About this episode
Summer phone season kicks off with Samsung’s latest launch. Jake, Vee, and Allison talk about Samsung’s new lineup of foldables, including the very thin new Z Fold 7 and Allison’s disdain for the Z Flip 7 FE. Vee has impressions of Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch 8 lineup and its squircle-y new redesign. Then, it’s time to talk Big Tech shakeups. Apple’s COO is leaving, Zuckerberg is buying himself an AI dream team, X’s CEO is out — and its chatbot Grok is on a rampage. Finally, big things are in store for the Lightning Round… which shall henceforth be known as the THUNDER ROUND. Lots to talk about, including Lorde’s CD problems, Apple’s Liquid Glass changes, and HBO Max finally becoming HBO Max again. Further reading: Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2025: Everything announced at the July event Galaxy Z Fold 7 hands-on: Samsung finally made the foldables we’ve been asking for Samsung cuts price of its foldables with the Z Flip 7 FE Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 series hands-on: squircle squad Samsung seems to have leaked its own trifold phone design Samsung says its trifold phone should launch ‘this year’ Samsung snuck a trifold tease into (January) Unpacked One of Tim Cook’s possible successors is leaving Apple Sabih Khan Apple’s design team will report to Tim Cook A close look at who could succeed Tim Cook Mark Zuckerberg announces his AI ‘superintelligence’ super-group Meta is paying $14 billion to catch up in the AI race Meta’s ‘superintelligence’ hiring spree adds an AI leader from Apple Pay packages of up to $300 million over four years Meta is trying to win the AI race with money — but not everyone can be bought X CEO Linda Yaccarino is stepping down after two years X’s CEO is out after failing at basically everything she claimed she wanted Threads is catching up to X on mobile X has a new head of product Elon Musk’s xAI buys Elon Musk’s X for $33 billion on paper xAI updated Grok to be more ‘politically incorrect’ Grok stops posting text after flood of antisemitism and Hitler praise “In other posts it referred to itself as “MechaHitler”. Musk makes grand promises about Grok 4 in the wake of a Nazi chatbot meltdown Adobe’s new camera app is making me rethink phone photography Ikea’s latest speaker lamp ditches Sonos for Spotify and inexpensive Bluetooth Ikea ditches Zigbee for Thread going all in on Matter smart homes Perplexity launches Comet web browser OpenAI’s next big launch could be an AI web browser E Ink is turning the laptop touchpad into an e-reader for AI apps Lorde’s new CD is so transparent that stereos can’t even read it I tried playing Lorde’s new CD Appeals court strikes down ‘click-to-cancel’ rule Nothing’s ‘first true flagship’ phone plays it a little safe Adding calendar events with a screenshot is AI at its finest The government’s Apple antitrust lawsuit is still on Apple just added more frost to its Liquid Glass design Apple’s second-generation Vision Pro might launch this year Nvidia briefly became the first $4 trillion company on Wednesday The makers of Cameo just launched... a birthday-tracking app? Nintendo is ending its cost-saving Switch game vouchers HBO Max is officially HBO Max again Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices