#johngruber

[tomorrowpodcast]

ALERT. John Gruber is one of the world's foremost experts on Apple. Josh is one of the world's foremost experts on experts. Unsurprisingly, things get very nerdy when Josh and John sit down to discuss the past, present, and future of the company, as well as how it compares to the competition. But don't worry — Woodrow Wilson, James Bond, and the New York Yankees all pop up in the discussion as well. You've been warned.

[kolargol-blog]

About MG Siegler promotion of branch

So MG Siegler is claiming here  that:

 the curated nature of the conversations allows for a back-and-forth that is actually insightful and free of bullshit. Here’s a Branch I created today about the iPhone 5 “cuts”, for example. If this conversation took place in a comment thread, half of the comments would be something like: “fuck you Apple blogger dickhead bitch! LOL” or “you’re such a moron because Android” or “your don’t get Microsft lovez to teach apple things like u know”.

Lets take a closer look at the participates of the iPhone5 conversation MG gave as an example:

1. Mg siegler: among his many attributes, he is also a self proclaimed apple fan.

2. Rene Ritchie: editor of iMore.

3. John Gruber. apple blogger

4. Seth Weintraub: owner of 9to5mac.

Im not sure about the other 3 participates in the branch "debate", but my point being is that its easy to have a civil conversation when you choose in advance debaters that agree with your view on most things. Difference of opinion, while can lead to heated conversations can also be productive

The limitation of branch is this exactly, they aim for civil by you choosing the debaters, but run the risk of uniformity.

[eafarris]

John's blurb about Aaron Swartz's suicide.

[reasonableguide]

On Crying 'Wolf' and On Calling Out Those Who Cry 'Wolf'

[Crying Wolf](http://daringfireball.net/2004/04/crying_wolf) is a 2004 article by [John Gruber/Daring Fireball](http://daringfireball.net) about a Mac OS X trojan horse and (perhaps more importantly) how the tech press reacted to it. In May 2011, John wrote [Wolf!](http://daringfireball.net/2011/05/wolf), an overview of "the impending malware crisis" on Mac OS X from May 2011 (when it was written) back to October 2004. The moral of the story being that people have been saying *The End Is Near* for almost as long as OS X has been around. However, as [Guy English pointed out](http://kickingbear.com/blog/archives/166) (a link which I discovered via [Daring Fireball](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/05/06/english-wolf)) the moral of the story of the boy who cried wolf is *not* just about the boy, but about the village which failed to pay heed because they had heard this warning before and chose to ignore it. A reasonable person should read all three of the above articles because they should know that: a) dire predictions of malware on Mac OS X "any moment now" have been happening for almost a decade (and, therefore, new predictions should be taken with sufficient 'grains of salt'). b) just because these predictions have been wrong does not mean that there will *never* be malware on Mac OS X. The key is to find the proper balance between the two.

[trishussey]

[trishussey]

[matrinoxrants-blog]

From his site:

Inside Social Games: “Zynga Reports Highest Ever Bookings for Q1 at $329M”. Same facts, different headline from Reuters: “Zynga Reports $85 Million Quarterly Loss”. Funnily enough, the pro-Zynga headline is right from Zynga’s own press release.

Reuters, a prestige news company, reported inaccurate information about Zynga.  Unsurprising, given that traditional news companies have had a bad track record in regards to reporting on the tech industry.  For example, back when Apple just got famous with the iPod, they would often times turn to blogs on Apple and report news from there, which would make hilarious news headlines (funny because they were wrong).

It just shows how news is actually quite unreliable yet often times we trust it as the absolute truth.

[actionaad]

Windows Phone 7 "spiffs"

Apparently, Microsoft is now offering resellers a $10-15 bonus, or "[spiff](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiff)", for each Windows Phone 7 device sold. John Gruber [doubts this strategy](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/01/09/buying-love), saying "Obviously this isn’t sustainable in the long run, given that $10-$15 per phone is probably the most Microsoft could be making in licensing fees." He's probably right that, with any non-trivial spiff, each WP7 device sold will lose Microsoft money -- unless the Nokia deal includes some sort of kickback above and beyond the OEM fees, anyway. But if you doubt Microsoft's willingness to buy its way into a competitive position, consider the Xbox programme. The first Xbox lost [four billion dollars](http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/15/the-making-of-the-xbox-part-2/) and manufacturing faults with the Xbox 360 cost [another billion](http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/119125/xbox-red-ring-of-death-costs-microsoft-1-billion). Yet in 2011, the Xbox business turned [$1.32 billion](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36011/Microsofts_Xbox_360_Division_Sees_132_Billion_Profit_For_Fiscal_Year_2011.php) in profit, with more to come. The risky strategy worked; Microsoft bought its way in. Against all the prevailing market wisdom at the time, Microsoft turned Sony's entrenched PlayStation brand upside down to assume a comfortable second-place position in the global games console market. If Nintendo hadn't implemented a brilliant strategy shift to mainstream markets with the Wii, the Xbox 360 would probably be number one. Clearly, Microsoft has the stomach for long and expensive fights when it thinks there'll be an eventual payoff. With a $233bn market cap and [$56bn cash on hand](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=msft), it has the deep pockets too. WP7 was late to the market, but it's winning admirers nevertheless. I think, and I hope, that we'll continue to see it grow.