S1E194 - Essential Apple Podcast 194: Anticipating Hi, Speed

Recorded 11th October 2020

This week Mark and Jim join me to talk about the possibilities of the upcoming event… and take a quick gander at the news of the week.

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:

JAMES ORMISTON

MacJim in the Slack
In charge of the Essential Apple Flickr
Also on Flickr as thesrpspaintshop
Has videos on Vimeo

MARK CHAPPELL

@oceanspeed, @essentialapple and @essentialmac on Twitter
Puts Essential Apple related stuff on YouTube
Co-host of the The Watching Men Podcast with Karl Madden

APPLE

Apple’s next iPhone will be announced on October 13th – The Verge
Apple’s T2 Chip Has Unpatchable Security Flaw, Claims Researcher – Mac Rumors
- Apple’s T2 security chip has an unfixable flaw – Ars Technica
- More Details on the Mac T2 Security Chip Jailbreak – The Mac Observer
- Comment from @Dougee:
  “My thoughts on this after reading the articles is that it’s been blown out of all proportion and mostly click bait headlines as usual.If you are a high value target then you may have an issue. But as you have said you need physical access to the device with enough time to brute force the users password. The vulnerability is not persistent so for long term attack you would need multiple access to the device.A good strong login password would protect most users and if you have a high valuable data it would be best to use another encryption to protect the data, use file vault to do full disk encryption and then use something like Veracrypt to protect sensitive data.Where I think it will be used is in stolen devices as now there is a way to brute force the user login to wipe the device and then resell.When out and about always keep your device with you if you are a high value target.”
Apple made ProtonMail add in-app purchases, even though it had been free for years – The Verge
iOS 14 icon set nets designer six figures in six days – 9to5 Mac
PSA: No, iOS 14 widgets can’t secretly steal private info with your keyboard – 9to5 Mac
Apple to extend Apple TV+ free year trials through February 2021 – 9to5 Mac
Apple’s Internal Networks Were Hacked for Three Months – The Mac Observer
Judge denies preliminary injunction to Epic and Fortnite will remain banned from App Store – 9to5 Mac
Apple using retail stores as distribution centers to speed up new product deliveries – 9to5 Mac

TECHNOLOGY

House Democrats push Congress to break up Big Tech monopolies – Engadget
- Needham: There’s no real threat to Apple from regulators – CNBC
Microsoft thumbs its nose at Apple with new “app fairness” policy – Ars Technica
- Microsoft digs at Apple with 10 principles for app store fairness, but they won’t apply to Xbox – Geekwire
- My take is this is BS – The Mac is no less open than Windows and developers can be in the MAS or not. NOTE that Microsoft isn’t including Xbox in this – that’s a closed market just like iOS… There MS take 30% just like all the others…

SECURITY & PRIVACY

UK ‘mass surveillance’ regime is illegal, EU court declares – IT Pro
Wi-Fi security risks during pandemic – FBI warning – 9to5 Mac

WORTH A CHIRP / ESSENTIAL TIPS

Sketchpad 5.1 – Draw, Create, Share! Sketchpad: Free online drawing application for all ages. Create digital artwork to share online and export to popular image formats JPEG, PNG, SVG, and PDF.
Chairman of our MUG sent this to everyone as an interesting find maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side Mostly covers the UK but there are a couple of world atlases… The side by side bit is what makes it special

JUST A SNIPPET

For things that are not worth more than a flypast

@Dougee says of the Blacklight tool:
“Blacklight is an awesome tool as you can check the website without actually visiting it. When you visit a site with an ad blocker you don’t know beforehand if the blocker can fully protect your browser, you still leave a fingerprint or get tracked. Blacklight does all this for you.”

NEMO’S HARDWARE STORE (1:23:16)

SOS Hydration Electrolyte Drink Mix or UK Store $10 US / £8 UK
SOS Hydration Waterbottle or UK Store $7 US / £6 UK
IO Gear Charger – Amazon $35 US doesn’t appear to be in the UK store.

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.

Support The Essential Apple Podcast by contributing to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/essential-apple-show