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Accidental Tech Podcast

Accidental Tech Podcast

711 episodes — Page 14 of 15

Ep 6161: Perfectly Neutral

Follow-up on Photo Stream Web Sites Follow-up on vinyl, including how Marc Edwards thinks it's evil, and the difference between pleasing and accurate sound. (Marco's open and closed headphones, amp, and DAC) The Apple insight attained by way of documents released in the Samsung trial Creativity, Inc., the book about Pixar by Ed Catmull Is Greg Christie's departure a contentious story or not? This, too, relates to Pixar Ken Ferry on getting ideas approved at Apple, as heard on Debug #33 Artemis pCell (demo video) Scaling servers and how to use MySQL effectively Marco's preferred book (but he prefers the second edition) Perhaps not use MySQL? A long list of MySQL gotchas How FriendFeed did crazy schema-less MySQL After show: why Casey hates his car, thanks to a trip to the movies. Sponsored by: PDFpen for iPad: Powerful, mobile PDF editing. Igloo: Igloo is an intranet you'll actually like. New Relic: See your web app's performance and find bottlenecks anywhere in the stack. Start your 30-day free trial.

Apr 18, 20141h 54m

Ep 6060: The Great Odwalla Flavor Change of 2013

Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em while you sunset Dance Jam WWDC How to make a lottery work, like Shmoocon does How to write a live blogging system for keynotes Our winnings and losses in the WWDC Don't-Call-it-a-Lottery Levels of randomness and Apple's discretionary pool of tickets What's the right way to distribute tickets? Is today's WWDC really tenable? What could be done? AltConf and "CDWW" Heartbleed Dropbox's Announcements Condoleezza Rice joins their board Carousel, a new photo sharing app. Some potential trademark issues with some friends of Marco and Casey's Does this leverage Everpix IP? How the UI is similar to Oldsmobile speedometers from the 80s Lightroom Mobile In an unusually angsty after-show, John takes Marco and Casey on: Where do crashes really come from? John on Debug #32 Is Vinyl really better than CDs? IRL Talk #19 Casey on IRL Talk #21 Christopher “Monty” Montgomery's excellent video explaining audio sampling Sponsored by: Backblaze: Online backup for $5/month. Native. Unlimited. Unthrottled. Uncomplicated. New Relic: See your web app's performance and find bottlenecks anywhere in the stack. Start your 30-day free trial. Transporter: A private cloud storage drive that you own and control. Use code ATP10 for 10% off any Transporter.

Apr 11, 20142h 23m

Ep 5959: The Little Puck That Could

Follow-up on vocabulary and Michael Abrash joining Oculus. Amazon Fire TV — no fan! USB-IF's renderings of their proposed new connector The giant anti-poaching collusion between Google, Apple, and dozens of other companies (Facebook apparently refused) Google checking with Steve Jobs first before making a hiring decision After-show: We tried to predict WWDC dates, not knowing that Apple would announce them 12 hours later, then discussed ticket lotteries and how Apple probably wouldn't build one. (Yeah.) Sponsored by: Warby Parker: Boutique-quality, vintage-inspired eyewear at a revolutionary price. Pixelmator: Full-featured image editing app for the Mac. 2Checkout: Control your checkout experience from pixel to payout with our Payment API. Visit for your free sandbox account.

Apr 4, 20141h 40m

Ep 5858: Always On Vacation In California

Follow-up on discussing sexism in technology, Anil's experiment, empathy, ad hominem tu quoque, and cultural rigidity. Facebook buying Oculus: Outrage from Oculus' Kickstarter backers, including from Minecraft creator Notch, and the expectations that Kickstarter creates in "backers". Why did Oculus sell? How far into the future did Oculus' "vision" extend, and what will happen to its vision now? Why did Facebook buy? Does Mark Zuckerberg have a clear vision for Facebook's future? Facebook's Hack language extension to PHP: PHP is poorly designed but very practical. The risks of using Hack (Marco's two posts). Sponsored by: HelpSpot: Simple, powerful, customizable help-desk software with no monthly fees. Use code ATP14 for $100 off. Igloo: Igloo is an intranet you'll actually like. (Nobody likes SharePoint.) Warby Parker: Boutique-quality, vintage-inspired eyewear at a revolutionary price.

Mar 28, 20142h 0m

Ep 5757: Smorgasbord of Pronunciation

Follow-up on the complexity of computer science versus other fields: quotes and videos from MIT's SICP class (9:00–10:45). The death of the iPad 2, the use of sapphire in Apple devices, sapphire versus Gorilla Glass, and the flexible LG phone. Haunted Empire, the Jony Ive book, the Jony Ive interview, access to Apple, and hiring hacks for tech stories. Sony's Project Morpheus VR headset and initial impressions The Oculus Rift Michael Abrash's blog posts: Two Possible Paths into the Future of Wearable Computing Part 1 When it comes to resolution, it's all relative Latency – the sine qua non of AR and VR Raster-Scan Displays: More Than Meets the Eye Game Developers Conference and space-time diagrams Why virtual isn't real to your brain Down the VR rabbit hole: Fixing judder John Carmack and his latency mitigation strategies Casey's birthday party as a child Why Oculus hopes Project Morpheus is good The GitHub hubbub, sexism, and how to get better (such as App Camp for Girls). Sponsored by: RemObjects C#: Write native iOS and Android apps using the C# language that you already know. TextExpander: Stop wasting time typing the same things over and over again. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code CRITICAL for 10% off.

Mar 21, 20141h 34m

Ep 5656: The Woodpecker

Follow-up on software complexity: The Mythical Man-Month, No Silver Bullet, the original Agile manifesto, and what Agile has become. What we found most useful from our computer-science educations. Marco's impressions of his new Mac Pro. External disks, PCI-Express SSDs, and cable management. John buys a home-theater AV receiver. (The newer version he didn't need) Stereo vs. surround speakers, and integrated vs. external subwoofers. (Marco's tiny, buggy amp and great speakers). After-show: Pono, ABX tests, mp3ornot. Sponsored by: Transporter: A private cloud storage drive that you own and control. Use code ATP for 10% off any Transporter. Ting: Mobile that makes sense. No contracts, and pay only for what you use. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code CRITICAL for 10% off.

Mar 14, 20142h 5m

Ep 5555: Dave, Who Stinks!

Follow-up on Final Draft and treating warnings as exceptions in production. Software methodologies. For real this time. Why don’t software development methodologies work? Evidence-based scheduling. Marco plugs FCModel, Casey plugs his Debug appearance, and John plugs bleeps and boops. After-show: CarPlay, and £1,600 audiophile Ethernet cables (via Dalton). Sponsored by: In Flux: A new music album that explores the interplay between video games, music, and nostalgia. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code CRITICAL for 10% off. Ting: Mobile that makes sense. No contracts, and pay only for what you use.

Mar 6, 20142h 10m

Ep 5454: goto fail;

Wolfram Language. The "goto fail" SSL bug and the chances that it was nefariously introduced by an NSA effort, possibly as part of their $250 million annual budget for such operations. Apple's warrant canary. Casey's and Marco's hard-to-find bugs and language misfeatures. (Perl protects John from writing bugs.) Whether language-interpreter warnings should be treated as errors in production. The Scriptnotes episode with the Final Draft CEO, the follow-up in the next episode, and Kent Tessman's response. After-show: Google lobbying against Glass bans while driving, and Objective-C exception conventions. Next week will be the Software Methodologies show. For real this time! Sponsored by: Picturelife: The one app your photos need. Back up, search, edit, and share on Mac and iOS. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code CASEY for 10% off. HelpSpot: Simple, powerful, customizable help-desk software with no monthly fees. Use code ATP14 for $100 off.

Feb 28, 20141h 52m

Ep 5353: There’s Gonna Be Some Flapping

Follow-up on why Flappy Bird was successful. Kieran Healy's excellent article with science. John Gruber and Merlin Mann at SXSW '09. Goofball Jones' anonymous criticism of John's "shtick", and John's defense including many links: An explanation of John's "schtick" Some podcasts where John talks about things he likes: Goodfellas I Like My Coffee Like My Evil Sith Lords Death Star University Darth Vader's Office is Really Weird Jedi Weekend Wind is the Enemy Skywalker's Eleven Also Known as Endor Journey: Then We Touched, Then We Sang Professor Siracusa's Anime 101 Hangin' With the Totes Masterpiece: Ico The Incomparable #100: Who Cares What We Think? - Why we do podcasts about what we think of things, good and bad. An ATP episode about how we deal with criticism The massive WhatsApp acquistion by Facebook, the huge value of mobile messaging, and the web giants' chilling effect on competition. The "Copland 2010" argument that Objective-C needs to be replaced: John's original "Copland 2010" article from 2005 Copland 2010 Revisited (in 2010) We Need to Replace Objective-C (Ash Furrow) Replacing Objective-C and Cocoa (Steve Streza) Objective: Copland 2010 (Guy English) Separating language shortcomings from API shortcomings. Casey got us to talk about LINQ briefly. Long-term evolution of programming languages. Sponsored by: Ting: Mobile that makes sense. No contracts, and pay only for what you use. lynda.com: Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials. Free 7-day trial. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code CASEY for 10% off.

Feb 21, 20142h 5m

Ep 5252: Necessary But Not Sufficient

Facebook Paper's gesture usability, in-app tutorial videos, and the design challenge of gestural interface. RootMetrics testing real-world wireless speeds. Despite constant effort to improve usability, what if computers just aren't for everyone? (There's a similar long-standing debate with programming. See 4GL.) The Flappy Bird saga: Whether it's a good game and why the developer pulled it. (See also: Super Hexagon.) Is free-with-in-app-purchase ruining the game industry?. Comcast buying Time Warner and the implications on U.S. broadband competition. The stupid new top-level domains (TLDs). iBeacons and Bluetooth LE in stores and .museums. After-show: Bionic on new TLDs (at 26:50) and whether the TLDs are just a scam by ICANN, Patreon, and yet more on the Mac Pro. Sponsored by: Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code WHOTHEHELLISCASEY for 10% off. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code CASEY for 10% off. Transporter: A private cloud storage drive that you own and control. Use code ATP for 10% off any Transporter, or ATPSHARE to get the Transporter Sync for just $75.

Feb 14, 20141h 47m

Ep 5151: Maybe We’re Just Dinosaurs

The FiOS net-neutrality non-story and last summer's YouTube-throttling story. More FU on iPads going pro, giant-tablet-desk ergonomics, trying to understand John's theory again, and a train analogy from Casey. New Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Bill Gates' new wildcard role, and Microsoft's likely future direction. (Marco's post, John Gruber's post, Brent Simmons' post) Paper, Paper, Paper, Fifty Three, and Figure 53. Responsibly naming things by first searching for trademark conflicts and potentially applying for your own trademark. Apple's role in App Store name conflicts. Facebook Paper's opportunity cost to the world. After-show: More on Microsoft and some Retina MacBook Air speculation. Sponsored by: Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code CASEY for 10% off. Ting: Mobile that makes sense. No contracts, and pay only for what you use. lynda.com: Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials. Free 7-day trial.

Feb 7, 20141h 56m

Ep 5050: Disk Light Observer Effect

Follow-up on why an iPad "Pro" needs to be larger and why iOS is "better for people". Can iOS add more power-user functionality without harming its simplicity or usability? Whether Macs should ship with ARM CPUs, how such a transition would be challenging today, and whether Casey should just buy another power adapter. The 30th anniversary of the Macintosh and the experience of using its power switch (photo from iFixit's awesome teardown). Disk-ejecting usability. Using iStat Menus to monitor your performance and assist future hardware decisions. (Or not.) Lenovo buying Motorola's pillaged carcass from Google, and whether they ruined the IBM ThinkPad. After-show: What will we reflect on in 20 years as being the obvious sore spot with computers today? Sponsored by: HelpSpot: Simple, powerful, customizable help-desk software with no monthly fees. Use code ATP14 for $100 off. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code MARCO for 10% off. Cards Against Humanity: A free party game for horrible people.

Jan 31, 20141h 54m

Ep 4949: Roamio and Siracusiet

Follow-up: Genius Bar employee reports of how most people deal with iCloud backups, photo backups, and storage limits, iExplorer for exporting iMessages. iOS' storage model is a leaky abstraction. Google may have wanted Nest for its smart-home project as well as the more obvious reasons. TiVo may be exiting the hardware business, or maybe not. Nintendo continues to hurt. Why was the first Wii really successful, and what really held back its long-term usage? Matt Drance, Fred Wilson, and Nilay Patel on the net neutrality news. After-show: The Prompt looks back on the iPhone keynote, The Prompt on an iPad Pro, The Talk Show on crossing iOS and OS X, Not Playing podcast. Sponsored by: Harvest: Simple, beautiful online time-tracking software. Use code ATP for 50% off your first month. lynda.com: Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials. Free 7-day trial. Fracture: Photos printed in vivid color directly on glass. Use code ATP14 for 20% off. (Marco's app-icon Fractures)

Jan 24, 20142h 6m

Ep 4848: Marco Bought Four

Follow-up: whether iMessage problems are widespread, reasons behind flattening the Mac Mini, and HDR TVs. The storage costs of Casey's emoji. Google buying Nest for $3.2 billion. Ben Thompson on Google's business model. Nest has over 200 employees, including many ex-Apple employees. The Target-pregnant story. Marco's critical reading of Nest's statements. Maintaining a skeptical but pragmatic relationship with Google. Stephen Hackett's pants and regrets. Modern expectations of privacy. Potential for privacy laws like HIPAA applied to consumer technology. Google's public opinion is turning, but stories like this will never be in USA Today. Thought experiments with Apple buying Twitter, Dropbox, or Intel. After-show: Marco's house is filled with LEDs, John's house is filled with CFLs, and Casey's house is filled with apathy. Sponsored by: Transporter: A private cloud storage drive that you own and control. Use code ATP for 10% off any Transporter. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code MARCO for 10% off. Ting: Mobile that makes sense. No contracts, and pay only for what you use.

Jan 17, 20141h 29m

Ep 4747: Better Pixels

Follow-up: IBM AS/400 (aka System i) and single-level store. Marco's Retina theory. PS4 and Xbone sales. Trying to care about CES. Who "needs" the Mac Pro? Justifying toys and improving quality of life with smart purchases. Panasonic’s new LCD TVs compared to great TVs of the past. 4K on Fox Sports, 4K's color space, and the chances of 4K catching on quickly. A Steam Box (its controller) as a replacement for a gaming PC. Three old men reminiscing about their teenage gaming years: Null-modem cables, modems, and special networking software. Modem initialization strings and SLIP. What killed LAN parties? Perhaps it was great 4-player N64 games. Three Moves Ahead Podcast. Voodoo 3D cards, their silly cables, and Sound Blasters. Sponsored by: Fracture: Photos printed in vivid color directly on glass. Use code ATP14 for 25% off. (Marco's app-icon Fractures) Ting: Mobile that makes sense. No contracts, and pay only for what you use. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code MARCO for 10% off.

Jan 10, 20141h 47m

Ep 4646: A Compromised Machine

Mac Pro follow-up: socketed CPUs and potential upgrades, and the benefits of only using stock Apple parts. Scoring Apple's performance on John's 2013 to-do list. Concerns about Apple's recent Mac apps, including iWork '13 and Messages/iMessage. AnandTech's Mac Pro review. The Mac Pro's 4K/Retina monitor situation. The iMac vs. the Mac Pro, and the hardware needs of developers. Why do John and Marco care so much about Retina? What the next big computer-hardware shift may be. After-show: our future as old men, saturating USB 3, and the often-neglected Mac Mini. Sponsored by: OmniGraffle: Sketchy mockups or pixel-perfect designs for UX, UI, and diagrams. Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code TECHBYCHANCE for 10% off. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code MARCO for 10% off.

Jan 3, 20142h 2m

Ep 4545: Give Up On The Retina Dream

Explaining our podcast artwork. Facebook Likes in the App Store and ad-banner blindness. Dual-input displays and how they enable the 5120x2880 display that John and Marco want. Turbo Boost and the Mac Pro's CPU options. Using a laptop on a stand with an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor. The benefits of desktops and ECC. Mac Pro configurations for best value and future-proofing. Building separate gaming PCs, switching to iMacs, or trying to wedge PC gaming into Mac Pros. Mac Pro price stratification over time. Outlook 2011 for Mac complaints and John's multiple-selection-invalidation bug. Casey said some stuff at the end. Special holiday theme song by Jonathan Mann. Sponsored by: Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off. Warby Parker: Boutique-quality, vintage-inspired eyewear at a revolutionary price.

Dec 26, 20131h 38m

Ep 4444: A Plague With Very Minor Effects

What if the new USB connector is too similar to Lightning? (John Gruber on Lightning) Potential for 5120-wide Retina displays to overcome Thunderbolt bandwidth limits by using "dual-input displays"? John's "quick" tips for TV calibration. (THX TV-calibration app) "Rate This App" dialogs: The Talk Show's excellent discussion. Marco's post. Underscore David Smith on App Store quality standards. How Apple could process "report as inappropriate" at scale. The effects of web popularity on Casey and Marco's respective unpopular apps (Fast Text and Bugshot). 5 Whys exploring why developers use "Rate This App" dialogs. What could Apple do to improve this? App Store discoverability vs. search, and how search could be improved. How much developers should be responsible for their own app marketing, and the uncomfortable reality that many apps just aren't compelling enough to sell well. Sponsored by: Backblaze: Online backup for $5/month. Native. Unlimited. Unthrottled. Uncomplicated. Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off. Audible: Over 150,000 downloadable audiobooks. Get a free audiobook with a 30-day trial.

Dec 18, 20131h 51m

Ep 4343: Brilliance Enhancer

Accidental Fountain Screenplay: The Case of Liss by Joe Steel. (And Bionic.) Desktop 4K/Retina resolutions hitting bandwidth limitations of Thunderbolt 2 and DisplayPort 1.2, and the Sharp/Apple non-news. John's Squarespace-reseller idea already exists. Why aren't iOS App Store purchases available for purchasing and management in the App Store app on the Mac? John's new TV: Technological progression from CRT to plasma and LCD, and the many hacky tricks used by modern TVs to overcome limitations and look better in stores. See also: Hypercritical 16: The Soap Opera Effect. The new John Siracusa TV. John's TV-calibration regimen. Why we're not talking about the iOS notification sync in OS X that never shipped. Merlin's response to our criticism discussion, and how Casey reacts to little worms. After-show Neutral: the new M3/M4 and John's dead pedal. Sponsored by: Pixelmator: Full-featured image editing app for the Mac. Transporter: A private cloud storage drive that you own and control. End-of-the-year sale: Use code ATP30 for $30 off any Transporter before midnight on December 31, 2013! Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code ATP12 for 10% off.

Dec 13, 20131h 53m

Ep 4242: The Ultimate Vanity Search

FU on PrimeSense. Apple's acquisition of Topsy and speculation on why. Apple's possible difficulty in getting and keeping enough engineering talent, and how they might make bigger strides in web services. Which group wears the pants in a company? Marco's embarrassing FiOS support calls. How Apple's release and marketing schedule affects their web services. Methodologies and vocabularies. USB spec group will add a reversible connector, the history of terrible USB connectors (see also: Hypercritical #5 from around 45 minutes, Hypercritical #6 from around 9 minutes, and the entire rest of the series, too), Lightning epitomizing Apple. Dell renews hope for desktop Retina with the new Mac Pro, single big monitors vs. dual smaller ones, and higher-than-native resolution scaling on the Retina MacBook Pro (see also: Eye-Friendly). Waiting for a new technology to fully mature before switching, or adopting it earlier with tradeoffs and hacks. Texas. Sponsored by: Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code ATP12 for 10% off. Igloo: An intranet you'll actually like. Free for up to 10 people, and affordable for your entire company. (And check out this landing page, especially if you enjoyed John's Enterprise Software Assumptions in episode 39.) Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off.

Dec 6, 20131h 43m

Ep 4141: Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

David Chartier's clarification on Photo Stream limits. Space Monkey, Transporter, Box, and Xdrive. Results of John's Disk Utility repair survey. (John on Debug) Xbox One launch sales. Apple buys PrimeSense. Apple's potential expansion into the TV business. Penny Arcade's job posting, Marco's reaction, and the outgoing employee's description. Extended after-show: how we deal with criticism, trolls, and our own flaws when facing our audience. Sponsored by: Warby Parker: Boutique-quality, vintage-inspired eyewear at a revolutionary price. Use coupon code ATP for free 3-day shipping. Ting: Mobile that makes sense. No contracts, and pay only for what you use. iPhone now available.

Nov 29, 20132h 15m

Ep 4040: The Compliance Shark

Follow-up on Cisco VPNs on Mavericks and [photo backups] to SkyDrive on Windows Mobile Phone Series Metro Not-Metro Phone Windows. Why enterprise software is so hard, and the barriers to entry for small companies targeting the enterprise market. Game-console sales by generation, Nintendo In Crisis, and AnandTech's Xbox One and PS4 mini-review. Casey's new Retina iPad Mini, Marco's accidentally popular image-retention test, DisplayMate quality analysis, free data with a T-Mobile SIM, and choosing between the iPad Air and Retina Mini. A7 thermal throttling in iPhone 5S, iPad Air, and Retina iPad Mini, and deeper analysis of the A7. John's disk-corruption adventure and why you should "repair" your HFS disks. Take John's disk-repair results survey! Ending Theme Song 2.0 by Jonathan Mann. (We still like the old one, so we'll keep it but rotate this in sometimes.) After-show: Fraser Speirs producing his podcast on an iPad, Back to Work 146 with Dan possibly going iPad-only, SimCity 2000 on SNES, Lex's Logitech Ultrathin Mini keyboard review, Apple refurb discounts, and the Casio B.O.S.S., which can even exchange data with a PC! Sponsored by: Ting: Mobile that makes sense. No contracts, and pay only for what you use. Gemvara: The revolutionary leader of custom-made, fine jewelry shopping online.

Nov 22, 20131h 47m

Ep 3939: Desperation Mode

John's new Museum of Mediocre Reading Devices. The confusing Photo Stream limits, and all of these links in the show notes. Stephen Elop's If-I-Were-CEO Plan. A story about enterprise software. The four big assumptions about using enterprise software, why it's usually so terrible, and why big companies buy it. Sponsored by: Transporter: A private cloud storage drive that you own and control. Use code ATP for 10% off any Transporter. Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code ATP11 for 10% off.

Nov 15, 20131h 22m

Ep 3838: Auto-Update My Parents

Thanks to Jim Pierce for extending John's dog. (Also mentioned: AntiCrop, Glide) Everpix's failure and impending shutdown: The Verge's profile of the failure Shutdown FAQ Staff tweet about compression and average usage Staff tweet about "3x userbase" needed Somewhat similar services: Loom, Picturelife, Adobe Revel Everpix's critical strategic error, and how tech business and funding strategies should resemble Puerto Rico game strategies). Revisiting the challenges of online photo storage and why Apple isn't offering something like Everpix with iCloud. Answers to the last listener questions about John's Mavericks review. Sponsored by: Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off. F-Sim Space Shuttle: A highly-realistic simulator of the space shuttle’s approach and landing in unprecedented detail and accuracy.

Nov 8, 20131h 14m

Ep 3737: A 3,000-Word Digression

Some light Mac Pro waffling and the red one. iOS 7.0.3's new crossfade animations in "Reduce Motion" mode. Little tidbits and windows into the life of John Siracusa buried in his OS X Mavericks review. Noodling John with random questions. Dragon Drop and Cocoapods don't suck. The big potential section of the Mavericks review that John omitted. Choosing high-level and low-level details to include in the review. Tags and the filesystem. Publishing the review ebooks, and relative sales between iBooks and Kindle. Marco's postmortem on his past Kindle efforts. (Museum of Mediocre Reading Devices, CueCat) Mavericks' theme and the Mac's constant battle between power users and ease of use. Will John keep doing OS X reviews? Sponsored by: Oxygene by RemObjects: Build native apps for all major platforms in one great language. Use code ATP13 for 20% off. Igloo: An intranet you'll actually like. Free for up to 10 people, and affordable for your entire company.

Nov 1, 20131h 49m

Ep 3636: A Weird One

The John Siracusa Mavericks review is up! Apple's event, the presenters' pacing and enthusiasm, Casey's bag of hearts, and yet another showing of the dots video. The Retina MacBook Pro update. The Mac Pro base price, CPU options, and speculation on SSD pricing. The iPad Air, Retina iPad Mini, iPad 2 (LOL), and iPod Classic. Apple's prod of free software. John's high-level summary of Mavericks and recommendation on upgrading. Listener homework: Read the review before next week's episode. Sponsored by: Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code ATP10 for 10% off. Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off.

Oct 24, 20131h 26m

Ep 3535: Sea-Level Executives

Ebook-publishing woes and trying to coordinate a specific release date. Apple hiring the CEO of Burberry to head their retail division, and the Louis Vuitton logo. The challenges of retail leadership. Touch ID impressions after a weekend of heavy use, and whether you should keep your phone secure for other people's benefit. How Touch ID could be used in Macs, and whether ARM MacBooks would be worth the transition costs. Speculation on next week's product announcements. Where a potential 12" Retina MacBook Pro could fit in the lineup. Sponsored by: Transporter: Your own private cloud-storage drive. Get $50 off with discount code ATP50 through November 11. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code ATP10 for 10% off.

Oct 18, 20131h 22m

Ep 3434: Made The Dot Smaller

Siri expectations and unreliability in popular culture. Can Apple ever dramatically improve their web services, and how much pressure do they feel to do so? The sorry state of online payment processing before Stripe, and improving the current sorry state of money transfers (especially in the U.S.) with services such as Dwolla and Square Cash. The Mavericks GM. Drawbacks of a Readability-like model for paying podcast producers in Overcast, and Instacast's 2012 rejection for Flattr integration. Different priorities for podcast playback and management. Sponsored by: Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code ATP10 for 10% off. Audible: Over 150,000 downloadable audiobooks. Get a free audiobook with a 30-day trial.

Oct 10, 20131h 7m

Ep 3333: A 30-Minute Skip Button

When we expected the Mavericks GM (recorded two hours before this). Apparent new E5-1680 Mac Pro in Geekbench and what CPU tradeoffs to expect in the new Mac Pro. Speculating on the new Mac Pro's fan noise, rotating cable management, and intended desk location. FU on John's podcast-scrubber idea. (Spoiler: he knows about the vertical speed-scaling that's been in Apple's scrubber for years, and it's not what he wants.) Experimenting with new UI controls and behaviors: some end up being cool and useful in practice, but many don't. Marco's brief adventure in designing a custom binary sync protocol. The potential conflict of interest of avoiding automatic ad-skipping features in Overcast since Marco gets income from ads on this podcast, and the ethics of publishing all podcasts' subscriber stats on the site. iPhone 5S cases. Laptop battery health and potential automatic battery conditioning. Sponsored by: Igloo: An intranet you'll actually like. Free for up to 10 people, and affordable for your entire company. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use coupon code ATP10 for 10% off.

Oct 4, 20131h 12m

Ep 3232: It Doesn’t Bother Me

Casey's exclusive new iPhone 5S. Low stock levels of the gold 5S and Apple's potential motivations. How good the iPhone 5 (and therefore the 5C) still is today. John's review of iOS 7. Locking your kitchen. Marco's upcoming podcast app, Overcast, as announced at XOXO 2013, and why he preannounced it. The parallels between Portland and the Hofbräuhaus. John's logarithmic-scrubber idea. (and Marco's logarithmic calendar) Dr. Drang on parallax. Post-show Neutral: the F80 M3/M4 specs. Sponsored by: Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use coupon code ATP9 for 20% off in September! Ding: Dead-simple time tracking for freelancers and small teams. Use promo code ATP for a 90-day free trial.

Sep 27, 20131h 43m

Ep 3131: Swimming In 16 GB Gold

Casey goes to an Apple Store. FU on SnappyCam, Synology and ZFS, and the likelihood of a new Mac filesystem. The 16/32/64 GB iPhone capacities may be overstaying their welcome. Each host's planned iPhone upgrades. How to get an iPhone on launch day. Long Island Lexus trim. Who's fabbing the A7? Intel? Probably not. iOS 7 adoption stats so far from Mixpanel and _DavidSmith. Sponsored by: MailRoute: Hosted spam and virus protection for email. Use promo code ATP for 10% off for the life of your account. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use coupon code ATP9 for 20% off in September!

Sep 19, 20131h 21m

Ep 3030: Full Frontal Thumb

iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s. The possible Sherlocking of SnappyCam and the 5s' two-tone flash in practice. AnandTech's Touch ID hands-on video. Economics of iPhone cases. 64-bit in practice. Speculation on what the M7 does and its potential. White iOS devices. Apple secrecy. After-show: "non" vs. "hon" and the Micro-USB 3.0 connector. Sponsored by: Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use coupon code ATP9 for 20% off in September! MailRoute: Hosted spam and virus protection for email. Use promo code ATP for 10% off for the life of your account.

Sep 13, 20131h 23m

Ep 2929: Computerized Garden Gnome

John's Mavericks review progress. iPhone event predictions. Design and security tradeoffs of a theoretical iPhone fingerprint lock. iPhone 5S colors. Will the 5C be the mainstream, best-selling model? Cell towers near rich people. The Apple TV shipment rumor. Tim Cook's "new product categories" statement earlier this year: What might that be that could plausibly come this fall "and into 2014"? Our Synology experiences and disk-layout strategies so far. The OmniKeyMaster Mac App Store saga. Microsoft and Nokia: Stratechery 1, Stratechery 2, Asymco: Who's buying whom? Sponsored by: Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use coupon code ATP9 for 20% off in September! Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off.

Sep 6, 20131h 37m

Ep 2828: The Pit Of Irrelevance

Follow-up: Time Capsule vs. Siracusa. Casey was right! The state of Microsoft: How much was Ballmer's fault? Ben Thompson on Steve Ballmer. Microsoft's enterprise business. Should Microsoft pull an IBM and/or spin off its consumer business? What could Microsoft do to regain momentum and marketshare in phones and tablets? John on the Nintendo 2DS announcement. (Side-by-side with 3DS, 3DS XL, the Kid Icarus: Uprising stand). After-show: Jeff Atwood's CODE Keyboard, Truly-Ergonomic, and Marco's initial thoughts on the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop keyboard vs. the Kinesis Freestyle 2 for Mac and the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. Sponsored by: Notograph: Store, organize, and share photos of things you want to remember but don't want cluttering up your Camera Roll. Wordbox: A beautiful, simple, yet powerful text and Markdown editor for iOS.

Aug 30, 20131h 37m

Ep 2727: Overflow Gallery In The Bathroom

Querying Florida. Photo storage follow-up: whether people even want long-term photo storage anymore, using web services as backups, and Ogg-encoded tinfoil hattery. The Time Capsule's tough sell. Casey's helpful fans. IFTTT and Twitter. The gold/"champagne" iPhone, not getting a larger iPhone this year, and the future of the Lightning connector. The new TiVo. After-show: John's ebook-testing setup, the awful Kindle Previewer, and technical ebook woes. (See also: Serenity Caldwell at Cingleton 2012.) Plus, a very special after-after-show Neutral loosely about the M4. Sponsored by: Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code ATP8 for 10% off. Audible: Over 150,000 downloadable audiobooks. Get a free audiobook with a 30-day trial.

Aug 23, 20131h 33m

Ep 2626: Three Phones Ago

Instapaper's web redesign beta. Rewriting a codebase from scratch. Understandable code and writing for maintainability. The balance between easy-to-write but unimpressive apps and implementing cutting-edge features that require messy hacks. The horrible mess of smartphone photo management and backup. How much should Apple protect people from hardware failures or carelessness? (See also: John's old two-hard-drives article.) Technical and economic challenges of Apple automatically backing up all of your photos and videos. Non-nerd backups. After-show: OS X Ivericks, Gruber on interface familiarity, Edge Cases on filesystems. Sponsored by: Warby Parker: Boutique-quality, vintage-inspired eyewear at a revolutionary price. (Spot featuring guest host @tiffanyarment!) Use coupon code ATP for free 3-day shipping. Igloo: An intranet you'll actually like. Free for up to 10 people, and affordable for your entire company.

Aug 15, 20131h 43m

Ep 2525: Thrustmaster Joystick

Marco's new-new-new app for aligning double-ender podcast tracks. Economic considerations and options for releasing an app that's extremely helpful to a very small number of people. Why Marco has been procrastinating from the big app by making small apps. Good app names as motivation. Desktop Twitter distraction and measuring desktop productivity with RescueTime. Casey's sales of Fast Text since last week's promotion, Marco's sales of Bugshot, and the potential economic upside of promotion for niche apps. The fashion longevity of iOS 7's default UI. Chrome's controversial plaintext-password feature and Chrome security leader Justin Schuh's defense of the design. Lakes. An epic, half-hour Siracusa rant on the state of finding and installing Minecraft mods. Kali. caseyrumors: Is this the future of Fast Text? Sponsored by: 23andMe: Order your 23andMe DNA kit today for just $99. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code ATP8 for 10% off.

Aug 9, 20131h 34m

Ep 2424: Double Meta

Non-developers might want to skip the first 35 minutes: a technical discussion of FMDB, SQLite, and implementing your own generic "model" class. Plus: Casey finally gets to talk about .NET. (Note from Marco: The day after recording, I rewrote my model class to rely on KVC instead of runtime tricks and reflection. Please email Casey.) The types of programmers who can and should write their own low-level classes. Casey's app, Fast Text, and why he wrote it in 2010. John's unfulfilled app idea and name. Getting yourself moving on an iOS app. Victory Lap for Ask Patents. A 29-minute after-show extravaganza about lazy input sanitization and parameterization, extremely difficult games, eggs, and beaches. Sponsored by: Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off. 23andMe: Order your 23andMe DNA kit today for just $99.

Aug 1, 20131h 40m

Ep 2323: The X Or The X

FU: iSCSI and network Time Machine. iFixit teardown of the new AirPort Extreme. Apple's extended Developer Center downtime. (Note: we recorded this before we knew why it was down.) _DavidSmith on Logic X's pricing and what this might indicate for future App Store upgrades. Whether upgrade pricing is best for consumers, and the upgrade-pricing train. iOS developers acting like the RIAA in 2002. The complexity of modern software business models. The Wal-Martization of app pricing and how Marble Madness formed the modern Marco. Are Apple's policies really at fault for falling app prices? Sponsored by: Drafts: Where text starts on your iPhone or iPad. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code ATP7 for 10% off.

Jul 25, 20131h 17m

Ep 2222: Full Brichter

Marco's new-new app, Bugshot, and some of its design decisions. Cutting features from 1.0 and trying to keep Bugshot from taking too much time. Bugshot gets the John Siracusa treatment. Exploring NAS options and initial impressions of the Synology DS1813+. Economics of FreeNAS or Mac Mini alternatives. iSCSI on Macs: the free $89 globalSAN initiator and the $195 ATTO initiator, which comes recommended by storage expert Dave Nanian. NAS backup options, since Backblaze doesn't do network drives: CrashPlan (with widespread upload-speed issues), or Arq (with potentially expensive Amazon Glacier or S3 costs). Backing up Mac filesystem metadata, Backup Bouncer, and current scores of online backup apps. Data hoarding and falling into John's backup vortex. The Apple Keynotes podcast feed. Sponsored by: Mind Blitz: An action-puzzle twist on the classic memory matching game. Transporter: Private cloud storage. Use coupon code atp for 10% off.

Jul 18, 20131h 32m

Ep 2121: The Transitive Property of Nerdiness

iWatch follow-up. Alex Eckermann on Bluetooth Low Energy and iWatch. Eric Welander's thoughts on Siri for iWatch. iWatch as a means of identity. How regular people use iOS devices, as witnessed by John. Multitasking-switcher implications in iOS 7. iCloud's priority within Apple. Dropbox Datastore API, including its JavaScript API. Does the Datastore API obviate the need for a web service? Nerd-targeted products. Sponsored by: Transporter: Private cloud storage. Use coupon code atp for 10% off. Audible: The leading provider of downloadable audiobooks.

Jul 12, 20131h 33m

Ep 2020: A Box and a Strap

Apple's Yves Saint Laurent hire and the difficulty in predicting an "iWatch". Technological Conservatism. Panic's Lightning-to-HDMI-cable discovery. Chris Harris on iOS 7 icons. "Free-to-play" games. Coding for practice, and learning new APIs or languages. Overly specialized apps. Glympse (Casey's road-trip-tracking app). Feed Wrangler by _DavidSmith as a Google Reader replacement that's compatible with Reeder for iPhone. Lex Friedman's RSS-sync roundup. ReadKit for Mac as a potential NetNewsWire replacement. Dr. Drang's branch of Marco's RSS-subscriber-count script. Why is OS X version adoption slower than iOS, and could Mavericks be free? Sponsored by: Optia: A beautiful, intuitive iOS puzzle game about reflecting light. Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off.

Jul 5, 20131h 15m

Ep 1919: Designed by App in Cal

John's review progress and show-duration predictors. The WWDC 2013 intro video. (Siri's WWDC 2012 intro) Apple's "Making a Difference, One App at a Time" video. "Designed by Apple in California". "Jobs" (Ashton Kutcher) trailer. Why developers should (or shouldn't) require iOS 7 this fall. "The Transporter" series. iOS 7 Calendar app UI. Cool-looking vs. well-designed. Our iTunes reviews. "Better" and "worse" programming languages. Sponsored by: Audible: Download a free audiobook and start your 30-day trial. Transporter: Private cloud storage. Use coupon code atp for 10% off.

Jun 27, 20131h 28m

Ep 1818: Aluminum-Colored Aluminum

Casey's fans at WWDC. Mac Pro followup. (John's halo-car post) The Xbox 180. Revisiting the potential for a larger-screen iPhone after having seen iOS 7. Predicting iOS 7 adoption. Neven Mrgan on iOS 7's icon grid and a rebuttal. New Mac Pro appears in Geekbench parallelize.c/xargs parallel processing Sponsored by: Squarespace: The all-in-one platform that makes it easy to create your own website. Use coupon code ATP6 for 10% off. An Event Apart: The design conference for people who make websites.

Jun 20, 20131h 14m

Ep 1717: Can’t Innovate Anymore

Special early WWDC episode this week: Reactions to the keynote. New Mac Pro Initial iOS 7 design impressions. Sponsored by: Backblaze: Easy, unlimited online backup for just $5 per month. Windows Azure Mobile Services: Build a cloud-connected iOS app faster and easier.

Jun 11, 20131h 12m

Ep 1616: John, We Don’t Play Games

Opening theme by Larry King (@laking). The case for a modernized AppKit in OS X 10.9 a la Chameleon/TwUI. The lack of official Apple Objective-C wrappers around old C APIs such as Keychain and Address Book. Springboard #10 SMOP Underscore Should Apple add type inference to Objective-C? Haswell Retina MacBook Pro predictions and the possibility of having only the integrated GPU in the 15". gfxCardStatus The only 15" with integrated-only GPU The first unibody 15" with high-res, matte LCD Haswell integrated GPU explained Mac Pro speculation. John on Ad Hoc Larrabee Intel's custom CPU for the first MacBook Air Thunderbolt problems on Xeon boards Marco's Mac Pro post this week Scaling down the Mac Pro/"xMac" challenges Thunderbolt 2 Asus' 4K monitor The first 27" iMac's panel economics Major iOS 7 API wishes: better inter-app communication mechanisms, "default app" associations, and periodic background updates. Quick WWDC tips. Casey's WWDC predictions Casey's WWDC tips from last year Sponsored by: Tonx: Freshly roasted coffee delivered straight to your door. New customers can get a free AeroPress by signing up for a Standard subscription by June 17. Squarespace: The all-in-one platform that makes it easy to create your own website. Use coupon code ATP6 for 10% off.

Jun 7, 20131h 43m

Ep 1515: Cat, Modifier Cat

Why Marco sold The Magazine. Teasing apps before they're out, building hype, and Pit Pass. Tim Cook at AllThingsD. Cook's presence and speaking style. What Cook implicitly said about future Apple products. WWDC predictions for OS X. Sponsored by: Oxygene for Cocoa: Use coupon code ATP13 for 20% off. Soulver: The essential calculator-spreadsheet-notepad hybrid.

May 31, 20131h 27m

Ep 1414: Pouring Champagne Onto Rap Stars

Marco visits Siracusa's house and the car-assaulting tree. Transcendental Money. Square Cash. B2W 120 on financial "safety nets". Tumblr, Yahoo, and not screwing it up. Cloud hosting and moving up the stack. The modern game console's role. the Xbox One's hardware design, and the messy world of TV-connected boxes. Sponsored by: Squarespace: Use coupon code ATP5 for 10% off. Windows Azure Mobile Services: Get started today for free.

May 24, 20131h 32m

Ep 1313: Animated Kale

Our theme song by Jonathan Mann -- follow his Song A Day on YouTube, and check out his site if you or your company would like a catchy, fun song. Thanks for the ATP theme song, Jonathan! Casey and Marco get deluged with to-do app recommendations. The difficulty in getting people to change to a new app, but conversely, the potential success for slightly differentiated apps in an otherwise crowded market. Google I/O keynote reactions. Localizing apps to different languages. The sad state of iTunes Connect. Staged rollouts, purchase analytics, beta testing, and the different developer attitudes of Apple and Google. Why Google is consistently able to kick Apple's butt in services (and engineering?). Google Play Music All Access, Hangouts, and the new Google Maps. Apple's Objective-C to Javascript bridge. The App Store UI. Sponsored by: An Event Apart: The design conference for people who make websites. CocoaConf: A conference for iPhone, iPad, and Mac developers. Use coupon code ATP for 20% off any ticket.

May 17, 20131h 27m

Ep 1212: Accidental Server Hardware

FU on Apple's tick-tock pattern. Marco's PHP framework and sponsor-tracking web app, and why both exist. Usability and security implications of passwordless login systems. The Mac Mini's seemingly accidental success. Podcasters who hate the word "podcast", its quality connotation, efforts to invent alternative names, and barriers to entry. Brent Simmons' 30 Minutes To Sync proposal. Building web services on Apple's infrastructure. Sponsored by: Mac Mini Vault: Colocate or rent your own Mac Mini. Use promo code ATP50 for 50% off your first three months. Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off.

May 10, 20131h 33m