MacBreak Weekly 412 (Transcripts)
Leo Laporte: It’s time for MacBreak Weekly. Alex Lindsay is back in the studio and Rene
Ritchie and Andy Ihnatko are here too. Apple’s big third quarter report is
coming up in just a few minutes, right after the show. But we’ll talk about
what to expect and what to look for, along with rumors about a new iWatch
called the iTime, it’s all coming up next on MacBreak Weekly.
Advert: Netcasts you love from people you trust. This
is Twit! Bandwidth for MacBreak Weekly is provided by Cache Fly at
C-A-C-H-E-F-L-Y(DOT)COM.
Leo: This is MacBreak Weekly Episode 412 recorded July 22nd 2014
iTime
MacBreak Weekly is brought to you by Lynda(dot)com,
learn what you want when you want with access to over 2,700 online courses all
for one low monthly price. Try it free for seven days, visit
Lynda(dot)com(slash) L-Y-N-D-A(DOT)COM(SLASH)MACBREAK. And by squarespace, the
all in one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own professional
website or online portfolio. For a free two week trial and 10 per cent off, go
to squarespace(dot)com, and use the offer code MACBREAK.
It’s time for MacBreak Weekly, the show that covers Macintosh,
Apple and stuff like that. iOS……oh, Alex Lindsay……wow, holy cow……
Alex Lindsay: I made it.
Leo: Pixel corps back from DC, North Carolina, where are you heading to next.
Alex: Portland, La Mont. That’s it then I come back.
Leo: Oregon.
Alex: Yes.
Leo: There you go. Also with is Rene Ritchie
from imore(dot)com he’s in Canada.
Rene Ritchie: I’m in dd’s Canada.
Leo: It’s all……it’s Chris Hadfield’s Canada now.
Alex: It’s no longer Canada, it’s always going to be noticed it’s Chris Hadfield’s
Canada.
Leo: We were watching……..before we came onto the show we were watching Hatfield who
was of course on the ISS and really did a lot of good for Space and for Canada…..he
was just great up there. In fact he even did his version of “Ground control to
Major Tom…….. “
Alex:…….up
in the ISS, that is the way.
Leo:…….up
in the ISS, made a video…….he and, his
brother made a new video for Canada…….Canada Day about three weeks ago, and we
were just watching before the show and also getting teary eyed.
Alex: Terrific……… No more trips to Canada.
Leo: Alex and I used to go up there a lot.
Alex: Once a month.
Leo: Yes, I did a week every month doing……well five days every month doing….
Alex: I came over every Thursday, Friday…..
Leo: …….to help me with the show.
Alex: String out on Saturday…….. Wander around Saturday……
Leo: I really enjoyed that, I didn’t enjoy all the travel I enjoyed that. Hey, there’s
Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun Times and the celestial bandwidth behind him.
The young Monty Python!
Andy Ihnatko: Yes, I was looking for it……grumbling before the show because there’s……..I seem
to have a computer shaped object next to me. It’s an art installation meant to
comment on the futility of computing in general. Lovingly crafted, it’s like a
Jeffrey Koons piece where they’ve got every contour of a balloon animal…..only
actually it’s not a balloon animal as I find out when I try to actually make it
do something that a Mac Book would do, and so instead getting the pictures that
I want to put up there. All I did was curse for a while, okay here’s a Python
picture.
Leo: What did you want, something that you shot yourself?
Andy: No, there was a……..they released a bunch of like press……new press photos for
the O2 tour and a bunch of them are…….you just see…….you just see this group
photo of these men in their early seventies looking like that grandpa that the
kids love but that their parents will never ever let them stay overnight or
more than a weekend because they’ll come back making messes of the walls and,
telling stories how oh……grandpa I told like how much I like bears and so we went
into the zoo and climb all over the enclosure…..so that people who like have
lived good lives and lived to be 71 years old very, very fun man.
Leo: We’re here to talk Apple but of course the big story of the day will happen
this afternoon in about two hours. Apple’s third quarter results.
Alex: We’re going to find out how well the printing presses were working.
Leo: Yes, the third quarter is not the most important quarter.
Alex: No.
Leo: It’s not the least quarter it’s kind of in the middle right?
Alex: Hey you…..
Leo: It’s up there with the second, not as important as the fourth.
Rene: There’s no new products and no holiday quarter.
Leo: Right.
Rene: In this one, yes.
Leo: Predictions. Analysts seem to think it’ll still be a good quarter. It’s the
first time that Apple’s new CFO will be presumably leading the analyst call.
Rene: Luca Maestri.
Leo: I didn’t know his name. Is that how you say his name? Maestri….. Because I did
know Luca I know but not Maestri.
Rene: I think it’s Maestri.
Leo: Nice Italian boy. And, he and…….I presume Tim Cook will join him and will be
listening very carefully to see Luca and Tim, kind of in tete-a-tete for the
fourth quarter. That’s really…..
Rene: He always has a monstrous………. big television question, every-time I can’t wait.
Leo: You see like what does he ask?
Rene: Yes……he just……he asked the same question almost every time but with a new you
know variation and it’s just interesting to watch how fast Tim Cook can slap
that ball back at him.
Leo: (laughing) The think that we’ll be listening is for from Tim Cook who will say
we’ve got some wonderfully exciting new categories…….
Alex: New categories.
Leo: New categories……
Alex: I think he’s close to saying new categories now.
Leo: They’re not going to……veteran Apple…..watchers let me ask you are they going to
say anything important?
Alex: No. (Cross talk)
Rene: Most that’ll happen is that the next they’ll
when OS 10 is coming out or something, this they almost never release anything.
I mean they might talk about Android a little bit on the pile.
Leo: The little toxic health stew.
Rene:……delicious
for bread.
Leo: Android…..globally Android is kicking Apple’s butt, but I don’t know if that is
their market share.
Rene: Going for market share.
Leo: Market share.
Rene: Going for the market share in metric.
Andy: You can almost say Android is a totally different product than iOS is so it’s
really hard to really compare apples oranges that way.
Leo: And, in the US I think the iPhone is still half a market if not more. (Andy
Laughing)
Andy: See when we talk about down earnings, and would……. the third quarter’s not a
very big quarter, you mean that to get the money from where they’re making it
to where they’re need to put they don’t need to call their employees and say
does anybody know of anybody who has a pickup truck because we don’t have
enough cargo capacity.
It means that they can lease the trailers that they
normally lease and do that, so? That’s what we’re talking about on triple
profitability.
Leo: I suppose they’ll spend some time talking about the Enterprise story and, the
fact that they are teaming with IBM and Great Mobile apps for iOS.
Andy: But, of course it’ll always be here’s how this is going…….here’s how we’re
going to expect the next quarter to go over the next and the rest of the year
to go and also given that as when saying there’s not been a big product roll
out or a big ball drop for that’s will take anything out. There’s plenty of
dead air in there to say yes we’re…..we’re maybe down two per cent from last
year or up only……to only two per cent last year. But we also anticipate with
our new strategic partnership with IBM that……..blah…..blah……blah.
This is…..when you look ……I’ve been reading……
re-reading the transcripts to sort of refresh myself, and yes they almost never
say anything other than to do with here’s how much money we’re making, here’s
how money we expect to make next year, and here’s why we didn’t make as much
money in certain categories…….why you……here’s anticipating why you’re going to
ask us why we didn’t make as much money on iPad this quarter as we did the same
quarter of last year.
So, very, very boring…..I…..I…..the only thing I’m
interested to see is how if the
amount of glee in Tim Cook’s voice will come through
when he does mention we anticipate a exciting new product category in the fall,
because that something that they could mention but you wouldn’t hear them or
see in any details, but of course sometimes it’s something about the tone of
their voice and how they put that you say, Oh they’ve got a final hardware and
there’s a……..is there an interesting tan line on Tim’s wrist that doesn’t match
the shape of any know watch or fitness band that’s all I’m looking forward to.
Leo: Somebody adventurously got drunk and, wrote an article saying that Siri and
Watson would unite. (Rene Laughing). You’d have to be pretty out of it to think
that even like possible!
Watson’s of course, Siri is a program running on massive
main frame computer.
Andy: Yes, it’s not like a browser plug. They just don’t……have Java Script(cross
talk)
Rene: I could win at jeopardy.
Andy: Nonetheless it’s a nice fantasy piece when you start to think about…….I mean if
this partnership works out and IBM starts to say you know what I mean we’ll
give you very attractive terms on this code if you want to figure out how to
hook up. And so……..but I think that just the cartoons……cartoons and enjoy tech
about Siri shacking up with Watson ……..I don’t think that we want to see that.
Leo: Yes……no…..one of the other is Devendra Hardwara ……which is actually really
smart, so I don’t I think this is really more of a measure of how desperate the
press is to say something about Apple and, by the way we share your
desperation. (cross talk)
Alex: You should have a by-line you know on the show.
Leo: You have to file one piece, you’ve got hours on this.
Rene: IBM news was interesting though I think for nothing else you’ve got to hear Tim
Cook speak Enterprise language again.
Leo: Well, I think it’s very big. Some have this might the most important deal that
Apple has ever made. Putting Apple in the Enterprise could be huge and, it is a
shot across the bow for both Google and Microsoft.
Andy: What I love about all this it’s really……such a natural fit both companies that,
I’m amazed that no-one has posited before that, hey I wonder if IBM and Apple
will ever get together because you really do talk about how Apple sucks at
appealing to Enterprise. All IBM does is appeal to Enterprise.
IBM…..IBM’s not good at…….does nothing but deploy
hardware. Apple does nothing but sell hard-ware. It’s just like man…….. Why did
these people not get together before? It’s such a beautiful thing. And, it also
reminds us that we’re going to have to redefine what we think about Apple in
the future, we…….I think for the past couple of years, I think everybody’s been
talking about how Apple’s big in business, their big in Enterprise but they
really are a consumer focused company. This is I think another tick box…..tick
part of the argument that they don’t want to be any one kind of company, they
really want to be Apple.
Leo: They really adds a massive sales force out there in an area that Apple doesn’t
have much of a sales force. IBM…. Is really that’s what IBM is now…….now a days
sales.
Rene: It’s really interesting too because everyone is always looking for where…….iPhone
is still the biggest business, it makes the most money. I mean everyone always
interested in what’s the next bit……lowest hanging fruit. And, that for a long
time was China Mobile, when are they going to get China Mobile……..they’ve got
that.
Leo: Right, right.
Rene: They’ve got that now, so everybody now wants to know what’s next and well Apple
has 98 per cent penetration in Global 500, Fortune 500……that’s breadth, that’s
not depth in Apple, and obviously sees a tremendous opportunity to not sell
into Enterprise, but to sell a whole lot more into Enterprise, but they’re
ill-equipped to do that. It’s not their culture, it’s not their sales force and
IBM is a really good fit.
I think for the timing part of it there’s a lot of
things ……..interesting things going into iOS 8, there’s a lot better mobile
device management which you know has some downside, which will talk about later.
But also things like…….Apple has extensions on iCloud now and iOS 8. But
there’s also document storage provider extensions, so that whatever Enterprise
solution Microsoft provides can live alongside or instead of iCloud Drive but
it’ll be just as easy to get to all your corporate stuff as it is for a normal
person to get to their iCloud stuff so to Andy’s point, it’s an incredibly good
relationship for them.
Alex: In…..in…..I think that IBM is the most natural one that isn’t a competitor…..
that is any other Enterprise company that wouldn’t look like a competitor for
Apple for them to partner with. (Cross talk) It’s just two different worlds
that they need, they each other but there’s not……not everybody else in the
Enterprise World that Apple might see as a competitor or they might see Apple
as a competitor.
Leo: Yes.
Andy: Yes, it’s like when we were talking about Beat’s still, we have to talk about.
Okay, but Beats isn’t a lot of the same segment of the business as Apple. It
doesn’t mean that Beats will no longer exist, it means that their teams is
going to be working with their people. With this partnership, it is, ‘No.’
Again there’s nobody in IBM who’s in the business of making, designing and
selling hard-ware like this.
And Apple as Rene said did……just don’t understand
Enterprise….they don’t…..they are pleased and happy that they have managed to
fall arse backwards to a huge market,
even though this’s not something that they have a lot of expertise with and
there’s just no over-lap.
It’s like Tim himself said it’s like two puzzle pieces
clicking together.
Rene: The other thing is that there’s the……the thing with the partner ships is that
Apple feels burned by Microsoft over the Mac OX part of their historical
culture they feel burned by Google and Samsung who they had as partners who
became competitors. It’s incredibly unlikely IBM is working on any Lotus Notes
phones or anything of that nature. (Leo laughing) So, it’s like wide open for
Apple, at the same time it’s not obvious to Alex’s point where the people can
go if Google wanted to make this relationship. Their relationship with Oracle’s
not very good, Oracle’s it’s probably
not a big candidate to approach for a partnership. SAP is not terribly
exciting. There’s not a lot of players IBM size and of those for Apple it might
be absolutely the most interesting one for now.
Leo: Goff in the chat-room also says it could be huge in healthcare. When we say
Enterprise we always think of Fortune 500 companies but there are a lot of
Enterprises like the medical industry where Apple could really have a strong
position. If they team up with IBM given the right of support.
Alex: I think in healthcare and in almost every business out there, there’s all these
efficiency problems that you know IBM is trying to fix, that Apple’s trying to
fix and, there’s a huge opportunity for all these companies whether it’s
Microsoft or Google or Sales Force or any of these other companies to make
these systems more efficient, I mean you know.
I look at…….we’re doing a huge overhaul on a company
right now to automate a lot of stuff, just to allow us to do more with people
than we have, and I think that you’ve seen every company has to look that IBM
has the years over all those companies and Apple has the hard-ware and the
soft-ware where they’re going and IBM has a lot of that.
Leo: Analysts are estimating…….the consensus estimate is that Apple will earn……so
you want to know what they said the estimate is. Apple is probably……usually
comes in and does better……..
Alex: Yes.
Leo:……..because
they sand bag it.
Alex: I don’t think…….it’s going to be horrible. There was, was a storm in the sun we
think that’s going to affect things.
Leo: Yes.
Alex:…….that’s
going to affect things.
Leo: Analysts are thinking a dollar twenty three a share so you want to watch that.
That’s kind of………they beat that, if they did then the stock market will love
them.
Rene: I think that this is the first post lit in his report so what it means for shares it’s probably different.
Leo: Yes, well it’s a 7 for 1 stock for split, same thing a year ago Apple was 7
dollars and 47 cents a share. So a buck, 23 would be an increase at every year.
Sales analysts say Apple should report revenue of somewhat around 37 or 38 billion
dollars. In the last year they did 35 billion dollars so. And by the way it’s
their slowest quarter.
Rene: So much money.
Leo: Ka-ching!
Alex: I’m waiting in my company to get to the point where it’s lowest quarter is 37
billion.
Leo: Apple stock is up 18 per cent this year. On July 16th just a week
ago reached a 52 week high of 97 dollars and ten cents a share. Now they will
also, so as you mentioned as we talked, they will talk about IBM certainly.
They might talk about Beats, that would be interesting
I think. You know they’ve been dead silent ever since the acquisition, of
course not……it hasn’t cleared yet.
When does that happen?
Rene: Apparently, there’s a quiet period before it does or not.
Leo: It was their biggest acquisition in history so from a pure financial point of
view it does impact the quarter 3.1 billion dollars.
Alex: Kind of. They knew they had to hold it.
Leo: They got some money, they got a little money on the side or something going on.
But, I wonder we haven’t really heard much about it. You’d think that they
would……..okay I’m going to get on my hobby horse here.
But do you think that when the sale does clear anything
at all will have changed?
Alex: I think we hear more about it in September. I think that’s the right time for
Apple to start using……..(interrupted by Leo)
Leo: Beats headphones.
Alex: I’m……..I’m open for 24 bit……..cancelling whole different beats.
Andy: But the analyst…….
Leo: But again the analysts are looking for, listening for…….we normal people will
just be looking and listening for just something from Tim.
Rene: Can you give us some color on Apple’s plans for living?
Andy: Yes, exactly.
Leo: Something. So, that’s a 2.00 PM Pacific, so two and half hours right now we
will probably not be covering that live will certainly have a wrap up on Tech
News tonite which shorty after. Who knows if it’s a slow day maybe just join
the conference call, listen in.
Alex: Yes.
Leo: You could do that right?
Alex: Yes.
Leo: It’s public.
Andy: hmmmmm
Leo: Yes, they can dial in. (In a funny voice) Hi, my name is Leo Laporte from
MacBreak Weekly (panelists laughing)
Rene: I have a question for Tim in three parts.
Leo:…….question
in three parts, we’ll ask him. (Leo Laughing)
Alex: I would like to go home.
Leo:……answering
that part of the question, if you wouldn’t mind coming back to me again and
again so I can continue.
Alex: Yes, exactly.
Andy: I know of a song that’s in the iTunes playlist but keeps telling you that you
can sync with my device because it’s in iCloud.
Leo: Hey the new iTunes is here, the new iTunes is here. Has anybody played with the
new iTunes here yet?
Alex & Rene: Yes.
Leo: Beta 12…….all beta.
Alex: Yes.
Leo: Or for our British listeners Beeta.
Rene: Beta.
Leo: Beta…..what is they say new and shiny?
Rene: Yes it’s got the Yosemite make-over.
Leo: Does this come, does this come Yosemite preview or……
Rene: Preview four, yes, they’ll do preview four.
Leo: Okay.
Andy: Based on screen shots that I have seen posted publicly online, it’s… it looks
like a big step forward. One of the things that really caught my eye is that
now they’ve basically put……..rolled back a little bit on this one window inter
face so that is now easier to manage multiple playlists without having to
expose your playlists in as a pop up and how you can have it in as a permanent
side bar. There’s a little more clarity between the difference between what’s
actually on your Mac and, what you have stored in the Cloud and what’s store is
not nearly as mobile as it wants to be……(interrupted by Leo laughing)
Leo: Are you speaking the language of the people now?
Rene: Canadian hat.
Andy: (holding up can of drink) I am on selsa water.
Leo & Andy: Oh……no caffeine. And I’m double
caffeinated so I……no wonder. That’s why I jumped on you…… sorry.
Andy: Basically……there seems……there seems…….it’ll be familiar to existing users of
iTunes, but it’ll seem like a very good upgrade of it again.
Leo: Yes.
Andy:…….for
me if you manage particularly a lot of playlists. Question to me is that’s the
biggest fail I think for the redesign, for me personally because I used to have
a lot of fun building playlists, and now it’s just become so difficult to do
that, it’s like okay…….I’ll just pick songs and put them on my phone manually
and then deal with whatever I just you don’t ever…..I don’t do recreational
anymore.
Alex: Do you build a lot of play lists on iTunes these days?
Andy:…….at
all, I mean I have to admit that once I started to using Spotify I kind of
stopped.
Rene: I don’t need that.
Andy: I never………never really made the switch to Spotify or any of the……even though I
do have the Google All Music access account. Partly because, partly because I
don’t like being locked into one player, also when this is not something that
you know I can laterally defend. I’m very, very worried about what the switch
to an all subscription music world will do to artists because I don’t think
they’re going to get paid what they deserve to be paid for an album that is
essentially part of your permanent library, and you listen to it all the time.
Every time even a big popular artist talks about how
much money they get off streaming off Spotify, it becomes basically the amount
of money that would tip a bell hop at one of the hotels if you were to check
into it. It’s like…..like literally less than a hundred dollars or 400 dollars
or 500 dollars…….(interrupted by Alex)
Alex: It’s half a cent per play.
Leo: It’s not much.
Alex: It’s half a cent per play and the issue is…..
Leo: It’s not much…….don’t you feel guilty?
Alex: I don’t feel guilty…….it’s a different business model. I …..(cross talk)
Andy: I wouldn’t say guilty…… it’s so I like the fact that my music library is
something that I permanently have, that this is not something that’s going to
change if I decide to switch from Spotify to another service not if something’s
going to change it. If some-one buys Spotify and decides they’re going to
charge so much for this service that I don’t want to pay it any more…… there’s
a lot of factors to it, but I have to admit that is one factor.
Alex: No, it’s good……I was very much in that zone for a long time and I still do that
with movies for some reason. I still buy movies because I just want to download
them, just have them downloaded, but the…….I find with the music, it’s one of
those things that I always feel like I built the playlist on a new surface if I
need to.
You know all the surfaces are going to have similar
music.
Leo: It’s a dozen million songs…….. It’s all the same.
Alex: It’s all the same songs……I don’t have that much obscure stuff that I’m
interested in. The only thing I’m worried about is like getting one play list
with 400 songs, figuring that out that would be problematic. But the………
Leo: What’s that playlist for?
Alex: That is the playlist I listen to all day.
Leo: That’s like your……
Alex: It’s like the best songs ever…….you know like……it’s like 400……
Leo: You know you can share it on Spotify, by way that’s an example of what you can
do on Spotify, it’s so sad. It’s so great that Apple did……tried to do with Ping
but they failed and Apple’s never really achieved that.
Alex: Okay, I’m going to release some more playlists. I’ve got an idea.
Leo: I would like to hear your work day playlists.
Alex: What I was going to do was I was actually going to start doing a playlist, and
people should let me know if they think that it’s a good idea or not. But, I
was going to start doing a playlist where I’m actually going to take some of
the songs that tell you like walk…….last alternative rock.
Leo: That’s great.
Alex: You know like make it like a little radio station.
Leo: Do you used to be music director and radio…….
Alex: I know. (cross talk) There’s all these songs that I heard…….that we heard when
we were on radio, there all these songs coming up that never made it.
Leo: (in a funny voice) Let me tell a little bit about this Steve……..
Alex: I’m basically building rock over London. Hello this is Graham Ding you’re
listening to Oliver(whispering too low into microphone) remember that?
Leo: Well, I think you need to use this new medium and do something.
Alex: I’ve been working on them, I’ve been writing them. I just have to record them.
Leo: oh, you have to record them……
Alex:…….my
whole point is……
Leo: It’s an upbeat playlist. Can you do that with Spotify, can you do….an arbitrary
track and then…….do the play list.
Alex:……but
not through Spotify.
Leo: You would have to do it through something else?
Alex: Yes, so that’s my big plan. (cross talk)
Leo: I feel a little guilty, you know I use Pandora, I use Google music.
Alex: Here’s my thing though…..I paid like……in 1986 I bought English Settlement by
XTC……
Leo: Bought it.
Alex: Songs per payment time I listen until there are no thugs in our house. Is
definitely…..half a cent each (Alex laughing) I paid for the album once, I
listen to the songs like every day. You’re getting paid every time some-one’s
playing it rather when they bought, so that I think that the comparison
sometimes I don’t think is completely accurate. And, I also think that the
issue is…..with subscription is that…..yes…..it makes a certain amount of money
for the artist with ten million subscriber but what if some-one like Apple
comes in or…..or Spotify’s incredibly successful and you move to 100 million,
200 million or 300 million subscribers at that time you’re a popular artist at
least and you’re going to make theoretically more money and you’re still
getting paid half a cent, you .005 or 006 dollars per play. It’s just a lot more
people playing it. I think that right now as niche market of course it’s not
making as much money but the bottom line that no…..I think that most artists
have given up the thought that selling them music per song or per album is
going to make them a living. I mean most of them are moving onto the 360 deals
and, you know a lot of other things that they can, you know they can make money
on a lot of other things whether they are music…….
Leo: We’re going to take a break, when we come back let’s talk about that patent
that’s floating around of the iWatch, which Apple applied for the patent
doesn’t mean that they’re actually going to make something like that.
And the security researcher whose Power Point at the
Hope X conference stunned a lot iOS users. Steve Gibson’s going to be talking
about it.
Rene: It’s one of the few times I wish that Security Now, was first. I want to watch
that before the show.
Leo: Yes, Steve offered to come up on the show and tell everybody the stay tuned,
because Steve’s going to do a deep dive, but we’ll talk about that in a second
but first I want to talk about my friends at Lynda(dot)com. I literally mean my
friends, some of the people who are….my friends…….(interrupted by Alex)
Alex:……my
friends……
Leo:……teach
at Lynda(dot)com.
Alex: Yes.
Leo: Would you like to learn today, Lynda(dot)com has amazing courses, more than
2,000 video courses in topics like soft-ware, photography, business, 3-d
animation, making albums, making music, web design that’s actually how they
started. Lynda Wyman founded Lynda(dot)com, she was on Screen Savers all the
time, she was talking about web design because she wrote books about creating
websites and, so forth.
She realized there was a better way than writing a book
was to make beautiful video courses they have, they’re having their at their
Santa Barbara nine video production…….it’s huge bigger than this…..nine video
production studios where their teachers can come and they can create courses
and, create courses so fast, you know the minute Mavericks came out they had
courses in Mavericks, Windows 8.1 as soon as Yosemite comes out there will be
courses from really, great knowledgeable people like Burt Monroy……
Alex: It’s really great……great for little tips you know. I had one……I think I wanted
to figure out……. How to send a video to my guys……I want you to place a
lave……there’s like a whole ten minute thing on Lynda(dot)com how to allow a
microphone…..(cross talk)
Leo:……that’s
what I mean……that’s what I’m talking about……
Alex:…..this
is the last time going to play this to you.
Leo:…..2000,
actually a lot of businesses, in fact we have a Lynda….account…..
Alex:….I
have an account as well.
Leo:……a
lot of businesses do that. It’s just so useful, whether you have a new editor,
Zack who’s just joined us, we want to get him all trained on Final Cut and
we’re moving our account to premier……260 more video courses or dozens more
every month. They work directly with the soft-ware companies so they’ll get
that training to you fast, sometimes even the same day the new release version
hits the market, so you’re always up to speed. Courses for every level,
beginner, intermediate, advanced…..you can watch on your computer, your tablet,
your mobile device. You can down load and watch in the air if you want…….
Alex: …..there’s actually another one.
Leo: There’s more than one.
Alex:…..yes
there’s more than one on there on Lynda(dot)com. There you go.
Leo: That’s fantastic.
Alex: Yes…..but they have highlighting…….
Chad: Yes, their search is just great you can search
for a lot like….I just searched for the log file and……
Leo: Every course has a transcription so you…….
Alex: Yes…..
Leo:……can
dig into the transcription, find that exact part of the course. So whether you
have just a few minutes or you’ve got a week and you really want to study
something, like we’re going to give you a week of Lynda(dot)com that’s a very
nice value 25 dollars a month, gives you access to their entire course library.
37.50 cents a month and you can subscribe to their premium plan and that
includes exercise files and if you’re doing Photoshop for instance you get the
files that Burt Monroy and the others are working on and, you can follow along
with the instructors. And along teaches their story…….. Dirk Story, Street I
mean so many great people. We know how to teach at Lynda(dot)com…..
Alex: Yes……
Leo: That’s how we know how good Lynda(dot)com is. That’s the broadcasters reach
he’s just done there on that video…..
Alex: You’ll see all of the……I found a great tip for that sort of stuff on there.(Leo
Laughing)
Leo: Hey look this how grand pa used to do it, piece of tape and do the whole thing.
This guy’s good, this guy……I might have…..
Alex: Looks like he’s going to hide it.
Leo: My engineers watch this one, it’s good. L-Y-N-D-A(DOT)COM(slash)MacBreak, seven
days get the run of the place Free video every course, free for the next seven
days L-Y-N-D-A(DOT)COM(SLASH)macbreak. And, you can literally do what we just
did, I’m sure that’s a large mic search he just did……
Alex: Yes but the key is that you can find the eight minutes of……oh you don’t have to
do it like I’m just trying to learn…….all of Photoshop. It’s like I need to
know how to do this thing and shop and search for a little 8 minute section in
cinema 4D I don’t understand how to set this up and some-one’s done it.
Leo: I love it L-Y-N-D-A(DOT)COM(SLASH)macbreak, really love them, thank-you so much
for their support MacBreak Weekly.
So, I don’t usually talk about patents because as we’ve
mentioned before Apple has a whole building full of lawyers, their sole job in
fact, they’ll even do this they’ll go around to different departments and
groups and sit them down and say okay, ’what did you today?’ I can patent that.
They literally patent everything and it doesn’t mean they’re going to make it,
it doesn’t mean it’s a product area they’re even considering, it’s more as much
as defensive is it as leaving out, right.
Alex: Yes…..
Leo:….so
but there is a new iWatch patent.
Rene: iTime I think.
Leo: iTime which is kind of not a good name, mostly because the last thing that any
smart watch is about time. It’s like calling a phone a phone…..
Rene:……calling
a phone a phone. (Rene laughing)
Leo: No, I mean that’s crazy talk.
Rene: It’s crazy.
Leo: So, they did get this patent, that’s how we know, it was published from the US
Patent and Trade Mark office for the iTime. It’s interesting because it has circuitry
in the straps.
This…..I don’t think this is anything like Apple’s
considering because it’s really much more like a Nano watch. The time piece
itself gets snapped in, kind of like a Nano, like an iPod Nano.
Rene: It’s a Nano, Leo.
Leo: The idea of the…..this is the strap contains all sorts of features that are
separate from the central unit. The strap could have GPS, Wi-Fi, haptic feedback,
accelerometers……
Andy: I do think that might be intentional…….you can get the patent on this
basis…..they’re getting the patent on the basic technology in which you have a
band that has electronic……….has support electronics inside it and a manager
that you snap in and out.
Leo: Right.
Andy: ……..and so that way people have seen the Nano and the Nano established…..and
you can use the Nano for the art without revealing whatever it is they plan to
make this…….
Leo: Ahhhhhh…….Oh that’s interesting, that’s interesting. But, that’s interesting,
interesting again I think it’s…….I don’t know I think it’s pretty hard to read
patents and, look at them and say, oh this must be a clue to what Apple’s
working on. It is, necessarily………might be.
Rene: Maybe they’ll just license it and, the retired engineer will get a check in
fifty years.
Leo: A wrist worn wearable without added strap capabilities,…….oh and support for
arm and wrist gestures.
Rene: Yes, but it’s not hard to imagine that there will be a smart watch patents
suits the way there are phone patent suits and like Apple and, everyone else is
going to want their just much as everyone else is possible.
Leo: It’s defensive as much as it can…….
Alex: It, can be really interesting it’s something you think about that you always
have with you, maybe not always wear it on your wrist.
Leo: I am wearing the android wear watch.
Rene: Which one Leo?
Leo: Oh you know it’s nice….. I have the LG but they’re both the same. And, yes, you know it’s nice, it’s like the
Pebble, it let’s me know, I mean I can read texts, I just got a text,
uhhhh……let’s see what else……..there’s a text from Lisa, the download of
something is complete I don’t know why………
Rene: Claiming overhead.
Leo: ………notifications also, there’s lots of stuff in there, it’s a watch.
Alex: Yes.
Leo: And, I can talk to it, tap it……sent text to Lisa,’ I help you with that later.’
And, then it will automatically send it, actually it doesn’t do……..one thing that’s not good it does not do is a
confirmation……..so (Alex laughing)
Alex:……you
could actually use that discerningly…..(cross talk)
Rene…….I swear I sent that text honey..……. I swear it….
Alex: (laughing)……I talk to my watch.
Leo: No, I said I sent it, but it doesn’t confirm that it wrote what you said, so
you get hilarious mis-quotes.
Alex: This is really like……(interrupted Leo)
Leo: It’s like the real damn you auto check…….no second chance…..okay…….
Alex: I packed the cupcakes into the Audi………(cross talk)
Rene: She’s not going to yell at you tonite.
Leo: But, that could be fixed, I mean….it’s somewhat useful I can talk to it and say,
‘listen to Johan Bach’ and, it will play Bach on my phone. It’s…….it’s very
tightly integrated with the phone. So, you could command your phone and,…….but
it’s not going to say to people, ‘oh you got to have this.’ It really isn’t
like that.
Alex: Not yet.
Leo: I just don’t think an iWatch…….. I just don’t see what Apple could do that can
make this something everybody has to have.
Alex: Well, I think……
Andy: Well, that’s what’s going to make it so spectacular when it does happen.
Leo: Right.
Andy: We said the same thing about the phone and, about a tablet and wow…….(cross
talk)
Rene: It was real…..
Leo: They’ve done it before.
Alex: I mean everyone is keeping the powder dry. It’s like you’re watching all those
people and Apple’s just, ‘no comment,’ ‘no comment’, ’no comment’…..
Andy: I can finally admit something that I was this close to like having to write a
check to Pebble, and to say that yes, ‘I lost your watch,’………
Leo: Ohhhhh…..
Andy: I can’t find it anywhere, I’m just going to have to buy it from……I’m sure it’s
here somewhere…..I’m sure I’ll find when I do my like Spring cleaning but I
can’t find it. And, I was going to use this in my review as an explanation of
some the unseen problems of these wearable’s where you’re wearing it, wearing
it, you’re wearing it but it needs to be re-charged on a very, very quick basis
and, if it’s in the middle of the day and your battery dies and you find yourself
that you’re wearing a dead piece of whatever on your wrist you take it off…….
you put in your pocket, or you put in your laptop bag and, that’s how I thought
that I lost it I think. I’m not going to wear this all day and, then of course
I found it. It turns out that I ……finished my research I put it back in the box
that came with it and prepared to send it back, which is the last place I would
have looked for because in fact it was the place that any sane person would
actually put it.
But it did really sort of…..it did really sort of point
out that it’s not only going to have to be a watch it’s going to be a charger
that you keep track of. It’s going to have to……it’s probably going to introduce
a lot of problems that we already have to see until people start wearing it on
you.
Rene: I think that the watch is lose-able.
Leo: Or they just release a watch at all, just a troll…….no?
Alex: No-one else can troll it any more.
Rene: Apple’s biggest troll.
Leo: Apple’s, trolling you. And of course……..(Interrupted by Andy)
Andy: We told you it was sneakers all along. (Leo Laughing)
Leo: (Laughter) …….And, of course the other………other
story which I think is a fairly important story, you’re right we’re all waiting
to hear what Steve Gibson has to say. Steve did a very good two part Security Now
when Apple released its security white paper about what it’s doing in modern versions,
of iOS particularly on the iPhone 5 S to secure your stuff, Steve was very
favorably impressed, Apple has really gone the extra mile here, they do a lot
of things that no-body else is doing. They’ve really clearly, got privacy and,
security as a primary focus, he was extremely complimentary. Then along came
Jonathan Zdziarski who’s actually quite a well-known computer security expert
and forensic scientist. He actually wrote a paper that was behind a pay wall,
six months ago that no-body read. Then he made a power point presentation for
the Hope Congress in New York last week and, everybody read it. In fact
Jonathan tweeted something like, where there’s the power of slides, no-body
paid attention…….non-body pays attention……yes….
Alex: Right.
Rene: It’s a good combination.
Leo: But he makes a very, very, very I think damaging claims. He doesn’t come and,
say Apple has provided back-doors for the Federal government, of course Apple
hotly denies that. But he says for instance that every single iOS 7 device,
hundreds of millions of them have a built in packet sniffers that are running
not in developer mode but all the time. And, can even be even connected to via Wi-Fi’s.
So, law enforcement could or somebody knows how to use this, could connect to
your iPhone via the Wi-Fi and sniff……..use it as a packet sniffer and see
everything you’re doing.
Rene: I think they had to get it via USB first, the Wi-Fi direct attack, I think he
said………. was theoretical.
Leo: Ahhhhh……Okay nevertheless…..
Rene: I went and read the White Paper because I found the slide hard to understand.
They might seem contradictory, but they seem to be talking about similar yet
related things a lot, and it made very dense for me, but when I went and read
the White Paper it was clear that……a lot of this is based on a couple of
different hacks.
One is the mobile device management stuff for Enterprise
which I think Apple maybe implemented perhaps too quickly, I don’t know if it’s
IBM deal related but it’s incredibly powerful and may be too powerful. And,
there are also these undocumented services that file relays…..ummmmm……. and the
package is there and you can have that….almost every Linux box has package
sniffer. It’s that it’s not constrained to Dev mode, not problematic, some-body
doesn’t have to put their phone in Dev mode first.
So I think it’s less…….he goes to great pains to say
that he is not saying anything sinister here but he thinks legitimately that
Apple has to answer a lot of questions about it.
Leo: Apple, very hotly denied it, although some say kind of a side… kind…..of …….non
denial….denial.
Rene: They sent me their denial. I spoke to Apple about it…..they sent me their
statement and, they again you know. It’s the same thing with the China thing
they believe……they say emphatically that they’re……you know privacy
first……security first and they have not worked with any government to create a
back door in the system. And, that is absolutely a Press reply, that is not you
know Tim Cook or Apple security department saying something. That’s the Press
Department saying it.
But…..and we’ve talked about it before……when a big
company says something like that, they’re going to be held to if it is proven
otherwise…..then….. There’s going to be……you would interrogate was bad, there
would be a lot of repercussions.
Andy: Yes, that’s exactly what I though that they left themselves with almost no
whittle from here. So, if it turns out that they said Oh, well we said that we
didn’t work with the government, we just simply anticipated a future need
possibly, but we’ve never worked with the government they will not get away
with that. They……they…..and give that they had a lot of options on how to respond
to this, or not to respond to this the fact they picked something that is in
fact ……will screw them mightly in the future if they were waffling on this I
think. ……That’s very indicative.
Leo: One of the things Steve was very impressed with was the…..the …..crypted data
on the iPhone…..Zdziarski whose hacker name by the way is Nerve Gas……I believe.
Alex: You’ve got to have a name like that. That’s very important.
Andy: He could have been in a 1997 movie about hackers.
Leo: Yes. (laughing) Oh that Nerve Gas………. watch out for him. He says that almost
all native applications OS data is encrypted with a key. With a key that’s not
married with a pass code, we knew this was part of what Apple was doing. But
rather encrypted with a hard-ware induced key. This is not new, we thought that
was a good thing, however as of iOS 7 third party documents are encrypted, but
library and cache folders usually are not. But here’s the damning thing and I
don’t think that Apple addressed this, I find fascinating……when you power up the phone and, unlock it…….it
remains unencrypted until the device is shut down. So, I think a lot of us
thought that when you press the button and lock the screen and, you need a pass
code to get back into the phone…..Oh now it’s encrypted……it is not.
Alex: I’m wondering if…….what I’m curious about is that a performance thing like how
long it takes to close to open?
Rene: I asked about this, I didn’t ask Apple, but I asked security people, and a
couple of things……and that’s why…..and Zdziarski said this too that he’s afraid
that journalists are going to take this wrong and you know some of them
absolutely did. But there’s a couple of things. Like the level of security you
need also has to remain functional. It’s the same problem that the lock screen
has with by passes so that people can get around it, because a lock screen
doesn’t just lock your phone, it lets you to make phone call, allows you to
access the control center SIRI notification center, and if you lock it down too
much you can longer make phone calls which is technically illegal in major
jurisdictions because you have to be able to 911, in case of an emergency. So,
it’s one of those things where there’s tension between security and, privacy.
And, it might be that there things it can do better. But a lot of the stuff
when you read it like the…the…… some of the stuff….(Interrupted by Leo)
Leo: But the point……before you go on…….
Rene: Yes.
Leo…….the takeaway on that is……..your stuff is not
encrypted until you turn off your phone. So, if you’re worried turn off your
phone.
Alex: Right.
Leo:……because
just having the screen lock does not encrypt the data.
Alex: I turned mine off by accident all the time. It’s called running out of battery.
Leo: Sorry Rene, I just wanted to make sure that people understood that so that they
know. So, if you want to hide your stuff, turn off your phone.
Rene: Absolutely, absolutely and we actually on imore are doing a series of
things…..one of the problems also is that when you connect your computer
to…..your phone to a computer, it creates a pairing record so when that
you…..have to do that trusted device style and log out…..(Leo interrupts) you
want to trust this device, and you press that and it maintains that correctly.
Leo: Yes,……
Rene:…..it
can be quicker, but a lot of the stuff for example the packet sniffer
documentation in Apple’s development portal……one of the components that tells
you the protocols that you can initiate if you do break into a phone is open
source. Another one, you can pull a whole peel list file one by one that tells
you what services they are. So, there’s nothing very hidden about this stuff
which makes me think that it’s more a case of Apple went too fast with some
things, and has too many prob…..too many masters they’re trying to serve with
them. But there are legitimate security concerns and a lot of these can be
fixed by Apple’s won tools.
Andy: It also bears mentioning that just because Apple is not working with
governments in order to provide user data, that’s only maybe 20 per cent that
you worry about, you worry about the government helping themselves to data with
or without companies involvement and help. And, just because they’re making a
clear doesn’t mean that a device isn’t vulnerable or that it can’t be made a
little bit more vulnerable or more secure.
Alex: And, those are the kind of things…….
Leo: …….vulnerable to hackers too, if it’s vulnerable to governments it’s vulnerable
to hackers, it weakens security over all.
Alex: Well, I think that the concern that this article brings up a lot of people and
the things that people are worried about is whether there’s any kind of……..it
doesn’t mean that Apple is handing over any data to the NSA or any-one else,
but people are worried about a conversation which said well don’t we just not
close that door. You know like……you know like it’s not let’s not do anything
about that but let’s not. Not even internally so.
Leo: So here are the questions Jonathon asks, Apple did not really address directly
any of them to my knowledge, Rene? Why is there is packet sniffer running on
600 million personal iOS devices, instead of being moved to the developer
mount, one. Why are there undocumented services, services apparently not used
by any of the soft-ware on the iPhone. They by-pass user back up encryption and
Loud somebody, whoever has dumped mass amounts of personal data here from their phone why is that there and why is it
left on?
Why is it that most of my user data is still not
encrypted with a pin or pass phrase enabling the invasion of my personal
privacy by you……second applicant…why is there no mechanism to review the
devices my iPhone is paired with so I can delete the ones that don’t belong.
And, that’s something every device should do. In most systems they do, they
give you a list of things you’ve trusted and give the chance to revoke.
Alex: What’s great about this article that I think is great is that it opens up these
things and Apple will have you know a couple of updates to start you know working on closing that stuff off or,
really have to come up and explain why they’re not.
Rene: It’s really important………one of the things that I worry about is that security
is so hard to explain to normal people. Is that in order for these attacks to
work…..to…..to get the key chain, sorry to get the pairing record some-one has
to take your computer, government agency or a malicious attacker has to take
your computer to get to them. They have to take your device if you want a juice
jack, which is a maliciously controlled accessory to sort of generate their own
parakeets. There’s a lot of steps that have to be done to get to these it’s
not…... He says, in his own statement that Apple’s done a lot to prevent the
typical kinds of attacks which is what Steve was addressing in the iOS 7
document.
Leo: Yes:
Rene:……addressing
it is incredibly hard against typical kinds of attacks. These are very specific
types of attacks that he’s exposed and now I think that Apple needs to fix
these.
Alex: Yes.
Leo: It raises a good question…..why is…..what was clearly designed to be
secure……..why is it being compromised by Apple intentionally. What’s the point?
Alex: Well, what’s interesting is that I know several large companies that have a
policy of if you walk into the airport and TSA takes your computer away…….you
know out of your sight……no or puts anything into it leave them with the
computer. Like, literally companies say well will replace your
computer…….(cross talk, Leo) no…..no it’s done. As soon as TSA walks away with
your computer you’re no longer allowed to take it back and, so….you know that
these……the people I know will upload everything to the cloud I don’t know……that
doesn’t make it better anymore, but they’ll save it all off you know before they
get on the flight so when they come in through customs they don’t have to……they
know they can walk away from that computer any moment.
Leo: So, you’re going to write up Rene how to use the Apple
configurat…..configurative………
Rene: I did it yesterday.
Leo: Okay so there’s an article on the imore site because if you really don’t want for instance this pairing to happen, there’s a
way to disable that but you have to download free Apple configurator.
Rene: There’s also ways that you can make the lock screen safer, you can turn off
Siri, you can turn off also the notification center and you can also turn off a
pass book. You can do a lot of things to make yourself less vulnerable to any
kind of attack.
Leo: I think that…..the……Zdziarski raises some interesting questions. Steve will
talk about this right after this show on Security Now, get your propeller heads
out, it usually gets pretty thick but if you want, you know if you want this is
the problem of course you raised this Rene that……
The main stream media tape way head line is, ‘Apple
devices insecure Apple co-operating with the Feds, but it’s obviously more
complex than that.
Rene: I know I’ll put the article in the chat-room.
Leo: Thank-you, thank-you right I will really appreciate it. We’re going to do a
question thing right the question engine.
Alex: Are you ready?
Leo: Well give us the URL?
Alex: The URL is a, it’s just bitly…….
Leo: No you’ve got to use Twit(dot)two.
Alex: I don’t know how to sign in for that.
Leo: We’ve got to get that set up.
Chad: Yes, I don’t even know how to sign in for that.
Alex: I’m happy to give it to you. (cross talk)
Leo:…..Callaghan
he knows how to do it.
Alex: That’s the problem.
Leo: bit(dot)ly(slash)mbw(dash)412, because this is episode 412.
Alex: We’ve got lots of questions so……….
Leo: Are we ready……are we keeping people out.
Alex: I tweeted it.
Leo: Oh, you tweeted it.
Alex: And then I put it in the chat room.
Leo: We’ll take a break and will take some questions. But if you have a question or
you can go to the question engine you can vote up the questions, because lots
of time…….
Alex: Best thing is to vote up the questions.
Leo: Just vote up the questions, most of the questions have now probably been asked.
Again, bit(dot)ly(slash)mbw(dash)412. Will go to our question engine? In just a
moment, our show today brought to you by squarespace.
Alex Lindsay is kind of the poster boy for squarespace.
Alex: I love squarespace.
Leo: (laughing) he used to…he was in some restaurant ……I said where’s your website.
He said I don’t have website. Now you do.
Alex:……
yes I’ll make one while I am having food.
Leo: One of the things you could do is go to squarespace. Squarespace is hosting and
soft-ware, so it’s everything you need to create a really great website,
whether it’s a personal site, a business site because they have ecommerce on
every single template, maybe a photography portfolio or an art portfolio, new
born babies site there’s lots of you know websites, websites right. It could be
anything but it’s the hosting and the soft-ware and everything you need.
But one of the things that they do that no-one else
does that I know of is you go to squarespace(dot)com you click the get started
button without giving them a credit card, or really any personal information
except your email address you can start a site and create it for two weeks
free.
Alex: That’s the hook.
Leo: And what you do is go in there and set up your site.(Alex and Leo talking at
the same time)
Just create a new login….yes
Alex: Yes just create a new login, create it how you like and then keep it. If you do
like I usually do require a free meal.
Leo: (Leo laughing up roariously) When I come back I want a sangwich( sandwich) yes
really nice. Well you could do it as a wedding gift a baby gift. Wouldn’t that
be great, if you know a little bit and by the way you don’t have to be a CSS or
Java Script or HTML it’s all…….
Alex: WSIWYG……
Leo: Drag and drop, point click you could add little widgets that bring in your
social media connect everything together.
Alex: Connect everything together, you don’t even have to figure on how to figure how
it works on an iPad, on android, iPhone. All of that stuff you just throw your
stuff in and it’s all going to reformat as the new format.
Leo: These guys and gals are very, very sophisticated and in fact one of the reasons
why it took them so long to do these current versions, when they came out with
version 6 was two years in the making. They want to make sure that without you
having to worry about it- it did everything modern. Mobile responsive design so
no special mobile site just your site looks good no matter what size screen.
I mean when you upload a picture for instance,
automatically in the back ground they make nine different print versions of
that picture in every possible size so you know it’s all done for you.
Ecommerce is built in, in fact even the least expensive site in squarespace can
buy or you can sell one thing which would be great for donations, charity, you
know a school fund drive. I just think is squarespace is great I want you to
try it so please visit squarespace(dot)com and a press the get started button.
If you need help even during the free trial they have
the best support in the world 24/7 right from the squarespace offices. I saw
that they’re opening a support offices in Dublin and Portland Oregon so they
have covered a bit more time zones which is great. It is 24/7 great customer
help site, with webinars, self-help articles, video workshops, so it’s very
easy. Even if you stumble into how do I do this…….no trouble getting that
information.
Alex: We’ve just a built a training…….actually training module in squarespace for one
of our clients and it was just great and they were some little issues that we
had-translations we’re talking to the head and you know just kept going up.
And, they’re really committed trying to figure out exactly how to fix whatever
problems for those that happened. It’s great.
Leo: It’s a great product. Squarespace(dot)com……if you want to sign up, if you want
to buy it, tell the restaurant this use the offer code MACBREAK and will get
you 10 per cent off on your new account.
Alex: Yes.
Leo: So, yes you don’t need the through the trial, just when you check out, when you
buy it MACBREAK is the offer code at squarespace(dot)com really great guys with
a product, I’m just really proud to be associated with it.
All right question time……oh no I suppose……
Alex: You could tie them in if you want.
Leo: I don’t have the password on here I put last pass on it.
Alex: I’ll jump in the aisle.
Leo: Here are 6 Windows eight tips for maximum performance reliability. For tip
one……
Alex: Throw your computer in the canal.
Leo:…….get
a Mac, just the worst piece of…….
Rene: Or, as built in tip app now.
Leo: Yes I saw that. How’s that going to work, a new tip a day or something.
Rene: I think there are 6 or 8 right now and you tap on it, it has a little bit of
animation and it tells what’s happening and you look at a whole list of them.
Leo: It’s kind of a strange app.
Rene: It’s not mayday but I mean it’s helpful to some people.
Leo: Yes, it’s fun. That iOS beta four came out yesterday.
Rene: Yes, yes.
Leo: Anything else new and exciting.
Rene: The control center look nice…….. I mean
they’ve made it a little bit easier to see. They’re just doing little
improvements, health book got a little bit of improvements, it’s steadily
getting there, steadily, we’re happily there.
Leo: Bill Campbell retired, the support coach has been there forever. He was there
in Waz’s job days.
Long time 17 years Apple board member retiring. Sue
Wagner will replace him she’s a director at Black Rock.
Rene: I haven’t any experience.
Leo: Black Rock, will see M &A prepare Apple for sale.
Rene: unlikely ……..who would buy Apple, nobody would buy…….
Alex: The government.
Leo: Who could affords them.
Alex: Hey we’re printing money 80 billion dollars a month we can just print some
more.
Andy: Actually, North America is printing US currency too so they may be they could
buy it. Every time like there’s a major redesign to a 100 dollar bill it’s
usually in response to, okay we’ve found out that another country has basically
bought the stuff to require to manufacture 100 dollar bills now so okay guess
what we’re putting mascara Ben Franklyn this time.
Leo: It’s Adam Antium. Question one.
Rene: (whispering) Adam Antium
Alex: This is from Boston Squirrel, he asks when will we see an Apple 4K monitor?
Leo: Not likely buddy boy. I don’t know.
Alex: October.
Leo: Ah that would be a good time.
Alex: That’s my guess.
Rene: The next Mac event.
Leo: But, why do we……I mean it’s built into 10.9 as of 10.3. So you know I have a 4k
monitor, I have the LG…….no what do I have……I have the Q12…….no I have Q321 and
I don’t even remember who makes it, because that’s the point.
Alex: I still like my big theory and that’s going to take an Apple TV and incorporate
that into a monitor that you use for your iMac or whatever but you can have it
all.
Rene: You shouldn’t incorporate it into the Mac, because it’s patent OS 10.
Leo: You know why I like using my 4k, it’s a 31 and half inch monitor.
Alex: Is that working for you?
Leo: It’s an ASUS. It’s beautiful but I don’t use it at 4k I use it at one half by
1080. So, everything is nice and big.
Alex: Right.
Leo: You come in here what you know old man……I go yes. Everything’s nice and big.
But, if I do photo-editing or watch a video so that’s that IPPI I mode that
does that. Apple’s really good at …….I tell you what if that’s what you want.
Andy: I do know people who have like really, really big like prestige 4k screen
office that they’re using as a screen for their computer for their Mac Pro and,
it works great if you have a big, big, big screen. It becomes this picture
window that faces your desk that you can basically turn into four different
monitors because of how big you can make these windows.
I just don’t……..every time that I have seen this set up
that has 31 inch display on it, looks like it’s suddenly……… it’s great demo,
but at some point around the 45 minutes of a full work day you say I can’t
say……I don’t have super human sight I can’t appreciate from a distance of 18
inches or 24 inches away how nice this display is. How much I want things to be
bigger and easier to see. I don’t know if Apple …….(cross talk)
Leo: ……two 27s and 31……it’s ridiculous.
Andy: I see Apple doing a 4k display if they figure that they can do it better than
anybody else of else if they can make a bigger mark up or bigger profit than
anybody else can. (angry exchanges)
Alex: It’s also weird to be making their own monitors for their own computers. It’s
just weird.
Rene: Well they make Thunderbolt they just don’t make 4k yet.
Leo: So when he asked a question when are going to see a 4k computer……I mean
monitor.
Alex: October.
Leo: October- anybody else?
Rene: October is the next likely time.
Andy: Yes.
Leo: I don’ t think…….I think if Apple wants to they’re not going to do an
announcement, just slip it because ……
Alex: Do a press release.
Leo: Because it’s too small a market. You don’t want to emphasize in any way it’s
going to cost 3,000 dollars. You don’t want to emphasize in any way how
expensive your stuff is.
Rene: But, it’s the Mac Pro Leo, it’s the super cars it’s the thing that makes Apple
cool and sexy.
Alex: They can talk about it they can do a little movie about how it was constructed
by robots.
Leo: I think they’ll want to focus in your…….very few…….very precious events. The
iPad is the big seller.
Alex: The watch.
Leo: The iPhone, the Watch you’ve got enough to say there, you don’t want talk about
4k displays…….
Alex: Too small a market, trust us.
Leo: It’s tiny.
Alex: It’s computers, trucks.
Rene: Next WWDC.
Leo: More to the point when are they going to update the mini?
Alex: That was one of the questions, but it fell off. It fell off the thing.
Leo: See, nobody cares just you and me.
Alex: I have seen so many minis, and I love them.
Leo: Thank-you Boston Squirrel. Question two.
Alex: Question! The next question……do you think Franklyn Western Conshin….
Leo: I really love that name. He’s from Milwaukee.
Alex: Do you think Samsung ads are working against Apple or just working to raise the
brand awareness of the iPad, iPhone, iPad mini, retina, Mac Pro, Mac Pro Mac,
Mac Book Pro, late 2013?
Leo: I got to tell you on the radio show, I always use this example of the unwashed
mess……they talk about……there is no android device…….there’s Samsung and there’s
iPhone. Samsung’s marketing has at least done that. It has beaten……and I keep
telling people don’t get a Samsung phone they’re crap. The only reason you want
a Samsung phone is that because they spend hundreds of millions of dollars
advertising to you.
Rene & Leo: Billions
Alex: I’ve bought a couple of Samsung phones and I’m kind of done.
Leo: I mean they work great. My Galaxy……love the Galaxy Nexus Loved……but after the
S4, never again…..I mean it’s just end of the S5.
Rene: I don’t like the plastic.
Leo:…..they’re
way too chunky, they’re too much plasticky, they’re way too much in touch wiz.
Rene: They do have touch wiz that you can’t do in Google, and also it’s inconsistent
user experience. I like the HTC much better and Motorola is much better.
Leo: Pure is better.
Alex: Well we’re still going to end up with this big tug of war with……Samsung is I
think is determined to move away from android. I think they’re going to do it
slowly, but I think…….
Leo: I think it’s a tug of war because Google doesn’t want them to be
involved.(cross talk).
Alex: Well, it’s complicated for them. If the
company that big moves away it’s complicated for the platform.
Rene: They have Tyzon though, it’s in their back pocket.
Leo: So, that’s why people call us often,’have you looked at the HTC One this is so
much better than a Samsung phone, but…….and it’s the same price.
Alex: It’s the MA.
Leo: It’s MA. Samsung never heard……(cross talk)
Andy:……not
necessarily I agree that the hand feel of the Samsung phone isn’t as good as
you get from HTC and, certainly not what you get from Apple. But, their,
their……. doing some nice things for the platform and, it’s nice to have a
really good solid proof phone that costs no more than that cheap phone that you
can’t drop into a toilet or a beach.
They…..I agree that a lot of things with touch wiz are
kind of weird and some of them not very nice, but also remember doing some
things with split screens that to me points the way to….wow this is incredibly
useful, now that I have the ability to be something boring like clearing out
the 200 or 300 emails in my inbox while I’m waiting to be picked up. But you
can still watch a You Tube video and a pane above that is really nice
especially on the Note 7. On the new Note Tablet the ability to again do that
sort of split screen….one panel for productivity and the other panel to keep
track of communications. So, it’s not as dire as all that. But they certainly
have a way to go to be the superlative of anything. I’m also not 100 per cent
sure that they will ever move towards Tyzon, because that’s an operating system
because they give up so much in order to not…..if they stop using android they
give up so much. But, they don’t want to be known as Google phone, but they
definitely want people to have Google latch on to them.
Alex: Well, I think that they…..I don’t think they’ give up that’s a five year curve.
It’s not something they’d do in a year.
Andy: Well in five years Apple might stop doing iOS. They might have decided to do
something more impressive than that. Five years……might…..might….we might not be
walking upright we might be just undulating modules of light a human beings in
five years. (Alex Laughing).
Rene: To Leo’s point, Samsung does really believe that awareness creates sales, spend
as much……again they’re a Korean conglomerate they make oil rigs they make as
much money as their country needs to make fridges…..
Andy: They make fridges…… they make everything.
Rene: Everything and they can spend as much money as they want. Now they’re making
money from mobile but they didn’t for a while. Unlike, other companies like
Blackberry and Palm and HTC……people can’t take those kind of losses. Samsung
can take as much loss as they want. And, they were willing to do that to buy
awareness and now so many people do that and just think of android as Samsung.
Leo: It’s true.
Rene: It delivers huge benefits for them.
Leo: Yes and there’ll be some great android phones…..the Motorola X Plus One, we’ve
got an Opo One Plus One here……the Opo Fine Seven. There’s some really good
phones out there.
Rene: Shao Min.
Leo: Shao Min, yes but they don’t exist. It’s really an iPhone/Samsung world
especially in the US……..question……. Thank-you for the question Franklyn.
Question three.
Alex: Next question is from Geoffrey Jameson from Chilowack. (Chilliwack)
Leo: Chilowack.
Alex: What are you most excited about in Yosemite?
Leo: I don’t know where Chilowack is?
Alex: I don’t where Chilowack is?
Leo: Colombia. (British Columbia)
Alex: Interesting this.
Rene: More Canadianisms.
Leo: More Canadians.
Alex: We brought them with the movie before the show. So what you’re most excited
about in Yosemite.
Andy: For me it’s continuity, it’s just this ability to have this one seamless
experience between all these devices that’s really all I have ever wanted. I
mean the fact that…..I switched to Chrome from Safari for a couple of reasons,
but the majority of that is really only because if I’m using Chrome on every
single one of my mobile devices I’ll…….all the work that I do through browsing
comes as one single experience, there’s no sync, there’s no copying anything,
there’s no giving permission to anything, just all exists.
So, I think that once we’re in a full iOS 8 Yosemite
world there will be fewer times when I’ll even feel the desire to take my Mac
Book out of the office, even if it’s just for two or three hours…….because the
ability……..right now one of the hang-ups continue to be just getting data…..app
data from one app to another between the iPad and my Mac Book. And, it’s not
that it’s really difficult it’s just that it’s one step on my Mac Book, I
simply close the lid, put it in my bag and simply leave.
But, the day that I can just simply by virtue of the
fact that the iPad is in the same room as or even the same network even as this
Mac and, it knows Oh, you’re working on this document, well I have also synced
this document……I have a version of this for iOS……I can pick up right where you
left off, including here’s where your editing cursor was at the point at which
you decided to leave the house. That’s going to be…….you like little changes
that make things easier but that there’s very rarely that’s an operating system
upgrade changes the way that you work with something and that will change the
way that I work with these devices.
Leo: They do Siri in the spotlight system…..fine…..put Quick Silver on there.
Andy…..he doesn’t use Quick Silver so…….I like that kind of stuff.
Alex: I’m afraid I’m going to go with Andy. I go for different devices for instance
like texting is done all with hangouts because no matter what computer I’m on,
no matter what device I’m on I have the same conversation going on. Whether there’s
an android phone or an iPhone or whatever, or whatever country I’m in…..I just
pick up whatever it is that I’m doing and keep on going.
Leo: There’s no fear of going over to the other side with iOS.
Alex: I understand but what I’m saying is as an example continuity is that…..
Leo: That’s true though…….messages does the same thing right.
Alex: Right, yes the reason why I don’t use messages,……this is the problem…… I mean
this is the problem the reason I don’t use messages is that it doesn’t work on
my android phones. So I think, but I think that the…..but I think that it is
a…… being able to do that is actually have me use my iPad more. I feel like I
love the iPad and everything else, but I think that my parents use their iPads
far more than I use mine just because I’m too old and like I just feel like I
hit my key board and so I think being able to just do some of the little stuff
and know that I can come right back, I think that’s really important.
Leo: So two for continuity……what do you think Rene?
Rene: Seeing as Alex and Andy have already sung the praises of continuity I’m going
to go for extensibility, I think in iOS unarguably the apps are strong but in
OS 10……..
Andy: We’re talking about Yosemite and not iOS 10.
Rene: iOS 10 though I think there’s a lot of benefit too. (Cross talk)
Andy:…….oh
yes…..go ahead.
Leo: The extensions are not on Yosemite, are they?
Rene: They are on Yosemite. Yosemite is getting the Today View widgets. You’ll be
able to do a lot of things on the widgets that are very interesting. They’re
getting iCloud Drive that’s going to be shown to you actually in an iCloud
Drive, because they are a storage provider extensions. If you don’t want to use
iCloud Drive you can use Drop Box in there or you can use One Drive in there.
Leo: Ahhhh……..
Rene: ……or you can use Google Drive in there. Apple’s giving them as far as I can
tell as much access in the same kind of access as iCloud and again that’s
because IBM wants to be able to put Enterprise data stores in there or whatever
iBenefit. That’s great.
Leo: I did not know that. I didn’t really see that highlighted.
Rene: And, they already got extensibility for the last two weeks. It’s making me so
happy. Also action extensions so will be sharing an action. An action
extensions means that you’ll be able to do things in mark down in mail. Mark
down……..sorry……. mark up isn’t just in mail……that’s an extension to run
anywhere in OS10 so you can do marked up in any app. But you can also the new
photos app won’t have everything that aperture has but it’ll conclude support
for the photos extensions so people can make all these plug ins for it that can
conceivably do whole scads of productivity in the photo context for us. And,
sharing extensions means that things like Instagram and, things like Pinctures,
whatever you like can be equal citizens with Apple partners like Twitter and FaceBook.
So….so…..again it’s as apparent as like continuity but
I think the level of power that people are going to be able to get out of it is
going to be really impressive.
Leo: That’s the first time that Apple’s tried this. Remember services……
Rene:…..yes
but those are buried these are front and center.
Leo: But, I mean that’s the point that these are capabilities, these are not
new……..which is wasn’t widely used. I loved……I was very high on services.
Alex: We used a lot of services.
Leo: Yes…….but nobody ever got……they’re still there I guess but nobody ever believes
this.
Rene: But it’s benefits for any one, because Drop Box used to have to hack their way
in but now there’s an extension there right for the Finder. You know there’s an
Apple approved way to do that for functionality.
Leo: Yes.
Rene: Yes…..again ……it’s not…..iOS is getting all the attention for this but again
it’s just as valuable. But you know not
just valuable but super valuable OS 10.
Andy: Well…..I think that I agree that if the question were about iOS 8 and Yosemite
I would certainly would have chosen extensions because it’s not in….in…in….
in…..Mac OS, it adds functionality, it’s an improved way of doing something
that we’ve seen happen on Mac before. On iOS it’s sort of like well, there’s
this car called the Pinto…..it’s a great car unless some-one rear rams you in
which it’ll explode and you’ll die. To me the lack of extensibility in iOS is
the exploding and die aspect feature and tell you what if we said we…..we……heard
you we understand you and don’t want your children to explode and die in a low
level accident. What, if we were to give you this thing that has been a really
valuable part of every phone experience for the past two or three years and how
you can do it too. That’s another one of those……this is like an entirely new
phone for me by virtue of the fact that I have extensibility and the ability
for apps to talk to each other, it’s cool.
Rene: Yes, I agree about continuity I just wanted to give extensibility a little bit
of love.
Leo: Yes…..good well you opened my eyes to it. Although……
Alex: Not necessarily……..
Leo: It’s like what I’ve said and Andy’s said it’s not the first time we’ve seen
this attempted.
Alex: Well it’s not necessarily a Yosemite thing it’s…….I think Swift’s going to be
the programming language.
Leo: I agree.
Alex: ……..much bigger over the next couple of years. I think the grass is going to
grow in the field.
Leo: All right…..thank-you Jeffrey for that one. More questions?
Alex: More questions……here we go. Felicity……
Leo: Megamont…..
Alex: From Chicago…….
Leo:…..looks
like a action figure. (Alex laughing) Megar mont…….megar mont.
Alex: There’s no way that Apple can’t be thinking about acquiring a tech that is also
involved heavily in coffee right? (Leo laughing uproariously)
Leo: What would that be?
Rene: Blue Bottle.
Leo: Apple’s thinking about buying BlueBottle?
Rene: No, it would be great if (cross talk)
Leo: It’s a good rumor.
Alex: It’d be Starbucks.
Leo: No not Starbucks,…….
Rene: Every Apple store needs a Blue Bottle.
Leo: Every Apple store needs a Blue Bottle. Wow…..I like that. What other tech
companies that are heavily involved in coffee?
Alex: There was another question earlier on that. That was also about Apple
partnering up with Starbucks I think?
Leo: Is there a rumor going around? iBucks! (cross talk)
Alex: Any way next question? Next question here is from Craig Cheltra from Charlotte
North Carolina……I was there two days ago. Will Apple finally get the Cloud
right with iOS 8 in Cloud Drive. (short pause)
Leo: Well that’s a big question. People seem very positive about this one.
Rene: It’s not Cloud Drive though, it’s Cloud……the exciting thing about is that it is
Cloud Kit, because Cloud Drive is based on at the new photos system’s based on
it.
From what I talked to developers about it is a much
more……it is a much simpler solution. You basically store key values and your
blogs there. It’s built on the backend of Microsoft 8 AZURE and I think there
might be some Amazon stuff behind it too. But……but it looks really solid,
people seem to like it. Whether they’ll fly back to it after being burned with
iCloud before is a big question. But, I
think it’s a huge step in the right direction.
Leo: All right thank-you for all your questions, thank-you for the question engine.
We loved that we only do that when Alex is here. He has the keys to the key
room. (whispering)
Alex: (whispering) he doesn’t have the keys.
Leo: I like doing it, it’s fun. We’re talking about Samsung and all the money they
spend on advertising, but Apple does some pretty fair ads. I thought this
one……I haven’t seen a Mac ad yet, which is…..I thought this one was a really
nice ad…..
Rene: 2012 The retina Mac Book was the last one.
Leo: Which one?
Rene: Mac Book Pro was the last one.
Leo: It’s been that long?
Rene: I believe so.
Leo: This one is a real tip of the hat today(showing ad). Cult of Mac
watch…….they’re showing the backs of the Mac Books…….things people do with
their……..
Andy: I just wonder about all the clearances they had to get with all these contours
(cross talk)
Leo:……
Come on Kitty, Homer…… Simpsons……
Andy: I notice they had a run of DC commerce characters, but no Marvel comic
characters. Disney made at least three appearances.
Leo: So there’s no text, so those of you listening just heard music, but it said the
Notebook that people love……the Mac Book Air and, the whole point of it was how
people customize their Mac Book Airs with stickers which everybody does.
Alex: Yes.
Rene: That music is from Google Chrome. (cross talk)
Leo: Take all your stickers…….Google, Chrome and android then there’s also
Red….Pixel corps…..(cross talk)
Alex: I kind of like it.
Andy: You’d think they waited till Joni Ives was on vacation……before they built that.
Leo: You’ve ruined the most beautiful computer I’ve ever made.
Rene: It was aluminum and you ruined it…..stop it……just stop it.
Andy: We’ve solved the problem of decorating computers by making a lap-top that was
so beautiful, no-body would ever want to put anything on it. We anticipate that
the secondary market for stickers will dry up within two months, oh well.
Rene: We’re sorry Joni, we’re so, so sorry, hey Joni.
Leo: Do you guys have stickers…….what do you do Rene, do you have a sticker on your
Mac?
Rene: Well, I don’t have any Twit stickers, which is one of the reasons.
Leo: We can do that, we can send you some.
Rene: That would be awesome but I don’t currently have any stickers on my Mac Book
for it. I’m always looking for a nice Iron Man or……
Alex: I get tired of peeling them off, that’s why I added this spec.
Leo: That’s what I do…..I put a shell on the…….(cross talk)
Alex: I knew that.
Rene: That’s a great idea.
Leo: It’s really nice have a clean Mac Book when you take it off. Take the shell off
and, it looks like it’s brand new. It’s pretty sweet.
Andy: I…..I……. have a shell on mine and, mostly so during baggage and during TSA
screening I ……this is my Notebook please no body take mine, I wonder who’s the
first person to come out with the Snow White sticker, because that was
brilliant……,
Leo:…
she was holding the Apple logo.
Andy: …….she’s holding the Apple logo. Someone had to be first person to think of
that and produce that sticker and whoever it is, he’s not up there with the guy
who designed the rubic’s cube but man they deserve some sort of a design award,
because that…….
Leo: I would have think it would be Jealous Skins, right?
Andy: I don’t know.
Rene: I don’t know there’s the Jealous Skin there was the Music Skins, the y did all
the Beatles stuff, there’s…..
Alex: For a long time with Jealous Skins there was really just do the whole…..do the
whole….yes…..
Leo: And, they were……
Rene: …….. most of them on FC.
Leo: They were the ones who hired real artists to do the Jealous Skins. I saw that
first in Mac World.
Alex: I’ve had a lot of Jealous Skins.
Leo: Me too.
Chad: Awesome.
Leo: Really gorgeous.
Chad: The OFT logo on the back of my computer is
jealous skin.
Leo: So, you got it customed.
Chad: Yes it’s amazing.
Leo: Now I want……..we had a on Twit ……..on Sunday we had Ben Thompson from Tech Hire……for
years he used to work for Word Press(dot)com. I’m sorry for Automatic……Matt
Malone’s company that creates support for his Wordpress(dot) com. And, he said
everybody that works at WordPress(dot)com gets a custom Mac Book, aluminum
shell but, instead of the Apple it’s W. They literally replaced the Apple.
Alex: Wow.
Leo: It’s the Word Press W, and somebody sent me a link, there’s a company that does
this, that’ll make an Apple like a Mac Book metal……you’re……I guess I don’t know
how hard it’s to replace the metal on there, but……does anybody in the chat-room
remember that was a……
Rene:…….a
Batman logo right there.
Leo: Wouldn’t that be cool? I’m thinking maybe we’ll get some Twit ones cut out, no
you know?
Rene: ……or maple leaf tea-pots?
Leo: Or maple leaf teapots. Hey, it’s time for our tips of the week. I’ll see if I
can find that before the end of the show.
Let’s start with you Rene Ritchie……your turn to kick
things off.
Rene: I have two this week because there were two really interesting apps that were
released. The first one is Overcast which is a podcast kind by Mark Ormont who
people might know from Insta-Paper and, from The Magazine and Podcast clients
and people are listening to podcasts right now. So, obviously a lot of people like
podcasts, they’ve become a really interesting category because so many really
good designers and developers are making them. And, they’re not……and they’re
not all very similar they all have a different idea about what’s important. How
opinionated you should be, there’s how flexible you should be, how many options
you should have and Overcast is definitely opinionated Mark has a very specific
sensibility, he wants a very specific experience. But, it’s flexible where it
needs to be, it’s a really well done, well designed app. He wrote it in his own
audio engine using core audio. He didn’t want to use the built in AD
foundations stuff. It does really smart like it has the smart speed so it
automatically adjusts speed of the recording depending how fast the host speaks
and how many pauses they have between their words. And, it shows you the time
you’ve saved when you’ve used it. They can say it saved you ten minutes, twenty
minutes, thirty minutes. It also does an audio boost, so if people have
different volumes in low it boosts it up for you. And, I’ve done Pad podcasts
for some reason one person was louder……… one person was generally not loud
enough. So there’s a lot of really clever things. There are a couple of
drawbacks still. It is a 1.0, there is no support for video podcast yet. There’s
also no support for streaming. So you have to download stuff that you want. But
it’s got a lot of really, really clever features built into it. I was on the
beta so I’ve been using it for over a month now, and I’m currently using it as
my main podcast client, very happy with it. It’s worth a look. And the second
one is Hours which is by TappityApps. Which is Jeremy Olson. And this is a time
tracking app. And there’s a lot of those as well, but he’s been working, I
think, two or three years on this. And he had very specific ideas and he put it
together very, very well. It has received a lot of attention. He’s not as well
known of a developer as someone like Marco Armont, but he’s a really attentive
developer, and he built this, sort of to scratch his own itch. Which is what a
lot of developers do. But if you are in any sort of time tracking, people
immediately joke that lawyers bill in 6 minute intervals. You may not want to
bill in 6 minute intervals, but you might be doing consulting work, you might
be doing client work, and he makes it as easy as possible for you to keep track
of those billable hours. And again, it’s really, really well designed. So I
wanted to make sure both of those got mentioned.
Leo: Great Rene, thank you. Yeah, I really have been spending
a lot of energy, we all have at TWiT, thinking about how people listen to our
shows, it’s pretty obvious that no one listens to shows by subscribing into
them in iTunes, hooking up their iPod to the iTunes, synching, downloading.
Rene: John Syracuse still does, I think he’s the only one.
Leo: Does he really?
Rene: Yeah, iPod Shuffle.
Leo: It seems really old school and of course, that’s how
we built our business. The podcast app on iOS and the various apps on other
platforms seem to be important. Our own apps, of course, important.
Rene: Oh, I didn’t mention that. Because Apple’s podcast app
is free, and it’s the most popular app, Armond made his app free too. So you
get the entire app for free, there are some features that you need to pay- like
you get the smart speed and smart sound for 10 minutes for free, there’s a $5
in app purchase if you want to unlock all the other features.
Leo: Yay! Thank you Marco for doing that. Chatroom tells me
that the place to go if you want to get your MacBook cover customized, to have
the actual aluminum cut out, is called Uncover. At Uncovermac.com. And I don’t
know how hard this must be but they have some really cool logos. I don’t know
what-
Rene: How much is it?
Leo: I remember them being about 100 something. I wish I
could figure out how to point and click on this. I’m sure there’s a way to do
it.
Andy: I like that a lot of these designs that we’re seeing,
they’re sort of like someone had a bad tattoo from their youth and they tried
to get a cover up that sort of incorporate the ink in it without making it look
like it’s the 3 dog night tattoo. And so you’ve got some that are incorporating
the logo by sort of incorporating some of the contours without making it look-
Leo: Oh, they’re a little more expensive. They’re 399 euros
for a circle. If you want a custom, its 600 euros.
Andy: You could buy an iWatch for that.
Leo: Yeah, that’s pretty pricy, that’s almost $1000. Never
mind. I presume you have to send them your Mac.
Rene: It’s just one Alex.
Leo: Come on. Just an Alex.
Alex: Just an Alex.
Leo: If you’re like a band though. Or a DJ.
Alex: If you’re going to be out there in front of a lot of
people it makes sense.
Leo: I want one. I want a TWiT one!
Alex: Yeah.
Andy: If you want to trick Venture Capitalist into thinking
developed your own computer laptop design as good as Apple’s, that’s cheap
money.
Leo: Yeah. I invented it. Alex Lindsay, what do you have
for us?
Alex: So, we’ve been doing MacBreak for a long time…
Leo: We certainly have.
Alex: Back in the early days, in fact, episode number 1, we
had a different- well, not a different set of hosts, we’re still here- we had
Amber and Emery Wells. Emery is coming out with a new piece of software. A new
web service.
Leo: Oh. I love you Emery.
Alex: And I’ve been starting to play with it. It’s really
cool. So this is, you can get notified when it’s more publicly available, but it’s
called Frame.IO, and it’s really for people who professionals. I mean, people
who are, if you’re working on sending, putting up files and having them
reviewed and having people who drew on them and say change this and move this
around and really taking care of all those things as a production company. This
is a way to manage all of that really effectively. So it’s really, it’s the
best one that I’ve seen so far. So if you’re interested in this, if this is
something that has been driving you crazy, collaborative creative development,
it’s a pretty, pretty slick system that he’s rolling out. So I would highly
suggest at least signing up for the-
Leo: Its video sharing.
Alex: Its video sharing, but it’s also video commenting, so-
and specifically within a creative community. So if you’re not a creative
community, but like, I’m a team, I’m a producer. And somebody is uploading
stuff and marking it up and saying we need to change this and we need to move
this around and we need- you know, and it’s going to play back. And it’s framed
on IO, someone is asking in the chatroom. And it’s a really, so you can see how
you can annotate stuff and comment on it and so on and so forth. And it keeps track of versions and all the
things. Emery has done a lot of production and he still does a lot of
production, so this is really not driven by someone who thought this was a good
idea, but this is someone who actually does this every day. And you can see
kind of how that’s done. But I would highly suggest getting on the list now
before everybody else hears about it. I decided to do it live and do it now
before everyone else listens to the show. But I would definitely get on the
list, because I think this is going to be something that a lot of people are
going to enjoy using. So anyway, Frame.IO.
Leo: Frameio. Now the chatroom is saying that another
company called Colorware is the company that did the WordPress logo. How much
is that one? And they’re less expensive.
Alex: Ooh, they kind of show you a little bit of-
Leo: They show you how they do it, yeah. They do take off
the cover. First the entire laptop is disassembled and--- the lid of the laptop
is taken to the Colorware machine shop. Where it will never be seen from or
heard from again. Then the basic shape of the new logo is machined from the
laptop lid. The opening is where the new logo will take place.
Rene: Well Alex’s friends can’t even leave him a TSA,
imagine this.
Leo: Wow. So there’s actually the WordPress. That is pretty
sweet. I wouldn’t mind that with a little TWiT thing there. Maybe when Apple
comes out with a new laptop ill spring for that.
Alex: I’m so tempted.
Rene: The Retina MacBook Air Leo…
Alex: How much was this one? Did they tell you how much it
cost?
Leo: Aah, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. The
chatroom did say it was less expensive. I don’t know. Colorware. C-O-L-O-R-W-A-R-E.
Your pick of the week mister Andy Ihnatko.
Andy: Mine is the sort of game I really like. I’m sorry, but
my cable will not let me broadcast this to the thing behind me. This is, it’s a
game called F-Sim Space shuttle. All it is, is a space shuttle landing
simulator.
Leo: Oh, I love that.
Andy: This is a replay of my last attempt to land the
shuttle. It gives you all the built in motion sensors to do your final
approach. There’s also, let me change the camera view. There are also a lot of
different views available because the graphics on this are just amazing. It
really does look like a photo realism depending on what camera angle you take.
This is me, figuring out which is the rudder control and which is the break
control. Because you’re kind of supposed to be on the- see someone had a
parachute out there. You really want to line it up right there on the center
line, they give you, and after you land you do get a score on how well you did.
And let me tell you, the game is not like a long, long shuttle mission. All it
does is sets you up for your approach to land this thing. You can look at the
cockpit, you can look at your instruments, you can choose the view from the
chase plane. There is some on screen guidance to show you where you should be lined
up. And it really is just, it’s like having a basketball hoop in your driveway
and you’ve got a basketball in your hands. And you can, over the course of
hours, days, weeks and months, just get better and better at shooting free-throws.
And that’s how much fun this thing is. One simple thing, but you do it
successfully once and then you think, okay but I was way off that line and I
was skidding left and right, and my score kind of sucks. I want to see if I
can- what did I do wrong and how can I do this better. And it is just so
entertaining, it’s almost meditative because it’s all about tiny little
motions. Works on the iPhone, works also on the iPad, I have sometimes been
playing it by airplay on my big TV. And that is my real gameplay mode. I’ve got
this big screen in front of me. Its 5 bucks but damn worth it. Looping back to
Rene’s recommendation of Overcast, I’m so glad that he priced it at 5 bucks for
the unlocked features. I think that too many games and mobile apps are underpriced.
And I think that 5 bucks is not too much to ask for really nice, polished,
professionally done app. As opposed to a simple flashlight or sound effects
app. so this is 5 bucks, definitely worth it. 10 bucks id have to think about
it, but I’ll give them 5 bucks for it.
Alex: I Have to admit, I’m quite happy paying a little bit
more, I mean, I know we’ve gone to this thing where everything is a dollar, but
I actually want to see people charge a little bit more for the apps because I
want to make sure they’re successful. I want to make sure this is a good
business for them. I want this to be their main job. If I’m buying an app and I’m
going to use it, I want them to make enough money in the first couple of weeks
that they could hire more programmers, or do whatever they need to do to make
it great.
Leo: Well and I don’t want to see ads in the app. and I
don’t want in app purchases that go to the hundreds of dollars.
Andy: There are no in app purchases on this game. You buy
it, you own it. And yeah, just as you’re saying Alex, I think that if you help
somebody to become successful enough that they can afford to take a two week
vacation to some place nice, during that two weeks of downtime where they’re
not coding is when their brain is going to give them great ideas for the next
big app. so that extra 2 dollars or 3 dollars you’re spending will pay off in
the long run in the form of a brilliant new app that wouldn’t have existed
otherwise, I think.
Leo: Actually the EC, the European Union has compelled
Google to stop listing apps with in app purchases as free in the play store.
And I think they advised Apple too. Apple is going to have to do the same.
Rene: But what’s the alternative Leo? We’ve been thinking
about this, if it’s like Overcast, Overcast is free with one purchase. But
Candy Crush is a very different non- free game.
Leo: Well, just don’t put it in that free category, you
know. I mean, that’s misleading because they really aren’t playable free, many
of these. Now it is unfair, because Candy Crush, you really need to buy
something but maybe this you don’t. I don’t know.
Alex: Plants vs. Zombies, I really felt like the new one, I
just lost interest. There were too many things that I had to purchase. On the
other hand, Field Runners, I could completely play without buying anything. But
I probably spend more money on Field Runners, because I buy the little extra
points so that I can buy infectious poison.
Rene: And I’m not sure what you would label here. Would you label
it as free with in app- I mean is Fi app something that a normal person-
Alex: But I paid for Field Runners. It’s not like I-
Leo: You called it Frenium?
Rene: There’s Frenium and Paymium.
Leo: What’s Paymium?
Rene: There’s a price up front and in app purchase.
Leo: Oh, I hate that.
Andy: Last week a candidate for my pick of the week was the
electronic guards NLB 2014 app. they created a home run derby app. that was
just all you’re doing is the pitcher is throwing tomatoes right at you. And all
you have to do is swing and hit dingers. Fun, fun. A fun concept. But it was
just every 10 seconds there was some sort of herring for “you know, if you
bought this vegetable bat you could bring it around faster, how about a cap with
a logo of your favorite- “I just want to hit home runs! I want to feed a dollar
into the machine and then it throws 20 things at me. And it’s terrible.
Leo: Well, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes this rant
portion of the program. We are done, done, done. Andy Ihnatko from the Chicago
Sun Times. It’s always a pleasure, thank you for being here my friend.
Andy: Always a slice. Thanks for having a wonderful-
Leo: Catch Ihnatko’s Almanac on fivebyfive.tv and he’s also
doing the reading the old columns things.
Andy: I’m getting caught back up. I’m way behind but I’m
trying. It’s so hard to- I don’t know how you do it where you schedule your
entire day to be sitting in front of a microphone and talking. All I have to do
is find 45 minutes to do every single week. Read what I’ve wrote last week. And
it’s like, if I schedule for Wednesday, something tells me, why don’t I try to
do it Tuesday, I don’t do it Tuesday, I plan to do it Thursday, oh goodness.
Leo: Rene Ritchie, Imore.com the mobile nations. His debug
podcast, many other- anything you want to plug? All sorts of stuff going on
over there, I know.
Rene: The latest debug, if anyone is interested in Swift, we
had a Swift round table with Don Melton who did Webkid and Safari, Bret Simmons
who did Net News Wire and Vesper, and Natalia Berdis who did Kodu Kitchen. But
I don’t know very much about programming and I understood a lot of it and I was
really impressed with it. So if anyone is interested in Swift check it out.
Leo: Very good. Alex, nice seeing you. Safe travels.
Alex: Thank you.
Leo: Don’t know when we’ll see you again, but that’s part
of the fun. I just know when I come in and I see another seat on the table I go
“oh good, Alex is back, he survived.” We do MacBreak Weekly Tuesdays 11am Pacific,
2pm Eastern time. 1800 UTC. We would love it if you would make this part of
your Tuesday. But if you can’t, don’t worry. We have on demand audio and video
available so you can listen anytime anywhere. Use your podcast app or whatever,
what was the name of Marco’s app? Overcast?
Rene: Oh, and in Overcast he has a list of all the
alternative podcast apps if you don’t like his. Which is a very classy move.
Leo: Wow, that’s very classy. Sounds like Overcast is the
one though. I’m going to try that.
Andy: There’s such a personal approach to podcast apps. And I’m
glad that there are 5 or 6 really good ones because if you think that Downcast
is terrible, it’s not because it’s terrible, it’s because its working in a way that’s
not in harmony with what you like, a and maybe you’ll like Overcast better.
Leo: Right, there are choices. We also encourage people to
try Stitcher. And commercial apps like that as well. There are lots of great
ways to listen. Or get us on iTunes. Download us, synch up your iPod, plug it
into your cassette deck on your car and listen.
Rene: Your 8 track adapter.
Leo: Your 8 track adapter. I don’t care how you listen. We’ve
got audio and video for you at twit.tv/mbw and all of the above podcast apps.
Thanks for being here. Now you get back to work because- oh, by the way, stay
tuned. Steve Gibson will talk about iOS security. Next. But if you can’t join
us for that, back to work because break time is over!