Apple's best product ever

Summary of Apple's best product ever

by The Verge

1h 44m•April 3, 2026
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Overview of The VergeCast — "Apple's best product ever"

This episode of The VergeCast (hosts David Pierce and Nilay Patel) revolves around The Verge’s 50th-anniversary Apple project: a public, bracket-style ranking of the top 50 Apple products. The show also covers AI industry shifts (OpenAI news), launches a new recurring segment called The Hype Desk, runs a lightning-round of news/opinion (including a sharp take on FCC commissioner Brendan Carr), and closes with a handful of Verge housekeeping items.

Main segments

1) AI industry roundup

  • OpenAI developments:
    • Shut down Sora (video generation app) and appears to be reallocating compute toward enterprise/coding products.
    • Raised a huge funding round ($122 billion reported) and claimed very large user numbers (900 million weekly ChatGPT users — a number the hosts find suspect/impressive).
    • Acquired TBPN (formerly “Tech Bro Podcast Network”) — raising questions about OpenAI owning a media outlet and the messaging consequences, especially given TBPN’s distribution on X (Elon Musk’s platform) while Musk is suing Sam Altman/OpenAI.
  • Broader point: The industry is visibly pivoting toward enterprise SaaS/agentic business tools (automation, coding, “making Excel better”) — a pragmatic shift, but in tension with years of consumer-facing, AGI-oriented marketing and hype.
  • Microsoft and Google dynamics: Microsoft reorganized roles around AI; Google can subsidize loss-making AI experiments better than smaller rivals, making competition harder for startups.

2) The Hype Desk (new recurring segment)

  • Introduced hosts Ross Miller and Ashley Esqueda as Verge’s “on-staff influencers” / human air horns — a way to do sponsored reads while keeping editorial integrity separate.
  • Weekly format: Ross and Ashley bring “hype” items from fandom/gaming/tech culture.
  • This episode’s items: a Pomodoro-style timer gadget and PAX East report (including playable impressions like Pokemon Champions and indie titles). The Hype Desk will appear weekly for a test run.

3) Apple 50 public ranking reveal (audience results + hosts’ commentary)

  • The Verge ran a head-to-head bracket that gathered ~1.6 million votes. The hosts had not seen the final ordering prior to the show.
  • Notable audience top-10 (final public ranking):
    1. Original iPhone
    2. M1 chip
    3. Original Macintosh
    4. Original iPod
    5. macOS 10 (Mac OS X)
    6. iPhone 4
    7. iMac G3 (Bondi Blue)
    8. Wedge MacBook Air (original MacBook Air)
    9. Slim unibody iMac
    10. iPod with click wheel
  • Hosts’ positions and reactions:
    • David strongly champions macOS 10 (Mac OS X) as the product that made everything else possible — his #1 pick.
    • Nilay placed more weight on iconic hardware (Titanium PowerBook G4 was a top choice for him).
    • Both hosts note generational/recency bias in the votes (younger voters favor devices they remember/use; older, formative products get lower placements than their historical importance warrants).
  • Surprises & commentary:
    • Mac OS X was widely argued by the hosts to be underappreciated in the public ranking despite its foundational role.
    • The iPhone (original) landed at #1 overall — not unexpected given its cultural and industry impact.
    • There was a detected bot attack attempting to push iTunes to #1; Verge’s team mitigated it and iTunes was not #1.

4) Lightning round / Hot takes

  • Brendan Carr (FCC commissioner) criticized: hosts call out Carr for boasting about “policing speech” at CPAC and for enabling messy regulatory outcomes (example: Nexstar–Tegna merger chaos after FCC waivers led to a legal mess and operational confusion).
  • Surf (Flipboard’s Fediverse app): The Verge is experimenting with Surf pages for The VergeCast, Decoder and other shows — a practical example of Fediverse/open social web experimentation. Hosts view it as an interesting “content-first / community-first” take on social feeds.
  • Personal project: David retrofitted a late-model iMac display using a Chinese controller board (success + firmware hassles), a hands‑on example of repair/modding.
  • Supply-chain / price signals:
    • Raspberry Pi increased prices significantly (16 GB Pi 5 up ~$100), and Raspberry Pi’s CEO recommended “right-sizing” memory/compute needs given scarcity. Broader memory/component shortages are increasing device prices and raising supply-chain concerns.
  • PSA: Avoid downloading the new White House app (hosts only gave a brief admonition to look up why).

Notable quotes & lines

  • Mustafa Suleyman (Microsoft interview paraphrase): “Super intelligence is really about, are these models capable of delivering product value for the millions of enterprises that depend on us…” — used by hosts to illustrate the AI industry’s enterprise pivot vs. AGI branding.
  • Host characterization: “They [companies] have to ship the products that work. The evaluation comes from the products.” — emphasises product-first credibility vs. marketing.

Housekeeping & calls to action

  • Vote for The VergeCast in the Webby Awards (voting open at time of episode).
  • VergeCast movie night: Monday, April 27, IFC Center (watching Sneakers); Verge subscribers had pre-sale access.
  • Surf pages: VergeCast and other Verge shows have feeds on Surf (Flipboard’s app for open social content); listeners encouraged to post with hashtags like #vergecast or #decoder.
  • Contact: VergeCast hotline and email invites feedback about rankings and the new Hype Desk.

Key takeaways

  • The AI industry is consolidating focus toward enterprise/B2B use-cases (agents, coding, business automation). That pragmatic pivot collides with earlier AGI/consumer expectations and heavy marketing claims; marketing alone can’t substitute for product-market fit.
  • The public Apple ranking favors the consumer-products and recent hits (original iPhone, M1), but hosts argue OS-level foundations (macOS X) deserve more credit for enabling Apple’s ecosystem.
  • Open social web tooling (Fediverse) is seeing practical experimentation (Surf), and media outlets are testing new community entry points beyond proprietary platforms.
  • Supply-chain disruptions (memory/commodity shortages) are materially affecting pricing even for “cheap” hardware (Raspberry Pi), signaling rising device costs and possible longer-term implications for hardware availability.

If you want the full Apple 50 write-up, David and Nilay point listeners to The Verge’s Apple 50 package (visual history, long-form features, and the interactive bracket).