The Vergecast: Ad-Free Edition The Galaxy S26 is a photography nightmare
Feb 27, 2026
They dissect Samsung’s S26 launch, from the clever Privacy Display to risky AI photo tools that can fabricate images. They unpack Google and Samsung’s agentic AI plans that can run apps and book services for you. They analyze Microsoft’s Xbox leadership shakeup and what it means for the platform’s identity. The show closes with sharp takes on AI hype, creator economy quirks, and odd political PR stunts.
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Galaxy S26 Is A Software-First Phone
- Samsung treated the S26 as a software-first update with radical AI photo and agent features rather than pure hardware improvements.
- Examples include Privacy Display, Horizon Lock, Now Nudge, Gallery AI edits, and Gemini agent demos that emphasize software-driven differentiation.
Privacy Display Is A Real Hardware Privacy Feature
- Samsung's Privacy Display is a hardware innovation with vertically focused pixels that can be toggled by app, geofence, or routine for real shoulder-surfing protection.
- Nilay praised deep customization like automatic enabling for passcode input or when away from home, making it practical if defaults are sensible.
Phone Cameras Are Being Positioned To Invent Reality
- Samsung explicitly reframed smartphone cameras from capturing reality to inventing images, offering tools to add or alter people, outfits, and scenes via natural-language prompts.
- Nilay and David argue this normalizes high-quality deepfakes on-device and creates broad misuse risks (nudes, fake persons, deceptive history).