The Engadget Podcast

This week, Cherlynn and Devindra discuss some of the editorial changes happening at Engadget. We’ve lost some amazing colleagues, but we’re still here aiming to deliver the best tech coverage possible. As for this week’s news, we chat about the reported death of Apple’s “Project Titan” EV car project. It never felt quite real, but it still would have been fun to see.

Here’s a hot take: Maybe the Apple Car felt redundant since Tesla basically built it already. Say what you will about Elon Musk today, but Tesla certainly disrupted the car industry in all of the ways we’d expect Apple to. Agree? Disagree? Let us know what you think at [email protected].

Topics:

What happened with Engadget last week: layoffs and our continued commitment to tech journalism – 0:31

RIP Apple Car 2014-2024 – 9:11

Nintendo’s successor to the Switch delayed to 2025 – 21:53

Microsoft opens more Xbox exclusives to PS5 and Switch – 25:24

Google renames AI suite, ends up in hot water over image generation – 33:47

Pop culture picks – 43:21

We still can’t stop thinking about the Apple Vision Pro. This week, Cherlynn and Devindra chat with CNET’s Scott Stein about our post-review impressions of Apple’s headset. We’ve got further thoughts about using it in public (maybe don’t), the isolation of being sealed off from the world, and the way falling asleep with the Vision Pro on can make you lose your sense of reality. We also discuss Mark Zuckerberg’s impression of the headset, and why he thinks the Quest 3 is ultimately a better product. (We agree, with caveats.) In other news, we explore how Arc’s ad-stripped AI mobile search app may be good for its users, but ultimately bad for web creators.

Last thoughts on Apple’s Vision Pro with CNet’s Scott Stein – 1:11

Arc Browser AI summaries prompts the question “Who makes money when AI reads the internet for us?” – 38:06

Waymo self-driving car attacked and set on fire during Lunar New Year celebration – 49:22

Stealth piracy app Kimi briefly passed Netflix on Apple’s App Store charts – 52:48

Lyft stock spikes after typo in earnings report – 55:12

Around Engadget – 56:53

Working on – 59:04

Pop culture picks – 59:38

We’ve spent the last week with the Apple Vision Pro and we have thoughts! This week, Senior Writer Sam Rutherford and Podcast Producer Ben Ellman join Devindra to chat about his Vision Pro review, as well as their first impressions of the headset. It’s far from a slam dunk, but it’s also one of the most fascinating devices we’ve ever seen. We dive into Apple’s impressive 3D Immersive Videos, the elegant simplicity of the Vision Pro’s eye tracking and hand gestures, and the trouble with wearing such a heavy headset.

Devindra Hardawar’s Apple Vision Pro review: Beta testing the future – 0:49

Microsoft’s gaming division is expected to announce former exclusive games going multiplatform – 51:06

Maliciously edited video of President Biden is allowed to stay by Facebook’s oversight board – 54:30

Add Taylor Swift to the list of celebrities who don’t want their jets tracked – 57:35

Working on – 1:00:10

Pop culture picks – 1:00:50

Samsung’s Galaxy S24 phones are all about AI, but how do they compare against Google’s AI tech? This week, Cherlynn and Devindra discuss what works and doesn’t about Samsung’s ambitious new smartphones, and why it may be a good thing for the Korean giant to directly compete with Google. Also, Senior Editor Karissa Bell joins to discuss the social media CEO Senate hearing, which, unsurprisingly, doesn’t really amount to much.

Samsung Galaxy S24 and S24 Ultra reviews: AI with mixed results – 0:47

Senate gathers social media CEOs over online child safety – 15:15

Graphic images of Taylor Swift on X prompts U.S. bill to let people sue over sexual deepfakes – 28:11

Universal Music Group pulls songs from TikTok during talks on a new music rights deal – 33:05

Delaware court denies Elon Musk’s “unfathomable” Tesla payday – 38:31

Neuralink claims to have implanted its first chip in a human test subject – 40:32

Google reveals new text-to-image generative AI tool, ImageFX – 41:46

Working on – 47:00

Pop culture picks – 51:29

Apple’s Mac just turned 40 years old! This week, Devindra chats with Deputy Editor Nathan Ingraham about his Mac retrospective. We focus on how much has changed since Apple’s disastrous 2016 lineup, why the Apple Silicon chips feel so revolutionary, and look back at our earliest Mac experiences. Also, we review the Framework Laptop 16, a wonderfully modular miracle of a laptop, but one that we wish had more graphics power for gaming. (But hey, at least you can replace the GPU eventually!).

Framework Laptop 16 review: Amazingly modular, but not so great at gaming – 1:17

The Mac turns 40 – 19:27

More tech layoffs at Blizzard/Activision, Riot, eBay and others – 49:58

Apple’s Car concept is allegedly still alive – 52:44

Apple overhauls App Store rules in response to European Union regulation – 58:25

Working on – 1:09:30

Pop culture picks – 1:13:40

The tech world isn’t taking any breaks after CES! This week, Cherlynn and Devindra are joined by Senior Writer Sam Rutherford to discuss Samsung’s latest Galaxy Unpacked event, where it debuted the Galaxy S24 smartphone line. They don’t look very different from last year, but they’re packing a load of AI smarts. Also, Cherlynn finally got to try out the Apple Vision Pro and tells us all about her spatial computing journey. While it was a mostly eye-opening experience, the headset also hurt Cherlynn’s head and forced her to confront one of nature’s most terrifying creatures: A butterfly.

Samsung’s Galaxy AI event: S24 line, 7 years of support for new phones, and a Galaxy Ring teaser – 1:05

Cherlynn’s Apple Vision Pro hands-on experience – 34:42

Apple is selling Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 again with blood oxygen feature disabled – 1:03:05

Apple finally allows links to third party websites for purchases – 1:04:57

Google throws support behind right to repair bill – 1:06:19

OpenAI laid out its misinformation strategy for a busy 2024 election year – 1:07:58

Cold temperatures in Chicago led to a lot of dead Teslas – 1:09:44

Pop culture picks – 1:16:50

Just as we expected, AI was the running theme throughout CES 2024. In this episode, Devindra and Producer Ben Ellman chat with co-host Cherlynn Low, who’s on the ground in Las Vegas with the Engadget team. We dive into AI popping into almost every product category, new standalone AI hardware, and a surprising amount of “shush” tech. In geekier news, we dive into Micron’s new RAM format for laptops, which has the potential to reshape the notebook industry, and discuss why we all may want a rolling house robot like Samsung’s Ballie. And on a sad note, we discuss the wave of tech layoffs from Google, Amazon and others.

Transparent OLED TVs, assistive gloves, and a Sony car: What’s hot at CES with Cherlynn Low – 1:09

AMD and Intel announce new chips – 28:22

Micron’s replacement for SODIMM laptop RAM is a bigger deal than you think – 38:01

Humane and Rabbit show off standalone AI devices – 45:49

New gaming laptops from ASUS, Alienware, and Razer – 53:36

Samsung’s Ballie robot could be a great multimedia companion for kids – 1:00:54

Layoffs at Amazon: Twitch to lay off 35% of its workforce – 1:16:50

Google lays off “several hundred” workers in an effort to reorganize hardware divisions – 1:18:14

Pop culture picks – 1:22:09

It’s the week before CES officially kicks off in Las Vegas, but our fingers are already tired from typing up a ton of early news. In this episode, Cherlynn and Devindra discuss the big topics they expect to see at CES 2024 (AI PCs will be huge, we swear!), as well as some of the stories that have already landed, like Dell’s revamped XPS line. Also, we explore some of 2023’s biggest winners and losers (just take a guess where Twitter ends up), and we chat about Apple Fitness+ highlighting Super Bowl halftime performers. And for a bit of fun conjecture, we explore the viability of Apple purchasing Peloton to bolster its health ambitions.

AI PCs, fun robots and weird healthtech: What we’re looking forward to at CES 2024 – 1:07

Samsung announces Odyssey 240hz OLED gaming monitors ahead of CES – 22:18

Dell unveils new line of XPS laptops – 23:23

GE’s indoor smoker brings (smokeless) BBQ inside – 27:08

Engadget’s Best and Worst of 2023 lists – 33:42

Samsung’s first Unpacked of 2024 scheduled for January 17 – 50:29

13-year-old becomes the first (recorded) person to reach the NES Tetris kill screen – 52:37

Pop culture picks – 57:26

Right as we’re heading into Christmas, Apple has been forced to stop sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 in the US, due to an ongoing patent dispute with Masimo over pulse oximeters. To break down what’s going on, Devindra and Ben chat with Christina Farr, a health tech investor at OMERS Ventures and author of the newsletter Second Opinion. It turns out Apple has made a habit of tempting people away from competing companies, and that includes Masimo’s former chief medical officer. Did Apple really steal trade secrets? Or does it just look very guilty since it had the means and motive to copy Masimo’s technology?

Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales ban chat with Chrissy Farr – 1:49

Generative image model LAION-5B has over 1000 CSAM images in its dataset – 20:07

PS5 outsold Xbox 3 to 1 in 2023, lifetime PS5 sales hit 50 million – 24:00

Hackers release footage from Insomniac’s Wolverine after 1.67TB data breach – 34:35

Working on – 37:24

Pop culture picks – 38:07

So long E3, we knew you weren’t long for this world. This week, Cherlynn and Devindra are joined by Engadget Senior Editor Jessica Conditt to talk about the death of E3 and what it means for the gaming industry. We also explore some of the highlights (and low points) of last week’s Game Awards, which couldn’t quite balance celebrating video games and functioning as a marketing tool. We’re particularly excited for Light No Fire, the next ambitious game from the folks behind No Man’s Sky, as well as Arkane Lyon’s Blade.

We mourn E3 and break down everything announced at the Game Awards with Jess Conditt – 00:40

Beeper Mini, Sunbird, and the endless quest to spoof iMessage – 37:57

Apple ads theft protection in iOS 17.2 beta – 54:12

EU set to hand Apple a huge loss in its legal fight with Spotify – 58:04

Google loses antitrust trial against Epic games – 59:30

Executives fired after Sports Illustrated tries to publish generative AI articles (with fake writers behind them) – 1:06:32

Netflix engagement report reveals its most popular shows and movies of the first half of 2023 – 1:07:23

Working on – 1:09:25

Pop culture picks – 1:10:24