Samsung’s new folds, flips, and Apple clones

11 months ago

On The Vergecast: Samsung launches, streaming chaos, and much more.

By David Pierce, editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.

Jul 12, 2024, 1:18 PM UTC

South-Korean Samsung President & Head of Mobile Communications Business Roh Tae-moon speaks during the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event

As the rest of the tech industry seems to mostly shift to overproduced infomercials for their product launches, Samsung is holding fast to its love for giant live events in huge arenas. This year, at Unpacked in Paris, the company announced a whole lineup of new gadgets. The new Fold and Flip look nice but also a bit uninspired; the Watch Ultra and Buds 3 look almost too familiar; and the Galaxy Ring might be the beginning of something really cool.

On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk through all of Samsung’s announcements and try to figure out whether “Apple products but for Android” is actually a winning strategy. It might be! Plus, we debate what to make of Samsung’s somewhat lackluster upgrades for the Flip and Fold phones — maybe these just aren’t the smartphone shapes of the future. Or at least not yet.

After that, we talk about a weird week in the streaming biz, from the maybe-finally-really-happening Paramount / Skydance deal to the looming end of Redbox to Instagram’s somewhat surprising plan to not try and do longform video.

If you want to know more about everything we talk about in this episode, here are some links to get you started, first on Samsung:

And in streaming news:

And in the lightning round: