121: ‘He Was Sort of Anti-Golf’ With Guest Rene Ritchie

Special guest Rene Ritchie returns to the show. Topics includes Jony Ive’s promotion to Chief Design Officer and the implications for Apple; the differences in Apple’s internal design culture now that industrial and user interface design are under one roof; Google’s announcements at their I/O developer conference last week in San Francisco, including Google Photos; “machine learning”; Apple replacing the much-maligned discoveryd with good old mDNSResponder in the latest Yosemite developer beta; our thoughts on the space black Apple Watch with link bracelet; and more.

Sponsored by:

• MailRoute: Hosted spam and virus protection for email. Use this link for a 10 percent discount for the life of your account.
• Harry's: An exceptional shave at a fraction of the price. Use code TALKSHOW for $5 off your first purchase.
• Warby Parker: Boutique-quality, classically crafted eyewear at a revolutionary price point.
• Fracture: Your pictures, printed directly on glass. Photo, frame, and mount, all in one. Save with code DARINGFIREBALL.

Links:

• Stories on Greg Christie’s departure from Apple last year, from TechCrunch and 9to5Mac.
• “Skankphone” — the purposefully ugly prototype OS that was seen by most of the industrial design team for the original iPhone.
• Rene’s photographs of the actual shipping space black Apple Watch with link bracelet, which really does look black.
• Apple’s promotional photos for the space black Apple Watch from back in September 2014, when it was more like a medium-dark gray.
• News from Google I/O last week: Google Photos, Marques Brownlee on the top new features in Android M, and everything else in one handy list.
• Mark Gurman’s roundup of iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 rumors leading up to WWDC next week.