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4 months ago
25
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:
