Accidental Tech Podcast

We'll be guests on the WWDC live episode of The Talk Show: Tuesday, June 3, 6–9 PM. Get tickets here ASAP! John will be taking a plane... for you. Follow-up: Which is faster: installing Showbot or reimplementing it? Casey's open-source Node version PHP isn't faster than Javascript, voiding Marco's accidental argument in the last episode. Node.js uses CommonJS, not AMD. ECMAScript also adds formal module support, which es6-module-transpiler lets you use today. To the great surprise of nobody except John, iPhones come with earbuds, and those earbuds come with clickers. To the great surprise of nobody, including John, the Bluetooth-pairing interface in a car was terrible, and both Marco and Casey missed an obscure reference. iOS games that support physical game controllers must also work without them. If the "iPhone 6" comes in two sizes, which do you buy? Possibility of resolution scaling modes. Would the cameras be different? (Marco on The Talk Show, starting around 01:26:00). WWDC product-announcement predictions: New MacBook Airs or a 12" Retina MacBook Air? (Intel's Broadwell delay) Macworld's slow SSD speeds in the new Airs may just be from different SSD manufacturers. New Apple TV hardware or software? The Apple TV 3's CPU was originally a dual-core A5 with one die disabled, but not anymore. The iPod Touch still has an A5 LOL. There may not be any new hardware announced at WWDC, just like previous WWDCs in 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011. New sensors to be taken advantage of, like Pedometer++ did with the M7 last year. Craig Hockenberry on Apple wearables Wearables, sensors, and watches in fashion and reality. Bringing the new Mac Pro's dark-glossy-aluminum finish to more Pro hardware? Retina Thunderbolt Display? The Magic Mouse. Yes, we really talked about this. Drawing conclusions from the "To Be Announced" sessions in the WWDC schedule. WWDC predictions for Mac OS X 10.10: Just a visual refresh, or notable improvements to the core OS as well? Apple shuffling engineers around to work on the new hotness while neglecting its established platforms and applications. Modernization or replacement of AppKit, possibly by bringing the relevant parts of UIKit to Mac? Is there any hope for a new filesystem, possibly by evolving Core Storage? WWDC predictions for iOS 8: Better inter-app communication: A system like Contracts or Intents? Involving remote view controllers? Side-by-side iPad multitasking? Springboard enhancements? Please kill Newsstand. Please. Just make them normal app icons. Could Remote View Controllers and Background Refresh be used for widgets, live tiles, or dynamic icons? Customizable default browser, mail app, etc.? WWDC predictions for new or improved web services: Sponsored by: lynda.com: Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials. Free 7-day trial. NatureBox: Discover and enjoy delicious snacks, conveniently delivered to your home or office. Dash: Create a free, real-time dashboard for your website, your business, or your life. (Check out the ones they made for us.)

The modern Apple-store experience Follow-up: Marco reneges on his recent praise of Beats headphones, then receives the saddest real-time follow-up ever Headphones mentioned: B&O BeoPlay H6: Great comfort, but not sound. Beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro (32-ohm version; Casey's headphones) for very good sound at a great value (when the price drops to $175). Sennheiser PX 200-II i: Marco's favorite portable set. Great portability, clicker, and value, but poor sound and durability. More picks from Marco Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10 (Casey's earphones) Net Neutrality Nintendo's sad trombone Nintendo in Crisis PS4 outperforms Xbone Game Controller Programming Guide Nintendo 64 Accessories Expansion Pak Rumble Pak Kinect-free Xbone Beginnings of WWDC predictions Odwalla Healthbook VO2 The Prompt on Carousel, one of their many photo-management-related episodes The Infinite Version Casey and Marco explore mixed metaphors... politely. Ish. _ on the state of the Apple community WebObjects Fnd.io Multipath TCP After-show: iOS 8 split-screen multitasking John obliquely discusses some Overcast complaints. Wearables. Sorta. More on headphones. John was wrong about something. Sponsored by: Dash: Create a free, real-time dashboard for your website, your business, or your life. (Check out the ones they made for us.) Hover: High-quality, no-hassle domain registration. Use coupon code SCRUMMERFALL for 10% off. NatureBox: Discover and enjoy delicious snacks, conveniently delivered to your home or office.

Casey's big news! (Much better than The Year of Luigi.) Casey and John discuss Monument Valley, the Escher-inspired puzzle game. (Marco didn't do his homework.) Apple and Google agree to... something "Fight the real enemy" Apple might be buying Beats: why, and what they'd probably do with it. WebKit optimizes Javascript with LLVM Wat The Birth & Death of JavaScript "Full-stack developers" keeping up with the crazy world of Javascript frameworks. Using third-party code. Sponsored by: PDFPen Scan+: Scan and OCR PDFs anywhere from your iPhone or iPad, upload, share, and more. Backblaze: Online backup for $5/month. Native. Unlimited. Unthrottled. Uncomplicated. lynda.com: Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials. Free 7-day trial.

Hurry if you want an ATP T-Shirt! Just $19, and the sale may be over by the time you read this! Follow-up: Who plays video games vs. self-identified "gamers" ComiXology Is Apple's 30% cut of in-app purchases the same as net neutrality? Vihart Video Internet2 Who should blink, Apple or ComiXology? AppLinks App.net sunsets its employees Brianna Wu's Post Tent Chrome experiments with removing URLs from the omnibox Casey open-sourced his Camel blog engine After-show: Casey's flower boxes John's code on CPAN Rose Marco's bastardized K&R style wedged into his Objective-C code Brent Simmons on Javascript integers Sponsored by: NatureBox: Discover and enjoy delicious snacks, conveniently delivered to your home or office. Igloo: An intranet you'll actually like. New Relic: See your web app's performance and find bottlenecks anywhere in the stack. Start your 30-day free trial.

ATP T-Shirts: $19 each, available for only 1 week! Follow-up: Average age of gamers (more here and here from the Entertainment Software Association) Your favorite game genres going out of fashion Apps and games Mentioned: Metal Gear Solid Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Flight Control (iTunes) The Incident Letterpress Tiny Wings Ramp Champ Threes Total Annihilation Supreme Commander Facebook App Links MacStories Rene Ritchie ComiXology removes in-app purchase Back to Work Office for iPad/iPhone After-show: Burstly acquired by Apple, which brings TestFlight with it. Casey's new website Sponsored by: Backblaze: Online backup for $5/month. Native. Unlimited. Unthrottled. Uncomplicated. Fracture: Photos printed in vivid color directly on glass. Use code ATP for 20% off. (Marco's 5x5 app-icon Fractures) New Relic: See your web app's performance and find bottlenecks anywhere in the stack. Start your 30-day free trial.

Follow-up on pCell and database scaling, including horizontal sharding schemes, tiered data layers, and taking a stand against the "premature optimization" tautology. When and why do developers learn something new, and why does Marco keep using PHP for everything? Second Crack Fast Text John's blog OS X Beta Program for End Users What's coming on June 2nd? Casey and Marco make John proud (spoiler) New third-generation Thunderbolt details MagSafe vs. MagSafe 2 Overcast update Are iPad sales leveling off? Why? How we use our iPads today Limitations in modern iOS Are iPad apps stagnating? Jean-Louis Gassée's take Gruber's response Casey on T-Mobile's Free Internet (relevant T-Mobile info) Apps mentioned: Tweetbot Twitterrific 1Password Fantastical 2 Threes Monument Valley Year Walk The Room Will tablets be marginalized by bigger phones and smaller laptops? After-show: Sega CD, 32X, CDX (which Marco thought was codenamed Jupiter, but that was something else), Saturn, and Dreamcast. Casey and Marco's video game history and why they don't bother anymore. What do the three hosts do during our free time, anyway? Apps mentioned: Ridiculous Fishing Letterpress Dots Sponsored by: New Relic: See your web app's performance and find bottlenecks anywhere in the stack. Start your 30-day free trial. lynda.com: Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials. Free 7-day trial. HelpSpot: Simple, powerful, customizable help-desk software with no monthly fees. Use code ATP14 for $100 off.

Follow-up on Photo Stream Web Sites Follow-up on vinyl, including how Marc Edwards thinks it's evil, and the difference between pleasing and accurate sound. (Marco's open and closed headphones, amp, and DAC) The Apple insight attained by way of documents released in the Samsung trial Creativity, Inc., the book about Pixar by Ed Catmull Is Greg Christie's departure a contentious story or not? This, too, relates to Pixar Ken Ferry on getting ideas approved at Apple, as heard on Debug #33 Artemis pCell (demo video) Scaling servers and how to use MySQL effectively Marco's preferred book (but he prefers the second edition) Perhaps not use MySQL? A long list of MySQL gotchas How FriendFeed did crazy schema-less MySQL After show: why Casey hates his car, thanks to a trip to the movies. Sponsored by: PDFpen for iPad: Powerful, mobile PDF editing. Igloo: Igloo is an intranet you'll actually like. New Relic: See your web app's performance and find bottlenecks anywhere in the stack. Start your 30-day free trial.

Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em while you sunset Dance Jam WWDC How to make a lottery work, like Shmoocon does How to write a live blogging system for keynotes Our winnings and losses in the WWDC Don't-Call-it-a-Lottery Levels of randomness and Apple's discretionary pool of tickets What's the right way to distribute tickets? Is today's WWDC really tenable? What could be done? AltConf and "CDWW" Heartbleed Dropbox's Announcements Condoleezza Rice joins their board Carousel, a new photo sharing app. Some potential trademark issues with some friends of Marco and Casey's Does this leverage Everpix IP? How the UI is similar to Oldsmobile speedometers from the 80s Lightroom Mobile In an unusually angsty after-show, John takes Marco and Casey on: Where do crashes really come from? John on Debug #32 Is Vinyl really better than CDs? IRL Talk #19 Casey on IRL Talk #21 Christopher “Monty” Montgomery's excellent video explaining audio sampling Sponsored by: Backblaze: Online backup for $5/month. Native. Unlimited. Unthrottled. Uncomplicated. New Relic: See your web app's performance and find bottlenecks anywhere in the stack. Start your 30-day free trial. Transporter: A private cloud storage drive that you own and control. Use code ATP10 for 10% off any Transporter.

Follow-up on vocabulary and Michael Abrash joining Oculus. Amazon Fire TV — no fan! USB-IF's renderings of their proposed new connector The giant anti-poaching collusion between Google, Apple, and dozens of other companies (Facebook apparently refused) Google checking with Steve Jobs first before making a hiring decision After-show: We tried to predict WWDC dates, not knowing that Apple would announce them 12 hours later, then discussed ticket lotteries and how Apple probably wouldn't build one. (Yeah.) Sponsored by: Warby Parker: Boutique-quality, vintage-inspired eyewear at a revolutionary price. Pixelmator: Full-featured image editing app for the Mac. 2Checkout: Control your checkout experience from pixel to payout with our Payment API. Visit for your free sandbox account.

Follow-up on discussing sexism in technology, Anil's experiment, empathy, ad hominem tu quoque, and cultural rigidity. Facebook buying Oculus: Outrage from Oculus' Kickstarter backers, including from Minecraft creator Notch, and the expectations that Kickstarter creates in "backers". Why did Oculus sell? How far into the future did Oculus' "vision" extend, and what will happen to its vision now? Why did Facebook buy? Does Mark Zuckerberg have a clear vision for Facebook's future? Facebook's Hack language extension to PHP: PHP is poorly designed but very practical. The risks of using Hack (Marco's two posts). Sponsored by: HelpSpot: Simple, powerful, customizable help-desk software with no monthly fees. Use code ATP14 for $100 off. Igloo: Igloo is an intranet you'll actually like. (Nobody likes SharePoint.) Warby Parker: Boutique-quality, vintage-inspired eyewear at a revolutionary price.