Recorded 22nd December 2019
Donny is (mostly) recovered from the ‘flu, MacJim braves another appearance and Suffolk Pete pitches in so we can have a “proper show”. Unsurprisingly news is thin on the ground on the whole with the blogs and such being full of “year in review” and “best of the decade” stuff. However we found a few stories to talk about including a “secret Apple satellite team”, more info on the Blue membrane, a Cobalt free EV battery and Zuck wanting to make a Facebook OS…
GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS
- Listeners of this show can claim $10 off purchases of Luminar and/or Aurora HD 2019 use the coupon code EssentialApple at checkout for your extra discount!
- Get Donny Yankellow’s 2FunDads iMessage stickers for FREE
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:
DONNY YANKELLOW
- New book – Kindergarten Zoo
- AarcadeReviews.com (http://aarcadereviews.com/) for apple arcade reviews and more
- @rtteachr (https://twitter.com/rtteachr) on Twitter
- Find his work at hedgehogalley.com (http://hedgehogalley.com/)
- Find his stuff in iBooks, a load of sticker packs in the App Store under Donny Yankellow and DesignBundles.net as Skrbly
- Skrbly Studio on YouTube
- Skrbly Store
- Skrbly Studio (Anyone can Draw) – App Store
- Kiddims on Graphite Comics
- Life is Random on Graphite Comics
- 2FunDads
- Search for Yankellow on the App Store/Books for Stickers and other work
SUFFOLK PETE
- On the Twitter a occasionally as @hermboy mostly about beer and footie
APPLE
- Apple Has Secret Team Working on Satellites to Beam Data to Devices — Bloomberg
- Apple opens public bug bounty program, publishes official rules — ZDNet
- Apple Platform Security Manual – Apple
- Phil Schiller Talks About the Development of the Original iPad in New Interview – MacRumors
TECHNOLOGY
- Online bulletin board inventor Randy Suess dies at 74 — Engadget
- DriveDx – the most advanced drive health diagnostics and monitoring utility – Binary Fruit
- Apple, Google and Amazon decide to ‘play nice’ over smart home tech – BBC News
- IBM’s cobalt-free EV battery uses materials extracted from seawater – Engadget
- Electric oceans: membrane creates energy from seawater — BBC Science Focus Magazine
- Facebook wants to take on Google by creating its own Android alternative – Android Central
SECURITY & PRIVACY
- -Mac threat detections on the rise in 2019 – Malwarebytes Labs – Malwarebytes Labs–
- New “uncrackable” security system may make your VPN obsolete – TechRadar
- Protect your online privacy easily with Winston – Geeky Gadgets
WORTH A CHIRP / ESSENTIAL TIPS
- TOP TIP from @zkarj in the Slack –
- Did you know the Recovery partition can restore several OS’s:
- Cmd-R: Reinstall the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac
- Cmd-Alt-R: Upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac
- Cmd-Shift-Alt-R: Reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available
- Did you know the Recovery partition can restore several OS’s:
- https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1902/en_US/apple-platform-security-guide.pdf
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.
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