Apple (grumpily) opens up the App Store

The Verge's Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Alex Cranz discuss Apple allowing alternative browser engines in the EU, Netflix getting WWE, Pixel 9 leaks, and more. Further reading: Apple is bringing sideloading and alternate app stores to the iPhone Apple is allowing alternative browser engines in iOS 17.4 — but only in the EU Apple opens App Store to game streaming services Netflix is turning into cable TV Netflix is going to take away its cheapest ad-free plan WWE Monday Night Raw is ditching cable for Netflix The Mac turns 40 — and keeps on moving Looking back on 40 years of Macintosh The Pixel 9 leaks are already here Leaked pictures show a very blue Pixel 9. The Vision Pro’s most important app is Safari, whether Apple likes it or not Vision Pro cover glass repairs will set you back $799 without AppleCare Plus Apple tells artists how much more money they can make with spatial audio Inside India’s race to cool 1.3 billion people in a warming world Nintendo goes after the Palworld Pokémon modder The Pokémon Company says it will ‘investigate’ Palworld This baby is covered in old flip phones and chips — and you cannot afford it Email us at [email protected] or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 1:02Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of the European Union. Yeah. Look, I couldn't get what I wanted by talking about it on this show. They earned it. I called my friends in Europe and said, "Use the power of the state." And boy, did they ever. They really did. This is the wonkiest way to begin a show about cell phones that has ever wonked.

• 1:24David Pierce?

  We won in 1776 and we won again in 2024.

• 1:30David Pierce?

  We're taking over.

• 1:31Nilay Patel?

  Did we? Do you think... Okay, let's begin. There's a lot of news this week. Yes. Just an overwhelming amount of news. It starts, I think we have to begin with the Digital Markets Act in Europe, which is causing just an enormous amount of change to how the iPhone and iOS are going to work in Europe. David, walk us through it, because it is bananas.

• 1:53David Pierce?

  Yeah, this is actually more bananas than I think a lot of people expected, and we were kind of expecting bananas. So basically, Apple, today, Thursday, announced iOS 17.4, which is coming out in March. Apple doesn't normally go way out of its way to Make huge announcements about point updates, but there are essentially three big pieces of news in here, which are kind of one piece of news in three different directions. And the big thing here is that Apple is just opening up the App Store in a really big way. So Apple is going to now allow alternate app stores, which it calls alternative app marketplaces. And if you call them app stores, they will correct you and say app marketplaces.

• 2:35David Pierce?

  On the iPhone now, we can talk about how all of that works in a minute, but that's the first thing. The second thing is they're now allowing other browser engines to run on iOS. So Chrome and Firefox and all these things can actually run their full tech stack, which means they can run extensions, they can run all kinds of other stuff. That is, I think, a big deal. And then the third and more immediate thing, starting today, is that the App Store is now open to game streaming services, things like Game Pass and Sony's PlayStation Plus and all that stuff. That has not been allowed very contentiously in the App Store before Epic wants to be in the App Store and can't be, can't get the Epic Store on the iPhone. Starting now, those kinds of services are going to be available in the App Store.

• 3:20David Pierce?

  All of this, almost all of it, is exclusive to the EU. This is where the Digital Markets Act is. This stuff is taking place there. And rather than do what we thought might happen, which is make a big global change, the way that it did with USB-C, the EU said it has to be USB-C and Apple could have made two phones, but elected to just switch everything to USB-C. Apple is very clearly cleaving off this one part of the world and saying this is how things are going to work in the EU. And in the rest of the world, it is more or less business as usual. The game streaming thing is the exception. That is global. Everything else extremely focused to the EU. And Apple has made very clear it is doing this against its will and with great, great rage and disdain at the entirety of the process.

• 4:04Nilay Patel?

  Yes, they're very mad at Europe.

• 4:05David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 4:06Alex Cranz?

  Like a Paris baguette, just like put it at their head, do it.

• 4:10Nilay Patel?

  Tim Cook is never eating cheese again. It's never happening.

• 4:12David Pierce?

  But Neela, what I really want to know is like, we've been talking about this for forever. And this just sort of like dropped. Like, is this what you would have guessed this would be coming into this?

• 4:23Nilay Patel?

  To some extent, the thing that really got me these past few weeks is Apple also had to do the alternative payments thing, and it has gone kicking and screaming and basically made that a non-issue. They like weaseled their way out of you have to provide outside links to payment services, which they have to per court order in the United States. And they made that so expensive and so hard to do that it's never going to happen. And one would assume, and I really thought they would find some way to do that in Europe too with these rules. Then there was a picture of Tim Cook with Margaret Vestager, who is the competition head in Europe. And I'm pretty sure, you know, they were meeting about this.

• 5:08Nilay Patel?

  And I feel more confident than ever that Apple made a bit of a horse trade because the EU also wanted them to open up iMessage. Right. And that's a weird one in the EU because everyone in the EU uses like WhatsApp. They don't like, they don't use iMessage. So I'm pretty sure Apple got to keep iMessage closed. They said, we'll do RCS, we, it's about time anyway. And the EU said, okay, we're going to leave iMessage alone, but you've got to do the other stuff. And that is the thing. Like, I'm pretty sure that that is the, the trade that was worked out. Yeah. And so Apple is like, to some extent, going farther than we expected with the browser engines, with the app stores, with game streaming. We should talk about game streaming being global. I think that's really interesting. But to some extent, they're just making it,

• 5:51Nilay Patel?

  it's not quite as bad as the, you have to allow links to external payment services in the US. Like, you can just put another app store on there. Those app stores have to be approved by Apple, the apps have to be notarized. And there's all this stuff. There's still hoops, but it's not, it's not going to not happen the way that external payment services are going to not happen. And then the browser engine thing, I really think just the ability for Google to put the Chrome browser engine on, on the iPhone will make WebKit better. Yes. Because Apple will finally have to compete, and it can be shown that Apple holds WebKit back. Yep. In order to preference the App Store. And that alone, if that just happens, if it happens in one country in Europe, Luxembourg. Chrome can run on the iPhone in Luxembourg.

• 6:36Nilay Patel?

  That will make WebKit better everywhere else, right?

• 6:38David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 6:39Nilay Patel?

  Because the evidence will be available. And I think that's amazing. But I think there's a little bit of horse trading going on here where they protected iMessage, which is the big lock-in, and they were a little more open to everything else because they needed to protect iMessage.

• 6:53David Pierce?

  To me, I actually think, and I'm going to like, try to think this out here as I go, because this has just occurred to me as you're talking. So this might make no sense for a while, but go with me here. I think the fact that they're treating game streaming as different from the alternative App Store thing is really telling. Because in a certain way, they're functionally the same thing, right? It's an app full of other apps, right?

• 7:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:16David Pierce?

  It's, that's what these game streaming things want, and that's what the alternative App Stores want. And I think what Apple may have realized is that the game streaming thing, people will go to the ends of the earth to do, right? Like, if I am a Game Pass subscriber, I will do whatever is required to get Game Pass. And that stuff is big enough and powerful enough that people will go through whatever hoops are required. So Apple is actually, in a certain way, smart to remove some of those hoops and just open it up and to some extent, admit defeat, right? And it's like, we, this is, this is just Apple saying, you know what, you wanted this, you can have it. And we don't know a ton about what the business terms of all of that are going to be.

• 8:00David Pierce?

  Apple has been weird about, like, it has to approve every individual game in the store before, and that's been wonky. So there's a lot left to play out there. But I think Apple, for that one, is kind of just saying, you want it, you got it, you win. On this one, I think, it seems to me that there's a, there's a version of this that says Apple is just trying to make it hard enough that, not so that it won't happen, because it will happen, you're right. There will be alternate app marketplaces on iOS very quickly. But I think they might be able to make it hard enough that almost no one cares. And, and the way they've set it up, like Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic, which makes Fortnite and all this stuff, called it malicious compliance, right? And we've talked about that with a lot of what Apple has been doing.

• 8:44David Pierce?

  That's what the, uh, you can link out from your app, but you still have to pay us 27% even though you're not doing any of this stuff through Apple anymore. That is pure malicious compliance. And in this case too, I think you can accuse Apple of trying to make it hard for developers to play this game. Like if you want to do this, you have to make a different version of your app essentially that works in the EU versus the one that works in the rest of the world. But Apple will only accept one version of your app. So you have to make an app that is two apps, one of which runs in one place and one of which runs in the rest of the world. You have to go through this process as an app marketplace to get all of the apps in it notarized and your marketplace approved.

• 9:28David Pierce?

  If you are a developer, you have to either set up a bunch of other payment systems, work with all these different marketplaces, or you just say, you know what, screw it, we're not actually saving that much money and just say in the App Store.

• 9:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, except there are huge categories of apps that Apple won't allow. Right? This is the thing that I think will be really interesting to you. And I'm not even sure some of these apps should exist. Right?

• 9:53David Pierce?

  I mean porn is the obvious one, right?

• 9:54Nilay Patel?

  Porn, yeah.

• 9:55David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 9:55Nilay Patel?

  Watch all the porn you want. I'm just saying like, I'm not sure deep fake porn generators should exist on the iPhone. I think that that's a dangerous territory. Apple would never allow that stuff in its store. You can see how an alternative marketplace, hoops aside, will certainly allow people to tap the vast processing power of whatever a, a series chip is in your phone to run some of these apps.

• 10:18David Pierce?

  Even just like apps that show you objectionable content, right? The kinds of things that Apple has not allowed before and is actually like a weapon Apple has wielded against platforms before. That is now going to be perfectly permissible to install on the iPhone through one of these alternate stores. Like, as long as it, as long as the app itself is not like a security risk stealing your information, it's, Apple's content rules do not apply. And that's gotta make Apple feel so gross and icky and-

• 10:47Nilay Patel?

  They don't like it. So here's one, and I don't know if Reddit still falls in this category. Tumblr certainly used to fall in this category, where Apple's content rules kept the app from showing all the content on the service. Right. So the reason Tumblr got rid of porn is because Verizon bought it. And Apple said to its partner Verizon, its big, important partner, "Shut it down."

• 11:10David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Nilay Patel?

  And Verizon said, "We sell the iPhone. No." And Apple said, "Shut it down," and Verizon caved. Like, end of story, right? And then WordPress bought it and they tried to have a fight and they like, found the same little exception as Reddit, which is, "Yeah, what if you don't?" You know, like, that's basically how it works on Reddit. Um, it's basically how it was gonna work on Tumblr, but all these things, like, all these hoops, we talk about all the time. Uh, like, Apple makes developers jump through hoops. There are some categories of apps that just do not exist because of the hoops. And in Europe, yeah, it's like not worth it for saving 3%, that's not even 3%. But when it's existential, I think a bunch of developers are gonna jump through the hoops.

• 11:54Nilay Patel?

  And I think the first category of apps that have existential problems are the ones Apple forbids. Which necessarily means Apple's gonna win the first battle here by saying, "Look at all the stuff you enabled." Like, "Look at all the porn." Like, that's what they're gonna say. "Look, you made a porn marketplace." Are you, are you, are you happy, Europe? People will say yes. And Europe being Europe is gonna be like, "Yeah, we are historically topless." We don't believe in that. Like, "Think about what we invented. We're the French." Right? And they're gonna be fine with it. And I, but I, I think that there's another turn here where there are categories of apps that we can't even imagine that don't exist on the phone. There are categories of business models that we cannot imagine that don't exist on the phone.

• 12:36Nilay Patel?

  And we might see some of those develop in Europe because now they have actual access to customers on their devices without having to ask Apple for permission. And I think game streaming is that category. It is the category of things where everybody can imagine it, everyone can envision it, and it does not exist.

• 12:52Alex Cranz?

  And I do want to say, like, David, you kind of said, eh, it's not that big a deal. I do think having to get App Store permission for every single game that's going to be on these streaming services is pretty onerous. Like, that was something that Nvidia and, and Microsoft, and I think even Google, were pretty against a couple of years ago. And I'm curious to see if there's, if their opinions have changed. We've reached out to them, we haven't heard back yet. But really, really curious there because before they were like, no, we don't want to send every, like, here's a four or five, we don't want you approving that, we don't, like, why should we have to get your approval for it?

• 13:22Nilay Patel?

  Well, they need to get the console maker approvals for those games.

• 13:25Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, that's true. But I think there, there's certain things, there are certain types of games and stuff that might be more permissible in a console setting, like around gambling and that sort of thing, that are less permissible on the iStore, on, on the Apple Store.

• 13:37Nilay Patel?

  Oh, here's another whole category. You mentioned, you mentioned gambling. So gambling, right now not allowed, any NFT apps, any crypto apps do not exist on the iPhone. So if you're in Europe, your ability to open an App Store that's like gambling, pornography, cryptocurrency mining, yeah, time of your life. This is why Monaco exists, from what I understand.

• 14:00David Pierce?

  They're gonna get so rich, like, the number of billionaires in Europe is about to spike through the roof.

• 14:06Nilay Patel?

  But all that stuff is like wild to think about, right? And it's gonna play to Apple's favor because the stuff that most people can immediately think of that is against Apple's rules is stuff that is morally questionable.

• 14:19Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 14:20Nilay Patel?

  Right, or at least arguably morally questionable.

• 14:22David Pierce?

  I think that there's a flip side to that that is basically businesses that couldn't afford to be on the iPhone, which is like the rub has always been basically if you don't run a business at a 30% margin, you can't exist in a useful way on the iPhone because Apple's going to take 30%. So like audiobooks is one you hear a lot, right? Like it's very hard to make a thing that sells audiobooks in a good, useful way on the iPhone because you have to give Apple 30% and that business does not afford you 30% margin to give to Apple. And now, if you want to be in an alternate App Store, using non-Apple payments, which in the EU you're going to be allowed to do, you suddenly owe Apple nothing. And

• 15:04David Pierce?

  that, like, your agreement with the marketplace, who knows what that'll be, whatever, but that suddenly changes the kinds of business at the low end of what you can do on the iPhone because you don't have to give Apple 30% of everything that you do, which is pretty powerful.

• 15:19Alex Cranz?

  I could see a company like Amazon who already has, knows how to make an App Store, just being like, alright, we're gonna pull the Kindle app.

• 15:25Nilay Patel?

  Do they?

• 15:26Alex Cranz?

  Well, in theory, they do. They've made something and it resembles an App Store. They could very easily be like, okay, we're gonna get rid of the Kindle app on the Apple Store.

• 15:36Nilay Patel?

  I look forward to Amazon executing a software platform at scale. It'll be great.

• 15:42David Pierce?

  They're gonna put the Silk browser in there, it's gonna be sick.

• 15:45Nilay Patel?

  I think, I think, you know, Andy will believe it when we see it, but I look forward to your attempts. A large company runs AWS.

• 15:55David Pierce?

  You know what I think is perfectly possible is that the Kindle app stays in the App Store, but also goes into a separate Amazon-run marketplace, like Alex you're talking about. And then Amazon can say, you know what, if you want the easy way, here it is, this is the way the Kindle has always been. But if you do this thing, just hook it up to your Amazon account and you have one-click purchasing for all of your Kindle books and audiobooks forever. And I, like, I hadn't really thought about that until you mentioned Kindle, but like, I would download a new marketplace for that. In order to be able to easily buy Kindle books on my phone, I would go through whatever hoops I had to.

• 16:28Nilay Patel?

  Amazon and Spotify will start their marketplace tomorrow, right? And so Spotify can sell you its, I guess they're doing audiobooks too. That's very competitive.

• 16:37Alex Cranz?

  They're not gonna, yeah, unless they

• 16:39Nilay Patel?

  Maybe they won't do that together.

• 16:40Alex Cranz?

  Maybe like Waterstones or somebody is like, we're gonna start the bookstore, the book app bookstore or something. Free, free idea for you.

• 16:46Nilay Patel?

  Well, at the very least, I look forward to just an explosion of bad ideas.

• 16:50Alex Cranz?

  Yes.

• 16:50Nilay Patel?

  And gambling and porn.

• 16:52Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, it's gonna be great.

• 16:53Nilay Patel?

  Neela is moving to Luxembourg is the other news on this podcast. Okay, so that's the App Store side, which I think is like understandable, right? You can see, okay, we're gonna open this up, we're gonna bypass the App Store rules, maybe lower some fees or maybe not, depending on how, well, you know, there's some complexity in there, but we'll let apps onto the phone that don't have to meet App Store rules. You can, you can just imagine all kinds of apps that are gonna happen there. And some of them will and some of they won't, and we'll let that develop. The browser side of it, to me, is actually the bigger deal. And I mentioned Luxembourg, but I really mean this, like, there is no pressure on WebKit on the iPhone, zero. Apple gets to do with that web browser exactly as it pleases, and it gets to impose whatever limitations on that browser it wants.

• 17:38Nilay Patel?

  And that is just very meaningful for a lot of things. Yep. It means that the, the ability for apps to distribute on the web is effectively capped on mobile by whatever Apple wants, whatever boundary it wants for the App Store. So I'll just give everybody this example. I'm looking at my Mac. It is running zero native apps right now. It's, it's running two, it's running MimeStream and Notion Calendar, which are both native. Nice. But that's only because I'm a snob and I read Installer.

• 18:06Nilay Patel?

  That's why.

• 18:06Alex Cranz?

  So good.

• 18:07Nilay Patel?

  Everything else is a web app, like, or it best a wrapper around a web app, right? It's some electron thing is happening to run Slack. Almost everything else on my Mac is a web app or running in Chrome. Almost every desktop application that you can think of that isn't like a game or, you know, a video editing software, gene splicing, whatever you might need the actual power of this Mac to do. Anything else that's like a reader or an information management app or any of this stuff, almost all of it on the cloud, expressed to you through web browser. Every AI service you can think of is happening on a data center expressed to you through a web browser. There's no ChatGPT app for the Mac. There's the web. And that is because the web is a great distribution platform on desktop computers,

• 18:49Nilay Patel?

  because there's actual competition between browser makers and then everyone picks Chrome. Fine.

• 18:54David Pierce?

  Well, and because your browser gets to do stuff, right? Like, your browser has access to system features and it can store a lot of stuff on the desktop and it can run stuff offline inside of a browser. Like, your browser has so much access to the rest of the machine on your desktop, which gives it all these powers that phone browsers just do not have. And that is a deliberate choice that Apple in particular has made for a very long time.

• 19:22Alex Cranz?

  And they are so mad.

• 19:24David Pierce?

  Oh, they're so mad.

• 19:25Nilay Patel?

  Well, they're mad. Before I get to mad, I just want to stay on Apple making that choice. Yes, it's a phone. Yes, it's battery constrained. Yes, the screen is small. My old Macs are vastly less powerful than my current iPhone. Right? Like, when I do this show at home, I do it on a 2015 iMac. I promise you my iPhone is more powerful than that computer. Like, vastly more powerful than that computer. That computer is so much more capable. If I did have one computer forever, I would probably, between my current iPhone and that Mac, yeah, I'd probably pick the iPhone, just for a number of reasons. But it would be hard, right? I'd be like, well, here's all the things I won't be able to do anymore. Right? And that is weird.

• 20:09Nilay Patel?

  That's not related to the power of the chip.

• 20:12David Pierce?

  No.

• 20:12Nilay Patel?

  It's related to the flexibility of the operating system and in particular, the ability of the browser to do almost anything. Right? It contains a vastly more powerful, much less encumbered app platform in the browser and WebKit stops. And so just having another browser engine on the phone to show everyone, here's what you could do if you had great browsers on this phone as the default.

• 20:37Nilay Patel?

  Apple cannot make a version of WebKit for Europe and a version of WebKit for everyone else that sucks.

• 20:42David Pierce?

  Right.

• 20:42Nilay Patel?

  Like, they just can't do that. And I think that pressure is going to push WebKit, which will then in turn push the App Store, which will be good.

• 20:50Alex Cranz?

  Will that also mean in the EU, the annoying, like, download the app instead of using the website thing will go away? Because you'll have all the people like using Chrome and it won't necessarily flag as mobile.

• 21:02Nilay Patel?

  No, because there's a PM on some app growth team somewhere that's measured in app installs and that she will bribe whoever needs to put that cookie banner.

• 21:11David Pierce?

  But like, that's actually, that's a perfect reason because like, do you know why people want app installs is because when they have an app install, they get to put a thing on your home screen, they get to send you push notifications, they get more power over what happens on your device, they get to take things like your location and all this personal information about you. Like, that's stuff that Apple gave to app developers that it could have given to web apps and just didn't. Because Apple, it's all the same stuff, right? Like, Apple wants full control over every single thing that happens on its system and you cannot do that to the web. And I think if you believe the web is a good thing for that reason, this is a great thing. I think if you're Apple, you do this kicking and screaming, which is very clearly what Apple is trying to do. Like, basically, when

• 21:56David Pierce?

  you're Apple and you're writing in your press releases, that you're like, big mad about this, like, it's pretty, it's pretty brutal.

• 22:03Alex Cranz?

  It's very funny.

• 22:04David Pierce?

  But no, I agree. And I think the, this improvement in the web, which to Apple's credit Safari has gotten better in the last couple of years. I would say almost certainly because of regulatory pressure. But Safari has gotten better. You can now install a progressive web app on your phone and it runs more or less like a native app. You know what's crazy? The web has supported that forever. Like, do you remember how many years you couldn't run background audio in Safari? If you left Safari, it would just stop playing whatever you're listening. Like, that's just a choice. And I think you're right, that if this goes well, that is one thing that will percolate back out is Apple is going to have to win that stuff. And this is like, all of this is so tied together in my brain now. Because

• 22:47David Pierce?

  like, I spent all this time at the Google antitrust trial where they talked a ton about this Apple deal. And it's like, oh, Apple makes a lot of money because of this deal from Google. Google is going to be less inclined to give Apple all that money if Safari stops working. So Apple has a real competitive reason to make Safari work, even in a world where it wants apps to work. So like, this flywheel of can we make the web a little better? I think you're right, is going to push Apple in good directions because it actually has found a way to make a lot of money off of the open web. So like, kudos to Apple. But it's a good thing for us. I really

• 23:21Nilay Patel?

  Found it pointed a gun at Google and said, do you want this data? And Google said, we, yes.

• 23:27David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 23:27Nilay Patel?

  Please. The game streaming one, it's interesting. It's Apple for the first time admitting that the App Store has segments and some are more lucrative than the others. Right. And it so it said, okay, games are fine. They're different. We're going to treat them differently. We're going to go global because Microsoft will just like kick our butt all over the globe. If we only let this happen in Europe, because then at every Xbox developer event, Microsoft would be like, well, you can do it in Europe. Call your senator, right? Like they'll just do it. And if you will remember during the Apple versus Epic trial, Apple could not figure out how to differentiate between Roblox and the things you can build and develop and distribute in Roblox and everything else.

• 24:10Nilay Patel?

  Like literally could not distinguish between Roblox and Minecraft. Like at one point they were asked, is, is Roblox a game? And they're like, yes. And they're like, but it has purchases in it. And they're like, yes. And they're like, okay, what about in-app purchases in not Roblox? And like, that's a game too.

• 24:30Nilay Patel?

  Literally could not figure it out. And I think this is them for the first time just being like, okay, there are things called games. And we're going to put them over here and control them differently. And that's a sign of maturity.

• 24:43Alex Cranz?

  But are they going to do that with Roblox? Like, is somebody going to go and approve the game where my, my godson is a prison warden? He's very proud of his prison. Because you can do that in Roblox.

• 24:54David Pierce?

  Yeah, it's so hard to tell. So let me, let me just read you the, the thing that Apple says in its announcement. It says that each experience made available in an app on the App Store will be required to adhere to all App Store review guidelines. And its host app will need to maintain an age rating of the highest age rated content included in the app. So the first part, the second part of that, simple, straightforward, understood. If you have one, you know, NC 17 game, NC 17. Required to adhere to is like a, an opening you could drive a truck through. Like, does that mean it's going to get reviewed? Does that mean Apple can just kick you off if it's bad? Does that mean just like handshake agreement? Don't do that.

• 25:33Nilay Patel?

  I have no idea.

• 25:34Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 25:35David Pierce?

  And it seems very important because to your point, Alex, like the thing where everybody had to submit and create and have reviewed every single game on their service was like a nonstarter. And the way that Apple phrases it leaves open everything from that to Apple doesn't care, just be cool.

• 25:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. One of the reasons it was a nonstarter was the idea that you would be distributing multiple game binaries.

• 25:58Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Nilay Patel?

  Which is dumb for a streaming service. Whereas this is like, you'll have a streaming service wrapper, you'll click on a game in it and it will stream the game to you inside of that app. Which they were somewhat able to do on the web. Like they were creaking their way towards being able to do this on the web.

• 26:16Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 26:17Nilay Patel?

  But if you're basically have a cat like Netflix, like Netflix has a catalog of titles in the thing and you push the button. I think what Apple's saying is everything has to. I think this is like a three strikes in your eye kind of situation. Like they don't review every song on Spotify. Right. But if Spotify is found to break the App Store rules. That's a problem. Right. And like, I don't, and Spotify is real testy about that, but they don't review every movie on Netflix. But Netflix, I'm assuming if Netflix added a hardcore pornography section, like Apple would like get in the game. You know what I mean? So I think there's a little bit of back and forth there.

• 26:52David Pierce?

  Can you imagine if Netflix opens an alternative app marketplace in Europe that's just hardcore?

• 27:00Nilay Patel?

  Like with ads in 420p, 480p.

• 27:04David Pierce?

  Listen, we gotta get that ARPU up somehow. Like, let's go, everybody.

• 27:09Nilay Patel?

  For a while, the HBO Go app was the singular exception to the App Store rules.

• 27:14Alex Cranz?

  Oh.

• 27:14Nilay Patel?

  Because it just had the late night category.

• 27:17David Pierce?

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:18Alex Cranz?

  So it did have porn.

• 27:19Nilay Patel?

  It did. Well, very like VHS level pornography.

• 27:23Alex Cranz?

  Porn if you're 14.

• 27:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well.

• 27:27Alex Cranz?

  Porn if you're 12.

• 27:29Nilay Patel?

  No, I was going the other direction, Alex. You want that number to go up.

• 27:36Nilay Patel?

  That's, we're looking for up. 18 is like the real, that's the line.

• 27:40Alex Cranz?

  That's the actual spot, yeah.

• 27:41Nilay Patel?

  But it was, it was like a huge, and everyone knew it. It was just like unspoken, well, Apple wants the HBO Go app here. And HBO was like, our whole catalog's here, including that part of it. Huh?

• 27:51Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 27:52Nilay Patel?

  Everyone's like, why?

• 27:53Alex Cranz?

  Don't worry about it.

• 27:53Nilay Patel?

  Why is this here?

• 27:55Alex Cranz?

  Don't worry about it.

• 27:56Nilay Patel?

  No one would ever talk about it. It's gone now. The, the late night Skin and Mac section of the Macs app does not exist. But that would, that was the level of loophole that existed.

• 28:08Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 28:08Nilay Patel?

  Now it's a free for all. But I, I just gonna come back to game streaming. I think that's gonna be the same deal. Right? You have a catalog. We're gonna spot check the catalog. Like, once you get to Microsoft, I mean, the entire Xbox library, there's just no way Apple's like, we're enabling this globally.

• 28:26Nilay Patel?

  And we're gonna, they're enabling because they think there's gonna be a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, right? They're gonna find some way to charge money inside of that app. And they, they want it to be successful on the iPhone.

• 28:35Alex Cranz?

  They also rolled out that thing. One of the payment structures, I think, in the EU now is if you have over a million downloads, you have to start paying like a monthly, like 50 cent fee or something per download. Maybe it was per annual?

• 28:47David Pierce?

  Yeah, it's once a year.

• 28:48Alex Cranz?

  Once a year. And so like, game streaming really takes off in the EU. That could, uh, it could get pricey. They claim that most people aren't gonna have to pay that, though.

• 28:57Nilay Patel?

  I think what they're anticipating is there's Xbox Cloud Gaming, and that's an app on your phone. And to get Xbox Cloud Gaming, you gotta pay 40 bucks a month. I don't know, some number.

• 29:08Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 29:08Nilay Patel?

  20 bucks a month.

• 29:09Alex Cranz?

  It starts at like 20, yeah.

• 29:11Nilay Patel?

  And the best way to get that customer to convert is for them to sign up with an in-app purchase and a subscription.

• 29:17Alex Cranz?

  Hmm.

• 29:18Nilay Patel?

  And so Apple's just gonna take that money. It's like, great. Here's a thing we want you to do.

• 29:22David Pierce?

  Apple looked at this and said, people are gonna get this subscription one way or another. Why don't we make them do it on our phone?

• 29:29Nilay Patel?

  Why don't we take our 30%? Do you think there's just a line of people outside of Tim Cook's office that was like, just like ideas to collect 30%?

• 29:38Alex Cranz?

  A hundred percent.

• 29:39Nilay Patel?

  You know, there's like the VIP line for the executives that he knows, like,

• 29:44Alex Cranz?

  There's like water.

• 29:44Nilay Patel?

  There's like guy, there's like people I know, problems I have to solve, ideas to take 30%. And just like one after another, they just have three different tickets and they're, you know, his receptionist is like, now serving 56, and ideas for 30%. And someone just like, shuffles in.

• 30:00Alex Cranz?

  This is my time to shine.

• 30:00Nilay Patel?

  ADQ is just like tapping his foot, just like waiting.

• 30:05Nilay Patel?

  Uh, cuz that they want Apple to and Google now, as we know from Google's own antitrust trial, every button you push on your phone is an opportunity for them to make money.

• 30:17David Pierce?

  Yep.

• 30:17Nilay Patel?

  And if they don't make the money, they're mad. And I think that should bring us to how mad they are at the European Union.

• 30:23David Pierce?

  Yes.

• 30:23Nilay Patel?

  You mentioned the press release and we haven't even read the "we're mad" lines in their press release.

• 30:27David Pierce?

  Well, so Apple's big story has always been that only Apple can provide a protected, good, curated, successful experience for everybody that makes everyone happy and doesn't steal all of your information and kill you and leave you in a ditch. Like, those are the two options. It's it's Apple or ditch, right? Like, that's in Apple's world, that's what it is. Uh, there's never been any real evidence that that is the case, but here we are. Uh, so with the with the browser one, um, one of the things that happens with the browser now is the first time you open Safari after updating to iOS 17.4, you're

• 31:10David Pierce?

  gonna get a choice screen, which we know for sure Apple hates. Apple has testified under oath that it hates choice screens. And you're gonna boot up Safari and it's gonna say, "What do you want to be your default browser?" This is, again, only in the EU, and you're gonna be able to pick Safari or a list of other browsers, I think, to be named later. Um, and Apple says, "This change is a result of the DMA's requirements and means that EU users will be confronted with a list of default browsers before they have the opportunity to understand the options available to them. The screen also interrupts EU users' experience the first time they open Safari intending to navigate to a webpage."

• 31:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:43David Pierce?

  It's just this, like, passive-aggressive, like, "This is a bunch of bullshit. Look what you guys are making us do. This is stupid. I hate it." That's the vibe. I love it.

• 31:53Nilay Patel?

  Here's here's what I will point out. One, that is true. And it's great to just to go like, I'm not saying you should do this, go get an AI voice cloning your favorite Apple executive and have him read that copy. It's great. Um, uh, don't do that. That's totally illegal and morally questionable, but in the new EU app stores, totally available to you. Uh, the thing that's funny about that is Apple is 100% correct in the context of choice screens as we've known them up until now. They've been putting choice screens on Android and Windows in the EU for 1 billion years. And you know what? People are still using Chrome.

• 32:28David Pierce?

  Yep.

• 32:28Alex Cranz?

  They use choice screens in app like macOS right now. If you go and you open a new browser and you're like, I want to use this one. They're like, you sure? Like, they still double check that stuff. So I don't.

• 32:40Nilay Patel?

  Well, every browser wants to be the default.

• 32:41Alex Cranz?

  They all, yeah, they all want that. And Apple's always like, hmm, really? So it's one of those things where I was like, this, okay, I get it. You guys are mad, but also, choice is good.

• 32:51Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, but this is the thing. So the argument is the EU has been like trying to get people on Windows and Android to not use Chrome or Google Search for 1 billion years. Like, you, you open it, it's like, what search engine would like to use? Your choices are Google and 500 choices. And everyone's like, I don't know, Google. Or you open up a thing, it's like, what browser do you want to use? Your choices are Internet Explorer, Chrome, or 5 billion other options. And they're like, Chrome. And that's very interesting in this context, because people are going to open up their iPhones and it's going to say, do you want to use Safari or Chrome? The thing people in the EU have been picking over and over and over again for 1 billion years.

• 33:35Alex Cranz?

  See, I don't think that's what's going to happen. I think it's going to be Safari, Firefox, Opera, Arc, DuckDuckGo probably has a browser.

• 33:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:46Alex Cranz?

  And then like, when you scroll down past the top, there will be Google.

• 33:50David Pierce?

  Like spelled wrong and in a different font.

• 33:53Nilay Patel?

  The cutting edge of European politics is that these choice screens are legally required to be randomized.

• 33:59Alex Cranz?

  Oh.

• 34:00Nilay Patel?

  And everyone still picks Chrome. I just want to be clear. People, they've tried, they're like, what if it was a random choice screen? What if the choice screen paid you $5 to not pick Chrome? And they're like, Chrome. And so this is the first time you're going to get the experiment where the, the goal is to get people away from the default to the other default that the European Union has been trying to get people away from forever. And it, I am dying to know what happens.

• 34:26Alex Cranz?

  I really, I hope somebody chooses Internet Explorer. I hope, somebody go make that app right now.

• 34:31Nilay Patel?

  Just like an old school Internet Explorer.

• 34:33Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 34:34Nilay Patel?

  But the old Mac version with like the Aqua Blue bars and the tabs.

• 34:38David Pierce?

  I would pick that, absolutely.

• 34:40Alex Cranz?

  Same.

• 34:40David Pierce?

  Sold.

• 34:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:41David Pierce?

  Just old ass browser should be one of the options.

• 34:43Nilay Patel?

  IE3 is gonna be rocking and rolling on this thing.

• 34:46David Pierce?

  Wait, can I just read you one more saucy line from the press release? So this is, this is the big like omnibus giant press release from Apple announcing all of the changes it begrudgingly made. At the beginning of, or sorry, at the end of the first paragraph, it says, "Across every change, Apple is introducing new safeguards that reduce, but don't eliminate, new risks the DMA poses to EU users."

• 35:11David Pierce?

  It's like the DU, the DMA is trying to ruin your life and Apple is doing its best to stop it, but we can't solve everything, thanks to the EU.

• 35:21Nilay Patel?

  There's a real dichotomy here, right? Like Apple's pissed the EU is, those European regulators are telling us how to work our phone. And then inside of that is buried because you're too stupid to figure it out yourself, right? It's like, I don't know, man.

• 35:37Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I have a Mac, I can do whatever I want on this Mac. Going pretty good, you know, like the mitigations you put on the Mac, working pretty well. Why can't my phone work this way? And I, I think that moralizing, when, we should talk about this in the context of like Vision Pro apps, or we have talked about it in the context of Vision Pros, like Netflix and YouTube just like not being there.

• 35:56David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 35:57Nilay Patel?

  All those developers are pissed at Apple. They do not have the goodwill to make this argument and people have had phones for a very, very long time. And they know that Apple's like more, like they understand how the phones work. Like Apple's moralizing is kind of like falling on deaf ears.

• 36:13Nilay Patel?

  Weird. It's just a weird moment for Apple, which historically has gotten developers to do whatever it wants.

• 36:19David Pierce?

  That was actually one thing about this announcement that surprised me was how little of an olive branch to developers it actually appeared to be. You would think at this moment with the Vision Pro coming out, and I think there's real momentum behind the idea of not playing Apple's developer games anymore. I mean, Netflix has been kind of an edge case for a long time. Spotify and Epic have been mad for a long time, but like. YouTube and others saying, we're gonna wait and see. And the line they all give is, we don't know what this platform is gonna be. I think Netflix's co-CEO.

• 36:54Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, Greg Peters this week was like, we'll see if like, if it actually takes off, we might consider it, but we're not gonna invest time and money into something that's not like guaranteed to be good.

• 37:05David Pierce?

  Right. Which is a perfectly valid excuse, but is also not what people say about Apple. Like, do you remember when the iPad came out and everyone on Earth like fell over themselves trying to get on the iPad App Store? It's like, that is the thing Apple is very good at. And this is the opposite of that. And so I would have thought in this moment, Apple would have said, what's, what can we do that will, in reality or in appearance, feel like kind of a love letter to developers in the same way that like every five years, they release a new Mac Pro to remind people that they love people who have Mac Pros? And there just didn't seem to be any of that.

• 37:39Alex Cranz?

  Well, when you're an effective monopoly, you don't have to do that. You don't have to play nice because they're still one of the biggest app stores. They're still one of the biggest platforms. They can just say, yeah, do it. Netflix is still gonna have to be on the iPhone. It's still gonna have to be on the iPad because those are huge. So like, this is definitely one of those moments where I feel like 10, 15 years from now, if there's some additional turns, we're gonna look back on this moment and be like, oh, this is where Apple really started to like, its hubris started to show and it really started to have like, kind of a decline.

• 38:09David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 38:10Alex Cranz?

  But I don't know if that's actually gonna happen, but I could certainly see talking about it in a podcast 15 years from now.

• 38:16Nilay Patel?

  Well, I think that we should end it by figuring out like, how, how do we measure success here? Like, here's the thing, I think, we have a big team in Europe and they are very quick to remind me that, one, they get more holidays, they get healthcare.

• 38:32Nilay Patel?

  Always on top of that. And then, you know, they pay nothing for internet service. Like, you wanna buy broadband in Europe, you're not paying as much money as if you wanna buy broadband in the United States, and it's faster. Like-

• 38:42Alex Cranz?

  But no air conditioning. What's that about? What are you guys doing over there?

• 38:45Nilay Patel?

  Well, climate change has arrived for the Europeans. We ran a great story several years ago about air conditioners in France. We'll, we'll, we'll dig it up and link it in the show notes. But like, there are ways to measure, like, how European regulations raise or lower prices or lead to different outcomes. Some of them are worse than here. Like, there are some aspects of like European regulation that have led to less vibrant marketplaces, for sure. Like, we have big tech companies, Europe does not. That's just, that's just true.

• 39:19Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 39:19Nilay Patel?

  You can read all kinds of academic literature on why that has happened, but it mostly is because you can just go start a Google in the garage here and then maybe take over a giant market. Right? You can just monopoly your way up to that position if you want here and we won't stop you. And in Europe, they just like, don't, it doesn't happen that same way. Labor unions sit on the boards of big European companies. That doesn't happen here. So you just end up, you can make lists of pros and cons. But in this case, I think we don't know what success looks like. I don't know that the Europeans, they're just like, competition is good, which is great. I love it. I'm all about competition. But it's like, at the end of this, is it, you need to download a different app store to get Spotify and Netflix in the Kindle app? And then there's a bunch of weird stuff in

• 40:04Nilay Patel?

  the Apple app store? Like, is that success?

• 40:06Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, I think success is, oh, I can just go buy a book or an audiobook or a movie or whatever and just do it and just be done with it on the app I choose. Like, I think that is, I think that is a victory. And, oh, I can just go have Real Chrome on my iPhone.

• 40:22Nilay Patel?

  Agree there.

• 40:23Alex Cranz?

  So, so I think, yeah, I think, I think we're gonna pretty quickly see the victories. I think what's gonna be interesting is, is all the economics afterwards. And, and then we'll, we'll see the losses of like, oh, we just have like a whole really gross revenge porn app. Just hanging out on a store and, and now we're gonna be having to like, write a bunch of stories about this app store who refuses to take down the revenge porn app, you know? That's gonna suck. That's gonna happen. Don't do that. Don't do it, people. But when you do, I hate you. Just know that.

• 40:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I think figuring out like, what does it look like if this worked? Like, what are the tangible improvements we want to have with our experiences with our phones? And, yeah, I just want to be able to buy stuff. I want the user experience of buying content to be simpler and easier and not feel like Apple's just taking a 30% cut from whatever creator. That's pretty good. I'll take that. On the flip side, if to do that, you do need to go to download a separate App Store for every kind of content app. That's like, obviously worse. Yeah. And I think Apple is leaning towards, it's gonna be chaos and you're gonna wanna be here anyway. And I think we're all leaning towards the pressure on Apple will be enough to change the actual App Store and make it better. Man, you can't- Because that's what competition does. I don't know where we're gonna net at. I would

• 41:38Nilay Patel?

  just say like, at this moment, regardless of how you think, you should just think about, like, what does success for this thing look like? And how do you get there? As opposed to, it's definitely gonna win, or it's definitely gonna be a disaster. Because, like I said, they've been putting choice screens on Windows and Android for years. Like, one decade of antitrust regulation in Europe around Google has resulted in no change. Chrome's just great.

• 42:06Nilay Patel?

  I think it is gonna be wild to put the Chrome icon on a choice screen on iPhone and see if people still pick Safari.

• 42:11David Pierce?

  That's a really interesting test case here, right? Like, the thing that I think is interesting here is, we've been talking, sort of in theory for a long time, about whether people would just pick the App Store, both developers and users, because it's easier. Right? Like, I think you can make a very compelling case that all of the stuff that it's going to entail to go to the website of an app marketplace, download it, go through the hoops to get it installed, say yes on that scary screen that's like, "You're downloading another App Store, you might die." And then, download the other apps, do all the stuff there, maintain those things. Like, that might be arduous enough that most people will continue to choose the App Store, which is what Apple has said all along is the case.

• 42:52David Pierce?

  And now we get to find out. Like, that's the thing I'm excited about. And the Chrome example is a perfect one, because Google's whole defense in its antitrust case has been, "People use us because we're the best product. And we know, because when people get to choose, even when they're bullied into choosing, they choose us." And that's a pretty good antitrust defense, or at least it has seemed like one so far. And, in this case, Apple is gonna have to put up or shut up along the same lines. Like, we're about to find out how many people use Safari on purpose. And I think that's cool.

• 43:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. It's me. All right, that's a great place to end it, because I'm dying to the answer, and we just won't know until our European friends tell us. We gotta take a break. This show is already way over. We'll be right back.

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• 45:08Nilay Patel?

  We're back. We still have a lot of time. This show's gonna go, it's five hours. Yeah. But there's like a lot of streaming news this week. Crans, what's going on?

• 45:16Alex Cranz?

  Okay, so Netflix had their earnings. But before their earnings, they had a bunch of other stuff. So first up, Scott Stubb, who was the chairman for Netflix Films, announced he was leaving. That was the day before. And Scott is like, not the only reason that Netflix has a really successful film slate, but was a big reason that they were like the most nominated film studio for three years in a row. So him leaving, ooh, surprising. Then, the morning before their earnings, they announced that WWE Monday Night Raw was going to be coming exclusively to Netflix. And not only Netflix in the United States, but worldwide, which is apparently very huge, according to Chris Welch, our resident like WWE superfan.

• 46:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:02Alex Cranz?

  I had to go to him repeatedly this week, being like, explain this wrestling thing to me. But so, so those are both like big things. And then they announced at their, after, during their earnings report, they announced that they were going to be getting rid of the 1199 basic plan, which they had already been like phasing out, I believe in the United States and a couple of other places. Now it's going away everywhere. Before, like you couldn't even subscribe to it. But if you had already subscribed, you were fine. Now you're going to get bumped either to 699, which is the ad, which is the ad version, or you're going to be bumped to 1549, which is the ad free version.

• 46:40Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 46:40Alex Cranz?

  So it just got a lot more expensive, basically, to, to go without ads on Netflix.

• 46:45David Pierce?

  I just like to say.

• 46:46Alex Cranz?

  That's the real just.

• 46:47David Pierce?

  I just like to say, I, I theorized that that was going to happen on this podcast.

• 46:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:53David Pierce?

  And oh, my God, have I been right? That they are just going to price you to pieces if you want ad free and you want 4K. And they're going to keep the ad, the, the ad based one cheap. And eventually they're just going to shove everybody down to that one.

• 47:09Alex Cranz?

  That's not entirely their plan, but that's a big part of the plan for them. They've got about 23, it sounds like they've got about 23 million monthly active users who are currently on advertising. They really, really like it. All those people love it because they pay 699, they get two screens and they can watch it. But now they're going to have to pay 1549 if they want those two screens and no ads. And then if they want four screens and 4K, they have to pay 2299. And then for each additional user, so like if, when Max goes to college next week, 799 per user per month for those, those higher ones, which is just.

• 47:46Nilay Patel?

  Can I? I find it disgusting that they charge per user and per screen.

• 47:52Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, it's, it's a lot. I'm, I'm really curious.

• 47:54Nilay Patel?

  Even the cable companies weren't like per screen.

• 47:58David Pierce?

  I mean, they kind of were. You had to get another box if you wanted another screen.

• 48:01Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, no, they were. Yeah, you had to get the box and they'd be like, that box is a hundred dollars.

• 48:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, basic cable was not per screen.

• 48:10Alex Cranz?

  I never.

• 48:11Nilay Patel?

  You could put, you could basic, you could splitter a basic cable subscription to 5,000 screens.

• 48:15Alex Cranz?

  I, I never lived in a region where I could do that. It was always, I had to have the little box.

• 48:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:21David Pierce?

  Neela, you're definitely the kind of person who would have like pirated TBS for your whole neighborhood growing up like that, that feels right.

• 48:26Nilay Patel?

  I am 100% the kind of person who figured out I was steel cable in the dorm and met his wife that way. I'm just letting you know, I had a little coax crimp the whole thing. It was a drop ceiling. I just looked in the ceiling and I'm like, there it is. Let's see what happens.

• 48:42Alex Cranz?

  It was a real cable guy moment. Sorry.

• 48:45Nilay Patel?

  I was a cool cable guy. All right.

• 48:47David Pierce?

  But wait, Alex, you and I had basically the same exact reaction to this, which is just that Netflix is just a whole ass cable company now.

• 48:54Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, yeah. So Netflix is effectively cable because Ted Sarandos, the CEO, Greg Peters, the other CEO and the CFO are all like, well, yeah, we have all this secondary programming, i.e. the suits, the Young Sheldon, the stuff they're not making and they just buy a license for. And that makes them a lot of money. And with advertising, that makes them more money than than original programming where they're having to spend billions of their own dollars to make it. And even though original programming is the most of their top watch stuff, it's not all of their top watch stuff. And your business, it's cheaper to buy Young Sheldon and throw that up to your 200 something million.

• 49:30Nilay Patel?

  The 45th time CBS has sold Young Sheldon, they're selling it for cheap.

• 49:34Alex Cranz?

  Yeah. And you can still watch Young Sheldon on Paramount Plus if you want. Cause I do, I don't. I watch lots of things there, not Young Sheldon.

• 49:41Nilay Patel?

  Can I just say suits is a scourge upon the republic. It's a danger to young people everywhere.

• 49:46David Pierce?

  I love suits. I'm so ashamed of how much I like that show.

• 49:50Nilay Patel?

  Suits is the stupidest show in the entire world. Here.

• 49:52Alex Cranz?

  Is this a lawyer you're talking?

• 49:53Nilay Patel?

  Well, yeah, it's unwatchable if you were a lawyer, but my little niece, it's her first semester of college. She was in first finals in college. And she texted me and Becky and was like, should I be a lawyer? Cause it's first finals and she's a STEM major. And I was like, are you just studying for your chem final? And she's like, no, I was watching suits. And I thought if this doesn't go well, and we were both like, no. Do not be a lawyer because he wants suits.

• 50:22Alex Cranz?

  It's gonna be like.

• 50:23Nilay Patel?

  It's not like that. If you take one thing from my entire career at The Verge, it's that being a lawyer is not like being on Suits.

• 50:32David Pierce?

  Unlike The West Wing, which is a perfect representation of what it's like to be in politics.

• 50:36Nilay Patel?

  No, it's closer. Like, the people in politics would like their lives to be like The West Wing. Lawyers are not like, "I wish it was more like Suits."

• 50:46David Pierce?

  I will say, I've only watched, like, the first season of Suits so far, and A, I love it very much, and B, no one ever does ed lawyer-ing in that whole show, I don't think.

• 50:57Alex Cranz?

  Well, because he-

• 50:58David Pierce?

  They give speeches. Is that what being a lawyer is?

• 51:00Nilay Patel?

  The entire plot is that Meghan Markle has to find cases for the guy. What are you talking about? This show's horrible. I watched five episodes. I was like, "Never again."

• 51:10Alex Cranz?

  But like Gina Torres.

• 51:12Nilay Patel?

  I'm saying I'm gonna cancel Netflix so they keep making Americans watch Suits.

• 51:16Alex Cranz?

  But what's funny is that USA, which is part of Universal, which owns Peacock, and I think was maybe an investor in us at some point, I don't remember.

• 51:25Nilay Patel?

  No, I have a better disclosure about Suits.

• 51:28Alex Cranz?

  Go for it.

• 51:28Nilay Patel?

  Okay, right. Suits was on-

• 51:30Alex Cranz?

  I'm gonna drink while I'm on.

• 51:30Nilay Patel?

  Suits was on USA, right?

• 51:32Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 51:33Nilay Patel?

  It's owned by NBC Universal. NBC Universal's an investor in Vox Media, parent company. Whatever. The real disclosure is that Suits was the lead-in to Mr. Robot, and I hosted the Mr. Robot after show for many years. And I had to watch the tail end of every episode of Suits, waiting for Mr. Robot to start so we could have the Mr. Robot show, and then- You see what I'm saying? This is a real problem. This is my antipathy towards Suits.

• 51:58Alex Cranz?

  That's fair. I would have that too. I just, it was fine.

• 52:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Mr. Robot's great, though. And I don't know if you can still watch the after show. We taped it in the studio right over there. Emily Yoshida was my co-host one season.

• 52:08David Pierce?

  It was great.

• 52:09Nilay Patel?

  Megan Farokhmanesh was my co-host the second season. Russell Brandon was there.

• 52:12Alex Cranz?

  I would leave it on while I was writing my recaps of Mr. Robot.

• 52:16David Pierce?

  Okay, but Netflix.

• 52:18Alex Cranz?

  But Netflix, back to Netflix, back to Netflix.

• 52:20David Pierce?

  Like, I went through and Alex, you wrote a really good piece about this, basically Netflix cable turn, and especially after the WWE thing, but it's kind of amazing. You make the list of like, okay, what is on cable? There's, you know, reality TV and all the sort of like nonsense background TV that people watch all day. Like Netflix actually has a ton of that. It doesn't talk a lot about it, but it has a ton of it. It's deep in the dating show game now. It is like, it's pretty good at this game. You have the, the sort of endlessly rewatchable reruns of stuff. Netflix, that's the suits and kind of stuff you're talking about. And actually, Netflix is unusually good at making that stuff popular again. You have the prestige stuff. Netflix has lots of that. You have movie channels. Netflix has lots of that.

• 53:02David Pierce?

  And then what's the last thing is sports. And sports is the one thing Netflix so, for so long was like, oh, we, we're probably like live and sports don't really feel like they're us. And now Netflix is just fully all in on both live and sports.

• 53:16Alex Cranz?

  Yeah. And specifically wrestling, which is like extremely lucrative. I don't think it's probably, I have no idea actually if it's as lucrative as baseball or basketball. But it makes a ton of money and it does very, very well in the United States. And one of the things that the, the people at WWE were talking about was they were really excited because now they were going to be able to like spread it internationally a lot easier instead of having to make all these different deals and compete with local wrestling leagues and all of that stuff. They can just be like, no, anybody can just turn on Netflix in any country and they can just watch Roman Reigns because that's like the big wrestling guy now.

• 53:51David Pierce?

  Did Chris Welch teach you about Roman Reigns this week?

• 53:53Alex Cranz?

  Yes, yes.

• 53:54David Pierce?

  Love that. I love this for you.

• 53:56Alex Cranz?

  I was like, who's, who's like The Rock now of WWE? And he's like, Roman Reigns. I was like, thank you.

• 54:01David Pierce?

  I actually feel like you would love wrestling.

• 54:03Alex Cranz?

  I like, I like the, the idea of wrestling and I loved Glow, but wrestling itself I haven't liked since I was a kid. And then once I worked at a company that got bodied by a professional wrestler.

• 54:15David Pierce?

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:15Alex Cranz?

  That, that reduced my life. Not my life. That reduced my like of wrestling, but it's cool. I like that they slap each other. They like slide across the ring.

• 54:24David Pierce?

  They slap each other.

• 54:25Alex Cranz?

  Yeah. And then they like have big dramatic moments. I'm like, yeah.

• 54:28David Pierce?

  Yeah. See, you would like it. Like, in theory, this is.

• 54:30Alex Cranz?

  In theory, but like it's shot like garbage. It looks so ugly.

• 54:33Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. I don't watch it. My freshman year roommate in college had both a Stacey Keebler poster and a Rock poster.

• 54:38Alex Cranz?

  Oh, yeah. That was like, my, my brother had, had lots of like, The Rock and then Stone Cold Steve Austin in his room. And I was like, what's up with all these posters of half naked men all over your wall?

• 54:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it was a real distinction between the Stacey Keebler and the, I was like,

• 54:53Alex Cranz?

  That was when, that was when-

• 54:54Nilay Patel?

  Stacy, I think, was wearing more clothes in the poster.

• 54:56Alex Cranz?

  The women started to appear on my brother's wall shortly after.

• 55:00Nilay Patel?

  Uh, look, he was very happy with his fandom. Uh, by the way, both Chris Welch and Casey Newton, huge wrestling fans.

• 55:06Alex Cranz?

  Huge.

• 55:07Nilay Patel?

  And I have managed none, none of it. It just doesn't look like anything to me.

• 55:11Alex Cranz?

  I love-

• 55:12Nilay Patel?

  But it is huge. And I think from what I understand, wrestling fans have had a hard time of it because there was a dedicated wrestling app that got merged into some other streamer that has been a disaster.

• 55:23Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, a lot of it's been like on Peacock.

• 55:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:25Alex Cranz?

  And,

• 55:26Nilay Patel?

  you know.

• 55:27Alex Cranz?

  It's Peacock.

• 55:28Nilay Patel?

  And I think they're very happy that Netflix might try. That's the read I get. What if Netflix does a good job? It's like, people are excited about it.

• 55:34Alex Cranz?

  And yeah, and it sounds like Netflix is very interested in like, doing a lot of the, the extra programming around it. The after shows and the, let's do a whole, let's explain to Alex and Neelai and everybody else who Roman Reigns is, kind of documentaries. Maybe I'll watch one, because who knows?

• 55:48Nilay Patel?

  Take suits off your service. I'll watch anything Netflix. I'm just saying, do it for America.

• 55:54David Pierce?

  Yeah, I think Netflix is gonna end up looking really smart here. It's like, there, there's been rumors forever that every time TV rights come up, Netflix is supposedly gonna bid this. There was a big story about it for Formula One, because Drive to Survive was so successful, they were like, oh, maybe they'll just buy the rights. But then they did the weird thing where it was just like that golf tournament with a bunch of golfers and a bunch of F1 stars, and that was their big first foray into live sports. Uh, it wasn't good, but I guess it did well. I don't know. But this is like, what was it? A $5 billion, like 10 year long deal or something? Like, this is serious.

• 56:31Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, it's, it's $5 billion. It's 10 years. After five years, they have the right to be like, never mind. And they get everything just fully packaged and sent to them. They're like, like WE, WWE has done kind of everything. It's very turnkey for Netflix, similar to a lot of their secondary licensing stuff. So it's like, on the one hand, I love original programming. I love thoughtful, new, original programming. On the other hand, we've talked a lot about how that was just gonna stop when advertising became more popular. So it makes sense that Netflix kind of becomes USA Network or TNT.

• 57:04David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 57:05Alex Cranz?

  Whatever network you were really fond of, Spike TV was the one I keep thinking about.

• 57:09David Pierce?

  Oh, boy.

• 57:10Alex Cranz?

  And that's just what it's gonna be now. And it's like a good value proposition for most people. You spend $6.99 a month and you get cable effectively on demand.

• 57:23David Pierce?

  I see it slightly differently. And to me, it feels like the the risk for Netflix, as far as I can tell, is just that it's gonna get out over its skis trying to do everything all at once. And like, it's it's deep into gaming now. It's doing live sports. It's it's doing all of these dating shows. Like Netflix, for a while, felt sort of understandable and focused in a way that I think worked for it. And it was it was doing a streaming service and only a streaming service in a time when lots of other companies were trying to do a streaming service and lots of other things. And it actually helped Netflix and hurt those companies. And now Netflix is trying to sort of do too many things, it feels like.

• 58:08Alex Cranz?

  I think that's the strategy for Netflix, though, because think about it. If you are, right now, I believe, the second largest streaming service after Amazon Prime, which kind of has big asterisks next to it.

• 58:19David Pierce?

  It's the largest streaming service.

• 58:21Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, yeah. So Netflix is effectively the largest. And they're just under the impression, they're like, yeah, you'll probably, you might go get Max, you might go get Disney, you might go get Paramount LOL, you might get Peacock, whatever. But you're gonna get Netflix. And so we're gonna like, you're gonna spend at least $6.99 a month with us. So just, look, look at all the crap we can give you. We can give you a bunch of stuff.

• 58:40David Pierce?

  They're the Microsoft Word of streaming services.

• 58:42Alex Cranz?

  Yeah. And so that's why I said they're like the TNT. They're just the basic cable. It's just all of basic cable now in one place. And the the app is terrible. So you're constantly, anytime you open it on your iPad, you just get a bunch of games. And you don't want to play those on your iPad on like Netflix app, but you're gonna, because they keep pushing that on you. And that's really annoying. But that rant goes into, I think Netflix's next turn is they need to figure out their recommendation engine. It's really bad right now. They need to figure out their their user interface. It's not great right now. They've got a lot of work to do to compete in that space. Because eventually, if all it does is repeatedly recommend suits to Neelai, he is gonna unsubscribe. And for a good reason.

• 59:24David Pierce?

  I'm gonna do it right now.

• 59:25Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 59:26David Pierce?

  You show me suits one more time.

• 59:29Nilay Patel?

  By Microsoft, this is, uh, this is why I mentioned Microsoft Word. I know people at Microsoft would love to take stuff out of the toolbar. They can't because Microsoft Word is not focused. It's not one thing. It is a million things to a million different people. And it now just has to be a million things. So if Netflix wants to be suits and live TV and wrestling and F1 docu-series and games, like, that's a lot of things. And like, it just has to be all the things to all the people all the time.

• 1:00:00Alex Cranz?

  Yep.

• 1:00:01Nilay Patel?

  I do think that, like, it's, I agree that it's becoming, it's becoming more and more of what looks like a cable bundle. The part where like, they're doing the worst of cable pricing per screen, that's why people started to hate the cable companies.

• 1:00:14Alex Cranz?

  Yep.

• 1:00:15Nilay Patel?

  Fully why people started to hate the cable companies. And like, that's the danger.

• 1:00:19Alex Cranz?

  And, and they're just really hoping, because that per-screen is only for the ad-free version. So, so under that, it's, it's two. That's it. And you, you get two screens, and if somebody else in your family is like, oh, I also want to watch, because you have a big family, then you better go get another subscription. And, and that's the, the ad version. The ad-free version is the $7.99 a month. So I can see them being like, you don't want to deal with that? It's a dollar cheaper. And you just have to sit through some ads. And I personally will hate that because I cut the cable in like, 2070.

• 1:00:51Nilay Patel?

  I can't get rid of one streaming service. I keep suggesting, like, let's get rid of this one. And then Becky's like, some comedy special I want to watch is on that one next month. And it's like, oh, that's...

• 1:01:00Alex Cranz?

  Criterion is so good, you can't get rid of Criterion.

• 1:01:03David Pierce?

  Okay, wait. That is actually a perfect segue into the other streaming news this week that I thought was interesting, which is that Verizon made another one of its, like, we're bundling a bunch of streaming services together announcements. And then there was a story in The Information where a bunch of Verizon people were talking about, like, we think that the value add here is to be the management tool on top of all of your streaming services. And it's like, well, that's cable. And that sucks. Like, you know what I want is like, a harder company to get a hold of to deal with all of my stuff. But I think the, the next turn for all of this with these companies is, like, the rest of the year. Ecosystem around this like we're gonna start to get more and more apps that are like, we're just gonna make it easier for you to search stuff and we're gonna get all these companies.

• 1:01:46David Pierce?

  Verizon's doing it, Amazon's doing it, Apple's doing it that are like, just use us to subscribe to these streaming services. And I actually think a real value to provide is like, we will just give you the button you can tap to turn on your subscription or turn it off to a thing. And I think there's gonna be real competition around that. Like I just signed up for Paramount Plus so that I can watch three weeks of football. And God help me if I get to that fourth week and accidentally pay for another month of Paramount Plus. And there's gonna be a crazy competition to give me a button that I can press to turn off Paramount Plus.

• 1:02:21Alex Cranz?

  I could have just shared my login with you.

• 1:02:23David Pierce?

  I don't want your login.

• 1:02:24Nilay Patel?

  Be careful.

• 1:02:25David Pierce?

  It's gonna be like, oh, do you want to watch Star Trek?

• 1:02:27Nilay Patel?

  If you do that, then Kevin Costner comes to your house and shoots you.

• 1:02:34Alex Cranz?

  Puts his hat back on, walks out the door.

• 1:02:35Nilay Patel?

  That's why people have Paramount Plus, just to watch Yellowstone. The show where there's dad.

• 1:02:42Alex Cranz?

  Who murders people.

• 1:02:43Nilay Patel?

  A murdery dad. There's the good son who died.

• 1:02:46Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, who murdered people.

• 1:02:48Nilay Patel?

  He was also kind of murdery, drunk daughter, murdery.

• 1:02:50Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:51Nilay Patel?

  And then Call of Duty son.

• 1:02:52Alex Cranz?

  And there's another son who's only like a half son, all murdery though, yes.

• 1:02:57Nilay Patel?

  No, but the Call of Duty son is like the funniest part of that whole show.

• 1:03:00David Pierce?

  They're like, what if one guy?

• 1:03:03Nilay Patel?

  I'm not saying I didn't like it. I'm just saying like, every couple of episodes, like do some Call of Duty shit. He's like, alright dad.

• 1:03:09Alex Cranz?

  He puts on, he puts on like all his old army gear and is like, let's mess him up. See y'all later.

• 1:03:15Nilay Patel?

  I guess that's just us Call of Duty stuff.

• 1:03:18Alex Cranz?

  Montana.

• 1:03:19Nilay Patel?

  It's good. Uh, I, look, I wish you well. Don't fuck with the Duttons. We gotta take a break. We'll be right back.

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• 1:04:59Nilay Patel?

  All right, we're back. Five Hour Verchess, it's happening. We're gonna do a quick lightning round. Okay. I will say, we've had some listeners offer to personally sponsor the lightning round, which is money that we will figure out how to accept. [laughing] In the absence of these ignorant brands who won't pay us millions of dollars to have the lightning round sponsored by the refrigerator companies, individual Verchess listeners have offered us upwards of $45. And we're gonna, we will find a way to take that money. However, this week is the 40th anniversary of the Macintosh. Mm-hmm. And listener Samar Seka, it is his 40th birthday. Oh.

• 1:05:42Nilay Patel?

  And so he offered to sponsor the lightning, but because it's your birthday, we're giving you this one in the house. But only this one. Happy birthday. But yeah, the next time, you, you march into your CMO's office, you get us that check. You hear me? That's, that's your goal for your 41st birthday. Get us that check.

• 1:06:05Nilay Patel?

  Happy birthday, man. Thank you for listening. Thank you. It is very funny that people have offered to individually sponsor the lightning round.

• 1:06:11Alex Cranz?

  I love it.

• 1:06:11Nilay Patel?

  And we probably will find a way to take that money, just because it is hilarious.

• 1:06:15Alex Cranz?

  I love you guys.

• 1:06:16Nilay Patel?

  And we'll do something good with it. All right, lightning round. The Mac, by the way, did turn 40. David, you had Walt on the Wednesday show.

• 1:06:22David Pierce?

  Yeah, Walt Mossberg, who has, I would say, more stories about the history of Apple and the Macintosh than any single other person on planet Earth, just came on and told us some stories about the Mac. It was super fun. It was, he's a good hang. He has been on the Vergecast in a long time. And he told me he's personally very upset with you about it. We cut that out, but he said a lot of really mean things about you. So we're gonna have to have him back soon.

• 1:06:45Nilay Patel?

  I listened to it. I was on a plane. I listened to it when I landed. And David, I'm very disappointed that you did not know what the Apple IIGS was. I owned an Apple IIGS. It was a very weird computer. And it was, Walt mentioned that he'd owned one. And you're like, I've never heard of it. And I was like screaming at my phone.

• 1:07:01David Pierce?

  I literally Googled it, because I was like, is he saying the name wrong? Like, I thought I pretty much knew most. And no, he was right. I was wrong.

• 1:07:06Nilay Patel?

  I've never felt what it's like to be Vergecast listener more than I was in the waiting for an Uber, just like screaming at my phone. You don't know what that is? Yeah. And I won't. I refuse to learn.

• 1:07:20David Pierce?

  That's right. That's how I feel.

• 1:07:23Nilay Patel?

  All right.

• 1:07:25Nilay Patel?

  Kranz, what's your lightning round?

• 1:07:26Alex Cranz?

  I got two, actually. So I'll go serious first.

• 1:07:30Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 1:07:32Alex Cranz?

  There's a baby that's covered in technology.

• 1:07:35David Pierce?

  This is the serious one?

• 1:07:37Nilay Patel?

  Is the baby okay?

• 1:07:39Alex Cranz?

  It's not a real baby.

• 1:07:40Nilay Patel?

  Okay, good. Important note.

• 1:07:42Alex Cranz?

  There's, there's a, they're doing fashion in France, and Scapirelli, the fashion house, was showing off their, all their new looks. And a woman comes out, and she's wearing this gorgeous gown covered in like, Intel fans from like 2000.

• 1:07:56Nilay Patel?

  Yes, look at this dress.

• 1:07:58Alex Cranz?

  It's sick. It looks so cool. And then someone else came out in an outfit called "The Mother," which appeared to be primarily like a white top and like a white, white bottom. And then they were holding a baby made out of old technology.

• 1:08:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:16Alex Cranz?

  And it was just, it's a beautiful baby. You gotta, when you're not driving, take a moment, go look at the baby. I love it.

• 1:08:23David Pierce?

  This is a pull over your car and Google this thing like whatever you're thinking in your mind right now. The reality is 50 times wilder than that.

• 1:08:33Nilay Patel?

  Both of these models are making catwalk face.

• 1:08:35Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:36Nilay Patel?

  You know.

• 1:08:37Alex Cranz?

  While holding the tech baby.

• 1:08:38Nilay Patel?

  In the context of these outfits and that baby, totally recontextualize catwalk face like.

• 1:08:44Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:44Nilay Patel?

  Just a what is going on here?

• 1:08:48Alex Cranz?

  Sometimes you just gotta baby made a tech.

• 1:08:50David Pierce?

  If you are listening to this and you could acquire one of these outfits and bring it to us. One of us will wear it on the verge cast, I promise.

• 1:08:58Nilay Patel?

  Roseberry said the toddler was a reference to the alien movies.

• 1:09:02Alex Cranz?

  Roseberry is the creative director for Scaparelli.

• 1:09:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:05Alex Cranz?

  So, Daniel Roseberry, he also said that now that the technology I grew up with is antiquated. That so it's so antiquated that it's almost difficult to source a certain as certain vintage fabrics and embellishments. So that's why he did it because he was basically like, it's really hard to find old fans for Intel processors. And Buddy, you just, you just get, get a new set of friends.

• 1:09:28David Pierce?

  Yeah, I got a closet full of laptops that would say otherwise.

• 1:09:31Alex Cranz?

  Like, we, we got you, the verge listeners got you, like, you need sourcing for this stuff. You can pay us instead of whoever you paid for all of this.

• 1:09:39David Pierce?

  Have you seen our gadget closet?

• 1:09:40Nilay Patel?

  Come 20 years dress made entirely of USB A cables.

• 1:09:44Alex Cranz?

  We got you.

• 1:09:45Nilay Patel?

  You want to talk about measuring success? All right, David, what's yours?

• 1:09:50David Pierce?

  Mine is that the Pixel nine leaks are already starting to come. So presumably we're going to get a glimpse of the Pixel nine in May or June, whenever Google I O is. And then the real thing in the fall. But the leaks are already starting to come out because Google is just completely incapable of hiding a product. It appears. And it looks kind of nice. Like the, we'll put the links in the show notes, but they, they redid the camera bar on the back so that.

• 1:10:16Nilay Patel?

  It does look nice.

• 1:10:17David Pierce?

  Being like a visor, it just looks like a camera bar on the back.

• 1:10:21Alex Cranz?

  It's giving some iPhone edges to it.

• 1:10:24David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:24Alex Cranz?

  At least I thought.

• 1:10:26David Pierce?

  It's, it's got the sort of rounded rectangle thing going on for it. It looks nice and mostly I just wanted to bring it up because I said. I think it was last week that after the Samsung announcement, I am bearish on the future of the Pixel. And so a million people sent me this and were like, what about this? New Pixel's coming. And to all of you, I want to say, this looks great. And I sincerely hope it is the greatest phone in the history of the universe. I also think it's possible that no one at Google knows it's being released.

• 1:10:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, which is why it's leaking out. Yeah, there's like one person on the Pixel team is like, let's show it to people.

• 1:10:58David Pierce?

  Yeah, he's just like, do I, what is this phone on my desk? It seems neat. Should I show it to somebody?

• 1:11:05Nilay Patel?

  Very good.

• 1:11:06Alex Cranz?

  What's yours?

• 1:11:07Nilay Patel?

  Well, I got two.

• 1:11:08Alex Cranz?

  Okay.

• 1:11:08Nilay Patel?

  But you had two.

• 1:11:09Alex Cranz?

  I do have two.

• 1:11:10Nilay Patel?

  So I'll, I'll go then you and

• 1:11:11Alex Cranz?

  Sounds good.

• 1:11:12Nilay Patel?

  And then, right? That's how, that's how we're gonna do it.

• 1:11:14David Pierce?

  And I'll just be here.

• 1:11:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. You, well, you started, we, you had walled. Your lightning round was I did another Verchess that was better than this one.

• 1:11:27Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so Apple is all in on spatial audio. Probably because of Vision Pro. It's all around you.

• 1:11:33Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:33Nilay Patel?

  So they're gonna start to pay artists 10% more for the spatial audio streams.

• 1:11:40Alex Cranz?

  Jimmy Page.

• 1:11:42Nilay Patel?

  Pennies per stream more if they, people stream the spatial one, which is designed to incentivize artists to both make the spatial mixes and then promote them and Apple's services, spatial mixes. I hate this. I hate this so much. One, because I think, I think the math doesn't actually kind of work out. So I was looking on, like, random artists, sort of like job boards. A spatial mix, people buy them for 500 bucks. Like, you're like, fire off your files to some poor engineer who's like, never heard your music before. They will just generate a spatial mix. Most of that sounds bad.

• 1:12:17Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:17Nilay Patel?

  And I know that people are always arguing with me. They think, some of them sound good. I know some of them sound good. I'm a man who owned a super audio CD player that could play the Beatles in quadraphonic sound. All right, I understand.

• 1:12:30David Pierce?

  Is that also how you met your wife?

• 1:12:33Nilay Patel?

  Nah, that's what's, that's what's driving us apart. Day by day.

• 1:12:39Nilay Patel?

  I'm just telling you, I believe you. I've been playing with surround audio since the beginning. Yeah, if you do a good job, having more channels or more objects, or however Atmos wants to work now, whatever, having more is better. Great. If you do it like crap, it sounds worse, which is why people are all like always get reverted to stereo. Like it's the easiest thing. It's the most addressable thing. There's more stereo devices on the market than anything. And especially when you're like farting out at $500 pop, like it's not gonna sound good. And most spatial mixes are that level. And

• 1:13:20Nilay Patel?

  Apple incentivizing it because they want their headset to go off is just the, oh, oh, it's bad. I'm just telling you it's bad. It's gonna make more things sound bad than sound good.

• 1:13:30Alex Cranz?

  Which is worse, that or when DVDs were really into Pan and Scan?

• 1:13:36Nilay Patel?

  That's kind of where we're at.

• 1:13:37Alex Cranz?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:37Nilay Patel?

  That's a good comparison, right? It's like, what if we just shove this into that box?

• 1:13:43Alex Cranz?

  You're like, no, that's gross. Stop it.

• 1:13:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Look, there are some, I know there are some good ones, but even on Apple's playlists, there are, there are really bad spatial mixes. And it's because there just isn't the volume of people who care enough. There's not the volume of artists who are like, I'm gonna sit down and make a spatial audio record. They're more like, I'm on tour forever because that's where the money is. I'm gonna buy some loops and do a rap in my hotel room and hope that's a hit. Like, that's the reality of most artists right now. And I'm not saying that's good or bad. Like, that's just where the music industry has forced most musicians into money, right? They make their money with syncs. They make their money like ads and movie sync. They make their money on selling their old catalogs to billionaires

• 1:14:29Nilay Patel?

  who then do more weird stuff with them. They make their money on tour. They do not make their money selling records. And so if you are like, now to make a, make your record more complicated, then we'll pay you more money. Like, that's, ugh.

• 1:14:43Alex Cranz?

  No one's gonna do that. Yeah.

• 1:14:44Nilay Patel?

  It doesn't seem like they're doing it now. Maybe I'm gonna be wrong. I just like, look at this. I'm like, are we, are we, are we gonna make music sound shitty so a headset sells more?

• 1:14:53Alex Cranz?

  I mean, it's MP3s all over.

• 1:14:55Nilay Patel?

  It's weird, man. It's weird. All right. I know. Someone's gonna send me some of these spatial mix. Right. George Harrison's creeping up behind you. Yeah, I've been there. All right. All right. What's your other one?

• 1:15:05Alex Cranz?

  Um, have y'all heard of Pal World?

• 1:15:08Nilay Patel?

  This is Pokemon with guns.

• 1:15:09Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, it's Pokemon with guns.

• 1:15:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:11Alex Cranz?

  That's, that's all it is. It's Pokemon with guns.

• 1:15:13David Pierce?

  I just love that. Those are exactly the words in exactly the order I was gonna say. This is like the unofficial tagline of Pal World now.

• 1:15:22Alex Cranz?

  It is so Pokemon with guns that there was a YouTube creator named Toasted Shoes, who was like, "Look at this. I made it Pokemon with guns. I put in Pikachu and everybody. I modded all the little creatures that you can capture and made them Pokemon, and you can play as Ash." And guess what got shut down real fast by Nintendo? Our boy Toasted Shoes. It's unclear how he was modding it because it doesn't yet allow mods because it's still in like, alpha release.

• 1:15:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:52Alex Cranz?

  It is blowing up the charts on Steam, and people are loving to try it out. There's a lot of weirdness around it, but it is essentially, "What if you had Pokemon and what if you had guns and also like, had to do some survival stuff?" And people are like-

• 1:16:06Nilay Patel?

  Just a dash of survival stuff.

• 1:16:07Alex Cranz?

  Just a little dash, just a little sprinkle. And apparently, people are really, really into that right now.

• 1:16:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. You think Nintendo is going to take down the main Pal World game?

• 1:16:15Alex Cranz?

  They are now-

• 1:16:16Nilay Patel?

  The mod, I understand, because the mod was just like, "What if I stole your characters?"

• 1:16:19Alex Cranz?

  They're like, "No."

• 1:16:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's like, pretty cut and dry.

• 1:16:21Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, he hadn't even released the mod. He'd just been like, "I'm working on it", and like, showed some videos, and Nintendo was in his inbox immediately like, "You're not. You're gonna stop that work right now." The Pokemon company says it is going to investigate Pal World because it feels like, "Oh, you do cute creatures that you can capture? We do cute creatures you can capture. You use guns? We don't, and actually have a problem with you doing that." So, it'll be a very interesting-

• 1:16:48Nilay Patel?

  But it's not actually the Pokemon. They just look a lot like the Pokemon.

• 1:16:52Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, they just, yeah, they're very similar.

• 1:16:54Nilay Patel?

  Is it like-

• 1:16:55Alex Cranz?

  They're very cute-

• 1:16:56Nilay Patel?

  Freakachu?

• 1:16:57David Pierce?

  Yeah, no, they vibe like Pokemon in like, a very real way. Like, if you didn't know the difference, and you just shoved these into a photo of a bunch of Pokemon, they would just fit.

• 1:17:09Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, yeah. So, it's close enough that we're gonna have a three-hour special episode of The Vergecast with Neelai explaining-

• 1:17:17Nilay Patel?

  Everyone loves copyright.

• 1:17:19Alex Cranz?

  The copyright of this situation, because it's kind of weird. But yeah, Nintendo is not crazy about Pokemon with guns, so-

• 1:17:27Nilay Patel?

  It seems like they wouldn't be. It doesn't seem like they would.

• 1:17:29Alex Cranz?

  That's not their thing.

• 1:17:30David Pierce?

  But the whole rest of the world seems to be. Didn't I read that it's like, on pace to be the most popular game on Steam, like, ever?

• 1:17:39Alex Cranz?

  Like, there's a bunch of different metrics Steam uses, and one of them is most concurrent players. And for years now, player underground-

• 1:17:47Alex Cranz?

  Battlegrounds?

• 1:17:48David Pierce?

  It's called PUBG. Like, only nerds use the whole name. I don't, I hate to be the one that, you know.

• 1:17:52Alex Cranz?

  Uh, so PUBG was, was, is, is been the most played game concurrently. And it seems like Pok- uh, excuse me, not Pokemon. Pal World's.

• 1:18:02David Pierce?

  It's a Freudian slip.

• 1:18:04Alex Cranz?

  Could, could take that, that, that title and, and pretty quickly too. So we'll see, but also how long will people play it? Unclear. Everybody's really into it this week. They may not be into it next week.

• 1:18:15David Pierce?

  Yeah, there may not be a game to play next week.

• 1:18:18Alex Cranz?

  Nintendo may have just shut that down. We'll see.

• 1:18:22Nilay Patel?

  Touches the nature of Steam popularity, it feels like, right?

• 1:18:24Alex Cranz?

  Yeah, yeah, a lot of times.

• 1:18:26Nilay Patel?

  All right, I've got one last one.

• 1:18:28Alex Cranz?

  All right.

• 1:18:28Nilay Patel?

  Which is actually an old story that David already mentioned, but he forgot to mention the most important part.

• 1:18:35Nilay Patel?

  So David did mention that Tim Sweeney had replied to the App Store changes and Apple's responses to them. And it's true, Tim Sweeney did refer to them as malicious compliance. What David failed to mention

• 1:18:50Nilay Patel?

  was that he also called them hot garbage.

• 1:18:52Alex Cranz?

  Yes.

• 1:18:53Nilay Patel?

  And, uh, quote, uh, "It will take more time to parse both the written and unwritten parts of this new horror show."

• 1:19:01David Pierce?

  That's very good. But can I, can I drop some breaking news on you? Uh, Fortnite just tweeted that it's coming back in the Epic Games Store. Uh, Fortnite says later this year Fortnite will return in Europe on iOS through the Epic Games Store. Shout out DMA.

• 1:19:20David Pierce?

  I, so it's like, yeah, Tim Sweeney hates it and is going to, uh, take advantage of it at every available turn.

• 1:19:27Alex Cranz?

  Bless Tim.

• 1:19:29Nilay Patel?

  It's good. You need more idealistic.

• 1:19:31David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:32Nilay Patel?

  Fortnite makers.

• 1:19:33David Pierce?

  I will say, we've seen at least two, just in the time we've been recording this podcast, at least two alternate app stores announcing that they're already beginning the process to becoming, uh, an app marketplace on iOS.

• 1:19:45Alex Cranz?

  How much porn?

• 1:19:47David Pierce?

  Unclear.

• 1:19:48Alex Cranz?

  Okay.

• 1:19:48David Pierce?

  I can tell you, one of them is, it's called the alt store and it started as this app, Delta, which originally was an app called GBA for iOS, which is a way to play Game Boy ROMs.

• 1:20:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:00David Pierce?

  On your iPhone, which is a thing Apple explicitly does not allow. And now, in theory, under this rule, would be perfectly allowable to do through an app marketplace. So like, that's, that's coming. That's one of the ones that announced they're, they're already working on this, like.

• 1:20:14Alex Cranz?

  I'll finally have a reason for that, that controller that I, you can put on your iPhone. I never do it because I'm like, I only want to play ROMs and I don't want to do that on, that I legally own the games, of course. You should always legally own the games.

• 1:20:26Nilay Patel?

  I'm 100% certain that that is still not legal and that is just some folk wisdom, but the ROM market is not big enough for anyone to care.

• 1:20:32Alex Cranz?

  Yeah. So please don't sue me for that. I supported you and your Pal Worlds.

• 1:20:37David Pierce?

  It's okay. Yeah. Nintendo has bigger fish to fry at the moment, so you're, you're fine.

• 1:20:39Alex Cranz?

  Leave me alone.

• 1:20:40Nilay Patel?

  Oh my gosh. All right. Well, I'm going to start a gambling store. From what I understand, gambling is very lucrative. So catch me in the gambling store.

• 1:20:50David Pierce?

  Neelai's porn, crypto and gambling depot, coming to iOS in 2024.

• 1:20:58Nilay Patel?

  Historically lucrative ideas. Who wants to talk? Wouldn't maybe get it? I don't even gamble, first of all. Uh, this is true. Every year at CS, I go to Vegas and whatever money other people are spending gambling, I just use that money. I spend the same money, but I buy limousines. And I promise you, this is true, I've been doing it for years.

• 1:21:17David Pierce?

  I can vouch for this. Yeah.

• 1:21:18Nilay Patel?

  We had a limo this year and everyone talks more about the limousine than they talk about gambling at the end.

• 1:21:23Alex Cranz?

  It's, it's true. I drank Bud Light out of a champagne. It's beautiful. It's a wonderful moment.

• 1:21:29Nilay Patel?

  It was a good limo. Except when Andrew took over the aux and started playing some deeply weird shit in that car. Uh, that's it. That's a Verge cast. Uh, we'll be back next week. There's, it's tech news season is here. We have just started the year. Off to the races. We'll be back next week.

• 1:21:44David Pierce?

  Oh, wait. Also, wait, before we go. We, next week is when The Vision Pro comes out. And at some point, when it makes sense, we're going to do a whole Vergecast about The Vision Pro. And if you have questions about The Vision Pro, send them to us. Call the hotline, 866-VERGE11. Email us, [email protected]. All of your Vision Pro questions, as soon as we can answer them, we will answer them. And we're going to do a whole Vergecast about it. It's going to be really fun.

• 1:22:12Nilay Patel?

  Looking at you with the eyes. Just staring at you with our undead eyes. Uh, that's it. That's Vergecast. Rock and roll.

• 1:22:23David Pierce?

  And that's it for The Vergecast this week. Hey, we'd love to hear from you. Give us a call at 866-VERGE11. The Vergecast is a production of The Verge and Vox Media Podcast Network. Our show is produced by Andrew Marino and Liam James. That's it. We'll see you next week.

• 1:22:44Speaker 07

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