Apple held its first product announcement event of the year on Tuesday. It showed off a bunch of new devices, including a new iPhone SE, a revamped iPad Air, and a big, beefy, expensive system called Mac Studio. But one of the most noticeable aspects of the show was what Apple didn't say. The company made no mention of the war in Ukraine, despite the fact that Apple recently made the decision to stop selling its products in Russia. In a time of such worldwide turmoil, Apple's carefully crafted, deliberately self-focused showcase just felt … weird. The event's high gloss also made it difficult to imagine Apple ever abandoning the tight 60-minute broadcast format and going back to anything-can-happen live events.
This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED product writer Brenda Stolyar joins us to talk about Apple's announcements and the optics of the presentation. Then WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs pops in for a very important update about her Apple Music experiment.
Show Notes
Read Brenda’s story about the chonky new Mac Studio. Read Lauren’s story about the new iPad Air, aka the proto-MacPad. Her story about Apple halting device sales in Russia is here. Check out everything Apple announced this week.
Recommendations
Brenda recommends the Netflix show Love is Blind. Mike recommends Lauren Smiley’s WIRED story “‘I’m the Operator’: The Aftermath of a Self-Driving Tragedy.” Lauren recommends the episode of the Ezra Klein Show podcast featuring guest Fareed Zakaria.
Brenda Stolyar can be found on Twitter @BStoly. Kate Knibbs is @Knibbs. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
How to Listen
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Transcript
Lauren Goode: Mike.
Michael Calore: Lauren.
LG: Mike, do you ever get tired of Apple events? You can be totally honest. It's just us.
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MC: Well, I will say that our readers love to read about Apple news, and as an editor who is a total traffic glutton, I enjoy producing stories about Apple news. So I will say that no, I never get tired of Apple events.
LG: I'm so disappointed by this answer.
MC: Sorry.
LG: I'm not mad at you, Mike. I'm just disappointed in you.
MC: Oh no, I'm sorry.
LG: No, it's OK. There is still a ton of interest in these. I tweeted yesterday asking people if they wanted me to live-tweet the Apple event, and I think I got about 500 responses and 80 percent of them were, “Yes, please tweet about the Apple event.”
MC: That's funny because I tweeted the same thing, and I got 500 responses and they were all, “Please, God, no.”
LG: So with that clear answer, we're now going to podcast about the Apple event.
MC: Let's do it.
[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]
LG: Hey everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I'm Lauren Goode. I'm a senior writer at WIRED.
MC: And I'm Michael Calore. I am a senior editor at WIRED.
LG: We're also joined by WIRED product writer Brenda Stolyar. Hey, Brenda.
Brenda Stolyar: Hello. Thank you for having me back again.
LG: Brenda, we're so close, and yet so far away, I happen to be in New York City right now, where you are. We're just in different neighborhoods. And I just got off a plane and I might sound a little different than normal.
BS: Yeah. I mean, you also chose … You did kind of choose this day, I guess, but it's a little rainy, so I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry we welcomed you with some gloomy snow, rain, all the weather today.
LG: That's OK. I love a moody New York day. All right, let's talk about what was going on in sunny Cupertino. So this week Apple held its first product launch event of 2022. And we're going to talk all about the hardware details later on in this episode. But first, let's talk a little bit about the event itself. Since the start of the pandemic and the need to keep social distance from each other, these tech press events have largely been prerecorded things. We're all sitting home, watching them, covering them, writing about them virtually. And this has its obvious downsides and maybe a few upsides. Generally, these are very slickly produced events. They're flashy. They might be a little weird. I'm looking at you, Samsung. But they're kind of these trailers for this world, this Apple universe, that companies like Apple want us to aspire to live in.
Then they're like, “Oh, and here's this shiny new iPhone.” But this time around the tone felt a little off. There's a horrific war going on right now in Ukraine, since the country was just invaded by Russia a couple of weeks ago, and everyone is on edge as tensions grow. But Apple, interestingly, didn't acknowledge any of that, which was unusual. In the past, it has sometimes spent a minute or two making remarks about what's happening outside of the Apple world, whether it's to acknowledge social upheaval or the impact of the pandemic on various communities. But Tuesday was just about gadgets: iPhone, iPad, Mac, lots of chip stuff, oohs and ahs, the whole thing. I want to get your thoughts on this before we talk about the actual new products. Brenda, let's start with you.
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BS: Yeah. So it did definitely feel slightly tone-deaf to put aside a full-on war for an hour to talk about electronics that certainly felt super minimal, and are super minimal in comparison, even though during a regular time they're supposed to be exciting. Because the advancements that we saw are exciting, the hardware that we saw is exciting, but to be able to even put a war on the back burner, to focus on something else is a privilege for us because we are not in Ukraine and we're not experiencing the horrific things that are happening. And so it felt off.
And at the same time, Apple has this tendency to just completely swallow the news cycle. I mean, I'm sure PR people out there can agree. They don't pitch any news that doesn't have to do with Apple when there's an Apple event because we're not paying attention. And if it hits our inbox, we're going to ignore it until we're done covering Apple. And that's also a little bit difficult to see because there are such important stories about what is going on in Ukraine right now that are overshadowed by anything from the news posts about what Apple announced and SEO stories about how to set up certain gadgets that were announced or reviews that are happening. So yeah, it definitely felt strange. I think that's the only way to put it is that it really felt strange.
LG: Mike, what's your take on that as our resident traffic monster?
MC: Well, I thought that it was odd not to mention Ukraine. I can see why they chose not to mention it because they probably didn't want to fall prey to the Applebee's effect. You might remember the weekend that the war broke out there was a clip that went viral, where it was coverage of the war, and they were showing air raid sirens over Kyiv. And then they cut to an Applebee's ad, which was this very upbeat country music ad about, I don't know, chicken-fried, whatever they sell at Applebee's. And it was just sort of a demonstration of how the juxtaposition of very difficult news and advertising can often feel a little crass. So I can understand why Apple didn't want to say, “We're very sorry about everything that's happening in the world. Now here's some several-hundred-dollar phones.”
LG: Right. That definitely could have come across as pretty hollow.
MC: It could have, but at the same time, it's an hour long. They spent five or six minutes pumping the shows and the movies that they have that are up for awards, and it's awards season right now. So they opened with a montage of all the shows that are on Apple TV+ and all the movies that have been nominated for Academy Awards. That was fairly self-serving, and they could have carved out 30 seconds to say something, I feel like. You've got arguably the most important businessperson in the world on stage. And Apple has been in the news cycle in Ukraine because it pulled apps from the Russian app store, as we wrote about a couple of weeks ago. The company should have said something, I feel like.
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LG: Right, I think this was a choice. There's no doubt. Seeing everything that Apple does, it's so carefully planned and scripted. A few people noted on Twitter that Tim Cook's color pattern choice, he was wearing a blue … I don't know what you'd call … What do men call those kinds of sweaters that only zip down a little bit in the front?
MC: Sweaters. We call them sweaters.
LG: A jumper, if you will.
MC: We call them sweaters.
BS: Isn't it a three-quarter zip or something?
LG: Thank you. Thank you, Brenda.
MC: Sure, but we call it sweater. We would call it a sweater. Men would say, “That is a sweater.”
LG: Mike, in honor of our UK newsroom, I would just like to say jumper right now. He was wearing a blue jumper and a yellow Apple watch wristband. And so some people on Twitter interpreted that as showing some kind of support for Ukraine. Others suggested to me online, “Well, if it was a prerecorded video, maybe this was just made so far in advance of all of the conflict that we're seeing happen in Ukraine that they just couldn't edit it.” And I don't buy that for a second. Edit the video. It takes a few minutes to record something else and edit it. Especially if you have one of these $6,000 new Mac Studios that supposedly renders things in real time. Shouldn't take that long to edit the video. Am I right?
No, this was clearly a choice. Apple made a conscientious choice for reasons we may not understand just to focus the event on the products themselves. Mike, you bring up a good point though, about our story about Apple halting product sales in Russia, which was, let's see, by the time we're taping this, I guess this was last Tuesday. I wrote the story for WIRED, and I think maybe that is the most impact that Apple can have right now is in what it's doing: pausing product sales. They said that they're pausing all product sales and limiting the functionality of some of its services in Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine. They indicated they're deeply concerned about that. And they wanted to show support for the Ukrainian people. So that means iPhones and other Apple products are currently not being sold through their third-party retail channels in Russia. Apple doesn't have Apple stores in Russia, but through other sales channels, those have been stopped.
Apple Pay and other services have been limited. And that is something that … Apple may not have the largest market share when it comes to smartphones in Russia. I think Android smartphones handily beat Apple in that regard, but Apple still has status, and it has impact, and it is one of the largest and most influential tech companies in the world. And so when a company like Apple makes that kind of decision, I think, well, there are news headlines about it, right? Which we're certainly a part of too. So yeah, I think that maybe was the way that Apple decided to signal its support for the people of Ukraine and ultimately made the choice not to make the remarks during the event itself.
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About the event, though. I mean, we're going on two years now of these kinds of virtual events, and we're trying to sort of reassess where they fit into this world of new tech products and our tech journalism. How are you feeling right now about these kinds of prerecorded, hour-long trailers, essentially?
BS: I mean, from a writer's perspective, I miss the breaks where people would clap and cheer because that would help me catch up on some details that I miss, so there's that. But I also very much feel like they are super rushed at this point, and there's just no personality to them. I think we're starting to focus more on the production quality because I know that's something a lot of people point out is, “Wow, these are produced so well.” And they look very cinematic and movie-esque. And I miss when these tech events just felt more personal and personable, I should say.
MC: I completely agree.
BS: Your initial reaction to a product on a screen and press images is very different to what you're going to see in person, which is something that I've noticed has been happening since the pandemic, is I'll be excited about something or I'll see something in a press image and then it'll be shipped to me, and I'll open it up. And I'm like, this doesn't look exactly the same. Or this isn't what I thought it was. So yeah, it misses that for sure.
MC: At this point, is Apple ever going to go back to in-person events? I mean, they have this tightly controlled hour. It's exactly an hour. It's like a slick infomercial. It is so fully controlled. To go back to the sort of anything-can-happen atmosphere of a live event, to actually have other humans coming in and touching your beautiful products in a way that's slightly less controlled. Are they ever going to go back to that? Or is this just going to be every Apple event is just an hour-long infomercial from now until the end of time?
LG: I think they will—just my opinion, not based on any kind of inside knowledge. I think that ultimately they will do certain events in person. But you're right, Mike, they haven't necessarily been hurt by these virtual press events. The iPhone 13 and 13 Pro sold like hotcakes last year. That was presented entirely online. I think maybe what's worth considering, and I may just borrow this from our editor-in-chief, Gideon Lichfield, who has written about this recently, is that there's no straightforward good or bad here. All of these things are incredibly nuanced, and it's not a clear binary. I don't know if it's necessarily bad that Apple didn't make a remark about Ukraine during its iPhone SE presentation the other day. Would that have made any kind of difference in the world? Unlikely. Would it have been a nice acknowledgment? Sure.
But the event was for iPhones, and it's also difficult to assess whether even having the event is a good or bad thing because these tech companies ship products in some cases like clockwork every year. It's part of their strategy, and phones themselves are not necessarily good or bad. They may be both. They may be neither. Right now, phones are a critical tool for all of us to get information, to use maps, to basically figure out … find our way around the world. And for some people that's a more critical tool than for others right now. So yeah, I mean, it wasn't the most exciting event, and sure, it's disappointing that Apple didn't say something about Ukraine. But also maybe we shouldn't be looking to these private tech companies to necessarily be our moral compass or guides during these situations anyway. Should we talk about the phones themselves? I mean, I'm still hearing that 80 percent of my Twitter responses saying “Yes, yes, tell us about the new products.” And I'm wondering if maybe we should get to those.
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MC: That sounds like a good idea.
LG: All right. Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk more about this week's Apple event.
[Break]
LG: Welcome back to Gadget Lab: Part Two, the Ultra Max Edition. In addition to the tiny, shiny iPhone SE, Apple announced a few other new pieces of hardware this week. There's a new iPad Air. There's this beefed-up hybrid Mac setup for creative professionals. And yes, there is a new chip. Brenda, what jumped out at you the most?
BS: I'm going to say Mac Studio and Studio Display. Maybe I missed those rumors, but I was not expecting that at all, for some reason. I really thought that this was going to be focused on entry-level MacBooks. So the 13-inch MacBook Pro, a MacBook Air, and an M2 chip. But instead, we got this—specced-out Mac Mini on steroids is really the only way I can describe it. So what I thought was going to be an event that was focused more on affordable MacBooks and MacBooks for like the standard person turned out to be anything but that. It was much crazier than I expected. So that definitely jumped out at me, I'd say.
LG: Would you buy one?
BS: I would buy the Studio Display because I think that's the more practical option. It seems more like a really good work-from-home monitor with, they have the 12-megapixel, front-facing camera with Center Stage that works with FaceTime, Zoom, WebEx. It's got the six-speaker sound system, the three-array mics. It just seems like a really good video-conferencing tool. While I would want the Mac Studio, I don't need it, which is what I need to remind myself. That is definitely for people that do some heavy-duty work; whereas I just type, type, type on my computer.
MC: The monitor is interesting. To me, the crazy thing is that it has the iPad processor in it. It has the A13 bionic processor in it, is that right? And it's basically just there to control the audio and the camera controls. It doesn't really do much beyond that. At least as far as we know, that's as far as we've been told, from the infomercial that we watched and the press release that we received in our inboxes afterward. But to put a processor that is known as one of the best mobile processors on the market into a monitor is interesting. It's also very expensive. It is $1,000 more than the nice monitor that I've been using for the last couple of years, which I have absolutely no complaints about, which looks amazing, has 5K resolution. It doesn't have a speaker system built in, and it doesn't have a camera built in, but I can clip a few hundred dollars’ worth of accessories to it and set up around it, and it can get those things too.
So it is very expensive, but I suppose if you're going to get the $2,000 to $4,000 computer, you may as well get the $1,500 to $1,600 display to match. And honestly, if I was a creative professional and I was buying something to have in my studio to use every single day, I would certainly get all that stuff. I would certainly just drop big coin and just get it all because it's going to last 10 years, and it's amazing.
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LG: I thought you said, “I would just drop bitcoin.”
MC: Oh, yeah, no.
LG: I was like, Mike, tell me about your bitcoin.
MC: To be clear. I would spend ether in the Apple store.
LG: Mike, tell us more about this new chip.
MC: Right. So it's the M1 Ultra and it joins the M1, the M1 Pro, and the M1 Max. And the M1 Ultra is essentially two M1 chips put together back to front with a high-speed bridge that allows them to work in concert as one ultra processor. It's interesting to me that Apple offers the Mac Studio with a processor upgrade that is essentially a $2,000 price bump. I mean, obviously, the $2,000 M1 not-Ultra version and the $4,000 M1 Ultra version of the computer have other things going on inside, other than just a different processor. But the fact that to get that experimental, new, super-high, fast, high-power, great-GPU, higher-memory chip, you do have to lay out a lot more money.
But the technology in it seems very advanced. I don't know a lot about chips. I do know a lot about Apple. This is very traditional for them, that they come out with something that is extremely cutting-edge, and you have to pay through the nose for it. So I would be curious to see how it performs, if it has as long of a shelf life as other Apple products, or if it has a lot of problems, which sometimes these high-end experimental Apple things do on the first rev, the first generation. I'm also curious, why not just call it the M2? It seems like a different architecture because you've combined two chips—one plus one equals two—but I don't know. What do you think?
LG: Well, I was going to say, it's almost like these different types of M1 chips are variants and an M2 would be a new virus?
MC: A new design. A new die, right?
LG: Yeah, I think these are incredibly impressive. And I'm not a chip reporter. Although as part of our jobs as consumer tech reporters, we are often writing about evolutions and advancements in chips. So I understand them at a fundamental level, but I don't understand them as well as a long-time chip reporter would, or some of our AI reporters at WIRED. But they seem like remarkable pieces of technology. I don't know if that's the thing that is going to make most consumers upgrade. Creative professionals, sure, who are looking for that extra power. I think there's some indication that maybe the M1, the idea of the M1 has bled its way into people's consciousness because now when they're looking to buy a new MacBook, they say like, “Oh, do I want the Intel chip? Or do I want this new fancy M1?” But maybe fully understanding what the cores are capable of and how the different tasks are assigned or how they've become more efficient, that's sort of on a whole other level.
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OK, one last thought I will say: The new iPad Air, I'm intrigued by. I'm a late bloomer when it comes to iPads. I didn't see the need for one for many years. And then a couple of years ago I started using them, and now I really like them. They're incredibly powerful machines. I like to take them with me when I'm traveling in case I need to do work. I like using them for watching movies, reading books—the new iPad Air, what's interesting about it is that it has this M1 chip. So the previous iPad Air, which came out in September 2020 had, I think, the A14 bionic chip, which was still a powerful chip, but now Apple is taking the same processor that it's putting in its MacBooks and its Mac desktops, and its iPad Pro (which is a super-duper expensive and what I feel is somewhat unnecessary iPad), and it's putting it in the iPad Air, which starts at $599. That's pretty impressive to me. To me, this is more of the march toward the merging of what is a lightweight MacBook and what is a lightweight iPad. Operating systems, of course, are still very different. But yeah, I'm really looking forward to trying the new iPad Air.
All right, we're going to take another quick break. And when we come back, we're going to do our recommendations, and we have a special guest for recommendations, which I'm very excited about. So hold tight.
[Break]
LG: It's time for our weekly recommendations segment. And as promised, we have a special guest. Those of you who listen to Gadget Lab every week might remember that a few weeks ago, we unpacked the Joe Rogan-Spotify controversy. And as part of that, our writer Kate Knibbs said that she was going to quit Spotify and just poured her whole life over to Apple Music. Kate is now back with an update. Kate, give us your update/recommendations/pearls of wisdom.
Kate Knibbs: So I really tried to become an Apple Music gal. I lasted until today. And then I broke down and I unsubscribed to Apple and I resubscribed to Spotify. And I will tell you why. It is because Spotify is better in every way that matters to me. I know that people who are real audiophiles and care a lot about the quality of the recordings like Apple Music because it has a more refined sound or something. I am not that refined, so I don't really care. What I missed very much was the discovery features that Spotify has. I realized how much I rely on Spotify's song recommendations when I didn't have it anymore. I felt like I wasn't discovering any new music. I still am not a huge fan of Joe Rogan, but it's not close to—
LG: So that hasn't changed.
KK: I couldn't do it. I missed my dear, sweet Spotify. Give me back my Discover Weekly.
LG: Now, when you logged back in or reinstated your account, were all of your old playlists there?
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KK: Yes, and I was so happy. Yeah. So honestly, if you're like me and you rely on Spotify's devious algorithms to learn about music, I would not recommend switching away from it because it is … At least, I haven't tried, like, Tidal in years, and I don't know about the players, but it's just better than Apple Music. Apple Music kind of sucked, to be honest.
MC: For the recommendation stuff. And what about, did it have “release radar” or “for you” or “here's what your friends are listening to” or anything like that?
KK: It didn't have “here's what your friends are listening to.” It did have “release radars,” but it just wasn't as good, and that might have been because I was new to Apple Music. So it hadn't had a chance to learn what kind of listener I was. So maybe that was on me not giving it a long enough chance, but it was just inferior to Spotify, I felt, in every way. Unless you're like a huge Zane Lowe fan and must listen to the beats.
LG: I always just imagine that Apple Music's recommendations are Zane Lowe popping in your ear, being like, “Would you like to listen to more Elton John?”
KK: Yes. So I also, sometimes I like to share what I'm listening to with my Instagram community. And Spotify just makes it a lot easier to share the music that you are listening to. My mom was asking me for recommendations. I would normally just drop them over to her. I don't know. This might be partly because I'm just not very smart, but I found Spotify much easier to use, so I'm back.
BS: No, the Apple Music app is very unintuitive, I will say. They should consider a redesign. I think that's probably also your brain is conditioned to operate Spotify, maybe. And so it's a lot easier for me … That's why I can't do Apple Music is because I just automatically know where to go and what I'm looking for on Spotify. And when I sit there on Apple Music, I have to stare at it for a while and really try and figure out what am I looking for. Where is it? So yeah, no, I think it's the un-intuitiveness of the app as well.
LG: Really great while you're operating a moving vehicle too. And also, let's not forget, Kate, you are very smart. Reader, she is very smart. Yes.
KK: Yeah. And I realized too that I listen to music when I'm driving, when I'm dancing around with my baby, or when I'm running, and in all of those circumstances, I don't want to be staring at my phone trying to figure out how to use my streaming service.
LG: Kate, do I have a solution for you. For $300, you can get an Apple computer on your wrist that makes it so much more intuitive to control all of your music while you're in the shower, holding your baby, grocery shopping. I'm just kidding. That would probably be Apple's answer. So Kate, thank you. Thank you for this critical update. Please stick around because I would like for you to have the opportunity to comment on or roast other people's recommendations this week. Brenda, as our other guest of honor this week, what's your recommendation?
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BS: Well, because I only watch TV and listen to podcasts in my free time, I am recommending Love Is Blind, season two. It took me a very long time to finally give in to watching season two because I was very loyal to season one. And I think Netflix sometimes has this habit of renewing shows that were really good season one, and then … Like, The Circle. I don't know if any of you watched The Circle, but I haven't watched it since season one, was obsessed. Love Is Blind felt the same way, but this cast, they surpassed season one. They're just a lot more chaotic and insane in such a great way, some of them. If you watch, you'll see. But yes, Love Is Blind, season two, you can binge-watch it. It's a great universe to escape into.
MC: Brenda, for someone like maybe me, who is unaware of Love Is Blind and the premise, can you briefly tell us what the show is?
BS: Yes. So at its core, it is a dating show where people can't see each other while they are dating.
MC: Do they blind the contestants?
BS: So they sit in these things called pods, and there is a wall between them, and what I assume is a speaker and a microphone for them to hear each other, even though the wall is very thin. But they're basically just talking to each other through a wall. I know that sounds absolutely insane. But the experiment is basically like “Is love blind? Can you fall in love with somebody before seeing them?”
So they go on dates with all these different people, and then they can propose, and then it's only after they propose and the other person accepts that they can then see each other. So they have this little meetup where you can literally watch them react to how the other person looks and how they feel around each other. And then they go on a honeymoon, and then the honeymoon's actually before the wedding. So they go on a little honeymoon, which is the first time they're spending time together, and then they have to live together. And then there's the wedding, where the other person can say no to them at the altar.
MC: Oh my God.
BS: Yeah.
MC: That sounds horrifying.
BS: It's a wild ride. I will say, though, my brother who absolutely despises these types of shows, was mad … We were home for the weekend for my dad's birthday, and I was binge-watching. He was mad at me when I watched ahead of him because he suddenly got sucked into it. So even if you think you might hate it, please just give it a chance. It's a great show.
MC: OK.
LG: Mike, what's your recommendation?
MC: I am going to recommend a story that is up this week on WIRED.com. It's a feature story, a long read, if you will. It's called “‘I'm the Operator’: the Aftermath of a Self-Driving Tragedy.” It's by Lauren Smiley. So you might remember four years ago there was an Uber test drive happening in the Phoenix area in Scottsdale and Tempe, and the person driving the Uber car—the car was in autonomous mode, and the person was monitoring it. And a woman walked across the street with her bicycle. The car in autonomous mode did not recognize that it was a human being or a bicycle, and it struck her, and she died. So this is the first recorded known fatality caused by a self-driving car. And it had massive repercussions, obviously. Not only for the person who was killed, but for the person who was driving the car, for Uber, and for the entire autonomous driving self-driving industry.
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So Lauren Smiley has gotten all these people to go on the record for the first time, and they're telling their story. It's a fascinating story, not only because it's a human story. It's about the impact that this death had on the woman who was monitoring the self-driving car and the community of the woman who died. But also just really fascinating stuff about the decisions that were made afterward. And some of the decision-making that went into how autonomous mode works in Uber's self-driving program. So highly recommended. It's on WIRED.com and it's by Lauren Smiley, and it's called “‘I'm the Operator’: the Aftermath of a Self-Driving Tragedy.”
LG: I second this. It's really, really fantastic. Lauren Smiley is such a great reporter and writer.
MC: Yeah, yeah. I mean, here I am on a WIRED podcast talking about a WIRED story, but the thing that this story does that so many great stories, not just ours, other stories too—is they tie the human element into the technological element. So that's why I really wanted to recommend it.
Lauren, what is your recommendation this week?
LG: My recommendation this week is an episode of the Ezra Klein podcast. I admit this is a bit of a last-minute recommendation because I just listened to it on a plane, but he has a conversation with Fareed Zakaria, who many of you are probably familiar with. And Fareed Zakaria is a well-known broadcast journalist and author and expert on foreign policy. And they talk about how this invasion of Ukraine basically brings to an abrupt stop this post-Cold War era that we've been living in over the past 30 years or so. Ezra kicks off the podcast by saying “For most of my life, I've been living in this era. America, of course, has had its crises. There have been wars. There have been horrors,” he says. But America was still perceived during all this time as very strong and other countries weaker than America.
And how all of the players in this power chessboard are now changing. And the whole foreign policy paradigm has been just completely shifted. Pretty much the moment that Russia invaded Ukraine, what he describes as the sharp revitalization of the NATO alliance and how we have to come to terms now with this new Western identity. And I just found it a really fascinating listen. So I would just recommend listening to it if you're looking to better understand what's going on in Ukraine and sharpen your foreign policy knowledge at a time when foreign policy is in upheaval.
MC: Awesome. And the show's just called the Ezra Klein podcast?
LG: I'm pretty sure that's what it's called. The Ezra Klein Show, I think.
MC: Oh, the Ezra Klein Show. Sorry.
LG: Yeah, yeah.
MC: No shade on Ezra. I just, I guess he's a brand, so that makes sense for him.
LG: He is a brand. Although, he could have gone the Kara Swisher route and had something like Sway, but you know.
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MC: Just call it Ezra, the Ezra Hour.
LG: Just call it Ezra. Yeah. Nothing better than Ezra.
MC: Oh my God.
LG: Sorry.
MC: Except for the Lemon Heads.
LG: All right. That's our show this week. Thank you so much for joining us, Brenda.
BS: Thanks again for having me.
LG: And thank you Kate for your last-minute appearance to give us an update on your big Apple Music trial.
KK: I will always be honest about my mistakes. That is my promise to the Gadget Lab listeners.
LG: And we love you for it. And thanks to all of you for listening. If you have feedback, you can find all of us on Twitter. Just check the show notes. This show is produced by the excellent Boone Ashworth. Goodbye for now, and we'll be back next week.
[Gadget Lab outro theme music plays]
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