Space Javelin

Our survey of Planet CES (stardate 2020) reveals some rich promising potential, cadets, but also a lot of wannabe fool's gold trying to get funding, as always. With co-Cap'n Mike sleeping it off, Charles brings back a decorated CES veteran --Commodore Alan Perry from the good ship CFAX -- to help decipher what's great, what will grate, and what should be grated like cheese immediately. There's also a battery case recall, a Firefox emergency patch, a Tivo glitch, and some fresh new lawsuits. We're doing our bit to put out the fires, and pitching in to help Australia with theirs -- but it's not all bad news!

There's also new chips from Intel (still not chocolate, though ...), an alleged uptick in China iPhone sales, some new competition on the horizon, a rebirth for the Apple I (yes you read that correctly), and a few hilarious fails we saw, heard about, or got PR for from the big show in Las Vegas last week. All this and more, cadets, so roll the dice and thank your lucky stars ... CES is done for another year!

The mothership finished last year on a great note, cadets, and climbed to an all-time high stock price on the back of some bold moves -- including actually shipping more than the predicted five new Mac Pros before the year's end -- one of which helped Jumanji take it to the next level! New deals have been cut, the iPhone and Watch both save lives and prevent crime, and Dell cries uncle on iOS compatibility. The war against Planet Correllium has escalated, sadly, but we have Imagination (back) on our side, not to mention a handful of pre-CES news and gadgets!

There's also great news from the holiday sales section that foretells a strong Q1, a few AppleTV+ items, Ikea and HomeKit news, 8K TVs gaining AirPlay 2, and Samsung goes Lite with new phones! Of course there's also plenty of leftover fail from December and fresh new not-rights to keep our ambitions for stardate 2020 in check, but don't fret. cadets -- we have a feel-good story about a boy and his AirPods to end on that features a little toilet humor! Thanks for signing up for yet another tour around the sun with the good ship Space Javelin!

It's our final new episode of the year, cadets -- barring momentous events and/or hilarious fails, of course -- and Cap'ns Mike and Charles cover both the hands-on with the new Mac Pro (and XDR display), as well as the first wave of accessories specifically for it -- along with speculation about Apple's long-simmering satellite program, a new threat targeting Keychain (but which almost certainly won't affect you), and a set of massive and embarrassing fails on the part of both Facebook (as usual) and the Chicago Tribune (unexpected). There's also HomeKit news, smartphone profits news, and stories about FRAND, Apple TV+, and Broadcom -- and the crew are just getting warmed up!

The last of Australia's big banks has given in and accepted Apple Pay, lawsuits make various claims, Foxconn fights fraud, and a new study says Night Mode isn't doing you any good. All this, plus an Apple Watch charger we approve of, some last-minute (but sweet) December Apple deals on services, and Space Javelin can now be summoned through an Alexa device (so now Amazon knows all about us ... oh wait, is that good?). Have a great extended shore leave with friends and family and revel in the holiday season, cadets ... the solstice is past, and the new stardate rollover awaits, with even more news, malarkey, and assorted gadgets and whatnot to sort through. Stay tuned for the next year of adventure aboard the good ship Space Javelin!

The penultimate episode of Space Javelin for 2019 is before you, cadets, and it finds co-Cap'ns Mike and Charles in a bit of a grouchy mood, owing entirely to the amount of stupid from analysts, lawmakers, and Mike's head cold -- all of which combine to harsh our normal holiday mellow. There's good news on the China front, along with awards noms for an Apple TV+ show, not to mention a surprise official return to CES in January for Apple -- but there's also idiot YouTubers whinging about the price of the new Mac Pro even as they try to grate actual cheese on it; the ad industry crying about how unfair blocking their website trackers is; moronic and/or obvious analyst reports; the scam of incredispeed "5G" for everyone continues; a previous feel-good report that has gone sour, and our Dumb Lawsuit of the Week.

At least there's also lots of tech talk about the new Mac Pro, great holiday deals on cool gear of all sorts, Apple Pay Express for Penn Station, Ellen DeGeneres kits out a DC school with Apple gear, and lots more nitty-gritty to chew on. We'll be back next week for our last 2019 regular episode (barring some momentous event to report on), so keep your shenanigan-meter in your utility belt, cadets ... and a tight grip on your space credits for the holidays!

Charles and Mike are back from shore leave, cadets, and the Appleverse decided that was the perfect moment to pull some serious mischief and folderol in order to avoid the crew's righteous wrath! Mike starts with a recap of his vacation time, but Charles quickly gets on to the big stories, including Jony Ive's formal departure, Sundar Pichai learns the Alphabet, T-Mobile gets deceptive about their "5G," India gets serious about Apple, TV+ debuts some new shows, the best apps get their rewards, and BMW gets its just desserts for its stupid CarPlay tax.

There's also an update on a surprising 16-inch MacBook Pro problem, the latest rumors about the iPhone 12 (and the iPhone ... 9?), an update on the latest "location-gate," the debut of Apple Pay Express, the best apps of 2019, and the annual Apple Christmas ad gives us all the feels. All this and a floppy disk worth over $80K, cadets, so hold on to your astro-credits ... the holiday spending spree has hit warp speed already!

What can we say, cadets -- even after promising to take the week off, we couldn't resist the allure of Thanksgiving leftovers, so we rounded up a few recent bits that had to get cut for time, added some nutmeg and cinnamon, reheated it using the "pizza" setting in the microwave, and VOILA! A Frankenstein-foodie mix of recent news and commentary from Charles, Malcolm, and Mike that's somehow even better than when it was served fresh -- or at least that's what we'll tell you until it's gone!

Dig into stories about the strange finale of Apple's lawsuit against camera maker Red, the latest on Disney+, great news about more Apple health studies, tech rivals working together for the environment, but Apple working alone to fix a Silicon Valley problem. There's also more about Apple Card bias-gate, the Germans legislating things they know nothing about, our usual rounds of That Can't Be Right (about "5G") and Engineering Report (a cool new drive and a great new set of headphones), plus a plug for Charles' appearance on CFAX Victoria radio and much more. Take a break from avoiding discussing politics with your family and dig in, cadets -- your Thanksgiving holiday relief crew have arrived!

While the Co-Cap’ns are gone this week, cadets, the kindly crew of William and Malcolm (formerly of MacNN’s One More Thing podcast) root around for the kettle and discuss some of the news of the week — including recent developments in the decade-long Virnet X case, the smashing new (heh) Tesla Cyber-truck, and the US president’s surprising claims about the Texas Mac Pro factory.

There’s also the unsurprising news that Amazon’s Ring doorbell has yet more security issues, the somewhat-surprising news that Bluemail wants to have their cake and sue it too, the completely-wrong news that AT&T will have America all wired up to “5G” in “weeks,” the fundamentally-misguided news where users of chat apps demand Apple do something about people abusing chat apps, the disturbing news that Apple has removed some (though not all) customer reviews, and the completely-predictable news that demand for the AirPods Pro exceeds supply at the moment. All this and assorted drollery, cadets, so break out your dehydrated biscuits and scones — the ship’s official tea break starts this week!

The crew welcome back Malcolm Owen from the good ship AppleInsider onboard to cover for Cap'n Mike, who has taken our new shuttlecraft -- nicknamed the SS Poor WiFi Experience -- to one of the most magical places on Earth for a rare family sabbatical. Naturally, Apple chooses this opportunity to unleash the long-rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro, announce an actual shipping month window for the new Mac Pro and XDR Display, and relay the news that the Enterprise Assimilation project is complete -- 100 percent of the Fortune 500 companies now use at least some Apple products.

There's also a fair spate of bad news, from an iPhone scam to a feud with Chromebook to concern about Apple's News+ service, and of course Facebook is once again embroiled in scandal, "bugs" that have been "fixed," and other really bad ideas. All this plus the heartwarming story of a boy who used Apple tech to discover his indoor voice (no, we're not talking about Cap'n Charles), and some new competition in the server-chip market. All this and more, cadets, so put on your astro-whitegloves and let's get the kettle for Malcolm and William on next week's show -- it's gonna get all British up in this joint!

Straight from his appearance on CFAX 1070's "Tech Talk" show with Alan Perry*, cadets, Cap'n Charles shuttles back to the Space Javelin where he and Mike celebrate another listener milestone, and take apart the highs and lows of the tech universe for the week. A new Mac Pro has escaped into our dimension! The mothership hits a stock high yet again! Two completely different streaming TV services arrive! Apple Arcade hits 100 games! The iPad and Apple Watch are kings of their respective categories! Office for iOS and Mac is getting a little weird! Photoshop is sort of on iPad, and the Pixel line is a flop! But that's not all!

There's also discussion about Amazon's poor hardware (both their own brand and their Ring acquisition), AT&T's awful behavior, the AppleInsider AirPods Pro review, Ming-Chi Kuo's shiftiness, a new high-end Dell monitor, and a look back at 12 years of the iPhone! All this and news of our upcoming month's-end shore leave, cadets, so get out your space-scheduler and astro-pencil, and prepare for some special shows (and a short break) ahead! To Thanksgiving weekend ... and BEYOND! YOND! Yond! yond ...

*If you'd like to have a listen to the CFAX podcast, you can find it here: https://soundcloud.com/techtalkalan/november-09-2019-tech-talk

The 60-second Apple Earnings Summary returns, cadets, and because we didn't waste time on pundit pontifications this week's crew briefing is a little on the spare side -- but our erstwhile co-cap'ns still hit on all kinds of news, including the launch of Apple TV+ and the Airpods Pro, new features in the Apple Card, a tiny bit of Mac and iOS gaming news, upgrades for retro gear, a HomePod fix (with new features!), and some comings and goings in the streaming video arena. Oh, and Google burns both a couple billion dollars and calories by buying Fitbit rather than just hitting the HoloGym!

All this and Ming-Chi misses, fishy growth claims, a stupid (counter) lawsuit, intriguing hardware and software, and an analyst who confirms the Forbidden Truth of Punditry -- they're just guessing! All this and more, cadets, so strap in and do not adjust your VR set it's tuned for the full opti-audio sensurround experience!