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Apple has gotten used to being a favorite target of rivals and government agencies. The company has been repeatedly scrutinized by regulators around the world, and other tech companies have accused the company of anticompetitive practices. Apple’s most recent legal challenge is a doozy: an antitrust lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice and more than a dozen state attorneys general. The suit takes aim at the security and privacy features offered only on the iPhone and accuses Apple of using that exclusivity to lock consumers into its ecosystem. At the center of the suit is the lack of cross-platform encryption on Apple’s messaging platform—the green-bubble–blue-bubble divide—which the government alleges harms consumers by leaving them more vulnerable to attacks.
This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED senior security editor Andrew Couts about the encryption and privacy issues behind the DOJ's suit against Apple and how the dreaded green bubbles on iMessage factor in.
Show Notes
Read Andrew and Andy Greenberg’s WIRED story about how the DOJ is targeting Apple's iMessage encryption. Read Lauren Goode’s story about how the antitrust case is all about the green bubbles, really.
Recommendations
Andrew recommends profumo del chianti sea salt spice mix. Lauren recommends the book Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Mike recommends going to the Big Ears music festival next year in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Andrew Couts can be found on social media @AndrewCouts. 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
Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.
Michael Calore: Lauren.
Lauren Goode: Mike.
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Michael Calore: What goes through your head when you see a text message come in from me? Like from—
Lauren Goode: I'm like, “Oh, yay.”
Michael Calore: No, I mean, from my Android phone to your iPhone, and then I show up as a green bubble.
Lauren Goode: When we’re using SMS?
Michael Calore: Yes.
Lauren Goode: I think it'd be really nice if Mike had an iPhone, but we text over Signal all the time.
Michael Calore: We do. We use Signal primarily because it's more secure but also because whenever you send me a video, it looks normal instead of all crunchy and terrible, like it would if we just use SMS.
Lauren Goode: Right. Yeah, it's true. The third-party app thing is so much better, but we can't have nice messaging by default. We just can't have nice things.
Michael Calore: Is that really the basis though for a massive Antitrust lawsuit?
Lauren Goode: I knew you were getting there. We should talk about it.
Michael Calore: Let's do it.
Lauren Goode: Let's do it.
[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]
Michael Calore: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I'm Michael Calore, director of consumer tech and culture at WIRED.
Lauren Goode: I'm Lauren Goode. I'm a senior writer at WIRED.
Michael Calore: We are also joined, once again, by WIRED senior security editor Andrew Couts. Hi, Andrew.
Andrew Couts: Hi. Thanks for having me.
Michael Calore: Of course.
Lauren Goode: Thank you for joining us from your hamlet, Andrew.
Andrew Couts: You're very welcome. It's very hamlety.
Michael Calore: Today, we are talking about Apple. Late last week, the US Department of Justice filed an Antitrust lawsuit against Apple. In the suit, the DOJ accuses Apple of establishing a, quote, iPhone monopoly, unquote, by locking certain features and services into iOS. This walled garden approach is one that Apple uses for many of its products, including its subscription services, its wearables business, and its financial services offerings. The DOJ's argument is that if you don't have an iPhone, you just can't use a lot of the stuff that Apple makes, which is not only unfair, but it also just locks people into Apple's ecosystem.
Andrew, you and our colleague, Andy Greenberg, coauthored a story on WIRED about the intricacies of this Antitrust lawsuit and its security implications. I did not write an article about it, so the overview that I just gave was very brief. I'm hoping that you can fill out the story for us. What are the particulars of the suit, and where is the DOJ really putting the screws to Apple?
Andrew Couts: Sure. Broadly speaking, the Antitrust suit accuses Apple of being a monopoly and engaging in anticompetitive behavior. Part of that anticompetitive behavior, the DOJ alleges, is that Apple's decision to not allow interoperability of iMessage between Apple devices and Android devices is part of that anticompetitive behavior. Specifically, they're referring to the encryption that's allowed through iMessage between different iPhones, but that's not afforded to Android users. If you're chatting with somebody on Android, like you, Michael, to Lauren, then those messages are not encrypted. It's just standard SMS. Part of the lawsuit is Apple's decision to keep the encryption for itself essentially.
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The DOJ also alleges that Apple selectively chooses when to embrace security and privacy and when to not. Specifically, it says that it does so only when it benefits Apple itself. It might keep iMessage encryption for itself, but it makes Google, which engages in a lot of data collection, the default search engine on Safari on its devices. The DOJ describes it in its lawsuit as an elastic implementation of privacy and security decisions.
Michael Calore: That's a good word.
Lauren Goode: What is the market competition argument for how Apple is being unfair, for lack of a better word, in the way that it builds its privacy and security services and sort of doesn't extend them? The DOJ can't make an argument that Apple should do that out of goodwill. It's alleging a monopoly because of the way that Apple wields this tech. What's the strongest argument there?
Andrew Couts: I would say the actual weakest part of the DOJ argument is that Apple is a monopoly. From the experts we spoke to, defining Apple as having monopoly power of the market is the biggest challenge for the DOJ in this lawsuit. Of course, that is central to its success. If a smaller company were to offer privacy features or security features that it doesn't extend to all of its competitors, that might not be a problem. It's simply Apple's size, the DOJ alleges, that makes its decisions to keep certain security and privacy decisions to itself a problem.
Really, in writing the piece that Andy and I did, we struggled with how to describe exactly what the issues were here, because really, you want to have companies competing to have the best privacy and security options available if you want to further privacy and security. But because of Apple's size, it's able to wield undue influence over the market generally, according to the DOJ, and the experts we spoke to say Apple really shouldn't be the one setting the standards for privacy and security.
Michael Calore: You got a statement out of Apple, and Lauren, I know you've done some reporting on this too. What is their stance? How is the reaction to this lawsuit being messaged?
Andrew Couts: More generally, Apple sees it as false and that they are simply practicing their business and doing it well. With iMessage specifically, they say they could offer an Android version of it that would allow both Android and iPhone users to have the encryption currently only offered to iPhone users. However, they say they can't guarantee that the implementation of the encryption would be up to Apple standards, and there is some legitimacy to that argument. Encryption is a notoriously difficult technology to implement correctly. If it isn't implemented correctly, there could be security or privacy issues for users. So, there's some legitimacy to that argument, but at the same time, there are certainly ways that Apple could require specific implementation just as WhatsApp has done with the ways it's expanding its interoperability options to make sure that the encryption is implemented correctly.
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Lauren Goode: I was going to add, not just in response to this DOJ lawsuit, but in general, one of Apple's biggest arguments around messaging has been, well, provided that the app is in the App Store, you can install any messaging app you want. You can install Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Line, Signal, as we referenced early on. Of course, that isn't the default message. If you just go to dash off a text to a friend from your primary, like your contacts app or something embedded in the native phone system, it's going to default to SMS. But some of those apps are end-to-end encrypted and meet the higher security standards, and you could just use them the way that we use Signal.
Michael Calore: It does require both people to have the same app.
Lauren Goode: Right. You have to have the same app container. You have to both opt in.
Michael Calore: Right, and that's difficult to do. We're journalists who work in technology, we can say, "Hey, let's use Signal." But to explain to your normie friends who are not journalists and are not as familiar with encryption technology, "Hey, let's use Signal." Well, what is that? And then, you end up being the one person who they can't text because you have to go into this weird app to text them, so it's a very imperfect solution. But also, I do agree that it's probably likely that Apple can come up with a way to properly implement end-to-end encryption on its iMessage platform in a way that allows it to be used cross-platform. Apple has also recently said that they're going to support RCS, which is a new tech standard. Can you talk about that a little bit, Lauren?
Lauren Goode: Yeah. RCS is something that Google has really been a big proponent of, and Google is also working with the wireless networks to create and ensure this standard. I mean, I think maybe what some consumers who have been on iPhone for a long time and just fire off blue bubble texts to each other maybe don't realize is that when Apple created iMessage as extensions of earlier products, like iChat, it was basically eschewing the traditional wireless networks. It was using its own data network and its own privacy and security, which is different from the packets of data that were being sent over wireless networks, which could be monitored in different ways. That was part of Apple's value proposition with iMessage.
Google has come out and said, "We think we can make a Rich Communication Service, RCS, that we can get all of the big players in the mobile phone and wireless world on board with, that would allow some of the more fun or interactive features of messaging to happen cross-platform." Things like giving a tap back on a friend's message or using a certain emoji or videos or gifs, or actually just sending your friends a photo or video and not have it be this terrible compressed format if it's going from Android to Apple or Apple to Android. Google said we can make this happen. We just need everyone on board. On top of that, we would offer an end-to-end encryption that would rival what Apple is essentially offering on iMessage.
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Apple said at some point last year that they would hop aboard the RCS train this year, but we have no clarity on that, no updates on that. We don't know when it's going to happen.
Michael Calore: Yeah. I think when that announcement came, it was also widely believed to be something that was going to be used in the future as a chip against a possible Antitrust lawsuit over iMessage encryption.
Lauren Goode: Correct.
Michael Calore: It was maybe like a strategic, OK, we'll support it now kind of thing. That didn't necessarily stop the lawsuit from coming down.
Lauren Goode: Yeah. The big tech companies are very good at playing 4D chess.
Michael Calore: Hopefully, they can get better at interoperability. All right. Let's take a quick break, and we'll come right back.
[Break]
Michael Calore: Now, Lauren, you also wrote a story about this DOJ lawsuit, a very good story, that outlines the cultural argument that the government is making. The DOJ alleges that Apple, through user experience design in iOS, gives the impression that Android phones are inferior to iPhones. The DOJ suit also alleges that this artificial stigma ends up creating a social pressure that forces people to switch to iPhones or to just keep buying iPhones until the end of time. How is the Department of Justice saying this social pressure works?
Lauren Goode: I mean, won't anyone think of the teenagers in their group chats? OK. We have to go back a little bit to around 2022, and this anecdote is included in the DOJ's 88-page filing. Tim Cook was speaking at a conference, the annual Code Conference. He was on stage with Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs's widow, and Jony Ive. Someone in the audience talked to Tim, asked Tim about the pain point that he was experiencing in sending images and videos and stuff to his mom on Android. Tim Cook's now infamous response was, "Get your mom an iPhone." He didn't really offer a solution that was cross-platform. He made a sales pitch.
That anecdote is included because it is supposedly emblematic of how painful it can be to actually use cross-platform messaging. That same year, the Wall Street Journal had written a story about how teens were feeling ostracized, just terrible about the fact that if they an Android phone and they were part of a group chat, their friends would accuse them of, quote, unquote, breaking the chat, which I think a lot of us have seen happen. This is a social stigma argument. It's a bit spurious. It is a cultural argument, that by establishing the technical differences between iMessage and Android, that Apple is making rival smartphones worse. It is a bit of a strange argument because it's a free market that these tech companies are operating in, and Apple may be making a superior product, but it veers away from the traditional definitions and more recondite explanations of Antitrust, which are typically looking at things like super competitive pricing or whether or not a company is doing something sort of behind the scenes to restrict competition in a way that changes market pricing.
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In this instance, it's really this kind of social stigma argument. The DOJ is arguing that all of this reinforces the so-called switching costs that Apple has baked into its phones and it makes Apple that much more dominant and that is what makes it anticompetitive.
Michael Calore: I see. I mean, those things are real.
Lauren Goode: They are.
Michael Calore: As an Android phone person, I often get blamed for breaking the chat, and I have to correct them and say, "No, don't blame me. Blame Apple." I often get blamed for sending crappy videos and people say, "What's wrong with your phone?" I say, "There's nothing wrong with my phone. There's something wrong with your phones." The fun part is when it's reversed and there's a lot of Android people and there's one iPhone person in the chat, and then all of a sudden they're the odd person out and they don't know what's happening, because usually they're in a world where they're only chatting with other people with iPhones. There's a lot of people who are just not aware that this is even an issue because so many people in their circle have iPhones.
Lauren Goode: Right. Or this is a very US-centric problem too.
Michael Calore: How so?
Lauren Goode: Well, overseas, Android is the most dominant operating system in the world. Not just on mobile, but Android. There are many forked versions of Android that exist on things, like set-top boxes-
Michael Calore: ATMs.
Lauren Goode: … and cars and ATMs, exactly. Your Peloton. Around the world, people tend to gravitate towards different messaging apps. WhatsApp, WeChat, I mentioned Line earlier. There are all kinds of … This is very much a US problem, now, granted the DOJ suit is happening here in the United States. I think you're correct in that this has happened to a lot of people, and maybe just consumers don't really understand why or place the blame where they shouldn't. In my family chat, there's one person who has an Android phone. Everyone else has an iPhone, and so for a while, the tap backs have gotten better, but for a while, a lot of people probably have noticed this, the tap back would be written out in text. If you liked someone's message, it would say, "Jack liked the message," or something.
Michael Calore: It says loved the message.
Lauren Goode: Loved the message. Well, there's like and love, there's the thumbs up, and then there's …
Michael Calore: Oh, I'm sorry. I only know love. I don't know …
Lauren Goode: See? You don't know the tap backs. My teenage niece and nephew for a long time would just make fun of us by typing out their tap backs.
Michael Calore: Yeah, I do that.
Lauren Goode: It was … Yeah. There are cultural norms now that have been established all on account of the fact that some people are using green bubbles and some people are using blue bubbles. The question is whether or not this is legally defensible. To Andrew's point, a lot of the experts who we've spoken with in recent days say that this is probably not the most legally defensible. One legal expert I spoke to said that the DOJ is probably going to have to come forward with more documentation, internal emails or the like, that indicate that this goes beyond social stigma. Apple has been so concerned about market competition, in some ways are so concerned about threats to its ecosystem that it has taken dubious action in some way.
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Michael Calore: Right. It has to show that this is a strategy for the company to get a leg up. Andrew, what are your thoughts about pain points around messaging?
Andrew Couts: I just wish fewer people would text me just generally, just all the notifications are so exhausting. That's neither here nor there about what Apple's doing, but I was getting overwhelmed thinking about how many pings a day I'm having to deal with. I think that's exacerbated by the fact that we're all switching around through various different apps. People will be messaging me on WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage. I don't have an Android, but we're all on Slack all day. And so, just the sheer number of pings.
I think that's why any pain points in these messages make it all the worst because you're constantly dealing with pings from a million different areas. If we can whittle that down a little bit, it might make everybody's lives a little bit simpler and some of these decisions the companies make a little less impactful.
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: Andrew, you're welcome back in the show anytime. I 100 percent agree. This reminds me a little bit of our conversations with Jason Kehe, who says he likes having crappy phones because of the barrier they create to being on them all the time. He went back to a flip phone at one point, and he wasn't getting all these completely irritating notifications.
Michael Calore: Yes. He just became the irritating person who didn't respond.
Lauren Goode: That's correct.
Michael Calore: There's one thing about your story that I want to make sure we touch on before we move on, and that's the fact that in this 88-page lawsuit, the DOJ really crafted a narrative in an interesting way. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Lauren Goode: Yeah. From what I understand, based on my limited knowledge of big Antitrust cases, that this is definitely part of the strategy, that the Department of Justice wants to make this accessible, not just for the technologists and the technicians. It's a little bit different in that way from the Microsoft Antitrust case, which the filing is dated 1998. That went on for years. It's a little bit shorter, but it's highly technical, especially because back then, the consumer internet was still relatively new. So, explaining the intricacies of super apps and the Netscape browser and how that worked and the default browser on Windows and how Windows saw itself as this beautiful boutique and everything else was going to bastardize that.
This is a little bit more like, "Hey, the common people hate it when their green chat friends break the message, break the thread." This is more like … I mean, there are billions of Apple devices around the world. There's some of the most popular products in the world. They're also relatively easy to grok. And so I think that the DOJ is really leaning on that and those widespread consumer experiences to build this narrative around like … The DOJ is alleging that there's something anticompetitive happening, but it's presenting it in some parts of the filing. I mean, other parts are incredibly technical, but in some parts of the filing, presenting it as this is something that everyone can understand.
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Michael Calore: OK. I have one final question for the both of you, Andrew, I'll ask you this question first. You have done some reporting on this. You've spoken to some experts. What's the word on the street? Who's going to win?
Andrew Couts: I think Apple has a good chance of winning this lawsuit, to be honest. I think that it's going to be really difficult to prove that they have a monopoly given their market share and that the decisions that they're making that are arguably good for their own customers are demonstrably bad for the rest of us. I think talking about security specifically, definitely part of the reason I own an iPhone is because I'm very security and privacy conscious, as WIRED Security Editor, and I value the benefits that that gives me by using that platform. Does my extra security, because I bought an iPhone, make you, Michael, less secure? Maybe. I don't know. That's a really hard question to answer, and that's one small part of a bigger legal strategy, but I do think they're going to run into those issues once they get into the nitty-gritty and go up against Apple's equally highly-paid lawyers.
Lauren Goode: We'd also be remiss if we didn't mention the App Store is a big part of this too. Ben Thompson, who writes the Stratechery blog, he's a tech analyst. He's done a good pretty good analysis of this, but that might end up being the DOJ's strongest argument, that some of the policies and the fees that Apple has established in the App Store could be the thing that is most damning perhaps. In this case, the DOJ also has the Epic case to lean on a little bit. Apple ended up that case, but there could be some prior art there, so to speak, that helps support the DOJ's case.
Michael Calore: All right. Well, thanks both. I look forward to texting you without issue in the very near future. Let's take another break, and we'll come right back with recommendations.
[Break]
Michael Calore: All right. This is the end of our show, a recommendation segment where we go around the horn and everybody gets to recommend something to our listeners they might enjoy. Andrew, as our guest, you get to go first. What is your recommendation?
Andrew Couts: My recommendation is for foodies out there, or specifically anyone who really enjoys savory food. I'm not a big dessert person. I would much rather have beef jerky than a cupcake, but this one comes from Italy. It's called Profumo del Chianti. It's basically a sea salt spice mix, but my wife is Italian American and fluent in Italian, worked in Italy a bunch, and she brought this back from one of her long-ago business trips. It is perhaps my favorite thing. You can put it on vegetables; you can put it on meat. I sometimes just stick my finger in the jar and eat some of it because I'm a weirdo. It is delicious. I highly recommend it.
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Michael Calore: Is it granular, like salt, like a seasoning?
Andrew Couts: Yes. It's like the most finely ground sea salt with various herbs and some other spices. I don't know exactly what's in it. Unlike my wife, I don't read Italian. Whatever's in the ingredients list is still a mystery to me, but it's a delicious mystery.
Michael Calore: Very nice.
Lauren Goode: That sounds amazing. Where do you get it from? Well, it sounds like your wife brought it back from Italy, but if you run out, where do you get it here in the States?
Andrew Couts: You can just buy it online from various Italian specialty stores. I believe she got it at the place where they make it, but it's in Parma, I believe, and where there's Parmigiano Reggiano is made, where there's prosciutto.
Michael Calore: Prosciutto.
Andrew Couts: Giant … Yeah, it's all in the world of delicious, savory Italian food, but you can buy it online.
Lauren Goode: Nice.
Michael Calore: I'm extremely hungry now.
Lauren Goode: I bet Lucca has it.
Michael Calore: Yeah, maybe. Maybe. I was going to say it's like Italian Za'atar.
Lauren Goode: Sounds like it.
Michael Calore: OK. Yeah. I'm going to be putting that on my avocado toast from now on most likely. Thank you.
Andrew Couts: Great call.
Michael Calore: Lauren, what's your recommendation?
Lauren Goode: My recommendation is a very, very late recommendation. Back in 2022, a lot of people were making a fuss about this book. I finally got around to reading it. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
Michael Calore: Yes.
Lauren Goode: Yeah, that's great.
Michael Calore: It's about video games?
Lauren Goode: It is about video games, but it's really about friendship. It's about a few characters, two in particular, who are childhood friends, and their friendship extends into adulthood. It's an on-again, off-again friendship, but they're also video game collaborators and it's incredibly touching. It's a good read.
Michael Calore: Who's the author?
Lauren Goode: It's written by Gabrielle Zevin.
Michael Calore: Nice. It's out in paperback now probably.
Lauren Goode: I know. I have the hardcover because I was ambitiously trying to read it when it first came out, but it's probably out in paperback by now.
Michael Calore: Nice.
Lauren Goode: Yeah. I haven't gone down the rabbit hole on this ship, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's been optioned to turn into some kind of derivative work, if you will.
Michael Calore: Great. I look forward to Netflix 2027.
Lauren Goode: Yeah. If anyone has not read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, probably all of you have, once again, I'm very behind when we're not reading 88-page …
Michael Calore: DOJ files.
Lauren Goode: Lawsuit filings, another dissertations for people to read, I mean, all that stuff. I recommend checking it out. Mike, what's your recommendation?
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Michael Calore: I'm going to recommend Big Ears 2025, because I just got back the day before yesterday from attending Big Ears 2024. It's a music festival. It's in Knoxville, Tennessee, which is a lovely city. It's very livable; it's beautiful. The weather's nice. The people are amazing. They have good barbecue. Big Ears is in its 10th year this year, so next year will be the 11th. It is a new music and jazz festival. Big Ears, which just celebrated 10 years in Knoxville, is a festival for music that is like cross-genre music between jazz and Americana and new music. A lot of strings, string quartets, but also jazz combos, classical music, singer-songwriter stuff, hip hop, it's all there.
It is a big sort of mush of all these different kinds of musics. There's collaboration. It's not like, when you say music festival, people think of Coachella. People think, OK, there's a big field and you pay $30 for parking, and you walk from stage to stage all day, and there's all these teenagers on psychedelics. This is not that. It's closer to a festival like South by Southwest, where it descends on the downtown area of a small city, and there is a number of venues. There's about 10 or 15 venues.
Lauren Goode: The bathrooms are indoors, which is great.
Michael Calore: Yes. Yes, they're all indoors. You go from venue to venue to venue, and you get a little wristband, a little RFID wristband that gets you into any show, every show that's happening. Sometimes, they reach capacity and you have to wait, although we didn't run into that problem. It was really wonderful. I got to see a bunch of acts that I've always wanted to see but have never gotten the opportunity to see, because they were all there and it was really great.
If you're into avant-garde stuff, but you call yourself a fan of jazz or Americana or bluegrass or new classical music, like modern music, the Big Ears is probably something you already know about. But if you are into that and you haven't heard of it, you should definitely check it out and it'll be next March, most likely. I mean, I don't even know if there's going to be a 2025. I'm just guessing. If you see it, look into it because it might be your thing. It's an awesome festival. It's probably the best music festival I've ever attended.
Lauren Goode: That's high praise.
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: High praise and an incredibly on-brand recommendation.
Michael Calore: Also, I should mention that I'm in my late forties, and I don't like to be on my feet, and I don't like to be physically uncomfortable. I was very comfortable the whole time.
Lauren Goode: Yeah, that's my aversion to music, quote-unquote, festivals. Whether it's the kind that you're describing where you actually are in venues and you're meandering around a city, or it's the big open field with wristbands and molly and porta-potty, shudder.
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Michael Calore: Nope, nope. None of that.
Lauren Goode: Too old for that. But yeah, my aversion's generally been like it's too many days of really loud music and noise and crowds and stuff. Your experience sounds a lot more pleasant.
Michael Calore: Yeah, it was. Also just east Tennessee, lovely place. Great part of the country.
Lauren Goode: Very cool.
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: You going to go work for the tourism board there?
Michael Calore: I don't think so.
Lauren Goode: Are you going to move there?
Michael Calore: I don't think so.
Lauren Goode: Why not?
Michael Calore: Because I love California. It's the greatest state in the union.
Lauren Goode: Fair. Fair.
Michael Calore: OK. Well, thank you, Andrew, for joining us this week.
Andrew Couts: Thanks for having me. It's always fun.
Michael Calore: Of course. Come back anytime, especially next time. There's a big tech lawsuit from the government.
Lauren Goode: We promise not to send you too many notifications, Andrew.
Andrew Couts: Thanks. I appreciate it.
Michael Calore: Thank you all for listening. If you have feedback, you can find all of us on the internet somewhere. Just check the show notes. Our producer is Boone Ashworth. We will be back next week with a new show. Until then, goodbye.
[Gadget Lab outro theme music plays]
Lauren Goode: Amazing.
Michael Calore: Wish Boone had his camera on, so you could see his new haircut.
Lauren Goode: Oh, we forgot to say happy birthday to Boone.
Michael Calore: Oh shit.
Lauren Goode: Put that at the end. Put that at the end.
Boone Ashworth: I stopped recording, so we can’t do it.
Michael Calore [singing Happy Birthday in Spanish]: Feliz cumpleanos!
Lauren Goode: [Singing]
