Simple Beep

In this episode we talk about all kinds of widgets, gadgets, and little software thingamabobs. We discuss what qualifies as an app, how to hack together a Konfabulator widget, and hardware accelerated ripples.

Links for this episode:

• YoruFukorou means "night owl"

1937 E. Lyons Assignment in Utopia (1938) iii. iii. 299 Every time the percentage of widgets turned out by her factory rose her features shone.

• Chooser

• FAQ (including Arlo Rose and Perry Clark bio)

• OS X 10.4 Tiger

• 1st-party widgets not Retina

• John Gruber's take

• unreleased 2.0 beta

We're joined by visual artist and icon/emoji creator Brian Brasher, perhaps better known as Etherbrian. We talk about making vectors and pixels of all sorts, getting $2 in the mail from strangers, the genius of bell peppers, and various objects worn as hats.

• Bondi blue

• Birth of Venus

• Brian's schemes

• John Marstall (aka Perfect Yosemite)

• Shanghai Psych-Out [WayBack]

• Layer Tennis – monkey with fez

This episode we explore the history of Adium, the venerable open-source messaging app for OS X. We trace the evolution of the duck, get Ed's obscure feature requests implemented, and eventually move all our chat needs to iOS.

• Icon Machine

• for classic Mac OS

• Fitt's law

• Tokyo Train Station

• GAIM (later Pidgin)

• AIM vs. MSN

• variant of Ed's Kill Bill theme

This episode we talk with Erin McKean, founder of online dictionary Wordnik, about her history of processing and analyzing words with NeXT boxes, OS/2, and the Mac. We discuss self-identifying as a programmer, HyperCard qualifying as math, and hardcoded Danish comments.

Links for this episode:

• Wordnik

• iOS pantry apps

This episode we cover 30 years of icon design, from black and white pixel art all the way to today's gorgeous, full-screen, retina eye candy. Along the way we encounter some FatBits, creatures that go "Moof!", and deep levels of icon-ception.

Links for this episode:

• new iTunes icon!

• Susan Kare
• MacPaint toolbox
• System 1 control panel
• FatBits
• "Pixel perfect: The golden age of icons was 32x32"
• Ed's Copland folder variations [download]
• clip2icns
• "Hard Drive Icons Through the Ages"
• Aqua icons

• "Picasso" Macintosh logo (actually Matisse!)
• Clarus the Dogcow
• Steve Jobs portrait
• Yosemite app icon design guidelines

• The Iconfactory
  • history of the factory
  • Pixelpalooza contest
  • Twitterrific app
• Brian Brasher (Etherbrian and Etherknot)
• John Marstall (The Iconmaster and Perfect Yosemite)
• Alamofire collaboration
  • Packrat
  • Gowalla
• Layne Karkruff (Blue Sky Heart Design)
  • Blue Sky Icon archive
  • Ed's BSI-esque control panel icon [download]
• Pixelgirl Presents
• Icontown

• Ed: FoxTrot icon set [download]
  • Cris Phin's tweet on tiling icons/images
• Brian: 1024 Pixels contest
  • contest entries from 2000 [download]

• Apple Icon Garden
  • the story of the garden's removal
  • Iconfactory's icon set of the Icon Garden

Brian and Ed share their top ten picks of fun "utilities" for the classic Mac. Ranging from useful to totally impractical, we cover flying toasters, beloved muppets, butchers of song, and more.

Links for this episode:

• followup
  • realMyst Masterpiece Edition [MAS] [Steam]
• Eyeballs
  • color version: MyEyes
  • OS X versions
    • Eyeballs 3.3
    • Eyes [MAS]
  • Javascript version: eyeballs
• Insanity
• Zipple
  • original documentation
• Gravité
• asciiMac
  • winner of MacHack 1998
  • official homepage
• After Dark
  • CSS version (includes Flying Toasters)
  • Lunatic Fringe: browser version
• Talking Moose
  • Original Talking Moose (history and download)
  • current official site (creepy new Windows version)
• The Grouch
  • YouTube demo
• Kaboom!
  • spam blog "review" [Google cache]
• Jared
  • Jared Smith
  • YouTube demo (original)
  • YouTube demo (Christmas)

This episode we link back to Myst Island, scene of one of the all-time classic games to be developed and premiere on the Mac. We discuss our impressions of Myst's gameplay and greater mythology, have an Accidental Incomparable episode about The Myst Reader, and forget which one is Atrus and which one is Aitrus.

Links for this episode:

• Myst
  • Wikipedia
  • official site
• development
  • Making of Myst video
  • HyperCard
  • Color Tools
  • Quadra
  • Stratavision 3D
  • Macromedia MacroModel
  • Photoshop 1.0
    • 25 years of Photoshop
  • Myst system requirements
• what's in the box
• the first-person puzzle genre
  • Portal and Portal 2
  • The Room [iOS App Store link]
  • real-world room escape challenges
• Myst: The Official Strategy Guide
• the mythology
  • The Myst Reader
    • The Book of Atrus
    • The Book of Ti'ana
    • The Book of D'ni
  • D'ni language and writing system
• other Cyan projects
  • pre-Myst
    • Cosmic Osmo
    • The Manhole
  • Myst sequels
    • Riven
    • III: Exile
    • IV: Revelation
    • V: End of Ages
    • Uru (MMO)
  • remasters
    • Myst Masterpiece Edition
    • realMyst
    • realMyst Masterpiece Edition
  • ALL the ports!
    • iPhone (classic Myst only)
    • iPad (realMyst only)
  • Obduction
    • Kickstarter campaign
    • preview video
• other Myst media
  • Book of Marrim
  • 2002 TV series (never happened)
  • Ti'ana fan movie (never happened)
  • new TV series (announced May 2015)
• Mysterium annual convention
• Pyst parody

This episode we talk with Jonathan Zufi, creator of Shrine of Apple and Iconic: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation. He tells us about his Apple II clone from down under, coming back to the Mac after a long hiatus, and — of course — how he tracked down and photographed some of the most elusive Apple hardware on the planet.

Links for this episode:

• Jonathan Zufi
  • Iconic [website] [Amazon]
  • Shrine of Apple
  • @shrineofapple
  • Shrine of Apple on Facebook
• early experiences with Apple
  • Wombat clone (nearly sued out of existence)
  • Apple IIc
  • Wizardry games [emulate online]
  • Logo
  • Macintosh Plus
  • Macintosh IIvi
  • MacPaint
  • desktop pattern in General control panel
  • map control panel
• software design
  • Transmit
  • iMovie
  • Piezo
• creating Iconic
  • the inspiration: Robot War [emulate online]
  • similar books: Apple Design, Appledesign
  • Canon EOS 5D Mark II
• hardware Jonathan kept
  • Lisa
  • Apple II Plus
  • Product (RED) iPods
• tracking down a Multiserver
• people who assisted in Iconic
  • Forest McMullin, editor
  • Jim Abeles
  • John Woodall of VintageMicros – Unifile drive
  • Daniel Kottke – Apple III motherboard
  • Mark Richards of Computer History Museum
  • Randy Carr – Newton prototype
  • Lonnie Mims of Computer Museum of America
  • Lisa Clark, layout designer
• some more products we enjoyed…

Our history of iTunes continues, picking up with major updates introduced in version 4 and making it all the way to the present day. We discuss awkward definitions of podcasting, ill-fated products and features, and serious controversy in icon design.

Audio note: We're sorry that Ed's audio for this episode was improperly recorded and is of lower quality than usual. We'd like to thank the following people for helping us clean up the recording so we could still release this episode.

• Jason Snell, host of shows on The Incomparable and Relay FM
• Luca Zorzi, host of shows on EasyPodcast
• Mark Bizilj, host of Bitni Pogovori

Links for this episode:

• April 2003 Special Event keynote
• iTunes Music Store
• the lousy competition
  • Napster
  • Kazaa
  • Pressplay
  • Rhapsody
• songs priced at 99¢
• Apple Corps v. Apple Computer
• infrastructure for launching a store/service
  • Tidal
  • Amazon Prime Music
• AAC format
• Apple movie trailers site
• Amazon's 1-Click patent
• music store sales milestones
• Rendezvous
• 4.1: "Hell freezes over" with Windows port
• 4.5: iMix, Party Shuffle
• 4.9: Podcasting, support for Motorola ROKR

• it's not version 4.10!
• new interface (became system-wide in OS X Leopard)
• Smart Shuffle
  • it's less random!
  • Radiolab on randomness

• TV shows and videos added to iTMS

• gapless playback
• "album list" view
• Cover Flow
• two-way sync to iPod
  • Senuti
• movies on iTMS
• Steve Jobs: "Thoughts on Music"
• 7.2: iTunes Plus format with no DRM
• 7.3: iPhone activation

• Genius
• iTMS: variable pricing, 100% DRM-free, and HD video

• Extras and LPs
• iTunes DJ

• Ping
  • Facebook API blocked
• AirTunes becomes AirPlay
• icon controversy!
  • @itunes10icon
  • Steve Jobs: iTunes 10 Icon Does Not ‘Suck’
  • Louie Mantia

• visual overhaul
  • Helvetica Neue (system-wide in Yosemite)
• Up Next

• another interface overhaul

We chronicle the launch and early history of iTunes, from the acquisition of SoundJam up through version 3.0. Along the way we unearth bizarre Apple web services, people go crazy over burn folders, and Steve Jobs slips up.

Links for this episode:

• iMac – 1998
• iCEO – 2000
• iMovie and the iMac DV
• HomePage movie sharing features
• iTools press release
  • iReview [WayBack Machine]

• Macworld Expo San Francisco 2001 keynote
• MacLife: "The Complete iTunes History"
• Power Mac G4 "digital audio"
• burn folder demo
• MiniDV format
• Chalkboard typeface
  nope, it's One Stroke Script
• the competition
  • RealPlayer
  • Windows Media Player
  • MusicMatch
• iTunes install CD [eBay]
• iTunes download form [WayBack Machine]
• SoundJam feature list [WayBack Machine]
• brushed metal
  • QuickTime 4
  • SoundJam default theme
• Lucida Grande typeface
• CDDB / Gracenote
• OS X single-window mode
• iTunes visualizer

non-sponsor: Conflict Catcher 8 (winner of the 1998 Eddy Award!)

• Macworld Expo Tokyo 2001 keynote
• 750,000 downloads of 1.0
• supported 3rd party CD burners
• first version on OS X

• iPod support
• Equalizer
  • Merlin Mann's perfect EQ
• cross-fader

• Smart Playlists
• ★ ratings
  • half-star ratings in iTunes
• Sound Check
• Audible book support
• iLife: iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iTunes