Google's Pixel 7 and Pixel Watch event / Elon Musk vs. Twitter trial update

The Verge's Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Alex Cranz discuss all the announcements from Google's Pixel 7 event. Senior correspondant Liz Lopatto joins the show to explain the latest in the Elon Musk/Twitter trial saga. The Super Mario Bros. Movie trailer is here (and so is Chris Pratt) Hands-on with the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro: something familiar The Pixel 7 and 7 Pro double down on Tensor-fueled features Google’s Pixel 7 and 7 Pro will fix your old blurry photos Google once again calls out Apple for not adopting RCS Google’s including its VPN service with the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro Pixel Watch hands-on: Google's taking a page from Apple Google thinks smartwatches are the future again — are you buying it? Google’s Pixel Watch marks a new chapter for Wear OS Google shows off wireless charging dock that turns the Pixel Tablet into a smart display Google overhauls Home app as it prepares for Matter Everything we think we know about Elon Musk’s plan for Twitter The Elon Musk vs. Twitter trial is on hold until October 28th Email us at [email protected] or call us at 866-VERGE11, we'd love to hear from you. We are conducting a short audience survey to help plan for our future and hear from you. To participate, head to vox.com/podsurvey, and thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Today on The Vergecast, we'll break down the whole Google event, Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, and of course, the Pixel Watch. And Elon Musk somehow interrupts the show with some more news about Chancery Court and buying Twitter. That's coming up right after this.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's Chief Investment Strategist, and Colin Martin, Head of Fixed Income Research and Strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, bring you fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Lizanne as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's Chief Investment Strategist, and Colin Martin, Head of Fixed Income Research and Strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, bring you fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Lizanne as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:57Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to the Runch Cast, the flagship podcast of Chris Pratt's Mario voice, which was a lie.

• 2:05David Pierce?

  It's just a, it's just a normal podcast. It's just a regular podcast.

• 2:09Nilay Patel?

  Regular old podcast.

• 2:12Nilay Patel?

  So you don't know this because you're listening later and you're, you know, time, the magic of time shifting is covering this up. You're in your car, you're going about your day. We are starting late. Me, your friend Neelai, David Pierce.

• 2:24David Pierce?

  Hi.

• 2:25Nilay Patel?

  Alex Cranz.

• 2:26Alex Cranz?

  Hi.

• 2:27Nilay Patel?

  We are starting late because we were waiting for the Nintendo Direct reveal of Chris Pratt's voice in the new Mario movie and it's just his voice.

• 2:38David Pierce?

  Yeah, it's just Chris Pratt.

• 2:39Alex Cranz?

  No Bob Hoskins impression, no potentially offensive impression, just, just Chris Pratt.

• 2:46Nilay Patel?

  I mean, he said it will be unlike anything you've ever heard, right?

• 2:51David Pierce?

  Parentheses, if you've never heard Chris Pratt before.

• 2:53Alex Cranz?

  I mean, a lot of people haven't watched Parks and Rec. They haven't seen Everwood. I get it.

• 3:00Nilay Patel?

  Brad, but your choices are like the entertainingly, but somewhat racist. It's a me, Mario.

• 3:06David Pierce?

  He was gonna say like every other option was worse. So like in a way, this is the least interesting and best.

• 3:12Alex Cranz?

  He could have done Bob Hoskins. Bob Hoskins does, Bob Hoskins just went out there and he was like, I'm in this movie. I'm playing Mario.

• 3:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, he was just mad. By the way, you keep talking about Hoskins. I'm pretty sure most of our listeners have not seen the Super Mario Brothers movie starring Bob Hoskins.

• 3:28Alex Cranz?

  The seminal classic starring him and John Leguizamo, shot in Brooklyn.

• 3:34Nilay Patel?

  It was not good. Like that movie came out when I was a child who was playing Super Mario Brothers and I was like, I'm gonna give this one a miss.

• 3:42Alex Cranz?

  Oh, I loved it. It was like a transformative moment for me. I tried to do my hair like Koopa.

• 3:47Nilay Patel?

  Bob Hoskins, I think he, he played it as I'm an actual plumber.

• 3:51Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 3:51Nilay Patel?

  Right? He was like, what's wrong with these guys? You're turtles. Like he was like a very strange voice. And then obviously there's like the famous sort of like modern day Mario voice.

• 4:02Alex Cranz?

  Woohoo.

• 4:03Nilay Patel?

  Which again, it seems fine. Like we've, we've all come up with it. I, my assumption is that if Chris Pratt had done that voice, he would be immediately canceled. By like regular Italians and Italian Americans, they would have just been like, you're done.

• 4:20Alex Cranz?

  Not doing this.

• 4:20Nilay Patel?

  And so he was like, I'm gonna do this other voice you've never heard it before. It's like, unlike, and so we all waited with bated breath. He only said one line that was like, what is this place? But it was just Chris.

• 4:33Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, so we're starting late today and I gotta tell you, I think we're all starting from a place of profound anger at Chris Pratt for lying to us.

• 4:41David Pierce?

  Yeah, I had high hopes.

• 4:42Nilay Patel?

  But that's not.

• 4:43Alex Cranz?

  Wait.

• 4:43Nilay Patel?

  We look, well, maybe there's more movie. Maybe he's gonna grow into the voice over the course of the movie.

• 4:48Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 4:49Nilay Patel?

  That's a thing you can do.

• 4:50David Pierce?

  Maybe it's a trilogy and by the end it'll be full Mario.

• 4:53Alex Cranz?

  So like at the end of the movie, Bowser's gonna be like, who are you? And he's just gonna be like, it's a me.

• 5:02David Pierce?

  Slam to credits.

• 5:05Nilay Patel?

  The hardest it's a me Mario ever delivered.

• 5:08Alex Cranz?

  So hard, deadly serious.

• 5:10Nilay Patel?

  The movie looks very silly. When we, when we started watching the trailer, Alex just planned, oh, this movie's for children.

• 5:17David Pierce?

  Yep.

• 5:18Alex Cranz?

  We're too old.

• 5:20Nilay Patel?

  There was a little bit of like the sort of thing they do in all trailers now where there's like the minor key theme comes up.

• 5:26Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 5:26Nilay Patel?

  To make like dark Mario, but then it was just a Mario movie. Anyway, go watch the trailer, you can watch it right now, pull your car over, see if you are as disappointed as we were.

• 5:33David Pierce?

  I'm already for the gritty reboot starring Tom Holland. I'm ready for it. It's gonna be amazing.

• 5:38Alex Cranz?

  That was the Bob Hoskins movie. It was the gritty movie.

• 5:42Nilay Patel?

  It really was. They were like, what if Mario and Luigi were actually plumbers in this situation?

• 5:48Alex Cranz?

  And a dystopian future where everyone's a human dinosaur.

• 5:53David Pierce?

  Perfect.

• 5:54Nilay Patel?

  Oh yeah, that was the plot. I mean, that's what we can, I was like, I can't believe you remember this movie.

• 5:57Alex Cranz?

  Oh my God.

• 5:58Nilay Patel?

  All right, that's not the news. We thought it was gonna be the news. What were we thinking? The news, I mean, it's a big news week.

• 6:05Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 6:06Nilay Patel?

  There was a Google event today. David was there along with V and Welch and Allison. We got new Pixel 7, new Pixel 7 Pro. We saw the Pixel Watch. We saw a tease of a Pixel Tablet. Elon is just Elon-ing like a maniac in the Delaware court system. The European governments are like, yeah, USPC, remember that? You're going to use it now, Apple. Allison reviewed the iPhone 14 plus, which still has a lightning connect. Just a lot going on. So I think the way we're going to break this down, we should start with Google and Pixel. And then we're going to have Liz join us and talk about Elon, right?

• 6:39David Pierce?

  Sounds like a plan.

• 6:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:40David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 6:41Nilay Patel?

  That feels like the right plan. Let's start with a Google event. David, you were there with a full crew, live logged it, the whole thing. What's going on?

• 6:48David Pierce?

  So this event was weird because Google, back in June at I O, just was like, here's all the stuff we're going to launch in September. And then just told us about all the things like, we have a Pixel 7 and we have a Pixel 7 Pro and we have a Pixel Watch. And we were like, tell us more. And they were like, later, no problem. But so we get there today and it's at this place in Brooklyn called National Sawdust, which is, I guess, like a music venue. I don't know, Neil, I used to live near there. Did you ever go to National Sawdust?

• 7:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:14David Pierce?

  It's a place.

• 7:15Nilay Patel?

  It's cute. It's in Williamsburg.

• 7:16David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 7:16Nilay Patel?

  It's nice.

• 7:17David Pierce?

  But it was like, we're used to these things being sort of big spectacles. This one was very intimate. I like, it was basically four rows of these chairs, probably 60 people, like all journalists. And I was like eight feet from Rick Osterloh as he's like introducing all these new gadgets. It was nice to be in person again. Like we, Neela, you and I have done a couple of these now where like a lot of people get together and we all watch a video. This was not that, which was nice. But yeah, they launched the Pixel 7, the Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel Watch. They told us a little bit about the Pixel tablet, which is coming next year. And I think is actually like sneakily very interesting. And then basically made the like grand case for Google gadgets, right? This like, they've talked a lot about ambient computing. They've talked a lot about like putting all the pieces together. They started the whole thing with basically a long, I think, Neela, you were the one who

• 8:02David Pierce?

  called it the corporate webinar about product design?

• 8:05Nilay Patel?

  Yes, it was a product design and privacy and safety.

• 8:09David Pierce?

  Right.

• 8:09Nilay Patel?

  And it just, if you've ever had to take a corporate training before in your life. Where like at the end, there's going to be a short quiz. Yeah. Very much that vibe.

• 8:18David Pierce?

  Yeah, no, I think that that track.

• 8:19Nilay Patel?

  Just, I was like, I don't, I don't want to remember what kind of aluminum you use. I refuse, in fact, sir.

• 8:25David Pierce?

  Yeah, but yeah, they gave us the whole rundown and then we went down the street to, I think what is the newest Google store that they said just opened this summer and got to actually see the things. And I don't know how y'all felt sort of watching it, but being there, it was like, the watch was by a mile, the most interesting thing that happened today. And then the phones were phones and we should talk about them, but like their phones. And if you just like imagine a Pixel 7 in your head, you're correct. That's what it is. And then everybody went around looking for the tablet, but the tablet wasn't there. But the best part about it was there were a bunch of Nest Hub Maxes there. And I was one of probably 50 people who walked up to one and tried to pull the two pieces apart to see if it was a tablet. And it wasn't.

• 9:04Nilay Patel?

  That's how you know that product should be a success.

• 9:06David Pierce?

  Exactly. But it was interesting and I will say, I think the watch to me is, is both better seeming from the experience we've had of it so far and just like way more interesting than anything else that came out today. Was that y'all's experience too?

• 9:20Nilay Patel?

  Yes. Yes and no. Oh. I mean, I mean, yes, in the sense that like it's the new product category. David, he did a big feature with Rick and some of the Google folks about it. People should go read it. It's interesting. My no is like, all I can think for better or worse is when will Google stop caring about it?

• 9:42David Pierce?

  Yes.

• 9:42Nilay Patel?

  Right, which is kind of the thrust of your feature in like Google. It's, it's Google. Like they have created this problem for themselves where I just need to believe them. Right? And I'm actually more, and so like, if I just had to rank them, I would say like, the Pixel tablet to me, which isn't even out yet and is like kind of vapor because the ship date is just 2023. Like I know they're committed to the Nest Hubs. I know how I use the one in my house. I've watched it get software updates.

• 10:08David Pierce?

  Yep.

• 10:09Nilay Patel?

  I know that the CEO of Google cares a lot about Google Assistant and Chrome. And like, I want that product to run Google Assistant and Chrome on. So like, I know it's gonna ship and it's gonna do those things really well. And the watch is like, it'll ship and you'll get it. And then maybe two years from now, they're just gonna shut it down. And like, I don't know, I just don't know how to quantify that. So it's true, like, it is the most interesting thing, because it's a new category for them, a new kind of hardware, a bunch of new capabilities, a new thesis. But, you know, there's just a dark cloud around new Google things now.

• 10:43Alex Cranz?

  So your worry about commitment isn't for the phones, it's for the other products, like the tablet and the watch.

• 10:48Nilay Patel?

  I know why they have to make the phones every year. It's obvious.

• 10:52David Pierce?

  Yep.

• 10:52Nilay Patel?

  Because they need something to scare Samsung with. If they let go of that, they might as well just like, give Android to Samsung and be done with it.

• 11:01Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 11:01Nilay Patel?

  So they, like, there's like a reason for that thing to exist. There's a reason for their smart home efforts to exist.

• 11:07Alex Cranz?

  Right.

• 11:07Nilay Patel?

  And you can make some case for the watch to exist, right? If you don't have this category, Apple's just gonna eat you at the watch. And then, you know, like, there's a whole sort of like, meandering road.

• 11:17David Pierce?

  Yeah. But it's a weird one, because on the one hand, I think you could make the case, and this was the fun thing about writing this story and talking to Rick and a bunch of folks on the team, like, you could make the case that the watch is actually like, crucially important to all of the things that Google wants to do. Because it's on your body, because it has biometrics, because it like, understands you. It's like, all the stuff that they wanna do actually might require a thing that lives on your body, right? So I can see that. But it's also, to your point, by far, the easiest one to walk away from right now. And Google has a really long history of walking away from these things. Like, literally, I had, I had two calls with Google, uh, two days apart. It was like a, whatever, like a Tuesday and a Thursday. And on the in-between day, Google killed Stadia.

• 11:59David Pierce?

  And so it's just like, okay. This is, I literally, I opened both of those calls with like, why on earth should I believe you that you're serious about doing this? And basically, their answer is like, all we can do is prove it to you, right? Like, people asked us this question about the Pixel phones, and we kept making the Pixel phones, and now people don't ask us this question anymore. And like, I look forward to five years from now, when I can say the same thing about a watch. And I was like, that's all well and good, but like, you're asking me for $350 today. And that is, that's a very different thing. The watch looks really nice, I will say. Like, Alex, we have a couple of them around, like, Alex and I have both been playing with them. And it's got the round face, it's not huge, the interface has made huge strides. It's much better to use than any Android smartwatch I've ever used.

• 12:41Alex Cranz?

  It definitely feels like it's probably gonna be one of, if not the best, Android. Smartwatch.

• 12:45David Pierce?

  I think so too. And it also, V and I were talking about this earlier, like it basically just decimates Fitbit forever.

• 12:51Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 12:52David Pierce?

  Fitbit as a, as a thing that exists outside of Pixel products is dead. Like, there's just no reason to buy a Pixel or a Fitbit that isn't baked into the Pixel watch. Well, unless you have an iPhone, right? But that's, I'm, there is that, uh, which is, it turns out, quite a large number of people. But, but no, but I think you're right. And, and there's just, Google has to like prove this weird thing that all evidence is against Google, which even with smartwatches, like Google has been making smartwatch software for a long time and intermittently seems to care about it and then forget about it and then care about it and then forget about it. I can see, they're four years in now to caring about it and that's a reasonably long time, but like, would I bet on Google continuing to make smartwatches on, without stopping for the next 10 years? Like absolutely not.

• 13:33Alex Cranz?

  I wonder how frustrating it is though, for people who aren't like us. Like, I think every single one of us has sat in at least three calls where Google says, this is the time we care about smartwatches.

• 13:44David Pierce?

  Yeah, we're so serious.

• 13:44Alex Cranz?

  We are so serious. And most people haven't had to sit through that. Most people don't know that the LG Style came out and was terrible. Most people don't know about all those other times, or they haven't cared. So like, I wonder if that fatigue is unique to us, or if that's a bigger thing.

• 13:59David Pierce?

  I think that's a fair point, but the, the part that kept jumping out to me was there was this whole section in talking about the Pixel phones. Uh, I think it was Brian Rakowski, one of the Google execs who's in charge of all the Pixel stuff, who was talking about how part of the Pixel promise is that it gets better over time, right? Like they do, they do the drops and their whole thing is like, we have this very powerful processor with a lot of machine learning and we can do all this stuff. And so we're actually in a position for your phone to get better over time as the AI work that we do continues to improve. And it's like, that's all well and good. And there's actually some truth to that. Like, the Pixel software has gotten substantially better over the years. It only works if you keep doing it.

• 14:34David Pierce?

  And like, the Pixel watch by all accounts has a bunch of stuff going for it, but it's like, in no way a finished product. And Google has these big ambitions and it's like, You know, it's like a thing we always say, never buy a thing based on what it might be someday.

• 14:45Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 14:46David Pierce?

  And Google is making these big promises about where they'll go someday. And I just think you'd sort of be crazy to believe them, even if they're telling the truth or they think they are.

• 14:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, evaluating something on the potential of future software updates is, like, I'm old now and I'm just gonna tell you it's a sucker's game.

• 15:02David Pierce?

  Yes.

• 15:02Nilay Patel?

  You shouldn't do it, but the, you know, this was true of like Amazon last week too, right? Amazon has just sort of like relentlessly iterated on Alexa, but it has reached its final form.

• 15:12Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 15:13Nilay Patel?

  And like, there's not much more they can say Alexa can do.

• 15:15David Pierce?

  Right.

• 15:16Nilay Patel?

  And so now they just like put it into, they're like, Alexa can fly now. It's like literally a product is like a flying ring camera with Alexa in it, like, fine. And I just think phones are that thing and watches are not that thing yet. We don't know where watches are going to go and Google's just starting well behind Apple.

• 15:32David Pierce?

  Right.

• 15:33Nilay Patel?

  So we should talk about the watch as it is and what the promises are today, what it can do. But then it's the question of, as you were saying, David, the question is like, it might be central to their whole strategy. And it's like worth understanding what that whole strategy even could be for this thing, even though it's like obvious it's not this one. And that, right, like they're gonna make a Pixel Watch 2 and a Pixel Watch 3 and a Pixel Watch 4. And maybe by then, we will believe them that they're committed to the product and will like live up to more of their ideals.

• 15:57David Pierce?

  Right.

• 15:58Nilay Patel?

  Right now, just from watching it, it seems like it's round, it's cool, it's a little bit smaller than Apple Watches. It's got a bunch of cool Fitbit stuff in it and it's Wear OS and that is it. Am I missing something?

• 16:10David Pierce?

  No, that's pretty much, that's pretty much the extent of it. I mean, even the fact that they had James Park, who was formerly the CEO of Fitbit before they were bought by Google, do the presentation for the Pixel Watch, I thought was deeply fascinating.

• 16:22Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 16:23David Pierce?

  Like Google, and I wrote about this much in the story, but like Google has these big ideas about like wrist computers, right? And it's like, this thing should be contextual and it should understand you and it should interact with your other devices. Like, they made a Fitbit, like, make no mistake, like, the Pixel Watch is a Fitbit that also runs Google Maps. Like, that is functionally what this thing is.

• 16:39Alex Cranz?

  But we should, we should note, a very good-looking Fitbit.

• 16:42David Pierce?

  It is, it's, it's nice looking and by all extents, or by all accounts, very powerful.

• 16:46Alex Cranz?

  And Fitbit was terrible at making good-looking smartwatches.

• 16:49David Pierce?

  Yes.

• 16:50Alex Cranz?

  Like, the worst at it.

• 16:51David Pierce?

  There was a

• 16:52Nilay Patel?

  How's the bezel? This is what, I mean, honestly, we were 16 minutes into this and now I'm asking about the bezel. I've not done my job. How's the bezel?

• 16:58David Pierce?

  It's, this question is so hard to answer. Alex can vouch for this. So it's a weird thing where like, the bezel is large.

• 17:03Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 17:03David Pierce?

  It just is large. But the way they've designed the UI is such that you don't actually notice the bezel most of the time.

• 17:10Alex Cranz?

  It's like the bezel on, on earlier Apple watches. Where like, there's a bezel and, and you sometimes bump up against it. And I think you are gonna bump up against it a lot more in this watch than on an Apple watch. But you don't really notice it that often. You're not like, ugh, a lot. Whereas previous round watches, you'd put it on and be like, yep, it's a big ol' bezel on there.

• 17:29David Pierce?

  Totally, or it had that flat tire at the bottom like the, the Moto watches did. Like, it doesn't feel like any of that. It feels like it's all screen, except if, if for anybody who hasn't watched the keynote, I encourage you to go back to the keynote and look for the moment where they're testing, they're showing off that you can take a photo using the watch as a viewfinder. And there's a moment where you can see the little square viewfinder on it. And that is the moment where you're like, holy god, is that bezel enormous?

• 17:52Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 17:53David Pierce?

  And Google does a really good job of hiding it with the other UI. Like, it's all really dark and it all sort of like fades off to the sides. So it doesn't, it's not just like color into a black bezel, but it's big. It's real, real, real big. If you actually find the thing where it hits against the bezel with color, you'll notice how big it is.

• 18:10Alex Cranz?

  I mean, I was thinking, like, we published this piece yesterday that was kind of like a timeline of the Pixel phone over the years. And it reminds me of that very first Pixel phone where it was like, there's like some cool ideas in here, but oh, there's some really ugly design choices in here.

• 18:26David Pierce?

  Yeah, it was not an attractive phone.

• 18:27Alex Cranz?

  Yeah. And, and it feels like that same thing where it's like, y'all have some really good ideas, but boy, and when it comes to design, Apple just schools you. Samsung just schools you. And they haven't done much to improve that.

• 18:41Nilay Patel?

  You know, it's funny, I feel that way about the phones. I don't feel that way about the watch.

• 18:44Alex Cranz?

  Really?

• 18:45Nilay Patel?

  I mean, you guys have seen, I have not. You got, Alex and David are in the office. We have a bunch of units. They've actually seen them. David was at the thing. I'm just watching the videos and reacting to the photos like everybody else. The watch seems like a composed thing. Like, they have a point of view about it. The bands seem really cool. The band attachment mechanism seems really cool. The entire vibe, just from where I'm sitting, when you put different bands on it, it seems like the entire vibe of the watch changes dramatically. In a way that is like not true of the Apple Watch, actually.

• 19:14Alex Cranz?

  That's fair.

• 19:14Nilay Patel?

  Well, you can put the fanciest band on Apple Watch, it's still an Apple Watch. This looks like it actually takes on a new character. That part's fine. The Pixel 7 is like, you can't convince me that you did anything to design this to make it look nicer. You were just like, screw it, there's, Neela is gonna complain about it on the podcast, but this is what we got, we're just doing it again.

• 19:32Alex Cranz?

  We're just doing it.

• 19:32Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's, it's ugly.

• 19:34David Pierce?

  Were you not, you weren't swayed by the 15 minutes of telling you about lemongrass? And how nice all the human designs are? No, I'm shocked. The colors are great, I will say.

• 19:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:46David Pierce?

  Lemongrass and hazel, dumb names, good colors. But I'm kinda with you, I mean, it's just.

• 19:52Alex Cranz?

  Wait, which is the lemongrass and which is the hazel?

• 19:54David Pierce?

  Lemongrass is the, the sort of like off-greenish one.

• 19:58Alex Cranz?

  That one's good, yeah.

• 19:58David Pierce?

  That is, it's, it's like, other companies would call that like sea foam or something, but Google went with lemongrass. And hazel is, I don't, it's just the hazel one. I don't, I don't have a good answer for you on that.

• 20:07Alex Cranz?

  And then there's like a gray one?

• 20:09David Pierce?

  That might be the hazel one. I don't know, none of these make any sense to me.

• 20:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. There was a part where Isabel from Google was like, the centerpiece of our warm colors is lemongrass. And then they showed the lemongrass. And I was like, that's a, that's a cool color. And I still don't know what she meant.

• 20:25Nilay Patel?

  Because then they're like, and here's the cool colors. And they were indeed much cooler. But I was like, just going back to the green, that's it, okay.

• 20:32Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, the green was nice. The hazel is the kind of gray color. And I'm not a fan of that one. It felt a little like, it's got too much brown in it for me. It's too warm.

• 20:41David Pierce?

  I could definitely see that.

• 20:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:42David Pierce?

  But my thing with the Pixel design, and Neela, you've, you've never liked the Pixel design. And I feel like I, I nothing the Pixel design. Like, I don't, I don't, I wouldn't say that I like it, but I also like, I have no strong feelings against it.

• 20:54Nilay Patel?

  People back when you were like in your dating page, like, here's the deal, I nothing you.

• 20:59David Pierce?

  Yeah, I'm just, I'm whelmed by, by this relationship that I have with my Pixel 7 Pro. Yeah, it just feels like it's, it's just like, it's not doing enough for me to like, have strong feelings about it.

• 21:09Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 21:10David Pierce?

  But people seem to have really strong feelings about it. I don't know.

• 21:12Alex Cranz?

  I just, I mean, it looks, it's shiny. I like that it's, it's very like, it feels luxurious. It looks pretty luxurious.

• 21:21Nilay Patel?

  The Pixel 7?

• 21:23Alex Cranz?

  That's the shiny one, right? No, I'm thinking of the Pro.

• 21:25David Pierce?

  This is what I mean. You, you have strong feelings. How is it possible to have strong feelings?

• 21:30Nilay Patel?

  Okay, hold on, hold on.

• 21:31Alex Cranz?

  I have to make sure I'm talking about the right one.

• 21:33Nilay Patel?

  Here's what we know. I just want to put this out there. What we know from our own audience data and from your experience at the event is that people care about the watches more than the phones.

• 21:43David Pierce?

  Oh, unquestionably.

• 21:44Nilay Patel?

  Your desire to make me dunk on the phones, I'm resisting so we can finish talking about the watches.

• 21:49David Pierce?

  Alright, fine.

• 21:50Nilay Patel?

  Tell me more about the watches. What's, Wear OS is updated. How's that working?

• 21:54David Pierce?

  Yeah, Wear OS actually seems really nice. Google has spent a bunch of time over the years trying to make it less complicated. Like, I went back and watched the 2014 I/O where they actually announced Android Wear in the first place. And it had this like, the mental map of Android Wear was insane.

• 22:10Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 22:10David Pierce?

  It was like, you, you, you were on the screen and then it was like, there was stuff to the right and stuff to the left and stuff up top and you could go down farther and it was insane. And so Google has pulled all of that way back and it's basically, you, you get like, small widgets and feeds and you can swipe down to get to the control panel. It's like, it feels like teeny tiny Android, like in a good way.

• 22:29Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 22:29David Pierce?

  And at least this watch is, I, I confess I'm slightly out of date in my Android smartwatch usage, but I, this was my experience and I checked with V and she agreed that this is like, dramatically smoother and better feeling than any Android smartwatch I've ever used. Everything we've used so far for the most part was in like, a demo mode. So it's really, it's hard to know what sort of the deep, powerful stuff will be like, but even just like little swipes, it was the kind of thing that used to be sort of slow and stuttery and it would like, miss when you would flick on the screen and it just didn't seem to do any of that. Like, they've done a really good job of actually tuning the thing up to work. And it was one of the things they told me they spent a lot of time on and sort of tacitly admitted in talking about it that like, this was a thing they had not done well in the past and eventually realized they should probably get right.

• 23:13Nilay Patel?

  So Samsung smartwatches, Wear OS traditionally, like Samsung smartwatches ran Tizen for a minute.

• 23:19Nilay Patel?

  And they merged Tizen and Wear OS and then Samsung is doing Samsung stuff, which is like their own riff on it. They barely even mentioned Wear OS when they introduced new versions of the Galaxy Watch.

• 23:29Alex Cranz?

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:29Nilay Patel?

  Like, it's like a flicker of a ghosted image on a slide in the transition between two other slides and their presentations, right? Subliminal messages like in between frames.

• 23:40David Pierce?

  White text on a white background. It just says Android.

• 23:44Nilay Patel?

  But you know, Samsung watches have a point of view, right?

• 23:47Alex Cranz?

  Right.

• 23:47Nilay Patel?

  You're in there, in there, kind of like feature laden and there's lots of buttons and settings, Samsung stuff. This, from all accounts, is much more minimal, right? But it's still Wear OS. Do you feel a split there? Do you feel like they've tried to pare it down and focus it?

• 24:01David Pierce?

  It's going to be a little hard to tell until we can like really put some apps on it and put the thing through its paces, but they clearly have tried to do that. Like, I think your, your reaction to what they're attempting to do is, is the right one that like they're, they're trying to not make a thing that you spend a lot of time with. Like, I'm sure you guys noticed this, but like voice interaction continues to be the thing that Google harps on, right?

• 24:21Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 24:21David Pierce?

  With all of their devices. They're like, voice is the answer, speech to text and text to speech. Like, that's, that's where we're headed. That's where all of this is going to go. And then they're trying to make things take fewer taps, which I think is meaningful that like with the, the Fitbit stuff, it should just be sort of a quick scroll through information that you want. And Maps works much, much more simply. And they're definitely trying to get to the phase where like Samsung wants you to use your watch like a computer and Google definitely doesn't. I think that Google still doesn't know exactly how you should use your watch, but the answer is not like a computer.

• 24:55Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, it feels like this time they've taken more of that Fitbit DNA because for years they, they didn't, they just wanted to be like a watch that you could also get notifications on because their like primary person putting Wear OS into watches was Michael Kors, you know? Like, they didn't care. And now they've got the Fitbit. They've got all that fitness apparatus behind it. And it's like, okay, we can have a point of view, but it's still going to be software, but it's going to be.

• 25:22Alex Cranz?

  Fitness. It's gonna be like that.

• 25:23Nilay Patel?

  So that's my, that's my, kind of my last big question here. I don't think Apple knows why people are wearing these watches either, really, right? Like, if you go back in time, David, you were saying like, the first Wear OS stuff was just a scattershot mess of things and like huge ideas. So was the first Apple Watch. Do you remember when Apple was like, you're gonna send heartbeats to people?

• 25:43Alex Cranz?

  I want to do that right now.

• 25:44Nilay Patel?

  It was the two fingers, right? Yeah. You put two fingers on it and it sends your heartbeat to somebody else. A truly bizarre idea.

• 25:51Nilay Patel?

  That we should all be doing more of. Honestly, Apple should bring the heartbeats thing back. Can I, can I send you my heartbeat now? Yes.

• 25:56Alex Cranz?

  It's still there.

• 25:57Nilay Patel?

  That just opened the weather app. That's right. I put two fingers on my watch and nothing happened. I will say that the walkie talkie feature on the Apple Watch is criminally underrated, underutilized. I use it all the time.

• 26:07Alex Cranz?

  Absolutely.

• 26:08Nilay Patel?

  Apple should put all of its development, stop making the car, make the watch walkie talkie better. Anyhow, but you know, like, like all of these devices, Google started a huge idea and they've had to pare it down. Apple started a huge idea and they've had to pare it down. Apple has very much landed on, well, the Apple Watch Ultra is like basically a huge computer on your wrist, big screen, app store, the whole thing can work independently of a phone now. But really, we know that the reason you buy it is like health and fitness, right? And the Ultra is like the pinnacle of that, right? They're like, this is for people who dive. Yep. Right? Like, you have to pick which band you want, depending on what kind of mountaineer you are. And obviously, you've already considered that. Because they know, like, this is what drives the thing. Google was like, we have to buy Fitbit in order to be competitive.

• 26:53Nilay Patel?

  We've added a Fitbit to it. Are there like meaningful fitness features out of Fitbit here? Or is it just a Fitbit? It's basically just a Fitbit. It seems to be a particularly good one.

• 27:02Alex Cranz?

  I feel like that's enough, because the Fitbit audience was never the Ultra audience. It was never the Garmin audience. It was never like the Superfit audience, right? The Fitbit audience has always been the same audience as the Apple Watch, where it's like, yeah, sometimes I want to know my heart rate. Sometimes I want to be able to show my friends that I walked outside today, so that they stop shaming me. Like, like, that's always kind of been the goal of these products. And this is like, okay, finally, you have an alternative to Apple. If you want, hopefully, if you want just a nice looking watch that does those very basics. And if you want to get more hardcore than that, Garmin, or Samsung, or whoever's there. But I think this is really for That Fitbit audience who's been like dicked around for years with really bad smartwatches from Fitbit.

• 27:46David Pierce?

  Yeah, I think that's totally right. Like, Google needed Fitbit in a big way, but Fitbit also needed Google.

• 27:51Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 27:51David Pierce?

  To like, people have been asking Fitbit to make better looking devices for as long as Fitbit has existed. And Fitbit just basically has not been able to do it. Like, the company has sort of intermittently tried. Like, I remember doing a story, god, eight years ago, maybe, where Fitbit was like, we're gonna start making fitness trackers that are like jewelry.

• 28:08Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 28:09David Pierce?

  And it was like, alright. And then they were like, look at this one we made. It's six inches long and rock solid, and it's just a Fitbit.

• 28:15Alex Cranz?

  It was just like a black pill, and you put it in a gold bracelet. And I think the thing we don't talk about enough is like, Fitbit's primary audience for a long time was women.

• 28:25David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 28:25Alex Cranz?

  And, and women have been left out oftentimes from smartwatches, because so many smartwatches are these really, really big watches. And a lot of women and a lot of people with smaller wrists love to wear them. I'm wearing one. But a lot don't.

• 28:38David Pierce?

  Yep.

• 28:38Alex Cranz?

  And so they've held on to their Fitbits for a very long time. Or they've just been like, alright, I guess I'm just going to get, you know, a $10 special watch at Walmart, just so I have something to wear. And this is like, this is for them. This is for people who are like, I don't need all the big gadgets and stuff. I just want something nice that I can like, be in on this too with everybody else.

• 29:00David Pierce?

  Yeah, I totally, I think that's exactly right.

• 29:02Nilay Patel?

  I just want to come back to the idea that two things you can do with smartwatches now are send your heartbeats to people, and then, per Alex, shame them for not walking enough.

• 29:11Alex Cranz?

  Yes.

• 29:11Nilay Patel?

  Those are your two choices.

• 29:12Alex Cranz?

  Oh my god, do you not remember?

• 29:14Nilay Patel?

  Sending direct love taps.

• 29:17Alex Cranz?

  Or like, you didn't walk enough.

• 29:18Nilay Patel?

  You were lazy.

• 29:19Alex Cranz?

  Do you remember that when the Fitbit first came out, everyone I know was like, oh yeah, I have a Fitbit, because I care about fitness. And like, no, you don't need that. That's too performative. And so it is that like, performative stuff going on.

• 29:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, I think it's neat. I'm curious to see, you know, Google took a couple of hard shots at Apple today. We should talk about that more at the phone in the next section, but this is the point now where they can start to pressure Apple even again, even in terms of regulations about, hey, there's a lot of people that would like to buy this watch instead of your watch, and you won't let them.

• 29:54David Pierce?

  Yep.

• 29:54Nilay Patel?

  And I think it's probably the same. There's probably some Android people that would like to have an Apple Watch, just like some Android people buy AirPods or whatever.

• 30:01David Pierce?

  Well, it's like one, one thing Google would really like you to know is that fast pair is a thing that exists and is open to lots of different devices. And also that Beats headphones use fast pair. Those are two things that I can tell you confidently, Google would very much like a lot more people to know. And, and it's like, and I think you're exactly right. Those are the things. And that came up even, even during the keynote today. It was like, Google is sometimes quietly and sometimes not particularly quietly, like continuing to push Apple on this idea that like, if you make this stuff work better, everyone will be happier and be better. And I don't know that there are a ton of iPhone users who are like mad about the Apple Watch, but are gonna clamor for a Pixel Watch. But it would, it would be a more fun world if we could find

• 30:45David Pierce?

  out. I tend to think.

• 30:47Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 30:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's, I just, I just keep coming back to that idea. It's like, I'm not gonna switch my entire life over to Google services for a $350 watch.

• 30:55David Pierce?

  Right.

• 30:55Nilay Patel?

  It just doesn't seem likely. So the market is already teeny tiny. They can't go compete in the market of iPhone owners too. Just like Apple can't go compete in the market of Android owners. Apple just seems content because all the rich people are on their side. Like that's, they know it's true.

• 31:11David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 31:12Nilay Patel?

  And they're like, okay, we're gonna-

• 31:12David Pierce?

  Do you think Google's move is, is it more possible that Google could get people to switch from Samsung to Pixel in order to get a $350 watch? Like, is that the move?

• 31:21Nilay Patel?

  Does a Pixel Watch work with Samsung phones?

• 31:22David Pierce?

  I believe so. The thing on the box, we'll have to test this. So I reserve the right to be wrong about this. But it just says an Android phone running Android 8.0 or later. So it should work fine.

• 31:31Alex Cranz?

  It would be really stupid if it only worked with Pixel phones.

• 31:35David Pierce?

  I'm sure there will be Pixel specific stuff. Like, I think that it's possible that the, the viewfinder is one thing that seems likely to me, probably only works on a Pixel. But I'd be, it would be, yeah, you're right. It would be stupid of Google to-

• 31:45Alex Cranz?

  We're forgetting that, like, the United States iPhone reigns supreme. The United States is just one country. In a lot of places, Android reigns supreme. And now, like, oh, a competitor of the Samsung that's nice looking, that's smaller. Like, I could see that doing some real numbers in a lot of places.

• 32:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 32:01David Pierce?

  I think so too.

• 32:02Nilay Patel?

  All right, we should take a break. That's the watch, $349 without LTE, $399 with LTE. It's coming out soon. We'll have reviews. As always, we gotta like, use the thing before we can talk even more about it. We gotta take a break. We're gonna come back. We're gonna talk about the Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro. We'll be right back.

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• 33:43Nilay Patel?

  Okay, we're back. We talked about the watch a little bit. David tried to bait me into talking about the phone. Here's what I'm gonna say about the Pixel 7. One, just like the iPhone 14, it looks the same as the phone before it, which our YouTube commenters don't seem to have understood that we said about the iPhone 14. So that's just my note to the YouTube commenters out there, who all of whom I'm sure listen to this. Yeah. But you will note that our headline on the iPhone 14 review was, "This is the iPhone 13S." Yeah.

• 34:11Nilay Patel?

  Sorry, you could have had what you wanted. You just didn't Google it. Like, I don't know what to tell you. We gave you the thing you want. You're like, "I would like some chocolate chips." And we're like, "Yes, they're here." And you're like yelling at us, "There's no chocolate chips." Just get what you want. There's only one skill, and it's getting what you want.

• 34:28Nilay Patel?

  That's true. That's my life advice for you today. Second, it's still ugly.

• 34:36Nilay Patel?

  They're just ugly phones. I don't know what to tell you about them. That camera bump is horrendous. The colors are slightly nicer. They have refined some of the edges or, you know, like they've done some things. They're not attractive.

• 34:47Alex Cranz?

  I think that they're shiny and maybe I'm just like easily distracted by shiny at this point. But I was like, ooh, that, that gold bump. It's so shiny with a glass underneath. Ooh. Like that just, I don't want it. I don't want to own this device because I just bought a phone. I don't need another one, but, but I was like, that is, that is appealing. That is a pleasing look to my eyes.

• 35:09David Pierce?

  Yeah, this is my thing, Neelai. Like I just don't get the hatred for it. It's like.

• 35:13Alex Cranz?

  Is it because it's so boring?

• 35:15David Pierce?

  It's like looking at this like boring white table and being like, that table is so ugly. It's like, no, it's not interesting enough to be ugly. Like, what are we talking about?

• 35:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I don't know. Look, all phones are kind of boring now.

• 35:28David Pierce?

  Yeah, that's true. I'll give you that.

• 35:30Nilay Patel?

  I'm just like the back of this thing, the glass and then the weird surround and they're like, at least my pixel sixes. There was like a noticeable ridge between the glass and the metal and I haven't touched a seven. Maybe they refined it. They're just ugly. Like.

• 35:44Alex Cranz?

  The bump is bad. The bump is bad, but it's not as bad.

• 35:46Nilay Patel?

  Like someone like a Google engineer to open one of the AI image generators and was like, generic smartphone. And then it's like this sort of like mutated AI version of a generic smartphone got spit out every time. It's, I don't know. It's like the uncanny value of generic smartphone design. Whatever. It doesn't matter. You're going to put it in a case anyway. The cases last year were horrible. Chris Welch says the cases this year are slightly better.

• 36:10David Pierce?

  Chris Welch, I just, Chris Welch deserves some credit for this. I'm just going to tell a very short story about Chris Welch. So I'm wandering around the Google store, like looking at the phones, taking video, taking pictures. And I walk over and Chris Welch is standing in front of a wall display, reaching up to a set of three pixels, about eight or nine feet off the ground. And he's just yanking at one of them. And I'm like, Chris, what are you doing? And he's like, just hold on. Don't just everything, make sure everything's fine. And he literally just yanks the case off of one of them, pulls it down, takes off his own case, puts them down and goes, so does feel any different? He goes, nope, it's the same. That sucks. And then just walks away.

• 36:46David Pierce?

  It's like, alright, Chris. Just yanking phones off walls. It's like, if you did that at an Apple event, they would have killed you. Like, right then and there, somebody would have just sniped you from the Steve Jobs Theater.

• 36:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 36:56David Pierce?

  But at the Google Store, they don't care.

• 36:57Nilay Patel?

  I will say, when I put on the Apple Watch Ultra at the Apple event, things were dicey for one moment. They were like, eh, maybe you should be in jail.

• 37:05David Pierce?

  And at the Google Store, they're like, you're touching our phone, hooray! That's all they want.

• 37:10Nilay Patel?

  Alright, so look, that's the way it looks. You're gonna put a case on it anyway. We should talk about the phones. New Tensor chip, the G2, which I'm very proud of. What else?

• 37:19David Pierce?

  Um, new cameras. And actually, I want to talk about the cameras, because Google talked a lot of shit about Apple, and then basically just said, "We did the Apple camera." But we'll come back to that. Tensor G2, there's a 6.3 inch screen on the Pixel 7 and a 6.7 inch screen on the Pixel 7 Pro. Both have variable refresh rate, both go up to 90 hertz. It's all like, medium exciting. They did a bunch of stuff with phone calls that I thought was pretty interesting. They're like, one of their big new features was stuff that if you're going through a, like, a phone tree to, you know, press 9 to get to whatever, it'll just show that to you as a menu on your screen now, and you can just tap the thing you want.

• 37:53Alex Cranz?

  That's awesome.

• 37:54David Pierce?

  It'll send you where you're going. It's very smart. And they did a bunch of AI work to, like, improve the quality of phone calls. You can reduce background noise and enhance your own voice. So there's just a bunch of little things like that, kinda all over the phone. Speaker recognition on the recorder app, which is one of those things that no one cares about, but a roomful of journalists got really excited about. Uh, like, it got the biggest gasp of any announcement from the reporters in the room. And that is the entire list of people who will use that feature. And then, yeah, just a ton of, of little things. They spent a lot of time on the camera. That was obviously the thing. And like, Google is, is, in the same way that Google is crystal clear that people buy smartwatches for health reasons, they buy phones for cameras. Like, that just is true. And Google's whole-

• 38:33Alex Cranz?

  Well, they have to like, the cool feature this year was that they can take your crummy, blurry photos and make them look better. Right?

• 38:40David Pierce?

  Yeah, I mean, that's kind of been Google's thing for a while, right? Like, the, the magic eraser thing works relatively well. They did have the new feature where they'll do it with your old photos, that I think is very cool.

• 38:49Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 38:49David Pierce?

  And there was a guy walking around the Google Store after the event who was very proud that he thought he was the first person to use the hashtag #fixedbypixel. And he was like, "We should make that a thing." And the Google employees were like, "Yeah."

• 39:01David Pierce?

  So that was fine. But yeah, that idea that Google can not only like help you take better pictures, but actually fix them after the fact is a big part of what they're starting to push on now with all the AI and ML stuff.

• 39:12Nilay Patel?

  And well, so that one in particular, they announced was you've taken thousands of photos with cameras in the past, phones in the past, you buy a Pixel 7, and you have Google Photos, and then Google Photos on your Pixel 7 using the Tensor G2 will like upscale your old blurry photos or deblur them or something.

• 39:33David Pierce?

  That's right. What is a photo, Neelai? What is a photo?

• 39:36Nilay Patel?

  Well, so the what is a photo vibes coming off the Pixel event.

• 39:40David Pierce?

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:41Nilay Patel?

  Are out of control.

• 39:42David Pierce?

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:42Nilay Patel?

  Like fully out of control. So just that. Why can't Google Photos just do that? Right? Like Google Photos runs on Google servers. But do you pay for Google Photos? Yes, I pay quite a bit of money for Google Photos. Okay. Right? I have like the upgraded storage plan, the whole thing. I mean, famously, Google gave Google Photos away for free until they destroyed the market for photo services, and now they charge for it.

• 40:05David Pierce?

  Right. That's actually a super interesting question because it's not like Google Photos is short of access to processing power, right? Like, Google has data centers. Those can do some things. That's really interesting. Yeah, that that is a device specific thing. That has to have been just a deliberate marketing choice. There's no technical reason to just not put that into Google Photos.

• 40:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I think it was Dan who said they say they need something in the Tensor G2 chip to do it. But it's like, you make the chip.

• 40:31David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 40:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And also, your data centers are full of Tensor chips.

• 40:35David Pierce?

  Uh huh. That's like a part of the whole thing. Like, the Tensor came out of all the work they were doing in their data centers. Like, these two things are the same.

• 40:42Nilay Patel?

  So I just, that's a little confusing. But that's one thing. And I don't even think that like really implicates the what is a photo conversation. Like, you have an old photo, and you're going to do some processing on it to make it a better photo. Like, I understand how that works, because you still have the old photo, right? Now you just have like the second improved version. Like, that's just photo editing, right? Like, maybe it's a more complicated thing, but you're you've like created a photo, you're editing it. The camera on the Pixel 7 is just far beyond like capturing a still image in time.

• 41:13David Pierce?

  Yes.

• 41:13Nilay Patel?

  It just has abandoned that idea of making a photo that way. Like almost completely. And so the one that really got me was all of the zoom stuff they're doing.

• 41:23David Pierce?

  Yep.

• 41:24Nilay Patel?

  Where they're like, okay, we have a number of zoom lens. We have an ultra wide, we have a wide, we have a zoom. At every point along the magnification from regular to 2X to 10X to whatever else.

• 41:37David Pierce?

  30 was the max, which is bananas.

• 41:39Nilay Patel?

  We're going to merge frames from multiple cameras, run them through the HDR pipeline that we've set up, and then do AI to create more detail. And it's like, yo, like, at some point, it really is, you're just holding up your phone to reality and giving the AI prompt.

• 41:57Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 41:57Nilay Patel?

  Like recreate the scene. Like, like, it might as well be Dolly for reality, right? Like.

• 42:03Alex Cranz?

  Google, interpret reality.

• 42:05Nilay Patel?

  Right. They're like, and if you just like, watch that, I encourage everyone to go watch it again and just like, come at it from that perspective. When you take a photo, you think you are capturing a moment in time, right? You're going to open the shutter, some pixels are going to hit the thing and it closes shutter. And there's a lot to be said about how long the shutter is open and how long that moment in time really is and all this stuff. Google is now like, literally a computer is looking at reality and it's going to try to faithfully reconstruct what we think that reality is.

• 42:33David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 42:34Nilay Patel?

  Using more data than your eyes can possibly process at once.

• 42:37Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, we've, we've moved away from like optics being the primary way that like the light is gathered and interpreted. And now it's like, okay, the optics are going to gather the light and then we're actually going to interpret it.

• 42:48David Pierce?

  Yeah, it's like, it's like a rendering engine.

• 42:50Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 42:51David Pierce?

  It's just very lifelike. It's kind of wild, especially, I noticed the same thing in the zoom ones where it's like, they're going through and he just is like, okay, it takes, you know, if you want to be at between two and 5X zoom, it's going to take the telephoto lens and the wide lens and actually do some work to comp them together. And it's like, okay, we're still working from images here. And then it's like, by the time you get to 30, it's like, okay, we're doing, we're stabilizing for handshake. We're doing all kinds of crazy stuff on the other end. We're pixel binning. It's like, I'm snapping the shutter and that is the beginning of like a 16 step process that ends in, I get a thing that looks like a photograph.

• 43:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 43:25David Pierce?

  But there's so much happening in between there that Google is in charge of that it is just wild.

• 43:30Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 43:30Nilay Patel?

  And there's so much that isn't really transparent about what's going on there.

• 43:35David Pierce?

  I mean, except at the end, you get to see what you see and the photo at the end, like there's at least a check on. What the thing just

• 43:42Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, but you're not seeing those, those processes. Like if I'm in Photoshop, I can see every layer. I know what I'm doing. Whereas this is like, ta-da. I mean, most people probably think that's fine, though. Like, I think

• 43:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I think most people think it's fine. But like what Dave was talking about with the zoom on the stabilized zoom when you shoot a video. And they were like, we know this is noisy. So we're just gonna clean it up. And they just showed like adding detail back to the thing that the sensor couldn't have captured. That's weird.

• 44:12Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 44:12Nilay Patel?

  Like, you should, there's just something about all of this. That's like, we're getting a little, we're getting a little closer to the photo is just a prompt.

• 44:21Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 44:21Nilay Patel?

  Or a number of systems to just spit out an image that you, that it thinks you will like.

• 44:27Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, I'm really excited for the Spike Jones movie in like five years, where like somebody's running from a crime that their Google Pixel phone like

• 44:37Nilay Patel?

  This already, no, no, no, no. This is what I'm saying. Like not to get too dark.

• 44:40Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 44:40Nilay Patel?

  This was the basis of a completely nonsensical set of objections in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.

• 44:47Alex Cranz?

  Oh, wow.

• 44:47Nilay Patel?

  Remember this? They had all this photo evidence and his lawyers were like, your honor, like, Apple iPhones are, they are known to use AI to interpolate scenes however they want. And like evidence got tossed out because the prosecutors in Kenosha, Wisconsin were not very good.

• 45:03Nilay Patel?

  And they were just like not prepared for this objection. It's already has happened in a very high profile case that like

• 45:08Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 45:09Nilay Patel?

  The thing that a camera makes is so unknown that you can like, you can undo it. You can undo its validity because you can't, you have to bring in an expert to explain how it works. And like, that has nothing to do with family photos. Like, I'm very happy that the Google Pixel seven Pro can like, take a better picture of a child than

• 45:26Alex Cranz?

  Yes.

• 45:27Nilay Patel?

  The phone that came before it or a phone from two years ago. But just philosophically, the thing that happens when you push a shutter button is getting farther and farther away from like centuries of cultural expectation of what pushing a shutter button does.

• 45:42Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 45:42Nilay Patel?

  And there's no like underlying transparency of here is this moment as it existed in time. And here is this thing that we made. That is the best version of that moment.

• 45:53David Pierce?

  Yeah, I remember Google saying to me a while ago, and I think this was with the either the first or the second pixel, that, do you guys remember with those phones, you would take the picture and then you would open it up in the Photos app? And it would show up slightly blurry and then it would sort of resolve.

• 46:07Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 46:08David Pierce?

  They told me at the time, and there's like a 60% chance this was a lie, but they told me at the time that that was deliberate, that it's like it should, you, they wanted you to understand that something was happening to the photo that you took as Google was like working its magic on it. And that should have gotten better and instead it just went away. And it's like, it's so abstracted away from what users see now.

• 46:31Alex Cranz?

  It's weird because like camera makers figured this out, right? They said, okay, you'll get a raw and that's what we're taking. That's optically the thing.

• 46:39David Pierce?

  Right.

• 46:39Alex Cranz?

  And then we're going to give you a JPG. And a Canon JPG is going to be way warmer than it should be because Canon just thinks that's prettier. And, and we're going to do tons and tons of processing. And so like, they've already kind of acknowledged that and said, okay, but we're still going to give you the raw. And Apple's finally giving us the raw. And I think like, kind of making that connection and, and making that more common might be part of the solution here to like, escape this like, kind of wonky philosophical and potentially legal quandary.

• 47:08David Pierce?

  Totally. So the, the thing about the camera that really struck me though, it was like, in the course of all of these announcements, was they just did the Apple stuff with the camera, right? They're doing some of the same pixel binning. The, the cinematic stuff is very Apple, all of this. And this all came as simultaneously, Google is just taking every opportunity it can to just knife Apple about RCS and crash detection coming three years ago and all this stuff. And it's just like, I had this moment of sitting there and being like, oh, all phones are the same now. And everybody's just going to yell at each other about everything and all the phones are the same. Like, this is just where we are.

• 47:45Alex Cranz?

  Yep.

• 47:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they made, they had the list, right? It was like the always on display and car crash detection, lock screen widgets, night mode. They made a list, like, here's all the stuff we did first that Apple picked up. And then they, it's true, they got to the camera section and they're like, here's what we can do. It's a 2X zoom and we crop the sensor. And it's like, yeah, we just, I think there's, there's an element where it's, once you have the big pixel bin sensor, there's a handful of moves that you get out of it. That are very obvious, right?

• 48:15David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 48:15Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 48:15Nilay Patel?

  You can stop pixel bending and you can crop it and use the pixels natively. It all comes down to the processing on the backend. So I, you know, I think you all know this way. Apple's processing to me is just like way out of control lately. And pixel has traditionally been better. So like, I think we got to review the phones to see.

• 48:31David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 48:31Nilay Patel?

  It just, I just keep coming back to this, like, Google is being so aggressive with letting AI step in and fix the photos that like, it's like, don't even trust this anymore. I don't know. Maybe it's just like old school.

• 48:43David Pierce?

  Yeah, I mean, it was interesting being in the room too, because the demos that they showed, like, Apple, Apple is very funny in the sense that there's very clearly like a large team of people at Apple whose job it is to just go to beautiful waterfalls and take the pictures that they use in their slides.

• 48:58Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 48:59David Pierce?

  And they even said during the keynote today that like, one of the pictures they use as an example of how good the zoom was, was just like a shot a person who works at Google took. And the demos they showed were not great, but were probably substantially more realistic than the stuff that like, I'm gonna get out of my iPhone.

• 49:16Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, because iPhone, the iPhone is like, you know what? Are you ever on a dune in a desert at night?

• 49:24David Pierce?

  With 11 professional photographers.

• 49:26Alex Cranz?

  You've ever been there?

• 49:27Nilay Patel?

  Ever worn a sweater at dusk in Paris? With three beautiful people?

• 49:32David Pierce?

  And there's just a cat over there.

• 49:33Nilay Patel?

  Full crew of wedding engineers.

• 49:35Alex Cranz?

  And everyone has very vibrant hats on.

• 49:40Nilay Patel?

  The next time we review the phones, the hat budget's gotta, gotta increase.

• 49:43Alex Cranz?

  We gotta absolutely increase it.

• 49:45David Pierce?

  But it was just striking to me to see, like, A, these two companies are competing more head to head, I think, than ever. Because like, Google's talking a ton about tensor. At the same time, Apple is talking a ton about the recent A series and M series chips. And it's like, these companies are competing along the same lines now.

• 50:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 50:02David Pierce?

  And it's going to be really interesting over the next couple of years to see. There's so many places they could push it, but they're all betting on it.

• 50:07Nilay Patel?

  There's one line they're not competing on, which is that Apple sells a million phones and carriers will all be paying you to get a new iPhone.

• 50:15David Pierce?

  Fair.

• 50:15Nilay Patel?

  And Google sells vanishingly few phones. I think Vlad Savov, one of our former Verge senior editor, former co-founder, any former co-founder, existing co-founder, permanent co-founder. Now Bloomberg tweeted, he asked IDC, "Google since 2016 has sold like 27 million pixels? That's as many phones as Samsung sells in a year." Like. Google has to sell like, I mean, it's just like ridiculous situation.

• 50:39Alex Cranz?

  So many more phones.

• 50:40David Pierce?

  Yeah. And there was a, there was a line today that Google has like doubled its order for the Pixel 7s because they're, they're hoping to sell more. And it's really, it's like, they're going from like a tiny number to a tiny number. Good job, Google. We're proud of you. But it's a long road to go here.

• 50:57Nilay Patel?

  It's a long road to go. Uh, we should quickly, we gotta get, you gotta bring Liz on to Elon. We should quickly talk about a tablet.

• 51:03Alex Cranz?

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:04Nilay Patel?

  I'm very excited about just because I, I have a Nest Hub. And we use it for photos and we talk to Google to set timers, all the things. Well, the one thing you do, you set timers, you ask for music. Occasionally you ask it to play YouTube TV, which is very cool when it works. So like having a bigger version of that is cool. But if you can also run Chrome on a fast processor, done. Yes. Like kitchen computer solved. And so like, I'm going to buy one in this dock that lets you turn it into a Nest Hub, just because having the backstop of like, screw it, I'm just going to open Chrome.

• 51:36Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 51:37Nilay Patel?

  It sounds great.

• 51:38Alex Cranz?

  But Lenovo already did it. Lenovo's been doing it, right? Like.

• 51:43Nilay Patel?

  But they put like a garbage MediaTek processor in the thing.

• 51:46David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 51:47Alex Cranz?

  With like a, the big bezel.

• 51:49Nilay Patel?

  Amazon has already done it too, but then you've got to use Amazon's weird browser on their bad chip.

• 51:54Alex Cranz?

  So, so what's appealing to you is that it's, it's a different form. It's a different processor.

• 51:59Nilay Patel?

  What's appealing to me is that Google appears to have cared about processing capability in a tablet by putting in their high-end ARM chip.

• 52:06Alex Cranz?

  Everybody else is just like.

• 52:07Nilay Patel?

  Right. Like Lenovo has done it, but like fully cheaped out on this tablet.

• 52:11David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 52:11Nilay Patel?

  Like bad display, chunky, you know, bad construction, shitty processor. Like life's too short for slow computers, man. You know, like I'm gonna just go get my laptop.

• 52:21Alex Cranz?

  How, how expensive is it gonna be? That's, that's like, because like Lenovo cheaped out because they were like, we want to get it down to a price that it makes sense. And this is like, seems pricey.

• 52:31Nilay Patel?

  David, did they have the tablet there? Did you get to play with it?

• 52:33David Pierce?

  No, we went, we went looking for it. And there were, there were several instances of people like wandering around the Google Store, trying to peel apart a Nest Hub Max to try and find it, to no avail.

• 52:44Nilay Patel?

  That's pretty good.

• 52:45David Pierce?

  But the, there was no tablet and we don't know what it's gonna cost. We don't know when it's coming. It does, from all the videos, look very much like a Samsung tablet from like eight years ago. But it seems to be very powerful. And I'm with you on the idea that like a full Chrome browser on my Nest Hub Max goes a long way. Like, I think the big questions for me are like, is the speaker in the dock gonna be any good? Are they gonna do a good job with the far field microphones so that it feels enough like a Nest from far away? And how much does it cost?

• 53:11Nilay Patel?

  Are they gonna do the ambient photo mode thing where they do the reflective color? You know, like, they gotta do that to make this really work.

• 53:16David Pierce?

  Yes.

• 53:17Alex Cranz?

  They, they gotta release it first.

• 53:19David Pierce?

  Well, there's, there's that too. It is very much still vaporware. But I think they, they said this thing during the keynote that was like, a lot of people get tablets and then they're like dead in drawers or charging in corners all the time. And that is largely my experience of owning a tablet. It's like, it is a home device. Like, it is a thing I use around my house much more often than I use it anywhere else. And so I think they're like, they're, they're on to something smart about how people actually use their tablets. We'll see how well they actually pull it off. But I agree that like fast processor and full Chrome browser instantly makes this thing more useful than anything else I've ever put in my kitchen.

• 53:53Alex Cranz?

  Than the KitchenAid?

• 53:54Nilay Patel?

  It's true. The knives?

• 53:56David Pierce?

  It's the second most useful gadget I've ever put in my kitchen. Is the KitchenAid-

• 54:01Nilay Patel?

  Good sir, do you not have a stove?

• 54:02David Pierce?

  Can we talk about this? Is a kitchen, is a sink a gadget?

• 54:04Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I want. I want a 2.3 gigahertz processor in my microwave. I want it stacked. All right, that's all the stuff. We're, we're gonna get it, we're gonna get reviews. We're gonna go into it in detail when we actually get a chance to play with this stuff outside of the watchful eyes of Google employees. That's coming up soon. We gotta take a break, bring Liz on. Oh, boy, we gotta talk about Elon and Twitter. We'll be right back.

• 54:33Speaker 06

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• 55:02Speaker 07

  Support for this show comes from Harvey AI. The future of law is agentic, not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from secure data sources, run subagents in parallel, and draft the work product ready for your review. So you delegate the work and own the judgment. Trusted by more than 60% of the AM Law 100 and leading Fortune 500 legal teams, Harvey is the AI operating system designed specifically for legal work. Harvey, AI tailored for law. Learn more at harvey.ai.

• 55:47Nilay Patel?

  Okay, Liz Lapata, welcome to the Vergecast.

• 55:49Speaker 08

  Thanks for having me, folks. Good to be here.

• 55:51Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so let's just be honest. We've been recording for an hour. It's Thursday, October 6th. Has anything happened in the last hour with Elon and Twitter?

• 56:01Speaker 08

  Yes.

• 56:02Nilay Patel?

  Of course.

• 56:03Speaker 08

  So I

• 56:06Nilay Patel?

  As is always, okay, so does he own it yet?

• 56:08Speaker 08

  No.

• 56:09Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 56:10Speaker 08

  So he filed a thing with the Delaware court saying, hey, we should have a stay of proceedings because I'm totally gonna buy it. Like, I'm totally buying it this time. And then Twitter, like, filed their own little thing that's like, absolutely don't stay the proceedings. We don't buy this. We think he's up to some mischief. Which, you know what? I kind of agree with Twitter here because, like, just given what a week today has been, I think that, like, I think that we're, I think we're in for more shenanigans and I also think I'm still going to Delaware.

• 56:38Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so let's just back up. When Liz says she's going to Delaware, what she means is she's going not for like a pleasure visit, although I think you might have a good time. She's gonna go to the trial, which is taking place at the Delaware Chancery Court, right? That's what you might do in Delaware.

• 56:51Speaker 08

  That is what I'm going to do.

• 56:53Nilay Patel?

  Let's just back up before today in this last hour of surprise news. So Elon said he was gonna buy Twitter for $54.20 a share. It's $44 billion. It's April.

• 57:02Speaker 08

  Nice.

• 57:03Nilay Patel?

  God only knows what it is. And a bunch of rich people.

• 57:05David Pierce?

  Neil, wait, wait, wait. Please sum up the entirety of the last six months of Elon and Twitter in the next 60 or so seconds. Just go.

• 57:11Nilay Patel?

  Can we start a clock? Start a clock?

• 57:16Speaker 08

  All right, my timer's going. You've got, you've got 60 seconds starting now.

• 57:20Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so in April Elon tweeted himself into buying Twitter. There's no other way to describe it. For $54.20 a share, which is $44 billion.

• 57:28Speaker 08

  Nice.

• 57:28Nilay Patel?

  It turns out a bunch of rich people texted him embarrassing ideas about Twitter, including Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, who just said things like Twitter OS, conversational OS for your life. And Elon said, screw you. Then May, he gets cold feet. He sues Twitter, says, I want out of the deal because there's so many bots on your platform. Twitter says, what the hell are you talking about? We'll see you in the Delaware Court of Chancery. We've been in a lawsuit ever since. Elon's entire bot argument has proven to be a total fraud, full of shenanigans. He's losing, losing, losing. We're coming up on trial. He's supposed to be deposed today. Trial starts October 17. He files a letter with the Security and Exchange Commission, not the court, saying, I'm fine. I'm gonna do it. The court puts out a letter yesterday saying, no one has filed a motion to stay this trial. We continue. Then there's been a lot of shenanigans today,

• 58:11Nilay Patel?

  leading up to Elon saying to the court, please stay, which means pause the trial. I'm actually gonna do it. Twitter won't say yes for an answer. That was the last hour.

• 58:20Speaker 08

  That's a minute.

• 58:20Nilay Patel?

  And now we're here.

• 58:22David Pierce?

  That was amazing. Well done.

• 58:25Speaker 08

  So I also want to say, the other thing is, if you weren't paying attention, there are reports that Elon, his deposition got moved back, which is what I think all of the shenanigans this week were about, was, were about pushing back that deposition by saying, oh, Twitter, we're really serious. Come back to the bargaining table. Because, you know, this was gonna be a really unpleasant deposition for him because the judge found this week that he may have irretrievably deleted some Signal messages that pertain to the deal, which, not great. And then there's also a bunch of questions about the bot stuff because that didn't really show up in the text messages that we saw with, for instance, Parag Agrawal. Who had sort of politely asked Elon to stop saying rude stuff about Twitter on Twitter. And Elon was like, what did you do this week?

• 59:10Speaker 08

  Which like, pretty solid burn.

• 59:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, just to be clear, he said, stop. I think it was like, what did you get accomplished this week? Or what did you get done this week implying that he was.

• 59:18David Pierce?

  What did you get done this week?

• 59:19Alex Cranz?

  Yeah. Yeah, like 30 seconds after the text from Prague came in.

• 59:25Speaker 08

  Again, a pretty solid burn, but like, I definitely would not like, you know, go through all of these like court proceedings just to like, get a cool burn in. But like, that's me. I don't know.

• 59:35Nilay Patel?

  So then Elon puts out this letter. We all kind of bought it, right? He says, I'm going to buy Twitter at 5420 a share. And then we like, read the letter and that I'm going to actually buy it was like, conditional in weird ways. Like you have to pause the lawsuit. You have to drop your claims. I have to get my money out of the banks. And we're like, wait, this is nothing. But if you're Twitter, you've already had Elon promise to buy you for 5420 a share.

• 1:00:01David Pierce?

  Right.

• 1:00:02Alex Cranz?

  But this time he means it.

• 1:00:03Nilay Patel?

  Why would you believe him now?

• 1:00:05Alex Cranz?

  You serious, Neelai? Come on.

• 1:00:07Speaker 08

  Oh, and the other thing I'm just going to add here is that Elon is famously an SEC disrespector. Which you may recall from previous shenanigans involving Twitter where he tried to take Tesla Tesla private for 420 a share and then like, changed his mind about that. And then there was a like, an SEC settlement. He was supposed to have like a Twitter sitter, which he maybe or may does or does not have. Sort of hard to tell. So, you know, he's gone on the record saying he doesn't respect the SEC, which makes the SEC letter a particularly funny move to me. Like, yeah, I'm going to file a letter with this organization that has nothing to do with the Delaware court and that I don't respect, saying that I'm going to buy Twitter. Now you should take it seriously.

• 1:00:47David Pierce?

  Well, and it seems like a big part of his whole thing through this whole process has been essentially assuming that the rules don't apply to him. Because he has lots of evidence that the rules don't apply to him. And then slowly realizing. That in the Delaware Court of Chancery, the rules look an awful lot like they're going to apply to him.

• 1:01:03Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 1:01:04David Pierce?

  And as, as that has become more and more clear, he has gotten more and more nervous about what's going to happen, especially as it got towards his deposition and the texts with his friends came out. Neela, the only thing you missed in your description was Jason Calacanis, who I now think is the single funniest and most important part of the entire Elon Musk Twitter saga. Someday, we will just do a dramatic reading of all of his texts on this podcast, and it will be a great day. But that, like, the vibe I get consistently is, is just Elon suddenly going, oh, like, this might actually, I might lose. Like, I don't know that that occurred to him for a long time, and it now sort of seems like it has occurred to him.

• 1:01:38Speaker 08

  Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, one of the things that I've been keeping an eye on throughout this trial is that, or these legal proceedings, I guess, because we haven't gotten to the trial yet. This is the mechanism, the forcing mechanism for Twitter, right? And so, like, if you're trying to get this done because you want certainty, you can do things like say, hey, we'll forego the trial if, and like, maybe knock a buck or two off the deal price if you just do the deal.

• 1:02:10David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:11Speaker 08

  You know, and, but as these, these motions have been coming in, and over and over again, the court has mostly been ruling in favor of Twitter and finding out things like, you know, at the, one of the last hearings, that Elon Musk's bot experts actually seem to agree with Twitter's bot estimates.

• 1:02:28David Pierce?

  That's brutal.

• 1:02:29Speaker 08

  Which is something of a problem for Elon Musk's case, just putting it out there. As we're finding these things out, his case just looks worse and worse. And although, like, the lawyers who are working on this case are really serious and frankly, kind of scary, this isn't the kind of case that even serious and scary lawyers can be certain they're going to win, because I don't think the facts are necessarily in Elon's favor. And so, the closer we get to this, the more we find this out. And then, like, the other thing that's going on is the deposition, which was supposed to happen today and got pushed back. So my personal going theory, like, everybody tinfoil hats on, because I can't see what's happening in these negotiations, I'm just guessing.

• 1:03:12Speaker 08

  But my personal theory is that he tried to push back his deposition by filing this letter with the SEC.

• 1:03:19Speaker 08

  And succeeded in doing so. And there's a really hard deadline coming up for all of the pre-trial stuff, which I believe is October 12th. So if Elon Musk's deposition is pushed back, that gives Twitter less time to work with it and less time to prepare for trial, because he's super important to all of these events. And that like, kind of makes trial a lot more annoying for Twitter.

• 1:03:43Alex Cranz?

  Can he, sorry, can he avoid, can he like, push the deposition back even further? Be like, I got a cold today, so I can't do it. So, oh, and I guess we're gonna have to push the whole trial?

• 1:03:53Speaker 08

  Well, he's already done that once. So I feel like

• 1:03:58Nilay Patel?

  That's good.

• 1:03:58Speaker 08

  I feel like the answer is probably no. And you end up in a relatively serious situation where your lawyers get sanctioned or something if, you know, he doesn't get deposed before trial. And I don't think his lawyers really want to be sanctioned. So I think he does actually get deposed if we go to trial. I just think that it's going to be in a super annoying and inconvenient way, because the entire legal strategy here, I would characterize as the I'm not touching you legal strategy, where it's like, you know, like, it's technically within the rules, but it's really annoying. And like, it's violating the spirit, but maybe not the letter of the law. And so that's kind of what I think is happening here.

• 1:04:39Nilay Patel?

  This is my favorite, like, it's not even a C plot. It's like a D or an E plot, is that the state of Delaware is the state where all businesses get registered. Like, Vox Media is a Delaware corporate, like, just down the line. Any big company is a Delaware corporation. And they like, hold themselves out in the market of states that you might register your corporation in, is like, being good at corporate law, and having this court system that like, adjudicates disputes efficiently. And Elon is fucking with that.

• 1:05:13Nilay Patel?

  Right. And so like this court like wants none of it. And then the lawyers in this court have other clients in these courts and their rep is like getting screwed with. And you can just see it's like, oh, this is bad. Like we look, we got, we have a real nice little country club going here in Delaware. Get out. Like you can just see that there's, there's kind of like the part where the rules apply in the Delaware court is kind of because the state of Delaware is like image is on the line for where all these corporate disputes happen. And all of the players inside those disputes are pretty clubby. Like these lawyers are going to be back in front of this judge tomorrow on a different case. This judge has

• 1:05:55Nilay Patel?

  a rep with her appeals court, like just up and down the line. This is a group of people that work together to do these things all day long. And Elon's desires are sort of like just tangential to it.

• 1:06:06Speaker 08

  So the other thing that's worth keeping in mind, Delaware being a center for corporate law, is that there are other Elon Musk suits that are currently pending in Delaware.

• 1:06:17Speaker 08

  My personal favorite is a lawsuit about his pay package, which incidentally is going to be going in front of this very same judge. So she's going to have some feelings about how much she can rely on what he has to say based on what's happened here. So I kind of feel like maybe as in being annoying as annoying as possible in order to like make Twitter unhappy is not the best long-term strategy here. But I'm not Elon Musk. So who knows? Maybe everything works out beautifully for him. Not only does he walk away from the Twitter deal, leaving like a smoking crater, he also like gets his amazing pay package and that's the end of that. But I just think

• 1:07:00Speaker 08

  strategically, it's a really bad idea to annoy judges. That's, that's just my like non, you know, expert thought about the legal system is that maybe don't annoy the judges.

• 1:07:14David Pierce?

  Well, and is it a fair characterization to say that Kathleen McCormick, who's the chancellor in Delaware and is adjudicating this case, basically has made very clear that her general stance is like, "I'm not having any of this bullshit. I don't want to play your dumb games. Let's just keep things moving." Like, that seems to have been her overwhelming response this week was like, "Cute story, everybody. See you on October 17th."

• 1:07:36Speaker 08

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, she said so in one of her filings that she hadn't received. She hadn't received anything. And I just like, I just saw something cross the, "Guys, hold on."

• 1:07:47Nilay Patel?

  She grant the stay?

• 1:07:48Speaker 08

  It looks like she granted the stay.

• 1:07:50Nilay Patel?

  Okay, we should do it live.

• 1:07:52David Pierce?

  This is great. Yeah, this is happening live.

• 1:07:53Nilay Patel?

  This is how we're gonna end the segment. Here you go.

• 1:07:56David Pierce?

  This feels extremely appropriate that this is happening live.

• 1:07:58Speaker 08

  This is just what my day has been like. I've been trying to keep up with the court filings, and honestly, I'm just sort of getting rolled over.

• 1:08:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:08Speaker 08

  Okay, let's, let's look at this.

• 1:08:10Nilay Patel?

  Should we read it together?

• 1:08:12Speaker 08

  Yes. So, "The action is stayed until 5:00 PM on October 28th, 2022, to permit the parties to close on the transaction. If the transaction does not close by 5:00 PM on October 28th, 2022, the parties are instructed to contact me by email that evening to obtain November 2022 trial dates."

• 1:08:33Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 1:08:34David Pierce?

  And then in all caps, "It is so ordered", which is an unbelievably fantastic way to end all communication that I intend to do from now on.

• 1:08:40Nilay Patel?

  I mean, that's what, if you're a judge, you get to do it all the time.

• 1:08:43David Pierce?

  I know, it rules.

• 1:08:44Nilay Patel?

  So, she granted Elon's motion and said, "Okay, we're giving you a delay for basically 11 days, right? The trial was supposed to start on October 17th."

• 1:08:53Speaker 08

  Right.

• 1:08:53Nilay Patel?

  And she's like, "We're giving you 11 more days until October 28th to figure it out with Twitter. And if it doesn't, you have to let me know, and we're gonna go to trial in November." Now, I know why she did this. Most cases should settle. The correct policy outcome in this case is not the government ordering Elon Musk to buy Twitter.

• 1:09:14David Pierce?

  Right.

• 1:09:15Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 1:09:15Nilay Patel?

  It just isn't.

• 1:09:15Speaker 08

  That's just the funniest.

• 1:09:17Nilay Patel?

  It's the funniest. And that's like, courts don't want to do it. They want people to settle their own disputes. And so she's holding the sword and she's like, I've still got it. I'm just going to put it away for 10, 10 more days and you figure it out. And I think what they need to figure out is a discount on the price, right? Like, that's gotta be what they're holding them up.

• 1:09:37Speaker 08

  That's sort of the question to me. I actually think, given the SEC letter, it's not about, it's not about a discount on the price at this point. I think it's about the condition for the deal. So, what I like-

• 1:09:52Nilay Patel?

  This is live reacting.

• 1:09:55Speaker 08

  Like, what I, what I think is going on here, given that Elon has said he'll buy the price he previously agreed to, and that the shareholders have already voted for that price, is that a lower price is unlikely. I think instead, Twitter wants confirmation this deal gets done. Like, they want to make sure that they're not Charlie Brown and Lucy isn't going to take the football away again. So, my guess is, like, there's some sort of terms and conditions they want to hammer out. And like, that's been part of the holdup in this whole process, is that Twitter is saying that Musk has put conditions on this that weren't on the original deal. And I don't blame them for wanting to go ahead with the court case, especially because they think they're going to win and Elon Musk is going

• 1:10:36Speaker 08

  to have to pay all their legal bills in addition to all of his own legal bills. That said, like, I don't know, man. I, I'm, I'm still skeptical about this. We'll see. If I'm in Delaware in November, I'm going to be real annoyed. Let's put it that way.

• 1:10:54Nilay Patel?

  It's very cold. Liz is very excited about being Delaware in October, but once you get past October-

• 1:10:59Speaker 08

  The leaves are changing, yeah. That's exactly what it is. I live in California. I don't get to see, like, fall foliage. So, I was like, alright, well, that'll be really pretty. Like, I'm excited about that. Like, maybe I'll go for a hike or something. That'll be cool.

• 1:11:11Nilay Patel?

  Delaware in November, it's happening for you. So, here's what I'll say. So, the Twitter letter opposing Elon's motion to stay, which means to delay, they're like-

• 1:11:20Nilay Patel?

  They haven't, he still hasn't accepted his contractual obligations. He hasn't put a timeline on it. He won't give us a closing date. And so the judge here has at least solved one problem. She said, I'm giving you a date. If you're not, if this date, you don't hit it, October 28th, we're going to trial. So we'll see. I mean, they could hit it sooner, but there's the, the threat is still there. And I think that the threat is the most important thing for Twitter. The underlying conditions, we'll see. It's just going to be weird when, when he ends up in either direction. He ends up like squirreling out of it, or he ends up owning Twitter. Both extraordinarily weird outcomes.

• 1:11:56David Pierce?

  Obviously you're live reacting here, but like, does this, do we have any sense that this makes one or the other of those things any more likely?

• 1:12:03Speaker 08

  Oh, I think Elon Musk winds up owning Twitter. I think it's just about all over about the shouting at this point.

• 1:12:08Alex Cranz?

  Well, I have questions about the money because Twitter's lawyers said something earlier today to the judge. And, and one of the things they said was like, people from these banks have testified that they haven't talked to him about closing the deal. Whereas, and so like, where is the money going to come from? Doesn't he have to sell Tesla stock? Doesn't he have to still get all of these banks to like, do this all in 11 days? And for banks, that's three days, as I understand it.

• 1:12:33Speaker 08

  So he's definitely already sold a bunch of Tesla stock. So that, that part is, that part is handled. And then Matt Levine, who I think you all know, we stan here at the verge. Stan a legend, been reading him since Dealbreaker. He has like the sort of blow by blow of how this kind of thing works. And he doesn't seem to think it's that big of a deal for these lawyers to get it done. Maybe they haven't talked to each other in a while. Maybe it's going to be a little slower than one might anticipate, but he thinks, he thinks it happens. And I have no reason not to believe him, not least of which is that he like, he's a former corporate lawyer. Like, he actually knows how this stuff gets done from the inside. Now, do I think that there are, there's a possibility of Elon Musk shenanigans? I do.

• 1:13:18Speaker 08

  I always think that there's a possibility for Elon Musk shenanigans. So I'm like, we'll see. I, I will believe the deal is closed when I see that the deal has closed and not before that, because I just, there are so, there have been so many like weird like moments in this case, like, you know. For instance, involving the All In podcast, which is hosted by Jason Calacanis. And like, I gotta say, like, one of the things that I appreciate about the texts is that he sounds exactly like he sounds on that podcast. So you know, he's like legit.

• 1:13:50Nilay Patel?

  Yep. Yes. I have known Jason for a long time. Jason started in Gadget. There's no, the man is, there's no opacity to that man. It's his best quality. It's, he's the same person in every, in every. The game is the game. Yeah.

• 1:14:03Speaker 08

  Yeah. Dude's authentic. So, you know, like, there's been a lot of stuff going on, some of which has been goofy, some of which has been ridiculous, some of which has just felt like stalling. Like, a lot of the stuff this week, to me, has felt like stalling. But we'll see. I don't know. Like, maybe this is like Elon turning over a new leaf and getting really excited about testifying in front of Congress about his social media platform and what he's doing to, like, oppose the various things that Congress thinks are bad.

• 1:14:32Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah. Liz assigned me this story when we thought this deal was actually, when we thought that letter meant something. She's like, you've got to write the Elon Musk, Elon Musk content moderation story. I will tell you, I'm gonna write it when the deal closes. I'm just, I'm not gonna do it before, I'm not gonna do my homework before I have to. Yeah. We've been played before. But my proposed headline is straight up, "Welcome to Hell, Elon Musk."

• 1:14:53Nilay Patel?

  So, okay. And it's just a list of things that he's gonna have to figure out that, basically, no one in history has ever figured out.

• 1:14:58Speaker 08

  I just want Vergecast listeners to hold Neelai accountable to this. Like, I just want you all to make sure that he files on time.

• 1:15:05Nilay Patel?

  I will write the headline, "Welcome to Hell, Elon Musk."

• 1:15:07Speaker 08

  Pure pressure, pure pressure my boss into filing to me. Okay. Sorry, David.

• 1:15:11David Pierce?

  I just, I have found myself wondering. So there was this, like, clearly strategic leak that The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both had, like, an exactly simultaneous exclusive story saying that Elon had tried to get a lower price for Twitter. And all I've been able to wonder in, like, the 24 hours since is, what is the number that Elon flips from "I will pay this much to not own Twitter" to "I will pay this much to own Twitter"? And it's like, if Twitter just sits down and it's like, the number's $30 billion, like, would he rather pay $30 billion and then have Twitter at the end? Or would he rather pay $30 billion and then just go about his life and never have to think about any of this again? And I feel like there is a number somewhere where that flips, and I have been wondering a lot about what it is.

• 1:15:47Speaker 08

  It's 5369.

• 1:15:50David Pierce?

  It ends in 69 for sure. That's the only thing we know.

• 1:15:53Nilay Patel?

  No, it's definitely, it's definitely 49 or 4269.

• 1:15:59Nilay Patel?

  Here's a question that like, no matter what happens, he's still addicted to Twitter.

• 1:16:04David Pierce?

  Yes.

• 1:16:06Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, he can't quit this shit. So even if he pays the money and walks, he's like, you know, he's gonna have that moment where like, gets home alone and it's all done and like, you know, and he's still riding high, but there's no one there. Everyone knows this moment, right? And then he like, there's a beat and he pulls out his phone.

• 1:16:22David Pierce?

  He's just gonna tweet, "I love cheese."

• 1:16:24Nilay Patel?

  And like, you know, and there's like, no one in the house. He's like, talked about how it's weird when there's no one in his house.

• 1:16:29David Pierce?

  Yep.

• 1:16:29Nilay Patel?

  And then he like, pulls out his phone and he's like, "Oh, what app should I open?" And it's Twitter. And then he's like, tweets some insane shit about Russia and Ukraine again. Like, it doesn't matter how much money he loses. At the end of the day, Twitter has Elon. Elon doesn't have Twitter.

• 1:16:45David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:46Nilay Patel?

  Like, it's just, they're the same thing now. All right. We've gone over, my friends, as always. Thank you, Liz. There's some stuff you should read. Allison, there's like, a lot of things happened today.

• 1:16:58David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:58Nilay Patel?

  A lot of things happened today, including, I would remind you, the reveal of Chris Pratt's liar's mouth in the new Mario trailer.

• 1:17:07David Pierce?

  That feels like it was decades ago now.

• 1:17:09Alex Cranz?

  So long ago.

• 1:17:10Nilay Patel?

  Allison reviewed the iPhone 14 Plus. Big screen. I'm telling you, big, cheap screens, the way to go.

• 1:17:16David Pierce?

  Long battery life on that thing, too. Big battery life.

• 1:17:19Nilay Patel?

  Long battery life. The Steam Deck is now available with no reservations, which I can't believe Alex didn't do a whole hour on that on the show.

• 1:17:28Alex Cranz?

  I'm fine. I'm, I already have mine. Go get one.

• 1:17:31Nilay Patel?

  You already have one? Of course. The Madder standard is now official. By the way, Twitter rolled out the edit button in the United States for Twitter Blue subscribers today. In another time, there was a whole hour of our show. Just like, it's a huge week. Go look at the site. It's all on there. We got a quick post for days. Yeah, we're over. Go read the website. It's full of, oh, uh, the European Union passed another checkbox enforcing Apple to use USB-C.

• 1:17:56Alex Cranz?

  Just a little closer.

• 1:17:57Nilay Patel?

  All the things. The interview on Decoder this week was Pat Gelsinger, the CEO of Intel. That was a pretty good one. We'll be back on Wednesday. Cybersecurity week is kicking off, right, David?

• 1:18:06David Pierce?

  That's, yeah, we're gonna do a big cybersecurity episode in a couple of weeks, but it is like, like, Infrastructure Week in America. Cybersecurity Week is a couple of weeks long on The Verge, so we're gonna have some fun stuff over the next couple of weeks.

• 1:18:17Nilay Patel?

  All right, you can tweet at us. David is at Pierce, Alex is Alex H. Krantz, Liz is at MSLopato, I'm at Reckless. We love hearing from you. Keep sending notes with the redesign. We're starting to ship little changes here and there. There's some bigger ones coming. We love the feedback. It's great. Love you. That's the Vergecast.

• 1:18:38Speaker 00

  And that's a wrap for Vergecast this week. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, subscribe in the podcast app of your choice, or tell a friend. You can send us feedback at [email protected]. This show is produced by me, Liam James, and our senior audio director, Andrew Moreno. This episode was edited and mixed by Amanda Rose Smith. Our editorial director is Brooke Minter, and our executive producer is Eleanor Donovan. The Vergecast is a production of The Verge and Vox Media Podcast Network. And that's it. We'll see you next week.

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