793 episodes
The Vergecast Vox Media Podcast Network
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- Technology
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4.4 • 3.5K Ratings
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The Vergecast is the flagship podcast from The Verge about small gadgets, Big Tech, and everything in between. Every Friday, hosts Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Alex Cranz hang out and make sense of the week’s most important technology news. And every Tuesday, David leads a selection of The Verge’s expert staffers in an exploration of how gadgets and software affect our lives – and which ones you should bring into yours.
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Apple's Intelligence beta and more AI chaos
The Verge's Nilay Patel, Allison Johnson, and Victoria Song discuss Apple iOS 18.1 beta. upcoming Pixel 9 rumors, Olympics coverage, AI deepfake regulation, and more.
Further reading:
The best way to watch the Olympics is on TikTok
Apple releases iOS 18.1 developer beta with the first ‘Apple Intelligence’ iPhone features
Apple’s iOS 18.1 developer beta adds AI call recording and transcription
A first look at Apple Intelligence and its (slightly) smarter Siri
Apple’s new AI features will reportedly miss the iOS 18 launch and wait for iOS 18.1.
Google Pixel 9 event: rumors and what to expect
Pixel 9’s ‘Add Me’ feature puts you in a group photo even when you’re not there
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra review: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em
Samsung hypes the Galaxy Z Flip as a great police bodycam
Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber wants your next mouse to last forever
Microsoft wants Congress to outlaw AI-generated deepfake fraud
Google tweaks Search to help hide explicit deepfakes
Lawmakers want to carve out intimate AI deepfakes from Section 230 immunity
Elon Musk posts deepfake of Kamala Harris that violates X policy
The Copyright Office calls for a new federal law regulating deepfakes.
Senators will introduce the No Fakes Act to keep AI ...
Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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The history of Roku and the fight over CarPlay
Today on the flagship podcast of dedicated streaming hardware:
We try out a couple of show formats we’ve been planning for a while.
In Version History, we tell the story of the Roku Netflix Player, debate its legacy, and try to decide whether this thing belongs in the Version History Hall of Fame.
From Fast Company: Inside Netflix’s Project Griffin: The Forgotten History Of Roku Under Reed Hastings
From CNBC: How Roku used the Netflix playbook to rule streaming video
From CNN: Netflix Player offers PC-free movie watching
From Wired: Review: Roku Netflix Set Top Box Is Just Shy of Totally Amazing
From The New York Times: Why the Roku Netflix Player Is the First Shot of the Revolution
After that, it’s time for debates. Nilay Patel and David Pierce yell at each other about who should own the screens in your car. Are CarPlay and Android Auto the answer, the solution to universally crappy automaker software?
Car companies haven’t figured out if they’ll let Apple CarPlay take over all the screens
The rest of the auto industry still loves CarPlay and Android Auto
Everybody hates GM’s decision to kill Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for its EVs
Rivian CEO says CarPlay isn’t going to happen
Apple’s fancy new CarPlay will only work wirelessly
Later, David answers a question from The Vergecast Hotline about political spam texts.
From The Washington Post: How to stop receiving spam texts
From PCMag: Stop Robotexts: How to Block Smishing and Spam Text Messages
Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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In search of the perfect movie recommendation
On this episode of The Vergecast, we look at why TV and movie recommendations are so complicated, and whether AI might be able to make them better. If Spotify can build infinite playlists of music you’ll like, and YouTube and TikTok always seem to have the perfect thing ready to go, why can’t Netflix or Hulu or Max seem to get it right?
If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are a few links to get you started:
Movievanders
Reelgood
The internet is a constant recommendations machine — but it needs you to make it work
Netflix’s Greg Peters on a new culture memo and where ads, AI, and games fit in
From Scientific America: How Recommendation Algorithms Work—And Why They May Miss the Mark
From Google: Multimodal prompting with a 44-minute movie
Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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Search as we know it is officially over
The Verge's Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Jake Kastrenakes discuss OpenAI's new SearchGPT product, Amazon's plan to launch a paid version of Alexa, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold review, and whole lot more.
Further reading:
OpenAI announces SearchGPT, its AI-powered search engine
Bing’s AI redesign shoves the usual list of search results to the side
Reddit is now blocking major search engines and AI bots — except the ones that pay
Google had a massive quarter thanks to Search and AI
Amazon’s paid Alexa is coming to fill a $25 billion hole dug by Echo devices
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a great phone that’s out of ideas
Asus ROG Ally X review: the best Windows gaming handheld by a mile
Samsung Galaxy Ring review: keeping you in Samsung’s orbit
Apple’s first foldable iPhone could arrive in 2026
Apple Maps launches on the web to take on Google
The Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle is now available
Rivian CEO says CarPlay isn’t going to happen
The NBA’s new TV deals put a lot of games on Amazon’s Prime Video starting in 2025
Reddit’s NFL, NBA deals bring more sports highlights — and ads
Spotify CEO confirms a ‘deluxe’ version with hi-fi audio is coming soon
Sonos CEO apologizes for disastrous rollout of new app
Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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Inside the global computer crash
Today on the flagship podcast of configuration changes:
The Verge's Tom Warren joins the show to to talk about the story and legacy of the CrowdStrike crash.
CrowdStrike and Microsoft: all the latest news on the global IT outage
Major Windows BSOD issue hits banks, airlines, and TV broadcasters
What is CrowdStrike, and what happened?
CrowdStrike’s faulty update crashed 8.5 million Windows devices, says Microsoft
CrowdStrike outage: Photos, videos, and tales of IT workers fixing BSODs
Then we talk with The Verge's Victoria Song and Zombies, Run creator Adrian Hon about making exercising fun without making it competitive and awful.
Zombies, Run
Adrian Hon’s Substack
Finally, the Apple Watch will let you rest
This walking app let me whack my co-workers with a baseball bat
Ignore your fitness tracker and walk to Mordor instead
Finally, we answer a hotline question about handheld gadgets for new parents — because there's a lot of time to kill when there's a baby around.
Backbone One review: the best mobile gaming controller yet
Handheld consoles are the future of gaming
Holedown
Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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The all-seeing AI webcam
On this episode of The Vergecast, senior producer Will Poor explores the AI-tinged worlds of Dries Depoorter. Depoorter has built all manner of quirky and provocative installations and online experiments. There’s a clock that tells you how much of your life you’ve already lived; a phone charger that only works when your eyes are closed; a mobile chat app that you can only use when your phone has less than 5% battery.
His most eyebrow-raising work, though, is around AI and surveillance. In his projects Depoorter takes publicly available webcam footage from around the world, and uses it to stalk celebrities, catch jaywalkers in the act, keep politicians honest, and generally make you wonder about your own privacy and anonymity.
We talked with Depoorter about how he creates his work, how he thinks about the future of AI, and how he responds to the people who see his art and want to turn it into commerce. It’s a wild conversation, so check it out above. To see all of Dries’ work, head over to his portfolio.
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Customer Reviews
Nilay… slow down a little 😉
The content is great… sometimes it veers off into the very deep weeds, but that’s okay for a tech show like this. Nilay… your brain is so full of facts…. It can be difficult to follow your fast paced diction. Slow down and enunciate for those of us a bit hard of hearing. Much love! 💕
Consistently great podcast
I think this is my favorite podcast. I like the chemistry between the hosts. I’m finally taking the time to write a review because I appreciate the experimentation of the format in the latest episode (history of Roku and debate about car user interface). I want to encourage you all to keep trying different and fun formats. It’s entertaining and helps me gain perspective about how technology has pretty much changed all facets of our life over the last couple decades. In my opinion, it’s OK to try new formats and then also abandon them if you’re no longer into it. I’m guessing your audience will roll this the randomness and appreciate the variety. I also dream of sponsoring the lightning round with my coffee company based in Oakland, California. I should probably just start by mailing in some coffee beans. 🙏
The Flagship Podcast
Update: Why are there STILL NO chapter markers? Every other podcast has this figured out — even WITH dynamic ad insertion. It’s bananas that a huge tech podcast doesn’t support this in 2024…. Also the AI coverage is exhausting. Can we be done yet? We get it: the AI models hallucinate and they’re all made by the bro-iest tech dudes with way too much VC funding. Move on, please!
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Geeze these iTunes reviews get really heated... The Verge has done an amazing job keeping The Vergecast going since it started out many years ago, and through its numerous host changes. Alex Cranz and David Pierce have brought wonderful fresh perspectives, commentary, insight, and a spotlight to new areas of technology to the show — and Nilay Patel has kept it together through it all. The new Tuesday episodes are great deep dives, and the listener hotline is a fantastic idea. The reporting, production quality, and conversations are top-notch. If you’re at all interested in technology (even in the slightest), you should listen! Ignore those mean-spirited reviews. Cut through them like Scissor Vodka. Snip Snip.