The Talk Show With John Gruber

Special guest Marco Arment returns to the show. Topics include microphones; Marco’s much-publicized article last week on Apple’s seemingly declining software quality; talking to the press and agreeing to interviews; Apple’s relatively tiny developer relations team (and how that pertains to the aforementioned segment on Apple’s perceived software quality); the purported new 12-inch MacBook Air and its dearth of peripheral ports; and more.

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A brief chat about the Star Wars movies, with special guests John Siracusa and Guy English.

Update, Monday 5 January 2015: Updated with a new Special Edition edit, including a new introduction, a new editing gag around the 2:20:00 mark, new poster art, and some subtle re-syncing of the audio tracks. No extra Banthas were added, and Siracusa still shoots first.

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Special guest Jason Snell joins the show for a year-end extravaganza. Topics include Jason’s first three months writing (and podcasting) as an indie at his new Six Colors; a look back at his 20-year career at MacUser and soon thereafter Macworld; tricky edge cases when booking sponsorships, and the whole situation with separating advertising sales from editorial integrity when you’re running a one-person publication; the Sony/North Korea hacking and The Interview, and iTunes’s slightly belated release thereof; and we pour one out for good old Movable Type.

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Special guest Rene Ritchie returns to the show for a special Apple 2014 year-in-review episode. Just a few of the many topics covered: Apple’s Beats acquisition; WWDC 2014 in hindsight; an aside speculating on the alternate universe where Google acquired WebOS instead of Android; the similarities between the “projected UI” nature of AirPlay, CarPlay, and WatchKit; UI fonts (Helvetica Neue in Yosemite, Apple Sans, and the Watch’s San Francisco (a.k.a. “DINvetica”)); Apple’s growing ability to design and bring to market its own hardware internals and components; recent controversies and confusing rejections at the App Store (and the need for a public-facing App Store ombudsman); and what we’re looking forward to in 2015.

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Special guest Dan Frommer joins the show to talk about prop bets in Vegas, more Star Wars, some follow-up on James Bond, what should Apple do with its mountains of cash?, speculation on why iPad sales growth has stagnated, and more. Also, some in-depth segments on Instagram and the concept of “institutional taste”.

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Special guest Dave Wiskus joins the show to talk about the new teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and just-announced title and cast for the 24th EON Productions Bond movie, Spectre. Other topics include the untapped potential of podcasting and YouTubing, cutting babies in half, turtle copulation, and kangaroo genitalia.

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Special guest Christa Mrgan joins the show to talk about Yosemite UI design, Apple TV’s aesthetics (and its shitty IR remote control), Apple Watch speculation (including using it as an Apple TV remote), the Watch’s new San Francisco font, bling in icon design, and more. It’s a Thanksgiving week design-focused spectacular.

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Who else but very special guest John Moltz to ring in The Talk Show’s centurial episode. Topics include iPhone display sizes (and in particular, our mutual preference for the old 5S 4-inch size over the 4.7-inch iPhone 6); the new book Moltz co-wrote, The Visual Guide to Minecraft; writing tools, including word processors and Markdown; shopping for gaming PCs as a Mac person; Microsoft Office going free on mobile platforms; Twitter’s stilted strategy statement; President Obama’s statement on Net Neutrality; and Tim Cook’s eloquent essay announcing that he’s gay.

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Very special guest Merlin Mann returns to the show to talk about Comcast customer service, cable-cutting, Marlins Man (no relation) and his showboating-spectator predecessors, and the state of podcasting today. Also: daylight saving time and Roman numerals.

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Special guest John Siracusa returns to the show to discuss last week’s Apple event (introducing the iPad Air 2), and OS X Yosemite (and his review thereof).

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