Essential Apple Podcast 50: Suicidal Robots?

Recorded 22nd July 2017 No guests this week, and not a lot of Apple news, but we still manage to find a slew of weird, wonderful, interesting or crazy stories to shake a stick at... ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. Plus Simon “goes off on one” about how hard it was to just play some music files on his iPhone like we all used to do on our iPods... and why he banished the iOS Music app to the darkest recesses of the “Rarely Used” folder on the furthest screen of his iPhone. On this week’s show: Mobile is now the preferred platform for reading email – AppleWorld.Today Apple's design team took a summer vacation and came up with these new headphone designs – Apple Arrrrrggggggghhh - no, no, no, no... Here's What We Know (So Far) About the iPhone 9. The 2018 iPhone, set to launch after the iPhone 8, may be dubbed the "iPhone 9." Some big changes could be in store. Here's what (we think) Apple is planning – Inverse From @dougee A little tip for you all: If you find somewhere (i.e. a place of business) in Apple Maps and use the save as contact button, you get all the information available for that place - including opening hours and a mini map inside the contact. This will be immensely useful for doctors and the like at the very least I'm sure. From @dougee PSA: Delete One File To Recover Admin On Any Mac. If you've ever tried to recover admin on a Mac after a forgotten password, you probably wiped everything and started over. You don't have to – The Mac Observer VectorPaper+ Pro level vector drawing app for iOS with all the tools you would expect... I would say it’d be better on an iPad, but it says for iPhone(?) – via BGR Token Smart ring acts as your payment cards, passwords, door keys and more. Token is a secure 2FA identity ring with a fingerprint sensor that replaces all your keys, cards, and passwords – Tokenize *This is just a kickstarter and calling it a “ring” is a bit of a stretch to my eyes but it’s an interesting concept. Orii bone conduction ring puts phone calls at your fingertips. Besides talking into a shoe, the most spy-like way to take a phone call is to just stick your finger in your ear. Orii allows you to do that, thanks to bone conduction technology that sends vibrations through your hand to directly stimulate the little ear bones responsible for hearing – NewAtlas from @macjim Robot 'drowns' in fountain mishap. The wheeled security robot in Washington DC tumbled into a fountain at an office building – BBC News That’s a better version than the one I saw first which suggested that the “boring job” led it into “ending its misery” however I have to say I loved the quotes "Steps are our best defence against the Robopocalypse,” and "We were promised flying cars, instead we got suicidal robots." from @dougee Command line macOS update is reportedly faster, allows use of Mac while updating. If you get fed up watching the progress bar crawl along when updating your Mac to a new version of macOS, a Reddit thread has a useful hint to speed things up: using a Terminal command instead. Updating macOS through the App Store can take a very long time, macOS has a built in softwareupdate utility, which is much faster. It also allows you to use your Mac while it updates – 9 to 5 Mac Studio Music Player | 48 band equalizer player by Ivan Kovalenko App Store The other two players Simon mentioned – Equalizer+ and TEAC HR Audio Player Nemo’s Hardware Store (29:50) Kanex Premium USB-C to HDMI 4K Adapter – Amazon (http://geni.us/HDMI4K) - Kanex Kanex 4-Port USB Charging Hub with USB-C – Amazon - Kanex Cutie Melon Moment (54:05) Feedback From @Twitrannosaurus via Twitter Interesting discussion on podcast re car leasing. I am v cynical on why car leasing is being pushed > In future it will be due to autonomous cars. At moment It’s rebranding debt as something like renting. £68bn car finance in UK currently. I realise that you were taking the tech angle though but people should see current leasing for what it is. Arguably not good for economy. Social Media and Slack You can follow us on: EssentialApple.com / Pinecast / Twitter / Facebook / Google Plus / Slack – ask us for an invite any way you can get hold of us. If you really like the show that much and would like to make a regular donation then please consider joining our Patreon And a HUGE thank you to the patrons who already do. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.