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MC20100630.mp3 [42.6MB 01:28:32 64kbps]
A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Episode 308. Based on the success of last month’s “no agenda” cast I re-dubbed the format the “uncast” to bring you it’s second installment. For part duex I brought over a couple of friends from the KnowTech podcast. John Foster, Kenji Kato, and I sat down to chat about all things Mac. No prep, no outlines, no show notes just pure unbridled Mac geekiness. We uncast the structured format and see what hits the feed. Enjoy.
Links
KnowTech
“Apple of My Eye”, iPhone 4 Short Film
“156 Turns”, iPhone 4 Ducati Film
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You should rename this style of show: The Complaint Cast. I didn’t get anything of value out it except that you’ve got complaints about what Apple are doing. I gave up at the twenty five minute mark. Too much negative commentary, no real value to listeners wanting tips, hints or news. Disappointed with the format.
Totally disagree with first commenter. Thought it was quite a good show with good content even if it was aimed towards commentary on not hints and tips. Besides I love the KnowTech podcast.
Even though this doesn’t really matter at all I don’t like the term Nocast. How about Maccast Unplugged or Maccast Conversations? Besides Allison might sue you for being to close to Nosillacast :)
hey Mike, how is “where are the upgrades?” not news. while I think the iPad and iPhone are wonderful products there is so much more to Apple than just these gizmos. it’s appalling to me that so much of the company is stalled out because “not distraction marketing windows”. sure iLife, iWork and even Final Cut Studio are just revenue bubbles compared to the cash extracting consumer devices for Apple.
if you didn’t get “a tip or a hint” from the show maybe it’s because we didn’t spell it out exactly. and that tip is “think really carefully before buying your next Apple product.” even though I’ve been a long time Apple supporter I’m carefully looking at other products to fulfill my day-to-day needs for editing video and audio. my clients expect my work done on a timely basis and if the Apple based workflow is slow it’s to my benefit to fix that. that means if Adobe Premiere can crush a Flash video 8X faster then Final Cut I’m stupid to keep working with FCP.
I’m aghast at the cost difference of Apple products compared to the same spec “PC”. but it’s the out spec’ing that really bothers me. granted that notebook doesn’t have exactly the same mission as the MacBook (games vs work) but whatever because I have zero, zip, nada choice for getting something better spec’d that runs Mac OS X. it’s the Henry Ford “any color as long as it’s black” philosophy.
bottom line is that I have work to do and I want to get paid. that means I’m going to use the tools do get that job done. and from my perspective Apple is massively behind the times.
sorry. got in a hurry. the first paragraph is missing this last bit. “but so what. ship that stuff on a Tuesday like always and get on with the day. don’t “not ship” something because it “might” make the that thing’s line less long. the fanbois will be there anyway as the have that sometime in June date sharpie’d in for the next 3 years.
Well, Hmm. I disagree with Mike and agree very much with Adam: John’s podcast (whatever the hell he wants to call it ) is absolutely my favorite in the ’roundtable’ format, especially with a focus on technology. (My favorite high-tech podcast in the conventional format is the Steve Gibson show. Of course Adam is the leader in the consumer-oriented/populist format.) One thing that is tremendous about the podcast world is that it is an embarrassment of riches. There is a huge diversity of basic styles that we have not seen in mainstream in my lifetime (it may date to General Sarnoff’s early days). The key to appreciating this diversity is to take each style on its own terms.
A great danger of focusing narrowly on ‘hints and tips’ is that it becomes absurd in the absence of insight. If you pursue ‘hints and tips’ to its logical end, you get Paul Thurrott. That’s the danger. The poor guy literally wrote a whole book on what you can do with Vista, while any ordinary Mac Geek can respond, in true iPad fashion, with one gesture of the finger.
Wow. To me, being an ‘expert’ necessarily means that you are highly opinionated. A true expert’s opinion is his calling card. I really have no patience with these self-proclaimed media ‘experts’, who are filled with all sorts of little ‘facts’ but don’t seem to have any insight to what is really going on at a much higher level.
You can see this, for example, in the contrast between Paul and Steve Gibson. Steve (“Security Now” Steve, not ‘our’ Steve) has spent much of his professional life helping Windows users–but that’s because his expertise is most needed in Windows. In one show, he called Windows “a steaming pile of xxxx” (his show on the Conficker virus is one of many reasons why that’s true) and he doesn’t hesitate to recommend another OS if free choice really is possible. He can separate his (high-level) opinions from his (low-level) ‘hints and tips’. As a Mac listener, his ‘hints and tips’ are largely irrelevant to me, but his show is awesome because he explains the underlying concepts so deeply and thoroughly. It’s up to me to see the practical implications in my computing life.
To me, all the opinions about the state of the Mac world that were offered by the ‘know-tech’ panelists were most welcome and highly appropriate. The basic idea is that it complements what Adam is doing rather tries to replicate him. The remarkable thing about podcasting is that each show can be its own universe. Like I said, the originality of the “John Foster” format my personal favorite, but I can see why it does require that the listener autoadjust from the conventional in order to ‘get it’ — and that is true in at least in a couple of dimensions.
So I vote thumbs up and suggest that this is a great way to reinvent “MacBreak Tech.” BTW, I think “macbreak tech” (or ‘maccast tech’) is a better choice than ‘nocast’.
Glad to see anothe roof these shows, but I think you need to think of a better name for them. Nocast isn’t descriptive or make much sence.
As for this particular show, man it sure was a complain fest! A lot of it was valid but at times it sure felt tlike your guests were complaining just for the sake of it. For example the rant about iTunes not being able to tag things intuitively is laughable. Get info, type your tag in the Group field. I’ve been doing it for years.
I guess overall with this particular show, I flet you were out of control for too much of the time and the guests just ranted and raved for long stretches. Still, I think the format has merit and look forward to future installments as long as these issues are addressed.
Thanks!
Didn’t like this one as much as the last one. John liked to here himself talk and kept interrupting the other guest. He’d make a statement to back up a point, Kenji (or Jordan) would correct him, and then he’d agree he was wrong, but then try to make his point anyway with no support.
The other person seemed much more knowledgeable and was a better guest.
I think you, Adam, need to interject yourself a bit more when a guest goes on and on….
thanks for the feedback Brian. you spelled hear wrong.
What a great show! It is nice to hear John Foster again. Thanks!!! BTW I am now subscribed to Know Tech.
Thanks Adam!!!
Adam, just got around to listening to this episode today (saved it for a long car ride) and would like to thank you for changing up the format of the show once in a while, I usually find these shows quite enjoyable and a nice change of pace.
That said, I did not enjoy the tone of this show and much of my problem was summed up in Bruce and Brian’s post. I have no problem with people voicing their displeasure/problems with what Apple is doing, and actually agree with a good amount of what was said.
The problem is when an individual tends to take over the show, act as though their views are fact (not just an opinion), even when they are called out or shown to be wrong. If you do more shows like this in the future, please try and keep the show more focused and balanced better.