Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode 33.

00:00:15 ◼   ► Upgrade this week is brought to you by three lovely sponsors, Igloo, an internet you'll

00:00:19 ◼   ► actually like, MailRoute, a secure, hosted email service for protection from viruses

00:00:24 ◼   ► and spam, and GoToMeeting, the best tool to meet from anywhere without travel expenses

00:00:29 ◼   ► or hassle of traffic. I'm Jason I'm not Myke. What? Oh my god. What happened to

00:00:35 ◼   ► your accent? Myke, Myke you've been in America too long. Four days you've gotten

00:00:38 ◼   ► you've gotten a totally different accent. Yeah so I'm Steven. Hi Jason. Hi. So Myke

00:00:45 ◼   ► is in, Myke is in America he's not with me but he's also not with you. Yeah that

00:00:50 ◼   ► makes me sad. This is very it's a very confusing time in the relay universe. I

00:00:55 ◼   ► don't know much about comic books but I think at some point comic books there's

00:00:58 ◼   ► multiple universes and that's kind of how relay feels like the last two weeks

00:01:01 ◼   ► yeah yeah this is we were what is it the the flophouse and a bunch of other shows

00:01:10 ◼   ► that are on that maximum fun network they were talking about how they want to

00:01:13 ◼   ► do a they want to do a fun drive thing that is the crossover week where they

00:01:19 ◼   ► switch all the hosts around and I figure we just did that by accident on relay

00:01:23 ◼   ► All the hosts are on different shows and because Myke was traveling

00:01:26 ◼   ► In in he had his vacation and he went to Ireland and now he's in Atlanta

00:01:31 ◼   ► And so we've had guest hosts and you've been popping up everywhere you were on with Casey now

00:01:35 ◼   ► You're on with me and I know people are feeling like unsettled out there. I think

00:01:40 ◼   ► Starting next week. Everything will be back to normal. I think so. This is the I think actually today

00:01:45 ◼   ► I think today's the last day cuz Myke flies home

00:01:47 ◼   ► Those listeners of clockwise will find that I'm not gonna be on clockwise this week

00:01:52 ◼   ► But after that, Dan and I will be back together too.

00:01:54 ◼   ► So soon.

00:01:55 ◼   ► So soon.

00:01:56 ◼   ► I know.

00:01:57 ◼   ► I know.

00:01:58 ◼   ► I have John Siracusa's yard crew outside my house.

00:02:00 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:02:01 ◼   ► Outside my neighbor's house.

00:02:02 ◼   ► Like a lawnmower, like a blower.

00:02:04 ◼   ► Yeah, he's on a leaf blower right now.

00:02:06 ◼   ► That is classic hypercritical, by the way.

00:02:09 ◼   ► That is a old-school hypercritical, the John Siracusa complaining about the lawn guy.

00:02:14 ◼   ► It is.

00:02:15 ◼   ► So I have studio space in town that I use.

00:02:16 ◼   ► I actually share it with my brother.

00:02:18 ◼   ► And I was going to go there today to record,

00:02:21 ◼   ► but I drove like eight hours yesterday from Atlanta,

00:02:24 ◼   ► and I was like, well, I'm going to sleep late,

00:02:26 ◼   ► I'll just wake up, my family, they're all out today.

00:02:29 ◼   ► I was like, I'll record at home.

00:02:30 ◼   ► What could go on in my neighborhood?

00:02:31 ◼   ► I'm never home at 10 o'clock on a Monday, right?

00:02:33 ◼   ► I'm at work.

00:02:34 ◼   ► What could happen in my neighborhood

00:02:36 ◼   ► at 10 o'clock on a Monday?

00:02:37 ◼   ► And apparently, all of the yard work.

00:02:39 ◼   ► - The yard guy.

00:02:40 ◼   ► - The yard guy's here.

00:02:41 ◼   ► What can we do?

00:02:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

00:02:43 ◼   ► I see those people when I'm walking my kids to school,

00:02:46 ◼   ► when I'm walking my son to school in the morning.

00:02:48 ◼   ► I see the yard guys out because they get out early and do that.

00:02:51 ◼   ► That's funny for me because we don't have a yard guy.

00:02:54 ◼   ► I'm the yard guy.

00:02:55 ◼   ► Yeah, same with me.

00:02:56 ◼   ► I'm the only guy on the street who's mowing his own grass still.

00:02:59 ◼   ► I should change that.

00:03:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:02 ◼   ► Well, it's not going to be a problem for me because all my grass is going to die because

00:03:06 ◼   ► we're not going to water anymore.

00:03:07 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:03:08 ◼   ► You all don't have water anymore in California.

00:03:09 ◼   ► That's right.

00:03:10 ◼   ► So why?

00:03:11 ◼   ► Who needs?

00:03:12 ◼   ► That seems bad.

00:03:13 ◼   ► I could mail you a jar of Mississippi River water once a week.

00:03:15 ◼   ► Did you see that William Shatner wants to do a Kickstarter for like a billion dollars?

00:03:18 ◼   ► I think he doesn't know how Kickstarter works. To build a pipeline, a water pipeline to California.

00:03:24 ◼   ► Also, on one level I think it's like that's kind of brilliant, right? Because there are

00:03:27 ◼   ► other places where there's lots of water, but not here. But for that I think they could

00:03:30 ◼   ► just build like desal plants. But does that actually fix the problem? Like,

00:03:34 ◼   ► where's the water coming from? Will those people be thirsty? Because you've taken all

00:03:37 ◼   ► their water? Well, I mean, that's, look at the Colorado

00:03:38 ◼   ► River. There isn't anything left of it because we drained it all. It's like you stick the

00:03:43 ◼   ► straw in it, and then you just keep sucking until it's dry.

00:03:45 ◼   ► Is that how they do it? It's a giant bindi straw into California. Interesting. You basically

00:03:51 ◼   ► live in a foreign country to me. It's very strange.

00:03:53 ◼   ► It is. Well, we joke about this because people don't know this. This is the first segment.

00:03:58 ◼   ► This is before follow-up. This is random talk. In the relay Slack chat, I've taken upon myself

00:04:05 ◼   ► to educate Casey about California facts because it turns out Casey knows nothing about California,

00:04:10 ◼   ► literally nothing. I superimposed a map of California on a map of the East Coast once

00:04:15 ◼   ► and said, "Casey, this is how big California is." And he was like, "Wow, that's really

00:04:18 ◼   ► big!" I'm like, "Yes, it's really big." And he was like, "Where is Yosemite?" Because

00:04:23 ◼   ► I'm going to Yosemite today. In relation to the Bay Area, because I don't know, and I

00:04:26 ◼   ► did a little, I used napkin, I think, and I drew little circles and arrows. I'm like,

00:04:31 ◼   ► "This is LA, this is San Francisco, this is where the cows are in between, and over here

00:04:36 ◼   ► is where Yosemite is, which is where I'm from, up in the, where the trees are.

00:04:40 ◼   ► Oh, so your sidebar is translucent already.

00:04:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I was, it was born translucent.

00:04:46 ◼   ► Wow.

00:04:47 ◼   ► You should change that setting so your computer looks like a Mac again.

00:04:50 ◼   ► I'm not angry about Yosemite.

00:04:51 ◼   ► No.

00:04:52 ◼   ► We should do some follow-up/out.

00:04:56 ◼   ► We should.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Follow-up/out.

00:04:58 ◼   ► We should.

00:04:59 ◼   ► We don't have sound effects on this show.

00:05:01 ◼   ► That was a...

00:05:02 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't either anymore.

00:05:03 ◼   ► That was, yeah, I know.

00:05:04 ◼   ► was a particularly prompt related thing. I kind of missed the sound effects, but Myke

00:05:08 ◼   ► took them away. Well, he says follow up now and I think follow up. But yeah, he can't

00:05:16 ◼   ► not do that. Actually, the follow out is connected. Oh, I wanted to mention episode 35 of connected,

00:05:24 ◼   ► which I was on. And so people who like to listen to me talk and to you talk. Yes, but

00:05:31 ◼   ► not to Federico because he said very little in that episode because it was about photos

00:05:35 ◼   ► for Mac that I talked about, and the Mac does not interest Federico. The Mac is a device

00:05:39 ◼   ► used to talk on Skype.

00:05:41 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:05:42 ◼   ► - And nothing else. But they should check that out if they want to hear me talk about

00:05:47 ◼   ► photos a lot. There are a couple things that made me very sad. There are a couple things

00:05:50 ◼   ► in there that I said that were wrong. I said that there was no brush tool at all, and there

00:05:53 ◼   ► is a little, you know, the spot healing kind of thing is there, but that's it. There's

00:05:58 ◼   ► other kind of, you can't brush on adjustments or anything like that. So, you know, people,

00:06:03 ◼   ► the Truth Squad was out and bless them for that. But Photos for Mac is fascinating. I

00:06:11 ◼   ► keep working on that book and discovering weird things that it does and then lots of

00:06:15 ◼   ► things that it just doesn't do. And I think, you know, some of them are baffling, like,

00:06:19 ◼   ► not being able to put your photo on a map from within the app. It's like everybody is

00:06:23 ◼   ► complaining about that. And I've got all these...

00:06:25 ◼   ► Adam: Super annoying.

00:06:26 ◼   ► all our pictures and I'm like I know where they were taken and they were taken at the

00:06:28 ◼   ► same time that these three phone pictures were taken and I'd like to put them together.

00:06:32 ◼   ► Nope. Can't do it. It's frustrating. But anyway, we mentioned that on Connected, episode 35.

00:06:37 ◼   ► People should check it out.

00:06:38 ◼   ► Steve McLaughlin You should check it out. And we have some listener

00:06:41 ◼   ► questions about photos.

00:06:42 ◼   ► David Tompa Yeah, I thought I would

00:06:43 ◼   ► Steve McLaughlin Insert.

00:06:44 ◼   ► David Tompa Collect them here. Yeah, because we've been

00:06:46 ◼   ► talking about photos a little bit here. Lister Darren asked, "What's the better photo solution

00:06:52 ◼   ► with the new services iCloud or on Dropbox. I know a lot of people are using Dropbox,

00:06:56 ◼   ► and especially since if you pay for Dropbox, you've got like a terabyte now. It's a lot

00:07:01 ◼   ► of room. I think it depends on what your photo approach is. iCloud is expensive compared

00:07:10 ◼   ► to most other cloud services, but you get it integrated in with all of Apple's apps.

00:07:17 ◼   ► That's what you're paying for, essentially. The apps are free. You pay for the cloud storage.

00:07:22 ◼   ► And I've got about 500 gigabytes of photos and videos now.

00:07:26 ◼   ► So, you know, that's what you're paying for.

00:07:30 ◼   ► Dropbox, you know, I feel like that's something that you do

00:07:34 ◼   ► if you want to take everything into your own hands. I think at that point you should probably be using

00:07:38 ◼   ► something that really, truly uses the file system as the management tool.

00:07:42 ◼   ► And Photos will let you drag photos in from the file system, but

00:07:46 ◼   ► boy, starting to fiddle with things changing in Dropbox underneath the Photos

00:07:50 ◼   ► app with reference photos. It sounds pretty scary to me. So I'm using iCloud right now

00:07:55 ◼   ► and I'm kind of happy to spend the money because it's super easy and it's automatically on

00:07:59 ◼   ► all my devices but you know there's no right answer here. It really depends on what you're

00:08:03 ◼   ► willing to pay and what your strategy is and what your family situation is too.

00:08:10 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. So I used Dropbox for a long time using, you know, just using the file system

00:08:16 ◼   ► had it structured into folders. And I liked it because it was it was super fast to sort

00:08:20 ◼   ► through things and I had hazel rules naming images by the date and time. And it was nice

00:08:26 ◼   ► but what for me moving to photos what it's given me is that that visual way to scan through

00:08:32 ◼   ► images now yes and finder you could use you know the thumbnail view or whatever make it

00:08:35 ◼   ► bigger but and photos that's just it's a very visual way to store things and I've I've come

00:08:41 ◼   ► to appreciate that approach again. And even though I'm not so like we talked about connected

00:08:46 ◼   ► and not sold about all the iCloud stuff quite yet.

00:08:48 ◼   ► It is nice to be back in a more sort of visual way.

00:08:53 ◼   ► I can just thumb through a bunch of photos

00:08:55 ◼   ► really quickly and find the one I'm looking for,

00:08:57 ◼   ► as opposed to clicking through in Finder

00:08:59 ◼   ► and waiting for Finder to do its thing.

00:09:01 ◼   ► But we'll see where I land long term.

00:09:04 ◼   ► I don't promise that I'll stay in photos, but we'll see.

00:09:07 ◼   ► That's why follow-up exists, Jason.

00:09:09 ◼   ► We can come back when we change our minds.

00:09:11 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:09:12 ◼   ► I think-- yeah, I'm really enjoying the fact

00:09:15 ◼   ► that suddenly for the first time in a while all 55,000 photos that I've got in my assorted

00:09:21 ◼   ► iPhoto libraries are all in one Photos library. And Photos has now slowed down a little from

00:09:26 ◼   ► what it was when there were only 10,000 photos in there, but it's all still really navigable.

00:09:31 ◼   ► And it's not nearly as slow as iPhoto was with even 10,000 photos in it. It moves pretty

00:09:37 ◼   ► well. And I was just discovering the other day, like, these pictures that I know that

00:09:43 ◼   ► we took of my kids when they were really little. And I know the one picture and I'm looking

00:09:47 ◼   ► and I'm like, "Oh, we took 15 pictures then." And I'm looking through and it's like, you

00:09:51 ◼   ► know, it's almost like supplementary, like bonus material from my life. It's like, you

00:09:57 ◼   ► only know the one picture, but there were actually all these other pictures too. That

00:10:00 ◼   ► was pretty awesome. So I'm enjoying having access to all that. And the videos too, since

00:10:04 ◼   ► the videos are in the cloud as well and there's a videos view and photos. I'm seeing all these

00:10:09 ◼   ► videos of my kids that I took on like a phone when they were little and I've not even seen

00:10:15 ◼   ► them in years and they're all in the videos view now which is pretty cool too.

00:10:19 ◼   ► Yeah, it's I like some of that. I mean they're not smart albums but you know kind of like

00:10:24 ◼   ► I can see all my time-lapse stuff in one place which most of mine are my kids like running

00:10:27 ◼   ► around and dancing like in the yard. I just love all of those and I can just see them

00:10:32 ◼   ► all in one little place and there's not many of them but it's really an enjoyable little

00:10:35 ◼   ► corner of the photos universe. So a couple other quick bits of photos related

00:10:41 ◼   ► follow-up. A listener Mark asked, "When it's full, does it stop working?

00:10:47 ◼   ► Does it purge old files or does it auto-upgrade size?" The answer is, once your

00:10:53 ◼   ► iCloud photo library reaches your maximum amount of storage, a dialogue

00:10:57 ◼   ► comes up from Apple and says, "Would you like to buy more storage?"

00:11:01 ◼   ► but insert another quarter to keep playing.

00:11:03 ◼   ► And in fact, if you try to add a large library to a library larger than your size will fit,

00:11:11 ◼   ► Apple stops you and says, "You can't really do this unless you pay more." And so, yes,

00:11:15 ◼   ► insert quarter, which is when I went up to a terabyte, which I'm now only using half

00:11:19 ◼   ► of, so I've got to figure out whether I want to remove some things from the cloud, like

00:11:23 ◼   ► the videos, and go back to half a terabyte, or if I just want to embrace the fact that

00:11:28 ◼   ► and I'm putting everything in iCloud. But it tells you. I mean, Apple does. And it's

00:11:35 ◼   ► doing some de-duping too. It looks like it is doing like a checksum or something on every

00:11:39 ◼   ► piece of media and then asking the server, "Do you have this already?" And if it says

00:11:44 ◼   ► yes then it de-dups. That doesn't always work. I got a bunch of things. My first digital

00:11:51 ◼   ► camera was a Canon Powershot. I got like S110 or something and it didn't have. That was

00:11:55 ◼   ► when that was my first digital camera. It was a point and shoot and it was back when

00:12:00 ◼   ► the accelerometer was not a standard feature on digital cameras. So you had to when you

00:12:06 ◼   ► shot something in portrait you had to import it and rotate it because it didn't know that

00:12:10 ◼   ► the camera was being held in that orientation. So I found a bunch of pictures of my parents

00:12:19 ◼   ► holding my daughter right after she was born in the hospital where there are two of everything.

00:12:24 ◼   ► with them rotated and one not. And apparently I just had the originals and I don't know

00:12:28 ◼   ► what happened there, but that was an example where it couldn't dedupe them because they

00:12:31 ◼   ► look different, because one of them is a portrait and one of them is a landscape. But if they

00:12:35 ◼   ► are the same photo exactly, or the same video, it does a good job. It looks up online and

00:12:41 ◼   ► says, "Oh, I don't need to do anything with this. This is just a dupe," and it drops it.

00:12:44 ◼   ► So it tries to be efficient at it, but it will warn you if your library is too big to

00:12:51 ◼   ► go up to iCloud based on what you've purchased, and then you just buy more space. That's how

00:12:54 ◼   ► that works. Or you don't do it. You turn it off. Those are your choices at that point.

00:12:59 ◼   ► And Lister Jim asked, "In the Photos app, is there a way to sort the pics within the

00:13:03 ◼   ► new Albums view in both ascending and descending order?" You can reorder an Album view. I'm

00:13:08 ◼   ► not sure you can do an actual sort. Photos really wants it to be old on top and new on

00:13:15 ◼   ► bottom. Really. Like, really, really? I imagine that that might be something that they'll

00:13:19 ◼   ► change at some point so you can reverse the view, but that's what they want. But in albums,

00:13:24 ◼   ► you can drag things around. You can order an album any way you want. So you could do

00:13:29 ◼   ► that, but I don't think there's an auto-sort way. I haven't noticed that to sort it the

00:13:33 ◼   ► other direction. I think basically you can free-form it, you know, just freestyle, or

00:13:39 ◼   ► you can say sort by date. And those are your choices.

00:13:42 ◼   ► That's all I've seen. So if you do it manually, is that order reflected on your other devices?

00:13:46 ◼   ► Oh, that's a good question. I should check that out. It should be.

00:13:49 ◼   ► be, but I don't know if it is. There are some weird things. Some things don't translate

00:13:53 ◼   ► to iOS. It's very much one of those not very Apple-like things where there's things that

00:13:58 ◼   ► just don't come over, like to a second Mac, the faces don't come over. The face tagging

00:14:04 ◼   ► comes over. So if one Mac has said, "This is Jason Snell," the other Mac will have that

00:14:09 ◼   ► tag, but the face identification stuff doesn't come over, and smart albums don't come over.

00:14:16 ◼   ► So it's possible to iOS or Mac actually, so they just don't sing on iCloud at all.

00:14:22 ◼   ► So it's possible that they don't, but I would think that you would think that they would.

00:14:26 ◼   ► I just haven't tested that.

00:14:27 ◼   ► That's a great question.

00:14:28 ◼   ► You stumped the band.

00:14:29 ◼   ► Congratulations.

00:14:30 ◼   ► For only there was some sort of book I could buy.

00:14:31 ◼   ► Indeed.

00:14:32 ◼   ► Well, there was only some book that I could finish writing so that it could be published.

00:14:35 ◼   ► There it is.

00:14:36 ◼   ► I'm getting close.

00:14:37 ◼   ► I'm getting close.

00:14:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:39 ◼   ► And so listener Matt wrote in, "I have some feedback on the Magic Mouse."

00:14:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:44 ◼   ► that two blind men trying to figure out if it's an elephant kind of situation

00:14:48 ◼   ► where it's people who don't use the magic mouse comment on the magic mouse

00:14:52 ◼   ► do you use the magic mouse no I use the same mouse Myke uses the Logitech

00:14:58 ◼   ► revolution MX well listener Matt has because he uses the magic mouse has told

00:15:05 ◼   ► us there's an app that you can get at magic prefs calm that lets you set up

00:15:08 ◼   ► taps to work as clicks on the magic mouse he says it's great and that it

00:15:12 ◼   ► doesn't physically click, there's a small speaker that makes the sound of because

00:15:17 ◼   ► a silent mouse was freaking out the original testers. So that's one of those

00:15:20 ◼   ► those fake, like the MacBook when you click on it, it actually makes a sound

00:15:25 ◼   ► because the the surface vibrates, but apparently the Magic Mouse provides

00:15:32 ◼   ► audio feedback. This is what listener Matt says, "Regardless, we don't use it, so we

00:15:36 ◼   ► We don't know.

00:15:38 ◼   ► But sure, a Force Touch Magic Mouse would be great.

00:15:41 ◼   ► We think.

00:15:42 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe.

00:15:43 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know.

00:15:45 ◼   ► I haven't used Force Touch, except in the Apple Store.

00:15:52 ◼   ► And I could see how, once you get used to it, right, like if you're like me, I've

00:15:57 ◼   ► got a MacBook Pro, right now I'm using it by itself, just plugged into a bunch of stuff

00:16:01 ◼   ► at my desk at home, but at work it's on a stand with a display and keyboard and mouse,

00:16:05 ◼   ► and I could see once you get used to force touch somewhere,

00:16:08 ◼   ► you would want it everywhere.

00:16:10 ◼   ► So for me, it's the gestures and the trackpad.

00:16:12 ◼   ► Then I go to the Logitech mouse, and I have no gestures.

00:16:15 ◼   ► And I've gotten used to that.

00:16:17 ◼   ► I've mapped.

00:16:17 ◼   ► It was nice with Logitech, you can map thumb down

00:16:20 ◼   ► to various things.

00:16:21 ◼   ► And you can kind of fake it a little bit.

00:16:23 ◼   ► But I could see once you're-- you

00:16:26 ◼   ► want your setup to be the same as much as possible.

00:16:29 ◼   ► So at some point, I think it'll show up other places.

00:16:32 ◼   ► I don't know how it would work at a mouse.

00:16:34 ◼   ► are those modules you know the magnets and everything small enough can you power them

00:16:38 ◼   ► on AA batteries I mean there's lots of questions there but one day I think they could show up

00:16:43 ◼   ► everywhere yeah I don't know I don't know my knowledge of Magic Mouse is so is zero but

00:16:50 ◼   ► but thanks to Matt for the for the report back well I think we move on to regular topics but first

00:16:57 ◼   ► it would be great since you're being Myke today it would be great to for you to tell us about a

00:17:03 ◼   ► a friend of the show if you could.

00:17:05 ◼   ► - I would, I would love to tell you about Igloo,

00:17:08 ◼   ► the internet you will actually like.

00:17:11 ◼   ► So Jason, why invest, Jason,

00:17:15 ◼   ► why invest in the latest, sleekest devices

00:17:17 ◼   ► if you're gonna use them to stare at an internet website

00:17:19 ◼   ► that was built in the '90s?

00:17:21 ◼   ► - Woo, '90s, party, woo!

00:17:23 ◼   ► - I've used these things,

00:17:24 ◼   ► a lot of corporate internets are really terrible

00:17:27 ◼   ► and that's where Igloo comes in.

00:17:29 ◼   ► Not only can Igloo be customized

00:17:31 ◼   ► to look exactly like your brand,

00:17:32 ◼   ► but it's responsive, automatically optimized

00:17:35 ◼   ► for any device you're using, even

00:17:37 ◼   ► if you're in the 6 Plus Club, like Myke and I and all

00:17:40 ◼   ► the cool kids.

00:17:41 ◼   ► You can use your favorite Apple devices,

00:17:43 ◼   ► because igloo just lets you do your best work.

00:17:46 ◼   ► Share files, coordinate calendars,

00:17:48 ◼   ► provide status updates, and manage projects.

00:17:51 ◼   ► Igloo is not just for traditional internet stuff

00:17:54 ◼   ► like HR policies and expense forms.

00:17:56 ◼   ► It gives you the tools to work better together with your team.

00:18:00 ◼   ► Igloo's latest upgrade, Viking, revolves around documents

00:18:03 ◼   ► and how you interact with them.

00:18:04 ◼   ► You can gather feedback and make changes.

00:18:07 ◼   ► And there's an ability to track who

00:18:08 ◼   ► has read critical information.

00:18:10 ◼   ► So if you send out training and you really

00:18:11 ◼   ► need Jason to read it, and Jason's a slacker,

00:18:13 ◼   ► you can see that Jason hasn't read it.

00:18:14 ◼   ► Yeah, true.

00:18:15 ◼   ► You can deal with it.

00:18:16 ◼   ► It's like read email receipts, but way better.

00:18:19 ◼   ► If your company has a legacy internet that

00:18:21 ◼   ► looks like it was built in the '90s,

00:18:23 ◼   ► you should really give Igloo a try.

00:18:25 ◼   ► But you know, Igloo, those guys are super smart.

00:18:27 ◼   ► They understand that love doesn't happen overnight.

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00:18:32 ◼   ► with a team of up to 10 people for as long as you want.

00:18:35 ◼   ► Sign up right now at igloosoftware.com/upgrade.

00:18:39 ◼   ► Thank you so much to those guys.

00:18:40 ◼   ► Thank you Igloo for sponsoring Upgrade

00:18:42 ◼   ► and all of Relay FM.

00:18:44 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:18:45 ◼   ► Our pals, our friends.

00:18:46 ◼   ► - Our friends.

00:18:47 ◼   ► - So our first topic is the mic vertical.

00:18:51 ◼   ► Or the podcasting vertical,

00:18:53 ◼   ► but I wanted to just really quickly say,

00:18:55 ◼   ► so you saw Myke this weekend in Atlanta.

00:18:57 ◼   ► You did the Panatic Live.

00:18:58 ◼   ► and I had some text messages because you set up the equipment, you did live audio stream,

00:19:06 ◼   ► you did videos. Tell me a little bit about what, I assume that you'll talk about this

00:19:10 ◼   ► on other shows too, but I get you first. So give me some of the lowdown from Atlanta.

00:19:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, so if people might not be familiar, the Pen Addict is a show here on relay, fountain

00:19:22 ◼   ► pens, fancy writing utensils, notebooks, paper, that sort of thing.

00:19:25 ◼   ► Yeah, my wife's feedback, by the way, she said that every time I say "pen addict,"

00:19:29 ◼   ► she assumes, I say it's about pens, she assumes that that's a tech acronym, like PEN,

00:19:33 ◼   ► it's like Personal Electronic Notebook or something like that.

00:19:36 ◼   ► I said, "No, it's The Things You Write With."

00:19:37 ◼   ► She's like, "Really?

00:19:38 ◼   ► A podcast about that?"

00:19:39 ◼   ► Yep.

00:19:40 ◼   ► Yeah, it's very real.

00:19:41 ◼   ► So the listeners in that show funded a Kickstarter, which is super great, to bring Myke to Atlanta,

00:19:49 ◼   ► Georgia for the Atlanta Pen Show.

00:19:52 ◼   ► So it's like a hotel conference center and there's a couple of rooms and there's vendors.

00:19:57 ◼   ► Brad Dowdy, who's a host on the network, also owns a company called Knock where they make

00:20:01 ◼   ► pen cases.

00:20:02 ◼   ► And so Kickstarter was very successful and we flew Myke over.

00:20:08 ◼   ► I came down, drove down from Memphis with my brother who is in the nonprofit sector

00:20:13 ◼   ► but his nonprofit does a lot of video work.

00:20:16 ◼   ► And so they came down and we've basically filmed the entire weekend.

00:20:23 ◼   ► And we did a live audio podcast.

00:20:28 ◼   ► So we bought some XLR mics, bought some short betas, and we bought a little USB XLR interface

00:20:34 ◼   ► to put all those together, live streamed it.

00:20:38 ◼   ► And all of it's a video that the Kickstarter backers will get.

00:20:41 ◼   ► They'll get that next month after it's all edited and put together and everything.

00:20:45 ◼   ► So it was a heck of a three day thing.

00:20:48 ◼   ► I'm really tired.

00:20:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I bet.

00:20:50 ◼   ► - But it was a lot of fun.

00:20:51 ◼   ► - I bet, you know, I listened to the show live.

00:20:54 ◼   ► It was episode 150 of The Pen Addicts,

00:20:56 ◼   ► so it was perfectly timed, too.

00:20:58 ◼   ► - Which is, it's a bunch of episodes.

00:21:02 ◼   ► - That's a lot of pens.

00:21:03 ◼   ► - It's a lot of pens, it's a lot of pens.

00:21:04 ◼   ► - Love ink, love ink spilled.

00:21:06 ◼   ► I was fascinated listening to it

00:21:09 ◼   ► because I felt like this is how people

00:21:11 ◼   ► who aren't into tech stuff think we talk,

00:21:13 ◼   ► which is you throw out acronyms and technical terms.

00:21:17 ◼   ► And they were talking about like,

00:21:19 ◼   ► I was writing on sandpaper so that the nibs

00:21:22 ◼   ► with the widgets are bibbly and the,

00:21:25 ◼   ► I'm just making things up now,

00:21:26 ◼   ► but it was like, I have no idea what they're talking about.

00:21:29 ◼   ► For me, the pen has got the little part

00:21:33 ◼   ► that you can attach to something,

00:21:35 ◼   ► and then you've got the little clicky part,

00:21:37 ◼   ► and the part you write, the end you write with.

00:21:40 ◼   ► And that's my pen knowledge,

00:21:41 ◼   ► is just that you point it at the paper and it writes. But they were just going deep down

00:21:46 ◼   ► and super enthusiastic. And I love that. I love how enthusiastic they were about it.

00:21:51 ◼   ► Because it's like those documentaries like The King of Kong or some things like that.

00:21:55 ◼   ► But I love documentaries about people who are super excited about anything, even if

00:22:00 ◼   ► I don't understand it. And the pen stuff I totally don't understand. But it was fun to

00:22:03 ◼   ► listen to them be excited about being together and talking about pens.

00:22:07 ◼   ► Yeah, you know, it's one of those worlds where it's very much in parallel to the nerd world

00:22:13 ◼   ► that you and I run in, of the sort of Apple-centric stuff.

00:22:16 ◼   ► And you also, with The Incomparable, have sort of the pop culture sci-fi nerd kingdom

00:22:22 ◼   ► as well that I have kind of half a foot in, you know, don't really spend a lot of time

00:22:27 ◼   ► in that world, not as much as you do.

00:22:28 ◼   ► But what's great is that passion.

00:22:30 ◼   ► I think that's really what defines being a nerd is being passionate about something really

00:22:36 ◼   ► specific. And for all these people who showed up to Atlanta, people flew in. Myke wasn't

00:22:41 ◼   ► the only one who got on an airplane to come to this. We're at this party at Knox workshop

00:22:48 ◼   ► and there's a field note swap going on. There's pictures of it that'll be in the video of

00:22:54 ◼   ► these guys with these huge boxes of field notebooks, which I use and I'm interested

00:22:58 ◼   ► in. But these guys, they keep them in order of the various issues and have complete clarity.

00:23:06 ◼   ► collections and everything and it's just great like the enthusiasm the excitement

00:23:11 ◼   ► the the passion for these things is is really what is the common thread between

00:23:16 ◼   ► the various like types of nerd I think and so it's it was a lot of fun to see

00:23:20 ◼   ► that and and to be a part of it for a weekend and you know I've known Brad for

00:23:24 ◼   ► a long time I've been on I've been on their show a couple times about various

00:23:27 ◼   ► things but um yeah I had that thought run through my mind if like this is what

00:23:31 ◼   ► people like look at all of us at WWDC and like huh those guys are kind of like

00:23:36 ◼   ► like passionate about things that I'm not.

00:23:38 ◼   ► And it's just the same thing, right?

00:23:40 ◼   ► Like, it's the same type of passion.

00:23:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's exactly it.

00:23:45 ◼   ► I recognize the passion, even if I don't recognize

00:23:49 ◼   ► what they're talking about.

00:23:50 ◼   ► I can appreciate the passion, and I love to see that.

00:23:52 ◼   ► I just love it when people are excited about stuff,

00:23:55 ◼   ► and they love stuff.

00:23:56 ◼   ► That's much more interesting to me than people

00:23:58 ◼   ► who hate stuff, and are bored, and the un-wee,

00:24:00 ◼   ► and oh God, why am I even here?

00:24:02 ◼   ► That's not so fun.

00:24:03 ◼   ► the enthusiasm, even if I don't understand it or share it, it's just kind of contagious

00:24:08 ◼   ► to be around people like that. So that was a cool little view into another world. And

00:24:13 ◼   ► I think it's really cool that the listeners pitched in to get Myke to fly out.

00:24:20 ◼   ► Oh yeah. And they made the video possible. And I'm looking right now at the Kickstarter

00:24:24 ◼   ► page, 479 backers. And a bunch of those people were at the party, which was a lot of fun

00:24:31 ◼   ► just to meet some people, you know, a lot of people like, Oh,

00:24:33 ◼   ► I can know your voice from shows. And we gave away some

00:24:37 ◼   ► stickers and t shirts and stuff. And, you know, it's one of those

00:24:40 ◼   ► things where like, this project, we're doing the super meta

00:24:44 ◼   ► podcast thing, but we'll stop in a second. Yeah. Like, this is

00:24:47 ◼   ► why we made relay a thing like Myke and I from day one, like we

00:24:52 ◼   ► want to try things, we want to do things that are beyond just

00:24:55 ◼   ► putting out an hour of audio a week. And this is really one of

00:24:57 ◼   ► the first like, big things we've done. And there's another one

00:25:01 ◼   ► and actually following on it's another kind of weird,

00:25:03 ◼   ► exciting thing we're going to do announced later this week.

00:25:06 ◼   ► But it's very much like this is why

00:25:09 ◼   ► we did this because we can just go out and do stuff

00:25:11 ◼   ► and see if it works.

00:25:12 ◼   ► And the Kickstarter was very successful.

00:25:14 ◼   ► And we fully plan to do more of this type of stuff

00:25:16 ◼   ► with various different shows.

00:25:19 ◼   ► With all the great shows.

00:25:20 ◼   ► All the great shows, really.

00:25:23 ◼   ► So yeah, it was a lot of fun.

00:25:24 ◼   ► So thank you to everyone who came out and said hi

00:25:26 ◼   ► and backed us on Kickstarter.

00:25:27 ◼   ► And it'll be fun to get that video out into the world.

00:25:31 ◼   ► It's-- I mean, some of the stuff is just like--

00:25:34 ◼   ► we have this shot of this box of Retro 51s, which

00:25:36 ◼   ► is a brand of pen.

00:25:37 ◼   ► I bought one.

00:25:38 ◼   ► And it's like every color in the rainbow,

00:25:41 ◼   ► plus like every pattern you can think of all laid out.

00:25:44 ◼   ► I mean, just beautiful stuff of made with care, sold with care.

00:25:48 ◼   ► People who use them care about it.

00:25:50 ◼   ► Like, it's just that--

00:25:51 ◼   ► again, that passion, that excitement

00:25:53 ◼   ► is just really contagious when you come across it.

00:25:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:57 ◼   ► I should mention that it's funny that you said I recognize your voice.

00:26:00 ◼   ► This is a story speaking of excitement and passion.

00:26:03 ◼   ► This weekend Dan Morin was at the Star Wars Celebration which is the big Star Wars convention

00:26:09 ◼   ► and it was in Anaheim and he said he was standing there and heard a familiar voice from behind

00:26:17 ◼   ► him and turned around and it was David Sparks from MacPowerUsers who was also at the Star

00:26:22 ◼   ► Wars.

00:26:23 ◼   ► of them I'll put in the show notes but it was that was kind of funny and I've had that

00:26:28 ◼   ► too where it's the voice thing where you realize oh somebody I know from a podcast is standing

00:26:32 ◼   ► behind me because I hear their voice. One other short topic before we talk about our

00:26:37 ◼   ► next our next friend which is I wrote this thing on six colors last week about buying

00:26:43 ◼   ► beer yeah I saw that which people are like well that's that's different that's not your

00:26:48 ◼   ► usual, that's not your usual subject. Well, one of the things that Six Colors affords

00:26:53 ◼   ► me is the ability to write about whatever the heck I want to write about if I think

00:26:57 ◼   ► that it's sort of relevant. And I thought this was sort of relevant because I was standing

00:27:01 ◼   ► in Whole Foods because the Whole Foods is right next to my house essentially and it's

00:27:07 ◼   ► easy to walk over there and we were getting something else. And whenever I'm in there

00:27:10 ◼   ► I like to look at what beer they have because they, you know, and then your brain is doing

00:27:14 ◼   ► the processing like you're just looking down a row and then you look down the next row

00:27:17 ◼   ► and you're trying to read the labels but not study each of them because there's a whole

00:27:20 ◼   ► bunch of them. And it struck me that this is exactly how I used to shop for books, for

00:27:26 ◼   ► CDs, back in the day when there were record stores, and all sorts of other things that

00:27:33 ◼   ► back when things were scarce. And with beer, there is not, at least in the US, it's not

00:27:38 ◼   ► like there's an Amazon for beer where you can literally get anything that's available

00:27:42 ◼   ► and see what's not available. It's old school. There's not a whole lot to this other than

00:27:48 ◼   ► to say that it struck me that this is old shopping style, but it still remains for a

00:27:54 ◼   ► few categories, and in other categories it's been completely blown away. Because I remember

00:27:58 ◼   ► looking for that particular Peter Gabriel album in cassette or CD form for several years,

00:28:07 ◼   ► like two, three years before I found it in a record store in Ashland, Oregon when I was

00:28:13 ◼   ► on a school trip. And I remember that moment of like, "Hooray!" And I have people say to

00:28:18 ◼   ► me, nostalgically, like, "Wasn't that a great moment when you finally found it, and wasn't

00:28:21 ◼   ► it fun to hunt for it?" And I say, "Well, I don't know if it was fun to hunt for it,

00:28:25 ◼   ► but it was something I could hunt for, something I could do in a record store." And now I walk

00:28:28 ◼   ► into a bookstore and I'm like, "Eh, I have nothing to look for here. I mean, I can look

00:28:31 ◼   ► at the shelves, but I'm not going to buy anything. I probably already got it on a Kindle and

00:28:34 ◼   ► whatever. But you know what would have been better than finding it in the record store

00:28:40 ◼   ► in Ashland, Oregon would have been having it two years before when I discovered that

00:28:44 ◼   ► this album existed. That would have been better. And I know that's not very nostalgic to

00:28:48 ◼   ► say, "No, the thrill of the hunt for the thing that's missing and all that," but

00:28:51 ◼   ► I would rather just have it.

00:28:53 ◼   ► Jared: Yeah, I'm the same way. Like, I'm why those stores don't exist anymore. Also,

00:28:59 ◼   ► I was one year old when you bought that cassette tape.

00:29:03 ◼   ► I was 17, I think, when I found that, or 16. But yeah, I was a senior in high school when

00:29:11 ◼   ► you were a little tiny baby looking for a tape. And I did find that on tape. That was

00:29:16 ◼   ► an era where not everything was on CD yet. And that was an obscure solo album from 1978.

00:29:25 ◼   ► And it was available on cassette, and I found a cassette. And that was a great score. But,

00:29:30 ◼   ► you know. I would have rather just had it. It just struck me that with beer, there's

00:29:36 ◼   ► a beer that I found that I really liked and it's hard to find now. It was a limited edition,

00:29:40 ◼   ► so it's probably just not being made, and that's fine. I realized there's no way to

00:29:43 ◼   ► know. Some places might have it in stock, some might not. It's just a crapshoot. That's

00:29:49 ◼   ► fine. It is kind of an adventure, although if I find something I really like and then

00:29:52 ◼   ► I can't get it, I just kind of want to have it and I can't get it. That frustrates me.

00:29:58 ◼   ► it was just the bigger picture of, "This is how shopping used to be." And, you know, we

00:30:02 ◼   ► can look at it through nostalgia, but I was like, "That kind of sucked. I really like

00:30:05 ◼   ► that if there's a book that exists, I can get it." Like, Infinite Loop. We were talking

00:30:10 ◼   ► with John on this show, and he said that's the one to read that's about Apple and about

00:30:15 ◼   ► how Apple kind of loses its way when in the Scully era and after. And it seems to be out

00:30:22 ◼   ► of print, but I got one in -- I went on Amazon and I got a used copy in like two days.

00:30:27 ◼   ► I did the exact same thing listening to that episode. It's sitting on my nightstand.

00:30:31 ◼   ► Yeah, it's right behind me here. And that's kind of awesome. And yeah, I could have darkened

00:30:35 ◼   ► the doors of every used bookstore ever and not found it because I didn't go to the right

00:30:40 ◼   ► one, but there was a used copy at this other bookstore that was a little further away.

00:30:44 ◼   ► Or I could just press a button and say, "Okay, now I've got that book that I want to read."

00:30:49 ◼   ► I prefer, call me not appropriately nostalgic, but I prefer to just get the things I want

00:30:57 ◼   ► instead of spending years hunting for them.

00:31:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm the same way.

00:31:02 ◼   ► I think it depends a little bit,

00:31:04 ◼   ► like going back to the Field Notes guys this weekend,

00:31:06 ◼   ► or like if I'm looking for,

00:31:08 ◼   ► there's some things that you have to hunt down, right?

00:31:11 ◼   ► Like if I'm looking for a particular Mac

00:31:13 ◼   ► or something to add to the collection,

00:31:14 ◼   ► I need to do my homework on that.

00:31:16 ◼   ► But for instance, like all the audio gear

00:31:19 ◼   ► we bought for Atlanta, you know,

00:31:21 ◼   ► the nice thing about shopping online

00:31:25 ◼   ► is that I can do all this research, right?

00:31:28 ◼   ► I knew exactly what I was buying.

00:31:29 ◼   ► I knew exactly what I was getting into with it.

00:31:32 ◼   ► And it was all mapped out and planned out.

00:31:33 ◼   ► So when I set it up, I had no doubt

00:31:35 ◼   ► that it would all work the way I expected.

00:31:37 ◼   ► And that's the huge upside for me as someone who,

00:31:41 ◼   ► I'm not a, usually not an impulse buyer,

00:31:44 ◼   ► especially when it comes to like,

00:31:46 ◼   ► stuff like audio equipment or big ticket items.

00:31:48 ◼   ► I'm going to do my research and do my homework.

00:31:50 ◼   ► And I know that when I hit purchase,

00:31:53 ◼   ► that I'm not planning on using Amazon's very generous return

00:31:57 ◼   ► policy.

00:31:58 ◼   ► And so that's the huge upside, right?

00:32:00 ◼   ► Like 15 years ago, I would have had a go--

00:32:02 ◼   ► and there were several local audio AV music stores in town.

00:32:05 ◼   ► I could have bought those microphones and cables

00:32:07 ◼   ► and stands from any of them.

00:32:10 ◼   ► But you're talking to the sales guy,

00:32:11 ◼   ► and maybe the sales guy is not super knowledgeable

00:32:13 ◼   ► about vocal mics.

00:32:14 ◼   ► Maybe he's a guitar guy, and he's just

00:32:16 ◼   ► in the mic section for some reason,

00:32:17 ◼   ► and you catch him, right?

00:32:19 ◼   ► There's all those variables that just don't really

00:32:22 ◼   ► exist anymore.

00:32:23 ◼   ► yes, there are people who review things that don't know what they're talking about, but

00:32:26 ◼   ► you can read such a wide cross-section of reviews and articles and comparisons that

00:32:33 ◼   ► you can make a really informed buying decision.

00:32:35 ◼   ► And that, as someone who cares about that sort of stuff, is great for me.

00:32:40 ◼   ► When I bought my USB interface from my microphone, I bought two of different ones, and I tried

00:32:45 ◼   ► one out and tried the other out and then sent one back.

00:32:47 ◼   ► That was great.

00:32:49 ◼   ► That was really great.

00:32:50 ◼   ► and because I couldn't decide. You could do that before, but you'd have to go to an audio

00:32:57 ◼   ► store and hope they had it in stock, both of them or one of them, and see what their

00:33:01 ◼   ► return policy is. Anyway, my story was not really about beer so much as how I think our

00:33:07 ◼   ► expectations for shopping have changed and how shopping for beer feels very 20th century.

00:33:14 ◼   ► There are reasons for that. There's the 18 restriction. There's the weight of the cost

00:33:18 ◼   ► of shipping. It's seriouspets.com kind of stuff where it's like, "Why do we want to

00:33:22 ◼   ► ship this? It's really heavy." In the U.S., there's lots of interstate transport of alcohol

00:33:30 ◼   ► kind of laws. It's totally understandable why this is not a thing that has been revolutionized

00:33:35 ◼   ► like some other areas. It's sort of quaint in that way and I suppose nostalgic. I'm happy

00:33:42 ◼   ► with the 21st century way of shopping. Yeah.

00:33:45 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah, totally agree. All right, it's time for another sponsor break. I guess this

00:33:51 ◼   ► is my job now because I always read this one. So you get to take, like Myke, you get to

00:33:56 ◼   ► take a little moment to reflect as I tell you about our next sponsor. It's our friends

00:34:01 ◼   ► at MailRoute. You've heard me talk about them before. MailRoute is a magical thing that

00:34:07 ◼   ► lives in the cloud and it's like a friendly monster that eats spam but not your good email.

00:34:14 ◼   ► This is a metaphor I'm workshopping, not approved by MailRoute. Basically, MailRoute

00:34:20 ◼   ► lives in the cloud. You divert your domain's email to MailRoute. Instead of it going to

00:34:27 ◼   ► your mail server first from the big bad internet, where all the spammers will reach it directly,

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00:34:53 ◼   ► mail, the stuff you want and need to receive. And again, you don't have to worry about maintaining

00:34:59 ◼   ► any kind of software because it all happens up in mail routes, server, in the cloud. It

00:35:05 ◼   ► or may not be a friendly monster that eats spam. Easy to set up, reliable, trusted by

00:35:09 ◼   ► large organizations like universities and corporations. I've been using it for a couple

00:35:13 ◼   ► of years. It works great for me. The interface is really simple. I love the spam digest I

00:35:18 ◼   ► get which allows me to peruse what the latest in spam headlines, spam subject lines is.

00:35:24 ◼   ► That usually makes me laugh. And occasionally, once or twice a month, I'll find something

00:35:28 ◼   ► in there that was misfiled as spam that's actually from a friend of mine who wants—my

00:35:32 ◼   ► Nigerian prince who wants to make money fast and I want to let that through so I click the

00:35:36 ◼   ► one link and it white lists my friend and delivers that message and that person will never be spam

00:35:42 ◼   ► filtered ever again. And if you're an email administrator or an IT professional who's

00:35:46 ◼   ► thinking about setting this up for your domain, for your mail server, they've got all the tools,

00:35:50 ◼   ► they've got an API for easy account management, MailRAD supports LDAP, Active Directory, TLS,

00:35:55 ◼   ► mail bagging. Come on. Come on. Give me a mail bagging, Steven.

00:36:01 ◼   ► I feel uncomfortable with that. Mailbagging! Okay, how about this? How about this? An outbound

00:36:07 ◼   ► relay. Relay! Okay. You don't want to step on Myke's thing. You think mailbagging is

00:36:14 ◼   ► Myke's thing now? I think so. Okay. Well, you can be excited about outbound relay. You're

00:36:21 ◼   ► the co-founder of something called relay. You should be very excited about outbounding.

00:36:24 ◼   ► I'm outbounding all over the place. Okay, good. Everything you want from people

00:36:27 ◼   ► handling your mail anyway, all those catchphrases, including ones Steven refuses to say because

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00:36:52 ◼   ► just for a little while, but for the lifetime of your account by going to mailroute.net/upgrade.

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00:36:59 ◼   ► Go there now, and thank you so much to our pals at MailRoute for supporting Upgrade and

00:37:04 ◼   ► Relay FM.

00:37:09 ◼   ► John Siracusa retired from writing reviews.

00:37:14 ◼   ► He did.

00:37:15 ◼   ► I saw that.

00:37:16 ◼   ► I was at an NBA game.

00:37:19 ◼   ► And I was at a baseball game.

00:37:21 ◼   ► We posted pictures of sports things in the relay chat while we were doing sports things.

00:37:25 ◼   ► all over the place. We were sporting, yeah.

00:37:28 ◼   ► And yeah, so I, you know, pick up my phone for a second and it's like someone had texted

00:37:33 ◼   ► me, "Did you see the news about John Syracuse?" I was like, "What is that?"

00:37:37 ◼   ► Is he okay? Yeah, yeah, that was actually my first thought.

00:37:39 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh my God." And so yeah, so there's, he's been doing this, what, 15 years? It's

00:37:45 ◼   ► crazy. Yeah, yeah, since the 20th century.

00:37:50 ◼   ► Wow. Actually.

00:37:52 ◼   ► Yeah, it's been a while. I had that moment where I looked at the first bylined OS X review that I wrote was X1. So that's October 2001.

00:38:07 ◼   ► So I am considered older than dirt by a lot of people because I've been writing about Apple since '94.

00:38:16 ◼   ► before, but John was out there with his OS X reviews before I was. I like to think that

00:38:23 ◼   ► I basically have written a review of everything since 10.0, but the fact is the first few

00:38:29 ◼   ► articles that Macworld did on it, I was the features editor, so I was editing them, and

00:38:33 ◼   ► I did a lot of rewriting some of those articles because we ended up having really technical

00:38:36 ◼   ► people write them, and then the job of the editor was to shape them into an article that

00:38:43 ◼   ► was less technical and understandable by other people, it was a funny era because we were

00:38:48 ◼   ► all kind of bogging down in the Unix stuff and all of that. So I've got my 10.1 review

00:38:55 ◼   ► and it's still online and that one is very much like the "it's safe to go in the water

00:38:58 ◼   ► now" review. But to think that John, I mean that's just one of those things, like John

00:39:04 ◼   ► was there from the very start writing that stuff.

00:39:07 ◼   ► Yeah, the early ones are before Aqua. So when it still looked like the classic Mac OS, it's

00:39:15 ◼   ► really a wild time to flip through those.

00:39:19 ◼   ► Yeah, it's amazing. James Thompson, at his presentation, talked about how Syracuse criticized

00:39:26 ◼   ► his version of the dock that was in one of the developer previews. It's just amazing.

00:39:32 ◼   ► People forget that Jon doesn't do this for a living. I do this for a living. Even now,

00:39:37 ◼   ► My job has changed quite a bit, but this is what I do.

00:39:39 ◼   ► This is what my job is.

00:39:40 ◼   ► John's job is a web developer.

00:39:44 ◼   ► That's his job.

00:39:45 ◼   ► Everything we know him for, everything that--

00:39:47 ◼   ► unless you are one of the clients of John's company,

00:39:51 ◼   ► you know John for his side projects.

00:39:54 ◼   ► That's just the facts.

00:39:55 ◼   ► And we think he's a fabulous, famous star.

00:39:57 ◼   ► And he is in our world, as Andy Anacko often

00:40:01 ◼   ► likes to say, world famous in Poland.

00:40:03 ◼   ► He's got that narrow fame.

00:40:05 ◼   ► And he does fantastic work.

00:40:07 ◼   ► ATP is my go-to tech podcast. Those reviews are spectacular, but it's important to keep

00:40:13 ◼   ► in mind that he's got a family and he's got a day job. And I thought I really liked in

00:40:18 ◼   ► his story how he said it's not just about feeling like he's done this job and that it's

00:40:24 ◼   ► time to move on, but also having the prospect of a summer where he's not catching every

00:40:30 ◼   ► spare moment when he's at home to write chapters of a book about OS X, essentially, is something

00:40:39 ◼   ► he's looking forward to. That's a huge amount of work, and that's work on top of his work.

00:40:44 ◼   ► And then going to WWDC, that's a week's vacation he takes to go there. It's a big thing. And

00:40:52 ◼   ► yeah, we could talk about, like, could Jon quit his job and be Mac Pundit full-time?

00:40:57 ◼   ► I think he could, probably, but I think he would be uncomfortable doing it, and I think

00:41:02 ◼   ► he takes a great pride in his profession, in what he does as his profession. And I don't

00:41:08 ◼   ► think he wants to give up being a professional developer to be an Apple-themed pundit, as

00:41:14 ◼   ► good as he is at it. So I totally, I'm glad he wrote it the way he did about the, you

00:41:20 ◼   ► know, recapturing some of his time for his family, for other projects he wants to do,

00:41:26 ◼   ► it's not like he's going away. When he started, this was his entire outlet, and the fact is,

00:41:30 ◼   ► ATP is a great weekly creative outlet for him, and he's on a lot of incomparable episodes

00:41:34 ◼   ► too, and that's a great outlet for him. The podcasting has made it so that this is not

00:41:40 ◼   ► his only way of expressing his interest in these subjects, and since he's got RSI, so

00:41:47 ◼   ► he was dictating this stuff all along, podcasting's better, right? There's very little typing

00:41:51 ◼   ► when you're podcasting.

00:41:52 ◼   ► Right. No, it makes sense. You know on this week's

00:41:55 ◼   ► ATP or last week's I don't know what day it is anymore

00:42:00 ◼   ► When he announced it, you know Marco was like, you know from like the reader perspective

00:42:05 ◼   ► I'm sad

00:42:05 ◼   ► But as someone who knows you personally like I'm I'm not surprised and I'm almost relieved that you're you're making this this change

00:42:12 ◼   ► And it is you know, I made a joke on Twitter that you should read these to your children because they're made these

00:42:20 ◼   ► Reviews are part of our subculture

00:42:22 ◼   ► But at the same time like clearly if you listen to John a podcaster, you know read his site clearly

00:42:28 ◼   ► These are taking a toll and it's like yeah, that's just not worth it and and clearly, you know

00:42:32 ◼   ► He came to the point where you know this this thing it's time for you know

00:42:37 ◼   ► This to end and any of us who have side projects now

00:42:39 ◼   ► I'm in the same boat John's in where podcasting writing is not my full-time job and I'm you know carving out of

00:42:46 ◼   ► You know family time and time that I could have if I had any hobbies, you know that weren't this

00:42:51 ◼   ► So I definitely understand it and there have been things that I've done

00:42:55 ◼   ► You know

00:42:56 ◼   ► I used to do this monthly like magazine for members of my site in iBooks and it took up so much time

00:43:02 ◼   ► I was like, you know, this is great. I really enjoyed doing it

00:43:04 ◼   ► I just can't do it anymore, you know, and maybe one day that'll come back

00:43:07 ◼   ► but it was a you know, the time in and the value out that equation was just off or

00:43:14 ◼   ► Sometimes you just know it's time time to move on from something. So

00:43:17 ◼   ► And that's really hard to do. It's really hard to

00:43:21 ◼   ► Step away from something that you care about and so my my my hats off to him for not only for writing them

00:43:27 ◼   ► But knowing when it was time to stop so well and anybody who who knows John and anybody really who listens to John knows John

00:43:34 ◼   ► I mean, that's John John John. That's John

00:43:37 ◼   ► He's not gonna half-ass it that's the other thing it's like if he's gonna do it

00:43:42 ◼   ► he's going to do it. And I think that's part of it, too, is like, you know, could

00:43:47 ◼   ► John -- because I was thinking about this -- who wants to follow John Syracuse doing

00:43:53 ◼   ► those reviews at ours? Like, I thought about it because I'm a free agent now, and I don't

00:43:59 ◼   ► want to follow that act, but more than that -- so that's interesting. Like, who wants

00:44:04 ◼   ► to follow that? I mean, I'm going to cover the next version of OS X, and I'll do it

00:44:08 ◼   ► my own way on my own terms, but following that act, not only that, John has to follow

00:44:14 ◼   ► that act. John has to live up to his track record. And if his interest is flagging, you

00:44:19 ◼   ► know, he doesn't want, I think, to do a 2,000-word review for ours, which he could do, of OS

00:44:27 ◼   ► 10, because that would not be the John Syracuse review. It needs to be 20,000 words long.

00:44:31 ◼   ► And so for him, it's like you got to be all in or all out, and he's all out. And I think

00:44:36 ◼   ► that's I think that's good for him it's sad for us that we won't have that

00:44:40 ◼   ► definitive piece but it's not like we're losing his voice so you know that's

00:44:45 ◼   ► that's I'm happy for him because that is I mean literally you imagine taking up

00:44:51 ◼   ► all of your spare time for the entire summer with this project that's he's

00:44:57 ◼   ► been doing that for it you know 15 years now right which I mean it really is I'm

00:45:02 ◼   ► I'm sure if you add that up, and I'm sure he has,

00:45:04 ◼   ► it's really crazy.

00:45:06 ◼   ► Yeah, and the annual pace now.

00:45:07 ◼   ► It didn't used to be an annual pace,

00:45:08 ◼   ► but now that it's an annual pace, it is every summer.

00:45:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, back Tiger was out,

00:45:14 ◼   ► Leopard was out for multiple years.

00:45:16 ◼   ► And I agree with you.

00:45:18 ◼   ► I didn't really consider it, because I

00:45:21 ◼   ► know that gig is beyond what I could do, probably

00:45:24 ◼   ► both professionally and time-wise.

00:45:26 ◼   ► But I've reviewed Mountain Lion, Mavericks, and Yosemite

00:45:29 ◼   ► on my site.

00:45:30 ◼   ► And they're not 2,000 words, they're longer than that,

00:45:33 ◼   ► but they're definitely not Saracusean in length or in detail.

00:45:37 ◼   ► In fact, my Yosemite one is really just a design review.

00:45:41 ◼   ► I didn't really get into the features of Yosemite,

00:45:43 ◼   ► it's mostly what's new visually.

00:45:46 ◼   ► - Right, I remember that.

00:45:49 ◼   ► That was a nice angle.

00:45:49 ◼   ► See, that's one thing you can do if you're not following,

00:45:52 ◼   ► if you're not John, having to do what John does.

00:45:55 ◼   ► You can say, "What if I just looked at the design?"

00:45:58 ◼   ► Right.

00:45:59 ◼   ► And so that's, I think, how I will continue to do that, is find-- Mountain Lion and Mavericks

00:46:03 ◼   ► were feature by feature, what's new, screenshots, that sort of thing.

00:46:07 ◼   ► But Yosemite was easy because the visual overchange was so massive.

00:46:14 ◼   ► And I'll continue to do that sort of thing.

00:46:15 ◼   ► It is enjoyable, but I know that just these smaller ones that I'm doing, how much time

00:46:21 ◼   ► they're taking, especially the Mavericks one, took a long time.

00:46:26 ◼   ► Yosemite was shorter because it was mostly visual and I waited until you know, we were pretty far along

00:46:31 ◼   ► In the the betas because the first dark mode didn't even ship with the first couple betas

00:46:37 ◼   ► I think so I was like well, you know, I can outline but I can't write or

00:46:40 ◼   ► Really talk about it till I can use it

00:46:43 ◼   ► but it's um

00:46:45 ◼   ► You know, it's one of those things that

00:46:47 ◼   ► John's content is not going away. He's gonna be talking about it on ATP and on Twitter and everything and so

00:46:54 ◼   ► I will miss reading them, but there's still a lot of ways to experience new versions of OS X

00:47:01 ◼   ► before installing yourself. A lot of people are still going to be doing this.

00:47:04 ◼   ► Well, it's a much richer environment for that than it used to be, too.

00:47:08 ◼   ► That's also true, that there was a time when there were not that many people reviewing OS X.

00:47:12 ◼   ► You know, it was--I feel like--and maybe I'm wrong at this--but I feel like there was a time when

00:47:16 ◼   ► when I would write a review of, like, 10.2 or something,

00:47:19 ◼   ► there were very few others that I could even look to and compare my Mac world feature story

00:47:25 ◼   ► to and John was one. There were not often a lot of others and now there are a million

00:47:30 ◼   ► of them and different angles and it's just a much richer world than it was when he was

00:47:34 ◼   ► doing this, you know, even ten, five years ago.

00:47:37 ◼   ► Yeah, it's definitely true, you know, it's, I mean, 15 years is a long time, you know,

00:47:44 ◼   ► My site's going to be seven this fall, and that's really, I mean, I've been doing OS

00:47:50 ◼   ► 10 reviews for three, so it's, you're definitely right, the space has just grown, has grown

00:47:57 ◼   ► so much, and that's great, because it is richer, but it is, it's hard to find that definitive

00:48:04 ◼   ► review now, you know.

00:48:05 ◼   ► Right.

00:48:06 ◼   ► So, let's see.

00:48:08 ◼   ► All right, I think we can move on to Ask Upgrade, which has a sponsor this week.

00:48:15 ◼   ► Can you tell us about our friends who are sponsoring #AskUpgrade?

00:48:18 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:48:19 ◼   ► They are our friends at GoToMeeting.

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00:49:03 ◼   ► clicking a link no signups no speed bumps turn on your webcam and boom you're

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00:49:43 ◼   ► #AskUpgradeTime. I'm excited to do this.

00:49:50 ◼   ► Well, you should hand them off to me. Let me...

00:49:54 ◼   ► Well, before we start, there's one more of a #TellUpgrade. Our friend,

00:49:58 ◼   ► And the anonymous Apple Store person, who is the same person as before, what we've talked

00:50:04 ◼   ► about before, had another tidbit that this person wanted to share, which is, Myke described

00:50:10 ◼   ► these, the terminals at the Apple Store, the ETA terminals, they're called, this person

00:50:17 ◼   ► says, Isaacs now?

00:50:18 ◼   ► Yes, I've heard that as well.

00:50:20 ◼   ► And they were upgraded to iPhone 5s last year, at least in the US, and this person says,

00:50:26 ◼   ► I'm glad you both enjoyed your Tryon appointments. We trained for weeks on all things Apple Watch.

00:50:33 ◼   ► So, you did a Tryon? Did you do one?

00:50:37 ◼   ► I did. I did do a Tryon. I did it the first day. So I was up at 3 a.m. ordering and then

00:50:41 ◼   ► at the Apple Store at 5 p.m. to try it on. And it was really great. You know, it's like

00:50:46 ◼   ► everyone says, it's really personal, it's really helpful. You know, I still know, even

00:50:51 ◼   ► though I've been gone for, you know, seven years, I still know quite a few people at

00:50:55 ◼   ► the Apple store. And so, you know, one of the majors came over and was like talking

00:50:59 ◼   ► me through it, you know, there was a trained employee actually doing the try on with me,

00:51:04 ◼   ► but a manager came over and we were talking and the the level it's a very high touch experience.

00:51:09 ◼   ► And I think it's something that the Apple store used to be known for before they got

00:51:13 ◼   ► so busy. And it's nice to see that return to form of really nice, rich one to one interactions.

00:51:21 ◼   ► And I think it's great.

00:51:22 ◼   ► I think the whole thing is very well done, very high class.

00:51:26 ◼   ► It feels like you're not in a computer store.

00:51:28 ◼   ► It feels nicer than that.

00:51:30 ◼   ► And so I think it's a great little program.

00:51:32 ◼   ► And I would say even if you're not going to buy an Apple Watch, if you're remotely interested

00:51:36 ◼   ► in it, you should go just to have the experience of taking 15, 20 minutes to try some on and

00:51:41 ◼   ► ask questions and use it because it really is an interesting product and a pretty nice

00:51:46 ◼   ► program from Apple retail.

00:51:48 ◼   ► Yeah, something that I mentioned last week is the idea that Apple stores with this kind

00:51:54 ◼   ► of chaotic, like there's no line, there's no register, you've got to flag somebody down.

00:52:00 ◼   ► That's very, you know, it's the future of retail and yet it's also really frustrating

00:52:04 ◼   ► when you just want to get something done and you, you know, there's no, it seems chaotic

00:52:08 ◼   ► and I like, I think that's a challenge for the Apple retail experience. What I like about

00:52:13 ◼   ► the try-on stuff is that it feels, again, like they're introducing some structure and

00:52:19 ◼   ► something that feels like really good customer service into the Apple retail store experience

00:52:23 ◼   ► because it's frankly it's been a while since I felt something quite that different from

00:52:29 ◼   ► the Apple store. Now it's sort of, you know, like I said, it's a little frustrating to

00:52:34 ◼   ► flag somebody down. It's not like it's bad service, but this felt like a cut above and

00:52:38 ◼   ► I yeah, I think it's worth doing if you're curious about this stuff even if you're not

00:52:41 ◼   ► gonna buy. There's no hard sell here. It's just, you know, they're well trained to, you

00:52:46 ◼   ► know, they've got their little little rag and their two watches at a time rule and all

00:52:49 ◼   ► that and they'll make it they'll make it happen.

00:52:52 ◼   ► Yeah, so um, so listener Chris writes in to say, "On Google Plus, the Verge is commonly

00:53:00 ◼   ► known as iVerge due to Apple bias. Do you think that's fair?"

00:53:06 ◼   ► This comment made me laugh.

00:53:07 ◼   ► This is a little inside baseball.

00:53:09 ◼   ► Yeah, but basically what I would say is anybody who covers Apple is accused of Apple bias.

00:53:19 ◼   ► Anybody who covers Android is accused of Android bias. If you're not a site that is catering

00:53:23 ◼   ► to a particular audience, like, you know, I'm writing to people who like Apple stuff,

00:53:29 ◼   ► and I write about it in that context. I'm not interested in or qualified in doing a

00:53:34 ◼   ► a shootout between iOS and Android. I'm just not interested in it. I tried that for a little

00:53:40 ◼   ► while at TechHive, and I decided I'd rather not do that, and that's not what I'm trying

00:53:45 ◼   ► to do. But if you're The Verge, you've got to do that. And yeah, anybody who says anything

00:53:49 ◼   ► positive about vendor A is going to make the people who are fans of vendor B angry. Do

00:53:54 ◼   ► I think The Verge is biased toward Apple? Is it iverge? Well, I don't know. As somebody

00:54:01 ◼   ► who knows a lot about Apple stuff, I look at a lot of The Verge's coverage about Android

00:54:07 ◼   ► stuff and roll my eyes. So, you know, I think it's all in the eye of the beholder. I think

00:54:11 ◼   ► The Verge has a difficult job, as all of these multi-platform sites do, because first off,

00:54:20 ◼   ► they have to cover all of this stuff, and that's hard, and second, you know, it depends

00:54:24 ◼   ► on each individual reader and their needs. So, you know, if you're somebody who can't

00:54:32 ◼   ► decide, then that's a very different story than somebody who's invested into one platform

00:54:37 ◼   ► or the other. And if you're somebody who's just looking at stories about the other side

00:54:40 ◼   ► as fodder for your, you know, long twilight struggle with the enemy, then sure, you'll

00:54:47 ◼   ► be disappointed if an article doesn't provide you with that material because it says something

00:54:51 ◼   ► positive about something. So also let's be clear about watch coverage. Nobody is deciding

00:54:56 ◼   ► between an Android Wear watch and an Apple Watch because they're both extensions of the

00:55:01 ◼   ► platforms. Nobody is saying which one should you get a Moto 360 or an Apple Watch because

00:55:06 ◼   ► nobody, and now I've said nobody, somebody's gonna say, "Well, actually, I'm buying a new

00:55:10 ◼   ► phone soon and I'm on the fence about Apple or Android." Okay, essentially nobody, how

00:55:14 ◼   ► about we say it that way, is going to use the watch right now as the differentiator.

00:55:19 ◼   ► that'll happen someday, but I feel like if you've got an Android phone, you're looking

00:55:22 ◼   ► at the Android watches. If you've got an iPhone, you're looking at the Apple Watch. There's

00:55:25 ◼   ► really no other game other than the Pebble. Hi, Pebble.

00:55:29 ◼   ► Steve McLaughlin Hi. Those guys.

00:55:31 ◼   ► Chris Smith But, so I think, you know, I don't think it's

00:55:34 ◼   ► fair. I think it's a tough job, and I think there are a lot of people who are always out.

00:55:39 ◼   ► The people who are calling the Verge iVerge are people who want the Verge to bash Apple

00:55:43 ◼   ► and are disappointed that they say nice things about Apple from time to time, in addition

00:55:47 ◼   ► to saying not nice things about them. But those people aren't interested in in by in

00:55:51 ◼   ► unbiased coverage. They're interested in their bias.

00:55:53 ◼   ► Yeah, you know, I'm putting the link in now there's some roommates I think so good such

00:56:02 ◼   ► a guy to a fight in a parking lot. A guy hit another guy with a beer bottle over iPhone

00:56:11 ◼   ► versus Android. Yeah, I mean, that might be taking it a little far. I mean, I don't want

00:56:16 ◼   ► tell anyone how to live their life, Jason. But I feel like if you have assaulted another

00:56:20 ◼   ► human being over their phone choice, maybe you should think about things.

00:56:23 ◼   ► Reconsider your life. Although I will say that story says alcohol is said to have fueled

00:56:28 ◼   ► the escalation.

00:56:29 ◼   ► Yeah. Oh, shockingly so.

00:56:31 ◼   ► Less than smartphone dispute. Yeah. Yeah. I'm shocked that that might be the case.

00:56:37 ◼   ► It's crazy.

00:56:38 ◼   ► You don't say that is taking it a little bit far.

00:56:39 ◼   ► And you want people to buy beer on the internet. Come on.

00:56:42 ◼   ► Well, yeah, I don't want the internet vending the beer directly to them.

00:56:46 ◼   ► I just, you know.

00:56:47 ◼   ► There you go.

00:56:48 ◼   ► So, listener Jimmy, our friend Jimmy, Upgradient Jimmy perhaps.

00:56:53 ◼   ► Perhaps.

00:56:54 ◼   ► I don't think I'm equipped to bless somebody as an Upgradient.

00:56:57 ◼   ► People can be an Upgradient if they want.

00:56:59 ◼   ► I have to make something up if they don't identify themselves as an Upgradient or a listener.

00:57:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:57:05 ◼   ► So, he asks, "Would it make sense for Apple to make an all-inclusive subscription?

00:57:10 ◼   ► unlimited iCloud storage, beat streaming, iTunes match, etc. So right now, you buy

00:57:16 ◼   ► iCloud space that can take care of your photos. But if you buy iTunes match, it's

00:57:20 ◼   ► a separate charge. iTunes matches what 20, 30 bucks a year. Beat streaming at some

00:57:26 ◼   ► point is going to be, you know, more into the Apple fold. Right now it's a separate

00:57:31 ◼   ► separate thing. So Jimmy's asking, does it make sense to just have, "Hey, I want to

00:57:36 ◼   ► pay for just Apple cloud services, checks and boxes, I get what I want, I get one bill.

00:57:42 ◼   ► Sounds great.

00:57:43 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a nice idea.

00:57:44 ◼   ► This is like Amazon Prime, like Apple Prime.

00:57:47 ◼   ► I think it's a great idea.

00:57:48 ◼   ► I do get frustrated by the fact that I've got an iCloud subscription that renews at

00:57:52 ◼   ► a different time than the iTunes in the cloud subscription, iTunes match subscription, and

00:57:56 ◼   ► the Beats subscription.

00:57:57 ◼   ► I have all of those.

00:57:59 ◼   ► They all renew separately.

00:58:00 ◼   ► I think it would be great if Apple offered something like Amazon Prime where there was

00:58:04 ◼   ► an all-in Apple thing. And this is Apple we're talking about. Apple wants people in their

00:58:08 ◼   ► ecosystem. It seems to make sense to me to offer people a fully commit to Apple services

00:58:15 ◼   ► kind of thing, and offer a la carte, too. So I think it's a good idea. I imagine that

00:58:21 ◼   ► Eddie Q. and company have talked about this, but it makes sense to me. I would much rather

00:58:26 ◼   ► just write them one check, put one auto renew on my credit card, and walk away and not worry

00:58:31 ◼   ► about it instead of the whole like how much and adjusting their storage options offering

00:58:37 ◼   ► an unlimited tier or a very very high storage tier I think would be great too as a part

00:58:42 ◼   ► of that because that's one of those places and we talked about Apple retail customer

00:58:47 ◼   ► experience that's one of the places where I feel kind of nickeled and dimed by Apple

00:58:50 ◼   ► is in the storage like they have all these little tiers and they're way more expensive

00:58:54 ◼   ► than their competitors and it just feels very un-Apple to do that and I'm not saying Apple

00:58:59 ◼   ► shouldn't charge people. I'm just saying the way they do it where it's like, well, you

00:59:02 ◼   ► get five for free and then you can upgrade to 10 or 20. It seems very bureaucratic. It

00:59:06 ◼   ► seems very Microsoft-y. It does not seem like... and the way their competitors are going is

00:59:12 ◼   ► very simple. Like Dropbox literally now has you get it for free or you pay. And that's

00:59:16 ◼   ► it. There are two tiers. There's a terabyte or there's the free tier. That's it. That's

00:59:21 ◼   ► the whole thing. So, yeah, that's a great idea, Jimmy. Million, million. As I like to

00:59:27 ◼   ► that's a million dollar idea.

00:59:29 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:59:30 ◼   ► - He's gonna get a--

00:59:31 ◼   ► - It's gonna cost a million dollars, unfortunately.

00:59:33 ◼   ► Sorry about that.

00:59:34 ◼   ► - Well, listener Jimmy can maybe get some sort of percentage

00:59:37 ◼   ► right off the top from Apple.

00:59:39 ◼   ► I think that's only fair.

00:59:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like an affiliate revenue thing for the idea.

00:59:42 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:59:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, all future Apple Prime accounts

00:59:45 ◼   ► will be an affiliate deal for Jimmy.

00:59:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I do agree that the Nook-Lund diming

00:59:50 ◼   ► definitely feels real.

00:59:51 ◼   ► And what's nice in Yosemite, I think in Mavericks as well,

00:59:55 ◼   ► In the iCloud preference pane, you

00:59:58 ◼   ► can adjust your billing right there.

01:00:00 ◼   ► But for anything iTunes, you have to go into iTunes,

01:00:02 ◼   ► go into your account, you have to authenticate like three

01:00:05 ◼   ► times.

01:00:06 ◼   ► And your app subscriptions, like if you have Evernote Premium

01:00:09 ◼   ► or something that comes out once a year every month

01:00:11 ◼   ► or something, that's all in there too.

01:00:14 ◼   ► I would like just sort of a dashboard of my accounts

01:00:17 ◼   ► and have it all in one place.

01:00:21 ◼   ► I think there's room for improvement there.

01:00:23 ◼   ► I think they'll get there.

01:00:24 ◼   ► Apple, surely someone at Apple knows that that's sort of a janky experience and Apple

01:00:28 ◼   ► doesn't really like janky experiences, so I think they'll come around.

01:00:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, I hope so. I think some of it too is that it's different parts of the company.

01:00:37 ◼   ► And Beats obviously was completely not part of the company, but I think there's different

01:00:40 ◼   ► parts and they're out of sync and somebody needs to come in and say, "Okay, here's our

01:00:44 ◼   ► plan." You know, presumably there's somebody in charge, like a revenue person who's in

01:00:48 ◼   ► charge of all of this saying, "We need to do a better job of marketing our offerings

01:00:53 ◼   ► and put something together that would be better.

01:00:55 ◼   ► That's a good kind of marketing, by the way,

01:00:57 ◼   ► is when they're like, how do we bring things to market

01:00:59 ◼   ► in a way that people will understand you need those people?

01:01:03 ◼   ► Anyway, Lister Kevin had a comment, a really good question.

01:01:08 ◼   ► - He did, so Lister Kevin says,

01:01:11 ◼   ► and I'm gonna use his pronunciation.

01:01:13 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:01:14 ◼   ► - So Kevin asks, will we ever see an OSXi

01:01:19 ◼   ► or is OS X the permanent/final Mac OS?

01:01:23 ◼   ► - So I would probably think they would never pronounce

01:01:26 ◼   ► it O-S-X-I because they don't pronounce it O-S-X

01:01:29 ◼   ► except if you're listening to the audiobook

01:01:30 ◼   ► of "Becoming Steve Jobs," in which case they do.

01:01:33 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:01:35 ◼   ► But this is the constant OS 11 question,

01:01:37 ◼   ► which is, is OS X the final,

01:01:39 ◼   ► are we gonna truly have OS X?

01:01:41 ◼   ► We already have 10.10, right?

01:01:43 ◼   ► Is there gonna be 10.11, do they change it?

01:01:45 ◼   ► And what I would say is,

01:01:47 ◼   ► it's easy to get hung up on the numbering thing

01:01:48 ◼   ► 'cause it came from nine to 10,

01:01:50 ◼   ► but it was always a marketing term.

01:01:52 ◼   ► It was always the Roman numeral, like, and the big X.

01:01:55 ◼   ► It was always marketing and not, the number didn't matter,

01:01:58 ◼   ► which is why it's 10.10 now.

01:02:00 ◼   ► So I don't think, I don't think, personally,

01:02:03 ◼   ► there will ever be an OS 11.

01:02:05 ◼   ► I don't think that's gonna happen.

01:02:06 ◼   ► Also, keep in mind, iOS, in a couple of years,

01:02:09 ◼   ► is gonna be iOS 10, which is also gonna be weird.

01:02:12 ◼   ► So here's my theory.

01:02:15 ◼   ► I'm gonna throw out a theory here.

01:02:17 ◼   ► I think OS X, first off, could just stay as the Mac OS name forever until there's no Mac

01:02:23 ◼   ► anymore, until they do a huge operating system shift in 10 years.

01:02:30 ◼   ► Somebody who's not John Saracusa will have to write "Copeland 2040."

01:02:36 ◼   ► But so here's my theory.

01:02:37 ◼   ► I think OS X is an old name.

01:02:41 ◼   ► It doesn't have the resonance that it used to, and we're about to have a collision with

01:02:45 ◼   ► iOS.

01:02:46 ◼   ► I'm just going to throw it out there, just a wacky idea. I think at some point soon in

01:02:51 ◼   ► the next couple of years, Apple is going to start referring to OS X as Mac OS again, and

01:02:57 ◼   ► we'll have Mac OS and iOS. And at that point you might have Mac OS version 11.0, Mavericks,

01:03:05 ◼   ► or whatever, you know, Big Sur, Arcadia.

01:03:07 ◼   ► Yeah, so a couple things come to mind. A, OS 9 wasn't going to be a thing. If you go

01:03:14 ◼   ► go back, like, they were gonna do a bunch of releases of OS 8, and they were gonna go

01:03:18 ◼   ► to OS 10, OS 9, and I was like, "Oh, we need a thing," which is really my favorite part

01:03:22 ◼   ► of that.

01:03:23 ◼   ► - OS 8 wasn't even gonna be a thing.

01:03:24 ◼   ► OS 8 was just gonna be 7.7 or something until Steve Jobs figured out that's how he could

01:03:28 ◼   ► get the clones out, was to say, "Oh, your license is only for system 7.

01:03:32 ◼   ► This is OS 8.

01:03:33 ◼   ► Goodbye."

01:03:34 ◼   ► - I'm just gonna change the number.

01:03:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, and then 9, 9 came actually after 10, which is the other funny thing, is that

01:03:39 ◼   ► was already out and they did 9 as the bridge release for 10 and 10 ran 9 in

01:03:44 ◼   ► classic and uh yeah so it's all weird. It's weird so there's that and

01:03:48 ◼   ► really that was my favorite part of Apple people mocking Windows from going

01:03:51 ◼   ► Windows from Windows 8 to Windows 10 because Apple did basically the same

01:03:55 ◼   ► thing but but also too if you look at the way Apple markets them starting with

01:04:01 ◼   ► really starting with line and mountain line but especially now you don't see

01:04:06 ◼   ► Mac OS X 10.10 written out or referenced very much by Apple.

01:04:10 ◼   ► The marketing label is Mac OS X Yosemite.

01:04:15 ◼   ► - It's not even Mac, it's OS X Yosemite.

01:04:16 ◼   ► - OS X Yosemite, and so they've already

01:04:19 ◼   ► adjusted course a little bit.

01:04:21 ◼   ► Back in Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, it was very heavy.

01:04:24 ◼   ► This is Mac OS X 10.3.

01:04:26 ◼   ► That's what it was called, that's what Apple called it.

01:04:29 ◼   ► - And then you got into the 10-point whatever name

01:04:33 ◼   ► where they kind of mixed them together.

01:04:35 ◼   ► they've pushed toward the Yosemite Mavericks kind of thing, which is why one thing they

01:04:41 ◼   ► could do is continue to call it seriously. They could consider calling it OS X and rev

01:04:47 ◼   ► it to version 11 and nobody would care, except nerds who would be like, "Well, actually,

01:04:53 ◼   ► 10.10 is not a possibility because it's a decimal system and those people are already

01:04:57 ◼   ► dead because Yosemite is 10.10."

01:05:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I do think they're gonna have to do something.

01:05:04 ◼   ► - I think iOS 10 is a problem.

01:05:08 ◼   ► I think you don't want iOS 10.

01:05:09 ◼   ► So that's when things get weird.

01:05:12 ◼   ► So I would, for me that would be,

01:05:15 ◼   ► I don't see how the 10 is important branding anymore.

01:05:18 ◼   ► You know, you've got Mac, everything is Mac now.

01:05:21 ◼   ► There's Mac and there's iPhone and iPad.

01:05:24 ◼   ► So iOS probably sticks around

01:05:26 ◼   ► 'cause iPhone and iPad are products.

01:05:28 ◼   ► They all have the I in front of them,

01:05:29 ◼   ► No apples moving away from the eye, they all have them.

01:05:32 ◼   ► So OS X, could it just be Mac OS?

01:05:35 ◼   ► So then you've got Mac OS 11 and iOS 9, maybe?

01:05:40 ◼   ► - It's hard to say.

01:05:41 ◼   ► - I don't know.

01:05:42 ◼   ► - It's, I'm sure there are people who this keeps up

01:05:46 ◼   ► in Cupertino, realizing they're in some sort of

01:05:48 ◼   ► weird collision course with names.

01:05:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I mean this is just like when they

01:05:52 ◼   ► introduced the new iPad that one time

01:05:54 ◼   ► and they didn't want to give it a number

01:05:55 ◼   ► because they were like making arguments

01:05:57 ◼   ► that we should just always call it the iPad

01:05:58 ◼   ► realized yeah that's not gonna. Also they keep old versions around now so they

01:06:03 ◼   ► need to have the numbers so that they can explain no no this is the iPad Air 2.

01:06:06 ◼   ► iPad Air also available iPad Air 2. Faster. So we'll see we'll see but I I am

01:06:14 ◼   ► coming around to the crazy theory posited here that maybe OS X as a brand

01:06:20 ◼   ► will get transmogrified into something more like Mac OS again like in the old

01:06:24 ◼   ► days because you know OS X was intended as a reassuring transition from previous

01:06:29 ◼   ► Mac OS generations and an exciting step into the future but that was a long, we

01:06:34 ◼   ► talked about John's reviews, that was 15 years ago man, that was a long time ago.

01:06:39 ◼   ► It's just the Mac now. What differentiates OS X is not the 10, it's the Mac.

01:06:42 ◼   ► This is the operating system that the Mac runs, so call it that.

01:06:45 ◼   ► Yeah, so we'll see. We'll follow up in three to six years.

01:06:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I'll check back right here. Yeah, this is the beauty of making really

01:06:53 ◼   ► long-term predictions is no one remembers them so if you're wrong it's

01:06:56 ◼   ► fine yeah so check back that'll be on upgrade number 190 we'll check back then

01:07:04 ◼   ► yeah check listen to mark writes in says regarding Apple watch accessibility

01:07:08 ◼   ► could a blind person use one and have the tactic engine tap out the time it's

01:07:14 ◼   ► a it's interesting there's a there's an accessibility page up that that is this

01:07:17 ◼   ► just came up this weekend or pretty recently last week yeah yeah it's a

01:07:21 ◼   ► recent edition about accessibility. Apple's talking about accessibility on

01:07:24 ◼   ► Apple Watch now. Which is great and before we dive into it, I definitely

01:07:30 ◼   ► love that this is such a big point of concern for Apple where so many

01:07:35 ◼   ► companies just don't do anything about it. So it always makes me happy to

01:07:40 ◼   ► discuss and see what Apple's up to in this area. And the watch, you know,

01:07:44 ◼   ► it's little, right? Like, I would imagine a hard accessibility thing

01:07:50 ◼   ► to solve, but looking at this webpage, I don't see this particular suggestion listed, but

01:07:56 ◼   ► there's a lot of stuff on here that should make this easier to use for people with both

01:08:00 ◼   ► vision and hearing issues going on.

01:08:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, we've talked about the idea that the walking instructions being able to

01:08:11 ◼   ► tell you to turn left and right and things like that.

01:08:13 ◼   ► I imagine this is going to be early days.

01:08:15 ◼   ► It's great that they've got an accessibility story now.

01:08:17 ◼   ► I think the idea of tapping the time and things like that is a really great idea too.

01:08:21 ◼   ► I think this will get better.

01:08:23 ◼   ► I think between voiceover, because even if you're blind, the watch is a speaker on your

01:08:29 ◼   ► wrist attached to iPhone apps so it can talk to you and you have a touch surface that you

01:08:36 ◼   ► can use to navigate a little bit.

01:08:39 ◼   ► There are going to be some really great applications for that down the line.

01:08:42 ◼   ► It's probably going to be rudimentary to start, but I do think there's a lot of potential

01:08:49 ◼   ► here, and Apple does care about this.

01:08:50 ◼   ► Apple knows that this is one of those areas where it can actually lead, and it fits, as

01:08:54 ◼   ► we've talked about on Upgrade before, it fits with how Apple sees itself, which is as a

01:08:59 ◼   ► force for good, and that's not just marketing.

01:09:01 ◼   ► I think that's one of their things that they ask themselves is, "How can we make this product

01:09:07 ◼   ► that we're doing, how can our presence be a force for good and change in the world?"

01:09:11 ◼   ► So I think there'll be more there, but it's a start, and the fact that there's a page

01:09:16 ◼   ► about it I think is encouraging too.

01:09:19 ◼   ► Apple's not going to even know.

01:09:20 ◼   ► I think as with so much with the watch, it's going to get out in the market, and then everybody,

01:09:25 ◼   ► including Apple, is going to learn a whole lot about what to do.

01:09:28 ◼   ► I would not be surprised if the Apple Watch software changes dramatically over the first

01:09:32 ◼   ► year just because, in the same hardware, just because they're going to be learning things

01:09:37 ◼   ► and realize, "Oh, nobody uses this," and, "Oh, what a great idea that we didn't implement."

01:09:41 ◼   ► It would just not surprise me if they change a lot in that first year, because they're

01:09:44 ◼   ► going to learn so much.

01:09:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, the iPhone OS definitely did that.

01:09:48 ◼   ► And what's nice, you know, now iOS, those accessibility tools are really rich.

01:09:52 ◼   ► And as well on the Mac, you know, there's a lot of stuff and, you know, the things like

01:09:58 ◼   ► reducing transparency, like not just for accessibility purpose, but I use that because I don't like,

01:10:03 ◼   ► I don't care for the transparency and it makes, you know, it makes weird little edge cases

01:10:07 ◼   ► happen.

01:10:08 ◼   ► It's not just for people who necessarily need it, which is nice.

01:10:12 ◼   ► It gives you some other options if you don't care for something.

01:10:14 ◼   ► But yeah, I totally agree.

01:10:16 ◼   ► I think watchOS is going to have some pretty significant iteration.

01:10:19 ◼   ► So you know, they did it on the iPhone, right?

01:10:22 ◼   ► The original iPhone did very few things and the App Store was out the next year on the

01:10:26 ◼   ► same hardware and all of a sudden your phone could do a billion things.

01:10:29 ◼   ► And even though this is launching with watch kit and native apps are coming at some point,

01:10:35 ◼   ► You know, if you look back at those original, you know, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 iPhone OS releases,

01:10:42 ◼   ► some pretty significant changes, I think this will just follow in those footsteps.

01:10:46 ◼   ► I agree.

01:10:47 ◼   ► We have one last bit of listener feedback.

01:10:51 ◼   ► Now, again, there is an Ask Upgrade element to this, which is listener Eric sent us a

01:10:56 ◼   ► tweet from astronaut Sam Cristoforetti on Twitter.

01:11:01 ◼   ► She posted from the International Space Station a tweet pointing at the Dragon capsule which

01:11:06 ◼   ► was coming to load up the station.

01:11:09 ◼   ► And there's coffee in that nebula, I mean that Dragon.

01:11:12 ◼   ► So Italian, and as Lister Eric points out, the Dragon spacecraft was carrying an espresso

01:11:18 ◼   ► machine designed for zero gravity, which is kind of amazing, and I can see why an Italian

01:11:23 ◼   ► astronaut would want that.

01:11:25 ◼   ► But Lister Eric's question is, is this the first Star Trek uniform in space?

01:11:28 ◼   ► 'cause she appears to be wearing, she is wearing,

01:11:30 ◼   ► essentially a Star Trek Voyager uniform,

01:11:33 ◼   ► which I noticed and I thought, that is one of them,

01:11:35 ◼   ► and it's got a pin that's not like a,

01:11:37 ◼   ► it's not the Star Trek Comm badge,

01:11:39 ◼   ► but it's something in that spot,

01:11:40 ◼   ► and it just made me laugh, because that's awesome,

01:11:44 ◼   ► that there is somebody wearing a Star Trek uniform

01:11:46 ◼   ► in outer space, that is really funny.

01:11:47 ◼   ► And you know what, she wants her coffee, dammit.

01:11:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I would think, you know,

01:11:52 ◼   ► I've read, I'm a NASA nerd, I've read a lot about, like,

01:11:55 ◼   ► life on the space station, and coffee seems like

01:11:58 ◼   ► pretty central part of it. So I know, you know, our, our Italian co host on connected

01:12:05 ◼   ► is would be very happy to see that this is now on now we can send Federico into space.

01:12:11 ◼   ► Now there's zero gravity espresso. This was the only thing holding it back really this

01:12:15 ◼   ► is it get get to get to the Cosmodrome. Yeah, iPads work iPads work on the space station.

01:12:20 ◼   ► So that's right. You can have espresso he can do his thing. I think he could he could

01:12:25 ◼   ► that is the most mobile workstation ever. He could just bring his iPad, he could do

01:12:29 ◼   ► Max Stories from space. All he needs is an iPad, an internet connection, which they sort

01:12:34 ◼   ► of have, and Espresso. I think this is a new, exciting direction for Max Stories. I suspect

01:12:41 ◼   ► that Federico won't be wearing a Star Trek uniform, though. Unfortunately. Probably not.

01:12:47 ◼   ► But thank you, listener Eric. I don't know if that's the first Star Trek uniform in space,

01:12:50 ◼   ► but that was a pretty great tweet on so many different levels, so I'm glad that you

01:12:55 ◼   ► you send it in. Well, Steven, I think we're at the end. I think we did it. I think we

01:13:02 ◼   ► managed to do a show without Myke.

01:13:04 ◼   ► Steven: I think so. I think we're both still here.

01:13:06 ◼   ► Steve McLaughlin Yeah, it seems so. Nobody died. That's my

01:13:09 ◼   ► number one thing with podcasts. Did anybody die during the podcast? No.

01:13:12 ◼   ► Steven: Do many people die on podcasts with you?

01:13:14 ◼   ► Steve McLaughlin I don't like to talk about it. It's just

01:13:17 ◼   ► my baseline. It hasn't happened. Okay, it hasn't happened yet that people have died.

01:13:22 ◼   ► But I figure if nobody dies, then it's probably a pretty good show.

01:13:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I've listened to some of your Star Wars episodes.

01:13:27 ◼   ► It's amazing no one has just blown a blood vessel.

01:13:29 ◼   ► Oh, that's true.

01:13:30 ◼   ► I think that's the closest we've come is, you know, "John, John, are you out there?"

01:13:34 ◼   ► You know?

01:13:35 ◼   ► Yeah, just gurgling on the floor.

01:13:37 ◼   ► He's on the floor.

01:13:38 ◼   ► He's like, "I just need to gather myself for a moment."

01:13:40 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:13:41 ◼   ► Well, this was a lot of fun.

01:13:43 ◼   ► We should-- we've got-- Dan Morin is really jealous.

01:13:46 ◼   ► He's like, "When do I get to guest host Upgrade?"

01:13:48 ◼   ► and it's like I do talk to him every week on on on another show on clockwise

01:13:52 ◼   ► but but it's fun to have it's fun to have special guest stars so I'm glad you

01:13:57 ◼   ► could do it while Myke is busy schlepping around pens in Atlanta yeah

01:14:01 ◼   ► well thanks for having me a lot of fun and we should we should not only thank

01:14:05 ◼   ► each other we should thank our three sponsors before we go we should sure

01:14:10 ◼   ► igloo mail route and go to meeting go check them out there's links in the show

01:14:13 ◼   ► notes all of the links we have spoken about today you can find in your

01:14:17 ◼   ► podcast app of choice or in any web browser you might find yourself sitting in front of

01:14:22 ◼   ► at relay.fm/upgrade/33.

01:14:26 ◼   ► Very nice. You podcast app of choice. You got it in there. It's like you listen to the

01:14:29 ◼   ► show. That's nice.

01:14:30 ◼   ► It's true. I do every week.

01:14:32 ◼   ► Have you seen this as Spinal Tap?

01:14:35 ◼   ► A long time ago and only once.

01:14:37 ◼   ► That's fine. That's that's...

01:14:39 ◼   ► It was a thousand percent time more than Myke.

01:14:42 ◼   ► So that's right.

01:14:44 ◼   ► Now you guys are equal.

01:14:45 ◼   ► He just reached you last week.

01:14:46 ◼   ► So all right.

01:14:47 ◼   ► Well, this was great.

01:14:48 ◼   ► Thanks to everybody out there for listening to Upgrade.

01:14:51 ◼   ► And Myke will be back next week.

01:14:52 ◼   ► Steven, thanks for being the guest host.

01:14:54 ◼   ► And we'll see you next week, everybody.

01:14:57 ◼   ► Adios.

01:14:58 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:15:00 ◼   ► [Music]