S1E226 – Essential Apple Podcast 226: More News than you’d think

Recorded 27th June 2021

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Simon, Steve and Nick get together again to take a look at rather more stories than they thought they had including Amazon sending tens of thousands of items a week to landfill, Safari Technology Preview, the death of John McAffee, Hubble’s broken computers, the MyBook Live story and more.

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Glenn Fleishman’s book Take Control of Securing Your Mac can be found at takecontrolbooks.com along with many other titles by him, Joe Kissell, Jeff Carlson and others.
  • Steve at Geeks Corner has a podcast which is usually 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

  • Big Show on the @spligosh on Twitter very occasionally.
  • Sometimes appears on Bart Busschots’ Let’s Talk Apple
  • Sutton Park Circuit church worship on YouTube
  • Nick’s church stream videos – You Tube

JAMES ORMISTON

STEVE DURBIN

  • Runs the Geeks Corner website
  • Produces the Geeks Corner podcast
  • @GeekCorner_uk on Twitter

APPLE

  • Russia votes to force U.S. tech giants to open local offices – AppleInsider
  • Apple Shares List of Products to Keep Safe Distance Away From Pacemakers – MacRumors
  • Apps can request access to more RAM with iOS 15 entitlement, exceeding normal system memory limits – 9to5Mac
  • Safari Technology Preview – Safari – Apple Developer
  • Adobe Removing Photoshop Sketch and Illustrator Draw From App Store in July – MacRumors
  • Running Low on iCloud Storage? Heres How to Make Room for the Things You need – iDropNews
    • How to delete Time Machine local snapshots in macOS – AppleInsider
  • Hotspot connections will be safer in iOS 15 thanks to WPA3 security protocol – 9to5Mac
  • You Don’t Need iCloud+ for ‘Hide My Email’ in iOS 15 | How to Set It Up Now – iDrop News
  • Final Cut Pro 10.5.3, Compressor 4.5.3, and Motion 5.5.2 – TidBITS
  • The Real System Requirements for Apple’s 2021 Operating Systems – TidBITS

TECHNOLOGY

  • Amazon Is Destroying Thousands of Unsold AirPods, iPads, and MacBooks According to New Investigation – iDrop News
    • Revealed: Amazon destroying millions of items of unsold stock in UK every year – ITV
    • The ex-Amazon worker who helped expose scale of unwanted stock being destroyed – ITV
    • Second Amazon whistleblower claims brand new goods being binned – ITV
  • John McAfee, Antivirus Software Creator, Found Dead In Spanish Prison Cell – HuffPost
  • NASA is pulling out all the stops to fix the Hubble Space Telescope – SlashGear
  • Podcasts | Everything Technology – Bob O’Donnell
  • Microsoft releases Windows 11 for free – but most computers will not be able to run it – Independent
    • Microsoft wont allow Windows 11 on many older Surface devices – PC World

SECURITY & PRIVACY

  • “I’m totally screwed.” WD My Book Live users wake up to find their data deleted – Ars Technica
    • Western Digital drives remotely wiped: What experts say to do now – SlashGear

WORTH A CHIRP / ESSENTIAL TIPS

  • All Things Secured | Online Security Made Simple – Josh Summers
  • This app lets you download full macOS Big Sur installer pkgs with one click – 9to5Mac

JUST A SNIPPET

For things that are not worth more than a flypast

  • River Runner – Watch the path of a raindrop from anywhere in the contiguous United States
  • Somebody put a Raspberry Pi inside a G5 iMac because why the heck not? – iMore

Essential Apple Recommended Services:

  • All Things Secured – Online security made simple by Josh Summers.
  • 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 and on the App Stores – 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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