The Vergecast - Google’s next big Pixel

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

Today on the flagship podcast of the correct height-to-width ratio of a foldable phone:  The Verge’s David Pierce, Allison Johnson, Victoria Song, and Chris Welch discuss all the new gadget announcements from Google’s Pixel event — including the Pixel 9, the Pixel Watch 3, the Pixel buds, and more. Further reading: Google Pixel 9 launch event live coverage: all the news Google’s Pixel 9 lineup is a Pro show Google’s new Pixel Buds Pro 2 seem better in every way that matters The Pixel 9 Pro XL showed me the future of AI photography Google Pixel Watch 3 hands-on: a big leap forward The Google TV Streamer might be the Apple TV 4K rival we’ve been waiting for Why Google decided now’s the time to move on from Chromecast The Nest Learning Thermostat gets its biggest upgrade in over a decade Google’s Pixel Fold one year later: I can’t wait for the sequel 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

Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of the correct height to width ratio of a foldable phone. I'm your friend David Pierce, and I'm back. I was on vacation for the last two weeks up in New England looking at leaves and frolicking in fields and drinking fancy coffee and doing all the things that you normally do on vacation. I missed a shocking amount of news for late July and early August, truly bonkers how much stuff is going on. But now I'm back. The team did an awesome job while I was out. Thank you to everybody who sent us feedback on the pilots we've been doing. We have lots more fun stuff coming up on that front, but it's gadgetsies and friends.

So we have a lot to do. Today on the show, we are going to talk all pixel all the time. The reason this episode is coming out a little bit late is because Google is having an event today, potentially right now, as you're listening to this, announcing all of its hardware for the year. We've gotten some of the hardware already, the new Nest thermostat, the new TV streamer, but all the phones, all the everything that's been leaked and talked about for months, it's all coming out right now. A couple of folks on our team have seen this stuff.

They've been briefed on the news. They know what's coming. So we are going to talk about all the new stuff coming from Google and what it means. I really can't figure out Google as a hardware company. I've spent a long time trying to figure it out and we're going to try and do it all at once on this episode. So that's what this episode is. It's all Google all the time. It's the pixel special.

We're going to get into it. But first, I just have one quick PSA for you. And I learned this again. I've learned this a hundred times. And I keep forgetting, every time I go on vacation, the buffer day is everything. When you get home from a trip, make sure there is one whole day between the end of that trip and whatever thing you have to do next, back to school, back to work, whatever it is you're doing.

Come home on Saturday instead of going on Sunday a night and then going back to work Monday morning. That's awful. Didn't do the buffer day. Regret the buffer day. All hail the buffer day. Let's talk, Pixel. This is the Vergecast. We'll be right back.

up y'all. I'm Skyler Diggins, seven-time WMBA All-Star, Olympic gold medalist, and mom. And I'm Cassidy Hubbard, host and reporter for nearly 20 years covering the biggest names and stories in sports and mom. And this is Am Mom, a community for athletes,

game changers, and moms of all kinds. Dropping May 14th. Tap in with us. Do you ever wonder what's in your lotion? If you look at the back of the bottle, it could contain more than a dozen ingredients. And they may not all be regulated.

The threshold is so high that only 11 cosmetic ingredients have been restricted by the FDA since 1938. This week on Explain It to Me, the chemicals lurking in your cosmetics. New episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back. There's lots of Google News to get to. So let's just get to it. I have a crew of people who, by the look of it, are very few of you are where you normally are when we do this. So let's just go around and figure out what's going on. V-Song, hello. You appear to be where you usually are.

I am in my normal spot. This is good. I'm very happy. Alison Johnson, I can't even begin to guess where you are right now. This is lovely Mountain View, California. Chris Welch, hello. Where are you right now? I'm in Brooklyn.

All right. So you are the people who know what's coming from Google. And I should say, just for people who are curious how this all works. We're recording this on Monday. Google's event and the embargo are on Tuesday. but you all have, because of your wiles and excellence as reporters, you know what's coming. You have seen the things. You have talked to people about the things.

So we're going to talk about the things. And I have a list of gadgets that I want to talk about. And first, what's going to happen is I'm going to give you the list. And then you're going to tell me if there's anything that I'm missing that are surprises, because I'm coming back from two weeks of vacation and I missed a lot of things. And then I have ranked the things in the order in which I am interested in them. And then we're going to talk about them. That'll sound good?

Great. So here's my whole list. I have the Pixel 9, the Pixel 9 Pro, the other Pixel 9 Pro, and the Pixel 9 fold. Are those all the phones? Did I miss any phones? Those are the phones. Okay. I have a Pixel Watch 2 and PixelBuds.

Pixel Watch 3. Oh, God. Is it the Pixel Watch 3 already? It is the Pixel Watch 3 already. Okay. All right. Oh, and there's two of them. So we have the Pixel Watch 3 and the other Pixel Watch 3 and the pixel buds with a number

attached that I can't be bothered to worry about right now. We also have the Google TV streamer. nay, Chromecast, RIP, which I want to talk about. Those are all the gadgets, but I also have, I have a nest thermostat, I guess. We'll touch on that, but we're going to get to that with Jen later this summer, I think. And I have the pixel screenshots thing, a bunch of AI and just some other random nonsense to get to. Am I missing anything before we dive in? I don't think so.

I think you got it. Probably, but we'll get to it. I probably, yeah. This is Google. There's probably several gadgets that the leak between now and the event on Tuesday when folks are hearing this. So for anything we missed, I apologize. Blame Sue Derbchai. Let's start with the phones because I feel like this is, this is just where we have to start.

Again, this is all new. I don't know any of the specs of these things. So the first thing you're all going to have to do is kind of give me the rundown of what's going on. And then we're going to, we're going to talk about our feelings about all of it. So let's, let's start with the pixel nine. Allison, tell me about the pixel nine. Yeah, pixel nine. So we used to have two phones.

Wow. Two phones that didn't fold. Now there's three phones that don't fold in half. So pixel nine is still the entry level. is $100 more expensive this year, which seems to keep happening to this phone. Yeah, remember when the pixel was like the cheap flagship? That was like its whole thing. I looked at it.

Pixel 6 was $599 and we are $200 further away from that. So this year it's got 6.3 inch screen, which is like they keep making it a tiny bit bigger without making the phone like meaningfully bigger. So it's still like the small phone of the pixels, like do without what you want. But there's more RAM this year. Upgraded ultra-wide camera, a little bit bigger battery, that kind of thing. Like incremental stuff. And then there's all the AI, you know.

There's a new chip, right? That's like, I would assume for all the AI stuff they're trying to do, that ends up being like the big spec bump here would be the new chip. TensorFlow G4, and that's across the board and all of them. That is one thing Google does. that I really like is have the same chip in everything. And they claim it's an AI thing and that sort of makes sense. But at least your phone should perform very well,

no matter which one you buy is a nice and not always common thing to have going on. Yeah. Good job, Google. Not a lot of enthusiasm coming from you on the pixel line. I got to say, like, I'm just, it's just, it's, it's, it's not brimming with excitement. Yeah, it's, it's the boring one this year. I think mostly because there's now a pro version, And like pro phone, that's basically the same size.

And I get excited about this size phone. So I want to see the Pixel 9 Pro. Unfortunately, it is shipping much later than the other ones. So it's going to be TBD on like opinions about that one. The colors are nice this year on the on the small phone, the boring phone. Are they? What are the colors? You know, there's always the two boring colors.

And then there's this winter green. Yeah. P&E. So it's very like pink and green. It's a vibe. It's a very happy pink. It's pink. It's not like here's a drop of pink.

It's basically white. They went for it. They went for it. They were just like colors. We love them. I actually appreciate that from Google. I feel like everyone else is out here trying to like come up with fancy names for beige on their phones every year. And Google at least is committed to the bit of do you want this green phone?

Yeah. And I do want this green phone. Yeah. Like, I do, Google. Yes. Thank you. All right. So let's talk about the pro, because the, my guess would be that the pro is going to be vastly more interesting to most people than the regular pixel nine, especially because the pixel nine is not so cheap anymore as to be kind of a tiebreaker for money reasons for most people.

So what and, and like you said, you can now get a pixel nine pro at the same size as the pixel nine, which I think is also a big deal. So what's, what's the story of the pro here? Yeah, the pro. So all three other phones are pro something. There's the nine pro. That's the smaller one. Nine Proxl, which is a 6.8 inch grain, which is up in, you know, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra territory. It's like a big one. And then the full, the pixel nine pro fold is a pro phone this year. And as best I can tell, I made a spreadsheet of the specs. Pro means it has 16 gig. of RAM. That's the only like through line on the pro phones. So like you said, they all have tensor G4. You have two choices of pro phones that don't fold in half, super big screen or reasonably size screen. The nine pro is nine 99. So that's no it's not a price increase, even though the phone is small. It's weird comparing the eight pro to the nine pro because it's, you really want to compare the eight pro to the nine pro X.L.

It's real wonky. Yeah, Chris, Chris, can you make sense of this lineup for me? Because you're the person I trust to want the most phone at all times possible. And I appreciate that about you. What do you make of this lineup? It feels pretty conventional. Like, once you just look at the 9 and 9 Pro Excel, which are going to come out first. So that's kind of like just the usual playbook for Google.

And then 9 Pro will be out sometime next month, they say. But, yeah, I mean, I want the fold, obviously, for no reason other than it's very pretty this year. and they got the screen size right. And yeah, there's a lot to like about it this year. Let's just get into that because I feel like I wanted to start with the pixel phones because I feel like, A, they are the ones that most people who want these phones will buy, but also they are what they are, right?

Like, we're in a phase with all of these phones, no matter what company you buy from, where you can pretty much write down a list of what's going to happen next year and you're almost always right. So let's move on for that because I agree it seems like the fold is probably the most different and maybe most compelling thing in this phone lineup. And Chris, I particularly, I want you to explain this phone to me because you just wrote a thing that I would call like a deep backhanded compliment to the pixel fold where you're kind of like, I love this thing. It sucks. I can't wait for them to do it better. So tell me, tell me about the new pixel fold and what it seems like

Google maybe did right this time. So they changed the whole form factor. So the first fold is like a passport style like shortened squat. And That was fun. The outer screen was not quite as tall as most phones. So you could use it with one hand very easily. And then when you opened it, it was like a very wide inner screen. Now they're going towards like the one plus open direction where it's like a very tall outer screen.

It's like a normal phone. It's like a 6.3 inch display, like just like the pixel 9 display essentially. It's like the same size. So you've got like a whole phone on the outside now. So you're not really like making any compromises there. And then you open it up. It's just like a giant like whole tablet now. So the first whole type like had a ton of like black bars with many apps on the sides

because like it's Android. no one actually, like, you know, cares about, like, one device. So hopefully now Google's going to say that, like, all these apps are going to, like, open full screen by default now. So it's going to have, like, better app compatibility. And it's way brighter, too. Like, the first fold wasn't that bright outside. This one is, like, very, very, very bright.

So they have, like, fixed many problems. The cameras are still, like, nowhere near as good as the pros. Obviously, that's the main issue. There's just, like, not much room to fit. Super nice cameras in there. So that's the main compromise you're going to make if there is one. But it just seems like a super refined, nice version of the first fold. It's like what the first.

First fold should have been essentially. But it's now $1,800, which is extremely expensive. Improved flatness. It is very flat. Yeah, just the price kills me. And it's like Google, if they made me the CEO of Google, I would be willing to lose so much money on pixel folds just to, like, this is your chance if you're Google. And we're going to get back to some of the big picture, where does Google fit into this universe stuff in a minute? because I wrote a bunch of years ago when the first pixel came out that this was the best phone on the planet.

And I believed it then, and I think Google has the potential to do it now and just keeps getting in its own way and a thousand ways. But we're going to come back to all of that. But this is like, if I'm Google, this sounds like a real chance for this company to be like, we have done the thing. Like we got it kind of right. Samsung is getting a little closer to getting it right, but is doing sort of a series of boring iterative upgrades. And Allison, I remember at I.O. last year we were talking, and it was like, okay, this pixel fold feels like it's not, it's almost there, but it's not quite there. And the clear vibe from the first pixel fold was like, I cannot wait for the next one when they have another year to push at the hardware, another year of trying to convince people to make these apps.

And it feels like this has a real shot of like this might be the one. Like in terms of the closest foldable phone to getting it fully right, we might be almost there from Google. Am I too excited about this? I think I'm just like a slightly less optimistic. It does feel like the move they should have made and like the phone that we wanted last year's here. I love the one plus open form factor. So like moving towards that I think is a great move. That my biggest complaint about the original pixel folder is so heavy.

It was just uncomfortable to hold it for a while. And then it can be the best phone in the world. But if you don't want to hold it, there's a problem. So this one's significantly lighter. I think those are all really good things. I think I'm still confused by the, like, I get that they have to make trade off for the camera. But if you're putting pro on the name of this phone and you're still having to compromise on the camera. You're also charging $1,800, which I feel as the person who says prices very loudly occasionally on this podcast, it's $1,800.

That's so much money. I know. That's like the going rate for our folding. phone, I guess. Which is like, fine. I get that they're expensive and that's what they seem to cost. But like, I just don't, and I feel this way with everybody, I don't think you get to make any kind of significant compromise and get away with it at that price.

And Google is going to say it can do a lot of stuff in software for the camera and that what a lot of people are doing with the camera is not taking photos. They're doing all this AI stuff. And that's all well and good. But I do think we are going to end up pretty rigorously stress testing this thing. And I think there is absolutely no room for error in the camera in these. folds because they're just too expensive. Agreed. V, are you a folding phone person? I don't feel like you and I have ever talked about folding phones. It's too expensive for me. I am a cheap ass with my

phones. Well, not really, because I have the iPhone pro max. You know what I really don't like is I don't like how they keep adding adjectives to the ends of these phones along the numbers so that it's like an alphabet soup. But like I'm always intrigued by them. I just, so I take my phone running and I have this feeling of if I drop this while I'm running, because I have eaten it while running before, I'm just going to sit there and be like, oh, I'm bleeding, but also the repair bill is I'm bleeding both my blood and money. So that's why I haven't gotten any kind of folding phone yet, because then I would feel the need to have like a safe phone for running. And then we're getting into two phone, three phone territory. I'm already having, I'm already dual wielding phones

because they've decided to make it so that, uh, WareOS, uh, watches don't work with an iPhone. I used to be able to get away with one phone and test all of these watches. Nope. I have to have two freaking phones at all times now. So, uh, welcome to my world. I don't need a third, I don't need a third folding phone, even though I would like one. I would just want to play around with it. But, you know, I'm still mad at you, David, for talking about the books. Palma so much, so stop asking me to buy more things. I talked about it once. Everybody needs to leave me alone about this.

I got very excited about it one time, and I was right, and now this is somehow my legacy, as I have convinced too many people to buy this deeply overpraised adorable little gadget. And to all those people, I'm not sorry at all, remotely sorry. Just be glad, V, that they didn't release a pixel ring, because I literally had the thought in going through this that, like, V, it's going to run out of fingers. Like, it's just, we're just, we're toast here. So, like, I'm basically testing all of these, and I've narrowed it down to the three that I think are the best. If they came out with a pixel ring, that's probably next year.

But if they came out with a pixel ring this year, I would be in so much trouble. I already have six ring tans. It's bad. So let's actually move on to the wearables, because while we're just running through the news, let's run through the news. So the pixel watch three, which I am reliably told is the new one. What's the deal with the pixel watch three? Well, there's a new size now. After everyone complained that the 41 millimeter is too small, they have now come out with a 45 millimeter.

And then they were like, okay, so the hardware, it's basically going to look the same as last year, except we're going to add an ultra-wide man chip and actual displays. They're bigger, bright or bolder now. Yeah, sure. They look the same. Most people looking at the watches are just going to be like, that sure is a watch. The bezels are 16% slimmer. Love that.

And then they were just like, and here is a laundry list of software updates that there's, it is physically impossible that I will remember every single bit of software that they've crammed into this thing. And it's like actually quite impressive the amount of software updates. There's like you can stream your nest doorbell or cam feed straight to your wrist. You can unlock your BMW. If you have a BMW, you can also unlock your Vixel phone. You can do custom runs now, which, uh, you know, other watches have been able to do for a long time, but now you can program your actual thing. It's very Garmin-like. You have a morning summary of all of your stuff. There's an auto sleep mode. There's cardio load. It's a lot. So Google is deep in the, like, health and fitness race now. They are. There was a minute at the beginning of the Pixel Watch where Google was doing that, but also had some big ideas about, like, the assistant. And this is an AI thing. And it feels like they're getting away from that and just pushing towards this is a health and fitness device. I actually think they're pushing equally towards the productivity stuff and the health stuff.

It was very heavy on the productivity stuff first, I think, because they were mostly hosting on Fitbit exists. This is a Fitbit platform. Now, this time around, they've basically gone, what is Garmin doing? And let's just add it to the watch. So there's like a morning summary now. You know, Garmin, a couple of generations ago, they introduced this thing called Morning Report. and it'll tell you like your overnight stats and the weather so that you can wake up and go like, oh, it's 90 degrees.

Time to die on this five-mile run. So now the Google Pixel Watch 3 is going to do that. And then, you know, they're adding something called cardio load now. I think if you've ever used to Garmin or a polar or just like a multi-sport watch, you know what cardio load is. But that's not really something we've seen on these major flagship watches to be like, what's your cardio load? And cardio load is basically how intensely your heart has been working in your workouts over a period of time. And it's kind of a gauge of like, oh, you know, maybe my cardio load is really high. I should ease off or just do more like, I hate this, but like zone two training. It's, it's,

it's very triggering to hear zone two training for me. So, you know, that's what that cardio load thing is. And then, you know, custom running workouts and running metrics like vertical oscillation. Stride, cadence. Vertical oscillation is the most useless metric, by the way. I don't know what you're supposed to do with that. It just tells you how far up and down you move while you run and like the less the better. But you're just going to, what are you going to do? I'm a bouncy runner. How are you going to change the fact that you're a bouncy runner? Anyway, but it's going to tell you all those things. There's a new running dashboard within the Fitbit app. It's a lot of stuff. And just like, oh, the biggest one that I haven't mentioned that yet is that it can now detect a long. loss of a pulse and call emergency services for you. That seems good. Loss of pulse, like, it's basically like, are you dying? Yeah, loss of pulse is such an amazing euphemism. Yeah, this is a serious one, right?

Yeah. Yeah, it's very serious. So it's like, you know, if you overdose, if you have a heart attack and you're alone, it's going to call emergency services for you. In the EU, not in the U.S. yet, because obviously this needs regulatory go ahead for that because the potential. for a false alarm are very scary. I talked to Google and they were like, sensor fusion. Don't worry, if you just take your watch off, which is a loss of pulse event, it's not going to call emergency

services. But, you know, that's like kind of an interesting thing from Google because thus far, they have pretty much been playing catch up in the smart watch space. They are very late. We're only on iteration three of the Pixel Watch. Apple Watch, we're coming out with number 10. And Samsung's up their numbering such a long time ago, but we are already on seven. So, you know, they're, there are several generations behind, but they are coming out with a health feature that nobody else has by Gen 3. And, you know, they say it's because the Pixel Watch samples your heart rate at a, at a much, much, much higher frequency than other flagship smartwatches, which is true, because they're doing it every other second, most other smart watches, unless you are in the middle of a workout,

We'll do it once every five minutes or so. So, you know, it is something that they can differentiate themselves with. So many updates. I'm sure I forgot like five or six software updates in there. Yeah. But there's an interesting theme there, which is like down this deep tracking yourself rabbit hole, which is kind of what everyone has leaned into in this space, which makes a lot of sense. Two more questions on this.

And then we're going to take a break and then we're going to do the rest of these gadgets. Question number one, Fitbit? Where? Fitbit is increasingly going the way of Nest in that, like, it is a word that we use. There's a lot of history there. Technically, you still are using the Fitbit app, but it's all Google now, baby. That's what it seems like. The Googlification of Fitbit is, I think, almost complete.

I think next year is the deadline for migrating all of your Fitbit accounts over to Pixel or Google accounts, rather. And if you want to buy the new watches, you've got to migrate. So, e-e. My absolute hottest take on all of this is that Google branded these exactly wrong, that it should have gone all the way into the Fitbit brand, and all of these products should be called Fitbit's, which were like, Fitbit was like Kindle and Kleenex for the longest time, and Google was just like, nah, never mind.

Nobody knows what Fitbits are. They'll like pixel watches. Yeah, it's weird because they still have some Fitbit. It's just this main flagship Fitbit watch that's actually a pixel watch. And I think that's just probably part of their ecosystem. play because you do see it working more with other Google services offline maps you have Google Maps offline maps now so that's why but at the same time it's just very confused and it was more so confused with the original and the Pixel Watch too so yeah okay last question on the

pixel watch uh if memory serves we have broken our review unit both years of the Pixel Watch I believe? Chris cracked the first one. I cracked the second one. Oh, Chris, that was you the first time. Yeah. Yeah. And if memory serves, it was one of those like, you didn't do anything and then it was cracked. That's how it went. Yeah. Yeah. That Google doesn't believe me. Put it on a charger, looked at it. I was like, why is it scratched to hell and back? And everyone's like, there's no way you got those scratches without knowing what you did. I don't know what I did. I woke up and it was scratched. So, yeah. And that to me is like, the bar for me, right? It's like if I fall on the ground and scrape it against concrete and it

scratches, like, I understand how that happens. But if I don't even know how it got scratched and it scratched, that's, that's a you problem. It's just a very fragile design. You know, it's like a glass dome that's going to happen. Totally. And it's not Sapphire. Yeah. I will say I wear a pixel watch with most of the Android phones I review. And I'm just a dingus. I'm like always ramming it into like a doorway. Allison is seven feet tall is an important thing. flail in all the time. It's been okay. I don't have any scratches.

I don't know. I was totally fine with the first one. I legitimately am telling you I went to bed and I either put it on the charge where I was wearing it. I don't remember a year ago. I woke up. It looked like my cat went to town on it, but my cat did not go to town on it. So I don't know what happened. Google actually took the watch from me and they sent it to a lab and they were like abrasions happened.

I was like, well, no shit. but we don't know what they were. Abrasions happened is the title of your memoir, by the way, just to put that out there right now. Any word on if this one is going to be better at that stuff? Do we have any? Like, we've been saying since the jump that one of the worries of this design was that it would be more fragile,

and that has clearly, I would say, proven out over time. No changes this time? No changes. Yeah, I'm very excited for the big watch, but that's even more, like, surface area for it to be damaged. So we'll see. All right, all right, fair enough. All right, well, we've got to take a break,

but we have a couple more gadgets. to get to. We'll be right back. Hey, I'm Matt Bucel. Comedian, writer, and floating head you may or may not have seen on your 4U page. And I'm starting a brand new podcast. Wait, wait, don't swipe away. It's called, That Sounds Like a Lot, as in that feeling when you check your phone in the morning, you read through headlines and you immediately think, oh, that sounds like a lot.

I can deal with all this. But guess what? I can deal with it. And I'm going to get into it every Friday. I'll break down whatever chaos is happening in the world. Then I'll sit down with a comedian. You can be progressive and not be, like, fucking annoying. Maybe an actor.

They go, feminism has gone too far. why? Because the Sadie Hawkins dance happened? Maybe a filmmaker. Since leaving that show, I'm challenged sparing. I just got to hang out and try to do stuff. You're the one with a charmed life. Could be a politician. Basically anyone who responds to my cold DMs.

We're recording the whole thing in a beautiful studio, so yes, you can watch it on YouTube, or you can listen wherever you get your podcast. This is not the place to get the news, but it is the place to feel a little better about it. That sounds like a lot, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. 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. Complex and unprecedented, the Spanish authorities are calling it. Before the disembarko, asymptomatigas. Passengers who'd been stuck aboard the hand or maybe Hanta virus-stricken Dutch cruise ship disembarked in the Canary Islands this weekend, prompting the highest stakes game of where are they now since maybe COVID? Some of the evacuees, American and French, have since tested positive for the virus.

And yet public health officials seem remarkably calm. We do have one individual who was taken to the biocontainment unit early, early this morning. And we assessed that individual. They are doing well. Possibly because this is not the one to freak out over. Today, Explain drops every weekday afternoon. All right, we're back. We have more gadgets.

And I would say these are the two that I am maybe most interested in. One for reasons I can't even explain, and then one for reasons that I think are very obvious. Let's do the pixel buds. Chris Welch, one of my running theories is that the pixel buds are like criminally underrated headphones and have been for a couple of generations now. What's the story with the newest pixel buds? They're smaller, lighter. The noise cancellation is said to be twice as good. So Google now has its own like tensor chip for earbuds, just like Apple has their own like silicon for the AirPods.

Now Google has a tensor A1 chip, which is in the new PixelBuds Pro 2. So the ANC is twice as good. The sound quality set to be also much improved. And that's like my main reason for not really being like a very big fan of PixelBuds Pro is that they sounded okay. But if you buy the Ksenheiser or like the new AirPods Mac, AirPods, AirPods, Pros or even Samsung's new Galaxy Buds pro threes, they sound quite a bit better. So I'm hopeful that Google has finally, you know, kind of made some strides there with the nuance. But yeah, they're smaller, lighter. They brought back the fin tip, which people were a fan of in the older pixel modes.

So these will stay in your ears better during workouts. But on the whole, you know, same thing, same case. The case now has a speaker on the outside. So if you lose it, you'll make a noise. So some small quality of life improvements. But yeah, the main things are the much better ANC and the sound quality, which we'll see. Yeah, I'm very curious to see how the sound quality turns out, because, like, at least for my purposes, it's always been good enough.

Yeah. Definitely not best in class, but good enough. And it was, the pairing was super easy. I always found them more comfortable than most of the other ones. They are super comfortable. They just, like, they just fit my ears better for whatever reason. And I always thought their noise cancellation was pretty good anyway. They do a really good job with noise cancellation on mic performance.

We've tested them on the show, and they did some, they did really well canceling out noise as you're talking into them. So if they can, like, vastly improve that again, that's pretty good. exciting. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, they're like, they're just AirPods for Android territory, and I think that is a useful and good thing. And frankly, every company is going to end up having those and that works fine. Now we get to the big news, which is, which is the death of Chromecast. This is the real story here. I went on vacation, Google lost an antitrust trial and killed Chromecast. And it was just like, I don't know how I'm supposed to deal with this when I don't have a podcast on which to talk about this. So, Chris, give me the quick rundown both on the new thing that is coming out and the old

thing that is dying. What's going on here? Yeah. So the new thing is the Google TV streamer, quite a name. Terrible name, by the way. Just before we get into it, awful, awful name. Chromecast had brand recognition, but now let's do Google TV streamer. Just flows right off the tongue. It really does. What if we had more? Pixel streamer. Pick that, pick anything. So it costs 100 bucks. It's a box now. It's not a dongle anymore. So, It's a set-top box. It's nice. It's pretty.

It's got like a built-in Ethernet Jack, which is nice to have on streamers all the time. But it runs the same, like, software as the most recent Chromecast. So you're going to have all that. It'll have, like, Gemini AI features. Sure. It's going to be 20% faster than the Chromecast. People have always been, like, waiting for, like, a fast Chromecast.

And so they claim that, like, the Nvidia Shield was their, like, main, like, goalpost here to reach. I don't think it's going to reach that. Because, like, 20% faster than the 4-year-old Chromecast with Google TV is, like, still not going to be a barn burner of a device. And it's like most of our comments were like, that's not going to get it done for me. I'm going to just go buy an Apple TV, yada, yada.

But the Chromecast is dead. But the casting feature is still alive and well, obviously. So you can still cast to the box, do all the same stuff. But the name is now gone. Quick poll before I get it. How do all of you do your smart TV stuff? Like, V, what's your smart TV situation? Like when you want to watch Netflix on your TV, what do you have?

I got two Apple TVs. Okay. Alison, what about you? We have a Samsung TV. We do all the built-in apps. Oh, my God. That's so brave. No, well, so, okay, we're going to come back to that because I think that I think this is the whole point of this device. Chris, what's yours? I mean, I had everything. So I've got the Apple TV, Fire TV Cube, Roku Ultra.

What is your like, man when you're like not thinking about work and you're just like, I just want to sit down and watch something, which remote you grab? It's the Apple TV 4K. Okay. So if I, if I were to like big picture, try and explain what Google is doing here, it seems. It seems like the thesis is if you want just a simple, kind of cheap, don't really worry about it way to stream shows. Performance isn't amazing, but you just like need a thing that plays your shows. You kind of have an infinite choice, right? Like your TV probably does it. You probably have a dongle that does it.

You probably have a box that does it. Your cable company will happily give you one. Like there's a million ways to do it. And so if you want to differentiate and win, you have to do better, right? and we've been in this weird space for the last few years where the only ones doing better have been the Apple TV and the Nvidia Shield, both of which are like old outdated devices at this point, but both of which were so far beyond everybody else that they continue to be the only options if you're like, I want my TV to be fast.

And on the one hand, I think the idea of let's compete at the top end and make them better and make people want to buy them instead of just the default thing that they have is very exciting. But I do, I kind of agree with our commenters in the sense that I'm not sure, at least from what we've seen so far, we'll have to test the thing and see that this is that thing. Like if Google had come out and been like, we have five X to the performance of the Chromecast, it's going to blow your freaking mind through the back of your head. And it's $500. People would have freaked out. Yeah. But am I, am I thinking about this the right way, Chris? Like, is that your read on the situation too? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think like they're saying prices like

their ceiling for like what they can do as far as like a device, which is fine. But even then, I think you could have squeezed them out. Just toss like a two-year-old tensor in there, you know, like what's the issue here? Like you've got your own silicon. Like toss a tensor G1 in there, you know, or whatever they are. And just, yeah, so like 20%. I mean, it's not nothing. It's got like twice the RAM, which should also help out quite a bit. But as far as like a speed demon, you know, this is probably not going to be quite that. We could see a new Apple TV this fall. So that would just be like Apple just kind of like lapping them again very quickly. So we'll see how that shakes out.

Allison, is there anything here for you? Are you excited about this at all? I just. They're going for you, right? Like, you're now the person who is not going to buy a Chromecast. And because your TV does it fine, they're trying to give you something else. Okay, you know what they don't have is there's all the like 10,000 free, you know, ad-supported channels on the Samsung TV?

We have one called Ocean Vibes. And that's just plays when we open, when we turn the TV on. is the best thing in the world. There's just like fish swimming around in coral reefs. You just sit there and you're like, yeah, this is all right. So talk to me, talk to me when you have ocean vibes, Google. That is so diametrically opposed from the answer I was expecting from you. I love it.

That's great. That's fantastic, fantastic outcome. But yeah, I mean, and I think to some extent, Chris, like this is the thing here, right? is if I'm Google, and I am curious what they've been telling all of you about the AI stuff coming in general here, because I'm very excited about the pixel screenshots feature, which is like a sort of managed AI organized library of all the screenshots you take. I think that's very smart. But in general, the idea here is like we're going to put lots of new power into these new devices. Dot, dot, dot, AI. And I don't know, at least from what I've seen so far, again, it's Monday as we're recording this. The event is on Tuesday.

I'm very curious to see if they can find a way to make a really compelling AI case for this stuff. But with a TV streamer in particular, I'm like, okay, you're giving me theoretically more power other than my apps launch faster, which is meaningful to me, but not to most people. You can use Gemini to make screen savers, which is interesting because they see like how all the frame TV's doing. So they're like, you know, they've got this whole ambient mode. So Gemini can make you open ocean vibes. Oh, no, no. That'll be your ocean vibes fix. I want real ocean.

I don't want your AI. Ocean vibes. So there's that and also, I guess they're going to do summaries now. So they already show you like the Rotten Tomato scores for movies, but now it's going to like us bring in content from across the web. So it might be like, here's what someone on Reddit said about the show. Hopefully not that, but we'll see. Oh, God.

So that's the other thing is like summaries for everything that you're like seeing and browsing. But beyond that, you know, not too much compelling. Which kind of brings me back to like, I'm very sad that Chromecast has gone because I continue to think the Chromecast was a really good idea because I think this might be an unpopular pin. And I have no idea how people feel. I think Google TV is like by a mile the best interface. Yeah, I like it a lot. It does a really good job of like it's very content first, but it also makes getting to the apps easy.

Apple is super app first. I think the fire TV is mostly just trash. Roku is super app first. And I think Google TV does a pretty good job of showing you everything you would want to see. relatively in one place. And so for me, like, I have a Roku TV and I bought an Apple TV that I just use instead on my Roku TV. So my Roku TV's one job is just to take me to my Apple TV because it is like an unusable interface on this trash TCL TV I bought at Costco a million years ago. That is probably true for many people these days. Yeah. Right. So I think

if I'm Google, I'm like, okay, keep pushing it this idea of like a $30-50 way to give you Google TV, which is better. And I feel like what Google is instead doing is saying, okay, we want to want to, they're like splitting a weird difference between make it easy to get Google TV and make a really powerful box. It seems like they're kind of in a middle ground that I'm not super positive is going to work for them. Yeah, they're not going to make anybody happy. It's like not quite the full speed box and not the cheap thing that the Chromecast was either. So we'll see. I mean, I'm looking forward to checking it out. You know, if it's faster, that'll be, that'll make a big difference. But yeah, I like Google TV like you, David. The ads aren't, as in

your faces, Roku or, you know, so there's that. But yeah, yeah, we'll see. I'm excited to check it out. It's shipping like last among all these devices in like late September. So it's going to be a while before we get it in her hands. But it's coming. Yeah, it's going to be an interesting fall for a lot of that stuff. So, okay, any other announcements coming? You all have gotten all the news, seen all the things. Any other like newsy cleanup we should do here before we talk big picture. What is the future of Google and everything? No. Have you, have any of you tried pixel screenshots? They showed me it very, very briefly. It seemed cool. They did a search for like someone's Wi-Fi password that that someone had like sent like a screenshot. out of them. That seems to be like the example every company shows. But it's a separate app, right? Yeah, it's a separate app. Okay. Oh, it's its own app. It's not like, I assumed it was like in the in the photos app.

Interesting. That's what I'm so curious about is like that sounds great. We've got that feature over there. Like, how do you bring it all together? Is it going to be Gemini? Is it going to, am I going to have to pay for a version of Gemini that's going to do all these things? I don't know. That's, that's where I am with AI on pixel phones right now.

is like show it to me. My thing is like I was thinking about this reason. My go-to use case is so we live maybe like a mile down the street from the library. And I'm frequently walking past the library. And every once in a while they put up a banner with the dates of the book sales that they're doing. And every single time I take a picture of the banner because I'm like, oh, I have to remember when the book sale is. And every single time it just goes into my camera roll and disappears. Like all of those photos and screenshots and that kind of stuff does where I'm like,

this is a thing I should buy and then it goes into my camera roll and disappears. And so the idea of like I can just sort of constantly tell my phone this is the thing I think is interesting and then it can make sense of all that for me is so compelling to me. And I think makes way more sense than all the recall stuff is like all I have to do is tell it. Remember this for me and it will do it. Like that is perfect. But I think to your point, Alison, like how you integrate that with everything else makes a lot of sense. Because if I have to take a photo and then put it in the screenshots app, I'm going to forget to do that. And I have now solved none of my problem.

So I think it's going to be a really interesting like push and pull there trying to figure out, how do you make this not creepy, but really seamless, but not too in your face as you're trying to do other stuff, which I feel like it's kind of the story of all things, AI and Google right now. Yeah. That is the thing I want. I want to be able to look up the door code for the Airbnb without like digging through emails or logging into Airbnb or whatever. I don't need to put a hat on a picture of a bunny that I took.

What do you mean? To be fair, you have been doing that nonstop for weeks. Which I have been. It's a blast. But honestly, it's where we're at, I think, with Apple Intelligence, which is still, you know, in developer preview, blah, blah, blah. It's like, it's still missing that thing of like, what is going to tie it all together? And am I just going to be able to be like, Gemini, put the book sale on my calendar? tell me if I have a conflict or something, or is it going to just be like, I don't know.

I think the latter, based on the history of AI features. Yeah. I'm so nervous about it because I got, I'm doing the labs for the labs like preview for Gemini in your Gmail, they find, which they like finally integrated. And I was like, great. I'll search for this order number for my shoes. And it does its thing. And it's like, thinking it's like, there's.

no order number for your shoes. I'm like, this is, no, you had one job. Like, it was right in there. And like, I tried it again later and it's able to do it. I don't know why you got caught up that time. It's like, it feels that one time for you. And you're like, why am I going to try and use this again? I'm not. Yeah, it is really funny. We're in this phase with so many of these features where like, because I have this specific problem that these things can solve for me, I'm willing to try any of them. But the tech. broadly speaking, just isn't there. And so, like, you try it twice and it doesn't work.

And it's like, well, that's pretty much that. Yep. Or you could get negged by it. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Google is just basically also kind of following Samsung's lead. And I forgot, but they're adding AI suggested workouts to the Pixel Watch 3 based on, like, your metrics. My suggestions are going to be like, just do anything.

Just stand up. Just, what if you just walked around for once in your life? But, you know, they were. showing it to me and they were like, oh, you know, you haven't really been pushing it in terms of cardio load and you took a rest. So why don't you do like a bunch of sprints? And it's just like, oh, get out of here. Fine. I mean, it's hard. Building a training plan is hard. But that I was just like, uh, okay. If my pixel watch tells me, I'm going to throw it into the sea. Yeah, wait, V, can we talk about the notification you got from a galaxy ring? This is just a little,

little, little diversion into V's experience. I was about to say. So like I, you know, I'm sinking my ring this morning looking at the energy score and it's like, hey, you need to move around or you might start gaining weight. No. And I was like, excuse me, what? What? I ran three miles this morning. Go to jail. Wait, is that that's literally the words that it said, or you might start gaining weight. Yeah, hold on. Let me look at this. Absolutely not. Your active time is decreased compared to your usual. Insufficient activity may result in weight gain and other health issues. Try standing up, moving around, and reducing your sedentary time. And it's because I let the dumb ring die yesterday.

So it didn't basically capture my three-mile run yesterday, too. Because, you know, I be out here doing 10 hours of workouts a week. But, you know, just like it thinks I missed one day. And it's like, get up, ho. Move around. The AI, you might gain weight. And I was just like, yeah, but what if I want it? I'm trying to get jacked.

I want to gain weight because muscles are heavier. So there's a lot of nuance and context with health that AI just completely shits the bed with. It's like the worst possible combination to you because it's like, do you remember the carrot apps that used to like ruthlessly make fun of you all the time? That was like their whole shtick. They had like a character who would be like, oh, what if you checked something off your to-do list today, dumb ass? It's like if you're going to do that and like make it a bit of being mean to you, that I

actually, I could get behind. Like, if my Apple Watch is going to actively neg me, like, that's actually pretty funny. And as a thing, some people would find useful. But this, like, concern trolling trend from wearables where it's like, oh, I'm so sorry, but if you don't do better, you're going to die, like, potentially tomorrow. That's so embarrassing for you. It's like, screw you. Leave me alone. It's, like, too heavily reliant on HRV, which is the proxy for your autonomic nervous system. So it can tell whether, like, how strong. trained you are, dude, if I have a calf cramp, these things can't tell. These things have never been able to tell when I'm like injured. So it's sort of like, okay, you can just go away now.

Like, I'm not a big fan of AI and fitness. I get what they're trying to do because it is very hard to know what you should be doing in crafting a training program if you're new to it or if you have new goals. But this ain't, this ain't it. I can't wait to see what it tells you. me my AI workout should be. It's just going to be like run up, run up a giant hill. I already do that. Go away. Run up a giant hill. Or just say that. When you wake up in the morning, it's like, what's up, V? Time to run up a giant hill. Like, fine. I'm great with that. Yeah, it's going to be all Kate Bush on me. I love that. All right, we got to take one more break. And then I want to talk just for a few minutes about some like big picture Google stuff

on the heels of the announcement. And then we'll get out of here. We'll be right back. This week on Networth and Chill, we're diving into another. edition of Am I the Asshole, Finance Edition? And trust me, these money dilemmas will have you questioning everything. I'm breaking down real stories from real people who are navigating financial situations that range from mildly awkward to absolutely unhinged, and I'm giving you my unfiltered take on who's in the right and who needs a serious reality check. Because let's be real, when it comes to mixing relationships and finances, someone's always asking if they're the asshole. Learn how to set boundaries, protect your wealth, and avoid becoming the villain in your own

financial story, listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com slash you are rich BFF. All right, we're back. So another year, another bunch of Google devices that I would say, by and large, seem to be very good. Kudos, right? Like, this is whatever year, we're almost a decade into Google appearing to genuinely earnestly care about making hardware.

I think for a long time, we were all skeptical if this was going to be a thing Google kept caring about for a long time. I think to its credit, Google has kept caring about it for a long time. Never say never with Google, but it feels like this matters to Google in a very real way. What I still wonder, and what seems to be true, is that Google has not made any kind of, like, mainstream dent as a hardware company yet. I think, ironically, like, the Chromecast was probably the most successful piece of hardware Google ever made. It was a huge hit, especially at the beginning because it was cheap and it worked really well. And there's really nothing since then that feels like a sort of gigantic mainstream winner.

Like there is still very much Apple and Samsung, especially in the United States, and then like gigantic gap down to Google. I would argue that the Pixel Watch is actually kind of the opposite. Really? I think Samsung is hurting a little bit and they're having to actually bring up their game a little. And because the Pixel Watch was wildly popular when it first came out to the point where Samsung was like, uh-oh. I got to do things. Here's a copycat Apple Watch Ultra and a ring. So, you know, I think that's surprisingly one area that it's doing pretty well in, but, you know, smart watches are kind of bifurcated into iOS and Android at the moment anyway. So it didn't have to really compete with Apple

at all because people on Android can't get an Apple Watch. It only really had to compete with Samsung, which is weirdly its partner in WareOS land. But it's kind of been eating Samsung's lunch for a little bit because it's, I don't know, it's, it's interesting. They're doing weird, interesting stuff there and it's kind of ecosystem-y in a weird way. Yeah, I mean, I think the pixel watch is actually is a good example. And it does seem like, at least on that front with the first one, I remember people being so excited just about the way it looked, that it was like, this is the first smart watch that doesn't sort of scream technology at you. And that was, that was a big win for Google. So maybe that's one of the answers to my question, which was going to be, do we see anything here that

feels like it has kind of breakout potential. I think I'm maybe the most bullish of the four of us on the possibility that the fold could be a winner. I think at $1,800, there's a pretty big, then low cap on how big a winner it can possibly be. But from the stuff that you've seen and, you know, y'all have been testing and talking to folks about these things for years now, do we see anything that's sort of a possible kind of game changer in the Google hardware business? Screenshots app. I don't know. It really comes down like, like, Past years have always been, oh, the camera's great, which it still is. People know the pixel camera is great.

That's its main thing. But this year, it feels like all this AI stuff. Like, if it works, it's going to be great. You know, like, if it doesn't, then it's going to be me. Like, I see pixels out in the world. Like, I think they're selling some. They are selling a few. So I think, like, you know, they've got a base of customers, but it's like, how do you get them to upgrade?

Because, like, hardware is, like, all the same year over year. Like, all these, like, Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9, it's like, there was some, like, TensorFlow G4 benchmarks. It's, like, barely faster than last year's chip. So, like, it's not going to be like that that's not why you're going to upgrade. You're going to upgrade for Gemini, potentially, for, like, some of these new camera software features. It's like software, software, software this year. And so, like, if the screenshot app works, like, that's going to be great.

And if it doesn't, then it's, then I'm going to buy the fold. And for the next five years, that'll be my phone because I can't afford an $1,800 phone. I was going to say, and you are historically representative of people who buy smartphones. Yeah. That makes perfect sense. Exactly. No, I mean, the AI thing, I think, is a really interesting point. because the bet from all of these companies really is that they can take a bunch of kind of little

AI things, whether it's in the camera or in the productivity stuff or in some of the wearables, and that all of that adds up to something that is kind of a tiebreaker to other devices. And I feel like, Alison, this has been a theme of a lot of the coverage you've been doing recently is like, does all this AI stuff really add up to anything? And I'm curious how you feel, obviously we have to review all these things. There's still lots to be seen and this is all changing really fast. But do you have an early read of like, is there a kind of whole greater than the sum of its parts in the AI story here? I wish I did.

This is just one of those like I feel like you got to live with the phone a little bit to see if it. I think, you know, we all bought a Chromecast because it solved a problem. We're like, this is incredible. It's 20 bucks and you just plug it in the back of your TV. I don't see anything like that, you know, like in the pixel phone series right now. Gemini could be that thing if it's if it really could you know bring all the AI pieces together and make your life easier but I think we're going into this this ecosystem era is really going to like we're just going to drill down in it because so many of these things are going to be wrapped up in

your Google one subscription or your Apple subscription and totally agree if you want smart Siri you need the the expensive iPhone and probably an an Apple subscription plan at some point. I'm nervous about AI subscription hell. I think it's just the whole ambient computing thing. Like I think completely to your point, it's going to be the whole ecosystem play. Because, you know, the pixel, I'm just, you know,

wearable ladies. So of course I think in wearables, but like the pixel watch when it came out, they were like, this works for anyone with any phone. And just increasingly year by year, more and more features are just going to work better if you have a pixel phone with your pixel watch. So like this year, it's going to be pixel recorder app on the watch. It's going to be

seeing your doorbell feed. And it's just going to be one of those things where I think it's just what do my gadgets play well with? And that's how we win dominance. So if the pixel watch is great and it works with other pixel hardware, that's Google saying, suck it, Samsung, because who uses smart things? Honest to God, I think that's like kind of what they're doing and why they just go, ambient computing when you're not watching every once in a while, wink, wink, nudge. Well, and I think that's what's been so sort of backhanded about Google's entire hardware strategy over the years is that, like, the reason people end up in the Samsung ecosystem is because they buy Samsung phones. And so then they're forced to use smart things. Google is trying to convince you that there is some like essential Googliness that is worth buying into the ecosystem.

and it has just always felt like they needed the one hardware victory to get there. And it's like people want the gadget and then they buy into the software. And Google is trying to do that backwards, which I think is really interesting, but doesn't really seem like it has worked in a huge way. Obviously, time will tell and the reviews will be really interesting. And I'm like, I think it's not crazy that the pixel fold might be a way a lot of people actually end up in this ecosystem because I think there is like latent interest in this stuff. All right.

We all need to go. you guys have things to do and phones to touch and more watches to wear, I'm sure. Are we excited? Happy times? What, what's the, are we, are we bullish on, on Google heading into this fall? This feels like a, I'm a little like overall kind of like, yeah, it seems fine, but that seems to be where we are in so many gadgets this year. Optimistic with reservations. Okay. Yeah. I'm surprised because I was expecting nothing but a hardware refresh.

And then they're like, wham, hit me in the face with all the software. So I'm curious to see how all the software works. My smart home is mostly Google-based. So if this Pixel Watch works with my smart home in a meaningful way, I'm just going to be really shocked. I like it. Yeah, the Pixel Watch 3 being the star is not something I would have had on my bingo card. Me neither. I'll take it.

All right. Thank you all. Super fun. Appreciate you doing this as always. Thank you. Bye. All right. That is it for the Vergecast today.

Thanks to all the folks who came on. And thank you for listening. We have tons of coverage of the whole event, all of the new devices, everything on the version.com. I'll try to put as much as I can in the show notes, but actually we've been covering this Google stuff for months now. The leaks have been really fascinating. So actually, go back and look at the way this stuff has trickled out over time. It's been really interesting. And I have this odd feeling we're not done hearing what Google is up to this year.

I have no evidence to base that on, but I think it's true. Anyway, as always, if you have thoughts, questions, feelings, or foldable phone specs that you think are more important than I'm realizing. You can always email us at vergecast at the verge.com or call the hotline 866 Verge 1-1. We love hearing from you. We love hearing all of your thoughts and questions about all things tech. I'm still looking for some tiny tech mysteries. We've gotten a few. We're working on some fun stuff, but keep them all coming.

This show is produced by Andrew Marino, Liam James, and Willpore. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media podcast now. work. Nilai, Alex and I will be back on Friday to catch up on just again a truly crazy few weeks in the news. We have a what is a photo apocalypse. We have a bunch of AI stuff going on. Lots to talk about. We will see you then. Rock and roll.