Samsung’s S25 Ultra And The End Of The Flagship Phone

After almost precisely 18 years, you could make nan connection that nan tech manufacture has yet vanished what nan iPhone started. It’s not that there’s nary invention adjacent successful phones, aliases that location aren’t different ample ideas to beryllium had astir nan devices we proscription around, but nan circumstantial constituent nan first iPhone was — a candy bar-shaped slab of coagulated successful your pouch — mightiness personification reached its past form. Maybe there’s different logic that Samsung’s Galaxy S25 lineup looks truthful familiar, and why it appears this year’s different flagship devices will too. But perchance it’s conscionable that there’s not overmuch adjacent to do here.

On this conception of The Vergecast, The Verge’s Allison Johnson tells america each astir her experiences pinch nan S25 Ultra, supposedly nan astir absorbing and experimental instrumentality successful Samsung’s lineup, and why she’s a spot underwhelmed contempt nan truth that nan Ultra remains an fantabulous phone.

We too talk nan phones adjacent to motorboat this year, and whether this mightiness yet beryllium nan twelvemonth a caller telephone style — flipping, aliases folding, aliases perchance tri-folding? — hits nan ample time. We personification immoderate theories, and a batch of hope, but are mostly readying for different twelvemonth of nan aforesaid aged candy bars.

After that, we talk astir China. Cooper Quintin, a elder portion technologist astatine nan Electronic Frontier Foundation, joins nan show to talk astir each nan privateness and accusation questions surrounding TikTok, RedNote, DeepSeek, and nan different apps connected to China that are hitting it ample successful nan US. Quintin explains really to deliberation astir those apps compared to what Meta and Google are doing, explains really to deliberation astir your ain threat model, and makes nan suit that what we really petition is simply a nationalist privateness law.

Finally, we return a mobility connected nan Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 aliases email [email protected]!) astir nan Meta Portal. The once-hot video calling gadget is nary longer for waste and appears not agelong for this world — truthful really are we each expected to telephone nan grandparents? With nan thief of The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, we recreation up pinch immoderate ideas.

If you want to cognize overmuch astir everything we talk successful this episode, coming are immoderate links to get you started: