Story Splitting and Apple’s Disappointment

In Episode 29, Ian and Ash venture into the wild frontiers of video podcasting, with Ian's "door and chair" background sure to be nominated for design awards. The pair tackle the thorny art of story splitting, with Ash confessing his frustration at watching teams scramble around massive requirements like ants on a dropped ice cream cone. Meanwhile, Ian suggests testers might be uniquely positioned to lead such efforts, having "a clear foot in each domain" – or as Ash quips, possibly Schrödinger-like properties.

The mood darkens as Ian reveals Apple's "deeply disappointed" (not "gravely disappointed" – an important semantic distinction) announcement about disabling UK encryption features following secretive government demands. Our hosts explore the concerning implications, suggesting this puts the UK's surveillance powers closer to China than democratic peers, while wondering if police might soon arrive because "computer said nick."

Between discussions of HP's spectacular customer service own-goal (forcing callers to wait 15 minutes even when operators were available), Ian's surprisingly positive experiences with Claude Code AI, and the shocking revelation that they're podcast royalty in Côte d'Ivoire (top 10!) and Cameroon (top 100!), our hosts deliver an episode that proves that story splitting may be challenging, but splitting hairs about levels of disappointment is an art form unto itself.

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Creators and Guests

Ash Winter
Host
Ash Winter
Tester and international speaker, loves to talk about testability. Along with a number of other community minded souls, one of the co-organisers of the Leeds Testing Atelier. Also co-author of the Team Guide to Software Testability.
Ian Smith
Host
Ian Smith
Happiest when making stuff or making people laugh. Tech, and Design Thinking. Works as a fractional CTO, Innovation leader and occasionally an AI or web developer through my company, craftscale. I'm a FRSA.
Story Splitting and Apple’s Disappointment
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