s01e20 - You Have Problems

Episode 20

It’s the final episode of season one! Jamie brings us up to date about life with the new iPad. Surprise: She loves it. Jon then airs his grievances about one minor gripe he has with iA Writer. Then, the real fun begins. For the season finale, your hosts wanted to do something special. Enter: the Episode 20 APPocalypse. Jon and Jamie are “stranded” with only one screen of their iPhones. (20 apps, 20th episode. Get it?) The Web still exists, but their only computers are iPhones with 20 apps. No folders. Which 20 iPhone alls will they need to survive in the digital age?

Thank you all for listening. It’s been an amazing experience. Thanks for inviting us into your lives — and into your ears — through the devices we all love so much.

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Jon’s list

Jamie’s list

s01e19 - Stupid iPhone Head

Episode 19

Jamie and Jon were back together this week, but they kept it brief because Jamie was unwell. They had a ton to talk about, though, including the new iPad, which is Jamie’s first. Jon offered some iPad suggestions, and Jamie described her setup, which she’s still figuring out. More on that next week. Then they discussed Readability and Instapaper, because events transpired this week that drove Jon to switch back to Instapaper. That led to a discussion of the surprisingly intense emotions around apps and the people who make them.

On a technical note, we know why the early episodes are disappearing each week. Unfortunately, it’s an apparently intractable problem with Tumblr, which limits the amount of items you can keep in its RSS feed. So we have to move this blog. The domain will stay the same, but the links will break. Hopefully, you won’t have to re-download all your podcasts. But this is an ongoing project, so bear with us. It’ll be a while. In the meantime, you can always find the old episodes here on TheDock.tv.

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Apps

s01e18 - It’s All In Your Head

Episode 18

While Jon was off nerding it up in Texas, Karen Freeman acted as guest co-host in his stead. Karen is a manager, editor, and writer at AppAdvice, a freelance writer for Macworld, a mom, and a teacher. They begin talking about the new iPad and ask the question, “What’s in a name?” They discuss all of the confusion brought on by this “name change,” but in the end decide it doesn’t really matter. In between giggling, your hosts complain about iCloud and Photo Stream, while parsing Dropbox in all of its glory. As per typical guest discussion: Karen touches on what’s on her homescreen and which apps she uses daily. Then, they both make fun of Jamie’s delirious blog post on a missing iOS 5.1 “feature” and how none of the readers got what she was on about.

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Apps

s01e17 - Happy But Serious

Episode 17

Jamie was too busy being the boss of the applesauce this week, so Jon was joined by guest co-pilot Matthew Bischoff, co-founder of Lickability, makers of Quotebook. The big issue of the week was the new Readability app and its implications for Instapaper. Jon and Matthew compared the feature sets and business models, their own ways of using them, and the idea of “copycat apps.” It led to a discussion of user meanness, the importance of loyalty and customer service on Twitter and in the App Store. At one point, Jon couldn’t help but effusively praise Quotebook, and Matthew mercifully allowed him to do so. They also talked about the black box of iCloud, the future of the home screen, and Jon introduced his new experiment: a white iPod Touch he bought in order to jailbreak.

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Apps

➤ Invalid Argument Ep. 1 - The App Store: (Banana) Republic?

Over on ReadWriteWeb, Jon got a chance to talk iOS with five awesome developers on his pseudo-weekly-ish video show, Invalid Argument. The makers of Yobongo, Quotebook, Launch Center and more discuss what it’s like to work for the App Store, what its problems are, and what’s great about it. Click through for video!

Invalid Argument

ReadWriteWeb: Invalid Argument Ep. 1 - The App Store: (Banana) Republic?

s01e16 - Teeny Little Tap Targets

Episode 16

Jamie and Jon had a lot of catching up to do on this show. A bunch of big-time apps came out over the past couple of weeks, and they haven’t had time to talk about them. Though the show was all about iOS apps, they managed to talk briefly about (gasp!) Android. Your hosts end the show with their thoughts on the problem with the iTunes Store, including Apple’s acquisition of Chomp, what that means for the App Store, and the app scammers and thieves taking over the iTunes storefront.

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Apps

s01e15 - Synthesis On The Fly

Episode 15

Jamie and Jon are joined by James Hinton, the recording and performing artist known as The Range. They discuss his mighty electronic music setup and how computers, specifically Apple ones, are changing the musical game. It leads to a discussion of SoundCloud’s in-audio commenting and how it adds to (and subtracts from) the experience of sharing music. That leads into a discussion of podcasting and then Apple in general, Mountain Lion and where it’s all headed.

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Apps

You should all love us as much as @KarenSFreeman:

@atjamie @JonMwordsI JUST figured out my car can do this - the port was hidden inside a console. J&J to go! :) twitter.com/KarenSFreeman/…— Karen Schiff Freeman (@KarenSFreeman) February 14, 2012

You should all love us as much as @KarenSFreeman:

s01e14 - Your Face In My Feed

Episode 14

Jon and Jamie drop the intro. They’re both having some minor home screen issues, so they talked through it. It wasn’t as bad as either of them thought, so they went on to talk about the things they do with their devices: reading and writing on the Internet and everything wrong and right about it. We also talked about Path’s privacy snafu and how they took the bullet for everybody else, including Apple. It concludes with a little musing on whether Apple’s App Store standards are slipping. We forgot to talk about the enormous amounts of Tweetbot news. We’ll get into that next week.

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Apps

s01e13 - You Guys May Not Hear Me, But I’m Talking To You

Episode 13

Jamie and Jon were joined by David Kanter, who does user support for Intuit. They began by contemplating customer service for software and the difference between “feedback” and “support.” They considered which media — Twitter, email, IM, phone — work best for customers and their concerns. That led to discussing first experiences with apps, including the infamous first launch of Color. Then they moved into the apps they love, starting with Path and the other social apps they use, carefully considering the kinds of things they share and connections they make on each one. There’s also a broad discussion of iPhone photography. Eventually, your hosts and their guest just needed a nice, thorough home screen therapy session.

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Apps

➤ Launch Center’s Curious Quest to Fix the iPhone

Launch Center on the dock

Per episode 12, Jon had a great chat today with David Barnard of App Cubby, creators of Launch Center. He didn’t record it, which was dumb, but he wrote about it on ReadWriteWeb. Maybe next time we can get David to be a guest on the show, huh?

ReadWriteWeb: Launch Center’s Curious Quest to Fix the iPhone

s01e12 - iPhone Part 2: Something Has To Happen Here

Episode 12

In this episode, The Dock gets a proper introduction for once. Jon and Jamie take a break from philosophical Web talk and get back to their roots: the home screen. As promised to their good pal, Joe A., your hosts try to fix the app real estate mess they find themselves in and, in the process, shine some light on the solution to the “aging home screen.”

Links

Apps

s01e11 - The Dopamine Squirt

Episode 11

Jon and Jamie look at themselves in the mirror and confront the Internet-people they see. This show is about what the Internet does to us. Are its effects good, bad, both or neither? What does it do to our relationships? It’s the beginning of a long conversation that started with a few drinks and will last long into the Information Age.

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Apps

Sparks

We just had a crazy conversation, but it wasn’t out loud, nor was it about computers, so you’ll have to head over to Everything is ablaze! to read it.

s01e10 - Twitter Is Taking Our Jobs

Episode 10

Jamie and Jon talked more about the big picture this week, thinking about the place of bloggers, marketers, PR reps and other people-people in the technology industry. No apps, no gadgets. The Dock Podcast is about what people do and how they use computers to do it. But what’s a good workflow good for without an understanding of the work? And increasingly, the work of technology converges with the rest of life.

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