0:00:00[Intro music]
0:00:08From Relay FM, it's the Summer of Fun, and this is episode 206 of Upgrade. Today's show is brought to you by Backblaze, Squarespace, and Instabug.
0:00:19My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Jason Snell.
0:00:21Myke Hurley, the summer continues. Boy, does it continue.
0:00:25Summer rolls on and we have a #SnellTalk question from Brian to start this week's episode, and Brian wants to know.
0:00:32I like this question. So, Jason, you need to remember to put the frozen steak that's in the freezer in the fridge to thaw out overnight.
0:00:42What technology or app do you use, if any, to remember that you need to do this?
0:00:49Listen to Brian, I'm going to blow your mind.
0:00:52Here's the technology that I use. I don't remember to do it because I don't bother.
0:00:57And then I get out my sous vide immersion cooker and fill up a pot with cold water and put in the immersion cooker and set it to the lowest temperature possible to basically not heat it, just circulate.
0:01:13And I put the steak in and it's thawed in probably less than 30 minutes because with the circulating water, it will very rapidly thaw that meat.
0:01:22So I don't thaw meat overnight anymore. I use the immersion circulator to thaw the meat before I—and then I cook it.
0:01:31Sometimes I just put it at the target temperature and throw in the frozen meat and cook it sous vide, but sometimes I don't.
0:01:38Yeah, so that's my answer. I know what you're going for here, but that's my answer is I use technology to mean that I don't need to move the frozen snake—stake.
0:01:45Frozen snake, oh no. It could be. It could be a snake steak. Who knows? Into the fridge from the freezer.
0:01:51All right, so I have two follow-up questions. One, what is your sous vide?
0:01:57Oh, it's one of the—it's the Ananova—
0:01:59The Anova One or something?
0:02:01I don't know what it is. I have the one that doesn't have Wi-Fi. It just has Bluetooth and I don't use the Bluetooth. I find the app control of that thing pointless.
0:02:10I really just want to set a temperature and press the button and I walk away for several hours and then the food is cooked.
0:02:17It is a lot of fun to do, but it also is practical because it does—yes, it lets you thaw the meat and it lets you cook it kind of like right there.
0:02:25Oh, dang.
0:02:25I'm doing a lot of things that are like—it's for dinner and I'm home during the day so I can go start it cooking at one or two in the afternoon and then by the time it's 5.30 or whatever, it's ready.
0:02:38Because the funny thing about the sous vide cooking is once it reaches the target temperature, it just sits there.
0:02:43And over time, it'll get—the texture of the meat will change because it's not done more, but if you've got a tough piece of meat, it will become more tender.
0:02:57If you let it cook, I've done some things that are like for 24 hours, but the nice thing about it is it won't overcook it. It won't burn it.
0:03:05So if you leave it for two hours or three hours, it actually doesn't matter because it only reaches the target temperature. It never gets hotter than that.
0:03:12They have a new one, a real little one called the Inova Nano, which looks really interesting.
0:03:18So I guess it just makes it easier for people.
0:03:20And it's just cool science that circulating water around is what you need.
0:03:27The other way to thaw a steak, by the way, is you put it in a bowl and put it under the tap and turn on the tap as little as it possibly can come out dripping into the bowl.
0:03:39Because that's basically going to circulate, and that's the point is that the water moves and the water's whisking the cold water away from the frozen object,
0:03:49replacing it with water that's a little bit warmer, and that thaws it very, very quickly.
0:03:55Yeah, I want to get one of these. I'm going to wait for this little one to come out. It's coming out in the UK soon.
0:04:00Just because I've had a couple of sous vide steaks, and they have always been the best home steaks I've ever eaten.
0:04:08Yeah, it can be really well done. Not well done. It's well made because you can choose your target.
0:04:17If you want it medium rare, you choose that temperature, and when it hits it, they're done.
0:04:23And then you sear them and they're tasty.
0:04:26And then you can do Brian Chen at the New York Times, who's a tech writer, but he wrote a whole thing about doing roasts using sous vide.
0:04:33And I've done that a couple of times, and for $20 of meat, we got two steak dinners out of it for four.
0:04:41So, kind of amazing. In fact, one of the things we did there is that we served one dinner, and then I froze the rest of it.
0:04:50Because then once it's frozen in a Ziploc bag, you can just toss the Ziploc bag into the sous vide water and thaw them,
0:05:01and warm them back up to basically eating temperature, and then eat them.
0:05:04So, it's a pretty cool thing. It's a kitchen gadget for sure, but it's one that I think has...
0:05:10I feel like it has justified its purchase and placement in my kitchen.
0:05:14Yeah, I want one of these things. I want one of these things.
0:05:17But this actually gets back to the root of the question in the first place from Brian.
0:05:22So let's say that right now you do have a thing that you need to remember later on.
0:05:27What technology do you use? Like, it's not like...
0:05:30I'm going to give you answers that you don't want to hear, which is one, it's in the old Snellatron.
0:05:34Yep.
0:05:35It's just in my head, "Hey, I need to remember to do that later."
0:05:38Which as I get older is going to be increasingly faulty as a system.
0:05:42You've passed a warranty on that technology, I'm afraid.
0:05:45You're going to love this. Phase two is, I put an item on my calendar that says, "2pm, thaw the steak."
0:05:50Don't hate that, because that feels like a calendary type thing for me.
0:05:53It's not really like a to-do-y app type thing. I don't like to put stuff like that in my to-do app.
0:05:59That's kind of where my big things go.
0:06:02Then we're on the same page here, right? Because it's not that I need to do it eventually or today sometime.
0:06:07It's that in the early afternoon I need to do it. So it goes on the calendar because it's a time thing.
0:06:11Now, I use an app called DUE for this type of stuff.
0:06:16It is like a very quick reminder-y app. And what I like about it is that when the reminder hits,
0:06:20the notification will keep hitting, like every couple of minutes or whatever,
0:06:25until you either complete it or you postpone it. That's why I liked DUE, because it will bug you.
0:06:31So that's what I like. Brian, thank you for that question.
0:06:35That was a... I think we went to some new and interesting places with that one.
0:06:39If you would like to send in a question to open the show, just send in a tweet out into the world,
0:06:45the hashtag SnellTalk. And as you can clearly see, it can be about absolutely anything.
0:06:51Now, Jason, I want to conclude my iPad stand follow up with a very interesting tale for you today.
0:07:01Okay. So if you remember, I have been looking at and looking into, we talked about a couple of weeks,
0:07:08this stand called the Tabitha stand by a company called Colebrook...
0:07:15I can never remember off the top of my head. The company's name is Colebrook-Boson-Saunders.
0:07:22I don't really know much about this company.
0:07:24Wow, that's a lot of names.
0:07:25That's a lot of names. But it's the Tabitha stand. And I remember I mentioned it felt like it was faulty
0:07:29and they were sending me a new one. They have sent me the new one and I have it and I really like it.
0:07:35So the height, it's not a huge difference. It's maybe an inch higher than the Viazon stand,
0:07:41but it is exactly the height that I needed. So it is a full extension and it does lock on the full extension.
0:07:49There was a problem with the one that they sent me before. It fits perfectly and it is at the exact height that I need.
0:07:56Unfortunately, the way that this thing is set up, it kind of attaches in on two edges and then clips in on one other,
0:08:04like in the middle of this. So two sides and then kind of in the middle on the other side where it kind of clamps in.
0:08:12It doesn't fit with the smart keyboard attached, so I have to remove the smart keyboard when I put it in.
0:08:17I really like it. It feels much more secure to me, even at full height than the Viazon does.
0:08:25Like when I tap on it, it doesn't move. Like it is more secure than the Viazon stand is.
0:08:32So I really like this. However. I've broken my iPad.
0:08:39So now, OK, here's what happened.
0:08:44The iPad is in the stand and the back plate is relatively small.
0:08:51The back plate is, I don't know, six or seven inches that goes on the back.
0:08:54Then it has these extended arms that click on to, as I say, to two corners and then you do the other on the other end,
0:09:00kind of in the ends of the iPad.
0:09:04Now, I don't know exactly how I did this, but I repositioned it because you can also kind of like move it up and down and left and right on the stand.
0:09:14Right. And you can kind of move it around and lock it into place so you can adjust kind of what angle it's at, as well as the up and down height.
0:09:22I think that what I did was I was trying to adjust it too forcibly and I've put too much pressure on the top
0:09:30and bottom edge of my iPad because I have cracked the screen the whole way down and the edges have those like semicircle cracks.
0:09:40Like I think I have exerted too much pressure on the stand.
0:09:44Yeah. I don't blame the stand for this right now because I believe with the way that it's cracked,
0:09:53I had some kind of small break somewhere, some like chip in it or something because it's way too clean for not that much pressure applied to it.
0:10:02So, you know, I kind of just wanted to put that out there. I really like this stand.
0:10:06I still use this stand. I don't think that this stand is completely at fault for breaking my iPad.
0:10:13I actually don't think that is the case. I broke my iPad while it was in this stand, if that makes sense.
0:10:19I don't think that this stand broke my iPad.
0:10:22So it's £460 to fix my iPad via AppleCare.
0:10:27I don't get AppleCare on devices I typically don't remove from my home.
0:10:32My iPad is still usable right now and I'm just being careful with it.
0:10:36I'm just going to write it out for another five or six weeks.
0:10:38I just have some very precocious cracks in the screen. Sometimes when I pick up the iPad, I can hear the glass, you know.
0:10:46It is what it is. But I tell you, though, I'm not annoyed about this.
0:10:49I have never broken a device. I've never broke a screen on any device I have ever owned.
0:10:57So I feel kind of fine about it. Remember as well, I have a second iPad, right?
0:11:02So I have both sizes of iPad. I broke my 12.9.
0:11:05Two is one and one is none.
0:11:06Exactly. But this is part of the reason for me.
0:11:09So I'm continuing to use it. I'm continuing to use it in the stand.
0:11:13I'm just being a little bit more careful.
0:11:17So the other thing that I should mention, the articulation point has a little screw locking mechanism.
0:11:24So I think I may have had that too tight and I was trying to move it and I put way too much force on the iPad.
0:11:30So, you know, beware.
0:11:33So what you're saying is it's user error?
0:11:35I believe it's user error.
0:11:36Yeah, I don't think that having like I don't think that using this stand or moving the iPad around in this stand will break it.
0:11:43I think that it is my fault.
0:11:44Either I had a chip or I had some kind of weak weakness in the screen and then I've combined it with exerting too much pressure on the iPad as well.
0:11:54So, you know, I think it is what it is.
0:11:56And when it happened, I wasn't even angry.
0:12:00I was like, OK, like I can still use this thing.
0:12:04I'm about five or six weeks, hopefully, from being able to replace it anyway.
0:12:08And I think I've done pretty well.
0:12:10My batting average has been pretty high at this point that I've spent like 10 years with these devices and I've never broke a screen.
0:12:17I've never even chipped the screen.
0:12:19So it was going to happen eventually.
0:12:22But I will say I do recommend this stand, but just be careful with it when you use it, which I guess is the same for most products that you own.
0:12:29I don't know. I recommend you get this, Jason.
0:12:32It's not that expensive.
0:12:33I think it's really good.
0:12:35I recommend that you get it and try it because I think you will really like this.
0:12:38It is an upgrade in almost every way over the Viacom stand.
0:12:43It's better made, it's more stable.
0:12:46I feel a little scared now.
0:12:48Well, but this is the thing.
0:12:50You shouldn't because you know my story.
0:12:51So you will be more careful with this than I was.
0:12:54I see.
0:12:55You know?
0:12:55I see.
0:12:56Every time I pivot it, I'm going to say, take that mic.
0:12:59Well, yeah, you just the way that you do it is you unscrew it at the back before you pivot it, which is probably what you should be doing, not trying to pivot it when it's locked in.
0:13:08So I really like this product and I'm going to I'm still using it.
0:13:14So I really like it.
0:13:16And hopefully Apple does release a new iPad in early September so I can replace my broken one.
0:13:23All right.
0:13:23Last piece of follow up today.
0:13:24It turns out that we scared Elon Musk into taking Tesla private when we were talking last week about what companies Apple should buy.
0:13:32He heard our show and he was like, no one's buying my company.
0:13:35So now he's trying to he's trying to buy it all back again.
0:13:39Yeah.
0:13:39Yeah.
0:13:40Hello to upgrading Elon who had that moment where he was like, oh crap, even even the Apple could buy my company.
0:13:49Oh no.
0:13:50And so therefore he did.
0:13:53He's talking to people about possibly taking Tesla private.
0:13:56I don't think we have a lot to say about this other than to say that it was very funny that like the day after we listed Tesla in our summer of fun Apple shopping spree.
0:14:05Elon Musk said, oh, we don't want that.
0:14:07We don't want to do that.
0:14:08We're gonna we're gonna get out of this public company game.
0:14:11I think the reason being more than anything else that he doesn't like the rules that public companies have to play by.
0:14:16And there's something to be said for that that they're, you know, I'm sure this is my feeling about Apple too is like Apple would much rather never disclose anything, right?
0:14:27But because they're a public company, they are required to disclose in certain product categories at certain points what they're doing.
0:14:35And so, you know, they get all the benefits of being a public company, but there are the drawbacks and Elon Musk may be considering if he can just exit from that entirely.
0:14:46I know that you and Steven talk about Elon Musk a lot on liftoff, right?
0:14:50Because of SpaceX.
0:14:52But there I can't think of like a high powered individual like in technology who's had a biggest fall from grace for me personally about the way I think about them than Elon.
0:15:06I would say like three or four months ago, I was comparing him in my mind to Steve Jobs is like this incredible visionary.
0:15:17But I now think of Elon as like, he feels like a not good, dangerous, bad person, which Steve Jobs may have been, but Steve Jobs just didn't have a Twitter account.
0:15:29Like, yeah, I really wished that Elon would stop tweeting.
0:15:34Yeah, I think that I think there's something to be said for that.
0:15:37I think you may be right. I think you may be right. I think Steve Jobs probably did all sorts of infuriating things that we know of secondhand or long after the fact. They're similar, but you know, everybody is different.
0:15:49I'm looking forward to that book that was called Small Fry that Lisa Brennan Jobs wrote is coming out soon.
0:15:58Oh, right, right, right.
0:15:59I'm really intrigued about that.
0:16:01Like, I like she has a Twitter account, doesn't tweet very much. She sent two tweets and I think the second tweet was kind of just like, I'm pleased people are excited about this.
0:16:10Like, don't expect this to be some tell all thing, which because it isn't.
0:16:14It's like how someone in her position living the life that she led.
0:16:20You know, for those of you that don't follow particularly, Lisa is the child that Steve Jobs tried to avoid for most of his 20s before kind of owning up to the fact that she was his daughter.
0:16:35She's kind of written a book, which the reason I'm very intrigued about it is she is obviously going to talk very openly about her relationship with him.
0:16:44And I think it's going to be kind of interesting to see how someone who shouldn't like him ended up liking him.
0:16:53And I think that's going to be really interesting.
0:16:55It comes out comes out in a couple of weeks beginning of September.
0:16:59So I'm really I'm really keen to get I hope there's an audiobook version.
0:17:04I'm expecting there will be because it's got a lot of attention.
0:17:07Right. And so, yeah, I'm really excited to read this.
0:17:10I'm assuming you will read this because you're a voracious reader anyway.
0:17:14Maybe, although I have to say I am what I'm not is a voracious reader of books about the tech industry.
0:17:21Okay.
0:17:22Like I get them sometimes, but I rarely read them.
0:17:27I was thinking about this the other day because I never saw the Steve Jobs movie.
0:17:34The Aaron Sorkin one.
0:17:35I never have.
0:17:36I never saw it.
0:17:37And it was one of those things where it's like, that's funny, right?
0:17:39Like after all this and what we do that we wouldn't see it.
0:17:43And it's like, you know what? I just I think some of it is do I right like that?
0:17:48Well, yeah, but also do I want to do I want to use my personal time that could go toward another thing that's part of my job or something that is not part of my job.
0:18:00And it's it's a difficult decision to invest my personal reading time because it's not like I'm like, oh, for work today, I will watch this movie.
0:18:09It's that's just sort of not what it happens.
0:18:11I read when I read and I watch a movie when I watch a movie and to have it be something like, you know, like this.
0:18:19It has to clear a bar because oftentimes I'm reading to do something different than the tech world.
0:18:27I'm not, you know, I'm not one of those people who's like, if it's not a book about the subject of my profession, then I don't want to read it.
0:18:35It's like, no, it's the opposite.
0:18:37Like, I'm not sure I want to read books about the tech industry.
0:18:41I bought Nick Bilton's book about Twitter like two years ago and I've never cracked it.
0:18:45So I'm more interested in this because it is somebody's personal story.
0:18:50I like those kinds of books.
0:18:51I like biographies in general, typically of people that I enjoy.
0:18:56So I'm kind of interested to see what this book ends up like.
0:19:00Did not like the Walter Isaacson book.
0:19:04I did like was it called Becoming Steve Jobs?
0:19:07Is that what it's called? The book written by those two business writers?
0:19:11I did like that one a lot. That was a very good book.
0:19:15So there you go.
0:19:17There's some book time with Myke who doesn't read and Jason who likes to read fiction.
0:19:22So there you go. There's Tech Book Corner, which is a one and done segment of the show.
0:19:27Good stuff. All right, should we take our first break?
0:19:31Yes. Let's thank Backblaze for their support of this show.
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0:19:50you know your computer where you keep all of your important things.
0:19:53You should probably have thought to yourself at some point.
0:19:56I should back this stuff up at some point.
0:19:58Maybe soon. I'll back it up. The problem with at some point.
0:20:01The problem with soon is that it never happens.
0:20:04You never do it. If you say to yourself,
0:20:06oh, I'll do this at some point in the future. You're not going to do it.
0:20:09Like Jason and the Nick Bilton book.
0:20:11He's just like I buy this book. I'll read it at some point.
0:20:13Some point never happens. Check out Backblaze today
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0:21:24I just over the weekend we received our wedding photos
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0:21:31They're in Dropbox, but I need more than that.
0:21:33So they also go to Backblaze and I feel safe knowing that my wedding photos now exist with Backblaze.
0:21:38I was like, they're good. Backblaze have got it covered.
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0:22:06Seriously, please go back up your stuff.
0:22:10All right, through some upstream news.
0:22:14Great idea. YouTube have created the YouTube device report to highlight devices
0:22:22that will give you the best viewing experience.
0:22:24Hello, I'm Johnny YouTube and this is the YouTube device report.
0:22:28Johnny YouTube is now the host of upstream here on upgrade.
0:22:33This first appeared during...
0:22:35Oh, I'm just hearing that Johnny YouTube did something really unfortunate on his YouTube channel
0:22:40and he's offended a lot of people and he's no longer the host of the YouTube device report.
0:22:45Well, I never liked Johnny YouTube in the first place.
0:22:48So I'm pleased to know.
0:22:49Who does he think he is?
0:22:50I know, button in to shows.
0:22:52Anyway, this first appeared during the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 announcement that happened last week
0:22:59where this phone was called a YouTube signature device.
0:23:05Now, YouTube signature devices, which is part of the YouTube device report,
0:23:09these are devices that feature the ability to do all of these things.
0:23:13To watch 360 degree video, support HDR and high frame rate.
0:23:18They have reliable DRM support, 4K decoding and next-gen codecs.
0:23:24So you are a signature device if you support all of these things,
0:23:27which is all of the types of video stuff that YouTube does.
0:23:30There are 18 devices in this program right now.
0:23:33They're all I think Android devices right now.
0:23:36No Apple devices because of this next-gen codecs thing, which is VP9,
0:23:40which is how Google supports 4K content.
0:23:43You may cast your mind back to when the Apple TV came out and we spoke about this.
0:23:48YouTube encode all of their 4K stuff in a codec called VP9, which Apple does not support,
0:23:55which is why you cannot get 4K on any Apple devices.
0:23:58This includes watching YouTube videos on your iPhone or your iPad.
0:24:03They're all in, I think they go up to like 2440 by something something.
0:24:08You can, so it's in higher than 1080.
0:24:12Is that true?
0:24:13I don't know what they go to.
0:24:15They go up to a high level but not 4K on iPads.
0:24:19So this is why and this thing exists now, the YouTube signature device thing,
0:24:26and we're probably never going to see Apple's devices on this
0:24:29because it seems unlikely at this point that they're going to add VP9 support.
0:24:32Because Apple has their own codecs.
0:24:34Yeah, I don't like format wars like this on either side.
0:24:40I maintain my position that Apple should support this.
0:24:44So does a YouTube signature device have Johnny YouTube's signature on the device?
0:24:48Let's hope not.
0:24:50Is it like an autograph?
0:24:51I hope it hasn't because he's already been shown.
0:24:53I know he's just been fired.
0:24:56Something terrible happened on the trip he took and it was there was a scandal
0:25:00and we just don't even want to talk about what happened to Johnny YouTube.
0:25:03So yeah, how do you, after time, you know, and we thought about this,
0:25:08we've had some time think about this or not.
0:25:10Do you believe that Apple should be supporting VP9?
0:25:13So I don't, as a user of these products, I don't care.
0:25:20And I think that's the important part here is I don't care.
0:25:23Just get it together, right?
0:25:24Like Apple and Google need to work this out.
0:25:27I don't care if it's Apple.
0:25:30Oh, but because there's probably an argument on both sides where it was like,
0:25:33oh, but Apple doesn't want to do this because they are so invested in HEVC.
0:25:38And oh, but Google can't do it because Apple blah blah blah.
0:25:41Right?
0:25:41It's like, I don't care.
0:25:43In the end, I don't care.
0:25:44I am happy if Apple supports it.
0:25:48I am happy if Google re-encode stuff for formats that Apple devices can play.
0:25:54I could see arguments for both that if you make a 4K playback device
0:25:59and it's missing the codec that is used by all of the 4K content on YouTube
0:26:04that you should probably add that codec.
0:26:06I could also see the argument that your YouTube and you should probably,
0:26:10you encode to all sorts of different formats.
0:26:12So why are you withholding this one format that's commonly available on this platform?
0:26:16I think both of those have valid arguments for and against.
0:26:20As a consumer, I just want it to work right and it's really frustrating that it doesn't work right.
0:26:27And I don't know, in the end, this is two big rich companies fighting while consumers lose.
0:26:35And that is stupid.
0:26:37So I hope it works out one way or another,
0:26:39but it does feel like they're in this intractable position right now
0:26:43where Apple doesn't want to put their codec on the devices
0:26:48and YouTube doesn't want to re-encode all that 4K video in a different format.
0:26:51And so we sit here.
0:26:53Yeah, I feel like Apple should support VP9 in the same way that I believe in Android
0:27:00there is support for the high image format, HEIF, and H-E-S-E or whatever that is.
0:27:08You know, like the way that Apple encodes photos and videos.
0:27:10Like if devices don't have that support, they should have them in
0:27:13because that's important for people sharing content.
0:27:15But I feel like the onus is on Apple really
0:27:19because if Google have chosen VP9 to encode their YouTube videos,
0:27:23it's a lot more work to ask Google to change the codec that they use
0:27:29than it is for, you know, I'm assuming Apple to add this support to the operating system.
0:27:34And I think the argument that if I had to rule on this,
0:27:37if I was the judge in the case of Apple v. Google on this point,
0:27:41I think what I would say is Apple as the maker of a device
0:27:47that is designed for 4K playback should be making every effort
0:27:52to support all the 4K codecs so that it can play all the 4K video that's available.
0:27:57And this isn't some rinky-dink streaming service that they're supporting here.
0:28:01Yeah, YouTube made a decision that they don't like, but you're right.
0:28:05The result for YouTube is re-encode every single 4K video in a different format to please Apple.
0:28:13And could they? Sure, sure, of course they could.
0:28:17I remember when YouTube has done that in the past where they've done a mass re-encode
0:28:20and over the course of months everything got encoded in a new format.
0:28:24But here we are, like, Apple's making 4K, the Apple TV 4K is sitting there
0:28:31and it can't play 4K YouTube and that's dumb.
0:28:34And I think it makes Apple's product worse.
0:28:37So I agree that if I had to pick, I would pick saying to Apple,
0:28:44"You guys should just do this." Like, what do you care about more?
0:28:48The giving a little bit of a boost to a codec that you don't like but is out there
0:28:53and isn't going away versus one you do like which is also out there and is also not going away.
0:28:59Or having your product not be as good because it doesn't play content from one provider.
0:29:07Like, is that a failing of the provider or of you? Who's going to get blamed for that?
0:29:10The answer is you're going to get blamed.
0:29:12Why do all the other boxes play this YouTube content at 4K and my Apple TV doesn't?
0:29:17Well, whose fault is that? It's Apple's fault.
0:29:20I mean, from a consumer perspective, I think that's what you end up feeling is like,
0:29:24why does one box not do it and all the rest do?
0:29:27So, I don't know. But I hate it though.
0:29:30I would like both of these companies to get over themselves
0:29:33and just let people watch the content they want on the device that they want.
0:29:37CustomerSat would be off the charts if they added this.
0:29:40Sure. Aha. If you're working at Apple, you got to know that one of your slides
0:29:45in your presentation about why you have to do something to Tim is to talk about CustomerSat.
0:29:49That's like, that's funny, but that's true.
0:29:52I think I suspect it is.
0:29:55That's funny, but if you are trying to sell something to him,
0:29:58clearly CustomerSatisfaction is the thing you want to put on the slide deck.
0:30:01I mean, I like that approach, but also if you're in a company that's as successful as Apple,
0:30:07saying, "All right, I want to do this because look, we sell a lot of computers.
0:30:12We sell a lot of iPhones." It's like, yeah, I know we sell a lot of iPhones,
0:30:16but can you talk about whether this thing is going to improve our customer's satisfaction rates
0:30:22or the likelihood that they'll buy another one?
0:30:24Talk to me about that. I get it. I get it.
0:30:27We kid Tim Cook with his CustomerSat buzzword, but there is something admirable
0:30:32about trying to focus on whether your customers like the products you sell them
0:30:35rather than just that you manage to sell one to them.
0:30:38But certainly on the inside, you got to think that that is like,
0:30:42know your audience, right? This is going to improve CustomerSat.
0:30:46Right, Tim? Right? CustomerSat? Yeah?
0:30:50Here's something that will probably increase my CustomerSat with Apple's upcoming streaming service.
0:30:56Apple have ordered a show from the creators of Always-- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
0:31:02The show will be created by Rob McElhenney. I think that's how you pronounce his surname.
0:31:07I think so. And Charlie Day, who play Mac and Charlie.
0:31:14His name's Charlie and the show, right? I have no idea.
0:31:18Have you never seen this show? I have never seen It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, no.
0:31:22Interesting. Okay. All right. It's a very good show.
0:31:26I don't know if you would like it though. Mm-hmm.
0:31:30I think is the way that I would say that. I like it very much.
0:31:33I don't know if you would like it. This show will be set in a video game studio
0:31:39and counts Ubisoft as a co-producer, which is really interesting
0:31:44and I don't know what that means. Will they be working at Ubisoft?
0:31:50What is that? It's actually something that gives me this--
0:31:54I'm like, "Hmm. Yeah." Yeah. You see creators of a show that's been very successful,
0:31:59long-running comedy on cable, and now they're doing this.
0:32:04And it's like, "All right. Another collaboration from those guys. That's a really good get by Apple."
0:32:09And then you hear it's set at a video game studio and one of the producers is a video game studio.
0:32:14And you're like, "What does that mean? Is that going to be a really weird forced connection
0:32:22or is it more that the creators had this really clever idea
0:32:27and they wanted to consult with somebody who actually understands it
0:32:30or who could give them assets or whatever?"
0:32:33That's the mystery to me. Is this a little bit of creative poison
0:32:38that will make this show feel gross and wrong
0:32:42or is it just a side effect of the idea of the show?
0:32:47And until we see it, I guess we won't know.
0:32:49I'm willing to believe it's the second, purely because these guys are very successful
0:32:54and they probably have a lot of opportunities that come their way now.
0:32:58I would be surprised if they would sell something down the river in this way, right?
0:33:02- That they end up-- - I agree. I agree.
0:33:06It seems to me that I'm more likely to err on the side of Ubisoft is involved
0:33:12for a really good creative reason that will become apparent when the show airs.
0:33:17McElhenney will star in the show, which is set to be a 30-minute comedy series.
0:33:22Now, if you've ever seen It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia or know much about the show,
0:33:26this should answer any questions about Apple's approach to mature entertainment.
0:33:31- Yeah, right? Right? - Well, I will say that
0:33:34McElhenney has, I think, either has or is going to write either the Minecraft movie
0:33:42or the Lego movie or at least was signed on for one of those and is eventually not doing it.
0:33:49Yeah, he is announced to write the Minecraft movie.
0:33:54So if that comes to pass, that's clearly a movie for kids.
0:33:59So they have that ability, but I can't imagine him writing a 30-minute comedy
0:34:08with Charlie Day that wasn't mature in some way.
0:34:13- Right. - But it depends what route they're going to go down.
0:34:16Because again, it's like they're clearly very good at that stuff, writing in that way,
0:34:22that they must have lots of opportunities to make shows like that
0:34:27and that this show could be made on FX, for example, and be adult in nature.
0:34:34So my expectation is this probably does err on the mature side,
0:34:38which I think at this point, at least if you listen to this show enough,
0:34:42you would have a good sense that Apple are not going to really be very shy about their content.
0:34:49I think that they have, at this point, signed on enough creators and enough types of shows
0:34:55which would indicate that they were going to make some mature content anyway.
0:34:59You would expect that at least one of their space shows would be Game of Thrones-y in that way.
0:35:05Or at least violence was going to occur.
0:35:09But this is just another big signing for Apple.
0:35:15It's as if all the different streaming services are just doing a big draft with real money.
0:35:20It does feel like this. To snap up all of the creative talent they can.
0:35:25Alright, it is membership time. It is that time of year, it is August.
0:35:31If you have listened to our show for long enough, or any Real AFM show for long enough,
0:35:36you will know that Real AFM does offer a membership program
0:35:39so you can give us money to support the shows that you love.
0:35:42And in August is basically the only time that we ever talk about that
0:35:46because we do bonus content during this time.
0:35:49So if you become a Real AFM member, this is what you will get access to.
0:35:53There's a bunch of members-only exclusive things, like a monthly behind the scenes newsletter,
0:35:58you get 5K desktop wallpapers of Real AFM show artwork,
0:36:02there is a monthly Real AFM host crossover show that Steven hosts
0:36:06where he brings together two Real AFM hosts that are not on the same show
0:36:09and asks them some questions about something that they both care about.
0:36:13It's a fun kind of crossover.
0:36:15But the biggest thing that we talk about right now is if you will also get access to our bonus episodes feed.
0:36:23So throughout August and September, a bunch of Real AFM shows put out special content,
0:36:28there's crossovers and fun things.
0:36:31If you have been listening to any of these before, you've been a member in the past,
0:36:35you will know that Upgrade and Cortex crossover to do a text adventure every year.
0:36:41We've done two of them. We are doing the third this year.
0:36:45It is called Space Station. It is a space-themed adventure.
0:36:50It was previously described to us as hard. It is hard.
0:36:55We actually have a trailer for Space Station, which we're going to play at the very end of this week's episode,
0:37:02so make sure you stick around for that.
0:37:04And it is going to be published on Friday the 17th of August.
0:37:09So it's going to be this Friday, if you want to see it.
0:37:12But it will be in the feed. If you subscribe now or you subscribe later, you get sent a link to the RSS feed.
0:37:21So you can subscribe in your podcast app of choice and you can subscribe now and you can pick it up or you can pick it up later.
0:37:27And all of the previous bonuses that all of the shows have ever done are in that feed.
0:37:31So if you subscribe now and you want to listen to our Western and our Spooky versions of the text adventures that we've done in the past,
0:37:40Spooky Manor and Six Gun Showdown, you can go and listen to those.
0:37:44I actually recommend that you do go and listen to those.
0:37:48So you can show your support for this show or any show by going to relay.fm/membership.
0:37:55But if you do go to relay.fm/upgrade, you can sign up and give your money direct to the show or you can support all of the shows by going to relay.fm/membership.
0:38:04It is important to note that we changed the URL of the feed that we used this year.
0:38:10So if you're an active member, you will have gotten an email about that.
0:38:14If you've previously cancelled your membership, you'll need to sign up again to get the new feed.
0:38:18If you have any problems with that, you can email us and we'll sort it out for you.
0:38:23But make sure that you have the new feed or please go and sign up.
0:38:26And I just want to say that we both really, really appreciate your support.
0:38:31If you give money for this show or any show, it just helps.
0:38:35It helps us. Both me and Jason are supported.
0:38:39I am entirely and I think Jason is in a large part due to podcasts and a big part of that is our membership.
0:38:46So it helps us.
0:38:48We are obviously an advertising-focused business, but knowing that we have a baseline of support that comes in every month is really, really important to us.
0:38:58So thank you for that.
0:39:00I want to go back on a couple of points.
0:39:03I want to restate the idea that you get everything from the previous ones when you sign up.
0:39:07So that's a great value. It's not like you're cut off from the previous two years now of doing that.
0:39:13And you said it was very hard and that made me chuckle because I just listened back to the draft version of what will be posted on Friday and was laughing at how gentle I was with you guys.
0:39:28Oh, interesting.
0:39:30Oh yeah. I was like, "Oh man, I took it so easy on you two."
0:39:35Okay. It was harder.
0:39:38It was harder.
0:39:40We did our best with it, but it's definitely harder.
0:39:43And you guys are also, in some cases, you were your own worst enemy because one of the things that I love, and that's why they're so entertaining to listen to, is that you and Gray are worried that everything is going to be a trap.
0:39:57Right.
0:39:59Some of the most innocuous things, you're like, "Okay, I don't know if we can do this," which is great. I felt like you were making your own difficulty, so I didn't need to ramp up the difficulty on my end. You took care of it.
0:40:13Well, so the thing is, this is PTSD for us, right? From the original, from Six Gun Showdown, but we were just rolling through our lives and then things just kept jumping out and killing us. So we're always scared that something's going to come out and kill us, I think.
0:40:29So yeah, go and listen to that by signing up. So go to relay.fm/upgrade and you can pledge to give this show some money. But no matter what you decide to do, no matter what show you support, you can support any show, you can support all of the shows, you'll get access to everything.
0:40:45So all of the bonus content is available to you.
0:40:48And on that note, every year, me and Stephen do a Q&A. We do this in August because it's relay.fm's birthday and we're about to celebrate our fourth birthday this weekend.
0:41:00So we're going to be doing on this coming episode of Connected, so this week's episode of Connected is going to feature our relay.fm Q&A.
0:41:10So if you have any questions about relay.fm or podcasting in general, just tweet with the hashtag #RelayQA and we'll pick those up and we'll be selecting a large portion of those to answer on the show. So there you go. Thank you for that.
0:41:24Now, Jason, we have some breaking news.
0:41:26There was a new beta of iOS today, iOS 12, and group FaceTime has been removed from the initial release of iOS 12 and will ship in a future software update later in the fall.
0:41:42Are we going to see AirPlay 2 here, do you think? Let me tell you. What is your experience of group FaceTime?
0:41:51Well, this was my initial reaction to seeing this, which was to say I have tried group FaceTime a few times and therefore I understand why they're doing this and it seems like a smart move to me.
0:42:03Because it was really buggy and weird and saying, I applaud them for saying we can't ship this to everybody with the final version. It's still too weird and buggy and we need some more time to let it cook.
0:42:18I think that's a good move because it was, you know, again, could you use it? Sure. But it was weird and buggy and I think it's a good idea to say we're going to put our best foot forward here so we're not going to enable this feature at launch for iOS 12.
0:42:34Yeah, I think that it's a shame, but I understand, right?
0:42:40Yeah, I mean, if you're going to do it, you want to do it right. The last thing they want is to do group FaceTime and have everybody's first experience with it be a disaster.
0:42:48And then even if they fix it and say, no, no, no, it's better now, everybody will be like, no, group FaceTime didn't work. It was stupid. Remember that. So better to just take it out until it works better.
0:42:57And I think my use of it so far has been that it doesn't work right. Really, basically, I've never participated in a group FaceTime that was fully functional.
0:43:08Yeah. And it's intriguing to me that they said it's going to come later this fall.
0:43:16I feel like should you say that? You'll be real confident, like if you're going to say that it's going to come later this fall.
0:43:23Right. Right.
0:43:24You're expecting confidence that maybe AirPlay 2 didn't give you. I mean, I'm sure these are very, very different challenges, but it would be much easier to just say in a future version of iOS 12 rather than later this fall.
0:43:42Yeah.
0:43:43My only feeling on this is that they really want to use this as a way to show off the next iPhone somehow. I don't know. Like, I can't work out why you do it, but I guess we'll see.
0:43:54And I hope it does work because it should be a very good feature, especially with all the Memoji stuff. So there you go. Some breaking news.
0:44:02Jason, after talking about it for the last couple of weeks, you were kind of saying, oh, maybe I should buy an Xbox at some point.
0:44:10You went out and bought an Xbox. You have an Xbox.
0:44:12I did. I did. This is the, the slippery slope continues. Remember last week I said I bought a 4k TV and that led to taking a lot of furniture that we'd had for more than a decade and putting it out on the street with a sign labeled free on it.
0:44:30It's all gone now, by the way, they took everything. But that meant, you know, so we bought new furniture, which cost like twice as much as the TV did.
0:44:41And then I lamented also that, that getting 4k HDR movies is complicated and that like the Marvel and Disney stuff doesn't, isn't available on iTunes and you can't buy it on movies anywhere and have a 4k play on, on iTunes.
0:44:58But you can do some stuff on Voodoo and you can buy the 4k Blu-ray disc and use the code and then that'll play on Voodoo.
0:45:05And it's just kind of this whole mess. And I mentioned that 4k Blu-ray discs are intriguing because the bit rate's way higher than anything that's going to stream like streaming 4k.
0:45:13You're losing a lot because the bit rate just can't be that high. But I didn't want to buy a 4k Blu-ray player because that seemed dumb.
0:45:20Then I realized, but what I could do is buy a new Xbox. Replace my existing Xbox, not go up a box. I don't want another box.
0:45:29Yeah. Games consoles are always the best new media players because they're not just new media players, right? Like it's not just a high definition Blu-ray player. It's also a games console.
0:45:40Let's say I don't love the fact that when I'm watching a movie on the Xbox, I have to pick up an Xbox controller and wake it up in order to play or pause. That's dumb.
0:45:50Although I think it'll do infrared. So I think I can, I can do infrared signals for that. And I'm going to program that into my Logitech harmony, but it is a little bit weird, but you're right.
0:45:58Like in terms of not having a unitasker, like I just, I'm not going to buy a standalone 4k Blu-ray. It's like we got rid of our Blu-ray players.
0:46:04We just use games consoles when we need to use a disc, but there is a big benefit in using a 4k disc in that the bit rate is so much better than anything that's streaming.
0:46:15And that was enough. So yeah. And what happened was the day after our show, I think a listener pointed out that Microsoft had just done a new promo where they were going to do a rebate.
0:46:29Basically you could turn in your old Xbox or any other console basically, and they would give you money toward a new Xbox.
0:46:36And it's also, my son had his birthday party last week and he loves video games. So I had that moment of like, you know, I could do this.
0:46:45So I took my external USB drive. I copied all of the files and settings off of the old Xbox and wiped it and went to the Microsoft store and got a, and I decided to get the Xbox one X because my son will really appreciate the 4k and graphics and all that.
0:47:02And if I'm going to buy a new Xbox, I might as well get the good one so that it's got a nice long life on our beautiful 4k TV.
0:47:08And I got, I got money back for the other Xbox one, which was great, which I think I bought used. So like, I think, I think I did okay there.
0:47:17And that means that I can watch those beautiful 4k movies and he can play games.
0:47:22And what I told my wife is the present I give to you is there's not another box in the house. And she was like, Oh, good, good, good, good.
0:47:29Yes. That is a present for me. Cause she just, I bought another box and attached it to the TV. Like all the other boxes. She's like, no, no, no, no more boxes. So that's, that's all done. So, so yeah.
0:47:38I, uh, so now we have the, uh, a newer Xbox one with fancy graphics and it'll play my black Panther, uh, U UHD Blu-ray and it looks beautiful.
0:47:51And, uh, yeah, that, so, but again, more money so that the TV is a bargain it's 9 99 97. Did we say it's 3 cents under a thousand and it's cost me so much money in ancillary products at this point.
0:48:03I'm way over the 3 cents now. Yeah. Oh man. You just blew that budget right out. Huh? 3 cent budgets gone. And what a shame. Um, do you have any real opinions about the Xbox?
0:48:18Not really. Um, like I said, my, my son does most of the game playing on it. Uh, I will say like for 4k gaming, it is the leader right now. So it is, it outputs true 4k where the PS4 pro doesn't really, um, or at least the games are in true 4k.
0:48:40The Xbox games are in true 4k, which I think the PS4 pros games aren't like you, you do get a better, uh, 4k experience from the Xbox than you do the PlayStation is my understanding.
0:48:52He was very deep into it, right? It's kind of like, I would expect it is pretty similar to how 4k streaming to 4k from the discs is kind of what you're looking at between the PlayStation and the Xbox.
0:49:04So you did make the right decision, uh, in regards to gaming, but I know that wasn't the reason, but like, you know, you, you have at least got the best 4k console. The problem was though.
0:49:18I mean, part of the motivation was that it's got the 4k HDR TV. Um, and wanted to do something nice for my son on his birthday. Yeah. Had this other interest in it that was set off by getting the 4k TV and wanting the disc support.
0:49:31And it just felt like, oh, well, this makes sense that I can make him happy. I can make me happy. And, uh, and he and his friends, most, you know, most of his friends are playing on Xbox.
0:49:41He has a friend who just moved away and they're Xbox buddies. So it's like upgrading the Xbox seems like a, seems like a good way to do it.
0:49:49The only thing in, uh, the only, the only problem against the Xbox, which is a pretty big problem is all of the really good exclusives are on PlayStation.
0:49:58Now they X Microsoft are doing an immense amount of work to solve this problem. Like for example, they just bought five game studios. Yes, they did. Right. So like, you know, they're making a lot of efforts.
0:50:11Um, and I think their best effort that they, that Microsoft have right now in making, uh, your experience worth it is something called the Xbox game pass, which is like Netflix, but for video games.
0:50:27Um, so they have over a hundred games and it's nine 99 a month. And you get like a bunch of really, there's some really good games in this, like rocket league and fallout four, sea of thieves, doom.
0:50:42There's a lot of really good games in this. What makes it extra good is any exclusive, any Xbox exclusive gets added to the game pass. The day is released.
0:50:54So fortsa, which is their big driving game fortsa horizon four is coming out soon. Um, that will be added to this nine 99 a month pass immediately. Now that's unprecedented in this type of stuff. You know, there are, there have been a lot of attempts at this in the past.
0:51:10That's really great. But again, the problem with is there are not a lot of console exclusives, but then they're working on it and Microsoft are really working on it and they're trying to make it a better experience because Microsoft have lost this round of, of, uh, console.
0:51:26They've lost in the console wars here because you've got Sony's got all the really big exclusives in the big, the biggest games, or at least they have all of the big games, the same way the Microsoft do. And then, uh, Nintendo have captured all of the minds, the minds.
0:51:42And it is believed that there have been more switches sold than there have been, uh, Xbox ones sold. Sure. Um, or at least if that hasn't happened yet, it will happen. Like Nintendo just reported that they sold 20 million switches so far and are expecting to sell another 20 million over the next year.
0:52:00And what's funny is that it just, it has worked out this way that we have a switch and an Xbox one. And, uh, so it's hard for PlayStation because again, there's the new, new boxes rule.
0:52:12So until the point where we put the Wii U to rest, which is hard because we have such a massive catalog of games that the kids love to play even now on the Wii and the Wii U that play on that thing, that, um, I think we're just not a PlayStation forward kind of house.
0:52:30And, and I kind of don't care. You have made the best decision for your set of circumstances, especially for the fact that your son and his friends already play on Xbox. It's like, you should never have bought the PlayStation.
0:52:42You know what I mean? That would have been a very bad idea. I was just merely kind of laying out the landscape, but you have actually kind of the reverse Syracuse. Yes, I guess you are.
0:52:51You have bought into the Xbox at the right point though, because Microsoft have now realized their problem and they are taking great steps to try and fix it.
0:53:00Yeah. You know, so this is the larger point here, which is that, uh, saying like, all right, Microsoft's going to take care of this. Like I just, and I realized this is dumb, but as a long time Apple person, I am just uneasy about every interaction I have with Microsoft.
0:53:22And for no good reason, like I went to the Microsoft store, I've been in the Microsoft store a couple of times before I went to the Microsoft store.
0:53:30Were you hoping nobody would see you in there? Did you wear a disguise?
0:53:34I felt like either a like spy who, who was going to be found out and I did, I took out my iPhone. I'm like, yeah, but you know, come on. Uh, or, or like a trader, like, why are you in the Microsoft store? You everybody get your rocks, throw the rocks at the guy who's the trader.
0:53:55I'm glad that Syracuse walks past, like he's somehow in California, he walks past the mall. He would never, he would never know it would be like me coming out of, of, uh, of the store with my Xbox and bumping into John Syracuse.
0:54:10And I'm like, John, what are you doing here? And he would just shake his head and walk away. Yeah. That was playing in my mind really. Yeah. It was, it was super weird. I did get to play. I played with the, um, the new Surface Go a little bit while they were getting me set up.
0:54:24And that's tiny. Well, it is a beautiful piece of hardware. It's like taking an, it's almost like taking an 11 inch Mac book air, something that size or a little bit smaller. And then again, you know, except it's a, it's sort of like a tablet with a, with a, with a keyboard add on, like an iPad keyboard, the surface keyboard is.
0:54:45Um, and my thought is like, I would love a device like this to travel with that's a computer and a tablet, but it doesn't run either my preferred computer or tablet operating system. So it's exactly what I don't want.
0:54:59Here's the thing, right? Like I have, I've been watching some reviews of like the Surface Go and stuff, and I'm like really intrigued by it. What I, I tell you what I want to do. I want to switch to it for a week to like try it and like talk about it on this show or something.
0:55:13But I am, I don't want to spend a thousand dollars to do that because that's kind of what you need to spend to go all in on it. Right. Cause it starts out cheap, but it starts out cheap with a like super slow storage and no keyboard, no pen.
0:55:27Yeah. This is one of those, those examples of where Microsoft is willing to sell you something that is not a great product to get to that low price. And then if you want something that's appreciably better, you are now, you know, you're now going to, it's no longer a cheap product, but it is an intriguing product.
0:55:44And I think I am kind of fascinated by it and, you know, turning it to an Apple perspective as I often do. I do have that moment where I think, yeah, but imagine if this was like an iPad or a Mac with an iPad app layer or something like that.
0:56:00Imagine where this was the tablet operating system that I wanted or the computer operating system that I wanted. But neither of those is actually true. And, and when I talk, you know, I, I have not spent massive amounts of time and with windows 10, I haven't installed.
0:56:17I spent some time with it. I'm very confused by it because I learned how to use windows XP basically. And all future versions of windows are like, wait a second, what's happening here. But I will say this, the, um, it is, uh, the people who know about this stuff say it's still not great as a tablet.
0:56:36Like it's, you know, you can get around in the tablet mode, but really it's a PC. It's really still a PC. And, uh, you know, I I'm sure Microsoft is pushing in that direction that there's some people who like holding it as a tablet, but like I like my iPad as a tablet.
0:56:52I want it to be a tablet and a good tablet when I want it to be a tablet. And then I want to attach it to a keyboard and get work done that way. And that's, that's a challenge for Apple because they've got the two different operating systems that they're, that they're trying to put together. Whereas Microsoft is trying to get the context to switch in the single operating system, which is a different kind of challenge.
0:57:10But as, as a piece of hardware goes, it's great to see it because that's the kind of hardware that Apple is not making, uh, because they kind of can't right now, although maybe soon they could. Um, but it was, that was fascinating. And I also got to spend a little bit of time with the surface studio, which again, I'm not entirely sure the ergonomics of it, but, um, it is kind of cool to have a big, like I Mac like screen that you can just kind of put your hands on. Yeah.
0:57:35So interesting to me.
0:57:36And this is, this is the case where, you know, I think, I think some of Apple success limits their ability to do, um, little weird products and see what happens to them that they, uh, Apple has so much success and, and I think so much pride.
0:57:53There's so much scrutiny of them that, um, they test a bunch of stuff in house, but they're really conservative with what they release. And there are strong arguments that that's the right approach, but it is funny to see Microsoft just out there experimenting with all of these different variations of hardware.
0:58:11Um, and, and some of them are interesting. Now they may some, a lot of them may end up being kind of a very limited appeal to the point where for, from an Apple perspective, it would be a flop.
0:58:23Um, but maybe from a Microsoft perspective, it's, uh, they can get away with that because they're, they're appealing to that kind of audience. I don't know. Anyway, it felt super weird being in the Microsoft store.
0:58:33Um, it's never as crowded as the Apple store, but the people were very nice and they didn't know about the trade in offer. And so I pointed them at the Xbox Twitter feed and they're like, Oh yeah, okay.
0:58:44And then they calculated out how much money I got back and it was, uh, it was fine. Um, yeah, he literally the guy was like, Oh, we don't have it. I don't think we have any specials like that, but we can trade it in for recycling.
0:58:55And I said, no, you should check you do. It was on the Xbox Twitter account yesterday. And they're like, Oh, okay. And he was like, Oh yeah, here it is. Okay, great. And then we, uh, we put it together.
0:59:06So, uh, anyway, yeah, it was weird. Um, and, and not Syracuse approved, right? John's like, no Microsoft things in my house, but, uh, for us, uh, especially, I mean, like literally with my son's birthday and not to get into it too deeply, but like my son's birthday party was also basically the going away party for his best friend.
0:59:24Who's moving to Minnesota and they play video games together. So it was also a little bit of an investment in, um, making that experience continue to be great.
0:59:35Was it a surprise? The game, the Xbox? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really good. Yeah. I mean, we had the Xbox original, right? But, but he came home and we turned it on and he was like, Whoa, wait a second. I'm like, yeah.
0:59:48Happy birthday, buddy.
0:59:50Yeah. And that comes with a month of game pass. So he's, he's actually, and this is the last couple of weeks before school starts. So that's been great. Cause he's got time to, uh, download, download sea of thieves and try it out.
1:00:01If he wants to, which is really fun, really fun game. I like that a lot.
1:00:05All right, let's take a break and thank instabug. The new, new sponsor of upgrade here. Instabug is a lightweight SDK that provides more than 20,000 companies with bug and crash reports from users and testers.
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1:02:02Okay, so summer fun time. You thought it had gone away. It doesn't go away. It runs all the way through the summer. Considering we just spent some time talking about a games console, why don't we talk about some of our favorite video games of all time?
1:02:19And I can see our list. If you want, and this is going to like almost if you cut into a tree, you can see.
1:02:28Are you saying I'm a tree? No, cause this is for both of us. I think for some of my, some of mine too. Cut into a tree. You can, you can tell how old the tree is by looking at the rings in the tree.
1:02:39Some of our video game picks here are like almost the rings in our tree where you can guess our ages a little bit from this. I think.
1:02:49So, uh, should we do this in, in almost draft style? We'll just go one each until we're through our lists here. These are not comprehensive lists, but I've tried to pick out kind of, uh, as I'm sure you have to, something that shows the breadth of our picks from all ages of consoles, um, all ages of platforms and the types of games that we like.
1:03:11And I'm going to start off, which is probably, I think I'm pretty confident in saying my favorite video game of all time. Um, and I'm trying to adjust for recency bias, but it still doesn't matter when I do.
1:03:24Uh, Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild. It's the perfect video game is why I love it so much.
1:03:31Um, I don't want to say too much about this right now because, uh, we are going to be discussing, uh, the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild on playing for fun.
1:03:41It's going to be our episode, which will be out in like a week or two. So if you don't listen to playing for fun, it's a show I do with Tiff Arment where we pick a video game that we both love and we talk about it with just the good stuff.
1:03:51We don't talk about bad things on the show. We just talk about things that we love about video games. So, um, but, but Breath of the Wild is in the front of my mind right now because of that.
1:04:01I think it was really the perfect storm of game and console. You know, it was the launch game for the Switch and the Switch gave me the video game console of my dreams, which was one console, the same games on home and home.
1:04:20And portable, right? Like it was perfect. And the Legend of Zelda being this massive world on this tiny console that I could play on a plane just only added to my overall love of this video game.
1:04:34I've played many open-world video games. I have a couple more open-world video games in my list here because I do really like these big worlds where you can go about and make your own game in.
1:04:44I really like making my own game inside of a video game. It's one of my favorite things to do in a good video game.
1:04:50And I've never played a game like this.
1:04:54The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild has the most living world of any game I've ever played.
1:05:02You just sometimes feel like you're stumbling into something, which you never really feel with video games. Even open-world games, they always feel like, oh, this is happening.
1:05:10I've seen many videos of this and it's happened to me where you're fighting a huge monster and you're kind of backing off and then it somehow bumps into another big monster and then you fight each other.
1:05:22Like, what is going on? It's an incredible video game. I love it. Breath of the Wild, that's my first in my favorite video games of all time.
1:05:30I've not ordered the rest of this list, by the way.
1:05:33Yeah, I haven't ordered my list at all. So I'm going to start with a great Mac game. So now I'm channeling my inner Syracuse.
1:05:42There is probably not a game I've invested more time in than Marathon on the Mac in the '90s.
1:05:53Now, for those who don't go that far back, this is the game that the Bungie guys made before they made Halo. And it is kind of like Halo Zero in a way.
1:06:04It is a first-person shooter with multiplayer as well as a story mode that led them to make Halo.
1:06:14It's the reason that they made Halo, the reason they got bought by Microsoft. And it is... I played, I think, most of the single players through.
1:06:26I'm not sure if I got to the end of all of them, but I got to the end of some of them. And then this was my multiplayer game of choice.
1:06:33Back in the day, with Marathon, it was on LAN, and we would just play at the Mac user office, especially, '95, '96. End of the day, traffic's really bad.
1:06:46Some of us couldn't really even bother going home because the traffic was so bad. And we would get on a conference call on speakerphone and then play Marathon.
1:06:55That's really cool. I like that. That's a nice memory of a video game.
1:07:00The maps were great. The maps that they made for Marathon were great. And then there was a third-party map-making app, and there was a map-making community on the internet.
1:07:10And we would download these maps, and most of them were garbage, let's be honest. But every now and then there'd be one where we'd be like, "Oh yeah, let's play that again."
1:07:18And my favorite one that was a good palate cleanser was called Kill Fest, You Can't Run. And it was a tiny room full of ammunition.
1:07:25And it was just chaos. It was complete chaos. And all we would do is laugh at how ridiculous the game was.
1:07:32But some of them were brilliant. The way they built it, the idea was that they were kind of like portals.
1:07:38Actually, a little bit like Portal, not quite, but these kind of permanent portals. So you'd have different angles that you could go in when you stepped between a portal.
1:07:47And so there'd be kind of different worlds, and you'd have to chase people between different worlds. Really good.
1:07:52And I'll mention as an honorable mention that I almost said Halo 1 here, which I played all the way through on my Mac.
1:08:00And I played huge amounts of multiplayer on that. And at that point it was on the internet with random strangers for the most part.
1:08:08And those Halo 1 maps, I mean, I have them memorized. I love them.
1:08:13And being on the internet on the server with people you didn't know back in the day, that was revelatory because now all of a sudden I could play 8 on 8 team Halo.
1:08:23Because there were always 15 other people who were interested in playing it along with me.
1:08:30And those maps were so amazing. So that was an experience that I will also never forget. So just like a sort of some love for Bungie right there.
1:08:39I'm going to go with Super Mario Bros. 3. It's just an incredible 2D side-scrolling Mario game. It's my favorite of that style of Mario game.
1:08:52It's the one that I have the fondest memories for as a kid. You know, getting the Tanooki Mario and then you can swipe at things and fly.
1:09:01Yeah, that was my favorite of those Marios before it went into the SNES, the SNES.
1:09:09Did you see recently that Nintendo confirmed that it is pronounced "Nes" and not "Nes"? Anyway, they officially confirmed that in some exhibition somewhere.
1:09:19Nintendo does this every now and then, where they're like "Oh, Mario's not a plumber anymore." Or like "Toad's head is a hat" or something like that.
1:09:29They have these pieces of lore that they randomly confirm. Anyway, Super Mario Bros. 3, I love it. It's an absolute classic. I have such fond memories of that one as a kid.
1:09:42That's great. I'm going to really quickly go... I mentioned this not too long ago on this show because my son and I played this at the arcade earlier this summer over in Alameda.
1:09:56My favorite arcade game is Joust, which is where you're riding an ostrich and you're jousting with evil... what are they? Buzzards? I don't know.
1:10:08It's just the mechanic of the game where you have to be higher than them and you hit them and you knock them off. Then you have to pick up the egg that gets dropped because apparently when you kill a rider, they turn into an egg.
1:10:21Then if you wait too long, they hatch back out and get picked up, which is super weird as my son pointed out to me and I never really thought about it.
1:10:27As a result, you've got to flap and you can go fast or you can go slow. There's a really good physics engine there. It's simple but it's also complicated. Things get faster. They start dropping out terrain so you have to stay in the air longer. I love that game. It's my favorite arcade game.
1:10:43My favorite iOS game of all time is Threes. It is perfect when it comes to iOS games. I've been playing it for years and years and years and continue to. If you've never played Threes, you should play Threes. It's wonderful.
1:11:03Yeah, I've played it. It's great. Let me pick an Apple II game because part of what I do -- do you have any Apple II games on your list?
1:11:13Only four.
1:11:15Okay. We're into the inner rings now, Myke. I played a lot of games on my Apple II when I was in high school. My favorite was Lode Runner, which again, like Marathon, you could make your own levels, most of which were bad but occasionally there would be a really great level.
1:11:33It's a puzzle game but it's like an action puzzle game where you're a little guy and you run around and it's 2D and you can climb up ladders and you can go across pits on a vine. But basically what you're doing is you're digging.
1:11:47You need to dig holes to either drop your enemies in because if they touch you, you die, but also to move to other parts of the screen. You have to dig a bunch of holes and drop down into a hole and through into the next part of the screen.
1:12:00And as a result, usually as the mazes get harder, the maps get harder, there are very specific solutions and sequences you need to go in order to get through without dying.
1:12:12And it's a great combination of that. You know, action puzzler is a fun genre, the idea that you're thinking but you also have to move fast and if you wait too long, you will not succeed.
1:12:25And Lode Runner did that and I play that, that great game to play on a keyboard and I have that on an Apple II emulator and I call it up every now and then and play it because it's still really great.
1:12:36And I think actually it's one of those games that has been remade a bunch of times using high quality graphics and I'm not interested. I feel like it works like classic arcade games.
1:12:45It works as these little low quality bitmap dudes running around on a screen destroying bricks with their little zapper gun or whatever it is. I love it.
1:12:55Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, I'm going to go for versions 2 to 4 because it's an iterative game really and after 4 is where it started to get bad and I loved all of those versions pretty much equally.
1:13:09I really like the Tony Hawk's games. I've always enjoyed them as like a arcade-y sport game. I enjoy skateboarding games. I like a lot of the music that's in the games.
1:13:19It's a real shame that the Tony Hawk's franchise has kind of fell apart over the years and is nowhere near what it used to be.
1:13:30Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 specifically is always in people's top 20 lists. When you see the top 20 video games of all time or whatever it's very very frequently in there.
1:13:43And now the most recent games are just absolute garbage. I've always really enjoyed those games though. They've been a lot of fun over the years.
1:13:52I enjoyed growing up just pouring hours and hours and hours into trying to perfect the tricks. I like the skate games as well that are a more realistic take on skateboarding but Tony Hawk always wins out for me.
1:14:07I once found Julian and his friend, speaking of them playing video games together, taking turns at a Tony Hawk game and they're literally just basically jumping a skateboard off the edge of a building and falling to their death over and over and over again.
1:14:25And just laughing. It was hilarious. Let me pick an iOS game. I recently finished Alto's Odyssey. Played that all the way through.
1:14:36More than Adventure. You prefer it to Adventure.
1:14:38Yeah, the second one right? Yeah, I prefer the second one to the original. There's more. And the original I never played through to conclusion and this one I played through to conclusion. I felt like I was really good at this game and a lot of the games I play I feel like I'm terrible at it and I'm not among the top 80% of players.
1:15:03And Alto's Odyssey I felt like I'm among the top 5% of players at this game.
1:15:08You can stand tall in that game.
1:15:10Yeah, and I got to the end fairly quickly I think and I was really good and all my friends who were playing it were like "Oh my god, what happened? How do you have that score?" And I was like "You'll get there, right? You'll figure it out."
1:15:24But it was delightful to play. It was sort of relaxing but also challenging. And then the way it ended was beautiful where you get to the last one.
1:15:35And the last thing I had to do was basically just ride for a day or ride for two days or something like that. Which is in the game you see the sunset, you see the sunrise, right?
1:15:44And I had done the get huge number of points as my next to last challenge and the last challenge was just ride a long time.
1:15:53And that was great because at that point riding a long time is not the issue. If you can get the points you can ride for a long time.
1:16:00You dial it back, you don't have to try as hard to get points and you can just ride for a long time.
1:16:05And it led to a really wonderful experience of a long ride, I get to spend time with this game, kind of like one last time, go out, have a really nice run and then the game is over and then I closed it.
1:16:18And I was like, that was perfect. And I was done. But I loved the whole experience of it. It was beautiful, sounds great. I love both those games but Odyssey is the one that I really got to experience as somebody who figured out how to play the game and could play it really well.
1:16:34So I mentioned that I loved open world games where you got to make your own game, right? I mentioned that with Zelda. The game where I learned to do this was Gran Tertouto Vice City. Vice City is and will probably always be my favorite in the Gran Tertouto series.
1:16:52I love the setting. I loved the kind of 80s setting, the graphics, everything was really awesomely colored, right? It was all like pastel and neon. I loved the music in the game. This was the first time that they licensed music for a Gran Tertouto game.
1:17:09And it was incredible. They just had loads of really great 80s songs and they made these great radio stations. There was one I think I listened to, it was called Emotion. And it was just amazing. It had such great songs in it. Songs that have become some of my favorite songs now. I love the track list that they had.
1:17:27And once I completed the game, I spent probably at least a year continuing to play the game afterwards. Just driving around and picking the thing I wanted to go and do and just doing it. Like making my own objectives, driving around for a while, seeing a thing, exploring a thing.
1:17:44I really, really love this game. I really hope that one day they actually remake this game. I think it's, of all of the Gran Tertoutos, like the older ones, I feel like it's one that they could really, would be really amazing if they spent the time now to bring it up to modern standards.
1:18:02So yeah, that's my favorite and one of my favorite games of all time very easily is Gran Tertouto Vice City.
1:18:10All right, I'm going to go and again, feeling a lot of mentions of John Syracuse in this episode, but he's the one who raved and raved and raved about Journey. It's the reason that I bought a PS3. It's great. I mean, he's right. It is a spectacular game.
1:18:28It is beautiful to look at. The sound design is beautiful. The music is beautiful. It's easy to play, but there are challenges that engage your brain. It isn't very long, but it's wonderful.
1:18:42It is one of the only games that is linear that I have replayed because I wanted to have that experience again. I know people do that. I don't do that. And I did it with Journey a couple of times because it's a very beautiful and sort of special experience.
1:18:59So, you know, he's right. John Syracuse is right. Journey is one of my favorite games of all time, and I will listen to the soundtrack. And not only is the music beautiful, but the music makes me remember the parts of the game where the music played, which is, I think, for me, it's the only time I've ever done that with a video game soundtrack.
1:19:23So it's just a wonderful experience. It really is kind of like the standard bearer for that experience game. Journey is really, really amazing.
1:19:34I'm going to go in the complete opposite direction and pick Uncharted 4. Uncharted is a series, an action series, akin to something like Tomb Raider, but with really incredible cinematic sequences.
1:19:48Uncharted 4 is like part video game, part action movie. It really is just excellent. I love the story. It has a really great story in it with lots of twists and turns. The graphics are incredible. The acting is incredible. It really takes you along for the ride. It is excellent.
1:20:05If you have a PlayStation 4 and you have not played Uncharted 4, do yourself the kindness of buying and playing that game. It is wonderful. It's really, really good.
1:20:20I am going to go to the PlayStation 1, the second video game console that I ever had, the first being the original Atari 2600. I'm a sports fan. I like sports. I generally don't like video games.
1:20:39The drive in most sports video games is simulation, as close to reality as possible. Not interested in arcade simulation where you've got to kick a soccer ball around it or you've got to swing the bat and judge the fastball or the softball or whatever.
1:21:01Forget about that. Instead, the game that it turns out the sports game that I love the most as an arcade game is NFL Blitz 2000. There's your date. A completely unrealistic football game where you could choose plays and you could hit people and you could hit people after they were down and nobody cared and the referees didn't flag you.
1:21:21It's arcade football. It bore no resemblance to regular football but so much fun to play against a friend especially.
1:21:32It's like NBA Jam, which is a game that I've played. It is a basketball game but it is not a basketball simulation game. They have those games. NBA Jam is not that.
1:21:44This is just a ridiculous, fun, yes, that is exactly the idea. NFL Blitz 2000 for the PS1.
1:21:55I'm going to pick Stardew Valley next. What a wonderful game. I love Stardew Valley so much. It is a farming/relationship simulator. It's like a cross between Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon.
1:22:14Stardew Valley will take from you every minute you want to give it and then some more. It's just absolutely enthralling. I love it.
1:22:26We are talking about video games so I'll make another plug for a video game related thing that I do.
1:22:34Playing for Fun, which is the show that I mentioned earlier where we're talking about Zona next, we have a Twitch stream that we do. We have a Twitch channel and right now we are streaming the multiplayer update of Playing for Fun.
1:22:47So me and Tiff are playing Stardew Valley together. If that interests you, we have some videos you can go and watch there and you can follow so you'll be notified next time we play.
1:22:57Stardew Valley is a lifestyle. That thing will just get into your bones and all you want to do is play Stardew Valley. It's just superb. I love it so much.
1:23:14What I just said about sports games is how I don't want them to be realistic. I bought many different versions of Madden football. I bought baseball games. It doesn't work for me once it gets to be the simulation.
1:23:32Look, I was bad at sports. Do you have the reflexes to hit up baseball? No, I don't. Stop reminding me. NFL Blitz was great because it was super unrealistic.
1:23:44My favorite baseball game of all time was the Apple II game called SSI Computer Baseball. You were just the manager. You could input teams, you could input players, you could save the teams out on discs, you could play them against each other.
1:24:00It was a statistical simulation. The graphics were incredibly rudimentary, even for the Apple II if I'm being honest. You could pinch hit, you could set your lineups, you could bunt, you could set your defense, you could do all those things.
1:24:13Then the players would execute on the field connected to statistics. The updated version of this, which I've also played a lot, although not recently, is called Diamond Mind, which is a Windows app that is the modern equivalent of this.
1:24:26It's ultra simulated and you can buy seasoned discs that have every team that played in a particular season and you can have them play against each other. Or you can draft your own teams and make your own league, which a friend of mine and I did.
1:24:40That was a lot of fun too. Baseball simulation stuff, nerdy stuff. Don't make me hit the fastball because I can't hit it.
1:24:47Let's make our last picks. I'm going to pick Portal. Portal is just one of the greatest puzzle games ever made.
1:24:56It is one of the greatest games ever and I can't believe I didn't put it on my list.
1:24:59It's incredible. It's just such a great puzzle game and Born in Such an Interesting Way is just part of a three in one pack that Valve put out. You have a gun that can shoot portals and you have to traverse through the environment.
1:25:19You have to get from the beginning to the end of a room and everything that entails with shooting a portal here and then shooting one over there and trying to find your way from point A to point B.
1:25:30It really is just a mind-bending, wonderful experience. I love Portal so much.
1:25:36I'm going to conclude with an absolutely ridiculous choice, which is Superman for the Atari 2600. If you look at this game, you'll be like, "There's a blob and then there's some other blobs?"
1:25:51It's like, "Okay." It was the Atari 2600. It looked really bad. But what it was is you're Superman and you've got to fly around and you've got to save various people and you've got to stop Lex Luthor.
1:26:03I don't remember all the details, but it was like a whole series of things you did and you didn't even get a score. It was a time. If you got to the end, the whole idea was what was your time?
1:26:15The reason I pick it, not because it's a good game, not because I have played it since 1981 because I'm certain I haven't, it's because it was the first video game I ever mastered.
1:26:27I could win Superman in a minute five or something like that, which again, I'm confident that I was one of the best players of this game in the world.
1:26:38Maybe top 5%, top 10%. I'm not saying I was the best. I'm sure somebody out there was like, "Oh yeah, but you can win Superman in 58 seconds."
1:26:44But it was the game where once I figured out how you beat it, and this is super rare for me. I know people do this, but completely rare for me.
1:26:51I kept replaying it and shaving off time and figuring out you could just do this and this and this and this and this and be done.
1:26:59And so it was the very first video game that I felt like I mastered. And again, once I got to that minute or whatever, I just never played it again.
1:27:08But my friend Greg, when he found all his Atari cartridges in his attic and was getting rid of all of them, he had heard me talk about this game and he sent me the cartridge.
1:27:18So I have the cartridge, not to play it, it just amuses me. Every time I see it, I'm like, "Oh yeah, Superman on the Atari 2600." I was really good at that.
1:27:27And it fills me full of warm feelings. And I had to pick an Atari 2600 game because that was how I started playing video games.
1:27:33That was the one where I had to convince my parents it wasn't going to break the TV to hook up a video game console to a television.
1:27:38And that was my entry into the world of video games.
1:27:42Just do some cursory Googling and you seem to be very good. I think the fastest speedrun I can see was 51 seconds.
1:27:50Yeah, see, that's exactly right. So I was in the minute, minute five kind of range and it looks like, yeah, I will tell you, I optimized.
1:28:01I'm fairly confident that you could not get it done. It's like those famous speedrun things where they're like, "This is actually impossible.
1:28:09This score you're claiming can't be done on the original hardware." Well, it was a little bit like that.
1:28:14I knew where every single thing was and I couldn't, you know, and that was really cool as a kid, especially.
1:28:20I feel this way about why do kids dive deep into lots of stuff that are their area of expertise?
1:28:28One reason kids do that is because the world is big and strange and complicated and they can't understand it, but they can become really good at something.
1:28:36And it gives you a good feeling. And so for that brief moment in time, I was the master of Superman for the Atari 2600.
1:28:44I hope you have enjoyed hearing about our favorite video games. We should do some hashtag #askupgrade before we wrap up today.
1:28:51This is still the summer of fun here on Upgrade. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace.
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1:30:17All right. It is time for hashtag ask upgrade. And our first question today.
1:30:23Thank you. Comes from El El says, I know it's advised to log on to your bank whilst using public Wi-Fi.
1:30:29So, you know, just to be careful when you're using public Wi-Fi because you never know what people might be looking at.
1:30:34Does opening an application via face ID make it inherently any more secure?
1:30:41No. Sorry to say that, but face ID face ID is just unlocking the saved password on your app.
1:30:51And then the app is doing its usual thing. I will say I would doubt that any banking app is not doing everything encrypted.
1:31:00And if you're doing everything encrypted, then you should be OK.
1:31:07So I would I would say I don't think face ID makes a difference there, though, because face ID, what it's really just doing is instead of having you put in your password or do touch ID.
1:31:16I mean, it basically is saying, OK, we will make it easier for you to enter your password or we'll we'll save your password,
1:31:23but only if it's got extra levels because they don't want any random person opening your phone and logging into your banking app.
1:31:31So face ID has sort of allowed people to do have more confidence.
1:31:35But in the end, face ID is just unlocking a saved password in the app.
1:31:40Yeah, I mean, you should always exercise caution, you know, when you're using public Wi-Fi, you know, if this kind of thing is a concern to you.
1:31:48But, yeah, as Jason says, it's whilst face ID is potentially more secure than a just typing in a PIN code,
1:31:55it doesn't inherently protect the information or what's being sent over Wi-Fi any more than anything else does.
1:32:01But it is a good question. And kind of along the same kind of lines, our next question comes from Robin.
1:32:07Robin says, in light of Apple's privacy efforts, could you see the possibility of Apple launching its own integrated VPN service?
1:32:15Feels like it would go a long way with privacy and ads and bad practices by applications, if possible, on that scale.
1:32:22Can you imagine a world in which Apple may create a VPN?
1:32:26No, I can't. The overhead required would seem enormous, especially at the scale that Apple operates.
1:32:34And VPNs can be, you know, they're useful, but they're also, like, the experience is not great.
1:32:45Like, am I on? Am I not on? There are slowdowns when you're on a VPN. I just, I don't see it.
1:32:54Yeah, it's like, I can see how you would get there because it feels like something that fits a lot of what Apple would like to do, you know, with privacy and stuff by helping you protect your Internet traffic.
1:33:07But the pure scale required to take care of something like that, when they would probably want to enable it by default, right, because that's kind of their idea, it would just be too much.
1:33:20I don't think anybody could do it at that type of scale. It just feels like too much.
1:33:26Parker says, I use a HomeKit button to set off different scenes around nighttime when going to bed.
1:33:32Do you know if there will be a way to set off Siri shortcuts in a similar way using a button?
1:33:38I don't think that's going to be possible, right?
1:33:41Yeah, I think the impression, yeah, yeah, I mean, Siri shortcut HomeKit support is questionable already, but sort of like set off a shortcut tied to a button? I can't, yeah, I don't think that's a thing.
1:34:00It's not completely impossible, but I think your phone would have to be included somewhere along the way. Like you might be able to press a button that then gives you a notification to open your phone, right?
1:34:12But I can't imagine, well, definitely not in this first version, can they run without some kind of interface with a device? It is a nice idea. I would love it, but I don't see it in the future.
1:34:25Yeah, and I don't think the HomeKit, because the Home app on Mojave is going to be one of these new kind of apps, it's not scriptable in any real way.
1:34:34Because what I was going to say is you could probably, there's probably some button that you could use that was attached, you know, linked wirelessly or something with your Mac.
1:34:41And that when you press the button, it runs a script on the Mac that clicks the right thing in the Home app, but it would be super janky.
1:34:48And I just don't think that's going to, I mean HomeKit aside, running a Siri shortcut on iOS is just like, by hardware, it's not a thing.
1:34:58Lex asks, "Okay, you have a choice. Camera bump on the back of your phone or notch on the front of your phone, which do you dislike more and would rather have gone from the next iPhone? You can choose. You either have a phone with no camera bump but it has a notch, or you keep the camera bump and remove the notch."
1:35:19Oh, wow. Well, it depends on how pretend we want to be here, because the fact is that I don't love the camera bump, but the camera bump is what gives us better pictures, and I wouldn't want to have a camera that wasn't as good.
1:35:38Let's, for the fun of this, let's assume that there is absolutely no change. So the camera still gets better, or, you know, the Face ID still gets better, or whatever.
1:35:47So my next question would be, is the iPhone X that is going to come out still so slippery that I'm more likely going to put a case on it? Because the thing is, the case eliminates the camera bump.
1:36:00The leather case, there's no camera bump. And so if I'm still going to have it in the leather case, I don't feel the camera bump, I don't worry about it, and then I would go with the notch.
1:36:09Even though the notch doesn't bother me. But all things being equal, I would say I would, neither of them bother me immensely. I would probably choose the notch.
1:36:23But neither of them bothers me.
1:36:24To keep or to get rid of?
1:36:26To get rid of.
1:36:27Okay.
1:36:28Just because it would be more beautiful without it, but I could go either way.
1:36:32So my initial feeling was, keep the notch, get rid of the camera bump. Because I have no problem with the notch, but I wish the camera bump wasn't there because it makes the phone uneven.
1:36:41But then I remembered that I use a case, so it doesn't make a difference. And I'm probably always going to use a case on my iPhone because I want to protect it in case I drop it.
1:36:50So then yes, get rid of the notch, because then I get more screen and I get a benefit from it. So I think we're both in agreement.
1:36:57Whilst I have absolutely no problem, I actually quite like the way the phone looks with the notch. I would get rid of it because the camera bump doesn't ever cause me a problem in my day to day life because I'm a case person.
1:37:09Finally today, Brandon asks, "Do you think that this will be the year that the higher tier iPhones will have some kind of Apple Pencil support?"
1:37:28I think it's possible that you could see it on the bigger phones. There is an interesting thing to me where if they were going to do this, what phones would they put it on?
1:37:46Because if you put it on the successors to the iPhone X, then you end up with the iPhone X successor and the iPhone X Plus. But then the LCD screen is supposedly bigger than the iPhone X screen.
1:38:00And wouldn't it make more sense to put Apple Pencil support on the bigger iPhones? So I feel like you would only put it on the biggest one or you wouldn't do it at all.
1:38:12Which is weird for me to think about. But then I also, one of the reasons I picked this question is purely because I just wanted to mention the Galaxy Note 9, which we mentioned earlier was unveiled last week.
1:38:25And they did a bunch of really interesting things with the S Pen. So the Galaxy Note 9 is the one that comes with a stylus which is embedded into the phones that pops out.
1:38:35But this is the first time that they have added smarts to it. It now has Bluetooth. So here are a few things you can do with the Note 9 stylus, the S Pen.
1:38:45You can click on the button that it has to play or pause music. You can take a photo with it on the selfie camera. So you can take a photo and then also switch to the selfie camera and then use the button as a remote.
1:38:57You can change slides in a presentation. You can start and stop the recorder app. You can cycle through photos in the gallery. You can use it to play and press music with Bluetooth headphones or whatever.
1:39:10I don't know why you would do that exact one. But they also have allowed for developers to use the buttons that are on there. There are two buttons, one at the top and one on the side to create functions in their own applications as well.
1:39:23So there are a lot of functions that this thing gets. I like the selfie camera one where you can hold the phone far away from you and then click with the S Pen to take pictures.
1:39:33So they're doing a lot of interesting stuff with it. And I hope that if Apple ever were to make something for the iPhone that it would have some more interesting function to it. So yeah, I just wanted to mention that. I think it's cool.
1:39:46And I actually wrote a thing on Tom's Guide, which we can put in the show notes about sort of jumping off from the Galaxy Note and thinking about the next iPhone, especially this iPhone 10 Plus idea.
1:39:57And I do think it's a possibility like you do that on something like an iPhone 10 Plus, a fancy high-end, even bigger iPhone 10, that doing Apple Pencil support on that might be a possibility. They would need to make a new pencil because the Apple Pencil is huge.
1:40:16But if you've got a huge phone, having the ability to use something like the pencil or like the crayon from Logitech, something like that on those devices, maybe. Why not? It's sort of my feeling.
1:40:31If somebody wants to write on their big iPhone or draw or whatever, why not let them? It's going to be an add-on. They're not going to, I think, embed a pencil in the iPhone or anything like that.
1:40:45But I think it will happen eventually that they'll do that. And maybe that would be one of the differentiators of the iPhone 10 Plus would be pencil support in some form.
1:40:57I would love it. It would be great. Just out of interest, do you know who the Tom is at Tom's Guide? Is there a Tom?
1:41:03I think there was a Tom who did Tom's hardware a long time ago.
1:41:07Now they exist. Tom's the brand now. Yes, there is a Tom. Thomas Pabst was the founder in 1996 of Tom's Hardware. So there was a Tom.
1:41:17Thanks, Tom.
1:41:18Thanks, Tom.
1:41:19If you'd like to find our show notes for this week's episode, go to relay.fm/upgrades/206.
1:41:26And if you go to that site, if you go to that page, you can find our links there to become a relay.fm member and support this show. And don't forget, we're going to play our space station trailer for you so you can get an idea as to what the upgrade/cortex member special is going to sound like.
1:41:44So you can know what you're going to get before you buy. Trust me, though, you will enjoy it. It is as fun as they always are, if not more so.
1:41:52You can find Jason online at sixcolors.com and he is @jsnell, J-S-N-E-double L on Twitter. I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E.
1:42:00Thanks again to Squarespace, Instabug, and Backblaze for their support of this week's episode and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell.
1:42:10Goodbye, everybody.
1:42:17Gray, Myke, welcome to Space Station.
1:42:22You wake up inside the cramped confines of a cryosleep capsule. You're still in your service uniform and have a world-class headache. A hypo-injector rests on a countertop just within reach.
1:42:38Okay, let's inject ourselves straight in the heart with the injector.
1:42:42Let's not be very specific about where it's going to go. Let's just let the Snellatron decide where that ends up being.
1:42:47Okay.
1:42:48There is one thing we haven't checked. Like, are we human? Do we know this? We don't know this.
1:42:54Yeah.
1:42:55You could examine yourself if you want.
1:42:57Yeah, examine ourselves.
1:42:58You are wearing the Regulation Green Technician's uniform, marking you as a member of the Planetary Action Research Science Exploration Corps, or PARSEC.
1:43:07And yes, you are a human being. You figured that out when you injected yourself with the hypo-injector.
1:43:12We only know what we think we know.
1:43:14Now you know your uniform is green.
1:43:16There is a robot here.
1:43:18Look at robot.
1:43:19You see a dog-sized robot designed to perform repetitive or dangerous tasks. The name FROZ, F-R-O-Z, is laser etched into its skin.
1:43:30Say, "Hello, FROZ."
1:43:31FROZ beeps and flashes its lights and twitches its mechanical arms. It's adorable.
1:43:38I knew it would be. Myke, I've got four words for you. Never give up, never surrender.
1:43:45Okay.
1:43:46Oh, Snellatron, how many save slots do we have?
1:43:50You have three save slots, as always.
1:43:52Myke, don't you dare. We've done nothing. Nothing has happened.
1:43:55I agree with Gray in this case. You've literally just wandered around and learned things.
1:43:59I wasn't going to save.
1:44:00I just wanted to know.
1:44:02All right.
1:44:03Peace.
1:44:06You can see the mysterious death world.
1:44:09Whoa.
1:44:10Some kind of alien warship is positioned nearby.
1:44:12Is there anything else in the room?
1:44:14Oh, I'm sorry. Does the view of the death world not -- is that not enough for you, Myke?
1:44:18Yeah, but I can't do anything with that.
1:44:21Myke, what I lack in knowledge, I make up for with confidence.
1:44:27Incoming message. Unknown language. Please input language to translate.
1:44:32Input Frellion.
1:44:34It translates the message.
1:44:35Attention humans. Surrender space station or be destroyed with gravity cannon.
1:44:40I'm very nervous about this game.
1:44:42Right.
1:44:43Because it all seems pretty simple.
1:44:46The Frellion warship attacks the space station with a gun that fires black holes.
1:44:50The end.
1:44:51Oh.
1:44:52You have died.
1:44:54Can we press the launch button on the escape pod with the mop?
1:44:58No, you can't.
1:45:00[Music]