Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade Episode 194.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you very kindly by Simple Contacts, Squarespace, and Linode.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Jason Snell.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Hi, Jason Snell. Can you tell why I'm so excited?

00:00:23 ◼   ► Why are you so excited? No, no is my answer. I can't tell why.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Next week is draft time.

00:00:31 ◼   ► It's the most wonderful time of the three times a year.

00:00:34 ◼   ► Uh, also the WWDC draft.

00:00:37 ◼   ► It's the big one next week on upgrade big episode.

00:00:42 ◼   ► We're going to do our draft for our WWDC picks because believe it or not,

00:00:46 ◼   ► everyone, we are two weeks away from WWDC.

00:00:49 ◼   ► So get ready for that.

00:00:51 ◼   ► I'm very excited for the draft, Jason.

00:00:53 ◼   ► I'm very, very excited for the draft, but we don't need to keep talking about it

00:00:56 ◼   ► today because we have a #snowtalk question which comes from Joel and Joel

00:01:01 ◼   ► would like to know this is this is an interesting question for you here Jason

00:01:04 ◼   ► Joel would like to know would you rather have AirPods and an older iPhone or an

00:01:11 ◼   ► iPhone 10 with any other type of headphones so just I'll rephrase it a

00:01:16 ◼   ► little bit you can own AirPods but you cannot use them of an iPhone 10 or you

00:01:21 ◼   ► can own an iPhone 10 and you cannot use AirPods. Also the iPhone 8 came out the

00:01:26 ◼   ► same time as the iPhone 10 and he says an older iPhone so it can't even be an iPhone

00:01:30 ◼   ► 8. Well I guess it came out a couple months earlier. Does it count?

00:01:33 ◼   ► Well technically, yeah technically, yeah the iPhone 8 would, I am ruling iPhone 8 counts.

00:01:38 ◼   ► Well either way I think I, this is a tough hypothetical, I appreciate it Joel, thanks

00:01:43 ◼   ► a lot. Monday morning and I'm being hit with hypotheticals but I'm gonna say, where the

00:01:47 ◼   ► mean man comes to my house and says I'm sorry sir, you cannot possess both AirPods and an

00:01:52 ◼   ► iPhone 10. One man cannot possess so much power.

00:01:55 ◼   ► That is a cruel, cruel, mean man who came to my door and said that I must give one of

00:01:59 ◼   ► them up.

00:02:01 ◼   ► You know what?

00:02:02 ◼   ► I have another pair of wireless headphones that I don't like as much, and I have some

00:02:04 ◼   ► wired headphones I like very much.

00:02:06 ◼   ► And as much as I like having the AirPods, I think at this point I would really rather

00:02:11 ◼   ► not unlearn all the behavior that I've learned in the iPhone X.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Because if it was another year and it was like literally just you're going back to last

00:02:18 ◼   ► year's iPhone and you're going to miss a few features, but it's still the home button and

00:02:22 ◼   ► all of that. I might go the other way, but the iPhone X has kind of reprogrammed all

00:02:26 ◼   ► the gestures in my brain, reprogrammed all those kind of gestures I use on the phone,

00:02:32 ◼   ► and I don't want to ever go back. When I pick up my wife's phone, I'm like, "What is—why

00:02:37 ◼   ► is it not—oh, there's a button. How cute. There's a button at the bottom. I remember

00:02:43 ◼   ► that when iPhones had buttons." So yeah, I think I would just make do with headphones,

00:02:47 ◼   ► Although I would be sad because I like my AirPods, but I think I never want to go back

00:02:52 ◼   ► now that I'm in iPhone 10 land.

00:02:55 ◼   ► It is very difficult because every iPhone is better than the previous one.

00:02:59 ◼   ► So it's, you know, it is a difficult thing to say, yeah, X iPhone or iPhone 10 is a better

00:03:05 ◼   ► than is like my favorite iPhone of all time, right?

00:03:08 ◼   ► Like it's a difficult thing to say because in theory they always should because they

00:03:10 ◼   ► get better.

00:03:11 ◼   ► But I feel like that there is some kind of like every phone you have an amount of affinity

00:03:17 ◼   ► for it. Of course you know it's a better phone but you either like it more or less.

00:03:23 ◼   ► And I would say that the iPhone X is my favourite iPhone since the original iPhone. I absolutely

00:03:30 ◼   ► love this phone where like previous phones that affinity has started to decrease. If

00:03:36 ◼   ► you've listened to this show for long enough you will know that I really did not like the

00:03:40 ◼   ► iPhone 7. I had a lot of problems with the iPhone 7 because again they took away stuff

00:03:45 ◼   ► that didn't make sense to me and I didn't get anything in return.

00:03:47 ◼   ► That was my biggest problem with the iPhone 7.

00:03:49 ◼   ► The iPhone 10, I absolutely love it.

00:03:52 ◼   ► So this is me saying I would use any other type of headphones.

00:03:56 ◼   ► I'd go back to wired ear pods personally, like because I did OK before.

00:04:00 ◼   ► Right. Like the AirPods are incredible. Right.

00:04:02 ◼   ► But I don't love the AirPods more than other headphones

00:04:06 ◼   ► than I do the iPhone more than other iPhones.

00:04:08 ◼   ► Yep. Especially because there are a lot of cool wireless headphones

00:04:13 ◼   ► on the market now.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Like for example, do you know what I would do?

00:04:16 ◼   ► I would just buy the Beats once and then I'm done.

00:04:19 ◼   ► So I showed you Joel.

00:04:21 ◼   ► Thank you, Joel, for your question.

00:04:23 ◼   ► You can send in a tweet with the hashtag Snail Talk for

00:04:26 ◼   ► any question to open the show.

00:04:27 ◼   ► I would love for you listeners, for the Upgradients to think of

00:04:31 ◼   ► something fun for our draft episode next week for a Snail Talk question.

00:04:35 ◼   ► So get your brain working on that one.

00:04:37 ◼   ► Maybe we can have something draft or WWDC related for our

00:04:41 ◼   ► hashtag Snail Talk question.

00:04:43 ◼   ► Be like Joel, be cool.

00:04:44 ◼   ► Send in a question.

00:04:45 ◼   ► So, uh, we have no follow ups.

00:04:47 ◼   ► Let's just move into upstream.

00:04:48 ◼   ► Um, Netflix orders Guillermo De Toro horror anthology series.

00:04:53 ◼   ► It's going to be called, I love this name Guillermo De Toro

00:04:56 ◼   ► presents 10 after midnight.

00:04:58 ◼   ► I love that name.

00:04:59 ◼   ► It's so evocative of something I can't put my finger on, but 10

00:05:03 ◼   ► after midnight, I really like it.

00:05:04 ◼   ► Creepy, scary.

00:05:07 ◼   ► Woo.

00:05:07 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:05:08 ◼   ► This is a part of a long-term deal that Netflix and Guillermo De Toro have.

00:05:12 ◼   ► I think it's a first look deal, I think,

00:05:16 ◼   ► but they have a deal together where he is making content

00:05:19 ◼   ► for them.

00:05:20 ◼   ► This show has no set episode or series order

00:05:24 ◼   ► and it has no premiere date right now.

00:05:26 ◼   ► They've just announced that it's happening.

00:05:27 ◼   ► - And it's an anthology series.

00:05:29 ◼   ► And I'm fascinated because it's been,

00:05:33 ◼   ► there used to be, we talked about this before, I think,

00:05:35 ◼   ► but there used to be a lot of anthology series on TV

00:05:36 ◼   ► in the old days and like "The Twilight Zone"

00:05:39 ◼   ► is a great example of that.

00:05:40 ◼   ► and there are others, Alfred Hitchcock Presents

00:05:42 ◼   ► is a great example of that.

00:05:44 ◼   ► But lately, with streaming especially,

00:05:47 ◼   ► there has been this resurgence in this

00:05:50 ◼   ► and I'm kind of fascinated by it.

00:05:52 ◼   ► Black Mirror is your best example,

00:05:54 ◼   ► although there are others.

00:05:55 ◼   ► - I would argue that that's the reason

00:05:57 ◼   ► that anthology series is so popular again.

00:05:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, they tried it with amazing stories

00:06:00 ◼   ► in the 80s and it didn't really work.

00:06:02 ◼   ► Like, in the Twilight Zone,

00:06:04 ◼   ► they brought back in the 80s too.

00:06:05 ◼   ► And neither of them was a particularly big success.

00:06:08 ◼   ► They both kind of putted around for two or three years,

00:06:11 ◼   ► but they were never a big success.

00:06:13 ◼   ► I feel like with streaming, something has changed

00:06:16 ◼   ► and I can't decide what it is

00:06:17 ◼   ► and whether it's that audiences are more receptive to this.

00:06:20 ◼   ► The idea that you're essentially watching a short story

00:06:23 ◼   ► instead of watching a continuing story

00:06:25 ◼   ► or a short film, if you will, right?

00:06:27 ◼   ► That maybe people are more receptive to that on streaming,

00:06:30 ◼   ► that they can kind of pick and choose.

00:06:32 ◼   ► It's funny 'cause it's very different.

00:06:34 ◼   ► Like you could binge Black Mirror,

00:06:35 ◼   ► but everything, every episode is different.

00:06:38 ◼   ► so you don't really have to, you could also just watch a couple and move on with your

00:06:42 ◼   ► life and maybe not be so sad because it's Black Mirror.

00:06:46 ◼   ► It's interesting because anthology series do not lend themselves to binging because

00:06:50 ◼   ► we binge because shows are built to entice you to watch the next episode so because it's

00:06:56 ◼   ► just available to us we do, right? Yeah, yeah so the question is why are people

00:07:00 ◼   ► doing this and my guess is that that some factor here is the idea that these

00:07:10 ◼   ► are little films and that you end up with this is almost like a it's like a

00:07:19 ◼   ► studio within a studio almost where it's like you come and work with Guillermo

00:07:24 ◼   ► Del-pl-uh, you know, it's Monday morning. G-D-T. You go work with him. You go work with

00:07:32 ◼   ► G-D-T and make a, you know, you come in and you direct an episode and you're making a

00:07:41 ◼   ► little film and you're a director and maybe you're a big name director like, you know,

00:07:46 ◼   ► there are notable people who've come in and directed their other anthology series and

00:07:51 ◼   ► are planning to. Or you're a writer and you come in and say, "Well, I've got this idea,"

00:07:55 ◼   ► and you pitch it to GDT and he's like, "Yeah, that's awesome. That fits with our format."

00:08:00 ◼   ► So I wonder if that's part of it, is this is a place for people who are creative, people

00:08:05 ◼   ► who work in the movie and TV industry, to do these one-off projects so they're not committing

00:08:10 ◼   ► to working a long time on a project. They can drop in and shoot something for a couple

00:08:16 ◼   ► of weeks and then be done. Maybe that's part of it too, but it's another one for Netflix.

00:08:26 ◼   ► By the way, yes, listener Joe in the chat room has pointed out that Netflix also has

00:08:31 ◼   ► announced the thing we talked about a few weeks ago, which is that the Obamas have made

00:08:36 ◼   ► that deal that maybe David Letterman helped inspire them to make to produce films and

00:08:41 ◼   ► series for Netflix, so the Obamas are gonna try it, which I think is gonna be interesting

00:08:48 ◼   ► to watch because there is a real question about whether people want to watch... first

00:08:55 ◼   ► off there's a political issue, right, where there's like a portion of the audience that's

00:08:58 ◼   ► not gonna want to watch the Obamas do anything. And then there's the other issue which is

00:09:03 ◼   ► just how much of this is gonna be, you know, take your medicine television and trying to

00:09:10 ◼   ► like, say, get people engaged in public service and changing the world and all these things

00:09:14 ◼   ► that former presidents tend to do, is that going to be... I mean, it's totally prestige

00:09:21 ◼   ► for Netflix to do that, but what's the audience going to be like for that? So we'll have to

00:09:26 ◼   ► watch it. But what a world we live in where the second act for a former president of the

00:09:30 ◼   ► United States is making a deal with streaming service.

00:09:35 ◼   ► How different is it to writing books these days, though, really?

00:09:39 ◼   ► You know?

00:09:40 ◼   ► Yeah, it's true.

00:09:41 ◼   ► I mean, the challenge there is the books.

00:09:44 ◼   ► What are the books?

00:09:45 ◼   ► Like a memoir will sell well, right?

00:09:50 ◼   ► But so will a TV series from that.

00:09:54 ◼   ► That Obama sits down to walk you through his presidency in interviews with people.

00:10:00 ◼   ► Obama talks with people in his administration about the Obama administration and the hard

00:10:04 ◼   ► choices they made and there's a thing about Osama bin Laden and there's a thing like all

00:10:08 ◼   ► of that like the mistakes they made and the things they feel that they are proud of and

00:10:12 ◼   ► all of that that would be an interesting series I kind of feel like instead what we're gonna

00:10:16 ◼   ► get is you know stuff about like a spotlight on volunteerism or and I'm not trying to or

00:10:22 ◼   ► other stuff like that which again I'm not trying to belittle those efforts those are

00:10:26 ◼   ► important charitable philanthropic efforts and getting people to you know speak speaking

00:10:33 ◼   ► to people about getting them excited about this stuff and all that. It's great. That's

00:10:37 ◼   ► a great role for a former president. But that as entertainment I am less sure is going to

00:10:44 ◼   ► reach a particularly broad audience. But who knows? I mean, I would love this to be like,

00:10:51 ◼   ► "Hey, you know presidential memoirs? Well, it's a show." I'm like, "What?" That would

00:10:57 ◼   ► be amazing. But again, I don't think that's what they're gonna do. Although, call me Netflix

00:11:03 ◼   ► or the Obamas if you want to talk about the idea of… I'm available for you to consult

00:11:11 ◼   ► on your memoir television series. But wouldn't that be cool? I think that would be really

00:11:15 ◼   ► interesting if it was literally like the people involved in a presidency breaking it down

00:11:20 ◼   ► a few years after the fact and kind of justifying themselves and having people question them

00:11:25 ◼   ► and having them do a little bit of failure analysis. I think that would be fascinating.

00:11:30 ◼   ► I said like a video memoir almost but it ain't gonna happen.

00:11:34 ◼   ► This is probably not what they're doing. But who knows could be good I mean they're entertaining

00:11:38 ◼   ► we'll wait and see.

00:11:40 ◼   ► Canal Plus in France now offers an Apple TV as a cable replacement box. They Canal Plus

00:11:47 ◼   ► are like a TV provider. They have gotten rid of their own boxes now going forward and will

00:11:53 ◼   ► be offering their current 5 million customers the opportunity to have an Apple TV instead

00:11:58 ◼   ► of their satellite TV boxes. These customers will be able to watch programming the Canal

00:12:03 ◼   ► Plus app and obviously they'll have a login for that. And the Apple TV boxes are on a

00:12:08 ◼   ► lease agreement of 6 euros a month. Canal Plus customers can currently opt to stick

00:12:13 ◼   ► with their current satellite service instead or they can switch over to the Apple TV option.

00:12:20 ◼   ► This is very interesting.

00:12:22 ◼   ► This is a satellite TV service that's also becoming an over-the-top, as they say, TV

00:12:26 ◼   ► and internet TV service. I think it's great to see this. I think this is going to happen

00:12:31 ◼   ► more. I've mentioned on previous shows that the Comcast app, the Xfinity app on my iPad

00:12:38 ◼   ► is essentially a, when I'm in my house, it's essentially a cable box. I can watch any channel

00:12:45 ◼   ► that they have in my house live. Plus I have access to all the on demand and the extra

00:12:51 ◼   ► stuff that they've got. And I realized at some point that if they put that on the Apple

00:12:55 ◼   ► TV, my Apple TV would essentially be a cable box. That it wouldn't have all the features,

00:13:00 ◼   ► they don't have like a DVR feature on their stuff, and I have a DVR, so my DVR is way

00:13:07 ◼   ► more functional than this. But it's so close to being that. And we've seen some of these

00:13:11 ◼   ► over the top providers, and they have cloud DVR and things like that in order to take

00:13:16 ◼   ► care of that. So I think this is a question on one level of like, is it better for cable

00:13:23 ◼   ► companies to offer this sort of thing, or does it risk making them, you know, if you're

00:13:30 ◼   ► going to get your cable company's app, why don't you just use the YouTube TV app if it's

00:13:35 ◼   ► better, right? Like that would be the argument there. But I think it also says that--

00:13:41 ◼   ► Well, they may-- Canal Plus may have exclusives in France or whatever for certain channels.

00:13:47 ◼   ► That's true, that's true, but I'm thinking that's how they have to compete then. At that

00:13:50 ◼   ► point your cable provider, separate from your internet, and my cable provider is my internet

00:13:54 ◼   ► provider and that's how they get you, but it does, at one point the over-the-top services

00:14:02 ◼   ► are so full-featured that the cable companies are just essentially competing, they're another

00:14:06 ◼   ► over-the-top service. Whether they're using their proprietary way to get video into your

00:14:10 ◼   ► home or whether like Canal Plus they're like, "Look, here's an app, just use that." Either

00:14:15 ◼   ► way, they're just all competing then, and that's a separate competition from being the

00:14:21 ◼   ► provider of the internet pipe, and that is a little bit different from what some cable

00:14:28 ◼   ► companies do now where they control your internet and they control your video. But in the end,

00:14:34 ◼   ► I think more competition is good, and having competition for who your TV provider is is

00:14:42 ◼   ► potentially a really good thing.

00:14:43 ◼   ► So also I'll point out again, this is a satellite service,

00:14:46 ◼   ► which is notable because satellite services

00:14:49 ◼   ► don't have high speed internet.

00:14:52 ◼   ► I mean, they've got low speed internet,

00:14:54 ◼   ► but they don't have high speed internet to your house.

00:14:56 ◼   ► - Yes and no.

00:14:57 ◼   ► So like you can't offer it over satellite,

00:14:59 ◼   ► but these companies also typically tend to offer

00:15:02 ◼   ► internet service now as well.

00:15:03 ◼   ► - Some do.

00:15:04 ◼   ► In the US, the satellite services generally,

00:15:09 ◼   ► although there's been some consolidation,

00:15:12 ◼   ► But generally, the satellite service doesn't give you

00:15:14 ◼   ► anything but there is satellite internet,

00:15:15 ◼   ► it's very slow, a lot of latency, it's not good.

00:15:18 ◼   ► But, and a few of them, like DirecTV is owned by AT&T

00:15:22 ◼   ► and AT&T has broadband in some markets,

00:15:25 ◼   ► but mostly it doesn't.

00:15:25 ◼   ► So if you're like me, I used to be a DirecTV customer,

00:15:29 ◼   ► I still had to have high speed internet from someone else.

00:15:32 ◼   ► And it was AT&T for a while with DSL

00:15:34 ◼   ► and then I moved to Comcast for,

00:15:36 ◼   ► and then eventually I picked up Comcast for TV.

00:15:39 ◼   ► So what I'm saying is if you're not in lockstep

00:15:43 ◼   ► where like most of your customers are getting TV

00:15:46 ◼   ► and internet from you, it's a lot easier to do this, right?

00:15:50 ◼   ► Because for you, you're already under pressure

00:15:53 ◼   ► because they've got another company they're paying

00:15:57 ◼   ► for their internet.

00:15:58 ◼   ► They could drop you on a moment's notice.

00:16:00 ◼   ► And so for them, they're basically saying,

00:16:02 ◼   ► "Look, however you want it, satellite, internet, whatever,

00:16:06 ◼   ► we don't care, just use us for your TV and we'll be happy."

00:16:09 ◼   ► And I think that that's just, we'll see more of that.

00:16:12 ◼   ► DirecTV now is an over the top service.

00:16:16 ◼   ► That is, it's the same kind of idea.

00:16:18 ◼   ► They're a satellite broadcaster and there are limits to that.

00:16:22 ◼   ► So now they also are an over the top service.

00:16:24 ◼   ► So yeah, it's interesting.

00:16:26 ◼   ► Even if you're not in France,

00:16:28 ◼   ► it's an interesting development

00:16:29 ◼   ► because most cable companies could do this today

00:16:32 ◼   ► if they really wanted to.

00:16:33 ◼   ► They'd have to invest in the technology a little bit,

00:16:35 ◼   ► but like a lot of their apps already are there

00:16:38 ◼   ► for this stuff.

00:16:39 ◼   ► They're just-- I see why they would be reluctant,

00:16:41 ◼   ► because once everything is an app,

00:16:46 ◼   ► then they have to compete with all the other apps.

00:16:48 ◼   ► Whereas right now, they get to be like the monolithic TV

00:16:51 ◼   ► provider.

00:16:52 ◼   ► And you don't have to use them, but a lot of consumers

00:16:54 ◼   ► are just like, OK, they give me my TV.

00:16:57 ◼   ► At least older consumers.

00:16:58 ◼   ► I think younger consumers do not care about their TV services.

00:17:01 ◼   ► But there's still a lot of money to be

00:17:04 ◼   ► made in selling people cable instead of internet

00:17:08 ◼   ► and then pick an app.

00:17:09 ◼   ► - All right, buckle up, this one's a little bit confusing.

00:17:11 ◼   ► Google announces YouTube Music and YouTube Premium.

00:17:15 ◼   ► So they are separating the features of YouTube Red

00:17:18 ◼   ► and they are now charging for them differently.

00:17:21 ◼   ► So it will now cost you $9.99 a month to get YouTube Music.

00:17:26 ◼   ► This was the existing price of YouTube Red.

00:17:30 ◼   ► YouTube Red did come with some music features,

00:17:33 ◼   ► like you got to be able to listen to YouTube

00:17:35 ◼   ► in the background and stuff like that.

00:17:37 ◼   ► but Google are now creating a YouTube music streaming service.

00:17:41 ◼   ► It's going to be, have its own dedicated app for mobile and desktop.

00:17:46 ◼   ► They are building a full on music streaming service now. Um,

00:17:51 ◼   ► I am assuming Google play music is going to die, uh,

00:17:56 ◼   ► because they are leaning into the powerful brands and the advantages of YouTube

00:18:00 ◼   ► for this. Um, Google say then, and again, like this is how you can,

00:18:04 ◼   ► I think you can read that is they say that they have the YouTube advantage is what they

00:18:10 ◼   ► call it. This means that as well as official songs, right, so you get to listen to say

00:18:16 ◼   ► the Taylor Swift album, you also have because it's YouTube access to thousands of remixes,

00:18:22 ◼   ► covers, live versions and music videos. So that does make it quite interesting. This

00:18:27 ◼   ► is something that Apple Music doesn't have and Spotify doesn't have because Google have.

00:18:32 ◼   ► So say for example, if you like Pomplamoose and you like their covers, you can get them

00:18:39 ◼   ► immediately because they're in YouTube, right?

00:18:42 ◼   ► So also Google have or YouTube has a powerful search engine algorithm behind it.

00:18:48 ◼   ► They give an example of you could search for that hipster song with the whistling and you

00:18:53 ◼   ► would get the song "Young Folks" from a few years ago.

00:18:56 ◼   ► This is an example that they give.

00:18:57 ◼   ► I like that thought, right?

00:18:59 ◼   ► And it makes sense because people are searching for this stuff right now in YouTube.

00:19:04 ◼   ► So like YouTube's algorithm for finding this music is incredibly powerful.

00:19:09 ◼   ► So that's going to be YouTube Music.

00:19:12 ◼   ► If you want to get ad-free YouTube, the ability to download videos and get access to YouTube

00:19:17 ◼   ► Originals or the YouTube Red stuff, you now need to pay a total of $11.99.

00:19:22 ◼   ► You cannot have this separately.

00:19:24 ◼   ► You must have a YouTube music subscription and then you can pay extra for YouTube Premium,

00:19:29 ◼   ► which is an additional $2.

00:19:32 ◼   ► However, if you are already a YouTube Red customer, you're grandfathered into the $9.99

00:19:37 ◼   ► price.

00:19:38 ◼   ► This will be for new customers only.

00:19:39 ◼   ► I believe that it's rolling out this week.

00:19:41 ◼   ► So if this sounds interesting to you and it hasn't rolled out in your territory, maybe

00:19:45 ◼   ► go sign up for YouTube Red right now because you'll get it for $9.99.

00:19:50 ◼   ► The big news for me is that YouTube Premium and YouTube Music is going international.

00:19:56 ◼   ► Previously YouTube Red has been US only, so rolling out in the coming weeks to many countries

00:20:00 ◼   ► including Germany, France, Mexico, Italy and the UK, we're going to be able to get YouTube

00:20:05 ◼   ► Music and YouTube Premium.

00:20:07 ◼   ► Now I am really interested in YouTube Music because of the additional features that YouTube

00:20:16 ◼   ► has that nobody else has.

00:20:18 ◼   ► I'm really keen to try this out because if they have all the songs that I want, they

00:20:23 ◼   ► have playlists functionality, right?

00:20:24 ◼   ► I'm assuming that they can do a lot of the like discover weekly type stuff, probably

00:20:28 ◼   ► better than Apple can, maybe not as good as Spotify.

00:20:31 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:20:32 ◼   ► But the fact that they have all of this other content that they can give you around that

00:20:37 ◼   ► musician and around that song, that is a competitive advantage that Spotify and Apple cannot match

00:20:43 ◼   ► them on for now.

00:20:45 ◼   ► And I think that's really cool.

00:20:46 ◼   ► I think it sounds really interesting.

00:20:47 ◼   ► I'm keen to see what the apps are like.

00:20:50 ◼   ► But more than anything, I want to get YouTube Premium because I want to be able to download

00:20:54 ◼   ► YouTube videos.

00:20:55 ◼   ► I have a workflow that does this, but I'd prefer to not have to do this.

00:20:58 ◼   ► I would like to be able to just watch them in the app, download them in the app, because

00:21:02 ◼   ► I like to watch some video game streams that I like, for example, when I'm flying.

00:21:07 ◼   ► It's such a pain to have to do the whole rigmarole.

00:21:12 ◼   ► We paid for YouTube Red last summer for a couple of months.

00:21:15 ◼   ► there was a trial and we did that

00:21:18 ◼   ► because we were going on a long car trip

00:21:19 ◼   ► and Julian wanted to download a bunch of his favorite,

00:21:23 ◼   ► yeah, YouTube videos and watch them while we were,

00:21:26 ◼   ► you know, in the middle of the Nevada desert, right?

00:21:28 ◼   ► So streaming is not, it would kill our cellular

00:21:31 ◼   ► even if he could and we don't want that.

00:21:33 ◼   ► And we did that and that's okay.

00:21:34 ◼   ► I'm fascinated by this because this shows you

00:21:37 ◼   ► all the strength and all the confusion

00:21:39 ◼   ► of Google's brands, right?

00:21:42 ◼   ► Like first off, they tried to launch, you know,

00:21:44 ◼   ► have a Google Music brand that is, that was originally famously Google Play Music All

00:21:49 ◼   ► Access, the worst product name for, worst service name ever. They may keep that or they

00:21:56 ◼   ► may kill that, right? But that is a traditional, if there can be such a thing, music streaming

00:22:01 ◼   ► service like Apple Music. Yield Spotify. So there's that. And then there's YouTube. And

00:22:10 ◼   ► And the funny thing is, I get it, I get it, right?

00:22:13 ◼   ► YouTube is not a music brand in the sense that its name even is about video and we think

00:22:18 ◼   ► about it about video.

00:22:19 ◼   ► However, that hasn't stopped it from being one of the primary ways, if not the primary

00:22:24 ◼   ► way that many people, especially younger people, listen to music.

00:22:28 ◼   ► I think that YouTube is probably the biggest music platform on the planet.

00:22:32 ◼   ► It's possible.

00:22:33 ◼   ► My daughter listens to music on a music app.

00:22:36 ◼   ► She's using Apple Music now, she used Spotify for a while and I said I upgraded us to the

00:22:40 ◼   ► family plan for Apple Music and she has switched now because she has everything in there. But

00:22:44 ◼   ► my son really likes listening to video game music and it's all on YouTube. He will literally

00:22:50 ◼   ► just put his iPad playing YouTube music on his headphones while he plays video games,

00:22:56 ◼   ► right? And I think this is a very common use case. We took a family trip this weekend and

00:23:00 ◼   ► we brought one of my son's friends with me. You know, he came along and so then I had

00:23:06 ◼   ► two of these boys in the back seat.

00:23:10 ◼   ► And they're both doing this, right?

00:23:11 ◼   ► Like this is just what that cohort is doing.

00:23:16 ◼   ► And so on that level, it's like, yeah,

00:23:18 ◼   ► I know you don't think of YouTube as a music brand,

00:23:20 ◼   ► but it's actually an enormous music brand for some people.

00:23:23 ◼   ► I think the danger of Google

00:23:25 ◼   ► just killing their traditional music service

00:23:28 ◼   ► would be that some people aren't going to ever see YouTube

00:23:32 ◼   ► as a music brand.

00:23:33 ◼   ► But the problem is those people

00:23:34 ◼   ► are probably already using Spotify, right?

00:23:36 ◼   ► Like I'm not sure, maybe choose what you're best at.

00:23:40 ◼   ► And YouTube is what is best at doing music

00:23:42 ◼   ► for within the Google portfolio.

00:23:44 ◼   ► So just leaning into that, I kinda like that idea.

00:23:48 ◼   ► It's gonna be, right?

00:23:49 ◼   ► Like not every service is for everybody.

00:23:51 ◼   ► Your description of all of the advantages

00:23:54 ◼   ► that YouTube has in terms of all the content

00:23:57 ◼   ► that's around that, the ancillary content,

00:23:59 ◼   ► that's the stuff that I listened to once

00:24:00 ◼   ► and never wanna listen to again.

00:24:02 ◼   ► So for me, I'm like, I don't care about that.

00:24:05 ◼   ► I'm also really skeptical of, because of Google in general,

00:24:10 ◼   ► that they're really gonna be able to do something

00:24:13 ◼   ► like a discover playlist or curated playlist

00:24:16 ◼   ► because that's not them, they're algorithm-based

00:24:19 ◼   ► and I'm not entirely sure I trust their algorithms

00:24:21 ◼   ► to actually give me, over having some human participation

00:24:25 ◼   ► in the curation.

00:24:26 ◼   ► But again, that's a style thing.

00:24:27 ◼   ► Like for other people, you just trust the,

00:24:29 ◼   ► I mean, when I think about using YouTube,

00:24:31 ◼   ► you kind of trust the algorithm, right?

00:24:33 ◼   ► Like, oh, look at these videos.

00:24:34 ◼   ► how many times do you play a YouTube video

00:24:37 ◼   ► and then you see like five interesting videos

00:24:39 ◼   ► that are generated by the algorithm, right?

00:24:41 ◼   ► So there is something to be said for that.

00:24:44 ◼   ► And so that's all good.

00:24:45 ◼   ► That's all good.

00:24:46 ◼   ► I think as weird as it is as an old to look at this

00:24:49 ◼   ► and be like YouTube music service, it makes sense.

00:24:51 ◼   ► It totally makes sense if you understand what YouTube is

00:24:55 ◼   ► in terms of being a music delivery platform

00:24:57 ◼   ► for especially young people.

00:25:00 ◼   ► My problem is the video stuff.

00:25:02 ◼   ► 'Cause I feel like YouTube Red was weird

00:25:06 ◼   ► because it was like all these YouTube features

00:25:08 ◼   ► plus premium content.

00:25:10 ◼   ► And of course they've changed

00:25:11 ◼   ► their premium content strategy too,

00:25:13 ◼   ► where they were like working with YouTubers

00:25:16 ◼   ► and now they're still working with YouTubers,

00:25:17 ◼   ► but they also have like traditional-

00:25:19 ◼   ► - It's mostly celebrities now.

00:25:20 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:25:21 ◼   ► And "Cobra Kai" is just an original series, right?

00:25:24 ◼   ► They're trying out an entirely,

00:25:27 ◼   ► just an original scripted series.

00:25:29 ◼   ► So that's the part that kind of,

00:25:31 ◼   ► I feel like they're getting their music story together,

00:25:34 ◼   ► their video story is still just kind of a mess

00:25:36 ◼   ► because I look at this and I think, well, wait a second,

00:25:38 ◼   ► so you can't get it separately.

00:25:39 ◼   ► So you have to get a music service

00:25:41 ◼   ► in order to get the extra features and the video content,

00:25:45 ◼   ► which that seems like a mistake to me.

00:25:48 ◼   ► So the YouTube music seems like a service

00:25:53 ◼   ► that will actually stick

00:25:54 ◼   ► after them trying all these different things.

00:25:58 ◼   ► I would probably lay money that YouTube Premium

00:26:01 ◼   ► is gonna change dramatically in the next couple of years

00:26:05 ◼   ► 'cause I'm not sure it actually works or makes any sense.

00:26:07 ◼   ► It's more like they need a place to stuff

00:26:09 ◼   ► a bunch of these things.

00:26:11 ◼   ► And why you would not just put the,

00:26:14 ◼   ► I mean, like the downloading videos and stuff,

00:26:16 ◼   ► it's like, you got people paying you money,

00:26:18 ◼   ► maybe you want an extra $2 a month,

00:26:20 ◼   ► you're Google, you want an extra $2 a month

00:26:22 ◼   ► for somebody who's already paying you,

00:26:24 ◼   ► maybe you should just let them have that feature.

00:26:27 ◼   ► Ad-free is weird.

00:26:28 ◼   ► It's fine, but of course, staking anything on AdFree

00:26:31 ◼   ► is always strange because you have a relationship

00:26:33 ◼   ► with advertisers, and now you're telling them

00:26:36 ◼   ► that we have this hardcore group of people

00:26:38 ◼   ► who you can't reach, which is also a little bit weird.

00:26:41 ◼   ► And then you've got the premium content.

00:26:43 ◼   ► So I'm not sure they've got a whole story there.

00:26:46 ◼   ► But then again, I could also say maybe Google saying,

00:26:50 ◼   ► "Look, we're not gonna build our own video streaming service

00:26:54 ◼   ► outside of YouTube, and we're not,

00:26:57 ◼   ► just like we probably shouldn't have built

00:26:58 ◼   ► our own music streaming service outside of YouTube

00:27:01 ◼   ► because we own YouTube and we're just gonna be YouTube

00:27:04 ◼   ► as much as we possibly can.

00:27:06 ◼   ► And I can really see that argument.

00:27:08 ◼   ► I feel like the end result may be that they realize

00:27:12 ◼   ► that generating all of this premium content,

00:27:14 ◼   ► whether it was with YouTubers or then celebrities

00:27:16 ◼   ► or then they bought this scripted show,

00:27:19 ◼   ► they may realize, no, that's not us.

00:27:21 ◼   ► And just kind of back away from there.

00:27:23 ◼   ► But it's hard.

00:27:25 ◼   ► You can see Apple couldn't resist it.

00:27:26 ◼   ► It's hard to sit on the sidelines as a tech giant

00:27:29 ◼   ► and see Netflix and see what Amazon's doing

00:27:32 ◼   ► and how Apple's doing it and be Google and like,

00:27:34 ◼   ► but I really wanna compete with those guys.

00:27:37 ◼   ► It's like, but you've got YouTube,

00:27:38 ◼   ► you don't need to compete with those guys.

00:27:40 ◼   ► You've got this huge video,

00:27:41 ◼   ► but I kinda wanna spend billions of dollars

00:27:43 ◼   ► on original scripted content.

00:27:45 ◼   ► Maybe not, maybe don't do that, but who knows?

00:27:49 ◼   ► I don't know, it's fascinating.

00:27:51 ◼   ► I'm tired of YouTube and Google

00:27:53 ◼   ► keeping changing all of their things

00:27:56 ◼   ► and what they are, it's so confusing and weird.

00:27:58 ◼   ► But with the music thing anyway,

00:28:00 ◼   ► I feel like they maybe found the right approach,

00:28:02 ◼   ► which is just to embrace that YouTube is a music brand too,

00:28:06 ◼   ► and just lean all the way in.

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00:29:37 ◼   ► So I have built a gaming PC. This is something that I've been talking about throughout the

00:29:43 ◼   ► year and I have done it. Um, and it's making me, it's given me a couple of things that

00:29:48 ◼   ► I want to talk to you about, Jason.

00:29:50 ◼   ► If you are interested in hearing the process of me building the PC, I will do some follow-out

00:29:56 ◼   ► to episode 58 of remaster and episode 69 of Cortex, which will be released within 24 hours

00:30:05 ◼   ► of this show being posted, so you can look out for those.

00:30:08 ◼   ► I kind of go into detail about the actual building process, but I didn't want to talk

00:30:14 ◼   ► about that so much here today.

00:30:16 ◼   ► I wanted to talk about some of my experiences of using a PC again after, well for one, not

00:30:24 ◼   ► having really used a PC at all for four years and not used a PC for like entertainment or

00:30:31 ◼   ► my own choice for like ten years maybe?

00:30:38 ◼   ► Before I got my first Mac, more than that, nearly 15, who knows.

00:30:41 ◼   ► So I have a few different areas, Jason, that I wanted to talk to you about. App stores

00:30:48 ◼   ► is probably the one of the most interesting. The Windows App Store is barren. It is bad.

00:30:58 ◼   ► It's kind of like the Mac App Store in that there isn't really a lot there, but Microsoft

00:31:03 ◼   ► tries to position it. There is, I have to say this because I can't get it, there's a

00:31:07 ◼   ► huge storm here happening right now in London. I have to mention it right now because you're

00:31:11 ◼   ► to keep hearing it. I nearly, my brain nearly exploded a minute ago because of some lightning.

00:31:16 ◼   ► I edited that out of the show. But there is, there's a storm. I'm sorry. There's nothing

00:31:20 ◼   ► I can do to control the world. That's exactly it. That was an accurate representation of

00:31:27 ◼   ► what just happened outside of my office. But anyway, so, you know, the Mac App Store is

00:31:31 ◼   ► a lonely place, right? And the Windows App Store is kind of like that. There are some

00:31:35 ◼   ► apps there, there are some utilities there, but most of the stuff that's there, it's not

00:31:39 ◼   ► really that useful or updated that often because there's just not a lot of focus put there

00:31:44 ◼   ► by Apple and I don't think there's been a lot of focus there by Microsoft. But the thing

00:31:48 ◼   ► is about the Windows App Store, that is the App Store for all of their devices, right?

00:31:54 ◼   ► So you can still get Windows Phone apps and then there's tablet apps and then there's

00:31:57 ◼   ► the desktop apps. And if you think of it in comparison to the iOS App Store, it's not

00:32:04 ◼   ► good. Like, I downloaded the official Twitter app. It's just the webpage. Like, that's all

00:32:12 ◼   ► it is. It is literally the webpage. You can't even have multiple accounts in the official

00:32:17 ◼   ► Twitter app on Windows. All it is is the webpage. It's not good there. And I think this is why

00:32:24 ◼   ► they announced this a couple of weeks ago, right, at Build, their revenue split change.

00:32:29 ◼   ► So they're doing like 95% goes to developers now.

00:32:35 ◼   ► It can be up to between 85 and 90%, 95% of the revenue goes to developers.

00:32:40 ◼   ► And this is a clear thing from them where they really want people to use their apps

00:32:45 ◼   ► at like their app store and to use their functions and to actually put stuff there.

00:32:49 ◼   ► But there is another side of the Windows App Store, which is games.

00:32:55 ◼   ► So like any Xbox exclusive is on the Microsoft Store for PC.

00:33:01 ◼   ► This is the reason I bought it and this shows the big difference, right?

00:33:05 ◼   ► You can get games in the Mac App Store, but they're like okay games or they're older games.

00:33:11 ◼   ► This is anything.

00:33:12 ◼   ► Like games that come out now on Xbox I can get on my PC, as well as being able to get

00:33:18 ◼   ► anything from Steam.

00:33:20 ◼   ► all these PC games and VR games are available to me, which is why I built this PC in the

00:33:25 ◼   ► first place. And like that's the big difference, right? Like Apple has apps, Microsoft has

00:33:31 ◼   ► games and depending on what you are more focused towards, I think that's these days why you

00:33:37 ◼   ► would make the decision that you would make, right? Would you agree with that?

00:33:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

00:33:42 ◼   ► So I also wanted to talk about just the overall feel today still, because I think Windows

00:33:48 ◼   ► Windows 10, Windows 10 looks nicer than any version of Windows I've used in the past.

00:33:53 ◼   ► Have you used Windows 10 at all?

00:33:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I have it installed on my iMac actually because I do have, of course, I do have games

00:34:02 ◼   ► that I want to play that are only available on Windows. And so I set up boot camp, I went

00:34:06 ◼   ► to the, I went to my local Microsoft store, I walked in the door, I had to make my way

00:34:11 ◼   ► through the massive crowds that were outside the Apple store. And then went, walked with

00:34:17 ◼   ► a tumbleweed blowing by into the Microsoft Store. I'm sorry, we kid Microsoft, but those

00:34:21 ◼   ► stores don't have very many people in them. I had like two, three people who are like,

00:34:25 ◼   ► "Oh, yes, sir. I wanted to touch that Surface thing, the big Surface Studio thing." And

00:34:30 ◼   ► I couldn't even use it for a minute before I had two people pop up to me saying, "Yes,

00:34:34 ◼   ► sir. Can I help you with anything?" I'm like, "Oh, man." Anyway, I bought a Windows 10 install

00:34:38 ◼   ► on a little USB stick and used boot camp and got it all up and running on my iMac. So I

00:34:45 ◼   ► I do have it and I have used it.

00:34:47 ◼   ► It's a little weird because like I learned

00:34:50 ◼   ► how to use Windows XP, right?

00:34:54 ◼   ► That's the Windows that I like.

00:34:56 ◼   ► I know my way around in Windows XP

00:34:58 ◼   ► and Windows 10 is like, it's so strange

00:35:00 ◼   ► and like things are in corners

00:35:03 ◼   ► and there are little tabs and little blue things everywhere.

00:35:06 ◼   ► And it's a little, it takes a lot of getting used to,

00:35:08 ◼   ► but it looks great.

00:35:09 ◼   ► It is the result of Microsoft taking care

00:35:13 ◼   ► with their platform.

00:35:14 ◼   ► but what I like is on the face of it everything looks way nicer but you do not have to go

00:35:19 ◼   ► very far down to get Windows 95 back.

00:35:21 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:35:22 ◼   ► Like so you can go into the control panel right and everything's much more nicely designed

00:35:26 ◼   ► and you click it and you can select from these little icons as soon as you click like properties

00:35:30 ◼   ► on anything you get Windows 95 pop up right with all the tabs and it's like no this is

00:35:36 ◼   ► not it's only skin deep this this this change.

00:35:41 ◼   ► I think their philosophy is like, they want to float up all the stuff that most people

00:35:47 ◼   ► care about to this one level, and it's a very nice level. And then if you want to tweak

00:35:51 ◼   ► anything, they're like, "All right, forget it. Here you go. You're one of those people.

00:35:56 ◼   ► Dig down deep." And yeah, it's hard. You can't change it all overnight. And so yeah, there's

00:36:02 ◼   ► still a whole level below the surface. Because it's still Windows, right? It still fundamentally

00:36:08 ◼   ► is Windows, it needs to do the things that Windows does and that also means that it has

00:36:11 ◼   ► to have all of these kind of weird areas and tweaky settings and things. Things that seem

00:36:15 ◼   ► perfectly normal probably to a Windows user but that to a Mac user you're like, "Whoa,

00:36:20 ◼   ► okay, now what do I have to do?" Yeah.

00:36:22 ◼   ► - But like, you know, in surprise to nobody, like, if overall look and feel and polish

00:36:28 ◼   ► is what you like, the Mac OS is like, I almost, I feel like I had forgotten or like not paid

00:36:36 ◼   ► attention for a while to just like the overall look and feel of desktop operating systems.

00:36:42 ◼   ► I appreciate the way my Mac looks a lot more now that I've used Windows. Like Windows looks

00:36:47 ◼   ► so much better than it ever has. Yes. But it's still not not I mean I'm sorry if you

00:36:52 ◼   ► love Windows but like for my tastes it is still nowhere near what the Mac is. Like just

00:36:57 ◼   ► from a visual consistency perspective like everything kind of looks the same. You know

00:37:03 ◼   ► like there are elements of basically all Mac apps unless they're like Windows

00:37:08 ◼   ► first like Steam for example right that like all Mac apps kind of have a look to

00:37:13 ◼   ► them and all of the OS kind of has a consistent look to it and this

00:37:17 ◼   ► consistency doesn't really seem to exist in Windows so much and I know that that

00:37:21 ◼   ► is like a thing of Windows right so like I wanted to talk about custom

00:37:28 ◼   ► customizability a little bit right like it's almost endless on Windows you can

00:37:32 ◼   ► It comes from the build, right?

00:37:35 ◼   ► You choose every piece of hardware you want, you make your own thing,

00:37:38 ◼   ► which I think is amazing.

00:37:40 ◼   ► Like I've loved doing that, like making my own PC and the software as well.

00:37:44 ◼   ► Like it's all kind of, you're putting it all together on your own, but what

00:37:47 ◼   ► that lends itself to, uh, is real kind of mess in places, right?

00:37:56 ◼   ► because things just don't, they just don't

00:38:00 ◼   ► like map together so well at times,

00:38:04 ◼   ► you know, like apps just look so wildly different sometimes.

00:38:07 ◼   ► - And I don't wanna beat up Windows here,

00:38:10 ◼   ► but I do think that, and everybody can like what they like,

00:38:13 ◼   ► but I think there is a trend in the media,

00:38:16 ◼   ► especially the tech media, to give Microsoft kind of a pass

00:38:21 ◼   ► because it's made so many improvements,

00:38:24 ◼   ► which again, to be congratulated,

00:38:25 ◼   ► Microsoft used to not care basically

00:38:28 ◼   ► about user experience and design.

00:38:30 ◼   ► And they clearly do care and they are trying their best.

00:38:33 ◼   ► But I will also say, going back to the Mac OS thing,

00:38:36 ◼   ► like there are people out there I read now

00:38:39 ◼   ► who straight faced say Microsoft has passed Apple on desktop

00:38:44 ◼   ► in terms of usability, in terms of design.

00:38:46 ◼   ► - They haven't, like I want a masterclass from those people.

00:38:51 ◼   ► Those, I think, and again, they are using Windows a lot,

00:38:56 ◼   ► so maybe they are seeing it and I just haven't gotten it,

00:38:58 ◼   ► but I look at it and I think,

00:39:00 ◼   ► you don't use your computer as much as you used to

00:39:04 ◼   ► because you're using smartphones,

00:39:06 ◼   ► you are taken in by how much they've improved.

00:39:10 ◼   ► And so here's a fun narrative

00:39:12 ◼   ► because horse race narratives are fun.

00:39:14 ◼   ► And this is like, oh, now Microsoft has edged,

00:39:16 ◼   ► ha ha, the shoe is on the other foot.

00:39:17 ◼   ► No, Apple, Microsoft is beat.

00:39:20 ◼   ► I just, I don't think it actually bears up

00:39:23 ◼   ► other than to say like,

00:39:24 ◼   ► it's got a bunch of touchscreen stuff

00:39:25 ◼   ► that of course Apple doesn't even do.

00:39:27 ◼   ► And if you're interacting in that mode,

00:39:28 ◼   ► it is very nice on that level,

00:39:32 ◼   ► they've built it for that.

00:39:33 ◼   ► And, but anyway, I question that.

00:39:36 ◼   ► And then when you go to the other apps,

00:39:37 ◼   ► this is the other thing is when I was saying like apps

00:39:41 ◼   ► or like Microsoft is committed to improving windows,

00:39:44 ◼   ► like Microsoft app developers,

00:39:46 ◼   ► Windows app developers, not as committed,

00:39:50 ◼   ► not as committed.

00:39:51 ◼   ► So my story here is that I have a friend

00:39:55 ◼   ► who is a podcaster and a podcast editor,

00:39:58 ◼   ► and I have her do some podcasts, everything for me,

00:40:02 ◼   ► and she and her husband have a podcast consulting business.

00:40:07 ◼   ► - Just give it a plug.

00:40:07 ◼   ► - Podcast and work with people.

00:40:09 ◼   ► It's called Castria, it's Erica Ensign and Steven Shipanski.

00:40:13 ◼   ► and they are at, I think it's wearcastria.com,

00:40:18 ◼   ► and I think that is a redirect. - Yep, I got it.

00:40:21 ◼   ► - Anyway, so she's a PC user, he's a Mac user,

00:40:24 ◼   ► and we were talking about recording audio and video,

00:40:27 ◼   ► and I was talking about Audio Hijack.

00:40:29 ◼   ► And I'm like, what would be the equivalent on Windows?

00:40:34 ◼   ► And there's a program called Total Recorder.

00:40:37 ◼   ► And I called up the Total Recorder website,

00:40:39 ◼   ► and first off, they make it kind of hard

00:40:40 ◼   ► to see what Total Recorder looks like,

00:40:41 ◼   ► which I find suspicious fundamentally, like,

00:40:45 ◼   ► you want me to buy your software

00:40:48 ◼   ► and you won't show me your software?

00:40:49 ◼   ► That's, I'm a little concerned about that.

00:40:52 ◼   ► But I feel like it is the perfect example

00:40:54 ◼   ► of the difference between the Mac and Windows,

00:40:55 ◼   ► which is call record, or not call recorder, audio hijack.

00:40:59 ◼   ► It's got these little round wrecked, you know,

00:41:03 ◼   ► little squares with rounded off corners

00:41:05 ◼   ► that you build like a little workflow

00:41:07 ◼   ► and it's got a whole bunch of different functions

00:41:08 ◼   ► and you can do all of this stuff

00:41:10 ◼   ► and you press the button and it lights up

00:41:13 ◼   ► and all of this stuff.

00:41:14 ◼   ► And then there's like Total Recorder,

00:41:16 ◼   ► which again, seems like a very functional,

00:41:18 ◼   ► useful app for recording audio and video on Windows.

00:41:22 ◼   ► But to look at it,

00:41:24 ◼   ► it does not feel like the modern version of Windows

00:41:29 ◼   ► that Microsoft would like us to think about for Windows 10.

00:41:31 ◼   ► It feels like a PC app from the Windows 95 era,

00:41:37 ◼   ► which is a whole bunch of rectangles and functions and menus,

00:41:42 ◼   ► and it's confusing.

00:41:43 ◼   ► And again, fair enough.

00:41:46 ◼   ► If it's functional, people are gonna use it,

00:41:48 ◼   ► and apparently it is functional.

00:41:51 ◼   ► But I had that moment where I was like,

00:41:53 ◼   ► "Oh yeah, Windows, right, yeah."

00:41:55 ◼   ► - So you know you were talking about usability, right?

00:42:00 ◼   ► I just think that one of the biggest arguments

00:42:03 ◼   ► against usability is drivers.

00:42:06 ◼   ► the problems I have been having with drivers.

00:42:10 ◼   ► And so like drivers are what you need to install

00:42:12 ◼   ► to make basically everything work.

00:42:13 ◼   ► A lot of them install automatically,

00:42:15 ◼   ► but a lot of them don't.

00:42:16 ◼   ► So I have a little audio interface

00:42:19 ◼   ► called the Tascam 2x2.

00:42:21 ◼   ► It's just a simple audio interface

00:42:22 ◼   ► that I've had for a while.

00:42:23 ◼   ► If I plug it into my Mac, it just works.

00:42:25 ◼   ► I can plug my XLR microphone in, it's a USB interface.

00:42:29 ◼   ► Work straight away, no problem.

00:42:31 ◼   ► It needs drivers on Windows to work.

00:42:33 ◼   ► So you plug it in, you have to download drivers

00:42:35 ◼   ► from Tascam's website.

00:42:36 ◼   ► And then I plugged it, I had to,

00:42:41 ◼   ► my mouse stopped working,

00:42:42 ◼   ► I needed a new driver for my mouse.

00:42:44 ◼   ► When I installed the driver for my mouse,

00:42:45 ◼   ► my Tascam audio interface stopped working.

00:42:48 ◼   ► Then I had to download older versions

00:42:51 ◼   ► of the Tascam driver until it worked again.

00:42:53 ◼   ► And I feel like I am constantly playing this

00:42:57 ◼   ► like game of Jenga with drivers.

00:42:59 ◼   ► Like it's wild.

00:43:01 ◼   ► Like it's, I just like, you install one

00:43:04 ◼   ► then one stops working and then you have to update one and another stops working and then

00:43:08 ◼   ► this one didn't auto update so you have to like on the Mac you just plug and unplug things

00:43:13 ◼   ► and they work right sometimes you need software but you just need software right and the software

00:43:18 ◼   ► does its thing but by and large you don't.

00:43:20 ◼   ► And this is this is Apple's advantage of having I've dealt with this Myke with the hackintosh

00:43:25 ◼   ► stuff right because it's the same thing Apple builds all its own hardware and it builds

00:43:29 ◼   ► its OS, and the OS supports all the hardware that's in every Mac that is, this is where

00:43:35 ◼   ► compatibility comes from in large part, OS compatibility is like, they have to cover

00:43:40 ◼   ► every system, every OS that is covered, every device that is covered, compatibility, the

00:43:45 ◼   ► OS has to have all the drivers for all the hardware that Apple has ever shipped for those

00:43:50 ◼   ► devices, which is hard, but it does mean that every device has the drivers all the time,

00:43:58 ◼   ► not a problem. And then, yeah, when you do the hackintosh stuff, it's the same thing,

00:44:04 ◼   ► where like, either, "Oh, it doesn't do Wi-Fi," because there's no driver for that. Or there's

00:44:10 ◼   ► like, "Well, you can take this driver and you can install it, but you have to kind of

00:44:14 ◼   ► hack this file and then you do this and you install it and then restart and set this BIOS

00:44:18 ◼   ► setting, and then it'll work." And doing that, it reminded me like, "Oh yeah, hardware doesn't

00:44:25 ◼   ► just work. There's software that has to talk to it and Apple takes care of that whole,

00:44:30 ◼   ► like, thing. You just never have to worry about it. And then if you're building your

00:44:33 ◼   ► own PC, no, you've got to do it yourself. Which, I mean, to be fair, you are building

00:44:38 ◼   ► your own PC, but it is a reminder of how good we got it.

00:44:41 ◼   ► I would still have to do some, but I wouldn't have to install as many if I was just buying

00:44:45 ◼   ► something off the shelf. But there's stuff I would still need, but not as many as I have

00:44:50 ◼   ► needed. But, like, this is just, though, like, I find this frustrating, but it's the flip

00:44:54 ◼   ► side of the thing that I like so I'm willing to accept it and what I like is the customizability

00:44:58 ◼   ► of it. I have built a PC to my own specification to mean that it is as powerful as I want it to be

00:45:04 ◼   ► and it has all of the features that I want. I appreciate what Windows can do for me. It is

00:45:09 ◼   ► allowing me to do a thing that I really want to do, gaming on the PC and streaming games, that I

00:45:16 ◼   ► couldn't do any other way. That's why I'm happy with it and I love my PC because it's my PC,

00:45:22 ◼   ► I built it, right? And everything else is like, well, the software is just the software.

00:45:28 ◼   ► It's just a bridge for me to get to the games. Like I'm not sitting and doing my work on

00:45:33 ◼   ► this PC and that's not going to change because I like Mac OS for that stuff. But all I have

00:45:37 ◼   ► to do is like, yes, it takes time to manage it. It does take time to manage it, but I'm

00:45:42 ◼   ► willing to do that management because I am getting ultimately what I want out of this,

00:45:47 ◼   ► which is the ability to play literally any PC game around.

00:45:53 ◼   ► So, I think you've crystallized perfectly what I learned after much pain over many years

00:46:01 ◼   ► is the fundamental difference, I think, between people who are enthusiastic about Macs and

00:46:07 ◼   ► people who are enthusiastic about PCs. It's a little bit like this with iOS and Android,

00:46:12 ◼   ► but it's really about this with the...

00:46:13 ◼   ► There are parallels there, for sure.

00:46:15 ◼   ► Not PC users in general because there are a vast number of PC users and the

00:46:20 ◼   ► vast number of them, the vast percentage, are not PC enthusiasts, right? A lot of them

00:46:26 ◼   ► don't care about their computer, it's just the computer that they have. They

00:46:29 ◼   ► literally don't care and I would argue that's what the that nice bright, you

00:46:33 ◼   ► know, blue shiny layer on Windows 10 is it's for them, right? They hopefully will

00:46:39 ◼   ► never see the layer underneath that that's still a little bit ugly and

00:46:43 ◼   ► Tweaky but what you said is exactly right which is I think the PC enthusiasts

00:46:49 ◼   ► never understood that Mac users even if they were enthusiasts what they were

00:46:57 ◼   ► enthusiastic about is that Apple kind of like took care of all those issues and

00:47:01 ◼   ► like those are issues we don't care about

00:47:03 ◼   ► I don't want to be bothered with them I want to move this way whereas if you're

00:47:07 ◼   ► viewing the world as I can make a computer by buying parts and assembling

00:47:11 ◼   ► them and then I get all the software and I put that together and I can make the

00:47:15 ◼   ► perfect computer for me because I chose the parts, I chose the software, I

00:47:19 ◼   ► installed it all myself, I made this computer. That is fun for some people, it

00:47:28 ◼   ► is an accomplishment, it is a thing that you now have that is for you, made by you

00:47:33 ◼   ► to your specifications. That's all great and that is the that is a divide, right?

00:47:38 ◼   ► Because I think from the Apple side, and again, I don't want to generalize because there are people

00:47:43 ◼   ► who don't care and there are people who actually wish that you could do that stuff on on Macs and

00:47:48 ◼   ► have always been. But I look at that and I'm like, "Yeah, I don't want to do that." It's that simple.

00:47:53 ◼   ► It's like, "Well, wait a second. You say you're a tech person and you like computers and you like

00:47:58 ◼   ► knowing stuff about computers. Why would you not want to build your own PC and install your own

00:48:03 ◼   ► drivers. And for me, that's always been the disconnect, which is because that sounds awful

00:48:09 ◼   ► and I don't want to do it. I'd rather spend my time on something else. But it's not invalid

00:48:14 ◼   ► to say that is fun to do that. I kind of had fun building the two kind of Hackintosh projects

00:48:20 ◼   ► that I've done. I had fun doing them for certain definitions of fun, and certainly felt a sense

00:48:29 ◼   ► of accomplishment that I got these things to work, but also realizing that it wasn't

00:48:35 ◼   ► for everyone and that I wasn't going to judge somebody for not wanting to do that, because

00:48:40 ◼   ► I myself also kind of don't want to do that on an ongoing basis. But like in the end,

00:48:44 ◼   ► you got the thing that you wanted and you made it yourself and that's great.

00:48:47 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm, and I'll tell you, I'm very happy. Like, I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole

00:48:53 ◼   ► a little bit right now but I expected that to happen because I don't know anything about this

00:49:00 ◼   ► world right of like building a gaming PC and maintaining it and getting it to where I want

00:49:06 ◼   ► it to be you know like I'm doing a bunch of things where I'm like buying this part but that was the

00:49:10 ◼   ► wrong part or like going down this direction oh no I made a mistake here like for example I have

00:49:16 ◼   ► have a HDMI monitor, right? And I just bought an Oculus. But the hate I only have one HDMI

00:49:22 ◼   ► port and the Oculus needs that. So now what do I do? Right? So like, okay, maybe I need

00:49:29 ◼   ► to get an adapter. You gotta buy a different right? You gotta buy a different video card

00:49:33 ◼   ► or some video card or buy a different monitor like a DisplayPort monitor because my graphics

00:49:38 ◼   ► card has one HDMI and three DisplayPorts on it. It's like, okay, and a lot of the gaming

00:49:44 ◼   ► monitors run by DisplayPort. So like there's just all these things where it's like, I didn't

00:49:48 ◼   ► know that. Here's the thing I learned. And this is and mostly most of my frustrations

00:49:53 ◼   ► come from the fact that I don't know any of this and I'm learning it. And that's part

00:49:58 ◼   ► of whilst it can be frustrating. It's also part of a valuable experience for me because

00:50:04 ◼   ► I feel like I have not learned something in consumer technology for a very long time.

00:50:08 ◼   ► Right? Like I feel like most of the stuff that I use, I know and I know how it works

00:50:13 ◼   ► and I know what I need to know to make it work the way I want.

00:50:16 ◼   ► And this is like a whole different world to me.

00:50:18 ◼   ► It's opening up, which I'm which I'm excited about.

00:50:20 ◼   ► It's great.

00:50:21 ◼   ► But it's led me to think of something else, Jason,

00:50:23 ◼   ► that I wanted to talk to you about, and that's ecosystems.

00:50:26 ◼   ► But before we do that, let me thank Linode for their support of this show.

00:50:30 ◼   ► With Linode, you'll have access to a suite of powerful hosting options

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00:51:06 ◼   ► They have amazing pricing options available too.

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00:51:12 ◼   ► have high memory plans that start with 16GB and go on from there. So there is something

00:51:18 ◼   ► for you no matter what type of virtual server you need.

00:51:20 ◼   ► And here's a great offer for you. If you go to linode.com/upgrade, that's l-i-n-o-d-e.com/upgrade,

00:51:27 ◼   ► you will get $20 towards any Linode plan. And if you sign up for the 1GB of RAM plan,

00:51:32 ◼   ► that will give you 4 free months to try out. They have a 7 day money back guarantee so

00:51:36 ◼   ► there's nothing to lose. And if you go to linode.com/upgrade you'll learn more, sign

00:51:41 ◼   ► up take advantage of that totally little credit and support this show in the process. You

00:51:45 ◼   ► can also use the promo code upgrade 2018 at checkout. Our thanks to Linode for their support

00:51:50 ◼   ► of this show and Relay FM. And everything I do. Everything Jason does. Because that's

00:51:58 ◼   ► where all of my stuff is is on a Linode server so yay. So in trying to get a PC set up I've

00:52:05 ◼   ► been focusing a little bit on ecosystems because there's been some stuff that I've been doing

00:52:09 ◼   ► where like if I have my iPhone and I need to get something from my iPhone to my Mac

00:52:14 ◼   ► or my Mac to my iPhone, it's pretty easy to do that. You know, like the continuity stuff,

00:52:20 ◼   ► I do use some of it. Like I use the copy and paste or you know, I'll use the notes app

00:52:24 ◼   ► or something like that. And that stuff obviously doesn't work with my PC. Right? I can't do

00:52:31 ◼   ► that. That doesn't work so well. There are some ways to bridge the gaps, right? Like

00:52:34 ◼   ► I have one password on everything. I can get Dropbox and everything, that kind of stuff.

00:52:38 ◼   ► But it's nowhere near as seamless.

00:52:41 ◼   ► So it kind of got me to thinking about the ecosystems that are out there and the ecosystems

00:52:45 ◼   ► that we are in.

00:52:46 ◼   ► I would say that whilst I own a PC, I'm definitely not in the Microsoft ecosystem because it's

00:52:51 ◼   ► the only piece, it's the only Microsoft product that I own.

00:52:54 ◼   ► And honestly, I'm using Google services and Steam and everything else, right?

00:53:00 ◼   ► So I'm still in the other ecosystems that I'm a part of, but Microsoft's PC is a conduit

00:53:04 ◼   ► to that.

00:53:05 ◼   ► So I would say that I think we're pretty similar in the main ecosystems that we're a part of

00:53:09 ◼   ► are Apple, Google, and Amazon.

00:53:11 ◼   ► Right, and I think this is a way where we may diverge from some of our listeners, and

00:53:15 ◼   ► it's something that I always keep in mind that it is, I think a lot of our listeners

00:53:19 ◼   ► are probably just in the Apple ecosystem or primarily in the Apple ecosystem, and there

00:53:24 ◼   ► are plenty who aren't, but it is something that I think about from time to time, but

00:53:30 ◼   ► it's like, I don't know, it's just never been, I've always kind of like tried out these different

00:53:34 ◼   ► services and sort of mixed and matched and I like that about it. But it's not for everyone.

00:53:40 ◼   ► And it is in many ways inconvenient, right, to do that because the convenience of being

00:53:46 ◼   ► in an ecosystem is that it's all just there and you just use all of it and you never have

00:53:52 ◼   ► to think about it. And it's the same idea of people who go into the Apple Store and

00:53:56 ◼   ► they buy everything at the Apple Store, all the accessories and everything like that.

00:54:01 ◼   ► or what we were talking about airports a while ago,

00:54:04 ◼   ► like buying a wifi base station from Apple,

00:54:07 ◼   ► you could probably get one somewhere else,

00:54:09 ◼   ► but you'd have to shop for it and all those things.

00:54:12 ◼   ► And it's like, no, I'm just gonna get the Apple one, right?

00:54:14 ◼   ► Like it's all from the one vendor.

00:54:16 ◼   ► It's gonna be easier to set it all up.

00:54:18 ◼   ► And so there are some, it's super convenient,

00:54:20 ◼   ► but you kind of pay for it.

00:54:22 ◼   ► And that's the power of the ecosystem.

00:54:25 ◼   ► But yeah, I'm like you, every now and then

00:54:28 ◼   ► I write about Apple or I write something about Google or Amazon, I will get an accusation

00:54:34 ◼   ► that's like, "Well, yeah, but you just care about Apple stuff." And it's like, "I don't

00:54:38 ◼   ► know. I've got a lot of Google stuff and I got a lot of Amazon stuff. I am a heavy user

00:54:47 ◼   ► of the Google ecosystem."

00:54:50 ◼   ► There are many advantages to picking a company and sticking to that company. Because the

00:54:56 ◼   ► The products all work together and there's sometimes less,

00:54:59 ◼   ► - Sure. - Like just mental baggage.

00:55:01 ◼   ► So for example, I find myself constantly triggering

00:55:05 ◼   ► my HomePod, well, trying to trigger my HomePod,

00:55:08 ◼   ► I should say, for music, but I actually trigger the Echo.

00:55:12 ◼   ► So I'm asking my HomePod to play something,

00:55:14 ◼   ► but in my mind, the Echo trigger word

00:55:17 ◼   ► is how you talk to a computer.

00:55:20 ◼   ► 'Cause that's what my mind has been trained to.

00:55:23 ◼   ► So that is like a mental baggage for me to remember,

00:55:25 ◼   ► oh no, I have to ask the HomePod in the HomePod's way,

00:55:29 ◼   ► not talk to the Echo in the Echo's way.

00:55:31 ◼   ► But if I was all in on Siri for this,

00:55:34 ◼   ► then this wouldn't be so much of a problem for me.

00:55:37 ◼   ► So this can be some of the issues,

00:55:39 ◼   ► as well as just the fact that, you know,

00:55:41 ◼   ► if you use such and such company services,

00:55:44 ◼   ► it can be difficult to get it to integrate with another.

00:55:46 ◼   ► Right? Like if you use iCloud for your mail,

00:55:50 ◼   ► it works fantastically in mail.

00:55:52 ◼   ► But if you use Google, there's things that you miss.

00:55:54 ◼   ► You don't get push notifications on iOS.

00:55:56 ◼   ► They're all delayed.

00:55:57 ◼   ► There are a bunch of things that can start to get tricky.

00:56:00 ◼   ► But me and you use Apple, Google, Amazon products.

00:56:06 ◼   ► Why?

00:56:07 ◼   ► Why do you do that?

00:56:08 ◼   ► Why do you use products from multiple companies

00:56:11 ◼   ► when most of these products,

00:56:13 ◼   ► there is something comparable in every individual ecosystem?

00:56:18 ◼   ► - So for me, it's always the idea

00:56:20 ◼   ► that I want the best product.

00:56:24 ◼   ► And sometimes it's the first product, that's true,

00:56:26 ◼   ► but I always want the best product.

00:56:28 ◼   ► And I don't care who it comes from on some level,

00:56:33 ◼   ► if it's the best.

00:56:34 ◼   ► I'm not gonna get, and this is, again,

00:56:37 ◼   ► people make, everybody makes their own decisions,

00:56:39 ◼   ► but every now and then, over the years,

00:56:41 ◼   ► I've gotten asked like, why do you use this

00:56:43 ◼   ► and not what Apple does?

00:56:44 ◼   ► And my answer is, 'cause Apple stuff isn't as good.

00:56:46 ◼   ► And like, and there is this implication like,

00:56:49 ◼   ► but you have Apple stuff,

00:56:51 ◼   ► so you should just use Apple stuff.

00:56:52 ◼   ► and that's very powerful and it can be there are reasons you go that way but

00:56:56 ◼   ► for me it was always like no I'm not gonna use iCloud mail I'm not gonna use

00:57:03 ◼   ► iCloud Drive it's better now right but I still don't use it I still use Dropbox

00:57:08 ◼   ► I've got one drive I still use Dropbox right like I think it's the best one for

00:57:14 ◼   ► me and I use Gmail I use Google Docs I could use I can use Microsoft stuff for

00:57:21 ◼   ► document sharing, I could use Apple stuff for document sharing. I don't. I just

00:57:26 ◼   ► don't. And some of that is because I made a choice a while ago and there's

00:57:30 ◼   ► kind of inertia there, but at some point I made the choice that this is better.

00:57:36 ◼   ► I'm going to use it. I don't care that it's in the other ecosystem. One of the

00:57:41 ◼   ► things that Google does that really makes it easy to also be in Google's

00:57:45 ◼   ► ecosystem is Google doesn't, it's actually kind of like at various points in the Microsoft/Apple

00:57:53 ◼   ► relationship where Microsoft didn't care if you used a Mac, even when Microsoft was killing

00:57:58 ◼   ► the Mac in the mid to late 90s, the analysis that was done at several points was that Microsoft

00:58:05 ◼   ► might actually make more money off of the average Mac sale than the average PC sale,

00:58:11 ◼   ► it had to do with the percentage of Macs that had Microsoft Office installed on them. And

00:58:16 ◼   ► if you think this is the cost of a seat of Microsoft Office and it's this percentage,

00:58:20 ◼   ► then you realize like for every Mac sold, there is a certain percentage of a seat of

00:58:27 ◼   ► Office that goes along with it. And you start to do the math and you're like, oh yeah, actually,

00:58:32 ◼   ► like Microsoft wouldn't want to lose half the market to Apple, but the segment of the

00:58:37 ◼   ► market that's buying Macs is also buying Microsoft products and so Microsoft's fine with it.

00:58:41 ◼   ► Google's like that, right?

00:58:42 ◼   ► - Google's even more so, right?

00:58:44 ◼   ► They will put everything on everything.

00:58:47 ◼   ► - I have to say, I mean, and again,

00:58:49 ◼   ► maybe these aren't the exact right words,

00:58:52 ◼   ► but the feeling I get is that Google does not care

00:58:56 ◼   ► if you buy an iPhone or an Android phone.

00:58:58 ◼   ► They want Android to be good.

00:59:00 ◼   ► It is super important for them.

00:59:02 ◼   ► It is a, you know, they get to control huge parts

00:59:05 ◼   ► of the user base by doing that.

00:59:07 ◼   ► And we can debate, you know,

00:59:09 ◼   ► what they're doing with that data and all of that.

00:59:11 ◼   ► But one of the reasons Android exists at all is that Google got really concerned that Apple

00:59:16 ◼   ► figured it out and they were going to take over the smartphone market.

00:59:21 ◼   ► And that would potentially shut out Google from people who use smartphones, and that

00:59:24 ◼   ► was bad.

00:59:25 ◼   ► They've ended up as essentially the Microsoft at the smartphone market.

00:59:28 ◼   ► But I would say the same thing applies, which is Google doesn't care.

00:59:31 ◼   ► Google doesn't care if you use iPads in schools instead of Chromebooks.

00:59:34 ◼   ► You know why?

00:59:35 ◼   ► Most of those iPads are using Google Classroom.

00:59:36 ◼   ► of those iPhones, or at least many of those iPhones, it's very easy to use Google Maps,

00:59:43 ◼   ► and you can use Chrome, and you can use all the Google services, you can use Gmail, you

00:59:47 ◼   ► can use Google Docs and Sheets, and all of that stuff is on iOS too. So they're like,

00:59:54 ◼   ► "Fine." And so they make it easy. They make it easy for you to use anything. And on computers,

01:00:00 ◼   ► right, they're in the web browser. So they're like, "Yeah, you can use..." That's how they

01:00:06 ◼   ► got big is that they lived in your web browser and it didn't matter whether

01:00:09 ◼   ► you're running Windows or Mac because you were just in a web browser and

01:00:12 ◼   ► that's how Google built their success. So it's it's really easy to be an Apple

01:00:17 ◼   ► hardware user and in Google's ecosystem and I'm one of those people I mean I

01:00:23 ◼   ► really am I am mostly using Google stuff rather than Apple stuff for the places

01:00:30 ◼   ► the services where they compete directly like I you know pages is a an app that

01:00:34 ◼   ► that remains in my application folder, but I don't use it.

01:00:39 ◼   ► I also have the Microsoft stuff and I use that.

01:00:41 ◼   ► I mean, I use numbers and Excel for different things.

01:00:46 ◼   ► And I use Keynote, but not PowerPoint

01:00:48 ◼   ► because I don't work in a big company

01:00:50 ◼   ► that requires PowerPoint anymore.

01:00:51 ◼   ► And I use Google docs and I use Google sheets.

01:00:53 ◼   ► So I don't know, I'm all over the place.

01:00:56 ◼   ► - And I think for both me and you,

01:01:00 ◼   ► there is obviously an element of we use this stuff

01:01:03 ◼   ► so we can try and remain informed.

01:01:06 ◼   ► But in doing that, we do also find new things that we like.

01:01:10 ◼   ► We both have home pods but prefer our echoes

01:01:15 ◼   ► for the majority of things that a smart speaker can do.

01:01:18 ◼   ► But I do also think that within the remit

01:01:21 ◼   ► that you can as an individual to try and try out new things,

01:01:26 ◼   ► to make sure that you are aware of what's out there, right?

01:01:29 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:01:30 ◼   ► - And this can even just be the case of like,

01:01:31 ◼   ► if you want to buy a new product, do some research about what's available rather than

01:01:36 ◼   ► just buying or using the product or service that is provided by the company that you've

01:01:42 ◼   ► always used from.

01:01:44 ◼   ► Because like, so for example, like Apple Notes is a great example of this, right?

01:01:48 ◼   ► Like Apple Notes was terrible, so bad for so long and would have been really easy for

01:01:54 ◼   ► us to just ignore.

01:01:55 ◼   ► But when they showed off the new Apple Notes in like iOS 9 or 10 and it looked really good

01:02:01 ◼   ► it could have been easier to just be like,

01:02:03 ◼   ► they can't do this.

01:02:04 ◼   ► Like it's gonna suck and it's gonna lose all my data.

01:02:06 ◼   ► But I tried it and I was like,

01:02:07 ◼   ► oh no, this is actually the best one available

01:02:09 ◼   ► for me right now.

01:02:10 ◼   ► You know?

01:02:11 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:02:12 ◼   ► I think there is,

01:02:14 ◼   ► if you're like us and you're communicating with people

01:02:17 ◼   ► about this stuff,

01:02:19 ◼   ► it is, you're not doing anybody any favors

01:02:22 ◼   ► by only knowing what one company is doing.

01:02:27 ◼   ► Because, and this is always a conundrum

01:02:31 ◼   ► when you're talking about technology stuff.

01:02:32 ◼   ► Like my job largely is not and has never been

01:02:37 ◼   ► to constantly justify choosing Apple stuff

01:02:44 ◼   ► over the competition.

01:02:45 ◼   ► Like I've never been in that world.

01:02:49 ◼   ► My job is to serve the people who are using Apple's products

01:02:54 ◼   ► by telling them what is good and what is bad,

01:02:58 ◼   ► whether it's Apple or not, right?

01:03:00 ◼   ► But that is, and there's a difference there.

01:03:02 ◼   ► Like, cause, cause this happens all the time when you write about the iPhone

01:03:04 ◼   ► and somebody says, Why didn't you mention that Android is better?

01:03:07 ◼   ► It's like, whatever.

01:03:09 ◼   ► Or why didn't you mention windows is better when you write about the Mac?

01:03:12 ◼   ► It's like, okay, Mac world always back in the day, I was like, this

01:03:15 ◼   ► is not a site about switching.

01:03:16 ◼   ► We're not going to constantly have that debate.

01:03:19 ◼   ► We're speaking to people who've made that choice about all the

01:03:21 ◼   ► other choices they're making.

01:03:22 ◼   ► But this is the, but my point is what you don't want to do is say,

01:03:28 ◼   ► Apple's got this amazing thing,

01:03:31 ◼   ► not knowing that that thing already existed

01:03:33 ◼   ► from five different vendors and Apple's playing catch up.

01:03:37 ◼   ► Ideally, you have a context where you can say,

01:03:39 ◼   ► "That's amazing for things that are truly amazing,

01:03:41 ◼   ► and that's catch up for things that are truly

01:03:44 ◼   ► Apple being behind and catching up to the crowd."

01:03:47 ◼   ► And that is sometimes hard,

01:03:50 ◼   ► because sometimes it's an area

01:03:51 ◼   ► that you going into a keynote or something

01:03:53 ◼   ► you don't know a lot about,

01:03:54 ◼   ► and Apple announces something and you're like,

01:03:55 ◼   ► "Oh, that's pretty cool."

01:03:57 ◼   ► and then you have to look around and be like,

01:03:58 ◼   ► "Is this new or is this..."

01:04:00 ◼   ► And sometimes the answer is, "Yeah, that's actually new."

01:04:02 ◼   ► And people who are using the competition are like,

01:04:04 ◼   ► "Oh, that's really interesting."

01:04:06 ◼   ► And other times it's like,

01:04:06 ◼   ► "Oh, well, they finally got there."

01:04:08 ◼   ► But ideally, if you're trying this stuff out,

01:04:09 ◼   ► then you can sit there and you can say,

01:04:11 ◼   ► "All right, they advanced the ball."

01:04:13 ◼   ► Or you can say, "All right, well,

01:04:14 ◼   ► they just caught up with Google there,"

01:04:15 ◼   ► or, "They caught up with Amazon there."

01:04:17 ◼   ► And it's important to know that, right?

01:04:20 ◼   ► To not be missing that larger story.

01:04:26 ◼   ► And I think it makes for better conversation

01:04:30 ◼   ► and it makes for better analysis

01:04:31 ◼   ► when you know the bigger picture.

01:04:35 ◼   ► And it always disappoints me

01:04:36 ◼   ► when I see somebody writing about Apple announcing something

01:04:40 ◼   ► and treating it like it's this amazing new thing

01:04:44 ◼   ► when I know that somebody else did it two years ago.

01:04:48 ◼   ► Because that's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:04:50 ◼   ► That's the wrong way to play this story.

01:04:53 ◼   ► But yeah, so I think it's important

01:04:55 ◼   ► on lots of levels. Personally, also, I want the best stuff. And I want to try out the

01:05:00 ◼   ► new stuff, and I don't want to lock myself in. But professionally, I also want to know

01:05:04 ◼   ► what the lay of the land is. That's why I've got, I mean, I've got an Android phone about

01:05:09 ◼   ► a foot away. I've got Windows installed on my iMac. I use all these different services.

01:05:16 ◼   ► I want to at least be vaguely versed in the other stuff so that I can, again, not make

01:05:23 ◼   ► the argument of like, well, you should just give up,

01:05:26 ◼   ► because I'm not, people who are gonna make those decisions,

01:05:30 ◼   ► they're gonna have other people to listen to

01:05:32 ◼   ► about the big picture stuff.

01:05:34 ◼   ► But like the details of, is this better or worse?

01:05:37 ◼   ► Should you use iCloud?

01:05:38 ◼   ► Should you use Google Drive?

01:05:39 ◼   ► Should you use OneDrive?

01:05:41 ◼   ► Should you use Dropbox?

01:05:42 ◼   ► Like that is worth, that's useful for everybody.

01:05:47 ◼   ► - So I think that it is worth trying to keep up

01:05:52 ◼   ► as an individual. And so, you know, it is not practical for anybody to buy all of the

01:05:59 ◼   ► products that are coming out or even to buy like one product of every major platform.

01:06:05 ◼   ► So like I think it's important to find some places where you can keep up. So I will give

01:06:10 ◼   ► a plug right now to Download, which is one of Jason's shows on Relay FM. And this is

01:06:14 ◼   ► one of the reasons Jason has to be so plugged in because Download covers all of technology.

01:06:19 ◼   ► Like again, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe one of the kind of the production

01:06:25 ◼   ► ideas of download is unless there is an event going on, you cover one Apple story only,

01:06:30 ◼   ► right?

01:06:31 ◼   ► Well, I mean, we will or none, right?

01:06:34 ◼   ► I mean, that's the idea is it's not an Apple podcast.

01:06:36 ◼   ► It's about technology in general.

01:06:38 ◼   ► And so Stephen Hackett and I both need to watch the broader market, which is useful

01:06:42 ◼   ► for us.

01:06:43 ◼   ► That's good for us.

01:06:44 ◼   ► He also does doing the subnet podcast and it's similar.

01:06:46 ◼   ► he needs to be watching for both of those podcasts what's going on in the broader market.

01:06:52 ◼   ► And then I try to get guests on who know about that stuff. And they educate me about what

01:06:56 ◼   ► Microsoft's doing and what Google's doing and what Amazon's doing and things like that.

01:07:00 ◼   ► So that's good. And it is good to have that perspective, the little bigger perspective

01:07:05 ◼   ► about what's going on in the wider world.

01:07:07 ◼   ► Will Barron And then something I do, I watch a lot of YouTubers

01:07:10 ◼   ► who work in technology who are primarily focused on Android. So I mentioned forever MKBHD.

01:07:16 ◼   ► He's one individual who's like he seems to he understands iPhone, he uses iPhone, he has an appreciation for Apple products

01:07:24 ◼   ► But is doesn't really seem to be a fan particularly, right?

01:07:29 ◼   ► But he and he mostly focuses a lot of his mobile stuff on Android and so I

01:07:34 ◼   ► He always has all the new devices and I really enjoy watching his opinions because I trust what he says

01:07:39 ◼   ► You know like it's good to find people you can trust

01:07:42 ◼   ► So MKBHD for sure and Austin Evans is another youtuber whose work I like a lot for very similar reasons and

01:07:50 ◼   ► Austin stuff about gaming PCs helped me build my gaming PC

01:07:55 ◼   ► So like I think finding some shows or finding some youtubers or finding some websites that cover stuff more broadly

01:08:02 ◼   ► I think is a good way to try and keep abreast of what's going on

01:08:05 ◼   ► Like I feel like I understand the Android handset market from watching MKBHD videos

01:08:10 ◼   ► I was like, I understand what OnePlus is doing.

01:08:12 ◼   ► I understand what like Razer is doing.

01:08:14 ◼   ► I get an idea of that from his stuff.

01:08:18 ◼   ► So there you go.

01:08:20 ◼   ► I was thinking about this and now we've spoken about it.

01:08:22 ◼   ► And now we can take a break and do #AskUprade.

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01:10:25 ◼   ► Are you ready, Jason, for #AskUpgrade?

01:10:28 ◼   ► I'm ready, Myke.

01:10:30 ◼   ► Let me have it.

01:10:30 ◼   ► Rowan has the first question this week. Rowan has said, "At this point, I've given up on

01:10:37 ◼   ► Instagram ever releasing an app for the iPad. Do you have any thoughts on why they have

01:10:42 ◼   ► chosen to ignore the iPad this way?"

01:10:46 ◼   ► - I don't know. It seems dumb. Part of me thinks you can be logged into the web browser

01:10:54 ◼   ► and see stuff, and so they figure like, that's fine. It does baffle me a little bit like,

01:10:59 ◼   ► How hard is it for them to take their app and just do a, I know there's work, but like

01:11:04 ◼   ► their Instagram to make an iPad layout so that John Syracuse doesn't have to watch,

01:11:09 ◼   ► you know, in 2X an iPhone app, like the iPhone's popular.

01:11:13 ◼   ► It makes the photos pretty.

01:11:15 ◼   ► So it is frustrating.

01:11:17 ◼   ► My guess is that they've got other priorities and that they just, it's just not on their

01:11:22 ◼   ► agenda, but I'm a little, it's strange that it's been this long and that they just haven't

01:11:27 ◼   ► even done it.

01:11:28 ◼   ► So I don't know.

01:11:29 ◼   ► My thinking is Instagram's business is based around people taking pictures and sharing

01:11:34 ◼   ► them, right?

01:11:36 ◼   ► As well as viewing.

01:11:37 ◼   ► But the taking, putting the content into the system is probably the most important part.

01:11:42 ◼   ► So there's always something there.

01:11:43 ◼   ► People take pictures on their iPads all the time.

01:11:46 ◼   ► We see them, we point at them and say, "Wow, they're taking a picture on an iPad."

01:11:49 ◼   ► I just don't think it's this much.

01:11:51 ◼   ► And I think that they focus on the phone.

01:11:53 ◼   ► I want the app.

01:11:54 ◼   ► I mean, this is the only reason that I can assume they've not made it is they just want

01:11:58 ◼   ► they want to focus on the taking rather than the viewing.

01:12:02 ◼   ► I just don't, at this point,

01:12:03 ◼   ► I don't believe they will make it, but I want it.

01:12:05 ◼   ► - I agree with you.

01:12:06 ◼   ► I think at this point, if they haven't done it,

01:12:08 ◼   ► they're never going to do it.

01:12:09 ◼   ► - Ben wants to know, does the popsocket on my iPhone 10

01:12:13 ◼   ► affect the ability to do wireless charging?

01:12:15 ◼   ► I had a bunch of people ask me this question

01:12:17 ◼   ► after I spoke about popsockets last week.

01:12:19 ◼   ► The answer is mostly no.

01:12:23 ◼   ► So you can, with a popsocket on your phone,

01:12:28 ◼   ► put it on a charging pad and it will charge.

01:12:30 ◼   ► If you balance your phone on the pad, it will charge.

01:12:32 ◼   ► I tried this out as soon as I got it

01:12:34 ◼   ► just 'cause I was interested.

01:12:36 ◼   ► But to do this, you have to have the pop socket

01:12:40 ◼   ► placed in an area on the phone that the phone will balance.

01:12:45 ◼   ► Right, so if you have it at the bottom, it might not work.

01:12:48 ◼   ► You might have to, it's gonna depend on like

01:12:50 ◼   ► how much contact you make.

01:12:51 ◼   ► But if you have it in the middle like I do,

01:12:52 ◼   ► just underneath the Apple logo on my case,

01:12:54 ◼   ► you can put it on there, the phone balances,

01:12:56 ◼   ► and it will charge through it.

01:12:57 ◼   ► So I'm not going to recommend this because I have no idea what that means or does, but

01:13:04 ◼   ► it does work. I can confirm that I can answer that part of the question. You can still charge

01:13:08 ◼   ► with a popsocket on your case. Michael's question for Jason is, "Jason, do you maintain a standard

01:13:15 ◼   ► work day like nine to five of an hour for lunch? If so, as a free agent, have you considered

01:13:21 ◼   ► changing that or is the corporate schedule too ingrained in you? If it's not, how does

01:13:26 ◼   ► this feel after years being in an office environment with those kind of standard rigid hours?

01:13:30 ◼   ► Mm, interesting. An hour for lunch makes me laugh. I did used to work with some people

01:13:38 ◼   ► who had like some serious RSI issues who made sure that they took an hour break in the middle

01:13:43 ◼   ► of the day for lunch because they earned it and because they needed the break physically.

01:13:49 ◼   ► I never, I never, I would, I would go out if I didn't bring my lunch, I would go out and get like a sandwich and bring it back.

01:13:57 ◼   ► But then I was just eating at my desk.

01:13:59 ◼   ► So I never took a, you know, rarely ever took a lunch break where I like went somewhere for an hour and then came back.

01:14:05 ◼   ► So first off, I'm going to say that.

01:14:06 ◼   ► Um, but Michael, let me tell you, if I was left entirely to my own devices, I would probably, um, I would

01:14:19 ◼   ► probably have very different hours than I do. I would probably work much later.

01:14:25 ◼   ► Sort of like Myke. I would probably work much later. I always, again, I'm older now, but when I

01:14:32 ◼   ► was in college and in my twenties, like I found that I was always really

01:14:36 ◼   ► productive in the afternoon and evening and into night. Like that was my most

01:14:41 ◼   ► productive time. And so I'm going to guess that that might still be the case.

01:14:46 ◼   ► case. Every now and then my wife is out like she's gone out to dinner with friends or she's

01:14:52 ◼   ► been doing a bunch of extra dance classes the last few weeks because they've got their

01:14:57 ◼   ► their end of the term show coming up and so like she's gone until nine o'clock and I'm

01:15:03 ◼   ► like oh I'm gonna do some work. It's like a treat. I can work from seven to nine pm.

01:15:11 ◼   ► So here's the thing though this implication that it's the ingrained corporate schedule.

01:15:16 ◼   ► not it. That's not it. The issue is, life is structured around work times, and I live

01:15:23 ◼   ► with humans. So that's the bottom line is, I could work, you know, until two in the morning,

01:15:33 ◼   ► and then sleep until ten in the morning, and get up and kind of putter around for the first

01:15:40 ◼   ► few hours and then go back to work at four in the afternoon. The problem is this, I have

01:15:46 ◼   ► two children, they go to school during school hours, they wake up at seven in the morning,

01:15:51 ◼   ► they come home at four in the afternoon, and then they're home the rest of the night. I

01:15:56 ◼   ► have a wife, she has a job, she generally is working, I think it's like nine, was it

01:16:02 ◼   ► 930 or 10 until about 530. I can't live this weird nighttime Batman kind of life because

01:16:15 ◼   ► I have other people in my life and they are still on traditional scheduling. So my freedom

01:16:22 ◼   ► to work whenever I want is limited by the fact that I do have a family and I'm not going

01:16:27 ◼   ► to work while they're home and then sleeping, and then I'm certainly not going to sleep

01:16:33 ◼   ► through them all getting up. And so I basically work, you know, eight to five, mostly. It

01:16:43 ◼   ► varies, but something like that. And that's, again, mostly because it's the time where

01:16:49 ◼   ► people are out of the house, and I can do it. So I don't, I would love to have a more

01:16:55 ◼   ► flexible schedule, but I just don't think it's in the cards. And it has nothing to do

01:16:59 ◼   ► with my office. My hours are much nicer now because I don't have to deal with commutes

01:17:03 ◼   ► and sometimes the traffic where that 45-minute bus ride home becomes an hour and a half.

01:17:10 ◼   ► Like I don't have to deal with any of that kind of variability, which is nice.

01:17:14 ◼   ► I have no schedule. I don't know what it is.

01:17:18 ◼   ► Yeah, you were like on East Coast time in London, which is amazing. So that's the one

01:17:21 ◼   ► One question I had for you is, how do you square that with Adina having a job with hours?

01:17:29 ◼   ► Does she just leave and you just keep snoozing?

01:17:33 ◼   ► No, she mostly wakes me up.

01:17:35 ◼   ► I'm usually awake before 9, but I go to bed at like 2.30.

01:17:42 ◼   ► That mostly works for me.

01:17:44 ◼   ► I'm fine with that right now.

01:17:45 ◼   ► Yeah, you're going to need more sleep eventually, but sure.

01:17:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:49 ◼   ► - Well, I'm sure at some point,

01:17:51 ◼   ► but I function perfectly fine.

01:17:53 ◼   ► Honestly, I tend to be a little bit more sluggish

01:17:57 ◼   ► if I sleep longer.

01:17:59 ◼   ► I don't know why, it's just how I am wired

01:18:01 ◼   ► for the time being.

01:18:02 ◼   ► I'm sure it will change, 'cause this has changed

01:18:04 ◼   ► a bunch of times over my life, but that's kind of,

01:18:06 ◼   ► like I used to really struggle to wake up in the mornings,

01:18:09 ◼   ► but now I don't anymore.

01:18:12 ◼   ► So that's just kind of where I am right now.

01:18:13 ◼   ► I have absolutely no standard schedule,

01:18:16 ◼   ► but I like my life that way, that I kind of pick and choose.

01:18:19 ◼   ► - So the way, and the way it works is that you're,

01:18:22 ◼   ► so when Adina comes home, do you hang out with her

01:18:26 ◼   ► and then she goes to sleep and you go back to work?

01:18:29 ◼   ► - By and large, yeah.

01:18:29 ◼   ► I mean, there are some evenings

01:18:30 ◼   ► where I work a little bit later or whatever,

01:18:32 ◼   ► but that's typically what happens when she gets home.

01:18:34 ◼   ► We just spend time together and then she goes to sleep.

01:18:37 ◼   ► I either work or I just read Twitter

01:18:41 ◼   ► and watch YouTube videos.

01:18:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, my challenge would be that

01:18:44 ◼   ► if I went back to work after, I mean, really,

01:18:47 ◼   ► 'cause I don't wanna stay up with Lauren

01:18:49 ◼   ► until she goes to bed, so I go back to work after that,

01:18:51 ◼   ► I could totally do that,

01:18:53 ◼   ► but the problem is gonna be in the morning,

01:18:56 ◼   ► everybody else is gonna be waking me up at 6.30,

01:18:58 ◼   ► 6.45 in the morning, the dog, the kids,

01:19:00 ◼   ► and Lauren, they're all gonna be getting up,

01:19:03 ◼   ► and I can't sleep through that.

01:19:06 ◼   ► And then all of a sudden I'm up till two in the morning

01:19:09 ◼   ► and up at 6.45 AM, and that's not gonna,

01:19:12 ◼   ► I would die.

01:19:13 ◼   ► So there you go, that's my problem.

01:19:15 ◼   ► And I don't nap.

01:19:15 ◼   ► That's the other problem, I don't nap.

01:19:17 ◼   ► I can't grab a nap in the middle of the day

01:19:19 ◼   ► in order to improve things.

01:19:22 ◼   ► I don't do that.

01:19:23 ◼   ► - Eric wants to know if either of us use a UPS

01:19:27 ◼   ► in our office studio.

01:19:28 ◼   ► This is not the postal service system.

01:19:30 ◼   ► This is an uninterrupted power supply?

01:19:34 ◼   ► Is that what--

01:19:35 ◼   ► - Uninterruptible power supply, I think.

01:19:38 ◼   ► It's like a, it basically is a thick power strip

01:19:42 ◼   ► that's got a battery in it.

01:19:44 ◼   ► And you've got some of the ports on the power strip.

01:19:47 ◼   ► The battery will power even if your power goes out.

01:19:51 ◼   ► - Which is, it's funny, if you're having a thunderstorm

01:19:53 ◼   ► like I am today, these things can be really useful

01:19:57 ◼   ► because they keep things powered.

01:19:58 ◼   ► But Jason, do you think I use a UPS?

01:20:01 ◼   ► - I'm gonna guess you don't have a UPS.

01:20:02 ◼   ► - I don't, I don't, 'cause I've never had a power outage.

01:20:07 ◼   ► - I did not get a UPS until I set up my home office

01:20:12 ◼   ► and then I finally got one.

01:20:13 ◼   ► I almost never have a power outage here.

01:20:15 ◼   ► We're very lucky, I think,

01:20:19 ◼   ► that whatever our particular little block is,

01:20:22 ◼   ► that it seems pretty resilient,

01:20:24 ◼   ► 'cause it only happens maybe once a year.

01:20:27 ◼   ► But I do have one, in fact, now I have two.

01:20:31 ◼   ► I bought one a while ago,

01:20:33 ◼   ► and then I realized that I wanted to keep my internet up.

01:20:36 ◼   ► And so I bought a second one

01:20:37 ◼   ► because my cable modem used to be in the other room,

01:20:40 ◼   ► and I put it in there, my router and my modem over there

01:20:43 ◼   ► so that they would stay up.

01:20:44 ◼   ► Because the theory there is that if your power goes out,

01:20:47 ◼   ► but the internet's still on, you stay on the internet,

01:20:50 ◼   ► which is also nice.

01:20:51 ◼   ► And you could even power like a wifi base station

01:20:54 ◼   ► for a little while, and then you could still get wifi

01:20:56 ◼   ► on your battery operated devices,

01:20:58 ◼   ► even when the power is out, which is great.

01:21:01 ◼   ► So I do have them, I'm gonna move one of them,

01:21:04 ◼   ► the one that's in there isn't powering anything

01:21:07 ◼   ► super vital anymore, so I'm gonna move it in here eventually

01:21:09 ◼   ► into my office. The primary thing is to keep the iMac running at least briefly

01:21:17 ◼   ► when the power goes out. My UPS has a USB cable on it, so it's attached to my

01:21:24 ◼   ► iMac, and there are software interactions there that my iMac actually has a

01:21:29 ◼   ► battery settings menu, which is funny because it's not a laptop, but it's for

01:21:33 ◼   ► when the UPS kicks in, and it basically allows it to dim the monitor

01:21:39 ◼   ► when it's on the battery power and auto shut down after, you know, when the battery is

01:21:44 ◼   ► about to run out. And the idea there is it'll give you time to save and maybe copy things

01:21:48 ◼   ► somewhere if you need them to, you know, need to have access to them, but you know you're

01:21:53 ◼   ► going to lose your main thing. Because I've got a laptop with battery and I've got iPads

01:21:59 ◼   ► and iPhones, but the iMac is not going to make it for more than a few minutes on battery

01:22:03 ◼   ► power. So, yes, I recommend that people consider getting these. They're really useful and you're

01:22:09 ◼   ► you not losing data. And now that we store things in the cloud, losing data is not as

01:22:14 ◼   ► big a deal, but giving it access, putting your router or your Wi-Fi or your access point

01:22:21 ◼   ► or whatever on a battery backup, because depending on where you are and what happened, you may

01:22:27 ◼   ► find that your internet is still there. It's just the power that went out. And that means

01:22:31 ◼   ► that you can still use your tablet or your iPhone or your laptop to connect to the internet,

01:22:37 ◼   ► even when the power is out, which is also nice.

01:22:40 ◼   ► So we'll put a link in the show notes

01:22:42 ◼   ► to the Wirecutters review of the best

01:22:44 ◼   ► on our uninterruptible power supplies.

01:22:46 ◼   ► I have one of those, one of their picks,

01:22:48 ◼   ► the CyberPower is the pick that I bought.

01:22:51 ◼   ► And then I also have an APC one

01:22:53 ◼   ► that I bought a couple of years ago.

01:22:54 ◼   ► They're heavy.

01:22:56 ◼   ► - I bet. - But--

01:22:57 ◼   ► - They're just big fat batteries, right?

01:22:59 ◼   ► Like it's just heavy heavy.

01:23:00 ◼   ► - But like if you're recording a podcast

01:23:03 ◼   ► and your power went out,

01:23:04 ◼   ► like some of the podcast recording apps,

01:23:06 ◼   ► you just lose the recording. It's very bad. So I recommend that. Yeah. I'm going to look

01:23:12 ◼   ► into this. I think look into one. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you never know. You might have a thunderstorm,

01:23:16 ◼   ► sudden thunderstorm and the power could go out. Uh, Eric, either the same Eric or another

01:23:21 ◼   ► Eric also asked, uh, I was really taken with the design of the keynote slides, the last

01:23:26 ◼   ► Apple education event. So this was the, uh, like the Apple pencil written, you know, handwritten

01:23:32 ◼   ► slides. Do you think this is going to be a new style for Apple, having a graphic design

01:23:37 ◼   ► that is outside their typical, or do you think it is just a one-off?

01:23:41 ◼   ► Um, it's a good question. I would love it if every Apple, I mean, they do this a little bit,

01:23:48 ◼   ► but not as dramatically as the one in Chicago. I would love it if Apple had art directed its entire

01:23:55 ◼   ► event, right? And this, we may see this for WWDC, right? They may be WWDC typeface and art style,

01:24:02 ◼   ► and that that gets integrated into the keynote.

01:24:04 ◼   ► - It's all that kind of white geometric blocks and stuff

01:24:08 ◼   ► like they have on the WWDC page.

01:24:10 ◼   ► - With WWDC, you've got to keep in mind

01:24:11 ◼   ► that they probably are using the same template

01:24:13 ◼   ► for everybody in the company

01:24:14 ◼   ► because everybody who's doing a WWDC presentation

01:24:17 ◼   ► has to use the official template.

01:24:19 ◼   ► And the keynote's a little bit different,

01:24:21 ◼   ► but they probably would want to connect it to that.

01:24:23 ◼   ► So I hope they do this because it's fun

01:24:26 ◼   ► and it's a very Apple thing to do,

01:24:28 ◼   ► but it's also a really nice kind of like design motif

01:24:31 ◼   ► to say, you know, our event from the invitations onward is all going to be in this particular

01:24:40 ◼   ► style, this color palette, these fonts and all of that. Certainly not necessary, but

01:24:44 ◼   ► I would like to see it. I mean, I don't think we'll see the handwriting come back, but I

01:24:48 ◼   ► think we could see some other just, again, unifying principle applied to the entire event,

01:24:55 ◼   ► and we'll see at WWDC if they do that. I bet they, to a certain degree, they will do that

01:24:59 ◼   ► because I think that that's Apple.

01:25:00 ◼   ► But how far they take it,

01:25:02 ◼   ► and if they have all sorts of unique imagery

01:25:05 ◼   ► and typefaces and stuff,

01:25:07 ◼   ► or if it looks more or less

01:25:08 ◼   ► like what Apple Keynotes look like, we'll see.

01:25:11 ◼   ► - And finally, Jake asked,

01:25:12 ◼   ► "Do you think we'll see new laptops at WWDC?"

01:25:15 ◼   ► Don't answer, Jason.

01:25:18 ◼   ► - Draft it.

01:25:19 ◼   ► - He'll get our answer next week.

01:25:20 ◼   ► We'll find out next week because we're gonna be drafting.

01:25:23 ◼   ► On our next episode of Upgrade,

01:25:25 ◼   ► we'll be participating and competing

01:25:28 ◼   ► in the 2018 WWDC draft.

01:25:31 ◼   ► I think this is our third or fourth,

01:25:34 ◼   ► maybe our third WWDC draft. - Third WWDC draft.

01:25:36 ◼   ► I think that may be right.

01:25:38 ◼   ► And I'm up one nothing on 2018 so far.

01:25:41 ◼   ► - And so unlike last year,

01:25:43 ◼   ► there will be a definitive winner this year we expect.

01:25:47 ◼   ► 'Cause last year we drew because I won WWDC

01:25:50 ◼   ► and you won the September.

01:25:53 ◼   ► So-- - Yes, it was one all.

01:25:54 ◼   ► - It was one all.

01:25:55 ◼   ► And we've had a March event.

01:25:56 ◼   ► We have this one.

01:25:57 ◼   ► We're definitely having a September event.

01:25:59 ◼   ► I reckon that will probably be it, but we'll wait and see.

01:26:01 ◼   ► So there's more likely this year to be a definitive winner,

01:26:04 ◼   ► but Jason is the winner.

01:26:06 ◼   ► He'll be getting his first picks, but we'll run through all of the rules

01:26:08 ◼   ► and do our picks in the upgrade WWDC draft next week.

01:26:14 ◼   ► But until then, we will see you next time.

01:26:18 ◼   ► You can send in your questions with the hashtag #askupgrade

01:26:21 ◼   ► to close out the show.

01:26:22 ◼   ► We always appreciate those.

01:26:24 ◼   ► You can find Jason online at sixcolors.com

01:26:27 ◼   ► and he's at the incomparable dot com on Twitter.

01:26:29 ◼   ► He is at J Snell.

01:26:30 ◼   ► I am at I Myke I M Y K E.

01:26:33 ◼   ► I want to thank again our wonderful sponsors,

01:26:36 ◼   ► the fine folk over at Squarespace, Linode and Simple Contacts.

01:26:40 ◼   ► And we'll be back next time.

01:26:42 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow.

01:26:45 ◼   ► Bye, everybody.

01:26:45 ◼   ► [MUSIC]