Follow-up: IBM AS/400 (aka System i) and single-level store. Marco's Retina theory. PS4 and Xbone sales. Trying to care about CES. Who "needs" the Mac Pro? Justifying toys and improving quality of life with smart purchases. Panasonic’s new LCD TVs compared to great TVs of the past. 4K on Fox Sports, 4K's color space, and the chances of 4K catching on quickly. A Steam Box (its controller) as a replacement for a gaming PC. Three old men reminiscing about their teenage gaming years: Null-modem cables, modems, and special networking software. Modem initialization strings and SLIP. What killed LAN parties? Perhaps it was great 4-player N64 games. Three Moves Ahead Podcast. Voodoo 3D cards, their silly cables, and Sound Blasters. Sponsored by: Fracture: Photos printed in vivid color directly on glass. Use code ATP14 for 25% off. (Marco's app-icon Fractures) Ting: Mobile that makes sense. No contracts, and pay only for what you use. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code MARCO for 10% off.

Mac Pro follow-up: socketed CPUs and potential upgrades, and the benefits of only using stock Apple parts. Scoring Apple's performance on John's 2013 to-do list. Concerns about Apple's recent Mac apps, including iWork '13 and Messages/iMessage. AnandTech's Mac Pro review. The Mac Pro's 4K/Retina monitor situation. The iMac vs. the Mac Pro, and the hardware needs of developers. Why do John and Marco care so much about Retina? What the next big computer-hardware shift may be. After-show: our future as old men, saturating USB 3, and the often-neglected Mac Mini. Sponsored by: OmniGraffle: Sketchy mockups or pixel-perfect designs for UX, UI, and diagrams. Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code TECHBYCHANCE for 10% off. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code MARCO for 10% off.

Explaining our podcast artwork. Facebook Likes in the App Store and ad-banner blindness. Dual-input displays and how they enable the 5120x2880 display that John and Marco want. Turbo Boost and the Mac Pro's CPU options. Using a laptop on a stand with an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor. The benefits of desktops and ECC. Mac Pro configurations for best value and future-proofing. Building separate gaming PCs, switching to iMacs, or trying to wedge PC gaming into Mac Pros. Mac Pro price stratification over time. Outlook 2011 for Mac complaints and John's multiple-selection-invalidation bug. Casey said some stuff at the end. Special holiday theme song by Jonathan Mann. Sponsored by: Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off. Warby Parker: Boutique-quality, vintage-inspired eyewear at a revolutionary price.

What if the new USB connector is too similar to Lightning? (John Gruber on Lightning) Potential for 5120-wide Retina displays to overcome Thunderbolt bandwidth limits by using "dual-input displays"? John's "quick" tips for TV calibration. (THX TV-calibration app) "Rate This App" dialogs: The Talk Show's excellent discussion. Marco's post. Underscore David Smith on App Store quality standards. How Apple could process "report as inappropriate" at scale. The effects of web popularity on Casey and Marco's respective unpopular apps (Fast Text and Bugshot). 5 Whys exploring why developers use "Rate This App" dialogs. What could Apple do to improve this? App Store discoverability vs. search, and how search could be improved. How much developers should be responsible for their own app marketing, and the uncomfortable reality that many apps just aren't compelling enough to sell well. Sponsored by: Backblaze: Online backup for $5/month. Native. Unlimited. Unthrottled. Uncomplicated. Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off. Audible: Over 150,000 downloadable audiobooks. Get a free audiobook with a 30-day trial.

Accidental Fountain Screenplay: The Case of Liss by Joe Steel. (And Bionic.) Desktop 4K/Retina resolutions hitting bandwidth limitations of Thunderbolt 2 and DisplayPort 1.2, and the Sharp/Apple non-news. John's Squarespace-reseller idea already exists. Why aren't iOS App Store purchases available for purchasing and management in the App Store app on the Mac? John's new TV: Technological progression from CRT to plasma and LCD, and the many hacky tricks used by modern TVs to overcome limitations and look better in stores. See also: Hypercritical 16: The Soap Opera Effect. The new John Siracusa TV. John's TV-calibration regimen. Why we're not talking about the iOS notification sync in OS X that never shipped. Merlin's response to our criticism discussion, and how Casey reacts to little worms. After-show Neutral: the new M3/M4 and John's dead pedal. Sponsored by: Pixelmator: Full-featured image editing app for the Mac. Transporter: A private cloud storage drive that you own and control. End-of-the-year sale: Use code ATP30 for $30 off any Transporter before midnight on December 31, 2013! Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code ATP12 for 10% off.

FU on PrimeSense. Apple's acquisition of Topsy and speculation on why. Apple's possible difficulty in getting and keeping enough engineering talent, and how they might make bigger strides in web services. Which group wears the pants in a company? Marco's embarrassing FiOS support calls. How Apple's release and marketing schedule affects their web services. Methodologies and vocabularies. USB spec group will add a reversible connector, the history of terrible USB connectors (see also: Hypercritical #5 from around 45 minutes, Hypercritical #6 from around 9 minutes, and the entire rest of the series, too), Lightning epitomizing Apple. Dell renews hope for desktop Retina with the new Mac Pro, single big monitors vs. dual smaller ones, and higher-than-native resolution scaling on the Retina MacBook Pro (see also: Eye-Friendly). Waiting for a new technology to fully mature before switching, or adopting it earlier with tradeoffs and hacks. Texas. Sponsored by: Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code ATP12 for 10% off. Igloo: An intranet you'll actually like. Free for up to 10 people, and affordable for your entire company. (And check out this landing page, especially if you enjoyed John's Enterprise Software Assumptions in episode 39.) Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off.

David Chartier's clarification on Photo Stream limits. Space Monkey, Transporter, Box, and Xdrive. Results of John's Disk Utility repair survey. (John on Debug) Xbox One launch sales. Apple buys PrimeSense. Apple's potential expansion into the TV business. Penny Arcade's job posting, Marco's reaction, and the outgoing employee's description. Extended after-show: how we deal with criticism, trolls, and our own flaws when facing our audience. Sponsored by: Warby Parker: Boutique-quality, vintage-inspired eyewear at a revolutionary price. Use coupon code ATP for free 3-day shipping. Ting: Mobile that makes sense. No contracts, and pay only for what you use. iPhone now available.

Follow-up on Cisco VPNs on Mavericks and [photo backups] to SkyDrive on Windows Mobile Phone Series Metro Not-Metro Phone Windows. Why enterprise software is so hard, and the barriers to entry for small companies targeting the enterprise market. Game-console sales by generation, Nintendo In Crisis, and AnandTech's Xbox One and PS4 mini-review. Casey's new Retina iPad Mini, Marco's accidentally popular image-retention test, DisplayMate quality analysis, free data with a T-Mobile SIM, and choosing between the iPad Air and Retina Mini. A7 thermal throttling in iPhone 5S, iPad Air, and Retina iPad Mini, and deeper analysis of the A7. John's disk-corruption adventure and why you should "repair" your HFS disks. Take John's disk-repair results survey! Ending Theme Song 2.0 by Jonathan Mann. (We still like the old one, so we'll keep it but rotate this in sometimes.) After-show: Fraser Speirs producing his podcast on an iPad, Back to Work 146 with Dan possibly going iPad-only, SimCity 2000 on SNES, Lex's Logitech Ultrathin Mini keyboard review, Apple refurb discounts, and the Casio B.O.S.S., which can even exchange data with a PC! Sponsored by: Ting: Mobile that makes sense. No contracts, and pay only for what you use. Gemvara: The revolutionary leader of custom-made, fine jewelry shopping online.

John's new Museum of Mediocre Reading Devices. The confusing Photo Stream limits, and all of these links in the show notes. Stephen Elop's If-I-Were-CEO Plan. A story about enterprise software. The four big assumptions about using enterprise software, why it's usually so terrible, and why big companies buy it. Sponsored by: Transporter: A private cloud storage drive that you own and control. Use code ATP for 10% off any Transporter. Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off. Squarespace: Everything you need to create an exceptional website. Use promo code ATP11 for 10% off.

Thanks to Jim Pierce for extending John's dog. (Also mentioned: AntiCrop, Glide) Everpix's failure and impending shutdown: The Verge's profile of the failure Shutdown FAQ Staff tweet about compression and average usage Staff tweet about "3x userbase" needed Somewhat similar services: Loom, Picturelife, Adobe Revel Everpix's critical strategic error, and how tech business and funding strategies should resemble Puerto Rico game strategies). Revisiting the challenges of online photo storage and why Apple isn't offering something like Everpix with iCloud. Answers to the last listener questions about John's Mavericks review. Sponsored by: Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use promo code ATP for 10% off. F-Sim Space Shuttle: A highly-realistic simulator of the space shuttle’s approach and landing in unprecedented detail and accuracy.