It’s always felt to me like there’s a threshold foldables need to hit before they can truly become mainstream: they need to be no bigger than a regular old phone. And now Samsung has finally gotten its flagship there with the Z Fold 7, which is just barely thicker than an iPhone 16 Pro. I got to see one in the office this week, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It really does feel different.
This week on The Vergecast, Vee Song and Allison Johnson join me to talk all about Samsung’s new foldables and smartwatches. Then, we dive into corporate shake-ups across the tech world. One of Tim Cook’s possible successors is on his way out, Mark Zuckerberg is buying Meta a new AI team, X’s CEO has departed (and, remind me, did anything notable happen with Grok this week?).
And finally, some big news about the Lightning Round: I’ve had enough of it. Instead, we’ve got something bold, something new, something altogether original and unheard of: the Thunder Round. And yes, we have sound effects. Lots to discuss: AI web browsers, Lorde’s see-through CD, and HBO Max finally does the thing we’ve all been waiting for.
If you want to know more about the stories we discuss in the episode, you can check out a whole bunch of our coverage below:
- Galaxy Z Fold 7 hands-on: Samsung finally made the foldables we’ve been asking for
- Samsung cuts price of its foldables with the Z Flip 7 FE
- Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 series hands-on: squircle squad
- Samsung seems to have leaked its own trifold phone design
- Samsung says its trifold phone should launch ‘this year’
- One of Tim Cook’s possible successors is leaving Apple
- Apple’s design team will report to Tim Cook
- Mark Zuckerberg announces his AI ‘superintelligence’ super-group
- Meta is paying $14 billion to catch up in the AI race
- Meta’s ‘superintelligence’ hiring spree adds an AI leader from Apple
- Meta is trying to win the AI race with money — but not everyone can be bought
- X CEO Linda Yaccarino is stepping down after two years
- X’s CEO is out after failing at basically everything she claimed she wanted
- Threads is catching up to X on mobile
- xAI updated Grok to be more ‘politically incorrect’
- Grok stops posting text after flood of antisemitism and Hitler praise
- Musk makes grand promises about Grok 4 in the wake of a Nazi chatbot meltdown
- Adobe’s new camera app is making me rethink phone photography
- Ikea’s latest speaker lamp ditches Sonos for Spotify and inexpensive Bluetooth
- Ikea ditches Zigbee for Thread, going all in on Matter smart homes
- Perplexity launches Comet web browser
- OpenAI’s next big launch could be an AI web browser
- E Ink is turning the laptop touchpad into an e-reader for AI apps
- Lorde’s new CD is so transparent that stereos can’t even read it
- I tried playing Lorde’s new CD
- Appeals court strikes down ‘click-to-cancel’ rule
- Nothing’s ‘first true flagship’ phone plays it a little safe
- Adding calendar events with a screenshot is AI at its finest
- The government’s Apple antitrust lawsuit is still on
- Apple just added more frost to its Liquid Glass design
- Apple’s second-generation Vision Pro might launch this year
- Nvidia briefly became the first $4 trillion company on Wednesday
- The makers of Cameo just launched… a birthday-tracking app?
- Nintendo is ending its cost-saving Switch game vouchers
- HBO Max is officially HBO Max again
