A lazy person's guide to getting in shape | The Vergecast - video Dailymotion

The Verge

The Verge’s Victoria Song joins the show to talk about the most popular and most-bailed-on New Year’s Resolution of all: getting in shape. She tells us about the apps that help you work out more without being rude about it, the data you really need to care about in your fitness tracker, and much more. After that, we talk to Anna Valtonen, one of the curators and researchers behind the new Nokia Design Archive. She tells us about the concepts, presentations, and overall culture that made Nokia such an important company in the history of phones. Finally, we answer another question on the Vergecast Hotline about how audio works on your phone. It’s all still too complicated.

Transcript

00:00:00Welcome to the Verge cast, the flagship podcast

00:00:02of immediately giving up on every single one

00:00:05of your New Year's resolutions.

00:00:06It's the best way, can't recommend it highly enough.

00:00:09I'm your friend, David Pierce,

00:00:10and I am in sunny West Palm Beach, Florida,

00:00:13where I'm here to see a thing called TGL Golf,

00:00:15which is basically trying to take the game of golf,

00:00:17which is, you know, famously played outside on grass,

00:00:20and move it inside and make it really technologically

00:00:23advanced with big screens and complicated actuators

00:00:27and all kinds of new ideas about what watching

00:00:30and playing golf can be like.

00:00:32We're gonna have more to say about that on this show

00:00:34and on theverge.com in a couple of weeks,

00:00:35so stay tuned for that.

00:00:37But it's nice to be outside, what are you gonna do?

00:00:39Anyway, we have an awesome show coming up for you today.

00:00:42We're gonna do two things.

00:00:44First, we're gonna talk to Vsong

00:00:45about New Year's resolutions.

00:00:47She is a person who thinks a lot about exercise

00:00:49and how people can do better without making it

00:00:53so much work to do better.

00:00:55And right now is the time of year people want

00:00:57to be healthier and wanna get in better shape

00:00:58and wanna exercise more.

00:01:00So V and I are gonna try to figure out

00:01:01how you can do that in a safe, sane, healthy way.

00:01:05It's gonna be great.

00:01:06After that, we're gonna talk about this incredible new thing

00:01:09called the Nokia Design Archive,

00:01:11which is this huge repository of concepts,

00:01:15presentations, lifestyle videos, all these different ideas

00:01:19back when Nokia was at the peak of its powers

00:01:21trying to figure out the future of cell phones.

00:01:23Super fun, and we're gonna get into

00:01:25what's inside all of it.

00:01:27We also have a question on the Vergecast hotline

00:01:28that's kind of a follow-up to last week's question

00:01:31on the Vergecast hotline

00:01:32about how audio comes and goes on your phone.

00:01:35Really fun one.

00:01:36Thank you again to everybody who emails and calls.

00:01:39All that is coming up in just a second,

00:01:40but first, honestly, I have to get out of the sun

00:01:42because this is the first time I've been outside

00:01:44in like three months,

00:01:45and I think I'm already starting to burn.

00:01:47This is the Vergecast.

00:01:49Welcome back.

00:01:52All right, I'm back from Florida.

00:01:54I have suitably embarrassed myself

00:01:56trying to play on that gigantic simulator

00:01:58in West Palm Beach.

00:02:00Let's get into it.

00:02:01So last week, I talked to Kevin Nguyen

00:02:03about how to read more books.

00:02:05It's a New Year's resolution a lot of people have,

00:02:08I think, in a bunch of different directions, right?

00:02:09There's the I wanna read more books.

00:02:11There's also the I wanna spend less of my time

00:02:13scrolling on my phone

00:02:14and more of my time doing something useful on my phone.

00:02:17So I talked to Kevin,

00:02:18who is the best and most accomplished book reader I know

00:02:21about how all that worked.

00:02:22Super fun.

00:02:23A lot of great feedback from people.

00:02:24Thank you to everybody who enjoyed that and told us so.

00:02:28Super fun to hear from all of you.

00:02:30This week, we're gonna do something similar

00:02:32on a very different topic.

00:02:33I think if you have to pick

00:02:34a number one New Year's resolution,

00:02:37it is I wanna get in shape.

00:02:39And again, that comes in lots of different varieties.

00:02:42Some people are like, I want to go for one walk.

00:02:45And other people are like,

00:02:47I am going to get like Brad Pitt

00:02:49in Fight Club level shredded in two weeks.

00:02:52Happy New Year.

00:02:54Let's go.

00:02:55I think most of those resolutions don't work.

00:02:58People don't stick to them.

00:02:59Famously, there are huge amounts of gym memberships

00:03:03that get bought the first two weeks of January

00:03:06and canceled the second two weeks of January.

00:03:09Like this stuff is tough.

00:03:10And I think part of it is because

00:03:12we don't make it easy on people

00:03:13to stick to these kinds of resolutions.

00:03:15So I recruited The Verge's Victoria Song

00:03:18to come on and help me figure out

00:03:20how we can do a little better.

00:03:22How you can use apps and wearables and platforms

00:03:26and all of these different ideas

00:03:28about how to exercise and be in better shape

00:03:30and do more healthy stuff in your life to our advantage

00:03:34and not be sort of beaten down by them

00:03:36to the point where we don't wanna use them anymore.

00:03:38V thinks about a lot of this in a way that I really like.

00:03:41She is like the most happy exerciser,

00:03:45but also thinks the whole idea of exercising is absurd.

00:03:49And I love that.

00:03:50Like, I think that's exactly right.

00:03:50So I knew she'd be the right person

00:03:52to come on and do this with.

00:03:54So let's get into it.

00:03:54V Song, welcome back.

00:03:56Hello, thanks for having me.

00:03:58There's just a lot of stuff happening right now.

00:04:00I feel like we could talk about rings.

00:04:02We could talk about other things.

00:04:03I don't wanna talk about any of that stuff.

00:04:05Yeah.

00:04:06None of it.

00:04:08So we did this thing with Kevin Wynn last week

00:04:11where we basically tried to break down

00:04:13one of the very common New Year's resolutions

00:04:14into something that is like achievable for regular people.

00:04:19And I think you have an even harder job,

00:04:20which is we're gonna do this again

00:04:22with everybody's number one New Year's resolution,

00:04:24which is I'm going to get in shape.

00:04:26Ugh.

00:04:27It's that time of year, so.

00:04:29It is that time of year.

00:04:31Let's destroy the New Year's resolution,

00:04:34fitness industrial complex.

00:04:36I'm here for it.

00:04:37I like that we're doing this kind of at the end of January

00:04:40because there are a lot of people

00:04:42who have already lapsed on the gym memberships

00:04:44that they signed up for.

00:04:46A lot of people who have like,

00:04:49they went on six runs and they were like, this is it.

00:04:51And then it got cold and it stopped.

00:04:53And to all those people,

00:04:54I just want you to know, big same.

00:04:57Like same, exact same.

00:04:59Same for me too.

00:05:00And I'm the running lady at The Verge.

00:05:03So like big same.

00:05:04Like it's fine.

00:05:07Don't worry about it.

00:05:08Like if I can go off on New Year's resolutions,

00:05:12particularly with relation to fitness,

00:05:15this year was particularly annoying

00:05:18just because it was Apple and I think also Ladder,

00:05:22which is the strength training app that I use.

00:05:24They both had these ad campaigns

00:05:27centered on this idea of Quitter's Day.

00:05:30And Quitter's Day is the second Friday in January.

00:05:34And it's the day that statistically

00:05:35all these fitness apps have determined

00:05:38is the day that most people quit their New Year's resolutions

00:05:40with relation to fitness.

00:05:42Oh, interesting.

00:05:43I think it's the biggest hawk of bullshit

00:05:45in the world, Quitter's Day,

00:05:48because this year it was January 10th.

00:05:50I was flying back home from CES.

00:05:52What do you mean that by the 10th of January,

00:05:55I've quit and failed my entire 2025 New Year's resolutions?

00:06:02There's like 265 days left in the year.

00:06:06What are we talking about here?

00:06:08What is the concept of this?

00:06:09So yeah, yeah.

00:06:10Like I'm not about it.

00:06:13Yeah, I'm completely with you.

00:06:14The idea that if you haven't been to the gym

00:06:16every single day so far,

00:06:18you've failed and you should give up

00:06:20is like the source of everything

00:06:22that is wrong with everything.

00:06:24And it's actually a good segue,

00:06:25because what I wanna talk about,

00:06:27you and I talked to the founder of Zombies Run a while ago

00:06:30and talked a bunch about this like,

00:06:33how do we find a saner way

00:06:34to help people exercise more thing?

00:06:36And we got a ton of feedback on that episode.

00:06:38People really liked it.

00:06:39And so I wanna help people in kind of that same way here.

00:06:42So I've been thinking about my own

00:06:45like chiller exercise system for a while

00:06:48and have been trying to figure out a way to do it

00:06:50that A, doesn't shame me when I don't exercise for a while,

00:06:54but also like is good and helpful

00:06:56and useful and productive.

00:06:58But I wanna know yours.

00:07:00Like you have a like psychopath version of exercise,

00:07:04I would say.

00:07:05Which is like, you wear a bunch of rings,

00:07:08you use a bunch of apps.

00:07:09You're like forever trying all of this stuff,

00:07:10but like regular humans should not do that.

00:07:13Like where would you start a regular human in this world?

00:07:16I would start a regular human,

00:07:19not doing anything digital actually.

00:07:21I would start a regular human

00:07:23with maybe just a pen and paper

00:07:26and ask them like what their actual goals are.

00:07:29Like what do you actually want to do?

00:07:31Because goals like get shredded by June.

00:07:36If you have already 19% body fat,

00:07:39okay, maybe we can do that for you.

00:07:41But if you like, you kind of just have to take stock

00:07:44of where you are very honestly,

00:07:46and then figure out what your goals are.

00:07:48And then how do we break that?

00:07:49Like really, it's about goal setting.

00:07:52So I used to do things like in a year,

00:07:56I'm gonna run a marathon.

00:07:57Well, guess what guys, that didn't happen

00:08:00because like that just wasn't achievable.

00:08:03If you're going from couch to marathon,

00:08:07like you'll see all these influencers online

00:08:09and they'll say things like,

00:08:11hey, it's totally doable within a year.

00:08:13It's doable within a year if you want to suffer

00:08:15and like do it badly.

00:08:17Yeah, like it's technically doable in a year,

00:08:18but do you want to enjoy it?

00:08:20Like that's the thing that none of these apps

00:08:23and digital things tell you is that they are just tools.

00:08:27And my big beef is that all of them are coming out

00:08:30and saying things like we have AI, we have an AI chatbot,

00:08:33that's gonna help you figure out

00:08:34everything that you need to do that you don't know,

00:08:36which I'm empathetic to

00:08:37because figuring out your own fitness routine,

00:08:40like I hate to tell you this, it's going to take you years.

00:08:44It's not gonna be something that happens in a few weeks.

00:08:47It's not gonna be something that happens in a few months.

00:08:49It's gonna be a year's long journey

00:08:52to get to absolutely shredded for that one summer.

00:08:55So it's like, first of all, like slow your roll,

00:08:59figure out what your goals are.

00:09:01And then once you've done that,

00:09:02like just kind of look at yourself honestly

00:09:04and be like, what do I respond well to

00:09:08in terms of coaching and in terms of style?

00:09:10Because if you are looking for one of these apps

00:09:13to kind of help coach you,

00:09:14like are you someone who responds well

00:09:16to drill sergeant stuff?

00:09:18Are you someone who like, you just need your hand held

00:09:21and like be told that you're great

00:09:22and that everything is wonderful and that it's okay?

00:09:25I'm actually the latter.

00:09:27I don't respond well to drill sergeants.

00:09:29I was just about to guess that about you.

00:09:30I don't, yeah, I don't think yelling at you

00:09:32is the way to get you to succeed.

00:09:34No, I actually was going to boxing classes

00:09:36for some period of time a few years back

00:09:39and I had a drill sergeant in a class and he's like,

00:09:42I didn't say you could give up.

00:09:44And I was like, I didn't say I was giving up.

00:09:46And so I went really hard.

00:09:48And then afterwards I vomited in the locker room

00:09:51because I went too hard.

00:09:52I didn't listen to myself.

00:09:54Like I was like sweating and I like,

00:09:55my friend was like, are you okay?

00:09:57I think you went too hard.

00:09:59And he's like, yeah,

00:10:00because the drill sergeant made me angry.

00:10:02So you have to be honest with yourself

00:10:03about like that sort of stuff.

00:10:05And then from there,

00:10:07you can kind of sort through the stuff that works for you.

00:10:10And because I don't like drill sergeants,

00:10:11because I don't like,

00:10:13I am a perfectionist by nature.

00:10:14So I don't like feeling like I'm failing.

00:10:16I do really well with the chill stuff.

00:10:19And so I have settled on using an Apple watch or a Garmin

00:10:22depending on where I am in my testing cycle.

00:10:24This is like, again,

00:10:26very specific to me that I only have two wrists

00:10:29and I always have to be testing things.

00:10:31So I settle on the trackers that for me as a runner

00:10:35offer me the most running specific stuff that I can use.

00:10:41A running app,

00:10:42which has like a little training program in there for me.

00:10:46And I use gentler streaks a lot

00:10:48because it uses the concept of streaks,

00:10:51but it also allows you to take several breaks

00:10:55and you're not penalized for it.

00:10:57It will basically be like,

00:10:59hey, you pushed it really hard.

00:11:00Maybe don't do that.

00:11:02And then if you're kind of falling off,

00:11:04it might pop up and say like,

00:11:06hey, you haven't done things for a while.

00:11:08How about we do something like really fun and gentle

00:11:11to get back into things.

00:11:12And like, I'll admit over Christmas,

00:11:14I got one of those notifications.

00:11:15I was like, no, shut up.

00:11:17Thank you for reminding me that I forgot to put you on pause.

00:11:20I will be going back to Christmas cookies presently.

00:11:24Right.

00:11:25Somebody gave me advice one time

00:11:26that their like main idea for me was

00:11:30that if you have to lie to your exercise system,

00:11:32it's the wrong exercise system.

00:11:34And it goes for everything, right?

00:11:36Like if you have a personal trainer

00:11:37and you have to lie to your personal trainer,

00:11:39you have the wrong,

00:11:40you either shouldn't have a personal trainer

00:11:42or you have the wrong personal trainer.

00:11:43If you have to go in and like dial down the settings

00:11:47in an app on your phone

00:11:49in order for you to be able to hit your goal,

00:11:51you haven't set up the incentives in the wrong way.

00:11:54And I say, this is somebody

00:11:55who has done both of those things.

00:11:56And it just, it should be a sign

00:11:59if you have to go into your streaks app and be like,

00:12:01no, no, I did it yesterday, wink, wink,

00:12:03just to keep the streak going.

00:12:04Like, this is a bad system for you.

00:12:06Yeah, no, like you should be able to pause.

00:12:08That's why I was so happy last year

00:12:09when Apple introduced pausing your rings

00:12:12because it basically kind of ensures

00:12:17that you can take breaks and that you can take rests.

00:12:20And like, there's a lot of stuff out there

00:12:23about how you should never break your streaks.

00:12:26And again, this is bullshit because life is life.

00:12:29You will break your streaks.

00:12:30It's a matter of not if, but when.

00:12:34I think a lot about you saying to me a while ago

00:12:36that you break yours on purpose sometimes

00:12:37when you find yourself getting too attached to them.

00:12:40And I think that's actually like weirdly good life advice.

00:12:44It is.

00:12:44No, you should like,

00:12:45cause here's the thing,

00:12:46if you are so obsessed with your streaks

00:12:48and this is like therapy with V about fitness.

00:12:51If you are so obsessed with your streaks,

00:12:53then at some level you do not have confidence in yourself

00:12:57that you will go back to it.

00:12:58Like you are depending on the streak

00:13:00to say that you are consistent.

00:13:02No, break your streak and trust in yourself

00:13:04that you will go back to it.

00:13:05Like that's how you prove to yourself

00:13:08that like the streak isn't what matters.

00:13:10It's the knowledge that you have built

00:13:14some sort of consistent routine.

00:13:17And like, this is like fundamentally

00:13:19what we're going to get at though,

00:13:20is that all of this, all of these things, they're tools.

00:13:24They're tools that you use.

00:13:25You are the captain of the ship.

00:13:26You get to decide like what is gonna work for you

00:13:30and like what you enjoy and what like,

00:13:33it's basically tricking yourself

00:13:35into deciding like I enjoy this

00:13:38and until it's actually true.

00:13:40So like I didn't start out running, enjoying it.

00:13:43I am telling you, I was running and I was like,

00:13:45this is fricking torture.

00:13:47Who are these people who do this?

00:13:48And now I don't feel good if I don't run per week

00:13:51and I don't like that.

00:13:53Okay, but I agree with every single thing you just said,

00:13:56but you're describing like an end state, right?

00:13:58Like this is the thing you should get to.

00:14:01And I think I agree that that is an achievable place

00:14:03for everybody to get and it's easier than you think.

00:14:06I think to me, the biggest challenge is like,

00:14:09it's the trough of disillusionment, right?

00:14:11The thing where I've been on four runs

00:14:14because I have some internal discipline, hooray for me,

00:14:18running still sucks and I'm just gonna stop, right?

00:14:21And that is like, for me with exercise,

00:14:24that has been the thing that has killed me so many times,

00:14:26right?

00:14:27It's like I get, I have this much discipline

00:14:29and so I will use the discipline that I have

00:14:33to go out and do something

00:14:34and then it doesn't immediately get better or more fun

00:14:38or show results and so I bail.

00:14:40And I think one of the things I have spent

00:14:43a huge amount of time looking for

00:14:45in the fitness space as a result

00:14:46is the like the right cadence of helping me improve

00:14:52and sort of reminding me to improve.

00:14:54And one thing you mentioned,

00:14:55the like couch to marathon pipeline,

00:14:57one thing that I have found that I love

00:14:59is couch to 5K apps because like I actually,

00:15:04I exercise enough that I'm not starting at the couch level

00:15:07but having the thing where it's just like,

00:15:09okay, David, today what we're gonna do

00:15:10is we're gonna go for a six minute walk

00:15:12and all you have to do is not die.

00:15:14It's like, that's actually perfect for me

00:15:16that it is like just the tiniest bit of push to get out

00:15:20and then it's like maybe I'll ignore the app

00:15:21and keep running or maybe I'll do the six minute walk

00:15:23and go home and feel good about myself

00:15:24because I've accomplished my goals for the day.

00:15:27So few apps do that well

00:15:29because they're all either geared towards people

00:15:31for whom fitness is like a lifestyle

00:15:33or they're trying to convince you

00:15:35that fitness is a lifestyle

00:15:36because that's how they get you engaged in buying merch

00:15:39and buying their subscriptions and stuff.

00:15:40And this like how to start and do better

00:15:46without making it your whole personality thing

00:15:49is so hard to find in this space

00:15:50and it is the thing that drives me the most crazy about it.

00:15:53It is really hard.

00:15:54And so like, I just, it's difficult

00:15:57because I don't think anyone does it particularly well

00:15:59for true beginners.

00:16:00Like I think Fitness Plus does it okay

00:16:02except for the fact that all of their strength stuff

00:16:05still puts in pushups and like, no, just no.

00:16:11Excuse me, no.

00:16:11And then like, you can do it on your knees.

00:16:13No, we need to go to the part

00:16:15where you show someone doing it on a wall

00:16:17because like wall pushups are like where,

00:16:20let's be honest, a lot of people are gonna be starting.

00:16:22I'm just gonna lie down while you do pushups.

00:16:24It's like, that's where I'm at.

00:16:26I'm not at the point where I do knee pushups even still.

00:16:29Like I'm at the wall like a lot of times.

00:16:31And I think it's just allowing yourself to say,

00:16:36I'm gonna do it so easy

00:16:38that it feels like I'm not actually doing it.

00:16:40So like one thing that I like from services

00:16:44like Fitness Plus is that you can do 10 minutes.

00:16:46You can do five, 10 minutes.

00:16:48Just do five, 10 minutes three times a week.

00:16:50You can program it in there.

00:16:52And you know, we have this tendency to be like,

00:16:54go hard, go fast.

00:16:56No, go slow, go easy.

00:16:57Like it should be easy.

00:16:58Like fitness should be easy.

00:17:00It should not be something that is difficult like at all.

00:17:03Like you hear a lot of stuff about people saying things

00:17:07like, oh my God, grind, like no pain, no gain.

00:17:11And actually like I'm here to tell you,

00:17:12no, do a really easy thing.

00:17:14Like what I love about couch to 5K apps,

00:17:16like you said, is that day one is a six minute walk.

00:17:19Anybody can do a six minute walk.

00:17:20And one of the things that really helped me out of a slump

00:17:24because it's a lie that if you are someone

00:17:26with established fitness habits, that you will not slump.

00:17:29I had a really bad slump last year

00:17:31where I was just like not, I didn't wanna do any of it.

00:17:33I felt my fitness like completely like 2023,

00:17:38like my fitness arrow was just like going so down.

00:17:40And it was super depressing because all of these apps

00:17:42were just showing me in quantified data

00:17:45how slow I was getting, how like the arrows were all down

00:17:48and I was not happy about it.

00:17:49And so like one of the things you have to do

00:17:52is to be able to go like, this is not working.

00:17:54An established system I have is not working.

00:17:57I then went and downloaded this app called Fantasy Hike

00:18:02and I love it.

00:18:03It's like this off-brand Lord of the Rings.

00:18:06You're walking to Mount Doom.

00:18:09Like you're competing with Mr. Underhill, who's Frodo,

00:18:15but you know, copyright safe.

00:18:16And you know, there's Harry Flitpotter and John Snowflake.

00:18:21So it's like a step tracker

00:18:22with like gentle competitiveness in it.

00:18:25Gentle competitiveness.

00:18:26Oh, I like that.

00:18:27You could only compete against Frodo

00:18:31who like walks really fast.

00:18:33And absurdly, you're not gonna beat Mr. Frodo,

00:18:36but you can absolutely beat Harry Flitpotter

00:18:39who like is so, like his little description

00:18:41is like he's really tired from like his life

00:18:44and he's just going real easy.

00:18:45You definitely can beat him.

00:18:47You definitely can beat him.

00:18:48And so I've been using this app

00:18:50for a little over a year now and I'm almost at Mordor.

00:18:53And it's so nice because it's just whatever I do

00:18:57during a day.

00:18:57Like it's not anything,

00:19:00there's a little bit of competition in there.

00:19:02So I use it to be like, I gotta beat Alice.

00:19:05I'm definitely not gonna beat John Snow,

00:19:07but like maybe I won't be beat by him by too much.

00:19:10I definitely wanna finish in between those two.

00:19:12So that's kind of my goal.

00:19:14And then some days I'll be like,

00:19:17oh, I've moved not at all today.

00:19:20Let me just put a few miles between me and Alice

00:19:22and it's great.

00:19:23Wait, I really like that.

00:19:24So one of the things I was thinking about coming into this

00:19:26is the thing that I have found is most useful for myself

00:19:31is just step tracking.

00:19:32Like I find there's a lot of like,

00:19:35I wanna get stronger, I wanna get faster, whatever.

00:19:36And like that, you can focus on that.

00:19:37But in terms of like day-to-day health maintenance,

00:19:42like it just is true that walking

00:19:44is very good for your health.

00:19:46Walking is the best.

00:19:47Yeah, and like the 10,000 step thing is sort of nonsense,

00:19:51but it's also like a useful bar.

00:19:53Like if you walk that much,

00:19:55it is good for your body to do so.

00:19:57But what I've always struggled with is I'm like,

00:19:59okay, I get in the like eight range

00:20:03just kind of by being alive most days, right?

00:20:05Like I have a kid that I chase around.

00:20:07There's a coffee shop that is the exact right distance

00:20:09that I go there several times all the time.

00:20:12It's like, I get there.

00:20:13And so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna get like 12 or 15.

00:20:16And I find even motivating myself to do that

00:20:19requires going out and doing something sort of on purpose.

00:20:21And I don't because I'm lazy and don't want to.

00:20:24But this idea of like, I'm gonna,

00:20:27not only am I doing this like for the benefit of my health

00:20:30that there is this sort of game going on in the background,

00:20:32I think that might work for me.

00:20:34Yeah, it's really great.

00:20:36Cause every once in a while you hit a milestone.

00:20:38I was like, oh, I hit the dancing pony

00:20:39or whatever the off-brand version is like.

00:20:42It's like Riverdale, not Rivendell is like the little castle

00:20:46and it's like, oh, I've hit the council, cool.

00:20:48So like I'm in Mordor at the moment.

00:20:51I'm almost there.

00:20:53And it's just like, oh.

00:20:55And like what I love about that particular app,

00:20:58which is unfortunately it is iOS only

00:20:59and you do have to pay to like move more than a mile a day.

00:21:02I find it worth it.

00:21:03But like the thing I love about it

00:21:05is that it kind of very visualizes your,

00:21:09it's very visual and seeing your progress.

00:21:11Because in a year I've walked maybe 1600 miles.

00:21:18I'm about to get to 1600 miles

00:21:20cause that's the distance that they go.

00:21:22So you can kind of see like, oh no,

00:21:23I actually did walk from the Shire to, you know, Mordor.

00:21:29Like that is like a very visual thing and it works for me.

00:21:33It tickles my brain in such a delightful way.

00:21:35It's such a good like context list number too

00:21:38because I have no idea if in the scheme of things

00:21:41that is a lot or a little, but it sounds like a lot

00:21:44and it feels like you've accomplished something

00:21:45and that's really cool.

00:21:46And that's kind of all it needs to do.

00:21:48That's all it needs to do because I love step tracking

00:21:51in the sense that like, I think it's a very,

00:21:53there was like a push away from it

00:21:55because like they said, 10,000 steps is just a number

00:21:58that they used for marketing for a pedometer

00:22:00a long time ago.

00:22:01There's no scientific basis in it, which is true.

00:22:03But it can feel mundane

00:22:06to just like not hit your goal every day, right?

00:22:08It can feel like a little bit like failure.

00:22:10There's no daily prescription that you have to do.

00:22:14You're just walking.

00:22:15You're just walking to Mordor.

00:22:16You're just visualizing your progress over this time.

00:22:19And there's like a lot of different ways

00:22:22to do kind of step count.

00:22:23I think a lot of times it's tweaking

00:22:26what you viewed the metrics to be.

00:22:27So instead of a daily step count,

00:22:28maybe you do a weekly one

00:22:30because that gives you a little flexibility

00:22:31to be a couch potato once in a while.

00:22:34So like finding something that will let you

00:22:36track your steps weekly and putting those widgets up front

00:22:41instead of like Fitbit lets you customize

00:22:44which widgets you see and what you do.

00:22:46So for some people, steps may not be it,

00:22:48but like activity minutes are.

00:22:50So, okay, you put activity minutes up

00:22:52and the guided goal is like 150 minutes

00:22:55of moderate activity per week is all you really need.

00:22:59And like whatever it is,

00:23:01I think it should feel so easy when you're starting out

00:23:04that it feels like cheating.

00:23:06Like this can't possibly be correct.

00:23:08It's good.

00:23:09It's all good.

00:23:10It's all good.

00:23:11And then eventually over time you build it up,

00:23:13but like it should be easy.

00:23:14It should be like so easy that you feel bad not doing it.

00:23:18Like, you know, sometimes you're in bed

00:23:21and you're like, oh, I should really,

00:23:23I don't know, check the mail.

00:23:24Like it should be that degree of easy.

00:23:27And you just like build it into your day over time

00:23:29because like you pointed out,

00:23:33we're so eager to get to the end state

00:23:36and then I have some bad news.

00:23:38You're never gonna reach an end state.

00:23:41Like I don't know what to tell you.

00:23:43You just never reach an end state

00:23:45because you hit one goal

00:23:46and then you're gonna wanna do another

00:23:48because like that's just not what it's about.

00:23:51So like for my quote unquote New Year's resolution,

00:23:54like my goal, which is a carryover from last year

00:23:56is to do a 5K in under 30 minutes.

00:23:59I'm at 32 minutes for a 5K, which is great

00:24:03because I had had a slump way before

00:24:06and I was like much slower than that for a while.

00:24:09And you know, there is a past version of myself

00:24:11that was much faster.

00:24:13Like I was at one point doing 5Ks in 27, 28 minutes

00:24:16and I'm not that at that point anymore.

00:24:18And I could feel bad about myself

00:24:20or I could just be like, oh, this app said good job.

00:24:23I did do a good job.

00:24:24I made it to Mordor.

00:24:26I made it to Mordor or like we did Stompers

00:24:29as an office for a while, which was just-

00:24:31Which one is Stompers?

00:24:33Stompers is the Soren Ivinsen app

00:24:36where you just whack each other with bats.

00:24:39Oh, right.

00:24:40And for a while that was really fun

00:24:41while people were into it.

00:24:43Now I feel like I'm the only person still doing it

00:24:45and now I have to friend strangers

00:24:47and whack strangers in the middle of the day.

00:24:48But it's nice because I'll get a notification

00:24:51and it's like someone just passed you

00:24:52and I'm like, by how much?

00:24:54Oh, not by much.

00:24:55Let's walk a little bit and whack this stranger.

00:24:57It's like, I have fun doing that.

00:24:59I like that.

00:24:59It's just, how can you trick yourself into having fun?

00:25:03Like honestly, it's fun.

00:25:04So like for you, David,

00:25:05it just might be that you haven't found the thing

00:25:07that you genuinely find is fun.

00:25:09And or maybe walking is the thing that's fun for you

00:25:11and do that.

00:25:13You don't have to run.

00:25:15I'm gonna say athletes are the most annoying people,

00:25:17especially quantified fitness athletes

00:25:20because they're all on Strava

00:25:21and they're all talking about all of these things.

00:25:23You have my full permission as the wearable ladies

00:25:26to just turn off all your notifications

00:25:27for the rest of January.

00:25:29You have my full permission to do that.

00:25:31Let's talk about that piece of it for one second

00:25:33because I think, again, all of these things

00:25:36want you to make fitness your entire personality

00:25:38and become a Strava person.

00:25:40And if you wanna do that, that's fine.

00:25:42Just don't talk to, like leave me alone about it.

00:25:43But like there are lots of other people on Strava

00:25:45who wanna talk to you about their Strava numbers.

00:25:47So like Godspeed.

00:25:48But there is some quantification here that is useful.

00:25:53Like I think if you're a person who is like,

00:25:54I wanna get in shape this year,

00:25:55spending a lot of time worrying about your VO2 max

00:25:57in 2025 is probably not useful.

00:26:00Yeah.

00:26:01What is useful?

00:26:02Like what numbers should people pay attention to?

00:26:05So the numbers that they should pay attention to

00:26:08are their baselines.

00:26:09Like just figure out where you're at.

00:26:10Give yourself like two to four weeks

00:26:13to figure out what your baseline is.

00:26:15And like, you're gonna feel so impatient

00:26:17because you're gonna feel like you're not doing anything.

00:26:20You are doing the most important thing,

00:26:21which is to just figure out what your baseline is.

00:26:24Because if-

00:26:24Baseline in what sense?

00:26:25Like go run an easy mile and just see how that goes

00:26:29and start from there?

00:26:30Like that kind of thing?

00:26:31Yeah.

00:26:32See how that goes.

00:26:33Just how long does it take you to run a mile?

00:26:35Can you even run a mile?

00:26:36Like that's fine.

00:26:37What is your daily step count?

00:26:39Like just naturally, just as you are doing now,

00:26:42like just neutrally,

00:26:44you're not bad for having an unimpressive step count.

00:26:47You're not bad.

00:26:48You just need to know where to start.

00:26:50Because the thing about all of these tools

00:26:51is that they're like, here we are.

00:26:53We're gonna give you all of these metrics.

00:26:55But yeah, nobody-

00:26:56Fuck all.

00:26:57Like what do these numbers mean?

00:26:59The most important thing

00:27:00is for you to understand what your baseline is.

00:27:02So let's say you baseline in your average daily life,

00:27:06all you're doing is two to 3,000 steps.

00:27:09Great.

00:27:10I'd love that for you.

00:27:11So next week, try 500 steps more per day.

00:27:15That's it.

00:27:16That's all you gotta do.

00:27:17Just 500 steps more.

00:27:18That's like two minutes of walking, maybe.

00:27:20Like it's not a very long amount,

00:27:22but just 500 steps more.

00:27:24See how you do.

00:27:25See how that is.

00:27:26Is that easy for you?

00:27:27Okay, cool.

00:27:27And then after two weeks of doing that,

00:27:31add 500 steps to that.

00:27:32Oh, all of a sudden you're doing 1,000 more

00:27:33and just go until you hit a goal number.

00:27:36And there are just gonna be some weeks

00:27:38where you don't hit that goal.

00:27:39Okay, so then you just repeat it

00:27:41and just repeat it until you can do that.

00:27:43Same thing with calorie.

00:27:44Like just choose one thing.

00:27:46Just choose one metric to be your metric.

00:27:48So either choose activity minutes,

00:27:50how many minutes you're doing during a week.

00:27:52Choose your steps if that's what works

00:27:55for your brain the most.

00:27:56Or choose like if you are already committed

00:28:00to working out at the gym,

00:28:02choose like a number of times you go to the gym.

00:28:04Like go to the gym, go on the treadmill for 10 minutes

00:28:08and that's it, you can go home.

00:28:09I just did that with my spouse last night.

00:28:11We were both like, it's icy out.

00:28:13We both prefer running outdoors,

00:28:15but we can't because we'll break our neck.

00:28:17How about we go to the gym for 15 minutes

00:28:21and if we do more, that's a success.

00:28:23We did 22 minutes and then we left.

00:28:25That's it, I did.

00:28:26I did the world's most half-assed treadmill run

00:28:29because I hate treadmills.

00:28:30And I was like, I did 20 minutes on the treadmill.

00:28:33I am a god and I left.

00:28:35I had a friend a while ago who's,

00:28:37he set his goal as like, I can check it off

00:28:41if I walk in the door of the gym.

00:28:44Literally all I have to do,

00:28:45I have to walk in the front door

00:28:46and I can turn around and leave and it counts.

00:28:48And I did it.

00:28:49And he was like, I never actually just did it.

00:28:51But the point was like, make the goal so easy

00:28:54that you're gonna hit it all the time

00:28:57because it's the not hitting the goal

00:28:58that prevents you from stopping.

00:29:00Yeah, 100%.

00:29:01I think about him all the time.

00:29:02It's just like all I,

00:29:04he just like walks in, opens the door to Planet Fitness,

00:29:06high-fives the person behind the desk and leaves.

00:29:08And he's like, great work, guys.

00:29:09That's me.

00:29:10That's me, that's what I do too.

00:29:12And it's honestly like, I just have to go

00:29:15get on the treadmill for five minutes

00:29:16and I'm allowed to leave at that five minutes.

00:29:18And I almost never do leave at the five minutes.

00:29:22Maybe I'll do 10 or whatever.

00:29:24But the whole point is that you're just tricking yourself

00:29:27the entire time.

00:29:28And setting the goal,

00:29:29like my number one tip for any of the devices that you get

00:29:33is to one, pick a metric and then make the goal

00:29:36so stupidly easy you feel like you're cheating.

00:29:40And then you'll increase it over time.

00:29:42But like, I really think that anyone who's a beginner

00:29:46should just start out doing like,

00:29:48I wanna say 10 minutes twice a week.

00:29:50That's it, that's it.

00:29:52You can do that.

00:29:53Anybody can do 10 minutes twice a week.

00:29:55And then you just go up from there.

00:29:58And if you never go up from there

00:30:00and you're just doing 10 minutes twice a week,

00:30:03that's still better than doing nothing.

00:30:05So you're still winning like in that respect.

00:30:08So like really the key to fitness is to make it easy.

00:30:13Just make it easy and make it fun.

00:30:15Like find a thing that's fun and find a thing that's easy.

00:30:18If you enjoy doing walks, listening to audio books,

00:30:21just do that, just do that.

00:30:23You do not have to like run a marathon.

00:30:25That's crazy.

00:30:26Like I haven't run a marathon yet and I run a lot.

00:30:29So like you don't have to do that if that's not for you.

00:30:33A lot of people will say like,

00:30:34oh, the habit, building the habit is hard.

00:30:36Like the consistency is what these tools are for.

00:30:39Yes, but you cannot be consistent

00:30:41unless you find the thing that you like.

00:30:43So find the thing that you like first.

00:30:44Like that's, I mean, all these tech companies

00:30:47are gonna yell at me

00:30:48because I'm basically saying your tools are shit.

00:30:50But it's honestly what you're doing

00:30:54is you're building the wisdom

00:30:55to use the tools effectively because they're tools.

00:30:58And you're gonna fall,

00:31:00you are gonna fall into the trap

00:31:01of being obsessed with streaks.

00:31:02Break them, just break them on purpose.

00:31:04Break them on purpose

00:31:05and forgive yourself for breaking them on purpose.

00:31:07If your exercise is supernatural in a VR headset, do it.

00:31:11Do it.

00:31:12Play Dance Dance.

00:31:12I know people who have lost 50 pounds

00:31:14just going to the arcade and playing Dance Dance Revolution.

00:31:16Do it, that's exercise, it counts.

00:31:18Like have fun.

00:31:20It shouldn't be work.

00:31:21It really should not be work.

00:31:23It should be something that does not feel like work.

00:31:25Like for me running,

00:31:27running is now like a time

00:31:29where I get to think about a draft that is bothering me

00:31:33and like working out some stuff in my head.

00:31:36And it always works.

00:31:37Or like it's a time,

00:31:38if I do have to go to the dread,

00:31:40the dreadmill is what I call it.

00:31:42I have a YouTube playlist of K-pop videos

00:31:44I haven't gotten around to watching.

00:31:46I get to watch K-pop videos while I suffer.

00:31:49And that's a way that you can make fitness more tolerable.

00:31:53One of the best things I ever did

00:31:55was I had a show that I only allowed myself

00:31:57to watch at the gym.

00:31:59It was just, I just decided I love the show

00:32:02and I'm watching it

00:32:02and I'm only allowed to watch it at the gym.

00:32:04And the problem was there weren't that many episodes

00:32:08of the show.

00:32:09So I literally fell off as soon as the show ended.

00:32:10But it was a surprisingly good way to A, get me there.

00:32:15Cause I was like, oh, I like the show.

00:32:16I'm enjoying it.

00:32:17I'm going to go to the gym so I can watch it.

00:32:18And B, it kept me on the treadmill for longer.

00:32:20I just like had it on the iPad

00:32:21and I would watch, I would run for a whole episode.

00:32:24And that was like, that became part of the process.

00:32:27And I really enjoyed that.

00:32:28So like that little carrot for me was really productive.

00:32:33Also, you're allowed to quit.

00:32:35You're allowed, if you don't,

00:32:36it's like readers will say this about DNFing books.

00:32:40Don't waste your time on an activity that you don't enjoy.

00:32:44Like you wouldn't spend all that time

00:32:46trying to read freaking Gravity's Rainbow by,

00:32:48like, I regret reading that book.

00:32:50I hated it from like, I hated it 200 pages in.

00:32:53I forced myself to get through

00:32:55like the rest of the 800 page book,

00:32:57but like those 600 pages,

00:32:59I could have spent reading something enjoyable that I liked.

00:33:01So I regret powering through that.

00:33:04The same thing with exercise.

00:33:05Okay, you don't like running?

00:33:06Don't do it.

00:33:07You don't like strength training?

00:33:09Don't do it.

00:33:10Maybe what your thing is, is rock climbing.

00:33:12Do that.

00:33:13And you know, some people will say that

00:33:15I'm telling you bad health advice

00:33:17just because there's benefits to strength training.

00:33:20Your muscles will atrophy as you grow older,

00:33:22yada, yada, yada.

00:33:23What I found, because I hated strength training,

00:33:25was that I wanted to get faster at running.

00:33:27So now I do strength training

00:33:28because I want to get faster at running.

00:33:30It took me a really long time to get to that point.

00:33:32Like a really, really long time to get to that point.

00:33:34And that's okay.

00:33:35You'll get to it eventually.

00:33:36It's fine.

00:33:37It's fine.

00:33:38Maybe you like Pilates.

00:33:39God bless you.

00:33:40Pilates people are a different breed of crazy.

00:33:42Pilates freaks me out.

00:33:43Yeah, can't do it.

00:33:44They're a different breed of like,

00:33:46I was doing it for a while and I've decided to quit.

00:33:49Like I decided to quit.

00:33:50Like you're allowed to quit.

00:33:51If you don't like it, just quit.

00:33:53Find something else.

00:33:54Try something else.

00:33:55Like walking.

00:33:57Just walking is all you do.

00:33:59Just walk.

00:34:00Walking's great.

00:34:01Like make it easy.

00:34:02Make it fun.

00:34:03I like this.

00:34:04Okay, one, I have a recommendation

00:34:07that I just want to throw out

00:34:07because this is a thing that I did last year

00:34:09that has worked very well for me.

00:34:10And then I have one more question for you.

00:34:11The single best fitness thing I did last year

00:34:14was by one single dumbbell.

00:34:18I just have sitting next to me at my desk

00:34:20a 25 pound dumbbell

00:34:22and have discovered that with one weight and 15 minutes,

00:34:27you can do a shockingly complete workout.

00:34:30And it has been really useful for me

00:34:32as just like a thing where if I'm like feeling tense

00:34:34or itchy or whatever,

00:34:35I can just like stand up and work out

00:34:38for just like a couple of minutes and it helps.

00:34:39It's not a full workout.

00:34:41No one is going to accuse me of being shredded,

00:34:44but it is like, that is a thing that like,

00:34:46to your point of like making it easy,

00:34:48I made that specific piece of working out

00:34:49really, really easy and it really helped.

00:34:52And the like Amazon basics dumbbells are very cheap

00:34:55and the box is hilariously heavy.

00:34:57And I recommend everybody doing that.

00:35:00My last question to you before I let you go

00:35:02is for people who are kind of like one level up

00:35:05from just sort of learning how many steps they take in a day.

00:35:09And I'm like, I want to exercise more.

00:35:11I want to be more consistent.

00:35:13I think a lot of those people are looking

00:35:14for a place to manage that, right?

00:35:18Like an app or a smartwatch

00:35:21or like maybe the answer is a piece of paper or something.

00:35:23Like I am a person who exercises a little

00:35:26and I want to be a little more regimented

00:35:28and intentional about exercising more.

00:35:31Where would you point those people?

00:35:33So unfortunately, a lot of it is based

00:35:36on what you want to do.

00:35:38Like if you like strength training,

00:35:40I really love the ladder app.

00:35:42It's what stuck with me because my problem

00:35:45with strength training and why I put it off for so long

00:35:48was I didn't know what I was supposed to do.

00:35:50Like I wanted to strength train as a runner.

00:35:53I didn't know what exercises to do.

00:35:55I don't know how long to do it for.

00:35:57I can turn my brain off of this app and it's great

00:36:00because they have six week progressive overload programs

00:36:04and then a two week break.

00:36:05And they just repeat that ad infinitum.

00:36:07There's different types

00:36:09of strength training programs in there.

00:36:10So I'm in Move Well, which is like for beginners

00:36:13and it focuses on movements that are good for runners.

00:36:16So it's like perfect.

00:36:17And wow, I got faster at running.

00:36:19Oh my God.

00:36:20And then that success kept me going.

00:36:22But if you're someone who wants to get shredded,

00:36:24they have those things for people at the gym

00:36:26who are doing the scary Smith machine,

00:36:28like all that sort of stuff.

00:36:29They have those programs for you too, different teams.

00:36:32If you're a yoga person and a Pilates person,

00:36:35they have strength things that incorporate that.

00:36:37So there's just like a bunch of different things

00:36:38that you can go to.

00:36:39I think if you're a beginner or intermediate

00:36:41and you just don't wanna think

00:36:43about crafting your own program

00:36:45or hiring a personal trainer, that's a great app.

00:36:47It's been working for me.

00:36:48I love it.

00:36:50If you are a runner, I think any running app

00:36:55and you can like do research.

00:36:56I use Run Keeper.

00:36:57They have like little training programs.

00:37:00So they're like, oh, here's my goal.

00:37:01Here's what I wanna do.

00:37:02It generates a little training program

00:37:04for me based on weeks.

00:37:05And that's how I've trained for marathon, half marathons.

00:37:10And my current goal of doing 5K,

00:37:14basically I tell it how many days I wanna run,

00:37:17what my time goal is.

00:37:19And I wanna say after a really solid

00:37:22seven month training block last year,

00:37:25I reduced my four mile time by 16 minutes,

00:37:29which is insane.

00:37:31And like I was showing up

00:37:32and like once you start getting progress, it gets addictive.

00:37:36And I was like, oh, yay.

00:37:39That's there for me.

00:37:40I don't have to think about like what kind of exercises

00:37:44and training I'm gonna do.

00:37:45It's all, there's speed work in there.

00:37:47There's tempo runs in there.

00:37:49There's long runs in there.

00:37:50And there are so many different apps

00:37:51that do that for runners specifically.

00:37:53There's RUNA, there's Nike Run Club.

00:37:55So just pick one.

00:37:56I'm gonna get emails for saying this,

00:37:57but I think the running apps are like a dime a dozen.

00:38:01They are.

00:38:02Pick the one that is like, start with one that's free.

00:38:05A, because a lot of these will try

00:38:06to make you pay very quickly.

00:38:08And B, just pick one that seems fine.

00:38:12For like a straightforward running plan,

00:38:15there are a million out there that will work for you.

00:38:18Yeah, pick one that like a chill friend of yours is on.

00:38:21That's the key.

00:38:22Like my chill friend was on RUNKEEPER,

00:38:24so now we just like each other's activities and it's nice.

00:38:27That's smart.

00:38:28The couch to 5K one I use, by the way,

00:38:30is called 5K Runner and I like it very much.

00:38:33And it has one of those AI coaches

00:38:34that at the end of every run is like,

00:38:36you did such a good job.

00:38:37And I'm like, you're lying.

00:38:38I walked most of this.

00:38:39And it's like, I'm so proud of you.

00:38:40You're terrific.

00:38:41See you in a couple of days.

00:38:42I'm gonna tell you in most races that I've ever run,

00:38:45there are plenty of people walking.

00:38:46So the idea that you have to do a long race

00:38:49and just completely walk the entire time is bullshit.

00:38:52It's just bullshit.

00:38:53You can take a walk break.

00:38:54Many professional runners take walk breaks.

00:38:57It's very normal to do that.

00:38:59But yeah, so find whatever.

00:39:02There's so much out there.

00:39:03Like I will continue to write about the ones

00:39:05that I find that I like that helped me

00:39:07because I am absolutely not the crazy,

00:39:11like DC Rainmaker is a really nice guy.

00:39:13I love his stuff.

00:39:14I could never do what he does.

00:39:16And I think most of us are in that boat.

00:39:19We're just normal people trying to be relatively

00:39:24not dying as a couch potato.

00:39:27And because of that, you are not an Olympian.

00:39:31You do not have to do what Olympians do.

00:39:33You don't.

00:39:34That doesn't make any sense.

00:39:35So just relax.

00:39:37I really love your dumbbell hack though,

00:39:40because I think that's exactly the type of thing that counts.

00:39:44And most exercise research will say you doing that

00:39:48is probably elongating your longevity in your life

00:39:52by an amount that is stupidly high

00:39:55proportional to the work that you're putting in.

00:39:58It's just like, I think walking five flights of stairs a day

00:40:03is enough to increase your cardio health by a crap ton.

00:40:07Like you just have to do five staircases a day.

00:40:09That's it.

00:40:10That's doable for most people.

00:40:12So yeah, just do small, do small things.

00:40:15Don't make your goal get shredded by June.

00:40:17Make your goal get shredded by June 2040.

00:40:20Like or something like that.

00:40:23That's actually my goal.

00:40:24My goal is to get shredded in four years for my 40th.

00:40:26So that's it.

00:40:28That's it.

00:40:28I'm not doing it.

00:40:29I'm not doing it in a year.

00:40:31I'm doing it in four years.

00:40:32That's kind of the energy you need to have.

00:40:35Yeah.

00:40:36Yeah, I know.

00:40:36I keep harping on this.

00:40:38There are people who do this as a lifestyle thing.

00:40:40And that's like, I feel like it's useful to remember

00:40:43that that is like a hundred on the zero to a hundred scale.

00:40:46We treat it as like a zero and a one, right?

00:40:49Like either you're a couch potato

00:40:51who's gonna die in three days,

00:40:54or running is your life.

00:40:56And like, no, there's actually,

00:40:57there's so much in between.

00:40:59And you can just,

00:41:01there are literally huge benefits

00:41:04to going from a zero to a one,

00:41:05or from a five to a six,

00:41:07or from a 25 to a 26.

00:41:09And that's the way I've tried to learn

00:41:11how to think about this.

00:41:12It's like, I don't need to become quote unquote a runner.

00:41:16I'm just gonna go for a run.

00:41:18That's it.

00:41:19I'm gonna go for a run.

00:41:21And if I like it, maybe I'll run tomorrow.

00:41:23And if not, I don't know.

00:41:24I'll play more supernatural.

00:41:25It'll be fine.

00:41:27You know, I went to CES.

00:41:28I brought four sets of workout clothes.

00:41:30And I was like, if I do one, that's a success.

00:41:32I did two.

00:41:33So I super succeeded.

00:41:35Like that's how it goes.

00:41:36And like I-

00:41:37I appreciate the optimism of four outfits for it though.

00:41:39I, yeah, it was very optimistic,

00:41:41but I was just like,

00:41:43it was very optimistic,

00:41:44but I went for two,

00:41:45which I thought I was gonna go for zero.

00:41:47I went for two.

00:41:48I fricking crushed it.

00:41:51Like it's snowing outside.

00:41:53I can't go for a four mile run right now

00:41:56like I normally would.

00:41:58I'm gonna go for a shitty,

00:42:00not very great run on a treadmill.

00:42:03You know what?

00:42:03I'm crushing it.

00:42:04That's all that is.

00:42:05That's all it is.

00:42:06Just like give yourself a participation trophy.

00:42:09Like that's it.

00:42:10That's it.

00:42:11You don't need to win a gold medal.

00:42:12Just get the participation trophy.

00:42:14Do you want to know the best thing?

00:42:15I had not thought of this until just now,

00:42:16but as you're talking about this,

00:42:18when my now wife and I first started dating,

00:42:20she was a big runner

00:42:21and she got me to run with her

00:42:23by always running to donuts.

00:42:26We found,

00:42:27we were living in New York

00:42:28and we would just run to different donut shops

00:42:30all over New York.

00:42:33The single most consistently I have ever run.

00:42:35And part of it was because like,

00:42:37I liked her and wanted her to like me,

00:42:38but I also got to run to donuts.

00:42:40And I'm convinced that I ran faster and longer

00:42:42and more consistently to donuts

00:42:45than I have ever run in my life.

00:42:47So like you get your participation trophy.

00:42:49I get donuts.

00:42:51The donut is the participation trophy

00:42:54is what I'm saying.

00:42:55It's perfect.

00:42:56Just whatever your participation trophy is,

00:42:57go get it because that's all you need.

00:43:00Yeah.

00:43:01I love it.

00:43:01All right, V, thank you as always.

00:43:04All right, we got to take a break,

00:43:05but then we're going to come back

00:43:07and we're going to talk about really old cell phones.

00:43:16All right, we're back.

00:43:17So a couple of weeks ago,

00:43:18a group at a university in Finland

00:43:21launched this thing called the Nokia Design Archive.

00:43:24And basically it is thousands of old documents from Nokia,

00:43:30from like the early 2000s all the way back into the 90s.

00:43:34And if you don't remember,

00:43:37Nokia was the cell phone industry at the time.

00:43:40In a very real way,

00:43:41this was like the biggest,

00:43:42most successful company in the early days of cell phones.

00:43:46And inside this design archive,

00:43:49right now it's 755 documents,

00:43:51all about just the design and thinking

00:43:55inside of that company about what phones should be.

00:43:58And there's all kinds of truly incredible stuff in there.

00:44:01You go through and there's tons of different

00:44:03just lifestyle images of like two dudes

00:44:06sitting on a tennis court

00:44:08and one of them is talking on his phone.

00:44:10And it's the kind of thing that now is like,

00:44:12that's just a picture of two people.

00:44:14But that picture's from the 90s

00:44:15when it was not common for two dudes

00:44:19sitting on a tennis court to have cell phones.

00:44:22In addition to all of the promotional materials,

00:44:25there are tons of concepts.

00:44:26I think if you do one thing in this design archive,

00:44:30you should go through and look at some of the concepts.

00:44:32And there are concepts for all kinds of things.

00:44:34Some of them are phones, right?

00:44:36Like Nokia had big ideas about

00:44:38how phones maybe should be squishy

00:44:41or how phones should maybe be modular.

00:44:44There were lots of different ideas about

00:44:46what if a phone was just a little

00:44:47kind of candy bar shaped thing

00:44:49that you could stick into lots of different sorts of cases

00:44:52and maybe wear or have an FM radio on top of,

00:44:56or any number of things.

00:44:57There's one that I really like that's called Moonraker

00:45:00and it was a Nokia smartwatch

00:45:01that never made it on the market, never got shipped,

00:45:05but it's just an Apple Watch.

00:45:06Like, I don't know how else to put it.

00:45:08It has a vertical UI.

00:45:09It looks like an Apple Watch.

00:45:11It's kind of a mix of the Apple Watch

00:45:15and like the tile look of Windows 8.

00:45:19Maybe that combination is not a super good idea,

00:45:21but it's just fascinating.

00:45:23This is in 2014.

00:45:24So it's not like Nokia is a million miles ahead

00:45:27of what Apple is doing,

00:45:28but everybody was thinking about this stuff.

00:45:30And one of the things that I think is so interesting

00:45:32about all of this is to see

00:45:35how much of what's going on in tech

00:45:38is actually going on everywhere.

00:45:39And the big question is like,

00:45:41how are these things supposed to work?

00:45:42And how are you gonna use them?

00:45:43And what do they mean in your life?

00:45:46One other thing you should check out

00:45:47is called P-TECH clothing.

00:45:49That was one of these big modular ideas that Nokia had.

00:45:52And they had this idea that maybe you'd wear your phone

00:45:56on a lanyard around your neck

00:45:59and you'd have one that was like cool

00:46:01and Gucci made during the day,

00:46:04but then you'd have one that was like rubbery and sporty

00:46:06that you'd wear when you were out on the go.

00:46:08Nokia had so many interesting ideas

00:46:11about how people would use phones.

00:46:14And I think that's really cool.

00:46:16And it's not the kind of thing you see now

00:46:17where everybody is trying to sell phones

00:46:19to 3 billion people all over the earth.

00:46:22Now you see all these companies

00:46:23who are trying to sell phones

00:46:24to billions of people at a time.

00:46:27And so we've gotten to the point

00:46:28where so many phones in particular

00:46:31have just hit kind of a lowest common denominator.

00:46:35I don't mean that as an insult,

00:46:35they're just not different anymore.

00:46:38Even if you and I buy different phones,

00:46:41you buy a Samsung phone, I buy an iPhone,

00:46:43you buy a Huawei phone, I buy a OnePlus phone.

00:46:47They're just slabs of glass at this point.

00:46:48They all have cameras in basically the same place.

00:46:50They all do basically the same thing.

00:46:52And it's really fun to go in and see Nokia

00:46:54reckoning with this idea of how do we change everything?

00:46:58And there's this sense of like,

00:47:00phones aren't inevitably this one thing.

00:47:02Like there's no sense inside of Nokia

00:47:04that they're building towards this one specific

00:47:07platonic idea of a smartphone.

00:47:09Instead, they're just like,

00:47:11what if our phones kind of looked like

00:47:14gaming handheld consoles?

00:47:16And then they have one that's called Hitchhiker

00:47:18that is like a prop from a sci-fi movie

00:47:21with the keys on the side and the screen in the middle.

00:47:24That one actually was very cool.

00:47:26And it's codenamed Hitchhiker,

00:47:27which I think absolutely rules.

00:47:30Nokia had so many ideas about technology.

00:47:32And I found myself going through this wondering

00:47:35how unusual this company really was.

00:47:38I think over the course of 20 years,

00:47:40we get to see all of this information

00:47:43and these concepts and these presentations

00:47:45in which Nokia just tries to invent the future

00:47:48in a thousand different directions.

00:47:51And maybe that's what every company is doing,

00:47:53but maybe not.

00:47:55And maybe the fact that we have glass slabs of smartphones

00:47:59is a sign that we need more of this,

00:48:01more weird ideas,

00:48:02more trying to invent the future

00:48:04in a thousand different directions all at the same time.

00:48:07I find this whole archive fascinating.

00:48:09And I really think if you're listening to this podcast,

00:48:11you are the kind of person who should go

00:48:14and just poke around it for 20 minutes.

00:48:15You will find something you've never seen in here before.

00:48:17I absolutely guarantee it.

00:48:19And I truly cannot recommend just poking around

00:48:22and looking at some of these different concepts enough.

00:48:25I'll put a few of them in the show notes

00:48:27because frankly, just everyone should see these,

00:48:30but it's a really good time.

00:48:32All that said, I knew immediately after getting into this

00:48:34that I wanted to talk to somebody

00:48:36who actually worked on this

00:48:37and has seen all of these materials

00:48:39and can help me make some sense

00:48:40of the story behind all this stuff.

00:48:43So I called up Anna Valtonen,

00:48:44who is one of the researchers

00:48:45who actually put this whole archive together.

00:48:48She is a professor at Aalto University,

00:48:50which is where this archive is being held.

00:48:53She also worked at Nokia

00:48:54in the design department for a long time.

00:48:56She's seen all sides of this

00:48:57and knows this space better than just about anybody.

00:49:00So I figured I'd have her

00:49:01just bring me through the archive a little bit

00:49:03and help me see if we can figure out

00:49:05what lessons to learn.

00:49:07So let's just dive in.

00:49:08I started by asking Anna

00:49:09to just explain her history a little bit

00:49:12and how, in particular, she got started at Nokia.

00:49:15Okay, well, I started at Nokia a long time ago.

00:49:18I was recently graduated.

00:49:20It was in the mid-90s or late 90s.

00:49:23So then I worked there in the design organization

00:49:26and did all sorts of different kinds of roles

00:49:27for a good 12 or 13 years.

00:49:30But this project actually started a lot later than that.

00:49:33So when I was still working back at Nokia,

00:49:36we used to keep things archived in a big room

00:49:40in the basement of the new headquarters at the time.

00:49:44But then when I started doing research around this,

00:49:47I was really focusing on what do designers do

00:49:49and how do they work and so on.

00:49:50So I was quite keen on getting all the material from there.

00:49:55And eventually we did.

00:49:57By the time Nokia had sort of sold off

00:49:59its phone activities to Microsoft

00:50:02and Microsoft was going to move out from Finland

00:50:05with their phone design,

00:50:06or I'm not even sure if they were going to continue

00:50:09doing phone designs at all at the time.

00:50:11So we got the stuff and we pulled it all over

00:50:14to the Aalto Archives,

00:50:16or basically a storage room to start with.

00:50:19We didn't really know what to do with it.

00:50:22Because it was a lot and it wasn't organized.

00:50:25So it was big boxes with all sorts of things

00:50:27mashed up together.

00:50:29So after a while, we got a research project around.

00:50:31We got some funding so we could hire people and hands

00:50:34and start documenting what we had and put them in order

00:50:37and start understanding what relates to what and so on.

00:50:40And we've been a really wonderful transdisciplinary team

00:50:45working with that material for a good four years now.

00:50:48Okay.

00:50:49So what was your sense at the beginning

00:50:50of what might be inside of this trove of stuff?

00:50:56There's all sorts.

00:50:58There's everything from sketches to physical mock-ups,

00:51:01early stage mock-ups, very early sketchy kind of mock-ups

00:51:04and very finalized products or products close to launch.

00:51:08There's documentation of what happened

00:51:10while people were working on these ideas and so on.

00:51:14And I think, to me at least,

00:51:15they really, all the material,

00:51:17it shows the work that goes on behind a finalized product

00:51:21or before you get that far.

00:51:22So can you use design to start thinking of what could be

00:51:26or provoke a discussion of should we maybe be doing that

00:51:30or use it for understanding what will people like

00:51:34or what would be important for them

00:51:36or create a discussion and a debate around,

00:51:39could we do something completely new or different?

00:51:42And that's sort of what I'm hoping

00:51:43that the archive will do now when it's open

00:51:46for anyone to dive in is if it creates

00:51:50or generates more of an imagination of what could be

00:51:53or gets us to think of how could we tackle these things

00:51:56that we don't quite know what they are yet.

00:51:59And, you know, in a sense,

00:52:00I think we're in a similar situation now

00:52:02with new technology, AI coming,

00:52:04and no one quite knows what it will be

00:52:07or how it will be concrete in our lives.

00:52:10So we could at least imagine and we could try stuff

00:52:14and we could test it and we can see what works.

00:52:16Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up

00:52:18because that was one of the things

00:52:19that struck me most going through the archive

00:52:22is there's this real sense of questioning

00:52:25what a smartphone is supposed to be

00:52:28and what technology is supposed to be

00:52:30and how we're supposed to hold it and use it.

00:52:32And Nokia was obsessed with this idea of gadgets

00:52:35that go into little containers

00:52:37that change the features of those gadgets.

00:52:39It just seemed like every designer at Nokia

00:52:41had some idea about these modular gadgets.

00:52:46Do you remember those kinds of conversations back then

00:52:48when it wasn't so obvious to everybody

00:52:51what a smartphone was?

00:52:52I think we think about it now as sort of inevitable

00:52:56that this is what a smartphone is.

00:52:57It's a slab of glass.

00:53:00I don't think it was inevitable.

00:53:01And I think there were so many different ideas back then.

00:53:05Does it bring up some of those questions again

00:53:08to look at all these things now?

00:53:09It was far from inevitable.

00:53:11There was so many, I remember many of the discussions.

00:53:14One I remember particularly well

00:53:15was when sometime far in the future,

00:53:18there were going to be 3G networks.

00:53:21They might make it possible to send a picture

00:53:24or you could even have a video one day.

00:53:27And some of the concepts were trying to make that concrete.

00:53:31So what would it be if you could actually talk with someone

00:53:35so that you would see them at the same time

00:53:38or you could send content that would be visual,

00:53:41which today seems completely self-evident and obvious.

00:53:44And we're having this discussion today over,

00:53:47we can see each other while we're talking.

00:53:49So a lot has happened.

00:53:51Yeah, and I think it's just so interesting

00:53:53to think about going back to before

00:53:55all of that stuff was so obvious

00:53:58and these questions of like, what does it mean?

00:54:01And how are we supposed to use it?

00:54:02And one of my favorite things in the archive

00:54:04is all these concept videos that are in there

00:54:06that just absolutely don't make any sense.

00:54:08Like there's one where she's looking through a thing

00:54:11and there's an owl in it.

00:54:12And then all of a sudden there's an owl

00:54:13flying around in a room.

00:54:15And I could not even explain to you what that is about.

00:54:18But there is this open question.

00:54:21And I think Nokia was very good at this

00:54:23before almost any other company was thinking about it,

00:54:25about how the technology that you have

00:54:29and the real world that you're in are supposed to interact.

00:54:33And I think just now on the other end of 20 years

00:54:36of all of us being pulled more and more and more

00:54:38into screens, it was just neat to go back and be like,

00:54:41okay, this was a question we had about these are things

00:54:43that should exist in the real world

00:54:45that we should use in the real world

00:54:48and that should interact with the real world.

00:54:49And I was just, I was so struck by that way of thinking

00:54:52almost, it felt more like science fiction

00:54:54than product design in a lot of ways.

00:54:57But what you're also bringing up is a very important point

00:54:59on the fact that it takes time,

00:55:01that there's a long, it could be a lot later.

00:55:05You might have a first idea of something

00:55:08and then it goes through all sorts of levels

00:55:10of product development and ideation

00:55:12and further refinement and whatnot.

00:55:15And then you get a first product out

00:55:16and that might be years from when you first

00:55:18were discussing it.

00:55:20And then when the first product comes out,

00:55:21it might still not make a market or be self-evident

00:55:25and then take five years later

00:55:27and everyone thinks that it's quite normal.

00:55:29So it's maybe, or at least for me,

00:55:33it's been really wonderful to hear people look

00:55:35at the archive and they realize, well, this looks normal.

00:55:39And then they look at the year and say,

00:55:40oh, it was 10 years before it was on the market

00:55:43or, oh, it was 15 years before we thought that was normal.

00:55:49I'm hoping that it will give people the idea

00:55:52of perspective too, that technology doesn't just appear,

00:55:56we're actually all creating it.

00:55:58Yeah.

00:55:59What do you think it was about Nokia in particular

00:56:01that so many of those things were happening

00:56:04inside of that company so long

00:56:06before they were out in the world?

00:56:07I think to some extent this question

00:56:09of what if we can see each other on video

00:56:12has been on everybody's minds since a century ago.

00:56:16That was kind of an obvious thing

00:56:17that would eventually happen.

00:56:18But there's so much of this in the archive

00:56:20that is just products we have now.

00:56:23And I think maybe that's true lots of places,

00:56:27but I was shocked going through it,

00:56:29how much of 2024 and 2025 exists

00:56:32in these drawings from like 2000.

00:56:35What do you think it was about Nokia that led to that?

00:56:38That's a very good question.

00:56:40And it's always easy to be smart, you know, insight.

00:56:45But I do think it was a wonderful working culture

00:56:47of where there was an allowance for testing

00:56:50and for trying things out

00:56:51and almost an enthusiasm for what could be.

00:56:55But I also think that many organizations

00:56:58have similar activities with them today.

00:57:02It's just that we don't know about it

00:57:04because we can't see into other organizations.

00:57:07So that's why I'm so happy about this archive

00:57:10that it's one glimpse into what has happened for real.

00:57:14It's not potential or maybe,

00:57:17or, you know, it's actual empirical material

00:57:20of things that happened.

00:57:22Might miss pieces in between, but at least it's there.

00:57:25The one area that I really like,

00:57:28and this is probably because of my own research

00:57:31and my own background,

00:57:32I really like that it makes the design process very concrete.

00:57:36That you can really understand

00:57:38what happens in these teams

00:57:40because the teams are often big.

00:57:42They're multidisciplinary.

00:57:43There's a lot of people interacting and so on.

00:57:45And it's easy to talk about these heroic designers

00:57:49or something like that.

00:57:50But this archive actually shows

00:57:51that there's a lot of people involved.

00:57:53And what do they actually do?

00:57:54Well, they come up with the mood board

00:57:56or they come up with a sketch

00:57:57or they have a meeting where they talk about this.

00:58:00So somehow it's so tangible to me.

00:58:04Yeah, I was struck by how iterative some of this stuff is

00:58:07where there was one I was thinking of

00:58:10where it's a gaming machine

00:58:13and it looks a lot like the Nintendo Switch, right?

00:58:16Like there's a thing.

00:58:17I think it was either 2000 or 2003, I forget,

00:58:20but it is just straightforwardly a gaming handheld.

00:58:24And in it, there is just this one document

00:58:26of basically every imaginable version of a gaming handheld,

00:58:30which I love very much.

00:58:31It's like, here are the six wild ideas

00:58:33about what this could be.

00:58:34And then you can sort of see over time,

00:58:37you winnow it down slightly

00:58:38and then you expand it slightly

00:58:39and then you winnow it down slightly

00:58:40and then you expand it.

00:58:41And it's like, that's the design process,

00:58:43not someone goes into a dark room

00:58:46and comes back fully formed at the Nintendo Switch.

00:58:48It's like, this is how this work actually gets done.

00:58:50And I think you're right that we don't see the way

00:58:53that these things get done

00:58:54because everybody wants to come up at the end and say,

00:58:56here is this beautiful thing

00:58:57that emerged from the earth fully formed.

00:59:00And that's just not at all how it ever actually works.

00:59:03Yeah, exactly.

00:59:05So I'm hoping that people explore that.

00:59:08Yeah, it was a very fun,

00:59:10I kept going through looking for gadgets that exist now

00:59:14that were being talked about back then

00:59:16and you can find them everywhere.

00:59:18There's a thing that looks like the Apple Watch.

00:59:20There's a thing that looks like the Nintendo Switch.

00:59:22There are every smartphone and PDA that you can imagine.

00:59:25It was very fun.

00:59:26I enjoyed that very much.

00:59:26There's probably 25 different kinds of smartwatches

00:59:30from different parts of the company

00:59:31and different times and different levels of technology

00:59:34and different user ideas and so on.

00:59:37So it's not one, there's a lot.

00:59:40Yeah.

00:59:41So a lot of the folks listening to this show

00:59:44are gadget people.

00:59:45This is what we do at The Verge, we're gadget people.

00:59:48Doing all this research,

00:59:49did you have any favorite gadgets or concepts

00:59:52or wild, quixotic quests that Nokia went on

00:59:56that jumped out to you?

00:59:57Any sort of favorite historical artifacts?

01:00:00Many.

01:00:01For me, I think the most important ones

01:00:03were the ones that I had no idea of when I was there

01:00:06because it was a big company

01:00:07and there's a lot of things happening and going on.

01:00:11And also maybe,

01:00:13and let's see if what your audience will think.

01:00:16I think the easy access point

01:00:18is to look at crazy and wild concepts.

01:00:21But if you take a little bit more of an effort

01:00:23and you go into the actual presentation documents

01:00:25that are attached to them,

01:00:27that's where you really see the width of it.

01:00:30Ah, okay, look,

01:00:31they had this kind of background understanding

01:00:33and look, this is what they thought about.

01:00:35And oh, they did five different ideas

01:00:38that were completely different

01:00:40than what actually turned out in the end and so on.

01:00:42So I'm wishing and hoping for that people

01:00:45would take the time and effort

01:00:47to go a little bit beyond only cool gadgets,

01:00:50but let's see.

01:00:51There are so many cool gadgets though.

01:00:53There's just so many cool gadgets.

01:00:57Why do you think,

01:00:58this is the thing I've been thinking about

01:00:59and you've spent more time in these documents than I have.

01:01:01So I'm curious if you have any thoughts.

01:01:03Why was Nokia so obsessed with these modular gadgets?

01:01:06I mean, truly everything is like,

01:01:08it's a thing that goes into a case

01:01:10and becomes something else or bends around.

01:01:12There's one that was like,

01:01:13you can put it on your ankle or around your wrist

01:01:16or hold it like a phone.

01:01:17And there was this obsession

01:01:19with these sort of malleable gadgets.

01:01:21Why do you think that was so pervasive?

01:01:23There's probably many answers

01:01:25and I'm not sure that was always the obsession either,

01:01:28but I think it's good to remember

01:01:31what did the real products look like

01:01:33when these concepts were made?

01:01:35So many of the early modular concepts,

01:01:37the real products were actually huge lumps

01:01:39that you were dragging along.

01:01:42So if you did want to use it while using sports,

01:01:46for example,

01:01:47maybe you didn't wanna go jogging

01:01:49with something that weighed a lot.

01:01:51Maybe it would have been a lot easier

01:01:52if you could take just a small part of something with you.

01:01:55So maybe people also imagined

01:01:59in relation to what they had at the time.

01:02:02So you take the challenge with what you have then,

01:02:05and then you try to imagine a solution

01:02:08that would be better than that.

01:02:10But now we only see the proposed solution

01:02:12and we forget why they thought

01:02:15that was better than what they had.

01:02:17Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to think

01:02:19that there was that kind of thinking going

01:02:21at the same time

01:02:23as Nokia was kind of at the peak of its powers though.

01:02:27I mean, the company was so big and so powerful

01:02:29and made the phones everybody had,

01:02:33but still seems to have this

01:02:36sort of wildly experimental arm going on.

01:02:40And again, maybe there's more of that going on

01:02:41in some of these companies than we think.

01:02:43But my sense is now, especially,

01:02:46these gadgets are so big and so important

01:02:49and there's so much money in them

01:02:51that I just would bet there are not a lot of people

01:02:55inside of Apple thinking about wholesale lifestyle changes

01:02:58to the iPhone, right?

01:02:59These things maybe have just matured beyond that point,

01:03:02but it's forever interesting to me

01:03:03that even at the moment Nokia is making

01:03:06all of the best-selling phones on earth, all of them,

01:03:09it was still in this phase of like,

01:03:11how can we reimagine everything all the time?

01:03:14Agree, but I can also contradict you a little bit.

01:03:18I think it's actually normal

01:03:19because we have other research that shows

01:03:22that in a moment of big pivots,

01:03:24when everything is changing in the world,

01:03:26where technology shifts are happening,

01:03:28big shifts like we have today,

01:03:30then that's exactly the moment

01:03:31where you need to be more creative.

01:03:34So that's also the moment in time

01:03:35where you need to think with a broader mindset.

01:03:40And was there something about Nokia's

01:03:42sort of corporate culture that pushed towards that?

01:03:45Were just people given permission

01:03:47to do that kind of thing more than most?

01:03:49I think there was,

01:03:50and I'm not sure they were given permission

01:03:52or if the culture was just such

01:03:53that they dared to take the permission,

01:03:55even without getting it.

01:03:58So more of a culture of try it and see,

01:04:03which is great,

01:04:04and which there's a lot of other scholars

01:04:07talking about today

01:04:08that that's the kind of organizational culture

01:04:09that would be great to have,

01:04:11where people aren't afraid to try stuff.

01:04:16But of course, we don't know

01:04:16what other companies are doing at the moment.

01:04:19Right, but hopefully they'll share now too.

01:04:22Exactly, but there's something in the air today

01:04:26where we are a little bit cautious.

01:04:27We're very afraid of doing wrong.

01:04:30Whereas I think it's wonderful

01:04:32when we can try things out

01:04:33that maybe some of them can be right.

01:04:36Yeah, okay.

01:04:37And is it, are there things to be learned

01:04:40for tech companies now?

01:04:42Do you think on how all of this worked?

01:04:44I mean, to some extent,

01:04:45some of this stuff is so different

01:04:48in the world in which it was taking place

01:04:50than the one that we live in now,

01:04:52that I wonder how,

01:04:55like some of the sort of specifics

01:04:58are probably not applicable,

01:04:59like Nokia's wild ideas.

01:05:02Some of them are less wild now,

01:05:03and some of them are even more wild now.

01:05:05But do you think if I'm a tech company in 2025

01:05:09trying to think through

01:05:10how to replicate processes like these,

01:05:12like are there lessons from Nokia in that?

01:05:15Definitely, and I think ways of working

01:05:16are still very valid.

01:05:18So say, for example,

01:05:19that you are in a completely different company,

01:05:21a smaller one that's starting

01:05:22with this kind of future technology thinking,

01:05:25maybe it's a good thing to be able to peak somewhere,

01:05:28but how did they do?

01:05:29Because much of the ways of doing it

01:05:31are still very much the same.

01:05:33You try to understand end users,

01:05:34and you try to imagine what could be,

01:05:36and you develop products

01:05:37which will be the best possible

01:05:39for whomever you're trying to approach and so on.

01:05:42So I think, or I'm hoping at least,

01:05:46maybe one day it could be useful also

01:05:48for someone who should know how it works,

01:05:51but isn't quite sure.

01:05:52You know, maybe it could be your backdrop

01:05:54so that you could check how they did

01:05:56before you go into a meeting of your own or something.

01:05:59I don't know.

01:06:00Do you think we are back at a similar moment

01:06:03because of AI?

01:06:03I think we certainly have not had a moment

01:06:07as sort of specifically culturally transformative

01:06:11since cell phones,

01:06:13and you can kind of write that timeline however you want,

01:06:16but it's probably been somewhere between 15 and 20 years

01:06:21since we had a moment like that.

01:06:22Do you think we're back in one of those moments

01:06:24because of AI?

01:06:26Very much so.

01:06:27And I don't think it's only the arrival of new technology,

01:06:29and that's what I'm hoping that this archive will show too.

01:06:32Society only shifts when people shift

01:06:35how they interact and are in the world too.

01:06:39And that's where people come in.

01:06:40And that's, I think,

01:06:42something that you can see from this material,

01:06:44that it really tries to understand

01:06:47what do people do with it

01:06:48and how do they conduct their lives

01:06:49and what would make sense for them and so on.

01:06:51And I think we are definitely in that societal,

01:06:54pivotal moment now where we know

01:06:57that new technology will be with us,

01:06:59but we don't quite know how we will use it in our everyday.

01:07:03It isn't very tangible yet.

01:07:06We don't know how we will conduct our lives differently

01:07:10through it.

01:07:10So I think it would be a wonderful moment in time

01:07:13to use similar methodology

01:07:15and to learn from at least what has been

01:07:18and to try and be creative maybe,

01:07:22be optimistic or imagine what could be.

01:07:26A question I find myself talking about

01:07:28with product makers a lot

01:07:30is just how far into the future

01:07:33is it even useful to think about?

01:07:35And increasingly, I talk to folks in tech

01:07:38who are thinking about like 18 months from now

01:07:40and three years from now,

01:07:42because they're of the mind

01:07:43that it's just not useful

01:07:45to make bigger, longer prognostications

01:07:47because the world changes very fast

01:07:49and also who cares, right?

01:07:51We'll figure that out when we get there.

01:07:53But even, again,

01:07:55just to go back to the science fiction comparison,

01:07:56there is so much in this archive

01:08:00that is just pure sort of futuristic science fiction.

01:08:04And I wonder inside of a company

01:08:08what value that brings.

01:08:10For a company that is like shipping

01:08:11and making new products to also think,

01:08:12what is the world gonna look like

01:08:13in 10 or 20 or 50 years?

01:08:15And Nokia was clearly doing a lot of that.

01:08:18And I have forever kind of wondered

01:08:21how valuable that kind of thinking is

01:08:24inside of a company like that.

01:08:25I think the important point

01:08:26is that the world doesn't happen.

01:08:28Someone does something that changes something.

01:08:32And this shows some examples of how that was done,

01:08:36but that's exactly how,

01:08:38through this 18-month thinking cycle,

01:08:41it means that you think

01:08:42that someone else will create the world

01:08:44and you'll just be reacting to it.

01:08:46Whereas you can also think of what would you want it to be

01:08:49or what would you not want it to be

01:08:51and start having a discussion around that.

01:08:53And then hopefully, maybe,

01:08:56coming out with something that makes sense

01:08:58in whatever you've imagined.

01:09:00Yeah, do you think Nokia gets credit

01:09:04for moments like that

01:09:05in some of the history you've been looking at?

01:09:07Are there kind of before and after moments

01:09:10because of something that came out of this company?

01:09:13I think Nokia got a lot of credit

01:09:15of all the great things it did

01:09:17when it was as its biggest.

01:09:20Then it got a lot of negative sort of insights

01:09:24from when it didn't do so well.

01:09:26And we've been living in that wave now

01:09:29with a lot of people trying to think

01:09:31what went wrong and so on.

01:09:33But I'm hoping that we're sort of getting

01:09:34beyond both of those now

01:09:36to a period where we can look at it

01:09:38with more, not neutral eyes,

01:09:40but different eyes,

01:09:41to see different perspectives out of the material

01:09:43and different angles that we hadn't thought of before

01:09:46and so on.

01:09:47So that's, I think, quite typical

01:09:49that near time, we're always blind.

01:09:51So in the Nokia case,

01:09:53I think we've been blind in both directions.

01:09:57Looking through the archive,

01:09:57I found myself torn between sort of two

01:10:02overarching theories.

01:10:03One is that there was kind of a unified theory

01:10:08of Nokia about phones in particular

01:10:11and the future and kind of how technology

01:10:14and people were supposed to interact.

01:10:17And I feel like I could sort of twist

01:10:19into like a unifying theory of everything.

01:10:22And on the other side,

01:10:24I was struck by the fact that actually

01:10:26what's going on is just this unbelievably chaotic

01:10:29design process where everybody is trying

01:10:30to think about everything,

01:10:32and then you just throw it all in a pot

01:10:33and hope something cool comes out.

01:10:35And that maybe that's actually the magic of design

01:10:37is that there is something unknowably weird

01:10:40going on here.

01:10:43Is it either one of those two things?

01:10:45Is it something in between?

01:10:46I think it's probably both.

01:10:48Okay.

01:10:48So of course, it's messy and creative

01:10:50while you're at it.

01:10:51And of course, there's always some structure into it.

01:10:54But it can also depend on who you will be asking

01:10:58or when you will be asking

01:11:00and what the opportunities to do something around you are.

01:11:04But it's definitely both of those.

01:11:06It's very rarely completely clear from the very beginning.

01:11:09It's very, you know, complex and messy

01:11:13and you try stuff out.

01:11:14And then at some point it has to get slightly clearer

01:11:16because otherwise you won't be an organization

01:11:19that actually produces anything.

01:11:21So there's both.

01:11:25Okay.

01:11:26I just think the unifying theory I keep coming back to,

01:11:28and I'm just gonna, I'm gonna posit this

01:11:30and then I'm curious what you think about it.

01:11:32I think we live in a moment now

01:11:34where technology is such a destination, right?

01:11:38Where everybody is building metaverse worlds

01:11:41for you to go to and games you're supposed to spend time in

01:11:43and screens you're supposed to stare at

01:11:45for hours at a time.

01:11:46And everything is supposed to sort of draw you in

01:11:49and engage you more and more.

01:11:50And I feel like Nokia at that moment,

01:11:53and I'm thinking particularly kind of right after

01:11:58the year 2000,

01:11:59kind of in that phase between cell phones were everywhere,

01:12:02but smartphones were nowhere yet.

01:12:03Right in that moment,

01:12:04Nokia had this very human centric idea of technology

01:12:08that it was a thing that should fit onto you

01:12:12and be an accessory and be around you,

01:12:13but was not meant to be this sort of all consuming,

01:12:18engaging thing.

01:12:20It all feels more like fashion than electronics

01:12:23in a way that I find really interesting.

01:12:25And that's probably not everything,

01:12:27but I think that to me just felt so different

01:12:30than what I'm used to in technology

01:12:31that I was like, maybe this is just,

01:12:33maybe Nokia had a different idea

01:12:34about how we're supposed to use technology

01:12:37than a lot of companies.

01:12:38Could be.

01:12:39And doesn't it always,

01:12:40every trend is always followed by a counter trend

01:12:43and then back again.

01:12:44So if you have something that is,

01:12:48very focused on doing something well,

01:12:51then you come to a period

01:12:53where something should do everything for everyone.

01:12:55And then you might be coming back to a period

01:12:57where something should do something well for someone.

01:13:01I can see the same.

01:13:02We have a lot of people talking about

01:13:04how the digital era made everything untangible

01:13:08and just pixels.

01:13:11And now I can also, in our students,

01:13:12I can see a trend back that the haptic

01:13:14and the feeling of things

01:13:16and materiality gained in importance again.

01:13:19So somehow these things also,

01:13:22I don't know,

01:13:23but it seems like they're almost going in waves

01:13:24a little bit.

01:13:25Yeah, I hope so.

01:13:26I mean, I look at so many of those concepts

01:13:28and presentations

01:13:29and they're so obsessed with materials

01:13:32and plushiness

01:13:33and like they made electronics that were squishy.

01:13:36Nothing is squishy anymore.

01:13:37I love that they were squishy.

01:13:39How does it feel to your skin

01:13:40and how do you interact with it in a, yeah.

01:13:44Yeah, maybe I hope we get some of that back.

01:13:46At least we can learn from it.

01:13:48All right, we gotta take one more break

01:13:50and then we're gonna come back

01:13:52and I have a follow-up to last week's Hotline question.

01:14:03All right, we're back.

01:14:04So last week on the WorkCast Hotline,

01:14:06we answered a question about audio on your iPhone

01:14:09and basically why can't you listen to two things

01:14:11at the same time on your phone?

01:14:13I got a lot of feedback from that Hotline question,

01:14:16which was really fascinating.

01:14:17And the biggest thing I heard from a couple of folks,

01:14:19from developers in particular,

01:14:22is that when you have the thing

01:14:23that you're listening to music or a podcast or whatever,

01:14:27and you open an app that isn't immediately playing audio

01:14:30but turns off the audio you were already listening to,

01:14:32like a lot of games do this.

01:14:34Like I said on last week's show, the ESPN app does this.

01:14:37That's bad development.

01:14:39And I know that, but I don't think I hit that hard enough.

01:14:42That is not how that's supposed to work.

01:14:43That the way that these apps manage

01:14:46outside background audio input is up to them

01:14:50and they could all stand to do a much better job.

01:14:52One thing I like is I think a bunch of games

01:14:54actually do this really well,

01:14:55where you can be listening to a podcast,

01:14:59but playing the game and it'll play the game

01:15:02over top of the audio sometimes.

01:15:04But if you also just turn off all the audio in the game,

01:15:07you can just play your podcast.

01:15:09So like this thing can work.

01:15:11And the fact that it doesn't is a little bit Apple's fault

01:15:13because I think Apple tries to hold people's hand too much,

01:15:16but it's also developers fault

01:15:18for not caring about getting that right.

01:15:20So if you run into an app that's not getting that right,

01:15:23complain because they can do better.

01:15:24All that said, we got a question from Gus

01:15:27along the same lines that has had me thinking all week.

01:15:31Gus says, sitting in the drain,

01:15:32listening to last week's show, I had a question.

01:15:34You explained the difficulties of combining audio sources

01:15:36to a single output.

01:15:37I wonder why it's also complicated the other way around.

01:15:40When I want to share the audio from my phone

01:15:42to two sets of Bluetooth headphones, this appears impossible.

01:15:45Yes, you can share earbuds, but not headphones.

01:15:49Aux audio splitters were a thing.

01:15:50Why is this not a thing with wireless?

01:15:53This is the most fascinating question.

01:15:55So I looked into this a bunch and I have a couple of theories

01:16:00but my theories are actually not the most interesting part.

01:16:02So let me just get through that really fast.

01:16:04I think one of the reasons this is hard to do

01:16:06on an iPhone in particular is again,

01:16:09it's not a particularly popular thing.

01:16:12And I think if you're a company like Apple,

01:16:14having it set so that you can send all your audio

01:16:19to all your headphones all at the same time,

01:16:21just feels messy.

01:16:23And so for Apple to be able to say,

01:16:24it's essentially one audio device at a time.

01:16:27You don't have to manage it.

01:16:28You don't have to go in and turn them off.

01:16:29You don't have to mess with it.

01:16:30You just tap the one that you want and you start listening.

01:16:33Like, I think about the Sonos thing

01:16:35where if you have a bunch of Sonos speakers,

01:16:37you can set up kind of infinite overlapping sets

01:16:41of those speakers.

01:16:42Like, okay, I want this to just play in my bedroom

01:16:45and in the bathroom,

01:16:46but I want this to play in the living room,

01:16:47the bedroom and the bathroom

01:16:48and I want this one to be on all of them.

01:16:51That's really handy, but it's a lot of work.

01:16:53And I think for Apple,

01:16:55particularly because Bluetooth frankly does get messy.

01:16:58It is not a particularly great protocol.

01:17:00So if you're trying to send synced audio

01:17:01to a bunch of places at once, it can get really complicated.

01:17:05There's actually a way to do this on Android.

01:17:07I'll put a link in the show notes,

01:17:08but especially if you have a Samsung phone,

01:17:10this is a pretty easy thing to do.

01:17:11One thing I've learned by the way through this process

01:17:13is that Samsung phones are very good

01:17:15at just letting you do things.

01:17:16And I've come to really appreciate that

01:17:18about Samsung phones.

01:17:19They're like overly complicated in a lot of ways.

01:17:22They have too many settings menus.

01:17:24But when I look up,

01:17:25like how do you do this hard thing on a phone?

01:17:28The answer most of the time is like,

01:17:29you can't do it on iOS.

01:17:30You can kind of do it on Android

01:17:32and Samsung just has a setting for it.

01:17:34And I love Samsung for that.

01:17:36But I want to share with you the thing that I discovered.

01:17:37And it's possible that I am the last person on earth

01:17:40to have learned this, but I learned this.

01:17:42And so I'm going to share it.

01:17:44There is this thing on iOS that lets you share audio

01:17:49from your device to multiple sets of headphones

01:17:52at the same time.

01:17:53I had no idea this existed.

01:17:54I have done the thing where my wife and I sit on the bed

01:17:59and she has one AirPod and I have the other AirPod.

01:18:03And we just like share a pair of headphones that way.

01:18:05We have to keep our heads really close to each other.

01:18:07Like that's bad.

01:18:08And I just had no idea there was a better way.

01:18:09But it turns out that if you have a supported device,

01:18:13which is basically any new-ish iPhone or iPad,

01:18:18it doesn't seem to work on other devices.

01:18:21You can actually do it on a Mac

01:18:23by using the MIDI settings thing on the Mac.

01:18:26That's a little more complicated,

01:18:27but on an iPhone in particular and on an iPad,

01:18:30which I think is where most people

01:18:31would want to do this kind of thing.

01:18:33Basically you put on your AirPods.

01:18:35This only works if you have AirPods or Beats headphones.

01:18:38But if you put on your AirPods

01:18:41and then when something is playing, you tap the like,

01:18:44I guess it's this sort of AirPlay thing.

01:18:47It's the little triangle with the radial circles around it.

01:18:51It's sort of a sharing menu, sort of an AirPlay menu.

01:18:53I don't really know what to call it,

01:18:54but it's an icon and you tap it.

01:18:57And if someone near you has headphones

01:19:00that you can bring close to your own device,

01:19:03you get a thing that says share audio

01:19:05and you tap share audio

01:19:07and it'll pop up a new set of headphones

01:19:11as if you're pairing a new set of headphones to your device.

01:19:14You then, at least what I've had to do in the past

01:19:16is press and hold the button on the back of those AirPods,

01:19:19like the pairing button on the case.

01:19:22But then it actually syncs it up to your phone

01:19:26and you can play through two sets of AirPods

01:19:29at the same time.

01:19:30This blew my mind.

01:19:31Like how is this not a more known feature?

01:19:34Maybe I'm the last person on earth, again,

01:19:36to have discovered that this exists.

01:19:38But this is just a thing you can do.

01:19:39You can do it in Control Center.

01:19:41It's most accessible, I've found,

01:19:43by the little live activity notification on the lock screen

01:19:47where you can hit the share button that way.

01:19:50But the idea that you can actually have your phone connected

01:19:53and synced simultaneously to two sets of AirPods

01:19:57is very cool.

01:19:58Again, it's only AirPods and Beats headphones

01:20:00and it's only iPhones and iPads of a certain recency,

01:20:04but odds are, I think most of them seem to be

01:20:08if your device still works,

01:20:10it's new enough that it'll work.

01:20:12But this is nuts.

01:20:13And this, I think, will solve a lot of problems

01:20:14for a lot of people

01:20:15because the iPhone-AirPods connection is pretty real.

01:20:18So if I have AirPods and an iPhone and you have AirPods,

01:20:23we can both listen through our AirPods

01:20:25to the same thing at the same time.

01:20:26It's kind of hacky and it took me like three tries

01:20:29to get it to work the first time with my wife's AirPods.

01:20:32And then you have to make sure

01:20:33that they're both checked when they're connected

01:20:36and they'll kind of disconnect

01:20:38if you take one of your headphones off

01:20:40because then the pause gets sort of wacky.

01:20:42And this is the kind of thing where I'm like,

01:20:43okay, I get why Apple is not super excited about this.

01:20:46Like if I'm wearing AirPods and I have it set

01:20:48so that when I take my headphones out, my music will pause,

01:20:52should it also pause for you if you're wearing AirPods

01:20:54and we have our audio sync?

01:20:56This stuff is complicated

01:20:57and I don't think it works super well.

01:21:00I've been testing this a little bit and it's not perfect,

01:21:02but like the use case that I have

01:21:06is I have a sleeping child in my room

01:21:08and we wanna watch something that we can both listen to.

01:21:11This legitimately solves that problem.

01:21:14And I think that's very exciting.

01:21:15So I'm gonna share a link in the show notes

01:21:17to Apple's support page for how this works.

01:21:19It's pretty helpful

01:21:20and does a good job of explaining how it works.

01:21:22But sharing audio really works

01:21:25and you can do it on lots of different devices

01:21:28and I highly recommend it

01:21:29if you wanna solve this problem in a less hacky way.

01:21:33If you wanna solve this problem in a more hacky way,

01:21:35you can do what I've been doing for years

01:21:36and just buy a headphone splitter.

01:21:38I have been traveling with a headphone splitter

01:21:40for a very long time and I just plug it into the iPhone,

01:21:44plug two sets of headphones in,

01:21:46Bob's your uncle, as they say.

01:21:47It's a useful hack,

01:21:49but this one's a little more elegant, let's say.

01:21:51Anyway, I am still fascinated

01:21:52by how audio works on these devices.

01:21:54So if you have more funky edge cases

01:21:56or ideas about how all of this should work,

01:21:59I got a lot of people who agree with my theory

01:22:01that what Apple needs here is a really good now playing app

01:22:05that lets you control this stuff more manually.

01:22:08I don't think we're ever getting that,

01:22:09but if you solve this, I wanna hear all about it.

01:22:12Anyway, for now, that is it for the Verge cast.

01:22:16Thank you to everybody who came on the show

01:22:17and thank you as always for listening.

01:22:19There's lots more on everything we talked about

01:22:20at theverge.com.

01:22:21I'll put a bunch of stuff in the show notes.

01:22:23I'm gonna link to as many of the apps

01:22:25and things that V mentioned that I can find.

01:22:27I'll put some stuff for the Nokia design archive in there.

01:22:30And as always, read theverge.com.

01:22:32The news continues unabated, my friends.

01:22:34It's crazy out there.

01:22:35By the way, thank you to everybody who's reached out

01:22:37with ideas about how we should cover politics

01:22:39and how you use chat GPT.

01:22:41We're gonna talk about a bunch of that stuff

01:22:42with Nilay on Friday.

01:22:43So if you have more ideas and more thoughts, get them in.

01:22:46We're gonna have a pretty hotline-y episode on Friday.

01:22:48I'm very excited about it.

01:22:49And as always, if you have thoughts, feelings, questions

01:22:51about anything else, you can always email us

01:22:53at vergecasts to theverge.com.

01:22:55Call the hotline 866-VERGE11.

01:22:57We truly love hearing from you.

01:22:59This show is produced by Eric Gomez, Will Poore,

01:23:01and Brandon Kiefer.

01:23:02The Verge Cast is a Verge production,

01:23:04part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

01:23:06Nilay and I will be back on Friday, like I said,

01:23:07to talk about chat GPT, politics,

01:23:10people raising tons of money,

01:23:11how big is Mark Zuckerberg's data center,

01:23:13and a whole bunch of other stuff.

01:23:15We'll see you then.

01:23:16Rock and roll.

A lazy person's guide to getting in shape | The Vergecast

Category

Transcript

Recommended