159: The Magnetic Pull of September
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Last year we created the term stacked September and it was summing up kind of what that time of the year was like for me last year and I've been thinking about it so much over this last month. Oh wow wow I feel like through words we created a thing we made it true this is the stackedest September yet.

Well, last year was worse. I feel confident in that. And I think this year's September for me so far has been easier because it was so surprising last time. So like last year, it was a similar thing to this year because like September is always a time where a bunch of stuff's going on. So we're raising money for St. Jude and we're doing the podcast. I thought I'm not going to talk about it in a bit.

Apple events. We are again putting ourselves in the situation where we're stocking up heavily on Cortex brand products for the holiday season. Like we didn't learn a lesson. And I'm also away for an even longer portion of the month. Like I actually re-listened this morning to the start of that conversation. And I was like, oh, I'm away for a third of the month. Well, this time I'm away for half of the month.

which is different. But I think being aware of it and being aware of how busy September has become and continues to get more busy, I think has helped me kind of keep my head in the game a little bit this time around. Sometimes there is just being aware and confronting an issue continuously.

can help you prepare for it mentally in the future. And I think that that has been the case. I would say there has been a functional change this year, which is that I have less of my time has been given to the fundraising campaign from an administrative perspective, because me and Steven did a, like a divide and conquer thing with the live show.

July was definitely worse than September, I think, in kind of like my emotional state during that period of time. I think it's been much better for me this September than July was. I've had some wobbles as I've been playing sailing, but I think I'm in a better spot. And I do also attribute Year of People to that a little bit, like having people around to help do things or like even to help me do more with less work.

has also been very helpful. But yeah, I just wanted to... As I was thinking about today's show, I was like, oh, it is actually strikingly similar to this time last year. But I do feel better about it, which is good. I'm really glad to hear that you're feeling better about it. I had such a strong reaction because I was thinking...

It's Stacked September between the two of us. It's definitely way more. I was thinking across both of us, but you were prepared because Stacked September was all about like what was going on last year, like primarily with your stuff. But that's what I meant by I feel like, oh no, we've given a thing a name. It's like

come into existence. And I did not even realize, like all year long, I've been like preparing for September because for me too, it's like, oh boy, busy time, unexpectedly busy in a bunch of ways. I did not even realize. It's like, oh, why does it feel like something September this way comes? Because it's stacked September. That's why. This is going to be a thing forever now. I feel like I've kind of resigned to that. It is a function that

of the more things that get added into the month, it becomes like a magnetic effect that draws more things towards it. It's just a function of this time of year because if you're in the tech orbit, it's the busiest time of the year. And why is that? Oh, because Christmas. That's why phones come out now anyway. And now that we are in the product world, it's what we need to do too, right? Like if we want to have things...

on sale for the end of the year, we need to start committing in September at the latest. Yeah, that's totally the case. And it's like, oh yeah, like the YouTube business has some mild cyclicality too, which is around September. But it's like, it's so slight relative to the tech world. And that's why, yes, I too feel like I'm getting really pulled into the orbit of Stack September. Yeah.

And I'm very aware when, like, just been talking to people, everyone's always surprised about like, oh, to get ready for Christmas, you really need to like know what you're doing by summertime. And then that's also why in my head, it's the same thing of like, ah, all final decisions like by September, like they really need to be made. Otherwise, it's going to be

too late. You know what? I just had this like flash all of a sudden as I've just realized once again, it's like everything old is new again. My whole life because of being in school and then working as a teacher, it always feels like September is the real turnover, right? Summer is when time ends. Summer is when I'm always thinking of like,

wrapping up my themes and it's like the new thing it's like but here we go again it's like september really feels like uh i can never get away from it actually being like the most important month of the year no matter what i'm doing oh yeah i'm like locked in for next year's theme i know the name i'm ready to roll oh interesting but now it is also this funny thing with our incredible content calendar that we have now it also really like september becomes weird too because it's like

we have stately apps and yearly themes. Like, you know, it's like there is this weird thing that is just happening at this time of the year for us more and more where like the fourth quarter is just like set in stone. Yeah. It's like, this is the last flexibility of the year really. So,

It's weird. Very weird. Yeah, but also, Mike, I can feel myself doing the very thing that you're just mentioning, which is like, I know that we can't, but I still, I have always wanted to move up the theme episode to around this time. It's like, hey, Mike, can we do the theme episode in September too? Right? I think that would be a great idea. Both of us are feeling the same kind of thoughts around our theme in September. Perfect time. We could just put something else in September. What could possibly go wrong?

So speaking about September, September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And that is why for the last five years, we have been coming together as a community at Relay to support the work, the life-saving work of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. When we opened this year's campaign, within the first couple of days, we hit a new incredible goal that we have in these five years raised over $3 million together since 2019. Oh my God.

Just being absolutely incredible. Every year, these numbers, Mike, unbelievable. We have absolutely smashed through it again because of the generosity of the community. I'm not sure if I had told you about this, actually. So maybe you'll find out about this as we tell our listeners. Now that we've passed $3 million...

St. Jude is going to be recognizing Relay on a wall inside of the hospital that highlights corporations and organizations of exceptional fundraising efforts. I didn't know that. That is really amazing. You've seen these kinds of things before. It's like a wall of thanks, essentially. And it is for various companies and organizations. And Relay is going to be a pretty incredible company. And so there's going to be an unveiling of that. I think it's

late this year or early next year and so we'll be sharing pictures of that when it happens but because of the continued support of our community I am very confident that Relay's name will remain on the halls in St. Jude for years to come. I also realized there's something else that I didn't mention that I wanted to tell the Cortexans about because it's very important to me so we did our live show in July to celebrate Relay's 10th. We spoke about that a little bit in the last Mortex episode in the Mortex segment and

But St. Jude came to that and they awarded Stephen and I and Relay with the St. Jude Creator Achievement Award for the work that we have done. So they've been very nice to us this year. We're the second people to get it. So there's one other content creator that's received that award. And so that was very special.

I mean, look, all these awards, incredible, but ultimately the result of like what everyone has like done for this. And it's like, it's a result of like what the audience has done. And it's really just like, you know, you're receiving an award, but it's like on behalf of thousands and thousands of people who have helped do this. That is exactly it. Nothing makes me feel more like...

our listeners are a community than the work that we do for St. Jude. And like that has a thing that has progressed and progressed over time. Like we raise for the last few years, the best part of three quarters of a million dollars every year, right? Like $3 million raised in five years. Those kinds of numbers are incredible considering we do not get corporate donation. Like our donations are individuals who give money.

That is what I'm so proud of in our campaigns, that we're able to raise all this money because of the generosity of our listeners who join us. Now, there are a few reasons why we work with St. Jude. One of them is my co-founder, one of my best friends, Stephen Hackett, his son Josiah's life was saved by St. Jude. He was born when he was very young. He had a brain tumor.

Stephen was lucky enough to be living in Memphis, so he was aware of St. Jude and the hospitals there were aware of St. Jude, and so they referred them. Josiah is a teenager now. His life was saved by St. Jude. Wow. Who knows what would have happened about them, but what we know is that the efforts that they do on a daily basis save the lives of people.

thousands of children. And it's not just in the US. So St. Jude is a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. There's one place and that is where they treat children from all over the world. But they're also a research institution and they share...

what they learn freely with everyone. And talking of freely, every child who is treated at St. Jude, their parents pay for nothing. They do not pay the medical bills. They do not pay for food. They do not pay for shelter. They pay for nothing. Because all St. Jude care about is when a child is under their care,

that their parents focus on nothing except the family, that everybody is just focused on the healing nature of being a family and not worrying about trying to find the money to pay for the childcare, to even pay for the lodging if they've come from somewhere else. So St. Jude is this one place in Memphis, but they have a global impact.

400,000 children every year are estimated to develop cancer, and nearly half of them are never diagnosed. In the US, more than 4 out of 5 children survive cancer, but in many countries around the world, this statistic is reversed, with fewer than 1 in 5 developing cancer surviving cancer.

The most significant predictor of whether a child will survive cancer is where they live, which is why in March of 2018, St. Jude became the first and only World Health Organization collaborating center for childhood cancer. The goal of this global initiative is to raise the survival rate of six common childhood cancers to 60% by 2030.

In 2021, St. Jude and the WHO launched the Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines. It aims to provide free chemotherapy medicines in the next few years to as many as 120,000 children around the world. So St. Jude is one hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Its reach is truly global. And we

we have a global audience and that's what I am so proud of and why I like to relay this message. You will listen from all over the world. If you go to stchu.org slash relay and donate, that is an incredible thing. You're helping this institution, but it gives back to the world again. Our community has consistently blown us away with the support that it gives and we're asking for you to do it again.

So please go to stgeo.org slash relay. There's so much information there. You can find how to donate. When you make a donation, check to see if you have a company matching program. There's a bunch of information. The system will help you through that. Because if you're a company, if you work for a company that does corporate donation matching, you can double the amount that you donate, which is incredible. And it costs you nothing. And your employer is helping with that too.

but you can also increase the amount of your donation by signing up to fundraise alongside with us. So all of the information is at stjude.org. You can sign up and then you can spread this mission as well with your friends, your family, your co-workers, and increase the amount of money that we can all collectively raise together.

There is incentives for people who fundraise. We have the best incentives we've ever had. Like the campaign art this year is unbelievable. And also similarly, if you make a donation on your own, we have some fun things that you can redeem, like stickers and screensavers or wallpapers and all this kind of fun stuff. In this year, which is RelayFM's 10th year and our fifth year working with St. Jude, I truly feel stronger than ever about us all being this community

of people who care about things, whatever they are. We care about similar things, which is why we all listen to these podcasts and like to make them and we share that together.

And I also hope that this can transfer into people believing in this cause that we believe in and give a dollar, $10, $100, whatever you can give, it doesn't matter. It all helps because when we rally for that cause, we become more than a community. We become beacons of hope. So that is why we are asking you once again to join us.

with the Relay for St. Jude campaign for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, because truly, together, we can help cure childhood cancer. So please go to stjude.org slash relay to donate and create your campaign today. And don't forget, we're going to be doing the podcast-a-thon for St. Jude on Friday, September 20th, from 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time, live from the campus at St. Jude.

at youtube.com slash at relay FM we're doing on YouTube this year for the first time which is in my opinion a better live streaming system but also you can I'll put a link in the show notes where you can go and you can set a reminder up so YouTube will let you know when we're going live we're going to be live for 12 hours it's going to be bigger and better and more bombastic than ever before

So I hope that you'll come and join us as we raise even more money for the kids of St. Jude. Behind the scenes, Mike has a very grueling travel schedule to get there to make it happen. So dedicated. And obviously every year I always love all the stuff that they're doing with research, but I didn't realize how they were expanding it with these global goals. Like it's just really unbelievable, like the continued scope of what they do. So yeah, stjude.org slash Relay.

Another part of Stack September is the Apple event. It's the Apple event, but I always think of it as Apple Christmas, right? Well... Well, but that's exactly it. What an interesting Apple Christmas this was. I feel like I have rarely had...

So many thoughts after an Apple Christmas as this one, because I feel like there's a very strange theme here that makes me wonder, what's going on over there, Apple? What's going on? Strange year. Strange year across all products. Why? Why?

Inquiring minds would like to know. Very strange Apple Christmas this year. What strikes you as strange? Is it Apple intelligence? Is that what makes it weird? Or is it more than that? No, it's not Apple intelligence at all. Okay. So, okay, let me maybe set the stage then. So it's like I was just watching the event. I actually watched it with my mom and it's kind of like as family tech support.

It's like upgrade year for my parents. And so I was kind of like thinking more about the whole product line than I normally would. Most of the time I'm just thinking about like, ooh, what does Tim Santa have for me, right? But this time it's like, ah, my whole family needs upgrades across the line. I was like keenly thinking about it. And it's one of the oddest years for thinking about upgrading for anything, right?

Because the way I would describe it is like the thing that Tim Santa did this year was he raised the low end products. All of them got raised up. But functionally, the high end didn't move at all or it didn't move relative to what the low end is.

And I just find this absolutely fascinating. It's like with the watch, the high end, the ultra, totally unchanged, didn't move. The sort of like regular Apple watch moved up to match it though.

The headphones, the same thing. The high-end headphones didn't move or didn't change, but the low-end headphones, the regular AirPods, moved up to match. And then in the phones, we do have this new camera button, but both phones have the exact same camera button, and the regular iPhone really moved up to be almost indistinguishable from the Pro,

For 99% of normal consumers. And I just find this very fascinating because thinking about it logistically and thinking about what companies do, I think often people like cynically assume that companies will always like put new features in the high end products to like,

cause more people to buy that product. That's not untrue. Like that's a motivation. But I think another reason that companies do it is because when they have more margin on the high-end products or they have more like physical space, like with the larger phone or the larger watch, it's a way for specifically tech companies to

try out or like do the first run of something that they eventually want to bring to the entire line. And it's like we've seen this for forever with Apple. Like that's basically the pattern every year. And this year, like I was really trying to think hard about it. And I cannot remember...

any other time where across the whole line, the top end didn't move or it moved in lockstep with the bottom end. I've been noodling over this for the past few days, just trying to think about like, what could be the reason? Why did this happen? And I don't have like...

a solid single theory. I have a bunch of vague ideas, but it's just really notable to me as different and unusual behavior from Apple. So that's kind of like my high-end thoughts with what was going on with Apple Christmas. But, like, do you agree with that assessment? Or, like, do you think I'm wrong here or thinking about it wrong? Like, what's your, like, high take on this one? I agree with the sentiment of what you're saying. Obviously, I am knee-deep in this stuff, right? So, like, I have knits to pick in it, which is that

This conversation is easier to have looking at the phones, and it stretches out a little bit, but the phones are the clearest. And I feel like a significant reason for a lot of the similarities between the 16 and the 16 Pro is Apple intelligence. Like that there are features that they have added to these phones that have kind of brought them closer together because...

If they believe in this, they need to get the most amount of devices available as possible that can support these features, which includes the camera control, which has its own story in the Apple intelligence part, right? Being able to use it to point your phone at something and say, what is this, right? Which if it works could be really interesting, but if you want to have that as being one of the key features of Apple intelligence, it needs to be on the iPhone 16 as well as on the iPhone 16 Pro, right? Yeah.

Although I'm not sure if I can really sense as to which one of those came first, the camera control or the idea to do that. But they have gotten really close. Like the 16 and the 16 Pro are very close to each other. And realistically, the differences between the regular one and the Pro one of the new stuff that they added is just some additional camera features, but really professional camera features in some scenarios like 4K 120 Dolby video, like

Which I don't need that, right? But a camera professional might like it, right? Yeah, I found it really interesting going line by line. Because I was really thinking, did I get the wrong impression? Because I do feel like Apple was really trying to sell differences between...

There's a little trick that I love that they do. I sort of notice every time when they want two things to sound more different than they are. Like they just talk about the same feature, but in a different way in the two sections. And it's always like, I see what you're doing, Apple. You're trying to make this sound more different. But like you do that line by line of the 16 versus the 16 Pro.

And it is so clear that all of the features that are different, they are aimed exactly at professional photographers and professional videographers. It is crystal clear what they're doing there. So yeah, I just found that really interesting. It's like, yeah, yeah. That's the difference here is the real pro-level stuff. So yeah. I think the biggest difference is not a new one, which is the display. So...

The Pro is still the only phone that has the refresh rate, 120Hz refresh rate, so what they call ProMotion, and always on. The regular phone doesn't have either of those features still. The regular phone is still a 60Hz display, which is criminal at this point. I think that they're still shipping a 60Hz display in 2024 on a $800 phone. I think that is obscene. It should be 90 if they want to have a difference.

And then the actual biggest change that I'm pretty excited about is that the ultra wide camera is a 48 megapixel camera now. Because I have been over the course of the last year increasingly unhappy with the vast majority of photos that my 15 Pro takes.

Because anything that is close up, it switches to the ultra wide because the focal distance on the 48 megapixel lens is not, you can't take photos in focus that are very close. So they switch to what they call their macro mode. And that lens is significantly worse. Like that system is worse for close up photos than a regular camera would be. So I've been really unhappy with a lot of the images that my phone has taken because it's far too often switching to that. So I am happy about a higher quality lens

ultra wide lens because I think it might give me better photos throughout. But like, yeah, we're getting into the nitty gritty of someone who truly, really cares. Yeah.

to find the differences between these phones. Exactly. Like I was just more aware of it this year for exactly that reason of I'm just trying to mentally model like, oh, my family, everybody needs a new phone this year. What are we doing? And I had gone into that event of like, well, these upgrades are less frequent. And so it probably makes sense to get like the highest end phone because they're going to wait several years between upgrades and

But as I was watching it just more and more, I was like, no, I think I'm getting everybody in the family the regular phone this year. I think it's like burning money for nothing with these differences. And again, it's like differences that they're never going to notice or care about. They already think the cameras are all just magic and perfect. And it's only weird obsessives like us who frown slightly at the wide angle quality. Nobody notices. Nobody cares. And the positive spin on that is...

Well, now the $800 phone is a significantly better deal than the year before or the year before that, which is great when you're in the scenario that you're in, right? Of like making recommendations to people. Yeah, I guess I just want to be clear here because like my feeling, I'm mostly annoyed with the headphones. I swear I had like a brain embolism over the AirPod Max. I'm so mad. I'm so mad.

I am like so upset. Here's how upset I like I oh my god, I can't even like I'm wearing them right now makes me so mad because I have like several people in my life who've been asking about these headphones and I've always been like, oh, they're like so overdue. They're so overpriced. It's like I like them, but obviously Apple's going to rev them soon like dot dot dot for years and they'll be better just like wait for the better ones and

And it's just like, Mike, I was watching that event and when they started the thing and the AirPods Max came up, I was the most excited in this event for this. I was like, finally, like AirPods Max, can't wait. Love these headphones, would use them more if they were just a tiny bit better in a whole bunch of ways. I was so excited. I took a piss.

picture of watching the Apple event with the headphones to like send to some of the people I've been telling like hold off on this for years and then it was like

Oh, no. Like I'm listening to like the actual description of what it is. I was just so aware of like, I'm not hearing anything new. I'm hearing all this language that's making it sound like it's new, but there's nothing new. I lost it at that section. I just absolutely could not believe. I was like, what happened to Apple? Like the thing that really shocks me, whenever I go to the gym, I don't know what it is, but like I'm really aware that AirPods Max seem to have like a surprise

fraction of like gym headphone wearers they're having a moment I'm seeing them more and more and more which also makes this whole thing more ridiculous that people have decided to start buying them and then they decided that their update would be we put USB-C on it and that's it

that's my thing is like I'm looking around and it's not like oh I feel like I'm the only person on earth who bought these because I want them for a very specific reason recording my podcast in this like mildly annoying way it's like no no I see them like a lot that's what's like crazy making to me about this is like the headphones I did absolutely lose my mind over I was hugely disappointed there was no like upgrades to the airpods pro but the

That aside, I do just want to say, like, I'm not here to complain about Apple Christmas. Because, like, oh, the camera button, very exciting. Can't wait to have it. Looks really interesting. I think it's a great addition to the phone. New watches, nice, thin, whatever. But it's more like I just find myself quite intrigued about Apple.

What happened that all three major product categories had this same phenomenon happen of the bottom came up and the top didn't move relative to the bottom? So your idea, I think, is sort of like a plausible one, right? It's like Apple intelligence is the thing that caused this to happen. But I have a hard time understanding, like, maybe...

But do they pull people from like the headphone team in order to make sure that Apple intelligence ships and works on the phones? Seems unlikely. Well, I mean, you know, AirPods 4 with the active noise cancellation is a pretty big deal. Like I didn't think that would be possible. Like people were rumoring it. And I was like, I don't know how you can do that without creating a seal in the ear. But like just for whatever reason...

They have decided that the AirPods Max is a product that remains in their lineup, but they're not going to do anything to it.

I can't work that one out. Everything else, I feel like I can kind of come up with something. But this one is like, I just don't know why you'd bother at all. It's very strange to me. Very, very strange to me. My best guess on there is, I don't know, they're just doing it for some EU compliance reasons, right? It's just easier to ship it with a USB-C cable or something. I don't even know. Yes, that is true.

But the USPC EU rule that I understand is you only have to do that if the product is new. Oh. So if they just kept shipping it forever, they wouldn't have needed to do it. Oh, I didn't realize the grandfather's in stuff. Okay, okay, so that doesn't make sense. But yeah, I will agree. The noise canceling on the regular AirPods is like...

actually very impressive. It makes me consider buying them because there are times I really don't want to have the full seal. For comfort reasons, I'm wearing headphones all the time and I want to shift the different kinds that I'm wearing, but I've got to have noise canceling. So it's very interesting and it's very impressive. But I'm still just saying it's interesting to me that in the high-end AirPods Pro 2, there wasn't an AirPods Pro 3 with something else. AirPods Pro...

It's off schedule for that. So it's typically like a two year refresh. And so it would be next year. But I still say everything. AirPods Max, the watch, the ultra watch didn't move up. It's like, oh, are they off cycle for that? And they're off cycle for the AirPods. And both of the phones got closer together. I don't know. It's like something's up. I want to go to Apple headquarters and start poking people and be like, hey, hey, what's going on, guys? What you doing?

Do people move around? Do priorities move around? You got something big coming and you just missed it a little for this year? Is this just a coincidence that happens sometimes? I'm full of questions, but I've got no answers. No, you ain't gonna get them. This episode of Cortex is brought to you by our friends at FitBod. If you're looking to change your fitness level, it can be really hard to know where to get started, which is why I'm pleased to let you know that FitBod is both an easy and affordable way to build a fitness plan just for you.

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I have some news for you. I hinted at this a while back, and I'm going to do it. I'm going down to the Pro phone this year. I'm not getting a Pro Max. I'm getting the smaller screen. Oh, really? Yeah. What's your reasoning on that? These phones are getting real big. Yeah, because the big one is even bigger now, right? It's even bigger, yeah. It's physically larger, and the screen is bigger. But I've been thinking about it, you know, once.

One of the things that I've mentioned previously was part of my email thing was I would like to work on my phone less. And I think a smaller screen on my iPhone will push me more to a bigger screen to do work. And so then that is like an extra decision that needs to be made, right? It's like, all right, do I really want to do this right now? So I'll go get my laptop or I'll go get my iPad. Am I going to do that? Or can I just...

not do that right now. So then in thinking about this a bit more, my wife has a smaller pro phone and I've just been kind of like playing around with it. And to be able to use just one hand to do everything on my iPhone is really nice. It's really nice. The screen is 6.3 inches now. Like, I think that's fine. The camera's completely the same.

The only thing that I would be losing out on is a little bit of battery life. But because they increased the battery life on all the phones again this year, it would be like one to two hours maximum that I would lose from my 15 Pro Max. So I'm going to give it a go this year. I'm going to go with the 16 Pro and I want to see what it's like. So we've talked a couple of times about your...

like the changing habits around particularly email on your phone. So like, do you find, is that behavior sticking for you? Like you're still doing email less on the phone? Yeah, very much so. And I think I would like to push that towards working, like trying to work on my phone less. Like, and when I say trying, it's like,

What I mean more is I find myself sometimes trying to do things that are just like complicated to do on my iPhone, right? Like looking at a spreadsheet, right? Like all of these kinds of things. And I try to make it do. And so I think I would like to try and encourage myself to do less of that. And I think that having a smaller phone would help.

But this phone would still be big enough, easily big enough, that I would be able to enjoy all of the things that I enjoy on my iPhone, like watching YouTube videos and stuff like that, playing games. Like this screen is more than enough for that.

while at the same time being easier to go in my pocket, easier to be in my hand. You know, I've been thinking about the camera control thing, right? Oh, yeah. I think it would be really nice if you could kind of just hold your phone in one hand and take a picture. Now, I can't do that with the big one, like in a way in which I feel comfortable. Like I've been playing around with it and it's like...

It doesn't feel very secure. Like, you know, the way I would hold it, like two thirds of this phone is just like out there, just like suspended in the air. Oh, I didn't even think to try that. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, even on my phone, it's like, ooh, I wouldn't want it much bigger before I would feel even on like the regular size phone. Like this is uncomfortable to try to one hand a camera. I wasn't thinking of like one handing the camera, but yeah, I would not want to do that on a max size phone. No way. No.

So I'm willing to give it a go this year. And I think it would be like a fun change for me because I have been biggest phone

since the iphone 6 plus i was like since there were big phones basically right and keeping a big phone boy the whole time for me it wasn't i feel like i always wanted the biggest screen but i don't necessarily always want the biggest screen if that makes sense like i just want a screen that is what i feel big enough and i think we have passed that now i think we've definitely gone past big enough like if this phone just kept getting bigger and bigger like i don't want to i don't think i want to do that what

What's that meme where like the Grim Reaper is going from door to door and like you just see like the blood pouring out from each door? I had that feeling watching the pro thing, which was like, oh boy, it feels like someone at Apple is the Grim Reaper for professional camera features that other companies have. And they are just like...

going down the list of like, what can Nikon and Canon do that we can't? And that's what that presentation really felt like was like, just, oh, this, we do that too. The half button press. Got it. Subject lock. Nailed it. It'll be better than what they did. And I just like, when I was watching with my mom, at one point they were like going through the professional photo studio, even like the whole, they built a whole new set of

which was like, look at our pro photography set. And I kept having this feeling like they built that set to show you how you don't need any of this stuff with their phone. But I turned to my mom at one point and I was like, if I was the CEO of Canon cameras, I would be throwing up into a bucket right next to my desk right now. Like this presentation is just...

As someone who is familiar with what are the features that real pros use, I would be sick if I was in the camera business. And even the fact that they made the big one a really big screen, it's not a specific feature, but I was so aware they kept showing those little gripper things for the big phone if you want to be filming videos. I thought, yeah, that's why they're making the screen even bigger, because it

It's not a phone. It's a view screen for filming. Like that's what they're doing with that Pro Max phone. Like I think they are going to push that thing closer and closer to basically being a film camera replacement. And then that's why they can push up the size because the people buying that aren't one handing it. They're locking it into a filming system.

Like it is a genuine professional level, everything camera. So yeah, I guess that makes sense. Like, yeah, at some point, right. Even if it wasn't this year, uh,

I feel like, yeah, my prediction is they're going to keep inching up that screen size. And at some point you might have found yourself going like, well, this is just ridiculous having this giganto phone. So, boy, it's a real end of an era, though, with you not buying the biggest phone. Yep, it is. It's the thing I am most excited about. Oh, really? Oh, that's great. Because it's like it's new, right? Like that's going to be completely new for me. And I'm excited about that. Like part of my life is trying technology.

technology and interesting ways to be able to have things to talk about. This will be a new thing for me to talk about. I'll be experiencing a smaller phone for whatever that might end up being like for me. So I'm excited about that. I do want to talk about the camera control real quick though because in State of the Hardware every year we lament phone case companies for the challenges of being a phone case company.

And this year might be the worst it's ever been. And I think they all know it, but no one knows how bad it's going to be. It's like the phones aren't out yet. Reviews aren't out yet. But like the thing that sealed it for me was when Apple said our phone cases have another piece of sapphire crystal in them so that we can read all of the gestures easily. And I was like, well...

Pack it up. Hold please, I need to send you the notes that I was taking during this Apple event, because I need you to see the writing that I did when I wrote this one thing. So here are the final three notes on my iPad, and you can put this in the show notes for people. The second they said that thing about the sapphire crystal, man, we thought last year was bad for, oh, I'm in the phone case business.

It was again, what have these things like, did Apple just make a decision where they're like, hey, all that money for all these cases. We want all of it. Give us all your phone case money because we're making this thing. It's like, oh, God, that's awful. So I have a fun little theory about this. So.

Last year, they replaced the leather cases with a new thing called Fine Woven, right? Which was them trying to make a high quality case. Didn't that not go well, though? Didn't people hate that? Those cases did not age very well. Okay. Unlike leather, the patina-ing looked bad. It didn't go very well. They're gone. Okay. This year, Apple is producing just silicone cases. Okay.

But they have produced the only case that's going to work perfectly with the brand new feature. So if at any year they're going to be like, all right, we're just going to get out of the high-end case business, do it at the year where really you should only be buying Apple's case if you buy this phone. Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. It's a way for them to kill that product. If you're going to cut your losses on it...

it cut your losses on it now in the year where you're most likely to be able to sell the most cases so you kind of just like let it go that's a good observation that's really good because fine woven is not completely gone like

There are Apple Watch bands made of it because they can't make a leather or something that's like leather, so they're still making those, the same as wallets. The wallets are made of leather and they're keeping them. But instead of trying to come up with something else to replace the high-end leather case or to try and make fine woven better, it seems like they've just cut their losses and it's an easier year to do it because...

If you want to use the camera control, the only truly satisfying case to use it with is going to be Apple's case because it will be just like using the camera control. Because I started poking around and looking at everybody's cases, third-party companies.

Even the third party is that Apple's selling on their store. So the ones that you expect Apple gave information about the dimensions to, like OtterBox, they all have cutouts, right? And there's two styles of cutout. You've got the big cutout where it's like a big U shape or something where you see some of the frame of the phone, right? And then the button. Or you've got the one where people have gotten the schematics somehow, or they're going to very quickly get them, and they're cutting just the shape of the button out of

of the case so you've kind of got to reach down inside of it kind of like what a lot of people did for the action button

But I am convinced that is going to be a disaster to use because there's pressure sensitivity in this button and there's swiping. And I don't think any of that's going to feel good with those cases. Yeah, no way. Being a case manufacturer this year is nightmarish. And because I started looking at a few cases, all of my Instagram ads for the last week has been phone cases, which I'm very happy about because I'm seeing how everyone's doing it. And by and large...

Not good. Now, I'm really intrigued for like if there is going to be a way for third parties to do this. Like, I'm sure that at some point some of them will just be able to reverse engineer what Apple's doing and just do their own.

I could imagine a scenario where maybe Apple puts this into the made for iPhone program so you can pay them a fee and you can get all of the information and all the parts for that little piece of sapphire crystal to put in your own case. But as of right now, the companies that are trying to say like, hey, are you buying a phone next week? Buy your case now. They all have some kind of cut out and I just don't think it's going to feel very good to use. I could be wrong, but...

But I'm not convinced. And all I know is, again, I would not want to be one of these companies because I just can't see a scenario in which you'd be confident right now that you're going to be able to make your customers happy. That's very interesting. I feel like we're getting dangerously close to upgrade territory here with the business details. But I'm trying to ask, so...

The made-for-iPhone thing, it's like, I forgot that program exists where Apple gets the licensing fee. Do you know, am I correct in thinking that case manufacturers currently don't do that? Like, there's no licensing fee with Apple?

They don't have that certification, right, for the cases? Like, you just make a case because you know how big it is. It's just an object in the world. Well, if you want to say that you're MagSafe certified, then that's with Apple. But I think for cases, you don't need to worry about that so much. Yes, that makes perfect sense. Ah, it's like with our fantastic Sidekick notepad where it's hand-assembled in the United Kingdom. And, like, in order to be able to say that...

we have to, like, demonstrate a bunch of properties about the way that the notebook is made. And so if you want to say that your phone case is MagSafe, if you want to, like, use that word or the phrasing, like, MagSafe compatible, then you do have to pay the licensing fee to Apple. So they've half done that. So, yeah, for sure it's going to have to be, right, that they have to do it through the made-through iPhone thing if they have the camera case. Oh, wow. That is...

Devilish. That is absolutely devilish. I never thought of that. Apple's just looking everywhere for money. Where can we hoover up all the money? All these pennies? Ours. Amazing. This is actually from Apple's website. Cases that don't integrate made-for-iPhone components, like non-electrolytic, are not part of the program. iPhone battery cases and MagSafe-enabled cases are part of the program.

Okay, yeah. So if you want to say that your case is MagSafe compatible, you are part of the MFI program. Yeah, I was just thinking, like, I'm aware of this when I buy the MagSafe chargers because the real ones also send out, like, the unique ID thing so that your phone has some sense of, like, which screen should it always show for the always-on so it does different things in different rooms if you're using... But, like, if you're using, like, the generic charger, they don't broadcast, like, the ID in the correct format or whatever it is.

Boy, fascinating. What a delicious detail you have brought to me, Mike. I love it. It's so funny. And it's just the worst thing ever. Cortex brand will never make a phone case. Never, ever, never, ever.

Let's do some Ask Cortex questions. Askcortex.com? Yes. So if you do have a question for a future episode, you can go to askcortex.com and you can submit it. But there's always a link in the show notes to do that too. Jabki asks, how often do you take breaks during work and for how long? I've been writing my thesis and have found that the Pomodoro technique is working for me, but I wondered how you both do it.

It's a funny question for me. I've been thinking about people who write like PhD theses a little bit this summer. It's like tangentially related to the like the thing that I'm currently working on. But yeah, this summer has been like, for me, it's been one of the biggest stretches of like tweaking and sort of working on like, what is a good routine? What is the optimal number of breaks? This has been like real top of mind for me lately. I have tried the Pomodoro technique.

And I find it doesn't work for me at all. Okay, let me say this. For anyone who is giving this a try, if it works for you, where you do, it's like 25 minutes and then five minutes, I think is the, like the Pomodoro one. So 25 minutes of work and five minutes of break. And then like you repeat it a bunch of times. I think that can be really good for administrative work. Like I tend to realize like, oh yeah, 20 to 25 minutes is actually really good for like

clearing emails kind of work or like getting back to people kind of work. But for something like a PhD thesis, I would be concerned that the Pomodoro technique is like interrupting you at exactly the moment you're really getting going. Something I really kind of settled with over the summer, and I even wrote it on my, like I had it like pop up on my computer to remind me as like a thing, which is the first 20 minutes is always hard.

that when I'm getting into a writing block, the first 10 to 20 minutes, you shouldn't expect that it goes easily. It is always the hardest bit. It's like the slowest bit, and it feels like you're trying to get this train going. And so that's why for my work, I wouldn't use something like the Pomodoro because it's going to interrupt me right as the flow starts. So for me, the way that it's really worked perfectly is like,

I do blocks of work that are somewhere between like an hour and 20 to an hour and 30 to maybe 40 minutes if I'm really on a roll. But that's about optimal for me. It's like I'm going to plan on each little block of work is like an hour and 20 minutes. And then I'll take a break and then do another like block of an hour and 20 minutes. And that's

Especially for that very first one. It's like, oh, the first 20 minutes of the first hour and 20 minute block. I've just been like, nope, that's the hard one. Sitting here and like feeling like the train is just like barely pulling out of the station is part of that process. Then you get like a good hour. Take a

something like a 10 to maybe 15 minute break and then do like another one of those so that's kind of what my rhythm is and depending on how hard I'm pushing myself is like how many really good hour and 20 minute sessions can I get in a day that's like the hard limit and the thing that I was experimenting with which I actually found worked kind of great it's like another layer to think about on top of this is like

The way I was phrasing this in my head is like, oh, a block of time, it's like up or it's down, which means am I like sitting down and working during this block? Is this editing and typing writing or am I standing up? So am I talking it out loud? And a thing that I feel like I stumbled upon that works really well is trying to alternate like up and down blocks and

So it's like, oh, the first block in the morning of an hour and 20, it's like standing up and talking. And then the next one is down. I'm sitting at the computer and I'm writing now for the next hour and 20 minutes. And then the thing that's nice is I can then squeeze in like an exercise block counts as an up block. So it's like, oh, do two sessions of work.

The second session was down, then do exercise for like about an hour that counts as like an uptime and then go back down, like sitting at the computer and writing some more. So that's where I currently am with like rhythms that work.

Deep work, hour 20 to an hour and 30. And I'm trying to think of this higher level of like alternate being up or down. And then it can also just even count for taking like a walk where I would think about the project like that counts as an uptime of like, okay, I'm going to go for a walk and deliberately think about the thing that I'm working on.

and smaller administrative stuff is like a 20 to 25 minutes pomodoro technique like that's totally fine i know people have success with the pomodoro technique but there's just something about it that always makes me just a little a little suspicious how to put it this way ideas can be successful because they feel good not because they are effective

And so I just have this little bit of a worry of like, oh, the time that the Pomodoro wants you to take a break at is exactly the moment when you would kind of get like most relief from stopping. Like you've just gone through the hard part of warming up. I don't know. I'm a little suspicious of it. But if it works for you, like that's great.

Any thoughts, Mike? You have a very different working situation than I do, so I'm not even sure how much this even applies to you. This kind of idea is so alien to me. I was kind of feeling that as I was talking. I was like, this is nothing like Mike's life. No, I take a break when I'm done doing the thing I'm doing. Yeah, yeah. That is more what I do. It's like, all right, I'm going to do a task. Time tracking goes on. I do the task, and then maybe I'll take a break before I'll do the next thing. Or if I'm working on something long...

usually something will force me to take a break. Like I need to eat lunch or I have a meeting and I'll come back to this thing later on. So like, so let's say I'm working through a show prep, which might take me two hours. Let's say it is very unlikely that I would have like a two hour gap where something's not going to pull me away from it for a period of time.

And then I would take a break before maybe going back to the job again, you know? So are you saying you just like sit down and crank it out over two hours? Is that what you're saying? Or are you saying something naturally comes up that causes a break? It's usually something that will come up and will naturally cause it. Let's say, for example, that I'm sitting down on Monday morning to do my prep for upgrade. Like it

Like it is likely that I will start it and I will work for a period of time and then I want to have lunch. So I'll have lunch and then I'll take like an extra break before going back into the work or something else that happens. I have a meeting with my assistant every Monday afternoon and,

And what typically happens now is I'll start in the upgrade prep, then I'll need to have that meeting. But before I go back to prepping, I might take a break after that. Or what is usually the thing that occurs to me is I start on a task and that task takes 20 minutes or 30 minutes. And then before I start the next one, maybe I will open my phone and watch a YouTube video for 10 minutes or whatever, or like play a game or something for like 10, 15 minutes before I'll go back into the next thing. I kind of just like...

I don't really think in such strict terms because that really wouldn't fit. Like, for example, if I decided every hour I should take a break, well then, like, most of my shows, I'm just going to go away for a bit now. Because, like, I work very frequently for multiple hours at a time. Like,

It's very normal for me, like four times a week, to sit down for two hours and I don't get up. I sit down, two hours, do the thing, and then I can go away and do something else. But the most intense work that I do doesn't have breaks in it. That is kind of the inherent thing that occurs. So...

I don't really think that my brain is wired like that anymore. On a meta level, right, I don't think it's a coincidence that this question is coming from someone writing a PhD thesis because, like, even having to think about this, there's a question of, like, the more...

external structure there is in your life, the less you even need to really think about this in some way. It's like you have a lot of external structure because you have appointments with people to record podcasts. Like that's what has to happen. And that kind of imposes like a structure on your life in a way. Whereas I think something like writing a PhD thesis, especially if your advisor is not on top of you, you really do have the problem of like, oh, I have...

four years to six years maybe to do something it has to be really big and there isn't a defined schedule for this because the thing that i'm doing is inherently new that's what writing a phd is and so it's not surprising then that someone trying to do a task like that

has to think more rigidly about what are they doing because there's just a complete lack of external structure really in what their day-to-day life is like. Yeah, between the two of us, like I'm not writing a PhD thesis over here, but my life is more toward that end than it is towards your end, which makes sense. It's like, oh, why do I have to think about this a bunch?

And like even with the timer, because I will set like a timer for, you just set it for like an hour and 22 minutes is what I tend to do. It's like, oh, why do I set the timer, right? Why would I do that if I'm also saying like, oh, I'm suspicious of the Pomodoro technique because I think it stops you at the wrong time. Because it's like, oh, I've learned from experience that,

If I try to push a block too long, it impacts the possibility of later good blocks in the day. Like I've just learned that of like, man, if I just tried to intentionally sit down for two hours without getting up,

and just doing the writing for two hours straight without a single break, it's like, oh, the average quality would be worse over the course of a day by a lot. So it's like, oh yeah, at about an hour and 22 or about an hour and 20, I just want like a little ping to remind me of like, if there's a breaking point here, take it. If you're really on a roll, keep going. But if you don't have that feeling, take a break, come back in like 10 minutes and like go again after you've walked around or done whatever.

It's always funny to me because you mentioned this. It's again a difference between our work, but it absolutely blows my mind that a break for you can be something like watching a YouTube video or like playing a game for 10 minutes. Like, like...

That is like so inconceivable to me, the ability to do that. I would be absolutely incapable of like, I'll just watch a YouTube video on a break for a little bit. It's like, no, that would never happen. My breaks, they're little treats. They're little treats for Mike. I know. He's been a good boy. He did a bunch of emails. So now he gets to watch a YouTube video, you know? I'm genuinely envious that you could do that. That's interesting. So what are your breaks? Just like walking around? What are you doing on the break? What is happening? One of the most productive things is actually just

minor tidying up in a way. It's like something physical and slightly mindless. You know, like I've been traveling around this summer, so it's like I'll take a walk around wherever I am or I'll just like step outside for a little bit and come back.

It has to not be mentally engaging in any way. That's the characteristic of what the break is. That's why when you say like, like a video game in particular is amazing to me because it's like top tier mental engagement mode, which is why it's like impossible for me to even think of something like that.

that. But like, see, this kind of work though, like I'm engaging a different part of my brain to what you are. Like my creative center is being engaged now. Right. And so like when we're done here, I'm like done, you know, like I'm like done. Like that's it for me, you know? And I've noticed in myself actually this year, I think especially that

It is getting harder for me to do more than one show a day. I have a theory about this, but go ahead. Okay. I don't know if I want to hear it. Wednesdays is the day where I always record two shows. So I record The Pen Addict. And then when that's done, I have about an hour and then I record Connected. And that is getting harder and harder to do over time. That one hour in the middle...

I never feel when I sit down to start Connected, I do not feel like I am ready for it. The good thing about that show is its structure gets me ready quickly because it is just the three of us just kind of goofing around. Yeah. And so that builds my energy back up quickly. I think if I was doing something more serious, I don't think I would be able to keep doing the two shows with the proximity that they are together at that time. Yeah.

but that would be complicated. Yeah, it's so interesting that you pick a day with connected as well because like, okay, so this plays right into my theory, right? My theory about why you're finding this to be the case, it goes straight back to our conversation earlier about being better. I think in subtle ways over the years, you have cranked up the dial on,

what you consider to be like a quality podcast in a very natural way. And like Connected, I think is a perfect example of that. Like that show has gotten better and better over the years. Yeah.

As someone who's like, who listens, but also makes podcasts, I'm very aware like, oh, it takes a lot of concentration and like doing a thing really well to make something sound quite relaxed. And so you often have this experience of like, oh, the listeners and even you can like trick yourself into thinking of like, oh, this is like a casual fun time. It's like, yeah, but you have to be really good at what you're doing to make it casual and fun and enjoyable for listeners.

So like Connected has clearly gotten better over the years. And I just think the result of that is that like takes more out of you. It's the same with everything of yours that I listen to. It's like your shows over the years in small ways that are hard to notice season to season, they have gotten better. So I'm not surprised to hear that you're finding it more and more difficult to do more than one show in a day. Yeah, they do take more and more effort.

to produce. That is definitely a thing. It's getting harder and harder to make the shows. And you're setting a higher bar for what your performance is during the show in a way. Performance is a funny word to use, but that really is like you're just more aware of what do you want the show to be? How do you want it to sound? How do you want it to be good? You have...

better thoughts about this over the years and so your brain is always running like a background meta process on this and so i just think it is more tiring it's always been just a funny difference between the two of us because like i'm just aware of how many podcasts you do but for me whatever it is cortex day like i cortex day blocks out my whole day on the calendar i can't conceive of doing anything else on the day we record cortex it's like i get up

I'm thinking about Cortex preparation. We record Cortex. We do like pre-talk before. We do more text afterwards. Get more text.com. And then the show is done. And then it's like, I am a mental slug for the rest of the day because I just feel like I want to give this all of my attention. And it is just always planned like nothing.

nothing happens after the Cortex recording and nothing can be scheduled before the Cortex recording. So it's always been kind of funny to me over the years of like how much you do in comparison to me. But I think you have just like turned up your demands for yourself for quality and you've made it harder for yourself in a way. So that's why this is happening. I think I'm slowing down, which is fine. You know, like... I don't think you are.

No, like as in, I think my ability to produce a lot of content in a day is becoming less. But that could be a function of different things, right? That like I'm quote unquote slowing down, not because I'm necessarily getting older, but because it's becoming harder to, it takes more out of me to produce the content because like whatever reason it is, right? Yeah.

But I've been getting myself into a rhythm that I don't even know if I mentioned to you about with the day... We record Cortex usually on Thursday, right? Where now, Thursdays is always Cortex. That is my goal. And so that includes Cortex brand. I try and put that work on a Thursday. So I'm always...

always in that mindset like always for thursdays that's like a thing that i've tried to do in the last few months not done very well at it so far but like it's something i'm working on it's difficult to do because the rest of the world doesn't want that from me but i'm trying to make it happen well as your business partner in cortex brands like i could not encourage more an entire day dedicated to cortex and i think like

It's like people sometimes think I'm weird and obsessive about this, but it's like I cannot convey the psychological difference between a day where there are no appointments and a day where there is one appointment. Yeah. It is like such a difference. And it does not matter how small or inconsequential the appointment is.

it locks down some creative part of your brain. It really feels like some part of your brain, true or not, as soon as there's something on the calendar is then always able to go like,

Well, we can't really get into it. We can't really do this now because later we have to do this thing. Later we have to mail a package. It's like, brain, is something going to take us 10 minutes at this? Like, yeah, but we can't like properly do the thing. So that's why I'm always very encouraging of you trying to do like a Cortex day because I think you will find...

In an unexpected way, you are more free to think about product design in that kind of environment than you are in an environment where there's anything else. That's why I'm trying to do it. And having the design table that I put together...

in the last few months has helped that because basically like on a Thursday, I could just go sit at that table and just see what happens. And like sometimes it's just picking things up and putting them down. Like there's a lot of that. Like just pick this up, put it down. What is this? And it's very tactile and I like it and it encourages me to start thinking in that way. But I do want to mention on the one thing in a day, it kind of sounds like it's in contrast to what I just said, but something I am trying to do is to stop

that from happening. Like, if I'm going to have an appointment in my day, that that day shouldn't have just one appointment. Yeah, yeah. Like, if there's going to be appointments, which can be podcasts or it can be a meeting of some description, there should be at least one more on that day. I'm really trying to stop the...

there's one thing because it frames my day in a way that I don't like. It either gets in the way or it forces the flow towards it. A couple of days ago, there was nothing I could do about it, but I had a meeting at 8.30 p.m. That day sucked because the whole day I was thinking about the 8.30 p.m. meeting. I couldn't relax or anything. The rest of my work, I'd stopped at 4 p.m.

But from 4 to 8.30, all I was doing was thinking about the meeting. And it didn't need me to think about it, but I just couldn't unwind because that meeting existed. So I'm trying to stop this, there's one thing on the calendar kind of days. So similarly, if I'm going to do a podcast, if I have another podcast to do that week,

It should go on the same day as another one. It's like what I'm trying to do, but like maybe spacing them out. I don't know. It's like it's this weird balance of like doing more than one makes it harder to do. But I prefer that feeling to the...

I can't put anything else in this day because there's this one. It's like a weird, trying to balance these two things together, which has been interesting recently. Yeah, I mean, you have the additional difficulty of coordinating a ton of people here. But I think your instincts are totally right in rhythm-wise. And it's funny, I'm just realizing, like, oh, uh...

so i've known that you you're trying to do like thursday as cortex day which makes sense because this is the day that we record the podcast and that we we've been talking about how like oh because cortex brand is doing like all this stuff we need to have like since thursday is when we record anyway and it's every week ideally your day that you're spending on cortex like we should have a check-in call and like see what's like make sure every week uh we're up to date on like what's going on in cortex

But it's like, it's just a funny thing to realize like, oh, this has caused already for me the plan going forward for the rest of the year. It's like, has caused the opposite effect where I have so few appointments that the 30th

Thursday Cortex one then naturally becomes for me the exact same thing of Thursday either the whole day is dedicated to recording the show but if it's not that Thursday is going to be my all appointments must be on Thursday day right so it's like ah it's like

It's the opposite thing, but it's for the same reason. So it's just funny for me to think like in a couple of months, if both of us have our rhythms really down, it's like Thursday will be your most relaxed day and we will talk about what's going on in Cortex. But also Thursday for me will be like the only day that everything else is scheduled for that day. But it's for the same reason, for the exact same reason. This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online.

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What I love about Squarespace is the flexibility that they give you. They have these fantastic design tools to help you design things the way that you want, but you can also really customize it to look and feel just the way that you want, the colors that you want your website to have that matches your brand. You can put in your logos, you can choose from loads of fonts, and it really is fantastic to be able to have something in your mind and then being able to put it on the web for anyone to see.

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Jonathan asks, I'm at the earliest stage of designing my own product. I know nothing about product design other than my own opinions on what makes something good. Now that you're a couple of products in, what advice do you have if you were to start again?

Well, that is my path, right? Like I have strong opinions on what I think makes a good product, but I don't know how to design one, right? I can explain and I've gotten better at that over time. I can explain to people what I'm looking for. I can sketch what I like. I recommend like I did that short college course. I recommend something like that. If you can find something like that, I wish I had done that sooner because it would have given me more confidence earlier on.

I will recommend to you the things that I did, which was one, try to find someone that you trust who has a little bit more skill in this area that you can communicate to, who can help you bring something to life. Like that helped me a lot. And this can just be somebody who maybe is a designer or somebody who has just more knowledge in a subject area. Like,

I have a lot of friends who are even more versed in paper than me, and I could ask them questions and they could help inform and give me some ideas. I will say to you that when you get to the point where you want to try and take this product to a manufacturer, expect rejection.

This is very normal, but people don't think that it's going to be the case because why would they reject business? There are actually lots of very good reasons why a company will do this. But it is surprising when you first encounter that. And I think really the best thing is that you feel confident in your own opinions. Because I believe that some of the best stuff can come from someone who doesn't know the constraints of what they're trying to do. Yeah.

Because they're less willing to be told no and are less held down by the knowledge that they already have. Like if you don't have any preconceived notion of something, then you're not going to necessarily design it under those circumstances. Like I just read a...

There's a lot of pieces going around at the moment, like articles being written about Johnny Ive because he is working with the high-end fashion brand Moncler on making a line of clothing, unbelievably. So his design company, Love From, has been hired by Moncler to create this jacket system where it's like a thin jacket and you attach things to it. And what is getting so much attention

attention about this is they redesigned a button fastener like he's like johnny i've made a new button it's like a good headline but it's like this like magnetic attachment system and i've mostly skimmed over them right now because i'm leaving them for next thursday because i want to read through these in more detail as part of thinking about products but he actually talks about one of the things that he finds interesting in fashion is he doesn't know anything

Like this is not his world. And so he is able to kind of decouple himself from what he thinks he should know or what other people know to kind of follow his inspiration. But then also he can use this as an opportunity to learn too. So he'll go out and he'll try and get as much as he can information from people. But if he wants to create something from fresh, it helps him to not come to it with these preconceived notions. So if Johnny Ives says it,

And maybe you can take that advice. I have recently settled on he is my hero. Johnny Ive. Like, I'm settled on this now. I appreciate Steve Jobs for everything he is. But if I look to someone and I'm like, who do I most look up to?

professionally, then it's Johnny Ive and everything that he created, which I think is contentious. A lot of people have a lot of things to say about Johnny Ive, but I just think the man's body of work is an undeniable thing. Like you cannot argue with it. In my opinion, you might not like every decision that he made, but like, is there a designer in history that has a better body of work than Johnny Ive? Like, I'm not sure I could argue that. Like,

People will look at Braun and say, sure, I understand. No designer in history has produced products that have been used at such scale. Surely.

If you think of the things Johnny has made, the things that he has designed, and then the scale at which they have been used, and all of the issues that come from that. As time is going on, and especially I read this book called After Steve from Trip Mikkel of the New York Times. And it is a book that tells the story of Tim Cook and Johnny Ive from Steve Jobs' passing onwards.

Lots of people don't like this book, namely my co-host Jason Snell on the Upgrade podcast. He hates this book. I loved this book. Like with all Apple things, you're not actually talking to these people, but he did a lot of investigating around them and just hearing Johnny Ive and everything he went through, especially around the Apple Watch and the burnout that he went through and how that led to him leaving it. All of that stuff was just...

humanize the man even more for me and like kind of I think set the groundwork for me to be like yeah that's the guy like he's the guy I look up to most so if Johnny says that you should try and go out there and learn some stuff and not be held down by what you don't know I think that's about as good advice you can get

Jesus asks, what is the last great fiction book that you have read? Is this a tricky question for you, Mike? Yeah, I mean, yes. Look, I've said this before. I mean, let's listen to this show and notice. Actually, we have gotten a lot of people been asking via the feedback form to do another book club. I want to do another book club. I don't know if it will happen this year.

But if not next year, and I have a book that I want to do. I won't say it now in case we don't do it. But there is like a particular book that I think might be interesting to do in the vein of some of the ones that we've done recently, like the classics, right? Like Seven Habits or whatever.

So I do want to do one. But of all of the shows that are the hardest for me to do, it is these because I'm just not a person who enjoys reading. Yeah. This question almost makes me hesitate for you because I always have this tiny bit of a feeling like, I don't want this question to feel like mean, right? It's like, have you read a book? But like, there's nothing mean about it. It's like, people don't have to read books. It's one of these weird things, though, that like...

I don't feel like you're making fun of me, but like people do find it very strange. And like, like there's something wrong with me that I don't enjoy reading, but like, I just don't like, I just don't like it.

i guess why am i hesitating about this it's one of the very few things people ever ask me about you which is why it is why it comes up yeah and it's like it is kind of phrased i guess that's that's why i'm having this reaction to a book question is it's like it might the words not but might be this but they're sort of asking like

Is it that Mike doesn't read or can Mike not read? Kind of feels like what they're asking. And so I feel like I have defended as like, first of all, Mike can read. He just doesn't. And like there's some kind of just like weird cultural expectation around reading.

But it is the only thing people ask me about you, because I feel like if people know about you, they know about you through the podcast, that they, like, you are very open on the podcast. Like, there's not, I feel like it's not a lot of mystery. This is the one thing where people are like, you can read, right? But this is the thing, I see it, like, if I actually couldn't read, that might be something that I'm not open about, right? Yeah.

yeah how incredible would it be if i'd kept that a secret i mean right it would be amazing that would be that would be quite a thing to have done he doesn't like email why doesn't he like email is it because he can't read siri's actually been reading all your emails all these years to you uh it's so funny if i could nail down why i think i don't enjoy reading i i think there are two things one i do think i am a visual learner like i think

That is part of it. And two, I know there's a phrase for this, but I don't remember what it is. When I read, I read aloud in my head. Yeah, I do the same. So I think for me, it makes reading very slow. And I don't like that. I'm a slow reader. And so for me, I don't particularly enjoy it. It also takes up a lot of time that I would prefer to be doing.

other things with yeah that's actually a good point x i always find it a bit mysterious when people read and they don't hear something in their head but there's a hundred percent of correlation with those people are faster readers than if you hear something in your head it does just slow you down and so yeah i'm i'm the same way i'm very aware like i'm a slow reader which just means like

I have to like a thing a lot more to read it. And I think even for me, it's like, oh, the amount of books that I've read is like definitely diminished over the years. And part of that is it's like I'm doing the exact same thing you're doing. It's a kind of trade-off calculation of...

Reading this book is going to take a dozen to a couple dozen hours. And I would just prefer to put that time into so many other things. Yeah. But I have read more fiction this year than I've read in any year in my adult life because I've been reading lots of comics. Like, lots of comics. Oh, okay. And that's fantastic for me. I think, like, comics fit, like, me.

very well for me. They're mostly visual, right? And so I really enjoy that experience and I have been reading hundreds of comics this year. I want to recommend two full series of comics.

One is Nick Spencer's run on The Amazing Spider-Man. I will put links in the show notes to these specific comic runs. One of the problems of comics is trying to find whatever people are talking about can be so complicated. So I read all these in Marvel Unlimited, which I think is an incredible service. It's basically...

Netflix for Marvel comics. They're all there and they add new comics on like a one to two month delay for like the most modern stuff. But I'm going back and reading like historic runs of certain comics. I've actually found AI tools like ChatGPT to be really good at recommending comics to me because this is another thing where like

And Googling this kind of information is very hard. You just get to a lot of lists. So I'm able to go and be like, I like this and I like this and I like this. What other comic shall I read? Or like, so one of them that I'm going to mention is a Daredevil comic too. I wanted to read a Daredevil comic.

And so I was able to describe the types of comic series that I'd enjoyed previously and like, what is a good one to start with? And I found that to be really helpful. But so Nick Spencer's run on The Amazing Spider-Man. Spider-Man is my favorite fictional character of all time. I love Spider-Man so much. And this run is just incredible. Most people recommend Ultimate Spider-Man, which is fantastic.

But this run on The Amazing Spider-Man deals with some really, really meaty, difficult, emotional things that are occurring. It's absolutely fantastic. I read the whole thing super fast and was really sad when it ended. It is...

Truly brilliant. And I would say similarly about Chip Zdarsky's Daredevil, which is a very dark story. And I really liked the two together, actually, where Spider-Man, even when emotional, still tends to be pretty upbeat, where Daredevil is...

really down and dark and so i found these two comic runs to be just truly truly fantastic and in reading these comics i learned something i think pretty impactful that i would like to share with cortexans so with great power comes great responsibility right everybody knows that

That line from Spider-Man, right? You're familiar with it. So great power comes great responsibility. Of course. That's not the actual line. It's not the original line. So that version was said in the Toe of the Wire movie. The actual line is with great power, there must also come great responsibility. I find that to be more impactful. It's better, yeah. The original implies no agency.

in your life. It's just like, if you have power, you also have responsibility. But everybody knows that's not how it goes. And I find it to be a more impactful thing to think about in my own life that with any kind of power, there must also come responsibility. But you kind of have to be the one to work that out on your own. So I think that is a better, that is a much better allegory for Spider-Man too. Like, than just because he's powerful, he's also responsible to someone like that.

Yeah, it's a better line. It's a better line particularly for Spider-Man and the sort of like classic origin for him of like originally choosing not to be responsible. But I think it's a better line because it feels like it has the implication of what the villains are built into that line. Like the villains have great power, but they don't accept responsibility in some way. It's like, yeah, it's a much better line. And that's the difference between superheroes and supervillains. They all have power. They all have equal power in some instances. Yeah.

but the ones that choose to be responsible are the heroes and the ones that don't become villains. That's really good. I have a dumb question as someone who hasn't read comic books since college. So when you're saying like a run, is there like a clearly defined limited series? Because I remember reading The Amazing Spider-Man as a kid, but it's like, oh, The Amazing Spider-Man number one? Like it can't possibly be number one now.

But does it have a clear start and end? Is that what's happening? Is it a limited series? Or like Daredevil here, you've given the years. Like, should you only read the ones in those years? I guess I'm trying to say, if someone wanted to do this, is it clear where to start and clear where to stop? So with the links that I've put in the show notes, yes. And when I'm referring to run, I'm talking specifically about the lead writer's time on this comic. Okay.

So this is the amazing Spider-Man 2018. Number one is the beginning of Nick Spencer's run on Spider-Man, but it's, it's like, it's something like the amazing Spider-Man 804 or something like that, actually, because they just keep rebooting it and putting new years on it or whatever. Um,

But when I'm saying a run, I'm specifically talking about that. Like, so The Amazing Spider-Man 2018, that comic continues past Nick Spencer. And it's still good, but it's different. So like, you can stop reading when Nick Spencer finishes if you want to. And that is a full, complete story. But yeah, a run would be that person's time on that book is how I'm referring to it.

Oh, okay. So it was like a showrunner on a... Correct. So who's the showrunner for whatever during this time? Oh, okay. All right. And The Amazing Spider-Man past Nick Spencer is also still really good and I really like it and I'm still reading that comic because it's still currently ongoing. Like I've caught up and continued. But it's just a different book. It's a different set of stories. Like Nick Spencer had a very particular story he wanted to tell for Spider-Man and he did that. Mm-hmm.

But yeah, this is just another thing in what makes it so complicated. I'll also say as someone who is a more recent comic reader at this degree, because I've read collected books before, like trade paperbacks, and they tend to be one pair. When you're reading a book, or a series that is running over multiple years, it's very rare...

at least in the stuff that I have read, where the same writer and artist will continue for the whole time period. Yeah. It could be really jarring when the art changes. Just stick with it though, because you get used to it. It can be really weird. Like when you open the next page, like the next book,

And Spider-Man has a different face. It's like a weird, like Peter Parker looks different. It's because the artist is new and they're bringing their own style to it. Yeah. I'm trying to think like the very last time I think I was reading a comic book was, I think it was The Walking Dead because people were really recommending it.

And I do remember that same kind of phenomenon of like at some point it's like the writer stayed the same, but the artist changed. And it was like this weird like relearning phase of like, oh, what do the characters look like? But yeah, it's totally fine. It's just one of these things is like, yeah, if I'm recommending people read it, like in both of these books, the artist changed multiple times. Just just stick with it, though.

Actually, for my recommendation, I will also have a heads up for anyone who gives it a go. So, again, I feel like my fiction reading has dropped off a lot in the last many years. And it is this problem of like, I just have a harder time finding things that feel like they are worth the time and that they are good. But I bring it up.

I particularly like this question because it's like, what's the last great fiction book you have read? And if I'm not trying to think about like, oh, it's something I've read that I would recommend, but what's the last great one? That's like a such an easy question for me. And it is the three body problem. I think it's Amazon or it's Netflix. Like it's currently a TV show. But when I think about like fiction books that I have read, it's like, boy, this is like the top of the list for like,

great books in like a decade but it's it has also caused the problem of like oh I liked it so much it makes it harder to read other things because the key thing to me about the three body problem is like oh one it's pitched exactly to me because it's like the author took every interesting idea in physics and crammed them into three books

So it's like, ooh, I know all these things. And the author is using them in an interesting way. So it's like fun as a reader. It's like right up my alley.

But the second thing is, I feel like I have almost never come across a book. In fact, yeah, no, I'm going to say it. This is like, because it's the first of a trilogy. These three books, I have never read anything where the density of ideas is so high. It's like the author just keeps like introducing new idea after new idea after new idea. And you keep feeling like,

you know, in most books, there's this very natural structure of like, you're introduced to the world and like, now you know what the story is taking place in. And it's like, this book just like never runs out of interesting things, like small and big throughout its course. It's like very, very satisfying read. But just like you warn about the artist, for anyone who attempts to read this book, I will give you the warning that was given to me, which is like,

you need to know that the first hundred pages are terrible it's like oh my god i cannot like i had tried to read this book several times and it is only because many people i highly respected their opinion on were like you have to get past the first part and

And man, I was like, but it's so boring. It's I don't care at all. They're like, they just said like, look, it's like 100 pages, like keep reading, something will happen. You'll know when it happens. And that's when the book really starts. And it's like, I had several false starts with this. But when I finally made it over that hump, I was like,

God damn, like without a question, this trilogy is like the best books I've read in a decade. So I really love them. It's just sort of thinking of it now because it's kind of like when we talked about poor Amazon trying to make the doomed rings of power. It's like, I haven't seen the Netflix show and I will not watch the Netflix show for the three body problem because it's the same thing where it's like, oh God, the source material that you are working with, amazing book.

doomed as a TV project. Just like absolutely doomed. Cannot possibly succeed. Do not collect $200. Go straight to jail. There's no way you're going to adapt this in an interesting way. So I would highly recommend those books, but it's like...

They are a challenging read, but boy, were they worth it. So, three-body problem. That's my recommendation. Imagine telling me, read this book, but the first 100 pages. I'm not telling you to read this book, Mike. Don't read this book, Mike. Don't even listen to the audiobook. No.