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Most Influential People In Technical Mac Community 64

Posted by Zonk from the i'm-sure-there-are-more-than-25-out-there dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The MacTech Journal of Macintosh Technology has released MacTech 25, a list of top 25 most influential people in the *Technical* Mac community. According to the magazine 'The MacTech 25 is designed to recognize the technical contributions of developers writers, bloggers, problem-solvers and personalities to the Macintosh technical community.' The people were chosen by popular voting during June. Bios and pictures of the people on the list will be published in the printed MacTech magazine in time for WWDC."
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Most Influential People In Technical Mac Community More

Most Influential People In Technical Mac Community

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  • Kottke? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ohreally_factor ( 593551 ) on Friday July 14, 2006 @03:03PM (#15720870) Journal
    I can't believe they left out Jason Kottke [kottke.org]! I think the voting was rigged!
  • works for Apple. So gets a very honorable mention, because employees are exempt from the list.

    • Re:Tim Monroe (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ohreally_factor ( 593551 ) on Friday July 14, 2006 @03:12PM (#15720929) Journal
      I think that must be the same deal for Mike Bombich [bombich.com], who wrote some very nifty software (as donationware) before he was hired by Apple. I used to hang out on a forum where he and his wife frequented, and he was always helpful and friendly to others. Nice guy as well as a great mac geek. I remember how excited they were when Mike got hired by Apple. It was a dream come true. Hell, I think the entire forum was tickled that one of our own was going to join the mother ship.

  • What a great list! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Friday July 14, 2006 @03:08PM (#15720908) Homepage

    It's all text, all names, and no links. Who ARE those people? I have no idea! I wanted to find out, but it looks like I'd have to Google each and every name.

    Have you ever noticed that when Forbes or someone makes a list like this, they at LEAST give each person a few words to describe who they work for or some such?

    • It's all text, all names, and no links. Who ARE those people? I have no idea! I wanted to find out, but it looks like I'd have to Google each and every name.

      Agreed. Everyone on that list is a total nobody loser.
      • =)

        I actually chuckled out loud.

        It's funny, though, that a large amount of the people on that lists are pundits, opinionators, journalists, popularizers, evangleists and the like, not really what I think of as tech people, like you and a few others. Why isn't Rael Dornfest [raelity.org] on the list? There's not enough people that actually program there. David Pogue is technical? Because he writes/edits the Missing Manuals?
    • I only recognized a couple of names on that list, and they were both Mac journalists. Andy Ihnatko has bounced from magazine to magazine covering the Mac and has ranged from peon to editor, finally settling down as a freelancer last I heard. David Pogue has also bounced from magazine to magazine, and has become a sort of "John Dvorak of the Mac community", though admittedly with less raving lunacy. He's done a few books ("Macs for Dummies" - prompting many "yes they are" responses from the peanut gallery -
      • Pogue is the NYT technology columnist, and has been for a while now. He also has his own line of books at O'Reilly's; The Missing Manual series.

        I wouldn't associate him with Dvorak in any way, other than they both make their living by writing words. Still, if your point is that some of these names aren't really tech people, I completely agree. How many of them are actually doing tech, rather than writing about it?
        • Another name missing from the list (if it was a list about people that are actually doing stuff) is Ryan Rempel [xlr8yourmac.com]. Ryan Rempel is the creator of X-Post-Facto, software that allows people with older legacy macs to run OS X.
        • Well, there's Rich Siegel, whose BareBones software hasn't released anything worthwhile or interesting since Apple released OS X, and there's Wil Shipley, whose Delicious Library is quite nice looking, yet ultimately silly.

          Of course, there are people like Amit Singh and Aaron Hillegas who deserve to be on the list, and Brent Simmons makes some apps like NetNewsWire that a lot of people love (but I personally have no use for), and I guess Rosyna Keller too, but everyone here is right. There are far, far too
        • I was a bit out of line there. Perhaps more Cringley than Dvorak.

          Pogue's a good writer. I'm just saying that he's not a techie at all.
      • I guess it's one of those things where you're supposed to know who they are and if you don't, well, maybe you shouldn't be reading the list... Of course it doesn't help that they misspelled Aaron Hillegass' [wikipedia.org] name. Who, by the way, very much deserves to be on that list given his major role in educating people on how to develop apps in Coocoa [bignerdranch.com].
    • I've heard of two of them: David Pogue and Andy Ihnatko (sp?) because they've written magazine articles in popular Mac magazines.

      I used to be a Mac fan but have to use a PC at work and can't afford to buy the latest Mac for myself - I probably would be still if I did.
      I do have an old G3 PowerMac at home, but hardly use it.

      If parent is a Mac user, I'm surprised he hasn't heard of those two, at least.

    • You're right, this is a terrible non-story. I only recognize 4 out of the list, but I'm a pretty casual Mac user these days and not the flaming fanatic I was back in the mid-90s.

      If these people are really movers and shakers, I'd love to know why they matter.

    • A less crappy list. (Score:5, Informative)

      by oneiros27 ( 46144 ) on Friday July 14, 2006 @04:00PM (#15721259) Homepage

      Here's what I know of and/or could find for the ones I didn't.

      Unfortunately, it seems that Slashdot has a limitation on the minimum number of characters per line. So I can't just create a nice, simple list, but instead need a significant amount of text to pad out the list, so that I can make it past the filters being used. But I'm still not there yet... sooner or later I will (20.4 is still too few). I'm probably going to have to type a whole lot of crap in here just to deal with the 25 names that are only a few characters each. (and I tried removing returns from the message, but it didn't seem to help at all)

    • Losers! If Cory and Mark had waited a little longer to switch [slashdot.org] they could have been on this list! Ha! In your face, deserters! I mean, the bar can't be set that high--"Drunkenbatman" made it, I'm surprised "Dead Elvis" didn't. ;-)

      Back on topic, at least we now have a new measure of Mac geekiness: how many of the people on the list do you recognize? I know 6 for sure (including 1 of the honorable mentions) and I recognize maybe 3 or 4 of the other names but can't quite place them.

    • The technical mac community is assumed to be so small that everybody knows everybody else?

    • I was surprised and pleased to see Andy Ihnatko on there. I guess I'd missed him for a few years -- ever since he stopped doing the second-to-last-page columns for MacWorld (and before that, if memory serves, MacUser), I'd been wondering whatever happened to him. There was a considerable period during what I call the "dark ages" of the Mac when the only reason I kept up my subscription was for his column.

      After all, props are still in order if only for being the inventor of "Web That Smut [thealders.net]," possibly the only
  • This, like the "Mac Daily Journal Power 25" list that preceded it, seems to be an accounting of 'people who we have heard of'. What does it actually indicate? Do these people have some kind of influence over something? It just seems to be a particularly pointless popularity contest.
  • Considering the knee-jerk reaction most Apple-philes have to anything this man (or his company) says or does, I would certainly think he would have made the list... I'm willing to bet that Microsoft has had an enormous impact on how Apple has crafted their products and presence in the market over the years.
    • One only has to look at Vista to realize how much is flowing from Apple to Microsoft, not the other way around.

      There are very few features Microsoft implements and Apple duplicates. So in what way in Bill influential on what Apple does? Apple seems to be well ahead of Microsoft at this point from a strategic OS and application perspective.

      The only recent thing I could see Apple possibly adopting ome variant off is application ribbons from the new Office.

    • Re:Where's Bill? (Score:3, Funny)

      by tb3 ( 313150 )
      This is the technical list. Bill is on the other list.
      (Which just makes sense; Gates would even know how to open a Mac.)
    • It's the Linux community that's absolutely obsessed with Microsoft, not the Macintosh community. For instance, when someone posts a problem with an Apple product (Finder is really slow with network drives) you don't see 40,000 responses saying "yeah, well, Windows is slow with network drives also!!!!one!!!" like you do with Linux users.
    • Back in the day MS Word and Excel were the bomb and sold a ton of Macs. How could one company at one time write such great apps for the Mac while writing such total crap for their own OS?


      Yeah, Mr. Bill belongs on the list.

  • Seriously, I could open up notepad right now and type up 25 names with no bios or links and call that an article too.

    It would be easy. None of those bothersome <a href>'s to worry about getting in the way of my list.

  • Where's Dvorvak? (Score:3, Funny)

    by TheBogie ( 941620 ) on Friday July 14, 2006 @03:27PM (#15721034) Journal
    Why didn't Dvorvack make the list?
  • There's someone other than Steve? wow.

  • No Leo? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by seven5 ( 596044 ) on Friday July 14, 2006 @03:42PM (#15721127)
    I was surprised that Leo Laporte wasn't on this list. He's done wonders over the years in knocking out the Mac myths that became irrelevant with Os X. His voice travels far and is broadcast wide as well.

    • Leo & Qdial (Score:3, Interesting)

      by cmholm ( 69081 )
      Yeah, since the list was a bit heavy with writers, you'd think he'd rate. His Qdial desk accessory was one of my favorate bits of code back in the mid-80's, when I was constantly dialing up BBS'. Its innovation was to flog the modem during a Mac's vertical blanking interval (screen refresh, when whatever application you were using and the OS were otherwise twiddling their thumbs), which allowed me to keep working while I waited to connect to a busy board. This was before the Multifinder, and my first practi

  • Don't be fooled (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14, 2006 @04:31PM (#15721468)
    About half the people on this list write for the magazine that published the list.

    Here's how this works:
    (1) Magazine publishes list of "influencial" people.
    (2) Magazine includes their regular contributors on the list.
    (3) Magazine begins referring to their contributors as "highly influencial members of the Mac community."
    (4) Magazine hopes we all fall for it.

    This is no different than George W. Bush calling his house in Texas a "ranch" in hopes that everyone else will call it a ranch.

    It has no lifestock and (originally had) no horses, yet all the press called it a ranch because that's what they were told. Six years later, his house is a ranch.
    • "the press called it a ranch because that's what they were told."

      It probably has more to do with the fact that most of the journos from the mainstream press have never been near a ranch, and got their ideas of what one is from watching "Dallas", i.e. a house in the middle of a big piece of Texas land where people who got rich from oil walk around in cowboy hats trying to look like good ol' regulah peepuh. "Hey theah, m' name's Geeowge. Come ohn in, tek the weight off yo' feet, and stay awhaal. Aahl tell th

  • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The MacTech 25 is no popularity contest, nor
    is it to "pick your favorite CEO." We looked for the most influential in
    the Mac TECHNICAL market.

    This seems simliar to American Idol saying that this year, they've instructed the caller-in voters to pick purely on ability. How else could David Pogue and Mike Breeden -- admittedly both *very* influencial writers and news reporters in the Mac "space" -- out-garner Glenda Adams (of Aspyr.com fame, formerly president of Westlake Interactive), who seems, at times, to single-handedly not only keep Mac gamers with options, but also keep anyone interested in the Mac as a gaming platform?

    Even then I'm just picking from my own favorites. What techs have these people championed? What BurgerLibs have they created or OpenGLs have they supported?
    • Mike Breeden was one of the guys who kept the high end overclocking and modding community alive when Macs were on life support in the mid to late nineties. He's always been a one man show and while you guys may not think he's very influential right now, he's pretty much one degree removed from all the important people today.

      Ever since the G5 has stumped the modding community xlr8yourmac has kind have just been a reporting news site, but perhaps the future x86 Macs might bring back Mike's site to it's former
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I thought they were all switching to Ubuntu? (Score:3, Funny)

    by aurelian ( 551052 ) on Friday July 14, 2006 @06:40PM (#15722184)
    Or was that last week?
  • Oops! My bad. This ain't MacDailyNews.

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