Internet Friends

Drew and Jon emerge from their late-summer madness to discuss Apple’s September event, which announced the Apple Watch Series 4 and the iPhones XS, XS Max, and XR.

Want to be internet friends? Write to Drew and Jon or find us on Micro.blog at @InternetFriends.

This is a tough one, but it has a happy ending. Drew’s home was destroyed by wildfire. He and Kristine evacuated safely, and they’ve returned to Redding to begin rebuilding. Read Kristine’s story about what happened; it’s powerful. Drew explains how social media, phones, and the ability to post this story online played a fascinating — sometimes terrible, sometimes beautiful, sometimes perfectly boring — role in dealing with all this, from tracking the fire, to getting away from it, waiting to go home, and moving on toward what comes next.

Want to be internet friends? Write to Drew and Jon or find us on Micro.blog at @InternetFriends.

Drew’s Twitter life has begun to feel like an addiction, which was why Jon deleted his account, and Drew’s considering that, too. They can’t discuss the addiction for too long without switching to the subject of recovery. Jon has been finding places where the healthy metabolism of online community is still happening, thanks in large part to Manton Reece’s Micro.blog. Jon and Drew examine their current online projects and how they differ from their output in Twitter’s heyday: Drew’s blog about the art he’s digging lately, Collected Goodness, and Jon’s @ablaze reading feed and new microblog/podcast about meditation, Grind Well. They get into a little bit of how-to about microblogging and microcasting, including how Jon does it using only his phone. Life isn’t flourishing in the walled gardens — it’s out here on the open web, where good tools enable good work that supports good community.

Want to be internet friends? Write to Drew and Jon or find us on Micro.blog at @InternetFriends.

Drew bought a coffee shop! Jon went on a seven-day silent meditation retreat. These are seemingly pretty different responses to the present moment, but what they had in common was a drive to do something significant in the physical world rather than the digital one. Drew and Jon discuss intentionally taking time offline and how much they even want to be on their devices day to day. Sometimes the limitations of technologies are their benefits, because they force us to think about how to use the tools instead of letting the tools use us. Jon considers how mindfulness can bring spaciousness and stability to the stressful stuff that happens online, which is just how it’s gonna be sometimes. But whenever we can, we have to discern and choose the healthy things — the things that support real community, rather than extract and commoditize our relationships.

Want to be internet friends? Write to Drew and Jon or find us on Micro.blog at @InternetFriends.

Working entirely online is liberating, but it’s also frustrating, and Jon and Drew are both wrestling with it lately. Drew is compensating for the isolation by renting an office space with friends who aren’t coworkers, but they are co-workers… if that makes sense. Jon works from a home office and wishes he had a third place. They discuss why the technologies for virtual co-working like Slack and video chat don’t work very well. Can VR or other near-future technologies fix it? Hopefully. The promise of virtual work is not only that it lets us do the work we want to do, but that it lets us do our work exactly the way we want to do it.

To that end, starting with this episode, Jon and Drew are introducing y‘all internet friends to Ablaze Interactions and Keyhouse, their respective consulting agencies. Interested in working with one (or both) of your hosts? Get in touch!

Want to be internet friends? Write to Drew and Jon or find us on Micro.blog at @InternetFriends.

Sponsored By:

• Ablaze Interactions: Solving communication problems for clients who work to repair our world.
• Keyhouse: A space for unlocking.

Jon asks Drew about his visit to Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, the primary gathering of the Apple Tribe. Let’s face it: it’s a tribe, and it bears many of the hallmarks of tribalism. How much of the intense energy in the Apple Tribe is even rational? To outsiders, they’re “fanboys” — never mind their genders — but to themselves, they’re faithful underdogs. For Drew and Jon, it’s all about the community — and the livelihoods of the app developers who help the community run — not just the company.

Want to be internet friends? Write to Drew and Jon or find us on Micro.blog at @InternetFriends.

Apple premiered iOS 12, watchOS 5, macOS 10.14 Mojave, and, uh, tvOS something-something today in San Jose, kicking off WWDC 2018. Drew and Jon weren’t in the room, as per usual, but that didn’t make them any less excited about the new features. They cover it all, but they were particularly excited by Apple’s new Screen Time and notification management features, Siri Shortcuts for building Siri-powered automation in one’s own language, new features in Messages, FaceTime and Photos that start to push social media companies out of the picture, Podcasts on Apple Watch (!!!), and other items Apple just checked off their wishlists.

Want to be internet friends? Write to Drew and Jon or find us on Micro.blog at @InternetFriends.

Jon’s brother, Sam “DingoBongo” Mitchell, joins Jon and Drew for a continuation of the PUBG Mobile discussion in Episode 8. They discuss the difference — if any — between playing this game online as adults and playing Halo in the basement as kids. They wonder why PUBG is the game to finally inspire this kind of devoted team play in the members of their squad, since it’s hardly the first of its kind. Plus: Drew, Jon and Sam play a round… and win!

Want to be internet friends? Write to Drew and Jon or find us on Micro.blog at @InternetFriends.

Special Guest: Sam Mitchell.

It takes more than simply hanging out to build community. It takes shared goals, and these days, it could be argued, violent video games are providing that better than so-called “social” apps are. Neither Drew nor Jon would have thought they’d turn to a battle royale shooter game for hanging out with people online, but then PUBG Mobile entered their lives (no Fortnite, thank you very much). It’s the true successor to the chat rooms of yore, before “social media.” Jon rustled up a squad of his finest warriors from the high school video game days; they’re internet friends to Drew, but to Jon this game is becoming his main way of keeping up with these old, now-distant friends. They discuss the aesthetics and social dynamics of PUBG’s antecedents: SOCOM, Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Second Life, and Pokémon Go. We’re back to a style of hanging out and playing that prevailed before smartphones, and the company making the software isn’t even doing it on purpose.

Want to be internet friends? Write to Drew and Jon or find us on Micro.blog at @InternetFriends.

Apple’s big annual WWDC keynote is a few weeks away, so it’s a good time for some new Hot Takes™. Inspired by Horace Dediu’s remarkable analysis on the iMac’s 20th anniversary, Jon and Drew take the unconventional approach of looking at what Apple does in the middle of an era, rather than what they do to spark off a new one.

Want to be internet friends? Write to Drew and Jon or find us on Micro.blog at @InternetFriends.