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Cortex

19: Brick of Obligation

 

00:00:00   You know what my personal assistant got me for Christmas, Myke?

00:00:03   Star Wars coloring books for grown-ups.

00:00:06   I got one of them!

00:00:10   Oh yeah?

00:00:10   Was this from one of the many, many pictures that you sent me of coloring books from around the world?

00:00:17   I'm proving a point to you, right?

00:00:18   So, listeners, I have been taking photos of every bookstore that I go into

00:00:23   and going into bookstores specifically to take photos as well

00:00:28   to just prove to Grey that colouring is everywhere and now it has been proven that it is everywhere

00:00:33   because it is becoming a general gift that people buy each other and now you have Star Wars ones.

00:00:37   We may have the same one, I have Star Wars inspire creativity or something like that,

00:00:43   images to inspire creativity, it's got a picture of Yoda on the front.

00:00:46   That's probably what it is.

00:00:48   I will be cracking that book out to colour whilst I'm editing this episode,

00:00:53   I've not touched it yet, I've been waiting.

00:00:55   Do you have colouring implements?

00:00:57   No, I don't have any colouring implements now. I have nothing.

00:01:01   Alright, I'll buy you those for Christmas then.

00:01:03   I do not want Christmas gifts.

00:01:05   But you need the colouring pens and I'm gonna get you good stuff.

00:01:08   Because otherwise you'll get something crap.

00:01:10   No, I won't get anything crap. I just won't get anything.

00:01:13   I don't need colouring instruments. I don't need any of this.

00:01:15   How can you colour in the book that you've been given?

00:01:17   You see, I phrase that in a very careful way, which is that

00:01:21   this is what she got me for Christmas, but I was like, please don't send this to me.

00:01:25   this to me I do not I do not it was purchased and you denied it were you

00:01:33   expecting gifts no and this is why I was like you know what I want for Christmas

00:01:37   nothing nothing from everyone is what I want for Christmas do you get any gifts

00:01:43   I try not to but for some reason in our document here you have a gift

00:01:49   recommendation for everybody else oh yeah all of your gifts is that the

00:01:53   recommendation like take all of my presents that is that is my

00:01:57   recommendation to you all this year take mine I don't want them no don't take my

00:02:01   things and I like the things that I have yeah cuz I mean if people took your

00:02:04   things they don't have to take that one thing you'd have no things unless it was

00:02:08   iPads you could take one of my iPad's you just sit down on the couch what is

00:02:16   that you just pull one out from the couch cushions you open a cabinet and

00:02:19   they will stop pouring out on you or something.

00:02:21   Yeah, that's exactly what my house is like.

00:02:23   Yeah, so I was thinking, I was thinking

00:02:27   a gift recommendation.

00:02:30   If if you listener have a geek in your life

00:02:35   that you want to get a gift for, because I bought this thing

00:02:38   that I'm going to recommend a couple months ago, and I've been surprised

00:02:42   how much I use it and how much of a game changer it is for me.

00:02:47   and I also got one for my wife.

00:02:49   And what this is, is just an external battery

00:02:54   to charge your phone or your tablet.

00:02:58   - How did you not have one of these?

00:03:00   - Okay, so here's the reason I didn't get one of these

00:03:03   before, but I have a specific recommendation.

00:03:06   And then now of course, I should have been prepared.

00:03:08   I'm not prepared for the show as Myke knows

00:03:10   because some stuff came up which required

00:03:11   my attention right before.

00:03:13   So I wanna--

00:03:14   - He was too busy giving his gifts away.

00:03:16   What is this? Mophie... something.

00:03:21   But it's a specific one that I want to recommend.

00:03:25   Is it the one that has the lightning go into it? I have that one.

00:03:28   It's black, right? And it has a little door on it.

00:03:31   Okay, there's two different ones that I want to recommend.

00:03:36   Hold on. Okay, here it is.

00:03:38   Okay, here we go.

00:03:39   Sorry, Myke.

00:03:40   Oh, okay, here we go.

00:03:42   Universal...

00:03:44   That's not, this is not what I want, Myke! I cannot find the thing.

00:03:47   Okay, here we go. Okay, the exact name of the one that I have is Power Station Plus.

00:03:53   And I got for myself the 4X version, but I'm seriously regretting having not gotten the 8X version.

00:04:01   But yes, the thing that I like about this, the thing that makes it, for me, really great,

00:04:07   is that it does have the integrated lightning cable.

00:04:12   So there's like a little cover that opens on the front of it and out pops the lightning cable.

00:04:17   So if you have the battery, you also have the cable to charge whatever you want.

00:04:22   And of course for the non-Apple people out there,

00:04:25   you can get it with I believe it's micro USB built in instead.

00:04:29   This to me is the whole thing because you know what I don't want?

00:04:32   I don't want to have to think about,

00:04:34   okay I need something to charge this and I need the wire to plug into the battery

00:04:39   to then also plug into my phone.

00:04:41   I've never wanted to get any of those, but when I saw one that had just the integrated cable in it, I thought,

00:04:46   "Okay, I'm gonna buy this." And I just love this, and I cannot believe how much it changes my "I am out in the city"

00:04:55   working workflow. Because

00:04:58   with this, I have enough charge to top up an iPad a little bit.

00:05:03   I never quite get through a full day with an iPad, even though Apple says, "Oh, you get 10 hours!"

00:05:07   Like, "Mmm, no Apple, I don't get 10 hours out of that iPad, not ever."

00:05:11   More like 6 or 7 depending on what I'm doing.

00:05:13   But it also means that I don't have to pick a table that is near an electrical outlet.

00:05:19   Like, this is not remotely required.

00:05:22   Like, I can just go in, sit down at any table I want, and charge myself up with the Power Station Plus.

00:05:31   I'm really surprised that you didn't have one of these considering how much time you work and spend outside of home

00:05:38   yeah, well what I had before was just a

00:05:42   Regular plug to plug into the wall and then I bought there like three meter cables

00:05:47   So that I could I could sit further away from from a spot maybe but I don't know

00:05:53   I just I just never thought it would be as

00:05:55   convenient as it is and I totally love it and the thing that I really like doing which I feel sometimes sneaky about is

00:06:01   that

00:06:04   Sometimes if I there's like a good table at a cafe that I want to sit at it's like, okay great

00:06:07   I considered the good table, but sometimes you'll see like on the floor in and out of the out of the way area

00:06:13   There's a electrical socket and so I can plug in my battery somewhere else

00:06:18   in the same cafe and

00:06:20   just like leave it there to charge up for a little bit and then when I leave I just grab it and take it with

00:06:24   me and plug it into my iPad in my backpack while I'm walking around so it charges as

00:06:28   I go to my next location and then I have my iPad like happily topped up.

00:06:33   That's a pretty ninja move.

00:06:34   I keep waiting for someone to freak out and go like "what the hell is this thing plugged

00:06:38   into our wall?" but no one has either ever noticed or if they've noticed they haven't

00:06:41   cared.

00:06:42   I think people know enough now like what those kinds of things are because it does look really

00:06:45   weird right just this box sitting in the corner of the cafe.

00:06:49   Yeah probably the waiters do know.

00:06:52   you're not the only person that does it I guess.

00:06:54   Yeah, one of these days

00:06:56   I'm going to go to Plugmine and there's already going to be one there

00:06:58   and I'm going to have to sneakily take it out and put mine in instead.

00:07:01   Especially now you've shared your tricks.

00:07:04   Yeah, there's going to be more people in London doing it.

00:07:07   They have a super small version

00:07:10   which is called the Power Reserve

00:07:13   which is just this tiny little one that Mophie sells

00:07:16   that also has an integrated lightning cable

00:07:19   And it's only enough power to take your phone from dead to maybe like 40%.

00:07:26   But what I've done with this is I have gotten my wife one to just keep in her purse all the time.

00:07:32   And I'll tell you, it's one of those things where once you have it,

00:07:36   she's been in enough situations where she's out somewhere and like, you know, it's low cell connection or something and the battery runs down.

00:07:44   And the whole point of having that little battery there is it's like, okay, look,

00:07:48   there's just a little backup here which can just power up your phone

00:07:52   and it's enough energy to like get you to call an Uber to go home or something.

00:07:55   And so she just loves having one of these in her bag as a backup.

00:07:59   And I know that she's getting them for a couple of her friends in the same situation of like,

00:08:03   just keep it in your bag so that you don't have to worry about your phone running out

00:08:07   and then you're stranded somewhere late at night.

00:08:09   So I've never used these battery packs before.

00:08:11   I know I'm like the latest person in the world to this.

00:08:14   But I really think the integrated cable is what makes all of the difference.

00:08:18   It's one thing to keep track of, it's not two things.

00:08:21   So that's Grey's stocking stuffer recommendation for geeks for Christmas.

00:08:25   So considering I assume that you're still away from the internet,

00:08:28   have you happened upon Apple's battery case? Have you seen that?

00:08:32   No.

00:08:33   Oh, I'm so happy that I get your response from this right now.

00:08:36   Okay, I'm going to bring up a link and I'm going to send you it.

00:08:39   Okay.

00:08:40   Because we're talking about batteries and I just wanted to see what you think about this because I think that you're gonna go crazy

00:08:46   Well, don't predict my reaction for me Myke now. You're just setting me up

00:08:50   I'm gonna predict it

00:08:51   Predicting it. Alright, so Apple have created and released a battery pack for the iPhone 6s only. iPhone 6s only? Yep

00:08:58   What kind of bullsh*t is that? Exactly. Take a look at it and then you'll see. Huh? Well, that's interesting looking

00:09:04   Bit of an argo, right?

00:09:09   I wouldn't, I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that it's ugly.

00:09:12   I mean it's no UFO Apple Watch charger thing.

00:09:19   Like that docking station that they made for the Apple Watch.

00:09:22   That thing is fugly.

00:09:25   If that thing came out of Johnny Ive's brain, you know I think Johnny Ive

00:09:29   Johnny Ive might need to be sent out to pasture.

00:09:32   But this battery case thing

00:09:36   I'm gonna say it's inelegant

00:09:39   But if they made one for the 6s plus I might get one.

00:09:46   Oh great. I don't understand.

00:09:47   I don't think it's so hideous that I wouldn't want to use it.

00:09:49   Here's my guess about this product. This to me looks like

00:09:53   Apple is trying to make something that gives you more battery

00:09:57   But that is also the lightest and thinnest thing they can possibly make. That's my guess about what this looks like.

00:10:04   I'm really irritated that they don't have a 6s plus. Yeah, I don't know why this is because and people are going like oh

00:10:11   If you have a 6 this will give you more battery so it can be like the 6s plus

00:10:15   No, cuz this thing is like 18 hours more battery life. This the the plus doesn't have 18 hours more. Whoa. Okay, that is crazy

00:10:22   I was looking at this thing. I was looking at this thing and my guess was maybe it's 50% more battery life

00:10:27   You know like it's a top-up Apple was saying it will give 18 hours more

00:10:30   But it also won't take your phone from zero to 100%.

00:10:35   Yeah, but they may be doing some clever

00:10:38   charging tricks with that, right? Like taking a battery from empty to full is a very different

00:10:45   chemical process than keeping a battery high.

00:10:49   I think there's a lot of really non-intuitive physics for batteries that people think of it as like, "Oh, it's like a liquid, right?

00:10:57   It's filled with Mountain Dew and if you know add 50% more Mountain Dew you get 50% more

00:11:00   It's like oh no batteries and capacitors

00:11:02   They don't work like this at all so I can totally understand if people are doing tests where they say oh

00:11:07   Here's my dead battery. How far does it go up like that might not be very representative of how it actually works

00:11:13   That's a good point because you can't you can't turn this on and off like it just charges on when it wants to

00:11:20   See that's interesting that's very interesting and

00:11:25   and...

00:11:27   I don't know, I feel like, to me, that's a feature

00:11:30   because I also don't like the little fiddly switches on the Mophie case

00:11:32   I feel like, "You know what, Mophie, can't you just solve this for me?"

00:11:34   Like, just charge it when it's supposed to be good

00:11:37   but so...

00:11:38   I don't know, I feel like you wanted me to mock this case

00:11:41   but the more I'm hearing about it, the more all I'm thinking is

00:11:43   "Why is there not one for the 6+?"

00:11:45   We might talk about this later, but I was recently traveling

00:11:49   and normally I don't put a case on my phone

00:11:52   but when I travel, I do, because

00:11:54   It's a situation of if I drop it now, like this is a really awkward and inconvenient time to try to replace a phone is when you're traveling.

00:12:00   So when I travel, I do put a case on my phone and why I was saying that I would get this is this to me would seem like for my 6 Plus the perfect thing to have while traveling.

00:12:10   Because it is exactly while traveling that you want all of the extra battery that you can get and then plus a case.

00:12:16   Like I wouldn't use this all the time but I definitely would have a use case scenario for this.

00:12:20   So now I'm just irritated at Apple that they don't make one for the 6 Plus.

00:12:23   We'll send them a letter.

00:12:25   This episode of Cortex is brought to you by TextExpander from SMILE.

00:12:31   If you ever type the same sentences, phrases, or words on a regular basis, then you need TextExpander in your life.

00:12:40   TextExpander saves you time and effort by expanding short abbreviations into frequently used text and even pictures.

00:12:49   Okay, so what exactly does this mean?

00:12:51   Here's how I use TextExpander.

00:12:52   I have just a ton of little phrases that I use TextExpander for.

00:12:56   For example, when I'm at the office and I'm on my way home,

00:12:59   I use TextExpander to just write "H.O.Q."

00:13:04   So this is my abbreviation, H.O.Q., because it's not a frequently used letter combination.

00:13:08   And that expands out to "I'm on my way home from the office. Do you need me to pick up anything on my way?"

00:13:14   I don't want to type that out every time I'm coming home,

00:13:17   and I also want to see if my wife needs me to run an errand on the way back.

00:13:20   I just want to type my little abbreviation and it spits that whole thing out.

00:13:24   I have abbreviations for my email address, so I just type GAQ and it writes out my whole email address.

00:13:30   I have abbreviations for my cell phone number, I just write cell Q and then it spits out my cell phone number.

00:13:36   I have no idea what my cell phone number is, but I need to enter it into a lot of websites, so I just use this little text expander snippet to do it.

00:13:44   Anything you type over and over again, this is precisely what text expander is for.

00:13:49   There's lots of little weird markdown editing stuff that I use TextExpander to do when I'm writing my scripts.

00:13:56   The possibilities are just endless.

00:13:59   You can spit out entire form emails by just hitting a few letters.

00:14:03   There really is just so much that you can do.

00:14:06   I've mentioned mostly the simple stuff, but there is just a crazy, crazy thing that I do with TextExpander that is very complicated.

00:14:14   complicated, but I'm not going to tell you about it right now because you need to go

00:14:19   to Smilesoftware.com/cortex and get your copy of TextExpander so that they get another ad

00:14:29   on this show and then I'll tell you what the very complicated thing is that I do.

00:14:32   Go to Smilesoftware.com/cortex to pick up TextExpander 5.

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00:15:01   stuff.

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00:15:08   Once you get it, you'll think, "How on earth did I ever live without this?"

00:15:13   So one last time, go to Smilesoftware.com/Cortex, pick up your copy of Text Expander, and thanks

00:15:21   to Smile for supporting the show.

00:15:24   Last time on the show, I believe you talked people to work out how many degrees I am away

00:15:29   from Kevin Bacon.

00:15:30   Oh yeah, yeah, we mentioned this.

00:15:33   It turns out, five is the best number we've gotten to so far.

00:15:37   Oh yeah? What's the chain from you to Kevin Bacon?

00:15:39   I interviewed Adam Lisagor once, who has worked with a director called Ryan Johnson, who directed

00:15:46   a movie that Bruce Willis is in, and then from Bruce Willis you can go to Sarah Jessica

00:15:49   Parker, I'm sure they've been in a movie together, and then you can go to Kevin Bacon.

00:15:53   If you're five degrees to Kevin Bacon, then I am exactly six degrees to Kevin Bacon.

00:15:57   Yeah.

00:15:58   I like this.

00:15:59   It's kind of crazy to me that I am within that realm now, and so are you. Like, there

00:16:05   There is some way now that I'm, as a regular mere mortal, within the six degree line.

00:16:12   This is the whole thing though with the six degrees of Kevin Bacon thing, is it's non-intuitiveness.

00:16:18   That everybody is much closer than you think they are, it's just that the connections are

00:16:24   invisible.

00:16:25   Like that's...

00:16:26   Until you get people on Twitter pointing them out to you.

00:16:28   Until you get people pointing them in Twitter, but even then you're only using publicly known

00:16:32   connections between people. Right? Like that's that's what makes six degrees

00:16:37   really interesting is is like if you if you could somehow see all of the

00:16:42   connections you would see that humans are much more closely connected to each

00:16:47   other than it seems possible. But yeah I like being six degrees to Kevin Bacon

00:16:51   exactly. It's a very beautiful thing. Thank you to the people that took the time to

00:16:55   work that out. You can now give money directly to me and Gray. Oh okay so this

00:17:03   is this is the thing I felt extraordinarily guilty because of my

00:17:09   internet hiatus I completely missed a huge relay announcement that the the day

00:17:17   or two afterward I was like oh hey did you guys do that thing? You're like yeah

00:17:21   already live like oh so relay FM now has a membership program mm-hmm and the relay

00:17:30   FM membership program is something that allows you as listeners to give money

00:17:34   directly to the hosts of your favorite shows if you so choose and if you do

00:17:38   choose we have some perks for you so members will get a members only

00:17:41   newsletter which will be a monthly newsletter where we give you kind of an

00:17:44   inside look at what's happening at relay FM we also have a store where you can

00:17:48   buy t-shirts and stickers. Many of you have bought Cortex stickers and we will be doing

00:17:53   more stuff in the store next year, some new stuff as well. You'll get 15% discount on

00:17:58   anything in the store as a Relay FM member. And once a year we're going to be doing a

00:18:02   bonus episode of every show for members. It will be a members only thing and it's going

00:18:06   to be in August which coincides with Relay FM's birthday. So there'll be a special episode

00:18:11   with some fun stuff of each of your favorite shows.

00:18:13   You're signing me up for a bonus episode?

00:18:15   Yes.

00:18:16   know this August it's terrible time for me we're gonna have to record that ahead

00:18:19   of time oh because it can be about anything they'll be purposefully out of

00:18:23   continuity so it doesn't affect further you know what we'll do you know we'll do

00:18:28   what we'll do that thing we'll do the thing oh yeah would you originally

00:18:32   planning for this month yep but that we're not gonna do for reasons that's

00:18:37   what we can do that's a thing like ladies and gentlemen I know this is a

00:18:40   long way away August but trust me you will want to be a member when this comes

00:18:46   around. I had this whole big elaborate thing planned for a Christmas special, but Gray

00:18:52   didn't want to do it, which is probably also a good time for me to say that we're not going

00:18:56   to be back now until the middle of January. This episode is the last one of this year

00:18:59   because Gray's going on some another walkabout, I think, to find his feelings. I'm not really

00:19:04   sure what he's doing, but he's not going to be around. So we're going to be away for a

00:19:07   few weeks. But yeah, so Gray didn't want to do this Christmas special, so it will be a

00:19:11   member special in August.

00:19:12   - Yeah, long story short,

00:19:14   Myke was trying to plan like this elaborate cortex-mas

00:19:18   that I just kept going,

00:19:19   "No, you don't understand Myke, I am taking Christmas off."

00:19:23   And Myke was like, "No, but we can work more."

00:19:26   Myke kept sending me all these plans.

00:19:29   Like he's like, "We're gonna do this thing.

00:19:30   "It's gonna be amazing.

00:19:31   "And all you need to do is say yes."

00:19:35   And I was like, "No."

00:19:36   - You got close though.

00:19:38   I nearly got you.

00:19:39   I very nearly got you.

00:19:41   - No, you think you nearly got me, but you didn't.

00:19:43   - Okay, so, listen, there's this thing that Grey does,

00:19:46   right, that I've noticed over time.

00:19:47   It's like how I got him to do this show in the first place.

00:19:50   Like he'll say, "Ah, no," or he brushes it off.

00:19:52   But then you say something and he goes, "Hmm,"

00:19:56   and then strokes his face.

00:19:58   And looks up.

00:19:59   And when you've got him there,

00:20:01   you've just got him on the line,

00:20:03   and all you need to do is reel him in.

00:20:04   It's difficult to get him on that line,

00:20:06   but when you do, you just gotta close it down.

00:20:08   And I didn't close it down well enough.

00:20:10   I left it too long and then we missed out.

00:20:13   But you will get it as a Relay.fm member.

00:20:15   So the few things you can do for this,

00:20:17   because we're giving, we wanna give up money directly

00:20:20   to our hosts, right?

00:20:21   That's what we're all about.

00:20:22   Relay.fm as a company isn't taking money from this.

00:20:25   So bar transaction fees, the money that you choose

00:20:28   as a Relay.fm member where you want it to go,

00:20:30   will go to the host of your favorite shows.

00:20:32   So you can go to relay.fm/membership

00:20:35   and every show is there and you can give to any of the shows

00:20:37   that you want to.

00:20:38   but if you just love Cortex, which you probably do because you're listening, you can go to

00:20:42   relay.fm/cortex, you'll see our buttons right at the top, we have a silver, gold and annual

00:20:48   membership that you can do. You get the same perks no matter what you do but you can just

00:20:52   choose how much money you want to give us. So it could be $5 a month, $10 a month or

00:20:56   $100 a year. It's completely up to you and we really appreciate it. You don't have to

00:20:59   do this, it's completely optional. Nothing is going to change about the show but we've

00:21:04   had people for the whole time this show has been around want to give us money because

00:21:08   you have like patreons and stuff for some other things that you do. But we wanted to

00:21:12   build our own system which we could grow and adapt as we go forward into the way that makes

00:21:16   the most sense to us. So you can now give money to this show if you choose.

00:21:19   So Myke, I get the impression from the way you reeled all of that off that maybe you

00:21:26   have spoken about this on some other podcasts prior to doing this Cortex show.

00:21:31   Yeah, I've spoken about this a lot in the last few days. I just want everyone to know,

00:21:36   because you gotta tell people, oh they don't know about it.

00:21:39   So I've been refining a kind of internal ad in my brain

00:21:44   over the last week or so.

00:21:46   And that is the best it has been so far.

00:21:48   And I'm imagining maybe that this is the last show that you're talking about this on.

00:21:53   Like I just, I felt like that was very well rehearsed.

00:21:55   Yeah there might be like one more, but that's it.

00:21:59   But this is the end of the line there.

00:22:00   Yeah.

00:22:01   I mean I guess the thing here is I feel like okay,

00:22:04   Okay, this is towards the end of shows that you have spoken about this on.

00:22:08   This is also about Cortex, which is in theory sort of about our businesses and things.

00:22:13   So, like you've given the pitch to members for what they will receive,

00:22:19   why they might want to become a member if they want to support the show.

00:22:22   But like, from your perspective, like you mentioned this to me a while back,

00:22:27   that this was something that you and Steven were noodling with the idea of

00:22:32   maybe bringing to Relay in the future. So like as much as you want to go into detail, like I would be

00:22:38   kind of curious to know like what are the reasons that you wanted to bring this to Relay? Like from

00:22:45   a business perspective. One of the key ones was just that people have asked for it and if people

00:22:51   are asking to give you money it feels like you should maybe try and make that happen.

00:22:59   And I don't expect that, and we have no intention

00:23:02   that this is gonna make us billions of dollars.

00:23:05   We are still an advertising business.

00:23:07   This show's still gonna have ads on it,

00:23:08   and we're not gonna talk about the membership all the time.

00:23:11   I don't wanna mix those two things up too much,

00:23:13   because I don't think that we would make enough money

00:23:16   to kind of eclipse that anytime soon,

00:23:19   'cause that's what our business is built on.

00:23:21   But it felt like something that we could do

00:23:23   that would get more money for all of our hosts,

00:23:27   which just feels like a thing that we would like to do.

00:23:30   And then also, maybe you've already bought products

00:23:32   from all of our sponsors,

00:23:34   so you can't support us in any other way.

00:23:36   And I've heard people say that too.

00:23:38   Or they're like, "I don't want this," or "I don't want that,

00:23:40   "but I do want to support you."

00:23:41   Well, now you can do it.

00:23:43   And it's just like another way for us to maybe grow

00:23:46   as a business and get more money for the people

00:23:48   that work with us and stuff like that,

00:23:49   which is important to me as one of the owners

00:23:52   of this business, right?

00:23:53   - Yeah, it's your responsibility to grow the business

00:23:55   when you're the owner.

00:23:56   That's what business has to do. It grows or it dies.

00:24:00   Or it levels off

00:24:04   successfully indefinitely. But we don't like to talk about those businesses, right? They're boring.

00:24:08   So either infinite growth to the sky, right?

00:24:12   Or crash to the ground.

00:24:16   So this is part of the Relay.fm

00:24:20   ever upwards business growth. Because otherwise

00:24:24   Otherwise we crash and die apparently.

00:24:26   Are you worried about how the sponsors might feel about this?

00:24:30   No because I don't think that it detracts from one or the other.

00:24:34   People will spend their money on what they want to spend their money on and if they want

00:24:39   to buy a mattress I don't think giving $5 a month to us is going to change their mind

00:24:43   on buying a mattress.

00:24:45   So the other thing then is like you mentioned it very briefly in your spiel but this is

00:24:53   You're not going with something like Patreon is the big player in this game now, right?

00:25:00   What is the business reason for not doing something like Patreon?

00:25:04   Because from my perspective it seems like Patreon is just the easy thing to do, right?

00:25:09   You can just go, you sign up, and they kind of handle everything and you've sort of built

00:25:15   your own thing, but why did you do that instead of going with Patreon?

00:25:21   sounds like really restrictive for a business the size of ours I think because if we wanted

00:25:27   to just do give money to relay FM LLC like patreon would have made sense we have one

00:25:33   patreon account we bring all the money in and then we either keep it or we distribute

00:25:37   it amongst our hosts that was that's a decision we could have could have made but that's not

00:25:42   the one that we wanted we wanted to have the ability for people to give directly to a show

00:25:47   we have the ability so you can give money to all of our shows but when you do that which

00:25:51   Which is awesome if you want to do that.

00:25:53   But then the money gets distributed amongst everybody and it's quite a lot of people.

00:25:57   So we set it up that if you love one or two shows like a lot like you really love those

00:26:02   shows the most you can give your money to those and those hosts get more money.

00:26:06   Right.

00:26:07   So we didn't want to set up like 25 Patreon accounts to do that.

00:26:10   Okay.

00:26:11   Like that seems like a nightmare.

00:26:14   And we looked into a bunch of different systems and the one that we settled on was the one

00:26:18   that made the most sense and it kind of treats everything like its own little plan and then

00:26:23   we can build it into our own website and manage it that way. And also like the Patreon system

00:26:30   with goals and that kind of stuff is not really what we wanted to do.

00:26:34   Yeah, the goal thing on Patreon can be a bit weird sometimes. Like what's the goal? To

00:26:40   keep doing the thing.

00:26:41   - Yeah, exactly, and then it's like, oh, we end up,

00:26:45   whatever moves Patreon makes, we have to go along with those.

00:26:50   So if they're like, now you have to have seven goals a month

00:26:54   that you add, otherwise it doesn't work anymore.

00:26:57   And then they have that whole thing

00:26:59   where you have to publish stuff into their system

00:27:02   for it to trigger the payments,

00:27:03   and it just doesn't scale the way that we want to.

00:27:06   Like, we don't get to make our own decisions,

00:27:08   but with our system, we can do whatever we want

00:27:11   and we own it all, which it makes things more complex,

00:27:14   but it allows us to have a starting point,

00:27:16   which is where we are now,

00:27:18   and we're listening to what people are saying

00:27:19   and we're trying to grow it and adapt it

00:27:21   in a way that makes the most sense

00:27:23   for everyone going forward.

00:27:24   But I think that this one works a lot better for us.

00:27:27   If it was just one show,

00:27:28   or if we were just taking in money just for the business,

00:27:31   then maybe Patreon would make more sense,

00:27:33   but that's not the way that we wanted to do it.

00:27:36   - And it also sounds like this is a bit

00:27:37   of the platform problem.

00:27:39   - Yeah, yeah.

00:27:40   Turning, turning that Patreon is now in a weird way,

00:27:45   sort of like YouTube or any of these services where it itself is becoming a

00:27:50   platform upon which if your business is big enough,

00:27:54   like depending on Patreon now becomes its own kind of weird problem.

00:27:59   Yeah. We're a little allergic to platforms and if we don't need to join one,

00:28:04   then we won't do it. And this is a, this is showing that like,

00:28:10   we just decided that we would build it on our own instead.

00:28:13   - Right, so you are trading convenience for independence

00:28:17   is what's occurring here.

00:28:19   There we go.

00:28:21   - That is a fundamental pillar

00:28:22   of my thinking about business.

00:28:25   If you can build it yourself, do it,

00:28:26   because otherwise you are at the mercy

00:28:30   of the whims of industry A.

00:28:33   - Right, but I also, I feel the need at this moment

00:28:37   to just say the obvious, which is like--

00:28:40   - Petrov, I love you!

00:28:42   - No, no, no, no, no, no.

00:28:43   What I'm thinking is, is Myke is here talking big about,

00:28:47   oh, you know, you build it, you build it, you build it.

00:28:50   It's, you know, it's great.

00:28:50   But like, haven't you had Steven be handling

00:28:54   most of this behind the scenes?

00:28:56   Isn't that the case?

00:28:57   - Yeah, but we own the business together.

00:29:00   Like, it's not like he's my whipping boy or something.

00:29:03   (laughing)

00:29:04   - You own the business together,

00:29:05   but it's also, oh yeah, we're gonna build this thing.

00:29:08   But like one person has shouldered most of the burden

00:29:11   it seems like of putting the membership into action.

00:29:14   - Yeah, and then I just pop in the night before

00:29:16   and I'm like, change this bit, change that bit.

00:29:18   And like, yeah, I'm pretty sure he wanted to kill me.

00:29:20   But yeah, this is definitely a royal wee scenario.

00:29:25   It wasn't me.

00:29:26   I just had my ideas every now and then.

00:29:31   But yes, Steven did this,

00:29:33   like along with our great development team Will and Jason.

00:29:36   - Relay is not just Myke Hurley.

00:29:39   It's Myke and Steven.

00:29:41   So this is definitely a case of Myke has an idea.

00:29:44   Like one person has to make it actually come into existence,

00:29:48   which is the harder part than thinking of a thing.

00:29:50   - I don't know if it was my idea even.

00:29:51   I don't know where it came from.

00:29:53   I think it was just a thing that we decided we would do.

00:29:55   - Wait, so it might've been even Steven idea

00:29:57   and then Steven's work as well?

00:29:58   - Like very likely, yeah.

00:30:00   - What do you do here, Myke?

00:30:01   - Oh, I don't do anything.

00:30:02   I just talked to you for four hours.

00:30:04   That's my contribution.

00:30:05   - That is hard work, to be fair.

00:30:07   - Yeah, it's pretty hard work.

00:30:08   You mentioned a moment ago about businesses

00:30:10   either growing infinitely like ours is

00:30:13   or crashing in a fiery death to the ground.

00:30:17   And that's happened.

00:30:18   The one that is very important to me, which is Mailbox.

00:30:21   - Oh yeah, Mailbox was your email client of choice

00:30:25   back when we did our,

00:30:26   let's talk about all the email clients

00:30:28   and why they make us sad show.

00:30:30   - Yeah, well, we started talking about that

00:30:32   because I was under the belief that this was going to happen

00:30:36   and it has now happened.

00:30:38   So Dropbox has killed mailbox.

00:30:41   Yeah.

00:30:41   Absorbed it, absorbed it amoeba-like

00:30:45   I guess is probably what really happened.

00:30:47   Well, there they're wording is they have sunsetted it.

00:30:49   Oh wow, isn't that a sh*tty way to say that you've killed a thing.

00:30:54   Lots and lots of people have been tweeting and emailing to me about this.

00:30:59   either A, letting me know it happened,

00:31:03   because they heard us talk about it on the show,

00:31:05   and B, which is happening more frequently now,

00:31:08   begging and pleading for me to get them a solution.

00:31:10   (laughing)

00:31:12   It's like, please help us, you know?

00:31:14   I thought it's some kind of Star Wars scenario now, right?

00:31:17   I am the people's only hope at this scenario now.

00:31:19   This is where we are.

00:31:21   I have to help people.

00:31:22   - See, this kind of thing, as you're saying right now,

00:31:24   is exactly the sort of overly noble viewpoint

00:31:27   that I expect people who always play the good guys

00:31:30   in video games to have, right?

00:31:32   It's like an email client has disappeared

00:31:34   and Myke is viewing himself as many people's

00:31:36   only hope for solving this problem.

00:31:39   - There is nothing wrong with playing the good guy

00:31:40   in video games, as many people pointed out.

00:31:42   And many people like me are questioning you now

00:31:45   as a person who likes to play evil people.

00:31:48   - It's not relevant, I'm just seeing from your comments

00:31:51   exactly what I suspected.

00:31:53   Envision yourself with wings and a sword.

00:31:55   Yeah, that's what you're thinking to yourself.

00:31:56   We're trying to be the good guy.

00:31:57   But so anyway, Myke, are you going to solve these people's problem?

00:32:00   Do you have a masterful solution for them?

00:32:02   I'm going to tell them what I'm doing.

00:32:03   The features that I want don't exist in one app.

00:32:09   So there is no way for me to recreate the system.

00:32:14   So the recreation is in a few different things, cross-platform snoozing and

00:32:18   reordering of email, right? That is like my,

00:32:21   they were the features that I liked the most about mailbox.

00:32:24   There is no system that exists right now

00:32:27   that does all of those things.

00:32:28   - Right.

00:32:29   - Out of everything I have looked at,

00:32:31   there is no other email app that I have found

00:32:33   that allows for manual reordering of email.

00:32:37   Just nothing does that, so I have to give that one up.

00:32:40   There are lots of different apps and services

00:32:43   that do snoozing of email.

00:32:45   For example, Spark, the email app that we mentioned,

00:32:47   does it, Outlook does it.

00:32:50   There are a few more.

00:32:51   There are many that allow for email to be snoozed.

00:32:54   However, none of these have a good cross-platform solution.

00:32:59   And when you're doing things like snoozing email,

00:33:02   you kind of need to use the same service everywhere

00:33:05   because snoozing email is a real hacky thing.

00:33:08   It puts it into a hidden folder and then waits

00:33:11   and then moves it back to your inbox again.

00:33:13   It doesn't really work very graciously

00:33:15   unless you use one platform everywhere.

00:33:18   - Yeah, if you use any of these services,

00:33:21   like when I was trying out

00:33:23   the whole bunch of different mail clients to see which one might work for me.

00:33:26   You learn very quickly like, Oh,

00:33:29   I can't actually log into Gmail and look at the folder structure anymore because

00:33:33   each individual mail client is creating its own arcane folder structure that it's

00:33:38   sub sorting messages into to try to keep track of what it views as snoozed

00:33:42   messages. Yeah. So it's like, if you're going to use one of these things,

00:33:46   you really have to be all in on it everywhere.

00:33:50   Like you have to be making the decision that like,

00:33:52   I am going to use mail client X everywhere all the time,

00:33:57   and I'm just not going to be able to access my email

00:34:00   directly in the same way that I used to.

00:34:03   - Some solutions that I have potentially found

00:34:06   that I am not using currently are MailPilot,

00:34:09   which we mentioned last time.

00:34:10   That was the one that made me scream and cry

00:34:12   because they didn't have notifications.

00:34:14   - That was probably my leading contender, I think,

00:34:17   in that last show of alternative mail clients.

00:34:19   'cause it seems to do everything except that one thing,

00:34:21   which I do really need.

00:34:22   And plus, they have their own peculiar way

00:34:25   of looking at email, which would take some learning.

00:34:29   And one of the things that I am coming to

00:34:31   as a conclusion now is to stop relying on a service

00:34:34   to provide me with a new way to look at email

00:34:37   because it goes away and I have to rethink everything,

00:34:41   which is what I'm going through right now.

00:34:43   People have been suggesting SaneBox to me.

00:34:46   SaneBox has a part of their service is something called SaneLater, whether you can snooze email.

00:34:52   SaneBox isn't an app, it's just like a service that you can do stuff with and they also do

00:34:57   some like inbox cleaning things, which I'm always very cautious of, but I know a lot

00:35:02   of people that use SaneBox and they seem to love it.

00:35:06   So that's one definitely to check out if you are looking at it, but it is, you still need

00:35:10   apps and stuff like SaneBox.

00:35:11   It's just a little layer that sits on top of things.

00:35:16   And then you've got some of the apps that were already mentioned like Spark, and Spark

00:35:19   are working on an iPad and a Mac client, which is awesome that they're working on it, but

00:35:23   it's not here now, is it?

00:35:24   So it's not really a solution.

00:35:26   Many people say to me, "Just use Spark!"

00:35:27   It's like, "Yeah."

00:35:28   And they're like, "They're gonna be cross-platform."

00:35:31   I was like, "Mm-hmm."

00:35:33   But they're not, are they?

00:35:34   If there's one thing that I have learned with software stuff is when someone says a feature

00:35:40   or a service on a platform is coming, it's like,

00:35:44   "Mm, I'm just gonna count that as it isn't until it's here."

00:35:48   Because I have played the waiting game

00:35:50   and lost too many times.

00:35:52   I'm like, "Oh, I'll switch to this new thing

00:35:54   while they're working on their new one."

00:35:56   And like, "Nope, it'll never come if you do that."

00:35:58   Just, you have to evaluate things

00:36:00   as they are in their current state

00:36:02   because you never know how long it's gonna take

00:36:04   to get what you're looking for.

00:36:06   - So for me personally, I've decided that my way forward

00:36:10   is to, I have to think about email differently again,

00:36:14   and I need to approach it from a more simplistic view.

00:36:18   - Sounds like you're headed towards my solution,

00:36:20   which is the native mail app.

00:36:22   (laughs)

00:36:26   It's gonna come get you, Myke, sooner or later.

00:36:28   - On my iPhone and my iPad, I am using Outlook.

00:36:31   Because I like it a lot.

00:36:34   Outlook is a great app.

00:36:36   It has all of the standard features that I need,

00:36:38   like a real great integration with services like Dropbox and Google Drive.

00:36:42   So I can very easily grab files and attach them. Um,

00:36:46   and it looks really nice and I like it a lot. It's a great app.

00:36:50   It has great Apple watch support.

00:36:51   I can preview a lot of the email from a notification.

00:36:54   Like I really like outlook a lot,

00:36:56   but outlook on the desktop is nowhere near the same application.

00:37:00   Microsoft bought a company, they turned outlook,

00:37:02   they turned that app into outlook on iOS and on Android. Uh,

00:37:07   but the Mac app is in need of a lot of love

00:37:09   because for example, Outlook does scheduling

00:37:11   and snoozing of email, but it doesn't work on a desktop.

00:37:15   So again, I'm not using it.

00:37:17   And I'm now currently,

00:37:21   I say currently using mail.app on my Mac.

00:37:26   But I hate mail.app, I hate it so much.

00:37:29   A thing that I'm noticing currently is it's getting stuck

00:37:32   when I try and do swiping gestures on email.

00:37:35   Like, you make all of this.

00:37:38   You make the trackpad and you make the app.

00:37:41   Why is this not working?

00:37:43   So I'm looking currently at some,

00:37:46   I'm looking at desktop apps right now.

00:37:47   Air Mail has been one that I've used in the past,

00:37:50   and I'm gonna look at that again.

00:37:51   They're making an iPhone app, which looks incredible,

00:37:54   but they're not making an iPad app.

00:37:56   So there's another one.

00:37:58   And I'm also looking at, I'm on an alpha for an app,

00:38:01   which I think anybody can sign up for now.

00:38:04   I haven't opened it yet, but it's called Polymail,

00:38:07   and it looks really, really pretty, and it's a Mac app.

00:38:09   - Man, if there's anything I don't wanna use

00:38:11   in alpha or a beta for,

00:38:13   it's something that is interacting with my email.

00:38:16   - That's why I haven't opened it yet,

00:38:17   but it does look really nice,

00:38:19   but I may not put my Real AFM email account into there.

00:38:22   Like, I might just put my personal email account

00:38:24   into there right now and see what happens.

00:38:26   - Yeah, that sounds like a deal with the devil.

00:38:27   Like, oh, look at this beautiful, attractive email client.

00:38:31   It's going to eat everything.

00:38:33   And it's all gone again.

00:38:35   Which for you actually might be a great thing, you should sign up for it.

00:38:38   "Oh I have no email anymore, how amazing!"

00:38:43   So my other thing is like, so now it's like well how do I think about email differently?

00:38:48   So now I'm trying to just pay attention to the list and keep the list small so I'm doing,

00:38:53   I'm setting up a bunch of folders and stuff and putting things in folders and hoping that

00:38:57   it works.

00:38:58   So like one of the things I would use snoozing for was say I had feedback for Cortex.

00:39:03   I don't need to look at that immediately when it comes in.

00:39:05   I just need to look at it at the days

00:39:06   that I know I do prep for Cortex.

00:39:09   So I would snooze it to like Monday, right?

00:39:11   'Cause on Monday I do a little bit

00:39:12   and I do a bit on Wednesday and a bit on Thursday

00:39:14   to get everything ready for it.

00:39:16   So I don't need to see it on like Friday.

00:39:18   And plus we do this every two weeks.

00:39:20   So there's a whole week where I don't need it in my inbox.

00:39:22   So I used to snooze it until that day,

00:39:24   but now I'm setting up folders for the shows

00:39:27   and putting the feedback in those folders when it comes in.

00:39:30   and then the plan is to go in and look at them

00:39:33   and do something with them.

00:39:34   But then there's other things like inbound sponsor requests

00:39:37   and keeping on top of those,

00:39:38   I'm having to put those in folders

00:39:39   and I'm trying to work out like at what point

00:39:42   does OmniFocus come into this

00:39:43   and then instead of setting what would be a snooze

00:39:45   and the email would pop up as a reminder

00:39:48   when it comes in to follow up on an email,

00:39:50   I'm now starting to set OmniFocus task for it.

00:39:52   So it's basically, I need to rethink everything

00:39:54   and this has been a real valuable lesson to me

00:39:58   entrusting a system which you cannot control

00:40:03   as a really important part of your business.

00:40:05   'Cause now, if I look at this in the right way

00:40:07   and approach it in the right way,

00:40:09   the system that I'm creating,

00:40:10   I can use with any email service and any to-do service.

00:40:15   Because it's purely reading email,

00:40:17   filing email, and setting tasks.

00:40:19   Anything can do that.

00:40:21   Where the mailbox one, it's like that system became

00:40:23   so important to the way that I do my stuff

00:40:27   that when it goes away, I'm like lost and have to rethink everything,

00:40:31   which is a situation I don't want to find myself in.

00:40:33   This is like one of the fundamental problems with a lot of computing stuff is

00:40:38   you want to be all in on systems or particular products really,

00:40:43   because they give you bigger advantages,

00:40:45   but then you're at the mercy of them going away or changing.

00:40:49   And so it's like, you know,

00:40:51   the software giveth and software taketh away, right?

00:40:55   with one hand and with the other.

00:40:56   And so it's just making me think maybe,

00:41:01   maybe about 10, 12 years ago,

00:41:08   I made a very conscious decision that everything

00:41:11   that I was doing on the computer,

00:41:13   if it was possible to keep it as a plain text file,

00:41:17   I was going to keep it as a plain text file.

00:41:20   Like I had come out of college and using Word documents

00:41:22   and all these other kinds of things,

00:41:24   But I made a real decision, like, okay, I'm going to convert as much to text as possible,

00:41:29   and I still do just a ton of stuff as raw text files, and that has served me very well,

00:41:35   as various particular writing apps have come and gone,

00:41:40   or various other ways to store data have come and gone.

00:41:43   It's like, yes, but text files remain because they are just this very slow-moving,

00:41:48   will be around forever, can be read by anything structure.

00:41:53   And your problem with email is a similar thing

00:41:58   where it's like, okay, IMAP,

00:41:59   which is the system behind most emails,

00:42:02   IMAP will probably be around for another 50 years.

00:42:07   And so if you can come up with some kind of

00:42:09   email-based workflow that is around IMAP,

00:42:12   that reduces your worry about this particular program

00:42:16   going away in the future.

00:42:18   Like, okay, I can just have my email system

00:42:21   because I'm trying to build it on the lowest possible level.

00:42:24   But the trade-off there is like,

00:42:25   you don't get the amazing features

00:42:27   of being all in on one specific app,

00:42:30   but then you're not sad when it's sunsetted, that app.

00:42:34   - Even then, like even thinking about IMAP,

00:42:37   it's like creating a system which is just

00:42:40   fundamentally what email's about and just building on that.

00:42:43   So even if I moved to a different system

00:42:45   or if IMAP went away and there was like,

00:42:47   IMAP too, like the things that I'm doing or trying to do are very likely, very,

00:42:52   very likely to still exist, like receiving emails and filing emails.

00:42:56   This is interesting for me because I used to be a real purist about how email

00:43:01   should work and like how people should handle email.

00:43:03   But I've given that up over time, both as like my,

00:43:06   my amount of email has just grown to be unmanageable and also just realizing

00:43:10   like, man, email,

00:43:11   like the whole notion of like receiving messages from people and how to sort

00:43:16   Like this is just an endless topic and it is so particular to the individuals who are trying to manage it.

00:43:23   That like there is no one way to handle this and things that might horrify one person about the way they do their email are exactly what somebody else needs.

00:43:33   But yeah, fundamentally if you can reduce it to messages are coming in and I have a system of folders that they get filed into

00:43:42   or maybe you have a couple of server side rules that help you filter stuff out.

00:43:45   Like that feels like a pretty good longterm will be around forever kind of

00:43:50   solution. I wish you luck with this, Myke. It seems like it,

00:43:54   it really cuts you up inside.

00:43:56   It does. But I tell you what though,

00:43:58   this show has really helped me in dealing with this.

00:44:00   Is this therapeutic for you?

00:44:02   Well no, just not this episode, but like this show in general,

00:44:04   like thinking more about the way I do things and talking to you about your

00:44:08   system. When this happened, I was like, okay,

00:44:11   I now know what I need to do.

00:44:13   Which is, is it all right, like what you do?

00:44:15   Making it very simple.

00:44:17   And then maybe the next step is getting somebody

00:44:18   to just look after my email for me

00:44:19   so I never need to read it in the first place.

00:44:22   The Ray method.

00:44:23   - My email system now is, I ignore it for weeks and weeks

00:44:27   until my personal assistant tells me

00:44:29   that there's something that really needs my attention.

00:44:32   - I'm very excited because this week's episode of Cortex

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00:46:43   and for giving me the chance to talk about beard oil again

00:46:46   I want to tell our listeners a very short story

00:46:49   oh okay

00:46:51   After our last episode, you sent me a text message,

00:46:56   or an iMessage I should say,

00:46:58   and you said to me, "When do you think

00:47:00   "you're gonna have the edit done?"

00:47:01   And I told you when I thought I was gonna get it done,

00:47:03   and you were like, "Great, I might be a little bit

00:47:06   "less responsive than usual, because I've decided

00:47:09   "I'm going on a trip."

00:47:11   And I said to you, "Where are you going?"

00:47:13   And you said, "I don't know, I'm going to the train station,

00:47:15   "I'm like a leaf on the wind."

00:47:17   This is the exact conversation that we had.

00:47:20   And then you went away for a few days.

00:47:24   And I was very confused by all of this.

00:47:26   The idea of you just, you're very weird with travel.

00:47:30   You're so strange with travel.

00:47:32   It's like a time when I'm most stressed and prepared.

00:47:35   You seem to just not care about it.

00:47:37   Like the whole flying standby stuff.

00:47:40   And now you're just going to a train station

00:47:43   and getting on a train

00:47:44   that you don't even know where you're going.

00:47:46   So you went on a little trip.

00:47:48   And so what was this trip?

00:47:50   Yeah, yeah. I did go on a bit of an unexpected trip.

00:47:56   So the listeners of the show will know very well that normally,

00:48:01   normally what I do after a video, this is right after the last video went up,

00:48:05   normally my plan is that I take a day or two off and I just kind of edge out

00:48:09   and I just play video games and I don't really do very much and that's just my downtime to recover from video production.

00:48:14   Yeah, we spoke about this last time but I don't know if you remember anything from that episode.

00:48:18   Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm just, I'm just setting the stage,

00:48:21   like that's normally what I would do, but for a,

00:48:25   for a variety of reasons, it wasn't possible to do this time.

00:48:28   I still had too much to do, but I was also just kind of still feeling like,

00:48:32   okay, I'm just, I'm overwhelmed,

00:48:34   but I also need to just recover a little bit.

00:48:36   Like I can't just take a couple of days off. What am I going to do?

00:48:39   And so what I ended up deciding to do at the very last moment was like, okay,

00:48:43   I am going to take a working vacation right now

00:48:48   and I'm going to figure out what are the working things that I can delay

00:48:55   what are the working things that I cannot delay

00:48:58   and I'm just going to go somewhere else so that it, like, my brain has this feeling of like

00:49:04   "Oh, okay, things are different, like this is nice"

00:49:07   and I'm going to just work on the limited number of things that I need to work on

00:49:12   I packed my microphone because I needed to record some podcast ads, which I had not done ahead of time.

00:49:18   I packed my laptop, I packed my iPad Pro, which we might talk about later,

00:49:22   and I headed to the train station and I eventually just ended up in Amsterdam at a nice hotel

00:49:30   and I stayed there for a while.

00:49:32   [laughter]

00:49:33   Why is that funny to you, Myke?

00:49:35   [laughter]

00:49:37   I ended up...

00:49:38   Like that's the phrase like I thought you were gonna go to like Bournemouth or something like, you know

00:49:43   You know, you just get on a train. I don't know somewhere in the north maybe

00:49:47   Who knows? It sounds like a place nobody knows where it is

00:49:51   But you know, I just like oh I go there and that's where I am gonna be and I'm just you know

00:49:55   I'll be it would take me like an hour to get there like ending up in Amsterdam is quite a big

00:50:00   Undertaking you had to did you have your passport with you even did you take that? Yeah. Yeah, I took my passport

00:50:08   Because you didn't know where you were gonna be right? Like so being outside of the country

00:50:13   the the long and short of it is that I was combining this with a

00:50:18   Visit to a friend who was in Germany and so I did know that I was going to be heading out of the UK

00:50:26   So I did bring my passport. So that's why I had that ahead of time.

00:50:30   Bournemouth is in the south by the way

00:50:31   Oh, it's in the south?

00:50:32   Yeah, it's like on the coast. It's like I'm like, oh it's in Scotland. No, it's on the south

00:50:37   It sounds like an old coal mining town, but I guess it isn't. Sorry, born-

00:50:42   Sorry, Bullmuth.

00:50:43   Yeah, sorry, not really, but I just don't know anything about you.

00:50:46   But yeah, so that's just how this ended up working.

00:50:50   And so yeah, even though, I mean the thing is, it didn't really matter where I went because I spent most of my time indoors at a hotel.

00:50:58   Like editing Cortex and editing Hello Internet and doing a bunch of administrative-related work.

00:51:05   But yeah, it was a good thing to do.

00:51:09   It's something I haven't done it recently

00:51:13   but particularly when I was still working

00:51:17   as a teacher and also trying to do stuff on the side

00:51:21   I somewhat regularly did these things

00:51:25   that my wife and I came to refer to as "Hotel Weekends"

00:51:29   where if I had just a lot to do, I found it

00:51:33   much easier to change locations, go to a place that is just like a self-contained unit in

00:51:40   the way a hotel is.

00:51:42   And so then it's like I have nothing really to worry about except just the work that I

00:51:46   have brought with me and it's very easy to focus on this.

00:51:49   And I don't have any of the responsibilities of normal life of like, "Oh, am I gonna take

00:51:54   out the trash?"

00:51:55   Like, "Oh, now I need to do the laundry."

00:51:56   It's like, no, everything that I need is just here and so it's easy to focus on this stuff.

00:52:01   And so yes, that's what I did for I think three days, four days in the end in Amsterdam

00:52:07   for finishing up the trip.

00:52:08   And it was lovely.

00:52:09   Were you on your own?

00:52:10   Yeah, yeah, it was just me.

00:52:12   I'm kind of dumbfounded by it all really.

00:52:17   Oh yeah, I mean, what's dumbfounding about it?

00:52:21   It seems quite reasonable to me.

00:52:22   Yeah, but there are just some things you do and they're so out of character.

00:52:27   And I know that they're your character, right?

00:52:29   So that sounds like a weird thing to say.

00:52:30   Yeah, it's not out of character because I did it.

00:52:33   Yeah, well now it's part of your character.

00:52:35   But before I don't think anybody would guess that you would do something like this.

00:52:39   Because I certainly didn't.

00:52:41   Yeah, well I mean this is probably the first time I have...

00:52:47   Well, that's not really true.

00:52:49   I was gonna say it's probably the first time I've gone somewhere without a clear destination.

00:52:52   But then again, like I used to road trip across America and that's entirely what a road trip is.

00:52:56   Like I'm vaguely heading west.

00:52:58   You know, and I don't really know where I'm gonna go.

00:53:00   But, uh, yeah, so it seems very reasonable to me.

00:53:04   Seems very reasonable to me. But yeah, like I said, I find it as a useful tool

00:53:08   to be separated from your normal routine and to be able to

00:53:12   focus on an amount of work. And so for me it is an

00:53:16   interesting combination of this is more

00:53:20   relaxing than normal life, which is kind of what I needed right after the video.

00:53:24   But I am still able to focus on the

00:53:28   work that needs to get done. So it was a productive working vacation kind of thing that I ended

00:53:35   up doing. That was the trip. I recommend it. Try it, people.

00:53:39   Yeah, I wish I could, but a lot of my work requires a lot of audio equipment, and that's

00:53:44   not so easy to move around. I brought my microphone with me. It's easy.

00:53:49   You plug it in. Yeah, but you sounded super weird in the room

00:53:52   that you were in. That's true. I did sound very weird in the

00:53:54   the room that I was in. What I actually need to bring is some soundproofing equipment.

00:53:58   And then how do you bring that, you know?

00:54:01   Okay, I am rapidly realizing that maybe this is not as possible for you as I was originally

00:54:06   expecting.

00:54:07   Yeah.

00:54:08   I mean, I guess you were traveling at the same time that I was traveling, and I believe...

00:54:13   Did you record any podcasts while you were gone?

00:54:15   I recorded one, but it was a special episode. Like, I recorded Top 4, what me and Idina

00:54:21   did with Tiff and Marco.

00:54:23   Oh, okay, but that doesn't count because Marco must have sound rooms in his house somewhere

00:54:28   Like he's a little obsessed with audio so he would be all ready to go for a guest

00:54:32   Yeah, he had enough microphones and they were all good quality microphones and right all the leftovers from his reviews that he does. Yep

00:54:39   Laying around Marco's got microphones like I've got iPads. He was tricking me though

00:54:45   Because I now have all new audio equipment

00:54:49   Okay, yeah, he gave me a microphone to use very specifically and then played it back to me and I thought I sounded fantastic

00:54:55   So I then spent hundreds and hundreds of pounds

00:54:59   But yeah to answer your question. I didn't record any shows and I'm away before I go away like that. Everything's done in advance

00:55:07   Mm-hmm. So I pre records so I can't just be that leaf on the wind that you are that free spirit, you know

00:55:14   Yeah, your whole business you're building a little cage around yourself. That's what that's what's happening here

00:55:18   You know, it's all these all these shows that you have to record at specific times. You can't go anywhere

00:55:23   Otherwise, it's a it's a it's a big deal if you leave

00:55:25   And if I call it cage

00:55:29   Exactly

00:55:32   Strong metaphor

00:55:34   For my dream job. Yeah, do you think it's an intentionally provocative metaphor? Maybe I think it might be

00:55:41   No, I would never do such a thing. Mm-hmm

00:55:43   You mentioned the iPad Pro

00:55:47   Now you spoke about it a little bit in your general interest podcast.

00:55:51   On Hello Internet, Brady was wanting to know if you should buy an iPad Pro.

00:55:56   So we mentioned it in brief on there.

00:55:59   Well I just figured if we're calling this one the fetish podcast, then that one is the

00:56:05   general interest podcast.

00:56:06   Oh burn, burn.

00:56:09   I feel like I'm not getting involved in this.

00:56:12   That's what's happening here.

00:56:13   I have no comment on this.

00:56:14   Yeah, I feel like you should stay out of it.

00:56:17   So you were talking about it a little bit there, but this was many weeks ago.

00:56:24   I could tell because you said you didn't have a pencil then, which I know that you do now,

00:56:29   because we both had them.

00:56:30   And I have the keyboard now too, so we're both kind of fully equipped.

00:56:34   Yeah, the timing of this is interesting because we didn't really discuss the iPad Pro or the

00:56:40   Apple Pencil on the last episode of Cortex.

00:56:43   We left it out even though at the time of that recording I already had the Apple Pencil

00:56:49   because I specifically didn't want to do a kind of like, "Oh, here's my first impressions

00:56:53   of the thing."

00:56:55   Because I was viewing this as, "This is a tool that I need to figure out if it integrates

00:57:01   into my workflow."

00:57:02   Both for the iPad Pro and for the Apple Pencil.

00:57:06   And so we didn't talk about it last time on purpose because I wanted to let it simmer

00:57:10   for a while and try to see like where does this fit, how well does this work, not just

00:57:15   like "ooh I tried it out and I can sign my name" how does this actually fit into my life

00:57:21   and into my work. So yes, now we're going to talk about iPad Pro and Apple Pencil like

00:57:28   what is it, three weeks on? Three and a half weeks on? Something like that.

00:57:32   So you, I assume, well you said you took it with you on your trip, how much were you using

00:57:37   it?

00:57:38   Yeah, so this was very fortuitous timing that I got the pencil in time for my trip to Amsterdam,

00:57:46   and I had the keyboard, and I had everything.

00:57:49   And I think the theme of this conversation can be summarized by how I felt packing,

00:57:58   which was, "Oh boy, I'm packing this iPad Pro, and I'm packing the keyboard case cover,

00:58:03   and I got my pencil in my pocket, and isn't this exciting?"

00:58:07   And then I look over and on the floor it's like,

00:58:09   oh right, and there's you, 15 inch MacBook Pro.

00:58:14   - Yep, yep, that was how I felt going to New York.

00:58:17   Because I was like, this'll be the first time

00:58:20   if something comes up, right?

00:58:22   (laughing)

00:58:25   - Yeah, the MacBook Pro felt like this total brick

00:58:30   of obligation that I had to bring with me.

00:58:33   Oh.

00:58:34   Well, I'm gonna be editing podcasts

00:58:38   and so everything is already in Logic

00:58:41   and so I have to bring this laptop with me

00:58:45   and also I'm bringing the microphone

00:58:46   and I just don't wanna figure out how to record it

00:58:48   for the first time on the iPad Pro.

00:58:50   So it's like, you're coming with me, laptop.

00:58:53   And the laptop is also always the, like you said,

00:58:56   the device of last resort

00:58:57   that sometimes you run into a weird problem

00:58:59   where there's something you just can't do on the iPad.

00:59:02   and it's like, "Okay, I gotta bring out the laptop."

00:59:05   But it was just quite, quite striking this feeling

00:59:10   that I've never really had before.

00:59:13   It always previously felt like my iPad

00:59:15   is an accessory to my laptop,

00:59:17   but the laptop was obviously the main thing,

00:59:20   and this trip was the first time it felt so clearly reversed.

00:59:23   Like, everything I wanted to do, I was doing on the iPad Pro.

00:59:29   And then the MacBook was just like, oh, right,

00:59:33   I'm gonna go back to my hotel room and sit at a desk

00:59:36   and use this thing for a while.

00:59:38   It's a real shifting moment, I think,

00:59:42   having this iPad Pro and having worked with it for a while.

00:59:45   - Couldn't agree with you more.

00:59:46   Like I am finding more and more

00:59:49   that I am using my iPad Pro over my iMac.

00:59:55   and then my iMac is like, need to do the recording now,

00:59:59   or like need to do the editing now, and I sit down at it,

01:00:01   or there might be some specific task that I need to do.

01:00:05   But more often than not, I'm working on my iPad Pro.

01:00:09   Like today, I woke up a little later than normal,

01:00:12   I woke up at like 10, and we weren't recording

01:00:17   until like three o'clock, and I sat down

01:00:20   in front of my iMac at three o'clock,

01:00:23   but I'd been working all day.

01:00:25   So from the moment, like from 10 till three, I was working.

01:00:28   And I was doing it all on my iPad Pro.

01:00:30   - Yeah, I've been trying to think about

01:00:34   how to express this feeling that I've had

01:00:36   increasingly towards my OS X devices,

01:00:41   but that with the iPad Pro is really crystallized.

01:00:44   And what it is, is it feels like every machine in my house

01:00:49   that runs OS X, so whether it's my iMac

01:00:53   or whether it's my laptop.

01:00:55   They feel to me increasingly like,

01:00:59   like how the toaster feels or how the refrigerator feels.

01:01:05   Like it's, it's a machine that is there

01:01:10   to do a specific job, but it's not something in a way

01:01:14   that I am particularly interested in or excited about.

01:01:19   - Are you familiar with the cars and trucks metaphor?

01:01:22   I mean vaguely, but give me the give me like the rundown of this. This is the Steve Jobs thing, right?

01:01:27   Yeah

01:01:27   And he was talking about tablet computers like in reference to the iPad and what they might do someday to to desktop machines

01:01:34   I'm saying that there are people that will always need trucks

01:01:37   and they are

01:01:40   PCs right because they do specific things

01:01:43   And they're very powerful and you need them for very specific reasons for things that only the trucks can do

01:01:50   But some people own trucks when they don't actually need trucks and they'd be better off of a car

01:01:55   which is the iPad and

01:01:57   Eventually a lot of those truck people will realize that they can be car people

01:02:01   hmm

01:02:04   Yeah, I'm not sure

01:02:07   Here's the thing. I'm not sure that that metaphor like I can see what he's going for

01:02:09   And it's very like Steve Jobs kind of thing to say

01:02:12   Which is always like poo-pooing the last thing that they've just done and talking about how exciting the new thing that they're doing is

01:02:18   I think the reason that I am not quite going along with that is I am really aware of how

01:02:25   all of the most interesting and also all of the most important work that I do, I do on

01:02:34   iOS now.

01:02:36   And the iPad Pro feels like it is really the final nail in the coffin that has turned OSX

01:02:46   from like, "Oh, general purpose exciting computer" to "pure utility."

01:02:51   Alright, what's interesting and exciting work then?

01:02:54   Because, I mean, you create your videos and record your podcasts on OS X.

01:02:57   So when I'm thinking about my business, the videos are the core of my business.

01:03:03   They are what brings in the most money.

01:03:05   They are what consumes the largest part of my time and attention.

01:03:09   And to that end, as we've discussed many times,

01:03:13   The writing and the research is the biggest part of that.

01:03:17   And so that is what I am doing on my iPad all the time.

01:03:22   And we can talk about it in a little bit, but like the Apple Pencil has really changed some things

01:03:26   with the way that I do the writing workflow.

01:03:29   But so considering that that is where my time and attention goes,

01:03:36   that's why I spend so much time and attention on iOS as opposed to OS X.

01:03:42   And so it's like I was thinking about my office earlier today,

01:03:47   which I am sitting in right now, which is where I record a podcast.

01:03:50   So just like now, it's Cortex week, so I sit down, I'm recording Cortex with you,

01:03:55   and I come into my office to do that.

01:03:57   Or, you know, next week I'm going to record Hello Internet with Brady,

01:04:00   so I come in here and I sit down and I do that.

01:04:02   And then I'm realizing like, okay, but what other times do I sit down at my computer?

01:04:07   When I have a big animation week to come in,

01:04:10   That's when I come in and I sit down at my computer.

01:04:13   But I've sort of realized that I have this office in my new apartment

01:04:17   Actually, it's two years old now, which we'll get to in a second, but

01:04:20   I have this office that the centerpiece of it is this big Retina iMac, which takes up essentially the whole desk.

01:04:29   But I realized that I spend, relatively speaking, very few of my working hours sitting at this desk in front of the computer.

01:04:38   And the reason for that is because there's no space on this desk to also use my iPad.

01:04:44   So I'm always somewhere else.

01:04:46   There's like a kitchen table in our apartment that I'm very often finding myself

01:04:50   sitting at during the day because I'd rather be working on an iPad than the gigantic computer

01:04:57   which seems like it should be the thing that I'm working on which is, you know, 15 feet away.

01:05:02   And I just think that is a really interesting

01:05:06   shift and like what I was even thinking of is we've been toying with the idea of possibly moving into a new

01:05:13   apartment at some point in the near-ish future and I was thinking about

01:05:18   planning out what my office would be like if I could have a slightly bigger space and I realized like

01:05:24   Oh, I think I know what I would do if I had a bigger office

01:05:27   I would take the desk that I am sitting at now, which is like the centerpiece of my current office and

01:05:34   put it up against some side of that room and just leave it as

01:05:40   the machine where I go to do very specific kinds of work sometimes. And I would get a

01:05:47   bigger desk with nothing on it

01:05:51   that that would be where I would actually spend most of my time working because that's where I could sit with an iPad.

01:05:58   And I just I think like that is a phenomenal change to me that I am even considering

01:06:04   Relegating my computer to side of the room, non-central focus for work.

01:06:12   I find it amazing that I have come to that point.

01:06:15   And past me would never have guessed that.

01:06:18   That that would even be something I would consider.

01:06:20   I find myself frequently wishing that my work wasn't tied to OS X.

01:06:28   Mm-hmm.

01:06:30   because I have to make all of these considerations.

01:06:34   Like I didn't want to take my laptop with me on that trip.

01:06:37   - Right.

01:06:38   - But I had to because I had some shows to finish.

01:06:40   And even if I didn't have shows to finish,

01:06:42   I would be worried that if something came up

01:06:45   and I needed to do something with an audio file

01:06:48   that I could grab it really easily

01:06:49   and just go into the workflows that I need

01:06:51   and have all of the apps that I need

01:06:52   and it be as simple as I need.

01:06:54   And there are stuffs starting to pop up for iOS now

01:06:57   that can do some of this stuff.

01:06:59   but it's not seasoned enough yet for me.

01:07:03   Now I need to see that that stuff has been around

01:07:06   for a long time, is being added to, that kind of stuff

01:07:08   before I think about going to there.

01:07:10   Because I use logic, as we've mentioned,

01:07:13   but if logic explodes and goes away,

01:07:15   there are other options that I can go to.

01:07:17   We haven't got to that point on iOS yet.

01:07:20   But I expect it will be at some point.

01:07:23   And then maybe I can think differently about it again,

01:07:26   but right now, that's where I am.

01:07:29   because I would like to pull a Federico Vatici

01:07:34   and just always work on iOS

01:07:37   because all of my favorite apps are on iOS.

01:07:41   And I don't mean like Tweetbot saying,

01:07:45   "Oh, it's also on iOS."

01:07:47   I just mean like my favorite versions

01:07:48   of all of my favorite apps are also on iOS as well.

01:07:52   Like I prefer the iOS versions of stuff to anything else.

01:07:55   And I really like, like yesterday,

01:07:59   I went to my coworking space,

01:08:01   and I had a bunch of stuff that I needed to do that day.

01:08:04   Like it was a real big like 2016 planning day

01:08:08   that I needed to take care of.

01:08:10   And I threw caution to the wind,

01:08:12   and I picked up my iPad Pro, I put it in my bag and left.

01:08:16   And I was like, I'm staying out of the house,

01:08:18   I have to do everything I need to do today on my iPad.

01:08:21   And I worked for like six hours and got a ton of stuff done.

01:08:27   And I was able to do it all on my iPad Pro with my pencil and my keyboard.

01:08:31   And it felt really great.

01:08:33   And I knew when I was doing it that I know a lot of my friends that could not

01:08:38   have coped with what I was doing because it is so far away from the way that

01:08:43   they do things. Some things were a little bit more difficult,

01:08:45   but some things were way easier, but the whole thing was more enjoyable.

01:08:49   Yeah, that's definitely something that is hard to articulate,

01:08:55   but iOS to me is a much more enjoyable user experience.

01:09:05   Even with some of the stuff that's like a little cludgy sometimes

01:09:09   where yes, it's a bit awkward sometimes to do some things on iOS

01:09:13   but the whole of it is just more enjoyable to use

01:09:18   even when you're doing things that you don't really like to do.

01:09:23   And I think part of what makes OS X feel like it's a real utility is quite naturally the slowing pace of development and change for it.

01:09:34   It is solidifying over time more into like this is what we understand a computer to be.

01:09:42   In the same way as like microwaves. There's not a huge amount of revolution in microwave interfaces.

01:09:48   We all understand where it is and how these buttons work, and so it's just not going to change all that much.

01:09:56   Whereas the iPad Pro plus the latest version of iOS, there's no other way to put it, this feels like and is the future of computing.

01:10:08   There's just... I think there is no argument about that.

01:10:13   And I...

01:10:15   I am just drawn to it as the platform to do as much on it as I possibly can.

01:10:24   And one of the big things holding me back now,

01:10:26   aside from the podcast, which I will probably be doing on a computer for a long time coming,

01:10:33   if not simply because I have finally learned how to cobble it together with logic

01:10:37   and I don't feel like learning a new program for that.

01:10:39   Like, I just want to get it done fast.

01:10:41   But one of the things that's holding me back,

01:10:44   going back to our earlier conversation about waiting for software,

01:10:47   is I am waiting for someone to come out with the first,

01:10:52   fully capable vector drawing program for iOS.

01:10:57   Like, there's some things that kind of work around the edges,

01:11:00   but there's nothing that is what I need in order to do the animations for the videos.

01:11:06   But I can say, like, man, as soon as Adobe decides that they're the one who's going to come out with their full version of Illustrator on the iPad,

01:11:15   or, um, ah, I forget. I'll try to find it for the show notes, but there's another company that looks like it's making a very nice, full-featured vector drawing program.

01:11:25   Like, can I imagine myself sitting at my new desk in a new apartment with just a big iPad in front of me doing the drawings that way?

01:11:35   Yeah, I sure can see that as the future and the alternative to doing it on my big computer.

01:11:41   But you'd still probably be using Final Cut though to put it together in the same way

01:11:46   that you're happy to use and will continue to use Logic.

01:11:49   Yeah, that's exactly right.

01:11:52   Final Cut is a program I actually quite like and I'm always a little bit sad that I actually

01:11:58   use Final Cut very little.

01:12:01   When I do all the animations and when the audio is all done, it's just a matter of lining

01:12:06   that stuff up in Final Cut.

01:12:10   I can do that in like an hour when all the audio and animations are done.

01:12:15   That is just the, again, getting back to it, this is the utility part.

01:12:19   This is just a little grinding mechanical thing.

01:12:23   Line up this animation transition when I say this word, but it's not the interesting and

01:12:30   important work which is creating the illustrations in the first place which is also hugely time

01:12:38   consuming.

01:12:41   That's what I mean by this new platform being interesting and the iPad Pro as being really

01:12:48   a big enough screen to really make it feel like quite the working device.

01:12:57   You mentioned you want to get a big desk.

01:12:59   Now the iPad Pro is smaller than your computer.

01:13:04   So what is this desk?

01:13:06   Is it going to be like some battle station with iPad minis mounted into it or something?

01:13:11   Is it a desk made out of your old iPad so you can just touch everything always?

01:13:16   Okay, okay.

01:13:17   So like you're joking, Myke.

01:13:21   But okay, so here's the thing.

01:13:23   Here's the thing.

01:13:24   Right.

01:13:25   I forget.

01:13:26   Have you watched much Star Trek in your life, Myke?

01:13:28   I can't remember.

01:13:29   Okay, there you have it.

01:13:31   Okay, so long time viewers of Star Trek will know this little bit of a cliche that they do on the show.

01:13:37   The captain will say something like, "Oh, we've flown into this new region of space."

01:13:41   And they'll tell some ensign, "I need you to bring me all the research on everything we know about this sector of space that I'm prepared for whatever's coming up."

01:13:49   Right, so the ensign goes away.

01:13:51   And then the ensign will come back and because it's TV, because they have to visually show you like, "Oh boy, look at all this work this person has done."

01:13:58   The Anson will come back with, "What is the equivalent of like an armful of iPad minis?"

01:14:04   [laughter]

01:14:05   And it just like, you know why they're doing it on TV,

01:14:09   because they have to show it to you, but it does look kind of ridiculous when you think about it, right?

01:14:15   Whereas like, do they need all of those iPads?

01:14:18   Right? Is that like, is that really necessary?

01:14:21   I'm sure given the amazing state of technology, everything this dude has looked up could fit on one iPad, right?

01:14:28   Like it's not really necessary. And then they'll show the captain later on to indicate like,

01:14:34   "Oh boy, look at all the work Janeway's been doing." You know, she'll be there and her hair will be like,

01:14:38   you know, messed up because she's been working all night long. And there will be in front of her on

01:14:42   the desk 10 equivalent of iPads just strewn all over the place. And so it's this visual image of

01:14:48   like, "Look at all the work she's doing." And it's sort of ridiculous. But at the same time,

01:14:56   when I think about the future of computing

01:15:00   and the future of how I'm doing my work,

01:15:03   I don't think

01:15:06   that is actually a crazy scenario

01:15:09   because can I imagine, and have I already done a couple of times?

01:15:14   Yes. Sitting somewhere and I am using

01:15:18   my iPad Pro to take notes

01:15:21   with my Apple Pencil, so I'm using it like a clipboard,

01:15:25   and then I'm watching something else on a separate screen,

01:15:29   or I'm reading something else on a separate screen,

01:15:33   I don't think it's actually a crazy scenario to have two devices being used side by side.

01:15:42   And I already see people do this, like when I'm out at the cafes and I'm working,

01:15:46   I'm always fascinated by seeing what other people are doing,

01:15:50   I'm always very interested, like what other equipment do people have,

01:15:52   how do other people use stuff?

01:15:54   And the number of times I see people working on iPads

01:15:58   or Surfaces who are then also clearly using their iPhone

01:16:03   or whatever phone they have as a secondary screen,

01:16:06   that's a non-zero use case.

01:16:08   - I do it.

01:16:09   - Yeah, so there you go.

01:16:10   So I think people like to laugh at that idea,

01:16:13   like, oh, you're gonna use two iPads at once?

01:16:15   Like you lunatic.

01:16:16   It's like, yeah, but you have to think of them

01:16:19   not as iPads, but as screens.

01:16:24   Right, screens that you can input into

01:16:27   and that you can receive information from.

01:16:29   And if you're just thinking of that in an abstract way,

01:16:32   is that a crazy thing to want more of?

01:16:35   I don't think so at all.

01:16:37   And so when I've seen people sometimes in Star Trek,

01:16:39   like they will criticize the visual look of a captain

01:16:42   sitting in front of a bunch of these little iPads,

01:16:44   it's like, but is that unreasonable?

01:16:47   I mean, people have sat in front of desks

01:16:49   with papers all over the desk,

01:16:52   each paper they want to be able to look at at the same time.

01:16:55   So I'm not saying that we're necessarily there now,

01:16:59   that this makes sense for a lot of people's work,

01:17:02   but I can say that thinking about the future

01:17:05   of how I'm going to work and what I might want to do,

01:17:08   like I can definitely see that,

01:17:11   that a multiple, flexible, iOS screen-based workflow

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01:19:36   [Music]

01:19:37   All right, so one big change then and probably why you would want to have this iPad desk is because

01:19:43   you're able to use the pencil. Like I just see that as something that is probably very important.

01:19:49   It's something that I know that we both really cared about. So I'm interested in how that has

01:19:55   gone for you when working on your scripts and stuff.

01:19:59   Yes, because we were both very, very cautious about the pencil before it got into our actual hands.

01:20:11   And so now we have had it. I've been using it for a little while.

01:20:16   And my review of the Apple Pencil could be summarized in one word.

01:20:27   I say that the Apple Pencil in the stylus world has risen to the magnificent height of acceptable.

01:20:39   It is 100% acceptable for its intended purpose.

01:20:45   Which, if you go back and you listen to our earlier podcast, I made offhanded reference to previous styluses.

01:20:53   every other stylist has been just awful. I mean frankly unacceptable. That is what they have all been.

01:21:01   They have all had some just deal breaking flaw. And I've seen lots of people saying like they think it's just amazing.

01:21:10   I am not in the camp of someone who says it is amazing. But I think that acceptability is super high praise in the stylist world.

01:21:21   In all honesty, acceptable from you, your standards of acceptable, is probably the exact same standard of "some people's amazing".

01:21:33   I think Apple should make ads for their Apple Pencil and they should just put on there "acceptable cgpgray".

01:21:40   Hello, my name is cgpgray and I'm here to tell you about the Apple Pencil.

01:21:46   I'm envisioning those posters they like to do where everything is all white, right? So it's just a white background

01:21:50   It's just the white pencil and the word acceptable CGP Grey. Apple marketing department

01:21:54   You can have that one if you want to run with it. I'm perfectly fine with using that as my review

01:21:58   Put it on the box guys. Yeah

01:22:01   But yeah, so there are there are many things about it

01:22:05   Then I would like to be improved. I think

01:22:10   largely the reason why I have it as acceptable is

01:22:15   Again, the number of people who say that the latency is very, very low, I think those are

01:22:19   crazy people who maybe don't play a lot of games or who aren't highly attuned to latency.

01:22:25   Like, when I am writing with it, it is very clearly a half, maybe three quarters of a

01:22:32   letter behind what I am actually writing.

01:22:34   Like, it is noticeable, but it is acceptable.

01:22:38   Like it is within acceptable boundaries.

01:22:41   And quite frankly, I am thrilled about that.

01:22:43   Because latency isn't a problem because it picks up everything, which has not been the

01:22:48   case previously.

01:22:49   It doesn't matter what movement I make, no matter how precise, the Apple Pencil gets

01:22:54   it.

01:22:55   So I'm happy with it being a little bit behind me.

01:22:57   So you also find it acceptable, Myke?

01:22:58   Oh, most definitely.

01:22:59   Good, good.

01:23:00   I'm glad that you find it acceptable.

01:23:02   It does, you know, it is the closest representation of looking like my handwriting on any computer

01:23:08   I've ever used.

01:23:10   So what have you been using it for?

01:23:12   I use it for taking some notes which I do here and there but more really the thing that

01:23:20   I love it the most for is operating iOS like a pen tablet.

01:23:29   And this is partly your fault why I like this so much anyway is because you have indoctrinated

01:23:33   me into the Wacom world.

01:23:36   So now using a computer with a pen is what I like a lot.

01:23:39   I like that a lot.

01:23:40   Like it's just so much more precise.

01:23:42   Like text selection and things like that

01:23:44   are just way better with the Apple Pencil.

01:23:47   But I like just clicking around the interface.

01:23:49   It's very enjoyable to me.

01:23:51   I find it a very pleasurable experience.

01:23:53   I like dragging things around with the Pencil.

01:23:55   And you know, I take some notes

01:23:56   and I do some doodles and stuff like that.

01:23:58   Like the things that you're intended to use it for.

01:24:00   But the majority of the time,

01:24:02   it's just purely the way that I use iOS now.

01:24:05   I use my iPad.

01:24:06   Like I just tap things with the Pencil.

01:24:08   This is a thing that I have gotten into many an argument about, both on the Internet and with real people, is...

01:24:14   I like iOS, but I think that touch screens are fundamentally un-ergonomic.

01:24:24   Because if you think about the position that you hold your hand in when you touch a screen...

01:24:30   Now, so most people think, "Oh, I'm touching the screen," and they imagine what they're doing is like,

01:24:34   is holding out their index finger right in front of them and pressing straight ahead of them.

01:24:39   But that's not what people do if you look at them because you have the iPad in front of you,

01:24:44   and so what you do to touch the screen very often is you have to spread out your hand and then hold

01:24:50   it up in front of you in this kind of awkward position. And I think it's a lot like when you

01:24:56   have your hand on a mouse, a lot of times you're holding your two fingers up above the buttons

01:25:02   because you don't want to accidentally press them.

01:25:05   And I just think there's something really un-ergonomic about that over the long run.

01:25:09   And holding a pencil in your hand, or any pointing device, is just so natural,

01:25:16   because then, in order to have the pencil tip hit the screen,

01:25:20   your hand is in front of you in a very natural position.

01:25:26   And so, this is one of the few things that I continue to use styluses for,

01:25:30   when long after I gave up trying to use them to write,

01:25:34   I still very often kept styluses around

01:25:37   because I like to use them as pointing devices

01:25:40   to hit targets on touch screens.

01:25:42   - See, I never did that.

01:25:44   And I didn't like that because it just felt like

01:25:47   I was holding somebody else's finger previously

01:25:51   because it just didn't really add anything

01:25:52   to the experience for me.

01:25:54   It was like I was just using my mushy fingers

01:25:57   to hit a mushy thing into the screen.

01:25:58   Like it's not really useful, but for me it's just like the pencil is so precise and so accurate

01:26:04   that I can hit everything I want to hit. Yeah, you're never going to miss something

01:26:08   when you hit it with the pencil. Exactly.

01:26:10   The only thing that I have noticed because I mean here's the thing, the iPad Pro in some ways has

01:26:16   totally ruined me for all my other iPads because I want to use the pencil on everything that I am

01:26:24   I'm using to navigate, right? Not even to write.

01:26:27   I want to use it to hit touch targets.

01:26:29   So here was the thing I kept doing yesterday. So I was using,

01:26:32   I wanted to be able to split screen an application, um,

01:26:37   because they needed to see two, I need to see a spreadsheet and a webpage,

01:26:41   but Google sheets, man, why even bother? Like,

01:26:43   Oh yeah, those Google docs. They're great.

01:26:46   I'm so glad to open up the cortex show notes in them. It's lovely every time.

01:26:50   So I had to use Google sheets on my iPad and I had to look at something else on

01:26:53   iPhone because I was entering in some information and I kept tapping my iPhone with the pencil.

01:27:00   Even though I know it doesn't work. But I kept doing it anyway.

01:27:05   I did that for the first time today, a few hours ago. My phone was on the desk, I was

01:27:11   using the iPad Pro, and I just very naturally took the pencil and went to swipe the lock

01:27:16   screen open on the phone. It's like, "Oh right, of course, no, it's not gonna work." And now

01:27:21   I am sad. It's a very natural tool that you want to use everywhere and I think it really,

01:27:29   it makes navigating iOS a more easy and enjoyable experience than constantly trying to reach

01:27:37   up in this awkward manner with your hand to hit the various touch targets.

01:27:42   I really do think though that this is only more enjoyable for people that use pen tablets.

01:27:47   I really do think that, but I think once for me anyway, I believe,

01:27:51   and I think you believe is that if you are used to it, it is just flat out better,

01:27:55   but you need to get over that initial hump and until you do,

01:28:00   it doesn't feel better.

01:28:01   So you really think that this is only because I have infected you with the

01:28:05   tablet use on a computer. That's why you're on board with this.

01:28:08   And so you and I are just total freaks in this world and we will see in comments

01:28:12   in the Reddit that just everyone disagrees with us. Is that your,

01:28:15   is that your prediction?

01:28:16   That is my hypothesis.

01:28:17   But I stand by the fact that if you can accept it and get used to it, you will like it more than you did before.

01:28:23   But you need that.

01:28:24   I believe that there is a hump that you have to get over.

01:28:27   It's like, I have this perfectly good finger.

01:28:29   Why would I put something in my hand?

01:28:31   I hate that argument so much.

01:28:35   So do I.

01:28:36   But that's what everybody says.

01:28:37   And people bring up like, oh, Steve Jobs said you have 10 perfectly good styluses.

01:28:41   Like, no, you don't.

01:28:42   You do not in your hands.

01:28:44   Like it's not styluses.

01:28:46   It's not remotely the same.

01:28:48   The only thing I have noticed is that

01:28:51   Apple has clearly built into the iPad

01:28:56   the ability to know that it is the pencil

01:28:58   and to ignore it in certain circumstances.

01:29:01   So at least in my own testing,

01:29:03   it is impossible to pull up Control Center

01:29:07   or pull down Notification Center.

01:29:09   - Or anything of the split view stuff, it doesn't work.

01:29:13   I can pull down Notification Center.

01:29:14   I have done notification center, but that was like randomly one time.

01:29:18   I thought I was just being an idiot and I sat down, I tried it for a while.

01:29:24   And then I came to the conclusion that Apple has programmed this to ignore the,

01:29:29   like the meta user interface, the stuff that is not in the apps,

01:29:34   but that is over or outside of the apps. So every,

01:29:37   all the slide over stuff and any of the split view stuff,

01:29:40   it pretends like the pencil is not able to, to register those, those marks.

01:29:44   So I think that's an interesting choice. I don't think it's necessarily the wrong choice, but it is notable when you get used to manipulating the interface with the Pencil that there are these couple things that it just won't let you do.

01:29:54   Even though it obviously knows you're touching the screen.

01:29:56   I think I'm okay with it. Like it doesn't bother me. Like I can see...

01:30:00   I don't know why you would make that decision, but I can see that you would, if that makes sense.

01:30:05   Like I don't know what your reasoning is, like where it comes up. You're like "Oh no, we can't have the Pencil operate those parts of the OS."

01:30:10   parts of the OS. But the fact that they that they that it is built that way

01:30:14   can kind of make some weird sense to me that I can't explain. Yeah I think it is

01:30:19   not an unreasonable decision to make because you might be using the pencil in

01:30:22   a drawing app and come up against the edge a lot and so they want to ignore

01:30:25   edge input. Like I think that's not unreasonable. Yeah like if you want to

01:30:28   draw a line from the edge right you would be you can't do it anywhere like

01:30:33   you're gonna pull down notification center. Yeah there are yeah there are

01:30:38   these funny things with the edge swipe gestures now that sometimes make some apps particularly

01:30:43   infuriating. I use iBooks to read all my books now, and I don't know any way to try to get

01:30:50   slide over or split view to happen while you're using a book that doesn't also turn the page of

01:30:55   the book. It's impossible to do. I sat there for a while like, "Okay, I'm going to slide over iMessages

01:31:02   without turning the page in my book. There must be a way to do it." And I was like, "No, there's

01:31:06   There's no way to do this because they just don't understand what you're trying to do

01:31:09   from the edge of the screen.

01:31:11   There's a few apps that are like that that have edge gestures now which are a little

01:31:14   bit frustrating in new iOS, but it's a small price to pay.

01:31:17   So did you use the pencil for marking up scripts?

01:31:19   Because I know that was one of your big desires for it.

01:31:23   Yeah, so getting back to the pencil, the reason why I can say it is acceptable is that this

01:31:29   allows me to do the thing that I wanted to do, that I have tried to do with limited success

01:31:35   in past years, which is that I can now mark up scripts just like I had printed them off

01:31:42   from a printer and was using a real pen.

01:31:45   And it is not an exaggeration to say that this is just game-changing for me, the ability

01:31:53   to do this.

01:31:55   So just to describe very briefly what I'm doing, and actually I can share some of this

01:31:59   with the listeners if anyone wants to try it.

01:32:02   I was trying to figure out how to generate a PDF with custom formatting on iOS.

01:32:11   I was messing around for a while and I was trying to figure out, like, how can I do this?

01:32:14   How can I do this?

01:32:15   I have these markdown files that I want to turn into PDFs, but I need custom formatting.

01:32:20   I can't figure it out.

01:32:21   So of course, I asked the master, Viticci, and within two seconds he was like, "Oh, here's

01:32:27   the thing that you can do."

01:32:28   I'm like, "Oh, thank you!"

01:32:29   So he sent me a little workflow in editorial, which I then modified for my own purposes,

01:32:36   and I realized I can share the link, so if people want to check it out or try it, they

01:32:39   can do it themselves.

01:32:40   So all of my scripts are synchronized through Dropbox.

01:32:44   So I can open up editorial, which has access to the current scripts that I'm working on,

01:32:48   press this little button to invoke the custom workflow, and it spits out a PDF of what I

01:32:55   want to work on.

01:32:57   And the key thing here is that it triplespaces the words and it makes the text really big.

01:33:03   So I end up with this PDF where there's a lot of space to write.

01:33:07   That's the key.

01:33:08   So I was like, "I don't know what your problem is," but now I get it.

01:33:10   It's this weird format you have to do.

01:33:13   There are plenty of apps that will just convert Markdown into a PDF, but the key is I want

01:33:21   lots of space to write.

01:33:23   And actually, I'll send you a link here.

01:33:25   Let me show you.

01:33:28   You'll have to keep this secret because this is a currently in work project.

01:33:33   So I have sent Myke, so he can see, an example of a script that I marked up recently using

01:33:39   this method where I've created a PDF and then I can write on top of it with the Apple pencil.

01:33:44   But you, listener, you can go and if you just take a look at that old blog post that I wrote

01:33:48   called "Iteration" which talked about some of the working process, you can see basically

01:33:52   what I'm doing there, although then I did it on paper.

01:33:56   But I'm telling you, the ability to at any moment make this PDF from any of my scripts

01:34:02   and work on it in this editing fashion, where I'm striking out lines, where I'm able to

01:34:08   make little notes, it makes such a huge difference.

01:34:13   So on this trip, I took a couple of trains and I took a couple of flights, and on both

01:34:19   of these on trains and on planes I was able to make these PDFs and in like on a plane

01:34:24   you're sitting in a not super comfortable seat like there are people around you it's

01:34:28   a bad time to pull out your Mac Pro and try to type away at a script like there's nothing

01:34:34   about that that's conducive to this but I found with the iPad Pro and with the pencil

01:34:39   I could edit and make notes really easily and comfortably in my lap on a train or on

01:34:46   on a plane in a way that I would never have worked on a script like that in the past.

01:34:51   But now it's like, boom, I can just do it at any point and I love it.

01:34:57   I absolutely love being able to work like this.

01:35:00   I can see it in the work, right?

01:35:03   Looking at what you're doing here, I can see why it's so beneficial to you to be able to

01:35:08   do that.

01:35:09   Like this is, I can see why this is such an important tool because not only are you able

01:35:15   to make all those notes and to make them in a fantastically easy way, right?

01:35:21   Just writing on the actual notes themselves that are on the screen.

01:35:25   Nothing's printed, nothing's scanned, it's all there digitally, it's all saved everywhere.

01:35:31   It's like the ideal.

01:35:32   I used to only print out scripts on paper when I was kind of stuck with the script.

01:35:37   I was always aware that this was a tool that if I'm having a hard time with the script,

01:35:41   printing it out and working on it in pen and paper is a helpful thing to unstick it.

01:35:46   Because I think my writing has these two phases where it's like if I am typing a script at

01:35:52   a computer or I'm doing the thing where I'm talking it out loud but I'm also on the computer,

01:35:57   I'm in a kind of growing phase.

01:35:59   I'm usually adding things to the script.

01:36:01   Like it's very easy when you're typing to add more.

01:36:05   But editing is the exact reverse.

01:36:07   We're doing this thing where it's a PDF and I'm making notes on it.

01:36:11   It's way easier here to cut things.

01:36:14   And so when I was stuck on scripts, printing them out and working on them like this, it

01:36:18   made it more obvious sections that needed to be cut.

01:36:21   Like okay, this is bloated, this is bloated, like just cross it all out, scribble it all

01:36:25   out, get rid of it, it's garbage.

01:36:28   And now I have really worked it into my workflow that like because I don't have the hassle

01:36:33   of printing and scanning and doing all this crap, like it's just right here, I have done

01:36:39   so much more of this editing on scripts than ever before.

01:36:44   And I just love having it as an optional way to work.

01:36:49   And it's also just much lower barrier to work.

01:36:54   Like it's easier to do this editing on a script

01:36:57   than it is to do the thing where I want to talk out loud

01:37:00   because first of all I need to be in the environment where I can do it.

01:37:03   This kind of thing, like I'm on a plane, I have an hour,

01:37:06   like boom, I can make this PDF and I can work on it.

01:37:08   It's just perfect for me.

01:37:13   I absolutely love it.

01:37:14   So the pencil has immediately,

01:37:18   immediately become an irreplaceable tool

01:37:23   for the kind of work that I do.

01:37:26   It's just astounding.

01:37:27   I presume that you're using it to color in.

01:37:31   That's what you're doing, your coloring books?

01:37:32   - No, because for some insane reason,

01:37:35   nobody has made a good coloring app yet.

01:37:37   (laughing)

01:37:40   - It's money on the table, people.

01:37:41   Money on the table.

01:37:43   - I'm like petitioning some friends that are developing.

01:37:46   Like, this will make you millions of dollars.

01:37:49   Like, you need to understand.

01:37:51   In-app purchases for books and, oh,

01:37:54   but they just won't listen to me.

01:37:55   - But yeah, so, I don't know, for me,

01:37:58   like I said, this pencil, absolutely vital.

01:38:00   And so now I am just terrified that I am going to lose it

01:38:05   because it still seems like there's massive, massive--

01:38:07   - I know.

01:38:08   - Delays for the shipping.

01:38:09   Like I went to look online the other day

01:38:10   and it's still like four or five weeks for shipping.

01:38:12   And so I am just constantly focused on where is it?

01:38:17   Do I have it?

01:38:18   Like every time I move,

01:38:19   I have to make sure that I don't lose it

01:38:21   because if I lost it now, I would be crushed.

01:38:24   I would be one of these people paying scalpers

01:38:28   anything on eBay to get it back.

01:38:30   Like someone's selling one on eBay for twice as much.

01:38:33   Great, here you go.

01:38:34   Take my money like I need it now

01:38:36   because this is just part of my workflow immediately.

01:38:39   - I bought a pen loop that I have stuck to my iPad Pro.

01:38:45   So it has somewhere to live, so I don't lose it.

01:38:49   - We're getting into the lucrative pencil accessory market

01:38:53   very soon, I imagine.

01:38:55   - Oh yeah, yep.

01:38:56   I also bought a little clip that goes on a pen

01:39:00   called the Fisher Space Pen.

01:39:01   It's not very elegant, the clip is way too small,

01:39:03   it looks kind of jokey, but it stops it from moving.

01:39:05   I sent you a picture, my one complaint about the pencil,

01:39:09   or I mean, I have a long list of complaints,

01:39:11   but that's not for today, it's acceptable.

01:39:14   But I find it too slippery, and so I am indeed,

01:39:19   I have one of these little pencil grips

01:39:21   like I used to use in kindergarten

01:39:23   attached to my Apple pencil.

01:39:25   And I've been trying out a few of them.

01:39:27   I've also been like, I'm trying to sometimes

01:39:30   use the pencil without it

01:39:31   because I would really prefer not to.

01:39:34   But I do find like if I am writing for an hour,

01:39:36   my hand kind of keeps slipping towards the front

01:39:40   of the pencil, like it's a little too slippery for me.

01:39:42   So I do need a grip on it.

01:39:44   But yeah, I feel like I'm in kindergarten,

01:39:46   like, "Oh, hello, triangular pencil grip,

01:39:48   like we meet again.

01:39:50   I thought I left you in my path, but no."

01:39:53   - Yeah, you are.

01:39:54   - Yeah.

01:39:55   It does make me wonder, like I had a little bit of a thought

01:39:58   which is an Apple Watch edition version of the pencil

01:40:03   in the future. Yeah, I've already specced this out by the way. If Apple made

01:40:08   something like this I would be willing to spend a not-insubstantial amount of

01:40:16   money for something that made this feel like one of the mechanical pencils I

01:40:21   used to use doing physics back in college. Apple, there's, speaking of

01:40:25   money on the table, like there's money on the table here because we already know

01:40:29   there's a high-end pen market out there and I just I wonder if this is something

01:40:33   Tim Cook seems to love his margins on products like I wonder if there's something like this in the back of their mind for

01:40:39   Version two of the pencil, but what have you specked out Myke?

01:40:42   So you could very easily make something that costs what you would sell for $500 and and make it out of

01:40:48   Materials that are usual in the world that I've frequent. So in my mind this would be aluminium

01:40:56   Mmm, because then it fits with apples over products, which it should be anyway

01:41:00   That is the thing that I absolutely hate is I hate the whiteness of it

01:41:03   Yeah, I look I knew I wouldn't like it and using it in person in the real world. I

01:41:08   Loathe the whiteness of it

01:41:11   It's too conspicuous and to solve your grip problem and also to fit with the design aesthetic of aluminium

01:41:17   They would know the grip you familiar with knurling gray

01:41:20   Like I'm thinking about the old mechanical pencils that I used to use in college and I'm thinking this is like that

01:41:25   Cross-hatching you do around the place where you're gripping it like that's that's what you're talking about school knurling. Yeah, okay knurling

01:41:30   So they would do that to the to the grip section. Yep. I think they could put a nice clip on it

01:41:36   I think that would be really nice

01:41:37   So people could clip it into their pockets more than anything like it's not necessarily about the moving thing

01:41:42   Although that is a thing for me

01:41:43   And something that I would really like to see them do in a very elegant way, which is definitely possible is a retractable

01:41:51   lightning

01:41:54   lightning plug or whatever you'd call it? No. You could do it. Okay, okay, Myke, Myke. You could,

01:42:01   okay, I understand you want like a little clicky thing at the end where the the lightning port

01:42:06   comes out, right? I imagine a twisting mechanism. Okay, or a twisting mechanism, whatever, you know,

01:42:11   every everyone who uses pens is familiar with this, right? You click on the end or something.

01:42:15   If there's one thing we know about Apple, it's that they hate moving parts, that they have a war

01:42:21   against moving parts and so there's no way there's no way they're going to have anything

01:42:26   like a retractable light. Everyone says this to me that I say this to and I understand why people

01:42:31   feel this way but trust me if you like it's this high-end feel there are a couple of fountain pens

01:42:38   that exist that kind of do this type of thing and you can it really feels incredible like that you

01:42:45   twist something or you click something and then the the lightning port would pop out the top I

01:42:49   I would very much like that,

01:42:51   but I can see why so many people wouldn't like that

01:42:53   and why Apple might not do it.

01:42:55   But that is, of the things that I think they could make,

01:42:58   that is the least important of that scenario.

01:43:02   Really, it's the making it out of aluminium,

01:43:04   which is the key part of it,

01:43:06   and just making a real nice finish on it.

01:43:09   And I think that'd be set at that point,

01:43:11   and you could sell that thing for four or $500.

01:43:13   You just gotta weight it really nicely.

01:43:15   Like, they did a good job with the weighting,

01:43:17   but just pay a lot of attention

01:43:18   to the way that it's weighted.

01:43:20   And that would be aces for people like you and me.

01:43:24   - Yeah, I would, 500 seems a lot,

01:43:29   but considering something that would be a tool

01:43:32   that I would use every day,

01:43:34   I mean, since I got the Apple Pencil,

01:43:35   I have used it every day intensely for writing

01:43:38   for an hour or two hours,

01:43:41   and then I'm using it in additionally

01:43:43   to navigate the interface for the rest of the day.

01:43:46   I know why 500 sounds a lot, but I'm basing it on the pen world.

01:43:51   I have pens made of acrylic that cost $400.

01:43:54   Yeah. See, this is the thing where I'm just, I'm just not familiar with this.

01:43:58   And whereas when Apple released their pricing for the Apple watch,

01:44:02   like I am dimly aware of the high end watch world.

01:44:05   And so when they announced their prices for the Apple watch, I was like, yeah,

01:44:10   it's a lot, but it's not,

01:44:12   is not like a crazy number in the high-end watch world.

01:44:16   And I'm just not familiar with like,

01:44:18   what are super high-end pens and pencils?

01:44:22   Like what do they go for?

01:44:23   I am not familiar with that. - That's not super high-end.

01:44:25   - Okay, what's a super high-end pencil?

01:44:28   - Not a pencil.

01:44:30   - Or a pen, yeah, a pen.

01:44:32   - Super high-end pen, you'd be looking at four figures,

01:44:35   or maybe like close towards that,

01:44:36   like the nine, 800, 900 mark.

01:44:39   The most expensive pen that I own cost about $600.

01:44:44   Very easy to get there.

01:44:47   - Well, I guess for people who wanna know the details

01:44:50   of how you get there, you have a podcast

01:44:52   they should go listen to, which is The Pen Addict.

01:44:54   - Yes, they should.

01:44:55   This specific pen though was custom made,

01:44:59   which is why it's so expensive.

01:45:00   I even picked out and sourced the material.

01:45:03   - Great, I'm sure you had some organic, free range,

01:45:08   bamboo or something that you had your super high-end pen made out of that sounds like what you do. It's a material called to baldy

01:45:15   What is to baldy? Just google it. Just google to baldy pen t I B a LDI

01:45:21   Yeah, I am not able to tell what this material is by looking at it. It is an acrylic like material. Okay, and it is

01:45:30   Stunning it is absolutely stunning and it's so difficult to photograph

01:45:36   Because the beauty in it is all in the way that the lights hit it

01:45:39   Spoken like a man who runs a pen podcast

01:45:42   Whereas I'm looking at these pictures and I couldn't tell the difference from plastic from the photos. Like "Oh is it plastic?"

01:45:46   I like this picture that I found here of

01:45:49   Someone who has a pen that matches their Bentley. There's like a place in their Bentley car for this matching pen

01:45:58   I'm sure you've already seen this ridiculous photo

01:46:00   Oh look at that

01:46:02   So I guess like this is this is just a thing that exists in the luxury world

01:46:06   This is you want to have a you want to have a thousand dollar pen that matches the interior of your car

01:46:12   Perfectly, this is the kind of thing that you can do if I had a high-end car it would do that one

01:46:18   You really into these pens Myke. I really am. Yes

01:46:21   I've opened I've opened a terrible door by bringing it up on like that like this

01:46:26   It's time to close it before we lose all of our listeners. Yeah, but if you are at all interested

01:46:31   There is a weekly podcast which has been going on for over three years.

01:46:36   Weekly!

01:46:37   Weekly!

01:46:38   And we're approaching episode 200 and it's called The Pan Addict and we talk about this

01:46:43   stuff every single week.

01:46:45   And lots of people listen to it.

01:46:47   I can't believe it's weekly.

01:46:50   [LAUGH]