Episode 9 —*Things made Out Of Other Things

[MJCP]

MJCP and Australian Personal Computer's Dan Warne talk to James Montgomerie, the developer of Eucalyptus. Eucalyptus is an e-book app for the iPhone that was rejected by Apple — multiple times — because it contained objectionable content. The thing is, it didn't. James tells us the whole not-so-sordid tale. Also, Optus improves its iPhone service, Vodafone adds Visual Voicemail, and MJCP gives a bit of background to MacTheMag.

Listen now on the site — it will be on iTunes shortly.

(You'll have to be a little bit forgiving of some of the audio quality. The noise you hear in the background from time to time is builders next to James Montgomerie's house in Edinburgh jackhammering. I did what I could.)

[ColinC]

About to listen - iTunes labels podcast as "thigs ...!?

[golfer]

Originally Posted by ColinC

About to listen - iTunes labels podcast as "thigs ...!?

yes, a second mistake! MJCP had tweeted proudly that the podcast was EXACTLY 45:00:00, and yet iTunes list it as 45.04. He's becoming so sloppy!!

[Gazza]

Originally Posted by golfer

yes, a second mistake! MJCP had tweeted proudly that the podcast was EXACTLY 45:00:00, and yet iTunes list it as 45.04. He's becoming so sloppy!!

Yeah, pretty slack - just NOT good enough!

I will download soon and listen on the way back home down the bush tomorrow morning.

[Lumeswell]

Originally Posted by golfer

yes, a second mistake! MJCP had tweeted proudly that the podcast was EXACTLY 45:00:00, and yet iTunes list it as 45.04. He's becoming so sloppy!!

In he old days you could write that off to 'tape stretch' - I didn't realise bits stretched in the same way

[golfer]

Well done Matthew, another excellent podcast, and possibly one of the best of the nine so far, if not the best. The interview with James Montgomerie at such a relevant time is the ultimate "oneupmanship", and his insight into being a former Apple employee was an unexpected bonus.

I also enjoyed your brief overview of where MacTheMag is headed, and why, and I'm now more than ever convinced that what you're building will be the relevant means of delivery in the future.

Now if you could just dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" with a little more attention to detail I think you'll be just fine! (said of course with tongue firmly planted in cheek)

[MJCP]

I'm almost tempted to post the raw audio so you can hear what I was working with — I'm quietly chuffed with myself that there's a podcast at all, so a typo here and there isn't going to bother me. I'm burned about those four seconds though!

Meanwhile Sean McNamara sent me a cool article on Daring Fireball that's got some bearing on this podcast. Gave me a laugh.

[Lumeswell]

Originally Posted by MJCP

I'm almost tempted to post the raw audio so you can hear what I was working with — I'm quietly chuffed with myself that there's a podcast at all, so a typo here and there isn't going to bother me. I'm burned about those four seconds though!

Meanwhile Sean McNamara sent me a cool article on Daring Fireball that's got some bearing on this podcast. Gave me a laugh.

Great podcast again - very informative and entertaining. And just because we can now

Was also interesting to hear the philosophy behind the whole 'MacTheMag' universe. I could relate to your comments about reviews in particular - the times I have been trawling through back issues of magazines to find the review I remembered reading about something I was about to buy!

As for the extra 4 seconds, its not bit stretch, as they are just silence! The audio cuts at 45:00 exactly, and then you get 4 seconds of free silence kindly provided by iTunes.

On a side note about Safari 4. One of the weird benefits of the massive HD failure I suffered recently is that the Safari 4 beta did not come back, it restored me to 3.2.3. I was not really that impressed with 4, not for the reasons you mentioned ), it just didnt 'feel' the same, and it had some annoying quirks and bugs. I never got around to removing it and going back to 3, but the HD failure did it for me.

When it gets out of Beta I will try it again.

And the Daring Fireball link - thanks, good laugh over breakfast.

[ColinC]

I agree with all of the positive remarks made so far about the podcast - well done!

I am an addicted book reader from early childhood and look at the e-book phenomena with 99% disdain. The 1% of interest is slowly growing as it is fed by info such as on this podcast.

To a large extent I remember how to find things in a book I have read by their physical location - left/right page about this far in, size of paragraph, pictures etc. I should experiment to see how this would translate to a 2 dimensional e-text but my feeling is it would be inferior. Anybody had a similar experience?

The background info to MtM was spot-on and answered the inquirer's request. Perhaps a small update each podcast? ... we are all ears!

[clinton1550]

Dan's comment about Apple wanting to avoid a media storm was interesting because Apple has in fact gone well out of their way to avoid one storm and blundered right into another.

It's just from one extreme to another.