Things John Gruber Has Said on Podcasts

“Coke never acknowledges Pepsi. I think in the history of Coca-Cola, they have never once even acknowledged that Pepsi exists. And every once a decade, Pepsi comes out with an ad campaign that talks about Coke, right? … And Samsung is clearly the Pepsi.” — John Gruber, The Talk Show With John Gruber

Gruber and Joanna Stern discuss Apple's first foldable iPhone, which analysts expect to outsell all other foldables combined this quarter. Gruber says that must be particularly irritating for Samsung, which has been selling folding phones for seven years.

The Talk Show With John Gruber · 2026-10-25 Permalink → Listen →

The Talk Show With John Gruber Around 31:22 into the episode

John Gruber

handoff. Transfer handoff. iPhone handoff.

Joanna Stern

…and Huawei's, it's not a considerable size of the market. And Apple, single-handedly in the next number of months, is going to have as many units as those companies have sold, likely. And they understand, I think they know that. I think they kind of know that that's the thing. And this is.

John Gruber

I think it's particularly irritating for Samsung. Like Samsung's let. I always think of Pepsi. Pepsi, Coke never acknowledges Pepsi. I think in the history of Coca-Cola, they have never once even acknowledged that Pepsi exists. And every once a decade, Pepsi comes out with an ad campaign that talks about Coke, right? And the Pepsi challenge would specifically taste them side by side, Pepsi and Coke. And Samsung is clearly the Pepsi. And they have billboards like, well, we've had a fold for all these years and stuff like that. And it's like, it gets to them that they've had seven years of Galaxy folds and now everybody cares about a folding phone. But I think the truth, I forget the number, but it was like as…

Joanna Stern

Have you seen the Everything You See Nathan Fielder documentary?

John Gruber

I did. And as busy as I've been, my son and I went to see it last weekend. And I've been actually, I loved it so much, I've been meaning to write about it. It's one of the most amazing motion pictures I've ever seen in my life.

Joanna Stern

I went Wednesday after the review, and it was like perfect because it just took my mind off of everything. What's the reaction to the review all of a sudden? And I'd just been thinking about iPhones for so long and folding screens and hinges. It was amazing. But we're not going to do any spoilers…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

“If you talk to people who work in the ad tech industry, they'll tell you — if they could have recordings of what you talk about all day, they wouldn't want it. You know how much work that would be, how much space it would take up? It would be the least efficient way to serve you targeted ads.” — John Gruber, The Talk Show With John Gruber

Gruber was describing the argument he has at family gatherings with relatives convinced their phones listen to them. What actually happens — tracking pixels across a thousand partners, correlations nobody can explain — is creepier than eavesdropping, and he finds that framing is the only one that lands. He raised it while questioning whether Apple's new listening features on the Watch will be perceived as private, whatever the engineering guarantees.

The Talk Show With John Gruber · 2026-09-26 Permalink → Listen →

The Talk Show With John Gruber Around 1:05:41 into the episode

John Gruber

yeah so what I have found works in that regard is by saying that what they actually do is creepier if you understood it and that I barely understand it but that it is creepier that's what resonates because I'm not saying hey the whole tech industry is on your side and doesn't do creepy things

Andru Edwards

right you're saying it's worse telling worse than what you think right

John Gruber

and if you talk to people who work in the ad tech industry they honest to go if they could have recordings of what you talk about all day they wouldn't want it they're like we don't need that you know how much work that would be and how much space that would take up why would we want that we don't need that it would be the least efficient way to serve you targeted ads it's but that's the world apple's up against apple doesn't do it but that's the world people people are in the other thing i want to before we move on from apple watch the other thing that i'm wondering about with these features is i'm just honestly wondering how well they'll work at a technical level because i do think siri ai is very good on the phone and on the mac and i do think that their plan they announced at wwdc totally works i think it is a step change forward they have caught up to baseline modern llm that's the bar right it's not anywhere close to the frontier it is not going to blow anything away that you're if you're used to the leading edge models from chat gpt and claude and they never said it…

Andru Edwards

right so it puts your summaries into the Siri AI app so you can open your phone and see so I guess I'm I didn't ask this question but I'm curious is the phone doing any of this work or is it I think the phone must be doing

John Gruber

I think the phone must be doing the transcription but they don't want to talk about that they don't want to explain I think they should. I think they should draw a diagram. Honest to God, like the vibration of the data. Yeah, like WWDC, or the way that, like, I remember Phil Schiller doing one with…

Andru Edwards

Right, right. That's a good point. I do agree. Siri is so much better, but I have you not seen any regressions in any areas

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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