Upgrade - 492: The 2023 Upgrade Holiday Special

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

This is AppleCore History. I'm Jason Snell. The story of the struggle for power is eternal. As you've no doubt heard on this podcast and numerous other less popular history podcasts, many of the darkest moments of humanity have emerged directly from the frequently violent quest for supreme power over others. Sure, the most visible of these events involve overthrowing a leader, but many consequential changes are all about the struggle for power and influence over that leader. Whether the struggle is happening in a royal court or a corporate office, the true story of our history can't be told without shining a light on those hidden backroom battles.

So let me tell you the story arc of a place that has seen its power wax and wane through the years, weathering decades of decay and huge upswings in fortune. The power behind the scenes, the power on the years, weathering decades of decay and huge upswings in fortune. The power behind the scenes, the power on the throne, and most of all, the many colors that drove it. For nearly 50 years, the small island nation of Cupertonia has been ruled by the Colorsar dynasty and its chosen successors. In that time, there have been eras of stability and eras of great upheaval. In the beginning, which most historians consider the Beige Era, the kingdom was modest. The choice of royal color was

not really even much of a consideration. It was mostly down to the style of the era and the materials available at the time. It was the 70s. During this period, it was a country on the rise. The founder, Tsar Apple, was a groundbreaking ruler, the likes of which had rarely been seen in the world at the time. And from a garage in a modest suburb, he established a strong foothold for future success. Sadly, his reign was very short,

quickly replaced by Tsar Apple II. It's this Tsar who firmly established Cupertonia on the international scene. Apple II ceded his power into homes throughout the land and led to a massive reform in how children were taught in schools. But this era was not without peril. Halfway into Apple II's reign, a palace coup briefly led to his forced abdication and the seating of his son as Apple III. Royal advisors felt that the young prince would be better received by the country's businesses.

However, Apple III was utterly rejected by the people, and after a brief period of confusion in which Apple III and his father, Apple II, contested the throne, Apple III fled the country, never to be seen again. Darker, unconfirmed versions of this story suggest his remains can be found in a landfill in the far desert wastes. The second reign of Apple II, frequently referred to by historians as Apple IIe, was perhaps even more successful than the first. He picked up right where he left off and led his country to wide success and admiration. But in the latter days of the beige era, something dark was moving beneath the surface.

A pirate captain known only as Macintosh gradually gained popular recognition for his raids on enemy lands, most notably in the Battle of Xerox Park, which brought great spoils back to Cupertonia. With Tsar Apple II lacking a proper heir, one of his advisors, Sir Stephen, suggested that Macintosh should be brought into the Tsar's ruling circle. Macintosh gradually accumulated more power and status until he officially became the new heir. While the old Tsar lingered for several years before dying, it was always clear that Macintosh was the one running the kingdom. Now, historians disagree about the start of what we'll call the Platinum Era.

However, most would say it involves the succession of Macintosh II to the throne, and the exile of trusted advisor Sir Stephen, putting the Beige Era firmly in the past. But despite the catchy name, the Platinum Era was a dark time for the kingdom. Across the sea, the great Wintel Alliance grew and thrived as the island kingdom became more insular and almost irrelevant on the world stage, and dysfunctional within. Czar Macintosh II was succeeded not by a single heir, but by a ruling council, including his children Performa, Quadra, and Centris, as well as a gnome named Newton. The Macintosh family cycled through numerous advisors during this period, beginning with a wizard named Sir John, who roamed the countryside carrying his magical book of power.

After the failure of Sir Michael, a confident Sir Gilbert took over. Although Sir Gilbert's era as advisor is generally not well thought of, he did make a single move that changed the course of history. He convinced the ruling family to bring Sir Stephen back from exile. Sir Stephen's first action was to eliminate the rest of the Privy Council, including Sir Gilbert, and take full control himself. Within a year, he and a previously obscure court magician named Ive completely changed Cupertonia's trajectory. Sir Stephen embarked on numerous reforms, including the abolition of the ruling council. Though he insisted he would not make himself king,

after a short time he was indeed crowned King I Macintosh. Thus ended the Platinum Era. But while Cupertonia was poised to emerge as a world power, it took several years of gradually building power to get there. The king's charismatic advisor, now styled as Lord Ive, was named the Color Czar and ushered in iMacintosh's era of rainbow colors generally known as the aqua era. It was a momentous flourishing of art and culture. Clubs were filled with young people dancing in silhouette against brightly colored backgrounds. The country was so brightly colored, in fact, that several observers commented that you almost wanted to lick it. But it wouldn't last. The king and Lord Ive, feeling they had gone too far, became more conservative in later years and the country entered a new monochrome age. This age, while less exciting than the previous era, saw the nation continue to flourish. The

economy diversified into music and telecommunications. The little island was poised to become a dominant economic force when tragedy struck. King I. Macintosh died and was succeeded not by his heirs or Lord Ive, but by Sir Timothy, a court official not widely known but famed for his efficiency by insiders. Sir Timothy refused all regnal names, choosing humbly to rule simply as Tim. Legendary stories abound of Tim introducing himself to peasants as if they didn't know who he was. Under Tim's gently official rule, the island flourished, its economy growing to be among the largest in the world. Lord Ive retired and was given a suspiciously enthusiastic

send-off. But behind the scenes, there was infighting that made this new era more dramatic than you would think given the success of the period. A new power group, the Space Greys, vied with the traditional Silvers for control of the island's professional class. In the communications sector, there was a bit of a loosening of the land's tight controls, and a light palette of colors would occasionally appear for a season before being reigned in. Which brings us to the present day. Sir Timothy rules over an enormous economic empire with cheery efficiency. The ruling castle was moved to a larger, even more circular structure, and in recent years there has been a flowering of color in Cupertonia. Beginning in 2020, six colors reminiscent of those found in the early

days of King I. Macintosh spread throughout the land. Though, in order to keep monochrome hardliners in check, silver remains the predominant color, with the space grays also still in the mix. These days, it's a bit hard to tell who's actually in charge, especially for those of us who are on the outside. Now, if you'll allow me a little bit of Cooper tonology, the flowering of the six colors plus silver strongly suggested that even with Lord Ive being gone, a new color czar was flourishing behind the scenes. However, in the last year it's become unclear if that color czar remains in power or if they've been marginalized. The rise of two radical spinoffs of silver and space gray, known as Midnight and Starlight,

have called into question the long-held stability of the peace inside the castle gates. It's hard for even the most experienced Cooper tonologist to read the tea leaves and come up with an explanation for what's happening inside those curved glass walls. In the last few months we've seen some signals that the colors of I, Macintosh are at least continuing unchanged, though it's hard to say if that's a sign that the colors are survives and is fighting back, or if opposing forces just haven't had time to overcome them. And what are we to make of this new splinter faction,

the titanium naturals? Are they merely a one-year phenomenon or do they have longer term plans? That's the thing about history. The only answer to the future of the island of Cupertonia can be obtained by watching and waiting. Before we go, a plug for our next episode. A was the scarlet letter, but for USB, would a trip to the sea be even more dangerous?

This has been AppleCore History. from relay fm ho ho ho this is the upgrade holiday special for 2023 today's episode is brought to you by fit bod ladder and notion my name is mike hurley you've just heard him but that was jason snell hello jason snell i am the host of apple core history mike now that's my new title i have a snow talk question for you from me which is can you tell us about the idea and where on earth it came from okay um well it came from my stupid brain and part of it was listening to the podcast that i mentioned last week the rest is history uh and thinking about like history podcasts and the other thing is that you and i were talking about history or uh holiday special ideas like this summer and i had an idea it was like

one of those like had the idea in the shower kind of moments where i'm like oh oh we did that uh murder podcast yep uh about the butterfly keyboard and i thought what if we do one about the color czar because we lament the idea that there's a color czar at apple but maybe they don't actually exist uh that somebody should be in charge of this and i thought well who killed the color czar at Apple, but maybe they don't actually exist, that somebody should be in charge of this. And I thought, well, who killed the color czar would be kind of funny. But as I started to think about it, I was like, I don't know how to write that. I don't know how you do an entirely invented murder of the color czar. And I thought, color czar sounds more like a historical figure. I've been listening to these history podcasts and I thought, you know, that's the way to do it, is to have it be this bizarre fantasy world of the

colors are dynasties at Apple. And then, you know, I was sick and I was taking cold medicine and I just sat down and I wrote a crazy thing and there it is. So I hope everybody enjoyed, or at least it's over now. The Apple core history story of the colors ours.

Um, yeah, there, that was it. We do a weird thing every now and then that was it 10 minutes of weird and that that one specific like oh you know as you say we're reprising i think one of my favorite episodes of upgrade which is serial port the serial port which is called who killed the butterfly keyboard episode 277 um we're actually doing a lot of revisiting because shortly we're going to revisit

episode 225 which was the holiday special for the year later but you'll hear about that shortly so that was really fun I like putting the music to that too so like I put this little music bed in I actually service I use called epidemic sound and they do

I really recommend them actually they're really good for licensed music. And we were going backwards and forwards on some stuff. And I ended up finding they have a whole playlist of music for history podcasts. That's how I found that track in the end. Amazing. That's so good. Yeah.

So it was like four. It was what? Was it like six years ago or four years ago that we did that? It was 2017, I think. Oh, right. So six years ago or four years ago that we did that it was 2017 i think all right so six years ago oh sorry it's 2019 it was 2019 so it's four years ago so so we're flashing back with that to four years ago and then we're going to be flashing back to five years ago pretty soon so anyway we do fun stuff it's just silly i hope you liked it and if you didn't that's fine we're never going to do it again so or maybe we'll do it in four years and you can just forget about it then but anyway it was yeah out of my own

addled brain i started laughing and there's some jokes i mean there's references in there that made me laugh and and i sent him steven hackett and made him laugh and like okay i'll put that in there some people get it some people won't i don't care it's fine it was just silly my favorite part i know we're like we're talking a lot about the thing that people just heard but my favorite part is the just tim that really got just him he wants just to be known as tim yeah actually the moment the moment that i laughed i cackled and i thought okay this is gonna work is when it was like uh a pirate named macintosh and i was like okay we're here we got it this was one of those things is very typical upgrade, where we're talking about a thing, we're talking about a thing.

Should we do this? Should we do that? We're not sure. And then all of a sudden in an afternoon, it just all comes together, right? Like you were just like, oh, I got it now. And then it's done.

I got it. Yeah. We do that a lot on this show. That's the entirety of the summer of fun, is that. It is. It is. Happy holidays, everybody.

This episode is brought to you by fitbod when you want to change your fitness level it can be hard to know how to get started which is why i'm happy to let you know that fitbod is both an easy and affordable way to build a fitness plan just for you everybody has a fitness path of their own which is FitBod uses data to make sure they customize things exactly to suit you. By using a powerful algorithm to learn about you, your goals, and your training ability, FitBod will create a custom dynamic program based on your experience and any equipment that you have. This is all in an app that makes it incredibly easy to learn how to perform every exercise. Superior results are achieved when a workout program is tailored to meet your unique body, your experience, your environment, and the goals that

you have for yourself. Your muscles improve when they work together with your entire musculoskeletal system, so overworking some muscles while underworking others can negatively impact results. This is why FitBod tracks muscle fatigue and recovery to design a well-balanced workout routine. By mixing up muscle groups, exercises, sets, reps, and weight over time, FitBod serves to increase your overall strength and keep your body sharp. It also keeps your gym sessions fresh and fun by mixing up your workouts with tons of new exercises. The FitBod app is really easy to use. They have over 1,400 HD video tutorials shot from multiple angles

to make sure that learning every exercise is a breeze. You can keep track of your achievements and personal bests with FitBud's progress tracking charts and integration of your Apple Watch, Wearer, SmartWatch and apps like Strava, Fitbit and Apple Health. I love that FitBud makes me feel confident when I'm learning new exercises and also keeps my exercise routine fresh by giving me new things to do. Personalized training of this

quality can be expensive. FitBod is just $12.99 a month or $79.99 a year. You can get 25% off your membership by signing up at fitbod.me slash upgrade. So go now and get your customized fitness plan at fitbod.me slash upgrade. That is fitbod.me slash upgrade for 25% off your membership. Our thanks to Fitbod for their support of this show and RelayFM. We welcome

a returning ghost to the show for our holiday special. Federico Vittici, welcome back. Hello, am I still in ghost form no i think you would be in now form right you're you're in now form and you're not yet in fact what i think what we should say mike is that um we recently built a time machine and sent federico five years into the past as a ghost to give us a ghostly message from the future, our past selves. Okay.

And with that having been completed, it's time for us to debrief about what Federico told Jason and Mike of five years ago. A.K.A. in December of 2018, on episode 225 of Upgrade, which is called The Upgrade Christmas Carol, we were visited by the ghost of upgrade future which is federico vatici and federico told us a bunch of things and now we're gonna we're gonna work out i guess was he lying or not it's probably the way to consider it right just tricking us yeah was he just tricking us so we have a selection of topics that federico gave premonitions on and basically uh we've had a few people write into us saying that we should go through this because there are some some creepy uh things in here when you go back and look at it so this was five years ago all right five years ago so i think i think a good way to to um sort

of separate uh ghost federico from actual federico is to spell ghost federico with a PH. So it's like a phantom, you know? I like it. Federico. Federico. All right. So we're going to start out with the first predictions on Marzipan, as it was known in 2018, which became Mac Catalyst. The ghost said, in 2019, Marzipan happened.

And when it came out, these apps were so much better than the preview apps that came the year before, when Apple did the weird thing with Apple News. Those apps were terrible. The final framework was so much better. So I guess this was back in, I guess, 2018, 2017, we got the preview apps, the apple create which were were bad and then we got mac catalyst was it much better i don't think it was much better better better yeah but much better uh i think maybe it took a it took catalyst another revision to get even more settings and correct me jason if i'm wrong, but the text scaling and all those options, they didn't become available until the second revision of Catalyst.

So it wasn't right away. And even still, I don't think it's much better. Like you can tell. It's better. It's better, but you can still tell if you're using a Mac Catalyst app. I think we're going to... Should we give this one to the Phantom, Jason? I think so. And here's the reason why. It's something that but you can still tell if you're using a Mac Catalyst app. I think we're going to, should we give this one to the Phantom, Jason?

I think so. And here's the reason why. It's something that isn't in the quote that Federico also said at this point that I loved. A little nice, a nice touch about this. He said, and he did this a few times. He said, what was that thing that you guys were talking about back then? Marzipan? Was that it?

This attitude that things that were really of the moment for us then five years from now we would look back and be like was that it i don't even remember and not only is that true but now five years later i look back on it and go was that it marzipan was that what we called that thing you know to remember back to wwdc when they announced my catalyst it was the same one where they also announced swift ui so as soon as it became available it was already outdated in a way right like what. It was the same one where they also announced SwiftUI. So as soon as it became available, it was already outdated in a way, right? Like, at least was the way that Apple presented it.

That was a weird WWDC when that happened. Very weird. That was very strange. So moving to the iPad now. So the Phantom says, you guys still don't have trackpads for your iPads, right? They enabled that eventually, trackpad support. It started as an accessibility feature.

Correct. That was correct. This was the time when, Mike, you were an iPad user primarily, and you were using the accessibility quote-unquote pointer as a way to have... With a mouse.

With a Logitech mouse, I think. I had Logitech plugged into I think. I have a Logitech plugged in to my iPad. Plugged in? Because what was it? Why were you using it plugged in? I just... I think the Bluetooth didn't work. Yeah, I don't think Bluetooth worked so well. I think it needed a USB connection.

And so that was what I ended up using. But yeah, that was correct. They eventually did enable trackpad support in 2020. So you were right on the money there. You also said, don't lose hope on Apple making pro versions of their apps for iOS. This nearly didn't happen in time.

To be honest. But we got there in the end. Just barely got in there. It counts, though. It counts. It counts. We have Logic. It counts, though. It counts. It counts. We have Logic. We have Final Cut. They're even releasing

updates for those apps. So, you know, they haven't forgotten about them so far. I know that some people on this call would argue whether they're good enough,

but they are at least available. That's beyond the scope of the Ghost's predictions. And then I love this one. We have an almost 14 inch ipad and also a 15 point something inch ipad pro and this talk apple's gonna do an even bigger one they don't make the 9.7 anymore they don't make the ipad mini anymore the range starts from 11

inches and goes up to 15 inches ah no this this is not correct. No. So, yeah, they're still making all the iPads. In fact, they're probably making too many iPads, one could argue. Maybe so. Maybe. The Ghost wanted the consolidation that we don't have still today. Yeah, we don't have it.

We don't have it. And bigger iPads. Also, the Ghost didn't like the, you know, got rid of the iPad mini, which I think is unfortunate. I'm pleased the Ghost didn't like the iPad Mini, which I think is unfortunate. I'm pleased the Ghost was wrong. Was the redesigned iPad Mini out yet?

No. That was 2021 or something. 2021. It's been a couple of years. We still had the one with the home button and probably like an A12. That's why the Ghost didn't like it. Big iPad does sound like a good idea, though. I still think that and probably like an A12 and something like that. That's why the ghost didn't like it. Yeah.

Big iPad does sound like a good idea though. I still think that this is true to a point, right? They're still rumoring it. They're not going to get rid of the smaller sizes though. But the bigger ones, I think, yeah, I think that'll happen. The 9.7 isn't around anymore though, right?

Because like the smallest one is bigger than 9.7 now. Oh, it's 10 something, right? 10.2, I think. Yeah, so that is the only detail that is correct, but otherwise... And the Ghost didn't even consider five years ago, I guess, the evolution of foldable

devices. I'm pretty sure that wasn't a thing in 2018. Well, but it would have been wrong to say that by now we'd have a... No, but this idea of like going even bigger than 15-inch, you gotta believe that at some point Apple will make a foldable tablet that like

when it's closed, like you don't want to carry around a 17-inch or a 20-inch slab of glass that doesn't fold, I think. Otherwise, just carry it under an iMac or something. Another great subject name, Arm Max.

Oh, yeah. Remember Arm Max? Arm Max. The big change was in 2020 when we started seeing the first Arm Max. So 2020 was the year of the revolution, essentially. I mean, nailed it nailed it 100 one of my favorite moments in this entire uh episode is that when you say the year of the revolution

mike and i are concerned that there's been a literal revolution and you had to reassure us that no i'm i just mean in computers let's not talk about politics although that almost happened in the united states that's a different topic. You know what? That's a really good point. That was an attempt. It would have also been very helpful if the Ghost could have let us know what 2020 was actually going to be like.

Oh, yeah. Well, the Ghost did say the year of the revolution. So, you know. Depends how you think about it. You did suggest that there was some trouble happening. Yeah, the wrong kind of trouble. WWDC 2020 was the beginning of the transition from Intel to ARM. And initially we thought maybe Apple was just going to do the MacBook Air first,

or like the smaller computers with fewer and smaller requirements. They did that initially. Then they started transitioning the base models of everything. But the change happened very quickly. So in 2021, we had the first macbook pros and the mac pros and the imac pros and even the mac mini with arm so close pretty kind of i mean kind of i think this is close enough i think it's more accurate than not accurate yeah um the i think i think your idea here was that the base models right which was true actually with the mac mini

but mac pro came a little bit later there wasn't an iMac pro but like it did the change did happen very quickly and it did start with the macbook air and go very quickly to everything else was next right the mac was in 2021 uh well I guess depending on how you look at it there was a macbook pro uh in 2020 but it wasn't the one we were looking for but yeah the only thing is just the iMac Pro doesn't exist anymore. The poor iMac Pro. It's one and done. It didn't happen.

Unified platform. Oh no, this one is sad. Unified platform. We reached the point where it was clear that Apple was moving to a unified platform, which is what we have now and it's very fun. Apple has moved to this vision that we're enjoying now. It's a single Apple OS,

but we don't have hybrid devices. It's kind of more like a modular thing, especially when you look at the iPad and what the iPad has become in 2023. It's a perfect example of that vision. I'm just going to read through all these. Essentially, the iPad has become the laptop for most people Apple is now making more types of keyboards and cases for the iPad but also the UI changes depending on what you're using the iPad with no, no and no a lot of wishful thinking in this one I think so the idea was that they were going to do a single rebrand as a single Apple OS

and each device has its own version of Apple OS and no, in fact as a single Apple OS and each device has its own version of Apple OS. And no, in fact, they have introduced another separate OS, which is Vision OS. And we are farther from this idea than ever before. So no, the iPad has not become the laptop for most people. I would argue that's the MacBook Air.

And they're not making more types of keyboards and cases for the ipad and that's one of my problems with the ipad but no they're not doing it so this is all incorrect unfortunately well just to be clear 2018 2018 was the depths of mac trouble and apple confusion about the Mac, at least externally. I think maybe by then they had resolved it internally, but you know, with the years of, of delay, uh, cause 2018 was, uh, they did the, that, uh, they brought the MacBook air back, right? Wasn't that that year? And they did the iPad pro design, which was nice, but also there was this, they made that claim about how the iPad pro was faster than PC laptops.

And we were in the depths of the sort of USB-C transition on the MacBook Pro with the butterfly keyboard and all of that. It was not a great time. So I can see wanting to wish your way out of it a little bit and say, and we're headed for a direction, a modular direction, when in fact, I think they tacked back the other way toward the Mac. Yeah, that was true. The Retina MacBook Air was 2018. Yeah, that was that Brooklyn event. So we were hot on the heels of that.

Yeah, we were together at that event, Jason. Yeah, that's true. That's five years ago. I forgot that you went there, Federico. I forgot about that. I still have most of the stickers they gave us. I haven't used them. We went to a pub the night before.

We went to Stuart Wellington's bar from the Flophouse. Yeah, we had a meetup there. I forgot about that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that was pretty great. And it taught me how big Brooklyn is because it was so far from where the Apple event was going to be. It was really far.

How far can it be? It's Brooklyn. It's one borough. It's very, very far away. where the apple event was going to be it was really how far could it be it's brooklyn it's one bro how it's very very far yeah away but yeah that was that was uh and like marco and casey were there yes that was a that was a wild event that was a wild event i think i have uh look either i either I had too many beers that night or I'm pretty sure I met that sweet person who sends me, and I assume you, Jason, corrections for typos. Oh yeah, I'm sure he was there. Yeah, that makes sense. Chris? Yeah, Chris. Mr. Chris. Mr. Corrector Chris. Chris was there. So, okay, it wasn't the beers. Okay, yeah. I had this recollection.

It's a premonition. Never enough beers and Chris will appear and correct you. So, on to laptops. You said, they don't make the MacBook Air anymore, so it's still the MacBook. I think it costs $1,299. My case at least.

To be fair, there was a world in which this definitely seemed like it was the approach. Right? Like back then. The Ghost was on a different timeline, I think. Yeah, the Ghost was on that iPad timeline that didn't happen.

We're going to say this is AR devices, I guess. I don't really know how you would approach it. So you say, finally, last year in 2022, they announced glasses. So we have the glasses now. They're not super great so far, but you can tell how they will get better

like the Apple Watch did. They're not glasses. So first problem. It wasn't 2022, it was 2023. And I mean, they're not super great so far. I mean, it's pretty great. It's pretty great. It's't 2022. It was 2023. And, I mean, they're not super great so far. I mean, it's pretty great. It's pretty great. It's pretty great.

I'm sorry. So, I would say. It's because I waited a year. Yeah. 2022? It got better. It got better. Yeah.

Apple Watch. The Apple Watch is so much better than the rudimentary watch that you have. Apple really focuses on the health and medical aspects of it. Sure? I mean, the Apple Watch is better. Sure. We'll give you that one.

Five years ago. Yeah. Our watches now, they can measure blood pressure and it's kind of accurate. They did it with these new sensors that they have and it's built into the bands.

No. You're maybe a year away though, right? Maybe. Maybe next year, but not now. We have sensors to measure your hydration by essentially taking a look at the quality of your skin. No. That's multiple years away, probably. That's one of my favorite descriptions, by the way.

The skin quality sensor. I know you mean hydration. That's what you're going for there. But I also like the idea that your Apple Watch can just judge your skin for you. Bad skin, good skin. You're too dry. Gross.

They did a new design in 2020. Did they? I don't think so, right? 2021? When did it get more rounded? Well, is that a new design? The new design was the Apple Watch Ultra.

Yeah, the Ultra was the new design. And that was not 2020. Nobody else is making smartwatches anymore. No, some people are. I mean, functionally, I don't know if they really are, but like, actually, people are at least trying.

Apple Car. There are no Apple Cars yet. There's talk. They're still working on this special project. A bunch of people left and a bunch more people were hired. This is correct. Very correct. Very correct.

This has been the case every year for the last five years. Yeah. This is the best one. Oh, yeah. This is the whole five years yeah this is the best one oh yeah this is the whole reason to do this episode quote somewhere around 2020 elon musk kind of lost his mind so he was replaced as the head of tesla now halfway he wasn't replaced but're going to give you it because, I mean, come on. I mean, it did. Yeah. My God. Yeah.

And then the United States got back on board with doing something for climate change with the administration after your current one. And so all the car makers realized we need to get these electric cars actually going. And so there have been around 2020 to 2022, this massive transition, not transmission, that's the whole point, transition of all the automakers offering cheaper electric cars. Maybe not cheaper. Yeah, cheaper is not the right word, but I think you're right in that there was a new administration that did a lot of sort of plans and subsidies for manufacture of electric cars and charging networks and things like that. That absolutely did happen. There's been a ton of it. manufacturer of electric cars and charging networks and things like that that absolutely did happen there's been a ton of it so i think this is this feels pretty bang on to me i mean it's a cheaper i guess kind of right there are more options than there were in 2018 right it

was all just luxury cars they're a little more expensive than they should be but yeah it's it's it's mostly right i think on usb, I think you're living the worst moment for USB-C in 2018. Yes, absolutely correct. Is that true? Absolutely correct. Oh, yeah. The iPhone has USB-C now.

Yep. Bingo. This is my favorite one, and I don't know where it's coming from. HDMI became obsolete. No, it's more relevant. I think it's more relevant than ever. I think the thinking was

USB-C will replace everything and we'll have a USB-C connector for everything including video signals. No. We're still using HDMI. 8K TVs now are quite common. No. No, they're not. They're not. If it could be, they would be

because the TV makers are always trying to sell you a new TV, but they haven't gotten there yet. Not yet, but they will when I give them time. Yeah. Oh yeah. On a Mac break weekly, Alex Lindsay is constantly talking about how the breakthrough moment for displays where they seem like reality is. Um, I think he said eight K one 20. So that's something to shoot for 8k at 120 frames a second so we've got think of how many tvs you'll have to buy to get there so is the thinking there that

like that kind of resolution it almost looks like you're looking through something is that like what he's saying yeah that's the idea is that there's this moment that kind of it's a breakthrough where your brain starts to process it as if you're like looking through a window into reality. For things like sports, especially, maybe not for movies and things. I was going to say, I don't want that for movies and TV. For sports, I would maybe want it, but I don't. Right? Yeah.

I was doing some reading a few months ago because something happened to a relative. a lot of uh a lot of elderly people uh because of their you know when their eyesight gets worse with age um a lot a lot of older folks they um they are under this impression sometimes that what what is actually a television is like a window in their living rooms. And this is like quite common as a problem because I have to assume it's related to that. Like their eyesight gets worse. Therefore, they are less susceptible to resolution. And so the image looks more lifelike because they cannot exactly make up the pixels

or the details that we can make out like when we're 35 or 40 or 50. Quite fascinating and also quite a quite a problem is this something that glasses fixes or is it more than that i don't remember um we've been through this in our family so uh with with uh with the relative and uh it was quite quite the thing to explain um but yeah uh 8k 120 that's the goal yeah something to shoot for maybe i mean i'm not sold on it or not it's been described i'm thinking i'm thinking especially from the the idea that for the last 20 years the tv makers have realized that they can keep adding things and selling you new tvs when you don't need a new tv and don't really want a new tv but

they're like but 3d like nah but hdr before k oh a new TV, but they're like, but 3D. Like, nah, but HDR. But 4K. You know, right? And then they're going to roll out the next thing and the next thing and the next thing because they really want to keep making TVs and selling them to you. This episode is brought to you by Ladder.

Let's be real. We all have a tendency to put some things off until the very last minute. Whether that's going through the DMV, arranging a dental checkup, getting to that home improvement project. You know the kinds of things I'm talking about. While most of the time it works out, the one thing in your life that you cannot afford to wait on is setting up term coverage life insurance.

You've probably seen insurance commercials on TV and thought, I'll look into that later on. But this isn't something you should wait on. Choose life insurance through Ladder today because Ladder is 100% digital. No doctors, no needles, no paperwork. When you apply for $3 million in coverage or less, you just answer a few questions about your health in a simple application. Ladder's customers rate them 4.8 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot and they made Forbes best life insurance list in 2021. All you need is a few minutes and a phone or laptop to apply. Ladder's smart algorithms work in real time so you'll find

out if you're instantly approved. There are no hidden fees, you can cancel at any time and you'll get a full refund if you change your mind in the first 30 days. Ladder policies are issued by insurers with long proven histories of paying claims. they're rated A and A-plus by A and Best. And since life insurance costs more as you age, now's the time to cross it off your list. So go to ladderlife.com slash upgrade today to see if you're instantly approved. That's L-A-D-D-E-R life.com slash upgrade.

One last time, ladderlife.com slash upgrade. Our thanks to Ladder for their support of this show and RelayFM. Speaking of, Apple TV+. Oh. A lot of people in the Apple community

made fun of the service when it launched, but the shows were actually good. Yeah. We gotta be clear here. Apple TV+, like,

had not been announced, even, at this point? I think there had been that event there had been the event the streaming event right no i don't think so no okay so i edit down this quote yeah because he he predicted it he said jennifer anderson on stage at an apple event is going to be weird and that was i think 2019 right wow no no Wasn't it 2020? The services event,

wasn't it 2020? Apple, it was an event. It was in like- Well, not 2020 because it was in person. It was at Apple Park. I went,

so I think it was 2019. All right, then I- March 2019. I'm going to give you an extra point for Jennifer Aniston. Yeah, I mean, this is so,

so we knew an Apple service was coming. i'm not sure whether we knew the name or not but but they hadn't announced the shows we knew that the deals had been made for things like the morning show right but i was very impressed with this because there's a lot of things that you look at at it now as if federico just had already seen that event and it hadn't happened yet. Bravo. So we're going to give you an extra point for Jennifer Aniston on stage

because you did say that. Did I say that? Yeah. Yeah, you said it was weird to see Jennifer Aniston and other stars on stage at an Apple event. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. He also said it took them a couple of years to find their style. It's not like every show is a hit, but I think the quality is consistently good. And some people would say superior to what Netflix is doing with their originals, which I agree with completely.

Yeah. It did like a lot of the shows that are good now were around there like for mankind, but they, I think they needed to work at like, that was the kind of show they wanted to make. Right. And then they've kind of modeled around that.

And, and here we go again. It comes bundled if you buy an Apple TV 8K, the actual device. You're big into 8K back in 2018. I was thinking with the 8K, man. I don't know. It's like, oh, let's go, baby, 8K. It did come and it does come bundled, I think.

Are they still doing that where you get the first three months free or something? Three months free with a new purchase of a device. But not the Apple TV 8K. But I love this one. Get a HDI TV because all of the shows on Apple TV, the service will support Dolby Vision by default.

And that's true. It looks great. Absolutely true. This is the best one, maybe. Oh, yeah. It's either this or the HDMI one. You remember when you used to do your upstream segment? Yeah. That became a show.

I think you'll come to this decision in a couple of years. Well, if I'm being honest, that planted a seed in my head of like, oh, maybe it should be a show. What would that be? And how would that be? I that planted a seed in my head of like, oh, maybe it should be a show. What would what would that be? And how would that be? And in the end? Yeah, downstream downstream is a show.

So in part because I was thinking of the existence of it because the ghost told me. So it's like a what do they call that? It's a it's a grandfather paradox. It's a it's a bootstrap paradox where the prediction causes the thing that was being reported on, so it's completely circular. So, good job, Ghost. You created a time loop. You made a very specific prediction about

me, which was, Mike, you will eventually get into role-playing games for the Nintendo Switch. You will become obsessed with playing Japanese RPGs, which is not true. Interesting. I don't know where you were coming from at that moment, but clearly you thought I needed it. If you want to recommend any JRPGs for me, Federico,

I'll try them out, but I've yet to become obsessed with them. There's one I think you'll like. Very sort of pixel art aesthetic. Very easy to get into. Is it Sea of Stars? Sea of Stars. You've got to play Sea of Stars. I'm looking for a new game, so I'll try out Sea of Stars.

But we still have a Nintendo Switch, and it's still the first model. It's the same one. It's the same one. Same one. Same one, baby. Well, I guess we got OLED, right? Yeah.

I had this conversation over Thanksgiving with my son where we're sitting at my brother-in-law's house, and he's just sitting next to me playing a game on the Nintendo Switch. And I leaned over and I said, that was a pretty good birthday present, huh? Because it's the original Nintendo Switch that we got him, whatever that was, five,

six years ago. And the fact that he's still, I mean, when he's at home or at home or at school or whatever, he's playing on the PS5, right? But he's traveling and he's got the Nintendo Switch and he's got lots of games on it that he likes to play. And so much of our tech moves so fast. And like, Nintendo Switch, it's still pretty good. It's still pretty good. Still going.

There have been more revisions to the Steam Deck in the time. Yes. The Steam Deck came out, what, in like 2020, 2021? 2021 2021 and now they've already got a new one which is like a big jump it's if they could effectively call it the steam deck too if they wanted to but the roi and the nintendo switch is kind of incredible for people that bought it right like well they got to make up for the for the the what was it the i can't even remember i have one we was the wii u yeah they gotta make up for that.

And the best part is that when the Switch launched in 2017, the Tegra chip that it has, it was already outdated in 2017. Still going. That next Switch is gonna be a beast, I think. I hope so. I feel pretty

confident about it. You also made some predictions about yourself. Okay. I feel pretty confident about it. You also made some predictions about yourself. Okay. I'm sure 2023... As you were signing off. Yeah, Federico is very busy with many new products, but I still have Mac Stories. Oh, I mean, of course.

Never let it go. But you're busy. I don't think the club... Was the club around? Yeah, it was, right? Yeah, it was. But it's much more now than it was then with Discord and all that. so if you've got more

podcasts there's an entire universe of max stories podcasts uh i think back then i used to have twitter man that ended badly wow yeah it did kind of incredible really because what i like about this prediction is at that point like nothing was was changing, but Twitter was always as bad or as good as it was. And it's very interesting that you did foresee a time in which it would die. And it did. And it badly. Badly. Badly.

That's for sure. Also, you used to have Instagram. Instagram also didn't end nicely. No, that was wrong. I still have Instagram, and it's still going very much strong, I would say. And I won't give you the name of the new social networks that we're using now.

We are using new ones. We are using new ones. Yeah, he didn't give us the name, but I know he meant Mastodon. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think I created my account in 2018, so I'm sure I was thinking of Mastodon yeah yeah i mean uh i think my i created my account in 2018 so i'm sure i was thinking of mastodon and i probably i probably gave you this answer because i couldn't remember the name mastodon i mean that's probably very true right i think i tried to cover it up with this sort of mystique, but it was just that I couldn't remember the name Mastodon.

Yeah. So how did the ghosts do? I just did a quick count. I might be incorrect, but it's rough enough. 19 correct, 15 incorrect. That is... Okay, that's pretty good. If you had a record like that on the Rickies,

you'd be unstoppable. Yeah. See, my problem is, and when we have this that on the Rickies, you'd be unstoppable. Yeah. See, my problem is, and when we have this issue with the Rickies, historically, I get my risky predictions right, but like multiple years after. And so I'm trying to think of a way to like pre-create my Rickies and keep like an archive in Obsidian and use them sort of like

you gotta let them simmer for like a couple of years. Right. Sort of like good cheese or like a good wine. You have an idea now, but you're actually going to use it in 2025. It's like a message in a bottle kind of thing to yourself. Sorry, boys. I'm writing down my rickies for the September 2027 event.

I'm too busy. You could do what we do. So we started doing this thing on Upgrade where we do a draft about what the, every hundred episodes about what life is going to be like a hundred episodes from now. It's coming up soon. Coming to eight. I think we're eight episodes down from that right now.

So yeah, you could do something like that. Long-term Rickies, put it in the, you put in the bottle do a do a do with two-year rickies three-year rickies i don't know you could do it you could steal that from us if you want that's a good idea mike although it clearly would advantage federico so maybe not i don't know federico i will ask you before i let you go do you want to make any predictions for five years from now? Oh, yeah. Oh, you just stopped me.

Just let me... Where you got cooking? Let me get in touch with my ghost self. Okay, the phantom. Give me a second. All right, Federico with PH. Yep. It's hard to say. Hello, boys.

Oh, he's back. Hello again. Oh, no. Hello. Hello. How's life in 23 we still got that marzipan going no that can't be true we got some HDMI full of HDMI over here

so tell us what 2028 is like so we have a new Apple CEO. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. There was a succession plan after all. And yeah, we have a new CEO. Okay. In 28.

Won't give you the name, but it's someone from inside Apple, obviously. Okay. They didn't bring in any external CEO. So it's someone that we Apple, obviously. They didn't bring in any external. So it's someone that we know in 2023? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

It's someone you know. Okay. I don't know. What else do you want to know? What's going on with the iPad? With the iPad? Well, they eventually made a foldable one. All right.

It took them a few years, but they eventually made a foldable one. All right. It took them a few years, but they eventually did make... They made a foldable one. They rethought a few things about the lineup. Okay. Especially in the... So I think in 2023, you were having that whole thing,

like the iPad lineup is too confusing. And I think people were complaining about that right uh yeah that that took a while to get fixed but it did um took a lot of blog posts i remember from back in it always how's the vision it was the vision pro success oh the vision pro was a slow burn uh so so it started out as this like very expensive thing and it took us it took apple a long time to launch in international markets and going to the app to the apple store was a whole thing for the tryouts and and you know and the fitting um and it was so expensive um they did make a more affordable one,

but it wasn't until I believe, so we are now on version, we are now on version four of the Vision Pro. And it was really with version three that it started becoming more popular and much smaller and cheaper and lighter. Yeah. So it's going to be a slow burn for you guys.

You're in for quite the ride. Jason, what do you want to ask the Phantom? Phantom, how is the progress of Apple Silicon going? Oh, so they were serious about gaming after all um i remember so five years ago um yeah it's cute because it's when five years ago they were doing like we have rest in an evil come in and it's like gaming uh but they were serious about that after all. So they spent, so they stayed on the three nanometer technology for a couple of years, but they really started focusing for a while

on the GPU aspect of it. And to the point where the sort of AAA gaming initiative got so serious that they had to split the Apple Arcade tiers that they have. So they have the Apple Arcade, like the base tier for like the more like casual gaming, but they also redid like a proper gaming section on the Mac App Store. And you can get in with a more expensive Apple Arcade tier that gets you access to AAA gaming. Does Apple buy Disney?

Oh, no, they did not. Oh, okay, cool. Good to know. No, they didn't buy Disney after all. They did acquire, I think, between after 23, in the time period 24 to 26, it started this consolidation of streaming services. A lot of these services that launched with the pandemic, they eventually started folding.

They did acquire, I don't remember now the names because it's been a few years, but they did acquire a couple of, like the rights of a couple of these services that closed down, like some of the smaller ones, but not Disney, not Netflix.

Those are still doing their thing. Yeah. Jason, do you have anything before we let the Phantom disappear back into his future realm? No, I don't think so. I think that that is... Well, iPhone.

Is the iPhone still going strong? Oh, yeah. Just got to check in. Oh, yeah. They did change the naming scheme at one point.

Yeah, because the numbers, they started getting as big as a Final Fantasy game. It's going to be iPhone double X at some point. I don't know if anybody needs that. They renamed it, but it's still called an iPhone. And you know how I have multiple versions. So there's the sort of classic iPhone. There's also the foldables. Display tech has

really improved over the past five years. And so that's been an interesting change for sure. But still, there's still an iPhone. There's still an iPad. There's still Macs, and we have now this fourth version of the Vision Pro. It's not actually even called the Vision Pro anymore. You'll see. But, yeah. Well, we look forward to catching up with you in your timeline. Sure, sure. Alright, alright.

Talk to you. My past self will talk to you in five years, I guess. Q&A is an assistant that can answer questions about next quarter's roadmap, find that marketing campaign proposal you're looking for, or dig up a lost link all in seconds. Let me tell you why I love Notion Q&A. It is way better. It's like a superpowered search. So like sometimes I'm looking for something in a document that I have in my Notion database, in like my whole Notion projects space, we'll call it. And I know the question that I have

to try and find an answer to, but I don't know the answer. So how do I find the thing? And I could spend ages searching through files and trying to find it by scanning through, where now I can just open the Notion Q&A feature and say, like I did recently, what was the color of the cover of paper that we chose for this project? And it was able to go in, find the answer for me, and it also showed me where

to go for it. So great, saves me tons of time, and the more and more that I'm putting into Notion, the more and more I'm getting out of it. And Notion AI, it can give you instant answers to your questions using information from across your wiki, your projects, your documents and meeting notes with the Q&A feature. I also love Notion's AI features for helping me summarize stuff. It's really great. If you have an urgent question, you'd normally turn to a co-worker to answer for you. You can ask Notion Q&A instead. Like if you have all of your help documents and all of your handbooks for your company in Notion,

it can search through any of these thousands of documents in seconds to get the answer to your question and present it to you in clear language, no matter how large or complex your workspace is. Plus, and I love this, you can trust that your data is secure because Notion AI is designed to protect your information. There are no AI models being trained with your information.

The data is encrypted and the answers will never use information from pages you don't have access to. That is super good. Try Notion AI for free when you go to notion.com upgrade. That is all lowercase letters, n-o-t-i-o-n dot com slash upgrade

to try the powerful, easy-to-use Notion AI today. And when you go to that link, you're supporting this show. That is notion.com slash upgrade. A thanks to Notion for their support of this show and RelayFM. Let's do some holiday-themed Ask Upgrade questions.

Choo! Choo! Jingle, jingle, choo! Choo! Jingle, jingle, choo! It's like, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. Let's do some holiday themed ask upgrade questions. Jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle. It's like. Oh, I like it. That's really great. I don't often do the lasers, but when I do, I bring something, you know? That's right. They're red and green lasers too.

Of course. Aaron asks, do you have any favorite holiday decorations from when you were a kid that you still love and use today what about ones that you did love but now find too tacky do you have any you know i i um i was thinking about this because we bought a bunch of ornaments that are theoretically like when our kids were little that theoretically we will give to our kids at some point to take away as like keepsakes although they've become so precious for us they may be more precious for us than for our kids um so that's a problem i don't have i don't think i have any ornaments or other things from when i was a kid i don't think i have any of them my mom has some that i i but she still got them right like there may come a time you know my mom's um in her 80s where uh some of those will be claimed reclaimed but um for now i do every now and then there's like

a santa candle and there's some other stuff that she has and i'm like oh wow that's from that's from when i was a kid but i don't i don't have uh anything in particular sort of building building my own memories buying stuff that i love now we also like our tree was mostly like just glass ball you know green and red glass ball ornaments not like a lot of custom stuff we had we had an angel on the top of the tree i have no idea where that angel is my mom still might still have it our tree this year has skeletor on the top, so I guess that says something. I also don't have any from my childhood, but holiday ornaments have become a thing that me and Idina have started to decide to care about. When we first got a tree, and over the years,

we just bought boxes of ornaments, right? That we just were like, oh, this is a nice color or whatever, and we're just going to use this to fill up the tree but and then one year we bought a bunch of really adorable and hilarious felt ones like of like dinosaurs and like but all holiday themed and they were really adorable and that was like oh this is much more of like who we are and like what we like um and then we have now taken to attrition that many people have that we've learned from friends of we buy holidays sorry we buy ornaments on vacations and holidays that we go on like places that we go to that we care about we buy we try and buy an ornament for the tree from them so we

have like been to disney a bunch of times we get a new one from disney each time we have one from san francisco we have one from hawaii you know like we try and pick up uh ornaments from places that we go together and it's become like a little tradition in the home it's nice i will say the um the one funny thing here is so lauren is jewish and always was um covetous of uh christmas traditions that she didn't get when she was a kid that Amazing. That's funny. And her dad wasn't Jewish, but she lived with her mom and her stepdad. So occasionally they'd get some of that reflected, but not a lot. As a result, though, moving in with me and marrying me

gave her full license. And, you know, that thing as an adult where you're like, this is what we do when you're a kid and then you're an adult you're like oh i get to choose whatever we do so it's like uh lights on the house yeah let's do it big tree lots of ornaments yeah let's do it um so we've got all that she also has given herself permission to buy like as many menorahs as she wants to um and do that too and it's like no i like menorahs we might have three uh going at once why not like who's gonna stop me it's that thing where it's like as an

adult who's gonna stop me uh so anyway she really takes some some glee in having being able to do christmas as well because there was a period like you know it's like your parents telling you you can't have the the cereal with sugar in it um it's a little like that. Then you're an adult and you're like, I'm going to have this cereal with sugar. Yes. So anyway, that adds an extra level of kind of delight for Christmas is that Lauren really loves it. Drew wants to know what some of our other favorite holiday traditions are. Oh, wow. So I'll start.

I have a couple. Yeah. Okay, do it. When we put up our tree, we make eggnog. So like starts the day before, like it's a good eggnog recipe that we use. And we use the Bindji Mubabish eggnog recipe. If you want to find that, it's really good. We like, it's basically a two day process.

You leave it to kind of like mature overnight and then finish it off the next day. So we drink eggnog and put the Christmas tree up. Something that I've come to really love is making gingerbread houses and so we'll do a gingerbread house every year and i like to do the thing where we get a kit but we actually make the gingerbread with the kit like you don't just get like pre-cut pieces like you get the whole thing and then decorate it yourself and i love doing that can i just jump in here for a second so so my kids uh we had the gingerbread houses that we made and i have some pictures of my dad making a gingerbread house with them that i treasure and they uh but they would always be like when can we eat it when can we eat it there's like can't they're picking

the candy off of it because sometimes there's like icing and there's also candy you can stick on and they're picking that off and they're like when can we eat it and There's like, can't they're picking the candy off of it. Cause sometimes there's like icing and there's also candy you can stick on it. And they're picking that off. And they're like, when can we eat it? And this led to what has turned out to be a major traumatic event in my children's life, which is at one point I just decided, Oh,

I'm tired of them asking when can we eat it? So I went out into the garage and got a hammer and I brought it in and I smashed the gingerbread house. The kids are like, no. And, and, and ever since then it's been remember when daddy took smashed the gingerbread house with a hammer and i'm like guys i did it because you wanted the gingerbread this is one of those things where like you know it it's like uh there were branching paths in your children's lives at that point and there was

one way you didn't smash the house and one way you did no i i smashed that gingerbread house because it was all stuck together pretty tightly and we couldn't get it off and i thought you know what this will be fun i'll just smash it into pieces and then we can eat the pieces and it became traumatic for them so sorry about that but i do like a gingerbread house i give it one day yeah so i will eat the gingerbread house the next day that's when we'll start picking at it right now we have just a front and back left of the house right well if you want to have fun sometime bring out the hammer bring out the hammer i don't think i've ever made a gingerbread house

that is sturdy enough that it would need a break i don't know that could be really easy to knock it knock it right over yeah we also do stockings now, which I like too. We have Monsters, Inc. stockings, which are fantastic. One is a Michael Zowski, and then one is just like a Sully Foot, which is very great. Lauren still has her childhood Christmas stocking. Wow. Which is green and has a panda on it and an L for Lauren. And so that's pretty great.

And also, there's nothing like shopping for a great and also why is there a panda on the stocking why is there i don't know that's an interesting what happened there's a panda what happened i don't know who put a panda on a stocking you know i don't know that's a good question so uh i don't think we have any particularly interesting holiday traditions you know there's music like the vince giraldi stuff i've got some playlists but the vince giraldi music from the Charlie Brown Christmas special and the Charlie Brown Christmas special itself that we tend to watch a lot.

We bought it ages ago on iTunes. So even though it's on Apple TV Plus now, I mean, we were watching that endlessly. Certain movies get replayed. Elf is a favorite. Miracle on 34th Street is a favorite that we will work some others in there sometimes it's die hard too sure fine whatever um but like elf and miracle on 34th street i feel

like are the standards we'll try to get those in there the uh doctor who christmas specials i'll pull some of those out because some of those are really great um some of them are not but some of them are actually really great the christ Christmas Carol one and the Last Christmas, which is sort of like an homage to The Thing, which is, why would that be a Christmas special? But it is. Because The Thing takes place at the North Pole, you see. And who else might be at the North Pole?

Anyway, that's pretty good. Bacon cookies, ginger cookies. I love ginger. And so I have these ginger cookies that I make that are made with enormous amounts of ginger and they're so good. Jason, the ginger molasses cookie is back at Blue Bottle. Yes. Oh, is it?

Well, it was when we were in LA. You know all about it. When we were in LA, they had it. I was so excited. Well, that's the one I make and it's really great. Ginger molasses cookie from Blue Bottle Coffee. And Christmas dinner is a tradition, right? Usually a turkey, although sometimes something else.

But the sides are the star there. And I always make a sweet potato pie because I love to make a sweet potato pie. And any excuse to do that, I'll do it. Honestly, Lauren just made Chex mix yesterday. That's actually a tradition, I think. The kids love to have the chex party mix your home we make it at home gotta buy a lot of worcestershire sauce for that but

we do that i don't know nothing i would say nothing particularly uh dramatic it's just i love all those the trappings of christmas it's fun oh uh for music i actually wanted to add in that the uh david sparks is yule playlist gets a lot of play in our house it's like a really good compilation of good like background jazz music that's jazz theme which is like really good for the holidays because you've got people around and we've actually started a new tradition actually in the last two years we've done it two times so it's a tradition now uh we um last year we went to our neighbors and our neighbors came to us this year we have a little it's the second annual traditional annual neighbor christmas neighbor christmas yeah andrew asks holiday

sugar cookies frosted or unfrosted oh um i could take or leave the frosting but the frosting is fun if you can do fun things with it right so it's like a sugar cookie and in a shape like of a man and you give him eyes it's better so you do that or you yeah i mean if it's a tree you put green on that thing i mean you got to do that um it's sad if they don't i have a bunch of cookie cutters and that's the only time we ever use them is for holiday cookies and and some of those actually are my mom's cookie cutters from when i was a kid um and then we picked up some others since then and so yeah you do a candy cane you're not going to stripe that it's just a j like or a question mark that's backward like you gotta you gotta stripe that thing stripe that baby otherwise what are you doing take it from upgrade stripe the

baby no no you know what i mean i know i love it it's great this is this is a good this is a good motto for the show frost them this is what you need to do you know that's so that's my feeling about to andrew's point about frosted or unfrosted the frosting's fine i don't care i i feel like though the key thing is if they're in shapes and they need to be elaborated on so that they aren't just sad plain cookies if it's like a circle i mean you can take it or leave it whatever but if it's like in a shape you got to do you got to do festive things on that shape otherwise it's just a sad silhouette and nobody wants their christmas sugar cookie to be a sad silhouette and brantz wants to know did you both grow up believing in santa in your households

uh yes absolutely my my belief was reinforced by the time that santa responded to a letter i left for santa in a handwriting i didn't recognize which i think was just uh i don't actually know which parent probably my mom but it was like she did did a wild handwriting that it was not like my parents' handwriting. So it was very, very convincing. And that extended it a year. I was very impressed with that, that Santa had left me a message. And then the other thing I'll say is there was that awkward couple of years where I knew that Santa didn't exist, but I didn't want to lose Santa presence. So we kind of like pretended that it was uh until finally uh we had the moment of the you know there's no santa right i'm like yeah i know

and then we and then actually my mom would still put presents under the tree that were from santa and we would all be like oh this one's from santa and we all had a chuckle but that's cute yeah right that's my story yeah yeah thank you so much. What about you? You didn't answer. You didn't answer. Well, maybe I don't want to answer. Maybe I still believe in Santa. No. Here's one of these things. Well, I know I did, but I don't remember it.

But I know I did. You know what I mean? I have no memory of believing in Santa, but I know I believed in Santa. Sure. We had a fireplace, and our tree was right next to the fireplace, too. So it was really conducive to that whole thing i remember doing the cookies and and milk and and yeah carrots and stuff like that so my pal um my pal philip michaels i i don't know uh i i just find this amazing uh their daughter

old enough now to know that there's no santa but for a while there, he just was very clear that what Santa really wants is bourbon. I, I, I always appreciated that, that in Phil's house, you leave, you leave bourbon for Santa. Makes sense.

Story checks out. Santa likes to go to the Michael's household. Yeah, he does. Good gifts. If you'd like to send in feedback, follow up on questions for a future episode, please go to upgradefeedback.com. You can find

Jason at sixcolors.com, theincomparable.com and here on RelayFM where you'll find me too and over at cortexbrand.com. We're on Mastodon. Jason is at Jsnell on zeppelin.flights. I am at imike and mike.social. You can find the show as Upgrade on RelayFM.social

where you'll also find video clips of the show but they are best viewed on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. We are at Upgrade Relay

on all of those. On threads, I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Jason is at jsnl, J-S-N-E-L-L.

Thank you to our members who support us with Upgrade Plus and thank you to our sponsors of this episode, Notion, Ladder, and FitBud.

However you celebrate have a happy holidays and we'll be back next year on new year's day a very special episode very special episode join us that's right happy holidays happy new year see you in the future see you next year, everyone.