296: ‘Cameras Every Single Where’, With Michael Simmons
The Talk Show With John Gruber
09/26/20
•140m
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Special guest Michael Simmons joins the show. Topics include the release of iOS 14, widgets and home screen customization, pricing models for indie apps in the App Store era, and, of course, flying robot cameras.
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Links:
- Fantastical’s iOS 14 update with customizable widgets galore.
- Apple gave developers less than 24 hours notice that iOS 14 was about to ship, despite spending all summer encouraging developers to be ready with iOS 14 features at launch.
- Nova — Panic’s new code editor/IDE for Mac.
- Sketch — excellent Mac design and prototyping tool.
- Agenda — excellent notes/planning app for Mac and iOS.
- @mcharo on Twitter customized all his apps with icons of their company CEOs (or indie creators).
- IEEE Spectrum: “Why You Should Be Very Skeptical of Ring’s Indoor Security Drone”.
Mac desktop customization memory lane with Greg Landweber’s utilities:
- Greg’s Browser — NeXT-style column view file manager for classic Mac, worked wonderfully alongside the classic Finder.
- Greg’s Buttons — Control Panel to customize the interface of System 7, turned flat black-and-white buttons into cool 3D buttons. Now we’ve turned all our cool 3D buttons into boring monochromatic flat buttons.
- Aaron — brought the then-future Platinum appearance to System 7.
- BeView — made your Mac look like BeOS.
- Kaleidoscope — the masterpiece of the genre, from Landweber and Arlo Rose. A full-on custom theme engine for an OS that was not designed with system-wide theming as a feature. The golden age of interface customization hacks.
- Appearance Manager — Apple’s officially supported theming engine that wound up shipping with just one theme.
- Info on Apple’s Hi-Tech, Gizmo, and Drawing Board themes.
- August 2000 ATPM story by Christopher Turner on Kaleidoscope and Appearance Manager.
This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.
Previous Episode
295: ‘Signing Up to Take Some Vitamins’, With Peter Kafka
September 17, 2020
•79m
Peter Kafka returns to the show to discuss the news from Apple's "Time Flies" event -- new Apple Watches, new non-Pro iPads, and particularly the Apple One services bundle.
Sponsored by:
- Linode: Instantly deploy and manage an SSD server in the Linode Cloud. New accounts get a $20 credit with code talkshow20.
- Mack Weldon: Reinventing men’s basics with smart design, premium fabrics, and simple shopping. Get 20% off your first order with code talkshow.
Links:
- “Ricky Jay’s Magical Secrets” — Mark Singer’s wondrous profile for The New Yorker in 1993. I just burst out laughing when I re-read this snippet I quoted from that piece for DF.
- The complete Ricky Jay archives at DF.
- Spotify’s statement griping that Apple One constitutes anticompetive behavior.
- The latest episode of Peter’s own podcast, Recode Media, with special guest Ben Thompson.
- Apple’s “Time Flies” event video.
- My thoughts and observations on the event and announcements.
- “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” — Apple’s new retro style commercial for Apple Watch Family Setup.
This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.
Next Episode
297: ‘Subscribed to a Hamburger’, With David Smith
September 30, 2020
•166m
Special guest “Underscore” David Smith joins the show to talk about iOS 14 widgets, WatchOS complications, sleep tracking, and his App Store chart-topping hit Widgetsmith.
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- Mint Mobile: Get your new wireless plan for just $15/month with free shipping.
Underscore’s apps:
- Widgetsmith
- Watchsmith
- Sleep++
- Pedometer++
- And a lot more. Seriously, he makes a lot of apps.
Other links:
- Under the Radar — Underscore’s weekly podcast with Marco Arment.
- Daring Fireball: “Widgetsmith and The Case of the Missing App Store Bunco Squad”.
- National Weather Service.
- Weatherline.
- Michael Ward’s classic 2004 piece for McSweeney’s: “E-Mail Addresses It Would Be Really Annoying to Give Out Over the Phone”.
This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.
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