Samsung’s S25 Ultra and the end of the flagship phone
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Welcome to the Verge cast, the flagship podcast of minor smartphone camera upgrades. I'm your friend David Pierce, and I am sitting here once again, repacking my travel electronics bag. I've been traveling a bunch. I've had a lot of like 36 hour trips recently, which is a weird and sort of unique packing challenge, but I've gotten very good. I can do the whole thing in a backpack now, even if I have to bring a camera.

And the trick, the key for me has been that I turned this whole gigantic bag full of cables and other assorted crap into two things. I bought these things from Amazon. They're these retractable USB cables.

I got one that's six feet long and black and one that's blue and three feet long. And these are now the only USB cables I carry with me anywhere. I can plug into walls. I can plug into other devices. I can plug them into almost everything. This thing where everything is USB-C is great. Like to be clear, I don't care how you feel about the EU. I don't care how you feel about like Apple wanting to do lightning. It's better that there's one port for everything. And I'm finally to the point where actually other than my AirPods, which I haven't upgraded in a long time,

Every gadget I own is USB-C and it's fabulous. So now instead of a giant bag, I just have this and it has made everything a whole lot easier. I'll link these in the show notes. They're on Amazon. I don't know if there's any like specific reason to buy this brand over any other, but

They're great. Anyway, we are not here to talk about USB cables, although we're a little bit here to talk about USB cables on every single episode of this show. Today, we're going to do two things on the show. First, we're going to talk about the Galaxy S25 and all of the phones coming up this year, what we think is going to happen in...

Maybe not the most interesting year ever in smartphones, but in a year where a lot of smartphone companies are going to make the case that your phone can be different and new because of AI. So we're going to get into that. We're also going to talk about China. With all of this stuff happening with TikTok and Red Note and DeepSeek, this question of how we as internet users should think about China and the Chinese government and apps that come from China and products that come from China...

It's just complicated. And we're going to try to sort through it with somebody who actually knows what they're talking about. We also have a question from the Vergecast hotline. Lots of fun stuff to get to. This is a particularly fun hotline question. I feel like I say that a lot, but I really enjoyed this one because it made me think about a gadget I haven't thought about in a long time. All that is coming up in just a sec. But first, I'm just going to... Do you see how fun this looks? It's a long cable. And you pull and it goes back in.

This is what the VergeCast is here for. Retractable USB-C cables. This is the dream. This is the VergeCast. We'll be right back.

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All right, we're back. Let's talk about some gadgets. So last week, Samsung announced the Galaxy S25 lineup. There's the S25, the S25+, the S25 Ultra.

By and large, I think these phones are not the most interesting things that have ever been launched, but they're going to be very popular and they are the first kind of big mainstream, lots of people are going to buy them phones that we've seen this year.

Which makes it a fun moment to, I think, look at the rest of the year ahead. We know pretty much what we're going to get. We're going to get new pixels. We're going to get new iPhones. We're going to get more foldables. We're going to get more flippables. We're going to have a lot of new ideas about what a smartphone should do and how AI should figure in. And so I figured Allison Johnson and I should just get into what we think 2025 is going to look like and maybe a little bit what we're hoping for from smartphones today.

in the year to come. So let's talk S25. Let's talk 2025. Let's get into it.

Allison Johnson. Hello. Hello. It's phone time again. It's January 31st as we're recording this and somehow it's already phone time. It's phone season, baby. This is just the rest of your year now. Oh, don't say that. You got two weeks between CES and right now and now it's just phones forever. Phones for the rest of time. So, okay. So, because it's January, I kind of want to do two things. I want to talk about your review of the Samsung S25 Ultra. Uh,

A phone I find both deeply boring and thoroughly fascinating. And I want to peel that apart a little bit. And then I want to look ahead to the year to come a little bit. I think it's going to be a really interesting year of phones. And I just want to talk about that a little bit. But let's start with the S25. You've reviewed the thing. You tried it.

I would not say, based on the little bit I've heard about your review, you seem wildly enthusiastic about this phone. Is that fair to say? Yeah, that's fair. And I've been using the S25 Ultra first for the past week.

Yeah, it's complicated. It's like, it is a great phone. It's a very good phone. It's been a good phone, you know, for the past couple of generations. But it just feels like Samsung is kind of losing the plot on like,

They call this phone the Ultra. Like, it should be everything you could ever want from a phone. And it kind of is, but it feels like the past couple years they've just been taking away little things of like, it used to have the 10x dedicated zoom and then they're like, well, people didn't really use it that much so we do a 5x zoom.

You're like, fine. And then this time around, they're like, we took away the Bluetooth and the stylus and you can't do the little magic wand things anymore because no one was doing them. And it's like, fine, I guess I can. I'm not going to miss them. But then you end up with like, what have they been adding? And it's just kind of like stalled out. I feel like we've got all these AI features and

which are a real mixed bag still, and they're on every other phone. They're on all the Samsung phones. They're on older Samsung phones. They're on Android phones. So I'm just sort of sitting here like, this is a great phone, sure, but what makes it so special? I don't know. So I'm of two minds about all of this, which is part of what I want to talk through with you. I think on the one hand...

The thing that Samsung is describing where it's like, let's take all the confusing and complicated stuff out and just give you a phone that is good and is full of things that people like to do. I think it's good, right? Like it's a thing we ask for in product design all the time. Like stop shipping weird shit and just make a good phone that does things people like. I think it's like a not wrong path. But then on the other hand, I do feel like either...

Samsung is, like you said, kind of losing the plot and running out of ideas. Or this is just a sign that there is absolutely nothing left to do in smartphones. And that maybe our phones are what they are. And they have hit laptop territory of like, we pretty much know how this is supposed to go. The end. And then I think if you're Samsung, continuing to sell a phone that you call the Ultra...

just feels bonkers. Like the more I think about your review and your experience, the less I even understand why this phone exists. Because like you're saying, this is supposed to be the one that does all the things. And it's supposed to be the place where Samsung tests its weirdest ideas. And I kind of love Samsung for that.

And for years they were like, oh, most people don't want a stylus, but some people do. And so we make a note and it's going to blow up on a plane. But like they did that for people. And there's something about that that I actually really appreciate about Samsung that they're like, this is this is the one where we just said yes to everything. Right.

And now that it's not that, I'm not super clear on what it even is anymore. Yeah. And it's like, I'm generally of the mind that phones are boring now and that's okay. It's like we've just kind of landed on what a phone is shaped like and what it does. We're not doing a bunch of wacky things anymore with cameras that pop up or little things that flip around anymore.

You know, bless LG. Those were fun days, though. Yeah. I miss those times. They were fun. What was the LG one that the screen, like, turned 90 degrees? I think that was the Wing. The Wing! I wish that had been successful. You know, LG was just that, too. I don't think any person on Earth bought that phone, but I loved that it existed. Yeah. Bless them. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like we just landed on the basic idea of what a phone is shaped like, what it does, and it's fine. And people, we use it for so many things in our lives, you don't want to have to learn a bunch of different stuff every time you buy a new phone. So I think that's okay. But yeah, I think the problem comes when Samsung is like, here is the ultra phone, and it costs...

And you definitely should pay that much money for it. And you're like, okay, what do I get? And it's like, well, you know, you get a 5X zoom, but you could get that on a Pixel phone. You get a little stylus that like used to do some special stuff and it doesn't now like work.

I don't know. Like, give us something. Like, do something. Make it a little bigger and double the battery life. I don't know, you know. I'm sure it's that easy, you know, designing engineering phones. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like there's something. Like, there has to be something. And Samsung is just kind of, like, stalled out. I know. I do think... I'm glad you mentioned the battery life because I was thinking about it. And I'm like, okay, what would work as Ultra for me? And it's like...

twice as thick, twice the battery would do it. Right. I think, I think you could, you could feasibly be like, this phone is like a thick boy with two C's, uh,

But it lasts for five days. And I actually, I think that is like an incredibly interesting idea about a smartphone. Yeah. Then on the flip side, I think the other one they could have done is really gone after durability. And like Motorola, I feel like was really the last company to take a big swing at like, we are going to make a phone that you can't break. And it didn't,

It didn't really work, but I think that's more for like Motorola reasons than it being a good idea reasons. And so I think if I'm Samsung, like I would have been interested to see if Samsung had poked at either of those two and been like, is this is this a thing people upgrade for? Because I think it is, but we have no evidence for it because no one has ever really tested it. Like, I think if I could say to somebody, here's a phone that will last you forever.

from Monday to Thursday reliably. Or here is a phone that you slippery-handed goofus, you can't even break. Right. That works. That is the most interesting new idea about a smartphone I've heard in a very long time. And I wish Samsung had picked something like that to do here. Yeah. I feel like we're going to end up with the fold, the Z Fold in the Ultra Merge into here is the ultimate smartphone

phone that does other things and it's like cut somehow comes with a stylus and folds in half. And like if they upgraded the cameras on the fold, like that would be an ultra phone, I think. Yeah. If such a thing exists. But yeah, as far as things that people actually want in their lives, like battery life would be an easy one. Yeah, I totally agree. So the two things I'm particularly curious about on the S5

the S25 Ultra in particular, but kind of the S25 line in general is, as ever, the AI and the cameras. Brand new-ish version of Gemini shipping first on this device is supposed to be the like multi-step, multi-app action thing, supposed to be kind of the next AI experience on your phone. You've gotten to test it. How'd it go?

Good and bad. So I'll start with the good. I finally did the thing where it's like you have something on your screen and you want to put it on your calendar. And that has just not been a thing that Gemini or like any other technology in the world can do, apparently. But it finally...

Finally happened. You like summon Gemini, which is now the default assistant on Samsung phones. Which we agree is like an extremely good upgrade, right? That is the correct. Okay. It should be this way. Bixby is like hanging around in the settings menu, like doing some stuff. And that's fine. Like that's where Bixby belongs. I don't want to kill Bixby. I just don't want to like think about Bixby very often. Bixby can just be hanging out. Yeah. Yeah. I had something on my screen. I summoned Gemini.

And you get a little chip that's like, ask about the screen or get help with the screen. And I was like, add this to my calendar. And it frigging did it. And it was like the best thing. It's like, finally, this is all I've been wanting. But it kind of falls apart in other ways when you're like...

I'm into Sudoku now. I'm in my Sudoku era. And I was asking Gemini for some Sudoku solving. I was like, find some videos on YouTube to help me learn Sudokus and add them to a note. And it can do that. It follows instructions. It's like, okay. And it goes and gets some videos and then opens a note app. It's like,

That is all cool to see that happening, but what it created in the Notes app

was just a list of video headlines with no link. I did the same thing. I tried it when it first came out just on Gemini Web. I did the same thing. I forget. It was like GPU explainers. And it pulled five different Google Keep notes that were just the title of the video and nothing else. I was like, what are we accomplishing here? I know. I was even like,

hyperlinks to the videos and it did not do that either. It's rough. Yeah. I have so many examples of just like

You guys talked about last week, too, on the Friday Verge cast of like, when you're fighting with the tool, you're just done. Like, I had to fight with Gemini so many times that I was like, I don't care that I can, you know, take this detail and have it email my husband or whatever. Like, I can't convince it that I'm leaving, that my flight leaves from San Francisco and not San Jose. It was like, oh, my God.

with me for five minutes about this. And there's so many things in all of that that it feels very obvious that Gemini should be able to do it. And, like, I remember back when Siri could tell you some sports scores but not other sports scores. And there's a thing about that that just feels broken because it's like, well, if you know the football scores, why don't you know the baseball scores? And I forget which order it was, but there's just something about that that is like, okay, this thing doesn't...

And I don't I should not have to understand which specific like feature flags have been turned on. It just doesn't feel like it works. And I think in reading your review of the experience you had of asking when someone's flight was landing was one of those where I was like this so obviously should work that it is just infuriating that it doesn't. Yeah. And it's one of those things that's like, I know I can go to Google and just type in like

Alaska Airlines flight Detroit to Seattle when does it land and it's like boom gonna be there Gemini does this whole dance of like oh I don't know I'm a large language model and I'm yelling at it to Google it I'm like I'm not gonna use this tool yeah anymore it's like you're Google like if at the very least

It would just fall back on a Google search. Yeah, exactly. Like the thing that Siri does that sucks is it's like, here's what I found on the web, but it's like always wrong. But like Google is Google. Like I know just, just be like, oh, I don't know. But here's a Google search for all the words that you just said. Even that we would be somewhere. Yep. But yeah, but it can't. Okay. Yeah. I feel like this is, this just continues to be the Gemini experience. Like the thing with the, the dates and the scream is like amazing. And there are just enough moments like that for me with, um,

Even things like visual intelligence and a lot of these tools are getting good at that kind of thing where it's like, I'm like, here's a list of stuff. Can you add everything on this piece of paper to my grocery list? And like, it works and it feels like magic.

But then for every one of those, I have found three that it's like, this is actually easier than the thing that you did that works and it doesn't work. Yeah. And I can't figure out why. And it just makes me want to use the tool less and less. I know. Yeah. It feels like it does a good job when it has very specific parameters where like on the Ultra, it does a good job with like note summarization. I just was like, yeah.

My kid was sick and I was trying to type out that note you make for yourself before you go to the pediatrician to be like, here's when symptoms started, blah, blah, blah, fevers. And it was all just kind of like, blah. And I used the summer, the like rewrite tool to like make it make sense. Oh, that's neat. And it did great. And it picked up on the fact that it was like a child's illness progression. And it kind of like gave it a title like that.

I was like, this is good. This is fine. You know, I wasn't asking it to go ask three other apps to do anything. But, you know, we're getting the handle on stuff like that. Yeah, that's something. I'll take that. So the other one on the S25 Ultra is the camera. And I think Samsung made, as far as I understand it, two cameras.

on the camera. It got rid of the 10X zoom and it added a 50 megapixel ultra wide lens. My immediate read of that is I'm very into one of those changes and I am very unhappy about the other one. But what's your experience? Yeah, the 10X was actually last year. So the S24 Ultra is when they did the swap. Oh, okay. Yeah. And they added the 5X and they're like, well, you can just do, you know,

you know, digital zoom, remote Xeic zoom to 10X. Which is not correct. It's called cropping. Digital zoom is called cropping. Anyone who says otherwise is selling you something. Cropping without upscaling, which is something. Sure. Yeah. But I do think, so I bring this up in part because I, for the first time this year, went from an iPhone Pro to an iPhone. And so I lost the 5X zoom and I miss it.

terribly. Yeah. And I am consistently surprised at how often I miss the 5X Zoom. And so I guess this is to some extent now a year old question, but do you miss the 10X or does the 5X feel like it does the job for you? I miss it because I'm I'm

I'm a sicko and I can see the difference. Like there's just, I think the difference is that you just amplify the fact that you're using crappy little lens and you can see some of the aberrations from the lens more than you could see it with the 10X. This is my theory. I can see a slight difference. Does this matter to most people? Like, no, probably not at all.

Yeah, I mean, I guess from Samsung's perspective where it's like, okay, we can either add this very expensive thing that makes the phone bigger and all that stuff, or we can get rid of it and people can pinch with their fingers if they really want to.

I guess I get that trade, but I absolutely unequivocally do not buy that they are the same thing. And they aren't. And Samsung is lying and should feel bad about itself. But tell me about the ultrawide because this seems like it's a good trade. Yeah. Yeah. They just kind of upgraded it from a...

I believe a 12 megapixel to a 50 megapixel now. It's got a wider aperture, so it's an f1.9. Oh, I like that. Yeah. So does that in theory mean that with a 50 megapixel ultra wide, you could shoot a lot more often in ultra wide and then just crop as you need to? Like that's actually an interesting use case of like you just shoot the most you can and then...

because you have more pixels to play with. But then like the, I don't know, the ultrawides always get a little fish eye for me. So maybe that's not a perfect solution. Yeah, I think you still get a little bit of that in even like, even in kind of like dim light, the main camera is so much better for like, yeah, getting freezing action and all that. But the ultrawide, like, you know, apples to apples with the previous ultrawide, it definitely is better in low light. It can, it'll complete

like a night mode exposure, like a little quicker than the previous one. There's a little more detail. It's like just kind of like check, check, check all the things you would expect from like a more modern, nice pixel bin sensor. So it's like, yeah, good.

Yeah, I'll take that. Okay, so the S25 Ultra, and I think we'll reserve judgment in case one of the other S25s blows your mind, but I think the story of these is going to be they're very good phones. If you're in the market for a Galaxy phone, these are the best ones. But there's nothing here that's going to, like,

blow your socks off or change your life forever. What I'm wondering is, is that just the story of 2025? Like, is this what we're in for? Because the thing that worries me is that this is supposed to be the year that AI does everything for all of our phones forever. And I think we can say with pretty strong confidence that that's not this year. It might happen someday. I'm not willing to rule out that maybe someday AI will get very good. I think it's very unlikely that it's going to happen this year. So what else are we in for this year?

I think, yeah, it's going to be a lot of, I think we're just in this, this like headspace of, we're so focused on the hardware launches in a phone space.

It does X, Y, and Z new things. And then the next year, new phone, you know. And we're in such a different space now of like the hardware is just the less interesting thing almost. And it's about the software updates that are happening throughout the year. And like...

And Samsung especially is like, they put a lot of the AI and the software in previous phones. So it's even less important if you have an S24 or an S25, presumably. So I think that's just going to be an adjustment for all of us and just kind of how we think about these things and even how we cover them and use them. Because it's going to be a lot more like

What does this phone do six months later that it didn't do, you know, when it came out? So...

Seeing things like Gemini getting better at a somewhat slow rate, but being able to do more for us and trying those things out is going to be my focus for the year, honestly. But in the other corner is the weird slim phone thing, which is like...

Okay. Like we, we've reached a conclusion, I guess. And in one side, it's like the phone is here is phones look like this. And then they've kind of, they're kind of doing a lateral move of like, what if a phone was really slim? Yeah. I'm, I'm into it, honestly. Like any kind of new idea about what a phone should look like. I'm psyched about right now. Uh,

Where's your head on foldables and flippables coming into this year? I mean, Samsung kind of teased the tri-fold thing. I think in that we saw like a outline and that's about all we saw. But, you know, we've been on the show for a while talking about is this the time these things are going to come mainstream? And I do think it's possible to gin up some real excitement about one of those this year, specifically because there is not a ton of like

wild other cool stuff coming that's going to blow people's minds. Like Apple intelligence is not going to convince the hundreds of millions of people to run out and get new iPhones. But like, so does that mean there is potential for Google or Samsung or somebody to like do the flip phone thing well enough to pull people in? Like, could this be the year that these things start to really take off? Or am I just wishful thinking?

I don't know. I feel like I've kind of said that the past three years where I'm like, you know, I don't know. This could be the year. And I just have so many like interactions with people when I'm carrying a folding phone or one of the flip phones. So many people will be like, oh, that's that, you know, Samsung phone or Google phone. They're like, I almost bought that. But then I just got the whatever, like regular slab phone. I think there's like, there's interest in

But there's still like a real hesitation from people because I kind of chalk it up to the durability. I know someone who has like the third generation Samsung Flip.

And that thing doesn't look great. Like the inner screen is all like peeled and gross. I'm like, girl, you need to trade that in. But yeah, that's the kind of thing I'm like, yeah, if I'm like your phone just has to take so much abuse throughout the day. And I think there's a certain person who's willing to be like, yeah, I want all the benefits of this. And I'm willing to like accept the risks of that.

the inner screen might do something wonky. I don't know how they, how the manufacturers like really address that. I think they've been pushing forward as much as they can with the waterproofing, dustproofing. Is that even possible? Like with the hinge, you know, I think they mitigate it as much as they can. And they're kind of like,

been beefing up their repair programs. Like Samsung, if you buy their Care Plus plan, they'll just repair the inner screen as many times as you want for free. That's cool. For not extra money. But never a great sign that that's a thing they have to offer. I know, yeah. Yeah, they weren't exactly shouting that from the rooftops either. Ask a few questions. I will say the Z Flip 6...

has appeared in the wild around me more than I would have expected. And I think part of it is like, I notice everyone because it's so different looking. Yeah. Uh,

But they're out there. Like, I saw one in a coffee shop this morning. It's just a person sitting there eating a bacon, egg, and cheese, and they had a flip phone on the table. Oh, wow. And I was just like, let's go. I love that. They were almost certainly an Amazon employee because I was like at HQ2 at this coffee shop. Okay. So make of that what you will. But I think if it's going to be anything this year, there might be a folding phone that gets closer. Mm-hmm.

I have no particular reason to bet on that, but it feels like that is pushing towards being the right size and shape faster than the foldable phones are. And I say that, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, stupid name, kicks ass. Like, it's a great phone. There's so many good things about it. But the problem with those is they're still $1,800. And so I wouldn't be shocked to see Samsung come out

And like try to knock that price down substantially. Yeah. But also the fact that these phones now didn't go down substantially doesn't necessarily give me great faith that that's going to come. I know. And they've been so stagnant on the fold. It's like every year for the past three years has been like, well...

it's like two millimeters wider. Right. They're just very slowly pulling at the edges of the thing. They're just stretching it a little bit. I don't know. That's the only thing that's making me pessimistic about the foldables, particularly Samsung's foldables. I haven't seen it. I don't know. Is there really like a fire there to go out and capture the...

The market for it? Or are they just kind of like, I don't know, people aren't buying these things like we thought they would? It sure seems like it's that. But I think there is a chicken and egg thing going on there. Last question, and then I'll let you go. If there was going to be one phone company that shocks us this year, does something no one would have expected, who would you bet it's going to be?

I feel like, wow, I feel like the wild card is nothing. That's what I was going to say, too. Yeah, okay. Because they've been kind of, like, not on the radar for a minute. And I'm like, what might they be doing? I feel like it's a company with, like, enough interesting ideas and enough kind of, like,

they've established connections and supply chains. And I think maybe they're going to be in a place to like flex a little bit. I would be really interested. I don't have any specific idea of what that could be. It just sort of feels like, yeah, they could do something. Yeah. Yeah. Carl Pei, Nothing's CEO, has always said that they did not exist to be a phone company. And it does seem like

And they're not like a real competitor in this space yet next to, you know, Apple and Samsung. But like you said, they're established. Like that company has proven they can do the thing. And I kind of hope this is the year that they're like, okay, here are our actual ideas. I'm with you. I think if anybody's going to do it in a way that is like cool and exciting, I would bet on nothing. I have high hopes on that one. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Allison, thank you as always. There's going to be so many more folks. It's MWC soon. Are you going to MWC? Yeah. Yeah. I am booked. I'm ready for some jamón and phones. That is the one and only thing I miss about MWC is the jamón. It's a good, good thing. Well, we're going to have to hang while you're in Barcelona. But thank you as always. It's great to see you. All right. Thank you. All right. We got to take a break and then we're going to come back and talk about China. We'll be right back.

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All right, we're back. So one of the questions that has been swirling really in the last few weeks, but also over the last few years, is this question about how we should think about China's role on the Internet.

As we've talked about the TikTok ban, we've talked kind of ad nauseum about this idea of the Chinese government being able to get our personal data from TikTok and do something with it. Then people left TikTok and went to Red Note, which is an app that is much more straightforwardly connected to China. There have been all these questions about DeepSeek's connection to China and how we should think about using an AI model from China or an AI model from a company from China to

This question of what we should be thinking about China, not like big macro politically, but like as people on the Internet.

is a thing that I have struggled with and would love to have somebody just talk me through. So that's what we're going to try and do in the next little while here. I asked Cooper Quinton, who's a senior staff technologist at the EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, to come on and just walk me through how he thinks about all of this. Cooper does things like help activists think about security training, and he works with nonprofits and vulnerable populations, all thinking about

how to operate online in a safe and productive and private and useful way. And he's also somebody who's been thinking about China specifically a lot for a long time. And he is just going to walk me through how we're supposed to think about all of this, how it should weigh on our decisions about what we use and what data we reveal and whether we want TikTok to be banned or sold or whatever.

We're just going to try to make sense of it all. So let's just dive in. Cooper, welcome to the show. So I guess maybe the easiest place to start is like, let's just lay the land a little bit in terms of like, what are you thinking about and researching and talking to folks about right now as it pertains to China in particular, but also just kind of the internet more broadly? Like, what's your angle on this space right now? So for me, there's two topics that I'm interested in and that I think both come up when we're talking about this.

One is surveillance capitalism and this sort of industry of data brokers and selling your data and like all of this industry that the internet has really been built on. Right. And how your data flows and like whether you have control of it and what can be done with that. Right. And there's some really interesting things in there like.

law enforcement buying access to that data so that they don't have to deal with pesky things like warrants, right? So that's all really interesting to me. The other thing that I've studied pretty extensively in my time at EFF is malware and spyware. Specifically, the types of spyware that are used to spy on activists, journalists, human rights defenders,

And, you know, people who are trying to exercise free expression and trying to, you know, improve their lives and fight against, you know, their governments or governments, you know, of countries which they used to be a part of oftentimes, right? Like oftentimes these are people who have left their countries for fear of repression and are still doing the work of, you know, fighting against corruption in the country that they left. Yeah.

And so in the conversations around TikTok and around Redbook and around DeepSeek, I see echoes of all of these topics. Interesting. How so? What echoes are you seeing right now? To go back a little bit, right? Like, I think that the reaction to TikTok going away and people starting to join Little Redbook, right?

is really funny. The fact that Red Note is actually technically called Little Red Book is one of my favorite discoveries of 2025. Enjoyed that to no end. It is the funniest and most, like, direct beyond parody thing we could have possibly done in that moment. Should we break that down? Because I think it's really interesting. Sure, please. Little Red Book is...

Mao's Little Red Book. This was one of the main tracts of Maoism that was given out to people in revolutionary China. This is

this is like the, you know, it'd be, it'd be like calling an American social network, the Federalist Papers or something like that. Right. Like it's so on the nose, right? Like this is, you know, this, this is an application of the CCP, right? Like absolutely 100%. We're not, you know, we're not pretending otherwise. Right. But the, the reaction to me was so funny. It's such a, like,

Like a prototypical reaction of like a 13-year-old, right? To like, well, you know, we're going to have to ban TikTok because we don't want your data going to China. And there's some serious privacy issues and national security issues here. And people's reaction was, oh, you don't want me to like China, huh?

You don't want me to like China? Guess what? I love China. I'm going to give China all my data. I am mailing a copy of my birth certificate to Xi Jinping right now. And I saw videos of people doing it, pretending to put data in an envelope and mail it to the Chinese government. And it's a really funny reaction because people are like, yeah, I know China.

I know that they're taking all my data. I don't care. Why should I care? You took all my data anyway. U.S. companies took all my data. Meta took all my data, right? Twitter took all my data. The U.S. government has all my data and is constantly being leaked. So why do I care if China has it? And in fact, because you don't like that, it makes me want to do it even more.

Right. And that's it's so interesting to me. I'm forever somewhat compelled by that argument. Like, I think it's it's so easy in this time that we live in to fall into that particular brand of nihilism, which is like, look, if if China wants to know information about me, China has so many ways that are more efficient than developing a social network that like I struggle with this personally of like how much is.

is the A, how much of this is sort of real threat versus like potential, maybe possible several steps down the road threat. And what does it mean in a practical sense that someone in the Chinese government can theoretically find out what I watch on TikTok? Like, who cares? Right. Like, I sort of intellectually know that that's an argument that will lead only to ruin and trouble. But I kind of understand how people land there.

It's, yeah, definitely. I mean, like, it is a form of privacy nihilism, right? Yeah. At the end of the day. Absolutely. But, like, it's understandable that people have come to privacy nihilism, right? Like, we don't have anything that anybody can do in, like, a, you know, like, in terms of laws, in terms of,

Like there are no legal protections for people's data, right? Zero. Unless you happen to live in California, right? Where there's like some okay privacy laws, right? That's still like, don't, don't seem to prevent this data from ending up in the hands of these corporations. It just means that you can go request your data and remove your data, which is better than nothing. But like people, I think it's, it's understandable why people end up with this sort of privacy nihilism, right? Like,

Because we've just, like, we've accepted as a... Maybe accepted isn't the right word, but, like, we have... As a society, this is where we're at, right? Like, you will give up your data in exchange for some kind of crappy services from Facebook. And, like, there's nothing you can do about it because if you want to participate in society, you have to be on these kind of crappy services. So...

How do you understand the difference between what it means to do that to a company like Google or Meta and doing that with a country or a government like the Chinese Communist Party? Like, are those meaningfully different things? I think we have a hard time talking about what China is and what that threat looks like and why that is dangerous in a way that having it in Google servers is.

isn't or is differently dangerous? Like, how do you think through the difference there? I always say it depends on your threat model, right? Like, if you have family in China, if you have friends in China, right? Like, or if you, I don't know, work in national security, right? Or if your work is like related to something that has historically been a target of Chinese espionage, right? Then that's one very specific threat model, right? Where like,

the CCP actually should be in your threat model, right? Like you don't want to search for Taiwan and have that or Tiananmen Square and have that come back to investigation of your family in China, right?

And like, you know, if you're in an industry that is the target of Chinese espionage, right, like this information that you give could be used for, you know, phishing or, you know, other sort of targeted, more targeted espionage attacks, right? Right. Phishing is a really interesting one, by the way. I think I've heard a couple of folks mention that in this context in a way that I have actually found really instructive because that's a good example of

things you know about what I watch on TikTok become ways in which to appear to be someone I know or have information about me that you can then use to get other more dangerous information about me. And I think like that to me is because it's like if I'm not taking a picture of my bank account information and posting it on TikTok, like

the sort of direct threat there is lesser, but there's this data you can use to understand me better, which you can use to get other information out of me. It's like, that's the kind of step I think people often fail to understand. But it's still hard for me, though, to see actually a meaningful difference, right? Like, because this data already exists anyway, right? Meta has this data. Google has this data, right? And so do a dozen data brokers, right? Like, you can...

you know, journalists keep showing that, that you can get people's location in near real time, just from the advertising bid stream, which is where like when you are using an app or whatever, and ads are showing up,

though people are bidding in real time on who gets to sell you ads. And that data is like, and there's data in there about like your demographics, how old you are, what kind of phone you have, what your interests are. There's data about your location, right? Like all of this data is just flowing around the internet all the time. And there's no reason that the CCP can't just get that data from

from that source, right? Like, there's no reason that they can't get it by taking out ads in Meta, right? Like, there's no reason they can't create a US cutout and make a partnership with Meta or with Google to get this data. So, like, they can get it directly from, you know, Little Red Book or, you know, possibly from TikTok.

there are easier ways to get the data actually, right? Like the target audience for the Redbook was not like data collection of Americans, right? Like this was like a pinch kind of Pinterest like application, like a kind of an intersection between like Pinterest and TikTok, right? That was primarily targeted at like people in women in China, right?

And people, like, talking to relatives or whatever in China, right? Like, this was targeted at Chinese people in China, right? So, like, there are other ways to get this data. And it's all, like, none of it is good, to be clear. I was going to say, you sound an awful lot like a privacy nihilist. Right. No. Yeah. It's so easy to go into privacy nihilism talking about this, right? But, like...

And I think people are correctly frustrated with Silicon Valley oligarchs and like U.S. surveillance capitalism, right? It's a bad industry that should not exist, right? Like this is not a good thing.

I don't think that trading in that for CCP surveillance is going to make anyone's lives meaningfully better, right? Like, they are both bad. Two things can be bad, right? They are both bad in different ways. And in a lot of the same ways, right? Like, in the end, the most useful...

like for 99% of people, the most lucrative use of this data is going to, for the CCP, is going to be to sell it and sell advertisements off it the same way that it is for Silicon Valley, right? Like surveillance capitalism cuts both ways for both, you know, for both organizations, right? So I guess if the way of thinking about it is it's definitely not a better choice to give that data to the CCP instead of to Google

Google or Meta. Is it a substantially worse choice to do that? Again, I think we should we should carve out the people who have, like you're saying, the sort of obvious threat models. I think there's a set of people who should think about all of this like minute to minute and day to day more carefully. And right. We can talk about those people. But I think for for the people who ask you questions like who cares, I have nothing to hide.

Is it that different a trade? I really don't think that it is. Like, I don't see any good argument that it's that different of a trade, right? Like, and what we, what we need, and maybe I'm, stop me if I'm jumping the gun here, but like,

We need desperately federal privacy law. We desperately need federal laws that let us control our data, that let us stop our data from being sold, that let us actually have meaningful opt-in consent into who we give our data to and understanding of what's being done with that data and a private right of action to sue when companies misuse our data or take our data without our consent.

This would go a long way to solving the problem of the CCP stealing people's data. This would go a long way to solving the problem of Silicon Valley surveillance capitalism and Meta and Google stealing people's data, right? This would go a long way to solving the problem of the constant background noise of data breaches, right? And data being breached and then used in phishing campaigns and everything else, right? Data breaches are another angle. Like, one could argue that

That, like, you know, Google and Meta have pretty good security teams and, like, your data is safer from a data breach with them than it is in, you know, in the hands of some of these Chinese apps, right? But I don't know that that's, I don't think that that's a strong argument because data breaches still happen all the time in the U.S., right?

Right. Like there's all sorts of data breaches every day. And, you know, even if even if Google and Meta themselves aren't getting breached yet. And I think, you know, on a long enough timeline, the probability approach is 100 percent that there will be a data breach from one of these companies. Right. But like even if those haven't been data breached yet, they still have that data and they still sell it in the form of ad targeting.

Right. So like it doesn't need to be breached when you can just buy it. Right. So is is it possible then that one reason to think about keeping this data in the United States is that, you know, in theory, we live in a democracy that can, in theory, pass laws and that if we are able to regulate this, at least we can like retroactively make some of this stuff better in a way that whatever you're dumping onto Red Note is is gone and lost and there's nothing you can do about it.

I feel like I just said like 11 glass half full things in a row to get to that point. But is that at least an argument that sort of makes sense? I think it's a very optimistic argument. Yeah, I would agree. Listen, I said theoretically a bunch of times. But yeah, I mean, you know, certainly if we one day have a functioning Congress and, you know, certainly if we were ever to get any sort of

federal privacy law, right? Domestic privacy law. So yeah, it is possible that that could apply to retroactively gather data about you. And that is, I guess that is one reason. It's not, I mean, I think you yourself would admit it's not the most compelling reason. No, it's not. Yeah. There's another compelling reason not to have any of these apps on your phone, which is just that like, and the compelling reason is who do you trust to run code on your phone, right?

Like, who do you trust to have control of your phone? And I think a lot of people will say, I don't care if Meta or the CCP has control of my phone, right? As a form of, again, privacy nihilism. I don't know. I think each person needs to do a little bit of threat modeling and think about that, right? Like, for whatever it's worth, Google and Facebook have pretty good

security engineering, right? And like people have looked at these apps where I was like, so these other apps don't have as good a security engineering necessarily, right? So like the possibility that you'll be putting an app on your phone, which is poorly programmed and is not using things like HTTPS, is not using, you know, is not using other kind of standard technologies and is therefore like leaking your data and causing, you know, potential security issues, right?

Right? Like, that is a thing that I think people should consider. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Can you walk me through how you think about kind of the average person's threat modeling? I mean, you mentioned kind of that first rung of people who have some direct threat in some, like, sort of the one degree removed from, like, a real possible threat. But I think that's a big group of people. I think that's a bigger group of people than we often give it credit for. But that's not...

And I think there are lots of people who are not even sure how to think about those threat models. Like, how do you talk people through how to think about that stuff? Sure. Unfortunately, for a large percentage of Americans, the U.S. government is a very big...

obvious threat, right? Like anybody, anybody who is an immigrant here, right? Anybody who is a, you know, not a born citizen, but a, you know, a, on a visa or a citizen, you know, through a green card or,

Anybody who is trans, right, or gender non-binary, right, like the obvious threats from the American government, unfortunately, are much more real than any sort of perceived threats, future threats from the CCP. But like the way that I would kind of walk people through this is to

First, think about what you know, where you work, what access you have that could be interesting to other people. For example, if you work in telecom, if you work at AT&T or Verizon, or one of those phone companies, look at what just happened with Salt Typhoon. You are definitely a potential target for espionage. Anybody who works for the government is a potential target for espionage. Right?

You know, obviously people that have family there, we kind of went over that, right? Like that's a pretty obvious threat model there. I think some of the less obvious threat models are like industry, right? Like anybody in any industry can obviously be a target. Like we know that, you know, there's been espionage from...

China on like, you know, the medical or, you know, the sort of drug industry in America, right? And like aviation industry and things like that. You might also not really care about that, right? Like you might look at your situation being paid poorly in the drug industry and be like, what do I care if...

you know, if Chinese spies want to use me to get to patent documents. Fish away, friends. Right? Like, they should pay me more if they want me to care about that. And that's pretty understandable. The consequences for you could actually be pretty severe, right? Like, even if you were an unwilling participant. So I don't think it should be actually treated that cavalierly. Overall, I think that most people, like,

don't face that severe of a threat of Chinese espionage. And if you do, I don't think it's going to significantly matter whether you use TikTok or Little Red Book or not, right? The CIA existed long before the internet did, right? Espionage can be done just fine without this sort of data. This sort of data does help, for sure. So you think there are people who could do a pretty rational...

threat modeling of their own life and come out of it and say, I'm good. Let the CCP have my data. It's going to be fine. Like you think that there are people for whom that is like a reasonable, rational outcome? I don't think that that is totally reasonable. That is a rational outcome in the lens of privacy nihilism.

Right. Sure. That's like the rational outcome is I don't want anybody to have my data. Right. Like my data is mine. I want to control it. Nobody needs to know what I what I enjoy thinking about and looking at. Right. Like that's actually just not data that needs to be out there because I don't trust the CCP to handle it any more responsibly than I trust Facebook to handle it. Right. But.

For somebody who's looking at it through the lens of privacy nihilism and is saying, like, Facebook already has all my data anyway, how is it different? I think that there's a large percentage of people out there for whom a reasonable answer is there's not a meaningful difference. Yeah, that's totally fair. So given that then, why do you think kind of societally we talk about China and data privacy and security so differently than we talk about

companies like Meta and Google. And I do think there are maybe more examples than often get credit for of us talking about them the same way, right? Like, I think that the idea that these things are all collecting data, they shouldn't be and using it in ways they shouldn't be is pretty true across the board. But even now, like, the way that people have worked themselves up about the personal data being shared on TikTok and collected by the CCP, I

hit a fever pitch that I don't remember with Google or Facebook or really anything. Why do you think China is so different? I mean, I think there's a couple of reasons. One is the sort of the openness of government surveillance in China, right? Like government surveillance and like control of

is done openly in a way that makes Americans very uncomfortable. With a strong First Amendment history, right? Like, we are... I think Americans are definitely uncomfortable with, you know, any time the government says, like, you're not allowed to say these things, right? And

Anybody who's ideologically consistent, right, should say that, right? Oftentimes people are comfortable with the government truncating speech they don't like, right? Like people want to make it legal to run over protesters on highways, right? Or like to, you know, not to seem partisan here, people, you know, aren't comfortable with people talking about guns, right? But for the most part, we tend to not want the government to curtail that, right? For sure. We also...

I think as Americans, like our government surveillance kind of hidden from us, right? Like we don't, we don't really want it in your face, right? We're okay with police having license plate readers and we're okay with, you know, you know, whatever the NSA has to do, as long as it's to get the bad guys, you know, in China, the surveillance is very much more in the open, right? It's, it's, it's sort of,

targeted at everybody right and i think that that even if you could argue like surveillance in america is just as bad right or it is just as prevalent at least um i think that there's a there's a difference in how it feels to americans and then the other part of this is of course just you know good old-fashioned xenophobia right right china is scary uh

Like, you know, just all this sort of old, you know, like, well, you don't want to be like China, right? Like, this is America. This isn't China. We don't do things like that here. You don't want China to have your data, right? Like, it's just kind of like, well, that's those other guys. And like, you can trust us, but you can't trust them. Honestly, I think it's that, right? Like, I think that's a big part of it. At my most cynical, I'd say a big part of it is just being mad at

That they're not getting a cut of the data or a cut of the profits, right? Like, you're like, we are okay with Facebook collecting this data and then China buying it from Facebook or buying ad targeting or whatever from Facebook because U.S. companies are getting a cut. We're not okay with it just going straight to China. Yeah.

Right. Like that's that would be my most cynical take on it. Right. Yeah. Like we got to get our cut. That's a good take. I hadn't I hadn't heard that one. But that that rings truer than I would like it to. It does. And I hate it. It does. I don't I don't like it. But I'm going to keep hearing that in my head for a while. Let's end on a on a positive and productive note here. Yes. We want to keep people out of.

privacy nihilism. I think it is an understandable place to go, but it is a place we should all do our best to avoid going. In the absence of these kind of big structural improvements you're talking about that I think we absolutely are in agreement ought to exist, what can people do? What's a useful thing that people can do to start pushing this stuff at least a little bit in the right direction for themselves? So...

The privacy nihilism is so rampant right now. I think it's more rampant than I've ever seen it. And I'm going to say clearly and unequivocally, privacy is not dead. You can still have privacy, right? Surveillance capitalism is not an inevitability. And there are lots of things you can do, right? Getting off of meta products is a great place to start, right? Like,

You know, uninstall Instagram from your phone. Get off Facebook, right? See if this improves your life, right? There are a lot of really interesting social networks which are popping up right now, which are not based on the model of surveillance capitalism and which are not owned by tech oligarchs, right? So things like Blue Sky, things like Mastodon, I think are really interesting models for what social media is

without surveillance capitalism could look like. And doing things like looking at what apps are on your phone, right? Like, do you, like, if you can uninstall most of the apps on your phone,

And you can, right? That's a great place to start, right? Like, do I really need an app for my grocery store? No, no, I don't. And I don't need it and I don't want it, right? Like, I think pushing back on those things, right? Like, there are so many, so many places now which want us to install an app just to get basic services. And just kind of refusing to do that. I'm with the boomers on this one, man. No, I refuse to install an app to eat at a restaurant.

I refuse to install an app to shop at CVS. Yeah. I will not be doing this. I think that that's a good place to start, right? Installing ad blockers. There are some really good ad blockers out there. EFF makes one called Privacy Badger. There's another one called uBlock Origin. Those are both great ad blockers, right?

If you're a bit more technical, there's a project called PyHole that lets you set up your own sort of ad-blocking DNS on your network. So this is something you can set up on your home network to prevent a lot of the tracking that goes on. If you want to go even a little bit more down the rabbit hole, things like turning off location services on your phone unless you're using it for navigation, this is a great way to stop your location from ending up

in these sort of data broker repositories, right? There are a lot of services which will delete your data off the internet and try to scrub your data wherever possible. Things like DeleteMe, they all have pros and cons, but checking one of those out can definitely be worth it.

If you're in California doing things like requesting copies of your data from companies using the California Privacy Rights Act, the CPRA laws, right? Like this can be really interesting too, right? Request copies of your data, request to delete your data.

Yeah, there's lots of things you can do, right? And also, the biggest long-term thing you can do, because these are all band-aids, right? Like, I want to acknowledge that these are all kind of similar to telling people to, like,

turn off the lights to stop climate change, right? Sure. The privacy problem that we have is a systemic problem that's not going to be solved by individual piecemeal action. We need a systemic solution for this, right? And that is comprehensive federal privacy law. And so a good thing you can do is call your representatives, right? Call your senators, call your congressmen,

and explain to them how important this is, how important it is to you, why it's so important, right? And get them to understand that this is important. Get them to understand that this is important to their constituents, right? So that maybe one day we actually can have this systemic real solution to this problem instead of just having everybody try to solve it for themselves. But the important takeaway here

is if you give up on privacy, they win, right? These companies win if you give up on privacy. And if it was impossible to have privacy, they wouldn't spend so much money on trying to convince you that it was impossible to have privacy and that it was a great thing to give up all your data.

I like that. That's a good place to end on. You've just made me realize it's been a really long time since I did a full delete of all the apps on my phone. It's time to get rid of some apps. This is good advice. This is now my weekend project. I'm going to get rid of every app on my phone that I possibly can. And I assume that the answer to that is pretty much all of them. Yeah, I love deleting apps. It's my favorite thing. It makes me feel so good.

Cooper, thank you so much for doing this. This is helpful. I learned a ton and I'm very grateful for your time. Yeah, thank you for having me on. It was my pleasure. All right, we got to take one more break and then we're going to come back and do a question from the VergeCast hotline. We'll be right back. In the mood for something crunchy, saucy, and boneless? Try Jack's new crispy boneless wings from Jack in the Box. Get them with honey garlic sriracha or Smoke Show smoky barbecue sauce. Enjoy so much more.

Hey there, I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, a show about technology and media and the future. And this has been a tremendously busy couple of weeks for the tech industry. There's Donald Trump and his embrace by the men running the world's most powerful companies. There's TikTok and its future of the US. And there's DeepSeek, the Chinese AI engine that just shook Silicon Valley and Wall Street. I wanted to get an insider's perspective on all of that. So this week I turned to Jessica Lesson, the veteran tech journalist who runs the Information

Jessica told me why Deep Seek is so important, who she thinks might end up owning TikTok, and why some of the valley isn't just playing nice with Donald Trump, but really thinks he'll be good for them. You can hear all of that on channels wherever you listen to awesome podcasts.

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All right, we're back. Let's get to the hotline. As always, the number is 866-VERGE-11. The email is vergecasts at theverge.com. We love all your questions. Thank you again to everybody who has been emailing and calling about how you use AI in your regular day-to-day life. It's been so interesting. I have enjoyed every single one that we've gotten. Please keep all your responses coming on that and on everything else. This week, we have a question about a somewhat surprising gadget that I haven't thought about in a very long time. Let's hear it.

Hey, Vergecast. It is Rob. I might be the only power user of this device, kind of a pandemic holdover, but around the pandemic, I had children and thus was calling my parents, my kids' grandparents, quite often using the Facebook now MetaPortal. That device was kind of part of Facebook's push into hardware, and they've since deprecated it. It worked for about a year after the announcement was made, but has recently started

dying. And the main use case for us is literally just calling my parents at dinner when we're with our kids, kind of a nice hand-free FaceTime type experience. And I was wondering if you all have any recommendations for other dedicated portal calling type devices I could use for my kids and me to call my parents, their grandparents. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Thanks so much. Appreciate what y'all do. All right. Jen Toohey is here to help me. Hi, Jen. Hi, David. Did you ever have a portal?

I tested the Portal Go. I never owned one myself. I do have several friends who owned one, though, because it really did. I think it appealed to a lot of non-techie people during the pandemic. So I'm sad to hear that they're pretty much

dead and dying now though that's that's really sad it is a real bummer I bought the portal tv during the pandemic and we used it a ton it was I was so shocked at how good that thing was for like as a microphone especially like we would just sit on the couch and we would like play games with our friends over zoom which is a like insane to remember and think about all of the time that we spent doing that but like the thing kind of worked and I'm sort of bummed to hear that I frankly have not

plugged mine in in a long time, but like, I'm sad that they're going away. And I will say, I looked this up and Meta claims that it is continuing to support existing ones. So the first thing you can do is reach out to Meta. There is a, I would say, small but non-zero chance they might do something for you. But I'm curious where your head goes as far as replacement devices. I think of a couple of possibilities that we can get into, and I'm curious if there's anything that immediately comes to mind for you. Yeah.

Yeah, well, I think the most obvious alternative and probably the one I would actually have recommended to people rather than buying this in the first place, except for one reason, is an Echo Show because Amazon really has kind of perfected the Alexa calling experience as much as it has.

It does still have some rough edges, but it is very universal. Like the other person doesn't have to have an Echo Show for you to use it as a calling device. They just have to have the Alexa app on their phone. So, you know, you're not limited by hardware. And it works very well.

and the new Echo Show devices have the kind of tracking. So if you're sitting, having your kids talk to their grandparents, you know, you don't have to like make sure they're sitting right in front of the camera. And the Portal had a good, had that too. It has that kind of the, what is it? It's got a technical term.

Yeah, it's like the automatic pan and zoom that keeps you in frame, which I find sort of unnerving in a lot of cases. But for this one use case, I think is like exactly like chasing a child around is the one good use case for this technology. It is. And the Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 10 would be sort of my go-tos. The Echo Show 8 is

is the less expensive, similar size to the Portal, similar features. It doesn't sound like he used any of the other features of the Portal, but you can, it works as a photo frame. There are other things you can do with it. Obviously has the voice assistant built in. And the Echo Show,

The current one has the framing, the auto framing. And then the Echo Show 10 is actually on a robotic arm and will follow you around. So like if you're having a conversation in the kitchen, it will follow you as you go. It's an older device now and it's still quite expensive though. It's $250. So...

Okay. I mean, the portals are pretty expensive, too. So I think on that front, that's not so terrible. Like, it's definitely like $100 more than I'd like it to be, but I feel like that's still in the realm of like, if it solves this problem, so be it. Okay, I have two questions about the Echo Show, though. One is like...

convince me that Alexa calling is actually good. Because A, I used Alexa calling when it first came out and it was not good. Like, not good to the point that I kind of stopped trying. And B, I do occasionally have to use Chime, which is Amazon's, like, own video calling service. And, like, the people who make Chime think Chime sucks. Like, like...

That is reporting. They don't like it. It's bad. Everyone agrees. But you're telling me Alexa calling now is good. Yeah. I mean, is there a really good video calling service out there? I mean, maybe FaceTime. That's fair. But the problem with FaceTime is everyone has to have an Apple device. And if grandparents have an Apple device and everyone has an Apple device...

Maybe use an iPad if you don't already have one. That's a good choice. We are hearing rumors that there's going to be an iPad on an arm that will move around one day. So, you know, if you can wait, wait and see if that comes out if you're an Apple household. But, you know, you're limited with iPads to people that can use FaceTime. And Alexa calling with its universal aspect, I feel like is a good bet. And they've been revamped.

refining it and making it better over the years. You can also use your Echo Show to make phone calls too. So you can just call someone's landline or cell phone, not video calling, but it's like a phone for your home, which is kind of weird because we don't have those anymore. It is true. And there is something to the phone that is just in a place on a table that you kind of

go to when you want to, particularly for kids. It's like having them. It's one thing, like I try to hand my two-year-old my phone and he just like throws it on the ground and runs away. But there's something too. It's like, this is where the phone is and they go to it. Like that actually kind of works. For sure. And when you have young, older than you, but younger than my kids who don't have phones, but are maybe old enough to be home alone for 30 minutes,

Sure. They don't have a phone. So if something happened, you know, now you can actually use Alexa to call. They can say, call mom and call you or call 911. You know, not having landlines in our homes has kind of opened up this kind of weird gray area, especially when you have kids at home. So I feel like an Echo Show is a good solution here. If you aren't a fan of the Amazon side of things, yeah.

I think the Apple option, the iPad, is probably your best other choice. Video calling as a whole has kind of dropped off the cliff since the end of the pandemic. When the Portal launched, it had like seven different services you could use. So it had Zoom, you had WhatsApp, Facebook, all of that. I don't think there is any other way you can use WhatsApp or Facebook online.

on a video calling device today that I can think of? That's right. I've done a fair amount of research on this now because I assume the people like, A, I think there are a lot of people out there whose main connection to family is through one of those two apps, Messenger or WhatsApp. And I also think there's a strong chance that if you are still now a portal user, it's because it works because of those two things. Right. So

My assumption, Rob, our caller, didn't say, but my assumption is that the reason this is hard to replace is because of WhatsApp and Messenger. And on that front, you're just hosed. There just isn't a good answer. No, a laptop. Yeah, a laptop works fine. An iPad works fine. Yeah, you could do an iPad for WhatsApp video calling. They're just such overkill. And I kind of feel like... It's overkill, yeah. And movable. Yeah.

Well, yeah, true. An iPad. If you think it's hard to take a cell phone out of your kid's hand, try taking an iPad. I mean, it'll get used for other things. Again, this is why I'm kind of excited about whatever Apple is going to come up with in terms of a home device. Because yes, you could use an iPad as a WhatsApp calling device if it was...

fixed somewhere in your house for children. Obviously, you can use it if it moves too. But the kid aspect is a tablet isn't going to stay fixed. Although speaking of, as we've mentioned this, I'm sitting here staring at my Pixel.

which could be another option. You could do WhatsApp calling through that. Again, it's not fixed, but you can take it off the speaker. But that would be another option. I just don't feel that comfortable recommending Pixel hardware right now. That is very fair. Well, I have another Google question, which we should come to in a second. But I will say, I think a non-ridiculous answer to this

sort of solving this problem is just to find the cheapest Android tablet you possibly can. Because like the camera will be fine. It will run all these apps on Android, which is I think the way to solve your compatibility problem. It's not going to be nearly as like clean and useful and dedicated as something like the Portal was. But if you're just like, I just need a thing I can prop on a coffee mug and put in front of my kid, like a cheap Android tablet will do that job fairly successfully. Yes. So I think that's one way to go. But I do think

the dedicated device experience is real. Like there's a reason people gravitated to things like the portal in the first place. You have not mentioned a Nest Hub platform

one single time. Oh, no. Why? Yeah. Okay. That was what I figured. They don't do that. They don't. They had some kind of calling feature at some point, but it keeps changing and going away and is not helpful. I mean, the Pixel tablet would be better than a Nest Hub at this stage. Definitely. The Pixel tablet with its dock, speaker dock too, is a nice little device. But

I think it's about ready for an upgrade, and there were quite a few rumors that Google wasn't going to upgrade it. So again, if you've been burned by one device dying and losing support, I honestly feel like an Echo Show or an iPad are going to be, you know, those aren't going anywhere. Right. Yeah. With Google, it's like, can I interest you in another dead product that its company doesn't care about at all? Yeah.

I mean, how you talk to the person at the other end is the ultimate decision here. And he didn't mention that, but as you say, but if they were using WhatsApp and...

Facebook Messenger, you know, Alexa app is going to work in the same way on your phone. It'll call. It comes through like a call on their end when you call them. I think I do think that's the simplest, most straightforward. Sorry, I have like seven of them around and I thought I muted most of them, but apparently not. So clever. Yeah.

Oh, it's okay. I know why. Because you made me get the Echo Show 10 out. So this, we didn't come up. Yeah, we did not discuss this. But I should mention in case Zoom was the way you were calling, because you could Zoom through the portal, you can Zoom through Echo Show devices. So if that was the way that they were communicating with the grandparents, although only the Echo Show 10...

works with Zoom or the first or second gen Echo Show 8. The third gen Echo Show, the most new one, which you would expect to go by if that's what you were hoping to buy, you know, or buy the latest gen, does not support Zoom. So... What a perfect explanation of Amazon's entire product strategy.

There's just like, they have a grab bag of things that it does. And somebody just reaches in and pulls out a bunch and that's what their devices are. And actually the Zoom experience on the Echo shows is quite good. I tested it. I did a how-to on our site if you want to check it out and check it out.

It was a good experience. We stopped using Zoom for work calls, but I actually used it for work a lot because it would just pop up and say, are you ready for your call? And I could just press it and it would be there. And that was what I used the portal for too. It was a good integration. It had a similar experience on the portal as it did on the show. So if that was the way you were going, then the show is definitely the best option. Just don't get the latest Echo Show 8 because it won't work with Zoom. Yeah, I think...

I'm increasingly convinced as you talk that the Echo Show Alexa calling is the way to go because the Echo Show microphones are going to be better, especially for people moving around a room than even something like an iPad is going to be. The speakers are very good. The technology for calling is very good inside of those devices. And I think the pitch to family members of like, all you need is the Alexa app is

is probably doable. Not so bad, yeah. It's not great, but it's doable. And it gives you the opportunity of like,

Christmas 2025 gift. Here is your own box for calling your grandchildren, which is like a spectacular victory of a device. I will put all pictures of your grandchildren and you can press this button and call them. Yeah. It's a win. Okay. I think that's it. So which if we're doing calling, it means you can get any any Echo Show you want. We're doing this all through Alexa. Which Echo Show would you recommend for our caller here? Yeah.

I think the 10 because of its rotating arm. I think the Echo Show 10, it is $250 though. And the Echo Show 8 second gen would be a perfectly acceptable alternative and about half the price. So it just has, I think the camera's not as good. The speakers aren't going to be quite as good, but it will work well.

In the same, the software is the same. So I would, yeah, I mean, the Echo Show 10 would be more fun, especially if your kids are moving around a lot. Right. They can't run away from grandma as easily with the Echo Show 10. True. But if you can convince your family to download the Alexa app.

Pick your favorite. Yes. Yes. Well, I mean, I wouldn't do the five. That's a bit too small. And then there's the new huge ones. There's like the 21 just came out. Now you're talking. Put that on your dining room table. See what happens. I'm into that. It's a bit large. I think these are better. All right. So, yeah, I think the eight or 10 seems like the right place to live. All right, Jen. Thank you. I hope this helps. You're welcome.

All right. That is it for The Verge Cast today. Thank you to everybody who came on the show. And thank you, as always, for listening. There's lots more on everything we talked about in this episode, from our S25 reviews to the rest of our phone coverage to all the stuff with TikTok and Red Note and DeepSeek and everything China at TheVerge.com. I'll put lots of links in the show notes. But as always, read the website.

Lord help us. There is a lot going on right now. As always, if you have thoughts, questions, or feelings, you can email vergecastattheverge.com or call the hotline 866-VERGE-11. I have terrible news for you. The Slack room broke, but it also comes to the email and we're getting the Slack room fixed. So the hotlines keep coming. Don't you worry. And we love hearing from you. This show is produced by Will Forer, Eric Gomez, and Brandon Kiefer. The VergeCast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Neelai and I will be back on Friday to talk about all the politics, all the news, whatever weird stuff is happening at the FCC, more gadgets that are still to come, and everything else. We'll see you then. Rock and roll. Rock and roll.