Episode 59 – Tim Cook’s 5 Years, Intel IDF Announcements

Our News Roundup this week covers the Backchannel article about Apple’s AI efforts; Spotify, Amazon, and Pandora’s attempts to negotiate new rights deals with music labels; and the shutdown of John Gruber’s Vesper note-taking app for iOS (and what it says about the state of the App Store and the app economy more broadly).

Our Question of the Week is “How should we view Tim Cook’s first five years as Apple CEO?” and builds off the blog post Jan did this week with lots of charts comparing Apple at the beginning and end of Tim Cook’s first five years. We talk about how Apple has changed, what Tim Cook has done differently (notably increasing R&D spend), and his biggest successes and failures during his time as CEO. There’s a link to the post in the show notes for today’s episode.

Our third segment is a discussion of Intel’s announcements from its big developer event last week. We talk about the emphasis on specialized silicon and non-traditional devices for Intel, the focus on sensors and their many applications, and the licensing deal with ARM, among other things.

Lastly, we wrap up with a Weekly Pick, which is a personal hygiene recommendation from Aaron.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson@aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

  • The Backchannel article by Steven Levy on Apple’s AI efforts.
  • John Gruber’s post on Vesper shutting down
  • Jan’s post with about 20 charts and analysis on Tim Cook’s first five years as Apple CEO
  • Aaron’s Weekly Pick was an electric toothbrush – specifically, the Oral B Vitality Floss Action model, which you can find on Amazon (affiliate link).

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Episode 58 – Unsticking Twitter, What We Use

Our News Roundup this week covers the Samsung Note7 reviews that came out this week; Google’s launch of its Duo video calling app for Android and iOS; and Apple’s announcement of an R&D center in China.

Our Question of the Week is “Why does Twitter seem stuck, and how can it unstick itself?” Jan answers questions about what makes Twitter seem stuck, from its user growth to monetization in the US to its product; why Twitter seems to be executing so slowly on its strategic priorities; and what Twitter can and should do to fix itself and get past its current stagnation.

Our third segment is a bit of a departure from our usual pattern, in that it’s just us talking about the technology – hardware, software, and services – that we use in our daily work and personal lives.

Lastly, we wrap up with a Weekly Pick, which is a book recommendation from Aaron.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson@aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

  • Various posts from Jan on Twitter
  • Aaron’s Weekly Pick was The White Man’s Burden, by William Easterly, which you can find on Amazon (affiliate link).

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Episode 57 – Business Ethics, Verizon-Yahoo Acquisition

We’re back to our usual format this week, with a News Roundup, Question of the Week, and a third topic, as well as a Weekly Pick. In our News Roundup, we cover what’s been happening with Nintendo’s share price recently, this week’s reports about Apple devices due in the fall, and the acquisition of Jet.com by Wal-Mart. Our Question of the Week this week is a little unusual in that it’s focused on a new book of which Aaron is a co-author, on the subject of business ethics. We talk about the book but also about ethics in business more generally, and some tech-specific examples, as well as discussing why we should be ethical in the first place. Our third topic is the recently announced acquisition of the core Yahoo internet business by Verizon, which had previously acquired AOL. This week’s Weekly Pick is a movie recommendation from Jan.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson@aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

  • Aaron’s book is the Business Ethics Field Guide, and you can learn more about it and buy a copy at the book’s website (it should be on Amazon within the next week or so too)
  • Relating to the Verizon-Yahoo discussion:
  • Jan’s Weekly Pick was the movie Concussion, with Will Smith, which you can find on iTunes and Amazon (affiliate links), among other places.

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Episode 56 – Q2 2016 Tech Company Earnings Review

We’re back after a two-week break, and this episode is exclusively devoted to a review of major tech companies earnings for Q2 2016, which were reported over the last several weeks. We take a thematic approach to the topic, focusing first on hardware companies, principally Apple and Samsung; then on the big ad-focused companies: Google, Facebook, and Twitter; and then two companies that stand somewhat apart: Microsoft and Amazon. We discuss the themes that emerged from earnings this quarter, and also some of the surprising elements in each company’s results.

Next week, we’ll be back to our usual structure, with a News Roundup, Question of the Week, and Weekly Pick.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson@aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

  • The only external link we discussed on the show was a piece in the Atlantic by Ian Bogost entitled “Facebook is not a technology company”. We discussed this right at the end of the episode.

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.