[ort888]

I think people really romanticize the Steve years at Apple.

Every single Keynote and product launch was a letdown. Every damn one. They would end and the whole community would start bitching about what was shown. Apple always moved slowly. People would expect A, B, C, D, E, and F and Apple would give us A, B and Q and people would whine. There weren't amazing new products every 6 months. It was iterate, iterate, iterate... then a weird product launch that didn't really please most people, then iterate, iterate, iterate...

I guess what I'm trying to say is that nothing has really changed much. Just people's expectations. The problem was really that Apple was on such a crazy hot streak for the 5 years before Steve Job's died, and now they expect it to continue like that forever. There was no it could have, with or without Steve Jobs.

[subego]

There are definitely people who expect too much, and all your points are good, but I don't think I'm in that category.

What I'm taking issue with are things like this...

iOS 7 is a major aesthetic change. As those sorts of things will invariably irritate a certain segment of your user base, you do whatever you can to mitigate that damage.

From a psychological standpoint, you want to make a strong and confident first impression.

They set a date for the cotillion, and worked around the clock sewing the dress, and learning to walk in those heels.

When the day came, iOS 7 just wasn't ready to make such an important debut, or, at least I'm hoping that's what it was, and that isn't what they expect the final thing to look like. Right there you've lost the confidence game. It's not stand-alone presentation. It needs the "weeeeeell, maybe it's not done... right?"

Add on top of that what Ritchie said (and repeated on MBW): what's awesome about iOS 7 is the 3D engine and the gamified interface. They didn't say anything about that, so one has to presume weeeeeell, maybe it's not done... right?

So, what I'm expecting from Apple is to have it together enough to make a forceful, confident presentation of where the OS is going.

Of course, while I don't think this is a particularly over-the-top expectation, it is 100% due to Steve. This was way personal shit to him, and he would have understood the need to be forceful and confident in this situation. If the people he was paying massive amounts of money were not giving him the tools to do so, he would have started rolling heads. There's no one there who can swing that now. Certainly not in the same way.

I'm not saying Apple iz teh d00md!!1!, but this does seem to be an evidence of a more reasonable prediction of what would happen to post-Steve Apple: that it would become a normal company.

[subego]

Beja
Warren
Hiner

[subego]

Ingram
Dvorak
Joire

[subego]

If anyone watched this, I'm curious about your take on the Dvorak/Joire awkwardness.

[ort888]

Are you referring to when Dvorak called Joire "he"?

I can't say I really blame him. I'd never heard of Myriam Joire and had no idea she was a she.

She really does look and sound like a he. Apparently because she is a post-op transexual who seems pretty androgynous. I thought I had heard Leo refer to Joire as "she" early on, but didn't really pay much attention.

All that said, I thought Joire was a great guest. Had good insight, was funny and very knowledgable.

[subego]

I was only half paying attention myself, though admittedly a little focused on getting the name for this thread.

I had completely assumed she was male, and even tried to rationalize her name with her obvious accent to mean there must be some masculine name in France which sounds like "Miriam". When Leo finally said "she", I was like "okay, she's a she".

Then Dvorak messed it up, and I kinda cringed a little. I mean, that's awkward. I was also a little irritated at Dvorak for not picking up on the cues.

Then he did it again, and I cringed again.

Then, he did it again, I cringed, and she corrected him.

I must admit, I enjoyed that dumbfounded look on Dvorak's face when they cut to the wide shot. He prides himself on being unflappable, and he was totally flapped.


The thing is, as much as I enjoyed that, and as much as I want to support Myriam in busting gender barriers (I didn't know she was TG until your post), I felt like Dvorak got pretty cruelly rope-a-doped.

If you're going to intentionally present yourself in a way which will cause gender confusion, but wish to be referred to as one gender, you owe it to people to correct them before they **** up three times and feel like three times the idiot.



(I know it's a subtle distinction, but I want to stress I'm saying Myriam is intentionally presenting herself in a way which will cause confusion, not presenting herself in a way to intentionally cause confusion. I can try and explain that better if it doesn't make sense)

[ort888]

I did the tiniest amount of research on her after the show and I think she's going for androgynous. She probably wasn't that offended... I'm sure she gets referred to as "he" daily.

Dvorak was even more curmudgeonly than usual this episode. He really added nothing. Sometimes I enjoy his brand of "get off my lawn" but usually his act grows old quickly.

He's a guest who should be on about once every 2 months or so... tops.

[subego]

Well, to put it in meme terms, if you present yourself like that and get offended when someone gets confused, you're gonna have a hard time.

I didn't get an offended vibe so much as she thought Dvorak was an idiot, so she took advantage of the opportunity to make him look like an idiot.

Specifically, it was the "you keep getting that wrong" at the end. Whose fault is that, now?

[subego]

Chang
Elgan
Snell

[subego]

Leo just claimed Dvorak isn't on more because there are a bunch of people he refuses to go on with.

[ort888]

That's just weird for so many reasons.

[subego]

I know. It came up in the context of wanting to do a TWiT with all guests he hates, but the panel wouldn't be big enough.

[subego]

Bott
Morris (Natali)
Panzarino

[subego]

Rose
Dvorak
O'Dell
Silverman

Can a wild raccoon save this?

[subego]

Kevin throwing the raccoon has over five million views now.

[ort888]

It's pretty nuts that his first thought would be to actually pick up a raccoon. It's pretty gangsta... but could have gone very poorly. Kicking I think would have been a more rational move.

Hilarious watching Jolie try and talk smack to Kevin Rose. Kevin was as cool as a cucumber. He could have ripped her to shreds. He was probably thinking... "Who the ____ are you again?".

[subego]

I thought the best question was "how many times have you heard the word 'rabies' over the last few days?"

[subego]

Benjamin
Stevens


God DAMMIT, Chad.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by ort888 

Hilarious watching Jolie try and talk smack to Kevin Rose. Kevin was as cool as a cucumber. He could have ripped her to shreds. He was probably thinking... "Who the ____ are you again?".

Yeah, IIRC she called FUD on his assessment of the current Win8 marketplace based on her prediction of its future or something absurd like that. It feels like the highpoint of her inanity.

Also, I can never remember, what does FUD stand for?

[ort888]

Kevin Rose was saying that web apps aren't as good as native apps and she said that was because of people like him spreading FUD about them.

Yeah, actually, it's because they are worse and that's the reality.

Maybe they'll get better later, and that's great. We'll talk about how better they are when it actually happens, because right now, she's just wrong.

[The Final Dakar]

Tim Stevens left engadget? Would love to know the story behind that.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by ort888 

Kevin Rose was saying that web apps aren't as good as native apps and she said that was because of people like him spreading FUD about them.

Yeah, actually, it's because they are worse and that's the reality.

Hahaha, I was way off.

But yeah, thats an indisputable fact. Its like claiming one-size fits all is as good as fitted.

[subego]

FUD is fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

[ort888]

Dan Benjamin is like a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Not bad, really, but yeah, but safe and vanilla.

It's funny, because I used to listen to him all the time before everyone left his 5by5 network, and now he isn't on a single show I listen to.

He is much more of an Apple fanboy than he let on in the show this week. I'm surprised he just sat by and said nothing while Leo and Tim were fawning over the new Nexus 7.

People had the same reaction to the Nexus 7 last year and the warm fuzzies didn't seem to last long. Repeatedly saying that the only reason to use an iPad is if you're trapped in the Apple ecosystem is just glossing over a lot of important things.

The tablet app ecosystem on iOS is still leaps and bounds better ...that hot new game? ...that fun new social app? ...the new app from your favorite TV station?

Guaranteed to be first on iOS and probably better on iOS. Android? Maybe. Who knows.

There are other reasons as well, but this is the big one.

I'm not saying that the Nexus 7 is bad or that Android isn't better in other areas. But it's not so black and white.

I think Leo just always has a bad case of the "New Shiny".

[subego]

Isn't Dan supposed to be vanilla?

I didn't listen to DF for Dan, he's only there as a vehicle for Gruber's chocolate sauce.

[ort888]

Yeah, he's like a more boring version of Leo that way.

I used to also like Marco Arment's and John Siracusa's shows on there as well...

But all three have since bolted.

Having Siracusa and Arment together is so much better than getting them separately and watered down by Dan. Their shows on 5by5 would just be Siracusa or Marco or Gruber talking for 2 hours straight with Dan Benjamin adding almost nothing to the conversation, aside from asking an occasional question.

The Talk Show is better off for having different guests every week.

I love Merlin Mann, but I can't stay focused on his show. He's just too manic and all over the place. And he's always talking about these goofy self-helpy motivational crud that eventually just turns into this endless drone of sameness. When they go off track onto weird topics it's better, but that doesn't happen enough.

Merlin is probably my favorite repeat guest on the Talk Show though... Merlin + Gruber is generally solid gold.

[subego]

I still wonder what Dan did, or didn't do, to collapse the nascent 5by5 empire.

[subego]

Oops... I meant The Talk Show, not DF.

[ort888]

I think it was mostly financial.

I think we have a good idea of what happened with the Talk Show. Dan was basically a nobody, until he started his show with Gruber. He used the popularity of the Talk Show to build his entire podcasting business. IThe Talk Show was his #1 show by a MASSIVE margin and was what brought everyone else on board.

From what I gather, he was still offering John the same basic 50/50 revenue split he was offering everyone. He would do all the work and split the money with the personalities. John didn't like this because he was obviously worth a lot more and they couldn't come to an agreement over how much that number was. I think tensions had been mounting between the two and Gruber was upset that Dan launched an app and wasn't sharing any of the revenue with him or the other hosts. Gruber and Dan also had a disagreement over how T-Shirt sales would be handled, because John sold his own shirts through Daring Fireball and didn't want to lose too much of that cash cow by watering down his brand. Well, Dan went ahead and had The Talk Show shirts printed up without clearing it with John first and that was what pushed Gruber over the edge. That was the last show. If you listen, in the last 20 minutes or so, when Dan brings up the shirts for the first time, you can just cut the tension with a knife. John just basically stops talking and starts giving one word answers to everything, until it putters to a pathetic awkward ending.

As for Marco, I don't really know. I have a feeling he just thought... why am I basically giving up 10s of thousands of dollars a year to this guy, when I can do this all myself.

Siracusa I think genuinely retired, but was convinced by Marco to join his show. Probably because the format was way easier on him. Doing hypercritical required him to do hours of research weekly and make all sorts of preparations... on ATP, he doesn't have to do any of that.

I have a feeling that Dan Benjamin is pretty sour about the whole thing.

[subego]

Interesting scuttle. Thanks!

[subego]

In separate TWiT news, I'm going to officially throw down with Chad being in trouble.

I've seen this over and over. If you give a producer their own show, their producing suffers.

[subego]

Johnson
Wood
Milian
Dvorak

[The Final Dakar]

Episode name should have been "Trojan makes a great crock pot"

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by subego 

Leo just claimed Dvorak isn't on more because there are a bunch of people he refuses to go on with.

Late on this, but isn't this the exact opposite of the situation (i.e., there's a boatload of people who refuse to go on with Dvorak)

[subego]

I honestly have no knowledge of that, but could completely buy it.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by subego 

I honestly have no knowledge of that, but could completely buy it.

I'm pretty sure that was said on air a long time ago. Calacanis was mentioned too for similar reasons.

[subego]

Well, with Calacanis, one of those people is Leo. That was the "hate" show setup. Put Arrington and Calacanis on TWiT.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by subego 

Well, with Calacanis, one of those people is Leo. That was the "hate" show setup. Put Arrington and Calacanis on TWiT.

It was before the falling out. I believe the conundrum was there was small pool of people that would go on with Dvorak, another pool for Calacanis, and the two wouldn't go on with each other. Made for quite the guest juggling act.

[ort888]

I think you'd have to be a pretty big primma donna to flat out refuse to go on TWIT with Dvorak.

I mean, come on? He's actually pretty mild in his curmudgeonny.

I find him annoying because he rarely adds much of real value, not because of his "bah-humbug" schtick, which I actually kind of enjoy as a foil to Leo's schoolgirlesque excitement over everything.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by ort888 

I think you'd have to be a pretty big primma donna to flat out refuse to go on TWIT with Dvorak.

I mean, come on? He's actually pretty mild in his curmudgeonny.

I find him annoying because he rarely adds much of real value, not because of his "bah-humbug" schtick, which I actually kind of enjoy as a foil to Leo's schoolgirlesque excitement over everything.

For a while there his only contribution would be "Who cares?" to pretty much any story Leo would bring up. And when he wasn't doing that, he'd just play Devil's Advocate for whatever the unpopular opinion was, not out of a sense of balance but just to rile people. I suppose this makes me realize he's not nearly as bad a troll as he once was, but its probably because he stopped trying.

[subego]

Beja
Joire
Norton
Newton

[subego]

Magid
Dvorak
Gannes
Morris (Clayton)

[subego]

Prager
Belmont
Block

[subego]

Chang
Snell
Stevens
Dvorak?

[subego]

Leo totally ripped my shit for the name of this episode.

http://forums.macnn.com/89/macnn-lou...-driving-cats/

[subego]

We still have the Google juice though. Number one link for self-driving cats!

[subego]

I didn't say "number one link for self-driving cats" instead of just "number one link" for SEO purposes. Just throwing "self-driving cats" in there only to manipulate Google would be immoral. It's a thread about "self-driving cats" so I think it's reasonable I say "self-driving cats".

[subego]

Ritchie
Patterson

[subego]

Cohen
Dvorak
Scobleizer