Version History

Western Electric 500: Monopoly phone

April 12, 2026

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 of AT&T's monopoly over the US phone system. It was also a really great phone. In this episode of Version History, David Pierce, Nilay Patel, and author and professor Tim Wu explain how AT&T's monopoly grew, how the phone system worked, and how it happened ...

Amazon Echo: Always listening

April 05, 2026

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 groups, but the company eventually turned the Amazon Echo into something like the voice computer Bezos wanted, powered by an assistant called Alexa. (Even though Bezos kind of hated the thing along the way.) In this episode, we tell the story of the develo...

Macintosh: All in one

March 29, 2026

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 Patel, and Daring Fireball's John Gruber tell the story of the Macintosh, from its beginnings as a lark inside Apple to its dramatic unveiling to its somewhat middling reception. Not long after the Macintosh came out, Steve Jobs was run out of Apple, but t...