By playing, you agree to uListen's Terms and Privacy Policy and YouTube's Terms of Service.
WVFRM PodcastApple M6? S27 Leaked? It's Gadget Season!
Summaries, chapters, transcripts, and FAQs on this page are made by uListen, not YouTube.
At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Gadget Season: Pixel 11 critiques, Apple M6/M5 Ultra, S27 leaks
- The hosts frame the episode as “Gadget Season,” covering Pixel 11 impressions, Apple’s new chips/Macs, Nothing OS 5.0, and early Galaxy S27 Ultra design leaks.
- A YouTube Android UI glitch (zero padding in the subscriptions tab on some Pixels) kicks off a broader talk about inconsistent app behavior and how differently they each consume YouTube.
- They argue Google’s Pixel 11 Pro tier is difficult to recommend over the base model and critique Gemini Intelligence and Highlight as either too narrow, too hidden behind settings, or missing obvious notification functionality.
- They examine YouTube’s new view counting by comparing public views vs engaged views on a recent channel upload, finding only a small difference in that case.
- Apple’s surprise M6 and M5 Ultra announcements lead to discussion of pricing shifts (Mac mini) and extreme performance configurations (Mac Studio), alongside speculation about how this reshuffles Apple’s event focus.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasPixel 11 Pro/Pro XL feel hard to justify versus the base Pixel 11.
Marques Brownlee says the Pixel 11 base model is the only one he can broadly justify on value, and that moving up to Pro/Pro XL requires finding “another couple hundred dollars” of value he doesn’t see, even though he likes using them.
Gemini’s proactive features are constrained, opt-in, and poorly explained.
David Imel describes Gemini Intelligence as showing proactive “chips” only in narrow situations (like a text containing specific details) and requiring specific app installs and settings toggles (e.g., OpenTable), with Google not clearly documenting what triggers what.
Highlight is seen as under-shipped and misaligned with how people use phones.
Andrew Manganelli and Marques Brownlee criticize Highlight for being dimmer than expected and limited in functionality, arguing it should have obvious notification uses (texts, apps, more colors) rather than primarily signaling Gemini; they note a community-made workaround demonstrated additional potential.
Performance hiccups on a new flagship Pixel stood out as unacceptable at the price.
Marques Brownlee reports intermittent stuttering/lag (including in Google Maps) on a new Pixel 11 Pro XL, framing it as notable for a high-priced, new phone and tying it to ongoing criticism of Tensor performance priorities.
In their sample, public view counts were only slightly higher than engaged views.
The hosts discuss YouTube’s new “Viewflation” counting and use their bezel-less concept phone video as a data point: 2.391M public views versus 2.354M engaged views, suggesting only a small inflation effect for that specific video.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesIt's another one of those phones that I really like- ... and will not be recommending to almost anyone ever.
— Marques Brownlee
People need to buy more used tech, by the way. Like, we need to stop always needing to buy the newest- newest, newest, especially when they get seven years of software updates.
— Marques Brownlee
Every AI that I've seen has felt like you hire the personal assistant, and it is their first day every single day, where they're way too scared to do anything.
— Andrew Manganelli
The only time I have my phone face down is when I'm, like, getting dinner or a drink with a friend, and it's, like, a sign of respect to put your phone face down. Yeah. It's performative.
— Marques Brownlee
I don't even wanna know how much it's gonna cost, but I do want it.
— Andrew Manganelli
SPEAKERS
Andrew Manganelli
hostCo-host of the Waveform Podcast and member of the MKBHD/WVFRM team covering consumer tech.
David Imel
hostCo-host of the Waveform Podcast and tech commentator focusing on smartphones and gadgets.
Marques Brownlee
hostTechnology reviewer and creator (MKBHD) who hosts the Waveform Podcast.
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
