Essential Apple Podcast 203: Essential MyMac Podcast #1 “Christmas Mayhem”

In a moment of madness Simon and Guy decide to do a joint Christmas Mayhem Zoom call podcast with GazMaz, MacJim, Nick, Donny, Mark, and Steve (Geeks Corner) Durbin. Not much else to say really – it just took on a life of its own! Happy holidays everyone…

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 20th December 2020

Listen to the show:

or audio only

This and other episodes are available at:

On this week’s show

GUY SERLE

Co-host of the MyMac Podcast
@MacParrot and @VertShark on Twitter
Does Guy’s Daily Drive, Mac to the Future Livecast, Go!
Posts all his stuff to vertshark.com

GAZ MAZ

@GazMaz on Twitter
Co-host of the MyMac Podcast
Appears on the For Mac Eyes Only podcast sometimes

STEVE DURBIN

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

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

2020 IN BRIEF

(cribbed from the excellent Bart Busschots’ Let’s Talk Apple)

January

Apple and FBI and more E2E wrangling – usual stuff ‘think of the children’ vs E2E can’t be backdoored without breaking everything for everyone
EU voted to press on with standardising chargers
CV-19 breaks out in China

February

CV-19 wreaks havoc
Mobile World Congress scrapped

March

CV-19 becomes a pandemic
Apple donates 10million masks
WWDC announced as online only
Apple spring new MBA Retina and updated Mini
iPad Magic Keyboard with Trackpad launched

April

Apple and Google team up to work on contact tracing API
New iPhone SE (2020) revealed
Apple designs medical face shield and says it will donate millions
Apple gives money to a variety of charities including BBC ‘Big Night In’

May

Apple & Google’s Exposure Notification API goes live
FBI continue to attack Apple about encryption
Apple says it supports BLM
Tim Cook pens open letter on racism

June

Apple announce $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative
The UK U-turn on not using Apple’s API, but do so with bad grace
WWDC with iOS 14, macOS 11, watchOS 7 and Apple announce they are going to custom silicon
Controversy over censorship and the Hey app prompt some app store changes

July

Public Betas of iOS 14, iPadOS 14 and tvOS 14
Apple continues support of BLM
Apple starts spending its pledged $2.5bn on housing crisis in California
Apple win against EU over Irish tax in ECJ
Greyhound film a hit, Apple win Emmys

August

TikTok war opens
Phil Schiller moves from SVP to Apple Fellow
iMacs get updates but no Apple Silicon
Epic pulls its App Store stunt to start the Fortnite war
Anti-trust investigations start to snowball around the world (not just for Apple)

September

EU appeal the ECJ ruling
Will streaming games work on iOS furore starts
Judge “excoriates” Epic tactics
Apple launches AppleWatch SE, and Series 6
Apple launches new iPad 8 and new Air 4
Apple One Bundle announced
UK Apple Maps updated

October

Apple make all the moneys
Anti trust and Epic stuff rumbles on
Subscrition streaming game situation confused and unclear
Apple announces iPhones 12 range and HomePod Mini

November

Apple cuts app store commission for “small developers” netting less than $1 million (98% of devs some say)
Big Sur goes official
Apple drops the M1 Macs…
Reviewers go mad over them

December

Apple releases the AirPods Max at $549…
Reviewers are baffled but mostly positive
Facebook disses Apple privacy improvements… TC replies

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.

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