Essential Apple Podcast 209: Unacceptable???

Recorded 14th February 2021

Nick and Simon get together again to take a look at the news stories that caught their eye this week, including an insane looking 7 screen laptop, some disappointing aspects of the App Stores, and Nick has an interesting discovery about his Alexa…

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.

On this week’s show

NICK RILEY

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

APPLE

Apple Adds Activation Lock Webpage With Tools for Users – The Mac Observer
Anyone can hack your Mac unless you patch it now — here’s how – Toms Guide
New Study Suggests Apple Watch Heart Rate Sensor Can Predict COVID-19 Up to a Week Before a Swab Test – Mac Rumors
- A European company is pioneering diabetes monitoring without the needle – Axios
Apple offering free battery replacement for 2016/2017 MacBook Pro that won’t charge past 1% – 9to5 Mac
Apple and Prepear reach an agreement on pear-shaped logo trademark – 9to5 Mac
Scam iOS Apps Still Raking in Millions in Revenue on App Store – Mac Rumors
- Developer reveals how fake reviews and ratings play a major role in App Store scam apps – 9to5 Mac
Introducing the first extensible iOS browser – Insight
- Stop using Safari and try this breakthrough iPhone browser instead – Fast Company
Security researcher hacks Apple, Tesla, Paypal, more, in clever open-source software attack – 9to5 Mac

TECHNOLOGY

Welcome to Affinity 1.9 – Serif
It’s No Surprise This Obscene 7-Screen Laptop Has 1-Hour Battery Life – Gizmodo
Facebook Working on Smart Watch to Compete With Apple Watch – Mac Rumors

SECURITY & PRIVACY

Barcode Scanner app w/ 10M installs turns out to be adware – 9to5 Google
Browsers are rushing to stop shadowy ‘supercookies’ that spy on your activity – Fast Company

WORTH A CHIRP / ESSENTIAL TIPS

Hubble for iPad – Fledgling

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.

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