Interchange Project

Episode 64: Do you want to wear a computer?

We discuss wearable computing from watches to glasses. Now you can finally look like an X-Men team member or Robocop.

Do you want to wear a computer on your body? Jeremy and I discuss how these wearable computing devices could fit into a smartphone world. We don’t see them replacing phones any time soon.

We also discuss the PlayStation 4 failure to launch. So, there’s that.

Also, should the Knight Foundation of paid Jonah Lehrer for talking about his past plagarism? Is there value from hearing him recount his past mistakes?

Listen to this week’s episode:

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Show notes:

• PlayStation 4 launch event
• Knight Foundation regrets paying Lehrer speaking fee
• Google Glass
• Will Google Glass drown us in data?

Episode 61: Six seconds in heaven

Vine is setting the video blogging world on fire six seconds at a time.

Are you into six second video clips? What if I were to tell you they were sometimes porn clips? Are you interested now?

Well, Vine has some porn on it. Does Apple have a porn problem? Should they care about this? Or is porn just part of life, and Apple should allow it as long as its labeled explicit.

Listen to this week’s podcast: 

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Show notes:

• Apple has a porn problem, and it’s about to get worst
  
• Vine has lots of porn
• Vine: A new way to share video
• 500px Returns To The iOS App Store, With Mature Content Warning And Photo Reporting Button

Episode 60: 2013 tech predictions part 2

Is this the future of iOS?

We’re following up our first 2013 tech predictions episode to bring you more predictions.

With the changes that Apple made in its executive ranks, we think we’re going to see some changes to iOS this year. That’s one of our predictions, and we have much more.

Listen to this week’s episode:

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Episode 58: It’s not about photo filters

We’re a little late in launching out latest podcast. The end of the semester did us in.

But neither one of us is barred from our campuses, so all is well.

We spend some time discussing my latest smartphone purchase. After that we get into T-Mobile getting away from selling phones on contract, which is a BFD. We also discuss the new Flickr, Instagram, Twitter and photo filters. It’s not about photo filters.

Listen to this week’s show: 

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Show notes:

• T-Mobile going away from selling phones on contract with subsidies
• It’s not the filter, guys

Analysis: Scott Forstall and retail chief John Browett out at Apple

Wow.

Did not expect to see this coming.

Well, John Browett I saw coming. His tenure as the head of Apple retail has been very tumultuous and there have been a lot of complaints in the less-than-a-year that he headed it up. He didn’t get what made Apple retail stores unique, and didn’t really have experience running a luxury brand. He tried to turn Apple’s retail stores into a nickle-and-dime operation, when the real allure was in the upscale, laid back experience mixed with great service.

Scott Forstall is much bigger news. He’s been with Steve Jobs and his companies ever since he graduated from Stanford. He started with NeXT and came over when Apple purchased NeXT. He was instrumental in bringing the NeXT core and APIs over to Mac OS and was the person who wanted Apple to adapt OS X for iOS instead of using Linux.

Forstall was Jobs’s right-hand software man. But Steve is no longer with us, and changes are afoot.

The press release doesn’t say one positive thing about Forstall. He was pushed out. Word on the street is that it’s related to Siri and Apple’s new Maps app. Both weren’t overly polished and remain buggy to this day.

Maybe Forstall also left because the company has changed so much in the past five years. Apple is primarily the world’s largest mobile company. But being a mobile company is so much me than just a mobile operating system; it’s also doing Web services, hardware and integration in larger ecosystems.

So what does this mean for Apple?

• Skeuomorphism is out at Apple — Jobs and Forstall were the big skeomorphism guys in Apple. Neither is around anymore. Expect to no longer see user interfaces that try to mimic real-world objects.
• The Jony Ive-ing of Apple’s UI/UX — Apple says that Ive will, “provide leadership and direction for Human Interface (HI) across the company in addition to his role as the leader of Industrial Design.” I’d expect to see the modern, clean lines of Ive’s design aesthetic being applied to iOS and OS X. The mobile OS that fits that description the best is Microsoft’s Windows 8 Metro UI. I expect to see less embellishment, cleaner lines and less faux textures. I also expect to see Apple’s UIs complimenting Apple’s hardware even better. But Ive is a hardware guy, and user experience and user design is really about how something works, not how it looks. But since mobile device design is so much about the marriage between hardware and software, doesn’t it make sense for one guy and his team to head up both?
• Silos being torn down — That seems to be the big message from today’s announcement. In addition to Ive handling hardware and software design, Senior Vice President, Mac Software Engineering Craig Federighi is now in charge of both iOS and OS X. Could this mean that they one day become one OS that works on both touchscreen and mouse and keyboard computing systems? Perhaps. In the short term, I think this means we’ll be seeing iOS and OS X sharing even more technology and looking more similar (which has been the big push with Lion and Mountain Lion). Did it really make sense for two different people to control Apple’s operating systems? It makes sense for one person to have the ultimate say over both and to have both teams work together.
• A more mobile focused company — Bob Mansfield stepped down as senior vice president of hardware engineering, but stayed on as a senior vice president of nothing. Originally the move was announced as a retirement, and maybe it was supposed to be, but Mansfield is staying on as the new senior vice president for technologies, a new group at Apple in charge of all wireless teams across the company, including semiconductor teams. Apple has made a big play with semiconductor technology with the A4 and A5, but the A6 is really a custom piece of hardware that differentiates Apple from competitors.
• iOS will see some big changes — Forstall lead the team that created the best mobile OS in the world. He has laid the foundation for a very successful future for iOS and Apple. But some people feel that iOS has become conservative. iOS has clung to the successful SpringBoard home screen focused on apps since the original iPhone, while competitors have begun integrating more information and services into home screens. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and 8 in particular offer home screens that are more flexible and powerful. A lot of people really like the simplicity of SpringBoard, but it was a design for much less powerful devices. It was the original design. The iPhone 5 is many times me powerful than the original iPhone. I think it’s likely we’ll see bigger changes in the jump from iOS 6 to 7 than we saw from iOS 5 to 6. This doesn’t mean that SpringBoard is going away, but iOS 6 was a very iterative change over iOS 5, and this space is so young that there are big gains to still be made.

Episode 53: Your stay-at-home Hurricane Sandy listening

Many of us on the East Coast are stranded and our work is closed.

As long as you have power (or your mobile phone does), we’ve got an hour of tech + liberal arts goodness to listen to.

We lead off by discussing the presidential debates and social media. The Twitter experience is better than the actual debates.

We also discuss the terrible, terrible U.S. patent system.

Stay warm. Stay dry. Stay safe.

Listen to this week’s show:

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Show notes:

• When patent’s attack!
• The patent, used as a sword

Episode 49: All about the iPhone 5, iOS 6 and the new iPod Touch

We discuss the newly announced iPhone 5 and everything else from Apple’s announcement.

We’re very excited about the teaching possibilities of the new iPod Touch. This could be a great tool for journalism schools.

So, will we upgrade to the iPhone 5 or are we content with our current smartphones?

Listen to this week’s show:

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Episode 47: Casual Biden with Retina Display

Political coverage, BuzzFeed style.

We discuss ainimated gifs and all their glory.

Specifically, we discuss BuzzFeed and how they taken animated gifs and memes and combined them with journalism. And now the company is moving into traditional journalism beats. Is BuzzFeed onto something?

What can journalist and journalism organizations learn from BuzzFeed? And what can BuzzFeed learn from traditional journalism organizations?

We also review the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Does the high resolution Retina Display really make a big difference?

Listen to this week’s episode: 

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Show notes:

• BuzzFeed with a press pass: Animated GIFs meet Washington politics
• Wired’s review of the Retina MacBook Pro
• Pixel Perfect
• The Verge’s review of the Retina MacBook Pro

Episode 45: OS X Mountain Lion review

Our OS X Mountain Lion review is here.

We like it. We think most Mac users should upgrade. It’s the best version of OS X yet.

Listen to find out what we like and don’t like about Mountain Lion.

Listen to this week’s show:

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Show notes:

• OS X Mountain Lion

Episode 42: Computer face

We kick off the show by talking about Google I/O, and specifically the Nexus 7.

Could this be the first Android tablet to really make it big?

And what to make of Google Glass? Would you wear a computer on your eyes?

Listen to this week’s episode:

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Show notes:

• Apple releases Podcast app
• Google I/O