Editorial

Sparrow Mail sells out to Google, scams its loyal users

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Today, Sparrow, arguably the best third party mail client on OS X and iOS (there aren’t many really) right now, sent its paid users this email;

This is great news for everyone in the company (big cash out), but for most of their loyal users, this not just a clear act of betrayal (who could blame them? Google probably threw hordes of cash at them for the sale “Not enough money? How about another million for kicks?”), but also kind of scammish.

Just less than a month ago, they heavily discounted both their iPhone app and OS X app one after the other, while around the same time promising new features such as an iPad version and push notifications in the future, on both their site and their twitter account. Both the promise of new features and the deep discounts lured lots of new users into running a third party mail client instead of the usual Mail.app.

It’s quite impossible this sale happened within a day or two, so Sparrow should have already known that they will be cashing out in late July, so looking back, those deep discounts were not to simply lure new users, they are really more of a “closing down sale”, an opportunity for Sparrow to maximise profits before the sale.

Which would have been fine should they have communicated this to their users, but they specifically misled their new users into parting with their cash for the apps, thinking that new features are coming in the next few months. This is the worst kind of sell-out any OS X developer could have ever done.

Seriously, Sparrow? Damn you.

P.S. Boing Boing has a video up about how to deal with this acquisition and prepare for all the upcoming innovations from the sell-out.

Why John Gruber jumped ship and betrayed 5by5 studios (Updated with Final Comment)

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!!!Important: Please read the final comment at the end of this post before deciding if you wish to continue reading the whole piece.

This incident has happened more than 3 weeks ago, and while it seems silly to write about it after most of the online hate towards gruber has died down, I simply can’t bring myself to write this piece when I was feeling so angry myself.

I have to admit, the only reason why I know about 5by5’s existence was because of The Talk Show (I have a previous post on 5by5), and that was probably why Gruber thought that he deserved a piece of 5by5 simply for being involved early, despite doing no part of the hard work that went into the creation of 5by5 Studios.

The Talk Show was definitely the first show that Dan ever did on 5by5, but it was most definitely not the best, as 5by5 listeners know. It was definitely the “original” 5by5 show, which was why almost everyone but the Gruber haters subscribed to the show, making it the most popular show on the network.

However, at least for me, The Talk Show was interesting because of these reasons, in order of importance;

1. The presence of Dan Benjamin.

Simply the main reason why I love 5by5. Dan is charming, witty, really interesting and has a great voice. He is a talented host, and is why I always enjoyed the 5by5 shows with him on as a host more than the shows without, like the incomparable.

2. It was on my list of subscribed podcasts on Instacast since a long long time ago.

3. Information on rumors about Apple from an “insider’s point of view”.

For John Gruber is Daring Fireball. However, with Amplified on 5by5 now Jim Dalrymple (of The Loop) is serving this purpose, to a greater extent since Jim is a much nicer host than Gruber is and will always make the effort to explain in detail, rather than Gruber who always seem disinterested in everything except his own food. One have to wonder if the presence of Amplified played any slight part on the decision of Gruber jumping ship, since he knows he’s marginalized on the network, with hardcore fans preferring every other 5by5 Apple-related show to his.

4. John Gruber being disinterested and making a lot of noises during the show.

You’ll have to agree that his antics are somewhat interesting.

With his new show on mule radio, one can only expect Apple info as the only thing he can bring to the table, that is if you managed to get through his rabbling and the total mess that is the new talk show.

How it went down

One thing that was very obvious was that Dan Benjamin was really the greatest victim here. As listeners of the very last episode would have suspected, Dan Benjamin knew nothing about Gruber’s plans, and that Gruber gave Dan the news only after the recording of episode 90. Throughout the show, Gruber sounded normal and was acting that the show will just continue next week, without even any subtle hint of the shit he was going to pull on Dan Benjamin. As evident from the comments on his new talk show, his fans are not going to forgive him for deceiving them.

As for Dan, it was obvious that he has no idea during the show, for who in the right mind will start selling The Talk Show t-shirts during the very last episode of The Talk Show? He would have much better sales than the 100 plus orders he got for The Talk Show t-shirt if he went with Hypercritical instead.

What is The Talk Show?

Gruber seemed to think that the property called “The Talk Show” totally belonged to him alone and that he did all the work. He claims (especially in Episode 2 of the new talk show) that there were in total 3 runs of The Talk Show, and that the current one that he is doing by himself is the third run.

In actual fact, The Talk Show was created solely by Dan Benjamin, the very first run was a format where he invited different guests to be on each show, many of whom happened to be Gruber. He then started a second run of The Talk Show with Gruber that ran periodically and spanned about 30 episodes. And finally, the 90-episode The Talk Show on 5by5 was actually the third run, and not the second run as Gruber claims. The truth seems to be that Gruber simply offered some comments as well as the artwork for the second season of The Talk Show (the 30-episode run before 5by5) and thus claimed ownership despite Dan being the one to do most of the marketing and the hard work that goes into the preparations of every single show, not to mention how he has been constantly giving in to anything Gruber demands on air.

Dan released a short statement on 5by5 Specials on Gruber’s taking of The Talk Show (a property in which Dan put in a lot of hard work to build up) and jumping ship. The guy actually bothered to wish Gruber luck after Gruber jumped ship without any advance warning or any chance for Dan to tie up any loose ends.

Why Gruber is being hated for his betrayal

John Gruber has no reason to keep doing a show with 5by5 if he is not happy, and everyone knows that. However, the problem with his betrayal is his taking of The Talk Show. Out of his current almost 400 1-star ratings (out of 600 in total) of the new talk show on iTunes, almost everyone took issue with the fact that he named the new show the talk show, and that new show simply isn’t “The Talk Show” because of its total lack of quality content. Even Gruber’s own friends and guests on the new talk show, including @lonelysandwich Adam Lisagor, repeatedly advised him to change the name of the show because they don’t agree with his use of the talk show name in his new show.

Yet Gruber, being the massively egoistic guy he is, stubbornly refused. “The Daring Fireball Podcast” would have made a much better name for his new podcast.

Why Gruber jumped ship, and why Mule Radio (MRS)?

This part can best be answered by a single post on Quora, by a “Anon User” who is assumed to be someone in the loop of stuff happening at 5by5, who remains anonymous for obvious reasons.

In his own words;

John Gruber left 5by5 for Mule Radio because of money, and/or potential money. And by potential money, I mean a stake in MRS.

Here’s how I think it went down. Many months ago Dan started to talk about releasing an iPhone app for 5by5. At first he talked about it being free, then Marco Arment said he should charge $1 to avoid getting negative feedback. Dan started to come around to this idea. He enlisted Black Pixel to make the app, then realized that since there’s a lot of competition (instacast), he should do something that no one can do. And what no one could do was a live streaming app for 5by5. My guess is that Black Pixel wasn’t actually hired by Dan to do the app. They were doing it on their own. Sort of an app that could be rebranded by any podcast network. This is why when Dan decided on the new style app with streaming, he couldn’t go to BP anymore, and he had to find a new developer. The BP app was then released by Mule Radio and is free. Presumably BP still owns the rights to that app, and will rebrand it for anyone willing to pony up the cash. So as I was saying, Dan enlisted a new developer and decided to charge $3 for the app because this app was costing him a bunch of cash to develop. This might be where Gruber started to get annoyed. Then around the same time Dan released The Talk Show t-shirts so they could be out in time for wwdc. Clearly trying to play on Gruber’s popularity. I believe this is where Gruber decided to approach Dan about compensation. I think Dan offered Gruber some compensation, but Gruber was not happy with that amount. It’s very possible that Gruber said that since he played a major role in the current success of 5by5, that he should be compensated more than any of the other hosts. I also believe Gruber asked for a percentage stake in 5by5 and Dan refused. Gruber was angry and decided to stick it to Dan very publicly by taking the talk show and moving it to Mule Radio. Which incidentally is owned by Mike Monteiro, someone who has already stuck it Dan. Mike originally had a show on 5by5 before he moved that show to his own network. Mike actually paid Dan to have that show on 5by5. I believe the figure was $1000 a month. It was advertising for Mike. He paid Dan and got tons of earballs. Then when the show got some traction, he left 5by5 and started Mule. Very slick move. Devious, but slick. So anyhow, Gruber approached Mike and said give me a stake in Mule, and I’ll do for you, what I did for 5by5. Mike agreed, and boom, The Talk Show on MRS.

Top 10 tactical moves, facts, opinions, etc, that prove this is about money.

10. Gruber makes money from 5by5, but not enough that he couldn’t risk it for a stake in a new network.

9. While we’ve heard many times from people who sell t-shirts that they don’t make any money at all, I know for a fact they do. The T-shirts were $24 each. They were 1 color ink and Dan used a fulfillment company for shipping. Fulfillment companies usually charge shipping plus 20%. Maybe 30%. So on a $24 shirt that’s 4.80-$7.20. Call it $5-$7 bucks. A 1 color t-shirt costs 8 bucks to make. And that’s a high number. Especially if the fulfillment company is the one making the shirt. So as far as I can tell Dan would be making around 10 dollars a shirt. Gruber knows this cause he does his own shirts and sells them for $29. Which funnily enough, he just started selling today http://daringfireball.net/linked…

8. The T-shirts are The Talk Show branded. And seeing as how Gruber now has The Talk Show on Mule, he has the rights to that name. Therefore, Gruber should be receiving compensation for the use of his name on the shirt. Which he might have (Ryu: Dan posted on twitter stating that each host, including gruber, will receive 50% of the profits of the t-shirts). But maybe not enough.

7. Gruber posts a list of the talk show sponsors on Daring Fireball each week. This is worth almost as much as the daring fireball sponsorship which he currently sells for $7500 a week. I bet this played a major part in the negotiations.

6. The app has been doing extremely well. And unlike t-shirts, it’s always up for sale. If Gruber believes he had a hand in the current success of 5by5, then he believes he should have a cut of that money. I don’t believe any hosts are receiving a cut of that money.

5. Is Gruber going to make himself look like a complete dick for a few grand extra a year? No. He’s going to risk looking like a dick for potentially a lot more.

4. Gruber can’t make a lot more money as a host by going with Mule over 5by5. Mule has no reach right now.

3. If we believe that both 5 and 4 are true, then one can only assume that Mike gave Gruber a percentage in the network.

2. Gruber is currently the only host on 5by5 whose popularity could rival the popularity of the entire 5by5 network. And if that’s true, then it’s going to be extremely difficult for Gruber to make a lot more money on 5by5 by just being a host. It would make sense for him to move to Mule, take a stake in the network, and try and build it to a size that rivals 5by5.

1. Gruber’s head is massive.

————————————————————

I’d also like to say that I’m a huge 5by5 supporter and I’m glad Gruber left. He’s just too arrogant to be on there. Every host is kind to listeners except him. What’s interesting is I don’t like Mike either. He’s even more arrogant than Gruber. I think they make a really great team.

Long live Hypercritical.

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UPDATE 5-21-12:

Dan Benjamin released a short, but very telling statement in a special today. You can listen to it here http://5by5.tv/specials/6

Some things that we can all take from this statement:
 
1. It was very classy the way he did it. But he definitely got in a few good digs, that I believe are completely warranted.
 
2. It’s obvious that Gruber was not fired, let go, or asked to leave 5by5 because of his show attendance track record. Gruber actually posted something on DF that I believe was him trying to insinuate that he was fired, and that he’s not at fault. He didn’t come out and say it, because it’s not true, but he insinuated it. That post is here http://daringfireball.net/linked…

3. Some people have stated that Dan could have had issues with sponsors if the talk show didn’t air, but it doesn’t seem like that was a problem now. Or if it was, it wasn’t the reason for the break-up.
 
4. Dan said that if “the arrangement wasn’t working” that they’d talk about it. Which I take to mean that the dollars weren’t working or the format/Dan wasn’t working, he could have said something. I’d also like to point out that this is the only thing Dan mentioned as a possible issue Gruber had for leaving. Therefore, I assume Dan knows it was one of these things.
 
5. Dan said he was upset that they couldn’t give the talk show a proper send off, which means that Gruber just said he’s done and would like to move on. And since we know 4 is true, then we know that Gruber gave no explanation why he left. This means that Gruber was pissed about something.
 
6. We know the format changed when Gruber moved to MRS, but this can’t be the reason for moving because Dan stated that Gruber didn’t approach him about leaving. Everyone knows that if Gruber said to him that he wanted to discontinue the talk show and start a new show with him having guests and doing interviews, Dan would have said yes without hesitation. Gruber knows this. This means Gruber left for another reason. Money.
 
Conclusion – I believe I was right about the reason Gruber left, but unless Dan is not telling us something, which is totally possible, there wasn’t a long talk about that reason. This makes sense cause Gruber does seem like the guy that would just grab his toys and go home if he was pissed.
 
One last thought before I end this. I’ve always thought that Gruber being an asshole on the talk show was a bit of an act. He’d talk over Dan all the time. Never laugh at anything he says, which in a show like this, even if the joke was’t incredibly funny, you laugh anyway cause it brings the audience in. You ever laugh at a friend cause he said something, and is laughing at what he said, but you have no idea what he meant? It’s cause you feel like you want to be involved in the moment. This is why you laugh at the co-host’s joke, even it’s not that funny. Dan is a funny guy though, but that’s beside the point. So as I was saying, I always thought the asshole Gruber was an act. But in seeing how this all went down, I’m starting to think that the asshole Gruber is not an act and Gruber is really just an asshole.

I suspect the details in his post are almost 99% accurate. Gruber himself sort of confirmed the accusations in his second episode when he revealed that he was unhappy with Dan for a long time for “business reasons”, probably because Dan refused to give Gruber a piece of 5by5.

So what now?

Gruber is probably going to continue his new show without changing the name despite the universal hate in the form of iTunes ratings. He’s just that. Besides Mike Monteiro and Mule Radio is giving Gruber a lot of money, including sponsoring his wife’s expenses to WWDC it seems, as Gruber’s twitter has revealed recently.

Eventually people will forget and move on, and Gruber’s new talk show will probably do okay simply because of the Daring Fireball brand, and all he will probably lose is some fans and some t-shirt sales, which won’t really matter to him.

I was a long-time John Gruber fan, and have personally bought Daring Fireball t-shirts, but I have to say that this incident pissed me off a whole lot. Gruber was always a prick, but had always been a lovable prick rather than an arsehole. Now he’s just a prick. I’ve downgraded from being a “fan” to merely a “reader”.

Just like what some of his fans have emailed him,

DICK MOVE, JOHN. I WON’T BE LISTENING ANYMORE.

P.S. Gruber published yet another post about the new talk show, which does show that he knows that his new show is getting really bad response and it’s not going to be profitable in the long run if things go on. He even revealed that ad slots for the next two shows are only half-filled, which is poor for a show of this repute. His PR rescue attempt (by thanking Dan) with no doubt bring some of his die hard fans back to the new talk show, but if he was really sincere, he did not have to wait this long to do it.

It was totally obvious that the amount of bad response was too much for him.

P.P.S Maybe I was too harsh on John. Can’t be bothered about this issue anymore. Old news. This is the last time I’ll update this post (probably).

Final Comment (May 2015): It has been years since this piece was released, based upon the original comment on Quora, and bits of information have emerged since then to paint a quite different picture from the Quora post, that personally I am no longer convinced that the original piece is that believable after all. I will not say it is completely wrong, but as with all things there are accuracies and inaccuracies. Dan Benjamin may not have been that much of a “victim”, and John Grubber definitely is not the bad guy here. His taking of The Talk Show completely off podcast networks a year after jumping from 5by5 was definitely the best thing for the podcast.

Besides, much have happened since then, and 5by5 is no longer the choice of network for podcasts for many of us Mac people, with the Apple mainstay now being Amplified, which Dan Benjamin has largely ignored possibly due to the lack of listenership compared to some of his other podcasts. While it seems more appropriate to take down this article, I do not have the practice of doing so (erasing posts that I have deemed inaccurate after posting), so I will leave it here with this final comment, which I will no longer update.

I give up trying to find a job in Apple Singapore

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Who am I kidding really? I was never really eligible for any position within Apple Singapore. I graduated with a BA in Communications and New Media, hardly something Apple Singapore wants. I don’t have a computer science degree, I don’t know Unix inside out, I don’t have call center work experience, The only vague Apple-related work experience is from my annual sales gig selling Macs to tertiary freshmen in the various polytechnics and universities, and well, all the nonsense I made Apple Singapore do for us when I was still president at MacNUS.

So yeah, on paper, I was no good. In reality, I am probably no good too.

I am probably really only half-decently-good at piecing together information from my various sources and churning out articles/posts that detail sometimes-decently-accurate information that Apple has no intend of letting the world know. And as any hardcore Apple fan know, that’s a surefire way to make the recruiters trash bin my resume the minute they spot my name.

During the first few years after graduating from the now-infamous-pro-PRC-anti-Singaporean NUS, I did try my best to get onto the interviewee list, and every single time I fail to get past the first/second stage. I failed the interview for the japanese language call centre support job “because I asked about what the 1-year contract entails”, I failed the interview for call centre support because I told them I was only available in one month, I even got cancelled for part-time work for processing Back to School Promo documents for the Taiwan store last minute, among other rejections at Apple (To my credit, the non-Apple interviews I went for are all pretty successful). I can’t even remember how many times I was at the Ang Mo Kio Campus for interviews already.

With all these rejections taking a toll on my confidence, “Applying for a job at Apple Singapore” eventually became “every few months, check the Apple Jobs site, send in a few automatic applications with the 3-year-old resume, and wait for a call”. And of course the calls usually don’t come.

Apple, Apple Singapore at least, does not seem to like to hire its diehard fans, usually preferring to hire “people with results” away from other PC companies through word of mouth, in particular IBM. It totally does not matter that their internal staff have absolutely no experience nor knowledge of the Mac platform, so long they can perform their job scopes, like sales or marketing, very well (to say the truth, their performance was suspect, but whatever).

It was thus music to my ears when the then Head of Education Sales informally offered to find me a job in Apple Singapore in my graduating year. He eventually did not find me a job. And sort of disappeared after that year.

As anyone around me for the past 8 years will know, I am a fanatic Steve Jobs supporter before I am an Apple fan, so maybe in this world where Steve is no longer around, my stubborn insistence on adding Apple Inc to my resume can end. I suspect I will still send in the occasional application, but it will not be the same.

I give up.

You can follow MacRyu at @ryuworks on Twitter and @ryu on App.net.

How to insult your Android-using friends / relatives this Christmas / New Year / Chinese New Year

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So it’s the festive season again. If you are like me, this holiday is the perfect chance to tease, insult, those who have chosen, for whatever reason, to stand on Google’s side and use an Android.

Unlike some lesser countries it’s highly unlikely you will ever find yourself in a situation where the number of iPhone owners present is not at least 3 times the number of Android users present, unless there are only two of you or all your friends (I certainly hope not) are lifeless nerds.

Thus, almost always any public teasing of an Android user in the group will serve to both entertain the crowd, and possibly persuade those on the wrong side to start giving excuses like “Oh my 3GS dropped into the toilet bowl and I had to use this because it’s free”.

This list of fine insults will be constantly updated every time I think of something, but for now they will have to do. Don’t follow exactly, be flexible. Be smart about your insults. It always help to do them with a smile on your face. ^_^

Here goes.

General platform-based attacks, if you want to be lazy

“Wah… Your OS is so ugly. What kind of font is that? So messy…. This back button do what one? (Tap the touchscreen buttons carelessly so you will purposely miss activating the buttons a few times, then look frustrated) Wah….. So hard to use! Why like that one? The apps are so fugly… Even my ugliest iOS twitter app is nicer than all the twitter apps you have.”

Then, check if the Google Marketplace has been updated to the ICS-ish version. If it has, it’s bound to be laggy. Start doing some fast taps and swiping and once it starts lagging turn the phone around and show everyone else.

“Wah… Is this Google’s App Store? So confusing! How to navigate? Where to find my apps that have an update? (If your friend shows you how to access the updatable apps area, then on purpose tap the back button once or twice to get out of the area, then turn around to your friend and say) Eh gone? How to go back ah? Why so hard to go back one? How much did you pay for it again”

If they are using anything other than the Galaxy Nexus (which if you are in Singapore, most likely they won”t) then use the Gingerbread attack

“Wah… your phone’s software is so updated leh. Wasn’t Gingerbread ANNOUNCED in Oct 2010? (If your friend has a phone that’s only a few months old, like the Arc series or the Galaxy S2) My (his/her or anyone who has an old iPhone in the group) 3GS/iPhone 4 has a much newer OS than yours do. What kind of a new phone is that? How much did you pay for it again?”

Anytime they answer “Free”, you say this

“No wonder la. Cheap stuff crappy. Google OS is free so it’s crappy. Lousy stuff. Why you so cheapskate?”

If they answer “400+” or something expensive

“Why did you spend your money on something like this?”

And if it’s a samsung device or something that looks plasticky

“Cheap plastic all around… CMI design… It’s worth 400???”

Anytime you want to challenge camera capabilities, it’s almost obvious that the iPhone 4/4S will win. To make it more obvious, do the challenge at night. Then also try to invert the front and back cameras and then say this.

“Wah how to change to front camera? (After your friend shows you) Why so difficult one? Sad…”

Next, Battery life insults

No wonder what you think of your 4S’ battery life, just insist that the Android phone has pathetic battery life. Because it usually does. If the fellow tries to bullshit you just go with this.

“Eh… You lifeless ah? Might as well just get a dumb Nokia phone la. Why buy a smartphone?”

If they tries to argue that it’s their careful power management techniques that gives them decent battery life.

“Wah… see? You really lifeless. You have so much time to do silly things like turning off switches when you don’t need wifi”

Model specific insults

For large-screen phones (Anything above 4″, such as the Razr, the Galaxy S2, the Xperia Arc and Arc clones, except the Galaxy Nexus):

“Do you have swollen fingers? (smile, and ask like you are really puzzled) Is that why you can’t type properly on an iPhone and need such an oversized keyboard?”

or “Do you have terrible vision? (ask with a really serious face) Why do you need such a LOW res, large screen to see your SMSes on?”

Very obviously, if the phone has smaller than iPhone-size screens then laugh at the pathetic size. Or if it has broken rubber port covers then laugh at those too.

Always follow up on insults by touting some good features of iOS that Android users don’t have. My favorite is iMessage.

“iMessage is really fast and good. It’s like I’m SMSing and MMSing people but I don’t pay anything.”

You have to stop here, and DO NOT MENTION WHATSAPP, because this is a lure to make your Android silly friend mention WHATSAPP. Once he/she does, counterattack.

“Whatsapp? It’s so slow and pathetic! Sometimes always cannot connect one. Got server errors and downtimes. It’s really pathetic. The reason why I keep Whatsapp on my phone is for the benefit of the less fortunate people in society. People without access to iOS 5 are so unfortunate. Sometimes it helps to do some charity for these less fortunate people.”

I seem to remember having at least one more insult to type, but my brain is so dead now I guess all these will have to do for now.

Before I go though, some reminders.

Change to dialect, rephrase the insults, add new ideas. Do whatever you want to make the insult more effective.

Always remember that some people will just be better at insulting people than others. If you aren’t good at it, it’s best not to try. You might become a laughing stock once you failed to carry it through.

Now then the dust has settled……

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When the news broke I was in tears.
Not because I think Apple is over, because it’s not.
Not because I think Steve’s condition is worsening, because I really think it isn’t.
Not because I don’t like Tim Cook, because he’s a really cool guy apparently.
But because Steve Jobs is no longer listed as the leader, even if He still is, as the Chairman of the Apple board.
And because maybe never again will we see another Steve note, although I really hope I’m wrong about this.
My adoration and affections for everything Apple stems from the very fact that I idolized Steve Jobs to the point of obsession.
The affection won’t stop now, definitely.
For Apple, the company today, is Steve Jobs.
And Steve Jobs is Apple.
Even if the listed CEO isn’t Him.
You see the photo of Steve on my blog?
“We Love & Support Steve Jobs Forever!!!”

I Love and Support Steve Jobs Forever.

Thoughts about Lion – OS X’s evolution

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It’s been a while since I wrote something of (questionable) substance on MacRyu.com, and since Lion is just days away from us, I figured I should put something up.

No, I’m not going to detail the changes in Lion and give you some kind of a technical walkthrough. That job should be left to the pros, namely, John Siracusa.

What I want to write about is what I think Lion represents, in the grander scheme of things I call “The Evolution of OS X”. I personally believe that there are two very specific generations of OS X releases that ended and began at 10.5. I will be using the cat names and the version numbers interchangeably throughout the writeup, so if you are confused just google the cat names from 10.0 till 10.7. LOL.

Here goes.

If there’s one specific theme that Lion represents it will be “the next generation”.

Yes, I know Lion is the next OS X, I know Lion is new, but those are not why I think Lion represents “the next generation” of OS X.

One thing casual users and recent switchers do not understand about the last 2 OSes, Leopard and Snow Leopard, is how they represent a major shift in OS X’s development.

Read more

My podcast (listening) journey – how I found 5by5 Studios

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Happy CNY people, even though I hate it personally. But then I guess I am one of the few people in Singapore to detest CNY – the two days when Singapore turns into Dead Space.

Now onto something else.

As some of my Twitter peeps know, I am an avid podcast listener, particularly of the podcasts from the TWiT network and the pixelcorps network. I started years ago listening to the Macworld podcast that some guy who worked under Chris Breen produced. Even won a free iPod accessory from listening to it. Then one fine day the guy resigned and moved to Engadget, and then Chris Breen took over. While Mr. Breen is the buffoon of all Mac knowledge, the podcast with him and him only wasn’t really entertaining, and I stopped listening.

And then one day I found MacBreak Weekly. It is hosted by Leo Laporte, with regular guests Alex Lindsay, founder of Pixelcorps, Merlin Mann from 43folders.com, and Scott Bourne, long-time Mac fanatic, accomplished wildlife photographer and business man and of course, Andy Ihnatko, tech journalist of the Chicago Sun-Times.

MacBreak Weekly was really interesting when I first started listening to it a few years ago. Merlin Mann’s neverending list of Mac app recommendations, Scott Bourne’s insight on Apple’s ways of doing business, and Alex Lindsay’s experience in video and audio production just made the show so much more interesting to someone like me, a Mac nerd with a history of video production. And Andy Ihnatko was just totally entertaining, so much more than Leo Laporte ever was, MacBreak Weekly today would have been so boring without him.

Leo Laporte, was really just an entertaining host, but it was quite obvious that he wasn’t that knowledgable on the deeper aspects of most of the technical shows he hosted, but his guests filled in that gap and the shows were enjoyable.

Then one day it started changing. Leo Laporte began blasting out at Scott Bourne over certain differences in opinion of how Apple does business (Scott Bourne’s opinion turned out accurate eventually, as it always had been) during the live show, and as part of the audience you get the feeling (very strongly) that Leo was picking on Scott Bourne. Eventually Scott Bourne starting to turn up lesser and lesser for the show, and one fine day he was just gone. I eventually found his Photofocus podcast and began listening to that regularly. Even in a recent show last year where Scott Bourne turned up as guest, Leo Laporte blasted out at him over some small difference in opinion, on-air, as always.

Merlin Mann, citing his busy work schedule and the fact that he was, and apparently still is, working on a book, left the show as a regular guest as well. That apparently didn’t stopped him from doing other regular podcasts(including a weekly one that he just started), I can only wonder why that is.

These days quite often MacBreak Weekly is just Alex Lindsay, Andy Ihnatko and Leo Laporte. And you do get reminded more often these days whenever Leo makes a comment that shows his lack of insight on the topics being talked about. Leo Laporte’s TWiT network might be expanding at a frantic pace, branching out to new offices, hiring lots of new peeps, starting lots of new shows. But you often get the idea that his core shows are suffering from neglect as a result. His staffing choices are also seemingly debatable, especially with his hiring of Sarah Lane, formerly from Revision3. Sarah Lane was laid off from Revision3, apparently because her shows there haven’t been popular. And TWiT listeners have responded similarly to her shows on the TWiT network. Net@Night was a lot harder to listen to everytime Sarah Lane filled in for Leo Laporte. And iPad Today was just generally boring. Last year I just found myself slowing giving up on listening to most of the TWiT network’s shows. I used to listen regularly to the following shows;

1. MacBreak Weekly
2. This Week in Tech
3. The Tech Guy
4. Net@Night
5. Security Now

Only MacBreak Weekly remained on my list of subscribed podcasts, mainly because of Alex Lindsay’s regular appearance. He probably won’t be leaving MacBreak Weekly anytime soon, because of his involvement in the TWiT network. Most, if not all, of the production aspects of the ever-expanding TWiT network is the result of Alex’s involvement. The shows on his own network, Pixelcorps.tv, are generally more appealing to me personally, such as This Week in Photo, which I still listen to.

As the list of TWiT shows I listen to dwindled over the course of 2010, I have been casually looking for replacement entertainment. Then one day I noticed it. Because the Daring Fireball RSS feed is part of a Google Reader folder that has 60 other Mac-related feeds in it, I found myself ignoring John Gruber’s short posts about The Talk Show, until some day in August 2010.

The Talk Show is a two-person show by John Gruber, arguably the most respected Mac blogger in the whole Mac-niverse because of his deep insights and knowledge of about the workings of Apple, Inc, and his close proximity to some of Apple’s important employees, and Dan Benjamin, the founder of 5by5 Studios. While Dan Benjamin was a nobody to me at the start, it become quite apparent that he was a great host that complements his co-hosts very well, making for an extremely entertaining show format where his co-hosts’ knowledge and opinions are communicated very well to the audience, while he adds his own opinions and questions in a very effective, show-entertainment enhancing sort of way. So for the last quarter of 2010, it was The Talk Show for most of my podcast listening on priority over everything else, including MacBreak Weekly.

And then in early 2011 John Gruber mentioned that Dan Benjamin started two new shows with another two extremely respected personalities in the Mac-niverse, John Siracusa of Ars Technica and Merlin Mann. John Siracusa, as many will know, is the extremely technically-proficient writer of Ars Technica well-known for his long and deeply technical articles about Apple and their technologies. And so I visited the 5by5 site and found Hypercritical, with John Siracusa, Back to Work, with Merlin Mann, and as a bonus, even Build and Analyze, with Marco Arment, the developer of the highly popular Instapaper. And not to forget some of the other interesting but slightly less popular shows on the 5by5 studios network such as The Mixdown, which appeals to me because it is about audio and video production.

And only today I realised that 5by5 studios is only in its second year, when Dan mentioned at the starting of Build and Analyze episode 11, that 5by5 studios just celebrated its first anniversary. There are already shows on the website’s list of shows for the network. Granted, some of them were started before 5by5 studios even formed, and some of the shows no longer run, this is still pretty impressive to me, considering that 5by5 studios worked off a much much lower budget than TWiT ever did.

My current list of shows subscribed in iTunes thereby consists of the following;

1. The Talk Show (John Grubber is THE Apple man)
2. Build and Analyze (surprisingly highly entertaining)
3. Hypercritical (technical, entertaining, and highly informative)
4. Back to Work (who can ever get enough of Merlin Mann?)
5. MacBreak Weekly (Alex Lindsay and Andy Ihnatko should run the show)
6. Film Riot (for obvious reasons)
7. This Week in Photo (Ron Brinkmann is entertaining!)
8. Photofocus (Scott Bourne! Sometimes I wish he’ll run a Mac-focused show on his own)
9. …and various other Apple official feeds.

In case you still can’t tell, I am highly passionate about this stuff.