Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► So Grey, you thought stickers were bad.

00:00:02 ◼   ► We are now living in the world of animated emoji. Animoji is here, Grey. How do you feel about Animoji?

00:00:08 ◼   ► I have mixed feelings.

00:00:16 ◼   ► I have mixed feelings about Animoji.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Oh, okay, so we're not like in a world of hating on it necessarily.

00:00:21 ◼   ► No, we're not in a world of hating on Animojis. I mean, would it be possible to hate on Animojis entirely?

00:00:28 ◼   ► I don't know. This robot face, it's pretty cute.

00:00:32 ◼   ► I'm just noticing now, as I'm looking at Animojis on my phone, that the robot face, the triangle nose, you can make

00:00:38 ◼   ► you can make the nose move back and forth.

00:00:41 ◼   ► It's not obvious that you're playing with Animoji right now, huh?

00:00:45 ◼   ► No, it's not.

00:00:47 ◼   ► Yeah, this is, you got nothing but 100% focus here.

00:00:50 ◼   ► But yeah, if you screw your mouth in a very exaggerated manner,

00:00:54 ◼   ► you can make the little triangle

00:00:57 ◼   ► on the robot's nose, move back and forth.

00:01:01 ◼   ► This is the future, Myke. iPhone X, welcome to the future.

00:01:04 ◼   ► The future is animated. Animated emojis.

00:01:09 ◼   ► So as well as the wonder of Animoji, which honestly

00:01:13 ◼   ► is high up there as one of my favorite features of the iPhone X,

00:01:17 ◼   ► we obviously both have one, and

00:01:21 ◼   ► one of the questions that I have for you about the iPhone X

00:01:25 ◼   ► is if the size of this phone does a better job of fitting within your optimum size for

00:01:32 ◼   ► an iPhone.

00:01:33 ◼   ► Yeah, so these past many years I've been unhappy with iPhone sizes. Regular iPhone

00:01:40 ◼   ► too small, plus too big. And I've had this now for, I guess, what has it been like five

00:01:49 ◼   ► days, six days?

00:01:50 ◼   ► It's a week, it's effectively a week.

00:01:52 ◼   ► give me a cautious thumbs up. I think I like it, but I'm also aware that with the sizes

00:01:59 ◼   ► of the other phones, it's the little things over longer periods of time that eventually

00:02:04 ◼   ► become intolerable, that make you start being annoyed by phone size. But so far, I'm pretty

00:02:11 ◼   ► happy. And the one place where the phone size really struck me, a magical moment was coming

00:02:21 ◼   ► from being a plus user. I had the iPhone X in my pocket. I was getting ready in the morning

00:02:27 ◼   ► to go out, go to work, and I sat down in a chair to put on my shoes, to tie my shoelaces,

00:02:36 ◼   ► and I realized, "Oh! I don't have to take the phone out of my pocket to comfortably

00:02:42 ◼   ► be able to reach over and tie my shoes."

00:02:44 ◼   ► You know, Incredible Hulk the situation, just like rip your jeans in half because the phone's

00:02:49 ◼   ► trying to break out.

00:02:50 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a thing that I had never quite realized that I do that I had gotten in a habit of taking the phone out of

00:02:56 ◼   ► my pocket before putting on my shoes and tying my shoelaces or always regretting it if I forgot and it's like, oh wow

00:03:02 ◼   ► What a delightful experience like I can I can reasonably bend with the phone in my pocket without it being uncomfortable

00:03:07 ◼   ► So for that alone, I was like, oh, thank you so much iPhone X. This is way better

00:03:12 ◼   ► I really appreciate this in terms of size. So

00:03:15 ◼   ► Pocket size I am much happier

00:03:19 ◼   ► Handling size, like I said, I'm giving it a mediocre thumbs up for now.

00:03:23 ◼   ► I suspect I'm going to be really happy with this, but I just don't want to go all-in on saying like,

00:03:27 ◼   ► "Oh, this size is perfectly fantastic," when I know it can sometimes take a little while

00:03:31 ◼   ► to really settle into a new phone size as a device.

00:03:38 ◼   ► How are you finding it though, Myke? You were the...

00:03:42 ◼   ► What do I want to say? Like, proprietor, founder of the Plus Club?

00:03:47 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:03:47 ◼   ► Low these many years ago, how are you finding it going down in size?

00:03:53 ◼   ► Turning in your top hat as chief Pumba of the plus club and going to the X size, how

00:04:00 ◼   ► do you find it?

00:04:01 ◼   ► I love it actually.

00:04:04 ◼   ► I honestly don't feel like there's a difference.

00:04:07 ◼   ► When I'm using it, from a screen size perspective, which is what I was always wanting, I just

00:04:11 ◼   ► wanted the most information on my phone screens I could possibly get, and I really feel like

00:04:16 ◼   ► the 10 delivers on that. Like I've done some tests with it, like looking at

00:04:20 ◼   ► like how many emails can I see, how many tweets can I see on a screen,

00:04:23 ◼   ► how many lines of notes in a notes app and by and large it's exactly the

00:04:28 ◼   ► same amount as the plus. So I get the same kind of information density in most

00:04:35 ◼   ► instances in a much smaller phone. So in regards to moving away from the plus

00:04:40 ◼   ► club, it's working fine for me. Like I'm having no problem with it. Like if and

00:04:45 ◼   ► And when Apple makes a bigger version of these, will I move again?

00:04:48 ◼   ► Yeah, I will, because I always just want the biggest screen I can have.

00:04:52 ◼   ► That's what I want from my iPhone is just to have the biggest screen possible,

00:04:56 ◼   ► because whenever I'm using it for anything, I always want more screen.

00:05:00 ◼   ► Like it's, you know, I would honestly, the ideal for me is like the size of the iPhone

00:05:05 ◼   ► plus, but with a screen like the iPhone 10, that would be that would be like incredible.

00:05:11 ◼   ► What if they put a cellular chip in an iPad mini?

00:05:14 ◼   ► iPad mini is too big. It's still got to fit in my jeans pocket.

00:05:17 ◼   ► And like, I know that like that can be tricky, right?

00:05:21 ◼   ► Like it could be because you can already get cell connected iPad minis, right?

00:05:24 ◼   ► But the the the plus phone will still fit in my pocket, right?

00:05:29 ◼   ► And that's that's what I want. I still want to be able to put it in my pocket.

00:05:32 ◼   ► So that's the upper limit we're reaching here is the volume of your pocket.

00:05:37 ◼   ► Exactly. Because anything that can't fit in my pocket, in my opinion, is not a phone.

00:05:40 ◼   ► OK. It's something else at that point.

00:05:43 ◼   ► if you need if you need a bag for it to take it somewhere,

00:05:47 ◼   ► it's not a phone, then it's not a phone or it's a very, very old phone.

00:05:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I know that it's different for ladies, right?

00:05:53 ◼   ► Because ladies pockets are smaller and they put their phones in bags.

00:05:57 ◼   ► But for me, like, I don't want to take a bag.

00:05:59 ◼   ► So it has to fit in my pocket.

00:06:01 ◼   ► Hmm. But from an overall hardware perspective.

00:06:04 ◼   ► This is my favorite iPhone of all time.

00:06:07 ◼   ► When did you begin your journey with iPhone?

00:06:10 ◼   ► What was the first one you had?

00:06:11 ◼   ► The original. Oh, wow.

00:06:13 ◼   ► Okay, so you're right at the start of every iPhone except the 3GS.

00:06:16 ◼   ► I didn't realize that. Yeah. Wow.

00:06:18 ◼   ► And the 8 now, of course.

00:06:20 ◼   ► Well, I'm not 100 percent sure that that counts, but OK.

00:06:24 ◼   ► All right. That's interesting.

00:06:25 ◼   ► I've had a phone in every revision, right?

00:06:27 ◼   ► Except 3GS, I didn't get 3GS.

00:06:29 ◼   ► Because I think all it did was add speed and video recording,

00:06:32 ◼   ► which wasn't enough for me.

00:06:33 ◼   ► Oh, OK. All right.

00:06:34 ◼   ► Not enough of an upgrade for you.

00:06:36 ◼   ► Not then, because it was harder for me to to to to afford the phones, right?

00:06:40 ◼   ► Because I was much younger.

00:06:42 ◼   ► Hmm. Well then, since you started at the beginning, I started in the four line.

00:06:46 ◼   ► You're the perfect person to ask because I'm looking at the phones and I feel like they're doing an intentional callback to the first phone.

00:06:57 ◼   ► But I don't think I've ever even handled an original iPhone, let alone ever owned one.

00:07:04 ◼   ► So I've only seen pictures of it.

00:07:06 ◼   ► I'm just kind of wondering, like, do you think that impression is right?

00:07:10 ◼   ► Like there's something about the curves,

00:07:12 ◼   ► particularly on what I've seen of the silver versions.

00:07:15 ◼   ► It's like, it looks like it,

00:07:17 ◼   ► it just looks reminiscent of the original iPhone

00:07:19 ◼   ► in the hardware design.

00:07:20 ◼   ► - So there are a couple of elements of the X

00:07:24 ◼   ► that call back to two, in my mind, iPhones

00:07:28 ◼   ► and like two classic designs.

00:07:29 ◼   ► So there is kind of the one of the original

00:07:32 ◼   ► where even though it had an aluminum back,

00:07:34 ◼   ► it had like a polished frame that went around the glass.

00:07:38 ◼   ► So when you were looking at it,

00:07:39 ◼   ► it was shiny. I actually off the top of my head, I can't remember what that material

00:07:44 ◼   ► was, whether it was a metal or plastic or whatever that went around the edge of the

00:07:48 ◼   ► screen. But when you looked at it, it was shiny, like how if you have the silver iPhone

00:07:52 ◼   ► 10, the stainless steel is shiny and it looks like that, right? So it's reminiscent of that.

00:07:58 ◼   ► And there's a lot more, you know, the edges are curvier these days than they have been

00:08:02 ◼   ► in the past. But then also the iPhone 4, which is considered by many to be the best looking

00:08:07 ◼   ► iPhone had glass front and back like this phone does. So the iPhone 10 reminds me of

00:08:15 ◼   ► both of those phones. Like the original a little bit because of the shiny border that

00:08:20 ◼   ► went around the outside and also the glass front and back of the iPhone 4 reminds me

00:08:26 ◼   ► of that too.

00:08:27 ◼   ► Look at you Myke, you're like a real iPhone historian.

00:08:29 ◼   ► I guess I have the chops.

00:08:32 ◼   ► But this one, this one is just, it really is wonderful.

00:08:37 ◼   ► It's the most luxurious feeling iPhone that I've ever used as well.

00:08:42 ◼   ► Like everything about it feels extremely premium.

00:08:46 ◼   ► Like I kind of get what you mean.

00:08:49 ◼   ► But my main interest in this phone is simply that it is a different size.

00:08:54 ◼   ► So I feel like thumbs up to the different size. That's great.

00:08:58 ◼   ► And I just I feel a bit like the there's many many things that are different about this phone,

00:09:04 ◼   ► but I'm mostly just like yeah it's fine, you know, it's it's it seems really good.

00:09:08 ◼   ► I'm happy with it, you know, thumbs up. But it feels it feels like it's another phone and I'm

00:09:16 ◼   ► just happy that it's a different size. But I don't feel like I wouldn't say that I'm in the same camp

00:09:20 ◼   ► as you is feeling like oh I have a like a gorgeous luxury object. I feel like I have a new phone and

00:09:26 ◼   ► and the screen is bigger and that's great and it's a different size which I'm thrilled about.

00:09:31 ◼   ► Like I'm very happy to pay for the phone to get the different size. That is my main interest here.

00:09:37 ◼   ► What about the notch? How do you feel about the notch?

00:09:40 ◼   ► I swear it's almost like the notch is in some kind of visual blind spot for me.

00:09:48 ◼   ► Like I am almost weirded out by how little I notice the notch.

00:09:54 ◼   ► It's somehow in my vision, I just don't see it.

00:09:57 ◼   ► Like, do you feel the same way?

00:09:59 ◼   ► I forget it's there.

00:10:00 ◼   ► And then every now and then I open an application that's like all white and I see it again.

00:10:05 ◼   ► And I think it's a combination of like, we've never looked that far

00:10:09 ◼   ► of our phones before, right?

00:10:11 ◼   ► So we're not used to it.

00:10:12 ◼   ► A phone has never been this long.

00:10:15 ◼   ► I've never had to look that vertical.

00:10:17 ◼   ► Why would my eyes go there?

00:10:18 ◼   ► And I think the other part of it is that like, a lot of applications,

00:10:23 ◼   ► I mean, basically, all of the Optime's applications, it blends in, right?

00:10:27 ◼   ► They do a really good job, I think, of making kind of the top of the screens blend in really well.

00:10:31 ◼   ► So it's only, I think, when there's like a really stark contrast that I notice it.

00:10:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I'll use it. If we put it in the show notes, I think

00:10:38 ◼   ► probably the best version of this is like carrot weather, because they almost always have like

00:10:44 ◼   ► these solid color backgrounds. Like they're just going up around the edges of the notch.

00:10:49 ◼   ► And I always think it looks gorgeous, but I am aware that I have to intentionally look

00:10:54 ◼   ► at the notch to be aware that it's there.

00:10:58 ◼   ► But that's great though.

00:10:59 ◼   ► That's what you, that's design at its best, I guess.

00:11:02 ◼   ► So that you don't notice what is essentially a flaw in the screen, right?

00:11:06 ◼   ► Like having a notch of it taken out.

00:11:07 ◼   ► And it makes sense in retrospect why Apple was pushing really heavily in their design

00:11:10 ◼   ► documents for the "embrace the notch" idea with design, where they're like, "No guys,

00:11:15 ◼   ► guys, trust us.

00:11:16 ◼   ► to just roll with this and use the color

00:11:20 ◼   ► in the top of the screen because the place I,

00:11:22 ◼   ► it's so strange, but the place I notice the notch the most

00:11:26 ◼   ► is actually on applications that hide it.

00:11:30 ◼   ► So for example, one that I think is always going

00:11:35 ◼   ► to work this way, which I'll just use,

00:11:37 ◼   ► so I can use it as an example, is the YouTube app.

00:11:40 ◼   ► So if you start playing a video in the YouTube app

00:11:44 ◼   ► and you're holding the phone in portrait mode,

00:11:46 ◼   ► The video has always played at the very top of the screen.

00:11:50 ◼   ► Now, of course, because the notch is there,

00:11:51 ◼   ► they can't actually put the video

00:11:52 ◼   ► at the very top of the screen.

00:11:53 ◼   ► They put it just below the notch.

00:11:56 ◼   ► But then there's nothing to flow up to the top

00:11:58 ◼   ► of the screen, so the YouTube app just blacks out

00:12:01 ◼   ► the top bar.

00:12:02 ◼   ► And then it's like, okay, in theory,

00:12:04 ◼   ► you're hiding the notch.

00:12:06 ◼   ► Like, I can't actually see where the notch begins and ends

00:12:08 ◼   ► versus where the screen begins and ends.

00:12:10 ◼   ► It's where the screen is actually black.

00:12:11 ◼   ► But then it's suddenly like really noticeable.

00:12:14 ◼   ► And this is 100% reverse the reaction

00:12:19 ◼   ► I would have expected to have.

00:12:21 ◼   ► I was thinking, oh, I hope those developers

00:12:24 ◼   ► don't embrace the notch and they stick

00:12:25 ◼   ► with blacking out the top bars

00:12:27 ◼   ► because surely that will look better, but it doesn't.

00:12:29 ◼   ► Like I don't know how that's possible,

00:12:31 ◼   ► but it doesn't look better that way.

00:12:33 ◼   ► That is when I suddenly become aware of the notch

00:12:35 ◼   ► at the top of the screen is when people

00:12:36 ◼   ► are trying to hide it.

00:12:37 ◼   ► - I think what's happened is because so many apps updated

00:12:40 ◼   ► and kind of embraced it and designed around it

00:12:43 ◼   ► and flow color and backgrounds up to the top.

00:12:46 ◼   ► When you see an application that doesn't have it,

00:12:49 ◼   ► a lot of the time it's because it hasn't been updated.

00:12:51 ◼   ► Right, so there's apps that are kind of in like

00:12:53 ◼   ► a letterbox window mode if they've not updated.

00:12:56 ◼   ► So I think when you see an app that has updated for the X

00:12:59 ◼   ► but then decides to black it out, it looks like it's old.

00:13:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, maybe a little bit like that.

00:13:05 ◼   ► I do have to say this is the best version of the phone

00:13:07 ◼   ► where non-updated apps still look okay.

00:13:10 ◼   ► - Yeah. - I always wonder like

00:13:11 ◼   ► How much does Apple go out of their way to make non-updated apps for whatever their new devices look great?

00:13:16 ◼   ► And it feels like not much because they don't have any incentive for that.

00:13:20 ◼   ► But this is the only phone where I can use non-updated apps and it's no problem at all.

00:13:25 ◼   ► Like they just sort of float in the middle of the screen and I think it's perfectly fine.

00:13:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I think the OLED screen helps a lot with that because the blacks are so black that it looks like she's part of the phone.

00:13:34 ◼   ► Yeah, the OLED screen definitely helps.

00:13:37 ◼   ► But I'll tell you what, Myke, my favorite thing about the notch, a feature.

00:13:41 ◼   ► as far as I'm concerned, is the notch has forced Apple

00:13:46 ◼   ► to get rid of the dumb cell phone carrier names

00:13:49 ◼   ► in the little status bar at the top.

00:13:52 ◼   ► I have, for years, there is a network carrier

00:13:57 ◼   ► in the UK called 3, and so their little symbol

00:14:03 ◼   ► is just a number 3 in the status bar,

00:14:06 ◼   ► and I have not wanted to switch away from them for years,

00:14:09 ◼   ► almost entirely because of the fact that they have the smallest network indicator in the status bar at the top of the screen.

00:14:17 ◼   ► And earlier this year, they rolled out some feature which was like three Wi-Fi calling.

00:14:23 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, okay.

00:14:25 ◼   ► And so when I was at home one day, all of a sudden the status bar at the top of my screen says three Wi-Fi calling across the top on my previous phone.

00:14:34 ◼   ► I was like, "What the hell is this?"

00:14:36 ◼   ► And I was going to literally switch phone networks over that

00:14:39 ◼   ► before I discovered that you can just turn off the function

00:14:42 ◼   ► of 3 Wi-Fi calling on the phone

00:14:45 ◼   ► so I was like, "I never use this phone as a phone anyway."

00:14:47 ◼   ► Boop, feature off. Like, give me back my old tiny indicator.

00:14:50 ◼   ► So I really hated a bunch of junky stuff

00:14:54 ◼   ► up in the status bar.

00:14:56 ◼   ► And so the notch forces them to get rid of that.

00:14:58 ◼   ► It only shows up on the lock screen.

00:15:00 ◼   ► I love that.

00:15:02 ◼   ► and then plus there was one other little moment of delight for me,

00:15:06 ◼   ► and one where I thought, "Oh, I'm so happy right now,"

00:15:08 ◼   ► which is I have always run my iPhone without showing the battery percentage.

00:15:15 ◼   ► It's like anything I can do to minimize information on my phone,

00:15:19 ◼   ► I will always take that option.

00:15:20 ◼   ► But there was a thing that always felt like Apple sticking their thumb in my eye,

00:15:25 ◼   ► which was if you enabled low power mode on the phone,

00:15:30 ◼   ► it would force the battery percentage back in the display.

00:15:33 ◼   ► And it just always drove me crazy.

00:15:35 ◼   ► Like, why? Like, who is the engineer who programmed this behavior,

00:15:40 ◼   ► which is like, oh, you don't like the battery percentage?

00:15:43 ◼   ► Well, in low power mode, we're going to force you to see it.

00:15:45 ◼   ► But now there's no space there. They can't do it.

00:15:48 ◼   ► So I finally have low power mode without the battery percentage.

00:15:51 ◼   ► And I like I cannot tell you how disproportionately happy that makes me.

00:15:58 ◼   ► So this is total win. A total unexpected favorite feature of the Notch is it pushes out all of this junky superfluous information in the status bar.

00:16:08 ◼   ► I totally love it. Long live the Notch.

00:16:11 ◼   ► I have Wi-Fi calling with EE, right?

00:16:15 ◼   ► And on the new phone, EE Wi-Fi call doesn't fit in the Notch.

00:16:21 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:16:21 ◼   ► Can you guess what they do?

00:16:23 ◼   ► Is it EE-wee?

00:16:26 ◼   ► Nope. It's like a little carousel.

00:16:28 ◼   ► So do you remember--

00:16:29 ◼   ► Oh, it scrolls?

00:16:30 ◼   ► It scrolls. Do you remember on the iPods that you could get like a title of the song and it just starts moving?

00:16:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:16:35 ◼   ► That's what this does.

00:16:36 ◼   ► So EE Wi-Fi calling is just scrolling across the top of my screen.

00:16:40 ◼   ► Like some kind of ad at Piccadilly Circus.

00:16:44 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:16:46 ◼   ► That's fantastic. Just on the lock screen, right?

00:16:49 ◼   ► Yeah, just on the lock screen.

00:16:50 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:16:51 ◼   ► I hate it.

00:16:52 ◼   ► But I need Wi-Fi calling because I get such bad reception in my house.

00:16:55 ◼   ► house. But like I never see it for that long but it's like I'm so pleased that they got rid of it

00:17:02 ◼   ► on the lock screen like on the home screen because it would drive me mad. I couldn't have something

00:17:06 ◼   ► just spinning constantly. Yeah that's terrible. Yeah. That's a terrible design. It's like guys

00:17:12 ◼   ► make up a symbol and the symbol means wi-fi calling and just leave it at that right. Like

00:17:18 ◼   ► all these words that you have to read in your mind. That is terrible. I'm sorry that you can't

00:17:24 ◼   ► can't disable the feature because you don't have cell phone connection out

00:17:26 ◼   ► where you are. Yeah in the outer rim. Yeah well you're in you're in like the inner

00:17:30 ◼   ► outer rim now. The inner outer rim, that's good. You've moved closer. This episode of Cortex is

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00:19:18 ◼   ► Say I've got a question for you, right? Removing the home button has brought about a bunch of gestures, right?

00:19:23 ◼   ► Like swiping up gestures and that kind of stuff. Like you swipe up to go home, swipe up for multitasking.

00:19:28 ◼   ► How are your hands dealing with that?

00:19:31 ◼   ► Okay, I feel like there's two questions here, but the question I think you're asking, I think that I'm hearing in your voice is

00:19:39 ◼   ► related to a thing that we've discussed many times on the show, which is RSI.

00:19:44 ◼   ► Uh-huh. Like I hear the sound of pain in your voice. Yeah. So I

00:19:50 ◼   ► have had no problems with any kind of RSI.

00:19:56 ◼   ► Whereas when it was...

00:19:59 ◼   ► What was it on the 6 when the 3D touch came in or maybe it was the 5?

00:20:03 ◼   ► I don't remember when that came in.

00:20:05 ◼   ► But that is a feature that I use

00:20:08 ◼   ► extremely rarely

00:20:10 ◼   ► Because it will give me pain in my hands. So I have a very very light 3d touch user

00:20:17 ◼   ► But with this phone and with the bunch of gestures, I I feel like I've had nothing I'm noticing

00:20:23 ◼   ► No pain in my hands, but it sounds like you have pain in your hands.

00:20:27 ◼   ► I have pain in both of my hands as bad as the MX mouse gave me.

00:20:35 ◼   ► Wait, both of you, like are you are you hot potatoing the phone between your hands to try to minimize RSI?

00:20:39 ◼   ► I don't what's going on. I don't use my phone with just one hand. It's I'm

00:20:44 ◼   ► ambidextrous of my phone like I don't have

00:20:47 ◼   ► However, I'm coupling this

00:20:50 ◼   ► with I've also been playing a lot more Nintendo switch than usual in the last few days like there is actually this seems to have

00:20:57 ◼   ► been like a combo between getting the iPhone and

00:21:01 ◼   ► Nintendo like coming at the same time. I've been playing a lot of and I've been spending time of a lot of both

00:21:06 ◼   ► Right, so I've been adapting to a new phone whilst also playing significantly more video games than usual

00:21:13 ◼   ► And I think and hope that the combination of both of these things is causing me to have pretty bad RSI right now

00:21:20 ◼   ► I remember when I switched to the plus I had some problems too

00:21:25 ◼   ► And I think it was just like an adaption phase and also a case of like I am using my phone

00:21:31 ◼   ► way more than I usually do. Like, there would be times where I would never pick up my phone

00:21:37 ◼   ► in a daytime, right? Like I'm just using my iPads. But since I've got this phone,

00:21:41 ◼   ► I've been playing with it constantly because it's a new toy and I like to play with new toys, right?

00:21:45 ◼   ► So I'm hoping it's just a combination of those otherwise I'm in trouble.

00:21:49 ◼   ► Yeah, that's pretty serious. I mean, I'm hoping that you're right, it is just an

00:21:55 ◼   ► adaption period plus a playing period. And it's also compounded with a lot of Nintendo

00:22:00 ◼   ► and playing Nintendo in handheld mode, I don't think it's the best thing for your hands

00:22:05 ◼   ► because the controls aren't incredibly laid out and it's heavy. So I think it might be

00:22:09 ◼   ► a combo of all of these things together.

00:22:11 ◼   ► Yeah, well, we can get to some Switch talk later in the show, Myke.

00:22:15 ◼   ► Good, good.

00:22:16 ◼   ► That can be a thing. We can have many devices on this episode. But yeah, I know what you

00:22:23 ◼   ► mean though just about playing with the phone a million times more because even like I said,

00:22:29 ◼   ► I'm mostly interested in the new size, but whenever you do have a new device, it's like,

00:22:33 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm gonna set aside an afternoon to just kind of mess around with the phone and see what's different,

00:22:38 ◼   ► and see how things change, and see how I'm gonna set up different stuff."

00:22:41 ◼   ► So it's like, yeah, my iPhone use over the past week is also not a normal graph of what iPhone use looks like,

00:22:50 ◼   ► because I keep messing around with it and adjusting and seeing different things,

00:22:53 ◼   ► and trying out Face ID and learning new gestures and stuff.

00:22:57 ◼   ► So, I can't say that I've been having any problem with RSI.

00:23:02 ◼   ► I will say that...

00:23:05 ◼   ► There is a thing that I'm kind of concerned about in the iOS world,

00:23:15 ◼   ► which is just the gestures and their differences between devices,

00:23:23 ◼   ► which is kind of driving me crazy.

00:23:26 ◼   ► The interactions now between an iPad and an iPhone in terms of

00:23:30 ◼   ► what the very same gestures do being different is driving me a little nuts.

00:23:35 ◼   ► Like what happens when you swipe up from the bottom? On an iPad or versus an iPhone, they're totally different things.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Or, you know, how do you get to multitasking? It's like, well, these are different gestures on the different devices.

00:23:48 ◼   ► Where's control center? How do you get to control center? These are different gestures on different devices and

00:23:54 ◼   ► That kind of inconsistency I find really frustrating because it's like I can't-- I find myself not being able to

00:24:01 ◼   ► effortlessly move from one device

00:24:04 ◼   ► to the other. And like when I'm on my iPad, I find myself doing the wrong

00:24:08 ◼   ► gestures and then I go back to the phone and it takes me a second to realize like, "Oh, right,

00:24:12 ◼   ► I have to do this gesture this way." So I'm hoping this is just a temporary phase in the product lifecycle,

00:24:19 ◼   ► but I am a little bit concerned by

00:24:21 ◼   ► the weirdness of the different interactions across the different devices.

00:24:25 ◼   ► I'm hoping that there can be something a little bit more

00:24:28 ◼   ► unified in approach in the future, particularly with the multitasking. I'm really not a fan of the multitasking on the phone.

00:24:36 ◼   ► I think that a lot of that stuff's gonna get revised, honestly.

00:24:40 ◼   ► Like I can see that like they've used a swipe up gesture in both areas, right?

00:24:45 ◼   ► So there's like there is an attempt in my opinion at some kind of unification.

00:24:49 ◼   ► And I think that as we go forward, those things are going to become more similar than they

00:24:56 ◼   ► currently are.

00:24:57 ◼   ► That's the way that I look at it.

00:24:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I hope so.

00:25:01 ◼   ► I find the app switcher on the phone is just like an awkward gesture.

00:25:05 ◼   ► I think like many people, I'm trying to figure out what's the way that works the best for

00:25:09 ◼   ► me.

00:25:10 ◼   ► And the way Apple pitches it as swipe up and pause, I think for any gesture that you're

00:25:17 ◼   ► going to invoke many, many times. A pause is totally unacceptable.

00:25:22 ◼   ► The multitasking gesture is wonky at best. Just in the case, like I've spoken about it

00:25:28 ◼   ► on a few shows and everyone's telling me the right way to do it and everybody's right way

00:25:33 ◼   ► is different. Everybody has their own way of invoking this gesture and everybody sees

00:25:39 ◼   ► better.

00:25:40 ◼   ► Yeah, so I am doing a quarter circle that starts from the bottom of the phone.

00:25:44 ◼   ► is the thing, right? Like it's like, oh, I'm flying in from next door and then like, you

00:25:48 ◼   ► know, it's like a whole big thing. So I think that that gesture is not what it should be,

00:25:55 ◼   ► but I also don't know what the right one. I mean, ideally, I would like to see something

00:26:00 ◼   ► that was more like the iPad, but I think, I think they may go that way, right? That

00:26:04 ◼   ► you just, you swipe up a little bit to go home, you swipe up further to go into multitasking.

00:26:11 ◼   ► But I think that they want to make it a bit easier for people to adjust.

00:26:17 ◼   ► And I think if you're adjusting from the iPhone, this is an easier way to adjust, because swiping

00:26:22 ◼   ► up is a weird interaction when you've been so used to the home button.

00:26:26 ◼   ► Yeah, I think I agree that that's probably what they're going for.

00:26:31 ◼   ► I'm also betting that in testing with new users, it's the most discoverable because

00:26:36 ◼   ► people will leave their finger on the screen maybe for a second too long and then multitasking

00:26:39 ◼   ► pops up and people go, "Oh, that's where it is!"

00:26:43 ◼   ► This feels very much like it's designed towards new users.

00:26:47 ◼   ► My personal vote on multitasking is I do like the gesture where you swipe across the bottom

00:26:54 ◼   ► of the phone and it has the most recent couple of apps.

00:26:57 ◼   ► Like the swiping left and right on the home indicator and it just takes you back and forward

00:27:01 ◼   ► through the apps you've used, right?

00:27:02 ◼   ► Yes.

00:27:03 ◼   ► I would love to use that just as the app switcher.

00:27:08 ◼   ► this quickly enough and it just pulls up a whole bunch that you can slide back and forth

00:27:12 ◼   ► between. But that is totally not discoverable for a new user. And of course, Control Center

00:27:20 ◼   ► is a bit of a disaster on the new phone. I don't think anybody's a big fan of where Control

00:27:25 ◼   ► Center is. [laughs]

00:27:26 ◼   ► MATT: It's a nightmare. To get Control Center, you have to swipe down from the upper right

00:27:29 ◼   ► corner. It's like the exact opposite of where it used to be, and it's not at all intuitive.

00:27:36 ◼   ► like even the animation is a disaster, like that's not a good part of it at all.

00:27:40 ◼   ► Well, there's also a minor point to me about control center as well,

00:27:43 ◼   ► which is when you pull it down.

00:27:45 ◼   ► The control center buttons and stuff,

00:27:48 ◼   ► they're floating in the top half of the screen anyway.

00:27:51 ◼   ► So it's like it's almost

00:27:54 ◼   ► making sure that you have to use two hands for this gesture,

00:27:56 ◼   ► because it's like if in theory you were able to stretch your thumb

00:28:00 ◼   ► to reach that top bit, it's like the buttons are still on the wrong side

00:28:03 ◼   ► of the screen for where they're supposed to be.

00:28:05 ◼   ► And for me as a left-handed iPhone user, it's especially like, "Oh, oh well, bye-bye Control Center.

00:28:12 ◼   ► It was nice knowing you."

00:28:14 ◼   ► And I find it frustrating simply because I feel like all these gestures are there for the notification screen,

00:28:21 ◼   ► which I have no use for in the world of Apple.

00:28:24 ◼   ► Like, I'm not interested in your notification screen.

00:28:26 ◼   ► Please just let me get Control Center from anywhere.

00:28:28 ◼   ► Instead of this like, "Ooh, we have one tiny little space on the top of the screen

00:28:33 ◼   ► where you can access Control Center, a thing you use many times a day.

00:28:37 ◼   ► And we have the rest of the 75% of the space is there for a thing that you never use.

00:28:42 ◼   ► So, yeah, I'm hoping for a bunch of changes.

00:28:45 ◼   ► But, I mean, that said, I do have to say, like,

00:28:49 ◼   ► getting rid of the Home button, it's totally the right choice.

00:28:54 ◼   ► And even though we've just been complaining about the gestures,

00:28:56 ◼   ► a home button-less phone, I like it 10,000 times better

00:29:03 ◼   ► than the fake home button on the 7, right?

00:29:08 ◼   ► Where it's like, it wasn't a real button,

00:29:09 ◼   ► it was just like, they just had haptic feedback.

00:29:12 ◼   ► I never liked that button, I never got used to it,

00:29:14 ◼   ► and I always preferred the physical button,

00:29:17 ◼   ► but now it's like, I wouldn't take a physical button

00:29:20 ◼   ► on this phone if Apple offered it to me.

00:29:22 ◼   ► I would just pass by it on the ground

00:29:24 ◼   ► and not touch it at all,

00:29:26 ◼   ► because the no home button phone is way better

00:29:30 ◼   ► and just feels really natural.

00:29:32 ◼   ► So I like big, big thumbs up for that.

00:29:34 ◼   ► Even if the gestures are a bit wonky and could use some some sorting out.

00:29:37 ◼   ► But like that's all workable later, right?

00:29:40 ◼   ► Like a lot of these things make sense once more people are using them.

00:29:44 ◼   ► And it's just software, right?

00:29:45 ◼   ► So they can they can move iOS around however they want going forward.

00:29:49 ◼   ► But the hardware design and the moves that they're making in the hardware,

00:29:53 ◼   ► including face ID, in my opinion, are all excellent and in the right direction.

00:29:58 ◼   ► But it's such a big change.

00:30:01 ◼   ► that they need to do some work on the software.

00:30:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I completely agree.

00:30:08 ◼   ► I am liking Face ID.

00:30:12 ◼   ► It's very interesting as well to have it in the hands

00:30:17 ◼   ► and test it out.

00:30:18 ◼   ► How does it work for a man with, if I may say,

00:30:23 ◼   ► quite a magnificent beard?

00:30:25 ◼   ► - Thank you, that's very kind of you.

00:30:27 ◼   ► I expect it works good for me as it does for you.

00:30:31 ◼   ► I find an emoji sometimes gets a little bit confused

00:30:34 ◼   ► in my mouth movements, but I wouldn't say

00:30:37 ◼   ► that I'm struggling with Face ID.

00:30:39 ◼   ► So there are times when it definitely doesn't work, right?

00:30:42 ◼   ► But to be honest, I don't feel like I'm having

00:30:46 ◼   ► more problems than I had with Touch ID.

00:30:48 ◼   ► Touch ID wasn't a 100% of the time type thing.

00:30:52 ◼   ► If you didn't hit it just right, then it didn't work.

00:30:55 ◼   ► The only times where obviously I'm struggling with it

00:30:57 ◼   ► is like let's say I have my hand covering my face

00:31:01 ◼   ► something. I'm like, oh, this doesn't work. Right? Like I've, if I have my hand kind of on my chin

00:31:06 ◼   ► and like covering up for most of my mouth or my cheek or whatever, like I'm just sitting there,

00:31:11 ◼   ► that doesn't work. Right? So there's just little things that I'm adjusting and tweaking,

00:31:15 ◼   ► but it works perfectly fine for me. Right? Like, I don't, and also it feels more natural.

00:31:21 ◼   ► Face ID makes you really aware of your face in a way that you never were before.

00:31:25 ◼   ► It's very strange. It's like, oh, okay, so I have my head in my hands a lot more than I thought I

00:31:30 ◼   ► I did. That's good to know about me. I wonder what that says.

00:31:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, like I just, I've never really thought about

00:31:35 ◼   ► what my iPhone sees from its perspective

00:31:38 ◼   ► throughout the day.

00:31:39 ◼   ► - My phone just sees a really grumpy person.

00:31:41 ◼   ► It's like, what's going on?

00:31:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, it just like, it just never occurred to me,

00:31:46 ◼   ► but now it's a thing I have to think about constantly.

00:31:48 ◼   ► It's like, oh, sitting in your little dock,

00:31:50 ◼   ► you can't really see me phone.

00:31:52 ◼   ► It's, you're way too low.

00:31:53 ◼   ► I don't know what you're looking at, but it's not me.

00:31:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is interesting to think of in that way,

00:31:58 ◼   ► But I will say that I have found the Face ID

00:32:03 ◼   ► to work about as good as I expected it to work.

00:32:06 ◼   ► And I'm happy with that.

00:32:07 ◼   ► How does it detect a stick figure?

00:32:09 ◼   ► Like, have you been doing okay with it?

00:32:13 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, ha ha.

00:32:15 ◼   ► But I have to say,

00:32:16 ◼   ► I have been having a lot of problems with Face ID.

00:32:19 ◼   ► Even under optimal situations.

00:32:23 ◼   ► I would say that at least I've been finding it

00:32:26 ◼   ► less reliable than Touch ID in terms of how often does it say, "No, no, you have to enter in your passcode."

00:32:33 ◼   ► It's quite a bunch for me. Like, obviously it works more often than not, right?

00:32:37 ◼   ► Just like Touch ID, but I'm getting a lot of failures in what I think should be optimal situations, right?

00:32:44 ◼   ► I'm not grumpy with my head in my hands.

00:32:46 ◼   ► You know, I'm just like right in front of the phone and it still

00:32:50 ◼   ► fails on me. It was so much in the beginning that I ended up retraining it, which I think made it a little bit better.

00:32:56 ◼   ► But this is this is also like we're in the time where there's machine learning like in everything and I know that they do

00:33:02 ◼   ► Update the model of the face over time in theory every time you are entering your passcode. It should be getting better

00:33:09 ◼   ► Yeah, it should be getting better. But I would say I'm getting a lot of

00:33:13 ◼   ► failures on on face ID more than I was getting with touch ID which at least for me was just

00:33:19 ◼   ► Rock-solid like it was it was notable when I had a touch ID failure and it was always my fault

00:33:25 ◼   ► Like I'm just getting out of the shower.

00:33:26 ◼   ► Well, it still could be your fault, but in different ways, right?

00:33:29 ◼   ► Like in ways that you're not anticipating.

00:33:31 ◼   ► Yeah, there's not enough features on my face for Face ID to register.

00:33:35 ◼   ► Just have a more featureful face. What's wrong with you?

00:33:38 ◼   ► Could you make your face more face-like? That's what you need.

00:33:40 ◼   ► But even that, like, again, sort of like we're just complaining about the gestures,

00:33:46 ◼   ► but I like the buttonless phone better.

00:33:49 ◼   ► Even if for me, Face ID's machine learning never improved,

00:33:54 ◼   ► I already love Face ID way more than Touch ID.

00:33:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:58 ◼   ► Because when it works, it's magic.

00:34:02 ◼   ► It makes the interaction with the phone so much faster

00:34:07 ◼   ► that I think even the times I have to enter in my passcode,

00:34:10 ◼   ► I'm still winning in terms of time even more.

00:34:14 ◼   ► I love that other apps can use Face ID as well.

00:34:17 ◼   ► Like my banking app updated to use Face ID for the login process.

00:34:20 ◼   ► It's great.

00:34:22 ◼   ► I really like that.

00:34:24 ◼   ► There's also a little thing which I've changed on my phone, which I'm very happy about,

00:34:30 ◼   ► but I realized like, "Oh, now that I have Face ID, I can change a bunch of settings."

00:34:33 ◼   ► I know what this is.

00:34:34 ◼   ► What do you think this is, Myke?

00:34:35 ◼   ► The notification stuff.

00:34:37 ◼   ► Okay, yeah, not just the notification stuff.

00:34:40 ◼   ► I was looking through the security settings, and there's all of these questions about

00:34:44 ◼   ► what do you want to be able to have access to on the phone when the phone is in a locked state.

00:34:51 ◼   ► And previously I had all of that stuff accessible except for showing notification previews.

00:34:59 ◼   ► I always turn that off because I never liked that just as a privacy thing.

00:35:02 ◼   ► I always had that disabled until the phone was unlocked.

00:35:06 ◼   ► It would show like, "Oh, there's a message from my wife,"

00:35:08 ◼   ► but it wouldn't say what it is on the screen until I entered in the passcode.

00:35:12 ◼   ► But now I've disabled everything, right?

00:35:15 ◼   ► Everything is disabled on there because

00:35:18 ◼   ► What's the scenario where I want to access something on my phone,

00:35:21 ◼   ► but I'm not going to be looking at the phone?

00:35:23 ◼   ► But that's never.

00:35:25 ◼   ► Well, like give me an example, like what sort of stuff have you disabled?

00:35:28 ◼   ► OK, so you can disable swiping over to all of the widgets.

00:35:32 ◼   ► Oh.

00:35:34 ◼   ► So so like right now, if my phone is in the locked state,

00:35:38 ◼   ► no one can even look at the widgets that are on my phone,

00:35:41 ◼   ► which is great because I have some of my time tracking stuff on the widgets.

00:35:46 ◼   ► And I also have todo and omniFocus enable you to put a little widget on that home screen.

00:35:53 ◼   ► And that was always the number one thing I was aware of if somebody was ever looking at my phone.

00:36:00 ◼   ► Was like, well there are... it's not like it's a huge privacy deal, but I'd just rather not have it there.

00:36:05 ◼   ► Where someone sees all my weird reminders to myself.

00:36:09 ◼   ► So now I've disabled all of that stuff so you can't access the widgets on my phone

00:36:16 ◼   ► unless my phone is in the unlocked state.

00:36:18 ◼   ► It's also access to notification center even though I don't use it.

00:36:23 ◼   ► I also disabled access to control center.

00:36:26 ◼   ► So someone can't take the phone and put it in airplane mode without it being unlocked.

00:36:31 ◼   ► So my phone is just like a glass slab when I hand it to someone that does nothing until it is unlocked.

00:36:38 ◼   ► And I love this. I really, really love it because that's how it feels like the phone should be.

00:36:44 ◼   ► Like, "Hey phone, you're my phone. You work for me, and if you're in somebody else's hands, you do nothing."

00:36:51 ◼   ► Okay, you can show them the time, but beyond showing them the time, you do nothing.

00:36:56 ◼   ► And that's great. I absolutely love that. So, big, big plus for me for Face ID security-wise.

00:37:03 ◼   ► And I would recommend to listeners, if you have the X, go in and disable all of that stuff.

00:37:08 ◼   ► I had no idea you even could.

00:37:11 ◼   ► Yeah, it's great. It's fantastic. I absolutely love it.

00:37:13 ◼   ► Yeah, like I don't want, especially like, so I'm turning off Siri.

00:37:16 ◼   ► I don't want somebody to have access to Siri.

00:37:18 ◼   ► Yeah, like Siri is a great example.

00:37:20 ◼   ► Like I've always turned off "Hey Siri" on the phone anyway.

00:37:23 ◼   ► But it's the same thing.

00:37:24 ◼   ► It's like if the phone is locked, since I can access Siri on my Apple Watch if I ever

00:37:28 ◼   ► really need her for something, like I don't need the phone here.

00:37:32 ◼   ► I don't need some random person being able to trigger Siri on my phone when it's locked.

00:37:36 ◼   ► All of that stuff is off.

00:37:37 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a really good one.

00:37:39 ◼   ► At least I don't need Siri because it's like, well now you can like access a bunch of stuff.

00:37:42 ◼   ► I suppose. I mean, I don't know. Maybe there's some restriction Siri still has. But considering

00:37:48 ◼   ► I don't even really use it that much, why does it need to be available to anybody?

00:37:52 ◼   ► Yeah, so everything is off. Or like access to home control, all of those things, all

00:37:58 ◼   ► disabled. It's great. Fantastic.

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00:39:09 ◼   ► One final thing that I love that I love Myke is the wireless charging.

00:39:15 ◼   ► Okay.

00:39:16 ◼   ► Oh my God. Okay. So even though I'm one of those curmudgeons who still doesn't quite

00:39:19 ◼   ► like the name wireless charging.

00:39:20 ◼   ► There's wireless, there's wireless somewhere. Like there is no such thing as wireless charging

00:39:24 ◼   ► in this definition, Greg. There's always wires.

00:39:28 ◼   ► I just like I really want wireless charging to be the kind of charging where it's charged

00:39:32 ◼   ► the phone while it's in my pocket.

00:39:33 ◼   ► Yeah, but like, where is the power coming from?

00:39:36 ◼   ► Somewhere there's gonna be a wire,

00:39:38 ◼   ► but I don't want a wire, like it's,

00:39:40 ◼   ► but I'm just, I'm bringing this up because just to say,

00:39:42 ◼   ► like I'm a pedantic nerd on this one point.

00:39:45 ◼   ► You really are.

00:39:46 ◼   ► But nonetheless, I'm gonna totally concede

00:39:48 ◼   ► and just call it wireless because it's like,

00:39:49 ◼   ► you know what, I'm gonna give this to you technology

00:39:52 ◼   ► because I love you so much.

00:39:53 ◼   ► I'm just gonna call you wireless and let it go.

00:39:55 ◼   ► And this to me, this to me is now like,

00:40:01 ◼   ► is maybe going to be one of my go-to examples for

00:40:05 ◼   ► the kind of thing where I just think people under-appreciate

00:40:10 ◼   ► the benefits of making things just a little easier.

00:40:14 ◼   ► Because it's like, is it hard to plug a wire into your phone?

00:40:18 ◼   ► No, of course it's not. It's a trivially easy thing to do.

00:40:22 ◼   ► It's even easier if you have a dock, right?

00:40:24 ◼   ► You can just like, boom, slam the phone right down and it starts to charge.

00:40:27 ◼   ► But to have a little charging pad is easier still.

00:40:31 ◼   ► So I've just got a couple of these, like they're not even great wireless charging pads.

00:40:35 ◼   ► You need to hit it somewhat precisely on the center, so I'm looking forward to

00:40:38 ◼   ► Apple's ones which will let you kind of put it down anywhere, but even that it's like

00:40:43 ◼   ► just putting a wireless charger in the places where I normally leave my phone. I love it.

00:40:49 ◼   ► I absolutely love it so much. Anything in my life that can remove one step and make a thing easier, it is great.

00:40:56 ◼   ► So 12 out of 10 stars for wireless charging.

00:41:01 ◼   ► It's fantastic.

00:41:02 ◼   ► Everything, make my life easier technology.

00:41:05 ◼   ► This is what you're here for.

00:41:07 ◼   ► Make my life better in big ways

00:41:09 ◼   ► and make it easier in small ways.

00:41:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not excited about this.

00:41:14 ◼   ► It doesn't work for me with the ways that I charge my phone.

00:41:17 ◼   ► So like-- - I don't understand

00:41:19 ◼   ► what you mean. - Okay.

00:41:19 ◼   ► So I have two docks in my house that I charge my phone on.

00:41:24 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:41:25 ◼   ► - They're both from a couple of friends of mine.

00:41:27 ◼   ► They have a company called Studio Neat

00:41:28 ◼   ► and they make these docks called the material docks.

00:41:32 ◼   ► And I have one which is just my phone

00:41:34 ◼   ► and one which is my phone and my watch.

00:41:36 ◼   ► And you just put them in the dock

00:41:39 ◼   ► and the phone's standing up, which I like, right?

00:41:42 ◼   ► And with the one on my bedside table,

00:41:44 ◼   ► I also charge my watch on the same dock.

00:41:47 ◼   ► So like my watch and my phone

00:41:48 ◼   ► are all in one contained little unit.

00:41:50 ◼   ► But wireless charging isn't that either of that.

00:41:54 ◼   ► Like there are wireless chargers

00:41:56 ◼   ► which will put your phone in a portrait orientation.

00:41:59 ◼   ► I think Samsung make one.

00:42:00 ◼   ► And I'm looking at some of those

00:42:02 ◼   ► and I might get one for my desk

00:42:04 ◼   ► because that's kind of all the phone one is.

00:42:06 ◼   ► It's just the place where I stand it up.

00:42:08 ◼   ► But I really like that I have in my bedroom

00:42:11 ◼   ► just one charger, one little contained unit

00:42:13 ◼   ► that charges everything.

00:42:14 ◼   ► And I like my phone to be standing up when it's charging

00:42:18 ◼   ► rather than laying down.

00:42:19 ◼   ► Like kind of just like the current chargers

00:42:22 ◼   ► that are available,

00:42:22 ◼   ► at least the ones that Apple are promoting,

00:42:24 ◼   ► like the Belkin one and the Mophie one.

00:42:27 ◼   ► They're kind of just these disks

00:42:28 ◼   ► and you just put your phone on the disk

00:42:29 ◼   ► and that kind of, it doesn't do it for me.

00:42:32 ◼   ► I don't get any extra benefit from that at home

00:42:36 ◼   ► than I do from the docks that I already have, honestly.

00:42:38 ◼   ► Like I don't feel like I'm really struggling

00:42:42 ◼   ► to put my phone in.

00:42:43 ◼   ► I just stand it up on the dock.

00:42:44 ◼   ► Like it goes in very easily and it's nicely done.

00:42:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, but the benefit is laziness, Myke.

00:42:49 ◼   ► Laziness is the benefit.

00:42:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I don't feel like I'm exerting any work.

00:42:53 ◼   ► - No, you're doing a controlled landing of your phone

00:42:56 ◼   ► onto the dock, right?

00:42:57 ◼   ► - No, but the thing is though,

00:42:59 ◼   ► I know that you can't just lay these things down.

00:43:02 ◼   ► You have to line it up right.

00:43:04 ◼   ► And so I'm gonna be constantly like,

00:43:06 ◼   ► I know I'm gonna be like just making sure,

00:43:08 ◼   ► oh, did I put it on the pad just right?

00:43:09 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I did, right?

00:43:11 ◼   ► So, yeah, no, no, no, no.

00:43:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I do get it, I do get it

00:43:15 ◼   ► because I had for a while when I was traveling,

00:43:20 ◼   ► I was using a Mophie battery case on my 7 Plus, which, let me tell you, makes a big

00:43:27 ◼   ► phone.

00:43:28 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like one of those old Motorola StarTACs or something at that point.

00:43:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:33 ◼   ► It was comically huge.

00:43:34 ◼   ► Plus, that case had wireless charging in it, which was my first experience with wireless

00:43:39 ◼   ► charging, and I really hated it because the base and the case had zero slop.

00:43:46 ◼   ► You had to land it precisely or it wasn't going to work, and I thought like, "Oh, the

00:43:50 ◼   ► of this, right? This is worse than just having a wire. I don't like it at all.

00:43:53 ◼   ► Whereas I just got, I think I just got the Mophie One for my office, for the

00:43:59 ◼   ► iPhone, and there's enough slop in there that I hit it on target every time, and

00:44:04 ◼   ► so I absolutely love it. I'm looking forward to the Apple version, which will

00:44:08 ◼   ► allow you to charge a few things, and there's one big advantage here, which

00:44:12 ◼   ► is it will charge the Apple Watch, which means I don't have to bring an Apple

00:44:18 ◼   ► watch charger when I travel, which is by far and away my least favorite charger to bring.

00:44:26 ◼   ► It's like one charger for one device.

00:44:27 ◼   ► I hate bringing the Apple watch charger.

00:44:29 ◼   ► I don't like it.

00:44:30 ◼   ► What's your hesitation?

00:44:31 ◼   ► I'm unconvinced that it's going to work with my Apple watch.

00:44:34 ◼   ► What do you mean?

00:44:36 ◼   ► I have one of these new sport loops.

00:44:41 ◼   ► So it doesn't, you can't like open the watch out and lay it flat because the band is one

00:44:48 ◼   ► consistent loop of material.

00:44:51 ◼   ► So it's not like a sport band where you take it off and you can lay it out completely flat

00:44:55 ◼   ► on the desk because it's two pieces that meet in the middle.

00:44:58 ◼   ► The loop one it kind of just loops around your wrist so it doesn't open out.

00:45:03 ◼   ► Is that the velcro one?

00:45:04 ◼   ► Is that the one you're talking about?

00:45:05 ◼   ► Yeah the new one, the new velcro one.

00:45:06 ◼   ► And it's like- Oh I'm sorry, it's the new hook and loop one, my mistake.

00:45:10 ◼   ► It's not velcro. Velcro is a trademark thing. It's like a very... anyway.

00:45:14 ◼   ► But uh, and it's the same as like the Milanese one, like the metal one that kind of it just

00:45:18 ◼   ► like slips in and loops around on your wrist. Those don't lay flat on the desk,

00:45:24 ◼   ► you kind of lay them on the side. So I don't think it will work if I want to use this band.

00:45:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean now here's the thing Myke. I totally understand your position because,

00:45:35 ◼   ► and I will do you one a thousand times worse, which is I love, love my black metal link band.

00:45:46 ◼   ► My evil empire band, which is incapable of even collapsing to any extent, right? It's just a

00:45:55 ◼   ► like a beautiful ring of metal that is not flexible. And so I know that I'm going to have to

00:46:03 ◼   ► make some kind of trade-off with how that charging is going to work when I'm traveling is like

00:46:07 ◼   ► maybe I just won't be able to bring my beautiful favorite band with me when I'm traveling as much

00:46:13 ◼   ► but it's like I'm gonna have to make a decision about that with

00:46:15 ◼   ► how that works when I'm on the road, but I am aware that like I am not giving up that watch band. So I have a

00:46:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I have I have a 12 south dock that I use to charge my watch at home

00:46:29 ◼   ► that's a you know, holds it up vertically and I am aware that that's going to have to stick around if I'm going to keep

00:46:34 ◼   ► my metal band, but for for traveling purposes

00:46:38 ◼   ► I'm willing to make some kind of compromise about what Apple watch bands do I bring if I can get the benefit of the wireless

00:46:45 ◼   ► charger because I really hate bringing the separate Apple watch charger. I really do. I find that kind of I find it frustrating though because

00:46:52 ◼   ► this is the new band that they make and ship by default with the watches and

00:46:58 ◼   ► They're making a charging pad that won't work with it and I understand the technology at play, but I figure

00:47:04 ◼   ► You should work you find a way around this like there should be a workaround

00:47:09 ◼   ► And maybe maybe you can just loop the band underneath

00:47:14 ◼   ► Right and it will work. Oh

00:47:17 ◼   ► And if that works then great, but if there is no way to make it work with the sport loop

00:47:21 ◼   ► I'm gonna be very disappointed because this is the bet

00:47:25 ◼   ► this is the band you make. Apple has a whole selection of bands that don't completely detach.

00:47:31 ◼   ► They have the buckles and there's lots of them. So there are a lot of their watches that don't

00:47:37 ◼   ► lay flat because they don't detach in the middle. The bands don't detach in the middle.

00:47:41 ◼   ► So they're saying that their fancy wireless charging thing will work with none of those?

00:47:46 ◼   ► I would find that to be really frustrating, honestly.

00:47:50 ◼   ► I'm thinking, I'm thinking maybe, maybe, my Evil Empire watch, right? It will not bend.

00:47:55 ◼   ► But can I, can I take the air power pad and bend it to the watch's will?

00:48:00 ◼   ► Like will it, will it roll up into a cylinder and I can slide the cylinder into the middle of the watch?

00:48:05 ◼   ► Will that work?

00:48:06 ◼   ► I bet that that is, the pad is a, is a solid in the middle.

00:48:10 ◼   ► I like this idea. I like this idea.

00:48:12 ◼   ► Look, I'm not going to be the first to do it, but when these things come out, somebody out there has to try

00:48:17 ◼   ► rolling it up to like a paper towel roll size and slide it in the middle of the watch

00:48:24 ◼   ► pan and see if it works. Maybe that's Apple's plan. Maybe that's the way it's gonna work.

00:48:29 ◼   ► I hope so. I really hope that's, yeah. I hope so too. That would be fantastic.

00:48:32 ◼   ► That would be way more convenient than just bringing an Apple Watch charger

00:48:37 ◼   ► and just rolling up my wireless charger every night to shove it through my watch pan.

00:48:47 ◼   ► A++ way more convenient.

00:48:49 ◼   ► So Greg, when we were preparing for today's episode, I was doing something on my iPhone,

00:48:57 ◼   ► and I put my iPhone down and I went to make coffee. And also at the same time as making

00:49:03 ◼   ► coffee, I was preparing some LemCip, which is a drinking paracetamol type thing. I don't know how

00:49:09 ◼   ► to describe LemCip for our American audience or a non-UK audience. Is there something we can

00:49:14 ◼   ► compare Lemsip to? No there isn't and part of the problem is as someone who has been brought into

00:49:21 ◼   ► the Lemsip world by moving into the UK I feel like there's also a you can describe what the thing is

00:49:29 ◼   ► but there's also there's also like a like a psychological comfort that surrounds Lemsip

00:49:34 ◼   ► yes which is difficult to explain okay so I have like a slight cold right now and it's one of those

00:49:39 ◼   ► annoying colds that isn't, it's there but it's not enough to knock me out so it's kind of just like

00:49:44 ◼   ► floating in the middle and it's really frustrating. So I'm taking LemCip and LemCip is like a cold and

00:49:50 ◼   ► flu remedy. It's mostly paracetamol based. It's flavored in some way and you melt it in boiling

00:49:57 ◼   ► water and then you drink it like a tea effectively. It's like a tea with healing properties. It's a

00:50:03 ◼   ► magical tea. - But yeah, but that's exactly what it feels like. - Yeah, it does. - I'm drinking magic.

00:50:09 ◼   ► Happy Tea.

00:50:10 ◼   ► It's like, "I know this will make me feel better even though I don't want to have it.

00:50:13 ◼   ► It's magic. It's magic tea." And the only good flavour of this is apple and cinnamon

00:50:17 ◼   ► in my mind.

00:50:18 ◼   ► You are so wrong. Lemon is the only acceptable flavour.

00:50:21 ◼   ► Lemon is the worst possible flavour. And apple and cinnamon is only available in the winter,

00:50:26 ◼   ► so I stockpile it. I buy like four or five boxes every winter so I can keep it just in

00:50:31 ◼   ► case I need it in other months of the year. The lemon one is the hell version. I can't

00:50:38 ◼   ► believe that you like the lemon version of that.

00:50:39 ◼   ► lemon is the best but you do need you do need just like a like a half teaspoon of

00:50:43 ◼   ► sugar to take a little bit of the edge off. Oh well see, no but no no it's because you don't need to do that with the apple and cinnamon you just need what is there

00:50:48 ◼   ► see you're you're modifying it it's not that's not right it's not right you're

00:50:52 ◼   ► adding to it right the lemon is bad because you need to add to the lemon you

00:50:56 ◼   ► don't need to add to the apple and cinnamon the apple and cinnamon is is

00:50:59 ◼   ► what it is anyway cortex where people come for all their

00:51:02 ◼   ► Lemcip recipes.

00:51:04 ◼   ► I was making my Lemcip and I wanted to set a four hour timer so I knew when it was okay

00:51:12 ◼   ► for me to have some more.

00:51:13 ◼   ► So I opened Dew on my Apple Watch and I hit the little button to reset the timer.

00:51:19 ◼   ► It was at that moment that I realized that I think for the first time in many years,

00:51:24 ◼   ► I am very content with my technology.

00:51:30 ◼   ► right now is working for me either at the level that I expect or is exceeding my expectations.

00:51:38 ◼   ► So right now my expectations have been exceeded by the iPhone X because I've been mostly

00:51:43 ◼   ► unhappy with the rate of iPhone development over the last couple of years. I've said

00:51:48 ◼   ► in many places, probably on this show as well, that I was disappointed with the iPhone 7

00:51:54 ◼   ► because I felt like it took away more than it gave as a device. You lost the headphone

00:51:58 ◼   ► jack lost the physical home button and didn't really gain anything except for waterproofing

00:52:02 ◼   ► in my opinion. There was just nothing that that phone really gave me other than just

00:52:07 ◼   ► like the general iterative improvements of speed and better cameras. But the iPhone X

00:52:13 ◼   ► has not only given me more improvements, it's done them at a rate which has been uncharacteristic

00:52:19 ◼   ► for the last few years. I'm really happy with that. The Apple Watch 3 is a great iterative

00:52:24 ◼   ► improvement on a relatively new product.

00:52:26 ◼   ► It moves so fast now.

00:52:28 ◼   ► I love the cellular connection to it.

00:52:30 ◼   ► Like it works great.

00:52:31 ◼   ► And then I was thinking like my iPad pros,

00:52:33 ◼   ► the 10.5 inch iPad Pro is the best iPad

00:52:36 ◼   ► that's ever been made, in my opinion.

00:52:38 ◼   ► And the 12.9 has just continued

00:52:41 ◼   ► to get better and better.

00:52:42 ◼   ► So I'm really happy with those.

00:52:43 ◼   ► And then like even outside of my Apple

00:52:46 ◼   ► technology, like I love

00:52:49 ◼   ► my Nintendo Switch so much.

00:52:51 ◼   ► Like it's my favorite gaming console

00:52:53 ◼   ► of all time because it is the dream console for me. It is the console that I can play

00:52:58 ◼   ► the same games no matter wherever I am. And the games are just getting better and better.

00:53:02 ◼   ► And we're going to talk about those in a minute. They're just getting better and better. And

00:53:07 ◼   ► I am a big fan of the Amazon Echo. And we just added another device to our house. So

00:53:13 ◼   ► we have three Amazon Echos now. So we have complete home coverage. And both me and Adina

00:53:19 ◼   ► are doing more and more with it. And we're really happy with it. And I kind of realized

00:53:22 ◼   ► at that moment that I'm very happy with the technology that I have in my life right now.

00:53:28 ◼   ► I don't feel like I have any major gripes. I don't feel like I have any areas that are not

00:53:35 ◼   ► being fulfilled. You know, like, I know that lots of people are unhappy with their Macs, but I have

00:53:41 ◼   ► an iMac and my iMac is more than I need for what I do. Like it's so powerful. I had the 5K iMac

00:53:47 ◼   ► and that thing is perfect for my usage.

00:53:50 ◼   ► Like I feel like my technology needs are being met

00:53:53 ◼   ► and exceeded now by the companies that I use.

00:53:56 ◼   ► And I'm really happy about that.

00:53:58 ◼   ► It's good to point that out because, of course, on a podcast,

00:54:03 ◼   ► it is always easier and more fun to complain about things.

00:54:07 ◼   ► No, I decided that this year for me was the year of optimism

00:54:11 ◼   ► and the year of positivity in the things that I talk about,

00:54:14 ◼   ► because I noticed that last year I wasn't having as much fun talking about technology

00:54:20 ◼   ► as I'd had in previous years because admittedly there were a lot of things if you were in

00:54:24 ◼   ► the Apple camp which were just boring and annoying, right? Like a lot of the stuff that

00:54:28 ◼   ► they were doing I think was falling into one of those two camps.

00:54:31 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. We definitely went through a bit of a valley of darkness.

00:54:34 ◼   ► And then at WWDC this year, they gave me everything I wanted from a software perspective. So I

00:54:40 ◼   ► So I decided that for the year of,

00:54:43 ◼   ► 'cause I believe that Apple's year start and ends at WWDC,

00:54:47 ◼   ► so it's like they have their own start and end to the year.

00:54:50 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, of course, just like schools.

00:54:52 ◼   ► - Exactly, and so considering how happy I was with that,

00:54:54 ◼   ► I decided that I was gonna be more optimistic

00:54:56 ◼   ► and appreciate the things that I like,

00:54:59 ◼   ► and Apple has been very good to me in that everything,

00:55:02 ◼   ► all of the stuff that they've done since WWDC

00:55:05 ◼   ► has been great, and that was my belief, that was my hope,

00:55:08 ◼   ► they were in a, last year was like a rebuilding year and they made some changes and that we'd

00:55:13 ◼   ► hopefully see the fruits of that starting now and I think that for me I'm seeing that

00:55:18 ◼   ► and I know that there are some people that are frustrated about like the laptops and

00:55:22 ◼   ► stuff like that but I don't care because I don't use the laptop that much.

00:55:26 ◼   ► So in my year of optimism I have been granted with all great technology.

00:55:31 ◼   ► It's been brilliant.

00:55:33 ◼   ► It's interesting you say that because, again, I agree with the general case.

00:55:41 ◼   ► And it's similar for me, like I'm very happy to have the different sized iPhone.

00:55:45 ◼   ► I've gone from unhappiness about it to this cautious optimism that yes, I do have a size that is physically much nicer for me.

00:55:55 ◼   ► I do love the new version of the Apple Watch.

00:55:58 ◼   ► and I don't think we really talked about it very much on the show, but they did make it

00:56:03 ◼   ► faster which makes it now feel like, oh, this is a real thing.

00:56:08 ◼   ► Like it's really interesting, like maybe the interactions and the notifications and things pop up only 20%

00:56:14 ◼   ► faster in reality, but they've crossed some

00:56:17 ◼   ► threshold that makes it feel like it's twice as fast.

00:56:22 ◼   ► Yeah, it's crossed the threshold to feel like a risk computer for me.

00:56:25 ◼   ► It feels like it's actually doing stuff on its own

00:56:30 ◼   ► in a responsive way.

00:56:31 ◼   ► Like it feels, and the LTE connection definitely helps

00:56:34 ◼   ► with this in my mind because I less and less get hit

00:56:37 ◼   ► with like, can't do it.

00:56:39 ◼   ► So like, you know, and there's still a bunch of apps

00:56:41 ◼   ► that need to support the complete independence

00:56:43 ◼   ► that the LTE chip gives it.

00:56:45 ◼   ► But on the whole, I feel like the device

00:56:47 ◼   ► has crossed the threshold into becoming

00:56:49 ◼   ► its own little thing.

00:56:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's exactly what it is.

00:56:53 ◼   ► You're right there by saying,

00:56:54 ◼   ► it now really feels like it's living up to the promise

00:56:57 ◼   ► of being a wrist computer.

00:56:59 ◼   ► And it feels much, much less like you're on the moon

00:57:02 ◼   ► calling back to Houston and seeing,

00:57:05 ◼   ► hey, were there any text messages?

00:57:07 ◼   ► And then six light seconds later, you gotta reply.

00:57:09 ◼   ► - Or like, Siri would be like,

00:57:11 ◼   ► I'll tap you when I'm ready, that kind of thing,

00:57:13 ◼   ► which I know you hate, right?

00:57:15 ◼   ► It's just so frustrating.

00:57:16 ◼   ► I feel like I get less of those types of things

00:57:18 ◼   ► where like the watch is off doing its thing

00:57:21 ◼   ► and it will get to my request when it's ready.

00:57:23 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. I do have a little bit of an asterisk to this, but it's still--

00:57:29 ◼   ► I'm realizing just as I'm thinking about this topic that it still leads to a same thing.

00:57:34 ◼   ► Like I feel like I'm pretty happy with the state of technology now. And so my asterisk is

00:57:40 ◼   ► I still haven't found the iOS 11 transition with the iPads, one that I've really enjoyed.

00:57:47 ◼   ► And as I mentioned earlier in the show--

00:57:50 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:57:51 ◼   ► And I mentioned earlier in the show, the iPhone isn't helping that.

00:57:57 ◼   ► And I've noticed myself kind of pushed away a little bit from the iPad because of it,

00:58:06 ◼   ► just finding some of the things to do a little bit awkward.

00:58:09 ◼   ► And through a series of just like happenstance in the kinds of projects that I'm working

00:58:14 ◼   ► on right now and some of the things with the way my office just happened to get set up,

00:58:20 ◼   ► I didn't actually set up my new office in the glass cube with the iPad like the old

00:58:26 ◼   ► one was.

00:58:27 ◼   ► I ended up setting up my new office using a laptop and external monitors.

00:58:33 ◼   ► Oh, I'm very disappointed in you.

00:58:35 ◼   ► No, no.

00:58:36 ◼   ► What are you doing?

00:58:37 ◼   ► Part of the reason that I did that is I'm using a ton of stuff on Final Cut in the past

00:58:43 ◼   ► few months and the upcoming months.

00:58:45 ◼   ► So it's like, I have to have a computer for that.

00:58:47 ◼   ► Okay, I'll accept that.

00:58:48 ◼   ► That's fine.

00:58:49 ◼   ► Yeah, there's no Final Cut on the iPad.

00:58:53 ◼   ► But this is part of the thing that would just happenstance.

00:58:57 ◼   ► Actually to give you a sense of the Final Cut stuff, if I open up my computer here and

00:59:02 ◼   ► I take a look, I have a folder with a Final Cut project in it that is currently sitting

00:59:11 ◼   ► at 12 terabytes in size.

00:59:13 ◼   ► Holy moly!

00:59:14 ◼   ► Okay, yep, no iOS device is helping you with that project.

00:59:19 ◼   ► Yeah, so even if I could smush it down into an iMovie project, I don't think they sell an iPad with a 12 terabyte drive in it yet.

00:59:28 ◼   ► But I just want to mention this because

00:59:32 ◼   ► I've just found myself over the last little while

00:59:35 ◼   ► suddenly with a dramatic increase in Mac usage versus iPad usage.

00:59:42 ◼   ► And as someone who has been living the multi-pad lifestyle for the past several years, going

00:59:48 ◼   ► back to the Mac for a lot of stuff.

00:59:50 ◼   ► It's interesting, but like I actually feel really pleased with the whole situation.

00:59:55 ◼   ► Like having to work on on my Mac for long stretches of time.

00:59:59 ◼   ► I know people complain about the Mac, but I feel like it's a really

01:00:02 ◼   ► solid production machine, which is exactly what I need out of it. Like I'm sitting down to do

01:00:09 ◼   ► specific tasks, and I'm just aware that

01:00:13 ◼   ► it's working really well for me, and so

01:00:18 ◼   ► Even though I'm in a bit of a different situation here. I like I'm finding the same thing

01:00:21 ◼   ► Like I'm pretty happy with my tech setup as it is

01:00:24 ◼   ► Right now I still don't worry Myke. I don't disagree with that right like the production

01:00:29 ◼   ► I mean, I've always said like the production the shows, you know, they are occurring on the Mac and I have no

01:00:35 ◼   ► Desire to change that like there's that shouldn't have been really any different for you from where it was before because you weren't making videos

01:00:42 ◼   ► On your iOS devices. I just want to make sure that you're not abandoning

01:00:47 ◼   ► the predominant iPad work lifestyle here.

01:00:51 ◼   ► This is very important that you don't leave the cause.

01:00:54 ◼   ► B: Why is it very important that I don't leave the cause?

01:00:56 ◼   ► I'm not getting involved in your ideological wars, Myke.

01:00:59 ◼   ► MZF1- Because if you move away,

01:01:02 ◼   ► all of those Mac people are gonna be like,

01:01:04 ◼   ► "See, we told you, we got one back!"

01:01:07 ◼   ► Right, I can't take that.

01:01:09 ◼   ► B- Well, okay. I'm not involved in your ideological differences here.

01:01:14 ◼   ► I'm just simply saying, in the past, I'm gonna say...

01:01:20 ◼   ► two or three months, the vast majority of my working has been on a Mac.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Now, there's an asterisk to that, which is essentially all of the writing still takes place on an iPad.

01:01:30 ◼   ► Like, I have an iPad in my office, and I use that for all of the writing,

01:01:35 ◼   ► but almost everything else is happening on a Mac, and I'm just very happy with it.

01:01:40 ◼   ► Including administration?

01:01:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I've ended up just doing administration stuff on the Mac as well.

01:01:48 ◼   ► No.

01:01:49 ◼   ► See, Myke, I was just trying to tell a little story about how I'm happy with my technology

01:01:53 ◼   ► setup.

01:01:54 ◼   ► So now you've made me unhappy.

01:01:55 ◼   ► Yeah, but you can't get attached to your tools.

01:01:57 ◼   ► You are not your tools, Myke.

01:01:58 ◼   ► You have to use whatever works great.

01:02:00 ◼   ► I'm very perplexed that iOS 11 has driven you away.

01:02:05 ◼   ► I'm seeing there is a trend of some individuals that this is occurring to.

01:02:11 ◼   ► And it seems very peculiar to me because from my perspective,

01:02:15 ◼   ► iOS 11 is vastly superior to iOS 10 in almost every way.

01:02:21 ◼   ► There are just things that I've gotten used to

01:02:23 ◼   ► and you just have to get used to some interactions changing.

01:02:25 ◼   ► But the overall flexibility of the operating system

01:02:29 ◼   ► has increased multiples in multiples.

01:02:32 ◼   ► Yeah, don't get me wrong.

01:02:33 ◼   ► I agree iOS 11 is the correct direction for the operating system to go.

01:02:37 ◼   ► I'm just simply...

01:02:39 ◼   ► Like I mentioned before,

01:02:41 ◼   ► I find it more frustrating on my...

01:02:46 ◼   ► on the iPad that I use for administration,

01:02:48 ◼   ► where I'm moving around a bunch of stuff,

01:02:51 ◼   ► and I was just aware of finding a little bit of mental resistance

01:02:54 ◼   ► to doing a lot of that stuff on the iPad.

01:02:56 ◼   ► And so, it wasn't through any kind of intention,

01:02:59 ◼   ► but I just found myself drifting back towards using the Mac for.

01:03:03 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, I have a spreadsheet and an email, and I'm replying to someone in Slack about a thing."

01:03:07 ◼   ► And so that's why when I set up my office, I decided, like, I'm just gonna roll with this,

01:03:13 ◼   ► and I'm gonna use this as, like, Command Center Mac.

01:03:17 ◼   ► But the iPad that I do the writing on,

01:03:21 ◼   ► where I have... I find stable pairs of apps,

01:03:25 ◼   ► of apps, like, that I still prefer to use the iPad for, and I still do use the iPad for that.

01:03:30 ◼   ► But I'm just finding that I'm using the Mac for...

01:03:35 ◼   ► The Mac has taken back a lot of the work that I used to do on an iPad several months ago.

01:03:42 ◼   ► And I'm totally fine with that because I'm tool agnostic, Myke.

01:03:45 ◼   ► You should be tool agnostic too as well.

01:03:48 ◼   ► I was not expecting this reaction at all. I'm very sorry, Myke.

01:03:55 ◼   ► You seem, you seem hurt.

01:03:57 ◼   ► I'm not hurt, but it's just like a,

01:04:00 ◼   ► it's a frustration because I feel like, you know,

01:04:05 ◼   ► we were there at the forefront of trying to,

01:04:08 ◼   ► of talking about iOS and iPads as productivity tools.

01:04:11 ◼   ► And you taking a step back from that,

01:04:14 ◼   ► you know, that's, that's, that's,

01:04:16 ◼   ► this is going to start to weaken the argument

01:04:18 ◼   ► for the multi-pad lifestyle.

01:04:20 ◼   ► Multi-pad, like,

01:04:22 ◼   ► - MultiPad lifestyle is a thing that exists

01:04:25 ◼   ► in the world independent of us, Myke.

01:04:27 ◼   ► It doesn't need proponents.

01:04:29 ◼   ► It makes perfect sense.

01:04:31 ◼   ► I'm simply describing my own situation

01:04:34 ◼   ► and my own working tools here.

01:04:36 ◼   ► We don't need to be figureheads.

01:04:37 ◼   ► That's not the way this works.

01:04:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, but you see, the thing is,

01:04:41 ◼   ► I already know how Myke,

01:04:44 ◼   ► I know in the same way that when I was talking

01:04:47 ◼   ► about my laundry, I was getting specific messages

01:04:50 ◼   ► And I knew where people were in that episode at that point.

01:04:54 ◼   ► There is going to be a period of time in which I am going to start getting

01:04:57 ◼   ► messages from people and I will know where they were in that moment of this

01:05:03 ◼   ► episode. And I look forward to the point where in the future you turn around and

01:05:07 ◼   ► go like, what was wrong with me?

01:05:09 ◼   ► What was I doing?

01:05:10 ◼   ► You know, I was in a haze.

01:05:12 ◼   ► I was in a Mac haze and I'm back 120 percent to living the iPad lifestyle.

01:05:17 ◼   ► I'll just wait for that moment and I'll look forward to then.

01:05:20 ◼   ► Maybe when you're done making all the videos that I'm sure you're making right now.

01:05:24 ◼   ► Well, again, I'm tool agnostic, so I'm very happy to switch back when it makes sense to

01:05:29 ◼   ► switch back. I'm just simply saying for a certain kind of work for me right now--

01:05:33 ◼   ► What is this tool agnostic? This is the new phrase you're throwing around today. Where

01:05:36 ◼   ► did all this come from?

01:05:38 ◼   ► Well, because I'm trying to explain the situation in a way that you, who is a tool fundamentalist,

01:05:48 ◼   ► is seeming to not be able to understand.

01:05:49 ◼   ► Don't paint me. Don't paint me. All right. This isn't this isn't fair. I don't want to

01:05:53 ◼   ► be painted as anything specific now by you because you start saying these things and

01:05:58 ◼   ► then everybody goes along with it. Like I'm not having this. All right. Because I've always

01:06:04 ◼   ► said like my Mac has my as its place as the important center of my production. But everything

01:06:09 ◼   ► else that I do with my business is done on iOS. Now, I don't consider that as being like

01:06:15 ◼   ► agnostic to tools but like appreciating tools for their function, right?

01:06:18 ◼   ► Yeah, of course.

01:06:19 ◼   ► And I feel like it's a slightly different thing, but like you start calling me a fundamentalist

01:06:24 ◼   ► or whatever and then this is gonna be a thing that people start to call me and then I don't

01:06:28 ◼   ► want that.

01:06:29 ◼   ► I mean, yeah, no, I'm not saying people should call Myke an iPad fundamentalist.

01:06:33 ◼   ► That's ridiculous and crazy, right?

01:06:35 ◼   ► That's not a thing that you should do.

01:06:37 ◼   ► You wouldn't want to tar and feather him with a word like that.

01:06:40 ◼   ► I would be above encouraging people to do something like that because I'm just floating

01:06:44 ◼   ► here on this ethereal realm and picking whatever tools happen to work for me at any particular

01:06:49 ◼   ► moment.

01:06:50 ◼   ► And right now, for certain kinds of tasks, I find myself using my Mac to do those tasks,

01:06:55 ◼   ► but in the future I may reach down and use iPads again to use those tasks.

01:06:59 ◼   ► It just depends on what is best at a particular time.

01:07:02 ◼   ► I was making my Lemsip and I opened the Google Doc and I typed in some bullet points for

01:07:07 ◼   ► a really happy topic which was then going to take me into talking to you about video

01:07:11 ◼   ► games.

01:07:12 ◼   ► This wasn't how this was supposed to go.

01:07:14 ◼   ► I feel bad too, Myke.

01:07:16 ◼   ► Like I wasn't expecting this reaction from you.

01:07:18 ◼   ► I thought we were both going to have a nice conversation

01:07:22 ◼   ► about how we're very happy with our tools.

01:07:24 ◼   ► - I'm very happy that you're very happy.

01:07:26 ◼   ► - I was simply going to just mention this interesting thing

01:07:30 ◼   ► that I have noted in a change in my own behavior.

01:07:33 ◼   ► - But here's the thing, right?

01:07:35 ◼   ► So this is the difference between

01:07:37 ◼   ► CortexLunch and RealLunch.

01:07:39 ◼   ► So in RealLunch, I would be like,

01:07:41 ◼   ► "Oh, that's really interesting."

01:07:43 ◼   ► because it is really interesting.

01:07:45 ◼   ► But in Cortex Lunch, I now know what happens afterwards,

01:07:49 ◼   ► which is when everybody else hears the conversation

01:07:53 ◼   ► and then the reactions that people have

01:07:55 ◼   ► towards the conversation, which doesn't usually happen

01:07:58 ◼   ► when we're just sitting across from a table with each other.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Because when everybody hears this conversation,

01:08:04 ◼   ► there are gonna be lots of assumptions made

01:08:07 ◼   ► and then lots of things said.

01:08:09 ◼   ► That's the problem that I've seen, right?

01:08:13 ◼   ► The problem with CortexLunch is all the listeners.

01:08:16 ◼   ► Is that what you're saying, Myke?

01:08:17 ◼   ► The listeners are the problem with CortexLunch.

01:08:18 ◼   ► See, you're doing it again.

01:08:19 ◼   ► You're doing it again, right?

01:08:21 ◼   ► This is not fair.

01:08:22 ◼   ► This is not fair.

01:08:23 ◼   ► You're pulling words in my mouth.

01:08:25 ◼   ► I don't mean to do that, Myke.

01:08:28 ◼   ► I need to talk about video games now.

01:08:30 ◼   ► I love CortexLunch.

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01:10:34 ◼   ► Let's talk about video games Myke.

01:10:36 ◼   ► So a few weeks ago I told you to play Stardew Valley and you told me you would play Stardew

01:10:42 ◼   ► Valley. Stardew Valley is this like RPG type farming simulator type Sims type Harvest Moon

01:10:50 ◼   ► type Animal Crossing game is all of those things mixed into one is Stardew Valley. It's

01:10:56 ◼   ► been available for a long time on the PC and it came out on the Switch like a month or

01:11:00 ◼   ► so ago and I asked you to play and I want to know if you've played and what you think

01:11:06 ◼   ► of Stardew Valley.

01:11:07 ◼   ► I have played Stardew Valley.

01:11:09 ◼   ► Okay.

01:11:10 ◼   ► I don't think I want to know anymore.

01:11:16 ◼   ► I do not like this game.

01:11:19 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:11:25 ◼   ► This is not your day, Myke. But let me tell you, I didn't like Stardew Valley. I didn't like Stardew Valley a lot.

01:11:32 ◼   ► Aww. Why?

01:11:35 ◼   ► I promised myself, I promised myself I was going to make it through one year in Stardew Valley.

01:11:41 ◼   ► Oh man, you really gave it the college try too, huh?

01:11:44 ◼   ► Yeah, because with many games it can often be the case where you have some kind of learning curve or you know

01:11:52 ◼   ► It just takes you a while to settle into a rhythm

01:11:54 ◼   ► And I definitely know that's the case with many kind of games that I play that it can take a while

01:11:58 ◼   ► There's a lot to learn

01:12:00 ◼   ► but a year in Stardew Valley as far as I can tell is like an infinity of subjective experience of

01:12:07 ◼   ► just

01:12:10 ◼   ► tilling the ground and pulling the turnips out like some kind of peasant.

01:12:16 ◼   ► There are a couple of things that I need to ask you though, right, so I can try and assess

01:12:20 ◼   ► how much of an accurate try you gave this game. Did you build sprinklers?

01:12:25 ◼   ► I built sprinklers. I built beehives.

01:12:28 ◼   ► Do you have any farm animals? Oh man, yes, here you have beehives in the

01:12:32 ◼   ► game. I had chickens.

01:12:33 ◼   ► That would have really tipped you over the edge.

01:12:34 ◼   ► Yeah, that would have gotten me playing faster. I was very excited about the beehives. Beehives,

01:12:38 ◼   ► by the way, had one of the best mechanics, which is they shut the hell up and produce

01:12:41 ◼   ► honey for me.

01:12:42 ◼   ► Right?

01:12:43 ◼   ► Great.

01:12:44 ◼   ► I don't need to be like with these chickens going into the barn every day and hand pulling

01:12:50 ◼   ► out strands of hay to give to these stupid chickens so that they'll keep laying eggs

01:12:54 ◼   ► for me.

01:12:55 ◼   ► Right?

01:12:56 ◼   ► Bees, they know what the deal is.

01:12:57 ◼   ► Like, you make honey, that's your job.

01:12:59 ◼   ► If you keep upgrading your coops, they start to be self-feeding.

01:13:03 ◼   ► Yeah, only the final coop is self-feeding.

01:13:07 ◼   ► I'm aware of this, but it's like I was rushing towards that final coupe as fast as I can

01:13:12 ◼   ► But it's like stuff takes a long time in Stardew Valley.

01:13:14 ◼   ► I'm very upset about this. I really hope that you would like this game

01:13:18 ◼   ► So I can see, here's the thing, I can see why

01:13:22 ◼   ► People would think that I would like this game

01:13:25 ◼   ► Because I often say that I like work simulators and boy, boy is this game work

01:13:35 ◼   ► It's work on very many different levels. But what I realized playing this game is that

01:13:40 ◼   ► All of the things that I think of as as work simulators

01:13:45 ◼   ► There's a key thing that I never

01:13:48 ◼   ► really recognized which is some some level of management

01:13:53 ◼   ► Where as like I'm not I'm not necessarily doing the work

01:13:56 ◼   ► Directly like I'm I am

01:14:00 ◼   ► Managing characters in the games that are doing the work for me.

01:14:04 ◼   ► Wait, you're not managing the truck driving though, are you? You are driving the truck.

01:14:07 ◼   ► Okay, but so truck simulator truck simulator is an interesting case, but even it has a tiny bit of this

01:14:12 ◼   ► Which is that you have employees

01:14:14 ◼   ► Who very quickly can start earning more money than you're making on your actual routes

01:14:19 ◼   ► Like there there is a level of other people are making it

01:14:22 ◼   ► Yeah, but you still drive the trucks though. Like you're not they're just sitting in an office waiting for people to come back

01:14:28 ◼   ► Yeah, so truck simulator is the closest thing to like what is an actual work simulator because you are doing the job.

01:14:34 ◼   ► Although again, like truck simulator to me falls into the category of barely a game.

01:14:38 ◼   ► But

01:14:42 ◼   ► Stardew Valley is what just struck me to me as the worst of this kind of thing because it's

01:14:47 ◼   ► it's work and it's

01:14:50 ◼   ► tedious. Like you have to plow the little fields. You have to plant each of the seeds one by one.

01:14:57 ◼   ► Like you need to then pull these turnips out of the ground one by one and then you need to drop each of them into the box over there.

01:15:07 ◼   ► Okay, so I think that you don't get the feeling of like calm that people get from these types of games.

01:15:18 ◼   ► So like what you're describing this like one by one you're like you are describing it as like a monotonous repetitive activity that you don't enjoy.

01:15:26 ◼   ► But what I get from this game, and everyone that I know that likes this game gets from

01:15:31 ◼   ► this game, with the farming aspect, is a "this is nice and simple and easy and relaxing."

01:15:38 ◼   ► That's kind of how I feel when I'm playing the game.

01:15:42 ◼   ► But if you don't get that kind of feeling from these types of games, then you're not

01:15:48 ◼   ► going to enjoy the farming aspect of this game.

01:15:51 ◼   ► Yeah, this game is very much like tilling a garden.

01:15:54 ◼   ► It's a thing you're either going to enjoy or you're not going to enjoy.

01:15:58 ◼   ► Yeah, like I kind of just feel kind of just, I'm playing this game and I can listen to

01:16:03 ◼   ► podcasts and just relax and just keep playing it and if I want to go and do a thing I can

01:16:08 ◼   ► do a thing but really all I need to do is just make sure that I'm kind of just looking

01:16:12 ◼   ► after my farm.

01:16:13 ◼   ► Right, yeah.

01:16:15 ◼   ► I totally get that and this is, you know, do bring up Truck Simulator.

01:16:20 ◼   ► It's the exact same argument there.

01:16:21 ◼   ► If you don't have a sense of mindless zen driving Truck Simulator, Truck Simulator is

01:16:27 ◼   ► not for you and it looks like it's insanity.

01:16:30 ◼   ► And I guess the difference between like Stardew and Truck Simulator is like Truck Simulator

01:16:36 ◼   ► is just like movement without really doing much.

01:16:39 ◼   ► You're just adjusting every now and then whilst the type of feeling for Stardew is the zen

01:16:46 ◼   ► in the repetitiveness where there's not really a lot of repetitiveness in Truck Simulator.

01:16:50 ◼   ► Yeah, like if we're getting like down and dirty into the mechanics, that's exactly what

01:16:55 ◼   ► this is.

01:16:56 ◼   ► It's like how does a game hold your attention?

01:17:00 ◼   ► And Stardew Valley is like the active version of a Truck Simulator.

01:17:06 ◼   ► It holds your attention by asking you to do these repetitive tasks over and over again.

01:17:11 ◼   ► And I can totally see how this zones someone into a particular state.

01:17:18 ◼   ► Whereas Truck Simulator is like a tension without action.

01:17:25 ◼   ► It's a much more empty experience, which is why I totally get when some people think it's

01:17:30 ◼   ► like insanity that someone could play it, because you're not doing anything.

01:17:34 ◼   ► And I feel like my brain is much more rewarded by that experience, like the empty attention

01:17:40 ◼   ► of nothing is happening versus you have to pay attention to this thing and repeat the

01:17:45 ◼   ► same action over and over again.

01:17:48 ◼   ► There is something hardwired in my brain that just hates the repetitive action.

01:17:55 ◼   ► Really deeply hates the repetitive action.

01:17:59 ◼   ► So Stardew Valley was not for me.

01:18:03 ◼   ► Now again, I don't understand, why are you so invested in me liking Stardew Valley?

01:18:07 ◼   ► I find that kind of funny.

01:18:08 ◼   ► There's a couple of things. One, I love this game and I was convinced you would like it

01:18:15 ◼   ► because it has a lot of elements that I know you enjoy but I think the implementation is

01:18:19 ◼   ► different and there's like another part of it like there is a multiplayer version of

01:18:25 ◼   ► this game coming.

01:18:26 ◼   ► Oh okay.

01:18:28 ◼   ► But it seems like it's a very hands-off multiplayer where like you and some friends just share

01:18:33 ◼   ► a farm.

01:18:34 ◼   ► Right.

01:18:35 ◼   ► And I thought it might be just a fun game we could play.

01:18:37 ◼   ► You thought we could be friends sharing the farm together?

01:18:40 ◼   ► I like playing games with my friends, but this is like a multiplayer game where we don't

01:18:44 ◼   ► need to necessarily be actively playing, I think, is the way it works.

01:18:48 ◼   ► Like together so it can kind of be a bit hands-off-y.

01:18:50 ◼   ► It's my understanding of how it works.

01:18:51 ◼   ► I don't understand the complete mechanic check because it's not available, but I'm just frustrated

01:18:56 ◼   ► about this because I was sure that I'd found a game that you might like.

01:19:01 ◼   ► I will say though, the more time I put into it, the less convinced I was of this.

01:19:07 ◼   ► - You had a growing sense of dread as time went on?

01:19:10 ◼   ► - Because after you do a lot of the automation

01:19:14 ◼   ► that you would do for a farm,

01:19:15 ◼   ► so there are things as the game goes on

01:19:19 ◼   ► where you are able, well basically all you're doing

01:19:21 ◼   ► is harvesting the crops eventually, right?

01:19:24 ◼   ► Because all the animals get fed themselves,

01:19:26 ◼   ► all the plants get watered themselves, right?

01:19:28 ◼   ► That becomes way more hands-off.

01:19:31 ◼   ► And the part of the reason for this

01:19:33 ◼   ► is because then you can start to explore

01:19:34 ◼   ► lot of the relationship focused aspects of the game which I figured you would have absolutely

01:19:39 ◼   ► zero interest in.

01:19:41 ◼   ► Oh my god yeah.

01:19:42 ◼   ► Once I got to my second year I got way less convinced about your ability to enjoy this

01:19:48 ◼   ► game.

01:19:49 ◼   ► Yeah it was funny because I could feel Stardew nudging me into "Hey do you want to play social

01:19:57 ◼   ► obligations the game?" and I'm like "No I f***ing don't!"

01:20:01 ◼   ► That was when I started to get really nervous, because I was like, "He's not gonna like it, he's not gonna like it!"

01:20:07 ◼   ► And yeah, I was right.

01:20:08 ◼   ► Yeah, but it's like, there's all these funny things where it's like, "I see what you're doing, game. I see what you're trying--"

01:20:12 ◼   ► Like, "I'm just trying to head off to this corner of this cave so I can fight some skeletons and collect some copper so I can get these goddamn sprinklers built way faster."

01:20:20 ◼   ► That was like my number one activity, is like, "How do I convert nature into sprinklers?"

01:20:25 ◼   ► I spent an entire winter in the mines getting all of the ingredients that I needed to build the sprinklers.

01:20:31 ◼   ► I had sprinklers by summer.

01:20:33 ◼   ► It was there just immediately.

01:20:35 ◼   ► It was like, everything is dedicated to getting sprinklers.

01:20:40 ◼   ► Because if I have to water one more sunflower,

01:20:43 ◼   ► I'm going to kill everybody in this village.

01:20:46 ◼   ► Ooh, you can upgrade your watering can to copper.

01:20:50 ◼   ► Like, no, I'm not interested in this.

01:20:53 ◼   ► There will be no watering cans.

01:20:58 ◼   ► Like I could see the things where the villagers were, you know, they're like dropping hints about gifts they want

01:21:03 ◼   ► I'm like I have no interest in this whatsoever or I accidentally gave someone a present and they complained about it and I'm like

01:21:10 ◼   ► Oh god, I hate this so much. I don't even know how I gave you this thing

01:21:13 ◼   ► I didn't want to and now you're complaining it you're complaining to me about this gift like you NPC like just get out of my way

01:21:19 ◼   ► I'm trying to move right past you here

01:21:21 ◼   ► But like that said I do have to give I do have to give Stardew Valley

01:21:27 ◼   ► to huge points.

01:21:30 ◼   ► Point number one

01:21:33 ◼   ► is the visual style of it. The pixel art.

01:21:38 ◼   ► The pixel art is just

01:21:41 ◼   ► gorgeous and breathtaking. It's maybe one of the best

01:21:47 ◼   ► retro pixel art implementations I've ever seen in a game. That's a style that lots of games imitate, I think because it's

01:21:56 ◼   ► It's probably easier to do or cheaper or faster to do in some ways, but it's also really easy

01:22:02 ◼   ► to make look like garbage.

01:22:04 ◼   ► And Stardew Valley just looks gorgeous from start to finish.

01:22:07 ◼   ► Every part of the little village, the caves, the monsters, like all of the crops, the animals,

01:22:13 ◼   ► I absolutely just love the look of it.

01:22:16 ◼   ► Seven out of five stars in terms of graphics.

01:22:18 ◼   ► It's amazing.

01:22:20 ◼   ► And then the second thing, which again, big points to Stardew Valley, was, and we're gonna

01:22:24 ◼   ► I'm gonna get into some minor spoiler territory here if anyone wants to play Stardew Valley, but

01:22:28 ◼   ► That opening the like the way the game actually yes, yeah starts. Yeah, I love it like wow

01:22:37 ◼   ► I have watched movies that have gotten less of an emotional reaction. I wasn't expecting that at all

01:22:44 ◼   ► Yeah, then the opening of this game so like it's so it's like you think like oh

01:22:48 ◼   ► I'm gonna go play some farming simulator

01:22:49 ◼   ► But it starts out like with this really grim shot of you just in this cubicle

01:22:54 ◼   ► and they just establish so quickly this feeling of,

01:22:59 ◼   ► like this is not really what you thought

01:23:04 ◼   ► your life was going to be,

01:23:05 ◼   ► and you're just in this cube and it's gray and grim.

01:23:10 ◼   ► It just like, man, it was pitch perfect,

01:23:16 ◼   ► and I thought it was just a good example

01:23:19 ◼   ► of art evoking emotion in people.

01:23:23 ◼   ► So I thought that that opening was brilliant, was really, really well done.

01:23:27 ◼   ► Did you know this game was made by one person?

01:23:29 ◼   ► A hundred percent of it.

01:23:31 ◼   ► The music, the writing, the development and the art.

01:23:35 ◼   ► All one person.

01:23:36 ◼   ► Now the developer's name was Concerned Ape, the company, it's the one person.

01:23:43 ◼   ► It's now being published by a company called Chucklefish who are helping with a lot of

01:23:47 ◼   ► the advancement and the ports of the game and stuff like that.

01:23:50 ◼   ► the study of value was made by just one guy.

01:23:53 ◼   ► (sighs)

01:23:55 ◼   ► I think it took nine years, I think.

01:23:58 ◼   ► I'm not surprised.

01:23:59 ◼   ► Like, it's an incredible tour de force to do that.

01:24:02 ◼   ► Even though the game does not do my liking, obviously,

01:24:05 ◼   ► that this is like a,

01:24:07 ◼   ► I wouldn't have believed that a single person could do this.

01:24:12 ◼   ► It's astounding.

01:24:14 ◼   ► Like, that combination, to be able to do the art

01:24:20 ◼   ► that well and the music is great too.

01:24:23 ◼   ► And also have the programming skills

01:24:25 ◼   ► to be able to implement it.

01:24:26 ◼   ► I feel like that is a rare combination.

01:24:30 ◼   ► Yep.

01:24:31 ◼   ► And I,

01:24:33 ◼   ► the game seems like it's very successful.

01:24:37 ◼   ► It is, yeah.

01:24:38 ◼   ► And I hope that person is just rolling around

01:24:42 ◼   ► in piles of money from this game.

01:24:44 ◼   ► Because they deserve it, they totally deserve it.

01:24:47 ◼   ► That's astounding, wow.

01:24:49 ◼   ► Luckily I have other friends that play the game

01:24:52 ◼   ► and we play and we talk about it together.

01:24:54 ◼   ► So I was thinking that you might be the only person

01:24:57 ◼   ► that I know that would care about Stardew Valley,

01:25:01 ◼   ► but I was wrong, so I'm happy.

01:25:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, well you recorded an episode of Top Four

01:25:06 ◼   ► where you were discussing the singles of Stardew Valley.

01:25:08 ◼   ► Is that right? - Yeah, yeah.

01:25:09 ◼   ► Me and Tiff and Marco Almond and Alex Cox,

01:25:12 ◼   ► we rated our favorite four singles,

01:25:15 ◼   ► our top four singles, single people in Stardew Valley.

01:25:19 ◼   ► So people can go listen to that. And we talk a lot about our love of the game. So like,

01:25:24 ◼   ► you know, if you're here and you're either A) interested or B) sad about the fact that

01:25:29 ◼   ► Craig also doesn't like it, you can listen to that episode and you can hear us talk about

01:25:34 ◼   ► our love of the game in great detail.

01:25:37 ◼   ► It was worth a go. I'm going to keep trying until I can recommend a game to you that you

01:25:41 ◼   ► enjoy. I'm going to keep going. I don't think I've been able to do it yet, but one day I'm

01:25:46 ◼   ► going to get there.

01:25:47 ◼   ► Yeah, and to be fair, I'm a hard person to recommend games for.

01:25:50 ◼   ► I've recognized this.

01:25:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:25:52 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, I've definitely found a game you'll like."

01:25:54 ◼   ► Nope.

01:25:55 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:25:57 ◼   ► But nonetheless, I do want to re-emphasize that I am glad to have tried it.

01:26:01 ◼   ► It's not a game for me, but it's, um...

01:26:05 ◼   ► Like, as someone who plays a lot of games,

01:26:09 ◼   ► this is just an interesting game to have at least tried and have a mental...

01:26:14 ◼   ► framework for for something that's that's very different and and I'd like I did enjoy the opening and

01:26:19 ◼   ► The the art is just gorgeous. It's absolutely gorgeous. So I love it for that

01:26:24 ◼   ► but I will I will not be starting again in the spring to

01:26:30 ◼   ► Manually dig out some new crops and plants. I think the thing I'm most frustrated about is the fact that you actually played it for an

01:26:37 ◼   ► entire year I

01:26:39 ◼   ► I was thinking like if you didn't like it at least you just maybe played like five days

01:26:43 ◼   ► and was like nope and I could be like oh you didn't give it enough time.

01:26:48 ◼   ► But after a year playing the game for an in-game year if you don't like it I can't imagine

01:26:52 ◼   ► that you would like it.

01:26:55 ◼   ► And the in-game time is a long time.

01:26:58 ◼   ► I don't know how many hours it is but a year is a long time in terms of actual hours.

01:27:02 ◼   ► It's enough time to know if it's for you it's enough time for sure.