Essential Apple Podcast 202: Gabbing Apple Geeks

Simon Parnell Essential Apple Podcast Leave a comment

Recorded 12th December 2020

Well that was a surprise for sure AirPods Max shimmied out the door at a teeth-sucking, sharp intake of breath, $549. Are they worth it? Who knows until someone actually listens to them and gives us a comparative review. Is Simon buying some? To quote Steve Jobs “Errrr – NO!” This week the usual suspects are joined (all the way from Durham, New Hampshire) by Dave Hamilton of the Mac Geek Gab and MGG listener Brian Monroe.

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Glenn Fleishman’s Working From Home book is completely FREE and can be downloaded here and now he has also released Take Control of Zoom Essentials free as well.
  • Steve at Geeks Corner has restarted his podcast which is a 5-15 min show of his thoughts on tech. Also keep an eye on his site or follow him on Twitter @GeekCorner_uk to watch for regular giveaways.

Why not come and join the Slack community? You can now just click on this Slackroom Link to sign up and join in the chatter!

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:

This and other episodes are available at:

Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Essential Apple | My Mac | Pinecast | Soundcloud | RadioPublic | PlayerFM | TuneIn | Google Play | Direct Download | RSS

On this week’s show

DAVE HAMILTON

BRIAN MONROE

MARK CHAPPELL

  • @oceanspeed, @essentialapple and @essentialmac on Twitter
  • Puts Essential Apple related stuff on YouTube

NICK RILEY

  • @spligosh on Twitter very occasionally.
  • Sometimes appears on Bart Busschots’ Let’s Talk Apple
  • Sutton Park Circuit church worship on YouTube

JAMES ORMISTON

APPLE

  • AirPods Max hands-on: We tried Apple’s new $549 headphones and we’re impressed – CNet
  • Apple Confirms 29W Power Adapter Incompatible With MagSafe Duo Charger — MacRumors
  • Docker rolls out initial support for Apple Silicon Macs — Apple Insider
  • Apple and Cloudflare team up to protect your web privacy – 9to5 Mac
  • Fitness+ workout service for Apple Watch launching on December 14 – 9to5 Mac
  • Nick got an M1 Mini and Allister Jenks got an M1 MBP. Brian Monroe got an M1 MBP

TECHNOLOGY

  • After mocking Apple, Samsung stops including chargers with phones – Cult of Mac

Essential Apple Recommended Services:

  • Pixel Privacy – a fabulous resource full of excellent articles and advice on how to protect yourself online.
  • Doug.ee Blog for Andy J’s security tips.
  • Ghostery – protect yourself from trackers, scripts and ads while browsing.
  • Simple Login – Email anonymisation and disposable emails for login/registering with
  • 33mail.com – Never give out your real email address online again.
  • AnonAddy – Disposable email addresses
  • 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… You get to keep 2 free avatars though.
  • 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!
  • Comparitech DNS Leak Test – simple to use and understand VPN leak test.
  • 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

You can follow us on:

Twitter / Slack / EssentialApple.com / Soundcloud / Facebook / Pinecast

  • Also a big SHOUT OUT to the members of the Slack room without whom we wouldn’t have half the stories we actually do – we thank you all for your contributions and engagement.
  • You can always help us out with a few pennies by using our Amazon Affiliate Link so we get a tiny kickback on anything you buy after using it.
  • If you really like the show that much and would like to make a regular donation then please consider joining our Patreon or using the Pinecast Tips Jar (which accepts one off or regular donations)
  • And a HUGE thank you to the patrons who already do.

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