Beyond Devices Podcast

We took a break last week as we were both traveling, but we're back this week with Episode 6. We moved our Question of the Week to the beginning of the episode this week, as it provides useful context for our discussion of Apple's earnings, which are due next week. Jan talks through Apple's earnings release process, and provides some beginner's notes on what to look for and how Apple reports, as well as providing a deeper dive into Apple's reporting trends. We also talk about some specifics of what to expect next Tuesday.

Our other topics this week are the new iPods Apple announced, the iPhone ads the company recently released, and the public betas of iOS and OS X, which Aaron has been trying out. Our Pick of the Week feature also returns, this time around with something rather different.

This week, our first major topic of discussion is the Apple Music launch, the new service, and Beats 1, along with our first impressions. We have somewhat different reactions to Beats 1, but both enjoy the other features. Our Question of the Week is "How is Apple's PR strategy changing?" in the wake of former PR chief Katie Cotton's departure and the new openness Tim Cook is bringing to Apple – we use the Apple Music launch over the past few weeks as a case study of the new approach. Our third topic is Brent Simmons' blog post about the dire prospects for indie app developers – something we think is both inevitable but overcooked by Simmons in his piece. Lastly, we introduce a new segment called the Weekly Pick, in which we recommend something new we've discovered recently – this week, Aaron recommends a new motown album he's enjoying. Links and more in the show notes on the podcast website.

This week, our first major topic of discussion is the Apple Music launch, the new service, and Beats 1, along with our first impressions. We have somewhat different reactions to Beats 1, but both enjoy the other features. Our Question of the Week is "How is Apple's PR strategy changing?" in the wake of former PR chief Katie Cotton's departure and the new openness Tim Cook is bringing to Apple – we use the Apple Music launch over the past few weeks as a case study of the new approach. Our third topic is Brent Simmons' blog post about the dire prospects for indie app developers – something we think is both inevitable but overcooked by Simmons in his piece. Lastly, we introduce a new segment called the Weekly Pick, in which we recommend something new we've discovered recently – this week, Aaron recommends a new motown album he's enjoying. Links and more in the show notes on the podcast website.

This week, we kick off our conversation with a discussion of the very rapid turnaround that happened this past weekend when Apple reversed its stance on paying royalties to artists and labels in the face of a blog post from Taylor Swift. Our question of the week tackles the three different flavors of Apple's operating systems – developer previews, public betas, and final releases – and what you should know about them. And at the end we have a brief discussion about Apple's ongoing licensing of the Liquidmetal alloys and what it might do with them.

We discuss more of the announcements from Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), with a focus on the content announcements, and in particular Apple Music and the News app. In addition, our Question of the Week this week is about the DJs Apple has hired to host its new Beats 1 radio station. We discuss who they are, why Apple hired them, and what they'll do for Apple. Feel free to submit your questions for future QoTW segments via our website at podcast.beyonddevic.es.

In Episode 2, we discuss some of the announcements made at Apple's WWDC keynote earlier in the week, including the enhancements to iOS and OS X, the announcement of watchOS 2, and the introduction of search APIs and related technologies for Spotlight and Siri. We also introduce a new weekly feature: The Question of the Week, this week tackling what it means that Apple is open sourcing its Swift programming language, and why it was the announcement that got the biggest applause among the developers at WWDC.

This is the first episode of the Beyond Devices Podcast, featuring Jan Dawson and Aaron Miller. In this episode, we look forward to Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference next week, and discuss some of what we’re expecting, and some of what we’d like to see Apple announce.