Upgrade - 251: And Then You Eat the Ice Cream

Episode Date: June 24, 2019

It's Public Beta season, and Jason's spent the last week reviewing macOS Catalina. Are the Catalyst apps better this year? And what features were pleasant surprises? We also discuss JJ Abrams's big new streaming deal, share our own iPhone home screens, and Myke at the Movies calls on "Kiki's Delivery Service."

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 251 today's show is brought to you by astropad studio express vpn butcher box and pdf pen 11 from smile it is the summer of fun summer of fun my name is mike hurley and i am joined by myself in partnering crime mr jason snell hi jason snell uh hang loose dude it's the summer of fun it most certainly is the summer of fun still starts the same way as every episode of upgrade does with a hashtag snell talk question this one comes from shaker ben who asks how many hours has Smart Speed saved you in Overcast? Ben is up to 289 hours, which is a lot of saved hours. So, Jason, how many hours have you saved by listening to podcasts in Overcast with the silence all being removed and sped up when needed?

Overcast tells me that I've saved 121 hours, which is great. I will point out I don't have a commute, so I definitely don't have as much of a podcast load as a lot of people do. I'm skeptical that I didn't lose numbers, lose hours along the way there somewhere, but 121. I'm up to 180,

which is a lot of hours. It's many hours saved. Yeah, well, I mean, the seven and a half days for you and five days for me. So I guess thanks to Marco Arment for saving us many days out of our lives or really just packing in more podcast episodes. That's pretty much how that works.

Thank you so much to Ben for that Snell Talk question. You can submit a question for a future episode of the show. Just send out a tweet with the hashtag Snell Talk and it may be picked for a episode in the future. Summer-related questions would be, I would appreciate those as we are in the summer of fun right now. So anything summer-related, send it in, and I'll be happy to see those. But we have some follow-up today, Jason.

Mark wants us to share our current home screens, which I feel is only fair considering the mess that we caused many upgradients over the last week. I'm sure you saw as I did, many people changed their home screen to the official upgrade home screen, which is kind of amazing. And I apologize to all of those people for having to have done that.

I had to change my home screen to take the screenshot in the show notes of our home screen that we picked and then i had to change it back because i wasn't going to leave it there that would be just a bad idea i appreciated you doing that for for the show notes last week had to be done had to be done we had to show people what it looked like. You have an image of my home screen. I have an image of yours. Yes. This is a quick thing. Do you have any comments?

I'm just looking at it now. I don't know if I do. I think I've managed to turn off all of my little notification bubbles. Maybe not messages. You just took that with messages in. I might have a few. I turn off most. And you have apps that I just don't use,

which is amazing. So, you know, so many. Timery, Discord. Airtable, Pipedrive. Airtable, Pipedrive, Narwhal. So Airtable and Pipedrive, they are like business tools, right? They're like sales-related tools. Narwhal is my Reddit app pipe drive they are like business tools right yeah like sales related tools

narwhal is my reddit app you gotta drive those pipes you gotta drive the pipes and then i use discord for some stuff evernote for some stuff as well timer is my time tracking you use any list which i know is like a grocery list thing that's my shared grocery list with my family yeah that i never used that use apple maps test flight on the home screen is an interesting choice i think you know i was going to bring it up last week um and i decided that you know most people are not like me and have lots of betas but i have lots of betas so i keep test flight out there yeah yeah i'm always updating the uh the betas yeah you don't have a there are have a... All of the questions that I have for you are not really about the home screen,

but it's more just like, why do you use that app over that app? And I just don't want to have that conversation today. Yeah, in California, Apple Maps is very good. That's what they say. I've heard that before. That is what they say. We mentioned...

Actually, we want to give another gift to the Upgradians as we're in the summer. And that is official Summer of Fun desktop and mobile wallpapers. Yeah, this came up. I was taking that screenshot last time and I scaled up our Summer of Fun art, but I thought that would be great to actually have Summer of Fun wallpaper.

So I have been using the desktop wallpaper on my iPad for the last few days, and it makes me very happy because it feels very summery. So whenever I open my iPad, it's like this beautiful summer backdrop for me. So you can get those in our show notes too. If you want to go get those, it should be in your podcast app of choice or at relay.fm upgrade slash two five two five one is this week's episode and you can get the wonderful summer of fun wallpapers for free just for being a wonderful upgrade and we will offer those to you because we're nice like that aren't we jason yeah exactly um i wanted to uh give a quick reminder for something we are doing a big fifth anniversary

relay fm live show in august it's on august 22nd in san francisco um our company turns five years old a couple of days beforehand and we're going to be doing a big live show with a bunch of relay fm hosts that are going to be coming in and we're going to be doing like a big variety show jason snell will be there won't't you, Jason Snell? I will. I live here. Exactly. It's easy for Jason. Along with many other wonderful Real AFM hosts. So tickets are still available for

that. It's on August 22nd and I will put a link in the show notes so you can buy a ticket and come out. We are working to try and make this the best possible show it can be and I'm very excited about it. So I think that you will really like it if you can make it out. We're going to be doing a big, wonderful live show with lots of surprises and wonderful fun things.

So you can get tickets for that right now. And again, that will be in the show notes as well for you if you want to grab a link to that. Jason, I think it's time for the triumphant return of Upstream, which has been taking a many many week break over the wwdc period but i have a couple of things that i want to talk to you about today one of them is jj abrams jj abrams is apparently nearing a deal with warner media for 500 million dollars apparently jj was in talks with everyone you would assume, Apple and

NBCUniversal as well, about securing a multi-year partnership, which will be a first look at any project that Bad Robot, his production company, works on. A first look is basically like a first right of refusal, right? Like, if you're working on something, we want to be able to take it first.

I'm not sure, like, and you might know, this half a million dollars must have at least a minimum amount of content attached to it though, right? Yeah, I'm sure. Well, so it's producing, right? And I'm sure they will get... Well, I mean, the idea is that they get a first look.

So I'm not sure whether there's a minimum or not. Maybe there's a minimum and then there's an opt-out or something like that. It a first look. So I'm not sure whether there's a minimum or not. Maybe there's a minimum and then there's an opt-out or something like that. It's contract details. But the way it works is basically they are given any show that they are developing and producing, they are offering to, in this case, WarnerMedia

and saying, you get to write a first refusal for this movie, for this TV show we're developing, all of that. And what that means is that if J.J.rams wants to develop something for uh and and they think it's really good and warner media is not interested in it it doesn't die they get to shop it somewhere else and do it but yeah you'd think that if you're

warner media you'd want to protect yourself against jj abrams deciding well thanks for the half a billion dollars now i'm going to make a bunch of things you don't want yes if like the next the next six years of stuff from bad robots all crap right then like you know because this is um he had this deal with paramount so he he was in a deal with paramount uh in 2006 he made this deal with them which is again a multi-year deal for 55 million dollars it's very different right it's a hugely different amount of money and there was some stuff that that which was interesting so uh the cloverfield paradox which was a one of the movies in the cloverfield thing like paramount just said we don't want that and that's why it ended up on netflix so you know there's stuff like that

yeah uh also the you know producing versus directing but also like like paramount made that deal with jj abrams and he did you know, because he did a couple of Star Trek movies and he has been producing the Mission Impossible franchise. But at the same time, like as a director, he went off and made now it's going to be two Star Wars movies for Disney. That's a challenge in this. Presumably in the negotiations, in addition to the big pile of money, is some structure here in terms of... Obviously, they're going into it thinking that his company is going to primarily supply WarnerMedia with content. And that's the idea here. But there have to be, in any creative business, there have to be places where if you create a show, I mean, this happens on TV now where somebody creates a show for that company's network, and they pass on it, and it goes to a competitor's network. And that's weird. But, you know, you went through all the trouble to develop the show, you want to sell the show. And if the home team isn't buying, you go to the other team.

It is unclear as to whether this deal will allow him to continue making his own, directing feature films for other companies, right? So like if Disney come knocking again, I would expect for this amount of money, it will probably lock him in. What's unclear to me is, based on the coverage is whether this locks him in as a director or just as a producer because he is a prolific producer of film and tv bad robot has produced a surprising amount of stuff stuff that you wouldn't even think of that jj abrams name is never really connected with like westworld is a good example of that that series is

a you know jj abrams name is on it as an executive producer. Like, he didn't make Westworld, and yet it is part of that kind of, you know, machine. So, and there are like lots of shows that come out of Bad Robot. So, I think that's a question is like, how much is this about getting J.J. Abrams as a writer and a producer and then as a director? writer and a producer and then as a director. And it's not impossible that his role as a director is more, uh, is separate from, from it. Like that he might get brought in, like Star Wars is a good example where it's like, we need you to direct this. Can you do that? And he's like, all right. Um, but yeah, if I were, if I were Warner media, I would look at what happened with his Paramount deal and say, we gotta do something. And again, it's probably structured that, that,

uh, we have to provide you with a certain amount of work. We have to say yes to a certain number of projects guaranteed, uh, because otherwise you could get in a situation if you're JJ Abrams, where you can't do anything you want to do because, uh, they won't make any of the movies you want to make.

And that's not, that's not good either. So that's part of that. It's fascinating. I don't think I would want to be an entertainment industry lawyer, but it is fascinating to see how you negotiate the structure of what ends up being at the bottom, a creative process, because those two things don't really fit together, in my mind anyway.

Like you're trying to build a contract that says you will write a good movie. And it's like, that's not how that works but you would expect though that this time around and maybe one of the reasons that the money is so different from i mean 2006 to to now right it's like nearly 10 years but 55 million dollars to 500 million dollars that's not like well it is a multimedia deal whereas the paramount deal was film only okay so that's that's part of it but yeah it's also the uh the fact that there are all these different suitors because we're in a different market now that also ties into what i was going to say which is that you would expect that warner media actually need more content than paramount did because they have a streaming service to fill

and putting jj's name on a bunch of stuff will probably do well for them like it did for Apple. And he has a good track record of making stuff. I mean, again, you focus on JJ Abrams and not Bad Robot and you miss like, Bad Robot has been producing so many TV shows and having Bad Robot drive that stuff into Warner Media's various cable channels and their streaming service is,

it's an engine that is generating lots of content and they want, they uh it's an engine that is generating lots of content and they want they need engines generating content like that for their uh stuff to work and likewise so does apple you know so does disney so does uh universal like everybody and that's why there were multiple suitors for jj abrams and bad robot so uh yeah it's a combination but it is kind of breathtaking to think about getting paid a half a billion dollars to make movies and TV shows for one company that as a just as a exclusive deal. That's pretty spectacular. David in the chat mentions a good point that is worth clarifying that half a half a billion would be like consumed quickly as a budget.

This is not a budget. This is not like when Apple put a billion dollars aside to make stuff. This is like, here's a bag of money so we can give you more money to make things, right? This is not half a billion dollars that they're putting aside for J.J. Abrams to make TV shows.

This is a signing bonus. I mean, it may be not entirely that. There may be rates about we get a certain number of that, but it's basically we're giving you half a billion dollars to have the exclusive right to your stuff for the next however many years. Which is crazy. It's crazy.

And there's going to be a lot. And one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this today is this is another type of thing that we're now going to start seeing more of i think um these these big names being tied up with companies yeah greg berlanti who did riverdale um did all the superhero shows on the cw he has a deal with warner media i mean that stuff was all with warner media already but now it's like 300 million dollars to him to produce more content netflix has their deal with ryan murphy and their deal with shonda rhimes right like these are the

these are the big producers that uh you want to just give them money and say you just make all your stuff for us this is like apple and oprah have yeah it's true i mean what what we haven't seen apple do is is sign somebody like a uh jJ. Abrams, who has a production company and has made a lot of fiction content. That hasn't happened yet. It may at some point. I think Apple needs to – Apple's working at a disadvantage now because they don't have a track record. They don't even have a service yet. And so if you're J.J. Abrams, even if Apple offered the same money, you're sort of like, well, what's it going to be?

Are they going to back out? Are they going to change their mind at some point? I don't want to be tied into a service that has a thousand subscribers. Yeah, exactly right. Even if you're paying me half a billion dollars to do it, what does that mean? So, yeah, it's a fascinating kind of uh decision making process for the companies and for these these creators but the key thing is again it's not a guy who writes a tv show who's getting this money it's a guy who has a company full of producers who have been generating tv material

not only working with writers but also then putting the shows together and movies too. And if you look at Bad Robot, it's more than just sort of like from the mind of J.J. Abrams. It's a whole lot of stuff. And the people inside Bad Robot, other than J.J. Abrams, kind of come and go. But they're also very talented people there who come there and produce a show. And that's what the money is doing. Like Mission Impossible is a good example where J.J. Abrams directed a Mission Impossible.

But my understanding is that J.J. Abrams continues to get a producer credit. And like Bad Robot produces the Mission Impossible movies with Tom Cruise. And it's like, they are part of that process. And that's, you know, again, that's not as we focus on the people. And it's a little more than that.

It's a production deal. So it's about all of Bad Robot. But it does mean that, you know, JJ has an idea. And JJ's writers that JJ likes, who he brings in to work on projects, like it's all kind of coming from that. JJ Abrams, by the way, enormous Apple nerd, big Mac fan. Just he's one of us. I will point that out.

Whether you like or dislike his work, I will say he is. He's one of us. I will point that out. Whether you like or dislike his work, I will say he is one of us. He really is. He sent me an email at one point back in the day from his AOL account. That's how long ago it was. He is definitely an Apple guy. Hi, JJ, if you're listening. That's right. Hi to JJ. Mike, realistically,

it's going to be like, hi to JJ's dad. Right? Something like that. JJ's cousin. Cous dad right something like that jj's cousin cousin uh something like that it all works for me okay uh adam sandler and jennifer anderson's new movie on netflix murder mystery broke netflix viewing records 30.9 million households saw the movie in the first three days netflix only counts of you if 70 of the the movie has been seen. So this isn't even people that started the movie and bailed on it. I remember, I don't know if we spoke about this, but we may have, Adam Sandler's deal with Netflix was kind of laughed at because it's like, why? This is why?

Because a lot of people have watched it. This is a movie that probably would not have garnered this kind of audience in theaters. And I think the reason I brought this to discuss a little bit today is because I think this is one of the things that makes streaming different. I think people are more willing to try something out than they are if they had to go and pay for a movie ticket.

Oh, for sure, for sure. This is, in fact, there's an argument to be made that movies that are, it used to be movies went in theaters and you went to see movies and you just needed to be kind of interested. But in today's world, you really need the movie to be an event to go see a movie in the theater for a lot of people. And there's a whole class of movies that are good movies. I'm not saying this movie is good or bad. It's apparently, you know, didn't get great reviews, but Adam Sandler movies don't. But you can have a good movie that, but you're like, oh, it's a little romantic comedy or something like that. Like I watched a Netflix movie. I watched Always Be My Maybe, which is a romantic comedy on Netflix.

We watched that last weekend and you know it was fine but it's one of those things that i could i cannot imagine going out to the movie theater to see a small budget to mid-budget romantic comedy i just i can't see it that would go into blockbuster and you would pick them out right except the truth is these are the movies that that you might have seen 20 years ago in the movie theater. But we have so much entertainment at home now that you need to have one of the reasons why Marvel has been so successful is because spectacle and events sell at the movie theaters. In part, it's that the movies that work today in movie theaters, they get lots of people out of their houses where they've got a nice TV and an infinite selection of content on Netflix. The way you get those people out is by having this big thing that you want to see on a big screen and everybody's talking about it. And if you don't go see it,

you're going to be behind. And I feel like that's where we are so we look at something like adam sandler and jennifer aniston doing a kind of wacky european murder mystery like are people going to go to the movie theater and see that maybe not but if it pops on netflix and this is literally a movie i didn't know existed until i saw it on i turned on netflix last weekend uh when we watched watched that other movie and I was like, huh, Murder Mist, is that Jennifer Aniston with Adam Sandler? And it was. And I was like, okay, I'm totally not going to watch that movie. But I saw it there.

And the fact that Netflix with just the algorithm, just their interface was able to drive worldwide, mind you, but drive 31 million viewings of that movie is that's the power in three days right there right like yeah three days movies nobody heard about it yep but it showed up on your netflix and you're like oh adam sandler and jennifer anderson click watch a movie that's the power of Netflix. And then those, again, it's like, those were the 31 million people who watched basically the entire movie. I'm sure that there are many more millions of people that were like, I don't like this after 20 minutes

and just turned it off. Sure. And it's kind of, it's absolutely wild. This is one of those things where it's like, this is very different this time. Like we've moved into a very different time again. And as you say, right, this is not a marketing budget that drove this this was netflix's algorithm and that is kind of incredible that they are able to push those kinds of numbers

just based on their own internal marketing at this point it's it's really wild yeah and it shows that i mean netflix did did the deal with Adam Sandler and everybody laughed at it, but obviously it worked for Netflix because they made another deal with Adam Sandler. And I think, you know, I don't want to call Adam Sandler a business genius or something, but maybe he has an awareness of his appeal and the kind of stuff he wants to make. Talk about somebody very different from J.J. Abrams in a lot of ways, but still having to make some creative decisions about yourself in this landscape. And maybe Adam Sandler looked at it and said, you know, the kind of stuff I want to make, I am not allowed to make because it won't work in the movie theater. And if I do get something to the movie theater, it's a real crapshoot about whether it'll even work. is coming to me and saying, we will bankroll your next four movies and just put them on Netflix.

And when he does that, he finds that there's an audience for that. And he realizes, okay, why would I not keep doing this? This is where my... And that's interesting because there's an ego thing there where it's like, am I just a guy who makes made for TV movies now? You could view it that way if you wanted to, but you could also view it that the kind of movie you want to make is not any longer something that could possibly survive in a movie theater but netflix audiences kill it like sure adam sandler had his time where he can make anything right and people will go to the theaters to see it and he did and he did and that's maybe part of the problem. Oh, God. Click is one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my entire life. I hate that movie. But I love some of his earlier stuff, or at least did at the time.

You're happy as Gilmore? Yeah. I don't even remember what all those movies are. Anyway, I think it's interesting. I would love... I should probably look at... There's probably an article about it. But the thought process that goes into saying, you know what?

I know it doesn't seem glamorous to be in a movie deal with Netflix, but it's the right thing to do. And the truth is a lot of these smaller movies are not going to be seen by anybody in a movie theater. They might get an arthouse release or something like that. They might get an arthouse release or something like that. But for a lot of movies that aren't these giant blockbusters, streaming services may be their best place to be seen, which is important for Netflix because they want to provide content to their subscribers. And it's important for the creators who want their movies to be seen. scene. All right, today's episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. Sometimes the idea of being snooped on actually seems like something from the movies, because who cares about getting your data, right? Well, the bad news is that your privacy can be compromised by people that want your data to sell it. It happens to normal people like me and like you, if you're using unencrypted, if you're using unprotected Wi-Fi connections. There is something you can do to protect yourself from

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So go to expressvpn.com upgrade to learn more and protect your online activity today. Find out how you can get three months free at expressvpn.com upgrade. That is E-X-P-R-E-S-S-v-p-n.com upgrade for three months free with a one-year package. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. So Jason Snell, let's talk about macOS Catalina. The public beta is available now, which is an interesting decision. We'll dig into that a little bit but i want to talk about your impressions with catalina in general and digging to some specific parts of it because we've actually not really spent a ton of time talking about this version of mac os um right because it's been i know you've

had to spend some time with it right and and and kind of really kind of dig in and there's a lot of things that we can't really know yet, and we'll get into that. All right, off the bat, I wanted to get a feeling from you if you're surprised by anything. Are there any features in Catalina that you're enjoying that maybe you hadn't spent a bunch of time thinking about until you started using them? I don't know.

It's only been a few weeks since we did the initial thing. So I have been thinking about all of those things. But yeah, I'd say, you know, having screen time available. I'm not surprised by much of anything, but like seeing this stuff on the Mac and being like, oh, this is a thing that I couldn't do on the Mac up until now. You can probably answer this question for me then. Does screen time on the Mac count information from non-app store apps i don't know okay because i you know screen time was basically useless when i only have like a device on a beta

right okay yeah i understand that that makes sense i hope it does remember last summer screen time really didn't work until basically the end of the summer when we got everything on. Are you using the App Store version of BBEdit or not? I'm not. Right. Well, then it's in your screenshot. So it is counting that. That's good. Oh, there you go.

So that BBEdit was the question. Because when I saw it in your screenshot in your article on Six Colors, I was like, ooh, because I expected you were probably not using the App Store version. Because that's what I really wanted. Because for me, if screen time is only picking up App Store apps, it's kind of pointless. Yeah, but why would it do that? Plus, you need parental controls over all apps on the system,

not just App Store apps. I agree with you. It would have been silly. But I didn't want to think one way or the other until I knew. And I guess there's like, what are some of the things that you do like the most? They're not necessarily what surprised you, but like it's basically worked out being what you wanted.

Like, I know you're excited about Find My and photo stuff. You know, Find My works. And I used Find My friends on my Mac. I've tried to accept it, can't stand it. Yeah, it is much better than having it in the sidebar. That's a Catalyst app that actually is fine. It does what I need it to do, and that's very clever. The biggest feature of it is going to be that device,

finding a device that's not on a network by spotting it through other Apple devices, which is this very weird feature that requires a lot of security stuff so that it's not an invasion of privacy that apple has built this is going to be one of those features that nobody thinks about until they need it and then they will tell all of their friends about how happy they were that they got their iphone from the back of that taxi right like this is going to be one of those things that we don't necessarily feel the effects of for a while and then there'll be all these stories right or like you'll hear from a friend of yours or like someone will say oh i lost my laptop like you'll be like oh well i can tell you

how you can find it right like i think it's going to be one of those real feel-good things but it will take a while for people to feel the effects of it so the iphone uh in the taxi is not a great example because it's on a network and it knows where it is. Although I will say that if you get the – it's a device that's not on a network is the problem and doesn't know where it is. And those devices will now be able to send out their little Bluetooth beacon and other devices just need to be nearby. And those devices are on the network and know where they are and they see it. And then therefore, you know where your device is. And so it's going to be lost laptops and iPads and stuff. I think more than anything else. Yeah. But what about as the photos guy? I'm i'm sure have you actually spent time with your real photos in the new photos app oh yeah i have i have um it's uh again it's a lot of the details

that i have to dive into and i spent this time i had to look at everything in catalina so i'm impressed with apple's continued efforts to use machine learning technology to unearth photos in giant photo libraries, because they've clearly decided, and I think they're right, and Google has done the same thing, that everybody's photo libraries are huge, and they're disorganized, not organized. And that's the thing that machine learning should be really good at, is recognizing events, recognizing people, recognizing content, and then floating things up to the top. So it's a much more attractive interface, I would say, of these big, you know, big pictures, it's dropping duplicates, it's trying to drop stuff that it doesn't think is relevant, you can show them if you want,

but they're dropped by default. And the default views, if you look at a year, it's going to show you stuff that happened around this time in every year. So it's sort of anniversaries of things. time in every year. So it's sort of anniversaries of things. It will float and autoplay without sound, I believe, video that you take as well. So that some of them are, it's kind of delightful. And I've got a screenshot in my review about it. Kind of delightful, these little, there's like a dance thing that my daughter did and you can see see her, you know, dancing in this little square. And they use machine learning to do things like find the faces and the prominent objects in photos and crop appropriately so that it actually like looks good. This preview looks good. And it's not just sort of like the weird middle of a photo. So I'm encouraged by it. But you know, again,

I need to spend a lot more time with it and see what the downsides of this are. It is a totally new, yet again, a new photos interface. It's really sort of like the second makeover they've given it in the last few years. Is there anything else that feature-wise that you're excited about before we talk about Catalyst? So security is something that I'm actually excited about that Apple keeps... Apple is trying to find a way and we've talked about this before apple's trying to find a way to let the mac be open while also being secure and so what it's doing is it's a few things it's doing a bunch

of sort of like app checking changes that by default are going on like the Gatekeeper that used to check when you launched an app for the first time. It now checks periodically, not just the first time. It is looking for a thing called a notarized app. Oh, I remember this. Yeah, so it's

going to, you basically are supposed to sign your app with Apple, and Apple doesn't have an approval there, but you sign it. And Apple does a basic scan of it. Basically, the cryptographic signature means if that app gets tampered with. You remember when Transmission, the BitTorrent client, got altered so that there was spyware inside it on the download. That would be something that would fail if it was signed because the signature check would fail right it had been modified after okay does this something

that allows apple to can they turn off an app from their side yes okay it means they can turn off an app and not just a developer which is currently what they do so they could if there was an app that got out that was bad the the developer could alert Apple or Apple could notice it and kill that app and it would just die and it wouldn't run anymore. So they're doing a bunch of stuff like that. And again, it's stuff that's happening with the default and you can turn it off. And Apple has said in a few places, their intention is not for you to not be able to run a piece of software you want to run, but you may need to turn off security features to do it in the end, which I'm okay with that, that, uh, that handoff. Um, so there, there are those security features. They separated the system volume into this read only partition that mounts not on your desktop, um, but in the system

folder, uh, system slash system slash volumes. And then there's a hard drive in there. It's weird. And it's read only. And the idea there again, is that weird files don't get inserted into the system stuff, because that is a security problem. So there's a bunch of stuff like that. And then another thing that i think is interesting is that that some from like a user stability standpoint there's this snapshot feature now where once you're on catalina let's say that they roll out 10 15 1 and it breaks something in your system the way that apple has got it set up now you can boot into recovery and you can go back to your snapshot that it took before you ran the update

it's very windowsy it's a great feature but it reminds me of like because micro like windows has had this feature for a long time right that like you do something and just bone your system and then you can go back and fix it again the reason i love though is because it's funny for me to think because apple's had this problem right where like they put out a software update things go wrong this now allows users to fix those problems on their own side right where you could be like take me back to before that time which i think that's good i think it's a good thing to have yeah i think so uh it is, what I find most interesting about it is that it suggests that Apple is planning

perhaps to use this technology for something more like a time machine thing. But this is a full-on snapshot that's happening and APFS has that feature. So it is good to have it, but it's a very specific instance where you have a regret. I think it would be interesting if you could do this as certainly as a local snapshot feature to have the ability if something bad happened on your system to roll it back to an arbitrary time.

Think of a time machine for local content only, separate from the time machine that you're doing to an external drive. I think where time machine goes from here is a broader discussion because they haven't updated in a while, even though they put these features in. And you could assume that a better time machine is coming. But I also wonder sometimes about

if Apple is thinking about cloud backup on the Mac, which is a huge amount of data, but at the same time, they do it for iOS. I don't know. I want to ask you actually about just so you tweet about this your beta equipment it was very funny to me uh you like what did you duct tape uh ssd to the back of a laptop uh yeah how did that go for you i i mean i tweeted about it because it was silly basically i was

working at my desk uh-huh uh booting off of the ssd onto my imac pro and it was a warm day and i wanted to go outside and so i took my wife's macbook air and shut it down and booted from the external and after a software update and turning off security feature, not allowing external boot drives, I had to do a bunch of that stuff. I got it to boot. And then I was like, going to carry it around. And I thought, I'm not carrying this around. It's got the system folder on it. I'm just going to pop it right out. And it's going to crash. And it's going to be bad. And there are going to be bitter tears and recriminations. And so I thought, I got to tape it on.

And I couldn't find any painter's tape. Couldn't find any masking tape. Couldn't find any gaffer's tape. But I had some duct tape. And I thought, well, at least this will be funny. And it was. It was very funny. It was just for during the day.

And by the time Lauren got back from work, I had already untaped it and wiped off all of the sticky stuff. And it was as if it had never happened. Before we talk about Catalyst, I want to talk about the music app. Because I think, in contrary to a lot of the things that I have seen, you seem to be very unhappy with the music app. Where most people that I've spoken to about it say that it is great and i want to get into that a little bit because there was always this question we asked marco asked an atp as well of like talking about the breakup of itunes could it be one of those situations where you don't know what you got till it's gone and yep you seem to be pretty upset with

the music app right well so the music app is itunes but they have definitely redesigned the music and the apple tv app to look like more like ios apps and and i think uh so the podcast app is a catalyst app but what they've done is they tried to unify the design and they have taken design hints from iOS. So this is one of those cases where it's a, you know, so much fear was focused on the fact that Catalyst apps were going to come to the Mac and not be Mac-like. And not enough fear was maybe focused on what if Apple just decides that even apps that have been on the Mac for more than a decade should look more like their iOS counterparts, regardless of the origin of them. And that's really what

happened with iTunes when they turned it into the music and the TV app is that they ripped some features out that I use every day, which is a bummer. And they made some interface decisions that I think make sense on iOS and don't make sense on the Mac. So I'm not impressed with it. I mean, it's fine. It still plays my music library. It still plays my Apple Music stuff, which is not surprising. It still does most of what it did before, but I use ColumnView, which used to be the default on iTunes back in the day, so that I could very quickly jump to an artist and then filter through their albums and maybe pick a couple albums and shuffle through them. And that you just can't do that without ColumnView. And the music app,

like the music app on iOS, doesn't have this concept. So they made the ColumnView disappear completely. It was already hidden by default, but you could make it visible and now it's just gone. And that was a major way that I listened to music from my library, you know, in terms of picking out an album or a couple albums to listen to. They have an album view, although it's funny by default, you search the album view by finding an artist, not an album. That's kind of silly, isn't it? And then you have to scroll through all the albums to find the album you want.

Oh boy, I remember Column View. I was like, I couldn't visualize it, but now I found it. It's the genres, artists, albums at the top of the window, and then you can click them to filter, which I admit is a kind of an old view, but I used it all the time. I listened on my Mac to iTunes music

every day. And I use the column view all the time when I want to listen to exactly what I want to. And the problem is like, you can kind of approximate this by going in the album view and going to an artist and then picking the albums you want to listen to and then add them to up next. But up next has weird rules where like a shuffle happens within the thing that you are playing now and you add things to it. And depending on how you add things to it, they don't get shuffled. They just get pushed off to later. So there's a lot of weird things where it takes more steps and it doesn't quite do what I actually want it to do. So I don't know.

It's just one of those things that I'm not surprised they took it away. But it's a feature that I used and this makes this app less functional. They're basically trying to make it more like the iOS app by removing features. The one that from a kind of John Gruber-like, I'm watching the usability of my operating system standpoint that I object to is where they put lyrics and up next, that I object to is where they put lyrics and up next, which is in this slide out thing, just like it is on the iPad. Um,

you know, you tap the lyrics button and the lyrics slide out into the window, covering the content of the window, which is completely logical when you're using a single window interface like an iPad, but on the Mac, it's sort of like, why did you do that? Why, why have you covered up my content with your list i have an enormous larger to yes and then it still slides

in oh that's that that it doesn't slide out it's like a drawer that only slides in because on an ipad where would it go if it slid out it's like a question of like what's outside the universe it's not possible what happened before time how much time was there there wasn't time right it's like a question of like what's outside the universe it's not possible what happened before time how much time was there there wasn't time right it's a big picture question how do you if you've got a full screen ipad app and then a drawer slides out where does it go yeah it can't there's nothing out there but on the mac it's a window it's floating in space you could just stick that content out there or what they did in itunes is they had a little popover um and you could dismiss it and all that it's it's not a huge thing but i looked at it and i was like this is an ios design decision that's being brought to the mac and i'm not sure i like it uh just because the context of

the mac does not require that kind of a compromise but yeah there are things that i find interesting about these decisions is this is a mac app like that's what i find so interesting about it is like i get it if a catalyst app does this there's a logic to it they want them to be consistent it doesn't matter and this is the truth is it doesn't matter how it's built it doesn't matter how it's built it matters what they want it to look like and how they want it to behave and apple is saying we want we want, we were all like, oh, it turns out it is iTunes. We're saved. They didn't bring over the music app from iOS.

And the answer is no, no, no, no, no. They remade iTunes to look like the music app from iOS. It may not be, but we're going to make design decisions that are iOS design decisions on the Mac. And that's just how it's going to make design decisions that are iOS design decisions on the Mac. And that's just how it's going to be. And I do think that this is Apple saying, essentially, we think we're going to redefine what a Mac app is like. And the answer is it's like an iPad app.

I mean, like that was everybody's, you know, not everybody, but that was a fear was that the Mac was going to inherit kind of like design decisions that were made in a different context. And this is a good example of exactly that happening, even though it's a quote unquote, you know, original Mac app. All right, this episode of upgrade is brought to you by Astropad Studio. Astropad Studio turns your iPad into a completely customizable graphics tablet so you can combine the power of your Apple Pencil with your favorite Mac apps right on your iPad. The makers behind AstroPad understand that no two artists work alike, which is why they have packed AstroPad with full of opportunities to customize every

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So let's talk about Catalyst. Catalyst, previously Project Sneak Peek, previously Marzipan. This is the project in Catalina of allowing for iPad apps or apps that were developed with the iPad in mind to run on the Mac.

So there are some examples from Apple. There are new ones and there are old ones. Has anything happened to the old apps? So this was news, stocks, home, and voice memos. Yes. Has anything happened? Well, it doesn't look like it,

but my understanding is that behind the scenes, Apple is trying to take them, and I'm unclear on whether this is in the current betas or if it's, if it's, uh, happening this summer, but, uh, what happened with those apps last time is they're basically hand-built for this thing that didn't have a name and that this year they're supposed to be brought up on the general, um, catalyst framework. So, you know, in theory, this is all like these have now been built using the current tools instead of the kind of hacks that they had to do last time. So they are using, they've been updated in the sense that they apparently are using the modern catalyst system to

build them now instead of whatever they had to do to get them to run last year. However, when you look at them, they don't look any different. And in fact, in some places they've regressed, like there was an open Safari item. I was on the, I was, will be on the talk show with John Gruber. We recorded it late last week. It's not out yet as we record this, but probably soon. So if you want to hear another two and a half hours of me talking, watch for that. But John pointed out that uh there

was a file menu item called open in safari that got added to the news app and in catalina beta it's gone so it's like uh weird did they go back to an older version of the code and then are they going to push it forward it's kind of unclear the one i go to immediately is the automations tab in a home app to look and see if the date picker has changed from the little spinny thing that is from iOS. And at least as of this beta, the answer is no, which I don't know. It's, it's frustrating to me that Apple has apparently just slept on these apps and that, like that, that, that spinning wheel for date picker or and time picker it's it's really bad like find it was very clear a year ago it was really bad find an alternative to make it a better

mac app and they apparently at least as of now have not done that so we'll see you know again i can say just like i did last year i hope they fix this by the end of the summer but we're here a year later and they haven't done it so it So it's unfortunate that there was a time when we expected that the Apple apps on the platform would be the exemplars of the platform. And I don't think they are. My gut feeling is that these old ones anyway are just kind of weird and not very good. The new ones are better and show a lot of potential to be better, but I'm disappointed that Apple hasn't gone back and brushed up the old ones

because like news, for example, and home, and I'm sure all of them could use a little bit of love to make them a little more Mac appropriate than they are. Before we move away completely from talking about the older apps, the sneak peek apps, there was a CNET report claiming that Craig Federighi had told them that the older apps would be improved. And they use some quotes of things that I've heard Craig Federighi mention

in other places, like in his interview of Federico on App Stories and in the episode of the talk show where they were kind of talking about, and I'll read this quote actually, that we've looked at the design and features of some of those apps, the older apps, and said we can make this a bit more of a Mac experience through changes that are independent of the use of catalysts but are just design team decisions

and he kind of was saying that it wasn't the underlying frameworks of why they work that way or why they maybe seem weird but they were design decisions. But then the CNET article also has a quote saying, well, they have a quote saying, wait for the public beta, we're still tuning everything up.

That's where it gets really good. Now, from your perspective, you've been using the public beta and you're still unhappy, but have seen changes. Well, I'll be clear. I'm using beta too, but that's my understanding

is that's the public beta. Okay, so that's what you've been told though, right? Yeah, that's what I'll be clear. I'm using beta 2, but that's my understanding is that's the public beta. Okay. So that's what you've been told though, right? Yeah, that's what I've been told. And I also can say my impression is that CNET maybe took these statements that were also largely what Craig said on stage to John Gruber and interpreted them more than is there. Yep. Is my understanding.

Is that this is really, is it better? Is it worse worse it does feel a little bit like craig federighi is kind of throwing the design team under the bus i was a little uncomfortable with the way that he was talking about that yeah he's kind of saying hey those things because he's bragging on catalyst and on his engineers for catalyst and saying you know those things that you point to in those apps and say they're not mac like those aren't faults with catalyst those are just terrible design decisions yeah it kind of felt a little bit like he was bringing an internal debate out into public right which was super weird because like all right let's just imagine that it is

nothing to do with the underlying framework but was just design decisions all right but like find a different way to say that to everybody else like it was very strange it was very very strange to hear but it is just interesting that like they didn't there is a line coming from someone inside of apple which is saying that like all this stuff can be changed but as far as we're aware so far it hasn't been and then there was also stuff so steve troughton smith has found examples and has been tweeting about these, of both messages and shortcuts having Catalyst versions, and he has found this stuff in the beta of Catalina. So the current beta, the developer beta that's available, Steve has found evidence and has been able to get something to run on his local system which is messages written with the catalyst framework this seems very weird right like why is this in there

to a point where it can be launched but is not something that apple seems to be shipping or have spoken about yet the frameworks are in there because the frameworks are Apple seems to be shipping or have spoken about yet. The frameworks are in there because the frameworks are in there to be referenced by Catalyst, but that doesn't necessarily mean they may be needed in other places, or it may be that they were intending on building those apps, but they aren't ready to build them yet. But the pieces are in there. It's unclear. I would be surprised if Shortcuts gets added as an app midstream in the surprised if if shortcuts gets added as an app midstream in the catalina beta partially because shortcuts is super confusing if it can only access certain apps right like but messages is a bigger one though right messages is but my understanding is what they're doing is they're embedding parts

of messages via catalyst in the messages app the messages app is a hybrid app basically where there are some new things in it that are coming from Catalyst. Plus, they're keeping the existing code base. So, you know, I don't know. I think it's interesting that they're doing that. But I think that that is more just a curiosity and that what they told us is what they intend to ship. So all this other stuff is a sign that this is stuff that's maybe floating around, but is not intended to ship. That's what it looks like for me. But I will, I guess I i'll kind of i want to get your view on it do you think that apple is going to ship a lot of catalyst apps or are they now maybe putting their focus on swift ui instead uh you know catalyst is a vitally important bridging technology for Apple because it allows their entire base of iOS developers to reach macOS and allows macOS to get an influx of stuff from iOS.

It means that all those developers who built up the skill of developing iOS apps over the years can now write software for the Macs that they use every day to write that software. I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be really good for that. I think that there's going to be iOS code around for a long time, this, you know, UI kit code around for a very long time that people have been building for the app, for iOS and the iOS app store. ui and swift in general is the future like this is where as you know we heard josh and wiley talk about uh what last week um there are two weeks ago two weeks ago um this is the future this is apple thinks that this is like how apps are going to be built uh forward for, you know, decade plus.

But Catalyst has to be good enough to be parked somewhere. And I'm not sure it is yet. We'll see how this fall goes. But like Catalyst is important because Apple wants people to be able to use their UI kit code across their platforms. And then starting now, start building things that they can use Swift UIKit code across their platforms. And then starting now, start building things that they can use SwiftUI to build. But if Catalyst doesn't work right,

it's not one of these things where it's like, well, we'll abandon Catalyst and go to SwiftUI because the whole point is that the UIKit stuff should be portable and come along with for compatibility reasons. So what's the priority? Who knows how Apple prioritizes things? I would think that they're both important right now, but that one of them will become less important over time and the other will become more important over time. And SwiftUI will be more important over time. But Catalyst, you know, I think Catalyst has more work to be done

because they need to be able to make that stuff unless it's complete. It's too important to be able to get that stuff to work everywhere. But it's also just a, it's important to view it at this point as a transitional thing. It's meant to provide that compatibility. So what about the new apps then so podcasts you kind of already mentioned find my but do they feel better than the old apps in a significant way they do they're better i think again i'm not sure that these are the platform exemplars i would be um i wonder if we're gonna see you know i'd almost bet that we'll see better Mac apps from third parties. I feel like it is a little bit not unfair, is not the right word, but we are not getting the full picture of what this technology will enable because Apple isn't shipping a lot of their own apps.

But I get kind of getting more of the feeling that it's not really for them. It's for third parties to do it, right? And there is a problem in talking about Catalyst now because we haven't seen... The other shoe has not dropped, and it's a big shoe. This is why it's important for Apple to build apps that are platform exemplars, right? No, I agree with that.

I 100% agree with that, but they haven't, really. Haven't. Yes. But that doesn't mean it can't be done. right no i agree with that like i 100 agree with that but they haven't really haven't yes yeah yeah so that doesn't mean it can't be done they just haven't done it i want to put in the show notes as well a great article that john vorhees wrote max stories today kind of trying to because there seems to be like a lot of the general discussion about catalyst now is negative like the conversation we are having i have had up to this point in the episode it's talking about the bad stuff but there is a lot of promise but it's just difficult to see it because you can't see it now right

because we don't have the apps right all we have is is basically the stuff stuff that Steve Troughton Smith keeps retweeting from people who are saying, here, I'm working on this thing and here's what it looks like now. And we'll have to be the judge of that in the end. But it is, I think there's a lot of potential there, but in the end, does it come off? I don't think we can judge it as a success or a failure yet based on all this. The podcast app is fine, um, the podcast app is fine. Like it's, it's great. And I, I realized that that is sort of damning with faint praise, but like after Mojave, it's praise, like the podcast app's a real app and it works. It's got bugs, but I fully expect those bugs to be fixed. They are funny bugs. Like you click on a list and then you click on another

item in the list. They just all select the, the, each item you click on selects. It doesn't like move your selection. You can't do things like if you select multiple items and you hit delete or command delete, it doesn't do anything. You have to delete things by clicking on a little, a little circle and choosing delete item one at a time, which again is an iOS interface thing. That one, they better fix that. But that's a problem that's not just limited to the podcast app. There are other apps that are like that too. In fact, the podcast app, I think, lets you control click or right click on an item and you get that same contextual menu that's in the little disc with the three dots.

on an item and you get that same contextual menu that's in the little disc with the three dots. Whereas the Photos app, I believe, only has the little three dot thing. And if you control click or right click, it does nothing, which is very not Mac-like. Although I have to ask, what's Apple's plan here? Is Apple's plan here that alternate clicks? Because I could see both arguments. One argument is on Macs, you have this alternate clicking interface that you don't have on iOS. So on iOS, you have to make all the menus of alternate things visible or and tappable. Otherwise you can't ever discover them. You could argue that it's also bad to discover them on the Mac. So maybe, maybe they should do that. But right now it seems really kind of confusing and inconsistent. And I'm not sure Apple knows what they want this to be. Like, if the truth is contextual menus via control click are just too hard, Apple judges, for regular people to understand, then that little lozenge that provides a contextual menu should start showing up everywhere. menu should start showing up everywhere um but i i don't know that it's not everywhere and you're still control clicking in some places but not in other places and it's just it's it's it's not

surprising since we're going through this transition uh because i think apple is still figuring out where they want to take it and they're not being as consistent as they should be yet because ipad os is getting a lot more contextually type menus with uh popovers right like there's a where you're tapping and holding right which is similar to what you could say with a click and hold or a or a two-finger click on a trackpad on the mac so what does that mean in terms of how apple views discoverability of things that are basically invisible until you do a special gesture i don't know i i'm not seeing a lot of consistency i guess is what i'm saying but but um to wind it back the podcast app is is is fine and its functionality

that um is fairly complex and that wasn't on the Mac before because the iTunes version of podcasts was really the thing they built in 2005. And it is not good. And the new podcast app is better. And Find My is a perfectly nice app, but you still have, you know, again, these are simple apps too. And it's funny that Apple doesn't seem to have succeeded. Maybe they attempted. They don't seem to have succeeded maybe they attempted they don't seem to have succeeded in rolling out a complex system app that uses catalyst um it is worth noting that as of right now i'm recording uh the public barriers of ios 13 and ipad os have also been released um but jason had pre-knowledge of macOS, right? Yes, I was. Because that's how we were able to spend so much time talking about it today.

Exactly. I assume that they would probably drop them all at once, although it does seem awfully early for these versions to be there. But here we are. We're on public beta day. So talking about public betas, actually. In general, they're a better thing to install than developer betas and a lot of people will put the ipad stuff on because they're excited about it

should anybody be installing the catalina public beta like why would you want to do this i think not yep i think you need to be a developer. If you want to build a Catalyst app, you need to be basically running it in Catalina. I think if you're somebody like me who's writing about it, you need to be there. Even I am not in there with my primary create a partition or put it on an external drive but it's beta software it's buggy it's weird it's you know it's it's okay it didn't destroy anything but it's also beta software and it's weird and i would wait and let it shake out if you can possibly wait the nice thing about the mac is that you can put it on an external uh and boot into it which obviously on an ios device you're you're you're stuck once you're there, more or less. So I think it's more likely you could do it. You want to play around with the new stuff

and then reboot into your safe, comfortable home in Mojave. Oh, I should also mention, speaking of installing, why it's a bad idea to install betas on your iOS devices. I did that. This is actually kind of follow-out to Connected last week, which you weren't on, but David Sparks filled in for you, and David and Federico spent a lot of time talking about iOS while Steven did, I don't know, accounting. And what I wanted to say about it is that Federico talked about the iOS beta and said, well, I installed it. He has to.

And it's pretty good on my iPad. On the iPhone, it's bad, but it's pretty good on my iPad. But he has to, right? And I'm like, oh, this sounds pretty good. Maybe I should do it. And then he said, but you shouldn't do it, he says to the listeners. You shouldn't do it because it's a beta and it's uh unstable and it has weird things in it and you shouldn't do it he has had some horrific iCloud problems yeah yeah so I thought to myself

okay all right Federico you're right you're right I won't I won't install it and then he said unless you're writing about this for a living in which case you should install it and I went oh okay all right Federico yes yes I will install it and then i came home and i installed it on my main ipad so my main ipad is now running the ios 13 beta um it's the only cyst primary device that i have that i'm i'm putting on there but um federico's right like i'm gonna write about it and i'm not gonna i'm not gonna do it on my phone because i just don't see the need to do that but on my ipad i i think it's been worth it because once you're on the thing that you actually live with, you learn a lot more. And I learned a lot more in the first 24 hours than I had in the previous two weeks because I was actually living with it. That said, Face ID is unreliable. The shortcuts widget doesn't work right. I mean, there's all sorts

of things that don't work right because it's a beta. Of course they don't work right. I'm not holding anybody responsible except myself. But it is of those things that uh now i'm in the position to say what federico said which is unless this is your job uh to write software for this or to write about this don't do it it's just not don't do it yet it'll be there it'll be much better later this summer i really want to do it though i haven't done it i haven't got the bait i haven't got any baits on anything it's your job to talk about it mike you can totally do it if you want to yeah i just got also you've got multiple ipads you've got multiple ipads so you could pick a sacrificial ipad i just haven't been able to decide which one i want to sacrifice that's a real sophie's choice

there for you because i have the one that i use the most or i have the one that I use the most, or I have the one that I use when I travel, and neither of those feels like the right one to do it on. Because you don't want to have problems when you're traveling. Because if you have something catastrophic, it's difficult to fix it. But then if it's bad, I'm going to be putting it on the one that I use every day. So I just haven't been able to decide. I think I was kind of waiting for beta 3, for developer beta 3. And I do tend to prefer the developer beta to the public beta myself, because the developer beta tends to have more fixes in it.

But it's also probably more unstable. But as of right now, I mean, we don't know what the public beta is. I guess you'd assume it's beta 2, developer beta 2. I think so. They had me review straight from the second developer beta. They didn't have me download something else. So my guess is that it's either that build or it's close to that build. It just seems premature.

Honestly, I'm surprised. When they said July, I really thought that they were going to take it uh take it a little bit slower with the public betas and here we are uh june 24th it is weird like why did they do this like why is it today they said july why have they done it on june 24th it's very peculiar to me like isn't it what was the harm in waiting another week was there a harm probably not that i? Was there a harm? Probably not. I don't know what the benefit is in them doing it at least a week earlier than they said they would. That just seems very peculiar to me. We talk about things on Apple,

like Apple delivering something before they said they would. I mean, I expected the developer beta would come out on July 29th, right? Because they said July, so they've given themselves the entire month. I assumed it would be out on like july 29th right because they said july so they've given themselves the entire month i assumed it would be early in july but that they were going to push it off a little bit and they were going to give themselves some breathing room and then it turns out they didn't give themselves any it's like it's like the kind of promise you make to yourself where you're like oh this time i'm not going to eat that ice cream i'm going to leave it there i'm only going to eat half that ice cream and then you eat the ice cream right it's like the policy decision and then there's

the it's like a new year's resolution oh no no no no we're gonna wait we're gonna wait this year we're gonna be patient this year and then they're not patient that seems to be what happened the answer the thing that shishiro said in the chat i hope is the reason is that the earlier they release it the more time they had to fix things. That is the logical thing. My guess is that they structured this, that they did a build back in probably May that was the developer conference build. And that

their next targeted build was a public beta candidate. And they've been running that public beta candidate internally and it looked pretty good. Remember at WWDC we heard from a bunch of people who said oh, this beta is a disaster. Wait for the next one. The next one is good. So even at WWDC, I think people were using a beta that they felt was in much better shape that might be these betas. And then they rolled them out to developers

last week, and it seems to have gone well. So that's my guess is that they, they gave themselves enough time that if beta two was unstable, they could not release it as a public beta and just do another cycle and get to a better place. And that this beta turned out to be so stable that there was no reason not to put it out. That's going to be my, that's my inside baseball theory about what happened is that they were giving

themselves time to fix an unstable beta. And it turns out that this one is actually pretty good. So the next one will be a disaster. Who knows? Who knows? All right. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at ButcherBox, who are the folk who deliver thoughtfully sourced meat directly to your door.

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and all of that. The fact is the freedom we have with the frozen meat to say, you know, like a little library, it's like, do we want steak tonight? Do we want some chicken, like chicken thighs, chicken wings? They're all in there. I have a little sous vide machine, which actually makes thawing them super easy. That's a pro tip. Set it to the lowest setting, lowest temperature, so it's just circulating the water, and that thing will thaw meat super fast. And then, you know, it's easy. Grill it, sous vide it, whatever. So it really has made our meal planning a lot easier to know that we've got that butcher box meat in the fridge or in the freezer. And it's really good

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Our thanks to ButcherBox for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. And it is time for some hashtag AskUpgrade questions. Don't forget, it is the summer of fun, so today's episode is going to feature a Mike at the Movies segment of Kiki's Delivery Service, which we'll be talking about after we finish

hashtag AskUpgrade today. Our first question today comes from Thea, and Thea wants to know, I have to produce a short-run podcast for an organization I volunteer with. I can edit with a 10.5-inch iPad Pro or an iMac. Is Ferrite my best software option for ease of learning and cost? I won't. It won't be an income earner. So I'm shying away from buying something like Logic.

Jason, as somebody who is well more versed in the variety of editing programs than I am, I would love to know what you think about this. Ferrite is the best deal in podcast editing tools. What about GarageBand? GarageBand is fine if you want to be on on the Mac. I don't like it for about this ferrite is the best deal in podcast editing tools what about garage band garage band is fine if you want to be on on the mac i don't like it for podcast editing on on either platform honestly but it's better on the mac than it is on ios for podcast editing it's free it's got that going for it but um you kind of have to fight it it wants to do music so it wants to put like echoes on your voices and stuff like that so you have to you have to fight it more um if you are open to the idea of editing podcasts on an ipad

especially like the 12.9 inch ipad pro uh and if you've got especially if you've got a pencil but even if you don't you've got a bluetooth keyboard like i i have edited many podcasts on ferrite using nothing but my hands right not using a using a keyboard, not using the pencil. I think it is the best value in podcast editing software. Again, yes, GarageBand is free, but Ferrite will not get in your way like GarageBand does. So if you're willing to spend time working on an iPad, I think it's the right choice. And it is, you can try it out. I think it's free to try.

And then there are features that you can buy. So you can also give it a try and see what you what you like and what you don't and and again all in i think it's like 20 or 25 bucks it's it's it's nothing because logic is hundreds of dollars um i will also recommend to thea to listen to episode 200 of upgrade uh where we just talk about how we produce podcasts let me talk about return on investment for a podcast episode that one has been great for me because anytime anybody because i get this question a lot as i'm sure you you do like i have this question about how to make a show or this question or this question i just send people that url it's in the url that i can easily remember because it was episode 200 it's brilliant i just send this people all the time and i'm very happy that i have a

resource that i can point people to of like we spoke for nearly two hours about how we make shows. Go crazy. So yeah. Yeah. Also, speaking of Ferrite, I will say there was a nice thread from Candice at Woojee Juice that makes Ferrite that about when we can expect Ferrite on the Mac.

And the answer is, don't hold your breath because he wants to do it right. And he wants to do a lot of, he needs to do a lot of iOS 13 updates first. And it's a good, it is the most inspiring, disappointing Twitter thread I've seen in a long time in the sense that I really want it now. But what I like about the thread and why I find it inspirational is he's got his priorities in order. He's like, I got to do this thing where they're changing stuff in iOS 13, and that's got to be my top priority. I want to make sure that the iOS version is solid. And then come the fall, maybe I'll work on the Mac version as well and make sure that that is also

done appropriately. It's a really nice sort of just work in progress Twitter thread that he posted. And I'm excited with the idea of Farah being on my Mac because although I am great at using Logic and I like Logic, I like the idea of being able to move my projects back and forth between my Mac and my iPad. And I can't do that right now. I have to commit to one or the other. Bartek asks, recent dropbox changes have made the product overly complex for what i need which is a simple storage and sync solution for my large library of documents i found icloud drive to be buggy and not quite suited for straight syncing in the past do you think that i'll be able to replace dropbox when ios 13 comes out

uh i didn't even mention but but there's the new folder sharing thing in iCloud Drive, which is a big feature for some people where that was like one thing that was really keeping them on Dropbox. Dropbox, yeah, I don't love the idea of the Dropbox. I understand it, but Dropbox has gotten, its business model is appealing to enterprise,

to giant enterprise clients. And so they're like, we've put Google Docs and all this other stuff inside Dropbox and slack right and we're running it's a it's the app has like all this stuff in it that is beyond what i want as somebody who uses it for collaboration but i don't use it for slack and i don't use it for for uh for google docs so um my my hope is that dropbox will be judicious with what it does and that that if you're just using it on this other level that it won't ruin that product but it might because it's clearly not the focus i'm very hesitant to the idea that just because a company adds something that they're

changing everything that you use like right i think a lot of the current freaking out about dropbox is maybe a little bit more than is necessary, but the product at its core is still the same. Yeah, the signs are there that their priorities have shifted kind of away from this audience that includes people like us to the enterprise. And that could be a bad sign or it could be nothing. And people do freak out about Dropbox. There are a lot of people who freak out about Dropbox because of the kernel extensions it uses in order to patch the

file system so that it can behave the way it wants to. By the way, there's a whole new system to do that in macOS Catalina that ideally will solve a lot of these problems by allowing Google Drive and Dropbox and OneDrive to write to that new file system API in macOS Catalina. And it may even be related to the one in iOS 13, which is pretty cool. I'm not sure about that. But so it may be the Dropbox and all these other file providers get better in Catalina because they will be updated to use this new system that's a better system. That would be cool. But this question is about iCloud Drive. iCloud Drive is fine.

It's got some bugs, although I haven't been bothered by them in a while. So it feels like maybe it's getting better. Oh my God. You still have them? I am a, I feel like I'm of a increasingly smaller group of people, but I have so many problems with files on my iPad

where I'm trying to use numbers and it just spins on like a 60K numbers file. Same, same. That absolutely happens to me too. Yes. Oh yeah, I was thinking of it in a Mac context, but this question is also about iOS. And yeah, in iOS right now,

I have lots of problems with iCloud Drive, where files that are very small just never come over and you're stuck and you have no feedback. Also, I have problems with Dropbox and iOS 13, where they get out of sync, where the Files app doesn't really know what's in Dropbox and you have to go to the Dropbox app, which negates the point of having Dropbox show up in the Files app. Again, some hope with iOS 13 that Dropbox on iOS may be better.

My guess is that Dropbox on iOS is not going to get as ruined as Dropbox on the Mac, potentially by all of these business changes they're making. But I agree with you. Apple's got to clean up the iCloud Drive experience on iOS because in files right now, it can be a disaster. So basically, the answer to the question, Bartek, is it's too early to tell.

Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Maybe, but you may not need to. It's really very much like you may not need to because Dropbox might be okay. You may not be able to because the buggy stuff that's in iCloud in the Files app may still be there. I wish I had an answer. We are watching these betas too. that drive you crazy and you get these versions of it and you're like, did they fix it? And you don't know it's a crapshoot. You have no idea whether this little bug was fixed eight months ago or whether they are not even aware that it exists.

I don't know. I like the idea of pet bugs that drive you crazy. Yeah. That's, that's fun for me. Cause it's like a little pet bug. It's like, Oh,

you're driving. It could be a plot of a plot of a Totoro movie. Uh, on the last episode in our app draft, I mentioned Threes as an app that got put onto the home screen, because I still play it all the time. And Forgo wants to know, what is my high score?

For somebody who plays the game a lot, actually, my high score is not massive compared to some of the scores that I've seen. It's 63,657. That is my highest score in threes. I beat your high score in single suit in flip-flop. You did. Yeah, you sent me a screenshot of that.

I did. I marked it up. You circled it. Circled where you were, circled where I was, did a little arrow. Thanks. Much appreciated. Kevin wants to know,

what are the chances that Apple gets back into the Rota game? Referencing HomeKit for routers I know I said that differently both times but that's just my life referencing HomeKit for routers an opportunity to grow services revenue via subscriptions similar to Eero and additional privacy controls so this was shown off on stage at WBC and as one of the things that's getting added to HomeKit is support for routers

and they showed a bunch of products including Eero as one that the things that's getting added to HomeKit is support for routers and they showed a bunch of products including Eero as one that's going to be added into this system my feeling on this is the fact that they have added this support into HomeKit is more of a reason that Apple will not be getting back into the router game because they are blessing a bunch of companies uh with from a security standpoint basically feels that way to me feels that way to me that this is a Apple is going to build it's going to work with router developers on features rather than build their own thing because this by by drawing that like cause and effect apple would then make light bulbs which they're not going to do i would love apple to see networking hardware and VPN as a business opportunity to expand their privacy

and security brand. But my guess based on reading the tea leaves is that they've decided it's a can of worms they don't want to open and that they're better off working with VPN providers and router providers and just not getting, not setting foot in that area because while it would be a good fit for them to vpn everything and have the most stable and secure router for your home and all of those things i think maybe this is a case where they they survey the landscape and like that's kind of a lot for us to take on. We don't need to. There's plenty of options out there. We're fine. Personally, I'm happier with them providing tools

like HomeKit than building their own hardware. So then I can still choose what I want. Yeah. But still benefit from the security stuff. Like that, I find that to be a better trade-off for what I want to do. Dimitar says, you keep mentioning how you like to use, how you want to have widgets on your iPad

visible all the time but I really want to know what widgets do you use and that is a good question because I know I've been saying it a lot like I'm really excited to have widgets on my home screen so I should mention the widgets that I use every single day so I use the shortcuts widget I use the widget for

Timery, Fantastical and Calzones and Todoist I use those widgets every single day and the batteries widget as well and I use them all the time they're the ones for me Shortcuts for sure Fantastical those are the biggest ones

Carrot Weather but Shortcuts is the big one because not only is that I use Shortcuts but you can run them from the widget and they run without the user interface. The fastest way to run a bunch of shortcuts is with the widget. That is a pro tip. Yeah. Andrew asks, what case or cover do you use of your iPads when you're not using the bridge keyboard?

I don't use anything. iPads when you're not using the bridge keyboard. I don't use anything because if it's not in the bridge keyboard, it's only ever out of it for a little while. And I'll either have it in my stand, the clear look stand that I use, clear look of a K, or I don't use any case at all. I use, I'm finding myself using the Apple smart cover folio whatever they call it the one without the keyboard yeah a lot because it's super thin and light and i use that a lot and then i'll put it in a keyboard case or a stand if i want but i i i've sort of fallen back to just give me a little thing that covers it yeah yeah i i use it not in the bridge keyboard so infrequently right that i don't feel like i need to have a case on it and i actually then just enjoy having the super

thin and light ipad in my hands in those times um so i just haven't used the case at all in those circumstances i did want to mention they did send me a press release for this but i'll just mention it i didn't ask me to, but I will. The Bridge keyboards are in stock now, because I know before they were doing pre-orders. So if you've heard us talk about one of these before and haven't got them, you can just buy them and they ship them now, rather than needing to wait.

I'm still very, very happy with my Bridge keyboard. I absolutely love them on both of my iPads. I'm really, really happy with it. So it still gets a big, like after months of using it, that's still thoroughly recommended from me. So yep, if you are interested. All right, that is a hashtag ask upgrade. You can always send in questions for the show to send out a tweet with the hashtag ask upgrade. And we are going to move into our summer fun topic for this episode, which is talking about the Miyazaki Movie Kiki's Delivery Service. But before we do, let me thank our final sponsor of this week's show,

and that is PDFPen11 from our friends at Smile. PDFPen and PDFPen Pro are the ultimate PDF viewing and editing apps for the Mac. You can add headers and footers along with watermarks to your documents, and it also includes a precision edit tool, and you can OCR scan your documents as well, so they're readable, which is unsearchable, which is wonderful. PDF Pen 11 is a huge upgrade, and the new version includes some wonderful features, like a split view mode for comparing pages in a document, a new font bar for easier text editing,

the option to edit multiple form fields at the same time, continuity camera support for scanning documents with your phone. So you may have forgotten about this feature. It was introduced with Mojave, I think, where you can use your iPhone's camera for an app on your Mac. So you can take a piece of paper, use the camera, and scan that into PDF pen on the Mac, which is awesome. You also have the ability to add multiple items to the PDF pen library simultaneously and so much more. I use PDF pen on all of my devices on my Mac, on my iPad, on my iPhone all the time, probably every day. It was one of my most used and favorite applications. If you spend any time working with PDFs, you need PDFPen 11. So go to smilesoftware.com slash podcast right now.

That is smilesoftware.com slash podcast and you can find out more about PDFPen 11. Our thanks to PDFPen from Smile for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. So Jason, as our summer of fun topic for this episode, summer of fun.

Summer of fun. We're going to be doing a mic at the movies. At the movies. Kiki's Delivery Service. Yes. I don't know if this was particularly a summer movie, but we did Totoro last time, so it felt right to...

I feel like you want to induct me into Miyazaki movies now. I do. I feel perfectly happy with. Perfectly, perfectly happy with. And if it's windy where you are in the summertime, then it's perfect, because it's all about the wind in this movie. There's rain, too. There's rain as well, you know. Sometimes there's rain to pop are in the summertime, then it's perfect because it's all about the wind. There's rain, too.

There's rain as well. You know, sometimes there's rain. There is, yeah. So weather. The weather is a major. I would say, Mike, that the major antagonist in Kiki's Delivery Service is the weather. Okay. We'll get to that.

We'll get to that. All right. we'll get to that we'll get to that all right um i want to talk about as i usually do with mike at the movie segments is what i kind of thought before i watched the movie this this movie so kiki's delivery service which is another uh miyazaki movie we you know you we spoke about totoro last time um i knew nothing about this movie um I know that people love it, but I didn't know about this episode as much as I knew about Totoro, right? Like Totoro is just like,

that's just a character you know, right? Because you see the soft toys everywhere or like it's just part of kind of pop culture in general, I think, the Totoro character. And Kiki's Delivery Service, at least for me, doesn't have a thing like that where I would be familiar with something in the movie having never seen the movie.

Yeah, sure. I agree. I agree. It does not have that kind of iconic pop culture character that you see in Stuffed Animal or something like that or that everybody talks about. It's not that kind of movie. And what is your history with this movie? How many times have you seen it? I have seen it, I don't know, countless number of times, 10,

15, like lots of times. And it's the first Miyazaki movie I saw. Okay. I first heard about miyazaki by the review of uh this movie when it was released in the u.s and it was um so it was reviewed on like uh the siskel and ebert show which was the movie weekly movie review show um and they were huge boosters of it and it was literally a thing i'd never heard of i thought that was interesting roger ebert put it on his best movies of the year list at the end of the year, and that surprised me. So I suppose probably the first time I heard about it was watching their best of the year episode in whenever 1989, I don't know when it was, when it came out in the US, late 80s, early 90s in the US. And I was like, oh, well, that's interesting. And I don't think I saw it for another five or 10 years or whenever. I think I didn't see it until it came

out on home video in the US, which was in the late 90s. But it became, it's just delightful. I was enchanted the first time I saw it and have enjoyed it every time. We talked about, we did a Miyazaki episode of The Incomparable, and then we've gone back and we've done episodes about every Miyazaki movie one by one. We haven't gotten to all of them, but we've done a bunch. And I think this was the first one we did for that. And yeah, so I also have a relationship with it where when I first saw it, I didn't have kids. And then I had little kids and then bigger kids and the bigger kids and the bigger kids. And so like every time I watch it and when I watch it with them, they have different memories because they've always, you know, it's been around

for their whole life. So they've reacted to it in different ways over time. And, you know, likewise, I've been a, I'm now, even though Kiki is young when she leaves home, you know, I am now at the point where my daughter is going to leave home to go off to college this fall and so it has yet another kind of set of colors to it as the parents at the beginning say you know say goodbye to her and she flies off on her broom on her mom's broom not the broom she made i did find that bit actually at the beginning like a little bit it was like interesting and sad but i don't want to talk about the beginning of the movie just yet because i have a lot to say about it i I just kind of wanted to wrap it up. I watched the English dub version, which came from you,

because it's impossible to find these movies. You have to buy them on disc is basically how you have to do it. John Syracuse disapproves of you watching the English dub. I approve. I think it's a good dub. I think it's very good. That's my preferred way of watching it. I have watched it with subtitles. It is an interesting, different experience. And it's always fun dub i think it's very good that's my preferred way of watching it i have watched it uh with subtitles it is an interesting different experience and it's always fun for me

again like kirsten dunst plays kiki i like that these movies very very young kirsten dunst exactly they have these people that become like megastars later on like we had uh was it one of the olsens played uh the character in totoro but anyway, so it's like super interesting. No, it was Dakota Fanning, right? It's Dakota Fanning, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I would say on the whole, I will kind of give my spoiler

for what I thought about this movie. I did not like this as much as Totoro, but I did enjoy it. I think it's missing something that Totoro has for me uh what that might be it uh that i and i have some more thoughts about that later on but i don't know if it's that so much because totoro doesn't really well it's kind of similar in this movie to this movie yes they're very similar in in that they're kind of episodic and there's no no villain essentially the stakes don't exist like they're so low until something happens right

like there are no stakes in this movie until the dirigible is is in trouble right all of the other stakes are just like super simple regular life stuff which is the same as totoro or it's like it's little things are happening until the young girl goes missing right and then the stakes that's when the stakes of the movie but it's like the last 30 minutes of the movie other than that they're both sort of like sets of short stories and there's a little more

of a character I mean there's character arcs Kiki definitely has a character arc she's learning about herself it's a journey of self discovery for her but yeah they're similar and i would say the other thing in this is that and and i find that people are split about like totoro and kiki totoro is cuter and it's like because it's got the it's got all the it's got adorable little kid and it's got all the fun little little totoros and i i think Totoro is a cuter movie,

whereas Kiki's Delivery Service is a coming of age movie. And even though there's magic in it, it is basically the magic of Kiki's flying on a broomstick and her talking cat. And that's what the magic is. A talking cat? What? And so that is, it's a different flavor for sure than Totoro.

I also, I find Totoro to be just so weird and also so remote, even though there are people around, they're kind of off and in nowhere. And Kiki is a movie about her finding her way in a city. So there are a bunch of people around and she's, you know, learning about that too. So the texture of it is very different and i think that may be why they they um they feel different and different people have their favorites uh it also may be that i just came to kiki first and so i i love it and then i saw totoro and i was like oh that's great too this is one of the things that i was wondering it's like do do i love totoro more because i saw it first like i wonder if that might be it where um going into this movie i had a

greater expectation and understanding of what i was going to be seeing you know like i knew it was going to be like super chill and like slice of life which this is like when i say there's no stakes obviously these things are important to the character but like in the grand scheme of making a dramatic movie um you know, getting wet in a delivery. It's not like huge, right? It's not like huge blockbuster stakes. Exactly right.

But, so, I feel like I had a better feeling of, that's what this movie is going to be, like going into this one, where in Totoro, everything was a surprise. And as I spoke about last time as well,

right? Like, I kept waiting for the thing and was like oh is that going to be bad is that going to be bad and where in this movie i was kind of letting it wash over me more because i figured i have a better understanding of what's going to happen towards the end of this movie here like looking at the cards that are being dealt um so it's very different so one thing i absolutely loved about this movie was how they spend no time establishing that witches exist i think that is fantastic it's kind of just like within like the first five lines of the movie you basically know all of the backstory and exposition for the fact that there are witches exist and at the age of 13

they go out on their own for a year to train it's like there is nothing more than that and i kind of love that because it's like well this isn't at all what i was expecting uh and i think that that is a really fun way to set up something that is so kind of wild is just to spend no time dealing with it except for the fact that you now know everything you need within like two minutes. Yeah. And her mom is a, you know, potion witch or whatever. And this is just a coming of age thing. And it's there. And also the theme of the movie is there from the very beginning, which is at 13, which is at 13, they go out on their own. And it's, you know, this is the, you know, it is it is an age that 13, 14. You know, it is an age that 13, 14, this is when young, you know, this is when girls become women, basically, in many, many, many cultures for lots of reasons, including biological reasons, right?

And that's not said in this, but like that's part of this is Kiki is going from being a girl to being a woman. And this is what witches do. They go out on their own and they find their way. And it is like literally being a witch means you have a coming of age adventure because you leave home and find your fortune. And all the parents can do is say, well, remember when we were that young? And then they have to just let them go because she has to do it on her own. Yeah, I couldn't help but think of Pokemon

because this is basically what happens in Pokemon. You hit a certain age and then you're a child, but you're just sent out into the world right like off you go you've got to go and grow up now and like it it was just like a funny thing to me to be like oh yeah this is like what happens to pokemon trainers they go out into the world um the i kind of love how geographically ambiguous that city is it's like kind of london kind of paris in japan labeled as hawaii it's like it's not what is going on it's not so it is uh that's an interesting read on it so the truth is it's northern europe it is not meant to be japan even though it's for a japanese audience it's meant to be northern europe okay um but when she's looking at the map there are hawaiian place

names i don't even there are there's so much nonsense writing because there's also like there's there's the name of the shop which is kind of nonsense and it's all you'll see there's there's umlauts and stuff in it so the story is that miyazaki and his collaborators uh went to sweden and they went to they spent time in stockholm and they spent time in visby which is a little town on the island of gotland in the baltic sea i've been to both of those places all right let me tell you when i watch this movie i'm like oh yeah i see it like it's a very stockholm it's very based on stockholm and the more pastoral stuff is visby yeah there was like double-decker buses and the london underground sign also trolleys, though, those street trolleys, which are kind of Amsterdam-ish, but also Stockholm.

Yeah, so there's just like a bunch. It was really fun for me. This place is everywhere. Yeah, well, he wants it to be. So he's delivery service. Miyazaki wants it to be set in a, you know, indeterminate, but like he wanted that Northern European kind of vibe. Okay. you know, indeterminate, but like he wanted that Northern European kind of vibe, which is, which is, I think, an interesting choice, because most of his movies are just in Japan or in a

magical world that is very much like Japan. But Kiki is different in that way. And yes, it is hilarious that so much of it, it's got, you know, Roman letters that maybe Japanese audiences can read, maybe they can't, but it doesn't matter because they're mostly nonsense and they're just meant to be like you know sending the message that this isn't Japan it was just really fun it's like where is this place right because yeah it was like so when they're looking at the map there was there was some places I'm sure that I saw like Haleakala which is like a mountain in Maui yep listed on the on the map, and it's like, what is going on? It was kind of one of my favorite things, is where is this movie now? Like, I really liked that.

That was a lot of fun for me. I guess putting the delivery service into Kiki's delivery service is she becomes a delivery person because she can fly. The whole idea is witches have to find out what their role is going to be yeah i really liked that the way that kind of like witches are dealt with in this movie it isn't necessarily what you would expect like when you don't really know what you're going

into most people are kind of like ambivalent to it and then some people think that it's really exciting but everybody is very aware of the fact that witches exist and they're not like People are kind of ambivalent to it, and then some people think that it's really exciting. But everybody is very aware of the fact that witches exist, and they're not hesitant towards it in any way. Which is especially weird, because it is established that there are not many. Yeah, I mean, she ends up in that city, and she's like, hey, do you guys have witches here? And they're like, no, we haven't had witches here in hundreds of years, or whatever. And she's like, that's and that's it and it's kind of fascinating to me again just as like a here's like a hallmark of this type of movie that that is not the thing like every other movie would be about making it the thing of like she's persecuted and then has to like save a

child in the town and then she is uh accepted but like there is no requirement for her acceptance even though she is a clear outsider and she goes through that right like she feels it herself but her kind of feeling of being an outsider has kind of got nothing to do with the fact that she's a witch she's just a young girl trying to fit into a new place right and and it's very it's just like a super interesting thing where it's like every time you think you know what this movie is going to be when you apply typical maybe western movie ideals or just like typical movie ideals in general uh you are surprised by the fact that it is not that it is way smaller right like everything is is smaller

yeah there's no whole like story arc about how there's discrimination against witches and it's just not her being a witch is a curiosity it's almost like it's a personality quirk right it's that she does that has this cool thing she can do it's like her her skill but it's not that's not any any more than that other than the fact she has to wear the dress the black dress but other than that and it's like that so there's other little things like it that i enjoy when when gg gets left in the house right and i really enjoyed the animation of gg the cat sweating when the dog is coming near them i thought that was kind of hilarious uh that i really like that but then that is all resolved so quickly it's like oh i thought there was going to be more then it's just like oh she just went and she had to negotiate with the artist lady to get the cat doll back,

and then nothing happens to the dog. The dog just helps them do the trade, and then it's dealt with. I know I keep talking about it, but that's what I do enjoy in these movies is them playing with my idea of where they're going. It's a lot of fun for me because it's so different. I really enjoy it. I'd say it's almost more lifelike too in the sense that life is really just sort of a sequence of small stories of things that happen.

And you don't see that a lot in movies where they build up this whole kind of story arc of like, oh, this thing at is going to mean something at the end and it's not it's not like that there's certainly stuff that comes back just like in life you meet somebody and then you go see them later and that stuff happens but it's shaped it's not shaped like we've been trained to expect are there any parts of this movie that are particularly meaningful or stick out in your mind like when you think of this movie i so it's funny i think my the part that sticks out for me the most is the old lady with her uh assistant who at one point is is pretending to ride the broom because she's an enthusiast for and is way too excited about the dirigible disaster. Super excited about that. That's so weird.

She can't believe that it's a weird character. And then there's the nice old lady. And she wants to bake a herring and pumpkin pot pie for her. That's disgusting. Well, Sweden. For her granddaughter for her birthday. But the oven isn't working. And her granddaughter for her birthday but the oven isn't working and kiki you know helps her to build the fire and all that and then they bake it but

then it's late and it's raining and she gets it there and i really love in that it's so sad but it's that scene where the the girl comes to the door and it's actually one of the girls who hangs out with the boys who um who are seen throughout the movie and sort of hang out with tombo the the the kid who likes Kiki and, and just trying to build a flying machine because he can't fly and she can, which is a cute little character thing. But anyway, she comes to the door,

this girl, and she's like, oh, it's one of grandma's stupid pies. And, and closes the door. And Kiki just says, how can they be,

or no, it's the cat says, how could they be related? Because the lady is so nice. and her granddaughter is so awful. And I just, that always has stuck with me that in some ways there are so few villains in this movie, but one of the big villains, other than the weather in Kiki is this ungrateful granddaughter. Like the, the, the nice old lady has tried really hard and Kiki's really helped her to

get this, give her this present and she doesn't care. And I just thought it's just kind of bittersweet and interesting. And that's a funny line about how could she possibly be related to that nice old lady? It's great. That's strange, but that sticks with me. I think more than that and the fact that when she first takes off at the beginning of the movie, and then later in the movie, this happens again, I love the animation where she's bumping against the trees at the beginning. And later on when she's trying to fly, she ends up kind of like coming up against buildings and kicking off with her legs. Like it feels very dreamlike in a way. And also so much work to animate that those little details where she's kind of brushing against things and kind of throwing out an elbow or putting down a foot in order to not crash into

something as she's kind of tenuously flying around. Those are, those are sort of the two things that really stick with me when I think about this movie. Yeah. I like that whole scene. Well, I like the whole thing when she's like trying to,

to relearn to fly. Right. And she's like running down that mountain or that, that it's not mountain, like the hillside. Hillside. She's like falling into the ditch and stuff. But yeah, when when when she then takes that like and i figure it's like part that she uh is trying to like get the confidence and also that the broom is weird right that she's

just kind of like can't control it because it's not like a regular broom for her um which i i did actually kind of laugh to myself that it's like, oh, witches can fly with any broom. Turns out. It's just got to be a broom. And then I'm starting to think in my brain of like, all right, so what is it about brooms? I kind of like that thought. It's like, oh, any broom can fly. They just don't necessarily fly well.

When she's looking for a broom, or I know she's looking for a broom this time, there's a guy standing in the street with a ladder. And I thought, try that. Can you fly a ladder? Have ever tried give it a shot maybe it's just anything anything really she's like just a wood a wooden object i don't know maybe there was there's a mop at one point and i thought i thought could you just fly a mop maybe i don't know if it's not wet is it too heavy if it's wet mysteries of Kiki yeah Tombo needs to get some chill that's my my reading on Tombo Tombo needs to just get some chill this boy who likes

you is hanging out outside the bakery in the rainstorm he's a little intense yeah he he needs with just like everything about him needs to get he needs to get some chill he does a decent job when she brings the bread uh when sono like kind of hashes a devious plan and she like brings the order to him and then he's more of like a regular person but up until that point it's like dude just just calm down a little bit like and you might be okay here which is it's kind of hilarious yeah well and the whole Which is kind of hilarious. Yeah. Well, and the whole bakery family kind of thing. You mentioned Osono.

Like, she's pregnant. And her husband is the strong, silent type. He just kind of grunts and doesn't really say anything. And they offer her the place to stay. And she works in the bakery and also delivers stuff. And it's just kind of homey and nice and sweet. And when she meets her, it's a great little meeting scene where the baby has left its pacifier behind. And Kiki says, oh, I can deliver it. And that shot, I love that shot so much.

She takes the pacifier and then she just runs to the wall and jumps over it. And the bakery lady is like, oh, no, she's just jumped to her death. And then she looks over and just a little witch is flying away. It's like, I love that. That's great. I also love the importance of that pacifier. Right. Like everything.

It's too important. Like she's screaming down the mountain. Right. Like the hillside. I keep calling it a mountain. And it's just like it's really funny to me. It's like I'm just going to it's like such a big thing that has to be dealt with yeah the fact is there is another pacifier just like it at home but she's gonna scream the whole way home that's what's

gonna happen there but as a as a parent i can say that now but at the time it's still like oh no that baby it's like the biggest threat in the world is oh no that baby doesn't have a pacifier if we don't get it back to that baby in five minutes it'll explode exactly that's how it's treated it's like uh it just has to be done but you know it's just a sad baby that left something behind at a bakery the question for you yeah do do you think that kiki ever hears gg talk again okay so on the incomparable we spent a long time debating why the cat stops talking and whether the cat ever starts talking again a long time and i think it's purposeful in the movie to realize that nobody else can hear gg anyway i just thought gg was talking cat not the witches can talk to black cats and because it's more than the talking all of the cat's mannerisms change when it finds a mate right so it's not just

that she doesn't have the same powers anymore gg just becomes like a regular cat and yeah it's like and then because then there's this whole question of like did she ever even lose her powers in the first place like she may have just been dealing with a crisis of confidence and gg becoming a real cat or making a choice to be a real cat rather than a magic cat uh kind of threw her off base so what is your feeling on this then so there are many many theories about this. It is interesting that her loss of confidence is also tied in with her lack of the ability to understand him.

And so that makes it even more complicated. I'll complicate it further, Mike. In the original Disney English dub with Phil Hartman, the cat talks again at the end. Oh, gosh. Okay. And Miyazaki actually was like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. And so the version that you saw

and that is available now on video with English speaking countries, they actually took out a lot of the stuff they added in to make it more match what Miyyazaki went and and the cat doesn't talk again at the end so miyazaki says it's it he doesn't want you to hear the cat talking at the end i think the implication is that uh not so much because the cat is like

has is has found a mate and is having kittens, little black and white kittens. And I think it's that she's grown up. That, that I think is the right interpretation. Anybody can have it. I think it's that it's the coming of age. It is literally part of the coming of age is that when you become an adult, which you are not your child self anymore. And the child self talks to the cat,

but the adults don't. And it's just all of the parts of things of, of growing up. And we had a whole deep debate about this and the incomparable, but that's, that's where I come down is that I, at this point is that I think it's, it's just,

she's grown up. And so she doesn't hear the cat anymore. Okay. I, I, you know what? I think that that matches. That makes a lot of sense to me,

because the mannerisms of Gigi don't change at the end of the movie again. Like, still looks like a cat, right? Not like a character. So, yeah, I think, okay. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Yeah, but it is an interesting little quirk of the movie that you think that she's losing contact with the cat because she's losing contact with her powers, but it's really something bigger, which is that she's got to find her self-confidence and grow into the woman that she needs to be. And she goes off and has her little walkabout with the artist out in the forest, which is a nice callback that the artist comes and gets her. And that's, I forget her name, Ursula, maybe.

But it's Janine Garofalo in the dub. And they go out and she talks about how she had trouble drawing. And then she went through this creative period where she figured it out. And then she was able to be creative again and gives that advice as somebody who went through it and i think that's all really good so i think that in the end you know the crisis of confidence is really just part of the growing up part of of kiki's journey i like this movie a lot i didn't enjoy it as much as totoro but that's not to say i didn't enjoy it i just have a, I think, out of the two. And I look forward to the next Miyazaki movie that you send to me, Jason.

Yeah. So, okay. So, I will caution you. I think these are the two best ones. That's fine. And I think that there are not... I'm not sure there's another Miyazaki movie that's quite like these two. This is favorite miyazaki the other miyazaki movies have some of them are really kind of psychedelic and some of them are very much more traditionally plotted which is not to say that they aren't great but they are uh they are a little less of this kind of um what if we made a movie without a much of a plot and no bad guys and it was just a story, a nice story about people

living their lives in interesting ways with magic? I'm not sure there are other movies that are quite like this other than maybe Ponyo, which is about a fish and is super weird, but we'll get to that another time. All right, if you want to find the show notes for this week's episode you can go to relay.fm upgrade 251 we have some great summer of fun episodes planned over the next few weeks with some very special guests so you can look out for those i'm excited about our next few weeks of summer of fun episodes um i want to thank again our

wonderful sponsors for this episode, AstroPad Studio, ExpressVPN, ButcherBox, and PDFPen11 from Smile. You can find Jason online at sixcolors.com and at jsnell on Twitter. I am at imyke, I-M-Y-K-E. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Goodbye, everybody.