Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode number 25. Today's show is brought to you by Igloo,

00:00:14 ◼   ► an internet you'll actually like, Lynda.com where you can instantly stream thousands of

00:00:19 ◼   ► courses created by industry experts, and Squarespace, build it beautiful.

00:00:23 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley, today I have the pleasure, as always, of being joined

00:00:28 ◼   ► by the man you pay to see, Mr. Jason Snow. What do they pay and who do they pay it to?

00:00:34 ◼   ► The piper. Hello, I'm Michael, as Merlin Mann refers to you. Hello, Jason. I listened to your

00:00:40 ◼   ► first, well not first, but your one, your inquisitive from Merlin as a Service from

00:00:46 ◼   ► last fall. I finally listened to it. It's off of my playlist. I'm going through the deep cuts,

00:00:51 ◼   ► through the back catalog, so I got that one out of the way. That's the one where he sings the

00:00:56 ◼   ► cotton song and that's good stuff good stuff and he calls you I Michael

00:01:01 ◼   ► throughout which I love so hi Michael that was a long time ago that one I

00:01:04 ◼   ► think it was like October or something you were still working at your job but

00:01:08 ◼   ► had but had quit and actually talking about people leaving their jobs that

00:01:16 ◼   ► actually led I had so I had breakfast a few weeks ago when I was down in LA with

00:01:20 ◼   ► David Sparks of MacPowerUsers and MacSparky and other sorts of things, and legal profession

00:01:28 ◼   ► fame.

00:01:31 ◼   ► And we were talking about how David recently made a career change of his own, and I thought

00:01:36 ◼   ► that would be a fun reason to invite him as our third ever guest on Upgrade.

00:01:41 ◼   ► So David, welcome.

00:01:43 ◼   ► David Sparks Thank you, Jason, and I'm Michael.

00:01:47 ◼   ► It's actually kind of thrilling to be on the show.

00:01:48 ◼   ► I listen to your show every week.

00:01:49 ◼   ► I think you guys are great.

00:01:50 ◼   ► Thanks.

00:01:51 ◼   ► Well, I have bad news for you.

00:01:52 ◼   ► This week's show, you will have already heard it by the time it gets here.

00:01:55 ◼   ► I know.

00:01:56 ◼   ► I know.

00:01:57 ◼   ► I'm a little uncomfortable every time you talk about mailbagging.

00:02:00 ◼   ► I have to say that makes me a little nervous.

00:02:02 ◼   ► We will have no conversations about mailbagging this week.

00:02:04 ◼   ► I can guarantee it.

00:02:05 ◼   ► However, next week we will talk in depth about mailbagging.

00:02:08 ◼   ► So you'll have to stay tuned for number 26 to get more mailbagging.

00:02:12 ◼   ► We actually are going to reveal the secret.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Yes.

00:02:15 ◼   ► a very nice listener who told us about what it is and sent us a link. But now we're out

00:02:20 ◼   ► not a sponsor this week, so we're going to save it for the mail.

00:02:23 ◼   ► All right. Hold your powder.

00:02:25 ◼   ► Later. That's right. Why would we give them free space this week, which we seem to be

00:02:29 ◼   ► doing right now? Anyway, David, it's great to have you here. We're going to talk about

00:02:34 ◼   ► what you're doing and go through all of that. But I feel like first we should discuss something

00:02:40 ◼   ► that is not follow-up, Myke, not follow-up, but topics that we covered recently that we

00:02:45 ◼   ► would like to talk about again briefly at the top of the show, but it's definitely not

00:02:49 ◼   ► follow-up.

00:02:50 ◼   ► I find it so interesting that you were so excited about follow-up, but now you've been

00:02:55 ◼   ► ground down to the point where you've had to rename it.

00:02:58 ◼   ► Uh-huh.

00:02:59 ◼   ► I feel bad.

00:03:00 ◼   ► That's about it.

00:03:01 ◼   ► Well, you could argue that I overdid it a little bit with the follow-up, where I was

00:03:05 ◼   ► just like, "Let's just make the entire show follow-up," and that might have been a mistake.

00:03:09 ◼   ► But no, I love follow-up.

00:03:11 ◼   ► I'm making fun of the people who don't like follow-up.

00:03:15 ◼   ► Let's see, we should mention, so I, oh, we talked about the Pebble last week before it

00:03:21 ◼   ► was on Kickstarter when it was just a rumor, and we both said, "Oh, it looks terrible,

00:03:25 ◼   ► good luck, they're doomed."

00:03:26 ◼   ► And of course, they then had what was the most massive success ever on Kickstarter.

00:03:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's, I think--

00:03:33 ◼   ► - Don't listen to us.

00:03:34 ◼   ► - Probably by the time this show comes out, they will be the most popular Kickstarter

00:03:38 ◼   ► of all time.

00:03:39 ◼   ► I think the record is something like 12 million, and they're currently at 11.9.

00:03:44 ◼   ► So I feel like it's worth clarifying at least how I felt about this at the time.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Yes, a clarification.

00:03:50 ◼   ► Clarifying, I like that.

00:03:51 ◼   ► Revisionist.

00:03:52 ◼   ► Let's do it.

00:03:53 ◼   ► We can do that.

00:03:54 ◼   ► Right, Con.

00:03:55 ◼   ► I can go and change the original file.

00:03:57 ◼   ► Because a lot of people made a point of, a lot of upgrade-ians made a point of pointing

00:04:02 ◼   ► it out to us.

00:04:04 ◼   ► I am extremely happy for Pebble.

00:04:06 ◼   ► I think they're a great company and I think it's fantastic that they have had such an

00:04:10 ◼   ► incredible success.

00:04:11 ◼   ► However, I do still feel like their days are numbered and I still don't like the look of how this product looks

00:04:16 ◼   ► I think the OS looks fantastic

00:04:18 ◼   ► And I wish that that

00:04:21 ◼   ► The pebble OS had always looked this way and react and acted this way. It looks amazing

00:04:25 ◼   ► however, I think that

00:04:28 ◼   ► That that days are numbered they and they I think pebble as a company has to consider

00:04:34 ◼   ► Trying to I'm sure they are make like a full-blown

00:04:38 ◼   ► Android Wear watch that can take advantage of the apps that are in that

00:04:42 ◼   ► ecosystem. Because all it can do is when people say that you know it can take

00:04:45 ◼   ► advantage of Android Wear it can just take advantage of the notification

00:04:48 ◼   ► support but the apps like let's say Pinterest brings out their app they would

00:04:53 ◼   ► need to create a specific app for the Pebble they can't use the Android Wear

00:04:56 ◼   ► app. So I think that's their future if they're gonna stick around but I just

00:05:01 ◼   ► think that the Pebble is like the first entry it's like the first one that kind

00:05:06 ◼   ► of works and all of the things that are good about the Pebble is what the current kind

00:05:11 ◼   ► of full powered smartwatches will be doing in a couple of years time.

00:05:15 ◼   ► And I don't think that, I would be surprised if they're able to innovate as quickly as

00:05:19 ◼   ► companies like Apple and Motorola and Samsung.

00:05:22 ◼   ► - I think the Pebble has a place in the sense that it's cheaper than the Android Wear watches

00:05:30 ◼   ► and it has much longer battery life because it's using that e-paper screen, which is the

00:05:36 ◼   ► basically an LCD screen that's very low power. And so it has a week long more or less battery

00:05:41 ◼   ► life and for a low price. I think that there's a place for a phone like that or a watch like

00:05:46 ◼   ► that. That's not what those, you know, the Moto 360s of the world are offering. And I

00:05:51 ◼   ► think they've got a chance there. In the long run, yeah, as battery life improves on these

00:05:56 ◼   ► devices, still they might be able to do it on the price side. And if they really can

00:06:00 ◼   ► do a good job of integrating with Android and using the Android Wear APIs, I think they've

00:06:04 ◼   ► got a chance. I'm not as negative as you are, I think, about this. But what I'd say is,

00:06:10 ◼   ► as an iPhone user, I just don't even consider the Pebble Time an option. And that's not

00:06:14 ◼   ► Pebble's fault. The fact is, Pebble has always had a problem connecting with iOS. They've

00:06:20 ◼   ► tried very hard. They've struggled mightily with bugs in Notification Center. But anything

00:06:25 ◼   ► that's sort of like, send things out to a watch specific in iOS, Apple's going to pretty

00:06:31 ◼   ► much reserve that for the Apple Watch. And so Pebble's never going to be a very good

00:06:36 ◼   ► citizen on iOS because iOS doesn't want to talk to them and Apple's not going to make

00:06:40 ◼   ► any effort. And so as an iPhone user, I feel like I would never buy the Pebble time because

00:06:46 ◼   ► I just don't think it's going to be good enough and enough better than the Pebble that I've

00:06:51 ◼   ► got, let alone the Apple Watch, to make it worth investing in that with the Apple Watch

00:06:56 ◼   ► coming around the corner. And that's not their fault, but I just, you know, the platform

00:06:59 ◼   ► vendor is going to make their own watch and it's going to be super integrated with their

00:07:04 ◼   ► operating system. And that's not the case on Android where there's a lot of different

00:07:09 ◼   ► players but on iOS, you know, Pebble's never going to be able to hook in, I think. So that's

00:07:15 ◼   ► my skepticism there.

00:07:17 ◼   ► Well, I think we're still in a place where one vendor making the hardware software is

00:07:25 ◼   ► a better solution.

00:07:26 ◼   ► And that's the big thing with Apple.

00:07:29 ◼   ► So here we are.

00:07:30 ◼   ► I can't wait to see what they do with the Apple Watch.

00:07:33 ◼   ► And actually, I think one side benefit to all this was when the Apple Watch got announced,

00:07:37 ◼   ► I got suddenly more interested in my Pebble Watch again.

00:07:40 ◼   ► I pulled it out of the drawer and found out they had done some software updates to make

00:07:43 ◼   ► it actually more useful to me.

00:07:45 ◼   ► And I would suspect a lot of people who are not fully invested in the Apple world may

00:07:51 ◼   ► suddenly be more interested in smartwatches and maybe that's one of the reasons why Pebble's

00:07:56 ◼   ► doing as well as it is.

00:07:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:59 ◼   ► Yeah, totally.

00:08:00 ◼   ► Anyway, congratulations to Pebble on their great Kickstarter success.

00:08:04 ◼   ► I think it's great.

00:08:05 ◼   ► I think it's super smart to get people to pre-order a watch before the Apple Watch comes

00:08:09 ◼   ► out.

00:08:10 ◼   ► I think that is a stroke of genius.

00:08:12 ◼   ► Can't get better press than a $12 million Kickstarter.

00:08:15 ◼   ► Nope.

00:08:16 ◼   ► Good for them.

00:08:18 ◼   ► We talked last week about how I'm coming to the British Isles and how we're going to do

00:08:26 ◼   ► an episode in person.

00:08:28 ◼   ► We're probably going to do two episodes in person, one in London and one in Ireland when

00:08:35 ◼   ► we're at the OOL conference.

00:08:38 ◼   ► But we are, probably after we record that episode on March 23rd in London, we're going

00:08:44 ◼   ► to do a meetup.

00:08:47 ◼   ► And do we know where it's gonna be yet, Myke?

00:08:51 ◼   ► Provided that you were able to get us the location to record.

00:08:57 ◼   ► I was.

00:08:58 ◼   ► Then it will be in and around the King's Cross area of London.

00:09:02 ◼   ► There are a few bars and pubs there.

00:09:05 ◼   ► We've yet to nail down the exact one that it will be, but it will be in that sort of

00:09:08 ◼   ► area of central London.

00:09:10 ◼   ► It's very, very accessible if you're coming into London.

00:09:13 ◼   ► And it will be in the evening time.

00:09:15 ◼   ► Again, we'll have loads more information as we get a little bit closer, but if you want

00:09:19 ◼   ► to mark down it will be like after work, you know, after British work hours have finished,

00:09:24 ◼   ► on March the 23rd, myself and Mr. Jason Snell will be drinking in a pub somewhere and we

00:09:31 ◼   ► would love it if you're available to come and join us.

00:09:33 ◼   ► - Just calling all British Upgradians to that.

00:09:39 ◼   ► So more information to come, but I'm excited about that.

00:09:41 ◼   ► I'm excited about doing a upgrade in person too.

00:09:43 ◼   ► That should be a lot of fun.

00:09:44 ◼   ► - It's only a few weeks away.

00:09:46 ◼   ► - I know, I know.

00:09:47 ◼   ► It's three weeks away.

00:09:50 ◼   ► We will be doing that.

00:09:51 ◼   ► That's pretty crazy, pretty crazy.

00:09:53 ◼   ► I made another part of my leg of my travel reservations

00:09:57 ◼   ► today, so it's all happening.

00:09:59 ◼   ► It's, that's exciting.

00:10:01 ◼   ► Let's see what else.

00:10:04 ◼   ► Oh, let's see.

00:10:06 ◼   ► On Twitter, following up our conversations

00:10:09 ◼   ► about moving big files around,

00:10:12 ◼   ► There was a Twitter user named Ari who wrote in,

00:10:17 ◼   ► I had to look up again,

00:10:19 ◼   ► 'cause it was from the Ask upgrade,

00:10:21 ◼   ► if this, then that thing.

00:10:22 ◼   ► Ari says, "If both your machines have Thunderbolt,

00:10:26 ◼   ► "you can link them together that way

00:10:27 ◼   ► "at 10 times the speed of gigabit ethernet."

00:10:30 ◼   ► And this is absolutely true.

00:10:31 ◼   ► I was talking about how I have a gigabit ethernet

00:10:34 ◼   ► Thunderbolt adapter for my laptop.

00:10:36 ◼   ► And so I could just plug that in

00:10:38 ◼   ► and use gigabit ethernet to transfer.

00:10:40 ◼   ► And several people pointed out,

00:10:41 ◼   ► you could also just plug in Thunderbolt and do it that way.

00:10:46 ◼   ► And I thought, well, I could put it,

00:10:47 ◼   ► I'd have to shut it down and put it in target mode,

00:10:50 ◼   ► which I've done in the past,

00:10:51 ◼   ► but I'd rather not shut down my laptop.

00:10:53 ◼   ► And then I had somebody pointing out, well, no,

00:10:56 ◼   ► actually you can do, it's essentially like a fake network,

00:10:59 ◼   ► a null network that uses Thunderbolt as the network

00:11:03 ◼   ► and you get the super high speed.

00:11:04 ◼   ► So there are lots of ways just using Thunderbolt

00:11:06 ◼   ► to transfer files back and forth really fast.

00:11:09 ◼   ► My preference to use gigabit ethernet is just that my,

00:11:13 ◼   ► that I don't have to shut down my laptop

00:11:15 ◼   ► and I can keep using the network on my Mac

00:11:17 ◼   ► and it's sort of like nothing.

00:11:18 ◼   ► It just is kind of, it just happens

00:11:21 ◼   ► 'cause they're both on the same network.

00:11:22 ◼   ► I don't have to change my Mac's networking settings.

00:11:25 ◼   ► I don't have to do anything like that.

00:11:26 ◼   ► But yeah, there are lots of ways to do it.

00:11:27 ◼   ► You don't actually need to get an ethernet adapter

00:11:30 ◼   ► if you don't want one and you've got

00:11:32 ◼   ► a spare Thunderbolt cable.

00:11:33 ◼   ► You can just connect them directly and it's super fast.

00:11:36 ◼   ► So thank you to Ari and everybody else

00:11:38 ◼   ► wrote in about that. Myke's still not going to copy his files though, right?

00:11:44 ◼   ► Not unless I have to. Not unless I have to. That's a good answer.

00:11:50 ◼   ► Can we close the book on this topic? Yeah, that's it. It's networking. I wanted

00:11:56 ◼   ► to talk about networking. It's all about networking protocols, Myke. It's not judging you. It's

00:12:00 ◼   ► about information about interesting ways to move data. All data could be recipes. It could

00:12:08 ◼   ► be pictures of cats. It doesn't have to be podcast audio files. It could be anything.

00:12:14 ◼   ► But can I just tell you, Myke, just for clarification, we're rounding up to episode 250 on the MacPower

00:12:21 ◼   ► users, and you're not done talking about networking on upgrade. Just want to let you know.

00:12:27 ◼   ► No, it's going to go forever. But we're taking it out of the context of users, of listeners

00:12:33 ◼   ► There's judging Myke for his data practices.

00:12:37 ◼   ► We've moved beyond that now.

00:12:38 ◼   ► They'll judge Myke for various other things.

00:12:40 ◼   ► Many, many, many more things.

00:12:42 ◼   ► So many other things.

00:12:43 ◼   ► So listener Matt wrote in to talk about, we were talking about rumors and rumor reports,

00:12:52 ◼   ► and listener Matt wrote in to ask, I think it's an interesting question, "What motivates

00:12:56 ◼   ► people who leak information from inside Apple corporate?

00:13:01 ◼   ► Are they being paid?

00:13:02 ◼   ► just for the thrill and what does 9to5Mac's success say about the current state of Apple

00:13:08 ◼   ► journalism?

00:13:09 ◼   ► This is a big topic and I think maybe we can come back to it at some point. There have

00:13:13 ◼   ► always been leaks from inside Apple. There are purposeful leaks and there are like from

00:13:18 ◼   ► as a strategy and then there are just people who leak information. Back in the day, in

00:13:23 ◼   ► the old times when Mac Week was being published, all that stuff went in Mac Week. Mac Week

00:13:30 ◼   ► was the place for this. But it faded away, and now 9to5Mac does a lot of this. They've

00:13:37 ◼   ► got good sources. They've got good connections. They know people. I mean, that's really it.

00:13:41 ◼   ► It's who you know. Jim Dalrymple knows people and will occasionally give a head nod about

00:13:45 ◼   ► like, "Yep, that's happening." And Mark Gurman gets like greater details. I think Mark Gurman

00:13:51 ◼   ► is getting people who are not authorized to speak about this stuff to talk about it because

00:13:56 ◼   ► he knows people who want to get it out. Why do they get it out there? If it's not a targeted

00:14:00 ◼   ► leak? I would say it's because people who know secrets really want to tell them and

00:14:08 ◼   ► like feeling powerful and being able to affect the conversation. And I think when it's not

00:14:14 ◼   ► something -- that's my armchair of psychology anyway -- I think when it's not something

00:14:17 ◼   ► that the company actually wants to leak, that's how you get it. People really are excited

00:14:22 ◼   ► about knowing something. I feel that pull when I know something that is not widely known

00:14:27 ◼   ► and I'm sitting there thinking, "Wow, I know this really great secret." And there's like

00:14:30 ◼   ► that little tickle in the back of your head that's like, "You could tell somebody the

00:14:34 ◼   ► secret and blow this whole thing wide open," and then you don't do that. But some people,

00:14:39 ◼   ► I think, succumb and they tell their buddy and they like being the super important source

00:14:44 ◼   ► that makes them feel good about having that special information and being able to get

00:14:49 ◼   ► it out there and having that kind of power, even though it may not necessarily be in the

00:14:53 ◼   ► best interest of their employer.

00:14:55 ◼   ► - What about disgruntled employees? - Oh sure, I mean you can often detect that,

00:15:02 ◼   ► but that's totally a thing that happens. The one that I really liked was The Verge,

00:15:09 ◼   ► I think, did a story about Microsoft killing their crazy... It was like a two-faced tablet with a pen

00:15:19 ◼   ► and it was this whole concept. - Courier.

00:15:20 ◼   ► Yeah, courier, exactly.

00:15:22 ◼   ► And that was very clearly the people who worked on it who were really mad that they got shut

00:15:27 ◼   ► down.

00:15:28 ◼   ► And so they basically said, "We're going to leak it, and we're going to make everybody

00:15:32 ◼   ► go...

00:15:33 ◼   ► We're going to make Microsoft look bad by leaking all this information and having Microsoft...

00:15:39 ◼   ► Everybody asked Microsoft, "Why did you not go ahead with this really cool, innovative

00:15:43 ◼   ► thing?"

00:15:44 ◼   ► I mean, you can see the tactical stuff.

00:15:46 ◼   ► Also, I think some bad rumors come from people who left Apple, you know, a few months ago,

00:15:51 ◼   ► let's say, or any company, and they're leaking what they knew at the time, and that may or

00:15:56 ◼   ► may not actually be accurate anymore.

00:15:58 ◼   ► I think you see some of that too.

00:16:00 ◼   ► Don't you think that it seems like people in Cupertino and Silicon Valley in general

00:16:06 ◼   ► are just more mobile these days?

00:16:08 ◼   ► They're getting around at different companies, and when you have that kind of transition,

00:16:12 ◼   ► secrets tend to get out as well.

00:16:14 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, that's true. You move from one place to another, you can drop information

00:16:23 ◼   ► about your old place or maybe you don't feel a loyalty to that. I think in the end, it's

00:16:30 ◼   ► motivated though by that same feeling of, "I know something special and I can feel very

00:16:35 ◼   ► special by sharing that with someone," instead of just letting it sit there and expire, right,

00:16:41 ◼   ► until everybody knows it. You know, I want to do something with this information that

00:16:45 ◼   ► I've got and leaking it to the press is one way you can do it. And speaking of rumors,

00:16:53 ◼   ► Lister Charlie also wrote in, we were talking about the Apple car rumors and Charlie said,

00:17:00 ◼   ► what if the Apple hires from Tesla were about in-house batteries like Tesla is working on?

00:17:05 ◼   ► This would gel with Apple's home kit and their emphasis on solar for their data centers,

00:17:10 ◼   ► Or it could be a car, which would be cool.

00:17:12 ◼   ► And I think given the details from 9to5Mac especially of who has been hired at Apple,

00:17:20 ◼   ► I have a hard time believing all of these people have been hired at Apple to work on,

00:17:25 ◼   ► you know, batteries and home kit and solar for their data centers.

00:17:30 ◼   ► I just, I can't.

00:17:32 ◼   ► That seems...it's very creative points for creativity, but I think it's highly unlikely.

00:17:38 ◼   ► So we'll go with option two, which is it could be a car or something car related and that

00:17:41 ◼   ► would be cool too.

00:17:42 ◼   ► And I think that's probably what they're working on.

00:17:44 ◼   ► It wouldn't surprise me if there's some spinoff benefits, things that are unexpected to Apple

00:17:49 ◼   ► and to this process that lead to products that we don't, you know, that we don't think

00:17:55 ◼   ► they're working on that they don't think they're working on that might emerge.

00:17:58 ◼   ► But I think it's hard to come up with a story.

00:18:02 ◼   ► And there have been a couple of reports that have said very much so this is a car project.

00:18:06 ◼   ► So I think we have to call it that, that it's a car project.

00:18:11 ◼   ► Whether it generates a car at the end of it or not, I think it's a car project.

00:18:15 ◼   ► Like how the tablet project developed the iPhone?

00:18:17 ◼   ► Yes, exactly right.

00:18:19 ◼   ► They worked on the tablet for a while and then they said this isn't going to go, but

00:18:22 ◼   ► we could turn this into a phone and then it became the iPhone project.

00:18:27 ◼   ► And then they went back to the tablet later.

00:18:29 ◼   ► Should we take a quick break?

00:18:33 ◼   ► Yes.

00:18:34 ◼   ► All the follow has been followed up, and the only follow-out I had was listening to old

00:18:39 ◼   ► episodes of "Inquisitive" with you and Merlin.

00:18:41 ◼   ► Hi Michael.

00:18:42 ◼   ► So I'm done.

00:18:44 ◼   ► Let's talk about a friend.

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00:20:30 ◼   ► - I neglected to mention that you and Casey

00:20:35 ◼   ► talked about cheese.

00:20:36 ◼   ► That's, there's some follow out.

00:20:38 ◼   ► You talked about cheese, you did a cheese vertical

00:20:40 ◼   ► without me, Myke, what is going on?

00:20:42 ◼   ► - It's not really cheese.

00:20:43 ◼   ► we did a processed other type of milk product vertical.

00:20:47 ◼   ► - Oh, was it?

00:20:48 ◼   ► That's right, it was the Velveeta vertical.

00:20:50 ◼   ► Velvertical.

00:20:51 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:20:51 ◼   ► - That's not cheese.

00:20:52 ◼   ► Okay, I don't feel bad now.

00:20:53 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:20:54 ◼   ► - Fine, eat it Casey.

00:20:56 ◼   ► - He does and he likes it.

00:20:58 ◼   ► - Oh, oh Casey.

00:21:01 ◼   ► Casey, Casey, Casey.

00:21:02 ◼   ► Will he ever learn?

00:21:03 ◼   ► No, never.

00:21:05 ◼   ► David Sparks, thank you for joining us.

00:21:08 ◼   ► You quit your job.

00:21:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, can you believe it?

00:21:12 ◼   ► I'm still getting over it.

00:21:14 ◼   ► - How long has this been coming for you?

00:21:16 ◼   ► Like how long has it been that you actually wanted

00:21:19 ◼   ► to do this like seriously?

00:21:20 ◼   ► - The, you know, I listen to you guys talk about it

00:21:24 ◼   ► and I've listened to other people talk about it

00:21:26 ◼   ► over the years and it's been one of those things

00:21:28 ◼   ► where I have consciously repressed any thought

00:21:32 ◼   ► of doing something crazy like that.

00:21:34 ◼   ► So I think I was planning it longer than I realized I was,

00:21:39 ◼   ► if that makes any sense.

00:21:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, it does.

00:21:41 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:21:42 ◼   ► You know, it's tough because I hear all these guys saying, "Oh, you know, I'm sticking it

00:21:47 ◼   ► to the man, going out on my own."

00:21:49 ◼   ► But Jason Snell was one of the first person I heard that did that, that had a mortgage

00:21:52 ◼   ► and kids and commitments.

00:21:57 ◼   ► And I think Jason, I told you at breakfast, Jason, you're very inspirational to me in

00:22:00 ◼   ► the fact that you pulled all this off and you've done so well with it.

00:22:04 ◼   ► But it really is something that I think I've been thinking about for a long time.

00:22:09 ◼   ► And I had kind of a hallelujah moment because, and I wrote this up at Max

00:22:14 ◼   ► Sparky, so it's a long explanation if you're really interested.

00:22:16 ◼   ► But the thing was at my old firm, I had been there over 20 years and I was the guy

00:22:22 ◼   ► that they would shoot out of a cannon at a problem.

00:22:25 ◼   ► And I got shot out of a cannon October at a problem.

00:22:28 ◼   ► And when I solved the problem, I think I did actually a pretty good job of solving the

00:22:33 ◼   ► problem.

00:22:33 ◼   ► I looked around and realized that my whole life had been turned upside down in the

00:22:37 ◼   ► meantime that I didn't get another book shipped that I had planned on shipping

00:22:41 ◼   ► my own personal or you know the clients that are kind of people that I work with

00:22:46 ◼   ► were being ignored and it was just I wasn't happy with that result and and

00:22:52 ◼   ► then it all kind of came together very quickly for me. So is it safe to say that

00:22:57 ◼   ► like when when you came out on the other side of that big project you kind of

00:23:02 ◼   ► of re-evaluated and saw what was now most important to you?

00:23:07 ◼   ► - No, I think I always knew it was most important to me,

00:23:09 ◼   ► but I was kind of deluding myself about making a decision.

00:23:14 ◼   ► I was thinking, it's okay, I can just keep doing this.

00:23:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't need to worry about it

00:23:18 ◼   ► 'cause I can just do it all instead.

00:23:19 ◼   ► - I haven't got to that.

00:23:21 ◼   ► I haven't got to the point yet

00:23:22 ◼   ► where I have to make the big tough decision.

00:23:25 ◼   ► 'Cause people have been asking me for years

00:23:29 ◼   ► 'cause I produce a lot of stuff at Max Sparky.

00:23:31 ◼   ► do a podcast and I am a lawyer and they're like, "I don't understand how you do it all."

00:23:34 ◼   ► I mean, I get that email every day. And the...

00:23:38 ◼   ► That guy needs to stop emailing you every day.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Yeah, he does, really.

00:23:42 ◼   ► How does he do that? It's just one guy.

00:23:44 ◼   ► Well, I think he has a TextExpander snippet and a Keyboard Maestro thing. Anyway, so I'm getting

00:23:52 ◼   ► those emails and I've always said, "Well, you know, I just juggle a lot and I just keep things

00:23:58 ◼   ► rolling and I've always felt like I could do it. And I wanted to make sure that I never got to a

00:24:03 ◼   ► point where everything was suffering. You know, I mean, you know, when you run too fast and you

00:24:07 ◼   ► fall in your face, I was always a little worried that I would go too hard at doing too many things

00:24:12 ◼   ► that all of it turned to junk. But I always felt like I haven't got to that point yet. I don't feel

00:24:18 ◼   ► like I'm shipping junk. I don't feel like the legal work is bad. I just feel like I'm able to

00:24:22 ◼   ► keep up. I can keep doing this. And then what I realized at the end of that last big project was,

00:24:28 ◼   ► "Oh, I had made my decision. I had already, without even thinking about it, I had dropped

00:24:32 ◼   ► Max Sparky and I had dropped kind of my own legal practice side of things and I had committed myself

00:24:38 ◼   ► fully to the firm." And I'm like, "Wow, it's funny when you catch yourself in that moment

00:24:44 ◼   ► when you realize you had made a decision without even consciously realizing you were making a

00:24:49 ◼   ► decision." And that upset me because I'm like, "Well, I knew that big decision was coming. I

00:24:54 ◼   ► I wanted to spend some time thinking about it.

00:24:56 ◼   ► And...

00:24:57 ◼   ► - Why wasn't I informed?

00:24:59 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:25:00 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:25:01 ◼   ► And I wasn't saying, and I didn't,

00:25:04 ◼   ► my immediate reaction to realizing that wasn't to say,

00:25:06 ◼   ► okay, I'm gonna quit my job.

00:25:07 ◼   ► I said, I actually spent about a week then saying,

00:25:10 ◼   ► okay, well, what are your options?

00:25:13 ◼   ► I mean, if you're going to make this decision,

00:25:15 ◼   ► what do you need to consider?

00:25:17 ◼   ► I mean, you do have a family

00:25:19 ◼   ► and you do have a kid in college

00:25:20 ◼   ► and you do have commitments in your life

00:25:23 ◼   ► and you've got a day job that pays you well

00:25:25 ◼   ► and has benefits and all those things,

00:25:27 ◼   ► and that's something you have to consider.

00:25:28 ◼   ► And then what else do you have

00:25:29 ◼   ► on the other side of the table?

00:25:31 ◼   ► And so I actually spent quite a bit of time

00:25:33 ◼   ► thinking about it and at the end of the day,

00:25:35 ◼   ► decided to leap.

00:25:37 ◼   ► - Now, when I made this decision,

00:25:40 ◼   ► obviously I didn't have as much as you mentioned.

00:25:42 ◼   ► Like I really didn't have nowhere near

00:25:44 ◼   ► kind of the commitment that you do,

00:25:47 ◼   ► that both of you did.

00:25:48 ◼   ► And even thinking of things like healthcare, right,

00:25:50 ◼   ► which I know is a real big sore spot

00:25:53 ◼   ► for people in America making a decision because I don't have to worry about

00:25:56 ◼   ► about finding the money to pay for something which apparently is very very

00:25:59 ◼   ► expensive to do. David, in the kind of personal way, did

00:26:03 ◼   ► you in this scenario kind of sit down and open up numbers and like just

00:26:07 ◼   ► crunch some stuff over a couple of weeks?

00:26:11 ◼   ► In my mind I did have a spreadsheet and and I had thought about all that because

00:26:15 ◼   ► health care is not an insignificant cost for our family.

00:26:19 ◼   ► But not only that, like when you go out on your own as a lawyer you've got to pay

00:26:22 ◼   ► for your malpractice insurance and you've got it, you know, there's all these other

00:26:24 ◼   ► expenses you're going to add to your life. And I spent a lot of time with the spreadsheet.

00:26:30 ◼   ► And the funny thing is, it's all just funny numbers to you, because you don't know what

00:26:34 ◼   ► kind of income to expect when you leave a law firm, how many clients are going to come

00:26:38 ◼   ► with you, you know, how many people are going to continue to buy the Max Sparky field guides,

00:26:44 ◼   ► or if I make more, how many people are going to feel like, you know, that buying one book

00:26:49 ◼   ► a year from me makes perfect sense but buying three books a year from me is

00:26:53 ◼   ► silly and they're not gonna do that. I mean you just don't know there's all

00:26:56 ◼   ► these questions. So I have this spreadsheet that is that's probably

00:27:00 ◼   ► false in every light but I had it and it made me feel better so I went ahead and

00:27:04 ◼   ► made one. But at the end of the day you leap. I think that's the only way

00:27:09 ◼   ► to say it. Yeah eventually like there's no amount of preparation you can do to

00:27:15 ◼   ► stop you needing to do that. Like at a certain point you have to make that jump,

00:27:20 ◼   ► you have to make that decision. And it doesn't matter how much you prepare,

00:27:24 ◼   ► you're still kind of leaping.

00:27:27 ◼   ► Yeah, but you know what? It's exhilarating. I'll tell you that.

00:27:30 ◼   ► Yeah, it is. What's funny, I mean, for me, I was... everything I was doing was mixed

00:27:37 ◼   ► together. So it was the stuff I was getting paid for, and then there was

00:27:41 ◼   ► podcasting and things like that. And it was all kind of, it was all in the same pool of

00:27:46 ◼   ► people and my podcasts were not about technology, but they were a lot of the same people and

00:27:52 ◼   ► in the same world. And I think one of the interesting differences with you, David, is

00:27:56 ◼   ► that you've got your kind of law community and then you've got the technology people.

00:28:04 ◼   ► And what always struck me when I talked to you about this is in your law life, nobody

00:28:12 ◼   ► understands you, right?

00:28:14 ◼   ► That if I was to say at Macworld, I'm thinking of going out on my own and starting my own

00:28:19 ◼   ► site and starting my own tech podcast, people are like, "Oh, I get it."

00:28:23 ◼   ► But for you, everything you did, Mac Power Users and Mac Sparky and the Field Guides,

00:28:29 ◼   ► All of that stuff was just kind of a weird footnote of curiosity into everybody, all

00:28:34 ◼   ► of your colleagues who are in the legal profession, right?

00:28:38 ◼   ► It's a source of mocking is what it is, you know, I mean, a lot of the people on the legal

00:28:44 ◼   ► side for years, frankly, I kept it all kind of on the down low.

00:28:48 ◼   ► I just I had this like horror story of walking in a deposition and having opposing counsel

00:28:53 ◼   ► saying, "Well, Max Sparky, are you going to object to this?" or, you know, something like

00:28:56 ◼   ► that.

00:28:58 ◼   ► And then, but as kind of the brand and the stuff I did grew, I found I got so much satisfaction

00:29:05 ◼   ► out of it.

00:29:06 ◼   ► I mean, people recognize me in restaurants sometimes when I go in about the Max Sparky

00:29:10 ◼   ► stuff I do, not the lawyer stuff I do.

00:29:12 ◼   ► And I started to become a lot less hesitant to take advantage of it.

00:29:17 ◼   ► In fact, with the new law practice I'm doing, I just broke down the wall and on my legal

00:29:23 ◼   ► website, it has links to my books and explains that how I use technology to help my clients.

00:29:27 ◼   ► So I've kind of gone the full circle on it, but I can tell you when I am with the people I was working with, I'm not sure ever really understood it.

00:29:35 ◼   ► And when I told them I was leaving, it was they were completely flummoxed. They didn't know what to think about this because, you know, they're looking at my clients, which are great clients, but not many of them are the type that are going to be filing a lot of big expensive lawsuits.

00:29:49 ◼   ► suits and they're trying to wonder how I'm going to pay my rent, you know?

00:29:54 ◼   ► And so it was, it was kind of interesting and I'm not sure that that bridge ever got

00:29:58 ◼   ► fully built.

00:29:59 ◼   ► They were kind of just like, "Oh no, David's gone crazy."

00:30:03 ◼   ► I think that's a good way to summarize it, Myke.

00:30:09 ◼   ► And I've done it very publicly.

00:30:11 ◼   ► So you know, if I fail at this, it's going to be a great story for all those people out

00:30:15 ◼   ► there.

00:30:16 ◼   ► So you mentioned about the fact that you had your clients.

00:30:19 ◼   ► So I mean, because this might just be something that I'm misunderstanding about the way this

00:30:23 ◼   ► stuff works.

00:30:24 ◼   ► You kind of had your own law clients prior to doing this anyway.

00:30:29 ◼   ► Well yeah, I mean, I guess I'm really, they all, I worked at that firm for over 20 years.

00:30:34 ◼   ► So at the firm, I would work on what we would call the firm clients, which were the people

00:30:40 ◼   ► that were referred to some other attorney or were already existing in the firm before

00:30:43 ◼   ► me.

00:30:44 ◼   ► I had kind of my stable of clients, which were the people that I had met and had hired

00:30:49 ◼   ► me specifically and who I was specifically responsible for.

00:30:54 ◼   ► And the people I worked with were, you know, really nice people.

00:30:57 ◼   ► And it was not a bad, like partying, if that makes any sense.

00:31:00 ◼   ► And I always knew that they wouldn't have any problem with the clients that were, you

00:31:04 ◼   ► know, my clients would leave with me.

00:31:07 ◼   ► But my point was, I didn't have enough time to take care of those people, because I was

00:31:10 ◼   ► so busy dealing with some of the other stuff going on.

00:31:13 ◼   ► So, now that you are not...

00:31:17 ◼   ► So what's your life like now?

00:31:18 ◼   ► Now you're not doing the firm anymore, but you still have a lot of practice, and we'll

00:31:24 ◼   ► put a link to it in the show notes.

00:31:26 ◼   ► And you're right, your website makes it very clear that technology is something that you're

00:31:31 ◼   ► interested in.

00:31:32 ◼   ► You're completely out of the closet as a guy who likes technology now.

00:31:35 ◼   ► It's crazy.

00:31:38 ◼   ► But you're also...

00:31:39 ◼   ► So you're doing that, and then you're also planning on doing more with Max Sparky and

00:31:42 ◼   ► the field guides, right?

00:31:44 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:31:45 ◼   ► I mean, my goal is I'm not looking to grow some massively, you know, huge law practice.

00:31:51 ◼   ► I'm not looking to grow to where I hire a bunch of people.

00:31:54 ◼   ► I want to kind of have a control over that, where I deal with the people I like and do

00:31:59 ◼   ► the kind of work I like for them.

00:32:01 ◼   ► And I have enough time to do that and run the Max Sparky publishing side of my life.

00:32:08 ◼   ► And because I'm such a nerd, I think it's going to work out.

00:32:11 ◼   ► I mean, I was a little worried, I have to admit, for the first week or so because I

00:32:14 ◼   ► spent so much time getting all the admin back end of setting up an independent law practice.

00:32:19 ◼   ► I'm going like, "Uh-oh, what did I get myself into?

00:32:22 ◼   ► I don't have time for Max Sparky."

00:32:24 ◼   ► But of course, it's going to take two or three weeks to kind of get that all settled, where

00:32:28 ◼   ► in my mind it was only going to take a day.

00:32:31 ◼   ► And that's all settling now, and I'm starting to see benefits of it.

00:32:34 ◼   ► I mean, like today, we're recording this at 11.

00:32:37 ◼   ► I've already spent about three hours working on client problems this morning, and I'm going

00:32:41 ◼   ► to do this podcast, I'm going to do a Mac Power Users podcast this afternoon, and tonight

00:32:46 ◼   ► I'm going to eat dinner with my family.

00:32:47 ◼   ► So I'm already heading the right direction.

00:32:50 ◼   ► There is this funny thing though that I've come into contact with recently, is like now

00:32:56 ◼   ► I feel like I don't have any time anymore, and I don't know how that's possible, because

00:33:01 ◼   ► I did it all before, so now what's going on?

00:33:04 ◼   ► And is this kind of this weird, I wonder if you feel this way, Jason, you end up to the

00:33:09 ◼   ► point where it's like, I've managed to fill this time really, really fast.

00:33:14 ◼   ► Well, the way I think of it sometimes is that my time is now very flexible, which is great.

00:33:21 ◼   ► But it also means, flexible means that it can be anything.

00:33:26 ◼   ► And unless you block things out, it will be anything and everything.

00:33:30 ◼   ► And so that's, for me, that's the challenge is marking off time to do specific things

00:33:38 ◼   ► because if you can do anything, then not only is that hard to decide what you want to do,

00:33:43 ◼   ► but it makes it hard to get away from it.

00:33:46 ◼   ► And so, you know, being able, my wife and I have been talking about how we start putting

00:33:51 ◼   ► things on the calendar, like family game night is on the calendar and we're going to like

00:33:57 ◼   ► calendar our dinners and what the food's gonna be and things like that which on one level

00:34:01 ◼   ► seems insane like it's insanely scheduled but what I would say is are so much of my

00:34:07 ◼   ► time especially and is super flexible that it really actually adds structure and it's

00:34:15 ◼   ► helpful to add structure to that to that schedule so for me that's what it is I can literally

00:34:20 ◼   ► work on anything anytime and it takes a really different mindset whereas before I get on

00:34:25 ◼   ► bus and I'd come home. And then I might do some work when I was at home, but there was just a huge,

00:34:31 ◼   ► there was a transition point. I was not at the office anymore. I was not working on things.

00:34:35 ◼   ► And then I was home. And now it's just sort of like, I could do anything, anytime. I could,

00:34:40 ◼   ► I could watch a movie in the middle of the day and then write stories at two in the morning if

00:34:45 ◼   ► I wanted to. And nobody would care except my family who would hate me because I would not be

00:34:50 ◼   ► on their time schedule anymore.

00:34:51 ◼   ► Yeah, and I'm adjusting to that as well, Jason. For instance, I am a proponent of deferring

00:34:58 ◼   ► email because I've just got too many things going on. And for the longest time I had these

00:35:03 ◼   ► defer boxes and sane box where I would have a Saturday box that was on my Max Sparky side

00:35:09 ◼   ► and this stuff came in during the week and I'm busy dealing with the day job. I would

00:35:13 ◼   ► drop emails into Saturday and then on Saturday morning I'd get flooded with all these emails

00:35:16 ◼   ► I need to deal with. I don't need a Saturday box anymore. I need maybe a two-day box, but

00:35:23 ◼   ► I don't need a Saturday box because I may be doing the Max Barkey stuff on Wednesday.

00:35:27 ◼   ► And on the legal side, it's the same thing. I had a Monday box and now I don't need a

00:35:31 ◼   ► Monday box anymore because it's my own thing. I can deal with it on Sunday or whenever.

00:35:36 ◼   ► And it is very easy to fall into the trap of just filling that time like it's an infinite

00:35:42 ◼   ► vessel again. So I am still figuring that in fact some of the best advice I've got

00:35:47 ◼   ► and it's kind of amazing how much positive advice and support I've got

00:35:53 ◼   ► since I announced this. Thanks partly to you guys I think because when you talked

00:35:56 ◼   ► about on your show a few weeks ago but I got an email from an attorney who had

00:36:00 ◼   ► been who did this 20 years ago and the best advice he says is just be careful

00:36:04 ◼   ► about where you say yes because when you start out you're gonna want to say yes

00:36:08 ◼   ► to everybody and you're gonna get yourself in the same problem you had

00:36:11 ◼   ► before. Yeah, I'm there. I'm there right now. But what I keep telling myself is

00:36:18 ◼   ► I'm saying yes to a lot of things right now because I want to experience them

00:36:22 ◼   ► and then make some judgments about what the things are that I'm going to

00:36:28 ◼   ► say no to. So I'm saying yes to more things than I probably should. Projects,

00:36:32 ◼   ► like I'm working on an e-book, I'm working on a wire cutter project,

00:36:40 ◼   ► I'm working on a weekly column that's gonna maybe debut this week

00:36:45 ◼   ► And another weekly column that I'm already doing and you know, are these too many things?

00:36:51 ◼   ► probably but I

00:36:53 ◼   ► Feel like I want to try them all now and then I will make some decisions rather than I have a hard time saying no

00:37:01 ◼   ► to something that I do want to try and

00:37:03 ◼   ► Don't know whether it's gonna be something I want to do in the long term

00:37:07 ◼   ► Although I have reached that point now where I'm so saturated that if there was another opportunity that came on,

00:37:13 ◼   ► I would say, "Can we wait until after I finish this book to do that?"

00:37:17 ◼   ► But you can expand to fill the space. It's amazing how that happens.

00:37:21 ◼   ► It is. I'm already starting to see that. And I'm also kind of in the honeymoon phase with this stuff.

00:37:29 ◼   ► It's so great. I mean, just being able to wake up in the morning and answer all your email at your iPad,

00:37:36 ◼   ► not have to put on a suit and tie. I mean, you know how much faster I get my work done

00:37:40 ◼   ► in the morning, the legal side, when I don't have to, you know, get dressed up and then

00:37:45 ◼   ► drive a half hour and then deal with the initial everybody walking in your office in the morning

00:37:51 ◼   ► to gossip and talk and then make it, you know, all this stuff just goes out the window. Now

00:37:54 ◼   ► I can wake up, make some tea, and start working. And I'm still wrapping my head around it.

00:38:01 ◼   ► The suit and tie thing. Myke, did you have to dress up like that at the bank?

00:38:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I did.

00:38:08 ◼   ► Wow. See, so okay, here's the... That's the one thing where I have no frame of reference.

00:38:13 ◼   ► So the story is I went and had lunch last week with a couple of my old colleagues from

00:38:18 ◼   ► IDG. And it was my first time back in the building since I left, which was weird. And

00:38:27 ◼   ► I was thinking about what I was going to wear to this meeting.

00:38:34 ◼   ► And I thought, and in fact, I ran into somebody who lives in my town, who I used to work with

00:38:38 ◼   ► at IDG, who said to me what I had been thinking, which was, "I'm surprised you're not wearing

00:38:42 ◼   ► a baseball cap and shorts and sandals."

00:38:48 ◼   ► And just like super like, "I don't have a job anymore."

00:38:51 ◼   ► And I said, "You know, I thought about that, but I was worried that it was going to come

00:38:55 ◼   ► across as, "Wow, he's really given up. This is so sad." So instead, not even thinking

00:39:00 ◼   ► of what I was doing, I thought, "Well, I'll wear, you know, I'll take a shower in the

00:39:05 ◼   ► morning and I'll shave and I'll put on decent clothes and I'll go." And in the end, I was

00:39:09 ◼   ► standing in the hallway on the sixth floor at IDG wearing my work clothes from IDG. It

00:39:17 ◼   ► was a shirt that I always wore to work. It was, yes, because I didn't have a dress code,

00:39:23 ◼   ► of my little hoodies, you know, jeans.

00:39:26 ◼   ► I looked exactly like I did six months before

00:39:30 ◼   ► when I had worked there. - Oh, how weird.

00:39:32 ◼   ► - I had put on the uniform.

00:39:35 ◼   ► But I considered looking like an even greater slob

00:39:37 ◼   ► than I already am.

00:39:39 ◼   ► But I was afraid it would be taken the wrong way,

00:39:41 ◼   ► which is, "Oh, did you see him?

00:39:43 ◼   ► "He didn't even shave, so sad."

00:39:45 ◼   ► You know, and so I was like,

00:39:46 ◼   ► "Nope, I'm just gonna look exactly like I did."

00:39:49 ◼   ► But I didn't even realize it until I got there

00:39:51 ◼   ► that I was essentially wearing the uniform.

00:39:53 ◼   ► But I, suit and tie, I can't even imagine.

00:39:56 ◼   ► So I salute you for all of your years of service,

00:39:59 ◼   ► both of you wearing fancy clothes like that.

00:40:02 ◼   ► I don't think I could do it.

00:40:04 ◼   ► - Well, I still have to do it on occasion, you know?

00:40:06 ◼   ► And that's another thing I'm learning.

00:40:09 ◼   ► - It's not when you need to visit somebody and do that

00:40:12 ◼   ► versus every day as part of the grind, right?

00:40:15 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:40:16 ◼   ► And I'm like, I'm learning to like lump

00:40:18 ◼   ► my offsite meetings together.

00:40:20 ◼   ► Like, you know, one of the things I've always felt like

00:40:23 ◼   ► lawyers make such a big deal about client meetings and clients have to get up and drive

00:40:27 ◼   ► over there.

00:40:28 ◼   ► So with a lot of my clients I do, the ones that give me regular business, I just drive

00:40:32 ◼   ► and meet them at their office once a month.

00:40:35 ◼   ► And so I try to lump those into one day a week where I make those visits and then I

00:40:40 ◼   ► don't have to do it every day.

00:40:42 ◼   ► I'm still figuring so much of this out.

00:40:44 ◼   ► It's actually kind of fun having done the same thing for so long as a workflow process

00:40:51 ◼   ► guy.

00:40:52 ◼   ► having a lot of fun just kind of like saying you know I have a blank slate I

00:40:54 ◼   ► was talking to Merlin Mann about this speaking of Merlin and and he says you

00:40:57 ◼   ► know how many times in your life you're gonna have a chance to start making new

00:41:01 ◼   ► habits from scratch like this he says be really careful as you start setting them

00:41:05 ◼   ► up and he's totally right I mean I'm I'm really considering things as I go

00:41:08 ◼   ► through my day. That sound hippie enough? No I like it. No it's good let's all put on

00:41:16 ◼   ► our sandals and grow our hair long and join hands and sing. It's great, David,

00:41:23 ◼   ► it's great, you and I have talked in our little breakfast, so my wife's parents

00:41:27 ◼   ► live not too far from where David lives and and so every time we're passing

00:41:30 ◼   ► through there we try to get get a meal together, you know, usually it's breakfast

00:41:35 ◼   ► it's not always, sometimes it's lunch. Our schedules are more flexible now so it

00:41:38 ◼   ► could really be anytime we could eat at three in the afternoon if we wanted to

00:41:41 ◼   ► but who does that? Those are crazy people. Yeah, my employer has a very liberal

00:41:44 ◼   ► policy for Jason's film meetings.

00:41:46 ◼   ► Mine too. And so we've been talking about this for a while, about my dissatisfaction

00:41:51 ◼   ► with my job and David's dissatisfaction for his job and our excitement about these other

00:41:55 ◼   ► projects that we're working on that we'd like to do more about. And those were always really

00:41:59 ◼   ► good for me when I was still thinking about this. They were really good talking to somebody

00:42:05 ◼   ► who is dealing with a lot of the same things and kind of working through this. And it's

00:42:09 ◼   ► It's really nice to see that we both come out the other side of that.

00:42:14 ◼   ► So I'm really excited for you.

00:42:15 ◼   ► I'm excited that you're able to have your clients and do your law practice and integrate

00:42:21 ◼   ► it more fully with...

00:42:22 ◼   ► I mean, it's never going to be completely integrated in a way that sort of mine is because

00:42:26 ◼   ► they're very different jobs, but they're more a part of a whole now for you than they were

00:42:31 ◼   ► before.

00:42:33 ◼   ► And I think getting more Max Barkey and getting more field guides and other stuff from you

00:42:38 ◼   ► in the bargain is really good for those of us who are who always understood the tech

00:42:42 ◼   ► nerd side of you. So I think it's really awesome that you're doing this.

00:42:46 ◼   ► I was able to publish a video field guide yesterday and I got so many emails from people

00:42:52 ◼   ► saying, "Oh if this is what it means you're quitting your job we're gonna get more of

00:42:55 ◼   ► these then I'm all in." And you know that felt so good hearing that from people. It's

00:43:00 ◼   ► really great.

00:43:02 ◼   ► What is that? What is that guide? Tell people what the guide is.

00:43:05 ◼   ► It's on a workflow, you know, the app, it's called workflow.

00:43:07 ◼   ► It's an app for the iOS, iPad and iPhone.

00:43:11 ◼   ► And it's automator.

00:43:12 ◼   ► Basically, it's automator for iOS.

00:43:13 ◼   ► I don't have any idea how they ever got that through at Apple.

00:43:18 ◼   ► I think they must have like naked pictures of somebody at Apple very high up, because

00:43:22 ◼   ► it got approved.

00:43:24 ◼   ► And it's automator on iOS.

00:43:26 ◼   ► I mean, it is amazing.

00:43:28 ◼   ► And the more time you spend with the app, the more you realize you can like build, it's

00:43:31 ◼   ► It's basically an app building platform for geeks, but not app developers.

00:43:36 ◼   ► So I can say, you know, go in this application and take a picture and then go in this application

00:43:40 ◼   ► and send a message and blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:43:42 ◼   ► And I did a video, it's an hour long video where you go through and kind of describe

00:43:45 ◼   ► how it works.

00:43:48 ◼   ► And that's possible because I wasn't grinding away in a suit and tie every day for the last

00:43:52 ◼   ► three weeks.

00:43:53 ◼   ► That's awesome.

00:43:55 ◼   ► That's good for us.

00:43:56 ◼   ► I hope it's good for you.

00:43:58 ◼   ► I think it's going to be good for your life too.

00:44:00 ◼   ► I think so.

00:44:01 ◼   ► You know, it's definitely where I need to be,

00:44:05 ◼   ► and I just need to now make sure I can execute

00:44:07 ◼   ► and make it happen where I can stay with this.

00:44:10 ◼   ► Yeah, and I think I will.

00:44:12 ◼   ► - Awesome.

00:44:14 ◼   ► Myke, is it time to listen to you tell us

00:44:16 ◼   ► about another good friend of us?

00:44:18 ◼   ► - Of course it is. - Friend of the show?

00:44:20 ◼   ► I anticipate, I predict that this might be a friend

00:44:25 ◼   ► we'll actually like.

00:44:29 ◼   ► We like them all, Jason, but this one is an "It makes an intranet" that we'll actually

00:44:34 ◼   ► like.

00:44:35 ◼   ► Oh, you're right.

00:44:36 ◼   ► You're right.

00:44:37 ◼   ► We do like, we actually do like them all.

00:44:38 ◼   ► But this one, I, but you know what I don't like, Myke?

00:44:39 ◼   ► I don't like intranets.

00:44:41 ◼   ► I think intranets are bad.

00:44:42 ◼   ► Every intranet I've ever used has been bad.

00:44:44 ◼   ► What can I do?

00:44:45 ◼   ► What can I do?

00:44:46 ◼   ► Well, Jason, so let me tell you about Igloo.

00:44:49 ◼   ► Hi, Michael.

00:44:50 ◼   ► Yes?

00:44:51 ◼   ► With Igloo, you can share news, organize your files, coordinate calendars, and manage your

00:44:56 ◼   ► projects all in one place.

00:44:59 ◼   ► to Jason Snow, it's a fantastic way for you and your team to work together and socialize

00:45:04 ◼   ► together too.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Is my cat on my team?

00:45:06 ◼   ► If you wanted to be.

00:45:07 ◼   ► My cat may be on my team.

00:45:08 ◼   ► Alright.

00:45:09 ◼   ► You can set it all up and your cat can use their iPhone 6 or 6 Plus or any device that

00:45:14 ◼   ► they want to use because Igloo's internet works on any device.

00:45:19 ◼   ► They have a responsive, design-built internet platform.

00:45:24 ◼   ► It works all within any web browser you can get your hands on.

00:45:27 ◼   ► So you can do anything from reading a document to managing your tasks or sharing a photo

00:45:31 ◼   ► of your lunch to maybe even administrative tasks like managing your settings.

00:45:35 ◼   ► You can do this wherever you want, whenever you want, however you want with igloo.

00:45:40 ◼   ► Igloo's latest upgrade, Viking, revolves around documents and how you interact with them,

00:45:45 ◼   ► gather feedback and make changes.

00:45:47 ◼   ► They have further beefed up their HTML5 document preview engine.

00:45:51 ◼   ► This can be viewed again on any platform you can get your hands on and this ensures that

00:45:54 ◼   ► everyone is always up to date with the latest version as it lives in the internet platform

00:45:59 ◼   ► itself.

00:46:00 ◼   ► They've even added the ability to track who has read critical information to make sure

00:46:04 ◼   ► that everyone's on the same page.

00:46:05 ◼   ► This could be really useful for things like if you need Bob in accounts to see the document

00:46:10 ◼   ► that they need or maybe you need to make sure that everybody has looked at a specific legal

00:46:15 ◼   ► document or a training document because you've got some sort of thing that you have to complete

00:46:19 ◼   ► in your company, in big companies, even in small companies.

00:46:22 ◼   ► This stuff pops up all the time.

00:46:23 ◼   ► This is a great way to find that information out without having to bother everyone constantly,

00:46:27 ◼   ► like sending an all-hands email to make sure everyone's read the training materials.

00:46:31 ◼   ► Those are the worst.

00:46:32 ◼   ► The worst!

00:46:33 ◼   ► You can just check it yourself.

00:46:35 ◼   ► Best of all, igloo's platform is totally customizable.

00:46:38 ◼   ► You can choose how you want it to look and function however you want, and these changes

00:46:42 ◼   ► can also be set for certain groups.

00:46:45 ◼   ► And of course, harkening back to earlier, wherever you make these changes, they're going

00:46:49 ◼   ► to look the same on all platforms.

00:46:51 ◼   ► If your company has a legacy intranet that looks like it was built in the 90s, or if

00:46:56 ◼   ► you hate the intranet platform like Jason that you're currently using, you should be

00:46:59 ◼   ► giving Igloo a try.

00:47:01 ◼   ► Igloo is free to use with up to 10 people, and you can sign up right now at igloosoftware.com/upgrade.

00:47:07 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Igloo for their continued support of this show and Relay FM.

00:47:12 ◼   ► I want to specify, I believe it's free for use of up to 10 people and unlimited cats.

00:47:17 ◼   ► As many cats as you can stuff into the Igloo.

00:47:21 ◼   ► They might get chilly, but you can do it.

00:47:23 ◼   ► - They'd be very cold cats, but they could do it.

00:47:26 ◼   ► Merlin came online while you were reading that.

00:47:29 ◼   ► I just, he's out there.

00:47:32 ◼   ► - Listening.

00:47:34 ◼   ► - He may be, it's entirely possible.

00:47:37 ◼   ► Merlin is always with us, Merlin's always with us,

00:47:39 ◼   ► is what I wanna say.

00:47:40 ◼   ► He's always with us.

00:47:42 ◼   ► - He's always in my head.

00:47:43 ◼   ► - It's true.

00:47:45 ◼   ► - It's funny 'cause I told him,

00:47:46 ◼   ► we had a little phone conversation.

00:47:48 ◼   ► I said, you know, I wanna thank you,

00:47:49 ◼   ► because I think you know listening to you on back to work and all the all the

00:47:52 ◼   ► nice things he's said it over the years that all great shows and he said uh he

00:47:57 ◼   ► says I don't want any responsibility for this yeah I got thinking you know he

00:48:01 ◼   ► must feel a little bit of an emotional weight because all these nerds out there

00:48:04 ◼   ► like me are making big changes in their life sometimes based on some of the

00:48:08 ◼   ► advice they've received from him and it's like I don't want to be responsible

00:48:11 ◼   ► for that I can I can get that yeah that's that's that's a big that could be

00:48:17 ◼   ► scene is a big burden to have but I guess if you really believe in it then

00:48:22 ◼   ► you know then then you're probably happy I'm sure he's happy that people are

00:48:25 ◼   ► doing this stuff but maybe we shouldn't you know all lay on him especially if it

00:48:29 ◼   ► now doesn't work out so um you want to talk about the Apple event next week

00:48:35 ◼   ► yes so Jason Snell explain to me how this occurs for you I think I probably

00:48:43 ◼   ► asked this sort of stuff of you every time but I'm always really interested do

00:48:47 ◼   ► When you get these invites, as you have been invited,

00:48:49 ◼   ► which makes me very happy,

00:48:51 ◼   ► I'm sure it makes you even happier,

00:48:53 ◼   ► do you have some sort of special notification system?

00:48:56 ◼   ► Federico was telling me about how

00:48:59 ◼   ► he's setting up like a hue light

00:49:01 ◼   ► and he might have it go like red

00:49:03 ◼   ► if some news pops up or something like that.

00:49:06 ◼   ► How does this stuff happen for you?

00:49:08 ◼   ► Do you just see it in your email,

00:49:09 ◼   ► like any other old email?

00:49:11 ◼   ► - You know, I used to have a notification

00:49:13 ◼   ► and I should check and see if I could set that up again.

00:49:16 ◼   ► I used to have a notification where if I got an email from Apple, I got a notification

00:49:23 ◼   ► on my phone that it would just say, "Apple email," with a special sound.

00:49:27 ◼   ► Just like how when anybody from Apple switchboard calls me, I have a custom ringtone.

00:49:33 ◼   ► I have a contact that's just Apple, and it's their standard number.

00:49:38 ◼   ► Every number from within Apple, every call you get is from the same number.

00:49:42 ◼   ► It's the main switchboard number.

00:49:43 ◼   ► Are you willing to share the custom ringtone?

00:49:46 ◼   ► What is it?

00:49:47 ◼   ► Oh, well, it's a stock ringtone.

00:49:50 ◼   ► It's nothing special.

00:49:52 ◼   ► Let me see if I can find it here.

00:49:53 ◼   ► But the point is, I know when they're calling me, but I don't know when I get those emails.

00:49:58 ◼   ► And so when I'm trying to wait for a phone call, I'm okay.

00:50:08 ◼   ► But if I'm waiting for an email, I've lost that.

00:50:11 ◼   ► And so I actually got, the first I got of it this time was somebody said, "Oh, Apple

00:50:15 ◼   ► event."

00:50:16 ◼   ► I saw something on Twitter and I immediately flipped over into my email and it was indeed

00:50:20 ◼   ► there.

00:50:21 ◼   ► Let's see.

00:50:22 ◼   ► That's the one you use.

00:50:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:50:26 ◼   ► If Apple's calling, the red alert goes off.

00:50:31 ◼   ► It makes me laugh every time and then I have to compose myself an answer, whoever from

00:50:36 ◼   ► Apple is calling me.

00:50:38 ◼   ► I should do that for email too, because I don't have a red light, red lights don't go

00:50:41 ◼   ► off, there isn't a siren when something from RSVP, Apple events, at apple.com comes in.

00:50:49 ◼   ► And I probably should, although it doesn't really matter other than to write a story

00:50:52 ◼   ► saying, "Hey, there's an Apple event."

00:50:54 ◼   ► So it's a good reminder, I need to put that back in practice.

00:50:56 ◼   ► I was using, what was it, there was an app that you could basically forward a message

00:51:02 ◼   ► to this address and then the app would get that

00:51:07 ◼   ► and ping a custom notification on your phone.

00:51:10 ◼   ► And I don't think I have that app turned on anymore.

00:51:13 ◼   ► Or it was forwarding, it was probably forwarding

00:51:14 ◼   ► from my Macworld address.

00:51:16 ◼   ► And so when that got shut off, I lost that Apple alert.

00:51:21 ◼   ► I should put that back.

00:51:23 ◼   ► - There are probably a bunch of those things

00:51:24 ◼   ► like Boxcar is one.

00:51:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was using Boxcar, that's what I was using.

00:51:28 ◼   ► - Right.

00:51:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, I should set that up again.

00:51:30 ◼   ► And Joe Steele in the chat room quite rightly points out

00:51:32 ◼   ► that Chris Breen should just now start prank calling me

00:51:35 ◼   ► just for fun from the Apple Twitch board.

00:51:39 ◼   ► That would be pretty funny.

00:51:41 ◼   ► Hello, hello?

00:51:42 ◼   ► Oh, it's just me, how you doing?

00:51:44 ◼   ► I'm having a sandwich.

00:51:46 ◼   ► Talk to you later.

00:51:47 ◼   ► - Breen.

00:51:50 ◼   ► - Or just laugh maniacally and hang up.

00:51:52 ◼   ► - So what happens is the email comes in and it says,

00:51:56 ◼   ► please respond to this address if you can make it.

00:52:00 ◼   ► And I respond immediately and I say, yes, I'll be there.

00:52:04 ◼   ► Thanks for inviting me and I look forward to seeing you.

00:52:06 ◼   ► And this time I did that and I got a response back

00:52:08 ◼   ► from the PR person who was patrolling that account

00:52:11 ◼   ► saying, look forward to seeing you next Monday.

00:52:14 ◼   ► And then, never fails, like a couple hours later,

00:52:17 ◼   ► I got a phone call from somebody at Apple,

00:52:19 ◼   ► boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, saying,

00:52:21 ◼   ► hey, you probably already responded to the email,

00:52:24 ◼   ► but I would like to in person, make sure that you're coming.

00:52:28 ◼   ► I say, yes, I am also coming.

00:52:29 ◼   ► So you sort of double RSVP and that venue is not too huge and they want to get the numbers

00:52:36 ◼   ► right.

00:52:37 ◼   ► They want to get the white glove treatment for Mr. Snell over here.

00:52:40 ◼   ► I think that's no different than it was before.

00:52:42 ◼   ► I think that's what they do.

00:52:45 ◼   ► They really want to make sure that you're going to be there and know if you're not going

00:52:48 ◼   ► to be there.

00:52:49 ◼   ► Yeah, because I guess if you just say, "Yeah, I'll be there," but it's like there's a wasted

00:52:52 ◼   ► space if you don't turn up, right?

00:52:54 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:52:55 ◼   ► And they want to fill every seat, I'm sure.

00:52:58 ◼   ► They totally do.

00:52:59 ◼   ► So I'll be there and then we will need to figure out when I'll be able to talk to you

00:53:05 ◼   ► afterward.

00:53:06 ◼   ► I've already cleared my schedule for that day, so it can be any time.

00:53:10 ◼   ► It's great for us, a Monday event.

00:53:13 ◼   ► Upgrade's gonna be right there at the scene.

00:53:15 ◼   ► We have Jason Snow reporting live.

00:53:17 ◼   ► You can bring Tim on the show.

00:53:19 ◼   ► Upgrade is on the cutting edge.

00:53:21 ◼   ► So yeah, I'll ask Tim whether he can come on or not.

00:53:26 ◼   ► He's a busy guy though.

00:53:28 ◼   ► So I'm interested to hear from both of you.

00:53:31 ◼   ► I mean, the obvious, I assume, is that we're going to hear about the Apple Watch.

00:53:35 ◼   ► But I know that Jason, me, and you had spoken about this before, and I believe that the

00:53:40 ◼   ► stance that you had, if I remember correctly, was that you didn't think that they would

00:53:45 ◼   ► have an event just for the Watch.

00:53:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:53:49 ◼   ► Yep, that's what I said.

00:53:50 ◼   ► So do you think that this is just the Watch?

00:53:54 ◼   ► Or do you think that they're going to have other things?

00:53:56 ◼   ► And we had Jason via Twitter, a different Jason, asking, you know, do we think that

00:54:02 ◼   ► there's going to be any other announcements?

00:54:04 ◼   ► Maybe the elusive MacBook Air, maybe a big iPad, could be anything, I suppose.

00:54:12 ◼   ► My gut feeling is that this is going to be all about Apple Watch and that not that they

00:54:16 ◼   ► won't make some other announcements, but I doubt it will be anything huge.

00:54:21 ◼   ► I'd love to be wrong.

00:54:22 ◼   ► I would love for that rumored retina MacBook Air

00:54:25 ◼   ► or something to be dropped as a part of this.

00:54:27 ◼   ► That would be awesome.

00:54:29 ◼   ► But my gut feeling is that this is,

00:54:32 ◼   ► it's six months to the day

00:54:34 ◼   ► from the announcement of the Apple Watch.

00:54:36 ◼   ► And I think they're going, they need to remind everybody.

00:54:42 ◼   ► And they've got six months more information

00:54:44 ◼   ► about what the product actually is

00:54:45 ◼   ► and how it actually works

00:54:47 ◼   ► and more things that they can demo

00:54:49 ◼   ► and third-party developers that they can highlight

00:54:52 ◼   ► And so I think the bulk of it is still going to be about the Apple Watch because they really want to

00:54:58 ◼   ► hit this one out of the park. And I learned things about how cricket works. So check this out, Myke.

00:55:05 ◼   ► They really want this one to go for six. Huh?

00:55:08 ◼   ► - Yeah. Correct.

00:55:10 ◼   ► - Cricket? Okay. They want to... I always feel bad when people use baseball metaphors with people

00:55:16 ◼   ► who aren't from baseball countries because they make no sense. So hit it out of the park, Myke.

00:55:21 ◼   ► I'll explain later what that means.

00:55:22 ◼   ► So they want to spend a lot of time on this.

00:55:25 ◼   ► And so I think they will.

00:55:27 ◼   ► 'Cause six months ago, they didn't know.

00:55:29 ◼   ► They didn't know what the battery life was gonna be.

00:55:30 ◼   ► They didn't really know what the third party apps

00:55:32 ◼   ► were gonna be.

00:55:33 ◼   ► They didn't really know what their apps

00:55:34 ◼   ► were probably going to be and how they were gonna work.

00:55:36 ◼   ► And I think all of that's been fine tuned.

00:55:39 ◼   ► And the fact was, that was six months ago.

00:55:40 ◼   ► So there's this general buzz about the Apple Watch.

00:55:42 ◼   ► But as I found out when Dan and I wrote that

00:55:44 ◼   ► Apple Watch FAQ for six colors,

00:55:46 ◼   ► people don't remember.

00:55:49 ◼   ► I mean, people don't remember.

00:55:50 ◼   ► It was a long time ago and in our audience is people who are like really into Apple stuff

00:55:54 ◼   ► and still it's like you tune it out.

00:55:56 ◼   ► It's so far away.

00:55:57 ◼   ► It's not it's not real in September.

00:56:00 ◼   ► It was not real now.

00:56:01 ◼   ► It's going to be real and and there's way more information to be to be told about it

00:56:06 ◼   ► and they don't want to blow their chance to make this impression.

00:56:09 ◼   ► So I think you know, I think it's going to be largely about the Apple watch.

00:56:13 ◼   ► But yeah, I would imagine that they'll throw some other stuff in probably just because

00:56:16 ◼   ► they're going to have the press there.

00:56:18 ◼   ► And so why not?

00:56:19 ◼   ► What about the music streaming service? Do you think it's too early to hear

00:56:24 ◼   ► anything about that?

00:56:26 ◼   ► The rumors are that they're still really working on it so I

00:56:31 ◼   ► would expect that later but you never know. I mean they may give some

00:56:36 ◼   ► updates right? They might give a Beats update and say what's going on with

00:56:40 ◼   ► Beats.

00:56:41 ◼   ► We can wait for the full iPod event right? They're still gonna have that in

00:56:44 ◼   ► the fall? The iPod event? Anyone? iPod event?

00:56:46 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. I mean, or entertainment event, I guess, is sort of what it is now. And you

00:56:53 ◼   ► put some stuff in there, that wouldn't surprise me at all.

00:56:56 ◼   ► Do you think that the watch is going to get new features or something new that we didn't

00:57:00 ◼   ► see at the first unveiling?

00:57:03 ◼   ► You know, Brian Chen in the New York Times wrote a thing that obviously was fed by somebody

00:57:07 ◼   ► at Apple that talks about how they're going to have a new feature that is a...

00:57:11 ◼   ► It's like reserve mode or something?

00:57:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a watch face that's on so that you can see the...

00:57:20 ◼   ► Basically before they were gonna say the screen is off

00:57:23 ◼   ► unless you lift your wrist,

00:57:25 ◼   ► and then it turns on and you can see the time.

00:57:27 ◼   ► And it sounds like they are trying to make it

00:57:30 ◼   ► so that that screen can be on more

00:57:33 ◼   ► without having severe battery problems.

00:57:38 ◼   ► So there's some sort of like super low power mode

00:57:40 ◼   ► where they are gonna show you the time,

00:57:42 ◼   ► but it's not gonna have the rest of the features

00:57:44 ◼   ► until something else happens.

00:57:45 ◼   ► And that's like a, that could just be a software detail

00:57:48 ◼   ► that is some of the energy saving that they've done

00:57:51 ◼   ► in order to get the battery life where they want it to be.

00:57:54 ◼   ► But with the way Ryan Chen put it, that's like a feature now.

00:57:57 ◼   ► And so they'll probably talk about that and say,

00:57:59 ◼   ► "Well, let me explain how this works

00:58:00 ◼   ► and how we can show you the time

00:58:02 ◼   ► and still stay alive for a day."

00:58:05 ◼   ► And so I do think there will be some stuff like that

00:58:08 ◼   ► where maybe not like a whole new feature

00:58:11 ◼   ► that opens up a whole new direction for the watch

00:58:14 ◼   ► that we didn't have before, but more like, as we were building this thing, we realized

00:58:19 ◼   ► we needed to do this. And they may not phrase it that way, but I think in six months' time,

00:58:25 ◼   ► that's what you're going to see is the fruits of six months of pushing this thing across

00:58:29 ◼   ► the finish line and having made some decisions that might lead to some features that they

00:58:34 ◼   ► didn't talk about before. Because there was stuff where they were pretty hazy, and there's

00:58:37 ◼   ► probably some stuff that was a little bit pie in the sky that they're going to have

00:58:40 ◼   ► to rein in and say, "Well, actually, this is going to be how it works now, now that

00:58:44 ◼   ► we know. Because now it's a real product, I think. If Tim Cook says it's coming out

00:58:49 ◼   ► in April, I mean, it's got to be real now. They've got to be making them. And that was

00:58:53 ◼   ► not the case six months ago. They were not real.

00:58:55 ◼   ► Also, there have been, I think one reports at like a thousand, there are a lot of Apple

00:59:00 ◼   ► employees wearing these watches. So that informs development too, I think, that there are so

00:59:07 ◼   ► many different people wearing these things and presumably having different experiences

00:59:11 ◼   ► with them that feed into how they tweak the software. And we'll see that too. So, you

00:59:18 ◼   ► know, there's a lot more. They could fill an entire event with it. There's no doubt

00:59:22 ◼   ► about it. And I think they will fill most of the event with it. But hopefully we'll

00:59:26 ◼   ► see some other stuff too, just because I like some diversity in my Apple product announcements.

00:59:31 ◼   ► I'm curious to see how deep they go on the battery life question, because I think that's

00:59:35 ◼   ► going to be a real big deal. And my guess is they're going to say, "Oh, it's great.

00:59:39 ◼   ► know just charge it every night you'll be fine and they're not gonna tell you

00:59:42 ◼   ► much more than that I think if that's what they do say that's that speaks more

00:59:47 ◼   ► than the actual numbers like if they don't give numbers I think that that

00:59:51 ◼   ► will say more than the numbers would say you know like if they if they just don't

00:59:54 ◼   ► say oh it's it's a eight-hour battery life or whatever which they kind of do

00:59:58 ◼   ► for every other product it would maybe say to me that it's not perfect I think

01:00:03 ◼   ► they're gonna talk about it I think they have to I have to have to and I think

01:00:06 ◼   ► they'll have a story to tell. And again, what that story is and how they tell it will be

01:00:12 ◼   ► interesting because the way they told it in September was really much like, at the end of

01:00:20 ◼   ► the day, you'll plug it in and it will charge overnight, which didn't really say anything about

01:00:25 ◼   ► what the battery life is going to be and that they didn't know. And now they're going to know.

01:00:28 ◼   ► So they'll tell the story. And the story may be, "Well, we've got this amazing low power mode,

01:00:32 ◼   ► And if you don't use it too much, then you can get through a day.

01:00:36 ◼   ► Or they may say, "Oh yeah, you can get through an entire day, no problem."

01:00:39 ◼   ► It'll be interesting to see how they do it.

01:00:41 ◼   ► But I do think they will absolutely address it.

01:00:43 ◼   ► Because how could they not?

01:00:44 ◼   ► They have to.

01:00:46 ◼   ► I'm really interested to see what the charging cables are going to cost for this thing.

01:00:52 ◼   ► So I think there's a potential to be a bit more of a blowback about the...

01:00:56 ◼   ► There always is, right?

01:00:57 ◼   ► You know, like whenever they introduce some sort of change, which means new cables, there's

01:01:01 ◼   ► always an issue. But I think with a device that admittedly, potentially from

01:01:06 ◼   ► Apple's perspective, you need to charge every single day, I wonder how people are

01:01:11 ◼   ► gonna feel. Because I also look at those charging cables and be like "that's

01:01:14 ◼   ► probably gonna be more expensive than a than a lightning cable" and so I'm really

01:01:19 ◼   ► interested to see how that goes. I think it wouldn't be

01:01:23 ◼   ► too hard to maybe put an extra one in the box, but who knows. I'm sure you get

01:01:29 ◼   ► like 12 with the addition. I'm just interested to see how that unfolds as

01:01:35 ◼   ► well because it's gonna be a little bit more of a... the whole battery life thing,

01:01:39 ◼   ► anything related to power and battery in this device, I think is gonna be a bit of

01:01:43 ◼   ► a sticky situation. Yeah, yeah it's it's really interesting, you know, I love it

01:01:50 ◼   ► when Apple does something new because we get to see them do things that are

01:01:55 ◼   ► unanticipated and I think that's what we're gonna get some of now. But you know,

01:01:59 ◼   ► I would love for there to be Mac announcements. I would love for there to be new Mac announcements.

01:02:03 ◼   ► It's not beyond the realm of possibility that there will be Mac announcements that are done

01:02:07 ◼   ► by press release and with a note on stage saying, "Oh, we have this new thing today." But I think

01:02:12 ◼   ► it's more likely that those will come later. If there's a new MacBook Air, for example,

01:02:16 ◼   ► that it'll just come later and that they don't want to divert people from the main message here.

01:02:20 ◼   ► I don't think this is going to be one of those sort of smorgasbord Apple events where they've

01:02:24 ◼   ► got a whole bunch of different things, but you never know. That's just, you know, my gut feeling

01:02:27 ◼   ► is it's timed too perfectly for the watch launch.

01:02:33 ◼   ► We should say as well, like saying about timed perfectly, Monday is when Daylight Savings

01:02:38 ◼   ► Time ends, right? Is that when it ends or goes into effect? I can never get it wrong.

01:02:45 ◼   ► Yeah it's a... No, starts, begins. Daylight Saving begins and will go to Daylight Time.

01:02:53 ◼   ► So that's the reason that they've set it for Monday.

01:02:56 ◼   ► It's just because it's just, you know.

01:02:58 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:02:59 ◼   ► Oh, it's too perfect, Jason.

01:03:00 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:03:01 ◼   ► They never do events on Mondays.

01:03:03 ◼   ► It's time.

01:03:04 ◼   ► It's all time related.

01:03:05 ◼   ► They may just have that, you know, they may just have that as a day that they could book

01:03:09 ◼   ► the theater, but it doesn't matter.

01:03:10 ◼   ► It's close enough that it doesn't really matter.

01:03:14 ◼   ► They're going to get it.

01:03:15 ◼   ► We'll all be...

01:03:16 ◼   ► We'll be sleepier or we'll be...

01:03:19 ◼   ► No, we'll be well rested because we move the clock forward so we gain... is that right?

01:03:25 ◼   ► I think you got it wrong.

01:03:26 ◼   ► I think we lose an hour.

01:03:28 ◼   ► Oh, we lose an hour, right, because it'll go from 2am to 3am.

01:03:31 ◼   ► So we'll all be sleepy, basically.

01:03:35 ◼   ► It's gonna be fun.

01:03:37 ◼   ► I think they're gonna put on a good show and I think we will get some surprises about the

01:03:42 ◼   ► watch builds themselves and the straps and I don't know, I think they're gonna have a

01:03:46 ◼   ► couple surprises up their sleeve.

01:03:47 ◼   ► There's so much uncertainty about the details of this thing, so the more details we get,

01:03:51 ◼   ► the better for everybody, I think.

01:03:52 ◼   ► I think that is why this next event is so important, because there are so many tangible

01:03:59 ◼   ► details that we have absolutely no idea at the moment.

01:04:02 ◼   ► Just guess.

01:04:03 ◼   ► We don't even know how much it costs.

01:04:07 ◼   ► We literally have no idea, because it starts at $3.49, but for what?

01:04:12 ◼   ► Do you even get a strap?

01:04:14 ◼   ► No, it's on a string at that point.

01:04:16 ◼   ► Yeah, we don't know anything.

01:04:17 ◼   ► One of the things that I was starting to become concerned about was international availability.

01:04:22 ◼   ► Because I saw somebody tweet and I took a look on the US page it says like coming in April and

01:04:30 ◼   ► in many European pages it says coming in 2015. I don't know if you've noticed this recently but

01:04:35 ◼   ► Tim Cook's been doing this very peculiar European press tour at the moment. He's flying all over

01:04:43 ◼   ► Europe right now and he's visiting many Apple stores. He visited the Apple store that I

01:04:50 ◼   ► gave my talk in the day after. I was heartbroken, Jason. And I'm reading like he walked into

01:04:57 ◼   ► the telegraph, I had an interview with him. Apparently he walks into the Apple store and

01:05:01 ◼   ► all the employees didn't know he was coming and then there's like this big applause and

01:05:04 ◼   ► stuff. He's been taking selfies of all the stuff. But anyway, it seems like there's been

01:05:07 ◼   ► a lot of questions asked of him. And from what it seems from reports that are coming

01:05:11 ◼   ► out. It's like it will be available in April internationally, but what we

01:05:16 ◼   ► might see is start of April in the US, end of April in Europe. But it's just

01:05:22 ◼   ► interesting. This is very interesting to see him going around at the

01:05:26 ◼   ► moment, and for what doesn't really seem to be any specific reason, but he seems

01:05:32 ◼   ► to be visiting lots of places. Just a goodwill tour. Yep. Availability is

01:05:39 ◼   ► fascinating to me also because everybody has been saying and Tim Cook said it's

01:05:44 ◼   ► coming out in April. Well traditionally if you have the Apple event one week the

01:05:51 ◼   ► following Friday of the Friday of the following week is when the product is

01:05:55 ◼   ► released but that's March 20th. So there's a great mystery here about when

01:06:01 ◼   ► this product is actually going to be released because are they doing this

01:06:05 ◼   ► with a month's run-up? Is it going to come out earlier than than expected? Are

01:06:09 ◼   ► Are they going to do an event on the 9th and say,

01:06:11 ◼   ► "You can all buy this on the 3rd,"

01:06:12 ◼   ► or is it going to be, "You can all buy this

01:06:13 ◼   ► starting tomorrow, you know, order it,

01:06:16 ◼   ► but you won't get it until the beginning of April"?

01:06:18 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:06:20 ◼   ► -And pre-ordering seems really difficult,

01:06:22 ◼   ► but maybe there's so many infrastructure changes

01:06:24 ◼   ► that Apple have to make,

01:06:25 ◼   ► they can't start making them until they announce --

01:06:27 ◼   ► like, for example, let's say that they do need to do some stuff

01:06:30 ◼   ► to the retail stores ahead of the product launch.

01:06:32 ◼   ► They need a bit of a runway to start doing that,

01:06:34 ◼   ► and they probably shouldn't start doing it

01:06:36 ◼   ► until they've actually announced a release date for the product.

01:06:39 ◼   ► So that would be my guess.

01:06:40 ◼   ► Well, also, when you think in the past, they always have that very short period between

01:06:45 ◼   ► the big unveiling and putting it for sale because they've already got devices for sale

01:06:49 ◼   ► and they know nobody's going to buy an iPhone as soon as that announcement's done until

01:06:54 ◼   ► they release a new one.

01:06:56 ◼   ► In this case, you don't have that holding you back.

01:06:58 ◼   ► I mean, you can't go out and buy the current Apple Watch.

01:07:01 ◼   ► So if it takes them a month to put it in the store, that's just going to give it a month

01:07:05 ◼   ► build up excitement and give Jason more time to write up the FAQ for Six Colors.

01:07:10 ◼   ► Yeah, especially since I'm going to Europe for two weeks right as this is

01:07:15 ◼   ► all happening. I'm wondering about that, but there's nothing I could... Every time I

01:07:19 ◼   ► make a trip plan, I have that moment of like, "Oh, Apple could completely destroy

01:07:23 ◼   ► this by releasing a product right in the middle of it," but there's nothing you can

01:07:26 ◼   ► do. You just have to just... You can't... You gotta live your life and let... And

01:07:32 ◼   ► And that's why I wrote the original iPhone review from inside a tent in the forest, because

01:07:39 ◼   ► that's when the iPhone came out during my summer vacation.

01:07:42 ◼   ► That's just how it was.

01:07:43 ◼   ► So we'll see.

01:07:44 ◼   ► I look forward to asking you the time when you're in... when you're in...

01:07:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:49 ◼   ► Yeah, we'll talk about it.

01:07:51 ◼   ► We'll talk about it a lot.

01:07:53 ◼   ► I think we've reached #AskUpgrade, Myke.

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01:10:11 ◼   ► it.

01:10:12 ◼   ► That's so powerful, it's so fantastic, it's like nothing else out there.

01:10:15 ◼   ► Squarespace have fantastic 24/7 support with live chat and email.

01:10:19 ◼   ► They are able to help you anytime of the day or night with their teams located in New York,

01:10:23 ◼   ► Dublin and Portland.

01:10:24 ◼   ► If you want to sell physical or digital goods with your Squarespace site they have their

01:10:27 ◼   ► commerce platform that allows you to do that.

01:10:30 ◼   ► I love Squarespace, I've used them for years.

01:10:32 ◼   ► If you like the sound of what I'm saying you should go and sign up for a free trial right

01:10:36 ◼   ► now by going to squarespace.com.

01:10:38 ◼   ► There's no credit card required to do this.

01:10:40 ◼   ► And when you decide to sign up make sure that you use the offer code UPGRADE.

01:10:44 ◼   ► going to get you 10% off your first purchase. It will also show your support for this show.

01:10:49 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Squarespace for helping us out at Relay FM. Squarespace, build it

01:10:54 ◼   ► beautiful.

01:10:55 ◼   ► All right, first question, and David, you are now part of Ask Upgrade, so get ready.

01:11:02 ◼   ► It's not really a quiz. A listener, Chris, wrote in to say, "What's your Alto's Adventure

01:11:07 ◼   ► high score?" Are you playing Alto's Adventure, anybody?

01:11:10 ◼   ► I love this game.

01:11:12 ◼   ► I love it so much.

01:11:14 ◼   ► On Virtual, which is the show that I do with Federico Vitucci, all about video games, we

01:11:18 ◼   ► interviewed one of the creators of Alto's Adventure last week.

01:11:22 ◼   ► So I'm looking at my Game Center high scoreboard right now.

01:11:26 ◼   ► Serenity Caldwell, 190,000.

01:11:29 ◼   ► John Syracuse, 101,000.

01:11:33 ◼   ► Michael Harley, I'm Michael Harley, 84,654.

01:11:38 ◼   ► Amazing.

01:11:40 ◼   ► Mine is like 41,000.

01:11:41 ◼   ► I'm way behind on you guys.

01:11:42 ◼   ► But I feel like I'm good at this game and getting better all the time, which is usually

01:11:47 ◼   ► I play these games and I enjoy them, but then I feel like I've plateaued and I'm not really

01:11:50 ◼   ► as good as anybody else and I'm not getting any better and then I sort of give up after

01:11:55 ◼   ► a while.

01:11:56 ◼   ► But with this one I feel like I'm still getting better at it and I'm making breakthroughs

01:11:58 ◼   ► all the time.

01:12:00 ◼   ► And I love it.

01:12:01 ◼   ► I just love everything about it.

01:12:02 ◼   ► I love how it looks.

01:12:03 ◼   ► I love how it feels almost restful.

01:12:08 ◼   ► I don't feel stressed when I'm playing it in the way that when I would get to 200 and

01:12:12 ◼   ► Crossy Road I would freak out because I would be afraid to tap something wrong and ruin

01:12:17 ◼   ► my thing.

01:12:18 ◼   ► I just, I feel like it's cool, I'm just going down a mountain, whatever.

01:12:23 ◼   ► I don't know, it's remarkable, so I'm loving it.

01:12:27 ◼   ► I am with you, Jason, I love this app, this game so much.

01:12:31 ◼   ► I haven't taken to a game like this one in a long time.

01:12:34 ◼   ► I can now regularly get to a second elder,

01:12:38 ◼   ► but that's still not very high.

01:12:39 ◼   ► I think I'm in like the 30 to 40,000 range.

01:12:42 ◼   ► But man, I like it.

01:12:44 ◼   ► I have been seeing a crash.

01:12:45 ◼   ► Have you guys got this crash where you get stuck?

01:12:47 ◼   ► - Yeah. - No.

01:12:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've had that.

01:12:50 ◼   ► Apparently that is a bug related to,

01:12:53 ◼   ► you might not be having this problem, David,

01:12:56 ◼   ► when you, if you're listening to other audio,

01:12:58 ◼   ► it's like an audio related bug.

01:13:01 ◼   ► But yeah, they've got a fix coming.

01:13:03 ◼   ► There's also some other bugs with the wingsuit and stuff like that,

01:13:07 ◼   ► but I think that they've got a fix coming soon.

01:13:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is fixed.

01:13:10 ◼   ► I've been using the beta, and it is totally fixed,

01:13:12 ◼   ► and I can fly with the wingsuit now, which is fun.

01:13:16 ◼   ► I haven't really figured out how to use it right, but...

01:13:19 ◼   ► - Saying about the calming nature of this game,

01:13:21 ◼   ► it's all in the music.

01:13:22 ◼   ► It's just an absolutely fantastic score that they've got.

01:13:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, the music and the graphics, the fact that...

01:13:27 ◼   ► Well, there's another skiing game on iOS

01:13:30 ◼   ► that is you're running away from an avalanche.

01:13:35 ◼   ► - Ski Safari.

01:13:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:13:37 ◼   ► And I don't like running away from an avalanche.

01:13:40 ◼   ► That stresses me out.

01:13:41 ◼   ► - I like that you're only chased

01:13:43 ◼   ► for a certain period of time in this game.

01:13:45 ◼   ► And that's good 'cause it adds a bit of adrenaline,

01:13:48 ◼   ► but it's not the entire time.

01:13:49 ◼   ► - Right, and then meanwhile,

01:13:51 ◼   ► the snow is coming down, or rain is coming down,

01:13:53 ◼   ► and the sun is setting, and then it's nighttime,

01:13:56 ◼   ► and it's just beautiful, so it's great.

01:13:58 ◼   ► Also, I like that they seem to have been tipping their cap

01:14:02 ◼   ► at Journey, beloved game where I'm gonna have to listen

01:14:07 ◼   ► to that episode of your podcast.

01:14:09 ◼   ► The so much mic, so many mic podcasts

01:14:12 ◼   ► that I have to listen to.

01:14:13 ◼   ► - Says Jason Snell.

01:14:15 ◼   ► - It's the, it's the great, yeah, I know, take that.

01:14:17 ◼   ► You're on more podcasts than me.

01:14:19 ◼   ► You just have to, you have to take it.

01:14:21 ◼   ► Because your scarf grows just as it does in Journey

01:14:26 ◼   ► as you do more power up things.

01:14:28 ◼   ► And in fact, when you get to that moment where you can use the wingsuit, your scarf turns

01:14:32 ◼   ► white, which is very much a journey kind of thing where when you get all the power-ups,

01:14:38 ◼   ► you get the white robe.

01:14:40 ◼   ► So I love it.

01:14:42 ◼   ► But Myke's way ahead of me in terms of high scores.

01:14:43 ◼   ► But Serenity's got us all beat because she is an obsessive game player like that.

01:14:47 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:14:48 ◼   ► She's working on tips and stuff for Eimor as well, right?

01:14:50 ◼   ► So she can kind of write it off as being part of her job.

01:14:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, she can say that.

01:14:55 ◼   ► That's a nice excuse.

01:14:56 ◼   ► it's more that she has a way to explain why she's playing the game that much, but she'd be playing

01:15:02 ◼   ► the game that much regardless. But she's your favorite snowboarder. I'm loving Maya. I'm loving

01:15:10 ◼   ► Maya because you can do all the backflips. Backflips are so great. Yep, it's got the speed for the

01:15:15 ◼   ► backflip. Yeah. At this point I only have Alto and Maya, and Maya is definitely... I love it. She's slow,

01:15:23 ◼   ► but she does the backflips and you can do the combos and it's great.

01:15:27 ◼   ► We had another Ask Upgrade about a game which is about threes,

01:15:35 ◼   ► which is also a great game. This is from Listener, I'm going to say Hella.

01:15:41 ◼   ► "Thank you so much for your threes recommendation. I love the game. Now tell

01:15:44 ◼   ► me how to stop playing it." - Can't. - No.

01:15:49 ◼   ► Play Alta's Adventure instead.

01:15:52 ◼   ► That's about all I got.

01:15:53 ◼   ► Threes is great.

01:15:54 ◼   ► Love it.

01:15:55 ◼   ► Since the game originally came out, like, well over a year ago, like, I've played it

01:16:00 ◼   ► every day.

01:16:01 ◼   ► Like, I play it every day, Threes.

01:16:02 ◼   ► It's just such a great game.

01:16:05 ◼   ► Huge fan.

01:16:06 ◼   ► Let's see.

01:16:07 ◼   ► Swilliams.

01:16:08 ◼   ► Listener Swilliams from the chat room says, "Can you talk about Birdman being the greatest

01:16:16 ◼   ► film of the 21st century. I went on the record the day before it won best picture

01:16:21 ◼   ► as saying I didn't like it. I didn't hate it. I just didn't like it.

01:16:24 ◼   ► I haven't seen it. I disliked it. I haven't seen it. But it won best picture so you know. So the

01:16:30 ◼   ► greatest show on earth also won best picture I'm just gonna point out. Dances

01:16:34 ◼   ► with Wolves and Crash and Gladiator. Gladiator won best picture. Gladiator for

01:16:38 ◼   ► Pete's sake. I was channel surfing and stumbled on Dances with Wolves and I had

01:16:44 ◼   ► forgot how much I didn't like that movie.

01:16:48 ◼   ► I liked it more at the time, but now in watching it now, I can't know. Anyway, so the answer

01:16:57 ◼   ► to the question is Williams question about if I can talk about Birdman being the greatest

01:17:00 ◼   ► film of the 21st century is no, I can't sorry. Listener Rajeev wrote in to say, Do you think

01:17:06 ◼   ► the Apple Watch will have the capability to connect physically to a computer and iTunes.

01:17:14 ◼   ► I um, well what's weird is you can load music on it apparently. I have no idea how, and

01:17:22 ◼   ► I think that would be the question. It's probably going to be something you load from the phone

01:17:26 ◼   ► via the Apple Watch app. I don't think there's going to be any way to connect it to a Mac

01:17:31 ◼   ► or to iTunes. I think its umbilical will be to the iPhone. That's my gut feeling.

01:17:39 ◼   ► Because we're assuming that the charging, the inductive charging, cannot carry data,

01:17:45 ◼   ► right? Because that's the only connection it has to USB. So then you'd also naturally assume that

01:17:53 ◼   ► if you're going to be able to connect it wirelessly to something, it's not going to be to a Mac because

01:17:57 ◼   ► it's pointless without the phone so currently so it feels like phone only I would agree.

01:18:03 ◼   ► And we have one more which is from listener Matt who said, "Do you watch Modern Family?

01:18:13 ◼   ► Why is this week's episode an Apple commercial?" So I haven't seen this. I am a fan of the show.

01:18:22 ◼   ► throughout the history of Modern Family it has had a very strong

01:18:26 ◼   ► Apple link. Right, Phil is an Apple nerd like us, the character

01:18:31 ◼   ► Phil, the dad. He's an Apple nerd, he waits in line for an iPhone.

01:18:34 ◼   ► Apple pays for placement, I mean they pay so that the computers they use are

01:18:40 ◼   ► all Apple, they use all Apple products. That's just like

01:18:43 ◼   ► they do that, but my understanding is the writers come up with the ideas and

01:18:47 ◼   ► they're not paid to put anything, to put a storyline around Apple stuff.

01:18:51 ◼   ► They think I think they just have enjoyed the fact that I think they're Apple nerds, too

01:18:55 ◼   ► I think the writers are Apple nerds and they thought this was a cool idea to do a whole episode that's taking place on a on

01:19:00 ◼   ► a on a screen

01:19:02 ◼   ► I don't think it's you know

01:19:04 ◼   ► I don't think Apple said we'd like to pay you to write an episode that takes place on our computer screen

01:19:09 ◼   ► I think that the the writers just went along with it. I love the episode where Phil wait does the iPhone line?

01:19:15 ◼   ► I thought that was hilarious. Yeah, that's really great. And then

01:19:18 ◼   ► what's

01:19:20 ◼   ► Claire like she jumps out of the line that one with for the iPad

01:19:24 ◼   ► Yeah, it's good. There's the iPad line, right? I haven't seen the episode. I haven't seen it either from the screenshots

01:19:31 ◼   ► I've seen like I would be surprised if Apple paid for it because they're kind of doing things that you can't do like

01:19:36 ◼   ► No, we all that poor FaceTime calls going on at once and yeah Apple paid for it

01:19:40 ◼   ► They wouldn't want the product to be misrepresented

01:19:42 ◼   ► And in fact, they had to fake up the interface because they they use it

01:19:46 ◼   ► there was a story and I don't know where I saw it,

01:19:48 ◼   ► that was about how they were plotting this all

01:19:50 ◼   ► while Yosemite wasn't even out yet.

01:19:53 ◼   ► And they were trying to fake up a Yosemite-like interface,

01:19:58 ◼   ► but they had to fake it all to get it at the resolution

01:20:02 ◼   ► that they wanted, with the things that they wanted,

01:20:04 ◼   ► with the control in order to build this episode,

01:20:08 ◼   ► because it was technically quite complex to do that.

01:20:11 ◼   ► I think it's cool though.

01:20:13 ◼   ► I'm looking forward to watching it,

01:20:14 ◼   ► but I haven't seen it yet.

01:20:16 ◼   ► It's good, I'll tell you it's good, but it's not as good as a regular Modern Family episode.

01:20:20 ◼   ► Right.

01:20:20 ◼   ► Yeah, okay.

01:20:21 ◼   ► Because one of my favorite things about that show is the physical comedy.

01:20:27 ◼   ► And I assume there's probably not a lot of that in this episode.

01:20:30 ◼   ► Well what they did to make it fun is they put in like,

01:20:33 ◼   ► while two characters would be talking to each other in FaceTime,

01:20:36 ◼   ► they would be googling, you know, you could tell where they were thinking

01:20:40 ◼   ► by what subject they were googling, and it kind of gave you an insight into the character,

01:20:44 ◼   ► Which is actually really funny because you know the guys who write this really it's a very funny show

01:20:49 ◼   ► But yeah, I don't think I want to see a lot of this stuff in the future

01:20:52 ◼   ► Yeah, and like on this note as well. I don't know if either of you watch house of cards

01:20:58 ◼   ► No, there was a an episode of house of cards in season three don't worry this isn't a spoiler

01:21:06 ◼   ► It's been everywhere where Monument Valley is a plot point. Huh, and I was very interested in this

01:21:13 ◼   ► to try and work out how this had occurred because at certain points it

01:21:18 ◼   ► feels like a plot point and at certain points it feels like shameless product

01:21:21 ◼   ► placement like it kind of skirts the line and as the episode goes on it kind

01:21:26 ◼   ► of makes more sense maybe but it turns out that there are no money exchanged

01:21:31 ◼   ► hands and it was a collaboration like the US2 games account tweeted about it

01:21:36 ◼   ► because there is a lot of product placement in in hustle cards from like

01:21:42 ◼   ► Samsung and Sony and Microsoft with Windows. Everyone has Windows phones. Which

01:21:48 ◼   ► actually does feel believable in government. I don't know if that's the

01:21:52 ◼   ► case but I was willing to believe it more than in other shows because I feel

01:21:56 ◼   ► like if it's gonna be happening in one place it's gonna be in a huge huge

01:22:00 ◼   ► corporate environment and how much more of a corporate environment in that sort

01:22:03 ◼   ► of sense. Like business-y is you know the White House and that sort of area but I

01:22:09 ◼   ► figured they're not gonna be using Blackberries anymore though they

01:22:11 ◼   ► probably are so it made sense to me that you've Windows phones but yeah that

01:22:14 ◼   ► Monument Valley is there. It was a nice surprise to see Frank Underwood

01:22:19 ◼   ► playing Monument Valley. So there you go. I think that about brings us to the end of

01:22:24 ◼   ► this week's episode. Thank you to everyone for their Ask Upgrades. As always

01:22:27 ◼   ► you can always send us in questions, follow up feedback by using the hashtag

01:22:32 ◼   ► #AskUpgrade on Twitter and we do look at them all and thank you for everybody

01:22:35 ◼   ► that sends them in as always and if you want to get in touch with us personally

01:22:39 ◼   ► I am @imyke on Twitter and @jsnell and of course we have had the fantastic Mr. David

01:22:47 ◼   ► Sparks join us who is @maxsparky on Twitter.

01:22:50 ◼   ► David, whilst we have you here, is there anywhere that you would like to point people on the

01:22:54 ◼   ► internet right now to go and find out what you're up to?

01:22:57 ◼   ► Yeah, if you go to maxsparky.com you're going to find just about everything I do, so that's

01:23:02 ◼   ► a good place to go.

01:23:03 ◼   ► Excellent stuff.

01:23:04 ◼   ► And more of it than ever before.

01:23:06 ◼   ► Yay!

01:23:07 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:23:09 ◼   ► And keep locked to sixcolors.com on Monday for live coverage, I assume, again?

01:23:16 ◼   ► Yes, we'll do some live coverage.

01:23:19 ◼   ► Probably we'll use the Six Colors event Twitter stream to talk about what's going on as well,

01:23:26 ◼   ► and then I'll have a bunch of follow-up afterward.

01:23:28 ◼   ► At some point in there, we will record an episode of Upgrade.

01:23:31 ◼   ► I have no idea when that's going to be.

01:23:33 ◼   ► I'm also supposed to do an incomparable episode that night.

01:23:35 ◼   ► I may reschedule that one because it's going to be a busy day.

01:23:39 ◼   ► But we will be back at some point on the day to talk about this all here on upgrade next

01:23:46 ◼   ► week.

01:23:47 ◼   ► So get ready for that.

01:23:48 ◼   ► Exciting.

01:23:49 ◼   ► You should also follow the @_upgradefm Twitter account because we'll be announcing there

01:23:54 ◼   ► when we're going to be recording because I think that it will probably just be whenever

01:23:59 ◼   ► it makes sense.

01:24:00 ◼   ► Right.

01:24:01 ◼   ► Well, one of the questions is going to be where am I going to be?

01:24:04 ◼   ► Am I going to come home after that event?

01:24:05 ◼   ► Am I going to stick around in downtown San Francisco for a while?

01:24:11 ◼   ► We'll see how it works.

01:24:13 ◼   ► I have been offered the use of the Macworld podcave, so who knows?

01:24:17 ◼   ► I might even be back in the old haunt again.

01:24:19 ◼   ► I hope I wear my work clothes.

01:24:21 ◼   ► No one let you in otherwise.

01:24:23 ◼   ► No.

01:24:24 ◼   ► I think you should dress like a hobo that day, Jason.

01:24:27 ◼   ► Yeah, Apple will love that too.

01:24:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:30 ◼   ► If you'd like to find the show notes for this week's episode, they're in your podcast app

01:24:33 ◼   ► of choice so you can go to relay.fm/upgrade/25.

01:24:40 ◼   ► Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Upgrade.

01:24:43 ◼   ► Thanks again to our sponsors this week, Squarespace, Igloo, and lynda.com, and we'll be back next

01:24:50 ◼   ► week for a very exciting episode as we recount the Apple event, which occurs on the 9th of

01:24:56 ◼   ► March.

01:24:57 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye everybody.

01:24:58 ◼   ► Goodbye, I'm Michael.

01:24:59 ◼   ► Goodbye, David.

01:25:00 ◼   ► Bye, gents.

01:25:01 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:25:04 ◼   ► [ Music ]

01:25:07 ◼   ► [ Silence ]