2013 was our first year in a house we owned, so what I remember is a lot of work to do. Tasks like refurbishing the front door (which looked good) and the hard work to put in a garden (that I never really used again because of heat). But really what consumed me back then was the ramping up of mobile devices and how exciting that product category made me. 2013 was the year I got my Galaxy S4 which was my favorite Android phone (and possibly the device I was most excited to get ever in my life), and on that phone I loaded it up full of podcasts to enjoy on my what was then new to me commute once the local 24/7 comedy FM station went off air.
One podcast that captured my attention and aligned with my enthusiasm for mobile devices was called All About Android. It came from the Twit group, which is owned by a guy named Leo Laporte who has been a tech talking head since the 1990s. Leo wasn't on this particular podcast, it was a team of younger people who shared my enthusiasm for an operating system with a ton of potential.
For years I listened to this podcast every week and it was a good chunk of my commute. Instead of getting into Joe Rogan I spent my time listing to a guy named Jason talk about up-and-coming new smartphones. Even when I personally shifted to an iPhone to connect better with family (iMessage) I still listened to the podcast because I liked the personalities and frankly Android is where excitement was for so many markets: TV set-top boxes, smart speakers, and more. From 2013 to about 2018 the smartphone market kept growing and changing substantially every year, and I loved the passion the hosts had for uncovering what was the fastest moving space in technology since computers in the early 1990s. This podcast combined with a commute that at that time took me through the countryside to get home was a great combo, I would look at the trees and think of cool technology. It was a great combo.
But eventually around 2018 the party kinda stopped. We hit what I call "peak smartphone" where the devices didn't change that much year over year, and 30% improvements in calculation power just wasn't on the table for yearly upgrades. Also around then incentives for replacing smartphones on a two year cadence mostly went away, and with it the chance that in the hear future I might slide back into the Android ecosystem. On top of this the podcast changed members and just wasn't as fun, at least for me. Finally my commute became more optimized, and I found ways to use tricks to stay on the highway to get to work instead of using backroad. This was faster but prettier, which means that I was spending fewer minutes in the car, and the time I spent was less enjoyable. Combined with a podcast that was less enjoyable wasn't a good mix.
So by 2019 I stopped listening to that particular podcast. I tried others in the same network owned by Leo but none really stuck with me: his flagship podcast just did a good job showing how old he was compared to the people actually making news in the tech market. Eventually the entire format of podcasts got stale with me, as the success of Serial made True Crime the dominate product of the space.
So from there I moved onto audiobooks, then COVID stole a year of commutes, and when I got them back I started just listening to low commitment music playlists. These didn't require me to think, didn't ask brain power from me back when being sleep deprived because of young Finn meant I had little brain power to spare.
But in June 2023 the announcement of the Apple Vision Pro made me want to hear some analysis of the product. It felt like it could be the next iPhone (when you read this you will know how true that was), but no one in my tech circles even cared about it except for Adam. So on a whim I pulled up Leo's flagship podcast the week of the announcement to hear what he had to say about it. Leo to his credit milked the new product release and spread the analysis over a few episodes, and I got back into a routine. Because of the way his network worked I could see all of the Twit podcasts when I pulled up his in the Tesla, and from there I saw my old friend All About Android. I didn't jump back in, because frankly smartphones were still boring and I was even less Android focused than 2018. But when suddenly one week the podcast didn't have an update I went to the last one in the list only to discover it was the last one they ever did.
This final episode was great, they brought back my favorite host who left when I quit and did a walk down memory lane of the best devices and biggest events through their show run. Suddenly I was transported back to my car rides through the countryside. In fact that day on the way home I took a few extra turns to make it a "scenic route" so I could listen to it all, and suddenly I was back in 2014 a time with way less stress. It was like a time machine.
But then it was over. And then Leo stopped talking about the Vision Pro so I dropped podcasts all together. But I appreciated the fact that this Apple product made it so that I just happened to be paying attention when this podcast ended, and gave one last good memory to hold onto.
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