The Verge’s David Pierce and Andy Hawkins discuss the latest at Tesla: new products, new initiatives, and a payday for Elon Musk. Vee Song joins the show to discuss updates to the Apple Watch, a new Samsung Galaxy Watch, and more wearable news. David and Liam James answer a question from the Vergecast Hotline about weather apps.
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TechTranscript
00:00:00Welcome to the Verge cast, the flagship podcast of super helpful humanoid helper robots.
00:00:04I'm your friend David Pierce, and I am sitting here buying bathroom vanities.
00:00:10So my wife and I were having some work done in our house, partly to just like make our
00:00:15bathrooms nicer, but also because one of them is starting to leak. And if you're watching this on
00:00:20YouTube, just out of frame up there is just a growing stain. And those are the things that
00:00:27start to happen. And I just see all of the money that I have in the world start to disappear.
00:00:32So anyway, we've been starting to do some work on renovating our bathroom, making some changes.
00:00:37And I have discovered that shopping for bathroom vanities is everything that is wrong with online
00:00:43shopping. You go to the one of these websites, Wayfair or Lowe's or Home Depot or Amazon or
00:00:48Pottery Barn or Crate and Barrel, and it's just all the same stuff with different prices,
00:00:54you have to become like a subject matter expertise. I now know the difference between
00:00:58solid wood and all the different types of manufactured wood and MDF, which is bad,
00:01:02but only in humid spaces. Like, why do I know these things? This is not information I'm
00:01:05interested in knowing. But there isn't really just a place you can go online. That's like,
00:01:10here are the good vanities. This is like the endless challenge of shopping on the internet.
00:01:15You can't really trust the reviews because everybody has these paid for review programs.
00:01:20Some of the pictures you see are helpful, some aren't. Some of the one star reviews are just
00:01:24about like weird things that were happening in their house the day that things got delivered.
00:01:28It's just a mess. And so what I've ended up doing for these very expensive pieces of furniture
00:01:34is basically just going online, finding one that looks good, and then Google lensing it.
00:01:39Because what you discover is actually most of these places are just selling the same
00:01:43thing. Much of it comes from China or other countries in Asia, where they're just being
00:01:48shipped out of factories. And all these companies sell the same thing under different names,
00:01:53often for very different prices. So I find one that I like, I Google lens it. And then I hope
00:01:58to God that there is a set of reviews or helpful pictures or an expert in the field who has talked
00:02:04about this somewhere. And then you go on Reddit to see because Reddit is the best place to get
00:02:08actual information about things. And everyone on Reddit is just like, go to a local cabinet maker,
00:02:14get this stuff custom made. Do not trust the internet. It's good advice. Honestly,
00:02:18it's probably the correct advice for many things, not just bathroom vanities.
00:02:23But the people are coming tomorrow to start putting new things in my bathroom and I don't
00:02:27have time. So I am fully, fully at the mercy of the internet right now. And it's terrifying.
00:02:33Anyway, that's not what we're talking about today. We have a super fun show coming up,
00:02:37we're going to do two things. First, we're going to talk about Tesla because Tesla last week had
00:02:42this big shareholder meeting approved a huge payday for Elon Musk, but also gave a hint to
00:02:47what the next phase of Tesla is going to be like some new products, some new initiatives at the
00:02:52company. We're going to bring Andy Hawkins on and talk about all of it and hopefully only a little
00:02:56about Elon Musk. After that, we're going to talk about wearables. We have a new app that people
00:03:02are really excited about for tracking your steps and all that stuff. We have a new Apple Watch
00:03:07feature that people are excited about. We have a new Samsung watch that people are excited about.
00:03:10It's just a bunch of interesting, cool kind of fitness and health stuff. And V Song from
00:03:15the verge and I have been talking a lot about finding more relaxed, chill ways to do wearables
00:03:23and fitness instead of the like hyper intense capital F fitness people. How can I just have
00:03:29a wearable that helps without yelling at me about it. So we're going to do the first part of a
00:03:33little bit of that today and more to come this summer. We also have a hotline question about
00:03:38weather that I'm very excited to talk about and lots more. Besides all that is coming up in just a
00:03:42sec. But first I have 65 Lowe's tabs open that all look essentially the same to me and I have to go
00:03:50figure out which one I'm supposed to buy. Wish me luck. This is the first guest. We'll be right back.
00:03:57Welcome back. All right. I bought two vanities. Are they any good? Who knows? Do they have good
00:04:03return policies? Yes, they do. Because if there's one thing the internet is good for, it's that it
00:04:08made it relatively easy to return all the crappy stuff that you buy from the internet. Anyway,
00:04:13let's get to the show. First up, I want to talk about Tesla. And I say Tesla very specifically
00:04:18because what has happened over the last week has been a lot of news about Tesla and about Elon Musk.
00:04:24And I want to focus on the Tesla part. So last week was the end of this big road to a shareholder
00:04:30vote over a huge pay package for Elon Musk. We're going to mostly leave that to the side. But what
00:04:36happened after Elon Musk took the victory lap for getting the shareholder vote because he won it
00:04:42was he kind of laid out what he sees as the future for Tesla. He talked about the optimist robots.
00:04:47He talked about wanting to be a data center company. He talked about full self driving.
00:04:51He talked about superchargers. They talked about new vehicles. And I just think Tesla is at a
00:04:57really interesting moment right now. And it felt like a good time to talk about it. This company
00:05:00has been so important for so long to the electric vehicle industry to the whole tech industry to the
00:05:07world. And this felt like a good moment to kind of check in on where Tesla the company is, and
00:05:13where it's headed. And of course, Andy Hawkins is the person to do it with. Andy, welcome back to
00:05:18the show. Hey, hello. Thanks for having me. It's been a minute. There's like just an onslaught of
00:05:23car stuff. And I feel like someday we're gonna have to catch up on all of the car stuff. But
00:05:27today, it's Tesla time. I'm here for it. Okay, so I have two rules for you up front. And then
00:05:33and then we're going to dive in. Rule number one is I'm going to ask you a question about Elon Musk
00:05:36at the beginning. And I'm going to ask you a question about Elon Musk at the end. And in
00:05:39between, we are going to talk about Elon Musk as little as possible. Is that fair? That sounds
00:05:44more than fair. Okay, good. And rule number two is less a rule and more of a caveat. And I'm going
00:05:51to make the caveat that I have and I want you to add or subtract to it as you would like to. Okay,
00:05:55we're about to talk a bunch about plans for Tesla and the company that Tesla plans to be. Elon Musk
00:06:00in particular is known for hyperbole makes a lot of promises that don't always come true or don't
00:06:05always come true in the timeline. He has what I would call acute shiny object syndrome. And yet,
00:06:11I still think all of this is worth digging into and talking about that a fair caveat,
00:06:14anything you would add or subtract? No, I think that that all sounds more than accurate. I accept
00:06:19your caveat. Good. All right, then beginning Elon Musk question really quick. There was this big
00:06:24shareholder vote last week. This has been really like in some ways like six years in the making.
00:06:29Just give me the very quick story as to why Tesla shareholders voted again to give Elon Musk many
00:06:3510s of billions of dollars. Yeah, so they voted the first time to give him this amount of money
00:06:40or to promise to give him this amount of money back in 2018. With I'll use again, the caveat
00:06:47being that he had to meet certain thresholds in order to actually see the full amount of the pay
00:06:53package that was approved for him. And he did. He met those conditions. Tesla's value exceeded wild
00:07:01leaps and bounds. Everyone's possible imagine of what Tesla could actually be valid. It succeeded
00:07:05in that it was the most valuable carmaker in the world by 2021. And he was able to meet these
00:07:11thresholds and his pay package was vested. Then at the beginning of this year, a lawsuit that had
00:07:16been winding its way through the courts from a Tesla shareholder, this guy, Richard Tornado,
00:07:22who I believe is also a heavy metal drummer, and he only owns like a handful of shares,
00:07:26which is kind of a fascinating aspect of all of this, sued the company and Elon Musk saying that
00:07:32this process was flawed. He should not have been awarded this amount of money and it should get
00:07:36tossed out. A judge in Delaware, where Tesla is incorporated, agreed and avoided his pay package
00:07:43in January of 2024. That made Elon Musk very upset. And when Elon Musk gets upset,
00:07:49his legion of fans, lots of them whom are shareholders, also got very upset and they
00:07:55decided to just do the process over again. So for the last several months, Tesla has been engaged in
00:08:01a pretty aggressive lobbying effort to get its shareholders to once again approve this massive
00:08:08pay package, which is upwards of $56 billion, it's been said to be worth, which would make him
00:08:13the most highly compensated chief executive in modern history. So they went to the shareholders
00:08:18again, said, let's vote for this once more time. Let's show this judge that when we said that we
00:08:22wanted him to get this money, we actually meant it. And lo and behold, Tesla shareholders voted
00:08:28overwhelmingly to award Elon Musk his pay package once again. And that's where we're at.
00:08:33Okay. This is why I think this is actually a good moment to talk about Tesla because
00:08:37there was a moment in the speech that Elon Musk gave after the shareholder vote ended,
00:08:43where I think what he said was, this isn't a new page for Tesla. It's a new book or something,
00:08:46something like that. I'm paraphrasing. Yeah, that's correct. Okay. And then I would say he
00:08:50proceeded to say, kind of lay out what he believes the future of Tesla to be. And I just want to kind
00:08:57of run through a handful of them and kind of take your temperature on what you think about all of
00:09:01these big ideas as they pertain to kind of where Tesla is going from here. And I feel like the
00:09:06first place we have to start is with the Optimus robots, right? I feel like if you were going to
00:09:10pick a thing... Oh, he would like you to start there. So I'm sure he'd be very glad that you're
00:09:13starting there. Okay. Well, so that's actually one of the things I'm most curious about is it
00:09:17didn't feel like cars were the big story. It didn't feel like energy was the big story. It felt
00:09:22like robots was the big story. Why robots? How did this become kind of the shiniest thing at Tesla?
00:09:28Yeah. So for years, Elon and Tesla have been interested in AI. They've been trying to
00:09:34produce a self-driving car for many, many years now. And Musk has been making numerous
00:09:39grandiose promises about how Tesla's future is actually in autonomy, in robotics. And it's
00:09:46become sort of kind of like a bit of an inside joke almost that he makes these promises that
00:09:51there's going to be millions of self-driving vehicles on the road. By certain dates, those
00:09:56dates come and go. Lo and behold, there are no self-driving Teslas that have taken over the road.
00:10:00But what we do have is a series of driver assist products. First, there was autopilot,
00:10:05then there was full self-driving. The drivers very much still need to pay attention to the driving
00:10:10tasks. They cannot fall asleep or allow the car to drive itself without their attention. So it seems
00:10:17like there's still a ways to go still before we actually get to this point where Tesla has
00:10:23achieved and solved for autonomy, like some other companies have made a lot more progress with.
00:10:27But that said, you know, I think the moment that we really saw this become sort of
00:10:32more than just kind of like a side project of Tesla, but become sort of the core purpose and
00:10:38ethos of the entire company. And obviously, sort of the way that Musk markets the company
00:10:42was around the time that I think open AI emerged with chat GBT. And then we started to see sort of
00:10:48the spread of AI fever. This becomes sort of a very, very clear hype cycle that we're in the
00:10:53midst of at the moment. And it was clear that the things that investors in Wall Street
00:10:58formerly rewarded Tesla for, which was for it being on the vanguard of electrification and
00:11:04sort of changing the way that people think about personally owned vehicles, that was somehow not
00:11:10as exciting anymore. I mean, Tesla was still worth a lot of money, but it was suddenly people were
00:11:15starting to pay more attention to the robotics and the autonomy aspects of the company. And I think
00:11:19Tesla and Elon, especially really leaned into that and are now trying to sort of shift the
00:11:24definition of what Tesla is away from being just a car maker to one that is focused primarily on AI
00:11:30and robotics. And that really came out, I think, very strongly during the last earnings call,
00:11:34which Elon said, and I'm paraphrasing that if you don't understand that this is what Tesla is all
00:11:39about, that we're an AI company that we're going to solve for autonomy, then you just don't
00:11:43understand the Tesla story. Interesting. So the thesis somewhat makes sense to me there, right?
00:11:48That if you solve in the same way that energy inside of cars ultimately lets you solve much
00:11:54bigger, wider sorts of energy problems, solving autonomy inside of cars lets you solve other
00:11:59bigger, more interesting problems. And this is the version of the world and future that Tesla has
00:12:06always talked about. And again, execution is another thing, but that version of how to think
00:12:10about what a car can then expand out into sort of makes sense to me, right? That again, leaving
00:12:16aside whether it is possible for Tesla or anyone else to build a self-driving car, if you can,
00:12:21it puts you way down the road of solving a bunch of other really interesting problems.
00:12:25This is sort of fundamentally, I think, what Tesla is trying to say and how Musk is sort of
00:12:31trying to talk about the company. But I think what it belies is that, you know, kind of like
00:12:35something that he maybe would not admit to and what a lot of people inside the company or the
00:12:40fans of the company would not really admit to, which is that he's just fundamentally bored with
00:12:44running a car company. The car company aspect of this has just become kind of, and you said it
00:12:49yourself, talking about his like shiny object syndrome, the car company is not a shiny object
00:12:54anymore. It doesn't hold his interest. And this was so much a part of the lobbying effort in the
00:12:59run-up to the shareholder vote coming from the chair of Tesla's board, Robin Denholm, on down,
00:13:06talking about how we needed to award Musk this enormous sum of money because we need to hold
00:13:11his attention. He has all of these projects. He's got his irons in multiple fires, whether it's
00:13:18obviously with X, formerly Twitter, Neuralink, the Boring Company, SpaceX obviously being the
00:13:25granddaddy of them all. And Tesla is just not like keeping his attention the same way that it used to.
00:13:31So in order for him to fully devote himself and usher Tesla into this next chapter, this next
00:13:38book, as he likes to put it, we need to cut him this gigantic check because that's going to be
00:13:43the way that's going to keep him sort of locked down and focused on what's going to make Tesla
00:13:47the most successful company. So I think that there's an aspect of this like they're trying
00:13:51to solve for certain problems that they think autonomy and robotics are going to help them
00:13:56solve, whether it's around labor or around sort of like the safety around AI. But I think
00:14:02fundamentally really just comes down to like this dude is spread way too thin and they needed to
00:14:06keep him more consolidated and focused on on the task at hand. Right. And obviously, what shiny or
00:14:12cooler thing to think about both for investors who care a lot about the stock price and for Elon
00:14:18Musk as an executive and just for like the people who follow Tesla than humanoid robots that follow
00:14:23you around your house, right? Like, I can't imagine a thing in this moment of this crazy AI
00:14:28hype cycle that will get more attention from more people than we're going to build a robot like
00:14:35screw your her thing that's on your phone like we're going to build a freaking robot in your
00:14:39house like Tesla's thing is to take these things to like the nth degree like that feels
00:14:44very in keeping with how this company operates to me. Yeah, it 100% was and it was like the
00:14:49Musk of the past was coming poking his head out a little bit during this this shareholder meeting
00:14:54where he came out he did his victory lap. He told everyone how much he loved them. And then he just
00:14:58started speaking incredibly hyperbolically about about how optimists and the humanoid robots and
00:15:04how Tesla was going to have potentially hundreds of robots working in his factory by the end of
00:15:10next year, I think he said and then he made some comment about how Tesla was ultimately or the
00:15:14robotics industry and I can't remember if it was exactly Tesla or robotics, but I'm sure he was
00:15:19seeing them as sort of mutually the same was going to be worth $25 trillion someday, which
00:15:25like you can say what you will about Musk's in his hyperbolic statements and how he hypes things too
00:15:29much and just sort of goes over the top and describing things millions of electric cars
00:15:33solving for autonomy AI robots a 25 trillion dollar company is just nothing that we've ever
00:15:38seen nor do I think we will see in the history of like a corporate America or just you know,
00:15:44the history of capitalism. It's just that's something that I think a lot of people even
00:15:48think is fundamentally possible. But that said, that's that was like fully like the vibe that he
00:15:54was trying to put out. I think with with all of this, that makes sense. You have aggressively
00:15:58broken our no Elon Musk rule, which means we have to move on. It's very hard to do. And this is
00:16:04the strangest thing about this company right now and we're this comes to my Elon Musk question at
00:16:08the end, but let's let's get back to some car company stuff because because Tesla is still
00:16:12a car company no matter how it wants to talk about itself. There were three shrouded vehicles
00:16:16up from two shrouded vehicles that we've seen before they put up the slide. Elon I believe
00:16:21said we have some stuff in the pipeline. You speculated wildly about what these three vehicles
00:16:26might be. Give me the quick rundown. What do we what do we think is is literally under the hood
00:16:31that we're going to see from Tesla in the near future? Yeah, so it was interesting to me because
00:16:36it was one more mystery vehicle than we got last year, which is when they had their investor day
00:16:40and they talked a lot about like the third master plan and about how they were going to use all the
00:16:44sustainable energy in order to shift the world over to a more sustainable energy future. And at
00:16:50that time, the criticism against Tesla was that, oh, OK, they're talking high minded about all
00:16:54these things that they want to do. They're losing focus. There's no new car announcement. There was
00:16:58nothing for people to really sink their teeth into except for a lot of these kind of like
00:17:03grandiose statements about what the future of energy was going to be. There really hasn't been
00:17:07anything since the Cybertruck, right, in terms of like concrete. And that's a long time. If anything,
00:17:11they've been all over the map. There's been reports about canceling plans for for a cheap
00:17:16Model 2 type twenty five thousand dollar EV. And then they are back onto it. It's it's unclear
00:17:22exactly where there's where they stand on sort of like what the lineup, the vehicle lineup of the
00:17:26future is going to be, because I think because the Cybertruck kind of sucked all the oxygen out
00:17:31of the room, it was an enormously difficult task to build up a production sort of scheme around
00:17:36that truck because of how difficult it was to make. And that kind of just and obviously to
00:17:40the company that, you know, a couple of months ago went through a huge layoff period where they
00:17:46laid off over 10 percent, maybe even up to 20 percent of the company was laid off. And now
00:17:51they're actually hiring a lot of those people back because they realize they fired too many of them,
00:17:55which is not the first time that that's happened with Tesla. But anyway, so, yeah,
00:17:58there was an additional mystery vehicle under under a shroud that they that they hinted at
00:18:03during this shareholder meeting, two of which looked like had the shape of just regular Tesla's.
00:18:08They looked kind of like Model 3s, you know, something that we can take from that. We could
00:18:12say, OK, is one of those the Model 2 is one of those the cheaper, smaller, more affordable
00:18:17electric car that they had said that they were going to make and then said that they weren't
00:18:21and, you know, sort of been flip flopping and backtracking and going all over the place as to
00:18:25whether or not they actually have plans to make this vehicle is the other one of those is that
00:18:29maybe the refreshed roadster that we were first promised, I think, back in 2019 when they had
00:18:35the event announcing the Tesla semi truck. And then the roadster was sort of like brought out
00:18:39and saying, well, we're going to we're going to do the roadster, the original vehicle that,
00:18:42you know, launched Tesla. I honestly forgot about that. Like if you had asked me just now,
00:18:48is there another roadster I would have said no, that was like the first I honestly forgot.
00:18:51And didn't they collect like huge deposits from people for that, too?
00:18:55Yeah, they've taken a ton of deposits, definitely over several millions of dollars worth. But yeah,
00:18:59that doesn't appear to be any closer to production. We have not gotten many words. I think he's
00:19:05tweeted a few times about sort of what the progress is. There's been lots of claims about
00:19:09using like, you know, SpaceX style rockets to make this like a vehicle that can reach zero to 16
00:19:15under two seconds or maybe even a second and a half. It's, you know, we're bending the laws
00:19:20of physics. It's it's it's going to be a fun time. So one of those mystery vehicles could
00:19:26be that roadster. And then there was a third mystery vehicle, which was more boxy shaped,
00:19:30a little bit taller, higher riding, maybe even van shaped. So there was some speculation that
00:19:34this could be a van or at least a more sort of high capacity vehicle. This could be the
00:19:40robo taxi that Tesla has been talking a lot about. I was just about to say, do you really think
00:19:44Tesla is going to make a minivan? I think in the taxi version of the world, that makes more sense.
00:19:49If they're going to make some sort of purpose built autonomous vehicle, the conventional wisdom
00:19:53is that it needs to be something that is kind of van shaped that you can fit a lot of people into
00:19:58it. You could it could maybe be something that where there could be some carpooling aspect of
00:20:02it or some ride sharing. So it does seem to be that maybe Tesla is interested in that or is
00:20:06interested in some sort of van type format for its technology. So those were sort of the guesses
00:20:12that I've seen and others have talked about is in terms of like what Tesla's future vehicle
00:20:17lineup might look like. OK, the robo taxi is supposed to come like this summer, right? Soon.
00:20:22Yeah. August 8th, he said, OK, it's going to be the event for that. I feel like it's probably then
00:20:27a fairly safe bet to say one of those three is going to be the robo taxi. Yeah, I think that
00:20:33that's correct. And he's you know, they've been hyping that a lot in a lot of their communications.
00:20:38There have been talks about how it's going to be somewhat similar design wise to the
00:20:42Cybertruck. So we were going to see maybe a lot of angularity, something more triangular
00:20:46shaped, perhaps probably not stainless steel. But, you know, you never know with this company.
00:20:51But yeah, it's this is going to be sort of like what we've all been building towards,
00:20:55right? We've had these driver assist products. We've seen how they behaved out in public.
00:21:00You've got a lot of people, Tesla owners who are big fans of full self-driving and autopilot.
00:21:05They think it's great. It takes a lot of the pressure off of driving, that it works fantastically.
00:21:09And then there's just a ton of evidence that shows that it's just not what it's
00:21:13built up to be. It has serious gaps. There's been some studies to show that it can't execute
00:21:18certain maneuvers. There's been hundreds of crashes, dozens of fatalities involving
00:21:23drivers using autopilot. And there's concerns about how people might be overusing these products,
00:21:28more reliant in them than they should. And obviously, due to the fact that Tesla markets
00:21:32it in a way that probably leaves a lot of confusion to people, it is called full self-driving.
00:21:37After all, that is it's hard to not read that the way that it sounds.
00:21:42Yeah, I know. It's like, you know, why can't I take my eyes off the road? Why can't I fall
00:21:45asleep? Why can't I climb into the back the back seat and allow the car to drive me from from that
00:21:50way? Well, because, you know, there are plenty of warnings that pop up on your screen to say
00:21:54to never do those things. So, yeah, it's the way that Tesla markets these products and the reality
00:21:59of them are constantly in conflict. And we're starting to see some court cases move their way
00:22:04through the system. Some regulators in California, the DMV, the attorney general, the Department of
00:22:09Justice are all investigating Tesla as maybe perhaps part of a criminal investigation to
00:22:15show that they have willfully misguided people in terms of how they've marketed this technology.
00:22:21Got it. OK, which makes the robotaxi thing even higher stakes in a bunch of ways.
00:22:27I would say fraught. Fraught is the word.
00:22:28Fraught is a good word for it. There you go. Well, and speaking of around that, I think if
00:22:33you assume the robotaxi thing is real and coming this summer, it makes a bunch of the other things
00:22:38that Tesla and Elon Musk are talking about all the more important. Right. He mentioned the Tesla
00:22:43network, which is the this idea that we've been hearing about for forever, that you can just
00:22:47get out of your car when you get to work and then your car can go be a robotaxi all day and then
00:22:50come back. The supercharger network, which I think we've heard a lot of conflicting things about in
00:22:54recent months. The whole theory of like AWS for AI that Tesla is trying to be. Oh, that's a good
00:23:02one. Idea of this like big, broad network of Tesla's and what that can be in the world feels
00:23:08like it's about to get tested in a pretty real way after a lot of talk over the last few years.
00:23:14And obviously autopilot and self-driving is part of that because like the first part of robotaxi
00:23:18means there's not a person. This is not an Uber for Tesla thing. This is a very different thing
00:23:23Tesla is trying to go for. And like it feels like that's coming to a head here pretty fast. No.
00:23:29Yeah. I mean, it just sort of goes back to this, this idea that I put forward, which is that,
00:23:33you know, they're trying to explore many ways in which they can continue to hype Tesla and to
00:23:40justify the valuation that it's received over the years in ways that don't sort of expose
00:23:46kind of like the fundamental reality of what the company is, which is that it's a car company.
00:23:51But when, as soon as you put Tesla alongside of its fellow peers in the auto industry, alongside,
00:23:57I don't know, Ford and GM, Chevy, Buick, Audi, Mercedes, it kind of loses its luster in a lot
00:24:04of ways because we know about car companies. We've seen them for decades and decades, you know,
00:24:09over a century now we've had car companies and there's just nothing that the story really doesn't
00:24:15lend itself so well to that kind of like excitement that has surrounded Tesla, but also Musk himself
00:24:21as someone who is like a futurist and is going to help usher in kind of like this more,
00:24:25this better future that we have planned for us. But, you know, I think it's just really kind of
00:24:29like this tension. And I think that that's why he's talking about things like robotics and AI,
00:24:33but even like the AWS stuff. I mean, that's just him spitballing. And I've spoken to a number of
00:24:39experts that have said, you know, that that's like the fact that Tesla vehicles are cars that they
00:24:44move around and are go from place to place and don't have like a fixed location necessarily.
00:24:50It's kind of, you know, sort of undermines the idea of using it as some sort of like distributed
00:24:55network from which to, you know, get like, you know, more bang for your buck in terms of like
00:25:00what an actual electric car can be used for, which I think, you know, sort of ignores some of the
00:25:05real potential behind EVs, which I think a lot of the other car makers have kind of seized upon,
00:25:10which is things like virtual power plants and sending energy back into the grid or using your
00:25:15EV as sort of like a mobile power generator that can help you out. And then, you know,
00:25:19if there's a blackout, we know we're having, there's a heat wave on the East Coast this week.
00:25:23There's going to be heat waves as part of our future, fundamentally. Like, you know,
00:25:27we have to really kind of get used to that. And EVs could be a real good way to help make sure
00:25:31that people who do lose power, don't lose the things that they really need the most, you know,
00:25:36refrigeration and AC and things like that during these times. So, you know, there's a lot of things
00:25:40that EVs can be used for that beyond just like driving from, from A to B. And it doesn't seem
00:25:46like he really has, or the company really has much interest in those things. Yeah.
00:25:49That makes sense. So to that point, actually, my impression of Tesla for years has been that it was
00:25:57very early to a lot of things and was right about a lot of where things were going beforehand,
00:26:02even leaving all of the good and bad of Elon Musk aside, like Tesla was right about the future
00:26:07pretty early on and correctly bet on a bunch of things, including electric vehicles. The story
00:26:12around Tesla, the last few years seems to be that it has given up a lot of that lead as a car
00:26:18company. Right. And, and that it's the sort of moat that it built for itself has like withered and
00:26:23dried up, I guess, to just like destroy that metaphor. Is that fair? Like, is that what is
00:26:28Tesla's moat as a car company at this point? And again, the answer is not allowed to be Elon Musk,
00:26:33because we're going to come back to that. But as a, as a pure like technology and car company,
00:26:38does it have some of that moat and advantage still? Or has it has the landscape around it
00:26:43just changed? Yeah, I think it's, it's kind of a complicated answer, because I think in some
00:26:47aspects it does, because I think we've seen, you know, the thing that was most often described as
00:26:52Tesla's moat was its supercharger network, right? That it made these cars that people wanted,
00:26:56you know, they were expensive, and they were futuristic looking. But none of that would have
00:27:00worked if there was not the infrastructure, the charging infrastructure to support the ownership
00:27:05of those vehicles. And so Tesla very smartly realized that it needed to, to build that itself,
00:27:10that it was not going to get the help from the government, or from maybe even like the supplier
00:27:16network and the third party aftermarket industry that exists, it needed to do it itself. And it did
00:27:21it created what is still stands today as being the best and most reliable and most distributed
00:27:29EV charging network that exists on the planet. And they not only did that, but then they opened
00:27:36up that standard, the charging standard that they saw as being sort of more streamlined and cheaper,
00:27:42and more sort of technologically proficient, and they opened it up to the rest of the industry.
00:27:46And they said, Okay, this is not just ours anymore. This is the North American charging
00:27:50standard, the NACS, you all can use this. And Ford was the first to jump on board,
00:27:54and then GM followed. And then all the dominoes soon followed afterwards. And now we have every
00:27:58single major automaker in the world, saying that not only will they give their own customers,
00:28:03their own EV owners access to Tesla's network, but they will also adopt the plug for themselves
00:28:08on their future EVs. So we're going to start seeing Ford vehicles and GM vehicles come out
00:28:12with Tesla's plug, versus the one that exists today, which is the CCS plug. And so that is in
00:28:18a lot of ways, Tesla's moat and still stands today as Tesla's moat in protection against the future.
00:28:24But it was always going to be the case that it was not going to be able to maintain
00:28:28the market share that it had. I mean, it had the advantage of being first. So therefore,
00:28:33I think at the most, it had over 75% of the EV sales as Tesla's. And if it was successful,
00:28:40if it could guarantee the fact that it was successful, other companies were going to
00:28:44inevitably follow its lead and make their own electric cars. And now you're starting to see
00:28:49that market share shrink. It's now around 50%. Its sales are down, its revenue is down,
00:28:54its profits have shrank. And so there's a lot of concern about Tesla's future as a car company,
00:29:01which it's still, for all the bluster about AI and robotics, it still is fundamentally a car
00:29:06company. Right. And is that because Tesla has lost some of its swagger or because everybody else has
00:29:13finally caught up or a little bit of both? I think a little bit of both. I think you've got
00:29:17the fact that it's not just a Tesla anymore. You can go out, you can take a look at these really
00:29:21great electric Hyundais and these great electric Kias. The Ford Mustang Mach-E remains a very
00:29:26popular vehicle. Now you've got electric trucks, you've got the electric F-150 and the Silverado,
00:29:31and there's more to come. And then if you don't even like some of those old dusty old legacy car
00:29:36companies, there's Rivian and there's Polestar, and there's all these other sort of newer Tesla
00:29:40light companies that have maybe as much of a sheen on them as Tesla did. And maybe you don't like the
00:29:46things that Elon Musk stands for. You don't like the things he says on X. You don't like his
00:29:51positions, his political positions, which have obviously become more conservative and right-wing
00:29:55over the last few years. And he's not shy about sharing those with the world. And so if you find
00:30:01that to be abhorrent, there's plenty of other places for you to go. And I think that, as we've
00:30:06seen in this presidential election now with electric vehicles becoming so politicized,
00:30:11that if Republicans are railing against EVs and what you're left with is an entirely progressive
00:30:18or democratic or left-leaning customer demographic, those people are not going to be
00:30:23willingly gobbling up Tesla's left and right. Maybe they begrudgingly will buy a Tesla because
00:30:27of how good the charging network is or the prices, which have come down significantly in the last few
00:30:33years. And now you can get a Tesla, especially a used one for around $20,000, $25,000 in a lot of
00:30:39ways. The $25,000 EV exists, and it just happens to be a used Model 3. So I think in some ways that
00:30:47it's become a lot more complicated, but in a lot of other ways, this is the way that it was always
00:30:51going to go, especially if Tesla was as successful as it has proven to be. Right. So you've brought
00:30:56me to my last Elon Musk question, and then I will let you go. I think a lot of this roadmap is
00:31:02really interesting to me, and Tesla deserves credit over the years for pulling off a lot of
00:31:06what it said it was going to do. It's been much weirder than we expected, but Tesla did a lot of
00:31:10the stuff it said it was going to do. And so to the extent that I want to give the company the
00:31:14benefit of the doubt that it has been able to do this in the past and might be able to do it again,
00:31:17that's one thing. But we've talked about this so much over the years that Elon Musk is Tesla,
00:31:21and Tesla is Elon Musk. And I feel like what that means has changed. So I'm curious for your read
00:31:27right now in 2024, even different from what it was in 2018, the first time shareholders voted
00:31:32to give him all this money. What is your read on what Elon Musk means to Tesla in sort of this
00:31:38next phase? Is that that close association was undeniably good for Tesla for a really long time?
00:31:43Say what you will, it just was. Whether you were a person who liked electric vehicles or
00:31:48a person who owned Tesla stock, victories all around for a long time there. Do you think that's
00:31:53still the case in the next phase of this company, or has it sort of inexorably changed since 2018?
00:32:00I think it's still the case because if you look at the vote totals, you look at the way that people
00:32:04voted their shares, which there were billions of shares that were voted during this past
00:32:08shareholder vote. Over 70% voted in favor of awarding him this pay package, which is a pretty
00:32:14strong sign that people see Tesla, and not only Tesla as it is today, but Tesla's future as some
00:32:21sort of undefined robotics company or whatever it is in the future, as being inextricably linked to
00:32:28Elon Musk and his ability to be the one that sort of is guiding that ship. So I think that that was
00:32:33a pretty clear sign. And it was pretty much, I think, the same percent that first awarded him
00:32:40that pay package back in 2018. So there's been six years between these two votes, and we're seeing
00:32:46basically an unchanged vote total. That said, and I talked to a couple of experts in the midst of
00:32:52this, if you're someone who bought Tesla shares back in 2011, you are really happy with Elon Musk
00:32:57and the way that he's been leading this company. If you're someone who bought shares in 2023,
00:33:01you have probably a lot of questions, and you're probably wondering about what the post-Musk
00:33:06future is for Tesla. And he was asked that during the shareholder meeting, which he stood on stage
00:33:10and took a lot of questions. Many of them were not great questions. They left a lot to be desired.
00:33:17You know, as one can imagine at a Tesla event of this kind, you're going to get a lot of
00:33:22sort of overt displays of fealty. I call them the, how are you so terrific questions.
00:33:27Exactly. Yes. I call them sycophant questions. But anyway, you got a lot of those types of
00:33:33questions, but somebody did ask him something along the lines of like, you're not going to
00:33:37live forever, which maybe Musk might disagree with. I know, right? He might. I know a lot of
00:33:42him and his friends are working on that problem right now. But that said, either they're like,
00:33:45how's your health or something along the lines of that, and what's going to be the future of Tesla?
00:33:51And he gave the vaguest answer. He's like, I'm very excited and confident in the future of Tesla.
00:33:55There's just no one line being lined up to take the reins of this company. In fact,
00:34:00most of the people that could have, I think were fired in the last round of layoffs that they had,
00:34:05most of the C-suite executives have departed. There's new people that have just come in.
00:34:10It just does not seem that they have any interest in grooming somebody. And that's it. I mean,
00:34:15Musk is not that old. He's still in his 50s and probably has long years ahead of him running this
00:34:22company. And it's very clear that that's what the shareholders want, which is why they voted
00:34:27in this way. So it just seems like, yes, the people who have said that Musk is Tesla and Tesla
00:34:32is Musk, that is more accurate today than it ever has been. And I think it's just a question of,
00:34:37does he still see himself leading this company? And if so, what is his vision of the future?
00:34:42Because that's the one, clearly, that most people are interested in following.
00:34:46Right. And it sounds like very much under that world in which Elon Musk and Tesla are
00:34:52more connected than ever, Tesla is going to look less and less like a car company as time goes on.
00:34:57Yeah, it's possible. It's very possible that it becomes, you know, that the car aspect of its
00:35:02business shrinks. But if that's the case, they need to really start to think about
00:35:06how they're going to replace those revenues. Because right now they're in a bit of a bind
00:35:10because, you know, it's over 80% of their revenues are automotive. They still, you know,
00:35:16obviously pull in some revenue from the energy side of the business and from battery storage.
00:35:21You know, the solar aspect of their business has remained pretty flat. It's not growing
00:35:26nearly as much as I'm sure a lot of analysts would like to see it grow. So there's just
00:35:30nothing really to replace the money yet. And obviously, robotics and autonomy and the Tesla
00:35:34network and self-driving cars and the robo taxi and all these things remain just far too
00:35:40theoretical for anyone to sort of like hang anything solid on. So I just think that if it
00:35:46wants to be this company that it's setting itself up for, it needs to start to demonstrate how it's
00:35:52actually going to make money. Otherwise, I think a lot of shareholders are going to feel very much
00:35:56like bag holders at the end of all of this. Yeah, at some point, you got to start selling stuff.
00:36:00That's how it works. That's how I'm told.
00:36:02There's a lot of that going on with AI in general right now is it's all very shiny. And at some
00:36:07point, you got to start selling stuff. And I think I have a feeling we're headed for a couple of
00:36:11years of reckoning on what you can and can't sell when it comes to AI stuff.
00:36:14That sounds about right.
00:36:16All right, Andy, thank you, as always.
00:36:18It's my pleasure. Thanks, David.
00:36:20All right, we got to take a break. And then we're going to come back and talk about wearables.
00:36:23All right, we're back. So it's now been a week since WWDC, Apple's annual developer conference.
00:36:36We've talked about it a lot on this show. I still think that the fact that they announced
00:36:41rest days for watch OS might be the single most exciting announcement to me.
00:36:46The personalization even extends to your activity rings, where you can now adjust
00:36:50your goals by the day of the week. Or if you have an injury that's making it harder to close your
00:36:54rings, or maybe you just need a day off, you can pause them for a rest day week or more and keep
00:37:00your award streak going. The thing where I'm lying on the couch feeling sick or tired or just haven't
00:37:06had time that day to go exercise. And my watch is like yelling at me about not closing my rings
00:37:12is the thing that makes me want to take off my Apple Watch.
00:37:14I've actually turned off a lot of the goals. I just try to not worry about that stuff anymore.
00:37:18But I like the idea of being able to care about it and then not care about it.
00:37:23But anyway, that is just one piece of a lot of wearable news in the last few weeks. We've gotten
00:37:29lawsuits from Samsung over Aura's smart rings. We've gotten pixel watch leaks. We've gotten
00:37:34a new Samsung Galaxy watch. We've gotten a bunch of FDA news. And there's also this app called
00:37:40Stompers that isn't technically a wearable, but it's kind of related to this whole space. And
00:37:44I just really want to talk about it. VSong has been covering all of this and is deep in the
00:37:49wearable space, as anyone who listens to the show will know. So I figured I'd have her just come on
00:37:54and we're just going to plow through some news and talk about how big a deal any of this really is
00:37:59and take a victory lap on rest days. VSong, welcome back.
00:38:03Thanks for having me.
00:38:04You did it. This is the biggest news in the history of VSong at WWDC this year. We're going
00:38:10to do I have Apple stuff, Samsung stuff and Google stuff I want to talk about. But we got to start
00:38:15with Apple. I'm just the floor is yours. If you can laugh, you can cry, you can be happy. It's
00:38:20rest days. We got rest days, V.
00:38:22I was screaming so loud in my house. And so I have this one cat who loves to just
00:38:29annoy me in my room. He likes to sit with me in my office. And as soon as they're like,
00:38:34oh, and rest days, they're going to be a thing now. I was like,
00:38:36yeah, so loud. And I was just like typing in the in the verge slack with like so many typos just
00:38:43because I was going like, huh. And I saw that you mentioned in the live blog that somewhere I was
00:38:48like fist pumping. Yes, all of that was happening. And if it wasn't for the fact that I had to like
00:38:52get the watchOS 11 blog out, I would have probably just like run around like a crazy person in my
00:38:58office just going like, oh, yes, finally, this is so great on so many levels I could.
00:39:05It's just like I'm here to wax poetic on it. So I will. But like this has been 10 years of
00:39:11the Apple watch and it it has been like a feature that I have been wanting for at least eight of
00:39:16those years just because it's oh, my God, where do I start? There's just so many reasons why you
00:39:22need a rest day. And the big one is that we're not machines. And I actually think streaks are
00:39:27quite toxic for the average person because we all know that one Apple watch person who's just like,
00:39:34oh, yeah, I was sick, but there's no way I'm breaking my streak. So I just lowered it and
00:39:40went for a walk. And I was like, I hear that story so many times that I'm just like, that is the
00:39:46opposite of improving your health. That is actively not doing the best thing for your health and your
00:39:52body in that point in time. And then there's for other people, those notifications are actually
00:39:58extremely demoralizing. So when I had COVID, I had it pretty bad. I couldn't really think properly.
00:40:05I don't actually remember a lot of having COVID because it was like a bad time. But one thing I
00:40:11really do remember was getting a buzz on my wrist looking and it's like, you can still do it. You
00:40:15can take a 27 minute walk and close that ring. The thing where it's like, just go for an 11 mile
00:40:21walk. It's only 9pm. You'll be fine. It's like, what? No, it's like, um, no, actually, I am I have
00:40:28COVID right now. And so I was just so annoyed and I took the watch off and I put it on the charger
00:40:35because that's just how type A I am. I was just like, Oh, I'm not gonna throw it across the room.
00:40:39I'm gonna put it very gently on the charger. But that that kind of impulse and I have also heard
00:40:46from several of my friends that on their wedding days, they either wore their Apple Watch on their
00:40:52ankles, or gave it to their spouse to carry for them because they were not going to break that
00:40:57streak even though it was their wedding day. And I was just like, I think I think we've gotten to
00:41:03a point where the streak is no longer helpful. If you are at that point. I think we have lost
00:41:08sight of what the streak is supposed to be. Yep. It is a motivational tool. And yeah, of course,
00:41:14like it is a great way to kind of visualize your consistency. But you know, you can have a weekly
00:41:19streak, you can have a monthly streak, it doesn't have to be a daily streak. And after a certain
00:41:25point, it's actually counterintuitive. Like the more into training you go, you're supposed to
00:41:30have rest days, you're supposed to have days where you do absolutely nothing. And on days where you
00:41:34do absolutely nothing, let me tell you, if you have your move ring set at like 1000 calories,
00:41:40like some people do, you're not going to get 1000 calories of exercise, or you should not
00:41:44get 1000 calories of exercise on a rest day, especially when you're doing something like
00:41:49physically taxing, like any kind of race training, any kind of especially if you're doing a marathon,
00:41:54those rest days are really important, because some people are out here and they're and they're
00:41:58pounding the pavement. For four hour long runs, you're putting an incredible amount of stress on
00:42:03your body. Any athlete will tell you rest is incredibly important. And that's why so many
00:42:09athletes gravitate toward the whoop, they gravitate towards the oar ring, because those
00:42:13are prioritizing rest. And everybody else in the industry for the past three, four years
00:42:19has been prioritizing rest in some form and capacity. So to have Apple lag so far behind
00:42:25on that, it was just, it's like the most glaring thing, because the Apple Watch is the leader in
00:42:31the smartwatch world, right? It is like the one that everyone points to, it's the one that's
00:42:35popular. It's, you know, Apple does something with smartwatches, everybody follows. But the
00:42:39one thing that they really weren't doing for the longest time was sleep tracking. And then on top
00:42:42of sleep tracking, rest and recovery was just like, close your rings, or else. Yeah, it really
00:42:49it gets like menacing. And then the notification that really did me in was the one the next morning,
00:42:55where you wake up and it's like, ah, you only closed two rings yesterday. Like parentheses,
00:43:01you pathetic monster. Let's try and do better today. And I get those when I don't wear my watch
00:43:07for a day. And it's like, come on, watch. Like, I just wasn't, I didn't have this on.
00:43:11And then I get to the point where I'm like, I go for a walk, and I'm not wearing the watch.
00:43:15And all of a sudden, you have that feeling of like, oh, it didn't count because I'm and then
00:43:18it's like, those are the moments where I'm like, oh, this is no longer serving the purpose that
00:43:22I got this to serve for me. Yeah, you know, I, I had that exact experience this weekend,
00:43:28I forgot my watch when we, my friend and I went out to a park, and then we went for a hike at that
00:43:33park. And I was like, the entire time in my head, I was like, it's not going to count. It's not going
00:43:37to count. And I really hate that that's not going to count because this is a very steep hill.
00:43:43Like, I'm not getting credit for that. But that's actually, it's super counterintuitive,
00:43:47because I still did the hike, I still did the thing that was very good for my body.
00:43:52It just because the Apple Watch didn't acknowledge it, you know, like, and I think we have to
00:43:56really examine what streaks mean. So like, before Apple introduced this ability to pause your
00:44:02pause your rings, which I downloaded the beta, and I've used it since and I like really was just
00:44:06like, oh my god, this is this is such a nice feeling that I'm getting punished for that. But
00:44:11before that, I would just every once in a while, once I got a streak up to like 90 days, I would
00:44:16perfect purposefully break it. Interesting for your own sanity, just for my own sanity. And just
00:44:21to teach myself that like, the streak is not the streak is not how I define my consistency.
00:44:26Because like, I can tell you for the last six years, I haven't gone a week without running
00:44:31or some sort of physical exercise. So I would say that I am consistent in my fitness routine.
00:44:36But you know, life, and I'll get a little vulnerable with everybody. My life has not
00:44:41been super easy the last few years, just because I've had a lot of like, circumstances, namely,
00:44:45my entire immediate family died, like kind of one after another. And when you go through those life
00:44:51circumstances, the last thing you need is the Apple Watch going, you didn't close two of your
00:44:57rings yesterday. What happened? And you're like, well, well, Apple Watch, there was a funeral
00:45:02yesterday. That's what happened. I did not go and train my little legs out because I was not having
00:45:10a good day that day. So you know, I think having that flexibility, allowing that to be within the
00:45:16Apple Watch, and then to also have the other fitness features that they introduced, like
00:45:20training load, which, you know, that's not new. Garmin's had that for forever. All like,
00:45:24the Polars have had that forever. But just like, the acknowledgement that there are going to be
00:45:28times where you should not push it, where you should ease off the gas, and that overall, that
00:45:34will be good for you, is just like, I'm just like, yes. Well, yeah, that that context is a really
00:45:41interesting way to think about all of the watch stuff. And like you said, I think the Apple Watch,
00:45:45we pay attention to it more than most smart watches, but we should because it is the one
00:45:50sort of driving this whole industry in a lot of ways. It really feels like a sort of vibe shift
00:45:55in the Apple Watch from like, how do we get you to do more and turn everyone into super athletes
00:46:01and put more and more and more data into here. And there's still some of that, right? And it's
00:46:06like, if you want to know all of the teeny tiny details of your body, like the watch is getting
00:46:10better and better at that. But at the same time, there is this recognition of like, okay, actually,
00:46:14maybe the watch's job as it starts to understand you better, is to help you not push you and that
00:46:19those are not the same thing. The struggle that every single smartwatch or fitness tracker has
00:46:24that no other gadget device has is that it is trying to affect behavioral change. And behavioral
00:46:30change is very difficult. We are very ingrained in our habits and building a new habit doesn't
00:46:35actually take 21 days. Like some people say it can take 21 days, it could take 66, it could take
00:46:40half a year. So like building change like that, especially when it's physical activity and exercise,
00:46:46which is notoriously, you know, we are not like evolution has not made us crave exercise. If
00:46:52anything, evolution has made us crave the couch and a bag of potato chips, because, you know,
00:46:56that's, that's just how it is. And so even though you know, it's good for you, you know, there are
00:47:02people who love streaks, there are people who love gamification, there are signs that gamification
00:47:07does work to an extent. There are also people like me who are just like bundles of anxiety and
00:47:13nerves and full of burnout, the world is full of things that will make you burn out. Streaks for me
00:47:19personally, are a source of burnout. If I am chasing a streak, that is how I've gotten every single
00:47:25running injury in the past two, three years. That's how I've gotten my calf injuries, it's how I've
00:47:29gotten shin splints, it has been trying to keep streaks going counter to like my Achilles tendon
00:47:34or my calf or whatever saying like, we're a little ouchie right now. Could you take a could
00:47:39you take a break? Could you walk instead of going on a six mile run? And I'd be like, no body I will
00:47:46I will I have a streak to maintain. I wish they had just called it like leave me alone. That's
00:47:50all I want from the activity thing is every time it sends a notification, one of the buttons should
00:47:55just be leave me alone. And then it's just it's just like my bad, sorry, I'll leave you alone.
00:48:00And then it comes back the next day. And it's like, are we cool now? Can we hang out? Like,
00:48:04that's, that's the relationship I want to have with my Apple Watch. I mean, same. Before we
00:48:08move on anything else about watchOS 11 that got you particularly excited? Live activities. I think
00:48:12those are really fun and cool. I kind of want to see how well it does because it really depends on
00:48:18the intelligence being able to tell or suggest a really cool thing to you while the live activities
00:48:25are going. But I'm very curious to see how that plays out on the rest. Yeah, that's a good one.
00:48:30So okay, competitor time. All of these, I would say are the the ones trying to do
00:48:35Android Apple watches. There are going to be people who don't like that description. But that
00:48:39is what is going on. It's what they're doing. It's just what it is. Let's start with the pixel
00:48:43watch. So we got both some new stuff for the pixel watch two and some leaks for the pixel watch
00:48:49three. Anything exciting for you in pixel watch land right now?
00:48:53I think bigger pixel watch like the rumors that it's going to be called pixel watch XL. So just
00:49:01I'm praying for my future self in a video going the pixel watch three XL if that's actually what
00:49:06they're calling it because that's a mouthful. But just in terms of that is the biggest complaint
00:49:12we had with the pixel watch two is that it was only one size. And ironically, it was the smaller
00:49:18size. And so people are like, we want a bigger one when historically smartwatch size complaints
00:49:23have been this is too big. This is too bulky, make one smaller. So this is like an ongoing conflict
00:49:31that we've had. But I think it just kind of shows that you really can't do one size fits all with
00:49:36smartwatches. So for them to have a bigger size, I'm stoked for people. I had a lot of readers just
00:49:41be like, but I have a bigger arm and the pixel watch looks stupid on it. And I was like, you
00:49:45know what, fair, purely anecdotally, I will say I see Apple watch ultras everywhere, like in much
00:49:52higher volume than I expected, because it's a it's a big watch. But I see them everywhere on people
00:49:58of all sizes, and all fashion senses, like the willingness to do the big watch, I guess, for
00:50:05extra battery and some extra features, like way more of that than I expected when the ultra came
00:50:10out. Are you wearing ultra right now? So I just saw that is an ultra too. And you are not what I
00:50:14would call a large armed person. I am not a large person. I have very tiny bird wrists. But what I
00:50:19will say is that I have been acclimatized to really big watches over the years wearing a lot of
00:50:25garments. So I'm kind of used to the weight at this point. But also my eyesight is so notoriously
00:50:31bad that people keep asking me like, why is your iPhone on the largest font possible? It's like,
00:50:36because I can't read well. And the ultra has a gigantic screen. Eli has made fun of me many
00:50:41times. He's like, you know, I can read everything on your Apple Watch. It's like, yes, yes. And you
00:50:46know what, so can I. And that's the point. That's the dream. Yeah, that's the tree. No, I agree. I
00:50:52think I think the bigger pixel watch will be a victory if only again, because it's just more
00:50:57options. And I feel like for me, the pixel watch, yes, kind of landed in the right zone. It's like
00:51:03about the size I want a smartwatch to be. And I like the round like I was very happy even with
00:51:08the first one. But you're absolutely right that the only way to do this is to have lots of them
00:51:13because people are different. And it's like, it gets all the weirder when you get to glasses. And
00:51:17we'll talk about that another day. But like, this is just where we are now.
00:51:20The other thing with the pixel watch that it's like a very small thing. But for me,
00:51:23as a wearable reviewer, I went, huh, is the fact that car crashes detection is coming to the pixel
00:51:28watch too, because we don't have that on Android yet. And I was like, is this the first time that
00:51:32we're going to have car crash detection on a smartwatch on Android? And yes, yes, it is.
00:51:37So that I think is significant in the sense that like, you know, Google was starting so far behind
00:51:42Apple, and so far behind Samsung, when the pixel watch was launched, like soon to be three years
00:51:47ago. So a lot of the times when we get these new features, it's like, ah, it's been it's been done
00:51:52already. And yes, that is true. This is still true here. But the gap is getting smaller. And for me,
00:51:59I'm like, yes, finally, the gap is getting smaller. I'm so excited about that. So like,
00:52:03that's just like a tiny thing. Because Samsung doesn't have car crash detection for
00:52:08its watches yet. So for Google to be like, hey, we got this.
00:52:12It's progress.
00:52:13It's progress. And I'm excited to see it's just like a very small thing that I'm excited to see.
00:52:18Yeah, no, it's a good one. I think you're right that Google basically just systematically doing
00:52:23Apple watch things is the correct thing to do. Especially if then it can turn around and be like,
00:52:28oh, now it has all the Gemini stuff. And we're going to finally figure out Fitbit,
00:52:31even though I've essentially given up on the possibility of the Fitbit integration
00:52:34ever making any sense. You can see the path. This is the thing about the Pixel watch that
00:52:38drives me so crazy. You can see the path to it being great. And I'm hopeful, at least that Google
00:52:45still seems to care about it. So that's something. But the Fitbit thing will never stop driving
00:52:48either of us crazy. I don't think one can pray one can pray. Yeah, that's enough about Fitbit
00:52:55on this particular podcast. Let's talk about Samsung for a minute. You brought up Samsung.
00:52:59It's the one with the new watch. That was the news of I think last week now,
00:53:03the Galaxy Watch FE. Anything exciting there? It's cheaper. Yay for cheaper.
00:53:07It's cheaper, which you know, that's notable because the last two years we've seen price
00:53:12increases for the base Galaxy Watch five and the six because inflation, Samsung's not immune. And
00:53:18that was kind of sad at the time because you know, the Galaxy Watch has historically been kind of
00:53:24competitively priced, underpriced for what it is. So it would just be like, oh, yeah,
00:53:28you could get the base model for less than $300. And that's pretty, pretty solid. And that's like,
00:53:36not really the case anymore. It's I believe it's about 300 now for the base model. So to get the
00:53:41FE, which is $199 for the Bluetooth only version, that's a solid $200 watch, which you know, the
00:53:48Apple Watch SE is $250. So starting price. So you're looking at that and you're like, oh, okay,
00:53:54okay. But what it really is, is that it's a rebadged Galaxy Watch four. So that's kind of
00:54:00interesting, like spec wise, spec wise, you are getting the last gen chip. And I think once you
00:54:06kind of look at the specs, you're like, oh, you're not really giving that much up. But at the same
00:54:11time, it's not that exciting, because the design is very similar. So what are we actually looking
00:54:17here and we are looking at Samsung once again, throwing spaghetti at the wall with its lineup,
00:54:23trying to figure out what the hell is going to work. And I think they're identifying very
00:54:28realistically that, you know, Apple does kind of have a winning combination by having a entry level
00:54:33watch for kids and for elderly relatives that people use it for the having the base model and
00:54:39then just having this massive ultra for people who want the bestest and the greatest and are like
00:54:46imagining themselves to be hardcore elite athletes, or maybe they are hardcore elite athletes.
00:54:51And I think what we can tell from leaks so far is that Samsung is very much aligning itself to kind
00:54:56of have the same lineup. So we have the FE now. And I think it's very telling that that's coming
00:55:02ahead of unpacked because we're going to have the ostensibly the Galaxy Watch seven, and then the
00:55:08Galaxy Watch Ultra is I think the rumored name for it. It's this squircle looking thing from the
00:55:16leaks and the renders that we've seen. I don't think it's like Galaxy Watch FE, Galaxy Watch
00:55:22Ultra. I think we can point to the other company that they're kind of taking, let's say, inspiration
00:55:28from. They're just leaning into it. They're just leaning into it. I don't think it's a wrong move.
00:55:32I think it I think it's actually quite smart to kind of position themselves as, like you say,
00:55:36the Android of the Apple Watch of Android is kind of what they're fashioning themselves as.
00:55:42They're just kind of leaning into that. Again, some people are going to be upset about that. I don't
00:55:47think they really should be. There are worse things to be at this at this particular moment in time.
00:55:51I think they're just kind of going, I think this is what people want. We'll give them what they
00:55:55want. And then on top of that, we're expecting the Galaxy Ring. So that's one way that Samsung
00:56:00can go like, ha ha, suck it, Google. Suck it, Apple. We got something that you don't. And it's
00:56:04a Galaxy Ring. And so I'm really I'm really stoked and excited to see what that's going to
00:56:11look like, especially since they preemptively sued Aura. This was the next thing I wanted to talk
00:56:16about, which to me was just like, oh, OK, that's fun. I just got a new smart ring in the mail.
00:56:23I'm currently wearing three. Yes, I'm wearing three at the moment. So I'll be wearing four
00:56:29just to get like, so I know all the competitors, whatever it is. I'm very excited to see how that
00:56:35goes down for Aura, because this is the this is the first time I think that they've had a
00:56:40competitor that could really, you know, let's let's be real, could really fuck up their,
00:56:44you know, the thing that they've had for a long time. They've been going out and, you know,
00:56:48this the Samsung case, the patent case, they were just like, listen, you done sued Ringcon,
00:56:55you done sued Ultrahuman, you done sued Circular. That's the other one. And Samsung just came out
00:57:02and they're like, yeah, we see what you're doing. You have this pattern of just suing people for
00:57:06doing what a smart ring ought to do. So we just want to preemptively say that we're not infringing
00:57:12on your patent. So you can't sue us, which is an amazing lawsuit to file, by the way. Very good.
00:57:17I just can't wait to see what happens, because Samsung doing that, that's going to set a
00:57:21precedent for the other smaller companies. I would be a little stressed if I was Aura,
00:57:25and you can tell they are stressed because they just keep dropping features. They keep coming out
00:57:32and being like, we got this new thing and we got this other thing. You could we could tell how old
00:57:35your heart is now. We can do this and we have science. And so I'm just really interested to
00:57:40see how that drama is going to play out over the next few months. Yeah, I'm really excited about
00:57:45the Galaxy Ring in particular. I think it's it's shaping up to be a pretty fun year for watches in
00:57:50that I think to your point, we're going to have three pretty competitive lineups of smart watches
00:57:56if all of the leaks and stuff come true, which I think is very exciting. But I think the Galaxy
00:58:00Ring is going to be really the first like mainstream walk into an electronic store,
00:58:06and it's going to be on a shelf in front of you from a company you've heard of
00:58:09smart ring. And I think that's very exciting. And from what we've seen so far,
00:58:13it seems to look nice. And it's not humongous. Like I actually have pretty high hopes for this
00:58:19thing. And I think if it's good, we might start to see this market take off pretty fast. I think
00:58:25if it is, I want to say 50% as good as what the aura ring is, is bringing to the table with the
00:58:31convenience of just like integrating with your Samsung products already. If I was aura, I would
00:58:37be scared. V, thank you as always. Thanks for having me. All right, we got to take one more
00:58:43break. And then we're going to do a question from the Vergecast hotline.
00:58:54All right, we're back. Let's get to the hotline. As always, the number is 866 Verge 11. The email
00:59:00is Vergecast at the verge.com. We try to answer at least one on the show every week.
00:59:04I love hearing from you. It is my favorite thing. This week, we have a question about the weather.
00:59:10Hey, Verge, this is Steve. And I live in Dallas, Texas, where we've had a ton of weather this month.
00:59:15And once again, I'm looking outside at a thunderstorm. And my weather app says it's
00:59:21sunny. So the Apple weather app is just terrible. And ever since Apple bought Blue Sky, I have just
00:59:29been struggling for a good app that doesn't sell my privacy. So I'm wondering if Verge has a 2024
00:59:37recommendation on a good, solid weather app on the iPhone that doesn't sell my privacy away.
00:59:45I hope to hear your answers on air. Thanks. Steve, you have come to the right place. I am
00:59:50here to tell you, you have come to the right place. Liam James is here. Liam, is it fair to say you
00:59:55are the Verge's preeminent weather nerd? Like, is that a fair accusation? I would say I am doing my
01:00:02best to fill the very large shoes of Dan Seifert. But I am very into the weather. How's the weather
01:00:08station? First of all, the weather station is doing great. It's still same batteries installed
01:00:13on the roof of my New York City apartment building illegally, but still sending a signal down to my
01:00:19weather station. I love it. So part of the reason I brought you on here is that I wonder if we are
01:00:25going to get to a point where we tell people that the best thing you should do in order to get a
01:00:29good forecast is install a weather station on your roof like a maniac. Is this a reasonable
01:00:34recommendation you would give to people? No, it is a completely ridiculous situation. But what can I
01:00:40say? I love gadgets. It all started with our Father's Day gift guide. So really, I mean, we've
01:00:45created our own problem to solve here. This is what we do. Okay. So I have two things I want to
01:00:51talk about here. One is that, and I think you and I are going to agree on this, the single best and
01:00:56most important piece of advice that I can give you here is a website called Forecast Advisor.
01:01:00Yes. Which people don't know about, and people should know about. You go and you plug in either
01:01:05your zip code or your city and your state, and it will tell you which of the many data sources
01:01:11that exist is most accurate historically for where you are. Do you use this, Liam? Have you ever run
01:01:17this test on yourself? Oh, absolutely. Okay. I believe it was actually Dan Seifert who introduced
01:01:22me to this. But yeah, it's not the app so much as it is the source of data your app is pulling from.
01:01:28Yeah. So, okay, let's just do this live for our buddy Steve here. So we'll go to
01:01:33forecastadvisor.com. We type in Dallas, Texas, where it is currently, as we are recording this,
01:01:3895 degrees. Steve, I'm so, so sorry. And what this says is that for the last month, so May 2024,
01:01:47the NWS, the National Weather Service digital forecast, was the most accurate data source
01:01:52at 71.86% of forecasts. A low number. It says a lot about forecasts that the best one is only 71%
01:02:01accurate. There are three here that are all basically identical. They're all 71 point
01:02:06something percent accurate. It's the National Weather Service, the Weather Channel, and
01:02:10Aris Weather. And then it goes all the way down to, like, the reason this is good is, let's see,
01:02:14there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 other ones. And the one all the way at the bottom,
01:02:20which is called persistence, was only right 45.71% of the time. So this is like you are
01:02:25looking at a weather forecast that is literally only half accurate. I believe the current Apple
01:02:32built-in weather app uses the Weather Channel, if I'm correct. What was the score for the
01:02:36Weather Channel in Dallas, Texas? So that's second on the list here at 71.51%.
01:02:43Second at 71%.
01:02:45It's tough. What's interesting about this, though, is one of the things that Forecast Advisor
01:02:49shows, I think, and I'm extrapolating a little bit here, but if you look at it over the last year,
01:02:55and again, we're still in Dallas, Texas, Microsoft, I don't know what, it just says
01:02:59Microsoft, which is apparently a weather source, was accurate 84% of the time. So what it seems
01:03:04like is what we just had in May might have been like an extra volatile month of weather,
01:03:10especially in Dallas, Texas. But like, let's look where you are, Liam. You're in New York,
01:03:15New York. For you, it's the Weather Channel is number one, 83.6%. So yeah,
01:03:20Dallas just has some wonky weather going on. Everybody's struggling with Dallas.
01:03:24Yeah, it's usually, in my experience, because I've used this service in many cities, and
01:03:29the National Weather Service is not usually your top pick.
01:03:32For you, the National Weather Service is like fully halfway down the list.
01:03:36Yeah, I was surprised to see that be the top pick for Dallas. But yeah, it's not the app you're
01:03:43using so much. It is the source. Some of the more nerdy weather apps will allow you to pick from a
01:03:49list of sources. I use the nerdiest of all iOS weather apps, which is Carrot Weather, and it has
01:03:55a list of, it looks like almost a dozen sources here for me to choose from.
01:04:00So Carrot was one of the ones I was going to bring up because it is a beloved app. And it's
01:04:07also, I would say, like you said, maybe the wonkiest of weather apps, just in terms of the
01:04:12amount of stuff that you can see if you want to. I don't use Carrot personally, but you, I would
01:04:18assume, as a giant weather nerd, love it very much. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people use
01:04:22Carrot Weather because it was the first out of the gate with Apple Watch support. But I've stuck
01:04:28with it because they add so many niche nerdy features, like being able to pick your sources,
01:04:34but also just like you can completely customize the layout for what you want. Things that I'm
01:04:40constantly wanting to see are the humidity percentage and also just like the UV index,
01:04:47because it wildly swings in New York City. And so it's kind of good to know when you should
01:04:53probably put some sunscreen on because you're going to get burnt to a crisp when you go outside.
01:04:58And that's actually another good customization point, that not only is the data source really
01:05:02important, but knowing which parts of the forecast you care about. I remember when I was in California
01:05:07during all the wildfires, the air quality index became very important. And so that was then a
01:05:13thing that I paid a lot of attention to in the forecast. And having something where you can
01:05:16surface that into either the home screen of your app or even a widget on your home screen
01:05:20goes a really long way because glanceability is the whole thing. You should not have to spend
01:05:2545 seconds in your weather app to get a sense of what do I need to know before I go outside.
01:05:29So that's a very good one. And Carrot does do that very well. Carrot, we should say,
01:05:32also just got a big update that people are very excited about. I honestly think that's a pretty
01:05:36good place to start. It's a really good weather app. Yeah, it's a great weather app. They just
01:05:41released a new update that, again, allows more customization of that main screen you see when
01:05:47it comes out. I think there's a few other odds and ends goodies that were in there.
01:05:51My backup weather app is just about the nerdiest one you can get. It is called Ambient Weather,
01:05:58and it connects over the internet to that weather station you were asking me about earlier. So I
01:06:04have a weather station on my roof that reads all the weather information that you could possibly
01:06:09want. This app allows me to access that weather station from anywhere. So regardless of where I
01:06:14am, I can pull up the same information that's on the cute little LCD screen that's on my desk.
01:06:20So that's my backup weather app. That's pretty good. I did a big tour of weather apps maybe a
01:06:25year ago. There are a lot of good ones out there, honestly. Especially if you're somebody who really
01:06:30likes to see weather news and you want to keep up on weather more broadly, the Weather Channel
01:06:35app has actually gotten a lot better over time and is actually pretty good now. They did a big
01:06:39redesign, I think, earlier this year. It's still kind of too much for my taste, but it's a very
01:06:44good app. But what I landed on is an app called Hello Weather, which I would say is a lot like
01:06:48Carrot, but just kind of less. It's very design-y, they have a bunch of really beautiful widgets,
01:06:53but my thing is it has this incredibly good kind of glanceable hour-by-hour forecast,
01:06:59which I discovered is the only thing I ever actually care about. It's just like I wake up
01:07:02in the morning, I'm like, when is it going to be hot? When is it going to rain? The end. Like,
01:07:06especially for where we are, those are the only two questions that ever really matter.
01:07:10And Hello Weather, like Carrot, lets you pick from a bunch of different sources. So I did the
01:07:15Forecast Advisor thing, I went through, I picked the most accurate source for me,
01:07:19and at that point, it's just about kind of aesthetics, right? Like, all the data is the same,
01:07:24and there's just something about the sort of cleanliness of Hello Weather that I have come
01:07:28to really like. So the biggest question I have about this app, the hour-by-hour weather data,
01:07:35is it the feels-like temperature, or is it the actual temperature? Liam, that's such a good
01:07:40question. It's such a good question, and I'm so glad you asked. It is the actual temperature,
01:07:45which is the wrong answer. It should be the feels-like temperature, but what it gives you
01:07:50at the top is it'll show you the actual temperature in big letters, and then right underneath it,
01:07:53the feels-like temperature. So right now, as we're recording this, it is 87 degrees,
01:07:56it feels like 100. Cool. Love summer 2024. But it doesn't give you that hour-by-hour,
01:08:02and I would argue that it should. But what I like that it gives you is a sort of running
01:08:09change in what matters. So when it's not going to rain, it'll show you the UV index in the bar
01:08:14graph, but when it's going to rain, it'll show you the precipitation amounts per hour. So the
01:08:18hour-by-hour forecast actually shifts based on what is most likely to happen. So on a sunny day,
01:08:22like today, it tells me the UV index. So they've just done a bunch of very clever things. And
01:08:26again, all of this is dependent on the data source, to be accurate, but I've gone in and
01:08:31figured out which data source is most accurate, and so now I have this thing. The one thing I
01:08:35hate about HelloWeather is that each data source spews different text. So they all have this
01:08:42structured data that just flows into the app, but then they all will also have a description
01:08:46of the forecast. And the data source that I picked is AccuWeather, which at least the last
01:08:52time I checked was most accurate for what I am, pumps out these really long sort of unhelpful,
01:08:57stupid things. Like this one just says, partly sunny and hot, semicolon. A thunderstorm in spots
01:09:02late this afternoon, semicolon. Hottest day so far this year, semicolon. Stay hydrated, semicolon.
01:09:06Storm can bring small hail and damaging winds. That all comes directly from AccuWeather,
01:09:10and is just obnoxious. And I found other ones that are much nicer written. Some are funny.
01:09:15I hate AccuWeathers, but that's not HelloWeather's fault. And so here we are.
01:09:18Yeah, that's really weird.
01:09:20Yeah. But it's a very good app, and it has really good widgets. So I just, I have a widget that I
01:09:24can just swipe over and it shows me the hourly, and that is most of how I check my weather,
01:09:28and I like it very much. But basically, I think the way to start is to figure out which data
01:09:32source you care about, and then figure out which apps support that data source, and then just kind
01:09:36of find the one you like looking at the most, right? Like, is that a reductive way to put it?
01:09:40Yeah, absolutely. If you don't travel a lot, maybe you find your weather source and just download
01:09:45that weather sources app. But if you do travel a lot, you're going to want an app like the ones
01:09:50David and I are talking about, where you can go in and set the source that is most accurate for
01:09:54where you are in the world.
01:09:56Yeah, I agree. Don't use Apple weather. I like Apple weather less and less as time goes on.
01:10:01There are lots of better ones out there. And I will say a bunch of them cost money,
01:10:04but most of them don't cost very much money. And I think for as often as I check a weather app,
01:10:09you know, 10 or 20 bucks a year seems pretty easily worth it.
01:10:12Yeah, totally agree.
01:10:13Sweet. All right, Liam, thank you as always.
01:10:16Of course.
01:10:17Go back to your weather station.
01:10:19I will.
01:10:20All right, that is it for the Vergecast today. Thank you to everyone who was on the show today,
01:10:24and thank you as always for listening. There's lots more on everything we talked about,
01:10:28rest days, Tesla, all of it at theverge.com. We'll put some links in the show notes. I don't
01:10:33know if you're seeing those every time they go up, but we have a post with all the links
01:10:36to everything we talk about. I find it very helpful. I hope you do too. But also in general,
01:10:40read theverge.com. It's a cool website. As always, if you have thoughts, questions, feelings,
01:10:45or Tesla vehicles you'd like to see, you can always email us at vergecast at theverge.com.
01:10:50Call the hotline 866-VERGE-11. We love hearing from you. I know I keep saying that, but I love
01:10:54hearing from you. And I think we're going to do another all-hotline episode at some point this
01:10:58summer. So keep all your questions coming. This show is produced by Andrew Marino, Liam James,
01:11:02and Will Poore. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
01:11:06Neal, I, Alex, and I will be back on Friday to talk about more Apple news, more AI news,
01:11:11the thing where McDonald's isn't testing AI anymore, which I have a lot of thoughts about,
01:11:15and much more. We'll see you then. Rock and roll.