Upgrade - 69: The 2015 Upgradies

Episode Date: December 28, 2015

With a little help from their Relay FM co-hosts, Myke and Jason present awards to the best (and worst) of the year in the second annual Upgradies.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 69 and ladies and gentlemen it is the second annual upgrade is our upgrade is for 2015 my name is mike hurley and i am so excited today to be joined by mr jason snell oh jason this is my most favorite episode of the year. Exactly. The Upgradies. They said it wouldn't come back, but it's back. They demanded that it not come back, but it did. It came back.

And as I pointed out last year, it's not annual when it's the first time you do it. But now we're doing it again for a second straight year. This does officially make it the second annual upgrade. It's very exciting. So Mike was right when he said it was the first annual. I'm just going to say that if you now look at it in history, it was the first of the annual awards, and this is now the second. So we have a selection of categories.

What we decided to do, we are going to pick up, I believe, all of the categories from last year. Yeah. And we've added a couple of extra categories in 10 years time this is going to last for four hours yes over the years there's the snowball of the upgrade is continues to grow that's how the eddie awards worked is that i would always just copy the document from the previous year and start with the the categories from the previous year and then we would rejigger them and move them and change them because we didn't they

weren't fixed like the academy awards or something and i expect that we'll do that as as this goes on to make more changes and if we're if we're lucky enough to come back for a third annual upgrade is next year uh that you know we'll keep some and move some and based on what happens in the year so we have a couple of interesting additions as well for the upgrade is this time around one of the things that we were doing when we were looking at the award categories is we were recognizing that when me and jason may have some complete like same answers from last year to this year so we have asked for the help of a few of our RelayFM hosts.

Hosts, yes. So we got eight different hosts to weigh in on various subjects. And once we reveal our selections, or do you want to do those? Well, yeah, I think after we reveal our selections, we'll also mention some other things that are voted on by hosts. And it's not like we're counting the votes or anything like that, but I think it's interesting to see the opinions of other relay hosts so we brought them in uh so you'll get some additional additional thoughts from from relay hosts i also want to mention uh since you did mike was right there

a moment ago that we did get a note from listener carl who suggested a category that was jason's best disapproving to one of mike's opinions that happens a lot mike was right all right uh anyway that that's a little special category in regards to the uh suggestions from our friends and fellow hosts the upgrade ease is not a democratic affair yes oh no no it's a dictatorship essentially completely by me and you so there are some categories where some people have made suggestions and votes, but it might not. And even if everybody else voted for one app, it doesn't mean it's going to win. So with that, I think that we should start off today's Upgradie Awards with the best iOS app in 2015. Jason, so we go in the order of the document that we have here.

I'm going to go first. All right. And I'm going to go first. All right. And I'm going to say Slack. Now, I actually don't think that their iOS app is the best iOS app that I've used. But it's the service that is underneath all of it that has made it a favorite for me. Yeah, I agree. Slack has become indispensable for me this year as well. I think the iOS app is pretty

good. The Mac app is the contrast there where it's sort of their standard web interface wrapped in a stuck inside a Mac app and it could be way better. The iOS app is okay and it's got some nice features. The thing that I discovered that I hadn't even realized was a feature until a few weeks ago is the three finger swipe to move between different, different groups that, which is huge because I have multiple Slack instances and, and I love, I love that.

That's a great one because that saves you from like tapping to bring up a thing that then you have to tap on a thing and then it's like, and then tapping in to make it slide away. And now you just do a three finger swipe and it, and it moves to the next thing. But, you know, but it is the service, the service embedded inside it is uh is pretty great yeah so

the thing for slack with me is not only is it an incredible business tool it's just become a tool that has actually made my life better because i have access to talk to my friends in a group very often and also in a way that this is something that Casey has spoken about a bunch of times, like the pyramid of communication. And Slack kind of fits in this in an interesting way that I might not send you iMessages very frequently. Like I just wouldn't do that. But I'm more than happy to just spam you with direct messages in Slack because it feels kind of different. You can set it up in your own way for your notifications to come through to you in your own way. And I just really like it for that.

It's bringing me closer to people I care about and also has become a great way for me to do business. Jason is now spamming me with iMessages as we talk. So we've got that going on. When was the last iMessage that we'd sent to each other before this this will prove that uh may may which was just me and you sending things sending uh emoticons from our apple watches yeah other than that nothing so that shows me and jake we talk maybe every day and it's all through slack so slack for me is my favorite ios app of the year and both david sparks and john syracusa agree with me yeah yeah i i think uh my hesitation was exactly what we've talked about which is a lot of it is embedded in the service and we didn't have a new sir you know best services category

here um but uh it's it's one of the apps I use the most on iOS. So even though it's got, it could be better, the app could be better. Um, it, it's, uh, it's still one I use all the time. And like I said, I think it's got a lot of things going for it that the, that the Mac app doesn't, but it also still has bugs. And I would like it to be better because now I rely on it so much that it should be better. Um, my choice is, My choice will probably be controversial. It has been the whipping boy of Mac pundits for many, many years, but it had a huge upgrade this year. And yeah, it's from Apple, but I used it before and I use it even more now and it's Notes. Notes.app.

This was my runner up. Yeah, I was surprised to see that i love notes i mean i use it for everything it really is i mean i'm stealing your pick here but one of my favorite things that notes does is um the ability to add links and things like that via the extension so like i have a note that I keep like a running note for follow up for all of the shows. And I just someone sends me a tweet or I see a link and I just hit it, hit the extension and put it in the upgrade follow up note. And then I triage those notes before each show and put them into a Google Doc. It is really fantastic.

And the app does work really well. It has some foibles. One that I've noticed recently, Jason, is um when you're using a list with a keyboard on on the ipad or something and you hit the tab button it doesn't indent the bullets which is an endless source of frustration for me but overall i really love it and maybe you should now say what you do well it's uh so they added icloud syncing which again it's hard to with the ed Awards, we always used to say, it's hard to reward an app for finally getting a feature it should have had many years ago. But it does really improve the situation that it's got iCloud syncing now and isn't just using weird IMAP syncing.

But it's got all these features. Apple finally took it seriously. I think this is the year, I've said this before, Apple looked at this app and very much like photography, like selfie cameras or photography on the iPad, said, oh really use that thing i guess we better make it better then right because people use notes anyway and finally apple seems to say well we should prioritize that app since people use it it's not that great let's make it better and they made it a lot better it's great on the ipad pro as a drawing that, you know, you can, there are fancy drawing apps that you can get, but you could draw, whether writing a note and sending it via iMessage,

like we talked about last week, or whether you're drawing a sketch or something, you can have all that in Notes too. I mean, it's not going to do the fancy things that other apps will do, whether it's note-taking apps or drawing apps, but you can do a surprising amount of stuff just within notes.app on that count too. So yeah, I use it as my primary place where I jot things down now on Mac and iOS. Notes to myself lists, if I'm watching a movie or a TV show for an incomparable episode, it goes in notes. a TV show for an incomparable episode. It goes in notes. Yeah, I think it deserves some praise

for being more indispensable than it used to be because Apple paid attention to it. When you told me that you used notes before the update, I laughed at you, I think, the first time. I'm sure that many people did, but I don't think many people

would laugh so much. Who's laughing now, Hurley? Who's laughing laughing now i'll still laugh that you used it then because it sucked but now it's way better it's it's it is a great app it sucked but was everywhere that that that was the thing it was everywhere i have a runner-up too can i throw out my runner-up yeah do that it's outlook my runner-up is outlook um i haven't been using it long enough to give it an award, but Microsoft Outlook, which is a name that has symbolized really crappy software for Mac and Apple users for years now, or incompatible software in some cases. Oh, you've got to use, you've got a Mac? Well, we have an Out, you know, we're using Outlook here. I guess you can use Entourage and it's not very good. Outlook for iOS is great. We've talked

about it before. It's great. It's a really good app. It's a great iOS app. It is what I'm using for my mail on iOS right now. And I'm liking it a lot. A very thoughtfully built app. So I want to throw a shout out to that as a runner up. I agree with that. Looking at our suggestions here, we have three suggestions for TweetBot 4 from Stephen, Casey, and Matt. Aline has suggested Procreate. Brianna has suggested Graphic by Autodesk. Federico suggested ToDo,

which was his app of the year that he spoke about on Mac Stories. My feeling on looking at this and hearing us talk is I think Slack should take this. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, so we're going to give it to Slack. I think Slack, in my opinion, has to win something.

That's my feeling about looking at this right now is Slack should win something. And so I think that the best iOS app of the year will go to Slack. So congratulations to Slack. I think it's an honor to be your pick or my pick, but in the end we do. This is part of the Upgradees process is that we then have to choose the definitive Upgradee winner.

And it makes us all better people. Sure does. Best newcomer iOS app is our next category. We were also thinking, and we did this last time, is something that we use on our iPhones or iOS, on our next category. So we were also thinking, and we did this last time, is something that we use on our iPhones or on our iPads, we could be using them for a long time. So which is, you know, look at Slack.

Slack hasn't been around for longer than this year. But the newcomer iOS app is something that has come into our lives this year. Now, for me, mine is a very new app, but it's easily become one of my favorite apps, and that is Pigment, which is the iOS coloring application for iPad. It's mainly for iPad, I think, and mainly for iPad Pro, but it is on iPhones as well. And the reason is because they've integrated the Pencil so well.

So I have spent upwards of 10 hours, maybe more, in Pigment now. I absolutely love this application. I am a fan of coloring in, grown up coloring, and Pigment is the exact app I was looking for from the moment I got the Apple Pencil. I wanted a good coloring app. And this has definitely been the one. And it's got some stuff that it needs to work on.

But I've spoken to the developers and they it's got some stuff that it needs to work on but i've spoken to the developers and they're looking at fixing everything but the things that it needs to fix are very small there's no real bugs in the app there's just some things that they can maybe do better and this is easily the the best of these types of apps that i've found that sounds cool i uh i'll download that and check it out that sounds like a lot of fun. My choice is Ferrite from Woojee Juice. I've written about it. It is a multi-track audio editor with a beautiful user interface. There are other multi-track audio editors for iOS.

They feel very much like desktop apps ported. The interfaces certainly feel that way. Like it really wants to be, have all the complexity of a, of a, of a weird wonky desktop audio app. And Ferrite feels a little bit like Logic, actually Logic 10. And it's, but it's very tactile from just cutting, cutting tracks and sliding them around and moving the edges of tracks and all that. And I've edited multiple podcasts with it. Works great on iPad Pro, but it works on iPad Air. It works on an iPhone. And it is the first multi-track audio tool that I could endorse and say, you could use this to edit podcasts on iOS. And it just has impressed the heck out of me.

So I have to say, as a newcomer, that's the one that did it for me. Yeah, I've looked at Ferrite. I haven't used it in any real depth yet, but I've downloaded it and I've played around with it. And I plan to do more with it. But I've said this before, it's nothing against the application.

I'm just a little bit hesitant of uh doing my work on it but i know that you've edited a couple of episodes the incomparable with it and you'd never know so you know it is clearly doing the job yeah and and the developer has added some features that now will do a lossless export so you can get out a lossless file and then encode it using something else and upload it using something else depending on how you do it. But I definitely did the entire, not the recording part, but the rest of the production of an episode where I was traveling and didn't even have a laptop. And I did use the iPad Pro and it worked great. And, you know, it's, it's, I'd say it's great for circumstances where you don't want to be sitting down at your editing thing, whether, whether you

can't or whether you just don't feel like it i mean you could sit in front of a fireplace somewhere and edit a podcast if you wanted to and that's a pretty great feeling i mean you could do that on a laptop too but there is something fun about having that big uh part of it is i keep saying tactile part of it is that that experience of just having the big uh the big screen in your lap and everything that's happening is uh is happening via touch instead of, you know, clicking and typing and things like that. It's just impressive that they did it and that the metaphor works with touch in a way that no other app of this type has ever done that I've tried on iOS, that they really get the look and feel and understand that it's built for touch

from the beginning. Going out to our panel, Aline suggested You Must Build a Boat, which is a game that I've yet to check out, but it is a nice puzzle game. Both Steven and Federico have suggested Copied, and Copied is my understanding, I've not used this,

but I've seen people talk about it a lot, is basically kind of like a Pastebot type app. It is on iOS and on the Mac, and you can share your clipboard between them. Casey has suggested Carrot Weather, which is easily one of my favorite Apple Watch complications, which is not a category that we included, I just realized. Yeah.

But I'll make a special note for that. The Carrot Weather complication is my favorite complication. Matt suggested To Do, which was what Federico thought was his app of the year. note for there the carrot weather complication is my favorite complication matt suggested to do which was what federico uh thought was his app of the year and david sparks being david sparks suggested dragon anywhere with the note expensive but killer dictation so i looking at this it's not helped our decision at all we have lots of different options here and i feel very strongly about pigment and you feel very strongly about Ferrite.

So I'm not sure where we go with this. I don't know either. I think I might cede to you on this one. Purely because whilst I love Pigment, Ferrite is clearly a bigger undertaking. And a lot more has gone into that application. And if it is able to produce professional podcasts at its current stage i think that that has to be something that wins yeah i i i think that sounds good that you're you're acceding to my wishes so i appreciate that

uh yeah i'm looking forward to and hoping that we'll get perhaps with um perhaps with ios 10 some more features that enable more audio stuff to happen on ios uh that that isn't currently possible i would love to have that the ability to have more basically so that we could also do the recording of uh of conversations uh across you, basically IP chat conversations like the one we're having now, uh, and being able to record those on iOS would be the last step, uh, for people to just use iOS and be a podcaster, which, you know, it's a niche area. We're, we're podcasters, a hundred percent of the people on this podcast are podcasters, but you know, there aren't, there aren't a huge amount. It's a growing area, but there aren't a huge amount, but still it's

like one of those little professional things. It like you add the right features and people can do professional work on the ipad pro and i think that would be a good thing so here's to 2016 for more so this brings us on to the best mac app of the year i think this was the one that i struggled both we have a best mac app and best newcomer mac actually after this and I really struggled with this one and you you can see from our panel there were far fewer uh answers on this one um I went with one password just because it's an app that I love um and it's fantastic on the mac and again it's like another one of those it's a service for me um and one password is an indispensable service and it's one that I love dearly, but I don't think I have to say too much about it, in all honesty.

I think everybody knows about 1Password by now, and I really like your pick. Yeah, I had... This was really hard for me, too, because there are a lot of Mac apps I like, and it was very hard for me to pick just one and say, this is the one that I wanted. Some of our picks,

Matt Alexander picked Fantastical too, which I really like and came, that's actually a new app this year, the new version. And I use that every day. You know, I use, and I wrote about TripMode, which is a utility that will protect your tethering so that your Mac doesn't totally take it over and swamp your data allowance.

There are a lot of different apps I could pick here. In the end, though, because I was having trouble picking, I just decided, and again, my apologies to everybody out there who is tired of me talking about podcasts inside baseball, but I do a lot of podcasting. I do a lot of audio work. That is one of the main things that I do in my job these days. And I live in Logic, Logic Pro X. And you know what? I love it. It has made me so much more... I'll put it this way. Back when I was doing things in GarageBand, I was barely capable of generating a podcast a week. And I edit myself for at least podcasts a week at this point um and it could not it could not happen last week i last week i did uh hour and a half long podcast three of them in a row on successive

days there's no way i could have been able to do anything like that if i didn't use logic and you know some of that is credit to the features of logic uh and and what i need to do with it, which is edit things quickly. It's from Apple. It's a pro app. It's fashionable to bash Apple's pro apps because it's unclear what their pro app strategy is. All I know is I use Logic Pro X every day and I like it and it would be very difficult. I've written about this. It would be very difficult for me to switch to something else like Adobe Audition, mostly because the savings in productivity would have to be spectacular. And I have a hard time believing that that would be possible. So I like Logic.

It drives me mad, kind of to the same level that I like it. And also for me, there are things that I need to do with audio that I can't do with Logic or are too difficult for me to understand how to do with Logic. So Logic really works for me in conjunction with other apps. You mentioned Adobe Audition.

Adobe Audition is incredibly powerful and some of the noise removal stuff that it can do is just stupendous. And if you are someone who's looking for nose removal, you should check out Adobe Audition. It's worth the fee for me, like the monthly fee. I'm struggling with this one because obviously I use Logic as much as you do. And it is a very, very important application to me.

I don't know if I feel strongly enough to really argue for 1Password as much as I like it, but I kind of feel that Logic Pro is something that is indispensable for me. So in theory, does that make it the best Mac app? I love Fantastical too. That's actually my pick for my best newcomer Mac app, spoilers.

So I'm willing to push that one over from Matt's pick and give that a check against Fantastico 2. So again, I will allow you to run away with this one for Logic Pro X. All right, okay. I win. Congratulations to Logic. We should mention Aline Sims suggested Ulysses,

which is a writing app. That's very nice. And Casey Liss suggested Day One. But the winner is Logic Pro X. So that brings us to the best newcomer Mac app. And for me, I will have to say Fantastical too. I picked Fantastical, I think, as my favorite Mac app last year. And I remember at the time asking for it to have a full calendar view as well.

I really wanted to be able to completely get rid of iCal from my system or calendar, whatever it's called now. And so having the full calendar view of Fantastical 2 is a great mode to switch into. And their calendar sets function is fantastic because I can turn off and on the RelayFM Live calendar so I don't have to see it if I don't want to see it as well as some other calendars that I keep. Fantastic L is an incredible application and Fantastic L2 really pushed it forward and just made it even better.

I agree with you. I remember very clearly writing up my story about Fantastic Hell 2, trying out the beta. It was while I was on my trip to the UK, actually. So it was right when I was seeing you. That's when it came out in the spring. My nomination is Audio Hijack 3 from Rogamiba. So Audio Hijack's been around a long time.

Audio Hijack 3 is a complete revamp, beautiful user interface. It works great. It is incredibly powerful and there's room for it to grow. If you do anything with audio and that's like capture application sounds or capture conversations.

And I realize I keep picking these audio apps, but I couldn't let it go. Audio Hijack is so versatile. It does so many different things in different scenarios. I keep hearing of different ways that people use it that I had to give it a shout out because it's just a very impressive update to an app that we sort of took for granted. It was out there. It had been there forever. It was never really going to change. And then it did change quite dramatically and for the better um we should also mention the other apps that were suggested for us casey chose visual studio code now i believe this is a microsoft thing i remember them talking about this at the windows 10 event but this isn't

something that i really know enough about yeah but it's a code editor uh that runs on the mac for the first time i think uh and it was a big case he a code editor that runs on the Mac for the first time, I think. Casey was impressed. He talked about it on the ATP as well. Matt Alexander picked TweetBot 2 and then put a question mark and an exclamation point in parentheses after it. I assume that's him not knowing if it's version 2 or not.

It's just the current one. Or is he just questioning his own suggestion and then is surprised that he suggested it? I don't know. We don't know, Matt. And David Sparks said, controversial for some, but life-saving for our family photos, photos.app, which I think is a good, you know, there's good and bad with photos. I think the app itself is actually pretty great when you, there are some issues with the cloud photos feature that people have had. But the app itself is so much better than iPhoto that I think that that was a strong contender for me too that that they did they did a lot of great things with photos that uh that uh fixed a lot of the problems that iPhoto had I'm gonna give this

one to you though Mike fantastic Cal too I love it too it's excellent it's great it really is just a superb app and it is it's one of the only apps that I use on the Mac that continues to get a lot of new features and clearly a lot of love added to it. The Mac is funny, you know, looking at these categories. It was really hard to think of stuff. And I think that that is something, you know, this is something we've been talking about,

other podcasts talking about it. The Mac is an interesting place for development right now and clearly it was not you know it was not easy for anybody to think of their favorite ios apps of the year yeah there's a lot of mature stuff out there and some of this is um like i didn't want to i could i can say bb edit is my best mac app every year i really could but that gets boring so you know try to spread it around a little bit but yeah there's a lot of mature software in this in on the mac and uh there's a lot less i think it's exciting that that between fantastical and audio hijack that and and something like photos right and visual studio code these are actually there are some interesting new things happening on the mac but not as much as there used to be that's for sure not as much on ios as on ios so now we move

into our gaming section and we have the best game of the year so this is across all platforms consoles it can be on ios too we're the experts here hey i have a video game show yeah okay fine my pick um is an interesting one it is a relatively small game on the playstation 4 and i mean small in in size not not in audience it's a game called rocket league and the reason i've picked rocket league for my game of the year is it is the most fun i ever had playing any type of game this year in rocket league you control a car that has uh boosting capabilities and the ability to jump and you play soccer with the car it is amazing you can play um online you can play against the computer you can play in teams of up to i think four or six um and it gets crazy and you can flip the car around to try and do incredible scores, goals, scores.

You can try and get some incredible goals with the cars. It is just so much fun. I was playing it a couple of days ago with my younger brother, and we were just screaming for about 15 minutes. It was incredible fun. I absolutely love Rocket League. It is on the PlayStation. I believe it's coming to Xbox soon. soon um i'll check it out then and as mrs soup has pointed out in the

chat room i called it soccer just because if i said football i'd have to qualify it so i went yeah that's right so i'm gonna pick rocket league um as as my favorite game this year by the way as a style note you use the word soccer people should use the word soccer if you're speaking to an international audience because then everybody knows what it means. That was why I went with it, even though it upsets me. And if you say football, people don't know what that means because Americans will think that you mean something else. So when you're speaking to an international audience,

try to say American football or soccer. I always make sure to say American football because it makes me smile. Yeah, you should do it. That's how it is. That's our football. It belongs to us. That sounds fun. I hope it's coming to Xbox because I would love to try it out.

Oh, yeah, coming to Xbox One in February. All right. Yeah, you should try it. We'll check it out. Excellent. So my game, I had a couple of games that I thought of long and hard about this, and I ended up with Splatoon, which is for Wii U. It is spectacularly good.

Have you played it? Have we talked about this? I own it. I have many things to say about it. It is a shooter that is as nonviolent as a shooter essentially can be because it's all with paint the goal is territory to take over territory it's all or largely there is a one player scenario but it's really about the online games i find the online game matchmaking to be pretty good my son loves it a lot of my gaming experience these days is uh by watching my children play

games honestly because they do it a lot more than i do but uh this one um i like the style of it A lot of my gaming experience these days is by watching my children play games, honestly, because they do it a lot more than I do. But this one, I like the style of it. I wish, I'm interested to hear what you have to say about it. My biggest criticism of Splatoon is that the music, that there's not enough variation in the music. And then after somebody plays it for half an hour the those that same like the song is in my head right now it's it's going around and around and it's cute the style of it it's

like a reggae kind of style reggae rock mix thing but it's it's more varied music would be helpful yeah but it's a such a fun idea and it's colorful and uh it you know i i think it's uh i think it's such a fun idea and it's colorful. And, you know, I think it's a very fun, clever game. And my honorable mention is a game called Runbow, which was a downloadable for Wii U that we played at my son's birthday party. And you can get up to nine players playing the game at once. And it's a side-scrolling platformer

where as the colors change, the platforms appear and disappear. And it's a really nice $ 15 i think downloadable that is great especially as a party game because you can get we had you know nine boys playing it it was pretty pretty spectacular brianna woo has mentioned uh rise of the tomb raider aline has gone for splatoon matt went for star wars battlefront which is my favorite first-person shooter of the year. And of course, Syracuse picked Destiny, which I've just got Destiny,

and I've just started playing it. It's very confusing, but I'm trying to get the grips of it. Splatoon was my second. It was my runner-up. And the only reason that I did not give Splatoon my game of the year is the poor local multiplayer mode.

I really wanted Splatoon to have a... Is there a local multiplayer mode? Yeah, it's not good. It's not the... It's like a different game. There's like a different mode that you play in. You cannot play like team versus team team which is really upsetting to me because i love local multiplayer um and splatoon let me down with its um not so good local multiplayer mode also i'm disappointed i have to say there with a lot of wii u games that they don't take better advantage of the um the second screen yeah on the on the wii gamepad where you should be able to play a person versus person game where one person's on the TV and one person's on the gamepad.

And they don't do that generally. They do occasionally, but a lot of times they just mirror the screens and that's less good. But yeah, I hear you. Like I mentioned, there's a single player kind of campaign game that's fine but it does feel a little obligatory like well we can't just sell uh which i don't quite understand because i mean they didn't have maybe it's just a nintendo philosophy thing because they didn't they didn't do that with titanfall right titanfall is a game where you need to play against other people but

but with splatoon they put in this obligatory thing that my son zipped through in in no time it's good enough all his time playing it's a simple platformer game um yeah single player stuff and it's good to you know it's a good way to kind of get your grip to get to grips with the mechanics of the game sure splatoon is fantastic because it is a first person shooter without any death i mean yes you know exactly who would have thought that could exist? And it is just excellent. I love the game. I really like the music, but agree with you,

it needs to be more varied. The customization of the characters is great. I love that, obviously, you can pick boy and girl. It's a really excellent game, and I am more than happy to give it our Game of the Year. really excellent game um and i am more than happy to give it our game of the year um i really hope that splatoon 2 has some better uh local multiplayer options but for me splatoon is is easily um our game of the year that's uh yeah that sounds great it's it's people should check it out it is a lot of fun i mean you have to have a wii u this is the thing. And this has come up before. I mean, you guys did a you guys did an episode of of your video game podcast that was really depressing about the Wii U. I don't know. I feel like the Wii U.

unlike the other platforms that are PlayStation and Xbox are incompatible with previous versions. It's compatible with those old games, but also the Wii U titles that we've gotten, and it's not a lot, but they've been great. Like the software is really good. And Splatoon is a great example. That's just a great game. A lot of fun. Problem with the Wii U is the majority of good games that you play are first party, which is not good for the life of a console yeah this is this is what i liked about renbo is that's an indie um downloadable yeah there is some good stuff in there yeah our best ios game this year is brought to you by hover the best way to buy and manage domain names i love hover.com if you have an idea for a project you have something that you want to putcom. If you have an idea for a project,

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of the year easy one for me alto's Adventure it is the best iOS game of the last five years I would say so I expect that you've only put your pick in because I got to Alto's Adventure first no well wait a second so did Alto's Adventure

I thought it came out last year so did I but I i thought it came out last year so did i but i looked at the um release notes and version one was released very early in 2015 wow okay well yeah this is the thing i was very surprised when i went to take a look and i was like oh that's interesting version one was released on the 19th of february 2015 uh you know what i think i might have played a beta of it i think that might be what i'm thinking of is that the beta was last year but it wasn't out yet well in in that case i'm going to just say alto's adventure i agree with you i i had my runner-up is pac-man 256 which i think is great and as a child of the 80s let me say i think it's

the best pac-man game ever because i think pac-man games have not been that great ever. I love Pac-Man 256. It is fantastic. It's everything I liked about playing Pac-Man without all the things that I hated about playing Pac-Man. So I think it's a really, and it works fairly well with the touch interface, which it doesn't have to. It's probably better with a physical device, but it works well with the touch interface. But I think Alto's adventure is it that that

is that is a fantastic game i love it um matt alexander john siracusa and david sparks all agree with us that alto's adventure should be the game of the year stephen hackett chose badlands 2 which i've heard great things about especially on the apple tv federico chose ocean horn again for its apple tv support as well um ocean horn is a zelda like game and it's available it's a big universal game now aline chose kingdom rush and brianna chose star wars galaxies of heroes which i've not played but brianna really does like that game but for me alto's adventure is absolutely stupendous um it's one of the very small amount of games that has stayed on my phone this year um you know i

play lots of games on ios but when i'm done with them i usually delete them but there are a few that get um kind of upgraded to live in the folder of games that i keep on my phone um and i after tv os came out i actually played i've started over with uh ulto and played a bunch of it again it is absolutely stupendous and is the easy winner for our best ios game of 2015 yeah i agree by acclamation so now we move on to favorite movie of the year um this feels like a cop-out because of the movie that we've both chosen, but it is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best movie that I've seen

this year, and that's Star Wars Force Awakens. We will not spend a lot of time talking about this, so there will be no spoilers. If you haven't yet and you've watched the movie, go back and listen to last week's episode of Upgrade, where we do a special mic at the movies talking about The Force Awakens.

Yeah, I wanted to, it's also my choice. What other movie have I seen three times in recent memory? Yeah, I've seen it twice. I've seen it three times now. And I have one more ticket book for New Year's Day. You know, my family, I went to see it a second time by myself

for the podcast. And then for the incomparable episode that we did with John Syracuse and Dan Morin and Serenity Caldwell, which people should listen to. They can also listen to an entire episode of The Incomparable hosted by Anthony Johnson that's full of UK people and Dan Morin.

There's an episode hosted by Aline Sims that's full of kind of West Coast people. And there is an episode, who hosted that one? Chip Sutter hosted the one that's a bunch of East coast people uh and there is an episode who hosted that one uh chip sutterth hosted the one that's a bunch of east coast people so they're literally four uh episodes of the incomparable about the force awakens people should listen if they're excited about it uh what else could i choose my second place choice is going to be the martian which i really liked and uh and i recommend to people uh good book good adaptation, heck of a lot of fun, looks great, beautiful.

And Stephen Hackett and I talked about that in an episode of Liftoff, if people want to hear us talking about The Martian. And our panel of Relay hosts was very much in line with us. Aline, Matt, and David all chose The Force Awakens. And Brianna also chose The Force Awakens. And Brianna also chose The Force Awakens. So Stephen Hackett, of course, he's not letting me down. He chose The Martian. That's a good one. Casey List chose Inside Out, which is an excellent choice as well.

Yep. I don't think Casey's seen Star Wars yet, but I did also really love Inside Out. And Federico, in a move that I cannot understand, I don't know if he's being serious, chose the Entourage movie. I think he really loved that movie. He really loved the TV show. But it's very interesting.

He did see A New Hope for the first time this year. Wow. Like a couple of weeks ago, he watched A New Hope for the first time. Well, you know's it's safe to watch the original star wars now the um yeah well we we can't translate some things are lost in translation between italy and and uh the rest of the world i guess so thanks federico force awakens by acclamation now this is uh one that just me and you voted on which is our favorite mike at the movies which

was suggested to us by listener zach um for me it's say anything but i just loved that movie i loved it so so much not even just to say this is a good mike at the movies pick um i was just absolutely taken aback by how much i love that movie um and thinking back to it i just want to go and watch it again and i can't believe that i haven't already watched it like two times more i really really really loved that movie well what i would say is i have really enjoyed mike at the movies this year that's That's something that we, again, I can't believe it, but we didn't start doing that until this year. Yep. But we've watched a lot of fun movies. I'm looking forward to what movies come to us in 2016,

whether we should stick with our existing sort of dive through the 80s or whether we should do something different. I don't know. We still have 80s movies to go. Lots of 80s movies to go. But it doesn't have to be a decade. It can be a complete new theme.

We need to think about that. But yeah, Mike and the Movies is a... I'm really pleased that we started doing that on this show. And now it's kind of like grown and it's become its own little thing, which is awesome. I really love watching these movies and talking about them with my friends. And so I'm really pleased that we did this.

Can we please give say anything have you even said what yours is yeah i know i won't say anything the way no i i so my favorite mike at the movies was probably raiders of the lost ark because that's a movie that i i dearly love and i cannot believe that you hadn't seen and it was really enjoyable to sort of walk through that film with uh somebody who was seeing it with fresh eyes and you were very excited about it which was exciting but yes this is your category of course you get to choose the winner say anything is the best mike at the movies of this year which brings us on to my favorite category for funny reasons his favorite book yes my answer is the only we talked about

this last year too where you said i don't read don't read any books, so I don't know. I don't have opinions about this. The only book that I've read this year is Becoming Steve Jobs, so that is my de facto winner. Oh, my God. It's the best book I've read this year because it's the only book. Sure, it's also the worst book you read this year.

That's a good point. Because it's the only book you read this year. All right, I'm going to... My favorite book that I read this year is the goblin emperor by katherine addison i think is the it's not a real name it's a it's a pen name but uh it's uh i love that book it's a great book it's a fantasy book it sounds more fantasy than it actually is i talked about it at length on an incomparable episode. Um, it's, uh, I, I like it a lot and it's the one that has stuck with me the longest. I keep recommending it to

people. Oh, sorry. Uh, is that right? Well, Sarah Minette is the name. It's Catherine Addison's pen name, Sarah Minette's the actual name. So Goblin Emperor, it's, uh, it's really a coming of age story about a, uh, a young person who is, uh, about a young person who's smart but uneducated and has to learn a lot of things really quickly. There's some palace intrigue. There's a mysterious Zeppelin accident, which, you know, I love that stuff. But it is not a sort of swords and sorcery, high fantasy kind of thing. It's actually a very different kind of book, but it does have fantasy trappings, and I liked it a lot. People should check it out. And my runner up is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. We did an entire episode of The Incomparable or half an episode about that,

I think, of The Incomparable. I think we split it with something else. But yeah, with the peripheral and slow apocalypse. So it's a sort of, it's half an episode. Station Eleven is a beautifully written book with a nice setting. I think there are a lot of great things about it. I think it's probably more acceptable for a mainstream audience than something like The Goblin Emperor. it has a lot of problems if you are somebody who is well-versed in sci-fi or apocalypse end of the world stories, because, um, it's dumb about that stuff. Like if you're looking for a, like real depiction of what it would be like in an apocalypse, a station 11 is not going to help you because that it's sort of not the point. Um, and the details are kind of just taken off the

shelf of generic apocalypse stories. It's all about these kind of interesting characters and interesting interactions, and it's kind of beautifully written, and it's nice, but there are lots of things about it that didn't sit well with me, whereas The Goblin Emperor has only increased in my esteem. So that's the book. Last year was, I think, The Genie and the Golem, and this year The Goblin Emperor is the book that people say, what's a book I should read, which does happen to me every now and then.

It's kind of funny. Um, and that's the book. That's my stock answer. I'm going to have to get a new stock answer next year, but right now my stock answer is the goblin emperor. Brianna Wu suggested fear the sky. Aline Sims went with the golem and the genie.

Casey list went with the Scott harvest series by Brad Thor and David Sparks chose the expanse series courtesy of The Incomparable. Jason, I'm going to give this one to you. Which one would you like to go for? You want to go for The Goblin Emperor? Yes, please, go read The Goblin Emperor. It's good. Brings on to our favorite gadget of the year.

Now, this favorite gadget could be anything at all. It doesn't have to be Apple. However, both of me and you, spoilers, have gone with an Apple product. Well, we have a non-Apple gadget category, which made me kind of lean toward an Apple gadget for the favorite gadget category. Same. I went with the Apple Pencil, which is just flat out my favorite piece of technology this year. I love that thing. I use it all day. I use my iPad Pro a bunch. We'll talk about that in a bit, I think. But the Apple Pencil for me has just changed the way that I like to use iOS.

Not only do I spend tons of time in pigment coloring, I use it just for general UI as well as taking notes. I use the Apple Pencil to navigate iOS. Like some people would say a crazy person, but I absolutely love it. Without a shadow of a doubt, I think it's one of the most magical things that Apple have done this year. It really encapsulates a lot of what is great about Apple, even down to the way that you charge it, which frustrates and people that don't use it think is crazy. but people that do

use it appreciate the fact that you stick you're using the ipad it tells you it's got 10 of battery you just pop it in for 30 seconds and you've got a bunch of charge for another few hours like that's the great thing about it is you're able to charge it with the device that's in front of you rather than going to need to find a cable i genuinely believe that's the reason they chose to do it this way, because when you actually use the product, that is the best way to charge it. So that is my feeling about the Apple Pencil. And Aline Sims agreed with you, by the way.

Yep. She's voting your way. So I thought about this category, and again, it's challenging because we've got the non-Apple gadget category that's coming. And the word gadget, to to me also implies something about a piece of technology that is kind of a fun idea and fun to play with and fun to have around. And so what I didn't do is say something like the iPad Pro, which I bought one. I do like it a lot. But is it a gadget? You could make the but that's that's not um i decided to to

define gadget a little bit differently and that's why i chose the apple watch because i wear my apple watch every day it and why do i wear it well it tells the time that's number one it's got some notifications on it that i find that valuable and it's fun it's fun i find it a fun gadget it's now it's replaced my uh my alarm clock by my bed. I now just put it on a stand and it, and it goes off and, and, uh, wakes me up in the morning. It's yeah, it's, it is a gadget. And so I guess there's some implied impracticality there and I'm okay with that because I do, I still enjoy it. I w I have worn it every single day that I've had it. And, uh, it's a lot of fun. I switch out the watch bands because it's fun, not because it's practical

in any way, but because it's fun to have a different watch band. Sometimes I'm in the mood for an orange watch band now. I'm in the mood for the black leather watch band now. And yeah, it's just, it's fun. So what could be more gadgety than that? And Brianna Wu in our panel also went with the Apple Watch. So she's with me. We each have one supporter on the panel.

Casey chose the Apple Lightning Digital AV adapter. Okay. Matt chose his iPhone 6S Plus. Matt is a Plus convert this year. David Sparks chose the DxO1. Yeah, he had that at XOXO, and I still have a couple pictures I took with it. It's a pretty cool idea.

It's a little camera that you can attach via lightning to your iphone and it's you know slr i think it's like an slr quality lens maybe yeah and it really is absolutely stupendous and it has some fantastic focusing you can do all of that fancy blur stuff and very gadgety and it's very gadgety and federico chose the ipad pro as his favorite gadget of the year of course i really love my apple watch um it was beaten out by the apple pencil but the apple watch has made a similar impact on my life you know it is a device that i love dearly um i use it every day it is again you know like many apple things this year it is not without its foibles and it has some weird stuff about it and it you know i don't use this device in the way that I think Apple would love me to use it.

Right. Like I don't really use a lot of apps. I mainly use it as a thing that just gives me information rather than me going to find information. You and everybody else. Yeah, exactly. But I am more than happy with it for doing just that. So I would love to give our gadget of the year to the Apple Watch. Yeah, that sounds about right. It is a gadget for all that comes with that.

It is a gadget. It is a fun gadget, but it is definitely a gadget. The best non-Apple gadget of the year suggested by Justin last year and AJ this year. Different listeners suggested it both years. I find that funny. Mine is the Sphero BB-8. Oh. What a fantastic piece of technology this is.

We went and saw The Force Awakens and I came home and went on Amazon just to see if they had BB-8s in stock. And they do. They were in short supply at the beginning, but they made a lot of them. And so that was the last present opened at Christmas this year. And it is a spectacular little piece of technology.

I mean, the Sphero was already around, and there are other gadgets like this. But the BB-8 is adorable and cute because of the Star Wars connection. But it's a great little gadget. And, you know, you control it with an iOS device. And it controls... That's the thing that impressed me the most about it is the way they've got the navigation set. It's obviously using the compass in your device

because you can turn and the orientation of how you control the BB-8 remains correct, which is crazy. Yeah, it really, everything about it is fantastic. And the fact that they're able to build so much personality and life into the device is crazy to me that they are able to manage it. I have no idea how they did it. It is really one of those things.

It is like a moth of technology. I love the BB-8 um and i bought it as soon as it came out so months ago um and i still turn it on relatively frequently and just drive that thing around like if i'm struggling with something i'm trying to think for a little a problem or something i'll just pick up the bb8 put him down drive him around for a while and it just helps me kind of think through some stuff. I really, really love that thing. My cat and dog don't know quite what to make of him. I'm not surprised. Amuses me.

And I'm going to write a piece about this later, maybe even later today. It's programmable. There's an app on iOS that will let you do, will let you program it. And it's very much in the metaphor that they teach a lot of kids basic ideas about programming like scratch um and uh i think that's pretty cool so i'm gonna i showed that to

my son and i'm hoping that we'll uh spend some time doing some some programming of bb8 too yeah the app is called tickle if you're looking to find it i'll put a link to it yeah it's pretty uh pretty cool james thompson turned me on to that. So my Gadget of the Year nomination is something that I've mentioned on... Clockwise. I mentioned it on Clockwise, on the last episode of the year of Clockwise. It's the Breville One Touch Tea Maker. I drink a lot of tea. My wife and I both are tea drinkers.

We're not coffee drinkers. And the Breville One Touch Tea Maker is a gadget that I have been looking at. It's been in my Amazon cart for years. And I finally bought one this year. It's not cheap, but it is a kettle that's got a basket attachment. And you can basically put water in and loose tea in the basket and set it to go in the morning and then go to bed. And then you wake up and your tea is ready, which is pretty awesome, I have to say. And it boils the water, drops the tea in, lets it steep, lifts the tea back out, and then keeps it warm. And it is a gadget definitely it's i i can make tea the old-fashioned way with just a kettle and a teapot and a strainer i can do that but um i kind

of love this gadget so that so i finally bought it and then the big surprise on clockwise was that uh as a thank you for his support of Six Colors this year, Dan Morin and I both were the ones who were obsessed with this gadget. I bought him this gadget as his holiday thank you for Six Colors and told him about it on the podcast. That was a great podcasting moment. That was a fun little moment. So that's my choice for best non non-apple gadget it's a pretty gadgety gadget but i love it what our panels say mike brianna went with the new 3ds and so did

federico i think that the new 3ds is really awesome um i'm a big fan of that aline went with something called the sugar cube which i had to look up it's a kind of it's a wireless speaker that works with spotify which looks pretty cool, and it has some nice kind of gestures that are built into it to help you control your music. Casey went with the Amazon Fire TV stick, and Matt went with the Raspberry Pi Zero, which I would not have expected, but that was what he went with. So I'm struggling with this one, because I know that bb8 appears a little bit later on in our suggestions here um if i was gonna go with a second choice mine would be the new 3ds um yeah let's see i uh i know that you're not gonna go with that because you probably have

never even tried one no no and i'm i'm a 3ds i'm a i'm a nintendo ds skeptic too um i'm one of those people don't be skeptical about it it's the second best selling uh games console of all time so yep whatever whatever dude it's dumb um the uh fire tv stick is actually a good a good uh thing that was my that was my secret santa on that last episode of Clockwise, too. I don't know. I'm fine with the BB-8. We should give it to the BB-8. I feel like that's the right choice.

BB-8 is the winner, definitely. Yep. Good choice. So now we're going to go with the worst gadget or most disappointing technology of the year. I'm going to take this in a slightly different direction by picking one of my favorite things of this year. Interesting move. Yep, it's the Logitech MX Master Mouse.

This was the mouse that I spoke about across every single show that I'm a part of for like two weeks. It is absolutely fantastic. My disappointment lies in what it did to my hand. I think the MX Master is completely at fault for giving me some pretty severe RSI issues this year. And that was really my own doing. The mouse has some buttons that you can program. And I kind of over programmed them to do a bunch of crazy things. And I was contorting and twisting my hand into stupid positions so I really shouldn't have

set it up the way that I did and it was my own fault I started to feel the pain but continued to go with it anyway because I loved it so much so I'm mainly just disappointed that I cannot use it I'm hoping in 2016 I'll be able to bring it back into my rotation because the problems that I was having have pretty much all cleared up and just be a little bit more sensible about how I program the buttons on the MX master mouse. But it really is fantastic, but they're very disappointing to me because I broke myself. So, um, my vote is very specific. Um, it's, uh, so I have been a longtime fan of small laptops and a MacBook Air user since the beginning. I have an 11 inch MacBook Air and I love it.

I've always wanted a Retina MacBook Air. And this year Apple gave us the MacBook or, or you would call it the MacBook One, uh, which Marco does. It's actually not a bad name. They could totally have called it that. Uh, and it's, it's, uh, it's small and thin and light and has good battery life and has a beautiful retina screen. It's got the crazy new trackpad that doesn't actually move, but it vibrates to make it feel like it moves. All good.

And then it's got a keyboard with very little travel. And there are people who will defend that keyboard and bless them. You know, everybody is different. Everybody's preferences are different. everybody is different. Everybody's preferences are different. But for me, the most disappointing thing in technology this year, uh, in terms of products was the keyboard on the Mac book one, because that's the thing that basically made me say, I can't use this product. It's everything else about it. I like, and I don't like the keyboard. I think it's a bad keyboard. I think, um, it just, I don't know it, the lack of travel, the way it feels, it just, you can type on it, but it's unpleasant.

And in the end, for me, I just looked at that and said, I'm not going to buy this computer. I can't buy this computer. You know, Apple, it's not the single port. You know, none of the other things about it are deal breakers for me, but the keyboard is. And that made me disappointed. So the MacBook One keyboard is my disappointment of the year both brianna and aline went with apple music um casey went with the apple watch even though he likes his which i don't understand interesting uh matt went with the tile which is this little um device that helps you find things. I assume Matt lost something after using the tile.

David Sparks went with the coin, which was that Kickstarter credit card thing. It took him so long to deliver that when it finally showed up it wouldn't work with his new chip-based cards. And Federico went with the Wything's home camera. Huh.

What are you thinking? Well, I mean think i think mine because because that's me so this is the thing i know why people are upset about apple music um i can see that but for me i've really enjoyed using it i mean it's me too fine i have no problem with it i know that a lot of people have but i can't give apple Music the most disappointing or worst thing of the year because it hasn't been for me. I've actually really liked it. Me too. So, I mean, I don't really have skin in the game of the MacBook One keyboard because I know I could use it fine because I am more than happy using the one on the smart cover of the iPad Pro.

I kind of like that one better than the MacBook One, maybe because of my diminished expectations. I'm like, yeah. Well, I think you know what you're getting, right? This is a case rather than a laptop. And I know people that use the MacBook One keyboard, like Brianna's a big fan of the whole device, even though I think something broke on her keyboard.

So let's go with the MacBook One keyboard. Okay, there it is. That's right. Even the staunchest defender of the MacBook One keyboard had problems with the keyboard. So yeah. Yeah, and I'll point out also that when Apple came out with its new external Magic Keyboard,

it isn't using that keyboard design. It's using a different keyboard design. They made some compromises. They made some compromises for the device. They did. Yeah, I like everything else about that product just not that our favourite text story of the year suggested by

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the favorite tech story of the year in the 2015 Upgradie Awards. My pick for my favorite tech story this year is Jack Dorsey returning to Twitter. It was one of my favorite things that me and you have spoken about

over the year as well. It was just a really interesting story, right? Like it mirrored the Steve Jobs story a little bit. And, you know, we all love Twitter and hope that they're going to take it somewhere and kind of really kickstart the app again and the service and really kind of take it in new directions. So for me, Dorsey returning to Twitter was a really nice story. I liked that a lot.

Yeah, we did talk about that a lot. And I think that's an interesting story. And we'll see how it plays out. Twitter is doing some things, but they did their moments thing, which nobody seems to like and i and um i've always meant to write about it and i never did because i feel like sometimes twitter twitter's not trying to reach people like us who are more technical and more critical at the same time i look at uh what the moments feature is and think uh it's a missed opportunity that they they did the right they were in the right direction with the wrong thing.

And so it remains to be seen whether they're actually going to be able to execute. I feel like they may be a little more aware of what their opportunities are, but I'm not sure that they're actually executing properly. So we'll see. But it was an interesting story. And I feel like that was a rudderless company that maybe has a rudder. Now they just need to just move the boat in the right direction. My vote is going to be Federico Vittici's iPad Pro review, which, you know, that guy, he's been writing about the iPad an awful lot and using the iPad an awful lot. And for him to get, not just to write his usual in-depth, voluminous, impressive review, but to have it be an embargoed review because he got on Apple's embargo list for the first time.

That was a little extra bonus. But I thought that was a really great review and a perspective that I really wanted to see and was looking forward to seeing about that product. Brianna went with the Ashley Madison scenario. That was a very entertaining story to read about. I actually quite enjoyed reading about some of the crazy stuff that was happening after all that information got leaked. So many layers of terribleness in that story.

Yeah, so it made it like great popcorn, right? Aline went with Taylor Swift demanding to be paid for Apple Music streaming. That's a great story. Matt went with elon musk and jeff bezos's competition for space and john syracusa obviously picked the swift open source project so i am torn on this one after looking at this i love my story but i don't think it's the best um i think that the taylor swift scenario was was really good it was it was actually a very interesting multi-layered um story that you know kind of really showed a difference in the in the

music entertainment world and the world that apple was going into but my heart really paused for federico because it meant a lot to him and it meant a lot to me because it meant a lot to him um so my i kind of guess my feeling is between those two because i didn't i didn't think of Because it meant a lot to him and it meant a lot to me because it meant a lot to him. So I kind of guess my feeling is between those two because I didn't think of either of those when thinking of my option. I think we're going to just go with the home field pick and pick Federico's pick, Federico's review. Yeah, that was something that he deserved so much and I'm so pleased that he got it he gets an upgrade yay his lifelong dream um the oh you make the ipad pro embargo well that too um matt by the way uh suggested perhaps that elon musk and jeff bezos were competing over which one of their rockets was bigger i edited matt as i do so often yeah well it's required favorite text screw up of

the year um mine was the blackberry ceo attempting to demo the preve have you seen that video oh yeah he's completely unprepared yeah yeah it's stupous. You just go and watch a video. I won't spoil it. You have to see it. What was yours? So the Microsoft Surface is the official tablet of the NFL and they changed the rules this year so that the Surface was available on the sidelines. It used to be only up in the booth to no technology on the sidelines. They would actually print out pictures. It was legal to take pictures of what happened on the field and print them out and show those to players, but they couldn't watch video or anything on the sidelines. And they changed the rules this year, I think actually during the season, to allow technology to be on the field of these specific things. They don't want it to be like a whole technology war.

They want everybody's technology to be the same, but they wanted to do this. So the NFL puts the official tablet of the NFL, the Microsoft Surface, on the sideline, which has led to some hilarious instances of angry athletes, mostly quarterbacks, chucking the tablet while the TV cameras are on. It's happened more than once, but my favorite i think the definitive one is when aaron rogers of the green bay packers former cal bear woo go bears uh chucked his surface uh and basically wrecked it because he was mad because he threw an interception and it's just like i love that great job microsoft lots of famous athletes are now destroying your product

way to go i just watched the video i'd never seen it and that is so funny it's just like get this thing away from me he is disgusted by his surface because he's what yeah because he's watching a receiver that uh that is open he blew it and he didn't he didn't throw to them and they didn't get the touchdown but but, but still it's a, yeah, I, I have some questions about that, about that whole thing.

Like I'm, I'm, uh, it's the official tablet. So everybody's forced to use it. You know, even if they use iPads or something else elsewhere, they've got to use that anything that's visible.

And then what you get is the visibility of people demolishing it. So, yeah, that's pretty good uh brianna um picked apple music for our favorite text grew up um aline went with jimmy irvine uh saying that women needed help finding music which was like this ad that they created which is just real foot in the mouth type stuff um we We have Casey picked the Mac App Store certificate problem. Matt chose...

It's a good one. Yeah. Another good one is Matt chose the Time Magazine VR cover where they picked that crazy photo of the guy on the beach. And David Sparks went with Apple Music as well and added that after a pretty good job with photos, how did they screw up music for so many users? I don't know where to go with this one.? I don't know where to go with this one.

Yeah. Don't know where to go with this one. Because again, see, even though I like music, I can say how it was screwed up for a lot of people. Yeah. I feel like the Mac App Store is a great one. I think maybe coming in from the side there, Casey Lissa's nomination should be the winner. Because that's a really good one that was a that was a screw-up that's a best kind of screw-up because it's a screw-up that that leads to a bigger story right it's a screw-up that reinforces suspicions

about a product or service not being given attention and it puts it makes it clear that that's the case it's sort of like no no no no we care about it puts, it makes it clear that that's the case. It's sort of like, no, no, no, no, no. We care about it. We really care about it. We really care about it. And then the screw up happens and you're like, aha, see proof that you don't care about it. And that's, we've all been feeling like the Mac app store is kind of, you know, just rotting. I think John Gruber said, and this was a perfect example of that where they, they just, you know, they screwed it up, they blew just, you know, they screwed it up, they blew it. And, you know, everybody makes mistakes. But this felt like a colossal

mistake that was made because there was nobody minding the store, literally. So I'm happy with that Mac App Store certificates as our favorite tech screw up at 2015. Now we're going to the favorite non techtech podcasts of the year uh suggested by nodotis this was last year and they also said not cereal not cereal yeah now this one last year was the one of the biggest contention for me and you indeed this was uh i chose hello internet and you chose the flop house and i don't know if we chose a winner but if we did it was purely because just why not and we both pledged to go away and listen to each other's shows which has

brought me to now say that my favorite non-tech podcast of the year is the flop house i love the flop house so so much i'm raising my hands in victory here there's there was no way i couldn't pick it it's easily my favorite it's i think it may just be my favorite podcast flat out now um oh yeah and i just uh i absolutely love that show so much um it's one of those shows i listen to one episode like a new episode that comes out then i go and listen to an old one because I just can't just have one. And I haven't gone through the whole back catalog yet, but I'm kind of just, I'm still in the picking out old episodes phase, but I absolutely love The Flophouse. So now the perfect O'Henry ending here would be that I have now listened to Hello Internet

and made it my vote. And I have listened to Hello Internet and I like it. It's a good podcast, but my vote is still is still the flop house so now we're unanimous so should we go to um our other suggestions anyway even though i think it's pretty clear what we're gonna give yeah i think the unanimous flop flop house and i think i'm pretty sure even though he didn't vote here that john syracuse would agree with us he was actually he had his letter uh read on the latest version not the first time that, he had his letter read on the later, not the first time, that he's had a letter read on the flop house.

So Aline and Casey both pick Reconcilable Differences. I have that in a later pick. Matt picked Roderick on the Line. Always a good pick. And David Sparks picked Rebel Force Radio, which I assume is a Star Wars podcast.

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Let's just... I don't think he's actually rebelling against anything other than the Empire. Yeah, it's a Star Wars podcast. So we're going to go with The Flophouse because... Flophouse.

Just because. Yeah. Favorite tech podcast of the year, suggested gary um i'm gonna continue my pick from last year and go with atp again flat out just is my favorite tech podcast um you go with the same i agree i agree um that is that is the one that i make a point of listening to every week um that i'm not on and um i will i will put a second place mention in for Cortex, the podcast that you do with CGP Grey, which is, you know, what is it? What is it about? It's about lots of things, but it does feel like, it does feel techie enough for me to call it that. But I feel like it's not

just a, you know, what we think of as a tech podcast. It's about some other things, but I want to throw it in there. I don't listen to every episode because i have too many podcasts and i don't commute anymore but it's definitely one of my priorities yeah cortex isn't necessarily a technology podcast but what it is is me and gray mainly talking about how we work and we both work in technology so kind of becomes that federico agrees with your second place pick he's gone for. Aline agrees with both me and you and have picked ATP. Casey would like to pick ATP, but went with Upgrade instead. Solid move. That is a grandmaster chess move there, Casey List.

Good job. David chose the incomparable because I don't think he knows what technology is. And Matt went with... I love you, David. And Matt went with the talk show yeah all good choices but atp atp wins again uh it's second year in a row it's still there for me congratulations i'm behind though i'm like a couple episodes behind now it's painful one of the shows that i never never go behind on because i love it so much i i tried but i got i

got uh yeah i had a couple weeks where i just didn't listen to podcasts and it was a problem so i gotta get caught up our favorite podcast newcomer of the year um i have picked reconcilable differences for this um i know that it is a show on our network um i also am part of the show i edit the show right so i have a stake in it but i love reconcilable differences i'm so happy that it exists i'm extra happy that it gets to call relay fm its home um john and merlin together it's like one of those like match matches made in heaven it was like a one two pairing type scenario i think for many people uh and yeah absolutely love that show couldn't couldn't speak highly enough of it well you hear the

concept and you think oh that's gonna be good but then it it actually is good like it actually is good it is it is a a good podcast and enjoyable and those guys um combining the ways that they do are fascinating it was my runner-up pick. I'm happy for it to be the winner here. Actually, the one that I've liked the most, and this, again, picking something that's on your own network, I've really enjoyed. So Lisa Schmeiser, Tony Sindelar, and Philip Moselak do a recap of The Flash, the TV series,

on the Incomparable Network and the TV feed called The Flash Flashcast. I really enjoy it. They have amusing, I like how it's structured structured it's fun to have a podcast on your network that you have nothing to do with and you listen to it and you think oh this is really good they have some good ideas here they've done things i should steal for the things that i do because i love that and and i like that show the flash and i like that they they have their different categories and they have the my three dads and I'm Not a Scientician But

and things like that. And they're all very different and funny personalities too. So that was a real find for me on my own network. But Rectifs, that should be the winner. That totally should be the winner. Our other suggestions,

Aline chose a show called Design Life.fm. Casey went with Reconcilable Differences and also a show called Built in Motion. Matt went for Defocused because it's new to The Incomparable, which is a good way of squeezing that one in there. And Federico chose Cortex again. Thank you, Federico. But we will go with Reconcilable Differences and we'll also pull in the votes from Aline and Casey

from the favorite non-tech podcast to crown Reconcilable Differences and we'll also pull in the votes from Aline and Casey from the favorite non-tech podcast to crown Reconcilable Differences. The upgrade winner for the best podcast newcomer of this year. We have a couple of new categories to round out today's upgrade. The first one comes from Dan again, who picked the favorite non-tech podcast last year. And it is our best holiday gift. And it's unclear whether this is the best gift that we gave or receive or just a thing that would be a good holiday gift. Yeah, I went with my favorite holiday gift, which is a selection of gifts. I got some cocktail making tools from my family and from my girlfriend this year.

of gifts. I got some cocktail making tools from my family and from my girlfriend this year. I enjoy making cocktails for myself and I want to start making cocktails for other people as well. It's just something that I like. I have maybe one or so a week. You took that class. I took

a class, yes. I took a class and that was where it all started. That was a birthday gift and so I took a class in cocktail making and now i have uh the tools to make good cocktails it's nice well the best holiday gift i think we got this year was the bb8 there's no doubt about it um i will put a uh shout out to uh i think a good gift that i've recommended to people in the past for the last couple of years um for 69 you get a year subscription to marvel unlimited if you're a comic book reader

and like Marvel Comics. It's a great deal because comic books are kind of expensive. And with Marvel Unlimited, you're not getting the latest issues, but they're about six months delayed. But it's this huge catalog of tens of thousands of old comics and recent comics. and and recent comics uh and i you know in one reading binge i can read 69 worth of of comics so it's totally worth it because it means that i'm not buying i don't buy old marvel comics i only buy i buy some new ones but i don't buy the old ones because they're all on marvel unlimited and it has been i think i've been a subscriber since the very beginning with that one and it's uh it's uh it's great or since it came to the iPad, I guess. And I really like it.

And on iPad Pro, a comic reading is even more awesome. So I think that's a recommendation just to throw out there as a gift for people anytime. Aline chose the BB-8. BB-8, yeah. Casey went with the iPad Mini 4, which was his favorite gift. And he also got a Foot Cardigan subscription for Aaron,

his wife, who loved that. Keep watching the socks. Matt chose Mojave slippers. I have no idea. Who knows? It's Matt. Whatever. Federico chose Beats. I love Federico, man. He loves Beats. He owns Beats. I'm happy that he loves them. He should because they seem cool.

I got some cool Sennheiser Bluetooth headphones this year which I'm they seem cool. I got some cool Sennheiser Bluetooth headphones this year, which I'm very happy with. I'm going to make an unprecedented suggestion here. Yes. That we give BB-8

the winner of this category as well. Yeah, sure. That would make it the first, I think the first time this has ever happened that one thing has won two Upgradeys. I mean,

it wouldn't be difficult because this is the second time it's happened, but nevertheless, I think that it is the best little gift that you could get someone this year. I agree. It was your favorite holiday gift as well. We got two

BB-8s because Jamie got a BB-8 pillow. Oh, BB-8 is it, right? BB-8 is the winner of everything right now. And our last upgrade this year, suggested by Todd, is for the hardware that has changed our lives

the most this year. This is a really... The winner of this category is obvious, having looked at the document, and it's very, very interesting. I want to start this time by reading the suggestions from our illustrious panel. Brianna went with the Apple Watch.

So did Matt. And Casey, who also said that it was his most disappointing technology. So I'm not 100% sure of Casey right now. I can see that. I almost said that Apple Watch was both my favorite gadget and the most disappointing because my expectations were high. And I feel like it's still got a lot more it needs to do. Yeah, I bet that's exactly where Casey's coming from as well. That makes sense.

I support Casey in this, that I think it is a complicated product that has a lot of things that I love about it and a lot of things that I'm disappointed that it doesn't do. And then we have from Federico, Aline, and Steven, along with me and you, the iPad Pro. Yeah, I have the Apple Watch as my runner-up because it has changed my life it's gotten me to be more active I think that's the biggest way that it's changed my life but the iPad Pro buying it you know I'm using it more and basically my MacBook Air never gets used now and I love that product and I'm surprised that I love it as much as I do. And it's pretty great. So I'm with Aline, Stephen and Federico and you on that one.

Yeah, it's fantastic. I love my iPad Pro. I really, really do. It is the device that I want to use the most. It is an absolutely fantastic product. I didn't think I was going to love it as much as I do. Apple have stumbled, in my my opinion into a winner um i i don't know if uh anybody expected it to be as good as it is um and looking at you know the shipping stuff that they've still got on

all the accessories i don't think apple did either pencils are still four to five weeks. So yeah, it is a fantastic product. When paired with the keyboard and the pencil, it's changed my game completely. So that brings us to the end of the Upgradies, Jason. That's it? That is it. It's been a fantastic Upgradies.

I'm very happy that we had the help and suggestions from our illustrious panels. So thank you so much to them for helping us out today. Thank you so much to everyone that suggested categories last year and this year. I'm already very excited for the 2016 Upgradies. Do you ever stop being excited about the Upgradies? No, it's easily one of my favorite podcasts that i do

uh in the year it's this one episode of this show uh i love giving awards to things um and you mentioned the eddies earlier it is so important to me uh that one day people recognize the upgrade as they did the eddies uh like last time and i'm gonna do again, we've had artwork made of his little badges made. I'm going to send them out to all the winners. All I want is just to see them appear somewhere. You know, that they put someone wears it as a badge of honor on their website. One day we'll get there, Jason.

One day. Well, I know that since there's a RelayFM podcast that won an Upgrady, perhaps you could just stick that on the Rektifs page and see if anybody notices. If John and Merlin are happy for me to do it, then it will be added.

Upgrady winner! It's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. I say. We now have our first award-winning show on RelayFM. Yeah. At long last. It feels good, doesn't it? It does.

It feels great. It's absolutely great. I wish it was me. They can never take that away from you I wish I won an award even if it was an upgradee can I win the upgradee for the best British upgrade host no maybe next year

thank you so much for listening thanks again to our sponsors Hover and Smile for making the upgrades of 2015 possible we'll be back next week with a regular episode of Upgrade. Have a fantastic new year and we'll see you again in 2016. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell.

Happy New Year to everybody, including you, Mike. Happy New Year. And to you, Jason.