Hello and welcome to Vergecast, the flagship podcast of the AI era. We're in it. We were told about it today by Greg Brockman. He's the president of OpenAI. It's a real thing we're going to talk about today. I'm your friend Nilay. David Pierce is here.
I'm happy to have you, man. You're like a star of the show. Everyone loves you.
I'm trying to stay as long as I can. You know, having a good time.
Uh oh. Don't jinx me with that. You're never leaving that studio. I'm going to live there forever. Uh, we have an all-star lineup today. Um, Tom Clayton and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy are going to be here to do a lightning-fast lightning round of all the gadgets from IFA. Joanna Stern is going to join us to talk about the end of the Tim Cook era, the dawn of the Ternus era, and the Apple event next week. And then we're going to start uh with Hayden Field, talk about OpenAI's big news, their new model, and the dawn of the AGI era. But first, Travis is here to warn you about identity theft. Travis, what's going on?
I choose to believe you looped me in with the all-stars.
Hey, now you're an all-star.
You have a dilemma. You have a warning.
I'm going to keep this short. Someone is impersonating me. I am one of the producers of the Vergecast. Uh, and several people have reached out to me on LinkedIn to say that I — it's not me — have contacted them saying, 'Do you want to be on the Vergecast?' And then this leads to a phishing scheme. I have no way to fix this problem because it's happening from multiple accounts. It's happening on Twitter. It's happening on Telegram. So, I'm just here on this platform to tell you I'm not that proactive to be reaching out to people on Twitter all the time. It's probably not me.
Yeah. The fact that this is happening through LinkedIn makes me think that they're trying to get you in a phishing scam.
Well, could be.
So curious. No, it's just people screenshotting. They send me the screenshots and but I like what you're thinking. Also, person who's impersonating me, get in touch because like you're a hard worker, you know?
Maybe we should have them on the show.
Do you know it's not a person, right? I just — it is one of the cheapest models running on a mid-range Android phone in a server rack overseas.
I'm open to that, too. No, no, no, no. Uh, yeah. So, anyway, I just wanted to put that out there. I'm sorry if a fake me has reached out to you, listener or watcher of the Vergecast. I'm sorry, but also it's not me.
Be warned, Travis Larch will never offer you a spot on the show.
Let's get that Gemini Nano on the show.
You'll know if it's me. I'll make some sort of heated rivalry or Alias reference in my message.
Now that AI phone knows what to do.
Oh no, I'll come up with something else. We'll come up with like a private key exchange system for Travis working on the Vergecast. It's going to be great.
All right. Um, I'm going to leave now.
All right. Don't be fooled by Travis reaching out to you to be on the Vergecast. It's a stern warning for everyone.
All right. That was great. Please be on the lookout for fake Travis and real Travis if you see him on the street. Hayden Field is here. Hayden.
I am excited to talk to you because we were told earlier today that AGI is here. So, it's the dawn of a new era.
Yes. I was really surprised to hear him say that on the press call and then later on he kind of doubled down on it. He said, 'For me personally, you know, we're there.' So, you know, I thought he was trying to hedge, but he believes that we've pretty much made it.
Does Demis Hassabis have to no longer say we're in the foothills, but now we are at the mountaintop of the singularity?
Yeah, we're going to hear way more uh nature metaphors for uh hiking through the AGI landscape.
Hey, Claude is great at that. You know, they use all those little butterflies and whatever clip art.
Yeah. And that's how they watermark your text with like flowery metaphors.
Um, all right. Let's just start with the basics. OpenAI announced a new model today. It was kind of a surprise. We've heard about Astra before. They just basically just up and did it. Hayden, what's going on with the model itself?
So, yeah, today they announced Astra and we did know about it before. Um, you know, we had heard rumblings of it, but we didn't really know what it would be or what it would really specialize in. So they called it a generational leap in capability for cybersecurity, professional work, software engineering, science, and computer and browser use. And they really harped on the computer and browser use thing. They kept saying like it's not embarrassing anymore. Um, it's not cringe to watch it do these things anymore. It can really do these things. And then they showed us a demo video during the press call of like all different types of knowledge workers using, you know, Astra via like a chat voice mode saying like, 'Oh, can you draw me a yellow circle for like design work?' or 'Oh, can you like change this legal briefing?' if you're a lawyer. So it was interesting to see how much they're trying to, um, you know, really double down on this enterprise push, which makes sense because they're about to enter, you know, IPO time or, you know, depending on how the Apple lawsuit shakes out, I guess. But they're really being pressured to drive more revenue than ever before. So, you know, obviously enterprise and coding are the two biggest drivers there they're going to try to lean into. But the problem is with the recent Hugging Face hack, obviously that probably dismantled a lot of enterprise trust, like, 'Oh, sorry, our model, um, you know, hacked a rival lab and we had no idea about it until they told the public that that had happened.' So, you know, I think that they're really doing some damage control here. And so that's why they, you know, held a press call even the day, a couple days before launching this model saying, 'We did a lot of work on alignment. We did a lot of work on cybersecurity safeguards. Here are the other things we're doing.' It's kind of like an apology post before even being, you know, they're trying to get ahead of the cancellation basically.
Yeah. Did it feel like they worked with the government at all before this got released? Whatever happened to that whole era of like every single model has to be run through the government?
Yes, they did do that. They said that, um, actually Brockman said that, uh, the Trump administration didn't have any changes for them to make as far as safeguards or anything. So,
Oops, we're AGI and we're not making any changes.
Uh, I mean Altman has been out. He was on Alex Heath's podcast saying that they really consider the Hugging Face incident to be the first AI safety lapse. They took it seriously. They're pausing model training. How is that connected to Astra? Is that the next model that they're pausing training on? Is Astra needed to get realigned? What happened there?
They actually delayed the release of Astra by what I think is a few weeks or a month due to the Hugging Face thing. So they slowed down training. Um, they stopped training altogether for a little while. Then they, um, apparently just, you know, really slowed down the release of it so they could run more tests, introduce more safeguards, things like that. They also introduced new evaluations where they kind of tested Astra on the types of things that GPT-5.5 SoCal, um, would have failed at during the Hugging Face hack. Like they, uh, did some Hugging Face hack-specific evaluations to see kind of how Astra would act. And, um, they
Do you want to hack Hugging Face? Yes or no?
And so Astra was like, apparently it never took the bait, whereas like GPT-5.5 SoCal took the bait more than half the time, I believe.
Oh my gosh. Sure. It's a bigger deal if they hack Nvidia now. So, you know,
Yeah, we should come to this. Nvidia, it's confirmed that they're going to buy Hugging Face, which is a big deal in the sort of competitive landscape of open models and so on. But let's stay focused on Astra for one turn. Astra is a model that did the — they solved the unsolvable math problems. There's rumors that it was the model that was doing some other work. When you say they slowed down training and they came up with more evaluations, maybe I just don't understand enough. But Astra was complete and it was like doing things. Was that while it was still training or did they change the safeguards and the system prompts?
They said that Astra wasn't the one that hacked Hugging Face. They said it wasn't involved. Now, you know, I don't know which model was. Maybe another released, unreleased model, or maybe it's some other previous iteration of Astra and they're just not — they're saying technically Astra wasn't involved. We're not really sure, but all we know is that they said Astra did not hack Hugging Face. So basically the messaging is telling us they stopped training for a while, they delayed the release of Astra, and, um, they introduced a ton more safeguards despite it not being involved in the hack. Now maybe just this version of the model wasn't, or maybe it was a different unreleased model altogether. We're not really sure.
What is truly called Astra is like the underlying root of this question. Was it the model in training or is it the model we have now that was finished after the delay in the safeguards? But does it seem like the security community is happy with the safeguards? Is happy with these changes?
As for the safeguards and the evaluations, it seems like it's a little bit too early to tell because people are just now starting to look at the paper and, um, check it out. But what I can tell you is that the security community is extremely upset about this thing called opaque reasoning. So basically with alignment, which basically means how well an AI system is aligned with human goals and interests, like is it secretly scheming or trying to be evil. So with alignment, the biggest tool you have in your toolbox for making sure an AI model isn't like secretly evil is watching its chain of thought, which is like a mental scratchpad. It's kind of like if you had a journal and you wrote every single one of your thoughts in there and then someone else was like looking over your shoulder. It's kind of a similar situation. And so people are upset because apparently, according to reports, OpenAI allowed Astra to obfuscate its chain of thought in kind of a way that humans can't understand. So essentially allowing it to hide the way it's really thinking, which is — why would they do that?
Apparently it might have made it more efficient. We're not really sure, but there's a lot of, uh, you know, think pieces coming out on this right now. There's a lot of Twitter threads by AI researchers talking about how worried they are about this. So, that's the thing I'm watching right now, how worried all the people that I follow their research are about this specific thing. So, you know, whether the safety evaluations are good or whether they put a lot of locks on the cybersecurity stuff is one thing, but then the other matter is really just, uh, are we able to control this model? And it looks like this is one thing that's really worrying people,
Right? Can you see what it's doing? Robert Hart has a piece for us about all this. Uh, we'll link it in the show notes at the very end. Like an OpenAI researcher is like, 'Monitoring is fragile and unfortunately trending in a negative direction.' And it's like, that's not good. Like that doesn't seem good. That seems like the market for faster or more capable models is leading to techniques that implicate how much you can monitor what they're actually doing because you want them to be faster, more efficient. You want to make money ahead of your IPO. And that's where the industry should either regulate itself, which doesn't seem like it's happening, or someone else should. But Astra seems like they're just doing it anyway.
It could be that. I mean, it's also interesting because the chief scientist of OpenAI kind of got at this a little bit on their press call. Um, you know, but a lot of what he said was, uh, kind of grandiose statements like, um, you know, 'It's our job to make sure that, you know, AI benefits humanity,' things like that. Um, but you know, people are really worried about this opaque reasoning thing. So all the external third-party researchers that I follow have been really, um, you know, kind of trying to bring him to task about this and saying like, 'How can you think this is okay?' Um, and just like kind of calling for transparency from OpenAI, which is the same thing they've been calling for in light of the Hugging Face attack as well.
Yeah. It seems especially strange to me that they would make that opaque when the only way that they were able to trace the Hugging Face attack was seeing the little agents talking to each other being like, 'Oh my gosh, we can leave notes here. We can talk to each other through this.' Like, if that doesn't exist, wouldn't they just call — they called the Hugging Face attack like one of the biggest changes in AI in history, and now they're making it more opaque. That seems strange,
Right? Or at least not stopping it from becoming more opaque, maybe. Um, so yeah, we'll see. I think this is going to be a really big thing to watch. I've actually been hearing a lot about like problems with chain of thought for the past year or so. You know, there are times when AI models will use weird words, um, as kind of like a code. Like they'll say like 'fudge' or 'marinade' or, um, 'vantage,' like these words that we know, but they will use them in a way that isn't the way we use them. And people are still kind of decoding how they're using them and what that means in their like language. And there's other times when they enter into this thing called 'neuralese' which is like, yeah, it's like truly indecipherable to humans. And so I think, you know, everyone's been worried about this, the potential of this happening for a while, and now it looks like it is, and it, you know, they're pushing for OpenAI to maybe do something about it, but we'll have to see, you know, what their statement is.
So an unmonitorable opaque system that can coordinate hacks on other companies. Okay. What can it do that's good?
The good things it can do are, and I think they front-loaded this because it's good PR, um, science, great at science, great at math. Um, it's currently made a lot of advancements in like really, um, difficult to solve math problems and therefore a lot of cool science advancements are a potential for this. Um, they also said it's really great at creating like polished documents, uh, spreadsheets, uh, you know, PowerPoint presentations, things like that. They said it's great for all different types of knowledge work when it comes to staying on task, kind of deciphering your intent if you weren't that clear about it. But apparently it's better at deciphering kind of what you meant by that. Kind of like a good personal assistant would instead of like a bad personal assistant, you know, that needed you to spell things out.
Yeah. Like an emotionally distant personal assistant that doesn't care about you really. Yeah.
Or like just doesn't have good common sense, which is what AI has been to date, you know? So, you know, we'll see. I mean, yeah, there's apparently a lot of great things about it, but I think I'm going to have to test it out for myself because, you know, if you're calling it potentially AGI, you know, I think it'll be interesting to see how it feels as a user and to see if it's a big step forward or if it's kind of more of the same and, you know, decidedly not AGI. We'll see.
Yeah, we were talking a little bit about this off show, but do you feel like most of the benefits of this model only come from using it on your computer? Because I feel like people are going to need to use these models on their phones because that's when people are usually generally computing. But it feels to me like all the benefits of this are computer use, business, enterprise stuff, PowerPoint presentations as you said. Is that AGI if most of the benefits are just on your laptop?
I think that could be the case. I mean, they pushed browser use as well a lot, but I mean, I don't know. I wouldn't really trust that on my phone per se. I don't know how good it will be. We'll have to test it out. But you know, apparently it's also just a lot better at, uh, you know, actually understanding what you mean and what you want. But I don't think we're going to see a ton of the benefits like you said unless you're on the computer, especially because you know they are courting enterprise customers. That's the big money maker here. Um, their first release of Astra was actually to like this small group of, um, approved, uh, cybersecurity defenders they call them. So like, you know, big organizations that have gaps to fill in their systems. So you know, I think they're going to be getting the most use out of it. It's kind of like the Mythos, um, situation for Anthropic in which, you know, there's a watered-down version that we all get to use, but the top cybersecurity capabilities mostly go to these big organizations. And that's actually another potential issue that a lot of researchers have been talking about, saying like, you know, yeah, it's great for these, um, big platforms like your bank or, um, your healthcare facility to plug gaps in their systems, but also, um, does that mean that small businesses, locally run healthcare clinics, um, you know, like your local retailer are going to see a huge spike in cyber attacks without really any way to defend themselves probably.
No, good. Again, I want to come back. There's — you can do good stuff too, right?
Yeah. I mean, like, you know, the science and math things I think are really big. I love whenever these models are used for drug discovery. I think that's really cool. Um, you know, this one they didn't mention drug discovery that I saw, but you know, science advancements hopefully that involves that or at least, you know, helps inform it. Um, and then yeah, just the knowledge work potential seems to be good for a lot of people. Uh, and it, you know, they did in the demo video show Astra across a lot of different industries, uh, you know, things that were pretty promising if the demo — again, we're going to have to test it out because you know how demo videos are, like sometimes they kind of are showing the highlight reels. So, we'll see.
Yeah, there's another big model released this week, right? Fable and Mythos were released by Anthropic this week. Put this up against that. Like Anthropic did not announce AGI. Are these all the same class of model? Are they similarly capable? Did OpenAI sleep ahead? I know you're saying we have to actually see what they can do, but where's the conventional wisdom right now about where all these models are?
Yeah, it seems like they're not that far off from each other. I mean, like, you know, again, the thing is it's tough because evaluations a lot of times you can kind of optimize for performing well on evaluations, kind of like, um, if you're in a classroom and you're just studying for the SAT instead of like just studying to learn. So, you know, I mean, like, I don't put that much stock in how they perform on evaluations, especially because you can kind of cherry-pick stuff like that. But, you know, I did see a couple jokes already about, um, Astra on my feed today that were like, 'Oh, they say we've reached AGI, but it only performed this percentage on this evaluation.' So, you know, it seems like I don't know that it's anything way crazier than Anthropic's, uh, you know, rival model, but again, we'll check it out when we actually test it.
One of the things I'm really curious about just like broadly is whether or not the models are products, right? Like they're good at certain things, but they're not the products like ChatGPT and Claude Code — like those are the products that people use. Do the models immediately make the products better? Like there's some disconnect between OpenAI jumps ahead by announcing the new model and we're all still using ChatGPT, like maybe asking the same questions we were asking yesterday and maybe it's a little bit better answer. Like, do you know what I mean? Are the products going to change now? Because that's the big turn that all these companies need to make.
Yeah, I think the products are going to change right away, but really the amount of benefit you're going to see is, you know, how much of a power user you are, right? Because, you know, for at first this is rolling out to a select set of enterprise organizations. Then it's going to roll out to paying users, uh, but the watered-down version, but still, you know, just minus the top crazy cybersecurity capabilities. Um, it's going to be like Pro, Business, Enterprise, Education. Um, and then, you know, the free — they didn't mention free yet, that it'll probably be last to get it if at all. Um, we'll see. I mean, I think that it's going to make the product better if you get access to it. That's the thing. I think if you're a user who uses the product and you have the tier, the subscription tier or whatever that lets you access this model, great. But even if you can access it, the hard part is the more you pay, the more you'll get because obviously, you know, you have a certain amount of tokens to use, you have a certain amount of usage and like, you know, if you have the lowest subscription tier, maybe you get a great use out of this model for a little bit and then you're cut off. So, and it reverts back to a lower one. So, you know, it kind of depends in that way.
Yeah. Let's quickly talk about Hugging Face. We mentioned it earlier. Nvidia is buying Hugging Face for almost $13 billion. This has been rumored for quite a while. I think it was first scooped in The Information. Uh, Hugging Face is obviously more famous now because it's the thing that was hacked by open models. They did set up a message board. There's a lot of drama around interpreting what happened there. We'll set that aside. Nvidia is buying Hugging Face because it's where all the open source models, open weight models are stored. It's the big repository for them. This feels to me almost like Nvidia hedging against the dominance of Anthropic and OpenAI, right? They want to own the thing where all the open models are so that there's always demand for their chips instead of, I don't know, OpenAI shipping Jalapeno, its own inference chip, and moving away from Nvidia. Is that — am I just doing a conspiracy theory or is there something else happening here?
No, I think that's true. I mean, you know, I think they're diversifying and, you know, as they're seeing all these other AI labs try to bring chip-making in-house and, you know, go big on hardware and invest largely on that, they're trying to diversify as well. You know, they're like, 'Oh, if you guys can do that, then we can do the same thing but in reverse.' So, that's what I think is happening here. And they certainly have the money to do it.
Is this just like Microsoft on GitHub or is there something deeper happening here?
I think of it as that. Yeah, it's often compared when you're trying to kind of like explain Hugging Face in layman's terms, it sometimes is compared to GitHub. Um, so I think it is pretty similar to that. It's just like, you know, it's the type of thing where the name of the company sometimes like raises eyebrows. It's, um, it's a hilarious name, but it's the type of thing where like, you know, a household may not know what that is except for the hack that just happened. But in AI, yeah, it's as big of a deal as, um, any like AI library could be. I mean, it's — you think about it probably, you know, every couple days if not every day. So I think yeah, it's pretty similar to the Microsoft behind GitHub situation.
Do you think this has any big implications for OpenAI or Google?
You know, we'll see what happens after the acquisition. I feel like anytime an acquisition happens, you're going to see what changes with the company later. Um, and you know, whatever promises the acquiring company makes right away, it may not pan out. We have to see. So, I think, uh, right now it's just a wait-and-see situation, um, with Hugging Face. I mean, it's mostly I think I've been thinking a lot about the business and, uh, enterprise kind of implications of this, of just Nvidia feeling that they have to diversify. I mean, Nvidia has been a big, uh, heavyweight in terms of investing and diversifying its portfolio for a long time. You know, I, um, once tried to interview the person that decides what they invest in because they were always like pretty first to invest in a lot of small startups that a lot of people weren't taking notice of and then those would like rocket up. So, you know, it's interesting to see them, uh, say, 'Okay, we have all these startups and we're kind of rocketing them up, but now let's also invest in something that like, you know, the AI industry uses every day and diversify in that way.' So, I think it's kind of just like a reverse diversification compared to what all the OpenAI and Anthropic labs are doing.
Yeah, Hayden, you and I have talked a lot about AGI on many shows. It's always drama when you and I talk to each other. Um, the working definition has been better than humans at economically viable tasks or some riff on that, right? Better than humans at things that make money. If we're in the AGI era now, is OpenAI saying this model is better than humans at economically viable things? Because that's when the jobs start to go away. So, is that the claim they're making?
Yes, that seems to be what he's saying here because I mean they've always been — he did start, I should say, he did start out, uh, before he said the AGI thing, he said, you know, 'Everyone has a different definition of AGI. We used to think when we started OpenAI that there would be one moment that everyone would agree, okay, we've hit AGI, but it actually hasn't happened that way and it's a lot more fuzzy and gray,' he said. So that was his disclaimer, but then he went on to say, 'Yeah, if we fast forward a couple years and we look back and say when was it really that AGI was created, I think it's going to be about this time and I think it might be about this model.' Then he doubled down later in the call and he said, 'For me personally, I do think we're there. I think it's not unreasonable to feel that we are now in the AGI era.'
He feels the AGI. He, uh, is, you know, they've been touting the knowledge work, uh, capabilities of this model a ton. You know, that's what the whole demo video focused on. They're saying, you know, whether you're in legal, you're in design, you're in marketing, whatever, you're in science, it can, you know, do your job and help you in your job. Um, they're framing it as help you in your job, but on the other side of the coin is it can do your job, um, equally or better than you is what they're kind of, you know, implying for enterprise users. So, I think, you know, yeah, the definition has always been equal or surpass, um, human abilities. And it seems like, you know, they're really making the play that we're at that now.
This model feels like a particularly big enterprise push to me. Like it feels like they're really targeting this at big corporations, not at — now is the time to not lose to Anthropic. If David Pierce was here, he would be pounding the table and screaming AI is business software and we should just get over it because that's what he says every time we talk about it. And it feels like this moment is very much, oh, it's going to be business software. This is a bunch of CIOs are going to buy this and deploy it across big organizations and somewhere, as Hayden's saying, the free models will get updated or the free products will get updated along the line.
Yeah, I think you got to look at where the money is flowing from and it's enterprise.
It's all going to enterprise.
Yeah, Hayden, this is great. Thank you so much for being on. Well, let us know when you decide if it's AGI and we'll have you back.
We'll do. Can't wait. Thanks.
I've got a text. The summer might be almost over, but a new bombshell has entered the villa. Meet the voices of Deepgram Flux TTS. I'm Drew, low-key casual.
I'm Alexis, an upbeat morning person.
I'm Haley, always cheerful.
Flux TTS has some real personalities that are ready to speak. You can interrupt, pause, and keep talking without losing the plot.
Fancy a chat? Come try all the voices free through September 12th at deepgram.com/keepcalling. Terms apply.
All right, we're back. Joanna Stern is with us. Hey Joanna.
Hello. Hello. I really wanted you to talk about Apple and we should talk about Apple. We should preview the event next week. We should talk about John Ternus' first 48 hours as CEO. But Joanna, you were just saying you were also on this OpenAI call where they just casually announced AGI. What do you think? Is it here?
It feels like it was a moment in tech history that is either going to go down as one of the funniest moments in my life of covering tech or one of the darkest, saddest changes for humanity. Or maybe it's going to be someplace in between. Um, but right now I'm leaning towards the first because it was crazy. I just thought it was crazy. He held this call today to tell reporters what they're announcing, which is GPT-6, Astra is here. But then Greg Brockman was really clear that he believes this is the beginning of the AGI era. He actually ended the call saying, 'Welcome to the AGI era.' He said that to everyone.
And when another reporter kind of later in the call — they described all the capabilities of the model and didn't give totally concrete examples. There's this video that they showed showing the things you can do with it, but it kind of looked like the things I can already do with it. Let's leave that aside for a minute. But so, uh, a reporter kind of asks him about the — can you really say this is AGI? There's this stuff that has to do with Microsoft. He says, you know, 'Are you calling this AGI right now? Like is this what you're saying?' Right? Like we all want to know what the headline is. And I'm going to read to you what Brockman says back. He says, 'So ideally, I leave it up to the reader to decide for themselves if this qualifies for them.'
The reader. Yes. 'For me personally, I do think we're there. I think there's a pretty good argument for it.' Sorry, I'm using Apple's transcription and it's quite bad. It says, 'There's a — I do — I think here's a pretty good argument for it.' I think he was saying 'theirs'. Um,
Like that.
Yeah, sure. Let's call it AGI. It's true. You mentioned Microsoft. They, you know, famously OpenAI and Microsoft have been intertwined with each other forever. There's some clause in a contract that when AGI is discovered, everything changes, right? So,
Well, he pushed back on that. I can read you the quote on that. He said that, um, we talked — he says, 'There's no contractual AGI triggering anymore.' So, that's — and this is a quote — 'So, that's actually not a relevant concept.'
So, that's why they announced it. Okay. But also like humanity might be over.
Yeah. You can say whatever you want,
Right? And that's what was kind of crazy to me, especially as like I read this quote back, which is like the reader can decide. And I know you guys have talked about this for a long time on the podcast, like is the AGI governing board? Is it you? Is it my dog? Like I just kind of kept being like anyone right now can say it's AGI. Like my dog was sitting in the room like, 'Rouse, AGI, you called it.' You're like, okay. Um, it's a vibes thing. Like it just feels like it was a vibes announcement for an IPO that's probably coming.
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask because really just the feeling I had was like there's a rush to say this right now.
Um, this was something that they didn't tell reporters about till yesterday to get on this call. Like it just felt like last night truly was going to bed and I was like, yeah, sure, I can make this meeting. Um, it just felt very rushed. They want to get this out. Of course they've been talking about this model. There's been, you know, the conversations they've had with the government. There's been the testing of it. They're also saying, you know, there was a lot of good time in this call spent talking about the alignment, the testing. So, props to them for focusing on that, but it just does feel very, very rushed. Like there's a reason they wanted this out.
And then they wanted to say AGI. I mean, you're as deep in AI as anyone. Do you feel like AGI is here? You mean you can call it too?
I could call it too. And look, I know it's like people will say to me like, 'Oh, you're going to point to all the things that are just so bad still with AI,' which is what I want to do right now. And people will say, 'Well, that doesn't count all the great things that you can still do and the computer control and that it can work at superhuman speeds on things that humans have never been able to do.' And that's true, but you still have the whole reality that right now some of this is still so dumb.
Yeah, it seems like an important piece of the puzzle. Look, he's calling it and he's calling it and he's saying it's the beginning of the AGI era, which means he thinks there's going to be some big discoveries and big progress that's going to come out of this model. And I'm excited to see that too. So, I'm like very pessimistic, but also like I want to be optimistic about some of it.
I have one more question. This and we should talk about Apple because it's interesting to call the beginning of the AGI era right before Apple announces an iPhone, right? There's some connection there that's interesting to talk about. Is this just Brockman doing the same move as Demis Hassabis saying that we're in the foothills of the singularity, which is just a phrase, like he hasn't declared AGI. He's saying we're in the AGI era, which presumably begins around AGI.
In the foothills. You're right.
That's why it was funny. Like there was just like this couching, right? Like I'm not going to say it, but I'm going to say it.
There was a lot of couching. Like the reader should decide, but I think, you know, and look, he's the president of OpenAI, arguably the most important person at OpenAI right now. I mean, he is the one controlling all these teams, so that is a super significant thing. Like honestly to me, I believe it more from him versus Altman, who's been saying things like this for a long time, right? So okay, like, but you're still waffling and yeah.
I imagine when they needed funding, they needed to keep saying we need more funding so we can get to AGI, right? And now that they're about to IPO, they're like, 'Well, now our IPO makes sense. You should all invest after we're officially public.' That does seem to signal that that's going to happen fairly soon.
Yes.
All right. The reason I connected that to Apple is that we are a week away from an iPhone event. We assume that there will be a folding phone. There'll obviously be new Pro phones. I'm actually curious to see if they do the regular phone at the same time. There's a lot of rumors that they won't just do a regular iPhone and ship it at the same time as the other ones. Uh, we're expecting kind of other hardware. There's been a lot of rumors that it'll be a big launch. John Ternus, the new CEO, said it's going to be a huge launch in his first memo to staff. What do you make of this? Does Apple have to respond to their former partner OpenAI saying that we're now in the AGI era? Because that's the thing that kills the phone, right?
I don't think they — I think the timing, like David's hinting, is this an IPO timing situation. I don't — I think they probably want to have something that they could dominate in the news next week, but like there's always something connected to OpenAI next week or, you know, in the news. Um, I don't think Apple's going to change a thing about what's happening in their presentation that's been on lock. I'm sure.
What about their ChatGPT integration contract? Because the last I looked, the plugin with ChatGPT was still in the settings and I feel like at some point they're going to kill that off.
Yeah, it's still there. It's still there. Latest build in iOS 26.2 and you can like adjust turning it on and off. Uh,
Yeah, it was a weird choice.
I mean, do you know anyone who uses that? Like, have you ever met a person that uses that?
No, not a single person. Not a single person.
Um, let's just start at the start. Uh, John Ternus is now CEO of Apple. This was the big transition week, long planned. Tim Cook said goodbye. His last meeting — his last act as CEO was in the retail store on the Apple campus, which I thought was very touching. He was like, this is the thing I care about the most. We can recap the Tim Cook era. We can talk about the beginning of the Ternus era. Joanna, you think Apple's going to be meaningfully different with a different CEO.
I do think in the long term they will be. I keep wondering about this event and, you know, I started going back through some of John Ternus' appearances and keynotes and I really just wonder
What the format of this is going to be. I want to pick both of your brains on it because we had such a clear format in the world of the Steve Jobs keynote, right? We just like if you watched it, you knew it was just like everything was so Steve Jobs about those his keynotes. Then we move into the Tim Cook era. We had a little bit of a continuation of it, many years. I'd say probably what probably five to eight years. I didn't do the math, but we were they had big stuff done in the Moscone Center and they did big stuff on in different theaters where it was live. But then COVID happens and they are able to go and pivot to the recorded streamed presentation which honestly I think was a blessing for Tim Cook. It was like kind of great that COVID happened for Tim Cook because then they could move to this this way, right? They could presentation, right? Just Yeah.
Yes. Asterisk. Um, and then they could move to this presentation, which is really good for Cook. He could tee up all these great people. These people didn't have to be great on stage. John Turnis was one of them. Obviously, Craig being another, but then lots of other executives at the company that we don't really often see and we wouldn't see kind of come on stage in fast ways that they do it in the in the edited video. And so now I'm really wondering, what does it look like for the John Turnis keynote? Do they keep the streaming, which Apple has been has been very successful for Apple, or are they gonna go back to some hybrid of this? Like, how how is it going to look? And is he gonna be a showman because he loves talking about products?
Yeah, I really appreciate it. At the last Apple event, you and I are sitting next to each other. They had the pre-recorded thing and they brought the press to a live Q&A with some of their executives to talk more about AI. David, I think you were there. You were like sitting right in front of us. Yeah. I just thought, okay, this is kind of best of both worlds. I think Apple is very committed to their infomercials. They will tell you that those things get more views and they travel more than anything that they could ever do live and they love them. They've gotten in trouble. They faked the Siri demo ages ago in one of them and they had to walk it all back. So I think they they they're learning how to bring some of that live experience back. I don't think that will be like in this event. My curiosity is how much does Turnis talk, right?
He's the product person. He's the product CEO. Tim Cook hasn't really introduced a product in some time if I recall, right? He's done the big intro. He's so excited to be here and then it's off to the races with 50 different people and I think that reflects how Tim has managed the company like to some huge extent that that is how he's all these other people make the products. I'm curious if Turnis is the one who introduces the folding iPhone, right? And he's like, I'm the product visionary here. I'm the best marketer for this product because that is a thing that you haven't had since Steve Jobs.
I get the feeling that he won't. I'm not really sure why. I feel like it's uh it's they've set a bit of a precedent that there's an intro from the CEO. I think John Turtis will intro the show. Everyone will clap and get excited, but I think he'll pass it off to all of those other execs that are still the ones introducing the new chips, the new hardware. I I mean, this was one of his babies, so there's a chance that he gets excited about it and he'll probably end the keynote talking about it. But I don't know. I'm I don't feel like he's gonna be the one to announce it. That's just a guess. I don't know if he'll be the one to announce it, but that's where I'm going with that.
Jobs just famously held up products, right? And I mean, I think there were a couple of times where Cook would hold the product up at the end. I I think there's going to be a moment where we do see Turnis with the folding phone, whether it's a a photo moment at the end or comes on stage in the middle. Like, I just I I I just get this feeling like he's going to want to make a mark in a different way than Cook had on these presentations. The question is, how does that work when you have these pre-recorded videos, you know, like what they've done previously, I think last year in the Steve Jobs Theater, Tim Cook comes on stage, they don't broadcast this, they just talk to the press, and then they play the video. We all sit in a movie theater together for an hour for some reason. Everyone else sees that in the world. Tim Cook comes back on stage, they leave. How do they do this hybrid situation? Maybe they only show the press the phone and they don't show the rest of the world the phone.
That's a possibility. The trillion dollar company can figure out how to break from a recorded video into a live video.
We need a saying, you know, technology is not the hold up here.
It's going to be AI avatars. AGI era is here. AI Turnis is going to hold up an AI phone. It's going to be amazing.
It's funny, you know, you can read overread way too much in Apple keynotes. And I'm sure we have listeners who are asking why we would overanalyze an Apple keynote and its staging in a way that you would never overanalyze the staging of a Samsung keynote or a Google keynote. And I the only thing that I would offer you is it's because it's real. Like Apple keynotes are political in this specific way. Best example I can give you of this is famously uh Steve Jobs signaled that he was going to fire Tony Fadell by deleting his name from the contacts list in the very first iPhone keynote. Like this was like a coded mafia message. And if you if you read Mark Gurman who constantly is talking about the the palace intrigue of Apple, who they feature in the keynotes, it actually reflects the politics of the organization in a way that like I don't even think Google knows what's going to happen in the keynote until 20 minutes before they start.
Yeah. Right. Like is Dennis going to say we're in the foothills of Singularity? Like who knows? Like let's get out there have a good time everybody. Like it's just like a very different vibe and it's like polished by the top people at Apple. Like the CEO is in the keynote script and working through I mean that's how Jobs did it. Jobs and so I I don't think it's crazy that we're talking about it. I think this whole podcast should be two hours just talking about just overanalyzing the Apple invites.
I mean look they know they're they're trying to be all Taylor Swift and like leave the Easter eggs. I don't know if they're as successful at it but this is the turn right is we're talking about John Turnis the product CEO. Is he going to take ownership of the product during the presentation in a way that Cook really didn't take ownership? And I think that is, you know, we should look back a little bit on the Cook era. It has been a remarkable run for him as CEO. There's been some big swings, some big misses. Apple services exist in a way that like did not exist before Tim Cook realized that he was out of people to sell iPhones to and turned on a services business that reset the entire app economy. AirPods happened on his watch. The removal of the headphone jack happened on Tim Cook's watch. The courage uh the Apple Watch, which I will never forget that event, which was live and featured Bono and a lengthy uh explanation of how the digital crown would be the next great input device, which was just I in that moment I was like, are you guys serious about this? There was just like something about Tim where he needed it first to do a Steve Jobs style product introduction and needed to prove that Apple still had its spirit inside of it and then it stopped and it became Apple became pretty corporate and became all about scale and like fees. I'm wondering, Joanna, where would you mark that transition or do you think that transition happened?
That's I mean did it happen? I think so. I think a lot of I think a lot of our readers Oh 100% it happened. I think first of all like the launch of Apple TV was a big moment on that timeline. Like that's a huge a huge moment for the services shift and that he wanted Apple to be this entertainment company because everyone else was an entertainment company as well, a content company. Yeah. I guess we mark it at the Apple Watch but or AirPods as the expansion that goes beyond the iPhone because all of this is just right as as famously we've talked about for the decade now which is the iPhone is the center of this economy for them and what are the other pieces that we can get people to come into the ecosystem. It is the center of the walled garden and so I think you you put it with these other devices. I think yeah David what do you think?
It does feel to me that there was a bit of a shift maybe five or six years ago more directed towards hardware engineering again because before that we had the Apple Watch Edition edition. We had a lot of Hermès stuff. We had gold. We had all that stuff. Apple was kind of seen as this luxury company. It's not not a luxury company now, but it feels that in, you know, ever since Apple silicon, ever since the new MacBook Pros with ports, what a concept. Uh we're actually getting hardware for a good price that's very focused around the hardware. And I don't know how much of that was a John Turnis decision, but it seems to me that they have pivoted a little bit from being this like luxury fashion company more towards back towards the the old kind of Apple hardware stuff.
Yeah, it's interesting you bring this up because that maybe isn't Tim Cook's doing. It's more Jony Ive's leaving.
I mean, this is this might be the single biggest success for Tim Cook is that he managed Jony Ive out of the company.
And you could maybe argue that there is a catastrophe like Liquid Glass exists like all like but not a he out of the company too or at least he got the guy out.
But it's funny actually David you maybe look up two things. It really is around 2019 2020 where there's the shift. Two things happened around that time. The shift to Apple silicon, Apple TV streaming plus, whatever it was called. What was it? TV. Apple TV Plus, right? Apple TV on the Apple TV and Apple TV. Yeah, Apple TV streaming plus on the on the the box. Yeah. And those things I think marked what we're talking about an ecosystem change as an expansion into the services. And that's six years ago. That's I think that feels right. I think your five to six year mark stuff feels right.
Yeah. And that services business is a huge deal.
Yeah. And that and to be clear like the Apple the Apple Watch and AirPods predated that which the Apple Watch felt more luxury when it first came out.
Yes. If you remember I mean that was an Ive project and he had brought in a bunch of fashion people into the company. I'll never forget like hearing old guard Apple people derisively refer to the fashion executives was a thing that would happen because there were a lot of fashion executives rolling around Apple and there was a moment where it felt like they had they had taken winning for granted or they taken the idea that they made the best hardware for granted or the best products for granted and now they would be this lifestyle thing and yeah Jony Ive leaves all the fashion people leave and like the MacBooks get ports again. Yeah. And like it's it's as direct as it can be. But right next to that, as Joanna is saying, is oh boy, we make a lot of money on Candy Crush whales. And to obscure the fact that a huge portion of our revenue is taking 30% from apps, in particular games, we'll make a TV show or two. Have you met Reese Witherspoon? Like there's something about that that is just very different in Apple's conception of itself that is I think will be forever the big mark of the Tim Cook era. Yeah, because they became a business that that charged a lot of fees and that again they hid it with celebrities, but that engine is fees. It's iCloud service fees, it's the app store fees. It's all the problems I got into developers and regulators around those fees. It is the endless forever lawsuit with Epic, which will reach some conclusions someday, but not today. Like, that is a kind of fight that Apple got into in an almost existential way. Like they never back down an inch on wanting to collect those fees. And I it's probably undermarked in the Tim Cook era, but it is the it's the driver of their market cap in like the realest way.
Yeah. And it really feels like they're trying to double down on their services, too. Like they need to get more and more people into Apple One. I think that's why they're focused so hard on Apple TV and maybe not as much as on Apple Fitness because they're kind of scaling that back a little bit, but a lot of their services.
Google is trying to catch up to Apple One's value. You know, I don't think that the Fitbit Air Gemini integration for $10 a month is meant to be a product that gets sold at an individual level. They want to sell as many microservices as possible in one big bundle. And I think that's what Apple is particularly good at at the moment is each of their microservices are actually worth a decent amount of money. So, you buy Apple One, you have these recurring revenue uh customers for quite a while.
Yeah. And I think we're going to see like a leasing program with these new phones, right? Apple is just becoming a subscription company.
Yeah. Your life as a subscription and and that again this is this is Tim Cook legacy. He revitalized the the business of the company to be about recurring revenue to be about he he started a credit card like all of that happened in the Tim Cook era. He I just try to imagine Steve Jobs sitting down with Goldman Sachs and being like we're going to do a co-branded credit like that doesn't like I can't talk to you like you I just don't think that would have happened.
There's one other executive I want to talk about really quickly. Um, it was announced quietly by Apple this week that Phil Schiller would be leaving his biggest jobs at Apple. He's still on the executive page as an Apple fellow, but Eddy Cue is not going to run the App Store, which is the thing Phil had been doing and spending most of his time on. Um, he's still on the executive leadership page. It very much seems like there's a bat phone to Phil if you need him, but he's he's just not in the day-to-day. Joanna, you and I have interacted with Phil lots and lots and lots over the years. My relationship with it used to be pretty spiky and it is since warmed up because now we're both just old guys. Like we're like who are these who are these YouTubers?
Same here. Same here. I have lots of memories of of being uh on the other side of the table from Phil Schiller.
Yeah. But that one feels as big to me as anything. Like he he's old school.
He's old school. He had the courage. We know he was the one with the courage.
If you want to know why Phil Schiller and I had a spiky relationship, it's because he he was the one who took ownership of removing the headphone jack from phones.
I totally agree. I think look there's this old guard of people who have been at Apple since the days of Jobs. They have made it through the Cook era and some it seems will definitely be here for the first few years if not longer of the Turnis era. Um and Schiller seems to not be one of those people. Mostly I assume is he's had a long time at the company. He's he's older. He's an older gentleman.
This is the man who introduced Wi-Fi at the first iBook at the time. David Pierce I talk about this all the time. He did it by jumping off the stage and onto a mattress, holding an iBook, downloading like this is a long time.
But you're right about this old guard. I mean, Turnis is looking at a totally different set of executives, the exception of Eddy Cue and Greg Joswiak. Uh Greg Joswiak is the head of marketing now. He he basically replaced Schiller. He's got some deputies that you've seen on these videos as well, like Kaiann Drance is like on all the Apple event videos. She seems very senior at the company as well. You just kind of wonder are those two going to be next in some way or do they have a long run? I mean we J I think we see Joz at every Apple event. He he's in it, right? Like he's he's in the game.
He's fully in it. And when David when you said before is Turnis going to announce the fold. I think it's the question. Is it Turnis or is it Joz? Joz always does the iPhone Pro. He always does the Pro. You watch last year's.
He Yeah, he always is talking the camera specs. Like that is that going to Oh, maybe he doesn't do the fold because it's going to have to they're going to have to address I'm curious if they do a one more thing for the fold because they still have to make a bunch of uh kind of bunch of noise about the pros, right? If the if the event is about the pros, it's about maybe some AirPods 5. Do they do it as a one more thing? Is it a big enough deal?
Yeah, let's talk about what we're expecting from the event, right? I mean, so it's the end of an era and it's like you can talk about Tim Cook a lot, but my perspective on it is that as a business executive, he is singular. As a person people had an emotional connection to, he's a cipher. It it doesn't feel like the our audience was like, 'Oh no, not Tim Cook going, how will Apple ever recover?' They're like, 'Well, the guy who deals with Donald Trump is still in that job.' And that's their reaction to him. And he's going to get paid a lot, by the It's like $47 million a year to still be the guy who Donald Trump talks to.
I I I wouldn't have I don't think I would have taken 40. You would have to round me up to 50 to be the Donald Trump whisperer for Apple. But next week, uh we're expecting obviously the folding phone in the sort of wide form factor. There's been some case leaks already. Uh the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, Apple Watch Series 12, Ultra 4, AirPods 5. So the iPhone ecosystem, right? We're expecting a rev of the iPhone ecosystem. I don't think we're expecting MacBooks. I don't think we're expecting iPads.
Probably not till November. October, November would be my guess.
A big question I have here is how much AI are they going to talk about because they're going to launch Siri AI with iOS 27.
And that's going to have to be a big part of the phone.
Well, there's no base iPhone 18.
that's the rumor. Which saves some time in the presentation because we don't have to go through the whole iPhone baseline, all the improvements and then like but then it's even better with the Pro, right? Like that arc of the presentation doesn't have to happen. I guess though it will it will be interesting how they address that there's no iPhone 18 model right now.
Apple never addresses anything.
Yeah, I don't think they'll say anything.
Like the iPhone 17 is still here for $599 is like what they're going to do, right? They do that at the end, I guess, with the the lineup and show us that this is the best iPhone lineup we've ever had, right? And so they do that in the the thing. So yeah, I think they probably end up starting with the Pro working in how much better. This is the true AI phone. It's got the Siri that's the best ever. And also, I think they'll likely say it's not coming right away. That's what's been rumored, too, which is that it's going to be like a rolling wait list on the Siri stuff, though it seems like it will come pretty soon. I think they start with the cheap stuff.
Well, yeah, they start with the watch and the AirPods. They go into the iPhone and then they end with the the fold.
Again, we're like overreading an Apple keynote. But do you think it's too much for Turnis on his first shot out the gate to do one more thing?
I don't think so. No, I don't think so. I think it's going to be important for him to do something big like that.
Okay, this is the bet. This is the bet. You're You're betting yes. But but Joanna's yes. I'm a hard no. There's no way. I mean, I think it's hard to do a one more thing when everyone knows the thing.
When case manufacturers are like literally sending products out to YouTubers. Yeah, I think that's pretty hard to do. Um, but I think one more thing is it's a that's a move. I think that's a that's a move. That is a very specific thing to try to message and to I don't think so. I think you play this one cool. You let the you let the fold unfold itself. You know what I mean?
Uh, one of the things I'm curious about with AI in particular is obviously can control a lot. It can do a lot on your phone. Do you think they're going to expand like the roster of agentic app integrations? Do you think we're going to see Uber and DoorDash and the rest on stage? Because this is like Google's big thing now, right? Is you just talk to your phone and a bunch of things happen in the background?
Yeah. Well, people have been building against iOS 27 since June practically, and they can't announce, they haven't been able to release any of these except through TestFlight that could actually make use of Siri AI. So, I imagine they probably, you know, they probably worked with a lot of smaller developers just so they can show they work with smaller developers and they'll show a giant list of all the things that Siri can plug into. But I do think that they're going to downplay Siri AI a little bit just because of how much trouble they got in for overplaying it last time. And they'll probably, you know, show some cool examples of things it can definitely do because they've tested it thoroughly and everything else will be like and more and then we'll see.
Yeah. I'm just I'm honestly curious. Yeah.
It's hard to imagine though what they have to show on the iPhone 18 that like enhances Siri. Like that's what I keep wondering. Like we know that there's going to be camera improvements. We know there's going to be processor improvements. Like I guess you could just like really be hamming up similar to Google that the processor really makes Siri better, but like it's built for Siri AI. Remember? Yeah. Better beam forming mics that can listen to you call for Siri a mile away. Like you Yeah, you can you can lay this stuff out.
But I think the question I have and David actually wrote a great piece about app developers who are excited about Siri uh that we will link um is whether the promise comes true, right? Whether the AI can actually run your phone for you, which is the promise everywhere else. The reason that Greg Brockman says we're in the AGI era is because ChatGPT can use a computer really fast. Like that that's why that's like the thing that they're excited about, right? That's the demo they're giving. So the idea that your phone can just use itself for you is a very powerful story. But the apps haven't been ready. So if the apps are ready now, like how much time are we going to spend on demos of quasi-agentic iOS app usage because I think they have to do it now. I think it's it's time right for them to show this is going to pay off on this platform as opposed to happening in a virtualized like Linux PC in the cloud run by Claude which is basically what everyone else is doing.
Yeah. But it is pretty hampered right now like what you can do with Siri and these third party apps. There's stuff and it's decent, but it's not, hey, take over my phone and go do all of this stuff in a multi-step way without me looking at it. Uh, so I don't know. If I'm Apple, I'm focusing on some of the stuff that they showed during WWDC, which works really well. I I use Siri daily to do some of that stuff. Now, wait, what do you use Siri for? Siri is the ultimate iMessage searcher. I will I will say that the way that Siri can search through my iMessage is is and and my life is there like my life is there and so I use it all the time. I can't remember something I said to someone about going to someplace what time it I said I would do something a message that I had with my wife like two years ago about I don't know some karate place that we said we would you know take the kid like random things and it is just fast it is good.
Yeah. The what is this person's address is actually insanely useful because I have used the I've asked this person their address seven times and not saved in their contacts and then when it gives it to me I say can you add that to their contact and it does and that is that's good possibly the best use case of Siri or I just say like give me directions like it it there are things and like I don't think it's AGI it's no like it's it's great iMessage search like search is just fine it's like it's Just we can just say it's fine. Search is the answer here. What are the names of the Great Lakes? Oh yeah, it didn't change it. Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario. Uh oh. But there's like a lot of little things. That's going to be a phone call. I know the Trump administration monitors this podcast. We just caused a phone call, a headache on Turnis' first day. Um there are a lot of little things like Siri. I just find me I use it. I just use it now.
Yeah, that's I mean that is the win, right?
Yeah. I was just talking about The Verge at the beginning and I was pulling up our first iPhone review which was the iPhone 4S which had Siri on it 15 years ago and I was like boy have we just come full circle in 15 years that we're going to basically review Siri again and it it's going to the promises are all kind of the same.
Yeah. Yep. Right. You're going to ask it anything and it's going to go to some database which at the time was it was like a series of weird database deals that they made. Um like Wolfram Alpha, right? Um and now it's gonna do that, but it's like the web and like whatever it can find and and pull it all together. I think that's deeply fascinating.
That was a classic Phil Schiller demo, by the way.
It was I think they're going to spend an awful lot of time talking about Apple Intelligence. Like an awful lot of time because they're going to ship it like you're saying, it's useful in some ways and every minute that they're not trying to get you to use Siri is a minute that Greg Brockman is going to get you to use AGI in ChatGPT. And that's the thing they have to stop is the bleed away from them towards something else that might you know create a new kind of device and you're like well I just use ChatGPT anyway I'm going to switch to it I'm not sure that will happen I know that's the thing they're threatened by.
Well also I think that we're supposed to see right this display this home display thing right this has been long talked about we have heard the reporting from Gurman that this has been pushed down I guess almost now almost a whole calendar year because they wanted the Siri AI to be right and to work. It sounds like it's sort of this HomeKit home smart home device, but that it's a portal to using Siri in your home. Also, there's notably not much support for Siri AI on HomePods right now. So, I think we hear that story as well. Um, but yeah, no, I'm not going to I'm not going to question. I think that that we hear that story about how Siri can do all of these things in your home and like as this assistant in your home, but there's no way they they throw in a speaker with a robot arm in the middle of this campaign. They're going to they will call us back for that one.
Well, there's the robot arm speaker, but there's also the HomePod with the dis with the display on it.
Oh, like more of a Google Nest type thing.
Yeah. I don't imagine they're going to show that though because I feel like it would take away from the fold too much in their eyes. I don't know.
I don't know. They're hyping this event. I think if you're going to tell the Siri story, you might bring that thing out.
Okay. So, just to to line up our bets first of all, by the way, Joanna, our long-running bet of when will there be a Mac with a touchscreen seems like it's going to break my way soon. So, I'm just going to put we'll put a pin in that one.
What was I will I will go back to the records. Uh I will ask I will ask Siri to search through my messages to find the records of what it's a pure recon. I put a date on it and I was wrong, but it's going to come true on another timeline. And it's going to come true.
And Dieter will return to the podcast. Uh, I think that Dieter, if I can get Dieter to come back as a Google executive to talk about the touchscreen MacBook, that will be the single greatest booking coup in history. I don't think it will ever happen.
We tell him we're we book him. He's, this is a secret, he won't listen to this one. We book him as he's coming to talk about the Google books. Okay. But then we quickly bring back the old tape.
I'm on this. I'm I'm producing it right now.
All right. You Yeah, this is all you. You can you have We'll give you a whole episode if you can pull off this move. Dieter, don't listen to anything that was just said. Erase your brain. All right. Here are your bets. I just want to lay them out and then Jo, we got to let you go. Uh Joanna thinks the fold will be one more thing, but a a new product, a HomePod with a speaker, will just be announced, but not shipped. Those are your bets.
Um see, when you when you when you say in black and white, no, here are my bets. I I'm going back. I want to be with you, David. I want to I want I want to be on your side on the one more thing. But now I'm second-guessing that because I think in the flow of the keynote, if I were an Apple executive writing it, you wouldn't want to put the fold at the end.
Or it's towards the end, but it's not a one more thing. Like we don't have that big announcement.
It just comes in from a black screen and fades into the into the foreground.
I don't want to put any bet on the one more thing. I want to say there's a fold. Absolutely. It comes in the section of where they're talking about the iPhones. And I do believe we will see this. We will we will hear about the HomePods and we will hear about a new HomePod with a screen that has Siri and they will make a a thing about it, but it might not ship right now. And by the way, I don't know if the Fold ships right now. I don't know if the Fold and this display ships right now. Do they ship before? I mean, Fold is going to ship this year, but maybe HomePod with screen doesn't ship till the end of the year. I don't know. M5 stuff ships at the end of September, so I imagine it's just all going to ship at the same time. And they just wanted to move out the computers because this is too much stuff.
Yeah. David, what's your bet?
My bet is that iPhone Fold is one more thing. Um, sticking to it. Sticking to it. I think John Turnis will hold it up, but it might not be in the in the recording. And I do not think they're going to show the uh home screen. I think they're going to do that in the fall because it feels like a fall thing for me.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna go with David on after the video. Turnis is going to come out holding the thing. It's obviously going to happen, right? Because it's big. The whole point of it's really big. It's going to be unfolded. He's like, 'Look at the size of this thing.'
Yeah. If he can grasp it, you know, if Turnis screams, 'Look at the size of this thing.' Then I will have won all these. That's that's like my asterisk over that. Uh, no. One more thing. That's too much. And I also agree that any smart home stuff, it just has to be set aside. Like every smart home thing they might want to do is just dragons. Like they have to talk about so much stuff in order to be like and it will turn on the lights, right? Like you can't just do it. Like most people do not have any HomeKit devices in their house. They have to introduce the very concept of HomeKit.
Yeah, that's another deal.
Then Joanna and I have to chase Craig Federighi around Apple Park in a literal circle being like, 'How does your garage door work?' Which is a thing that has happened.
He's great at sprinting. You got to be careful. So, I I just think you got to we got to reduce the complexity of that thing, right? You got to you got to tell a whole story.
I'm going to lose a lot of bets on this one. It's fine. I I I want to believe I want to be optimistic that this will just be jam-packed.
I think the best video idea I have for you, having had this whole conversation, Joanna, is you should show up to Apple Park with one of those Matter garage door controllers. They're like rebranded by 50 companies. You and I both have them. And you should present one to Craig Federighi that I've solved your problem for you with a $27 Matter garage door opener that I bought from.
When they give me him again, I will I will I will purchase such thing and ask him if this is what he has in his garage and ask him if Apple will go to the mat on on proprietary RF garage door opener remotes with rolling codes. And does he also have the crappy HomeKit shade that I bought on Amazon because it is the only HomeKit shade you can buy.
This is a totally different episode. I don't believe that's true. There are excellent Matter over Thread shades. A different episode. Joanna, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for being on the broadcast. We'll see you next week at the Apple event.
Frontier AI didn't just accelerate cyber attacks, it multiplied them. Before an attack shows up, it's already moved through the network. And while seeing these attacks early matters, stopping them takes fusing security into the infrastructure itself. That's why the network that connects everything is also your best defense. Because you don't win by outrunning the attack, you win by leaving it nowhere to go. Cisco, the critical infrastructure for the AI era.
