The Vergecast - WWDC leaks, Luminary’s launch troubles, and Galaxy Fold review

Episode Date: April 26, 2019

After a week of Galaxy Fold troubles, The Verge's Dieter Bohn, Ashley Carman, and Paul Miller continue the foldable saga, along with drama with the new podcast app Luminary. We've also got some leaks from Apple's upcoming WWDC event and a rumored Pixel 3a from Google I/O so keep listening to stay informed.  Stories this week: Samsung Galaxy Fold review: broken dreamSamsung delays Galaxy Fold indefinitely: ‘We will take measures to strengthen the display’AT&T is now telling customers the Galaxy Fold will ship on June 13thiFixit’s Galaxy Fold teardown reveals its biggest design flawPodcast wars: $100 million startup Luminary launches Tuesday …iPad ImportiPad Windowing, dark modeiPad external DisplaySiri Intents & Siri ShortcutsOnePlus 7 Pro launch event set for May 14thThe OnePlus 7 Pro will have a 'breakthrough' display and 5GGoogle's Pixel 3 and Pixel 3a may come to T-Mobile Google teases new Pixel announcement for May 7th  To see The Vergecast live at Google I/O, RSVP at  theverge.com/vergecastlive Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on The Vergecast, yet more Galaxy Fold fiascos. We learn all about how Luminary is screwed up its launch from Ashley, and we'll get into all the leaks from WWDC. Stay tuned. Support for the show comes from Retool. Too many companies run critical operations on duct-taped spreadsheets, slack workflows, and whatever else they could cobble together. Not because they want to,

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I'm Skyler Diggins, seven-time WMBA All-Star, Olympic gold medalist, and mom. And I'm Cassidy Hubbard, host and reporter for news. 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. Greetings, Mobile Accomplishers. Welcome to The Vergecast.

It is the flagship podcast of the Verge Mobile Accomplisher Zone. I don't know. You can tell by me saying greetings, the global accomplice. My name is Dieter Bone, and we are podcasting today without NELI. He is off doing something

very, very fancy in another city. However, we're very lucky to be joined by Paul Miller, of course. Hello. And Ashley Carmen is here. Hello. Thank you to everybody who voted for the Vergecast.

We won the People's Choice Award for the Webbies. But I am more excited because Verge Science won also the People's Choice Award, but the full award for best education and science channel for video.

We've got to post up with some of the best of Verge Science. You should definitely go to the Verge Science YouTube channel and subscribe. It's really great. Number two, if you're listening to this right when we published to the podcast, you're actually going to get this information before we fully announce it on Theverge.com. We're doing a Vergecast live at Google I.O. Or just down the street. So it's going to be on May 8th, and it's going to be in Mountain View, California,

at the Computer History Museum. The doors are going to be at 5.30. show starts at six, we'll run until seven, and then we'll hang out and talk to people and have a beer after from seven to eight. And that should be enough time from 8 o'clock for you to head back and go to whatever random concert Google decides to put on.

So you should come. There's going to be very limited seating, but tickets are free, and you definitely are going to want to show up because we are going to have both Hiroshi Lockheimer and Steph Cuthbertson. They're the people that make Android. Hiroshi makes it Chrome OS and everything else too.

But we're going to have both of them on stage, talking about the stuff they had just announced the day before, and so I'm very excited. So definitely go check it out. You can just go to theverge.com slash vergecast live. Go look at that URL, pull over in your car, type that into your phone, RSP. If you're going to be in Mountain View, if you're not, please don't, because, you know, limited seating. But first, of course, the biggest story since the last time we Vergecasted,

the thing that ruined my life, or at least made it more interesting, was the ongoing saga of the Galaxy Fold. So if you haven't been keeping up since the last podcast, the following things have happened. I published my review. Samsung told me they were definitely not going to delay the launch. Samsung delayed the launch. And then a couple more phones showed up broken. Do you feel bamboozled? Do you feel like a pawn in their game?

I mean, I don't feel like a pawn in their game. Although I will say, like Joanna had a really good review over with the Wall Street Journal. She called it a non-review. And she basically just, the entire thing was her lambasting Samsung. for forcing reviewers like us to become their beta testers, which is true. And then we also got a teardown from I Fix It. I was just on their podcast. If you want to go check out I Fixit's podcast, talking about that tear down, what we learned there.

So that's the really quick summary of all of the stuff. And where do you guys want to start? I want to hear you talk about the fold because as someone who's just been totally self-absorbed, to be frank, in my own world, I just know your world is on fire and it has to do with the folding phone and then I like you were in the office last week and I like heard about like I didn't even touch the folding phone I was just like I've tweeted I know I should have I should have

but like I just didn't but then I heard all the like I've heard everything I just want to hear you talk about it more to be honest I mean okay so the last verge cast I gave some of my thoughts about the thing you know after having a review it like are they reaffirmed I was right. Like, this thing is great if you want a little tablet or if you want a little phone that sucks that feels weird and awkward like a giant remote control. But it means that you don't have that middle zone where you usually use a phone and

like waste too much time scrolling through Instagram and Twitter. So I love that. I love having the tablet. I actually like the screen when you're looking right at it and not looking for flaws. But yeah, like, it broke. We went into like the clay drama because like it may have been the molding clay that got in. I don't think it was. I really stand by that.

but we don't know for sure. I just said it out of excess of caution. But since then, other people have had bulges appear on their galaxy folds. There was a guy from a Swiss publication called Blick, and it also happened to Michael Fisher, aka Mr. Mobile, YouTube, and his video was probably up about it right now. I should go check that out. And they had little bumps appear right next to where the hinge pokes through on the hinge,

on the spine of the thing. So, yeah, it's a real problem. So there's seems now we know a little bit more. There's two gaps, right? There's gaps on the front and gaps in the back of the hinge, right? Those could be the potential vectors of death. Yes. There's three very obvious vectors of death for the screen.

One is you pull off the protective layer, which is slapped on there. Two is there's two little holes right at the top and the bottom on the front where stuff could probably get in. And then three, the gaps on the back are actually pretty big. And if they get in there, then they will wind their way through the gears to press up against the back of the screen, which apparently isn't as well protected as the front of the screen. And yeah, and so, like, Samsung pulled it. They said they're going to release, they're going to do something. They might re-release it soon. Who knows what that means?

And they'll probably change the design. I have no idea what they're going to do to change the design. And AT&T sent all its customers a new date. They said it was going to be June 13th. And so I said, is this real? and they said, it's what we're telling our customers. And I said, but is it real? And they said, it's what we're telling our customers.

And I was like, great. That's the sort of date where they'd have to be able to take Galaxy Folds that they've already built and like disassemble them and then like add one piece of plastic or something like that. Like remember Nintendo did that little tweak? There was some problem with the Bluetooth antenna, which I contend was still never super solved with the Switch. but they did a little tweak that seemed to improve it. So it would have to be a very small change to be relaunching this year, basically, right? Yeah, I mean, let's assume that they've already manufactured a bunch of these, right,

to like hit pre-orders and put them in stores and whatever. So now they have to decide are they just going to light that inventory on fire like their note sevens? Or are they going to try and like slap on some more protective devices? junk onto the phones that they've already made. And then the question becomes, what protective junk can they slap on there? Can they, like, put some, like, silicone on, like, the gaps, like, the way that the MacBook keyboard is, like, random silicone underneath it to try and keep dust from getting in there? I don't know.

I will say this, though. I think that that protective layer was already them slapping on a thing in the factory to protect it after the fact. I don't know this for a fact, but when you look at it, you can see, it looks like it looks like a screen protector. And it could have gone all the way to the edge of the screen and they could have put it under that weird plastic rail that holds the screen down. But they didn't. It's just like slapped on there. And I would bet you a dollar that that was a thing that they did last minute. Because if it was integral to the display when they designed it, they could have easily had it

under the lip. Yeah, I think so. I honestly still can't get over the fact that this thing that looks like it should be peeled off, isn't supposed to be peeled off, and is literally structurally integral to the entire device. Like, that still blows my mind. Yeah, well, and it's also, like, it's really easy to ding. And I guess, like, digging that thing is better than dinging the actual, quote-unquote, screen. But, like, it's just, like, blah.

And the rails are not that hard to remove. If you look at the I fix and tear down, they're like, oh, wow, these plastic things come off really easy. You just, like, point a haird drawer at it for a second. and they just pop right off. So, like, they could have, like, popped the plastic rail off, then put a better cut protector on top of it, put it back on. If this theory is correct that they, like, threw it out at the last minute.

Well, I'm, like, here's my thing that I'm kind of trying to work through. It's, like, you mentioned the whole note debacle of exploding phones. Now they have the folding phone situation. It's like, how? I just don't know, like, can you come back from these things? Like, these are both huge stories. Like, they weren't just like little, like the keyboard situation with the MacBooks. Like, okay, like, it's going around.

People are pissed. But, like, I don't know. For some reason, whenever things go down with Samsung phones, I feel like it is the narrative. And everyone's talking about it. And I'm like, Samsung, man, you got to, I don't know what you guys have, like, I don't know what they can do to come back from these things. Well, the keyboard thing is really instructive, right? Because Apple has up until, like, only a few weeks ago, refused to see.

say anything was wrong for anything other than a small number. They still say that, but they finally said the word sorry for the first time, like three weeks ago. But could Samsung have, like, gritted its teeth and been like, it's just an anomaly, everything's fine, we're still releasing it? Like, could they have done that? Yeah, it's true. I don't know, maybe. You're folding it wrong. Yeah. Like, yeah, at least, I guess we're giving Samsung props for messing up at the beginning of their product journey and not, like, years in where all the problems come to the surface. Yeah, but I don't know, you're right.

Like, I don't know if they're going to be able to come back from this. I mean, they are. They came back from the Note 7, right? Phones were literally exploding and hurting people, and they came back from that. But this is a big reputational hit. It's like the thing that they were using to put a flag down and be like, we are the innovators. Don't look at Apple.

Most importantly, don't look at Huawei in their folding phone. We came out first. We're better. Look at us. We're the best. And that was like their big chest pounding moment. And we couldn't touch the phone. I think it's because of that screen thing, the screen protector thing.

And then we're like waiting and waiting. And then like, here it is, the big moment. And just everything crashed down. Everything broke. And that's a hit for their, like, reputation as innovators, which I think is potentially more dangerous to that, to like how they view themselves than, you know, they screwed up on the battery chemistry. Like, that's terrible.

Don't get me wrong. But it doesn't make the people at Samsung feel bad about themselves. in the same way. Yeah, and it just sort of sours this whole folding phone conversation in my world. Like, you know, this was big. This was like, this is the new frontier.

This is the greatest innovation in phones since the iPhone, like all of this stuff. And then, you know, this is the first major release. It's really expensive, but we're promised this awesome future. And then, nope, just kidding. We weren't ready for this innovation. We tried, though.

I don't know. think it kind of maybe sets the conversation back a little bit. Like I'm going to be a little bit more skeptical now. I always was, but I'm going to be a little bit more skeptical of like, okay, let's see what you guys got now. Like, I don't know. Right. Well, looking at this tear down, it reminded me, like, if you think about what do you have to do to make a really good phone, right? You have to get a bunch of pieces and you put them together really small and then you put the, you know, it's mostly fitting things. a very small space and then

hoping that they join well together. And then hoping the like antennas work. Right. Here you're like, I mean, a hinge is just a very different skill set. Like I'd like to know the background.

Like did they talk to their laptop team about this? I remember I had a MacBook, an early MacBook air, I believe it was that like a wire that connected to the antenna. got caught somehow in the hinge mechanism and ended up breaking that like black plastic

that kind of hides the hinge on like older Macbooks. Yeah. Which was another one where Apple, of course, would never admit that it was at fault for it, even though it was happening in tons of people. But, you know, it's just hinges, hinges sound so simple in a theoretical sense. But when you put it into this context,

it is a very, very difficult problem. I'm not trying to make excuses for Samsung. they should have realized that they hadn't solved it yet. But there's so much more complexity in this phone than in any standard slab. So this hinge is actually kind of amazing because they have basically there's three hinges on it. The one in the middle is a set of gears that make sure that both sides stay synchronous when you open and close them. So if you were like theoretically like hold down the middle and just move one side, the other side would move with it. Like butterfly wings that are never out of sync basically or bird wings that are.

never out of sync. So that means that it's less likely that the screen is going to twist or contort as you open and close the phone, right? And then they also further prevent that contortion by having two really solid hinges on either side on the top and the bottom. And that also prevents twisting when you open and close it because it makes sure that the thing is really solid. So like as a thing that is designed to open and close and not cause distress to a fragile thing

that's taped onto the two wings, it is, as far as I can tell, very well designed, except for the fact that stuff can get in it and then crawl its way through it and hit the back of that super fragile thing. I mean, I listened to The Daily episode recently about Boeing's whole drama where basically like their quality assurance engineers are like, there are screws bouncing around near the engines and those screws could literally make a plane explode. And I was kind of just thinking about the fold, which is not nearly as dramatic. But I was like, there's just little spare parts bouncing around in there that can cause problems.

How does this get through Samsung QA? How does this get into my hands, this, like, fragile? I think sometimes people just go on fast timelines and they're just like, we got this. Do you think part of it is like protecting against leaks? Like I feel like Apple, if Apple let 10 employees take the HomePod home, right, they would have discovered the wood surface problem, right? Right. Where it leaves a ring on a wood surface.

Like, if Samsung let 10 employees take this home and actually use it day to day, they would have noticed these problems, right? I would like to think so. Yeah, unless the problems are introduced when it's mass manufacturing. Because, yeah, if you're building the prototypes in-house, you know, you can make things work, potentially. But as soon as you get to mass manufacturing, one person does one thing. wrong and the whole system is messed up.

Yeah. That doesn't excuse the peely layer. That's still just a busted, a busted solution. And dumb. Like, a completely avoidable problem. Right. And I just didn't. So here's my question about this thing.

And then we can move on. If they had somehow positioned or characterized the fold as like a developer preview, or not developer, but like a fancy magical thing. or like, I don't know, a luxury, and they, like, partnered with, I don't know, a luxury brand. Like, it's the Louis Vuitton Galaxy Fold, right? And everyone sort of understood that, like, nobody should buy this thing. It's just a proof of concept, but we are, in fact, selling it as, like, a delicate, beautiful thing that you will put on a shelf somewhere and almost never use. Do you think that there'd be less drama?

Like, they kind of, like, tried to act like this is a mass market phone, and it never was. So if they had just been honest about what it is, maybe the stuff could have broken and they would have been like, yep, told you. The Virtue Galaxy Fold. Right. Magic Leap was a developer kit, wasn't it? When we first saw it and Addy, I remember, was like, this is bad. Right. And they had a lot of hype, though.

And so I think in that case, it wasn't the strongest, it wasn't a huge narrative, like, but Samsung is a bigger name than Magic Leap. So like, it kind of makes sense. But I think they still would have gotten beaten down a little bit. But it would have changed our expectations. Because as soon as you're saying, we expect potentially millions, I don't know, thousands, millions of people to buy these devices. Yeah, we're going to expect to see something really great and superb. Well, and just like if you're going to sell it like a normal phone, I should be able to treat it somewhere close to like a normal phone. I should not have to like wear white gloves.

And, you know, maybe it broke because I was in New York that week. And New York is just fundamentally a dirty city. New York will destroy everything. I get one season out of my shoes. My phone cases are so dirty. Andrew, his phone case is like scary. Yeah, New York is nasty. It'll do things to you.

It's bad. Are they ever going to release this thing? Is it done? I would normally say I think it'd be. done, but I really feel like they have too much pride here and are like, we will make it work. But I don't know. I mean, it seems pretty done to me, but I don't know. I don't see how they take this specific device and convert it unless there is some method

that I don't know of to make the gaps in the back and the gaps in the front dust proof. And then obviously you'll have to like sell it like triple wrapped in like three. different warning brochures about taking up this great protector. All right. We've got an ad coming. We're going to be right back. And we're going to talk about Luminary. And I'm just going to laugh about RSS standards for the next 45 minutes.

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In a world of generic AI, you don't have to sound like everyone else. With Gramerly, you never will. Download Grammarly for free at Grammarly.com. That's Grammarly.com. All right, we're back. Yes. Please give me feelings about RSS because that is where the verge lives. I know.

I was talking to Jake before I get into it. And I was saying, I was like, man, we just need to do like a explainer of RSS because it relates to the story and like it would just be really useful. And we're like, who could we talk to about that? And then we knew. We knew who. And he is on this podcast. Okay. So RSS is actually like, I'm making jokes.

It's actually the smaller part of the story. The bigger part of this story is there's this hot, shit, new podcasting app called Luminary. And I think I get it, but I also totally don't get it. So, like, what is the story with this app? Yeah. So basically, for people who don't follow the podcasting industry, there is this startup named Luminary. They raised $100 million in venture capital. They bill themselves as the Netflix of podcasting, quote unquote.

Very original. Kill me already. And their whole business model is that, and how they're going to completely change the industry, is that they've recruited a bunch of really famous people. So people like Karamo Brown from Queerai, Lena Dunham, from girls, Trevor Noah from the Daily Show. And then they've also recruited a bunch of big names in the podcast industry. So Manusia Zamerooti, Guy Raz, a bunch of other people too. And essentially what they're doing is trying to build out an exclusive net.

network of shows that you can only access on Luminary. The catch is that you have to pay $7.99 a month to hear those shows. So in principle, it's like the nice way of saying this is it's like the HBO of podcast apps, right? You get the special shows, you actually have to pay for it, but there's no ads, right? Exactly. So, but here's kind of the catch is that you and I could go download Luminary right now and use it. We won't be able to use the, to access the exclusive shows. but the free tier allows you to use it like any other podcast player. And people are pissed. Like they are mad.

So The Verge slash me. I wrote this week that before Luminary launched, they confirmed that the Daily, the New York Times is big show. And all the Gimlet Media shows like Reply All heavyweight, as well as anchor shows and podcasts, all of those entities, except for the New York Times are owned by Spotify,

wouldn't have their programs on Luminary. Okay, why not? Because I can get all those programs on pocketcasts. I can get them on Apple Podcasts. I can get it on Google Podcasts. Although I don't use Google Podcasts because Google Podcasts is not good. I'm sorry, maybe it's gotten better.

I'll give it another shot. Don't at me. I still like Google Play Music. Just kidding. That is also garbage. But I can get all those free, all those podcasts on any other podcast app. Why do they refuse to be on Luminary?

So let me read you a couple. quotes of statements. I got a statement from Anchor and I got a statement from the New York Times and both of them are very interesting to me in different ways. And one of the quotes is foreshadowing. So the New York Times said

that they were very proud of the daily, whatever, and that they are going to be quote unquote judicious about where it's placed. Which sort of suggests that the New York Times just has this whole strategy around like where they're going to place their prized podcast. Because

the daily, of course, is huge. It's like probably, we don't know, but I would imagine it's one of the biggest shows in the world. Like, it's very popular. And so it seems like they are getting very specific about how they own the relationship with their listeners, because that is a, they, that drives subscribers to them, to their paper. It's a big relationship. And I think they want to own it and they don't want to give that to Luminary, potentially. So is there, is there any podcast app where you're not allowed to listen to The Daily? Like, you can get it on Spotify, right? You can get it everywhere that I'm aware of. So yeah, this, okay. So this kind of to me suggested maybe there was, and the New York Times has other shows

on Luminary, just not the daily. So I don't know what their inner negotiations are like. I don't know if it could have been something where it's like the New York Times is like, let's see how much traffic these other shows get. And then maybe we'll give you the daily or like, let's see how this goes. I don't know. If it helps you understand the idea, this is like when Google makes a website and but they don't want it to work on Firefox. Oh my God That's just mean Okay so that's what New York Times said

And then Spotify, Gimlet, Pat, whatever, all that whole all those podcasts Gimlet and Spotify didn't say anything but Anchor had a really interesting comment So Luminary tweeted this thing, it's a whole story where basically they said podcasts don't need ads And that's when the industry really turned against them because they were like, We do need ads. That's how we support ourselves. Like, how dare you say this? We all don't have $100 million in venture funding to fund our shows.

So that was kind of, so Inker hinted at that. But then they go, because Luminary's business model is new, unproven, and frankly opaque in how it plans to monetize its free tier, we are being especially cautious regarding the potential to automatically distribute Anchor creators' content without knowing exactly how it will affect their podcasts. Okay. So that seems to imply that before this. launched, everyone's like, oh, you're going to try and yank ads off the free tier, and that's going to kill us. Yeah, it sort of suggests that, yeah, when I got that statement, I was kind of confused

because I was like, what could they do to the shows that would impact creators? Like, if you have ads built in, you know, what would they do? Would they, like, try to just add more ads? Like, I was really confused about it. Yeah. Let's just run through this real quick of how, like, a podcast typically works. So typically, like, the Vergecast is hosted by a hosting provider. it's hosted somewhere else.

And if a listener wants to listen to the show, that player pings the server that hosts our show. And that's how it works. And then that hosting platform is able to tell the creator the IP addresses, which helps them know where people are located and what type of device they use to access the show and like how they did it. That's really as much data as podcasters get right now. Except sometimes with Apple Podcasts, you can get like data on like how far. in people listen. They're starting to provide

a little bit more of that. The players are starting to get a little more interesting, but like from the hosting provider. Right. So Luminary, it came out today that is using, it is using a proxy server. So it's actually adding an extra step to that. So instead of the listener, clicking

play, the player going to the server where it's hosted, what's happening on Luminary is you're clicking Play, you're going to Luminary Server, then Luminary Server, server is pinging the server where your show is hosted and it's bringing it back. Which Luminary said today, so people were in, I mean, a tizzy. Everyone is upset about this because, well, for one, it seemed that there were copies of their shows living on Luminary servers. That's not what happened. Truly was just a proxy server according to Luminary. And from what I can tell.

But what was more interestingly happening is that on the hosting provider side, they weren't getting the IP addresses of their listeners and instead we're getting the IP addresses of Luminaries proxy servers. Right. So this is like super nerdy. But this is really, really important because if you're a podcaster, again, you have really limited data compared to like the Facebook ad machine or something that you have for the web. So that IEP address is super important because right now the industry is moving to things called dynamic ads, which means essentially you can insert ads and it can be sophisticated. Like you can target to people in New York or target to people in the U.S. or whatever. I'm not sure how much people are doing it, but that's where the industry is headed. Right. And that only works.

Like me as a guy talking to my microphone isn't going to be able to do that. but the company that I choose to distribute my podcast, their hosting server where the MB3 file lives, that could have software sophisticated enough to do dynamic insertion of ads instead of just the stuff that's baked in. Got it. Exactly. And so they need that information to accurately serve your ads. Right. And so when Luminary is sending basically this fake IP address, it's messing up how people actually monetize, which is terrible. Second weird little thing that just I was like, damn, was podcast advertising is really starting to get sophisticated.

Like this industry is up and coming. It's trying to be more like the web and Facebook ads and how banner ads are served. And so the IAB, which is the Interactive Advertising Bureau, recently introduced standards to try to make the discussion a little bit more even and make it clear what an ad is, how traffic is counted, things like that. they explicitly say that if traffic comes from a server or something else that isn't an actual listener's IP address, that has to be thrown away. That data doesn't count. So one of the hosting platforms I spoke with was like not only do the people who host on our platform not get information about their listeners at all, but those listens don't even count because we have to just throw that data out because according to the IAB, it's trash. It's not real data. So that happened, which I realized this is so wonky.

And it was so funny because when I was telling the original story about the Daily and the Gimlet show, it ran in my roommate's room. And I was like, dude, you're not going to believe this. And I tell him, and he literally stared at me. It was just like the widest eyes like, okay. And I was like, all right, I realized what I said out loud that no one cares, but is insanely wild. old. So the reason this is so fascinating. I mean, one, I make the joke about RSS, but like when you use a podcasting app, whatever

it is, it's basically like using an RSS feed on your computer. It goes to the server and it says, hey, show me your text file of what's new. And then the server says, here's all the new stuff. And you're like, cool, I'm going to download that one. So there's two things that could happen with the proxy server. One is they could, like, rehost your RSS feed, which means you don't know how many people are subscribed to you. Two, they could rehost your files.

Three, they could not give you the actual IP address information. So, like, there's no fewer than three different ways that having a man in the middle between, you know, the podcast app and your servers could, like, screw up your data. Does that sound right? Yeah. And, like, the even stranger part about this, too, is that Luminary's reasoning of, like, this streamlines. Because the idea of having these servers, I mean, the hosting providers have servers around the world and the whole idea, obviously is like it's faster for me in Japan to get the file from a server near me than in California or whatever it is. But, okay, it could either be, if it's a direct pass through

proxy, how would it be faster? They'd have to cash it, right? That's, this is the whole thing is like their reasoning doesn't make sense to me. Like, they're adding an extra step to this. and I'm not understanding, like maybe you guys can explain it, but yeah, I'm not understanding how adding an extra step helps streamline a process to make it faster for listener. It would certainly be a cheap and easy way for them to gather analytics data and what people are listening to instead of having to have the app self-report that up to, you know, via some other channel, maybe. Sounds like a great way to earn $100 million from VC. The obvious comparison is to like a CDN, like a content delivery network has, you know. That's exactly it. But you sign agreements with the CDN.

You tell the CDN that it's okay. Right. So that they have the right to copy your data to their local server so that then it's geographically closer. But if you just, this sounds like they've implemented a VPN, which makes no sense. Yeah. Yeah, it's, and so anyway, like, kind of closing the loop here, right before we got on the show, Luminary issued a statement, they tweeted it as well. They said something like, you know, we realized that this caused confusion.

And it's like, okay. That's because it's confusing. Yeah, like, I should also put here that, like, I don't know, and from all the people I've talked to, you, I don't know of any other player that does this. Spotify doesn't use RSS feeds for most shows. But it's a whole different beast. And you manually put in your URL to your RSS. And you're agreeing like, hey, I'm okay with you ingesting my RSS feed.

In return, I'm accessing Spotify's massive audience. And also, I get a cool analytics platform. Right. The reason people are really upset with Luminaries, there was no explicit consent given here. No one even knew it was happening. And I think, I mean, this is just like total theory. But looking back at Anchor's comment,

I sort of feel like they saw this coming. and that's why they were talking about the creators because this really does hurt creators. It's been fixed now according to everybody. Stitcher might have done something weird way like five, eight years ago. But your point about creators, I think that's the reason this is like, I'm excited because it's like drama about CDNs and RSS and proxy servers. But the actual thing that matters here is podcasting to a lot of people

feels like the last bastion of the cool, good, fun open web from 2003, right? It feels like the last place that hasn't been ruined by Facebook, instant articles, and omnipresent Google ads and Amazon ad tracking. And it's still a place where, like, you know, you can make your own little podcast and it's yours and you can figure out how to make money out of it or not and you release it and you have a direct relationship with the person you send it to. There's a whole culture and ethos around podcasting, even though it's gotten professionalized and stuff like the daily exists, that is, I think, what made everybody feel so angry and under threat as like, here is one more company trying to ruin the last good thing on the internet.

Absolutely. That's partially what's going on here. It's a super tight-knit community. I haven't been reporting on it all that long, but I've already met a bunch of people because it's really tight-in and everyone's super cool and nice and loves to support each other. But now it seems like, yeah, people don't, I think really the issue came in here when it was like, I think processes, like processes weren't followed. Like it seems like maybe discussions that should have happened months ago didn't happen or like things were implemented that just didn't necessarily make sense. I don't know. That's kind of the impression I'm getting. And actually I should say here that Tuesday's episode is going to involve me, Nelai.

and Nick Kwa, who's an amazing podcast reporter, going even deeper on this luminary stuff. And Nick is hilarious. I'm so excited to talk to him. But, yeah, so people who are into this should absolutely stay tuned. All right. Listen to the Vergecast next week, the interview episode. You'll get that.

We actually need to move on, and we need to talk about all this WWDC stuff. Because, like, we've been, like, kind of dipping in and out of it. But if you actually just go back and look at the articles that have been published on 9 to 5 max since February 10th, there's one, two, three, four, five, six. And then there's some, like, tweets on top of that. It seems like the whole thing is just like they've just got it all. We know what all the software is going to be.

And not only that, it feels like a, feels like a big one. I don't know, maybe that's, maybe just because I'm focusing on all the details here. But there's some pretty major stuff. So WWDC's June 3rd. And I feel like the narrative is, maybe correct me if I'm wrong here, but Apple's like, you know what, iOS is great. We did so good. Let's bring it to the Mac.

Yeah. So they're like, okay, well, we should have a real cool name for that. And so they called it Marzapan. Yeah, but no one's supposed to know, even though it's in the code anyway. They haven't given it an official name. Like, when they announced this last year, I'm like, what do I call these things? They're like, apps. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Apple's never said the word Marzipan out loud? That's correct. Oh, man. Great little tidbit there. Okay, so Marsup. Pan, which is basically it's the iOS app development, like UI kit, right? Yeah. Which is what developers use to build iOS apps is now you can use those tools to build Mac applications.

And it feels like what's happening is as they have to add features to support things that you do on a Mac, there looks like they're going to be adding those features also to iOS. So one of the hot new rumors that's been. quote unquote confirmed, Steve Trouton-Smith and 9-5 Mac are saying this, mouse for iPad, which is as an accessibility feature, but it makes sense because one of the things that's being rumored here

is that there's just going to be a drop-down, or a checkbox, you say, yeah, this app works on iPhone, it works on iPad, and it works on Mac. You just check that box if you're an iOS developer. So Apple is clearly a... hoping to get a glut of iOS apps. But to do that, those apps have to be completely controllable with a mouse and keyboard now. So that means there's going to be tons of apps that now support a mouse and keyboard

so you can have a mouse and keyboard on your iPad. And I don't know, that's pretty exciting to me. But yeah, it's interesting. I guess I didn't see it coming in this way that by bringing iOS to the Mac, they'd have to bring a lot of Mac to iOS. Yeah, I think that's the core point for me. That's, like, the thing that makes me most excited about it. Have either used the Marzapan apps on a Mac that came out, like, you know, last year?

So we're talking news, stocks. I check the stocks app every day, Deere. I use Apple News on my Mac, but other than that, there's the home app. The home app is in particular, like, hilarious and bad on a Mac. of the voice memo app too. They're really bad, and everybody in the Mac world hates them right now. And so the big, the reason the stakes feel so high is if these become the new ways to make apps for the Mac, well, they've been really bad so far. Are they going to make them good?

I hope so. Well, a hot new rumor is that they will be able to support multiple windows. Imagine this. One application with more. multiple windows open at the same time. Magical. That's a great feature that I love in Mac applications. But interestingly, that will also be a boon for iPad.

There's a rumor that there'll be these detachable panels. So like, you know, a lot of iOS applications, when they scale up to the iPad, some contextual menus are little panels. You might be able to rip those off and put them wherever you want on the screen. It's still unclear if you'll be still constrained to like one split of the screen or if that will be able to hover over like a two split screen or if you're going like full windowed. So is the idea like in an email app like I'll be able to like have multiple drafts or multiple

emails out in windowed. So like you can't, you don't have a full windowing system but like inside each app you can have like particular things that like is like picture and picture but for every app basically. So like any app can be. like this thing could be a picture and picture element and then you can like rip it off and have it float over the other stuff. I more think of it as one, I don't actually know at all. Because I've seen the word like just maybe there's just actually just going to be

windowed applications in iPad. But I'm thinking of more like think of contextual menus like in Photoshop, right? You've got some text that you're editing in your main view, right? And then you have a contextual. menu that you can change the font size and change the font and, you know, or you can change your brushstook. Those sorts of like contextual menus, those I think are what is being rumored that will be kind of be able to be ripped off and put possibly in a stack of items, which is pretty while. Okay. But yeah, windowed iPad, there's a rumor that the Lightroom will be able to access

files directly. It's like they're just reading Neelai's review of the iPad now. Just fixing everything. And then another interesting thing is, is, so there's a rumor that the iPad will be able to be used as an external display. Yeah. Which you can do now with either Duet or you can buy this little dongle that plugs into the side of your Mac, either USB or display port. But built in seems better. Well, and the cool thing about this rumor of how they're going to supposedly implement it is the green button, which on the Mac is the maximize button. to go full screen, will have somehow more things to it, including possibly, finally,

real window management on a Mac. Wow. Yeah, I know. It's crazy. I'm not going to get my hopes up for that. But the one option might be, like, put this window on the iPad, which would be, I mean, that would be pretty slick. Yeah.

Huh. I'm bullish on WWDC. Yeah. I mean, I'm excited for there to be, like, just something new and interesting on the Mac. just because that's been a minute. But I'm also super excited to see if, like, all the stuff that's on the Mac is going to push back to the iPad and it sounds like that is. And, well, okay, I have two questions, two thoughts. So one of the other rumors, we may have mentioned this before, is they're going to break up iTunes.

Well, okay, iTunes is going to stick around, but it's going to become, like, legacy. Basically, iTunes is going to be the Windows XP to the other apps in the way that Windows XP exists to Windows 10. it's still there hiding in the background but you never open it but every now and then you have to that's what's happening to iTunes those system preferences like the real fiddly ones

yeah all the weird crap that you need to do with your iPhone or with your music library or movie library whatever it's still going to be there but it's going to be hiding in the background like an old classic Windows thing and instead they're going to give us a music app and a TV app and a podcast

app and whatever I don't know like do you guys do you guys care about like are you excited to have better music apps on your Mac or you just you gave up and you're using you're using Spotify and you haven't open iTunes in two years anyway because that's that's me I haven't like it's not going to affect me I mean as someone in the podcast reporting beat I'm thrilled to have podcasts broken out as its own app and we've seen hints of it like the web app now has like podcast dot apple.com right it seems to be kind of it definitely seems like it's probably coming and also just writing about it's like You call it Apple Podcasts, but I'm using iTunes to look at podcasts.

It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. So yes, I mean, I don't buy movies or anything like that. But for purely podcast, that to me is actually like a really good change. I'm in the slow process of making myself not dependent on Apple for anything. So this is not really going to affect me in any way. Yeah, to answer your earlier question, I've not. used Apple News.

Here's my take. I think they're going to make Marzapan apps slightly better, but they're not going to go as far as people that actually live on and care deeply about crazy stuff you can do a Mac. They're not going to go that far. They're apparently going to add Siri shortcuts to the Mac, which is really interesting. They're going to take the shortcut stuff, and that's going to eventually replace Automator, which is sad because I love Automator. I don't know.

Automator will be there just like old Windows, too, I'm sure. Anyway, I think Apple should lean all the way in and make all of these Marzapan apps the default on the Mac. They should replace the mail app with the iPad mail app. They should replace the browser with the iPad Safari browser. They should, as many apps as possible, make the default the thing that they're pulling over from iOS. And everyone will get super pissed. But then everyone will actually be using those things. Mac and it will force them to more quickly add the features that will make them more useful on a Mac,

and therefore it will force them to finally get over this weird hang-up they have about nerfing the iPad and keeping us from being able to do the stuff we want on it. I don't use any Apple, Apple apps. Who are these people? Like I literally, I mean, this is why, like, really? That's so wild to me. Like, this is just a world. Like, again, I literally click on the iTunes, what could eventually be the podcast, solely because I check in on our show and also because I'm like monitoring.

I don't know what could make me start using Apple's apps. Okay, here's an experiment. Like, this is, we're in the, we're in the, are you using a Mac right now, Paul? Yes. Okay. Everyone open your dock. Look at your dock

and tell me what Apple-made apps are currently in your dock. I have one, two, three, four if you count settings. I have one, two, three. I have the app store. Does that count? Yes. Why do you have the app store in your dock? I don't know. Like, I need to just throw that out right now. Okay. I have three. I have terminal messages and keychain. Yeah. So I have Finder, photos, system preferences,

and preview. Yes, I also have Finder. Yeah, I have Finder too. I didn't count it. Okay. I have notes.

I have iTunes. Oh, yeah, see, you use way more, you use way more Apple apps than I do, actually.

What? You use notes? On the web? On the Mac? Yeah. Yeah. If you're an iPhone user and you're,

like, in that system, notes is great. Yeah, notes is really good. I weirdly don't have I message here because I'm using

a work computer. If it was my own, I would, like, sync my own message, for sure. That is the one thing everybody uses. I message on their laptop. Yeah. Yeah, well, and that's a big question mark, because are they going to make that marzipan? It seems like they are. But, like, how are they going to build it?

Is it going to be able to do the stuff? Very confusing. Well, wasn't there the rumor or two that they were bringing, what was it? They were bringing, like, reactions or something over? Yes. Yeah. But, like, there's no way they're going to rebuild that for the Mac. Like, everyone's been waiting for it.

The fireworks are. a iMessage now i i feel like the way apple could could win at this right i i um i just clicked on i message or sorry it's called messages to open it it was it was three bounces also i i literally can't find it it's somewhere um oh no it's beach balling great it's probably confused because i've been okay now it's loaded i mean however long that was right like if if let's say in a crazy world, there's a web alternative to iMessage, right? I'm using the web alternative, right?

Sure. Like, if Apple's mail app is three bounces and then a beach ball, I'm going to use a shortcut to Gmail, and I'm going to hate Gmail the whole time, but if Apple... It'll feel... Yeah. It's fine. It's not worth the hassle of

setting it up on one computer. Because, you know, when you set something up in a web app, you know that's accessible to all your devices, all your computers, and it's fine. If you're setting something up specifically on your machine, you have to get, I think, a little bit more value out of it than a web app. But if you could, if all these apps were just one bounce, like pop right up, give you some useful information. Like right now, I actually have, I lied, I have used Apple News to see how it was it. It's slow. Like it takes like five seconds to load a page. And it's like, that's what I go to the open web for. If they just

do it. Everyone will grumble, and then it'll get better. The thing that we have heard from the Mac world for literally 35 years since the Mac has been, if you try and make a universal app, like, write once, run anywhere, it will be bad. And that applies both to the underlying code that runs it and the look and feel and UI of the app itself. Right. So if you just try and make everything Java, it's going to run like, meh, across everything. going to look bad across everything. But if you make an app and you make it feel native to the platform, if you make a Mac app in its bones, truly, deeply a Mac app, and it, like, works with all the Mac stuff and it's a Mac app, then that's great. But you shouldn't just take an iPad app and just

slap it on the Mac. That's one of the reasons that they feel like a bunch of people have been rejecting these apps like bad organs, like bad organ transplants, right? So I don't know how Apple is going to take that story that it has been telling, and all of its biggest Mac fans have been telling for the past 30 years, and they're going to be able to turn that. Trying to be like, no, no, no, this is the right thing to do is going to be really hard. I do think it's the right thing to do, even though, you know, I prefer more people use the open web and blah, blah, blah, blah, simply because, like, just from a very, very utilitarian viewpoint, I care more about the iPad turning into a real computer than I do about the Mac feeling like it has foreign apps on it. Because I'm already using a bunch of foreign apps on the Mac because I use the web.

I'm in a very similar spot. I think the iPad is great, and I love the iPad, but I think it is still very, very much a luxury device. I mean, maybe that's debatable, but it feels very luxury to me. But so many people have iPhones, if people who have iPhones can do real computer things, that means more people in the world can do real computer things. You know, like if a kid who gets a hand-me-down iPhone can, you know, open dev tools in mobile safari and start console logging and make the great next great the

Facebook killer that I've been waiting for well apparently speaking of safari uh I don't think they're going to give us like full desktop safari um although when you say that people say it is too full desktop no it's not um but they are going to like make a list of websites where they're going to request desktop site by default instead of just giving you the the mobile site kind of blown up which is what happens on a lot of websites. That's nice. That'll be nicer. All right, we got to take a break, but we're going to come back.

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Without fail, it's consistent. Every time. It's the same. What's it called? It's called Android tablets are a real gift to humanity, and I think we forget that sometimes. It's not true. It's objectively a lie.

I feel like we have been so mean to Android tablets. We're always saying, why aren't you it's like, it's like talk, it's basically like a middle child. I'm a middle child. I know this from experience.

Why aren't you like good first child? That's how we are with Android tablets. Why aren't you like iPad? But then Samsung shows up with the Galaxy View 2 a 17 inch tablet that it's releasing through 18T so that you can watch all your favorite

18T TV shows like Game of Thrones on a 17-inch tablet. I don't know. It's just so special. It's a wild west. Like, you go to the drugstore to get ibuprofen, and behind the counter is like a $50 Android tablet running probably, I don't know, lollipop.

Yeah. Oh, my God. I just look this up. And the picture is a woman holding this huge device. It looks so fat. No, it's because it folds out into like a tent mode thing. It's got this giant. thing on the back of it.

Okay, well, the way she's holding it, that just is, it's terrible. It's huge. And then someone, a man is sitting next her with a bowl of popcorn. They're just about to enjoy their favorite film. Can you imagine having a friend over to watch a movie? And then your big reveal is that you guys are going to watch it together on your Samsung Galaxy of YouTube. Wow.

But like, okay, we were talking about the fold and like just having a big screen is nice. Like, this is just, like, if you're watching a movie on an iPad and. bed. You know, this is like why I bought a pico projector. You want like one on a little bit bigger screen. This is just like unapologetically a big, dumb, cheap screen. Well, relatively cheap. This, I do a lot of my, my, like, late night YouTube, like, laying on my side. Like, I'm, I'm really actually about to fall asleep. And so, so I've, I, I, if, if I had this device, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like, my right eye, let's say I'm laying on my right side, my right eye is basically at bed level, right? So the right edge of the screen, from the distance from the

right edge to the left edge of the screen, needs to be not much further than the width of my two eyes. Yeah, but you're by yourself. Like if you got other people, you want something bigger. I don't know. This doesn't really solve the problem for me. I mean, I don't own a TV, so I watch on my laptop. And if I'm watching with a friend, it's like, okay, we're going to like put the laptop on the table or whatever. I'm going to have it on my lap, and we're going to watch it like that. That's how we're going to do this thing.

This kind of doesn't help. I mean, a little bit. It's a little bit bigger than a laptop, sure. You still have to find the table. In bed, it's not going to be great. You're going to have to put on your lap or something. This is a 17-inch 1080p screen, which is not great.

And it's $740, which is super not great. This is too. expensive. Every 17-inch laptop at Best Buy is likely cheaper than this. Okay, we've got just a cut with just a little bit of phone news stuff at the end. There hasn't been like super new rumors about the Pixel 3A, but there has been like Google T's that they were going to announce it and we've seen some renders and that we may have also seen some news and it's going to come to T-Mobile. I mean, they have to announce this thing at Google I. I have no idea. I didn't know we need. We need a 3A. Do you think we need a 3A?

So, okay, Verizon and AT&T just, like, had their quarterly results, and they have their worst upgrade numbers ever in a long time, right? And so, one, people are not wanting to buy super expensive phones, so maybe, like, a cheaper phone would do the job. And, like, we've been saying for a few years now, if you're using Android, you can get everything you want except a good camera in a cheaper phone, right? They're fast. They're actually built pretty well. They do everything you want, except for, like, have a really good camera. And so presumably the Pixel 3A is going to have the pixel camera. And so if they can get the price down, they will instantly be like one of the best, like, sub-500 phones.

The question is, can they get it sub-500? Yeah, the price will be getting down just because of less build quality. That's the idea. Well, and also a slower processor. It's going to be using the, I think it's a Snap 640. I also saw like, what is it, Google Fi has like a deal on the Pixel 3 right now. It's like 400 bucks or something? Yeah, well, I mean, you've got to sign up for the new carrier to do that.

And, you know, it's also like old for October. Like part of the deal with the 3A is like it's a little bit weird that it's off cycle. Like they should have announced it next to the pixel so that there's a bigger price disparity, but they're announcing it right when the pixel itself is getting discounted a bunch. Right. Oh, I feel like the pixel three, the pixel is already off cycle. I'm like, it seems like Samsung released a phone right around when they could get an 855. Yeah.

And Google's going to release the pixel four, theoretically, six months after you can get an 855. Yep. Yep. It's been a problem for them for a while now. I'm into cheap phone. Yeah. Um, I especially, I don't know. The Pixel 3 was my first Android phone on a long time.

And, um, I have been fairly disappointed. And I, and I want to, I want to A, B, test it a little bit with another phone that's not from Google. I'm fine with a cheap phone because I don't think the phone needs to be that precious to me. Basically, if I'm going to have this sort of unreliable of an experience, like half the time the phone doesn't ring. And I don't know why it doesn't ring, but I just missed all these calls. and I don't know why. If I'm going to have an unreliable experience like that, I want to spend like two or three or $400 most on a phone.

Right. I don't want to get an epic flagship to feel kind of janky like this. Yeah. But I also don't know, like, maybe there's another Android manufacturer that pays a little bit more attention to the end-to-end experience that I might like better. I'm a little jealous of your Galaxy S-10 life right now, Deere. how like you know if apple put out like an s e or something like that like a cheaper smaller or whatever

like a more budget type phone i could see that being you know really nice as someone who wants a budget phone and apple but with with google putting these phones out like is it a move just to get more people on google devices because there's so many you know more budget android phone and so is google just kind of being like we can do this better like what i'm kind of curious like why they feel like they need, because to me it was always like Google did their flagships, and it was like, you're going to get the amazing camera, da-da. I mean, like they said, they'll bring the camera maybe to this, but yeah, I guess I'm just wondering like what the strategy would be there. I mean, historically the strategy, going back to the Nexus, we're going to show you how to make a

good Android phone, follow along. They don't really need to do that. Samsung makes a perfectly good phone without them. Now it's like we're going to give you like the Google experience. Honestly, I think they just want to sell more, right? They're actually doing better than you'd expect in the US right now, if they're serious about making money on hardware, they need to sell more phones. And they need to sell more phones and get people to upgrade those phones and stay inside the pixel world in the way that people stay inside the Apple world. So I honestly, I don't know, maybe they have some very high-minded idea of like spreading good Google design to more people and making good cameras more accessible and blah, blah, blah, blah. But my guess is

like they just want to sell more. That's kind of it. And they think that maybe price is kind of what's keeping people away. Oh, for sure. Like, I think that the value proposition for a pixel phone is actually really tough to make at those, like, $900 prices. Like, it's super hard when you can get a Galaxy S-10 for the same price or an iPhone 10. Yeah, I guess we don't have any, like, pricing speculation. But yeah, I guess if it was like, I can buy the Google phone or I can buy, like, an Alcatel phone. Right. Then you're going to get the Google phone. For sure. Now, the big question is what's going to happen with the 1 plus 7, because we have the launch event. We also have the story for Vlad that there's going to be a 1 plus 7 pro.

So it seems like they were the previous king of really good $500 mid-range phones. And they feel like, you don't have to compromise even though you did. So they're like actually moving up in price tiers. And they're going to try and take on those flagships head-to-head. Maybe the regular 1-plus 7 will be cheaper, who knows. But like, I don't know, it's really interesting. At the same time that 1-plus is like moving up in the price. tiers, Google's going to try and slide in hopefully under.

I don't know. Fundamentally, I think that Google's going to end up charging too much for this pixel 3A. Like, I really think that we're going to get here at the price. We're going to be like, oh, well, that would have been cool, but I guess not. Yeah, it's still expensive. Yeah. Do you think the renders for the 1 plus 7 pro have a pop-out camera? That's very exciting to me.

That could be very exciting. Like in a world where I don't get to have a folding phone. Maybe at least I could have a phone with a pop-out camera. There's a little consolation prize. Honestly, yes. I am here for that reality. I would love a little pop-up camera. I would break in in two seconds, guaranteed.

But I would love a pop-up camera for the little bit that I do have it intact. It is creepy every once while you're looking at your phone and you're in that certain light where you can see all the cameras on the front and like, oh my gosh. I'm I'm, I'm, everybody's looking at

me. Yeah. On that creepy note, I'm ending the Virchcast. We're watching you and we definitely know your IP address.

Thank you for downloading this podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you again for voting for us and Verge Science for the Webby Awards.

If you're going to Google I.O or you can be in Mountain View on May 8th, head over to the verge.com slash vergecast live to RSVP for our live

Vergecast with Hiroshi Lockheimer and Stephanie Cuthbertson. Thank you, Ashley and Paul for joining us. Ashley is on Twitter. She's Ashley R. Carmen. Paul is Futurk Paul. I am Backlon. Stay tuned. Next week, we'll have the interview about more luminary drama and another Verge cast. Rock and roll. Paul. Ashley, say promo code. Promocode. There it is.