David Pierce is editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.

After almost exactly 18 years, you could make the argument that the tech industry has finally finished what the iPhone started. It’s not that there’s no innovation left in phones, or that there aren’t other big ideas to be had about the devices we carry around, but the specific thing the first iPhone was — a candy bar-shaped slab of glass in your pocket — might have reached its final form. Maybe there’s another reason that Samsung’s Galaxy S25 lineup looks so familiar, and why it appears this year’s other flagship devices will too. But maybe it’s just that there’s not much left to do here.

On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge’s Allison Johnson tells us all about her experiences with the S25 Ultra, supposedly the most interesting and experimental device in Samsung’s lineup, and why she’s a bit underwhelmed despite the fact that the Ultra remains an excellent phone.

We also discuss the phones left to launch this year, and whether this might finally be the year a new phone shape — flipping, or folding, or maybe tri-folding? — hits the big time. We have some theories, and a lot of hope, but are mostly planning for another year of the same old candy bars.

After that, we talk about China. Cooper Quintin, a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, joins the show to talk about all the privacy and security questions surrounding TikTok, RedNote, DeepSeek, and the other apps connected to China that are hitting it big in the US. Quintin explains how to think about those apps compared to what Meta and Google are doing, explains how to think about your own threat model, and makes the case that what we really need is a federal privacy law.

Finally, we take a question on the Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com!) about the Meta Portal. The once-hot video calling gadget is no longer for sale and appears not long for this world — so how are we all supposed to call the grandparents? With the help of The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, we come up with some ideas.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started: