The Tech Night Owl LIVE — Tech Radio with a Pop Culture Twist!

We present columnist Jonny Evans, Computerworld's "Apple Holic," who holds forth on BendGate, reports triggered by a YouTube video claiming that the iPhone 6 Plus is prone to bending. He'll also talk about Apple's failed 8.0.1 update, which was pulled shortly after being posted because it caused the new iPhones to lose a carrier connection and Touch ID support. Other topics of discussion include the media disconnect over the huge number of new features in iOS 8. You'll also hear from commentator John Martellaro, Senior Editor, Analysis & Reviews for The Mac Observer and a columnist for The Street, whose bill of fare includes Apple's reaction to the BendGate and iOS 8.0.1 issues, how you're supposed to carry those larger phones, along with the failures of Apple's preordering process. John will also discuss Apple's purchase of the Prss magazine publishing platform for iPad, and whether it should be cross-platform. Apple Pay is also on the agenda.

On this week's all-star episode, we cover one of Apple's most important weeks, including the introduction of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and the launch of iOS 8. You'll also hear views about the media freakout over Apple's decision to introduce U2's latest album, "Age of Innocence," free to iTunes customers. In addition, we'll cover some of the new keyboards available for iOS 8, which add learn and swype functions, and present a first look on the iPhone 6. The guests include prolific author/columnist Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus, who will also discuss his views about the decision to discontinue the print version of Macworld, along with Kirk McElhearn, Macworld's "iTunes Guy," whose articles continue tol appear in the online version of that publication.

On this week's all-star episode, the focus is, one again, on the product announcements from Apple, expected and otherwise. You'll hear about the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, the Apple Watch and Apple Pay. Our guest panelists will also talk about the forthcoming demise of the print version of Macworld magazine, and the dismissal of most of their full-time editorial staff. You'll hear from Adam Engst, of TidBITS and Take Control Books, and Bryan Chaffin, co-founder and co-publisher of The Mac Observer, Since Bryan is a watch aficionado, you'll get some special insights about the Apple Watch. He'll also tell you about what he regards as the most comfortable headphone he's ever used.

On this week's all-star episode, we'll focus on a very unpleasant week for Apple, in which they first had to block the ability to use brute force attacks to break in to Find My iPhone, suffered from a nearly six hour iTunes outage, and got dinged by the report that nude photos of celebrities were acquired by breaking into their iCloud accounts. Some Apple skeptics said the company was in disarray as a result, but Tim Cook announced that the problem wasn't due to a security problem with iCloud, and that the company will be more proactive in sending new warnings when an iCloud account is changed. Along to discuss this and other topics, including the latest speculation about the iPhone 6 and an iWatch or other wearable gadget is Jeff Gamet, Managing Editor for The Mac Observer and author Jeff Carlson, Senior Editor for TidBITS.

Outspoken commentator Peter Cohen, Managing Editor for iMore, holds forth on the possibilities of the iPhone 6, the ins and outs of those complicated wireless carrier contracts, whether NFC networking will be available in the next iPhone — and what about the iWatch? You'll also hear from John Uppendahl, VP Communications for Parallels, who will talk about the release of Parallels Desktop for Mac version 10, and how it allow you to run guest operating systems on your Mac — including Windows and OS X Yosemite. Josh Centers, Managing Editor for TidBITS, and author of "Take Control of Apple TV," tells you about his odyssey in having a defective battery in his iPhone 5 replaced by Apple. Service policies and planned obsolescence will also be discussed. And is Josh ready to consider buying an iWatch?

On this week's all-star episode, you'll hear from cutting-edge commentator Daniel Eran Dilger, of Roughly Drafted Magazine and AppleInsider. This week he'll continue to talk about the platform wars, but he'll also focus on the continuing demands from the tech media that Apple build cheap gear and why it doesn't make sense. You'll also hear his comments about the issues facing Google and companies building Android gear and what Microsoft has to do to solve long-standing problems. Do they all really want to be Apple? If you are irritated by offensive web advertising, such as pop-ups and interstitials (ads that insert themselves above content on a site), you'll want to hear from Ben Williams, director of PR for Adblock Plus. He'll talk about protecting yourself from annoying online ads, and the advantages of the company's free browser add-on. You'll also hear from Kirk McElhearn, Macworld's "iTunes Guy," who will discuss whether you need gigabit Internet, or even 4K TVs for that matter. He'll also talk about blind tests pitting CD against higher resolution audio, what lossless audio is all about, and whether most of you can reliably hear a real difference between a CD and a compressed audio file, such as the AAC tracks Apple offers via iTunes.

On this week's all-star episode, we present Braydon Moreno, founder and CEO of ROBO 3D, a company that designs and builds moderately-priced 3D printers. He'll cover the industry's views on how to make the product mainstream, along with some of the things you can do with existing gear, such as making chess pieces and even chocolate. You'll also hear from Bryan Chaffin, co-founder and co-publisher of The Mac Observer, whose bill of fare covers the possibilities for Apple's rumored iWatch, bitcoin, the digital currency, Apple's environmental policies, and the philosophy behind Apple University. From columnist Rob Pegoraro, who writes for USA Today and Yahoo. He'll talk about recent security scares, such as the claim that a Russian crime ring stole some 1.2 billion usernames and passwords. Are these claims to be believed? You'll also hear his views about smartwatches, including the potential for an iWatch from Apple.

We present Rob Dinuzzo, Marketing Manager for RoboForm, a password manager app, who will discuss the recent report that a Russian crime ring has somehow amassed a collection of 1.2 billion usernames and password combinations along with 500 million email addresses. How do you protect yourself and your passwords from this intrusion? You'll also hear from Stephen Baker, Vice President for Industry Analysis at the NPD Group, who will cover the state of the smartphone market, why 3D TV failed, the rise of set-top boxes, why iPad sales are flagging, the recent improvement in PC sales, and why he's not too impressed with the Apple/IBM deal. Tech blogger Dann Berg discusses the OS X Yosemite public beta, his efforts to install the iOS 8 beta on a iPad mini, why he believes the patent laws need to be completely overhauled, and whether he'd buy an iWatch if Apple releases such a device.

We present John Martellaro, Senior Editor, Analysis & Reviews for The Mac Observer and a columnist for The Street, who discusses such topics as how Apple's "secret war" against Samsung is working, why Apple could get more mileage out of its "slipstream" Mac upgrades, which involve minor refreshes and more favorable pricing, why Apple is going "back to the future" to fight Google, and how the new Mac Pro can use OpenCL parallel processing to explore black holes and perform other high-end scientific computing tasks faster than ever. You'll also hear from commentator Kirk McElhearn, Kirk McElhearn, Macworld's "iTunes Guy," who will explain why he thinks it's time for Apple to terminate the Newsstand app with extreme prejudices, the possibility that Iliad, a French telecom company, might buy T-Mobile, why you should be cautious about installing the OS X Yosemite Public Beta, and more about the potential impact of the recent Apple/IBM marketing deal.

On this week's all-star episode, we talk about Apple's June quarter financials. Some pundits say the numbers were "meh," while others say they were pretty decent overall. One respected industry outlet, however, erroneously reported that Mac sales were down in the U.S., whereas Apple reported that they increased in the double-digits. So we try to separate fact from fiction. We'll also discuss the Apple/IBM marketing deal, the OS X Yosemite Public Beta, which was released to up to one million Mac users on July 24, and some of the possibilities for new gear from Apple this fall. Our guests include Adam Engst, of TidBITS and Take Control Books, and Jeff Gamet, Managing Editor for The Mac Observer.