John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs. Topics include Isaacson's failings as an author and biographer, the technical cluelessness on display in the book, and Steve Jobs, Enemy of Progress.

Episode 100: 100: Metacritical

Dec 28th, 2012 1h 41m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin end the Hypercritical podcast with a discussion of the show itself, followed by a final Q&A where Dan asks the questions and John attempts to provide sensible answers. Many thanks to all the listeners and the fol

Episode 99: 99: New Siracusa County Bros. U

Dec 21st, 2012 2h 1m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin follow up on iTunes 11 and Apple's continuing failure to grok online services, then discuss the Wii U, starting with the painful setup process and continuing on to New Super Mario Bros. U, Nintendo Land, and, inev

Episode 98: 98: Hardware Machismo

Dec 14th, 2012 2h 6m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin follow up on taping out silicon chips, Apple's seemingly bottomless silicon ambitions, and the pitfalls of labeling people, then discuss Twitterrific 5, the new Google maps app on iOS, iTunes 11, Tim Cook's nation

Episode 97: 97: Idle Doodles

Dec 5th, 2012 1h 55m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin follow up on silicon chip making and misogyny in geek culture, then dive into Hypercritical's first—and likely only—listener Q&A show. All questions entertained! Some questions answered!Links for this episode:N

Episode 96: 96: Blue Peter

Nov 30th, 2012 1h 44m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin reveal John's Wii U in transit, then talk more about Apple, Intel, ARM, and silicon chip fabrication, and finally, the Fake Geek Girl meme, misogyny, and problems with Geek Culture in general.Links for this episo

Episode 95: 95: Black Friday

Nov 23rd, 2012 1h 48m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the upcoming end of this show, more on Intel vs. ARM, Apple's CPU/GPU needs, and the newly revealed internals of the Wii U console and GamePad.Links for this episode:Advanced Vector Extensions - Wikipedia

Episode 94: 94: Shrink, Shrink, Shrink!

Nov 16th, 2012 1h 40m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit the topic of voting technology, then discuss the possibility of Apple using ARM processors instead of Intel processors in its Macs: RISC vs. CISC, process nodes, the x86 burden, and…sewing machines.Links

Episode 93: 93: A Magic Elf in My Computer

Nov 9th, 2012 1h 55m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk more about Forstall's departure from Apple, Surface storage, and Fusion Drive, then discuss US voting technology, Google voice search, and how Apple's design problems are more than skin deep.Links for this e

Episode 92: 92: The Tim Cook Era

Nov 2nd, 2012 2h 5m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the latest information about Apple's Fusion Drive and the first big executive reshuffling at Apple in the post-Steve Jobs era: Forstall and Browett are out; Ive, Cue, Federighi, and Mansfield are in.Links

Episode 91: 91: Adolescence

Oct 26th, 2012 2h 23m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the new hardware announced at the October 23rd Apple event: the latest Retina MacBook Pro, whether the new iMac is too skinny or too fat, the little information we currently know about Fusion Drive, and, o

Episode 90: 90: Salad Days

Oct 19th, 2012 2h 2m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin ponder the upcoming Apple event, assess picayune physical details of the iPhone 5 and iPod touch, compare the newly announced pricing for the Microsoft Surface to its possible competitors, and discuss John's appro

Episode 89: 89: Lazy Sunday

Oct 14th, 2012 1h 36m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin relax on a Sunday afternoon and chat about Apple's taste for brute force solutions, the foibles of decentralized systems like Tent and email, and The Magazine, Marco Arment's new Newsstand publication.Links for t

Episode 88: 88: Nobody Leaves Email

Oct 5th, 2012 1h 55m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the latest events in the burgeoning App.net community, then explore the competing(?) Tent.io protocol for decentralized real-time social networking.Links for this episode:Real-time computing - WikipediaPa

Episode 87: 87: Smarter and Harder

Sep 28th, 2012 1h 30m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin follow up on Apple's slippery little devices and Apple's mapping woes, then discuss the new iPod touch and iPod nano. John's hypothetical Ferrari is briefly mentioned.Links for this episode:iPod touch - Apple.co

Episode 86: 86: Naked Robotic Core

Sep 21st, 2012 1h 25m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the new iPhone 5: its physical design, the case for cases, the new lightning connector, and Apple's trouble with maps. Let the iPhone 6 speculation begin?Links for this episode:iPhone 5 - Apple.comThe Am

Episode 85: 85: Just Check the Checkbox!

Sep 12th, 2012 1h 41m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss all the things that went wrong during John's Mountain Lion ebook publishing experience. There's more than enough blame to go around. Please note that this episode was recorded before the September 12th A

Episode 84: 84: Spared No Expense

Sep 7th, 2012 2h 8m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss Amazon's new Kindle and Kindle Fire products. Is Amazon Apple's most dangerous competitor, or are the two companies not really in competition at all? Who is Amazon's ideal customer? Finally, John and Da

Episode 83: 83: Dishonorable

Aug 31st, 2012 1h 29m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the Apple v. Samsung court case, the near-comprehensive rumors and leaks about the next iPhone, the possible internals of the rumored iPad mini, and which company we'd like to buy Twitter, if it were actua

Episode 82: 82: The Opposite of Comprehensive

Aug 24th, 2012 2h 6m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin finally complete their discussion of John's Mountain Lion review. Topics include power management, UI simplification, automatic termination, Facebook integration, and plagiarizing from yourself.Links for this ep

Episode 81: 81: Channels of Control

Aug 17th, 2012 2h 3m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the latest round of Twitter API changes that further marginalize third-party "traditional" Twitter client applications, with the inevitable follow up about App.Net, the nascent Twitter-like service that ta

Episode 80: 80: Memory Palace

Aug 10th, 2012 1h 39m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin continue to discuss John's review of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. On this episode: iCloud storage APIs and user interface, sandboxing, Gatekeeper, Retina/HiDPI, Scene Kit, Objective-C enhancements, and a bonus divers

Episode 79: 79: Grandpa Uncle Joe

Aug 3rd, 2012 1h 44m

John Siracusa is on vacation this week, so we instead present its ersatz replacement, 'Kindacritical', with Dan Benjamin, Marco Arment, and Merlin Mann.Links for this episode:Macintosh 512K - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaTimpani - Wikipedia

Episode 78: 78: Sins of the Father

Jul 27th, 2012 2h 26m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss—what else?—John's review of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. There's so much to cover that this will have to be a multi-epsiode topic. On this episode: purchase and installation, interface and document model cha

Episode 77: 77: Nucleation Site

Jul 20th, 2012 1h 46m

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk more about a potential smaller iPad, OUYA's challenges, what makes a successful Kickstarter project, how the Penny Arcade Kickstarter could have been more attractive to funders, and finally, the strange case