Space Javelin

Well, that's a wrap on solar year 2017 from your Space Javelin crew -- we'll be back with Season 3 and maybe a warp core engine if Santa thinks we've been good, starting on or around January 8. In the meantime, among those receiving a lump of coal this Xmas will be FCC chair Ajit Pai and his lickspittle cronies at the FCC, the US Justice Department for studiously ignoring Amazon's ongoing monopoly abuse, and whoever at Apple keeps screwing up the software and delaying the hardware. Still, the iMac Pro is out, Final Cut Pro X got updated, the Apple TV 4K and Google's Chromecast are both re-appearing on Amazon after two years, and Tim Cook and Charles Koch found something to agree on, so not everyone has been naughty this year.

In addition to fighting for net neutrality and saving up for that hella-pricey iMac Pro, Disney bought 21st Century Fox, T-Mobile bought Layer 3's video assets, and they both look like they're going to try and create their own competition to Netflix. AppleInsider shows off Samsung's stockingful of fail on the Galaxy Note 8's biometrics, the Windows 10 S version of iTunes isn't going to get here in time for the figgy pudding, and Phil Schiller doesn't seem to bothered about much of anything, really. Alibaba says it has a way to jailbreak iOS 11, if there's anyone left who cares, Apple fixes things they should have fixed earlier (including their Airport routers), and we *don't* spoil the new Star Wars movie or Doctor Who Christmas Special for anyone (until next episode ...). See you in three weeks, cadets, so enjoy your shore leave and stay tuned for the faster, further, higher new season of ... Space Javelin!

Next week is our last podcast for 2017 (and Season Two), but we'll be back after New Years. In the meantime, another fight has broken out in Techworld, and this one's likely to get ugly: Google is withholding direct YouTube services from most Amazon products, and each side blames the other, like relatives at a testy, political holiday dinner. Apple bought Shazam, Apple Pay Cash is here, and Charles and Mike take bets on whether the iMac Pro will actually arrive this week or not. Apple also gets another toasting for yet another software flaw (this time in HomeKit) even as they fix the other notable ones from last week, but a third-party alternative keyboard says "hold my beer" and actually does even more damage.

Of course, last week saw the long-promised release of Amazon Prime Video for Apple TV, and the TV app is now available in France, Germany, and most of the UK (apart from Malcolm's house), along with a general release of the Sirius XM app for Apple TV in the USA. AirPods are taking off, Apple makes the most popular camera in the world, Mike reviews the Caldigit 2TB Tuff hard drive, the HDMI 2.1 spec with 10K resolution (yes, 10K) is out, and Target needs to get with the mobile-payments program. All this and much more, cadets, so double up on your space food and get plenty of sleep-pod time: you'll want to be wide awake for this one!

Has Neptune broken up with Venus and moved into the 7th house of the ram or something, because this past week was one that everyone -- from Charles to Apple to Uber -- would rather forget. After commemorating a lost friend, Charles and Mike run over the myriad problems Apple had with its two main operating systems, including one completely inexcusable root-level flaw, but also rake the FCC over the coals for its plan to destroy net neutrality. There's more news about Apple vs Qualcomm, and tales of Uber shenanigans, not to mention the many stories of sexual harassment (yep, we went there) that have even crept into the tech world. Oh and there's a tax crackdown coming in the UK that is sure to affect most of your preferred multinationals. A tough week, to be sure.

On the plus side, Mike got an iPhone X, there's a new heart study from Stanford you can help with, the lads take a look at the Caldigit 3TB AV Pro 2, YouTube fixes their battery-hogging app, Apple fixes most of its software flaws, and Microsoft made the crew smile through their tears by releasing the utterly pointless Edge browser for iOS (well, iPhones. Well, non-iPhone X iPhones).

The crew have only two more episodes to do this year, and then they are taking two weeks off for Chrisnukkah and New Years. Charles recommends going to see the new Pixar film Coco; Mike is saving up to take the family to the new Star Wars movie. Star-crossed fates, holiday cheer and much more, cadets, but please keep your seatbelts fastened -- there's more than the usual amount of turbulence this time around!

This week, Charles is back from New York but it's Mike that's broadcasting from different quarters; however, this will not stop them going over the big tech news of the week as usual. There was actually not a lot usual about this week, what with Tesla springing a surprise alongside their semi-truck announcement, the disappointment of the HomePod missing its December debut, and the shockingly good benchmark scores from the iPhone X. Also discussed on the ship this week is the nice reviews for the Xbox One X and Nintendo Switch, the mostly-good reviews for the Google Pixel Buds, and kids' smartwatches being destroyed in Germany. All this plus a DirecTV deal, the Apple TV 4K for Xmas, Apple's iconic new TV ad, our changing usage habits, Vimeo adding support for HDR, a mini-rant about FireFox, a new Sonnet TB3 graphics box deluxe, and how to fend off a shark attack with your Apple Watch LTE. All this and more, cadets, so grab a size larger helmet -- your brain is gonna be a size larger once we've exploded this info-bomb inbetween your earholes!

Charles is away in various bits of New York, and Mike is otherwise occupied, so this week sees the escape from the airlock of intrepid reporter Malcolm Owen and the ship's bosun William Gallagher as they take the helm. We salute the US Navy for taking us on board, discuss Walmart's alternative figures against Apple Pay, bring up some reports of screen issues with some iPhone X units (but never fear, Apple is on it), and William sings the praises of the forthcoming version of productivity app Workflow.

Also discussed are the Photos app, anti-spammer email bots, Photos, KFC, and super savings on iPhone X battery life with the new Dark Mode. As befits the former hosts of One More Thing, the pair also resurrect the much-loved App of the Week segment, discuss examples of greater use of automation in software, take a peek at the new deals to be found in the debut of (by the time you hear this) Last Weekend Only, and geek out a bit over Star Wars-inspired backgrounds and effects in the new Clips 2.0. Things are a little different this week, cadets, with gentler accents, more decorum, and a full 20 percent less ranting (but a lot more sighing). All this and more, so tune in!

To the surprise of only the highly-paid "analysts" on Wall Street, Apple beat expectations again, had no problems selling lots and lots of iPhone 8s, and even the iPhone X appears to be more plentiful than last year's highly constrained iPhone 7. Mike and Charles go over the company's frankly stupendous fiscal Q4 numbers, but also remind users that all of Apple's platforms have now reached that mature "point-one" stage and it is time to upgrade if you can (for no other reason than to ensure you are no longer vulnerable to the KRACK Wi-Fi vulnerability, because you can't wait for a router fix -- it's probably not coming). Qualcomm stumbles, Google's Pixel XL 2 fumbles (again), Amazon doesn't do its homework, and Best Buy got their rear end handed to them -- all in a string of stories about being dumb.

This week, Charles welcomes D. Proni of Econ Technologies on to talk about super-syncing and backup utility Chronosync; Mike gives the Internet a stern talking-to about the freakout over a native (and not hidden) Photos auto-cataloging feature; both drool over the latest spotting of iMacs Pros in the wild; Apple makes a great change for iCloud users, and next month you'll be able to bid on Steve Jobs' old car. All this and much more covering a big week in tech, cadets, so get in line early and bring your sleep pods -- you're going to be out there a couple of Rels early to secure your very own copy of Space Javelin X -- er, Season 2 Episode 34!

Mike and Charles are back in their command seats with a big bag of brickbats to deliver to all and sundry, from bad headline writers, to stock pundits, to phone sellers, and beyond. The tour of the tech news galaxy starts with the big story of the week -- the launch of the iPhone X and all the usual hysteria that accompanies that, along with news that the iPhone 8 is actually selling just fine (and a theory about why we were told otherwise last week), and a warning about buying your iPhone from Best Buy. Also discussed are Apple's new leather sleeve for the MacBook, a new rant from Mike about entitled Mac owners, balanced with some good news for Mac owners -- new super-fast SSD expansion options from OWC.

Also covered in this episode: the latest legal wranglings, from the University of Wisconsin to a re-re-retrial of patent damages from the first Apple vs. Samsung trial (yes, eight years on); the FBI being whiny babies; Apple's smackdown of the "Face ID accuracy reduced" lie; Microsoft kills off the Kinect, and Google needs to work on its QA; and the Amazon CloudCam and (the ill-thought-out) Key idea. The return of the Lightning Round sees more insight on the Cochlear Nucleus 7 hearing implant, Walmart becoming more friendly to Apple products in their IT, Honda's new CarPlay-compatible Gold Wing motorcycle, and news that NYC is replacing the Metrocard with contactless payment systems at last. Last but not least, Mike and Charles take a closer look at insurer John Hancock's offer for a cheap Apple Watch ... and what's behind that. All this and more, cadets, so make sure you have your truth detectors tucked into your utility belts -- the space junk is thick on this orbit!

With Charles in Wichita and Mike right where we left him, a very slightly shorter episode to cover all that's shady, suspicious, or make us snarky in the past week, cadets. Of course the first discussion is give you the latest on the very serious KRACK Wi-Fi hack and what you can do to protect yourself (take this one super-seriously, please), and Mike owes an apology to Senator Al Franken (though he took his sweet time about it). Other senators, however, are up to shenanigans, and the crew call them on it, plus they point out the flaw in having a Thunderbolt Mac and FW800 peripherals. Not only that, but Mike and Charles judge Microsoft's latest claims about the new Surface Book 2 unlikely to pass the official sniff test.

Also included at no extra charge is a review of yet another Thunderbolt dock; good news about the Mac mini; a clarification about the "head start" Apple is giving some iPhone Upgrade Program members (tl;dr -- it's been widely misreported), and go on to further debunk recent speculation about Apple COO Jeff Williams' trip to Taiwan to meet with Foxconn CEO Terry Gou. All this and more, cadets, so get out your BS detectors -- it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

We're traversing both space AND time this week, cadets, starting in the present with the latest news on the Qualcomm saga (it's not going well), and the discovery of OnePlus phones spying on their users. We revisit the recent past to annotate our praise for the Pixel 2 with caveats about its value versus cost (based on some scathing reviews, but we stand by it overall), and segue nicely into a great deal from Sprint on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus (basically the same deal they had a year ago), and we also repeat a recent rant about how installment loans work, for those in the back. Back to the future to talk about the long-overdue Movies Anywhere digital service, the forthcoming GeForce Now streaming service (currently with a free Mac Beta) and what that will eventually cost you, and we take a peek at the future world of mainstream VR with the help of the $199 Oculus Go.

Speaking of theoretical things, Gartner claims that Mac sales are way down (alongside the rest of the industry). They're just guessing and so are we, but Apple has traditionally done far better than the industry as a whole, even if it does trend the same way, and Gartner has a VERY mixed record on their predictions. Also in this episode: an Apple TV show project we're actually excited about, the bizarre "Google Buys Apple" fake news from Dow Jones, and the real news that Apple has almost totally conquered America. We also go off the news path to recall the history of Apple connectors, and point out a great pair of articles about the history of FireWire (http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/06/22/apple-was-both-best-friend-worst-enemy-of-firewire-in-tumultuous-deployment-history), plus we end up attending the funeral for Windows 10 Mobile and where the Redmond Giant goes from here, not to mention much more. A total of 14 stories in under 60 minutes, by gum! Man the space oars, cadets, we need to row double-time to hit warp speed for this one!

This week, the crew of the Space Javelin have to start off with some scary news regarding security issues, and they put it right up front to stress how important it is. Yet *again,* it is time to change your Yahoo (and associated services, like Flickr) password, or better yet invoke your own personal "three breaches and you're out" rule, because security and Yahoo haven't been on speaking terms for at least the last three years. The new revelations are actually about the 2013 security breach, but it's now apparently that all three billion accounts were compromised. Even if you haven't used your Yahoo account in years, change the security questions, change the password, delete it entirely (if you wish), and be sure to change the password on other sites if you used the same password anywhere else (and slap yourself on the wrists for that).

In related head-slapping news, it turns out that High Sierra *introduced* a vulnerability in Keychain. Apple fixed it pretty quick, but you need to update it for the protections to take effect, so if you haven't, grab the "Supplemental Update" from the Mac App Store -- and also see Adobe Indesign start working properly again (Illustrator is still borked for the moment, however). Also tackled: a flat-earther type theory that older iPhones are slowed down is myth-busted; the scattered and few reports about swollen batteries in some iPhone 8 Plus units; Google's latest new toys, and a spec-sheet matchup between the Home Max, Apple's Homepod, and the Sonos 1.

But wait, there's more! Samsung's incredibly profitable relationship with Apple! Netflix jacks prices again! The Apple 5c and the FBI! Parallels 13 is out! Office ... um ... 2018 probably ... coming soon! The Edge browser comes to iOS! MLB's Apple Watch non-scandal resolved! Bert Berns and Clive Davis documentaries on Apple Music (what?), and of course all this and more, cadets, so prepare to enter the wormhole of tech news on this week's episode!