replies from that. And so that's like one of the many ways that AI can be used on the wrist. And as I've written before, though, using a on the wrist is just a little, it's a little weird. It's like on one hand, for a smartwatch, I think those contextual replies could legitimately be like pretty useful. Yeah. Because you do not want to be typing. But Allison, You just spent a week using your watch as your main device.

And you did a bunch of typing on it. And I think it was okay. Yeah. And maybe it's a little bit of pride for me because I'm like, I'm not using those canned responses or, you know, even if they are like pretty close to what I want to say that, you know, I'm like, this is my profession. Robot, don't come for me.

But yeah, I can see how it's just when you're initially. I'm like texting my husband on my way home. I don't know how AI knows that I want to do that. But I can see it being useful. And maybe I'll just like get over my hang up with auto reply stuff. I've gotten really into voice to text on text messaging. I'm now, I'm like, I don't feel like typing. Like if this is anywhere, I'm not doing a full voice memo.

No, I'm straight up voice to texting. I should maybe I should. Because it, and it seems like an insane person. because I will send like three paragraphs of text like to somebody just because I'm like I've just been talking for like two minutes straight I don't want to type. I'm saying try voice memos next like Mia turned me on to voice memos and now sometimes I'm like I ain't typing this show. I just send like a two minute message.

If I got a voice memo from somebody I would feel like that was a threat. I would be like what did I do? I'm like I got to put in earbuds now to no. Oh no usually there's like a text. There's usually a transcript too in case. you can't actually play it, but I don't know. I've been, I had those thoughts, and now I'm on that, now I'm on the voice memo train.

But also with this new Gemini on the wrist thing, you can raise to talk. I'm into that. But it was interesting because, you know, I think a lot of the people I were talking to were saying like, oh, God, another gesture that you have to do unnaturally, like, and actually it's a lot more subtle. Like if you do that, it won't actually bring up Gemini. Just like raise your wrist up to your... Like if you do it to like, if you're like a power ranger when you're doing the move

and like trying to talk into your risk communicator, it's not going to do it. So you have to do it like just like naturally and it'll do it. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. That's, you know, because there's a lot of movement that happens with hands, especially if you're like me and you're just doing hand gestures all the time. So having to find out when people are actually wanting to talk to Gemini was a lot. lot of work that they put into it that I was surprised to find was actually like, oh, I don't have to do a crazy exaggerated moment because I'm so used to after 10 years of testing wearables doing things like freak, pinch, and like moving like I'm a power ranger because of how wonky these gestures have been over time. And that one was just one where it was actually quite fluid. And I was like, oh, that's surprisingly good. So the other big thing here, and I couldn't quite figure this out, there's this Fitbit AI health coach, which is the other, like, big part of this announcement.

And I guess I'm curious, like, is that a Pixel Watch feature or is that just like these two teams are? Okay, so this is all Fitbits. And Pixel Watches. So it's not gate kept to the Pixel Watch 4. It is all pixel watches and all FitBits will get this Fitbit AI coach when it rolls out in October, though you have to be a Fitbit premium member. in order to, they are gatekeeping it because, well, you know, AI is expensive to run. And this health coach is, so my caveat is that I've tested a lot of AI health coaches and a lot of AI health and fitness features. I have yet to like a single one. And I walked into this demo

being like, this better be good, buddy. Like, this better be something like, here we go again, friends and I walked out like cautiously, I won't say optimistic, but curious about it. Like they felt very thoughtful. The Fitbit app is going to get a complete, it's going to get blown up completely and completely redesigned. There's a dark mode coming for all the Fitbit people who've been wanting it for a long time. But generally speaking, this AI coach is going to be built into every single nook cranny and corner of the Fitbit app. And you're going to be able to talk to it to give like insights. And, you know, I asked Sandeep and Sindip Warwick, which I'm called Andy Abramson and Rishich. Like this was a, this was like a table of very like skeptical journalists

grilling these dudes. Just like, you know, I went out and I said, you know, these have been captain obvious level summaries just saying like you did a workout thanks like I can see that in my metrics so like how are you going to be different about it and the answers I got were pretty thoughtful like just you know it is going to reference your weekly patterns versus your daily patterns but you can ask it about your long term patterns because one of the things was I asked aura like hey what's my average hours of sleep for this year and it would be like girl we can't do more than a month. And I was like, you're useless. That's not helpful. That's not helpful. Why do I have five years of aura data if you can only do a month's worth? And they're like, no, you'll be able to do that

with this. It is chatty. I saw the chat logs. I thought this was so interesting. And you asked them about this. You're like, bro, why isn't this shorter? And they were like, we tested and people didn't like it. Yeah. And they're like, well, we tested it to be shorter. But if you have an LLM, do it in three sentences, you don't get anything useful from that. Because it's just summarizing it so that it's so generalized as to be useless. And I was like, oh, interesting. So they are right now going for, like, pretty in-depth, like, really long things. And then the idea is for it to be conversational and adjust.

So, like, I've had problems where I get injured or it's really hot outside, and I have a tendency to be a type A overachiever and push through the pain, which is not good for you when you're exercising. I've gotten injured a lot over the last few years doing that. And so now you can go talk to this AI and be like, hey, I tweaked my knee. I can't really do this exercise program that you've done for me. And I'll be like, okay, cool, let's adjust it. And it'll adjust it for you, which is sort of like the first time that we're actually seeing moving from just a static summary to going like, cool information.

Thanks for giving it to me. Let me adjust that for you. And I'll check in with you a week later to see if you're ready to get. get back to your regular routine, which is like, that's what we've been asking for, kind of. Right. It feels like everything else has just been, we're not going to change the existing app. We're not going to add any new features. But like, hey, here's some AI. Like, it will just summarize what can already tell you. Yeah, it's like bolt it on. And this feels like they're taking, or at least they're trying to take the maximalist approach, which is like, we're going to plug all

of your data in and we're going to give you an essay back. Yes. And whether it works, That's an open question. We're going to see. But that is like the step that needs to happen, right? If you want actually good results from the AI, if you want the AI to actually be useful, it needs to have all your data. And that's the kind of part that I'm somewhat like hmm about. You know. Because you got to hoover in a lot of data.

What, about handing over your health data? A lot of your health data. And the thing that they've pointed out to me is that when Google acquired Fitbit, it regulatorily for that sale to go through, they had to agree to the EU to keep all of the Fitbit data siloed out of the Google data because it was health data.

So they are actually obligated to keep those data silos separate. It doesn't mean people trust it. Doesn't mean you should trust it if you're like a maximalist about data privacy security. But it is like a lot of data that they're going to be asking for.

And they're starting out with fitness and sleep. They have an ambition. for it to be everything. I was going to ask if you think there's like a play with a journal app that we saw on the phones. I think so. I think so. I know you have some feelings about the journal app. I don't think AI should be in journals.

I don't. They don't keep the AI out of journals. Journaling is not complicated and it's not supposed to be easy. Keep the AI out of the journals. Yeah, we didn't. We didn't touch on this up top, but for some confusing reason, one of the new pixel features is a journal app. Yes. It's a journal app with AI prompts.

Yeah, so you'll write journal entries in this AI app, and it'll prompt you based on what you've written before for new prompts. So it's just like, hey, why don't you write about your feelings for a test that's coming up next week? And then, you know, you'll write, and you can read summaries of the entries that you've written. and there's a little calendar and it puts little emoji summarizing your emotions based on what you've written. Yeah, it's like a smiley face or just kind of like, you didn't have a smiley face day. I feel like you shouldn't be able to lose at journaling.

That feels like it is antithetical to like. There's kind of streaks too. Yeah, it's, it's, I saw that and I was just like, I think you should have a hard time with a blank page because that is the point of journaling. But yeah, no, I'm with you, Allison on that conspiracy theory about, like, linking those two things for, because they do have ambitions beyond just fitness and sleep. Those are just, like, the natural, easy on ramps for this kind of AI health coach feature. But they do want to get into nutrition.

They do want to get into, like, overall health advising. And I was just like, a line of medical tech and wellness, a line that I've written about and is getting increased. increasingly blurrier to my internal fear and horror. So there's a lot there that I'm just like, it's all colliding. It sums it all up. Yeah, it is. But to the greater point, the big issue with wearables is that it generates this boatload of data. And the average person is just like, okay, cool, I don't know what to do with this like mountain of metrics that you've given me. And so the problem they're trying to solve here is giving you useful, actionable, context if you're trying to lose some weight, get healthier, be able to run a marathon, like just whatever your goals are, just having, you know, the phrasing and the framing they used is like Steph Curry, who is actually partnering on this thing and giving feedback, and his team is like going like, yeah, you should do this.

So they're like actually partnering on this particular feature together. But Steph Curry has a whole team of people helping him parse his athletic and health data. what if we democratize that with AI for you? I mean, listen, I would love if Steph Curry's people gave me some notes. That would be great. I feel like we're not getting notes at that level from the Fitbit app. At least not at first. That's their goal.

Whether they can get there is a totally different story, but that is their kind of like roadmap for that particular feature. And to be fair, it's one that's Garmin's pursuing. Apple has workout buddy, which is like nowhere near this level of ambition because where's the new improved series? You kind of need that for that to happen. But I do think they're thinking about that as well. I think all of these companies are thinking down this route. This is just the most ambitious.

And I think thoughtful implementation that I've seen as to something that actually tells you something and isn't just a stapled on summary regurgitated book report. No, I think you're right. And I think between the Fitbit changes that are coming in October, between that and the Pixel Watch 4 updates, there's a pretty opinionated series of products here. And I think the last piece of this that we saw is some of the hardware changes. And the one we didn't talk about yet is the repairability coming to the watch, which is sort of like a total surprise curveball here. Yes, because The Verge has done some real stress testing. We are apparently famous within that product team for. destroying two screens of the first two pixel watches.

Both unintentionally, we don't know how it happened. Listen, it's not on us. We didn't know. I don't think, you know. I, like, I've had some people go. Those things is broke. Like, I've had some people in my pixel two watch review, like, there is no way you don't know how this happened.

I am telling you on the record right now. I cooperated with every step of Google's investigation into how it happened, and we were all baffled, just completely baffled. I was like, I don't know. Like agents like swarmed your house. Yeah, it sounds like they arrested you. No, they came in person and they were like, we're going to take this and do some tests on it. And I was just like, please.

Pass the polygraph. I was still here. Please tell me. There's like conspiracy theory that my cat did it. He was a baby. I don't think he could have done it. He didn't have T-Fers yet. So, yeah.

So apparently we are famous for having done that in some capacity. But what I was told is that they really want these. devices to last a long time. So they want it to last a long time for people to have, and making it repairable was just one part of that. If you take the straps off and you look into the little lug his area, and little screws, and little screws. And you can unscrew it. And if you take it off, it actually kind of, what they said is the insides have been redesigned to kind of look like a bento box. So it all comes through a circle. It all comes back full circle. All right. They took the Vento box from the event and they put it in the pixel watch.

Put it in a watch. You open it up. There's a little update sheet inside it. It tells you what features it has. Yeah. Yeah. So the idea is that the display and the battery will be repairable and replaceable. So.

Which is really impressive for a watch. Especially one where people were just like breaking the screens left and right. That was one of the. When you say people, the other than us. Other than us. We're pretty specifically. Us, but also other, we didn't do it with the Pixel Watch 3 and knock on wood, we're not going to do it with our Pixel Watch 4. I mean, try us.

Can I say my favorite watch feature this year? Yes. Is the new charger, the new proprietary charger, which I know you're all annoyed by. The watch goes on it like it's sleeping on a pillow. It looks like it, it's like it charges on its side, and it just looks like it's sleepy and it's taking a little. and it's taking a little rest. Once you said that, and I put it in all my hands on, and I'm pretty sure I credited you

and at least most of my mentions of it across the thing. But I was just like, once I, when she said it, I couldn't unsee it. And I was like, that's so cute. It's just a tired little gadget. So tired. I'm sorry you need, like, another watch charger. That is really annoying.

This is the third proprietary charger in four watches. So that's not ideal from an e-waste perspective. It's kind of impressive. Yeah. It's just like, guys, come on, but I actually like it. No, that makes sense, though, too, especially if, like, if you're putting that up beside your bed at night, then you've got a little clock.

It's all right. There's something there. I see it. On the topic of repairability, that was the only repairable gadget they announced. The other new piece of hardware, I think the final new piece of hardware, pixel buds 2A. Yes. Which, what's repairable here?

You replace the battery on that. Yeah. So there's the case and there's the little insert inside the case. You can pop that out and replace the battery. Okay. Okay. So it's the battery in the case, not in the buds, which would be kind of intense. Yeah.

So it's the case battery that you can just pop it out, replace it. That's pretty cool. They added, so here's another thing. There's like a big thesis with all of these devices, and the thesis is Gemini and AI, basically, because these budget buds got the tensor chip. And why would they have a tensor chip? Why not? Why not? Future AI, baby.

Like, that's just, like, you can just see that they're going, like, we're going to need everything to have AI. Sometimes I think people are genuinely like, we're doing this because we think it's going to be cool. We think people are going to like it. And sometimes I think people are like, my boss really wants this to say AI. And that's what that feels like. I feel like someone's like, they're going to love it. They're going to, like, I'm going to get a promotion if I put Gemini, like, on this box five times. And, like, what, like, you could already talk to Google on these, like, what do I need these pixel buds 2A to Gemini for me?

I, you know, I think they're just kind of future roofing for down the road for whenever it is that they have, like, AI-based sound audio features, you know? Yeah. Like, I mean, it's interesting because the original A-series buds where, like $99. They were the kind of, you know, cheaper version. Now they're 130, so they're $30 more expensive. But they also have ANC and transparency mode, which they didn't have before. Right.

Noise cancellation is actually like a pretty meaningful upgrade here. Yeah, that's a pretty meaningful. It's actually not, I was looking at the comparison page between the PixelBuds 2A and the PixelBuds 2Pro. And it's like, it feels sort of like Google is like searching for places to make the 2Pro different. The difference in the noise cancellation is that the PixelBuds 2 Pro has active noise cancellation with live seal 2.0. And the PixelBud's 2A is active noise cancellation with live seal 1.5. And I'm like, what is live seal? I don't know if I have the name right, but it's like you're searching here.

You're searching for like, which is great. It's great if the Pixel Woods 2A are like getting closer to pro level of features. It does not have wireless charging in the case. No, that was annoying. That's a rough one. Yeah, once you're living that wireless charging lifestyle, it's hard to go back. It is. But it's funny because when Allison and I went to this content capture before the event,

if you looked at the displays, it was like, phones, watches. And in the corner right over there. Are the pixel ones too? We're like, where are they? Where are the pixel? And they're like, oh, they're in the corner. And when I was like, so what's new? And they're like, oh, ANC, and you can talk to Gemini on it.

And like the talking point was like, and you can talk to Gemini on it. I was like, couldn't you talk to Gemini on it before? But you can talk to Gemini. You can really talk to Gemini on it now. It was like, okay. It's okay. So the AI is the thing. And you know what?

My big problem with literally all of Google's products, I can't find a way to talk to Gemini. You know? They make it so hard to access. And they're like, you know, these devices on like your phone, they live on you. And so these are the different pathways in which we can talk to AI, AI in your ear, AI on your wrist, AI in your pocket. And I was like, oh, my God. Okay. New meaning to ambient computing, which is the whole thing that they were kind of talking about when they introduced the pixel phone. So I guess this is what they meant. And speaking of Gemini being literally everywhere, they did potentially, we think they teased one other product here, which is just in the middle of a video of where they were demoing some stuff, they kind of just like, there's a weird little gadget that looked like a next gen Nest Hub, Nest Mini, Google Home Mini.

There was a little gray orb with like a blue ring around it that was. was talking to them with Gemini. It looks like a new Ness smart speaker, which those things haven't been updated in forever. And they announced also on Wednesday that they're finally bringing Gemini to smart speakers in the home starting in October. But like Alexa Plus, it's going to be like slow rollout.

So we'll see. We'll see. Have you guys tried using like Google Assistant lately? Yes. It's in my home because we had a smart home package last year and I was a first-time homeowner, so Jen Tooley, like, held my hand and walked me through my first smart home. And she decided that it was going to be a nest in Google smart home. So I talked to Google Assistant on the daily for my little broken jank smart home. Yeah.

You know what? So it breaks half the time. Yeah, it's not great. Our four-year-old has learned how to get Google to say the weather. And the way he just yells at it. It's like, Google's hey, what? of weather today. So I think he's using it as much as we are. He has gotten it to be more functional than I have. This weekend, I was like, hey, Google, what's, oh, I'm so sorry to

literally every listen to this weekend. I was like, yo, what is the weight of an iPad air? Seems, I feel like that's manageable. It was just like, I don't know what a question is. I don't know what an iPad is. Like, what do you, like, it like had a meltdown. It just like didn't know what to do with this. Mine is sexist because I will ask it to turn on the kitchen lights or whatever and it'll listen and my spouse will do it and it won't. It just does not register. And like we trained their voice on it too. So it's like, interesting.

Only listens to me. So they are just like, I don't know why we got to talk to this robot. I'm going to pull up the app and control it from the phone. So it's, yeah. Well, get ready for October because they're going to sell some new robots that will Maybe, I truly think they're like, we got to be careful. We can't put Gemini in because we'll lose some Google Assistant features. And I'm like, no, like half broken Gemini cannot be worse than this.

Like these things just do not function anymore. It's gotten really bad lately. I got to agree with you. And there'll be times where the wake word, I won't say it. I'm sorry again. The wake word will just activate out of nowhere. I don't know what. I'm like, is my house haunted?

Because it'll just like go, bing, boom, bop, and it'll say things. I've been on calls with sources, and it just acts up because I have a nest tub by my desk to look at the doorbell. And it's like, oh, cool. I just have a rogue smart speaker. Mine, every time I talk to my cat,

mine's like, you're talking to me, right? I'm like, well. Do they have similar names? No. I'm looking forward to seeing any movement here on making these things more usable again. I think we don't really know. But yeah, I'm hoping that a lot of these features come to the older ones just because there's a huge install base there. And that product is obviously not what it once was.

All right, we've got to take a break when we get back. The Thunder Round returns new, improved, better than ever. Get ready for it. Support for the show comes from MongoDB. If you're tired of database limitations and architectures that break when you scale, it's time to think outside of rows and columns. Because let's be honest, you didn't get into tech to babysit a broken database. You got into it to actually build something.

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Terms and conditions apply. 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. Like that doesn't, that's not a priority.

That's this week on America Actually. Let's begin. Okay, we're back for a completely de-googly-fied, zero Google, zero AI, I think, Thunder Round. That's what is new and improved about it this week. Perfect. Perfect. As you all know, I've been on a power trip since Neely and David left. I have disposed of the lightning round.

That thing is over. It's stale. It's done with. They could never get to all the stories. So I have given Eric Gomez, our producer, the power of thunder, to make sure that we can get through all of the importance. stuff that we want to talk about. We're going to do five stories, five minutes each. When we're getting close to time, Eric's going to give us some rolling thunder that's playing us off. And if we go too far, we will be struck down by a sound that is related to lightning, but is distinctly

not lightning because that is not part of this new world. Again, we're working on it. We're working on the intro. We're working on the segment. It's going to get better each week. Okay, first up, The, what have we got? We have beans. So Hank Green released this app called FocusFriend. And it is kind of a Pomodoro timer. It is kind of a distraction-free situation. And our good friend, Zach Brown, wrote Hank Green's FocusFriend,

swapped my screen time for Bean Time. And I love this app so much. I downloaded it recently. And continuing my theme of using the brick for TV time, I am using the Bean app for reading time. And guys, I got through four books this week. How? That is insane.

I got through four books this week. I've gotten through seven books this month. It's amazing. Do you read a physical book? Are you on a Kindle? I am on physical books. I'm on Kindles. I'm on my phone.

I'm on audio books. I'm on like different formats at all time. Are you doing audio and physical book like simultaneously? No. I don't. I can't. It all makes sense. This is not happening.

That's how you read four books. Yeah. You're two Xing an audio book while you're reading. No, that's not what I'm doing. But, um, so like the issue I've had is just like being way too addicted to my phone. Like, I think this is a universal problem at this point in time. And I just, as soon as a notification comes up, I get into panic mode like, oh, I have to answer it immediately or someone's going to hate me. But no, I put the bean timer on, the focus friend.

My bean, you can name your bean. His name is Blurbo. My bean's name is Blurbo. And so Blorbo, the concept is that Blorbo is a radioactive bean that has been like injected into your phone. And he lives there now. And Blurbo's great passion in life is knitting. But Blurbo can't knit if you're on your phone and being distracted. So you put this little timer on.

And then Blurbo knits for the time that you are not on your phone. And when Blorbo has done, he has either knitted socks if you're on the free version like me or scarves if you choose to pay or whatnot. And then depending on the amount of socks or scarves that Blorbo or your being, whatever you want to name it, has knitted, you can decorate his little room. It's so nice. It's a little bit. I'm looking at the art and it's like it's so delightful. I should also say, disclosure, Hank Green is going to co-host Decoder next month, which also promo. I know.

But this app is just like, it feels, it has like animal crossing vibes where it's just like kind of quaint and delightful and you just decorate stuff. Yeah, it's like animal crossing vibes mixed with a Pomodoro timer, which if you don't know, a Pomodoro timer is based on like the little tomato kitchen timers. You go for 25 minutes of focus time on a single task. Then you take a five minute break. You do that four times. And then you get a 15 minute break. It's like a productivity thing. I use it a lot.

It helps me get started on projects. I don't want to do. So that mix just really worked for my brain with reading. And so every morning now, I've become a morning person through sheer force of effort because no one can interrupt your morning. They can always interrupt and derail your evening. No one can interrupt your morning if you get up really early. My four-year-old wants a word.

Well, true. But like, so my cat loves cuddle time on the couch in the morning. So I put Blurbo the bean timer on. I get the cat. Oh my gosh. I open up a book. And for 30 minutes to 45 minutes before work, I have uninterrupted reading time. That is so beautiful.

And that is how I got. It is a single most zen thing I have heard in months. I have a question. What kinds of stuff can you decorate Blorbo's room with? There's, so, you know, because I do it in such short time intervals and Blurbo is not the fastest knitter. I've only been able to buy a shelf. But you can buy a shelf. I think there's a chair.

Of course that had blurt. It's 75 socks for a shelf, but he just got a little pink shelf today. I'm very proud. Blurbo has a shelf to, you know, and it's about the process because every time I take time to read, I'm helping Blurbo knit socks. Can he eventually put stuff on the shelf? Is there like little plants you can get? I think so. Honestly, his sock, I need to read more.

So that Florbo can have his little socks. Okay. Because I'm not... Report back. Sorry, Hank Green. I have limited funds. I'm not buying the pro version for the scarves. So wait, why do you get scarves?

The scarves, what's... I think scarves are a higher value. I've seen knitters get mad about this online. Uh-uh. Because they're like, socks should be higher value than the scarves. And I was just like, you know what? Are either of you actual knitters? I have tried and absolutely not.

I cannot do it. It's just knit pearl. I can't do it. My friend is a great knitter. Not me. But, yeah. Hank Green should know that. He should be more serious about the relative value of the knitting that this beam does.

I'm here for blurbo. I'm here for blurbo to knit socks while I read and sit with a cat just purring on me every morning. It's honestly. I'm here for blurbo. The scientific accuracy concerns me. And I will. Okay. There's a bean in her phone.

And you're worried about the value of my phone. There's a bean that lives in my phone who likes to knit. Listen, listen. Okay, Allison, what have you got? Okay, I'll go with the RICO GR4. We're going to the camera world. Got a price. So it was announced earlier this year.

This is a beloved, like, camera nerds camera. It's been like one million years since they announced a new one. The GR-3 was 2019. So it's been like coming and in the works this fall. They announced a price and it is $1,500. The previous version was $900. So that's a bummer and sort of is giving me Sony RX-1R vibes where... Is this all tariffs? What the hell? I know.

That's what I feel like... Because I will, you know, the PS5 went up in price this week. So it feels a little bit like maybe this is a tariff thing happening here. But yeah, the RX1R also not updated in like a long time. 2015 was the last one. And then famously, Sony just out of the blue was like, we're making a new one. And it's five grand. I had not like heard much about the GR3.

I like did not know that was a camera. And then I think, you know, during the X100 craze, it was like the go-to comparison. And it's fascinating because it really is like a different take on the same kind of idea where. It is an APSC sensor. So you've got a big sensor in a compact camera, but it's even more compact. You can actually pocket this thing. Well, well, depends on your pocket.

But, like, more so than the X100. Yeah. But there's no viewfinder, which, like, is a bummer. It's like a different style of shooting. But, you know, it's like if you want a point in shoot that takes fantastic photos, like this is really been the camera. And at 1500, you're buying a very, very, very,

different type of product. Yeah, exactly. I feel like it's kind of flown under the radar a little bit, especially in the shadow of the X100. But it is really like a camera person's camera where it's kind of the one that, you know, back at Deeper Review would just be like talked about and like, oh, yeah, the RICO GRR is so nice, you know. The camera people love the RICO's. Yeah, it's, it has that following. It's a smaller following than the Fuji film, but. I think that's probably it, though, Because, like, the Fuji film, I feel like the Fuji film is like you're not a photographer, but you kind of aspire to be. And this is like, you spend your day lugging around enormous lenses fiddling with all kinds of dials. And you're like, thank goodness, I can just like hit one button and take a good photo.

Yeah. Like that, it's bringing it all down to like the size of something normal. Also interesting, I think what, like a couple weeks ago, Fuji raised their prices. They experienced the same thing. Yeah, a couple weeks ago, they raised prices on some of their... One of their cameras went up $800. This is the surge. Fortunately, the X-106 went up merely $200.

So I think it's at... Ooh, what's it? It's at $1,700 now? Maybe $1,800. Can you buy one now? No, it's $1,800 now. I think they're, like, in stock-ish. I think, like, the last I checked on Reddit, it's like,

you're not waiting so long anymore. Okay. If you, I think, I think, so 18, so it's, that thing's still more expensive. And also, this is what's wild about Fuji. So they announced their price tax like two weeks ago. And just this week, they're like, we're going to have to raise our prices again. Oh my God. So at the end of the month, they're like, we're not, and we're not telling you, but like,

buy it now, buy it now. These things are not going great for the camera companies. This is rough. I mean, there's such uncertainty with the terrorists, right? Because we never know if they're on or if they're off or if they're fully on or off again. Because it's, you know, we need a crystal ball for that. But when they do hit, I really do feel like I'm being punched in the face. Like they, this, these are significant price hikes.

I mean, yeah. But right, right, the PS5 went up 50 bucks this week. I feel very righteous because I bought mine a couple months ago. I was like, we got it. We got to get on this because this is only going up. So save 50 bucks right there. Every company just needs to be blaring tariff sale. It's our normal price.

We cannot promise it will last. Yeah. Yep. I'm very excited to see how this camera has improved. Because at this price, it's a very good. different prospect than it once was. But I think particularly given the, you know, craze around the X100s speaking as somebody who owns one, like I want to see more competition in the space.

We need to see more of these like APSC bigger sensors coming into smaller cameras. It's great. I love it. I wish it wasn't $1,500. Same. Yeah. That's a lot. Whoa.

Oh, my God. Got us. That one got me. Nailed it. Okay. So Netflix is changing. And this is, I think, like, we've talked about this a little bit in the past, but they're sort of at the end of an era.

I'm going to paint like a little bit of a picture here, right? A lot of their biggest series has been winding down, right? Squid Game just wrapped up two months ago. The final season of Stranger Things is about to hit. And we're starting to see this programming shift, right? So earlier this year, they started bringing episodes of Miss Rachel to the platform. Okay, all right. They just announced that Mark Rober, one of the biggest YouTubers,

is getting a Netflix series. Also this week, the Duffer Brothers who make Stranger Things and who previously had a big deal at Netflix to make a whole bunch of new shows and Stranger Things spinoffs, announced they're going to join Paramount in a couple years. And so that to me tells me, like, their headspace is somewhere else, right? Netflix for the longest time,

they were like, had something to prove. We're premium. We can do great stuff. And now the Duffer brothers are like, hey, Paramount's going to give us a big sack of cash. And they're like, Stranger Things is pretty good, but like, okay. I am curious, like, are you seeing this when you're watching Netflix?

Like, what I feel like increasingly, I like, I subscribe for those big shows. that are basically wrapped up, and I have not started a new Netflix series in a while. So the difference that I'm seeing is that Netflix is going hard on Korean stuff. They are bringing so many K-dramas over that I'm just like, shit, I can't cancel my Netflix subscription.

Where am I going to get my K-dramas from? And then, you know, then they had K-pop demon hunters, like, explode. I don't think Netflix was prepared for, K-pop Demon Hunters and what a massive phenomenon that's been, but I was like maybe you should have like Squid Games did boncos for you. The glory was huge on your platform as well. And then, you know, K-pop Demon Hunters is apparently destroying the billboard charts and the Han moon has been sealed or whatever. So they apparently greenlit two more K-pop demon-hunters movie, possibly a live action and possibly a series going on the other.

They just pounced on that. They just, because it's the first Netflix thing where the movie, the viewership, has gone up over time. So they're like, holy, quacamole, what do you mean? It's like, I still think it's like the number one movie on Netflix right now. This is really like the only Netflix movie that I've heard people discuss after the movie came out. I feel like everything else you're like, did you see they're doing this? And then it's just done. Yeah.

That's the extent of it. Yeah. This just keeps good. And like Korea is all on K-pop Demon Hunters right now. Samsung was just like, we're going to get on this. And at Samsung Galaxy Impact, they were just blaring the soundtrack. Allison can attest. I went, oh, my God, K-pop Demon Hunters.

No idea what I was listening to. And V explained it. Yeah. So to your point, I do think they're just going like, screw prestige. We'll just go in on K dramas, which are produced super cheaply overseas. Let's get in on the YouTubers, which have a, built an audience. Let's just, it's kind of just like what Google did. And they're just like,

we're going to find different distribution. I think there's something there, right? It's like the traditional, you know, prestige stuff like that's expensive. It's risky. And everyone makes fun of you when you do a bad job. But like they can pump out however many reality shows they want. And actually, like, there's a pretty big audience for that stuff. And they don't all have to be winners. They can syndicate or bring in a ton of K-dramas. They can see if it's any good. They can make deals for this stuff. They don't, right, they don't have to take on as much risk. And I think the YouTubers, you're right. Like, there's a built-in audience there. It just makes sense. And, like, they're doing a lot of weird live stuff, too.

Like, I was watching everybody's live with John Mullaney. And I was like, I didn't know this was a thing. I signed up and said I could watch the first episode. I'm like, oh, this is crazy. They're doing a talk show with John Malaney. It's going to be live. And then at this top of the first episode, he's like, we actually did this last year. I'm like, what? I have the same reaction. They've done this already? I had the same reaction. I was like, what?

I didn't know they did this last year. They're working on learning how to promote this, I guess. Yeah. But like, to your point, Netflix feels different from what it used to be. It's clearly in a new era. It is figuring things out, right? They're doing like the big fights too. There's a lot more here.

And it's like the future shape of Netflix is very different. And as somebody who, I don't know, enjoyed quite a few of those, like, prestige series they did. You know, little bummed. But listen, you can just watch 40,000 K dramas. All of them are 15 episodes. They kind of drag around episode 10 where you're like, get on with it. But then it's done. And there's like 4,000 of them.

Well, this is what I've learned. I need to watch K-pop Demon Hunters to repair for K-Podd Demon Hers 2, 2, 3, and live action movie. What I will say is the soundtrack is a banger. May I'll start there. All right. V. What have you got next? So this is a sequel from last week's corporate shenanigans.

So we have a little mini corporate shenanigans sequel where Massimo, maker of medical tech devices, mostly pulse oxymeters, is now suing U.S. customs for allowing Apple to have a workaround from the Apple botch import ban. And I just think that is chef's kiss. I love corporate beef over patents. It's so, like, as a puny human who, like, worries about paying bills that I'm just like, these numbers that they're talking about are fake. But also, the pettiness. I live for the pettiness of this. They're like, well, we can't get Apple. So, well, get you and your little dog do, U.S. Customs.

This is so good. Because Apple, right, Apple went to Customs and they're like, this is good, right? Like, we snuck it in, we figured something out, and Customs gave them the okay. Yeah. And so they can't sue Apple, or maybe they're already suing Apple. They've already sued Apple like five times. They're mad at Customs. And so, like, I guess we'll sue Customs.

Yeah, they're like, we don't like this. Customs, you were out of pocket doing that. Also, we didn't find out about this until Apple announced it. What the heck? So it was just, I was just looking at that and I'm like, oh, my show's on. They're just lashing out. Yeah. I'm once again begging everyone to make these sensors useful.

Like this is, again, this sensor was missing from the Apple Watch for a year and a half and no one complained. No. Well, like four people in my comments complained because I'm the wearable lady. And so if they're going to complain to anybody, it's going to be me. but most people did not miss this sensor whatsoever. And you just have Massimo being over here like, this is our thing. You can't do this.

And meanwhile, I'm sitting here and going like, guys, your patent expires in 20, 28. I guess this really is their last hurrah. Like, they've got to. They've got to get it now or they've got nothing.

I feel like they're at this point. I was like, we're in too deep. We've made a stand. We can't let this. We can't. I can't, like, what does the thing they say at the end of Braveheart? Just like, that's how I imagine them, just yelling the Braveheart thing, going into battle.

They're like, for glory, or whatever my crappy Scottish accent is. But, you know, just that's how I imagine Massimo and just being like, blood oxygen. So, yeah. I'm happy for them. I'm glad they're continuing the beef. Alison, last week we decided, are these events shenanigans or are they serious? What is your read in the Mossimo situation? I'm maybe a little bit of both. I think it makes sense if they're they got to make the most out of this patent and they're just going to throw a fit with everybody and make it everybody else's problem.

This is, I think I'm with you where it's like this is they're they're dead serious, but it is absolutely futile. They're going to get nowhere. Stupid. I mean, Apple has so much money. So nobody knows what Massimo is except for like this. Apple will invent. new court systems if it has to. Apple will be like, okay, bet. We'll find a different workaround aside from this work. We have time. We have money. Bet we're going to just not do this.

So it's just like I feel like they're just doing this on principle. They're like, we're going to stand on business, on blood oxygen, this thing that people do not care about extensively. And we are just going to beef until the sun. It's Kendrick Lamar energy. You got to respect it. Yeah. Like, 2025 is the year of the hater.

So I got to respect it. Yeah. It's good. Okay, excited to see where this goes next and how many more lawsuits are filed before the patent expires in 2028. 20,000. Keep it locked on the verge. We will have nonstop wall-to-wall Apple patent coverage. That's our promise to you.

D. Allison, take us home. What do we got? Okay, this is the most important news you'll hear all week. Chipotle is starting drone delivery. This is an article on a blog called Delish. And they're, okay, it's only in like Dallas, I think right now. But they're calling Texas.

I know. Come on, come on. They're calling, well, it's a partnership with a company called Zipline. I don't know what that is. They have drones, but they're calling it Zapote. No. Yeah, yeah. That I'm not on board with.

Yes. But can you imagine like chips and guacamole raining down from heaven, literally? It's like cloudy with a chance of burritos. Yes. This increases my chance of order Chipotle like 10x. Yeah. Absolutely. And like you could door dash it or whatever, but like knowing that it would

come from the sky from a drone. Like, no other human would have to know that I am ordering a burrito at whatever hour it is. I mean, on the other hand, all your neighbors can be like, hey, Allison, I saw a small aircraft land in your yard. Was that important? Yeah. Oh, you know, UFO.

I don't know. But yeah, you order just like in the Chihuahouholt Layap. It looks like, oh, maybe you need a zip-euf. blind app to. I don't know what this is. Chipotle staff place your meal in a zipping point and then a zip picks it up, takes off and hovers around 300 feet and then it lowers your Chipotle bag to your, I don't know, front porch backyard. It is a little gross thinking about my food just kind of sitting in my yard. But listen, I'm just imagining. Tim Robbins in Shawshank Redemption.

Just, it's rainy. He doesn't feel like cooking. And then he orders this is a potl. And he goes outside in the rain and goes on his knees and goes, El Pastor Burrito. Yes. And then it just like launches down from the drone into his mouth. That's my dream.

Okay. Legitimately, though, this is my question. Can this thing operate when like, you know, a little rain? Because it was raining. I'm hungry. Last night, last night it was storming. My fridge was empty. And I'm like, I'm going to the grocery store.

And I'm like, I'm not ordering delivery. You can't order delivery? These guys are on e-bikes. That's not the right time. Oh, yeah, that is tough. If I can send a drone out, that drone might crash, but I would get a burrito if it didn't. Which is pretty good. There is a Chipotle in like a two block radius of me.

It wouldn't have to go far. The burrito would not be that. They could throw it. They could just throw it. to your front stoop. You know, yeah, yeah, that's the next step. But, you know, I think I get why they're doing it in Dallas and not New York City. Could you imagine everyone who's hungry in New York City getting their Chipotle burrito drone

and just like, how do you deliver it to an apartment? Is it the drone going to fly outside your fire escape and throw? Okay, bad. You open the window and you grab it? Yeah, like that. Could you just imagine that? That would be perfect. That would be something.

Just like an army of an army of drones with Chipotle burritos in New York City, just descending like a swarm of burrito bees. If food delivery can go right into my window, I mean, that's the epitome of laziness. It's all over. It can't get better than that. I'm here. Screw away. Why are we not inventing this? We need to focus on the important technologies.

Drone burritos. There is. So there is a limitation. It can carry orders up to 5.5 pounds. That's like half a burrito. Like that's not. Right. Like a Chipotle burrito, those are hefty burritos.

Yeah. Okay. That is not going far. I've seen my husband order at Chipotle and that is weighing at least five pounds. It's a lot. Yeah. Okay.

They should have started with a different restaurant. Which is not the place for it. It's a little too heavy. Yeah. And that's it for the Vergecast. Stay tuned. Allison is hosting on Tuesday. It's going to be a really good show.

She's talking about cameras? Cameras and phones. More cameras. I love cameras. I love cameras and phones. If you like what we do here, the best way to support us is to get a subscription to the verge at theverge.com. It's a very good website.

We all work there. We'd love to hear your questions and feedback. Let us know what you want us to talk about. Email us at Vergecast at the verge.com. or give us a call 866, Verge 11. The Vergecast is a production of the Verge and Box Media Podcast Network our show is produced by Eric Gomez,

Brandon Kiefer, Travis Larichuk, and Andrew Marino. We'll see you next week.