Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► (beep)

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:03 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 20.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by lynda.com,

00:00:14 ◼   ► where you can instantly stream thousands of courses

00:00:16 ◼   ► created by industry experts.

00:00:18 ◼   ► For a 10-day free trial, visit lynda.com/upgrade.

00:00:22 ◼   ► MailRoute, a secure hosted email service

00:00:24 ◼   ► for protection from viruses and spam.

00:00:26 ◼   ► And Casper, because everyone deserves a great night's sleep.

00:00:29 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by the one and only,

00:00:33 ◼   ► Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:34 ◼   ► - Hi Myke, how's it going?

00:00:35 ◼   ► - I am very well, sir, how are you?

00:00:37 ◼   ► - Pretty good.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Starting my week with Upgrade as always, it's nice.

00:00:41 ◼   ► Nice little routine we're working out here.

00:00:43 ◼   ► 20 weeks in.

00:00:44 ◼   ► - I like it, I like that we kind of,

00:00:45 ◼   ► we can look forward to the week ahead,

00:00:47 ◼   ► we can look at the week that's just gone.

00:00:49 ◼   ► Like kind of the, it feels different to when you have

00:00:52 ◼   ► a show midweek because a midweek show,

00:00:54 ◼   ► it's like well all you've got is what happened

00:00:55 ◼   ► in the last two days, but like a Monday show,

00:00:58 ◼   ► It's kind of, you've got all of last week

00:01:00 ◼   ► and if there's anything exciting coming,

00:01:01 ◼   ► you can talk about all of that too.

00:01:02 ◼   ► There's just a different feeling about it, which I enjoy.

00:01:04 ◼   ► - Take that ATP.

00:01:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, and also, also Jason,

00:01:08 ◼   ► we record and release on the same day.

00:01:11 ◼   ► That's the Myke Hurley promise.

00:01:14 ◼   ► - That's right.

00:01:15 ◼   ► Well, as long as you don't have Casey List

00:01:17 ◼   ► doing your QA for your podcast.

00:01:19 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, no, I have that experience sometimes.

00:01:22 ◼   ► We definitely have that experience.

00:01:24 ◼   ► But they do sound very good because of it.

00:01:26 ◼   ► They do sound very good because of it.

00:01:27 ◼   ► - They do.

00:01:28 ◼   ► At least somebody has standards on that show.

00:01:31 ◼   ► It's Casey, not you, but that's okay.

00:01:33 ◼   ► - I have no standards.

00:01:34 ◼   ► That's the other Myke Hurley promise.

00:01:37 ◼   ► - We actually have, we should do this now.

00:01:39 ◼   ► We actually have, before follow-up,

00:01:41 ◼   ► we have something that listener Michael wrote in

00:01:43 ◼   ► and suggested we call Follow Out,

00:01:45 ◼   ► which is the follow-up from other podcasts

00:01:50 ◼   ► that is not our podcast.

00:01:51 ◼   ► - Which is a perfect name.

00:01:52 ◼   ► - So thank you, listener Michael.

00:01:54 ◼   ► Analog you did a music episode episode 23 now you just dropped number 24

00:01:59 ◼   ► I believe right before we recorded this or over the weekend

00:02:02 ◼   ► But I wanted to tell you I really loved the music episode. I thought it was really great

00:02:07 ◼   ► You can tell it's a good podcast when you are

00:02:09 ◼   ► desperately trying to interrupt the people who are playing on your car radio and tell them things and you can't because it's a podcast and

00:02:16 ◼   ► That is how I felt like I really enjoyed you guys

00:02:18 ◼   ► talking about music and how you listen to music and your guilty pleasures and things that you love and and

00:02:24 ◼   ► How you process lyrics or don't process lyrics. I thought that was all really really fascinating and even though

00:02:29 ◼   ► You got the details of crowded house wrong. You corrected it the next week after I sent you a

00:02:35 ◼   ► Detailed correction and that was nice, too

00:02:38 ◼   ► It was it's always amusing when I hear my own name in a podcast because I'm driving I'm like, oh no

00:02:43 ◼   ► They're talking about me now. It's very strange, but I really love that episode

00:02:47 ◼   ► I thought it was a lot of a lot of fun

00:02:48 ◼   ► And yes, Neil Finn is the band leader of crowded house and he's from New Zealand

00:02:51 ◼   ► so you might as well call it a New Zealand band even though a couple of the

00:02:55 ◼   ► original members were from Australia and then they have got some Americans in it

00:02:58 ◼   ► when they when they tour these days. I'm not surprised you felt like you wanted

00:03:02 ◼   ► to jump in because we got over I got about 95% of all of your information

00:03:06 ◼   ► wrong. Yeah well that's true. I may have called you like Snation Gel or something it just carried on like that.

00:03:11 ◼   ► It was a disaster. You did you got my name right so thank you for that.

00:03:15 ◼   ► That's the only part. That's all in it. I enjoyed that episode so much that I want to do a music

00:03:22 ◼   ► podcast. I loved talking about it and I loved the edit even though it was more complex like to put

00:03:28 ◼   ► little snippets of audio in like the songs. It's really really fun. So the problem with music

00:03:33 ◼   ► is the taste of it and everybody has differing music tastes so I don't even know what you'd

00:03:41 ◼   ► cover. It's just too much music to cover new releases and even then like how much

00:03:45 ◼   ► can you really learn? Like for me I don't want to talk about an album I've

00:03:49 ◼   ► listened to for two days. I need to listen to them for weeks to know if they

00:03:52 ◼   ► stick. So you talked about doing a an album draft on the incomparable classic

00:03:57 ◼   ► music draft where we would just pick favorite albums and talk about them kind

00:04:01 ◼   ► of round robin. I wonder if you could do something like that where you just

00:04:04 ◼   ► talked about a different release or band every week and found a couple of people

00:04:09 ◼   ► who love that band or album or whatever to talk about it.

00:04:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, that could definitely work.

00:04:16 ◼   ► That could definitely work.

00:04:17 ◼   ► - Also, you did, I liked the undercut music,

00:04:21 ◼   ► but you didn't, it was always just underneath

00:04:23 ◼   ► what you were talking about.

00:04:24 ◼   ► And once you're talking about the work,

00:04:28 ◼   ► it's actually fair use to,

00:04:30 ◼   ► you could have probably taken a 15-second break

00:04:33 ◼   ► in the middle and played a little bit more of it.

00:04:34 ◼   ► 'Cause I found it great that Casey would mention something

00:04:37 ◼   ► and then it was playing in the background,

00:04:38 ◼   ► but it was not quite enough for me to get what it was.

00:04:41 ◼   ► But it was still neat to hear.

00:04:43 ◼   ► - Usually I take breaks.

00:04:44 ◼   ► I don't know why I did it that way.

00:04:45 ◼   ► It just felt like a different way to do it.

00:04:47 ◼   ► When I was editing it together, I was like,

00:04:49 ◼   ► "Oh, I like this style."

00:04:50 ◼   ► 'Cause usually, like with clips like that,

00:04:52 ◼   ► I will take a break and just play a section of it

00:04:55 ◼   ► and then cut back in again.

00:04:56 ◼   ► - Like I'm connected.

00:04:57 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Yeah.

00:04:58 ◼   ► - But I thought, "No, let's have it as like a little bed."

00:05:01 ◼   ► - I do that too sometimes with the video game stuff

00:05:04 ◼   ► or other stuff where we're talking about music.

00:05:08 ◼   ► you have to make that decision if you want to stop the conversation for a minute to listen to the

00:05:11 ◼   ► music or whether you want to just kind of have it on in the background as a nod. Anyway, I liked,

00:05:16 ◼   ► I enjoyed that episode. That's shameless promotion for another Relay podcast, but I enjoyed it and I

00:05:22 ◼   ► appreciate that you, we, this doesn't have to be correction follow-out because you corrected all

00:05:27 ◼   ► of that stuff yourself. I did, I was very sad. I mentioned this on the Incomparable this week,

00:05:33 ◼   ► that, I think it's in the bonus track, that Casey referred to Peter Gabriel as "old people music"

00:05:40 ◼   ► because on one level, you know, Peter Gabriel was one of my all-time favorites, and that makes me

00:05:44 ◼   ► feel like an old person. On the other hand, and Lisa Schmeiser and I talked about this in the

00:05:49 ◼   ► incomparable bonus track this weekend, that there is that moment where, like, you go see Peter

00:05:55 ◼   ► Gabriel in concert, and she and I actually went to a concert, and you've got your mental image of

00:06:00 ◼   ► of Peter Gabriel in 1986 in your head and then you see him and he's like bald with a

00:06:04 ◼   ► goatee, a white goatee, and next thing you know he's playing, you know, versions of his

00:06:10 ◼   ► songs with a symphony and you realize, oh, he is old people now. But he wasn't. He wasn't

00:06:19 ◼   ► back then. You look around and see who your company is.

00:06:24 ◼   ► That was my memory with when we went with Lisa was that there were lots of gray-haired

00:06:29 ◼   ► people there, but we were probably on the younger side of the people who were there,

00:06:33 ◼   ► because there's people who've been following him since he was in Genesis in the early 70s.

00:06:38 ◼   ► But we're on the younger side, but when we went and saw him, we were like 30, 31 in there.

00:06:44 ◼   ► So not too up there, but now if we went back, yeah, it would be people like walkers in wheelchairs.

00:06:51 ◼   ► So old people music. It's sad, but that's... But he's reached the point in his career where

00:06:57 ◼   ► he seems to not even be trying to do anything new, really, and it's all just sort of like

00:07:01 ◼   ► reflections and when you get these symphonic recreations of your catalog, yeah, it's, you're

00:07:08 ◼   ► just cashing it in.

00:07:09 ◼   ► - You've run out.

00:07:10 ◼   ► You've run out of stuff.

00:07:11 ◼   ► - Oh well.

00:07:12 ◼   ► It happens.

00:07:13 ◼   ► It happens to everybody.

00:07:14 ◼   ► Eventually, I suppose, but anyway.

00:07:15 ◼   ► - I look forward to our symphonic podcasts one day, Jason.

00:07:18 ◼   ► - That's right.

00:07:19 ◼   ► It's just old episodes.

00:07:20 ◼   ► We don't even have to do it, Myke.

00:07:21 ◼   ► We'll just have our old episodes and then there'll be symphony music played in a music

00:07:24 ◼   ► bed underneath them.

00:07:26 ◼   ► That'll be classic, it'll be classic upgrade.

00:07:30 ◼   ► Classical upgrade.

00:07:31 ◼   ► Very nice, very nice.

00:07:32 ◼   ► And they'll be upgraded classically as well.

00:07:34 ◼   ► Oh man.

00:07:35 ◼   ► Uh, follow-up time, I think.

00:07:38 ◼   ► Yes.

00:07:39 ◼   ► Uh, smart speed.

00:07:41 ◼   ► Again, a little more, uh, a little more, boy, we started something when we mentioned that

00:07:45 ◼   ► you could look up how much time you've saved in Overcast.

00:07:48 ◼   ► Still happening.

00:07:49 ◼   ► Unless there's a bug, unless there's a bug and you can't see it.

00:07:52 ◼   ► Still getting it.

00:07:53 ◼   ► Still getting it.

00:07:54 ◼   ► Yeah, but listener Evan did a blog post on Medium.

00:07:58 ◼   ► I think called blog posts on Medium. I feel like they're because of something else.

00:08:03 ◼   ► Okay, he made a, he made some, put some words at a URL.

00:08:08 ◼   ► Can we talk about Medium one day? Because I don't understand Medium. And I feel like

00:08:13 ◼   ► you might.

00:08:14 ◼   ► I'm not sure Medium understands Medium, but sure, we can talk about Medium sometime. But

00:08:18 ◼   ► anyway, he did a, he wrote a thing about smart speed and overcast, and what he did that was

00:08:22 ◼   ► extremely clever, is captured the audio output from Overcast playing an episode of Hardcore

00:08:28 ◼   ► History and from iTunes on his Mac playing the same episode of Hardcore History and posted

00:08:34 ◼   ► that to SoundCloud. And so the Mac is on one side of the stereo environment and the iPhone

00:08:40 ◼   ► is on the other side. And what you get is, you can listen as Smart Speed saves you time.

00:08:46 ◼   ► And by the end of that episode of Hardcore History, I believe he saved 12 minutes because

00:08:50 ◼   ► that's a pretty loose podcast. And one of the things listener Evan points out in this

00:08:53 ◼   ► piece is that the tighter podcasts, you know, you don't really save a lot of time. And in

00:09:00 ◼   ► fact, he's got Smart Speed turned off for those podcasts because once something like

00:09:05 ◼   ► 99% invisible, once something is really tight, you kind of almost want to say, "Okay, if

00:09:10 ◼   ► there's a pause in there, they're doing it for a reason." So you just turn off Smart

00:09:13 ◼   ► Speed. But there are these other podcasts that are super loose and you can turn on Smart

00:09:17 ◼   ► speed and save in the case of Hardcore History 12 minutes. And it is kind of a kick to listen

00:09:23 ◼   ► as the sound in your right ear just totally drifts away from the sound in your left ear.

00:09:29 ◼   ► I just thought it was an interesting... 'cause sometimes I'm listening and I see Overcast

00:09:33 ◼   ► is going or I look at their stats and I'm like, "I wonder how much it's saving me per

00:09:37 ◼   ► episode." And where this doesn't obviously... Your mileage may vary depending on the show

00:09:43 ◼   ► you're listening to, it was just interesting to see that no, it is like every time you

00:09:48 ◼   ► listen like, you know, potentially there is a significant change. Like you are knocking

00:09:53 ◼   ► a couple of minutes off or whatever and it's like, obviously as we have seen Jason, that

00:09:58 ◼   ► adds up.

00:09:59 ◼   ► I don't know Myke, it kind of gives me a complex, it makes me want to talk really fast and without

00:10:03 ◼   ► any breaks in between because if I do that then Smartspeed can't do anything and then

00:10:06 ◼   ► I win but then you know I can't, I'm only human, I'm gonna run out of breath and then

00:10:09 ◼   ► when that happens Smartspeed's gonna kick in and then oh no!

00:10:11 ◼   ► Next up on the follow-up, what would you like to do, Jason? Let's go for the follow-up.

00:10:14 ◼   ► People listening on 2X right now, their heads just blew up.

00:10:17 ◼   ► Oh, hi, telephone. Oh, listener Steve wrote in and said, "You guys seem to have something

00:10:24 ◼   ► out for the Apple podcast app. What gives?"

00:10:27 ◼   ► So I've been thinking about this, Jason. I used to have a problem with the Apple podcast

00:10:33 ◼   ► app.

00:10:34 ◼   ► When it was a reel-to-reel tape, it was really awful, yes.

00:10:36 ◼   ► The UI, I can see the problems people have with that,

00:10:41 ◼   ► but I found a kind of cuteness in that.

00:10:44 ◼   ► Where it was--

00:10:45 ◼   ► - It was cute, but it hurt the functionality.

00:10:46 ◼   ► That was my problem with it.

00:10:48 ◼   ► I didn't mind that it was cute.

00:10:49 ◼   ► I minded that it pushed other important things away

00:10:54 ◼   ► so that it could be cute.

00:10:56 ◼   ► - So the main problem that I had with the Apple Podcast app

00:11:00 ◼   ► was it wasn't sync or anything like that

00:11:02 ◼   ► that many people had.

00:11:03 ◼   ► It was lack of show notes support.

00:11:05 ◼   ► and it just displayed your show notes as a list of text.

00:11:08 ◼   ► That was all you got, and they weren't links,

00:11:09 ◼   ► they were just a list.

00:11:11 ◼   ► That's actually been improved now,

00:11:15 ◼   ► and I know that the guys and girls that make that app

00:11:18 ◼   ► have taken great pains to make it work properly.

00:11:21 ◼   ► So I actually don't have a problem with the app.

00:11:24 ◼   ► Previously I would have said to people, do not use it.

00:11:27 ◼   ► But now, I'm happy.

00:11:29 ◼   ► If somebody wants to get into podcasts,

00:11:30 ◼   ► it's on the phone, go for it.

00:11:32 ◼   ► I think the fact that it's on every phone is amazing

00:11:34 ◼   ► When I heard about that happening, I needed cartwheels.

00:11:37 ◼   ► That's fantastic for us to have an app,

00:11:40 ◼   ► I know they're frustrating, but an app that can't be deleted

00:11:42 ◼   ► it may be more likely that people will check this stuff out,

00:11:45 ◼   ► they go to the iTunes store, they browse around.

00:11:47 ◼   ► But just for me, I think if you enjoy podcasts,

00:11:51 ◼   ► or as soon as you've listened to one

00:11:53 ◼   ► and you've decided you want to use another,

00:11:55 ◼   ► I think that there are many more options out there

00:11:59 ◼   ► that you should look at that I think are superior

00:12:02 ◼   ► for somebody who wants to get into listening to podcasts

00:12:04 ◼   ► in a serious way.

00:12:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

00:12:07 ◼   ► I think there are, it's fine.

00:12:11 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:12:12 ◼   ► It's way better than it used to be.

00:12:14 ◼   ► I like that it syncs.

00:12:16 ◼   ► I think the show notes thing is important.

00:12:20 ◼   ► In fact, related to this is listener Gordon wrote in

00:12:25 ◼   ► and said, whenever we talk about the show notes,

00:12:28 ◼   ► for example, the show notes for this episode

00:12:30 ◼   ► can be found at upgrade, or no, at, see, I blew it,

00:12:33 ◼   ► relay.fm/upgrade/20, right?

00:12:36 ◼   ► What we don't say is, or in the app you're listening to,

00:12:40 ◼   ► which we probably should mention,

00:12:43 ◼   ► 'cause most podcast apps will show you the show notes

00:12:46 ◼   ► as you're listening.

00:12:47 ◼   ► So I think the podcast app is fine.

00:12:52 ◼   ► Like I said, I like Overcast because of smart speed

00:12:57 ◼   ► and because the speed acceleration that Marco is doing

00:13:01 ◼   ► is I believe better.

00:13:03 ◼   ► I think that because he hand tuned the way he processes

00:13:06 ◼   ► the audio in Overcast,

00:13:08 ◼   ► I don't hear acceleration artifacts that I hear

00:13:11 ◼   ► in every other podcast app.

00:13:13 ◼   ► And so if you do wanna listen at 1.2,

00:13:15 ◼   ► all the other podcasts app, I feel like there's like,

00:13:17 ◼   ► click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click

00:13:19 ◼   ► as you go, it just, and it drives me crazy.

00:13:20 ◼   ► So I've, until Overcast, I literally never listened

00:13:23 ◼   ► to a podcast in anything but 1X,

00:13:25 ◼   ► 'cause I just couldn't take it.

00:13:26 ◼   ► And now I do.

00:13:28 ◼   ► And that's because it sounds acceptable to me

00:13:31 ◼   ► in a way it didn't before.

00:13:32 ◼   ► So I think podcast app is great.

00:13:33 ◼   ► It's free, it's on every phone.

00:13:34 ◼   ► It's good for podcasting.

00:13:35 ◼   ► People should start with it,

00:13:37 ◼   ► but there are features that something like Overcast

00:13:39 ◼   ► is gonna be able to give you.

00:13:40 ◼   ► It's the same old story as any other Apple product, right?

00:13:43 ◼   ► Apple is never gonna make a product that is super fiddly,

00:13:46 ◼   ► that it's gonna satisfy every single use case

00:13:49 ◼   ► of power users.

00:13:50 ◼   ► That's not what they're there for.

00:13:51 ◼   ► They're there for like the baseline to get you started.

00:13:54 ◼   ► And that's what the podcast app is.

00:13:56 ◼   ► But I don't think it's terrible.

00:13:57 ◼   ► I didn't like it originally, but I think it's okay now.

00:14:00 ◼   ► - Listen, Matteo asked if we think that our figures,

00:14:06 ◼   ► 'cause we were talking about like how Overcast

00:14:09 ◼   ► has a much larger portion of download numbers

00:14:13 ◼   ► than anybody else, any other podcast app.

00:14:15 ◼   ► Matteo wondered if it was because we have

00:14:17 ◼   ► our little, in the directory, Marco very kindly

00:14:21 ◼   ► has a relay FM section, which is fantastic,

00:14:24 ◼   ► and we're very, very grateful that we have that there.

00:14:28 ◼   ► 'Cause I do believe it helps people bring in new listeners.

00:14:31 ◼   ► I think that yes, we may be skewed because of that

00:14:34 ◼   ► in some instances, but I don't know if that's the,

00:14:38 ◼   ► would be the sole reason for that.

00:14:42 ◼   ► I don't know, it's impossible to tell, I think, really.

00:14:45 ◼   ► - Right, and I looked on, on Incomparable,

00:14:48 ◼   ► and like I said, to the listener, Mateo, on Twitter,

00:14:52 ◼   ► On incomparable, the overcast numbers are still pretty huge

00:14:57 ◼   ► and there is no incomparable section in overcast,

00:15:00 ◼   ► although incomparable itself is in one of the sections,

00:15:04 ◼   ► it's not in its own section, so it's less so.

00:15:09 ◼   ► But then again, it's less so dominated by overcast

00:15:12 ◼   ► than upgrade is, or than relay in general is.

00:15:14 ◼   ► It's, you know, podcasts app and iTunes

00:15:19 ◼   ► are still really strong in,

00:15:22 ◼   ► in fact, if you put them together,

00:15:23 ◼   ► they are the number one client for incomparable shows.

00:15:28 ◼   ► And then Overcast is number two.

00:15:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:15:35 ◼   ► I don't know, different audiences.

00:15:38 ◼   ► Anyway, it's worth thinking about.

00:15:42 ◼   ► Lisner Rajiv wrote in to say,

00:15:45 ◼   ► "Why does Apple require a wired connection for CarPlay?

00:15:49 ◼   ► I would rather it work through Bluetooth.

00:15:52 ◼   ► I don't know this for certain,

00:15:53 ◼   ► but I'm gonna take a crack at it,

00:15:54 ◼   ► which is CarPlay is basically video out.

00:15:58 ◼   ► The video that's being displayed on these systems

00:16:00 ◼   ► is being projected there by your iPhone.

00:16:04 ◼   ► And one, I think you can't do that over Bluetooth.

00:16:08 ◼   ► I think that sending a video,

00:16:10 ◼   ► a whole video thing over Bluetooth

00:16:12 ◼   ► is not something that you could do.

00:16:15 ◼   ► And somebody's gonna write in and say,

00:16:17 ◼   ► "Well, theoretically you could,

00:16:18 ◼   ► but it's not actually implemented by anybody and that's fine. Email markup.

00:16:22 ◼   ► How much of AirPlay is Bluetooth?

00:16:24 ◼   ► Um, nothing.

00:16:26 ◼   ► Oh really?

00:16:27 ◼   ► AirPlay? AirPlay's all Wi-Fi.

00:16:29 ◼   ► Okay, I didn't know that.

00:16:31 ◼   ► Yeah, it's all Wi-Fi. So, um, and the second thing is, if you did a wireless stream, your

00:16:40 ◼   ► phone would run out of battery.

00:16:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I was gonna say that. Like, yeah, I understand why it might be easier to just

00:16:45 ◼   ► walk into the car and it connects but plugging it in, you're charging it, you're powering

00:16:50 ◼   ► the phone.

00:16:52 ◼   ► Every time you went on another drive you'd get out of the car and you'd have no battery

00:16:54 ◼   ► left in your phone.

00:16:55 ◼   ► That's a frustrating experience.

00:16:58 ◼   ► So if you force people to plug it in then they kind of don't know what they're missing.

00:17:01 ◼   ► I think it's better.

00:17:03 ◼   ► So my guess is that I think you can't practically stream video to that thing and that's what

00:17:09 ◼   ► it's doing.

00:17:10 ◼   ► It's not just sending data, it is streaming that image you're seeing on the screen is

00:17:15 ◼   ► being streamed live from the device and that doing that wirelessly is impractical if not

00:17:20 ◼   ► impossible using Bluetooth, which is what's in the car. But there's just, yeah, the power

00:17:25 ◼   ► thing is the other thing, which is even if you did that, your phone would be dead by

00:17:28 ◼   ► the time you got where you were going, especially if you were also navigating. So you're using

00:17:32 ◼   ► the phone's GPS. So that's why. I mean, it's just not practical. And I agree with you.

00:17:38 ◼   ► You get used to just keeping your phone in your pocket and listening to podcasts when

00:17:41 ◼   ► you're driving around. And CarPlay, you can't do that. And that's totally true. I totally

00:17:46 ◼   ► get it, but it's just not practical right now to do it any other way.

00:17:51 ◼   ► Listener Jeff wrote in to say, "So should Apple build a double-din head unit?" Okay,

00:17:56 ◼   ► so we'll decode that, which is, that's the one I tested, the thing I tested for CarPlay

00:18:01 ◼   ► is what's called the double-din head unit. Head unit, it's a radio that you stick in

00:18:06 ◼   ► in a car, double din is it's like a,

00:18:09 ◼   ► if you do servers, you know about like a one U server

00:18:12 ◼   ► or a two U server in Iraq, it's describing the height.

00:18:16 ◼   ► Double din is essentially a two U server for a car stereo.

00:18:21 ◼   ► So like my car has a double din space in it

00:18:24 ◼   ► and I have a single din Sony head unit in it

00:18:28 ◼   ► and so I've got like a little drawer below it

00:18:32 ◼   ► that's just there to fill the space.

00:18:34 ◼   ► So that's what he means.

00:18:35 ◼   ► - So basically having two stacked on top of each other.

00:18:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, so which is what the one that I,

00:18:40 ◼   ► the CarPlay thing that I use is that size.

00:18:42 ◼   ► It's the screen to, for the screen to be big enough,

00:18:45 ◼   ► you have to have the two slots worth.

00:18:48 ◼   ► And I think most cars do.

00:18:50 ◼   ► It's the equivalent of, yeah, it's too high

00:18:51 ◼   ► instead of one high in the stack.

00:18:53 ◼   ► So if you had a car that only had a singled in space,

00:18:56 ◼   ► you couldn't put one of these CarPlay units in it

00:18:58 ◼   ► because they wouldn't fit.

00:18:59 ◼   ► And my answer to that is no,

00:19:02 ◼   ► I don't think Apple should build,

00:19:04 ◼   ► should get in this business

00:19:06 ◼   ► because I don't think that's the problem.

00:19:08 ◼   ► I went back and forth with a couple of people on Twitter.

00:19:10 ◼   ► There was a guy who seemed to want to throw

00:19:14 ◼   ► the head unit manufacturers under the bus

00:19:17 ◼   ► for bad CarPlay performance and said,

00:19:19 ◼   ► "Well, you know, it's their touchscreen

00:19:20 ◼   ► and their unit itself is running

00:19:24 ◼   ► some crappy version of Android."

00:19:25 ◼   ► And that's all true,

00:19:26 ◼   ► but most of the problems I found with CarPlay are not the,

00:19:30 ◼   ► I was giving a pass to the bad touchscreen and the laggy touchscreen scrolling because

00:19:36 ◼   ► I figured that's probably the head unit's fault.

00:19:38 ◼   ► But everything else, all the apps quitting, the head unit has nothing to do with the apps

00:19:42 ◼   ► quitting.

00:19:43 ◼   ► Bad things are happening on the iPhone, and that's Apple's problem.

00:19:46 ◼   ► So I think Apple needs to focus on getting the CarPlay software right.

00:19:49 ◼   ► And honestly, maybe Apple needs to do a better job of validating these devices that are going

00:19:54 ◼   ► to be playing their stuff.

00:19:56 ◼   ► And if there is a problem with these head units,

00:19:58 ◼   ► that they shouldn't, you know, they shouldn't approve them.

00:20:00 ◼   ► They should say, no, this is not a CarPlay device.

00:20:03 ◼   ► It's not good enough.

00:20:05 ◼   ► But right now I think the problem is

00:20:06 ◼   ► that their software is not good enough.

00:20:08 ◼   ► And it doesn't even get to the point where there's,

00:20:09 ◼   ► they're getting hurt by the hardware.

00:20:11 ◼   ► It would be a nice problem to have

00:20:13 ◼   ► if the software was solid, rock solid.

00:20:17 ◼   ► And the problem you had is buying the right, you know,

00:20:20 ◼   ► the right touch screen to put in your car

00:20:22 ◼   ► because you want one that's fast and responsive

00:20:24 ◼   ► 'cause that's gonna be the thing that holds you back.

00:20:26 ◼   ► and they're just not there yet.

00:20:27 ◼   ► I got an email that I didn't,

00:20:31 ◼   ► actually I didn't put in the document,

00:20:32 ◼   ► but we got a really nice email about CarPlay

00:20:37 ◼   ► and somebody who went to the Detroit Auto Show,

00:20:39 ◼   ► this is listener Sam,

00:20:41 ◼   ► and got demos of Android Auto and CarPlay.

00:20:44 ◼   ► And the short version is that Android Auto

00:20:46 ◼   ► looks much more functional to him than CarPlay,

00:20:49 ◼   ► but the impression he got from the people in the business

00:20:54 ◼   ► is that there's not a lot of action right now

00:20:58 ◼   ► in Android Auto or CarPlay,

00:21:00 ◼   ► because neither of them is really good enough yet,

00:21:02 ◼   ► which is certainly how I walked away

00:21:04 ◼   ► from my time with CarPlay, was this is just not ready.

00:21:07 ◼   ► So anyway, Android Auto was interesting.

00:21:11 ◼   ► I'm not gonna buy an Android phone

00:21:13 ◼   ► and an Android Auto head unit and write that story,

00:21:16 ◼   ► but I am intrigued by it, having seen video of it.

00:21:19 ◼   ► I think Google is trying to do more,

00:21:22 ◼   ► and I understand Apple's,

00:21:24 ◼   ► I said this last week, reluctance to do more in the car because it's distracting.

00:21:30 ◼   ► But what they've got is sort of not enough yet.

00:21:32 ◼   ► But anyway, that email from listener Sam was really good and I do get that impression that

00:21:37 ◼   ► it's just not, none of this stuff is really fantastic.

00:21:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I do, just this feeling, I don't know where it is that like Google may have already

00:21:48 ◼   ► done more similar things like this before, so are coming out with more experience.

00:21:54 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:21:55 ◼   ► But that's how I kind of have felt about the fact

00:21:57 ◼   ► that Android Auto might be better because, you know,

00:21:59 ◼   ► they've done things like Google TV and when,

00:22:01 ◼   ► that like where those projects have not been

00:22:03 ◼   ► very successful, they kind of have done stuff like that.

00:22:06 ◼   ► And they're kind of used, more used to dealing with

00:22:09 ◼   ► devices they can't control.

00:22:10 ◼   ► But.

00:22:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:22:14 ◼   ► I see that and yet in the end,

00:22:18 ◼   ► you know, Apple did set the spec and say,

00:22:20 ◼   ► look, basically give us a touchscreen and we will fill it.

00:22:23 ◼   ► So they've got a lot of control over this.

00:22:25 ◼   ► And yeah, and it is what it is.

00:22:31 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:22:32 ◼   ► - I realized that I didn't put any of our email

00:22:38 ◼   ► that we got in the document.

00:22:39 ◼   ► I'm so focused on #askupgrade.

00:22:41 ◼   ► I'm gonna have to get better at that.

00:22:43 ◼   ► Listener Nick wrote in to say,

00:22:45 ◼   ► "I like it when you guys disagree on the show.

00:22:49 ◼   ► A lot of good debate spawns from that.

00:22:50 ◼   ► Keep up the good work."

00:22:51 ◼   ► Thank you, Listener Nick.

00:22:52 ◼   ► - I disagree, Nick.

00:22:53 ◼   ► - Would you like to thank Nick?

00:22:55 ◼   ► - No, Nick. - Thank him!

00:22:56 ◼   ► - You're wrong, okay?

00:22:58 ◼   ► This is terrible.

00:22:59 ◼   ► Never write in again.

00:23:00 ◼   ► - Well, sorry, Myke.

00:23:02 ◼   ► I just have to say you're totally wrong

00:23:05 ◼   ► and then Nick should totally write in again.

00:23:07 ◼   ► - Well, so are you.

00:23:08 ◼   ► - And scene.

00:23:09 ◼   ► There's a nice email we got from a listener, Joe,

00:23:16 ◼   ► who wanted to point out that he had actually,

00:23:19 ◼   ► another data point about Overcast,

00:23:20 ◼   ► He had never heard of Marco when he downloaded Overcast.

00:23:22 ◼   ► He thought he had heard the name.

00:23:24 ◼   ► He didn't really know anything about it.

00:23:26 ◼   ► He got frustrated with Apple's app.

00:23:30 ◼   ► He actually downloaded Overcast,

00:23:32 ◼   ► deleted it after trying it for a day or two,

00:23:34 ◼   ► but got frustrated with Apple's podcast app,

00:23:35 ◼   ► gave it another shot and said, now it's his go-to app.

00:23:38 ◼   ► And he downloaded it because of the great reviews

00:23:41 ◼   ► and bought it 'cause it was a great app.

00:23:43 ◼   ► So in terms of Marco marketing,

00:23:45 ◼   ► maybe he heard about it or maybe those reviews he saw

00:23:47 ◼   ► were because of Marco's notoriety,

00:23:49 ◼   ► but in the end he bought it just because.

00:23:52 ◼   ► He liked the app, which I think is good.

00:23:55 ◼   ► We got a nice email from a listener, Tom,

00:24:00 ◼   ► who I've actually met at Comic-Con.

00:24:02 ◼   ► He is a comic writer and artist,

00:24:06 ◼   ► and he wanted to say that Marco Marketing

00:24:08 ◼   ► reminded him of the comics industry.

00:24:10 ◼   ► He said, his book, which is called "Love and Capes,"

00:24:16 ◼   ► which I mentioned actually on our webcomics episode

00:24:18 ◼   ► the incomparable. He said it did okay, DC Comics would have cancelled it, but Tom isn't

00:24:23 ◼   ► paying for Office Space and Burbank. So what he needs to do to be a success is much less

00:24:28 ◼   ► than what somebody like DC Comics needs to do to be a success, which I really liked.

00:24:35 ◼   ► And then he also made a Princess Bride reference. Did you get this? Have you seen the Princess

00:24:38 ◼   ► Bride, Myke?

00:24:39 ◼   ► I'm not really sure what to say right now.

00:24:45 ◼   ► Well you have to tell the truth. We're in a zone of truth here.

00:24:48 ◼   ► - I haven't seen it.

00:24:49 ◼   ► - You've never seen "The Princess Bride."

00:24:50 ◼   ► Oh my God. - I've never seen

00:24:51 ◼   ► "The Princess Bride."

00:24:52 ◼   ► - Well, you should go see it

00:24:53 ◼   ► because it's a really funny movie.

00:24:53 ◼   ► - Myke hasn't seen it.

00:24:55 ◼   ► - So Myke, yeah.

00:24:57 ◼   ► Yeah, so you didn't understand

00:24:58 ◼   ► the Holocaust cloak reference at all then.

00:25:00 ◼   ► - Did not.

00:25:01 ◼   ► I Googled it 'cause I thought he was making a really horrible,

00:25:04 ◼   ► I thought he was saying something horrible to us.

00:25:06 ◼   ► - No, he was not.

00:25:07 ◼   ► What he says is, when I hear people say,

00:25:11 ◼   ► "Oh, but it's fine for Marco, but I couldn't do that."

00:25:14 ◼   ► What he says is,

00:25:15 ◼   ► I think people are often ignoring their own assets, like the Holocaust cloak.

00:25:20 ◼   ► There's a funny moment in The Princess Bride where they list the man in black says, "What

00:25:25 ◼   ► are our assets?"

00:25:26 ◼   ► And they list the assets.

00:25:28 ◼   ► And then he notices that there's a cloak.

00:25:30 ◼   ► And he said, "You didn't mention the Holocaust cloak!"

00:25:32 ◼   ► And that is the key to unlock the entire plan that's going to solve it.

00:25:35 ◼   ► It's a funny little moment.

00:25:37 ◼   ► And that's what Tom is saying.

00:25:38 ◼   ► I can do an entire book myself.

00:25:40 ◼   ► I don't have to hire anyone else.

00:25:41 ◼   ► I live in Ohio, so I can drive to most of my conventions.

00:25:44 ◼   ► in LA has to fly to almost all of theirs, they have to ship their own books. Marco has

00:25:48 ◼   ► a podcast and a lot of notoriety, but he also lives in New York and has a kid. Nothing's

00:25:52 ◼   ► even. You can either complain about what you don't have, or you can make the most out of

00:25:56 ◼   ► what you do. I thought that was really great. So thank you to Tom for that. And I think

00:26:04 ◼   ► that takes us to one last bit of follow-up, which is listener Robert, who, based on episode

00:26:11 ◼   ► 2018, he said, when we were talking about scripting things, he said, "Scripting is like

00:26:15 ◼   ► taking back roads when the highway is slow. It might take longer, but you're still glad

00:26:19 ◼   ► to be moving." I thought that was, that sounds about right. Sometimes it's just like, at

00:26:24 ◼   ► least I'm working on the problem now instead of just getting frustrated by it. It might

00:26:27 ◼   ► save me time, it might not, but at least I'm moving.

00:26:31 ◼   ► We should put that on like one of those motivational posters of a cat.

00:26:35 ◼   ► I think so. A cat sitting at a keyboard. It's scripting. It might take longer, but at least

00:26:44 ◼   ► you're glad to be moving.

00:26:46 ◼   ► I had one last piece of follow-out. I just wanted to very briefly mention, if you haven't

00:26:52 ◼   ► seen it already, we have a new show on Relay FM called Rocket. It's a sort of a tech, gaming,

00:26:58 ◼   ► pop culture focused show. It's hosted by Brianna Wu, Christina Warren, and Simone de Rochefort.

00:27:04 ◼   ► fantastic show just episode to go out today I am helping these lovely women

00:27:10 ◼   ► out with the editing at the moment so I get the pleasure of hearing the shows

00:27:14 ◼   ► and episode two is fantastic including a long discussion about Jem and the

00:27:20 ◼   ► Holograms which was a cartoon show and about the social... Also haven't seen that

00:27:27 ◼   ► Myke? Have you not seen Jem and the Holograms? I think I may have done when I was a kid actually

00:27:30 ◼   ► No, I do know Jim O'Holligrams. And there's a good discussion about its social and cultural

00:27:37 ◼   ► importance. It's very interesting. What I love about Rocket is the tangents that they

00:27:44 ◼   ► go down are nothing like the tangents on any other show I listen to. Like, they talk about

00:27:50 ◼   ► like, on episode one they had like a five minute tangent about the color of a handbag.

00:27:55 ◼   ► It's like, I don't listen to any other tech shows that talk about this. And that's why

00:27:59 ◼   ► I love Rocket and that's why you should listen to it because the more I listen to the show,

00:28:02 ◼   ► the more things that I'm finding myself learning about and it's very interesting because it's

00:28:09 ◼   ► similar topics but not the same discussion. So you should be checking it out.

00:28:13 ◼   ► So thanks to our friends at Relay FM for sponsoring our show with You Should Listen to Rocket.

00:28:18 ◼   ► They're nice guys, those Relay FM guys. Do we have an actual friend, Myke?

00:28:23 ◼   ► We do indeed. Our friends over at lynda.com back to support this week's episode of Upgrade.

00:28:28 ◼   ► Lynda.com is an easy and affordable way to help you learn something cool. With Lynda.com

00:28:33 ◼   ► you get access to a growing library of thousands of high quality fantastically produced videos.

00:28:40 ◼   ► These can be on software, on hardware, maybe you want to learn a little bit about Adobe

00:28:44 ◼   ► Photoshop, maybe you want to learn a bit about photography. Lynda, if you want it, Lynda's

00:28:49 ◼   ► got it because they have these fantastic courses and as I mentioned they're adding every single

00:28:55 ◼   ► They have over 3,000 currently and they're adding more all of the time.

00:28:59 ◼   ► Their courses are taught by people that know exactly what they're talking about.

00:29:02 ◼   ► They can help you look at things like, you know, I mentioned learning like software and

00:29:06 ◼   ► hardware but maybe you want to set some new financial goals, maybe you want to get better

00:29:09 ◼   ► at productivity, maybe you want to improve on your job skills this year.

00:29:13 ◼   ► Lynda.com has something for you.

00:29:15 ◼   ► You get access to view their tutorials of course on your laptop or your desktop PC or

00:29:19 ◼   ► Mac of course and you can view them on iOS, on Android because they have apps for those

00:29:24 ◼   ► platforms too.

00:29:25 ◼   ► Linda.com has highlighted some courses that I think you might enjoy as listeners of upgrade.

00:29:30 ◼   ► Like maybe you want to learn a bit about Swift.

00:29:33 ◼   ► You may be developing an iOS app or you've been working on a Mac app or an iOS app for

00:29:37 ◼   ► some time and you want to learn about how to port that over to Swift.

00:29:40 ◼   ► They've got courses there.

00:29:41 ◼   ► Maybe you want to get started in development and they have iOS app development training

00:29:44 ◼   ► right there so you can learn from start to finish how to build a great iOS app.

00:29:48 ◼   ► But let's say you've built the app or you've ported your app over to Swift and you want

00:29:51 ◼   ► to learn a little bit about how to market it.

00:29:54 ◼   ► They have great courses on things like marketing online as well.

00:29:56 ◼   ► They can help you with marketing plans but also on how to use tools to get the word out

00:30:00 ◼   ► there.

00:30:01 ◼   ► Like maybe you want to learn like how do I do Facebook ads?

00:30:04 ◼   ► How does that make any sense?

00:30:05 ◼   ► What about Twitter ads?

00:30:06 ◼   ► How do they make any sense?

00:30:07 ◼   ► They have courses on that stuff.

00:30:08 ◼   ► They have courses on everything.

00:30:10 ◼   ► Do something awesome for yourself and go and sign up right now for a free 10 day trial

00:30:14 ◼   ► at thelinda.com by visiting lynda.com/upgrade.

00:30:19 ◼   ► ahead I challenge you to learn something new and something awesome maybe

00:30:24 ◼   ► something blue thank you so much Linda calm for supporting this show and all

00:30:27 ◼   ► every layer fan did you just challenge me to a duel yes okay I owe you English

00:30:34 ◼   ► people do that sometimes I think yeah I can't help it dueling over I problem it

00:30:39 ◼   ► Linda at dawn I think is the right where topics now we're in the topics mm-hmm

00:30:48 ◼   ► Should we talk about styluses and pens? Myke, pens!

00:30:53 ◼   ► Yes, pens. Pens are a topic near and dear to my heart, which I'm sure we will mention,

00:30:58 ◼   ► or Jason will mock me for slightly, but we'll see how we go with that.

00:31:04 ◼   ► You wrote a great post. Something I've noticed about you recently.

00:31:08 ◼   ► Oh, geez.

00:31:10 ◼   ► You are writing posts after Clockwise about the things that you talk about on Clockwise.

00:31:16 ◼   ► I think it's really interesting. I don't know what you're saying, Myke.

00:31:21 ◼   ► What are you talking about? You're talking to interesting people and they spark off a

00:31:25 ◼   ► thought in you and you write really great posts. You should be connecting

00:31:28 ◼   ► these together, Jason. Embrace it. You know what John Syracuse always says,

00:31:34 ◼   ► is that podcasts are sort of like the first draft of something you're

00:31:38 ◼   ► writing, and he laments the fact that he then never writes the thing almost ever

00:31:42 ◼   ► that he's thought of, but I agree with that.

00:31:45 ◼   ► Sometimes we talk about things that I've already written

00:31:47 ◼   ► on this show, other times we're talking about things

00:31:49 ◼   ► that I'm working on or thinking about,

00:31:50 ◼   ► and it helps clarify my thought process,

00:31:52 ◼   ► and that's true on Clockwise as well.

00:31:54 ◼   ► Sometimes I'll be working on something

00:31:55 ◼   ► and I'll bring a topic in, and other times

00:31:57 ◼   ► it'll emerge from the conversation,

00:32:00 ◼   ► and with the case of the styluses,

00:32:02 ◼   ► it was a little bit of the latter, but yeah.

00:32:04 ◼   ► So that definitely happens that there's a creative process

00:32:10 ◼   ► involving talking about it and then writing about it or writing about it and then talking

00:32:14 ◼   ► about it. It definitely goes together.

00:32:16 ◼   ► I just think it's an interesting thing that I see. But I like it though because I listen

00:32:22 ◼   ► to the show and then read your site and then I can see the two things going hand in hand.

00:32:28 ◼   ► That's right. Well, my output is best observed as a whole. Listen to all the podcasts.

00:32:34 ◼   ► Listen and read everything I do.

00:32:35 ◼   ► everything I write and then it'll all make sense. It's a fabulous tapestry.

00:32:40 ◼   ► So the idea about this is that there are rumors abound and apparently they're

00:32:45 ◼   ► from reliable supply chain sources that there is going to be an iPad stylus of

00:32:52 ◼   ► some description. We don't really know much about it, like we don't know whether

00:32:58 ◼   ► it's gonna be, oh I don't know, attached to a specific type of iPad which is

00:33:05 ◼   ► larger or whatever it's going to work with all iPads in some way or they're going to

00:33:08 ◼   ► redo all of the iPad line to include styluses.

00:33:11 ◼   ► We don't know that kind of detail yet I don't think or at least we don't know it reliably.

00:33:15 ◼   ► But the idea is that there is going to be an iPad which has a stylus which can be used

00:33:20 ◼   ► upon it.

00:33:21 ◼   ► And of course there are significant changes that would need to happen to the iPad to make

00:33:24 ◼   ► it as reliable as say a Surface 3 with its stylus because there's a lot about pixel precision

00:33:31 ◼   ► or a different type of touchscreen, which would need to be thought about.

00:33:35 ◼   ► But so basically if we just presume, like we have with the MacBook Air stuff, we just

00:33:40 ◼   ► presume that all things are simple and it's all doable.

00:33:44 ◼   ► Jason, do you think that Apple would likely do this and why would they do it?

00:33:51 ◼   ► Likely is a strong word.

00:33:54 ◼   ► As I wrote in my post, I'm not a big fan of the stylus just because I'm not a big fan

00:33:59 ◼   ► of pens in general, sorry, Myke, I don't really like writing.

00:34:07 ◼   ► My signature has degraded over time, my handwriting ability has degraded over time, I type really

00:34:12 ◼   ► fast, I really prefer that.

00:34:14 ◼   ► If I had to choose between writing on a piece of paper and typing on an iPad or even maybe

00:34:20 ◼   ► typing on an iPhone, I would probably choose the device over the paper.

00:34:23 ◼   ► But that's because I have terrible handwriting and I don't like it.

00:34:27 ◼   ► so I'm not even motivated to make it good because I hate it.

00:34:30 ◼   ► For Apple, so I'm coming at this,

00:34:32 ◼   ► I mean, this is why I wrote,

00:34:33 ◼   ► my piece was called "Typed Thoughts About Styluses."

00:34:37 ◼   ► It's like I'm not even writing, just I type things.

00:34:41 ◼   ► I think Apple might do it, two reasons.

00:34:44 ◼   ► One is the classic Apple reason,

00:34:46 ◼   ► which is other people are out there

00:34:48 ◼   ► making money off of this.

00:34:49 ◼   ► Maybe we could do it.

00:34:50 ◼   ► And because we control the platform

00:34:51 ◼   ► and the hardware and the software,

00:34:54 ◼   ► what we could do, we have access to the system

00:34:56 ◼   ► at a level that no one else's pen has.

00:34:59 ◼   ► So there is that, which is they might say,

00:35:02 ◼   ► you know, all these pens are,

00:35:04 ◼   ► it turns out people want them.

00:35:05 ◼   ► Some people want them

00:35:06 ◼   ► 'cause there are all these styluses out there now,

00:35:07 ◼   ► but they're really not that good

00:35:09 ◼   ► because they're not integrated at a lower level.

00:35:12 ◼   ► And why is that Apple?

00:35:13 ◼   ► It's because Apple hasn't bothered to do that.

00:35:15 ◼   ► But still you could use that as an argument and say,

00:35:17 ◼   ► but now there's the Apple pen and, you know, Apple stylus,

00:35:21 ◼   ► and it is magical 'cause it's got all this hardware

00:35:23 ◼   ► and software and la, la, la.

00:35:25 ◼   ► That makes sense to me.

00:35:26 ◼   ► Apple has done that in the past.

00:35:27 ◼   ► I always ascribe that to Steve Jobs.

00:35:30 ◼   ► That always felt like one of Steve Jobs' strategies

00:35:32 ◼   ► was find where people are making money off of your products

00:35:35 ◼   ► and trump them if you can,

00:35:37 ◼   ► because you keep that money for yourself.

00:35:39 ◼   ► And he really did feel that way.

00:35:41 ◼   ► I think he was actually offended

00:35:42 ◼   ► that other people made money off of his great works

00:35:46 ◼   ► and felt that they were all just kind of parasites.

00:35:49 ◼   ► I mean, I know he felt that way about Macworld,

00:35:52 ◼   ► so I assume he felt that way about this Bose sound dock

00:35:55 ◼   ► when they did the Apple or the iPod Hi-Fi

00:35:58 ◼   ► and et cetera, et cetera.

00:35:59 ◼   ► So I think that's one reason.

00:36:01 ◼   ► I think the other reason is that they legitimately think

00:36:03 ◼   ► that there are some markets out there

00:36:05 ◼   ► that could really use a pen that they've heard from,

00:36:07 ◼   ► I don't know where, from hospitals, from the enterprise,

00:36:10 ◼   ► from IBM talking to their enterprise customers,

00:36:12 ◼   ► from artists, right?

00:36:14 ◼   ► Whether it's directly or whether they've looked

00:36:16 ◼   ► at the competition and seen that like Surface

00:36:18 ◼   ► has a much better story when it comes to this stuff.

00:36:21 ◼   ► I think it's more likely that it's stuff like that

00:36:24 ◼   ► then that it's, oh, the Galaxy Note has a pen

00:36:29 ◼   ► and we're envious of that.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Although it is possible that their customers

00:36:32 ◼   ► for the iPhone 6 Plus in Asia have said,

00:36:35 ◼   ► we would really like it if we had a stylus.

00:36:38 ◼   ► I suppose that's possible.

00:36:39 ◼   ► I think that wouldn't, that sounds weird to me,

00:36:42 ◼   ► but that's a market that's very different

00:36:44 ◼   ► and the usage is very different there.

00:36:46 ◼   ► So, you know, Serenity Caldwell, who I used to work with,

00:36:48 ◼   ► she's now at iMore, she likes to draw, she's an artist.

00:36:52 ◼   ► She tested every stylus that ever was released

00:36:56 ◼   ► and continues to use them.

00:36:58 ◼   ► She wrote a nice piece on iMore about this too.

00:37:00 ◼   ► And for somebody like Serenity,

00:37:02 ◼   ► the potential there is really great

00:37:03 ◼   ► because right now all the pen stuff is sort of like,

00:37:06 ◼   ► the pen makers have to write their own software package

00:37:10 ◼   ► and get apps to support it.

00:37:13 ◼   ► It's all kind of backward

00:37:14 ◼   ► where it's a pressure sensitive pen

00:37:17 ◼   ► because the tablet screen itself is not pressure sensitive.

00:37:21 ◼   ► so they have to make the pens pressure sensitive

00:37:23 ◼   ► in Bluetooth and then relay that.

00:37:26 ◼   ► The level of detail in the digitizer is made for fingertips

00:37:31 ◼   ► and not really tiny pen sizes.

00:37:35 ◼   ► And so that's a place where even if you've got

00:37:38 ◼   ► a really nice pen, there's a limit to what you can do

00:37:40 ◼   ► because of the digitizer.

00:37:42 ◼   ► So there's, you know, the fact is, the iPad especially

00:37:45 ◼   ► has been poor at pen support since the beginning.

00:37:50 ◼   ► and Apple has made no efforts to make it better.

00:37:52 ◼   ► So I'm not quite sure what is the motivator here,

00:37:57 ◼   ► but it may be if this report is true

00:37:59 ◼   ► that something has tripped somebody at Apple,

00:38:02 ◼   ► whether it's the existence of a bigger iPad,

00:38:04 ◼   ► or it's looking at competitors,

00:38:06 ◼   ► or it's hearing from customers and set,

00:38:07 ◼   ► and made them say, "Oh, okay, well, we can do that."

00:38:11 ◼   ► And when we do that, it'll be better than all the rest

00:38:14 ◼   ► because it'll be integrated with what we're doing

00:38:17 ◼   ► because we control the hardware and the software.

00:38:19 ◼   ► It's very Apple.

00:38:20 ◼   ► - So the way that I look at it,

00:38:22 ◼   ► and you kind of spoke about this a bit,

00:38:24 ◼   ► but it seems like quite a simple thing to me,

00:38:27 ◼   ► with if you are looking at creating an iPad

00:38:29 ◼   ► or advancing the iPad and you want to have people

00:38:32 ◼   ► work on it, you want to have people use them

00:38:34 ◼   ► in professional environments,

00:38:36 ◼   ► everything that you can tell them that it has

00:38:39 ◼   ► is another good thing that it does.

00:38:41 ◼   ► So even if you think that somebody won't use,

00:38:44 ◼   ► like a doctor won't actually use Onita stylus,

00:38:47 ◼   ► if you have one and it's good and you tell them

00:38:49 ◼   ► that it's there, they're more likely to buy it

00:38:51 ◼   ► than they're gonna buy the competition.

00:38:53 ◼   ► Every feature that people think that they need,

00:38:57 ◼   ► whether they need it or not, if they think they need it,

00:38:59 ◼   ► and then Microsoft's doing it,

00:39:01 ◼   ► that's a potential sale that you lose to Microsoft.

00:39:04 ◼   ► And if that sale is that you've lost that

00:39:06 ◼   ► to the CTO of a large company,

00:39:09 ◼   ► well then you're out of luck, boy.

00:39:11 ◼   ► You know, that's kind of it, you're done then.

00:39:12 ◼   ► You've missed that.

00:39:13 ◼   ► And if Apple really wanna make the iPad

00:39:16 ◼   ► the future of computing, which I'm sure that they do,

00:39:19 ◼   ► I'm sure that's what they want,

00:39:20 ◼   ► 'cause they're the leader in this space.

00:39:23 ◼   ► If they can continue that,

00:39:24 ◼   ► they are now Microsoft of the 90s.

00:39:26 ◼   ► And I'm sure that there's an element of wanting

00:39:29 ◼   ► to be the complete dominant force

00:39:32 ◼   ► in the future of computing.

00:39:34 ◼   ► Why would they not wanna do that?

00:39:35 ◼   ► That's kind of why they exist to a point.

00:39:39 ◼   ► Is that wrong to say?

00:39:39 ◼   ► Like they want, like they're a big company,

00:39:41 ◼   ► they want to be the best, right?

00:39:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that's true.

00:39:46 ◼   ► The question is, when is it worth it?

00:39:49 ◼   ► So I'm sure that if anybody at Apple has talked to,

00:39:52 ◼   ► and I'm sure they have, has talked to artists,

00:39:55 ◼   ► has gone to Comic-Con and talked to people

00:39:56 ◼   ► who do art on iPads, they've heard these stories, right?

00:40:01 ◼   ► They've heard, if they read the Penny Arcade piece

00:40:05 ◼   ► that I linked to in my piece about how the guy

00:40:08 ◼   ► from Penny Arcade uses Surface,

00:40:11 ◼   ► and he was really frustrated with the Surface 3

00:40:13 ◼   ► because the Surface Pro 2 had a better digitizer

00:40:16 ◼   ► than the 3 and the 3 had some software problems.

00:40:19 ◼   ► But in the end, he loved that

00:40:20 ◼   ► because he could use Photoshop,

00:40:22 ◼   ► which is what he worked in anyway.

00:40:23 ◼   ► And he had this Wacom quality digitizer with pen support.

00:40:28 ◼   ► And so for him, the Surface Pro

00:40:30 ◼   ► was the perfect product to draw on.

00:40:33 ◼   ► And if I'm Apple, you know, and I'm in charge of the iPad,

00:40:37 ◼   ► or I'm in charge of reaching a certain market like that,

00:40:42 ◼   ► then yeah, that really bugs me,

00:40:44 ◼   ► the fact that all these artists are saying,

00:40:46 ◼   ► "Nope, can't use the iPad, it's not good enough."

00:40:49 ◼   ► We try, we use it because we think it's cool,

00:40:51 ◼   ► but in the end it's just so frustrating

00:40:53 ◼   ► and there are better options.

00:40:55 ◼   ► They probably know all of that

00:40:57 ◼   ► and they've known that for years.

00:40:59 ◼   ► The question is, again,

00:41:01 ◼   ► when is it worth it to do something about it?

00:41:03 ◼   ► And maybe the answer is the existence

00:41:04 ◼   ► of something like the iPad Pro,

00:41:06 ◼   ► which they wanna sell and they think that artists

00:41:08 ◼   ► are a potential big target market for that product.

00:41:12 ◼   ► And it's like the iPhone 6 Plus,

00:41:14 ◼   ► it doesn't need to be the definitive iPad,

00:41:17 ◼   ► it's a side iPad for a specific kind of smaller user base.

00:41:22 ◼   ► And maybe that's one of the real use cases is,

00:41:24 ◼   ► oh, okay, here's one way to differentiate the iPad Pro,

00:41:27 ◼   ► is or plus or whatever it is, is the pen stuff,

00:41:31 ◼   ► and a really great digitizer.

00:41:32 ◼   ► And maybe that's the thing that finally gets them to move

00:41:34 ◼   ► and say, okay, fine, we'll support artists now,

00:41:37 ◼   ► even though they knew it all along.

00:41:38 ◼   ► 'Cause again, do you ship a better digitizer

00:41:42 ◼   ► in every single iPad when one in 50 people

00:41:47 ◼   ► would take advantage of it?

00:41:48 ◼   ► This is like the battery discussion, right?

00:41:50 ◼   ► When is it enough to build that into every single model

00:41:54 ◼   ► because some small group wants it?

00:41:57 ◼   ► - So I think the answer of that is,

00:42:00 ◼   ► like for me is like it's twofold.

00:42:03 ◼   ► Is it easy to do?

00:42:05 ◼   ► I don't know, maybe.

00:42:06 ◼   ► Maybe with the current technology,

00:42:07 ◼   ► like it's not that much more difficult. And the other point is will you get some

00:42:12 ◼   ► other functionality because of it that you can use now or down the line? Like

00:42:17 ◼   ► will increasing the digitizer in the iPad allow you to do something else? And

00:42:21 ◼   ► if the answer is yes then it might be an easier thing to say

00:42:24 ◼   ► here's your stylus. Like I've been thinking recently about Siri quite a bit

00:42:29 ◼   ► and trying to think about like when Siri started we had it on the phone and now

00:42:35 ◼   ► as we're moving down this this road we're seeing it pop up in places so Siri

00:42:40 ◼   ► is gonna be one of the ways probably the main way that you interact with the

00:42:44 ◼   ► Apple Watch right if you want to give it any sort of input Siri is gonna be the

00:42:48 ◼   ► way that you do that so like I was thinking to myself oh well well did they

00:42:53 ◼   ► create Siri knowing that we would use it in this way in the future and they

00:42:57 ◼   ► needed it to get better or they needed us to get used to it I mean who knows

00:43:00 ◼   ► maybe so it makes me think like with something like this is there another

00:43:04 ◼   ► reason that you may give all that you need to give for stylus support because

00:43:11 ◼   ► later it enables you to do something else.

00:43:13 ◼   ► Hmm. I don't know.

00:43:16 ◼   ► There's one thing I wanted to bring up about this because obviously the joke, if you don't know,

00:43:20 ◼   ► the joke why this is funny on this show is because I am the host of a show on

00:43:23 ◼   ► Relay FM called The Pen Addict. I've been doing this show for years it's...

00:43:27 ◼   ► You haven't kicked all those years and you haven't kicked your addiction, Myke.

00:43:30 ◼   ► Never. So we've been doing the show for like three years. Basically every network

00:43:36 ◼   ► I've been a part of the pen addicts has just come along for the journey. And the

00:43:42 ◼   ► thing is just because I love, because I love pens, I love pens, I love, I love

00:43:47 ◼   ► using pens, I love using pens on paper and I like to take notes. I take

00:43:51 ◼   ► notes on pen and paper when we're recording the shows, that kind of thing.

00:43:55 ◼   ► But just because I, yes thank you, he's clicking, clicking, just because I like

00:44:00 ◼   ► pens doesn't mean that I would like a stylus because everything I like about

00:44:05 ◼   ► pens has nothing to do with writing, with producing written something. So it's

00:44:16 ◼   ► not that at the end of the day I have something that's got my handwriting on

00:44:19 ◼   ► it. It's the feeling of the pen, it's the design of the pen, it's the ink that goes

00:44:23 ◼   ► in the pen, it's the way the pen feels in the paper, the weight of the pen.

00:44:29 ◼   ► there are just all of these other things all of the design things all of the

00:44:32 ◼   ► choices that you make all of the choices that you make to find a pen that

00:44:35 ◼   ► represents you in a certain way and all of that is 100% not there with a stylus

00:44:39 ◼   ► because ultimately what you're doing is writing with a specific point on glass

00:44:45 ◼   ► like there's nothing all of the nice stuff is not there for me right but

00:44:51 ◼   ► there's not a little bit like saying I like I like to read paper books because

00:44:56 ◼   ► oh, the feel of the paper and the smell of the paper. 100% 100% what it is.

00:45:01 ◼   ► It's experiential and and in the end digital technology may take all needs

00:45:05 ◼   ► for holding an implement and creating content to be digital but the point is

00:45:11 ◼   ► that you're not a fan of pen input you're a fan of the experience of

00:45:16 ◼   ► writing with a pen which is not the same. Yeah, exactly. It's like you're a fan of

00:45:21 ◼   ► of typewriters. You would be, you know, I like a typewriter. Yeah, I can type on a

00:45:26 ◼   ► computer, but I'm a fan of a typewriter because I like to have it be all

00:45:29 ◼   ► clackety-clacky and all, you know, and that would be about the

00:45:32 ◼   ► experience, not about the output, which I get it. I get it.

00:45:39 ◼   ► Yeah, just because you like typewriters doesn't mean you're gonna like Tom Hanks's

00:45:43 ◼   ► typewriter app.

00:45:44 ◼   ► Right, oh yeah, he'd probably hate it, actually.

00:45:46 ◼   ► Yeah, it's probably the worst possible thing you can imagine.

00:45:49 ◼   ► - Right, well, it'll be, I had a back and forth with a guy

00:45:53 ◼   ► who is a little bit feisty on Twitter about pen stuff.

00:45:56 ◼   ► And he said he is a, in higher ed and said that

00:46:01 ◼   ► basically iPads are totally not acceptable for note-taking

00:46:08 ◼   ► and that the surface is.

00:46:10 ◼   ► And he was talking about using pen input to do like

00:46:13 ◼   ► essentially your lecture notes.

00:46:16 ◼   ► And I just don't believe that's,

00:46:18 ◼   ► I don't, maybe I am being an old fogey here,

00:46:22 ◼   ► but I don't, and I also hate pens and I hate paper.

00:46:26 ◼   ► I don't think that using a tablet computer

00:46:32 ◼   ► to write down notes as if it was a piece of paper

00:46:35 ◼   ► is a good use of anybody's time.

00:46:39 ◼   ► - I disagree with you.

00:46:40 ◼   ► - I can get it, oh, all right, disagreement, yeah.

00:46:45 ◼   ► I see that and I think it seems really impractical.

00:46:48 ◼   ► Like unless you are adding something to it,

00:46:51 ◼   ► I can see the value of like,

00:46:52 ◼   ► if it's recording the lecture while you're writing

00:46:54 ◼   ► and you can point at the thing you wrote

00:46:56 ◼   ► and play back the sound that was in the room

00:46:59 ◼   ► when you wrote it so you can confirm your notes

00:47:01 ◼   ► and all of that.

00:47:02 ◼   ► But I just, at some point I feel like

00:47:03 ◼   ► you're just replicating paper on this device

00:47:06 ◼   ► and that's not good enough.

00:47:07 ◼   ► You should, there should be better experiences than that.

00:47:10 ◼   ► You should not, note taking on a tablet

00:47:14 ◼   ► should not be digital paper with digital ink.

00:47:17 ◼   ► It should be something else because if it's just

00:47:20 ◼   ► digital paper and digital ink,

00:47:22 ◼   ► just get a notepad and a pen, please, right?

00:47:25 ◼   ► You need to do something more than that.

00:47:26 ◼   ► And I worry that some of the stylist stuff,

00:47:28 ◼   ► I mean, that's always in the early days

00:47:30 ◼   ► of the tablet computers,

00:47:31 ◼   ► that's exactly what Microsoft always talked about

00:47:33 ◼   ► was that sort of approach.

00:47:34 ◼   ► And it's dumb.

00:47:36 ◼   ► You need to add to the experience

00:47:38 ◼   ► and I'm not a long handwriting person.

00:47:42 ◼   ► So I would be happy to have an iPad in my lap

00:47:45 ◼   ► in the classroom or a keyboard and taking notes that way.

00:47:48 ◼   ► But I can understand that some other people

00:47:49 ◼   ► might prefer to do it a different way.

00:47:51 ◼   ► - So with that, handwriting allows for

00:47:55 ◼   ► a more freeform style of note-taking.

00:47:58 ◼   ► And there are certain people, myself included,

00:48:00 ◼   ► who think better in this way.

00:48:02 ◼   ► Rather than just taking notes in a bullet point

00:48:04 ◼   ► list of what's happening, you can draw things

00:48:07 ◼   ► and you can draw bubbles and you can highlight

00:48:09 ◼   ► and you can scribble around this part

00:48:10 ◼   ► draw a little key animation. So you've got little keys so you remember what part's here.

00:48:14 ◼   ► So there are definite benefits that if you think that way, that handwriting notes can

00:48:20 ◼   ► make sense. I understand to a point where you're saying there has to be something more,

00:48:24 ◼   ► but sometimes just the pure idea of I can take notes in the way that I want and I won't

00:48:30 ◼   ► ever lose them because they're backed up to the cloud is enough. Because at the moment

00:48:34 ◼   ► you've got a paper notebook which is destructible by a zillion different ways.

00:48:40 ◼   ► And even though of course a tablet is destructible, if it's connected to the internet, your notes

00:48:44 ◼   ► are safe forever.

00:48:45 ◼   ► They are then, like you can use ICR scanning on them for searching, you can use something

00:48:49 ◼   ► like Evernote.

00:48:50 ◼   ► Nope.

00:48:51 ◼   ► You've got to have really good handwriting for that.

00:48:53 ◼   ► Yeah, of course.

00:48:55 ◼   ► I don't know, it depends how, I don't know how good the OCR software needs to be to get

00:49:00 ◼   ► different people.

00:49:01 ◼   ► But then there are more things that you could do, like for example, then if they're digital,

00:49:05 ◼   ► you can move them around and reorganize them and stuff like that.

00:49:07 ◼   ► So there are basics for why it's good, but I agree with you that it can't—I don't think

00:49:13 ◼   ► it's compelling enough for most people to just say, "That's that," you know?

00:49:19 ◼   ► "Oh, that's all you're gonna—that's all it's gonna be."

00:49:21 ◼   ► It's just you can take paper notes but on a glass screen instead.

00:49:25 ◼   ► No, I can see that.

00:49:27 ◼   ► I mean, when I take notes, I don't take it in a—on paper.

00:49:31 ◼   ► When I was in college, I didn't take it in a really super linear way or, like, with an

00:49:36 ◼   ► outliner.

00:49:37 ◼   ► I would write down key phrases and circle them and draw arrows and sorts of things like that.

00:49:41 ◼   ► But I would never recommend anybody do my style of note-taking in college because it was

00:49:48 ◼   ► indecipherable. Even if you could read my terrible handwriting, it wouldn't make any sense because

00:49:54 ◼   ► I was just not, I think, I was not a big picture notetaker, not a detailed notetaker most of the

00:50:01 ◼   ► time. But I can see that. It's interesting. I just, yeah, I have some

00:50:06 ◼   ► skepticism that when somebody says, "Oh, well, in higher ed, what students

00:50:11 ◼   ► really want is the ability to sit there with a tablet and a pen and take

00:50:17 ◼   ► notes." I'm gonna profess some skepticism to that. I'm not sure that that

00:50:21 ◼   ► just, it feels a little one-to-one from the old tech to the new tech to me. And

00:50:25 ◼   ► maybe the answer is no, no, it's not. It's recognizing your handwriting as

00:50:29 ◼   ► you write it and that's being indexed as searchable text

00:50:32 ◼   ► and all these other fantastic things are happening.

00:50:36 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe, and maybe it's just that I look at that

00:50:39 ◼   ► and think I just bring a 11 inch error and type instead,

00:50:43 ◼   ► but we'll see.

00:50:45 ◼   ► It'll be interesting to see what the story is

00:50:47 ◼   ► if Apple really does go down the stylus route.

00:50:50 ◼   ► Thanks for disagreeing with me.

00:50:52 ◼   ► - Anytime.

00:50:53 ◼   ► - Mr. Pen Addict.

00:50:54 ◼   ► - Quite literally at any time.

00:50:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I hope you, you got ink in your veins.

00:50:58 ◼   ► That's dangerous, you should have somebody look at that.

00:51:01 ◼   ► You know you're an addict when you do a Kickstarter

00:51:05 ◼   ► to talk about pens.

00:51:07 ◼   ► - Yes, that's--

00:51:09 ◼   ► - Which you did.

00:51:10 ◼   ► Put that link in the show notes.

00:51:11 ◼   ► - I will.

00:51:12 ◼   ► - 'Cause congratulations, Myke, you are headed to Atlanta.

00:51:16 ◼   ► - It seems like it.

00:51:18 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:51:20 ◼   ► - Basically, my co-host and I, Brad,

00:51:23 ◼   ► we have never met in person,

00:51:24 ◼   ► and there is a pen show in Atlanta, which is a trade show,

00:51:27 ◼   ► So we're looking to get together and record a show in person

00:51:29 ◼   ► as I'm going to be at the Atlanta Pen Show.

00:51:31 ◼   ► - I was thinking it would be like,

00:51:33 ◼   ► was more like a gladiatorial duel kind of show

00:51:36 ◼   ► where like two pens enter, one pen leaves.

00:51:38 ◼   ► There's just like pools of ink everywhere.

00:51:41 ◼   ► But it's actually just a trade show.

00:51:42 ◼   ► - So that's a trade show.

00:51:43 ◼   ► - All right.

00:51:44 ◼   ► That's less exciting, but fine.

00:51:46 ◼   ► Should we talk about some more friends?

00:51:50 ◼   ► - Please, Jason, we have a new friend today.

00:51:52 ◼   ► - A new friend?

00:51:53 ◼   ► - A new friend.

00:51:54 ◼   ► - All right, let me tell you about our new friend.

00:51:56 ◼   ► It's Casper.

00:51:56 ◼   ► I've talked about them before on other podcasts,

00:51:58 ◼   ► but it's nice to talk about Casper here.

00:52:01 ◼   ► Casper, you may have heard of them.

00:52:02 ◼   ► Casper's an online retailer of premium mattresses

00:52:05 ◼   ► for a fraction of the price

00:52:06 ◼   ► of where you could get a premium mattress elsewhere.

00:52:10 ◼   ► These are some tech people who figured

00:52:13 ◼   ► that they could do a better job making a mattress

00:52:16 ◼   ► and selling it to you on the internet,

00:52:19 ◼   ► shrink wrapping it and sending it to you in a box,

00:52:22 ◼   ► and then you open it up and it just kind of expands,

00:52:24 ◼   ► open it in the room that you're gonna use it

00:52:26 ◼   ► because it expands to fill the space.

00:52:28 ◼   ► I tried this, the box came to my house,

00:52:30 ◼   ► we brought it into the bedroom, opened it up.

00:52:32 ◼   ► And for the last couple of months,

00:52:34 ◼   ► I've been sleeping on a Casper mattress.

00:52:36 ◼   ► It's got two different technologies.

00:52:38 ◼   ► It's got latex foam and memory foam.

00:52:40 ◼   ► Casper likes to say, "It's just the right sink

00:52:42 ◼   ► and just the right bounce."

00:52:43 ◼   ► I found sitting on the Casper mattress,

00:52:46 ◼   ► I had this moment where I realized

00:52:47 ◼   ► that the mattress we had before was kind of bouncy.

00:52:49 ◼   ► It was like a trampoline kind of thing

00:52:51 ◼   ► where like the cat would be sitting on the bed

00:52:53 ◼   ► and you'd sit down and the cat would jump off

00:52:55 ◼   ► because it would be, and now it's not like that.

00:52:57 ◼   ► It's a really comfortable mattress.

00:53:00 ◼   ► I was worried that the foam stuff was gonna be weird.

00:53:02 ◼   ► It's not, it's super comfortable.

00:53:04 ◼   ► Really, yeah, really, they say for better nights

00:53:07 ◼   ► and brighter days, I gotta say,

00:53:09 ◼   ► it is a really comfortable mattress.

00:53:11 ◼   ► What's great about it too, if you're weirded out

00:53:14 ◼   ► by the idea of trying a mattress,

00:53:15 ◼   ► is they have a risk-free trial.

00:53:17 ◼   ► So you don't have this fear that if you don't like it,

00:53:19 ◼   ► you're stuck with it for who knows how long, regardless,

00:53:22 ◼   ► which is usually what it's like with regular mattresses.

00:53:24 ◼   ► You can sleep on a Casper for 100 days,

00:53:27 ◼   ► free delivery and painless returns.

00:53:29 ◼   ► So if you don't like it, you can send it back.

00:53:31 ◼   ► The mattresses are made in America

00:53:33 ◼   ► and the prices compared to industry averages are outstanding.

00:53:37 ◼   ► It's 500 for a twin up to 950 for a king.

00:53:41 ◼   ► So, you know, I think it's worth checking it out.

00:53:44 ◼   ► You can buy it on the internet.

00:53:45 ◼   ► I know a lot of our listeners enjoy buying things

00:53:47 ◼   ► on the internet and not venturing out

00:53:48 ◼   ► and dealing with people in stores,

00:53:50 ◼   ► especially mattress stores, they are the worst.

00:53:53 ◼   ► So here's what you need to do.

00:53:55 ◼   ► You can get $50 toward any mattress purchase.

00:53:58 ◼   ► What you need to do is go to casper.com.

00:54:00 ◼   ► If you like www, you can stick that in there too,

00:54:03 ◼   ► .casper.com/upgrade and use promo code upgrade

00:54:08 ◼   ► to get the $50 discount.

00:54:11 ◼   ► You should definitely check it out.

00:54:12 ◼   ► 100 day free trial so you can return it if you need to,

00:54:17 ◼   ► risk free.

00:54:18 ◼   ► And you may really like it because I really like it

00:54:21 ◼   ► and I'm glad that we have a Casper mattress.

00:54:23 ◼   ► So thank you to our friends at Casper.

00:54:25 ◼   ► They helped me sleep soundly at night

00:54:27 ◼   ► with their neat mattress that I now have.

00:54:31 ◼   ► But open it in the room that you're, seriously,

00:54:33 ◼   ► 'cause it's super shrink wrapped into a little thing

00:54:36 ◼   ► and then when you open it up, it just kind of comes out

00:54:39 ◼   ► and goes to full size.

00:54:41 ◼   ► Thanks, Casper.

00:54:41 ◼   ► - It seems like a different kind of magic that does.

00:54:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I bought a beanbag chair the other month

00:54:49 ◼   ► and it was the same thing.

00:54:50 ◼   ► came in this tiny box I'm like really they said this would be a big being

00:54:53 ◼   ► married chair and then you open up the the the super vacuum wrap and it's just

00:54:57 ◼   ► like oh my god it's gonna take over the whole house but it's pretty that's

00:55:01 ◼   ► that's shipping magic because they they compacted as much as they can until it

00:55:05 ◼   ► gets to the destination. So there you go $50 off use the code upgrade thank you

00:55:11 ◼   ► so much. Thanks Kasper. I spent a lot of time this weekend with

00:55:20 ◼   ► with video tapes, Myke.

00:55:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:55:24 ◼   ► - Welcome to the 1990s cast.

00:55:26 ◼   ► - 19, well, some of these tapes were from the 80s.

00:55:30 ◼   ► - Wow.

00:55:31 ◼   ► - I know, I know.

00:55:33 ◼   ► - I heard about those 80s, you know.

00:55:34 ◼   ► - They were a scene, man, they were crazy.

00:55:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I have had for a long time,

00:55:43 ◼   ► I saved a VCR, I saved my old camcorder,

00:55:47 ◼   ► which I can use to do an analog to digital conversion

00:55:50 ◼   ► that's got a firewire port on it.

00:55:52 ◼   ► And I saved a bunch of these old videotapes

00:55:56 ◼   ► that I had never converted to digital.

00:55:58 ◼   ► And so I just wrote this up on six colors.

00:56:00 ◼   ► I decided they were all sitting like nearby

00:56:04 ◼   ► and a couple of them I had brought out

00:56:05 ◼   ► for some other project and I looked and thought,

00:56:08 ◼   ► huh, maybe I should give that a try now,

00:56:10 ◼   ► see if I can get that working.

00:56:11 ◼   ► That was hilarious because I had to get the input

00:56:16 ◼   ► into my computer, I had to find,

00:56:18 ◼   ► which I still had the iLINK to FireWire 400 cable.

00:56:23 ◼   ► iLINK was like mini FireWire 400.

00:56:26 ◼   ► Sony used it on their camcorders.

00:56:28 ◼   ► So you had to get a special cable,

00:56:29 ◼   ► 'cause it was FireWire, but it was a weird port,

00:56:32 ◼   ► little port.

00:56:33 ◼   ► So I had to get that.

00:56:35 ◼   ► Okay, so now I've got iLINK in the camera

00:56:37 ◼   ► and I've got a FireWire 400 cable on the other end.

00:56:40 ◼   ► So then I need to find my FireWire 400 to 800 converter,

00:56:46 ◼   ► which I found.

00:56:47 ◼   ► Then it's time for the Thunderbolts

00:56:50 ◼   ► to Firewire 800 converter.

00:56:52 ◼   ► And then you plug that into the computer

00:56:56 ◼   ► and it actually worked.

00:56:57 ◼   ► I was able to get the output for my VCR to display

00:57:02 ◼   ► on iMovie and Final Cut, the current versions,

00:57:05 ◼   ► but they wouldn't record the video.

00:57:07 ◼   ► They seem to be thinking like I'm gonna download,

00:57:11 ◼   ► I don't know, a file from this camera.

00:57:13 ◼   ► And it didn't work.

00:57:15 ◼   ► - I don't know if they could think.

00:57:17 ◼   ► - They were-- - They were saying, "What?"

00:57:19 ◼   ► - Well, the thing is they saw the video,

00:57:21 ◼   ► so it was streaming through,

00:57:22 ◼   ► but there was no ability to record it.

00:57:24 ◼   ► So I downloaded, or actually I still have it on my system,

00:57:27 ◼   ► iMovie 9, and iMovie 9 would grab it in these DV file format

00:57:32 ◼   ► which is the most inefficient video file format ever.

00:57:35 ◼   ► They're these enormous files for standard definition video,

00:57:38 ◼   ► but it worked.

00:57:41 ◼   ► And so I found a tape that had an appearance

00:57:45 ◼   ► that I made on Call for Help,

00:57:47 ◼   ► the ZDTV show with Leo Laporte from 1999,

00:57:51 ◼   ► where I showed people how to do print preview

00:57:53 ◼   ► in the new version of Internet Explorer for Mac for OS 9.

00:57:57 ◼   ► Woo-hoo!

00:57:58 ◼   ► Or OS 8, maybe.

00:57:59 ◼   ► It might've been a late eight and not even nine yet.

00:58:02 ◼   ► Yeah, good times.

00:58:04 ◼   ► And I found a concert that I had,

00:58:07 ◼   ► I was actually the director.

00:58:09 ◼   ► it was a rock concert with students and teachers

00:58:11 ◼   ► in my high school, my, I think like junior,

00:58:15 ◼   ► sophomore or junior year in high school.

00:58:17 ◼   ► And I found that and I posted that on my Facebook page

00:58:22 ◼   ► to all the people who were in it,

00:58:23 ◼   ► who are all friends of friends on Facebook,

00:58:25 ◼   ► if not direct friends.

00:58:27 ◼   ► And that was really fun.

00:58:29 ◼   ► But a 20 year old videotape, 30 year old videotape,

00:58:32 ◼   ► they're kind of dirty and they're falling apart.

00:58:33 ◼   ► And I had to, I actually had to unscrew the BCR top

00:58:39 ◼   ► and pop it off so that I could just every so often

00:58:41 ◼   ► it would just tangle.

00:58:43 ◼   ► And VHS, an incredibly inefficient, weird format

00:58:46 ◼   ► where it's gotta like suck the tape in.

00:58:49 ◼   ► It flips open the little thing and sucks the tape in

00:58:54 ◼   ► and it's just so easy for that to go wrong

00:58:56 ◼   ► and it did frequently.

00:58:57 ◼   ► I had to get like isopropyl alcohol and some paper

00:59:00 ◼   ► to use as like swabs, pieces of paper to clean the heads

00:59:04 ◼   ► on the VCR.

00:59:05 ◼   ► So I ended up with just like the VCR

00:59:07 ◼   ► completely open to the world.

00:59:08 ◼   ► and would occasionally have to eject the tape

00:59:11 ◼   ► and clean the heads and wind the tape back or untangle it

00:59:15 ◼   ► because it got tangled all around.

00:59:17 ◼   ► - I had a real joy reading this

00:59:19 ◼   ► 'cause it sounded crazy. - It was pretty crazy.

00:59:22 ◼   ► It was pretty insane.

00:59:24 ◼   ► But in the end, you know, those people on Facebook

00:59:27 ◼   ► who probably only vaguely remember

00:59:29 ◼   ► that they did this student teacher rock concert in 1987

00:59:33 ◼   ► and then there was two songs

00:59:34 ◼   ► and the intro for the whole band.

00:59:36 ◼   ► So, you know, they're all on there being introduced

00:59:38 ◼   ► by one of the teachers who was the lead singer for that band

00:59:42 ◼   ► and they, you know, they all got to see it on Facebook

00:59:44 ◼   ► and that was actually pretty cool.

00:59:46 ◼   ► And I posted the Leo Laporte thing

00:59:48 ◼   ► and I've got a whole tape of Tech TV that I,

00:59:52 ◼   ► at some point we'll have to pull off too

00:59:54 ◼   ► because that was hilarious.

00:59:56 ◼   ► Just, you know, "Hey, IE 4.5 for Mac is new.

00:59:59 ◼   ► Let me tell you about print preview."

01:00:02 ◼   ► Me at 29 years old or whatever, 28 years old, yeah.

01:00:06 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure I could talk to you for about an hour about that 10 minute clip or whatever

01:00:12 ◼   ► of you and Leo.

01:00:14 ◼   ► Maybe we should do that in a future episode.

01:00:15 ◼   ► That might be...

01:00:16 ◼   ► You know what we should do?

01:00:17 ◼   ► We should break it down.

01:00:19 ◼   ► Well, we should do it with riff tracks.

01:00:21 ◼   ► It could be a connected episode.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Just break it down like bit for bit what troubleshooting was like in the 90s.

01:00:28 ◼   ► When's the next anniversary of that?

01:00:29 ◼   ► We'll make sure we cover that video.

01:00:32 ◼   ► - Oh, you know, sadly, we just missed

01:00:35 ◼   ► an anniversary for that.

01:00:36 ◼   ► - Well, you know, we got a whole year.

01:00:37 ◼   ► - Just missed the 15th anniversary of it, so.

01:00:40 ◼   ► I'll pull some other stuff off of there at some point.

01:00:44 ◼   ► But it's funny, when you've got nothing to lose,

01:00:48 ◼   ► it becomes a lot easier to do some of this stuff.

01:00:49 ◼   ► Like, I'm not really worried about breaking my VCR

01:00:53 ◼   ► or these tapes.

01:00:53 ◼   ► It's like, either I can get them to work or I can't.

01:00:56 ◼   ► So flipping the top off

01:00:57 ◼   ► and like making my own improvised head cleaner

01:01:00 ◼   ► with a piece of paper and some alcohol, it's fine.

01:01:04 ◼   ► It's just like, I just don't care.

01:01:05 ◼   ► It's not like anybody in my family is gonna be angry

01:01:08 ◼   ► 'cause I broke the VCR, right?

01:01:10 ◼   ► I mean, nobody cares, so, you know, and it worked.

01:01:13 ◼   ► So that's, it's pretty funny.

01:01:16 ◼   ► The other thing I learned by the way is that I saved

01:01:18 ◼   ► all these like David Letterman shows from the 80s

01:01:21 ◼   ► that were like favorite moments.

01:01:22 ◼   ► And I always thought, well, I'll record those

01:01:24 ◼   ► at some point digitally.

01:01:25 ◼   ► So I've got those to save these favorite moments.

01:01:27 ◼   ► And I was, as I was looking at the tape and saying,

01:01:30 ◼   ► "Oh, that's this episode."

01:01:32 ◼   ► I would do a Google search for the show

01:01:35 ◼   ► and the names of the guests,

01:01:36 ◼   ► because there's like a comprehensive like index

01:01:39 ◼   ► of all of the David Letterman shows.

01:01:41 ◼   ► And so it would say, "Oh, that's May 20th, 1986."

01:01:45 ◼   ► You know, and say, "All right, that's cool."

01:01:47 ◼   ► But what I discovered is that when I searched for that,

01:01:50 ◼   ► I would also find YouTube clips of the whole show.

01:01:54 ◼   ► So what I discovered is a lot of these moments

01:01:56 ◼   ► that I saved on a videotape for 30 years,

01:01:59 ◼   ► figuring I wanna keep that around.

01:02:02 ◼   ► I waited so long that somebody else

01:02:05 ◼   ► who was a much more obsessive saver and taper

01:02:07 ◼   ► and archiver and whatever than I was by far,

01:02:10 ◼   ► that person was also way ahead of me

01:02:13 ◼   ► in uploading that stuff to the internet.

01:02:15 ◼   ► So most of the stuff, I didn't need to actually bring it in.

01:02:20 ◼   ► I just needed to find it on the internet

01:02:22 ◼   ► because it's almost all on, it's kinda crazy.

01:02:25 ◼   ► Like, I'm sure not every episode of Late Night

01:02:28 ◼   ► with David Letterman from the 80s is on the internet,

01:02:30 ◼   ► but the two that I was looking for, I found immediately.

01:02:34 ◼   ► So the entire episode.

01:02:37 ◼   ► So that's pretty crazy.

01:02:38 ◼   ► So, you know, the internet's a big, weird, weird,

01:02:41 ◼   ► weird, weird, weird, weird place.

01:02:43 ◼   ► - One of the interesting things when looking at this,

01:02:47 ◼   ► and I've thought of this before,

01:02:49 ◼   ► I pretty much just assume now that

01:02:51 ◼   ► if I have thought of something,

01:02:54 ◼   ► I want to find a clip of something.

01:02:56 ◼   ► It's going to be on YouTube because somebody else

01:02:58 ◼   ► will have already done that.

01:03:00 ◼   ► - If it's something really popular,

01:03:02 ◼   ► it may not for copyright reasons,

01:03:05 ◼   ► like it's hard to find Simpsons clips on YouTube

01:03:08 ◼   ► because they find those and take those down.

01:03:11 ◼   ► But, you know,

01:03:12 ◼   ► late night with David Letterman episode from May of 1986,

01:03:16 ◼   ► not such a problem.

01:03:17 ◼   ► Nobody is looking for that.

01:03:19 ◼   ► NBC isn't out there shutting down that stuff.

01:03:21 ◼   ► And that's great because I watched an entire episode

01:03:24 ◼   ► of that show from 1986, this weekend, on YouTube, on my TV.

01:03:28 ◼   ► And that was a lot of fun to go back to that point.

01:03:32 ◼   ► And I'm feeling a little nostalgic

01:03:33 ◼   ► because that was my favorite.

01:03:34 ◼   ► That was, you know, in some ways,

01:03:36 ◼   ► the defining comedy for me of my life was in high school.

01:03:41 ◼   ► I watched David Letterman's show every night

01:03:45 ◼   ► and, you know, my sense of humor developed because of that.

01:03:49 ◼   ► And I think if you look,

01:03:50 ◼   ► If you talk to people in the entertainment industry, I mean, he's such an influential

01:03:54 ◼   ► figure for people who do comedy in TV and even like standup comedy today.

01:03:59 ◼   ► Just a huge influence.

01:04:01 ◼   ► And so he's retiring.

01:04:03 ◼   ► And so I've been a little nostalgic for that.

01:04:06 ◼   ► That's one of the reasons I wanted to pull out these videotapes.

01:04:08 ◼   ► And it turns out that, you know, I don't really have a lot to contribute to the YouTube conversation

01:04:12 ◼   ► about the history of this show, because like I said, somebody's gotten there before me

01:04:17 ◼   ► and they've done a much more comprehensive job than I did.

01:04:20 ◼   ► So that's great, 'cause I can just do searches

01:04:23 ◼   ► and find this stuff and that's cool.

01:04:25 ◼   ► So yeah, it's a big world and there's always somebody,

01:04:28 ◼   ► there's always somebody more obsessed

01:04:30 ◼   ► with something than you.

01:04:30 ◼   ► You cannot win an effort war against the internet.

01:04:33 ◼   ► I learned this, I'm gonna bring it all the way back around

01:04:35 ◼   ► to Crowded House.

01:04:36 ◼   ► A friend of mine ran the Crowded House mailing list,

01:04:40 ◼   ► the internet fan mailing list, like email mailing list.

01:04:44 ◼   ► And he got to know the guy who did the Crowded House Fan Club

01:04:48 ◼   ► And he had my friend build a,

01:04:52 ◼   ► we built a web page that was the archive

01:04:54 ◼   ► for the mailing list and I helped him build it.

01:04:56 ◼   ► And the guy in the fan club was like,

01:04:59 ◼   ► "Oh, that's really awesome.

01:05:00 ◼   ► You guys are on the internet doing things about the band

01:05:02 ◼   ► because it was early days of the internet

01:05:03 ◼   ► and things weren't on the internet."

01:05:04 ◼   ► And then at some point, a super madly obsessed fan

01:05:09 ◼   ► decided to build a comprehensive site about the band

01:05:15 ◼   ► and everything connected to the band.

01:05:17 ◼   ► And my friend, Mark and I looked at each other

01:05:19 ◼   ► and we're like, okay, like we can stop now

01:05:23 ◼   ► because we were just, we're like,

01:05:25 ◼   ► hey, we're on the internet and we like this band

01:05:27 ◼   ► and there's this mailing list

01:05:28 ◼   ► so we'll build a couple of pages.

01:05:29 ◼   ► And then all of a sudden, oh my God,

01:05:31 ◼   ► there was somebody who is just so far out of our league

01:05:34 ◼   ► in terms of enthusiasm.

01:05:36 ◼   ► And she just went to town with the fan site.

01:05:39 ◼   ► And that was my first real moment of you can't win

01:05:44 ◼   ► the effort war against a totally dedicated fan.

01:05:47 ◼   ► And there is always someone more dedicated

01:05:50 ◼   ► than you on the internet.

01:05:51 ◼   ► And so we were like, okay,

01:05:52 ◼   ► we're not gonna update this page anymore.

01:05:54 ◼   ► Go over there.

01:05:55 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:05:56 ◼   ► She's got it.

01:05:57 ◼   ► She's got it all and more.

01:05:59 ◼   ► And it was a funny moment.

01:06:01 ◼   ► And I just, I relived that again

01:06:03 ◼   ► with the guy who uploaded all the David Letterman episodes

01:06:05 ◼   ► to YouTube.

01:06:07 ◼   ► Crazy.

01:06:08 ◼   ► But home movies and stuff, that stuff,

01:06:09 ◼   ► I mean, that's what I'm looking for now in these tapes

01:06:11 ◼   ► just stuff that like literally nobody else has.

01:06:14 ◼   ► It's possible.

01:06:16 ◼   ► Is it possible that I have local Sacramento area TV

01:06:19 ◼   ► commercials from the 80s that people would get a really kick

01:06:22 ◼   ► out of seeing again?

01:06:23 ◼   ► Yeah, probably.

01:06:24 ◼   ► Am I gonna be the person who puts those in the internet?

01:06:26 ◼   ► Yeah, probably not.

01:06:27 ◼   ► But stuff like that concert where there are some tapes

01:06:33 ◼   ► out there, people on Facebook who said,

01:06:35 ◼   ► "Yeah, I think I have that tape somewhere too."

01:06:37 ◼   ► But it's less likely that nobody's bothered to put it

01:06:41 ◼   ► on the internet so far, so maybe I should give it a whirl.

01:06:43 ◼   ► - Talking about super fans,

01:06:47 ◼   ► this is something completely random,

01:06:48 ◼   ► but it was in my brain because of Kickstarter.

01:06:51 ◼   ► Have you seen the Exploding Kittens card game Kickstarter?

01:06:56 ◼   ► Has that passed your eye at all?

01:06:57 ◼   ► - No, no.

01:06:58 ◼   ► - One of the people that's involved

01:07:00 ◼   ► in the creation of this card game is the Oatmeal.

01:07:03 ◼   ► So Sean Gaiman. - Oh yeah, yeah.

01:07:05 ◼   ► - It's a card game, it's a crazy card game.

01:07:08 ◼   ► It's been going for six days, I think, five or six days.

01:07:12 ◼   ► It's up to $3.9 million at the moment.

01:07:15 ◼   ► - Wow.

01:07:17 ◼   ► - Within the first 48 hours, it was one of the,

01:07:19 ◼   ► I think the top 20 of all time.

01:07:23 ◼   ► Like, it's insane, 'cause it doesn't,

01:07:25 ◼   ► I've backed it because it looks like a lot of fun.

01:07:28 ◼   ► It looks like a silly card game.

01:07:30 ◼   ► Like, in the best possible way, right?

01:07:31 ◼   ► That's what it's meant to be.

01:07:32 ◼   ► It's meant to be a silly card game.

01:07:33 ◼   ► It's called Exploding Kittens.

01:07:35 ◼   ► But it's just that amount of money is insane.

01:07:38 ◼   ► 3.9, it will probably make like five, six million dollars?

01:07:42 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Maybe more, maybe more.

01:07:44 ◼   ► - They're at four million with 24 days to go.

01:07:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's incredible, like really, really incredible.

01:07:51 ◼   ► You just see some things, like where are these people

01:07:53 ◼   ► coming from?

01:07:54 ◼   ► - I hope they build a profit margin into their sales,

01:07:59 ◼   ► 'cause they're gonna be making an awful lot of cards.

01:08:01 ◼   ► They're gonna be making 100,000 plus sets of cards.

01:08:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, Cards Against Humanity are doing the fulfillment.

01:08:07 ◼   ► In their FAQ they kind of said,

01:08:10 ◼   ► the worst thing is when you have to wait.

01:08:13 ◼   ► Like, you know, we really want to make our dates

01:08:15 ◼   ► so we have Cards Against Humanity doing it for us

01:08:17 ◼   ► because they can handle any amount.

01:08:19 ◼   ► So, I wonder if they really care,

01:08:22 ◼   ► but we'll see about that.

01:08:23 ◼   ► They're probably on the press,

01:08:24 ◼   ► they're probably on the press right now.

01:08:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, the great thing about it being funded

01:08:27 ◼   ► is that they can start doing a run now.

01:08:30 ◼   ► - They probably started beforehand, to be honest.

01:08:33 ◼   ► - Sure.

01:08:33 ◼   ► - 'Cause, you know, if they're working with the cards people

01:08:36 ◼   ► they could probably have just always thought about putting in retail anyway

01:08:39 ◼   ► because I think the Cards Against Humanity people have become a bit

01:08:42 ◼   ► of like a publisher as well now. I find things like that fascinating.

01:08:49 ◼   ► Where are these people coming from? Where are they

01:08:54 ◼   ► coming from to find this project? Anyway, just really really

01:08:58 ◼   ► interesting and cool. Anywho, shall we take our last break for today's episode?

01:09:06 ◼   ► now would you like to do that or would you like to talk about something else

01:09:08 ◼   ► before that? Well I've got I've got one item that I could do really quickly and

01:09:14 ◼   ► then we can just have our last sponsor be sponsoring #AskUpgrade segment

01:09:18 ◼   ► which I like. I would like that. I did a quick link before that about about YouTube

01:09:24 ◼   ► maybe we'll push that one off until next week are you okay with that? Yeah because

01:09:28 ◼   ► I really want to talk about this and I think we'll end up going too long on it.

01:09:31 ◼   ► Yeah so we'll push that one off we've already talked a lot about YouTube today

01:09:35 ◼   ► I wanted to mention something funny that happened.

01:09:37 ◼   ► - I couldn't believe this when I saw it.

01:09:39 ◼   ► - And I need to explain this 'cause people, I think,

01:09:42 ◼   ► are misinterpreting it a little bit.

01:09:44 ◼   ► It is fascinating to me.

01:09:45 ◼   ► So I got approached, Paul Thurat left the Windows Super Site

01:09:50 ◼   ► to start his own site.

01:09:51 ◼   ► And I got approached by the company that owns that site

01:09:53 ◼   ► and they were doing a whole shift with Paul leaving

01:09:55 ◼   ► and they're bringing in a new editor and all of that.

01:09:57 ◼   ► And they talked to me about a bunch of different stuff

01:10:00 ◼   ► and I said, "I'm not really comfortable,

01:10:01 ◼   ► "it's not my area of expertise."

01:10:02 ◼   ► and they're like, "How about you write a column for us

01:10:05 ◼   ► "about Apple stuff because the people who are IT professionals

01:10:08 ◼   ► "have to deal with Apple stuff,

01:10:09 ◼   ► "and they don't know a lot about it necessarily."

01:10:11 ◼   ► And I said, "Well, they're gonna be mad at you

01:10:14 ◼   ► "because they're gonna say,

01:10:15 ◼   ► "how dare you put Apple stuff on my Windows site?"

01:10:17 ◼   ► And they said, "That's fine, we wanna do this.

01:10:20 ◼   ► "This is something that we think is gonna be valuable."

01:10:22 ◼   ► And I said, "All right, I'll give it a go."

01:10:25 ◼   ► And so I wrote a piece, I'm gonna be,

01:10:28 ◼   ► until somebody stops me,

01:10:30 ◼   ► writing a weekly piece on the SuperSite,

01:10:33 ◼   ► which is formerly Paul Thorat's site,

01:10:35 ◼   ► about Apple stuff for an audience

01:10:38 ◼   ► of basically Windows IT professionals.

01:10:41 ◼   ► So that's gonna be interesting.

01:10:42 ◼   ► And the reaction I told, I mean,

01:10:45 ◼   ► I knew what the reaction was gonna be.

01:10:46 ◼   ► It's actually kind of delightful

01:10:48 ◼   ► to not be the editor in charge of the site

01:10:49 ◼   ► that's getting the angry reaction,

01:10:51 ◼   ► 'cause I've been that person.

01:10:53 ◼   ► And I know that they're like,

01:10:53 ◼   ► "I can't believe you're doing this,

01:10:54 ◼   ► "and why do we have to read about this?"

01:10:57 ◼   ► And so it's kinda nice to just be the writer,

01:11:00 ◼   ► 'cause I can just focus on what I'm gonna focus on.

01:11:02 ◼   ► And I'm not really interested.

01:11:04 ◼   ► There are a lot of people who are like,

01:11:06 ◼   ► it's exactly what would happen

01:11:07 ◼   ► if Macworld did a whole column about Windows,

01:11:09 ◼   ► which I think maybe we did at some point

01:11:11 ◼   ► and people were like, ah, this is outrageous.

01:11:13 ◼   ► Why are you doing this?

01:11:14 ◼   ► And so my goal with that is to bridge the gap.

01:11:19 ◼   ► I mean, my goal is literally like the premise is

01:11:22 ◼   ► IT people have to support Apple stuff now,

01:11:24 ◼   ► in almost every environment.

01:11:26 ◼   ► They're at least supporting iPhones

01:11:28 ◼   ► and they may be supporting iPads

01:11:29 ◼   ► and they may be supporting Macs.

01:11:31 ◼   ► And they don't always know a whole lot about them

01:11:33 ◼   ► because they are not Mac people.

01:11:35 ◼   ► And if I can bring some perspective about what Apple's doing

01:11:39 ◼   ► in general and in businesses,

01:11:42 ◼   ► as somebody who used a Mac in a business

01:11:44 ◼   ► that was very Windows-focused for a long time,

01:11:46 ◼   ► 'cause IDG was always a very Windows-focused company

01:11:49 ◼   ► in terms of the technology,

01:11:51 ◼   ► if I can bring some of that kind of Apple knowledge

01:11:56 ◼   ► to not to convert anybody,

01:11:58 ◼   ► I don't even wanna play the tribalism games

01:12:00 ◼   ► and people who are angriest about it are very tribalistic.

01:12:03 ◼   ► They're like, "I can't believe there's Apple things here.

01:12:04 ◼   ► Oh, I hate Apple."

01:12:06 ◼   ► It's like, okay, whatever.

01:12:07 ◼   ► I've met that IT person who hates Apple

01:12:10 ◼   ► and doesn't know why we would use these terrible things

01:12:13 ◼   ► that Apple makes when we could use amazing things

01:12:15 ◼   ► that people, companies that are not Apple make.

01:12:18 ◼   ► But my goal is that, is to bring my perspective

01:12:22 ◼   ► to a site that is read by people who don't have it

01:12:26 ◼   ► and not to convert them, but to arm them with knowledge

01:12:30 ◼   ► and information about this thing that they probably need

01:12:33 ◼   ► to know more about to be well-rounded professionals.

01:12:36 ◼   ► And if it works, then great.

01:12:40 ◼   ► I'm looking forward to giving it a try.

01:12:42 ◼   ► It's a little outside my comfort zone,

01:12:44 ◼   ► but the Apple subject is not,

01:12:47 ◼   ► but the catering to a more businessy and more IT audience

01:12:52 ◼   ► is a little different for me.

01:12:54 ◼   ► And I'm gonna give it a go.

01:12:55 ◼   ► And at some point if the editors of the site say,

01:12:57 ◼   ► "Look, it's not working.

01:12:59 ◼   ► They don't wanna read it.

01:13:00 ◼   ► We don't wanna pay you."

01:13:02 ◼   ► Then so be it.

01:13:03 ◼   ► But it's a- - This is a terrible mistake.

01:13:04 ◼   ► Who let you here in the first place?

01:13:06 ◼   ► - Then I will stop writing it

01:13:08 ◼   ► and they will stop paying me for it.

01:13:09 ◼   ► But as it is, it's yeah, it's a weekly freelance thing.

01:13:14 ◼   ► I have received a couple of tweets that are like,

01:13:16 ◼   ► "I can't believe they hired Jason to work at-"

01:13:18 ◼   ► No, no, they did not hire me.

01:13:21 ◼   ► They are paying me to write them a column once a week.

01:13:24 ◼   ► and that's, I had one person say,

01:13:26 ◼   ► "What does this mean for six colors?"

01:13:29 ◼   ► And the answer is, there's a reason that I'm paying

01:13:32 ◼   ► Dan Morin to do six colors on Thursdays,

01:13:36 ◼   ► and maybe, you know, maybe more time at some point

01:13:39 ◼   ► is so that I can do freelance work.

01:13:41 ◼   ► 'Cause, and I'm doing, this is the first,

01:13:45 ◼   ► I think, freelance work that's been really visible,

01:13:47 ◼   ► but I've got a lot of other freelance stuff going on

01:13:50 ◼   ► that will hit, I've got a story for the Wirecutter

01:13:52 ◼   ► that should be going up later this month,

01:13:53 ◼   ► I did write that story for Sweet Setup.

01:13:56 ◼   ► And I'm talking to people about some other stuff too.

01:13:59 ◼   ► So it seemed like a fun challenge.

01:14:02 ◼   ► They really wanted to work with me.

01:14:03 ◼   ► And again, I'm just kind of over the,

01:14:09 ◼   ► the comments are going to be full of angry commenters

01:14:12 ◼   ► because they're comments on the internet.

01:14:13 ◼   ► But I'm hoping that I can provide something

01:14:17 ◼   ► that that audience or at least some chunk

01:14:18 ◼   ► of that audience finds useful.

01:14:20 ◼   ► 'Cause that's, again, I'm kinda over the whole,

01:14:24 ◼   ► the whole tribalism wars between platforms kinda thing.

01:14:28 ◼   ► And if people wanna get angry about that,

01:14:30 ◼   ► then they're welcome to,

01:14:31 ◼   ► but I'm not gonna get angry about it.

01:14:33 ◼   ► I think good IT professionals should be well-armed

01:14:36 ◼   ► with knowledge about this Apple stuff.

01:14:37 ◼   ► And a lot of them didn't spend a lot of time

01:14:39 ◼   ► thinking about it and how they're forced to support it.

01:14:41 ◼   ► And if I can interpret what Apple is doing

01:14:44 ◼   ► and what Mac and iOS users want to them

01:14:48 ◼   ► so that they're better able to understand

01:14:50 ◼   ► what those people want, then I think that's good for them.

01:14:53 ◼   ► And that's sort of what my goal is.

01:14:55 ◼   ► - You can appreciate the craziness of it though, right?

01:14:59 ◼   ► On the surface of it, how crazy it does seem.

01:15:02 ◼   ► - Oh sure.

01:15:03 ◼   ► - The Mac world guy, you know?

01:15:05 ◼   ► You're like the Bill Gates in the Steve Jobs scenario,

01:15:09 ◼   ► you know, you're like staring down on WinSuperSite

01:15:11 ◼   ► and be like, "I am the Mac guy."

01:15:13 ◼   ► It's cool though.

01:15:15 ◼   ► - The bigger issue is that, you know,

01:15:16 ◼   ► Paul, the founder of the site left

01:15:17 ◼   ► And if I were a loyal reader of that side,

01:15:20 ◼   ► I'd be like, what are they doing?

01:15:22 ◼   ► What's going on?

01:15:22 ◼   ► They're ruining everything here.

01:15:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But change is hard.

01:15:25 ◼   ► Change is hard.

01:15:26 ◼   ► I mean, that was true at Macworld.

01:15:28 ◼   ► That was certainly true when we were doing things

01:15:30 ◼   ► with PC World and the audience was angry.

01:15:34 ◼   ► Macworld's audience was angry that we covered iOS.

01:15:36 ◼   ► I mean, people get angry about all sorts of stuff.

01:15:38 ◼   ► - This would never have happened if Thorop was still alive.

01:15:41 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:15:44 ◼   ► One of my favorite things about Six Colors

01:15:46 ◼   ► It's like from day one you've had other people writing on the site.

01:15:50 ◼   ► I just like that because it is you, but you have other people.

01:15:54 ◼   ► I mean--

01:15:55 ◼   ► Well, I took a page from Federico and I put Jason Stellan Friends at the top.

01:15:59 ◼   ► Yeah, it's nice.

01:16:00 ◼   ► I like it a lot.

01:16:02 ◼   ► It does-- it is still difficult sometimes because I think you're writing everything.

01:16:07 ◼   ► So I have to check.

01:16:09 ◼   ► But there's just nothing you can do about that, really.

01:16:11 ◼   ► It's the same problem that The Loop has had forever.

01:16:14 ◼   ► matter who writes it everybody initially thinks it's Jim. Yeah I put a byline and

01:16:18 ◼   ► a bio on all of Dan's pieces now because people keep asking me things about Dan's

01:16:22 ◼   ► pieces. That's fine it's you know it happens but it has been there since the

01:16:27 ◼   ► beginning. You could take that as a compliment to both of you though because

01:16:30 ◼   ► yeah and and Glenn wrote something on that I posted on Friday, Glenn Fleischman

01:16:34 ◼   ► so you know I've had a few other people on there Dan Frakes wrote something and

01:16:38 ◼   ► Steve Macchino wrote something and you know I'm not I'm not at the point now

01:16:42 ◼   ► where Six Colors is a site with a staff or anything. It's still really me and Dan one

01:16:48 ◼   ► day a week. And yeah, we'll see where it goes. I would love to get to the point where Dan

01:16:54 ◼   ► could do even more. And it would become like a little staff. As we record this, it's Monday,

01:16:59 ◼   ► the Apple financial results are tomorrow. Dan and I will be cranking up the live blog

01:17:04 ◼   ► machine.

01:17:05 ◼   ► Oh, you're gonna do the live tweet?

01:17:06 ◼   ► For that, yeah.

01:17:07 ◼   ► Yes.

01:17:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:09 ◼   ► I loved that last time. That was so much fun.

01:17:10 ◼   ► I'd like to get to the point where I would love it

01:17:13 ◼   ► if Six Colors had a little bit of a staff

01:17:15 ◼   ► and it wasn't just me and Dan on Thursdays.

01:17:18 ◼   ► And we'll see.

01:17:19 ◼   ► - What's the Twitter account for the live?

01:17:21 ◼   ► I'll put it in the show notes.

01:17:23 ◼   ► - I think the live, oh, let's see.

01:17:26 ◼   ► It's something weird 'cause I don't have

01:17:28 ◼   ► Six Colors on Twitter.

01:17:29 ◼   ► It's Six Colors Event, S-I-X Colors Event.

01:17:37 ◼   ► - Cool, so you should follow that.

01:17:40 ◼   ► We'll also embed that tweet stream on the site.

01:17:44 ◼   ► - Very cool, very cool.

01:17:46 ◼   ► I liked that last time.

01:17:47 ◼   ► That was a lot of fun.

01:17:48 ◼   ► You two are good pairing for that kind of thing.

01:17:51 ◼   ► So, yeah, let's talk about MailRoute.

01:17:56 ◼   ► And because MailRoute are bringing you

01:17:59 ◼   ► all of your Ask upgrade this week.

01:18:01 ◼   ► All of the Ask upgrade that you could ask for

01:18:03 ◼   ► is being brought to you by MailRoute.

01:18:05 ◼   ► - Yes, and thank you to MailRoute.

01:18:07 ◼   ► I talked about them before.

01:18:09 ◼   ► I have mail route on my domain,

01:18:12 ◼   ► and it is, the way it works is it is sitting

01:18:15 ◼   ► between my mail server and the internet.

01:18:19 ◼   ► And mail routes, dedicated servers,

01:18:22 ◼   ► are scanning all inbound mail for spam,

01:18:24 ◼   ► for viruses, for bounced mail.

01:18:26 ◼   ► And that stuff just doesn't get through.

01:18:27 ◼   ► So my mail server never gets that junk.

01:18:30 ◼   ► That junk never even reaches the server,

01:18:32 ◼   ► let alone my client.

01:18:33 ◼   ► So you open your mail, and this is what I do,

01:18:36 ◼   ► and my inbox is clear.

01:18:37 ◼   ► And even my spam folder is pretty much clear

01:18:42 ◼   ► because the spam has been incarcerated

01:18:45 ◼   ► at mail routes servers.

01:18:48 ◼   ► The light is green, the trap is clean.

01:18:49 ◼   ► That's a Ghostbusters reference.

01:18:50 ◼   ► Myke, have you seen Ghostbusters?

01:18:52 ◼   ► - Of course I've seen Ghostbusters.

01:18:53 ◼   ► - Okay, thank goodness.

01:18:54 ◼   ► Well, the Princess Bride for Pete's sake.

01:18:56 ◼   ► See it, that's your assignment, that's your homework.

01:18:58 ◼   ► See the Princess Bride.

01:18:59 ◼   ► So the spam is gone.

01:19:02 ◼   ► And because it is happening in the cloud,

01:19:04 ◼   ► I don't need to install any special software or hardware.

01:19:07 ◼   ► it all just happens before it even reaches me.

01:19:09 ◼   ► So it was super easy to set up.

01:19:11 ◼   ► I can manage it for all of the users in my domain

01:19:14 ◼   ► and everybody gets their own thing that they can tweak.

01:19:18 ◼   ► There is an optional spam report that can be sent to you

01:19:21 ◼   ► that lists everything that has been stopped

01:19:24 ◼   ► and hasn't reached you.

01:19:25 ◼   ► That can make for some really amusing reading.

01:19:28 ◼   ► Sometimes I just like to read the subject lines

01:19:29 ◼   ► because it's hilarious to see what spammers are trying to do

01:19:33 ◼   ► to get past the front door and failing.

01:19:35 ◼   ► And if I do see something that's legit in there,

01:19:37 ◼   ► it's one click and it's delivered

01:19:38 ◼   ► and that person is white listed.

01:19:39 ◼   ► So it's super easy to do.

01:19:41 ◼   ► If you're an email administrator or IT professional,

01:19:44 ◼   ► they are thinking of you.

01:19:45 ◼   ► This service is used at large universities

01:19:47 ◼   ► and corporations as well.

01:19:48 ◼   ► They built tools with you in mind.

01:19:50 ◼   ► There's an API for account management,

01:19:52 ◼   ► LDAP support, active directory support, TLS,

01:19:55 ◼   ► mail bagging,

01:19:56 ◼   ► (bell ringing)

01:19:58 ◼   ► a bell, nice.

01:20:00 ◼   ► And outbound relay, everything you want

01:20:02 ◼   ► if you are an email admin or an IT pro.

01:20:05 ◼   ► And so here's what you do.

01:20:07 ◼   ► remove spam from your life for good by going to mailroute.net/upgrade. You'll get a free

01:20:12 ◼   ► trial and 10% off for the lifetime of your account. So thank you very much to our friends

01:20:17 ◼   ► at MailRoute for sponsoring the show and for filtering the spam out of my mail.

01:20:22 ◼   ► I'm scared that I'm upping the game with the mail bagging and eventually I'm going

01:20:27 ◼   ► to have to bring in a brass band. If I start here, where do I end up going?

01:20:34 ◼   ► Yeah, well, you're down that path now. It's too late for you. Good luck.

01:20:41 ◼   ► #AskUpgrade brought to you by MailRoute. Here we go. You know that guy, the guy who has

01:20:47 ◼   ► the Twitter account that just complains about sponsors on podcasts, actually said something

01:20:52 ◼   ► nice about the fact that we have verticals that are sponsored.

01:20:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't want to talk about that. I really don't want to talk about that. I don't want

01:20:58 ◼   ► to get into that again.

01:21:01 ◼   ► to you by mail route listener Tim Lucas I don't know I think that may be a

01:21:07 ◼   ► Twitter name says if you take the computer guts from a macbook and put it

01:21:11 ◼   ► into a small box could Apple make a Mac nano Mac Mac what was it Mac X what was

01:21:20 ◼   ► that X Mac there it is my brain my brain found it do you remember that yeah but

01:21:26 ◼   ► - That's the mythical mid-range Mac mini tower,

01:21:29 ◼   ► lots of M's.

01:21:30 ◼   ► - But in theory, that's what this would probably be, right?

01:21:35 ◼   ► - No, I think Timokus is thinking of a Mac mini

01:21:39 ◼   ► that's even smaller.

01:21:40 ◼   ► Like how small could you make the Mac mini

01:21:42 ◼   ► if you took like a MacBook Air circuit board?

01:21:46 ◼   ► Although the Mac mini pretty much is that.

01:21:48 ◼   ► I mean, the Mac mini is pretty close.

01:21:50 ◼   ► How much smaller could the Mac mini be, really?

01:21:55 ◼   ► and Apple seems to not be interested in making computers

01:21:57 ◼   ► that you can open ever, ever again.

01:22:01 ◼   ► But I think the Mac Mini could get smaller.

01:22:04 ◼   ► I think there are some heat issues and all of that.

01:22:07 ◼   ► And I don't know what they're doing with the Mac Mini,

01:22:09 ◼   ► but that is essentially what the Mac Mini is,

01:22:10 ◼   ► it's a laptop that's just inside that little aluminum shell.

01:22:15 ◼   ► It's an interesting idea.

01:22:18 ◼   ► How small, again, how small does a Mac Mini need to be?

01:22:21 ◼   ► Does it really matter how small it is?

01:22:22 ◼   ► And yet-

01:22:23 ◼   ► I don't think that the case there is the physical size.

01:22:30 ◼   ► It's the cost barrier.

01:22:34 ◼   ► So the Mac Mini now, we've been through this, is very underpowered.

01:22:38 ◼   ► Yes, yes.

01:22:39 ◼   ► It's gotten cheaper.

01:22:40 ◼   ► The Mac Pro is, for most people, way overpowered, but it's also way overpriced.

01:22:46 ◼   ► It's massively--not overpriced, it's just way highly priced.

01:22:48 ◼   ► It's very expensive.

01:22:49 ◼   ► Yes.

01:22:50 ◼   ► And you have to have a real reason for that.

01:22:52 ◼   ► But if you want a desktop Mac, like you don't want a laptop, you want a desktop Mac like

01:22:56 ◼   ► I did, Mac Mini was not powerful enough and the Mac Pro is very expensive.

01:23:02 ◼   ► So having something sitting in the middle there is an interesting idea and the idea

01:23:06 ◼   ► of it being effectively a beefed up laptop sitting inside a box, that is enticing to

01:23:12 ◼   ► many people, especially if you maybe want a small Mac to put in the living room.

01:23:16 ◼   ► There are many applications for it and looking at what Apple is doing with the Mac Mini and

01:23:21 ◼   ► what they're doing with the Mac Pro, they are leaving this huge gap in the middle

01:23:25 ◼   ► that I, that not for everyone isn't fulfilled by either the iMac or a laptop.

01:23:29 ◼   ► But it's a choice to leave that gap and I'm sure that they've done enough

01:23:34 ◼   ► thinking and market research to be happy to leave that on the table but for

01:23:38 ◼   ► people that are looking for an option there is a space there I think.

01:23:42 ◼   ► Yeah, yep I don't think they're ever gonna do it. I think that's the iMac.

01:23:46 ◼   ► They just like, you know, the Mac Mini is one edge case and Mac Pro is the

01:23:51 ◼   ► other and then in the middle, how about a monitor attached to that

01:23:56 ◼   ► computer? Yeah, I would say that it's perfectly fine to have just a Mac Mini

01:24:00 ◼   ► and the Mac Pro, but the Mac Mini has taken a regression, which isn't, which

01:24:04 ◼   ► that's the problem. Which we talked about, yeah. Yeah.

01:24:10 ◼   ► Listener Nicholas asks, "How do you manage semi-shared media like music and photos

01:24:17 ◼   ► in your household with individual organization but avoiding duplicates?"

01:24:22 ◼   ► There's probably a whole show here but I'm curious what you do with your media,

01:24:27 ◼   ► just the short version of this is what do you do with media and you know music

01:24:31 ◼   ► and photos in you know where do you store that stuff? How do you do that?

01:24:35 ◼   ► I would love to say I had a really good system for it. I don't know, I put like a lot of it in Dropbox to be honest.

01:24:46 ◼   ► A lot of the media goes in Dropbox. And I have like an external hard drive that I use for like what I call cold storage.

01:24:55 ◼   ► So something, I've had something for a long period of time. I'll put it onto the external hard drive for cold storage.

01:25:04 ◼   ► But then again, the thing is it's all mine though, really.

01:25:09 ◼   ► I don't, that's just what I do with my stuff.

01:25:13 ◼   ► I actually don't really have a shared system

01:25:17 ◼   ► of anyone at the moment.

01:25:18 ◼   ► I think that sort of stuff comes when you have kids.

01:25:20 ◼   ► - That's true.

01:25:21 ◼   ► I have a Mac mini, see, it's all connected.

01:25:25 ◼   ► I have a Mac mini with music files on it

01:25:29 ◼   ► and then that is shared throughout the house

01:25:31 ◼   ► because I've got these, you know,

01:25:32 ◼   ► squeeze box music players that are like Sonos except discontinued. And so they all have

01:25:38 ◼   ► access to that and I have access to that on my computers and all, you know, we can all

01:25:42 ◼   ► listen to music that way. Photos is a disaster. I'm looking forward to the Photos app whenever

01:25:50 ◼   ► it may arrive because we still have iPhoto libraries that are way too large and are backed

01:25:56 ◼   ► up but they're sort of like only in one place and it's actually now, you know, I can open

01:26:01 ◼   ► them from my computer but they're just it's slow and it's it's painful. I can't

01:26:05 ◼   ► speak to the truth of this right now but I saw somebody tweet earlier that there

01:26:09 ◼   ► is all mentions of the photos app has been removed from the Apple website. Wow

01:26:16 ◼   ► that's interesting. Yes concerning is what it is. Since that was promised this

01:26:22 ◼   ► year and they've stopped working on the other on the other stuff well that's

01:26:25 ◼   ► really interesting. I'm now kind of just scanning the Apple website like to see

01:26:31 ◼   ► if I can see it anywhere. I definitely cannot. It's not on the Yosemite page.

01:26:35 ◼   ► I'll tell you what, I'll take a look on it. It was on the iOS 8 page before, wasn't it?

01:26:40 ◼   ► Well, it is possible that they're doing that because they've got

01:26:44 ◼   ► something to roll out, and when they roll it out they want it to all be

01:26:49 ◼   ► that message and not about this future thing. It could be. Hopefully.

01:26:53 ◼   ► A positive person would say that. Hopefully. Currently the imagery shows iPhoto. Nice.

01:26:59 ◼   ► Which is not good. Not good. There is on the photos page now on the iCloud

01:27:05 ◼   ► / photos page there is no imagery of the desktop app. Right which they had I they

01:27:12 ◼   ► sent me a sample mock-up of the of the like pro version of the photos app

01:27:18 ◼   ► there was a replacement version. My memory says they used to be an image

01:27:22 ◼   ► which was the phone the iPad and the Mac that that imagery does not exist anymore

01:27:26 ◼   ► more. Oh dear. Yeah. Let's just hope that they just they've revamped it a little

01:27:31 ◼   ► bit and they don't wanna they don't wanna spill the beans. Let's hope it's

01:27:34 ◼   ► that. Yeah sure. Think positive. Think different. Listener Lex who is not Lex Friedman. I

01:27:41 ◼   ► thought it was Lex Friedman. It's not Lex Friedman. Okay. Says have you ever had

01:27:45 ◼   ► those moments where you felt like you were living in the future? I was at a bar,

01:27:48 ◼   ► I heard a great song, I held my phone in the air, bought the song with my

01:27:52 ◼   ► fingerprint. The future is here. #RelayYourFeels #AskUprate

01:28:00 ◼   ► He's going for everywhere. Yeah, he wants, yeah, but you know, I just like that, I

01:28:03 ◼   ► like that moment. That is, somebody from Apple get listener Lex on

01:28:09 ◼   ► the line. That's a, that's a, that demo as well. Yeah, that happens. I can't think of

01:28:14 ◼   ► anything off the top of my head, but every now and then you get that like, "Oh man, what am I,

01:28:18 ◼   ► how am I doing this?" kind of feeling. Can you believe that that just happened? I

01:28:21 ◼   ► I love those moments when they come.

01:28:23 ◼   ► And I like, you know, that we were talking,

01:28:25 ◼   ► you listen to these shows that speculate about technology.

01:28:30 ◼   ► And the funny thing is you realize that,

01:28:32 ◼   ► you know, you don't go from dreaming

01:28:36 ◼   ► that there's gonna be the science fictional thing

01:28:38 ◼   ► to the thing happening.

01:28:39 ◼   ► Usually what happens is there's the science fictional thing

01:28:42 ◼   ► and then a lot of time passes.

01:28:43 ◼   ► And then you have that moment where you realize,

01:28:45 ◼   ► oh, you know, all the pieces,

01:28:48 ◼   ► it's no longer like in the future,

01:28:51 ◼   ► instead of telephones, will communicate via video phone.

01:28:54 ◼   ► And you think, well, when's that gonna happen?

01:28:56 ◼   ► When are they gonna sell us a video phone?

01:28:58 ◼   ► And the reality was we all got smartphones and FaceTime,

01:29:02 ◼   ► and that's sort of what happened.

01:29:04 ◼   ► And it's not the phone system and it's the internet,

01:29:07 ◼   ► and it's not a phone that you're using,

01:29:09 ◼   ► or it is a phone,

01:29:09 ◼   ► but not the phone as we thought of it back then.

01:29:11 ◼   ► You know, it takes those steps,

01:29:12 ◼   ► and you realize the technology now exists

01:29:15 ◼   ► to make this thing that we used to think was magical.

01:29:18 ◼   ► And now you can see how it would all be put together.

01:29:20 ◼   ► if not now, then in the near future.

01:29:22 ◼   ► Those are neat moments where you realize,

01:29:25 ◼   ► oh, all the pieces of that are here now.

01:29:30 ◼   ► They're all plausible now.

01:29:31 ◼   ► And that in the next five years,

01:29:33 ◼   ► we'll probably see something like that,

01:29:35 ◼   ► whatever it is, some science fictional thing.

01:29:37 ◼   ► And those are neat moments too.

01:29:39 ◼   ► - Definitely, yeah.

01:29:42 ◼   ► - And then listener Chris sent us a song

01:29:45 ◼   ► or parody lyrics to an existing song.

01:29:48 ◼   ► I'm not gonna sing it. I don't know what the song is. I thought I was gonna sing it. It's

01:29:55 ◼   ► God Bless the USA. Oh I don't know if I know where that goes. Yeah but anyway, proud to

01:30:02 ◼   ► be an Upgradient is the key phrase there. So thank you to listener Chris and I at one

01:30:08 ◼   ► point late last night after having had several beers and played Dungeons and Dragons for

01:30:14 ◼   ► four hours I thought that I was going to sing that song to end this episode and I am not

01:30:23 ◼   ► opposed to singing. In fact I sang a couple times during the Dungeons and Dragons podcast.

01:30:27 ◼   ► I am not going to sing today. Are you not singing today because you had some beers during

01:30:32 ◼   ► the Dungeons and Dragons podcast? That's possible too. It's too late. I left all my singing

01:30:40 ◼   ► out there. So, but thank you listener Chris for the parody song lyrics #AskUpgrade, American

01:30:46 ◼   ► flag emoji.

01:30:50 ◼   ► Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Upgrade. If you'd like to find

01:30:55 ◼   ► the show notes for today's show, you can point your web browser at relay.fm/upgrade/20 or

01:31:00 ◼   ► of course go into the app that you're using and click on the correct button and they'll

01:31:05 ◼   ► They'll be right there in front of you.

01:31:07 ◼   ► I think the reason that I do this is because

01:31:09 ◼   ► I think most people that are listening in an app

01:31:11 ◼   ► know the show notes are probably there.

01:31:14 ◼   ► And it's more for the people that don't know where to go.

01:31:17 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:31:19 ◼   ► That's kind of my thinking for what I do.

01:31:20 ◼   ► - It's good to mention the web address

01:31:22 ◼   ► because a lot of people, you know,

01:31:24 ◼   ► people listen to podcasts, they don't tie it to the web.

01:31:26 ◼   ► And so they may not know that there is a page,

01:31:28 ◼   ► that there is a website for Relay.

01:31:30 ◼   ► And so, you know, it's good to reinforce that.

01:31:32 ◼   ► That yes, there is a website and you can always go there

01:31:34 ◼   ► look up what we were talking about on a past show. When you get to wherever you're driving

01:31:38 ◼   ► right now, you can go to the web and look it up. Or, yes, you can look at it in the

01:31:43 ◼   ► app.

01:31:44 ◼   ► Because also there is additional information on the website sometimes. So sometimes there's

01:31:49 ◼   ► stuff that's like images and stuff that not all clients show. But if you want to find

01:31:53 ◼   ► the links to contact us or if you want to find us on Twitter and stuff like that, even

01:31:57 ◼   ► though we mention a bunch of it, it's all there as well. So it's just an additional

01:32:01 ◼   ► But that is a very good point, but I don't know enough about all of the apps to give people

01:32:07 ◼   ► effective

01:32:09 ◼   ► Instructions right it's there somewhere

01:32:11 ◼   ► Or just go to the web or just go to the web if you want to find us on Twitter you can do so

01:32:15 ◼   ► I am at I Myke but of course I should have introduced at J Snell first like a gentleman would yes

01:32:21 ◼   ► You're very sliding there

01:32:23 ◼   ► I've been trying to do that this week, and then that just slipped out then I had it in my brain like I've got to

01:32:27 ◼   ► do it but no totally totally forgot about it so @JSNEL on Twitter J S N E double L

01:32:32 ◼   ► and of course Jason writes the fantastic six colors dot-com along with some of

01:32:37 ◼   ► his friends and spell it you can spell it in the English way if you'd like to I

01:32:41 ◼   ► think you should and that will also take you to the fantastic six colors and as I

01:32:46 ◼   ► mentioned I am Myke Early and you can find many of my shows at relay.fm

01:32:51 ◼   ► thank you so much for listening thanks to our sponsors again Linda Casper

01:32:56 ◼   ► mail route and we'll be back next time. Bye bye. Say goodbye Myke. Oh goodbye Jason. I finally get to do that!