Essential Apple Podcast 202: Gabbing Apple Geeks

Well that was a surprise for sure AirPods Max shimmied out the door at a teeth-sucking, sharp intake of breath, $549. Are they worth it? Who knows until someone actually listens to them and gives us a comparative review. Is Simon buying some? To quote Steve Jobs “Errrr – NO!” This week the usual suspects are joined (all the way from Durham, New Hampshire) by Dave Hamilton of the Mac Geek Gab and MGG listener Brian Monroe.

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.

Recorded 12th December 2020

Listen to the show:

This and other episodes are available at:

On this week’s show

DAVE HAMILTON

Co-host of the Mac Geek Gab Podcast
@DaveHamilton on Twitter

BRIAN MONROE

IT Consultant
@brianmonroe on Telegram

MARK CHAPPELL

@oceanspeed, @essentialapple and @essentialmac on Twitter
Puts Essential Apple related stuff on YouTube

NICK RILEY

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

JAMES ORMISTON

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

APPLE

AirPods Max hands-on: We tried Apple’s new $549 headphones and we’re impressed – CNet
Apple Confirms 29W Power Adapter Incompatible With MagSafe Duo Charger — MacRumors
Docker rolls out initial support for Apple Silicon Macs — Apple Insider
Apple and Cloudflare team up to protect your web privacy – 9to5 Mac
Fitness+ workout service for Apple Watch launching on December 14 – 9to5 Mac
Nick got an M1 Mini and Allister Jenks got an M1 MBP. Brian Monroe got an M1 MBP

TECHNOLOGY

After mocking Apple, Samsung stops including chargers with phones – Cult of Mac

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

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