835: Farewell, Stephen

welcome to the mac power users i'm david sparks and join for the very last time my good friend and yours mr stephen hackett hello stephen how are you today i'm good how are you i'm a little sad you know this is my last episode i get to record with you i wore my official mac power user sweatshirt today with stephen hackett orange on it in your honor i appreciate that i think it's uh i think it's fitting for our last show together but it's it's gonna be fun i feel like we're gonna be okay today uh on more power users we're gonna go a little deeper on how you came around the decision and the search for a new host and uh i think it'll be fun just a little bit more inside baseball on everything that's gone down but i guess for folks who missed last week's episode we should bring them up to speed what's going on steven yeah uh so it is my last episode of mac power users uh we spoke about this last week and i have our respective blog posts in the show notes um i've got a need elsewhere to spend more time in both the business of relay and cross forward and that meant unfortunately uh bidding goodbye to mac power users um after seven years which every time i typed that or said it i double checked it because like there's no way it's been that long um but it has been that long um so yeah it's a season of change for me but uh i'm still around still going to be writing 512 pixels still going to be all connected uh we're going to talk about a bunch of that stuff in this in this episode um and yeah but i'm super super excited about the next chapter of the show yeah and in fairness mac power users takes a lot of time so i totally get that being the thing that you've got to step back from and uh you know the uh the audience has been great in week since we made the announcement we've had so many kind emails and thoughts and comments come in uh just this morning i got a video for you i'm going to forward to you from our friend in the netherlands vim who uh was thanking you uh just people have been there's been an outpouring of love and i really love that yeah it's been really cool okay so uh today's show is a celebration of steven on the mac power users we got a lot of listener questions thanks for sending them all in I thought we'd start just kind of talking amongst ourselves. And I titled these two sections of the outline, the sad part and the happy part. So let's start with the sad part. We already shared that you're leaving. But, you know, I just wanted to reflect on the beginning of this, you know. I didn't know much about Steven. And I remember when you first landed on my radar was when somebody was giving you grief about your logo. And I read that. I'm like, this seems like kind of a cool guy putting up with nonsense. And then you and I started emailing and we met at some Apple event and we went and had ice cream together. But at the same time, somebody had written me and said, you got to get this guy in your show. He keeps calling back power users as white whale. Is that true? It is true. Yeah. I mean, so I started writing what is now 512 pixels. It was Forkbomber back in the day, different name, in 2008. And so, yeah, I'd been around. And yeah, Mac Power Users, you know, even just a few years in was such an institution. I was like, man, I'd love to be a guest on Mac Power Users one day, like to join the ranks of people like Merlin and Brett Terpstra. In fact, I have a picture of the three of y'all at Macworld that I didn't share with you, but I'm going to put in the show notes for people. And it would have been, it was just such a cool, it was like a, such a goal of mine to like have my writing be taken so seriously that like I get an invite on Mac power users. And, and in those early days, I wasn't doing a lot of podcasting. I sort of really started podcasting like 2011, 2012, but, um, but yeah, Mac world 2012, uh, I, you know, had expressed interest in going and our mutual friend, Matt Alexander, he worked at an airline at the time and so he set me up with his like buddy passes you know a lot of airline employees get tickets they can send people and so he basically paid for me to go to macworld and i got what i discovered very quickly was a hotel in a sketchy part of san francisco with a couple of friends and i did macworld 2012 and it was awesome getting to meet people like so many people I met on that trip I'm still friends and colleagues with like it's the first time you and I met it's the first time I met the studio neat guys you know they have a show on relay um first time I met Merlin and uh Sean Blanc and like all these folks who are still in the community that trip was amazing and yeah it was the end of the trip and you and I ran ran into each other on the street and we sat down and had an ice cream date. Um, and I just was like, I think we got done and like called my wife and I was like, you will never guess what I just did. Like I just had ice cream with David Sparks and she's like, who is that? Um, but then I explained and you know, she got it and we stayed in touch a lot after that. And I ended up being a guest. I was very thankful to be a guest, uh, back when you and Katie were hosting to talk about my writing and what I was doing and things have just blossomed from there. I'm looking at this picture and man, I am a different looking man in that picture. All of y'all look like babies. Completely brown. Yeah, that was fun. I remember that. We did like a shootout. Me, Brett and Merlin kept taking turns showing tricks. That was a really fun. Yeah, man. I have a bunch of pictures from this trip and just looking through them because I was looking for this picture. I was like, I know I have this picture. um and you know it's from 2012 because it's at a cool angle you know um but i you know a lot of events like this like mackerel died before covid but the pandemic killed so many of these events and it it really makes me sad because i think back at how how influential this trip was on my career and i think about you know events that you and i have both been lucky enough to speak at and to participate in over the years and there's just so few of those now um it's tough it's tough to break into the space it's tough to get to see people um and so i definitely had like a ping of sadness as i was looking through these macworld photos like you know we've lost something with these events going away yeah i mean macworld was really special i've been to wwc many times that's really great it's apple's thing and it's a it's kind of an industry developer focused event but Macworld was about the users. It's about our listeners. And, um, you know, I've said it in the past, but like Macworld was where you could be walking in a hallway and there'd be a group of random strangers sitting on the floor, writing Apple scripts together. Like the only place in the world you would find that. And, uh, boy, I loved, I loved it back in the day. But, um, you know, uh, we have a friendship that kind of bloomed out of that. And, and when, um, when katie decided to step away um you were you know i we're going to talk in the after show about how i um really went through a process to find a new host but when katie left it was easy it was like oh that'll be steven you know yeah it was there was no search there was nothing to be done i just had to call you and see if you were interested in it you know yeah it was that was late 2018 i i remember it was a tuesday i remember that because you called me i was walking out my door to go to a meeting uh to go to a you know thing with some friends um small group thing and uh we talked on the phone as i was driving i was like hey you know i'm at my friend's house i need to run or whatever um but i was just blown away totally blown away um i think at this point y'all because uh mpu had been on relay for a few years at this point and i think you had told us that like there was a transition coming um i think but i was like i never would have thought i never would have thought it would have been something i'd ever be asked to do and it was so humbling and you were so gracious about it it was so encouraging um and it it you know joining mpu i wound down a lot of other smaller shows i was running around doing and so it let me really focus on just a few podcasts that i had and you know right away learned very quickly like this is a different kind of podcast like and we don't hear what i'm not saying like we do prep for all of our shows on relay but mpu is next level prep like it is hours uh per week to to do these things and sometimes over the course of many weeks like we did that apple weather episode at the end of the year and you know i installed apple weather like on the home screen to my phone for a month like i used it for a month and took notes and just it was just a background process all the time. And so much of NPU is about that. And that's one reason I think the show has been so successful because people notice that level and appreciate that level of work that goes into it. And I love that kind of work. I am happiest at work when I've got a bajillion tabs open and I got Devin Think and I'm writing about something or researching something going really deep and so being a host really scratched an itch that i already had kind of oddly enough i you know the the goal of the show is for everybody to learn something every episode so it takes work evergreen shows are just really hard compared to like new shows and uh but uh i signed up for when we started the show we kept up with the you know the remit and you uh you you delivered the goods man which i had no doubt you would and uh you know i wanted to talk about things that we'll miss. I thought we could go back and forth. And as I think about you, one of the things, because you and I are friends, we're not going to, you're not dying. You and I will still be talking. But working with you, the thing that people need to know, because this doesn't come out in the show, Stephen has what I would like to call a quiet competence, where when Stephen is on the team, a lot of things just get fixed. Things work and friction points disappear. and Steven, you know, partly because of, you know, being at relay, but also just because of who you are. Like, I just, I don't even know the number of things that, that, you know, that Steven potholes that Steven allowed us to dodge without me even knowing, but I know there are a lot of them and I'm going to really miss that part of it selfishly because Steven does such a great job. I understand completely why David wants you more over there because I'm sure you're doing the exact same thing for him. But, um, you know, Steven has this, you know, he's a public image in our little world as, as somebody who's nerdy and likes to click max, but he is an incredibly competent manager behind it. And, uh, I'm definitely going to miss that. Oh man. Thank you. Um, and reflecting about this, the first thing that came to mind for me was when you became full-time Max Barkey. You had left your firm, but you were still practicing on your own. And in 2022, in January, you announced that you had been thinking about this and preparing for this for a year. And it was such an honor to be part of those conversations. And as you were making these decisions and figuring out what to do, because you know like when I quit my job way back in 2015 you know I went out on my own and fully in content right like I was writing for a bunch of websites and doing a lot more things than I do now but it was all content based yeah but your your path was so different where you you know the phrase that you used at the time was like you hung up your own shingle as a as a solo lawyer and you were doing your content business. And then you made like the second step to give up practicing law and just helping and for whatever little help maybe I was able to offer, but talking through that, figuring out how to communicate it, right? We did a whole show where I basically talked, you know, basically kind of interviewed you about the process and the plan and seeing the labs come online and that being obviously a huge part of this. That whole process just I know it was special to you but it's also really special to me for the little part that I got to play in it and I'm so psyched that it's gone so well for you well I think after Daisy and I discussed it I think you might have been the first person I called about this maybe you know because you know you were in there with me and uh that's that's really nice um another thing I'm about you is our podcasting rhythm now let me explain this a little bit um so i used to be a jazz musician and there were like i remember particular people that i played with some drum one drummer and a piano player and when you play with them they would listen to you and you would listen to them like when you would solo and you would start like papa to top top you know you'd like start doing some rhythm or something then the drummer would match it in the background like almost like you're having a conversation with music and it is um if you've if any musicians are out there have experienced you know it is like it's almost like a it's a moment where you almost like transcend life it's just so beautiful when you have this rhythm and in you're creating music and it goes back and forth and um i've almost from the beginning i've had that experience of podcasting with Steven. I mean, podcasting is a hard thing. You often don't see the other person. Sometimes there's another person there and you really want it to be a nice conversation that flows easily. You try and tee it up for the other guy. The other guy tries to tee up for you. And Steven and I have, he's like my favorite drummer. It's just like, we can so much converse, you know, the way the rhythm of our show is just so wonderful. And boy, that is not easy. But for us, it comes natural. And I will miss that rhythm of talking to you on microphone. Yeah, it's a tricky thing. And some podcasts and some hosts take a long time to find that. And I think we were really fortunate to find it really quickly, which is, you know, we're obviously both experienced, right? We've been both been doing this a long time before we were doing it together. And that certainly helped. But yeah, we do have a, we have a chemistry and a friendship that is the foundation of our partnership here on Mac Power Users. And again, it comes through, right? The little jokes and the, just the ability to riff and, you know, we do all this prep, but then we'll make a left turn into something weird. Usually it's you and I got to reel you back in, right? All of that stuff is a lot of fun. And it makes a show like this, I think, much more entertaining than what it says on the 10, right? Like, yeah, you want somebody to learn something every time. And that's totally true. But you also want it to be entertaining and fun and interesting, right? To keep people around. And finding that balance is a little bit tricky. Another one for you is your other nerdy interests So many people in our community right If you a nerd about one thing you going to be a nerd about something else right Just kind of how we are as people You mentioned music, obviously, your love of music and your creativity. You said you used to be a jazz musician. You're still a jazz musician. I don't think you ever leave that behind. but the woodworking, the 3D printing, the making, right? Like you are a maker at heart, I think. And you have all these gifts that you can write, you can podcast, you can build things. And just that process that you go through of, I have a problem to solve or I have something I want to say or share and like finding the best way to do that. I've learned a lot about making just through watching you. And, you know, we have sort of this like ongoing text chain of like projects we're doing around the house. And, you know, I'm in the middle of reinforcing a built in bookcase because my wife has asked for her birthday for a sliding library ladder. Because we have this like big built in bookcase in our living room. It's been like her dream since she was like a little girl to like have a library ladder. I just learned all this. And so, you know, I've been working on that, like sending you pictures and asking you questions about it. And it's been fun. the one thing i will miss also is um you're you have a problem steven let's just be honest you don't just collect old macs you really like new macs and um i love throwing stray shots at you about buying new hardware and like you don't even like acknowledge it when i do it which is makes it even more fun for me and like you know whenever we talk about some upcoming hardware it's like you know the m5 macbook pro is coming soon see you and then your your m4 is looking long in the tooth you know i can do that to you and you just let it go by but then occasionally you do just buy the new one so yeah that's just i don't know i'm gonna miss being able to do that i remember when i bought my mac pro in early 2020 yeah and i didn't like i didn't want to tell anybody all right It's the most money I've ever spent on a computer. It was ridiculous. But then we talked about it on the show, and I got razzed by basically everybody in my life about that computer. But yeah, that's fun. Because part of this gig and being interested in this stuff is we do upgrade way more often than the regular person. Or we may change computers or phones mid-cycle when it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, totally guilty of it. totally guilty and honestly i lose cover because like now i'm already thinking about the m5 mac studio you're not here anymore to make me look like the reasonable one on this that's right uh yeah it's it's fantastic um your support and care for like me and my family and the other things that i do is really important to me um we're going to talk a little bit later on about the process of this, but from the first phone call, which I was nervous about, like not because I thought you were going to respond badly. Like I was just nervous to have the conversation. Cause it's like, once you have the conversation, all of this that you've been thinking about is real. Um, and you were so supportive, uh, and, and caring about my decision-making, you know, and, you know, I miss an episode a year because we do the St. Jude fundraiser. I usually miss another episode of the year because our son is at St. Jude doing his annual checkups, right? Like I have a lot of complication in my life and you are always so supportive of whatever I need to do. Like there have been times, right? It's like, Hey, I know we're recording in two days, but like, we got to, you know, we have this or that going on. Um, and you're like, yeah, Hey, I'll take care of it. You know, um, you still haven't missed an episode of this podcast, which is wild. Like it's an unbelievable streak um and you always being understanding of if i've got something going on or you know even just your support of our saint jude fundraiser right that's when i think about my legacy when my career is over that's it like it's that mountain of money that the relay community has raised and your support of that on max sparky uh and here is like it's so awesome um so yeah that that means a lot to me yeah i'll miss it uh as well because i mean i'm still on the network but i enjoy kind of talking to you every week how's it going and hearing about the meetings you're going to and the plans you're making and i guess we'll have to like find a way for me to bug you via text message yeah i'll have to get on the phone once a while but but yeah i you know being a co-host with you allowed me to kind of get an insider view to all the work you do for that yeah it's already started we we nailed down the artwork theme last week i don't know what we're doing man it's almost year round now it's ridiculous well it should be it's a huge deal it is a huge deal jelly our artist for that he does it he volunteers every year like every year i try to pay him and every year he's like i will not take your money yeah because it's important to him too like in his family like they have gotten swept up in the saint jude mission too and um but he works like more than a full-time job And so, you know, I try to get the theme and like sort of my initial ideas to him early in the year. So we're not pressed for time as the calendar rolls around. I'm very excited about the theme this year. Very excited. Anything else you'll miss? I'm going to really miss just the community around this show. You know, I've done a lot of podcasts over the years. And of course, I own half of Relay. I have my hand in every show that we do as one of the owners. There is something distinctly different about the MPU audience. And that was a little, it took some getting used to because things like the forums and the email, we just hear so much more from our audience than I've ever heard on any of my other shows. Part of that is the MPU is the biggest show I've ever done. But a lot of it is like our community is really engaged with the show and we get great feedback, thoughtful feedback. That's the thing that really impresses me about the MPU community is that they are thoughtful about their technology and they're thoughtful about what we say and how we interact. And I can tell you because I know that is not true of other podcast audiences, right? like the feedback we get on connected or like the feedback the ATP boys get, like it's good feedback, but it's not at the level that MPU gets. Um, and it, it's a great, like, it's a conversation. You talked about like the, the jazz, you know, improvising kind of feel. I feel like the show has that with its audience to a degree too. And that's really special and, um, and something that's I think unique in our space. I just got an email from a listener, Hill, yesterday, who's been following Apple since they began, and he had really insightful thoughts. Hill is 93. Awesome. I always feel like we have a very smart audience. We get to use that when we generate these outlines and go into these deep concepts. Our audience is going to stick with it. They're going to get it. Mm-hmm. okay so we talked about things we missed but i also want to talk a bit about the way the show has matured during your watch one idea you had that i i really like and will continue after you leave uh is the state of the platforms shows we do where on an annual basis we just take a part and look at how apple's doing on the various platforms it makes i think that's been a real nice addition to the show. I think so too. You know, we've never wanted NPU to be a news show, right? Occasionally we do it at WWDC, sometimes Apple hardware or software announcements, but we try to be evergreen. And that's what I like about the state of the platforms when we first started talking about it is like, it's an opportunity once a year, basically to put a flag in the ground of like, this is where these platforms are. This is where Apple is. And it's really fascinating to me because each time we've done it several times now and each time i go back and listen to the previous episode just like as i'm working just in the background to hear what we said and it's a it's an amazing marker every year of how things are going um without being newsy right without covering rumors like other shows do that but um through the lens of the other things we talk about like using our technology to make our work and make our lives better so yeah i'm super happy that those have gone well and um i'm glad that y'all continue them because i think it's an i think it's become an important part of the show it's also during your watch that we got invited to cupertino a few times for wwc presentations and apple interviews and uh i feel like that's that's special it is yeah we got to go to ww19 as press i have my press badge hanging up behind me um you and i have been at wbc's for years my first one was 2013 but it was the first time as press and it was the mac pro launch and we got to talk to apple about that we're gonna talk about that more in a minute i think um but yeah really cool and we've gotten to go in now in the kind of new version of wbc and record the show live in apple's podcast studio and that's really special. So yeah, it's been, I feel like the show has also gained more eyes within Apple over the years as well. Like I know for a fact, there are people at Apple who listen to the show regularly and care about what we think and say. Yeah. Something else we kind of worked on during your tenure was Software Club, where we bring software developers in and try and feature, especially small indie developers. And we always did deep dives, but we did also kind of some more deep research shows like the recent apple weather show and we've had some really great um some content with you here yeah the the software club that's that's a lot of fun right talking with a developer about their app the the decisions that go into it the type of people they're trying to serve with it all those conversations are fascinating um i also really love the roundups right where we you know uh one of the early ones we did was clipboard managers so like at some point dude i had so many installed to my mac like i'd get the beach ball for a second when i hit copy it's like because there's like eight apps trying to grab the clipboard screen film um we put our own technology in jeopardy on the show sometimes but um it is often often often uh you got claude bot running around anywhere um don't get me started no that's a future i'll do it um and yeah so so those are also fun too and like so many of those times like oh gosh like in this research an app that maybe I've used for 10 years. I didn't know it did all these other things. Right. Or you find in the roundups, you find an app that, you know, maybe I was using something else, but through this research, through this outline, I'm actually going to switch personally because I found something that better fits my needs. That's, that's fun. Yeah. I love it when you bring up an app that for me is like perfect Goldilocks of not too hard, but complicated enough to give me what I need. I love it when I switch apps based on some recommendation you bring in. so let's talk about the happy part now we talked about the sad part um let's just reflect a bit i was going to ask you what are some of your favorite moments during your seven years in the chair yeah two came to mind immediately uh one was episode 485 which i just mentioned where we got to uh interview the product manager for the 2019 mac pro um he had not been on a podcast or really in public before and i don't think he's been since best i can tell but it was a delightful conversation do we wreck it for him yeah maybe maybe uh doug brooks is his name um did a great job and we learned about the like he was telling us stories about how they designed the computer and the testing like we've really got to do a deep dive into it and really had access to something that, um, really no one else did. And that was, that was really cool. Um, but the all time, the all time favorite is, I can't believe it was just a couple months later, episode 500. Yeah. It was recorded live at max stock. And I asked for questions from the community and you didn't know what they were. and I got to interview you about the show and everything else live on stage. That's also the trip where I took apart several people's computers to upgrade them. And like in the lobby, I got some pictures of that and the show notes. It was just, it was a great trip. And other than the extremely sketchy house that John Voorhees and I rented, it was great. And that live show was awesome. and you know the really core part of the audience was there at max stock and it was it was it will be a treasured memory yeah that was i remember walking it's like there's like a cafeteria and there's a bunch of people standing around a table and in the middle of it steven using like a paint scraper on a mac mini to what you were doing over there uh that was great yeah i replaced something in an imac and then rosemary had brought i think we're putting an ssd in her Mac mini or Ram or something. Yeah. I forget, but yeah, doing it with an audience is really stressful. Yeah. Yeah. I I'll tell you one of the things I really enjoyed having you here for, especially with your knowledge of Apple history is the Apple Silicon revolution. Like all that kind of happened while you were here. And I thought your, your insight based on your kind of historical knowledge of Apple's Silicon changes in the past, it just really i think added to the coverage we were able to do yeah i mean you think about the arc of the mac in my seven years on the show right 2018 2019 is pretty grim especially the laptops right like how many bleak how much did we talk about that i mean we had to right because like it was it was bad yeah and then this like spark in june of 2020 when it's announced and then that fall when the first ones came out like yeah my daughter has my m1 macbook pro the weird one with the touch bar yeah and i was doing something on it for her the other night just the other night i was like this computer is still fast like yeah you know she's using chrome she's using word like she's doing she's a high school student right she's using it for school stuff i was like oh this computer still has it and it's you know five years old five and a half years old now the max trajectory hardware wise in that time period is just astounding any other favorite memories oh man um another it's another live show but we did a show in chicago and we kept rosemary orchard and mike hurley from london a secret yeah and then called them on stage uh i cannot believe we kept that secret like mike flew across the like across the ocean for this show and we kept it no one knew like yeah i i thought for sure because we were in chicago a couple days before the show was like we're gonna be out to lunch someone's gonna spot him like but it just went perfectly um that was fantastic um and so many so many guest interviews right from from sheep farming to using max in education to i mean everything in between that we been able to talk to such a broad number of people about how they use Apple gear Um it really just it eyeopening right It like one of the things I learned is that just cause I use my technology in a way does not mean everybody does. And people use this stuff in all sorts of ways and scenarios that are never ending. And that's been really eyeopening to me over the years. Do you have a list of favorite guests? Have you thought of some of your favorite guests? Oh, man. Yeah, I've got a few. I mean, our first guest when I joined was Gruber, and it was the first time I talked to him on a show. I've done a couple since, and that was fantastic. He was very generous with his time. you know we had neil on from mime stream the founder of mime stream the mac mail app and he had not done a lot of podcasts i think we were maybe his second um but he spent time at apple so we got to talk about that we got to talk about his team like mime stream is is bootstrapped you know they don't have a lot of vc money they have no vc money as far as i know his plans for the app like it was really great and you know we got to to you know give him a little grief about a mobile app which is now in test flight or a you know when are you going to add something other than gmail super i gave him a hard time that's why yeah i'll be surprised if he ever comes back i think he gets that all the time from his users um yeah you know we've had so many other great people tyler stallman's been on a bunch he's a friend of ours uh tj's been on several times like so many great people it's really hard to narrow that list down um we have great guests here we really do we really do all right favorite mac power user thing that never made it to air oh man you know i don't next to my name in the outline there's a blank space i honestly don't know like okay do you have anything i do i absolutely do okay um so when we went to the first wwdc together we were at some point we're walking through a hallway and we're just outside the doors before we go into the big room where they're going to announce the new Mac pro and you turn around and look at me and you look like, like a five-year-old that just found all of his presence under the Christmas tree. I mean, you gave me a smile and Steven that like went to your core essence. And yeah, I wish I had a picture of that. It was, it was amazing. Um, yeah, you know, it's, you know, I've been to keynote since then. It was also my first Apple keynote ever actually. I've been to one iPhone. I've been to other WFDCs now, but you know, it was the last, and it was, I was so glad to experience one that was still the way the old ones were thousand. I mean, the size of that room is like hard to explain. Yeah. Huge, huge thousands of people. I remember I was sitting next to somebody because it was like a line of relay people and some of our other friends, but I was on the end and I was sitting next to a woman who had pages open i think i told the story at the time and she was translating or editing apple press releases in other languages um it wasn't chinese or japanese but it was it was something else i don't i don't know but um it was and she man she was flying in pages on her keyboard like this clearly was her job and she was you know sending them off to somebody to publish i guess as things were being announced. I was like, it's like one small person, you know, one small task, but like thousands of people go into the, you know, thousands of hours, thousands of people work on those keynotes. And it was cool not only to be there, to see the Mac Pro, to see our friends, to be there in person, but like also to see someone working like in their little slice of the organization was also pretty cool. 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One of the things I particularly love about 1Password is it gives me browser mobility and browser options. I like to try other browsers, especially with all these AI browsers out there. I'm always dipping my toes in the water and having all of my data and all of my passwords in 1Password makes it so easy for me to jump over to a different browser for a while without any problem. But it gives you much more. It gives you Watchtower that looks out for bad and insecure websites that you're dealing with. It's got secure notes, so you've got a whole separate way to store secure information on your phone. They've got it all covered. Head over to 1password.com slash MPU and check it out for yourself. If you go there, you can get 20% off your account. That URL one more time is 1password.com slash MPU. Thank you, 1Password, for all of your support of the Mac Power users. All right, Stephen, we asked for listener questions. Boy, did we get them. thanks everybody for sending them in uh john wrote in what's the worst technical disaster in your run on mpu john goes straight to you know where the body's buried yeah um the sound for that doug brooks interview was really bad that year so apple now like that wbc's at apple park they have a podcast studio they build that room is actually a yoga studio and then they like put podcast stuff in it it's not there all the time but at night in 19 it was basically at the end of the hallway in the convention center do you remember this it was upstairs of the loading dock yeah and the sound was so bad and i told apple like you know after the episode was done you know i i emailed our person i was like you have to fix this like you know it's not like people aren't going to want to do this it's got to sound better than this and then we had covet and they built their own thing um that was pretty bad uh because it was such an important episode right it was like it was it was really like the biggest episode that i think we had done up to that point in terms of breaking new ground um but you know there's always the normal stuff right it's like oh i you know goofed up my recording and we got to use the zoom back up or someone's internet connection dies to an interview there's all that sort of normal stuff but i think we have it pretty dialed most of the time yeah but man the audio that that that week just it still kills me and we have a lot of belts and suspenders so hopefully things don't go wrong we do yeah i remember as we were recording that you could hear people talking on the second floor and i'm just thinking this is going to be terrible yeah but at the same time it's us interviewing an apple executive and geez that was rough uh mike writes in you're leaving the show now you can tell us what's the best and worst parts of working with david i almost didn't put this in mike that was kind of a mean question but uh let's let's go you know let it fly steven yeah no no i think the best part about working with you is is your thoughtfulness and consideration into our topics not only what topics we do but in the preparation of them as well um we have so many episode ideas that that you come up with and you know sometimes at first i was like like is there enough here except we we ask each other that like, is there enough here? Um, and you don't miss like it's, um, you got a very good track record of knowing what makes a good Mac power users. I think I have a permanent background process running on MPU content. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, so many times you will have somebody on focus or something comes up in the labs and you were like, we got to do this. Right. And it doesn't miss. Um, the worst part is you have a bad habit of not uploading your files when we're done. and jim or i have to chase you down i deserve that i fully deserve that uh you know can i say i've been better at it the last year or two you have been better at it for sure i actually wrote it down of like things i could do better and uh i really try yeah i i tried you know what the problem is i try to automate it and automation sometimes failed and then i wouldn't realize it and then i'd like go out of town you'd be like dude where's your files yeah i think at one point you had to like remote into your computer from Hawaii or something to give me something. I, I totally deserve that. I totally deserve that. Yeah. I've never automated that. I just sit here and do it. And, uh, yes, that's what I do now. And there hasn't been a problem. It works. Ah, thanks Mike for that question. Really appreciate it. Jennifer, do you remember the first episode you recorded together? What was that like? yeah i do uh it was steven who is the title yeah that's right which in hindsight you know it's funny but anyways that wasn't you should have told me that that wasn't episode 464 um yeah i was just so nervous right the goal of this episode was to introduce me to the audience yeah um because i i'd been on a couple of episodes i think i've been on two but you know the shows i was doing at the time were all much smaller and i was writing but 512 pixels definitely isn't as big as it is today and so it really was like there were going to be people who didn't know who i was and we had to talk about my history and my love of the mac and all of these things um and i just remember being really nervous to record it but also like nervous that people were going to like it and like me and um i'm sure some people didn't and that you know that's okay but i think it went well in hindsight i have not ever re-listened to it and i probably never will but um hopefully it was okay enough at least yeah i mean and what you discover then is the mac hires audience is very generous like even in the last week people are like man i'm gonna really miss steven but hey you know steven roblez welcome to the show we're we got you you know and that's kind of the audience i i think they're very i don't know how i got so lucky to have this great audience it really is i mean i have gotten i mean you've gotten a lot of emails too i've got a lot of emails a lot of social media stuff there's a whole thread in the forums about it yeah mary my wife asked me over the weekend she's like how's the feedback been like how are you feeling you know now that it's out um or it was before the episode came out but you know she didn't know the timeline um so i answered her last night finally i was like hey you know like i've gotten some feedback now like and it's been universally gracious is the phrase i used um people are excited about steven and they should be i'm excited about steven but the the kindness people have shown me has just been awesome yeah patricia what does your recording setup look like now versus when you started i mean other than it was like six computers ago and i have a better microphone It's really very similar. We are using Riverside now instead of Zoom, but I got Audio Hijack running. What you hear is the Audio Hijack recording, right? That's what we send to the editor. I think that's the biggest change since we started, for me at least. When I joined the show, I took over editing from the previous editor, and I edited it for a couple of years. And I did that because editing a podcast is the best way to get to know that podcast. even though I'd listened to NPU for years years and I listened since really very close to the beginning when you edit it it's different and I took that over for a couple years and it's got to a point where it wasn't the best use of my time and Jim Metzendorf who edits the show now and he was already working with Relay and was looking to expand that role and he's better than I am anyways so that's probably the biggest change is that Jim is doing the editing and I don't think if we hadn't I actually don't think we said anything about it until way after it happened and no one knew he does such a good job what is interesting about Jim in particular Jim edits a bunch of shows on Relay, he edits the majority of shows on Relay now, I think and they all have their own personalities still because he respects the way the show was recorded and edited before he was on board. And that's really important to me because MPU shouldn't be edited like connected, that shouldn't be edited like Reconcilable Differences. And Jim knows that and can adapt. And so for me, that's the biggest difference, I think, from the beginning is that I'm no longer spending a day in logic combing through the episode. Now Jim does. the uh susan how do you decide who covers which topic on an episode yeah so we before we record an episode we get on the phone about half an hour before and we have it used to be a google sheet now it's a database in notion uh with all of our upcoming episodes we actually have slots for now to the end of the year and you know pencil stuff in like we kind of know when the iphone's going to be we kind of know when wbc is going to be but generally we work a couple of months in advance if things are going well. And so we just talk through it. Like, hey, you know, sometimes it's a pitch, right? Like I brought the Apple weather pitch and you asked me like, is there enough there? And I said, I think there is. Thankfully there was. And so that one was really heavily me, right? Others are really heavily you. Others are very split down the middle. It just kind of depends on whose idea it was, the type of show it is. If it's a guest in particular, if one of us knows them better than the other, we'll take, you know, we'll take the lead on that. But then sometimes it's just you're on vacation or I'm on vacation and like the other person is going to pick up, pick it up. So, um, but at the end of the day, it all shakes out. I feel like our show prep is very evenly divided and, you know, it kind of takes care of itself in the end. But, um, but we do talk about it. We think about it, you know, nothing goes, nothing goes undecided in NPU. You know what I mean? yeah we try to be thoughtful yeah tim says steven what's your favorite mac of all time um i'm gonna say the titanium powerbook g4 uh it was it was not the first mac i used it was kind of the first mac that was mine even though it belonged to my employer at the time he let me a high school and then college student use it basically as my personal computer which was incredible but it's like the first modern mac laptop it was like it's metal right it's thin it's sexy like it it it kind of is like genesis for where the macbook pro still is today right like the power books before the titanium like chunky black plastic they're interesting in their own right for sure but the titanium one was like it was a big shift and it coincided with me coming to the Mac in a big way. And so I have a couple of them. I've got one on the bookshelf across from my desk and I just, I love those things. It's the one you have an emotional connection to. It is. That's why, right? Absolutely. Steven from Christopher, what's one opinion or habit around productivity on Apple platforms that you completely changed your mind on during your run What caused the shift What would 2018 Keen Steven be surprised by That I using so many of Apple built applications Yeah This has been a running theme for us for years You know notes reminders calendar, contacts, right? Some of them were better than others back in the day, but notes and reminders in particular have gotten so good over the last several years. It's amazing to me to think that I use Apple Notes and Reminders to like run my life. There's still obviously room for other applications, but if you had told me back then like you're going to lean into these and use them and like them, I'm like, no way. Because they were baby apps. They were not mature back then, but they are now. They were joke apps, really. The first couple of versions of Reminders in particular was like, what are we doing? But they've come a really long way. Apple takes them seriously. And I remember the first time we did an episode, I don't know when it was, but the first time we did an episode covering, I think notes kind of in depth. I was like, oh, like this is all I need. Like it's more than I need in some ways. And they continue to get better. That's the single biggest change I think for me in terms of productivity over the years. We had a lot of like nice notes in the feedback. I'm just gonna read a couple of them. um you know uh kyle wrote in talking about how he really appreciated steven's willingness to try things others are afraid to tackle um and uh especially he wanted to shout out steven for getting him on unify yes and share with steven that his wife does not miss the unify recommendations a unify came up a couple times i also saw a note from uh from someone saying oh i love that the new steven is also a unified guy so you know the circle is complete uh tim wrote in that he was sick in the early 20s and spent a lot of time in the hospital and he said mpu gave him a link to normalcy until he could reenter the real world and thanks for your time over the years oh man that's really cool you know it's weird you forget that people actually listen to the show you make it you just focus on the show um adam says steven was his gateway to relay after he joined mpu he discovered connected and upgrade and cortex and finding mike on connected uh he became a member of several shows thanks for bringing delight to the communities and shores you really were kind of the gateway into to relay for a lot of our listeners i think yeah i i remember i think we talked a little bit about this last week but i remember when y'all reached out about bringing mpu to relay and i was just like flabbergasted i mean again a big show an important show and i called mike um i was like hey like you know i want to do it do you want to do it like does it work this out right and for a while after that every time y'all published an episode it would break the cms um because it was a level of traffic we just hadn't done before and so we had to really beef up some things and now the cms can handle you know basically anything hopefully but um mpu joining relay is like one of those big moments in our company right like jason snell when he left macworld to do his own thing when he do a tech show with us on we were like two weeks old like what do you i don't know what he was thinking um and uh an mpu joining is definitely like on that same list it was such a big deal i get some joy on the fact that we broke Relay. Yeah. Oh, it was great. It was great for me. You know, sitting at home Sunday night was like having dinner with the family and the website explodes. But the trust that you and Katie had in Mike and I and in our company that we could sell the ads, that we could bring in the history of the show, right? Like it was a lot of work. But now I can't imagine Relay without NPU. Like it has become such a fabric of what we do as a network. and so that I'm very very happy that you picked up the phone that day well we had a lot of very nice notes I just did a few of them here but thank you everybody who sent those notes in it they were very very nice and very much appreciated just the last few questions Emily said Stephen will you still be listening to MPU so I'm looking at you right now yeah oh absolutely I mean I I love the show I listened to before I was on being on the show I'm a fan of the show like that is going to continue. I love what you do. I love what Steven does. And I think that y'all together is going to be fantastic. And so, yeah, it's not going anywhere in overcast. It's staying, staying right where it is. Greg says, if you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice before starting MPU, what would it be? Um, that the, the sort of, uh, anxiety I felt in the early days that, that to that wasn't warranted like it was nothing about you or our working relationship in the beginning to cause that it was really was like the size of the audience and self-imposed self-imposed um and so i think knowing earlier like that we were that we were doing a good job and that i had not come in and wrecked the place uh it took a while to get to that understanding internally um so i would love to have known that beforehand um the other thing too is just to really embrace the community and feedback at first that was a lot to kind of take in because i hadn't had that level of of response to things i had done before um and it was a little overwhelming at first and just like the amount of email the amount of comments and now i've internalized that and now i've come to I've come to really appreciate that feedback, like I said, a few minutes ago. But that took some getting used to. Just like, you know, my other shows, they got feedback. I get comments, things I write, emails, things I write. But MPU feedback is next level. And that took some getting used to. I remember going to MaxTalk with you. It was fairly early in your run. And like a lot of the listeners were there. And you had this kind of deer in the headlights look on your face at some points, you know, because everybody walked up to you and started talking about stuff. And, you know, it's like you had, it's like, whoa, these people are super engaged, you know? Yeah. Well, gang, at this point, we've got a visitor just showed up with us. Steven Robles. Welcome to the Mac Power Users. Well, thanks so much, David and other Steven as well. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I just wanted to welcome Steven in. And this is your chance, Steven R., to ask Steven any questions he has as you sit down in the chair behind him. Well, Stephen, I wanted to thank you, I mean, for the opportunity that I get to come and be on this show. And for, you know, the last seven years have been great. I was listening to the last few episodes with you and David, and you guys have such wonderful chemistry and had created such a great show. And so I will do my best to take care of it. But what do I need to do now as a Mac Power user? I was listening to you guys talk about Keyboard Maestro and utilities. I said, I need to be more of a power user. What do I need to do, Stephen, to be a real power user? I felt the same way early on. It's like, oh, we're going to cover Keyboard Meister, Better Touch Tool, or any number of utilities, right? No one other than David Sparks knows everything about all of them, right? And so what I learned was I can spend time with something in the weeks leading up to an episode and get a good feel for it and be able to talk about it. And so it's really, I think, less about running out and installing a bunch of stuff and changing up your workflow. Because you have your workflow with your YouTube channel and all the other things that you do. But I think for me, it's much more about tapping into that spirit of curiosity. When the three of us were talking about this, that was sort of how I described you to David. It was like, I see in your YouTube work and your other show as wanting to know more. but then learning that and teaching it to somebody else, I think is, is the spirit of the show. And so, yeah, when keyboard and my server run comes around or some other utility, right. That you're, that you don't use or that you maybe not as familiar with, like it's, it's getting in there and learning it and figuring it out. And I get the sense that you and I are very similar in that way that we really enjoy that sort of work. Right. Like, yeah, I'm always tempted. Yeah. Yeah. You like to push things, you know, with shortcuts, it's really easy to break it. So that's a bad example, but, um, you know, pushing things, learning, teaching it's, it's all that stuff. I'm always tempted to up in my entire task system when a new task app is launched or see somebody talk about it. And so, yeah, we'll love, I love exploring. I installed open claw previously malt bot previously clawed bot after David told me about it. And so we can certainly talk about that soon too. Yeah. Stephen R and I have already started infecting each other with purchases and experiments in the background. So we got plenty of, I just wanted to say to the audience that one of the biggest advocates, because, you know, finding a new co-host is not easy. But one of the biggest advocates for Stephen Robles was Stephen Hackett. Stephen was hugely in favor of you coming in here. And I just think that the two of you, I'm sorry, you two are passing in the night. I think both of you are so excellent for the show and the audience. Well, look, David. So, Stephen, if you're not aware, David has never missed an episode of MPU. He has told me, yes. Ever. What episode number is this? 835? So maybe if you are, I failed in seven years to get him to take a week off. But if you're successful at it, you and I can do a show together. Like, I'm not going anywhere. And so, you know, maybe we can do a dual Stephen show at some point. Stephen squared. Stephen squared. That's right. We even spell it the same way. This caused some confusion in Slack. when I added you to the Relay Slack is like, because I had my first name as a keyword in Slack. So someone just said my name, I got notification because not everybody does like the little ad symbol or whatever. That ain't going to work anymore. So I think we both turned that feature off. So we're not getting like pinged as each other all the time. I just want to say too, like I have followed all of your work for many years. I remember Mac Power users on previous networks and I've been listening to Tech Podcast for so long. And it's surreal to me to be in a Slack with all these names that I've been listening to and reading and watching from afar for years. And so it is truly an honor to be on the Relay.fm network. You know, I never thought that would be possible, but then to be co-hosting with David Sparks and talking to you, Stephen. So it's just been an awesome and surreal experience. So thank you for inviting me. I mean, how do you think I feel? All these people work on my network, right? Merlin, Mann, and John Syracuse want to do a show. They want to do it with us. It's like, what? You know, when NPU want to join us, like Gray with Cortex, like, oh, I feel the same way. I really do. and Relay has been very fortunate over the years to really foster this creative space for people to do really good work. And yeah, you are, in some ways, it's surprising to me that you haven't always been there. I think what you're doing and your level of work perfectly aligns with how Mike and I think about Relay and what we want it to mean to the Apple community. And so you are a natural fit there. And don't be nervous, no one bites. you know um uh you know james thompson is in there that's a big deal you can ask him about peak out at any time so and the mac power user specifically audience will is already super into you coming on the show steven so yeah you're gonna you're gonna do fine uh before we wrap up i wanted to i had a couple notes uh steven is not dying you know but he's leaving the show but i just wanted to publicly acknowledge a few things to Stephen. The first is that the fact that you're leaving the show does not give you an excuse to stop sending me like random pictures of the cabling under your desk or your Unify setup or whatever. So I expect that all to continue, Stephen. Yes, sir. Absolutely. You know, we've had, I've had the pleasure of years of collaboration with you now. And so you're in my closest circle of friends. So I really appreciate everything you've done. and i just want to acknowledge on the show the impact you've had on the community i mean 512 pixels is a big deal relay fm is a big deal um i don't think anybody has picked up the call for apple history preservation like you have and with the way you have and i think that's something we all have to be thankful of you for um the um you know i really am you know the whole thing with saint jude like steven steven hackett is the kind of guy who says these guys helped my kid when he was sick so i'm gonna do everything i can to help him and steven goes and raises millions of dollars for them i mean that's the kind of man he is you know um and he's always been super generous with me um the thing we didn't talk about today's episode is both of us have faced you know significant personal challenges over the seven years and steven has always been there for me when I had one and willing to talk, you know, and people don't realize what, you know, I think they only see a sliver of Steven because he's, he's a bit reserved, you know, but, but I've seen the whole thing. I've seen how active he is with his church and how engaged he is with his kids. And, you know, you know, I just, I just want to say, you know, Steven is a good man. And I just want to acknowledge that having worked with you i that's the thing i'm gonna miss most about you is being able to to talk to my good friend and a good man every week so let's make sure we uh we stay in touch buddy i don't think i've ever teared up on a podcast what are we doing uh i know sorry uh no thank you thank you for the opportunity seven years ago for uh letting me do this for so long and yeah our friendship means a ton to me um i'm not dying yeah i know i know i just got a little into it no i know no it's fine um you know uh i had a comment on social media somewhere someone's like oh like you know you know i'm missing you on the internet it's like i'm not i'm still on the internet like you know um but yeah this show is special this chapter has been really special to me and um i can i can say all those things back to you like you've been a great friend to me, a great mentor. You know, I know we don't like to talk about our age difference, but you've been a great mentor to me. Um, as someone who has a lot of experience in lots of different areas, your, your kids are older than mine, right? You've had an internet career for a long time. Like all the things we talk about offline, um, are important to me and will continue to be important to me in the future. We're just not going to be sitting down Tuesday at lunch every week, talking about computers for other people to hear. Um, that's really the only difference I see in our relationship now. It's like, you know, all the other stuff's still there. And, you know, and I do look forward to coming back at some point, you know. Maybe, you know, maybe I'll secretly become a Vision Pro user and surprise you on a future episode. No, I'm just kidding. That probably won't be the case. But yeah, thank you. And thank you to the community for embracing me and for being so kind in this transition. And you will, this will always be a treasured part of, of my career. All right. With that, we're going to wrap it up gang. Thanks for listening. Thank you again, Stephen, for seven great years on Mac power users. Thanks to our sponsor one password today. And thanks to your, our supporters who are helping keep the lights on here. If you want to get the ad for extended version of the show, go over to relay.fm slash MPU. You can come and check it out. Stephen Robles and I have big ideas for you. If you are a subscriber, either way if you are a subscriber stick around we're going to talk a little bit more meta about the whole transition and otherwise we'll see you next week with steven roblez is the new co-host of the mac power users