The Vergecast
Spoot: Spotted Early keeps The Vergecast in one place: 3 stories so far. The section currently leads with “Apple's gadget lab is messy and I'm genuinely charmed”, “Apple HomeView has the hardware for apps but only runs CarPlay”, and “The AI assistant is the product, the gadget is just its cage”. Apple's gadget lab is messy and I'm genuinely charmed. Apple's HomeView has the guts to run apps, a proper chip, always-on power, a screen that begs for widgets, but it only runs CarPlay. Spoot: Spotted Early New things, caught while they're still new and a little weird. Spoot finds fresh gadgets, clever inventions, crowdfunding campaigns,… The list below is every The Vergecast story on Spoot: Spotted Early, newest first.
Apple's gadget lab is messy and I'm genuinely charmed
Apple's gadget lab is messy and I'm genuinely charmed. The iPhone gets more screens, the MacBook finally lets you poke it, and the HomeView just runs CarPlay apps. After years of polish, the most successful product maker on earth has decided to try things again, even when "trying" means slapping a touch panel on a lovely new MacBook Pro just to see if you'll use it. The results aren't always perfect, but watching Apple experiment is its own kind of fun. On The Vergecast, David and Nilay debate touchscreen laptops, and Nilay explains exactly why he's buying that new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display. If you're in the mood for more delightfully weird hardware, check out our piece on the mycelium disposable camera that decomposes before your photos do. Stay spooty.
Apple HomeView has the hardware for apps but only runs CarPlay
Apple's HomeView has the guts to run apps, a proper chip, always-on power, a screen that begs for widgets, but it only runs CarPlay. That's weird, right? The Vergecast crew is asking the same thing: why build a home hub with real computing muscle and then refuse to let it be its own app platform? It's a deliberately closed door, and the speculation is that Apple wants control over the experience rather than a free-for-all of third-party interfaces. But it raises the obvious question: if your smart display can't run smart home apps natively, what exactly is it for? Our related piece, *"Apple's HomeView is a chimera of nostalgia, and that's exactly the point"*, digs into the design philosophy behind that choice.
The AI assistant is the product, the gadget is just its cage
The AI assistant is the product, and the gadget is just its cage. That's the takeaway from this week's Vergecast, where David and Nilay tear through Microsoft's high-end laptop, Amazon's fancy Android tablet, and Apple's headfirst dive into the smart home. The hardware is shiny, sure, but every single launch is really just a vessel for the same idea: the AI should run the computer. Whether that's even the right idea is the question worth asking. It's gadget season, and the spec sheets are full of clever hinges and long battery claims, but the actual strategy is suspiciously uniform. If you want a deeper cut on the weirdness, the Apple robot arm piece is worth a read. Spoot's take? The cages are getting prettier. The thing inside still hasn't proven it can fly.