The Talk Show Live, Without Apple
John Gruber (Mastodon, MacRumors, Hacker News, Steve Troughton-Smith):
But in recent years the guests have seemed a bit predictable: senior executives from Apple. This year I again extended my usual invitation to Apple, but, for the first time since 2015, they declined.
I think this will make for a fascinating show, but I want to set everyone’s expectations accordingly. I’m invigorated by this.
I think this is actually good for the show. Though I appreciate the opportunity to glean some information from the Apple executives, I usually find the live shows frustrating. Gruber wisely avoids wasting time with questions that they obviously won’t answer. But there are also plenty of on-topic, respectfully phrased questions that the executives mostly dodge. They’re just not going to tell us what we (I?) really want to know. Like politicians, they’re too good at staying on message. I think there are more interesting ways of using the time than giving space for talking points that didn’t make it into the keynote. I generally found the live episodes with Cabel Sasser and the ATP guys more entertaining and informative. If I were in Gruber’s position the last few years, I would have been thinking: maybe it’s time for something different. But people like watching Federighi, and it would be hard to pass up the opportunity if an Apple SVP wants to participate. Now, problem solved. I can see why he’s invigorated.
I do wonder what the thinking was from Apple’s side. Revenge for something he wrote? Pour encourager les autres? Lack of courage to defend their recent record or future plans, even with a fair interviewer? If I were Apple, I would see The Talk Show as a great opportunity to mend some fences with the developer community. But maybe Apple doesn’t care about that. Whatever the actual reason, the decision was sure to send a message, and I struggle to see how it could be a good one.
This is wild. Both because they declined – again, for the first time in a decade – but more so because they have to know the signal it sends in declining. At best, it looks like they’re trying to avoid answering any non-staged questions about how things are going. At worst, it looks like they’re freezing Gruber out for a few recently critical posts about the company – notably, his “Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino” post about the Apple Intelligence shitshow back in March.
Even if that’s not explicitly what Apple is doing here, they simply must know that’s what it looks like. And it’s just about the worst look imaginable.
No executive ever said something they shouldn’t have (they’re pros), no sensational or negative news stories ever resulted from them, and Apple’s enthusiastic fans and developers felt seen, heard, and appreciated.
[…]
In the absence of any other information, it’s easy to assume that Apple no longer wants its executives to be interviewed in a human, unscripted, unedited context that may contain hard questions, and that Apple no longer feels it necessary to show their appreciation to our community and developers in this way.
See also: 15 Years Later: ‘Very Insightful and Not Negative’.
Previously:
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This is entirely consistent with their behavior towards the media. They trade positive press for access. They've always done this, which is why they don't work with outlets like LMG, despite their reach.
@Plume: LMG as in Linus Media Group?
Their coverage of Apple topics have always seemed pretty fair to me. Linus and company are pretty obviously not big Apple fans, but, with a few exceptions, the problems they highlight are things I agree with. Linus's fairly recent exercise of using an iPhone resulted in a pretty gripe heavy video. Some of the things were user preference, etc, but most of it were actual problems of various severity.
It does feel like revenge which is nuts to me. Do they have a PR team? Is anyone in charge of optics?
"Their coverage of Apple topics have always seemed pretty fair to me"
Yes, that's my point. Apple doesn't want fair, they want sycophantic. This isn't uncommon for large tech companies that are in a position of power; Nvidia also does this, for example.
@Hammer - yeah bring on the man whose company used dark patterns to get children to accidentally make an in-app purchase when simply trying to restart an app.
Why not! That's what the future holds after-all.
Jokes aside, it's good to see that the C suite knows they've fucked up so badly that they don't even dare to face the most milquetoast ass kisser in their pr team.
Change might be coming.
Is this not the best confirmation that something is rotten in the state of Cupertino?
And if that is the case, and since we all actually care for Apple platforms to get better, the products to get better, the relationship with developers to get better and thus more opportunities to see more great things from the community, then it is all for the better to have a different guest or two.
Things are ripe to move on, either in Apple management or in the platform that will grab the torch or crown to be the next darling. Or both. Their decline is a great thing and very, very indicative.
Gruber had to know this would happen. He of all people should know for a fact just how petty and vindictive Apple is.
But that article was the best thing he has written since Markdown. It got so much attention and praise because his defense of Apple was getting borderline ridiculous.
And he was their last real defender that anyone took borderline seriously. Apple thinks they are punishing him, but they are so far gone that they don't realize they're just punishing themselves.
His last live show got a lot of criticism for not asking any real questions, but it was never going to get any better. He was doing what he had to do to get them to participate at all.
So good for him, good for all of us. Maybe one day Apple will change its attitude. But not until it starts losing money.
Maybe the multi-millionaires at Apple just don't have anything to announce at WWDC apart from a pointless new version scheme, an even more pointless UI theme and a boring new version of Swift.
> "people like watching Federighi"
Not everyone.
