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42: The Ultimate Vanity Search

PrimeSense and Topsy, Apple's engineering talent and web services, reversible USB plugs, renewed hope for desktop Retina displays for the new Mac Pro, and Texas.

Episode 42 of the Accidental Tech Podcast podcast, hosted by ATP, titled "42: The Ultimate Vanity Search" was published on December 6, 2013 and runs 103 minutes.

December 6, 2013 ·103m · Accidental Tech Podcast

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  • FU on PrimeSense.
  • Apple's acquisition of Topsy and speculation on why.
  • Apple's possible difficulty in getting and keeping enough engineering talent, and how they might make bigger strides in web services.
  • Which group wears the pants in a company?
  • Marco's embarrassing FiOS support calls.
  • How Apple's release and marketing schedule affects their web services.
  • Methodologies and vocabularies.
  • USB spec group will add a reversible connector, the history of terrible USB connectors (see also: Hypercritical #5 from around 45 minutes, Hypercritical #6 from around 9 minutes, and the entire rest of the series, too), Lightning epitomizing Apple.
  • Dell renews hope for desktop Retina with the new Mac Pro, single big monitors vs. dual smaller ones, and higher-than-native resolution scaling on the Retina MacBook Pro (see also: Eye-Friendly).
  • Waiting for a new technology to fully mature before switching, or adopting it earlier with tradeoffs and hacks.
  • Texas.

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Chapter 01

Apr 11, 2026 ·14m

Chapter 02

Apr 11, 2026 ·15m

Chapter 03

Apr 11, 2026 ·18m

Chapter 04

Apr 11, 2026 ·16m

Chapter 05

Apr 11, 2026 ·16m

Chapter 06

Apr 11, 2026 ·24m

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