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Upgrade

194: Game of Jenga with Drivers

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade Episode 194.

00:00:12   Today's show is brought to you very kindly by Simple Contacts, Squarespace, and Linode.

00:00:17   My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Jason Snell.

00:00:20   Hi, Jason Snell. Can you tell why I'm so excited?

00:00:23   Why are you so excited? No, no is my answer. I can't tell why.

00:00:28   Next week is draft time.

00:00:31   It's the most wonderful time of the three times a year.

00:00:34   Uh, also the WWDC draft.

00:00:37   It's the big one next week on upgrade big episode.

00:00:42   We're going to do our draft for our WWDC picks because believe it or not,

00:00:46   everyone, we are two weeks away from WWDC.

00:00:49   So get ready for that.

00:00:51   I'm very excited for the draft, Jason.

00:00:53   I'm very, very excited for the draft, but we don't need to keep talking about it

00:00:56   today because we have a #snowtalk question which comes from Joel and Joel

00:01:01   would like to know this is this is an interesting question for you here Jason

00:01:04   Joel would like to know would you rather have AirPods and an older iPhone or an

00:01:11   iPhone 10 with any other type of headphones so just I'll rephrase it a

00:01:16   little bit you can own AirPods but you cannot use them of an iPhone 10 or you

00:01:21   can own an iPhone 10 and you cannot use AirPods. Also the iPhone 8 came out the

00:01:26   same time as the iPhone 10 and he says an older iPhone so it can't even be an iPhone

00:01:30   8. Well I guess it came out a couple months earlier. Does it count?

00:01:33   Well technically, yeah technically, yeah the iPhone 8 would, I am ruling iPhone 8 counts.

00:01:38   Well either way I think I, this is a tough hypothetical, I appreciate it Joel, thanks

00:01:43   a lot. Monday morning and I'm being hit with hypotheticals but I'm gonna say, where the

00:01:47   mean man comes to my house and says I'm sorry sir, you cannot possess both AirPods and an

00:01:52   iPhone 10. One man cannot possess so much power.

00:01:55   That is a cruel, cruel, mean man who came to my door and said that I must give one of

00:01:59   them up.

00:02:01   You know what?

00:02:02   I have another pair of wireless headphones that I don't like as much, and I have some

00:02:04   wired headphones I like very much.

00:02:06   And as much as I like having the AirPods, I think at this point I would really rather

00:02:11   not unlearn all the behavior that I've learned in the iPhone X.

00:02:14   Because if it was another year and it was like literally just you're going back to last

00:02:18   year's iPhone and you're going to miss a few features, but it's still the home button and

00:02:22   all of that. I might go the other way, but the iPhone X has kind of reprogrammed all

00:02:26   the gestures in my brain, reprogrammed all those kind of gestures I use on the phone,

00:02:32   and I don't want to ever go back. When I pick up my wife's phone, I'm like, "What is—why

00:02:37   is it not—oh, there's a button. How cute. There's a button at the bottom. I remember

00:02:43   that when iPhones had buttons." So yeah, I think I would just make do with headphones,

00:02:47   Although I would be sad because I like my AirPods, but I think I never want to go back

00:02:52   now that I'm in iPhone 10 land.

00:02:55   It is very difficult because every iPhone is better than the previous one.

00:02:59   So it's, you know, it is a difficult thing to say, yeah, X iPhone or iPhone 10 is a better

00:03:05   than is like my favorite iPhone of all time, right?

00:03:08   Like it's a difficult thing to say because in theory they always should because they

00:03:10   get better.

00:03:11   But I feel like that there is some kind of like every phone you have an amount of affinity

00:03:17   for it. Of course you know it's a better phone but you either like it more or less.

00:03:23   And I would say that the iPhone X is my favourite iPhone since the original iPhone. I absolutely

00:03:30   love this phone where like previous phones that affinity has started to decrease. If

00:03:36   you've listened to this show for long enough you will know that I really did not like the

00:03:40   iPhone 7. I had a lot of problems with the iPhone 7 because again they took away stuff

00:03:45   that didn't make sense to me and I didn't get anything in return.

00:03:47   That was my biggest problem with the iPhone 7.

00:03:49   The iPhone 10, I absolutely love it.

00:03:52   So this is me saying I would use any other type of headphones.

00:03:56   I'd go back to wired ear pods personally, like because I did OK before.

00:04:00   Right. Like the AirPods are incredible. Right.

00:04:02   But I don't love the AirPods more than other headphones

00:04:06   than I do the iPhone more than other iPhones.

00:04:08   Yep. Especially because there are a lot of cool wireless headphones

00:04:13   on the market now.

00:04:14   Like for example, do you know what I would do?

00:04:16   I would just buy the Beats once and then I'm done.

00:04:19   So I showed you Joel.

00:04:21   Thank you, Joel, for your question.

00:04:23   You can send in a tweet with the hashtag Snail Talk for

00:04:26   any question to open the show.

00:04:27   I would love for you listeners, for the Upgradients to think of

00:04:31   something fun for our draft episode next week for a Snail Talk question.

00:04:35   So get your brain working on that one.

00:04:37   Maybe we can have something draft or WWDC related for our

00:04:41   hashtag Snail Talk question.

00:04:43   Be like Joel, be cool.

00:04:44   Send in a question.

00:04:45   So, uh, we have no follow ups.

00:04:47   Let's just move into upstream.

00:04:48   Um, Netflix orders Guillermo De Toro horror anthology series.

00:04:53   It's going to be called, I love this name Guillermo De Toro

00:04:56   presents 10 after midnight.

00:04:58   I love that name.

00:04:59   It's so evocative of something I can't put my finger on, but 10

00:05:03   after midnight, I really like it.

00:05:04   Creepy, scary.

00:05:07   Woo.

00:05:07   Exactly.

00:05:08   This is a part of a long-term deal that Netflix and Guillermo De Toro have.

00:05:12   I think it's a first look deal, I think,

00:05:16   but they have a deal together where he is making content

00:05:19   for them.

00:05:20   This show has no set episode or series order

00:05:24   and it has no premiere date right now.

00:05:26   They've just announced that it's happening.

00:05:27   - And it's an anthology series.

00:05:29   And I'm fascinated because it's been,

00:05:33   there used to be, we talked about this before, I think,

00:05:35   but there used to be a lot of anthology series on TV

00:05:36   in the old days and like "The Twilight Zone"

00:05:39   is a great example of that.

00:05:40   and there are others, Alfred Hitchcock Presents

00:05:42   is a great example of that.

00:05:44   But lately, with streaming especially,

00:05:47   there has been this resurgence in this

00:05:50   and I'm kind of fascinated by it.

00:05:52   Black Mirror is your best example,

00:05:54   although there are others.

00:05:55   - I would argue that that's the reason

00:05:57   that anthology series is so popular again.

00:05:59   - Yeah, I mean, they tried it with amazing stories

00:06:00   in the 80s and it didn't really work.

00:06:02   Like, in the Twilight Zone,

00:06:04   they brought back in the 80s too.

00:06:05   And neither of them was a particularly big success.

00:06:08   They both kind of putted around for two or three years,

00:06:11   but they were never a big success.

00:06:13   I feel like with streaming, something has changed

00:06:16   and I can't decide what it is

00:06:17   and whether it's that audiences are more receptive to this.

00:06:20   The idea that you're essentially watching a short story

00:06:23   instead of watching a continuing story

00:06:25   or a short film, if you will, right?

00:06:27   That maybe people are more receptive to that on streaming,

00:06:30   that they can kind of pick and choose.

00:06:32   It's funny 'cause it's very different.

00:06:34   Like you could binge Black Mirror,

00:06:35   but everything, every episode is different.

00:06:38   so you don't really have to, you could also just watch a couple and move on with your

00:06:42   life and maybe not be so sad because it's Black Mirror.

00:06:46   It's interesting because anthology series do not lend themselves to binging because

00:06:50   we binge because shows are built to entice you to watch the next episode so because it's

00:06:56   just available to us we do, right? Yeah, yeah so the question is why are people

00:07:00   doing this and my guess is that that some factor here is the idea that these

00:07:10   are little films and that you end up with this is almost like a it's like a

00:07:19   studio within a studio almost where it's like you come and work with Guillermo

00:07:24   Del-pl-uh, you know, it's Monday morning. G-D-T. You go work with him. You go work with

00:07:32   G-D-T and make a, you know, you come in and you direct an episode and you're making a

00:07:41   little film and you're a director and maybe you're a big name director like, you know,

00:07:46   there are notable people who've come in and directed their other anthology series and

00:07:51   are planning to. Or you're a writer and you come in and say, "Well, I've got this idea,"

00:07:55   and you pitch it to GDT and he's like, "Yeah, that's awesome. That fits with our format."

00:08:00   So I wonder if that's part of it, is this is a place for people who are creative, people

00:08:05   who work in the movie and TV industry, to do these one-off projects so they're not committing

00:08:10   to working a long time on a project. They can drop in and shoot something for a couple

00:08:16   of weeks and then be done. Maybe that's part of it too, but it's another one for Netflix.

00:08:26   By the way, yes, listener Joe in the chat room has pointed out that Netflix also has

00:08:31   announced the thing we talked about a few weeks ago, which is that the Obamas have made

00:08:36   that deal that maybe David Letterman helped inspire them to make to produce films and

00:08:41   series for Netflix, so the Obamas are gonna try it, which I think is gonna be interesting

00:08:48   to watch because there is a real question about whether people want to watch... first

00:08:55   off there's a political issue, right, where there's like a portion of the audience that's

00:08:58   not gonna want to watch the Obamas do anything. And then there's the other issue which is

00:09:03   just how much of this is gonna be, you know, take your medicine television and trying to

00:09:10   like, say, get people engaged in public service and changing the world and all these things

00:09:14   that former presidents tend to do, is that going to be... I mean, it's totally prestige

00:09:21   for Netflix to do that, but what's the audience going to be like for that? So we'll have to

00:09:26   watch it. But what a world we live in where the second act for a former president of the

00:09:30   United States is making a deal with streaming service.

00:09:35   How different is it to writing books these days, though, really?

00:09:39   You know?

00:09:40   Yeah, it's true.

00:09:41   I mean, the challenge there is the books.

00:09:44   What are the books?

00:09:45   Like a memoir will sell well, right?

00:09:50   But so will a TV series from that.

00:09:54   That Obama sits down to walk you through his presidency in interviews with people.

00:10:00   Obama talks with people in his administration about the Obama administration and the hard

00:10:04   choices they made and there's a thing about Osama bin Laden and there's a thing like all

00:10:08   of that like the mistakes they made and the things they feel that they are proud of and

00:10:12   all of that that would be an interesting series I kind of feel like instead what we're gonna

00:10:16   get is you know stuff about like a spotlight on volunteerism or and I'm not trying to or

00:10:22   other stuff like that which again I'm not trying to belittle those efforts those are

00:10:26   important charitable philanthropic efforts and getting people to you know speak speaking

00:10:33   to people about getting them excited about this stuff and all that. It's great. That's

00:10:37   a great role for a former president. But that as entertainment I am less sure is going to

00:10:44   reach a particularly broad audience. But who knows? I mean, I would love this to be like,

00:10:51   "Hey, you know presidential memoirs? Well, it's a show." I'm like, "What?" That would

00:10:57   be amazing. But again, I don't think that's what they're gonna do. Although, call me Netflix

00:11:03   or the Obamas if you want to talk about the idea of… I'm available for you to consult

00:11:11   on your memoir television series. But wouldn't that be cool? I think that would be really

00:11:15   interesting if it was literally like the people involved in a presidency breaking it down

00:11:20   a few years after the fact and kind of justifying themselves and having people question them

00:11:25   and having them do a little bit of failure analysis. I think that would be fascinating.

00:11:30   I said like a video memoir almost but it ain't gonna happen.

00:11:34   This is probably not what they're doing. But who knows could be good I mean they're entertaining

00:11:38   we'll wait and see.

00:11:40   Canal Plus in France now offers an Apple TV as a cable replacement box. They Canal Plus

00:11:47   are like a TV provider. They have gotten rid of their own boxes now going forward and will

00:11:53   be offering their current 5 million customers the opportunity to have an Apple TV instead

00:11:58   of their satellite TV boxes. These customers will be able to watch programming the Canal

00:12:03   Plus app and obviously they'll have a login for that. And the Apple TV boxes are on a

00:12:08   lease agreement of 6 euros a month. Canal Plus customers can currently opt to stick

00:12:13   with their current satellite service instead or they can switch over to the Apple TV option.

00:12:20   This is very interesting.

00:12:22   This is a satellite TV service that's also becoming an over-the-top, as they say, TV

00:12:26   and internet TV service. I think it's great to see this. I think this is going to happen

00:12:31   more. I've mentioned on previous shows that the Comcast app, the Xfinity app on my iPad

00:12:38   is essentially a, when I'm in my house, it's essentially a cable box. I can watch any channel

00:12:45   that they have in my house live. Plus I have access to all the on demand and the extra

00:12:51   stuff that they've got. And I realized at some point that if they put that on the Apple

00:12:55   TV, my Apple TV would essentially be a cable box. That it wouldn't have all the features,

00:13:00   they don't have like a DVR feature on their stuff, and I have a DVR, so my DVR is way

00:13:07   more functional than this. But it's so close to being that. And we've seen some of these

00:13:11   over the top providers, and they have cloud DVR and things like that in order to take

00:13:16   care of that. So I think this is a question on one level of like, is it better for cable

00:13:23   companies to offer this sort of thing, or does it risk making them, you know, if you're

00:13:30   going to get your cable company's app, why don't you just use the YouTube TV app if it's

00:13:35   better, right? Like that would be the argument there. But I think it also says that--

00:13:41   Well, they may-- Canal Plus may have exclusives in France or whatever for certain channels.

00:13:47   That's true, that's true, but I'm thinking that's how they have to compete then. At that

00:13:50   point your cable provider, separate from your internet, and my cable provider is my internet

00:13:54   provider and that's how they get you, but it does, at one point the over-the-top services

00:14:02   are so full-featured that the cable companies are just essentially competing, they're another

00:14:06   over-the-top service. Whether they're using their proprietary way to get video into your

00:14:10   home or whether like Canal Plus they're like, "Look, here's an app, just use that." Either

00:14:15   way, they're just all competing then, and that's a separate competition from being the

00:14:21   provider of the internet pipe, and that is a little bit different from what some cable

00:14:28   companies do now where they control your internet and they control your video. But in the end,

00:14:34   I think more competition is good, and having competition for who your TV provider is is

00:14:42   potentially a really good thing.

00:14:43   So also I'll point out again, this is a satellite service,

00:14:46   which is notable because satellite services

00:14:49   don't have high speed internet.

00:14:52   I mean, they've got low speed internet,

00:14:54   but they don't have high speed internet to your house.

00:14:56   - Yes and no.

00:14:57   So like you can't offer it over satellite,

00:14:59   but these companies also typically tend to offer

00:15:02   internet service now as well.

00:15:03   - Some do.

00:15:04   In the US, the satellite services generally,

00:15:09   although there's been some consolidation,

00:15:12   But generally, the satellite service doesn't give you

00:15:14   anything but there is satellite internet,

00:15:15   it's very slow, a lot of latency, it's not good.

00:15:18   But, and a few of them, like DirecTV is owned by AT&T

00:15:22   and AT&T has broadband in some markets,

00:15:25   but mostly it doesn't.

00:15:25   So if you're like me, I used to be a DirecTV customer,

00:15:29   I still had to have high speed internet from someone else.

00:15:32   And it was AT&T for a while with DSL

00:15:34   and then I moved to Comcast for,

00:15:36   and then eventually I picked up Comcast for TV.

00:15:39   So what I'm saying is if you're not in lockstep

00:15:43   where like most of your customers are getting TV

00:15:46   and internet from you, it's a lot easier to do this, right?

00:15:50   Because for you, you're already under pressure

00:15:53   because they've got another company they're paying

00:15:57   for their internet.

00:15:58   They could drop you on a moment's notice.

00:16:00   And so for them, they're basically saying,

00:16:02   "Look, however you want it, satellite, internet, whatever,

00:16:06   we don't care, just use us for your TV and we'll be happy."

00:16:09   And I think that that's just, we'll see more of that.

00:16:12   DirecTV now is an over the top service.

00:16:16   That is, it's the same kind of idea.

00:16:18   They're a satellite broadcaster and there are limits to that.

00:16:22   So now they also are an over the top service.

00:16:24   So yeah, it's interesting.

00:16:26   Even if you're not in France,

00:16:28   it's an interesting development

00:16:29   because most cable companies could do this today

00:16:32   if they really wanted to.

00:16:33   They'd have to invest in the technology a little bit,

00:16:35   but like a lot of their apps already are there

00:16:38   for this stuff.

00:16:39   They're just-- I see why they would be reluctant,

00:16:41   because once everything is an app,

00:16:46   then they have to compete with all the other apps.

00:16:48   Whereas right now, they get to be like the monolithic TV

00:16:51   provider.

00:16:52   And you don't have to use them, but a lot of consumers

00:16:54   are just like, OK, they give me my TV.

00:16:57   At least older consumers.

00:16:58   I think younger consumers do not care about their TV services.

00:17:01   But there's still a lot of money to be

00:17:04   made in selling people cable instead of internet

00:17:08   and then pick an app.

00:17:09   - All right, buckle up, this one's a little bit confusing.

00:17:11   Google announces YouTube Music and YouTube Premium.

00:17:15   So they are separating the features of YouTube Red

00:17:18   and they are now charging for them differently.

00:17:21   So it will now cost you $9.99 a month to get YouTube Music.

00:17:26   This was the existing price of YouTube Red.

00:17:30   YouTube Red did come with some music features,

00:17:33   like you got to be able to listen to YouTube

00:17:35   in the background and stuff like that.

00:17:37   but Google are now creating a YouTube music streaming service.

00:17:41   It's going to be, have its own dedicated app for mobile and desktop.

00:17:46   They are building a full on music streaming service now. Um,

00:17:51   I am assuming Google play music is going to die, uh,

00:17:56   because they are leaning into the powerful brands and the advantages of YouTube

00:18:00   for this. Um, Google say then, and again, like this is how you can,

00:18:04   I think you can read that is they say that they have the YouTube advantage is what they

00:18:10   call it. This means that as well as official songs, right, so you get to listen to say

00:18:16   the Taylor Swift album, you also have because it's YouTube access to thousands of remixes,

00:18:22   covers, live versions and music videos. So that does make it quite interesting. This

00:18:27   is something that Apple Music doesn't have and Spotify doesn't have because Google have.

00:18:32   So say for example, if you like Pomplamoose and you like their covers, you can get them

00:18:39   immediately because they're in YouTube, right?

00:18:42   So also Google have or YouTube has a powerful search engine algorithm behind it.

00:18:48   They give an example of you could search for that hipster song with the whistling and you

00:18:53   would get the song "Young Folks" from a few years ago.

00:18:56   This is an example that they give.

00:18:57   I like that thought, right?

00:18:59   And it makes sense because people are searching for this stuff right now in YouTube.

00:19:04   So like YouTube's algorithm for finding this music is incredibly powerful.

00:19:09   So that's going to be YouTube Music.

00:19:12   If you want to get ad-free YouTube, the ability to download videos and get access to YouTube

00:19:17   Originals or the YouTube Red stuff, you now need to pay a total of $11.99.

00:19:22   You cannot have this separately.

00:19:24   You must have a YouTube music subscription and then you can pay extra for YouTube Premium,

00:19:29   which is an additional $2.

00:19:32   However, if you are already a YouTube Red customer, you're grandfathered into the $9.99

00:19:37   price.

00:19:38   This will be for new customers only.

00:19:39   I believe that it's rolling out this week.

00:19:41   So if this sounds interesting to you and it hasn't rolled out in your territory, maybe

00:19:45   go sign up for YouTube Red right now because you'll get it for $9.99.

00:19:50   The big news for me is that YouTube Premium and YouTube Music is going international.

00:19:56   Previously YouTube Red has been US only, so rolling out in the coming weeks to many countries

00:20:00   including Germany, France, Mexico, Italy and the UK, we're going to be able to get YouTube

00:20:05   Music and YouTube Premium.

00:20:07   Now I am really interested in YouTube Music because of the additional features that YouTube

00:20:16   has that nobody else has.

00:20:18   I'm really keen to try this out because if they have all the songs that I want, they

00:20:23   have playlists functionality, right?

00:20:24   I'm assuming that they can do a lot of the like discover weekly type stuff, probably

00:20:28   better than Apple can, maybe not as good as Spotify.

00:20:31   We'll see.

00:20:32   But the fact that they have all of this other content that they can give you around that

00:20:37   musician and around that song, that is a competitive advantage that Spotify and Apple cannot match

00:20:43   them on for now.

00:20:45   And I think that's really cool.

00:20:46   I think it sounds really interesting.

00:20:47   I'm keen to see what the apps are like.

00:20:50   But more than anything, I want to get YouTube Premium because I want to be able to download

00:20:54   YouTube videos.

00:20:55   I have a workflow that does this, but I'd prefer to not have to do this.

00:20:58   I would like to be able to just watch them in the app, download them in the app, because

00:21:02   I like to watch some video game streams that I like, for example, when I'm flying.

00:21:07   It's such a pain to have to do the whole rigmarole.

00:21:12   We paid for YouTube Red last summer for a couple of months.

00:21:15   there was a trial and we did that

00:21:18   because we were going on a long car trip

00:21:19   and Julian wanted to download a bunch of his favorite,

00:21:23   yeah, YouTube videos and watch them while we were,

00:21:26   you know, in the middle of the Nevada desert, right?

00:21:28   So streaming is not, it would kill our cellular

00:21:31   even if he could and we don't want that.

00:21:33   And we did that and that's okay.

00:21:34   I'm fascinated by this because this shows you

00:21:37   all the strength and all the confusion

00:21:39   of Google's brands, right?

00:21:42   Like first off, they tried to launch, you know,

00:21:44   have a Google Music brand that is, that was originally famously Google Play Music All

00:21:49   Access, the worst product name for, worst service name ever. They may keep that or they

00:21:56   may kill that, right? But that is a traditional, if there can be such a thing, music streaming

00:22:01   service like Apple Music. Yield Spotify. So there's that. And then there's YouTube. And

00:22:10   And the funny thing is, I get it, I get it, right?

00:22:13   YouTube is not a music brand in the sense that its name even is about video and we think

00:22:18   about it about video.

00:22:19   However, that hasn't stopped it from being one of the primary ways, if not the primary

00:22:24   way that many people, especially younger people, listen to music.

00:22:28   I think that YouTube is probably the biggest music platform on the planet.

00:22:32   It's possible.

00:22:33   My daughter listens to music on a music app.

00:22:36   She's using Apple Music now, she used Spotify for a while and I said I upgraded us to the

00:22:40   family plan for Apple Music and she has switched now because she has everything in there. But

00:22:44   my son really likes listening to video game music and it's all on YouTube. He will literally

00:22:50   just put his iPad playing YouTube music on his headphones while he plays video games,

00:22:56   right? And I think this is a very common use case. We took a family trip this weekend and

00:23:00   we brought one of my son's friends with me. You know, he came along and so then I had

00:23:06   two of these boys in the back seat.

00:23:10   And they're both doing this, right?

00:23:11   Like this is just what that cohort is doing.

00:23:16   And so on that level, it's like, yeah,

00:23:18   I know you don't think of YouTube as a music brand,

00:23:20   but it's actually an enormous music brand for some people.

00:23:23   I think the danger of Google

00:23:25   just killing their traditional music service

00:23:28   would be that some people aren't going to ever see YouTube

00:23:32   as a music brand.

00:23:33   But the problem is those people

00:23:34   are probably already using Spotify, right?

00:23:36   Like I'm not sure, maybe choose what you're best at.

00:23:40   And YouTube is what is best at doing music

00:23:42   for within the Google portfolio.

00:23:44   So just leaning into that, I kinda like that idea.

00:23:48   It's gonna be, right?

00:23:49   Like not every service is for everybody.

00:23:51   Your description of all of the advantages

00:23:54   that YouTube has in terms of all the content

00:23:57   that's around that, the ancillary content,

00:23:59   that's the stuff that I listened to once

00:24:00   and never wanna listen to again.

00:24:02   So for me, I'm like, I don't care about that.

00:24:05   I'm also really skeptical of, because of Google in general,

00:24:10   that they're really gonna be able to do something

00:24:13   like a discover playlist or curated playlist

00:24:16   because that's not them, they're algorithm-based

00:24:19   and I'm not entirely sure I trust their algorithms

00:24:21   to actually give me, over having some human participation

00:24:25   in the curation.

00:24:26   But again, that's a style thing.

00:24:27   Like for other people, you just trust the,

00:24:29   I mean, when I think about using YouTube,

00:24:31   you kind of trust the algorithm, right?

00:24:33   Like, oh, look at these videos.

00:24:34   how many times do you play a YouTube video

00:24:37   and then you see like five interesting videos

00:24:39   that are generated by the algorithm, right?

00:24:41   So there is something to be said for that.

00:24:44   And so that's all good.

00:24:45   That's all good.

00:24:46   I think as weird as it is as an old to look at this

00:24:49   and be like YouTube music service, it makes sense.

00:24:51   It totally makes sense if you understand what YouTube is

00:24:55   in terms of being a music delivery platform

00:24:57   for especially young people.

00:25:00   My problem is the video stuff.

00:25:02   'Cause I feel like YouTube Red was weird

00:25:06   because it was like all these YouTube features

00:25:08   plus premium content.

00:25:10   And of course they've changed

00:25:11   their premium content strategy too,

00:25:13   where they were like working with YouTubers

00:25:16   and now they're still working with YouTubers,

00:25:17   but they also have like traditional-

00:25:19   - It's mostly celebrities now.

00:25:20   - Right, right.

00:25:21   And "Cobra Kai" is just an original series, right?

00:25:24   They're trying out an entirely,

00:25:27   just an original scripted series.

00:25:29   So that's the part that kind of,

00:25:31   I feel like they're getting their music story together,

00:25:34   their video story is still just kind of a mess

00:25:36   because I look at this and I think, well, wait a second,

00:25:38   so you can't get it separately.

00:25:39   So you have to get a music service

00:25:41   in order to get the extra features and the video content,

00:25:45   which that seems like a mistake to me.

00:25:48   So the YouTube music seems like a service

00:25:53   that will actually stick

00:25:54   after them trying all these different things.

00:25:58   I would probably lay money that YouTube Premium

00:26:01   is gonna change dramatically in the next couple of years

00:26:05   'cause I'm not sure it actually works or makes any sense.

00:26:07   It's more like they need a place to stuff

00:26:09   a bunch of these things.

00:26:11   And why you would not just put the,

00:26:14   I mean, like the downloading videos and stuff,

00:26:16   it's like, you got people paying you money,

00:26:18   maybe you want an extra $2 a month,

00:26:20   you're Google, you want an extra $2 a month

00:26:22   for somebody who's already paying you,

00:26:24   maybe you should just let them have that feature.

00:26:27   Ad-free is weird.

00:26:28   It's fine, but of course, staking anything on AdFree

00:26:31   is always strange because you have a relationship

00:26:33   with advertisers, and now you're telling them

00:26:36   that we have this hardcore group of people

00:26:38   who you can't reach, which is also a little bit weird.

00:26:41   And then you've got the premium content.

00:26:43   So I'm not sure they've got a whole story there.

00:26:46   But then again, I could also say maybe Google saying,

00:26:50   "Look, we're not gonna build our own video streaming service

00:26:54   outside of YouTube, and we're not,

00:26:57   just like we probably shouldn't have built

00:26:58   our own music streaming service outside of YouTube

00:27:01   because we own YouTube and we're just gonna be YouTube

00:27:04   as much as we possibly can.

00:27:06   And I can really see that argument.

00:27:08   I feel like the end result may be that they realize

00:27:12   that generating all of this premium content,

00:27:14   whether it was with YouTubers or then celebrities

00:27:16   or then they bought this scripted show,

00:27:19   they may realize, no, that's not us.

00:27:21   And just kind of back away from there.

00:27:23   But it's hard.

00:27:25   You can see Apple couldn't resist it.

00:27:26   It's hard to sit on the sidelines as a tech giant

00:27:29   and see Netflix and see what Amazon's doing

00:27:32   and how Apple's doing it and be Google and like,

00:27:34   but I really wanna compete with those guys.

00:27:37   It's like, but you've got YouTube,

00:27:38   you don't need to compete with those guys.

00:27:40   You've got this huge video,

00:27:41   but I kinda wanna spend billions of dollars

00:27:43   on original scripted content.

00:27:45   Maybe not, maybe don't do that, but who knows?

00:27:49   I don't know, it's fascinating.

00:27:51   I'm tired of YouTube and Google

00:27:53   keeping changing all of their things

00:27:56   and what they are, it's so confusing and weird.

00:27:58   But with the music thing anyway,

00:28:00   I feel like they maybe found the right approach,

00:28:02   which is just to embrace that YouTube is a music brand too,

00:28:06   and just lean all the way in.

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00:29:37   So I have built a gaming PC. This is something that I've been talking about throughout the

00:29:43   year and I have done it. Um, and it's making me, it's given me a couple of things that

00:29:48   I want to talk to you about, Jason.

00:29:50   If you are interested in hearing the process of me building the PC, I will do some follow-out

00:29:56   to episode 58 of remaster and episode 69 of Cortex, which will be released within 24 hours

00:30:05   of this show being posted, so you can look out for those.

00:30:08   I kind of go into detail about the actual building process, but I didn't want to talk

00:30:14   about that so much here today.

00:30:16   I wanted to talk about some of my experiences of using a PC again after, well for one, not

00:30:24   having really used a PC at all for four years and not used a PC for like entertainment or

00:30:31   my own choice for like ten years maybe?

00:30:38   Before I got my first Mac, more than that, nearly 15, who knows.

00:30:41   So I have a few different areas, Jason, that I wanted to talk to you about. App stores

00:30:48   is probably the one of the most interesting. The Windows App Store is barren. It is bad.

00:30:58   It's kind of like the Mac App Store in that there isn't really a lot there, but Microsoft

00:31:03   tries to position it. There is, I have to say this because I can't get it, there's a

00:31:07   huge storm here happening right now in London. I have to mention it right now because you're

00:31:11   to keep hearing it. I nearly, my brain nearly exploded a minute ago because of some lightning.

00:31:16   I edited that out of the show. But there is, there's a storm. I'm sorry. There's nothing

00:31:20   I can do to control the world. That's exactly it. That was an accurate representation of

00:31:27   what just happened outside of my office. But anyway, so, you know, the Mac App Store is

00:31:31   a lonely place, right? And the Windows App Store is kind of like that. There are some

00:31:35   apps there, there are some utilities there, but most of the stuff that's there, it's not

00:31:39   really that useful or updated that often because there's just not a lot of focus put there

00:31:44   by Apple and I don't think there's been a lot of focus there by Microsoft. But the thing

00:31:48   is about the Windows App Store, that is the App Store for all of their devices, right?

00:31:54   So you can still get Windows Phone apps and then there's tablet apps and then there's

00:31:57   the desktop apps. And if you think of it in comparison to the iOS App Store, it's not

00:32:04   good. Like, I downloaded the official Twitter app. It's just the webpage. Like, that's all

00:32:12   it is. It is literally the webpage. You can't even have multiple accounts in the official

00:32:17   Twitter app on Windows. All it is is the webpage. It's not good there. And I think this is why

00:32:24   they announced this a couple of weeks ago, right, at Build, their revenue split change.

00:32:29   So they're doing like 95% goes to developers now.

00:32:35   It can be up to between 85 and 90%, 95% of the revenue goes to developers.

00:32:40   And this is a clear thing from them where they really want people to use their apps

00:32:45   at like their app store and to use their functions and to actually put stuff there.

00:32:49   But there is another side of the Windows App Store, which is games.

00:32:55   So like any Xbox exclusive is on the Microsoft Store for PC.

00:33:01   This is the reason I bought it and this shows the big difference, right?

00:33:05   You can get games in the Mac App Store, but they're like okay games or they're older games.

00:33:11   This is anything.

00:33:12   Like games that come out now on Xbox I can get on my PC, as well as being able to get

00:33:18   anything from Steam.

00:33:20   all these PC games and VR games are available to me, which is why I built this PC in the

00:33:25   first place. And like that's the big difference, right? Like Apple has apps, Microsoft has

00:33:31   games and depending on what you are more focused towards, I think that's these days why you

00:33:37   would make the decision that you would make, right? Would you agree with that?

00:33:41   Yeah, I think so.

00:33:42   So I also wanted to talk about just the overall feel today still, because I think Windows

00:33:48   Windows 10, Windows 10 looks nicer than any version of Windows I've used in the past.

00:33:53   Have you used Windows 10 at all?

00:33:55   Yeah, I have it installed on my iMac actually because I do have, of course, I do have games

00:34:02   that I want to play that are only available on Windows. And so I set up boot camp, I went

00:34:06   to the, I went to my local Microsoft store, I walked in the door, I had to make my way

00:34:11   through the massive crowds that were outside the Apple store. And then went, walked with

00:34:17   a tumbleweed blowing by into the Microsoft Store. I'm sorry, we kid Microsoft, but those

00:34:21   stores don't have very many people in them. I had like two, three people who are like,

00:34:25   "Oh, yes, sir. I wanted to touch that Surface thing, the big Surface Studio thing." And

00:34:30   I couldn't even use it for a minute before I had two people pop up to me saying, "Yes,

00:34:34   sir. Can I help you with anything?" I'm like, "Oh, man." Anyway, I bought a Windows 10 install

00:34:38   on a little USB stick and used boot camp and got it all up and running on my iMac. So I

00:34:45   I do have it and I have used it.

00:34:47   It's a little weird because like I learned

00:34:50   how to use Windows XP, right?

00:34:54   That's the Windows that I like.

00:34:56   I know my way around in Windows XP

00:34:58   and Windows 10 is like, it's so strange

00:35:00   and like things are in corners

00:35:03   and there are little tabs and little blue things everywhere.

00:35:06   And it's a little, it takes a lot of getting used to,

00:35:08   but it looks great.

00:35:09   It is the result of Microsoft taking care

00:35:13   with their platform.

00:35:14   but what I like is on the face of it everything looks way nicer but you do not have to go

00:35:19   very far down to get Windows 95 back.

00:35:21   Oh yeah.

00:35:22   Like so you can go into the control panel right and everything's much more nicely designed

00:35:26   and you click it and you can select from these little icons as soon as you click like properties

00:35:30   on anything you get Windows 95 pop up right with all the tabs and it's like no this is

00:35:36   not it's only skin deep this this this change.

00:35:41   I think their philosophy is like, they want to float up all the stuff that most people

00:35:47   care about to this one level, and it's a very nice level. And then if you want to tweak

00:35:51   anything, they're like, "All right, forget it. Here you go. You're one of those people.

00:35:56   Dig down deep." And yeah, it's hard. You can't change it all overnight. And so yeah, there's

00:36:02   still a whole level below the surface. Because it's still Windows, right? It still fundamentally

00:36:08   is Windows, it needs to do the things that Windows does and that also means that it has

00:36:11   to have all of these kind of weird areas and tweaky settings and things. Things that seem

00:36:15   perfectly normal probably to a Windows user but that to a Mac user you're like, "Whoa,

00:36:20   okay, now what do I have to do?" Yeah.

00:36:22   - But like, you know, in surprise to nobody, like, if overall look and feel and polish

00:36:28   is what you like, the Mac OS is like, I almost, I feel like I had forgotten or like not paid

00:36:36   attention for a while to just like the overall look and feel of desktop operating systems.

00:36:42   I appreciate the way my Mac looks a lot more now that I've used Windows. Like Windows looks

00:36:47   so much better than it ever has. Yes. But it's still not not I mean I'm sorry if you

00:36:52   love Windows but like for my tastes it is still nowhere near what the Mac is. Like just

00:36:57   from a visual consistency perspective like everything kind of looks the same. You know

00:37:03   like there are elements of basically all Mac apps unless they're like Windows

00:37:08   first like Steam for example right that like all Mac apps kind of have a look to

00:37:13   them and all of the OS kind of has a consistent look to it and this

00:37:17   consistency doesn't really seem to exist in Windows so much and I know that that

00:37:21   is like a thing of Windows right so like I wanted to talk about custom

00:37:28   customizability a little bit right like it's almost endless on Windows you can

00:37:32   It comes from the build, right?

00:37:35   You choose every piece of hardware you want, you make your own thing,

00:37:38   which I think is amazing.

00:37:40   Like I've loved doing that, like making my own PC and the software as well.

00:37:44   Like it's all kind of, you're putting it all together on your own, but what

00:37:47   that lends itself to, uh, is real kind of mess in places, right?

00:37:56   because things just don't, they just don't

00:38:00   like map together so well at times,

00:38:04   you know, like apps just look so wildly different sometimes.

00:38:07   - And I don't wanna beat up Windows here,

00:38:10   but I do think that, and everybody can like what they like,

00:38:13   but I think there is a trend in the media,

00:38:16   especially the tech media, to give Microsoft kind of a pass

00:38:21   because it's made so many improvements,

00:38:24   which again, to be congratulated,

00:38:25   Microsoft used to not care basically

00:38:28   about user experience and design.

00:38:30   And they clearly do care and they are trying their best.

00:38:33   But I will also say, going back to the Mac OS thing,

00:38:36   like there are people out there I read now

00:38:39   who straight faced say Microsoft has passed Apple on desktop

00:38:44   in terms of usability, in terms of design.

00:38:46   - They haven't, like I want a masterclass from those people.

00:38:51   Those, I think, and again, they are using Windows a lot,

00:38:56   so maybe they are seeing it and I just haven't gotten it,

00:38:58   but I look at it and I think,

00:39:00   you don't use your computer as much as you used to

00:39:04   because you're using smartphones,

00:39:06   you are taken in by how much they've improved.

00:39:10   And so here's a fun narrative

00:39:12   because horse race narratives are fun.

00:39:14   And this is like, oh, now Microsoft has edged,

00:39:16   ha ha, the shoe is on the other foot.

00:39:17   No, Apple, Microsoft is beat.

00:39:20   I just, I don't think it actually bears up

00:39:23   other than to say like,

00:39:24   it's got a bunch of touchscreen stuff

00:39:25   that of course Apple doesn't even do.

00:39:27   And if you're interacting in that mode,

00:39:28   it is very nice on that level,

00:39:32   they've built it for that.

00:39:33   And, but anyway, I question that.

00:39:36   And then when you go to the other apps,

00:39:37   this is the other thing is when I was saying like apps

00:39:41   or like Microsoft is committed to improving windows,

00:39:44   like Microsoft app developers,

00:39:46   Windows app developers, not as committed,

00:39:50   not as committed.

00:39:51   So my story here is that I have a friend

00:39:55   who is a podcaster and a podcast editor,

00:39:58   and I have her do some podcasts, everything for me,

00:40:02   and she and her husband have a podcast consulting business.

00:40:07   - Just give it a plug.

00:40:07   - Podcast and work with people.

00:40:09   It's called Castria, it's Erica Ensign and Steven Shipanski.

00:40:13   and they are at, I think it's wearcastria.com,

00:40:18   and I think that is a redirect. - Yep, I got it.

00:40:21   - Anyway, so she's a PC user, he's a Mac user,

00:40:24   and we were talking about recording audio and video,

00:40:27   and I was talking about Audio Hijack.

00:40:29   And I'm like, what would be the equivalent on Windows?

00:40:34   And there's a program called Total Recorder.

00:40:37   And I called up the Total Recorder website,

00:40:39   and first off, they make it kind of hard

00:40:40   to see what Total Recorder looks like,

00:40:41   which I find suspicious fundamentally, like,

00:40:45   you want me to buy your software

00:40:48   and you won't show me your software?

00:40:49   That's, I'm a little concerned about that.

00:40:52   But I feel like it is the perfect example

00:40:54   of the difference between the Mac and Windows,

00:40:55   which is call record, or not call recorder, audio hijack.

00:40:59   It's got these little round wrecked, you know,

00:41:03   little squares with rounded off corners

00:41:05   that you build like a little workflow

00:41:07   and it's got a whole bunch of different functions

00:41:08   and you can do all of this stuff

00:41:10   and you press the button and it lights up

00:41:13   and all of this stuff.

00:41:14   And then there's like Total Recorder,

00:41:16   which again, seems like a very functional,

00:41:18   useful app for recording audio and video on Windows.

00:41:22   But to look at it,

00:41:24   it does not feel like the modern version of Windows

00:41:29   that Microsoft would like us to think about for Windows 10.

00:41:31   It feels like a PC app from the Windows 95 era,

00:41:37   which is a whole bunch of rectangles and functions and menus,

00:41:42   and it's confusing.

00:41:43   And again, fair enough.

00:41:46   If it's functional, people are gonna use it,

00:41:48   and apparently it is functional.

00:41:51   But I had that moment where I was like,

00:41:53   "Oh yeah, Windows, right, yeah."

00:41:55   - So you know you were talking about usability, right?

00:42:00   I just think that one of the biggest arguments

00:42:03   against usability is drivers.

00:42:06   the problems I have been having with drivers.

00:42:10   And so like drivers are what you need to install

00:42:12   to make basically everything work.

00:42:13   A lot of them install automatically,

00:42:15   but a lot of them don't.

00:42:16   So I have a little audio interface

00:42:19   called the Tascam 2x2.

00:42:21   It's just a simple audio interface

00:42:22   that I've had for a while.

00:42:23   If I plug it into my Mac, it just works.

00:42:25   I can plug my XLR microphone in, it's a USB interface.

00:42:29   Work straight away, no problem.

00:42:31   It needs drivers on Windows to work.

00:42:33   So you plug it in, you have to download drivers

00:42:35   from Tascam's website.

00:42:36   And then I plugged it, I had to,

00:42:41   my mouse stopped working,

00:42:42   I needed a new driver for my mouse.

00:42:44   When I installed the driver for my mouse,

00:42:45   my Tascam audio interface stopped working.

00:42:48   Then I had to download older versions

00:42:51   of the Tascam driver until it worked again.

00:42:53   And I feel like I am constantly playing this

00:42:57   like game of Jenga with drivers.

00:42:59   Like it's wild.

00:43:01   Like it's, I just like, you install one

00:43:04   then one stops working and then you have to update one and another stops working and then

00:43:08   this one didn't auto update so you have to like on the Mac you just plug and unplug things

00:43:13   and they work right sometimes you need software but you just need software right and the software

00:43:18   does its thing but by and large you don't.

00:43:20   And this is this is Apple's advantage of having I've dealt with this Myke with the hackintosh

00:43:25   stuff right because it's the same thing Apple builds all its own hardware and it builds

00:43:29   its OS, and the OS supports all the hardware that's in every Mac that is, this is where

00:43:35   compatibility comes from in large part, OS compatibility is like, they have to cover

00:43:40   every system, every OS that is covered, every device that is covered, compatibility, the

00:43:45   OS has to have all the drivers for all the hardware that Apple has ever shipped for those

00:43:50   devices, which is hard, but it does mean that every device has the drivers all the time,

00:43:58   not a problem. And then, yeah, when you do the hackintosh stuff, it's the same thing,

00:44:04   where like, either, "Oh, it doesn't do Wi-Fi," because there's no driver for that. Or there's

00:44:10   like, "Well, you can take this driver and you can install it, but you have to kind of

00:44:14   hack this file and then you do this and you install it and then restart and set this BIOS

00:44:18   setting, and then it'll work." And doing that, it reminded me like, "Oh yeah, hardware doesn't

00:44:25   just work. There's software that has to talk to it and Apple takes care of that whole,

00:44:30   like, thing. You just never have to worry about it. And then if you're building your

00:44:33   own PC, no, you've got to do it yourself. Which, I mean, to be fair, you are building

00:44:38   your own PC, but it is a reminder of how good we got it.

00:44:41   I would still have to do some, but I wouldn't have to install as many if I was just buying

00:44:45   something off the shelf. But there's stuff I would still need, but not as many as I have

00:44:50   needed. But, like, this is just, though, like, I find this frustrating, but it's the flip

00:44:54   side of the thing that I like so I'm willing to accept it and what I like is the customizability

00:44:58   of it. I have built a PC to my own specification to mean that it is as powerful as I want it to be

00:45:04   and it has all of the features that I want. I appreciate what Windows can do for me. It is

00:45:09   allowing me to do a thing that I really want to do, gaming on the PC and streaming games, that I

00:45:16   couldn't do any other way. That's why I'm happy with it and I love my PC because it's my PC,

00:45:22   I built it, right? And everything else is like, well, the software is just the software.

00:45:28   It's just a bridge for me to get to the games. Like I'm not sitting and doing my work on

00:45:33   this PC and that's not going to change because I like Mac OS for that stuff. But all I have

00:45:37   to do is like, yes, it takes time to manage it. It does take time to manage it, but I'm

00:45:42   willing to do that management because I am getting ultimately what I want out of this,

00:45:47   which is the ability to play literally any PC game around.

00:45:53   So, I think you've crystallized perfectly what I learned after much pain over many years

00:46:01   is the fundamental difference, I think, between people who are enthusiastic about Macs and

00:46:07   people who are enthusiastic about PCs. It's a little bit like this with iOS and Android,

00:46:12   but it's really about this with the...

00:46:13   There are parallels there, for sure.

00:46:15   Not PC users in general because there are a vast number of PC users and the

00:46:20   vast number of them, the vast percentage, are not PC enthusiasts, right? A lot of them

00:46:26   don't care about their computer, it's just the computer that they have. They

00:46:29   literally don't care and I would argue that's what the that nice bright, you

00:46:33   know, blue shiny layer on Windows 10 is it's for them, right? They hopefully will

00:46:39   never see the layer underneath that that's still a little bit ugly and

00:46:43   Tweaky but what you said is exactly right which is I think the PC enthusiasts

00:46:49   never understood that Mac users even if they were enthusiasts what they were

00:46:57   enthusiastic about is that Apple kind of like took care of all those issues and

00:47:01   like those are issues we don't care about

00:47:03   I don't want to be bothered with them I want to move this way whereas if you're

00:47:07   viewing the world as I can make a computer by buying parts and assembling

00:47:11   them and then I get all the software and I put that together and I can make the

00:47:15   perfect computer for me because I chose the parts, I chose the software, I

00:47:19   installed it all myself, I made this computer. That is fun for some people, it

00:47:28   is an accomplishment, it is a thing that you now have that is for you, made by you

00:47:33   to your specifications. That's all great and that is the that is a divide, right?

00:47:38   Because I think from the Apple side, and again, I don't want to generalize because there are people

00:47:43   who don't care and there are people who actually wish that you could do that stuff on on Macs and

00:47:48   have always been. But I look at that and I'm like, "Yeah, I don't want to do that." It's that simple.

00:47:53   It's like, "Well, wait a second. You say you're a tech person and you like computers and you like

00:47:58   knowing stuff about computers. Why would you not want to build your own PC and install your own

00:48:03   drivers. And for me, that's always been the disconnect, which is because that sounds awful

00:48:09   and I don't want to do it. I'd rather spend my time on something else. But it's not invalid

00:48:14   to say that is fun to do that. I kind of had fun building the two kind of Hackintosh projects

00:48:20   that I've done. I had fun doing them for certain definitions of fun, and certainly felt a sense

00:48:29   of accomplishment that I got these things to work, but also realizing that it wasn't

00:48:35   for everyone and that I wasn't going to judge somebody for not wanting to do that, because

00:48:40   I myself also kind of don't want to do that on an ongoing basis. But like in the end,

00:48:44   you got the thing that you wanted and you made it yourself and that's great.

00:48:47   Yeah, I'm, and I'll tell you, I'm very happy. Like, I feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole

00:48:53   a little bit right now but I expected that to happen because I don't know anything about this

00:49:00   world right of like building a gaming PC and maintaining it and getting it to where I want

00:49:06   it to be you know like I'm doing a bunch of things where I'm like buying this part but that was the

00:49:10   wrong part or like going down this direction oh no I made a mistake here like for example I have

00:49:16   have a HDMI monitor, right? And I just bought an Oculus. But the hate I only have one HDMI

00:49:22   port and the Oculus needs that. So now what do I do? Right? So like, okay, maybe I need

00:49:29   to get an adapter. You gotta buy a different right? You gotta buy a different video card

00:49:33   or some video card or buy a different monitor like a DisplayPort monitor because my graphics

00:49:38   card has one HDMI and three DisplayPorts on it. It's like, okay, and a lot of the gaming

00:49:44   monitors run by DisplayPort. So like there's just all these things where it's like, I didn't

00:49:48   know that. Here's the thing I learned. And this is and mostly most of my frustrations

00:49:53   come from the fact that I don't know any of this and I'm learning it. And that's part

00:49:58   of whilst it can be frustrating. It's also part of a valuable experience for me because

00:50:04   I feel like I have not learned something in consumer technology for a very long time.

00:50:08   Right? Like I feel like most of the stuff that I use, I know and I know how it works

00:50:13   and I know what I need to know to make it work the way I want.

00:50:16   And this is like a whole different world to me.

00:50:18   It's opening up, which I'm which I'm excited about.

00:50:20   It's great.

00:50:21   But it's led me to think of something else, Jason,

00:50:23   that I wanted to talk to you about, and that's ecosystems.

00:50:26   But before we do that, let me thank Linode for their support of this show.

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00:51:27   you will get $20 towards any Linode plan. And if you sign up for the 1GB of RAM plan,

00:51:32   that will give you 4 free months to try out. They have a 7 day money back guarantee so

00:51:36   there's nothing to lose. And if you go to linode.com/upgrade you'll learn more, sign

00:51:41   up take advantage of that totally little credit and support this show in the process. You

00:51:45   can also use the promo code upgrade 2018 at checkout. Our thanks to Linode for their support

00:51:50   of this show and Relay FM. And everything I do. Everything Jason does. Because that's

00:51:58   where all of my stuff is is on a Linode server so yay. So in trying to get a PC set up I've

00:52:05   been focusing a little bit on ecosystems because there's been some stuff that I've been doing

00:52:09   where like if I have my iPhone and I need to get something from my iPhone to my Mac

00:52:14   or my Mac to my iPhone, it's pretty easy to do that. You know, like the continuity stuff,

00:52:20   I do use some of it. Like I use the copy and paste or you know, I'll use the notes app

00:52:24   or something like that. And that stuff obviously doesn't work with my PC. Right? I can't do

00:52:31   that. That doesn't work so well. There are some ways to bridge the gaps, right? Like

00:52:34   I have one password on everything. I can get Dropbox and everything, that kind of stuff.

00:52:38   But it's nowhere near as seamless.

00:52:41   So it kind of got me to thinking about the ecosystems that are out there and the ecosystems

00:52:45   that we are in.

00:52:46   I would say that whilst I own a PC, I'm definitely not in the Microsoft ecosystem because it's

00:52:51   the only piece, it's the only Microsoft product that I own.

00:52:54   And honestly, I'm using Google services and Steam and everything else, right?

00:53:00   So I'm still in the other ecosystems that I'm a part of, but Microsoft's PC is a conduit

00:53:04   to that.

00:53:05   So I would say that I think we're pretty similar in the main ecosystems that we're a part of

00:53:09   are Apple, Google, and Amazon.

00:53:11   Right, and I think this is a way where we may diverge from some of our listeners, and

00:53:15   it's something that I always keep in mind that it is, I think a lot of our listeners

00:53:19   are probably just in the Apple ecosystem or primarily in the Apple ecosystem, and there

00:53:24   are plenty who aren't, but it is something that I think about from time to time, but

00:53:30   it's like, I don't know, it's just never been, I've always kind of like tried out these different

00:53:34   services and sort of mixed and matched and I like that about it. But it's not for everyone.

00:53:40   And it is in many ways inconvenient, right, to do that because the convenience of being

00:53:46   in an ecosystem is that it's all just there and you just use all of it and you never have

00:53:52   to think about it. And it's the same idea of people who go into the Apple Store and

00:53:56   they buy everything at the Apple Store, all the accessories and everything like that.

00:54:01   or what we were talking about airports a while ago,

00:54:04   like buying a wifi base station from Apple,

00:54:07   you could probably get one somewhere else,

00:54:09   but you'd have to shop for it and all those things.

00:54:12   And it's like, no, I'm just gonna get the Apple one, right?

00:54:14   Like it's all from the one vendor.

00:54:16   It's gonna be easier to set it all up.

00:54:18   And so there are some, it's super convenient,

00:54:20   but you kind of pay for it.

00:54:22   And that's the power of the ecosystem.

00:54:25   But yeah, I'm like you, every now and then

00:54:28   I write about Apple or I write something about Google or Amazon, I will get an accusation

00:54:34   that's like, "Well, yeah, but you just care about Apple stuff." And it's like, "I don't

00:54:38   know. I've got a lot of Google stuff and I got a lot of Amazon stuff. I am a heavy user

00:54:47   of the Google ecosystem."

00:54:50   There are many advantages to picking a company and sticking to that company. Because the

00:54:56   The products all work together and there's sometimes less,

00:54:59   - Sure. - Like just mental baggage.

00:55:01   So for example, I find myself constantly triggering

00:55:05   my HomePod, well, trying to trigger my HomePod,

00:55:08   I should say, for music, but I actually trigger the Echo.

00:55:12   So I'm asking my HomePod to play something,

00:55:14   but in my mind, the Echo trigger word

00:55:17   is how you talk to a computer.

00:55:20   'Cause that's what my mind has been trained to.

00:55:23   So that is like a mental baggage for me to remember,

00:55:25   oh no, I have to ask the HomePod in the HomePod's way,

00:55:29   not talk to the Echo in the Echo's way.

00:55:31   But if I was all in on Siri for this,

00:55:34   then this wouldn't be so much of a problem for me.

00:55:37   So this can be some of the issues,

00:55:39   as well as just the fact that, you know,

00:55:41   if you use such and such company services,

00:55:44   it can be difficult to get it to integrate with another.

00:55:46   Right? Like if you use iCloud for your mail,

00:55:50   it works fantastically in mail.

00:55:52   But if you use Google, there's things that you miss.

00:55:54   You don't get push notifications on iOS.

00:55:56   They're all delayed.

00:55:57   There are a bunch of things that can start to get tricky.

00:56:00   But me and you use Apple, Google, Amazon products.

00:56:06   Why?

00:56:07   Why do you do that?

00:56:08   Why do you use products from multiple companies

00:56:11   when most of these products,

00:56:13   there is something comparable in every individual ecosystem?

00:56:18   - So for me, it's always the idea

00:56:20   that I want the best product.

00:56:24   And sometimes it's the first product, that's true,

00:56:26   but I always want the best product.

00:56:28   And I don't care who it comes from on some level,

00:56:33   if it's the best.

00:56:34   I'm not gonna get, and this is, again,

00:56:37   people make, everybody makes their own decisions,

00:56:39   but every now and then, over the years,

00:56:41   I've gotten asked like, why do you use this

00:56:43   and not what Apple does?

00:56:44   And my answer is, 'cause Apple stuff isn't as good.

00:56:46   And like, and there is this implication like,

00:56:49   but you have Apple stuff,

00:56:51   so you should just use Apple stuff.

00:56:52   and that's very powerful and it can be there are reasons you go that way but

00:56:56   for me it was always like no I'm not gonna use iCloud mail I'm not gonna use

00:57:03   iCloud Drive it's better now right but I still don't use it I still use Dropbox

00:57:08   I've got one drive I still use Dropbox right like I think it's the best one for

00:57:14   me and I use Gmail I use Google Docs I could use I can use Microsoft stuff for

00:57:21   document sharing, I could use Apple stuff for document sharing. I don't. I just

00:57:26   don't. And some of that is because I made a choice a while ago and there's

00:57:30   kind of inertia there, but at some point I made the choice that this is better.

00:57:36   I'm going to use it. I don't care that it's in the other ecosystem. One of the

00:57:41   things that Google does that really makes it easy to also be in Google's

00:57:45   ecosystem is Google doesn't, it's actually kind of like at various points in the Microsoft/Apple

00:57:53   relationship where Microsoft didn't care if you used a Mac, even when Microsoft was killing

00:57:58   the Mac in the mid to late 90s, the analysis that was done at several points was that Microsoft

00:58:05   might actually make more money off of the average Mac sale than the average PC sale,

00:58:11   it had to do with the percentage of Macs that had Microsoft Office installed on them. And

00:58:16   if you think this is the cost of a seat of Microsoft Office and it's this percentage,

00:58:20   then you realize like for every Mac sold, there is a certain percentage of a seat of

00:58:27   Office that goes along with it. And you start to do the math and you're like, oh yeah, actually,

00:58:32   like Microsoft wouldn't want to lose half the market to Apple, but the segment of the

00:58:37   market that's buying Macs is also buying Microsoft products and so Microsoft's fine with it.

00:58:41   Google's like that, right?

00:58:42   - Google's even more so, right?

00:58:44   They will put everything on everything.

00:58:47   - I have to say, I mean, and again,

00:58:49   maybe these aren't the exact right words,

00:58:52   but the feeling I get is that Google does not care

00:58:56   if you buy an iPhone or an Android phone.

00:58:58   They want Android to be good.

00:59:00   It is super important for them.

00:59:02   It is a, you know, they get to control huge parts

00:59:05   of the user base by doing that.

00:59:07   And we can debate, you know,

00:59:09   what they're doing with that data and all of that.

00:59:11   But one of the reasons Android exists at all is that Google got really concerned that Apple

00:59:16   figured it out and they were going to take over the smartphone market.

00:59:21   And that would potentially shut out Google from people who use smartphones, and that

00:59:24   was bad.

00:59:25   They've ended up as essentially the Microsoft at the smartphone market.

00:59:28   But I would say the same thing applies, which is Google doesn't care.

00:59:31   Google doesn't care if you use iPads in schools instead of Chromebooks.

00:59:34   You know why?

00:59:35   Most of those iPads are using Google Classroom.

00:59:36   of those iPhones, or at least many of those iPhones, it's very easy to use Google Maps,

00:59:43   and you can use Chrome, and you can use all the Google services, you can use Gmail, you

00:59:47   can use Google Docs and Sheets, and all of that stuff is on iOS too. So they're like,

00:59:54   "Fine." And so they make it easy. They make it easy for you to use anything. And on computers,

01:00:00   right, they're in the web browser. So they're like, "Yeah, you can use..." That's how they

01:00:06   got big is that they lived in your web browser and it didn't matter whether

01:00:09   you're running Windows or Mac because you were just in a web browser and

01:00:12   that's how Google built their success. So it's it's really easy to be an Apple

01:00:17   hardware user and in Google's ecosystem and I'm one of those people I mean I

01:00:23   really am I am mostly using Google stuff rather than Apple stuff for the places

01:00:30   the services where they compete directly like I you know pages is a an app that

01:00:34   that remains in my application folder, but I don't use it.

01:00:39   I also have the Microsoft stuff and I use that.

01:00:41   I mean, I use numbers and Excel for different things.

01:00:46   And I use Keynote, but not PowerPoint

01:00:48   because I don't work in a big company

01:00:50   that requires PowerPoint anymore.

01:00:51   And I use Google docs and I use Google sheets.

01:00:53   So I don't know, I'm all over the place.

01:00:56   - And I think for both me and you,

01:01:00   there is obviously an element of we use this stuff

01:01:03   so we can try and remain informed.

01:01:06   But in doing that, we do also find new things that we like.

01:01:10   We both have home pods but prefer our echoes

01:01:15   for the majority of things that a smart speaker can do.

01:01:18   But I do also think that within the remit

01:01:21   that you can as an individual to try and try out new things,

01:01:26   to make sure that you are aware of what's out there, right?

01:01:29   - Yes.

01:01:30   - And this can even just be the case of like,

01:01:31   if you want to buy a new product, do some research about what's available rather than

01:01:36   just buying or using the product or service that is provided by the company that you've

01:01:42   always used from.

01:01:44   Because like, so for example, like Apple Notes is a great example of this, right?

01:01:48   Like Apple Notes was terrible, so bad for so long and would have been really easy for

01:01:54   us to just ignore.

01:01:55   But when they showed off the new Apple Notes in like iOS 9 or 10 and it looked really good

01:02:01   it could have been easier to just be like,

01:02:03   they can't do this.

01:02:04   Like it's gonna suck and it's gonna lose all my data.

01:02:06   But I tried it and I was like,

01:02:07   oh no, this is actually the best one available

01:02:09   for me right now.

01:02:10   You know?

01:02:11   - Yeah.

01:02:12   I think there is,

01:02:14   if you're like us and you're communicating with people

01:02:17   about this stuff,

01:02:19   it is, you're not doing anybody any favors

01:02:22   by only knowing what one company is doing.

01:02:27   Because, and this is always a conundrum

01:02:31   when you're talking about technology stuff.

01:02:32   Like my job largely is not and has never been

01:02:37   to constantly justify choosing Apple stuff

01:02:44   over the competition.

01:02:45   Like I've never been in that world.

01:02:49   My job is to serve the people who are using Apple's products

01:02:54   by telling them what is good and what is bad,

01:02:58   whether it's Apple or not, right?

01:03:00   But that is, and there's a difference there.

01:03:02   Like, cause, cause this happens all the time when you write about the iPhone

01:03:04   and somebody says, Why didn't you mention that Android is better?

01:03:07   It's like, whatever.

01:03:09   Or why didn't you mention windows is better when you write about the Mac?

01:03:12   It's like, okay, Mac world always back in the day, I was like, this

01:03:15   is not a site about switching.

01:03:16   We're not going to constantly have that debate.

01:03:19   We're speaking to people who've made that choice about all the

01:03:21   other choices they're making.

01:03:22   But this is the, but my point is what you don't want to do is say,

01:03:28   Apple's got this amazing thing,

01:03:31   not knowing that that thing already existed

01:03:33   from five different vendors and Apple's playing catch up.

01:03:37   Ideally, you have a context where you can say,

01:03:39   "That's amazing for things that are truly amazing,

01:03:41   and that's catch up for things that are truly

01:03:44   Apple being behind and catching up to the crowd."

01:03:47   And that is sometimes hard,

01:03:50   because sometimes it's an area

01:03:51   that you going into a keynote or something

01:03:53   you don't know a lot about,

01:03:54   and Apple announces something and you're like,

01:03:55   "Oh, that's pretty cool."

01:03:57   and then you have to look around and be like,

01:03:58   "Is this new or is this..."

01:04:00   And sometimes the answer is, "Yeah, that's actually new."

01:04:02   And people who are using the competition are like,

01:04:04   "Oh, that's really interesting."

01:04:06   And other times it's like,

01:04:06   "Oh, well, they finally got there."

01:04:08   But ideally, if you're trying this stuff out,

01:04:09   then you can sit there and you can say,

01:04:11   "All right, they advanced the ball."

01:04:13   Or you can say, "All right, well,

01:04:14   they just caught up with Google there,"

01:04:15   or, "They caught up with Amazon there."

01:04:17   And it's important to know that, right?

01:04:20   To not be missing that larger story.

01:04:26   And I think it makes for better conversation

01:04:30   and it makes for better analysis

01:04:31   when you know the bigger picture.

01:04:35   And it always disappoints me

01:04:36   when I see somebody writing about Apple announcing something

01:04:40   and treating it like it's this amazing new thing

01:04:44   when I know that somebody else did it two years ago.

01:04:48   Because that's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:04:50   That's the wrong way to play this story.

01:04:53   But yeah, so I think it's important

01:04:55   on lots of levels. Personally, also, I want the best stuff. And I want to try out the

01:05:00   new stuff, and I don't want to lock myself in. But professionally, I also want to know

01:05:04   what the lay of the land is. That's why I've got, I mean, I've got an Android phone about

01:05:09   a foot away. I've got Windows installed on my iMac. I use all these different services.

01:05:16   I want to at least be vaguely versed in the other stuff so that I can, again, not make

01:05:23   the argument of like, well, you should just give up,

01:05:26   because I'm not, people who are gonna make those decisions,

01:05:30   they're gonna have other people to listen to

01:05:32   about the big picture stuff.

01:05:34   But like the details of, is this better or worse?

01:05:37   Should you use iCloud?

01:05:38   Should you use Google Drive?

01:05:39   Should you use OneDrive?

01:05:41   Should you use Dropbox?

01:05:42   Like that is worth, that's useful for everybody.

01:05:47   - So I think that it is worth trying to keep up

01:05:52   as an individual. And so, you know, it is not practical for anybody to buy all of the

01:05:59   products that are coming out or even to buy like one product of every major platform.

01:06:05   So like I think it's important to find some places where you can keep up. So I will give

01:06:10   a plug right now to Download, which is one of Jason's shows on Relay FM. And this is

01:06:14   one of the reasons Jason has to be so plugged in because Download covers all of technology.

01:06:19   Like again, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe one of the kind of the production

01:06:25   ideas of download is unless there is an event going on, you cover one Apple story only,

01:06:30   right?

01:06:31   Well, I mean, we will or none, right?

01:06:34   I mean, that's the idea is it's not an Apple podcast.

01:06:36   It's about technology in general.

01:06:38   And so Stephen Hackett and I both need to watch the broader market, which is useful

01:06:42   for us.

01:06:43   That's good for us.

01:06:44   He also does doing the subnet podcast and it's similar.

01:06:46   he needs to be watching for both of those podcasts what's going on in the broader market.

01:06:52   And then I try to get guests on who know about that stuff. And they educate me about what

01:06:56   Microsoft's doing and what Google's doing and what Amazon's doing and things like that.

01:07:00   So that's good. And it is good to have that perspective, the little bigger perspective

01:07:05   about what's going on in the wider world.

01:07:07   Will Barron And then something I do, I watch a lot of YouTubers

01:07:10   who work in technology who are primarily focused on Android. So I mentioned forever MKBHD.

01:07:16   He's one individual who's like he seems to he understands iPhone, he uses iPhone, he has an appreciation for Apple products

01:07:24   But is doesn't really seem to be a fan particularly, right?

01:07:29   But he and he mostly focuses a lot of his mobile stuff on Android and so I

01:07:34   He always has all the new devices and I really enjoy watching his opinions because I trust what he says

01:07:39   You know like it's good to find people you can trust

01:07:42   So MKBHD for sure and Austin Evans is another youtuber whose work I like a lot for very similar reasons and

01:07:50   Austin stuff about gaming PCs helped me build my gaming PC

01:07:55   So like I think finding some shows or finding some youtubers or finding some websites that cover stuff more broadly

01:08:02   I think is a good way to try and keep abreast of what's going on

01:08:05   Like I feel like I understand the Android handset market from watching MKBHD videos

01:08:10   I was like, I understand what OnePlus is doing.

01:08:12   I understand what like Razer is doing.

01:08:14   I get an idea of that from his stuff.

01:08:18   So there you go.

01:08:20   I was thinking about this and now we've spoken about it.

01:08:22   And now we can take a break and do #AskUprade.

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01:08:50   Jason, is that accurate?

01:08:52   Is it completely fuss-free to complete

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01:08:57   - Yeah, you just put your phone somewhere

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01:10:20   Our thanks to Simple Contacts for their continued support of this show and Relay FM.

01:10:25   Are you ready, Jason, for #AskUpgrade?

01:10:28   I'm ready, Myke.

01:10:30   Let me have it.

01:10:30   Rowan has the first question this week. Rowan has said, "At this point, I've given up on

01:10:37   Instagram ever releasing an app for the iPad. Do you have any thoughts on why they have

01:10:42   chosen to ignore the iPad this way?"

01:10:46   - I don't know. It seems dumb. Part of me thinks you can be logged into the web browser

01:10:54   and see stuff, and so they figure like, that's fine. It does baffle me a little bit like,

01:10:59   How hard is it for them to take their app and just do a, I know there's work, but like

01:11:04   their Instagram to make an iPad layout so that John Syracuse doesn't have to watch,

01:11:09   you know, in 2X an iPhone app, like the iPhone's popular.

01:11:13   It makes the photos pretty.

01:11:15   So it is frustrating.

01:11:17   My guess is that they've got other priorities and that they just, it's just not on their

01:11:22   agenda, but I'm a little, it's strange that it's been this long and that they just haven't

01:11:27   even done it.

01:11:28   So I don't know.

01:11:29   My thinking is Instagram's business is based around people taking pictures and sharing

01:11:34   them, right?

01:11:36   As well as viewing.

01:11:37   But the taking, putting the content into the system is probably the most important part.

01:11:42   So there's always something there.

01:11:43   People take pictures on their iPads all the time.

01:11:46   We see them, we point at them and say, "Wow, they're taking a picture on an iPad."

01:11:49   I just don't think it's this much.

01:11:51   And I think that they focus on the phone.

01:11:53   I want the app.

01:11:54   I mean, this is the only reason that I can assume they've not made it is they just want

01:11:58   they want to focus on the taking rather than the viewing.

01:12:02   I just don't, at this point,

01:12:03   I don't believe they will make it, but I want it.

01:12:05   - I agree with you.

01:12:06   I think at this point, if they haven't done it,

01:12:08   they're never going to do it.

01:12:09   - Ben wants to know, does the popsocket on my iPhone 10

01:12:13   affect the ability to do wireless charging?

01:12:15   I had a bunch of people ask me this question

01:12:17   after I spoke about popsockets last week.

01:12:19   The answer is mostly no.

01:12:23   So you can, with a popsocket on your phone,

01:12:28   put it on a charging pad and it will charge.

01:12:30   If you balance your phone on the pad, it will charge.

01:12:32   I tried this out as soon as I got it

01:12:34   just 'cause I was interested.

01:12:36   But to do this, you have to have the pop socket

01:12:40   placed in an area on the phone that the phone will balance.

01:12:45   Right, so if you have it at the bottom, it might not work.

01:12:48   You might have to, it's gonna depend on like

01:12:50   how much contact you make.

01:12:51   But if you have it in the middle like I do,

01:12:52   just underneath the Apple logo on my case,

01:12:54   you can put it on there, the phone balances,

01:12:56   and it will charge through it.

01:12:57   So I'm not going to recommend this because I have no idea what that means or does, but

01:13:04   it does work. I can confirm that I can answer that part of the question. You can still charge

01:13:08   with a popsocket on your case. Michael's question for Jason is, "Jason, do you maintain a standard

01:13:15   work day like nine to five of an hour for lunch? If so, as a free agent, have you considered

01:13:21   changing that or is the corporate schedule too ingrained in you? If it's not, how does

01:13:26   this feel after years being in an office environment with those kind of standard rigid hours?

01:13:30   Mm, interesting. An hour for lunch makes me laugh. I did used to work with some people

01:13:38   who had like some serious RSI issues who made sure that they took an hour break in the middle

01:13:43   of the day for lunch because they earned it and because they needed the break physically.

01:13:49   I never, I never, I would, I would go out if I didn't bring my lunch, I would go out and get like a sandwich and bring it back.

01:13:57   But then I was just eating at my desk.

01:13:59   So I never took a, you know, rarely ever took a lunch break where I like went somewhere for an hour and then came back.

01:14:05   So first off, I'm going to say that.

01:14:06   Um, but Michael, let me tell you, if I was left entirely to my own devices, I would probably, um, I would

01:14:19   probably have very different hours than I do. I would probably work much later.

01:14:25   Sort of like Myke. I would probably work much later. I always, again, I'm older now, but when I

01:14:32   was in college and in my twenties, like I found that I was always really

01:14:36   productive in the afternoon and evening and into night. Like that was my most

01:14:41   productive time. And so I'm going to guess that that might still be the case.

01:14:46   case. Every now and then my wife is out like she's gone out to dinner with friends or she's

01:14:52   been doing a bunch of extra dance classes the last few weeks because they've got their

01:14:57   their end of the term show coming up and so like she's gone until nine o'clock and I'm

01:15:03   like oh I'm gonna do some work. It's like a treat. I can work from seven to nine pm.

01:15:11   So here's the thing though this implication that it's the ingrained corporate schedule.

01:15:16   not it. That's not it. The issue is, life is structured around work times, and I live

01:15:23   with humans. So that's the bottom line is, I could work, you know, until two in the morning,

01:15:33   and then sleep until ten in the morning, and get up and kind of putter around for the first

01:15:40   few hours and then go back to work at four in the afternoon. The problem is this, I have

01:15:46   two children, they go to school during school hours, they wake up at seven in the morning,

01:15:51   they come home at four in the afternoon, and then they're home the rest of the night. I

01:15:56   have a wife, she has a job, she generally is working, I think it's like nine, was it

01:16:02   930 or 10 until about 530. I can't live this weird nighttime Batman kind of life because

01:16:15   I have other people in my life and they are still on traditional scheduling. So my freedom

01:16:22   to work whenever I want is limited by the fact that I do have a family and I'm not going

01:16:27   to work while they're home and then sleeping, and then I'm certainly not going to sleep

01:16:33   through them all getting up. And so I basically work, you know, eight to five, mostly. It

01:16:43   varies, but something like that. And that's, again, mostly because it's the time where

01:16:49   people are out of the house, and I can do it. So I don't, I would love to have a more

01:16:55   flexible schedule, but I just don't think it's in the cards. And it has nothing to do

01:16:59   with my office. My hours are much nicer now because I don't have to deal with commutes

01:17:03   and sometimes the traffic where that 45-minute bus ride home becomes an hour and a half.

01:17:10   Like I don't have to deal with any of that kind of variability, which is nice.

01:17:14   I have no schedule. I don't know what it is.

01:17:18   Yeah, you were like on East Coast time in London, which is amazing. So that's the one

01:17:21   One question I had for you is, how do you square that with Adina having a job with hours?

01:17:29   Does she just leave and you just keep snoozing?

01:17:33   No, she mostly wakes me up.

01:17:35   I'm usually awake before 9, but I go to bed at like 2.30.

01:17:42   That mostly works for me.

01:17:44   I'm fine with that right now.

01:17:45   Yeah, you're going to need more sleep eventually, but sure.

01:17:48   Yeah.

01:17:49   - Well, I'm sure at some point,

01:17:51   but I function perfectly fine.

01:17:53   Honestly, I tend to be a little bit more sluggish

01:17:57   if I sleep longer.

01:17:59   I don't know why, it's just how I am wired

01:18:01   for the time being.

01:18:02   I'm sure it will change, 'cause this has changed

01:18:04   a bunch of times over my life, but that's kind of,

01:18:06   like I used to really struggle to wake up in the mornings,

01:18:09   but now I don't anymore.

01:18:12   So that's just kind of where I am right now.

01:18:13   I have absolutely no standard schedule,

01:18:16   but I like my life that way, that I kind of pick and choose.

01:18:19   - So the way, and the way it works is that you're,

01:18:22   so when Adina comes home, do you hang out with her

01:18:26   and then she goes to sleep and you go back to work?

01:18:29   - By and large, yeah.

01:18:29   I mean, there are some evenings

01:18:30   where I work a little bit later or whatever,

01:18:32   but that's typically what happens when she gets home.

01:18:34   We just spend time together and then she goes to sleep.

01:18:37   I either work or I just read Twitter

01:18:41   and watch YouTube videos.

01:18:43   - Yeah, my challenge would be that

01:18:44   if I went back to work after, I mean, really,

01:18:47   'cause I don't wanna stay up with Lauren

01:18:49   until she goes to bed, so I go back to work after that,

01:18:51   I could totally do that,

01:18:53   but the problem is gonna be in the morning,

01:18:56   everybody else is gonna be waking me up at 6.30,

01:18:58   6.45 in the morning, the dog, the kids,

01:19:00   and Lauren, they're all gonna be getting up,

01:19:03   and I can't sleep through that.

01:19:06   And then all of a sudden I'm up till two in the morning

01:19:09   and up at 6.45 AM, and that's not gonna,

01:19:12   I would die.

01:19:13   So there you go, that's my problem.

01:19:15   And I don't nap.

01:19:15   That's the other problem, I don't nap.

01:19:17   I can't grab a nap in the middle of the day

01:19:19   in order to improve things.

01:19:22   I don't do that.

01:19:23   - Eric wants to know if either of us use a UPS

01:19:27   in our office studio.

01:19:28   This is not the postal service system.

01:19:30   This is an uninterrupted power supply?

01:19:34   Is that what--

01:19:35   - Uninterruptible power supply, I think.

01:19:38   It's like a, it basically is a thick power strip

01:19:42   that's got a battery in it.

01:19:44   And you've got some of the ports on the power strip.

01:19:47   The battery will power even if your power goes out.

01:19:51   - Which is, it's funny, if you're having a thunderstorm

01:19:53   like I am today, these things can be really useful

01:19:57   because they keep things powered.

01:19:58   But Jason, do you think I use a UPS?

01:20:01   - I'm gonna guess you don't have a UPS.

01:20:02   - I don't, I don't, 'cause I've never had a power outage.

01:20:07   - I did not get a UPS until I set up my home office

01:20:12   and then I finally got one.

01:20:13   I almost never have a power outage here.

01:20:15   We're very lucky, I think,

01:20:19   that whatever our particular little block is,

01:20:22   that it seems pretty resilient,

01:20:24   'cause it only happens maybe once a year.

01:20:27   But I do have one, in fact, now I have two.

01:20:31   I bought one a while ago,

01:20:33   and then I realized that I wanted to keep my internet up.

01:20:36   And so I bought a second one

01:20:37   because my cable modem used to be in the other room,

01:20:40   and I put it in there, my router and my modem over there

01:20:43   so that they would stay up.

01:20:44   Because the theory there is that if your power goes out,

01:20:47   but the internet's still on, you stay on the internet,

01:20:50   which is also nice.

01:20:51   And you could even power like a wifi base station

01:20:54   for a little while, and then you could still get wifi

01:20:56   on your battery operated devices,

01:20:58   even when the power is out, which is great.

01:21:01   So I do have them, I'm gonna move one of them,

01:21:04   the one that's in there isn't powering anything

01:21:07   super vital anymore, so I'm gonna move it in here eventually

01:21:09   into my office. The primary thing is to keep the iMac running at least briefly

01:21:17   when the power goes out. My UPS has a USB cable on it, so it's attached to my

01:21:24   iMac, and there are software interactions there that my iMac actually has a

01:21:29   battery settings menu, which is funny because it's not a laptop, but it's for

01:21:33   when the UPS kicks in, and it basically allows it to dim the monitor

01:21:39   when it's on the battery power and auto shut down after, you know, when the battery is

01:21:44   about to run out. And the idea there is it'll give you time to save and maybe copy things

01:21:48   somewhere if you need them to, you know, need to have access to them, but you know you're

01:21:53   going to lose your main thing. Because I've got a laptop with battery and I've got iPads

01:21:59   and iPhones, but the iMac is not going to make it for more than a few minutes on battery

01:22:03   power. So, yes, I recommend that people consider getting these. They're really useful and you're

01:22:09   you not losing data. And now that we store things in the cloud, losing data is not as

01:22:14   big a deal, but giving it access, putting your router or your Wi-Fi or your access point

01:22:21   or whatever on a battery backup, because depending on where you are and what happened, you may

01:22:27   find that your internet is still there. It's just the power that went out. And that means

01:22:31   that you can still use your tablet or your iPhone or your laptop to connect to the internet,

01:22:37   even when the power is out, which is also nice.

01:22:40   So we'll put a link in the show notes

01:22:42   to the Wirecutters review of the best

01:22:44   on our uninterruptible power supplies.

01:22:46   I have one of those, one of their picks,

01:22:48   the CyberPower is the pick that I bought.

01:22:51   And then I also have an APC one

01:22:53   that I bought a couple of years ago.

01:22:54   They're heavy.

01:22:56   - I bet. - But--

01:22:57   - They're just big fat batteries, right?

01:22:59   Like it's just heavy heavy.

01:23:00   - But like if you're recording a podcast

01:23:03   and your power went out,

01:23:04   like some of the podcast recording apps,

01:23:06   you just lose the recording. It's very bad. So I recommend that. Yeah. I'm going to look

01:23:12   into this. I think look into one. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you never know. You might have a thunderstorm,

01:23:16   sudden thunderstorm and the power could go out. Uh, Eric, either the same Eric or another

01:23:21   Eric also asked, uh, I was really taken with the design of the keynote slides, the last

01:23:26   Apple education event. So this was the, uh, like the Apple pencil written, you know, handwritten

01:23:32   slides. Do you think this is going to be a new style for Apple, having a graphic design

01:23:37   that is outside their typical, or do you think it is just a one-off?

01:23:41   Um, it's a good question. I would love it if every Apple, I mean, they do this a little bit,

01:23:48   but not as dramatically as the one in Chicago. I would love it if Apple had art directed its entire

01:23:55   event, right? And this, we may see this for WWDC, right? They may be WWDC typeface and art style,

01:24:02   and that that gets integrated into the keynote.

01:24:04   - It's all that kind of white geometric blocks and stuff

01:24:08   like they have on the WWDC page.

01:24:10   - With WWDC, you've got to keep in mind

01:24:11   that they probably are using the same template

01:24:13   for everybody in the company

01:24:14   because everybody who's doing a WWDC presentation

01:24:17   has to use the official template.

01:24:19   And the keynote's a little bit different,

01:24:21   but they probably would want to connect it to that.

01:24:23   So I hope they do this because it's fun

01:24:26   and it's a very Apple thing to do,

01:24:28   but it's also a really nice kind of like design motif

01:24:31   to say, you know, our event from the invitations onward is all going to be in this particular

01:24:40   style, this color palette, these fonts and all of that. Certainly not necessary, but

01:24:44   I would like to see it. I mean, I don't think we'll see the handwriting come back, but I

01:24:48   think we could see some other just, again, unifying principle applied to the entire event,

01:24:55   and we'll see at WWDC if they do that. I bet they, to a certain degree, they will do that

01:24:59   because I think that that's Apple.

01:25:00   But how far they take it,

01:25:02   and if they have all sorts of unique imagery

01:25:05   and typefaces and stuff,

01:25:07   or if it looks more or less

01:25:08   like what Apple Keynotes look like, we'll see.

01:25:11   - And finally, Jake asked,

01:25:12   "Do you think we'll see new laptops at WWDC?"

01:25:15   Don't answer, Jason.

01:25:18   - Draft it.

01:25:19   - He'll get our answer next week.

01:25:20   We'll find out next week because we're gonna be drafting.

01:25:23   On our next episode of Upgrade,

01:25:25   we'll be participating and competing

01:25:28   in the 2018 WWDC draft.

01:25:31   I think this is our third or fourth,

01:25:34   maybe our third WWDC draft. - Third WWDC draft.

01:25:36   I think that may be right.

01:25:38   And I'm up one nothing on 2018 so far.

01:25:41   - And so unlike last year,

01:25:43   there will be a definitive winner this year we expect.

01:25:47   'Cause last year we drew because I won WWDC

01:25:50   and you won the September.

01:25:53   So-- - Yes, it was one all.

01:25:54   - It was one all.

01:25:55   And we've had a March event.

01:25:56   We have this one.

01:25:57   We're definitely having a September event.

01:25:59   I reckon that will probably be it, but we'll wait and see.

01:26:01   So there's more likely this year to be a definitive winner,

01:26:04   but Jason is the winner.

01:26:06   He'll be getting his first picks, but we'll run through all of the rules

01:26:08   and do our picks in the upgrade WWDC draft next week.

01:26:14   But until then, we will see you next time.

01:26:18   You can send in your questions with the hashtag #askupgrade

01:26:21   to close out the show.

01:26:22   We always appreciate those.

01:26:24   You can find Jason online at sixcolors.com

01:26:27   and he's at the incomparable dot com on Twitter.

01:26:29   He is at J Snell.

01:26:30   I am at I Myke I M Y K E.

01:26:33   I want to thank again our wonderful sponsors,

01:26:36   the fine folk over at Squarespace, Linode and Simple Contacts.

01:26:40   And we'll be back next time.

01:26:42   Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow.

01:26:45   Bye, everybody.

01:26:45   [MUSIC]