2015: A Year of Promise and Change in the Tech Industry

In 2015, there was a palpable sense of promise set up by both Apple and competing industry giants in the tech space. As someone who had been covering the industry for several years, I was eager to see how it would all unfold. The competition between these technology leaders was fierce, but one thing was clear: this was going to be an exciting year.

One of my favorite aspects of 2015 was the attention given to Apple's events. With iOS 7, 2013 had marked a turning point in the company's history. It brought about a new era of design and innovation, setting the stage for even more groundbreaking releases in the years that followed. The redesign of iOS 14 in 2014 only added to this sense of excitement, as it introduced new features and functionality that wowed audiences around the world.

Apple Watch and Apple Pay were among the most notable announcements made by Tim Cook's team in 2015. These innovations showed the integration theme that had been so successful for Apple in the past, and demonstrated a commitment to creating seamless experiences across all of its products. The company's decision to replace Scott Forstall with Craig Federighi as CEO was also seen as a major move, marking a new era of leadership at Apple.

Another key aspect of 2015 was the focus on diversity and inclusivity within the tech industry. Apple's efforts in this area were particularly noteworthy, as the company continued to push for greater representation and understanding across its various platforms. This included initiatives aimed at improving accessibility and user experience, as well as a renewed commitment to energy efficiency and sustainability.

However, 2015 was also a year marked by challenges and concerns. The threat of cyber attacks on personal data and privacy was a pressing issue that saw many experts warning about the dangers of not taking adequate measures to protect ourselves online. Furthermore, there were numerous high-profile incidents of harassment and abuse in the tech industry, which highlighted the need for greater accountability and responsibility.

Despite these challenges, I remained optimistic about the potential of technology to make the world a better place. By learning more about how our data is being used and protected, we can take steps to safeguard ourselves against online threats. Moreover, by promoting greater diversity and inclusivity within the tech industry, we can create more opportunities for underrepresented groups to thrive.

As someone who has been fortunate enough to work with an incredible team on IMore, I was grateful for the opportunity to be a part of it in 2015. This year saw some amazing achievements from our community, and I couldn't have done it without my colleagues. Whether through innovative projects or simply by sharing their knowledge and expertise with others, each member of the team played a vital role in making IMore stand out.

In the days leading up to the holidays, many of us were looking forward to taking some well-deserved time off. I was particularly excited about spending Christmas at CES, where I would be representing IMore alongside other talented individuals from our community. Peter and Renee also had plans for the holiday season, including a musical carolling episode that would see us all donning roller skates and spreading cheer.

Before we take our final bow, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you who has been part of our journey this year. It's been an absolute pleasure serving as your guide on IMore, and I'm thrilled to have had the chance to learn so much from all of you. As we look to the future, I wish you a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year, filled with love, laughter, and all the things that bring us joy.

In conclusion, 2015 was a complex and multifaceted year in the tech industry. While it presented its share of challenges, it also brought numerous opportunities for growth, innovation, and connection. As we move forward into this exciting new chapter, I urge you to take control of your digital presence and ensure that your data is protected. Together, we can create a brighter, more inclusive future – one where technology serves as a force for good in the world.

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Linda.com: A Resource for Lifelong Learning

For those interested in upping their skills or learning new things, Linda.com is an invaluable resource. With its vast library of courses and tutorials, this platform offers something for everyone. Whether you're looking to improve your coding skills, learn a new language, or simply expand your knowledge on a particular subject, IMore has partnered with Linda.com to bring you the best educational content available.

By signing up for a free 10-day trial at linda.com/imore, you can access a wealth of learning materials that will help you achieve your goals. From beginner-friendly courses to more advanced topics, IMore is committed to helping you succeed in your personal and professional development journey. So why not take the first step today? Sign up for your free trial and discover how Linda.com can help you unlock your full potential.

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IMore Community: A Hub of Creativity and Connection

In 2015, our community came together to create something truly special. Whether through innovative projects or simply by sharing their knowledge and expertise with others, each member of the IMore team played a vital role in making this year one to remember. As we look to the future, I want to extend my sincerest gratitude to everyone who has contributed to our journey so far.

From Peter's musical carolling episode to Renee's roller skating adventures, there were countless moments of joy and laughter that brought us all together. And through it all, we remained committed to our core values: creativity, connection, and a passion for learning. As we move forward into this exciting new chapter, I invite you to join me in celebrating the incredible work that has been done by our community.

Together, let's continue to push boundaries, challenge ourselves, and inspire others with our creativity and enthusiasm. The future is bright, and I'm honored to be a part of it all alongside each and every one of you.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone it's December 28 2014 and right now part two of our most important stories of the year this time following up last week's apple with this week's Tech I'm joined by Serenity Caldwell Peter Cohen and Ali kuha let's get right back into it this is the imore show transitioning into General Tech news there was a couple things several things actually that happened that were you know they just they engulfed the entire Tech Community and one was the rise of hacking we saw an incredible amount of hacking this year we had Merchants being hacked Target being hacked Home Depot being hacked for credit card numbers one of the reasons why Apple pay is so it had was such a good sale for vendors was because it makes everyone more secure we also had uh celebrity hacks where private photos and other images were taken from their online accounts and you know blasted all over the Internet we had Sony hacking where it looks like North Korea when went in and stole a terabyte of information from Sony and you know with the help of sensationalism a lot of information including serial uh Social Security numbers private emails and uh movies um all sorts of other stuff were just were made public uh Peter security is a perpet you're always at war with security it is it is Never Enough the hackers are always trying new things there's always a gap between responses but I think this finally maybe is a wake up call yeah one of the things that concerns me is that gradually in bits and pieces uh iOS and Os 10 are both getting a higher profile with hackers than they they have before and you know we've been very comfortable and I think over overly complacent in our position as Apple users to say well we're not going to get any uh malware on our machines and uh it it it depends partly on how you define malware and partly on uh what you're doing but I see customers come into our store all the time who have visited the wrong website and ended up with just a mess on their computers so this is a very real problem for uh Mac users and in some cases iOS users as much as it is anybody a lot of the iOS stuff that we've seen uh happen this past year actually uh involves uh more uh uh jailbroken devices than anything and I think that that's kind of a Perpetual problem although it really influences or affects a fairly small minority of uh overall iOS users most people don't jailbreak their devices and if you do and if you're downloading pired software well quite frankly I think you get what you deserve yeah know I think there absolutely a case I I think that there's problems in how reported but I think that the awareness level um I I think the awareness level is good for us like you said we might have been a little bit complacent Apple certainly does work really hard especially on iOS for for security um but Ali I mean it goes way beyond that how many people use a passcode how many people use Touch ID how many people use a password manager how many people were even aware that you know putting stuff online always comes with some element of risk um yeah and how many people are still using password one two three as their password ory apparently yeah yeah there's that great me using the you know same password for multiple sites at at some point it comes down to individual responsibility too protect your online in in real life you know anything just protect your stuff and I think that companies can only do so much apple can push Apple pay um you know Banks can push whatever and to be honest in the US art security and art measures with credit cards are way out of date which is why banks are being forced to switch over to NFC and uh chip and pin and EMV or whatever it's called hi and Sig ug yeah well I mean seriously it it's a combination Banks and retailers have a responsibility to protect that client information but individuals have a responsibility to protect their own information so it it goes hand inand and both have to do their part and I think if both were doing their part maybe we wouldn't have seen some of the issues that we had earlier but I think that's kind of a precursor if you know both parties don't step up and take responsibility for their both sides of that yeah I absolutely agree the only thing that gives me a little bit of of tension in this is that Sony was hacked before the PlayStation network was hacked and it doesn't look like they learned from it and the statements that they made also indicated that they were unaware of this kind of thing but their security was so bad like it was worse than any dim store you know four-person LLC that I've seen that has you know basic exchange installed it's it was just terrible terrible but was also terrible was that they got almost no support from their Community the mpa was nowhere their fellow I don't want to get all George Clooney here but you know their fellow Studios were nowhere the community was nowhere and the community is sort of what you need when these sorts of things happen naturally because they ran like cowards no one wants to be the next one in Guardians of pieces uh radar or Anonymous or whatever hacker group is going to come out next this is the big problem is that just like when you were in elementary school the last thing that you want to do is attract the bullies attention and whether you're talking about this or something that I hope we get to later which is gamergate or anything else there is a self-censoring aspect to all this which is really disturbing and that is you don't want to raise the eye of that person who uh can do this to you so that's why we haven't seen you know a lot of uh of of outcry in Hollywood at least a lot of public facing outcry except from a few people who you know feel like they don't have anything to lose by saying otherwise i' so go ahead yeah no I'm I I agree with Peter the um the big issue here is that I I would be very shocked if the other uh the other members of the other big Hollywood Studios had vastly more secure uh measures for their online security than Sony I just I yeah I and as such I think what they're like their silence is not even so much oh we don't want to support Sony as it is uh why we all check RIT networks and uh get on fixing them it's like Monty Burns being in the back trying to try to close the screen door right it's yeah the door is open man all right so Peter mentioned gamergate we we'll we'll we'll cover that too because it has the same sort of element of bullying to it and the same sort of uh element of Hysteria to it gamergate ostensibly is about Ethics in journalism uh maybe there are a couple people still confused about their agenda who who legitimately thought that was their belief I don't think any rational person can look upon their accomplishments to date and think that it's anything other than um I don't I don't even have the proper words in English to describe it it was a couple of b-roll celebrities who I actually used to enjoy in their sci-fi shows when they still had them uh who sort of incited a mob of people to a riot to go at the worst the worst of humanity the worst of and I'm not talking about people I'm not saying you're bad people I'm saying that when humans get together together they can do horrible horrible things especially when we become the worst of of all of us the worst of the sum of our parts and they just relentlessly harassed women in journalism women in gaming um and and and anything ancillary that they could sort of fold into that um Peter you mentioned it before you've written quite a bit about it uh I'd like to get everyone's opinion on it but I I again this is a part that makes me this is the downside of the internet yeah it really is the downside of the internet you know I remember a number years ago was covering something that was uh something related to uh uh the Mac market and it involved a particular vendor who um had a a product that had for whatever reason stirred a great deal of controversy in the segment of the market that that I was covering at that point and he said to me you know the most awesome thing about the internet is that everybody's put on a Level Playing Field and the worst thing when it comes to you know sharing their opinion about things and the worst thing about the internet is that everybody is on the same level when it comes to sharing their opinion about things it's a double-edged sword it's the classic double-edged sword you know there's absolutely nothing wrong with voicing your opinion about ethics and game journalism or ethics in journalism or ethics in general ethics are a good thing but the problem is that a very small percentage of uh the the gamergate audience the people who are pro gamergate have poisoned the message entirely with a really virulent antisocial sociopathic in some case misogynist message that is poisoning the the rest of it and has irrevocably poisoned the rest of it and there are unfortunately outside of those that small group there is this this Halo group of people who are so anxious to protect the message of gamergate at any cost that they're willing to decry or discredit any attempt to shine light on those people as uh stuff like false Flags you know well that's just you know Brianna woo trying to pretend that uh that that somebody outed her when she outed herself that is crazy conspiracy theory that you hear on am talk shows like Alex freaking Jones if you are R you don't believe this stuff but you know there's a thin line sometimes between uh voicing your opinion and demonstrating to everybody that you're me freaking ill I think I think there's a reason also that it hit Gamers because like this group I mean you could go after ethics in Washington you could go after ethics in automobile journalism you go after ethics Hollywood Jun so incredibly trivial I mean I wrote about games for 15 years I wrote about games for 10 years for for macor and I wrote games about games for about five years before that and I have seen seen the entire gaming industry dissol or gaming journalism industry dissolve you know there are very few game Publications anymore there there are very few reputable game Publications and the ones that are out there the ones especially that are online like uh uh game industry. biz for example and polygon do a damn good job of what they're covering and they don't deserve the from jerks who think that they're all in bed with game developers because game devel develop developers flash a little boob at them sometimes or uh you know go to events like E3 or or whatever I want to talk a little bit about that because I think the origin like the origin of gamergate and that that that whole controversy I think it's very it's interesting to me that the person they're they're talking about ethics of game journalism and the the first person that's outed is not the journalist who supposedly you know traded sexual favors for for reviews which was later true like proved to be false but they went after the developer they went after the developer and not the journalist not only did they go after the developer but who went after the developer who outed her quote unquote an ex-boyfriend with an ax to grind yeah so there's so there's that there's that side note the other thing the whole ethics you know again ethics policies are fantastic and I do think obviously like there's there's a reason why uh why journalists in general have a rule about review review units and and you know not accepting gifts from developers and things like that um and that that is to protect you know the ethics and everything the the thing that makes me crazy is people assuming that you cannot talk or be in any way affiliate like I I can't if I know Brianna woo I am I am suddenly insinuated and inclined to give her a good review the developers that I know the best are the people who I give the harshest reviews to because I expect the best from them like anybody who it's it's one of those things where it's like the entire industry is so small especially you're talking about you know game gaming in particular has become so small because of so few Publications the Mac industry is very similar the Apple the the Apple coverage industry the Indie developers you know everybody knows everybody because you know what if you want to write well about something if you want to write well about an app if you want to write well about a how-to you do your research and doing your research means talking to the developer doesn't mean saying oh developer buy me a fancy lunch no that crosses a line but it does mean getting to know the developer getting to understand their mations and their motivations behind making the game and you know because it creates a better more well-rounded picture of what you're doing does that mean and that can be applied to anything I mean should I not review an app that I beta tested for because I had contact with a developer that's ridiculous I it it all comes back to the fact that it is a small industry people know each other you have to I mean I want to be more informed and educated and I also want a developer to release a product to Consumers that can be the best it possibly can and part of that in in my responsibility is to make sure that they have honest feedback and they know you know we like this we don't like this you're you're going to have that problem in any industry I mean you could apply that same thing okay well they knew each other prior to writing the reviews okay well I've known pretty much you know had contact with every developer I've ever written a review for because I want to give them feedback so where is that line you know and and I think that's the problem is people have a difference of opinion on where that line should be yeah you want you know who I'm interested in having a conversation about journalistic ethics with people who actually know about journalistic ethics not Gamers on the internet yeah I'm interested in having the conversation with other journalists I'm interested in having the conversation with people who have a background in ethics I'm interested in having a conversation about it with the people who run the newsrooms where these things are reported and you know the editors who Dole out the the these articles and understanding what their ethics policy is and what exactly ethics ingame journalism is because a lot of people who are complaining about ethics and games journalism don't have the slightest fraking idea what journalistic ethics are they just don't for them it's just a battlecry it's a Battle Cry I don't like this person's opinion so therefore I'm against their ethics no you're not you don't even know what ethics means the biggest thing that I've seen from people recently is disclosure disclosure disclosure well like here's guys my blanket disclosure I talk to every developer whose app I'm GNA write about because I want to know more about it that's just but that's like a blanket like that's that's every single app it's not one app specifically over my worry here is that um the discussion always ends up becoming about ethics and we start talking about our ethics and it has nothing to do with ethics I think it has to do with a group of people who self-identified as a particular thing because they felt badly done by in a larger community and they formed their own community and that's magnificent but the sad thing is that what usually happens when you form your own Community is that it becomes subject to the same ills at the Greater Community that you left so that people who are persecuted become persecutors people who feel bullied become bullies and we see it happening over and over again and unfortunately because of the Internet it's allowed to magnify and because of of anonymity it's allowed to have no repercussions and that's what let it lets it become these big things this was about a lack of inclusivity in and going back to inclusivity another one of our big stories this year this was about a lack of inclusivity in a community and that has led to that Community not not learn not knowing how to engage with anything beyond itself and I truly believe that and what we said before that you you cannot have inclusivity without including people of incredible diversity in the process not only does it make your information better it makes your end results better if 50% of the people involved in game were women it would not have the agenda or the impact to the effect that it has right now it is only because uh you know it has nothing to do with ethics and gaming that is complete utter anyone saying that should should really you know take a deep deep dark look at themselves because it it is about people treating other people poorly even if it were about ethics and game journalism which it isn't you would still be treating people poorly and that is still not be okay so I'm going to go back to the inclusivity thing for a minute because I believe it's incredibly important we're trying to do it you know at mobile Nations we haven't gone far enough we're going to keep trying to do it further want to have more you know and diverse people's opinions on all the stuff we cover but that has to be everywhere H everyone has to be involved in the conversation or the conversation is gonna suck and I'm so tired of the conversation suck I would 100% agree yeah I just honestly the what my my goal from day one on the Internet is to to learn more and become more than I than I am as a human being and I feel like having decent decent ation with people where we can discuss our our views and our thoughts without it devolving into flames you know that that is the that is the kind of thing that I cherish and there are places on the internet where that can happen and I love hearing from people who have different opinions than I do um but I feel like the unfortunately the you know the the few people who are genuinely concerned about game journalism and and ethics and all of that have gotten drowned out by the mass of insane people people who are wandering around being like let's you know what's great you know how we can fix ethics in game journalism let's smear and out and terrorize women who happened to to be developers not even journalists developers let's let's te let's make them scared for their lives because that's a great fantastic way to encourage conversation about ethics or about good good policy like it just it yeah no their conversation would be exclusively towards the Publishers and and executive editors of the major game journals and it would have nothing to do with any of the people they've targeted those people would just not be involved no un run those those those Publications no I'll be I'll be honest like if you're if you're listening out there and you have a genuine interest in ethics and games journalism and it's not it's not to you about like the the leaders or whatever you know if you if you seriously want to have a good discussion about that there are other places you can go you don't have to hang out in the hashtag gamerch gamergate you don't have to go to achan you don't like there are places where you can have intelligent discussion with people who are willing to have intelligent discussion this is not your place do not associate yourself with people who are who are women haters and who like who want to who want to terrorize people not even women who want to terrorize people don't do it it's stupid who take advantage of an nonunity basically yes exactly you are better than this if you if you truly want a discussion that exists there's a place for it just don't go look at go look at the auto journalist please because they're right now they're busy fighting over whether they should get free gifts along with their junkets you have much better things to spend your ethical time on in game journalists truth all a couple to to Veer 180 degrees for a second our our distinguished competition to borrow an old Marvel Comics line uh had an interesting year as well Google got material design for many years Apple's had great design they've moved into great functional Google had great functionality not very good design they spent a lot of time a concerted effort they rebuilt a lot of things and now they have material design they have you know something that stretches across every screen that they make from web to PC to Chromebook if you know if those are distinguishable to mobile uh it's it's very flat it's got some nice Shadows though and it makes Android I mean Ally you've got Android devices it makes it look good yeah um I have to confess I have not updated any of my Android devices yet oh Phil nickson's gonna cry I know Phil cover your ears ear muffs um yeah but I I have looked at a lot of the literature on that I see screenshots posted all the time and um Android's kind of coming in their own in in terms of design um it's it's come a long way U from the first time I picked up an Android phone and just went G nope set it back down so um there I I find a lot of the Android devices nowadays pretty usable and even like like uh HTC with sense and some of the other uh interfaces uh have really done grown Leaps and Bounds in just 12 months I remember the first time I reviewed the original um HTC dream I think it was the whatever it was called on T-Mobile the G1 and I opened it up and I launched the only game on it snakes or something and it said press up to continue and I tried swiping up on the screen I tried pressing the the arrow key I tried using the joystick little thing I Tred there's like eight different ways to push up on that device and none of them worked and that was my early experience of Android but year after year it's gotten better and better and um it's still not my favorite but right now I feel like I you know I could use that as a daily phone with absolutely no problem and that's that's amazing to me as as little as last year I was at CES with Brian clug from an anch and I was complaining that Gmail wouldn't scroll and he came up and put it in developer mode and the screen went bright red which meant that every single list item was being redrawn four or five times and it just that kills performance and I know Google's Engineers were pulling their hair out trying to get their own teams to adopt better practices and now it looks like they've done it they made as much of an effort as Apple made on functionality to get usability done and I'm super happy because strong competition is better for everybody absolutely speaking of which Peter Microsoft that ancient institution the the original um distinguished competition got a new CEO and it looks like a new cloudier Focus yeah Satan Adella came in uh to replace Steve bulmer and immediately uh started making some big changes at Microsoft um and we've seen some really interesting things that have trickled down just to uh the the Apple side as well for example uh office uh uh for iPad is available for free download now and doesn't need to be unlocked with Office 365 in order it came out before the windows version ridiculous sorry Al said which was ridiculous the whole you have to have a subscription to you I'm glad that model they didn't charge 300 bucks for it up front the way that they did on the desktop no but just I I feel like with when you look at releasing an app like that you have to look at your existing competition too and for me no matter how tied in I was to office if I didn't have a 365 subscription which sneakily enough you still need that for some of the advanced features that office offers on the iPad changes yeah yeah so I mean it I'm still not a huge fan of Microsoft subscription model on the iPad but they put out some really nice software and I just you know we'll we'll see I'm I'm in I'm inclined to agree with that I think that uh you know they they're improving things and Leaps and Bounds the thing that they've got to do from my perspective and I'm just going to Advocate as a Mac User here is get their act together with office for the Mac yes because we haven't seen a major revision of office in four years uh office 2011 was the last release that came out and that came out in 2010 so uh Apple's really got Apple excuse me Microsoft has really got to get its act together uh with regards to getting uh Mac office on the same page as its Windows counterpart and I realize that in terms of priorities it's pretty far down the list but it is what it is and this fall we've seen Microsoft make a big push against the MacBook Air which is Apple's most popular laptop by probably Apple's most popular Mac model period uh by positioning the MacBook Air I against the Surface Pro 3 and well the Surface Pro 3 has got a USB port Peter how are you going to compete with that that's true yeah I mean exactly you know wow um so we'll we'll we'll see how how well the proof of the pudding is in the eating is the saying goes and we won't know uh for a while how successful Microsoft's marketing efforts have been there but I don't know I don't know it's interesting you know the the the Surface Pro 3 give them credit you by the time the original surfaces came out I I had played with them a bit and wasn't particularly impressed but Microsoft has been improving uh the surface experience iteratively with each new product and the Surface Pro 3 is a surprisingly usable tablet it's really it's a good machine uh I don't think it hits the same Market segmentation that Apple does with the iPad I think that it's uh it's probably a little more vertical a little bit more aimed at business users specifically uh but it's still a pretty powerful system I feel like it competes more with the iPad or with the MacBook than it would with an iPad I just that's when I look at a Surface Pro I just I don't know I wouldn't think of that I wouldn't do either like I think they they got cream when they went up against the iPad and I think it makes no sense to go up against the MacBook Air it makes a lot of sense to go up against other Windows laptop makers but for particular reasons they can't do that so I wish they would just advertise it on its own just show people what what an amazing in between device it is yeah that would be a new segment yeah but that would mean actually defining a market a market segment that uh uh the the surface uh can compete in and let's face it it's a lot easier uh and a lot more palatable for a lot of uh weak spined middle managers who are making these decisions uh to say you know what we're we're just going to do attack ads instead because attack ads are more effective this is my problem this is my problem with all of this marketing about it is that I don't I don't mind that apple is the dominant player you know and it when when a Surface Pro ad comes out or when uh Samsung ad comes out aiming at the iPhone I don't mind that they're making fun of these devices the problem that I've got is that it's the only marketing I ever see on these products and it's negative marketing it's marketing saying hey look at us compared to our competition I tell you what don't don't do that do what Apple does which is tell me about the products features and benefits give give me a reason to buy your I would love to see Surface ads where you have a guy using it on a plane and the guy next to him is struggling to open up a laptop and he's just having a great time and he goes from doing his Excel sheet to finally ship Excel for this goddamn surface he's doing his Excel sheet and then picks it up and watches a movie uh or a person is sketching on a park bench and then picks it up and goes into class just show what the advantages are of having a machine that can go from one to the other that is you know that could conceivably be the best of both don't just show me how it has a USB port like every other computer uh yeah so I have a couple other quick things for us to go through net neutrality net neutrality is so confusing to me it's primarily an American issue the way it's phrased now but it really is an international issue we've seen people like the chancellor of Germany come out against net neutrality which is Stupify to me we've seen the Canadian government try to pass admittedly American Hollywood backed laws that would greatly restrict our freedom of the internet so far they have not passed we've seen soapa you know get defeated in the US we've seen thanks to the Sony leaks we've seen uh how Sony and the MP is targeting Google in an effect to stop you know various elements of net neutrality but we've also seen the president of the United States after the after appointing someone from the cable industry who is not pro net neutrality come out for net neutrality I'm a quebecer I am used to our government splitting on everything so that nothing ever happen but net neutrality seems like one of those things where where no country can get in the middle of it on either side and not do anything faster and it's just as someone who wants an open Internet it's incredibly frustrating yeah I uh net neutrality has just become so convoluted as you were saying Renee to the point where I feel like I have to re-explain what's going on to my parents every time I see them because it's just it's so it's so complicated even then even then net neutrality it's like okay well and then there's some some net neutrality proposals are more equal than others like I feel like I'm an animal farm right now where you know the the base level seems seem seems uncomplicated the internet you know the internet should be regulated from creeps but not like uh not speed regulated people shouldn't be able to you know company shouldn't be able to pay more to have premium channels because that's going to get us into cable television all over again and it'll be crazy um the at the base level that doesn't seem that complicated and yet people are trying to make it so complicated people are trying to to Champion catholism and and oh well you know it's a you know it'll be better for you because you can get faster speeds for certain things like Netflix but on the other hand you have the incredible danger hole that regulating the internet could turn into and the fact that you know if you if you pass a law like this you have the potential to restrict certain websites from unless you pay extra money and I don't know it just it rubs me the wrong way we're gonna take a quick break so I can tell you about linda.com and here's the thing I want you to Kickstart your New Year I want you to challenge yourself I want you to learn something new and we're going to help you do that because we've arranged for a free 10day not 7-Day 10day trial for linda.com now linda.com is used by millions of people around the world and has over 3,000 3,000 courses on topics like web development photography visual design and business as well as things like learning Excel learning WordPress learning Photoshop all their courses are taught by experts and new courses are added to the site every week whether you want to set new financial goals find work life balance invest in a new hobby ask your boss for a raise find a new job or improve your current job skills in 2015 linda.com has something for everyone so what do you get in this free 10day trial you sign up you get an unlimited access to every single course on linda.com you can literally feed your brain as much as it can eat you get access to view tutorials on tablets and iPhones and Android devices and you can access the new courses when they're added during that week some of the courses they have available right now are iOS 8 iPhone and iPad essential training setting up your mobile office to work from anywhere and speeding up and M maintaining your Mac I've been looking over the new courses all of them all of them look phenomenal I've said before I've been trying to learn logic pro it's been going really slow but you know I've been taking a look at other stuff too I looked a little bit at the WordPress stuff the other day I had just a question I was trying to help a friend with and I couldn't find the answer so you know take a look at linda.com and that's the thing you can have a specific goal or you can just use it to help solve problems when and if they come up uh look at it as is almost you know private training tutorials for whenever you need them so again do your something good for yourself in 2015 sign up for a free 10day trial of linda.com all you have to do is visit linda.com imore go ahead challenge yourself learn something new in 2015 thank you so much Linda yeah I I I I don't know what we be done about it I hope that we continue to fight the good fight it it does bring me nicely into our into our second sort of story Peter this is something that you've been writing about it's that special magenta snow flake that is sort of caught in between because T-Mobile wants to be the disruptive in influence and has done a lot of really interesting things in the carrier space but at the same time you know as much as they want to be the people's champ they can't be the net neutrality champ because that's counter to their interests but as a CEO John Leger is just so damn interesting to watch yeah John Ledger is uh a loose cannon for Telecom CEO you know he's an a special magenta FL snowflake he is he is a very special magenta snowflake you know you never see him in a Tai you always see him in a a pair of jeans and a magenta T-shirt with a T-Mobile logo on it he's got long hair he drops F bombs during press conferences he is endlessly entertaining he's quite a personality he does things like uh crash the mmore concert at CES which was hosted by uh it was a private party hosted by AT&T just to get under AT&T skin uh that sort of stuff he's very interesting guy as far as T-Mobile and other companies of its ilk it's really interesting to see how they're taking the net neutrality issue more directly to their customers and saying look these are the sort of things that we can do that make run counter to the principles of net neutrality but benefit you as a customer and I have to say that in some cases I'm on their side with it you know things like uh uh offering and they will tell you straight up this doesn't run counter to Net Neutrality this isn't what net neutrality is all about from their perspective net neutrality is a very specific thing but bear with me here for a minute they have this uh policy on uh T-mobile of not charging you if you use one of their blessed if you will uh streaming internet music providers so for example I listen iTunes radio iTunes radio is on the list so none of the data that I use when I'm listening to iTunes Radio on my phone when I'm away from Wii I get charged for it's free which means that I stay under my cap thankfully uh because that data streaming is not counting uh towards what data I'm actually using on my phone some people have said well that runs counter to Net Neutrality because um you're you're you're giving a benefit to some data where others don't get the benefit and the service providers are quick to say look what this is really about is prioritizing the delivery of some data over others you know making uh making you uh pay a premium to get get access or making uh somebody else pay the pay the premium to to get access for for some data over another it gets very muddied and it's been become commercialized very quickly and that's why I think Renee you're seeing such a disparity happen here in the US between uh people who want to see net neutrality at any cost versus uh corporations lobbyists and others who are saying well wait a minute this can offer some end user benefit that we have to take into account here and we really shouldn't discount it out of hand no I agree completely I think that's sort of the underlying tone of a lot of our stories this year which is disruption and it brings me to one of our we have only very few left but a logistical disruption whether you're talking about Uber which you know I was using to get around in San Francisco almost completely without having to rent a car last time I was there to things like drones which you know people are testing now and the laws trying to figure out what's good and bad about those you know Google had a big self-driving car announcement either today or or or yesterday and it's it's it's doing things at a scale and in a way that was never possible without the internet and without the ability to to control things or to communicate with things and it's super interesting I don't always agree with how the companies are doing things I think Uber's done some disgusting things over time and I'm I'm nervous about some of the ways that drones might be used or misused and I don't know how a self-driving car is going to regulate when an accident starts to happen and it's got to make decisions about whose lives are most important you know between accelerating or stopping or swerving or or whatnot but but these things are happening and the future is always scary and uh the the only difference is it seems like it's coming really fast now yeah I I actually read a really interesting article um it's comic article on medium recently about the sharing economy um and how that's kind of you know it it may be disrupting uh our traditional services like taxi cabs Etc um but it's also actively uh disrupting class systems surprise and um and people able to get jobs the the argument from that uh from the article was that uh by having sort of middle class people taking second or third jobs doing things like Lyft or Uber or Airbnb it's actually sort of funneling down and winnowing down the uh the amount of jobs that are available for people who would traditionally have service class industry jobs thereby making the whole sharing economy thing far less uh far or less uh old tribe friendly as it as it is positioned to be oh you know the sharing economy we're returning to Our Roots we're disrupting the old industry and we're you know we're we're becoming more neighborly again and then in actuality well only if you make above a certain amount of money because otherwise you're kind of screwing people out of jobs so it's it was that was a very interesting article and I I thought that was uh really really strange take on on or not strange but really like uh intriguing take on on disruption I I think it's absolutely genius and I think it's similar to what we're seeing in media now too where we have companies like Vox and we have companies like BuzzFeed and companies like Vice which are becoming as much platforms as they are media Outlets what what we see on the screen especially in buzzfeed's case is determined way more by algorithms based on social sharing that it is about human curation and editorial anymore and we're seeing a lot of that uh you know usually the old complaint was sensationalism and I believe that this year has been sensationalized perhaps more than any other simply because this was the next year on The chronology you know and 2015 will be even more Sensational but the most sensationalist ever 20 reasons why one qu yeah one one strange trick on how to make your ear more sens no absolutely but you know we've heard about like how they'll actually recreate articles on the Fly based on on how people are sharing them and things and you we used to say that when you published a magazine it was dead but you know the web as much as it was Dynamic we would fix we would make Corrections fix typos but now the content itself is Shifting and changing to try to appeal to more of us and when I say appeal I mean that old joke is that everyone in the old days of the neelon journals everyone would really watch you know soap operas but they'd write down that they watched PBS but because of Facebook and Twitter and all these things they know what we're actually watching and it turns out we really are watching you know th those celebrity gossip stories and we are watching scary security headlines we're watching the things that we say out loud we don't want that we criticize that we we wish weren't the case those are the things that we're that we're soaking up that we can't get enough of and I I don't know where it's going to go but Peter you've been working in this industry for a super long time it it is no longer what it once was no it really isn't and you know there's a lot of talk about how we uh you know we we Chase page views and stuff like that and uh in some cases that's perfectly legitimate and that's perfectly acceptable you know I I get I I I have to say that I get a little uh um a bit tweaked when um uh somebody will complain to us about how easily we were bought for you know a good review of something or or or what have you um or how we're click baiting that's always my favorite that we that we clickbait our headlines because we make them interesting to read uh that's not what clickbait is you know it it frustrates me that that I think that there's a distortion of perspective as as as well at at the end of the day though it has to evolve you know and we're going to give people what they want to read within the boundaries of what our mission is to do uh there's I don't think there's anything wrong with that I don't think there's anything wrong with uh uh with with not only trying to answer the need for what people want but also trying to uplift them and trying to give them uh a perspective that maybe they genuinely hadn't heard before uh to that end there's room at the table for a lot of different viewpoints and I don't necessarily think that any one uh Media Company um that's working now whether you're talking about you know us or what the folks over at Gawker doing or uh you know the sort of the traditional media like the New York Times I don't think there's one answer that's all-encompassing that's going to solve everybody's problems and make everyone happy at the same time you were so bought off by Dodge memes it's true what can I tell you I I like I like doges that's why I I am friends with the Aly despite her antipathy towards raisins and cats no you gotta you gotta balance it somehow I I think it's interesting yeah uh well TR mean you come from traditional Publications as well and these certainly aren't that yeah tra traditional well yeah it's it's it's strange to me because uh my first experience was with a yes maal was a a magazine but it was also a web publication and I worked primarily on kind of adapting Mac world's content for the web uh so I defin I got to see firsthand you know experimenting with the idea of SEO and all that all of that stuff uh but it really I don't know the the whole concept of a machine can curate your feed and your your thoughts better than a human can I'm still a little skeptical by that and I love Robotics and I love the idea of artificial intelligence and everything else uh but you know as as smart as BuzzFeed is and I do think like what they're doing is I mean manipulative probably but very but incredible very very smart um there's still something to be said about uh about people people behind the screens right where um you know things that are not that are not WR written for na of advertising or not written for you know to try and clickbait Etc um but are are written and written well and have a SC of headline that yes pulls in pulls in your Google traffic pulls in your social traffic but there are articles that you might actually want to read and might actually want to pay attention to um which is again not to say that BuzzFeed isn't doing that because I actually i' I've found some really enjoyable stuff on there on their site but it's a it's two different I think it's two different ways of approaching the same end result where BuzzFeed is trying you know they're they a lot of computer generated algorithms to try and take the onus off of their writer um to allow their writers to write the content and allow the computer to kind of make the Special Sauce to get it to the the people that they want to see this information whereas you know it's holder media tends to to put all of that on the writers as well as uh the actual writing itself of the article well you know the interesting thing is when we were talking about streaming uh Services before we were T when we were talking about Apple specifically we were talking about beats music service yeah and one of the reasons why I think we all agree that beats is great is because it actually has human curated playlists and that was one of the the reasons why Apple wanted to acquire beats uh to begin with according to to Tim Cook cook said that this is one of the things that beats did better than anyone else so the the humanity behind uh the stories that you read I is something that that I think is still incredibly important um no matter what Direction the the media business Moves In in terms of you know whether it's it's the sort of BuzzFeed model or the sort of stuff that we're doing uh there's always got to be people behind the screen that ultimately that's where the buck stops that's where uh the the decisions are made on on what gets written and how it gets written yeah well as human beings We crave you know we We crave a certain amount of interaction and a certain amount of connection and if uh if what you're reading is just written by a robot right it's like years from now in the future we have uh magazines that are just written by you know written by robots sort of interpreting the day's news it's going to be flat you know even even the most pepy robot doesn't you know currently can't create the same the same sort of feeling as from reading a a personable human being and it's it's nice to even if it's not true to believe that there's someone there on the other end who you know who there's an opinion behind there there's a there's 's a story behind me that's not just flat straight newswriting so last which is interesting because the last thing I had written down was the rise of sort of privacy the rise of anonymity but not not in the mostly in terms of Direct Communications things like secret things like yikyak things like uh I forget the name of Mark Cuban's app but Ally you wrote about some of them the the secure and private messaging services to me they sort of came and then fell flat yeah um I think some of them they have like little niche crowds it seems um you know for people that maybe aren't the snapchatters of the world um which is not secure to begin with but anyway I don't I've never really used any of them extensively I guess I'm not that important but um yeah I don't I don't know I haven't really seen too much about them and I don't really know too many people that use them extensively I I turned off secret because it was just filled with things that I either couldn't believe or didn't want to know yeah I mean I I think Secrets audience in the general the private messaging audiences is slightly different than uh like it's a different crowd right where I definitely I do think that there's an audience for it but I don't necessarily like it's it's not an audience that um that I think I I it's not a circle that I travel in and as such I I can't quite see the appeal of it maybe I'm just getting old but but I think it's true because Facebook Messenger WhatsApp all line all these things became tremendously big services and they were mostly they're personto person Services they're not designed to be anonymous encrypted or services and I think you know correct me if I'm wrong secret has not exploded by any measure that I can see yikyak is all of these services are interesting but they seem to have stayed in a niche it it to your point earlier and I don't think it's satisfies I think some people like it because it's per like sort of a perverse voyerism um or or they have specific reasons but it doesn't it doesn't connect us the way that humans want to be connected and maybe that's why it hasn't taken off yeah I think there's a there's a barrier there there's still and it maybe it fills our our gossip hole our gossip hole our gossip our need for gossip uh but you know I think of I think of the original what in my opin the original uh version of this which is post secret way back in the day um their their little blog uh which I think has now turned into a variety of different things it's like we do enjoy reading reading salacious details about people's lives whether or not they're uh Anonymous or not uh it's just it's unfortunately something that's a little bit hardwired into everybody uh it's just a matter of what kind of you know what kind of information are you really looking to to pick up on and and is this really enriching your life to know about someone's you know drinking habits or or about their Rand some random thing with their parents or maybe it's just a venting space you know maybe it's not for some people it's not about the reading but the but the the venting the the ability to just shout into the void and know that you know your message is out there and might be seen by somebody that you might want to see it but otherwise is just floating free formed into the wind I think that's very true so we're gonna finish up now I'm GNA go around the room quickly Ally how was 2014 for you what did you think about the year in Tech well iosa didn't kill me so came close tried yay tried um but ios9 I'm very excited for I don't say that I'm really excited for 20 15 mainly for apps um and to see how developers take advantage of some of the stuff Apple opened up to them I think it's going to be a year of software more than anything um this year pretty much already was so um I think 2014 was a good year I think we saw Apple take a lot of approaches and open up a lot of things that never would have we never would have thought of previously um so yeah I'm excited to see what happens in 2015 and I would like a photos app for my Mac that works with iCloud photo library please word Peter what about you you know it was an interesting foundational year for both ios8 and uh os10 I think the um uh the release of ios8 in yede uh marked this convergence that many of us had been predicting for years but happened in a way that I don't think any of us were really expecting you know we'd heard a lot about the iOS ification of the mac and how inevitably they were going to move towards one uh one one being or one operating system that isn't happening that isn't that hasn't happened in that that I don't think won won't happen uh but Apple shown yeah exactly Apple shown the way that both of these can can coexist and can come out better the other side so from that perspective very interesting 2015 holds a lot of Promise especially on the Mac because of uh new innovations that we're going to see from Intel so uh I'm I'm excited about what the future holds Ren yeah I'm with Peter 2014 is the year of promise and the year of teasing uh we've got a lot of fantastic tools that were kind of dumped into developers laps uh starting in June uh we've got the Apple watch to look forward to early next spring we've got the photos app and hopefully a a secure version of iCloud photo library to look forward to uh in 2015 there's a there's a lot of uh a lot of Promise set up by both apple and uh and competiting uh industry Giants in this space and I'm I'm waiting to see it deliver you know I'm I'm waiting to see how it all unfolds but I I I think this was one of my favorite years covering Tech uh and certainly had some of the best uh best apple events in quite some time I'm gonna agree with all of you I think uh 2013 especially with iOS 7 it really started things moving it started it started creating something new and 2014 just built on and it brought the redesign for brought the new functionality for iOS it brought new things like the the te's of of the Apple watch and of Apple pay and of all these new places that Apple's going it showed the integration theme and it really paid off on Tim Cook's gamble of replacing Scott forestall with Craig federi uh you know and in otherwise organizing the company to be more harmonious and to actually have you know one uh engineering product manager for a feature and not just for an operating system or the feature on an operating system I think all of that paid off greatly I think there are challenges I I hope you can do the same thing with the App Store he's shown like he's doing it with um the Apple retail store and online stores let's just keep moving that out and I love that apple is pushing for diversity and for you know and for civility and for Humanity and for Energy Efficiency and for all these causes that they can actually put their Fame in their and their muscle um behind and I think in technology in general it was an incredibly sad year in many ways but it was also an Illuminating year I learned so much about how our privacy and security is at risk and just how poorly people can treat each other and and those are horrible things but it's made me much more educated and it's made me take my privacy and my security much more seriously and it's made me want to help if I can all the people who are subject to that kind of abuse and harassment to make them more inclusive and a and a more Humane world and I think you know the only way I can look at it is as a gift and I think it's great that this technology uh privacy is so important all these ideas are so important that we're having these discussions I think as terrible as the reasons for some of them are is incredibly important and I'm hugely thankful for that and of course I'm thankful for the awesome wonderful team we assembled on imore this year guys all Ro bigger and better in 2015 so Ally if people want to see uh all your great works and find you on the social networks over the holidays where can they go um I am at imore.com every day minus the next couple weeks I will be on vacation I know we'll see how Renee handles that I'll be at CES you I'm gonna I'm you G have to come bail me out it's okay CES oh CES bre um I am at IM muggle on all of the things Twitter Instagram all of the social things pretty much all right Peter what about you on imore and also on the social things at flar f l a r g h Ren I am at imore.com and on all of the social things at curn all right and you might be doing some podcasts over the holidays or is there anything coming away uh that's true um I believe that uh keep your eyes peeled you're a fan of the incomparable for something special uh in a few days I'm sure we will probably also do a podcast on the Doctor Who Christmas special um and uh yeah I I hear there might be some crazy stuff go just pay you know keep keep your eyes on Twitter they're all gonna go might be they're gonna go carolling at Syracuse's house just to see how he handles it yes we're going to do a musical carolling episode you have been warned on roller skates nice yep uh bring them you can find all of us at imore you can find me at Renee Richie I want to thank everyone every reader every listener every viewer for a fantastic gear you are unmatched as an awesome uh Community you make us all so much better we really appreciate you have happy holidays and whatever method you choose to celebrate or not celebrate them just to have a wonderful wonderful New Year and we will see you back at uh we next be back at CES 2015 talk to you all soon see you next year bye bye guys and I want to once again thank linda.com I want to challenge you to challenge yourself in 2015 sign up to linda.com get a free 10day trial that's lynda.com imore go there sign up free days you can learn something remarkable thanks Lindahey everyone it's December 28 2014 and right now part two of our most important stories of the year this time following up last week's apple with this week's Tech I'm joined by Serenity Caldwell Peter Cohen and Ali kuha let's get right back into it this is the imore show transitioning into General Tech news there was a couple things several things actually that happened that were you know they just they engulfed the entire Tech Community and one was the rise of hacking we saw an incredible amount of hacking this year we had Merchants being hacked Target being hacked Home Depot being hacked for credit card numbers one of the reasons why Apple pay is so it had was such a good sale for vendors was because it makes everyone more secure we also had uh celebrity hacks where private photos and other images were taken from their online accounts and you know blasted all over the Internet we had Sony hacking where it looks like North Korea when went in and stole a terabyte of information from Sony and you know with the help of sensationalism a lot of information including serial uh Social Security numbers private emails and uh movies um all sorts of other stuff were just were made public uh Peter security is a perpet you're always at war with security it is it is Never Enough the hackers are always trying new things there's always a gap between responses but I think this finally maybe is a wake up call yeah one of the things that concerns me is that gradually in bits and pieces uh iOS and Os 10 are both getting a higher profile with hackers than they they have before and you know we've been very comfortable and I think over overly complacent in our position as Apple users to say well we're not going to get any uh malware on our machines and uh it it it depends partly on how you define malware and partly on uh what you're doing but I see customers come into our store all the time who have visited the wrong website and ended up with just a mess on their computers so this is a very real problem for uh Mac users and in some cases iOS users as much as it is anybody a lot of the iOS stuff that we've seen uh happen this past year actually uh involves uh more uh uh jailbroken devices than anything and I think that that's kind of a Perpetual problem although it really influences or affects a fairly small minority of uh overall iOS users most people don't jailbreak their devices and if you do and if you're downloading pired software well quite frankly I think you get what you deserve yeah know I think there absolutely a case I I think that there's problems in how reported but I think that the awareness level um I I think the awareness level is good for us like you said we might have been a little bit complacent Apple certainly does work really hard especially on iOS for for security um but Ali I mean it goes way beyond that how many people use a passcode how many people use Touch ID how many people use a password manager how many people were even aware that you know putting stuff online always comes with some element of risk um yeah and how many people are still using password one two three as their password ory apparently yeah yeah there's that great me using the you know same password for multiple sites at at some point it comes down to individual responsibility too protect your online in in real life you know anything just protect your stuff and I think that companies can only do so much apple can push Apple pay um you know Banks can push whatever and to be honest in the US art security and art measures with credit cards are way out of date which is why banks are being forced to switch over to NFC and uh chip and pin and EMV or whatever it's called hi and Sig ug yeah well I mean seriously it it's a combination Banks and retailers have a responsibility to protect that client information but individuals have a responsibility to protect their own information so it it goes hand inand and both have to do their part and I think if both were doing their part maybe we wouldn't have seen some of the issues that we had earlier but I think that's kind of a precursor if you know both parties don't step up and take responsibility for their both sides of that yeah I absolutely agree the only thing that gives me a little bit of of tension in this is that Sony was hacked before the PlayStation network was hacked and it doesn't look like they learned from it and the statements that they made also indicated that they were unaware of this kind of thing but their security was so bad like it was worse than any dim store you know four-person LLC that I've seen that has you know basic exchange installed it's it was just terrible terrible but was also terrible was that they got almost no support from their Community the mpa was nowhere their fellow I don't want to get all George Clooney here but you know their fellow Studios were nowhere the community was nowhere and the community is sort of what you need when these sorts of things happen naturally because they ran like cowards no one wants to be the next one in Guardians of pieces uh radar or Anonymous or whatever hacker group is going to come out next this is the big problem is that just like when you were in elementary school the last thing that you want to do is attract the bullies attention and whether you're talking about this or something that I hope we get to later which is gamergate or anything else there is a self-censoring aspect to all this which is really disturbing and that is you don't want to raise the eye of that person who uh can do this to you so that's why we haven't seen you know a lot of uh of of outcry in Hollywood at least a lot of public facing outcry except from a few people who you know feel like they don't have anything to lose by saying otherwise i' so go ahead yeah no I'm I I agree with Peter the um the big issue here is that I I would be very shocked if the other uh the other members of the other big Hollywood Studios had vastly more secure uh measures for their online security than Sony I just I yeah I and as such I think what they're like their silence is not even so much oh we don't want to support Sony as it is uh why we all check RIT networks and uh get on fixing them it's like Monty Burns being in the back trying to try to close the screen door right it's yeah the door is open man all right so Peter mentioned gamergate we we'll we'll we'll cover that too because it has the same sort of element of bullying to it and the same sort of uh element of Hysteria to it gamergate ostensibly is about Ethics in journalism uh maybe there are a couple people still confused about their agenda who who legitimately thought that was their belief I don't think any rational person can look upon their accomplishments to date and think that it's anything other than um I don't I don't even have the proper words in English to describe it it was a couple of b-roll celebrities who I actually used to enjoy in their sci-fi shows when they still had them uh who sort of incited a mob of people to a riot to go at the worst the worst of humanity the worst of and I'm not talking about people I'm not saying you're bad people I'm saying that when humans get together together they can do horrible horrible things especially when we become the worst of of all of us the worst of the sum of our parts and they just relentlessly harassed women in journalism women in gaming um and and and anything ancillary that they could sort of fold into that um Peter you mentioned it before you've written quite a bit about it uh I'd like to get everyone's opinion on it but I I again this is a part that makes me this is the downside of the internet yeah it really is the downside of the internet you know I remember a number years ago was covering something that was uh something related to uh uh the Mac market and it involved a particular vendor who um had a a product that had for whatever reason stirred a great deal of controversy in the segment of the market that that I was covering at that point and he said to me you know the most awesome thing about the internet is that everybody's put on a Level Playing Field and the worst thing when it comes to you know sharing their opinion about things and the worst thing about the internet is that everybody is on the same level when it comes to sharing their opinion about things it's a double-edged sword it's the classic double-edged sword you know there's absolutely nothing wrong with voicing your opinion about ethics and game journalism or ethics in journalism or ethics in general ethics are a good thing but the problem is that a very small percentage of uh the the gamergate audience the people who are pro gamergate have poisoned the message entirely with a really virulent antisocial sociopathic in some case misogynist message that is poisoning the the rest of it and has irrevocably poisoned the rest of it and there are unfortunately outside of those that small group there is this this Halo group of people who are so anxious to protect the message of gamergate at any cost that they're willing to decry or discredit any attempt to shine light on those people as uh stuff like false Flags you know well that's just you know Brianna woo trying to pretend that uh that that somebody outed her when she outed herself that is crazy conspiracy theory that you hear on am talk shows like Alex freaking Jones if you are R you don't believe this stuff but you know there's a thin line sometimes between uh voicing your opinion and demonstrating to everybody that you're me freaking ill I think I think there's a reason also that it hit Gamers because like this group I mean you could go after ethics in Washington you could go after ethics in automobile journalism you go after ethics Hollywood Jun so incredibly trivial I mean I wrote about games for 15 years I wrote about games for 10 years for for macor and I wrote games about games for about five years before that and I have seen seen the entire gaming industry dissol or gaming journalism industry dissolve you know there are very few game Publications anymore there there are very few reputable game Publications and the ones that are out there the ones especially that are online like uh uh game industry. biz for example and polygon do a damn good job of what they're covering and they don't deserve the from jerks who think that they're all in bed with game developers because game devel develop developers flash a little boob at them sometimes or uh you know go to events like E3 or or whatever I want to talk a little bit about that because I think the origin like the origin of gamergate and that that that whole controversy I think it's very it's interesting to me that the person they're they're talking about ethics of game journalism and the the first person that's outed is not the journalist who supposedly you know traded sexual favors for for reviews which was later true like proved to be false but they went after the developer they went after the developer and not the journalist not only did they go after the developer but who went after the developer who outed her quote unquote an ex-boyfriend with an ax to grind yeah so there's so there's that there's that side note the other thing the whole ethics you know again ethics policies are fantastic and I do think obviously like there's there's a reason why uh why journalists in general have a rule about review review units and and you know not accepting gifts from developers and things like that um and that that is to protect you know the ethics and everything the the thing that makes me crazy is people assuming that you cannot talk or be in any way affiliate like I I can't if I know Brianna woo I am I am suddenly insinuated and inclined to give her a good review the developers that I know the best are the people who I give the harshest reviews to because I expect the best from them like anybody who it's it's one of those things where it's like the entire industry is so small especially you're talking about you know game gaming in particular has become so small because of so few Publications the Mac industry is very similar the Apple the the Apple coverage industry the Indie developers you know everybody knows everybody because you know what if you want to write well about something if you want to write well about an app if you want to write well about a how-to you do your research and doing your research means talking to the developer doesn't mean saying oh developer buy me a fancy lunch no that crosses a line but it does mean getting to know the developer getting to understand their mations and their motivations behind making the game and you know because it creates a better more well-rounded picture of what you're doing does that mean and that can be applied to anything I mean should I not review an app that I beta tested for because I had contact with a developer that's ridiculous I it it all comes back to the fact that it is a small industry people know each other you have to I mean I want to be more informed and educated and I also want a developer to release a product to Consumers that can be the best it possibly can and part of that in in my responsibility is to make sure that they have honest feedback and they know you know we like this we don't like this you're you're going to have that problem in any industry I mean you could apply that same thing okay well they knew each other prior to writing the reviews okay well I've known pretty much you know had contact with every developer I've ever written a review for because I want to give them feedback so where is that line you know and and I think that's the problem is people have a difference of opinion on where that line should be yeah you want you know who I'm interested in having a conversation about journalistic ethics with people who actually know about journalistic ethics not Gamers on the internet yeah I'm interested in having the conversation with other journalists I'm interested in having the conversation with people who have a background in ethics I'm interested in having a conversation about it with the people who run the newsrooms where these things are reported and you know the editors who Dole out the the these articles and understanding what their ethics policy is and what exactly ethics ingame journalism is because a lot of people who are complaining about ethics and games journalism don't have the slightest fraking idea what journalistic ethics are they just don't for them it's just a battlecry it's a Battle Cry I don't like this person's opinion so therefore I'm against their ethics no you're not you don't even know what ethics means the biggest thing that I've seen from people recently is disclosure disclosure disclosure well like here's guys my blanket disclosure I talk to every developer whose app I'm GNA write about because I want to know more about it that's just but that's like a blanket like that's that's every single app it's not one app specifically over my worry here is that um the discussion always ends up becoming about ethics and we start talking about our ethics and it has nothing to do with ethics I think it has to do with a group of people who self-identified as a particular thing because they felt badly done by in a larger community and they formed their own community and that's magnificent but the sad thing is that what usually happens when you form your own Community is that it becomes subject to the same ills at the Greater Community that you left so that people who are persecuted become persecutors people who feel bullied become bullies and we see it happening over and over again and unfortunately because of the Internet it's allowed to magnify and because of of anonymity it's allowed to have no repercussions and that's what let it lets it become these big things this was about a lack of inclusivity in and going back to inclusivity another one of our big stories this year this was about a lack of inclusivity in a community and that has led to that Community not not learn not knowing how to engage with anything beyond itself and I truly believe that and what we said before that you you cannot have inclusivity without including people of incredible diversity in the process not only does it make your information better it makes your end results better if 50% of the people involved in game were women it would not have the agenda or the impact to the effect that it has right now it is only because uh you know it has nothing to do with ethics and gaming that is complete utter anyone saying that should should really you know take a deep deep dark look at themselves because it it is about people treating other people poorly even if it were about ethics and game journalism which it isn't you would still be treating people poorly and that is still not be okay so I'm going to go back to the inclusivity thing for a minute because I believe it's incredibly important we're trying to do it you know at mobile Nations we haven't gone far enough we're going to keep trying to do it further want to have more you know and diverse people's opinions on all the stuff we cover but that has to be everywhere H everyone has to be involved in the conversation or the conversation is gonna suck and I'm so tired of the conversation suck I would 100% agree yeah I just honestly the what my my goal from day one on the Internet is to to learn more and become more than I than I am as a human being and I feel like having decent decent ation with people where we can discuss our our views and our thoughts without it devolving into flames you know that that is the that is the kind of thing that I cherish and there are places on the internet where that can happen and I love hearing from people who have different opinions than I do um but I feel like the unfortunately the you know the the few people who are genuinely concerned about game journalism and and ethics and all of that have gotten drowned out by the mass of insane people people who are wandering around being like let's you know what's great you know how we can fix ethics in game journalism let's smear and out and terrorize women who happened to to be developers not even journalists developers let's let's te let's make them scared for their lives because that's a great fantastic way to encourage conversation about ethics or about good good policy like it just it yeah no their conversation would be exclusively towards the Publishers and and executive editors of the major game journals and it would have nothing to do with any of the people they've targeted those people would just not be involved no un run those those those Publications no I'll be I'll be honest like if you're if you're listening out there and you have a genuine interest in ethics and games journalism and it's not it's not to you about like the the leaders or whatever you know if you if you seriously want to have a good discussion about that there are other places you can go you don't have to hang out in the hashtag gamerch gamergate you don't have to go to achan you don't like there are places where you can have intelligent discussion with people who are willing to have intelligent discussion this is not your place do not associate yourself with people who are who are women haters and who like who want to who want to terrorize people not even women who want to terrorize people don't do it it's stupid who take advantage of an nonunity basically yes exactly you are better than this if you if you truly want a discussion that exists there's a place for it just don't go look at go look at the auto journalist please because they're right now they're busy fighting over whether they should get free gifts along with their junkets you have much better things to spend your ethical time on in game journalists truth all a couple to to Veer 180 degrees for a second our our distinguished competition to borrow an old Marvel Comics line uh had an interesting year as well Google got material design for many years Apple's had great design they've moved into great functional Google had great functionality not very good design they spent a lot of time a concerted effort they rebuilt a lot of things and now they have material design they have you know something that stretches across every screen that they make from web to PC to Chromebook if you know if those are distinguishable to mobile uh it's it's very flat it's got some nice Shadows though and it makes Android I mean Ally you've got Android devices it makes it look good yeah um I have to confess I have not updated any of my Android devices yet oh Phil nickson's gonna cry I know Phil cover your ears ear muffs um yeah but I I have looked at a lot of the literature on that I see screenshots posted all the time and um Android's kind of coming in their own in in terms of design um it's it's come a long way U from the first time I picked up an Android phone and just went G nope set it back down so um there I I find a lot of the Android devices nowadays pretty usable and even like like uh HTC with sense and some of the other uh interfaces uh have really done grown Leaps and Bounds in just 12 months I remember the first time I reviewed the original um HTC dream I think it was the whatever it was called on T-Mobile the G1 and I opened it up and I launched the only game on it snakes or something and it said press up to continue and I tried swiping up on the screen I tried pressing the the arrow key I tried using the joystick little thing I Tred there's like eight different ways to push up on that device and none of them worked and that was my early experience of Android but year after year it's gotten better and better and um it's still not my favorite but right now I feel like I you know I could use that as a daily phone with absolutely no problem and that's that's amazing to me as as little as last year I was at CES with Brian clug from an anch and I was complaining that Gmail wouldn't scroll and he came up and put it in developer mode and the screen went bright red which meant that every single list item was being redrawn four or five times and it just that kills performance and I know Google's Engineers were pulling their hair out trying to get their own teams to adopt better practices and now it looks like they've done it they made as much of an effort as Apple made on functionality to get usability done and I'm super happy because strong competition is better for everybody absolutely speaking of which Peter Microsoft that ancient institution the the original um distinguished competition got a new CEO and it looks like a new cloudier Focus yeah Satan Adella came in uh to replace Steve bulmer and immediately uh started making some big changes at Microsoft um and we've seen some really interesting things that have trickled down just to uh the the Apple side as well for example uh office uh uh for iPad is available for free download now and doesn't need to be unlocked with Office 365 in order it came out before the windows version ridiculous sorry Al said which was ridiculous the whole you have to have a subscription to you I'm glad that model they didn't charge 300 bucks for it up front the way that they did on the desktop no but just I I feel like with when you look at releasing an app like that you have to look at your existing competition too and for me no matter how tied in I was to office if I didn't have a 365 subscription which sneakily enough you still need that for some of the advanced features that office offers on the iPad changes yeah yeah so I mean it I'm still not a huge fan of Microsoft subscription model on the iPad but they put out some really nice software and I just you know we'll we'll see I'm I'm in I'm inclined to agree with that I think that uh you know they they're improving things and Leaps and Bounds the thing that they've got to do from my perspective and I'm just going to Advocate as a Mac User here is get their act together with office for the Mac yes because we haven't seen a major revision of office in four years uh office 2011 was the last release that came out and that came out in 2010 so uh Apple's really got Apple excuse me Microsoft has really got to get its act together uh with regards to getting uh Mac office on the same page as its Windows counterpart and I realize that in terms of priorities it's pretty far down the list but it is what it is and this fall we've seen Microsoft make a big push against the MacBook Air which is Apple's most popular laptop by probably Apple's most popular Mac model period uh by positioning the MacBook Air I against the Surface Pro 3 and well the Surface Pro 3 has got a USB port Peter how are you going to compete with that that's true yeah I mean exactly you know wow um so we'll we'll we'll see how how well the proof of the pudding is in the eating is the saying goes and we won't know uh for a while how successful Microsoft's marketing efforts have been there but I don't know I don't know it's interesting you know the the the Surface Pro 3 give them credit you by the time the original surfaces came out I I had played with them a bit and wasn't particularly impressed but Microsoft has been improving uh the surface experience iteratively with each new product and the Surface Pro 3 is a surprisingly usable tablet it's really it's a good machine uh I don't think it hits the same Market segmentation that Apple does with the iPad I think that it's uh it's probably a little more vertical a little bit more aimed at business users specifically uh but it's still a pretty powerful system I feel like it competes more with the iPad or with the MacBook than it would with an iPad I just that's when I look at a Surface Pro I just I don't know I wouldn't think of that I wouldn't do either like I think they they got cream when they went up against the iPad and I think it makes no sense to go up against the MacBook Air it makes a lot of sense to go up against other Windows laptop makers but for particular reasons they can't do that so I wish they would just advertise it on its own just show people what what an amazing in between device it is yeah that would be a new segment yeah but that would mean actually defining a market a market segment that uh uh the the surface uh can compete in and let's face it it's a lot easier uh and a lot more palatable for a lot of uh weak spined middle managers who are making these decisions uh to say you know what we're we're just going to do attack ads instead because attack ads are more effective this is my problem this is my problem with all of this marketing about it is that I don't I don't mind that apple is the dominant player you know and it when when a Surface Pro ad comes out or when uh Samsung ad comes out aiming at the iPhone I don't mind that they're making fun of these devices the problem that I've got is that it's the only marketing I ever see on these products and it's negative marketing it's marketing saying hey look at us compared to our competition I tell you what don't don't do that do what Apple does which is tell me about the products features and benefits give give me a reason to buy your I would love to see Surface ads where you have a guy using it on a plane and the guy next to him is struggling to open up a laptop and he's just having a great time and he goes from doing his Excel sheet to finally ship Excel for this goddamn surface he's doing his Excel sheet and then picks it up and watches a movie uh or a person is sketching on a park bench and then picks it up and goes into class just show what the advantages are of having a machine that can go from one to the other that is you know that could conceivably be the best of both don't just show me how it has a USB port like every other computer uh yeah so I have a couple other quick things for us to go through net neutrality net neutrality is so confusing to me it's primarily an American issue the way it's phrased now but it really is an international issue we've seen people like the chancellor of Germany come out against net neutrality which is Stupify to me we've seen the Canadian government try to pass admittedly American Hollywood backed laws that would greatly restrict our freedom of the internet so far they have not passed we've seen soapa you know get defeated in the US we've seen thanks to the Sony leaks we've seen uh how Sony and the MP is targeting Google in an effect to stop you know various elements of net neutrality but we've also seen the president of the United States after the after appointing someone from the cable industry who is not pro net neutrality come out for net neutrality I'm a quebecer I am used to our government splitting on everything so that nothing ever happen but net neutrality seems like one of those things where where no country can get in the middle of it on either side and not do anything faster and it's just as someone who wants an open Internet it's incredibly frustrating yeah I uh net neutrality has just become so convoluted as you were saying Renee to the point where I feel like I have to re-explain what's going on to my parents every time I see them because it's just it's so it's so complicated even then even then net neutrality it's like okay well and then there's some some net neutrality proposals are more equal than others like I feel like I'm an animal farm right now where you know the the base level seems seem seems uncomplicated the internet you know the internet should be regulated from creeps but not like uh not speed regulated people shouldn't be able to you know company shouldn't be able to pay more to have premium channels because that's going to get us into cable television all over again and it'll be crazy um the at the base level that doesn't seem that complicated and yet people are trying to make it so complicated people are trying to to Champion catholism and and oh well you know it's a you know it'll be better for you because you can get faster speeds for certain things like Netflix but on the other hand you have the incredible danger hole that regulating the internet could turn into and the fact that you know if you if you pass a law like this you have the potential to restrict certain websites from unless you pay extra money and I don't know it just it rubs me the wrong way we're gonna take a quick break so I can tell you about linda.com and here's the thing I want you to Kickstart your New Year I want you to challenge yourself I want you to learn something new and we're going to help you do that because we've arranged for a free 10day not 7-Day 10day trial for linda.com now linda.com is used by millions of people around the world and has over 3,000 3,000 courses on topics like web development photography visual design and business as well as things like learning Excel learning WordPress learning Photoshop all their courses are taught by experts and new courses are added to the site every week whether you want to set new financial goals find work life balance invest in a new hobby ask your boss for a raise find a new job or improve your current job skills in 2015 linda.com has something for everyone so what do you get in this free 10day trial you sign up you get an unlimited access to every single course on linda.com you can literally feed your brain as much as it can eat you get access to view tutorials on tablets and iPhones and Android devices and you can access the new courses when they're added during that week some of the courses they have available right now are iOS 8 iPhone and iPad essential training setting up your mobile office to work from anywhere and speeding up and M maintaining your Mac I've been looking over the new courses all of them all of them look phenomenal I've said before I've been trying to learn logic pro it's been going really slow but you know I've been taking a look at other stuff too I looked a little bit at the WordPress stuff the other day I had just a question I was trying to help a friend with and I couldn't find the answer so you know take a look at linda.com and that's the thing you can have a specific goal or you can just use it to help solve problems when and if they come up uh look at it as is almost you know private training tutorials for whenever you need them so again do your something good for yourself in 2015 sign up for a free 10day trial of linda.com all you have to do is visit linda.com imore go ahead challenge yourself learn something new in 2015 thank you so much Linda yeah I I I I don't know what we be done about it I hope that we continue to fight the good fight it it does bring me nicely into our into our second sort of story Peter this is something that you've been writing about it's that special magenta snow flake that is sort of caught in between because T-Mobile wants to be the disruptive in influence and has done a lot of really interesting things in the carrier space but at the same time you know as much as they want to be the people's champ they can't be the net neutrality champ because that's counter to their interests but as a CEO John Leger is just so damn interesting to watch yeah John Ledger is uh a loose cannon for Telecom CEO you know he's an a special magenta FL snowflake he is he is a very special magenta snowflake you know you never see him in a Tai you always see him in a a pair of jeans and a magenta T-shirt with a T-Mobile logo on it he's got long hair he drops F bombs during press conferences he is endlessly entertaining he's quite a personality he does things like uh crash the mmore concert at CES which was hosted by uh it was a private party hosted by AT&T just to get under AT&T skin uh that sort of stuff he's very interesting guy as far as T-Mobile and other companies of its ilk it's really interesting to see how they're taking the net neutrality issue more directly to their customers and saying look these are the sort of things that we can do that make run counter to the principles of net neutrality but benefit you as a customer and I have to say that in some cases I'm on their side with it you know things like uh uh offering and they will tell you straight up this doesn't run counter to Net Neutrality this isn't what net neutrality is all about from their perspective net neutrality is a very specific thing but bear with me here for a minute they have this uh policy on uh T-mobile of not charging you if you use one of their blessed if you will uh streaming internet music providers so for example I listen iTunes radio iTunes radio is on the list so none of the data that I use when I'm listening to iTunes Radio on my phone when I'm away from Wii I get charged for it's free which means that I stay under my cap thankfully uh because that data streaming is not counting uh towards what data I'm actually using on my phone some people have said well that runs counter to Net Neutrality because um you're you're you're giving a benefit to some data where others don't get the benefit and the service providers are quick to say look what this is really about is prioritizing the delivery of some data over others you know making uh making you uh pay a premium to get get access or making uh somebody else pay the pay the premium to to get access for for some data over another it gets very muddied and it's been become commercialized very quickly and that's why I think Renee you're seeing such a disparity happen here in the US between uh people who want to see net neutrality at any cost versus uh corporations lobbyists and others who are saying well wait a minute this can offer some end user benefit that we have to take into account here and we really shouldn't discount it out of hand no I agree completely I think that's sort of the underlying tone of a lot of our stories this year which is disruption and it brings me to one of our we have only very few left but a logistical disruption whether you're talking about Uber which you know I was using to get around in San Francisco almost completely without having to rent a car last time I was there to things like drones which you know people are testing now and the laws trying to figure out what's good and bad about those you know Google had a big self-driving car announcement either today or or or yesterday and it's it's it's doing things at a scale and in a way that was never possible without the internet and without the ability to to control things or to communicate with things and it's super interesting I don't always agree with how the companies are doing things I think Uber's done some disgusting things over time and I'm I'm nervous about some of the ways that drones might be used or misused and I don't know how a self-driving car is going to regulate when an accident starts to happen and it's got to make decisions about whose lives are most important you know between accelerating or stopping or swerving or or whatnot but but these things are happening and the future is always scary and uh the the only difference is it seems like it's coming really fast now yeah I I actually read a really interesting article um it's comic article on medium recently about the sharing economy um and how that's kind of you know it it may be disrupting uh our traditional services like taxi cabs Etc um but it's also actively uh disrupting class systems surprise and um and people able to get jobs the the argument from that uh from the article was that uh by having sort of middle class people taking second or third jobs doing things like Lyft or Uber or Airbnb it's actually sort of funneling down and winnowing down the uh the amount of jobs that are available for people who would traditionally have service class industry jobs thereby making the whole sharing economy thing far less uh far or less uh old tribe friendly as it as it is positioned to be oh you know the sharing economy we're returning to Our Roots we're disrupting the old industry and we're you know we're we're becoming more neighborly again and then in actuality well only if you make above a certain amount of money because otherwise you're kind of screwing people out of jobs so it's it was that was a very interesting article and I I thought that was uh really really strange take on on or not strange but really like uh intriguing take on on disruption I I think it's absolutely genius and I think it's similar to what we're seeing in media now too where we have companies like Vox and we have companies like BuzzFeed and companies like Vice which are becoming as much platforms as they are media Outlets what what we see on the screen especially in buzzfeed's case is determined way more by algorithms based on social sharing that it is about human curation and editorial anymore and we're seeing a lot of that uh you know usually the old complaint was sensationalism and I believe that this year has been sensationalized perhaps more than any other simply because this was the next year on The chronology you know and 2015 will be even more Sensational but the most sensationalist ever 20 reasons why one qu yeah one one strange trick on how to make your ear more sens no absolutely but you know we've heard about like how they'll actually recreate articles on the Fly based on on how people are sharing them and things and you we used to say that when you published a magazine it was dead but you know the web as much as it was Dynamic we would fix we would make Corrections fix typos but now the content itself is Shifting and changing to try to appeal to more of us and when I say appeal I mean that old joke is that everyone in the old days of the neelon journals everyone would really watch you know soap operas but they'd write down that they watched PBS but because of Facebook and Twitter and all these things they know what we're actually watching and it turns out we really are watching you know th those celebrity gossip stories and we are watching scary security headlines we're watching the things that we say out loud we don't want that we criticize that we we wish weren't the case those are the things that we're that we're soaking up that we can't get enough of and I I don't know where it's going to go but Peter you've been working in this industry for a super long time it it is no longer what it once was no it really isn't and you know there's a lot of talk about how we uh you know we we Chase page views and stuff like that and uh in some cases that's perfectly legitimate and that's perfectly acceptable you know I I get I I I have to say that I get a little uh um a bit tweaked when um uh somebody will complain to us about how easily we were bought for you know a good review of something or or or what have you um or how we're click baiting that's always my favorite that we that we clickbait our headlines because we make them interesting to read uh that's not what clickbait is you know it it frustrates me that that I think that there's a distortion of perspective as as as well at at the end of the day though it has to evolve you know and we're going to give people what they want to read within the boundaries of what our mission is to do uh there's I don't think there's anything wrong with that I don't think there's anything wrong with uh uh with with not only trying to answer the need for what people want but also trying to uplift them and trying to give them uh a perspective that maybe they genuinely hadn't heard before uh to that end there's room at the table for a lot of different viewpoints and I don't necessarily think that any one uh Media Company um that's working now whether you're talking about you know us or what the folks over at Gawker doing or uh you know the sort of the traditional media like the New York Times I don't think there's one answer that's all-encompassing that's going to solve everybody's problems and make everyone happy at the same time you were so bought off by Dodge memes it's true what can I tell you I I like I like doges that's why I I am friends with the Aly despite her antipathy towards raisins and cats no you gotta you gotta balance it somehow I I think it's interesting yeah uh well TR mean you come from traditional Publications as well and these certainly aren't that yeah tra traditional well yeah it's it's it's strange to me because uh my first experience was with a yes maal was a a magazine but it was also a web publication and I worked primarily on kind of adapting Mac world's content for the web uh so I defin I got to see firsthand you know experimenting with the idea of SEO and all that all of that stuff uh but it really I don't know the the whole concept of a machine can curate your feed and your your thoughts better than a human can I'm still a little skeptical by that and I love Robotics and I love the idea of artificial intelligence and everything else uh but you know as as smart as BuzzFeed is and I do think like what they're doing is I mean manipulative probably but very but incredible very very smart um there's still something to be said about uh about people people behind the screens right where um you know things that are not that are not WR written for na of advertising or not written for you know to try and clickbait Etc um but are are written and written well and have a SC of headline that yes pulls in pulls in your Google traffic pulls in your social traffic but there are articles that you might actually want to read and might actually want to pay attention to um which is again not to say that BuzzFeed isn't doing that because I actually i' I've found some really enjoyable stuff on there on their site but it's a it's two different I think it's two different ways of approaching the same end result where BuzzFeed is trying you know they're they a lot of computer generated algorithms to try and take the onus off of their writer um to allow their writers to write the content and allow the computer to kind of make the Special Sauce to get it to the the people that they want to see this information whereas you know it's holder media tends to to put all of that on the writers as well as uh the actual writing itself of the article well you know the interesting thing is when we were talking about streaming uh Services before we were T when we were talking about Apple specifically we were talking about beats music service yeah and one of the reasons why I think we all agree that beats is great is because it actually has human curated playlists and that was one of the the reasons why Apple wanted to acquire beats uh to begin with according to to Tim Cook cook said that this is one of the things that beats did better than anyone else so the the humanity behind uh the stories that you read I is something that that I think is still incredibly important um no matter what Direction the the media business Moves In in terms of you know whether it's it's the sort of BuzzFeed model or the sort of stuff that we're doing uh there's always got to be people behind the screen that ultimately that's where the buck stops that's where uh the the decisions are made on on what gets written and how it gets written yeah well as human beings We crave you know we We crave a certain amount of interaction and a certain amount of connection and if uh if what you're reading is just written by a robot right it's like years from now in the future we have uh magazines that are just written by you know written by robots sort of interpreting the day's news it's going to be flat you know even even the most pepy robot doesn't you know currently can't create the same the same sort of feeling as from reading a a personable human being and it's it's nice to even if it's not true to believe that there's someone there on the other end who you know who there's an opinion behind there there's a there's 's a story behind me that's not just flat straight newswriting so last which is interesting because the last thing I had written down was the rise of sort of privacy the rise of anonymity but not not in the mostly in terms of Direct Communications things like secret things like yikyak things like uh I forget the name of Mark Cuban's app but Ally you wrote about some of them the the secure and private messaging services to me they sort of came and then fell flat yeah um I think some of them they have like little niche crowds it seems um you know for people that maybe aren't the snapchatters of the world um which is not secure to begin with but anyway I don't I've never really used any of them extensively I guess I'm not that important but um yeah I don't I don't know I haven't really seen too much about them and I don't really know too many people that use them extensively I I turned off secret because it was just filled with things that I either couldn't believe or didn't want to know yeah I mean I I think Secrets audience in the general the private messaging audiences is slightly different than uh like it's a different crowd right where I definitely I do think that there's an audience for it but I don't necessarily like it's it's not an audience that um that I think I I it's not a circle that I travel in and as such I I can't quite see the appeal of it maybe I'm just getting old but but I think it's true because Facebook Messenger WhatsApp all line all these things became tremendously big services and they were mostly they're personto person Services they're not designed to be anonymous encrypted or services and I think you know correct me if I'm wrong secret has not exploded by any measure that I can see yikyak is all of these services are interesting but they seem to have stayed in a niche it it to your point earlier and I don't think it's satisfies I think some people like it because it's per like sort of a perverse voyerism um or or they have specific reasons but it doesn't it doesn't connect us the way that humans want to be connected and maybe that's why it hasn't taken off yeah I think there's a there's a barrier there there's still and it maybe it fills our our gossip hole our gossip hole our gossip our need for gossip uh but you know I think of I think of the original what in my opin the original uh version of this which is post secret way back in the day um their their little blog uh which I think has now turned into a variety of different things it's like we do enjoy reading reading salacious details about people's lives whether or not they're uh Anonymous or not uh it's just it's unfortunately something that's a little bit hardwired into everybody uh it's just a matter of what kind of you know what kind of information are you really looking to to pick up on and and is this really enriching your life to know about someone's you know drinking habits or or about their Rand some random thing with their parents or maybe it's just a venting space you know maybe it's not for some people it's not about the reading but the but the the venting the the ability to just shout into the void and know that you know your message is out there and might be seen by somebody that you might want to see it but otherwise is just floating free formed into the wind I think that's very true so we're gonna finish up now I'm GNA go around the room quickly Ally how was 2014 for you what did you think about the year in Tech well iosa didn't kill me so came close tried yay tried um but ios9 I'm very excited for I don't say that I'm really excited for 20 15 mainly for apps um and to see how developers take advantage of some of the stuff Apple opened up to them I think it's going to be a year of software more than anything um this year pretty much already was so um I think 2014 was a good year I think we saw Apple take a lot of approaches and open up a lot of things that never would have we never would have thought of previously um so yeah I'm excited to see what happens in 2015 and I would like a photos app for my Mac that works with iCloud photo library please word Peter what about you you know it was an interesting foundational year for both ios8 and uh os10 I think the um uh the release of ios8 in yede uh marked this convergence that many of us had been predicting for years but happened in a way that I don't think any of us were really expecting you know we'd heard a lot about the iOS ification of the mac and how inevitably they were going to move towards one uh one one being or one operating system that isn't happening that isn't that hasn't happened in that that I don't think won won't happen uh but Apple shown yeah exactly Apple shown the way that both of these can can coexist and can come out better the other side so from that perspective very interesting 2015 holds a lot of Promise especially on the Mac because of uh new innovations that we're going to see from Intel so uh I'm I'm excited about what the future holds Ren yeah I'm with Peter 2014 is the year of promise and the year of teasing uh we've got a lot of fantastic tools that were kind of dumped into developers laps uh starting in June uh we've got the Apple watch to look forward to early next spring we've got the photos app and hopefully a a secure version of iCloud photo library to look forward to uh in 2015 there's a there's a lot of uh a lot of Promise set up by both apple and uh and competiting uh industry Giants in this space and I'm I'm waiting to see it deliver you know I'm I'm waiting to see how it all unfolds but I I I think this was one of my favorite years covering Tech uh and certainly had some of the best uh best apple events in quite some time I'm gonna agree with all of you I think uh 2013 especially with iOS 7 it really started things moving it started it started creating something new and 2014 just built on and it brought the redesign for brought the new functionality for iOS it brought new things like the the te's of of the Apple watch and of Apple pay and of all these new places that Apple's going it showed the integration theme and it really paid off on Tim Cook's gamble of replacing Scott forestall with Craig federi uh you know and in otherwise organizing the company to be more harmonious and to actually have you know one uh engineering product manager for a feature and not just for an operating system or the feature on an operating system I think all of that paid off greatly I think there are challenges I I hope you can do the same thing with the App Store he's shown like he's doing it with um the Apple retail store and online stores let's just keep moving that out and I love that apple is pushing for diversity and for you know and for civility and for Humanity and for Energy Efficiency and for all these causes that they can actually put their Fame in their and their muscle um behind and I think in technology in general it was an incredibly sad year in many ways but it was also an Illuminating year I learned so much about how our privacy and security is at risk and just how poorly people can treat each other and and those are horrible things but it's made me much more educated and it's made me take my privacy and my security much more seriously and it's made me want to help if I can all the people who are subject to that kind of abuse and harassment to make them more inclusive and a and a more Humane world and I think you know the only way I can look at it is as a gift and I think it's great that this technology uh privacy is so important all these ideas are so important that we're having these discussions I think as terrible as the reasons for some of them are is incredibly important and I'm hugely thankful for that and of course I'm thankful for the awesome wonderful team we assembled on imore this year guys all Ro bigger and better in 2015 so Ally if people want to see uh all your great works and find you on the social networks over the holidays where can they go um I am at imore.com every day minus the next couple weeks I will be on vacation I know we'll see how Renee handles that I'll be at CES you I'm gonna I'm you G have to come bail me out it's okay CES oh CES bre um I am at IM muggle on all of the things Twitter Instagram all of the social things pretty much all right Peter what about you on imore and also on the social things at flar f l a r g h Ren I am at imore.com and on all of the social things at curn all right and you might be doing some podcasts over the holidays or is there anything coming away uh that's true um I believe that uh keep your eyes peeled you're a fan of the incomparable for something special uh in a few days I'm sure we will probably also do a podcast on the Doctor Who Christmas special um and uh yeah I I hear there might be some crazy stuff go just pay you know keep keep your eyes on Twitter they're all gonna go might be they're gonna go carolling at Syracuse's house just to see how he handles it yes we're going to do a musical carolling episode you have been warned on roller skates nice yep uh bring them you can find all of us at imore you can find me at Renee Richie I want to thank everyone every reader every listener every viewer for a fantastic gear you are unmatched as an awesome uh Community you make us all so much better we really appreciate you have happy holidays and whatever method you choose to celebrate or not celebrate them just to have a wonderful wonderful New Year and we will see you back at uh we next be back at CES 2015 talk to you all soon see you next year bye bye guys and I want to once again thank linda.com I want to challenge you to challenge yourself in 2015 sign up to linda.com get a free 10day trial that's lynda.com imore go there sign up free days you can learn something remarkable thanks Linda\n"