Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode number 24.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Igloo, an internet you'll actually like,

00:00:16 ◼   ► MailRelt, a secure hosted email service for protection from viruses and spam,

00:00:21 ◼   ► and PDFPen Pro 7, take control of PDFs on your Mac.

00:00:26 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley, and I'm joined as always by my host and yours,

00:00:29 ◼   ► The one and only Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:31 ◼   ► Hi, Myke.

00:00:32 ◼   ► How's it going?

00:00:33 ◼   ► Very well, sir.

00:00:34 ◼   ► How are you?

00:00:35 ◼   ► I'm doing well.

00:00:38 ◼   ► As always, I enjoy starting off the week with our conversations.

00:00:41 ◼   ► It's very nice.

00:00:43 ◼   ► Yes, I feel like we should say this every week.

00:00:47 ◼   ► It's a nice way to start.

00:00:48 ◼   ► It's a nice way to kick off with a good bit of upgrade.

00:00:52 ◼   ► Upgrade your week right at the start of your week.

00:00:53 ◼   ► How much better could it be?

00:00:55 ◼   ► Indeed.

00:00:56 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:00:57 ◼   ► Should we talk about some topics that we've covered recently but would like to cover again

00:01:02 ◼   ► briefly with feedback from listeners woven in?

00:01:07 ◼   ► Most definitely.

00:01:08 ◼   ► All right.

00:01:09 ◼   ► It's not as catchy as pressing a button.

00:01:12 ◼   ► No.

00:01:13 ◼   ► Hearing the words "follow up."

00:01:14 ◼   ► We can work on that.

00:01:15 ◼   ► We can work on that.

00:01:16 ◼   ► I'm seriously integrating follow out into all of my shows now.

00:01:18 ◼   ► Oh, that's nice.

00:01:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:20 ◼   ► See, it all starts here.

00:01:22 ◼   ► We talked about the applecariot last week, which we'll talk about in a bit, but the one

00:01:27 ◼   ► bit of follow up that I wanted to get to is we had some people giving us feedback about

00:01:34 ◼   ► your comment and mine. My comment was about traveling and needing to copy my podcast files,

00:01:40 ◼   ► the large, you know, many, many megabytes, many, many gigabytes, in some cases, podcast

00:01:46 ◼   ► files in order to edit when I was on the road. And you were talking about how you've got

00:01:49 ◼   ► the Mac Pro and you've got the laptop and moving the files back and forth is problematic

00:01:54 ◼   ► for you too. And we definitely got some feedback. I'm looking right now at some podcasts that

00:01:59 ◼   ► are sitting on my, just for reference, the incomparable Star Wars Episode 3 episode.

00:02:05 ◼   ► That folder is 12 gigabytes. Total Party Kill is 13 gigabytes. So these are big, you know,

00:02:12 ◼   ► projects that we're talking about here. So we got some feedback. Listener Rob said, "Looks

00:02:18 ◼   ► like you guys need a remote desktop solution for working away from home. That's what I

00:02:21 ◼   ► do and listener TheHexagon on Twitter said "what about just using an external

00:02:28 ◼   ► drive for logic projects? Video pros do this all the time and it works very well."

00:02:31 ◼   ► We got a few people who talked to us about remote desktop and I like remote

00:02:37 ◼   ► desktop but what I said to them on Twitter when they mentioned this is I

00:02:40 ◼   ► am not... first off does remote desktop, do you know, does it stream audio streams

00:02:49 ◼   ► from the remote system? I thought it didn't do that. I have no idea. I can't

00:02:54 ◼   ► imagine if it does that it would do it very well. Well that's exactly it and the

00:02:59 ◼   ► point is when you're doing audio editing you need audio, you need

00:03:03 ◼   ► no latency, you need no lag. You need precision as well and I really don't think I could

00:03:08 ◼   ► get the precision that I needed. And also as well, like when you're doing something

00:03:13 ◼   ► I mean I'm not saying that anybody that suggested this doesn't do things like

00:03:17 ◼   ► like this, but at least for me, and I think it's the same for you, Jason.

00:03:20 ◼   ► When you're doing something that is so, like, it's really time-consuming and you

00:03:24 ◼   ► really kind of get into a rhythm with it, if something breaks your rhythm, it's so

00:03:30 ◼   ► frustrating, and I can imagine just stuttering that kind of thing in the

00:03:35 ◼   ► stream being an issue.

00:03:39 ◼   ► And keeping in mind, what we're talking about here is an alternative to copying the

00:03:46 ◼   ► files, and that's where it really breaks down. It's like, look, if copying -- if to copy

00:03:51 ◼   ► a file would waste a day of productivity for me, I would consider using remote desktop.

00:03:57 ◼   ► But the thing is, copying a file -- I have a Thunderbolt gigabit Ethernet adapter for

00:04:02 ◼   ► my laptop. I plug that in and copy the file over my gigabit network, and it takes a few

00:04:08 ◼   ► minutes. It's not a big deal to go back and forth. And to the hexagon's point, I could

00:04:13 ◼   ► have an external hard drive and bring that along with me too, but at that point I'm copying

00:04:17 ◼   ► the file regardless, and that might work better for you if you were constantly switching back

00:04:21 ◼   ► and forth, you could use an external hard drive to do it. But the point, the larger

00:04:25 ◼   ► point being, whatever you would lose in latency and the sluggishness of remote desktop stuff,

00:04:33 ◼   ► not to mention the idea of trying to react to audio that's streaming with latency, and

00:04:40 ◼   ► just there is I mean there is literally I think nothing I would I would rather

00:04:46 ◼   ► avoid than something like that I would I would rather use GarageBand I would

00:04:52 ◼   ► rather edit on a single track in a single track editor then then use remote

00:04:58 ◼   ► desktop so I don't think it's I don't I just don't think it's an issue an option

00:05:02 ◼   ► for heavy-duty media editing but what do you think about the idea of getting a

00:05:07 ◼   ► drive and using that for your projects so that you go back and forth between your Mac Pro and your

00:05:13 ◼   ► your MacBook Pro. When it comes to work stuff, so like the podcasts and the audio, I get very

00:05:21 ◼   ► not superstitious but like very nervous about it. I can't really explain it but there's just this

00:05:29 ◼   ► part of me that's like if you that I feel like if I add too many layers into the process then I'm

00:05:35 ◼   ► opening myself up to too many points of failure. Which is why I tried to

00:05:41 ◼   ► stay on, like with the previous Mac Mini, I tried to stay on Snow Leopard for as

00:05:44 ◼   ► long as possible. And then when I had to upgrade to Lion, to Logic Pro X, I did

00:05:49 ◼   ► that. But I stayed on Lion until I got the Mac Pro. And I really kind of

00:05:56 ◼   ► wished that the Mac Pro wasn't on Yosemite because I'm having some issues

00:06:00 ◼   ► with it that I think are hardware related but they're really difficult to

00:06:03 ◼   ► pin down. So adding anything into the system where I could make a mistake or I

00:06:10 ◼   ► could lose something or something could go wrong because of how important this

00:06:15 ◼   ► is, I like to try and avoid those. Where I know that a

00:06:19 ◼   ► rational person would say to me, "Well you have a problem, you've

00:06:24 ◼   ► identified a problem which is being chained to one machine but you're not

00:06:29 ◼   ► willing to take steps to fix it, and I know that, but I'm willing to accept that for the

00:06:35 ◼   ► peace of mind that everything's going to be okay.

00:06:38 ◼   ► Right.

00:06:39 ◼   ► This isn't just a problem to be solved.

00:06:40 ◼   ► A lot of times, and this happens, I think, when we talk about technology things on the

00:06:44 ◼   ► internet, whether it's on a podcast or on Twitter, is you get a lot of people who are

00:06:49 ◼   ► problem solvers.

00:06:50 ◼   ► That's what they do.

00:06:51 ◼   ► They're technical people.

00:06:52 ◼   ► They like to solve problems.

00:06:53 ◼   ► They say, "Here is a solution for you."

00:06:55 ◼   ► The challenge is in saying, "You know what?

00:06:57 ◼   ► not a good enough solution for me to change my behavior. It is a solution. You could do

00:07:01 ◼   ► it that way, but it's just not enough. Plus, there's the financial aspects too. Your Mac

00:07:09 ◼   ► Pro has super fast SSD storage, which for something like this show is not that big a

00:07:15 ◼   ► deal. For something like "Inquisitive" where you've got multiple tracks and just huge amounts

00:07:19 ◼   ► of stuff, it's a big deal. For me and my crazy seven person incomparables or "Total Party

00:07:24 ◼   ► kill. It's, you know, having that quick storage is important. So now if you

00:07:28 ◼   ► wanted to be on an external drive you're gonna need to buy a fast external drive.

00:07:33 ◼   ► A fast, like, fast connectivity, fast read/write, and then you could

00:07:39 ◼   ► move around with it. I don't know, I mean, my thought was if gigabit, transferring

00:07:44 ◼   ► your files over gigabit Ethernet, you could do that. You could just

00:07:47 ◼   ► connect the two devices together and transfer the files if you were really

00:07:50 ◼   ► like going somewhere for a week and needed to work on your projects but you

00:07:56 ◼   ► know I see it I think there's I see how what you're saying there are solutions

00:08:00 ◼   ► that will get you what you want but they won't make you they won't make your life

00:08:05 ◼   ► better because there will be it will bring up all these other issues that

00:08:08 ◼   ► concern you so you're better off sort of dealing with the problems you've got

00:08:12 ◼   ► rather than these other problems that you anticipate yeah that's not right

00:08:15 ◼   ► yeah cuz the problem I think you know to reiterate the problem that I have is

00:08:19 ◼   ► like we were talking about the fact that using different machines and

00:08:24 ◼   ► how you can kind of have files on one machine that you need and then not

00:08:27 ◼   ► having them if you want to leave the house, right? So I can't, I'm not going to

00:08:32 ◼   ► take my Mac Pro out of the house with me. I have my MacBook Pro for that kind of

00:08:37 ◼   ► thing. But I was saying like with inquisitive all of my files are

00:08:41 ◼   ► there because it's multiple, multiple gigabytes of stuff. And I have

00:08:47 ◼   ► a lot of the master stuff in Dropbox but the project files as we were mentioning

00:08:51 ◼   ► can be huge. So the thing is like my problem now that I see is just time

00:08:57 ◼   ► management. So my solution to this problem is effectively managing my diary

00:09:03 ◼   ► so I know I will be home on certain days at certain times to do this stuff. That's

00:09:08 ◼   ► kind of like my solution. Funnily enough my solution is not a hardware or

00:09:12 ◼   ► software one, it's just time management. It's a life hack. It's a life hack. I have to

00:09:17 ◼   ► - I'm gonna hack my life so I can produce the shows.

00:09:19 ◼   ► - Having those kinds of barriers is useful too.

00:09:22 ◼   ► I mean, for me, I love being,

00:09:25 ◼   ► the fact that my MacBook Air lets me,

00:09:29 ◼   ► has the fastest SSD, it's got an i7.

00:09:31 ◼   ► It lets me have the freedom to edit a podcast

00:09:36 ◼   ► wherever I want.

00:09:37 ◼   ► And if I'm traveling, that's what I do.

00:09:40 ◼   ► But to your point, I don't,

00:09:44 ◼   ► I like the fact that my iMac is here at my desk

00:09:47 ◼   ► and when I'm here, I'm working.

00:09:50 ◼   ► And when I'm somewhere else,

00:09:52 ◼   ► there's some part of my work that doesn't come with me.

00:09:55 ◼   ► And that's, I'm okay with that

00:09:56 ◼   ► because if everything was on my MacBook Air,

00:09:59 ◼   ► like it used to be, I could, you know,

00:10:01 ◼   ► taking that MacBook Air anywhere

00:10:04 ◼   ► also meant I could do that work anywhere.

00:10:06 ◼   ► And now there's an extra bump in the way.

00:10:09 ◼   ► And so I'm much less likely to be sitting outside

00:10:13 ◼   ► on a summer day editing a podcast under the tree, right?

00:10:17 ◼   ► And that's, if I really wanna do that,

00:10:19 ◼   ► I can get over that bump.

00:10:21 ◼   ► But I think what that makes me do is say,

00:10:23 ◼   ► nah, I'm gonna sit out here under this tree

00:10:26 ◼   ► and do something else.

00:10:27 ◼   ► I'm gonna write.

00:10:28 ◼   ► I'm gonna do something that is not that thing.

00:10:29 ◼   ► I'm just gonna put that thing back where it belongs.

00:10:31 ◼   ► And that is about making some choices to order your life.

00:10:34 ◼   ► We're getting very Merlin man now.

00:10:36 ◼   ► It's about making choices to order.

00:10:39 ◼   ► That's a good thing about, you know,

00:10:42 ◼   ► making choices about how you want to structure

00:10:43 ◼   ► and order your life and technology fits into that.

00:10:45 ◼   ► But sometimes the technology can be a useful tool

00:10:48 ◼   ► to actually construct those barriers,

00:10:51 ◼   ► that the technology forms the barrier.

00:10:53 ◼   ► And although we can solve the problem

00:10:55 ◼   ► of and tear down that technological barrier,

00:10:58 ◼   ► sometimes it's nice to have the barrier.

00:10:59 ◼   ► Sometimes it's nice to keep it up.

00:11:00 ◼   ► The speed bumps are annoying

00:11:03 ◼   ► if you're trying to get from point A to point B,

00:11:05 ◼   ► but they're really great if you live on the street

00:11:07 ◼   ► that leads from point A to point B

00:11:09 ◼   ► and you don't want your cat run over by a speeder.

00:11:14 ◼   ► And so sometimes speed bumps are good

00:11:16 ◼   ► and that's what it sounds like for you.

00:11:18 ◼   ► Wow, that was really deep.

00:11:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, man.

00:11:20 ◼   ► - Anyway, what's next on "Back to Work"?

00:11:22 ◼   ► - Well, I wanna talk to you about some comic books.

00:11:25 ◼   ► - Comic books, yeah.

00:11:26 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:11:28 ◼   ► God, I wish I had a bell right now, ding.

00:11:31 ◼   ► No, I don't have a bell.

00:11:32 ◼   ► Ah, mail bagging, there it is.

00:11:34 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:11:36 ◼   ► Anyway, I liked the feedback, I thought it was great.

00:11:38 ◼   ► That's one of the things that I noticed about it is,

00:11:41 ◼   ► I love that everybody was trying to solve the problem,

00:11:45 ◼   ► but it is interesting that in some ways,

00:11:46 ◼   ► sometimes you want the problem to not be solved,

00:11:48 ◼   ► or because of the way that you've got your life structure.

00:11:52 ◼   ► - I mean, ultimately, the remote desktop is a solution.

00:11:56 ◼   ► I just don't think it's a solution to my problem.

00:11:59 ◼   ► But to most people, remote desktop is the perfect solution

00:12:03 ◼   ► to getting the files that you need from another machine.

00:12:06 ◼   ► I mean, also, stuff like Backblaze, I can grab my files there, you know, that kind of

00:12:11 ◼   ► thing.

00:12:12 ◼   ► So there are ways around a lot of these things.

00:12:15 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:12:16 ◼   ► But then there are other barriers that can kind of get in the way.

00:12:19 ◼   ► And at a certain point, at least I feel this way anyway, you've kind of just got to give

00:12:23 ◼   ► in, I think.

00:12:24 ◼   ► Because you can continue to try and fix this forever.

00:12:27 ◼   ► Sure.

00:12:28 ◼   ► And ultimately, you're never really going to be fully happy with the results.

00:12:31 ◼   ► So just accept it.

00:12:32 ◼   ► Well, if you realize that you needed to edit some of the time away from the Mac Pro, something

00:12:37 ◼   ► changes in your life, and you are away from where you live two days a week, staying with

00:12:44 ◼   ► a friend somewhere because of something, just a theoretical life change.

00:12:50 ◼   ► At that point you might say, "Okay, I need the ability to travel and work on this stuff."

00:12:55 ◼   ► And then you would come up with something that would work.

00:12:57 ◼   ► But in your life as it currently is being left, lived, it's fine.

00:13:02 ◼   ► Yep.

00:13:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:04 ◼   ► That's, I get it.

00:13:05 ◼   ► I get it.

00:13:06 ◼   ► I'm traveling a lot in a couple of weeks' time.

00:13:08 ◼   ► Right.

00:13:09 ◼   ► So I will be loading up a USB 3.0 hard drive with a bunch of files.

00:13:14 ◼   ► And I'll be bringing that with me.

00:13:15 ◼   ► You know.

00:13:16 ◼   ► There you go.

00:13:17 ◼   ► But that's not something that I want to do every couple of days.

00:13:20 ◼   ► Sure.

00:13:21 ◼   ► Yeah, that makes sense.

00:13:22 ◼   ► when I go to Europe I'm gonna load up the SSD on my MacBook Air with projects

00:13:29 ◼   ► of all these different things that I'm working on and I love nothing more than

00:13:33 ◼   ► editing podcasts on an airplane it is just supremely focused but yeah but I'm

00:13:39 ◼   ► not I don't do that every day anyway I thought that was good that's the that's

00:13:43 ◼   ► the follow-up that's that's it I've got some stuff in ask upgrade at the end of

00:13:48 ◼   ► the show and a couple notes on some of the topics in the meantime but if

00:13:52 ◼   ► If you want to tell us about one of our friends, now might be a good time, I think.

00:13:57 ◼   ► I think it's the perfect time to talk about our friends over at igloo, the internet you'll

00:14:02 ◼   ► actually like.

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00:14:38 ◼   ► you can do anything from reading a document to managing your tasks, share a

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00:14:47 ◼   ► You can do this all on any device or within the web browser. Igloo truly allows you to work how you want where you want whenever you want.

00:14:55 ◼   ► Igloo's latest upgrade, Viking, revolves around documents.

00:15:00 ◼   ► What they've done is they've strengthened how you can interact with them, gather feedback and make changes.

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00:15:17 ◼   ► You upload the file there and people will download it, that kind of thing.

00:15:20 ◼   ► It's all there.

00:15:21 ◼   ► It's all up there in one place so people can always make sure they've got the latest version,

00:15:25 ◼   ► which is really important because you don't want Bob and Mary to be working on totally

00:15:29 ◼   ► different files.

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00:15:46 ◼   ► on legal agreements or confirmed completion of training materials.

00:15:50 ◼   ► Just a super easy way to get everybody to know that without everyone having to communicate

00:15:53 ◼   ► with each other about it.

00:15:55 ◼   ► igloo just takes care of it.

00:15:56 ◼   ► Best of all igloo's platform is super customizable.

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00:16:12 ◼   ► If your company has a legacy intranet that looks like it was built in the 90s, you should

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00:16:18 ◼   ► Igloo is free to use with up to 10 people and you should sign up right now at igloosoftware.com/upgrade.

00:16:25 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Igloo for their support of this show and all of Relay FM.

00:16:30 ◼   ► I think the guy who invented igloos owns igloo.com so don't go there.

00:16:36 ◼   ► Unless you need to buy an igloo.

00:16:39 ◼   ► If you do, that's probably the place.

00:16:41 ◼   ► The igloo in Port Ramos.

00:16:42 ◼   ► be. Could be. Yeah, sure. But igloosoftware.com is where our friends live.

00:16:49 ◼   ► So what do we have next, Mr. Jason Snell?

00:16:51 ◼   ► Oh, topics! You want to talk about the Apple car some more, Myke?

00:16:56 ◼   ► I do, actually.

00:16:57 ◼   ► Oh, right. I'm glad I brought it up then.

00:17:00 ◼   ► I listened to ATP and I thought to myself, "This is just what they've waited for." Like,

00:17:08 ◼   ► Everything has led up to this for them, you know?

00:17:11 ◼   ► They started out with neutral.

00:17:12 ◼   ► You could tell they were all so happy that they were able to have the car discussion

00:17:16 ◼   ► without...

00:17:17 ◼   ► Well, maybe not Marco.

00:17:22 ◼   ► I really enjoyed it though.

00:17:24 ◼   ► I was a fan of neutral, so I was happy to hear it back.

00:17:29 ◼   ► The only episode of neutral that I liked was the one where they talked about car interfaces,

00:17:33 ◼   ► because that's something I care about.

00:17:35 ◼   ► I don't care about cars.

00:17:37 ◼   ► Car interface is yes.

00:17:39 ◼   ► Like cars as a hobby, as a thing you enjoy thinking about and reading about.

00:17:47 ◼   ► I'm not a car person, but I did love their thing about, which they cited on ATP, their

00:17:51 ◼   ► episode about car UI where Marco says quite rightly that relying entirely on a touchscreen

00:17:57 ◼   ► for everything in a car is madness.

00:17:59 ◼   ► And I think some car makers are now backing away from that.

00:18:02 ◼   ► Like having a dial that you know where it is and you can turn it and you get the feedback

00:18:06 ◼   ► and you know exactly how much you need to turn it or flip a switch or slide a

00:18:10 ◼   ► slider when you're driving is really good because you can't look to see if

00:18:16 ◼   ► the thing you did got you know accepted and you know when I turn on the the air

00:18:22 ◼   ► conditioner in my car I turn up a knob and it turns on and I don't need to look

00:18:27 ◼   ► because I know where the knob is and I know how to turn it on even you know

00:18:31 ◼   ► skipping ahead on my radio is a button and I know where the button is and I can

00:18:36 ◼   ► press it. So I love that episode and the follow-up that they did in ATP this

00:18:41 ◼   ► week. Although I thought that was interesting Marco, you know Marco

00:18:45 ◼   ► expressed a lot of skepticism and we talked about this last week a lot that

00:18:48 ◼   ► I'm not sure whether there's an Apple car that is going to ever come out. They

00:18:55 ◼   ► talked a lot about like what it could be if it's not an Apple car which I thought

00:19:00 ◼   ► was interesting. I think part of this is, like we said last week, investigatory. Should

00:19:05 ◼   ► we do this? Can we do this? Jean-Louis Gasset on the Monday note had a piece today about

00:19:12 ◼   ► that, since it's Monday, that was about his skepticism of the Apple car and how hard it

00:19:21 ◼   ► is to get into the car industry, which I'll grant you, but Apple's got a lot of money

00:19:25 ◼   ► and can recruit a lot of people. But they might end up in a place that is not all the

00:19:29 ◼   ► way at a car, right? I mean, they might, they might not. Marco's point was, or I think it

00:19:35 ◼   ► was John's point was, if you if, if all you have to differentiate your car is the experience,

00:19:43 ◼   ► you don't want to hand that over to Apple and then become just kind of the dumb pipe

00:19:46 ◼   ► that provides the tires and things like that. Why would a carmaker do that? And you'd almost

00:19:52 ◼   ► need a carmaker that was down on their luck at that point. I don't know, it's I'm fascinated

00:19:58 ◼   ► I do think that Apple could do something that would be interesting, whether it would succeed or not is an open question.

00:20:05 ◼   ► But I think I'm interested to see what Apple might try, and I would think that Apple would get something out of it even if they didn't end up making a car ultimately.

00:20:16 ◼   ► But the bottom line, I mean, even in that ATP episode, you know, you could hear them almost convincing themselves during the episode that it would be a good idea.

00:20:27 ◼   ► a good idea. And the moment for me that that came across was when they were talking about

00:20:32 ◼   ► the current state of affairs in cars and how car makers aren't very good at doing this

00:20:40 ◼   ► stuff at user interface and at software. And are they going to get better? I mean, these

00:20:49 ◼   ► are companies that generally punt everything to their OEMs. They punt entertainment systems

00:20:55 ◼   ► to someone else and they're lousy. So if that's the case, Marco's argument was, "Oh, well,

00:21:05 ◼   ► they're lousy and we still drive them." Like, okay, but what if there was something that

00:21:09 ◼   ► was non-lousy? And I think that would be Apple's take on it, is if you're an Apple executive

00:21:18 ◼   ► and you're driving down the 280 interstate in your fancy car and you're frustrated by

00:21:24 ◼   ► by how lousy the user experience is on the inside.

00:21:27 ◼   ► Would you not ask yourself the question,

00:21:29 ◼   ► why can't this be better

00:21:30 ◼   ► and could we do something to do this?

00:21:32 ◼   ► - Just developing an interior or like, you know,

00:21:37 ◼   ► and when they were talking about interior,

00:21:39 ◼   ► this is turning to follow out now,

00:21:41 ◼   ► they were talking about like the entertainment system

00:21:44 ◼   ► and just the way the car looks and feels on the inside.

00:21:48 ◼   ► That feels like such a non-profitable business.

00:21:53 ◼   ► Like if that's all Apple was doing,

00:21:56 ◼   ► it doesn't seem like there could be enough money in that

00:21:58 ◼   ► to really make it worthwhile.

00:22:00 ◼   ► Like cars are sold to an individual maybe

00:22:04 ◼   ► like a couple of times in their lives.

00:22:06 ◼   ► And I can't imagine that a huge piece of the markup

00:22:11 ◼   ► that's involved in a car, you know, that belongs to,

00:22:15 ◼   ► so of the price that you pay on a car,

00:22:18 ◼   ► I can't imagine that a large amount of the price

00:22:20 ◼   ► the markup belongs to the interface or the user experience inside or the level that's

00:22:27 ◼   ► used, right?

00:22:28 ◼   ► A lot of the expense is going to come from the actual manufacturing of the motors and

00:22:33 ◼   ► etc.

00:22:34 ◼   ► I would assume.

00:22:35 ◼   ► So I can't imagine that people are going to pay a huge amount of money for an Apple design

00:22:40 ◼   ► thing when they're already laying out an incredible amount of money already.

00:22:47 ◼   ► tend to be like the second big purchase in your life, I suppose.

00:22:53 ◼   ► You gotta wonder if maybe what they end up with is they experiment with this and they

00:22:59 ◼   ► realize they'd rather not build a car, and at that point they take what they've built

00:23:04 ◼   ► to a carmaker and say, you know, "Let's make a deal." And maybe it's not, "We're going

00:23:10 ◼   ► to license this to whoever wants it." Maybe it's, "Let's make a deal with Ford or Nissan

00:23:16 ◼   ► or Honda or whoever, and maybe it's as much as let's make a deal and create a new line

00:23:22 ◼   ► of car that's a joint venture between you and us. And, you know, it'll have our technology

00:23:29 ◼   ► and it'll be a new brand name so you can still have your other products and other brand names.

00:23:33 ◼   ► There's lots of different permutations that could happen, especially since I can imagine

00:23:36 ◼   ► anything because I don't know anything about the car industry. But right, I mean, just

00:23:40 ◼   ► applying those thoughts, there's lots of ways this could go that isn't just Apple is going

00:23:45 ◼   ► to entirely make a car itself. Lots of different ways it could go.

00:23:49 ◼   ► Let's make the rocker car, right? Yeah, well, right! I mean, well, you could

00:23:54 ◼   ► argue that CarPlay is kind of the rocker car, right? I think I might have said that last

00:23:58 ◼   ► week, where it's not quite all the way there, and it's really compromised because Apple

00:24:04 ◼   ► only controls one tiny little part of that product. And, I don't know. I keep trying

00:24:13 ◼   ► to put myself in the mind of Apple executives and thinking, "We got to be able to do better

00:24:20 ◼   ► than what's out there." And I think they think like that, like, "We can disrupt this. We

00:24:26 ◼   ► can do better. We can push these guys. And if they won't come with us, maybe we'll do

00:24:31 ◼   ► something ourselves." Oh, I wanted to point out too, a bunch of people have said, "Well,

00:24:35 ◼   ► why don't they just buy Tesla?" It's like, "Well, how does that work? Does that work?

00:24:40 ◼   ► that get them what they wanted? I mean, Tesla's a public company, so could they do a takeover?

00:24:46 ◼   ► Have they talked to Tesla and discovered that Tesla would fight it or people would quit?

00:24:52 ◼   ► Or have they not talked to Tesla? Is Tesla what they want? Is what Tesla's doing what

00:24:59 ◼   ► Apple's vision of a car is, or is it not? Are they compatible or not? I don't think

00:25:06 ◼   ► it's just as easy as saying, "If Apple wants to do cars, they should just buy Tesla," because

00:25:10 ◼   ► than what you're gonna get as Tesla.

00:25:12 ◼   ► Maybe Apple doesn't want Tesla.

00:25:13 ◼   ► Maybe Apple doesn't wanna be Tesla.

00:25:14 ◼   ► Maybe Apple wants something different.

00:25:16 ◼   ► We don't, you know, we're left to speculate,

00:25:19 ◼   ► as we will be doing for the next five years probably.

00:25:22 ◼   ► - What is buying Tesla?

00:25:24 ◼   ► Like, what is that?

00:25:26 ◼   ► Because you don't just, like, in these scenarios,

00:25:29 ◼   ► you can't just like, I mean, I know you kind of can,

00:25:33 ◼   ► but you don't just walk up to a company and just be like,

00:25:36 ◼   ► we will take everything exactly that you're doing,

00:25:39 ◼   ► change nothing but we have it.

00:25:41 ◼   ► It doesn't work like that.

00:25:42 ◼   ► - No, well look at what's happening with Beats,

00:25:45 ◼   ► where they're gonna end up with a completely different

00:25:47 ◼   ► music service, the reports say,

00:25:48 ◼   ► that's not even maybe gonna be branded as Beats,

00:25:51 ◼   ► that is gonna be their subscription service,

00:25:52 ◼   ► because it went inside Apple and they're like,

00:25:54 ◼   ► "Oh no, we're not gonna do it that way."

00:25:55 ◼   ► And it immediately started taking it apart

00:25:58 ◼   ► and putting it back together again.

00:26:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, but my point is that Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine

00:26:05 ◼   ► were happy for that to happen, clearly,

00:26:08 ◼   ► because they went with it.

00:26:10 ◼   ► And I would expect that Elon Musk

00:26:13 ◼   ► doesn't want to work at Apple.

00:26:14 ◼   ► A man like him, not because there's anything wrong

00:26:19 ◼   ► with Apple, but just like why would he not be the man?

00:26:24 ◼   ► Because Beats is kind of, over time,

00:26:29 ◼   ► is gonna start to get more and more hidden,

00:26:31 ◼   ► especially as Beats music will disappear, et cetera.

00:26:34 ◼   ► And I wonder if eventually,

00:26:38 ◼   ► I don't think they have yet if they drop the bydray in Beats.

00:26:43 ◼   ► I don't know if they will, but it would be interesting to see what they do with that.

00:26:50 ◼   ► Because they kind of don't really acknowledge, like all of the marketing currently is still

00:26:54 ◼   ► weird Beats marketing.

00:26:58 ◼   ► I don't know if Apple have a hand in it, but it seems to follow the exact same path that

00:27:02 ◼   ► it did before.

00:27:03 ◼   ► just be a case of like inertia still carrying some of that stuff along. But

00:27:08 ◼   ► anyway like you know so much to say that I don't expect that you could just walk

00:27:15 ◼   ► up to Tesla and make Tesla as awesome as it is there. Like things are gonna happen

00:27:20 ◼   ► and you could end up like back to square one again if after the two-year

00:27:24 ◼   ► agreements literally everybody that's important leaves. Well as Joe Steele

00:27:29 ◼   ► pointed out in the chat room you know Elon Musk might just take the money and

00:27:32 ◼   ► and use it for SpaceX so he can go to Mars.

00:27:36 ◼   ► And my thought there is just, what if somebody like Apple

00:27:39 ◼   ► looks at Tesla and says, Elon Musk

00:27:42 ◼   ► is the guy who's made all of this stuff happen.

00:27:44 ◼   ► And without him there and his expertise,

00:27:49 ◼   ► the company loses a lot of its value.

00:27:51 ◼   ► You risk-- in a scenario like that,

00:27:53 ◼   ► it's not like a poison pill.

00:27:55 ◼   ► But it is, sort of, which is if you've

00:27:57 ◼   ► got a founder who is not going to stick around

00:27:59 ◼   ► and you view the founder as having

00:28:00 ◼   ► a huge part of the value of the company,

00:28:02 ◼   ► then you kind of can't buy the company

00:28:04 ◼   ► because by buying the company,

00:28:05 ◼   ► you're sending a huge chunk of the value of the company out.

00:28:09 ◼   ► - And if there's one company on the planet

00:28:12 ◼   ► that understands the value of the vision of a founder,

00:28:15 ◼   ► it's Apple.

00:28:16 ◼   ► - It would probably be Apple.

00:28:18 ◼   ► - So.

00:28:19 ◼   ► - But like I said, it may not just be as simple as Apple.

00:28:21 ◼   ► Apple's doing all of this

00:28:22 ◼   ► because they very specifically think there's something that,

00:28:25 ◼   ► they think Tesla needs competition.

00:28:27 ◼   ► They have a different take on what the car should be.

00:28:29 ◼   ► They wanna do it themselves

00:28:31 ◼   ► and not just buy Tesla,

00:28:33 ◼   ► they wanna do what they wanna do and it's different.

00:28:36 ◼   ► And that's another reason that you do it separately.

00:28:39 ◼   ► It is a fair question to ask

00:28:43 ◼   ► that if Apple looked at Tesla and said,

00:28:46 ◼   ► "Man, that is exactly what we wanna do,

00:28:49 ◼   ► "but they're doing it."

00:28:51 ◼   ► What's the right thing to do there?

00:28:53 ◼   ► The right thing to do there might be to do nothing.

00:28:56 ◼   ► It might be, if you feel like it's vitally important

00:28:58 ◼   ► that Apple have a car strategy, you buy Tesla.

00:29:01 ◼   ► it would be a shame if the strategy was,

00:29:03 ◼   ► well, let's do that too.

00:29:04 ◼   ► We'll just hire a bunch of people from Tesla

00:29:06 ◼   ► and we'll make our own Tesla and it'll be Apple.

00:29:10 ◼   ► That could be the case.

00:29:11 ◼   ► My hope, the optimist in me says,

00:29:14 ◼   ► that it's probably not that and that it's,

00:29:17 ◼   ► I hope anyway, it's not that.

00:29:19 ◼   ► And that it's, they wanna do something different.

00:29:21 ◼   ► Or they can't get Tesla for some reason.

00:29:24 ◼   ► They're like, we don't know, we can't do that.

00:29:25 ◼   ► We're gonna do this ourselves.

00:29:27 ◼   ► It'll be interesting to see.

00:29:29 ◼   ► It'll be interesting to see.

00:29:30 ◼   ► I love, I was thinking about this the other day.

00:29:32 ◼   ► Do you remember the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

00:29:35 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:29:36 ◼   ► - Great documentary about the first round of electric cars,

00:29:39 ◼   ► which were basically taken off the road and junked,

00:29:43 ◼   ► even though the people who drove them loved them.

00:29:46 ◼   ► They weren't allowed to buy them.

00:29:47 ◼   ► They were all rentals and they were all taken away.

00:29:50 ◼   ► And it's funny now because now,

00:29:55 ◼   ► Now that documentary is like a, from a blip in time,

00:30:00 ◼   ► because enough changed that now electric cars

00:30:04 ◼   ► are a thing again.

00:30:05 ◼   ► But that was, it's funny that we've come that far,

00:30:09 ◼   ► is sort of my point there, is that we were at a point

00:30:12 ◼   ► where it looked like with despair,

00:30:14 ◼   ► the electric car was an idea that was,

00:30:17 ◼   ► their time was right, but the car makers

00:30:20 ◼   ► just were playing a game on us,

00:30:24 ◼   ► the scam to say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're working on it."

00:30:27 ◼   ► And then they swept it under the rug.

00:30:29 ◼   ► But what happened is a few years later, they came back.

00:30:34 ◼   ► So now we're talking about it a lot.

00:30:35 ◼   ► And I think it's very clear to see that electric cars

00:30:39 ◼   ► and smart cars are going to be a huge part of the future,

00:30:42 ◼   ► whether Apple's making them or not.

00:30:44 ◼   ► - The oil situation changed.

00:30:45 ◼   ► Like fundamentally, I think car companies

00:30:48 ◼   ► have come to the realization that it's going to run out.

00:30:51 ◼   ► So if you want to continue to exist, you need to find different ways to power your vehicles.

00:30:58 ◼   ► Anything.

00:31:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:02 ◼   ► I am at least, I mean I know this room is discussion is maybe getting played out a bit now,

00:31:08 ◼   ► but I'm happy that we have something interesting like this to talk about.

00:31:15 ◼   ► That is not just us making up what we would like to see.

00:31:20 ◼   ► You know, like, this is an interesting thing to discuss, I think.

00:31:26 ◼   ► Well, like, listener Nick Foster wrote in to suggest that if there was an Apple car,

00:31:30 ◼   ► would it have Apple Pay?

00:31:32 ◼   ► And could you pay a drive-through with your footprint on the gas pedal?

00:31:37 ◼   ► See?

00:31:38 ◼   ► Making things up.

00:31:40 ◼   ► Thank you, listener Nick.

00:31:41 ◼   ► Yeah, sure.

00:31:42 ◼   ► Apple Pay, you just drive over something and it buys something for you.

00:31:46 ◼   ► Sure.

00:31:47 ◼   ► Bare feet driving.

00:31:48 ◼   ► Why not?

00:31:50 ◼   ► But there are also... it is good that we have this to talk about because although it may

00:31:55 ◼   ► be outlandish and far off and meaty, it sure beats the alternative which is tiny snippets

00:32:02 ◼   ► of non-information leading to people pondering secret plans of apples that don't exist.

00:32:10 ◼   ► Which is my way of saying my old colleague Chris Breen left Macworld last week and has

00:32:18 ◼   ► taking a job at Apple. And I suddenly started seeing all these things

00:32:25 ◼   ► that were speculating of like, "Why is Apple hiring journalists? What is their

00:32:30 ◼   ► plan? Is Apple going to launch its own website?" Well, besides apple.com?

00:32:38 ◼   ► You didn't seriously hear people saying that.

00:32:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Oh, but why? What would you do on it?

00:32:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, no.

00:32:45 ◼   ► And what they said was, well, you know,

00:32:48 ◼   ► whether smoke is fire, they hired Anand Lal Shimpi

00:32:51 ◼   ► and they hired Chris Breen.

00:32:53 ◼   ► And one person pointed out that my old colleague, John Seth,

00:32:56 ◼   ► is working at Apple right now.

00:32:58 ◼   ► And that's true.

00:32:59 ◼   ► And there's at least one other former Mac world person

00:33:02 ◼   ► who left last year who is working at Apple.

00:33:05 ◼   ► So, you know, I can report that exclusively here.

00:33:09 ◼   ► So people are like, oh, what are they doing?

00:33:11 ◼   ► Well, the answer is, okay, first off,

00:33:13 ◼   ► A whole bunch of people lost their jobs

00:33:15 ◼   ► and are looking for new jobs.

00:33:18 ◼   ► So that's step one.

00:33:19 ◼   ► And those are people who actually understand things

00:33:20 ◼   ► about Apple and know people at Apple and all of that.

00:33:23 ◼   ► So that's part two.

00:33:25 ◼   ► In Chris's case, he didn't lose his job.

00:33:27 ◼   ► Although, you know, with a staff the size

00:33:29 ◼   ► that Macworld size is now, you gotta figure

00:33:31 ◼   ► he lost all of his former colleagues.

00:33:33 ◼   ► He was probably being called on to do a whole bunch

00:33:35 ◼   ► of stuff that, you know, he wasn't doing before, you know.

00:33:39 ◼   ► And also something traumatic like that happens

00:33:41 ◼   ► and you reevaluate.

00:33:42 ◼   ► If you read his blog post, he says very much like,

00:33:44 ◼   ► I wanted to take this opportunity to do something else,

00:33:47 ◼   ► which really resonated with me

00:33:48 ◼   ► 'cause that was what was going through my mind too,

00:33:50 ◼   ► is like, I need to take this opportunity.

00:33:52 ◼   ► I will regret it if I don't try something else

00:33:54 ◼   ► before as he put it, you know,

00:33:55 ◼   ► you put on the long shorts and sit out in the deck chair

00:34:00 ◼   ► and are an old man playing checkers at the park.

00:34:04 ◼   ► So the fact is, I mean, I got recruited

00:34:09 ◼   ► by an Apple recruiter like two or three years ago

00:34:13 ◼   ► for a job doing like,

00:34:15 ◼   ► I think it was App Store curation of some kind.

00:34:20 ◼   ► And that is considered an editorial job.

00:34:25 ◼   ► Apple has lots of what you'd call editorial jobs,

00:34:27 ◼   ► things that a skillset of being a writer and editor

00:34:30 ◼   ► for a place like Macworld would come in handy.

00:34:33 ◼   ► And that's like not PR jobs,

00:34:35 ◼   ► that's a different set of jobs.

00:34:37 ◼   ► And most of the journalists I know

00:34:39 ◼   ► are ill-suited for PR, let me put it that way.

00:34:42 ◼   ► They're ill-suited for PR, I don't think they could do it.

00:34:45 ◼   ► But there are lots of other jobs.

00:34:46 ◼   ► So there's App Store curation,

00:34:48 ◼   ► there's documentation on the inside,

00:34:51 ◼   ► there's Apple University on the inside,

00:34:54 ◼   ► there's documentation on the outside,

00:34:55 ◼   ► there's writing content for Apple's website.

00:34:58 ◼   ► I mean, the list, I mean, literally goes on.

00:35:03 ◼   ► You can go to Apple's career website

00:35:05 ◼   ► and see all the jobs that Apple has

00:35:07 ◼   ► and see that there is some chunk of them that are kind of like content producer jobs.

00:35:12 ◼   ► I literally saw somebody tweet today about a job in London working on... I'm just bringing

00:35:21 ◼   ► it up now. It's an editorial job. It's taking forever to load. But it's like they have many

00:35:29 ◼   ► roles like this which are editorial, and this is for an editorial producer of experience

00:35:33 ◼   ► across pop culture and specific expertise in music journalism.

00:35:36 ◼   ► So this kind of ties into what we were talking about last week with Zane Lowe moving across.

00:35:43 ◼   ► But what I thought of this would be interesting for this topic is because it shows that there

00:35:51 ◼   ► are just a ton of people that work in editorial.

00:35:56 ◼   ► That is a thing there.

00:35:57 ◼   ► Like, I mean, you know, do you remember we were talking,

00:36:00 ◼   ► I think it was last week about Apple

00:36:02 ◼   ► and the idea of them being in control of podcasts,

00:36:05 ◼   ► and I was saying that I know that there are people

00:36:07 ◼   ► that work on podcast editorial.

00:36:09 ◼   ► Like, it's a thing,

00:36:09 ◼   ► 'cause somebody has to put stuff in the stores.

00:36:12 ◼   ► Like, it has to go in there somehow.

00:36:15 ◼   ► And I guess it makes sense if you've got someone

00:36:17 ◼   ► who you know is a good eye for this stuff,

00:36:20 ◼   ► like a journalist who's written about apps

00:36:22 ◼   ► for years and years.

00:36:23 ◼   ► It kind of makes sense.

00:36:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

00:36:25 ◼   ► And so there are so many different jobs.

00:36:28 ◼   ► So what I would say is, is there a conspiracy at Apple?

00:36:31 ◼   ► Maybe, but not to my knowledge.

00:36:34 ◼   ► To my knowledge, no.

00:36:35 ◼   ► These are the people I know who are working at Apple

00:36:37 ◼   ► are all working in different places for different teams

00:36:40 ◼   ► and doing different things that take advantage

00:36:43 ◼   ► of the skills that they've had in the media,

00:36:47 ◼   ► on the outside, in a different way that serves Apple.

00:36:50 ◼   ► And so people just get very literal minded and say,

00:36:53 ◼   ► "Oh, well, this person does X,

00:36:54 ◼   ► so they must be doing X at Apple.

00:36:56 ◼   ► And that's just not, that's not how it works generally.

00:36:59 ◼   ► That's not what happens.

00:37:02 ◼   ► Now, nobody knows what Anand Lal Shimpi is doing,

00:37:05 ◼   ► but even there, just because he comes,

00:37:08 ◼   ► his background is so very specific

00:37:10 ◼   ► in that he's an incredibly technical person

00:37:11 ◼   ► and a communicator.

00:37:13 ◼   ► I have some ideas of where he might be,

00:37:15 ◼   ► but really there are a lot of places they could plug him.

00:37:18 ◼   ► That's not, you know, but you don't hire him

00:37:21 ◼   ► to write articles for apple.com about processor performance.

00:37:25 ◼   ► I think that there's more to it than that.

00:37:27 ◼   ► Otherwise I don't think he would even want that job.

00:37:30 ◼   ► So I don't know, it's just funny.

00:37:32 ◼   ► People like to see patterns

00:37:34 ◼   ► and sometimes you see patterns out of noise.

00:37:38 ◼   ► And I think that's what's happening here.

00:37:40 ◼   ► That said, it is a fascinating thing.

00:37:41 ◼   ► I had a good conversation.

00:37:43 ◼   ► I mean, we talked about the podcast stuff

00:37:45 ◼   ► and we talked about the music curation last week.

00:37:47 ◼   ► And I think it's interesting when you look at this,

00:37:51 ◼   ► I had a nice conversation on Twitter with,

00:37:52 ◼   ► I wanna say David Barnard about how Apple handles curation.

00:37:57 ◼   ► And one of the issues I have with it is that it's anonymous.

00:38:03 ◼   ► And I think that maybe that will start to change.

00:38:08 ◼   ► But if you look at what Beats does,

00:38:10 ◼   ► they have editors who are experts

00:38:12 ◼   ► and you can see their names and they curate stuff

00:38:15 ◼   ► and they write stuff and it's great.

00:38:18 ◼   ► And I would like to see that in Apple's other stuff.

00:38:20 ◼   ► Apple's attitude up to now seems to have been,

00:38:24 ◼   ► and again, maybe this is one of those ways

00:38:25 ◼   ► Apple is gonna change.

00:38:26 ◼   ► We talked a lot about Apple changing.

00:38:28 ◼   ► Apple's attitude up to now has been,

00:38:30 ◼   ► all the people who pick, they're curating apps,

00:38:34 ◼   ► Mac apps, store apps, iOS apps, games, podcasts,

00:38:39 ◼   ► all of that stuff, they're essentially anonymous.

00:38:43 ◼   ► There's no names on the site, it's all just from Apple.

00:38:50 ◼   ► And when I talk to them about the app curation,

00:38:53 ◼   ► I can tell you that the philosophy was very much like,

00:38:57 ◼   ► you don't know anybody, you don't talk to anybody,

00:39:01 ◼   ► nobody knows that you're an app curator,

00:39:03 ◼   ► nobody knows anything, there's no communication.

00:39:05 ◼   ► If you need art from them,

00:39:07 ◼   ► 'cause you wanna promote it on the app store,

00:39:08 ◼   ► you go to somebody else at Apple,

00:39:10 ◼   ► and then they go to the developer and get the art.

00:39:13 ◼   ► It's just like this totally weird black box.

00:39:16 ◼   ► And that's a very old school Apple way of approaching it.

00:39:19 ◼   ► In my opinion, it's totally wrong.

00:39:23 ◼   ► That Beats has it right and Apple has it wrong.

00:39:26 ◼   ► Which is, first off, this is something I learned

00:39:30 ◼   ► at Macworld and MacUser before that,

00:39:33 ◼   ► which is the idea that there's this voice of God

00:39:36 ◼   ► that comes from a brand and tells you what's good

00:39:37 ◼   ► or what's bad, and that is, it's a lie.

00:39:42 ◼   ► Because somebody wrote that review,

00:39:45 ◼   ► somebody made a decision, a writer, an editor,

00:39:47 ◼   ► somebody made a decision.

00:39:49 ◼   ► it's coming from some source.

00:39:51 ◼   ► It's not coming from the mountaintop,

00:39:53 ◼   ► from Macworld's secret lab

00:39:57 ◼   ► determined that this product is good.

00:39:59 ◼   ► That's not what happened.

00:40:00 ◼   ► It was a writer with an opinion

00:40:01 ◼   ► or an editor and a writer who collaborated

00:40:03 ◼   ► and they had an opinion about a product.

00:40:05 ◼   ► And I feel that with Apple.

00:40:06 ◼   ► And it's a very actually old media way of thinking,

00:40:10 ◼   ► an old brand way of thinking,

00:40:11 ◼   ► which is the way we show our authority

00:40:14 ◼   ► is by pretending that no human beings are involved

00:40:16 ◼   ► and that it's all just a black box

00:40:18 ◼   ► and nobody knows where it comes from.

00:40:20 ◼   ► And it's through, and putting this in 21st century terms,

00:40:24 ◼   ► it's through a lack of transparency

00:40:26 ◼   ► that we are trustworthy.

00:40:29 ◼   ► And that's crap, that's ridiculous,

00:40:32 ◼   ► that's completely backward.

00:40:34 ◼   ► You get trustworthiness through transparency,

00:40:38 ◼   ► through disclosure.

00:40:39 ◼   ► If you look on Beats,

00:40:42 ◼   ► the curated playlists are curated by a person

00:40:44 ◼   ► and you can say, "Oh, that guy likes this stuff.

00:40:46 ◼   ► "I like that stuff."

00:40:48 ◼   ► or that guy likes this stuff, I don't like that stuff.

00:40:50 ◼   ► But to say it's like, nope, our musical robots

00:40:52 ◼   ► have assembled a playlist for you that you might like.

00:40:56 ◼   ► Come on, there are no musical robots back there.

00:40:58 ◼   ► There are human beings back there.

00:40:59 ◼   ► And I think you could actually make your content better

00:41:04 ◼   ► if people could see the human beings.

00:41:06 ◼   ► If we knew that there was like this person who wrote about,

00:41:10 ◼   ► who curated game, you know, best game lists at Apple.

00:41:13 ◼   ► I actually, and the argument is, oh, well,

00:41:16 ◼   ► Apple needs to be impartial about,

00:41:19 ◼   ► because the app developers are their partners.

00:41:21 ◼   ► They're not impartial, they're featuring apps.

00:41:24 ◼   ► They're picking apps and promoting them.

00:41:26 ◼   ► They're doing best of lists at the end of the year.

00:41:28 ◼   ► They're not impartial.

00:41:30 ◼   ► So why pretend that you are when you're not?

00:41:33 ◼   ► It's just, it's funny.

00:41:35 ◼   ► This is one of those areas where I look at Apple

00:41:37 ◼   ► and I think Apple is behaving like a magazine

00:41:42 ◼   ► I worked for behaved 15 years ago, 20 years ago.

00:41:46 ◼   ► And we learned, whatever, 10 or 15 years ago,

00:41:49 ◼   ► that that was completely wrong.

00:41:52 ◼   ► But Apple, I think, still does that.

00:41:54 ◼   ► And so the question is, will the Beats thing

00:41:56 ◼   ► maybe inject this other philosophy

00:41:58 ◼   ► and the fact that Steve is gone

00:42:00 ◼   ► and people are able to revisit what Apple wants to be

00:42:03 ◼   ► and change it, will they change it?

00:42:05 ◼   ► 'Cause they totally should change it.

00:42:07 ◼   ► - Well, it would be insane to hire a world famous DJ

00:42:12 ◼   ► for his experience in music.

00:42:14 ◼   ► - So you can't talk to anybody ever again

00:42:16 ◼   ► or admit that you're doing anything.

00:42:18 ◼   ► Why would you do that? - Or even then,

00:42:19 ◼   ► just not put his name by his pics.

00:42:23 ◼   ► You know? - Right.

00:42:24 ◼   ► - It'd be crazy. - Why would you do that?

00:42:26 ◼   ► But that's what's happening,

00:42:27 ◼   ► and again, this is happening in music.

00:42:28 ◼   ► So the question is, would that happen somewhere else?

00:42:31 ◼   ► Would that happen in podcasts?

00:42:32 ◼   ► Would that happen in Mac apps?

00:42:34 ◼   ► Would that happen in iOS apps?

00:42:36 ◼   ► There was a moment when they were recruiting people

00:42:38 ◼   ► from the Mac App Store and I thought,

00:42:39 ◼   ► well, you know, the person they should probably hire

00:42:41 ◼   ► is Dan Frakes because he does the Mac Gems column

00:42:44 ◼   ► at Macworld, which is entirely highlighting

00:42:47 ◼   ► amazing software you've never heard of for your Mac.

00:42:51 ◼   ► It's like, well, that is a perfect skillset

00:42:54 ◼   ► for a job like that theoretically.

00:42:57 ◼   ► But if what you're gonna do is hide that person

00:43:00 ◼   ► behind a mask and nobody knows who they are

00:43:02 ◼   ► and they never actually write anything,

00:43:04 ◼   ► they only just pick things on the site

00:43:05 ◼   ► and it's this weird kind of black box thing.

00:43:08 ◼   ► First off, why would somebody like Dan

00:43:09 ◼   ► ever wanna do that job?

00:43:11 ◼   ► And second, you've completely waste

00:43:13 ◼   ► what makes what the work of the Dan did so great.

00:43:16 ◼   ► So will Apple's approach to music change

00:43:21 ◼   ► and will that bleed into Apple's approach

00:43:24 ◼   ► to other forms of media?

00:43:25 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:43:26 ◼   ► I hope it does because I think it should.

00:43:30 ◼   ► I think there are some great content people inside

00:43:34 ◼   ► and curation people inside Apple now

00:43:36 ◼   ► who are not allowed to have a voice

00:43:39 ◼   ► because that's not what the policy is.

00:43:42 ◼   ► the policy is, everybody, it's just a secret.

00:43:45 ◼   ► It doesn't make any sense.

00:43:46 ◼   ► - I do think that this will change.

00:43:50 ◼   ► - I hope so.

00:43:51 ◼   ► - I think they're staffing up in an interesting way.

00:43:54 ◼   ► And it would make sense to me if Chris Breen

00:43:58 ◼   ► was going to do something like this.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Like I would understand that, you know?

00:44:02 ◼   ► Not that I'm saying that's what I think he's doing

00:44:04 ◼   ► because I literally have no idea.

00:44:06 ◼   ► - I don't think that's what he's doing.

00:44:07 ◼   ► I don't think that's what he's doing, but yeah.

00:44:10 ◼   ► it would make sense for at least somebody like him,

00:44:12 ◼   ► you know, to go and do a job like this,

00:44:15 ◼   ► I think would be very sensible.

00:44:17 ◼   ► - I don't think those jobs exist right now at Apple,

00:44:18 ◼   ► but maybe they will someday, you know, maybe they will.

00:44:21 ◼   ► But I just, it's that,

00:44:23 ◼   ► I realize I've just ranted about this for a while,

00:44:27 ◼   ► but it's that, it really sets me off.

00:44:29 ◼   ► 'Cause I had that moment where Rick LePage,

00:44:30 ◼   ► my old boss at Macworld,

00:44:32 ◼   ► who previously was the editor of MacWeek,

00:44:34 ◼   ► been around this business a long time.

00:44:35 ◼   ► And he told me,

00:44:38 ◼   ► at some point he said, "Look, this royal 'we' that we've all been taught to write when we review stuff

00:44:46 ◼   ► is a lie. Because if you write a review and like something, that's you. You liked it. And somebody

00:44:55 ◼   ► else might disagree." So pretending that there's only one possible opinion here, and it's yours,

00:45:01 ◼   ► and it's not even your voice anymore, it's this, you know, God up on the mountaintop,

00:45:05 ◼   ► is disingenuous. You're actually, you're hiding, you're lying to your audience.

00:45:11 ◼   ► And that, I mean, that really stuck with me and my belief that you need to, people need to see

00:45:17 ◼   ► who's back there. And to see Apple kind of continue in some places to cling to this idea that

00:45:23 ◼   ► it's all a secret and we're just a secret society that pushes things, you know, through a slot,

00:45:29 ◼   ► and then they go out in the world and who knows where it came from or what the motivations are.

00:45:34 ◼   ► It's not effective. It's not a 21st century approach to curating content.

00:45:40 ◼   ► And so yeah, I hope with the DJ hiring and the purchase of beats that this is a sign that they're changing the approach.

00:45:47 ◼   ► Because how great would the App Store be if it had a much stronger voice and stronger set of people who were visible saying,

00:45:57 ◼   ► "Here are great things in the App Store."

00:45:59 ◼   ► More curation on the App Store would not be bad.

00:46:02 ◼   ► It would be really great.

00:46:05 ◼   ► - I would love to see more, and I say more,

00:46:08 ◼   ► and I'll say one in a moment,

00:46:09 ◼   ► guest sort of recommendations as well.

00:46:12 ◼   ► Because Apple do something called the Indie Game Showcase.

00:46:16 ◼   ► It's something that's kind of,

00:46:17 ◼   ► I think it's there every week.

00:46:18 ◼   ► And they showcase a game, right,

00:46:21 ◼   ► and they write about the game a little bit.

00:46:23 ◼   ► And then the developer of that game,

00:46:27 ◼   ► they recommend, they have a section on the page

00:46:29 ◼   ► that recommends their favorite games.

00:46:32 ◼   ► So it's a way like that I like that kind of thing you know like let's say for

00:46:38 ◼   ► example they contacted you and they wanted you to pick your five favorite

00:46:42 ◼   ► apps or like post a picture of your home screen and what are all the apps there

00:46:46 ◼   ► you know I'd love to see that in the in the App Store it'd be fantastic I mean I

00:46:52 ◼   ► know I know there's already a lot of places that do that like your website

00:46:56 ◼   ► but I think it would be really nice to see that kind of stuff there as well.

00:47:00 ◼   ► Well, Apple has the power to reach an audience that no independent website can do because

00:47:05 ◼   ► they're Apple, because they built the apps. It's always been a challenge because Apple

00:47:08 ◼   ► has had, I mean, remember they did iReview where they were writing reviews of websites

00:47:12 ◼   ► and things like that. It's like Apple's history with content creation shows that they are,

00:47:16 ◼   ► they have no idea about how to create content. That was a long time ago. They could change.

00:47:21 ◼   ► I'm not sure whether they're willing to change or not, but it wouldn't be great. And, you

00:47:25 ◼   ► You know, winds of change are blowing at Apple, so maybe this is a place where we might see

00:47:32 ◼   ► some of that.

00:47:33 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:47:34 ◼   ► My guess is that there are a lot of people inside Apple who think that having more voice

00:47:38 ◼   ► and more visibility is the right thing to do, and my guess is there are also people

00:47:41 ◼   ► within Apple who are sticking to the old approach, which is, "No, no, no, we're going to be totally

00:47:46 ◼   ► objective and we don't put the names of who writes our software in our about box, so why

00:47:53 ◼   ► Why would we put the names of people who have opinions about apps?

00:47:56 ◼   ► It's like trying to, and again, this is one of these fallacies where they're using their

00:48:00 ◼   ► they're thinking about their products to think about content.

00:48:03 ◼   ► And that's why Apple traditionally has done a bad job with content, which is the problem

00:48:07 ◼   ► when you've got a content store and you're trying to curate it is it's not software,

00:48:12 ◼   ► it's content, different people have different takes.

00:48:16 ◼   ► And what you're looking for is the experts with taste to make choices and let the user

00:48:21 ◼   ► decide.

00:48:23 ◼   ► that's different than the way you build software where you gotta make the

00:48:26 ◼   ► choices and you don't let the user decide you make the choices.

00:48:29 ◼   ► They're just totally different and I don't know. My optimistic side says

00:48:34 ◼   ► maybe that that will finally change at Apple. I'm sure there are people at Apple

00:48:38 ◼   ► who feel that way too but they should, you know, yeah, yeah. It's just funny, we

00:48:43 ◼   ► talk about it with music. Apple seems to have a little bit more comfort when it

00:48:46 ◼   ► comes to music but they should be doing that for TV and movies and apps,

00:48:50 ◼   ► absolutely with apps. Maybe. We're running a little long now because we we both got

00:48:58 ◼   ► very passionate there. I know I know well let's uh. I love it I love that that I

00:49:03 ◼   ► didn't expect that I don't think either of us expected that conversation but I'm

00:49:06 ◼   ► pleased that we had it it was a very interesting one I look forward to seeing

00:49:10 ◼   ► people's opinions on that. Thanks to our friend Chris Breen who is not

00:49:15 ◼   ► actually doing any of that but is working at Apple and is awesome and we'll

00:49:20 ◼   ► wrap up this section on that note which is I worked with Chris Breen

00:49:25 ◼   ► I did the math I worked the same publication as Chris Breen for 20 years

00:49:30 ◼   ► from 1994 to 2014 first a Mac user and then a Mac world I think the world of

00:49:38 ◼   ► him I felt really bad for him when he was the last soldier standing when

00:49:44 ◼   ► everybody else left Macworld last fall and I wish him nothing nothing but the

00:49:49 ◼   ► best. Also he composes every podcast theme song out there including ours so

00:49:54 ◼   ► thanks to Chris for that. He's told me that he'll continue to compose podcast

00:49:59 ◼   ► music as long as I keep sending him t-shirts. So thank you Chris and best of

00:50:05 ◼   ► luck at Apple. Because now he's going to sink beneath the sea and we're never gonna you know I

00:50:09 ◼   ► those who know Chris's writing well will look for his the words that are his

00:50:13 ◼   ► favorite pet words that he works into things that nobody else uses and then

00:50:17 ◼   ► we'll know it's him. Sending like warning shots over the wall you know so we

00:50:23 ◼   ► know that he's still there. There are words, there are words only Chris Breen

00:50:27 ◼   ► writes and if we see one of those somewhere on an Apple website sometime

00:50:31 ◼   ► we'll know it's him. But anyway I just I wish him the best he's great I think

00:50:37 ◼   ► this is an exciting new adventure for him. The the loafer is on the other foot

00:50:40 ◼   ► He's been a work-at-home guy for the last, you know, forever basically and now he's gonna be commuting

00:50:46 ◼   ► Whereas I am now the the longtime commuter is now the work-at-home guy

00:50:50 ◼   ► So we we crossed crossed jobs there a little bit which is pretty hilarious too. So wish him the best. Absolutely

00:50:57 ◼   ► Congratulations, Chris. Yeah

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00:52:58 ◼   ► of this show.

00:52:59 ◼   ► - Hooray.

00:53:02 ◼   ► - What would you like to talk about?

00:53:04 ◼   ► Should we talk quickly about this Apple Watch Magnum Opus

00:53:08 ◼   ► that you and Mr. Moran worked on this week?

00:53:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, let's talk.

00:53:12 ◼   ► We'll do a little Apple Watch.

00:53:14 ◼   ► Little Apple Watch.

00:53:15 ◼   ► We'll continue to tease Internet of Things

00:53:17 ◼   ► and Connected Home stuff for a future episode.

00:53:20 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:53:21 ◼   ► It's our new Kindle thing where we just promise it

00:53:24 ◼   ► for weeks and weeks and never deliver it.

00:53:26 ◼   ► But yeah, let's talk about the Apple Watch.

00:53:27 ◼   ► Oh, I should mention, by the way,

00:53:29 ◼   ► for those who are listening,

00:53:30 ◼   ► special guest next week on Upgrade.

00:53:34 ◼   ► Special guest, stay tuned for that next week.

00:53:38 ◼   ► It's not Chris Breen.

00:53:39 ◼   ► - You make it sound like it's someone

00:53:40 ◼   ► who has an Apple Watch.

00:53:41 ◼   ► We're not talking to the Apple Watch next week.

00:53:44 ◼   ► - No, it's serious on the Apple Watch.

00:53:45 ◼   ► - Hello, Jason, how can I help?

00:53:48 ◼   ► - Ahoy, watch.

00:53:49 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:53:51 ◼   ► - So what made you want to write this

00:53:54 ◼   ► and what is this post?

00:53:57 ◼   ► So it's called the, what is it?

00:53:59 ◼   ► Apple Watch, what we know?

00:54:00 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:54:01 ◼   ► - So back at Macworld, we would write these FAQ stories

00:54:05 ◼   ► about various Apple products and they were really popular

00:54:10 ◼   ► and I don't wanna give that up.

00:54:13 ◼   ► And Serenity Caldwell has learned this lesson well

00:54:15 ◼   ► 'cause she's writing them and I'm worn out too.

00:54:18 ◼   ► I didn't wanna give them up.

00:54:18 ◼   ► And so we wanted to do one about the Apple Watch

00:54:20 ◼   ► and we wanted to start,

00:54:22 ◼   ► we probably should have started this back at Macworld,

00:54:26 ◼   ► but when the Apple Watch was announced,

00:54:28 ◼   ► but somehow, you know, the next day

00:54:30 ◼   ► we didn't work at Macworld anymore.

00:54:31 ◼   ► So, with the, in the run-up- - Somehow magically.

00:54:36 ◼   ► - That just happened.

00:54:37 ◼   ► In the run-up for the release of the Apple Watch,

00:54:41 ◼   ► I thought this would be a good time to start a document

00:54:44 ◼   ► that explains what is going on with the Apple Watch.

00:54:47 ◼   ► And that way we can use, we can start that,

00:54:49 ◼   ► we can ask people to,

00:54:51 ◼   ► we actually did a form that's linked to from that

00:54:54 ◼   ► that you can ask your questions

00:54:55 ◼   ► and we'll do updates over the next few weeks.

00:54:58 ◼   ► And from a pure sort of like website strategy standpoint,

00:55:03 ◼   ► having an article that is linked to about the Apple Watch

00:55:07 ◼   ► is great because that helps us in search.

00:55:11 ◼   ► And when the Apple Watch comes out,

00:55:13 ◼   ► what we'll do is we'll update that post.

00:55:15 ◼   ► So it'll be more current,

00:55:17 ◼   ► but it will have already been out in the world.

00:55:19 ◼   ► So if people are searching for a question

00:55:21 ◼   ► about the Apple Watch,

00:55:22 ◼   ► one of the answers in their search results,

00:55:25 ◼   ► hopefully will be our story.

00:55:27 ◼   ► So there's a content strategy portion of it,

00:55:30 ◼   ► which was sort of the playbook that we used at Macworld too.

00:55:33 ◼   ► But I figured we're about to enter Apple watch time.

00:55:39 ◼   ► And so it's good to have that reset and refresh.

00:55:41 ◼   ► And for us, it was good to pour through

00:55:43 ◼   ► Apple's marketing pages and try to figure out

00:55:46 ◼   ► all the details of this.

00:55:47 ◼   ► And it's funny, there's this whole conversation happening.

00:55:50 ◼   ► John Gruber is sort of at the center of it about like

00:55:53 ◼   ► what the different prices are for the watches

00:55:55 ◼   ► and what the different bands are and all of that.

00:55:57 ◼   ► And it was funny that that was going on

00:55:59 ◼   ► just after we had had that whole conversation ourselves,

00:56:03 ◼   ► me and Dan, about what the different models were gonna be

00:56:06 ◼   ► and what the prices were gonna be

00:56:07 ◼   ► and are the bands available with the different models.

00:56:10 ◼   ► And some of the feedback I got about our story was,

00:56:15 ◼   ► you say it's this, but it's gonna be this.

00:56:17 ◼   ► And I said, where does it say it's gonna be that?

00:56:19 ◼   ► And a lot of times the response I get is,

00:56:21 ◼   ► oh, well, I just assumed it was gonna be that.

00:56:22 ◼   ► like, well yeah, this is one of the challenges for writing a story like this

00:56:25 ◼   ► is there are a lot of things we can guess about but what do we know? What do

00:56:29 ◼   ► we know and what do we think is likely? And trying to keep those

00:56:33 ◼   ► clear about, you know, what we know and what we don't. So hopefully it's useful

00:56:37 ◼   ► as a refresher for people who've forgotten the avalanche of information

00:56:40 ◼   ► that came out in September about the Apple Watch and we can use that as a

00:56:43 ◼   ► jumping-off point as more information comes out as we're now in the run-up to

00:56:47 ◼   ► it's being released.

00:56:49 ◼   ► Is there any information in here that you were able to get yourself?

00:56:54 ◼   ► Like, either from being at the event, I'm sure some of these photos are yours,

00:56:59 ◼   ► and/or like, have you been able to get any information from Apple

00:57:04 ◼   ► that has helped inform this piece?

00:57:06 ◼   ► No, we've just been... it goes back to the Apple Watch time we had in September

00:57:14 ◼   ► and all the stuff that Apple's posted.

00:57:18 ◼   ► It's mostly just trying to glean from that what the details are

00:57:21 ◼   ► because Apple's got these beautiful web pages

00:57:23 ◼   ► that show a whole bunch of different things and there's just so much there

00:57:26 ◼   ► and we wanted to boil it down into a simpler kind of like,

00:57:30 ◼   ► "Does it do this? Does it do that?"

00:57:32 ◼   ► Also, we've seen a lot of people ask us these questions

00:57:34 ◼   ► where we know the answers and we get them repeatedly

00:57:38 ◼   ► and it makes you realize,

00:57:39 ◼   ► "Oh, people just don't understand this thing about the Apple Watch,

00:57:42 ◼   ► so let's put that together."

00:57:43 ◼   ► I'd say the biggest new thing is the developer information

00:57:47 ◼   ► because Apple rolled out the WatchKit stuff

00:57:50 ◼   ► and there's like the first wave

00:57:51 ◼   ► where they're projecting onto the screen

00:57:53 ◼   ► and a bunch of developers are talking about

00:57:55 ◼   ► how you get your app to do something

00:57:58 ◼   ► which is like a very lightweight kind of control

00:58:00 ◼   ► that can go on the watch.

00:58:01 ◼   ► And then down the road,

00:58:02 ◼   ► there's supposed to be a more full fledged app SDK,

00:58:04 ◼   ► which they'll probably see at WWDC.

00:58:07 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe not, maybe later than that.

00:58:11 ◼   ► So some of that got to be in there too.

00:58:14 ◼   ► - Having looked through all of this information again

00:58:19 ◼   ► and kind of refreshed yourself on it,

00:58:21 ◼   ► what is your personal feeling about the device?

00:58:25 ◼   ► Like, do you want one?

00:58:27 ◼   ► Like actually for yourself other than just like the need

00:58:32 ◼   ► or the perceived need to write about it?

00:58:35 ◼   ► - I mean, I'm gonna have to have one

00:58:36 ◼   ► because I'm gonna have to write about it,

00:58:38 ◼   ► but you're right.

00:58:39 ◼   ► - Probably, as I've said on the show before,

00:58:42 ◼   ► I've had a pebble for a couple of years.

00:58:44 ◼   ► - I'll call pebble as we record this tomorrow.

00:58:47 ◼   ► They're having an event and some images came out today

00:58:51 ◼   ► that were leaked.

00:58:52 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes,

00:58:53 ◼   ► but maybe by the time you listen to this,

00:58:55 ◼   ► you know what pebble's device is gonna be,

00:58:57 ◼   ► and it looks a disaster.

00:59:00 ◼   ► I feel so bad for them.

00:59:02 ◼   ► They shouldn't be making,

00:59:03 ◼   ► basically they're making a color screen pebble.

00:59:07 ◼   ► And if what we've seen is what they're making,

00:59:11 ◼   ► they should have just not made it.

00:59:13 ◼   ► They should have just stuck as they were

00:59:15 ◼   ► and just went with the E Ink screen, I think,

00:59:18 ◼   ► because that made them different.

00:59:19 ◼   ► But anyway.

00:59:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, it doesn't look good.

00:59:23 ◼   ► So my answer is that, yeah, I think I do want an Apple Watch.

00:59:27 ◼   ► I think it's gonna be cool.

00:59:28 ◼   ► I've been primed by my two years with the Pebble,

00:59:31 ◼   ► and I think that having something that works much better

00:59:33 ◼   ► with my iPhone is something I'm looking forward to.

00:59:36 ◼   ► So yeah, I think so.

00:59:38 ◼   ► I doubt that was ever a real question,

00:59:40 ◼   ► 'cause it's me, I love this stuff, but yeah, I'll get it.

00:59:46 ◼   ► In fact, I have to say doing the thing out of the research,

00:59:50 ◼   ► the thing that struck me the most about this

00:59:52 ◼   ► is that the more I looked at the gold ones,

00:59:54 ◼   ► the edition models, I kept thinking,

00:59:58 ◼   ► I kept thinking, oh man, and this is why they don't do it,

01:00:01 ◼   ► is I would love the, they've got the regular Apple Watch,

01:00:06 ◼   ► not the sport, but the mid range one that's the Apple Watch.

01:00:09 ◼   ► And that's in, that's basically in stainless steel or black

01:00:12 ◼   ► or black stainless steel, whatever it is, Joe steel.

01:00:16 ◼   ► It's, wouldn't that be nice if it was gold,

01:00:22 ◼   ► but it's not like colored gold, but nope.

01:00:26 ◼   ► If you want gold, you're gonna get the real thing

01:00:27 ◼   ► and you're gonna pay $10,000 for it.

01:00:29 ◼   ► It's like, wow, I would like that watch,

01:00:32 ◼   ► but I am not gonna ever buy that watch.

01:00:34 ◼   ► So, yeah. - I see what you're saying now.

01:00:37 ◼   ► - What it's done is it's made me think,

01:00:39 ◼   ► I'm not sure whether I want the sport

01:00:40 ◼   ► or whether I would actually pony up,

01:00:43 ◼   ► or I guess in CRISPR-ing terms, pungle up,

01:00:45 ◼   ► more money for the regular model,

01:00:50 ◼   ► which I really like the look of the regular model too.

01:00:53 ◼   ► But the most beautiful one is the one that is,

01:00:56 ◼   ► alas, elusive.

01:00:57 ◼   ► - So you mean the Apple Watch model?

01:00:59 ◼   ► Apple Watch model. It's just so... why did I do that? I don't know. I like the Apple Watch.

01:01:06 ◼   ► It's a fair fashion industry. That I think is what I'm leaning to. But, I don't know the price of it yet.

01:01:11 ◼   ► No. It could be a thousand, could be five hundred, could be seven hundred. Probably has something to do with

01:01:18 ◼   ► the what band you get. It's... who knows. It's all... there's much more information to be downloaded.

01:01:26 ◼   ► That's why we will be updating that Apple Watch what we know story as time goes on.

01:01:30 ◼   ► Do you have any sense about what's going on with the bands? Because it seems to be getting more

01:01:36 ◼   ► and more confusing as the days go on. Like originally it seems so simple.

01:01:40 ◼   ► Yeah, well one of the things that... different bands are shown on different pages and it's

01:01:46 ◼   ► unclear whether those are the only bands that will work. I have a hard time believing that the

01:01:50 ◼   ► Apple Watch is configured so that a band from one can't work on the other because then they're

01:01:55 ◼   ► building different bands for the different models. And the way Apple described it on

01:02:00 ◼   ► the day when they announced it and when I got to see it demoed in person in a room with

01:02:06 ◼   ► Apple executives, I saw them taking the bands on and off. And it seemed to me like they

01:02:10 ◼   ► were really banking on the fact that you could just switch in new bands. So now people are

01:02:16 ◼   ► sort of like, "Oh, well, you know, the sport band is only..." or I guess the sport band

01:02:20 ◼   ► is on most of them. It's like, "This leather band is only on this model, so the people

01:02:23 ◼   ► who have this model won't be able to use it. I don't... I'm skeptical of that. I

01:02:27 ◼   ► think what we're seeing is when you buy a watch you get it... you can choose which

01:02:34 ◼   ► band it comes with from this selection. But if you want another band, I'm sure

01:02:41 ◼   ► Apple would be happy to sell you another band for some ridiculously marked up

01:02:46 ◼   ► price, right? It's gonna be a watch band that, you know, you can get

01:02:51 ◼   ► that second watch band for another hundred or 120 or 180 or whatever it is

01:02:56 ◼   ► and that'll just kind of pile up but I think that's different from saying oh

01:03:01 ◼   ► it's incompatible you can't get the whatever in fact I would I would say and

01:03:06 ◼   ► nobody can confirm this but my recollection was that what the Apple

01:03:10 ◼   ► executive said to me in my briefing was a something about how if you buy the

01:03:15 ◼   ► Apple Watch Edition it might actually come with like a sport band in addition

01:03:20 ◼   ► your beautiful expensive you know millenia millenia loop it might also come

01:03:26 ◼   ► with a sport band so you can slide it off and slide on the sport band and then

01:03:30 ◼   ► go with that that I don't I don't have it in my notes but that that that I have

01:03:35 ◼   ► big tickle in the back of my brain that that they said something about that and

01:03:39 ◼   ► yeah so why wouldn't you be able to do that if you're going for a run you don't

01:03:43 ◼   ► want your beautiful expensive band you could put on the sport band the more that

01:03:47 ◼   ► look at it the more I see that yes you will be able to buy other bands but I

01:03:52 ◼   ► think that you will only be able to buy bands within your watch tier so if you

01:03:58 ◼   ► have the Apple Watch Sport you won't be able to buy Apple Watch bands and the

01:04:06 ◼   ► reason I think that is because luxury there won't be massive to the eye like

01:04:12 ◼   ► The difference between the sport and the regular Apple Watch will be the shininess of the aluminium

01:04:19 ◼   ► or the stainless steel, but the majority that you'll see on someone is the band.

01:04:25 ◼   ► So if you can maybe save $300 and then spend an extra $200 on an upgraded band, you're

01:04:36 ◼   ► getting the effect.

01:04:37 ◼   ► And the reason I say this is, and I know it's hard for maybe us nerds to get our heads around,

01:04:42 ◼   ► Because it's like, well, why wouldn't you do that?

01:04:44 ◼   ► The reason is luxury and status.

01:04:47 ◼   ► And if Apple really do want to get into that world, the fashion world, that is just something

01:04:54 ◼   ► that happens.

01:04:56 ◼   ► Like you don't get to get the cheap version and pretend you have the expensive one.

01:05:02 ◼   ► So I agree with that to a point.

01:05:04 ◼   ► The problem is, one, that's a lot of different bands that they're going to have to make available.

01:05:08 ◼   ► Two, are they going to make them physically incompatible?

01:05:12 ◼   ► otherwise you could just order a sport or a regular you know Apple Watch watch

01:05:17 ◼   ► band and put it on your Apple Watch Sport and nobody would care so are they

01:05:20 ◼   ► go are they really gonna engineer three slightly different connectors for this

01:05:25 ◼   ► slide on slide off connector that they built I they could but that's a long way

01:05:29 ◼   ► to go and then my third point is there's just gonna be an aftermarket band that

01:05:35 ◼   ► is a beautiful leather band that attaches to your Apple Watch Sport

01:05:38 ◼   ► that's been reverse engineered that you can buy online that will let you do it

01:05:43 ◼   ► and if if that's gonna be the case does Apple really want to be like well fine

01:05:48 ◼   ► that's a bootleg that happens to luxury brands too or are they gonna say no I

01:05:52 ◼   ► want the person who cheaped out and bought our $350 watch I want them to

01:05:57 ◼   ► give us $150 for another band. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility to

01:06:03 ◼   ► create slightly different connectors because they kind of already have to

01:06:06 ◼   ► create they're already creating different versions of it anyway for the

01:06:12 ◼   ► like larger and smaller yeah so I don't know I mean I know it's a lot of

01:06:18 ◼   ► peculiar I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised to see it go that way but but

01:06:24 ◼   ► we'll see I mean genuinely I I hope not because I think that my tastes are

01:06:30 ◼   ► are pushing me in a direction that's going to be very expensive for me.

01:06:34 ◼   ► (laughter)

01:06:36 ◼   ► But we'll see. We'll see how that ends up rolling out.

01:06:41 ◼   ► But I'm excited about it. I'm finding myself more excited about it.

01:06:45 ◼   ► And we said this before on the show, and you mentioned it,

01:06:48 ◼   ► because me and you come from a slightly different background

01:06:50 ◼   ► in that we understand the utility of a device like this.

01:06:55 ◼   ► So I'm excited for the utility, but I'm also just excited for the product

01:06:58 ◼   ► because I think it looks really nice.

01:07:00 ◼   ► And it's a totally new thing and it's gonna be shiny

01:07:05 ◼   ► and the battery's not gonna last long enough,

01:07:06 ◼   ► but it doesn't matter 'cause it's gonna be awesome.

01:07:09 ◼   ► Shall we finish off with some Ask Upgrade?

01:07:15 ◼   ► - Yes, let's do it.

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01:08:53 ◼   ► Is your enthusiasm for mailbagging flagging, Myke?

01:08:56 ◼   ► No, I'm just getting, like, stage fright.

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01:09:57 ◼   ► Mail bagging!

01:09:59 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:10:01 ◼   ► I don't know what mail bagging is but it sounds great.

01:10:05 ◼   ► I literally have no idea. But I love it. I'm happy that it exists but I don't know what it means.

01:10:11 ◼   ► Yes. Let's see. #AskUpgrade. We made a slight change to how we're going to be processing #AskUpgrade in the future, didn't we?

01:10:20 ◼   ► didn't we? You made the change. Yeah, I was if they've got some new apps and such

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01:10:49 ◼   ► It just does a search for Ask Upgrade and adds it to our Slack channel instead.

01:10:54 ◼   ► I don't know if it's gonna be better but I like that it's there and so we have

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01:11:16 ◼   ► Lester Shawn wrote in to say, "Myke, what was that speed reading app you

01:11:22 ◼   ► recommended?" The app that I recommended is called Velocity and it's made by my

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01:11:38 ◼   ► UI that they've created. I'm a big fan of the work that those guys do, so you should

01:11:43 ◼   ► check it out. It's called Velocity. I'll put a link in the show notes. The show notes which

01:11:45 ◼   ► you can find in your podcast app of choice or on the web over at relay.fm/upgrade/24.

01:11:55 ◼   ► Lester Gary writes, "Why is there not more cheese vertical, 'need more cheese'?" Well,

01:12:01 ◼   ► Gary, here's my cheese-related story for you. My family and I--so last week my kids had

01:12:07 ◼   ► the week off from school.

01:12:09 ◼   ► It was what they call midwinter break,

01:12:12 ◼   ► they used to call it ski week.

01:12:13 ◼   ► We don't call it ski week anymore

01:12:14 ◼   ► because it's never ever ever going to rain or snow

01:12:17 ◼   ► in California ever again.

01:12:19 ◼   ► - Fair enough.

01:12:22 ◼   ► - So they had the week off.

01:12:26 ◼   ► And yesterday was the last day

01:12:29 ◼   ► before they went back to school,

01:12:31 ◼   ► they went back to school today.

01:12:33 ◼   ► And so we took a hike.

01:12:34 ◼   ► We took a, we wanted to do something as a family

01:12:36 ◼   ► and the kids would rather just play video games all day,

01:12:38 ◼   ► but we decided to do a family activity.

01:12:41 ◼   ► So we took a hike and we're fortunate enough

01:12:43 ◼   ► to actually be so close to good places to hike

01:12:45 ◼   ► that we could walk there from our house.

01:12:47 ◼   ► So we actually walked kind of through a neighborhood

01:12:51 ◼   ► behind our house and up a ridge and around.

01:12:53 ◼   ► And it was good, I would say six mile hike.

01:12:56 ◼   ► We took a picnic.

01:12:59 ◼   ► That was one way to make it more interesting

01:13:00 ◼   ► for the kids, I think.

01:13:01 ◼   ► So we brought a picnic with us.

01:13:03 ◼   ► They got to pick some stuff that they wanted to bring.

01:13:06 ◼   ► So up at the top on a windy hillside,

01:13:09 ◼   ► it was a nice sunny day, a little cool and breezy,

01:13:13 ◼   ► but a beautiful sunny day.

01:13:15 ◼   ► We sat down and had a little picnic

01:13:19 ◼   ► and I was happy to discover that my wife had decided,

01:13:22 ◼   ► because it was a picnic,

01:13:23 ◼   ► what better thing to have at a picnic

01:13:25 ◼   ► than cheese and crackers?

01:13:26 ◼   ► So we had cheese and crackers.

01:13:27 ◼   ► There were two different kinds of cheese.

01:13:29 ◼   ► Gary, this is for you.

01:13:31 ◼   ► There was a traditional yellow cheddar,

01:13:33 ◼   ► I believe is a Tillamook cheddar, so from Oregon.

01:13:36 ◼   ► Not the traditional cheddar.

01:13:38 ◼   ► Traditional cheddar, Myke, would be from cheddar,

01:13:40 ◼   ► England, correct?

01:13:41 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:13:43 ◼   ► - Is that a place?

01:13:44 ◼   ► - No.

01:13:45 ◼   ► - Is there a place called cheddar?

01:13:46 ◼   ► - No, I don't think so.

01:13:47 ◼   ► - Oh, come on, there's gotta be a place called cheddar.

01:13:49 ◼   ► A village, a little village by a cheddar upon something?

01:13:53 ◼   ► River?

01:13:56 ◼   ► - Probably.

01:13:57 ◼   ► There is actually a place in Somerset called cheddar, yes.

01:14:01 ◼   ► - Boom.

01:14:02 ◼   ► - I don't know if that's where the cheese,

01:14:03 ◼   ► - Oh no, it is the village that cheddar cheese

01:14:05 ◼   ► is named after.

01:14:06 ◼   ► I don't know why I can't just having lived here

01:14:09 ◼   ► for this amount of time just assume that that's the case.

01:14:12 ◼   ► It's so obvious.

01:14:13 ◼   ► - I'm disappointed in you.

01:14:15 ◼   ► Anyway, we did have some of that.

01:14:16 ◼   ► And we also had some like aged cheddar, another cheddar.

01:14:21 ◼   ► There was a white cheddar that the kids don't appreciate

01:14:26 ◼   ► but grownups enjoy that we got that was really nice too.

01:14:29 ◼   ► We didn't have any fancy cheese.

01:14:31 ◼   ► There was no manchego.

01:14:31 ◼   ► We had some Gouda, my wife didn't bring it.

01:14:34 ◼   ► So it was an all cheddar picnic, but plus other foods,

01:14:37 ◼   ► but we're focused on the cheeses of the cheese vertical.

01:14:39 ◼   ► We had a good time,

01:14:40 ◼   ► walked down the rest of the way, it was beautiful.

01:14:42 ◼   ► I took a picture from the high point.

01:14:46 ◼   ► You can look out over these green hills

01:14:48 ◼   ► and then you can see the bay.

01:14:49 ◼   ► And then in the background,

01:14:49 ◼   ► San Francisco across the bay and it was very nice.

01:14:52 ◼   ► So that is my cheese update.

01:14:55 ◼   ► You have any cheese related things, Myke?

01:14:57 ◼   ► - No.

01:14:59 ◼   ► - I like cheese a lot, but I don't have any updates

01:15:04 ◼   ► which are not worthy for our cheese vertical today,

01:15:06 ◼   ► I'm afraid. - All right, think about it.

01:15:08 ◼   ► Think about it.

01:15:08 ◼   ► Listener Peter wrote in to say,

01:15:13 ◼   ► this is sort of our sub vertical

01:15:16 ◼   ► about podcasts and chapters.

01:15:18 ◼   ► Listener Peter says,

01:15:19 ◼   ► "You don't need to make chapter markers necessarily,

01:15:21 ◼   ► "just make a simple list of time codes

01:15:23 ◼   ► "to scrub to in the show notes."

01:15:26 ◼   ► How about that, Myke?

01:15:28 ◼   ► this topic is, I actually think is going to kill me.

01:15:33 ◼   ► Eventually I will die.

01:15:34 ◼   ► All of these things are like,

01:15:38 ◼   ► but then I'm literally sitting there typing out,

01:15:41 ◼   ► like it's an, okay.

01:15:43 ◼   ► I know that there are people that want it

01:15:45 ◼   ► and I'm sorry to the people that want it,

01:15:46 ◼   ► but for me personally, I feel that it is an,

01:15:50 ◼   ► it is an unproductive use of my time.

01:15:53 ◼   ► There are many more things that I should be working on

01:15:57 ◼   ► than putting the time stamps in.

01:16:00 ◼   ► And also, I'm gonna be frank, Jason.

01:16:02 ◼   ► I'm gonna be frank for a moment,

01:16:03 ◼   ► 'cause I feel like I should--

01:16:05 ◼   ► - Okay, Frank, whatever you say, Frank.

01:16:07 ◼   ► - We need to make money,

01:16:09 ◼   ► and we need you to hear our sponsors.

01:16:11 ◼   ► And if we put things in,

01:16:12 ◼   ► like and you know there's gonna be a new topic

01:16:14 ◼   ► after the sponsor, then you may never get to it.

01:16:17 ◼   ► And I kind of would like you to listen to them,

01:16:19 ◼   ► or at least give them a try.

01:16:22 ◼   ► And I'm concerned that it would basically stop people

01:16:25 ◼   ► from listening to them.

01:16:26 ◼   ► Should I not have said that?

01:16:28 ◼   ► - I don't know.

01:16:30 ◼   ► I mean, you didn't really say it, Myke.

01:16:32 ◼   ► Frank said it.

01:16:33 ◼   ► So we'll just take what Frank has.

01:16:36 ◼   ► No, I think you're right.

01:16:37 ◼   ► So Joe also wrote in to say

01:16:40 ◼   ► that we have clickable chapter markers on the incomparable,

01:16:44 ◼   ► which I've been experimenting with.

01:16:45 ◼   ► They're not actually in the file.

01:16:46 ◼   ► They're on the website.

01:16:47 ◼   ► If you go to the website and you can actually pass a link

01:16:50 ◼   ► and the player will automatically go to the timestamp,

01:16:53 ◼   ► which is neat.

01:16:53 ◼   ► And I'm gonna try to use that some more.

01:16:55 ◼   ► And that might make podcasts more shareable.

01:16:58 ◼   ► We were talking about having shareability problems.

01:17:01 ◼   ► I think it's not unreasonable.

01:17:04 ◼   ► I am using on the incomparable,

01:17:06 ◼   ► I'm using it for the broadest of show notes.

01:17:09 ◼   ► Like for me, it's like literally we talked about two movies.

01:17:13 ◼   ► Here's movie one, here's movie two.

01:17:15 ◼   ► I think that's reasonable.

01:17:18 ◼   ► Also, I gotta say, if you're gonna go to a new topic

01:17:21 ◼   ► right after a sponsor break,

01:17:23 ◼   ► put your bookmark at the sponsor break

01:17:25 ◼   ► and not the new topic, then everybody will have to listen

01:17:27 ◼   ► to the sponsor. - Yeah, no.

01:17:29 ◼   ► - I don't view, I think you're making valid choices.

01:17:34 ◼   ► I do chapter marks very specifically for certain things.

01:17:39 ◼   ► I don't do it for everything.

01:17:41 ◼   ► I think the problem is what you say,

01:17:43 ◼   ► which is I think people maybe underestimate

01:17:46 ◼   ► the amount of work that goes in.

01:17:47 ◼   ► You spend time putting together a podcast and editing it,

01:17:50 ◼   ► and then you need to go back and do another pass,

01:17:51 ◼   ► or you have to build into your workflow

01:17:53 ◼   ► in a note taking workflow where you're writing

01:17:56 ◼   ► down time code and if you change anything later

01:17:59 ◼   ► that affects the time code, then all your time code is wrong

01:18:02 ◼   ► and you have to do it again.

01:18:04 ◼   ► And you're talking about basically

01:18:06 ◼   ► annotating an entire podcast.

01:18:08 ◼   ► And I think that's a lot of extra work.

01:18:11 ◼   ► I think there's an assumption by a lot of people

01:18:13 ◼   ► that that's not a lot of extra work and that's wrong.

01:18:16 ◼   ► Does it have value?

01:18:17 ◼   ► I think it does have value, but you have to weigh that.

01:18:20 ◼   ► And I totally understand you saying,

01:18:25 ◼   ► look, like I said, I like the idea of chapter marks

01:18:27 ◼   ► in a big scale.

01:18:28 ◼   ► I think some people envision it as being super small scale,

01:18:31 ◼   ► like every podcast episode is gonna have eight chapters

01:18:34 ◼   ► in it, and that's kind of a lot.

01:18:35 ◼   ► I would say, if I'm gonna be a diabolical podcast

01:18:38 ◼   ► entrepreneur for a moment, that there is an opportunity

01:18:42 ◼   ► for crowdsourcing here, and that maybe somebody

01:18:45 ◼   ► should create some sort of a tool that lets you create

01:18:50 ◼   ► annotations on the podcast you listen to that the podcast owner could then publish in the show notes.

01:18:56 ◼   ► Yeah, so you'd have to put it back to us because all it's going to be is just people saying this

01:19:00 ◼   ► is where the ad stops. Like, yeah, well that's in a pod, in a podcast app that, that, you know,

01:19:05 ◼   ► whatever. But I'm saying it would be great if, you know, maybe we should have some, you know,

01:19:10 ◼   ► a form or a wiki or something where people can, people can put in the time code or maybe somebody,

01:19:15 ◼   ► I'd also say, you know, maybe this is something for volunteers. I'm not asking it for relay.

01:19:22 ◼   ► I'm just saying, you know, if somebody really wanted to volunteer to do detailed timecode

01:19:27 ◼   ► notes for a show that they love, and they talked to the podcaster of that show and they said, "Sure,

01:19:32 ◼   ► you know, you listen on day one and email me the timecodes and I'll put them in,"

01:19:37 ◼   ► you know, then that would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. But it is a lot of work,

01:19:42 ◼   ► And a lot of podcasts are done with,

01:19:45 ◼   ► it's already a lot of work

01:19:47 ◼   ► and they're trying to shave time off of what they're doing.

01:19:50 ◼   ► And this just adds more on top of it.

01:19:53 ◼   ► And for me, I do time code

01:19:56 ◼   ► when it's absolutely clearly useful

01:19:59 ◼   ► and I try to keep it pretty minimal.

01:20:00 ◼   ► So I do time code on Clockwise

01:20:02 ◼   ► because it's very well-defined and formatted,

01:20:05 ◼   ► but that's, I think, an exception to the rule.

01:20:07 ◼   ► Anyway. - Yeah.

01:20:10 ◼   ► - I just wanna, in case it offended anybody,

01:20:13 ◼   ► if you want to skip the ads, that is perfectly fine.

01:20:16 ◼   ► - Sure, sure, but making it, putting in extra time

01:20:20 ◼   ► in your work schedule to make it really easy

01:20:23 ◼   ► to skip right over the ads without thinking about it

01:20:26 ◼   ► is probably-- - That is extremely

01:20:27 ◼   ► counterproductive, isn't it?

01:20:28 ◼   ► - It is a bad trade-off, right?

01:20:29 ◼   ► I mean, having Marco, this is why Marco,

01:20:32 ◼   ► you know, Marco could very easily do

01:20:33 ◼   ► an auto ad-sensing thing based on user behavior,

01:20:36 ◼   ► and he doesn't do it in Overcast.

01:20:38 ◼   ► But there's a 30-second skip button.

01:20:40 ◼   ► And what do you think that's for?

01:20:41 ◼   ► But the idea is if you really don't wanna listen,

01:20:44 ◼   ► of course you can jump ahead.

01:20:46 ◼   ► But to make it something that eliminates all ads

01:20:50 ◼   ► for everybody is incredibly counterproductive

01:20:54 ◼   ► because that's how these shows survive.

01:20:57 ◼   ► And yeah, that's how Myke and I are not,

01:21:01 ◼   ► we're making more podcasts rather than going back

01:21:05 ◼   ► to other jobs and making fewer podcasts,

01:21:07 ◼   ► which would be the other way to go.

01:21:08 ◼   ► it quite literally pays my bills and puts food in my stomach.

01:21:12 ◼   ► So it's, you know, forgive me if it's something

01:21:14 ◼   ► that I'm a little bit apprehensive of.

01:21:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely.

01:21:19 ◼   ► And it's very hard to get the math to work

01:21:21 ◼   ► where listener support can compensate

01:21:25 ◼   ► to the equivalent of what the ads are.

01:21:27 ◼   ► It's just the math doesn't work for most shows to do that.

01:21:31 ◼   ► - But look, fundamentally, right,

01:21:32 ◼   ► if chapter support becomes something

01:21:35 ◼   ► that really does become something,

01:21:37 ◼   ► then we'll look at how we work with it.

01:21:40 ◼   ► But like, you know, the fact still remains that right now,

01:21:44 ◼   ► there is not a solution.

01:21:46 ◼   ► That just, that meets every need.

01:21:49 ◼   ► And until that comes, I'm not,

01:21:52 ◼   ► I'm personally just not interested in going through

01:21:58 ◼   ► the crazy loops that I would have to go through

01:22:00 ◼   ► to get it to work for a subset of people some of the time.

01:22:04 ◼   ► - No, the tools aren't there yet.

01:22:06 ◼   ► and maybe they'll be there sometime

01:22:08 ◼   ► and maybe there'll be enough momentum.

01:22:09 ◼   ► The tools to embed it in MP3s,

01:22:13 ◼   ► to have podcast apps that support that,

01:22:16 ◼   ► to build, like I said,

01:22:18 ◼   ► I just have been experimenting with this JavaScript

01:22:20 ◼   ► that lets me jump in a webpage.

01:22:22 ◼   ► That's great.

01:22:22 ◼   ► That'll actually give me,

01:22:23 ◼   ► that gives me more of a motivator to do some of it

01:22:25 ◼   ► because I have issues where we talk about

01:22:28 ◼   ► two different movies where I wanna be able to say

01:22:30 ◼   ► movie two starts here so you can jump to it.

01:22:33 ◼   ► But we're just not,

01:22:35 ◼   ► The work that I put in over the weekend

01:22:37 ◼   ► to do the JavaScript time jumps for the incomparable

01:22:40 ◼   ► was probably more work than will ever be gotten out of,

01:22:45 ◼   ► you know, pleasure gotten out of it

01:22:46 ◼   ► by people who are using that feature.

01:22:48 ◼   ► But I wanted to do it because it was interesting to me.

01:22:51 ◼   ► So we're not there yet.

01:22:52 ◼   ► And I understand a lot of people are really enthusiastic

01:22:54 ◼   ► about this subject because they're trying to cajole people

01:22:57 ◼   ► into, they wanna get the momentum going.

01:23:00 ◼   ► And so they're trying to cajole people

01:23:01 ◼   ► who aren't doing it to do it

01:23:02 ◼   ► 'cause that's when you start saying,

01:23:04 ◼   ► "Oh, well, all the relay shows have all these great time codes

01:23:08 ◼   ► that aren't supported by Overcast.

01:23:10 ◼   ► Marco, when are you going to support it?"

01:23:11 ◼   ► Marco goes, "Oh, well, I guess that's a thing now,

01:23:13 ◼   ► so maybe I'll put that on my..."

01:23:15 ◼   ► And then it all happens.

01:23:16 ◼   ► But, you know, I think it's absolutely fair for you to say,

01:23:20 ◼   ► "Sorry, I can't be the one to start this,"

01:23:22 ◼   ► and invest that time on something that may or may not happen.

01:23:26 ◼   ► -That JavaScript thing that you have, we have that.

01:23:29 ◼   ► Like, but I just don't use it for anything.

01:23:31 ◼   ► -Yeah.

01:23:33 ◼   ► Well, it comes back to why you hate time code, Myke.

01:23:35 ◼   ► Why do you hate time code so much?

01:23:37 ◼   ► - If you want to use them for a compromise, go ahead.

01:23:41 ◼   ► - Well, I've got the data. I guess I could.

01:23:43 ◼   ► I've got the data, but people don't listen to podcasts.

01:23:46 ◼   ► It's for shareability more than anything else.

01:23:48 ◼   ► People don't listen to podcasts on the web anyway,

01:23:51 ◼   ► but I do like the fact that I can tweet out a link

01:23:53 ◼   ► to a very particular part of a podcast

01:23:56 ◼   ► on those episodes of The Incomparable Now,

01:23:58 ◼   ► so it's something.

01:23:59 ◼   ► Anyway, this has been really boring.

01:24:00 ◼   ► We have one more bit of #AskUpgrade feedback.

01:24:05 ◼   ► Sorry to everybody for our little descent

01:24:07 ◼   ► into chapter marks.

01:24:08 ◼   ► - I feel like it's just gonna go on forever.

01:24:10 ◼   ► It's the chapter vertical.

01:24:11 ◼   ► - You could just take it all out if you really wanted to.

01:24:14 ◼   ► But anyway.

01:24:14 ◼   ► - Maybe I'll put a time code in for just that section.

01:24:18 ◼   ► - Oh, yes, do that.

01:24:20 ◼   ► Oh, that's beautiful.

01:24:22 ◼   ► Chapter mark vertical at this time code, beautiful.

01:24:26 ◼   ► - Oh, I'm really tempted to do it now.

01:24:28 ◼   ► - All right, our last bit of feedback is just

01:24:31 ◼   ► from a listener, App Freak, no real name there,

01:24:35 ◼   ► saying, "Can you do the mail route sponsorship like serial?

01:24:40 ◼   ► Support for upgrade comes from Mailroot, Mail-right,

01:24:45 ◼   ► oh, Mail-route, you know, I actually use Mail-route."

01:24:51 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:24:53 ◼   ► - You do.

01:24:56 ◼   ► And then I go, "Yeah!"

01:24:58 ◼   ► Dude says, "Th

01:25:00 ◼   ► So thank you, @freak, there you go.

01:25:02 ◼   ► And scene.

01:25:04 ◼   ► And that's the end of #AskUpgrade,

01:25:07 ◼   ► brought to you by Mail...

01:25:09 ◼   ► Right?

01:25:11 ◼   ► - Mail route.

01:25:12 ◼   ► - Mail route!

01:25:14 ◼   ► And I think that's the end of the show.

01:25:17 ◼   ► - It is the end of the show, the show's over.

01:25:20 ◼   ► Thank you so much for listening

01:25:21 ◼   ► to this week's episode of Upgrade.

01:25:23 ◼   ► If you'd like to find us on the internet,

01:25:25 ◼   ► There's a few ways you can do that.

01:25:26 ◼   ► You can find Mr. Jason Snell at SixColors.com.

01:25:30 ◼   ► He is @jsnell on Twitter.

01:25:32 ◼   ► I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E,

01:25:34 ◼   ► and I would very much love it if you haven't already,

01:25:37 ◼   ► if you checked out "Inquisitive" behind the app,

01:25:40 ◼   ► which is at "Inquisitive," no, it's a relay,

01:25:43 ◼   ► "dot FM slash inquisitive slash 27."

01:25:47 ◼   ► That's a new series that I'm working on.

01:25:48 ◼   ► I would very much like it if you listened,

01:25:50 ◼   ► 'cause I think that listeners for this show may enjoy it.

01:25:54 ◼   ► If you want to find the show notes for this week's episode of Upgrade, you want to go to relay.fm/upgrade/24

01:26:03 ◼   ► And thanks again to our sponsors this week, Mail Route, Igloo, and Smile with PDFPen Pro 7.

01:26:13 ◼   ► But most of all, thank you so much for listening, as always, and we'll be back next time.

01:26:18 ◼   ► Say goodbye, Jason Snow.

01:26:20 ◼   ► Goodbye, Myke Hurley.

01:26:22 ◼   ► [ Music ]