Hypercritical

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss what it's going to take for Apple to field a television product that's finally something more than a "hobby." Attached box vs. full TV set, apps vs. channels vs. a la carte purchases, direct deals with content owners vs. additional layers of middlemen (e.g., Netflix). So many possibilities, but all of them difficult. Links for this episode:Here’s why Apple’s TV needs to be an actual television, and not just a cheap add-on box – SplatF4K resolution - WikipediaNesting dolls comic"I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use." - Steve JobsAn iCloud conflict resolution dialog box in Pages on the iPadScreen resolution, viewing distance, and screen size chartWhat's Really Next for Apple in Television - NYTimes.comSponsored by Squarespace and TinyLetter.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk more about Siri in theory and in practice, and how iCloud is different than MobileMe, with its own set of problems. Plus more complaints about the Star Wars blu-rays, a clarification of the TiVo Premiere Elite's specs, and the long-overdue completion of our tour of the Windows 8 UI. Links for this episode:How Siri WorksSiri in Practice - Kieran HealyThe impact of Apple’s Siri release: From the former lead iPhone developer of SiriHow Siri Could Work With AppleTV - FXRantAndroid Chief Andy Rubin Says Your Phone Should Not Be Your Assistant - Ina Fried - AsiaD - AllThingsDLet's Take This One With a Grain of Salt - Daring FireballBack to Work #37: It's Never Not Everywhere - 5by5A New and Improved Moore's Law - Technology ReviewWindows 8 Metro video - Channel 9Premiere Elite performance enhancements - TiVo CommunityPublish and Subscribe - WikipediaThe People vs. George Lucas - Amazon.comSponsored by Sourcebits, Handelabra Studio, and Shopify.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss TiVo Premiere Elite's potential to not be as horrible as the TiVo Premiere, the expectations for and reality of Siri, Google's new Dart programming language, and the iCloud launch. Links for this episode:A conversation with Siri on the iPhone 4S - YouTubeWhy Dart is not the language of the future - Rafaël Garcia-SuarezDart compilation of Hello World - GistDart : Structured web programmingWhy the TiVo Elite is so much faster than the TiVo Premiere - Gear LiveTiVo Premiere Elite - TiVoWhy Is My Toaster So Bad? - NYTimes.comAt Ease - WikipediaCleaning… – Marco.orgGetting started with iCloud, Apple's new sync service - MacworldAll about iCloud: Common signup scenarios - MacworldiCloud: Resetting your Photo StreamSponsored by Rackspace and easyDNS.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk about the death of Steve Jobs: personal remembrances, the less-obvious lessons of his life, and the dangers of his deification. Also, misspeaking vs. failing to communicate, Star Wars blu-rays, and John's attempt to politely decline charity. Links for this episode:Steve Jobs: a personal remembranceHyperbolic discounting and Netflix queues - youarenotsosmart.com5by5 Specials #2: Thank You, Steve JobsHypercritical #32: The Next Big MoveCharismatic authority - WikipediaStack Exchange Podcast #20 WWDC 1997 Closing Keynote with Steve Jobs - YouTubeKWHA-sohn or crah-SONT?Getting started with iCloud, Apple's new sync service | Web | MacworldSponsored by Squarespace and MailChimp.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss Amazon's new tablets, the Google technologies and Amazon cloud services that stand behind them, and what making money by "selling the blades" implies about Amazon's ability to compete with Apple's approach of "selling the razors." Also, predictions for October's Apple event, and (briefly) Fringe. Links for this episode:Apple Thunderbolt Display Teardown - iFixitThe case against the Kindle as a low end tablet disruption - AsymcoAmazon Kindle Press Conference - YouTubeMagma ExpressBox 3T gives you 3 external PCIe slots over Thunderbolt - EngadgetBelkin Reveals New Thunderbolt Express Dock - MacStoriesSPDY: An experimental protocol for a faster web - GoogleAmazon has Palm in its shopping cart — will it click Buy? - VentureBeatMacintosh Classic - WikipediaThe Talk Show #61, where John Gruber makes his iPhone predictionsThe Incomparable - 5by5Geek Friday - Listen to understand the references to FaithSponsored by Sourcebits and Sifter.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk about the Netflix/Qwikster debacle and the big picture in the TV and movie industries, then continue their exploration of the Windows 8 Metro user interface. The only way out is through! Links for this episode:8 traits of great Metro style apps - Channel 9First-sale doctrine - WikipediaOutbound Laptop - WikipediaThe Outbound Laptop, featuring the Isopoint Trackbar - Low End MacSponsored by HelpSpot and Rackspace.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin mourn the continuing shameful stewardship of the cultural touchstone that is Star Wars, then dive into the Windows 8 Metro user interface and Microsoft's prospects for the future of its hybrid tablet/desktop operating system. Links for this episode:6.270 - MIT's Autonomous Robot Design CompetitionMarkdown Syntax Documentation - Daring FireballStar Wars: The Complete Saga (Episodes I-VI) [Blu-ray] - Amazon.comThe Secret History of Star WarsHypercritical #13: The Tortoise and the Hare - 5by58 traits of great Metro style apps - Channel 9A bad motivator - John McCoyRubySpec - The Standard You Trust™Spielberg Repents for Changes He Made to E.T. - Wired.comDragonslayer at the SXSW Film FestivalAgainst perpetual copyright - wiki.lessig.orgSponsored by Campaign Monitor and Shopify.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the origins and suitability of Markdown, including why John doesn't use it and why you might want to, and why the entire PC industry can't seem to create a laptop as nice as a MacBook Air but for less money. Links for this episode:Sprint Said to Plan Unlimited Data With IPhone - BloombergHypercritical #6: Frivolous Things - 5by5Markdown - Daring FireballAnchoring - WikipediaCMDA - WikipediaGSM - WikipediaPredictably Irrational - TED Talk on "anchoring" and other topicsUltrabook: Intel's $300 million plan to beat Apple at its own game6.270 - MIT's Autonomous Robot Design CompetitionSponsored by MailChimp and easyDNS.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the future of Apple without Steve Jobs. What decisions defined the Jobs II Era, and can Apple continue to make such big moves without the big man at the top? Links for this episode:Tele Vision - AsymcoMe Talk Pretty One Day - David SedarisApple 27-inch Thunderbolt DisplayA Day Without Steve - Macworld, August 2007The reason everybody is acting like Steve Jobs died - Daniel JalkutApple CEO Steve Jobs Live at D8 - AllThingsDIdeas, Not Hierarchy: On Steve Jobs Supposedly Making All Apple DecisionsMacRubyiCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of BusinessField Notes Brand - Use discount code HEARDITFROMDAN for $25 off a Colors SubscriptionSponsored by Field Notes, Audible, and thoughtbot.

John Siracusa and Ryan Irelan discuss the future of the Mac Pro, what HP's exit from the PC business and Google's acquisition of Motorola mean for Microsoft, and whether or not Amazon should buy webOS. Links for this episode:Desire path - WikipediaScroll Reverser for Mac OS XIs the Mac Pro dead? - CringelyRobert X. CringelyPickin' TimeStorageReview.com - A great place to research hard disk mechanisms before buyingSponsored by Sourcebits and FreshBooks.

In Dan Benjamin's absence, John Siracusa and Ryan Irelan follow up on the seemingly never-ending list of features in BBEdit and LaunchBar, take a side trip into the world of "haxies" and system extensions, and then—finally!—discuss Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) in Lion. Links for this episode:LaunchBarPaths in the grass - John Siracusa on "haxies" (2006)BBEdit's multi-language support (video)ARC in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: the Ars Technica reviewHypercritical #14: A Dark Age of Objective-CObjective-C without the CDefault Folder XSponsored by Shopify and Rackspace.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss Lion’s quittin’ ways, people who choose to turn off Dock indicator lights, the merits of a "clean install" of Mac OS X, Mac application launchers, and BBEdit vs. TextMate vs. emacs vs. vi vs. sanity. Links for this episode:Lion Is a Quitter - TidBITSSmash Into Vim I - PeepCode screencastSmash Into Vim II - PeepCode screencastBBEditLaunchBarQuickSilverAlfredTextMateEmacsviSponsored by easyDNS and Campaign Monitor .

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk more about Lion, following up on the animation and disk encryption topics from last week, then diving into sandboxing and the state of the file system. ARC discussion has once again been postponed until the next show. Links for this episode:Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: the Ars Technica reviewBuy the Lion review as Kindle ebook - John's Amazon referral linkFour Lion Terminal hacks - MacworldZ-410: How ZFS is slowly making its way to Mac OS X - Ars TechnicaBBC News - Lucas loses Star Wars copyright case at Supreme CourtSponsored by Sourcebits, Campaign Monitor , and Wx.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss John's review of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Topics covered: autosave, scroll bars, scroll direction, graphical changes, animation, disk encryption, plus some details of the publication and error correction process. Expect more Lion discussion on future shows. Links for this episode:Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: the Ars Technica reviewBuy the Lion review as Kindle ebook - John's Amazon referral linkBenchmarked: PGP whole-disk encryption vs. Lion's disk encryption - RomanT.netHow to disable window animations in LionSponsored by Harvest, OmniGroup: OmniFocus, and Stack Overflow.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin continue to wait for the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. In the meantime, topics include Facebook's use of MySQL, some of the technology behind Google+, the 5by5 ShowBot, possibly new Mac hardware (featuring the fabled xMac), and whether or not Dan and John are cool. Links for this episode:Facebook trapped in MySQL ‘fate worse than death’ - Cloud Computing News"I'm a technical lead on the Google+ team. Ask me anything."Rapid DHCP: Or, how do Macs get on the network so fast? - Caffeinated BitstreamThe story of Showbot - Jeremy MackVoltDBNight of the living xMac - Ars TechnicaSponsored by FreshBooks and Shopify.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk about why webOS is slow, what's wrong with Apple's digital distribution mechanisms, why Google+ is a really big deal (for Google, anyway), and the hidden world of server-side software. John also shares some statistics about his upcoming Lion review. Links for this episode:Google to Retire Blogger & Picasa Brands in Google+ Push - MashablePaul Graham - WikipediaBeating the Averages - Paul Graham on the advantages of LispSponsored by MailChimp and Sound Studio 4.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss Mac speech recognition software, how webOS is or isn't like Mac OS X, Apple's $50 Thunderbolt cable, how Google+ is different from Facebook, and what John thinks Apple's really trying to do with Final Cut Pro X. Links for this episode:Why Apple built Final Cut Pro X - Sachin's PosterousUse F19 to toggle the mic in Dragon Dictate 2.0 for the MacDragon Speech Recognition Software for the MacJon Rubinstein sends message to HP staff; Addresses TouchPad reviews | The #1 HP / Palm webOS Community | PreCentral.netThe technology inside Apple's $50 Thunderbolt cable - Ars TechnicaGoogle+Sponsored by Field Notes and iStockphoto.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit Apple's data center software, Pixar's weaknesses, lame Mac malware, obnoxious Twitter integration, and (one last time!) toasters, then talk about how and why John writes. Links for this episode:iCloud: Built on Windows Azure Technology?Cars 2 - Rotten Tomatoes12 Slides, 3 Writers - YouTubeMobileMe transition and iCloud - AppleReddit discussion of how frequently John writes for Ars TechnicaThe 12 slides (PDF)From ‘Star Wars Kid’ to Almost Lawyer!Sponsored by Sponsor 5by5, OmniGroup: OmniFocus, and Simplecasts.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin decompress after WWDC, then discuss Apple's (apparent) iCloud data center strategy, comparing it to other successful online service companies: Amazon, Google, and Facebook. John also recounts his one and only remotely significant interaction with Steve Jobs. Links for this episode:Apple iCloud Azure use tested, confirmed - InfiniteAppleWindows AzureWhat Datacenter Equipment Is Apple Using? - Stephen FoskettBig data meets big storage: an in-depth look at Isilon's scale-out storage solutionMapReduce - WikipediaGoogle File System - WikipediaBigTable - WikipediaAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud - WikipediaOpen Compute ProjectScribe (Distributed Logging Service) - WikipediaApache Thrift - WikipediaHipHop for PHP - WikipediaOS X Lion - AppleApple Dropping the 'Mac' From 'Mac OS X'? - Daring FireballWWDC 1997 Steve Jobs Closing Keynote - YouTubeSponsored by FreshBooks and Sound Studio 4.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk about WWDC: iCloud, iOS 5, Lion, and yes, John's toaster, a gift from fellow 5by5 hosts Marco Arment and Merlin Mann (a.k.a. The Best Guys Ever). Links for this episode:John's new toaster, a gift from Marco and MerlinSponsored by Rackspace and Shopify.