Upgrade - 278: The 2019 Upgradies

Episode Date: December 30, 2019

As the year comes to an end, it's time for the Sixth Annual Upgradies! Myke and Jason discuss their favorites of 2019, take the input of 1500 Upgradians, and hand out awards in numerous categories! Only the finest will walk away with the most coveted of titles: Upgradies Winner.

From RelayFM, this is Upgrade, and of course these are the Upgradey Awards for 2019. Today's show is brought to you by PDFPen, FromSmile, Linode, Kensington, and Ethos, where we talk about our sponsors of this fine prestigious awards event as we go through the proceedings of the evening. My name is Mike Hurley and I am joined by my co-chair in the Upgradies Award Committee Mr. Jason Snell. Hi Jason Snell

Does that mean we have to like share a single chair? One very big chair. It's like a love seat Okay, that's good It's the sixth, Mike, sixth annual Upgradees. How about that? I'm pleased you said that, because I can't. Very quickly before we begin, thank you to everybody for the kind words about our last episode. I'm really pleased that people enjoyed the holiday special as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Both me and Jason worked very hard on that one, I think, and I'm really pleased that people liked it, because you're never sure how people are going to react, right?

that one i think and i'm really pleased that people liked it because you're never sure how people are going to react right yeah i didn't i didn't know because it's like it starts out and it's kind of real but it then it becomes ludicrous as it goes and uh that that's great i also my uh condolences to the people who thought oh i much prefer this format i'm glad that upgrade is now just going to be serial every week because it's not. But thank you. Who knows? Maybe in the future. We'll see. I definitely know it's not going to be the case.

But who knows? Maybe there'll be another one. We'll see. But these are the Upgrade Awards. Let me explain to you some of the proceedings that we have going on today. This is our sixth year in a row that we are doing the Upgradeys, which is a wonderful thing to think about. And I'm very excited that we're here today because I enjoy the Upgradees immensely. If you want to see both the

information about all of the previous winners and runner-ups in every category and links to the winners and runner-ups of this year's Upgradees, go to Upgradees.com. There'll be a link in the show notes for that. We'll not be putting anything else in the show notes to avoid category spoilers. Spoilers. Oh, yes. Yes. You wouldn't want to spoil your own podcast. No, come on.

Terrible. Be wild. We will just at this point mention that there are two award winners that are in the Hall of Fame, both the Accidental Tech Podcast as the favorite tech podcast and the Flophouse as the favorite non-tech podcast. When an individual or company or podcast wins three total Upgradies, they are put into the Hall of Fame so they can no longer win in that category. This is to stop certain shows or items winning every single year forever.

And to help us with that, we now have been for the last few years opening up the Upgradie Awards to you, the Upgradians, so we can have more variety in our voting. This was to stop, for example, there were certain categories that either me or Jason couldn't pick a different winner in. We just keep picking the same thing all the time. Or couldn't come up with many nominations for.

And there'll be some of those throughout the night where both me or jason cannot think of something that we particularly would want to award because of reasons that we'll get to um this is the third time that we've been taking nominations from the upgradians and jason over 1500 upgradians responded this year which is more than double last year which is is incredible. So thank you to everybody that put their nominations in. I worked on this for many hours over the holiday break to bring together all of those nominations into some charts, and then we could bring out some percentages. So as we go through, we'll be doing a few things in every category. So for each category, both me and Jason make a nomination, and we look at the

top three winners as denoted from the Upgradians votes. We then use all of this information to discuss and choose a winner together. You get to hear the discussions that are usually kind of held behind closed doors of award ceremony panels. And just like if you listen to this show live and you see voting in the chat room where we vote for the titles of every episode, this is not a democracy around here. We choose the winner based on what we think is right, as opposed to necessarily what received the most votes. So I guess without further ado, Jason, should we get into our very first category of the evening? I think so. I did want to mention the Hall of Fame. I think so I did want to mention the Hall of Fame you went past that and

dangled out there that if you get an upgrade three times you're inducted into the Hall of Fame so we can stop picking you there are a few selections that could potentially be made this time that would put things in the Hall of Fame so it's very exciting because we don't know what's going to happen

we have our choices but we have to work it all out here that's happening live on the podcast but uh it's possible we could have some hall of fame inductees today which is exciting too um although i i do feel like it's basically a punishment for us for stop stop picking that we know you like it stop picking it which i think is good um yeah the hall of fame by the way if you want to find it, if you go to the Upgradies Hall of Fame and you select to view by year at Upgradies.com, there is a Lifetime Achievement, which is put at the top there.

The reason it says Lifetime Achievement is because we very frequently flip between both phrases, both Lifetime Achievement and Hall of Fame. So there you go. Maybe we could change it to Hall of Fame, but it doesn't matter. And if you want to visit the physical Hall of Fame, doesn't exist exactly maybe one day maybe one day maybe one day so it's a steven hackett's house maybe lifetime achievement is actually the better phrase and is the phrase that we will now use from here on out in the episode lifetime achievement award

winners which are atp and the flop house okay so the very first category today is for the best iOS app. So Jason, would you like to hear what the upgradians entered as the best iOS apps of the year? I would. At 4.6% of the overall vote is Things. I guess Things 3, which is the current version of the GTD-focused application. 4.6% of the vote. At 9.6% of the vote is apollo the reddit client for ios and at a huge 27.4 percent i believe this is the single largest percentage of any award winner of the upgradies like voted for by the upgradians this year yes i just checked yeah so 27.4 percent is overcast

the podcast application that many people are probably listening to this episode in and that is why one of the reasons why i think overcast is so heavily uh picked by listeners so what you're saying is that podcast listeners like podcast apps correct that is That is what I think. So that is 27.4% for Overcast. And I will note, so you were saying about Lifetime Achievement Award winners. If Overcast is to win this category today,

it will become a Lifetime Achievement Award winner as it won in both 2014 and 2013. Last year. And last year, sorry, in 2018. My apologies. 2018 and 2014. So that would put Marco Armitz Overcast

as a Lifetime Achievement Award winner. But we have many things to discuss before then, including your pick, Jason, for the best iOS app of the year. Yeah, I always struggle with this because there are so many iOS apps. It's a very wide category. And I use a bunch of them, but they're very personal,

and I try to think more broadly. And I also try to not pick Overcast because I also use it all the time to listen to podcasts. And it had some really nice upgrades this year that um that made it way better that were really innovative the clip sharing feature that marco introduced this year uh has gotten people to share podcast audio way more than they used to which is great for podcasts in general other apps have picked up the concept um so there's a lot to be said for it but i i kept saying to myself no no, no, no, no,

no. Don't pick Overcast. Come on. You got to find something else. So in the course of writing my book about photos, which is available now, I guess, take control of photos, the app the ios app that i kept coming back to uh that it it works it's exactly what i want on my ipad when i'm doing photo stuff because although photos for ios is uh is good and getting better there are things that it is unable to do that are just perplexing. And also there's this frustration about using third-party apps for photos on iOS where you end up in the past, what it's been is you sort of end up with duplicates of everything. So you can export a photo and then edit it somewhere else to get around the fact that it doesn't have good editing tools or it doesn't have some editing tools that you want. But then you put it back in photos and it's just like a new photo at the end of the library, nowhere near the other stuff and a duplicate. Well, Apple did some changes to iOS

to make it capable for third-party apps to overwrite photos in the photo library. So that's good. And one app that I discovered does that and has a really good, really easy to use touch-up tool where basically if you have a blemish on a person or there's a beautiful background and there's some random person walking across it, you literally open this app up and move your your finger over that that thing you want to remove and it's gone plus there's like machine learning driven auto adjust and so many other things so um my nomination is going to be pixelmator photo for ipad as best ios app um because it lets me make my photos way better in my photo library on my iPad. And, uh, that the, the, when I, when I started using it, I just could not believe it was one of those things where I'm looking

around like, do people know about this? And I looked and it's like, some people knew about it. A lot of people didn't know about it. It's really amazing. And, uh, and does some stuff that the photos app just doesn't do, but then saves the photos back in to the photo library. Really good app. So Pixelmator Photo is my nomination. I like that pic. It's a little bit out of left field, right? Yep.

Because I don't think it's something that everybody would use a lot, or even the people that do own it probably don't use it a ton. But I have saved photos using this application. Oh, yeah. Right? Oh, yeah. yeah photos that i really like but would otherwise be ruined by something and i have done some wild things with the machine like the machine learning to remove things in an image are so so good uh like it is

like very very shocking at how well it does and it's very good with the apple pencil like to to draw over an element of the image and watch it be deleted it's very good with the apple pencil like to to draw over an element of the image and watch it be deleted it's very very cool uh it's a great picture some yeah it's the the the one that i the blew me away was i had a picture of my wife and my daughter from our trip to hawaii this summer and they're in front of a waterfall at this little pond, and there's like three or four random people at various points in the pond. And I, in a minute with my finger, turned that into them and just them

at a secluded pond. And it's like, that is so cool. And I didn't, I't i mean really it was just like tracing over the people and who i wanted to remove and then they're gone so it's it's pretty remarkable and yes you can salvage photos that would otherwise be unusual usable it's pretty amazing so why these features aren't in photos is a question for another time but i am so glad that pixelmator photo exists my favorite ios app of this year should be of no surprise to people who follow my work in various places online it is the time tracking app called timery

so this is an ios app for both ipad and uh well ipad os i guess and ios we're keeping that by the way ipad os and ios it will still be contained in this one category because I don't think are necessarily enough distinct applications. But Timery is an application that works with the time tracking software or the time tracking service, I should say,

Toggle. It's been in development. It was in development for quite a while and it came out earlier this year. It has just a very great design and it's very iOS-y. It supports all the things that you would want your third-party app to support. Like when I say third-party, it's like that community of good third-party apps. So it has lots of themes and great dark mode support and app icon choices and all that kind of stuff. The widget is fantastic.

This is how I mostly interact with Tim kind of stuff the widget is fantastic it's this is how i mostly interact with timeries by the widget you can set up a bunch of um saved timers you know so like for example i have like recording upgrade editing upgrade those are like saved in my timer widget so i can just hit those over button and it starts straight away and the widget hits itself has a counter for your current timer so you can see that ticking away um the application itself has a counter for your current timer. So you can see that ticking away. The application also has fantastic shortcut support. So all of my shortcuts that I have that integrate with time tracking in some way. So when I'm working on anything, I have to keep my time tracked. So I can have accurate representations of what I'm doing.

It's important to me with the way that I work. But I replaced all of my shortcuts that integrate with time tracking anyway with shortcuts created by Timering. And I've been able to build some that are more powerful than I was able to before using shortcuts and its support because it's so well done. And it's been an application in really great consistent development throughout the entire year. The developer, Joe, does a wonderful job of integrating feedback from users and advancing the application in a bunch of ways.

It's a subscription app. It's very well-priced and is an application that I use all day, every day. When I'm working, Timery is running. It's absolutely fantastic and I love it. Like right now? Right now. I've got my uh podcast

recording upgrade timer has been running for 25 minutes and three seconds because that's how long we've been on the call today so now do you know um do you have it on the do you do stuff on the mac with with toggle too and use something different there or are you using ios for all your control of toggle on the mac i have the, I have the Toggle app, which is terrible. But most of the time, I will be firing off my timer on my iPhone using a shortcut that I built, which I'm pretty proud of this shortcut. It looks at my calendar and grabs the name of the show I'm recording and adds that in as a tag in Timery

with the Timery shortcuts and puts my phone on do not disturb. So I'm still using Timery, but via shortcuts as well as just the Timery app itself because that's the kind of power that it has. It has the, what are the new shortcuts

and conversational shortcuts? Is that it? Where you can add in loads of information into a shortcut with variables and stuff. supports all of that it's really just just fantastic i love this app so we sound at an impasse i guess got anything similar so i will say on overcast um i was thinking about like overcast being the upgradians winner this year and i was thinking about the application myself of, it is my app of choice when it comes to podcasts. One of the things that I thought about

which really kind of solidifies Overcast having a good year, like a very good year this year, is the clip sharing feature, which you mentioned earlier. Like, that was a very, very clever feature implemented very well that I've now seen used in a bunch of other podcast apps, which is like, you know, that's one of the key things to show that you had a good feature as it starts to become a standard that you expect. And what I would say is for that, like it was, they were everywhere

when the when this the feature debuted in the application. And whilst the I would say the current amount of times the current usage I see of this feature, sort of sharing little clips and videos, it isn't as much as I would love it to be still being used, but it's way more than I thought would still be used. Does that make sense? Like, I'm still seeing them all the time. I wished I saw them even more, but I'm still seeing them all the time. time um so i will throw my hat in the ring for overcast because i do think that that feature this year is very deserving of accolade well if we pick overcast here too we have the advantage of putting it in the lifetime achievement category which would make marco armand the first ever two-time lifetime achievement award winner which is also just an interesting thing because he is part of the accidental tech podcast yeah that's true that's true oh boy now we get the

best part of the podcast where we have to decide things um we got unfortunately this is our last category right uh um i think uh i i think it would be fine given the that clip sharing feature and how important it is I think to making podcasts more shareable and I use it all the time and I see people using it and and it's a it's a real innovation that was

that was that benefited what we do and that we use ourselves and it lets us never pick overcast in this category again. Let's do it. Yeah, I think it's good for if we have something that keeps coming up consistently to put it, to award it, right?

Like people love it, we love it. But now it opens the gate a bit more for other apps in the future to win this category. So the 2019 Upgradie award winner for best ios app is overcast congratulations to marco for a second lifetime achievement win i guess marco has to keep working on more and more new things now to get into other categories maybe the mac app and overcast um will now be placed at the hall of Fame in, it might be in Stephen Hackett's house, it might be inside Stephen Hackett's

Mac Pro. And, Mike, I feel like for next year, something to aspire to is when we decide the winner, I think we need like a gong or something. Can you work on that? Can you get a gong? Like, you know, and the winner is brong overcast, right?

I mean, I can, not only, I can get a real gong if you want to i can also add gongs in post okay do you want a gong in post i'll i'll leave it to your discretion i mean if you do we could just do it again say it again now and then there'll be a gong because if i put the gong in before it won't make any sense right well no i mean this is all great stuff so why don't we just why don't we just say uh i'm gonna say it now yeah and then i'll put the gong in and we'll see if there's a gong there and the winner for best ios app overcast it's good right yeah thank you that's what i want it's it's just it's very it feels very formal to have a gong you know you know i like as much pomp and circumstance as possible.

I know. In these episodes. So congratulations to Overcast. All right, let's talk about the best newcomer iOS app. So the best new iOS app of the year. The Upgradians with 5.9% voted for Flighty, which is the flight tracking application. 6.2%, my loveery and seven percent disney plus what have you got for the best newcomer ios app of the year disney plus was a surprise to me

yeah because it's not my understanding it's not a great app but people are a fan of the service i guess yeah it runs on ios and i am going to i feel like i'm just pulling up in my car and firing off an air horn here just to bother everybody yeah but i do that sometimes when i nominate things for the upgradies i like to i like to occasionally be provocative um and we waited for it and we waited for it and we waited for it a new ios app for a year for more than a year. We waited for it. And then it arrived. And, you know, it's pretty good. It's got a lot of work to do, but it's actually pretty good,

and it's nice that it's here. It's Photoshop. It's Adobe Photoshop. Yeah. Yeah, I'm doing it. I'm saying it. I made a dumb Photoshopped image on my iPad sitting on my couch with layers and stuff and it all it all worked um and i'm glad that it's there and i'm glad that adobe's building it

and i think it's a big deal that they have embraced the ipad as a real platform for uh for their users instead of making these weird toy apps phone apps that they were making before uh so yeah there it is it's photoshop it's a full full photoshop not actually full i don't really know what to say about this because like the application itself i get it right i get your point right like it it exists now and is kind of good but it has been marred in controversy controversy of not being good enough right like that's the interesting thing about this application but this isn't we're not calling it the best new ios it's new isn't it it's the best i have a couple of apps here that i am thinking

about um so of course i will put timery in again right i thought timery was the best ios app of the year and it was new this year so that's definitely in there but i also wanted to throw in for contention an application that i really enjoy called tripsy which is uh like a trip itinerary application it's very iosy it's very it's like built of ios 13 it looks beautiful and has that kind of design to it and it's a very nice application to help you plan out trips that you're going on. You can also forward itinerary information to it. So like hotels and flights, you can forward them by email and it will put them into the itineraries that you set up in the app. So for every trip that you do, you can have its own little section and you can add in documents and PDFs and stuff of maybe receipts that you've got, boarding cards.

You can add, it also has like an inbuilt directory of places and events. So you can say like, oh, I want to go to this place when I go to this country or whatever. So it's a very nice little application. I like it a lot. But it doesn't beat Timery for me as my favorite newcomer iOS app of the year. So that's where I am. I have no opinion on Disney Plus because I can't use it, which makes me very hesitant to want to award it, even though it was the Upgradians pick.

I really want to pull for Timery on this one, Jason. I was going to say I have no opinion about Timery because I don't track my time. Or perhaps because I live outside of your concept of space and time. Exactly. But, you know, suffice to say, it was second place in the Upgradians vote, and it was your choice. And it sounds great, and it's new, and I love it. So that's enough for me. Hooray! Please.

I've done my job in nominating Photoshop. So I will run through these the runners up for the best newcomer iOS app are Disney Plus and Photoshop with the winner of the best newcomer iOS app of 2019 being Timery I'm very pleased about that one I did realize, I was looking at the upgrades this is obviously one of the categories you could never be there can never be a lifetime achievement award winner in,

which is kind of fun. So we now move into the category that spawned the entire creation of having the Upgradians assist us in voting. That is the best Mac app, because there was a year when neither of us could think of one, both the best Mac app and best newcomer Mac app, we needed the help from our Upgradians.

So the Upgradians voted thusly for the best Mac app currently available. OmniFocus, 4% of the vote. 4.1% of the vote is 1Password. And 4.8% of the vote is Things. Very close. There were lots and lots. It was one of the categories that had the most uh like individual nominations which is not surprising because there are lots and lots of

mac apps available um i will say at this point jason i have no real feeling of picking a winner in this category i don't really have a nomination of my own. This year, I don't really feel any great affinity for any application itself. And so I want to go to you on this one. What is your favorite Mac app this year? So I decided, again, to not nominate the same old things. My own little hall of fame, right? My own little lifetime achievement awards where I'm like, you know,

I'm not going to pick Logic or Final Cut or BV Editor. This was my thing. All of the apps that I was coming to, I've picked too much, like Logic or Audio Hijack. Exactly. I just feel like I'm playing the hits, you know? Exactly. Which there's nothing wrong with having a strong songbook,

but want to do something new. When I do incomparable t-shirts and some of the artwork, I occasionally need to use Adobe Illustrator because I have outlines. They're vector files with art, the show art and the show logos. And I don't do it that much. And I'm not creating my own art. I'm really using it to kind of like remove layers and move things around and export files in certain sizes and certain formats. And Catalina came out this year. And I have, I don't use Illustrator enough for, to pay, you know, a large amount of money to Adobe in order to use it twice a year. Right.

Because your version was the non-creative cloud version. So I had CS5, which was, which I got like a very long time ago and just kept laying around because I only ever needed it once or twice a year for illustrator. And I, you know, I do pay for creative cloud, but just for Photoshop and illustrate,

it just doesn't make sense to, to, to pay for it. And this year Catalina comes out and I think, Oh no, it's not going to work anymore. Illustrator CS five, not going to work anymore.

I tried to put it in a virtual machine. It's like, Oh, it sort of doesn't want to open files and it's really slow and it's really weird and i'm running a whole virtual machine just to run this and my friend anthony johnston who is an illustrator user from way back this year was telling me how he has now switched to the, uh, affinity apps from Serif. And that, uh,

if I really wanted to, uh, do this right, I would just go and buy affinity designer, which is a, you know, it's like a one-time purchase for, I want to say $50.

Yeah. Yeah. That seems about right. And then I will have that for, yeah, it's for $50? Yeah, yeah. That seems about right. And then I will have that for, yeah, it's for $50. And it might have been on sale when I bought it. But then I'll have a native modern

app that does everything that Illustrator did that I needed to do. And then I can keep that because that is not a subscription and that app is going to presumably work for quite a while. And $50 is going to presumably work for quite a while. And $50 once, as opposed to spending, you know, 100 or more $200 a year for a thing I only need twice. And it's great. And those affinity apps are all really good. And it really does. Adobe, I want to say it puts Adobe to shame. That's not quite right, because Adobe's business is very

different. And Adobe's it's a little like Microsoft, right, where Microsoft has the burden of having so many customers that the decisions they make are kind of ponderous and careful because they have to be. Whereas Affinity is actually a little like Apple was back in the day, whereas they're the upstart and they can just make their decisions to do it. But regardless, Affinity Designer really impressed me this year, which is why I'm going to nominate it because it took me out of an app that I've been using occasionally for a very long time. And that's on a subscription model now where it's not relevant for me anymore.

And this is a great replacement for it. So I was super impressed with Affinity Designer and Affinity stuff in general from Sarah. I am 100% on board of giving that the win. Okay, let's do it here's the thing things one password on omni focus well omni focus 3 was new in either very very very late 2018 or very very very early 2019 so i could see an argument for omni focus 3 even though i don't use it because again i exist outside of three oh no you're right I don't use it because, again, I exist outside of... I think it's 4. Things got into 3. Oh, no, you're right. Sorry. OmniFocus 3 and Things 3.

But here's my thing on this, Jason. Those applications, they come up all the time, right? Things and OmniFocus. And OmniFocus, actually, 3 was in 2018, and they did some updates this year, but yeah. They come up constantly right yes i will admit obviously neither omnifocus or things have won um but the reason that i feel this way is i think that affinity are a very cool new exciting company who also do like a great job of making

really powerful ipad software as well like that complement these applications and they have a whole suite of products and i think it's very i think that they are a core company that i think i would like to give an award to that's my thinking okay i love omni I love things. Those applications are really well made, but they've been around for a while. And there's just something about it to me where like Affinity Designer is a cool application that's building on like a trend that exists now.

And I think it would be really great to give them the win. Yeah, let's do it. All right. So Affinity Designer wins the best Mac app in 2019 with things being the runner-up there which gave the one runner-up because i didn't have a pick so we're now moving to another application another application category that i'm afraid jason i have even less uh picks for which is the best newcomer mac app now i was interested this year to wonder if we were going to see any catalyst apps in this category we will see the upgradians voted for affinity publisher

at 5.9 percent of the vote is that what is affinity publisher that's basically in design or express it's a page layout right app and that was in DenU. 8.3% is for NetNewsWire, which is an application I believe is not available publicly. It's a beta, right? No, it's final. For Mac, it's final. The beta is for iOS. NetNewsWire at 8.3% of the vote

and Drafts at 16.2% of the vote, which is a classic iOS app new for the Mac this year. Which, funnily enough, I will just state, which is kind of a peculiar thing, before I just mentioned a moment ago, Drafts 5 won the Best Newcomer Mac App Upgrade in 2018 because it was in beta. Ah, yes. So it is technically still eligible because it is now an available application, but would be super weird for it to win this category.

You can't win the Newcomer Award twice. You can't do it. That is where we are, but let's talk about your pick for this category. I struggled because there aren't a lot of new Mac apps. That's part of the problem. In a year when there should have been lots would be the thinking. Part of the problem the Catalyst was supposed to solve. I do have a couple of Catalyst apps that I'd like to nominate. But first, I'm also going to mention NetNewsWire.

NetNewsWire has a long history. You know, Brent Simmons wrote NetNewsWire. You know, he went and worked at Newsgator for a while. The app got sold to Blackpixel. And then I want to say in 2018, the source code and the rights to the name were given back to Brent. And he decided to start NetNewsWire 5, I think, as a as an open source project so open source and he's managing the project but people other people can and are contributing and uh he wrote actually a really good blog post about how open source doesn't mean that they don't have standards

and that you can just sort of do whatever like he's running the show and he is nobody I would guess other than maybe Dave Weiner nobody has thought more for for longer about RSS and RSS apps than Brent like it is part of his soul and um that new Net Newswire app for the Mac that uh that is now out and yes it's free it's open source it's really good there are other rss readers it's not as full feature to some of the other rss readers like reader that are out there but it's really good there's now an ios version too and um i think there's something to be said for uh brent's commitment to making great apps and great mac apps to net newswire to bringing it back to building it back, to building

it in this new way of having it be an open source project that he's running instead of it being what it was before, which is a commercial app, essentially, traditional commercial app. So I think it's worth considering NetNewsWire strongly because although it's not new, it's also new. Completely new, but old name, old app app but new app um new code i have two others that i'm going to mention one not as seriously and one more seriously that are catalyst apps a friend of the show james thompson wrote a stupid brilliant sorry i didn't mean stupid well i did but also i meant brilliant he stupidly wrote a

brilliant app how about that aha because we played dungeons and dragons with him this year and we're asking we're saying why isn't there a dice app and uh james got that glint in his eye like he used to about the about box and p calc where he wrote a complete like multi-level game and dice by p calc was born and it shipped and it is a catalyst app so it works on the mac even though he wrote it initially for ios it was his test of catalyst and it is a beautiful 3d rendered dice rolling app with things you can customize and it is is it inconsequential because it's just a dice rolling app? Yes. Is it really well done and shows you a longtime Mac developer trying to figure out how Catalyst works and how you can make it work better as a Mac app?

Yes. So it's as silly as that app is. One, we were involved in its creation, which is great. And I think it's a great example. So Dice by Peacock, I want to nominate. And I think it's a great example. So Dice by Peacock, I want to nominate. And more seriously, there's an app called Lookup, which is a dictionary app that is a catalyst app.

It was an iOS app before. And it is one of the best implemented catalyst apps. The developer has taken, it's Squircle apps. They have taken great care in trying to make it feel like, uh, not just kind of an iOS app in a window, but have, uh, you know, menus and other behaviors that, that feel very Mac-like and it's, yes, it's just a dictionary app, but, um, it's really well done. So those, those are sort of my nominees, I think. I want to just say that Dice by Peacock is a runner-up just because I want to do that. Okay.

There we go. And so I guess for winner, looking at what we've got here, I think we'll go with Net Newswire, right? I think so. I think that's the right thing to do. I agree that we shouldn't award drafts again in the newcomer category because that it doesn't that goes to the the heart of um our process right like the the whole um the

integrity of the upgradies would be questioned if some app wins best newcomer twice make any sense so the runner-up for the best newcomer mac app of 2019 is Dice by PCalc, and the winner is NetNewsWire 5. Congratulations to Brent. And open source people, right? Oh yeah, and contributors. Yeah, and contributors. Good point, good point, good point. So that concludes all of the app awards that we

have, and we're going to be moving into talking about media next. But before we do, I want to thank the first sponsor of the Upgraders of 2019, and that is PDFPen from Smile. PDFPen is the ultimate tool for editing PDFs on the Mac. PDFPen 11.2 lets you easily edit

the content in table cells in a PDF. You can change typeface, font size, and other text formatting with PDFPen's font bar as well. This is a wild application. The things that you are able to do to PDF documents using PDFPen, it blows my mind all the time.

You can add, edit or remove images from your documents with PDFPen. You can add headers, footers and watermarks and PDFPen for Mac supports Catalina and PDFPen for iPad and iPhone is iOS 13 ready. I use PDFPen on my iOS devices constantly for signing contracts, for making amends to them and such. Big, big fan of this application. You can learn more about PDFPen and PDFPen Pro at smilesoftware.com slash podcast. If you do any work with PDFs, you will need and use PDFPen.

Trust me on that one. Go check it out for yourself right now at smilesoftware.com slash podcast. trust me on that one go check it out for yourself right now at smilesoftware.com podcast our thanks to pdf pen for their support of this show relay fm and the 2019 upgradey awards so jason let's talk about the best game of the year the upgradians voted thusly with 4.9% of the award winning with the Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening for the Nintendo Switch. At 9.4% is Pokemon Sword and Shield and at

12.5% is Untitled Goose Game. Which makes a lot of sense, Untitled Goose Game. It's a very, very fun game but also it was published by Panic who are well reverrevered in the Apple community. So I guess Untitled Goose Game was a surprise winner to me when I saw it.

But the more I thought about it, I was like, oh, I guess that makes sense to me why the Upgradians voted this way. Now, as is typical with this category, best game typically means console PC game. But Jason, as a non-console PC game player, you will usually go in the iOS category, which is perfectly valid. Have you done so for 2019? Yes, I have.

This is going to give away my best iOS game nomination, but I'm going to throw it in here. And this is what happens every year, Mike. It's a great upgrade-ies tradition. I nominate something that is not appropriate you choose the winner and we move on with our lives okay what is your you know what i'll say don't give too much at the moment what is your uh game of the year i say much to my own surprise it's what the golf okay let's pause on what the golf uh the moment. Yes. Spoiler alert.

It's also my iOS game. Whoa, crazy. My game of the year is Pokemon Sword and Shield. It is a game with a lot of controversy around it, which I'm not going to get into right now. But it is, I think, just a fantastic entrance into the series, especially for the first ever home console version of Pokemon. Brings a lot of interesting developments to the series, and I think is a great starting point for Pokemon going into the future,

as thought about as a different kind of game, which isn't necessarily going to be handheld first anymore, as it has been for the last 20 years. So Pokemon Sword and Shield is my favorite game of the year. It was second in the Upgradians, so it's going to take the victory of Pokemon Sword and Shield, which is good. I love it because Pokemon won last year as well with Pokemon Let's Go.

So Pokemon Sword and Shield is the Upgrade-y winner for 2019 with Untitled Goose Game and What the Golf as the runners-up. Sounds fine to me. So, Jason, let's talk about our favorite iOS games of the year. Oh, tell me more.

Now, this is interesting to me because all of the Upgradians' votes were Apple Arcade games. Sayonara Wild Hearts, 8.7%. 8.8% for Mini Motorways, and 15.9% for What the Golf.

Oh, What the Golf. Well, the Upgradians are with me in loving What the Golf. What the Golf is like when they announced Apple Arcade and they said, oh, and there's this golf game. I was like, they announced apple arcade and they said oh and there's this golf game i was like oh boy yeah well golf game great uh it's amazing that's the bottom line is i i don't care about golf games i have played good golf games desert golfing is good

um the whole um noodle cake super stick man golf game is hilarious and good. There's, what, three of them now? But, you know, it feels a little tired as a genre, and I've seen a lot of it, but that's the whole point of What the Golf, is that it's essentially a satire of golf games and then very quickly becomes a satire of every other kind of game you can think of, and part of the joy of playing it

is realizing what this level wants you to do and how it's like some other games. So there are references to so many different games within What the Golf. Plus it's a fun game. And it is incredibly rare for me to not just play a game through, but then to try and go back and 100% it. And I failed, but then to try and go back and a hundred percent it. And I, I failed,

but I did try. I think I got to like 98%, uh, with what the golf, it is hilarious and challenging and fun and dumb and funny. And, uh, I much to my surprise when I expected that the, the Apple arcade launch game that I would like the most was mini motorways,

the sequel to, uh sequel to Mini Metro. In fact, it was What the Golf. So I'm with the Upgradians in praising What the Golf. And I'm with everybody. It is the best Apple Arcade game that I played this year. And the most of the iOS games that I played this year are Apple Arcade games. And I've enjoyed many,

and we've spoken about them on the show. But What the Golf is the most surprising and most fun of all of the titles that I've played so far. So we are in all complete agreement, which means no runners up. The winner of the best iOS game of the year is What the Golf.

What the Golf? What the Golf? What? Favorite movie. Favorite movie. movie now this is a weird one this year we'll get to it so upgradians voted 1.2 percent of the vote once upon a time in hollywood at 1.4 percent of the vote knives out six percent of the vote avengers endgame so a few interesting things that happened here. There was lots of options, no huge winner. Star Wars did not rank very highly. I'm not surprised.

It's an interesting thing where typically, like, you know, the Star Wars movies come out very close to the upgradies, but people still get the votes in. They loved so much usually that they will get up there. But this year that did not happen for i think some interesting reasons and things maybe we don't need to get into right now um but that that's kind of where we are with the movies i don't think that this year like looking back at previous years was as strong a year for movies as previous upgradey award-winning

years has been you are someone who's much more plugged into this world. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I do. I didn't see that many movies this year. And you could take that as an indictment of the movies that there was nothing out there. There were not a lot of things that prompted me to get out there. It's also an indictment of me for being a bad moviegoer. I don't go

out and see movies that often. I just don't. There's logistics of like, do I want to go see it? I can go see a movie whenever I want, but if it's a movie that I want to see and I probably want to see it with my family or with my wife. And so then it's like,

well, let's just wait until and then we never have a time that we can do it. It would be much different if like literally the rest of my family said, we never want to see a movie. I could be like, all right, well, I'm going to go see this movie,

but that's not the case. And so it's this ironic kind of like, uh, thing where I'm, um, I'm because I want to see it, but I want to see it with my family. I don't see it.

And maybe I see it later when it comes out. This is pretty much my exact problem too. I haven't seen, like, I've really wanted to see knives out and I've not been able to see it yet. We all agree that we should go see it later when it comes out. This is pretty much my exact problem too. I haven't seen, like I've really wanted to see Knives Out and I've not been able to see it yet. We all agree that we should go see it and it just hasn't happened.

That said, I'm going, we tend to pick very big crowd-pleasing, this is not a serious movie review podcast award. This is a crowd-pleasing this is not a serious movie review podcast award this is a uh crowd-pleasing nerd usually movie award and i actually in that context of the fact that we've picked star wars movies and marvel movies in the past for this award like exclusively i'm actually going to

pick avengers endgame and i'm going to do it because and this is if you read this as me taking a little bit of a shot at the new star wars movie it is i don't hate the new star wars movie um there's a whole podcast where we talked about for two and a half hours you can go listen to the incomparable um but it has issues some serious issues and if you enjoy it great and if you didn't enjoy it i understand um i'm kind of neither of those. But this is not about Star Wars. My point here is, endings are hard. Star Wars trying to do an ending is very hard because they're trying to wrap up, you know, all these movies over the course of decades and everybody's childhood and all those things.

That all said, Avengers Endgame has to wrap up the storylines of 20 plus Marvel movies. And although in some ways that was an easier task because of the space it takes in our brains to something like Star Wars, it's so easy to just kind of brush it off and be like, oh, yeah, it's a Marvel movie and it made billions of dollars and whatever. It's like, no,gers in game actually really worked and coming out of the the end of infinity war which was a cliffhanger essentially and also kind of a downer they have to pick up the ball and they have to get the band back together and they have to tell a an emotionally fulfilling and exciting story that resolves the storyline of a lot of characters and do it in, in this case, in three hours, which, you know, the fact was it was an entertaining movie at three hours. I think it is worth recognizing Avengers Endgame for successfully landing, more or less,

an enormous franchise movie in a way that was not soul crushing and was actually kind of emotionally fulfilling. I think it's a, I think it's a real achievement, sort of the same kind of achievement. The original Avengers movie was in feeling like a corporate cash grab that turned out to actually be a good movie, uh, despite like no possibility that that was the case. So I think it's worth as it recedes into the rear view a little bit,

giving a nod to Avengers end game. Um, this is the kind of movie that we give these awards to and uh and they nailed it so my uh my winner is Avengers Endgame 2 I think Avengers Endgame did a better job of being Star Wars than Star Wars did this year it was faced with all of the same challenges that the Star Wars movie was faced with like like all the things you've mentioned right wrapping up a huge franchise with a ton of baggage and loose ends to tie up or at least to try the best to tie up and also to bounce back from a movie that wasn't as enjoyed by a lot

of the fandom because it was like a real downer as you mentioned right and avengers nailed it like the way i felt in that avengers movie is how i should have felt watching rise of the skywalker and didn't like i cried for like three hours watching the avengers movie like i was crying constantly like that film hit me it made me realize that the avengers movies for me are more like the way that you and some of our friends feel about Star Wars because I grew up with the Avengers movies right like for the time that they've been going on I've been watching them all as they've been coming out like I came to Star Wars as a kid but afterwards right like my foot the first time I saw star wars was when they released the special editions on vhs like they were the first star wars movies that i saw right because that was when i

could have seen them when else would i how else would i have seen them right so that was when time machine that's a good point there's no time travel in star wars actually that's one place they haven't gone yeah but let me just say like kind of like my overall kind of spoken about having the chance to speak about this i'm kind of pleased we didn't set a mic at the movies because my kind of feeling on on the star wars movie this year was it kind of like okay like it was a fine movie but it did not give me what I was looking for in a like big conclusion. I kind of just like, I washed over me a bit,

right. Or it was just like, that was a nice movie, but that's not what I want out of a Star Wars movie. Cause the last two succeeded for me more in being these big emotional, cathartic things. these big emotional cathartic things and I feel like this movie

was just like two hours of fan service that didn't connect with me but it was a fine movie I don't think it was bad but it just didn't give me the kick that I wanted but Avengers Endgame did

I loved that movie so Avengers Endgame will win the Upgrady for this year. So again, unanimous decision. Am I completely off base about Star Wars? I haven't listened to the incomparable yet. So I'm excited to kind of hear what you have to say. No, you're not. Although we get complaints because people have opinions and they disagree and then they're outraged that we don't agree with them.

Well, of course. And that's fine. I would say our take is a measured take, too. Some people really liked it. Some people didn't like it as much. I'm on the didn't like it as much side. I think it's, without, again, going too far into it, I think as a movie, it kind of doesn't work. I think as a series of checkboxes to finish a franchise, it does the job. But I actually sat...

One of the reasons that I appreciate Avengers Endgame more now is they took three hours and they gave it some space to have a lot of emotional weight and a lot of character moments as well as the action stuff and the Star Wars movie is two hours and 20 or something and doesn't stop for those moments as much as it should and I thought to myself this should have either been two movies or you know part one and two or it should have been three hours long and done what endgame did and it didn't do either and i think it's the worst for it so some people but do some people hate it uh some people like it and uh i satisfying no one i'm sort of with you which is yeah i think you are allowed to hate this movie you're allowed to love

this movie and that is awesome like you do your own thing i just fell bang in the middle on it like yep the other like you're allowed to you're allowed to feel bang in the middle about that's the thing is the people who hate it don't often will don't think that anyone else is allowed to have a different opinion on it or to be in between on it it's like you're allowed to be in between on it makes total sense i would also say that for a lot of people that love it they think you're not allowed to have another opinion on it either yes i think that is also true no it's no it's well the people who are full of hate in their hearts are going to be more annoying about it than people who are full of love in their hearts but yes you're right extreme opinions don't like non-extreme opinions you either have like so it's like the star wars universe you

have the dark side and the light side but you also have the regular people and we're just regular people in the star wars universe we're in the gray the gray zone here yeah let's talk about tv mike oh tv let's do this i'm excited about this category because it's been a fantastic year for television the upgradians voted thusly in the television category at 8.4% for all mankind, 12.1% Watchmen, and 14.2% The Mandalorian. Similarly to Disney+, I can't talk about The Mandalorian and don't want to talk about The Mandalorian because I can't watch it until March.

It's real good. And I didn't put it on my top 10 list, but I might have revised it and put it on after the last couple of episodes because i think it finished very very strongly very excited to see that show though uh jason you want to tell me what your favorite television show of the year is like i don't already know yeah number it was number one on my list uh and while i really enjoyed the mandalorian and i had for all mankind in my top 10 and there's an episode of tv talk machine where i listed my

top 10 shows of the year and forgot The Magicians, which probably should have been on there. Number one is Watchmen on HBO. Damon Lindelof's sequel to the classic comic book series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons that was set in the 80s. This is set in the present day.

Nine episodes. Manages to do individual episodes that are spectacular, an ongoing storyline that is very meaningful in terms of its themes. It has a point of view as the original did. It is actually very strongly political in certain ways as the original was. It's structured similarly to the original as well. It's got sort of like a second storyline that's happening in parallel it's got a big slam bang ending that is very sci-fi after a sort of gritty noir mystery beginning uh the i you know i see what you're doing there um and it was just it's it's a spectacular magic trick i i could never have imagined that it would have been as successful as it was

when it was announced. I thought, what are they doing? Like, present day and new characters and it's in Oklahoma and what's going on? No, they nailed it. It's amazing. Will it have a second season? Nobody knows. It may not. It doesn't need one. If they have a great idea to do another season of it, great.

But this one was perfect. Yeah. I absolutely adore Watchmen it's on my list my list is large and I want to talk about all of the things on my list and we'll come back to Watchmen in a minute I discovered Terrace House in 2019

and I absolutely adore this television show it is a Japanese reality show it is heartwarming and fascinating and wonderful. It's on Netflix. Netflix revived the show. It was a Japanese television show that I think had been canceled and Netflix brought it back

and it's now worldwide on Netflix, not just in Japan. It's not like one of these shows that they bring from another know, like from another network and like revive it. They like completely revived it. And it's now a Netflix original. And I don't really know how to describe it. It's unlike any other reality television show that you've seen before. Like it is pretty much romance based, but I don't want to say it's like a dating reality show because it's more than that. But it is a beautiful slice into the average life of a young person in Japan.

It's a house where six people live together, but they can come and go. They don't, they're not locked into the house. There are no confessionals. They're just living their lives. The cameras are on pretty much all the time, but you don't get to see everything. There are not cameras everywhere in the house either. So they're able to have moments that occur in the show that are referenced by the characters, but you never get to see them, like conversations that may have happened. And that can add to some additional interesting drama through the show. And there is also my favorite thing. There is a kind of a group of observers, like presenters of the show,

who are watching along and they take breaks three times during the episode for them to comment on what they have seen. It's a fascinating way of doing it. I absolutely love this TV show. If that at all seems interesting to you in any way, go back and watch the first, commit yourself to like three episodes of the first season on Netflix, which is called Boys and Girls in the City. Just, it's all in Japanese for subtitles. You can get used to that.

I got used to it. Just give it a go. Absolutely love this show. My favorite show from Apple this year was For All Mankind. Yeah, that's the one that made my top 10 list too, although I'm still going through The Morning Show and it's good.

But For All Mankind is the one that I think they did a really great job in their first season. I'm looking forward to whatever they do next. I would say both shows and there are no spoilers here, but both shows, both For All Mankind and The Morning Show are very good and they both get rocket strapped to them.ical ones at the end of the shows yeah well literally in the

case of for all mankind but yeah um and so i really really loved the end of like i loved the way that the morning show ended uh and i also it's it can be difficult in places but for all mankind has a really fascinating and fantastic ending it It's a very dramatic TV show. Dramatic in ways I wasn't expecting. I was expecting The Morning Show to be the high drama one. But I think For All Mankind succeeds in that. It's really, really well done. It is definitely Apple's crown jewel.

And I'm surprised isn't the show that was getting nominations. Like Golden Globes nominations seem to be all in the pocket of the morning show. But not for all mankind. The Bon Appetit YouTube channel. It's just amazing. Okay. It is the food magazine Bon Appetit. They have a wonderful YouTube channel with two crowning achievement shows for me.

A show called It's Alive and a show called Gourmet Mix. It's Alive with Brad Leone is, if you were to say, what is this show? It is a show about fermenting food, but like, ignore that. It is hilarious. Brad Leone is just this wonderful bumbling human who just says and does hilarious things. The editing is fantastic. Just try it. It's wonderful. Gourmet Makes, hosted by Claire Saffitz. She is a pastry chef who takes a popular candy or food item and tries to recreate it in a gourmet way. These two shows are full of heart, full of just really just wholesome, wonderful

content. Just they are both these two seasons. The entire channel is fantastic and there's a lot more content on it, but these two shows are absolute powerhouses, like multiple millions of views per episode kind of powerhouses for things that can sometimes be 45 minutes. They have like I've read a bunch of stuff about it and it's totally true. Like Bon Appetit are the success story of the pivot to video, like appetit the magazine's the pivot to video along with every other new york media company and it mostly didn't work for a lot of companies it 100 worked for bon appetit and has actually propelled the magazine to new places so wonderful but my favorite television show of the year is watchman i was expecting great things i heard great things it blew my mind just an unbelievable television show since you listed

some some runners up i'll do the same um the four other shows in my top five that i think are cut above the rest counterpart um on which is on stars and you can get it on itunes now uh but it's not available for on the streaming service which is a bummer i hope it comes to one sometime so people can see it uh chernobyl on hbo spectacularly good um sex education on netflix so great if the title puts you off if the premise puts you off give it give it a shot it's it's incredibly good um what i keep saying about it is it has empathy for every character in it, and that is rare. And what we do in the shadows, the vampire comedy on FX, it is hilarious. But Watchmen wins. Yay. Yeah, it's got to, right?

The winner of this category is definitely Watchmen. Just really cool, superb, nicely done television show. So there we go. Shall we talk about... Let's talk about... What was the runner-up of the category? For All Mankind and The Mandalorian? Does that work for you?

Sure. Yeah, let's go with that. Favorite book. This is the category that I get to pick because Mike doesn't read books i don't read books but the upgradians voted thusly tiamat's wrath by james s a corey with two percent of the vote permanent record series yeah that's from the expanse yes thank you permanent record by edward snowden which i assume is a memoir at 4.2 percent and by relayayFM host Dan Morin,

The Buy-In Agenda with 6.8% of the vote. It's the sequel to Upgrady winner of the Caledonian Gambit. Yep. Dan won in 2017. What I'm saying is if you're a novelist, you should get to know us. Yeah. You may win awards. Yeah.

I had, I sort of listed five here um tm that's wrath i put on that that's actually a return to form for that series i i thought the last book was a little bit weird but um book eight of nine was very good um the baron agenda course, has to be on my short list. Becoming Superman by J. Michael Straczynski, which is a memoir. It is an amazing story about a terrible childhood that he had. And to become a successful Hollywood screenwriter after the life that he led as a child is amazing. The MVP Machine, which is a really great view into how modern sports science is changing, in this case, baseball. But I think it's applicable to a lot of different sports and how sports is really radically changing at a fundamental level now about how they treat the athletes and analyze them and train them. It was really an interesting book.

And another novel, The Cruel stars by john birmingham which i could not have enjoyed more it's a widescreen space opera with a bunch of different characters and a threat from the you know from the outside and ancient evil returns and the only person who can stop it is a crusty old prospector basically on a town on a planet. Uh, a lot of fun. I don't know what to do to pick, to pick a winner here. Um,

the, uh, what did we pick last year? Last year was the calculating calculating stars. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna pick my, um, so with all of those as,

as, uh, as nominees, um, I think I'm going to go, well, should I, should we give it to Dan again if is dan gonna is dan gonna expect it are we gonna have to put dan in the hall of fame if we just pick his book every time i'm just i'm gonna go with the best uh discovery i made because i view this as kind of a here's a here's a book here's a novel you might enjoy award um And so I'm going to choose a trail of lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse, which is a book one.

It was nominated for the Hugo Nebula awards. I really enjoyed it. Book one in a series that is starting, but it's a great standalone novel called the series called the six world, but trail of lightning. That's the one. If you're looking for a novel to read, that jason's annual novel suggestion trail of lightning it is buffy the vampire slayer except she's navajo and it's after a global warming caused apocalypse that has made

most of the modern world fall apart but the navajo nation is on the upswing. Unfortunately, the apocalypse seems to have also opened the gateway to the return of powerful beings from mythology. But it's about a teenage girl who's a monster hunter and doesn't love it, but it's her job. And it's great. So the winner is Trail of lightning with the nominee of the buy-in agenda the buy-in agenda yeah i should say dan warren go go buy it at bookstores now bookstores now all right this episode well i should say this episode is also brought to you

by kensington we're about to move into the hardware, some of the hardware picks, tech-focused picks. We are out of the woods of media until we get to podcasting later on. That's this whole other section. But let's take a moment to thank Kensington, the people who make universal docking stations that are designed to increase productivity. It's super easy to use these products and you get access to more ports to make your sleek MacBook, Chromebook or other laptop as powerful as a desktop. Kensington devices are plug and play with no drivers so you can enjoy up to dual 4K displays with HDMI and display link video connectors plus USB 3, USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 with power delivery available as well. The Kensington engineering team has three decades of experience in high volume manufacturing of manufacturing of hardware IT products with rigorous test cycles and quality control, meaning that all of their products are tested above industry standards. If you're an IT decision maker looking to find the right docking solutions for your organization, check Kensington's Pro Concierge program out and test drive a docking solution today.

Visit kensington.com slash upgrade right now to check out Kensington's line of products. That's kensington.com slash upgrade to learn more. Our thanks to Kensington for their support of this show, RelayFM, and the Upgradee Awards. And we move into Jason talking about the favorite Apple product of the year. Interesting one this year.

So the Upgradians. of the year. Interesting one this year. So the upgradients. At 14.7% of the vote went with the iPhone 11 Pro. At 17.1% of the vote, unsurprisingly, is the 16-inch MacBook Pro

with, of course, the non-butterfly keyboard. And at a huge 29, I'm wrong in what i said earlier this is the single highest uh percentage win uh bumping out overcast from the upgradians at nearly a third 29 29.8 in fact of the vote for the favorite apple product of the year is airpods pro jason what was your favorite apple product this year uh airpods pro gets my vote again i'm i'm surprised as i was with the original like the people who make this product within apple

they are killing it they're doing a great job it is i was skeptical in ear headphones with noise canceling how's that going to work um And I've been using them since they came out and they're great. And I wouldn't want to go back to the original AirPods. And I loved the original AirPods, but I like these even more. I think it's an easy choice. The MacBook Pro 16 is not really my cup of tea. It's great that they replaced the keyboard, but also they could have made it's rectifying a mistake from three years ago after three years of it sitting out there and the iphones are all great um they it's an it's a nice cycle for them but it's it is an upgrade cycle none of them is new and uh for me uh airpods pro is my choice for sure but what did you want well you're not going

to get any argument from me about how incredible AirPods Pro are, but I'm actually putting the iPhone 11 Pro as my vote this year because I am genuinely surprised how much of an improvement this phone is in a couple of key areas. So these are the things that we've been talking about

the whole time since the phone was first debuted. What makes this phone is in a couple of key areas. So these are the things that we've been talking about the whole time since the phone was first debuted. What makes this phone different? The camera improvements and the battery life. But just how much of an improvement they are for me is so significantly more than previous years that they've made. I mean, these are the things

they want to improve all the time, right? Camera performance and battery life. But they are so good. The camera and battery on this phone is so freaking good. Like I just went away for the holidays and I was able to use my phone like on travel days, like getting on planes and like big, heavy usage days, I didn't charge my phone at all. And this has never been the case before that I've been able to get through like a heavy usage travel day without needing to charge my phone. Like, you know, I can see it in screen time. I'm talking like eight to nine plus hours of phone usage in a day without charging. Like, that is bonkers good. Like, I am so, so happy with the performance of this phone, and I am just totally in love with the

camera. Like, it is so good. Like, and having the choice of the three lenses, but then also just, like, all of the processing that Apple's doing on the chips. I absolutely love the iPhone 11 Pro, like way more than I would have expected. But I am not going to fight for it to be the winner over AirPods Pro because that is a superb product. Wise choice. So the runner up for the favorite Apple product of the year is the iPhone 11 Pro with the winner being the AirPods Pro. So now we move into the best non-Apple product. So the best product as used by Upgradians and me and Jason not made by Apple this year. The Upgradians voted at 2.2% for the bridge keyboard.

We have an entry here that I will mention but will not be included, which is at 2.3% is the Motorola Razr. Nobody's used this because it's not out yet. But it is a really cool looking thing. We'll talk about this at some point in the future, probably. At 2.6% is the Tesla Cybertruck, which kind of makes me a little bit upset, I think.

Similar reasons. Nobody's used it, but we'll keep moving on. And the Nintendo Switch Lite at 5.2% of the vote. This the uh new nintendo switch introduced this year which is purely portable um and it's a smaller design doesn't connect to a tv that kind of thing jason what is your favorite non-apple product of the year i kind of struggled with this one it is a difficult category because i mean really it's a non-apple product who cares oh jason well look i look at what was nominated for by the upgradians i asked the nintendo switch light is a cool product and the bridge keyboard is really cool the two in the middle i'm a little bit

frustrated about because nobody's used either of these things but such is Um, so this time last year, I got a new product in my life that was not made by Apple, new piece of hardware. It has, uh, it has proven over the year to be useful throughout my house, except for rooms that I don't let it go into. It is,

it's a product that, that, um, moves. Well, it doesn't move me. It literally moves itself. It is, it's a product that, that, um, moves. Well, it doesn't move me. It literally moves itself. It is, uh, it keeps its heart close to the ground because it's a vacuum cleaner. I nominate for best non-Apple product, my Roomba.

Okay. Now, can I just confirm here? Are we nominating your own personal Roomba the roomba line that you purchased let's let's say the we'll just say the roomba in general yeah robot yeah robot vacuum cleaners because i have one and i have seen the light i want to say roomba we're going with roomba because we are also in the roomba family so i don't want to give it to all robot vacuum cleaners because this is like one of those holy war things where people tell you why you should buy the xiaomi one instead so i want to go completely with roomba which i'm totally happy with because i love my roomba it's named robbie and we love roomba jason shouldn't be a surprise

to you or anybody else for my favorite non-apple product don't do it it is the samsung galaxy fold now i have more to say about the Galaxy Fold later on in this episode today. I have a very distinct point that I need to make. Worst gadget is coming up and tech screw-up is coming up, so there's lots of good categories for the Galaxy Fold. Quiet your mouth. The Samsung Galaxy Fold is a fantastic technology product. It, for me, feels like the future,

whether people want it or not. It is such a fascinating thing to use. I love it. People won't believe me when I say this, but it is an incredibly well-made thing. It feels significant. It is beautifully put together. I love my Galaxy Fold,

and I think that it is a super exciting product, but I'm not going to bother explaining any more to people that don't want to listen. So I think we're going to go with the runners-up being the Nintendo Switch Lite, the Samsung Galaxy Fold, and Roomba. Let's hear it for the Roomba! Good work, Roomba.

Yeah, and now what I want to do is I want to cut to the Roomba and now with the acceptance speech here's the Roomba and it just makes that whining noise that it makes oh no it can make the little noise you know please charge Roomba oh no Roomba is stuck

okay let's move into our next category which is for worst gadget or most disappointing technology of 2019. 5.7% of the vote is iOS 13. 9% of the vote is Google Pixel 4. And I combined both the Samsung Galaxy Fold and foldables in general

to 19% of the vote. Now, Jason, I would like to address something here because I am frustrated at this and I'm frustrated at the upgradians. Uh-oh. Are you turning the chair around or are you having a serious talk with the upgradians now? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've turned my... My hat's gone backwards and the chair's gone around and I'm sitting on the chair. You've got to wrap with us a little bit. Okay. Now, look. This is the wrong category for this vote because these 19% of people,

have they used these devices? Because I think to be disappointed or to call something the worst gadget, you have to have had some kind of experience with it, in my opinion. And I genuinely believe that if you have used these devices, you would not say that they are incredibly

disappointing now if we want to talk about favorite tech screw-up for the galaxy fold which you probably will like i am open to have that discussion because there's something really interesting to talk about in there but i won't accept the galaxy fold as the most disappointing technology this year i just won't accept it so that is the point that i'm making we can maybe come back to that in a little bit. But I've now turned the chair back around again. And Jason, do you want to tell me your nominations? Wow, now the dad is

forbidden the choice of the gradients. I haven't forbidden it. Dad has just told you that he's unhappy. Okay. I have two nominees because this is worst gadget slash most disappointing tech. And I'm going to nominate one in each of those. I have two nominees because this is Worst Gadget slash Most Disappointing Tech. And I'm going to nominate one in each of those.

Okay. Worst Gadget. And it doesn't make it better that there are now ads with the Muppets trying to get you to buy one. Facebook makes a thing you stick in your house that has a camera and a microphone so that you can talk to other people using facebook it is called the facebook port portal it is the worst gadget do not allow hardware from facebook in your house you already own a device that lets you do this yes if you really want to talk to people video chat facebook messenger just use the facebook Messenger app.

What does anybody need this hardware device for? It's wild. And to come from the least trustworthy company in the world, Facebook. Don't do it. So that's Worst Gadget. It might be, I don't know about the build quality. I don't know about the video quality. I don't care.

It's the Worst Gadget. You should never buy it. Most disappointing tech, I'm going to say Mac Catalyst because not necessarily entirely its own fault, although I think that we're all disappointed that it didn't seem to progress very much from what Steve Troughton-Smith figured out about the one that was in Mojave.

Didn't seem to progress a lot. Didn't get helped by the rocky ios 13 transition to mention one of the upgrading nominees that uh you know we have there are a lot fewer mac catalyst apps than we thought there would be i think part of that is because developers ended up spending a lot of time uh fixing addressing all the bugs in ios 13 and then having to address new features in iOS 13 and Catalyst is sort of like out there. But I really thought that we would see a whole bunch of iOS apps embracing Catalyst

and going to the Mac this fall. And while there were some, there were not that many. And I would say that is about as disappointing as you could get. My vote is for iOS 13 this year. It was a nightmare. It was just a nightmare disaster of an iOS release in new and interesting ways, right?

Like the iPhone comes out with iOS 13 on it, but it's not really available for all the devices that should have iOS 13. And if you update it to it, some terrible things may have happened to you. So many features were pushed to later in the year. And of what they shipped, it was full of bugs and full of problems. Like iOS 13, still we are at this point in the year, there are still features that have yet to be released that were shown off in June.

It has been a very bad iOSos release uh i am yep and so like i'll say for the google pixel 4 is an interesting one for the worst gadget or most disappointing because it was a disappointing product like it did not ship with a lot of the features people would have wanted to see a facebook portal which was a runner-up in 2018 but there have been new versions of it this year it doesn't really matter it continues to be the Facebook Portal, which was a runner-up in 2018, but there have been new versions of it this year. It doesn't really matter. It continues to be the worst gadget. It continues to be very bad. Don't buy it. As long as it's being sold,

don't buy it. We could, like, you know, the worst gadget of all brought to you by Facebook Portal. We just need a Muppet. I'm a little conflicted on this one, right? Because I obviously, I believe I was 13 to be very disappointing, but I will also say that Mac Catalyst is a really good nomination in this because it should have been so much more.

And I think the fault lies on Apple with this one, but I think they basically torpedoed it themselves with the announcement of SwiftUI, which even makes it even more disappointing. So where do you want to go with this one, Jason? Well, just as we were getting here, I realized I should have Mac Catalyst in this list. And I got to say, as much as I enjoy kicking Facebook, and I agree that iOS 13 had problems, I feel like there is not a better, you will not find a better example

of a disappointment this year technologically than Mac Catalyst. So I think we should give it to Mac Catalyst. The runners up for the worst gadget or most disappointing technology of 2019 is two-time runner up Facebook portal, iOS 13. And the winner of the most disappointing technology

this year is Mac Catalyst. I think it's a very good pick. Like you, I'm surprised I didn't think of it, but maybe that's the point, right? We didn't even think of it because Catalyst kind of whimpered its way through the year. was set up to be big and then both in its implementation and in the fact that apple took all of the attention and put it on swift ui um thereby making us all wonder kind of like what the point is of mac catalyst and if it's really something that factors in their uh in in their future plans it's it's weird and disappointing all right, so that comes to the end of some disappointments. But we have some technology stories that we're going to be talking about

in our next kind of round of categories. This episode is also brought to you by Linode. With Linode, you can instantly deploy and manage an SSD server in the Linode cloud and get everything up and running in seconds with your own choice of Linux distro resources and node location. Linode has hundreds of thousands of customers that are all looked after by their incredible and friendly 24-7 support team. If you run into any issues of getting your server up and running or anything that you

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Ready to move on, Jason? Yes. All right, so we now get into our favorite tech story of the year, and the Upgradians voted thusly with 7.2% of the vote is the Cybertruck. And this includes not just its announcement, but also kind of some of the hilarious things that happened during its introduction, made it a favorite tech story of many people. 7.4% of the vote was the introduction of the 16-inch MacBook Pro. And at 13.2% of the vote of favorite tech story of the year amongst the upgradients is the introduction of the Mac Pro, the Macintosh professional machine. Jason, what is your vote of the most interesting of your favorite tech story this year? I'm getting a little conceptual

here, but my favorite tech story of the year is the increase in mainstream understanding that privacy issues involving technology, especially the privacy, personalized information that leaks from your smartphone, that becoming mainstream. Mainstream understanding, you saw presidential candidates talk about it. There have been a bunch of stories in the mainstream press about trying to educate people on just how leaky a smartphone can be in terms of your location and being able to plot you and identify you and where you are on a map and what you do and tying it all together. Recently, there was a New York Times opinion piece about it. There was a New Yorkork times opinion piece about it there was a new york times uh investigation piece earlier we've seen like with the gdpr stuff and with the new laws that are coming into effect for california a lot of ideas about like data who owns the data and data privacy and all of that this seems to be um unlike something like net neutrality which basically kind of has always been this esoteric thing that people don't really understand. And it's hard to explain. Um, I feel like this is a tech issue that has, um, as has finally hit the mainstream to a certain extent and people are starting to wake up

and hopefully be concerned about how their, um, how their data is being used. And that's encouraging because if people don't care about it, nothing will ever happen. And it is a big issue. So I'm encouraged by that. So that for me, just a broader understanding of all the privacy issues

that are out there is my story of the year. My story of the year is the rise of foldable or dual screen phones. Oh boy, yeah. Galaxy Fold, Motorola Razr, is the rise of foldable or dual screen phones. Oh boy, yeah. Galaxy Fold, Motorola Razr, Surface Duo and Neo.

These are some of my favorite things to talk about this year because I think that this is really cool technology. And I think that as the year has gone on, we've seen lots of unique ways of having stuff like this. I mean, this also comes into the fact that there has been controversy around these devices, right? Like, I really enjoyed the Samsung Galaxy Folds all going kaput, like when they were first shown out to reviewers. Like, I think it's been a really interesting trend of this year of watching how multiple companies have been approaching this,

including the Microsoft devices, the Duo and Neo, which I'm also really excited about. Like, including the Microsoft devices, the Duo and Neo which I'm also really excited about that is just another way of doing this type of idea it's slightly different, they're not foldables in that way they're dual screens, but the idea of taking a device and doing something to it to give you more or less screen real estate I think is a really interesting thing that's happened this year

so we have three very different uh options yeah so we had the mac pro understanding of privacy and uh foldable phones i i like your pick quite a lot um i think that it is an important thing and it has definitely been something that's been building over the last couple of years but again is like is is becoming it's like fever pitch type type stuff this year right like people are getting it more you're seeing it more uh and hopefully will be the beginning of people thinking about their privacy more so i'm totally happy to give like the idea of mainstream uh privacy issues the technology stuff is the the the winner of this of this category do you do you agree yeah great thank you so the winner of the

favorite tech story of 2019 is the understanding of technology privacy i think we'll call it that how does that sound okay sounds great this is a big picture the this winner is usually that right yes it's usually something like that it should be a trend if not there's like some some very specific thing which could have happened right so like last year's was uh apple spoiling the september bad urls but like which is great but the year before that was overreaching smartphones like the essential phone and the red hydrogen one which history proved proved you right on both of those phones are now dead because it was they just didn't work they're yeah they're bad ideas one of my favorite categories is the favorite tech screw up

of the year uh 8.2 percent of theian's votes is just the word Facebook. Because they continue to screw up. Nothing specific. Last year's winner, by the way, Facebook. Actually, last year's winner was AirPower, wasn't it? No, AirPower won the most disappointing tech worst gadget category. The tech screw-up was Facebook privacy scandals. That was more specific last time. This year is just Facebook.

Facebook. 8.2%. 16.2% was when the window smashed during the Cybertruck presentation, which was a terrible screw-up. It's a classic moment. But the obvious winner of the Upgradians vote at 24.9% is the Samsung Galaxy Fold when all of the phones broke that were given out to press reviewers. Yeah.

So this is my nomination as well. So I'm in line with the Upgradians here. The press rollout. So now you have a Samsung Galaxy Fold. You nominated it for best best not ample product i am going to be specific here because i haven't used it and say my favorite text group of the year was the press rollout for the samsung galaxy fold where samsung had a product that was brand new and all eyes are on them yep and they it was it was not ready it was an absolute failure in a myriad of different ways.

It seems to have not been properly tested, but instead just shipped to professional technology reviewers who immediately broke it for lots of reasons that are not acceptable. Like using it and it broke. And you have to ask yourself, why did they not test that? How did they fail to test it? And why would you send something you hadn't tested out to the press to the point where press is writing all the stories about how it breaks? They have to take it back. It gets pulled off sale.

It's no longer going to be sold. There's no date. They have to redesign parts of the phone and then put it back out there and the phone that you've got is actually redesigned from what the reviewers got because it wasn't ready and how do you do that just it is a spectacular screw up and i don't know you know the combination a truly unique combination of uh arrogance and cluelessness that has to go into something like that happening it was spectacular breathtaking yeah it was purely because i think they they were trying to rush to beat huawei but samsung was so stupid in doing that because the huawei phone

has still yet to come out outside of china because it is plagued with so many more potentials to break because the screen folds on the outside. It's way more likely to get damaged. Mountain fold? Is that right? Congratulations, Jason. You remember. Not the valley fold. I am going to

say that my favorite technology screw-up was AirPower because this was the year that AirPower was committed to being dead. Officially killed. And I just think that this was just stupid of Apple. They just really messed this one up big time.

I think it was just a... They never should have announced it and then they shouldn't have left it just being this thing that would be referenced, you know, and there was people digging people digging through ah but it's referenced in this guide printed in this phone obviously they were holding out hope that they were going to be able to turn it around until they finally killed it what they should have done was announced it and never spoke about it until they killed it but not only did they announce it way too soon they kept referencing it all over

the place thinking that it was definitely coming out and then they had to like just say oh no sorry not only do we not have this product there's nothing like it and buy this one from mofi i guess but the best text grew up this year is the samsung galaxy fold press rollout it was an absolute nightmare uh so i am totally happy to give that like the the as the winner of the favorite tech screw-up of the year is the Samsung Galaxy Fold. With the, I'm going to say, runner-up of AirPower. All right, Jason, moving on to our most life-changing hardware purchase that has entered our life this year.

The Upgradians voted thusly. 7.5% is for AirPods. 11.5% is for the Apple Watch. And at 12.6% is for AirPods Pro. Pretty good. Yeah, basically for this one, it was, you know, like Apple Watch, people were voting like Series 4, Series 5.

I just lumped them all in together. That's the right thing to do. I figured that made the most sense because I don't think really for you know, like Apple Watch, people were voting like Series 4, Series 5. I just lumped them all in together. That's the right thing to do. I figured that made the most sense because I don't think really for you to have your life changed by an Apple Watch, it doesn't necessarily have to be one model or another, right? Like it is kind of just the idea of what this product can do for you. But of course, we now have two AirPods in the nominations here. What did you go for i um my my most life-changing hardware of the year i decided um not the roomba we already said we love the roomba um the smart

lock the yale assure smart lock that i installed earlier this year um i was a real smart lock skeptic like seriously like why would you get one and then i got one um for some very particular reasons and it's great it's not perfect but um by replacing the deadbolt with a smart lock not only do i have a keypad that you can just enter in a code and come come and go and it's perfectly reasonable. But, you know, it is smart. So yeah, it can be tied into my home automation. Mostly the feature that I use is not quite a home kit feature. It's a Bluetooth proximity feature where I'm walking up to my door and it recognizes that my phone is back. It has been gone and now it's back and it unlocks the door. And that's pretty cool when you've got, you know, your arms are full of groceries and you walk up to the door and it automatically unlocks for you. That's really nice too.

So that has been a pleasant, positive, life-changing experience. to nominate the AirPods Pro in this because being able to control outside noise at my whim, right, when in environments where maybe I want to hear less noise, like on a plane, being able to do that with something that's so small and just sits in my ears and is comfortable for me, it's really made a huge difference on my life over the last few months.

And I absolutely love this product for that reason. Well, it sounds like that's we've got our winner yeah we will put jason smart uh smart lock uh as the runner up yeah and i'm going to call this we will officially call this jason smart lock because uh the because i think it's fun to refer back to what is one of my favorite nominations which in 2014 the winner of this category was just jason's daughter's iphone which i think is just hilarious right like it was just like very specific so we will call this jason smart lockers the runner-up for most life-changing hardware but the airpods pro is the winner of this category because they are really just a fantastic

fantastic product um so what about that jason the airpods pro has won two categories well that seems seems about right they are really great like they are really great but that might be the first time that's ever happened in the upgrades though that something has won two categories in the same year. Two separate categories. It's quite impressive. Alright, we're going to move into the final round of winners, which I think for a lot of people is like the favorite categories, which is

the podcast related categories. Favorite tech podcast, favorite non-tech podcast, and favorite podcast newcomer to round out the 2019 Upgradies Awards. But before we do that, let me thank our final sponsor of this episode, and that is Ethos. I'm sure you're the type of person that likes to plan ahead. You have your savings, you contribute to your 401k, you're thinking about your future. But if you haven't already, you should also be thinking

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by going to ethoslife, E-T-H-O-S-L-I-F-E.com slash upgrade one last time to make sure that you visit ethoslife.com slash upgrade so they will know that we sent you. Our thanks to Ethos for their support of this show, RelayFM, and the Upgradies Awards. Are you ready, Jason, to get into our final set here? How can one ever be ready, truly?

By having your picks in advance, which we all did. So the Upgradians for the favorite tech podcast of the year voted thusly, with 9.9% of the vote, the talk show with John Gruber. 15.4% of the vote is this very show, Upgrade. I still maintain that, of course, everybody, every Upgradian would vote for Upgrade, but they know we wouldn't give the upgradian award to ourselves. I hope so. Otherwise, it's really sad that our listeners don't pick us.

But it would be 100% of the vote, Jason. I'm sure of it. And with 23.4% of the vote, last year's winner, Connected, which is a show that I do here on RelayFM. And we should note at this point, of course, the Accidental Tech Podcast is the Lifetime Achievement Award winner of this category. I do not have a vote in this category for two reasons. One, ATP is my favorite tech show, and all of the other tech shows that I listen to are on RelayFM, and I don't feel right nominating a RelayFM show.

It just doesn't feel fair, so I don't do it. Jason, do you have any nominations this year? I do. doesn't feel fair uh so i don't do it jason do you have any nominations this year i do um i am going to nominate two shows that are um one of them is tech one of them is arguably tech and i'm going to try to sneak it in so first off on relay fm automators um which is a nice show with Rosemary and David about automating things on computers. I like it. I like it a lot too. Have you heard about it? It's a very specific focus in a show,

but is executed well. They have loads of additional material that they publish every episode as well to help make it easy for you to adopt the automations that they're talking about. It's made it's a great show on relay fm yeah and um from the bbc maybe you've heard of it it's 13 minutes to the moon which was their documentary series about uh apollo 11 and um focusing because this was the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 for the moon landing. And it focused on the 13 minutes of powered descent from orbit to the lunar surface. That

was the concept, which as somebody who has a space podcast and tried to figure out how to cover Apollo 11, I was very impressed with the angle that they came up with here. And this is why I actually call it a technology podcast, because so much of what's going on in that 13 minutes, it's amazing from a human perspective, who's in the room, how they got there, what their history is, how young so many of them are. But for me, it's also a technology podcast, because it is about how that that thing was put together how um information got relayed how the the computer worked which is if you've ever read or heard anything about the apollo computer it's bananas how that thing is was made and how it worked and what the interface was um and there's in fact a whole episode i believe about the apollo guidance

computer that's a fantastic episode so those are my uh those are my nominees 13 minutes to the moon and automators so what do we do with this whole category here i don't know i mean i i've given you a non-relay uh slightly out of our uh out of our category well so here's the thing jason i won't vote for a relay fm show but i would also love a relay fm show to win especially one that i'm on just saying but i'm not gonna be the person to to commit that victory to put it over the top uh boy if we chose connected it wouldn't be the lifetime winner, would it? No. But it would be two years in a row. Well, I'm serious. I think the BBC podcast was fantastic.

If you think that that's a reasonable tech podcast, or if I'm messing that up, you tell me. I think we have not specified technology what a tech podcast is but i think that when we talk about what we mean by tech podcast i think we all mean this type of show that you are doing right now right like i think when that's the kind of thing we're thinking about i haven't listened to 13 minutes to the moon but i expect it is not like our show it is not like our show like a couple of individuals talking about something definitely not technology and i consider myself a purist purest in what I think a technology podcast to be and would feel strange

not giving it to one of the other four shows mentioned here alright and while Zach mentions that Welcome to Macintosh is not a show like ours which I agree with but focuses on things

so specific to the stuff that we talk about i feel like it's maybe the furthest we would take that step outside right like still talking about macintosh computers still has people like jason snell on episodes right like feels like it is a stretch outside where 13 minutes to the moon is could be argued maybe is like a history technology podcast which is maybe a slightly different thing would maybe fit really well and it is deaf okay so like basically i feel like we're at a point here where we're kind of like maybe as is usual on this show potentially redefining what we think of in the category but i feel like the previous winners in this category fit a type of show that we make.

Right, but if we go on long enough with those definitions, then we're just going to very slowly induct every show from Relay or by people we know into the Hall of Fame. Exactly, which is why I'm saying, like, we can... I'm just saying, like, when I approach this category, that's what I'm thinking of, but it doesn't mean it has to stay that way. But then we know that we're opening it up a little bit more, which is also fine. I would be okay opening it up a little bit more.

Then let's do it. Okay. 13 Minutes to the Moon is the winner of the favorite podcast. Congratulations to that gritty, up-and-coming producer. Oh, don't, because you're going to make me change my mind if you finish that sentence, because you know that's making it worse for me, to be like, oh, what's the best tech podcast of the year?

It was the BBC. I'm changing my mind on this one, because this kind of thing annoys me. Actually, do you know what, Jason? We're tearing up the book, because I have a problem with this now. We have now, as I finish that sentence, because we're like approaching

the end of the decade right so all these articles are being written and people are talking about like what's the best technology podcast of the year and like the most probably some of the most popular technology podcasts are ignored because they're not made by a big company potentially based in new york city uh-huh or or is the b the BBC based in New York City? I had no idea. I am being very specific about what I'm talking about here. Anyway, congratulations to the Automators. We're going to give it to Automators. And

13 Minutes to the Moon is a great runner-up, but I cannot do it. I can't bring myself to do it because I am a purist. Connected will take the other running up position. So Automators, congratulations. You are the favorite tech podcast of the year.

Do you get where I'm coming from with that though? I do. Okay. Let's talk about our favorite non-tech podcast of the year. The Upgradians voted as such. With 3.4% of the vote, it's Recon voted as such. With 3.4% of the vote, it's Reconcilable Differences. With 7% of the vote,

it's Hello Internet. And 18.1% of the vote goes to Dubai Friday. What have you got, Jason? Dubai Friday, by the way, last year's winner in this category. I sound like one of those people who talks while the people

are coming up to the stage on the Oscars. That's what that sounded like to me. Dubai Friday is a previous nominee in this category yep the flop house is a lifetime achievement winner um well you know i know how you don't like the optics of awarding podcasts made by giant media entities and that's why um my favorite non-tech podcast of the year was hbo's chernobyl podcast i don't care about that in general it's purely tech podcast we're talking about favorite non-tech podcast last year the good was it no the good place podcast was a runner-up right in last year and it was the newcomer it was the newcomer winner but yes yeah yeah so i uh i i don't think it's gonna win but it was probably

my favorite new favorite non-tech podcast this year i for those who haven't so it was on my list chernobyl one of my top shows of the year as a mini series um and the chernobyl podcast was peter sagal from npr talking to craig mazen who's the co-host of the Script Notes podcast with John August. So you may have known him from that. He wrote Chernobyl. All of it was the executive producer of it. And they went through episode by episode and talked about sort of the process and what went into making it and what went into writing it. And it was like the Good Place podcast.

It was a really interesting drill drill down it was not a marketing vehicle and i really appreciate that and it was that's a kind of show with the the trying to depict a historical event that getting the understanding of why it was made the way it was is uh it was really rewarding so i thought they they did a great job with that one didn't see the show didn't listen to the podcast so i don't really have anything to say on this one that's okay because you're gonna agree with the upgradians aren't you well i am because yeah do by friday like it's my favorite show so i i love do by friday it's hilarious and i learned things about american politics from it so i really enjoy it it's very well made and they do a lot of things to dubai friday i get a similar feeling about stick me on this one about dubai friday

as i get about our show because one of the things i love about dubai friday you have to stick me on this one of the things i love about dubai friday is they are very creative in the production is this a backdoor way of announcing that our co-host for 2020 is alexandra elizabeth cox no because that would be a surprise to me it would be a surprise to everyone love alex but this is our show uh but okay but what i love about dubai friday is they very frequently go outside of what you expect them to do and do something weird and fun and i think we do that a lot right so like i think one of the reasons i love dubai friday is because it is a show that is very creative and they take lots of twists and turns when making the

show and i think we do that like the last two episodes of the year right like and the entire summer and the drafts right like i think we do lots of weird and wonderful creative things which is why i love this show and it's one of the things i love about dubai friday as well so upgrade is the winner of favorite non-tech no no that's not what i'm saying so i have no skin in the game when it comes to the chernobyl podcast um no dubai friday is uh it's going to be a two-time winner and that's uh that's exciting I have no skin in the game when it comes to the Chernobyl podcast. No, Dubai Friday is going to be a two-time winner. Two-time winner.

That's exciting because it's on the verge of being kicked out of the category for being too good. It might not be a bad thing to try and get it kicked out because the Dubai Friday audience mobilized. I had to kick them into gear a little bit, Jason. This is some of the stuff that we maybe don't know about. Do you want to hear some salacious information about the upgrades this year? I do. The Dubai Friday Discord is a thing that exists for patrons and they mobilize to vote for Dubai Friday.

And I had to come in and establish some rules with the Dubai Friday audience because... I thought you were going to say Dubai Friday-ans and that was going to be great. That would be a great word. The word the dubaiians and i had to go in and basically say to them that they needed to effectively they voted for dubai friday in every category ah which i wasn't happy with because it doesn't make any sense and causes more work for me because I have to remove the votes, right? Yes. When going through.

So I had to go in there and say, okay, Dubai Fridayans, feel free to vote for Dubai Friday as the favorite non-tech podcast. But either just vote that or vote in every category as well. They listened to me. I removed the incorrect votes and they started over and they did their thing and then they made correct voting for Dubai Friday I love this show, the audience are very engaged

in the Upgradies because they want their favorite show to win which I can definitely attest to and I'm pleased that they listen to me so that we are now I didn't already say it, the Chernobyl podcast is a runner-up and dubai friday is the winner of the favorite non-tech podcast of the year making it two-time winner uh in this

category but jason a three-time winner overall as it won the favorite podcast newcomer in 2016 so may make it dubai friday might end up with like the most wins of any property if it wins next year because it will have four total awards and three and will become lifetime achievement now wouldn't that be an interesting factoid so the dubai fridians know what they need to do i guess i guess so final category of the evening is for the favorite podcast newcomer. The Upgradians voted as such, with 6.5% is Adapt from RelayFM. 9% is Waveform, which is the MKBHD podcast. And 17.7% is the podcast Two-Headed Girl,

hosted by Alex and Matt Cox. You may understand what happened here is one of the reasons that this show is uh 17.7 you know we can talk about that jason would you like to tell me what your favorite podcast newcomer of the year is well everybody can just listen to what i said uh in the previous category because my favorite podcast newcomer was the Chernobyl podcast, which only existed in 2019. So I have two that I want to talk about, and they are the top two winners from the upgradians. So Waveform is MKBHD's new tech show. I think the show is still finding its place a little bit, which is why I didn't vote for it as my favorite tech podcast, because it isn't yet, but it's one of my favorite shows that came out in the last year i enjoy every episode but they had a bit of a rocky

start uh from kind of they they had some tech issues like funnily enough they had just some like audio issues and they were kind of like the the hosts so it's mkbhc so marquez brownlee and uh guy works with andrew magnani who like, helps him with a bunch of, like, I think is like, like basically he's right. And man, and he's a production of YouTube videos. It has a really good mixture of tech topics. They focus on a lot of stuff that like, that are not focused on, on the other shows that I listened to, because they're not solely Apple focused, but they also talk about technology in many other areas, and I really like it. It branches out into some interesting places. I've listened to every episode. I've enjoyed every

episode. It is one of my favorite new shows of this year. The other show that I really enjoy is Two-Headed Girl, which is the show which is voted for by the Upgradians. So this is a show in which Alex and Matt Cox talk about a bunch of issues but is centered around gender transition from the what is called FTM female to male gender transition which Matt Cox has been going through over the last couple of years it is a very well produced show using they have been recording for this show for like two years but it started this year so they have like all of these recordings that they've done over time which is amazing especially in this one episode where they're talking about

testosterone and how it can change your voice and they have clips of matt's voice over the years and how it's changed which is just a beautiful like use of the medium um the theme of this show the the whole reason for this show existing and it also touches on other areas like mental health but it's mostly focused around uh gender it is important to me because i as a person want to better understand some of the struggles that people in the lgbtq community go through so i am able to be a person who can better emphasize empathize and not be stuck in the past and this show helps me with that like this is something which is becoming more and more important today for good reason and i want to make sure that i can do my best

to understand it and this show helps me with that and it's also very funny and heartwarming because it can be really interesting to hear a married couple be tough on each other and kind of fight and also be cute together it is a really sometimes challenging but sometimes heartwarming show which is helping me learn something and i think make me a better person which is why it also gets the nomination from me jason sounds good well it's you and the upgradians slash slash Dubai Fridians. So that sounds like our winner. So Two-Headed Girl is the winner

of the 2019 Favorite Podcast Newcomer with the Chernobyl podcast always being the bridesmaid. That's fine. Into back-to-back. This makes Alex Cox a formidable Upgr upgrade winner here. Four. Upgradier? Upgradiest?

This is interesting, right? So Alex has taken home now four awards in total. So I guess Alex is coming for Marco, right? Yeah. Because I guess Marco has six total, right? With three ATP, three overcast. And now Alex has four total for Two-Headed Girl, and three total for Dubai Friday, but in different categories.

So many statistics. I know. And the upgrade he was. But that's what happens when you have been doing something for six years. right that's right that's why you were so excited with the first annual because it kept going shout out to um our our departed categories uh we retired favorite mike at the movies because we only did one this year so it didn't make any sense and uh and i i'm always amused that our first year we did a best vertical category. Well, because that was the thing, right?

That was a joke that we made in the first 40 episodes of the show was the verticals. But the verticals became segments and now they are like real things. Yeah, I know, right. So anyway, congratulations to Ahoy Telephone, the one and only winner of best vertical. What was your best holiday gift this year? Oh no, you're putting me on the spot i uh socks okay i got a really nice chef's knife oh that's nice yeah the reason we we removed the best holiday gift is because the the recording time kept changing like so sometimes we recorded it before the holidays so it's like how can we award this? So great, yeah.

So I also want to give a thanks and shout out to Zach Knox, who puts together Upgradies.com, which is where you can go and find Zach. Also, you may be familiar with all the interactive scorecards for the drafts that we do every year. So you can go. I should also congratulate Jason Snell for winning the draft competition again. Oh, thank you.

Yes. We're officially done now. The board is cleared. There can be no more drafts. That's right. also congratulate jason snell for winning the draft uh competition again oh thank you yes we're officially done now the board is cleared there can be no more drafts that's right so good work on winning yet again one year jason i'm gonna take that home we're gonna keep doing upgrade until i win uh that doesn't mean the show will end but i'm gonna keep making you do it oh man no pressure you have to throw the draft. Oh, no. Well, that's when I lose the draft, you'll know something's up. Then I need to be the one who worries. So thanks so much to listening.

Happy New Year to you all out there as we are ending the Upgradies with the end of this year and going into 2020. Thanks so much to the Upgradians for listening to this show throughout the entire year. And also for submitting their votes. So many of you submitted your votes this year, which is an amazing thing. Congratulations to all of our winners

of the 6th Annual Upgrady Awards. And we'll be back next time in 2020. I have so many things that I need to talk to you about in the next episode, Jason. I know, I know, I know. Because we have not recorded a regular episode in what feels like a very, very long time at this point.

So, and thanks again to our sponsors as well, Smile, Kensington, Ethos, and Linode. Again, if you want to find links to the nominees and winners of every category, go to Upgradies.com. But we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Happy New Year, everybody.