Upgrade - 493: Upgradies Hall of Fame

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

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Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 from relay FM welcome to the first ever upgradies Hall of Fame this very special episode is brought to you by our broadcast partners fit bod Express VPN and Squarespace once again simulcast from London, England, and Mill Valley, California. I am one of your hosts for this evening's festivities. And joining me is my co-host, Jason Snell. Jason Snell, welcome back to the Upgradies yet again.
Starting point is 00:00:36 Thank you, Mike Hurley. Weren't we just here? We just were. Well, as you will have heard on our last Upgradies just a couple of weeks ago, it was Upgradies 10, Upgradies X, the 10th annual Upgradeys. So we thought to honor that, we would create a Hall of Fame for the Upgradeys. Now, this is separate to the Lifetime Achievement Award, which is one if somebody wins three times in a singular category they are elevated into the rafters they have a little banner up in the rafters at the uh upgradies offices uh where
Starting point is 00:01:11 they're enshrined for all time so it stops the same things from winning over and over and over again but we thought to celebrate the 10 editions of the upgrad, that we would look back from the winners of all of our current categories and choose a Hall of Fame entrant from them. So a Lifetime Achievement Award winner could also be a Hall of Fame Award winner. We'll just have to see how it goes. I have some credits again. Sure.
Starting point is 00:01:41 I would like to thank the following people for helping make the Upgradees possible. Zach Knox for web design, J.D. Davis for artwork, Chris Breen for music, Jim Metzendorf for audio editing, Chip Southerth for video editing, and Jamie Snell for social media management. Once again, just noting that these people are involved in all the Upgrade. So we thank them, especially as we've entered into a new year again. Thank you all for helping make this show possible. Should we go right into it for the first award?
Starting point is 00:02:12 Do you have any opening statements you would like to make? How does it work? Do I have any opening statements? I'm proud of all of you. It's an honor to be an upgradees uh nominee and winner and um it this is only an exhibition and it's not a competition we we're just choosing our favorites of our favorites yes uh because we thought it would be fun and somebody will be coveted you know something in this which is nice is that we will get the opportunity to mention all of the winners uh across each year which i think will be it's a nice thing for today
Starting point is 00:02:51 to to highlight the many uh illustrious winners over the first 10 upgradies competitions so we will start with the first round today which is best ios app and we're gonna go to the beginning in 2014 overcast was the winner in 2015 slack can you imagine a world in which the best ios app was slack like if you think about it we were all using slack we all started using slack that year incredible lying on it yep 2016 was workflow What happened to that app? Nobody knows. Where are those people now? Carrot Weather in 2017.
Starting point is 00:03:31 Overcast in 2018 and 2019, making it a Lifetime Achievement Award winner. Drafts in 2020. Carrot Weather again in 2021. And then the last two years, 22 and 23, has been Flighty so carrot and flighty right on the right on the edge of lifetime achievement i have i think for me an early gut feeling here which would slack clearly yes slack uh no i i would be leaning towards carrot so by the way we we have not
Starting point is 00:04:06 made nominations for this between the two of us like we usually would with the upgrade is the whole point of today's episode is we're just going to talk through all of them and come up with a winner ourselves um and so like i i would be leaning towards carrot weather here interesting it is also like a runner-up so many years too which we're not going to go through the runners-up but it's in there carrot weather is great overcast uh is also one that i am uh i mean is it the is it the ios app i use the most i mean i don't know. Maybe. Maybe. But Carrot Weather is good. Flighty is good. These are our most commonly chosen
Starting point is 00:04:51 things. So I feel like for some categories, we are judging the app, I think, over its entire time period. And I think for some categories, we are judging a winner or a nominee for its initial impact and i think we'll have some later on where that is and for me i just feel like over the period of time
Starting point is 00:05:10 going all the way back to the beginning carrot weather has seen such advancement and has only gotten better and better and better over time i feel like it's it's kind of share amongst the audience has grown and grown and grown like it whenever carrot weather is nominated for any award it is nominated heavy amongst the upgradians too and i feel that way myself um it's an app that i feel like over time you know it's it's done the things that are best for the users in a sense of like, now it is mostly interacted by many people with like the watch app or the widgets rather than the actual app itself. Like it's doing all of the things
Starting point is 00:05:52 that a good iOS app should do. But that's where I'm leaning. If you want to make a class for Overcast or somewhere else, then I'm very willing to hear it. Well, I mean, the case for Overcast is that it is an independent podcast app that when it began, it was, you know, along with some of its competitors, it was offering a real solid alternative to what Apple offered.
Starting point is 00:06:16 And Apple has really upgraded the podcast app over the years. A lot of those independent podcast apps have sort of fallen by the wayside. Overcast remains and is uh certainly it is uh still offers a bunch of things that apple's podcast app doesn't and um you know i still rely on it for things like using it on my watch as well as using it on my phone um so i think that there's a strong case to me to be made for it so the where i would where i would say for overcast because i use overcast every day too it's my podcast app of choice i think marco would be the first person to tell you that the app is not where he wants it to be right now well he's rewriting it right now we know that and it has it hasn't had a lot of progress in the
Starting point is 00:07:00 last few years yeah and we know that that he knows that and that he's working on it but right now uh i i think that's i absolutely think that's true also i mean oh i you make a great point with carrot weather also which is the support from the upgradians the fact that it has evolved so much over time like almost every year there's other sets of huge carrot weather features that are are coming in and it also has apple app competition and i think that the apple weather app has a lot going for it and has improved as well but carrot is also still great and one of the things i like about carrot is that it can be what you want it to be you know like for me and some people love carrot because it's got jokes and snark and stuff i don't i turn that off because i don't like it. But it doesn't matter.
Starting point is 00:07:45 You can literally lay out the app in the app to show whatever you want to show, which is really remarkable. So I'm okay with Carrot Weather. That is where I lean. And it is purely because, as you say, if there's a new system feature, Carrot adds it. Yeah. And does it well. With the, I would say, the caveat, which we spoke about in the upgrades,
Starting point is 00:08:12 I don't think they did a good job with their interactive widgets, but maybe it wasn't that needed for what their type of widgets are. I don't know. Yeah, I say, I mean, clearly the winner is p calc oh hang on a second what if we just picked something totally random it isn't anything that's been in that is no i feel like that is the one thing that we set in the rules is that we're picking from previous winners
Starting point is 00:08:39 it really needs to be one of the previous winners okay well then well before we do it before i would just make the case of like we are a podcast right and so an overcast is the way that the majority of our listeners listen to this show and so like there is also the point of like do we just go with it because that fits i don't think that's enough of a reason okay i mean it's a tough decision but i like your uh i like your suggestion and your argument we love again as i said in my opening statement that i made up very you know much on the spot you're all doing great we love all of you but we have to pick a hall of famer to be in just to be in the conversation you know yes that's the important um carrot weather all right. That's the important thing. Carrot weather. Carrot weather. All right.
Starting point is 00:09:31 So that's the first Hall of Fame entrant for the best iOS app is carrot weather. All right. This is my favorite. Talking about best newcomer. I love the idea. I love it. All-time newcomers. I'm very excited just about the idea of judging a Hall of Fame newcomer. And I guess that this is like all-time rookie kind of thing that we're looking for.
Starting point is 00:09:51 Yes, rookie. Also still a weird concept, actually, but okay. But like, so the way I was thinking of this is considering an app and the impact that it had at the time in which it was released. And we can maybe consider how something has evolved, but personally, I would like to consider initial impact. I can see how we feel about that through conversation. So our winners starting from 2014 go Workflow, Ferrite in 2015, Swift Playgrounds in 2016, in 2016 files in 2017 we were just excited to have management one and a three in a row shortcuts 2018 oh three in a row 2019 was timery 2020 was
Starting point is 00:10:37 widget smith 2021 noir sticker drop in 2022 and Cold Sheet in 2023. Hmm. Interesting. You know, well, okay. So among the ones that stick out here. Yeah. Ferrite for me. Yeah. Huge, great, you know, iPad app, audio editor.
Starting point is 00:11:02 I love it. It's my favorite way to edit podcasts. So good. So powerful powerful i would imagine you feel the same way about timery i do but i wouldn't i'm i wouldn't be holding timery here that timery i i love timery but i it's not one of the ones that i'm making the case for because i think we have three very strong contenders for impact which are in my mind workflow shortcuts and widget smith yeah i yeah i agree i agree um i think i think between workflow and shortcuts i think it's workflow because workflow encompasses all of what happened with shortcuts as well
Starting point is 00:11:43 and it was such a revelation. And I'm glad we were there. We were on it in our very first upgrade-ies. I'm really happy we got it. I maybe haven't paid much attention to going all the way back to the beginning, right, when I've been looking at these things. But there is something so beautiful, I think, about us having workflow and then four years later shortcuts. There's just something really nice about that that i enjoy that that was a thing and then also you know so workflow was best newcomer in 2014 then won best app in 2016 yes so it improved and then by 2018 it was it was the
Starting point is 00:12:19 apple version but again like i don't know what's the case for widget smith has any app made such an impact on this like the global stage on the world like i can't think of any other example of a app with virality like widget smith like you get these ai services and this kind of stuff that go around a lot, but the idea of especially an indie app that is released and then goes viral, it's the only time I can remember this happening. And I think
Starting point is 00:12:56 that even if you, again, if we're just looking at it within the year that it came out, 2020, like the fall of 2020, that was the fall of widget smith like that's what everything was about widgets were about widget smith and i just think as a for from an impact that was a pretty big one to users but then workflow was a pretty big one for nerds oh this is this is yes this is the contrast i would say widget smith
Starting point is 00:13:27 what it has going for it is it was it went viral it's used by an enormous number of people it's an incredible success story and when you're representing the newcomer hall of fame what better newcomer than an app that hits on a new feature and goes viral and is wild but i would also say best newcomer workflow that's an indie app that became on a new feature and goes viral and is wild. But I would also say best newcomer workflow, that's an indie app that became part of the OS infrastructure. An indie app became the future of automation on Apple's platforms, which is pretty wild. But can we judge its newcomerness based on the fact that it became that later on?
Starting point is 00:14:06 I'm not saying one way or another. I don't know. Right? Like, would we say it was best newcomer because later on Apple acquired it? I don't know. I'm just making the argument for the impact of this is a new indie app that happened and it ended up changing the future of automation on the entire platform is the argument for workflow. But I am also going to agree with you here. I think that Widget Smith's debut and what happened is about as Hall of Fame newcomer as you can get.
Starting point is 00:14:34 Yeah, that is a beautiful way of putting it. We have another newcomer category later on and we have movie, TV, all that kind of stuff. I don't think that there is a bigger, this thing appeared and then everything changed in our categories as Widget Smith. Yeah. All right.
Starting point is 00:14:51 So I think we're going to do it. The best newcomer iOS app entrant into the Hall of Fame is Widget Smith. Hall of Famer, first ballot. This episode is brought to you by FitBud. When you're looking to change your fitness level, it can be really hard to know where to get started. And this is the time of year where lots of people are considering fitness.
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Starting point is 00:17:40 So going through the list all the way back to 2014 was Fantastical. 2015 was Logic Pro X. Is it 10 or X? It's 10. Okay. I can never remember. Some things are 10.
Starting point is 00:17:54 Some things are X, right? Sometimes they're not the 10th version. Most things are 10. Most things are 10. Okay. We have 2016, Audio Hijack. 2017, Final Cut Pro pro 10 the 10th uh 2018 was audio hijack 2019 was affinity designer i don't remember that at all yeah 2020 was fantastic how 2021 was bartender 2022 was audio hijack picking up a Lifetime Achievement Award. 2020-03, Whisper.
Starting point is 00:18:26 Interesting here. So we got some Apple apps. We got Audio Hijack, Fantastical twice, Bartender thrown in there. I know, I mean, in any category where there's a Lifetime winner, the easy selection is to choose the Lifetime winner. But I kind of want to choose audio hijack as the lifetime winner, even though it's a,
Starting point is 00:18:49 or as a hall of famer, it's like you talk to people who are on windows and, and then, and know about Mac stuff like Anjay Tomic is like this, like audio hijack, like what it's so good. Like it's so smart. There's nothing like that interface that they built because for people who don't remember the old audio hijack interface was terrible but the new audio hijack interface with little blocks that are all connected and that you can like record from
Starting point is 00:19:15 different things and process them and send them different places and and it for podcasters it's invaluable but actually it's one of those things that as the the rogue amoeba stuff in general as a mac user it does make you wonder why that stuff is not in the operating system it's so powerful and so useful and they keep getting better they added automation support they added their new transcription block um so i feel like i just a huge amount of love for that app. I can see the argument for Fantastical, which has stuck out of space trying to do something better than Apple. Although I got to be honest, I have a little bit of a crisis of faith right now about Fantastical, where I feel like in order to try and justify itself and build its business around,
Starting point is 00:20:08 it's starting to build its business around features that don't interest me. Yeah. And I'm starting to wonder if I might actually be better off just saving my money and going back to calendar. I'm like, there are things in Fantastic Hell that I really value. But I do agree that like the app is maybe going to places that I'm not interested in. But I do agree that the app is maybe going to places that I'm not interested in. And I know as well that a lot of people aren't super happy with the subscriptions. And Fantastic House subscription is one of the more expensive ones. It is.
Starting point is 00:20:34 And so like... It is. And I think those go hand in hand. I'm just spitballing here. And again, we love everybody. And it's a great app. And I do love it. But... I still recommend it.
Starting point is 00:20:42 With the price, which is... They set the price because is they you know they set the price because they felt like that's what they needed to do to run their business i i have no problem with that you can buy it or you cannot buy it but i do feel like that at that price they then feel pressure to drive the product and uh into places that are going to justify the price to businesses and to people who again that that's their choice and if you are somebody who's served by those features that's great but uh for me i see these new features like oh we will do group we'll schedule you and you've got free and busy time and things like that for for people to schedule meetings with you and i'm like doesn't
Starting point is 00:21:13 interest me right like the none of these features actually uh actually serve me and and so yeah i i find myself wondering is it is it a subscription I should really keep or not? So here's what I'll say, right? So going back to what I was talking about in the iOS app one, I just think Audio Hijack is an app that over its time period, since we first awarded it, and we first awarded it in 2016 because it got so good, right? I think that was when the UI changed. Because it was an app that i didn't use before 2016 because i i it just didn't make any sense to me and then since then i mean it's become i'm just probably the most important app on my mac for me and what i do and it has consistently gotten better and better and better over time when they integrated live streaming into the app, which is super important for us.
Starting point is 00:22:07 And now, from where we are now and looking into the future, that they did, if you say the transcription, the AI transcription block, that feels like that's going to be important for us going into the future. Yeah, so the new version came out at the beginning of 2015. Okay. at the beginning of 2015. Okay. So right there at almost at the beginning of when we started doing Upgrade is when Audio Hijack appeared.
Starting point is 00:22:31 Which is helpful for me. It feels like a no-brainer to me. Yeah, I agree. All right, so that's that, right? Audio Hijack is the Hall of Fame winner for best Mac app. Yeah yeah we're happy about that one all right all right so next up our next category will be the best newcomer mac app which i think
Starting point is 00:22:57 we can maybe give uh this entire category a note here to say it is the reason that we introduced Upgradian nominations because we were really struggling to come up with new Mac apps because there was a time period probably around 2017 where we only gave
Starting point is 00:23:21 one runner up in the category that there was a problem here. And so that was kind of like a dip time and we needed help. And so we started asking the Upgradians to vote too. And that gave us much more to talk about. So going back to 2014,
Starting point is 00:23:39 Paul went out for one of my favorite apps of all time, Mailbox. Oh, Mailbox. Remember Mailbox? I tell you what, time, Mailbox. Oh, Mailbox. Remember Mailbox? I tell you what, 2014, this is a mood, right? Overcast, Workflow, Fantastical, Mailbox as iOS and Mac.
Starting point is 00:23:54 God, what a great time. That's when we started. That is the time. That is the moment we started was that time. That's my nostalgia right there. So best newcomer Mac app. We'll go back to that.
Starting point is 00:24:02 2014 was Mailbox. 2015 was Fantastical. 2016 was Bear. 2017 was Twitterific. 2018 was Drafts. 2019 was NetNewsWire. 2020 was Nova. 2021 was Mimestream.
Starting point is 00:24:17 2022 was Mimestream. 2023, Ivory. Yes. I mean, look, I will just say for Mailbox, alright, Mailbox is in my opinion the best email app ever made. And it was the first app to do a bunch
Starting point is 00:24:34 of things, like swiping on emails to perform actions on them. Snoozing came from Mailbox. And also one of the greatest features in an email app of all time that nobody has ever done, which I don't understand, is allowing you to manually just drag and drop the order of your emails in your inbox around i don't know why nobody else has ever done that but nobody else has ever done that but it just allowed you to kind of i mean what what mailbox was doing was the thing that people
Starting point is 00:24:59 don't like which was using your email inboxes as a to- list. But for so many people in the world, that is just the function of an email app. And so they just made the best possible version of that app. I don't think Mailbox is going to win this category, but I just had to give it its time because I just think it was so innovative and so cool. And Dropbox bought it and killed it. Yeah, Dropbox just bought it and killed it.
Starting point is 00:25:23 That was what happened. Why? Why? This was at the time when Dropbox bought it and killed it. Yeah, Dropbox just bought it and killed it. That was what happened. Why? Why? This was at the time when Dropbox was trying to work out what on earth it could charge people for and it thought email was one of those things. Then it thought document collaboration was another one with Dropbox paper and the list goes on and on.
Starting point is 00:25:40 I struggle with this one outside of mailbox, honestly. Honestly, I think the answer is MimeStream. Not only is it a Hall of Famer because it was a newcomer two years in a row. How is that possible? And a runner-up the following year. Just amazing. Like the long game played by MimeStream. Well done.
Starting point is 00:25:59 But also, look, it's a developer inside Apple who works on the Mail app. And I don't like the Mail app. I don't think it's very good. I'm frustrated by it constantly. I gave it up. He goes out on his own, starts a business, says we're going to make a great Mail app for the Mac. Start Mac first, focuses on Gmail, which is great because I use Gmail, and says we're going to build a great Mac-only, at least first, email app and compete with the
Starting point is 00:26:28 app that I used to work on inside Apple. What a great story. And the net result is, it's a legitimately great app. And I think when you're talking about building a legitimately great Mac-first, Mac-only app, that is part of the story of um a really great mac newcomer and there are a couple in that category right like nova is mac only but um like mindstream being great and being from somebody who was on the inside and decided they could do better on the outside and then they did it right then then they did it because mindstream is legitimately a great app i feel like uh that plus again managed to win twice newcomer twice what how what so great i'm happy to go with mindstream because i don't really have particularly strong feelings for okay i mean i think that's the
Starting point is 00:27:21 best case i can make for any of them is that it. It's the most fun for me because it won it twice. I just think it's so hilarious that we might as well give it a third award in this category. So the best newcomer Mac app Hall of Fame entrant, MimeStream. The next category we're not going to award, which is because we've just created the best feature category, which WidgetSmith won. And we can't really give somebody a Hall of Fame for one time. So we'll move on to the next category now, which is Game of the Year.
Starting point is 00:27:54 Which also... Game of many years. Game of the decades. Title of Game of the Year is funny. So the Game of the Year award winners go as 2014 Mario Kart 8, 2015 Splatoon, 2016 firewatch 2017 the legend of zelda breath of the wild 2018 pokemon let's go 2019 pokemon sword and shield 2020 was animal crossing new horizons 2021 for for eyes for forza horizon 5 or as I have written it in our document, Forizon Horizon.
Starting point is 00:28:28 Which, that's not correct. Forza Horizon, obviously. Forza Horizon 5. 2022, Marvel's Snap. And 2023 is Elder Tears of the Kingdom. All right, so this is very difficult, okay? So I'm going to tell you where I'm leaning right now, Jason. Looking at this list,
Starting point is 00:28:47 I think this needs to be out of Mario Kart 8, Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, Pokemon Let's Go, or Animal Crossing New Horizons. While I think Tears of the Kingdom is a better game than Breath of the Wild, and why I think it's, what I believe right now is my favorite over and why i think it's what i believe right
Starting point is 00:29:05 now is my favorite over that i think it's too close in time to make that judgment and to call tears of the kingdom the hall of fame winner animal crossing new horizons was just a time in place you know it was a game that many people needed when we needed it. Pandemic time and pandemic place, yeah. Pokemon Let's Go was a game that just took over the world. Right? Everyone was playing Let's Go. Oh, no, that's Pokemon Go. Pokemon Let's Go is a different thing.
Starting point is 00:29:37 Pokemon Go. We can exclude Pokemon Let's Go from this conversation. No, yeah, it's not. That was a different game. Pokemon Go is what you're thinking of. I think it's between Breath of the Wild mario kart 8 and animal crossing new horizons i'm gonna get i'm now gonna knock out animal crossing from this list um and i love the game but it's not like compared to the other two it's not as high quality and so then i'm thinking right
Starting point is 00:30:01 so we've got zelda is the better game but then i think if it's the two of us deciding probably mario kart right well i mean i have both of them but the one that i i play all the time is mario kart although i i played lots of versions of mario kart mario kart 8 is just the one that you know came out at that point uh on on switch and on Wii U, actually. Yep. Woo! Technically, the 2014 winner was Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. The Wii U one was Mario Kart 8, and the Switch one is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. And that is actually what we're talking about here.
Starting point is 00:30:39 We're not talking about the Wii U game. Well, I love Mario Kart, but there are many of them. I feel like Breath of the Wild was new and influential and then led on to the amazing follow-up as well. And I'd say it gets the Julian endorsement as well. Oh, I am wrong. We are talking about Mario Kart 8 because that was in 2014. Switch 1 didn't come out until 2017. My opinion has knocked this out and it's Breath of the Wild.
Starting point is 00:31:02 That's where I'm living. Okay, great. Cool. Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild is the winner. Like, I love Mario Kart 8, but Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the actual one that everyone knows and plays and is better. Sure. And if we're talking about that, then Zelda should take it, in my opinion. This episode is brought to you in part by our friends over at ExpressVPN.
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Starting point is 00:33:21 It's a great movie. 2015, Star Wars Episode VII, the force awakens force awakens 2016 star wars rogue one yeah big star wars boys yep there well there we go next time are sorry we love our pokemans we love our star wars yep stars wars uh in 2017 Spider-Man Homecoming in 2018 Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse Big Spider-Man Boys 2019 Avengers Endgame 2020
Starting point is 00:33:53 Hamilton there were no other movies 2021 Spider-Man No Way Home back to Spider-Boys 2022 Turning Red 2023 Oppenheimer this one is easy for me Spider-Man No Way Home. Back to Spider-Boys. 2022, Turning Red. 2023, Oppenheimer.
Starting point is 00:34:08 This one is easy for me. Okay, what's your choice? Avengers Endgame. Wow. Oh, interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. That's not what I would pick. You thought I would have gone with Spider-Man? Yeah. Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse,
Starting point is 00:34:23 which would probably be my choice of these i can't go for that too it's good uh we saw infinity war together we did that's your bachelor party yeah i wish we'd seen endgame together but i know i liked infinity war too it was a bit of a downer for the it's like well i mean yeah but it was a downer ending spoilers for infinity war there's a downer ending seriously uh good news is there's a whole other movie and that one doesn't have a downer ending so you know just watch the next one my six hours out of your day end game is it was just an incredible payoff for so much work you know yeah it's a really good movie but into the spider-verse is a technical marvel and yeah one of the best animated movies ever yeah yeah so i'm good with either let's let's do spider-man
Starting point is 00:35:12 into the spider-verse yeah i think it's a good pick so much spider-man in this we are big boys we really spider boys yeah now i'm feeling bad that that uh that i let oppenheimer beat out spider-man across the spider-verse because i don't know maybe i'm not bad that that uh that i let oppenheimer beat out spider-man across the spider-verse because i don't know maybe i'm not maybe maybe that's too much spider-man in this category too much too many spideys too many too many what that would have been like was he in winter soldier no no he's in civil war wasn't he yeah yeah because that would have been incredible because that would have been like half of the movies had spider-man like four spider-man pointing at each other in the upgrade ease that's a lot we're really in the spider-verse the the
Starting point is 00:35:49 favorite movie character category actually is the spider-verse if you think it is pretty much spider-man in there but we we love spider-man at the upgrade we do that's right we do i think similarly fun now is the favorite television show. This one's going to be good, I think. This started in 2018, so there are fewer here. 2018's winner was Patriot. 2019 was Watchmen. 2020 was Ted Lasso.
Starting point is 00:36:20 2021 was For All Mankind. 2022 was Severance. 2023 was The Bear ooh yeah now here's a question for you do we just judge the season in which we're talking about I don't think we need
Starting point is 00:36:38 to do that I mean we could but we don't have to I mean Patriot only had two seasons Watchmen only had the one Ted Lasso has three Sever Watchmen only had the one. Yep. Ted Lasso has three. Ted Lasso has three. All Mankind has four. Severance only has had the one.
Starting point is 00:36:49 Bear has two. Yeah. Hmm. All right. So of this, right? So here's... Yeah. I was trying to stop breaking this down a little bit.
Starting point is 00:36:58 Pure television quality? Watchmen. Yeah. Right? Yes. I agree. Feeling? Ted Lasso? Mm-hmm. Well, it depends on the feeling it's a good feeling there's lots of other feelings and
Starting point is 00:37:11 for all mankind right and i actually think i loved patriot but i think for me it's out of those three watchman ted lasso for all mankind i feel like i would knock ted lasso out on that three probably watchmen i think it's watchmen i've only seen it once i looked i looked at this list i just re-watched it okay it is the best show of the last decade for me it's brilliant. It is truly. I can't think of a show that has so much to say and does it in such an elegant way as Watchmen does. That makes it very special, I think. Watchmen? Watchmen.
Starting point is 00:38:02 Watchmen is the Hall of Fame winner, joining Spider-man into the spider verse for movies and then watchman for tv though i think there was a time when these were the same category and we split it out over time which i yeah i think that was what we did but so that's why it started in 2018 i've got so much to say about the next one favorite book oh good it's been well I mean I had so much to say about game yeah good point 2014 yeah the golem and the genie yes
Starting point is 00:38:32 2015 the goblin emperor 2016 the fifth season 2017 the caledonian gambit yay 2018 the calculating stars 2019 trail of lightning oh yeah The Caledonian Gambit. Yay. 2018, The Calculating Stars. Mm-hmm. 2019, Trail of Lightning.
Starting point is 00:38:48 Oh, yeah. I did like that one, yeah. You did like that one. I don't know anything about that. 2020, A Memory Called Empire. Mm. 2021, Piranesi. Piranesi.
Starting point is 00:38:58 2022, Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I don't know why it's the only one i read the author name for which is the hardest i don't know why either and 2023 he's great mountain in the sea ray nailer yeah um okay so if you want a little list of jason's books that he recommends that you read that's a pretty good list this is a pretty good list the book that i keep come oh there's so many really good books on here the book that i keep coming back to and recommending to people that was such a find. And now there are more books. It's not quite a series.
Starting point is 00:39:33 There are more books in that world. But that first book is It Stands Alone and It's Magical. And so I think I'm just going to say, the, what's my favorite book of the last decade? Cause that's what we're doing here. I, I, when you think of it that way, it's a little bit weird. I mean, and it's not, it's the decade of, of, of 2014 to now. Right. So it's not, it's not a traditional kind of decade.
Starting point is 00:39:59 It's the Goblin Emperor by Catherine Addison from, um the winner in 2015 the Goblin Emperor it is it's just great it's it's a great it's a great book it's a coming-of-age story and it's about like machinations and all this stuff in this in this fantasy steampunk kind of world but it's like way better than if you're turned off by fantasy steampunk. It's just, it's so good. It's just a great book. It's like a big warm hug of a delight of a book. I reread it when I was on vacation in Hawaii. I was like, you know what? I'm going to reread The Goblin Emperor.
Starting point is 00:40:33 And I have no regrets. It was great the second time too. And I very rarely reread books, but I was happy to reread it. So I'm going to say The Goblin Emperor. There we go. Oh, I've been dreading this one. Our next category is favorite podcast. And I feel like the only way to do this
Starting point is 00:40:50 is to... We have to roll in the other podcast categories, right? Yeah. So that includes... This is going to be really complicated. This will include... Let me take a crack at it. Oh, here's the thing. Here's the thing. I want to actually discuss this with you
Starting point is 00:41:06 before we decide because we have multiples we have favorite podcast now but we used to have favorite tech podcast favorite non-tech podcast and favorite podcast newcomer now do we include the podcast newcomers or do we just do
Starting point is 00:41:20 because that kind of is the award now it's taking place of all three of those categories so do we go through all of them and pick a winner i say yes all right i'm i'm very happy to do this i have them in front of me so our favorite just simplify simplify the podcast category into one and then pick a winner. Yeah. So favorite podcast newcomer, 2014 at isometric 2015 reconcilable differences, 2016 Dubai Friday,
Starting point is 00:41:56 2017 S town, 2018. The good place, the podcast, 2019 two headed girl, 2020 was 20 max for 2020 2021 was downstream then in 2014 for favorite non-tech podcast we had the flop house 2015 the flop house 2016 the flop house 2015, The Flophouse. 2016, The Flophouse Lifetime Achievement Award. 2017, The Adventure Zone.
Starting point is 00:42:29 2018, Dubai Friday. 2019, Dubai Friday. 2020, Reconcilable Differences. 2021, Reconcilable Differences. Then, Favorite Tech Podcast. 2014, ATP. 2015, ATP. 2016, ATP.
Starting point is 00:42:45 2017, Lifetime Achievement Award. 2017, Welcome to Macintosh. 2018, Connected. 2019, Automators. 2020, Dithering. 2021, MacPowerUsers. Then, favorite podcast from 2022, Connected. 2023, The Town.
Starting point is 00:43:03 Yeah. A lot of podcasts there. This is hard. This is very hard. Podcast Hall of Fame. I mean, the obvious place is to start with the Lifetime Achievement Award winners. Which are The Flophouse and ATP. Yep. We created the Lifetime Achievement Award for these exact two shows.
Starting point is 00:43:26 Because the first three years, they won in their respective categories and we were worried that it would end up just being ATP is the favorite tech podcast every year because it is really good and it is loved by our audience and so we created the Lifetime Achievement Award and the same for the Flophouse where we were both listening to it
Starting point is 00:43:42 and I don't listen to the Flophouse anymore just rotate it out over time um i don't know i mean i feel like it's probably gonna be atp i feel like yeah i think so that's where i'm leaning that's that's a good choice i think if we consider over the history of the show um and about ATP as a part of our industry, the quality of the show over that time, it remains very consistent. I mean, you were just talking with John about it. Like the fact that they've won. They're on every episode. All three of them are on every episode.
Starting point is 00:44:23 Honestly, that is an achievement worth awarding on its own. Honestly, like they have an episode every single week and it's all three of them is actually honestly that is an achievement worth awarding on its own honestly like they have an episode every single week and it's all three of them like that is that's hard so much harder than it sounds i'll tell you right now like if you think of in your life if you have a weekly meeting how often someone's missing from the weekly meeting like they go on vacations right like yeah they have emergencies in their lives but the three of them do it so honestly for just that reason from my perspective just that alone they deserve an award i think yeah yeah no i think i think making it given our awarding them and the fact that they are and we still you know we we do a lot of follow-up and they're friends of the show but
Starting point is 00:45:03 they're also it's such an accomplishment for them to have done it for so long. They started that before I left my job at IDG, in fact. It's been going a long time now. Jason, this was, I mean, they did it before Relay was a thing. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's, yeah, the same timeframe, right? Like, we're talking about starting our 10th year and doing this after 10 upgrade ease but they're they're past their 10th anniversary now so yeah incredible accomplishment so yeah that that that alone i would say i feel like it well i wanted to there was so many people
Starting point is 00:45:35 that i had to really think about it but realistically this is probably the easiest win to give yeah i mean to be honest the flop house is still my all-time favorite podcast but i think for this category this is the right choice yep this episode is brought to you by squarespace squarespace is the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online you can stand out from the crowd of a beautiful website engage directly with your audience and sell your products services and the content that you create, Squarespace has got everything you need all in one place. You get started by picking one of Squarespace's best-in-class templates, which you can customize every single detail of, of a reimagined drag-and-drop technology for desktop or mobile that they
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Starting point is 00:47:12 We've been doing this show for nearly 10 years, and I just want to note the fact that Squarespace has been a supporter of the show for that entire time period. There is a non-zero chance that they've been a sponsor of every Upgradies. I would not be surprised if that was a thing or the vast majority of them. They're a great supporter of us.
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Starting point is 00:48:12 Our next category is our favorite Apple product. Ooh, this is a big one. Oh boy, some of these, they sneak up on you and you're like, uh-oh. Apple product of the decade. Uh-oh, this could be difficult. All right, we're going to go back as we have been Boy, some of these, they sneak up on you. Apple product of the decade. This could be difficult. All right, we're going to go back, as we have been, to 2014 with the 5K iMac.
Starting point is 00:48:34 Yeah, big deal. That's not the iMac Pro, right? No, that's the first Retina iMac, which I bought. Yeah, first Retina iMac. 2015, Apple Watch. 2016, AirPods. 2017, the iPhone X. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:48:59 2018, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. 2019, AirPods Pro. 2020 is the MacBook Air with M1, 2021 is the 14-inch MacBook Pro, 2022 is the M2 MacBook Air, and 2023 is the iPhone 15 Pro Max. The thing that is the most surprising to me, there's only two iPhones.
Starting point is 00:49:21 Yeah. Way more Macs. Big Mac boys. That's us. All right. So again, I'm going to mentally remove the iPhone 15 Pro Max for me in the liberations. I just don't think it's worth including that. The iPhone 10, I don't think I would put that there. I wouldn't. I mean, that is a big, big step forward. Essentially, the iPhone we have used since then is the iPhone X. Right? Like, essentially.
Starting point is 00:49:48 Yeah. It's a little bigger and all that. But, like, that was the... You could really draw a line in the iPhone in before and after iPhone X. So, big deal, influentially. But I agree. It would not be on my short list in this category. I think AirPods would be.
Starting point is 00:50:10 Or AirPods Pro. I don't yeah maybe i mean the m2 macbook air i think is the best mac of all time so that's up there for me so i i was going to say how much do we want to short circuit this conversation because i know what my vote is your macbook air and it's the m2 macbook it's the m2 macbook air i stopped at m1 macbook air and i was like wow okay apple's most important and best-selling product or laptop mac laptop right yeah macbook air m1 um they they super influential still being sold still good still so good adina has one so good i've said to her multiple times would you like to consider an M2 at some point and she's like why would I do that I love this computer
Starting point is 00:50:48 I much prefer she much prefers the wedge design to the like boxy design and she's like and the battery's incredible the screen's great
Starting point is 00:50:56 like why would I and I'm like alright fair enough so that's the argument for the M1 I look at the M1 and I think well yeah
Starting point is 00:51:02 but then the M2 is so much it has all the attributes of the m1 and i think is so much better in terms of its design and i do think it's it's maybe the best mac uh apple has made in a very long time if not ever um and that that so it's got my vote honestly macbook pro 14 like that screen is is gorgeous and the power of those higher-end chips yes absolutely but like the macbook air which is your number one number one mac is the macbook air the story of the mac over the last 15 years basically 13 years is the macbook air and that m2 is such a wonderful uh redesign of a design that it's sort of been the same for a very long time
Starting point is 00:51:47 basically always like the original and the the second edition was slightly different but it was the same uh basically realistically and then it stayed that way it didn't change it really didn't it really it went retina it didn't really change they wanted it to be as reminiscent of the old one as possible the m1 is based on that design and then they did the m2 and it's so good so so yeah i think that i i agree airpods pro is a great and airpods great product some of my favorite apple products um apple coming out with a brand new product in a brand new category the the Apple Watch, and they've been successful with that. But I feel like it's the MacBook Air M2. The moment I saw these 10 products, I literally was like, oh, M1 Air, such a landmark. And then I thought, oh,
Starting point is 00:52:38 but M2 Air. But M2 Air has got all the goodness of the M1 Air and is a brand new design that I love. So, yeah, M2 Air. Hall of Fame winner for our favorite Apple product is the MacBook Air with M2. Yeah. Love it. Favorite non-Apple product. This is going to be hilarious. 2014 PlayStation 4. 2015, the Sphero bb8 yep i've used that for about one about two
Starting point is 00:53:09 months and then really impressive never again it was very impressive i do love the uh 2015 like star wars influence star wars 5 upgrade is everyone was very uh we were really into it excited 2016 the logitech create 9.7 i don't know what that is i assume it's a keyboard it's a keyboard for the ipad we can probably shut it down with 2017 the nintendo switch uh 2018 the bridge keyboard another ipad keyboard roomba roomba 2020 sweeper robot playstation 5 Another iPad keyboard. Roomba. Roomba! Who doesn't love a sweeper robot? PlayStation 5. 2021, the Nintendo Switch OLED.
Starting point is 00:53:53 Then 2022, Steam Deck. And 2023, Steam Deck OLED. Big OLED boys. It's got to be the Nintendo Switch. It's got to be the Nintendo Switch. And I would put Nintendo Switch over Switch OLED just because most people have just the Switch. The whole platform just starts right there. I was talking to Julian about this the other day.
Starting point is 00:54:12 We got him that for his birthday, a Nintendo Switch, while we were on a road trip because he had to spend his birthday basically in a car because we were on a road trip. And he still plays on the Nintendo Switch all the time. It is the longevity. I mean, yeah, he's got a PS5 that he loves so much that he brought it home for Christmas,
Starting point is 00:54:33 like for the Christmas break because he didn't want to not play it for a month. But the Switch just... It's just... Remember what position Nintendo was in right then? The Wii had been a real success and then they did the wii u and everybody kind of went ugh and then it was like oh boy nintendo you're in trouble what are you doing and they did their thing where they released a product that was
Starting point is 00:54:53 underpowered and a handheld that could be docked to a tv and it was and had those detachable controllers and was like well this is interesting nintendo but it's also very weird and in hindsight it's like they killed it they nailed it like what a great platform they they absolutely did it's like exceeded all expectations for that product such a great product okay nintendo we have now awarded you with the hall of fame winner can you please make a new one please make a new one please will you please i beg you to make it it's time for switch 2 it is yeah i've heard someone like in a podcast i listen to they're pitching super nintendo switch which i just think is an incredibly good name and i beg them to do it but they won't it'll be switch 2 which is fine
Starting point is 00:55:35 but super nintendo switch is the way to go just follow me here mike switch you you're fired don't bring that to my door jason stop that is you why would you do that to me don't do that to me i'm gonna be worried about this now i'm the one who has a wii u in his house now still oh god yeah yeah a category full of i think some personal vendettas grievances grievances grievances yeah yeah yeah the worst gadget slash most disappointing technology we go back to 2014 with the lgg watch i don't know what that is i googled it just before i said it and it is a horrifically ugly looking uh uh android watch oh it's like there we ha ha we have we have beaten the apple watch yes oh to market with this wonderful thing that is i think i may have used this i think is why i'm but anyway 2015 the MacBook keyboard. This was the butterfly keyboard.
Starting point is 00:56:45 That's the butterfly keyboard, baby. 2016, the Galaxy Note 7, which would catch fire. Catch fire, yeah. Oh, oh, oh. 2017. That's good stuff. There's good stuff in this category. I just took a little look ahead.
Starting point is 00:57:00 2017, the iPad Pro smart connector. Now, why did we hate this so hate this because it was a letdown we wanted so much more and like all it was was apple's keyboard and then that weird charger that belkin made right you're right it disappointed us that there weren't more things and it didn't yeah that's right okay 2018 air power the charging product I mean the disappointment is that Apple announced a product that it never shipped which never happens
Starting point is 00:57:29 what a moment AirPower is such a fantastic blip in history for them so good 2019 Mac Catalyst 2020 iOS apps on M1 Macs we were upset that no one was allowing it yeah yeah absolutely it was
Starting point is 00:57:48 super disappointing 2021 the breville jewel sous vide oh man i saw this and i immediately became enraged this is a sous vide thing that requires you to use an app to use it it doesn't have any physical controls it only has app controls it's like you should never make a product that has no physical controls never ever ever angry because in 2021 i also said apple care plus this is when my iphone was all scratched and they wouldn't replace the screen that was 2021 was a bad year for us yeah nfts was the other runner runner up too called it nailed it what a great time to be alive in 2021 yeah 2022 was the iPad Pro yes because remember they didn't
Starting point is 00:58:28 they didn't really do anything except update the chips and they didn't upgrade the screen in the lower end model and we all felt like it was time for a new iPad Pro and they said how about 2024 for that
Starting point is 00:58:38 and so we were disappointed hopefully hopefully 2024 we actually don't know but it's hopeful and 2023 was the humane ai pin ha i think we go back i would say maybe macbook keyboard maybe i feel like this the story of the of the worst gadget slash most disappointing tech of the last decade in our space is the butterfly keyboard.
Starting point is 00:59:05 I feel like that's the answer. I mean, the silver lining was the episode, the Christmas episode that we just spoke about. That was the silver lining. Yeah. Who killed the butterfly keyboard. And it did die eventually. It did. It took some time.
Starting point is 00:59:21 But it did die. But I think that's the way i mean galaxy note 7 that's a good one air power that's a great one but i feel like it's got to be the butterfly keyboard yeah i agree all right so the uh hall of fame most disappointing technology is the macbook pro keyboard the butterfly version. Or the Mac, yeah. We said MacBook keyboard. Was it the MacBook Pro at that point? Was it just in the MacBook first?
Starting point is 00:59:48 It was the Pro then, I think. I think it was... Okay. I don't know. It started in the MacBook. But you know what it is. It doesn't matter. It's the butterfly keyboard.
Starting point is 00:59:54 We're just going to call it the butterfly keyboard. Everybody knows what we mean. Most life-changing hardware. Which is a fun category name fun category interesting concept 2014 jason's daughter's iphone yeah we'll get back to that 2015 ipad pro 2016 amazon echo 2016, Amazon Echo. 2017, AirPods. 2018, Apple Pencil 2. 2019, seems like there wasn't a winner according to my document, but I might be wrong.
Starting point is 01:00:33 I'll check the officialupgradies.com. No winner. Okay. 2020 was the magic keyboard for iPad Pro. It's funny, keyboards. We're back again. We have 2021 was the Apple TV remote 2022 is our friend
Starting point is 01:00:48 the M2 MacBook Air 2023 was the Apple Watch Ultra 2 right so let me check the 2019 2019 was AirPods Pro I didn't put it in my spreadsheet so AirPods Pro was the 2019 winner
Starting point is 01:01:04 great I didn't put it in my spreadsheet. So AirPods Pro was the 2019 winner. Great. Amazon Echo? No, I don't think so. No. No, Jamie's iPhone, that's a real... That was good for you, I suppose. She's 13, and she got an iPhone. I mean, it was a big deal,
Starting point is 01:01:25 and I was taking it literally, right? Like life-changing hardware i think it's apple's pro i think it's airpods pro too wow we're just in sync i i like i i want to take you back remember the airpods came out at that time where it was like oh apple's gonna remove the headphone jack and i you know i was certainly upset about it because I felt like wired headphones were so much better and I use headphones with like custom silicone that fits my ears perfectly and in-ear monitors and the quality is so great and Apple's Apple's headphones traditionally were terrible as well let's not forget that like apple's headphones weren't good and then the airpods came out and it was a revelation like oh wow these are good like i i actually can most of the time
Starting point is 01:02:17 just use airpods they were kind of like whenever there was noise around and stuff i couldn't but like for general use they were actually pretty good. And the wireless thing was great, but then AirPods pro came out and all of those other use cases where it's like, Oh, when you're mowing the lawn, when you're on an airplane, like it's not as good as having the in-ear monitors all went away because of the noise canceling. And I just, I think about how bad I thought Apple's headphones were pre AirPods. And now, unless I'm doing a podcast like I am right now, I just use AirPods Pro. Like that, the only time I use wired headphones anymore is for podcasting. That's it.
Starting point is 01:02:58 That's literally it. Yeah. And I'd say. What a life changing bit of hardware. Well, the AirPods introduced it. The AirPods Pro perfected it. It's the everything that it does. The way in which you have the controls to pause
Starting point is 01:03:12 rather than smack in the side of your head, which I hated with the AirPods. You have volume control and you also have transparency and active noise cancellation. I feel like it's easy to forget just how good apple's noise cancellation was and is and how i think it kind of pushed everybody to do more in the uh like the earbud
Starting point is 01:03:32 space um sure and the track and like they've only made it better and better with the newer features that we've been talking about so apple's pro and there's like hearing aid functionality and stuff is coming next year if reports are to be uh believed so like it's such a surprise in in such a good way and and again life-changing and it has literally changed my behavior in a bunch of different ways and now like when i go walk the dog or i go for a run it's apple Apple watch and AirPods pro. And that's it. Like that's all I take with me. And I, I can, I can still listen to podcasts and do what I want. Just yeah.
Starting point is 01:04:11 Great. Great product. Favorite tech story. Wow. Of the decade. Yep. Wow. 2014 Tim Cook comes out as gay.
Starting point is 01:04:24 Oh yeah. 2015 Federico Vatici's iPad pro review. Wow. 2014, Tim Cook comes out as gay. Oh, yeah. 2015, Federico Vatici's iPad Pro review. Sure. 2016, Apple versus the FBI. Ah, yes. 2017, overreaching smartphone. Don't know what that means.
Starting point is 01:04:41 What is that? That might have been a specific story. Zach probably has links. So Zach, who put theupgradies.com together, I know does a better job of... So maybe you want to check theupgradies.com. Yeah, I'll look there right now. 2018. Overreaching smartphones.
Starting point is 01:04:55 Oh, it's the... Here it is. I can provide some more color here. Please. Overreaching smartphones was our winner because that was the year that the Essential phone and the Red Hydrogen One came out. overreaching smartphones was our winner because that was the year that the essential phone and the red hydrogen one came out so it was smartphones trying to out phone the iphone by doing stupid
Starting point is 01:05:12 things yeah in 2018 apple spoils september event with bad urls so uh nine to five mac found the site map and found everything yeah uh 2019 understanding of technology privacy don't know what that means 2020 the apple silicon transition 2021 app store regulation uh 2022 ftx and 2023 the apple vision And 2023, the Apple Vision Pro. All right, some standouts. I mean, it just happened, but the Vision Pro was a really good story, but maybe not. 2020, the Apple Silicon transition. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:02 Apple and the FBI was just like a fascinating thing that occurred and like obviously under sad circumstances but how that all that was just like an interesting thing to talk about obviously a monumental moment of tim cook coming out i think if i think back about the things that we've spoken about the san bernardino case and the way all of that stuff around the fbi like it was really interesting to talk about and i actually feel like was maybe a bit of a turning point for our show about the the way in which the show would be like the fact that we were having very big conversations then about that stuff so that is up there for me uh it was one of the most interesting tech stories it depends on how we want to do this i know i feel like um i feel like this the biggest story in our sphere of the last decade is probably the apple
Starting point is 01:06:52 silicon transition and think about how long we talked about arm max right like how many years beforehand we're like are they going to do it when are they going to do it how can they do it is it possible will they be any good and then the story when it happened was also great like it was a meaty interesting detailed story as the products came out yep and we had nothing but time to talk about it because of the pandemic as well so i think that that's a really strong contender and i'd say we have spent a lot of time talking about app store regulation and the story continues yeah and that has been a huge topic for this podcast just the idea of like what are apple's policies and um how are regulators going to try to break apple's policies and will it be possible and then it's like realistically so i think those are two really good picks to choose from i enjoyed talking about the
Starting point is 01:07:42 apple silicon transition because it was fun i enjoyed talking about the Apple Silicon transition because it was fun. I enjoyed talking about Apple Silicon because it's not fun. I get pretty fired up about it and I like to talk about it. Yeah. But I feel like awarding something good feels better. I agree. Apple Silicon transition?
Starting point is 01:08:01 Apple Silicon transition. Great story. Story of the decade yep the final category is our favorite tech screw-up oh man going back to 2014 with the amazon fire phone 2015 aaron rogers throws a surface i do love that that moment is iconic to this day although the other quarterbacks have have uh have emulated it yeah it's the just I'm disgusted by your Microsoft service and I'm gonna toss it away 2016 the Samsung note 7 explodes 2017 the home pod leak oh yeah we learned all sorts of things about everything uh about future features and uh and face id and all sorts of things from a home pod firmware update what oh yeah it was more than just the home part it was like all over yeah
Starting point is 01:09:07 2018 oh no steve trout and smith took it apart and found like uh like face id details yep and iphone 10 bezel with the notch like it was all in there. Uh, 2018 was the Facebook privacy scandals. 2019 was the Samsung galaxy fold. Cause it was breaking. Uh, 2020 was Quibi.
Starting point is 01:09:41 Quibi. Quibi. Uh, 2021 Apple CSAM announcement. Right. 2022 Elon Musk buys Twitter. quibi quibi uh 2021 apple c sam announcement right 2022 elon musk buys twitter 2023 open ai fires sam altman i think early contenders for me uh elon musk buying twitter apple c sam announcement so many good ones here i think they're my two big ones i i gotta put the fire phone on the list too i don't care about the five hey remember when amazon was gonna redo they made their own phone and nobody wanted it just like rejected talk to the hand was that something we said 2014 probably not like threed it was you could it was like
Starting point is 01:10:25 yeah yeah you could like tilt it boy everybody keeps trying to make 3d screens happen it's not gonna happen yeah because the red hydrogen was tried to do that as well clearly that's not good to do on a phone yeah galaxy note exploding i mean not only is there the point and laugh of samsung but also remember where like every maybe you don't but in the u.s i will tell you every flight you got on for like a year said if you have a samsung galaxy note 7 we must take it from you you must power it down or whatever it was like it just kept on going of just like name blocking that phone i thought they would never do another note yeah right and honestly i will also speak for quibi what a disaster like people put money into this thing and they were in their executives and
Starting point is 01:11:14 like it was very clear from the outside it was a terrible idea from the like from the conception and yet they're like nope we're gonna do it we're gonna we got a super bowl ad we're going and it was uh exactly as big a flop as everybody expected apple c-sam announcement is interesting right because they were like aha this is gonna solve it and it was broken in so many different ways right like some of their methodology was immediately called into question by experts who are like this it doesn't work like that and people got up in arms about the idea that your phone was going to scan your stuff and prevent it from being uploaded and and like so now there's on-device scanning and they thought they were working around like oh but it's actually a security issue because we're not scanning it in the cloud and it became
Starting point is 01:11:56 this whole thing that ended up being like they had kind of retracted and and changed their whole approach so that there was some special stuff there. So yeah, this is a great category to revisit just for fun. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Elon Musk buying Twitter is one of the colossal screw-ups of all time. It really is.
Starting point is 01:12:19 It is. It is. I don't think we've ever had something that could have won it two years in a row, and it could have. It totally could have. Without one thing happening, it would have. And even then, it was still in the bubble, right? In fact, I would say not only could it have won for 2023, but it also seems fairly likely that it could win it for 2024. Yes. Which would be like the idea that you could get a,
Starting point is 01:12:45 you could be in the, in the, not the hall of fame, but in the, whatever we call it. Lifetime achievement. Lifetime achievement award for tech screw up. That, that could be a thing that you could get,
Starting point is 01:12:55 but you could totally get it for that. I feel like Elon Musk buys Twitter should be. Let's do it. We've got to put it in the hall of fame. Hall of fame screw up. So that's it. We've done it. Let's do it. We've got to put it in the Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame, screw up. So that's it. We've done it. That's it.
Starting point is 01:13:08 I'm going to run through these again, just for completion's sake. Okay. Yeah, let's do it. The best iOS app, Carrot Weather. Best newcomer iOS app, Widgetsmith. Best Mac app, Audio Hijack. Best newcomer Mac app, MimeStream.
Starting point is 01:13:25 Game of the year, The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. Favorite Movie, Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse. Favorite TV Show, Watchmen. Favorite Book, The Goblin Emperor. Favorite Podcast, ATP. Favorite Apple Product, the MacBook Air with M2. Favorite Non-Apple product is the Nintendo Switch. The worst gadget or most disappointing technology is the butterfly keyboard. The most
Starting point is 01:13:53 life-changing hardware is the AirPods Pro. Our favorite tech story is the Apple Silicon transition and our favorite tech screw-up, Elon Musk buys Twitter. So that is it. There you go. For the very first, and I hope just first, Hall of Fame entry. To be another one,
Starting point is 01:14:16 I guess we have to do this for another 10 years? I mean, not necessarily. We could decide to do it in five years if we wanted to. We might want to. I feel like it depends on when the calendar falls and we need multiple special episodes. To be fair, I had this thought before we needed this.
Starting point is 01:14:34 I had this thought in September. So I wasn't really thinking that far ahead. So this is just something that I thought would be nice to do because we finally made it to the 10th annual, which was pretty cool if you'd like to send us your feedback your follow up and your questions please go to upgradefeedback.com you can check out
Starting point is 01:14:52 Jason's work at sixcolors.com theincomparable.com and here on RelayFM where you'll find me too and you can find my work at cortexbrand.com we are on Mastodon Jason is at jsnall on zeppelin.flights I am at imike I-M-Y-K-E on mike.social
Starting point is 01:15:07 the show is Upgrade at relayfm.social you can watch video clips of the show there we pick out some of the best things that happen in an episode we have our wonderful team that help us out these are also on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube where we are at Upgrade Relay and all of them
Starting point is 01:15:22 if you want to watch the full video episodes of the show, they are also on our YouTube channel. I am on threads as at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. Jason is at Jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L. Thank you to our members who support us with Upgrade Plus. They get longer ad-free versions of every single episode of Upgrade. You can go to getupgradeplus.com to find out more. Thank you to our sponsors of this episode, Squarespace, ExpressVPN, and FitBud. But most of all, thank you for listening. Happy New Year.
Starting point is 01:15:52 We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Happy New Year, Mike. Happy New Year, everybody. Thanks for listening. See you next week.

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