Hello! This is The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of The Verge... and your life. Every Friday, Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn make sense of the week's tech news with help from our wide-ranging staff. Join us every week for a fun, deeply nerdy, often off-the-rails conversation about what's happening now (and next) in technology and gadgets.
The delightfully messy state of Apple gadgets
Nilay is going to buy the new touchscreen MacBook. But not for the touchscreen. He and David talk through Apple's new laptop, and what it means for Apple's other devices, including the tablet that used to be the future of everything. Then the hosts talk about Instagram's push into long-form video and its battle with AI content. Finally, it's time for Brendan Carr, Anthropic's S-1, robot vacuums, and the rest of the lightning round.
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0:00 ProLED Cold Open
01:04 Touchscreen Mac Arrives
02:39 Why Apple Did Touch
05:27 App Store Pressure
07:54 Touch Is Just Enough
09:49 Influencer Event Demos
13:56 iPad Squeezed Middle
18:34 Luxury Hardware Bet
22:37 Duo Reality Check
28:18 Instagram Going Through It
29:07 AI Agents vs Ads
32:18 Zuck Escapes iPhone
32:41 Instagram Becomes TV
33:23 Slop Meme Deepfakes
36:09 Mosseri AI Crisis
42:58 Longform Video Push
44:34 Creators Demand Revshare
48:19 Loop Closing Arms Race
49:34 Reddit Versus Google Zero
53:22 AI Kills The Web
01:00:20 Brendan Carr is a Dummy
01:02:22 Spectrum Auction Plan
01:03:35 NOAA Weather Spectrum Fight
01:04:29 700 MHz Auction History
01:05:38 FCC Spectrum Power Grab
01:06:09 Privatizing Weather Data
01:09:27 Anthropic S1 Reality Check
01:12:34 AI Products Beat Models
01:16:55 Claude Goes Sentient
01:17:55 Copilot Leaves Smart TVs
01:21:16 Quiet Robot Vacuum Thoughts
01:25:03 Palmer Luckey Laptop Fight
01:30:10 X Replies and Racism
01:32:32 Wrap Up and Next Week
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