Apple is reportedly working on a low-cost laptop powered by an iPhone chip. This could be a small deal, a decision made by supply chain economics and the fact that the M1 MacBook Air continues to sell well at Walmart. Or it could be huge, a return to form for a company that once seemed to have a clear purpose for each of its devices but whose lineup feels more confused than ever.
We’re hoping Apple picks the latter approach, and we have an idea for what it might look like: the iBook, a laptop line once so innovative that Phil Schiller had to jump off a ledge onto a mattress to prove its technical prowess. We can maybe leave the toilet bowl in 1999, but the spirit of those devices is once we’d love to see come back.
On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay and David talk about whether this low-cost Mac is really coming, and what it might be. But first, they have some AI news to get to. Amazon and Perplexity are locked in a battle over agentic shopping, which is a useful frame for the whole fight over AI. (We like to call it The DoorDash Problem.)
Will the web soon be just a series of faceless databases, serving at the pleasure of an AI assistant? Lots of companies hope so; others will fight tooth and nail to make sure that never happens. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
After that, it’s iBook time. Seriously, if you’ve never seen the 1999 announcement, in which CEO Steve Jobs also passes a hula hoop over the iBook to prove it has no wires, you need to go watch it.
Finally, in the lightning round, it’s time for another round of Brendan Carr is a Dummy, plus news on party speakers and the Trump Phone, and a game of “name that sonic logo.”
If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with AI:
And in the lightning round:
