Senior Contributor, Macworld
While Susie Ochs is off on assignment in the fens around Boston, regular host Glenn Fleishman is joined by frequent Macworld contributor John Moltz, who also writes at his web site, Very Nice Web Site, and co-hosts The Rebound tech podcast and Turning This Car Around dadcast.
Glenn and John talk about the last week’s reception to Apple’s earnings, walk through Tim Cook’s appearance on Jim Cramer’s show, and explain that the company is doomed. Doomed, we tells ya! Or, more accurately, how Apple is navigating the aftermath of one great year while growth tapers and the Chinese economy shudders.
John has an iPhone SE and he loves it. Courts can order you to unlock your phone with your fingerprint, so perhaps you need to re-consider Touch ID. And Dish Networks will come to your house and fix your iPhone—you might even want this!
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Executive Editor, Macworld
Senior Contributor, Macworld
The new MacBook is here, and it's been reviewed against its predecessor, the other portable Macs, and even the iPad Pro. Bottom line is that it's a great machine—and how cool is it that the choice between iPad and laptop has basically come down to personal preference—but it's still taking heat from people who didn't think Apple went far enough.
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Executive Editor, Macworld
Senior Contributor, Macworld
Sometimes new Apple products are announced with fanfare at a fancy event. Sometimes they just get a new processor and a press release. The first MacBook got an event, and on Tuesday Apple put out a press release about the second MacBook revision, with a processor bump, a new rose gold color, and an extra hour of battery life. Glenn and Susie are a bit underwhelmed by this underwhelming development, but Glenn’s still really enjoying the first-gen MacBook he’s used all year.
Elsewhere, Apple’s encryption tussle with the government has moved to New York, and Apple filed a briefing last week pointing out the weakness of the government’s appeal. And WWDC dates were announced: June 13 to 17 in San Francisco. A lottery is on now for tickets, and hotel rooms are already expensive, so our pro tip is to consider staying in beautiful downtown Oakland and riding BART to San Francisco instead. Can’t wait!
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Executive Editor, Macworld
Senior Contributor, Macworld
Both longtime users of TextExpander, Glenn and Susie were troubled by the news that developer Smile was changing up the business model. Glenn wrote a review that didn't score so well, since the new version didn't add much for regular users who don't need to share, removed Dropbox and iCloud sync that worked well enough, and didn't add enough security to the mandatory upload of everyone's entire snippet libraries. Not to mention the new price.
As we recorded this episode, Smile announced that they were walking some of that back: The introductory lower subscription fee for existing users was extended indefinitely, and the previous versions—TextExpander 5 for Mac and TextExpander 3 for iOS—were back on sale. We applaud these moves and hope that they didn't come too late, and that Smile can justify TextExpander's recurring fees over time with lots of improvements and new features, like Adobe has done with Creative Cloud.
Elsewhere, it seemed like a light week for news, so we talk about everything, from the latest in the FBI saga, to WhatsApp encryption, Apple Watch 2 rumors, the usefulness of 3D Touch, handwriting recognition, and iPhone SE availability.
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Executive Editor, Macworld
Senior Contributor, Macworld
The iPad Pro isn’t going to be everyone’s be-all-end-all, do-everthing device—no single thing is, not even one from Apple. But doing your best work is all about finding the exact mix of tools and technology that’s right for you, and the iPad Pro is making its presence felt in a wide variety of careers. This week, Glenn interviews three professionals who use the 12.9-inch iPad Pro either as their primary machine, or at least to do a lot of the work they used to do on a desktop or portable Mac.
They are: Chip Suddereth, a school administrator by day and podcaster by night. He’s the host of Two-minute Time Lord and the cohost of Audio Guide to Babylon 5. Tom Bridge is an IT and system administrator, and a principal at Technolutionary. Finally, Jeff Zugale is a storyboard artist and spaceship illustrator, which is the coolest job description I’ve heard all day.
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Senior Contributor, Macworld
Executive Editor, Macworld
Sorry for the delay on getting this podcast to you. Glenn and Susie have a lot to say, and a few things cropped up at the last minute. Anyway, here we go.
This episode brought to you by our fine sponsors:
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Executive Editor, Macworld
Senior Contributor, Macworld
Well, that was...weird. After a month of insisting, even under oath before Congress, that only Apple had the required technical expertise to assist the FBI in extracting every bit of evidence from the iPhone 5c used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook—after all that—it turns out, the FBI didn’t need Apple’s help anyway.
Huh.
Fortuitously, this week Glenn and Susie are joined by Jonathan Zdziarski, who is exactly the person you want to speak with if you’re trying to figure out what the crap just happened. Zdziarski is a security researcher and iOS forensics expert, and he’s been blogging and tweeting about the FBI’s tangle with Apple the entire time. You don’t want to miss this discussion.
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