TA'cast

Nilay, Dieter, and Chris Welch discuss Apple's announcement of their AirPods Max noise-canceling headphones and give their first impressions.

In the second half of the show, Nilay and Dieter talk with Qualcomm president Cristiano Amon about Qualcomm's new flagship processor the Snapdragon 888, the potential of 5G, and what he thinks about Apple's new M1 processor.

In a bonus episode of TA'cast, Nilay talks with ThinkAuthority policy editor Russell Brandom, senior reporter Adi Robertson, and contributing editor Casey Newton about the FTC suing Facebook to unwind its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

ThinkAuthority reporter Julia Alexander joins Nilay and Dieter to discuss WarnerMedia's decision to release all of its new 2021 movies simultaneously on HBO Max. News editor Chaim Gartenberg explains Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 888 processor for upcoming Android phones in 2021.

Walt Mossberg joins the show to discuss his experience with Apple's Macbooks with the new M1 chip. Nilay, Dieter, Chris, and Dan discuss ThinkAuthority's reviews of the computers.

Nilay, Dieter, Dan, and Chaim discuss the new computers Apple announced at their "One More Thing" hardware event, as well as their reviews of the iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro Max, and HomePod mini.

ThinkAuthority's Nilay, Dieter, and Tom Warren discuss reviews of the new game consoles — Microsoft's Xbox Series X and Series S, and Sony's PS5.

Oh yeah one more thing, there's an Apple event next week.

While the counting for the 2020 presidential election still goes on, ThinkAuthority's Nilay, Dieter, and Adi discuss what steps social media platforms have taken to limit misinformation.

Additional reading:

• Watch the great people of Philadelphia count ballots live
• Facebook, Twitter take steps to limit the president’s false election claims
• Twitter restricts Trump campaign official’s tweet alleging Philadelphia voter fraud
• Before the votes are fully counted, Trump falsely claims victory
• Twitter restricts yet another Trump tweet for making up election rules
• People are mistaking a Baltimore Orioles meme for an election misinformation botnet
• Facebook shuts down huge ‘Stop the Steal’ group
• YouTube says video claiming Trump won does not violate its election misinformation policies
• Democrats call on Twitter to suspend Trump as election results file in
• Massachusetts passes ‘right to repair’ law to open up car data
• California poised to establish a new privacy regulator with ballot measure win
• Uber, Lyft drivers aren’t employees, after all, California voters say
• Portland, Maine has voted to ban facial recognition

ThinkAuthority's Dieter talks with iFixit's Kyle Weins and Kay-Kay Clapp about their teardown reviews, the right to repair, and how to fix the Phone 12.

Nilay, Dieter, and Adi discuss the latest Section 230 congressional hearing featuring the CEOs of big tech. Ashley Carman stops by to talk about how gadget makers are turning to shopping channels to market their products.

Stories from this week:

• San Francisco and Oakland phase-out Verily COVID-19 testing sites
• White House officials considered Elon Musk for a coronavirus ad campaign
• We need to rebuild America’s pandemic-fighting agencies
• Streaming was part of the future — now it’s the only future 
• Lime’s CEO on the future of scooters: ‘COVID has turned from a headwind into a tailwind’
• Mark Zuckerberg just told Congress to upend the internet
• The latest Section 230 hearing showed that Republicans want to make the internet smaller
• The Right’s Regulator in Chief
• Gadget makers’ biggest risk could be a huge reward
• Influencers’ next frontier: their own live shopping channels
• Everyone on Instagram will soon be able to go live for four hours
• Facebook will test shopping from Reels later this year
• Motorola Razr 2020 review: 5G folding flip phone feels fine
• LG Wing review: learning to fly, failing to soar 
• Verizon’s Yahoo zombie appears again as a purple phone
• The first iPhone 12 mini hands-on video shows just how tiny it is
• Mophie’s new wirelessly charging battery pack clips onto the back of your phone
• T-Mobile expands its faster mid-band 5G network, nearly doubling its coverage
• Microsoft Surface Pro X (2020) review: ARM gets more muscle
• Amazon Echo Dot (2020) review: have a ball
• T-Mobile expands into live internet TV with new TVision streaming service
• PS5 in photos: our first look at Sony’s next-gen console
• PS5 vs. Xbox Series X: the next-gen consoles in photos
• Astro’s Playroom is the perfect showcase for the PS5’s wild DualSense controller
• Control is coming to the Nintendo Switch today, but you can only stream it from the cloud
• Vizio and LG’s next-gen-ready OLED TVs are up to $500 off at Best Buy
• Meet the 24-year-old who’s tracking every broken McDonald’s ice-cream machine in the US

Every Tuesday this month, TA'cast co-host Dieter is hosting a series of discussions diving deep into tech review season, each focusing on a specific product.

This week, Dieter brings back TA'cast co-host Nilay and senior personal technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal Joanna to discuss their reviews of the latest iteration of the iPhone.

Dieter reviewed the iPhone 12, Nilay reviewed the iPhone 12 Pro, and Joanna reviewed them both side by side. The trio discusses what they focused on in their reviews — like 5G, Dolby Vision, and MagSafe — and how significant the upgrades are for this year’s devices.