438: ‘2025 Year in Review’, With Rene Ritchie
The Talk Show With John Gruber
12/31/25
•162m
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A look back at Apple’s 2025, with special guest Rene Ritchie.
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Transcripts: Unofficial but surprisingly good.
Links:
- The classic Mac OS Appearance Manager and its support for (rather garish) themes:
- ATPM, August 2000: “GUI Junkie: Schemin’ and Themin’” by Christopher Turner. Includes screenshots.
- Wikipedia: Appearance Manager.
- Luria Petrucci celebrates 20 years on YouTube.
- Steve Jobs on product people vs. sales/marketing people, back in the early 1990s.
- John Browett’s brief tenure running retail at Apple back in 2012. His sacking was effectively a footnote in the announcement that Apple had parted with Scott Forstall.
This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.
Previous Episode
437: ‘A Naughty Citizen’, With Quinn Nelson
December 24, 2025
•148m
Special guest Quinn Nelson returns for a two-topic holiday spectacular: the iPad in the wake of iPadOS 26, and Apple's executive changes as Tim Cook seemingly nears the end of his time as CEO.
Sponsored by:
- Notion: The AI workspace where teams and AI agents get more done together.
- Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code talkshow.
Transcripts: Unofficial but surprisingly good.
Links:
- Quinn on YouTube:
- "The iPad's Software Problem Is Permanent".
- "Apple Is Falling Apart (On Purpose)" (on executive shuffling).
- Spark -- Quinn's email app of choice.
- Yours truly back in January 2020: "The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10".
- Slide Over was originally eliminated in iPadOS 26 but came back in 26.1.
- Apple Notes extension apps, available on the Mac because they're only possible on the Mac because the iPad and iPhone are baby computers:
- Mark Papermaster, the hardware executive who took the fall for the iPhone 4 antenna saga.
- The classic cartoon from 2013: "Organizational Charts of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle".
This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.
Next Episode
439: ‘A Mitigated Disaster’, With Daniel Jalkut
January 26
•119m
Daniel Jalkut returns to the show so we can both vent about MacOS 26 Tahoe.
Sponsored by:
- Notion: The AI workspace where teams and AI agents get more done together.
- Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code talkshow.
- Sentry: A real-time error monitoring and tracing platform. Use code TALKSHOW for $80 in free credits.
- Factor: Healthy eating, made easy. Get 50% off your first box, plus free breakfast for 1 year, with code talkshow50off.
Transcripts: Unofficial but surprisingly good.
Links:
- Classic Mac OS Control Strip.
- Manu Cornet’s oft-cited cartoon caricaturizing the org charts of major tech companies circa 2011.
- Black Ink.
- MarsEdit.
- Rogue Amoeba: “Removing Tahoe’s Unwanted Menu Icons”.
This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.
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