PodSearch

Upgrade

69: The 2015 Upgradies

 

00:00:00   *

00:00:23   This is my most favorite episode of the year.

00:00:26   [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:29   Exactly.

00:00:29   The upgrade-ies.

00:00:31   They said it wouldn't come back, but it's back.

00:00:33   They demanded that it not come back, but it did.

00:00:36   It came back.

00:00:37   And as I pointed out last year, it's

00:00:38   not annual when it's the first time you do it.

00:00:41   But now we're doing it again for a second straight year.

00:00:43   This does officially make it the second annual upgrade-ies.

00:00:47   It's very exciting.

00:00:48   So Myke was right when he said it was the first annual.

00:00:50   I'm just going to say that if you now look at it in history,

00:00:52   the first of the annual awards and this is now the second. So we have a selection of

00:00:58   categories. What we decided to do, we are going to pick up, I believe, all of the categories

00:01:01   from last year. And we've added a couple of extra categories. In ten years' time, this

00:01:08   is going to last for four hours. Over the years, the snowball of the upgrade continues

00:01:13   to grow.

00:01:14   That's how the Eddy Awards worked, is that I would always just copy the document from

00:01:17   the previous year and start with the categories from the previous year. And then we would

00:01:22   rejigger them and move them and change them because they weren't fixed like the Academy

00:01:26   Awards or something. And I expect that we'll do that as this goes on to make more changes.

00:01:31   If we're lucky enough to come back for a third annual Upgradies next year, we'll keep some

00:01:36   and move some based on what happens in the year.

00:01:39   So we have a couple of interesting additions as well for the Upgradies this time around.

00:01:47   One of the things that we were doing when we were looking at the award categories is

00:01:51   we were recognizing that we me and Jason may have some complete like same answers from

00:01:58   last year to this year so we have asked for the help of a few of our relay FM hosts.

00:02:05   Hosts yes yes so we got eight different hosts to weigh in on various subjects and once we

00:02:09   reveal our selections or do you want to do those well yeah I think after we reveal our

00:02:14   selections we'll also mention some other things which that are voted on by by hosts and it's

00:02:19   It's not like we're counting the votes or anything like that, but I think it's interesting

00:02:22   to see the opinions of other Relay hosts.

00:02:25   So we brought them in so you'll get some additional thoughts from Relay hosts.

00:02:30   I also want to mention, since you did Myke was right there a moment ago, that we did

00:02:35   get a note from listener Carl who suggested a category that was "Jason's best disapproving

00:02:41   to one of Myke's opinions."

00:02:42   That happens a lot.

00:02:44   Myke was right.

00:02:45   All right.

00:02:46   All right. Anyway, that's a little special category.

00:02:51   In regards to the suggestions from our friends and fellow hosts, the upgradees is not a democratic

00:02:58   affair.

00:02:59   Yes. Oh, no. No, it's a dictatorship, essentially.

00:03:02   Completely by me and you. So there are some categories where some people have made suggestions

00:03:06   and votes, but it might not... And even if everybody else voted for OneApp, it doesn't

00:03:10   mean it's going to win. So with that, I think that we should start off today's upgradey

00:03:15   Awards with the best iOS app in 2015. Jason, so we go in the order of the document that

00:03:23   we have here. I'm gonna go first.

00:03:24   JASON WARNKE All right.

00:03:25   MATT WILSON I'm gonna say Slack. Now, I actually don't

00:03:29   think that their iOS app is the best iOS app that I've used.

00:03:32   JASON WARNKE I agree.

00:03:33   MATT WILSON But it's the service that is underneath all

00:03:36   of it that has made it a favorite for me.

00:03:38   JASON WARNKE Yeah, I agree. Slack has become indispensable

00:03:41   for me this year as well. I think the iOS app is pretty good. The Mac app is the contrast

00:03:48   there where it's sort of their standard web interface wrapped in a—stuck inside a Mac

00:03:53   app and it could be way better. The iOS app is okay and it's got some nice features. The

00:03:58   thing that I discovered that I hadn't even realized was a feature until a few weeks ago

00:04:02   is the three-finger swipe to move between different groups, which is huge because I

00:04:09   I have multiple Slack instances and I love that.

00:04:13   That's a great one because that saves you from like tapping

00:04:16   to bring up a thing that then you have to tap on a thing

00:04:18   and then it's like, and then tapping in

00:04:20   to make it slide away.

00:04:21   And now you just do a three finger swipe

00:04:22   and it moves to the next thing.

00:04:24   But you know, but it is the service,

00:04:26   the service embedded inside it is pretty great.

00:04:30   - Yeah, so the thing for Slack with me is not only is it

00:04:35   an incredible business tool, it's just become a tool

00:04:37   that has actually made my life better because I have access to talk to my friends in a group

00:04:44   very often and also in a way that this is something that Casey's spoken about a bunch

00:04:48   of times like the pyramid of communication and Slack kind of fits in this in an interesting

00:04:54   way that I might not send you iMessages very frequently like I just wouldn't do that but

00:05:00   I am more than happy to just spam you with direct messages in Slack because it feels

00:05:04   kind of different. You can set it up in your own way for your notifications to come through

00:05:08   to you in your own way. And I just really like it for that. It's bringing me closer

00:05:12   to people I care about and also has become a great way for me to do business. Jason is

00:05:18   now spamming me of iMessages as we talk, so we've got that going on. When was the last

00:05:23   iMessage that we'd sent to each other before this? This will prove that May, which was

00:05:28   just me and you sending emoticons from our Apple watches. Other than that, nothing. So

00:05:36   that shows, and me and Jay, we talk maybe every day, and it's all through Slack. So

00:05:41   Slack for me is my favorite iOS app of the year, and both David Sparks and John Siracusa

00:05:46   agree with me.

00:05:47   David: Yeah, yeah. I think my hesitation was exactly what we've talked about, which is

00:05:54   A lot of it is embedded in the service, and we didn't have a new service, you know, best

00:05:58   services category here.

00:06:01   But it's one of the apps I use the most on iOS, so even though it could be better, the

00:06:08   app could be better, it's still one I use all the time, and like I said, I think it's

00:06:13   got a lot of things going for it that the Mac app doesn't, but it also still has bugs,

00:06:18   and I would like it to be better because now I rely on it so much that it should be better.

00:06:23   My choice is, will probably be controversial.

00:06:29   It has been the whipping boy of Mac pundits for many, many years, but it had a huge upgrade

00:06:36   this year.

00:06:37   And yeah, it's from Apple, but I used it before and I use it even more now and it's notes.

00:06:42   Notes.app.

00:06:43   - This was my runner up.

00:06:45   - Yeah, I was surprised to see that.

00:06:47   - I love Notes.

00:06:48   I mean, I use it for everything.

00:06:52   It really is.

00:06:53   I mean, I'm stealing your pick here, but one of my favorite things that Notes does is the

00:06:59   ability to add links and things like that via the extension.

00:07:02   So like I have a note that I keep, like a running note for follow up for all of the

00:07:06   shows and I just, someone sends me a tweet or I see a link and I just hit it, hit the

00:07:11   extension and put it in the upgrade follow up note and then I triage those notes before

00:07:15   each show and put them into our Google doc.

00:07:17   It is really fantastic and the app does work really well.

00:07:20   it has some foibles. One that I've noticed recently, Jason, is that when you're using

00:07:25   a list with a keyboard on the iPad or something and you hit the tab button, it doesn't indent

00:07:30   the bullets, which is an endless source of frustration for me. But overall, I really

00:07:35   love it. And maybe you should now say what you do.

00:07:38   Well, it's, uh, so they added iCloud syncing, which again, it's hard to feel the Eddie awards.

00:07:44   We always used to say it's hard to reward an app for finally getting a feature it should

00:07:47   have had many years ago. But it does really improve the situation that it's got iCloud

00:07:51   syncing now and isn't just using weird IMAP syncing. But it's got all these features.

00:07:57   Apple finally took it seriously. I think this is the year, I've said this before, Apple

00:08:01   looked at this app and very much like photography, like selfie cameras or photography on the

00:08:05   iPad said, "Oh, people really use that thing? I guess we better make it better then." Right?

00:08:10   Because people use Notes anyway. And finally, Apple seems to say, "Well, we should prioritize

00:08:15   app since people use it. It's not that great. Let's make it better." And they made it a

00:08:19   lot better. It's great on the iPad Pro as a drawing app. There are fancy drawing apps

00:08:27   that you can get, but you could draw whether writing a note and sending it via iMessage,

00:08:33   like we talked about last week, or whether you're drawing a sketch or something. You

00:08:36   can have all that in notes too. I mean, it's not going to do the fancy things that other

00:08:39   apps will do, whether it's note-taking apps or drawing apps. But you can do a surprising

00:08:44   amount of stuff just within notes.app on that count too.

00:08:48   So yeah, I use it as my primary place

00:08:53   where I jot things down now on Mac and iOS.

00:08:57   Notes to myself lists if I'm watching a movie

00:08:59   or a TV show for an incomparable episode, it goes in notes.

00:09:03   Yeah, I think it deserves some praise

00:09:06   for being more indispensable than it used to be

00:09:10   because Apple paid attention to it.

00:09:13   Yeah, when you told me that you used Notes before the update, I laughed at you, I think,

00:09:19   the first time, as I'm sure that many people did, but I don't think many people would laugh

00:09:22   anymore.

00:09:23   Yeah, who's laughing now, Hurley?

00:09:25   Who's laughing now?

00:09:26   I still laughed at you used it then, because it sucked, but now it's way better.

00:09:30   It is a great app.

00:09:32   It sucked, but was everywhere.

00:09:34   That was the thing.

00:09:35   It was everywhere.

00:09:36   I have a runner-up, too.

00:09:37   Can I throw out my runner-up?

00:09:38   Yeah, do that.

00:09:39   It's Outlook.

00:09:40   My runner-up is Outlook.

00:09:42   I haven't been using it long enough to give it an award,

00:09:44   but Microsoft Outlook,

00:09:46   which is a name that is symbolized really crappy software

00:09:50   for Mac and Apple users for years now.

00:09:53   Or incompatible software in some cases.

00:09:56   Oh, you got to use, you got a Mac?

00:09:57   Well, we have an out, you know, we're using Outlook here.

00:10:00   You're, I guess you can use Entourage

00:10:02   and it's not very good.

00:10:04   Outlook for iOS is great.

00:10:06   We've talked about it before.

00:10:07   It's great.

00:10:07   It's a really good app.

00:10:08   It's a great iOS app.

00:10:09   It is what I'm using for my mail on iOS right now,

00:10:12   and I'm liking it a lot.

00:10:14   A very thoughtfully built app.

00:10:16   So I want to throw a shout out to that as a runner up.

00:10:20   - I agree with that.

00:10:21   Looking at our suggestions here,

00:10:22   that we have three suggestions for Tweetbot 4

00:10:25   from Steven, Casey, and Matt.

00:10:28   Aline has suggested Procreate,

00:10:30   Brianna has suggested Graphic by Autodesk,

00:10:33   and Federico suggested ToDo,

00:10:35   which was his app of the year

00:10:37   he spoke about on Mac stories. My feeling on looking at this and hearing us talk is

00:10:43   I think Slack should take this.

00:10:44   Yeah, I agree.

00:10:46   Yeah, so we're going to give it to Slack. I think Slack, in my opinion, has to win something.

00:10:52   That's my feeling about looking at this right now is Slack should win something. And so

00:10:57   I think that the best iOS app of the year will go to Slack. So congratulations to Slack.

00:11:03   I think it's an honor to be your pick or my pick, but in the end, we do this as part of

00:11:07   the upgradey's process is that we then have to choose the definitive upgradey winner and

00:11:11   it's, uh, it makes us all better people.

00:11:15   Sure does.

00:11:19   Best newcomer iOS app is our next category. So it's not, you know, we were also thinking

00:11:23   and we did this last time is something that we use on our iPhones or iOS on our iPads.

00:11:29   We could be using them for a long time. Um, so which is, you know, look at Slack. Slack

00:11:33   hasn't been around for longer than this year, but the newcomer iOS app is something that

00:11:37   that has come into our lives this year.

00:11:39   Now for me, mine is a very new app,

00:11:42   but it's easily become one of my favorite apps

00:11:44   and that is Pigment, which is the iOS coloring application

00:11:49   for iPad, it's mainly for iPad I think,

00:11:53   and mainly for iPad Pro, but it is on iPhones as well.

00:11:56   And the reason is because they've integrated

00:11:58   the pencil so well.

00:12:00   So I have spent upwards of 10 hours,

00:12:03   maybe more in Pigment now.

00:12:05   I absolutely love this application.

00:12:09   I am a fan of coloring in, grown up coloring,

00:12:11   and Pigment is the exact app I was looking for

00:12:15   from the moment I got the Apple Pencil.

00:12:17   I wanted a good coloring app.

00:12:19   This has definitely been the one,

00:12:20   and it's got some stuff that it needs to work on,

00:12:24   but I've spoken to the developers,

00:12:25   and they're looking at fixing everything,

00:12:27   but the things that it needs to fix are very small.

00:12:30   There's no real bugs in the app.

00:12:31   There's just some things that they can maybe do better,

00:12:33   and this is easily the best of these types of apps

00:12:36   that I've found.

00:12:37   - That sounds cool.

00:12:39   I'll download that and check it out.

00:12:42   That sounds like a lot of fun.

00:12:43   - It really is.

00:12:44   - My choice is Ferrite from Wooji Juice.

00:12:47   I've written about it.

00:12:48   It is a multi-track audio editor

00:12:51   with a beautiful user interface.

00:12:52   There are other multi-track audio editors for iOS.

00:12:56   They are, they feel very much like desktop apps ported.

00:13:02   the interfaces certainly feel that way. Like it really wants to be, have all the complexity

00:13:09   of a weird wonky desktop audio app. And Ferrite feels a little bit like Logic, actually Logic

00:13:16   10. But it's very tactile from just cutting tracks and sliding them around and moving

00:13:24   the edges of tracks and all that. And I've edited multiple podcasts with it. Works great

00:13:29   on iPad Pro, but it works on iPad Air, it works on an iPhone, and it is the first multi-track

00:13:38   audio tool that I could endorse and say you could use this to edit podcasts on iOS, and

00:13:43   it just has impressed the heck out of me. So I have to say, as a newcomer, that's the

00:13:47   one that did it for me.

00:13:48   Yeah, I've looked at Fairlight. I haven't used it in any real depth yet, but I've downloaded

00:13:54   it and I've played around with it and I plan to do more with it but I've you

00:13:59   know I've said this before it's nothing against the application I'm just a

00:14:03   little bit hesitant of doing my work on it but I know that you've had it a

00:14:09   couple of episodes incomparable with it and you'd never know so you know it is

00:14:13   clearly doing the job. Yeah and and the developer has added some features it now

00:14:18   will do a lossless export so you can get out a lossless file and then encode it

00:14:22   using something else and upload it using something else depending on how you do it. But I definitely

00:14:26   did the entire, not the recording part, but the rest of the production of an episode where I was

00:14:32   traveling and didn't even have a laptop and I did use the iPad Pro and it worked great.

00:14:36   And you know, it's, I'd say it's great for circumstances where you don't want to be

00:14:40   sitting down at your editing thing, whether you can't or whether you just don't feel like it. I

00:14:44   mean, you could sit in front of a fireplace somewhere and edit a podcast if you wanted to,

00:14:49   and that's a pretty great feeling. I mean, you could do that on a laptop too, but there

00:14:52   is something fun about having that big...part of it is, I keep saying tactile, part of it

00:14:57   is that, that experience of just having the big screen in your lap and everything that's

00:15:02   happening is happening via touch instead of clicking and typing and things like that.

00:15:10   It's just impressive that they did it and that the metaphor works with touch in a way

00:15:15   that no other app of this type has ever done that I've tried on iOS. They really get the

00:15:22   look and feel and understand that it's built for touch from the beginning.

00:15:27   Going out to our panel, Aline suggested You Must Build a Boat, which is a game that I've

00:15:31   yet to check out, but it is a nice--

00:15:33   It's a puzzle.

00:15:34   Puzzle game, there we go. Both Steven and Federico have suggested Copied, and Copied

00:15:39   is my understanding. I've not used this, but I've seen people talk about it a lot. It's

00:15:42   basically kind of like a like a pastebot type app. It is on iOS and on the Mac and you can

00:15:48   share your clipboard between them. Casey has suggested Carrotweather which is easily one

00:15:53   of my favorite Apple watch complications which is not a category that we included I just

00:15:57   realized yeah but I'll make a special note for there the Carrotweather complication is

00:16:01   my favorite complication. Matt suggested ToDo which was what Federico thought was his app

00:16:07   of the year and David Sparks being David Sparks suggested Dragon anywhere with the note "expensive

00:16:14   but killer dictation". So I'm looking at this it's not helped our decision at all we have

00:16:20   lots of different options here and I feel very strongly about pigment and you feel very

00:16:24   strongly about ferrite so I'm not sure where we go with this.

00:16:30   I don't know either. I think I might see to you on this one purely

00:16:35   because whilst I love Pigment, Ferrite is clearly a bigger undertaking and a lot more

00:16:42   has gone into that application. And if it is able to produce professional podcasts at

00:16:48   its current stage, I think that that has to be something that wins.

00:16:53   Yeah.

00:16:54   I think that sounds good that you're exceeding to my wishes. So I appreciate that. Yeah,

00:16:59   I'm looking forward to and hoping that we'll get perhaps with iOS 10 some more features

00:17:08   that enable more audio stuff to happen on iOS that isn't currently possible.

00:17:14   I would love to have that, the ability to have more, basically so that we could also

00:17:17   do the recording of conversations across, you know, basically IP chat conversations

00:17:24   like the one we're having now and being able to record those on iOS would be the last step

00:17:29   for people to just use iOS and be a podcaster,

00:17:33   which, you know, it's a niche area.

00:17:35   We're podcasters.

00:17:36   100% of the people on this podcast are podcasters,

00:17:39   but, you know, there aren't a huge amount.

00:17:41   It's a growing area, but there aren't a huge amount.

00:17:43   But still, it's like one of those little professional things.

00:17:45   It's like, yeah, the right features,

00:17:47   and people can do professional work on the iPad Pro,

00:17:49   and I think that would be a good thing.

00:17:51   So here's to 2016 for more.

00:17:53   - So this brings us on to the best Mac app of the year.

00:17:58   I think this was the one that I struggled,

00:18:01   both we have a best Mac app

00:18:02   and best new Mac app straight after this,

00:18:04   and I really struggled with this one.

00:18:06   And you can see from our panel,

00:18:08   there were far fewer answers on this one.

00:18:11   I went with 1Password just because it's an app that I love,

00:18:16   and it's fantastic on the Mac.

00:18:17   And again, it's like another one of those,

00:18:19   it's a service for me.

00:18:20   And 1Password is an indispensable service,

00:18:23   and it's one that I love dearly,

00:18:25   but I don't think I have to say too much about it,

00:18:27   honestly I think everybody knows about 1Password by now. And I really like your pick.

00:18:32   Yeah, I had, this was really hard for me too because there are a lot of Mac apps I like

00:18:38   and it was very hard for me to pick just one and say this is the one that I wanted. Some

00:18:42   of our picks, Matt Alexander picked Fantastic Hal 2, which I really like and came, that's

00:18:49   actually a new app this year, the new version, and I use that every day. You know, I use,

00:18:56   I wrote about Trip Mode, which is a utility that will protect your tethering so that your

00:19:02   Mac doesn't totally take it over and swamp your data allowance. There are a lot of different

00:19:06   apps I could pick here. In the end, though, because I was having trouble picking, I just

00:19:10   decided—and again, my apologies to everybody out there who is tired of me talking about

00:19:14   podcasts inside baseball, but I do a lot of podcasting. I do a lot of audio work. That

00:19:18   is one of the main things that I do in my job these days. And I live in Logic Pro X.

00:19:26   And you know what? I love it. It has made me so much more—I'll put it this way.

00:19:31   Back when I was doing things in GarageBand, I was barely capable of generating a podcast

00:19:37   a week. And I edit myself for at least podcasts a week at this point. It could not happen.

00:19:48   week I did an hour and a half long podcast, three of them in a row, on successive days.

00:19:54   There's no way I could have been able to do anything like that if I didn't use Logic.

00:19:58   Some of that is credit to the features of Logic and what I need to do with it, which

00:20:03   is edit things quickly. It's from Apple, it's a pro app, it's fashionable to bash Apple's

00:20:11   pro apps because it's unclear what their pro app strategy is. All I know is I use Logic

00:20:16   Pro X every day and I like it and it would be very difficult, and I've written about

00:20:20   this, it would be very difficult for me to switch to something else like Adobe Audition,

00:20:25   mostly because I would have to, the savings in productivity would have to be spectacular

00:20:31   and I have a hard time believing that that would be possible.

00:20:36   So I like Logic, it drives me mad, kind of to the same level that I like it, and also

00:20:42   Also for me, there are things that I need to do with audio that I can't do with Logic

00:20:47   or are too difficult for me to understand how to do with Logic.

00:20:50   Logic really works for me in conjunction with other apps.

00:20:55   You mentioned Adobe Audition.

00:20:57   Adobe Audition is incredibly powerful and some of the noise removal stuff that it can

00:21:01   do is just stupendous.

00:21:04   And if you are someone who is looking for noise removal you should check out Adobe Audition.

00:21:07   It's worth the fee for me, like the monthly fee.

00:21:11   I'm struggling with this one because obviously I use Logic as much as you do

00:21:16   and it is a very, very important application to me.

00:21:19   I don't know if I feel strongly enough to really argue for 1Password

00:21:24   as much as I like it, but you know,

00:21:27   I kind of feel that Logic Pro is something that is indispensable for me.

00:21:32   So in theory, does that make it the best Mac app? I love Fantastical too.

00:21:37   That's actually my pick for my best newcomer Mac app, Spoilers, so I'm willing to push

00:21:45   that one over from Matt's pick and give that a check against Fantastico 2.

00:21:52   So again, I will allow you to run away with this one for Logic Pro X.

00:21:57   All right, okay.

00:21:59   I win.

00:22:00   Congratulations to Logic.

00:22:02   We should mention Aline Sims suggested Ulysses, which is a writing app.

00:22:06   very nice and Casey Liss suggested day one. But the winner is Logic Pro X. So that brings

00:22:15   us to the best newcomer Mac app and for me I will have to say Fantastic Al 2. I picked

00:22:19   Fantastic Al I think as my favorite Mac app last year and I remember at the time asking

00:22:26   for it to have a full calendar view as well. I really wanted to be able to completely get

00:22:33   rid of iCal from my system or calendar whatever it's called now and so having

00:22:38   the full calendar view of Fantastico 2 is a great mode to switch it into and

00:22:42   their calendar sets function is fantastic because I can turn off and on

00:22:46   the Relay FM live calendar so I don't have to see it if I don't want to see it

00:22:51   as well as some other calendars that I keep. Fantastico is an incredible

00:22:55   application and Fantastico 2 really pushed it forward and just made it even

00:23:00   even better.

00:23:03   I agree with you.

00:23:05   I remember very clearly writing up my story about Fantastic Hell 2, trying out the beta.

00:23:09   It was while I was on my trip to the UK, actually.

00:23:13   So it was right when I was seeing you.

00:23:14   That's when it came out in the spring.

00:23:17   My nomination is Audio Hijack 3 from Rogue Amoeba.

00:23:24   So Audio Hijack's been around a long time.

00:23:26   Audio Hijack 3 is a complete revamp, beautiful user interface.

00:23:30   It works great.

00:23:31   It is incredibly powerful and there's room for it to grow.

00:23:34   If you do anything with audio and that's like capture application sounds or capture conversations

00:23:43   and I realize I keep picking these audio apps, but I couldn't let it go.

00:23:46   Audio Hijack is so versatile.

00:23:48   It does so many different things in different scenarios.

00:23:50   I keep hearing of different ways that people use it that I had to give it a shout out because

00:23:55   it is, it's just a very impressive update to an app that we sort of took for granted.

00:24:00   It was out there, it had been there forever, you know, it was never really going to change,

00:24:03   and then it did change quite dramatically and for the better. We should also mention

00:24:08   the other apps that were suggested for us.

00:24:11   >> Casey chose Visual Studio Code. Now, I believe this is a Microsoft thing. I remember

00:24:16   them talking about this at the Windows 10 event, but this isn't something that I really

00:24:19   know enough about.

00:24:20   Yeah, but it's a code editor that runs on the Mac for the first time, I think.

00:24:25   And it was a big case.

00:24:26   He was impressed.

00:24:27   He talked about it on the ATP as well.

00:24:29   Matt Alexander picked Tweetbot 2 and then put a question mark and an exclamation point

00:24:33   in parentheses after it.

00:24:35   I assume that's him not knowing if it's version 2 or not.

00:24:38   It's just the current one.

00:24:40   Or is he just questioning his own suggestion and then is surprised that he suggested it?

00:24:43   I don't know.

00:24:44   We don't know, Matt.

00:24:45   And David Sparks said, "Controversial for some, but life-saving for our family photos.

00:24:49   which I think is a good, you know, there's good and bad with photos. I think the app

00:24:55   itself is actually pretty great when you -- there are some issues with the cloud photos feature

00:25:01   that people have had, but the app itself is so much better than iPhoto that I think that

00:25:06   was a strong contender for me too. They did a lot of great things with photos that fixed

00:25:14   a lot of the problems that iPhoto had. I'm going to give this one to you though, Myke.

00:25:18   fantastic Cal too. I love it too. It's excellent. It's great. It really is just a superb app

00:25:23   and it is one of the only apps that I use that continues to, on the Mac, that continues

00:25:29   to get a lot of new features and clearly a lot of love added to it. The Mac is funny,

00:25:34   you know, looking at this, these categories. It was really hard to think of stuff. Um,

00:25:40   and I think that that is something, you know, this is something we've been talking about,

00:25:44   other podcasts talking about it. The Mac is an interesting place for development right

00:25:47   now and clearly it was not easy for anybody to think of their favorite iOS apps of the

00:25:52   year.

00:25:53   Yeah, there's a lot of mature stuff out there and some of this is, like I didn't want to,

00:25:59   I can say BB Edit is my best Mac app every year. I really could, but that gets boring,

00:26:05   so you know, trying to spread it around a little bit, but yeah, there's a lot of mature

00:26:09   software in this, on the Mac, and there's a lot less. I think it's exciting that between

00:26:16   Fantastic Callen Audio Hijack and something like Photos, right, and Visual Studio Code.

00:26:20   These are actually, there are some interesting new things happening on the Mac, but not as

00:26:25   much as there used to be, that's for sure, and not as much on iOS as on iOS.

00:26:29   So now we move into our gaming section and we have the best game of the year. So this

00:26:35   is across all platforms, consoles, it can be on iOS too.

00:26:38   Yes, we're the experts here. Hey, I have a video game show.

00:26:42   yeah okay fine. My pick is an interesting one it is a relatively small game on the PlayStation 4 and

00:26:49   only small in size not not in audience it's game called Rocket League and the reason I've picked

00:26:55   Rocket League for my game of the year is it is the most fun I ever had playing any type of game this

00:27:00   year. In Rocket League you control a car that has boosting capabilities and the ability to jump

00:27:07   and you play soccer with the car.

00:27:11   It is amazing.

00:27:12   You can play online.

00:27:15   You can play against the computer.

00:27:16   You can play in teams of up to, I think, four or six.

00:27:20   And it gets crazy.

00:27:21   And you can flip the car around to try and do

00:27:23   incredible scores-- goals?

00:27:26   Scores.

00:27:27   You try and get some incredible goals with the cars.

00:27:30   It is just so much fun.

00:27:32   I was playing it a couple of days ago with my younger

00:27:35   brother.

00:27:36   and it was we were just screaming for about 15 minutes it was incredible fun

00:27:40   I absolutely love Rocket League it is on the Playstation I believe it's coming to

00:27:45   Xbox soon. Oh I'll check it out then. And as Mrs.

00:27:49   Soup has pointed out in the chat room I called it soccer

00:27:51   just because if I said football I'd have to qualify it so I went with soccer. Yeah that's

00:27:55   right. So I'm gonna pick Rocket League as my

00:27:58   favorite game this year. By the way as a style note you use the

00:28:03   word soccer people should use the word soccer if

00:28:05   if you're speaking to an international audience, because then everybody knows what it means.

00:28:09   That was why I went with it, even though it obsessed me.

00:28:11   And if you say football, people don't know what that means because Americans will think

00:28:15   that you mean something else. So when you're speaking to an international audience, try

00:28:18   to say American football or soccer. I always make sure to say American football because

00:28:23   it makes me smile. Yeah, you should do it. That's how it is. That's our football. It

00:28:28   belongs to us. That sounds fun. I hope it's coming to Xbox because I would love to try

00:28:35   it out. Oh yeah, coming to Xbox One in February. All right. Yeah, you should try it. Let's

00:28:38   check it out. Excellent. So my, uh, my game, I had a couple of games that I thought of

00:28:43   long and hard about this, and I ended up with Splatoon, which is for Wii U. It is spectacularly

00:28:51   good. Have you played it? Have we talked about this? I own it. I have many things to say

00:28:56   about it? It's, I just, it is a shooter that is as non-violent as a shooter essentially

00:29:06   can be because it's all with paint. The goal is to take over territory. It's all, or large,

00:29:13   there is a one player scenario, but it's really about the online games. I find the online

00:29:16   game matchmaking to be pretty good. My son loves it. A lot of my gaming experience these

00:29:21   days is by watching my children play games, honestly, because they do it a lot more than

00:29:26   I do. But this one, I like the style of it. I wish--I'm interested to hear what you have

00:29:33   to say about it. My biggest criticism of Splatoon is that the music, that there's not enough

00:29:39   variation in the music, and then after somebody plays it for half an hour, that same, like--

00:29:45   - The song is in my head right now. It's going around and around.

00:29:49   And it's cute, the style of it, it's like a reggae kind of style, reggae rock mix thing,

00:29:55   but it's, it's more varied music would be helpful. But it's such a fun idea and it's

00:30:02   colorful and, you know, I think it's, I think it's a very fun, clever game. And my honorable

00:30:09   mention is a game called Runbow, which was a downloadable for Wii U that we played at

00:30:15   my son's birthday party. And you can get up to nine players playing the game at once and

00:30:18   It's a side-scrolling platformer where as the colors change the platforms appear and disappear and it's a it's a really nice

00:30:26   $15 I think downloadable that is great especially as a party game because you can get we had you know, nine boys playing it

00:30:34   It was pretty pretty spectacular

00:30:36   Brianna Wu has mentioned rise of the Tomb Raider. Aline has gone for Splatoon. Matt went for Star Wars Battlefront

00:30:43   Which is my favorite first-person shooter of the year and of course, Sir Acusa

00:30:48   Pick destiny, which I've just got destiny and I just started playing it. It's very confusing, but I'm trying to get the grips of it

00:30:53   Splatoon was my second

00:30:57   It was my runner-up and the only reason that I did not give Splatoon my game of the year is the poor

00:31:04   local multiplayer mode

00:31:07   I really

00:31:09   Wanted Splatoon to have a is there a local multiplayer mode? Yeah, it's not good. It's not the it's not it's like a different game

00:31:18   There's like a different mode that you play in.

00:31:21   You cannot play like team versus team, which is really upsetting to me because I love local

00:31:26   multiplayer and Splatoon let me down with its not so good local multiplayer mode.

00:31:33   Also, I'm disappointed, I have to say, with a lot of Wii U games that they don't take

00:31:39   better advantage of the second screen on the Wii gamepad where you should be able to play

00:31:45   a person versus person game where one person's on the TV and one person's on the gamepad

00:31:51   and they don't do that. Generally. They do occasionally, but a lot of times they just

00:31:59   mirror the screens and that's less good. But you know, yeah, I hear you. Like I mentioned,

00:32:04   there's a single player kind of campaign game that's fine, but it does feel a little obligatory.

00:32:09   Like well, we can't just sell, which I don't quite understand because I mean they didn't

00:32:14   have maybe it's just a Nintendo philosophy thing because they didn't they didn't do that

00:32:19   with Titanfall right Titanfall is a game where you need to play against other people but

00:32:23   but with Splatoon they put in this obligatory thing that my son zipped through in in no

00:32:28   time it's good enough all his time playing it's a simple platformer game yeah single

00:32:32   player stuff and it's good to you know it's a good way to kind of get your grip to get

00:32:36   to grips with the mechanics of the game Splatoon is fantastic because it is a first-person

00:32:41   shooter without any death. I mean, who would have thought that could exist? And it is just

00:32:47   excellent. I love the game. I really like the music, but Agree with You needs to be

00:32:51   more varied. The customization of the characters is great. I love that obviously you can pick

00:32:57   boy and girl. It's a really excellent game and I am more than happy to give it our game

00:33:03   of the year. I really hope that Splatoon 2 has some better local multiplayer options,

00:33:10   But for me Splatoon is easily our game of the year.

00:33:17   That's uh yeah that sounds great it's it's people should check it out it is a lot of

00:33:21   fun I mean you have to have a Wii U this is the thing and this has come up before I mean

00:33:26   you guys did a you guys did an episode of of your video game podcast that was really

00:33:30   depressing about the Wii U but I don't know I feel like the Wii U I don't regret buying

00:33:38   it and not just because it gets unlike the other platforms that are PlayStation and Xbox

00:33:45   are incompatible with previous versions.

00:33:47   It's compatible with those old games, but also the Wii U titles that we've gotten and

00:33:52   it's not a lot, but they've been great.

00:33:54   Like the software is really good and Splatoon is a great example.

00:33:58   That is just a great game.

00:33:59   A lot of fun.

00:34:00   Probably the Wii U is the majority of good games that you play at first party, which

00:34:04   is not good for the life of a console.

00:34:08   This is what I like about Runbow, is that it's an indie downloadable.

00:34:11   Yeah, there is some good indie stuff in there.

00:34:15   Our best iOS game this year is brought to you by Hover, the best way to buy and manage

00:34:20   domain names.

00:34:21   I love Hover.com.

00:34:23   If you have an idea for a project, you have something that you want to put on the web,

00:34:27   you're going to need a domain name for it.

00:34:29   Hover is the place that you should go to.

00:34:31   They have all of the options you'd expect.

00:34:33   .com, .co, .me, they have all of the crazy new TLDs as well.

00:34:37   You just type in what you're looking for, if it's there you can click through and you'll

00:34:40   be able to buy it in seconds. If it's not available they give you some options of other

00:34:44   things that might be, maybe other tlds or maybe some other names or phrases that you

00:34:48   could use to get the domain to start your idea, business, website, whatever it may be.

00:34:56   Hover have fantastic customer support, they have a no hold, no wait, no transfer telephone

00:35:00   support policy and they're famous for this and there's a great reason why, because when

00:35:03   When you call hover you are talking to an actual human being, no robots or not at hover.

00:35:09   But if you do prefer to look online they have some great guides to help talk you through

00:35:14   some stuff and they have great email support as well.

00:35:16   So you are still talking to the lovely humans over at hover but you can do it through the

00:35:20   safety of your keyboard.

00:35:22   Don't forget hover also have their valet service where they will transfer all of your domains

00:35:26   from your current provider to them.

00:35:28   They have hover connect where they make it super easy for you to get your new domain

00:35:31   connected with your website or service that you want to connect it to in just a couple

00:35:35   of clicks. No more copying and pasting all that DNS stuff to get it set up. If you go

00:35:39   to hover.com you want to try them out and use the code UPGRADIES at checkout and you'll

00:35:46   get 10% off your first purchase at hover.com and show your support for this show and the

00:35:51   Upgrades awards. So thank you so much to Hover for their support of this episode.

00:35:58   iOS game of the year easy one for me Altos adventure it's it is the best iOS

00:36:07   game of the last five years I would say so I expect that you've only put your

00:36:13   pick in because I got to Altos adventure first no well wait a second so so did

00:36:22   Altos adventure I thought it came out last year so did I but I looked at the

00:36:26   release notes and version 1 was released very early in 2015.

00:36:33   Wow, okay well.

00:36:34   Yeah, this is the thing, I was very surprised when I went to take a look and I was like,

00:36:38   "Oh, that's interesting."

00:36:39   Version 1 was released on the 19th of February 2015.

00:36:43   Uh, you know what, I think I might have played a beta of it.

00:36:46   I think that might be what I'm thinking of is that the beta was last year, but it wasn't out yet.

00:36:50   Well, in that case, I'm gonna just say Ulta's Adventure, I agree with you.

00:36:53   I had my runner up is Pac-Man 256, which I think is great.

00:36:57   And as a child of the eighties, let me say, I think it's the best Pac-Man game ever because

00:37:01   I think Pac-Man games have not been that great ever.

00:37:03   I love Pac-Man 256.

00:37:04   It is fantastic.

00:37:06   It's everything I liked about playing Pac-Man without all the things that I hated about

00:37:10   playing Pac-Man.

00:37:11   So I think it's a really, and it works fairly well with the touch interface, which it doesn't

00:37:16   have to.

00:37:17   probably better with a physical device but it works well with the touch

00:37:22   interface. But I think Alto's Adventure is it. That is a fantastic

00:37:26   game. I love it. Matt Alexander, John Siracusa and David

00:37:30   Sparks all agree with us that Alto's Adventure should be the game of the year.

00:37:34   Stephen Hackett chose Badlands 2, which I've heard great things about, especially

00:37:38   on the Apple TV. Federico chose Oceanhorn, again for its Apple TV support as well.

00:37:43   Oceanhorn is a Zelda-like game and it's available, it's a big Universal game now.

00:37:48   Aline chose Kingdom Rush and Brianna chose Star Wars Galaxies of Heroes, which I have not played,

00:37:53   but Brianna really does like that game.

00:37:55   But for me, Alto's Adventure is absolutely stupendous.

00:38:00   It's one of the very small amount of games that has stayed on my phone this year.

00:38:05   You know, I play lots of games on iOS, but when I'm done with them I usually delete them.

00:38:10   there are a few that get kind of upgraded to live in the folder of games that I keep

00:38:18   on my phone. And after tvOS came out, I actually played, I started over with Alto and played

00:38:25   a bunch of it again. It is absolutely stupendous and is the easy winner for our best iOS game

00:38:33   of 2015.

00:38:34   Yeah, I agree. By acclamation.

00:38:38   So now we move on to favorite movie of the year. This feels like a cop-out because of

00:38:43   the movie that we've both chosen, but it is without a shadow of a doubt the best movie

00:38:49   that I've seen this year and that's Star Wars Force Awakens. We will not spend a lot of

00:38:53   time talking about this, so there will be no spoilers. If you haven't yet and you've

00:38:58   watched the movie, go back and listen to last week's episode of Upgrade where we do a special

00:39:04   Myke at the movies talking about The Falls Awakens.

00:39:06   Yeah, I wanted to, I wanted to, it's also my choice, what other movie have I seen three

00:39:10   times in recent memory?

00:39:12   Yeah, I've seen it twice, and I have one more ticket book for New Year's Day.

00:39:16   You know, my family, I wanted to see it a second time by myself for the podcast, and

00:39:21   then for the Incomparable episode that we did with John Siracusa and Dan Morin and Serenity

00:39:26   Caldwell, which people should listen to. They can also listen to an entire episode of The

00:39:30   The Incomparable hosted by Anthony Johnson that's full of UK people and Dan Morin. There's

00:39:36   an episode hosted by Aline Sims that's full of kind of West Coast people. And there is

00:39:42   an episode who hosted that one. Chip Sutterth hosted the one that's a bunch of East Coast

00:39:48   people. So there are literally four episodes of The Incomparable about The Force Awakens.

00:39:52   People should listen if they're excited about it. What else can I choose? My second place

00:39:56   choice is going to be The Martian, which I really liked and I recommend to people. Good

00:40:02   book, good adaptation, heck of a lot of fun, looks great, beautiful, you know, and so,

00:40:09   and Stephen Hackett and I talked about that in an episode of Liftoff if people want to

00:40:12   hear us talking about The Martian. And our panel of relay hosts was very much in line

00:40:18   with us. Aline, Matt, and David all chose The Force Awakens and Brianna also chose

00:40:28   The Force Awakens. So Stephen Hackett, of course, he's not letting me down, he chose

00:40:32   The Martian. That's a good one. Casey List chose Inside Out, which is an excellent

00:40:37   choice as well. Yep, I don't think Casey's seen Star Wars yet, but I did also really

00:40:41   love Inside Out. And Federico, in a move that I cannot understand, I don't know if

00:40:46   he's being serious chose the Entourage movie. I think he really loved that movie. He really

00:40:53   loved the TV show. But it's very interesting. He did see A New Hope for the first time this

00:40:58   year. Wow. Like a couple of weeks ago he watched A New Hope for the first time. Well, you know,

00:41:04   it's safe to watch the original Star Wars now. The, um, yeah, well, we can't translate.

00:41:11   Some things are lost in translation between Italy and the rest of the world, I guess.

00:41:16   So thanks Federico.

00:41:18   Horse Awakens by Hacklamation.

00:41:21   Now this is one that just me and you voted on, which is our favorite mic at the movies,

00:41:26   which was suggested to us by listener Zach.

00:41:30   For me it's Say Anything.

00:41:32   But I just loved that movie.

00:41:34   I loved it so, so much.

00:41:37   even just to say this is a good Myke at the Movies pic, I was just absolutely taken aback

00:41:46   by how much I loved that movie. And thinking back to it, I just want to go and watch it

00:41:52   again. I can't believe that I haven't already watched it like two times more. I really,

00:41:56   really, really loved that movie.

00:41:58   Well, what I would say is I have really enjoyed Myke at the Movies this year. That's something

00:42:03   that we, again I can't believe it, but we didn't start doing that until this year.

00:42:09   But we've watched a lot of fun movies, I'm looking forward to what movies come to us

00:42:13   in 2016, whether we should stick with our existing sort of dive through the 80s or whether

00:42:18   we should do something different.

00:42:20   We still have 80s movies to go.

00:42:22   There are lots of 80s movies to go.

00:42:23   But it doesn't have to be a decade, it can be a complete new theme.

00:42:26   We need to think about that.

00:42:27   But yeah, Myke in the movies is a, I'm really pleased that we started doing that on this

00:42:31   show and now it's kind of like grown and it's become its own little thing which is awesome.

00:42:37   I really love watching these movies and talking about them with my friends and so I'm really

00:42:42   pleased that we did this. Can we please give say anything? Have you even said what yours

00:42:47   is yet? I know I haven't. I just really won't say anything to win.

00:42:49   No, I so my favorite Myke at the movies was probably Raiders of the Lost Ark because that's

00:42:54   a movie that I dearly love and I cannot believe that you hadn't seen and it was really enjoyable

00:43:00   to sort of walk through that film with somebody who was seeing it with fresh eyes and you

00:43:05   were very excited about it which was exciting but yes this is your category of course you

00:43:09   get to choose the winner.

00:43:10   Say Anything is the best Michael the movies of this year which brings us on to my favorite

00:43:16   category for funny reasons his favorite book.

00:43:18   Yes.

00:43:19   My answer is the only book.

00:43:21   We talked about this last year too where you said I don't read any books so I don't know

00:43:24   I don't have opinions about this.

00:43:26   The only book that I've read this year is Becoming Steve Jobs, so that is my de facto

00:43:30   winner.

00:43:32   Oh, Myke.

00:43:34   It's the best book I've read this year because it's the only book.

00:43:37   It's also the worst book you read this year.

00:43:38   That's a good point, yes.

00:43:39   Because it's the only book you read this year.

00:43:41   All right, I'm going to, uh, my favorite book that I read this year is The Goblin Emperor

00:43:48   by Katherine Addison, I think, is the—it's not a real name.

00:43:51   It's a, it's a pen name.

00:43:54   But it's a love that book. It's a great book. It's a fantasy book. It sounds more fantasy

00:44:00   than it actually is. I talked about it at length on an incomparable episode. It's I

00:44:07   like it a lot and it's the one that has stuck with me the longest. I keep recommending it

00:44:12   to people. Oh, sorry. That right. Well, Sarah Manette is the name. It's Catherine Addison's

00:44:17   the pen name. Sarah Manette's the actual name. So Goblin Emperor. It's it's really a coming

00:44:21   of Age story about a young person who is smart but uneducated and has to learn a lot of things

00:44:28   really quickly. There's some palace intrigue. There's a mysterious zeppelin accident, which,

00:44:34   you know, I love that stuff. But it is not a sort of swords and sorcery, high fantasy

00:44:39   kind of thing. It's actually a very different kind of book, but it does have fantasy trappings,

00:44:43   and I liked it a lot. People should check it out. And my runner-up is Station Eleven

00:44:47   by Emily St. John Mandel. We did an entire episode of "The Incomparable" or half an episode

00:44:52   about, about that, I think, of "The Incomparable." I think we split it with something else. But,

00:44:59   yeah, with "The Peripheral and Slow Apocalypse." So, so it's a sort of, it's, it's half an

00:45:05   episode. Station Eleven is a beautifully written book with a nice setting. I think there are

00:45:12   a lot of great things about it. I think it's probably more acceptable for a mainstream

00:45:16   audience than something like the Goblin Emperor, but it has a lot of problems if you are somebody

00:45:22   who is well versed in sci-fi or apocalypse end of the world stories because it's dumb

00:45:29   about that stuff. Like if you're looking for a like real depiction of what it would be

00:45:33   like in an apocalypse, Station Eleven is not gonna help you because that it's sort of not

00:45:39   the point and the details are kind of just taken off the shelf of generic apocalypse

00:45:44   stories. It's all about the, you know, these kind of interesting characters and interesting

00:45:48   interactions and it's kind of beautifully written and it's nice but there are lots of

00:45:52   things about it that didn't sit well with me, whereas The Goblin Emperor has only increased

00:45:55   in my esteem. So that's the book. You know, last year was I think the Genie in the Golem

00:46:01   and this year The Goblin Emperor is the book that people say, "What's a book I should read?"

00:46:04   which does happen to me every now and then. It's kind of funny. And that's the book. That's

00:46:08   my stock answer. I'm going to have to get a new stock answer next year but right now

00:46:11   Now my stock answer is the Goblin Emperor.

00:46:13   Brianna Wu suggested Fear the Sky, Aline Sims went with The Golem and the Genie, Casey Liss

00:46:18   went with the Scott Harvest series by Brad Thor, and David Sparks chose the Expanse series,

00:46:24   courtesy of The Incomparable.

00:46:25   Jason, I'm going to give this one to you.

00:46:28   Which one would you like to go for?

00:46:29   You want to go for the Goblin Emperor?

00:46:30   Goblin Emperor.

00:46:31   Yes, please, go read The Goblin Emperor.

00:46:33   It's good.

00:46:34   Let's bring some to our favorite gadget of the year.

00:46:36   Now this is a favorite gadget, could be anything at all.

00:46:39   It doesn't have to be Apple. However, both of me and you, spoilers, have gone with an

00:46:44   Apple product.

00:46:45   Well, we have a non-Apple gadget category, which made me kind of lean toward an Apple

00:46:49   gadget for the favorite gadget category.

00:46:52   I went with the Apple Pencil, which is just flat out my favorite piece of technology this

00:46:57   year. I love that thing. I use it all day. I use my iPad Pro a bunch. We'll talk about

00:47:06   at a bit I think. But the Apple Pencil for me has just changed the way that I

00:47:10   like to use iOS. Not only do I spend tons of time in pigment coloring, I use it

00:47:18   just for general UI as well as taking notes. I use the Apple Pencil to navigate

00:47:24   iOS like some people would say a crazy person but I absolutely love it. Without

00:47:29   a shadow of a doubt I think it's one of the most magical things that Apple have

00:47:32   done this year. It really encapsulates a lot of what is great about Apple, even down to

00:47:39   the way that you charge it, which frustrates and people that don't use it think is crazy,

00:47:44   but people that do use it appreciate the fact that you're using the iPad, it tells you it's

00:47:49   got 10% of battery, you pop it in for 30 seconds and you've got a bunch of charge for another

00:47:54   few hours. That's the great thing about it, is you're able to charge it with the device

00:47:58   it's in front of you rather than going to need to find a cable. I genuinely believe

00:48:03   that's the reason they chose to do it this way because when you actually use the product,

00:48:07   that is the best way to charge it. So that is my feeling about the Apple Pencil.

00:48:12   And Aline Sims agreed with you, by the way. She's voting your way. So I thought about

00:48:18   this category, and again, it's challenging because we've got the non-Apple gadget category

00:48:21   that's coming. And the word "gadget" to me also implies something about a piece of technology

00:48:28   is kind of a fun idea and fun to play with and fun to have around and so what

00:48:35   I didn't do is say something like the iPad Pro which I bought one I do like it

00:48:40   a lot but is it a gadget you could make the case but that's that's not I decided

00:48:45   to define gadget a little bit differently and that's why I chose the

00:48:48   Apple watch because I wear my Apple watch every day it and why do I wear it

00:48:52   well it tells the time that's number one it's got some notifications on it that

00:48:56   I find that valuable. And it's fun. It's fun! I find it a fun gadget. It's now--it's replaced

00:49:01   my alarm clock by my bed. I now just put it on a stand and it goes off and wakes me up

00:49:07   in the morning. It's--yeah, it is a gadget. And so I guess there's some implied impracticality

00:49:13   there, and I'm okay with that, because I do--I still enjoy it. I have worn it every single

00:49:18   day that I've had it, and it's a lot of fun. I switch out the watch bands because it's

00:49:22   It's fun, not because it's practical in any way, but because it's fun to have a different

00:49:25   watch band sometimes.

00:49:26   "I'm in the mood for an orange watch band now.

00:49:29   I'm in the mood for the black leather watch band now."

00:49:31   And yeah, it's fun.

00:49:33   So what could be more gadget-y than that?

00:49:36   And Brianna Wu in our panel also went with the Apple Watch, so she's with me.

00:49:40   We each have one supporter on the panel.

00:49:42   Matt>> Casey chose the Apple Lightning Digital AV Adapter.

00:49:46   Okay.

00:49:47   Matt chose his iPhone 6S Plus.

00:49:50   Matt is a plus convert this year.

00:49:53   David Sparks chose the DX01.

00:49:55   - Yeah, he had that at XOXO and it was,

00:49:58   I still have a couple pictures I took with it

00:50:00   and it's a pretty cool idea.

00:50:02   - It's a little camera that you can attach

00:50:05   via lightning to your iPhone and it's, you know,

00:50:08   SLR, I think it's like an SLR quality lens maybe.

00:50:11   - Yeah.

00:50:11   - And it really is absolutely stupendous

00:50:14   and it has some fantastic focusing.

00:50:15   You can do all of that fancy blur stuff.

00:50:18   - And very gadgety.

00:50:19   It's very gadgety and Federico chose the iPad Pro as his favorite gadget of the year.

00:50:25   I really love my Apple Watch.

00:50:28   It was beaten out by the Apple Pencil but the Apple Watch has made a similar impact

00:50:32   on my life.

00:50:33   It is a device that I love dearly.

00:50:35   I use it every day.

00:50:37   It is again, like many Apple things this year, it is not without its foibles and it has some

00:50:42   weird stuff about it.

00:50:45   I don't use this device in the way that I think Apple would love me to use it, right?

00:50:49   Like I don't really use a lot of apps. I mainly use it as a thing that just gives me information

00:50:54   rather than me going to find information.

00:50:55   MATT ROWE, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER,

00:50:56   PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER,

00:50:57   PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER, PRODUCER,

00:50:58   PRODUC

00:50:58   Exactly. But I am more than happy with it for doing just that. So I would love to give

00:51:04   our gadget of the year to the Apple Watch.

00:51:07   Yeah, that sounds about right. It is a gadget. For all that comes with that, it is a gadget.

00:51:13   It is a fun gadget, but it is definitely a gadget.

00:51:17   The best non-Apple gadget of the year, suggested by Justin last year and AJ this year.

00:51:23   Different listeners suggested it both years. I find that funny.

00:51:26   Mine is the Sphero BB-8.

00:51:30   What a fantastic piece of technology this is.

00:51:33   We went and saw The Force Awakens and I came home and went on Amazon just to see if they

00:51:37   had BB-8s in stock, and they do.

00:51:39   They were in short supply at the beginning, but they made a lot of them, and so that was

00:51:44   the last present opened at Christmas this year.

00:51:48   And it is a spectacular little piece of technology.

00:51:52   I mean, the Sphero was already around, and there are other gadgets like this, but the

00:51:56   BB-8 is adorable and cute because of the Star Wars connection.

00:51:59   But it's a great little gadget, and you control it with an iOS device.

00:52:07   And it controls—that's the thing that impressed me the most about it, is the way they've

00:52:10   got the navigation set, it's obviously using the compass in your device, because you can

00:52:18   turn and the orientation of how you control the BB-8 remains correct, which is crazy.

00:52:27   Yeah, it really, everything about it is fantastic and the fact that they're able to build so

00:52:32   much personality and life into the device is crazy to me that they are able to manage

00:52:36   it. I have no idea how they did it. It is really one of those things, it is like a marvel

00:52:43   of technology. I love the BB-8 and I bought it as soon as it came out, so months ago,

00:52:49   and I still turn it on relatively frequently and just drive that thing around. Like if

00:52:53   I'm struggling with something, I'm trying to think for a little problem or something,

00:52:57   I'll just pick up the BB-8, put him down, drive him around for a while, and it just

00:53:00   helps me kind of think through some stuff. I really, really love that thing.

00:53:05   My cat and dog don't know quite what to make of him.

00:53:08   I'm not surprised.

00:53:09   amuses me and I'm gonna write a piece about this later, maybe even later today. It's programmable.

00:53:15   There's an app on iOS that will let you program it. And it's very much in the metaphor that

00:53:24   they teach a lot of kids basic ideas about programming, like Scratch. And I think that's

00:53:29   pretty cool. So I'm gonna show that to my son and I'm hoping that we'll spend some time

00:53:33   doing some programming of BB-8 too.

00:53:35   Yeah, the app is called Tickle if you're looking to find it. I'll put a link in the show notes

00:53:39   to it. Yeah, it's pretty, uh, pretty cool. James Thompson turned me on to that. So, so

00:53:43   my gadget of the year nomination is, uh, something that I've mentioned on, uh, I mentioned on

00:53:50   Clockwise on the last episode of the year of Clockwise. It's the Breville One Touch

00:53:55   Tea Maker. Uh, I drink, I drink a lot of tea. My wife and I both are tea drinkers. We're

00:54:02   not coffee drinkers.

00:54:03   And the Breville one-touch team maker is a gadget that I have been looking at.

00:54:07   It's been in my Amazon cart for years, and I finally bought one this year.

00:54:12   It's not cheap, but it is, it is a kettle that's got a basket attachment and you

00:54:20   can basically put water in and, and a loose tea in the basket and set it to go

00:54:27   in the morning and, and then go to bed.

00:54:31   And then you wake up and your tea is ready, which is pretty awesome.

00:54:35   I have to say.

00:54:36   And it, it boils the water, drops the tea in let's, let's it steep, lifts the tea

00:54:41   back out and then keeps it warm.

00:54:43   And, uh, it is a gadget.

00:54:45   Definitely.

00:54:47   It's I can make tea the old fashioned way with just a kettle and a

00:54:51   teapot and a strainer.

00:54:52   I can do that, but, um, I kind of love this gadget so that, so I finally bought

00:54:59   it. And then the big surprise on Clockwise was that as a thank you for his support of

00:55:05   Six Colors this year, Dan Morin and I both were the ones who were obsessed with this

00:55:10   gadget. I bought him this gadget as his holiday thank you for Six Colors and told him about

00:55:16   it on the podcast.

00:55:17   That was a great podcasting moment.

00:55:19   That was a fun little moment. So that's my choice for best non-Apple gadget. It's a pretty

00:55:26   gadgety gadget, but I love it.

00:55:29   our panel say Myke? Brianna went with the new 3ds and so did Federico. I think that

00:55:34   the new 3ds is really awesome. I'm a big fan of that. Aline went with something called

00:55:38   the sugar cube which I had to look up. It's a kind of it's a wireless speaker that works

00:55:42   with Spotify which looks pretty cool and it has some nice kind of gestures that are built

00:55:47   into it to help you control your music. Casey went with the Amazon fire tv stick and Matt

00:55:52   went with the raspberry pi zero which I would not have expected but that was what he went

00:55:57   with. So I'm struggling with this one because I know that BB8 appears a little bit later

00:56:04   on in our suggestions here. If I was going to go with a second choice, mine would be

00:56:10   the new 3DS.

00:56:12   Um, yeah, let's see. I, uh...

00:56:17   I know that you're not going to go with that because you've probably never even tried one.

00:56:20   No, no, and I'm a 3DS, I'm a Nintendo DS skeptic too. I'm one of those people.

00:56:27   Don't be skeptical about it, it's the second best selling game console of all time, so...

00:56:33   Yep, whatever, whatever dude, it's dumb. The Fire TV stick is actually a good thing, that

00:56:42   was my secret santa on that last episode of Clockwise too. I don't know, I'm fine with

00:56:50   us the BB8, we should give it to the BB8. I feel like that's the right choice.

00:56:55   BB8 is the winner, definitely. Good choice. So now we're gonna go with the worst gadget

00:57:01   or most disappointing technology of the year. I'm gonna take this in a slightly different

00:57:05   direction by picking one of my favorite things of this year.

00:57:09   Interesting move.

00:57:10   Yep, it's the Logitech MX Master mouse. This was the mouse that I spoke about across every

00:57:15   single show that I'm a part of for like two weeks. It is absolutely fantastic. My

00:57:20   disappointment in lies in what it did to my hand. I think the MX Master is completely

00:57:26   at fault for giving me some pretty severe RSI issues this year and that was really my

00:57:32   own doing. The mouse has some buttons that you can program and I kind of over-programmed

00:57:38   them to do a bunch of crazy things and I was contorting and twisting my hand into stupid

00:57:42   positions so I really shouldn't have set it up the way that I did and it was my own

00:57:47   fault I started to feel the pain but continued to go with it anyway because I

00:57:51   loved it so much so I'm mainly disappointed that I cannot use it I'm

00:57:54   hoping in 2016 I'll be able to bring it back into my rotation because the

00:58:00   problems that I was having have pretty much all cleared up and just be a little

00:58:03   bit more sensible about how I program the buttons on the MX master mouse but

00:58:09   but it really is fantastic.

00:58:11   But it did very disappointing to me because I broke myself.

00:58:16   - So my vote is very specific.

00:58:20   It's, so I have been a long time fan of small laptops

00:58:25   and MacBook Air users since the beginning.

00:58:27   I have an 11 inch MacBook Air and I love it.

00:58:29   I've always wanted a retina MacBook Air.

00:58:32   And this year Apple gave us the MacBook

00:58:34   or you would call it the MacBook One, which Marco does.

00:58:38   It's actually not a bad name.

00:58:39   They could totally have called it that.

00:58:42   And it's small and thin and light

00:58:44   and has good battery life

00:58:45   and has a beautiful retina screen.

00:58:47   It's got the crazy new track pad that doesn't actually move,

00:58:50   but it vibrates to make it feel like it moves, all good.

00:58:53   And then it's got a keyboard with very little travel.

00:58:56   And there are people who will defend that keyboard

00:58:58   and bless them, everybody is different,

00:59:00   everybody's preferences are different.

00:59:02   But for me, the most disappointing thing

00:59:04   in technology this year in terms of products

00:59:08   was the keyboard on the MacBook one,

00:59:09   because that's the thing that basically made me say,

00:59:13   I can't use this product.

00:59:14   It's everything else about it I like,

00:59:17   and I don't like the keyboard.

00:59:18   I think it's a bad keyboard.

00:59:19   I think it just, I don't know,

00:59:23   it, the lack of travel, the way it feels,

00:59:25   it just, you can type on it, but it's unpleasant.

00:59:28   And in the end, for me, I just looked at that and said,

00:59:31   I'm not gonna buy this computer.

00:59:33   I can't buy this computer.

00:59:35   You know, Apple, it's not the single port.

00:59:37   you know none of the other things about it are our deal breakers for me but the

00:59:42   keyboard is and that made me disappointed so the MacBook one keyboard

00:59:45   is my disappointment of the year both Brianna and Aline went with Apple music

00:59:50   Casey went with the Apple watch even though he likes his which I don't

00:59:55   understand interesting Matt went with the tile which is this little device that

01:00:01   helps you find things. I assume Matt lost something after using the tile. David Sparks

01:00:08   went with the coin, which was that Kickstarter credit card thing. It took him so long to

01:00:13   deliver that when it finally showed up it wouldn't work with his new chip-based cards.

01:00:17   And Federico went with the Wything's home camera.

01:00:20   What are you thinking?

01:00:24   Well I mean, I think mine because that's me.

01:00:31   So this is the thing, I know why people are upset about Apple Music, I can see that, but

01:00:35   for me I've really enjoyed using it, I mean it's fine, I have no problem with it, I know

01:00:40   that a lot of people have but I can't give Apple Music the most disappointing or worst

01:00:45   thing of the year because it hasn't been for me, I've actually really liked it.

01:00:50   So I mean I don't really have skin in the game of the MacBook One keyboard because I

01:00:55   I know I could use it fine because I am more than happy using the one on the smart cover

01:01:01   of the iPad Pro.

01:01:02   I kind of like that one better than the MacBook One maybe because of my diminished expectations.

01:01:07   I'm like yeah.

01:01:08   Well I think you know what you're getting right?

01:01:10   This is a case where I'm learning a laptop.

01:01:12   And I know people that use the MacBook One keyboard like Brianna's a big fan of the whole

01:01:16   device even though I think something broke on her keyboard.

01:01:19   So let's go with the MacBook One keyboard.

01:01:22   Okay there it is.

01:01:23   Even the staunchest defender of the MacBook One keyboard had problems with the keyboard.

01:01:29   So yeah.

01:01:31   And I'll point out also that when Apple came out with its new external Magic Keyboard,

01:01:36   it isn't using that keyboard design.

01:01:38   It's using a different keyboard design.

01:01:40   They made some compromises.

01:01:42   They made some compromises for the device.

01:01:43   They did.

01:01:44   Yeah.

01:01:45   I like everything else about that product.

01:01:46   Just not that.

01:01:47   Our favorite tech story of the year, suggested by @Oztamir, is sponsored by TextExpander

01:01:53   from smile. If you ever type the same sentences, phrases or even words on a regular basis,

01:01:58   then TextExpander is for you. It is an app that you need because it's going to save you time and

01:02:03   effort by expanding short abbreviations into frequently used text and even pictures. Now I

01:02:08   want to just be a little bit different this time. I'm going to open my TextExpander preferences right

01:02:12   now, Jason, because I want to find out just how much time TextExpander has saved me over the years.

01:02:19   So I have used TextExpander. I have expanded 9,266 abbreviations. It saved me 277,679 characters

01:02:33   and 15.43 hours over my time of using TextExpander. It's a lot of time.

01:02:41   It is. Not only will TextExpander save you those 15 hours that it saved me and many, many more,

01:02:48   It's also an app that will help improve your communication. You can make sure that you're

01:02:52   standardizing stuff. If you send out emails that you want to be the same to people, right,

01:02:55   for consistency, maybe you do something like what I do, you know, I send lots of different things

01:03:00   out to different people and I want to make sure that when I'm sending certain pieces of

01:03:04   information to people that it's presented to them in a certain way so it makes everything nice and

01:03:08   clean and clear, especially with the amount of spelling mistakes that I make just in my

01:03:12   general communication. You can use TextExpander to program all of this stuff and you can even

01:03:16   customized these stock entries by adding fill-in fields as well so you can you

01:03:20   know put people's names in there you can put in the applicable information for

01:03:23   them I really love all of that stuff talking about spelling mistakes I have

01:03:27   some things that I frequently misspell I have them in TextExpander so they get

01:03:32   changed automatically for me even things like you know when you get like some

01:03:36   company names or brand names that have capital letters in the middle of the

01:03:39   words right like camel cases like that I have things like that with I have them

01:03:44   change over in Texas Panda for me too you can sync all of your snippets among

01:03:47   your devices by storing them in iCloud Drive or Dropbox you can access them

01:03:52   everywhere and you can use their iOS custom keyboard that comes with Texas

01:03:55   Panda for iOS to use your snippets in any app but many apps integrate them

01:03:59   apps like on the outliner only focus launch center Pro and many many more

01:04:03   Texas Panda 5 which comes with a new look and feel costs $44.95 US upgrades

01:04:10   are available for $19.95 for existing users and it's free to those who purchase Texas

01:04:15   Panda on or after January 1st 2015. You can find out more about Texas Panda 5 by visiting

01:04:21   Smilesoftware.com/upgrade. Please note Texas Panda 5 requires Yosemite and is ready for

01:04:27   El Capitan and Texas Panda for iOS is available in the App Store for iPhone and iPad. Thank

01:04:32   you so much to Smile for their continued support of this show and for sponsoring the favourite

01:04:38   Tech Story of the Year in the 2015 Upgradey Awards.

01:04:43   My pick for my favourite tech story this year is Jack Dorsey returning to Twitter.

01:04:48   It was one of my favourite things that me and you have spoken about over the year as

01:04:52   well.

01:04:53   It was just a really interesting story, right?

01:04:57   It mirrored the Steve Jobs story a little bit and we all love Twitter and hope that

01:05:02   they're going to take it somewhere and really kickstart the app again and the service and

01:05:06   really kind of take it in new directions. So for me, Dorsey returning to Twitter was

01:05:11   a really nice story. I liked that a lot.

01:05:13   Yeah, we did talk about that a lot. And I think that's a, I think that's an interesting

01:05:17   story. And we'll see how it plays out. Twitter is doing some things, but they like did their

01:05:19   moments thing, which seems nobody seems to like. And I, and, um, I always meant to write

01:05:26   about it and I never did. Cause I feel like sometimes Twitter, Twitter's not trying to

01:05:30   reach people like us who are more technical and more critical at the same time. I look

01:05:35   of what the moment's feature is and think it's a missed opportunity, that they did the

01:05:41   right, they were in the right direction with the wrong thing. And so it remains to be seen

01:05:48   whether they're actually going to be able to execute. I feel like they may be a little

01:05:51   more aware of what their opportunities are, but I'm not sure that they're actually executing

01:05:56   properly. So we'll see. But it was an interesting story and I feel like that was a rudderless

01:06:01   company that maybe has a rudder now they just need to just move the boat in the right direction.

01:06:07   My vote is going to be Federico Vittucci's iPad Pro review, which, you know, that guy,

01:06:14   he's been writing about the iPad an awful lot and using the iPad an awful lot and for

01:06:18   him to get not just to write his usual in-depth voluminous impressive review but to have it

01:06:27   be an embargo review because he got on Apple's embargo list for the first time. That was

01:06:33   a little extra bonus but I thought that was a really great review and a perspective that

01:06:37   I really wanted to see and was looking forward to seeing about that product.

01:06:43   Brianna went with the Ashley Madison scenario. That was a very entertaining story to read

01:06:48   about. I actually quite enjoyed reading about some crazy stuff that was happening after

01:06:53   So many layers of terribleness in that story.

01:06:58   So it made it like great popcorn.

01:07:01   Aline went with Taylor Swift demanding to be paid for Apple Music streaming.

01:07:04   That's a great story.

01:07:06   Matt went with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos' competition for space.

01:07:11   And John Siracusa obviously picked the Swift open source project.

01:07:15   So I am torn on this one after looking at this.

01:07:18   I love my story but I don't think it's the best.

01:07:21   I think that the Taylor Swift scenario was really good.

01:07:24   It was actually a very interesting multi-layered story.

01:07:29   Kind of really showed a difference

01:07:32   in the music entertainment world

01:07:33   and the world that Apple was going to.

01:07:35   But my heart really pours for Federico.

01:07:38   Because it meant a lot to him and it meant a lot to me

01:07:42   because it meant a lot to him.

01:07:44   So I kind of guess my feeling is between those two

01:07:47   'cause I didn't think of either of those

01:07:49   when thinking of my option.

01:07:53   -I think we're gonna just go with the home field pick

01:07:58   and pick Federico's pick, Federico's review.

01:08:02   -Yeah, that was something that he deserved so much,

01:08:04   and I'm so pleased that he got it.

01:08:06   -He gets an upgrade. Yay!

01:08:07   His lifelong dream.

01:08:10   Oh, you made the iPad Pro embargo.

01:08:12   Well, that, too.

01:08:14   Matt, by the way, suggested, perhaps,

01:08:16   that Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos

01:08:18   were competing over which one of their rockets was bigger.

01:08:22   Mm-hmm. I edited Matt as I do so often.

01:08:25   Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, it's required.

01:08:28   Favorite tech screw-up of the year.

01:08:30   [ Laughs ]

01:08:32   Mine was the BlackBerry CEO attempting to demo the Prive.

01:08:36   Have you seen that video?

01:08:37   Oh, yeah. He's completely unprepared.

01:08:40   Yeah. Yeah, it's stupendous.

01:08:44   You just go and watch a video.

01:08:45   I won't spoil it. You have to see it.

01:08:48   What was yours?

01:08:49   - So the Microsoft Surface is the official tablet

01:08:54   of the NFL and they changed the rules this year

01:08:58   so that the Surface was available on the sidelines.

01:09:01   It used to be only up in the booth,

01:09:03   no technology on the sidelines.

01:09:04   They would actually print out pictures.

01:09:06   It was legal to take pictures of what happened on the field

01:09:10   and print them out and show those to players,

01:09:14   but they couldn't like watch video

01:09:15   or anything on the sidelines.

01:09:16   And they changed the rules this year.

01:09:18   I think actually during the season to allow technology to be on the field of these specific

01:09:23   things. They don't want it to be like a whole technology war. They want everybody's technology

01:09:27   to be the same, but they wanted to do this. So the NFL puts the official tablet of the

01:09:32   NFL, the Microsoft Surface, on the sideline, which has led to some hilarious instances

01:09:37   of angry athletes, mostly quarterbacks, chucking the tablet while the TV cameras are on. It's

01:09:45   happened more than once, but my favorite one, I think the definitive one, is when Aaron

01:09:49   Rogers of the Green Bay Packers, former Cal Bear, woo, go Bears, chucked his surface and

01:09:56   basically wrecked it because he was mad because he threw an interception. And it's just like,

01:10:01   I love that, great job Microsoft, lots of famous athletes are now destroying your product.

01:10:06   Way to go.

01:10:07   I just watched the video, I'd never seen it, and that is so funny, it's just like,

01:10:12   Get this thing away from me.

01:10:13   - He is disgusted by his Surface.

01:10:17   'Cause he's watching a receiver that is open,

01:10:21   he blew it and he didn't throw it at them

01:10:22   and they didn't get the touchdown.

01:10:24   But still, it's a...

01:10:26   Yeah, I have some questions about that whole thing.

01:10:29   It's the official tablet, so everybody's forced to use it.

01:10:35   Even if they use iPads or something else elsewhere,

01:10:38   they've got to use that, anything that's visible.

01:10:40   and then what you get is the visibility of people demolishing it.

01:10:43   So, yeah, that's pretty good.

01:10:45   - Brianna picked Apple Music for her favorite text group.

01:10:51   Aline went with Jimmy Iovine,

01:10:54   saying that women needed help finding music,

01:10:57   which was like this ad that they created,

01:10:58   which is just real foot-in-the-mouth type stuff.

01:11:03   We have Casey picked the Mac App Store certificate problem.

01:11:07   Matt chose... - It's a good one.

01:11:08   - Yeah, another good one is Matt chose

01:11:10   the Time Magazine VR cover where they picked that crazy photo of the guy on the beach and

01:11:17   David Sparks went with Apple Music as well and added that after a pretty good job with

01:11:21   photos how did they screw up music for so many users. I don't know where to go with

01:11:25   this one. Because again, even though I like music I can say how it was screwed up for

01:11:35   a lot of people.

01:11:36   - Yeah, I feel like the Mac App Store is a great one.

01:11:39   I think maybe coming in from the side there,

01:11:41   Casey Liss's nomination should be the winner.

01:11:43   'Cause that's a really good one.

01:11:45   That was a screw up.

01:11:46   That's a best kind of screw up

01:11:47   because it's a screw up that leads to a bigger story, right?

01:11:52   It's a screw up that reinforces suspicions

01:11:58   about a product or service not being given attention.

01:12:02   And it makes it clear that that's the case.

01:12:04   It's sort of like, no, no, no, no, no, we care about it.

01:12:07   We really care about it.

01:12:08   We really care about it.

01:12:08   And then the screw up happens and you're like, aha, see proof

01:12:12   that you don't care about it.

01:12:13   And that's, we've all been feeling like the Mac app store is kind of,

01:12:16   you know, just, uh, rotting.

01:12:19   I think John Gruber said, and, uh, this was a perfect example of that

01:12:23   where they, they just, you know, they screwed it up, they blew it.

01:12:26   And, you know, everybody makes mistakes, but this felt like a colossal mistake

01:12:30   that was made because there was nobody minding the store, literally.

01:12:34   So I'm happy with that. Mac App Store certificates as our favorite tech screw up of 2015.

01:12:41   Now we go to the favorite non-tech podcast of the year suggested by Nodotus. This was

01:12:48   last year and they also said not cereal.

01:12:51   Not cereal, yeah.

01:12:53   Now this one last year was the one of the biggest contention for me and you.

01:12:57   Indeed.

01:12:58   This was, I chose Hello Internet and you chose the Flop House.

01:13:02   And I don't know if we chose a winner, but if we did it was purely because just why not

01:13:07   and we both pledged to go away and listen to each other's shows, which has brought me

01:13:12   to now say that my favorite non-tech podcast of the year is The Flop House.

01:13:18   I love The Flop House so, so much.

01:13:22   I'm raising my hands in victory here.

01:13:26   There was no way I couldn't pick it.

01:13:27   It's easily my favorite.

01:13:29   I think it may just be my favorite podcast flat out now.

01:13:34   And I just absolutely love that show so much.

01:13:40   It's one of those shows I listen to one episode, like a new episode that comes out, then I

01:13:43   go and listen to an old one because I just can't just have one.

01:13:46   And I haven't gone through the whole back-catalog yet, but I'm kind of just I'm still in the

01:13:50   picking out old episodes phase, but I absolutely love the Flop House.

01:13:56   So now the perfect O'Henry ending here would be that I have now listened to Hello Internet

01:14:00   and made it my vote, and I have listened to Hello Internet and I like it. It's a good

01:14:05   podcast. But my vote is still the flophouse, so now we're unanimous.

01:14:09   So should we go to our other suggestions anyway, even though I think it's pretty clear what

01:14:15   we're going to give the milk-

01:14:16   Yeah, I think the unanimous flophouse, and I'm pretty sure even though he didn't vote

01:14:19   here that John Siracusa would agree with us, he was actually—he had his letter read on

01:14:23   the later version not the first time that he's had a letter read on the on

01:14:26   the fly pass the so Aline and Casey both pick reconcilable differences I have

01:14:35   that in a in a later yeah Matt picked Roderick on the line always a good pick

01:14:43   and David Sparks picked Rebel Force Radio which I assume is a Star Wars

01:14:48   podcast. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's what's just I don't think he's actually rebelling

01:14:53   against anything other than the Empire. Yeah, it's a Star Wars podcast. So we're gonna go

01:14:58   with the Flop House because Flop House just because yeah favorite tech podcast of the

01:15:03   year suggested by Gary. I'm gonna continue my pick from last year and go with ATP again

01:15:10   flat out just is my favorite tech podcast. You go with the same. I agree. I agree. That

01:15:16   is that is the one that I make a point of listening to every week that I'm not on. And

01:15:21   I will I will put a second place mention in for Cortex, the podcast that you do with CGP

01:15:26   Gray, which is, you know, what is it? What is it about? It's about lots of things, but

01:15:31   it does feel like it does. It does feel techie enough for me to call it that. But I feel

01:15:36   like it's not just a, you know, what we think of as a tech podcast. It's about some other

01:15:41   things, but I want to throw it in there. I don't I don't listen to every episode because

01:15:45   I have too many podcasts and I don't commute anymore, but it's definitely one of my priorities.

01:15:49   Yeah, Cortex isn't necessarily a technology podcast, but what it is is me and Gray mainly

01:15:54   talking about how we work, and we both work in technology, so it kind of becomes that.

01:15:59   Federico agrees with your second place pick, he's gone for Cortex.

01:16:03   Aline agrees with both me and you and have picked ATP.

01:16:06   Casey would like to pick ATP but won't have upgraded instead.

01:16:12   move that is a that is a grandmaster chess move there Casey list good job

01:16:16   David chose the incomparable because I don't think he knows what technology is

01:16:20   and Matt went with David and that went with the talk show yeah all good choices

01:16:27   but ATP ATP wins again it's second year in a row it's still there for me

01:16:34   congratulations behind though I'm like a couple episodes behind now it's painful

01:16:37   one of the shows that I never never go behind on because I love it so much I

01:16:42   I tried but I got I got I got yeah I had a couple weeks where I just didn't

01:16:46   listen to podcasts and it was a problem so I got to get caught up.

01:16:49   Our favorite podcast newcomer of the year I have picked Reconcilable Differences for this I know

01:16:59   that it is a show on our network I also am part of the show I edit the show

01:17:05   right so I have a stake in it but I love Reconcilable Differences I'm so happy

01:17:11   happy that it exists. I'm extra happy that it gets to call relay FM its home. John and

01:17:17   Merlin together, it's like one of those like match matches made in heaven. It was like

01:17:20   a one-two pairing type scenario, I think for many people. And yeah, absolutely love that

01:17:27   show. Couldn't speak highly enough of it.

01:17:30   Well, you hear the concept and you think, "Oh, that's going to be good." But then it

01:17:33   actually is good. Like it actually is good. It is a good podcast and enjoyable. And those

01:17:39   guys combining the ways that they do are fascinating. It was my runner up pick. I'm happy for it

01:17:45   to be the winner here. Actually, the one that I've liked the most, and this again, picking

01:17:50   something that's on your own network, I really enjoyed. So Lisa Schmeiser, Tony Sindelar,

01:17:55   and Philip Mosilak do a recap of the Flash, the TV series on the Incomparable Network

01:18:01   and the TV feed called the Flash Flashcast. I really enjoy it. They have amusing, I like

01:18:05   how it's structured. It's fun to have a podcast on your network that you have nothing to do

01:18:09   with and you listen to it and you think, "Oh, this is really good. They have some good ideas

01:18:13   here. They've done things I should steal for the things that I do." I love that. And I

01:18:18   like that show, The Flash, and I like that they have their different categories and they

01:18:22   have the My Three Dads and I'm Not a Scientifician But...and things like that. And they're all

01:18:29   very different and funny personalities too. So that was a real find for me on my own network.

01:18:35   But Rectifs is, that should be the winner.

01:18:38   That's totally, should be the winner.

01:18:40   - Our other suggestions,

01:18:41   Aline chose a show called Design Life.fm.

01:18:44   Casey went with Reconcilable Differences

01:18:46   and also a show called Built in Motion.

01:18:49   Matt went for Defocused because it's new to the incomparable.

01:18:52   Which is a good way of squeezing that one in there.

01:18:55   And Federico chose Cortex again.

01:18:58   Thank you Federico.

01:18:58   But we will go Reconcilable Differences

01:19:01   and we'll also pull in the votes from Aline and Casey

01:19:04   the favorite Nuntec podcast to crown reconcilable differences, the upgradey winner for the best

01:19:09   podcast newcomer of this year. We have a couple of new categories to round out today's upgradeys.

01:19:20   The first one comes from Dan again, who picked the favorite Nuntec podcast last year,

01:19:26   and it is our best holiday gift. And it's unclear whether this is the best gift that we gave or

01:19:32   receive or just a thing that would be a good holiday gift? So take it as you will.

01:19:37   I went with my favorite holiday gift, which is a selection of gifts. I got some cocktail

01:19:41   making tools from my family and from my girlfriend this year. I enjoy making cocktails for myself,

01:19:48   and I want to start making cocktails for other people as well. It's just something that I like.

01:19:53   I have, you know, maybe one or so a week. You took that class?

01:19:57   I took a class, yes. I took a class, and that was where it all started. That was a birthday gift.

01:20:01   gift, and so I took a class in cocktail making, and now I have the tools to make good cocktails.

01:20:07   Well, the best holiday gift I think we got this year was the BB-8. There's no doubt about

01:20:12   it. I will put a shout out to, I think, a good gift that I've recommended to people

01:20:18   in the past for the last couple of years. For $69, you get a year's subscription to

01:20:23   Marvel Unlimited if you're a comic book reader and like Marvel Comics. It's a great deal

01:20:29   because comic books are kind of expensive.

01:20:31   And with Marvel Unlimited,

01:20:33   you're not getting the latest issues,

01:20:34   but they're about six months delayed,

01:20:36   but it's this huge catalog of tens of thousands

01:20:39   of old comics and recent comics.

01:20:42   And I, you know, in one reading binge,

01:20:45   I can read $69 worth of comics.

01:20:49   So it's totally worth it because it means

01:20:51   that I'm not buying, I don't buy old Marvel comics.

01:20:54   I only buy, I buy some new ones,

01:20:55   but I don't buy the old ones

01:20:56   because they're all on Marvel Unlimited.

01:20:58   and it has been, I think I've been a subscriber

01:21:00   since the very beginning with that one

01:21:01   and it's great, or since it came to the iPad, I guess.

01:21:05   And I really like it and on iPad Pro,

01:21:08   a comic reading is even more awesome.

01:21:10   So I think that's a recommendation just to throw out there

01:21:13   as a gift for people, anytime.

01:21:15   - Aline chose the BB-8.

01:21:17   - BB-8, yeah.

01:21:18   - Casey went with the iPad Mini 4,

01:21:20   which was his favorite gift.

01:21:21   And he also got a foot card against subscription for Aaron,

01:21:25   his wife, who loved that.

01:21:27   Keep watching the socks.

01:21:29   - Matt chose Mojave slippers.

01:21:31   I have no idea, who knows?

01:21:32   - It's Matt, whatever.

01:21:33   - And Federico chose Beats.

01:21:36   I love Federico, man, he loves Beats, he owns Beats.

01:21:39   I'm happy that he loves them, he should,

01:21:41   because they seem cool.

01:21:42   I got some cool Sennheiser Bluetooth headphones this year,

01:21:46   which I'm very happy with.

01:21:47   I'm gonna make an unprecedented suggestion here.

01:21:51   - Yes?

01:21:52   - That we give BB8 the winner of this category as well.

01:21:53   - Yeah, sure.

01:21:55   - That will make it the first,

01:21:56   think the first time this has ever happened that one thing has won two upgradeys. I mean,

01:22:01   it wouldn't be difficult because this is the second time it's happened, but nevertheless,

01:22:05   I think that it is the best little gift that you could get someone this year. It was your

01:22:11   favorite holiday gift as well. We got two BB8s because Jamie got a BB8 pillow. BB8 is

01:22:18   it, right? BB8 is the winner of everything right now. And our last upgradey this year,

01:22:24   suggested by Todd is for the hardware that has changed our lives the most this year.

01:22:32   This is a really, the winner of this category is obvious, having looked at the document,

01:22:37   and it's very, very interesting. I want to start this time by reading the suggestions

01:22:41   from our illustrious panel. Brianna went with the Apple Watch, so did Matt, and Casey, who

01:22:48   also said that it was his most disappointing technology. So I'm 100% sure of Casey right

01:22:54   now. I can see that I almost said that Apple Watch was both my favorite gadget and the

01:22:59   most disappointing because my expectations were high and I feel like it's still got a

01:23:03   lot more it needs to do. Yeah I bet that's exactly where Casey's coming from as well

01:23:06   that makes sense. I support Casey in this that I think it is a complicated product that

01:23:11   has a lot of things that I love about it and a lot of things that I'm disappointed that

01:23:14   it doesn't do. And then we have from Federico, Aline and Steven along with me and you the

01:23:22   the iPad Pro. Yeah, I had the Apple Watch as my runner-up because it has changed my

01:23:27   life. It's gotten me to be more active. I think that's the biggest way that it's changed

01:23:31   my life, but the iPad Pro, buying it, you know, I'm using it more and basically my MacBook

01:23:37   Air never gets used now. And I love that product and I'm surprised that I love it as much as

01:23:44   I do and it's pretty great. So that I'm with Aline, Steven and Federico and you on that

01:23:50   one yeah it's fantastic I love my iPad Pro I really really do it is the device

01:23:56   that I want to use the most it is an absolutely fantastic product I didn't

01:24:02   think I was gonna love it as much as I do Apple have stumbled in my opinion

01:24:06   into a winner I don't know if anybody expected it to be as good as it is and

01:24:15   looking at you know the shipping stuff that they've still got on the accessories

01:24:19   I don't think Apple did either. Pencils are still four to five weeks. So yeah, it is a

01:24:25   fantastic product. When paired with the keyboard and the pencil, it's changed my game completely.

01:24:32   So that brings us to the end of the upgrade, Jason.

01:24:36   That's it?

01:24:37   That is it! It's been a fantastic upgrade. I'm very happy that we had the help and suggestions

01:24:44   from our illustrious panel, so thank you so much to them for helping us out today.

01:24:49   Thank you so much to everyone that suggested categories last year and this year. I'm already

01:24:55   very excited for the 2016 upgradees. Do you ever stop being excited about the upgradees?

01:25:02   No, it's easily one of my favorite podcasts that I do in the year. It's this one episode

01:25:07   of this show. I love giving awards to things. And you mentioned the eddies earlier. It is

01:25:14   so important to me that one day people recognize the upgradees as they did the Eddies. Like

01:25:21   last time, and I'm going to do this again, we've had artwork made of his little badges

01:25:25   made. I'm going to send them out to all the winners. All I want is just to see them appear

01:25:29   somewhere, you know, that they put someone, whether it's a badge of honor on their website.

01:25:34   One day we'll get there, Jason.

01:25:36   Well, I know that since there's a relay FM podcast that won an upgradee, perhaps you

01:25:43   could just stick that on the rectiffs page and see if anybody notices if John

01:25:48   and Marlene are happy for me to do it then it like will be added better better

01:25:53   to beg forgiveness than ask permission I say we now have our first award-winning

01:25:58   show yeah at long last it feels good doesn't it it does feels great it's

01:26:04   absolutely great I wish I was not away from you I wish I won an award even if

01:26:08   it was an upgrade II can I kind of win the upgrade II for the best British

01:26:12   upgrade host? Yeah, no. Maybe next year. On that, thank you so much for listening. Thanks

01:26:19   again to our sponsors Hover and Smile for making the upgrades of 2015 possible. We'll

01:26:25   be back next week with a regular episode of Upgrade. Have a fantastic new year and we'll

01:26:30   see you again in 2016. Until then, say goodbye Jason Snell. Happy New Year to everybody,

01:26:36   including you Myke. Happy New Year. And to you Jason.

01:26:39   [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:26:42   [ Music ]