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Version History is a show about the best gadgets ever. And the worst ones. And the ones that might have changed the world, if they ever actually shipped. Every week, your favorite people from The Verge and beyond hang out to tell and debate the story of a gadget, app, website, or any other tech product, and try to determine the item’s true legacy. Because not every product is a hit, but every product has a story. And the ones that really matter aren’t always the ones you think.
From the Verge and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
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Overhead projectors: Turn around
For decades, practically every classroom in the United States had one thing in common: a big, bright overhead projector at the front of the class. How it got there is a story that takes hundreds of years, and a war or two, to explain. David
LeapPad: Book smarts
For multiple years, the hottest toy in the United States was a book. But not just any book: a smart book, which could play sounds and respond to taps and help kids learn to read. David Pierce is joined by The Verge’s Andru Marino and Jennif
Google Chromebook CR-48: Black box
Google didn’t even call the first Chromebook a “Chromebook.” The CR-48 had no interesting design and no bright logos – it wasn’t even designed to be a product you could buy. Instead, it was a portal to a big new idea about computers. David
OLPC XO-1: The price of free
The idea was big, exciting, and inspiring: What if we could get every kid in the world access to a computer? For a bunch of thinkers and executives in Silicon Valley, it felt like the way to fix everything. But the One Laptop Per Child init
TI-84: Monopoly math
The same calculator has been on most kids’ back to school shopping list since the early 2000s. And the dominance of Texas Instruments’ calculator division goes back even farther. David Pierce is joined by The Verge’s Nilay Patel and Victori
Oregon Trail: Saddle up
Whether you played it in the back of your classroom or on your computer at home, if you were a kid in the last 30 years you almost certainly grew up playing Oregon Trail. David Pierce is joined by gaming journalist Chris Grant and Philip Bo
Vergecast: ELIZA, the world's first chatbot
From The Vergecast, this episode takes a look back at one of the earliest chapters in the history of AI. Before Alexa and Siri, there was ELIZA. The first chatbot ever was the creation of a man named Joseph Weizenbaum, who built the bot alm
The Clapper: Light work
Clap on. Clap off. The Clapper may not have been a very good product, but it came with one of the all-time great marketing campaigns. And it might have even been a great, ahead of its time idea. The Verge's David Pierce and Victoria Song ar
Philips Hue: The smart home’s light bulb moment
The humble light bulb might be the ultimate success story in the smart home. Our connected, adaptable homes are supposed to be customizable, connected to everything, and incredibly easy to use, and nothing has made that work quite like Phil
Keurig: The K-Cup invasion
The Keurig is a simple idea – what if it was really easy to make pretty good coffee, one cup at a time? — with a wildly complicated history. David Pierce is joined by Eater editor Melissa McCart and champion barista and author Morgan Eckrot
Nest: The iPod of thermostats
Thermostats were ugly. Best case scenario, you never had to think about it. Then a couple of Apple legends decided they could make something better, and set out to turn changing the temperature into a high-tech experience. On this episode,
Roomba: Rise of the robovac
The team of engineers and researchers that created iRobot didn’t set out to build a vacuum cleaner. They built robots — a lot of robots, with a lot of jobs — before realizing that people might actually want a robot that could help clean the
Harmony remote: Control freak
The Harmony Universal Remote was supposed to be the only controller you needed for all the devices in your life. So what happened? David Pierce is joined by The Verge’s Nilay Patel and John Higgins, as well as Nest co-founder (and current H
Western Electric 500: Monopoly phone
For years, even decades, virtually everyone in the United States had the same telephone. You didn't even think about it — it was just The Phone. Well, The Phone was called the Western Electric 500, and it was the result of nearly a century
Amazon Echo: Always listening
For years, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos knew the computer he wanted to build. He wanted it to be cheap, accessible everywhere, and controlled entirely by voice. It took Amazon a number of years, a lot of false starts, and some deeply strange focus
Macintosh: All in one
The Macintosh wasn't a hit, at least not in its first incarnation. But it was still unquestionably one of the most iconic computers ever made — and it came with one of the most iconic ads ever made, too. In this episode, David Pierce, Nilay
Vocoder: Magic mic
The vocoder was never meant to change the music business – it wasn’t meant for music at all. But the research that started a century ago as a way to cheaply move voices over telephone wires took on a life of its own: It turned into a crucia
Clubhouse: Pivot to audio
If you were launching a new app in 2020, it was either the worst timing (see: Quibi) or the best timing (see: Clubhouse). Clubhouse was an initially invite-only, audio-based social network that worked like an old-timey party line or radio c
Furby: Talk Furbish to me
In 1997, David Hampton and Caleb Chung took one look at a Tamagotchi and decided they could bring the virtual pet craze into the real world. Their robotic companion, Furby, packed a bunch of advanced technology into a small, adorable, often
TiVo: Press pause
Best remote ever? Best remote ever. When TiVo first debuted, it felt like magic: You could pause live TV! You could rewind it! The concept immediately became a phenomenon — even though TiVo itself was never as big a hit as you might think.
Flappy Bird: Game over
Flappy Bird was a mean game. It was extremely simple and yet punishingly difficult; if you could get 10 points, that meant you were pretty good! For a few weeks, the game became an absolute global phenomenon — and in the process, both made
Nintendo Power Glove: I love it. It's so bad.
In the mid-1980s, Nintendo pretty much ruled the video game industry. And somehow, a few toymakers and inventors convinced Nintendo that the controller of the future was… this big, clunky thing you wore on your right arm. (Sorry, lefties.)
AIM: Away message
AOL Instant Messenger was, for years, one of the very best things on the internet. Before iMessage and WhatsApp, before Twitter and Facebook, AIM was simply how people talked to each other online. Maybe it was how you casually chatted up yo
iPhone 4: You're holding it wrong
The iPhone 4 was one of the best iPhones ever — and definitely the most dramatic iPhone ever. It was lost in a bar in California, sold to Gizmodo, and published for the world to see months before its launch. The phone itself had a bunch of
Google Glass: In your face
Google didn't invent the concept of smart glasses, but it was one of the first companies to actually put them on people's faces. It was a revolution, and also a problem: Google made face computers extremely uncool, and its early user base w
Vine: Six seconds of fame
Vine was the original short-form video platform, and pioneered so many of the ideas we now take for granted in reels and TikToks. It was a cultural engine whose executives clashed with the creators who made it famous, before everybody decam
LimeWire: Steal this podcast
You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a handbag. But plenty of people used LimeWire and other file sharing services to share music, movies and more. If Napster was the beginning of the piracy story, LimeWire may have been the final c
Fire Phone: Amazon’s mobile mistake
In 2014, the tech world was abuzz with the prospect of a phone made by Amazon. When the Fire Phone arrived, it was chock full of ideas — a "dynamic perspective" feature that created 3D illusions, an image-recognition feature called "Firefly
Zune: The would-be iPod killer
In 2006, Microsoft came for the iPod's throne with an innovative MP3 player called the Zune. It had a bunch of features the iPod didn't: WiFi, music sharing, a bigger screen, a beautiful UI, even an FM radio. And to hear Microsoft describe
Guitar Hero: Everybody’s a rock star
Millions of basements have fake plastic guitars in them thanks to the 2005 smash hit Guitar Hero. Chris Grant and Ash Parrish join David Pierce to rock out with a game created over a matter of months by a niche developer and a peripheral ma
