Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:10 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is the 2021 Upgradies Awards, and these awards are brought to you by Squarespace, ZocDoc, and Memberfall.

00:00:21 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by my co-master of ceremonies for this year's Upgradies Awards, Jason Snell.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Hello Jesus now.

00:00:30 ◼   ► - Hello my fellow co-master.

00:00:32 ◼   ► - It's pretty good, right?

00:00:34 ◼   ► Co-master of ceremonies.

00:00:36 ◼   ► - That's weird, but it's fine.

00:00:37 ◼   ► - What else would you call them?

00:00:38 ◼   ► Like people that host an award show, just hosts?

00:00:41 ◼   ► - Co-hosts, yes.

00:00:43 ◼   ► - But I wanted to make it different to normal

00:00:44 ◼   ► 'cause this is a special thing.

00:00:46 ◼   ► - Co-master of ceremonies it is then.

00:00:48 ◼   ► - This is the eighth annual Upgraders Awards,

00:00:51 ◼   ► which is a great thing to have gone eight of these now.

00:00:56 ◼   ► - It's hard to believe.

00:00:57 ◼   ► couple of years, 10th. If you don't know what the upgrade is are, every year we award some

00:01:03 ◼   ► of our favorite apps, media and trends in technology with recognition. Some of these

00:01:08 ◼   ► awards I guess would be considered good for the recipients, some maybe less desired. Unlike

00:01:14 ◼   ► other award ceremonies, which is just people reading out the winners of each category where

00:01:19 ◼   ► the deliberations are done in secret, we go through our process here so you get to hear

00:01:24 ◼   ► how we reach our verdicts. Both Jason and myself come to each category with our own

00:01:29 ◼   ► selections and we take into account the results of our public nomination that we've been

00:01:34 ◼   ► running for the last month or so and we give the top three winners in each category, kind

00:01:40 ◼   ► of nominations in each category as voted by the upgradians and we take those into consideration

00:01:45 ◼   ► as we make our final decision on who wins in each category. Thank you to everybody that

00:01:51 ◼   ► did put in their nominations over the last month or so.

00:01:54 ◼   ► It was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of you.

00:01:55 ◼   ► So thank you so much for doing that.

00:01:57 ◼   ► - And thank you for compiling all of those

00:01:59 ◼   ► many nominations, Myke, because--

00:02:00 ◼   ► - Oh, it was a fun little task to do

00:02:02 ◼   ► during some holiday downtime.

00:02:04 ◼   ► If you would like to see a history

00:02:07 ◼   ► of all of the previous award winners

00:02:08 ◼   ► over the last many years of the upgrade,

00:02:10 ◼   ► you can go to upgradees.com and find that.

00:02:13 ◼   ► That website is lovingly built and maintained

00:02:16 ◼   ► by a friend of the show, Zach Knox.

00:02:18 ◼   ► I would also like to give a couple of other thanks

00:02:20 ◼   ► before we start the artwork for this year's Upgrades,

00:02:24 ◼   ► which of course is laser inspired,

00:02:26 ◼   ► was provided and produced by David Dooley.

00:02:29 ◼   ► And the theme song for the Upgrades was created by

00:02:33 ◼   ► upgrade composer, Chris Breen.

00:02:36 ◼   ► - Yes, composer of the show, Chris Breen.

00:02:39 ◼   ► - Composer of the show, our in-house composer, Chris Breen.

00:02:43 ◼   ► - It's true.

00:02:43 ◼   ► - We also have a selection of Lifetime Achievement

00:02:46 ◼   ► award winners in the Upgrades,

00:02:47 ◼   ► which we'll discuss throughout the show

00:02:49 ◼   ► as you hit each category that they are related to.

00:02:52 ◼   ► As a reminder, lifetime achievement is given

00:02:55 ◼   ► to a recipient after three wins in the same category

00:03:00 ◼   ► over the history of the upgrade.

00:03:01 ◼   ► So we can get new winners coming in and out.

00:03:04 ◼   ► Because I think sometimes there are some categories

00:03:06 ◼   ► where we could have maybe had seven or eight time winners

00:03:09 ◼   ► at this point.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Should we get on with the awards?

00:03:13 ◼   ► - Let's do it.

00:03:14 ◼   ► - So we start as we always do by looking at some apps.

00:03:17 ◼   ► And our first category of the evening

00:03:18 ◼   ► is going to be the best iOS app.

00:03:21 ◼   ► Overcast is the Lifetime Achievement Award winner

00:03:25 ◼   ► in this category, because obviously listeners of this show

00:03:28 ◼   ► love podcasts and love Overcast.

00:03:31 ◼   ► So would you like to know how the Upgradians nominated

00:03:34 ◼   ► for best iOS app?

00:03:35 ◼   ► - Yes, yes please.

00:03:36 ◼   ► - With 4.9% of the vote is Tweetbot.

00:03:40 ◼   ► 11.8% of the vote is Apollo,

00:03:44 ◼   ► and 15.7% of the vote goes to Carrotweather.

00:03:48 ◼   ► I feel like Carrotweather and Apollo,

00:03:53 ◼   ► they are always up here.

00:03:55 ◼   ► - Perennial. - Yeah.

00:03:56 ◼   ► - Perennial choices by the upgradians.

00:03:57 ◼   ► - Carrotweather is a multiple time runner up

00:04:01 ◼   ► in this category, one time winner in 2017.

00:04:05 ◼   ► - Interesting. - Mm-hmm.

00:04:07 ◼   ► - Well, that's a good one.

00:04:07 ◼   ► It's on my list.

00:04:08 ◼   ► Carrotweather is on my list as best iOS app.

00:04:10 ◼   ► I didn't used to use Carrot Weather before a few years ago.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Carrot Weather, I think added,

00:04:16 ◼   ► and this may be when it won last time,

00:04:18 ◼   ► it added support for weather stations

00:04:20 ◼   ► via a weather station network.

00:04:22 ◼   ► So I was able to get like my temperature in Carrot Weather,

00:04:27 ◼   ► which was great, love that.

00:04:29 ◼   ► I still use it.

00:04:32 ◼   ► This year it did its update

00:04:34 ◼   ► with the like interface changes, right?

00:04:37 ◼   ► - Within the last year.

00:04:40 ◼   ► I think that may have been last year that the interface,

00:04:43 ◼   ► if it wasn't last year, it was very early this year.

00:04:46 ◼   ► I've had a real struggle trying to remember

00:04:48 ◼   ► the time span of 2021 way more than 2020.

00:04:52 ◼   ► - Strange, isn't it?

00:04:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, Adina mentioned this to me at one point

00:04:55 ◼   ► and it's completely accurate.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Like it really feels like our year began

00:05:00 ◼   ► when we were vaccinated before then,

00:05:02 ◼   ► it was like a different year, so.

00:05:04 ◼   ► - Right, big hazy year.

00:05:06 ◼   ► - Carrot weather has had, shall I say,

00:05:08 ◼   ► an absolutely incredible year.

00:05:10 ◼   ► It won an Apple Design Award

00:05:11 ◼   ► and an App of the Year Award from Apple.

00:05:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I believe it was this year

00:05:15 ◼   ► that they did the modular design, well, they.

00:05:18 ◼   ► By they, I mean Brian Carrot, the person, Mr. Carrot,

00:05:21 ◼   ► who does Carrot weather.

00:05:22 ◼   ► And it was, when I first saw it,

00:05:26 ◼   ► in fact, I remember sending a message to you

00:05:28 ◼   ► when the first beta of the new Carrot weather design

00:05:31 ◼   ► came out, where I said, "Did you see that?"

00:05:34 ◼   ► Like, woo-hoo, 'cause it was rough.

00:05:37 ◼   ► - You were worried, right?

00:05:38 ◼   ► - You were a little worried. - I was really worried.

00:05:40 ◼   ► But by the time it got to the end, you could make it,

00:05:44 ◼   ► I think this was what Brian Carrot's vision was all along,

00:05:46 ◼   ► which is basically make your own weather app

00:05:51 ◼   ► and have it look the way you want.

00:05:52 ◼   ► And he created a whole bunch of different presets

00:05:53 ◼   ► if you don't wanna go into detail,

00:05:55 ◼   ► but that has settled down

00:05:57 ◼   ► and that is my go-to weather app now.

00:05:59 ◼   ► And I like it a lot.

00:06:01 ◼   ► I get frustrated sometimes with the data

00:06:02 ◼   ► that's displayed on the Apple Watch,

00:06:04 ◼   ► but again, that is a universal thing.

00:06:07 ◼   ► complications on the Apple Watch don't get updated the way that they should. It's not

00:06:12 ◼   ► Brian Carrot's fault, it's not Carrot Weather's fault. So I think that's a great choice by

00:06:16 ◼   ► the Upgradients. I had a few others that I wanted to throw on the pile for consideration.

00:06:20 ◼   ► One of them is NetNewswire, which I wrote about this at Six Colors. NetNewswire became

00:06:29 ◼   ► a daily part of my media consumption this year. NetNewswire was released I think last

00:06:35 ◼   ► year for iOS and it's free, it's open source, it's a classic RSS reader going back many

00:06:43 ◼   ► many years on the Mac, and I'm using it in combination with Feedbin, which has an email

00:06:52 ◼   ► gateway to be the place that I read a whole bunch of newsletters that I subscribe to this

00:06:57 ◼   ► year.

00:06:58 ◼   ► And then on top of that I've added in RSS feeds because once you're in that newswire

00:07:02 ◼   ► you might as well add RSS feeds. And it's an app that has absolutely changed my media

00:07:12 ◼   ► consumption I think, and for the better, I would say. And it works the way I like it.

00:07:16 ◼   ► So I want to mention Net News Wire as a possibility here. Let's see, what else? Scriptable, which

00:07:26 ◼   ► I know I mentioned last year as well. Scriptable is a JavaScript app that lets you do a JavaScript

00:07:32 ◼   ► on iOS, but it added support for widgets last year. And that has been a game changer for

00:07:39 ◼   ► me because I was able to build my own widgets to show my own data. And I think that's really

00:07:47 ◼   ► cool. This is Simon Stovering in Copenhagen who makes this app, Simon Scriptable. All

00:07:57 ◼   ► indie developers are naming their apps after themselves.

00:08:00 ◼   ► So that would make me and you, Jason and Myke upgrade.

00:08:04 ◼   ► Maybe. In the context of the show, yeah, it would be, so Jason upgrade says to Myke upgrade.

00:08:09 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe. Maybe. I'm gonna put broadcast in this category. I listen to live podcasts

00:08:16 ◼   ► on my iPhone and Apple Watch, especially Connected, which is a fine show here at Relay FM, but

00:08:23 ◼   ► also accidental tech podcast. But Connected happens during the day, and so I'm frequently

00:08:27 ◼   ► listening to that on my iPhone or my Apple Watch, and that's Steve Trotton-Smith's app,

00:08:33 ◼   ► it's also on the Mac, but I love that I can do that on my iPhone and my Apple Watch, listen

00:08:38 ◼   ► to live streaming podcasts. And Carrot Weather was my fourth, so those are my other suggestions

00:08:43 ◼   ► here.

00:08:44 ◼   ► So the conversation about Carrot Weather made me add Carrot Weather to my list. There are

00:08:50 ◼   ► many categories where I've come with multiple recommendations, this was one where I just

00:08:53 ◼   ► game with one. Because I, for me, I know what my favorite iOS app is probably of all time.

00:09:01 ◼   ► Carrot Weather is way up there. Like I would say Carrot Weather is, without a shadow of

00:09:04 ◼   ► a doubt, the very best Apple Watch app ever made. I've said that before. And that isn't

00:09:09 ◼   ► a category we have here because we would run out after three years. We just give it to

00:09:14 ◼   ► Carrot Weather each time and then have to close down the award category. But Carrot

00:09:22 ◼   ► weather is genuinely one of my favorite applications. It's absolutely fantastic and has gotten

00:09:27 ◼   ► its leaps and bounds this year. Like it's come along like so far. Widgets was a big

00:09:33 ◼   ► thing for that app for me I think and really solidified it as being such a fantastic application.

00:09:40 ◼   ► But the app that I wanted to mention which I will always mention is Timery. Timery by

00:09:45 ◼   ► Joe Timery is maybe the, for me, not maybe,

00:09:50 ◼   ► it is my favorite iOS app ever.

00:09:52 ◼   ► I get such great use out of it, right?

00:09:54 ◼   ► So it's, you know, it's personal to me.

00:09:56 ◼   ► Time tracking is a big part of my life,

00:09:59 ◼   ► but this application, the amount of work

00:10:02 ◼   ► that is put into this and new features is,

00:10:05 ◼   ► it's truly astounding.

00:10:06 ◼   ► Like some of my favorite additions in the past year

00:10:09 ◼   ► before we even possibly get to talking

00:10:12 ◼   ► about the Mac application that was made this year as well.

00:10:16 ◼   ► Things like now for setting a timer,

00:10:18 ◼   ► there's some auto-completing stuff.

00:10:19 ◼   ► So you can start, maybe if I start typing in,

00:10:22 ◼   ► like as soon as I press start timer,

00:10:24 ◼   ► it pops up a text field, I type in like UPG,

00:10:27 ◼   ► and it will give me all of the things

00:10:29 ◼   ► that I have tagged with upgrade

00:10:30 ◼   ► in all my various projects that I've run in the past.

00:10:33 ◼   ► So it's just given me auto-completing

00:10:35 ◼   ► of past entries I've had.

00:10:36 ◼   ► Things like customizable buttons to adjust a timeframe.

00:10:41 ◼   ► So say I've opened a timer and really actually I started this like 15 minutes ago.

00:10:44 ◼   ► I can just hit a little button, turns the timer back by 15 minutes and starts from then.

00:10:49 ◼   ► Uh, the Excel widget on iPad is so good.

00:10:53 ◼   ► And it's one of, I think the smartest ways of implementing that widget class where, uh,

00:10:57 ◼   ► Joe just took four medium widgets and put them in a big grid.

00:11:00 ◼   ► So it's just like what four of the various widget types that is made for the app.

00:11:05 ◼   ► It's just putting them in one big, uh, one big widget.

00:11:08 ◼   ► It really is just absolutely fantastic.

00:11:10 ◼   ► And it really feels like an application

00:11:14 ◼   ► that's so well made for the task that it performs.

00:11:17 ◼   ► And it's really just, I think, a masterclass

00:11:20 ◼   ► in long-term app development.

00:11:22 ◼   ► It's absolutely fantastic.

00:11:24 ◼   ► - Right, and I'll take your word for it

00:11:25 ◼   ► 'cause I don't track my time.

00:11:26 ◼   ► - I know you don't.

00:11:27 ◼   ► And I don't use the three of the apps that you mentioned,

00:11:30 ◼   ► right, but I understand the quality.

00:11:33 ◼   ► But I really feel like this is a foregone conclusion

00:11:36 ◼   ► for the winner this year, you know,

00:11:38 ◼   ► now that we've gone through this.

00:11:39 ◼   ► put carrot back in there?

00:11:41 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:11:42 ◼   ► - All right, it is done.

00:11:44 ◼   ► - I feel like it's gotta be, right?

00:11:45 ◼   ► Carrot weather is the winner.

00:11:47 ◼   ► And our runner ups, I guess we'll go,

00:11:49 ◼   ► I'll put time, Marianne,

00:11:50 ◼   ► and do you wanna pick a runner up from your list?

00:11:53 ◼   ► - I'm going to pick,

00:11:55 ◼   ► let's do broadcasts.

00:11:59 ◼   ► - We're gonna go broadcasts from Steve broadcasts.

00:12:02 ◼   ► - Steve broadcasts, yes.

00:12:03 ◼   ► - So the winners and runners up.

00:12:05 ◼   ► - Actually, technically it's Steve broadcasts, Smith.

00:12:09 ◼   ► It's hyphenated.

00:12:10 ◼   ► - Steve broadcast pastel, is that what you mean?

00:12:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, oh yes, Steve broadcast pastel, right.

00:12:18 ◼   ► - So the winners and runners up in each category,

00:12:20 ◼   ► they are listed on the Upgradies website.

00:12:23 ◼   ► I'm not gonna include them in the show notes for spoilers,

00:12:25 ◼   ► so I don't put the winners in.

00:12:27 ◼   ► So you can find the winners and runners up

00:12:29 ◼   ► of each category on upgradees.com.

00:12:31 ◼   ► Congratulations to Brian Cara for picking up.

00:12:34 ◼   ► - And the whole Cara family.

00:12:36 ◼   ► - Second victory.

00:12:37 ◼   ► on the doorstep of Lifetime Achievement.

00:12:40 ◼   ► - Best newcomer iOS app, the Upgradients voted

00:12:45 ◼   ► with 7.2% for Affirmations,

00:12:49 ◼   ► 8% for Obsidian, and 10% for Amplosion.

00:12:54 ◼   ► - I feel like the Upgradients have been listening

00:12:59 ◼   ► to Connected, (laughs)

00:13:01 ◼   ► 'cause that's where I know about these apps.

00:13:04 ◼   ► Affirmations is not something that I have used,

00:13:09 ◼   ► but I think it's just like daily positive affirmations.

00:13:16 ◼   ► - It is made by wonderful Relay FM listener

00:13:21 ◼   ► and Discord community member, Justin.

00:13:24 ◼   ► - Justin Hamilton, right?

00:13:25 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:13:26 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I wrote this up.

00:13:26 ◼   ► So I did use this briefly because I wrote it up

00:13:28 ◼   ► as an example of a nice, it's just nice

00:13:31 ◼   ► 'cause it's telling you positive things.

00:13:33 ◼   ► And it's really beneficial in the widgets.

00:13:35 ◼   ► You can get widget touch and that stuff,

00:13:37 ◼   ► but it's also one of my favorite screens

00:13:38 ◼   ► in an iOS app ever, which is just a fidget screen.

00:13:42 ◼   ► And it's just like a bunch of controls

00:13:43 ◼   ► that don't do anything.

00:13:44 ◼   ► Very cool.

00:13:45 ◼   ► And then Amplosion is a

00:13:49 ◼   ► AMP removal extension.

00:13:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a Safari plugin.

00:13:54 ◼   ► And I think that this was the year on iOS

00:13:56 ◼   ► where you got Safari extensions and it's a big deal.

00:13:59 ◼   ► And you and I are both gonna mention

00:14:01 ◼   ► Safari extensions as well.

00:14:02 ◼   ► And Amplosion is one that was its primary task is to remove basically AMP, which is

00:14:07 ◼   ► that Google like website light version that you get trapped on.

00:14:11 ◼   ► And it's really bad, especially if you're trying to send a link to somebody because

00:14:13 ◼   ► then you're sending them the AMP link, which isn't the real link.

00:14:17 ◼   ► And so it kind of overrides that and sends you to the right page.

00:14:21 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:14:22 ◼   ► And that's produced by Christian Amplosion, also known as Christian Apollo.

00:14:29 ◼   ► Apollo Amplosion.

00:14:30 ◼   ► Yes, that's true.

00:14:31 ◼   ► - I have three suggestions in this category.

00:14:35 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:14:36 ◼   ► - A new one that just happened over the weekend actually,

00:14:42 ◼   ► but I'm gonna throw it in here,

00:14:43 ◼   ► thanks to the recommendations of the good people

00:14:45 ◼   ► over at Max Stories is Ismela by Sylvia Reeder.

00:14:50 ◼   ► - Yep, I love this app.

00:14:53 ◼   ► This is one of the most beautiful iOS apps I've ever seen.

00:14:56 ◼   ► And it's so simple.

00:14:57 ◼   ► - So it is fantastically designed.

00:15:00 ◼   ► Look, there are a lot of recipe apps out there.

00:15:03 ◼   ► I have been writing about recipe apps since the days

00:15:07 ◼   ► where they were kind of like based on HyperCard.

00:15:11 ◼   ► Like literally there was an app called Manja

00:15:14 ◼   ► by Up Still Software that was on the Mac

00:15:17 ◼   ► back in the monochrome Mac days, and I used it.

00:15:21 ◼   ► So I've seen them all.

00:15:23 ◼   ► And there are some good ones out there now.

00:15:24 ◼   ► I know a lot of people like Paprika.

00:15:27 ◼   ► - Mella really impresses me partially because of its design

00:15:31 ◼   ► and then partially because of its functionality.

00:15:33 ◼   ► It is, there's a beta that, so it's not public yet,

00:15:36 ◼   ► but there's a beta that does sharing,

00:15:38 ◼   ► which is super important.

00:15:40 ◼   ► - That's what I want.

00:15:40 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:15:42 ◼   ► That this was, I was gonna say.

00:15:43 ◼   ► - Get Adina on the test flight.

00:15:45 ◼   ► - This would be my app of the year.

00:15:48 ◼   ► Like my, if it did that,

00:15:49 ◼   ► it is missing the one feature I wanted,

00:15:52 ◼   ► which is being able to share an entire library of people.

00:15:55 ◼   ► - Literally on Christmas Eve,

00:15:57 ◼   ► I emailed Silvio Reader who does Mella, confusing,

00:16:02 ◼   ► and Silvio sent me a test flight link

00:16:07 ◼   ► and I got it on Lauren's iPad and I got it on my iPad

00:16:10 ◼   ► and we are now connected.

00:16:11 ◼   ► And that makes all the difference.

00:16:12 ◼   ► Anyway, what I love about this app too,

00:16:15 ◼   ► is that it will let you take a picture of a recipe.

00:16:18 ◼   ► It has an in-app browser.

00:16:20 ◼   ► And when you navigate to a page that's got a recipe on it,

00:16:23 ◼   ► it shows you in another pane what the import is gonna be.

00:16:26 ◼   ► and it's a very good web import.

00:16:29 ◼   ► My only complaint actually is that I have a few recipes

00:16:32 ◼   ► that are in text files, like in files or in notes.

00:16:36 ◼   ► And I want a way for it to share that text basically

00:16:40 ◼   ► with Mella and have it consume it and turn it into a recipe

00:16:43 ◼   ► using its kind of intelligence that it seems to have.

00:16:46 ◼   ► But it's yeah, it's a beautifully designed app

00:16:48 ◼   ► and all of my Christmas cooking and baking

00:16:51 ◼   ► was done in Mella this year.

00:16:53 ◼   ► And that's not bad for an app that I literally downloaded

00:16:55 ◼   ► like four days ago, five days ago, but it's great.

00:16:59 ◼   ► So that one's high on my list.

00:17:01 ◼   ► - I am very excited about that.

00:17:02 ◼   ► Like this app is so beautiful.

00:17:06 ◼   ► Like I love Reader too.

00:17:07 ◼   ► Like Reader is one of my very, very favorite apps.

00:17:10 ◼   ► I should have put that in as a potential nomination,

00:17:13 ◼   ► but I love the way that app looks.

00:17:15 ◼   ► And what's so great about Melee is that

00:17:18 ◼   ► Silvio just took what they clearly know

00:17:20 ◼   ► about how to pass text, right?

00:17:23 ◼   ► And just applied that to this,

00:17:25 ◼   ► which I think is super good.

00:17:27 ◼   ► And I, yes, great app.

00:17:28 ◼   ► Oh man, I'm so excited about the Sharon.

00:17:31 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:17:32 ◼   ► A couple other nominations

00:17:34 ◼   ► in this newcomer iOS app category, Tio,

00:17:36 ◼   ► which I've written about a little bit.

00:17:38 ◼   ► Tio is really interesting.

00:17:41 ◼   ► It is a text editor.

00:17:42 ◼   ► It's a markdown text editor.

00:17:44 ◼   ► And I've been using it a bit.

00:17:47 ◼   ► It is not my number one text editor on iOS,

00:17:52 ◼   ► but it's up and coming.

00:17:53 ◼   ► And the thing that impresses me about it the most

00:17:55 ◼   ► is that in addition to having a whole JavaScript

00:17:58 ◼   ► kind of like scriptability things

00:18:00 ◼   ► for you to build macros with,

00:18:02 ◼   ► they built their own like version of shortcuts

00:18:04 ◼   ► inside their app with actions

00:18:07 ◼   ► that let you build macro actions using blocks like shortcuts,

00:18:11 ◼   ► which is just, it's wild.

00:18:15 ◼   ► It's over the top, but kind of brilliant.

00:18:18 ◼   ► And it's also like, it's also a clipboard manager.

00:18:20 ◼   ► It's still trying to figure out what it wants to be

00:18:23 ◼   ► in some ways, 'cause it is a clipboard manager

00:18:25 ◼   ► and a text editor and a floor wax and a dessert topping.

00:18:29 ◼   ► So, but it's just the boldness

00:18:34 ◼   ► of building your own shortcuts interface, essentially,

00:18:37 ◼   ► for just actions inside your app.

00:18:39 ◼   ► It is wild.

00:18:40 ◼   ► So, Tio is definitely one to watch

00:18:42 ◼   ► and I wanted to mention it here.

00:18:44 ◼   ► And then maybe my favorite newcomer iOS app, actually,

00:18:48 ◼   ► talking about Safari extensions is Noir,

00:18:52 ◼   ► which is the app that, or extension,

00:18:55 ◼   ► that puts all web pages in dark mode

00:18:57 ◼   ► when you're in dark mode.

00:18:58 ◼   ► Because nothing worse on my iPad

00:19:01 ◼   ► than navigating when I'm in dark mode

00:19:03 ◼   ► and it's night or early morning

00:19:05 ◼   ► to a site that is blaring at me with a white background

00:19:08 ◼   ► and black text on a white background.

00:19:09 ◼   ► And that's over.

00:19:11 ◼   ► Like I installed Noir and that was it.

00:19:16 ◼   ► It's over.

00:19:17 ◼   ► and you can set it per site.

00:19:18 ◼   ► So if there's a site that you don't wanna override,

00:19:20 ◼   ► you can do that.

00:19:21 ◼   ► If it finds a dark mode on a site, it doesn't override it,

00:19:25 ◼   ► but if you don't like their dark mode,

00:19:27 ◼   ► you can turn on Noir's dark mode

00:19:29 ◼   ► and see if that makes you happier.

00:19:31 ◼   ► But basically you set it and forget it and I love it.

00:19:34 ◼   ► So Noir is my other nominee.

00:19:36 ◼   ► - Noir is really good.

00:19:37 ◼   ► It's a really good app.

00:19:38 ◼   ► I saw Amplosion and I saw your option for Noir

00:19:43 ◼   ► 'cause I was struggling with this category.

00:19:46 ◼   ► So it made me want to pick an extension because that's been like a really cool

00:19:50 ◼   ► thing this past year is just the addition of extensions.

00:19:54 ◼   ► So I'm picking super agent for Safari.

00:19:57 ◼   ► Super agent is very simple,

00:20:00 ◼   ► but it has improved my web browsing experience immensely.

00:20:04 ◼   ► It pre-fills and removes the cookie notifications that pop up on websites.

00:20:09 ◼   ► So when they want to get your cookies and they want to get your advertising

00:20:13 ◼   ► preferences, Super Agent fills them out for you,

00:20:17 ◼   ► mostly in the background,

00:20:18 ◼   ► so you never need to see them anymore.

00:20:20 ◼   ► You can, it's not just like removing them,

00:20:23 ◼   ► or like an ad blocker, it's actually filling them out.

00:20:26 ◼   ► So you can say what kind of settings you want,

00:20:29 ◼   ► and Super Agent will just complete it.

00:20:32 ◼   ► And now, like if I ever use Safari View Controller, right,

00:20:35 ◼   ► I'm like, what is going on with this webpage?

00:20:38 ◼   ► And Super Agent also gets rid of just like,

00:20:41 ◼   ► you know, sometimes you get those little pop-ups,

00:20:43 ◼   ► like, "Hey, sign up for this newsletter."

00:20:44 ◼   ► Like it removes some of those as well,

00:20:46 ◼   ► which I really appreciate.

00:20:47 ◼   ► It's a very simple application.

00:20:48 ◼   ► It's free as well.

00:20:50 ◼   ► And I really like it.

00:20:51 ◼   ► I have it on my devices now.

00:20:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, the challenge with something like Super Agent

00:20:54 ◼   ► is you only notice when it isn't working, right?

00:20:57 ◼   ► Because you get something like that.

00:20:58 ◼   ► I wonder if I'm getting,

00:21:00 ◼   ► I have not with any of these sort of like

00:21:03 ◼   ► cookie consent blockers,

00:21:05 ◼   ► I haven't had as much luck with it

00:21:07 ◼   ► as I've heard other people seem to have with it.

00:21:08 ◼   ► And I wonder if it's because I'm in California,

00:21:11 ◼   ► So I'm getting the California cookie consent problems,

00:21:14 ◼   ► whereas most of the people who complain about this problem

00:21:16 ◼   ► are in Europe and they're getting

00:21:17 ◼   ► the European cookie consent problems.

00:21:19 ◼   ► - It's very possible.

00:21:20 ◼   ► They're not being coded for whatever it is you're receiving.

00:21:22 ◼   ► But I have had flawless luck with this application.

00:21:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, these are great.

00:21:28 ◼   ► I think it is the year of the Safari extension on iOS.

00:21:34 ◼   ► I think that's it.

00:21:36 ◼   ► My choice here is Noir, believe it or not.

00:21:39 ◼   ► I just think it is a life-changing moment

00:21:42 ◼   ► in terms of my use of my iPad in the evenings

00:21:45 ◼   ► to have everything.

00:21:46 ◼   ► 'Cause that was always my complaint when we did dark mode,

00:21:49 ◼   ► when they were like, "Oh, dark mode, it's finally here."

00:21:51 ◼   ► And then you go to a webpage, it's like, it's not.

00:21:53 ◼   ► 'Cause all these webpages, even now after years now

00:21:57 ◼   ► of knowing how to make a dark mode version of your website,

00:21:59 ◼   ► there are sites that just don't care.

00:22:01 ◼   ► And it's so great to just say,

00:22:04 ◼   ► "The websites don't care, but I do care."

00:22:09 ◼   ► and I have made your website into dark mode.

00:22:11 ◼   ► It is, it's great.

00:22:13 ◼   ► So that's my nomination.

00:22:15 ◼   ► - I don't use Noir all the time,

00:22:18 ◼   ► but I have it installed

00:22:19 ◼   ► because I use dark mode all the time.

00:22:21 ◼   ► And so I don't necessarily want to force

00:22:23 ◼   ► the color change of websites permanently constantly,

00:22:27 ◼   ► but I do have it installed and I turn it on.

00:22:29 ◼   ► And I will say of all of the extensions I have used,

00:22:33 ◼   ► I think it's the best made one.

00:22:36 ◼   ► Like it looks really nice

00:22:37 ◼   ► and still has a lot of cool features.

00:22:39 ◼   ► So I would be totally down with,

00:22:41 ◼   ► honestly, I would be down with an all web extensions.

00:22:46 ◼   ► So I would have lent towards Mella,

00:22:49 ◼   ► but if you would lean towards Noir

00:22:52 ◼   ► as your winner from that category,

00:22:54 ◼   ► then maybe we should go with Noir as the winner

00:22:57 ◼   ► and Super Agent and Amplosion as the runners up.

00:23:00 ◼   ► - It would certainly be a fun sort of message to send

00:23:03 ◼   ► on what this year was.

00:23:05 ◼   ► Well, let's do it.

00:23:06 ◼   ► Let's call that.

00:23:08 ◼   ► So congratulations to, let's checking here, Jeffrey Noir.

00:23:11 ◼   ► For winning this category and we'll just put a Super Agent

00:23:18 ◼   ► and Implosion as the other two.

00:23:19 ◼   ► And it's the year of Safari extensions on iOS.

00:23:22 ◼   ► - Yep, as an asterisk, I would just say like

00:23:25 ◼   ► the 1Password one is also excellent,

00:23:27 ◼   ► but 1Password, not a new app, so.

00:23:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have some issues with the 1Password one

00:23:33 ◼   ► because of the authentication.

00:23:36 ◼   ► I authenticate in 1Password using Face ID,

00:23:39 ◼   ► except that extension doesn't seem to have access to Face ID?

00:23:44 ◼   ► - No, and you have to type your password in

00:23:47 ◼   ► and then you can choose like a refresh time.

00:23:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't, I hate that.

00:23:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely.

00:23:54 ◼   ► - And I get that that's something where the extensions

00:23:56 ◼   ► don't have access to the biometric authentication,

00:23:59 ◼   ► but it stinks.

00:24:00 ◼   ► - I hope that someone at Apple will recognize that.

00:24:03 ◼   ► Maybe it just wasn't the thing they needed

00:24:05 ◼   ► or thought it was needed.

00:24:06 ◼   ► - If you use the 1Password share extension

00:24:10 ◼   ► and biometrically authenticate,

00:24:13 ◼   ► then it's unlocked and it will be unlocked

00:24:17 ◼   ► for the extension, but you can't just unlock

00:24:21 ◼   ► with the extension without typing in that password.

00:24:23 ◼   ► And I hate that.

00:24:24 ◼   ► It's like on my iPad, I don't wanna type in that password.

00:24:26 ◼   ► I want it to authenticate and know it's me and just do it.

00:24:30 ◼   ► My face is my one password in that case.

00:24:32 ◼   ► - We now move on to best Mac app.

00:24:35 ◼   ► The Upgradients voted thusly with 3.9% for Pixelmator Pro,

00:24:40 ◼   ► 6.3% for Obsidian, and 7.3% for Kraft.

00:24:46 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:24:47 ◼   ► A lot of note-taking happening out there in Upgradientland.

00:24:50 ◼   ► That's the thing, right?

00:24:51 ◼   ► That's been one of the trends of this year, the last two years,

00:24:54 ◼   ► but this year especially is these personal note-taking mind applications.

00:25:01 ◼   ► I really, really like Kraft.

00:25:03 ◼   ► I would say it is a great example of a Mac app.

00:25:06 ◼   ► I don't know if I would call it my best Mac app.

00:25:10 ◼   ► I think it is, I mean, everybody says this, it's true.

00:25:13 ◼   ► It's one of, if not the best Catalyst app.

00:25:16 ◼   ► However, I would say Timery would really bump up against that.

00:25:22 ◼   ► But it's a great example of what a Catalyst app can be.

00:25:26 ◼   ► But I know I personally have another app on the Mac

00:25:31 ◼   ► that I think is really good.

00:25:32 ◼   ► and I like your suggestions too.

00:25:33 ◼   ► So would you like to tell the upgradians what they are?

00:25:36 ◼   ► - All right.

00:25:36 ◼   ► One is SwiftBar, which was the replacement for BitBar.

00:25:42 ◼   ► It is the utility that lets you put anything you want

00:25:44 ◼   ► up in your Mac menu bar by running a script.

00:25:46 ◼   ► And it can be a script, it can be a shell script,

00:25:48 ◼   ► it can be an Apple script, it can be a Perl script,

00:25:51 ◼   ► it can be a PHP script, it can be a Python script.

00:25:54 ◼   ► It doesn't matter, a JavaScript,

00:25:56 ◼   ► anything that will run in the command line

00:25:58 ◼   ► and output something, that output will go in your menu bar.

00:26:02 ◼   ► and you could set it how long it's a refresh.

00:26:04 ◼   ► These apps have been around for a while now.

00:26:05 ◼   ► I love it.

00:26:06 ◼   ► I keep writing and modifying,

00:26:08 ◼   ► writing new ones, modifying existing ones.

00:26:10 ◼   ► I have it right now.

00:26:11 ◼   ► It's showing me how many live listeners we've got.

00:26:13 ◼   ► It's showing me the temperature and the rainfall outside.

00:26:15 ◼   ► I've got a little thing that shows me

00:26:17 ◼   ► the air quality outside.

00:26:19 ◼   ► I've got one that shows me what track is playing in music

00:26:22 ◼   ► that a friend of mine requested that I put together for him.

00:26:27 ◼   ► And so I found one and then I just customized it

00:26:29 ◼   ► based on his desire and sent it off to him.

00:26:32 ◼   ► Like it is a great little utility that also,

00:26:34 ◼   ► because it lives in the menu bar,

00:26:37 ◼   ► it is very Mac, very Mac-like.

00:26:40 ◼   ► It's important, Mac menu bar that go together.

00:26:43 ◼   ► Okay, so my next one is Bartender.

00:26:45 ◼   ► We're staying in the menu bar.

00:26:47 ◼   ► Stayin' up there, Myke.

00:26:48 ◼   ► You like it up there?

00:26:49 ◼   ► You like the menu bar?

00:26:50 ◼   ► - I like it when I have Bartender on.

00:26:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, so Bartender updated.

00:26:55 ◼   ► And Bartender, it's been a rough couple of years

00:26:57 ◼   ► for Bartender in the sense, not of their own making,

00:26:59 ◼   ► but in the sense that Apple has like messed

00:27:01 ◼   ► with the menu bar.

00:27:02 ◼   ► They mess with the menu bar size,

00:27:05 ◼   ► they mess with the, they put a notch up there

00:27:07 ◼   ► on some new laptops.

00:27:08 ◼   ► - Well, you see, I wouldn't say rough year.

00:27:10 ◼   ► I would say like the notch was a gift to--

00:27:15 ◼   ► - Well, that's true.

00:27:16 ◼   ► But it's challenging technically the last couple of years.

00:27:19 ◼   ► I feel like macOS updates and hardware updates

00:27:22 ◼   ► have made the menu bar,

00:27:23 ◼   ► which was maybe a little bit of an island of stability

00:27:26 ◼   ► for a while into a free for all.

00:27:28 ◼   ► Like what is happening? - A lot of luck.

00:27:29 ◼   ► - There's control center is up there now.

00:27:32 ◼   ► What's going on with that?

00:27:33 ◼   ► There's a notch, there's different sized stuff.

00:27:35 ◼   ► Like there's so much up there.

00:27:37 ◼   ► And every now and then,

00:27:39 ◼   ► even with like really knowledgeable people,

00:27:41 ◼   ► I listen to podcasts or people would write things

00:27:43 ◼   ► and they'd be like, "Oh, this menu bar stuff."

00:27:46 ◼   ► And my response was always like, "Use Bartender,

00:27:50 ◼   ► just use Bartender."

00:27:51 ◼   ► It is, for years, it is the definitive way

00:27:54 ◼   ► to organize your Mac menu bar.

00:27:56 ◼   ► And I love it.

00:27:58 ◼   ► I mostly use it to create an invisible menu bar space.

00:28:03 ◼   ► That is my number one use of Bartender,

00:28:06 ◼   ► is I have, the way I've got it set up,

00:28:09 ◼   ► I have a few menu bar icons that are visible all the time.

00:28:13 ◼   ► And then if I move my pointer over the space

00:28:18 ◼   ► where they're next to it,

00:28:19 ◼   ► where there isn't anything, a bunch appear.

00:28:22 ◼   ► And those are the menu bar icons

00:28:24 ◼   ► that I don't need to see at a glance,

00:28:27 ◼   ► but I might need to interact with at some point.

00:28:30 ◼   ► And all of that is possible

00:28:32 ◼   ► and a whole lot more in Bartender.

00:28:34 ◼   ► So I love it.

00:28:35 ◼   ► It's great.

00:28:36 ◼   ► And my third suggestion,

00:28:40 ◼   ► and this is gonna be a duplicate of the next category

00:28:42 ◼   ► 'cause this is a newcomer,

00:28:43 ◼   ► but I'm seriously gonna say

00:28:47 ◼   ► I wanna consider it as best Mac app too.

00:28:50 ◼   ► It's an app that I first heard about from you and Steven.

00:28:55 ◼   ► - Hmm?

00:28:56 ◼   ► - It's a MimeStream, not the best name.

00:29:02 ◼   ► - Terrible name.

00:29:03 ◼   ► It's not the best name, bad name.

00:29:05 ◼   ► I don't care about saying it 'cause the app's amazing

00:29:08 ◼   ► and I'll say that.

00:29:09 ◼   ► - Well, when the name is so bad,

00:29:10 ◼   ► you can confidently say it's not the best, right?

00:29:11 ◼   ► It's clearly far from the MimeStream.

00:29:15 ◼   ► But this year, what is it?

00:29:20 ◼   ► This year, Google changed its rules

00:29:24 ◼   ► about embedded browsers accessing its services.

00:29:28 ◼   ► And what that meant is that the app that I have used

00:29:31 ◼   ► for years to do my email, Mailplane,

00:29:35 ◼   ► basically ceased development because they realized,

00:29:37 ◼   ► they saw the writing on the wall.

00:29:39 ◼   ► They were not gonna be able, they could fight it for a while

00:29:41 ◼   ► but in the end, their product was not gonna be allowed

00:29:44 ◼   ► by Google.

00:29:45 ◼   ► And I love Mailplane because it was basically a Mac,

00:29:50 ◼   ► it was a whole bunch of Mac stuff

00:29:52 ◼   ► around the Gmail web experience.

00:29:55 ◼   ► And that's 'cause I don't use Apple Mail.

00:29:57 ◼   ► I haven't used Apple Mail for a long time.

00:29:59 ◼   ► I find it unreliable, slow, bad at searching,

00:30:02 ◼   ► bad at getting new mail in my mailbox in a timely fashion,

00:30:06 ◼   ► bad especially when the connections are slow,

00:30:08 ◼   ► but actually kind of bad when the connections are good too.

00:30:11 ◼   ► I don't like it, especially on the Mac.

00:30:14 ◼   ► And so I switched to MailPlane,

00:30:16 ◼   ► which is just loading the Gmail webpage,

00:30:19 ◼   ► and it's great except now,

00:30:22 ◼   ► and it added like Mac keyboard shortcuts

00:30:24 ◼   ► and Mac drag and drop and clicking on a link

00:30:26 ◼   ► would open the Mac default application.

00:30:29 ◼   ► And it was all that stuff just around the edges

00:30:31 ◼   ► to sort of make this Gmail webpage

00:30:33 ◼   ► into something that feels more like a Mac thing

00:30:36 ◼   ► 'cause I'm on the Mac, but it's gonna go away.

00:30:39 ◼   ► So within like a week or two of that sad news

00:30:44 ◼   ► when I started sort of shopping around

00:30:46 ◼   ► for another way to check my email,

00:30:49 ◼   ► I heard about MimeStream, which is in beta.

00:30:51 ◼   ► It is from somebody who used to work

00:30:54 ◼   ► on the Apple Mail team, actually,

00:30:56 ◼   ► and is now off on his own.

00:30:58 ◼   ► And it's, and what's his name?

00:31:01 ◼   ► Do we know his name?

00:31:03 ◼   ► - I can find it out for you.

00:31:04 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah, let me know.

00:31:06 ◼   ► I mean, he obviously, it's MimeStream.

00:31:09 ◼   ► He named it for himself.

00:31:11 ◼   ► The, oh, it's Neil.

00:31:16 ◼   ► - Neil MimeStream.

00:31:17 ◼   ► - Neil MimeStream, yes.

00:31:18 ◼   ► Anyway, he made this app and it is eventually,

00:31:22 ◼   ► I think he wants it to be more, but out of the gate,

00:31:24 ◼   ► it is a native Mac app that is a Gmail client.

00:31:28 ◼   ► And what that means is everything works better,

00:31:31 ◼   ► 'cause as a Gmail user, everything works better

00:31:33 ◼   ► than Apple Mail does with Gmail.

00:31:36 ◼   ► It understands what Gmail labels are,

00:31:38 ◼   ► it understands what Gmail search is.

00:31:41 ◼   ► If I do a search in MimeStream, it does with,

00:31:44 ◼   ► and I can do the qualifiers and whatever

00:31:46 ◼   ► that I would do in a Gmail,

00:31:48 ◼   ► 'cause it's the number one reason that Gmail is great

00:31:50 ◼   ► is that the search is amazing, it's Google.

00:31:53 ◼   ► It just, it works in MindStream.

00:31:54 ◼   ► It's native Mac interface back to buy

00:31:59 ◼   ► all of that Gmail power.

00:32:00 ◼   ► I love it.

00:32:02 ◼   ► I switched immediately,

00:32:06 ◼   ► and it is such a revelation and such a discovery.

00:32:10 ◼   ► Still technically in beta, so it's still free.

00:32:13 ◼   ► He will charge for it eventually.

00:32:16 ◼   ► Sign me up. Sign me up for whatever you're charging, Neil MimeStream, because I love it.

00:32:22 ◼   ► I echo everything you said about both Bartender and MimeStream. They're two Mac apps that I love.

00:32:28 ◼   ► And maybe we'll talk about MimeStream a little bit more in a minute.

00:32:33 ◼   ► I wanted to say CleanShot X, which is an application that I have been on a bit of an

00:32:40 ◼   ► unnecessary or undesired press tour for over the last...

00:32:44 ◼   ► Yes, I know I've noticed this.

00:32:46 ◼   ► Because I think it's so fantastic.

00:32:48 ◼   ► It really is a vastly better screenshot tool

00:32:51 ◼   ► than the one that Apple ships.

00:32:53 ◼   ► - All right, I'm curious a little bit

00:32:55 ◼   ► about what makes it vastly better.

00:32:59 ◼   ► And I say this because I heard you talking

00:33:00 ◼   ► to Steven about this.

00:33:02 ◼   ► And the features that I think he mentioned that it did

00:33:07 ◼   ► all are in the stock, stock Apple screenshot thing.

00:33:13 ◼   ► He was like, "Oh, you can take a screenshot

00:33:14 ◼   ► without a shadow, yeah, you can do that in the stock Apple screenshot. You can take it

00:33:19 ◼   ► with, you know, you can put it on the clipboard, that like, and what that says to me is that

00:33:24 ◼   ► Apple stock thing is bad at discoverability, but very fully featured. So explain to me

00:33:31 ◼   ► why I, as somebody who knows all the tricks of the Apple screenshot tool, should try CleanShotX.

00:33:40 ◼   ► My point is, you're not going to get me with a feature that already exists, but I don't

00:33:44 ◼   ► know about it. So you're left with what does it do better, not what does it show off better,

00:33:53 ◼   ► but what does it actually do better than the stock Apple stuff.

00:33:56 ◼   ► Okay, so one thing, it has a lot of customizability, which I enjoy. So you can choose what part

00:34:01 ◼   ► of the screen you want the little preview to show up on, for example. And you can choose

00:34:06 ◼   ► how big you want it to be and stuff like that. You can choose how long it stays around, you

00:34:10 ◼   ► you can choose if and when it will disappear and what needs to happen for that. You can

00:34:16 ◼   ► choose where to save stuff and all those kinds of things. So it's a little bit more customizability

00:34:20 ◼   ► or easier to access customizability. The markup tools that are in the application are much

00:34:27 ◼   ► preferred and are easier to use. And it, I don't know, it does things in a way that make

00:34:33 ◼   ► more logical sense to me. Like if I take a screenshot, I don't always, I just want to

00:34:39 ◼   ► take the screenshot and then make the decision about what I want to do with it.

00:34:42 ◼   ► I don't want to have to activate like a specific keyboard shortcut combination

00:34:47 ◼   ► to get what I want.

00:34:48 ◼   ► So like I take the screenshot and then I can hover over it and press copy or I

00:34:51 ◼   ► can hover over it and do what I need to do and then just press command C like,

00:34:56 ◼   ► or you can drag the things around really easily.

00:34:59 ◼   ► I don't remember if Apple's version does this.

00:35:01 ◼   ► Like you can just drag the screenshot and put it into a text field.

00:35:05 ◼   ► I also like that you can stack multiple screenshots

00:35:08 ◼   ► on top of each other and they just stack up.

00:35:10 ◼   ► So you could take a bunch of screenshots

00:35:12 ◼   ► of a bunch of things, and it's not like

00:35:14 ◼   ► it doesn't replace each one each time.

00:35:16 ◼   ► You get a new one every time.

00:35:18 ◼   ► Yeah, it does video recording,

00:35:21 ◼   ► which you can also turn into GIFs really easily

00:35:24 ◼   ► if you want to.

00:35:25 ◼   ► It does full screen.

00:35:28 ◼   ► So if you wanna take like a scrolling screenshot

00:35:31 ◼   ► of like a webpage, you can do that.

00:35:34 ◼   ► It has a timer built into it if you want that.

00:35:37 ◼   ► It also does stuff like you can choose to,

00:35:39 ◼   ► if you take a screenshot of your desktop

00:35:40 ◼   ► or something on your desktop,

00:35:42 ◼   ► you can remove all the things you have on your desktop

00:35:46 ◼   ► so they don't show up in the screenshot.

00:35:48 ◼   ► This is also the same for video.

00:35:50 ◼   ► So if you were doing a screencast,

00:35:51 ◼   ► you don't actually have to clean up anything.

00:35:53 ◼   ► And you can also, if you want to,

00:35:55 ◼   ► choose a screen, like a background

00:35:58 ◼   ► that will show up in those screenshots.

00:36:00 ◼   ► It doesn't have to be your desktop background.

00:36:02 ◼   ► So basically it does a lot of the basics the same,

00:36:07 ◼   ► but then has a ton of customizability.

00:36:10 ◼   ► And a lot of the things that they allow you to customize

00:36:12 ◼   ► are the exact things I want to customize,

00:36:14 ◼   ► but Apple doesn't allow for the options for.

00:36:17 ◼   ► And also, as I say,

00:36:19 ◼   ► I feel like I'm able to make my decisions more slowly

00:36:23 ◼   ► and in my own time,

00:36:24 ◼   ► rather than having to decide exactly what I want.

00:36:27 ◼   ► - Right, if you don't hold down option right now,

00:36:29 ◼   ► everything is ruined.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Yep, so I only need to remember two shortcuts.

00:36:33 ◼   ► One for capture an area, one for capture the whole screen.

00:36:36 ◼   ► - All right, well said.

00:36:38 ◼   ► - So that's what I like about it.

00:36:40 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:36:41 ◼   ► - So for me, I would be cool with craft.

00:36:47 ◼   ► I would be cool, which was the Upgradients pick.

00:36:50 ◼   ► I would be cool with bartender.

00:36:53 ◼   ► Obviously Clean Shot X.

00:36:58 ◼   ► I think between me and you, I think Mime Stream's got a really good shot in the next category.

00:37:03 ◼   ► I think it does.

00:37:05 ◼   ► So I would say, you know, I would be really good with Bartender personally.

00:37:11 ◼   ► Let's do it.

00:37:12 ◼   ► Alright, so we're gonna go with the winner for the best Mac app of 2021 to be Bartender

00:37:17 ◼   ► with the runners up.

00:37:19 ◼   ► Should we go with...

00:37:20 ◼   ► Clean Shot?

00:37:21 ◼   ► Clean Shot and Craft.

00:37:23 ◼   ► Yeah, that works for me.

00:37:26 ◼   ► Good work, Bartender.

00:37:27 ◼   ► I don't know the developer's name, so we'll just go with bartender person for the time being.

00:37:32 ◼   ► Mr. Bartender.

00:37:33 ◼   ► So, best newcomer Mac app, and the upgradians voted thusly.

00:37:39 ◼   ► This is really interesting to me.

00:37:40 ◼   ► Kraft, 9%.

00:37:42 ◼   ► Now that was interesting because Kraft won best Mac app

00:37:47 ◼   ► and got a higher percentage in best newcomer Mac app.

00:37:53 ◼   ► There you go.

00:37:54 ◼   ► Mime stream with 11.2% and shortcuts with 16.4%.

00:37:59 ◼   ► Okay, shortcuts. Yeah.

00:38:02 ◼   ► I had shortcuts on my original shortlist.

00:38:07 ◼   ► I felt like I couldn't commit to it because

00:38:11 ◼   ► I feel like next year I could maybe give it my best Mac app,

00:38:17 ◼   ► but like with the things that I have in my category, they are,

00:38:22 ◼   ► They are fully formed apps that do their job properly.

00:38:27 ◼   ► And Shortcuts does that most of the time?

00:38:30 ◼   ► - I think Shortcuts has gotten better

00:38:33 ◼   ► and is getting better 'cause I think Apple realized

00:38:35 ◼   ► what they shipped wasn't good enough.

00:38:36 ◼   ► It is weird and not Mac-like in a lot of ways.

00:38:41 ◼   ► And some of it is me getting used to it and it's quirks,

00:38:44 ◼   ► but that's not great.

00:38:45 ◼   ► That's not great with the,

00:38:46 ◼   ► oh, I have very specific behaviors I only ever do

00:38:49 ◼   ► when I'm in Shortcuts.

00:38:51 ◼   ► It's like, no, it shouldn't really be like that,

00:38:53 ◼   ► but that's sort of how it is right now.

00:38:55 ◼   ► But it's getting better and everything around it is great.

00:38:58 ◼   ► And it has been a game changer on the Mac already

00:39:01 ◼   ► in terms of what I'm capable of doing.

00:39:03 ◼   ► But the app is still kind of janky.

00:39:10 ◼   ► So I wanna praise its functionality and what it enables

00:39:15 ◼   ► while also saying that as an app,

00:39:18 ◼   ► and we are so app focused with these categories.

00:39:21 ◼   ► Like I'm so happy that it's there.

00:39:25 ◼   ► I wish it was better,

00:39:27 ◼   ► but it's functional, but not great.

00:39:32 ◼   ► And that's tough to give any award to.

00:39:37 ◼   ► My other ones in this category,

00:39:41 ◼   ► Swift Bar, which I've already mentioned,

00:39:43 ◼   ► it came out end of last year.

00:39:47 ◼   ► So basically in the period where it was sort of too late.

00:39:51 ◼   ► And MimeStream, which we just talked about,

00:39:54 ◼   ► which is fantastic.

00:39:58 ◼   ► - I love having shortcuts on my Mac.

00:40:01 ◼   ► And I love interacting with it from the menu bar.

00:40:04 ◼   ► I have yet to really spend a lot of time

00:40:06 ◼   ► building a shortcut on my Mac.

00:40:08 ◼   ► I think I wanna give that a little bit more time.

00:40:11 ◼   ► I also feel like I haven't really had the opportunity

00:40:14 ◼   ► to fully dig into shortcuts,

00:40:16 ◼   ► like the possibilities for the Mac,

00:40:18 ◼   ► but just having, you know, I have the menu bar

00:40:21 ◼   ► and I have the five shortcuts that I use really frequently.

00:40:24 ◼   ► And I really love having access to those right there

00:40:27 ◼   ► as well as needing, like other than needing

00:40:28 ◼   ► to just pick up an iOS device and fire it off, you know.

00:40:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just, I showed you something last week

00:40:33 ◼   ► that I built, which is that now the Mac integration

00:40:36 ◼   ► is starting to hit with shortcuts.

00:40:37 ◼   ► So like I can run a shortcut in launch bar

00:40:41 ◼   ► and instead of just running it, I can press,

00:40:43 ◼   ► I can select it and type space and then put in input

00:40:48 ◼   ► and it is passed as input to the shortcut.

00:40:50 ◼   ► So I built a thing that searches six colors.

00:40:53 ◼   ► So if I want a search term,

00:40:55 ◼   ► I want to find something that's six colors,

00:40:56 ◼   ► it used to be that I could either search for it,

00:40:59 ◼   ► but I would end up in a web browser window

00:41:01 ◼   ► and then I'd need to click on the link

00:41:03 ◼   ► of the one that I wanted and copy it to the clipboard.

00:41:06 ◼   ► And I built a shortcut that takes input,

00:41:07 ◼   ► so it comes from Launch Bar,

00:41:09 ◼   ► and then it throws up a little list

00:41:12 ◼   ► of all the article headlines that match it,

00:41:14 ◼   ► that came back from the server,

00:41:16 ◼   ► and I pick one and it copies it to the clipboard.

00:41:18 ◼   ► It's just, it's so good.

00:41:20 ◼   ► And the extra magic that's happening there

00:41:23 ◼   ► is that Launch Bar, a utility that I use all the time,

00:41:26 ◼   ► is now talking to the shortcut,

00:41:29 ◼   ► and that puts it over the edge.

00:41:31 ◼   ► So like, it's really great that it's there,

00:41:33 ◼   ► but it's one of the big stories of this year,

00:41:35 ◼   ► but I don't think, it certainly can't be a winner

00:41:36 ◼   ► for best newcomer Mac app

00:41:37 ◼   ► because of all the problems in the app.

00:41:39 ◼   ► So, and your two, I'm looking at your list here

00:41:44 ◼   ► is two apps that you've mentioned before.

00:41:47 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:41:48 ◼   ► - MimeStream, which we've talked about

00:41:49 ◼   ► and Timery on the Mac side,

00:41:51 ◼   ► which is the catalyst version of Timery

00:41:55 ◼   ► from the iOS side.

00:41:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's super good.

00:42:00 ◼   ► I think it's catalyst.

00:42:01 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure it's a catalyst app.

00:42:03 ◼   ► - I think so.

00:42:04 ◼   ► - And I just think that Joe has done a wonderful job

00:42:07 ◼   ► with Timery.

00:42:08 ◼   ► It started off as like, "Hey, here's the iOS app."

00:42:11 ◼   ► Like I was on the beta, right?

00:42:13 ◼   ► And it's like basically, "Here's the iOS app."

00:42:15 ◼   ► And then it's added a bunch of stuff to the application,

00:42:18 ◼   ► like sidebar support and stuff like that,

00:42:20 ◼   ► which has then found its way back into the app.

00:42:22 ◼   ► And you remember that thing I was mentioning earlier

00:42:24 ◼   ► about the auto-completing when you type something in?

00:42:26 ◼   ► That first thing is in the Mac app,

00:42:29 ◼   ► and then it found its way to the iOS app as well.

00:42:31 ◼   ► But my very favorite thing that it has is up in the menu bar,

00:42:35 ◼   ► and it's showing me what my current timer is,

00:42:37 ◼   ► but I can very easily click it, I can start a timer,

00:42:40 ◼   ► I can choose from save timers or recent timers.

00:42:43 ◼   ► It really feels like a great example of an application

00:42:46 ◼   ► that started life as a capitalist app

00:42:48 ◼   ► and now does all this other stuff

00:42:49 ◼   ► that not necessarily a standard capitalist app,

00:42:53 ◼   ► I was gonna say capitalist,

00:42:54 ◼   ► not a standard capitalist app would do.

00:42:57 ◼   ► But I just think that Joe's done just a wonderful job

00:43:01 ◼   ► with the TimeRemax app.

00:43:03 ◼   ► It's, you know, when Apple Silicon came out,

00:43:07 ◼   ► It wasn't one of the apps that was like enabled

00:43:09 ◼   ► that you could just run and I was disappointed about that.

00:43:11 ◼   ► But honestly, I'm just happy that I waited now

00:43:13 ◼   ► because the result of this one has been vastly superior.

00:43:17 ◼   ► And as I say is, in going down this development path

00:43:20 ◼   ► has actually made all of the apps

00:43:22 ◼   ► on all of the platforms better,

00:43:24 ◼   ► which I just think is like really awesome.

00:43:27 ◼   ► I just think that that's a great thing.

00:43:29 ◼   ► And then my other nomination is MimeStream.

00:43:33 ◼   ► So you should say you heard about this from me and Steven.

00:43:37 ◼   ► I heard about it first from Steven on a Mac Power Users episode.

00:43:42 ◼   ► I use Gmail and what I was looking for,

00:43:44 ◼   ► so for one email account that I run,

00:43:47 ◼   ► I didn't want it to be in my standard email app

00:43:49 ◼   ► where I have a bunch of accounts,

00:43:50 ◼   ► so I wanted to keep it off on its own.

00:43:52 ◼   ► And I was looking for something to put it in

00:43:54 ◼   ► and I thought, oh, I'll give this Mime Stream a try.

00:43:56 ◼   ► 'Cause I couldn't switch to Mime Stream

00:43:59 ◼   ► for all of my email for two reasons.

00:44:00 ◼   ► One, not all of my email is Gmail.

00:44:02 ◼   ► And two, I've come to really rely on Spark's email

00:44:07 ◼   ► sharing system so I can share email with our VP of sales and we can go talk about

00:44:12 ◼   ► email and stuff like that. So I couldn't leave that.

00:44:14 ◼   ► It's too important to my workflow now.

00:44:16 ◼   ► But what I really love about MimeStream is it's like, Hey,

00:44:20 ◼   ► what about all of the best features of Gmail but in an application that's nice

00:44:25 ◼   ► and looks good and is very frequently updated and has everything that you want.

00:44:30 ◼   ► Like one of my favorite things, which is very simple,

00:44:32 ◼   ► but like so many other apps just don't do or can't do or whatever,

00:44:36 ◼   ► is it has the support for the auto-filtering

00:44:39 ◼   ► that Google does, like promotions and updates

00:44:42 ◼   ► and that kind of thing.

00:44:43 ◼   ► You just do it, and it's easy.

00:44:44 ◼   ► And what I also really love is I'm a very particular email

00:44:47 ◼   ► person, right?

00:44:48 ◼   ► I like my emails set up in a certain way.

00:44:51 ◼   ► And this app has every feature I've ever

00:44:53 ◼   ► wanted for an email application, but not in an obscene way.

00:44:58 ◼   ► I think it's very thought through.

00:45:00 ◼   ► Something that's really important to me

00:45:02 ◼   ► is if I read an email and archive that email or reply,

00:45:07 ◼   ► what I want the email app to do

00:45:09 ◼   ► is just send the app back to the inbox,

00:45:12 ◼   ► do not open the next email, right?

00:45:15 ◼   ► I do not want that ever.

00:45:16 ◼   ► And there are way too many apps that you deal with an email

00:45:20 ◼   ► and the next thing it does, hey, here's the next email.

00:45:22 ◼   ► And it marks it as unread

00:45:23 ◼   ► and then you've got the next email in front of you.

00:45:25 ◼   ► I never want that.

00:45:26 ◼   ► And MimeStream has a set so you can choose

00:45:28 ◼   ► when you action an email, what happens next,

00:45:30 ◼   ► and you can choose it.

00:45:31 ◼   ► To me, that is like, if an app doesn't have that setting,

00:45:35 ◼   ► I just feel like the person doesn't use email.

00:45:37 ◼   ► Like, if you always, every single time,

00:45:41 ◼   ► want it to do one thing,

00:45:42 ◼   ► I just don't think you're using email enough.

00:45:44 ◼   ► Because that is a very particular thing that people want.

00:45:48 ◼   ► Some people do their email, they just process it all at once

00:45:51 ◼   ► but lots of people do their emails well like I do,

00:45:53 ◼   ► where it's like, I do one at a time.

00:45:55 ◼   ► Just because I've sent one email,

00:45:57 ◼   ► doesn't mean I now wanna deal with the rest of it.

00:45:59 ◼   ► So, yeah.

00:46:00 ◼   ► Mime stream is awesome.

00:46:01 ◼   ► I love it.

00:46:02 ◼   ► Yep.

00:46:02 ◼   ► And that's why it's the winner.

00:46:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:05 ◼   ► Of best newcomer Mac app.

00:46:07 ◼   ► This is an easy one.

00:46:07 ◼   ► Yes.

00:46:08 ◼   ► Uh, I really hope that, uh, Neil Mime stream is able to continue pushing this one.

00:46:14 ◼   ► Um, like support other types of email, you know, and, and, and an iOS client as well,

00:46:20 ◼   ► which I know is on their radar.

00:46:22 ◼   ► Right.

00:46:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:23 ◼   ► Run us up, uh, shortcuts.

00:46:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:28 ◼   ► I mean, it was on your list and the upgrade is this.

00:46:30 ◼   ► - And the upgrading of the list.

00:46:31 ◼   ► - And the upgrading of the list.

00:46:32 ◼   ► And can we put Timery in again?

00:46:34 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:46:34 ◼   ► - Awesome.

00:46:35 ◼   ► Love you, Timery. Love you, Joe.

00:46:37 ◼   ► - I should create a timer for when we talk about Timery.

00:46:41 ◼   ► - I mean, it would be a lot for me.

00:46:44 ◼   ► That would be a lot of time.

00:46:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, that would be the only timer I would ever use,

00:46:47 ◼   ► though, would just be the Timery timer.

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00:48:52 ◼   ► We were using a third party email service.

00:48:55 ◼   ► We've now for, we do like a monthly,

00:48:57 ◼   ► Steven writes a monthly newsletter

00:48:59 ◼   ► that goes out to our members

00:49:00 ◼   ► and we moved over to Membrful system and it's really great.

00:49:03 ◼   ► - I just got that message in Mime stream.

00:49:06 ◼   ► - There you go, you got it.

00:49:07 ◼   ► - It's good. - It just got sent out today.

00:49:09 ◼   ► - It's great.

00:49:10 ◼   ► - If you're a content creator,

00:49:11 ◼   ► Membrful can help you monetize that passion.

00:49:14 ◼   ► Get started for free at membrful.com/upgrade

00:49:16 ◼   ► with no credit card required.

00:49:18 ◼   ► That's membrful.com/upgrade.

00:49:20 ◼   ► Go there right now and check it out.

00:49:21 ◼   ► out it could be the start of something exciting. Our thanks to MIRBIFUL for their support of this

00:49:26 ◼   ► show and Relay FM. So we now move into some media related categories and the first one is Game of

00:49:33 ◼   ► the Year. Typically this has been non-mobile because we have an iOS Game of the Year category

00:49:40 ◼   ► up next. And the Upgradians voted thusly with 4.5% going to Halo Infinite, 8.5% going to Forza

00:49:49 ◼   ► Horizon 5 and 13.8% going to Metroid Dread. Now I'm just gonna say this up front Jason,

00:49:57 ◼   ► I haven't really done my homework this year. I have not played many video games this year,

00:50:03 ◼   ► especially in the last half of the year. Oh no, but this would be like me not reading a book.

00:50:09 ◼   ► Yeah. I rely on you Myke. Mm-hmm, been pretty bad. Now what I will say is many of my friends

00:50:17 ◼   ► basically made up a very similar list to this one. Forza Horizon 5 is a game that I have played and

00:50:23 ◼   ► really enjoyed it. I would say honestly, you know, maybe spoilers, I don't know if I would have had

00:50:32 ◼   ► a better game than Forza, maybe Halo but I haven't gotten to it yet. I don't think I would have

00:50:38 ◼   ► played Metroid Dread. I know that lots of people love it but it's not really my type of game.

00:50:43 ◼   ► So I feel pretty happy myself in saying Forza Horizon 5, but what have you been playing this year?

00:50:50 ◼   ► All right, well guess what? I have opinions about this category because I played some games that

00:50:55 ◼   ► were not iOS games. Unfortunately they were also not Xbox games or PlayStation games.

00:51:01 ◼   ► And I also believe, looking at your list, none of them released in 2021.

00:51:05 ◼   ► Well, it doesn't matter because this is when I fell in love with them, so that's all that matters.

00:51:09 ◼   ► Yeah, okay. Alright.

00:51:11 ◼   ► Okay.

00:51:13 ◼   ► And here's what they are.

00:51:14 ◼   ► Super Mario Brothers!

00:51:16 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:51:18 ◼   ► Space Invaders!

00:51:20 ◼   ► Game of the Year!

00:51:22 ◼   ► Come on, it deserves it!

00:51:24 ◼   ► I got an Oculus Quest 2 for Christmas last year.

00:51:28 ◼   ► And the games that I've been playing this year are Oculus Quest games.

00:51:32 ◼   ► And the two that I have fallen in love with are

00:51:34 ◼   ► 11 table tennis because the world needed a super realistic virtual reality table tennis

00:51:40 ◼   ► simulation. It's amazing. It is a perfect fit for the technology.

00:51:46 ◼   ► I hate this game because I suck at table tennis. And it's too good.

00:51:52 ◼   ► Well you can dial the quality of the AI opponent down to nothing and then it's like you're

00:51:56 ◼   ► facing a tree across the table. That was the only way I could play the game

00:52:01 ◼   ► and then I just felt like a fool, really.

00:52:04 ◼   ► - I have gotten up to, I found my level

00:52:07 ◼   ► where I am good enough to win sometimes, but be challenged.

00:52:11 ◼   ► And it's not a very high number, but I love it.

00:52:15 ◼   ► It is one of those things where I was like,

00:52:17 ◼   ► "Oh, I see, yes, this is a good use of VR."

00:52:22 ◼   ► Like of the controllers and the hardware in general,

00:52:25 ◼   ► like I'm very impressed with 11 Table Tennis.

00:52:27 ◼   ► It's really good.

00:52:29 ◼   ► And I'm on the Beat Saber train, I gotta say.

00:52:32 ◼   ► I am always, okay, rhythm games.

00:52:37 ◼   ► I don't like rhythm games that are push a button

00:52:39 ◼   ► or tap a screen.

00:52:41 ◼   ► I don't like them because the idea with rhythm is,

00:52:45 ◼   ► tapping your toes, tapping your finger is not dancing.

00:52:51 ◼   ► It's not.

00:52:53 ◼   ► And rhythm games are like that.

00:52:55 ◼   ► They're kind of like full body games, they should be.

00:53:00 ◼   ► And so when they say, well, we took rock band

00:53:02 ◼   ► where you've got an instrument or whatever,

00:53:04 ◼   ► and we've just made it so you tap on a screen.

00:53:07 ◼   ► It's like, nah, it's a lot less interesting to me then.

00:53:10 ◼   ► So Beat Saber, which makes you lunge after boxes

00:53:15 ◼   ► with a lightsaber to the tune of various kind of Polish

00:53:20 ◼   ► industrial music, or if you pay,

00:53:22 ◼   ► Billie Eilish or Imagine Dragons,

00:53:25 ◼   ► is great. It is, it is fulfilling something, something that Rock Band always used to fulfill

00:53:33 ◼   ► for me, but of course with less equipment to be carted out than Rock Band requires.

00:53:36 ◼   ► And, better. It's better. It's the best Revenant game ever made. Like, it just is.

00:53:42 ◼   ► It's amazing. And this is the case, this is where I'm gonna say, like what you said about

00:53:46 ◼   ► 11 table tennis, that I'm terrible at it, and I need to do more, but I'm so terrible at it that I

00:53:54 ◼   ► I can actually make myself move and sweat and things

00:53:58 ◼   ► not doing very well, and that's good enough.

00:54:01 ◼   ► But then you see people who are able to do

00:54:03 ◼   ► incredibly well at it and they have better rhythm than me.

00:54:07 ◼   ► There's just no doubt about it.

00:54:08 ◼   ► But still you're swinging your arms, you're moving around.

00:54:11 ◼   ► It's very effective.

00:54:15 ◼   ► It's a killer app, I would say for this platform.

00:54:17 ◼   ► - It is the VR game.

00:54:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I would go so far as to say

00:54:21 ◼   ► that whatever Apple does with their headset,

00:54:24 ◼   ► they better have a rhythm game that is like, you know,

00:54:27 ◼   ► I don't know what they're gonna call it.

00:54:29 ◼   ► Thump.

00:54:32 ◼   ► - Swords.

00:54:34 ◼   ► - Swords.

00:54:36 ◼   ► That's it, thump swords.

00:54:38 ◼   ► They better be their day one thump swords, boom swords.

00:54:41 ◼   ► - Jason, here's the thing.

00:54:42 ◼   ► If Apple do this, there will be a million developers

00:54:44 ◼   ► trying to make their own Beat Saber.

00:54:45 ◼   ► - Sure, their own Beat Saber.

00:54:47 ◼   ► That's also true.

00:54:48 ◼   ► - The only problem is it's owned by Meta,

00:54:50 ◼   ► So you've got to be real careful.

00:54:52 ◼   ► - Well, and you can't just sign, you know,

00:54:54 ◼   ► sign them up to appear on the platform

00:54:56 ◼   ► because Meta has taken them away, but it's a great game.

00:54:59 ◼   ► It really is.

00:55:00 ◼   ► And I love both those games.

00:55:01 ◼   ► So, and I didn't, you know, I thought, oh, VR it's fun.

00:55:05 ◼   ► I had fun with the PS VR.

00:55:06 ◼   ► So I thought, oh, I'll get this thing.

00:55:08 ◼   ► And I wish there was a game,

00:55:11 ◼   ► the other kind of game that I wish there was on,

00:55:14 ◼   ► on the quest that there isn't is the,

00:55:18 ◼   ► I really did love the PSVR game with the little robots

00:55:22 ◼   ► that is a Tokyo studio. - Astrobot.

00:55:25 ◼   ► - Astrobot rescue.

00:55:26 ◼   ► And the PS5 comes with an Astrobot that's cute,

00:55:29 ◼   ► but like that was such a great VR game, VR platformer.

00:55:32 ◼   ► And I have not been satisfied

00:55:33 ◼   ► with any of that kind of stuff on the meta platform.

00:55:35 ◼   ► So that's something that maybe if Apple does it,

00:55:38 ◼   ► or if there's a proper VR for some other gaming platform.

00:55:43 ◼   ► But anyway, I think those games are both great

00:55:46 ◼   ► and I want to at least recognize them,

00:55:48 ◼   ► even though they didn't come out this year

00:55:49 ◼   ► because this was the year that I played them and loved them.

00:55:53 ◼   ► And I think they're great.

00:55:54 ◼   ► - Have you played any of the Beat Saber levels

00:55:57 ◼   ► that you are in like 180 or 360 degrees?

00:56:01 ◼   ► - Oh God, no.

00:56:02 ◼   ► - Oh, Jason is so good.

00:56:03 ◼   ► - Well, I can't even.

00:56:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, I understand.

00:56:06 ◼   ► I understand.

00:56:06 ◼   ► - I can't even do when the boxes,

00:56:09 ◼   ► when they change the sides of the colors of the boxes,

00:56:13 ◼   ► I die.

00:56:15 ◼   ► Like I'm so bad at it.

00:56:17 ◼   ► - I desperately want to see you play this game now.

00:56:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:56:21 ◼   ► The 360 levels, like once you get good,

00:56:24 ◼   ► it takes practice, once you get good at it,

00:56:26 ◼   ► they are a whole, it's like a whole different kind of game.

00:56:30 ◼   ► It's wild, they're a lot of fun, they're a lot of fun.

00:56:32 ◼   ► - Well, earlier this year I injured my rotator cuff

00:56:37 ◼   ► and it was one of those things where it was like,

00:56:39 ◼   ► you know, it hurts, it's not fun,

00:56:40 ◼   ► but the really sad part about it was,

00:56:42 ◼   ► (gasping)

00:56:43 ◼   ► it's a, I'm like on the VR disabled list,

00:56:46 ◼   ► 'cause it involves waving your arms around

00:56:48 ◼   ► and for several months I really couldn't wave my arm around

00:56:52 ◼   ► without pain, I was like, oh no, I can't play Beat Saber,

00:56:56 ◼   ► I'm on the 11 table tennis injury list now.

00:57:00 ◼   ► But anyway, they're great.

00:57:03 ◼   ► - I think we're gonna have to go,

00:57:04 ◼   ► we can put Beat Saber in as a runner up.

00:57:06 ◼   ► - Thank you.

00:57:07 ◼   ► - We can't give a game of--

00:57:08 ◼   ► - No, it's fine.

00:57:10 ◼   ► - We'll go with Forza Horizon 5.

00:57:12 ◼   ► - Really, oh, I just assumed 11 table tennis

00:57:15 ◼   ► by acclimation. I apologize. I apologize. Game of the year. But

00:57:18 ◼   ► yes. Okay. Well, I'll I'll you're you're this is a racing

00:57:21 ◼   ► game, right? Myke? It's race cars, right? It's a good race

00:57:24 ◼   ► car game. Great. Very good racing car game set in Mexico.

00:57:27 ◼   ► Forza Horizon 5 is the winner of game of the best game of 2021

00:57:31 ◼   ► with Beat Saber and Metroid Dread as our runners up. All

00:57:35 ◼   ► right. So we can move into iOS game of the year. Yay. With 4.6%

00:57:40 ◼   ► of the vote goes to Good Sudoku Plus, 5% of the vote to Mini Motorways, and 5.5% goes

00:57:48 ◼   ► to Alto's Odyssey The Lost City.

00:57:51 ◼   ► Those are all Apple Arcade games.

00:57:53 ◼   ► All Apple Arcade.

00:57:55 ◼   ► And I'll say as it went down from there, still a lot of Apple Arcade in the top 10.

00:58:01 ◼   ► Now I will say for me personally, this 2021 has not been a good new mobile game year.

00:58:12 ◼   ► For me, there has not been a standout new entry.

00:58:17 ◼   ► I don't know why this is, but I have not come across a game this year which I felt was really

00:58:24 ◼   ► like "Oh wow, this is great."

00:58:27 ◼   ► And for me as well, like that list there is very similar to me.

00:58:32 ◼   ► It's like I've enjoyed a lot of games that have come back this year, you know, like Apple

00:58:36 ◼   ► did their like, kind of classics thing where they brought like a bunch of really great

00:58:40 ◼   ► games from the past and brought them back and or, you know, and that is, Minimotorways

00:58:45 ◼   ► was an Apple Arcade, just a straight up Apple Arcade game.

00:58:49 ◼   ► Original.

00:58:50 ◼   ► Yeah, but it was a sequel to a, you know, already popular game.

00:58:55 ◼   ► Very different game.

00:58:56 ◼   ► - They're not that similar, I would say.

00:59:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, but you know what I mean, right?

00:59:01 ◼   ► Like you look at it and you say,

00:59:02 ◼   ► this is very clearly the same people,

00:59:04 ◼   ► they did the same and that noted,

00:59:06 ◼   ► they're doing the same kind of thing.

00:59:08 ◼   ► Good Sudoku Plus is Good Sudoku,

00:59:11 ◼   ► now available in a blockade,

00:59:13 ◼   ► Altos Odyssey to Lost City.

00:59:14 ◼   ► - Good Sudoku was late,

00:59:16 ◼   ► fairly late last year, wasn't it?

00:59:17 ◼   ► Although I don't know, it was a pandemic game.

00:59:18 ◼   ► I can't really even tell. - Who could tell?

00:59:21 ◼   ► So there's been stuff, right?

00:59:23 ◼   ► It's not like there haven't been games.

00:59:25 ◼   ► There have been games this year, but I,

00:59:27 ◼   ► there hasn't been a everyone's going wild

00:59:30 ◼   ► for this iOS game this year.

00:59:32 ◼   ► So you have a longer list than me.

00:59:35 ◼   ► Actually, I think, oh, look at, yeah,

00:59:37 ◼   ► your list is the same as the upgrade.

00:59:39 ◼   ► - My list is the same as the upgrade Ian's.

00:59:41 ◼   ► We are in sync on this and I don't care

00:59:44 ◼   ► if there's a game out there that everybody's talking about.

00:59:46 ◼   ► I just care about the games that I like.

00:59:48 ◼   ► And you know what I like the best?

00:59:49 ◼   ► Alto's Odyssey, the lost city,

00:59:50 ◼   ► which is extra content for my favorite iOS game of all time.

00:59:55 ◼   ► So yeah, I loved it.

00:59:58 ◼   ► I played it all the way through.

01:00:00 ◼   ► My only real criticism is that there needs to be

01:00:02 ◼   ► some sort of a signifier that feels good

01:00:06 ◼   ► when you clear the last thing.

01:00:09 ◼   ► And that doesn't happen.

01:00:10 ◼   ► It just says, "Oh, you don't have any more challenges left."

01:00:13 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, okay."

01:00:15 ◼   ► But it was great.

01:00:16 ◼   ► And they have new artwork and they have new music

01:00:18 ◼   ► and it's the full "Alto's Odyssey" game on top,

01:00:21 ◼   ► plus this is added on.

01:00:23 ◼   ► And if you already played "Alto's Odyssey",

01:00:25 ◼   ► you can load your status and you pick up all that stuff

01:00:28 ◼   ► and you just jump right in.

01:00:29 ◼   ► You have to replay the game from the start, which is nice.

01:00:31 ◼   ► A lot of these plus Apple Arcade games don't do that,

01:00:34 ◼   ► by the way, which I find frustrating.

01:00:37 ◼   ► I would really like if I started off on the regular game

01:00:41 ◼   ► and then came to the plus game,

01:00:42 ◼   ► a button that will load all of my stuff.

01:00:44 ◼   ► - Most of them don't need it though.

01:00:47 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, like I have a, like, sorry,

01:00:52 ◼   ► I really I'm talking about Zach Gage here.

01:00:53 ◼   ► We're like Flip-Flop Solitaire doesn't remember

01:00:55 ◼   ► all of my stats.

01:00:56 ◼   ► Good Sudoku doesn't remember any of my stats

01:00:59 ◼   ► and I, on the plus version.

01:01:01 ◼   ► So I ended up having both versions on there

01:01:04 ◼   ► 'cause I already bought the games

01:01:05 ◼   ► and now there's the plus version.

01:01:07 ◼   ► So anyway, that's number one, Mini Motorways.

01:01:10 ◼   ► When I, I was a little lukewarm on it

01:01:12 ◼   ► when it initially shipped,

01:01:13 ◼   ► but I think this is one of those things

01:01:15 ◼   ► that also happened with Mini Metro actually,

01:01:17 ◼   ► that the developer, Dinosaur Polo Club, fun to say,

01:01:21 ◼   ► they ship their game and then they tweak it.

01:01:25 ◼   ► And that just is how they do it.

01:01:28 ◼   ► So I revisited many motorways in the last couple of months,

01:01:31 ◼   ► and it's so much better than it used to be.

01:01:33 ◼   ► They've really added a whole bunch of things on iOS

01:01:36 ◼   ► that were just not there before.

01:01:38 ◼   ► The logic works better, there's roundabouts.

01:01:41 ◼   ► And in fact, the turn taking every week

01:01:43 ◼   ► is a better interface now that makes it clear

01:01:45 ◼   ► what your choices are between like, do you want a highway

01:01:48 ◼   ► and 20 road tokens, or do you want 40 road tokens

01:01:53 ◼   ► and you get to choose which one.

01:01:54 ◼   ► It's much clearer sort of what you're gonna get.

01:01:57 ◼   ► So I think that game is great.

01:01:58 ◼   ► And Good Sudoku, which then again,

01:02:00 ◼   ► came out with Good Sudoku Plus.

01:02:03 ◼   ► I never understood this game.

01:02:05 ◼   ► I know people played it.

01:02:07 ◼   ► I didn't get it.

01:02:08 ◼   ► The whole purpose of this game is to teach it to you

01:02:10 ◼   ► and to teach you how to be better at it.

01:02:12 ◼   ► And it completely worked on me to the point where

01:02:15 ◼   ► I have played it a bunch.

01:02:16 ◼   ► And if you give me a newspaper Sudoku page,

01:02:19 ◼   ► I can solve it pretty fast because I'm not great,

01:02:24 ◼   ► but I'm good.

01:02:26 ◼   ► I'm good at Sudoku now, thanks to this app.

01:02:29 ◼   ► So I love all three of those apps.

01:02:31 ◼   ► - I wanted to throw in another one,

01:02:33 ◼   ► which is Jetpack Joyride Plus.

01:02:35 ◼   ► Jetpack Joyride is one of my favorite iOS games

01:02:37 ◼   ► of all time.

01:02:38 ◼   ► And Apple did the similar thing of asking Halfbrick Studios

01:02:42 ◼   ► to bring Jetpack Joyride back,

01:02:44 ◼   ► give it a little bit of polish here and there where needed, you know, make it fit

01:02:48 ◼   ► all the devices. They added a few things and they brought it back as a plus game.

01:02:52 ◼   ► Honestly, really the iOS game of the year is an Apple Arcade subscription this year.

01:02:56 ◼   ► Um, like I, Apple is continuing the original strategy somewhat.

01:03:03 ◼   ► There they are working with developers and they're creating these really nice

01:03:07 ◼   ► games or they're buying, you know, nice games for the platform.

01:03:11 ◼   ► But I think this is a part of the strategy

01:03:13 ◼   ► that makes a ton of sense.

01:03:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, we talked about it here before,

01:03:17 ◼   ► but the idea that they added in those two other layers,

01:03:20 ◼   ► which is classic games that there's no financial motivation

01:03:23 ◼   ► for them to be updated for the current platform.

01:03:25 ◼   ► They get folded into Apple Arcade,

01:03:26 ◼   ► they provide them a financial lifeline,

01:03:28 ◼   ► and then the converting them off of paid

01:03:32 ◼   ► so that you basically,

01:03:33 ◼   ► essentially because you're an Apple Arcade subscriber,

01:03:36 ◼   ► you don't have to pay for the in-app purchases,

01:03:38 ◼   ► they're all unlocked.

01:03:40 ◼   ► And so you, I mean, that's right.

01:03:43 ◼   ► That's what we're seeing here with all of these

01:03:45 ◼   ► is Jetpack Joyride is a classic game

01:03:47 ◼   ► that's been given a maintenance update

01:03:48 ◼   ► because of Apple Arcade money.

01:03:50 ◼   ► Good Sudoku Plus is a pay game turned into a free game

01:03:53 ◼   ► for Apple Arcade subscribers.

01:03:56 ◼   ► Alta's Odyssey is they commissioned them to do extra levels

01:04:00 ◼   ► and then Mini Motorways is an original essentially.

01:04:02 ◼   ► So like it's covering all of these bases

01:04:05 ◼   ► and that's the dimension that Apple Arcade

01:04:07 ◼   ► didn't have when it launched.

01:04:09 ◼   ► I would be very cool with Alto's Odyssey.

01:04:12 ◼   ► - All right, good. - Going in here.

01:04:15 ◼   ► Which I would say technically makes this

01:04:17 ◼   ► a two-time best iOS game winner,

01:04:20 ◼   ► which is a really weird thing to win.

01:04:23 ◼   ► But they also won, they won with Alto's Adventure.

01:04:29 ◼   ► So three time a winner of an upgrade,

01:04:35 ◼   ► but not, just wouldn't qualify them for Hall of Fame,

01:04:39 ◼   ► nor would it really make any sense to.

01:04:42 ◼   ► Let's go with Mini Motorways and Good Sudoku Plus

01:04:45 ◼   ► as the runners up because I like that it completely matched

01:04:50 ◼   ► with you and the upgrade ends.

01:04:54 ◼   ► And somebody did mention Good Sudoku Plus

01:04:57 ◼   ► was a runner up last year.

01:05:00 ◼   ► Well, Good Sudoku was.

01:05:01 ◼   ► - Oh, Good Sudoku was, yeah,

01:05:02 ◼   ► 'cause it came out last year, so, yep.

01:05:05 ◼   ► - So now we move into favorite movie of the year,

01:05:09 ◼   ► The Upgradians voted with 9% for No Time to Die,

01:05:13 ◼   ► 15.9% for Shang-Chi, and 27.5% for Dune.

01:05:18 ◼   ► - Wow, that's a lot of Dune.

01:05:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'd like to go first

01:05:23 ◼   ► 'cause I saw less movies, if that's okay.

01:05:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, sure.

01:05:27 ◼   ► - The two movies that I am gonna put in this category,

01:05:30 ◼   ► I saw this week. (laughs)

01:05:33 ◼   ► Because really, they're the only new movies

01:05:35 ◼   ► I've seen this year.

01:05:36 ◼   ► One is Encanto, the new Disney movie.

01:05:41 ◼   ► Really, really great movie with superb music,

01:05:45 ◼   ► all written by Lin-Manuel Miranda,

01:05:47 ◼   ► who I think has maybe found the next thing that he does.

01:05:52 ◼   ► Like I know that he's working on other stuff

01:05:54 ◼   ► and I need to watch the movie about Rent,

01:05:57 ◼   ► 'cause I've heard that's pretty good.

01:05:58 ◼   ► Is it Tick Tick Boom it's called?

01:06:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so.

01:06:01 ◼   ► - Lin-Manuel Miranda writing all of the music

01:06:04 ◼   ► for Disney movies is a really good idea

01:06:06 ◼   ► because the music in this movie,

01:06:08 ◼   ► like so the music in Moana, right?

01:06:10 ◼   ► Moana's music, awesome.

01:06:12 ◼   ► Limo and Miranda played a hand in some of this.

01:06:14 ◼   ► The music in Encanto, he wrote all of the original songs.

01:06:18 ◼   ► They are amazing.

01:06:20 ◼   ► And I think it's super smart to get someone

01:06:22 ◼   ► who's really talented at writing music,

01:06:24 ◼   ► like to write these kind of modern songs.

01:06:27 ◼   ► 'Cause as I was saying,

01:06:28 ◼   ► it helps the movies be rewatchable by kids.

01:06:31 ◼   ► - That was always the trick with Disney in its classic era.

01:06:34 ◼   ► first they had the classic Ashwin and Menken and then but then they started to

01:06:39 ◼   ► bring in like songwriters to do pop songwriters like Elton John with the

01:06:45 ◼   ► Lion King and so so they're like Lin-Manuel Miranda he loves Disney and

01:06:49 ◼   ► they work well together and I haven't seen in Kanto yet it's on my list it's

01:06:54 ◼   ► on my list. It's a really cute movie and the animation is great and I'm not gonna

01:06:59 ◼   ► say too much about it but what I like about this movie compared to a lot of

01:07:02 ◼   ► other Disney movies is it's actually quite small in scope. Like, it's not this like,

01:07:09 ◼   ► huge sprawling big adventure. It's like a really small scope movie. And I really liked

01:07:15 ◼   ► it a lot. So my other one is Spider-Man No Way Home. That movie slaps. It's so good.

01:07:22 ◼   ► Oh my god, no spoilers. No spoilers. I freaking love this movie. It's gonna be a Myke of the

01:07:27 ◼   ► movies probably. We're gonna have to talk about Spider-Man No Way Home. Yeah, I think

01:07:30 ◼   ► - We might have to, I think we might have to.

01:07:32 ◼   ► - I wanna see it again,

01:07:33 ◼   ► but I don't wanna go back to a movie theater again.

01:07:34 ◼   ► So I guess I'm gonna have to wait,

01:07:36 ◼   ► but I wanna see it again.

01:07:37 ◼   ► But yeah, I loved it.

01:07:40 ◼   ► I have my, I watched a lot of movies this year

01:07:44 ◼   ► and I logged my movies this year,

01:07:49 ◼   ► which hasn't happened before in Letterboxd.

01:07:52 ◼   ► So I actually kept track of what movies I saw this year

01:07:58 ◼   ► and what I thought of them.

01:07:59 ◼   ► That was a lot of fun.

01:08:01 ◼   ► So here's my list of my favorite seven movies that I saw

01:08:06 ◼   ► that were new-ish, right?

01:08:10 ◼   ► I'm not gonna say a lot of these were Oscar nominees,

01:08:12 ◼   ► so they came from 2020, but I saw them in 2021.

01:08:15 ◼   ► And here they are, "Promising Young Woman"

01:08:20 ◼   ► with Carey Mulligan, probably my favorite movie of the year.

01:08:23 ◼   ► "Coda" on Apple TV Plus, I liked it a lot.

01:08:26 ◼   ► I thought it was really good.

01:08:27 ◼   ► That's the girl who is the hearing child of a deaf family,

01:08:32 ◼   ► who wants to be a musician.

01:08:37 ◼   ► Spider-Man No Way Home.

01:08:39 ◼   ► A movie called Never Rarely Sometimes Always,

01:08:42 ◼   ► which is about two girls who have to take a bus to the city

01:08:47 ◼   ► in order for one of them to get an abortion.

01:08:50 ◼   ► Nomadland, which, you know, won best picture,

01:08:54 ◼   ► but it is really good.

01:08:56 ◼   ► - I liked it too.

01:08:57 ◼   ► I like it too, yay!

01:08:59 ◼   ► Now it's been mentioned on the upgrade,

01:09:00 ◼   ► he's finally they've made it.

01:09:02 ◼   ► In and of itself, which is that movie by the magician

01:09:07 ◼   ► that's basically the film version of his stage show.

01:09:11 ◼   ► If you haven't seen it,

01:09:12 ◼   ► don't look up anything about what happens in it.

01:09:14 ◼   ► It's just an amazing kind of document

01:09:18 ◼   ► of some very clever, interesting stagecraft kind of things.

01:09:24 ◼   ► and a movie called "First Cow,"

01:09:28 ◼   ► which is a very quiet, slow-paced movie

01:09:31 ◼   ► set in the early 1800s in Oregon.

01:09:35 ◼   ► And indeed, a cow is brought to the region

01:09:39 ◼   ► where the people in Oregon are,

01:09:41 ◼   ► and it's the first cow to be brought to that area.

01:09:45 ◼   ► This is pre-Gold Rush, West Coast.

01:09:48 ◼   ► So not really an era that gets even shown that much.

01:09:54 ◼   ► And I had been thinking about that movie the whole year.

01:09:57 ◼   ► I saw it in January.

01:09:58 ◼   ► I've been thinking about the whole year.

01:10:01 ◼   ► Such a strange, but kind of wonderful movie.

01:10:04 ◼   ► And so those are my faves.

01:10:06 ◼   ► - What do you think about "Dune" as the Upgradians' vote?

01:10:11 ◼   ► - I like "Dune."

01:10:14 ◼   ► I didn't put it on my list here.

01:10:15 ◼   ► I like "Shang-Chi" too, and I didn't put it on my list,

01:10:17 ◼   ► but I think that's a really good movie too.

01:10:18 ◼   ► I haven't seen "No Time to Die."

01:10:20 ◼   ► But I like "Dune."

01:10:24 ◼   ► First off, it's just half the movie, but I was charmed by it.

01:10:28 ◼   ► I would like to watch it again at some point.

01:10:31 ◼   ► I'm constantly surprised at how many people love it because I've always

01:10:35 ◼   ► thought Dune to be a real acquired taste.

01:10:38 ◼   ► And when they came out with this movie, I was like, well, okay.

01:10:41 ◼   ► But, and then people are like, ah, Dune, I love it.

01:10:43 ◼   ► I'm like, really, really.

01:10:45 ◼   ► Okay, great.

01:10:47 ◼   ► Like I read like four Dune books and I write like, it's a good movie.

01:10:52 ◼   ► I liked it.

01:10:53 ◼   ► It's a vibe.

01:10:56 ◼   ► I mean, maybe that's kind of one of the things

01:10:58 ◼   ► I like about it is it's kind of like the sound

01:11:00 ◼   ► and the visuals and you just kind of like,

01:11:03 ◼   ► it surrounds you with sand

01:11:06 ◼   ► and but it's also half a movie, unfortunately,

01:11:09 ◼   ► which I'd say I get why,

01:11:13 ◼   ► but I think it's unfortunate.

01:11:15 ◼   ► It just kind of ends and that's just, all right,

01:11:17 ◼   ► stay tuned to part two for part two in three years.

01:11:20 ◼   ► So, but I did like it.

01:11:22 ◼   ► I do think Spider-Man would have ranked higher.

01:11:25 ◼   ► It was creeping up, but we were in the voting closed

01:11:28 ◼   ► soon for that movie.

01:11:31 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:11:32 ◼   ► - It matches on both of our lists.

01:11:34 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:11:35 ◼   ► - Should we do it?

01:11:36 ◼   ► - We could give it the upgradey.

01:11:38 ◼   ► - Love it.

01:11:39 ◼   ► So do you want to pick a runner up?

01:11:40 ◼   ► - Let's pick Dune.

01:11:43 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:11:44 ◼   ► - And how about Encanto?

01:11:46 ◼   ► - Oh, that's nice.

01:11:47 ◼   ► I love Encanto.

01:11:48 ◼   ► That's a good movie, man.

01:11:49 ◼   ► I think you'll get a kick out of it.

01:11:50 ◼   ► - I will look forward to it.

01:11:52 ◼   ► Good family movie.

01:11:53 ◼   ► So congratulations to Spider-Man.

01:11:56 ◼   ► Favorite TV show, the upgrading has voted

01:11:59 ◼   ► at 11.4% for Foundation,

01:12:01 ◼   ► which ranked way higher than I was expecting

01:12:03 ◼   ► compared to all the other stuff that's come out this year.

01:12:06 ◼   ► Loki with 14.6% and 21.7% for Ted Lasso.

01:12:11 ◼   ► - Wow, that's a lot of Ted Lasso.

01:12:15 ◼   ► - We have the right audience for it, I think.

01:12:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so.

01:12:18 ◼   ► I think you're right.

01:12:19 ◼   ► Here are my seven favorite shows of 2021.

01:12:24 ◼   ► For All Mankind, season two.

01:12:27 ◼   ► It's really good.

01:12:29 ◼   ► The people who know know, there's a TV critic

01:12:34 ◼   ► I like, Alan Sepinwall, who keeps writing about it.

01:12:36 ◼   ► He said it was his favorite show of the year.

01:12:37 ◼   ► And he's like, why, you know,

01:12:39 ◼   ► people just aren't talking about it.

01:12:42 ◼   ► They just don't know about it.

01:12:43 ◼   ► They haven't found it.

01:12:44 ◼   ► - It was on too early.

01:12:45 ◼   ► I think if it was later in the year,

01:12:47 ◼   ► If For All Mankind had just wrapped up, it would be on more lists.

01:12:51 ◼   ► So, For All Mankind for sure. Hacks on HBO Max, starring Jean Smart and Hannah... oh,

01:13:01 ◼   ► what's her name? Einbinder. That is a great show. It's funny, it's about a young woman

01:13:12 ◼   ► comedy writer and a 50-something woman, legendary, maybe 60, legendary comedian from an era where

01:13:23 ◼   ► it was very hard for a woman to be in comedy. And she's now performing in Vegas and her

01:13:30 ◼   ► agent or her manager and agent convince her, I guess the manager doesn't like it, the agent

01:13:36 ◼   ► convinces her to have this hot comedy talent who's kind of down on her luck because she

01:13:40 ◼   ► she kind of got canceled for stupid stuff she did, to come write for her. And the comedian

01:13:45 ◼   ► is offended and the writer thinks it's beneath her. And you're seeing sort of comedy from

01:13:53 ◼   ► the perspective of two women kind of like beginning and ends of their careers. It's

01:13:59 ◼   ► brilliant. And it's very funny, but it's also really interesting and dramatic. And there's

01:14:06 ◼   ► just it's great if anybody hasn't seen hacks in the US it's on HBO Max it is spectacularly good

01:14:12 ◼   ► Loki I think is the I hope that when Disney+ executives were looking at the output of their

01:14:22 ◼   ► first year they looked at Loki and they were like that one yeah that one yeah I like WandaVision

01:14:29 ◼   ► that was the best one yeah I like WandaVision I like Hawkeye but Loki was the one who's like

01:14:34 ◼   ► "Yeah, that. That. We got it. We hit it. Do that." I don't want them all to be the same,

01:14:40 ◼   ► but Loki was the one who was like, "That. We got it. We nailed it." I love that show.

01:14:45 ◼   ► As somebody who grew up watching Doctor Who, it is like, what if Doctor Who had an enormous Disney

01:14:51 ◼   ► Marvel budget? Because it's kind of Doctor Who-y in a way. It's a weird, weird show, but I loved it.

01:14:57 ◼   ► and I love the soundtrack.

01:14:59 ◼   ► The performances are really good.

01:15:01 ◼   ► Loki is great.

01:15:03 ◼   ► If you haven't, if you've been skeptical

01:15:05 ◼   ► about the Marvel Disney shows,

01:15:06 ◼   ► seek out Loki sometime when you've got Disney Plus,

01:15:08 ◼   ► it's really good.

01:15:10 ◼   ► I loved Hulu's only murders in the building,

01:15:13 ◼   ► which is Steve Martin and Martin Short and Selena Gomez,

01:15:17 ◼   ► or as my daughter refers to it, the show,

01:15:19 ◼   ► oh, the show with Selena Gomez in it.

01:15:21 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, also Steve Martin and Martin Short

01:15:23 ◼   ► are in it for the olds.

01:15:25 ◼   ► It's like a comedy murder mystery about podcasting.

01:15:30 ◼   ► It's great. - I can't watch it.

01:15:31 ◼   ► I can't do it.

01:15:32 ◼   ► I'm sure it's good.

01:15:33 ◼   ► Adina's watching it right now and she loves it.

01:15:35 ◼   ► I can't watch things about podcasting.

01:15:37 ◼   ► I can't do it.

01:15:38 ◼   ► - I actually think the portrayal of podcasting,

01:15:40 ◼   ► although unrealistic in some ways,

01:15:42 ◼   ► is very realistic in other ways.

01:15:43 ◼   ► And I think it's funny. - That's maybe part of why

01:15:45 ◼   ► I can't do it as well.

01:15:46 ◼   ► Like I just can't bring myself to do it.

01:15:48 ◼   ► - You know, the episode title comes up

01:15:50 ◼   ► and it's in like a little overcast kind of interface

01:15:52 ◼   ► and it makes me laugh every time.

01:15:54 ◼   ► It's so good.

01:15:55 ◼   ► "Invincible" on Amazon Prime video,

01:15:58 ◼   ► animated series about superheroes and a family,

01:16:03 ◼   ► and it's not for kids, but I loved it.

01:16:06 ◼   ► I think it's one of my favorite comic books,

01:16:08 ◼   ► and I think a great adaptation, really, really well done.

01:16:13 ◼   ► "It's a Sin," which was from the BBC,

01:16:14 ◼   ► but it's on HBO Max in America by Russell T. Davis,

01:16:18 ◼   ► about a group of friends in the early days

01:16:22 ◼   ► of the AIDS epidemic, and if I describe it that way,

01:16:27 ◼   ► and you think, oh, this is gonna be one of those sad dramas

01:16:32 ◼   ► where everybody dies, it's not.

01:16:36 ◼   ► It's actually joyful and wonderful and sad all at once.

01:16:41 ◼   ► And I think it's a masterwork.

01:16:47 ◼   ► I think it is just, it's worth your time.

01:16:49 ◼   ► It's five episodes, I think.

01:16:51 ◼   ► So well done.

01:16:53 ◼   ► And last, I'll throw in "What We Do in the Shadows,"

01:16:57 ◼   ► which had a third season, I think, on FX and on Hulu.

01:17:00 ◼   ► And that is just a funny show,

01:17:03 ◼   ► funny, dumb show about vampires, and I love it.

01:17:06 ◼   ► - No spoilers.

01:17:07 ◼   ► I'll just say we watched

01:17:09 ◼   ► "What We Do in the Shadows" season three this week.

01:17:12 ◼   ► Didn't like the ending.

01:17:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know what they're doing there.

01:17:16 ◼   ► - I think the worlds fell off a little bit.

01:17:19 ◼   ► I think two things might've happened.

01:17:21 ◼   ► I think one, they're maybe not sure if they had a season four when they wrote it.

01:17:25 ◼   ► I also think they had maybe five writers had different ways they wanted to end the season,

01:17:30 ◼   ► and over the span of like three episodes, they did all of them.

01:17:33 ◼   ► - They did them all.

01:17:34 ◼   ► - And I'm not sure that that was the right way to go.

01:17:37 ◼   ► - I mostly watch that for the jokes and the characters and not for the plot,

01:17:40 ◼   ► but yeah, at the end, there's sort of a lot of plot that happens.

01:17:42 ◼   ► You're like, you just, and honestly, my whole reaction is like,

01:17:46 ◼   ► you're just gonna undo this all next year.

01:17:48 ◼   ► If you come back, you're gonna literally undo everything.

01:17:51 ◼   ► And that's what makes it even more weird to me, because it's like if they do another one,

01:17:55 ◼   ► they have five things to undo.

01:17:58 ◼   ► Love that show though, like the whole thing.

01:18:00 ◼   ► For me, seasons one and two are better than season three, but season three also still

01:18:05 ◼   ► really good.

01:18:07 ◼   ► My favorite shows of the year, Ted Lasso was an easy one for me to be in there.

01:18:13 ◼   ► I've got a real-time correction by the way, because this is what I do.

01:18:15 ◼   ► I always joke about how I just conflate all British television to the BBC.

01:18:20 ◼   ► a sentence from Channel 4, or as I like to think of it, BBC 4, but it's not. It's Channel

01:18:26 ◼   ► 4, it's a commercial broadcaster in the UK. It's a great show though. Okay, please resume

01:18:29 ◼   ► Ted Lasso.

01:18:30 ◼   ► Ted Lasso, easy pick for me. The Morning Show, great second season. Way better than a season

01:18:35 ◼   ► one. If you watched season one, didn't like how it ended, watched season two, it's way

01:18:39 ◼   ► better in a good way.

01:18:40 ◼   ► Okay, I guess I'll have to do that because I watched season one and I thought it was

01:18:42 ◼   ► okay, but I didn't like how it ended and I have not been motivated to watch it, even

01:18:46 ◼   ► though I've been planning on it, so this will be a spur to put it more on the watch list

01:18:50 ◼   ► and we'll get back to it.

01:18:51 ◼   ► If I can give two more recommendations for it.

01:18:52 ◼   ► One, I think they learned what the show is and they made it that.

01:18:57 ◼   ► And there is an episode of this season which is maybe the best episode of TV I've seen

01:19:03 ◼   ► this year.

01:19:04 ◼   ► The rest of the season isn't as good as this, which is why it's not my favourite show of

01:19:08 ◼   ► the year, but it's one of my favourite shows of the year.

01:19:12 ◼   ► For All Mankind, it's just superb.

01:19:14 ◼   ► I think it's probably Apple's best show.

01:19:17 ◼   ► my favourite but they're best right? I just think it is every episode is excellent. Loki

01:19:24 ◼   ► is my favourite Disney and Marvel project that they've done but my I think my personal

01:19:30 ◼   ► favourite television show this year is Dexter New Blood so if you're a fan of Dexter you

01:19:36 ◼   ► have to be a fan of Dexter to watch the show if you don't there's no point but it is the

01:19:41 ◼   ► only television show this year where I have been like all of these other shows I'm like

01:19:46 ◼   ► "Oh great, it's Ted Lasso Day" or "Oh great, it's for Mankind Day"

01:19:52 ◼   ► But with Dexter, I'm like, I cannot wait for Monday

01:19:57 ◼   ► Because I mean, it's a thriller, right? So it has that to it

01:20:00 ◼   ► There is a cliffhanger at the end of every episode of the show, right?

01:20:03 ◼   ► So like, you are motivated to want more of it

01:20:06 ◼   ► But it's just like a really smart way that they have brought the character back for

01:20:10 ◼   ► I believe it's just going to be this one season as a way to put a better bow on the series

01:20:16 ◼   ► - Right, because everybody hated how it ended, yeah.

01:20:19 ◼   ► - And this is, they've done a bunch of really smart stuff

01:20:22 ◼   ► and they have a ton of new characters

01:20:25 ◼   ► and they've integrated some of the old previous stories

01:20:27 ◼   ► into it really well and old characters into it really well.

01:20:30 ◼   ► It is excellent.

01:20:31 ◼   ► If you watched Dexter and liked it,

01:20:33 ◼   ► if you watched Dexter and hated how Dexter ended,

01:20:36 ◼   ► do yourself a favor and watch Dexter New Blood.

01:20:38 ◼   ► So that's my recommendation.

01:20:39 ◼   ► I'm not gonna try and petition it as the winner.

01:20:42 ◼   ► It would be my personal runner up.

01:20:45 ◼   ► So let's do, here's my suggestion, winner for all mankind, runners-up, Ted Lasso and Loki.

01:20:52 ◼   ► I'm good with that. I'm good with that. So for all mankind, we'll win.

01:20:55 ◼   ► Kind of integrating all of our lists and the Upgradients list.

01:20:58 ◼   ► Yeah, and then Ted Lasso and Loki. Like, here's the thing,

01:21:01 ◼   ► Ted Lasso season two was still really great. It was never going to be like Ted Lasso won.

01:21:08 ◼   ► And I don't know how it could be because it's impossible.

01:21:13 ◼   ► - That first season was act one,

01:21:16 ◼   ► where everybody gets to know each other and everything.

01:21:19 ◼   ► And like, you can't, really season two is like, okay,

01:21:23 ◼   ► now we need to tell the rest of the story here.

01:21:25 ◼   ► - But also season one, the surprise of what the show is.

01:21:30 ◼   ► - It's true.

01:21:32 ◼   ► It was magic.

01:21:32 ◼   ► It was locked down.

01:21:33 ◼   ► It was magic.

01:21:34 ◼   ► It was a shot of happiness.

01:21:36 ◼   ► It was so many things that can't be replicated,

01:21:38 ◼   ► but I do think Ted Lasso season two is very good.

01:21:41 ◼   ► - Oh, it's excellent.

01:21:42 ◼   ► It's just not ever --

01:21:44 ◼   ► Nothing is ever gonna be season one of "Ted Lasso," honestly.

01:21:47 ◼   ► Like, it's kind of perfect in that way.

01:21:49 ◼   ► -And I think "For All Mankind" --

01:21:52 ◼   ► "For All Mankind" season two was better

01:21:54 ◼   ► than "For All Mankind" season one, in my opinion.

01:21:57 ◼   ► And so that's why I would push for that.

01:22:00 ◼   ► -I agree. I agree. -Because they improved that show,

01:22:03 ◼   ► even though it already started on an excellent footing.

01:22:06 ◼   ► The problem with "Ted Lasso" is there was no improving on it.

01:22:10 ◼   ► First season was perfect.

01:22:11 ◼   ► you can't prove on that but they lived up to it about as good as possible.

01:22:16 ◼   ► Favourite book category?

01:22:18 ◼   ► Yay! It's my category.

01:22:19 ◼   ► With 7% for Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey, 7% for The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green,

01:22:28 ◼   ► and 17.6% to Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

01:22:33 ◼   ► I've read two of those.

01:22:34 ◼   ► Okay.

01:22:36 ◼   ► I'm gonna tell you seven things that I really enjoyed

01:22:40 ◼   ► in books this year.

01:22:42 ◼   ► I'm just doing a lot of sevens.

01:22:43 ◼   ► This is kind of organic.

01:22:44 ◼   ► I didn't choose a bunch of sevens,

01:22:46 ◼   ► but that's how it ended up.

01:22:47 ◼   ► So I guess I can hold sevens.

01:22:49 ◼   ► - A lot of sevens for the eighth upgrade-ies.

01:22:51 ◼   ► - A lot of thinking of holding seven things

01:22:54 ◼   ► I love in my mind.

01:22:55 ◼   ► So this, I looked on Goodreads

01:22:57 ◼   ► because I do log the books I read.

01:23:00 ◼   ► I only started doing that with movies this year,

01:23:05 ◼   ► but I have been doing that with books for a while now.

01:23:09 ◼   ► So you can check out my Goodreads, I guess,

01:23:11 ◼   ► if you wanna see all the books that I read this year

01:23:13 ◼   ► with their--

01:23:14 ◼   ► - Check out my Goodreads, smash the bell button.

01:23:17 ◼   ► - Smash the follow me on Goodreads button.

01:23:21 ◼   ► Here, and I read,

01:23:26 ◼   ► I think I read basically a novel a week this year.

01:23:28 ◼   ► I think not at that pace 'cause vacations you read more

01:23:31 ◼   ► and other times I read less,

01:23:32 ◼   ► but I think I'm gonna finish the year at about 52 books.

01:23:34 ◼   ► - That is obscene to me, in my brain, right?

01:23:39 ◼   ► Like, look, I didn't read any books this year.

01:23:40 ◼   ► - I know somebody who read 150, so, you know, but not me.

01:23:45 ◼   ► So these are the seven that I wanted to mention.

01:23:48 ◼   ► Piranesi is by the writer of Jonathan Strange

01:23:52 ◼   ► and Mr. Norell, which was like a thousand page book

01:23:54 ◼   ► that came out a decade ago.

01:23:55 ◼   ► This is a short book.

01:23:57 ◼   ► It was my favorite book of the year.

01:23:59 ◼   ► I love it.

01:24:00 ◼   ► It is weird, but delightful.

01:24:02 ◼   ► and it gets more, it starts out real weird

01:24:05 ◼   ► and then gets less weird as it goes in a good way

01:24:07 ◼   ► where you start to kind of understand what you're seeing.

01:24:08 ◼   ► But I think it's beautiful.

01:24:09 ◼   ► It is about a person who lives in a giant building

01:24:13 ◼   ► full of statues, classical statues,

01:24:15 ◼   ► and the sea is coming in and there are birds.

01:24:17 ◼   ► And they think that it's the entire world,

01:24:22 ◼   ► but it's not.

01:24:24 ◼   ► So it's amazing.

01:24:25 ◼   ► It's so strange, but I loved it.

01:24:28 ◼   ► Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse is a sort of Mesoamerican fantasy novel about like a...

01:24:37 ◼   ► I don't... I mean there's like there's the Black Sun cult that's trying to overthrow the people who are the rulers and

01:24:44 ◼   ► there's a kid who's supposedly the chosen one and they do terrible things to him, but he's brought to the...

01:24:50 ◼   ► He's brought to the city by a pirate and there's a whole like human sacrifice that's gonna happen and it's...

01:24:57 ◼   ► It's great. I loved it. That's first book in a trilogy. I can't wait for the second book to come out.

01:25:03 ◼   ► I thought it was great. Becky Chambers wrote a book called The Galaxy and the Ground Within,

01:25:07 ◼   ► which if I describe it to you, it will sound like the most boring book ever, because the plot is

01:25:12 ◼   ► basically, there's a traffic delay, and so a bunch of aliens of different kinds are stuck on a planet

01:25:19 ◼   ► for a while. That's the book. It's great. It's amazing. What do they do while they're stuck on

01:25:25 ◼   ► on a planet. I don't know, you know, they interact, they talk with each other. It's

01:25:28 ◼   ► great. I loved it. The Hidden Palace by my friend Helene Wecker is the sequel to her

01:25:34 ◼   ► book The Golem and the Genie. Both of those books are great if you have not read them.

01:25:38 ◼   ► They're set in New York in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when there were lots

01:25:43 ◼   ► of immigrants pouring into New York City, including in this world. Part of the Jewish

01:25:49 ◼   ► diaspora is a golem, a magical creature, and part of the Syrian diaspora is a genie. And

01:25:58 ◼   ► they meet and then there are two books about that. I read an older book this year, but

01:26:07 ◼   ► it took up a lot of time. It was Gnomon by Nick Harkaway. I gave it five stars, so I

01:26:14 ◼   ► have to mention it. It's like a thousand page book. It's like five books in one. I felt like

01:26:20 ◼   ► I accomplished something by reading it and I truly loved it. Just don't read it. Nobody should read

01:26:25 ◼   ► it. That's my warning to you because almost nobody will like it, but I loved it. It's one of those

01:26:34 ◼   ► things where I have to wave people off. They're like, "Oh, that sounds intriguing." It's like,

01:26:37 ◼   ► "No, no, no, no, no. You don't understand how weird and complicated this book is, but if you

01:26:42 ◼   ► do take up the challenge, you may be rewarded,

01:26:45 ◼   ► or you may bail within the first like 40 pages of this book,

01:26:49 ◼   ► but I loved it.

01:26:51 ◼   ► Michael Lewis's nonfiction book,

01:26:52 ◼   ► "The Premonition, a Pandemic Story,"

01:26:54 ◼   ► just really well done, loved it.

01:26:56 ◼   ► Not fiction, but nonfiction, it was good.

01:26:59 ◼   ► And then I discovered a series

01:27:01 ◼   ► that I read the entire series this year,

01:27:03 ◼   ► "The Divine Cities Trilogy" by Robert Jackson Bennett.

01:27:08 ◼   ► It's three books.

01:27:11 ◼   ► It's a kind of urbanish fantasy series,

01:27:15 ◼   ► and I read them all, I devoured them all,

01:27:19 ◼   ► and I love that when I read a book

01:27:21 ◼   ► and it's the first book in a series

01:27:22 ◼   ► and I can't put it down

01:27:24 ◼   ► because it means there's two more books

01:27:25 ◼   ► that I can't put down,

01:27:26 ◼   ► and all three of them are great.

01:27:28 ◼   ► In fact, arguably the series gets better as it goes along,

01:27:31 ◼   ► but the first one alone is "City of Stairs"

01:27:34 ◼   ► is worth reading.

01:27:36 ◼   ► So those are my seven reading picks for this year.

01:27:39 ◼   ► What did you read this year, Myke?

01:27:41 ◼   ► - I think I read something, but I don't remember what it was.

01:27:43 ◼   ► It wasn't anything I enjoyed.

01:27:45 ◼   ► - Fair.

01:27:46 ◼   ► Okay, so how do we do this?

01:27:49 ◼   ► - You have to put the Upgrading Award winner,

01:27:51 ◼   ► same as you do every year.

01:27:52 ◼   ► - Okay, Piranesi is the winner.

01:27:54 ◼   ► That was my favorite book of the year.

01:27:55 ◼   ► I am going to put the Galaxy in the Ground Within

01:28:00 ◼   ► as a runner up and we'll put, let's put Leviathan Falls,

01:28:03 ◼   ► which I also really enjoyed and was an Upgrading pick

01:28:07 ◼   ► as a runner up.

01:28:08 ◼   ► - Great.

01:28:09 ◼   ► - That's the last book in the Expanse series.

01:28:10 ◼   ► It was a good ending to a very good nine book series.

01:28:14 ◼   ► Yes.

01:28:15 ◼   ► - So the Galaxy in the Ground of Inn and Leviathan Falls.

01:28:19 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:28:20 ◼   ► - Are the runners up in this category.

01:28:22 ◼   ► Okay.

01:28:23 ◼   ► The Expanse is the TV show, right?

01:28:25 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:28:26 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:28:27 ◼   ► I didn't know it was a book series.

01:28:28 ◼   ► Or was it?

01:28:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's always, yeah, it's based on that series.

01:28:32 ◼   ► And the series is finishing with book six,

01:28:37 ◼   ► but there's also book seven, eight, nine.

01:28:39 ◼   ► I don't know what they're doing about that, but this is book nine.

01:28:43 ◼   ► So this is the end of that story.

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01:29:25 ◼   ► It's difficult especially these times, right, you're just a bit, I'm always a bit on edge

01:29:28 ◼   ► with medical stuff. I want to be seen when I want to be seen. Things can change, you

01:29:32 ◼   ► might not have the symptoms anymore, you just want to get that treatment. I also really

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01:30:29 ◼   ► Alright, we're now going to move into some hardware and technology focused categories.

01:30:36 ◼   ► First is favorite Apple product.

01:30:39 ◼   ► The Upgradians voted with 12.2% for the iPad mini, 12.7% for the MacBook Pro 16 inch and

01:30:48 ◼   ► 27.6% for the MacBook Pro 14 inch.

01:30:53 ◼   ► that MacBook Pro splitting the vote there.

01:30:55 ◼   ► It would have been a,

01:30:56 ◼   ► we would have been able to get another one in this category

01:30:59 ◼   ► if I were to put them together.

01:31:00 ◼   ► But to me, they are incredibly different products.

01:31:02 ◼   ► So I thought I would put them in there separately

01:31:05 ◼   ► and that's how it ended up being.

01:31:08 ◼   ► Jason, what is your favorite Apple product of the year?

01:31:11 ◼   ► - Well, I hate to diverge from the upgradients here,

01:31:15 ◼   ► but in my mind, the Apple product of the year

01:31:20 ◼   ► is the 24 inch M1 iMac.

01:31:23 ◼   ► When I saw this in your list, I was like,

01:31:26 ◼   ► oh, that's interesting.

01:31:29 ◼   ► I wouldn't have thought that that was where you

01:31:32 ◼   ► were gonna go with this,

01:31:33 ◼   ► but I actually kind of loved that you did.

01:31:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just, I think the iMac, I love iMacs.

01:31:40 ◼   ► I think they're important.

01:31:42 ◼   ► I know that laptops get more consideration.

01:31:44 ◼   ► I know that the MacBook Pro is a very important product

01:31:48 ◼   ► because they made, you know, some amazing,

01:31:52 ◼   ► good redesign decisions in terms of bringing back some ports, in terms of that screen,

01:31:56 ◼   ► which is amazing, and of course in being the place where they've unveiled their pro-level

01:32:00 ◼   ► processors for Apple Silicon. Absolutely, all those things are true. That said, I think

01:32:07 ◼   ► the iMac getting a complete redesign for the first time in almost a decade and bringing

01:32:14 ◼   ► in color and bringing that M1 power to the desktop and some of the interesting design

01:32:20 ◼   ► decisions in terms of the magnet and the ethernet on the cable and all of those

01:32:24 ◼   ► sort of things. I just... and the fact that, again, you can buy an orange or blue or

01:32:30 ◼   ► whatever, iMac. This is favorite Apple product. Is it is it as powerful as the

01:32:35 ◼   ► MacBook Pro? Of course not. It doesn't have as good a screen as the MacBook Pro. Of

01:32:39 ◼   ► course it doesn't. And yet, it is my favorite. I love that they updated the

01:32:44 ◼   ► iMac. I love that they did it the way they did it. I think they did a great job. I

01:32:48 ◼   ► I think it's a beautiful product.

01:32:51 ◼   ► And so that's my choice.

01:32:54 ◼   ► That's my number one.

01:32:57 ◼   ► - I mean, I love the machine I bought once.

01:32:59 ◼   ► I love it so much I bought one.

01:33:01 ◼   ► And I use it every day.

01:33:02 ◼   ► It's what I use to record and edit my shows on.

01:33:05 ◼   ► Like you, I think it was the perfect machine

01:33:08 ◼   ► for what it is made for, and then some, right?

01:33:11 ◼   ► Like it is the perfect machine for what it's made for.

01:33:13 ◼   ► Oh, and also by the way, it's really powerful

01:33:15 ◼   ► 'cause it has an M1 chip in it.

01:33:17 ◼   ► and they made it in colors and I have a yellow one.

01:33:19 ◼   ► It's like so good.

01:33:20 ◼   ► I really love that machine.

01:33:23 ◼   ► I went with, and I echo you here, right?

01:33:26 ◼   ► I echo you.

01:33:27 ◼   ► But I, for me personally, I put in the 14 inch MacBook Pro.

01:33:31 ◼   ► It's just an incredible computer.

01:33:34 ◼   ► It's incredibly powerful, looks fantastic.

01:33:36 ◼   ► Screen is amazing.

01:33:38 ◼   ► They reverted a bunch of weird decisions.

01:33:42 ◼   ► You know, they got rid of the touch bar,

01:33:43 ◼   ► they kept touch ID, they brought some ports back,

01:33:46 ◼   ► brought back MagSafe.

01:33:49 ◼   ► Just a great machine all around.

01:33:51 ◼   ► It looks great.

01:33:52 ◼   ► I love the look of it just in general.

01:33:53 ◼   ► The hardware design of it is great.

01:33:56 ◼   ► I wished it was a little lighter.

01:33:58 ◼   ► I wished it was a little thinner, but not so much that it would change my opinion about

01:34:03 ◼   ► this machine.

01:34:04 ◼   ► And I also love the iPad mini.

01:34:05 ◼   ► I think the new iPad mini is the best iPad for content consumption that Apple has ever

01:34:10 ◼   ► made.

01:34:11 ◼   ► I think that it is perfectly sized.

01:34:14 ◼   ► It looks fantastic.

01:34:15 ◼   ► It's got all of the right features that you would want

01:34:17 ◼   ► out of an iPad for watching video, reading stuff,

01:34:21 ◼   ► like communication and that kind of stuff.

01:34:23 ◼   ► So these two machines, the MacBook Pro and the iPad mini,

01:34:26 ◼   ► they've been really great for me this year.

01:34:29 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:34:30 ◼   ► - So.

01:34:30 ◼   ► - What are we gonna do?

01:34:31 ◼   ► - So, I mean, so obviously I and the Upgradians

01:34:35 ◼   ► vote the same. - It's true.

01:34:37 ◼   ► It's true.

01:34:37 ◼   ► - But I also really love yours.

01:34:40 ◼   ► - You can have it.

01:34:41 ◼   ► I mean, I can be outvoted here

01:34:42 ◼   ► unless you're willing to flip over to my side here,

01:34:45 ◼   ► but it's a great choice.

01:34:47 ◼   ► I mean, the 14-inch MacBook Pro is a great choice.

01:34:51 ◼   ► It is a milestone in the comeback of the Mac

01:34:55 ◼   ► after kind of five years in the Doldrums.

01:34:58 ◼   ► - I would really love to give it to the M1 iMac,

01:35:01 ◼   ► but honestly, I feel like it would be doing a disservice

01:35:04 ◼   ► to the MacBook Pro,

01:35:06 ◼   ► which I think actually really deserves to win this.

01:35:09 ◼   ► - All right, so let's make it the winner,

01:35:11 ◼   ► and let's make the 24-inch iMac and the iPad mini

01:35:16 ◼   ► the runners up.

01:35:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I love that. - Because I agree with you

01:35:18 ◼   ► about the iPad mini, it's great.

01:35:19 ◼   ► - Man, when I looked at this list,

01:35:24 ◼   ► someone mentioned to me that I forgot to put

01:35:25 ◼   ► the Apple remote on this list,

01:35:28 ◼   ► which sure, I did forget to put that on this list.

01:35:30 ◼   ► - I've got it covered in another category yet to come.

01:35:33 ◼   ► - But I don't think it was gonna win this list.

01:35:35 ◼   ► - No. - It's fantastic, right?

01:35:38 ◼   ► But just in general, when I was putting this whole,

01:35:41 ◼   ► selection together. It has been a super good year for Apple products. In a year that had

01:35:46 ◼   ► I think a very good iPhone that didn't even rank in that top three. Makes sense.

01:35:51 ◼   ► You didn't even mention them.

01:35:52 ◼   ► No, didn't mention, didn't need to. Because everything else has been so excellent as well.

01:35:57 ◼   ► It's made it even harder for the general good products to even come near to them. So, a

01:36:01 ◼   ► great year. Now we're going to do the best non-Apple product of the year. The Upgrading

01:36:07 ◼   ► voted with 3.1% for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3, which I was like super happy to see. I agree,

01:36:13 ◼   ► great product, but I was not expecting it to see in this list. The Google Pixel 6 Pro at 3.5%

01:36:19 ◼   ► and the Nintendo Switch OLED at 9.7%. I didn't put in, I mean, I guess I could put the Oculus

01:36:29 ◼   ► Quest 2, but it really did come out last year and I got it last year at the end of the year and I've

01:36:34 ◼   ► I've enjoyed it, but I'm not gonna put it on the list.

01:36:36 ◼   ► The product I'm going to put on this list

01:36:38 ◼   ► in terms of hardware,

01:36:40 ◼   ► this is the year that I switched from Kindle to Kobo.

01:36:45 ◼   ► I bought a Kobo Libra, they came out with the Kobo Libra 2,

01:36:47 ◼   ► I'm using that now.

01:36:49 ◼   ► It is, for my money, the best balance of features

01:36:54 ◼   ► in an e-reader and price in an e-reader.

01:36:57 ◼   ► It's got physical page turn buttons,

01:36:59 ◼   ► but it's way cheaper than Amazon's high-end Kindle,

01:37:03 ◼   ► which is the only one that's got physical page turn buttons.

01:37:05 ◼   ► The ergonomics are good.

01:37:07 ◼   ► The screen is great.

01:37:08 ◼   ► It's waterproof.

01:37:09 ◼   ► And Kobo is not Amazon,

01:37:12 ◼   ► which I kind of like not being,