Galaxy S20 Ultra's camera issues and Bob Iger steps down as Disney CEO

Stories discussed this week: Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra review: shutter bug Samsung pledges to improve Galaxy S20 camera after reviewers see issues Bob Iger steps down as Disney CEO, replaced by Bob Chapek Meet Bob Chapek, Disney’s new CEO and the Tim Cook to Iger’s Steve Jobs Disney’s new corporate synergy nightmare is personified in Simpsons promo New Juul patent application hints at AI-powered vape to help users quit nicotine Apple’s new Mac Pro and Pro Display technology overviews show off just how ‘pro’ they are Sony did a phone with a headphone jack! LG’s new V60 ThinQ 5G shows steady evolution for a company in need of big change Amazon’s Eero routers get updated with Apple’s HomeKit support Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus review: better sound, even better stamina Huawei announces the Mate XS foldable with a more durable display and faster processor Xbox Series X official specs: AMD CPU, 12 teraflop GPU, SSD, and more Microsoft’s Xbox Series X will be able to resume games even after a reboot Microsoft confirms Xbox Series X will support "four generations of gaming" 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.

• 0:00Nilay Patel?

  This week on The Vergecast, we go deep on the Galaxy S20 Ultra and what's going on with its camera. Julia Alexander joins us to talk about the big changes at the top of Disney and do a little grab bag of news from MWC. It's a fun one. It's a Vergecast coming up now.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  Companies shouldn't have to choose between speed and control. Amex Corporate connects cards with flexible spending controls and real-time visibility to help teams adapt faster. Built to simplify, designed to scale. This is Amex Corporate. Get started at go.amex/ammexcorporate. Terms apply.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing and wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com slash applewatchseries12.

• 1:11Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of megapixels.

• 1:16Nilay Patel?

  I mean, my super bin. It's a megapixel.

• 1:18Speaker 03

  If there were such a thing as non-abinning of podcasts, we would.

• 1:22Nilay Patel?

  Well, we've all gathered together in New York. We've non-abinned ourselves. I'm your friend, Neil. Dieter Bohn is in New York.

• 1:27Speaker 03

  Not abinning it away.

• 1:28Nilay Patel?

  Paul Miller is in New York.

• 1:29Speaker 04

  Hello.

• 1:30Nilay Patel?

  We're all here.

• 1:31Speaker 04

  Is it a centamegapixel? Is that a word? Is that how you would say it? 100 megapixels is a centamega?

• 1:37Nilay Patel?

  A centamega.

• 1:37Speaker 03

  Centamega.

• 1:38Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's been a busy week, but I would say our week has been dominated. Dieter's life has been dominated by the Galaxy S20 Ultra.

• 1:46Speaker 03

  Here's a thing that I will say to you. It would be nice to review a flagship, premier, amazing, new, expensive Samsung phone without it turning into a dramatic fiasco.

• 2:02Nilay Patel?

  I disagree. As a, as a person who's like, I gotta get through an hour of conversation about a phone review every week.

• 2:10Nilay Patel?

  I like the dramatic.

• 2:11Speaker 03

  We need content.

• 2:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's what I'm in it for. All right, can, let me just try to set some stage.

• 2:17Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:18Nilay Patel?

  Dieter Bohn works at The Verge.

• 2:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:21Nilay Patel?

  You review a lot of phones.

• 2:23Speaker 03

  I do.

• 2:23Nilay Patel?

  I would say lately, a trend is big companies messing with how phones are reviewed.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah, a little bit.

• 2:35Nilay Patel?

  Right, so like, I don't know, like Walt Mossberg, Walt used to work at The Verge, he had a long distinguished career at The Wall Street Journal. For most of that time, a product would come out, they would like, someone would announce it.

• 2:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:46Nilay Patel?

  Then they would give one to reviewers.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:49Nilay Patel?

  Some time would pass.

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:51Nilay Patel?

  An embargo would lift.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:53Nilay Patel?

  Walt would have negotiated an embargo like eight hours before hours.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:58Nilay Patel?

  Driving us crazy with our young pups.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 3:00Nilay Patel?

  So Walt's review'd go out and then ours would go out the next day.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:04Nilay Patel?

  Uh, but that's usually what happens. Uh, fair, that is the standard format for all products announced. You announce it, you make a big thing, you bring in a bunch of reporters and reviewers, you brief them, you give the reviewers review units, they go out in the world, they use the product. You have a bunch of phone calls about what they're seeing, what they're not seeing. They write a review, all the reviews drop on an embargo date.

• 3:23Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 3:24Nilay Patel?

  I'm sure anybody listening to this has been aware of like 50 reviews getting dropped all at the same time.

• 3:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:30Nilay Patel?

  This year has not featured that pattern to a large extent.

• 3:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, and in this discussion, you might be tempted to think that we're just demanding that things go back to the good old days when, you know, we knew what the rules are.

• 3:41Nilay Patel?

  I want the Walton bar.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  And, yeah, this isn't that, this is just like, companies are trying to figure out what they want, like how they want the phone reviews to work in a world that is increasingly got like influencers on Instagram, YouTubers that may or may not follow journalistic standards, everybody that we like follow and talk about tends to. They've got, you know, just other ways that their phones get out in the world. And so they're trying to figure out how to contend with that. So sometimes there's like special like. After the main announcement event, there's like a special influencer event where they can like show up and have like a day with the thing in a room or whatever. And other times, what's happening more and more is they'll just release the thing either to

• 4:25Speaker 03

  reviewers on the day it starts selling, or they'll give the thing to reviewers and be like, yeah, just start writing, no embargo, whatever you want. And then we all have to sort of like, like a showdown, like we all like, look at each other in the virtual saloon that is Twitter.

• 4:38Nilay Patel?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  And we're like, when are you gonna draw?

• 4:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  And we like decide how long, like, but it's nice, because then you get to, you get to like, choose how long you are going to spend reviewing a thing instead of trying to hit the embargo that you know everybody's going to hit. But it also means that there's this weird like, how quickly should a review get written? How much time should you spend with it? And why did they choose to do it this way? You would like, have this like, thing in the back of your mind, like, when a movie gets released with no reviews, you know it's bad, right? The movie studio wants to like, have a chance for like, the first three days to go to, to get, move ticket sales before word of mouth is like, oh wait, no, this is bad, right? I don't know whether that rule applies to phones or not. I actually really don't.

• 5:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I think that the broad thing you're saying is true. The media landscape has dramatically changed for everything.

• 5:28Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 5:29Nilay Patel?

  When you're launching a product, you want maximum exposure. In the old days of like, two years ago.

• 5:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:38Nilay Patel?

  Reviewers are the ones who are gonna write about your product. Like, not, there was not an ecosystem of other people following a variety of other rules of how they were gonna-

• 5:46Speaker 03

  You were a key landmark on the path to more exposure.

• 5:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Yeah, we, I mean, the news cycle-

• 5:51Speaker 03

  But also, like, there wasn't like, I don't know, medium.

• 5:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, now there's just like, a lot of people who, like, you can seed a phone to, and they'll just like, produce some content around it.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:00Nilay Patel?

  Fine, like, you can, I don't know, you can go find a famous actor and be like, here's a phone, we post five Instagram photos of you being happy with it, and they'll do it.

• 6:10Speaker 03

  So we can clarify a little bit of the stakes here. Can you, can you clarify the trade off between like, I have a phone for 24 hours, what can I say definitively about it versus, I have a week? Like, you know, what is that trade off? Oh, I mean, with a week, you are more likely to discover bugs. You have a much better sense of battery life. You have a much better sense of like, performance over time. You settle in with the thing. There's things that you might not notice in the first day. Like, is the button actually convenient or not? Is the, you know, whatever, weird new way that it unlocks? Or that the way the home screen works? Or like, is this new setting to do this thing actually useful or not? That you'll try it for the first day, but you're like, yeah. It's like trying a new food.

• 6:52Speaker 03

  I maintain that you should, before you project a food and say, I hate that food, you should eat it three times. The first time, it's like, octopus? I mean, I guess. The second time is like, okay, I tried it once, I got through it. But I'll try it again, let's see if I actually, maybe it was wrong the first time. I gotta have... And then the third time is like, you know, I really hate that thing, but just maybe it was made poorly the first couple of times.

• 7:19Nilay Patel?

  I've been doing this with raw tomatoes for 39 years.

• 7:21Speaker 04

  This is how I approach pop music. I almost dislike every single new pop song I hear.

• 7:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:28Speaker 04

  And then a few of them, I hear them a second time at Starbucks.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  That's how they get you.

• 7:32Speaker 04

  And then the third time...

• 7:34Speaker 03

  Okay, we're completely off.

• 7:35Speaker 04

  It's on my must-listen Spotify playlist.

• 7:37Speaker 03

  Paul, you were like, the first person to ever play Taylor Swift to me. I don't know if I believe this. Okay.

• 7:42Nilay Patel?

  We should talk about the phone.

• 7:43Speaker 03

  We should talk about the phone. All of this was like, a big setup.

• 7:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  A 2020 theme is big companies monkeying with the standard review procedure.

• 7:55Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 7:56Speaker 03

  That has really determined a lot of how reviews get made in the world for a very long time. A lot of monkeying. The first wave, which was a disaster, and I hope everybody learned their lesson, was just to not give review units out. And then Dieter could discover that folding phones are broken.

• 8:16Nilay Patel?

  So we tried that approach with the S20. They just gave you the phone, no embargo.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:21Nilay Patel?

  Which is better or worse. So the embargo, the reason for the embargo is it creates a sense of fairness.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:26Nilay Patel?

  Right. You hand out a phone with no embargo, someone's going to publish it the first day.

• 8:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:30Nilay Patel?

  And that one might not be any good and you don't get to the person who's going to wait a week and do all the rigorous testing. Is it a disadvantage? Whatever.

• 8:37Speaker 03

  Well, so the way it happens now is a lot of people will publish like, like rolling reviews or like constantly updating reviews. And I think that's totally fine. Uh, we, I tend to not like doing that because my first day impression, once I've said it, if I want to like backtrack on it, or I have something else different to say about it, I just, I don't know. I'm slow. I like to like form a complete thought instead of tell you half a thought. That's what Twitter is for with typos. Yeah. I'll tell you half thoughts on Twitter.

• 9:02Nilay Patel?

  All day long for free. Well, Twitter makes money.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:05Nilay Patel?

  That's the real, that's the real rabbit. Okay. All that's say, you got the phone, no embargo, it took you a while. Your review is out.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 9:12Nilay Patel?

  Dramatic fiasco.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  So the, I wanted this whole tangent about not a binning and how the camera works before. So I don't want to do that again, but the, the core of this phone is it's 5G. It's got a huge screen with a high refresh rate. And it has an all new camera system that is a radical departure in many ways from the way that smartphone cameras have worked before. And it has a big ass battery. Huge, high refresh rate screen knocked it out of the park. Samsung wins again. We're making the best display on a smartphone.

• 9:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  They just did. It's great. I love it. The huge battery solves whatever problems might come from any number of things. 5G draining, draining your, uh, your download. That your battery because it downloaded too fast? No problem. Got a huge 5,000 milliamp battery.

• 9:58Nilay Patel?

  Which that was something.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Set the higher refresh rate screen? No problem. Might have like, whatever you do, like the, the paper's over many problems because it's just a big ass battery.

• 10:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  Love it. Great. Huge win. 5G, you know. It's 5G. It exists. Does it? You can find it. Yeah, Paul just ran a speed test on the phone. He got 13 down. But you're probably on LTE. Yeah, you gotta go out to the street corner and stand in one particular spot and then like, literally like make a praying motion to hold the phone up to the tower. Yes, 5G will change everything. We'll all just be more mindful. But T-Mobile 5G in New York is mid-band, and so you can get better speeds sort of everywhere, but it's not radically better. Anyway, I said this. What, you haven't done any robot surgery with your? Don't buy it because it's a 5G phone. You're just gonna get it. It's got this new Snap 865 processor that doesn't seem to me to radically change the experience. Presumably it does in that it like allows them

• 10:48Speaker 03

  to do a bunch of stuff that like they couldn't otherwise do, like that refresh rate screen or whatever. But the big, big bet, the differentiating thing, especially on the S20 Ultra, is the 108-megapixel camera. And it has two problems, one of which everyone has experienced, which is that it has a hard time autofocusing. It hunts for focus. And you really see it in video. You'll see it in photos, but photos is actually, it took me a minute to discover it. It took me more than a day to discover it, actually. Because I just assumed that, you know, I'm not that great of a photographer, which makes me a great phone camera reviewer in some ways, because like, if they can make me take good photos, then like, that's a good sign. But I was getting a lot of autofocus photos, and I was just like,

• 11:30Speaker 03

  I must, I must just be bad at this. But no, it's actually, it's bad at autofocus. Wow, that is one of the most deader things I've ever heard. I'm gonna take this on myself. Yeah, always blame yourself. But then the second thing, and this is a little bit harder to convey, even when I post photos on the website, just because everybody has a different aesthetic thing, and I could put up like an entire gallery, and I might do that later, but with faces in particular, the assumptions that you can make about what the phone will do go completely out the window. So you, you learn a phone's camera will light things in a certain way, will color things in a certain way. You get a sense of what it's gonna do so that you can trust it.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  And then as soon as it sees a face, it's like, eh, just kidding. We're gonna change everything.

• 12:16Speaker 04

  This is the really jarring illustration in your review where you're taking a picture of a guy. He's looking at you.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 12:25Speaker 04

  He looks kind of orange and a little, little fuzzy.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:30Speaker 04

  And then when he looks at 45 degrees,

• 12:33Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 12:33Speaker 04

  He, it's, the picture's way darker. It's way sharper. It's completely different.

• 12:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. And beauty mode is a thing. Skin lightening is a thing. It's a thing that often has like, uh, like racial undertones that are problematic. Uh, we actually very specifically took lots of photos of lots of different people, lots of different skin tones and do not think that Samsung is, uh, doing anything inappropriate in that regard with skin tone. But it is, um, making these like lighting and like white balance choices that are just impossible to predict. When you see a face, um, it might go green. It might go yellow. Who knows? It wants to get rid of shadows and so it like, it just brings up mid-tones and shadows way too much. Um, and then the worst one for me is the softening. It does, it runs a softening filter on faces to get rid of

• 13:20Speaker 03

  like a little bit of blemishes. And I'm okay in principle with a camera doing all of those things, including and especially the softening. But there should be a button that tells you that it's happening and you should be able to turn it off. And there just isn't that for the main camera. It's just on.

• 13:34Speaker 04

  You can use like a pro mode.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  You can turn on pro mode, but then like you're like, you're gonna have to go into pro mode every time?

• 13:41Speaker 04

  And pro mode makes you turn on, like, you have to set all the other settings.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Well, the settings are also like basically on auto and pro mode. So like you could theoretically go to promo, take the photo and it's like functionally equivalent to just leaving it in auto. Basically, sort of, maybe. I don't know. Like, that's the problem, right? But no one's gonna do that. Everyone's gonna hit the shutter button.

• 13:59Speaker 04

  Yeah. And the defaults matter the most on these cameras.

• 14:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  Like we could review every camera with like a variety of pro camera apps.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:07Speaker 04

  And it doesn't count. Like, it's not the real thing. So to be clear, everybody does this with faces.

• 14:15Speaker 03

  Yes, this is correct.

• 14:16Speaker 04

  So if Apple, when it sees a face, the iPhone, Apple literally calls it relighting the face. They will re-expose the face.

• 14:26Nilay Patel?

  They do all their fancy computational photography, all the AI. They're like, we know this scene. We know what it should look like. We will. We've seen a face or two. Yeah. Like, what is? It's the whole, what is a photo conversation? Like, they're, they're sort of generating an image that's closer to what they think it should look like. Google does this. Everybody's kind of remetering and re-exposing, especially with HDR. Samsung is doing it extremely aggressively. Yes. Uh, to the point where turning your head 45 degrees produces just a dramatically different photo, which I don't really know what's going on here. It's, it's hard to tell. But it seems like Samsung's person detection AI, like, only sees a person when you're looking dead at the camera.

• 15:11Nilay Patel?

  And if you just, like, turn away, they're like, where'd the person go? It's like a toddler. It's like a blanket. Like, it's a totally different metering mode if you just turn your head. That seems extremely problematic. Like, it's just confused about what it's looking at. And then it is so, so dramatic when it does see that face and remeter, that you end up with, like, just, it's just a weird-looking photo. Yeah, it's just too much. And I didn't believe, I mean, I, the. Did it believe me? Dramatic fiasco. Part one is, first, the fiasco is localized, the DMs between me and Dieter. Yeah. Just like, is that happening? It's like, many, many more slacks have arrived. Yeah.

• 15:54Nilay Patel?

  Dieter's like, I took 45 more photos. They're in this Lightroom album. I was on a plane. I was like, I don't. Oh, and I was like, you can't, you can't look at this when you're on a plane, because Gogo crushes photos. Don't make any judgments there. At the airport, like, locally downloading files, like, looking at photos of Dieter on a plane. The people sitting next to me in the plane are like, he's looking at that guy a lot.

• 16:16Nilay Patel?

  But it's, it's, it's just obviously there. Yeah. And then there's the second part, which I don't think is quite the metering stuff. It's like Samsung's look is still Samsung's look. Mm-hmm. And they've toned it down a little bit. Yeah. But the, the combo platter of the unpredictable metering.

• 16:33Nilay Patel?

  And the focus in Samsung's look

• 16:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:35Nilay Patel?

  is not good.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  Right, and it not being good when it's like, to me, it's the most important feature of this phone. To other people, it might be the 5G or the size, but to me, it's that. Otherwise, just get an S20 Plus, right? Or an S20, which we will review.

• 16:50Nilay Patel?

  But like, Google throws imaging algorithms at a stock sensor.

• 16:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:55Nilay Patel?

  And what they get out of it is rock-solid consistency.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 16:59Nilay Patel?

  Right, like a pixel photo looks like a pixel photo. I think often produces winners, like, in just a comparison, I often prefer the pixel photo. Apple's gotten really good this year. They're sort of less consistent. I don't know, Deep Fusion ever actually did anything.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:17Nilay Patel?

  It seems like maybe they never actually shipped it, like, I don't even know. Like, there's no way to tell, there's not even a setting that lets you know if it's on. But like, iPhone photos look very good on balance. And they've got a better, like, they're up there.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:30Nilay Patel?

  Right, Samsung is like inconsistent and weird-looking, it's not a competitive zone to be in.

• 17:36Speaker 03

  They have, they do take photos that are up there much of the time, but it's the inconsistency that's the problem. And the big swing of, we're gonna go with a 108-megapixel camera, and I think it's 48 on the telephoto or something, it's 40 on the selfie, and all the binning and all the other stuff, and you could take 108-megapixel photo if it re-mosaics, like, all that extra stuff. I don't know how actually worth it it was. Maybe you get the telephoto, because that's like the other reason to get the Ultra, is you get that periscope lens with the telephoto. And I think at like, up to 30x, which is very impressive, it produces good enough photos. And at 10x, or 8x technically, because that's how far the pixel goes, so that's why I tested it. It wins, hands down, every time.

• 18:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  Like, if you're doing, if you're taking something that is 8x away, and you're zooming in that far, the only thing that will do better is not a phone. Like, a camera, like, get a zoom lens on a real camera, I did it on the Sony RX100 Mark VII, which has got a little 200, you know, zoom lens on it. But yeah, like, that is an unmitigated win. But the question is, what do you blame on like, the new technology, right? Is the autofocus function of the way that they're choosing to do like, phase detector or whatever on the 108-megapixel sensor? I think the answer might be yes, but maybe they can fix it. Because that's the next part, which is they've finally promised a software update to me, like, 12 hours before the review went up.

• 19:00Nilay Patel?

  Wait, can I, can I talk about that part? You're gonna have a much more, I'm just gonna let you have emotions.

• 19:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:06Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna try to step us through the technology.

• 19:08Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 19:09Nilay Patel?

  So there's no embargo.

• 19:11Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:11Nilay Patel?

  This is where it all came back, all that, the, the five minutes of inside baseball we did before this began.

• 19:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:17Nilay Patel?

  There's no embargo.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:19Nilay Patel?

  So, uh, Ray Wong and Evan Rogers.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 19:23Nilay Patel?

  Evan Rogers, ex-fresh person, uh, did a really in-depth review of the camera for input.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 19:28Nilay Patel?

  They found the autofocus issue.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 19:31Nilay Patel?

  Evan, uh, he was tweeting, he thinks the colors are a little weird.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 19:35Nilay Patel?

  Okay, but they published before everybody else. They were the first ones at the gate.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 19:39Nilay Patel?

  And to their credit, they caught the autofocus.

• 19:40Speaker 03

  They caught the autofocus issue, yeah.

• 19:42Nilay Patel?

  Sasha Seegan at PC Mag goes up the, I think the next day.

• 19:46Speaker 03

  My day, I think it must've been the next day, maybe day after.

• 19:48Nilay Patel?

  Within the window.

• 19:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:49Nilay Patel?

  Great phone, shouldn't spend this much money until they fix the autofocus issue.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 19:53Nilay Patel?

  I would say at this point, Samsung is like freaking out.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Uh, by this time, I had already been on the phone with Samsung for like a half an hour, being like, "Here, here are all the problems."

• 20:05Nilay Patel?

  And Dieter has not yet, like, looked at the autofocus issue.

• 20:09Speaker 03

  Well, I have, but I, at this point, I was, when, when input went up, I was like having doubts and I actually, at some point tweeted, like, I have doubts. It may have been after their thing went up. Um, but I still wasn't 100% sure if it was like, I was dumb, or like, I like, hadn't learned the habits of this camera. Cause every camera's different.

• 20:26Nilay Patel?

  Dieter's criticism is, at this point, it's a lot of slacks about the faces and the colors and the inconsistency. So he's been on the phone with Samsung about, about that stuff.

• 20:34Speaker 03

  Yes, and.

• 20:35Nilay Patel?

  Input and PC Mag are like, autofocus is bad.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 20:38Nilay Patel?

  I think at this point, it is safe to say like, okay, now we're like, Dieter's re-reporting the review. Like, he's back on the phone.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:44Nilay Patel?

  And then Samsung, last night, was like, well, uh, we're always improving our cameras.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  We're always improving our cameras. So, uh, when I called them, Monday, I think it was, and I was like 20 minutes, like, "Here's what I'm seeing, blah, blah, blah." They're like, "Yep, okay, that's interesting, good feedback." And I was like, "Okay, anything else, guys?" "Okay." And so, the statement that they would, uh, that they were planning a future update, not necessarily a pre-store release update, just someday in the future, they will update the software, to do unspecified. Things came in just before the review. So I have to make a choice like one, do I like wait for this thing someday in the future? Or do I like, I just go, I like, this is what I experienced on the phone. Maybe there'll be an update in the future, go and like, I chose to do that in part because as Neel I said, I've reviewed a lot of phones. Neel I, you've reviewed.

• 21:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 21:32Speaker 03

  Lot of phones.

• 21:34Nilay Patel?

  Paul, one phone.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. What, what happens when a company says, we'll fix the camera with a software update?

• 21:40Nilay Patel?

  It never happens. Never, ever, ever. I'm sorry, maybe you can tell me there is one time when one Nokia phone.

• 21:49Speaker 03

  OnePlus did manage to slightly improve some, some pretty serious issues a couple of years ago.

• 21:54Nilay Patel?

  No, the only delta is like, if the, if when you push the shutter button, the phone lights on fire and you fix that like, it's like that. You like, the camera doesn't work and generates corrupt issues.

• 22:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:04Nilay Patel?

  Or corrupt files. Okay, you can fix that in software. The, the video recording, we forgot to turn on 4K 60.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:12Nilay Patel?

  Whoops, okay, we've, software update fixes a bug.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 22:16Nilay Patel?

  Never does it actually change the quality of the camera.

• 22:19Speaker 03

  That is one of the reasons I published, the one thing to say is like, these seem, the, the face filter, filter stuff seems like a eminently fixable problem. Just like turn a knob down, right? Whether or not they can fix the autofocus is an open question. And this gets more complicated and I'm just going to say a thing and some people are going to get mad, but let me finish the sentence. Samsung is not Apple. And what that means, let me finish, is that, uh, Apple is a modelith. They are, they are, they are like centralized control, everything. And like the messaging is on point and everyone is in lockstep and everyone knows what's happening and what to say. And, uh, Samsung is just like, there's like, there's a bunch of divisions.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  There's a bunch of people that aren't talking to other people. So like, there's apparently a software update in Korea that may or may not be newer than the firmware I have, that may or may not, uh, address the autofocus issue. It's unclear. I had a journalist from France say that he was told, uh, like on Friday that a software update was coming, which is very confusing because I talked to them on Monday for like a half an hour saying what's going on. So all of that's fine, but just. A lot of people sort of tweet or will talk definitively that like they know a thing about Samsung. But Samsung is not one thing. It's it's so many things.

• 23:37Nilay Patel?

  Can we just say Samsung is not knowable?

• 23:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:39Nilay Patel?

  Samsung is fundamentally not knowable.

• 23:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, there are many things to many people.

• 23:43Nilay Patel?

  The people who work at Samsung often do not know what Samsung is doing. Uh, and I that's just, they're just a big sprawling, uh, like multinational corporation that doesn't talk to itself very well.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  Which in some times is like.

• 23:55Nilay Patel?

  Which is funny because they make phones.

• 23:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, but there's a benefit to that sometimes because they like, they're willing to try stuff and do stuff. But every now and then, it's not a benefit because it's like, what's going on with this $1,400 phone?

• 24:06Nilay Patel?

  So that's the simple answer.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:08Nilay Patel?

  Which is, it's a huge company and it is also true that the phone, like a Samsung Galaxy S20 is not a single product.

• 24:17Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 24:17Nilay Patel?

  It is a different product and every carrier in every market.

• 24:20Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:21Nilay Patel?

  Like Verizon gets its own, like SKU with its own weird apps. Sprint gets its own customization, like they're just like, they make multiple, multiple versions of products.

• 24:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, the logistics that Samsung has to go through to get one of these phones out, out the door at, on about the same day across the world is truly mind boggling and I think it is probably like more of an accomplishment than what Apple does with the iPhone in some ways.

• 24:44Speaker 04

  Is there any indication yet if the Ultra is the only one with?

• 24:48Speaker 03

  No, we don't know. I have yet to see any reviews of the regular Galaxy S20 or S20 Plus.

• 24:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So again, the simple explanation for the differing software update things that we've heard.

• 24:59Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:00Nilay Patel?

  Which is in Korea, there's an update that people have been told about, it's supposed to be coming. In France, French journalists have just straight up been told an update that fixes a bunch of camera issues are coming.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 25:11Nilay Patel?

  And then in the United States, they're like, we don't know what's going on.

• 25:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:14Nilay Patel?

  Well, you could just blame it as a, it's a sprawling global corporation with multiple arms, a huge logistics challenge that they, they solve credibly. Or it is a multinational disinformation conspiracy aimed at Dieter Baan. Or.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  It's, you, you could be biased.

• 25:31Nilay Patel?

  Oh, come on.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  If you think about it.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  If you are hyped for this phone, I don't want you to think that I do not like this phone. I love this phone, I'm concerned about the camera. And if they issue a software update that fixes the camera, I will be the happiest person. I will be as, I will be very excited, because I think that other than that, this thing is like, very, very impressive. So, if you are excited for this phone, don't be like, "Ugh." Like, just wait and see if they do something. Don't wait too long, because, you know, camera software updates often don't pan out. But- Never by any product on the basis of a promised software update. Exactly. The software update will never come, and it will never do what you think it will. Yep. And that is just, it is just true. The thing that I keep thinking about, though, is like, the thing, the thing that I make on a regular basis that requires the most logistics is a YouTube video.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  We have incredible directors and producers, and they're very good at editing, and they put so much more work into making things that I do like punching words. And when we're making this thing, there's no take backs. Like, it's, you can maybe do a content replace every now and then, but like, you publish the thing, and you can't like- To YouTube. It's YouTube, yeah. So you like, you want to make sure there aren't any problems. You want, you watch it, you watch it down, you look for whatever you can. And when something goes up on YouTube that is like, it's not the highest quality, or like, I, like, I said a thing and I kind of flubbed the line, or whatever, I definitely know before you've seen it.

• 27:03Speaker 03

  Like, I've seen it, I'm like, "Ugh, well, it's too much, I can't, I can't fix it." Like, we'd have to reshoot too many things, it's going out, it's going out the door. I have to assume that inside Samsung, they knew. Oh, they definitely knew. Right? They definitely knew. Okay.

• 27:19Speaker 04

  I've always wondered, when, when there's an obvious failure-

• 27:24Nilay Patel?

  Well, let's, let's, let's take an even simpler example. Right? There's the photo relighting, there's the skin smoothing, which has all kinds of cultural implications. Okay, that stuff is very subjective, even if I think it's subjective about. But like, whatever, you're looking at it, you're like, we think a lot of people are gonna like the way this photo looks. Then there's the zoom.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  We haven't even talked about this.

• 27:46Nilay Patel?

  Like, they printed in giant letters on the back of this phone, 100x space zoom.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:52Nilay Patel?

  And then you zoom it to 100x, you're like, that looks horrible. So like, everyone in the world can just be like, huh, I wonder what 100x is, and you do it. You don't need some fancy photography skill or like professional eyes, you're just like, this photo sucks.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, except every time I showed it to somebody, they always went, whoa. They get to, they get to have people go, whoa.

• 28:13Nilay Patel?

  Sure.

• 28:14Speaker 03

  That's what it's for. The 30x is the one that's actually useful, the 10x is great. Again, like, better than the competition. Um, the 30x is like usable, the 100x is so that they can have people go, whoa.

• 28:25Nilay Patel?

  I think they could have done that at 30x.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  So do I. But it, it's, it's, it's cool though, because it's, it's showing you the maximum amount of information that this sensor can possibly obtain. And it's not like every single pixel is good.

• 28:42Nilay Patel?

  Once you get up there, they're doing lots and lots of sensor cropping. So the way that the Pixel gets the zoom photos, they take a bunch of photos and they use your handshake to gather more data and what is a photo, et cetera, et cetera. Samsung is taking lots of photos. Done that conversation so much, we're just like, you know, what is a photo? The essential philosophical dilemma of our time. As you, as you are well aware.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Samsung is also doing multiple photos, but what they're really doing is this, this curious mix of like uh, zooming and then sensor cropping. That's why they picked a high megapixel sensor. Slightly bigger, they can do the binning or whatever, but when you start zooming in, they can just crop down and still have a ton of megapixels. Because there's a ton of megapixels to work with. But.

• 29:21Nilay Patel?

  It's just like a photo of a truck. That is a horrible photo.

• 29:24Speaker 03

  Sure, but.

• 29:26Nilay Patel?

  I mean, this is one of the worst photos I've ever taken. It's like bright outside.

• 29:29Speaker 04

  I don't know how to.

• 29:31Speaker 03

  Very far away.

• 29:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like, okay, it's like if I am a international spy, you know?

• 29:38Nilay Patel?

  I don't know where this is going.

• 29:40Speaker 04

  And I put a micro so microphone that it like works via like an aerosol spray. And I could just spray it on an object. And now I've got a microphone and I can listen remotely. Right?

• 29:50Nilay Patel?

  Uh huh.

• 29:51Speaker 04

  Like, I'm not mad that it's not like Dolby quality audio. I'm I'm proud of my achievement. You know what I mean?

• 30:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  Like, like, I understand that this is not comparable to a good photo of you being close to a truck.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 30:07Speaker 04

  But right now, my phone can't get that close.

• 30:11Speaker 03

  Yep. So outside my hotel room, there's a dog park here in New York, and I saw a dog frolicking. And I was like, oh, this is a great opportunity to see if like what zoom does with like a thing that's moving around. So I like zoomed way in the dog, tried to get the shot, you know, shaky, whatever. And I couldn't get a shot of just the dog. I like, as soon as I took the shot, like the owner walked into frame that I hadn't really. They were like across the park and they went to go get their dog. And then I like completely unintentionally, I had just taken like this, like really creepy spy photo. I deleted it immediately. He's like, oh, I don't, I don't want that.

• 30:40Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I'm saying. This is gonna make.

• 30:42Speaker 04

  So you're saying it, it's producing unusable product?

• 30:45Speaker 03

  Uh, I think that if anybody thinks that they're gonna get something that they're gonna wanna like treasure forever out of a hundred X zoom, they're fucked themselves.

• 30:52Nilay Patel?

  No, I just took a photo at thirty X zoom.

• 30:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:54Nilay Patel?

  Which looks fine. And then you can just like crop that photo.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. And that's what the hundred X is.

• 30:59Nilay Patel?

  And it looks better than if you try to take the photo at a hundred X.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  Hmm. Okay.

• 31:03Nilay Patel?

  It's like, that's hundred X.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  I see what you're saying.

• 31:05Nilay Patel?

  That's thirty X and I just zoomed in and that's better.

• 31:08Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:08Nilay Patel?

  It's obviously better.

• 31:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:09Nilay Patel?

  It's just like they, it's that they printed it on the back of the phone.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  They did. They printed a hundred X.

• 31:15Nilay Patel?

  Like, they're inviting you to try this feature. They're very proud of it. And it's like, it's not there. And I think that's the one where.

• 31:21Speaker 03

  When you're like, they had to know.

• 31:23Nilay Patel?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  They definitely knew when they decided to print it on the back of the phone.

• 31:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:28Speaker 03

  Like, some engineer at Samsung was like, "I don't, I don't think we should do this."

• 31:32Nilay Patel?

  Hmm. Well, it's something that struck me with your view. You were talking about, like, this in some ways is a Gen 1 device.

• 31:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so.

• 31:40Nilay Patel?

  And, and, and that makes a lot of sense with this camera where like, because a lot of what makes a flagship phone so good.

• 31:48Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 31:48Nilay Patel?

  Is that a flagship phone has everything that the last model got right, and then also some more.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:55Nilay Patel?

  But when you completely replace a part and you have kind of a new image processing pipeline, you don't necessarily get to build on your prior successes.

• 32:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. Theoretically, there is more upside to Samsung's, uh, like, theory of how a camera, smartphone camera could work here than there is on Google trying to apply ever better, uh, you know, software to, uh, you know, bargain bin sensor.

• 32:20Nilay Patel?

  Hmm.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. Like, if they can start, continue to do interesting things with, like, combining and uncombining, you know, sub-pixels and their 108-megapixel and they can, like, up their software game a little bit and, you know, just roll down the line. Theoretically, like, this could be, like, this could be a step change. That's what they wanted to argue. They just, they didn't finish it.

• 32:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:43Speaker 03

  And maybe they never will because Samsung, but, um, there's more potential upside here. They just haven't achieved it.

• 32:50Nilay Patel?

  So I've-

• 32:50Speaker 03

  And then, of course, Google and Apple aren't gonna, like, stop. They're gonna keep making stuff.

• 32:54Nilay Patel?

  Well, but that's like on two fronts. They're fighting this war on two fronts. One, it is clear to me right now, and I, I do think this is debatable, but it feels clear to me that on the computational photography, smart HDR side of the world, Google and Apple are firmly in the lead.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 33:14Nilay Patel?

  They are, they are doing more with processing off relatively stockish sensors than Samsung is able to do.

• 33:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:23Nilay Patel?

  With their stockish sensors. Samsung is throwing a bunch of hardware at this problem.

• 33:27Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:28Nilay Patel?

  Bigger sensor, non-abinning, a periscope zoom lens. Lots of hardware being thrown at this problem. They still do not have the software chops to pull it off, even if they're trying to do something totally different. Right, they're trying to, they're trying to process that sensor into something that's better.

• 33:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, the, the software problem they're solving is now different and like they, they have to solve the same problem that Apple and Google are solving and they also now have to solve this other problem that they've sort of created for themselves. But again, if they can do one or both, I think that, I think that the sensor is interesting. I think that they actually do have more upside, but they have to get the software right.

• 34:05Speaker 04

  I just took a hundred megapixel, a hundred X zoom, this is, it's trash.

• 34:12Nilay Patel?

  I mean, that's it. It's like, it's really cool. And then you hit the shutter button and you're like, why did I do that?

• 34:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:17Nilay Patel?

  That's just a creep shot of a, of a person in a building.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  I just see a ghost. I don't know what you guys are looking at.

• 34:22Nilay Patel?

  Uh, so I, I would say that here's the flag there. There are lots of, well, not lots, but there are several hundred eight megapixel sensor cameras in the world.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 34:32Nilay Patel?

  None of them have been good.

• 34:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:34Nilay Patel?

  So this, if that, if, if that is indeed a different class of problem, how do we make this sensor good?

• 34:40Speaker 03

  Well, Samsung is doing, they have a slightly different sensor, I thought, a slightly different methodology to the way the sensor works than those other cameras.

• 34:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:47Speaker 03

  I think that this is better than those, from what we've heard. Uh, I haven't actually used the other hundred megapixel cameras, so I don't know this for sure. Um, but it's a harder problem to solve than, uh, getting a 12 megapixel photo good, I think.

• 35:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and I just think that's like, the, there, the two problems are right next to each other.

• 35:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:07Nilay Patel?

  One, how do we get a great photo out of a big hardware sensor? Two, how do we do all the fancy HDR computational photography stuff, which is now a look?

• 35:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:18Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, we're gonna take multiple frames and composite them into one sort of evenly lit frame.

• 35:22Speaker 03

  What is a photo?

• 35:23Nilay Patel?

  What is a photo? That's, it's just a look that people expect.

• 35:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:26Nilay Patel?

  So now you gotta do both? And you're not, and like, no one has solved the, the big megapixel sensor problem well, and you're already behind in... That's just a lot of problems for Samsung to solve.

• 35:37Speaker 04

  The cool thing is that they, that they can, not that they can't solve it. Were they to solve it, then they've

• 35:45Nilay Patel?

  Yes, then they've

• 35:46Speaker 04

  Then they've solved it. You know what I mean? Like, like, they could just put up.

• 35:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's true.

• 35:51Speaker 04

  They don't need to

• 35:52Nilay Patel?

  It's like, if this rusty old Mustang in the front yard just had an engine and some wheels, like, it would be faster than your working car.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  If they released a software update that solves this autofocus problem and solves the sort of the randomization of image style problem, then this might be a really good camera.

• 36:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Yeah, I think on, it's sort of the baseline of, is it bright outside? Are you taking a great photo? I got, I got good photos when it's bright outside out of the Motorola Razr, so let's not make that in the bar. Yeah, I like the idea that you're, you're on team optimism. If they ship a software update that is unlike any camera software update in history.

• 36:26Speaker 04

  Right.

• 36:27Nilay Patel?

  This will be the best camera ever made.

• 36:28Speaker 04

  Right.

• 36:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'll, I'll, sure, I'll buy it. I'm with you.

• 36:33Speaker 04

  100x zoom, I love it again.

• 36:34Nilay Patel?

  Well, again, another thing about the sensor is, it is in fact physically larger than most phone camera sensors have been to date. It is like physically larger. They're just cramming more megapixels in it.

• 36:43Speaker 04

  Like, the intuition of all existing cameras is that that's basically, the larger the sensor, like, the better off you are.

• 36:51Nilay Patel?

  The larger the sensor, the constant megapixel count. You want, you want those big, those big pixels, the deep wells. Because you're just trying to get more light. Yeah, but these, they bin them together. They're not a bin.

• 37:01Speaker 04

  But, but, but if you think about it, yes, you want more light per pixel, yes. But the, the summation of all the light that you get is almost directly a function of the area of the size of the sensor.

• 37:14Nilay Patel?

  Well, so there's, there's walls between pixels. Oh, God. We did this last time. Can we not talk about not a binning at this time? It's great. It's a cool tech. I hope it works. Dramatic fiasco with a global disinformation campaign aimed only at Dieter Bremer. So I want to talk about one thing that you did like, camera wise.

• 37:34Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 37:34Nilay Patel?

  You love the selfie camera.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  Oh, the selfie camera is amazing. It does, it's 40 megapixels, it defaults to 10, so it's

• 37:40Nilay Patel?

  It's also non-abiding.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  It's quadribinning, because it's 4 to 1.

• 37:43Nilay Patel?

  Oh, I see.

• 37:44Speaker 03

  Instead of 9 to 1.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  It has beauty filters.

• 37:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  But if you turn them off, it just takes, you can see all your wrinkles and, you know, imperfections on your skin if you want. Samsung has improved over its own portrait mode stuff. I think, I would, I don't want to quite say dramatically, but noticeably. But it still has that like, sort of like, blocky texture. You know what I mean? But it's way better than it was before. It's definitely, especially in the selfie camera, better than what the Pixel can do. The classic test is you like, you turn your head so your glasses are sticking out a little bit. And like, can the portrait mode realize that that's part of your face and shouldn't be blurred? Pixel still whiffs that a lot of the time, and this thing got it. I really, really like the selfie camera, way more than I expected to.

• 38:32Nilay Patel?

  That's great.

• 38:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:33Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I'm all in on gigantic megapixel selfie cameras. Like, if Apple wants to like, really knock it out of part, they'd be like, the front camera is the same as the back camera. And then everyone will upgrade their iPhones. They won't do that, because they have to manage their bezels.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  I should say, some people do not like the fingerprint sensor as much as I do. I think it's good enough, I'm happy with it. And I love just having the whole screen, like, not having a notch. It's just, or a big bezel at the top. It's just, it does just feel differently every day when you look at it. To like, just have that huge screen with no interruption on it, except for a tiny hole for the camera.

• 39:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And I, the 120 Hz is very nice.

• 39:10Speaker 03

  The 120 Hz is incredibly nice.

• 39:11Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so what happens next?

• 39:13Speaker 03

  We wait for the software update, and we'll see what happens with it. And we review the S20 and S20 Plus, which have high-megapixel cameras, but not 108. And they don't have the Periscope lens. But we'll see if anything is different there. Especially with like autofocus, I think that's going to be the big one to check. And then, yeah, man, that's, you know, they sell these things, and they're selling the S10s for a deep discount. And I think that the S10 is still a very good phone. You know what the S10 does?

• 39:43Speaker 04

  Auto focus?

• 39:44Speaker 03

  Works with the headphone jack.

• 39:45Speaker 04

  Ooh. Also, like, I didn't know, $1,400.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  It's a lot.

• 39:50Speaker 04

  Is a lot of money for a phone.

• 39:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, it's got 1,600 for the 5, 12, 16 gigs of RAM. But like, you can pin apps to RAM, right? Which is like, then they just, your browser just won't close in the background.

• 40:03Speaker 04

  I think that's pretty cool.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  Which is pretty cool. During Fireball, John Gruber wrote a post that was like, let's be real about how much phones cost. He's like, it's okay to spend that much money on a phone if you know how to get the use out of it. That's why, like, this isn't a tragedy quite, but like, if they can fix the camera, like, that could be a potential use out of it. There are, there are other people who will be like, yes, I will get $1,400 of use out of this huge screen, the storage, the expandable storage, the amount of RAM that this has, you know, whatever. Like, all the stuff that you can do with a phone.

• 40:37Speaker 04

  Dex.

• 40:37Speaker 03

  Dex, yeah.

• 40:38Speaker 04

  Stabilized video if the auto focus works.

• 40:40Speaker 03

  Stabilized video if the auto focus works. It is, it is, it's, it's not like a huge, massive improvement over the S10, but it's a slight improvement that like stabilizes over like another axis, basically. Like, I think it does roll now or pitch or something. It's better, but it's not, it's not, I don't think it's quite up to what the iPhone can do, especially with like, the iPhone's really good at adjusting color and light balance as you move in and out of shadow. And I don't think that Samsung's quite there yet. You can shoot 8K, though.

• 41:07Speaker 04

  I guess, yeah, I mean, I guess you just listed a bunch of things that could be considered a reason, but like, for me, I'd need a real specific reason in my head of why this phone, I'm gonna spend more than I spent on my last phone. Now, I understand, like, oh, every year I spend $1,000 on a phone. It's a lot to spend, but I use my phone a lot, you know? But like, this year, I'm gonna spend $1,400 on a phone. Like, what changed? What got so, what, what new capability does this phone provide me?

• 41:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's 5G and 100xZim. Just don't try it. And a beautiful, huge, beautiful screen and tons of RAM and tons of storage. Huge, beautiful screen, tons of RAM, tons of storage is like, not. Yeah, okay. You can get that from a lot of places now, right? You can get that from OnePlus pretty cheaply. Yeah, it's, it's a 5G radio to use on one street corner in a praying position. Or, or just, you sit on T-Mobile and eventually it'll get certified for AT&T 5G and that, that's better.

• 42:03Nilay Patel?

  So it's that, if you would like such a thing. Uh, and it's a zoom lens. It's very pretty. It is very pretty.

• 42:11Speaker 04

  I think this is the, the year of the $250 phone for me.

• 42:15Nilay Patel?

  Pixie Foria, it's coming.

• 42:16Speaker 04

  Not convinced.

• 42:17Nilay Patel?

  All right, we're gonna take a break. I was emotional. Everyone needs a break. And then Julia Alexander, two weeks in a row, Disney news. I strongly suspect it will be even more emotional for the next segment. We'll be right back.

• 42:35Speaker 05

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra because it's not just a superior light beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 43:04Speaker 06

  Welcome to Sephora.

• 43:05Speaker 07

  I'm looking for a perfume that's not too perfumey.

• 43:10Speaker 06

  I got you.

• 43:10Speaker 08

  Serum moisturizer or moisturizer syrup.

• 43:14Speaker 06

  Let's get into layering.

• 43:15Speaker 07

  My concealer is making me look worse.

• 43:18Speaker 06

  Sounds like the wrong shade. Let's get you matched.

• 43:22Speaker 09

  There's only one store that really gets what you're going for. Get beauty from people who get beauty, only at Sephora.

• 43:29Speaker 07

  Hi, I, uh...

• 43:31Speaker 06

  Let's get you a basket.

• 43:35Nilay Patel?

  Julia.

• 43:36Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 43:37Nilay Patel?

  Big news in the world of Bobs and Kevins this week. The media industry.

• 43:41Speaker 07

  Big news in my world.

• 43:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, huge. So I, again, I was on a, I was on a lot of planes this week.

• 43:48Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 43:48Nilay Patel?

  So I spent some time on a plane watching Dieter emotionally process the Galaxy S20. And then on my flight back, I spent all that time on a plane watching you emotionally process Disney CEO Bob Iger.

• 44:01Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 44:01Nilay Patel?

  Stepping up.

• 44:03Speaker 10

  Yeah, he's not stepping down.

• 44:05Nilay Patel?

  He didn't step down.

• 44:05Speaker 10

  He didn't even step away.

• 44:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, he just, he just stepped to a more exalted role.

• 44:10Speaker 10

  He pulled the most baller move in the world.

• 44:12Nilay Patel?

  Explain what happened.

• 44:13Speaker 10

  Alright, so Bob Iger, former CEO of Disney, because it's effective immediately, announced that he was taking on a new role. He is the executive chairman of Disney.

• 44:24Nilay Patel?

  It's a role he made up.

• 44:25Speaker 10

  Yeah, it's his role. He's just like, I would like to do it. Essentially, in his mind, he saw it as the perfect time, post Disney Plus, post everything, to go and just work with the creative teams and focus entirely on the creative side of content at Disney. Disney is a content company, so that makes a lot of sense. And he announced that Bob Chapek, Bob Chapek, I spoke to like four Disney people yesterday and asked how to say his last name and got different answers each time.

• 44:50Nilay Patel?

  Everyone, I talked to the callers, just calls him Bob C.

• 44:53Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 44:53Nilay Patel?

  What is important here is that his name is also Bob.

• 44:57Speaker 10

  Yeah, there's a lot of Bobs and Allens and Kevins at Disney.

• 45:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:01Speaker 10

  Just so many of them.

• 45:02Nilay Patel?

  There are three Allens on that org chart that I looked at.

• 45:04Speaker 10

  And really, the face of Marvel is a Bob, because it's Robert. So we've got a lot of Bobs in there.

• 45:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, okay, so there's Bob Iger.

• 45:12Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 45:13Nilay Patel?

  And there's Bobby C.

• 45:14Speaker 10

  Bobby C.

• 45:15Nilay Patel?

  Bobby C's the new guy. He's the CEO of Disney. Where did he come from?

• 45:19Speaker 10

  Yeah, so he's been with the company for close to 30 years. He's kind of a company man. He's been in every department. He was part of home entertainment. He was one of the leading executives on getting the distribution deal between Disney and iTunes, because he was like, hey, I think digital's taking off and Apple seems to have a grasp on it. So he set that up. Then he got moved over to consumer products, where he went to basically clean house for Iger. It was kind of like paying your dues to get into the mob. And he got in, and he became Iger's loyal.

• 45:51Nilay Patel?

  What did he do?

• 45:52Speaker 10

  He cleaned house. He went in and they were very anti-Iger, because this was post, you know, a couple of years, but post the Eisner-Iger, the Michael Eisner, who was the former CEO of Disney, Bob Iger taking over, so that happening.

• 46:04Nilay Patel?

  So he got rid of the Eisner guys?

• 46:06Speaker 10

  Basically. He goes in, he's like, I'm cleaning house. Then eventually he's moved to parks. He's instrumental in setting up the Shanghai Resort, which is a huge resort for Disney. And then... He became CEO. Like, that was the whole thing.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  He's the guy.

• 46:20Speaker 10

  He's a guy. I would argue he is not. I would argue many people inside Disney don't think he's the guy.

• 46:25Speaker 03

  Really?

• 46:26Nilay Patel?

  So, this is all very... So, this is just what happened.

• 46:28Speaker 10

  This is just what happened.

• 46:29Nilay Patel?

  And by the way, when I was... Julia, what happened? She didn't say Disney CEO Bob Iger stepped up. No, there's like all this dramatic stuff, this history of the new guy.

• 46:37Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 46:38Nilay Patel?

  But there's a thing that didn't happen here, which is the Kevin.

• 46:43Speaker 10

  Yeah, one of the Kevins.

• 46:44Nilay Patel?

  One of the many Kevins, Kevin Meyer, who runs Disney Plus.

• 46:47Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 46:48Nilay Patel?

  Who everyone thought was gonna be the CEO.

• 46:49Speaker 10

  Right.

• 46:50Nilay Patel?

  Is not the CEO.

• 46:51Speaker 10

  Right.

• 46:51Nilay Patel?

  The other thing that happened is that everyone was surprised.

• 46:55Speaker 10

  Yeah, because there was a lot of things that were happening. He had... Iger had extended his contract. I think he was not even... He was about a third, I think, or into his contract because he had extended. He had just finished his book tour. He was supposed to appear at conferences as the CEO of Disney in like a few months. Clearly, that... He might still attend, but he's not gonna be CEO. So, it was just really jarring because it came out of nowhere. It was a random Tuesday. Everyone I spoke to was just like, "Something is happening." The conspiracy theories that hit my DMs were just amazing. Everything from he's gonna be Bloomberg's VP, running candidate.

• 47:29Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 47:30Speaker 10

  To, yeah, that he's sick, to everything in between. So, there was a lot of confusion over what was happening because it was so sudden. And if we remember, the last time there was a Disney executive change, which I do regularly.

• 47:46Speaker 10

  It was a long, long, public, very bad process. I mean, there were... It was just bad. And Michael Eisner was ousted. It was a year, but they announced like there was a year change and they were figuring it out. And it would all kind of move over eventually. This was like, "I am no longer CEO immediately."

• 48:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:03Speaker 10

  And that leads to a lot of confusion and scare in the markets.

• 48:06Speaker 03

  Julia, you didn't like my tweet, and so I feel like I've justified in making this joke again.

• 48:11Nilay Patel?

  This is why we bring you on here, to read our bad tweets at you.

• 48:15Speaker 03

  So, when Bob said he was stepping down, did you need to go get a drink later because it was so stressful?

• 48:20Speaker 10

  I did, actually.

• 48:21Speaker 03

  Would you say that Iger augured loggers?

• 48:24Nilay Patel?

  Dieter. No, look, Dieter, I love you. You're like a brother to me. I want you to get the hell out.

• 48:32Nilay Patel?

  Just go.

• 48:33Speaker 10

  I'm so happy.

• 48:34Nilay Patel?

  Just think about what you did.

• 48:34Speaker 10

  I'm so happy I got to look at you say that.

• 48:39Speaker 04

  Cause there's a lot of shame when he does it.

• 48:41Speaker 10

  It was just so good.

• 48:43Nilay Patel?

  But there's this other underlying drama, which is it happened very suddenly.

• 48:46Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 48:47Nilay Patel?

  It's Bob C. who didn't, who always seemed like he was in the running.

• 48:51Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 48:51Nilay Patel?

  But maybe wasn't the favorite. The guy who runs streaming, Kevin Mayer, was supposedly the favorite. And he didn't get the gig. What happened there?

• 49:00Speaker 10

  So from my understanding, the thing about Bob C. is that he is a company man. And to an extent, he's an Iger company man. He's someone who really kind of idolizes Bob Iger. And so he's someone that Iger can mold into what they need to carry out the next 10 years of Disney. Like that's someone who can then basically deploy what Iger has set up and just keep that running. The really great thing about Iger is that he said in a call to investors after the news went out that he's basically made Disney in a lot of ways this autonomous machines. Because the heads that he has set up just are good at what they do. Kevin Feige runs Marvel beautifully. Kathleen Kennedy and Jon Favreau basically run Lucasfilm pretty well.

• 49:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's a medium grade.

• 49:43Speaker 10

  Yeah, so what's going on there? Sean Bailey does his job really well. And then you've got Kevin Mayer, who's exceedingly good at what he does. Extremely good.

• 49:52Nilay Patel?

  And he runs Disney Plus and Hulu.

• 49:53Speaker 10

  Yeah, he runs, so his department is direct to consumer and international. So he runs Hot, that he would also now look over Hot Star in India. Like he looks over everything. My assumption and based on what people told me is that Bob C. gets the job because the board really likes Bob C. They like the idea that he can be the face of Disney. They like that he can basically be a company man. Kevin Mayer, who's extremely good at strategizing, who is probably one of the best strategists Disney has ever had, next to Iger, who came up that way too, can continue doing what they need him to do. And that's really shaping streaming in the streaming wars era. Like they need him to focus on that. There are other issues that have come up with Mayer that are like, people have publicly reported, he's very aggressive, he's a bulldog.

• 50:37Speaker 10

  He's kind of like, that's his whole stance. And that doesn't necessarily jive well with Disney on the public front. When you think of Bob Iger, you think of Uncle Bob, is what a lot of industry call him, right? Cause he's just charismatic and lovable. And that works for the Disney brand. And Mayer, Mayer, sorry, is just very good at what he does. But is he the face of Disney? That's the question the board has to look over. And clearly, they went with Bob's.

• 51:02Nilay Patel?

  And a surprise 4pm Tuesday night announcement.

• 51:04Speaker 10

  Yeah, I mean, the great thing is that this is just in tune with what Disney has done. I mean, 25 years ago, you had arguably the biggest public Disney scandal, which was with, after their COO Frank Wells died, Jeffrey Katzenberg was like, I'm, who's now the head of Quibi, is now like, I'm going to be your second in command. Michael Eisner promised him this, apparently, on a walk in, like, Salt Lake City. Michael Eisner goes, actually, we're not going to do that. And then, a few months later, Katzenberg is fired and starts DreamWorks. Right? And it's like a public brawl, like, they're fighting over this.

• 51:38Speaker 04

  But that's how you get Prince of Egypt.

• 51:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's how you get Bugs Life and Ants on the same day, like, literally the same day.

• 51:45Speaker 10

  Same thing happens 2004, 2005, right? It's like, it's, it's, this is like the Disney story, in a lot of ways.

• 51:51Nilay Patel?

  So you think Kevin stays?

• 51:52Speaker 10

  This is the conversation I had. A former executive-

• 51:54Nilay Patel?

  One of the Kevins, Kevin Meyer.

• 51:56Speaker 10

  Yeah, a former executive told me, he had a great quote, and it was like, you know, you think of a bake-off, and the second-place winner doesn't necessarily stay around to see if they can win again, they go and do something else. At the same time, you know, Kevin's got a really good position at Disney, and he'll still get to work with Iger for the next, you know, up till the end of 2021.

• 52:13Nilay Patel?

  So Iger, yeah, he's on for, it's like, 22 months until the end of 22, 22 months until the end of 2021, that's his contract. He's executive chairman, the CEO reports to him.

• 52:25Speaker 10

  Yeah, it's great.

• 52:26Nilay Patel?

  It really feels like they just moved some titles around.

• 52:29Speaker 10

  Yeah, I mean, Jenny, he had a great quote on CNBC, he just went, I didn't want to run the company anymore. And I was like, that's a mood.

• 52:38Nilay Patel?

  What if I don't have to do this?

• 52:39Speaker 10

  Yeah, it's like, I'm tired, I don't want to do this anymore. You've extended my contract so many times already. I mean, obviously, for it to happen on a Tuesday afternoon, something happened, right? This is the story I was trying to chase. Something has happened for Bob Iger to go, I don't want to do this anymore, like, I'm going to just take a step back, to an extent, and focus on creative. At the same time, it's what he likes. I think he genuinely liked being able to think about content, and work with Kevin Feige over at Marvel, and Kevin Mayer on streaming, and be able to strategize with them and figure out the next five, 10 years.

• 53:09Nilay Patel?

  I think it's that Bob Iger finally, he's a busy guy, and so he finally found the time to go watch Star Wars: Skywalker, and he's like, nope.

• 53:19Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 53:21Nilay Patel?

  And he's like, well, what are you into? But he's just like, they can't like redo. Bob Iger stepping down as Disney CEO. Yeah. So he can reboot Rise of Skywalker. That's like.

• 53:30Speaker 10

  That'd be great.

• 53:30Nilay Patel?

  That's the ultimate, like, he's gotten the board, like, the masters of the universe, Disney board, all in a room. He's like, I'm gonna just direct Rise of Skywalker myself, actually. We're gonna pull it, we're gonna do it next year.

• 53:41Speaker 10

  I'm just impressed that J.J. Abrams wasn't named CEO at this point. They're like, he run the company.

• 53:47Nilay Patel?

  Well, so the reason I want to talk to you about that, that there's the mechanics of the change.

• 53:51Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 53:52Nilay Patel?

  There's the drama of the characters, but Disney is the big player in the streaming wars. They, like Iger's saying, like, our strategy is set. We've executed all the pieces and now it's just about creative. Also, I would prefer never to think about our parks ever again. Like, that's where he's at, right? He's like, I don't want to run the boring parts, I just want to do the fun stuff.

• 54:14Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 54:14Nilay Patel?

  Which, again, is a mood.

• 54:16Speaker 10

  It's a mood.

• 54:16Nilay Patel?

  I'm totally, totally by that. Extremely sympathetic to that idea. But like, where does it leave Disney in this moment where there's so much activity in the streaming wars?

• 54:26Speaker 10

  Right. It's really funny, because this happened at a time that Iger kept saying, our strategy is deployed, we're going the Disney Plus front. And while this is happening, like, yes, they have 28 million subscribers, which is not something they'll do in this, in their next quarter. They're not gonna get 28 million again, although they are launching internationally, so who knows? Maybe they are. I was just talking to someone who said that they're working overtime on making sure the UK launch goes really well. So they've got that to worry about. But back home, when we look at the content on Disney Plus, which is what it matters, that's all it matters at the end of the day to consumers. They don't actually have the strategy in place. Because two of the original series that they came up with for Disney Plus got moved to Hulu.

• 55:04Speaker 10

  Uh, the third series that's just, who knows what's going on with it, is Lizzie McGuire, a big Disney franchise. Uh, and now that suddenly is, no one knows what's going on with it. The showrunner just said it was considered too adult for Disney Plus. How Lizzie McGuire is too adult for Disney Plus?

• 55:21Nilay Patel?

  Dark Lizzie McGuire.

• 55:22Speaker 10

  I would love to know. Um, so if you take out, if you actually take out Marvel and Star Wars, uh, to an extent Pixar. Disney Plus does not have much. They have a Proud Family remake, they have a Mighty Duck series, and they have a Turner and Hooch series.

• 55:40Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I love me some Turner and Hooch.

• 55:43Speaker 10

  I know, but that's it. Everything else is like Marvel and Star Wars, which makes sense. But from what I have heard is like the content side of Disney Plus is undergoing issues because they don't have an identity. So what Iger, from what I hear from people, has said is like, "I'm gonna give slots to Kevin Feige and Kathleen Kennedy. You get three a year, you get two a year, do what you want with it. I don't care. That's what people are gonna give Disney Plus for." Yeah, so it's like every month or every three months you have something here and we'll bring people in that way. But in terms of strategy, they actually don't have a great strategy in place because they set out to do all these Disney Plus shows, then decided they weren't made for Disney Plus, they were Hulu shows, which is an advantage only Disney has because they have multiple streaming services. And now they're moving that around.

• 56:25Nilay Patel?

  Multiple scaled streaming services.

• 56:26Speaker 10

  Right.

• 56:27Nilay Patel?

  AT&T has multiple streaming services. But no one thinks that's an advantage.

• 56:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, they just all have slightly different names.

• 56:33Nilay Patel?

  AT&T TV Now, which obviously does not compete with DirecTV Now.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:38Nilay Patel?

  Sure.

• 56:38Speaker 10

  So that's exactly where it is. Is your strategy in place if you don't know what the identity of your core flagship streaming service is? I don't think it is. I would argue it's not. I have argued last night for many hours that it was not with people at Disney. So they have to figure that out. And I do think Iger being able to just focus on that and not have to do investors calls every three months, where he's like clearly bored, it's like, I think that works out really well for him. The question is if Mayer leaves in the middle of them launching internationally, in the middle of them going up against Peacock from NBC Universal, HBO Max, et cetera, et cetera. What happens to that streaming unit which is still undergoing changes, it's still undergoing identity, you know, stuff?

• 57:21Speaker 10

  Who knows? I mean, he thinks it's in place because they have 28 million subscribers, they're scaling, they have partnerships, they have content from Star Wars and Marvel. That's really what matters.

• 57:30Nilay Patel?

  Let's talk about that. Let me push on that a little bit. Do they? Right, like, the, like, all the good Marvel people are dead. By what you mean, Tony Stark? Spoiler alert.

• 57:41Speaker 10

  I was actually gonna get mad at them, you said Tony. I was like, I don't know what to feel now.

• 57:44Nilay Patel?

  Right, but like, the good one's dead.

• 57:46Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 57:46Nilay Patel?

  Like, Robert Downey Jr. is not coming back. Spider-Man's good. Whatever. Uh, he's on Sony. He's sort of Marvel. So, there you go. Marvel-esque. Uh, Marvel-esque. Yeah. Uh, Star Wars is over. Right, and then 20 years from now, we're gonna reboot the Avengers, and that is gonna... I'm assuming just drive you insane.

• 58:02Speaker 10

  Probably.

• 58:03Nilay Patel?

  Okay. Just guess a guess, that when they reboot the Avengers franchise...

• 58:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, if Spider-Man has taught us anything, we can tolerate a reboot every like, five years.

• 58:15Nilay Patel?

  Right, but like, they're, they're in a moment where they're, they're doing like, ancillary content.

• 58:21Speaker 10

  Right.

• 58:22Nilay Patel?

  Right, they're doing Siri, Wandavision.

• 58:23Speaker 10

  Right.

• 58:24Nilay Patel?

  Right, you have to be hardcore in the Avengers verse to care about that.

• 58:28Speaker 10

  Yeah, I would argue that's true.

• 58:30Nilay Patel?

  Okay, Black Panther is great, but like, that's not gonna do 11 films over time, right? I don't know how many Avengers movies are... It's like, 45.

• 58:38Speaker 10

  There's like, four right now.

• 58:40Nilay Patel?

  Four Avengers, but you know the...

• 58:41Speaker 10

  There's five, actually.

• 58:42Nilay Patel?

  Black Panther isn't gonna spawn the MCU.

• 58:44Speaker 10

  Sure.

• 58:45Nilay Patel?

  The way that sort of Avengers spawn the MCU.

• 58:47Speaker 10

  Right.

• 58:47Nilay Patel?

  Uh, Star Wars, the core narrative is over, there's no new core narrative. It's just bits and pieces inside of it, like the Mandalorian. Doesn't that seem like the biggest problem for them?

• 58:56Speaker 10

  I mean, this is why they're relying and paying a lot of money to people like Kevin Feige. Cause they're like, you can figure it out. They know that, they know they're at a point where, they've told investors this, right? Where they've said, it's 2020 is gonna be fine, but it's not gonna be 2019, right? We, we figured it out. They get asked this a lot, where it's like, when does the Marvel tiredness, exhaustion kick in? And when do you guys figure this out? They kind of keep proving that they have, that they can bring people in just based on the Marvel name and the Star Wars name. People tune in to see Mandalorian, there was nothing really there, attached to the main Star Wars thing, and then Baby Yoda became a thing.

• 59:29Nilay Patel?

  So, except for the main thing.

• 59:31Speaker 10

  And, and, and they're launching, well, yeah, but they're launching their, the Marvel TV Universe on Disney Plus is launching with Falcon and Winter Soldier, which are two big Captain America characters.

• 59:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 59:42Speaker 10

  That people know from the series. And I think they'll just kind of continue to lead with that where it's like, yeah, Wandavision has two characters that you know from the main Avengers. And they'll tease us out, you know, then they'll, they've got Loki, they've got Hawkeye, like they've got the big guys coming back. Are they gonna get, yeah, Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans back? No, they want to pay for it. But at the same time, they've proven, after the Avengers, people are like, what are they gonna do now? They turned Ant-Man into a success, they turned Guardians of the Galaxy into a success, turned into a big success at the theme parks. They can figure it out really well, they just have to be inventive with it, which is where I pitched my idea, which is Fast and Furious, but pod racing.

• 1:00:22Speaker 03

  Have you considered changing your name to Bob?

• 1:00:25Speaker 10

  Great.

• 1:00:26Nilay Patel?

  Or Kevin.

• 1:00:26Speaker 10

  That's a great pitch.

• 1:00:27Nilay Patel?

  Kevins don't make it, though. You hit a, there's a Kevin ceiling that is very clear.

• 1:00:31Speaker 10

  Kevin's in Tom's.

• 1:00:32Speaker 03

  My takeaway is that Disney's future success depends on Hawkeye?

• 1:00:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Yeah, you just refer to Hawkeye as one of the big guys.

• 1:00:39Speaker 10

  I mean, he is, I mean, God, Hawkeye was part of the key reason why they succeeded in Endgame. Here's the thing.

• 1:00:50Speaker 10

  Pulls up my Tumblr.

• 1:00:54Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 1:00:55Speaker 10

  I genuinely feel like people have already bought so far into, I think of like one of our news editors, like Heim, who's just bought so far into the idea of Marvel and Star Wars. It doesn't even have to be anything to do with Skywalker, it doesn't have to do with Iron Man, they're just into the idea of what it is. And I think Kevin Feige has proven that they can bring people in just based on the idea that it is Marvel. Is that going to keep people going throughout Disney Plus? I mean, no, it's why they have The Simpsons, right? It's like, there's a reason that you bring a show like The Simpsons in and you go, A, if you're done with this, you can watch the show now. But add in Lucasfilm, Marvel, Pixar, especially if you have families, I mean, kids, I think they're fine.

• 1:01:30Nilay Patel?

  Let me contrast this with other streaming work competitors, Netflix. Netflix has a massive library, they bought a lot of stuff, they make a lot of stuff. If you pay for Netflix, it is almost certain that there is something that the algorithm will find for you. Or there's something you have never seen, or there's something new, right? Like, there's just so much new stuff happening in Netflix all the time, plus their huge library, even though stuff is going away. But it's this like vast library of stuff where you're like, just play me something. It will almost certainly, it will be new to you at least. Disney doesn't have that, right? It's a very finite library and they're not flooding it with new stuff.

• 1:02:09Speaker 10

  Right.

• 1:02:09Nilay Patel?

  At the same rate that Netflix does.

• 1:02:11Speaker 10

  No. And they've spoken about that. I mean, that was the biggest question for two years when they announced it and they were leading up to it. And Iger, that was the question he got a lot and he said, "We're not gonna have the output of Netflix. We're not gonna have that for many years, if ever." Like, that's just not gonna be where we're at. At the same time, they bought Fox. There is a lot of, I mean, they put Nat Geo on there, they put The Simpsons. There's a lot of stuff they could bring over.

• 1:02:31Nilay Patel?

  But that stuff is going to Hulu.

• 1:02:33Speaker 10

  Well, not necessarily. X-Men, X-Men's going to Disney, right? And that, that's arguably more of a Hulu, I mean, this is the debate, but like...

• 1:02:39Nilay Patel?

  Wait, wait, tell me why X-Men is a Hulu.

• 1:02:41Speaker 10

  Is it Disney?

• 1:02:42Nilay Patel?

  Wait, the movies or the cartoons?

• 1:02:45Speaker 10

  The movies.

• 1:02:46Nilay Patel?

  The movies are going to Disney+.

• 1:02:47Speaker 10

  Yeah, I mean, they are, they're already on Disney+.

• 1:02:49Nilay Patel?

  What tile are they gonna go under?

• 1:02:51Speaker 10

  By Marvel, I guess. They would go under Marvel.

• 1:02:54Nilay Patel?

  I guess that makes sense. I don't think of the Fox, X-Men movies as Marvel properties at all.

• 1:02:57Speaker 10

  Well, this is the issue, this is what I yell about. It's like...

• 1:03:00Nilay Patel?

  That's why you're here, yes, by all means.

• 1:03:02Speaker 10

  The identity behind Hulu and Disney+ doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Like, there's no overlap between what is a Disney+ thing, except that it's under PG-13, and what is a Hulu thing. But even then, they take all, they're taking all their Disney+ stuff, made for Disney+, moving it to Hulu, and then bringing Hulu stuff over to Disney+. No, that doesn't make any sense. But to answer your original question, it's like they can bring stuff over from Fox if they want to. They have, they now own a lot of stuff that they can bring if there's like, "Oh, people are leaving. There's not enough to watch. Let's bring in a little bit more titles. We can figure out what works under PG-13."

• 1:03:36Nilay Patel?

  So like Logan is never gonna hit Disney+.

• 1:03:38Speaker 10

  That would be incredible. If there was an accidental way that ended up, that would be phenomenal. It's never gonna hit Disney+. That's a Hulu thing. Same with Deadpool. It's just not gonna be on Disney+. But they do know that...

• 1:03:51Nilay Patel?

  Bob C's got some wild ideas.

• 1:03:53Speaker 10

  They do, they have this, I mean, this is where HBO Max and Peacock come in, right? So NBC, sorry, Warner Media and NBC Universal, that's their big pitch is like, not only are we building, literally building new studios, new networks designed just for streaming. We also have all of HBO, but then we have all these other networks we own and all these other shows we own.

• 1:04:14Nilay Patel?

  Like a house of brands.

• 1:04:15Speaker 10

  Like a house of brands, yeah, like CBS, worked out real well for CBS, Viacom. And you look at Netflix, Netflix is losing all those, right? That's the thing, Netflix is losing almost everything, which is why they're pushing so much of their originals and why they're pushing so much, like they're spending a reported lease like $17 billion on content this year. That's more than any other studio because they know they have to do that. Disney is going to get by on having a series like The Mandalorian, Falcon and Winter Soldier, every three months that people will keep subscribed to and that will hopefully keep them there. And Kevin Mayer very smartly said in November, which is also why we're bundling Hulu really cheaply with, because we know you'll probably get bored. Have you tried Hulu?

• 1:04:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:58Speaker 10

  Like, it's a smart move on their part.

• 1:04:59Nilay Patel?

  So, when you hear Bob Iger say, "I'm gonna focus on creative."

• 1:05:04Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 1:05:04Nilay Patel?

  And then there's this sort of problem of the big franchises have reached narrative conclusion, we need new stuff, we don't kind of know where, what app all of our content is gonna live in. Does that seem like he's just gonna start meddling with his studio heads?

• 1:05:18Speaker 10

  I think he makes the right calls. I heard a story that, so Kevin Mayer was the guy alongside Iger, who was responsible, he used to lead acquisitions, so he was responsible for all the major acquisitions alongside Iger. From what I heard from a source, Kevin was the guy who kind of pitched Twitter to Disney. He was like, "I don't think this is a good idea thing."

• 1:05:38Nilay Patel?

  They should buy Twitter.

• 1:05:39Speaker 10

  We should buy Twitter. And Bob was the one who was like, "Nah, I don't know about that. I think we should like wait."

• 1:05:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:45Speaker 10

  They did.

• 1:05:47Nilay Patel?

  It was a good decision.

• 1:05:48Speaker 10

  Yeah.

• 1:05:48Nilay Patel?

  They were also at one point gonna buy Vice.

• 1:05:50Speaker 10

  Right.

• 1:05:50Nilay Patel?

  Also seems like a good non-call.

• 1:05:52Speaker 10

  Right, so there's a lot of these things that happen that Bob, I think, has a lot of, it's why people credit him as being visionary and for what he does. I think that's where he'll come in. He won't go to Kevin Feige and be like, "Have we considered doing this movie based on this random character?" But he'll say, "Okay, I think we can roll it out this way. I think if we make this a Disney Plus thing and we make that a theatrical thing, and then we put this on Freeform, which is like their family channel." We can really work out a way that makes sense for all of our consumers and keeps it going and keeps the interest high. That's what he's always been really good at. And now he's just gonna focus on that. So he's gonna focus on, I think intertwining all of the different parts of Disney's content that makes sense. You know, the big question

• 1:06:34Speaker 10

  now is whoever replaces Bob C. as heads of parks, I don't think they've announced anyone yet. They'll have to like work with them on that to like figure out how to intertwine the parks into that way as well. But Iger is mostly focused on the next few years of content. And that is gonna be intertwining Disney Plus theatrical and network.

• 1:06:52Nilay Patel?

  I like that Freeform didn't get a tile on the Disney Plus app.

• 1:06:55Speaker 10

  I know, poor Freeform.

• 1:06:56Nilay Patel?

  They just didn't make it. Alright, the streaming wars continue to be, first of all, dominated by Bobs and Kevins. The Bob and Kevin shuffle continues every day. You wrote a piece, you wrote a little profile of Bob C., everyone should go read that. What's the next big turn, do you think?

• 1:07:12Speaker 10

  The next big thing is what happens with Kevin. And so that is what happens with his division, which is streaming international. Everyone I talk to who works in those divisions, I keep asking if they've heard from Kevin. Not necessarily that they would, but they're like, nope. Had no emails saying like, hey, this is our new CEO.

• 1:07:27Nilay Patel?

  He hasn't said anything yet?

• 1:07:28Speaker 10

  Nope. Nothing like, hey, here's our new CEO. You know, like, you work at a company, something happens, your manager sends out a thing going, hey, this is our new thing. You know, here's what's happening.

• 1:07:37Nilay Patel?

  I definitely knew about this before it was happening. That is 100% the lie you were always telling if you were in the company.

• 1:07:44Speaker 10

  Yeah, exactly. So no one's heard from him. So I mean, people are not worried, but they're kind of like, what does this mean for us? And I think the big question is if Kevin stays for the next year, what does that relationship with him and Bob C. look like? Because they've rarely worked together, really. And now they're gonna have to suddenly work. And by the way, streaming, which Bob Iger calls the future of Disney, is the one area Bob C. has no, like, connection with. So that's a fun move where Bob Iger, for the two and a half years, has gone, streaming is where the future of Disney is. We're gonna take some theatrical stuff and make it a Disney Plus show. We're doing it this way, Disney Plus movie. And all of a sudden, their new CEO, who does absolutely no idea what's going on with streaming to an extent. Like, he's just not been involved with it. So that's

• 1:08:29Speaker 10

  like a fun thing they're gonna have to overcome. That's the big thing that Wall Street's going, like, how are you managing that? The word I keep using is that Bob Iger will be a buffer. He will be the guy that, like... Talks to the Kevins and is like, no, no, no, you come to me. I'll figure it out. Don't worry. Like basically dad role, right? He's gonna be like, don't worry, like I'll, I'll deal with it. We'll figure it out. And I think that's what he's gonna do for the next 22 months or whatever. If Kevin leaves, it's a whole new game. It's like, well, they have to figure that out pretty quickly because Kevin has been instrumental in everything that happens with streaming.

• 1:09:00Nilay Patel?

  All right. Keep your eye on Kevin Meyer.

• 1:09:02Speaker 10

  Yeah, it's been my thing.

• 1:09:03Nilay Patel?

  Big Kevin movement coming.

• 1:09:06Nilay Patel?

  All right, Julia, thank you so much. We're just gonna, the streaming wars view from the field is just gonna become a recurring thing here, I feel. All right, we're gonna take a break. We'll be right back.

• 1:09:20Speaker 05

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra because it's not just a superior light beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 1:09:49Speaker 07

  Welcome to Sephora. I'm looking for a perfume that's not too perfumey.

• 1:09:54Speaker 06

  I got you.

• 1:09:55Speaker 08

  Serum moisturizer or moisturizer serum.

• 1:09:58Speaker 06

  Let's get into layering. My concealer is making me look worse. Sounds like the wrong shade. Let's get you matched.

• 1:10:07Speaker 09

  There's only one store that really gets what you're going for. Get beauty from people who get beauty, only at Sephora.

• 1:10:14Speaker 11

  Hi, I, uh.

• 1:10:15Speaker 06

  Let's get you a basket.

• 1:10:20Nilay Patel?

  Paul Miller.

• 1:10:20Speaker 04

  Yo.

• 1:10:21Nilay Patel?

  Every week, my man, we hold our fractured nation together.

• 1:10:25Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:10:25Nilay Patel?

  With a segment that is consistently called.

• 1:10:28Speaker 04

  A plurality of puffs.

• 1:10:30Nilay Patel?

  Hmm, I know what this is.

• 1:10:32Speaker 04

  This is wording from Jules' patent application for an, some sort of AI smoking or vaping cessation thing.

• 1:10:45Speaker 04

  I don't really know what's going on here, but it kind of sounds like, let me, let me just read straight from the, from the pattern, because it's just really good. The method includes determining a delivery pattern for providing a first puff containing an amount of a first vaporizable material and a second puff containing an amount of a second vaporizable material. So I think the idea is that they're kind of, they're doing a switcheroo on you to trick you into stop smoke, um, stop vaping. The first vaporizable material includes a first substance and the second vaporizable material does not include the first substance. I think that substance is nicotine.

• 1:11:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's definitely nicotine.

• 1:11:24Speaker 04

  The method further includes providing a plurality of puffs from a vaporizer.

• 1:11:30Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:11:31Speaker 04

  The plurality of puffs based on the delivery pattern and including the first puff and the second puff. The method further includes receiving user feedback associated with the delivery pattern in response to the providing.

• 1:11:42Speaker 03

  Is it just like, screw it, that puff didn't have any nicotine in it?

• 1:11:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think the thing is like, if somehow they can detect that you still really want more puffs.

• 1:11:51Speaker 03

  This is not a cessation plot. This is a get you hooked on more jewel plot, because literally the cliche is, uh, the pigeon in the room with the, uh, button that gives it food. And it hits the button, the food comes, and if it's consistent, it like hits the button, eats till it's full, and then it stops. But if the food comes randomly, it like hits the button until it needs until it explodes, because that's how random feedback works on your brain if you're a pigeon or a human with a gambling problem, for example. So if there's AI that is like, like giving you, like trying to like step down your nicotine, but the actual experience of it is just like, you randomly don't know if you're going to get nicotine in your puff or not, what are you going to do? You're going to be the pigeon. You're just going to puff away.

• 1:12:34Speaker 04

  This is great. So it's an AI, it's an AI jewel. Yeah, it's a patent.

• 1:12:39Nilay Patel?

  It's a patent. Okay. Juul, they've been promising a smart vape. That helps you kick nicotine for like a long time. One of the problems that they have is that Apple just kicked all vaping apps off the App Store. By default.

• 1:12:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, and Apple also doesn't allow Safari access to Bluetooth devices, obviously.

• 1:13:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, so you're saying we're gonna live in a world where Android users

• 1:13:03Nilay Patel?

  Can quit nicotine.

• 1:13:04Speaker 04

  Are nicotine free.

• 1:13:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm saying in a world where the local processing power of the Juul has to skyrocket to pull off your plurality of bumps. Like, is Juul gonna make an ARM processor is like the next turn of the script.

• 1:13:20Speaker 03

  Just to be clear, we live in a world where there already exists like Android phones that have vaporizers built into them.

• 1:13:28Nilay Patel?

  Alright, well, we'll just see how that goes. 2020 AI vapes.

• 1:13:33Speaker 04

  And patents, that's my argument.

• 1:13:36Nilay Patel?

  But then you would never know.

• 1:13:39Speaker 04

  That's right, and I don't need to know.

• 1:13:43Speaker 04

  Juul can keep this sort of literature to themselves.

• 1:13:47Nilay Patel?

  Alright, fine. Alright, we've gone long, but there's a grab bag of stuff.

• 1:13:50Speaker 03

  Lightning round.

• 1:13:52Nilay Patel?

  MWC was canceled due to the coronavirus. The coronavirus, by the way, is literally sweeping the world. We're gonna have an interview episode with our health reporter Nicole Wetzman and Liz Lapato, our deputy editor, who's kind of studying the business impacts of the coronavirus. We're gonna get those two together and do a whole interview episode about that. Don't want to minimize it, but MWC is happening virtually. Because it's not happening in Barcelona. A bunch of new announcements. I'm just gonna yell phone names at you, dear. Are you ready? LGV60 Think Q5G.

• 1:14:26Speaker 03

  Seems fine on paper. We'll see if they can get the camera right. Also, it has a little screen case thing, which... Man, LG just can't get anyone to pay attention.

• 1:14:35Speaker 04

  By screen case, you mean a second, like, like, like the, what's the?

• 1:14:40Speaker 03

  It's like an extended display.

• 1:14:41Speaker 04

  Fold out display. The Duo.

• 1:14:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:42Speaker 04

  It's like the Duo, but it's just an extra screen for your phone.

• 1:14:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:46Speaker 03

  It's exactly like the Duo, only they're not Microsoft, and so everyone will forget that it's there.

• 1:14:51Nilay Patel?

  So it's a case for the phone that contains another full-size screen.

• 1:14:55Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:14:56Nilay Patel?

  All right, where did all the other phones in this go? This just says Sony did a phone with a headphone jack.

• 1:15:01Speaker 04

  That's because I added that link.

• 1:15:02Speaker 03

  Sony made the Experia 1 2, which the Experia 1 is the tall boy. They also have like an Experia 1 Mini, which is a smaller tall boy. So they, they updated it. There's another version coming. They're trying again to get it right with the camera, because Sony makes the sensors with their cameras on their own phones are always bad. We'll see what they do this time. I think there's some special stuff going on there, but they added back a headphone jack. There wasn't one in the last one.

• 1:15:26Nilay Patel?

  They know.

• 1:15:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:27Nilay Patel?

  They know how to get me back.

• 1:15:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:28Nilay Patel?

  Huawei announces Mate XS Foldable with a more durable display. And if, the Mate XS is one where the screen folds around the outside.

• 1:15:35Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:15:35Nilay Patel?

  Which, given everything we know, seems bad.

• 1:15:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, they have, they, there's now like, I don't know, four or eight layers of different kinds of plastic now on the outside to make it more durable.

• 1:15:46Nilay Patel?

  That's great. The dimmest display in the industry.

• 1:15:48Speaker 03

  It's like, imagine if you put a screen protector on your phone and then you forgot, and then you put another one on your phone. And then it bent.

• 1:15:55Nilay Patel?

  Uh, there's a Redmi phone.

• 1:15:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, the, the Redmi phone is, um, it's an A65, and therefore it'll be 5G. Uh, and it's just like a bunch of phones that were like, oh my God, they're just, they're coming out. They've got like the same, like, baseline specs that the S20 has, uh, but we'll see. It'll be fine.

• 1:16:15Nilay Patel?

  Galaxy Buds Plus.

• 1:16:17Speaker 03

  Chris Welch reviewed them. They're good.

• 1:16:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. Good battery life, the phone quality actually is good.

• 1:16:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:25Speaker 03

  The only thing they're missing is active noise cancellation, which.

• 1:16:28Nilay Patel?

  There's not a, there's been a lot of announced wireless buds with active noise cancellation, but the AirPods Pro is going to be it.

• 1:16:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, there's, there's, um, there's already, uh, I mean, there's the Echo Buds from Amazon, uh, and then there's the Sonys, which are well regarded, becoming a gigantic case.

• 1:16:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:45Speaker 03

  The funny, the one thing these buds don't do is they, uh, they will let you, you know, pair with multiple devices, but they won't switch seamlessly between them, unless you have a bunch of Samsung phones, in which case it's totally, they can.

• 1:16:55Nilay Patel?

  Of course. Proprietary Bluetooth.

• 1:16:57Speaker 04

  Can I say something about active noise cancellation earbuds? I am living with my sister in New York. She got the AirPods Pro because her regular AirPods died, and I have no idea how to get her, like, it's, it's a, it's a dice roll whether I need to yell at her to get her attention, or, you know, wave at her, you know, do something respectful to, to, to make her aware that I'm talking to her, because these are apparently effective.

• 1:17:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:17:25Speaker 04

  At noise cancellation.

• 1:17:26Speaker 03

  It's great.

• 1:17:26Nilay Patel?

  Very good.

• 1:17:27Speaker 04

  And they're really subtle, so you don't know necessarily, that's anyways.

• 1:17:31Speaker 03

  Yes, Dieter was sitting next to me in the office all day yesterday, and I kept on just yelling at him. It was not respectful. It was like, "Dieter!"

• 1:17:38Speaker 04

  I feel like this is, this could lead to a, a breakdown of our society.

• 1:17:42Speaker 03

  The best part was, I wasn't listening to music, they, they weren't even on, and I heard him the entire time.

• 1:17:46Nilay Patel?

  All right, uh, do you want to run us for this Xbox Series X stuff?

• 1:17:52Speaker 04

  I, I am so stoked about, so Microsoft kind of like confirmed some details about, um, the Series X, which is really great in this, this case where the PlayStation 5, like, basically, until specifically proven otherwise, you can assume that every feature, hardware-wise, that you get on the Xbox, you're going to get on the PlayStation. Like, and so, you know, I'm sure they will find ways to differentiate. I think Microsoft wants to be the fastest, sounds like Sony might want to be the cheaper one, who knows? But like, right now, they're both getting the same general batch of very good AMD stuff. So, Xbox, uh, Microsoft is saying Xbox Series X will have 12 teraflop GPU, which, to put

• 1:18:37Speaker 04

  that in context, is about where the high-end is right now of desktop GPUs.

• 1:18:43Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:18:44Speaker 04

  It's like, it's faster than anything that AMD has right now.

• 1:18:48Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:18:48Speaker 04

  So... They're really, they're really pushing it. And then everything, every other little detail that comes out is just like, it sounds like exactly like, like my like wishlist for what I would want in a console. Like the HDMI 2.1, which is include variable refresh, high frame rate stuff. Microsoft is focusing on low latency throughout the whole chain from the, from the controller all the way to the screen. HDMI 2.1 has this thing where you can request the game mode from a TV. So the low latency, so you don't have to dive into the settings to try to find the low latency settings.

• 1:19:30Speaker 04

  And then another detail that they just shared, oh, cause you know, Sony and Microsoft have been talking about these really quick load times or zero load screens. Cause they're going to have fast like NVMe SSDs.

• 1:19:42Speaker 03

  This next part is amazing.

• 1:19:43Speaker 04

  Major Nelson on his podcast is talking about his experience with this is like, yeah, the load times are really great. And I could like switch between games and they just start up right away. It's awesome, but then I had to reboot the console. And after it booted, tho- those save states are still there. And so I can just resume the game right away, like even after a reboot, which is, it's just like, I feel like we, we really downgraded how much we're waiting on our consoles between the 360 and the Xbox One era. Cause the, the drives didn't get any faster. Our internet connections didn't get much faster and the, the files got way bigger. But I don't know, I feel like they're addressing it now.

• 1:20:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm very excited. Like the, the, the instant resume of like the last game you're playing PlayStation or a switch, you know, like I, I love that. It actually like makes it more likely that I'm going to play the game because I know I don't have to wait for it to start. And to have that work for multiple games, huge. And to have that work across reboots is just, that's just like bragging.

• 1:20:37Speaker 04

  Right. And then, and something that Microsoft is also really into is that they're calling it smart delivery. So, and, and one of the first publishers that like promised to do this, like obviously Microsoft will do this with their own games. You buy the game and now you own it across any compatible console. So, so you bought, and so Cyberpunk 277 is, is announced that it's going to work like this. So if you buy Cyberpunk 2077 for the Xbox One, you now own a copy that will work on your next Xbox. Or, or if you buy, when you buy on the next Xbox, but you bring your game over to a friend's to play, it will work on, and they have the, only have the Xbox One. They don't have the new, the Series X.

• 1:21:19Speaker 04

  It'll work on their console. So like there's some kind of a portability. The scary part about that is that the real game is no longer, you know, it was already ceasing to be the physical object, but it's definitely not the physical object.

• 1:21:32Speaker 03

  What happens if you take a photo of the game with a pixel at night and it combines multiple photos together in a composite?

• 1:21:38Nilay Patel?

  What is?

• 1:21:40Speaker 03

  Well, that sounds exciting. It sounds like GDC is, Microsoft just pulled out because of the coronavirus.

• 1:21:48Nilay Patel?

  Epic pulled out. We don't know if GDC is going to keep going, but that's another one of these, it seemed like it was going to be a moment and now we're going to bleed out some more information over time. GDC is Game Developer Conference.

• 1:22:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't, I don't know all the, like, how much they were going to announce. I'm sure they were going to have a bunch of meetings with developers and show them a bunch of stuff.

• 1:22:09Speaker 03

  I think that if I work at a game company and I want to figure out how to handle the cancellation of a conference and like to try and get some attention for my phones that otherwise would have definitely gotten attention for the conference, I would not do what everyone has done in the wake of MWC. Like, I made fun of people not paying attention to LG a minute ago. If they had been able to launch that thing at MWC, they definitely would have gotten more attention than they're getting now.

• 1:22:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, because they would have had an event.

• 1:22:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's different for a big company like Microsoft, but these, these cancellations of these conferences really hurts the mid-tier and like bottom-tier companies that like, that's their chance to like get some attention in a much easier way than they otherwise will now.

• 1:22:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Okay, last bit. Apple released white papers to Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR. You should read them. They're very funny. Apple's very proud of itself for making computers.

• 1:23:01Speaker 03

  He lies, looking at me and he's seeing me smiling at him because all I, I just need to like start saying words to troll him into a three-hour rant, but I'm not going to do it.

• 1:23:08Nilay Patel?

  No, the, our review of the Mac Pro and the Pro Display is coming next week. It's a very close. It was just a busy week. There was a dramatic fiasco. It's funny. We didn't want to stack them all up. It's coming on Monday, but I, just two things I want to point out for these white papers. One, you're not supposed to shine a light at the back of the Pro Display XDR because it has light sensors in the back and the front.

• 1:23:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:32Nilay Patel?

  And so if you like point a light at the back of it, it screws up the display. I think that note is in the white paper just for our friends who are YouTubers. Like, no hue lights behind your setup anymore, boys. And then for the Mac Pro, and this is just a little tease, Apple is like, hey, as core counts go up on these processors, clock speeds go down.

• 1:23:53Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:23:53Nilay Patel?

  So make sure your applications are multi-threaded appropriately because they might actually get slower depending on if you buy the more expensive processor with more cores at a slower clock speed.

• 1:24:08Speaker 04

  Should've gone Threadripper.

• 1:24:09Nilay Patel?

  Just putting it out there.

• 1:24:10Speaker 04

  No compromise.

• 1:24:11Nilay Patel?

  Not saying a word about it. It's just a little piece of information I want you to have, and you'll see it next week. Our review is happening. The wheels don't have locks and the thing will roll off the table.

• 1:24:21Speaker 04

  I know, that's the true scandal.

• 1:24:22Nilay Patel?

  That's, Marques Brownlee did that video, did a great Mac Pro video, go watch that, it's very funny. Okay, that's it, that's The Vergecast. Dieter, you have a, you have a thing to plug?

• 1:24:30Speaker 03

  Uh, it's a newsletter, it's called Processor. You can find it at theverge.com/newsletters. I write it mostly daily. It's about computers.

• 1:24:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. If you've enjoyed this show, have you thought about it with an editor in an email? It's very much right there. You can tweet at us, I'm Reckless Paul, it's Future Paul, Dieter's at Backlon. That's it. Rock and roll.

• 1:24:49Speaker 03

  Promo code.

• 1:25:09Speaker 12

  New and exclusive holiday decor just launched online at The Home Depot. Check out the viral Grand Duchess collection with smart holiday lights you can control from your phone. Easily customize the twinkle across trees, wreaths, and garlands to match your holiday vibe. Create stunning light effects, then switch it up with the tap of your fingers. Even the man in red will be impressed. Shop the holiday decor you want, online only, at homedepot.com.

• 1:25:39Speaker 13

  Online Deal Days are back at Kroger. Don't miss your chance for extra savings when you shop, pick up, or delivery. You can save $30 on your first online order of $75 or more with your digital coupon. Plus, enjoy unlimited free delivery by starting a Boost Free trial today. But hurry, these extra savings end October 20th. Restrictions apply, see site for details. Kroger, fresh for everyone.