Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, happy new year. This is Upgrade Episode number 70.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Casper and Squarespace.

00:00:16 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by the 2016 version of Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hello Myke Hurley.

00:00:23 ◼   ► How are you feeling today? Do you feel ready to go for the new year?

00:00:26 ◼   ► I do. It is that moment where you're, you got to become engaged in the new year, the

00:00:34 ◼   ► holiday break is over. I had to set my alarm last night, which was interesting because

00:00:39 ◼   ► I haven't done that for the last two weeks because I mostly set my alarm so that, you

00:00:44 ◼   ► know, as you know, I work out of my house. I could pretty much get up any time. But I

00:00:49 ◼   ► got to get the kids up and off to school. And so I had to do that last night. I was

00:00:53 ◼   ► "Oh yeah, alarm clock." And I woke up this morning when the alarm went off and I thought,

00:00:57 ◼   ► "Wow, it's really dark." Because I've been waking up a little bit later, but that's okay.

00:01:01 ◼   ► It's sort of after a couple of weeks, I think it's a good feeling to get back in the swim

00:01:06 ◼   ► and I feel like ready to go and enthusiastic about doing it. So that's good for me. How

00:01:12 ◼   ► about you?

00:01:13 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, I'm feeling pretty good. I mean, I'm still, I decided to like ease in today,

00:01:18 ◼   ► you know, like in the transition period. Because I've been kind of working all the way through

00:01:22 ◼   ► the break anyway just not as much as usual but now we're back on regularly

00:01:26 ◼   ► regularly scheduled programming this week which we haven't been for the last two

00:01:29 ◼   ► weeks so that's gonna be the yeah the interesting part of coming back from

00:01:33 ◼   ► this break because I haven't done that in the last like very year I haven't

00:01:36 ◼   ► really taken a break where I've been at home and because even when I go on

00:01:40 ◼   ► holidays the majority of the time I record everything in advance or something

00:01:44 ◼   ► like that but this one has been just just straight out like we're just not

00:01:47 ◼   ► doing them for a couple of weeks on a couple of shows and that's been that's

00:01:51 ◼   ► been nice. But I'm happy to get back into it.

00:01:53 ◼   ► It's, at IDG we used to have, they used to sort of give us the week between Christmas

00:01:59 ◼   ► and New Year's off, and doing this myself, I can't do that. I've enjoyed kind of working

00:02:04 ◼   ► a lighter schedule, but I also am not abandoning, we used to like have a bunch of people would

00:02:12 ◼   ► sign up for like a half day where they would be monitoring the websites and posting some

00:02:15 ◼   ► stories and stuff, and that's how you cover the break. And of course when it's just me,

00:02:19 ◼   ► Dan has been on vacation, so it was literally just me at six colors. So I've been doing

00:02:24 ◼   ► a little bit of work on that and I had some podcast stuff to do, but it was a light schedule

00:02:27 ◼   ► and that was kind of, that felt fine. That was kind of enjoyable that it was just a reduced

00:02:32 ◼   ► schedule. And one of the nice things about not having all the ads sold, a lot of times

00:02:37 ◼   ► ads don't, people don't want to buy ads after Christmas because they want to market before

00:02:42 ◼   ► the holidays and not after. So I was very happy to make the decision with Clockwise

00:02:47 ◼   ► for example, to not do episodes the last couple weeks of the year. Nice to have a break, and

00:02:53 ◼   ► now we'll spin it back up and get going. But that was, by not selling the ads, we had the

00:02:56 ◼   ► option of doing those shows or not, and during the course of the year we would still do shows

00:03:01 ◼   ► without sponsors just because consistency is important. But at the end of the year it

00:03:05 ◼   ► felt like it was good. Take a little vacation from it and then come back fresh in the new

00:03:08 ◼   ► year. So it's good to be able to have that flexibility and to do some of that. But now,

00:03:14 ◼   ► yeah, we re back to full schedule, as you say.

00:03:18 ◼   ► David: Mm hmm, fully scheduled. Talking about the holidays, I received a lovely gift package

00:03:22 ◼   ► from you.

00:03:23 ◼   ► Geoff - Yes, I m glad you got it.

00:03:25 ◼   ► David - Yeah, it included a couple of things. It had some brain balls, which are sitting

00:03:30 ◼   ► on my desk. Mini brain balls, we ll call them.

00:03:32 ◼   ► Geoff - That was an incomparable, some members of the incomparable crew, if they received

00:03:37 ◼   ► a package from me, I ordered some foam brain balls and I sent those to people. So you also

00:03:44 ◼   ► received some brain balls. Use them wisely.

00:03:47 ◼   ► >> But the most—I will. I have it in my hand right now. It is my new kind of—

00:03:51 ◼   ► >> Good. Excellent.

00:03:52 ◼   ► >> —whilst recording "Fiddling with Something" toy.

00:03:54 ◼   ► >> That's what it's for.

00:03:55 ◼   ► >> And you sent me something that was very curious. I didn't really understand what

00:04:01 ◼   ► you had sent me until I unfurled it and realized—

00:04:04 ◼   ► >> It's a very large sort of canvas object, right?

00:04:08 ◼   ► >> Yes, exactly. And I realized you had sent me an actual mailbag.

00:04:13 ◼   ► I went on eBay. I had this flash where I was like, you know, what would be funny is if

00:04:20 ◼   ► there was a mailbag I could send to Myke to celebrate mailbagging. And I went on eBay

00:04:25 ◼   ► and they had vintage US Postal Service mailbags and I bought one. Actually, I had, that was

00:04:32 ◼   ► my second auction that I had to do before I could finally acquire it and then had to

00:04:37 ◼   ► ship it to the UK, which was a challenge and not cheap to ship things to the UK. But in

00:04:42 ◼   ► the end, the mailbag is in your possession. And it's big. I don't know what you're going

00:04:46 ◼   ► to put in it, if anything, but you could put a lot of mail in that bag, I'm just saying.

00:04:51 ◼   ► David: Yeah, at the moment, it hasn't got anything in it, but I might put like, the

00:04:56 ◼   ► mail I don't like can just go in that bag. It can be where all my bank statements go,

00:05:00 ◼   ► into the mailbag. Thank you very much for my mailbag.

00:05:03 ◼   ► Tim: Yes, you're welcome. I'm glad. That was a good idea. Too good to pass up the mailbag.

00:05:09 ◼   ► a special thing for you and me. So I'm glad you got it.

00:05:14 ◼   ► Should we do some follow up? It's a great idea.

00:05:18 ◼   ► This is all follow up mainly from a couple of weeks ago because obviously we did the

00:05:22 ◼   ► illustrious upgrade last week. Angus wrote in to say, and this is in response to somebody

00:05:27 ◼   ► from a previous Ask Upgrade segment about having a stuck app update on the Apple TV,

00:05:34 ◼   ► Angus wrote in to say, "To force a TV app update, you can go to the apps page in the

00:05:38 ◼   ► store and update directly from that page. Which kind of makes sense, right? So something

00:05:43 ◼   ► stuck because it's got an update pending, go to the store and instead of letting you

00:05:49 ◼   ► download it again, it will let you download the new update, which is a good top tip there

00:05:53 ◼   ► from Angus. Although I have not run into this, mainly because I don't use many apps on Apple

00:05:59 ◼   ► TV.

00:06:00 ◼   ► **Matt Stauffer** Nor have I felt the need to do an update.

00:06:03 ◼   ► would be like you find out that there's an update and then and that enables something

00:06:09 ◼   ► and why don't I have that feature oh I guess maybe I need to force an update no I've never

00:06:13 ◼   ► had that experience on the Apple TV because I'm mostly just sort of using it.

00:06:17 ◼   ► There aren't any apps that are cool enough really I think you know that have got like

00:06:22 ◼   ► exciting enough features right now which are compelling you to force these updates but

00:06:28 ◼   ► I do believe it will change eventually.

00:06:30 ◼   ► - Sure, sure.

00:06:31 ◼   ► - Listen to Jason wrote in to say,

00:06:33 ◼   ► I wanted to make a plug for Myke's choice

00:06:35 ◼   ► of one password for Mac because of one password for Teams.

00:06:38 ◼   ► So Jason wanted to just point out

00:06:40 ◼   ► the greatness of one password for Teams.

00:06:42 ◼   ► Now I have not actually used this yet, Jason,

00:06:44 ◼   ► but I believe that you have.

00:06:45 ◼   ► - I've used it a little bit.

00:06:46 ◼   ► I set up one, a team for the incomparable incorporated.

00:06:50 ◼   ► Right now there's one vault in there that is for

00:06:55 ◼   ► all of our kind of sort of,

00:06:58 ◼   ► it's like bank and corporate credit card and log into other kind of data stuff that my

00:07:03 ◼   ► wife and I both use because she's sort of the CFO of the company. She's got a business

00:07:13 ◼   ► degree and she does the payroll and all that stuff. And so this way, instead of me sending

00:07:19 ◼   ► her a password or her sending me a password, we have a shared vault. And then I also have

00:07:24 ◼   ► a vault for hosts that I haven't rolled out to people yet because I've been waiting for

00:07:28 ◼   ► this to roll out across all the one password apps. But I have a lot of hosts who need to

00:07:33 ◼   ► know the logins for the FTP server where you upload your podcast files and for the CMS

00:07:38 ◼   ► where you post your podcasts. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to put those in the

00:07:43 ◼   ► host vault and share that with the hosts so that they have access to that instead of me

00:07:49 ◼   ► having to, you know, tell every new host, here are all the passwords for all the logins

00:07:54 ◼   ► that you need to do this, you know, as a guest host. Instead, I'll just be able to say, "Let

00:07:59 ◼   ► me invite you to the 1Password Vault." So it's fun. It's a nice idea that you can share different

00:08:05 ◼   ► levels of access with people in your work group. And then it sort of just kind of melds

00:08:12 ◼   ► in with your personal 1Password Vault. You can separate them out if you want, but you

00:08:17 ◼   ► can also just, I think by default, it's all vaults. And so when you search for something,

00:08:20 ◼   ► If it's in your team vault or it's in your regular vault, it all works together.

00:08:25 ◼   ► It's very cool.

00:08:27 ◼   ► Yeah, this is something that I really should look into a little bit more because me and

00:08:34 ◼   ► Steven obviously share a bunch of stuff, like a bunch of logins.

00:08:37 ◼   ► And what happens is we just iMessage each other the 1Password links, right, to add them

00:08:41 ◼   ► to our individual accounts, like our 1Password apps.

00:08:44 ◼   ► But it probably makes sense for us to look into 1Password for teams.

00:08:47 ◼   ► It seems like a good solution.

00:08:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:08:50 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a cool idea.

00:08:51 ◼   ► It's a cool idea.

00:08:52 ◼   ► If you need to share secret information in a work group,

00:08:56 ◼   ► that's what it's for.

00:08:57 ◼   ► - And Steve wanted to write in to share some artwork

00:09:02 ◼   ► that he and his daughter had created

00:09:05 ◼   ► in the Pigment coloring app,

00:09:07 ◼   ► following our upgradey suggestion for Pigment

00:09:11 ◼   ► as the best name over the year,

00:09:12 ◼   ► which has reminded me, I will put in the show notes, Jason,

00:09:16 ◼   ► a link to some of my favorite work that I have done

00:09:20 ◼   ► in the Pigment app.

00:09:23 ◼   ► Oh boy, do I love this app so much.

00:09:24 ◼   ► - It looks like, so is Pigment,

00:09:26 ◼   ► are the things that you can color in Pigment,

00:09:29 ◼   ► are those specially kind of marked up

00:09:31 ◼   ► so that it knows where the borders are and things like that?

00:09:33 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah, yep.

00:09:34 ◼   ► - So it's not just, 'cause my initial thought was

00:09:37 ◼   ► it's too bad that you can't like take a picture of something

00:09:40 ◼   ► and then color that in of a piece of paper,

00:09:43 ◼   ► but it seems like what they're doing

00:09:44 ◼   ► is some special markup information about sensing all the lines and all the regions and things

00:09:50 ◼   ► like that in order to make it a better experience.

00:09:52 ◼   ► Yeah, it is 100% that. There is a mode where you can click inside of an empty field and

00:09:59 ◼   ► if you just color you don't go over the lines. So they're doing analysis to work out the

00:10:04 ◼   ► specific areas. And plus the way that the app works is a subscription that you pay and

00:10:09 ◼   ► get new books as they're generated or as they're added into their library. But yeah, that's

00:10:16 ◼   ► how it works. And yeah, it would be quite nice. I think someone should still make that

00:10:20 ◼   ► app. But that seems a little bit more tricky as to how you get that. You'd still have to

00:10:25 ◼   ► buy the books and then you have to take the pictures, right?

00:10:29 ◼   ► If you take a look at my pigment work there, I'll put a link in the show notes.

00:10:32 ◼   ► Oh, I haven't. You want me to...

00:10:34 ◼   ► Yeah, I just want you to appreciate...

00:10:36 ◼   ► To judge a wow.

00:10:37 ◼   ► the beauty. These are four of my favorites. They'll be in our show notes if you want to find them.

00:10:43 ◼   ► Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I love it. The Lion one is the one that I like the most.

00:10:48 ◼   ► I worked really hard on that one. It looks great. I love this coloring, man. It's fantastic.

00:10:55 ◼   ► It's so much fun. All right, let's do some follow-out. I have a couple of little things

00:11:01 ◼   ► that we want to talk about. The first one is relay-related. MacPowerUsers, the institution

00:11:08 ◼   ► that is MacPowerUsers, will be celebrating their 300th show in a couple of weeks time.

00:11:14 ◼   ► And for this occasion, myself and Steven are going to be taking the reins and we're going to be

00:11:21 ◼   ► talking to and interviewing Katie and David about the show and about their workflows and stuff like

00:11:26 ◼   ► Nice. And we want you guys to get involved, so if you will tweet with the hashtag #MPU300,

00:11:32 ◼   ► me and Steve will be able to collect those tweets and we'll be able to include your questions

00:11:37 ◼   ► to Katie and David in honor of their 300th episode of MacPow Users, which is kind of

00:11:43 ◼   ► astounding in and of itself. We're talking about podcasts with really high numbers.

00:11:48 ◼   ► Yes, the incomparable. We need to do something. I am considering converting the incomparable

00:11:56 ◼   ► to David and Katie's schedule, which is they do a bonus episode every month. Is that right?

00:12:02 ◼   ► Yeah, they do like a live, it's MPU live.

00:12:06 ◼   ► Yeah. So I'm thinking about that because that's why I've gotten behind them. But it's because

00:12:12 ◼   ► they're cheating.

00:12:14 ◼   ► You need to just do 20 bonus episodes in a week.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Yeah, well, we practically did that one for Star Wars. That's almost what we did. It almost

00:12:22 ◼   ► killed me. It's things that I edited that other people were on. We did post, if people

00:12:27 ◼   ► don't know, we posted four episodes about Star Wars The Force Awakens on The Incomparable

00:12:32 ◼   ► in the course of a week after the movie came out. Four different panels, four different

00:12:36 ◼   ► hosts. I only hosted one of them. So in the end, we ended up with, I don't know what that

00:12:40 ◼   ► seven and a half hours of people talking about Star Wars. But this follow-out is not about

00:12:47 ◼   ► that. It's just I wanted to mention the "Incomparable 281," which is our latest episode posted over

00:12:51 ◼   ► the weekend. It's our year in review episode. And there's a few things that are good about

00:12:55 ◼   ► it. It is a long episode. It's two and a half hours long. The first hour is our most common

00:13:01 ◼   ► panelists, most popular panelists on the show talking about the things that they liked for

00:13:07 ◼   ► 2015. So if you're looking for recommendations for great movies and TV shows and books and

00:13:12 ◼   ► comics and other stuff, video games, that there's a...one of the listeners compiled

00:13:19 ◼   ► all of the things that we mentioned and it's in the show notes, which is great because

00:13:22 ◼   ► I didn't do it. I was too exhausted from putting it together. So I think it's fun just on that

00:13:28 ◼   ► if you don't regularly listen to the incomparable. And then the second half of the show is favorite

00:13:33 ◼   ► moments of the episodes from the podcast from the year, including a lot of very fun clips,

00:13:38 ◼   ► which took a lot of time to put together, but is kind of fun. So it's a nice wrap-up

00:13:42 ◼   ► of 2015, both stuff and also for the podcast itself. So people should check that out.

00:13:49 ◼   ► Yeah, most definitely. Most definitely. I'm nearly finished with the episode, and I enjoy

00:13:54 ◼   ► it immensely. The whole--

00:13:57 ◼   ► There's something very special at the very end of the episode.

00:13:59 ◼   ► Oh, I haven't gotten there yet. Good. The Skeletor thing this time far exceeded my expectations.

00:14:07 ◼   ► Just superb.

00:14:08 ◼   ► Yeah, because that's, for people who don't know, an ongoing story in our end-of-year

00:14:12 ◼   ► wrap-up episodes.

00:14:13 ◼   ► You can't even attempt to explain this, man.

00:14:15 ◼   ► Well, I'll just say Steve Lutz many years ago did a funny thing involving picking a

00:14:20 ◼   ► Skeletor in a draft that we did. And since then, in every successive annual episode,

00:14:26 ◼   ► picked as his favorite thing from the previous year. Well, the first time he picked Skeletor,

00:14:31 ◼   ► him picking Skeletor, in every successive episodes, every subsequent end of year recap,

00:14:37 ◼   ► he's picked his picking of Skeletor from the previous year, hoping to create a recursive

00:14:41 ◼   ► clip loop that would consume the universe where it was just clips of clips of clips

00:14:45 ◼   ► of clips of clips of Skeletor all the way down. But it has changed in various interesting

00:14:50 ◼   ► ways over the course of the last four years. So that usually is a plot point in the Incompetent

00:14:56 ◼   ► year in review episode and it is no different this year. But it's a very different take

00:15:01 ◼   ► on it this year.

00:15:02 ◼   ► And last up before we move into our little topics that we have this week, we have a smorgasbord

00:15:07 ◼   ► ahead. We've got an exciting week at Relay. We have a new show launching called Canvas.

00:15:12 ◼   ► There's...

00:15:13 ◼   ► I listened to the pilot just the other day.

00:15:16 ◼   ► Yes, Relay FM members got access to a pilot episode. But there is... It's all going to

00:15:23 ◼   ► out later this week it will live at relay.fm/canvas there's nothing there yet because it's not

00:15:29 ◼   ► live the show is Fraser Spears and Federico Vittucci talking about how to do things on

00:15:35 ◼   ► mainly iPad but iOS and like they really go in depth into how to make things happen how

00:15:41 ◼   ► to live and work on iOS and to take it one step further the entire show is edited on

00:15:48 ◼   ► on iOS by Fraser. So Fraser is recording on iOS and editing in iOS. BetterEco isn't because

00:15:56 ◼   ► I mainly won't let him so he doesn't have the equipment that he needs because of our

00:16:00 ◼   ► other shows. But yeah, it's a very, you know, they're really, these guys, they live and

00:16:05 ◼   ► breathe iPad and it is just going to be a fantastic show. And we have one other announcement

00:16:10 ◼   ► later this week that will happen at the same time.

00:16:13 ◼   ► Oh, that's exciting. As somebody who's using the iPad Pro a whole lot more, and my laptop

00:16:19 ◼   ► a whole lot less. Even episode one, I wrote down a whole bunch of things because there

00:16:24 ◼   ► were no show notes because it was just the pilot and it'll have complete show notes when

00:16:28 ◼   ► it posts. Just so many great ideas for ways of doing things, as well as listening to the

00:16:35 ◼   ► experts pinpoint with, you know, with pinpoint accuracy, the places where iOS still falls

00:16:41 ◼   ► short and I think that's really interesting. This is not just a yay, yippee, iOS is great

00:16:46 ◼   ► kind of podcast. They are using it day to day. They're in the trenches. They know where

00:16:51 ◼   ► it's not good enough and that was really interesting too because I had moments where I'm like,

00:16:56 ◼   ► "Oh, so that's not just me. That's actually hard to do. Good to know." So yeah, Canvas,

00:17:01 ◼   ► people should check it out and I look forward to hearing your secrets.

00:17:03 ◼   ► **Beserat Debele:** Yeah, it's going to be another fun week. We

00:17:06 ◼   ► like to do this.

00:17:07 ◼   ► **Matt Stauffer:** You posted a tantalizing image suggesting some

00:17:10 ◼   ► of the secrets that might be happening on Twitter.

00:17:12 ◼   ► But you never know from the image. You'd have to be a very, very keen observer to get it.

00:17:17 ◼   ► Alright, so, should we take a break?

00:17:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

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00:19:18 ◼   ► Absolutely fantastic.

00:19:19 ◼   ► You should go and check them out for yourself.

00:19:21 ◼   ► If you don't like them you send them back for free but I'm sure that you're going to.

00:19:24 ◼   ► So go to casper.com/upgrade.

00:19:28 ◼   ► You will get $50 towards any mattress purchase by visiting that URL and using the code "upgrade

00:19:34 ◼   ► at checkout" so that's casper.com/upgrade.

00:19:36 ◼   ► With the code "upgrade at checkout" terms and conditions applies.

00:19:39 ◼   ► Please see the site for details.

00:19:41 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Casper for their continued support of this show and Relay FM.

00:19:45 ◼   ► Alright, they missed us now.

00:19:48 ◼   ► So last week we did the Upgraders and you mentioned the Eddies.

00:19:54 ◼   ► Yes.

00:19:55 ◼   ► And I just, it was just, whilst I was thinking about this episode, I was like, I would like to know a little bit more about the Eddies.

00:20:01 ◼   ► Because the Eddies are...

00:20:03 ◼   ► They are kind of, and they have been a respected award in the Mac community.

00:20:10 ◼   ► Something that I am trying to force with the upgradees.

00:20:13 ◼   ► So I feel like I need to know a little bit more about the Eddies.

00:20:17 ◼   ► So for next year, I can fully institute the upgradees as a completely prestigious and

00:20:24 ◼   ► well-respected award ceremony.

00:20:26 ◼   ► So what were the eddies and how did they begin?

00:20:29 ◼   ► I just realized that as far as I can tell, that Macworld didn't do the eddy awards after

00:20:35 ◼   ► I left, which means that they left it – the last one was the 29th annual.

00:20:40 ◼   ► I kind of can't believe they let it lay there

00:20:45 ◼   ► the year before the 30th,

00:20:46 ◼   ► but they had lost all their staff.

00:20:48 ◼   ► So how would they have put it together?

00:20:50 ◼   ► That was a very difficult time for them.

00:20:52 ◼   ► But yeah, so the Eddy Awards,

00:20:55 ◼   ► I wasn't around when they started, but they were started.

00:20:57 ◼   ► So Macworld and Mac User Magazine back in the 80s

00:20:59 ◼   ► decided to start awards.

00:21:00 ◼   ► Macworlds were the Editor's Choice Awards

00:21:03 ◼   ► and they called them the Eddy Award

00:21:04 ◼   ► and they got a statue that looks kind of like an Oscar.

00:21:07 ◼   ► - Editor's Choice, Eddies, now I get it.

00:21:09 ◼   ► I never understood that.

00:21:11 ◼   ► And so, and the statue was kind of like the Oscar guy, sort of, but he's holding a classic

00:21:16 ◼   ► Mac above his head, and it's an actual statuette with a, I've got one right here.

00:21:22 ◼   ► So maybe next year, I, the, the, just the PNGs that I send people are not sufficient,

00:21:27 ◼   ► we need to actually make real statues or rosettes or something.

00:21:32 ◼   ► By the end, we, I think that was one of the problems that they had was that the statues

00:21:36 ◼   ► cost a lot of money and the marketing department got cheaper and cheaper. But so, and the Macworld

00:21:42 ◼   ► had world-class awards and it was, I don't really understand how the world-class awards

00:21:45 ◼   ► worked whether they were entirely editor's choice or what, you know, whether they had

00:21:49 ◼   ► a different process for it. It was a big process. We spent months compiling potential award

00:21:56 ◼   ► winners and the way it worked with a Mac user at ease was that they weren't fixed categories

00:22:02 ◼   ► every year, sort of like the upgrade-ies. We would change it based on where the interesting

00:22:07 ◼   ► products were in the market. And so we did that for a long time. When MacWorld and MacUser

00:22:11 ◼   ► merged in '97, there was a question about what would happen with the awards. And I think,

00:22:16 ◼   ► for whatever reason, the Eddies won out, I think because they were more iconic and interesting,

00:22:22 ◼   ► and MacWorld had not done a particularly great job of stewarding the world-class awards.

00:22:27 ◼   ► it was okay. But you know, the Eddy award was like everybody wanted that statue and

00:22:32 ◼   ► they liked, they just, so we kept it. Along with the mouse ratings, which came from Mac

00:22:36 ◼   ► User, we kept the Eddies from Mac User and moved those over to Mac World and the same

00:22:40 ◼   ► process happened. So, you know, over the years, I would say that the process became a lot

00:22:46 ◼   ► less time intensive because the staff kept getting smaller. And it was a huge amount

00:22:51 ◼   ► of time, because as a junior editor at MacUser, I spent a lot of time basically researching

00:22:58 ◼   ► products for the Eddy Awards, and we had like four different groups or five different groups

00:23:04 ◼   ► of editors who met every other week to go through the potential nominees and all that.

00:23:09 ◼   ► It was crazy. And then, in the end, by the way, there's like the proverbial smoke-filled

00:23:14 ◼   ► room where they go in and the winners come out and it was not like of a pure democracy.

00:23:22 ◼   ► It was very much like there would be debate and there would be a consensus. We would attempt

00:23:26 ◼   ► to reach a consensus and sometimes that would fail but in the end something would get put

00:23:32 ◼   ► forth and then usually that list would then be viewed by the editor-in-chief and not entirely

00:23:41 ◼   ► followed sometimes? Mostly, but not entirely. It was a whole process. There's no way to

00:23:48 ◼   ► pin it down either. It was a complex process. But in the end, people loved being--for a

00:23:54 ◼   ► long time we had nominees and winners. Eventually, I think we just announced winners because

00:24:02 ◼   ► being a nominee and not a winner was kind of lousy. But the reason they did it that

00:24:06 ◼   ► way is that it used to be that the night before Mac World Expo in January you would have an

00:24:12 ◼   ► awards ceremony, in fact my first day on the job at Mac User in 1994, I'm gonna say, my

00:24:20 ◼   ► first day on the job as a full-time employee was I didn't even go to the office, I put

00:24:26 ◼   ► on a rended tux and went to the awards ceremony, that was my first day on the job.

00:24:30 ◼   ► So do we need to like, we need to get a venue now as well?

00:24:34 ◼   ► Well, by the end there was no ceremony. In fact, one year at Mac User we just did it on AOL.

00:24:41 ◼   ► So it didn't, we didn't always have a ceremony and a venue and stuff like that. It's a digital age now.

00:24:50 ◼   ► But yes, if we really wanted to class up the upgradees, we would put on outfits and do a

00:24:56 ◼   ► live stream, I think, I suppose, a video stream of us announcing the upgrade-y. So that's

00:25:01 ◼   ► something for you to shoot for. Think about that one.

00:25:04 ◼   ► That's not too difficult to do. For 2016 upgrade-ies.

00:25:07 ◼   ► What we need is just the top half of a tuxedo each.

00:25:10 ◼   ► That's true, we could just have nothing but our pants on. And I mean pants. So, yeah.

00:25:19 ◼   ► No, that's the wrong way around. No.

00:25:24 ◼   ► So, yeah, it's, anyway, it was fun. It was, people really vied for it. It was a marketing

00:25:33 ◼   ► thing. They could put any winner on their boxes.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Did that help, do you know? Like, did that actually help these companies?

00:25:41 ◼   ► Who could tell? I think it was generally part of the marketing story was, "This is an

00:25:46 ◼   ► award winner. This got a rate." Ratings were the same way, right? Five mice or five

00:25:51 ◼   ► stars from Macworld or whatever back in the day. And the awards, it's all cumulative,

00:25:55 ◼   ► but there was a time when things were boxed and then even in the latter day just went

00:25:58 ◼   ► on their websites to say that this is a legitimately beloved piece of software. I mean, people

00:26:04 ◼   ► liked it. They also really liked the recognition. I mean, I still hear from people who got those

00:26:09 ◼   ► Eddie trophies and just they love them. And especially the smaller developers having that,

00:26:15 ◼   ► it's like that's their chance to win an Oscar. I mean, the Apple Design Award is the only

00:26:19 ◼   ► thing left like that I would say in our industry.

00:26:23 ◼   ► Maybe I actually haven't gotten around to sending out the rosettes for the upgradees

00:26:29 ◼   ► of this year so maybe I should do that. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and everyone

00:26:35 ◼   ► will be very excited to receive their upgradees. The only person that has received their upgradees

00:26:41 ◼   ► so far is Casey for ATP. Casey was very excited because he also took the one of the, you know,

00:26:49 ◼   ► the one that we went for, I think it was, was it Most Disappointing or something like

00:26:54 ◼   ► that. One of the awards that we gave was something that he suggested. So he thought he won two

00:26:57 ◼   ► upgradeys for some reason. Because that's just Casey.

00:27:01 ◼   ► Yeah, he didn't. He didn't. But he was influential. He was an influential thought leader, an influencer

00:27:07 ◼   ► in the upgradey's process.

00:27:08 ◼   ► It's a two-time winner of an upgradey. So it doesn't need to be so greedy. Upgreedy.

00:27:14 ◼   ► That's what we call people that are multiple winners. Upgreedies. This is getting very

00:27:20 ◼   ► convoluted. Jason, how was your 2015?

00:27:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I put this in the document. It's our little mini thing. I wanted to ask you how

00:27:28 ◼   ► you're... It's the beginning of a new year. I think it's worth a moment of reflection.

00:27:34 ◼   ► My 2050 was pretty great. This was my first year as a completely independent worker. First

00:27:42 ◼   ► complete year. And I think it went pretty well. I learned a lot. There are plenty of

00:27:49 ◼   ► things to improve on, but I was taking a walk with my wife. We were walking the dog last

00:27:54 ◼   ► night just before the rain started. And we were talking about looking at the finances

00:28:02 ◼   ► and doing the books from last year and all those things. And, you know, it struck me

00:28:06 ◼   ► that you go into something like this and you have hopes and you think that they're legitimate

00:28:12 ◼   ► and based on reality, but you never know. And we came through the year and said, "Oh,

00:28:19 ◼   ► look, we didn't have to sell our house and move into the countryside and raid the children's

00:28:27 ◼   ► college savings account and things like that. We did it and it worked and there's no guarantee

00:28:36 ◼   ► for 2016, but in 2015 I was able to transition to not getting paid by an employer and stay

00:28:43 ◼   ► afloat and that was great. And then on the podcast side, I haven't counted how many podcasts

00:28:51 ◼   ► I did in 2015, which I'd like to do. The Incomparable as a network did 480 some episodes in 2014,

00:28:59 ◼   ► 2015. That's 1.2 episodes a day or something like that. And I calculated out 17 days of

00:29:08 ◼   ► content that were posted on the Incomparable network in 2015. And then there's, you know,

00:29:15 ◼   ► Lift Off and Clockwise and Upgrade over here that I was involved with, but I'm not involved

00:29:18 ◼   ► with all of the shows over on "Incomparable." So that part I haven't figured out yet, but

00:29:23 ◼   ► it was a very productive year. And one of the reasons I do that end of the year show

00:29:27 ◼   ► for "Incomparable" is that it's kind of fun to take a moment and look back and say, "Yeah,

00:29:31 ◼   ► we did a bunch of stuff this year." It goes by in a blur. And I think it's good to stop

00:29:36 ◼   ► and say, at some point it's good to stop and reflect on what's happened. Otherwise, I think

00:29:46 ◼   ► you miss it. You miss that it's very easy to downplay accomplishments and meeting goals

00:29:51 ◼   ► because you're moving on to the next thing. And so taking a, you know, when you get to

00:29:54 ◼   ► the top of the mountain to take a breath and look around before you proceed down the mountain

00:29:59 ◼   ► or up to the next mountain, I think it's a good thing.

00:30:02 ◼   ► I had a pretty great year. I ticked off a bunch of bucket list items, which is kind

00:30:09 ◼   ► of awesome. Like I gave my first conference talk at release notes, which I was really

00:30:14 ◼   ► proud of. I think it went really well. We got a couple of links from Daring Fireball,

00:30:20 ◼   ► which is something I've always wanted. And Jon linked a couple of episodes of this show,

00:30:25 ◼   ► mainly just me and you complaining, which I do enjoy quite a lot with you, in case the

00:30:33 ◼   ► listeners hadn't noticed that already. The business has done really well. We had a great,

00:30:39 ◼   ► We had a fantastic year.

00:30:43 ◼   ► We grew so fast and we did so much new stuff.

00:30:48 ◼   ► We brought on, I mean our roster of hosts,

00:30:52 ◼   ► or our hosta as I was gonna call them.

00:30:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, hosta of roasts.

00:30:55 ◼   ► - Our hosta of roasts right now is superb.

00:30:58 ◼   ► I'm so proud of the amount of people that we have

00:31:01 ◼   ► and all the people that put their trust in me and Steven

00:31:05 ◼   ► to host their content on our lovely home.

00:31:08 ◼   ► I couldn't be happier with 2015. I know that I want 2016 to have the same kind of feeling

00:31:15 ◼   ► that I'm very happy about, but for the love of all that is holy, I cannot take the amount

00:31:23 ◼   ► of work again, because I don't think I would be able to cope with it. We couldn't be twice

00:31:28 ◼   ► the size that we are already, it just wouldn't scale. So 2016 for me, in a lot of ways, is

00:31:36 ◼   ► about like scaling back and looking at time and trying to analyze it a bit better. I've

00:31:43 ◼   ► made some changes to my schedule, like inquisitive has gone away, upgrade is every two weeks.

00:31:49 ◼   ► Not upgrade, analog, sorry, it's a terrible way to tell you, analog is every two weeks.

00:31:53 ◼   ► No!

00:31:54 ◼   ► Yes, analog is fortnightly, it's joining Liftoff as an excellent fortnightly series, upgrade

00:31:59 ◼   ► remains weekly. Unless we decide to do the MacPower users thing and just do a fifth episode

00:32:03 ◼   ► out of spite or something.

00:32:05 ◼   ► But we're not gonna do that.

00:32:06 ◼   ► But you know, so I'm that's kind of what my 2016 goal is is about like using my time more effectively because

00:32:13 ◼   ► 2015 was such a great foundation

00:32:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I can now build on that going for well. Yeah, and you guys with relay you guys built the business

00:32:21 ◼   ► And dealing with growth is a I mean that's a challenge with all businesses

00:32:25 ◼   ► And you know you did a lot of this stuff you and Steven with your own

00:32:29 ◼   ► You know with your own two hands and at some point you have to either manage the growth

00:32:33 ◼   ► growth, you have to pick your spots, or you have to, or you have to, well, manage the

00:32:39 ◼   ► growth. You have to figure out a way to grow without just using the power of your own will

00:32:44 ◼   ► and Steven's own will because you will run out of that. And so you got to start to use

00:32:49 ◼   ► it wisely and, and, and yeah, it's a, it's a challenge, but it's a good kind of challenge.

00:32:55 ◼   ► It's a good kind of challenge to have to see how, how well Relay has done. That's been

00:32:58 ◼   ► one of my highlights I would say of 2015 too is getting to be a part of that process and

00:33:04 ◼   ► talk to you guys and work with you guys about how you're growing Relay. That's been a lot

00:33:08 ◼   ► of fun too. So I've got podcast networks to the left of me and to the right of me, but

00:33:13 ◼   ► it's been fun. Stuck in the middle with Dan. With podcasts. An interesting thing happened

00:33:21 ◼   ► a couple of days ago that is definitely sitting quite beautifully within your wheelhouse and

00:33:27 ◼   ► And that is Twitter for Mac got updated.

00:33:30 ◼   ► I lost that bet.

00:33:32 ◼   ► I should have made a bet with somebody, well I shouldn't have, about somebody could have

00:33:36 ◼   ► come to me and said, "I bet you by the end of the year there'll be a major update for

00:33:38 ◼   ► Twitter for Mac."

00:33:39 ◼   ► And I would have laughed and laughed and laughed and then lost a lot of money.

00:33:43 ◼   ► December 30th.

00:33:44 ◼   ► Yeah, they slid it out there at the end.

00:33:47 ◼   ► It almost felt contractual, like, for some reason.

00:33:51 ◼   ► And there were, there was, it's not even a rumor.

00:33:53 ◼   ► I've had several people say it's not, it's not a rumor, it's true.

00:33:57 ◼   ► was a third-party developer who was contracted to do this app by Twitter.

00:34:01 ◼   ► Twitter didn't want to use their own internal developers.

00:34:03 ◼   ► And people were complaining about that.

00:34:05 ◼   ► I don't know, that sounds actually kind of brilliant to me.

00:34:07 ◼   ► I mean, if Twitter had a whole team of iOS developers and couldn't really -- or of Mac

00:34:12 ◼   ► developers and couldn't do it, if Twitter's internal development processes are falling

00:34:17 ◼   ► apart for a lot of this client stuff, then taking the money they'd spend on internal

00:34:23 ◼   ► developers and hiring a developer shop to do it for them, it's not necessarily a bad

00:34:30 ◼   ► idea. And apparently that's what they did. There was a rumor that it was BlackPixel,

00:34:34 ◼   ► I don't know if that's true, but they do a lot of contract work that they can't talk

00:34:36 ◼   ► about because it's for clients, so it wouldn't shock me for clients who want to not talk

00:34:41 ◼   ► about who built their app for them. But it definitely seems like it was an outside developer

00:34:45 ◼   ► of some sort. And I think it's an interesting move. I wrote a piece on six colors that we

00:34:51 ◼   ► can put in the show notes about it. I think it's fascinating because it's got some things

00:34:55 ◼   ► that feel very new, and then it also has some, it has bugs and weird interface things, and

00:35:02 ◼   ► so my initial thoughts about it were very much like, it's great that there's a new version,

00:35:07 ◼   ► it's got a lot of problems, I hope that they're going to do updates from now on. That's my

00:35:11 ◼   ► big fear with it, is that they put it out the door, and especially if this is a contract

00:35:16 ◼   ► job that they walk away.

00:35:18 ◼   ► I have a super weird theory about this app, which is very strange and I can't really reconcile

00:35:28 ◼   ► in my brain why it would work this way, but it definitely seems that way.

00:35:32 ◼   ► Is that even though Twitter has outsourced this application directly, it's the new Twitter

00:35:37 ◼   ► for Mac, that it seems to be using the API that all other third party developers have

00:35:41 ◼   ► access to.

00:35:42 ◼   ► because it doesn't have any of the first party features like polls, cards, hash flags, this

00:35:47 ◼   ► was pointed out by Jeremy from Emojipedia. I saw him tweet it today, like it seems like

00:35:53 ◼   ► they have the same limitations.

00:35:54 ◼   ► I think that's not entirely accurate because the notifications tab has all of that activity

00:36:01 ◼   ► that you see on Twitter that I believe you can't access via the standard API.

00:36:06 ◼   ► There's a way to build it though, because Tweetbot did. I mean, and I think that they

00:36:10 ◼   ► They have some server infrastructure in place now to manage all of that, but...

00:36:14 ◼   ► But I think it's not...

00:36:15 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:36:17 ◼   ► My impression is that there's more detail in the notifications tab than is available

00:36:21 ◼   ► to a standard third-party app.

00:36:24 ◼   ► But yeah, it's possible.

00:36:25 ◼   ► Well, let's just call out the irony of the fact that Twitter killed third-party apps

00:36:30 ◼   ► or tried to kill them slowly over time by all of their restrictions, and then they went

00:36:36 ◼   ► to a third-party developer to develop their app.

00:36:38 ◼   ► How about that?

00:36:39 ◼   ► is, there is a kind of a precedent being set now in which it looks like they are attempting

00:36:44 ◼   ► to undo some of that.

00:36:46 ◼   ► Also, one of the reports that we saw from people who say that they know, people who

00:36:49 ◼   ► used to work at Twitter, that I saw kind of stream by on Twitter, is that this was a back

00:36:54 ◼   ► and forth inside Twitter. Like, let's not do a Mac app. You know, let's not update it

00:36:58 ◼   ► anymore. No, let's do it. No, let's not do it. No, let's do it. There was a lot of back

00:37:02 ◼   ► and forth about this. And what I wrote on Macworld, and I don't know whether they saw

00:37:08 ◼   ► and I don't know whether that was just one little added poke at them along with all the

00:37:13 ◼   ► other ones they were feeling or not. As a writer, I kind of assume that although people

00:37:17 ◼   ► can see my stuff, it very rarely has an impact on decision-making.

00:37:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, you don't want to start thinking that way because then you end up with an ego

00:37:25 ◼   ► that's too big to fit for the front door.

00:37:27 ◼   ► Exactly right. So I don't know, but I will say, so with no linkage intended here at all,

00:37:33 ◼   ► What I wrote was that Twitter either needs to embrace their job as a steward of their

00:37:38 ◼   ► platform on various operating systems, or it needs to get the hell out of the way and

00:37:43 ◼   ► let third parties—because, you know, there are third parties who will be happy to make

00:37:48 ◼   ► great Mac apps, and some already exist, for Twitter.

00:37:52 ◼   ► I know you don't like it, but the tweetbot for the Mac is fantastic.

00:37:55 ◼   ► It's very impressive.

00:37:56 ◼   ► And you know what?

00:37:57 ◼   ► I love Twitterific on iOS, and the reason there isn't a great version of Twitterific

00:38:01 ◼   ► on the Mac, and it's just the old version that's been around forever, is because of

00:38:05 ◼   ► what Twitter did to the developers. That Icon Factory can't bother to invest in it because

00:38:13 ◼   ► it's not worth it to them because of what's happened. So, you know, again, pick one. Either

00:38:18 ◼   ► make a world-class, amazingly good Mac app, or just let the developers make good Mac apps,

00:38:24 ◼   ► because they already are. Just get out of the way, let them make some money, let them

00:38:27 ◼   ► follow your guidelines. And so I don't think that this release of Twitter for Mac 4.0 really

00:38:34 ◼   ► tells us anything. It's a mystery. Like, is this a commitment or is this like a last gasp?

00:38:40 ◼   ► Are there going to be bug fix updates ongoing? Because this is a good start. They have some

00:38:45 ◼   ► design issues. I mean, I wrote about it in that piece that we linked to that I mentioned

00:38:50 ◼   ► earlier. It's really spacey. It's got lots of white space. And given that two-thirds

00:38:57 ◼   ► of the Macs that are out there are laptops, that seems like a mistake to just take up

00:39:01 ◼   ► huge amounts of space. The tweets are huge, the space between the little icons and the

00:39:06 ◼   ► toolbar is huge. There's some fundamental bugs like you can set notifications about

00:39:13 ◼   ► whether you want to see it when there are new tweets in your timeline or just replies

00:39:16 ◼   ► or something like that, but they aren't honored by the accounts in the sidebar. You know,

00:39:20 ◼   ► there's a bunch of weird things that, again, if this is the beginning of ongoing development

00:39:25 ◼   ► of Twitter for Mac is fine. But I'm not, we'll have to see. I'm not sure given the stories here

00:39:33 ◼   ► that that's true because if it's an outsourced thing, is Twitter paying that company to continue

00:39:39 ◼   ► developing it? Is that part of the story? The fact that it got kind of slid out at the end of the

00:39:43 ◼   ► year makes me a little concerned that perhaps it is a contractual thing, like it needed to ship

00:39:50 ◼   ► in 2015 for contract reasons or for payment reasons, tax reasons, I don't even know. Maybe

00:39:57 ◼   ► it's a coincidence, but I'm not convinced that this is a commitment to the Mac by Twitter,

00:40:02 ◼   ► and it gets us back to what we've been talking about throughout 2015, which is what's the

00:40:07 ◼   ► commitment level here, because Twitter, for me, I have to use an app to use Twitter, and

00:40:13 ◼   ► I'm at my Mac a lot. And so I'm not going to just keep it in a web page. It's not going

00:40:19 ◼   ► to happen. That's why I don't use Facebook, is that I'm not going to keep loading Facebook

00:40:24 ◼   ► in a webpage, so I go to it occasionally. I don't know. I don't know. It's weird. It's

00:40:29 ◼   ► a weird story. It continues to be weird, what Twitter is. So I'd like a clear signal from

00:40:36 ◼   ► Twitter and maybe this is it, but we won't really know until we see whether this thing

00:40:40 ◼   ► sits for a year or whether it gets updates every month or two. It doesn't have all those

00:40:48 ◼   ► things though. It does have, I mean, let's, it doesn't have polls and cards and things

00:40:52 ◼   ► like that, but it does have like native, native tweet, quoting and support for animations

00:41:00 ◼   ► and videos, things that are not new features on Twitter, but that the Twitter for Mac app

00:41:05 ◼   ► didn't support. So it does actually support a whole bunch of Twitter features that were

00:41:10 ◼   ► not previously supported. But then there are all these other features that it doesn't support

00:41:14 ◼   ► and Jeremy's right. It's the stuff that basically just renders in web views and is not in any

00:41:24 ◼   ► of the apps.

00:41:25 ◼   ► >> So I have like, when I look at this, I see that this is a sign of Twitter deciding

00:41:32 ◼   ► that they are going to do something because you're not going to, well, I mean, who knows,

00:41:37 ◼   ► but you'd like to think they're not going to pay the amount of money, which is probably

00:41:40 ◼   ► a large amount of money to have this thing built if it just is this is all it is and

00:41:45 ◼   ► there probably is an element of updating that is going to be required and the reason that

00:41:50 ◼   ► I look at this and can see that it came out in the way that it did is this project's been

00:41:54 ◼   ► in the works for an amount of time and there was a contractual agreement to have it something

00:41:58 ◼   ► out before the end of the year and that's why it's the way it is because it is in some

00:42:04 ◼   ► ways regressing from the previous app like in bugs and stuff like that yeah and a lot

00:42:09 ◼   ► of them are like, just having a look at some of the stuff. Like I've included a link in

00:42:14 ◼   ► the show notes to Federico's piece on Mac stories and he includes some tweets and vines

00:42:17 ◼   ► from people who were finding bugs. And they're just bugs you'd find using the app. So I mean,

00:42:23 ◼   ► I look at this and I'm like, no, this is probably the start of ongoing development of the Mac

00:42:27 ◼   ► app, but there needed to be something before the end of the year. Because December 30th

00:42:32 ◼   ► is a really weird time to release something.

00:42:35 ◼   ► It feels like a beta to me. I mean, it just, it feels like a beta. There's a lot of weird

00:42:39 ◼   ► things about it, that it feels like a beta, and that's not bad for it to be a beta, but

00:42:45 ◼   ► it's not played as a beta. It'll auto-update. If you've got auto-update Mac App Store stuff

00:42:51 ◼   ► turned on, your old Twitter app will just disappear and be replaced by this new thing

00:42:55 ◼   ► that does not work at all like the old thing. And our friend Will Run For Fun in the chatroom

00:43:01 ◼   ► says, you know, "Why even have an app? They don't make a Windows app. I just use the web

00:43:05 ◼   ► or tweetbot. Well, like I said, I think using the web is not a good enough thing for a lot

00:43:09 ◼   ► of people on the desktop because I think personally, I think using the web for Twitter sucks and

00:43:15 ◼   ► I would like it in an app. But that's my larger point here is I'm okay with Twitter saying,

00:43:22 ◼   ► you know what? We're not going to do apps on PCs, on Mac and Windows. We're not going

00:43:28 ◼   ► to bother. But if they do that, I would like them to also say, it's a third party opportunity.

00:43:34 ◼   ► We have a new developer relation. They can sell their apps. Here's what they have to

00:43:38 ◼   ► do. The token limits are lifted. Go to town. We're happy to have third parties who want

00:43:46 ◼   ► to be our partners on platforms that we're not supporting, but we're going to focus on

00:43:49 ◼   ► iOS and Android. I'd be fine with that, but that's not what we have. We have a mystery

00:43:55 ◼   ► about what will be the new direction of Twitter and what does this app mean? Is it a commitment

00:44:01 ◼   ► to supporting more on the Mac or is it sort of a last gasp? We don't know.

00:44:08 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know. I would like to see them at least do what you said. Like just

00:44:14 ◼   ► say like you got the web or this third parties. Like that just makes more sense

00:44:18 ◼   ► to me like why are Twitter bothering? Why are they bothering to make desktop apps?

00:44:23 ◼   ► I don't actually don't understand what the point of this app is. So just use

00:44:27 ◼   ► the web, right? And if you don't want to use the web go to a third party and they

00:44:30 ◼   ► should be embracing that. I'm okay with that. I actually think, yes, if I was managing at

00:44:36 ◼   ► Twitter that's probably what I would suggest. I would say, you know what, mobile is super

00:44:41 ◼   ► important and growing. Traditional computers, not so much. And we're on the web there. Our

00:44:48 ◼   ► web client will always be, you know, our web page will always be fine. And there are developers

00:44:54 ◼   ► who are dying to develop for those platforms, for Mac and Windows and whatever, Linux too.

00:44:59 ◼   ► anything you can find over there, just let them.

00:45:03 ◼   ► Let's let them.

00:45:04 ◼   ► Let's revise our developer guidelines,

00:45:07 ◼   ► set some rules in place, let them go to town.

00:45:09 ◼   ► It'll be good for us, it'll be good for the users

00:45:11 ◼   ► on those platforms and we'll be done.

00:45:12 ◼   ► And if we wanna keep a tight grip on,

00:45:15 ◼   ► or a tighter grip on mobile,

00:45:16 ◼   ► because it's so important to us going forward, fine.

00:45:21 ◼   ► Make that call.

00:45:22 ◼   ► But right now it's just a mystery.

00:45:24 ◼   ► And somebody actually asked in the chat room,

00:45:26 ◼   ► stoic squirrel, excellent username by the way, are the token limits still in place?

00:45:31 ◼   ► And I think my answer is as far as we know, Twitter has made no announcement saying we

00:45:35 ◼   ► take it all back, developers do whatever you want or that I haven't seen anything about

00:45:41 ◼   ► that. It wouldn't surprise me if Twitter has sent signals to some iOS and Mac app developers

00:45:51 ◼   ► that the rules are flexible. It wouldn't surprise me, I don't know that, I haven't talked to

00:45:54 ◼   ► any of them about it.

00:45:55 ◼   ► They've been blogging recently and basically what they've said is that "we hear you" about

00:46:06 ◼   ► that. That's what they said, like "we understand about the token limits, we get that, we know

00:46:12 ◼   ► it's a problem, we hear you." So they're not ignoring it.

00:46:17 ◼   ► It implies they're working on something but haven't made an announcement about it yet.

00:46:22 ◼   ► And that's fine. I suspected for a while now that there's some relationships at play here,

00:46:30 ◼   ► like Twitterific as an innovator and the inventor of the bluebird to represent Twitter and the

00:46:37 ◼   ► inventor of the word tweet. I get the impression that they have some special relationship with

00:46:42 ◼   ► Twitter right down to the fact that they get to use the word Twitter in their app name

00:46:45 ◼   ► and that hasn't gone away. But I don't know, you know, that may be a very limited thing.

00:46:52 ◼   ► Who knows? I mean, how can you have a relationship with a company that keeps having all of these

00:46:56 ◼   ► changes in direction and in management too?

00:46:59 ◼   ► So…

00:47:00 ◼   ► David Pembroke Your relationship is purely a contract, which

00:47:02 ◼   ► was a legal thing that you both agreed to, and that's that. That's what that relationship

00:47:05 ◼   ► was like.

00:47:06 ◼   ► Tim Cynova Probably so. So we'll see. We'll see. We'll

00:47:09 ◼   ► how it goes. Anyway, I'm using it. I don't love it. I might use Tweetbot instead, although

00:47:16 ◼   ► I have issues with Tweetbot too, so we'll see. We'll see. I'm using it to get used to

00:47:21 ◼   ► it and see. I want to use it enough that a lot of the newness of it sort of fades away

00:47:25 ◼   ► and then I can decide whether I like it or not. But I do have Tweetbot, and it's an option.

00:47:32 ◼   ► They are, whilst they have shown in the past that they can be slow in certain areas, tapbots

00:47:39 ◼   ► are committed to the app and have shown that in a way that Twitter currently haven't.

00:47:45 ◼   ► No.

00:47:46 ◼   ► And maybe they need a bit more time and it will be absolutely great.

00:47:50 ◼   ► But right now I think it's too early to say, "Oh, this is perfect.

00:47:53 ◼   ► This is what I want."

00:47:54 ◼   ► Oh, and I should say people also bring up TweetDeck, which is also done by Twitter.

00:47:59 ◼   ► TweetDeck is good for certain people who have very specific needs.

00:48:05 ◼   ► You got that big Twitter dashboard that you're looking at because you're doing lots of stuff.

00:48:09 ◼   ► But as a kind of day, the way I use Twitter, which is a little thing on the side of my

00:48:14 ◼   ► screen that I can scroll through and then go back to what I'm working on, TweetDeck

00:48:19 ◼   ► doesn't work for me. And also I'm offended by the fact that it's got that multi-column

00:48:22 ◼   ► interface but because it's essentially a web page in disguise. I've said this before, I'll

00:48:27 ◼   ► it again, you know, it doesn't snap to the columns. So, you know, you can't, if you set

00:48:34 ◼   ► it to be like the width of one column, the scrolling, like it doesn't scroll to the next

00:48:39 ◼   ► column, it doesn't set it to two columns. It sort of just is this continuum of various

00:48:45 ◼   ► columns that you can scroll across. I don't know. It's not a good Mac app. It's kind of

00:48:50 ◼   ► a fake Mac app and it's good for people who want to do what it provides, but I don't think

00:48:55 ◼   ► it's a, I don't think it's a good client. There's somebody, I think one of the writers

00:48:59 ◼   ► from The Verge said they should just kill the Twitter app and focus on, on, on the,

00:49:07 ◼   ► what were we just talking about? I've lost the name. There's so many tweets and twits

00:49:10 ◼   ► and bots now.

00:49:11 ◼   ► >> TweetDeck?

00:49:12 ◼   ► >> TweetDeck, decks. Focus on TweetDeck. I'm like, no, TweetDeck is like a pro social media

00:49:18 ◼   ► maven kind of tool. It is not a, it is not a regular person app.

00:49:24 ◼   ► I do agree with that though. I do think they should just kill the Mac app, work on TweetDeck

00:49:28 ◼   ► and give the like the reins of the standard Mac app over to third parties.

00:49:32 ◼   ► That would be fine with me. Because TweetDeck could be a lot more than

00:49:35 ◼   ► it is. Like Twitter could own the market of the professional tools. There are a couple

00:49:40 ◼   ► of other tools, I think Radian6 is one that is like a one of these social media management

00:49:49 ◼   ► Twitter should build that, right, and sell that to people, like rather than what Hootsuite

00:49:55 ◼   ► does and companies like that. Twitter should make that and that's what TweetDeck should

00:49:58 ◼   ► be. And so I think they should put their efforts into that and just let Tweetbot and IconFactory

00:50:05 ◼   ► make the Mac app.

00:50:06 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. And there are some others out there I know that people like that are other

00:50:11 ◼   ► Twitter clients that are third parties. It's fine. I think that's what we all want and

00:50:18 ◼   ► I don't know whether that's the best thing for Twitter or not, but it would seem to me,

00:50:22 ◼   ► other than the fact that they have to create new guidelines and they have to maintain an

00:50:25 ◼   ► API and a relationship with third parties, although they're already sort of doing that,

00:50:30 ◼   ► they would have to put some effort perhaps into opening new API stuff for their new features

00:50:35 ◼   ► when they roll out. But that seems like it should be job one, right? Here's a new feature

00:50:40 ◼   ► and the API that goes with it. Maybe they don't do it for experimental features like

00:50:46 ◼   ► polls which I think is still an experiment and doesn't work very well and might be a

00:50:50 ◼   ► bad idea. I don't know. We'll see what they do but that would be, I think that would be

00:50:56 ◼   ► the best thing for them to do is on platforms where they don't care, just let the people

00:51:00 ◼   ► who care work on it and it benefits Twitter in the end because people are using their

00:51:03 ◼   ► service.

00:51:04 ◼   ► Just make everybody see your ads man, everyone's happy.

00:51:07 ◼   ► Yep.

00:51:08 ◼   ► Well maybe not everybody's happy but I think you get my point. CES is this week.

00:51:13 ◼   ► Yep.

00:51:14 ◼   ► We're kind of approaching day one.

00:51:16 ◼   ► You going to CES, Myke?

00:51:18 ◼   ► Not this time.

00:51:20 ◼   ► I'm not either.

00:51:22 ◼   ► I think we spoke about this last year.

00:51:24 ◼   ► You've been to CES a few times.

00:51:26 ◼   ► I've put a link to a post from The Verge where they're talking about the trends that should be expected this time around.

00:51:34 ◼   ► Cars are probably going to be the biggest one.

00:51:36 ◼   ► And there's something that I'm very interested in.

00:51:40 ◼   ► There are big rumors that in Ford's press conference, which is some point over the next

00:51:45 ◼   ► couple of days, they're going to be announcing a partnership with Google to build autonomous

00:51:50 ◼   ► cars.

00:51:51 ◼   ► This is heavily rumored and would be very, very interesting if that is coming to pass.

00:51:56 ◼   ► It would mean Google is first.

00:51:58 ◼   ► There was a story today that GM has invested a gajillion dollars into Lyft to help them

00:52:04 ◼   ► build autonomous cars.

00:52:06 ◼   ► It's definitely the thing.

00:52:07 ◼   ► 2016 it's gonna be the year of the autonomous car. They're not gonna be out

00:52:11 ◼   ► but there's gonna be a lot of news about them. I think that's that's gonna be the

00:52:14 ◼   ► biggest trend this year. And so yeah just CES is coming. I've never been right I

00:52:20 ◼   ► know you have. I would like to do it one day just to see it. I just want to see

00:52:26 ◼   ► what CES looks like. It's a really big trade show and a big parking lot and

00:52:33 ◼   ► and packed with people and lots of electronics and you know it yeah that's what it is if you

00:52:40 ◼   ► like crowds and lots of weird crappy stuff in aisle by aisle after aisle and then other places

00:52:49 ◼   ► where it's just wall-to-wall TVs CES is the place for you because it's got all that stuff

00:52:55 ◼   ► I hate it but you know I can tell I hate it I mean it's just a spectacle that I've always

00:52:59 ◼   ► It is a spectacle.

00:53:00 ◼   ► …has seen from afar and have therefore been kind of just a little bit interested in what

00:53:05 ◼   ► it is, you know?

00:53:06 ◼   ► I'm just like curious to see what CES actually looks and feels like.

00:53:12 ◼   ► But not needing…

00:53:13 ◼   ► I mean, I think it would be different going and not being in the situation of being forced

00:53:17 ◼   ► to go to cover it.

00:53:18 ◼   ► Like, I would be going out of choice.

00:53:19 ◼   ► Right.

00:53:20 ◼   ► I think it might be a little bit easier for me if I did decide to do it.

00:53:23 ◼   ► I am considering it for next year.

00:53:25 ◼   ► Just to see.

00:53:26 ◼   ► So what I would say is though that if you go you you're gonna have to cover it right if you go you're going to

00:53:31 ◼   ► Have to bring a microphone or a little podcast setup and do some interviews and have it be live from CES on relay

00:53:38 ◼   ► I think you would need to do it that way. Yeah, but so you know, but it's it's yeah, it's it's fine

00:53:44 ◼   ► It's it's a it's news that has to be covered and that's why we always covered it. I find it very low

00:53:49 ◼   ► Low content for the effort, but if you target it if you've got your meetings with you with vendors

00:53:56 ◼   ► meetings with vendors who are announcing products is valuable at CES. Actually, I will say,

00:54:02 ◼   ► look at me, I'm saying something positive about CES. If you line all that up, because

00:54:06 ◼   ► there are major announcements that are made there. And so if you've got that stuff, that's

00:54:09 ◼   ► good stuff. The problem is if you end up wandering the show floor looking for things, because

00:54:14 ◼   ► there's very little, there's a lot of junk, and then there's diamonds in the rough, but

00:54:19 ◼   ► the return on your investment for that, for the grind, and I hate wandering in crowds,

00:54:25 ◼   ► especially like, um, like trade show crowds. Cause they don't,

00:54:29 ◼   ► people are stopping everywhere and,

00:54:30 ◼   ► and they stop right in front of you and you're going to barrel into them and

00:54:34 ◼   ► people don't behave like normal human beings when they're at a trade show. Um,

00:54:39 ◼   ► that's, that's just, it's awful. It's a waste of time to do that. But there,

00:54:42 ◼   ► there was a lot of good news that comes out of CES and uh, and so that's,

00:54:47 ◼   ► that's for me, that's the difference is I actually think if you go there for the

00:54:50 ◼   ► spectacle, you will be much more let down than if you go there, uh,

00:54:54 ◼   ► with a lot of meetings and know what you're covering

00:54:59 ◼   ► if you're covering the event.

00:55:01 ◼   ► Anyway, well, the best way to appreciate CES is from afar

00:55:06 ◼   ► because you get to see the announcements

00:55:09 ◼   ► that are interesting.

00:55:10 ◼   ► It's nice for large portions

00:55:12 ◼   ► of the consumer electronics industry

00:55:13 ◼   ► to make all their press releases drop in a few days

00:55:16 ◼   ► because there's a big load of news and that's nice.

00:55:20 ◼   ► Very little phone stuff gets announced there though

00:55:22 ◼   ► because that all gets announced at Mobile World Congress

00:55:24 ◼   ► in Barcelona instead in a month and a half

00:55:28 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:55:29 ◼   ► So, but it's good to watch it from afar.

00:55:32 ◼   ► And I've already seen, there was some news today

00:55:34 ◼   ► about TiVo doing an Apple Watch app

00:55:38 ◼   ► that they appear to be announcing.

00:55:40 ◼   ► And that you speaking of Ford,

00:55:42 ◼   ► it sounds like a Ford Sync 3 system

00:55:44 ◼   ► that's their in-car entertainment system

00:55:46 ◼   ► is gonna support Android Auto and CarPlay.

00:55:49 ◼   ► So all the Ford cars with that entertainment system

00:55:54 ◼   ► next year at some point will support

00:55:58 ◼   ► both Android Auto and CarPlay, which is kind of cool.

00:56:00 ◼   ► So there's stuff like that that will happen

00:56:02 ◼   ► over the course of this week.

00:56:03 ◼   ► There'll be some really great news

00:56:05 ◼   ► mixed in with all the crazy stuff.

00:56:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, there is some cool stuff that comes out of CES,

00:56:11 ◼   ► right, that's just one of the things

00:56:13 ◼   ► that will happen this week.

00:56:14 ◼   ► You're right, like a lot of the other types of things now,

00:56:18 ◼   ► like Mobile World Congress and things that,

00:56:19 ◼   ► and shows like that, are splintering it a bit,

00:56:23 ◼   ► which is making things different.

00:56:26 ◼   ► - And individual announcements,

00:56:27 ◼   ► I think I mentioned this last year when we talked about it,

00:56:29 ◼   ► is a lot of the major vendors realized

00:56:31 ◼   ► that they could do what Apple does,

00:56:33 ◼   ► which is call an event and get people to come and cover it.

00:56:37 ◼   ► - Own your own stage and your own environment

00:56:39 ◼   ► and your own timeline. - And you're the only news

00:56:40 ◼   ► of the day, you're the only news that day,

00:56:42 ◼   ► where CES, it's so easy to get lost in CES.

00:56:45 ◼   ► So if you're Microsoft or Amazon or Google,

00:56:49 ◼   ► then you just don't, or Samsung even,

00:56:53 ◼   ► you know, you just don't do it.

00:56:55 ◼   ► You wait. - Yeah, that was the big news

00:56:56 ◼   ► a few years ago, wasn't it,

00:56:57 ◼   ► that Microsoft pulled out,

00:57:02 ◼   ► 'cause they always used to open CES, didn't they?

00:57:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, for a long time,

00:57:05 ◼   ► it was really the Bill Gates show at CES.

00:57:07 ◼   ► That's what it was, was it was a Wintel kind of event.

00:57:11 ◼   ► It was what are Microsoft and Intel doing?

00:57:14 ◼   ► and it was a big PC show.

00:57:16 ◼   ► And it's not that much anymore either.

00:57:19 ◼   ► There are PC guys are there too,

00:57:20 ◼   ► but a lot of TVs, some cars.

00:57:23 ◼   ► I mean, it's really like eight trade shows in one.

00:57:25 ◼   ► There's so many different things there.

00:57:27 ◼   ► And a lot of it is not for the press or general consumer,

00:57:30 ◼   ► it's for distributors to pick up products

00:57:33 ◼   ► and distribute them in various markets.

00:57:35 ◼   ► And so that stuff is less interesting to everyone else too.

00:57:39 ◼   ► But yeah, if you're Microsoft, you just hold an event now

00:57:43 ◼   ► and you don't need to bother with CES. There will be some keynotes and things at CES where

00:57:48 ◼   ► they're using the platform to get things out, but you know, that's the beauty of it. If

00:57:52 ◼   ► you're Microsoft or Google and you've got a big thing to do, you've got your own shows

00:57:55 ◼   ► to do it, or you've got your own, you can call an event to do it.

00:57:58 ◼   ► - Do you reckon Apple are going to announce anything this week? They always do something

00:58:02 ◼   ► in the past, they always have done something during CES week just to prove a point, I think.

00:58:08 ◼   ► It's possible. It's possible. I don't know. We would find out Tuesday, probably. That's

00:58:14 ◼   ► usually when they do those press release announcements. I don't know. I don't know. They may be moving

00:58:20 ◼   ► away from that game, too. They did a lot last quarter, so maybe we're in a little quiet

00:58:24 ◼   ► period for Apple here.

00:58:25 ◼   ► That has got to be something. It's a fun thing to do, right? People are announcing stuff.

00:58:30 ◼   ► You announce one piddly little thing, and it takes all the news away for an afternoon.

00:58:34 ◼   ► It's true.

00:58:35 ◼   ► I mean that is such fun.

00:58:37 ◼   ► I would be surprised if they stopped doing it but if they haven't got anything to announce

00:58:42 ◼   ► then they can't announce anything.

00:58:43 ◼   ► But we'll see.

00:58:45 ◼   ► Alright, are you ready for some Ask Upgrade?

00:58:48 ◼   ► I am.

00:58:49 ◼   ► This week's episode and this week's Ask Upgrade segment is brought to you by Squarespace.

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01:00:49 ◼   ► beautiful. James wrote in, he loved our discussion about the iPad Pro. We did mention, I want

01:01:00 ◼   ► to say this a little bit earlier on, I don't want to talk about it yet because I think

01:01:04 ◼   ► we've killed people with iPad Pro talk, but I really want to talk about at some point

01:01:09 ◼   ► just how big a difference this device is making to the way that I work.

01:01:15 ◼   ► We'll do a check in, I think giving it some time, not only giving people a little break

01:01:18 ◼   ► from it but giving some time for both of us to spend with it is going to be helpful.

01:01:22 ◼   ► I just want to say this, I want to make this bold claim, the iPad Pro is the best thing

01:01:26 ◼   ► Apple did in 2015.

01:01:28 ◼   ► Didn't we give it an upgrade-y?

01:01:29 ◼   ► No. We didn't have that category. I mean, we gave it a category for our favorite thing,

01:01:37 ◼   ► right?

01:01:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:39 ◼   ► But I just think flat out, the iPad Pro is the best thing that they did and it's very

01:01:43 ◼   ► surprising.

01:01:44 ◼   ► James said, "He feels that something that we missed on iOS is that you can't tag

01:01:49 ◼   ► photos with faces and keywords and stuff like that, and that is making it harder

01:01:54 ◼   ► for him to use photos on iOS as compared to the Mac where he gets access to all

01:01:58 ◼   ► of these features. And as I have called you many times, you are the Photos app

01:02:02 ◼   ► man. What is your opinion about this?" Well, he's right. It's a limitation of

01:02:08 ◼   ► photos for iOS that's not there in the Mac. There are a few things going on

01:02:11 ◼   ► here. The keywords thing, I think that's a good point. There are UI questions about how

01:02:15 ◼   ► you keyword batches of photos or individual photos and are you doing that on your phone,

01:02:21 ◼   ► but are you doing that on an iPad? Maybe you are. Having features missing from photos on

01:02:28 ◼   ► iOS is an issue if they're on photos from Mac. The faces thing is interesting and it

01:02:35 ◼   ► goes back to the way that Apple is handling face data. Apple isn't syncing face data.

01:02:41 ◼   ► They say that's a consequence of their commitment to privacy issues, that they don't want sort

01:02:45 ◼   ► of facial recognition information being available publicly.

01:02:49 ◼   ► It stays on your Mac, and all that really gets tagged when you do iCloud Photo Library

01:02:55 ◼   ► is who are the faces in the individual photos, but the facial recognition engine isn't in

01:03:03 ◼   ► the cloud, it's on the Mac.

01:03:05 ◼   ► So the question is, one, could they put that on the iPad or on iOS in general?

01:03:10 ◼   ► probably could, but you go back to UI issues and are people going to be tagging faces on

01:03:17 ◼   ► iOS or not? And then there's that question of syncing. I think Apple feels like they

01:03:24 ◼   ► benefit from the most common use case being that you've got a Mac and iOS devices and

01:03:28 ◼   ► there's the one Mac and that's where the facial recognition database lives, and it gets much

01:03:32 ◼   ► more complicated when you have other devices that are also trying to run the facial recognition

01:03:36 ◼   ► database. So I think it's a complicated problem and I'm not quite sure what the

01:03:41 ◼   ► solution is, whether it's moving it to the cloud or coming up with some other

01:03:47 ◼   ► way for these devices to interact with the facial data. But it's true, over time

01:03:53 ◼   ► you would like those features on the Mac to also be on iOS, and they aren't.

01:04:01 ◼   ► I don't—I still have a Mac, so it doesn't bother me too much, and I don't use those

01:04:08 ◼   ► features very often. But if you were trying to go iPad-only, and I think that that's not

01:04:13 ◼   ► unreasonable, especially if the thing that is important to you is photos, that it might be an

01:04:18 ◼   ► issue. That's it. I mean, it's a naughty problem, and I don't know whether they're going to solve it

01:04:22 ◼   ► this year or not, because Apple knows how often people use faces and keywords in photos,

01:04:29 ◼   ► photos, and they may figure that that's a power user feature that they're comfortable

01:04:33 ◼   ► not ever putting on iOS. I don't know. When you look at the competition, Google gets to

01:04:37 ◼   ► do a lot of really great things by having brains in the cloud working on this stuff,

01:04:41 ◼   ► right? So, you know, that's my gut feeling is that maybe somebody at Apple should make

01:04:46 ◼   ► the argument that moving some of the face recognition stuff up into iCloud might be

01:04:51 ◼   ► valuable, but that would only be for people who are using iCloud Photo Library. So, I

01:04:56 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:04:57 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:04:58 ◼   ► It's a hard one.

01:04:59 ◼   ► I think that's why it's not there,

01:05:00 ◼   ► is that this is a difficult problem

01:05:01 ◼   ► because of where faces started, which was on the Mac.

01:05:04 ◼   ► - Listen to Nick Roten.

01:05:07 ◼   ► Is the iPad Pro comfortable to use all day?

01:05:09 ◼   ► Do you use it flat or propped up on a stand?

01:05:11 ◼   ► Do you ever saw an act from looking down?

01:05:12 ◼   ► So using the iPad Pro more, more than my iMac now,

01:05:17 ◼   ► is basically meaning that I work

01:05:22 ◼   ► from comfortable locations now.

01:05:24 ◼   ► I work from the sofa a lot.

01:05:26 ◼   ► I work from comfortable chairs, I work in bed, I just have the thing on my lap with

01:05:30 ◼   ► the smart keyboard.

01:05:31 ◼   ► That tends to be how I work now.

01:05:35 ◼   ► Yeah, I've been, yeah, so I'll use it on the couch and when I'm having my first cup of

01:05:47 ◼   ► tea in the morning in bed, and then the other time that I'll use it, I'll sometimes use

01:05:51 ◼   ► it sitting at my dining room table with a stand, and sometimes I'll use it standing

01:05:55 ◼   ► with the iPad on the bar in the kitchen, which is a nice sort of standing configuration.

01:06:04 ◼   ► And that's mostly where I'm using it now. I have a sit-stand desk here that I could

01:06:07 ◼   ► put it on, but I tend not to use—I've got the computer out here. If I want to work out

01:06:12 ◼   ► in the garage, I will use the computer. But if I go in the house, what I do is I use the

01:06:16 ◼   ► iPad and not bring in a laptop and it's a nice change of scenery and so that's, you

01:06:22 ◼   ► know, that works for me. If I was, I think that that's the beauty of the iPad Pro is

01:06:28 ◼   ► I'm not using it in one location all day. I'm moving around with it. I'll be at the

01:06:32 ◼   ► desk or I'll be at the table, then I'll be up at the bar, then I'll be on the couch,

01:06:36 ◼   ► then I'll go back to the table, I'll kind of move around and I think that's one of the

01:06:41 ◼   ► things that appeals about it.

01:06:43 ◼   ► Definitely. Listen to Luke, "Might DVR capabilities be the reason for Apple's poorly explained

01:06:49 ◼   ► fourth-gen TV storage options?"

01:06:52 ◼   ► I don't think so because first off I think that Apple doesn't want to make a DVR.

01:06:57 ◼   ► Yeah I think even when they do whatever it is that they do it will be like Netflix. It

01:07:02 ◼   ► won't be like TiVo.

01:07:04 ◼   ► It's all going to be streaming and if you want to do, maybe there'll be a buffer, a

01:07:09 ◼   ► stream buffer if you've got a live TV service there'll be a stream buffer or maybe it's

01:07:13 ◼   ► a maybe the buffer lives on the server right and you you can back through that

01:07:18 ◼   ► that buffer that exists on the server for the live channel you're watching but

01:07:22 ◼   ► I expected to be very much like the BBC I player you can watch live and then

01:07:27 ◼   ► everything else just goes into a catch-up catalog exactly and and so

01:07:31 ◼   ► Apple's not gonna build something with a cable card and there's something like

01:07:35 ◼   ► that for the US cable market it's not gonna happen and HD video is is enormous

01:07:40 ◼   ► So other than caches, the Apple TV doesn't have the capacity to store

01:07:46 ◼   ► anything meaningful. My TiVo has like a 4 terabyte hard drive in it.

01:07:50 ◼   ► It's, yeah, the Apple TV is not going to be able to handle it, and it's not built to.

01:07:57 ◼   ► It's built for a world where everything is available streaming, and you stream your video when you want to watch it.

01:08:04 ◼   ► Yep. I think that's what's gonna happen. Yep.

01:08:08 ◼   ► Okay, then next up we have from Robert, "Did you mention a favorite Apple Watch charging stand?"

01:08:14 ◼   ► I don't use one, and I know that you do, so I thought we should probably mention it.

01:08:18 ◼   ► Uh, yeah, and I haven't, um, I haven't checked out a bunch of stands, so I don't have a favorite.

01:08:25 ◼   ► I bought the nightstand from Elevation Doc, you know, Elevation Lab, and I use it, and it's fine.

01:08:32 ◼   ► There are probably other ones that are better. What I like about it is it's got the orientation

01:08:38 ◼   ► properly to use it as a in-night stand mode, where it becomes your alarm clock, and that's

01:08:46 ◼   ► what I use now as my alarm clock, as my Apple Watch. It's another benefit of being an Apple

01:08:49 ◼   ► Watch user. And so that's what I use. There may be other ones. What you want is a stand

01:08:54 ◼   ► that lets you charge it and hold it sideways, although you can also just lay it on the table,

01:09:02 ◼   ► And that works too. I kind of like not doing that and having it on the little stand instead.

01:09:07 ◼   ► But you know, is it essential? No, I don't think it is essential, but it's fine. It keeps

01:09:13 ◼   ► my little charger in place and that's what I like about it. And you know, the magnet,

01:09:18 ◼   ► I wish the magnet was stronger on the Apple Watch charger because it wiggles a little

01:09:23 ◼   ► bit, but that's what I'm using and it's fine.

01:09:27 ◼   ► Next up we have a question from Ben and Ben wanted to know at what speed do you both listen

01:09:34 ◼   ► to your podcasts? Ben recently went down to 1x and everyone sounds so different than at

01:09:40 ◼   ► 1.8 which I believe he's saying he listened to previously.

01:09:44 ◼   ► - Hi Ben.

01:09:48 ◼   ► - How are you doing? - Thanks for your question.

01:09:53 ◼   ► I listen one tick up, usually in Overcast.

01:10:01 ◼   ► Maybe one or two ticks up.

01:10:03 ◼   ► That's one of the reasons I love Overcast

01:10:04 ◼   ► is it's the first app that I have,

01:10:07 ◼   ► podcast app that I've listened to

01:10:09 ◼   ► where the faster speeds don't sound,

01:10:11 ◼   ► don't have like weird artifacts

01:10:14 ◼   ► that on other, the standard like audio method in order to speed up audio, every,

01:10:19 ◼   ► I feel like you get these like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick things that weird

01:10:22 ◼   ► artifacts that happen and, uh, it's all smooth and overcast.

01:10:25 ◼   ► So a lot of podcasts I'll listen to one tick up, maybe two.

01:10:28 ◼   ► Um, and then there are some podcasts where I, where I refuse to do that.

01:10:32 ◼   ► Um, because like the flophouse, because they already talk so fast and I want to

01:10:37 ◼   ► savor every minute of that podcast.

01:10:39 ◼   ► Cause it's one of my favorites.

01:10:40 ◼   ► Some others though, I'll speed it up a little bit.

01:10:43 ◼   ► The ATP I listened to sped up and Lauren was listening to one while I was getting ready

01:10:50 ◼   ► in the morning. I had it on a speaker and she was like, "Is this sped up or did they

01:10:54 ◼   ► really talk that fast?" And I said, "No, it's sped up." But I hear this from people. My

01:11:00 ◼   ► policy has always been no speed is supported other than 1x. We edit all of our podcasts

01:11:06 ◼   ► and listen to them at 1x. That's how they're meant to be listened to. If you want to listen

01:11:10 ◼   ► at other speeds, it's unsupported, it may be unsafe, it may be a danger to you and your

01:11:14 ◼   ► family. Be careful out there. What about you, Myke?

01:11:18 ◼   ► I'm 1x only with Smart Speed. I just don't... I mean, sometimes even with Smart Speed, I

01:11:27 ◼   ► hear the change. Sometimes it will pick somebody up and make them talk quite quickly for whatever

01:11:32 ◼   ► reason. And I hear it and I'm like, "Hmm, wish it didn't do that." But Smart Speed's

01:11:38 ◼   ► really good at doing exactly what I want which is just take out the silences and speed things

01:11:43 ◼   ► up very very slightly and that works for me because I like to listen at 1x and I only

01:11:48 ◼   ► listen to smart speed because I can listen to basically 1x and still save some time.

01:11:54 ◼   ► I don't really like the idea of speeding up shows it just doesn't, I've tried it and

01:11:59 ◼   ► it just doesn't fit with me. I just don't like it, I like to hear it as it was intended

01:12:05 ◼   ► to be you know and I don't think silences are an issue really unless you're listening

01:12:11 ◼   ► to like an NPR show. Like I think I turn smart speed off when I listen to cereal or something

01:12:16 ◼   ► because it's like you know dramatic pauses that avoid you don't get.

01:12:20 ◼   ► Right.

01:12:21 ◼   ► Listen to Paul there, what iOS or OS X app do you use to make the beautiful links in

01:12:26 ◼   ► the relay FM show notes? We don't use an app, it is our CMS that does that.

01:12:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's a cool bookmarklet in the CMS

01:12:36 ◼   ► that whatever the latest episode is that's in the CMS,

01:12:40 ◼   ► you can go to a page and click the bookmarklet

01:12:43 ◼   ► and it sucks in the title and the URL

01:12:46 ◼   ► and that helps a lot when we're doing those.

01:12:49 ◼   ► I have that set up for when I'm doing Clockwise.

01:12:52 ◼   ► As people mention things, I'm navigating to the pages

01:12:54 ◼   ► and clicking the button and it gets added to the show notes,

01:12:57 ◼   ► which is very nice.

01:12:58 ◼   ► - That is exactly how I've been doing the show notes

01:13:00 ◼   ► for this episode.

01:13:01 ◼   ► - Exactly.

01:13:02 ◼   ► great but it's just our CMS. If you've ever been curious now you know it's just

01:13:06 ◼   ► our system that does it we're very proud of it we love show notes in case you

01:13:10 ◼   ► hadn't guessed and yeah you say like you know you'll get last week's upgrade and

01:13:16 ◼   ► last week's connected had mammoth show notes you know I was working on upgrade

01:13:20 ◼   ► for like five hours last week with the chapters and then okay chapters could

01:13:26 ◼   ► we just address chapters quickly I need to address chapters quickly because you

01:13:31 ◼   ► People don't ask.

01:13:32 ◼   ► Only a couple, a small handful of people ask, and they're gonna ask because I did it like

01:13:35 ◼   ► on two different shows last week.

01:13:37 ◼   ► My personal policy on chapters is I do them in shows where I think it makes sense, because

01:13:44 ◼   ► it enhances a topic in some way.

01:13:46 ◼   ► So like the upgrade is it made sense to me because there were categories.

01:13:50 ◼   ► When we did the year-end review episode of Connected, I do it because every month it

01:13:54 ◼   ► kind of breaks it down that way.

01:13:56 ◼   ► I'm personally unsold on doing chapters just for every topic in a random episode of Upgrade.

01:14:05 ◼   ► I could be changed in the future, but I doubt that, because it's a lot more work for me

01:14:10 ◼   ► with the way that I edit, because I don't do a full listen-through edit of this show.

01:14:16 ◼   ► I make notes as we record and go back in and fix things afterwards.

01:14:20 ◼   ► We have a wide-ranging discussion that kind of goes through topics sometimes, and it would

01:14:25 ◼   ► be very difficult to get all of the stops. I feel like, you know, we could totally do,

01:14:32 ◼   ► you know, and it's up to you because it does take extra time. People don't understand that

01:14:35 ◼   ► there are technical issues and how you tag and I used to fix things with incomparable

01:14:40 ◼   ► before I started doing more bookmarks. If I found a mistake in the episode, I could

01:14:45 ◼   ► actually just fix it in an audio editor and then re-encode it as MP3. But the workflow

01:14:49 ◼   ► that we use for chapters, you kind of can't do that. You have to re-export it from logic

01:14:53 ◼   ► again. It takes time, it's complicated. You know, we do have a follow-up sponsor topic,

01:15:00 ◼   ► sponsor ask upgrade kind of structure that could have some basic bookmarks in it, but I see what

01:15:07 ◼   ► you're saying too, which is it's for special occasions when there's extra structure that

01:15:13 ◼   ► seems fitting for bookmarks, and super fine-grain kind of bookmark detail is something that is

01:15:19 ◼   ► not necessarily worth the extra work and workflow and just the act of going to any bookmarks is

01:15:28 ◼   ► itself take there's a hit in terms of the work that happens there so i don't know i i do them

01:15:35 ◼   ► sometimes for incomparable all the time for clockwise because clockwise is very structured

01:15:40 ◼   ► yeah it varies yeah i just i i need extra convincing as to why i should do that like it

01:15:48 ◼   ► I just don't see it really elevating.

01:15:51 ◼   ► - So email Myke.

01:15:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, email me with your reasons.

01:15:55 ◼   ► Listen to Martin, what's the likelihood

01:15:56 ◼   ► in your professional opinion of the Apple Pencil support

01:15:59 ◼   ► coming to the iPad Air 3?

01:16:01 ◼   ► Very likely, I would say.

01:16:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would say so.

01:16:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I would say like 80%, 90%, something like that,

01:16:08 ◼   ► that they'll do it with Apple Pencil support

01:16:10 ◼   ► and possibly smart connector too,

01:16:14 ◼   ► but certainly Apple Pencil support,

01:16:15 ◼   ► it just makes a lot of sense

01:16:16 ◼   ► that eventually the iPad Air will get it,

01:16:18 ◼   ► why not the next version?

01:16:19 ◼   ► It makes that, it makes the iPad Air better,

01:16:22 ◼   ► it makes the pencil better, why not?

01:16:24 ◼   ► - And listener Gary, are English muffins

01:16:29 ◼   ► just muffins in England?

01:16:32 ◼   ► - I wanna know the answer to this.

01:16:33 ◼   ► So I'm happy that listener Gary asked.

01:16:36 ◼   ► - I'm not 100% sure what I would call that,

01:16:39 ◼   ► what Gary is showing me because--

01:16:42 ◼   ► - They come kind of together and then you split them apart

01:16:45 ◼   ► they come pre-split and they've got little, as they say, the little nooks and crannies

01:16:50 ◼   ► in them, the little kind of bubbles, and then you toast them and put things on them. I had

01:16:55 ◼   ► these for breakfast this morning, in fact, with peanut butter and jelly on them.

01:16:58 ◼   ► >> It just looks like a roll to me. >> Well, next time you're here, we're going

01:17:03 ◼   ► to have to give you an English muffin and have you name it.

01:17:06 ◼   ► >> Because what we call muffins is what you call muffins.

01:17:09 ◼   ► >> Okay. >> Which is muffins, like chocolate chip muffins,

01:17:13 ◼   ► These are little, these are little, they're similar to like the, like, uh, they also sell

01:17:19 ◼   ► Australian toaster biscuits, which are very much like English muffins, but they're different.

01:17:25 ◼   ► So you don't, you don't even know what these are.

01:17:27 ◼   ► I can't get, give you a name for them.

01:17:30 ◼   ► But they're not muffins.

01:17:31 ◼   ► No, they're not muffins.

01:17:32 ◼   ► To answer listener Gary.

01:17:33 ◼   ► Yeah, they're not muffins.

01:17:34 ◼   ► We don't call them muffins, I don't think.

01:17:37 ◼   ► I'm like Googling now and I can't, I cannot give you an answer as to what these things

01:17:42 ◼   ► are. Like I wouldn't even know what to call them. I think I would probably just call them

01:17:47 ◼   ► English muffins. Maybe. I don't know. I have no idea. I'm completely unhelpful. I don't

01:17:53 ◼   ► know what that thing is.

01:17:55 ◼   ► I don't know. Muffins. According to Wikipedia, they're sold by the name Muffins in all British

01:18:00 ◼   ► supermarkets. All British supermarkets. Wow, that's pretty definitive, Wikipedia.

01:18:06 ◼   ► I don't think so, Wikipedia. And yeah, maybe they are called muffins, but that's not what

01:18:10 ◼   ► people call muffins right like they may be called muffins like you could call anything

01:18:14 ◼   ► a muffin but it doesn't but when when you say to somebody do you have muffins they don't

01:18:19 ◼   ► give you these they give you chocolate chip muffins right like you know it's like I could

01:18:23 ◼   ► call my iPhone a muffin if I wanted to all right but it doesn't you know it doesn't mean

01:18:30 ◼   ► that that's what everybody knows as muffins I hate it stuff like this on Wikipedia this

01:18:33 ◼   ► is what actually makes Wikipedia a difficult thing it's like they're not like every supermarket

01:18:39 ◼   ► I don't even know what they are, so they can't be like, it's not like you go to supermarkets

01:18:43 ◼   ► and you can't move from muffins.

01:18:45 ◼   ► Wikipedia checked and they're available in every supermarket.

01:18:48 ◼   ► They had somebody go around.

01:18:50 ◼   ► There's a Tesco in Bath that doesn't have them, they're gonna delete that comment.

01:18:55 ◼   ► Oh god.

01:18:57 ◼   ► That's it.

01:18:58 ◼   ► That's it.

01:18:59 ◼   ► I thought we'd end on a high note.

01:19:00 ◼   ► Oh definitely.

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01:19:37 ◼   ► Gooooooooodbyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

01:19:37 ◼   ► Goodbye!

01:19:42 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:19:45 ◼   ► [ Music ]