104: ‘2014 Year in Review’ With Guest Rene Ritchie
The Talk Show With John Gruber
12/26/14
•138m
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Special guest Rene Ritchie returns to the show for a special Apple 2014 year-in-review episode. Just a few of the many topics covered: Apple’s Beats acquisition; WWDC 2014 in hindsight; an aside speculating on the alternate universe where Google acquired WebOS instead of Android; the similarities between the “projected UI” nature of AirPlay, CarPlay, and WatchKit; UI fonts (Helvetica Neue in Yosemite, Apple Sans, and the Watch’s San Francisco (a.k.a. “DINvetica”)); Apple’s growing ability to design and bring to market its own hardware internals and components; recent controversies and confusing rejections at the App Store (and the need for a public-facing App Store ombudsman); and what we’re looking forward to in 2015.
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Links:
Previous Episode
103: ‘Robotitize the Assembly’ With Guest Dan Frommer
December 16, 2014
•115m
Special guest Dan Frommer joins the show to talk about prop bets in Vegas, more Star Wars, some follow-up on James Bond, what should Apple do with its mountains of cash?, speculation on why iPad sales growth has stagnated, and more. Also, some in-depth segments on Instagram and the concept of “institutional taste”.
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Links:
- Great photo of Dan, recording the show at Quartz’s office.
- Dan’s article, “Ten Things We Learned About Apple in 2014”.
- The Cubs sign ex-Rays manager Joe Madden and pitcher Jon Lester.
- Superbowl 51 will go back to stupid Roman numerals.
- Eric Jackson’s piece for Forbes, “Apple’s $100 Billion Waste: Tim Cook’s Single Biggest Mistake As CEO”, wherein he argues Apple should buy Tesla, Twitter, and Pinterest.
- GT Advanced and their crazy approach to making deals.
- Instagram active user announcement.
- Ev Williams “doesn’t give a shit” about Instagram’s numbers.
- OK Go’s latest video. Seriously, watch this.
- Stephen Colbert on the new Sith lightsaber in The Force Awakens teaser.
Next Episode
105: ‘George Lucas Called’ With Guest Jason Snell
December 30, 2014
•137m
Special guest Jason Snell joins the show for a year-end extravaganza. Topics include Jason’s first three months writing (and podcasting) as an indie at his new Six Colors; a look back at his 20-year career at MacUser and soon thereafter Macworld; tricky edge cases when booking sponsorships, and the whole situation with separating advertising sales from editorial integrity when you’re running a one-person publication; the Sony/North Korea hacking and The Interview, and iTunes’s slightly belated release thereof; and we pour one out for good old Movable Type.
Sponsored by:
- Hover: The world’s best domain registrar. Use coupon code “bourbon” and save 10 percent on any order.
- Backblaze: Unlimited, unthrottled, online backup for Mac.
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Links:
- McSweeney’s: “Email Addresses It Would Be Really Hard to Give Out Over the Phone” (a classic).
- Jason Snell at Six Colors: “No Other Gatekeeper But Me”
- Power Computing, the leading Mac clone maker.
- Mac clones.
- The 1997 merger of MacUser and Macworld.
- Chandler reading Macworld on Friends
- Daring Fireball piece on software bundles back in 2006: “The Iniquities of the Selfish”.
- Wilfredo Sanchez’s crackerjack whitepaper from 2000: “The Challenges of Integrating the Unix and Mac OS Environments”.
- Lycos, not dead yet.
- John Gruber, Dan Moren, and Jason Snell talking about Raiders of the Lost Ark on episode 8 of The Incomparable back in 2010.
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