John Gruber

John shares his personal narrative as the writer of Daring Fireball and host of The Talk Show with John Gruber, which is now both a podcast and a live show with Apple executives, held during the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. In the conversation, John explains what first captivated him about computers at an early age, expands on his passion for reading and writing and outlines how he has carved out a life of independent production and commentary, based on his technological interests. Last, he describes what he’s most proud of. Podcast case study: The Talk Show with John Gruber (producer) Find John at Daring Fireball. Read a transcript of the episode as a styled PDF or in plain text. Links and Show Notes The Director’s Commentary 00:00:00 The Talk Show by John Gruber and Dan Benjamin was hosted on a different site, which can now be found in the Internet Archive. Dan Benjamin Hivelogic now redirects to the site above. Internet radio Daring Fireball iPod USB FireWire FM radio Apple Inc. iPhone Mac (computer) Substack Blue Microphones Amazon (company) Amazon Web Services (AWS) MP3 Audio data compression YouTube Blog (a truncation of ‘weblog’) Ad tech = online advertising technology Domain name A Voracious Reader 00:10:12 Computer science Apple IIGS Drexel University Stephen King Isaac Asimov Internet I’ve Carved Out this Life 00:17:04 Atari 2600 Pong Word processor (electronic device) Typewriter Liquid-crystal display (LCD) World Wide Web Dave Winer scripting.com Jorn Barger Robot Wisdom was Jorn’s early blog, which can now be found in the Internet Archive. Robot Wisdom and How Jorn Barger Invented Blogging Usenet TidBITS HyperCard Mailing list Jason Kottke kottke.org Macworld Browse an extensive library of MacUser PDF magazines at vintageapple.org. The Philadelphia Inquirer Pulitzer Prize The New York Times The Washington Post Center City, Philadelphia The Talk Show with John Gruber Freely Honest 00:38:04 Zoom (software) Skype COVID-19 pandemic iOS Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) Daring Fireball on YouTube, featuring videos of John’s annual The Talk Show Live events with Apple executives Mimi Sheraton Remembering Mimi Sheraton, Innovative New York Times Food Critic (John’s mentioned article on Daring Fireball) Android (operating system) Walled garden (technology) A Loose, Unofficial Community 00:52:29 RSS Twitter (rebranding to X at the time of this podcast episode’s publication) @gruber @daringfireball Content management system (CMS) Reddit John’s three mentioned Twitter/X alternatives and his accounts on each one Mastodon (social network) @[email protected] Bluesky Social @gruber.foo Threads (social network) @gruber TikTok Facebook Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) A Vision for the Whole Internet 01:00:52 Spotify Joe Rogan Bill Simmons The Ringer Ghost (blogging platform) Marco Arment Overcast Castro Application programming interface (API) News aggregator NetNewsWire Reeder XML Paywall Dithering Ben Thompson Stratechery Bob Dylan It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (the song with the lyrics that John quoted) Banner ad YouTuber Patreon Google Pretty Proud of That 01:18:00 John’s full searchable archive at Daring Fireball Markdown A few articles about Apple’s Brushed Metal user interface Aqua (user interface) on Wikipedia, with mentions of Brushed Metal throughout the article Brushed Metal and the HIG on Daring Fireball The iTunes 5 Announcement From the Perspective of an Anthropomorphized Brushed Metal User Interface Theme on Daring Fireball The Brushed Metal Diaries: An Introduction, a Trojan Horse and a History of Abuse on 512 Pixels Credits Recorded and edited by Martin Feld, using Audio Hijack and Ferrite Recording Studio Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion Contact Website: rsspod.net Email: [email protected] Mastodon: social.lol/@martinfeld Micro.blog: micro.blog/martinfeld A Special Note Martin is a paying subscriber of John’s shared membership program for Dithering; this did not influence any of the questions that were asked and did not place any expectations on John as a participant of this academic podcasting project.