0:00

Do you know, it feels like it has been so

0:03

long since we recorded Lust. Like,

0:06

really long. Where I actually can't believe

0:08

it's only been like a month. That's

0:10

not true. Is it only

0:12

a... wait. It's a month and ten days,

0:14

I think. Okay. I

0:17

am dealing with two contradictory

0:20

feelings. My mental model

0:23

of time is somehow that the

0:26

current year has not yet started,

0:29

but also we have not spoken

0:31

for like six months. I

0:33

feel like I have lived a whole

0:36

life in America since the last time

0:38

we spoke. Yeah, you were gone for

0:40

a long time. Like, last year was

0:42

year of work and your theme is

0:45

going great, but it's often there are

0:47

seasons in life. Seasons are very important

0:49

and it has definitely been

0:51

that this first season of

0:53

the year has very forcefully

0:56

become the season of family and

0:58

taken over life in a whole

1:00

bunch of different ways. That's

1:02

partly why I ended up just spending

1:04

a ridiculously long time in America and

1:06

also feel like, oh, the year hasn't

1:09

started yet because I've had all of

1:11

these other obligations and things. But

1:13

yes, it's like I cannot believe that

1:16

we talked, quote, as recently as a

1:18

month ago because it feels like,

1:20

yeah, so much has happened. OK,

1:24

this might sound crazy to you. I'm just realizing something

1:27

partly because there was a way, partly because

1:29

I'm dealing with family stuff. It

1:32

suddenly just dawned on me that

1:35

you are the first

1:37

person I am

1:39

going to hear talk about

1:42

using the Apple headset who

1:44

was not a member of my family. I've

1:47

been like so busy slash

1:49

isolated that I have not

1:51

listened to any podcasts. I've

1:53

not seen any YouTube videos.

1:55

I'm suddenly realizing like I've

1:57

actually had no. External

2:00

input. What a bizarre starts to

2:03

the year I'm I always say

2:05

that that makes. Us. Talking

2:07

about this is infinitely more interesting

2:09

to me because you're a Pure.

2:11

That's right, Mike I am Pure

2:14

hundred your life a little baby

2:16

ticket nino know might make Pure

2:18

like clean. Pure. Like holy and

2:20

untouched. That's what I am a successful

2:22

of that. Yeah, earlier in early Grant,

2:24

I see I just hadn't really put

2:26

that into precise thought because I've I've

2:29

also just had this experience of really

2:31

feeling like. Again, Another

2:33

strange duality as. I.

2:36

Haven't been able to have any

2:38

kind of normal working life at

2:40

all because of other things, so

2:42

I haven't been able to even

2:45

really begin to see where the

2:47

headset will fit into what is

2:49

like a normal life, a normal

2:51

working life of us. While at

2:53

the same time I feel like

2:56

I have these massive big it's

2:58

rethinking of everything that have to

3:00

happen that I didn't like. I

3:02

haven't been able to properly process

3:04

or digest. which I can only

3:07

try to compress down into with

3:09

thought. which is something like. What's.

3:12

Even is and office I think

3:14

I want to hear like what

3:17

have you been up to as

3:19

a person with a but swore

3:21

I presume regular day to day

3:24

experience yes we last talked like

3:26

how have things been going for

3:28

you. So. The

3:30

main thing that I've settled on

3:33

is that my vision pro stays

3:35

at Syria. And bring it

3:37

home. The main reason I don't do

3:39

that is because it's just it's too

3:41

much to compete with. like I don't

3:44

wanna compete with that every day especially

3:46

nowadays are it's big and heavy especially

3:48

in the apple case and plus your

3:51

is a less fragile. Peace.

3:53

A Technology. It feels like it

3:55

has a lot of ways in which it could bright. until

3:58

like i'm not interested in it backwards

4:00

and forwards. But also, you know, after about

4:02

a week of use, I kind of realised

4:04

that realistically, the times

4:06

in which I would want to use

4:08

it during the day are when

4:11

I'm here at the studio. Like, I'm less

4:14

likely to want to use it in the

4:16

evening when I'm spending time with my

4:18

wife. Like, there is kind of like

4:20

that line of like, it is not a

4:23

social device. It is not

4:25

a device in which you

4:27

can remain social in

4:29

the conventions that we have today.

4:31

I do believe these

4:34

conventions will change in

4:36

some way. The reason I say that

4:38

is like, just to think

4:40

about how phones fit into social

4:42

norms now, where that

4:45

would have been considered to

4:47

be weird prior to the smartphone

4:49

becoming so prevalent. The idea

4:51

that you could be talking to someone while looking

4:53

at something else inherently feels rude.

4:56

I mean, if you look at a watch

4:58

during a conversation that's considered rude, right? I

5:01

was going to say, I do feel like both of these

5:03

are still quite rude, but I know what you're getting at.

5:05

Yeah, I know what you mean, but people just accept it

5:07

and it's how people live their lives

5:09

a lot of times. But yeah, but the, you

5:11

know, the face computer does not

5:14

fit into these norms yet. But

5:16

just for me, like the things that I want to do in

5:18

the evening, it doesn't fit

5:20

that. So it makes sense more for me to have

5:22

it at the studio. And

5:24

so then when I'm here at the

5:27

studio, we're coming back to the age old

5:29

question of like what computer

5:31

is right for the job, whatever that job

5:33

might be. And

5:35

so for me, where I'm finding the

5:37

biggest parallel with the vision Pro is

5:39

to the iPad in that regard, right?

5:41

Like, where does an

5:43

iPad fit into whatever

5:46

tasks I might be doing? And

5:48

thinking it through those lenses of like, I'm

5:50

not just gonna force

5:52

the vision Pro into my work. I don't wear it

5:54

when I recall podcasts, because there's no point. Oh, you're

5:56

not wearing it right now. I didn't want to ask.

5:59

I've tried it once and didn't like it. I

6:01

tried it just for the novelty of it and it

6:03

didn't feel very good. The way

6:06

I've been describing the Vision Pro, for

6:08

me, it is like the ultimate noodling

6:10

computer. That sounds terrible. Yes, I love

6:12

it though. It's the noodling computer. I

6:14

feel like you've just gotten my clean

6:16

robes dirty with your noodles. The pure

6:18

boy cannot take noodling. So

6:21

what I mean by this is I

6:23

feel like there is an element of

6:25

computer usage where you're

6:27

kind of just bouncing

6:29

around from app to app, from thing

6:32

to thing. I consider this as kind

6:34

of like noodling around. You're just

6:36

like, I'm over here. Oh, there's an email.

6:38

I'll look at that. What's going on in

6:40

Slack? Oh, let me go take a look

6:43

at my YouTube subscriptions. What's happening here? What's

6:45

happening there? If you don't actually have a

6:47

focus purpose for the work that you're doing

6:49

or what you're doing on your computer at

6:51

that time, you're just kind

6:53

of like noodling around. And

6:56

I feel like the Vision Pro is

6:58

so good for this because most

7:01

of the apps that I would need are there in some

7:03

form for this kind of stuff. And

7:06

it crushes the iPad

7:08

at window management because

7:12

you can have all the windows open that

7:14

you want. Now it takes

7:16

setting up, but the iPad, I can

7:19

only really look at a couple

7:21

of apps at a time and it be comfortable.

7:23

I've never really gotten to groups of

7:25

stage manager on an iPad, but even that it just,

7:27

it's not what I want. And so like what I

7:29

like with the Vision Pro is I can open this

7:32

app, I could open that app and I can spread

7:34

them all over my physical space and

7:36

I can like just be like looking up here, looking

7:38

over there, doing this, doing that. And

7:40

I find this to be something that pretty much every

7:42

day I get to a

7:44

point in my work day which is usually in

7:46

between two large things. So it might be like

7:48

preparing for a show and recording a show and

7:50

I'll have like an hour, an hour and a

7:52

half. It's like that is perfect Vision Pro time.

7:55

Put the Vision Pro on. Oh, I've got

7:57

this like message. Let Me: look at that. I've got this. Let Me:

7:59

look at that. Let me just chill out

8:01

much as Youtube video and to do a

8:03

bit of prep in this where the key

8:05

is become a very nice machine for it

8:07

bouncing around from thing to saying that is

8:09

where I'm finding. The. Best use

8:11

cases in the right now. I can

8:14

even like hear you. Talk.

8:16

About this I can tell you're in

8:18

physical pain right now. What is the

8:20

man I have like cringing over here

8:22

like as I feel like look I

8:24

don't know a lot about the Vision

8:27

Pro. I haven't used the Vision pro

8:29

as much as you have but I

8:31

i have used it of use it

8:33

very particular ways ads I had the

8:35

experience of like setting it up and

8:38

trying out different apps and. There.

8:40

Was something to me that

8:42

was very quickly with like

8:45

disgusting about certain kinds signals

8:47

and. I. Seek. It

8:49

is because like the

8:51

most concentrated version of

8:54

my thoughts on the

8:56

vision Pro is that

8:58

this is a machine

9:00

to work with the

9:02

creative core of your

9:04

soul. It's like you're

9:07

stepping into a temple

9:09

of unbroken focus. adds

9:11

to sex your slack

9:13

or reply to email

9:15

messages. It here is

9:17

desecration. I feel like I've

9:20

listening to Blasphemy How they are

9:22

Not sure why returning this incessant

9:24

us a religious experience but like

9:26

I do agree with you and

9:28

so like while I like is

9:30

I feel like compared to other

9:33

computers it has much more. Of

9:35

a potential to mode shift in this

9:37

way Because I've also like I had

9:39

to write content for an email newsletter,

9:42

right? and I was sitting on my

9:44

Mac and are struggling to get it

9:46

done. Because. I was is getting distracted.

9:49

Know. I went to certain the couch put

9:51

the vision pro on got my to keyboard

9:53

one at the Holly Arcola. I'm

9:55

wrote it and got it done. and like that

9:57

Mode shifting helped me a lot. So.

10:00

I use it for what you do, but the thing

10:02

to remember is, my major

10:04

creative work, it's just not good for

10:06

that. That is fair. That

10:08

is fair. When I am doing things

10:10

that require an extended focus, like sitting

10:12

down and writing something for half an

10:15

hour, the Vision Pro is better

10:17

than any other computer I use for

10:19

those kinds of things, because you can put

10:21

yourself somewhere else and be like, alright, I'm

10:23

here now, so I've got

10:26

to get this done. But if I'm

10:28

finding where it fits into my day-to-day, the

10:31

idea of just throwing up a bunch of

10:33

windows and just bouncing around and doing some

10:35

little admin tasks and stuff, it's fantastic for

10:37

that too. I

10:40

don't read and read

10:42

and read and write thousands of

10:44

words as part of my creative

10:46

work life, so while

10:48

I agree it's great for that, I can't force

10:50

that, because it doesn't exist most of the time.

10:54

There's a real question of

10:56

window management that is underlaying

10:58

all of this. Last

11:01

time when we spoke, one of the

11:03

things that I was just so aware

11:05

of is the lack of command tab

11:07

on the keyboard, where you're moving apps

11:09

around this way. One

11:13

of the things that's brought into focus for

11:15

me is a very particular way that I

11:17

use the computer. It's

11:19

actually something that I've been thinking a

11:22

little bit about doing an unlisted video

11:25

about or something, for just like, how do I

11:27

manage the windows on my computer? Because I feel

11:29

like I have a really good system for this,

11:32

of moving things around. It's

11:34

one of these ways in which lots of times

11:37

you'll hear people say things like, oh, it's so

11:39

great to have a second window for your

11:41

computer. It's

11:44

one of these things that I have tried that multiple

11:46

times over the years. Do you mean like a second

11:48

display? Yeah, like a second

11:50

display. Windows is a terrible

11:52

word to use for that. A window onto the windows,

11:54

that's what a display is. A second window for your

11:56

windows machine. I've tried

11:58

it and I've tried it. And it's like,

12:01

it never sticks. And

12:03

the reason that it never sticks, I

12:06

always kind of felt like it's

12:08

some kind of personal failing in a way. I

12:11

was like, oh, everybody who uses two monitors talks

12:13

about how great it is, and I can just

12:15

never make this work for me. It

12:17

must be something wrong with me. But the

12:20

headset has really clarified for

12:22

me what the actual problem is, which

12:24

is I don't want

12:26

to look around for

12:29

anything. It's really clarified to me

12:31

that when I am really in

12:33

a flow on my computer and

12:35

working, one of

12:37

the critical things for that is through

12:39

the keyboard and without ever having to

12:42

move my head physically side to side,

12:44

I can always put the windows exactly

12:46

where I want them to be, even

12:49

if I'm working on multiple things. Yeah, this

12:51

is definitely something with me and you, Difur, because

12:54

I feel like in the Vision Pro, I

12:56

feel like a different level of productive. It's

13:00

the Iron Man, Tony Stark kind

13:02

of thing where I'm looking over

13:04

here, I'm looking over there, I'm

13:06

dragging this, I'm grabbing that. I

13:08

feel like I'm more part of

13:10

the process. I'm in the

13:12

machine in a way, and it

13:15

being around me visually, and me looking

13:17

around, and that idea of the spatialness

13:19

in my brain, it's like I know

13:21

now where messages goes, because I always

13:23

put it in a specific spot. So

13:25

if I wanted to send a message,

13:27

I would go and look at the

13:29

bottom right, and I would actually turn my head to

13:31

do that. I like that. I

13:33

do think that right now, thankfully,

13:35

the Vision Pro is quite adaptable

13:38

in that way, that I

13:40

can use it for noodling, and you

13:43

can use it for purity, and it's

13:45

okay, I think. It's

13:47

doing the job. So I'm gonna say a thing,

13:49

which I'll preface by, I think this will sound

13:51

insulting, but I don't mean it to. I

13:54

don't have a better way to express this idea.

13:57

And I saw this particularly with... my

14:00

dad as well is I think

14:02

the thing is that the headset has

14:05

a surprising normie computer user

14:07

bias in a weird way. I

14:10

think there is a way in which if

14:13

you are a very high

14:15

level power user, the headset can feel

14:17

like a constraining environment. Well, because it's

14:19

based on the iPad. Yeah, but that's

14:21

like it's surprising to me in a

14:23

way because like, oh, this is the

14:25

most high tech thing, but the way

14:27

it wants to be used is

14:30

in such a normal

14:32

way. It's very funny

14:34

to be like, I think my father used my

14:36

headset more than I used it when I was

14:38

in America because he was like, Hey, can I

14:40

have that again? And it's like, what was he

14:42

doing? It's like, boy, he learned how to get

14:44

to the movie theater real fast. Yeah. And

14:47

it was like the first time he was like,

14:49

Hey, can I borrow your headset? I almost dropped

14:51

dead of surprise. I just would

14:53

never have predicted that in a thousand years. And

14:56

the thing about like you with window management

14:58

is I think like if someone was watching

15:01

the two of us working on our regular

15:03

computers, they would describe like,

15:05

Oh, gray is using it in this weird way

15:08

where it's like he never wants to have to

15:10

touch the mouse and he doesn't want to have

15:12

to move. And Mike is like,

15:14

Oh, a normal relaxed person, just like

15:17

using a computer like a person should

15:19

like that's the distinction there. And so

15:22

that's what I mean by like, I think there's a surprising

15:24

normie bias. Like do you want to watch a movie? It's

15:27

amazing. Do you want to spread

15:29

things around you like

15:31

you would in the physical worlds? Great.

15:34

This is absolutely perfect for it. You see,

15:37

I understand where you're coming from, but I

15:39

will pull you up on the idea like

15:41

multiple monitors is a normie thing that

15:43

feels like a power user thing to me. No,

15:46

no, but I'm saying like that always failed to

15:48

me because I didn't recognize like I don't want

15:50

to look around. Yeah. So there's some kind of

15:52

like intersection here like that's not working for me.

15:55

And the reason most normal people don't have multiple

15:57

monitors is because it's a giant pain

15:59

in the ass. have multiple monitors. Like, it's just

16:01

not worth it for most people to bother. But

16:04

the headset is like, oh, if you could

16:06

just like magically have big windows all around

16:08

your office, like people would do that. They

16:10

would like decorate their office, you know, virtually

16:12

in this way with using things. I

16:14

think it is very interesting, but it has created

16:17

for me this weird

16:19

situation that I think like

16:21

the first time I used it this way, it was

16:23

just so clear that the

16:26

very fact that I find it frustrating

16:28

to have to look around even when

16:30

I'm using my regular computer, but especially

16:32

in the in this virtual environment that

16:35

like I don't want to look around

16:37

for anything. I find

16:39

it really frustrating actually

16:41

turns this into

16:43

just the most perfect concentration

16:46

machine. I can put

16:49

a window in front of me and

16:51

that is it. Switching into

16:53

anything else is really hard.

16:56

And also the whole external world

16:58

no longer exists functionally when you

17:01

turn the environment up all the

17:03

way. And for

17:05

me, the times I have used it for

17:08

writing, I can only

17:10

describe it as like intensely

17:12

dreamlike. It's like way

17:15

more draining when

17:17

a work session is over than

17:19

normal because I can just feel

17:21

that that concentration dial has been

17:24

turned up to just the

17:26

maximum that it can be. You

17:29

know, I've always talked for years about like, oh,

17:31

the environment around you is really important and you

17:33

need to arrange that in like a way to

17:35

be conducive to work. So in

17:37

some sense, this is not surprising, but it

17:40

has been a real visceral

17:42

experience of what is

17:44

the maximum possible version of this? The

17:46

maximum possible version of this is like

17:49

blowing away everything that is

17:52

really around you and being

17:54

locked into only able to

17:56

look at one thing. It

17:59

almost feels like this This is the thing

18:01

that I didn't know I have been trying

18:03

to achieve for this core

18:05

of my working environment.

18:07

Well that's very good. I

18:10

went on a roll-a-coaster ride with you there. Because

18:12

I couldn't really tell where you were going to

18:14

end. But that's also why I think like I

18:17

didn't mean to but I was literally cringing over here when

18:19

you're like I opened up Slack and I'm like ah!

18:22

Like I just. Like

18:25

I'm having a good time of it. And I'm

18:28

just struck by the idea of like and I'm not losing

18:30

sight of it. This is

18:33

the 1.0, just 1.0. This

18:35

is so early. And

18:38

we're three months away from seeing what

18:40

Vision OS 2 is I assume. That's

18:43

going to be really interesting. Like I'm very

18:45

keen to see do they

18:47

just fix bugs and problems

18:49

or do they push it. I'm very

18:52

keen to see what that might

18:54

mean. Of course WWDC this year is going

18:56

to be the AI WWDC.

19:00

How will that play into the Vision Pro

19:02

is going to be very intriguing. I

19:06

feel like I've had an exciting time so far and

19:08

now just as soon as I'm going to start getting

19:10

used to it then it

19:12

could change some. I feel like it is a good

19:15

point for something like this. What do you mean it's

19:17

a good point for something like this? As

19:19

a technology entertainer

19:22

it is an interesting moment right now.

19:25

Mmm okay yeah. I mean look is

19:27

it perfect? Absolutely not. Like

19:29

I have problems quite frequently with eye tracking. Like it's

19:31

just like I can't get it to do what I

19:33

want it to do. But

19:36

when I'm using it I'm like yeah okay that is

19:38

a 1.0. Like that is a first

19:40

version of this thing. In theory they should be able to

19:42

make it better. You

19:44

know even on 1.1 my personas mouth doesn't move.

19:46

Oh you still have no mouth in the screen.

19:48

Yeah they made them look better and the

19:51

personas do look better but my mouth and my eyes

19:53

still does not move. I have had it

19:55

confirmed. I don't know if I did last time we

19:57

spoke that it's mustaches are the problem. I

20:00

guess they didn't have to work around that because I'm

20:03

not gonna shave my mustache so my personas

20:05

mouth moves But I have

20:07

had more face time calls with the personas

20:09

and I am finding that to be a

20:11

very very good experience What

20:13

do you mean on the receiving end or on the sending

20:16

end or both? Well me as the person receiving the call

20:18

I find it to be very good. I

20:20

can't speak to the other person I think actually

20:22

people having persona calls of me get a worse

20:24

experience because they are Right. Yeah, someone was mouth

20:26

or so shut but

20:28

I find it to be pretty

20:31

similar to The

20:33

experience of the calls that we were having

20:36

with the Quest Pro Hmm,

20:38

and that is just because of the fidelity

20:40

of what Apple has built like the

20:42

persona looks like the person you know and You

20:46

can very quickly trick yourself into

20:48

like that person like it doesn't

20:50

take very long and

20:52

it's enhanced by the

20:55

spatial audio So like

20:58

the little persona called the person's in a box,

21:00

right? But wherever you move the

21:02

box is Where the

21:04

audio comes from? So

21:06

if I'm looking at something and I had a call

21:08

with Jason last night. I put Jason to the right

21:11

he's mostly into my right ear and Something

21:14

that blew my mind yesterday. So you've

21:16

been in mega studio. It

21:18

is a larger room It has a bit of

21:21

echo in it in some spots, right? I'm

21:24

talking to Jason there is echo on his

21:27

voice. Oh like

21:29

Apple Does work

21:31

in understanding the room tone of the

21:34

room that you are in really? Are you sure

21:36

they're doing this? You know how I know because

21:38

we put him in an environment. No more echo

21:40

Wow Yeah, it

21:42

blew my mind It's like there is no

21:44

need for you to do this But I

21:46

love it because it made him feel more

21:48

like he was in the room with me

21:50

because when I would speak I would hear

21:52

my voice reverberate and when he would speak

21:54

his voice reverberates That

21:57

is some interesting attention to detail. I would never

21:59

have thought of that But it's stuff like

22:01

that which like elevates that

22:03

experience. It's like little things like this

22:05

where it's like, okay, if

22:07

they keep making that better and they keep making

22:09

this better, like you're building these component parts to

22:12

make this an overall more and more

22:14

interesting computer for a lot of options.

22:16

Like for example, if I had to

22:18

have a video call with

22:20

a friend like for work or just to catch

22:22

up, if I know they have a Vision Pro,

22:24

that's how I'd prefer to do it now. Because

22:28

I also find the calls easier to do in

22:31

the way that the Quest calls are

22:33

where you're not dealing with the like, I

22:35

have to look good or

22:37

presentable and then, you know, also because

22:39

like we're all just like parrots. We

22:42

just like look at ourselves. Like

22:44

there's nothing you can do but look at yourself and you

22:46

don't get that. There is no

22:49

you in the call. It's just the person

22:51

you're speaking to. So I

22:53

find that experience to be really nice. So

22:55

it's like little bits like that. Where these

22:57

shoots throughout the operating system right now where

23:00

I'm like, I see where we could

23:02

go with this and overall my

23:04

experience is positive like that I think. I

23:06

do have bad news for you that I

23:08

will never conduct a FaceTime call from my

23:11

temple of focus. So we will

23:13

not get to use personas with each other.

23:15

You don't want me noodling in your pure

23:17

environment. I don't

23:19

like using the word noodle. I don't

23:21

like pure. So

23:23

we're at an impasse. We

23:26

did get some good follow up from listener

23:28

Frank. Oh yeah. I definitely want

23:30

to thank Frank. This was a real like

23:33

changing thing for me. So Frank

23:35

wrote in at cortexfeedback.com which is where

23:37

you can also submit our score text

23:39

questions. We're going to do some later on in the

23:41

episode but that's where you go. In regards

23:44

to you being unhappy about the fact that you

23:46

could not use a Dvorak keyboard with your Vision

23:48

Pro, Frank let us

23:50

know if you go to settings,

23:52

general keyboards, hardware keyboard, English. English.

23:55

Go to language and then you can scroll

23:57

down to Dvorak so you can have an external

23:59

keyboard. set to different layouts, but

24:01

it's in the language preferences. Yeah,

24:03

I was really happy to know that. I would never

24:06

have found it there. It's someplace different everywhere else, like

24:08

we were saying last time. The settings is very strange

24:10

because it tricks you into thinking you know where things

24:12

are, but you don't have any idea. Everything is weird.

24:14

The settings app on the Vision Pro is

24:17

the place where the uncanny valley exists. Yes,

24:19

yes. You know what? You're right.

24:21

That is actually where the uncanny valley is, is the

24:23

settings app. It looks like the settings that I know,

24:25

but nothing's in the

24:27

light. This is where that usually is, even

24:29

though it's labeled the same. It's

24:32

very strange in there. Even just dumb things, I find

24:34

myself having to scroll down further because I'm like, well

24:36

surely that would be up near the top. I was

24:38

like, oh, not here. Here, it's at the bottom. So

24:41

again, thanks Frank for pointing that out because that

24:43

made a wild difference along

24:45

with basically it was that

24:48

plus. Frank's

24:50

suggestion that I should

24:52

switch over my Obsidian

24:54

to Obsidian Sync and

24:57

use the iPad version and not

24:59

do the screen sharing thing. And

25:02

so it's like, great. I've got the

25:04

Obsidian with Obsidian Sync in the iPad

25:06

mode and I'm also able to use

25:08

an external keyboard with the headset. Honestly,

25:11

those two things just fundamentally changed everything about

25:13

the headset for me. Like that's how I

25:15

found what this is for. Using

25:18

Vision OS 1.1 and the newest version

25:20

of Mac OS though, the Mac display

25:23

to my eyes is significantly clearer,

25:25

more readable. That's interesting

25:27

to know. Yeah, I mean like that

25:30

is the only way I can imagine

25:32

doing some sort of work that is

25:34

not like purely focused

25:36

in this way. Yeah, I think they've made

25:38

some big improvements there. Like text

25:41

is very readable now where it was

25:43

like mostly readable before. It

25:45

looks much more like I'm just looking at my

25:47

computer display rather than looking at a screen share

25:49

of my computer display. I'll check that out because

25:51

I want to see what it looks like. But

25:53

I do feel like this is such a valuable

25:55

thing for me. I do want to preserve the

25:57

purity of this environment. But

26:02

it is just so interesting, like you said

26:04

before about the headset being a kind of

26:06

iPad. That really is the way to

26:08

think about it is the computer is

26:10

the best general purpose machine but the iPad is

26:12

better at some specific things and that is just

26:14

the way to mentally frame the Vision Pro in

26:16

the same way. I will just

26:19

say if there's anybody listening who

26:21

works on the keyboard stuff on

26:23

the headset, man, that little text

26:25

predictor keyboard thing and the actual

26:27

keyboard in the headset, I feel

26:29

like they are driving me crazy.

26:32

I never want to see them go away.

26:34

I am so aware of I have to

26:36

do this such a dumb thing but

26:38

when I click on Obsidian and I start typing, the

26:40

little text predictor thing is like, hi, hey, I am

26:43

here to help you and I have to move

26:45

it behind me. It is such a strange thing.

26:47

I cannot get rid of it. You just do

26:50

not want to see the quick type bar. Yeah,

26:52

that is what it is called, the quick type

26:54

bar. I never want to

26:56

see you. I don't want

26:58

your predictions. I am completely

27:00

uninterested. You don't help me at all.

27:03

The only thing you are is like

27:05

a distracting second place where what I'm

27:07

typing is showing up and then

27:09

you're trying to pick the most

27:11

predictable next word which when I'm

27:13

writing is like literally antithetical to

27:15

what I am trying to do.

27:18

So yeah, I never want to see it and I find it a

27:21

strange and bizarre experience. So like take

27:23

that thing and like throw it over my

27:25

head or like fling it behind me. Like

27:27

it has to go somewhere otherwise it will

27:29

keep reappearing. And it is like this is

27:32

the strange thing about virtual environments. It does

27:34

have a real physicality kind

27:36

of feeling to it. Like go

27:38

away annoying bug and it is like no,

27:40

I am right back here. All right, like

27:43

buzz behind me please. Just don't ever show

27:45

back up. Like I never want that thing

27:47

to appear. I mean look, maybe I couldn't

27:49

find it. Maybe if I go

27:52

into optical ID there is a setting to

27:54

turn off the text prediction. I have no

27:56

idea. But I was like unable to find

27:58

anywhere to make this thing go away. forever.

28:00

I never want to see it again. This

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30:41

Relay FM. I'm going to

30:43

ask Cortex a question from Harris. Can

30:47

you pace in a Vision Pro? Mike, have

30:49

you tried that? I've walked

30:51

around a bit on fine. I mean I'm

30:53

not a pacer but yeah I've moved around

30:55

in my office while wearing it. The

30:57

pass-through is so good. There's

31:00

been lots of videos I've seen

31:02

since people doing wild stuff like

31:04

MKBHD played table tennis wearing it.

31:07

Oh really? Because the latency is that good. Yeah I

31:09

mean I find myself quite a lot like I wear

31:11

it and it's like oh I want to go refill

31:13

my water bottle. Like I could just go do that,

31:15

just stand up and go do that. I

31:18

have yet to get over the fact of

31:20

turning around and seeing your apps like where

31:22

you left them. That is like such a

31:25

strange thing still. Or walking

31:27

through an app is not

31:29

an experience that makes me feel very

31:31

good. Like I feel like a ghost

31:33

is very strange but I feel

31:35

like if I was a pacer I

31:37

would have no problem pacing. But you tell

31:39

me. This was like one

31:42

of my top thoughts because I'm really thinking

31:44

about this even more so now in terms

31:46

of like for gradations where I pace for

31:49

miles and miles every day. Like is this

31:51

the kind of thing that I can use

31:53

the vision headset for? And

31:55

I was really excited to

31:57

try it one morning as I was

31:59

up. super duper early and

32:01

setting things up. And the

32:04

key thing for me here is if I'm

32:07

pacing, right, I'm standing up

32:10

and normally when I do this, you

32:13

have to like arrange the laptop screen to be at

32:15

the right height and the keyboard at the right height.

32:17

But now it's like, oh, great. I can just like

32:19

make a pile of boxes and put the keyboard on

32:21

top and that's fine. I can paste back and forth.

32:24

And so set up Obsidian. And

32:28

it works. It's

32:30

not perfect with text

32:32

because what you don't

32:35

notice when you're normally walking around and

32:37

windows are around you is that there

32:39

is I don't know if it's the

32:42

headset physically moving on your face

32:44

when you take a step, but there is

32:46

like a tiny bounce that I

32:48

think is the kind of thing you only really notice

32:51

when you're looking only at

32:53

text very precisely. So

32:55

there is like a tiny little judder

32:58

for steps when you're looking at text,

33:01

but it is totally within the acceptable

33:03

bounds. And I did

33:05

multiple little writing sessions where I

33:07

was pacing back and forth and

33:10

left Obsidian. I did it

33:12

two ways. First, left Obsidian just

33:15

on the blank wall in my dad's office

33:17

as I was pacing back and forth in

33:19

the real space. Actually, I decided

33:21

I don't like that at all. It

33:23

turned on the full environment. I was like, well, this

33:25

doesn't work at all if you're pacing because you are

33:27

popping on and off the moon or

33:30

wherever you have set up. So

33:32

the thing that actually worked surprisingly

33:35

well is turning

33:37

the environment to like 50%. And

33:41

then the headset does like they understand

33:43

this concept of like you're walking out

33:46

of Mount Hood and back into Mount

33:49

Hood and the script

33:51

is in Mount Hood. It

33:53

is similarly so strange to look over on the other side

33:55

of the room and it's like

33:58

a portal. Yeah. That's

34:00

the only way to describe it is it is a bit

34:02

like a portal. The other thing that

34:04

is like I still, I find like

34:06

the headset pulls this trick on me all

34:08

the time that I forget, which

34:11

is so I'm always in environment dark

34:13

mode. So it's always evening time in

34:15

Hawaii environments. So

34:18

when I'm pacing back and forth and there

34:20

is a portal to Mount Hood on one

34:22

side of the room, when I pace back

34:24

out, it darkens up the

34:27

lights in the room that I'm in.

34:30

And it's such a convincing effect that

34:33

I am always completely startled when I

34:35

take off the headset to realize, oh,

34:37

this room is actually bright, like 100%

34:39

brightness. I

34:41

feel like it is evening time in

34:44

this room. That is

34:46

the thing that really makes this

34:48

50% environment that I can

34:51

move out of and back into

34:53

in a pacing situation. That's

34:55

the thing that makes it convincing. They

34:57

don't make it look like it's a night

34:59

outside the window, but they just dim all

35:01

of the light in your physical environment. And

35:04

it is always surprising that this

35:06

hasn't really happened, that this

35:08

isn't the real lighting situation that's around

35:10

you. Because it's like, you know, if

35:12

you think about it, what

35:15

you're seeing is a camera feed,

35:17

right? Like that's what you're

35:19

seeing. It looks like, you know, ostensibly

35:21

you can trick yourself, convince yourself that

35:23

you are looking through the thing,

35:27

but you're not. You're looking at a

35:29

camera feed. And so Apple has complete

35:31

control over how it displays the camera

35:33

feed. And you know, like some

35:35

of the environments are just lighting effects. Like, do

35:37

you want the light to look warm? Do you

35:39

want the light to look cool? Like they can

35:42

just change the color or the

35:44

brightness of the light that they're displaying

35:46

to you because it's just an

35:48

image generated by a computer at the end

35:50

of the day. When playing around with

35:52

guest mode, so I've had three different

35:54

people try this, my parents and my aunt.

35:57

And when you put on guest mode, it has to do this eye-goum. calibration

36:00

thing, you know, so it's

36:02

like the dots, right? You've got to look

36:04

at the dots and you've got to click the

36:06

dots, but they also want you to do

36:09

the dots in different lighting environments. And 100% of

36:11

the time, the first time someone tries guest

36:13

mode, they go, did you just turn down the

36:15

lights? Did you just turn up the lights?

36:17

Like, no, it's such a convincing effect that it

36:19

just feels like you put on this headset

36:21

and then they slowly dim the lights, but it

36:24

is completely convincing to you that in the

36:26

physical environment, people have dimmed the lights

36:28

on you or brightened the lights on you. It's really

36:30

very impressive. So I guess

36:33

what I'm saying here is this is another one of

36:35

these details that I just really wouldn't have thought of,

36:37

but the pacing

36:39

works because of the thought

36:41

that they put into what

36:44

should it be like to have

36:46

a continuity of experience when you're

36:49

walking halfway in an

36:51

environment like the lake and Mount

36:53

Hood and halfway in the real

36:55

world and they've done an excellent

36:57

job of kind of

36:59

building one bubble around those

37:01

two physical spaces that

37:03

make them more continuous than they would be

37:06

if it was just a pure portal and

37:08

you were able to look at the rest

37:10

of the room. It's very good. Pacing

37:13

works with looking at a script and

37:16

I am very excited to try

37:18

that on a great occasion at some

37:20

point. Speaking of which, maybe if it

37:22

can trick you for lighting, it might be able

37:24

to trick you for something else. Liz writes in

37:26

to ask, will the

37:28

Vision Pro solve Grey's hotel

37:30

thermostat hacking issue? So

37:33

if you were in the Yosemite Snowy environment,

37:35

would that maybe trick your brain into thinking

37:37

you were in a cooler environment? I

37:39

feel like Liz is trying to provoke

37:41

me here. Obviously,

37:44

a virtual Antarctica helps with none

37:46

of the actual problem that I

37:48

am dealing with when I am

37:51

in these hotels. But

37:53

okay, so listen, I said before

37:55

that I've been having this thought

37:58

of like, what even is

38:00

an office. And Liz is

38:03

kind of hit upon incidentally

38:05

with trying to provoke me, something that actually

38:07

does kind of get to the heart of

38:09

this question. So when

38:12

I knew I was going to be in America for

38:15

a long time, I was trying

38:17

to figure out a little bit of like, okay,

38:19

how can I have like somewhat

38:22

of a normal schedule here? Because it's like, it's

38:24

different when I visit my parents and it's like,

38:26

oh, I'm just going to be here for a

38:28

week and whatever. But when it's

38:30

more like, I'm going to be here for like

38:32

a month, at least, I wanted to try to

38:34

have some regular routine. And

38:37

so I kind of shifted my schedule

38:39

and I was getting up super duper early and going

38:41

to the gym. And what I was thinking of was

38:43

like, I need a place to work

38:46

after the gym where I can just try to get like

38:48

a little bit of stuff done. And

38:50

I don't particularly like to work in

38:53

my dad's office because I'm loud and

38:55

noisy when I'm like the typing, it's

38:57

like a super duper early in the morning. The house is

38:59

not amazingly soundproof. So like, I just don't want to bother

39:01

my parents. I'm like, where can I go? I was trying

39:04

to think about all these different things. And like, once

39:08

the headset arrives, it

39:10

was this feeling like, Oh, I don't

39:13

like need to find an environment

39:16

that's like a coffee

39:18

shop that happens to be open at

39:21

four in the morning. I don't need

39:23

to find something like a coworking space

39:25

that's open really early in the morning.

39:27

I just need

39:29

some quiet, private

39:32

place to work. Because

39:34

the thing that it's

39:36

just like slowly kept creeping into

39:39

my mind is this headset

39:41

creates a real separation

39:44

between the mental you

39:47

who's doing work, like your brain, your

39:50

brain's internal experience, like which is the

39:52

only thing that you really are. And

39:54

then like your physical body, which also

39:56

has to be there. And

39:58

it just it really does. divides those two

40:00

things quite sharply. And I was just

40:03

aware of thinking like, oh, most of

40:05

the time when I'm trying to think

40:07

about workspaces, you're trying to find some

40:09

compromise between like what can the cerebral

40:12

you work in and what can the

40:14

physical you also work in? So

40:17

a bunch of mornings I'd just be like driving

40:19

around in North Carolina and kind of thinking like,

40:21

where's the place that I could go? It doesn't

40:23

need to be a coffee shop. It doesn't need

40:25

to be an office. I just need like some

40:27

place I can go in the morning. And ideally

40:29

I'd like it to be temperature controlled. And

40:32

I was like just thinking, and so

40:34

I'm like driving around. I'm like, I

40:36

just need a small environment. It's like

40:38

temperature controlled that I can work in

40:40

and I'm driving around and where can

40:42

I be? And suddenly I realized, oh

40:44

my God, I can work in this

40:46

car. This car is the perfect office.

40:49

This is the most amazing

40:51

place to actually work because

40:53

it is a small temperature

40:56

controlled, extremely comfortable environment to

40:58

work in. The garage office

41:00

has warped your brain. I

41:03

wasn't in the garage office. I just

41:05

parked, right? I know, but it's warped

41:08

your brain. They're like, oh

41:10

garage, perfect place to work. You know,

41:12

you're working every day hearing cars, cars,

41:14

cars, seeing cars. And you're like, cars,

41:16

perfect place to work. You know, your

41:19

brain's being warped. But it actually is. So

41:21

like I was driving my dad's Tesla and

41:24

I've always thought like, boy, these Tesla seats

41:26

are just, they're the most comfortable seats I've

41:28

ever been in. And it's like, ooh, turn

41:30

on the heated seats, right? Then turn the

41:32

air conditioning way down. And it's like, ah,

41:34

perfect. This is the environment that I want

41:36

to be in. Wait, what? You

41:39

turn on the heated seat? Yeah,

41:41

it's nice and cozy. But

41:44

then you don't want to get too warm. So

41:46

you turn the air conditioning to maximum low. And

41:49

then this is perfect. You're in like homeostasis with

41:51

the environment. Stand.

41:55

What do you mean you don't understand? Have you never done this? It's

41:57

the most comfortable way to be. But what benefits does the

41:59

heated seat provide? It's comfortable, but you're like

42:02

what do you mean? What benefit does the heated seat? But

42:04

if you want it to be cold, then why do you

42:06

want the heat to be in the seat? I Don't

42:09

get it. Have you never done this? Have you never had

42:11

the air conditioning on in the car and

42:13

also the heated seats? No, I've never done

42:15

this Mike you haven't lived. This is great

42:18

heated seats are for when it's cold and

42:21

Air conditioning for when it's hot listen to what

42:23

you just said You just said the same thing

42:25

yourself Mike heated seats are for when it's cold

42:28

And so the air you don't need

42:30

to create the cold but you can

42:32

that's the point Gives

42:39

me the optimal environment to work in

42:41

is what it okay. It's

42:43

the absolute Perfect thing

42:46

whatever this was mind-blowing And

42:48

so now the only thing I needed

42:51

since I was out in the world

42:53

was also a way to like Cover

42:55

up the windows perhaps of the car.

42:58

I'm like well, right? I don't want

43:00

to be like a weird and want

43:02

to go viral on social media. Basically

43:04

is what you're saying Yes, no, I

43:06

actually no joke. I was

43:08

aware of that like, you

43:10

know what? I don't want to end

43:13

up I don't want to end up

43:15

a viral sensation where someone sees that

43:17

glowing faceplate at 5

43:20

a.m. While I'm working in like the

43:22

gym parking lot at this 24 hours

43:27

Funny it would be For

43:30

you to go viral in that way Because

43:33

no one booty would know it was you

43:36

yeah Well, no, so I wasn't gonna have

43:38

that I know right so it's like right

43:40

on to Amazon and like Tesla privacy screen

43:42

Here we go. Amazing. Do you know what

43:45

an office is Mike? It's a car. That's

43:47

what an office is This is perfect. It

43:50

was so Revelatory

43:53

and one of these ways it was

43:55

like what even is an office and

43:58

the problem I'm trying to solve

44:01

is I just need my

44:03

physical body to be comfortable

44:05

while I'm working. And

44:08

this is now a totally unrelated

44:10

problem from the working environment for

44:13

my brain, which is

44:15

inside the headset. These

44:17

two things are no longer connected.

44:19

They are divorced and it is

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RelayFM. All right.

46:37

Rob asks, I think you've

46:39

touched on it before, but would be interested

46:41

in why you've chosen not to go a

46:44

Kickstarter route with new product launches to help

46:46

you when you put a lot of capital

46:48

into sidekick notepad reorders. I

46:50

confess I sometimes grow tired of established companies

46:52

going to Kickstarter, but it has never stopped

46:55

me from supporting them and buying the product.

46:57

Kind of like a preorder. Why

46:59

don't you do this? I am not

47:01

opposed to Kickstarter. Similarly, I back

47:05

lots of Kickstarters. I've done some Kickstarters in the

47:07

past for the pen addict. We did some

47:09

live shows in the past and we did Kickstarter campaigns

47:11

for them. For

47:14

the products that we have done and the products

47:16

that we are working on, I

47:19

don't believe that we have needed to

47:21

rely on something like a crowdfunding route

47:23

to do it because they are bets

47:26

that I have been confident enough

47:28

in that I believe that

47:31

we could put the capital into

47:33

them. Maybe it might be

47:35

like, oh, this is going to sell slowly, but it's going

47:37

to sell, which is going to sell out over time. I

47:41

think that there is an element of if

47:43

we're able to offer a product and

47:46

people can just give us their money and get

47:48

the product in a few days, that

47:50

is the preferable thing to do in my opinion. I

47:53

could imagine a scenario where one

47:56

day we have an idea that

47:58

is really complex and really really

48:00

expensive to make. And

48:02

in that scenario, maybe a Kickstarter is

48:04

the only way to get it started.

48:07

If we were making something that

48:09

cost us $100 a unit

48:11

to produce, that's just

48:14

too much money to buy

48:16

10,000 of them

48:18

or whatever. If

48:21

it was a scenario like that where it's like,

48:23

oh, you can make this product for X, but

48:25

your minimum order is really high, like really

48:28

high. And so then we

48:30

just can't afford it. Then I could imagine maybe

48:32

doing it. But for me, I do feel that

48:35

if we are able to do it, which we have been,

48:37

I would prefer to do it

48:39

this way because I like the idea of a

48:41

consumer can give you their money and receive the

48:43

item. Oh, yeah. I completely agree with

48:45

you on that. And then also, scenarios like the

48:48

Sidekick Notepad and the amount of

48:50

time it took to produce has reinforced that

48:52

for me. It took us

48:54

a year and a half from when we received the

48:56

first sample before we had them shipping. I

48:59

couldn't live with myself in that scenario. I

49:01

would be going out of my mind of

49:04

guilt that we had taken people's money

49:06

and then told them, oh, it

49:08

will be ready in three months. And then

49:10

a year later, that is something

49:13

that I would struggle to feel comfortable with. So

49:17

as we are still especially learning

49:19

production of items, I'm also not

49:22

comfortable doing a Kickstarter campaign. I

49:24

feel like this is something that over time, we

49:27

may get into the scenario that we are

49:29

willing to take the kind of bet that

49:31

Kickstarter would need. But I don't foresee that

49:34

any time in our immediate future. I mean,

49:36

I'm working on a few ideas for products

49:38

now, but we are still going to be

49:40

able to fund them in the traditional way, I think. But

49:43

I just think for us, we have not needed to do it. Yeah.

49:46

This question kind of reminds me

49:48

that I think when we

49:50

really started doing this sort of thing, I

49:52

was more in the position that Rob is

49:54

kind of asking about where I feel

49:57

like I just didn't have a clear understanding

49:59

of the distinction. of what

50:01

we're doing, which is like placing the order and then

50:03

trying to sell the product and something like Kickstarter. And

50:06

I think I was kind of like, my

50:09

memory of how these conversations went was basically that

50:11

I was originally on the side of like, well,

50:13

of course you do a Kickstarter, right? Because if

50:15

it doesn't work, then there's no problem. But

50:18

I think I didn't really

50:20

perceive the problem of, yes, but

50:22

what if the Kickstarter does

50:24

work? And I just,

50:26

I hadn't really been thinking it through. And it's

50:29

like the Kickstarter's, it's

50:31

a very particular kind of tool

50:34

that in some ways is

50:36

used to try to de-risk a situation. Like you

50:38

said, if you have a product that has a

50:41

really high cost to produce, you

50:43

need to know that you actually have orders for

50:45

that thing. Like in that case, you're using Kickstarter

50:47

to try to de-risk the thing. But

50:51

on the smaller side of things, it

50:55

feels to me now, like having

50:57

spoken to you, talked it through

50:59

a bunch, that Kickstarter is kind

51:01

of riskier for smaller to medium

51:03

projects in a way. Like

51:06

you said, you can be on the hook. And

51:08

if something comes up, you just feel real

51:10

guilty because it's taken like a whole year

51:12

to do this thing. So I feel

51:14

the same way, obviously. Like it's not

51:17

that I would never do a Kickstarter

51:19

for anything, but I think I did

51:21

not previously appreciate how specific

51:23

of a tool it is that you

51:25

really want to be intentional about when

51:27

does it make sense to do this. And

51:30

I think that having uncertainty about

51:32

something tells you the answer. And

51:35

if you are uncertain, if you want

51:37

to do a Kickstarter or

51:39

do something more traditional, your

51:41

uncertainty is the answer that you should probably do

51:43

it in a more traditional way. Which is why

51:46

we've done that for everything that we've done up

51:48

to this point in time. And again, like the

51:50

Sidekick notepad is just like for me another, like

51:52

a great example of my gut feeling for I

51:55

didn't wanna do a Kickstarter for it, which was

51:57

how the product began and ended. It was in

51:59

a very. different place. And

52:01

we would have been locked into the original

52:03

ideas of the product if we would have

52:06

done a Kickstarter for it because you kind

52:08

of if you've presented something to someone in

52:10

a certain way for a certain price you

52:12

kind of have to stick to that. But we

52:14

ended up with a better product which

52:16

became more expensive to produce therefore the

52:18

price was higher. Yeah you have sold

52:20

people on a specific thing and so

52:22

you're making that thing and you have

52:24

to be real certain

52:26

that there is a zero percent

52:28

chance you're going to change your

52:30

idea about what's the better

52:33

version of this later. That's the thing that

52:35

you can't do with Kickstarter. There are people

52:37

every day launching Kickstarter campaigns and they know

52:39

what they're doing in that regard. Yeah. But

52:41

we're I think too early or at least

52:44

I feel like I am not experienced enough where

52:47

I feel confident in being like my

52:49

initial idea that's the idea you know

52:51

like I don't feel confident in that

52:53

where I feel like I could say

52:55

like hey back this project it's gonna

52:58

be just like this because so

53:00

far that has not been the

53:02

case and will continue to be

53:04

I think for a bit. Yeah I was just flipping

53:07

through the roster of stuff that we have done and

53:09

stuff that's in development and I

53:11

think every single one of those

53:13

products the point at which we

53:15

could theoretically have done a Kickstarter

53:17

would have been the wrong time

53:19

because it changed significantly from that

53:21

point and it's been real

53:23

great to be able to go real slow

53:25

with some things and get them just the

53:27

way we want them to be which is

53:30

again not an option with Kickstarter. Which is

53:32

you know this is the weird way in

53:34

which in a

53:36

sense like Cortex brand right now is a

53:38

side business for both of us right

53:41

and so we're able

53:43

to do things in a slightly different way to

53:47

other companies that do what we do but it's

53:49

their living. Where we're

53:51

able to keep cashing the business

53:53

to invest into new products and into new

53:56

inventory rather than needing it for our salary.

53:58

Mm-hmm. And Cazesh is where we are as a

54:01

business is what we're doing. But I like that

54:03

because it's like we're funding our own growth. And

54:05

I think for what I want and what we want

54:07

this business to be, it makes a lot of sense

54:09

to do it that way for right now. And

54:12

then we're able to pass the benefit of

54:14

it not being a Kickstarter on to the

54:16

customer. Yeah, Kickstarter's costing more. That's the only

54:18

thing. It's a very, very complicated process and

54:20

people can do it really right and it

54:23

can be a great marketing tool and that's

54:25

why a lot of established companies still use

54:27

it. But also similarly,

54:30

we have great marketing tools already. If

54:35

we were gonna do a Kickstarter for a product, you'd

54:37

be hearing about it on the show. So

54:39

why not just make the thing and tell you about

54:41

it on the show? That is a

54:43

really funny way to frame it but it's 100% correct. Nick

54:46

asks, how soon after waking up

54:49

do both of you begin actively

54:51

engaging with your phone or another

54:54

screen? A phone or

54:56

another screen? I guess that's a Mac,

54:58

right, or an iPad? Any screen, okay.

55:00

You go first, Mike. Ah, darn it,

55:02

okay. It's immediate, it's immediate. Right,

55:05

so like my alarm goes off, I

55:08

snooze it a couple of times and then eventually

55:10

I grab my phone to

55:13

turn off the alarm and the next

55:16

thing that I do is look at my notification. You look at

55:19

your notifications the very first thing when you wake up. Yep. Are

55:21

you out of bed yet? No. Really? Yeah.

55:25

That's hardcore. That's what

55:27

people do. This is the unhealthy relationship we

55:29

have with our devices. That feels like the real hair

55:31

of the dog that bit you like. Yeah. I

55:34

woke up and I looked right at my notification.

55:36

The solution for this problem is to not use

55:38

my phone as my alarm. If

55:40

I didn't do that, the situation

55:42

would be different. But I have my phone in my

55:44

hand, right, to turn

55:46

off my alarm and so

55:48

therefore I've gotten myself into the habit of like,

55:51

immediately like, all right, what's going on? What

55:53

emails did I get? What text messages did

55:55

I get? And then I'll spend

55:57

a few minutes to more than a few minutes.

56:00

sometimes dealing with whatever's on my

56:02

phone before I get out of bed and money. I

56:05

mean in fairness to you, our

56:07

time zone in the UK does make

56:09

this more tempting. I think that's just

56:11

natural. Like when you go to bed,

56:13

America is still doing stuff for a

56:15

while. Yes, but still. I

56:17

could still wait 20 minutes. It

56:20

waited for four hours. I guess that's true, yeah.

56:22

Because America is not gonna be up for a

56:25

while is the other thing, yeah. Exactly. But

56:28

this is just part of

56:30

the relationship with our devices. It's

56:34

unhealthy in some ways. It's fine in

56:36

others. I think by and

56:38

large, I consider this to

56:40

be okay because

56:42

I do feel like I do a

56:44

good job of managing the

56:46

types of notifications that I get. And

56:49

so, you know, what I am getting

56:51

notifications for, it's kind

56:54

of stuff that I want. Like I'm

56:56

not getting breaking news alerts, right, or

56:58

whatever. You know, like it is typically

57:01

people or things that I care about

57:05

and would like to know about. So, you know,

57:07

I'm happy about it in that regard, but still.

57:09

It could wait 20 minutes, but no, it doesn't.

57:11

It's the first thing I do in the morning.

57:14

If it was waiting 20 minutes, what in theory in

57:16

your life would it be waiting 20 minutes for? What

57:18

do you mean? I mean, I feel like implicitly

57:21

you're saying something like you'd be brushing your

57:23

teeth and getting ready for the day. Just

57:25

waking up, talking to my

57:27

wife, you know, like any of these

57:29

things, right, would be better. Like waiting

57:32

until I've at least made coffee, you

57:34

know, just because it's like, let's just

57:36

like remove the phone and the

57:38

outside world, like for just a little bit longer, just like

57:40

a little bit longer. I don't know. I feel like I'm

57:42

actually kind of disagreeing with you about that. Like if you're

57:44

gonna check your messages in 20 minutes, you might as well

57:47

check them when you wake up. Yeah, this is what I'm

57:49

trying to get at is you're like, you're not trying to

57:51

save yourself for anything here. So I think you should feel

57:53

less guilty about it. If I was able to not look

57:55

at my phone for that period of time, then I would

57:57

at least be proving to myself that I don't need to.

58:00

Okay, all right. That's very different. So

58:02

now we're having a literal addiction conversation.

58:04

Yeah. We're not having a

58:06

like, what are you doing with your morning conversation? Well, because

58:08

that's the situation, right? Where it's like, if I could just

58:10

leave it a little bit longer, then maybe

58:13

I'll be able to tell myself that like,

58:15

I don't need to look at it, right?

58:17

But like that is the strongest indication of

58:20

the habitual addiction, whatever you'd want

58:22

to call it, nature of me

58:24

using my phone would be

58:26

that I could start my

58:28

day doing anything else than checking my

58:30

phone first. But that is

58:33

what I will always start with. Well, okay.

58:35

It's not like a

58:37

media, immediate. Like, I

58:39

do actually spend time with my

58:41

wife in the morning before looking

58:43

at my phone, but it's

58:45

not a lot of time. You know

58:47

what I mean? Like, the phone is very

58:50

fast into the morning part. Or

58:52

I might like check it, put my phone down,

58:54

you know, we'll talk for a bit or whatever,

58:56

and then wake up. But it's very early in

58:59

my wake up process is checking my smartphone.

59:01

I'm gonna ask a dumb, more

59:03

morning person question. My

59:06

impression of your workday is that it's very

59:08

late shifted. So what

59:10

do you even say in these alarms for in the

59:12

morning? Like, why don't you just get up later? I

59:15

have to get up. Although, because Greg,

59:17

I won't – You

59:19

won't – you just like die in

59:21

bed if you don't send the alarm. Look, left

59:23

to my own devices, I can sleep to 1pm.

59:27

Oh, okay. All right. So that's what you're trying

59:29

to avoid. Even though, yes, my day is late

59:31

shifted, I like to be out of

59:33

bed by 9. Have you ever

59:35

tried to sleep until 1pm and like shifting your

59:37

whole day? I absolutely don't want to live my

59:39

life that way. Okay. I

59:42

really don't want to do that. You could call it

59:44

mic master time though, right? That would be great. No,

59:47

I really don't want to. Because I actually,

59:49

you know, over time, like the things that

59:51

I would do before lunch, like I like

59:53

to do that work before lunch, you know.

59:56

I've kind of got into this mode. But,

59:58

you know, so I go to bed about – 130

1:00:01

and I wake up between 830 and

1:00:03

930. That's like a typical day for

1:00:05

me But I want to

1:00:07

be awake, you know, I think you should try my

1:00:09

master time No, I really don't want to I really

1:00:11

really don't want to live my life that way But

1:00:14

it might be amazing. No, what I would prefer to do

1:00:16

is Not work so

1:00:18

late like that would be my friend But

1:00:21

that's the thing to do with it another time. I don't

1:00:23

know I just think you should feel less

1:00:25

bad about this situation I feel like you're

1:00:27

actually fine here. I check at my phone.

1:00:30

Yeah about checking the phone. I feel like this is fine So

1:00:32

what do you do then? There's like a

1:00:34

continual fight here that I am never satisfied

1:00:37

with so Again,

1:00:39

like in some sense the answer to the

1:00:41

actual question of like how soon do you

1:00:43

begin actively engaging with your phone or another?

1:00:45

Screen my answer is the same as you

1:00:47

which is like, oh, it's functionally instant. Okay,

1:00:49

I would not have expected that But like

1:00:52

the phone is waking me up and

1:00:54

then when things go well I

1:00:57

am trying to use the phone as

1:00:59

a kind of guidance for the morning

1:01:01

Like I have a little morning routine

1:01:04

checklist that I want to check things off

1:01:06

very often I'll wake up with particularly

1:01:09

with if like I'm really knee-deep in

1:01:11

some complicated projects Like I'll wake up

1:01:13

with thoughts about that project. So I

1:01:15

want to take notes straight away This

1:01:18

is like instantly is the answer this

1:01:20

the same way. That's when things go

1:01:22

Well in my morning

1:01:24

like an iPad or the phone

1:01:26

they're like immediate companions

1:01:28

in some way Well, okay, let

1:01:30

me ask a slightly modified version

1:01:33

of the question But I actually think is what the question

1:01:35

is asking if like how long

1:01:37

until you're Interacting with

1:01:39

another person and like either reading something

1:01:41

someone sent you. Yeah So

1:01:45

this was what I was gonna try to get to this

1:01:47

is the conflict It's funny to do

1:01:49

this question now because I'm in Just

1:01:51

particular awareness again Like because the family things

1:01:53

have had to be looking at messages much

1:01:55

earlier in the morning than I normally would

1:01:57

be So I've just been like checking

1:02:00

things when I'm up and there's

1:02:02

like this thing that, okay, so focus modes

1:02:04

have made this much better

1:02:09

over time with like, how do

1:02:11

you handle notifications? But

1:02:14

fundamentally the conflict for me is

1:02:16

still this thing. Like I don't

1:02:18

like that messages like text messages

1:02:21

are in the notification center.

1:02:24

I've never quite found a satisfactory

1:02:27

way to try to like

1:02:29

get messages when I do want them,

1:02:31

but also not see them when I

1:02:33

don't want them. It just

1:02:36

always feels like no

1:02:38

matter how I try to turn

1:02:40

the dials of being excluded from

1:02:42

the world or included into the

1:02:44

world, it's hard to find this

1:02:46

right balance. And a

1:02:48

lot of times I'm sort of frustrated if I

1:02:50

like, oh, I need something in notification center and

1:02:52

then I can see like, oh, there's a bunch

1:02:54

of messages that are just waiting there for me.

1:02:56

It's like, I don't want to see these for

1:02:59

a couple of hours. The problem that you have

1:03:01

here, which I know you know, is that notification

1:03:03

center is built for the

1:03:05

receipt of messages from people. That

1:03:07

is the primary focus of the

1:03:09

entire power, the operating system. Oh

1:03:11

yeah. Yeah. It

1:03:13

is a thing that I am aware that I

1:03:16

love the Apple ecosystem, but there is a

1:03:18

thing about it, which is Contra to me,

1:03:21

which is how much they want you to

1:03:23

engage with other people in all of the

1:03:25

things that you're doing. And

1:03:28

it is maybe my most

1:03:30

consistent design frustration with them.

1:03:33

Even just recently, like I, this is another one of these,

1:03:35

like I got to go in the settings and figure out

1:03:37

where to turn this thing off. But I'm so aware now

1:03:39

of like, when I'm texting with someone, if I look at

1:03:41

one of my notes, it pops up like, Hey, do you

1:03:43

want to live collaborate with this person you're talking with on

1:03:45

this note? It's like, why is this

1:03:48

button even here? Never, never

1:03:50

is when I want to do this. What

1:03:53

are you laughing at there, Mike? No, it's

1:03:55

because I find it weird to your

1:03:58

division pro is even worse. Like

1:04:00

if you're having a FaceTime call with

1:04:02

someone, any app you're looking

1:04:05

at, a little button appears above it where

1:04:07

it's like collaborate or like share screen. It's

1:04:09

like no, like I'm just, I'm reading

1:04:11

an iMessage from somebody else, I don't

1:04:13

need this to be shared. Like we're good. I

1:04:16

haven't seen that, I was agreeing

1:04:19

because I'm so aware of how

1:04:21

they made a decision that their

1:04:23

top level thing is like there's

1:04:25

three things. There's apps, there's environments,

1:04:28

and then there's people, like they

1:04:30

pulled out people as this top

1:04:32

level thing. I think

1:04:34

that's a real design decision. I understand

1:04:37

why they do it, but this is

1:04:39

where I find Apple

1:04:41

most greats on me, is

1:04:44

they're constantly trying to get

1:04:46

me to be outward directed, and

1:04:49

I spend a huge amount

1:04:51

of time essentially trying to protect

1:04:53

myself from the outside, right? I want

1:04:56

to be as inward directed as is

1:04:58

possible, and one

1:05:00

of the things that has happened is like as

1:05:02

time has gone on and like technology goes on

1:05:04

and continues to improve, I was

1:05:07

trying during year of work to

1:05:09

do a thing which was trying

1:05:12

to just like shut off my internet

1:05:14

at like the house level or the

1:05:16

Euro level or the device level, so

1:05:19

I would know when I woke up

1:05:21

like, oh I don't have any messages on my

1:05:23

phone because my phone wasn't connected to the internet

1:05:25

at all, but the problem here

1:05:28

is that if you do this, like

1:05:30

if you set up shortcuts to try to

1:05:32

just disconnect your phone from the internet, the

1:05:35

phone basically literally fights you the whole time

1:05:37

being like, oh hey you know there's

1:05:39

like a wifi connection here and you're just not connected, do you want

1:05:41

to connect to this? And they're like oh there's

1:05:43

a cell connection here, if you press the cell connection button you'll be

1:05:45

connected to it, it's like I fucking

1:05:47

know, I told you to turn

1:05:49

off. It is trying to

1:05:51

reach out and connect to things and

1:05:54

it just will not accept that like a person

1:05:56

doesn't want to be on the wifi because I

1:05:58

don't want to be on the Messages to

1:06:00

be able to reach me and then live

1:06:02

in notification center where I can either Accidentally

1:06:04

know they're there or just simply be tempted

1:06:07

by the fact that they're there now There's

1:06:09

many ways in which I completely recognize This

1:06:11

is like wildly unreasonable and it is a

1:06:13

thing that I gave up because it also

1:06:15

was just So impractical

1:06:17

in many ways because you forget like oh

1:06:19

all of my home controls require that I'm

1:06:22

connected to the internet like There's a hundred

1:06:24

things that I can't even think of right

1:06:26

now that like require a connection To

1:06:29

my phone or like there's something that's happening where I

1:06:31

can't just like put the phone in airplane mode or

1:06:33

whatever it is so this

1:06:36

is a thing that for me is just Kind

1:06:39

of an unsolved Problem there really

1:06:42

isn't a way around it like

1:06:44

what I actually want is a

1:06:46

magical thing that says no one

1:06:48

can contact me Unless

1:06:50

they really need to but I get to

1:06:52

judge if they really need to that's really

1:06:54

what I want Like kind of

1:06:56

focus mode do this. Okay. Let me

1:06:58

try to clarify a thing here what

1:07:01

I Realize is a thing that I

1:07:03

would want is the

1:07:05

ability for focus modes to

1:07:08

also do something like Change

1:07:10

the settings of how messages are

1:07:12

actually able to be delivered to

1:07:15

the device. Okay That's

1:07:17

not something that you can do with focus

1:07:19

modes. It's not something that you can do

1:07:21

with settings so the problem is

1:07:23

that I Have

1:07:26

to have the settings for in

1:07:28

general how our message is received

1:07:31

Set a certain way at the

1:07:34

system setting level and you

1:07:36

realize this when you dig in the settings the focus modes

1:07:39

are not Designed from

1:07:41

the perspective of you are like

1:07:44

using this device in the focus mode.

1:07:46

They're really in a way designed

1:07:49

from the perspective of To

1:07:51

not interrupt you. Mm-hmm But

1:07:54

that means while you are using

1:07:56

the device stuff is piling up

1:07:59

in notification center. And that's where

1:08:01

like you just know that it's there

1:08:03

waiting for you. It's

1:08:05

easy to accidentally see

1:08:08

it when you're just trying to pull

1:08:10

up something in control center. Like that's

1:08:12

the problem. That is like basically unsolvable

1:08:15

is a crazy requirement of engineering

1:08:17

that like I would just want

1:08:19

for me when to be honest

1:08:21

focus modes have already gone beyond

1:08:23

my wildest reasonable expectations of what

1:08:25

an operating system would do. But

1:08:28

I'm just aware like this is always going

1:08:30

to be a frustration for me and is

1:08:32

also a frustration for everybody who ever interacts

1:08:34

with me. Because whenever I'm trying to fix

1:08:36

this problem it's always the same thing. It's

1:08:38

like I go way too far and then

1:08:40

my wife's like I've tried to call you

1:08:42

seven times and none of them got through

1:08:45

and it's like oh no right like I

1:08:47

put the dials the wrong way. Yeah because

1:08:49

I guess the situation saying

1:08:52

is like while it won't

1:08:54

annoy you you'll see like receive

1:08:56

while you're in focus and you know there's

1:08:58

stuff in there where you don't want the

1:09:01

temptation of knowing there's stuff in there. Yeah

1:09:03

and there's way too many tricky edge cases

1:09:05

of like switching between focus modes right. So

1:09:07

it's like oh when you go from sleep

1:09:10

and then I have like a core working

1:09:12

focus mode but then I also have like

1:09:14

the exercise focus mode. When you're going between

1:09:16

those things that's also a place where like

1:09:19

stuff can bleed over for a moment. There's

1:09:21

just a lot of these little edge cases that are not obvious

1:09:24

when you first start to think about

1:09:26

them. But yes so I guess the

1:09:28

answer to the question is instantly start

1:09:30

engaging and often much sooner than I

1:09:32

ideally would want to. But I spend

1:09:34

a lot of time trying to make

1:09:36

that not happen as often as possible.

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RealAFM and for making my work that

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little bit easier. Brance

1:11:47

asks, Mike, now that you are settled

1:11:49

into your new home, is there a

1:11:52

chance that you'll shut down MegaStudio and

1:11:54

work slash podcast from home? Or does

1:11:56

continuing to have MegaStudio contribute to your

1:11:58

year of the weekend theme? help keep

1:12:00

a firm line between work and life. I

1:12:03

could not imagine working from home again. I'm

1:12:06

not surprised to hear that. I really

1:12:08

like having a dedicated

1:12:11

space to work in.

1:12:13

I think it is very valuable for

1:12:15

me because of the type

1:12:18

of work that I do to have

1:12:20

an element of control with

1:12:22

the sound, an

1:12:25

element of control of

1:12:28

distraction. It's very

1:12:30

good for me to just be in an environment

1:12:32

where people aren't going

1:12:34

to bother me one way or another and or

1:12:37

I don't have to worry that I am inconveniencing

1:12:39

people. When I used to

1:12:41

record at home in our apartment, it

1:12:44

was very conscious to me that like Adina

1:12:46

was stuck, you know? What

1:12:48

do you mean? There's certain things she couldn't

1:12:50

do, right? If she wanted to do

1:12:53

something that will cause noise at home, she couldn't

1:12:55

do it. Because I'm recording. And

1:12:58

so it wouldn't work and I

1:13:00

didn't like that feeling. If

1:13:03

she just wants to

1:13:05

watch Game of Thrones, she's just like, well, I've

1:13:07

just got to do it quietly. And it's just

1:13:09

like, this is not good. I don't like that

1:13:11

feeling. But I also just really like

1:13:13

having a space of my own that

1:13:15

I can do whatever I want with and I can

1:13:17

set it up just in the way that I need

1:13:19

to do all of the things that I want to

1:13:21

do. I also think

1:13:24

it's so good for me for

1:13:26

work-life balance, being in

1:13:28

the two different places. Like it's again,

1:13:30

it's like year of the weekend, the

1:13:32

idea was you work

1:13:34

on the days you work and you're off

1:13:37

on the days you're off. And

1:13:39

so you have these things you have to balance. You

1:13:41

have to find a balance between them. And

1:13:44

I find that to be the same with having home

1:13:46

and office. Like inherently, they're

1:13:48

being two things means that they

1:13:51

balance against each other. And then I can work

1:13:53

to make sure that balance is correct. But

1:13:55

I like the fact that they are separate entities

1:13:58

that I get to. spend

1:14:00

time in and do whatever it is I want

1:14:02

to do in each. I think I've gone very

1:14:04

good at not working at

1:14:06

home. That's really good to hear. Also just to

1:14:08

add as someone who has visited Mega Studio, I

1:14:11

think the thing that brands might

1:14:13

not be realizing is that Mega

1:14:16

Studio has also become the de

1:14:18

facto Cortex brand headquarters. Yeah. And

1:14:21

when I think about Mega Studio, I

1:14:24

think about the amount of physical stuff

1:14:26

that you have in there is astounding.

1:14:28

When I go over there and you

1:14:31

delightedly want to show me paper samples

1:14:34

or color samples of things or just

1:14:36

notebooks that you're looking at or prototypes or

1:14:39

all of these things, there's

1:14:41

no way you could get rid

1:14:43

of Mega Studio. It's just not

1:14:45

possible anymore. I would need an

1:14:47

actually bigger home. It's not

1:14:50

good. Because now my work

1:14:52

has physicality to it where it didn't

1:14:54

before. Now I have cabinets which have

1:14:56

samples in them and I keep versions

1:14:58

of every print of every product that

1:15:00

I can refer back to. I

1:15:03

have boxes of a couple

1:15:05

of hundred sidekick notepads that we send

1:15:07

out for people to review and

1:15:09

stuff like that. I have all this stuff that

1:15:12

needs this space. And then also I'm going

1:15:14

to make some

1:15:16

adaptations to Mega Studio soon to even make

1:15:19

that better. I don't have space to be

1:15:21

able to lay things out on a large

1:15:23

desk to be able to look at them

1:15:25

clearly, like comparing this paper to that paper

1:15:28

and da da da da. So I love

1:15:30

having this space. It's very important to me.

1:15:33

Even if my family situation

1:15:35

changed, all I could

1:15:38

imagine is maybe I would come to the studio

1:15:40

fewer days a week, but I

1:15:42

need to have a set environment

1:15:45

now where my work is done. And

1:15:48

the funny thing about the Cortex brand stuff,

1:15:50

now I imagine this scenario where like into

1:15:52

the future, and we've joked about it, but

1:15:55

there is an actual place where the Cortex

1:15:57

brand stuff happens. I can imagine it.

1:16:00

it more and more. Like there's a

1:16:02

shop, you know, like a store, like

1:16:04

we have a place, which is

1:16:06

the headquarters and it has a little storefront in the front.

1:16:08

Like this is my 10 year dream

1:16:10

now, you know? Yeah, I am aware

1:16:12

of that as like a, what

1:16:14

feels to be like it may be

1:16:16

the slight sound of approaching inevitability. Yeah.

1:16:19

That does feel like a little bit. Yeah. I

1:16:22

do have a dream of having a place

1:16:24

more that I can do more

1:16:26

to like it can have more say over. I

1:16:28

was renting this unit in a big

1:16:30

building and I would like to have

1:16:33

something that was a longer term rental

1:16:35

contract or like a longer term lease

1:16:37

or even the opportunity to try and

1:16:39

at some point buy a unit somewhere

1:16:42

to be able to have more say over it. And

1:16:45

as time goes on further and further,

1:16:48

the likelihood that that thing

1:16:50

could have a shop front in the front feels

1:16:53

more and more possible, which I also kind of like

1:16:55

the idea of. Yeah.

1:16:58

For me, I can only

1:17:00

imagine the need for a

1:17:04

non-home working place to increase rather than

1:17:06

decrease. The only way you could get

1:17:08

rid of MegaStudio is if you had

1:17:10

Giga Home. That's the only way it

1:17:12

would need to be 100 times bigger.

1:17:16

Even then though, I like to commute.

1:17:18

Like I get 45 minutes of

1:17:20

exercise in every day with the

1:17:22

walking and I get to

1:17:25

listen to my podcasts and

1:17:27

I have a separation between the two

1:17:29

that like it's I can

1:17:31

at least try and leave some of my

1:17:33

work brain at the office and like I

1:17:35

have the time between the two where I

1:17:38

can kind of get a bit more into

1:17:40

home mic rather than work mic. I get

1:17:42

it. As weird as this sounds

1:17:44

in North Carolina, I kind of

1:17:47

enjoyed the commute. It's

1:17:49

a sense like I enjoyed being

1:17:52

up early and driving to the

1:17:54

gym and then just like being

1:17:56

at a physical distance away. It's

1:17:59

like, yeah. I can totally get that.

1:18:01

Well, when Cortex brand retail headquarters has a place

1:18:03

one day, there might be an office for you

1:18:05

in it. I require a secret

1:18:07

entrance, Mike, is what I require. Just a

1:18:09

full privacy screen and a heated chair and

1:18:12

air conditioning. Well, yeah. Of

1:18:14

course. Of course. If

1:18:17

we're custom building it, of course. That energy

1:18:19

bill. I'm not looking forward to that energy

1:18:21

bill. Energy is cheap, Mike.

1:18:23

Brain power is expensive.