As a podcaster for almost two and a half years, I understand that you can dig yourself a pretty deep hole during an episode. I’ve made predictions that were so wrong I wanted to delete the podcast segment and replace it with an apology. I’ve been fooled by applications that were April Fools jokes and I’ve associated developers with applications they never developed. It happens, we all make mistakes and we all have a podcast or two that become nothing but a colossal waste of bandwidth.
But, I’m about at the end of my patience after listening to episode 61 of the MacBreak Weekly podcast. After episode 59 and 60 I had hoped that their never-ending complaining and shortsightedness over the iPhone updates and features had come to an end, but noooo! This last episode was a full 40 minutes of the same short-sighted rantings. “How can Apple expect me to buy an iPhone without (fill in the missing feature)?” “How can Apple keep sticking it to the consumer and get away with it?” “Why can’t Apple just allow us all to hack the iPhone and leave us alone?” (Not exact quotes, but generalized summations)
I am a huge Leo fan, I’ve been a huge fan since his TechTV days. I subscribe to almost all of his family of podcasts. I respect his knowledge and appreciate the tech help he has given us all over the years. He surrounds himself with a small group of friends that he allows on his podcasts and whether they contribute anything to the podcast or not, he’s fiercely loyal to them. Unfortunately, when you continuously drink the same bathwater you become one in thought, word and deed. The last three episodes were a perfect example. Only Scott Bourne dared to offer a somewhat forward thinking suggestion only to be belittled until he was silenced once and for all. This last podcast they avoided all objections by just not having Scott on at all.
The podcast started out on a positive note with Leo admitting he went way overboard with his iPhone complaining and had to apologize for being wrong on several points. But that’s as far as it went. After a few minutes of actual facts from Erica Sadun, they dropped her from the podcast and began their incessant rantings for the iPhone to instantly pleasure them. Whether we agree with Apple’s reasoning for breaking hacked iPhones or not, anyone with any tech experience should know that within a few days the iPhone will be hacked again. In fact, the iPhone Dev Team and iphonesimfree.com just made this announcement:
“Our sincere congratulations, to the iPhone/ iTouch Dev Team for their brilliant work in finding an ingenious way to jailbreak the 1.1.1 system. This exciting news means we are now able to gladly welcome all SIMFREE unlocked phone owners to UPGRADE to 1.1.1 if they so wish
Further to this, we are very proud to announce, (after some very difficult and lengthy hardware hackery), we were able to retrieve the necessary info to create the world first 1.1.1 unlock solution. We have now tested SimFree v1.6 with phones that have the new Baseband version 04.01.13_G with full success. This now means that SimFree v1.6 release, is now capable of completely restoring/repairing software unlocked “bricked” iPhone.”
There have been several bloggers in the Mac community that have already chided Leo and his buddies for beating a dead horse for the sake of attention. After all, Apple gave us exactly what they promised and again, anyone with any Mac knowledge must know that the iPhone is only beginning it’s lifespan and it will continue to expand in capabilities and features. Apple will open up the iPhone to some sort of third party apps. Apple’s contract with AT&T will expire and Apple will go a different direction. Do these self proclaimed Mac pundits think that OSX or the MacBook Pro is perfect the way they are and have nothing left to add? Of course not. The Mac, OSX, iPods and the iPhone are all works in progress that are constantly improving and changing. They are not perfect, but we love them for what they are and we love to guess where they will be a year from now.
I’m not asking Leo to stop whining all together. After all, I’m about the same age as Leo and I understand that as we get older we love to complain. (Look at what I’m doing with this blog post). We want to hear the negative features and functions as well as the positives. This little game of cat and mouse with Apple and the iPhone hackers will continue for a long time. Everyday the Internet reports on fanboys that are overcoming corporate roadblocks with ingenious hacks and workarounds. Use a little forward vision once in a while and lets talk about the future of the Mac, the iPod or the iPhone rather then what we see through blinders at this specific moment in time. But for the love of God Leo, stop beating this dead horse and move along.
Tim,
I have to say I am a big fan of both, Leo’s and You, I listen to your podcast every week and I can not thank you enough for how much good advice I’ve gotten from you. And as long as you keep doing your podcast I am pretty sure I’ll be your loyal listener. having said that, I’ve been quite surprised by the response that Leo’s point (which by the way he is not the only one with that point of view: 9to5Mac, Engadget and many others have said similar things) has had from the Mac community.
You and the Macalope seem to be quite convinced that unnecessarily bricking iPhones and blocking 3rd party apps is for “the greater good”. I am not saying it’s not, because I do not know, but you, as an important voice in the Mac community (as the Macalope also is) should not applaud this kind of moves. Was the bricking unavoidable? NO, I am en embedded systems engineer and I can tell you that in the same way that Apple “figured out” that you had unlocked the phone and write that special code in the Modems firmware, could have written a message to the screen saying “You can not update this iPhone since it has been tampered with” and that would be the end of the story.
Now I have to agree that all of us, including you, that expect a great show from MacBreak Weekly are rather sick of it being converted to iPhone Weekly and hope that they move on soon. But I think that even “FanBoyism” has to have a limit and sometimes those of us who have no voice in the community expect that those of you that do, speak out and make themselves heard saying: “We do not like, nor approve that”.
Thanks for a great podcast and keep up the good work.
Leo Laporte and his gang of sycophants have been getting on my nerve for a while now. MacBreak Weekly has just turned into the Apple Moan Show. As for the iPhone issue, the people were warned not to update to 1.1.1 if they’d hacked their phones – if they went ahead and did it anyway and the iPhone bricked, tough. They should stop crying to mommy. One week of moaning is OK but this is soooo boring now. Grow up you spoilt brats.
Tim, I am with you on this. As a matter of fact, I wrote a small blogpost on my own site (MacVeritas.com) about the whining going on about people hacking their iPhones, then blaming Apple and about the same people chiding Apple so heavily about features that arent YET available, even though this phone that has been in development for years, and has only been available for about 4-months now.
I do love listeneing to MacBreak (as well as the MacReviewcast) and will continue to listen, since Leopard will be out shortly, the iPhone will be upgraded, and life will be good and full of more positive mac news. This too shall pass. It’s a fad like anything else.
Keep up the great work.
I totally agree on all the bellyaching. I posted about this too on my blog after seeing Leo’s cow rant on his blog. All the people that hacked or jailbroke their phones need to accept personal responsibility for applying the update and losing their apps or the phone bricking.
I have not read too much on the following issue but this is what is pissing me off with Apple and the iPhone. A close friend of mine bought a new iPhone a week and a half ago and before a week past the thing was a brick. She didn’t hack anything and did not install any software of any kind. She has nether the skill, desire nor inclination to do so.
Here comes the really bad part; Apple is treating this 23 year customer like a criminal. She uses
this phone for her business hand had to buy another phone while Apple jerked her around.
Stuff like this and the long string of defective product Apple has been putting out for several years now, has ended my 20 year Mac evangelism. I have moved dozens of people and companies to Apple and I am putting those efforts on ice; It is getting hard to see Apple as being worth that kind of support. Apple is still better than MS and Adobe but they are not worth my active support.
I beat you by a week. I just unsubscribed from MacBreak Weekly a week ago, and I blogged about it as well. Similar reasons: incessant iPhone whining, nothing but ratholes everywhere. I couldn’t take it any more.
I agree that MacBreak Weekly has lost me as a listener, at least until the iPhone obsession comes ot an end. I think that some of their anti-Apple points are reasonable, most are not, but in either case it is tiresome to hear the same re-hash every week. I love Leo’s podcasts, and listen to them literally daily, but MBW went from my favorite to one I can’t sit through in the past three weeks.
What is interesting to me is ot listen to Leo from the podcasts that run up to the “bricking” issue. He seemed so nervous about the hacks, so cautious that the phone may not work after the next update, even warning that he thought is was not a good idea, it surprises me that he seems so indignant in later podcasts.
Ah well – they will tire of this sooner or later, and MBW will rise from the ashes!
I think Leo is complains so much because he is trying to take a page out of the Shawn King playbook. That page is as follows; side with the third part developers and maybe get some sponsorship. Its clear Apple isnt going to sponsor his show.
Tim I agree with you on this one. While I don’t think we should all just be Apple fanboys I can’t tolerate the constant whining either. The iPhone is what it is. I will look forward to developments and improvements but for now I am delighted with the product that I have.