Upgrade - 99: Disciplined Cash Machine

Episode Date: July 25, 2016

Scrivener for iOS and a new mechanical keyboard for iPad arrived at Jason’s house this week. We discuss using a specialized writing tool for longform work and the challenges of building an iPad keyboard that doesn’t turn the iPad into a laptop. Plus we recap the latest trailers from Comic-Con.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode number 99 today's show is brought to you by backblaze and igloo my name is mike hurley and i am joined by jason snell from an undisclosed location somewhere in california it's so hot mike. It's so hot, Mike. Hi. It's so hot. How are you doing? Oh, good. Where are you? I drove south. I'm in greater Los Angeles now, and it's hot.

Boy, it's hot. And my mother-in-law doesn't like to use air conditioning. And Mike doesn't like it when you're recording, so... Well, that's true. That's true. I do actually have a fan on, a ceiling fan on at the lowest setting and that is my way of balancing very important to balance in your life balance between noise and dying so and also you know even if it's not really cooling you too much you know it's there so you're doing something so at least your brain is happy right thank you you have some kind of comfort in knowing

that you have attempted to keep yourself cooler at least i at least i tried i have some follow-up for you jason oh good it starts with a couple of questions actually and they're both uh surrounding comics many people enjoyed our comic discussion i have not yet read any of those comics but i am going to oh good but i'm just not yeah i think i'm going to sign up for marvel unlimited i think is what i'm going to do i just haven't done that yet and i've got some trips coming up so it'll be good to have some entertainment for those trips in fact somebody somebody um suggested to me that we do an incomparable episode that is just reading recommendations for marvel unlimited after our conversation on upgrade last week and i thought that's a great idea.

Yeah, because I bet more people have it than just you, right? So there'll be more suggestions. Oh, yeah. And going into a little bit more depth about the stories than we did, I guess. Well, right. And people, because people who sign up for it, they're like, all right, now I've got access to 10,000 comics. What should I read?

And you go, I don't know, right? It's like paralysis of choice yeah but darren asked uh do you have any go-to websites or podcasts that you read or listen to that give you the comic news that you want to look for if you do at all it's funny because i actually did a presentation um that i've been working on for a while and i gave it at the yosemite conference this year by coco conf um and uh it was about ways uh in part it was about uh ways the internet has failed us and one of those ways i feel like the example i give is the web is built to serve people who've got a lot of enthusiasm for a subject. Like that's what the web is really, really good at. And whether it's TV shows or movies or comics

or politics or, you know, your technology, whatever it is, the web has shown that it's really a great medium for reaching people who are very excited about a subject. It's narrow niches of topics. The problem is that if you're not somebody who's like super deep down excited about that topic, the web is actually, I think, kind of bad for this stuff. It's bad if you're mildly enthusiastic about something. It used to be like if you didn't care too much about computers, but you wanted to be up to date, if you read your local newspaper, right, there would be a computer columnist who would write once a week about what was going on in computers. And if there was a big

news story, there'd be a news story. But on the internet, it's sort of like you either got nothing or you've got kind of everything. And I always use the comic books as an example, because I am somebody who likes comic books. and I would read news about comic books, but I am never going to go to a comic book site every day and read the news. Just like never. It's never going to happen, because I'm not that, I just don't care that much about it. I'm mildly interested, but I'm not super deep down in it. So, I don't have any on that level, but I would say the ones that I, um, the ones that I tend to look at when there's comic book news are, um, comicbookresources.com and newsarama.com, which are, again,

kind of overkill and not the greatest. Um, but they're, they're, uh, they do have information. Uh, sometimes a Google, a Google News search on a subject. For a while, when it was unclear what was going to happen to Miles Morales, the lead character in Ultimate Spider-Man, I would just occasionally do a Google News search for Miles Morales and see what came up. Because I couldn't find any site that I wanted to just go visit and get that information. The other one I throw out there is there's a blog on the Hollywood Reporter's site called Heat Vision that's got some good stuff in it. And that's at a higher level. It's comic book and superhero media news.

And since that's from THR, it's got a lot of stuff on it right now because of Comic-Con. But it's a step back it's not it's not as intense as an entire site thr obviously is one of these sites devoted to covering the entertainment industry and then they have this blog heat vision which is about about uh superhero ish stuff and so that that would be a that'd be a recommendation i'd make too yeah i guess if you're looking for Comic-Con news, right, the Hollywood Reporter is probably the best place right now because that's kind of their intersection. Yeah, I mean, the Hollywood Reporter, since they cover film and TV and so

much of Comic-Con these days is film and TV, they've done a really good job. So, people may not know, I do a podcast on Fridays, actually. That's my Friday podcast with Tim Goodman, who's the chief TV critic at The Hollywood Reporter. It's called TV Talk Machine. And it's a lot of fun to do that with him and talk television with him. And so I'm always paying attention to what's on The Hollywood Reporter website. And they do some great coverage of – they had a lot of people down at Comic-Con. So, yeah, that would be another place I'd look, I think.

That's some good recommendations. So it's like with me, right? I'm kind of that way with video games. I love video games, but I don't check video game websites every day in the same way. What I do, though, I just follow one or two

news websites, Twitter accounts, just so I get a little bit of the taste of the headlines. That's a good idea. Yeah, the problem with some of those Twitter accounts is it's literally every headline, and I find that kind of overwhelming. have i actually one of the things that i found is useful is having people following people who care about comics um who i find interesting or who work in the business and who i find interesting because then not only am i getting their kind of conversations here and there on twitter but i'm also seeing the links that they're tweeting and retweeting and that ends up floating the most important stuff to the top um Our next question comes from Michael, and he asked if you had any suggestions for a comic reader on OS X or macOS.

Do you have any suggestions for that? Yeah, I went back and forth with Michael on Twitter about this. Initially, because he says, don't judge me. That's the end of his tweet. And I misread it and thought he was talking about iOS. Because something that I didn't really talk about this idea that the there's DRM free stuff. And it's also you know, these are also readers used for piracy. But there are legitimate reasons to

do it. If you've got a PDF of a comic there, there are comic companies who will sell you DRM free stuff. Comixology will do it for all the non-marvel or dc stuff anyway so on on ios i really like chunky comic reader on the mac honestly the day the ipad came out in 2010 i stopped reading comics on my mac yeah i was i was doing it up to that point in fact i would just take my laptop and put it on its side so it was properly oriented and read comics that way. I read a lot of comics that way. But the moment the iPad came out, that was the end. So it's been a long time.

But I did recommend to Michael. The one that I tended to use was called Comic Book Lover. And there was also one called Simple Comic. And I'd say check those out. I can't give you any testimony of how they are six years later, but Comic Book Lover was the one that I used a lot back in the day. Was that by Bit Cartel? Yeah, that's the one.

And this website is not fresh looking. Frozen in 2010, possibly. It still has the logo of universal application as in iphone and ipad no no no oh no no you're right mac intel and power pc yeah even worse we're talking mac yeah it's it's um so i i wish i i could give a better if somebody does know of a really amazing mac comic reader write in and we'll mention it uh on the next show because i honestly don't know because i mean literally that was the moment the ipad was announced i was like oh okay like because comiXology was already out for the iphone at that

point and i kept sort of struggling with this idea of well yeah you could read a comic on your iphone but uh that's such a small screen. And then when they announced the iPad, I was like, okay, here it is. And that was it. I never went back. Again, so I've gone to Simple Comic and it's taken me to one of those, I guess, shareware sites. Download sites, yeah.

Yeah, and I look at this and I'm like, I know we complain about the Mac App Store, but boy, this is no way to get applications. Yeah. The iOS App Store is so good because I don't have to deal with this stuff because there are literally four links on this page with download buttons. Probably 75% of those links will try and install malware on my computer. Yeah, or they'll generate a bunch of pop-ups.

I mean, there are lots of pieces of software that you can get that are uh you know you get to the independent developers website and they offer a download but definitely there were a lot of people who didn't have a lot of money and they were doing this sort of out of love and they would use one of these sort of alternate download systems to provide their bandwidth and uh yeah it was a terrible experience i always hated that when i would go to a website i find a utility it's like oh this sounds like maybe this is a utility i want to try and then i click on the download link and it would be like we're going to take you to cnetdownload.com or whatever and i'm like no no just give me the file yeah it's you know i know

there are a lot of problems in the mac app store and I wish that there was a way to fix it and make everyone happy for everything right but I just remember going back to those days and it's terrible it's no bueno. You went through a time machine Mike. I really did seeing that Universal logo

and they had an OS X I can't remember what version of OS X it was but the disc was black and it had the big 10 i can't remember what version of os 10 it was but the the disc was black and it had the big black x and it was like a nebula behind it oh yeah i remember all of that what was that that's the one where when you installed it the first time it played like music and stuff and that little movie and you're flying through space i mean you know because it especially is embedded in me because that was when i jumped onto the mac right my my first mac was an intel iMac so the universal logo was important to me

that's true because otherwise it would be using rosetta right yeah which sucked well it was really great if you had lots of power pcs yeah it sucks for me right but if you just bought an intel iMac for the first time oh look they have a quote for me i think oh really i think on the comic book lover website the tip two quotes one of them's andy and ike and one is from mac world and i think with a capital w which isn't right i think that's me i think i wrote that comic book lover is the itunes for digital comics yeah because it had a whole organizational system in it too because let me let's be honest at that point all of the stuff was coming from piracy but so you download a thousand issues of something and you'd want to be able to organize

organize your collection and stuff but it was uh yes uh version 1.7 is for mac os 10 10.7 through 10.9 older versions available for 10.5 and 10.6 anyway that was the one that um i used and it was it was pretty good but i can't was is it good now i have no idea probably not um i saw this fly by you probably did too apple is uh going to be selling some olympic themed watch bands in the rio olympic area i didn't see this um i rely on you for all of my apple watch band needs and you have come through yeah so they have a bunch of country flag um of the nylon bands but you can only buy them in the Olympic Park in Rio. So these things are going to be very expensive on eBay because there are some great looking ones in here. I am partial to Australia, Japan, Jamaica, New Zealand, the UK and the Netherlands.

They are my favorite ones. The USA one's pretty good too, actually. Yeah, it's cute because they're not like putting the whole flag on there it's like the colors of the flag and there's some where there's like some flags where there's basically a primary color and a little tiny something in another color and what they're doing is the little loop for the band is in that color and the band is in the primary color it's very a very clever set of uh of They're cute, but only available in Rio, which means... I like this idea.

It's just like with the Pride band that they did. They're creating these special collector's item rarity launch bands. Yeah, I want one, but I like that they're doing it this way, if that makes sense. I want to be able to buy these, but I also kind of like the fact that they're making them limited. Right. Yeah. able to buy these but i also kind of like the fact that they're making them limited right yeah so um if anybody uh is sees these things on ebay let me know i might purchase one or two depending on if they're less than a gajillion dollars or something which i'm sure

they will be but do you know what else you can buy Jason, to look really cool for not a lot of money? What is that? A hat, Mike? You can buy a hat, but also a Six Colors t-shirt. What? What? You can go now to our show notes.

There will be a link to the official Six Colors t-shirt. There are three color shirts with the beautiful 6C logo emblazoned on it and the lovely six colors that have been picked from somewhere i don't know where they came from somewhere somewhere on the internet those six colors came from and you can you can wear that logo on your body i'm going to be buying one um and i'm probably going to go for the heather gray option there because i think that looks real cool yeah so the shirt colors are all basically monochrome because the idea is that the

they're the six colors and doing a six process color shirt on a it is uh really expensive i know all about that yeah every color yeah exactly right every color adds a couple of times now every color adds to the to the problem so uh it's not uh the cheapest shirt that i've ever put up on cotton bureau but it is every time i do one of these like multiple multiple color shirts like a six color shirt or i think we went even more for the connected shirts um i i say to myself never. And then I do it again. Because it's so difficult to do this and to get it right. Because there's so many things happening. But Cotton Bureau can do it. We know they can do it because I was wearing my beautiful ATP t-shirt yesterday.

And it came from Cotton Bureau. So I'm very excited to get one of these because they do make great shirts. They do. They do. It's just expensive to get them out of the U.S. But such is life you've sometimes you've got to go for the good stuff and that's what we're getting yeah they are the shipping i i talked to the cotton beer guys about international shipping they are they are aware of

the issues it's real difficult it's real difficult to get that stuff to work yeah and if you go through the you know they want to do customs declarations and values and things like that and it gets very expensive and and it's too bad. But I decided to go for the quality, and they do make very good shirts. So if you're not in the U.S. and you're looking at the shipping charges and thinking how awful it is, I would say see if you can find some friends to go in on and ship them together, or find a friend in the U.S. and have them get it for you and then

give it to you the next time they see you or use it as packing material when they send you your christmas present or something i don't know i just saw a thing fly by you may be interested in this it's the wall street journal article so i can't yet read it i'll have to wait for the digests. There is a rumor in the Wall Street Journal that Bob Mansfield is going to be taking over Apple's car project. Huh. That's just popped up in the news right now. Big Bob. Big Bob, he's on special projects.

This is as special as it comes. That man knows production. You know, remember when he retired and then he came back? Yeah. I wonder what the story is there. I wonder if he's just, like, he can't help it. Yeah, what was and then he came back and yeah i wonder what the story is there i wonder if he's just like he can't help it yeah what was it that he came back something happened and then he came back oh they fired uh paper master wasn't that it didn't he get brought back when they fired paper master what was it the guy they hired from ibm oh yeah what was it okay yeah

i knew it was a uh firing i thought it might have been four store but i'm gonna go maybe maybe that was it i don't know but it was a yeah and he was like brought back in from retirement and now yeah i don't know i i we've talked about this before i think you got at apple people with a lot of money senior people we were driving we went lauren and i went to a concert in the south bay right right south of cupertino in fact and we're driving through the this neighborhood and i said driving through this neighborhood. And I said, you know, who lives here? Because these houses all probably cost $2 or $3 million, and they're not like mansions. They're nice houses, but in that part of the world, the real estate is incredibly expensive because you're so close to all of these Silicon Valley companies.

Valley companies. And I was thinking about that thing that we've talked about before, where if you're a fairly senior person, not even like an executive top level, but a fairly senior person at Apple, and you've been there a while, and you've had all the stock options and things like that, plus your salary, and you could probably retire, right? You could probably just go do do what john uh was it john rubenstein wanted to do which was uh go i forget who it was one of one of those executives that was like i'm just gonna go to mexico and live on a beach um and you could do that probably so bob mansfield i always felt like maybe that was his story yeah it's a calling they just can't let go of it right they just want to make this stuff right and he might have personal issues he might have had kids in school or something like that i mean people make decisions based on all sorts of factors that we don't even see where it's like well you know the fact is i don't need to work

right now and my kids are are going to be moving out of the house in the next couple of years so i want to spend time with them yeah and and then they go to college and you're like, hey, Tim, I don't play golf. So can I come back to Apple? I'm not saying that's what happened with Bob Mansfield, but I do think about that sometimes of like, what happens when you're in a position where you are uniquely qualified and connected to do something like work at Apple and build these famous products that are, you know, changing the world or whatever. work at Apple and build these famous products that are, you know, changing the world or whatever.

And, uh, but you also have, so you've got all the money, uh, that you, that you realistically need and you've got these Apple connections and you've got your personal life and all of that. And like balancing those. And do you throw away the Apple stuff? Are you so obsessed that you will always do the Apple stuff because you love it and that's who you are? Or are you in the middle sometimes? And they're like, yes, like yes but uh and everybody has to make their own decision i'm sure there are people at apple who have just left with the money and gone away and are living on that proverbial beach in mexico but uh i do wonder about that that was somebody wrote an article about this uh one of the analysts i can't remember who about how apple's like number one problem was retention and i can see it i mean I totally can see it. When you have that much success over that 10, 15-year period,

some of your people are probably going to be like, hey, why am I working 80 hours a week? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just assume that maybe you want to leave because you get bored with the work and then they offer you something like building a car and then you come back again right like that's how i look at something somebody like bob as well like maybe why did he leave the first time maybe he had just done all

he wanted to do and then they offer him something else enough a special project and he comes back again yeah maybe so i mean maybe he said i'm just kind of tired of the job that i i mean we will never know and i i feel kind of bad because everybody, you know, everybody's got their public life and their private life. And, you know, but so that's what I would say is you do wonder, like, is that just a matter? Obviously, they think the world of him. And I never got the sense that, I always got the sense like that he was leaving and they were sad, right? And then he keeps coming back. So, I mean, I guess the door was always open there for for for

big bob episode 100 of upgrade is coming next week and the return of mike at the movies will be gracing your ears and we will be watching star trek 2 the wrath of khan i'll be watching it over the next few days so i'm ready for the episode and we just want to recommend it so you can too so you can listen along as me and jason shout khan really loudly exactly i know that's the thing that happens in the movie captain kirk yells khan at one point it's true and i think if it's anything like star trek into darkness people die but it's the other way around or something it's kind of like star Trek Into Darkness, Mike, but kind of different.

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of upgrade and relay fm gotta use offline backup or online backup you gotta do it you gotta off-site online off-site online that's. Yeah. Because even having a time machine drive in your house doesn't save you. Nope. That is what? There's a flood or your house burns down. Offline on-site, right, will be the time machine. Yeah. That's right.

That's right. Which is great. It's great to have a fast local backup. You've got to have them both. But you've got to have them both. You really do. Can you have online off-site and off-site online? Online off?

Offline? Anyway, Scrivener. Scrivener for iOS is now out. And you and Dan Morin wrote a little collaborative piece last week. Kind of previewing it, which was kind of nice. You don't really see too many of those stories happen. But I like that you guys did that. That was a lot of fun to see.

But it's now out. I felt very Vatici-like. Very Vatici-like. I've been using the beta for a while. And here's what I think. Let me tell you how it works. that was a lot of fun to see but it's now out i felt very vatici vatici like very vatici like where with the i've been using the beta for a while and here's what i think how it works yeah that's yeah and mr vatici he is uh he's diving deep into scrivener as well for his ios review yeah so we covered that um a little bit on connected but this was somebody who is coming to scrivener for the first time right that's what federico was doing here and he was using it for a new project yeah

so i wanted to ask you how long have you used the scrivener application in any of its forms something like 10 years maybe 2006 something like that wow um well i i wrote so i wrote my first time i tried to do uh first time i did national novel writing month i wrote in bb edit and i outlined in omni outliner and then i discovered scrivener i tried a bunch of different writing apps and the one that stuck was scrivener and one of the things i really liked it worked it worked the way that i wanted it to and one of the things I really liked, it worked the way that I wanted it to. And one of the things I really liked about it was that it has an outliner mode and a writing mode and they are connected. So instead of having Omni Outliner over there and BV Edit over here with chapters, every item in my outline was itself the chapter. And I could toggle

back and forth and see those notes at any point. And that was pretty cool. And so I wrote the first, whatever, 50,000, 60,000 words of my first novel manuscript in BV Edit. And then since then, every novel and some of my OS X reviews and other long-form reviews I've done in Scrivener. Okay, so obviously there's some changes here. So like differences for applications that you use. So is it just the big chunky things like novels and like maybe multiple maybe tens of thousands of word articles i guess that you would write things that you feel like can be easily cut up into chunks yeah i mean the reason

that i use scrivener for this stuff is because it is a writing tool that's also an organizational tool. If it's something small, I will just use BBEdit because that tends to be what I use. It's always open on my Mac. You know, I'll use that. But Scrivener adds this layer of support for what goes around the document. of uh support for what goes around the document so like i said there's a there's an outline view and those outline items are themselves text documents so you end up with uh like what federico i assume is doing and what i did with um i actually sent him a screenshot of my like mountain lion review or something like that where i I said, uh, you know, here, essentially I

put down like all the major features of the OS, um, and in this outline. So it's like, okay, what do I need to cover? I need to cover these, these, these, these, these. Um, and then each of those little items in the outline, you know, you, you open them in Scrivener, you click on them and you're in the text view and you can begin like writing your notes or writing your article, uh, and it all. And then they all kind of roll up into one document if you want it to. But there's also like a research folder where you can dump PDFs and images and web links and other notes that you've taken. And so you can there's even like a corkboard view if you're somebody who works like that in terms of organization.

And so you can, there's even like a corkboard view if you're somebody who works like that in terms of organization. It also means that as I'm writing the story, if I think that the sections are in the wrong order, I can just drag around and reorder the sections. And they just reorder because it's easy to do that. So that's the value that it adds. It adds a lot of tools to manage complex projects. You can tag your documents. I was going to say chapters, but they don't have to be chapters with things like on the novel that I'm revising now, I've got a first draft tag on all the chapters. And when I'm finished with a pass, I have a revised draft tag that I put on them and you can see the difference at a glance. It's color coded,

lots of stuff like that. So that's the thing that puts it over the top for me as a tool to use for some projects, is that it's adding structure and tools that are much more often required on a big long-term project than they are on something short. So as someone who's used the mac os version for such a long time what makes the ios version stand out for you like what of the ios version if anything stands out this could be good or bad i guess uh well the ios version one of the things that stands out about it i mean they they've literature and latte the company that stands out about it, I mean, they've, Literature and Latte, the company that makes Scrivener, has tried very hard for a few years now to

do an iOS version. And there's a whole story about, you know, they've gone through at least two developers and it just didn't ever happen. And finally, the guy who wrote Scrivener for the Mac just decided, I'm going to do this. And he wrote the Scrivener for the Mac just decided, I'm going to do this. And he wrote the Scrivener for iOS. Because it's coming from this product that's been around for a decade, the fact is that it is... They couldn't just release Scrivener Lite. I think they could have and maybe should have considered releasing a Scriven document like viewer and basic app five years

ago three years ago this application has been in development for like what seven years eight years i i the i mean the ios app alone has been in development for very a very long time and yeah maybe about five or six right because they started talking about this when the iPad was new. Yeah, and it just, yeah, there was a whole series of bad things that happened, essentially, that prevented them from getting it out. So anyway, when they finally decided, when he finally decided he was going to do it, it's not a light version. For a 1.0, that's the thing that surprises me about the iOS version, is that it's got a lot of depth a lot of features it's got gestures and uh it's got not all the features

of the mac or there's also a windows version um but a lot of them um and uh yeah there's a few things that i use in the mac version that aren't in the in the ios version but it's basically almost entirely there and that's the thing that impress version, but it's basically almost entirely there. And that's the thing that impresses me about it. Out the gate is, it was a long wait, but what you get is the real thing and not

a sort of pale imitation of the real thing. Are there any situations where you can imagine that you would choose the iOSos version of scriven to do your work in over the over the mac version now well i mean the reason is that i have an ios device with me and not a mac right i think that's the reason and uh i as we've talked about on this show we don't um you know i i'm trying not to take my Mac with me when I travel. It happens occasionally,

but like my goal is not to bring an iPad, an iPhone, and a Mac with me when I go on a flight. My goal is to leave the Mac behind and just use the iPad and the iPhone. That should be enough. And it isn't always, but it often is. And that's the reasoning. I mean, we were talking before the show started. I did bring my laptop with me for a few different reasons this week, and I'm using it right now. But it often needed to do a lot of software updating when I opened it to prep it for this trip. Because when I leave my desk and I'm in the rest of the house or I'm outside at home, I'm generally not using a laptop anymore. I'm using an iPad. And so in all those circumstances, when I've got the iPad, that's what I want to do is I want to be able to work on my novel revision in Scrivener on the iPad. And up

to now, I haven't been able to do that. If I didn't have a Mac with me, the novel revision stuff was not going to happen. So now it can. So it's not so much that you would maybe be sitting at home and be like oh i'm going to pick up the ipad because scrivener is better or here or whatever but what it's done is it's allowing you to take that novel work with you on the go yeah i i think that's fair to say i i don't think they're particularly unless there's some very specific things i mean for the most part it's just uh both versions work and it's what tool do you want to use which is how it should be i think okay that's cool then well at least now you've got it right that that's the good thing so now would you have just not done anything like if you were if you

were away right now like you are and maybe a year, and you had the desire to work on the novel, would that have just been, well, I can't do this? Pretty much. Although they did have this weird export feature where basically every time you saved out of or quit out of Scrivener for the Mac, it could optionally build a bunch of text files in Dropbox. it could optionally build a bunch of text files in Dropbox. And that if you edited those, then when you launched the Mac app again, later, it would pull in the text file from Dropbox. It was really not a good system.

It worked, but you know, and, and I didn't do that. I mean, that's the, the bottom line is that no, one of the things about,

and I know writers who switched from Scrivener to other things specifically because of this, because they wanted to be able to access it on the iPad, and they couldn't. That is the thing that they are going to have to deal with, is that by not having this app for five years, they have lost some customers. And they may not get any of those customers back, or they may not get many of them back. I feel bad for them. But that's, I can't blame the writers, if you, if you have to have access to your novels

on your iPad, for the last five years, you there's no way you could keep using Scrivener for that, because it's just not, it just was not the way to do it. But now you can. So for me, I was not prompted at any point to give up and switch from Scrivener. It just never got to that point for me. But it's been more difficult since I've stopped traveling with the laptop so much because now I don't have access to that stuff at all. Oh, I want to mention we have a – I do now. It's great. In the chat room, Dave asked a couple of questions that i thought i would he asked me

if i could compare scrivener ulysses it's hard um it's hard to do that he says curious about both of them they're too expensive just to try out to see do they not have demo versions i think maybe they do have demo versions on the mac that you could try anyway um and i haven't used ulysses uh enough lately to compare them it's been a while i i used ulysses enough lately to compare them. It's been a while. I used Ulysses early on, and it was one of the tools that sort of fell by the wayside when I discovered Scrivener, because Scrivener worked better for me. But Ulysses has come a long way since then, and they've done some amazing things. Their iOS version is really good. What I've seen of it, but I haven't used it enough to do a deep comparison.

what I've seen of it, but I haven't used it enough to do a deep comparison. And then Dave also asked something that is similar to what Federico Vittici asked me, which is, um, the, what's the format like, and can I write in,

in Markdown? And the answer is basically that it's a, it's a style text format. I think technically on the inside, it may, it may all be RTF. I'm not sure. Um,

you, but you know, I don't use the styles i actually write in markdown and that's what i told federico because he writes in markdown it's got some markdown support i actually wish it was better i think this is one of those things that ultimately um federico will probably give feedback to keith at literature and latte about that uh you know a feature that he that federico would use and that I would probably use would be to build an HTML page, a single page using Markdown. But all I do now is I just copy the project out

in text and run it through Markdown. And it works great. It works just fine. And it will also compile out of its format into lots of different formats, into PDF and into Microsoft Word and various manuscript submission formats and things like that. So it's got a bunch of features. The idea is you work in Scrivener and then you can build ebooks or you can build PDFs or you can build Word files or you can build HTML. And there are a bunch of different formats that you can export but it's also a package and i believe on the inside if you really because some people care about this although i think it's not practical for most people i think

if you open up the scrivener package uh what's inside our files like you can open them and there you will find text in them and that i think they may be rtfs but that's all they are they're not it's not some monolithic, confusing binary file format. It's a package with a bunch of stuff in it, including text files or RTF files. Whilst we're talking about writing on the iPad, you just got your hands on one of those Razer keyboards. I did.

The new iPad Pro Razer mechanical keyboard. Oh, yes. I wanted to ask you a few questions about it. People can go and read your little review that you put up, and it's in our show notes. But I wanted to ask you just how mechanical is this Razer mechanical keyboard that they have apparently built for the iPad? Well, it's mechanical.

It is. They built a mechanical key switch. It does the thing where you push it down and it does the little pop kind of thing. I mean, they say it is the thinnest mechanical key switch ever. Razer is a company that makes gaming keyboards, and mechanical keyboards are very popular, not just with people like me who like clicky keyboards, but they're very popular with gamers too. They like the feel of them. They like the responsiveness of them. So they wanted to make

one for mobile, and then they wanted to make an iPad Pro. And it's for the 12.9. They haven't even done a 9.7 version. This is for the 12.9 using this. And it's a surprisingly thin deck, basically, that's got this keyboard on it. And it's a surprisingly thin deck, basically, that's got this keyboard on it.

And it's very clicky. Although, honestly, when I put my headphones in, I discovered that, you know, because there are two aspects of any mechanical keyboard. There's the feeling, the tactile, when you're typing. And there's what you hear, the aural. And like taste and smell right they kind of go together to make an effect uh so you put your headphones in and you can't hear the keyboard anymore and uh it still feels uh different and it's got an interesting tactile feel but you lose a lot of the effect of it because i think that i think it's a much clickier keyboard um in terms of sound than it maybe feels dramatically different from something like the logitech create keyboard um but it does it does have a feel i mean if you're if you're somebody

who loves mechanical keyboards and just has dreamt of having a mechanical keyboard for your ipad this one for if you've got a 12.9 iPad Pro, this one is that. Like, this is it. This is your choice at this point. For you, which is more important in a mechanical keyboard, the sound or the feeling?

I would say the feeling is more important. Okay. So this maybe doesn't tick that box well enough. Well, in mobile situations, so I've got a couple things about that box well enough well in mobile situations so i got a couple things about mobile uh one is in mobile situations i've usually got my headphones in yep if i'm out and about i'm usually cranking on something and i got my headphones in with music on so i can't hear the keyboard anyway uh when i'm sitting at my desk on my mac with my clicky keyboard that i've got that leopold mechanical keyboard that I have that's wacky, and I love it. I hear it because I don't usually work with

headphones in unless I'm podcasting, in which case I'm using a much quieter keyboard. And I like the clicky sound then. But so it's not like it doesn't have an effect. But when in a mobile context, I think it's much less important than the than the feel um and i i will point out too that let's pause for a moment and reflect about the mobile context because we're talking about a loud clicky keyboard that you're taking out into the world and i i will just say uh to any prospective buyers the Razer keyboard that do you want to be the person at Starbucks who's in the corner disturbing everyone with your loud clicky keyboard? Because in a mobile context, you are going to be inflicting your noise on other people. And maybe you do want to be that person or maybe you think it's not a big deal. That's fine.

But for me, I've never really thought about my keyboard noise when I go out in public and I'm working somewhere. But with this keyboard, I totally would. And I wouldn't feel great about it. Okay. So that's not so good, right? To make you kind of conscious of it. Yeah.

I mean, and again, that's me right i mean most people might not care they might listen and be like oh this is fine nobody's gonna know there's music playing at the at the at the cafe and people are talking and this was just and people are working on computers and then there'll be some clicky sounds and it's not like it's like blasting clickiness but it is uh you know it's a it is a noticeably clickier keyboard than every other keyboard that's on somebody's laptop or whatever so it's part case part keyboard right yeah you get the mechanical keyboard but there's also a case which has like a kickstand um how do they work together i know that they can be detached what is that like do you have to have the case

on for the keyboard to work no so it's a bluetooth keyboard um and they say that with the back lighting on it'll last about 10 hours and with the back lighting off so it's a backlit bluetooth keyboard um with the back lighting off they say it'll last like a thousand hours or something it's 600 that's okay it's a long time right so it might as well be a thousand if it's 600 right yeah just leave the backlight off and uh you could just use it forever um so the because it's bluetooth people i've talked to some people are like oh i'm i'm really disappointed it doesn't use the smart connector it's like okay uh advantage of the smart connector is that it is providing power so you don't have to charge it i heard somebody say i i can't like somebody said i don't want to use a bluetooth keyboard because

it's bluetooth is uh bluetooth keyboards are unreliable and i i meant to respond i don't think i ever responded that person but like i don't know where you are or what you're doing but i've never found bluetooth keyboards to be unreliable. I type really fast. That sounds to me like somebody who plays games. Maybe so. Well, if you're playing keyboard-based games on your iPad Pro, I guess use a smart connector keyboard, but come on.

No, it's not. That sounds to me like somebody who has Bluetooth prejudice because they play first-person shooters. It's possible. I'm not sure if they're really that unreliable for games, but it's just one of those things that is why when you go to the Razer website, everything has cords. See, that makes sense.

Well, my bigger point is I don't think there's a major because i've heard people say oh well you know one of the disadvantages of using this keyboard versus that keyboard is that this is smart connector and that's bluetooth and smart connector is better it's like okay why why smart connector better and in my opinion smart connector is better because you never have to charge it smart connector because bluetooth works fine and if you've got a Bluetooth keyboard that can last tens or hundreds of hours, maybe it really doesn't matter. The other advantage, I suppose, is that if you're using a smart connector, you actually have to have a physical connection with the iPad. And you don't have to do that with Bluetooth. And so this Razer

case, even though, so it's got a back plate that you kind of clip on the iPhone or the iPad, and it's like a little case on the iPad. And it's got a kickstand, a metal kickstand, which seems fairly sturdy and rugged. And then the keyboard comes out, but you can just pull the keyboard off and it just comes off so one of the things i like about the way that this keyboard works is that you can uh you can put the ipad up and you can put the keyboard down further which is ergonomically better you could like type with the keyboard in your lap and the uh and the ipad up on a table or a desk and it works just fine what i don't like about it is that it doesn't work as a laptop. And I think

that for for depending on how you work, if you find yourself always working at a table or a desk, this is not relevant. If you find yourself working where you're seated somewhere and the devices in your lap, there's a class of these products that it's just it's not going to work because it doesn't work like that and this is that this is that it needs its kickstand on a surface in order to hold the screen up the screen won't stay up the ipad won't stay up on its own and that's the the logitech does that i think zag makes one that does that but this one won't do that and and and for me that honestly is like the biggest deal breaker about all of this um although there's also the weight because this is a uh very i would say uh

well made it feels pretty sturdy uh product but it is a 2.1 pound product so i struggled to put that into context when you said 2.1 pounds. It's like, I don't know, you know, I don't really know what that is, right? My 9.7 inch iPad could weigh 2.1 pounds. Like, I don't really think of the weight like that. But then you did put it into context so beautifully when you

said the whole thing, so the iPad and the case will then come in at 3.7 pounds. In other words, it's heavier than the 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro. I know the weight of a MacBook Pro and I don't want my iPad feeling that heavy because my 12.9 inch iPad with the smart keyboard is too heavy for me. It's heavier than I would like it to be, right? I want it to be lighter than that so the idea of it now being heavier than my macbook is breaking part of the reason why i like my ipad in the first place i agree with you and i

think that i think that for me uh i mean i feel that way about the logitech create too yeah and the logitech creates 1.6 pounds so it's lighter than this although that's that it's the weight of the ipad pro so the logitech Create just doubles the weight of the iPad Pro. This more than doubles it. And my feeling is like, okay, you've turned this into a laptop. Now, I wrote a piece in Macworld about this. It's like the iPad is not a laptop. The iPad, and I like typing on an iPad, but it's not a laptop.

And the more you make it like a laptop I think the worse it is at that point you should just get a laptop if that's really what you want as you said, one of the reasons that this is even worse than a laptop is you can't actually put it on your lap because the kickstand isn't really comfortable for that, like the smart

keyboard, it's not perfect but it works yeah, exactly it's, I don't think the smart keyboard is particularly stable in your lap either no but it can do the job i've done it yeah i do it every day fake it the logitech create so the logitech create is very good at that but again it's doubling the weight and it's hard to get that thing in and out of the case at least this one and i believe the zag case is like this too and i haven't used the zag case yet so i can't say but i believe because that one's a bluetooth

case it comes off so at least you can take these and pull the keyboard away and pick up the ipad and use it like an ipad in a heavy case but but like an ipad and hold in your hand and ditch the keyboard for a little while um the the logitech, it snapped in there and you got to like unsnap it and pull it out to get it out of the laptop configuration. And, you know, Serenity Caldwell swears by that thing because she uses it all the time for writing. And I get it. Again, if that is your priority, it can work for you.

But for me, yeah, one of the joys of using an iPad all the time is that I can just pick it up and I've got an iPad. And then I can plop it down somewhere in like a stand with a Bluetooth keyboard and then I can type a little bit. But then I can pick it up and just walk away with it. And a lot of these cases make them more encumbered and make that more painful to get to that point. And at some point it crosses over. And I think this is not what I want in my iPad experience, because as you said, then, then, you know, then it's a laptop and it's not a good laptop. I mean, that's the, the iPad is a great device in so many different ways, but it's not a laptop. It doesn't have a pointer.

There's no trackpad or anything like that. What makes it good is that it's light and that you can carry it around without a keyboard and then add a keyboard if you want. And if you make it too complicated to add that keyboard and keep it on there, then you're losing the other part of being an iPad. I'm not going to get one of these i mean i was i was mildly interested um but you know in the same way that you say that ran swears by the logitech create i swear by the smart keyboard i love that thing yeah because i have a keyboard on my ipad all the time and it's easy and it also is the case i expressed a lot of skepticism about the about the smart keyboard and i like that i

like the 9.7 more than the 12.9 um because it is so much lighter yeah the 12.91 is an incredible amount of material yeah but uh after um after a while of living with all of these uh it is funny that that i'm back to saying that the that the smart keyboard is is a pretty good option for a lot of people i think i feel like if you want to have your keyboard with you all the time at this point the smart keyboard is probably the best option and uh as for me what i prefer to do is bring a bring a bluetooth keyboard and uh and a stand and uh that that's uh it doesn't work for everybody depends on where you're going and what you're doing um i for a while i was just using my old origami uh workstation stand that i got from my original ipad still works

gotta say still works uh just fine but uh but the smart keyboard, yeah, it's looking better all the time now because I've seen some of these other options and I'm not sure. I see why you pay the price you pay for the thinness and the lightness, even though it is a little bit bulky, because when you get a lot thicker and a lot heavier, it's worse. And I don't like how those keys feel but oh i didn't even mention the other thing about the razor is that it uses a different key layout it's not the standard kind of key layout that people expect from uh from like a macbook uh macbook pro macbook

air uh the arrow keys are in a different configuration um the up arrow keys actually between the shift and the slash how weird is that the command key is not wide it's a it's a standard key width there's a lot of things like that and and the problem there is just you gotta get used to key layouts and if you if this is not the only keyboard you're using especially if you're using a lot of apple products this one's always going to be weird because you're using the other products you'd get used to it if it's the only keyboard you ever use but is that how many people is that um and honestly that was the thing that made me decide i didn't want to use this keyboard anymore more than anything else it was that which is okay it's a nice keyboard and all

but this layout is just terrible to you by Igloo. Work is no longer a location. Teams can be together half a world away, right? So me and Jason, for example, we work across from each other on the other side of the earth. There are so many people doing this these days. And Igloo is a modern intranet designed to keep everyone on the same page no matter where they are located. You can share files, have conversations in real time, and do it all while still being able to use the apps that you currently use. Apps like Box, Google Drive, and Skype.

Igloo brings everything together and creates a single destination that lets you focus on your work. Put simply, Igloo is an internet you'll actually like try it out today at igloo software.com slash upgrade thank you so much to igloo for their support of this show and relay fm jason snell it is yes or has been comic-con which is as we discussed last week is why you are now in the greater la area because comic-con has has been gone yes i'm i'm headed to san diego now that the uh now that it's over yay so i think that we actually always do that this on this show i think it's probably the third time we've done this is to actually talk about some of the stuff that happened at comic-con just very briefly okay um i just wanted to get your opinion

on three trailers and one piece of news okay so the first up is the wonder woman trailer so i'll put links to these in the show notes if you haven't seen the trailers there's youtube links there i recommend that you go uh watch these if you're interested uh so i wanted to get your feeling about this Wonder Woman trailer. So Wonder Woman will be the first superhero movie with a female title lead, right? Yeah, I think so. Beat Marvel to the punch.

I haven't seen Batman v Superman, so I haven't really gotten a feel for Wonder Woman until now. This is not the movie I was expecting Wonder Woman to be. It kind of looks like Captain America, right? Because it's set in maybe the 40s or the 50s, maybe the 30s. I can't really work out when it's meant to be exactly. I don't know. It looks like it might be World War I.

Yeah. Do you know what? I think you might be right there, actually. It is set during a war in the past i'm uh we're getting confirmation in the chat room that it was world war one yeah this looks very much to me like it could be dc's captain america well yeah i i think um and it harkens back to those of us who grew up when the wonder woman tv show was on.

That was set in the past. I don't really have a lot of knowledge of Wonder Woman. I've never really been too far into DC other than Batman. So Wonder Woman has always been on the periphery for me. I've been more focused on the Marvel stuff in my life. But it's interesting to hear that. I guess they were using Wonder woman in the same way that marvel used captain america right as a way to kind of draw up some slightly american propaganda

during wartime stuff i guess yeah i think that's not wonder woman's legacy actually is fascinating and and not honestly entirely for a family show. But I actually watched a play about the guy who created Wonder Woman. Interesting guy. Oh, interesting. Inventor of the lie detector. I am blown away by all of this information you're throwing at me right now. Yeah.

So when she has the magic lasso that makes people tell the truth, it was written by the guy who invented the lie detector. I think the trailer looked good. I do agree it's got a Captain America vibe. I think that's a good thing. I really like the Captain America movie. So the idea is that since she's from a mythical land, you know, she's basically an immortal.

And so we first meet her here. She's, you know, it's a long time ago. And there's a story set long ago. And I think that's interesting. We've already met her in the Batman Superman movie, and she's going to be in Justice League, but we've got her here sort of like telling her story without those other characters in the way. What is the actress's name? Gal Gadot?ot that's it yeah she's most of the reviews of batman versus superman which i haven't seen either say that she's really good in it that she's like they wanted everybody wanted more more wonder woman in it yeah i mean the trailer like she seemed real convincing like in in everything that she was doing uh i had no idea chris pine was going to be in this movie that is weird to me yeah he's steve

trevor who he's the uh yeah again a character who was also in the tv show yeah but honestly like i watched this and i was like i watched that movie like i'm interested in this movie more interested than i am to see batman versus superman i think she seems like a good strong lead um she looks like wonder woman to me i guess oh yeah i think they did a good job they've been trying to make a wonder woman movie for a long time right joss whedon wrote a screenplay they've been trying for a long time it's good to see because she's one of the um one of the things that dc really does have over marvel is that is that uh dc's got a woman superhero in their trinity you know in the in the the top tier of dc heroes are um are superman batman and wonder woman those are the those are

the three dc superheroes at the top and they have tried and it's just never happened and now it's gonna happen and it looks good the the the The art direction looks good. Yeah, it looks good to me. I think, good job. A couple years ago, DC's movie lineup at Comic-Con made everybody roll their eyes and be like, really? Are you doing this? This seems like you're just desperately trying to catch up with Marvel. with marvel and after batman versus superman didn't do that well they they definitely have made a bunch of uh changes and who's in charge and who's got a say and all of that and i think you're seeing it here with this that they're they're uh they're doing it on the fly but uh everybody seems much more optimistic about what they've got coming down the pipe than they did a year or two ago on that comment then justice league so wonder woman will be joining uh ben affleck batman uh superman who is played by henry cavill yep along with the flash uh aquaman and another character cyborg okay i never have heard or seen that character i don't think um an aquaman is jason

momoa who you may know as Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones. And he, yeah, he, that was, they had, so they had a clip. They had like some sample clips from, it wasn't quite a trailer, but it was like a montage for Comic-Con. It looked like a trailer to me. I don't know.

Yeah, it was kind of. Trailer-y. It was trailer-ish, yeah. Trailer-esque. So, mentioning what you just said about the changes, this is a Zack Snydernyder movie uh yeah well is it it is he's directing it the rumors are that zack snyder's creative control over this franchise is slipping away right and that because of batman versus superman and that while he's directing it apparently uh he's now an employee more than he was before as a creative

leader and that famously the rumor is that ben affleck has assumed more creative control over the franchise and uh because he was mad at how batman versus superman did and what was in it and uh this is so so my understanding is that justice league has gone on some through some creative changes and that they're really trying to get across here that that it's not going to be as dark and grim as batman versus superman didn't look like it it had lots of comedy in what we saw and i guess they chose those scenes specifically to prove that it's a lighter tone right yeah i mean they they also invited like a bunch of journalists to go see stuff being shot.

And they're really trying to get across the point that they're making some changes. But, like, the scene with Batman in the Flash was pretty funny. I thought that was an especially amusing bit. Although, I loved all the Aquaman stuff, too. Aquaman, who famously is just the butt of jokes as this blonde-haired dude in an orange jumpsuit who lives in the ocean and talks to fish. And the Jason Momoa Aquaman stuff was really cool, actually. It is. Badass.

Right, like, I'm scared of that guy. You know, big tattooed guy with the long hair. Like, a Thor-looking character to me. Yeah, sure. Like a big mythical being. me you know sure like a big mythical being um i've got to say this this trailer collection of scenes tickled my fancy i like the look of it um interestingly superman i don't i don't recall any superman part in this trailer at all well i uh i believe that you and I, and again, we're on the verge of spoiling things, but there are reasons plot-wise that Superman does not appear in this stuff. And I don't know what they are.

You don't know what they are. We haven't seen the movie, but okay. I know what they are, but it's fine. It's fine. But that's why. I think maybe after Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, I think maybe not mentioning Superman in the Justice League trailer is fine. But that's, that's why I think maybe after Man of Steel and Batman versus Superman, I think maybe not mentioning Superman in Justice League trailer is fine. Like, let's show off some of the other stuff we've got. And the Ben Affleck Batman is, is newer to us. And, and I, I like that take on Batman too. I, I am intrigued by the idea of this, you know, it's a little bit different movie, Batman, where he's like been doing the job for a while.

Grizzled Batman. Yeah, I like that. Looks like, does look like DC are getting their act together with this one. Uh-huh. I think it still might be a little bit too late for them, but we'll see what happens. Oh, I mean, it's never too late. And Marvel's going to have challenges, too, even though it seems like they're rolling now. There's always opportunity.

The value in these iconic characters that they own. Their first, like I said, their first swipe at this two or three years ago when they announced it on the heels of Man of Steel. And I'm on the record as being a not a fan of man of steel i think i i really dislike the last half of that movie um and so when they made all these announcements and like we're doubling down on zach snyder and we're gonna do all this and i thought oh no this is oh no this is gonna get badly and i have to say i i got that one right um and because you know i could have been totally wrong and everybody could have embraced that thing.

But I looked at the last half of man of steel and thought, this is a mistake. And, um, my reaction to that seems to have been lots of people's reaction to Batman versus Superman. And they, uh,

they changed it up and they, they have a much, a structure that's a little more like what Marvel has been doing. Um, and it will probably serve them well. And they, they've got these characters that are so uh so iconic that uh yeah i think i think so i will we'll see how the appetite in general for superhero movies in the movie going population goes over time people may get sick of

it for a but they haven't yet so maybe they won't moving on to marvel um there were lots of little pieces of news and little bits shown uh like guardians of the galaxy volume 2 which is the best title for that movie there are little bits and bobs but a couple of things i wanted to pick out uh we have the second trailer for dr strange which shows a lot more of the movie uh benedict cumberbatch still blows my mind that he's going to be in a marvel movie assuming the role of dr strange this looked very inception-esque when the special effects which i think is great i think that's a really interesting way to show this character who has the ability to kind of manipulate time space and dimensions i think that that works really well for that um i don't know why they made him speak like an american i think that might

be a mistake it's weird it's not a good accent actually let me reframe that for a phrase it might be a good accent it might be fine the problem is it's coming out of benedict kamabash's face i know i know it's like he may have the most convincing American accent of all time, but if you've ever seen him in anything it's not going to be right It's like the Hugh Laurie House problem Right? If American people hear Hugh Laurie

they think that everything has exploded because his voice is not coming out correctly Right, because all of America knows him as an American Yep, when he's not There was lots of stories that I always enjoy when we did interviews coming out correctly right because uh all of america knows him as uh as an american yep when he's not when he's not there was lots of stories i always enjoy when he did interviews he'd go into chat shows and people had no idea like they were like what on earth is he doing that they thought he was put on a fake accent but yeah i've got to say uh this looks interesting it looks um

it looks maybe a little bit more focused towards adults uh it looks quite complex of a movie which would maybe make sense why they bring benedict in and the whole magic and stuff like that i mean it is this is marvel having had so much box office success that they are willing to experiment and try some things in movies they're going deep into the catalog now yeah and try things that are outside like magic is not a thing that they've done like magic superhero movies before but that's what dr strange is a magic guy he's not a he's not a flying around and with a cape well he has a cape i guess but he doesn't fly like super guy right he instead he he uses his hands and goes boo and yeah there's shaman magic spells and things yes exactly

he's a sorcerer supreme because you look at Marvel, right? They've done everything on planet Earth. Then they went to space, and that was an incredible success. Right? Then they took a bet on an unknown character in Ant-Man, and it was an incredible success. So they're like, well, we can just turn anything to gold. What else have we got?

Doctor Strange? Bring him out. And I know that Doctor Strange is a big character. To comic people, yeah. But I don't think that he's as well known outside of that i mean you could argue iron man was a similar situation when the absolutely the original came out um nobody knew who iron man was no um but now they're doing it with dr strange and and i think what they learned from ant-man is why don't we just get a hollywood star and put him in the role or her in the role and that automatically draws

attention to the the property and i think they definitely did that with paul rudd and ant-man i don't know if it would have worked if they would have maybe got somebody who was less known to play that character um so i think that they are definitely learning everything and anything they need to do to make any of their movies a massive success i will uh say this about marvel is that since this is a whether you like these movies or not they have changed a lot of the rules in how hollywood works because they've made so much money and money talks and one of the things i like about marvel's approach is that they do for a disciplined you know cash machine they um they take they take chances and i don't look i have not yet looked at a marvel movie and said that's just lazy and it's a it's the whole cash grab right

yeah i don't think they've i don't think they've done that yet they clearly have rules internally right that they must be following with this stuff so they're not just churning things out they must have some kind of quality guidance and i oh And I wouldn't be surprised if that comes from Marvel, the Marvel part of Marvel Studios. Well, it's Kevin Feige or whatever is the guy who's in charge of Marvel Studios. And he reports, I believe, to the head of Disney film. In fact, he doesn't report to the guy who runs Marvel proper anymore. Oh, yeah.

I forget how that all mixed up. Because he's been so wildly successful um but but they have yeah they have some discipline it's not to say that every marvel movie is going to be good um that that's probably you know like with pixar it's like no that's not true but i think they have a process that really works and that i like that they that they do um not have every movie seem like it's like every other movie in fact you could argue that that what they're what they're really trying to do here is build out a bunch of characters that aren't the avengers because the avengers are a lot more samey than uh and i think it doesn't serve them well it's like oh it's another iron man captain america avengers movie um those can

start to feel a little bit like haven't we just seen them all before? So, introducing these other characters and going to other places, doing magic, doing sci-fi, I think it's just been very smart for them to do that. And they've made so much money that they've got more latitude to do that. So, we mentioned Wonder Woman. Marvel is finally working on a female-led movie, right? Captain Marvel, which is another one. Captain Marvel, not very well known. No.

And they have got Brie Larson, they announced, is going to be playing Captain Marvel. Any thoughts on this? um any thoughts on this uh well let's let's just say she's uh anytime that you can get a an oscar-winning actress or oscar winner in general i forget that yes to to lead your movie your your superhero movie that's how it's changed right i think you're doing okay i think that's how it's changed she was in room she won the oscar um i think yeah i think you're doing okay. She was in Room. She won the Oscar. I think, yeah, I think you're doing okay. This is an example, too, of a character who has been around at Marvel for a long time, Carol Danvers. And then there was a previous Captain Marvel who was a man because most of the superheroes back then were men. And she was Ms. Marvel.

And then that character of Captain Marvel died. And it's one of the rare comic book deaths that has stuck. But there are also like intellectual property issues. And Captain Marvel is a name that Marvel owns. And there was a whole lawsuit with DC and predecessors of DC. And it's a whole sordid story. But basically, this is one where they picked up the Captain Marvel stuff. And they handed it to Carol Danvers.

And that was quite a few years ago now. And that has gone really well. And there have been some really great runs of Captain Marvel in the comics. And it became, suddenly, it became like almost a natural that she would be the... And I wonder what the movie is going to be about but like the story there is that she was like a pilot and some iterations she's been a spy and then she she gets these powers uh it could be an interesting she so sometimes she's a cosmic sort of superhero almost in the guardians in the galaxy of the galaxy kind of vein um and sometimes she's more

earthbound uh so it'll be interesting to see what they do with it. But it's a fun character. And so it's good to see that they got an award-winning actress to play it. That's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, this is great news. And I'm looking forward to that one as well, just because it's something different. Man, like Marvel movies, it's almost like its own film industry now. Oh, it is. I mean, this is the... Well, look at what's happening with Star Wars now. Star Wars, where there's a movie every year.

This is the new model. Star Wars is a new movie every year. Pixar, there's a new movie every year. Marvel, there's like two new movies every year. This is the model. I mean, they're trying to do that with DC. They're trying to do that with Harry with dc they're trying to do that with harry potter where they're they're doing this new cycle of harry potter movies the

the uh what is it fantastic creatures and where to find them or whatever that is um this is the franchising it really is like turning um turning the movies into a series of installment like tv shows almost um and it's all because you know essentially because the avengers made a billion dollars everybody was like oh um let's do that do we have any of those superheroes lying around anybody got anything let's get them bring them out here franchise them because star wars is the same way right where it's not just that they're making new star wars movies it's they're making a new star wars movie every year for the foreseeable future and this is star wars cinema universe exactly exactly and in their case

they've got this anthology thing where they're going like with rogue one they're going back in time whereas marvel everything is sort of happening uh simultaneously other than like the the first captain america movie but um it's sort of fascinating to see it's not i andy and ike and i talked about this a little bit um on an incomparable a while ago it's not really a movie anymore right like the avengers it's not really a movie it's an installment in a series in a shared universe and if you're somebody who wants uh some of these things are not going to feel remotely like standalone movies. Ant-Man did, and Guardians of the Galaxy did. But something like Captain America Civil War, what is that?

It's not a movie as we think of it. It's something different because it's an installment that requires knowledge. It's much more like an episode of a TV show. And if you haven't watched the other episodes, it won't be as impressive to you. But that's uh you know it's it's working right i mean at least financially it has been very successful audiences have responded to this and so uh we'll see where it takes us but i i think the the concern from people in the movie industry is that the uh everything else is swamped by these franchises. Nothing else is what's left.

What other movies are being made if everything is in a franchise? So that's our Comic-Con thoughts for this year. So we should do some Ask Upgrade to round out the episode. Let's do it. Kim asked, Any general thoughts on purchasing refurbished Apple products? If I do decide to go ahead, should I get AppleCare? I bought refurb Apple stuff before.

Okay, I've never done it, so why did you do it? It's cheaper. I mean, I know that's the main reason that people would do it. I just wondered if there was any other kind of reasoning to it. But yeah, it's cheaper. I mean, you get the full warranty. How cheaper is it oh it's not i mean it's not as much as as like buying somebody's used thing but generally what it is is it's parts that have come things that have been returned and they will put them back together uh and uh

and send them back out or something somebody returned or something that you know the the screen was defective but the rest of it is fine. And they replace the whole unit, and then they go and they put a new screen on it. And it's stuff like that that comes with a full warranty. I haven't had any problems. I've only bought a few, but I haven't had any problems. It's a way to get a little bit of a break on something that's still got Apple's full warranty. And then I think at that point point your apple care decision is your usual

apple care decision which is do you want it what you know weigh the weigh the issues there you're going to i would say if if if the act of buying refurbished is the thing that pushes you over the edge to getting apple care you probably just missed the point of the buying the refurbish which is that it's cheaper so if you're making it more expensive on top of that you should just get a new one but um if you're if you're somebody who always buys apple care then that's fine or never buys apple care then it's fine but apple is standing by those systems it's uh they're just coming from uh coming from a different place so they can't sell them as you know brand new because it was something that was in somebody's hands at some point and then brought back to Apple. So I don't know the answer to this question,

but I thought it might be just interesting to discuss. Oz is referencing CallKit in iOS 10, which is the ability for voiceover internet applications like Skype and GoToMeeting to kind of appear as phone apps. They get the full screen calling notification stuff. They look basically like a dialer. You can choose to call someone by default via one of those applications rather than FaceTime or by phone call. And Oz was wondering if the VoIP applications

could use the favorites list to bypass Do Not Disturb in the same way that you could do that with the phone. Jason, do you have any idea if this is a possibility i i i have no idea it's an interesting idea like uh it would be a really good stir but you can you can say whether it's in my favorites list or whatever like that but i don't know if they can if they can tie into that or not if it's attached to the address book and all of that. It would be a nice feature. I would say to Oz that might be worth using feedback assistant or filing a radar, if you can do that, to suggest that. Yeah, I have no idea, but I thought it was a thing that's worthwhile bringing up. Because I could see it being as easily missed as added if that makes sense right but it's

something that i think should be there if we're going to start treating voice over internet applications so much like their the phone it should get features like that like do not disturb integration um zach wanted to know he asked i'm starting a podcast with a friend of mine. Is there anything that you wish you knew when you were starting out that you know now? So let me give some advice to my younger self and there in turn to you, Zach. Technology failures

are inevitable. Your hardware will fail. Your software will fail. Things will go wrong. You cannot prepare for all of them. You will learn from them. They will cause you to break out profusely in sweat as you try and fix the issue after the fact. Just understand that they're going to happen. It doesn't mean that you don't know what you're doing because you actually kind of don't know what you're doing, but it doesn't

mean that you are not smart enough to be able to deal with it. It just happens. And it's happened to me many times. I'm sure it's happened to Jason many times. Podcasting can be tricky in some instances. Just learn from them. They're learning experiences. As you're just starting out, you'll learn some stuff that you can take later. It also takes time to lock a format in to really kind of know the flow of you and your co-hosts. But just give that some time to grow and you'll be happy that you kind of do it and you learn and you move forward. It does take some time to learn

how to use all of the software that you're going to need. GarageBand is easier, but it's still tricky in places. Logic Pro X is a nightmare of user interface. All of this stuff takes time, but don't worry about putting the time in. Putting the time in will be good for you. And once you start one podcast, you will inevitably want to do more. Just look at me and Jason. Let that be a cautionary tale.

Yes, they are my kind of tips, I i guess to somebody looking to start a podcast i encourage people to do it i think it's a lot of fun yeah yeah and you it's it's all learning um the hardware and the software both to it's just uh but get started i mean i mean i think that's i think that's it is that you you do have to go through it and uh and try it out and my only piece of advice would probably be to just do it and don't worry about what hardware you've gotten, what software you've got and start, start making things and,

you'll figure it out, but don't, don't not do it because you feel like you're not ready or you can't do it, uh, at a level like of quality that you want or that you're not just, you're not sure what it's going to be, what the finished product is going to be like. Don't let any of that stuff get in your way just start and then you'll figure it out and chris wanted to

know if either of us still listen to beats one i don't i don't listen to it at all i remembered you're so excited beats one was very exciting to me and i liked a lot of it um but then i remembered why i don't listen to the radio which is it's not always the music i want to listen to yeah it's not always the way what's so good about these music streaming services is they can and do learn your tastes and they will give you playlists of music to listen to that are kind of your taste, so be in your style a lot of the time. Apple Music does a decent enough job of this for me that I like it. And I know people love Spotify, Discover, weekly, monthly, hourly, but I don't use Spotify. I use Apple Music. And nine times out of ten, when I go to the For You section, there is a playlist that I can pick

to listen to. It typically is songs that I know and maybe some other stuff as well, but I do like that. So it does a good enough job for me. That's what my radio is in 2016. Zane Lowe, I love you, but I'm afraid I do not listen to Beats 1 anymore because they just play stuff that I'm not interested in listening to.

And then I'm wondering why I'm listening to it. Always the way with me and radio. Always on worldwide. Same thing. They play songs I don't want to hear. And you can't fast forward. So I don't listen to it. I discovered in the first week of Apple Music the A-list playlists,

which is in genre curated 50 songs in every genre they agree it's up and it's updated and i love that and so like for me it's the alternative a-list i listen to that playlist i've discovered so many new bands and bands i'd never heard of and songs that i love and i've created my own little selections from the A-list playlist that anything that I really love that I discover there, I drag it over. And so then I keep those. So I've got this kind of, I mean, you know, 50. So they come in and they go off over time. But the ones that I really love, I now have also built up this other playlist with those songs on it. i've discovered albums uh from those artists and followed them through like there was a song

on the uh 19 by the 1975 uh called someone else i think that i really liked that felt very tears for fearsy maybe with a little bit of uh at one point it sounds almost rick astley like but it's so 80s so steeped in the 80s and i really liked it and i said oh let me check out this band and uh the 1975 uh every other song they make basically doesn't sound like that but i actually really like a lot of their songs so that was a that was a great example of a fun discovery i was able to follow and because it's music streaming service i I was able to go and and just immediately listen to other stuff by that, by that artist. And I've done that a bunch of times with with the alternative a list.

So that's, that's my radio because I can put, I can put the a list on shuffle. And if there's a song I like, I'll, I'll heart it or I'll add it to a playlist. And if there's a song I don't like, I just go next and it takes me to the next song and nobody talks i don't want to hear them talk i

don't want to hear the news i don't want to hear music news i don't want to hear where some band is playing just play the music so yeah um i've discovered one of my my favorite albums of the year via that way as well, which was Leon Bridges. I don't think I ever would have picked that out, but it's an incredible album. I think it's called Coming Home. It's superb. And I thoroughly recommend it,

and I would never have found it unless it was suggested to me in that way. So it does work, that music discovery stuff. Maybe a little bit better than the radio. Sorry, radio. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Upgrade. You can find our show notes today at relay.fm slash upgrade slash 99. And if

you want to find Jason online, he is at jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L. He's at sixcolors.com. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thanks again to Igloo and Backblaze for supporting this week's episode. Thank you for listening. As always, next week we'll be back with episode 100 and we'll be discussing

along with some other things, I assume, Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Live long and prosper.