Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► I'm delivery number 46 Grey and the courier is currently on delivery number 41 and they're

00:00:05 ◼   ► about 15 minutes away.

00:00:07 ◼   ► Delivery of what?

00:00:08 ◼   ► Uh, I'm getting some new Apple products today like an Apple Watch is on the way and an Apple

00:00:13 ◼   ► TV is on the way.

00:00:15 ◼   ► Today is the day so during today's show I'm gonna be taking receipt of some new stuff

00:00:20 ◼   ► so you'll probably lose me for a while you know.

00:00:22 ◼   ► It's like just go and press the buttons on my new toys.

00:00:28 ◼   ► You lucky jerk. You got your orders in ahead of me.

00:00:31 ◼   ► Yep.

00:00:32 ◼   ► I am. Let me just look it up really quickly. According

00:00:34 ◼   ► to my app for my Apple Watch, I am delivery number 10,444th, I presume, because it's not

00:00:42 ◼   ► coming until October.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Well the early bird catches the pre-orders or something.

00:00:49 ◼   ► I guess so. I guess so.

00:00:51 ◼   ► So you bought the Apple Watch of LTE, huh? Is this going to be part of the multi-multi-watch

00:00:57 ◼   ► lifestyle how many watches are you gonna keep around when a third one is your life?

00:01:00 ◼   ► what do you mean multi- like I already live the multi watch lifestyle I have two

00:01:04 ◼   ► watches that's two so then is there a third gonna join or like what happens

00:01:08 ◼   ► you gonna replace the other one? that's crazy that doesn't make any sense

00:01:12 ◼   ► oh I just thought if you bought two LTE watches for yourself? no I have bought

00:01:16 ◼   ► one LTE watch for myself right right cuz it'd be crazy to buy two right? it would

00:01:21 ◼   ► be crazy to buy two right at the start. Yeah. That would...

00:01:25 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:01:26 ◼   ► Nice qualification there.

00:01:29 ◼   ► Well I don't yet know how useful the LTE watch is or exactly how it's going to fit into my

00:01:34 ◼   ► life or how it's going to work with my various habits.

00:01:36 ◼   ► Are you even on the correct network for this?

00:01:40 ◼   ► I have not investigated that. I didn't know that I needed to look into networks.

00:01:44 ◼   ► If you're not on EE in the UK then you're out of luck my friend.

00:01:48 ◼   ► Oh really? Hmm.

00:01:49 ◼   ► I just delivered some horrifying news to you.

00:01:53 ◼   ► Well, maybe it's a good thing then that my delivery is not until number 10,000 or something.

00:01:57 ◼   ► I'm currently on 3, is my network provider of choice.

00:02:01 ◼   ► Then it's time for you to switch network if you want to use an LTE Apple Watch.

00:02:05 ◼   ► No, but surely the networks are going to update with this.

00:02:09 ◼   ► Surely, yeah. It'll only be a couple of days, I'm sure, until all of the other networks come on board.

00:02:13 ◼   ► Oh, Myke.

00:02:17 ◼   ► expecting to get this piece of news from you.

00:02:19 ◼   ► It never even occurred to me that this might be limited to different carriers.

00:02:24 ◼   ► Yep, it is. It is. Just one in the UK. Just one for now.

00:02:28 ◼   ► So, you've got some work to do, my friend.

00:02:31 ◼   ► I've got some life rearranging to do.

00:02:34 ◼   ► Yep. I actually don't think it's at all possible to even get it to work.

00:02:39 ◼   ► It has to be the carrier that you're on. Otherwise you've got no choice.

00:02:44 ◼   ► The one thing that's frustrating me though, again I don't know if you know this, it doesn't

00:02:47 ◼   ► roam.

00:02:48 ◼   ► You can't roam.

00:02:49 ◼   ► Huh, I'm not surprised by that.

00:02:51 ◼   ► I didn't think about that, but I'm not surprised that at the start there's no roaming with

00:02:54 ◼   ► the LTE watch.

00:02:55 ◼   ► It's definitely version one.

00:02:56 ◼   ► I mean, and also like all of the earlier reviews there's a bunch of problems with it, but apparently

00:03:00 ◼   ► there's some fixes on the way.

00:03:01 ◼   ► But I'm waiting to see.

00:03:02 ◼   ► Like, I'm going to reserve my own judgement until I've actually had time to play around

00:03:05 ◼   ► with it.

00:03:06 ◼   ► Which by the time this episode comes out, I probably will have played around with it,

00:03:10 ◼   ► and will have spoken about it on my various technology-focused podcasts, of which I will

00:03:14 ◼   ► include links in the show notes, Gray. Yes, you're going to be wearing the watch

00:03:17 ◼   ► while we're doing this show and probably simultaneously recording another one of

00:03:22 ◼   ► your shows to give your first impressions. Yeah, every time you're

00:03:24 ◼   ► talking I'm talking to somebody else. Yeah, that's how that works. That's how

00:03:28 ◼   ► Myke gets all these podcasts done. CT does simul podcasting. It's very intense

00:03:33 ◼   ► but that's how you do 20 shows at once. It's the only way. It is the only

00:03:37 ◼   ► way to do it and maintain work-life balance. You have to double it. It's like

00:03:41 ◼   ► two times work and then life balance. That's how you do it.

00:03:45 ◼   ► I don't think that formula comes out the way you think it comes out, but okay.

00:03:48 ◼   ► Sure, sure, sure. Don't worry about it. It's in practice it works. Just on paper it seems

00:03:53 ◼   ► a bit tricky. Let's come back to that. I want to know what you think about the iPhone 10,

00:03:57 ◼   ► but let's come back to that a little bit later on so we can give some respite to the people

00:04:02 ◼   ► that don't care about these types of things. Because there has been some huge news. There's

00:04:06 ◼   ► been a rift. There was a, there was a, I could feel a change in the force, Gray.

00:04:11 ◼   ► Oh yeah? As you uploaded a YouTube video.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Oh okay, well now that's, that's, you're being a little dramatic there. Do Q&A videos really

00:04:19 ◼   ► count? I feel like they count for half a video. Well okay, it was like it was a minor rift,

00:04:24 ◼   ► it was a minor disturbance in the force as you uploaded a semi-YouTube video I guess.

00:04:31 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. But it still was one,

00:04:32 ◼   ► it still had animations in it, it still had fun parts of it, it still took work,

00:04:36 ◼   ► I'm assuming, right?

00:04:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, it does take work. - But there is a video,

00:04:39 ◼   ► there is a, you've come back.

00:04:40 ◼   ► How does it feel to make your triumphant return to YouTube?

00:04:45 ◼   ► - Boy, you're really, you're really enjoying this,

00:04:47 ◼   ► aren't you?

00:04:48 ◼   ► - Look, what I enjoy most is the comments

00:04:51 ◼   ► that I see so often of--

00:04:54 ◼   ► - Yes, I know these tickle you.

00:04:56 ◼   ► - Podcast to CGP Grey,

00:04:58 ◼   ► who sometimes uploads YouTube videos.

00:05:00 ◼   ► - Do you know that, I mean,

00:05:03 ◼   ► I have no say in this kind of thing,

00:05:04 ◼   ► but the consensus on my Wikipedia page

00:05:07 ◼   ► was to reverse the order in which my professions are listed.

00:05:11 ◼   ► - I mean, all you can do is just look at the facts.

00:05:15 ◼   ► I mean, I'm not one to talk, right?

00:05:16 ◼   ► Because I have not uploaded anything

00:05:19 ◼   ► to my YouTube channel for a while.

00:05:20 ◼   ► There is a good reason for that, which we'll get into later.

00:05:22 ◼   ► Like I just have a ton of footage just sitting on my iPhone

00:05:25 ◼   ► that I haven't been able to do anything with

00:05:27 ◼   ► 'cause I've been working on some other stuff.

00:05:29 ◼   ► But I'm pleased to see that you've made your return.

00:05:34 ◼   ► I'm glad that you're pleased that I've made a return.

00:05:38 ◼   ► I always figure it's not for me to determine

00:05:40 ◼   ► how people want to describe what it is that I do,

00:05:42 ◼   ► and I'll let them describe it however they want.

00:05:45 ◼   ► But I do too think it's funny when people list,

00:05:48 ◼   ► essentially in reverse order, all the things that I do.

00:05:51 ◼   ► Those are always entertaining comments.

00:05:54 ◼   ► - I think it makes sense though,

00:05:55 ◼   ► 'cause you have two mostly regular shows,

00:05:58 ◼   ► like two mostly regular podcasts in any YouTube channel,

00:06:01 ◼   ► where you post stuff on a incredibly sporadic basis.

00:06:06 ◼   ► - I'm not arguing with the Wikipedia here.

00:06:08 ◼   ► I just think it's funny that someone went in and changed it.

00:06:10 ◼   ► - I am looking at CGP Grey, podcaster

00:06:12 ◼   ► and educational YouTuber.

00:06:13 ◼   ► That's wonderful.

00:06:16 ◼   ► That is wonderful.

00:06:17 ◼   ► - I'm glad you like it.

00:06:19 ◼   ► - Did you get back into the swing of things okay?

00:06:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, it was fine.

00:06:23 ◼   ► Okay, so this is one of these things that is,

00:06:28 ◼   ► It's a bit weird to have a podcast

00:06:32 ◼   ► where you sort of talk about your working life in public

00:06:35 ◼   ► because sometimes there are things

00:06:38 ◼   ► that you kind of can't talk about.

00:06:40 ◼   ► And people know I always, whenever I can,

00:06:44 ◼   ► I try to take time off for the summer

00:06:45 ◼   ► because it is the eternal teacher within me

00:06:47 ◼   ► who feels like summertime,

00:06:50 ◼   ► nobody should work during the summertime.

00:06:52 ◼   ► But this past summer, just for various things

00:06:54 ◼   ► that aren't necessarily really interesting

00:06:56 ◼   ► to talk about on the show,

00:06:57 ◼   ► I was really busy with non-public work stuff, so the YouTube channel was essentially on pause for a couple of months.

00:07:04 ◼   ► And that's part of what the delay was.

00:07:07 ◼   ► But, you know, the Q&A video, people seem to like it, the reception seems to be good.

00:07:11 ◼   ► I'm never quite sure with the Q&A videos, I always feel like since they're a little bit of a different kind of video,

00:07:17 ◼   ► I don't know how they're going to be received.

00:07:19 ◼   ► But yeah, I'm always happy to post stuff on the YouTube channel.

00:07:22 ◼   ► I genuinely feel better when I do that kind of thing.

00:07:26 ◼   ► That's the sort of work that my brain treats as

00:07:30 ◼   ► the realest, most countingest of work that I do.

00:07:34 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, you've uploaded a YouTube video.

00:07:36 ◼   ► "That's real work."

00:07:38 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, you put out a bunch of podcasts this month."

00:07:40 ◼   ► It's like, "Ah, you were just talking to people."

00:07:41 ◼   ► Like, that's not real work,

00:07:43 ◼   ► is how my brain sort of treats it.

00:07:45 ◼   ► Okay, okay, you keep treating it like that.

00:07:47 ◼   ► That's fine.

00:07:48 ◼   ► You keep treating it like no work.

00:07:50 ◼   ► If that helps you to continue to do these things, then it's fine by me.

00:07:53 ◼   ► I'm not saying that it helps me to continue. I'm just simply saying that's how my brain treats it.

00:07:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:59 ◼   ► And it's just like, you can't argue with brains, you know, they're going to do what they do.

00:08:04 ◼   ► And like, I would genuinely try to argue with my brain and be like, you know,

00:08:07 ◼   ► podcasting is real work too. And my brain just kind of shrugs at that.

00:08:11 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, I guess whatever. And it looks away.

00:08:14 ◼   ► Whatever, lazy boy.

00:08:15 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

00:08:17 ◼   ► Are you back into the swing though? Like are you working on meaty videos?

00:08:22 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:08:23 ◼   ► What are they, the historical science videos that you make?

00:08:27 ◼   ► That's right, historical science videos.

00:08:30 ◼   ► Yeah, we actually, we didn't quite get into it last time,

00:08:34 ◼   ► but we sort of touched on like our sleep schedules being all messed up,

00:08:37 ◼   ► and you'll have to tell me about that sleep survey later, but...

00:08:40 ◼   ► Gosh, yeah, I will.

00:08:42 ◼   ► Just still didn't really understand what was occurring with that.

00:08:45 ◼   ► But anyway, we were talking then about trying to have a regular sleep schedule and how important

00:08:55 ◼   ► it is. And it is one of these things that I did have this really exhausting summer. And as I was

00:09:01 ◼   ► mentioning last time, I just felt like I could not get back into the regular flow of things. And so I

00:09:07 ◼   ► did end up taking a great occasion to really buckle down and be like, "Okay, brain, you and me, we're

00:09:15 ◼   ► gonna get back into the schedule of real work that's really going to happen and we're going

00:09:21 ◼   ► to be getting up at 5.30 and you're not gonna like any of it, but we're gonna do this."

00:09:27 ◼   ► And it's interesting, it was really quite brutal because my brain was bucking very hard

00:09:34 ◼   ► against this, but I did it and it was important to do and like that's part of the reason the

00:09:38 ◼   ► Q&A video came up and there's some other things in the work. It is interesting trying to do

00:09:43 ◼   ► the thing where you force yourself back into a pattern.

00:09:49 ◼   ► So anyway, that's something that I was up to, and I've been now regularly getting up,

00:09:56 ◼   ► you know, very early in the morning, which again is a thing that really is the number

00:10:01 ◼   ► one contributing factor to how do I feel about how my working life is going, and how productive

00:10:06 ◼   ► do I feel that I am on any particular day.

00:10:08 ◼   ► So I'm pretty happy about that.

00:10:09 ◼   ► Well I'm pleased that you were able to somehow get it back, right?

00:10:14 ◼   ► My thing was just I came back to work with a messed up schedule at one of the most important

00:10:19 ◼   ► parts of my working year so I was forced into a...

00:10:26 ◼   ► My sleep cycle wasn't forced at all.

00:10:28 ◼   ► It was still just a disaster for most of the last few weeks but there's not really been

00:10:34 ◼   ► much choice.

00:10:35 ◼   ► I just have to kind of just live with it.

00:10:37 ◼   ► It also didn't help that like the way in which the work occurs during this period of time

00:10:44 ◼   ► meant that there was some times where I was going to bed at 2.30 because I had no choice.

00:10:49 ◼   ► You mean because you were recording with somebody on the West Coast and that was the time they

00:10:53 ◼   ► were available?

00:10:54 ◼   ► Exactly, right?

00:10:55 ◼   ► Like there's nothing I can do about that and so that really didn't help.

00:10:59 ◼   ► So like even because there was a lot of stuff contributing to me staying up later even if

00:11:04 ◼   ► I didn't want to.

00:11:05 ◼   ► So basically like I'm still in a real bad way with sleep right now, but it's not jet

00:11:10 ◼   ► lag anymore.

00:11:11 ◼   ► Like I've just got a really screwed up schedule because I haven't done a very good job of

00:11:17 ◼   ► managing it and maybe for the first time in my life I have truly recognised the effect

00:11:23 ◼   ► of bad sleep on me.

00:11:26 ◼   ► I feel like maybe for the first time I've really been able to be like "oh I feel really

00:11:30 ◼   ► bad today".

00:11:32 ◼   ► I think it might be because I haven't been sleeping.

00:11:34 ◼   ► And this is maybe the first time

00:11:37 ◼   ► this has ever really happened.

00:11:38 ◼   ► And I think it's because

00:11:39 ◼   ► this has been the biggest shock to my system

00:11:43 ◼   ► with the amount of time that I spent in another time zone

00:11:47 ◼   ► and then not being able to get into a position

00:11:50 ◼   ► where I was able to change it,

00:11:52 ◼   ► even though my life around me has dictated

00:11:55 ◼   ► that I had to change.

00:11:58 ◼   ► So I've been having errands to run

00:12:01 ◼   ► or meetings or things that were happening

00:12:02 ◼   ► in the morning in England,

00:12:04 ◼   ► but everything else was happening in the evening in the US.

00:12:10 ◼   ► - Okay, so you had a big stretch of time in between.

00:12:13 ◼   ► - So I was having to cater to all of it

00:12:16 ◼   ► in a way that was also being quite badly jet-lagged.

00:12:20 ◼   ► It was all just happening.

00:12:24 ◼   ► And this is maybe the first time where I've been like,

00:12:27 ◼   ► I have not felt great the last couple of weeks.

00:12:30 ◼   ► And I've been getting colds and stuff like that happening here and there, right?

00:12:36 ◼   ► Like it keeps coming and going and it's like, "Mmm, yeah, I need to sleep more."

00:12:43 ◼   ► Since you happen to have had this schedule where there's two blocks of working time that

00:12:47 ◼   ► are separated by a great distance during the day, have you ever tried naps, Myke?

00:12:52 ◼   ► I hate naps.

00:12:53 ◼   ► Oh, I hate them.

00:12:56 ◼   ► I used to be this guy.

00:12:58 ◼   ► And I used to have like a moral rejection of naps.

00:13:03 ◼   ► It was like, "Oh, naps. That's for lazy people and cats."

00:13:07 ◼   ► You know, like a grown man is not going to lie down and take a little nap.

00:13:11 ◼   ► But it is a thing that I have tried and I feel like the most beautiful and perfect sleep cycle for me,

00:13:19 ◼   ► but that is yet also the most fragile,

00:13:21 ◼   ► is the waking up early in the morning and then taking a very brief

00:13:25 ◼   ► midday nap and kind of breaking the day into

00:13:29 ◼   ► two phases. It's like when I can get into that groove

00:13:34 ◼   ► it's like everything is right in the world.

00:13:37 ◼   ► And I used to be really opposed to naps and

00:13:39 ◼   ► if you're really opposed to them, like I think you should just give it a try.

00:13:43 ◼   ► Like a very short nap, like just 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes, you know, not an hour,

00:13:48 ◼   ► but it really is very helpful.

00:13:51 ◼   ► - I wanna give you, I've just written this down

00:13:54 ◼   ► on the notebook that I have in front of me.

00:13:57 ◼   ► I have two points here about naps.

00:14:00 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:14:00 ◼   ► - Point number one, every time I've ever taken a nap,

00:14:04 ◼   ► whether purposely or accidentally, mostly accidentally,

00:14:07 ◼   ► I wake up and I don't know where I am,

00:14:10 ◼   ► I don't know what day it is, I don't know what time it is,

00:14:13 ◼   ► and I just feel atrocious.

00:14:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, accidental naps are awful,

00:14:18 ◼   ► And I'm with you there 100% of the time.

00:14:20 ◼   ► If you wake up from an accidental nap,

00:14:22 ◼   ► it's that feeling of like,

00:14:25 ◼   ► (gasps)

00:14:26 ◼   ► like, where am I?

00:14:28 ◼   ► Like, what happened?

00:14:29 ◼   ► Was I suffocating to death?

00:14:31 ◼   ► And then you have that horrific sleep inertia

00:14:35 ◼   ► where it's like, oh, I'm sitting up from the couch,

00:14:38 ◼   ► but it feels like only my soul has sat up

00:14:41 ◼   ► and my body is still lying on the couch.

00:14:43 ◼   ► Yeah, it's terrible.

00:14:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, that sound that you made

00:14:46 ◼   ► is the perfect way of describing the feeling.

00:14:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, that is also the alarm went off

00:14:52 ◼   ► when I was in the middle of a dream,

00:14:54 ◼   ► waking up sound, right?

00:14:56 ◼   ► This is like getting up early in the morning.

00:14:58 ◼   ► I was like, (gasps)

00:14:59 ◼   ► like I can't, I just need air.

00:15:02 ◼   ► Like I'm drowning, but actually I was just asleep.

00:15:06 ◼   ► - The second part is an issue that I have

00:15:09 ◼   ► about planning into my day

00:15:12 ◼   ► what I consider to be wastes of time

00:15:15 ◼   ► and how I feel about those.

00:15:18 ◼   ► I waste time every day procrastinating,

00:15:21 ◼   ► like every human being, right?

00:15:22 ◼   ► Like I waste time.

00:15:24 ◼   ► - Of course.

00:15:25 ◼   ► - But if I plan into my day a period of time

00:15:28 ◼   ► where I won't be working,

00:15:29 ◼   ► I get very anxious about that if I'm busy.

00:15:32 ◼   ► This is my own problem that I need to take steps

00:15:37 ◼   ► to deal with and it's something that I think about.

00:15:39 ◼   ► But it's like if I schedule a lunch with a friend

00:15:42 ◼   ► whilst I'm also busy or I have a lunch with a friend

00:15:45 ◼   ► booked in and then my week goes pear-shaped and I end up with a bunch of

00:15:50 ◼   ► tasks that need to be completed, I feel really anxious about that. So the

00:15:54 ◼   ► idea of having naps, like planning to take a nap, I don't know, I feel like I

00:15:59 ◼   ► would, I feel like I would be very uncomfortable about like, oh I'm just

00:16:03 ◼   ► gonna go to sleep for an hour, like no, I don't know.

00:16:06 ◼   ► Yeah, well again, don't go to sleep for an hour, that's terrible, that's a bad idea.

00:16:10 ◼   ► Well what are we talking here?

00:16:12 ◼   ► Again, 20-30 minutes. That's all you need here.

00:16:15 ◼   ► And also, here's the trick with the 20-30 minute nap.

00:16:19 ◼   ► Is you shouldn't really be expecting to go into full sleep.

00:16:25 ◼   ► When you get into this routine,

00:16:27 ◼   ► you're not really sleeping.

00:16:30 ◼   ► What you're doing is you're going into a kind of low power mode for a little bit.

00:16:35 ◼   ► That's what's occurring.

00:16:38 ◼   ► and it makes it easier to pull out of without feeling like you're drowning and you're dying.

00:16:44 ◼   ► Don't do the hour thing. You're always going to feel terrible with an hour of sleep.

00:16:48 ◼   ► That's a bad idea.

00:16:49 ◼   ► Because it always takes me a long time to go to sleep. Always.

00:16:52 ◼   ► Yeah, but this is it. Don't think about it like, "I'm going to bed in the middle of the day."

00:16:58 ◼   ► Think about it more, "I'm closing my eyes for 25 minutes."

00:17:02 ◼   ► And that's it. That's all you have to do. Just close your eyes for 25 minutes,

00:17:07 ◼   ► and that is the minimum that needs to occur.

00:17:10 ◼   ► And like I said, in my experience,

00:17:14 ◼   ► this is a fragile thing, even in my life,

00:17:19 ◼   ► which I try to keep as relatively unscheduled as possible.

00:17:23 ◼   ► Like stuff comes up that'll always make it inconvenient

00:17:26 ◼   ► to just go to sleep for a little bit

00:17:28 ◼   ► in the middle of the day.

00:17:29 ◼   ► But when that works, like it works really great.

00:17:33 ◼   ► And if you know you're going to have to be up later,

00:17:37 ◼   ► It's it's vital like one of one of my top

00:17:40 ◼   ► Conference survival tips like I was doing a bunch of conferences over the summer is

00:17:45 ◼   ► You have to go back to the hotel and

00:17:49 ◼   ► Take a nap at some point in the afternoon and and like that that is for me

00:17:55 ◼   ► Conference survival tip number one like if you you do not do this you will

00:18:00 ◼   ► Severely regret it later in the day well

00:18:04 ◼   ► but see then the thing is I know that's gone wrong for you. I've been in situations where

00:18:11 ◼   ► I said to you "Where were you yesterday?" and you said to me "I took a nap and didn't

00:18:16 ◼   ► wake up."

00:18:17 ◼   ► I have no memory of when this is. I think you're like making up a story so that you

00:18:22 ◼   ► don't have to take a nap.

00:18:23 ◼   ► No, this is true. I'm not a nine-year-old. No one's putting me down, right? We're good.

00:18:30 ◼   ► I remember it was somewhere it was either all or was that AWDC or something

00:18:35 ◼   ► I remember saying to you, where did you go? And you were like, oh well

00:18:38 ◼   ► I went to take a nap and then I woke up. Oh, I know what you're talking about

00:18:43 ◼   ► I went upstairs in the evening and just fell asleep on my bed because I was exhausted and slept through the whole night

00:18:49 ◼   ► Yeah, that was a WWDC. That was the first WWDC was I thought like oh, I'm gonna come back downstairs

00:18:55 ◼   ► I'm just gonna go upstairs for a little while

00:18:57 ◼   ► but this is actually my brain was tricking me because I was really tired from the time changes.

00:19:00 ◼   ► But that was not a "I'm lying down to take a nap" thing.

00:19:04 ◼   ► That was, it was like nine o'clock at night already.

00:19:06 ◼   ► Which by my measure is a reasonable time for everyone to be winding down the night.

00:19:11 ◼   ► But it seems that for most people this is when they think the evening begins.

00:19:15 ◼   ► Just kicking off.

00:19:16 ◼   ► Yeah, which I find very frustrating.

00:19:18 ◼   ► Are you sitting in front of your computer right now?

00:19:20 ◼   ► If so, I'd like you to think about something.

00:19:24 ◼   ► If your computer crashed, crashed hard, its circuits casting off their mortal coils, what would you lose?

00:19:31 ◼   ► Think about all of the documents, projects,

00:19:35 ◼   ► contracts, photos, videos that you have on your computer that you'd never see again.

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00:19:57 ◼   ► for unlimited cloud backup for your Mac or PC. I know I've mentioned it before, but a while ago

00:20:03 ◼   ► I had a real hard crash on my computer and were it not for Backblaze,

00:20:09 ◼   ► I would have lost the original documents for most of my YouTube back catalog.

00:20:15 ◼   ► But because I had Backblaze, they just shipped me an encrypted drive through the mail

00:20:20 ◼   ► a couple days later and all was right in the world.

00:20:24 ◼   ► Backblaze is what I use to keep my files safe.

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00:20:50 ◼   ► Go there right now and start your 15-day free trial.

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00:21:00 ◼   ► $5 a month, unlimited backup.

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00:21:06 ◼   ► I would suggest that you try the nap thing.

00:21:09 ◼   ► Just try it for a little while.

00:21:10 ◼   ► And I also want to make a suggestion out there

00:21:13 ◼   ► for you and for the listeners is to reframe

00:21:18 ◼   ► sleep as part of the working cycle.

00:21:22 ◼   ► To not necessarily think of it in the way that you're thinking of it like

00:21:26 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm planning in this period of time where I'm doing nothing."

00:21:29 ◼   ► I think it's important to reframe this as a necessary part

00:21:34 ◼   ► of work. And that is part of the reason why I specifically took time in my

00:21:39 ◼   ► schedule to say like the number one thing that I'm going to try to fix

00:21:42 ◼   ► is my sleep schedule.

00:21:44 ◼   ► And if I have to mess up the rest of everything

00:21:48 ◼   ► that I'm working on, like I don't care

00:21:50 ◼   ► because this is like the ground base level.

00:21:54 ◼   ► If this isn't fixed, almost nothing else matters.

00:21:59 ◼   ► So I think there should be a reframing in your mind

00:22:02 ◼   ► of sleep as a part of work.

00:22:05 ◼   ► - This feels like a long term project, honestly.

00:22:08 ◼   ► Like if this is gonna be a thing that I'm able to do.

00:22:11 ◼   ► 'cause right now I'm listening to you

00:22:13 ◼   ► and I'm like, I'm not gonna nap.

00:22:14 ◼   ► This might have to be a real long-term thing.

00:22:18 ◼   ► I just, I don't know, maybe I need to feel these effects

00:22:23 ◼   ► again, right, so this is the first time

00:22:25 ◼   ► it's ever happened to me and there's still a part

00:22:27 ◼   ► of my mind where it's like, these were really

00:22:29 ◼   ► like extenuating circumstances, but there is also

00:22:33 ◼   ► a possibility that as I am approaching my 30th year

00:22:36 ◼   ► that this is how I'm gonna be now, right,

00:22:39 ◼   ► that like every time I come back from a trip,

00:22:41 ◼   ► I'm gonna feel like this.

00:22:43 ◼   ► So I need to see if that's gonna be a thing that occurs

00:22:46 ◼   ► as I take more trips throughout the rest of the year,

00:22:48 ◼   ► then I'll maybe consider napping.

00:22:50 ◼   ► But right now I'm clutching onto anything

00:22:52 ◼   ► that still makes me feel like I'm in my 20s.

00:22:54 ◼   ► So not taking naps is one of those things.

00:22:58 ◼   ► - I wasn't going to bring it up, Myke,

00:23:00 ◼   ► but of course, like, yes, this is one of these things

00:23:06 ◼   ► that as, not you, but as one ages, one finds

00:23:11 ◼   ► that they need to focus on some things

00:23:14 ◼   ► in a different way than they used to.

00:23:17 ◼   ► - Well look, I'm not an old man, right?

00:23:19 ◼   ► - I did not say that you were.

00:23:21 ◼   ► - No, I know that, right?

00:23:22 ◼   ► And I know that there's gonna be many people

00:23:24 ◼   ► that hear me say as I'm approaching my 30s

00:23:26 ◼   ► and they start rolling their eyes.

00:23:27 ◼   ► But over the last couple of years,

00:23:29 ◼   ► there have been a few things in my life

00:23:31 ◼   ► that I have felt change,

00:23:33 ◼   ► and I know it's because I'm getting older.

00:23:36 ◼   ► - Can you give me an example of a thing

00:23:37 ◼   ► that you have noticed as you've gotten older

00:23:39 ◼   ► that has changed?

00:23:40 ◼   ► Are you able to drink as hard as you used to, Myke?

00:23:43 ◼   ► - I would, say I've never really been a hard drinker.

00:23:47 ◼   ► - Hmm.

00:23:48 ◼   ► - But what I have noticed is if I have any alcohol,

00:23:52 ◼   ► I can tell the next day.

00:23:55 ◼   ► Like if somebody was to sneak alcohol into a beverage,

00:24:00 ◼   ► right, like I would know the next day

00:24:02 ◼   ► because I would feel like that they poisoned me.

00:24:05 ◼   ► - Technically I think they had.

00:24:06 ◼   ► - Exactly, well yeah, yeah okay.

00:24:08 ◼   ► Yeah, technically they did.

00:24:09 ◼   ► But yeah, I would say that I feel it now

00:24:14 ◼   ► in a way that I never did before.

00:24:16 ◼   ► Like any amount of alcohol,

00:24:18 ◼   ► something like I always get a bad hangover

00:24:20 ◼   ► or I feel sick or anything like that.

00:24:22 ◼   ► Just my body knows.

00:24:25 ◼   ► That is probably the easiest one

00:24:27 ◼   ► that I have felt is like, yeah okay.

00:24:31 ◼   ► I feel like this is probably a consequence of me becoming older.

00:24:35 ◼   ► There's sort of two things in this conversation.

00:24:37 ◼   ► One of which is I do think that

00:24:39 ◼   ► you do have to be aware that things change over time.

00:24:44 ◼   ► And I think you are wandering into the valley that many of us wander into,

00:24:50 ◼   ► which is recognizing you have to be protective of sleep.

00:24:54 ◼   ► And I always found myself very sensitive to changes in sleep

00:24:59 ◼   ► and I think that that is just cranking up as time goes on.

00:25:04 ◼   ► And then there's the other thing of just like being aware

00:25:06 ◼   ► of your own working habits changing over time.

00:25:10 ◼   ► So something I was really interested in was

00:25:14 ◼   ► with this last episode of trying to fix

00:25:16 ◼   ► my own sleep schedule is,

00:25:19 ◼   ► like I've always been very naturally a morning person

00:25:22 ◼   ► and I was just having such a hard time booting back

00:25:25 ◼   ► into that, that there is a question in my mind

00:25:28 ◼   ► maybe it's time to re-evaluate what your schedule actually looks like.

00:25:33 ◼   ► Like, maybe this thing that was previously true is no longer true.

00:25:38 ◼   ► That waking up super early is like the best way for me to have a good day.

00:25:43 ◼   ► I think you have to constantly re-evaluate the way that you work and the way that you set up your schedule.

00:25:51 ◼   ► And while I have booted myself back into what for me I know is the ideal situation where

00:25:57 ◼   ► I either wake up or I'm pretty much half awake

00:26:01 ◼   ► before my alarm goes off anyway.

00:26:04 ◼   ► And that's like, "Ah, okay, great. Now I know I'm in the perfect zone."

00:26:07 ◼   ► But it took so long to get there

00:26:10 ◼   ► that I do wonder, like, "Hmm, maybe

00:26:13 ◼   ► this early of a schedule just isn't for me anymore

00:26:16 ◼   ► and I'll have to just see over the next several months, like, how do I feel about this?

00:26:21 ◼   ► Maybe this is a thing that needs to be adjusted."

00:26:23 ◼   ► Or maybe it's just, well, I had an unusually exhausting summer and it just took longer than expected to get back into things

00:26:31 ◼   ► because stuff changes over time.

00:26:33 ◼   ► But yeah, it's like, I think it's very...

00:26:36 ◼   ► This skill of observing yourself I think is one of the most important skills that you need to have.

00:26:43 ◼   ► And being sensitive to things don't always stay the same is part of that skill.

00:26:52 ◼   ► So Grey, I feel like our listeners are waiting on the edge of their seats for where my parcel

00:26:59 ◼   ► is.

00:27:00 ◼   ► I don't think they are, but okay.

00:27:02 ◼   ► I'm afraid to say that there will be no live unboxing today on the show.

00:27:07 ◼   ► Oh, you're not going to treat the listeners to a live audio unboxing of your Apple Watch?

00:27:12 ◼   ► Nope, because I have been bitten by the bug that is parcel delivery in that apparently

00:27:22 ◼   ► I'm not in my home today.

00:27:24 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. Yes. Because they have attempted to deliver to me

00:27:28 ◼   ► And couldn't couldn't couldn't find me. So I don't really know what happened. I'm sitting right here. But yeah, that's that so no

00:27:37 ◼   ► I'm sorry. I'm sorry cortex listeners

00:27:39 ◼   ► there will be no there will be no live unboxing for an Apple watch on the show today because

00:27:42 ◼   ► I'm I'm in some other dimension I think

00:27:46 ◼   ► I'm sorry Myke. That's okay. You have my you have my sympathies

00:27:51 ◼   ► I too have very many a time at the end of the day gone down to the ground floor in my building and discovered

00:27:57 ◼   ► Many a letter informing me that I was not home all day to receive my packages that I was waiting for. I feel like

00:28:03 ◼   ► you lazy b*******

00:28:06 ◼   ► I know what happened. They gave me a delivery window, you know, like we're gonna deliver between 3.15 and 4.15

00:28:15 ◼   ► Mm-hmm 4.15 passed

00:28:17 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. So oh I see

00:28:20 ◼   ► I see, you think there's some shenanigans here.

00:28:22 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:28:23 ◼   ► - That somebody is filling out on his tablet

00:28:25 ◼   ► that he hit his marks and you just weren't home.

00:28:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, because there's always a lot of things to deliver

00:28:32 ◼   ► on a new iPhone day, right?

00:28:34 ◼   ► 'Cause it's also a new iPhone day today.

00:28:37 ◼   ► And I expect that they decided

00:28:40 ◼   ► that they were just gonna miss me out on my window

00:28:43 ◼   ► because he has other windows he needs to hit.

00:28:46 ◼   ► - Look at that.

00:28:47 ◼   ► Juice in the stats.

00:28:48 ◼   ► - Yep, that's how they do it.

00:28:49 ◼   ► The great scourge of the world.

00:28:51 ◼   ► That's how they get you.

00:28:52 ◼   ► And then I want to change my delivery day,

00:28:53 ◼   ► but the system is experiencing difficulties.

00:28:56 ◼   ► All right.

00:28:57 ◼   ► From everybody else who's really angry.

00:28:58 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:28:59 ◼   ► We're experiencing issues updating

00:29:00 ◼   ► your parcel information at this time.

00:29:03 ◼   ► Me too.

00:29:04 ◼   ► Me too.

00:29:04 ◼   ► I'm sorry, Myke.

00:29:07 ◼   ► Yeah, it's fine.

00:29:08 ◼   ► I'm sorry that you didn't get your devices on day one.

00:29:09 ◼   ► It's okay.

00:29:10 ◼   ► I genuinely am sorry,

00:29:11 ◼   ► because I know this is a thing that is actually part

00:29:15 ◼   ► of your job, is getting these things on time.

00:29:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:18 ◼   ► Luckily the Apple Watch isn't as much of a problem.

00:29:21 ◼   ► If it was a phone I would be in much more disarray right now, but this is just going

00:29:25 ◼   ► to be a mild inconvenience honestly.

00:29:27 ◼   ► I'll work it out.

00:29:29 ◼   ► I've still got a few days before.

00:29:30 ◼   ► So you've shown your hand then, you didn't buy an iPhone 8.

00:29:33 ◼   ► No I didn't buy an iPhone 8.

00:29:35 ◼   ► Oh yeah, we're ever so slightly sneaking towards the iPhone discussion again, which we're not

00:29:39 ◼   ► going to have right now.

00:29:40 ◼   ► No of course.

00:29:41 ◼   ► Because I want to talk about the sleep survey, because it kind of took a real turn, Gray,

00:29:46 ◼   ► the Reddit it kind of got a bit out of control. So my original conceit of my ill-conceived

00:29:53 ◼   ► survey was one quick question just to try and get a rough idea of do cortex listeners,

00:30:01 ◼   ► if given the chance, would they give up sleep? Right? Like that was all the question was

00:30:04 ◼   ► for me. It was like, do you prefer to sleep or would you prefer to not sleep?

00:30:07 ◼   ► But you know what, Myke, when you were talking to me on the show, I was very confused as

00:30:12 ◼   ► as to what your question was.

00:30:13 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:30:14 ◼   ► - And I was also really aware when I was listening

00:30:17 ◼   ► to do my edit of the show, that I still felt like,

00:30:21 ◼   ► I don't understand what the hell this guy's asking me.

00:30:23 ◼   ► I don't understand, I can't conceptualize

00:30:25 ◼   ► what this question really is.

00:30:26 ◼   ► - Well you see, 'cause this was the thing,

00:30:27 ◼   ► I mean, and I think this is a problem that only people had.

00:30:29 ◼   ► Too many people were trying to find this to be

00:30:32 ◼   ► like a real scientific survey

00:30:34 ◼   ► that I was attempting to conduct.

00:30:36 ◼   ► It was just a pure thing of like,

00:30:38 ◼   ► if somebody said to you, you can never sleep again,

00:30:41 ◼   ► would you take it?

00:30:42 ◼   ► That was all I wanted to know.

00:30:43 ◼   ► It's like, and it's the idea of,

00:30:45 ◼   ► do our listeners feel like they enjoy sleep?

00:30:48 ◼   ► I guess is maybe a better way to phrase the question.

00:30:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, but no, but-- - Like, enjoy it so much

00:30:52 ◼   ► that they would never give it up.

00:30:55 ◼   ► That's kind of what I was looking for.

00:30:57 ◼   ► - This is like if you have a conversation

00:30:59 ◼   ► where someone says like,

00:31:00 ◼   ► oh, what superpowers would you want?

00:31:01 ◼   ► You have to get out the lawyer to consult

00:31:04 ◼   ► about what the details are of the superpower,

00:31:06 ◼   ► because it really matters.

00:31:08 ◼   ► Where it's like, oh, I'm invulnerable.

00:31:10 ◼   ► It's like, okay, well, yeah, let me,

00:31:11 ◼   ► we need to go through a few things here.

00:31:13 ◼   ► It's like, well, when the heat death of the universe arrives,

00:31:16 ◼   ► like, am I still around because I'm invulnerable?

00:31:18 ◼   ► Like, well, then I don't want your,

00:31:19 ◼   ► like, you need to get out the piece of paper here.

00:31:21 ◼   ► And so when you say you don't need to sleep,

00:31:23 ◼   ► it's like, okay, well, do I live the same amount of time

00:31:26 ◼   ► and my lifespan has just increased a third?

00:31:28 ◼   ► Or am I still counting down the same number of hours?

00:31:32 ◼   ► Like, this really matters.

00:31:33 ◼   ► - Just take it as a, it was all it was,

00:31:35 ◼   ► it was just a simple question.

00:31:36 ◼   ► Anyway, I know now I've learned a lesson

00:31:40 ◼   ► because the Reddit thread is full of people

00:31:42 ◼   ► asking me for rule clarifications.

00:31:45 ◼   ► - I know, of course. - There was no rules,

00:31:46 ◼   ► everybody, like I wasn't trying to set up a world for you.

00:31:49 ◼   ► - But you can't answer the question

00:31:51 ◼   ► without understanding the rules.

00:31:52 ◼   ► - Yes, well, I mean, it was meant to just be like really

00:31:55 ◼   ► like a litmus test, a gauge, like just a very rough idea

00:32:00 ◼   ► was all I was looking for.

00:32:01 ◼   ► - What you really found out is that

00:32:03 ◼   ► there's two kinds of listeners,

00:32:05 ◼   ► the kind of listeners who don't care

00:32:06 ◼   ► and the kind of listeners like me

00:32:08 ◼   ► who get out the rules book and they're like,

00:32:09 ◼   ► "Okay, well now tell me where on this D&D chart this is going to follow, right? What do you mean by the word chaos, right?

00:32:15 ◼   ► That's that's what you discovered."

00:32:17 ◼   ► "Oh, do you know what? I can actually see a delivery driver

00:32:20 ◼   ► outside my window."

00:32:22 ◼   ► "Go, go get him."

00:32:23 ◼   ► "I'm gonna try and shout at him."

00:32:24 ◼   ► "Go get him. Go run.

00:32:25 ◼   ► I don't know if he's gonna make it, guys."

00:32:28 ◼   ► "Hey!"

00:32:31 ◼   ► "Hey, excuse me."

00:32:33 ◼   ► "Here."

00:32:34 ◼   ► "Do you have a possible-"

00:32:35 ◼   ► [Laughs]

00:32:36 ◼   ► I don't think you listeners can hear it, but I just heard Myke through my headphones yelling at the delivery driver to go get his attention.

00:32:44 ◼   ► Let's see what happens.

00:32:46 ◼   ► I'm sure this is very dramatic for you listeners.

00:32:48 ◼   ► I'm sure you're all very invested in whether or not Myke is getting his watches today.

00:32:53 ◼   ► Well, there's a... are you sure?

00:32:56 ◼   ► No. Alright.

00:32:57 ◼   ► No. Doesn't sound good.

00:33:00 ◼   ► Doesn't sound good.

00:33:01 ◼   ► I don't believe him.

00:33:03 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:33:05 ◼   ► It didn't sound good when you were coming back.

00:33:09 ◼   ► - Sitting outside the window, he's like, "Nah, 62."

00:33:12 ◼   ► I'm like, "Whatever."

00:33:13 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:33:14 ◼   ► - All right, now that you're back, Myke,

00:33:15 ◼   ► tell me the results of this sleep survey

00:33:18 ◼   ► that made no logical sense at all

00:33:20 ◼   ► when you really wanted to just ask people,

00:33:22 ◼   ► "Do you like sleep, yes or no?"

00:33:24 ◼   ► - For the whole time,

00:33:26 ◼   ► from the beginning of the survey to now,

00:33:29 ◼   ► it was around 60% to 40%.

00:33:32 ◼   ► That's 60% people would say I wouldn't want to sleep and 40% of people said that

00:33:37 ◼   ► they would sleep. And even though so many people required rules, there were many thousands

00:33:43 ◼   ► of people that filled out the survey without rural clarifications. And basically, my hypothesis

00:33:51 ◼   ► that I had in my mind came true, which was that given the chance, most of our listeners

00:33:56 ◼   ► would prefer to use that time for something else other than sleeping. That was kind of

00:34:01 ◼   ► all I wanted to know really but for whatever reason either I phrased it

00:34:05 ◼   ► badly or like just this isn't the type of question you're allowed to ask people

00:34:08 ◼   ► I don't know who those people are who filled out yes they'd go without sleep

00:34:14 ◼   ► without doing the rules clarification that's as like wishing with a genie you

00:34:18 ◼   ► know without getting out the rules as well it's like wow you're gonna get app

00:34:21 ◼   ► buddies forever that you didn't ask for if you do that this is one of those

00:34:24 ◼   ► monkey paw type situations that's all it is you know you say you can't sleep well

00:34:30 ◼   ► that means you lose your eyelids.

00:34:31 ◼   ► I don't know like how it ends up being,

00:34:33 ◼   ► but like there's a bad situation in there somewhere.

00:34:36 ◼   ► But that's not what I was looking for,

00:34:38 ◼   ► but that's what I think most people in our Reddit thread

00:34:41 ◼   ► were expecting was gonna happen.

00:34:42 ◼   ► But purely, it was a simple question.

00:34:44 ◼   ► - I feel like you got a real bucket full of internet

00:34:47 ◼   ► right there, Myke.

00:34:48 ◼   ► That's what I think. - I really did.

00:34:49 ◼   ► I got a couple of fistfuls of internet thrown at me

00:34:52 ◼   ► over a couple of weeks.

00:34:55 ◼   ► And you know what as well,

00:34:56 ◼   ► I know this is gonna be one of these things,

00:34:58 ◼   ► going to come back to me forever. This is going to be one of those things that in four

00:35:03 ◼   ► years time I will still be getting questions about clarifications of the rules of the Sleep/No

00:35:09 ◼   ► Sleep Survey.

00:35:10 ◼   ► That'll teach you. No more surveys, Myke.

00:35:13 ◼   ► Well, yeah, no more surveys. I'm not going to say that though, because I might have surveys

00:35:17 ◼   ► in the future. But next time I do a survey, I'm at least going to know what I'm letting

00:35:21 ◼   ► myself in for instead.

00:35:23 ◼   ► I'll do a survey. I'll ask the people if they want surveys.

00:35:26 ◼   ► But what kind of survey is grey?

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00:35:49 ◼   ► I do is go to hover.com and check for domain names.

00:35:54 ◼   ► we were naming the name of our company when we were coming up with the name Relay FM,

00:35:58 ◼   ► we went through lists and lists of ideas that we had. And one of the reasons that we decided

00:36:03 ◼   ► to call our company Relay FM is because the domain was available. That's how important

00:36:07 ◼   ► it is in today's world for you to have the name of the thing that you want to make. You

00:36:12 ◼   ► want to be able to protect the identity and that's where Hover comes in. I think about

00:36:16 ◼   ► like myself, I have Myke Hurley.net, Myke Hurley.com. I have funny joke URLs like Myke

00:36:21 ◼   ► was right dot com. I have jokes that I play on friends of mine and I buy the URLs for

00:36:26 ◼   ► them because it's part of who I am online. People know what these things are and we find

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00:36:57 ◼   ► including all of the classics and fun niche extensions. It's how I'm able to get .coms,

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00:37:13 ◼   ► of your first purchase. I want to thank Hover for their support of this show and for helping me name

00:37:18 ◼   ► the things that I care about. Okay so one of the reasons that I've struggled to

00:37:23 ◼   ► sleep is that I decided to take on a project tied to the busiest part of my

00:37:31 ◼   ► year which was to record an audiobook. Close friend and colleague of mine, Mr.

00:37:37 ◼   ► Federico Fattucci, he runs a website called MacStories and MacStories is

00:37:41 ◼   ► focused on technology mostly around Apple whether it's iOS devices, Macs, that

00:37:46 ◼   ► of stuff. They talk about these types of things. We've spoken about Federico a lot on this show,

00:37:50 ◼   ► because he's very good at working on the iPad, workflow, and things like that.

00:37:55 ◼   ► He writes a very in-depth and interesting iOS review every year. So he was working on one for

00:38:04 ◼   ► iOS 11, where he goes into detail about all of the different features and facets of iOS 11,

00:38:12 ◼   ► and the release that Apple put out.

00:38:13 ◼   ► - I would say that Federico's review

00:38:16 ◼   ► is the definitive review of iOS 11.

00:38:19 ◼   ► - Yep, because he explores and talks about everything

00:38:22 ◼   ► that is coming into it.

00:38:24 ◼   ► And it's really great, you can pick it up,

00:38:25 ◼   ► you can read parts of it.

00:38:26 ◼   ► Federico's reviews are longer than the types of things

00:38:29 ◼   ► that I would usually read.

00:38:31 ◼   ► I think I've said on this show many times,

00:38:32 ◼   ► like I don't like to read.

00:38:34 ◼   ► - You're not a big reader.

00:38:34 ◼   ► - I'm not a big reader.

00:38:36 ◼   ► I struggle to keep focus and attention on reading books.

00:38:40 ◼   ► I like to listen to books, I like audio books.

00:38:42 ◼   ► Any book that we've read for the book clubs,

00:38:45 ◼   ► all that sort of stuff, I do in audio versions.

00:38:48 ◼   ► - Which I have mentioned, I think serves you poorly

00:38:52 ◼   ► for some of the books that we have read, but.

00:38:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, but such is like.

00:38:56 ◼   ► - I can't imagine reading some of those books

00:38:58 ◼   ► without being able to skim.

00:39:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, but the thing is I would pay no attention to it

00:39:02 ◼   ► and give up if I had to read, like I would give up.

00:39:05 ◼   ► It just never would have worked.

00:39:07 ◼   ► So I have spoken to Federico a few times

00:39:09 ◼   ► about like, you know, why don't you have an audio book version of your review?

00:39:12 ◼   ► Like I would love that.

00:39:14 ◼   ► It would be an easier way for me and I'm sure many other people to consume

00:39:18 ◼   ► the content.

00:39:20 ◼   ► And we spoke about this for a couple of years and then I ended up putting my

00:39:23 ◼   ► money where my mouth is and I recommended to be the person that would do it.

00:39:27 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:39:28 ◼   ► We agreed upon it and I did it and it was like 35 hours of work.

00:39:34 ◼   ► but I narrated, produced, edited, mastered an audio book

00:39:39 ◼   ► for Federico's iOS 11 review,

00:39:44 ◼   ► and it's five hours and 22 minutes long in total,

00:39:48 ◼   ► and it's available now.

00:39:49 ◼   ► You can buy it.

00:39:50 ◼   ► There'll be links in the show notes if you're interested.

00:39:52 ◼   ► I think it's a really good way of consuming it.

00:39:53 ◼   ► If you like podcasts and want this type of information,

00:39:56 ◼   ► then go for it.

00:39:57 ◼   ► The reason I'm bringing this up today

00:39:58 ◼   ► is because there are a couple of things

00:40:00 ◼   ► through this whole process that were interesting to me.

00:40:04 ◼   ► The first of them being deadlines and bosses.

00:40:08 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:40:10 ◼   ► Because I've not really had either of those things imposed on me in a while.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Well, don't you think- but this- all of the shows that you do are deadlines.

00:40:20 ◼   ► Mhm.

00:40:21 ◼   ► Like, I think of you as imposing deadlines upon me with regards to this show.

00:40:25 ◼   ► Like, the podcasts are deadlines.

00:40:28 ◼   ► Yep. I impose deadlines on other people.

00:40:31 ◼   ► Nobody really imposes them on me.

00:40:33 ◼   ► I choose the deadlines, right? Like, I choose them.

00:40:36 ◼   ► All the deadlines that I have these days are deadlines that I chose.

00:40:41 ◼   ► The deadlines for this were not chosen by me.

00:40:44 ◼   ► I mean, in some instances they were chosen by Apple, like, whenever Apple wants,

00:40:47 ◼   ► because we don't know when iOS 11 is going to come out,

00:40:50 ◼   ► until like, a week before it comes out.

00:40:52 ◼   ► I always forget that. For some reason, in my head, I'm always thinking that

00:40:56 ◼   ► that is a... that the release date is announced at WWDC, but it isn't.

00:41:00 ◼   ► So there is like a time frame that you can work to, but so like there are these issues where like,

00:41:05 ◼   ► we didn't know when it was going to come out, so there was like this deadline being set by the

00:41:09 ◼   ► universe. And then, you know, also in working with Federico, like I'm working for him,

00:41:14 ◼   ► I'm producing this book for him, he will put deadlines on me of like, this is when I'm going

00:41:19 ◼   ► to need it. Like they can announce it on this date, but I'm still going to need it X amount

00:41:23 ◼   ► of time before that. So that was interesting. Yeah, there's some amount of, you need to have

00:41:28 ◼   ► it ahead of time to get it ready to actually go up. And I had like a real boss, right? I had someone

00:41:35 ◼   ► setting the tasks, I had someone providing me with the material, they would set deadlines,

00:41:41 ◼   ► they would make approvals and request me to make changes. I have not done something like this in

00:41:45 ◼   ► a very long time. How did you feel about having a boss? Like are you going to badmouth your boss

00:41:50 ◼   ► on the podcast? He was, no, he was fine. Because it was also, it's a collaborative thing, right?

00:41:58 ◼   ► but there were parts of it that just reminded me

00:42:02 ◼   ► of having a boss and working in a process.

00:42:06 ◼   ► Because they would give me something,

00:42:08 ◼   ► I would make something out of it,

00:42:09 ◼   ► and they would be like, "Oh, you gotta change this word.

00:42:11 ◼   ► "You gotta reread this sentence.

00:42:13 ◼   ► "You haven't done this in the right way."

00:42:15 ◼   ► This is what it was like when I was writing

00:42:17 ◼   ► advertising copy at the bank.

00:42:19 ◼   ► That was this process.

00:42:21 ◼   ► And it's been a really long time since I've done it,

00:42:23 ◼   ► and it was very interesting.

00:42:25 ◼   ► It was illuminating for me.

00:42:27 ◼   ► I'm illuminating how.

00:42:28 ◼   ► - It was both better and worse than I expected

00:42:31 ◼   ► in its own weird and interesting ways, right?

00:42:34 ◼   ► Like I have worked for myself for long enough,

00:42:36 ◼   ► which makes me believe that I could never work

00:42:38 ◼   ► for anybody ever again.

00:42:40 ◼   ► But like, it was fine.

00:42:42 ◼   ► Like it wasn't a problem for me to be told what to do.

00:42:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, like, okay, you say that,

00:42:51 ◼   ► but I think this is such a different situation

00:42:53 ◼   ► because you essentially talked yourself into doing this,

00:42:56 ◼   ► - Right, you really bullied your way into a job

00:42:59 ◼   ► where like there needs to be an audiobook version,

00:43:01 ◼   ► there needs to be an audiobook version.

00:43:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:43:02 ◼   ► - And eventually you're like,

00:43:03 ◼   ► I'm gonna make an audiobook version.

00:43:04 ◼   ► I don't think this is a normal boss-employee relationship.

00:43:08 ◼   ► - No, it's not.

00:43:09 ◼   ► Well, that's why I'm saying it's like it's better and worse,

00:43:12 ◼   ► right, because like the better part is that,

00:43:14 ◼   ► oh, it was fine, and the worst part is realizing that,

00:43:16 ◼   ► oh, maybe it's true all along

00:43:17 ◼   ► and I actually can't do anything that people tell me.

00:43:20 ◼   ► Right, but like just the idea of the process,

00:43:23 ◼   ► when we started out, like I was thinking like,

00:43:25 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm gonna be a real diva here."

00:43:28 ◼   ► And be like, "Nobody can tell me

00:43:29 ◼   ► how to pronounce things differently.

00:43:30 ◼   ► Like, you know, like I do them my way

00:43:33 ◼   ► that like, I know what to do here."

00:43:35 ◼   ► But then when they would hand things to me and be like,

00:43:37 ◼   ► "Oh, you should change this because of this."

00:43:39 ◼   ► It was like, "Oh, okay, you know, that makes sense."

00:43:41 ◼   ► Right, so it was interesting,

00:43:43 ◼   ► it was illuminating to me in the instance

00:43:45 ◼   ► of I was able to break out of my own ego

00:43:49 ◼   ► and actually work with people in this way,

00:43:54 ◼   ► which is different to how I work

00:43:55 ◼   ► because like in my mind, it's like,

00:43:57 ◼   ► oh, I'm the professional here, right?

00:43:59 ◼   ► Like I know what I'm doing,

00:44:01 ◼   ► but I was still able to receive criticism and feedback

00:44:05 ◼   ► in a way that I was concerned that I might not be able to

00:44:09 ◼   ► because I've been out of this world for so long.

00:44:12 ◼   ► - Hmm.

00:44:13 ◼   ► - So that was an illuminating thing for me,

00:44:16 ◼   ► which I found to be very useful to know,

00:44:19 ◼   ► at least like for future projects and stuff like that, right?

00:44:22 ◼   ► Like that I am aware of the fact

00:44:24 ◼   ► that I'm able to take on this type of feedback and make changes.

00:44:31 ◼   ► Like it was useful for me to know that I have not completely lost those skills

00:44:36 ◼   ► when I was concerned that maybe I would have.

00:44:39 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:44:40 ◼   ► Because for all of my projects, like, I tend to be the final say on most of them.

00:44:48 ◼   ► Or at least if I'm not final, I feel like I have as much say as everybody else because

00:44:55 ◼   ► it's a collaborative effort.

00:44:56 ◼   ► But this really was a project that I was turning in.

00:45:01 ◼   ► This was somebody else's work that I was just reading.

00:45:05 ◼   ► I am merely a method of delivery.

00:45:09 ◼   ► You're a cog in the machine, Myke.

00:45:10 ◼   ► That's what you are.

00:45:11 ◼   ► And if there were changes that I felt should be made because they sound better to read,

00:45:14 ◼   ► kind of thing, I had to confirm them with the person whose work I was attempting to

00:45:18 ◼   ► change. I didn't have complete agency in this as I do in my other work. And so it was

00:45:25 ◼   ► an interesting experience in that way of becoming a cog in a machine again. I was part of a

00:45:32 ◼   ► team producing a thing, but it wasn't my original work. So it was a very different

00:45:41 ◼   ► thing which felt a lot more like being part of a job again because that was what it was like.

00:45:46 ◼   ► I was flexing those muscles again. Like the creative work that I would put together for

00:45:51 ◼   ► a piece of mail that went through somebody's letterbox, the artwork, I didn't make that.

00:45:57 ◼   ► It wasn't my idea. Somebody in a design agency made the artwork. I just approved it and turned

00:46:04 ◼   ► it into a thing and put it through where it needed to go, right? Like it was very much like that

00:46:09 ◼   ► again and it was just surprising to me that in that instance like that was a

00:46:15 ◼   ► thing that I was able to still deal with work with and be happy with so it was it

00:46:23 ◼   ► was illuminating to me because I wasn't sure when I undertook this project what

00:46:28 ◼   ► it was gonna be like to be a part of a thing which I don't really have much

00:46:34 ◼   ► control over.

00:46:35 ◼   ► Are you going to give up Relay and go back to the bank?

00:46:40 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what I'm building to here.

00:46:43 ◼   ► As I was wondering, if you found you've missed it and you want to go back to the bank?

00:46:48 ◼   ► I didn't miss it.

00:46:50 ◼   ► I didn't miss it in that way, right?

00:46:53 ◼   ► It was an interesting learning experience for me, but this isn't how I want to do my

00:46:56 ◼   ► work, like every single day of my life.

00:47:00 ◼   ► It was exhausting to produce this thing because it felt completely different to podcasting

00:47:11 ◼   ► in a way that I wasn't expecting.

00:47:16 ◼   ► You mentioned there about having to check with the original author if you wanted to

00:47:20 ◼   ► change the wording of anything.

00:47:22 ◼   ► This is a thing with the written word that it totally sounds different when you speak

00:47:28 ◼   ► it aloud. And there's lots of ways that people write and read things that are totally fine when

00:47:33 ◼   ► they're being written and read, that if you actually say it out loud is awkward. Like,

00:47:39 ◼   ► I don't know what Federico's writing process is like, but I'm gonna guess he probably doesn't

00:47:47 ◼   ► have an out loud draft. And so then you are the person who is doing the out loud draft and you

00:47:54 ◼   ► you need to check with him.

00:47:57 ◼   ► And I just, I happen to know that when companies

00:48:01 ◼   ► commission the audiobooks versions to be made,

00:48:04 ◼   ► like they do like to have the authors read it

00:48:07 ◼   ► if the author has a reasonable enough voice.

00:48:10 ◼   ► But one of the other reasons why they like

00:48:12 ◼   ► to have the author read it is because it closes that loop

00:48:15 ◼   ► of the author can then, in the recording booth,

00:48:18 ◼   ► live just make the changes to say like,

00:48:20 ◼   ► "Oh no, it is better if I just say it this way."

00:48:22 ◼   ► And they don't need to confirm with anybody

00:48:23 ◼   ► because like we have the author right here. He's the guy reading the book right now.

00:48:27 ◼   ► But you could not do that when you're actually recording the thing.

00:48:31 ◼   ► And I think it's, like I imagine it's gotta be

00:48:35 ◼   ► pretty tiring to

00:48:39 ◼   ► read aloud long stretches of

00:48:42 ◼   ► something that somebody else has written.

00:48:45 ◼   ► Like a thing that is not in your authorial

00:48:49 ◼   ► voice or is not the way you would say things.

00:48:52 ◼   ► It's tricky because you're constantly in the mindset of knowing it's not you and the

00:49:02 ◼   ► presentation is different.

00:49:05 ◼   ► The way that I'm talking now is just coming out of my brain, right?

00:49:10 ◼   ► So like the things that I'm saying and the way that I pitch my voice and all that sort

00:49:13 ◼   ► of stuff, it's just the way that somebody naturally speaks.

00:49:16 ◼   ► It's like, you know, like the way that your voice takes the little rhythm that it takes

00:49:19 ◼   ► and goes up and down here and there.

00:49:21 ◼   ► It's way harder to do that sort of stuff when the words are already created because

00:49:27 ◼   ► you can either read them through and practice it a bunch of times, or you do what I did

00:49:30 ◼   ► where it's like, "Well, I'm just reading it, and if it doesn't sound right, I'll

00:49:34 ◼   ► go back and fix it."

00:49:35 ◼   ► Or like, "I'll say something and be like, 'Oh, it doesn't sound right, so read it

00:49:38 ◼   ► again, read it again, read it again.'"

00:49:41 ◼   ► And then there's like words that all of a sudden, like, they're just not in your

00:49:44 ◼   ► mouth anymore.

00:49:45 ◼   ► Like, this sentence of three, four, five words that somehow is impossible for you to say,

00:49:51 ◼   ► And it's like, why is this happening to me?

00:49:53 ◼   ► This, you know, it's tiring.

00:49:55 ◼   ► It's tiring work because you are, your brain is working at a completely different rate.

00:50:00 ◼   ► Because like, as I'm talking to you right now, I'm like looking around and I'm looking

00:50:03 ◼   ► at a document in front of me and there are just like things that happening and it's,

00:50:07 ◼   ► it helps kind of just focus my mind because there's all this stuff and I can talk and

00:50:11 ◼   ► make silly hand gestures.

00:50:12 ◼   ► But like, I'm looking at this page and I'm just reading the words on this page.

00:50:17 ◼   ► And it is like a, it is a very, very different experience in a way that I wasn't quite expecting

00:50:23 ◼   ► it to be.

00:50:24 ◼   ► And like the way that it made me feel, like me and you will sit here for like three, four

00:50:29 ◼   ► hours, like three or four hours and we'll record this show.

00:50:32 ◼   ► I would sit in front of the microphone for 45 minutes and I felt like I was going to

00:50:36 ◼   ► pass out.

00:50:37 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:50:38 ◼   ► Okay, so I've never done an audiobook but I think the closest I'm realizing as you're

00:50:43 ◼   ► talking about is my experience is doing the ads for the podcasts.

00:50:48 ◼   ► Well I thought you were going to say like doing the scripts for your YouTube videos.

00:50:52 ◼   ► That's probably what it's closest to. No but that's different because that

00:50:56 ◼   ► that is a thing that is in my voice that is also designed to be written out loud.

00:51:00 ◼   ► Yeah okay. The reason why I'm saying the ads is because like I have to concentrate so hard when

00:51:07 ◼   ► I'm doing the ads and part of that part of that is like hearing you describe doing the audiobook

00:51:12 ◼   ► It's the same thing that it's

00:51:15 ◼   ► like when we're talking

00:51:18 ◼   ► The words just happen like if you if you pay attention

00:51:21 ◼   ► You don't even really know how you talk or how sentences are formed in your head

00:51:25 ◼   ► Like it just kind of comes out and you're talking or like or like you say as I'm talking to you right now

00:51:30 ◼   ► I'm moving my hands

00:51:33 ◼   ► Even though you're not here to see that I can hear you moving your hands even when you say it

00:51:38 ◼   ► It's it's just part of how conversation occurs

00:51:42 ◼   ► But reading a thing that has been written for you to read is just more different.

00:51:51 ◼   ► And so yeah, I always find it's like, wow, the ads really take a lot of mental focus.

00:51:57 ◼   ► And this is exactly the reason, it's the same thing you're going through with the audiobook.

00:52:02 ◼   ► That it's because it is not in your voice, because it's a sentence that might not have been read aloud by the person who's originally writing it.

00:52:10 ◼   ► It's just a different experience.

00:52:12 ◼   ► So I'm thinking like if I was in a situation where we said like,

00:52:16 ◼   ► "Hey, you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna record all of the year's Cortex ads in advance in one go in an hour."

00:52:22 ◼   ► I feel like I would be thoroughly drained by the end of that.

00:52:28 ◼   ► So I can easily see that when you're doing the audiobook,

00:52:32 ◼   ► a 45 minute stretch is like as far as you would want to go before taking a break.

00:52:38 ◼   ► I'm really curious to know how long like a real professional audiobook narrator goes

00:52:44 ◼   ► for?

00:52:45 ◼   ► I can't even imagine it honestly like I can't. The most I could do was an hour at a time

00:52:50 ◼   ► and I would have to take a break. Like if I would sit and talk for an hour and that's

00:52:55 ◼   ► like you know I'm not like speaking constantly for that hour you know like for every minute

00:53:00 ◼   ► maybe I was taking 10 seconds right like you know that I would take like maybe a couple

00:53:04 ◼   ► minutes here and there to like just relax and then like take a drink of water and just

00:53:09 ◼   ► like go over things in my head and just like get ready to start speaking again. But if

00:53:15 ◼   ► I would do that process for more than an hour, like I just couldn't do it anymore. Like I

00:53:20 ◼   ► just have to get up and walk away. It was a very interesting and illuminating process.

00:53:25 ◼   ► I wasn't expecting it to be as hard as it was to do. It was a surprise to me. I thought

00:53:33 ◼   ► that it was like I do this all the time like this is no problem I speak for a

00:53:37 ◼   ► living like fine my what my throat was getting horse that doesn't happen to me

00:53:45 ◼   ► mm-hmm like we will finish today and I'll be fine but I would spend a day

00:53:53 ◼   ► maybe recording like three or four hours for that day and I could barely talk in

00:53:58 ◼   ► the evening there were just so many things about this process that were

00:54:01 ◼   ► But surprising to me in that way that it was like, "Oh, I just think I'll just be able

00:54:04 ◼   ► to transfer my skills.

00:54:05 ◼   ► It won't be a problem."

00:54:07 ◼   ► But a lot, obviously, it was easier for me because I knew I had to, like the edit was

00:54:11 ◼   ► fine, right?

00:54:12 ◼   ► Like I could edit things together.

00:54:13 ◼   ► You know, there are points where like two halves of one word are two completely different

00:54:18 ◼   ► times of me speaking, right?

00:54:19 ◼   ► And like no one would ever know because like I've just gotten good at that over time, but

00:54:22 ◼   ► that was easy to do.

00:54:24 ◼   ► But...

00:54:25 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a more direct transfer of skills.

00:54:27 ◼   ► But I was expecting there to be a greater transfer of skills for the speaking part than there was

00:54:32 ◼   ► Obviously there are a lot of things

00:54:34 ◼   ► Sorry

00:54:34 ◼   ► Like I can present things to people in a way that they can understand because I'm used to speaking and enunciating

00:54:39 ◼   ► Right, like that is a thing that I have built. That's a skill that I've built

00:54:43 ◼   ► But it was just surprising to me how taxing it was

00:54:46 ◼   ► To speak for long periods of time in that way now for all these screenshots that Federico includes in his review

00:54:53 ◼   ► Did you paint a word picture for the people, right?

00:54:56 ◼   ► So this is part of it. How do you do that?

00:54:58 ◼   ► These were things that I had to do all like every time something is in

00:55:02 ◼   ► parentheses.

00:55:03 ◼   ► You have to use the parentheses voice.

00:55:05 ◼   ► Everybody knows like there's a parentheses voice you use when you're talking.

00:55:08 ◼   ► I use that voice, but when you come back on the other side of it,

00:55:11 ◼   ► if it's not written to be done that way, it's really tricky.

00:55:15 ◼   ► And like, so there was stuff that I had to move around there,

00:55:17 ◼   ► or there were times when Federico would include a very small string of code.

00:55:23 ◼   ► How do you read that in a way that makes any sense to people?

00:55:26 ◼   ► You read it in a computer voice.

00:55:28 ◼   ► You have to pretend that you're a robot in that moment.

00:55:30 ◼   ► Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:55:31 ◼   ► And a string.

00:55:32 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:55:34 ◼   ► You have to, you have to be the Snellatron for a moment there and read it like that.

00:55:38 ◼   ► Yeah, it was, stuff like that was very tricky.

00:55:40 ◼   ► And so I think that's part of it is that I, I had to pay complete

00:55:46 ◼   ► attention to every word that I was reading in case anything

00:55:49 ◼   ► like that was going to happen.

00:55:50 ◼   ► So like the attention as well I think is what added to the fatigue.

00:55:54 ◼   ► Like it was just a complete like you must focus.

00:55:58 ◼   ► You know and I expect a lot of the ways that audiobook readers get around a lot of this stuff

00:56:04 ◼   ► is spending a lot of time reading the text beforehand. I didn't have time to do that.

00:56:08 ◼   ► Well actually when you just said that I was just wondering

00:56:12 ◼   ► because I mean again Federico's Reviews

00:56:16 ◼   ► It's a lot of words. Like do you know how many, what the word count was for the book in the end?

00:56:21 ◼   ► I don't know off the top of my head. No.

00:56:23 ◼   ► It's gonna be like, like they are novella sizes. I think we can we can fairly say.

00:56:29 ◼   ► But I'm just realizing

00:56:31 ◼   ► though that it's it's not like

00:56:35 ◼   ► it's not like he's just gonna finish the book on on one particular day and then hand it to you and it has to

00:56:40 ◼   ► like there's not going to be enough buffer time between when he thinks the review is finished because the review

00:56:46 ◼   ► I know is being like tinkered with until the absolute last possible second. So I'm I'm gonna guess

00:56:53 ◼   ► That you must have gotten

00:56:56 ◼   ► Segments as it's gone along like this segment is close enough. Just go

00:57:00 ◼   ► Yeah, that was how we decided to do it

00:57:02 ◼   ► Like there would be chapters that could be completed in advance and I was just completing each chapter as they were coming to me

00:57:09 ◼   ► But it was a short period of time right like the ones that were done early they were done in like early August

00:57:16 ◼   ► because they were easy to do, they were done.

00:57:19 ◼   ► But then there was a bunch that were done

00:57:21 ◼   ► within a week to 10, 14 days of the thing being released.

00:57:27 ◼   ► So there was a real time pressure to having everything done.

00:57:35 ◼   ► So with me also trying to work my usual life

00:57:39 ◼   ► at the busiest time in my working year.

00:57:44 ◼   ► - Right, so during high iPhone season,

00:57:47 ◼   ► when your life is the busiest it's going to be,

00:57:51 ◼   ► you also decided to add in another 35 hour project

00:57:56 ◼   ► just on top of that for funsies.

00:57:58 ◼   ► - So there wasn't enough time for me to sit

00:58:00 ◼   ► and read the entire thing multiple times before I read it.

00:58:04 ◼   ► So I had to read everything as it was happening

00:58:07 ◼   ► and would make changes as I needed to, right?

00:58:10 ◼   ► So I expect that one of the ways

00:58:12 ◼   ► it is less mentally taxing is by having already gone through it and having the text in your mind

00:58:18 ◼   ► in some way because you probably then need to think less about what you change and what you

00:58:24 ◼   ► don't and how you present things. Because I know that there is a part of my brain that is able to

00:58:29 ◼   ► capture this stuff because when I edit this show four or five days sometimes after we've recorded

00:58:37 ◼   ► it, my brain knows the parts that need to be taken out without me knowing it. We'll

00:58:44 ◼   ► get to a section and I'll be like, "I'm gonna cut this part," or like, there's a part where

00:58:48 ◼   ► I'm like, "Oh, I know I re-say this in a moment, in a clearer way, so I'm just gonna cut that."

00:58:53 ◼   ► But I don't actively remember these things. I don't note them down, but it's just floating

00:58:57 ◼   ► around somewhere in my brain. So I'm confident that if I would have been able to sit and

00:59:03 ◼   ► read that book in advance, it would have been easier for me to record it. But I didn't

00:59:09 ◼   ► have the luxury of that time. Because the deadline was anytime.

00:59:14 ◼   ► It's like you were doing just-in-time audiobook production.

00:59:20 ◼   ► That was it. Yep, that was it. Audiobook on demand. So it was interesting for that as

00:59:28 ◼   ► It's like, I don't have that in my life.

00:59:30 ◼   ► Like, if there is a deadline I can't meet,

00:59:33 ◼   ► there are steps that I can take to change it.

00:59:35 ◼   ► There was nothing that we could do about this.

00:59:38 ◼   ► If it was ever gonna happen, it had to be on that day.

00:59:41 ◼   ► - Right.

00:59:42 ◼   ► - And so, yeah, that was interesting as well.

00:59:44 ◼   ► The other part of this, which I've never done before,

00:59:49 ◼   ► was answering the question of,

00:59:51 ◼   ► how much should I pay you for this?

00:59:53 ◼   ► - You mean, how much are you, Myke, going to charge

00:59:57 ◼   ► for the production of the book.

01:00:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, so Federico asked me the question,

01:00:02 ◼   ► how much shall I pay you?

01:00:03 ◼   ► I didn't know how to answer that question.

01:00:07 ◼   ► - Well, Myke, haven't you spent a bunch of time

01:00:10 ◼   ► tracking your time so that you know exactly

01:00:12 ◼   ► what your dollar value is worth every hour?

01:00:15 ◼   ► Haven't you done this?

01:00:15 ◼   ► - Yes, and that was how I actually ended up

01:00:17 ◼   ► coming to the figure.

01:00:18 ◼   ► Right, is I had a rough idea of what I believed

01:00:23 ◼   ► my hours were worth, but the other thing is

01:00:25 ◼   ► I didn't know how long it was going to take me.

01:00:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's the other problem.

01:00:29 ◼   ► - I didn't know what was fair.

01:00:31 ◼   ► I didn't know how good it was going to be.

01:00:34 ◼   ► Or if anyone would even want to listen to it.

01:00:36 ◼   ► It's like all of these questions going around in my mind,

01:00:38 ◼   ► it's like, so really I didn't know how much money to charge.

01:00:42 ◼   ► Now I picked a number, we agreed upon the number.

01:00:45 ◼   ► I didn't want to go too high, right?

01:00:47 ◼   ► 'Cause it went, it felt like if I go too high

01:00:49 ◼   ► and this sucks, like this guy's one of my best friends.

01:00:53 ◼   ► Like I don't want to, you know,

01:00:55 ◼   ► Like there were so many things in writing on this decision

01:00:58 ◼   ► that made it really tricky.

01:01:00 ◼   ► I actually, we ended up on an amount of money

01:01:03 ◼   ► that I think was fine for my time.

01:01:05 ◼   ► It actually ended up being pretty much exactly

01:01:08 ◼   ► what I consider my hourly rate to be

01:01:10 ◼   ► for the amount of time, like the amount of hours

01:01:13 ◼   ► that it took me to put this thing together.

01:01:16 ◼   ► But I had no idea that was gonna be the case

01:01:18 ◼   ► when I set out on the project.

01:01:20 ◼   ► So it was an interesting experience for me

01:01:22 ◼   ► and like somebody saying to me,

01:01:23 ◼   ► how much shall I pay you for this? And then I had to weigh up a bunch of factors that didn't

01:01:28 ◼   ► have any monetary value to them to pick out an amount.

01:01:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, you've got a couple of things here because, yes, of course, this is

01:01:36 ◼   ► where you do have the complication of you're working with someone who is also a friend,

01:01:42 ◼   ► which always makes things harder.

01:01:44 ◼   ► Interesting. Makes them more interesting.

01:01:46 ◼   ► [laughs]

01:01:47 ◼   ► And we could say interesting, but it's like, or perhaps less clear, right, is another way

01:01:52 ◼   ► to put it, right? The waters are a bit more muddied because it's always tricky to separate out these

01:01:59 ◼   ► kinds of things. And yeah, like you said, you don't know how much it's going to,

01:02:06 ◼   ► how many hours you're going to be putting into this kind of thing. You're describing part of the

01:02:13 ◼   ► problems which in some sense where you as the cog in the machine in theory don't really have to

01:02:19 ◼   ► worry about the market demand for this product, right? That is the burden that the employer

01:02:25 ◼   ► should be taking on. He's making a calculation that people will want to buy it and he's paying

01:02:29 ◼   ► it for you. But you as someone who also is running a business can't help but be running that side of

01:02:35 ◼   ► the equation in your head. So I can see why it's a very hard thing to figure out what is it that you

01:02:40 ◼   ► actually want to charge in the end for this thing. But I'm glad that you came to what you think was a

01:02:45 ◼   ► fair price. Yeah I think it ended up working out okay right like I didn't

01:02:49 ◼   ► feel like I was paid not enough or too much. But at the time when we were

01:02:57 ◼   ► setting that price I had no idea what that was gonna end up looking like. I

01:03:01 ◼   ► also do know that like even though I feel like it was a fair price I would

01:03:05 ◼   ► have to change that price in the future. Well at the very least you know you see

01:03:09 ◼   ► it came out to be what your hourly rate is but but like this is one of the

01:03:14 ◼   ► things when people do time tracking and figure out what their hourly rate is.

01:03:17 ◼   ► Your hourly rate is is also like you're kind of like your break even rate,

01:03:21 ◼   ► because it's really it's a question of opportunity cost of

01:03:24 ◼   ► this is how much you make per hour working on your own things.

01:03:28 ◼   ► And so it's the it's the break even rate for any other project.

01:03:34 ◼   ► Yeah. And also, do you know what?

01:03:35 ◼   ► That is not the same amount of money.

01:03:38 ◼   ► That is my hourly rate for doing what I'm doing right now.

01:03:42 ◼   ► I don't know what my hourly rate should be for audiobooks, because audiobooks are harder to make than podcasts.

01:03:47 ◼   ► Right, yeah, and that's a thing that you have to factor in as well.

01:03:53 ◼   ► It certainly sounds like if you spent the morning working on audiobooks,

01:03:57 ◼   ► that would dramatically limit the number of podcasts you could probably schedule in the remainder of that day.

01:04:04 ◼   ► Yep.

01:04:04 ◼   ► So you wouldn't want to have three hours of audiobooks followed immediately by three different shows, I'm gonna guess.

01:04:12 ◼   ► Well, because I was squeezing this in places that I don't want to work as well. It was

01:04:17 ◼   ► going in the weekends, it was going in the evenings, I was consumed by this project for

01:04:22 ◼   ► a period of time. So all of this lends into, would I do it again, and if I do, how would

01:04:28 ◼   ► that look like? And yeah, well, one, who knows if I'm ever going to get the opportunity

01:04:34 ◼   ► again, right? This might be it for you because I'm not paying for that guy again. Nobody

01:04:39 ◼   ► knows. So, you know, but it was an interesting, it was a very interesting project. It was

01:04:46 ◼   ► illuminating because I think this is the first thing that I've done, which has not been a

01:04:52 ◼   ► podcast since I became self-employed. I can't think of any other work that I've completed

01:04:59 ◼   ► to be paid for during this period of time. So it was illuminating to me to see that,

01:05:05 ◼   ► to see what that process would be like to have that feeling of producing something different.

01:05:12 ◼   ► I think I just like making podcasts, great.

01:05:14 ◼   ► So you're not going to spin up an audiobook production house on the side?

01:05:19 ◼   ► No.

01:05:20 ◼   ► I have no interest in doing this for anybody other than Federico.

01:05:24 ◼   ► Like if he asked me to do it again, I have no doubt that we could come to an agreement

01:05:28 ◼   ► that we would both be really happy with and I would do it again because on the whole,

01:05:31 ◼   ► I'm happy that I have this thing that I've made because I think that it's good

01:05:36 ◼   ► and I've heard from a lot of people that have enjoyed it and

01:05:40 ◼   ► you know like I wanted to make this because it would help people like me that

01:05:46 ◼   ► want to consume something but struggle with it and there has been an

01:05:49 ◼   ► interesting side effect of hearing from people that for whatever reason are

01:05:56 ◼   ► unable to read this but are now able to consume it in a way that they can

01:06:01 ◼   ► actually get the information when they've always wanted to but couldn't

01:06:03 ◼   ► that's been like a really nice side effect of this but that doesn't mean that

01:06:08 ◼   ► I want to turn this into a business you know like these are the reasons why

01:06:11 ◼   ► given the opportunity I would consider to do this again but it's not like well

01:06:18 ◼   ► now I want to read every article that anybody ever writes and you know that's

01:06:22 ◼   ► that's not a thing that I want to do but I now know I now know I have this

01:06:26 ◼   ► feather in my cap. Like I know I can make an audio book now. And there are things that I would do

01:06:32 ◼   ► differently if I was ever going to do this again. There were processes that I would have that are

01:06:35 ◼   ► different, but I don't consider this as part of my business. So for audiobooks, you only have eyes

01:06:41 ◼   ► for t.g. That's what you're saying. I think that might be true. Yeah. All right. Well, people should

01:06:47 ◼   ► go check it out. They should. Yeah, there'll be links in the show notes. I really think that this

01:06:51 ◼   ► This is a valuable resource if you work on iOS

01:06:54 ◼   ► or do anything, you just enjoy using iOS.

01:06:56 ◼   ► There's a lot of information in here.

01:06:59 ◼   ► I know that in reading this book,

01:07:00 ◼   ► there were a bunch of things that I found out

01:07:02 ◼   ► about an operating system that I've been using

01:07:04 ◼   ► for three months and had no idea it could do.

01:07:06 ◼   ► Because typically people don't spend

01:07:11 ◼   ► six months of their life devoting themselves

01:07:13 ◼   ► to a thing in the way that Federico does.

01:07:16 ◼   ► So yeah, I think there's a lot of information

01:07:18 ◼   ► that's interesting, I think that it is well produced.

01:07:21 ◼   ► And so it is available for you to go and purchase if you would like to.

01:07:24 ◼   ► And I think that you should.

01:07:25 ◼   ► Yeah. I have to say, I always look forward to Federico's reviews of iOS.

01:07:29 ◼   ► Like he just, he does just do such a, such a great job.

01:07:32 ◼   ► And I find the exact same experience of, Oh,

01:07:36 ◼   ► I've been on the betas for several months and come across information that I did

01:07:40 ◼   ► not know or like details of, Oh, this is a way to do a thing a little,

01:07:43 ◼   ► a little more smoothly. That's why I say, I feel like his,

01:07:46 ◼   ► his reviews are really the definitive reviews.

01:07:50 ◼   ► So also like if you are interested in this kind of stuff,

01:07:52 ◼   ► like I highly recommend them.

01:07:54 ◼   ► And this year you can go listen to Myke

01:07:57 ◼   ► read the audio book version of this review.

01:07:59 ◼   ► Listen to his sultry tones.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Talk about iOS 11.

01:08:03 ◼   ► - The conclusion especially,

01:08:04 ◼   ► I put a lot into the conclusion.

01:08:06 ◼   ► I put on my best conclusion voice.

01:08:09 ◼   ► - I'm not sure what a conclusion voice sounds like.

01:08:15 ◼   ► I'll have to go listen to the conclusion to find out.

01:08:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's the only way you're gonna know.

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01:10:24 ◼   ► So Gray, we move on to what some people will consider to be the main event of this episode.

01:10:31 ◼   ► For good reason. I want to talk to you about the iPhone. So there are multiple iPhones.

01:10:39 ◼   ► We have the iPhones 8, the 8 and the 8 Plus, and the iPhone 10.

01:10:45 ◼   ► I want to know what you think about them.

01:10:46 ◼   ► I know you think this is going to be the main event, but I actually don't have a whole lot

01:10:53 ◼   ► of thoughts on this iPhone release.

01:10:55 ◼   ► It's not about what you say, right?

01:10:58 ◼   ► It's about people just want to know.

01:11:00 ◼   ► Including me, because I don't even know what you think about these phones.

01:11:05 ◼   ► So it's not like Gray's about to drop a bomb of knowledge on us all, it's just like, what

01:11:10 ◼   ► do you think about them?

01:11:12 ◼   ► Well, this is the first year in a long time where I didn't even watch the keynote live.

01:11:20 ◼   ► What?

01:11:21 ◼   ► Why?

01:11:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:23 ◼   ► It's a long story that ends with, I was in the foothills of Bavaria on an internet connection

01:11:30 ◼   ► that was being herded to me bit by bit on the back of sheep. So I was not able to watch

01:11:37 ◼   ► it live. I wasn't even theoretically able to watch it until days later. So this is actually

01:11:44 ◼   ► one keynote event that I have not seen. I've only simply read articles later and then gone

01:11:51 ◼   ► on to Apple's website to take a look at stuff.

01:11:53 ◼   ► So...

01:11:54 ◼   ► >>

01:11:54 ◼   ► If you've looked at the website though, you know what you need to know, right?

01:11:57 ◼   ► Like the website really actually does a better way of displaying the product than the keynote

01:12:01 ◼   ► video does because that's the point of it.

01:12:03 ◼   ► Yeah, it is a thing where I sort of thought like, oh, I'll watch the keynote after.

01:12:09 ◼   ► But this is one case where watching it live is very fun.

01:12:13 ◼   ► Watching it not live...

01:12:15 ◼   ► It's not, yeah.

01:12:16 ◼   ► Watching it not live, I become very aware of...

01:12:22 ◼   ► How to put this...

01:12:23 ◼   ► Even when Apple is going fast, there's a kind of very low information density in a

01:12:34 ◼   ► keynote presentation that I think just...

01:12:37 ◼   ► I'll read some reviews and I'll look on the website and I'll get the

01:12:44 ◼   ► information from there that I need to. So that is how I have consumed the

01:12:48 ◼   ► information about iPhone X and the other iPhones.

01:12:51 ◼   ► There we go, there we go, that's what I was really waiting for.

01:12:55 ◼   ► Okay, so we got that going on.

01:12:57 ◼   ► There's nothing I can do about it everybody.

01:12:59 ◼   ► I will say I wish that it was called the iPhone X.

01:13:01 ◼   ► It's not what it's called.

01:13:03 ◼   ► If there was any question about what Gray was gonna call it, that question has now been

01:13:08 ◼   ► answered.

01:13:09 ◼   ► So…

01:13:10 ◼   ► Well, I mean if you just read it, that seems like the way it should be said.

01:13:14 ◼   ► Well, that's why I constantly stumble over myself now.

01:13:19 ◼   ► Are you-- now, so this is a--

01:13:21 ◼   ► I feel like this is a kind of professional question.

01:13:24 ◼   ► Are you going to on your--

01:13:27 ◼   ► because you, Myke, you're an actual professional tech

01:13:31 ◼   ► person reviewing and talking about things.

01:13:34 ◼   ► I just happen to do this show with you

01:13:36 ◼   ► when we talk about tech, but this is literally your job.

01:13:39 ◼   ► Are you going to make the effort to call it iPhone 10,

01:13:44 ◼   ► Even though you must know in your heart of hearts

01:13:49 ◼   ► that the vast majority of the human population

01:13:52 ◼   ► will forever call this the iPhone X,

01:13:56 ◼   ► like you know that's going to be the case, right?

01:13:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, people that are unaware

01:14:04 ◼   ► will call this thing the iPhone X forever.

01:14:08 ◼   ► - Like the iTouch.

01:14:11 ◼   ► - Worse than that.

01:14:13 ◼   ► and for more reason because it was never called the eye touch like

01:14:17 ◼   ► eye and then touch were never written together like that's just something that people said

01:14:23 ◼   ► and they were wrong and i don't really know why that happened that people just forgot that the

01:14:27 ◼   ► pod existed in between the middle of those two things it was like it was too funny not to say

01:14:33 ◼   ► but people would say it with dead seriousness i don't like that that one that one i did it's not

01:14:39 ◼   ► I don't dislike it because it's wrong, I just think that that sounds ugly.

01:14:42 ◼   ► I touch. But the X, it says it, right? Like that is the letter X. It's what it is, right?

01:14:53 ◼   ► So I understand that people are going to call it the iPhone X. It's why I keep calling it

01:14:58 ◼   ► the iPhone X accidentally. "Exidentally" you could say.

01:15:02 ◼   ► No, we could not say that.

01:15:04 ◼   ► I mean you could, I'm not saying you would want to, I'm just saying that you could say it if you

01:15:09 ◼   ► wanted to. But no, it is the iPhone X and I will call it the iPhone X and I will endeavor to call

01:15:15 ◼   ► it the iPhone X for as long as the iPhone X exists. Because that's the correct pronunciation

01:15:22 ◼   ► of the product, that's what it's called, right? That is what it is. It's like I don't call it

01:15:27 ◼   ► it ifn. Right? Like I don't, you know, it's the iPhone. Right? Like I do my best to say

01:15:33 ◼   ► it the way it's supposed to be said as opposed to how it may look.

01:15:37 ◼   ► Sorry, I could not, I was like, I cannot parse what you think if that was not registering

01:15:42 ◼   ► in my brain. But I'm confused, Myke, because you say wunderlist.

01:15:48 ◼   ► Right, because that's correct. Like it is a product made in Germany. Right? It is wunderlist.

01:15:55 ◼   ► Right, like that is what it is.

01:15:57 ◼   ► What was your other one? You want to say "to doist"?

01:15:59 ◼   ► To doist. I mean, and don't even get me started on this, Gray, because if you ask Siri things about todoist,

01:16:07 ◼   ► I have found in my tests, Siri just wants to do it. Doesn't understand what todoist means.

01:16:14 ◼   ► And I've honestly had people tell me, "Just say it like 'to doist'."

01:16:18 ◼   ► I'm like, "Oh, it's come back to bite me, that one." Right? So there we go. I got that going for me.

01:16:24 ◼   ► So that's what Siri thinks.

01:16:26 ◼   ► So you as a professional, you're going to go for the iPhone X.

01:16:30 ◼   ► I'm going to call it the iPhone X because that's the name of the product.

01:16:33 ◼   ► I was just curious, I just pulled up the Apple webpage

01:16:36 ◼   ► because obviously I know that it's supposed to be called the iPhone X.

01:16:41 ◼   ► I'm going to devote 0% of my brain to trying to do that.

01:16:45 ◼   ► But I was curious to say, let's imagine I hadn't been aware of this

01:16:50 ◼   ► and I wasn't the kind of person who tries to watch the keynote

01:16:52 ◼   ► to watch the keynote and then realizes,

01:16:53 ◼   ► oh, it's super boring when it's not live.

01:16:55 ◼   ► And I just went on to the Apple page

01:16:57 ◼   ► where you can buy the iPhone X

01:17:00 ◼   ► and wanted to see, does it say 10 anywhere on the page?

01:17:04 ◼   ► And as far as I can tell, it does not.

01:17:07 ◼   ► There is nowhere on the page where they write it out

01:17:10 ◼   ► and say the word 10.

01:17:11 ◼   ► No, they wouldn't do that, right?

01:17:12 ◼   ► It's like they never did that for OS X.

01:17:14 ◼   ► Yeah, and that is the reason why I think

01:17:18 ◼   ► It might not have been until maybe 10.5 or 10.6,

01:17:23 ◼   ► like years and years later,

01:17:27 ◼   ► until I even ever first heard someone say OS X on a podcast.

01:17:32 ◼   ► I was shocked because it was a thing that I only,

01:17:35 ◼   ► I'd followed Apple relatively closely,

01:17:37 ◼   ► but at that point in time it had only been

01:17:39 ◼   ► just through like a text-based pre-podcast internet.

01:17:42 ◼   ► I just had never ever heard anybody say the word

01:17:46 ◼   ► of the Mac operating system.

01:17:48 ◼   ► I see, but that was the different thing for me,

01:17:50 ◼   ► is that the majority of time that I was familiar with OS X,

01:17:53 ◼   ► I'd heard it being said, right?

01:17:56 ◼   ► Like I didn't have a time in my life where I was hearing,

01:18:01 ◼   ► or like just reading OS X in my brain

01:18:04 ◼   ► without there being podcasts or videos

01:18:07 ◼   ► or whatever it was I was consuming at the time,

01:18:10 ◼   ► where I would hear people call it OS X.

01:18:13 ◼   ► The other one, which is an interesting example,

01:18:15 ◼   ► is Final Cut, 'cause it's Final Cut Pro.

01:18:17 ◼   ► And I thought Apple's position was that it's Final Cut Pro X.

01:18:21 ◼   ► Like I thought that was the name.

01:18:23 ◼   ► - I believe that is the name.

01:18:25 ◼   ► - But the thing that I'm wondering is,

01:18:28 ◼   ► actually I bought like a professional course

01:18:31 ◼   ► to review some of the details of how that works,

01:18:34 ◼   ► 'cause it was kind of like redoubling

01:18:35 ◼   ► my efforts in the program.

01:18:37 ◼   ► And they keep pronouncing it Final Cut 10.

01:18:40 ◼   ► So I wonder if it really is 10 in terms of Apple speak.

01:18:45 ◼   ► It just raises, like, what is Apple's position on Final Cut?

01:18:49 ◼   ► I'd be curious for someone to find in a keynote

01:18:53 ◼   ► where is someone on an Apple stage saying the name

01:18:57 ◼   ► of Final Cut? Do they say X or do they say 10? I now have

01:19:01 ◼   ► enough doubt in my mind that I bet they say 10 when they talk about Final Cut.

01:19:05 ◼   ► So, the new Final Cut Pro X. Although I think it's probably been a long time since Final Cut

01:19:09 ◼   ► has been on center stage at an Apple event, but still.

01:19:13 ◼   ► still. Anyway, I think you're making the correct decision for you as a professional person,

01:19:19 ◼   ► but I think this is going to be such an incredible tidal wave in the opposite direction of everybody

01:19:24 ◼   ► in the world is calling it iPhone X. And I think Apple is 100% to blame for that.

01:19:29 ◼   ► And I would assume that they know this.

01:19:32 ◼   ► So why do you think that they do it then?

01:19:35 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:19:36 ◼   ► I think they didn't want to put the number 10 here, right?

01:19:43 ◼   ► They didn't want it to be iPhone one zero.

01:19:47 ◼   ► I think that they wanted to call it the iPhone 10

01:19:53 ◼   ► because the idea of the phone being from the future,

01:19:57 ◼   ► we have the iPhone eight and the iPhone 10

01:19:59 ◼   ► because this is a phone that is the future's phone today.

01:20:03 ◼   ► And I'm not really sure why they chose the X.

01:20:07 ◼   ► Like, I know why they called it 10.

01:20:09 ◼   ► I think that the reasons for calling it 10 are fine, right?

01:20:12 ◼   ► Like that idea of it being the future.

01:20:14 ◼   ► I can't fully put my finger on why they would choose

01:20:17 ◼   ► the Roman numeral when they've removed

01:20:19 ◼   ► the Roman numeral from the Mac.

01:20:22 ◼   ► Like it's just Mac OS and then a name now.

01:20:25 ◼   ► There were a lot of other options

01:20:27 ◼   ► that Apple could have gone with

01:20:28 ◼   ► with the name of this iPhone,

01:20:29 ◼   ► which wouldn't have been numbers at all,

01:20:31 ◼   ► which also would have worked.

01:20:33 ◼   ► Apple makes interesting choices at naming products.

01:20:36 ◼   ► They always have, they always will.

01:20:38 ◼   ► Most of them don't make sense

01:20:40 ◼   ► when you put them under a microscope.

01:20:42 ◼   ► This one is the same.

01:20:44 ◼   ► Like when you start to really think about it,

01:20:45 ◼   ► like why did they do this?

01:20:47 ◼   ► Because somebody liked the way it looked

01:20:48 ◼   ► on a poster probably.

01:20:49 ◼   ► Like that's probably as far as it goes.

01:20:53 ◼   ► They're like when you go to their website,

01:20:55 ◼   ► what do you see when you go to that page?

01:20:57 ◼   ► A huge colorful X when you go to the page.

01:21:01 ◼   ► I think that was just all they wanted.

01:21:03 ◼   ► like futuristic, weird, it's an X, it's not a number one zero.

01:21:08 ◼   ► Like they wanted to keep, for whatever reason,

01:21:11 ◼   ► they wanted to keep it to be sequential, right?

01:21:13 ◼   ► That there could, in theory, be an iPhone 9 still.

01:21:16 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

01:21:19 ◼   ► I don't think iPhone 9 is going to happen.

01:21:22 ◼   ► I have a hard time imagining.

01:21:23 ◼   ► It depends.

01:21:24 ◼   ► There are a lot of things that have to happen between now and next year

01:21:28 ◼   ► for there not to be an iPhone 9.

01:21:29 ◼   ► And that means that they have to be able to produce

01:21:33 ◼   ► more of these edge-to-edge screen phones which as it looks like right now where we're sitting

01:21:39 ◼   ► at the end of September, it is difficult for Apple to produce them. They're coming out

01:21:43 ◼   ► later and there are lots of rumors of supply chain problems and there are also, you know,

01:21:49 ◼   ► this phone's been heavily rumored as potentially it was supposed to be here last year. So I

01:21:55 ◼   ► don't know. I think that they have to be able to produce this phone at scale maybe in multiple

01:21:59 ◼   ► sizes for there not to be an iPhone 9 next year. And I personally where we sit

01:22:05 ◼   ► right now I think that the jury's out on that one. It's an interesting question.

01:22:11 ◼   ► I expect that the the pre-order and wait period is going to be a real bloodbath

01:22:16 ◼   ► with this. Yep. The kind that we have never seen before. I think

01:22:22 ◼   ► that I think you'll be lucky you will be lucky if you get one of these in 2017. I

01:22:27 ◼   ► I think you will be lucky.

01:22:28 ◼   ► You might be right about that.

01:22:30 ◼   ► The AirPods delay is going to look like nothing compared to this is my expectation.

01:22:34 ◼   ► Yep.

01:22:35 ◼   ► Because there are a lot of people saying that the iPhone 8, whilst it looks like a great

01:22:38 ◼   ► phone, it looks like the people were waiting because they want the latest and greatest

01:22:41 ◼   ► phone, which I get.

01:22:43 ◼   ► I'm in that camp myself.

01:22:45 ◼   ► But I want to know what you think.

01:22:47 ◼   ► What do you think of these phones?

01:22:49 ◼   ► What is your opinion?

01:22:50 ◼   ► What do you want?

01:22:51 ◼   ► Why do you want?

01:22:52 ◼   ► What do you hate?

01:22:54 ◼   ► about these phones interest you or doesn't interest you? Do they at all? Like, what is

01:22:58 ◼   ► your opinion on what's going on here?

01:23:00 ◼   ► I actually decided that I'm just going to get the iPhone 8 this year. Like, um...

01:23:05 ◼   ► Okay. Okay.

01:23:06 ◼   ► Yeah. That's actually not going to happen. No, that's not going to happen at all.

01:23:09 ◼   ► Oh, wow! You have me! You got me, man! I was like... But the thing is, though, great, you

01:23:14 ◼   ► make a lot of really weird decisions when it comes to your iPhone, so like, it wouldn't

01:23:18 ◼   ► have surprised me.

01:23:19 ◼   ► [laughs]

01:23:20 ◼   ► No, I'm not gonna get the eight. I'm going to hold out for the X and I'm hoping to get it this year.

01:23:29 ◼   ► Not in 2018, but depending on how many milliseconds it takes me to fill out my order at the exact

01:23:38 ◼   ► stroke of whatever it is, 10.01 a.m. in San Francisco.

01:23:45 ◼   ► Yeah, it may take a while longer, but I mean I'm interested in the phone. I think it looks really good

01:23:51 ◼   ► but the really the biggest deal for me is is simply that it is a

01:23:57 ◼   ► a new form factor which I

01:24:00 ◼   ► have been I have been unhappy with the form factor from Apple for the last

01:24:07 ◼   ► four years, you know starting with the iPhone 6

01:24:11 ◼   ► Which I really didn't like and I think they've refined and made the design better over time

01:24:17 ◼   ► but I still just the physical size and interaction of the device has never

01:24:22 ◼   ► never been

01:24:24 ◼   ► What I wanted out of a phone and I feel like I've always been

01:24:27 ◼   ► Trading off different amounts of unpleasantness for different advantages. Yep. So

01:24:33 ◼   ► That's why I am more excited about

01:24:36 ◼   ► the

01:24:38 ◼   ► new iPhone than I have been about an iPhone in the past four years. And I can say that's genuinely nice

01:24:44 ◼   ► to feel. Like I'm excited to have a different form factor,

01:24:48 ◼   ► to try it, like I feel like I'm gonna really try to love this phone and really just

01:24:55 ◼   ► get used to its size, and I'm hoping its in-between-y size is better for my personal use.

01:25:03 ◼   ► Like there are, obviously there are a bunch of cool features and interesting things about the phone,

01:25:07 ◼   ► But for me that is that is the number one biggest deal is it is a different

01:25:12 ◼   ► Form factor and and that is what I want to to try out most with this new phone

01:25:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that there for people that like the plus people like me and you there are gonna be some interesting trade-offs here

01:25:25 ◼   ► Like what is what is this actually going to be like?

01:25:27 ◼   ► Mm-hmm, but I think that on the whole I'm gonna be happy with this phone

01:25:31 ◼   ► I mean, I will just say let me ask you a quick question. Actually. Do you think it is attractive?

01:25:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's a good-looking phone.

01:25:38 ◼   ► Does the notch bother you?

01:25:39 ◼   ► No, it doesn't. I think this is this is a case where

01:25:43 ◼   ► I'm totally fine with the notch because I understand the like limitations of what they're trying to do.

01:25:50 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:25:51 ◼   ► I can totally understand the reason for making this decision and I think it's fine. Like I'm perfectly acceptable about this.

01:25:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:25:58 ◼   ► What I think is a more

01:26:00 ◼   ► interesting

01:26:03 ◼   ► question is

01:26:04 ◼   ► Is Apple going to decide to just stick with this notch as like, "This is what iPhones look like from now on,"

01:26:14 ◼   ► as a almost like a branding decision to distinguish them from other phones?

01:26:19 ◼   ► Or is Apple going to try to get rid of the notch as quickly as possible?

01:26:22 ◼   ► And this is a question I feel like I don't have a really solid opinion on that.

01:26:27 ◼   ► I can blow in the wind either direction based on who's talking to me at that point in time.

01:26:33 ◼   ► I could see Apple saying, "No, we're going to keep this notch there because it will always

01:26:39 ◼   ► allow us to be able to jam in more and more sensors like in this dedicated area."

01:26:44 ◼   ► Or I could see them just getting rid of it as fast as they possibly can.

01:26:47 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:26:48 ◼   ► Like, what do you think about that?

01:26:50 ◼   ► As you can imagine, I do have a very solid opinion on this.

01:26:54 ◼   ► Okay.

01:26:55 ◼   ► I think that they will eventually remove the notch, but they're not going to rush for it.

01:27:03 ◼   ► I would expect that Apple are working as quickly as they can to find ways to do this, but there

01:27:08 ◼   ► is an in-between time which they will embrace. And I believe that over the next few years

01:27:14 ◼   ► they will keep that notch, they may make it smaller, they may change it in shape, but

01:27:17 ◼   ► they will take that space to put more sensors in to make things like Face ID better and

01:27:23 ◼   ► to give themselves some time to work through a lot of that stuff. And I think a good example

01:27:29 ◼   ► of their thinking behind this type of stuff is the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch has had

01:27:34 ◼   ► three revisions now and the case hasn't changed because they have been spending the time to

01:27:39 ◼   ► stuff in what they need to stuff in. You look at the previous iPhone, you know, the iPhone

01:27:44 ◼   ► has had a chin and a forehead, which has been pretty much the same proportions for 10 years,

01:27:49 ◼   ► whilst they were getting everything into the phone that they needed to get into the phone

01:27:53 ◼   ► before they felt like they could push the screen to more towards the edges. I think

01:27:57 ◼   ► I'll do this with the notch.

01:27:58 ◼   ► I think part of the reason the notch is there,

01:28:00 ◼   ► part of the reason that it looks the way it does,

01:28:02 ◼   ► is so Apple can differentiate themselves in the market,

01:28:05 ◼   ► because if they created a phone

01:28:07 ◼   ► that was completely flat on the top,

01:28:08 ◼   ► it would look just like a Samsung,

01:28:10 ◼   ► it would look just like an LG.

01:28:11 ◼   ► And you can love or hate that design,

01:28:13 ◼   ► and that's totally up to you,

01:28:14 ◼   ► and that's why consumer choice exists.

01:28:16 ◼   ► But I think this is part of it,

01:28:18 ◼   ► and I think the reason that they're asking developers

01:28:21 ◼   ► to develop around it, they want people to fill the screen,

01:28:23 ◼   ► is this is the way that Apple wants the iPhone to look.

01:28:26 ◼   ► The outlines that they have of the iPhone on the page,

01:28:31 ◼   ► or literally on their store page,

01:28:33 ◼   ► they show the notch in the outline.

01:28:36 ◼   ► They want the outline of a phone

01:28:39 ◼   ► that they make to look like this.

01:28:41 ◼   ► I've long thought, and I especially noticed this

01:28:43 ◼   ► when I was working in my advertising job,

01:28:47 ◼   ► 'cause there would be times when I would have to

01:28:50 ◼   ► buy some stock artwork,

01:28:54 ◼   ► and I would want to buy stock artwork of a smartphone

01:28:58 ◼   ► because I would need it.

01:29:00 ◼   ► All stock artwork of a smartphone looked like an iPhone.

01:29:03 ◼   ► - I definitely ran across that with animation stuff

01:29:06 ◼   ► when I used to use clip art.

01:29:07 ◼   ► It's like, you know what a phone looks like?

01:29:09 ◼   ► It looks like an iPhone.

01:29:10 ◼   ► - Apple created, there is no argument about this,

01:29:14 ◼   ► I will not accept one.

01:29:16 ◼   ► Apple created the defacto image

01:29:19 ◼   ► of how a smartphone with a touchscreen looks.

01:29:22 ◼   ► It is a rectangle with a screen in the middle with some space on the top and

01:29:27 ◼   ► some space on the bottom. And for close to 10 years,

01:29:31 ◼   ► every smartphone had that basic design to it.

01:29:35 ◼   ► They created that design language. Then over the last year or so,

01:29:41 ◼   ► maybe the last two years,

01:29:42 ◼   ► companies like LG and Samsung have created

01:29:46 ◼   ► overall new designs because the screens look different.

01:29:51 ◼   ► the front of the phone doesn't look like an iPhone anymore. They look different. LG created

01:29:57 ◼   ► one that went all the way to the edges, but you could still see the front and then Samsung

01:30:03 ◼   ► created their infinity display where it kind of bleeds off the sides. They created designs

01:30:09 ◼   ► for phones. Now both of these phones look different and the outlines of these phones

01:30:14 ◼   ► look different because companies have found ways to finally push the technology past what

01:30:18 ◼   ► have become the de facto standard. I believe that Apple decided to make some decisions

01:30:25 ◼   ► for this phone. They wanted to have face ID because they wanted to get rid of the touch

01:30:30 ◼   ► ID. They didn't want to put touch ID on the back. So they had to put the cameras in. There

01:30:34 ◼   ► are two decisions. You either make a thin forehead, you just chop off the top, put the

01:30:39 ◼   ► sensors in and you're done. Or you have the screen bleed around the sides in a big way,

01:30:45 ◼   ► in a way that nobody else is doing.

01:30:47 ◼   ► The Essential phone just has a camera in there.

01:30:49 ◼   ► It's a little one in the middle.

01:30:51 ◼   ► Doesn't look like the iPhone.

01:30:52 ◼   ► The iPhone has this big black bar that goes across the top.

01:30:56 ◼   ► I think that they decided that they wanted to create

01:30:59 ◼   ► what they believe their smartphones are gonna look like

01:31:02 ◼   ► for potentially the next 10 years.

01:31:05 ◼   ► This is the design they chose for that

01:31:07 ◼   ► because whether you love them or hate them,

01:31:10 ◼   ► Apple are sometimes the biggest,

01:31:13 ◼   ► sometimes second biggest handset manufacturer.

01:31:16 ◼   ► They have to make a design that they think

01:31:18 ◼   ► makes sense for them.

01:31:19 ◼   ► And they moved away from the chin and forehead

01:31:21 ◼   ► and they went for the notch.

01:31:23 ◼   ► This is the iPhone.

01:31:25 ◼   ► This is what they believe the future of phones

01:31:27 ◼   ► is gonna look like.

01:31:28 ◼   ► And this might be what ends up being stock photography

01:31:31 ◼   ► in five years, but what will probably be,

01:31:33 ◼   ► it would look something more like an LG.

01:31:35 ◼   ► But Apple decided they didn't wanna look like

01:31:39 ◼   ► what a phone looks like.

01:31:41 ◼   ► they've made their phone look weird and different in its own way.

01:31:46 ◼   ► Well I think of, I always like seeing little signs that say like "No cell phones allowed"

01:31:51 ◼   ► like if you know in various places.

01:31:53 ◼   ► And it's just it's always interesting to see like what is chosen as that little symbol

01:31:58 ◼   ► and I would say in many public places in a city it's still overwhelmingly the 1990s cell

01:32:06 ◼   ► phone like a little keyboard with a wire sticking up on the side.

01:32:09 ◼   ► I just think is funny and aachronistic in this way.

01:32:14 ◼   ► Like an icon for what a phone looks like is a phone that nobody has used in forever.

01:32:20 ◼   ► And then you do see places that use the iPhone-looking phone.

01:32:24 ◼   ► Like a no phone's allowed symbol or like here's the thing for your phone.

01:32:28 ◼   ► But there is an interesting thing that I will give Samsung that their phones are

01:32:34 ◼   ► I don't know how to put it more elegant or more simple in their design,

01:32:39 ◼   ► but you do run into the problem that you can't just use a rectangle as a symbol for a phone.

01:32:46 ◼   ► It has to have something that's a little bit more recognizable than just a rectangle if you're talking about very simple iconography.

01:32:54 ◼   ► And so it is, I do think it's an interesting question of like, what will

01:32:58 ◼   ► the thing that is the outline of the phone with the notch, like will that start showing up as a generic

01:33:04 ◼   ► symbol for phones

01:33:06 ◼   ► In the same way that the like clearly an iPhone of the past showed up everywhere as a generic symbol for phones

01:33:12 ◼   ► I don't know, but I'm I'm willing to bet that at the very least a

01:33:17 ◼   ► Standard rectangle with nothing to distinguish it is not going to show up as an icon for a phone

01:33:23 ◼   ► Because it is not iconic enough. There is nothing to identify it and this is where I wonder if Apple is deciding

01:33:29 ◼   ► To just stick with it

01:33:32 ◼   ► Because I do think that it does give you the advantage of having a space where you can always stick new sensors and new stuff

01:33:43 ◼   ► without having to worry about how does this interact through a screen that isn't display.

01:33:48 ◼   ► They have given themselves some leeway.

01:33:52 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's like, you know, even if let's say we had the technology to put all of the stuff underneath a screen right now,

01:33:59 ◼   ► you don't necessarily know what other sensors you might want to add.

01:34:03 ◼   ► And there's no doubt that the question of, "Can you add a sensor?"

01:34:08 ◼   ► versus "Can you add that sensor also underneath a screen?"

01:34:12 ◼   ► the second thing is harder to do.

01:34:14 ◼   ► And so if you leave yourself space,

01:34:18 ◼   ► you can potentially put stuff in sooner than you otherwise could

01:34:22 ◼   ► if you also had to figure out how to get it under a screen.

01:34:26 ◼   ► I wouldn't be surprised if they keep the notch around, but that said, I wouldn't be surprised if in three years Apple says, "Oh the hell with that, we're just going all screen as well."

01:34:35 ◼   ► I really don't have a strong opinion on this one, but I am glad that we're in a phase where it is fun and interesting speculation time about what Apple's up to.

01:34:47 ◼   ► As opposed to, "Oh, it's the iPhone 6 again." But just with some changes.

01:34:53 ◼   ► changes. And the iPhone 8 looks like a great phone. Like the iPhone 8 looks like a better

01:34:58 ◼   ► revision than the 7 from the 6. Oh yeah. But it is being completely overshadowed.

01:35:04 ◼   ► Yeah. I'll put it in air quotes, the wireless charging. I think that is a really great

01:35:10 ◼   ► addition and that's a thing that I'm looking forward to. And I am also really glad that

01:35:15 ◼   ► Apple put the wireless charging in the 8 because I feel like anything Apple can do to push

01:35:23 ◼   ► that farther and faster with adoption everywhere, like everybody benefits from that and that's

01:35:30 ◼   ► great.

01:35:31 ◼   ► Choosing an open standard is a surprise but awesome move.

01:35:34 ◼   ► I'm very happy to see Apple choose an industry standard with Qi charging, like that's great

01:35:41 ◼   ► As opposed to, like I don't want to go into a Starbucks and there's the pad for Apple

01:35:46 ◼   ► devices and there's the pad for everything else.

01:35:48 ◼   ► Like, ugh.

01:35:49 ◼   ► Don't need that.

01:35:50 ◼   ► Like anything we can do to make charging easier and everywhere, that's great.

01:35:56 ◼   ► So like I am super glad that they're putting the wireless charging in the device that's

01:36:01 ◼   ► going to sell way more just to like encourage the spread of that faster.

01:36:05 ◼   ► So are you going to be waiting?

01:36:06 ◼   ► Are you going to be putting in an order?

01:36:08 ◼   ► What do you mean, for the iPhone 8?

01:36:10 ◼   ► - For the iPhone X.

01:36:12 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, no, of course for the iPhone X, without a doubt.

01:36:16 ◼   ► I would like it in my hands as soon as possible,

01:36:19 ◼   ► but I am mentally preparing myself for the notion

01:36:23 ◼   ► that this may take forever.

01:36:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, you may just be going to Apple stores

01:36:27 ◼   ► and fondling them for a while.

01:36:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:36:29 ◼   ► Like, do you mind if I just use your phone in the store

01:36:32 ◼   ► for several hours?

01:36:34 ◼   ► Can I set it up?

01:36:35 ◼   ► Like, no, you can't do that, so you have to put it down.

01:36:37 ◼   ► Like, oh.

01:36:38 ◼   ► or like I did when the iPad Pro came out

01:36:41 ◼   ► and I was trying to ask the Apple employees,

01:36:43 ◼   ► can I buy your store display of the pencil off of you?

01:36:47 ◼   ► And they're like, no, you can't,

01:36:48 ◼   ► we have to leave the pencils here.

01:36:49 ◼   ► So I'm very excited about it,

01:36:53 ◼   ► but I'm preparing myself in advance for it's like,

01:36:56 ◼   ► well, it's going to be a long time until the pre-order

01:36:59 ◼   ► and get ready for a longer time of actually waiting

01:37:04 ◼   ► for it to really ship.

01:37:05 ◼   ► - The waiting is the hardest part.

01:37:07 ◼   ► Yes, the waiting is the hardest part.

01:37:09 ◼   ► There's gonna be a lot of sad Christmas trees, I think, this year.

01:37:13 ◼   ► I'm not looking forward to it. You know, if you think that my delivery woes today were one thing,

01:37:19 ◼   ► boy oh boy, that's gonna be something else.

01:37:22 ◼   ► Something else.