Recorded 20th December 2020
In a moment of madness Simon and Guy decide to do a joint Christmas Mayhem Zoom call podcast with GazMaz, MacJim, Nick, Donny, Mark, and Steve (Geeks Corner) Durbin. Not much else to say really – it just took on a life of its own! Happy holidays everyone…
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:
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This and other episodes are available at:
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On this week’s show
GUY SERLE
- Co-host of the MyMac Podcast
- @MacParrot and @VertShark on Twitter
- Does Guy’s Daily Drive, Mac to the Future Livecast, Go!
- Posts all his stuff to vertshark.com
GAZ MAZ
- @GazMaz on Twitter
- Co-host of the MyMac Podcast
- Appears on the For Mac Eyes Only podcast sometimes
STEVE DURBIN
- Runs the Geeks Corner website
- Produces the Geeks Corner podcast
- @GeekCorner_uk on Twitter
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
- MacJim in the Slack
- In charge of the Essential Apple Flickr
- Also on Flickr as thesrpspaintshop
- Has videos on Vimeo
2020 IN BRIEF
(cribbed from the excellent Bart Busschots’ Let’s Talk Apple)
January
- Apple and FBI and more E2E wrangling – usual stuff ‘think of the children’ vs E2E can’t be backdoored without breaking everything for everyone
- EU voted to press on with standardising chargers
- CV-19 breaks out in China
February
- CV-19 wreaks havoc
- Mobile World Congress scrapped
March
- CV-19 becomes a pandemic
- Apple donates 10million masks
- WWDC announced as online only
- Apple spring new MBA Retina and updated Mini
- iPad Magic Keyboard with Trackpad launched
April
- Apple and Google team up to work on contact tracing API
- New iPhone SE (2020) revealed
- Apple designs medical face shield and says it will donate millions
- Apple gives money to a variety of charities including BBC ‘Big Night In’
May
- Apple & Google’s Exposure Notification API goes live
- FBI continue to attack Apple about encryption
- Apple says it supports BLM
- Tim Cook pens open letter on racism
June
- Apple announce $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative
- The UK U-turn on not using Apple’s API, but do so with bad grace
- WWDC with iOS 14, macOS 11, watchOS 7 and Apple announce they are going to custom silicon
- Controversy over censorship and the Hey app prompt some app store changes
July
- Public Betas of iOS 14, iPadOS 14 and tvOS 14
- Apple continues support of BLM
- Apple starts spending its pledged $2.5bn on housing crisis in California
- Apple win against EU over Irish tax in ECJ
- Greyhound film a hit, Apple win Emmys
August
- TikTok war opens
- Phil Schiller moves from SVP to Apple Fellow
- iMacs get updates but no Apple Silicon
- Epic pulls its App Store stunt to start the Fortnite war
- Anti-trust investigations start to snowball around the world (not just for Apple)
September
- EU appeal the ECJ ruling
- Will streaming games work on iOS furore starts
- Judge “excoriates” Epic tactics
- Apple launches AppleWatch SE, and Series 6
- Apple launches new iPad 8 and new Air 4
- Apple One Bundle announced
- UK Apple Maps updated
October
- Apple make all the moneys
- Anti trust and Epic stuff rumbles on
- Subscrition streaming game situation confused and unclear
- Apple announces iPhones 12 range and HomePod Mini
November
- Apple cuts app store commission for “small developers” netting less than $1 million (98% of devs some say)
- Big Sur goes official
- Apple drops the M1 Macs…
- Reviewers go mad over them
December
- Apple releases the AirPods Max at $549…
- Reviewers are baffled but mostly positive
- Facebook disses Apple privacy improvements… TC replies
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
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- And a HUGE thank you to the patrons who already do.
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