Hypercritical
By 5by5
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Podcast Description
A weekly talk show ruminating on exactly what is wrong in the world of Apple and related technologies and businesses. Nothing is so perfect that it can't be complained about. Hosted by John Siracusa & Dan Benjamin.
| Name | Description | Released | Price | ||
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1 |
Hypercritical 69: Sport of Kings | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk a bit more about patents and copyright, revisit the sources of lag in human/computer interactions, revise the probabilities of retina-display Macs, MacBook Pros without ethernet ports, any Mac Pros ever again, and the various ways to deal with a possible taller iPhone screen. | 25 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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2 |
Hypercritical 68: Patent Hands | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin, inevitably, revisit the topic of patents, attempting to address a wide array of listener feedback. For the hearty listeners that make it through the patent talk, there's a bonus discussion of the new MacBook Pro rumors, and a brief consideration of cutscenes and trailers in video games. | 18 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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3 |
Hypercritical 67: A Pill That Helps with Whatever | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the various ways that Apple takes money from transactions involving the App Store, lessons from gaming and gamers for the larger software world, why nothing is ever good enough when it comes to technology, the Instagram acquisition, and the sad state of the US patent system and how it might be fixed. | 11 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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4 |
Hypercritical 66: The Housewives of Siracusa County | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss meeting Apple employees at WWDC, the latest round of iPhone rumors, RubyMotion (a new product for writing iOS apps in Ruby), the distinction between producer, consumer, and performer in gaming and other arts, The Kids Today, games as art, and Dropbox-related App Store rejections. | 4 5 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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5 |
Hypercritical 65: Look Right into the Eyes of Your Sweetie | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the WWDC ticket sales kerfuffle and the potential future of the conference, then revisit the topic of gaming as a form of art with some uncommon characteristics. Finally, the new Gmail user interfaces goes under the microscope. | 27 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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6 |
Hypercritical 64: You Will Die Instantly! | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit software updates (paid or otherwise), then discuss various screen size possibilities for the next iPhone, the historical and ongoing dilution of the concept of a "gamer" (and Apple's role in that phenomenon), and the extremely unlikely possibility of any sort partnership between Valve and Apple. | 20 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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7 |
Hypercritical 63: Talking to the Bear | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk more about paid upgrades in the Mac App Store, how Apple is reshaping the software market (intentionally or otherwise), Readability's role as a middleman as compared to another prominent middleman, the App Store, and finally, the Flashback malware scourge and what it says about Apple's preparedness. | 13 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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8 |
Hypercritical 62: A Sack Containing Scum from a Pond | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin try to put the topic of car engine noises to bed, then discuss value of "enterprise" businesses, RIM's possible future as a services company, Readability's business model, and Wil Shipley's case for paid upgrades in the Mac App Store. | 6 4 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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9 |
Hypercritical 61: I Ran Out of Bombs Long Ago | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the display of large images on iOS devices, Apple's latest web standards proposal and "rogue" implementation in WebKit, RIM's new enterprise-centric strategy, and the popular new iOS game, Draw Something. Plus, a Very Special epilogue all about Marco Arment's dream car, the F10 BMW M5. | 30 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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10 |
Hypercritical 60: Reversing the Polarity | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the puzzling UI of iPhoto for IOS, the magnetic polarity of iPad Smart Covers, the Apple TV's ability to work with any remote, the iPad's lack of a number in its name (again), automotive platform awareness in Germany, video signal value ranges, DVRs in the UK, statistical significance, the Apple TV remote (again), and finally, Mike Daisey, Apple, and China. | 23 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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11 |
Hypercritical 59: Safari is Apple's Google | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin follow up on John's TiVo and smoke detector woes and the angst about the lack of a number after the name of the new iPad. John reviews his new Apple TV. Finally, the videos showing Chris Pirillo’s dad exploring Windows 8 and Mac OS X for the first time are mined for insights about computing in 2012 and beyond. | 16 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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12 |
Hypercritical 58: No More Numbers For You / The Four Tuners | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin do some brief follow up on file systems, then dive into this week's Apple press event: the new Apple TV, the new iPad, specs vs. product names vs. Apple PR vs. sanity, and how we all still miss Steve Jobs. Plus, John reviews his new TiVo Premiere Elite and, of all things, his new smoke detector. | 9 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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13 |
Hypercritical 57: Computational Skeuomorphism | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk more about file systems: the origins of Btrfs, how file systems might change in the new age of SSDs, the possibility of a Grand Unification of storage and memory subsystems, and why snapshots, clones, block-level diffs, and deduplication are awesome features of ZFS that would make Time Machine a lot better than it is today. The show ends with John's predictions for the new iPad, which we all assume will be announced at the Apple press event next week. | 2 3 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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14 |
Hypercritical 56: Belt and Suspenders | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk about file systems: what they do, what makes a good one, and who needs a new one, badly. (Spoiler: it's Apple.) File systems discussed: Microsoft's ReFS, ZFS, and HFS+. | 24 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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15 |
Hypercritical 55: Region of Pain | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss this week's announcement of OS X Mountain Lion: what it means for John's reviews, how the new release schedule might influence adoption and reliability, and how features like GateKeeper will affect Mac users and developers. | 17 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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16 |
Hypercritical 54: Public Service Announcement | There's no Hypercritical this week, so we put together something special for you instead. | 11 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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17 |
Hypercritical 53: Brad Pitt Gets to Contribute | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit gamification in education, talk briefly about the Nest thermostat, then engage in an ever-so-slightly more considered discussion of Wikipedia, attempting to address the mountain of feedback on the topic. No Wikipedians were harmed in the making of this episode. | 3 2 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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18 |
Hypercritical 52: Marked for Deletion | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk more about iBooks Author, Apple's real and stated motivations for entering the textbook market, and what really matters in education. This is followed by a long, ill-considered rant about Wikipedia. (Warning: original research, no neutral point of view.) | 27 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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19 |
Hypercritical 51: Unjustified Confidence | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin briefly recap the iPhone ringer/silent switch controversy, then discuss the new iBooks Author application, Apple's ebook ambitions and prospects, and the role of technology in education. | 20 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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20 |
Hypercritical 50: Maximum Deflection in All Directions | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit the world of console controllers, addressing the flood of listener feedback by expanding the discussion to include aftermarket and third-party controllers, and attempting to address the objections of PlayStation fans. A few comments about CES and how to deliver a truly Apple-like keynote presentation round out the episode. | 13 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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21 |
Hypercritical 49: Pinching the Harmonica | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss iPad use by three-year-olds, why non-gamers might consider the "Xbox" name a proxy for all of console gaming, the Wii generational hardware conundrum, and finally, an extremely long and obsessively detailed walk through the history of console game controllers, culminating in a rant about something that almost all other gamers love unconditionally. | 6 1 12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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22 |
Hypercritical 48: Blue Ocean | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin briefly indulge in more grammar questions, then revisit the consequences of HyperCard's demise, why we're all still talking about the Kindle Fire, using music and movies to split humanity into two groups, the pros and cons of different working environments, and finally, a brief history of Nintendo and a not-so-brief consideration of why they should or should not continue to make their own hardware. | 30 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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23 |
Hypercritical 47: Brute Force Attack | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk about low-stakes grammar issues, the continuing debate about partisanship in tech writing, more theories about an Apple TV product, the origins and fate of "friendly" programming environments like HyperCard, plus a little about Lego Star Wars and holiday toys for children. | 23 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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24 |
Hypercritical 46: Not Entirely Nefarious | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit complaints about Siri's apparent biases, reconsider the fake-book chrome in iBooks, explore an interesting new conception of an Apple TV set, and use John Gruber's appearance on The Verge as a jumping off point for examining partisanship in technology writing. Plus a bonus epilogue about the evolution of Twitter. | 16 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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25 |
Hypercritical 45: Star Wars is Not a Blog Post | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin follow up on a host of topics: what ails Microsoft, the (slow, partial) democratization of corporate IT, the people vs. George Lucas, perpetual copyright, applications as art, Siri backlash, and the evils of Blu-ray. | 9 12 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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26 |
Hypercritical 44: A Little Bit More Sad | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk about what ails Microsoft. What could the former titan of the technology world have done differently in the past two decades that would have prevented its decline? | 25 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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27 |
Hypercritical 43: The Scorpion and the Frog | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin continue their discussion of Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs, starting with listeners' reactions to the last episode, then (finally) talking about content from the book and the man himself. | 18 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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28 |
Hypercritical 42: The Wrong Guy | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs (Part 1). | 11 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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29 |
Hypercritical 41: The Homer | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin are joined by special guest Jeff Atwood, cofounder of the Stack Exchange Q&A network and creator of the popular programming blog codinghorror.com. John and Jeff try to rekindle the old Mac vs. PC flames and end up talking about the light and dark sides of Apple as a platform owner. | 4 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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30 |
Hypercritical 40: When The Hobby Light Goes Off | 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). | 28 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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31 |
Hypercritical 39: Quasimodo Backpack | 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. | 21 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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32 |
Hypercritical 38: Virtually Spotless | 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. | 14 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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33 |
Hypercritical 37: A Story of Triumph | 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. | 7 10 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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34 |
Hypercritical 36: Wedge | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss Amazon's new tablets, Amazon cloud services, 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. | 30 9 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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35 |
Hypercritical 35: Wrestling an Alligator | 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. | 23 9 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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36 |
Hypercritical 34: Pride in Craftsmanship | 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. | 16 9 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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37 |
Hypercritical 33: Square Bracket Colon Smiley | 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. | 9 9 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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38 |
Hypercritical 32: The Next Big Move | 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? | 31 8 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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39 |
Hypercritical 31: Strong Arguments for and Against | 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. | 24 8 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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40 |
Hypercritical 30: Paths in the Grass | 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. | 17 8 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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41 |
Hypercritical 29: In Too Deep | 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. | 10 8 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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42 |
Hypercritical 28: Trust, But Verify | 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. | 28 7 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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43 |
Hypercritical 27: Nakedly Optimistic | 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. | 24 7 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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44 |
Hypercritical 26: White Smoke | 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+, and new Mac hardware on the horizon. | 13 7 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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45 |
Hypercritical 25: Invisible Software | 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, | 6 7 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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46 |
Hypercritical 24: Sometimes It Hurts | 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. | 2 7 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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47 |
Hypercritical 23: No Sentence Left Behind | 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. | 24 6 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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48 |
Hypercritical 22: I Would Not Build Underground | 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. | 17 6 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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49 |
Hypercritical 21: Reading Playboy for the Articles | 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). | 10 6 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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50 |
Hypercritical 20: I've Got Nothing | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss John's upcoming trip to WWDC, Twitter's strange gaps in functionality, and the sale of NetNewsWire to Black Pixel. | 4 6 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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51 |
Hypercritical 19: Don't Make Me Read | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk toasters again, then discuss John's first computer love, the classic Macintosh Finder. | 27 5 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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52 |
Hypercritical 18: Worse and More Diverse | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin put the TV technology and PHP topics to bed, then discuss what's wrong with Twitter and why toaster ovens are worse today than they were a few decades ago. | 20 5 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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53 |
Hypercritical 17: Intruding Gooseneck | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk some more about TV technology, elaborate on why, exactly, PHP is a bad programming language, and ponder the place of SSDs in the lives of computer users who are not independently wealthy. | 13 5 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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54 |
Hypercritical 16: The Soap Opera Effect | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin repent after two episodes on programming languages by discussing TV technology…after about 45 minutes of follow-up. | 6 5 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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55 |
Hypercritical 15: The Bridges of Siracusa County | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin continue their discussion of high-level programming languages, now focusing on why all popular languages suck in some way, then transition into a hard look at Perl. | 29 4 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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56 |
Hypercritical 14: A Dark Age of Objective-C | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit Apple's GUI history, complain about TiVo some more, then explore the possibility of another Copland-like crisis looming in Apple's future. | 15 4 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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57 |
Hypercritical 13: The Tortoise and the Hare | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss Pixar, Facebook's open datacenter initiative, Star Wars, and, finally, Apple’s philosophy and practice of UI consistency over the years. | 8 4 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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58 |
Hypercritical 12: Nothing Is So Perfect | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin turn a critical eye towards last week's episode, then try to pick the single biggest challenge facing three different wildly successful companies: Google, Facebook, and yes…Pixar. | 1 4 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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59 |
Hypercritical 11: I Am the Steve Jobs of This Sandwich | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit Apple's iLife island and Google's operational secret weapons, then talk about the nature of criticism, online and offline. | 25 3 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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60 |
Hypercritical 10: Like Giving a Machine Gun to a Baby | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin are briefly amused by iPhone 5 rumors, then dive head first into a ruthless analysis of Apple's online services, past and present. | 18 3 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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61 |
Hypercritical 9: No iLife is an Island | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin further opine on the iPad 2 and the Apple Strategy Tax, then discuss iLife's anachronistic media management capabilities. | 11 3 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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62 |
Hypercritical 8: A Cautionary Tale | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin vow never to talk about physics again, then discuss the new iPad and, finally, how Apple has set itself up for a Microsoft-like dark age. | 4 3 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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63 |
Hypercritical 7: ThunderCats | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk about the big Apple news: new MacBook Pros with Thunderbolt i/o and the first developer preview release of Mac OS X Lion. | 25 2 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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64 |
Hypercritical 6: Frivolous Things | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin reveal the many prosaic reasons for not owning an iPhone, then veer off on several non-tech tangents and never fully recover. | 18 2 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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65 |
Hypercritical 5: Slippery Little Pill | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss Apple’s hardware blind spots: keyboards, dock connector, iPod/iPhone cases, laptop designs, and more. | 11 2 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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66 |
Hypercritical 4: iOS vs. The World | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit Mac OS X Lion and TV devices, then discuss the possibilities for iOS world domination. | 4 2 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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67 |
Hypercritical 3: The Mouse is Not a Finger | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin do some follow-up on the topic of backups, then talk about Mac OS X Lion and the future of Mac OS X. | 28 1 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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68 |
Hypercritical 2: Backup Vortex | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin tie up some loose ends from the TV show before talking about backups, the onus on Apple to make them work, Apple's past and present attempts, the failings of external hard drives, personal backup regimes, and online backups. | 21 1 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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69 |
Hypercritical 1: Dream Crusher | John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the sad state of TV technology, why TiVo sucks (but is still better than the alternatives), and why Apple has demurred. | 14 1 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 69 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
Unique, Entertaining and Cathartic
5by5 is quality across the board. Dan Benjamin's podcast empire cannot be hyped enough and Hypercritical is a superlative example. It has a unique flavour from the rest, it is full of informative discussion, it is ridiculously listenable, and it is wonderfully cathartic for geeks.
So close to the metal
So, I listen to a few of the 5 by 5 podcasts. Some of them I listen to for fun and news (The Talk Show, Back to Work, Let's Make Mistakes). This one I listen to because it informs me. John has got to be one of the truly great critics of Apple. Normally those who own apple products can be besotted by the brand and its cultural identity, John sees past Apple's recent success and makes the case for the many ways the company can lift its game. Super work John and Dan. Disclaimer: I have heard Gruber go to town in Apple's UI with great analysis, but the Talk Show does not mimic that level of detail on a regular basis. Seems Mr Siracusa can bring his A game each week and some others simply can't keep up!
j'accusa
john Siracusa delivers well thought out ideas on Apple products, design goals, and the things Apple fouls up. He's generally excellent at backgrounding and nailing the detail of his points. And there's no ego or bombast. He's more than happy to tell you the flaws in his thinking.
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