MacBreak Weekly 413 (Transcripts)

Leo Laporte: It’s time for MacBreak Weekly the new Mac Books are here, and well if you’re new Mac Books maybe even a new Mac Mini, we’ll talk about that, security issues with iOS, Shaw, why you don’t need to worry, couple of Apple acquisitions with some new directions. It’s all for Apple and it’s all coming up next. MacBreak Weekly, stay here.

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Leo: This is MacBreak Weekly, Episode 413 recorded July 29^th 2014

The Font Thickens

MacBreak Weekly is brought to you by Personal Capital. With Personal Capital with all your money in one place, get a clear view of everything you own, best of all it’s free. To sign up visit PersonalCapital(dot)com(slash)macbreak. It’s time for MacBreak Weekly the show that covers Apple and all the Apple stuff and there’s a lot of stuff to talk about.

Let’s start right off the bat with Mr. Alex Lindsay in studio with us, good to see you once again.

Alex Lindsay: Good to be here.

Leo: Taking yourself off the road for a little bit.

Alex: Just for today.

Leo: Good to have you, Rene Ritchie too, to his right, hi Rene….. Good to see you.

Rene Ritchie: Hi Leo, good to see you, how are you?

Leo: imore(dot)com, feeling great.

Rene: Andy was talking about opportunity, I just realized that if had gone to Das Fledermaus as a child he would be batman today.

Leo: What would he be?

Rene: He would be batman today. He would be Batman.

Leo: Was that Das Fledermaus you were seeing with his parents.

Rene: It was one of the more recent…..it was the Mask of Zorro for a long time and in a more recent movie it was Fleidermouse.

Leo: But in the original DC number one what was it?

Rene:……. the Mask of Zorro.

Leo:……..the Mask of Zorro…… That’s Andy Ihnatko who would know this well. (panelists laughing in studio)

Andy Ihnatko: Hello, also my mother didn’t wear pearls. (Leo laughing) so they couldn’t have that beautiful shot of the pearls slipping from her, bouncing from alongside her……There’s a lot reasons why I couldn’t be batman and, that’s probably the top two. I got the brains, I got the physique, I’ve got the money God knows…..

Leo: Stately Ihnatko manner he’s joining us. Hey, this is……. The…..Yosemite is here……I mean Yosemite……Yosemite’s here the public beta…….(cross talk)

Rene: It’s all damnation.

Leo: They said a million people, have they run out if you went to there right now, if you went to the Yosemite Beta page could you get a code? I think you could.

Andy: I don’t know………. I reminded myself that I signed up for the beta via iOS 8,  I think I elected to sign up for Yosemite but I found out when it was going to be shipping about a day before I signed up I got the code so…..

Leo: But this is what we can talk about because this is not the 99 dollar developer preview this is a public beta. Rene, you be my lawyer here is it alright just for us to talk about it?

Rene: You can talk about all of it, the NDA……because you’re all so different here, you’re not supposed to review it or do screen shots because the interface can change, they don’t want to confuse anybody.

Leo: Oh.

Rene: But this year you could talk about anything from the day of the WWDC,……..

Leo: And, I think I dodged the bullet because we’re going to put it on this computer and use it and everybody can see it. I shouldn’t do that you’re saying?

Rene: I mean they never prosecuted therefore I believe…..

Leo: Right, right, you know I would like to stay on Apple’s good side that way I’ll get the invitations to all the big events.

Andy: Yes.

Leo: You know the problem is that I’m not using iOS 8 a lot of the features of Yosemite are not good continuity especially doesn’t requires iOS 8. So, all I see is Health-Vatica which is pretty……

Rene:(laughing) annoying your desk top.

Leo: Annoy Health-Vatica desk top. There were some rumors when we first saw this at WWDC this wasn’t going to be the final they were doing the special font, I guess that’s the case.

Rene: They made a special font years ago, so they had a custom Apple font designed and they have never deployed it. And….. I still do not why, maybe they’re still not ready yet, but as far as I know the Apple sans font or whatever has been ready for a while.

Leo: Oh the Chicago, the original font for the original Macintosh was designed for that screen for that display to be more legible. Now, presumably Yosemite’s design mostly for retinas displays in fact there’s  been one complaint from some people, it does not look as good on non-retina displays as……have any of you found that to be the case.

Rene: I’ve already run it on non-retina.

Leo:……and it looks okay.

Rene:……yes.

Andy: I actually have it on my old generation Mac Book here, because I don’t want to trust a working computer on it. And, yes……I don’t know yet whether it’s different or it’s not as good on non retina. I will say that it does look a little bit closer, like a thin letters are a little bit closer together. It’s not so much that I would call it a ding, but I would probably go back to the older one if I could.

Leo: One thing I saw, you have to shoot a close up shot of the screen to see this, is the lower case ‘e’ on non-retina displays it seems joined. It seems more like an ‘o’ with a thing across it.

Andy: It….it…..it’s not illegible it’s just that it’s non-complicated they’re non retina.

Rene: I believe they adjusted the font so that it would take up the same space as the old system font instead of the new one. Any existing dialogue didn’t look crazy until people update it.

Leo: May be they saw the moves…….may be Joni Ives saw the  movie Helvetica Galaxy site, let’s do everything in Helvetica …… That’s a good movie by the way.

Rene: Yes.

Alex: That was a great movie.

Rene: The sequel Objectify is amazing as well.

Leo: There’s a sequel (Leo bursting out with laughter)

Rene: It’s the same unit.

Alex:……Objectify……

Leo: Helvetica Two the font.

Rene: ……Helvetica waif.

Alex: Wrath of the Serra font.

Leo: (Making loud noises)Noooooo

Andy: We didn’t raise you this way, young man.

Leo: If anybody has had problems with installing it I did…….Apple really did when you first install it…..’make sure you use time-machine, make sure you back it up’ and of course everywhere they say don’t put on a production machine back up. I didn’t do any of that……I didn’t back it up……I put it right on my main Mac Pro because I have such faith in Apple that you know, font…..no problems……we…

Alex: We have noticed a couple of audio issues with audio conferences out there with the new build so……..

Leo:…..any particular program or

Alex: Hangouts.

Leo: Hangouts.

Alex: We don’t know if it’s a Skype I think.

Leo: Hangouts use……..

Alex: Hangouts use Skype does its own program as well……

Leo: Hangouts use videos, but Skype uses its own codex videos.

Rene: Final Cut wouldn’t work at all.

Leo: Final Cut wouldn’t work at all.

Rene: Yes now it works, but the original beta and several apps…Apple apps just wouldn’t have……

Leo: Yes I remember that but everything seems to be fine now………the only thing I found was I use open PGP to do digital signing and it disables that plug-in in mail, which was nice it’s because it actually said,’hey it’s not going to work, so we’ll disable it,’ but everything else has worked. (cross talk)

Alex: May be we should ask this randomly to the audience here. May be we should ask randomly.

Leo: That’s not going to be an issue.

Andy: Another problem that people should be aware of is that a lot of developers who have already put out the word that said,’ look if you give us the bug report that involves ten, ten, we are not going to treat it as seriously as a bug report for ten nine.  We are appreciative of bug testing but we are not obligated to fix something that might fix itself in the next version of the beta.’

Rene: But, although when you completely…….(interrupted by Leo)

Leo: So, when you install it, it installs a new tool which looks like an email tool but it’s there………what is it a feedback tool?

Rene: Bug reporter.

Leo: Bug reporter, so they are saying give us information.

Andy: That’s again Apple. (cross talk) Third party developers, I have heard from a bunch of them that are saying that look that we are……if you say that our program crashes in ten(point)ten then that to us is not as big a problem as a crash that happens at ten(point)nine so…..We are going to put that into our developer chain and we might address that later on…….

Leo: That’s why it’s the bugs again.

Andy: That’s why a lot of people are misunderstanding what a public beta is. Oh I get this cool new operating system months before everybody else, it means no you get something that’s not quite finished yet.

Leo: Yes…..

Andy:………even if it runs fine for the first two or three weeks something might happen a week after that and the day that critical admission tool fails for a stupid then you can’t get tech support for it. Yes, that’s not a good thing.

Leo: Were the differences between the last developer preview and this public beta?

Rene: Their build numbers are different.

Leo: So, there are some differences.

Rene: Yes.

Leo: I would have to say it feels like a finished operating system to me. I have it.

Rene: That’s the danger that Andy mentioned that we had a lot of people that just installed thinking that it was an early program that they were getting in the final version and that’s never was the case. Some people have…….I have had absolutely no problems, it’s been fantastic for me but I know people really, really smart technical people had to uninstall almost immediately because it was just not workable for them as a machine. I’ve had versions of iOS but not the current one of iOS with a phone that just didn’t work as a phone any more. So, you are telling Apple that you are no longer, you’re giving Apple-care up and you’re giving Apple stores up and you’re going into a beta program and please most of be classy if an app doesn’t work do not go to the app store, and give them a horrible review because they are not even allowed in updating those apps yet.

Leo: Stay classy, the classy beta testers. On the other…… so…..very, very, very appropriate comments Rene, but I installed and I still don’t like it.

Rene: If they fit it’s awesome.

Alex: I think it also depends on how and what industry your computer runs smoothly and how hard your pushing.

Leo: And, we should say that you don’t gain that much either on the other side of it, right it’s just different looking right obviously?

Alex: It’s different, it’s different we have like two computers on Yosemite, two computers on Mavericks and everything still on ten eighty……

Leo: You’re in a hard-core production environment.

Alex: Yes, we can’t afford it to have all that, because it’s not just all for us, we’re integrating with so much other hard-ware that we can’t, you know not afford to know how it’s going to interact……and so and so forth.

Leo: Oh yes……..

Alex: When you think about upgrading in beta testing stuff,  you do have a machine that you’re willing to do that on, it’s great because you know what’s happening next. But, definitely know that you could lose lots of things.

Leo: By the way our editors are still using tiger, you we don’t…..

Rene: Get an external drive and boot from that.

Leo: By the way I was going to do that till I lost my copy. It’s very easy to take the installer……the problem is that it has previous versions of OS ten when you download it….and…….. immediately make a copy before you complete the installation process so that you have a copy, because as soon as it’s finished it’s installation, it erases it to save space, it’s five gigs plus.

So, if you want a copy do that and then you can make a bootable USB key or bootable external drive, that’ll allow you to run Yosemite whenever you feel like. That’s probably the best way to do it,…….

Alex:…….great way to do it.

Leo: or make a partition would be another way to do it.

Andy: This is also another good time as always is recommend Super Duper which is the best just image disk giving bootable back up of this drive as quickly and easily as possible, because the easiest way to go from, ‘I wish I hadn’t done that thing to my system to have putting your system back is still the free version of Super Duper.’ It’s free for download, for just click this button and back everything up so for 30-40 dollars for the cool stuff like scheduling and, selecting back-ups and stuff like that but again the Time Machine and if you think that the Time Machine is going to help you here, it won’t help you…… but it won’t put you back to as quickly back as to where you were as would Super Duper would.

Leo: Yes, bootable disc is great, bootable recovery is great. Curtis wants to know if we can all agree the new Finder is too happy? (Rene laughing) It is the new finder icon and he’s very happy. Is that…..we agree…..no?

Rene: He deserves to be happy, Leo.

Leo: He should be happy, why shouldn’t he be happy?

Alex: Why shouldn’t he be happy……it’s California for……

Andy: If it’s past four hours you should definitely call Dr I we’ll agree with that.

Leo: (Leo laughing) I am sorry that was Brian Elliot who said that and Curtis B wanted to know if it would work on a virtual machine if you were to  use Parallels or Fusion……so far Fusion with it….. there see how happy he is. That’s a much broader smile.

Alex: Softer, happier……

Rene: Behind the degrees actually……

Leo: I actually like the new better.

Alex: Yes, I like the new one.

Andy: I think…..that……the…… that extending the curve beyond the square added a bit of flair that I like.

Leo: Now, it looks like it’s a lightning bolt, it’s about to strike.

Andy: Yes….but….I now don’t know what I don’t like, it reads like a happy face on a square.

Leo: It’s true it does.

Andy: But it do….has something with a little bit more style I can’t believe we’re reviewing an icon. (Panelists laughing)

Rene: It’s the blue beautiful enough Andy…….it’s the blue beautiful.

Andy: Of course I hate to jump on that bandwagon but after this icon thing…..I…….I don’t think that they can turn back from this.

Chad: I looked at this for about three years before I realized that it was a face.

Leo: Whaaaat?

Chad: I had no idea that it was a face.

Leo: Two faces and a face. It’s actually three faces total.

Chad: Very Picasso.

Leo: Left face, right face and center face.

Chad: I was like, why is this the symbol for……

Leo: ……what did you think it was…….a Chinese letter?

Chad: It was Explorer right, but I was like why is this symbol for Explorer, it must be like some technical specification.

Leo:….it’s actually in Chinese is……. is that your dog? (cross talk). People have to check this stuff……tattoos or icons……you’ve really got to check.

Rene: Yes.

Leo: I think so……let’s show that again……it is less flat more rounded……it’s bezel beveled……

Rene: Yes.

Chad: There’s more gradience.

Leo: It’s not…….this is not the flatter…..lest everyone was saying……this is more 3D…….am I wrong? (Cross talk)

Andy: Also the rounded corners on the line……I don’t know……the line separating the front face from the back face…….I don’t know…..

Leo: It’s not drop shadow three…..

Andy: It looks creamy and with so much of my reaction to this new operating system (Leo bursting with laughter), these new UIs I have to separate that this isn’t like the thing I have been using for the past ten years from I objectively don’t like it. I’m reacting negatively but…..uhhhhh…..okay we’ll see how it works.

Alex: I just want to make that our listeners are clear, nowhere else in the world are you going to hear a long conversation about an icon. It’s for Apple…..it’s huge….if you’re go on the internet……you’re not going to see this kind of stuff. (cross talk)

Andy: I read a pod somewhere where they were saying only Apple puts this kind of craftsman ship, the umami of user interface signs, now why is it necessary for them to trim the lines, well because of now it is a view portal into the cognitive disruption…….

Leo: I’m just going to say Steve Jobs would never have said yes to that……’OH my God,’…….Tim Keller wants to know if he can run it on his hacking tosh…….what are you…..nuts….

Rene: Try it……I would be willing to hacking-tosh it.

Andy: If it works…..yes….let us know.

Leo: Good Luck.

Andy: You’ve got to get that dialer spider to do something. It’s not going to be Linux, it might as be MAC OS ten point five.

Leo: I like….the new…….I was not a big fan of notifications in OS ten, but now with Yosemite I kind of like the notification bar, it gives you weather, it gives you lock faces…..

Rene:…….. widgets.

Leo: It’s really basically to replace the dash board system in a way….yes. I mean they still have dash board widgets but a lot of that functionality and you can add stuff, you can add extensions or whatever. What do they call those?

Rene: Those are today view extensions.

Leo: Today view extensions.

Rene: Yes, they’re widgets and they are different a thing and they are more prevalent in iOS and OS ten too, and instead of going to s separate screen you can now pull that notification center to any screen that you’re already on.

Leo: Ahhhhh

Rene:…..that’s more convenient.

Leo: I have a three inch screen set ups….(Rene nodding) so in my case…..it is a little……one thing that’s changed very slight is that when you’re…..when the screen is not active the menu bar goes un-high-lighted, it goes dark.

Rene: Yes.

Leo:…..and it’s possible to have all three screens with dark menu bars which makes it a little weird because you can’t see it very well. I tried for a while the dark…..you do now have a new option the dark background menu bar but the problem is that none of the menu bar items comes from any of the third party developers and they all know about that so everything just disappears.

Rene:…..and the dock runs away from the reel.

Leo:……the dock actually runs away…….

Rene: Oh, well the dock can move anywhere depending which monitor you’re using…..but

Leo:…..sometimes the dock sits…….

Rene: Once in a while it seems confused and, it moves to the monitor that I’m not on.

Leo: That maybe a bug that they’re going to fix.

Rene:…yes….

Leo:…..we are multi-users…….I would actually guess probably more Mac users have multiple monitors than any other operating system. That seems to be very…..anybody that’s using Mac software……

Alex: You get used to it……2….3….

Leo: Yes……. I have ……I’m a glutton! A 31 inch 4K display two 27 inch cinemas displays.

Rene: But you’re running your traffic control for Petaluma?

Leo: I am…… I am…..flight 73 ……heavy…….come on in…….

Andy: This kind of thing gives you an illusion that you’re out-side. (Rene laughing) you know without any of the hassle of being out there with people.

Rene:…..and a tan.

Leo: Yes, yes it is in fact that’s, I have windows behind it but I can’t see them and that’s just how I like it. The outside world is scary. What else the notification center is different…….again a lot of the stuff that they talked….  They touted on WWDC techniques needs iOS 8 as……

Rene: You can actually lead and tape group conversations, leave group conversations, label group conversations, share stuff with groups.

Leo: There’s a….there’s a….on the 9 to 5 mac there’s a little forums thread with a….in fact they all…..call it…..oh……in fact it’s Mac Rumor………

Rene: Yes…..

Leo:……it’s all the little things and, you know it is little things…..iOS is part of a boot screen, finder icon adorable, flatter system, new fonts, new login screens, green back app, photo booth was gone but now it’s back, Bing replaced Google as spotlight. I mean there’s a lot of little things but most of them (interrupted by Rene)

Rene: Spotlight’s is nice.

Leo: I’ve been using spotlight, so overall commands base just like with quick silver, where I used to control space…..command space which was still the spotlight search……it now pulls up a center thing which you can put anything in….just looks over…..I like it.

Andy: It’s not necessarily a big departure from the feature that we already have and in 10.9 before, but I’m surprised at how much it reminded me of Siri. Now basically…you see…..you hit a hot key and then this thing takes over your screen that, ‘I acknowledge that right now I’m going to do nothing but listen to what you tell me to do right now,’ it seemed very much like a Siri S interface, but of course it has nothing to do with Siri right now but it does make me thing that perhaps we’re going to take a look at that mechanism when they do finally put that feature in sometime later on.

Leo: Calculator app redesigned.

Rene: Hi-fi.

Andy: Did the chess get a make-over?

Leo: That’s actually true…..they had actually redesigned the calculator apps since the very first version of 0S 10.

Rene: Yes.

Leo: I doubt the engine’s different, they said, ’just go in there,’

Alex: …….just turn on that app……

Leo: Spend the morning and change the CSS will you?

Alex: It turns out that the add calculation hasn’t changed for……

Leo: Adds calculation 1 plus 1 is still 2, we’re happy about that.

Alex: Yes, yes.

Leo: Although, according to the movie Lucy One plus one does not equal two.

Rene: Did you see Lucy, Leo?

Leo: I did, I liked it. I’m the only person who did 49…….

Rene: I thought it was a lot of fun.

Leo: I loved it.

Rene: I am really willing to do all that stuff.

Leo: In Scarlett Johansson kick some arse.

Rene: I was sad that it wasn’t a Black Widow movie but it was fun for what it was.

Leo: It was kind of likeable the Black Widow movie and at the end, this isn’t a spoiler, it is a spoiler……don’t listen……..

Alex: Don’t do spoilers…….then it’s first speak.

Leo: The whole things ends with a USB key the thumb drive.

Rene: Yes so now our future depends on a person that knows the right way to stand off a movie. (Leo laughing)

Alex:……that was like wasn’t that the end of….what was the……

Leo: It turns out that if you a hundred percent intelligence you become a thumb drive. I think I’ve spoiled it for you.

Alex: Yes.

Leo: That spoils it for you……have you seen it?

Alex: No, I haven’t seen it.

Leo: You’ll like the special effects.

Alex: Okay.

Rene: If it was a lighting drive, Alex……

Alex: Wasn’t it like Independence Day when they got up there, they were able to upload a virus into the main system that I was telling you. Man, it was great….. the code is the same…..

Leo: Thank-god for USB…….

Andy: Scarlet Johansson Jeff Gold bloom, which one do you want to look at for ninety three minutes?

Leo: I like Jeff Gold bloom I wouldn’t mind looking at him for ninety three minutes.

Andy: What about hearing him play piano? (cross-talk)

Leo: He plays piano?

Andy: Yes, as a matter of fact he’s a Jazz Date somewhere in the LA are where they keep like Woody Allen…….

Leo: Woody Allen……oh that’s great.

Andy: Yes.

Leo: iTunes has been updated….oooooh,

Alex: Yes….

Leo:…….but it’s all cosmetics……

Alex: Yes….

Leo: There’s a new font book icon(panelists laughing). Mail now says hello from California, instead of Hello from Cupertino California. What could that mean?

Rene: And Mail has extensions now, this thing is like mark up to mail.

Leo: That’s good because one hopes that the way open PGP will fix this because the compatibilities have now become extensions, that’s be good.

Andy: Yes, well it’s part of the over all style change for the entire operating system from where now on if there’s a feature that you want why would you buy another app to make that happen, just buy a little tool that makes it happen in the built in apps.

Leo: Yes….

Andy:…….that’s another reason why this isn’t going to be a great revolutionary thing for people to switch to beta, because so much of what’s going to make Yosemite great will come on the release day when you see all of these third party apps and how well they work together.

Leo: At this point it’s not that much different frankly inside…..

Andy: It’s an empty call without an amusement park inside of it.

Rene: It’s a shaven haircut.

Leo: Did they get rid of the green felt and the game center?

Rene: Yes…..

Leo: (Gasps for breathe)

Rene: Your great green felt nightmare is over Leo. (Leo laughing his head off) Some-one in Cupertino has an apartment full of green felt now.

Leo: We could use it for green screen, we could just…….send it over here.

Alex: Yes…..

Leo: Will cover everything in green felt, the whole studio could be green.

Alex: I’ve been thinking about doing that, and when you want to walk in and sneak up on people just wear a green suit.

Leo: That would be great. Right, camouflage. All right anything else to say about Yosemite…….you are right to caution people and I will reiterate that Rene……don’t do it unless you can……do it on a machine you can afford to lose, don’t complain in the Apple store if your favorite third party app doesn’t work, of course it doesn’t….you’re……this is a preview this is not a free upgrade right now or a free program this is a preview.

Rene: And, we have an article on how to downgrade to Mavericks if you want to…..

Leo: You can……

Rene:…..if you go woof Leo, yes you can……

Leo:….without losing everything.

Rene: It’s not…..it depends……there is some variations……some people can just boot it to recovery partition and, Mavericks is still there and they can read Mavericks, some people need to do the internet boot and have to re-load down Mavericks and yes do it that way if that’s the case.

Leo: And, then Yosemite will be……will be…..the old……previous system.

Rene: Yes…… you just paint over it.

Leo: Okay (Leo laughing) all right more to come. The Beats acquisition we’re one step closer,

Rene:……and the beat goes on….(singing)

Leo:…..and the beat goes on…… But first a words from Persona Capital. They  guy who started Personal Capital was Bill Harris, was a guest on Triangulation two years ago, I mentioned this before. Former president of Intuit and PayPal he really knows money and I think he saw an opportunity here to help understand their money situation and, better. But, unlike some other programs that do the same thing this is with an eye to planning for the future. He calls it wealth management, I think that’s a very good way to describe it.

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Beats, is one step closer, Europe has now approved of the Apple take-over of the three billion take-over of Beats, however Bows is suing Beats saying, ’Hey we invented noise reduction head-phones, you can’t, you can’t make them.’

Rene: Hey, you have real money now.

Leo: Yes (laughing) yes….let’s get some of that Apple money.

Alex: I was waiting till you were on the hook before we sue you.

Leo: Apple’s never made noise cancelling head-phones, is that something that Apple wants to do? (short pause then panelists start talking all at once)

It was very quiet at first…..

Alex: Yes, exactly we were……

Rene: …..make all the things.

Alex: I don’t……I haven’t really found some……..I’m going to try some noise cancelling head-phones from…..a couple of folks from the company have said that they’re really good.

Leo: No…..

Alex: It’s worth a shot…….

Leo: You and I do the same thing, we edit modes deep in our ears and that shuts out all sound, we hear the music clean and pure. The problem with noise cancelling is that it’s got a little microphone inside and it’s essentially flipping and it’s inverting the wave form so it mixes the jet engine sound……

Alex:…….inverts……

Leo:……cancels it out, doesn’t do a perfect job, it gives you a very odd effect when you put it on.

Alex: That’s been my thing…….that’s been my thing.

Leo:…..and….I… I think it’s perfect……(cross talk) you also have to charge it up.

Alex: I am going to trust…….right…..I am going to try the little Bows in (indicating to ear) now has in ear versions……..that……I am going to give it  a shot, let people know what I think……I have not liked the sound of this……I’ve always found that…..found that I prefer…….I only use in ear because I don’t like the pack over my ears…….usually I am just stingy about my space.

Leo: Firstly…..Stephen in our chat-room has a good case, he’s a helicopter pilot.

Alex: Right……

Leo: It’s true when you get into a helicopter you put on those headphones, noise cancelling will help a lot. It works best with a certain kind of continuous band.

Alex: But I love noise cancelling when I’m driving but I…….

Leo:……and so for you hello pilot, you wouldn’t want to put them inside your ears anything then you could conk out and then you would go (Makes a funny expression) so when you’re playing your Flight to the Valkyrie…..ta…..ta…ta…..you still want to hear a little ambience sound.

Andy: You want to hear your passengers screaming, because you might…..

Leo: Yes…….(Leo screaming) it was fun we did a helicopter……I’ve never done this, never been in a helicopter and Lisa who is a dare-devil convinced me to do one in Hawaii and we flew over the island of Maui……

Rene: Like Magnum P.I.

Leo:……that’s the funny thing, the first song is the Magnum P.I. theme, so it lifts up and it’s going in……intentionally flies like this…….da….da….da…da….it’s the Magnum P.I. theme.

Alex: That’s awesome…….

Leo: And, I thought, wow……this is weird.

Alex: Well, you know that’s why every one wants to go……..

Leo: and then he says (in a heavy voice) we really love to have Magnum P.I. here on the island of Maui and on your left is……volcano and then there’s pop music going on all the time but he times it so like when they fly through rain cloud it’s like actually, (singing),’listen to the rhythm….’

Alex: He’s got a little random selector…….

Leo: No, no…..it’s on an iPod, he’s got a little iPod and they do the same play every day 8 times a day, so they know exactly what they’re going to do. It all times out.

Andy: That shows off another advantage of the silicone-in-ear solutions because as often as I use them to listen to music on aero-planes I also use them simply because I just don’t want to listen to that argument that’s happening to Rose further……

Leo: Noise cancellation, it doesn’t work with that. You still need…..

Andy: This is when there’s still music coming through them, they’re simply ear-plugs. There have been times when I’ve been caught when I didn’t know that I was going to be at a movie that was going to be this loud. When I saw the Superman movie for which I came in late I was like three aisles……I don’t know whether it was the Superman movie or…..or……or the Pacific Rim movie, whatever I was so close to the iMax speakers that I had to just like go into my bag, root through them, find my ear-plugs and put them in just for protection. And……and on top of the idea that I’m not the person who can be trusted to keep those note powered headphones charged in every time I want them. And, like you Alex, I don’t like having a big bulky thing in my bag just because over a week-long trip I might use them for 4 hours during the 140 hours of being out there.

Leo: Let’s do the automotive flight simulator…….

Alex: Yes, I have a couple of these, just because I lose them. Well….wash them but the……the…..

Leo:…….that’s the negative……

Alex:……but I do not…..just in case you’re wondering the automatives do not survive a cycle of the wash and couple have gone down that way. But, I …..I…put them in I don’t even plug them in half the time when I’m in an aero-plane I just you know I’m not ready to listen to anything, I may not be set up for anything I may just use ear plugs and they’re pretty good.

Leo: I shot a little video this is from the….the helicopter ride……(showing an old Magnum video) that helicopter’s really low in there.

Rene: It was like right over there.

Alex: It was in the house or outside.

Leo: (In a deep voice) We are here in Magnum P.I. Hawaii and we want to welcome you aboard………

Andy: Actually you can’t be bothered on the update for a helicopter for the new Hawaii Five O show so we’re going to use the same dude that we have been using for the past five years.

Leo: I thought Hawaii Five O maybe but, anyway……other acquisitions Apple’s……Apple’s getting……got something going on. I feel like there is there’s something we can read into the tea leaves of these acquisitions so you’ve got Beats, Swell which is a radio app they got it cheap for thirty million dollars….uhhhh thirty million seems like nothing nowadays.

Alex: That was a rounding error compared to Beats.

Leo: It’s a hundredth of what Beats cost…..thirty million nothing…..uhhhh….pocket change and a startup called Book Lamp. We don’t know how much they paid for Book Lamp but I’m guessing it wasn’t thirty million even. They say higher than ten million lower than fifteen. So, actually Book Lamp was kind of interesting because it was more like Pandora than anything because it was a Geno project. So, they would look at books by content and so then their visualization is huge……here’s Fifty Shades of Grey……if you’re looking for the good parts of Fifty Shades of Grey. This is how much erotica and I guess where the stars is the place that you should book mark it.

Andy: Yes.

Leo: But in the meanwhile Letters to Penthouse 28 (Leo laughing)

Andy: It’s a lot like Amazon’s x-ray service which is really…..….which is really useful for actual Kindle branded……

Leo: I love Kindle branded x-ray.

Andy: I love it too there are times when like I’ve finished a really great five hundred six hundred page book and there are times and I’m on a plane and it’s an hour twenty minute flight I don’t want read the entire thing but I really want to read…….I remember that really great scene with this character and boy it’ll you exactly where to go to see the thing that you want. It’ll tell you on a longer book like………I never managed to make it through American Gods, it’s like one dose all the way through…….it’s always I’ll read for a day or two and then put it away for a week and then a day or two later but you know in those gaps you  miss all the fine points and x-ray will tell you, okay if you want to know more about this character, here’s what this character’s all about and here’s where he or she appear in the rest of the book. So, if they want to enhance iBooks and make it look a bit more…..look for opportunities for greatness and beguilement that’s certainly a great way to do it.

Leo: So, Aaron Stanton who is the guy behind Book Lamp had founded a previous website Can Google Hear Me?

Rene: (Whispering and laughing) Leo, can you hear me?

Leo:……I guess was site he wanted Google to hear his idea so he created this site Can Google Hear Me and that was Book Lamp. Google apparently didn’t but Apple did, so there. So, it’s interesting what Apple’s putting together here doesn’t sounds like an interesting content plate. Swell kind of makes sense as a building out Apple radio with talk, yes…..

Andy: I mean you do…..is if……one of Apple’s problems right now is that a lot of their……some of their tenfold features are now common place. There was time like when iTunes was a really, really big deal, now there are a million different music library managers on your device and, now people are not so interested in actually manipulating direct media they just want content to come in.

So, if you have a device…….they don’t want the iPad to be a generic book reader that’ll run a number of book reading apps they want to make sure iBooks is the place you want to go for reading your book, because that experience is going to be better than any other Google Play Book reader or even a Kindle reader’s going to be. And, if they can do that by adding features that’s great. Similarly, if they can……they……they really kicked of all the podcasting with that really great podcasting library, but now the Mac and the iOS devices are just other devices that do podcasts. So, if they simply roll that in to the standard music player and say we will simply just tell us what you want and, we will make sure that you….you ’ll hear the podcast you like not just by name and title but by simply saying that I like podcasts of this title so that when you skip past things that you don’t like after you’ve listened to a ten to fifteen minute or an hour long show it learns that he doesn’t like that. So, I’m a little bit (interrupted by Leo)

Leo: Stitcher does that there are programs that do that, Slacker I think might do that……there are programs that do that.

Andy: I have never seen that work very well. (Cross talk)

Leo: Yes, but recommendations does suck right.

Andy: Yes and it’s kind of interesting if they were too…..with Pandora you’ve never heard of this band, you’ve heard of this album before but it’s been presented to you and you like and you’re thumbs up about it but, did you really form a connection…….like an audience connection through that material.

So, I’m wondering if they really do see in creating a talk radio Pandora a talk radio thing. I’ll be very, very pleased when like Answer Me This comes on, but right now I’m such a fan of Answer Me This that I, it’s top……..my pod-catcher is told to

Whenever a new episode comes out put that at the very top of the very next playlist. I know when they’re supposed to drop on a certain day but they don’t. I am wondering whether that’ll change the relationship between the audience and the podcast stop being this rabid fan of this can’t miss podcast. And, it simply becomes you turn on this…….you press this one button and you let Apple do the steering for you and, you’re happy if it comes on, if it doesn’t come on maybe you don’t even notice because there’s so much else coming out there.

Alex: One of the things…..things that I think that we haven’t seen is that we can’t really produce radio you know because either we all have to talk or all music. So with Spotify, Pandora’s all music and, we’re all talk. You know there’s the opportunity for a company like Apple to or Google…….

Leo:…..to mix Google in between the podcasts.

Alex: Well what if you could create a radio show, like a real radio show, if you could……I’m going to say I’m going to talk through here and then I’m going to play this song, now I’m not playing the song in the stream, I am activating the song or building a playlist for you. (Cross Talk)

Leo: That’s not enough, have you played with the MPR One which just came out yesterday. This is MPR’s app that out of the box has human curated recommendations then watches you to approve it. (Cross talk)

Alex: I just don’t like the computer soft-ware, it sucks. So, the thing is that the idea is that I want……I want to hear………… I do want to be human curated and I want to subscribe to, I want to have some dude that I really trust, so the idea…….

Leo: That’s a DJ.

Alex: A DJ and the thing is that DJs could you know, if you figure this part out where you can actually have a real radio show you know that’s a mixture of music and you a new morning show you could get a mixture where it could be live and I fire a song but the song’s been fired by the application which is not breaking any of the rules……. Ummm….. then you get into this whole thing that now you’re really taking radio out of the picture because now you’re able to do all the things that you would normally do without breaking any copyrights.

Leo: I thought that we all do that a little bit by you know you listen to a little bit of music and then you fire up a mono and then you listen to some stories then  you fire up……

Alex: You do.  I want to have radio, I want to have the radio experience without the…..the….. tuner.

Leo:  You want it all. Looks like there’s an opportunity out there for us you know somewhere.

Alex: Yes.

Leo: This is the Book Lamps team, they look like they’re straight out of Silicon Valley from the HBO show.

Rene: Which kept confusing me is that Pandora is the only US……..so when I woke up and saw these headlines I thought Apple was doing was streaming books and, streaming podcasts.

Leo: Oh, yes, oh yes…..

Rene:……..and I didn’t even think about the recommendation engine I never use it. So, that mental switch for me took a while to fall.

Leo: So, also to Apple’s first acquisition from Idaho. (Panelists laughing)

Rene: Do we know that Leo?

Leo: According to Tech Crunch and I think that they’re thoughts seem pretty clear to me……..

Alex: Thirty million dollars is a lot of money in Idaho I think.

Leo: I know.

Alex: Much more than in California.

Leo: I feel like it’s nice to see Apple focusing a little bit on content you know better content.

Alex: They should focus a lot on content.

Leo: There’s an opportunity there.

Rene: That’s if they do it though, charm has a lot to do with it.

Leo: They often take a bite at stuff and they often take it off the market. Even Siri was……more……..was better before Apple got it I think. Maybe well you could argue that one.

Rene: It was better in some ways now it’s better in other ways.

Andy: It does underscore that Apple’s going to have to do more than come with really cool phones and really cool devices, they really have to go back to what they learnt about ten years ago where…….. when…….before the iPhone days when they had this wonderful system that if you basically bought the golden key that let you into Apple Land, you found out the gee all the devices that I have, have……. worked great in Apple Land and I don’t have to……..my computer stays running and I don’t have viruses and…..all……I want to stay in Apple Land my entire life and, now that other companies have got almost as good at creating devices, a lot of companies have become much better equipping services they’re still a bunch of soft-ware suites out there for which Apple just doesn’t have an answer to and they’re multi-platform or they’re exclusive  to Windows. They really need to……they’re doing a great job of building up this world where come back to Apple Land, where you don’t…..don’t buy a third party podcast app, don’t let other people kill your curation, we will handle curation for you and it’ll be awesome. Give us a try, you can leave whenever you want but, I don’t think that you’ll want to go because we’re going create such a great role for you.

Leo: I have completely flirted with the idea of making Twit more…..remember we did food shows and we did other stuff. And, what I found is that people who come here want to know what they’re going to get and so they’re kind of wanted. The stuff that goes best for us is the stuff that goes right down the middle of our content. You know technology news and, help and, information.

And, so it needs for some-one like Apple …….it’s got to be this higher kind of level, kind of meta-curation I don’t think…….when people want a channel they want…..they want to know what that channel’s going to do to them don’t you think?

Alex: I think a lot of people like to watch TNT and all there’s a lot of things……

Leo:……yes because it’s all mixed up I think.

Alex: I think it all depends on how……

Leo:…..and that used to be because you didn’t have much choice when you turn on a channel. But now you get……you have the choice to control with your DVR people don’t just turn on TNT and let it sit there?

Alex: But, I think though the opportunity there is looking at people that overlap a certain amount that though…..I mean (unfinished sentence)

Leo: But, I always thought we’ll do the geek experience. Geeks like comic books and they like this and that and it’s broad……and it didn’t work. At least as far as our…….

Alex: Yes……..

Andy: But…..but now we’re not talking about tuning into one broadcast……. podcast number and keeping the dial there, we’re talking about every single podcast that there is will be streaming through this one app. And, whenever you don’t like something you simply say, ‘thumbs down’ and after about a week it’s going to probably start to getting really good at finding stuff that you like. And, this is one of the off-shoots of the……all of these people that are out there, out of very much part time basis on a very much for not-for-profit basis just producing one good podcast every now and, then if there’s hundred thousand of these people putting on shows, there’s a good chance that one person going to find a truffle every now and, then.

You think about how well how this solves a certain problem where if you meet me and we’re having lunch and, you ask me what kind of podcast do I want to enthuse about, I will be extremely enthusiastic about 5, or 6 or 7 of them. But what if you don’t meet a person, what if you don’t………it’s kind…….it’s kind…… of a complicated way to discover great new shows…….

Leo: Yes…..

Andy: ……. most people are going to think that if the Bugle is really good, political satire but maybe there are ten political satire shows that are almost as good that once every two weeks if it comes out in rotation it’s going to be it’s going to serve that role. So, it’s good for discovery but again I wonder that there are a lot of people that like Five by Five podcast, that like Twit podcast, that like Incomparable podcast, because they agree with you and, people……

Leo: Right…… I feel like it’s up to them though to curate it rather than me, you know.

Andy: Right, so for a lot of people it might be frustrating they don’t listen to  podcasts not because they don’t like them but because it’s so hard to find those shows that have that consistent week after week after week hit rate.

Leo: Then that’s something Apple can do very well. Apple has released a new Macintoshes but here’s what’s interesting ………..Apple support documents……this is the supportapple(dot)com HT5634. System requirements for boot camp, if you scroll down and thanks to  the chat-room for this to all the different Mac Models and get to the Mac Mini……..wait a minute……lo and, behold there’s a mid-2014 Mac Mini. Have we seen that?

Alex: Nooooo.

Leo: So we know that…… This is mid 2014 right now and Apple had better hurry and release that. Doesn’t seem to spec wise any different from the late 2012 Mac Mini, at least in terms of running Windows but……. That was modified July 28^th, this document, just….. thank-you chat-room for finding that.

The new Mac Books are here, kind of one of those slip stream upgrades. It was a press release, that’s pretty much it. It’s in the store, the prices are pretty much the same.

Rene: It has a tiny Haswell Bump.

Leo: It has a  Haswell Bump, more ramp in the stock than in the 15’’ Mac Book Pro, now 16 gigs ram.

Rene: A hundred bucks of the old classic Mac. (cross talk)

Leo: It’s nice if they had kept that alive, the classic Mac Book Pro which is the last one with the spindle, with the DVD CD player. A hundred bucks less.

Andy: And a spinning hard-drive

Leo: Yes that has a spinning hard drive. So, I think that’s education right or for people for some reason.

Rene: Or for people who have to have an optical……

Leo:……have to have an optical……anything to say about these new Mac Pro’s should I rush out and, get one?

Andy: If you’ve been waiting for one……..if you’ve been waiting for one……..maybe, because this indicates that if you’re expecting a really Titanic update to existing stock, clearly that’s not going to happen. It could simply mean that they’re simply could be running out of the old parts and that it just cheap enough to put the new parts in. It doesn’t answer the question whether Apple’s going to be coming out with 12’’ retina models or 12’’……12’’……12’’ Mac Book Air Retina models. So, if you’re holding out hope for that……..if you could hold your breath for another couple of months it might be worth it, but as always there comes a time when you realize that you could have be benefitting from this great new technology for the past eleven months, instead of waiting, waiting, waiting for something that turned out to be not as good as what you had hoped for.

Leo: Is this because Broadwell……..because Intel’s delayed…… Broadwell..……I mean……I….it almost feels like to me that Apple was waiting for Broadwell.

Andy: Yes.

Rene: You’re absolutely right.

Andy: I agree with that.

Leo: And, then they themselves said, okay we got to do something.

Rene: I mean they would have probably done the Haswell…… they traditionally do the bump then they do the new architecture and then they do the bump a few months later and, then they go to the next generation architecture, it’s just that in this case that next generation architecture slipped till the fall, and now it looks like it’s not going to be till next year. Apple’s……Apple’s probably big enough and buys enough of the exact same parts so that they can get……..delegate those chips first so that they did as the previous generation Mac Book Airs. But, it’s still probably not the position, Apple if they had their supplies would probably want to get that out the faster.

Leo: What if is different about from Broadwell from Haswell?

Rene: I….I…..it’s different enough in terms of graphics and power efficiency in that it allows something like a Retina Mac Book Air to be built. It would not be pretty to be build it on Haswell.

Leo: Right……..is this the new Mac Mini? 2.3 gigahertz Mac Mini i74 gigs memory, terabyte hard-drive……that cannot……..it that it?

Rene: No that’s a press release it’s hard to tell.

Leo: No, it’s that hard to tell. That just shows you with these upgrades you know.

Rene: Well, you’ve got to crack it open and look for the Haswell stamp inside.

Leo: Well, that’s what I want to know ……if it has a Haswell. They don’t have a Haswell, do they?

Rene: No not yet.

Leo: It’s the new 22 millimeter Nano process technology with advanced core micro architecture………that’s what it is.

Rene: The…..Peter Cullen explained this really well, that…..that Mac Mini is based on that same old Mac Book Pro and that DVD drive that Apple hasn’t updated the architecture to the new Mac Book Pro or the architecture, that’s the next big……

Leo: That’s what we’re waiting for………

Rene:………. for the new Mac Mini……..

Leo: That would have the Haswell you know that because of the Haswell part.

Rene: And, maybe on the SSI……the SSD on the PCEIs I mean all of the benefits will come with the new technical architecture.

Leo: That’s what I want. Love that PCIE…….

Rene: Suite rise………

Leo: Yes…….that’s a suite rise…….that’s a good way to describe it. All right so I don’ think if there is a slip stream Mac Mini mid 2014…….I don’t think they there yet in the store. Alex is watching with interest.

Rene: There will be some……..

Leo: There will be some indication.

Alex: Yes.

Andy: They…..they put a press release out again for a hundred price drop on a Mac Pro that they’re hoping that nobody will ever buy. So, there’s no way of sneaking it in and hoping people sort of discover it……

Alex: What do you mean?

Andy:……..I mean the new Mac Mini.

Alex: What I’m hoping and I don’t have a lot hope is the big problem that we have with the Mac Minis is that not that their CPU isn’t powerful enough if they don’t put up a GPU that’s powerful enough, you know for a lot of applications…….

Leo: You would have to buy a Mac Book Pro, you would have to buy the highest Mac Book Pro to have a dedicated GPU. (Cross talk)

I think that’s all you’ll ever get on the mini.

Alex: Really?

Leo: Well, what do you think?

Alex: Well the mini doesn’t have the………

Leo: That’s what I’m saying you’ll always get virus on the mini.

Alex: That’s the next problem.

Rene: That’s the external Thunderbolt GPU is the future.

Leo: Really.

Alex:mmmmm…….that’ll work.

Rene: People talk about it…..it’s fast.

Leo: Yes…..that’s fast enough.

Alex: Yes, Thunderbolt’s fast enough. Actually, I’ll try that.

Andy: Thunderbolt is kind of a gatekeeper sort of technology because it really does seem like there’s people never ever in a million years think about having a certain accessory that works via Thunderbolt, and, sort of becomes that moment where you ask this user okay…….if you want this sort of graphics hard-ware, we’ve got it but it’ll involve having another box on your desk top that’ll plug in via a cable and you know we really do have great graphics acceleration on board, but if you really want it we can put this extra box on your desk top if you really, really, really, want it I suppose. And, there are people who do want that. It’s like there a people who do want certain rate solutions and people really, really do want a certain bizarre types of bus standards on it, so I think that maybe this is providing to be that big hurdle to quote the Money Buy Font sketch it’s like the insurance that has to come in and fill up a five gallon bottle of urine, not because they need the urine but because they want to make sure that you’re really serious about wanting to buying insurance before you come in to buy something.

So……..maybe this is the way…….sort of Apple’s way……sort of……

Leo: Do people do that really……

Andy: No, no it’s a send off

Leo: Do people do that really……… boy you have a vivid imagination Andy, it’s a snitch, it’s snitch…….

Andy:  It’s a cinch, it’s a cinch…..I’m sure it’s on You Tube…….it’s funny.

Leo: It’s funny.

Andy: Eric Idle……that’s a gallant lead.

Leo: Thanks a lot.

Alex: I never thought……..

Andy: Oh, No………. Heavens…….no…….why do you ask me to bring it in for…….oh, we just wanted to make sure that you’re that you wanted to buy insurance. It took me two weeks……..shall I bring it in…….no…….no…….for heaven’s sake throw it away don’t bring it here…….

Leo: It’s the last thing we want.

Alex: The thing…….I never thought that to say that, you see these ads that say web browser runs faster on this PC or whatever and the reality is that the web does run faster on a Mac Book Pro with…… than it does on a Mac mini……

Leo: Yes,

Alex: That’s the thing with all the web browsers…..

Leo: For you that’s important.

Alex: For us that becomes an issue.

Leo: So we want GPU and we want Haswell and, we want if possible SSD on the PC…….

Rene: While it’s kicking and streaming in 2014……..

Leo: Yes…… Please Apple I beg of you……..please……..

Rene: All you have to do is buy the old one, Leo and they’ll do it. Just waiting on it.

Leo: I don’t want the old one. So, you know I don’t usually make much of patents Apple patents and everything I can but this one I like. Smart Navigation patent they just got it from the USPTO, it’s based on real time crowd source, stop like sign and stop like basis analysis to find the fastest path to a destination. You know that’s one thing…….I don’t know of any Nav app that pays attention to the timing of stop lights. But, of course if you’re really, you know if you drive the same route everyday you’re kind of aware that I need, you know……. to kind of stick this speed so that I can go boom, boom through those lights.

Rene: There’s always lights that always go red……hoping they’ll go red.

Andy: If you’re driving a pregnant lady to the emergency room and, she’s dilated X cms then yes timing, timing your routes you hit all the green lights, I’m sure that all really going to be a big deal. There comes a time when you realize that you’re not Steve McQueen in Bullitt you know(laughing) it’s okay if you……..a difference of five minutes is a very big deal or ten minutes is a big deal. If you can cut…….I don’t think there’s a lot of flak you can get back by making sure that (cross talk)

Leo: Yes…….but that’s so satisfying that you never have to tap the break. You can kind of…….even if you’re not going that fast……(Andy talking over Leo) just motor…….

Andy:……just motor over.

Alex: The funniest one is at night in San Francisco you actually have to speed by five miles an hour to hit all the lights. (cross talk)

Leo: But that’s a good example, you want to hit that as you go onto that hill and vanish……..

Andy: And, that’s the other thing how many people listening have almost got into a huge accident somebody who really wanted to make sure they hit that light. They realize that greenness has been on for a while and, instead of laying off the gas at the fork, ‘I bet I can make it…….’

Leo: I got rear ended by a guy, I got rear ended by a guy in San Francisco, I got out and he said I thought that you were going to go through that yellow light.

Alex: I rear ended a guy, I rear ended a guy not very hard and just sort bumped into him……he was supposed to go through that and, it was yellow.

Leo: Was that you who hit me?

Rene: It was Alex…..

Alex: I could see he was about to get out of his car……and he looks back to me (Alex making funny motions with his hands) I started yelling at him and things like that…….and I just kept on driving.

Leo: Aw……come on I’m calm it’s like an accident. (cross talk)

Andy: The only time that I have been upset about that is that I was giving (video freeze, sound gone)

Leo:……and we’ll never know what the joke was.

Alex: The most important thing to understand was……

Leo: The cameras have just stopped…….

Alex: No, it’s all about the number of seconds left for…….the number one reason to have that…..that little stop hand…..it shows the number of seconds before all the lights turn yellow.

Leo: Oh yes. The hands are good.

Alex: And, you pay attention.

Leo: Nowadays on these cross-boxes they also give you seconds. You have to look at the countdown.

Alex: You have to count the seconds, so if I see eight seconds……

Leo: So, if I’m going three miles an hour……

Alex: Here’s the worst part………. Have you noticed that in all of the green lights……..,now a lot of the times I want red lights.

Rene: May be you should check Twitter?

Alex: Or, maybe you can check the Mac? No, I only text when…..

Leo: Or I can text. (cross talk). Just look at this it’s got satellite, radio towers, network they’ve got automobiles, talking to one another…….everything’s talking to one another to help you get through that little red light a little bit faster. I don’t know……..but they could do this. This is something……I feel like there’s so much information that that phone is gathering about your position, your speed, so useful and, of course the privacy considerations might keep us from…….(interrupted by Alex)

Alex: A lot of information could be useful for the……..not only for the user but for the cities to understand how the flows working……

Leo: I mean do they do that in Canada?

Alex:…….that kind of big data would be really useful…….(cross talk)

Rene: They do but based on personal experience like they cannot scientifically verify that they do anything.

Leo: They don’t time the lights at all?

Rene: They say they do but they don’t seem to work given the current speed limits.

Leo: Isn’t that something……

Andy: That’s something I really look forward to when driver less cars. If they have enough saturation, they can say…….they can basically say that they’re actually going to have you drive, have your car move more slowly but that means by the end of the trip you’ll get there faster because traffic as a whole would be better.

Leo: Hey Rene last week we were talking about, you were very kindly offered to get us a call from a guy who did the Hope X talk……..on……on I forget his last name but….

Rene: Jonathan Zdziarski

Leo: Jonathan Zdziarski (Leo unable to pronounce name) on the security risks on the iPhone Steve Gibson did do a………and I’m sure that you stayed tuned for that and, I saw some Twitter conversation afterwards from Zdziarski and, yourself and others. Steve’s opinion was that Apple was very reasonably balancing convenience and security. So, for instance if you encrypt the data on the phone whenever you lock the screen, you don’t ………you can’t get text messages, you can’t get the phone cannot operate with the data encrypted, so of course it only encrypts when the phone is on the off, when you shut it down. And, it can’t possibly encrypt whilst it’s on, even if the screen lock is on. It’s useful to know that, but that all makes sense and he in almost every respect he said that this is not an unreasonable choice for Apple to make. They didn’t make it to provide a  back door for the federal government or law enforcement. They did it as a convenience and a logical way would you agree with that?

Rene: Yes, I mean there is…….Steve thing was fantastic,……..we linked to it on imore, it was really, really incredibly good way of explaining it to people. Now Steve had an optimistic point of view, he explained you know technologically……didn’t choose any sides. You could have a pessimistic point of view and choose to think that everything that is done is whether by accident or not is ultimately malicious.

Leo: That is more temperament than fact, isn’t it.

Rene: There is two big problems with this. One is that you should never yell fire in a burning theater, but you should if there are sparks going on…. on a wire next to a stove you should tell people because it is useful information. There is no……

Leo: Right……

Rene:……there is no fire but you should tell people. And, a lot of this stuff and Steve did a fantastic way of explaining the problem was mostly the media reaction. Even, Jonathan and, they would debate for example a back door. He called it a back door, some people took issue with it because they believe that you have to have malic of intent in order for it to be a back-door.

Leo: They key to Steve’s presentation, you tell me if this is wrong, is that, is that without……without you taking advantage…..off…….none of this stuff happens unless you have a trusted device paired with your iPhone.

Rene: Yes……

Leo: So, unless you have physical access to the iPhone and the trusted device paired with it, none of this matters and, it seemed to Steve and, in fact it seemed to me…….not being a security expert, that’s….……you know……..that’s sufficient. And, you have suggestions on imore(dot)com how to make sure that the trusted devices are…..(interrupted by Rene)

Rene: It’s a question of trust, Leo.

Leo:……..and furthermore I think Steve says and Jonathan Zdziarski would agree that it would probably be good for Apple to have a little pop up each time saying you’re trusting this device……..you’re trusting this device…….is that right, you want to trust this device and all of that for instance.

Rene: All of that for instance is very security conscious. It would be nice if Apple had an option for you to say always ask me pass code or always ask me…….

Leo: mammy

Rene:….if they are trusted, the device thing. I mean……in…….it’s hard to explain this stuff really………because people do get scared and I understand………

Leo:……oh there are people in the chat-room saying, ’how can you believe this, it’s obvious Apple’s got a back door, how could they explain 600 million packet sniffing phones!

Rene: Well see that’s fun…….that’s the stuff you pull out…….there is a developer tool that does packet sniffing it always comes down to physical access and, a lot of people pointed that out. If I had physical access to your phone and your computer I could probably think anything I want of iTunes any way. I don’t need the back door.

But with security people like Steve and other people say is that security is there is…… depth of security and you want layers. So, even though I have physical access I can get this stuff anyway and it’s nice if you can shut down the multiple ways. If these things don’t absolutely need to be there, just turn them off because it’s safety for not having them off. When you fix other areas, apparently a lot of jail breakers exploited this and they were really upset and they keep presenting all this information because they had a lot of stuff in stock. But,…….a jail break is the ultimate back door for a device, and you get almost anything of it. And media seldom reports a jail break as catastrophically as they have been reporting this story.

Leo: Right.

Rene: So, it is really a lack of fundamental understanding of security models and threat models.

Leo: Right. I almost always feel like that if a attack requires physical possession of the device that’s so much less worrisome because by the time somebody has physical access to your computer, your phone or whatever, you’re pretty much screwed at that point.

Rene: Yes and sophisticated knowledge and it isn’t just holding the phone, you have to know how to pick…….. steal the pairing keys,  you have to know how to pick these, you have to know these services, you  have to ……..you have to be pretty high value target for some-one to expend the skill and, the resource to get this information of you.

Leo: Right.

Alex: I think that the most important thing is that these back doors make a lot of these spy movies a lot more feasible. (Leo shouting with laughter)

Leo: Well, in war…..now there’s something that’s interesting in Perfect Security and were Apple to actually attempt perfect security you wouldn’t want this phone because it would be such a pain the arse to use it!

Alex: Yes.

Leo: Well, I’ve got to edit my…….Scott doesn’t pick up text messages unless it’s unlocked and I have to enter my code every single time that I attach it to any device, you know it would just be really annoying.

Rene: It would be painful.

Leo: Yes.

Andy: I have a lot of sympathy for Apple and, other companies that are put in this position where they have these tools that are there for very, very positive reasons, or even because they have no option they don’t have the option of not putting it on. And, we’re living in an environment where every single thing that can be perceived as a security risk is perceived as of something of being betrayed by the maker of your device. When, again all you did is put something on there so later on if a bad thing happened it’s easy to find out what happened in fact. And, they’ve done it with good intentions and they have also done it the best way they possibly can.

But, now they sort of have the part of the PR now the nightmare of running a tech company is realize that you no longer have the option of simply maintaining radio silence or dismissing a complaint. I don’t know if….if this were like an Antenna Gate sort of thing, you know. Apple does not have the option of saying, ‘OH stop whining….the bars are going down, if you weren’t so dumb you would have realized, you’d realize that this isn’t an issue, but not only do they have to….. can they simply can’t say look this is nothing to do……this is not a back door…..this is not being in cahoots with the government. It’s something that’s very, very technical that I’m sure that the people who are writing about this stuff if you pay attention to it, and sort of come out and say that well we can’t sort of explain every detail of why we secure our……or how we secure our phones……all we’re saying is that we’re going on the record as saying we are absolutely doing this in a good faith way.

Leo: I would point everyone to iMore’s excellent article on how to better protect your iPhone and iPads against other security and privacy risks. In that article you guys point out that immediately, Rene wrote it……..I shouldn’t say you guys……I should say……you pointed out immediately that everyone should have a passcode on their iPhone. You know Apple said at the last event that half of touch ID, half of all iPhone users do not lock their phone so that’s step one right?

Now, I think Apple could do a good job……I don’t think it would be too harmful for Apple to say every single time you wanted to pair your computer, plus your pass code. I think that’d be fair. That would ameliorate a lot of this right? Because, right now the…the weakness is that once you’ve paired it to your computer, that computer is always paired automatically since it syncs up. Wouldn’t be……would it be so onerous? To turn that on so that every time you had it……

Alex: At least it’s an option.

Leo: Well, it is an option and you have to use this special tool and that’s how…..that’s one of the things that Rene describes how to do.

Rene: Yes….how to do that……configurate…..there’s a couple of things they could do for example they could encrypt the diagnostic information, they could reduce diagnostic information to things right now just looks like…….you know……we’ve talked about this before Apple’s incredibly resource constrained……I mean they have people doing so many things and, sometimes it’s just easier to turn something on and to go there and create an entire system for it.

So, the Enterprise stuff could probably be locked down a bit better, the diagnostics stuff could probably be locked down a bit better. You could have additional options, you never want to make it too complicated because when people look at it people go…ahhhh……… don’t do anything.

Leo: Yes.

Rene:…..but there are a couple…..to his credit Jonathan points out a couple of these steps too. I think there’s some that we don’t want, but things like yes……even if you don’t want the passcode have that trusted button put up and you press yes if you want to trust the device.

Leo: Right….

Rene:……there’s a lot of steps that they could take, but you can do things now. You can now make your iPhone pretty secure right now if want to go through the trouble…..you know…….if you want a twenty digit password instead of a passcode on your iPhone Apple lets you do that.

Leo: Yes, in fact you might want to do that. (Leo Laughing)……but it also may take a long time…….(cross talk).

Rene: You might want to, you paid for it.

Leo: This is a very good article recommend it to people…..so there are ways to make your iPhone much, much more secure. I guess you kind of nailed it when you said it’s peoples……..it’s your temperament. If  you’re……somebody in the chat-room said, ‘well is the firewall…..is the firewall at the backdoor for the federal government or not? Of course it does, there’s no evidence that it does. If your temperament and your belief system is that of course it does, then that’s your belief system but, if you’re going to operate purely on fact…..then we just don’t know. We just don’t know.

Rene: You said it so well a couple of years ago, when you said, Leo it’s too expensive to make the perfect code and even NASA can’t make the perfect code anymore. Humans make mistakes and you have a month to get this out, you need this diagnostic running, you turn this on, no-one’s going to see it, you have to…..all the things that people have to break in and see this. It’s almost in-conceive- able to you. But, people break in so does Fire Fault have any flaws?

Not that we found, but we didn’t find open SSL…..

Leo: They can’t prove Rene the negative is probably……you can’t prove it has no flaws, you can say we don’t……..we haven’t found any…….and…..a……that’s not the proof that it does not have any…….and all soft-ware has flaws so.(cross talk)

I think Apple’s done it……Apple’s done it……… I go back and forth obviously when we first saw this Zdziarsky presentation I was a little concerned, particularly the questions that Jonathan had for Apple, which Apple wasn’t really responding to in any way but some sort of PR speak. I think those are legitimate questions but, my temperament is I feel fairly trusting of Apple……I don’t think……I don’t see any reason to see Apple is intentionally putting in back doors for law enforcement.

Alex: And, I think that this is not that they should not keep on working on it and that we shouldn’t always be concerned, but…I….I……

Leo:….have to push them to get better.

Alex: When I post on emails and when I post them on Twitter or Internet or……one of the reasons why I don’t use Path anymore, is mostly I don’t even want to think about posting anything on the Internet that I’m…….that I don’t go to the sites that I don’t think that I should go to. You know like all of that and, it’s stuff that I just assume is being watched by some-one, they may not do anything with it….but…..

Leo:……but everybody has to be responsible for their own choices in this regard.

Alex: Oh, yes…….but what I’m saying is that we need to keep on doing all this, we need to keep on making it more secure but you need to understand that when you’re on a…….you know the entire Internet is an insecure network and, that when you go into websites and when you’re doing other things you should consider that you’re doing it out in the open in essential, you might as well be doing it on the street , yes on the corner, just keep that in mind when……

Andy: This is why when people complain about, the…..the ……the old chestnut that oh well you know that Google’s business model’s all about selling your personal information to people, that’s not actually true but if people are really forceful about that I say wow! I’m so glad you care about you know what this company’s doing privately with your data. It must be really hard just to never use the web at all or never use phone apps…..but no I use both those things. Oh so then you’re kind of screwing yourself because it’s 80 million times more leaky than what’s been shown what Google does with their data……but Okay fine. You can use your Kim Kardashian fan app for some reason wants your device ID and wants access to your contacts……..good.

Rene: There’s a few things that Steve said also that were great, one is that part of the public law about the articles is that they use very provocative language like un-documented iOS features. It’s important to remember that all of iOS is undocumented, it is not an open source, so parts of it like Web Kit are, and the Mock Kernel is but iOS isn’t open source it is not documented until and unless Apple makes a public version or part of it. And, the other thing is because it is not documented, you need people like Jonathan pounding away it because that’s how we find these faults, so as much as dislike the reporting from him and people like him specifically keep doing this because that is how we all get better.

Leo: And, we want to get better here at MacBreak Weekly and report putting this stuff in a responsible and reliable way, and you know we can always get better at it too. And, I think that we’re always working towards that……because I don’t want to……the last thing I want is anything that I do is sensationalistic or click bay….(cross talk)

Leo: We are trying to get to the truth of it and it’s not always easy and, opinions and temperament can change how you slant and how you feel about it. But, we are trying to get to the truth of it, the fact of it.

Andy: Let’s……we also have a responsibility to…….I can’t speak for other people but there are times when I get the phone call and say, hey can you be on this radio show when this time I want to talk about this, and I make it really clear to the producer that Okay…..this is non-story…..

Leo: Right.

Andy:……so long as you’re okay with me speaking for three and half minutes that why should no-body be worried at all about this, and I’m perfectly fine that it could not be……(interrupted by Leo)

Leo: Do you do a regular call back after that? (Leo Laughing)

Andy:……some of them do. They’re a couple of Chicago radio stations that I work with and, they really do like to have that conversation but there are times when you simply have to say I’m here to tell you not to do this story because it’s just of no use whatsoever.

Leo: Nobody will ever top Jeff Jarvis who told the BBC on the air that they were full of it. (Leo laughing) And  to their credit they keep having him back. Let’s see real quickly before we go to our picks of the week, stories that we haven’t mentioned the…..the…… Senate and the house have now voted once again it’s illegal to lock your phone, it was legal and then the exception lapsed so the DMCA took that back and over made it, it’s illegal to unlock your phone, as soon as President Obama signs that law…….he says he will…..once again it will be legal to unlock your phone. That’s not jailbreak, which is still I believe legal to jail break your phone.

Unlocking it means saying buying your phone from AT&T and then unlocking it so that you can use it on another carrier.

Andy: Once your contract is up…..then the proposed law says that once your contract is up you own the phone, until then you’re sort of partly owning it.

Leo: As it should be of-course.

Andy: I’m really excited to see these unlocking apps and these unlocking services stop being this weird thing that you get off eBay……

Leo: Right….

Andy: And, be this sort of thing that you go to the Verizon store they sell that as a side option for……either the carrier will do it for free, or it’ll be reputable stores that’ll say bring your phone and for 50 dollars we’ll carrier unlock it and, you even how some banks will actually roll your coins for you, in the coin sort of machine to get you into the bank to hopefully have you sign up for their services. It would be great if AT&T and Verizon and T-Mobile they all had for free we will unlock anyone of these 40 models of phones, but, with no obligations but if you then decide you want to buy one or use one of our data plans we will also give you, waive the sign up fee for this. There’s a lot of great opportunities are presented, but now that this is unambiguously legal.

Leo: AT&T has done this for some time if you’ve had the phone for 6 months, even if you’re not out of contract, if you have a good standing going they’ll unlock for you.

Rene: They did it for me.

Leo: Yes well it’s a US thing and in most of Europe this is the law. You have to unlock it, you can’t walk off with the phone. But. It’s only here that the law has changed a little bit. But, let’s see you’ll be able to check into the Hilton soon with your iPhone.

Alex: I’m very excited about that……

Leo:……I mean I should say get into you room I should say not just check in.

Rene: Paris is going to be just so thrilled.

Alex: My wallet…….I’m always like why is my wallet getting so fat and, then I realize that it’s a whole bunch of hotel keys.

Leo: Hilton guests will be able to select their rooms online through their smart phones, they’ll be able to see their floor plan for each available room. I like that, stay away from the elevator, guests will be able to check in and out using their smart phones purchase upgrades and special items online and unlock the room it self. By the end of this year smart phone based check-in and, room selection will be available for 650,000 rooms across 4,000 Hilton Hotels. And, the technology allows for smart phones to be used as room keys. We can be rolling them out next year.

Alex: When you really think about the efficiency that it’s going to give the Hilton. It means, that whole line at the beginning, of when you walk in at three o’clock, it’s one. I mean you just literally go to your room with your key.

Leo: I wish…..Starwood is also testing something some more. I……..you know once one does then everybody will do it.

Andy: Is this what customers really want…..it……it sounds great but I…….the people who are most valuable to these hotel chains are the ones who want  the I don’t have to worry about lines because I’m a Starwood Double Diamond Black Plus card holder. I go to this person and some-one meets me at the revolving door and walks me right to the best room that’s available in the entire hotel because I am……I got the……substitute Italian or Yiddish word meaning that I’ve got big…….

Leo: Honray……..

Andy: I’ve got clout, there’s no need to get you know, you know gynecological about it.

Leo: I’ve got to tell you I’m a Hertz Gold member. You get off the bus and you don’t have to get in line and you just go to the car, you get into the car, drive off the lot and when you’re done you drive it back into the lot, and you walk away and, you never talk to a human…..is huge. (cross talk)

Alex: It’s the same with Davis, yes.

Leo: So, obviously there’s some value to that and in a hotel.

Alex: My issue is that I’m a hotels(dot)com guy, so I don’t have a residual membership with anyone except hotel(dot)com which we have you know running lots and lots of rooms, all the time. And, so for me I don’t really belong to anything enough to do it, but I don’t need to talk to anyone especially when there’s you know…….. like four people in front of me….

Leo: I mean we’re geeks, we don’t want to talk to humans.

Alex: I mean I just want to walk in I don’t want somebody to take my bag, I don’t want them to talk to me when I get up, I just want to be able to walk and just go to my room and check in.

Leo: Yes, oh the Apple campus looking good. It’s starting to emerge from the ground and, a money ring, here it is. Looks like the aliens have landed and…….

Rene: …..such great circles.

Leo: …….they’ve just got a permit for a new 25 million dollar tunnel that leads I guess to the underground parking garage and 171 million dollar underground theater which I’ll never be invited to see. But the whole point of that (Rene laughing) we knew the original plan that Apple events will now be held on  campus.

Rene: You forgot the Go-Kart ring, Leo…..150 million Go-Kart ring……

Andy: I reckon one day of auto frost, there must be employees saying just give us one day when we bring one whatever vehicle we want and just do panic laps around that thing.

Alex: And film all of that with your iPhone.

Rene:……so you can park wheels.

Leo: I am looking forward to that. I hope by them they will have taken me off double secret prohibition and I’ll be able to do a tour of the campus. I’m looking forward to that.

Andy: You know they’ve got those baskets of fruits that are shaped like floral bouquets, Leo, maybe if you just sent one of those to Tim.

Leo:……to Tim. I love you

Andy: He just wants that one tangible act of contrition.

Leo: Maybe that’s it…..you know what I think…..that’s…….I just have never apologized. (cross talk)

Leo: I should probably buy some flowers on Steve’s grave and apologize. All right time for our picks of the week boy, and, boy and, girl no girls, boys and, boys.

Let’s start with you Andy Ihnatko.

Andy: My pick this week is really, really simple talking earlier as how people who travel a lot and their ears are really perk up when they see something that allows us to replace something big and bulky with something that’s a lot smaller and does the same job. Also, I have the problem where I have to make sure that I have separate copies of everything that I use technologically and a set of this in that bag because I’m always just…..if…..I…..I get a look around the office and look for a USB cable and put that in the bag when I am packing for a trip, but that, that also said I am the first who is in the office who said, ‘OH God I can’t find the lightning cable….what,……I know there’s one in my laptop bag let me just go get and then I’ll make sure that I’ll remember that when I’m done with it at the desk. I’ll put it right back in that lap top bag because that’s where this cable belongs and I don’t bother to do and then fast forward to two weeks later when I really need the lightning cable to charge something, it’s not there. So, here is something that I was really happy to find this, it’s made by Skiva…..this is the two in one lightning and micro USB charge and sync cable.

Leo: I love this.

Andy:……it’s only 15 dollars, it is a Apple certified……Apple certified lightning connector that is tethered to a standard micro USB.

Leo: All my cables should be like this.

Alex: That tethering is the key to the operation because that……I always loose that little adaptor…..

Leo:…….sometimes I’ve swallowed the adaptor I think.

Andy:….when I talked about this on TWIT someone said oh big deal you can get one of these adaptors you can and then you can lose it and then it’s not there when you need it. And so this way you will have the one cable that’ll hold both the things that you need and also this is enough of a for me this is enough of a freak sort of item that I can program my brain to say that I am not even allowed to use this inside the office this is only something that has to be used when I am outside the office only belongs in the bag. But, even beyond that, just as I now have one cable and this is the one that charges the 2 things I need to charge when I’m outside the office. This is the 3 foot version but I think they also make a half foot version.

Leo: Yeah I just bought 5 of the half foots.

Andy: It’s really great. I like these simple solutions to deficiencies that you might have in your personal wetware operating system. This is a good patch for problems that I have up here with cables.

Leo: You know why I bought the little short one, because I just found- and I love this, I wonder if it’s in my Amazon…

Alex: I have a whole slew of these little ones... and I keep them in the top…

Leo: The little ones are great. Yeah this is what I bought. It’s from Innatech, which I think is the same name of the company in Office Space. But this thing is a USB charger that has 5 ports. 2 of them are 11 watts. So you have the 2 super ports for your iPad. So I have 5 of those little cables plugged into there, than any of those ports could charge anything I have. Awesome.

Andy: I think it was an Alex pick, the Anvic, is that what they call it? Something like that where its five ports, and they’re- thank you, Anchor.  And it was so good that I bought a second one. One which stays inside my travel case and the other one is clamped to my desk and it’s exactly as you say. I actually wound up having to say, if these Amazon basics USB cables are only $4 I’m just going to buy 5 of those. I’m going to zip tie them together. And keep them all plugged into this thing. So any time I need to plug something in to my desk, there is a cable attached and ready to go. Because, again, those cables are going to walk if they have the ability to walk. So I’m such a big fan of finding something inexpensive that works and just buying duplicates of them to make sure that you never have to look for something because no matter where you need to use it, it is already there in that place because you have 4 or 5 copies of it.

Leo: I just feel like I want everything Anchor makes.

Andy: I have got to say Alex, that is one of the most satisfying things that I own. It’s small, it works beautiful. The first time I traveled with it and I’m plugging in- because of testing and also because of stupid things I was doing, I had 3 tablets plugged into it, including an iPad 3. I had a phone and a big battery charger plugged into it. And the first time I woke up and saw 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, and 100%, alright then. Went right to Amazon, I just bought a second one because I knew I never wanted to travel without this thing. Because the number of times I’ve travelled with 3 more USB chargers than I need, only because I’m packing, packing, packing, I can’t remember how many I put in there, and I see another one so I may as well put another one in this bag just in case I lose one. And then I’ve got like 7 in there. Nope, problem solved. You have this, it stays inside the bag. This problem is solved for the remainder of my life.

Leo: Until Apple changes it’s cabling and then you’re screwed.

Andy: We’ve fixed the problem of USB charging.

Leo: How long is the lightning cable going to be good for? I have now reached the point where I have all the lightning cables.

Alex: I just wish they’d license it out. The thing is that the one thing is after you use a lightning and a micro USB you really get that the lightning is a lot better than the micro USB.

Leo: It’s so easy to put.

Alex: It’s delicate, and the lightning bolt is just, you just drop it in. and then you combine it with this thing, this is this little monster power thing. Four outlets to one.

Leo: Oh yeah. These are so good because they’re so compact.

Alex: So I have this in my bag and you just pull it out and its 4. So that combined with… yeah. Someone else makes one that does international plugs.

Leo: That’s the problem, that this is not dual voltage.

Alex: Oh this will do dual voltage, I think.

Leo: I had one that didn’t and I actually knocked out the power in two hotels and a cruise ship before I figured it out. I suddenly realized, oh, that’s why it keeps short circuiting. It’s kind of embarrassing. We’re in Venice, I have to call down. This hotel is built out of a 14^th century monastery. Not the best electricity. And I plug the thing in and the whole room is dark. And I go “Senior, porfavor…”

Alex: You notice though, imagine sort of like a Woodstock sort of an experience with all sorts of bands together and we’re in the green room and all we want to talk about are different drugs we found. Oh, it’s a horse tranquilizer and you break it in half, but oh my God, the hype. People who have travelled with a lot of technology, oh my God, if you’re using that kind of travel charger, let me rock your world. It’s made by this company, its 5 ports, it can charge 3 laptops at the same time.

Leo: It’s so pathetic. Mr. Alex Lyndsay, your pick of the week.

Alex: I have a pick and a tip.

Leo: And a tip and a pick.

Alex: So, my tip, I’ll do my tip first. So I’m in a lot of conference calls. And maybe not a lot of our listeners are in a lot of conference calls. But I’m in like 4 or 5 a day. Minimum. I was in 4 before I got on this show. And here’s the problem with conference calls. Two numbers. You have to dial in a number, and then you have to have the stupid code. And no matter what you do, everybody’s got a stupid code. So I was using Tempo and I realized Tempo was doing something. And I figured out that it wasn’t just everybody could do it. I mean, Tempo is great, but …

Leo: What’s Tempo?

Alex: Tempo is this calendar app.

Leo: I use Sunrise, not Tempo.

Alex: So here’s the tip, regardless of what you use. I’ve now started to institute this in the company. Is that if you have the phone number, so 800-blah-blah-blah-blah, and then you do a space and then a semicolon, and then the code, and then whatever that code is. The 6 digit or 9 digit number. And then a pound sign at the end. If you dial that number, you’ll see a little thing at the bottom that has a, there’s a number hidden on your iPhone now, down below. And when it asks for the code you hit that and it just dials it up.

Leo: Because of the space semicolon? Is that an iPhone specific thing?

Alex: I don’t know if it’s an iPhone or Android, but I know it works on my iPhone because I’ve been using it all the time. So I require now, everybody in the company, if you want me to join a phone thing, you text me that and I sit there and select, copy it. Paste it into my phone, hit go and it will dial the number and then I can wait and then hit the number again, and it’ll dial my code.

Leo: Comma is pause right? What is comma? Comma is pause.

Alex: You don’t need the comma. You could do…

Leo: So you could do comma, comma, comma, and comma.

Alex: The problem with that is, the semicolon. That’s funny. The semicolon tells you to wait until I hit- it puts it into another button on the iPhone. So it’s not just taking a long space.

Leo: So there’s this magic hidden button?

Alex: There’s a magic hidden button that appears if you use a semicolon.

Leo: See, because you don’t know how many commas, how long to wait. But this way you wait until the operator says now please enter your five digit code.

Alex: And then you hit that button and it’ll dial it in. the key is to put pound at the end so it doesn’t wait too long and everything else. But anyways, so that’s my tip. Now my pick of the week.

Andy: You know where that comes from?

Leo: Where?

Andy: Hay’s robotics dialing commands.

Leo: Oh, yeah. Is it? It’s part of the AT command set?

Rene: The comma and the semicolon.

Andy: I remember in Red Ryder having to do 9 comma, comma, comma, 617.

Leo: Yeah, I remember that. Yep. You wait until it goes booo shhh.

Alex: It could be something very standard, yeah. So anyway, my pick of the week is my friends and my brother are making a movie. They’re making a movie and they’ve finished shooting it already. So it’s not like one of those things where they said oh we’re going to make a movie and you can try to help us. They’ve already shot the whole movie.

Leo: I like the name, Bokeh.

Alex: Bokeh, yeah and its, there’s the cool video that they- and my brother was the DP for this. So all the images you see here, my brothers about to become much more famous than I am I think.

Leo: What’s the premise for this film?

Alex: These guys suddenly wake up and there is nobody there. Anywhere. So that’s Jeff, he used to work for me. And I used to work with Andy too. So these guys put this together. And I think that almost everybody who worked on the film, we’ve worked with at some point in time. But my brother did all the-

Leo: I love this premise. I wish this would happen. Like you could wake up and you could ride your bicycle on the highway and stuff. Because there’s nobody left. Just you and a beautiful girl.

Alex: Exactly, exactly.

Leo: We’ve got to reproduce now to recreate the entire world. I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last man on earth. But I am. Look, I can steal any car… I just want to ride my bike on the interstate.

Alex: Just hope that you don’t break your glasses sitting at the library. But they shot this in Iceland. So I was getting all these pictures from Iceland of them shooting and stuff like that. My brother did all the study cam…

Leo: How did he get to be the last one on earth? He’s very well dressed for the last man on earth. I would stop wearing neckties and pocket squares. If I were the last man on earth.

Alex: That’s true, that’s true.

Leo: Who are you impressing?

Alex: Exactly. So lots of study cam work. Tons of it.

Leo: Oh, that’s cool. Is it a full length feature film?

Alex: Its full length feature film. And they’re doing a Kickstarter to do the post production for it. So they’ve already done all the shooting and they’re just doing a little Kickstarter project so people should check that out. We’re going to do a hangout in a couple weeks to have them kind of talk through the process of how it got made and do some behind the scenes and talk to the crew. So stay tuned for that. But you should jump in. it looks like a really cool movie.

Leo: Bokeh. B-O-K-E-H, it’s on Kickstarter. Mr. Rene Ritchie, your pick of the week?

Rene: My pick of the week is Revolution 60. It debuted last week on the iOS app stores for iPhone and iPad. And it is a game using the epic unreal engine. And one of the unique qualities of this game is it was made by an entirely female gaming studio and it’s got an entirely female cast. It’s really delightfully animated, it’s not a typical fake joy pad sort of a game. It’s more like a movie. Almost like a choose your own adventure. Where you play the game and you get to do actions of increasing complexity and you can choose whether you respond sarcastically or professionally and that’s sort of like a choose your own destiny sort of thing. So you can choose to become a jerk in this game, which is a choice I’ve been making. And I’ve been waiting to find the consequences of that.

Leo: Women design a game and they still have Barbie figures.

Rene: So there’s a couple reasons for that. I actually interviewed the women who did it. Amanda Warner and Brianna Wu.

Leo: I thought that that was a male thing…

Rene: Part of it is that it’s the design aesthetic that they grew up with and they loved … Campbell, for example. A lot of the early Marvel and anime stuff. But also because they’re still limited with the amount of bones they can put in skeletons, they put most of them into the hair so they couldn’t put any into the clothing or anything.

Leo: I noticed. The hair is elaborate.

Rene: Yeah. So the hair has got most of the animation in it.

Leo: All the bones are in the hair.

Rene: And that meant that they had to make really static bodies. So they’re not really wearing anything of animated worth.

Leo: Okay. Hey that looks like sort of a puzzle plus adventure?

Rene: Yeah. And it’s got a great storyline. The voice acting is incredible, the music is fantastic, as you can see here, and the graphics are great.  The story is excellent. If you’re a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Black Widow or Allies or Dark Angel or anything, you’ll fit right in here.

Leo: Or Lucy.

Rene: Or Lucy, absolutely.

Leo: What’s it called again?

Rene: It’s called Revolution 60. By Giant Space Cat.

Leo: Revolution 60. And its iOS?

Rene: Yeah. IPhone and iPad.

Leo: Cool. I don’t know, I don’t like to mention Kickstarter stuff, and I don’t know if I’m going to make this a pick or not, when I get it maybe I will. Because I did order, and I hope I get it. This is called the Uniti Stand. It’s for people who are all Apple all the time. An integrated dock and charger system that you can charge your iPhone, iPad, put it underneath your cinema display. And it all goes together in some beautiful form. Ooh. Yeah, startreck-ian. I did sign up, we’ll see if I get it. I think this is the one I got. $159 for the full set. You can get just the one thing. But I got all of them like that. I think it’s kind of cool. Anyway, just thought I’d mention it. It’s not really a pick. Because I haven’t gotten it yet. And you know me and Kickstarter. I’m really good at picking Kickstarter projects that don’t ever go anywhere.

Rene: They could pay you not to pick them.

Leo: They should pay me not to. You know that robot? Everybody is showing the video that follows you around and looks at you? I bought it.

Alex: Did you get that movie from the guy who wouldn’t leave the apartment in Palm Springs. Wasn’t it that game? The Kickstarter…

Andy: What about the potato salad? Did you back the potato salad?

Leo: Stop the insanity! Somebody just tie me up and take away my credit cards.

Andy: There are people who had to be the first to buy the Mac, they had conversations much like this one.

Leo: Here’s to the crazy ones.

Rene: You need an “as seen on TV” sticker.

Leo: The people who spend money on Kickstarter. Oh well. The Twilight Zone. Season 3. Episode 1. September 15th 1961. Two survivors of an apocalyptic battle, a man and a woman, each from opposing sides, approach each other suspiciously. Starring Elizabeth Montgomery, who went on to play Bewitched? And Charles Bronson. See, that’s the guy you say I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last- oh you are?

Andy: That’s a bad thing to say to Charles Bronson because he will kill everybody to be the last man on earth.

Leo: And then, he is the last man on earth. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for being here, we do MacBreak Weekly at 11am pacific, 2pm eastern time, 1800 UTC. Every Tuesday at the TWiT brickhouse studio. If you, like these 15 fine people want to be in studio, we invite you to do so. Just email tickets@twit.tv. Hello, wave, wave to the camera everybody. Oh, look we have a new camera. Where’d we get that at? That’s nice. The audience cam.

Chad: We stole it from the technical director.

Leo: You know I don’t like this shot. You know why? I can see more empty chairs than I see here.

Chad: Yeah, we’re not getting the front rows and the side rows. So there’s even more people than you see there.

Leo: This is the largest MacBreak audience we’ve had in some time. So thank you all for being here, we appreciate it. Usually we get this size of audience only once a year, after MacWorld. And I don’t know what happened. The moon is in the south….thanks for being here. Tickets at twit.tv, if you go to tee spring, t-e-e-s-p-r-i-n-g, .twit. You have about 28 more days to buy our tee shirt. We’re going to offer it for one month only. This is to commemorate our 3^rd anniversary here in the brick house. We moved in on July 24^th 2011. Three years we’ve been here. It’s kind of hard to believe. And this is a nice looking tee shirt. We’ve got the design on 99 designs, and there’s ladies and gentlemen’s sizes. Teespring. T-e-e spring.com/twit. If you can be here in person, if you can’t watch live, don’t worry. On demand audio and video available on all those apps that we talk about all the time. The podcast app and iTunes and our own apps. We’ve got great apps by our independent 3^rd party developers on every platform including iOS, Android and even Roku. So check those apps out and you can watch us live. There’s a page right there. What is that? Twit.tv/apps. So you can see all the varieties that we have. And we’re working on getting more to you. Thank you for being here, we’ll see you next time. Now back to work my friends, because break time is over!