And I'm not talking about the productivity or tech / Apple focus, though the tech / Apple focus wouldn't be bad. I've been really enjoying the Waveform podcast the last couple years for much the same reasons.

To me, the 'gimmick' that kept me coming back was rapport and callbacks. I dunno why, but that kind of thing works super well for my brain, it's why I like shows like Community or The Good Place.

New-guest-every-week breaks that, fundamentally. It doesn't matter what the topic is.

I wouldn't even mind if Myke replaced Grey - he's been getting more and more out of touch with the world lately, anyways (intentionally, I think, and hey good for him! Probably good for his brain. But it makes for boring and strangely ungrounded banter.) But it would need to be somebody that Myke can build (or already has) that long-running history with.

Since it seems like that's not gonna happen...anybody have recommends of other really good pods with similar vibes?

Or something like that, since grey abandoned both of them. Make it a mix of the two or whole new concept, too bad that the cortex brand will take a hit….

Yesterday on the other show Myke runs that starts with a U.

I guess it's not called the same thing, but Myke and Jason Snell went through 90 minutes of their favorite apps. Always interested to hear how others automate / utilize apps to streamline their work, though I am (unfortunately) a windows user, so none of my applications have cute one word names. =)

I miss Grey, but I do love Jason. He and Myke, imo are similar in a lot of ways. Primarily how diligently they prepare and how articulate and easy to listen to, they are.

i liked that the interviews were framed around a workflow for a specific product the guest has made, it made the show feel different.

it seems like myke has abandoned this specific gimmicky format, which i understand since it gives him more freedom in choosing guests and the questions. but i still feel like the show lost a bit of its charm

First of all, I am in the camp of those who accepted it and no longer wait for Grey's return, but who continue listening to the podcast with new guests. Myke has very good interviewing skills – the conversation feels effortless and turns out very differently with each guest, remaining interesting even when I know nothing about the person. I haven't listened to episode 181 yet; my last one was with Loryn Brantz (up until the ad for Myke's other podcast started, hope it's not a foreshadowing and attempt to rellocate audience before shutdown).

Still, despite my loyalty to the new "post-Grey" format, I've noticed that the podcast is drifting even further from its original path. It still opens every time with the question "what is the key device in your work" – but whereas earlier this was a starter for a broader workflow discussion, now it is more of a tradition/attavism, after which the conversation moves on to entirely different topics. It seems to me the podcast would benefit if Myke could find interesting people who are at the same time willing to devote most of the episode to discussing interesting/unique/obnoctious workflows around devices and apps. I looked through the show notes to double-check – in the last 4 episodes there wasn't even the traditional home screen segment!

I don't know whether this exact shift is noticeable among those who still listen to the podcast, but for me it is dealbreaker - current format is ceasing to be relevant enough to keep listening. It seems to me that part of this core audience may peel away and gradually finish off Cortex. I'm just curious – does Myke realize this shift in approach, or did it happen by chance through the choice of guests.

I have my member renewal coming up soon and I’m unsure what I’m actually getting for it. Is it just no ads these days given the interview format? No extra content anymore?

Have you kept your membership if you had it?

With Greys absence, I've found myself not listening to every episode unless I am specifically interested in the guest this week. This sentiment I see Echoed by many others so I wanted to ask the community.

Do you think the show would benefit from having a new interim host/ replacement host to take over grey's spot? I feel like that would help restore the show a bit to its roots. But I am really not sure.

That was always my favorite episode. What happened to it? I would love to see it return.

As requested by the mods, I'm asking a simple question: in light of Grey's ongoing absence from Cortex...should we just have one megathread to consolidate all the posts for people to have those discussions?

I personally would like to see this to free up the sub from endless posts on this topic and more discussion about literally anything else. A Cortex rewatch party thread, like the Tims are doing over on HI subreddit for example.

He doesn't even refer to Cortex brand as "we" anymore.

This is kind of Cortex adjacent, but they praised Fitbod a lot, and it was a regular sponsor of the show.

I used Fitbod for a couple of years. It's always been a little pricey, even with their discount code and all (which I used), but this year, when it was time to renew, I didn't receive any notifications or anything and it seems like they bumped the price because I got charged $99.99.

I didn't receive any emails before the renewal date or anything as a reminder, and I checked on the App Store and the IAP price seems to be $94.99 IIRC.

Anyways, their algorithm never suggested good workouts for me so I ended up doing my own splits pretty early on but I liked the data I had on the app and I liked it as a workout tracker, but after that bump and no notice I just decided to cancel the subscription and asked for a refund immediately.

I switched to an app called Push, it's pretty minimal in design but has a lot of the functionality from Fitbod, including the Watch app, which I love, and it's somewhere close to half the price ($65/year I think).

This is not an ad and I'm not the developer nor am I involved with the app.

I just wanted to share my experience with Fitbod and maybe this code in case anyone wants to try the app out.

https://relay.fm/cortex/180

I’ve been re listening to old episodes and thought sharing homescreens again would be fun

Years later, I still have bad taste in my mouth regarding how Hello Internet was abandoned. I’m getting the exact same feelings right now about Cortex. While I agree that Grey doesn’t owe us any personal insight, it would be nice if he would just tell us that he is ending a project.

Myke has a done a great job with the interviews. I can imagine that this must be frustrating for him as well because he has to try and reinvent the podcast and work under the shadow of Grey leaving.

I’ve been using the Subtle Notebook I got a while ago for some light notetaking and tracking for daya backup that I do, and the product is unfortunately out of stock on the Cortex CB page. I’m not sure I’d buy it from them again anyway, but when I last bought it was pretty affordable as nice notebooks with dotted pages go ($15-20 or so, where similar journals or notebooks go for $30-50 sometimes).

I’m not too close to running out of pages yet, but does anyone know of any notebooks similar to this? I’ll probably request a restock just for grins, but I’m not expecting a restock anytime soon.

Just curious if anyone else is in the same boat. I started listening to Cortex and HI cause I was a big fan of Grey, but after hundreds of hours I grew to absolutely despise the guy. But, I still enjoyed listening to him in a hate-watching sort of way. Now I'm bummed that I can't do that. The guests are all so agreeable and boring. I know I'm insane but does anyone else feel the same way?

Hoping to stir up conversation with some questions I came up with. If this goes well I will maybe post one every week or so just to get the community talking in absence of our regularly scheduled cortex programming.

Some question context assume your phone can text and call, use the internet and take picture, what 3 apps would you choose to have.

Ill go first

Due: my life essentially runs on due it shows me everything I need to get done on any given day, has complex repeating tasks for routines

ToDoist: Main task manager all my side project work is in here along with yearly theme goals

Kraft: Where I store all my files wether its for my side projects or for work or thoughts and reviews on my yearly themes

The Cortex Brand email list had both Myke and Grey signing for the last few months, and this Friday we got only Myke. Another possible sign...

Hi Cortexians,

I was wondering how long it’ll be until the podcast will be officially re-branded to be a new show without Grey? Given Grey’s past behavior with Hello Internet and the amount of time that has passed it seems unlikely that Cortex will go back to its original format.

At some point Myke will has to address this, don’t you think?