00:00:24 ◼ ► The Upgradies Awards for 2018 are brought to you by Pingdom, Luna Display, Kain11, and Eero.
00:00:46 ◼ ► The Upgradians have been voting en masse. I cannot believe this is our 5th year for the Upgradies.
00:00:56 ◼ ► When I think back to the 2014 Upgradies, the 1st Annual Upgradies, or as we said at the time,
00:01:03 ◼ ► the Upgradies, because there's no such thing as 1st Annual, it's hard to believe how far we've come
00:01:10 ◼ ► in that people submit things and we're organized and 5 years in we have a track record now,
00:01:18 ◼ ► we have a history of giving out awards. It's quite a thing. It is everything I think you
00:01:31 ◼ ► I wanted to do something special for the 5th year. So we have something new, and that is
00:01:38 ◼ ► Upgradies.com. I have been working with Zach Knox. Zach is responsible for the Interactive
00:01:45 ◼ ► Draft Scorecards. With Zach's help, we have built a website that hosts every runner up and winner
00:01:53 ◼ ► of all of the Upgradies in history, including the 2018. So I would maybe suggest you can go
00:02:01 ◼ ► to the website, but don't look at the 2018s if you don't want to see spoilers. But that's all
00:02:05 ◼ ► going to be there and that is going to live now. And every year we will add more and more to that
00:02:10 ◼ ► site. We'll add all of the information and I want to get your feedback and we can try and add some
00:02:15 ◼ ► different features. But I'm super excited about this. It has all of the information going back
00:02:20 ◼ ► from 2014 to now with every runner up and every winner in all the categories, including the
00:02:26 ◼ ► Lifetime Achievement Award winners. Zach has been incredible to work with on this and I am so,
00:02:31 ◼ ► so excited that we now have Upgradies.com and that is our way that we will celebrate our fifth
00:02:36 ◼ ► annual Upgrady Awards. Yeah, you know what we should do is we should make it so that the website
00:02:40 ◼ ► plays the Upgradies music in the background or something just to be extra fancy. I don't know.
00:02:45 ◼ ► And the like of this confetti falls from the top of the website. Oh yeah. Let's run over some of
00:02:52 ◼ ► the rules just before we get into our first categories. So we are keeping the same categories
00:02:57 ◼ ► as last year. Nothing's changed there. We've not added anything. We've kept the same categories.
00:03:01 ◼ ► As also from the 2017 Upgradies, we have brought in the votes from the listeners, from our
00:03:07 ◼ ► Upgradients. So we've had nominations throughout every single category and what we'll do is we're
00:03:14 ◼ ► going to be stating the three highest percentage Upgradient votes. So the three items or apps or
00:03:21 ◼ ► shows or whatever it is for each category that got the highest percentage of votes from the
00:03:26 ◼ ► Upgradients. We will also be adding in our own nominations and then me and Jason will discuss
00:03:32 ◼ ► for each category which one we think will take the win for that category. And also as a note,
00:03:40 ◼ ► we have Lifetime Achievement Award winners. These are for any app, for any service, for any show,
00:03:46 ◼ ► for any story that has won three Upgradies will become a Lifetime Achievement Award winner,
00:03:52 ◼ ► which means that it won't be eligible for any future voting. But we will mention it every
00:03:57 ◼ ► single year as a Lifetime Achievement Award winner because I think there are some categories that
00:04:18 ◼ ► The first category is for the best overall iOS app. I will start with our Upgradient votes. So
00:04:27 ◼ ► in third place is Apollo for Reddit, which is a Reddit client, Apollo, with 7% of the vote,
00:04:34 ◼ ► followed up by 1Password with 7% of the vote. And with a huge 40% of the Upgradients votes is
00:04:44 ◼ ► Overcast by Marco Ahman, the podcast app that I am expecting probably around the same amount
00:04:49 ◼ ► of percentage of our listeners are listening to this show in right now. So that's a pretty huge
00:04:56 ◼ ► win from the Upgradients votes there for Overcast. When I was adding all of that up and I was doing,
00:05:03 ◼ ► I had this very complicated spreadsheet, Jason, that I built, which does some calculations that
00:05:08 ◼ ► I don't remember how I made it. So I made it last year and left it for myself in Google Sheets.
00:05:13 ◼ ► And when I opened it this year, I was like, "I have no idea how it's doing any of this,
00:05:21 ◼ ► That's a big percentage there for Overcast. Well, you know, 100% of Upgrade listeners listen
00:05:27 ◼ ► to podcasts. They most certainly do. And a lot of them listen on Overcast. Yeah, story checks out.
00:05:36 ◼ ► Well, I'm going to take you back to the episode we did a couple weeks ago where we talked about
00:05:50 ◼ ► new iPad together have kind of, I don't want to say rekindled because I use, when I travel,
00:05:56 ◼ ► especially, I do podcast editing on my iPad and have done that for a couple of years now.
00:06:02 ◼ ► But with upgrades to the software, there was a new version this year, the Apple Pencil,
00:06:07 ◼ ► the new iPad Pro. I am now using Ferrite Recording Studio version two to edit. I actually edited the
00:06:14 ◼ ► last like six episodes of The Incomparable on it, even though I haven't been traveling.
00:06:24 ◼ ► even though I've got my iMac Pro here at my desk because I like doing it so much. So I think,
00:06:30 ◼ ► and believe it or not, although it is a newcomer winner in the past, it has never been nominated
00:06:38 ◼ ► for this. So I'm going to say Ferrite Recording Studio 2 is my favorite overall iOS app.
00:06:44 ◼ ► So for me, I was really putting some thought into this and, you know, like OnePassword, Overcast,
00:06:51 ◼ ► right? Some of the upgrading folks like totally get it. Like I use these apps every single day.
00:06:55 ◼ ► I love them. But I was thinking like if I think about an application over the last year since the
00:07:01 ◼ ► previous upgrade is, has continued to move forward. For me, I'm going to be putting my vote again with
00:07:08 ◼ ► the winner of last year in this entire category, which is Carrot Weather. I love Carrot Weather.
00:07:14 ◼ ► And I think for me is a shining example of an application that just continues to be progressed.
00:07:21 ◼ ► I think that it is wonderful. The features just keep getting added and added and added. Like,
00:07:26 ◼ ► I feel like every few weeks, maybe every couple of months, there's like new big features being
00:07:30 ◼ ► added to the app. It only continues to get better. So for me, it is my nomination for best overall
00:07:48 ◼ ► I actually only started using Carrot Weather, I think last year. It may have even been after
00:07:53 ◼ ► you praised it so much. And yeah, it's great. I use it all the time. I use it on my Apple Watch.
00:08:00 ◼ ► It's got, there's that angle, which I know you don't use an Apple Watch anymore, but the...
00:08:06 ◼ ► The customization you can do on complications is remarkable. I, yeah, I like it a lot. I,
00:08:13 ◼ ► I, you know, it's, it's a weather app. I don't use weather apps on my phone all the time,
00:08:27 ◼ ► no consensus. So really what we have available to us, I guess, is these five apps, right? Carrot
00:08:36 ◼ ► Weather, Ferrite, Apollo, 1Password, and Overcast. And now we need to come to a decision about which
00:08:47 ◼ ► Well, what's funny is that the three apps that have been put forward, two of them have won the
00:08:52 ◼ ► best iOS app, and one of them has won the best newcomer iOS app. So we know they're all
00:08:59 ◼ ► applications. They're all previous award winners. These are already... Mm-hmm. They are. They are.
00:09:03 ◼ ► I don't know, Myke, this is always difficult because this is, this is the, this is the stuff
00:09:22 ◼ ► Overcast. It's easily one of my favorite iOS apps. I agree. And I think the work that Marco
00:09:27 ◼ ► has done this year on the redesign of the now playing screen is wonderful. I absolutely love
00:09:32 ◼ ► it. It's given the app like a fresh coat of paint for me. It continues to be as, for me,
00:09:37 ◼ ► as good as it's ever been. And I think is only getting better. So I would have no problem at all
00:09:49 ◼ ► I would choose Overcast over Carrot Weather, I think. And you're saying you would choose
00:09:53 ◼ ► Overcast over Fairite? Here's the thing. Fairite is a great app. I know it's a great app because
00:09:59 ◼ ► you use it. I just don't use it. Yeah. Yeah. And I am, I am like, I can sit, I continue to think
00:10:06 ◼ ► of the day that I will, but it's still not that time for me, you know, like I've tinkered around
00:10:11 ◼ ► with it, but you know, this, and this is the same with any, I think any pro application on any
00:10:16 ◼ ► platform has this problem. I open it and I don't know what to do. Right. Like I am overwhelmed by
00:10:27 ◼ ► like affinity design and, and you know, like, you know, like on iOS and like, I just had to close
00:10:33 ◼ ► it after 10 minutes. It's like, I cannot fathom what I'm supposed to do here, even though I know
00:10:38 ◼ ► people do amazing things with them. Yeah. Well, it requires work to get into a pro app and to figure
00:10:44 ◼ ► it out. And if you're using some other tool for that task now, as you are with Logic, we were just
00:10:50 ◼ ► having a conversation with Stephen Hackett about this very thing. Like it's not Logic, it's
00:10:54 ◼ ► different and you have to adapt. And I remember, I remember why I got, I got a copy of Logic and it
00:11:02 ◼ ► sat in a box. That's how long ago it was for more than a year before I attempted to edit a podcast
00:11:10 ◼ ► in Logic, because I knew that when I took that, instead of doing an edit in two or three hours,
00:11:19 ◼ ► I knew that when I switched to Logic, it was going to take me two, three times as long because I was
00:11:24 ◼ ► going to have to figure it out as I went and not just once, but like two, three times as long for
00:11:29 ◼ ► months. And it's, you know, it's a big ask to go and adopt any new piece of especially complex pro
00:11:39 ◼ ► software, especially if you're used to thinking of it in a certain way. So that it's a real
00:11:43 ◼ ► challenge. And, you know, I, I decided to dive in a few years ago and I have no regrets, but it is
00:11:50 ◼ ► hard, especially if you've got, you know, your iMac sitting there with Logic and you know exactly what
00:11:54 ◼ ► to do and you can do it in, you know, the most efficient way possible. And I think, I think I
00:12:00 ◼ ► struggle to give this award to a professional app, honestly, like especially in such a narrow
00:12:09 ◼ ► category, which is podcast production on the iPad. Um, again, it's, this is nothing against
00:12:14 ◼ ► Ferrite. It's just, this is like, what is the best overall iOS app? Uh, that's, that's where I,
00:12:21 ◼ ► it becomes more complicated for me. I will say when somebody says, what, what iOS app are you
00:12:25 ◼ ► most excited about coming to the Mac in 2019? I, I answer Ferrite. Me too though, because
00:12:31 ◼ ► there being a tool on all platforms, which is the same probably, uh, that I know can produce
00:12:38 ◼ ► podcasts because Jason does it. That, that makes Ferrite an even more tantalizing prospect to me,
00:12:45 ◼ ► but it's still not where I'm gonna like start editing right now. Right? Like the, this episode
00:12:51 ◼ ► of upgrade is not going to be edited in Ferrite, but I mean, I'm going to do it in Logic because
00:12:55 ◼ ► it's what I know and trust, but... Or is it? No, it's not. It's not. I think we should give this
00:13:01 ◼ ► one to the listeners, Myke. Okay. So we're going to say then that the 2018 winner for the best iOS
00:13:08 ◼ ► app is Overcast. And what I think is so wonderful about this is Overcast was the first winner in
00:13:14 ◼ ► this category and it is now in the fifth. So congratulations to Marco Arment of Overcast
00:13:21 ◼ ► for this win. And congratulations to the Upgradians, I guess, because they, uh, they took
00:13:26 ◼ ► it from us. They sure did. Again, like, you know, I totally get the bias in this, right? Like you
00:13:33 ◼ ► listen to podcasts, you probably like podcast apps. It makes perfect sense, but that is why
00:13:37 ◼ ► these are the awards from a podcast. And I think it fits perfectly. I, I, I agree. It's also in my
00:13:44 ◼ ► dock on my iPhone. Like it is one of the four apps that I use the most on my iPhone. Absolutely.
00:13:50 ◼ ► So when I, we're now going to move into the best newcomer iOS app. When I was looking at the, uh,
00:13:58 ◼ ► the Upgradians votes for the best overall iOS app and saw that 40% swing for Overcast, I was like,
00:14:05 ◼ ► there's no way anything's going to beat that. Well, I was wrong. So these are the Upgradians
00:14:09 ◼ ► votes drafts five and at 5.1% of the vote Apollo for Reddit, which technically came out in October
00:14:17 ◼ ► of 2017, but it got 6.9% of the vote. So I'm kind of fine with being in there, but the winner with
00:14:25 ◼ ► 46.5% of the Upgradians votes for the best newcomer iOS app in 2018 is Shortcuts. Shortcuts.
00:14:34 ◼ ► This one feels pretty cotton dry to me, Jason. You know, the, um, you know, what's funny is that,
00:14:42 ◼ ► um, I believe we put in our, in our entries before the results of the Upgradians were known
00:14:54 ◼ ► This is, you know, what, what better iOS app has occurred this year? And I know it comes from
00:15:02 ◼ ► Apple technically, but this, this app is, you know, look, workflow one in 2014 is best newcomer.
00:15:09 ◼ ► Yes. Again, the original winner has sort of come back around again, uh, to be the winner in the
00:15:15 ◼ ► newcomer category, which is weird, but, uh, it makes sense. One best iOS app workflow did in
00:15:21 ◼ ► 2016. So it has only, you know, it has a great lineage in these awards, you know, like the
00:15:27 ◼ ► workflow has, because it is such an incredible application and when it becomes part of Apple,
00:15:38 ◼ ► Yeah, it's, it's a huge step that such a great app got swallowed whole by Apple and then just
00:15:46 ◼ ► emerged as itself, but now it's on the inside and it has all the power and the marketing reach and
00:15:53 ◼ ► all of these things and they, they didn't mess it up. I mean, that's the, that's the bottom line is
00:15:57 ◼ ► that not only is it great, but Apple didn't like break it into little pieces and make it kind of
00:16:02 ◼ ► a muted version of itself. It is still, you know, all the stuff we loved about workflow and then
00:16:09 ◼ ► access to new stuff and with a huge amount of potential on the horizon. So, uh, yeah, it's, uh,
00:16:15 ◼ ► it's great. This one's easy. It's very easy when, you know, short shortcuts, best newcomer iOS app
00:16:22 ◼ ► 2018. It's kind of funny. It's now won three awards, but not in the same category. It's,
00:16:28 ◼ ► I never would have imagined an app to win best newcomer twice. Twice. How could that be? Right.
00:16:32 ◼ ► But I think it's totally legit. I feel like the counter starts again with shortcuts, you know,
00:16:37 ◼ ► it's, it's, it's different now. This is a new owner, new name. Uh, and, and as you said about
00:16:43 ◼ ► Apollo coming out in 2017, it's like also, you know, we make the rules. So yeah, we make these
00:16:51 ◼ ► rules. All right. Let's take a break before we get into the, uh, best overall Mac app. Uh, the best
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00:18:13 ◼ ► OmniFocus. 4.9% of the vote goes to Things. This was super interesting to me. One that they're
00:18:20 ◼ ► so close and then also that Things won because OmniFocus seems to really be the flag bearer
00:18:28 ◼ ► for this stuff. And then at 5.6% of the vote is 1Password. This category had probably the most
00:18:38 ◼ ► singular entries of any category because the Upgradients got to just write in what their
00:18:44 ◼ ► favorite Mac apps were and oh boy was there some stuff I'd never heard of. But it's super close in
00:18:48 ◼ ► the vote. 1Password at 5.6% takes the Upgradients votes. Jason, I'm going to be completely honest
00:18:54 ◼ ► with you here. I have no real dog in this race. I don't really know where to put my vote. It's just
00:19:02 ◼ ► going to go to stuff that I've voted for in the past. The tools that I am using. Tools like Final
00:19:07 ◼ ► Cut or Logic or Audio Hijack. That's where my vote is going to go. For me, I don't really know where
00:19:15 ◼ ► to put it. So I want to see what you have to say and then contrast that with the Upgradients.
00:19:21 ◼ ► - Well, here's the truth, Myke. And this goes back to our conversation about iOS. I think it
00:19:27 ◼ ► says a lot about where the Mac is today and where it's going. This is a category and doing my
00:19:34 ◼ ► favorites of the year list for six colors. And quite honestly, even back when I worked at Mac
00:19:38 ◼ ► World, the Eddy Awards got harder and harder to come up with Mac Awards in because the Mac as a
00:19:45 ◼ ► platform, there's still some stuff happening, but it is slow. It has sort of crystallized. That's
00:19:53 ◼ ► just the truth of it. I think that's one of the huge motivators behind Apple trying to make it
00:19:58 ◼ ► possible for people who use UIKit to write iOS apps to have those apps run on the Mac is that
00:20:03 ◼ ► it's they've got a huge developer base that knows how to make iOS apps and they can't write Mac apps
00:20:10 ◼ ► without learning new stuff. And this is going to be a much easier path for them. And I would
00:20:14 ◼ ► make a prediction that next year's Mac apps categories and the Upgradients are going to be
00:20:19 ◼ ► way more interesting because of it. And so, I mean, this is just the truth. I love my Mac,
00:20:25 ◼ ► but my Mac, the tools I use on my Mac are largely versions of the tools I used on my Mac a long time
00:20:30 ◼ ► ago. It doesn't really change. In fact, one might say the appeal of the Mac is that it doesn't
00:20:35 ◼ ► really change, that it's the tools that you... That's the kind of tool it is now is it's the
00:20:39 ◼ ► stuff that you rely on. Like BB Edit, I could give BB Edit an award every time because I've been using
00:20:45 ◼ ► it to write on my Mac for 20 years or whatever. And if you look at our winners in these categories,
00:20:52 ◼ ► it is often just the tools we use because the most important things we do on our Mac, you and I,
00:20:57 ◼ ► are our professional tools. So in this category, Final Cut, Logic, Audio Hijack, and Fantastic
00:21:05 ◼ ► Hal when it came out, which is a great app, but it's a utility and Fantastic Hal 2, one best
00:21:11 ◼ ► newcomer. So, I mean, there's not a huge flow of Mac apps where you're like, "Whoa, this blows me
00:21:17 ◼ ► away." The apps that I spend most of my time in, and this has been true for the last few years,
00:21:22 ◼ ► there's probably five of them, and they haven't changed. It's what's in my talk, right? It's like
00:21:29 ◼ ► Safari and Twitterrific and Slack and iTunes and Fantastic Hal and maybe something like
00:21:37 ◼ ► Sound Studio and it's Logic and Final Cut and BB Edit. And I mean, it's the tools... So what I'm
00:21:44 ◼ ► saying is it's not a very exciting category. - This was the reason we created the Upgradients
00:21:49 ◼ ► voting last year because the two of us couldn't really come up, especially in the newcomer Mac app
00:21:54 ◼ ► category as well. We just weren't sure that we had enough to say ourselves, so we brought in the
00:22:02 ◼ ► Upgradients and that has been great because these three applications, these three Mac apps, and
00:22:06 ◼ ► again, for the newcomer Mac app is maybe stuff with stuff I haven't used, some of it, and I think
00:22:11 ◼ ► that it adds into the conversation overall. But do you actually have a specific application that you
00:22:19 ◼ ► wanted to pick rather than just going to the Upgradients for this vote? - I did and I did not
00:22:24 ◼ ► look at our history when I picked it. Basically, I wanna put in, and again, it's because of what I
00:22:30 ◼ ► do, but I wanna put a word in for Rogue Amoeba in general because that is a company that makes great
00:22:38 ◼ ► Mac apps and they make great Mac apps that are mostly around sound, they're around audio,
00:22:43 ◼ ► and they are building modern, great-looking, functional, clever Mac apps. And quite honestly,
00:22:52 ◼ ► this is an area where iOS can't eat the max lunch because iOS can't do audio stuff. iOS apps can't
00:22:59 ◼ ► do, they don't have access. And Rogue Amoeba... So I wrote down Audio Hijack, which has one before.
00:23:05 ◼ ► They've added some stuff this year. So all of the live streams we all do now are out of Audio
00:23:11 ◼ ► Hijack. That actually, while I was at your bachelor party... - Yeah, we were sitting next to each other
00:23:16 ◼ ► on the sofa. - Paul Kaphas has pushed out the beta note. Literally, 80% of the people on the
00:23:24 ◼ ► Audio Hijack beta for live streaming were in the room because it was you and me and Stephen and
00:23:29 ◼ ► Marco. I think Dan Warren was the only one other person on the beta list who wasn't there.
00:23:35 ◼ ► It was... But that was huge because they had discontinued their old app, NiceCast, and then
00:23:41 ◼ ► they built that app's functionality essentially into just an update to Audio Hijack. And so now
00:23:48 ◼ ► I can record. I record my microphone, the Skype connection. I build, for the incomparable, I build
00:23:54 ◼ ► our Bootleg MP3. It just... I don't do anything to it. When I'm done, I stop recording and I
00:24:00 ◼ ► upload the resulting Bootleg file that is set. It's an MP3, it's got the show art. And now I
00:24:04 ◼ ► live stream in there too. I'm compressing the audio on the fly so all the volumes are matched
00:24:10 ◼ ► in the Bootleg. That happens in Audio Hijack. It's amazing. And it's that super simple...
00:24:16 ◼ ► Again, it's pro tool, but once you get used to it, the blocks and the flow chart interface,
00:24:23 ◼ ► it's super visual. You can see what is happening. That's Krista Murgen who designed that.
00:24:30 ◼ ► So they updated it this year. And then I'll throw in, they have Farrago, which is their
00:24:35 ◼ ► soundboard utility. And we used soundboard from... Oh, what was the name of that company that
00:24:40 ◼ ► basically went out of business? Ambrosia for years and years. But it was an old piece of software.
00:24:48 ◼ ► Well, Rokamiba wrote Farrago, which is if you want to play sounds into audio, whether you're
00:24:54 ◼ ► being a DJ or whatever, or a podcaster. So they brought that out and then they had a new version
00:25:00 ◼ ► of Loopback this year, which is a great tool for creating virtual in and out interfaces. So you can
00:25:07 ◼ ► move audio around on your Mac from app to app. These are all great tools. So I wrote down Audio
00:25:12 ◼ ► Hijack, but when I think about Mac development, one of the few places where I see really clever
00:25:19 ◼ ► original pushing the platform forward for what it's good for, it's the Rokamiba stuff. So that's
00:25:25 ◼ ► kind of my plug for Audio Hijack, new version in general and all of Rokamiba in even more general.
00:25:34 ◼ ► I would like to give the award to Audio Hijack, purely because of the fact that they added the
00:25:40 ◼ ► live streaming functionality into it, which was a real big help for me. Because it made our stream
00:25:46 ◼ ► sound better as well as just save us, because Nicecast was really an application that was
00:25:50 ◼ ► kind of just clinging onto the cliff with the edge of its fingertips. And there was always complaints
00:25:56 ◼ ► that the audio levels were all wrong, and I can now fix all of that and have fixed all of that,
00:26:00 ◼ ► because Audio Hijack is like shortcuts, but for audio, in a way that you can visually build it.
00:26:11 ◼ ► There was a way to add a plugin to compress the audio and stuff, but that old interface,
00:26:15 ◼ ► which was the old Audio Hijack interface, was just so cryptic and the new one is so simple.
00:26:20 ◼ ► So that's great. I mean, we'll give it to Audio Hijack, but in general, I would say it's also
00:26:26 ◼ ► kind of an acknowledgement of the other apps that they're building, because they have this whole
00:26:31 ◼ ► suite of really great audio apps and you might need only one of them or you might need all of
00:26:42 ◼ ► people consider Mac apps to be. They're not just good apps on the Mac. They are good Mac apps.
00:26:53 ◼ ► Audio Hijack and all of the other Rokamiba apps feel like good Mac apps. They are definitely like
00:27:00 ◼ ► they hold that. That's the thing that they're very good at. Two time winner. Two time winner,
00:27:06 ◼ ► if it ever wins again. Lifetime achievement. Paul, I don't know what you're gonna have to do for us
00:27:12 ◼ ► to win again, but you never know. Maybe kill another one of your apps and add it into Audio
00:27:16 ◼ ► Hijack. I don't know. That's what you gotta do. So we now move into, I think, an even more
00:27:20 ◼ ► complicated category, which is the best newcomer Mac app. The Upgradients voted thusly. At 5.8%
00:27:27 ◼ ► of the vote is Agenda, which is that note-taking/calendar app. OmniFocus 3 brings 7.1% of the
00:27:35 ◼ ► vote and the Drafts 5 Beta is at 8.9%. This is unprecedented, I think. Well, at least from the
00:27:45 ◼ ► Upgradients, we did give Forecast, which was Marco's app, actually. We put that in this very
00:27:59 ◼ ► precedented thing that there would be a Mac beta app in this category. I have absolutely no, um,
00:28:05 ◼ ► even a hint of a nominee for this one. Do you? Yeah, I do. I think it's great that the Upgradients
00:28:13 ◼ ► helped us out here. The problem is that I've never used any of these apps. Me either. Absolutely
00:28:20 ◼ ► none of them. Doesn't mean we can't give the vote to it, but I have not used any of them.
00:28:26 ◼ ► Yeah, so, uh, I am going to make a nomination that is going to be unpopular. Oh dear. It is,
00:28:34 ◼ ► it is in fact, an app that I am on the record not liking. This is interesting. We're setting
00:28:45 ◼ ► this up interestingly. Okay. Here's the thing. What happened on the Mac this year that added
00:28:52 ◼ ► functionality that made me happy. And the fact is adding the home app in Mojave so that I could turn
00:29:01 ◼ ► my lights on and off and stuff from and get alerts from my lock, my smart lock when it opens and
00:29:08 ◼ ► stuff. That is, that is the thing that I appreciated the most, uh, that was new on my Mac this year.
00:29:15 ◼ ► So I'm going to nominate the home app. It's straight out of iOS and it's coming to your Mac
00:29:20 ◼ ► and now, oh look, there it is. It's got, it's the home app everybody. Yay. I can't, I don't know if
00:29:27 ◼ ► I can, I don't know if I can do this. I just, for the, like the, the, the anger that it will
00:29:39 ◼ ► It's just like a bad Mac app and an okay iOS app. You're worried that they're going to bring their,
00:29:44 ◼ ► their torches and their pitchforks to Castle upgrade. I'm scared. Throw it out, throw the
00:29:50 ◼ ► monster out. Well, like I don't have a dog in this race. I've not used any of the applications that
00:29:55 ◼ ► the upgradients voted. I've not even used the home app because, uh, the only app that I have
00:30:00 ◼ ► on Mojave is the Mac mini. And to be honest, I completely forgot that the home app even existed.
00:30:04 ◼ ► So I'm going to leave this one down to you. I am absolving myself of picking the winner in this,
00:30:10 ◼ ► in this category. Well, um, I, I don't because I didn't, so one thing that I didn't do that
00:30:19 ◼ ► I probably should have done. Um, but I don't think I saw the list of upgrading votes was actually try
00:30:24 ◼ ► out all of the upgrading nominees since I haven't like agenda looks really good. Um, I'm the focus
00:30:31 ◼ ► everybody loves one of Apple's awards. I think it did right. Like it won the Apple design award,
00:30:37 ◼ ► I think, or one of the, um, Oh, it was the max story select. That's what it got. Uh, sure.
00:30:42 ◼ ► Of course. I think we need in, in, instead of leaving this category vacant, I think we just
00:30:48 ◼ ► need to bow to the will of the, of the 8.9% of upgrade Ian's and give it to the largest
00:30:53 ◼ ► voted, uh, vote block, which is the drafts five beta people love drafts. It's great on iOS. Uh,
00:31:02 ◼ ► having it be on the Mac is also great. And the upgrade Ian's have spoken. This is a combination
00:31:07 ◼ ► host choice and listeners choice award. Uh, and, uh, you know, we decide who lives and who dies,
00:31:18 ◼ ► Congratulations to drafts. Um, agile tortoise to Greg. Uh, I'm looking forward to playing
00:31:25 ◼ ► in our spreadsheet. You didn't even put home in as a runner up. No, no, the runners up are
00:31:30 ◼ ► only focused three and agenda. I will not, I just, I appreciate what you're trying to do with that.
00:31:36 ◼ ► It's like, it's an interesting pick. Oh, you're changing it. Huh? Okay. Home is a runner up. You
00:31:41 ◼ ► can't take that away from me. Okay. So drafts five is the winner. OmniFocus three and home
00:31:47 ◼ ► are the runners up for the best newcomer Mac app. So we now move into, uh, we move into some
00:31:54 ◼ ► categories that I know very well. Uh, we move into our video and categories and we're going to start
00:32:00 ◼ ► off with our game of the year. Um, the upgrade Ian's voted with 6.8% for Pokemon. Let's go.
00:32:14 ◼ ► I found it very interesting here. The God of war, which picked up a lot of the game of the year and
00:32:19 ◼ ► many video game outlets did not make it in to the top three and had less than Pokemon 6.8% of the
00:32:26 ◼ ► vote. So, um, I'm going to say, I mean, I I've, I've spoken about this, uh, on remaster. We,
00:32:33 ◼ ► we did our game of the year. My game of the year is Pokemon. Let's go because of the nostalgia
00:32:37 ◼ ► that I have for the Pokemon series and Pokemon. Let's go does an incredible job of making me feel
00:32:44 ◼ ► like a 10 year old. Again. Um, you know, I've been playing Pokemon games for 20 years and
00:32:55 ◼ ► original roots, but is the story of Pokemon yellow. Um, I love some of the additions that
00:33:06 ◼ ► I'm so excited for the future of the Pokemon series. Um, so Pokemon let's go is my nomination
00:33:12 ◼ ► for game of the year. So I have, uh, an X-Box and I have a, uh, switch. Although again, my son
00:33:20 ◼ ► basically is the one who plays them. Um, I don't have a PS4, which is why I haven't played Spiderman,
00:33:25 ◼ ► which is one of those things where, and this has happened to me multiple times in the past,
00:33:29 ◼ ► where I think to myself, boy, I kind of just want to buy a console just so I can play one game on
00:33:34 ◼ ► it. And you know what happens after that? I don't play it. That's the truth of it. Cause the truth
00:33:39 ◼ ► of it is I've learned this about myself that I'm never going to commit a long amount of time
00:33:43 ◼ ► to a console game. I'm never going to have enough time to sit in front of a TV and, and play.
00:33:51 ◼ ► I will tell you though, I know this is kind of pointless to say this, but, um, if you were ever
00:33:56 ◼ ► going to do it, Jason, this Spiderman game is the game because the story you would absolutely adore.
00:34:03 ◼ ► The story is so good. The problem is again, that I just don't, I just don't see myself putting in
00:34:09 ◼ ► that kind of time on any game ever. Yeah. You're looking at 25, 30 hours to get through the story.
00:34:15 ◼ ► It's just, I just don't think I would, I would ever do that. That's just, I'm trying to be,
00:34:24 ◼ ► my nominee is a game that I put a lot of time in, but it's an iOS game and I played it on the iPad.
00:34:31 ◼ ► And the difference there is that I don't have to turn on a console in my living room when nobody
00:34:36 ◼ ► else is around and play the game. I can just play it wherever when I'm on my iPad. Um, and that
00:34:44 ◼ ► makes a difference. That is, that is actually a big difference in having the freedom to do that
00:34:49 ◼ ► and move it, move where I want and still play the game on my couch, in bed, uh, at the table,
00:34:54 ◼ ► wherever I can play this game. And I did, I played it all the way through. Uh, it's probably the best
00:34:59 ◼ ► I've been at a video game in years. I got, I got really good at it and played the whole thing
00:35:06 ◼ ► through. It was a wonderful adventure. And I got to the end and I had that feeling of fulfillment,
00:35:17 ◼ ► I would actually recommend at this point that you don't say the name of this game and we wait
00:35:23 ◼ ► Because here's the thing, that game is incredible. I don't think it's going to win this category,
00:35:34 ◼ ► love the Upgradients had, or at least 7% of them for Pokemon and that you love it so much,
00:35:39 ◼ ► I think we should just acclaim Pokemon Let's Go. By the way, my dog's name is Evie, so let's go
00:35:45 ◼ ► Evie. Uh, Pokemon Let's Go is the winner. Uh, this was one, you know, we, we both have our pet
00:35:55 ◼ ► It would be a mighty strange year if I had a very strong opinion about many video games from which
00:36:01 ◼ ► I could choose one as the game of the year. That would be a strange year. I would, that's the year
00:36:05 ◼ ► that I had no job. I will say like, just, just for this, just to put this in, just for the sake of
00:36:11 ◼ ► it, uh, I would put Spiderman in next, um, at before Red Dead. I have not, I have not played
00:36:17 ◼ ► enough of the story of Red Dead yet, but honestly, Red Dead Redemption 2 whilst being an incredible
00:36:22 ◼ ► game did not grab me the way that Spiderman did. Um, and I was in like for Spiderman, like I was
00:36:29 ◼ ► finishing that game and I played nothing else until I finished the story with Red Dead. I started
00:36:34 ◼ ► it and there's just, I, I've been letting a lot of other video games in whilst they've been playing
00:36:41 ◼ ► this. It's great. It's maybe just a little bit on the slow side for me, but cannot be happier about
00:36:47 ◼ ► the fact that Pokemon Let's Go has picked up the upgradey, uh, for this year. I just, I adore,
00:36:54 ◼ ► I adore that game. If you want to hear more about why, just go listen to our game of the year
00:36:59 ◼ ► episode of remaster. I go into a lot of detail about why I love it, which is more than anybody
00:37:03 ◼ ► needs right now, because we should talk about the best iOS games of the year. Now in at 10.4%
00:37:11 ◼ ► of the upgradey's votes is Stardew Valley, which is an incredible port by the way, to, to iOS that
00:37:18 ◼ ► they did such a great job with this port. They have added some functions into that game that
00:37:22 ◼ ► don't exist on any other platforms that make the gameplay so much better. So like they did a great
00:37:27 ◼ ► job of that. A 17.5% is Hold Down, which is a wonderful game. And I'll get to that in a minute,
00:37:35 ◼ ► cause it's actually my nomination as well. And 18.3% is Alto's Odyssey. So if you'll allow me
00:37:42 ◼ ► for a moment, Jason, to talk about Hold Down. Okay. This was a real surprise for me. This is
00:37:47 ◼ ► one of those games every now and then I was, I follow a lot of like video game journalists and
00:37:51 ◼ ► stuff on Twitter. There'll be a day where a game comes out and everyone's talking about it and I
00:37:56 ◼ ► download it and I'm hooked and Hold Down was that. Um, it is like this weird cross between like Peggle
00:38:08 ◼ ► like it's really hard to explain, but you have to fire balls into blocks and you have to,
00:38:13 ◼ ► it's kind of like that, um, brick, you know, like when you've got the little bar that moves along
00:38:18 ◼ ► the bottom of the screen. Breakout. Breakout, but upside down, you go from top down. Um, it is a
00:38:24 ◼ ► really wonderful game that I recommend everybody play on iOS. Just excellent. Um, but Jason,
00:38:31 ◼ ► why don't you now finish your, uh, nomination for your pick? Yeah, the, the game that I invested all
00:38:39 ◼ ► the time in and got really good at it and is beautiful and has great music and sound and
00:38:43 ◼ ► graphics and everything else is Alto's Odyssey, which the Upgradients and I agree on. So, Jason,
00:38:52 ◼ ► the reason that I didn't pick this is because I figured we should talk about another game.
00:38:56 ◼ ► Alto's Odyssey is the best iOS game that's come out this year without a shadow of a doubt.
00:39:00 ◼ ► Yeah. I actually kind of want to play Hold Down. There's a game that I used to play that is no
00:39:03 ◼ ► longer playable because it's a, uh, there's a, there's a game, I can't even remember the name now,
00:39:07 ◼ ► but it was a game where you shot like a laser and, and then it basically, it would bounce around and
00:39:11 ◼ ► it's a very similar kind of getting the angles right in a, so I'm looking forward to playing
00:39:15 ◼ ► Hold Down. Yeah, it's really good. Alto's Odyssey, it just, I mean, seriously, as I said earlier,
00:39:20 ◼ ► I don't have a lot of time to devote to games and that's the problem about like console games and
00:39:25 ◼ ► stuff like that. I'll play some Mario Kart. That's a lot of fun, but like to play something that's
00:39:29 ◼ ► going to require hours and hours of play. The nice thing about Alto's Odyssey is that though it
00:39:34 ◼ ► requires hours and hours of play to get to the end, it's all in very short bursts where you're
00:39:39 ◼ ► doing it, you can do some runs and you've got your challenges and you've got to knock off all
00:39:42 ◼ ► the challenges to get to the end. And for whatever reason, it captured me and I spent a lot of time
00:39:50 ◼ ► playing it and I played the, Alto's Adventure, but it was Alto's Odyssey that, that because of the
00:39:56 ◼ ► different setting, the kind of sand setting and the added complications, different stuff you could
00:40:00 ◼ ► get, different achievements. That's the one that really put it over the edge. And I remember
00:40:04 ◼ ► sitting, looking at the high score board and I saw Serenity Caldwell and she had like half a
00:40:08 ◼ ► million points and I had like 10,000 points. And I thought how, you know, this, this is a common
00:40:14 ◼ ► thing for me, right? Is that I look at my Game Center friends and they're all way ahead of me.
00:40:21 ◼ ► And I just don't play them that much. Right. And like two weeks later I had like 750,000 points
00:40:28 ◼ ► and I was at the top of my friends list and I was like, Oh, something is happening here. And, and
00:40:33 ◼ ► it's true. Like when I finished the game and, and achieved the last achievement, I did one more run
00:40:40 ◼ ► where I was just enjoying myself. That was like, I mean, the last achievement is, is go through,
00:40:46 ◼ ► I think two sunsets or two sunrises or something. It's like go for an entire day. So it is an
00:40:52 ◼ ► extended thing. But I did one last run where I just kind of did it for fun. And I knew that run
00:40:57 ◼ ► was going to be my last run in the game because I was going to say goodbye. Like I did it all.
00:41:02 ◼ ► And that was a, that was actually an amazing kind of feeling, strange feeling of accomplishment and
00:41:07 ◼ ► also kind of love and familiarity. Like, Oh, this is so great. We had such a good time together.
00:41:14 ◼ ► And that's it. I haven't played it since. Uh, Altos Odyssey is the, uh, is the followup to Altos
00:41:21 ◼ ► adventure, which won in 2015 for best iOS game. I was convinced that whilst the game looked amazing,
00:41:28 ◼ ► it was going to suffer from the second album problem and I would never be able to live up to
00:41:33 ◼ ► adventure, but it surpassed Altos adventure in every way. Um, my favorite thing is the,
00:41:38 ◼ ► the environment changes. Uh, and I think that they really found a way to make the game more replayable
00:41:45 ◼ ► because it's more varied. You don't feel like you're doing the same thing all the time. Um,
00:41:49 ◼ ► and the music in the game is incredible. Um, Altos Odyssey has joined the very small club of games
00:41:55 ◼ ► for me that are infinitely replayable. Um, like I play this game all the time, like on planes.
00:42:06 ◼ ► And they have the Zen mode, right? Where you can just play and if you fall, you just get back up
00:42:10 ◼ ► and the points don't matter anymore. And you're just having a good time, which is great. Absolutely
00:42:15 ◼ ► wonderful game. And I'm thrilled that we get to call it our iOS game of the year for 2018.
00:42:26 ◼ ► I would be super surprised if they did. Yeah. No, this is, oh, you think so? Interesting.
00:42:32 ◼ ► Uh, well, I mean, I'd be, I reckon they would do another Altos game for sure because honestly
00:42:37 ◼ ► it was also a success, right? Like, yeah, that's true. So I think that it would be wild to me if
00:42:43 ◼ ► they didn't at least give it a go. Like I think figure you try again for a third time and if that
00:42:48 ◼ ► one doesn't work, well then you can put it to bed. But the second I think was probably even more
00:42:52 ◼ ► successful. And then the first, at least it seemed that way. So yeah, so good. So we are moving into
00:42:58 ◼ ► talking about our favorite movie or TV show of the year. But before we do that, this category
00:43:05 ◼ ► is brought to you by our friends over at Luna Display. Have you ever looked at your iPad and
00:43:10 ◼ ► wished you could use it as a second display for your Mac? Well, Luna Display lets you do
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00:43:19 ◼ ► on their Mac? You can put these two devices together and have a perfect crystal clear image
00:43:25 ◼ ► quality, reliable performance and wireless flexibility. You just pop the wonderful little
00:43:30 ◼ ► Luna Display dongle into your Mac and you're good to go. It will connect over Wi-Fi and that's great,
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00:43:55 ◼ ► you already own. Luna Display can also act as a complete extension to your Mac. It's going to
00:43:59 ◼ ► support your external keyboard as well as your Apple Pencil and touch interactions as well. I am
00:44:05 ◼ ► in love with my Luna Display. I have it plugged into my Mac Mini and I can just jump in. Like I
00:44:09 ◼ ► had something a couple of days ago, I made a mistake actually in the document for totaling
00:44:18 ◼ ► up all of our results for the upgradees and I needed to access the version history of the
00:44:24 ◼ ► Google Sheet. You can't do that on iOS. So I opened up my Luna Display while I'm sitting on my couch
00:44:29 ◼ ► and I went into my Mac Mini, I opened up Chrome, went to Google Sheets and I was able to fix it
00:44:35 ◼ ► because I have that power now that I can use my iOS device to my heart's content. But if I ever
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00:45:00 ◼ ► Promo code UPGRADE at checkout for 10% off. A thanks to Luna Display for their support of this
00:45:04 ◼ ► show and Relay FM. So, Jason, you have been doing something in the document and I think we have
00:45:13 ◼ ► something a little bit unprecedented about to occur. Yeah, we're going to split a category in two
00:45:18 ◼ ► because what was originally the favorite... So at the top of the show you said no new categories.
00:45:22 ◼ ► Uh, well, so what has happened is that the favorite movie category evolved into a favorite movie/TV
00:45:30 ◼ ► category and we had picks in both, at which point I feel like we have two categories here.
00:45:36 ◼ ► So we are adding a category. Ignore what Myke of the past said. We now have a favorite movie
00:45:43 ◼ ► category. So we have two picks here because we originally had the three picks. I apologize to
00:45:48 ◼ ► everyone. This is just what we're doing now. 5.7% of the vote for movies went to Black Panther
00:45:56 ◼ ► and 13.1% of the vote went to Avengers Infinity War. I just want to say that I love these two
00:46:04 ◼ ► movies. I've seen both of these movies. I prefer Black Panther to Avengers. I left the cinema on
00:46:13 ◼ ► the both times I've seen Infinity War and it wasn't that I felt sad because of the fact that everybody
00:46:19 ◼ ► died, right? Like 50% of the people died. Half of everybody dies, yeah. Because I figured that,
00:46:25 ◼ ► you know, they'll find a way to work out or whatever but I just kind of left that movie
00:46:28 ◼ ► with not an amazing feeling like I did when I saw Black Panther where I just felt incredible
00:46:35 ◼ ► afterwards because it was like this is a super fun movie where a lot of incredible stuff happens and
00:46:40 ◼ ► it's beautiful and it's colorful and it's funny where Infinity War is supposed to be challenging
00:46:46 ◼ ► and that gave me a not as good movie experience, I think. Yeah, I mean, as you might expect,
00:46:55 ◼ ► especially the incomparable people, we have these conversations a lot about these movies and I like
00:47:02 ◼ ► Infinity War for what it is but what it is is essentially the big climax of a shared universe.
00:47:09 ◼ ► It's not really a movie even. It's just a... Well, it's half of it. It's not even the full climax.
00:47:23 ◼ ► that stands alone? I mean, you could watch it but the relationships... The stuff I love about
00:47:27 ◼ ► Infinity War is seeing all these characters that we know interacting together and the relationships
00:47:31 ◼ ► they've got. That's the stuff that's great and that requires many other movies. And that's just...
00:47:37 ◼ ► I think if you've seen all the Marvel movies, which I have, there's a huge payoff in Infinity
00:47:42 ◼ ► War but is it like a movie as we think of it? I think not. Black Panther is a movie and it's
00:47:48 ◼ ► a really great movie and I think it should be nominated for Oscars. I think it is a superhero
00:47:54 ◼ ► movie that is in some ways a standard superhero movie and yet has some very interesting things
00:48:01 ◼ ► to say about... It's got a point of view, say about society and culture. It's got a point of view.
00:48:08 ◼ ► It is also showing representation that is not as common in movies in general and superhero
00:48:16 ◼ ► movies in particular. Ryan Coogler, really great director. The cast is great. The villain is the
00:48:33 ◼ ► And then I saw Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse, which is the best movie I saw all year,
00:48:42 ◼ ► which shocks me because it is this Sony Pictures Animation film where they're trying to take all
00:48:49 ◼ ► the Spider-Man intellectual property and turn it into other movies because they get that. They have
00:48:53 ◼ ► the license for that from Marvel. And it's a movie that made me ask why are we even bothering with
00:48:59 ◼ ► live action actors and superhero movies when you can create an animated film with this kind of
00:49:07 ◼ ► artfulness that it's fun, it's exciting, it sounds great, it looks amazing. And I will also say,
00:49:15 ◼ ► I feel really bad for Pixar because Incredibles 2 is a very good movie. And in another year,
00:49:22 ◼ ► you might look at that and say, "Well, there's the Oscar for best animated feature." And Pixar has
00:49:26 ◼ ► been such a leader in this, in animation for so long. But this movie outdoes that. This movie is
00:49:34 ◼ ► one of those that's going to set the standard for animation and new things that animation can do. It
00:49:40 ◼ ► is amazing. So that's my choice as Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse. I have not seen this movie yet.
00:49:48 ◼ ► I am going to see this movie in the next couple of days purely because everybody that I know is
00:49:53 ◼ ► freaking out about this movie to the point that I have no problem making it the movie of the year,
00:50:08 ◼ ► represented in the top of the voting is not necessarily representative of the feelings of
00:50:14 ◼ ► Upgrading. And so yes, we will declare it. People should go see it while it's in the theater if you
00:50:18 ◼ ► can. It is not just a silly cash grab animation spinoff. It's the guys behind the Lego movie
00:50:25 ◼ ► who really kind of drove forward the animation. The animation style is so interesting and different
00:50:33 ◼ ► and it doesn't feel like you're... It's not a generic CGI animation movie, which is not...
00:50:38 ◼ ► I don't want to belittle that, but Pixar kind of set a standard for what... I mean, they made the
00:50:44 ◼ ► first full-on CGI feature film. And there are a lot of movies that are in that sort of style.
00:50:50 ◼ ► And this is trying to take kind of hand-drawn animation looks with... Obviously, it's all done
00:50:57 ◼ ► in 3D, but the artfulness of it, the way things are rendered, the facts... I mean, to get down to
00:51:03 ◼ ► some details, because I am fortunate to know some people who work in the VFX industry, the fact that
00:51:10 ◼ ► they're animating on what they call twos and ones and mixing them where it's like one frame
00:51:17 ◼ ► per frame versus sort of doubling frames, which is where you get a little more kind of herky-jerky
00:51:24 ◼ ► style and it changes how you view blur and stuff. And the choices they've made... There are moments
00:51:30 ◼ ► where you think you're watching animation overlaid over live action, but it's not. It's all animated.
00:51:35 ◼ ► They're just doing things to make your mind be like, "Whoa, what am I seeing now?" It pops out
00:51:39 ◼ ► of the frame. Their rack focus, their out-of-focus background stuff is color-smeared to make it look
00:51:48 ◼ ► like a badly offset printed comic book to kind of give a comic book feel to it. It's brilliant.
00:51:53 ◼ ► It's a brilliant technical piece of work, and it's a great story, and it's funny, and it's got
00:51:57 ◼ ► a great hero at the center of it, who is Miles Morales, who is another Spider-Man, for those who
00:52:03 ◼ ► don't read the comics, who is a great character. It's great. It's going to be, I think, a milestone
00:52:10 ◼ ► for animation, not just this year, but people are going to be like, "Wow, animation can do things we
00:52:17 ◼ ► didn't even think were possible before." -Blimey. All right. I can't wait to see this movie.
00:52:26 ◼ ► -So we now move into the new TV category. There's only one upgrading vote left in that,
00:52:42 ◼ ► thought I'd figured it out and got bored of it, which I know is I'm not the only person who's
00:52:46 ◼ ► been that way, which is why everybody says it's like with all good TV shows, there's some caveat.
00:52:53 ◼ ► Every good TV show has a caveat, and The Good Place's caveat is you've got to stick through
00:53:06 ◼ ► they've set up every standards that come, they've set up the premise, and now they're going to riff
00:53:23 ◼ ► So Good Place at 5.2%. I'm going to vote for Patriot. That is my favorite TV show that I've
00:53:28 ◼ ► seen this year. I think it's wonderful. We were able to watch both seasons back to back
00:53:42 ◼ ► It's very funny. It's very affecting. I really, really love it. I don't want to say too much
00:53:47 ◼ ► about it, honestly, because I think it... I went into the show mostly cold, basically just knowing
00:53:52 ◼ ► that a bunch of friends of mine liked it, and I was not let down by that show in any way.
00:54:05 ◼ ► Tim Goodman and I rave about this show all the time. We've given it an alternate title,
00:54:27 ◼ ► -That's what it is. It's Sad Spies. There's a sad man in a suit, and they're very sad. There's a
00:54:34 ◼ ► dad spy and a son spy and a brother who's... -Sad dad, sad son. -Yeah, and then there's like
00:54:39 ◼ ► a politician brother, and there's sad people who work in the plumbing industry. -They're all sad.
00:54:51 ◼ ► -It is, you know, sad and depressing in places, but hilarious and uplifting in others. Like,
00:55:01 ◼ ► So yeah, it's a weird show, and it's probably not for everybody, but it is one of my... It might be
00:55:08 ◼ ► one of my, you know... Actually, I would go out on a limb here and say that I think the three
00:55:16 ◼ ► So we can pick, but they're all great. So The Patriot, Patriot is great. Sad Spies on Amazon.
00:55:24 ◼ ► Good place. It's on Netflix. If you're in certain places, the third season is on NBC in the US, but
00:55:31 ◼ ► first two seasons are on Netflix everywhere. And then my choice is Counterpart, which is on
00:55:38 ◼ ► stars in the US. It's been slowly rolling out internationally. You can get it on iTunes the
00:55:45 ◼ ► first season, and it's one of these frustrations where it's on this obscure service and therefore
00:55:52 ◼ ► hard to find. And it frustrates me because it is my favorite TV show of the year. Season two is on
00:56:00 ◼ ► now. Season one started late last year. This is a show with JK Simmons, who is an incredible actor,
00:56:06 ◼ ► giving an amazing performance. If you think about... Everybody was raving about the performance
00:56:11 ◼ ► in Orphan Black by Tatiana Maslany, where she's playing five different clones, basically. So it's
00:56:17 ◼ ► five different characters, but they're all her. That is an amazing performance. JK Simmons gives a
00:56:28 ◼ ► Counterpart. It is a spy show as well. This is more of a Cold War spy show with a science
00:56:37 ◼ ► fictional twist that it's very hard not to spoil it because I think all the descriptions talk about
00:56:44 ◼ ► it. If you are really good and don't get spoiled about it and just watch the show, watch the first
00:56:52 ◼ ► episode, you'll discover the twist and it's great. It's great even if you know the twist, but it is a
00:57:01 ◼ ► fun twist. And it means that it amps up the amount of work that JK Simmons has to do and that there
00:57:09 ◼ ► are other great characters in it too. It's set in Berlin, so it definitely has that Cold War spy
00:57:15 ◼ ► thriller kind of vibe to it. At the same time though, it is about these characters and it is
00:57:21 ◼ ► about the choices we make and don't make in our lives and where they lead us. So that part of it
00:57:30 ◼ ► is the part that really pushes it over the edge for me and makes it that much better. So Counterpart,
00:57:35 ◼ ► if you can find it, I highly recommend it. So as the guy who's seen all three of these,
00:57:40 ◼ ► how do you want to stack this? I am so happy that you like Patriot that we should just pick Patriot.
00:57:50 ◼ ► great show. If people follow Merlin on Twitter, they've probably seen Merlin post nonsensical
00:57:58 ◼ ► things that are all from Patriot. Because it's that kind of show. Yeah, it's a great show. But
00:58:05 ◼ ► all three of these are great shows. People should watch all three of them. I found out about it from
00:58:08 ◼ ► Dubai Friday. That's where I kind of found out about it. But I've not listened to... Well,
00:58:13 ◼ ► I've actually gone back and listened to the episode. I think it went from TV Talk Machine
00:58:17 ◼ ► to Merlin to Dubai Friday to you to the Upgradies. So yeah, love that chain. Come all the way around.
00:58:28 ◼ ► The idea of this is it is the favorite segment from this. I think that a lot of the time,
00:58:39 ◼ ► I tend to believe that people just tend to vote for their favorite movie that we did a mic of
00:58:43 ◼ ► the movies about. So we have 21.1% for Aliens, 26.5% for Hamilton, which is technically mic at
00:58:50 ◼ ► the matinee, but it will count. And Avengers Infinity War, 39.7% of the vote, which is a
00:58:57 ◼ ► very large percentage. For me, it was Hamilton because I loved Hamilton so friggin much. And I
00:59:03 ◼ ► was so excited. One of the reasons that I was so excited to see that show was to get to talk to you
00:59:09 ◼ ► about it. Because all I wanted to do was talk about it anyway. But I was really, really excited
00:59:16 ◼ ► to get the chance to talk about Hamilton on Upgrade. And I loved talking about it, but I
00:59:21 ◼ ► loved seeing it. I've seen it twice now. I still listen to the album all the time. It's different
00:59:26 ◼ ► the second time, right? Oh, it's so different. But oh boy, do I cry in basically all the same places.
00:59:32 ◼ ► Yeah, yeah. I love it. Hey everybody, it's two guys who've seen Hamilton twice. People don't
00:59:37 ◼ ► like to hear it, but it is really different the second time. I'm hoping it's coming back to San
00:59:40 ◼ ► Francisco. I'm hoping to go again, but we don't have tickets. So we'll see. My pick was Totoro,
00:59:46 ◼ ► only because I love that movie and it was very amusing to see you. It's like to me, the prime
00:59:50 ◼ ► mic of the movie's experience, which is Myke has no idea what he's getting into here. And in
00:59:57 ◼ ► something that is very different. And so I really enjoyed that. As the other person on that episode,
01:00:10 ◼ ► but that you had no idea what you were getting into. But I'm happy to acclaim Hamilton because
01:00:20 ◼ ► you know, works of art that has ever been made in the last few years. So I'm happy to have that
01:00:26 ◼ ► you got to experience it. It was also something long in coming, right? Because you bought those,
01:00:29 ◼ ► you got those tickets like a year in advance. And then we waited. It was one year and one week in
01:00:35 ◼ ► advance because when I bought the tickets and told Adina, she's like, oh, we're going next week. No,
01:00:39 ◼ ► we're going next week. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, if you're in London, it's actually not incredibly
01:00:46 ◼ ► difficult to get tickets now. Um, so I would really, really recommend that you go and see it.
01:00:56 ◼ ► No, I just don't read books, but never learned to read the upgraded voting went thusly, uh,
01:01:03 ◼ ► with 3.2% of the vote is bad blood by John Carrey, Roo, Carrie Roo. Oh, that's the one about the,
01:01:09 ◼ ► the, um, the Theranos, uh, con job. I've heard great things about that book. Yeah. Well,
01:01:16 ◼ ► I've actually had the entire book described to me twice, uh, but just sounds great. Um,
01:01:20 ◼ ► 8.7% is an absolutely remarkable thing by Hank Green, which is a book that I actually really
01:01:26 ◼ ► want to read. Um, it's kind of, I think at its, at its core, it's about like social media's
01:01:34 ◼ ► influence in the world, I think is kind of like one of the themes, which is some, I actually do
01:01:37 ◼ ► want to read that. I have a tab open, uh, in Chrome to get that on Audible. And at 13.8% of
01:01:44 ◼ ► the vote, it's not surprising to me is creative selection by Ken Kuchende, uh, which is a book
01:01:59 ◼ ► people who haven't listened to the Upgradies before may not know this, that what happens is
01:02:02 ◼ ► then I tell you what my favorite books of the year are and I pick my favorite and that's the winner.
01:02:06 ◼ ► Yeah. That's what happens. So I thank all the Upgradians for sending in these picks. It's great
01:02:09 ◼ ► to have your voice heard. Now I'm going to choose the winner. All right. I have three books that
01:02:14 ◼ ► were my three favorite books of the year and I'll share them with you now. One is a book that
01:02:19 ◼ ► listeners may love. It is called typeset in the future by Dave Addy. It is basically a coffee
01:02:24 ◼ ► table book. He's the guy who has been writing these long essays on the web about how type and
01:02:30 ◼ ► interface in science fiction movies portrays the future. You've probably read at least one of them.
01:02:35 ◼ ► He did one about alien. He did one about 2001. He did one about Star Trek, the motion picture.
01:02:40 ◼ ► He did one about Wally that he just posted it. Imagine. So with copious like screenshots and
01:02:48 ◼ ► details, and he turned it into a coffee table book. It is a beautiful, heavy, high quality
01:02:56 ◼ ► printed so many images. It is a great use of the paper book format. And I highly recommend people
01:03:04 ◼ ► get the beautiful paper book of typeset in the future. If you like user interface design and
01:03:11 ◼ ► typefaces and science fiction movies, this is your jam. I like those things. This is my jam.
01:03:17 ◼ ► Great book, Dave Addy typeset in the future. And I have two novels. As I've said on this show before,
01:03:29 ◼ ► nominee for all the major science fiction and fantasy novel awards. And that means like,
01:03:35 ◼ ► here's your assignment for one podcast is read 14 books. It's a lot of investment for a very small
01:03:41 ◼ ► amount of time on a podcast ultimately. But what I get out of it every year is a book or two when
01:03:46 ◼ ► people say, Hey, you read a lot of books. What is, what was your favorite book? What should I read?
01:03:50 ◼ ► Do you have a book for me? I get that a lot. I get, do you have a book for me? And every year,
01:03:54 ◼ ► by going through that process, I find one or two books that I'm like, Oh yeah, I do have a book for
01:03:59 ◼ ► you because they're these delightful surprises of books that I might never have read had I not
01:04:04 ◼ ► been going through the short lists and I discovered them. So I have two this year. One is that
01:04:11 ◼ ► discovery, which is a book by Theodora Goss named The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter,
01:04:18 ◼ ► which is a story set in the 19th century in London. It features a bunch of characters from
01:04:27 ◼ ► literary history, all kind of put together. Ultimately, it's a story of a group of women
01:04:33 ◼ ► who are the monsters in classic literature. And they're the heroes in this book. That's
01:04:45 ◼ ► It is the bride of Frankenstein. It is a character from a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story,
01:04:56 ◼ ► who is a woman who is poisonous to the touch. Also Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are in it.
01:05:04 ◼ ► Renfield from Dracula is in it. It's just all of these characters together. And it is like a
01:05:10 ◼ ► Sherlock Holmes story in that it's kind of this mystery that's being pursued by Ms. Jekyll and her
01:05:26 ◼ ► It's a super fun book. There is a sequel that is also fun. The sequel is very long. It's like
01:05:31 ◼ ► two books. I didn't like it as much as the first one because the first one is a little bit snappier.
01:05:35 ◼ ► But it's a lot of fun, great characters. And Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are used really
01:05:42 ◼ ► well in it too. It's great. So the strange case of the alchemist's daughter. And then the other
01:05:48 ◼ ► book that I want to recommend to people, which I imagine will be on the short list for the coming
01:05:53 ◼ ► year, but I have already read it, is a book called The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal.
01:06:00 ◼ ► It is a-- I mean, technically, it's an alt history because it's set in a slightly different
01:06:05 ◼ ► series of historical events than ours. It's already kind of not quite the right history.
01:06:12 ◼ ► And then kind of a cataclysmic event happens. But really what it's about is it's an alt history
01:06:17 ◼ ► look at an alternative space program in the late '50s and early '60s where they're trying to get
01:06:23 ◼ ► people in space. And it's the story-- the main character is-- you basically already know from
01:06:29 ◼ ► the beginning that she's the lady astronaut. It's actually called the Lady Astronaut series. And the
01:06:33 ◼ ► whole idea here is you're basically watching this character who is ultimately going to be the first
01:06:37 ◼ ► woman in space and how she has to struggle with her sort of fame that she has and also the politics
01:06:46 ◼ ► and the sexism and the racism of the era to ultimately be one of the astronauts who gets to
01:06:52 ◼ ► go to space. And there is a sequel that was released actually two months later. So it was
01:06:57 ◼ ► basically released as a pair. And the sequel is great too. And in the sequel, they go to Mars.
01:07:03 ◼ ► So it's awesome. It's a great book. It's the best book I read all year, The Calculating Stars. And
01:07:08 ◼ ► that would be my choice for the winner in this category. So The Calculating Stars is going to be
01:07:13 ◼ ► the winner. What do you want to be the runners up? The runners up? Let's put creative selection
01:07:20 ◼ ► and typeset in the future in there. Wonderful. I think that they're actually probably pretty
01:07:25 ◼ ► good picks just in general for listeners of this show. For our listeners. Yeah. So if you want a
01:07:29 ◼ ► novel, read The Calculating Stars or maybe The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter. But I
01:07:34 ◼ ► would say for Upgradients, check out Creative Selection if you haven't. Sure, that's a good
01:07:40 ◼ ► book. I read it. I reviewed it. And typeset in the future. So we're going to move in now to talking
01:07:47 ◼ ► about some technology stuff. We're going to talk about some products and some stories and the
01:07:53 ◼ ► favorite Apple product of the year. This is a big one actually is our next category. And that award,
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01:09:43 ◼ ► so we're about to kick this thing up a notch. Let's talk about our favorite Apple product
01:09:51 ◼ ► of this year. Now, of every single category from the Upgradients, this one was the one I was most
01:09:59 ◼ ► surprised with. All right, you ready for this? I am. So these are the votes with 15.9% of the vote
01:10:06 ◼ ► for the favorite Apple product this year was the 11-inch iPad Pro. At 18.1% was the 12.9-inch iPad
01:10:15 ◼ ► Pro. At 21.6% of the vote is the Apple Watch Series 4. Well, you know, the consensus coming
01:10:23 ◼ ► out of the September event was that the most interesting product was the Apple Watch Series 4,
01:10:26 ◼ ► and it is great. Like, I know that you aren't using an Apple Watch, but like the added screen…
01:10:34 ◼ ► It's a huge update. I love mine. I'm so happy to have the bigger screen and everything. It's great.
01:10:39 ◼ ► You know, the story of a lot of Apple's products right now is that the hardware is amazing and the
01:10:44 ◼ ► software is a little bit of a letdown, which is interesting. And I hope they're trying to address
01:10:48 ◼ ► it because they are clearly the best in the world at making hardware and their software is kind of
01:10:54 ◼ ► struggling. But the Apple Watch Series 4 is great. And it's funny that coming out of an iPhone event,
01:11:03 ◼ ► I think the iPhones were good, right? But like the Apple Watch was a big step forward in a category
01:11:08 ◼ ► where Apple already had a lead in terms of the hardware. It was just super surprising to me to
01:11:13 ◼ ► see it stacked this way that it's both iPads and the Apple Watch. There's no iPhones in there at
01:11:24 ◼ ► I do think that the size differences this year tipped to 12.9 for a lot of people, right? That
01:11:31 ◼ ► they're so close in size. I think for a lot of people it made the 12.9 an easier purchase.
01:11:36 ◼ ► A little more palatable than it was, yeah. Here's the thing. If you use a 12.9-inch iPad Pro,
01:11:41 ◼ ► this one is so much better than the last one that your love for that device will probably eclipse
01:11:52 ◼ ► Uh, could be. But I am genuinely, I was like, I was really surprised to see the Apple Watch
01:12:07 ◼ ► and more people definitely own iPhones than they do Apple Watches, right? So like I wasn't
01:12:12 ◼ ► necessarily thinking there would be enough people to put it there. But what I think it is, is the
01:12:23 ◼ ► while maybe the overall numbers aren't there of people that own those products, you know,
01:12:28 ◼ ► I would say that most people that probably bought a new iPhone to go along with their new Apple
01:12:32 ◼ ► Watch or vice versa, they probably love their Apple Watch more than they love the new iPhone.
01:12:44 ◼ ► incredible, you know? It's an improved 10. The 10 was the big jump, and this is, I mean,
01:12:48 ◼ ► the 10R is a different kind of product, but still they're all in the 10 family, and they're all sort
01:12:51 ◼ ► of like taking advantage of the advance that happened the year before. Where this is the
01:12:55 ◼ ► big jump for the Apple Watch, so that's the difference there. The Apple Watch Series 4 tops
01:13:00 ◼ ► the uh the upgradings vote, but uh I've gotta give it, so here's the thing, I've gotta give it to the
01:13:05 ◼ ► iPad Pro, but I'm gonna give it to the 12.9. I absolutely adore it. It is so good in every way.
01:13:22 ◼ ► Because I think for a while there, like especially in the last revision, like I think the 10.5 for
01:13:28 ◼ ► me beat out the 12.9 because it was, the design was cooler, you know? But with the 12.9,
01:13:35 ◼ ► it is smaller in the ways that it matters. It's the size, you know, it is lighter, it is a better
01:13:43 ◼ ► looking device. That whole, the whole package of the 12.9, unbeatable now. Like that is an incredible,
01:13:50 ◼ ► incredible thing. Would I still recommend the iPad Pro 11 inch to most people? Maybe. Maybe I would.
01:13:57 ◼ ► I think that it is more question now than it was before, um but the 12.9 is easily my favorite.
01:14:09 ◼ ► that it's the iPad. When we agree, nothing can stop us. The iPad Pro 12.9. Yeah, I think I talked
01:14:17 ◼ ► about this on the show, maybe even right after the event, but like that, um, I've been thinking as a
01:14:22 ◼ ► 12.9 user, so the one that I bought was the first generation. Um, and so I've been using that a lot.
01:14:27 ◼ ► And the second generation 12.9 had some nice updates, but I've been anticipating this one,
01:14:33 ◼ ► but I've been thinking going into it, like, you know, my wife uses the smaller iPad. It's nice.
01:14:44 ◼ ► especially with the bigger screen and all of that on the, on the smaller model, which turns out is
01:14:49 ◼ ► the 11. Uh, I might go to the smaller iPad. And then I held the shrunken down 12.9, where they
01:14:58 ◼ ► did the opposite of what they did, the 11, where they expanded the 11 screen, but the 12.9, they
01:15:02 ◼ ► kept the screen and just shrunk everything around it, both the right decisions. And it makes that
01:15:08 ◼ ► 12.9, which is still big and it's still much bigger and heavier than the 11, but they're
01:15:13 ◼ ► closer. And, you know, it is, uh, as somebody who's been carrying the original 12.9 for a long time,
01:15:19 ◼ ► it is so much nicer that is thinner and lighter. And the accessories are thinner and lighter
01:15:26 ◼ ► because of that too, because so much like the smart keyboard on the old 12.9, so much of its
01:15:31 ◼ ► bulk and just kind of unpleasantness was the fact that it had to cover that whole huge surface area
01:15:37 ◼ ► of the whole front glass of the screen. And there's a lot less surface area on this thing. Plus it's
01:15:41 ◼ ► thinner. So in the end, I, you know, I was really open. This is one of the things where it's of
01:15:47 ◼ ► course the 12.9 guy just got another 12.9. Like I really expected to go to the 11. And then I held
01:15:53 ◼ ► the new 12.9. I was like, Oh, like I don't need to compromise in order to get the smaller thing now,
01:15:58 ◼ ► because this is going to be still the huge screen, but also that much nicer. So yeah, it's, they're
01:16:04 ◼ ► both great, but the 12.9 is my choice too. This is the first time that an iPad of any type has
01:16:10 ◼ ► won an upgrade. Well, it was, it was the right time. Let's say in this category. So one most
01:16:15 ◼ ► life-changing hardware in 2015, but it's never won the, uh, the, the best Apple product, the
01:16:21 ◼ ► favorite Apple product category. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah, I agree. This is the right time for it to
01:16:25 ◼ ► win that. So we now move into the favorite non Apple product. There's some surprising ones in
01:16:31 ◼ ► here from the upgrade. And so 2.6% of the vote, um, is the Amazon echo dot third generation at
01:16:37 ◼ ► 3.1% of the vote is the Google home hub. I cannot fathom that to be honest, uh, because it came out
01:16:44 ◼ ► in October. I can't imagine how many people have actually bought it. And I do not like that product.
01:16:49 ◼ ► I think it is a cool idea, you know, like in the echo show is cool. Like I actually just spent
01:16:55 ◼ ► Christmas at my uncle's and he has an echo show and we're probably going to get one. It tipped me
01:17:00 ◼ ► over the edge. I thought we wanted one, but now I definitely know that we want one, but the Google
01:17:04 ◼ ► home hub, I actually find the, the hardware to be not very attractive at all. So white screen,
01:17:10 ◼ ► which you can't change, you can change the color of the base, but I think the screen is always white.
01:17:18 ◼ ► that, that it got the, uh, the screen's way too small. It's like a seven inch screen or something,
01:17:23 ◼ ► but yeah, it picks up the second and the upgradings vote. And at top is the Google pixel
01:17:38 ◼ ► Android phone or the like, you know, the, all the most stock Android phone and the Google pixel
01:17:42 ◼ ► three is there. And there's somebody who owns one. I own the regular size. Um, as a wonderful device,
01:17:47 ◼ ► I think it looks great. Um, even though it isn't edge to edge, I think that the actual design
01:17:52 ◼ ► looks really good. Uh, I think that, and of course, you know, for me, that camera, that,
01:17:58 ◼ ► that camera beats the iPhone camera for me, like 95% of the time. Um, I think that the Google pixel
01:18:04 ◼ ► three camera and especially that night sight stuff that they did, it is an amazing device.
01:18:08 ◼ ► Um, but for me, uh, I am going to go with the bridge keyboard as my favorite non-Apple product,
01:18:24 ◼ ► and the bridge keyboard was just a, cause it's a real story for me, you know, like I think in 2017,
01:18:33 ◼ ► I really, I hated it because I bought one and I got, and I replaced it and it didn't work and
01:18:38 ◼ ► I hated it. But then I gave it a shot because they, they updated it and you said it was working
01:18:45 ◼ ► perfectly. So I gave it another go and absolutely fell in love with it. Like it changed the way that
01:18:50 ◼ ► I used my, uh, my iPad at home. Like it was perfect because I'd also moved to using stands,
01:18:58 ◼ ► right? We spoke about the stands that we used and ultimately because it was a Bluetooth keyboard and
01:19:03 ◼ ► not a smart keyboard, I would just use that keyboard when I put it in my stand rather than
01:19:07 ◼ ► needing another keyboard. Right. So cause it's just a keyboard when you take the screen off.
01:19:18 ◼ ► keyboard, which we're going to talk about next week because we need to get into some detail on that.
01:19:22 ◼ ► Um, but I am very excited for the next ones. I cannot wait for them. Um, and it was one of my
01:19:28 ◼ ► favorite products, bar none this year. Um, and it made my, my iPad pro, which obviously I love so
01:19:35 ◼ ► much, uh, the previous one, even I love that, uh, it made that product even better. So I'm,
01:19:41 ◼ ► I love the bridge keyboard and I can't wait for the next one. Yeah. I, I echo you the, uh, the
01:19:46 ◼ ► new one we'll talk about next week, but like the, the bottom line is it feels very much like the
01:19:52 ◼ ► old one. It's just, it fits the new design, but we'll get to that next week. Um, my choice.
01:20:07 ◼ ► Uh, and so that was a fun tech product this year. Oh yeah. Oh boy. I got a story there,
01:20:12 ◼ ► but it's doing great. Um, uh, I listened to your interview members may know that there's
01:20:18 ◼ ► a special podcast where your Roomba is interviewed. Yep. That's wild. Yeah. The whole thing there's
01:20:25 ◼ ► what the thing is that the episode is called something like a, like a dirt event detected.
01:20:30 ◼ ► And I laughed because I get that now. Um, the, the weather, uh, everybody loves a dirt event.
01:20:36 ◼ ► If you're a Roomba, uh, owner. So, um, I thought about that and other smart, smart home tech. We
01:20:41 ◼ ► need to talk. I got a smart lock. We should talk about that sometime, but not on this episode.
01:20:46 ◼ ► Uh, and that's been an interesting experience, but in the end, the product that not only changed
01:20:52 ◼ ► my house the most, that's a tech product, uh, but that I've really enjoyed the most is this year I
01:20:59 ◼ ► bought a new 4k HDR TV. I bought the TCL 65 inch TV. TCL has frequently been the wire cutter pick
01:21:09 ◼ ► for best, uh, HDTV. And it's beautiful. Like it's beautiful. It's big 4k HDR stuff on it looks so
01:21:18 ◼ ► great, including Patriot, upgradey winner Patriot on Amazon. That's a 4k HDR show. It is gorgeous
01:21:26 ◼ ► on this TV. And it's an enormous TV. My parents, when they moved out of their motor home and into
01:21:31 ◼ ► their house in Arizona, um, my dad wanted the biggest TV possible essentially so that he could
01:21:37 ◼ ► watch football and other stuff. And they got, uh, this plasma TV that I it's still on the wall and
01:21:42 ◼ ► it is, it is huge. And, uh, I got this thing and it like, it doesn't seem that huge, but the
01:21:50 ◼ ► intervening 10 years or eight years or whatever it's been, um, what's happened is that all the
01:21:56 ◼ ► bezels as with all the other tech, all the bezels have gone away. So my parents bought this plasma
01:22:02 ◼ ► TV that I think is 62 inches, but it's got like five inches of bezel all the way around it.
01:22:16 ◼ ► Um, but it doesn't look it because it has almost no bezel. So, uh, that's a funny thing where I
01:22:21 ◼ ► realized, Oh my God, this TV is larger than the impossibly large TV, uh, in terms of screen size.
01:22:27 ◼ ► And I love it. So it's great. Um, 4k HDR TV is beautiful. And, uh, and I did buy an Xbox, um,
01:22:35 ◼ ► one X so that I could play 4k Blu-rays on it too, but it's a great, it's a great TV. I love it.
01:22:57 ◼ ► I love them. If you've got an iPad, uh, of basically any size, they've got a keyboard for you
01:23:10 ◼ ► we'll talk about this next week again, but a bunch of people were like, well, what if iOS 13
01:23:14 ◼ ► enables, uh, trackpad support on the iPad? And it was like, you know what, if that happens,
01:23:21 ◼ ► I'll be so happy that I'll, that I'll, I'll wait for bridge to make a keyboard with a trackpad,
01:23:25 ◼ ► like they do for the surface and I'll buy that one too, uh, because they do for the surface.
01:23:28 ◼ ► And they've got one coming from the pixel book as well. Um, it's, you know, ideally the vendor
01:23:34 ◼ ► would like in an ideal world, Apple would really commit to the idea that some people want a
01:23:41 ◼ ► convertible laptop and they would build something. They would design the iPad to work with a keyboard
01:23:54 ◼ ► But Apple seems at this point to be very committed to the smart keyboard and not a more rigid
01:23:59 ◼ ► keyboard with a, with a hinge. And so, you know, Apple could make a better one, I'm sure,
01:24:05 ◼ ► but they won't. And with the bridge keyboard, you can turn your iPad into a laptop when you want it
01:24:11 ◼ ► to be a laptop. And then in a second, turn it back into a tablet, which is the, the appeal of it.
01:24:25 ◼ ► Congratulations bridge. So now we move into the worst gadget slash most disappointing technology
01:24:31 ◼ ► of the year. Uh, in third place from the upgrade, and so 6.4% is the Facebook portal. Facebook portal
01:24:39 ◼ ► is the, uh, video calling screen thing that you can buy, um, from Facebook, which just seems like a
01:24:47 ◼ ► Adam really? No. I mean, my feeling on this is 6.4% of upgrade ends have not bought and
01:24:57 ◼ ► You know, so Lauren doesn't watch, uh, tech closely, but we're sitting watching the world
01:25:03 ◼ ► series or something. And that Facebook portal ad comes on and, and, and it gets to the end where
01:25:08 ◼ ► the punchline is like, it's a camera that's in your home and it's sending things back to Facebook
01:25:14 ◼ ► all the time. And she looks at me and she says, Oh, hell no. Like, like as a non tech person,
01:25:19 ◼ ► she's like, Facebook in my house is not going to happen. And, uh, yeah, I wish Facebook all the
01:25:26 ◼ ► luck in the world. That could be, that could be the best by far product in that category.
01:25:35 ◼ ► wasn't the marketing team's fault, right? But like they chose the exact worst time to make a product
01:25:42 ◼ ► like this. There is not a worst time for Facebook them right now to try and sell a product like
01:25:48 ◼ ► this. I can only imagine that thing will sell in the thousands of units at the most. No one's
01:25:53 ◼ ► buying this right now. I just cannot fathom it. I can't, I can't envision it. At 6.9% is the home
01:25:59 ◼ ► pod. I was super surprised to see that here with this amount of representation. I would not have
01:26:04 ◼ ► been surprised at all six months ago, but I feel like the narrative has turned a little bit on the
01:26:09 ◼ ► home pod as it's gotten its software updates. And as there've been, uh, some people have bought
01:26:14 ◼ ► stereo pairs or there've been sales, which I think show that it's just overpriced. And if they bring
01:26:20 ◼ ► down the price, uh, more people will be inclined to get it. It is so much better with a pair,
01:26:24 ◼ ► but you really need to discount it. If you're going to buy two of those things, it is not
01:26:28 ◼ ► without its faults, right? Like me and you even like, as we record this yesterday, we're complaining
01:26:34 ◼ ► on Twitter about some faults that we're having with our home pod, but I would nowhere near put it
01:26:38 ◼ ► at this category of like my worst gadget. I love my home pods, but it just suffers from the same
01:26:48 ◼ ► I feel like Apple has some very specific Siri problems that are exacerbated by the home pod.
01:26:52 ◼ ► And one of them is like, I think personalization and prioritization are something that's broken.
01:27:02 ◼ ► and it's the exact name of a playlist in that you made, and it instead gives you a random playlist
01:27:08 ◼ ► that you've never seen that has a similar name, but you said the exact name. So it's like, it got
01:27:13 ◼ ► the name and then it didn't pick the playlist. That's like, and that's like a waiting problem.
01:27:18 ◼ ► And it just seems like it's not waiting properly. It's not, uh, you know, prioritizing personal
01:27:22 ◼ ► stuff over stuff that's out there. I heard from a lot of people who say things like, uh, you know,
01:27:27 ◼ ► you name an album in your library and it gets something similar. That's from Apple music. It's
01:27:35 ◼ ► it's just stuff that they have to work on. But even with all those complaints, like I listen to
01:27:40 ◼ ► all my music in the house with the home pods. Now I don't use, I almost never turn on the receiver
01:27:47 ◼ ► and have it go through the Sonos, even though that's a nice experience and sounds better,
01:27:52 ◼ ► but it doesn't sound better enough. Um, and the, you know, the Amazon echo that we've got,
01:27:57 ◼ ► doesn't sound good at all. So even though it has Apple music, now I don't listen to music on that
01:28:02 ◼ ► either. I listened to it on the home pods. So, uh, it's, it's gone from being a, an iffy product
01:28:07 ◼ ► pricey, but, and with missing features to being still pricey, although at least you can get some
01:28:12 ◼ ► deals and, um, and good. So I, I'm, I wish it were better, but it's not a flop, which like it might've
01:28:20 ◼ ► been, but it's not. And then at 8.7% is air power. Now this is interesting, right? The product has
01:28:27 ◼ ► an exist, but I think it's one of the biggest disappointments in technology product wise this,
01:28:32 ◼ ► this year, because I mean, we should have had it last year probably. Uh, and it didn't come this
01:28:38 ◼ ► year and there's nothing on it. Apple seems to be almost acknowledging and not acknowledging its
01:28:50 ◼ ► different manuals and different web pages. This is an absolute abject failure. Like I am, yeah,
01:29:02 ◼ ► You know, um, I left this blank because I wasn't sure, cause this is one of those things where you've
01:29:07 ◼ ► got to kind of rifle through, like there's a lot of bad gadgets and disappointing tech out there.
01:29:11 ◼ ► And I wasn't sure where I was going to go. And cause I filled out my, my nominees a week ago.
01:29:24 ◼ ► Oh, it's air power. Like I just had this flash where I started laughing and I was like,
01:29:28 ◼ ► well, of course that's the answer. It's air power or at least the ghost of where air power might be.
01:29:35 ◼ ► Um, because you know, it might exist someday and it might actually be good. I liked, I always liked
01:29:42 ◼ ► the narrative that Apple was kind of reinventing wireless charging that, you know, but there was,
01:29:50 ◼ ► this group, the standards body has been working on Qi charging for years, but Apple's going to
01:29:55 ◼ ► just walk right in and say, ha ha, we're going to fix it for you suckers and propose new extensions
01:30:00 ◼ ► to the standard and all of that. And then silence, because, um, what it says is that Apple had great
01:30:08 ◼ ► confidence and ability to engineer a product the likes of which they had never made before,
01:30:14 ◼ ► so confident that they announced it and then they couldn't ship it and leaving this product aside.
01:30:27 ◼ ► restraining your enthusiasm about what your engineering capabilities are because classic
01:30:32 ◼ ► Apple culture does not announce this product until it's working until they're, they announce it. And
01:30:37 ◼ ► then when they're able to ship it. And, and a few times we've seen Apple announced products that
01:30:42 ◼ ► were not close to ready the home pod being one of them. And, uh, it seems a little desperate,
01:30:48 ◼ ► like they're running scared in terms of the home pod because of the competition air power
01:30:54 ◼ ► just seems arrogant. That is an own goal. They had no reason other than maybe some pride,
01:31:00 ◼ ► like that they were announcing Qi chargers, but, uh, weren't making one themselves, but also just
01:31:06 ◼ ► the arrogance behind it. Like they could have made a Qi charging puck and sold it for $40 more than
01:31:10 ◼ ► all the others and, uh, made a, made a fortune on them, but they decided, no, no, no, that's not
01:31:15 ◼ ► enough for them. They want to do something even more and they failed at it. And the arrogance that
01:31:20 ◼ ► they announced it before they, uh, actually had it in hand. It's just like, I hope that's a hope.
01:31:27 ◼ ► That's a lesson they're learning. Cause this is why Apple doesn't pre-announce stuff way in advance,
01:31:32 ◼ ► wait until it's in the hand and it's working and then announce it. You're Apple. You don't need to
01:31:36 ◼ ► do that. So, um, I think by acclimation, air power is the most disappointing tech of the year.
01:31:43 ◼ ► You know, I've been thinking about this. They are so lucky. They adopted an open standard for
01:31:48 ◼ ► wireless charging, right? Right. Imagine if they had shipped wireless charging on those devices
01:31:53 ◼ ► and it only worked or it only worked sort of especially well, we don't know. It's possible
01:31:57 ◼ ► that those iPhones have special charging tech in them that was designed to work with air power
01:32:03 ◼ ► that never shipped. It's entirely possible. Um, and we wouldn't know an extension to Qi
01:32:08 ◼ ► that just has never been enabled because they didn't, they didn't do it. So it is, I mean,
01:32:13 ◼ ► seriously, monetarily imagine if they had done an Apple charger, they would have sold a bunch
01:32:17 ◼ ► of those instead of just working with the partners, but they didn't because they had this other thing
01:32:26 ◼ ► disappointing technology of the year. So we're going to move into our favorite tech story for 2018.
01:32:33 ◼ ► The upgradians voted at 4.1% of the vote was the Tesla Roadster that was launched into space with
01:32:40 ◼ ► space X. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. At 4.5%, I grouped together the various
01:32:47 ◼ ► privacy scandals of Facebook. Um, and I understand when people say this is a favorite story,
01:32:52 ◼ ► it's not necessarily something they're super happy about, but like the Facebook's year has been
01:32:56 ◼ ► fascinating to watch unfold. Um, so, you know, like they have had just disaster after disaster
01:33:04 ◼ ► for the entire year, but 13.1% is Bloomberg's big hack story, which was their thing and saying that
01:33:12 ◼ ► all of the technology companies that you know and love were using chips from a company called
01:33:16 ◼ ► Supermicro, which were being hacked and spied on by the Chinese government. A story that
01:33:27 ◼ ► behind. And then I guess all of the resulting drama that came from that story. I think this is a,
01:33:33 ◼ ► this is a very good pick, uh, for one of, if not the most interesting technology story of the year.
01:33:39 ◼ ► But of course we have our own picks. Um, I am going to pick, this is probably at the surprise
01:33:44 ◼ ► of nobody, a theme of the continued convergence of technology companies and streaming media.
01:33:51 ◼ ► It's one of my very favorite things of the year. It's why we created the Upstream segment,
01:33:55 ◼ ► because even as somebody that does not consume as much media as you do, I just like watching the
01:34:01 ◼ ► business moves of it all. Like, I think that we're going into like a new age of media at this point.
01:34:07 ◼ ► And, and it is the technology companies that we were already talking about that are going to own
01:34:12 ◼ ► it, except for Disney. And it's obviously going to keep growing because, um, in the next five years,
01:34:28 ◼ ► and I wanted to mention this. So in 2017 you picked, and it was the winner, we gave it to the
01:34:31 ◼ ► winners, the overreaching smartphone, and you specifically called out the red hydrogen one,
01:34:36 ◼ ► which was, seemed like vaporware at the time, and the essential phone. Funny thing is that both of
01:34:41 ◼ ► those phones came out, right? They were, they were out now. The red hydrogen phone, the red hydrogen
01:34:45 ◼ ► one was panned even by people like MKBHD who should have loved it, right? Because he loves red.
01:34:51 ◼ ► He didn't like the phone. And as of like the last couple of days, the essential phone is no longer
01:34:56 ◼ ► being sold. So you were 100% right about those phones overreaching. Yeah, that was a good one.
01:35:02 ◼ ► It was a good one. And it's funny because there have been, there have been like other phones,
01:35:10 ◼ ► smartphones. I have no idea if you're even familiar with these, but they weren't overreaching,
01:35:14 ◼ ► but they were different and they were focused. So like Razer and Asus both released gaming
01:35:19 ◼ ► smartphones and they seem to have been reviewed really highly and people liked them, but it's
01:35:25 ◼ ► because they're focused. You know, the red hydrogen one and the essential phone, they were
01:35:29 ◼ ► overreaching as you rightly put. So that's, so mine is the continued convergence of tech and
01:35:35 ◼ ► streaming media. Well, for a second, I thought your favorite tech story was one I picked,
01:35:39 ◼ ► overreaching smartphone. And that would create a recursive award. We're not doing that. Not here,
01:35:45 ◼ ► no more, none of that here. Thank you. My choice. And I really struggled with this. I think I've
01:35:51 ◼ ► decided to go with the fact that Apple put all of its marketing images of its iPhones on its website
01:35:59 ◼ ► publicly available in advance so that Guillermo Rambo and Steve Stratton Smith could spelunk
01:36:07 ◼ ► and find all of the iPhone images and spoil all of the iPhone stuff a couple of days before the
01:36:13 ◼ ► event. This came very close in the upgradience voting. It was in number four. So it is a story
01:36:20 ◼ ► about being completely baffled about Apple's inability to stage their content. Because like,
01:36:27 ◼ ► why, why should that content ever be on a publicly available server until the moment the event ends?
01:36:35 ◼ ► Right? Like there is something wrong with Apple servers if they have to get everything in place
01:36:40 ◼ ► two days in advance. That's really bad. Or it's a huge mistake and somebody released it to
01:36:44 ◼ ► production when they shouldn't have. It's also a great story of detective work or reporting work
01:36:50 ◼ ► where there were some file name consistencies across events that allowed them to intuit what
01:36:59 ◼ ► the file names would be for these items. And that goes back to Apple. Apple needs to be much more,
01:37:06 ◼ ► this is like a company hardening themselves against hacker attacks. Basically, Apple needs to
01:37:11 ◼ ► have security in things like their file names and stuff. They need to randomize all that stuff.
01:37:18 ◼ ► They need to build, and perhaps in the last few months they've done that because people are going
01:37:23 ◼ ► to do this. People want to know what Apple is doing. This didn't happen for the October event.
01:37:26 ◼ ► You double down on secrecy and then you don't bother to change your standard file names for
01:37:33 ◼ ► all of your new product photography. It's baffling. So it's a great story in a bunch of different
01:37:39 ◼ ► ways. It did completely spoil that event because we knew everything about those devices, about the
01:37:44 ◼ ► Apple Watch and about the new iPhones, even their names, which was kind of a bummer because they had
01:37:50 ◼ ► done a pretty good job with at least parts of this to be mysterious. And then it was all just
01:37:54 ◼ ► kind of blown. But I'm also fascinated as a tech story by just what a bad job Apple did.
01:37:59 ◼ ► I mean, I will say as somebody who needs to come up with topics for shows about these products in
01:38:03 ◼ ► the weeks leading up to the events, I was happy that it happened because it gave us something to
01:38:09 ◼ ► talk about. I really love this story because again, it's like the enterprising individual.
01:38:20 ◼ ► Yeah, he held onto that fact that he had noticed the file names were consistent and that if you
01:38:25 ◼ ► could guess or notice this particular blob of text, you could use that as the key to unlock
01:38:30 ◼ ► all of these other file names. And then he sat on it and the iPhone event, he deployed it and he got
01:38:36 ◼ ► it all. Amazing. I want to give this as the story. I want to give the tech story of the year.
01:38:52 ◼ ► It's a great story. It is a great story. And we're going to come back to the Bloomberg thing
01:39:05 ◼ ► Yeah. So shout out to, I guess we should shout out to 9to5Mac because that's where that stuff
01:39:15 ◼ ► Yeah, but this is what we expect from that. We've always expected from 9to5 that it's going to be
01:39:19 ◼ ► some kind of spoiling. It is one of the interesting changes because they kind of went from what Mark
01:39:25 ◼ ► Gorman has, which is the best sources, right? To now they make their own news. And I kind of like
01:39:31 ◼ ► that because now they dig through stuff and they find stuff. And that's kind of been because you
01:39:35 ◼ ► look at the HomePod leak the year before, which came as a runner up in that category for every
01:39:46 ◼ ► they're really great with that. So favorite tech screw up. We have from the Upgradients at 13.7%
01:39:54 ◼ ► Bloomberg's big hack story. AirPower at 16.5%. And at 27.7% of the vote is Facebook and its
01:40:06 ◼ ► various privacy scandals. I wanted to kind of throw in here, because it's like the Facebook
01:40:13 ◼ ► stuff, it's so bad and it's so big that I don't even know how to talk about it. But I will mention
01:40:21 ◼ ► kind of, I think my pick here would be Bloomberg and the Supermicro stuff, because I don't even
01:40:27 ◼ ► understand what led to that. They had sources which they seem to trust, but spoke to the
01:40:33 ◼ ► companies and the companies denied it, but they published anyway and continue to double down on
01:40:39 ◼ ► it even after more and more people are kind of debunking the story in various ways, but they
01:40:44 ◼ ► have stuck by it. It is fascinating to me to see Business Week destroy its credibility with at
01:40:53 ◼ ► least these companies that they report on. And I think the ramifications for this will probably be
01:40:59 ◼ ► like the ramifications that Gizmodo had when it published the iPhone story. No one from Business
01:41:05 ◼ ► Week is getting invited to the next Apple events. And I hope for Bloomberg's sake that they don't
01:41:10 ◼ ► feel a rub from that. - Yeah, it's a weird story. I felt strongly it wasn't my favorite tech story,
01:41:20 ◼ ► even the story around the story, but is it a screw up? That's the one question is it seems like
01:41:26 ◼ ► there's something screwy is going on here, right? But whose screw up is it is still a little bit of
01:41:32 ◼ ► an open question. It feels to me like it probably is a game of telephone as I've detailed before
01:41:37 ◼ ► that led to people being confident in stuff that they said was true and told Business Week was true
01:41:44 ◼ ► that turned out that they didn't actually know the truth. It is because it seems unlikely that
01:41:51 ◼ ► all these companies and the US government would say this didn't happen and that they would just
01:41:57 ◼ ► be so blatant to completely deny everything. Is it possible that it's all a conspiracy and they're
01:42:01 ◼ ► lying about it? I guess, but that would be like, it would seem that this government that we have
01:42:08 ◼ ► right now in the US would be really happy to talk about another way that China is infiltrating our
01:42:13 ◼ ► society and how we need to fight against them, right? If they could and they didn't. So yeah,
01:42:19 ◼ ► it's baffling. My nomination here is Amazon's HQ2 process in which cities all over North America
01:42:26 ◼ ► bend over backwards to give to offer free stuff to Amazon in exchange for them building a second
01:42:33 ◼ ► headquarters outside of Seattle in their city and Amazon for orchestrating the whole thing as a
01:42:38 ◼ ► reality show to get everybody to give them free stuff in contrast to like Apple which just
01:42:43 ◼ ► announced that they were building a big facility in Austin, Texas and did not do a reality show
01:42:48 ◼ ► to get there. That, I already didn't like this story, but the thing that pushes it over into
01:42:54 ◼ ► screw up is that in the end what happened? Amazon picked two cities. They were essentially New York
01:43:06 ◼ ► and Washington DC, so not small cities that could have gotten a boost from a second headquarters at
01:43:12 ◼ ► all, but just added people in two large cities. They also threw in a thing in Nashville, I want
01:43:20 ◼ ► to say, where they're going to build a hub for logistics and stuff and distribution. And so what
01:43:27 ◼ ► we ended up getting was Amazon played a bunch of cities, got a bunch of offers of free stuff from
01:43:33 ◼ ► city governments, and then didn't even do what it said it was going to do and didn't really build a
01:43:38 ◼ ► second headquarters. They built... Richard: And New York really doesn't want it. The residents of New
01:43:42 ◼ ► York are very, very unhappy. Chris: New York's not thrilled. This is a place where places that
01:43:47 ◼ ► already have high... that are high cost of living and high paying jobs are there are going to get
01:43:51 ◼ ► some more of them, which, you know, as opposed to going to a city that could really use Amazon as a
01:43:58 ◼ ► hub and would roll out the red carpet and would give them stuff because they want to have that
01:44:02 ◼ ► extra shot in the arm. So this thing that was hyped kind of unpleasantly and led to all of these
01:44:08 ◼ ► cities having their plans of what they were going to give to Amazon, in the end, Amazon didn't even
01:44:13 ◼ ► do it. They just... they chickened out and they ended up just kind of putting some people in New
01:44:19 ◼ ► York and DC. Like, what a story. What a screw up on all fronts, on the fronts of the governments and
01:44:46 ◼ ► I think it's got to be Facebook. I think... I think having done with Steven done both subnet
01:44:52 ◼ ► and download this year where we're looking at all the headlines, like, the key here is that there is
01:44:58 ◼ ► not one Facebook issue. The key is that there are endless Facebook issues and some of them are more
01:45:05 ◼ ► serious than others. And we've reached the point now where small things that Facebook does are
01:45:13 ◼ ► Chris I mean, but also, like, huge stuff is not really getting covered because it's like,
01:45:16 ◼ ► you know, like, at least widely, like the Cambridge Analytica thing was huge. But then there's been
01:45:22 ◼ ► massive breaches after that, but they're just not getting the attention anymore because it's like,
01:45:33 ◼ ► facts about this blog post that they do, where they try to spin it their way. Mark Zuckerberg
01:45:39 ◼ ► basically has, you know, he can't be removed because he made the company and he set it up
01:45:46 ◼ ► in a certain way. There, the people who are in positions of authority over this are incredibly
01:46:06 ◼ ► it's, and that's just how it is. And they built this whole company based on these core ideas.
01:46:18 ◼ ► shade the truth when they can bend the truth to mislead people. We also know that they hired all
01:46:24 ◼ ► sorts of like opposition research groups. So there's just like Facebook is a garbage fire.
01:46:33 ◼ ► yes, they are the biggest screw up in technology this year without a shadow of a doubt.
01:46:44 ◼ ► The upgrade is voted with the 2018 iPad Pro at 8.8%. This is both models. The 10.7% goes to the
01:47:13 ◼ ► I'll just go back again to a couple of weeks ago where I talked about it. I feel like the Apple
01:47:17 ◼ ► Pencil 2 is the most life changing hardware for me because it has changed how I edit podcasts.
01:47:25 ◼ ► ferrite and the Apple Pencil and editing my podcast in the warmth of my house instead of the
01:47:30 ◼ ► cooler climate of my garage, which means that I'm around like my pets and my family. And I'm more
01:47:36 ◼ ► visible and I'm not behind a closed door on Saturday mornings editing me and comparable.
01:47:40 ◼ ► And that's a life change that is enabled by that. Now, yeah, could I use a laptop out there? Well,
01:47:46 ◼ ► I could, but I didn't. Like if I was going to use logic on my MacBook Air, I just would use logic on
01:47:52 ◼ ► my iMac Pro. But I don't do that now. So I'm going to throw that out there. I think the Apple Pencil,
01:47:58 ◼ ► good product, good update. And I have started to use it and it's changed my workflows. So
01:48:05 ◼ ► I wanted to pick something completely different. We got an espresso machine this year that I love.
01:48:10 ◼ ► It is hardware. It's kind of technological in some ways, I guess. It is the Barista Express,
01:48:16 ◼ ► which is made by Breville, but in the UK is branded as Sage. They did like a deal with a big
01:48:22 ◼ ► chef here who anyway, but it's branded as Sage here. And I really like the I really, really like
01:48:29 ◼ ► this product. It's changed my life because I use it multiple times a day and it makes the best
01:48:33 ◼ ► coffee that I've ever had at home. I absolutely love it. So I'm going to go with the Barista
01:48:39 ◼ ► Chris The Sage, uh, Barista Express. But obviously the Apple Pencil 2 is going to win this category
01:48:49 ◼ ► Chris No, I don't want to vote the Apple Watch because, you know, I would prefer to vote the
01:48:54 ◼ ► Apple Pencil 2 and have the Apple Watch as a runner up because for me personally, I don't
01:49:00 ◼ ► this was the year I stopped wearing it. So yeah, I'm super excited to see how happy you have been
01:49:18 ◼ ► the podcast awards section? Well, it's all that's left. I don't know what else we would do. So sure.
01:49:37 ◼ ► Considering the high bandwidth world that we live in today, you need a distributed system in your
01:49:41 ◼ ► home to make sure that you can get the best speeds available, no matter where you are in your house.
01:49:45 ◼ ► And with Eero, you can install an enterprise grade wifi system into your home in just a few minutes.
01:49:54 ◼ ► allowing for increased speed and range. It sits flat on any surface and connects wirelessly or
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01:50:20 ◼ ► phishing and unsuitable content. Eero plus can automatically tag sites that contain violent,
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01:50:34 ◼ ► of privacy invading ad tracking. And it's also possible to have Eero plus check the sites that
01:50:38 ◼ ► you visit against a database of millions of unknown threats to prevent you from visiting
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01:50:57 ◼ ► I would love to know something about how much you do love them. Yeah, well, I do have, as I
01:51:01 ◼ ► mentioned earlier, an increasing number of smart devices. And one of the challenges was my original
01:51:06 ◼ ► wifi network reached, you know, a couple of rooms. And if we were lucky, the backyard and the smart
01:51:12 ◼ ► devices go even more on the periphery. I've got a, you know, a webcam in the front and I've got
01:51:16 ◼ ► the lock on the front door and all this stuff. And Eero has made it that I no longer, I used to
01:51:22 ◼ ► be concerned about like walking from room to room because I did have two separate base stations,
01:51:27 ◼ ► but it would pick up and drop and the networking would get weird. And then there were dead spots.
01:51:31 ◼ ► My house isn't that large, but still there were dead spots and weird spots. And since I went to
01:51:35 ◼ ► Eero where I've got the base stations and the beacons, it is, it was easy to set up and it's
01:51:40 ◼ ► all covered. So I don't even think about it anymore to be honest, except when we do these ads,
01:51:44 ◼ ► because otherwise it just is there's wifi everywhere in my house. And that's all you ever
01:51:48 ◼ ► have to think about. You need never think about wifi again with Eero. You can get $100 of the
01:51:54 ◼ ► Eero base unit and two beacons package and one year of Eero plus just by going to Eero.com/ahoy
01:52:01 ◼ ► that's EERO.com/ahoy and check out the, and you check out and use the promo code Ahoy that is
01:52:07 ◼ ► Eero.com EERO.com/ahoy and the code Ahoy to get $100 off the Eero base unit two beacons package.
01:52:15 ◼ ► And that awesome one year of Eero plus. So you get all those awesome features that I think is really,
01:52:19 ◼ ► really cool. Our thanks to Eero for their support of this show and Relay FM. So we're rounding out
01:52:25 ◼ ► the 2018 upgrade days by talking about some of the best podcasts in our industry and the industry at
01:52:31 ◼ ► large. And we start with our favorite tech podcast, which includes the lifetime achievement award
01:52:37 ◼ ► winner of the Accidental Tech Podcast. ATP won three years in a row for the first three years.
01:52:43 ◼ ► So we decided to create the lifetime achievement award just to get them out of the category. Get
01:52:52 ◼ ► to every week. I love it. And so I would just keep voting it for it forever, even to the point that I
01:52:56 ◼ ► actually don't have a nomination in this category because ATP is the one that I would always want
01:53:03 ◼ ► to vote for. So I haven't voted. Myke, I feel that the upgradients have done it again with their
01:53:08 ◼ ► selections. So in at kind of third place is Cortex with 7.9%. Thank you very much upgradients. The
01:53:17 ◼ ► talk show is at 13.7%. Now here's the thing. Upgrade got 14.5%. But I have a thing about this.
01:53:25 ◼ ► I think most people know that we're never going to award upgrade as the show, which is why
01:53:29 ◼ ► obviously every upgradient doesn't vote for upgrade. But thank you to the 14.5% of you that
01:53:36 ◼ ► voted for upgrade anyway. I am genuinely flattered that 21.4% of the upgradients voted for connected
01:53:54 ◼ ► There's a reason, but I really like that we come in second. That makes me laugh every time. It's
01:54:00 ◼ ► like, yeah, it's so close. We just didn't make it. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. I'm with the
01:54:17 ◼ ► I'm going to highlight. So connected, the thing about it is it's the relationship between you
01:54:20 ◼ ► three guys, but also as the show artwork shows, right? It's also your different perspectives.
01:54:24 ◼ ► You got Steven in Tennessee, you're in London, Federico's in Rome. And so you have very different
01:54:28 ◼ ► perspectives, um, that come out in hilarious ways. I mean, we, you and I got a flavor of that in the
01:54:34 ◼ ► Christmas special where we explained the premise of the Christmas Carol and Federico was like,
01:54:40 ◼ ► I don't know what that is. And they're like, what? Federico being young and Italian, uh,
01:54:46 ◼ ► those two traits, I think more than anything else, he has just these voids where we assume there's
01:54:55 ◼ ► like this historical knowledge. That's just, he doesn't have that. Instead, he's got this whole
01:55:00 ◼ ► other catalog of things that he knows that are, are surprising to us. And it's delightful. Um,
01:55:07 ◼ ► plus he is, you know, he, yeah, he's a, he's a quirky, funny guy and that comes through.
01:55:13 ◼ ► And then you guys all have your, like, uh, it's a, it's a good relationship. The highlight of
01:55:17 ◼ ► this year, by the way, was, uh, the weird fish episode where Federico had to name a bunch of new
01:55:22 ◼ ► emoji and try to guess what they were. That was our best episode. Uh, that was a pretty incredible
01:55:27 ◼ ► episode. So, and also I will say this is the year that Connected's show art got shown on stage at
01:55:32 ◼ ► an Apple keynote. So for these reasons, I bestow upon you, Myke Hurley and Steven Hackett and
01:55:38 ◼ ► Federico Vittucci, the favorite tech podcast. It's not from you to yourself. It's from us,
01:55:43 ◼ ► the Upgradians and me to you guys. Congratulations. I genuinely am honored. Like this is a
01:55:50 ◼ ► great honor to me. I've always wanted to win an award for one of my shows and now I've done it.
01:55:56 ◼ ► And I consider obviously the upgrade is to be the most prestigious, most prestigious of all
01:56:01 ◼ ► podcasting awards. Yes, absolutely. I am absolutely honored. It's a little like wearing a t-shirt that
01:56:06 ◼ ► says my mom says I'm awesome. You can now put on your, uh, on your site that you, you, your own
01:56:12 ◼ ► podcast gave you an award. I'm genuinely like, thank you. I genuinely think that means so much
01:56:18 ◼ ► to me that you would nominate the show. And I didn't know what the listener results were
01:56:23 ◼ ► going to be. I just, I just thought about it. I can't pick ATP, right? It's barred. And I thought,
01:56:28 ◼ ► you know, I've really enjoyed listening to Connected this year. My heart was warmed when I,
01:56:31 ◼ ► when I got to the, to the voting and saw that like that, that just, that just felt really,
01:56:35 ◼ ► really good. So, and I know that, um, Federico and Steven are going to be, they're going to be really
01:56:40 ◼ ► excited to, to find this out. So thank you so much for that. That means an awful lot. But Apple
01:56:46 ◼ ► next year upgrade. Yeah, come on show art. Let's put upgrade up there next time. Use it. You can,
01:56:52 ◼ ► you can, you can help us out. We'll let you use it. Don't worry. You can take this as our, as our
01:56:56 ◼ ► acceptance view to do it. So we now move into our favorite non-tech podcast with our second lifetime
01:57:00 ◼ ► achievement award winner, which is the flophouse, which also won the first three years in this
01:57:06 ◼ ► category. It's still my favorite. So cannot be voted for anymore. Now I would like to go
01:57:16 ◼ ► 9.2% is frequent runner up. Hello internet. And 23.2% of the vote goes to Dubai Friday,
01:57:33 ◼ ► that's a, is a good, good range at 23.2% from the upgradience. I absolutely love Dubai Friday,
01:57:39 ◼ ► like Dubai Friday gets a big thumbs up for me. Uh, but I wanted to talk about a show that I
01:57:44 ◼ ► absolutely love, which I would have wanted to put in. It was a newcomer to me this year,
01:57:53 ◼ ► Wonderful is hosted by, uh, Griffin and, uh, Rachel McElroy, um, their husband and wife.
01:58:00 ◼ ► And they used to do a show about the bachelor and then they ended up hating the bachelor.
01:58:05 ◼ ► So they turned their show, uh, Rose Buddies into a show called Wonderful. And the premise is very
01:58:10 ◼ ► simple. Uh, they both bring to the show two things that they think are wonderful. I love,
01:58:17 ◼ ► I am very much into shows now that bring joy to me. That is a thing that like in 2018, uh,
01:58:25 ◼ ► I find just to be a nice thing to have things that bring joy to me and wonderful is just pure joy.
01:58:33 ◼ ► Um, and, and I absolutely love this show. It is, you know, for the reasons that I also love top
01:58:37 ◼ ► four, um, it is really nice to, to hear a couple who clearly enjoy each other very much and hear
01:58:45 ◼ ► their chemistry wrapped around something that's also super fun and wonderful is that like,
01:58:50 ◼ ► it is just bliss. I love that show so much. Couples podcasting is a thing for sure. Um,
01:58:56 ◼ ► my choice is a, uh, Podcast about one of our nominees for the TV award, which is the good
01:59:04 ◼ ► place, the good place. The podcast is hosted by Mark Evan Jackson, who plays Sean on the show,
01:59:11 ◼ ► a recurring character. He does a great job hosting it. Um, he gets access to, uh, you know,
01:59:18 ◼ ► actors, but also crew and, you know, writers, producers, directors, uh, casting people. Uh,
01:59:37 ◼ ► what we do is we are not in the PR business for them. Like we, you know, the, after the walking
01:59:44 ◼ ► dead show is going to say, wasn't that a great episode. Every time the, after the star Trek,
01:59:48 ◼ ► all those after shows are official and they're going to be like, wasn't it great. Let's talk
01:59:53 ◼ ► to the cast. Whereas on an independent podcast, you can be like, yeah, this didn't work. It was
01:59:58 ◼ ► bad. Um, and you just, that's not allowed. That's I don't like this performance. I didn't think this
02:00:03 ◼ ► was well-written don't you can't, you can't say it. So I like, I like those kinds of podcasts.
02:00:08 ◼ ► I don't really like the official podcast, except for the access that they, that they grant. The
02:00:12 ◼ ► great thing about the good place, the podcast is yes, they're not going to slag off the show,
02:00:16 ◼ ► but it's not really what the show's about. It, first off, I love the show, so they don't need
02:00:20 ◼ ► to slag it off. It's great. What I, what I love about the podcast though, is that they let you
02:00:26 ◼ ► go in detail about how they make the show and that Mark Evan Jackson is actually very interested in
02:00:31 ◼ ► how they make the show. Where'd this, you know, where'd this story idea come from? What was the
02:00:35 ◼ ► plan to take the story in this direction? Um, you know, what was the direction for the actor?
02:00:40 ◼ ► Where did they shoot this? How did they make this work with the special effects? You know,
02:00:44 ◼ ► how did these props get created? It really does kind of pick apart episode by episode with
02:00:49 ◼ ► different guests, how they make the show. And that's what makes it a great podcast is it's
02:00:53 ◼ ► a good host. It's got access, but it's much more interested in how a TV show is made than it is
02:01:00 ◼ ► being interested in just kind of like fluffy interviews with actors, which I think is a snooze.
02:01:06 ◼ ► So it's a great show. That sounds very interesting. You should listen after you've seen. Yeah,
02:01:12 ◼ ► of course. I imagine it's rife with spoilers. The first two seasons are covered as a rewatch,
02:01:18 ◼ ► basically. So you have to have seen the first two seasons, season three, they're doing episode by
02:01:23 ◼ ► episode without spoilers for the future because they're releasing them on the episode. But
02:01:26 ◼ ► this came out this year and they went through the first, you know, whatever, 25 episodes or
02:01:44 ◼ ► You know, people don't know, but you, you have Dubai Friday with a slash with wonderful. Yeah.
02:01:49 ◼ ► And I feel like the upgradians also spoke pretty clearly here. We know the people who do by Friday,
02:01:54 ◼ ► but that is a, and we've been on it, you and I and Federico and Steven. Um, it's a really
02:02:01 ◼ ► a wacky podcast, but, uh, you know, it is a good people, um, using this medium to do some very,
02:02:10 ◼ ► um, yeah, they're, they're exploiting the medium of podcasting in lots of interesting ways.
02:02:20 ◼ ► the upgradians and it's a previous winner for newcomer, I say Dubai Friday. Congratulations
02:02:26 ◼ ► Dubai Friday. Well deserved. Uh, love that show. It's it's again, it's like a show I will,
02:02:31 ◼ ► I will never miss every week. Uh, I really, really do love it. It's fantastic. So very happy for it
02:02:36 ◼ ► to be our favorite non tech podcast for 2018. So move into our final award of the evening,
02:02:43 ◼ ► favorite podcast newcomer. So the upgradians voted with 6.6% newcomer to relay FM automators,
02:02:52 ◼ ► a show all about automating your, uh, devices, your, your computing devices. And it's hosted
02:03:05 ◼ ► upgrade award winning, uh, hosted Dubai Friday, Alex Cox and, uh, Matt Casanelli. He used to work
02:03:11 ◼ ► at workflow and shortcuts, uh, team, I think in the shortcuts team at Apple. Um, and they talk
02:03:17 ◼ ► about make basically all the stuff that you would assume again, stuff about automation, but just
02:03:21 ◼ ► about using technology devices, uh, to do the things that you want them to do and tied at 7.8%,
02:03:28 ◼ ► which was baffling to me, they got the exact same amount of votes, uh, is the show that I do called
02:03:33 ◼ ► playing for fun relay FM, which I, again, um, apps, I was really surprised to see playing for
02:03:39 ◼ ► fun here. And, um, I thank everybody for that. Uh, talking about like the joy, like wanting to,
02:03:46 ◼ ► that I love wonderful because it just brings me joy. Uh, that is what I, and what me and
02:03:52 ◼ ► TIFF tried to do with playing for fun. Like we just talk about good stuff. Our streams are fun.
02:03:56 ◼ ► We do like Twitch streaming. We just want to put nice stuff into the world. And so I genuinely
02:04:02 ◼ ► really appreciate, um, that the vote for playing for fun there from, from the upgrade. And so thank
02:04:06 ◼ ► you for that. Um, Jason, what is your, uh, newcomer show? Uh, it's, I'm just going to say, see above,
02:04:14 ◼ ► uh, the good place. The podcast was new this year. I loved it. It was my number one new podcast this
02:04:20 ◼ ► year. There are some other ones out there that are good, but this is the one that was the best for me.
02:04:25 ◼ ► Um, my vote is for a show that my co-host TIFF on playing for fun, uh, does on the incomparable
02:04:32 ◼ ► with, uh, Clockwise host, uh, Michael Sargent, which is somehow I managed, which is a rewatch
02:04:38 ◼ ► show of the office. Um, I love the office. This show has got me to rewatch the office again.
02:04:44 ◼ ► And I really like hearing two absolute office nerds. Like they are super fans talk about this
02:04:52 ◼ ► show. Um, again, it is a show that brings me joy because it is talking about the fun stuff in my,
02:04:58 ◼ ► one of my favorite TV shows of all time. And I think that they've done some really fun things.
02:05:03 ◼ ► Like they have super hilarious intros a lot of the time where they like recreate something from
02:05:08 ◼ ► the show, which with their amazing acting, which I really enjoy. Um, and I love that they give
02:05:15 ◼ ► Dundee awards out at the end of every episode. And something that I value greatly in this,
02:05:20 ◼ ► in this podcast is that they, they do not spoil anything in for the future. Like I can tell that,
02:05:29 ◼ ► I mean, they spoke about this, but I can tell the great, the great lengths that they go to.
02:05:37 ◼ ► stuff that happens in later seasons, which I think is super valuable for a show like this. So
02:05:48 ◼ ► Well, that's very nice as somebody who's, uh, who does the incomparable network. That's, uh,
02:05:53 ◼ ► that's good. So my, my, um, if my daughter were voting, she would vote for somehow I manage cause
02:05:58 ◼ ► Jamie doesn't, um, the office is her favorite TV show. She really wants to be on somehow I manage.
02:06:08 ◼ ► cause she does not want to be on podcasts. Uh, we have to drag her on and, uh, and she listens
02:06:14 ◼ ► to somehow I manage. She listens to it regularly and loves it because they, they love that show
02:06:18 ◼ ► as much as she does, which is pretty cool. I, by the way, Jamie this year for Christmas,
02:06:23 ◼ ► one of the things I got her was a Dundee award. Oh, very good. Actual Dundee award statue for fine,
02:06:30 ◼ ► fine work. She loved it. So where are we going to put our vote for this one? Um, I, I look,
02:06:37 ◼ ► I listened to it twice. I want the good place, the podcast to win. Hmm. I mean, you gave me an award,
02:06:47 ◼ ► so yeah, sure. All right. That's how it works. I feel bad for Tiff though. She, she's got two
02:06:54 ◼ ► nominations in the same time, right on the doorstep, but not quite there yet. So that's it.
02:07:01 ◼ ► That is our upgrade ease. So don't forget you can go to upgrade ease.com where you will find all of
02:07:08 ◼ ► these, uh, all of the lists of all of the winners and the runners up, um, for this year and all
02:07:14 ◼ ► previous years, uh, from 2014 through to 2018, this was the fifth annual upgrade awards. You
02:07:22 ◼ ► can find more, uh, you can find links to every. Nomination. So not just the runners up. If you
02:07:28 ◼ ► want to find out more, maybe about the books that Jason listed or some of the video games,
02:07:32 ◼ ► all of the nominations will be in our show notes, which you can find in your podcast app of choice
02:07:37 ◼ ► or relay.fm/upgrades/226. You can go there, or if you use a great podcast app, you will see
02:07:45 ◼ ► the artwork for the upgrade ease for our fifth annual upgrade is, which was created by the
02:07:50 ◼ ► wonderful Simon Buckmaster who does incredible work for all of our stuff here at relay FM and
02:07:54 ◼ ► really knocked it out of the park with this one, uh, as we very cleverly use the Roman numerals,
02:08:00 ◼ ► uh, to, for the fifth one. So that looks amazing. So you can see that on the page or in the app of
02:08:05 ◼ ► choice that you use, uh, thanks to Pingdom, Luna display, Cain, 11 and Eero for their support of
02:08:10 ◼ ► this show. Um, a huge thank you to the. What over a thousand of you that voted. Um, so thank you so
02:08:19 ◼ ► much to the upgrade ians for their votes. Um, I will not even be upset about how long it took me,
02:08:25 ◼ ► Jason. It was two hours. It took me to put the nominations together. Sure. It was a big job.
02:08:31 ◼ ► I'm surprised, but I loved it only two hours. Um, I loved it. This was, it would have taken me way
02:08:36 ◼ ► longer if I hadn't come up with the very complicated spreadsheet system that, uh, that I created last
02:08:41 ◼ ► year. So thank you to past Myke for creating that sheet to make this work easier. Oh, and, uh, thank
02:08:46 ◼ ► you to Chris Breen for, uh, this week and last coming up with special alternative versions of
02:08:52 ◼ ► the upgrade theme song that he created originally. And this was our classy award version. Yep. So
02:08:58 ◼ ► thank you so much for another couple of wonderful brain themes. Uh, they are, we, I enjoy them
02:09:04 ◼ ► greatly. Uh, we have, we have really put at Chris Breen to work this year. Um, I think this is the
02:09:14 ◼ ► four, uh, upgrade ease Christmas draft and summer of fun. Summer of fun too. That was one I was
02:09:22 ◼ ► forgetting. Yes. So that's four. And so you can expect to hear those songs played for, for the
02:09:26 ◼ ► many, many more years. Um, we'll be back next year for the sixth annual upgrades, but we'll be back