Space Javelin

A little catching up and a whole lot of new shenanigans, cadets -- that's what's in store for you this week! Mike and Charles reminisce about last Sunday's iMac anniversary, ponder the future of the Mac mini (and the Mac generally), have a 100 percent human-led discussion on Google Duplex, go over all the 2018 iPhone rumors, digest some Munster cheese, fret over security, get Steamed, belittle Microsoft, and generally break through the BS and ballyhoo. There's a lot more to come, cadets, so stay tuned!

This may shock you, cadets, but this week we're not going to spend a lot of time going over Apple's record-breaking numbers for the company's fiscal Q2, because there's no time once we get done naming (and shaming!) the press and pundit buffoons who completely blew it (even more than usual!). Some inaccurate press created an iPhone X panic that turned out not only to be merely wrong, but literally couldn't have been more incorrect if it had tried.

Co-captains Mike and Charles dissect the analyst apocrypha, but that's just the first course of this hour-long meal. Twitter and Intel have their own screwups to deal with, Bloomberg and Quartz have egg on their faces, WhatsApp has a dark day, Sprint and T-Mobile plan to merge, Apple Watch saves more lives than Superman, Ming-Chi sells off his crystal ball, Qualcomm cries uncle, and Spotify gains users but misses revenue targets.

For dessert, there's Mike's in-depth investigation of the 2016 MacBook Pro keyboard (the first with the new flatter design) and how it compares to the previous and present models with regards to keyboard problems; Mike and Charles on the future of the MacBook Air; a look at the Oculus Go and the Lumos smart bike helmet; and the heartwarming tale of how Jeff Bezos (indirectly) prevented a dog-napping. Oh, we almost forgot: put on your silly hats, cadets, and party like it's 1998: the iMac turned 20 years old yesterday!

Technically it was kind of a slow news week, cadets, but that just gives the trusty crew of the Space Javelin more time to dig in deep and pick fights with the locals! Grayshift discovers that payback's a ... um, bear ... Apple officially kills off its AirPort lineup, Intel delays Cannon Lake (again), but the Supremes (the judges, not the singers) come through for patent holders. There's a few security alerts to hand out, and figures to go over, so remember to bring your astro-sliderules, cadets!

Also on this week are mysterious surges in both Apple TV viewing hours and our podcast download figures (coincidence??), Lexus gets wise to CarPlay, Bandsintown adds Apple Music, Spotify sets out new lures, iTunes (and Apple Music) arrive for Windows 10S users (both of you!), Mike and Charles take apart a bunch of oddball stories and seedy claims, examine some recent cool hardware, and lambaste Amazon's newest, dumbest plan to break into your personal space. Yeah, pick a fight with Jeff Bezos! Brilliant plan! Stock up on space popcorn, we're rare wild Pokemon now!

This week, the crew of the Space Javelin managed to land the ship straight into a volcano we call Hell & Sebastian, as we pointed out on our Facebook page that the gang at Linus Tech Tips were playing the victim card in their dispute about an iMac Pro that they damaged. Our view -- which has been echoed by our colleagues at MacRumors, AppleInsider, iMore, and Daring Fireball among others -- elicited much response, pro and con, and we take a look at it in this week's episode.

Before all that, and much to HulkaMike's dismay, we have other rants to get to: a particularly bad pundit who claims that the iPhone X is dead, Consumer Reports' evaluation of the iPhone X and Samsung Galaxy S9, AT&T's crazy good deal that will never actually happen, professional guesstimators who can't even get their stories straight, and rumors that might be true (and some that are clearly off-base). Finally we vent our steam generator about the weakness of the LTT defender's arguments (hint: lack of expertise, shifting goalposts, straw men, and a lack of diversity in news sources ahoy!).

After all that, we finally find a few "good news" pieces to report on, including US banks coming to their senses on Apple Pay (et al), Castlevania on iOS and Susan Kare before we fire up the thrusters and blast back up into orbit. All this and more, cadets, so remember to don your flame-retardant uniforms this week -- teh stoopid, it burns!

Eyes straight ahead, cadets, for the day of recording for the latest episode of Space Javelin coincides with both co-Captain Mike's birthday and a traditional day of bad luck and weird happenings! While there was plenty of good news on the horizon, the crew get a little ranty this week about GrayKey, the FBI, patent lawsuits, bad repair jobs, HomePod misinformation and pre-announcements!

On the other hand, there's good news about CarPlay and Android Auto, an Apple triumph over a patent troll, a repair program for iPad Pro Smart Keyboards, some new TV and video series (current and forthcoming) to enjoy, a great deal on a good VPN, new gear to check out, and Apple's achievement of 100 percent renewable energy (the good ship Space Javelin, as you all know, also uses a never-ending resource: it runs entirely on hot air).

Somewhere in the middle are notes of caution, such as the end of 32-bit apps on the Mac and old apps on the original Apple Watch, the potential danger of some third-party iPhone repairs, and experimental Nvidia and older Thunderbolt drivers for eGPUs that may not work for long, or well, or at all. From predictable pundits to laid-off leakers, Mike and Charles compress a week of tech news and more into one alternately grumpy and jokey hour! Assemble your Interocitors at warp speed, cadets, this is going to be a heck of a data dump!

Last week was quite a trip for us, cadets, complete with a secret mission: Mike and Charles once again boarded and took over the good ship AppleInsider podcast for their episode 157! Having looted and pillaged the place, the crew then returned to their own recap of the news of the week, and somehow made it different enough to (hopefully) please everybody.

The big news of the week was of course Apple's update on the forthcoming Mac Pro, which is still coming but a bit less "forth" than many people thought. There was also a claim that Apple will be moving at least some of its Mac line over to ARM chips over the next few years -- that's Mike and Charles stifling a yawn you may be hearing right about now -- and some minor but notable news about the latest Intel chips in the pipeline, just for balance. There's also some new legal action, the latest skirmish in the Apple Music vs Spotify war, and Apple's world-class poach from Google.

There's also some handy info on recent software that has broken under the latest macOS and iOS updates, the Facebook privacy story continues to grow new legs, Zuckerberg claps back at Cook, and a plug for Malcolm's explainer article on current and future screen display technologies. As if that weren't enough, we have some of the Space Javelin-exclusive reports such as Deal of the Week, our patented rumor debunking section "That Can't Be Right," and a new (albeit brief) Engineering Report looking at some new gear. All this and more, cadets, so remember to wear your dress uniforms to help welcome any new recruits we may have shanghaied on our AI raid! Welcome aboard!

Normally the crew take off for shore leave on holiday weekends like the rest of you, cadets, but dagnabbit Apple had other plans for us. Last week, the company held a big education-themed event with a new low-cost iPad (now with Apple Pencil support!) and updates of all of its OS versions, including some new features (and animoji!), along with official eGPU support for the latest MacBook Pros. Mike goes over the details of that, while Charles celebrates portrait nightstand mode for the Apple Watch and the new Health Records app and a library of old music videos on iTunes, 80s kid that he is. The crew ponder whether the increase in iCloud storage for students portends a bonus for consumers later, and go over the mystery of the HomePod firmware update that may -- or may not -- have changed its sound.

There's also the coming of the General Data Protection Regulation and how tech companies are prepping ways for you to better understand what is being collected about you, which of course leads to a discussion about FaceBook and Google -- the two worst offenders in the category of "not really telling you stuff you ought to know," with the former (but curiously not the latter) now being investigated by the FTC over privacy matters. Mazda finally adds CarPlay support, Tim Cook explains why coding is so important for students, Dropbox goes public (and what that may mean for you), Foxconn buys Belkin, and the iMac Pro's peripherals are now available for the rest of us. But wait, there's more!

Tune in to hear how Mike and Charles called it right about the education event, iPhone X sales, and the FBI's honesty about the San Bernadino shooting, and how they're going to be right about silly rumors regarding the iPhone SE 2 and a "foldable" iPhone in 2020. They also start to clear the backlog of cool accessories to talk about, and find (with AppleInsider's help) a surprising new weakness in the Galaxy S9 Plus. And that's not all, cadets, yet somehow they bend time and space to cram it all into a mere hour, thanks to positronic neutron wranglers and duct tape. Check it out!

We're running a wee bit long this week, cadets, but that's only because we're as jam-packed full of good stuff as the Millennium Falcon on a smuggling run! Special guest Peter Cohen returns to talk about keyboards, the new golden age of TV, and the first golden age of the Internet (insert modem screeching here) -- you know, before AOL ruined everything by making it accessible to everyone. Mike is back and eager to talk about Apple's two March events (happening shortly after we post this of course), an education-focused keynote and a press-oriented town hall. There's also a lot of rumor control needed for this and the upcoming WWDC, so he and Charles get out the Hose of Probability and give the speculation a good scrubbing.

As if that weren't enough, there's also the Facebook data debacle, the Calendar 2 crypto-calamity, more health happiness and new emoji from Apple, more issues for S9 owners, and while we're talking the Galaxy S9 -- AppleInsider took a look at the biometrics and the new ARmoji features, and both made their eyes hurt. All this and more, cadets, so sit back and enjoy this extended mission -- forward to the past, and back to the future!

A very special episode this week, cadets, as Mike has had to go below decks for the first time in a very long time -- leaving Charles in charge (you've waited 78 episodes for that joke, haven't you) with only his special guest and fellow MacCentral.com alumni, Apple and tech news journalist Peter Cohen to help out with analyzing the week's top stories. Before that, though, we celebrate the life -- and dedicate this episode -- to Dr. Stephen Hawking, Master of the Universe.

With the help of the ship's cafeteria chip lady and ace reporter Malcolm Owen, among the stories the crew cover this week are a huge bio-med scandal from Theranos, the Apple announcements of both the WWDC dates and a surprise educational event in less than two weeks (both with the potential for new hardware), Google Lens coming to the iOS Google Photos app, and Android Wear becoming "Wear OS by Google" ( because you can just never say "Google" enough, apparently).

Also covered are some new exploits from the Pwn to Own hacking competition, a first look at a iPhone-unlocking mobile kit from Grayshift, a powerbank battery recall from AmazonBasics, and -- surprise! -- Mike returns via a leftover Engineering Department report from last week looking at a Mantiz eGPU enclosure and a 1TB PCI-E external Thunderbolt drive from Sonnet. We've had many adventures of late, cadets, and there's more coming next week ... and beyond!

Oh cadets, this may be one of the crew's finest episodes yet. First Mike and Charles take a moment to let you cult-cool-stuff lovers know about a new radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on BBC Radio 4, the straight into the news -- including the overall trend lines on Samsung S9 reviews (mixed, it would be fair to say), the S9 benchmarks, our shocking guess at the proper name of Android P (and a few comments on what's not making the cut), Alexa's creepy laugh, a Hal-9000 hardware piece you can own, and a discussion about the pros and cons of the "Right of Repair" movement, but that's just the warmup.

Our special guest William Gallagher returns to talk about two of his favorite Omni Group apps, plus we have a fantastic bargain for our Deal of the Week. Beyond that, we "bustmyther" a few rumors and lies, including sticking a pin in the balloon of "Android user loyalty" and new rumors about forthcoming iPads, possible future smaller notches on the iPhone X (and whatever happened to in-screen fingerprint sensing?), a claim about a "mini HomePod" and next-gen MacBook Air, or maybe some Apple-branded over-ear headphones.

As if that wasn't enough, there's a special "easter egg" after the end credits that will be especially fun for Alexa device owners (hat tip to Peter Pihl for his great video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JepKVUym9Fg). Also included at no extra charge is a warning about a fake IRS tax scam, and a bold announcement last month that "Shure" turned out to be wrong. All this and a MoviePass roast, cadets, so gather by the space fire ... tonight we feast on their investors' tears!