Essential Apple Podcast 164: Back from the dead

Simon Parnell Essential Apple Podcast Leave a comment

Recorded 23rd February 2020

After two weeks “down and out” due to my MacBook Pro charger unexpectedly failing on me literally a couple of hours before the recording time on the 9th (and the replacement I ordered failing to show in time for the following week) the show is back from the dead. Lessons to be learned there I think… ) All the usual crew are otherwise engaged’, so it’s just me mulling over a few things that caught my attention over the last couple of weeks.

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • WINNERS of the MotoMagico for iPad Subscriptions are: Eric Rogers and Steven Welton
  • Get Donny Yankellow’s 2FunDads iMessage stickers for FREE

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Slacker @MacJim has a family friendly Flickr group for listeners to share photos because the Darkroom channel in the Slack has become so popular – if you’re interested head over to to the Essential Apple Flickr and request an invitation.

Listen to the show:

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On this week’s show:

APPLE

  • Larry Tesler: Computer scientist behind cut, copy and paste dies aged 74 – BBC
  • Apple adds ability for developers to sell Mac and iOS apps as a single purchase – 9to5 Mac
  • Apple’s ‘CarKey’ might let you unlock your car with your iPhone – The Verge
  • Big macOS leak hints at future switch to AMD chips – Cult of Mac
  • Apple Just Made A Striking New Security Move That Could Impact All Users – Forbes

TECHNOLOGY

  • Bill Gates orders £500m hydrogen-powered superyacht – Mashable
    • EXCEPT it wasn’t true! – BBC
  • IBM picks Slack over Microsoft Teams for its 350,000 employees – The Verge
  • Android cofounder’s phone startup Essential shuts down after launching one product – Mashable

SECURITY & PRIVACY

  • Popular iOS and Mac email apps scrape inboxes to profit from personal data, report finds – 9to5Mac
  • Another little security gem! Comparitech DNS Leak Test
  • ‘Lockdown’ open source firewall app leaps from iOS to Mac, blocks app and website trackers for free – 9to5 Mac
  • AZORult spreads as a fake ProtonVPN installer – Securelist

WORTH A CHIRP / ESSENTIAL TIPS

  • The doqo case turns your iPad Pro into a MacBook… with a trackpad and multiple ports! – Yanko Design
  • Bring back your Mac’s startup chime with this simple terminal command — 9to5 Mac
    • sudo nvram StartupMute=%00 turns it on and sudo nvram StartupMute=%01 turns it off again
      • I didn’t have any luck with this FWIW!

NEMO’S HARDWARE STORE

  • Nemo will be back soon

Essential Apple Recommended Services:

  • Ghostery – protect yourself from trackers, scripts and ads while browsing.
  • 33mail.com – Never give out your real email address online again.
  • Sudo – Get up to 9 “avatars” with email addresses, phone numbers and more to mask your online identity. Free for the first year and priced from $0.99 US / £2.50 UK per month thereafter…
  • ProtonMail – End to end encrypted, open source, based in Switzerland. Prices start from FREE… what more can you ask?
  • ProtonVPN – a VPN to go with it perhaps? Prices also starting from nothing!
  • Fake Name Generator – So much more than names! Create whole identities (for free) with all the information you could ever need.
  • Wire – Free for personal use, open source and end to end encryted messenger and VoIP.
  • Pinecast – a fabulous podcast hosting service with costs that start from nothing.

Essential Apple is not affiliated with or paid to promote any of these services… We recommend services that we use ourselves and feel are either unique or outstanding in their field, or in some cases are just the best value for money in our opinion.

Social Media and Slack

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