Essential Apple Podcast 219: Meandering Madness

Jim and Simon and Nick get together again to meander around the news and some other stuff – this is an extra long show because somehow we ended up with 4 hours of audio! Anyway with some of the more off topic and meandering bits removed its down to a “mere” just over 2 hours (oops sorry about that). Also after such a massive edit the effort of making the show notes quite as tidy as usual was too much to face! So sorry, but all the links should still work even if it isn’t in the usual tidy format… Oh and I don’t mention it on the show but we are now available on a bucket more services including Amazon Music – just ask Alexa to play Essential Apple Podcast on Amazon Music…

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.

Recorded 3rd May 2021

Listen to the show:

This and other episodes are available at:

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

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

APPLE

Apple Q2 2021 Results – $89.58 Billion Revenue – MacStories
Apple in Breach of EU Competition Law, European Commission Finds – MacRumors
Apple Fined $12 Million in Russia for Violating Anti-Monopoly Rules With App Store – MacRumors
AirDrop flaw exposes your phone number and email address – 9to5Mac
iPad Pro 2021: Apple Confirms 2020 Magic Keyboard Will Work, But There’s A Catch – Forbes
iOS 14.5 App Tracking Transparency toggle mysteriously grayed out for some users – 9to5Mac
Siri thinks you’ll be able to add your Apple TV remote to Find My – 9to5Mac
Here’s how iPhone battery recalibration works in iOS 14.5 – 9to5Mac
- Apple iOS 14.5: Why The Latest Update Is Crucial For iPhone 11 – Forbes
Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac now available for M1 Macs – Parallels
Chipolo Takes Dig at AirTags When Advertising ONE Spot Item Tracker: ‘No Accessory Needed’ – MacRumors
- You Can Drill a Hole in an AirTag and Directly Attach It to a Keychain to Avoid Purchasing Those Accessories – Wccftech
SuperDuper can now make bootable Big Sur backups – Six Colors – SixColors

TECHNOLOGY

Gravitricity battery generates first power at Edinburgh site – BBC
The NYPD retires “Digidog” robot after public backlash – Ars Technica
UTM and QEMU – YouTube
- QEMU

SECURITY & PRIVACY

Brace yourselves. Facebook has a new mega-leak on its hands — Ars Technica
Computer security world in mourning over death of Dan Kaminsky, aged 42 – The Register * Prominent security expert Dan Kaminsky passes away at 42 – ZDNet
Signal hacks Cellebrite device, reveals vulnerabilities and potential Apple copyright concerns – AppleInsider
- Exploiting vulnerabilities in Cellebrite UFED and Physical Analyzer – Signal Blog

WORTH A CHIRP / ESSENTIAL TIPS

Permissions Reset 2

JUST A SNIPPET

For things that are not worth more than a flypast

Even the Calibri Fonts Creator Is Glad Microsoft Will Have a New Defaut font – Wired

NEMO’S HARDWARE STORE (2:08:03)

QOBUZ

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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