MacBreak Weekly 408 (Transcript)

Leo Laporte: It’s time for MacBreak Weekly, the new iPhone, find out why it’s the size of a pop tart. (Leo laughing) We’ll also take a look at some of the new rumors about Apple TV, the iWatch and, what’s ahead for Google IO, there’s some Apple goodness in there too, it’s all coming up, next on Mac Break Weekly.

Netcasts you love, from people you trust, this is TWIT! Bandwidth from MacBreak Weekly is provided by Cachefly at C-A-C-H-E-F-L-Y(DOT)COM.

Leo: This is MacBreak Weekly, Episode Four hundred eight, recorded June 24^th 2014

1.5 Pop-Tarts

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Leo: It’s time for MacBrrreak Weekly the show where we cover all the Apple newwwws and, ladies and gentlemen I give you in the left corner weighing in at 145 pounds, Jason Mark Snell…..

Jason Snell: (laughing) You’re off by about 50 pounds, Hi Leo (macworld(dot)com-@jsnell). It’s very cunning of you to say that.

Leo: Creator of the IDG, creator of the incomparables, master of the tech hive.

Jason: Yes, the beek-keeper.

Leo: The bee-keeper, are you a bee-keeper?

Jason: No, I am not.

Leo: Oh, okay.

Jason: But, the tech hive.

Leo: Oh, the tech hive, I get zzzzzzz. Also here today from imore(dot)com from Canada Montreal, Rene Ritchieeeeeeeeee (iMore(dot)com-@reneritchie.

Rene Ritchie: Quebec Nationale  now Leo, Happy Quebec Day.

Leo: Is it Quebec Day?

Rene: It is, it is St. Jean Baptiste Day, which is Quebec Day, which is fed nationale.

Leo: So, he got his head chopped off Solo May delivered it on a platter to….

Rene: to Quebec and so….

Leo: Okay, I get it. I’m just trying to think.

Rene: So, it’s a public holiday.

Leo: mmmm Public holiday from Canadia, and here from New England, and the Chicago Sun Times the master of the celestial waist bandwidth and the io I have no idea, Andy Ihnatko.

Andy Ihnatko: You have to choose your catch phrase very carefully, because it’s something that you feel you could be saying for the rest of your life. (cwob(dot)com-@ihnatko

Leo: I don’t know I think Ihnatko was a hard one, I, I Mark Snell easy easy, Ritchie, Ritchie but I don’t know what to do with Ihnatko?

Rene: I think he’s getting angry.

Andy: No, again I don’t know.

Leo: I have no idea of how to spell that.

Andy: I don’t want to be happy saying ,oh,oh,oh Mr Cowder for the rest of his life. I’m quite….that’s why I ‘m saying I don’t know.

Leo: So, Apple had the first word in the month of June with WWDC, Google about to have the last word, with Google IO. Interesting article in Qartz,’ Tim Cook is setting up Apple for its next big hit with Dev if I’m not wrong,’ writing but he isn’t getting the credit he deserves.’ And, I think that this is kind of an interesting analysis of WWDC and, what we are doing which is waiting for i-something.

Rene: I don’t know I mean Jason had a great article on Tim Cook before WWDC before, he said the same thing (small cross talk) It just depends on what you’re reading. If, all you’re reading is main stream publications, then you’re getting an incredibly distorted view of Apple in my opinion at least. But, if you’re reading people who cover Apple and Google then you’re getting a good view.

Leo: And, the view being Tim Cook is preparing us for the future.

Jason: We don’t know. I mean we don’t know, we don’t know all the details that is part of this. We, we are trying to tell the whole story when the whole story hasn’t been told.

Leo: Exactly my point. My point last week was we haven’t seen it yet.

Jason: Right.

Leo: We haven’t seen it yet.

Jason: But, I’m encouraged by the fact that, that Apple is trying to do things differently and, the things they do may not end being successful or not. But, I think if they were not visibly true trying to do things differently. If, they were visible like sort of trying to ……well let’s not rock the boat, keep it from as much static from Steve Jobs era as possible, I think that would like a 100 percent guaranteed failure, some people who don’t believe that.

Leo: We can say that demonstrably that not what they’re doing.

Jason: No, after WWDC, it is clearer that they were not. I mean the Beats acquisition is a good example,  something that wouldn’t …..that’s part of the new playbook but I think that the developer centric announcements at the developers conference were the thing that made it clear that this a different Apple. Some, of my people we’ve already had PR actions with them, are very different. Some, of the product roles labs have been very different in the last couple of years. They’re doing new things, which they haven’t done for a while.

Andy: Yes, I think they have come out of the desert a little bit over the past year, definitely. They have definitely…..WWDC was a return for me to the perception of Apple that as a company that makes one product, that one product is all Apple products and, they all work together really, really nicely. It really did seem as though all of these product lines and all of these services are trying to drift apart a little bit. Where it wasn’t quite so emphatic that, (a) if you’ve got an iPhone oh, man, you really are going to want to use iCloud, wow, if you use a Mac Book you’re going to want an Apple TV, because wait till you see how these two things can work together. And, it became a situation…..things hadn’t gone completely south but, you really had a lot more options because there seems to be a lot of trade-offs with all Apple and others. Now, it seems as if everybody is talking together, everybody is figuring out a way to make all their products work together better.

And, even if that weren’t the case, all the new Apple did was keep the power on, keep the water on, few….speaking from personal experience the local utility company has done a lot of upgrades to my neighborhood over the past five or six years where I, I like could say expect, where I could say expect one major power out that would last one day, now it’s been two years, we’re hopeful. Just, because you don’t have a hover craft in the garage the fact that all the services that they’ve been delivering all along are the same services, but they’re just working a lot better now, lot more reliably bringing a lot more power. That in itself would be something worthy of praise, so. We’re all happy.

Rene: I think two years ago Tim Cook re-organized Apple in a very fundamental way and we’re seeing the pay off for that. And, it’s in a lot of the ways, it’s in all the products work together, and now Apple can manufacture on a scale. I think Ben BeHarrison was saying they can do to well and they can do it nimbly, with agility and, it really is a whole new Apple as a product not just as company.

Jason: The continuity features that are coming out in Yosemite and iOS 8 are a thing that would not have happened two years ago because it involves the Mac and iOS really working together, seamlessly and some body conceiving of that form the beginning, and that wouldn’t have with the two divisions split up, like what they were two years ago.

Leo: Talk about continuity versus hand off….I’m a little confused.

Jason: I am too. Continuity seems to be a kind of nebulous PR term, to try and explain some of the stuff that happens, and some of its iCloud and, some of its hand off…..(Rene Interrupts)

Rene: It’s an umbrella term.

Jason: Yes, it’s a squishy umbrella term. Handoff is the feature where you are like on the one device in proximity to another device and, that other device knows where you are and can take over where you left off, and that’s not even just per app. It’s one of the thing that they talked about at the developers conference it can be per……it can be an app tool on a website. You could be like on FaceBook on your phone walking up to your Mac and have that page open in your web browser on the Mac. That’s the same place you were on the app. So, it’s, it’s pretty clever stuff and, but that’s hand off and continuity can cover some other stuff too I think like iCloud documents and things like that.

Rene: Continuity is the air drop, plus the new easy what they call instant tethering plus the ability to answer phone calls, sms and,mms on the iPad, as well as on the Mac with handoffs. That’s all under the continuity umbrella. The most interesting part of this though is exactly what Jason said before is that there’s a whole new organization behind this. It’s not just that continuity was just created, but previously I don’t know how widely known this is Apple was run, was the iOS division and, there was the OS 10 division here. There were people on top of that making sure that the features came out on top of OS 10.

Now there’s people in charge of features. For example in Apple some-one is in charge of continuity, and that’s continuity on iOS and OS 10 and, that is the fundamental difference that allows things like this to exist.

Jason: Yes, it’s a huge change for them. You’re starting to see the rewards. Last year, it was too soon, it happened too soon to see them, a lot last year! But, this year we’re definitely seeing that Apple’s philosophy is not to stick these two operating systems together, but to make them work really, really well together and, that benefits the Mac, because iOS is so popular, that if the Mac can be a much better computer experience than a PC, if you use an iOS device, that potentially makes the Mac that much more value-able then people are more likely to buy the Mac.

Leo: Although, let’s not forget that majority of iOS devices are used by Windows users.

Jason: Yes, exactly, but this is, this is the enhancement that may be makes the Mac a little more exciting for them. And, certainly the idea is that the Apple products are certainly better together than they are if you mix and match them.

Leo: Is there a goal to this to nudge people towards the Mac?

 

Jason: I, think that’s unethical. I think, it’s a strong possible result of this.

Leo: Right.

Jason: Just the idea that you can walk up to your Mac……I should say also this about iPhones and iPads also working well together. It’s not just to the Mac.

Leo: Sure.

Rene: And, to the developers too, because even though it was harder in many instances, based on my read, Apple used …..they created these features the same on both devices. They could’ve taken shortcuts on iOS, shortcuts in OS 10, that would have resulted in lack of compatibility, but the way it’s implemented on both is through tremendous effort which is very similar.

Jason: As opposed to air drops in the current generation which is the same feature with the same name, don’t work together.

Rene: They’re totally different technologies. (laughter in the studio)

Andy: I think that they are compatible.

Leo: The thing is though….go ahead (to Andy)

 Andy: Let’s not forget about the relationship with the developers over the past two, three weeks, now that more developers have had exposure to their contacts inside of Apple and their own exposures to the videos, if they weren’t at WWDC, a line that I’m hearing in various flavors is that it feels like that Apple and I both fighting in the same trench now. It, doesn’t feel as though, it doesn’t feel as though they are going to frag us just to competition exactly how badassed they are which has been a sort of…. bit of a problem….. historically there’s been a little bit of a problem….iCloud burned a lot of people and left a lot of people gun shy. Now, I think that most developers that I have been speaking to talking about the opportunities that iOS 8 is bringing to them as opposed to obligations and burdens that iOS 7 were dropping on them.

Leo: Do you think that (laughing) that 650 dollars that Microsoft is offering Mac Book Air owners to trade it in for a Surface Pro 3, is this a response to continuity.

Jason: (presenters laughing) There was a joke on Tech News today about the surface to air missile, or the air to surface missile……

Leo: I like it. (Laughing) Surface to air and air to surface.

Andy: I think that it’s more of response of the IT Department that might have closets full of Mac Book Airs they’re supporting and, the abi…the idea that we kind of need to get some sort of surface tablets into this department just to start the infection going.

Leo: You need to have, what which…. Mac, it has to power on your Mac Book has to be in working condition, (reading) you may not trade in water damaged or cracked screens…..

Rene: Well, then it’s not worth it. (more laughing)

Leo: It has to work, trying to figure out which airs……

Jason: Try and see Microsoft, it might be any Mac Book air. I like feisty Microsoft.

Rene: One thing that I wanted to mention that we skipped over, that I think is really important you Gruber last week and Guyshegner and Andy saw, but Apple employees were so happy. They, were palpably happy.

Jason: Yes.

Leo: Interesting.

Rene: It’s a huge change from some of the previous years.

Andy: Yes, I mean that, that, you…..

Leo: That’s aside.

Andy: There’s so much middling that happens to Apple before WWDC and rarely were I hearing so many people saying,’ Oh My God this is going to be big one.’ Because, because Apple’s….., there’s……., they are they are sort of synonymous with bold statements but they……in the interactions that I’ve had with Apple and even Apple PR rarely do they go for big banners, sort of here is how we’re going to advertise the new bold flavored Pringles. They usually don’t say stuff like that. That, really put me on the edge of my seat and they’re haven’t really delivered, yes you’re right. It does even may be reflect a new optimism, throughout the company that if the company wasn’t floundering and they weren’t, you need to be doing better than simply doing okay and be able to point to profits. I think they are now pointing to here is our great things that we’re working on in the next 1,2 and 5 years, that’s going to keep me in the company over the next 1,2 and 5 years I do want be around as these things get built.

Jason: I think, it’s in the last few years the feeling that I’ve got from Apple is that it’s an organization that knew that it was doing well and was really afraid of screwing it up. I don’t get that now, this is an organization that is confident, people work there are confident and, they’re doing these new things and they’re renewing confidence, this is definitely not coming from a place of fear like they’re panicking. Some people in the media have portrayed it that way and, I can tell you it’s not like that, it’s not like that for Apple developers and it’s not like that for the Apple employees. There are confident that they are making the right decisions here. They might not all work out but, that’s a good place for Apple to be, confidently what is sees as making the right decisions in order to succeed.

Leo: So, since WWDC Amazon’s announced a phone, direct competition for the iPhone, that may be setting the table for the iPhone 6, and of course we’re going to hear tomorrow from Google. What do you think Apple employees heads of the executive are thinking at this point, right?

Rene: The Amazon phone, for me certainly is for Americans on AT&T who are hugely invested on Amazon prime…..

Leo: It’s pretty limited.

Rene: Yes, so that’s nothing to them. I mean Amazon experience is great on iOS, it’s pretty good on android, maybe from a year from now the famous Microsoft thing it’ll be interesting version two, version three. The thing I like most about io….Google IO is that as an Apple user it’s a great show for me, they make so many apps and so many services for iOS, it’s like the second Christmas. I get to sit there and see the awesome stuff they do for photography, what they’re going to do with Gmail, what they’re going to do with Google now, because I can enjoy that as well. And, it’s one of the best things about using an iPhone, you don’t even get, you don’t always get Google services on the Amazon phone but you get them on the iPhone. You get great Apple service, it has great Microsoft services, it’s really you know we get a lot of choice.

Andy: And the other great thing about Google is that there are company that’s not afraid to put out their best ideas while they’re developing them. So, Google IO is often exciting because you’re seeing something, the first company that investing in a new interface, new type of service, even in a new type of hard ware. And, you better believe that everybody is going to be paying attention to that because a year from now, two years from now another five years from now it could be relevant as opposed to just an interesting demo. And, the other thing is that they keep improving all their core products, I mean if they  were to be able to……aaaaa I’m interested to see if they have any sort of response to iOS 8, because they’re so many new opportunities that are presented. If they have ability not to…reframe in Google services as not only things that you have to hit a web browser or, or a custom app, but something that they can project inside and throughout the entire Apple experience yikes, that could be interesting. If they, they find a way to project Google now in to iOS so that it becomes close to as integral to the experience as it is on Android phone. I think that Google is now going to pick up a lot of fans on iOS.

Leo: Google will probably tomorrow show off some watches, you know. They’ve had this android platform where they decide for wearables and not just for Google glass but watches too. It seems pretty strong rumor that LG and the Motorola or both will announce a show watch that is there. It’s not the first time that we’ve seen watches. We’ve seen a lot of watches, (Leo looking at watch on wrist) wearing in year two. None of these watches have been very impressive. Apple still hasn’t announced a watch, but everybody in the world is telling me that Apple will do a watch.

Rene: October, Leo.

Leo: Is that it, are we seeing a watch in October, is that pretty sure?

Two and half inch screen.

Jason: And, I’ll suspect that it’ll be like whatever it is that I suspect that it will be the thing that will hit the reset on this in this market, I mean.

Leo: Apple has been able to do that in the past, it has done that with tablets, it’s done it with the iPod, it did with…..(Jason interrupts)

Jason: But the season goes.

Leo: Right.

Jason: Let’s do that.

Leo: It’s not a give in though. (cross talk) I don’t think I would ever do that.

Andy: I’m not sure that…..I think that the watch is now such an idiosyncratic market at this stage. ( Jason laughing)

It’s completely in flux. It’s not like when they came out with the iPhone all they had to…..excuse not that it was simple thing to build the iPhone but, they have several examples of commercially successful phones to draw on it as they come with their own idea of how do it. Tablets, pretty much the same thing. iPad was revolutionary, but was not necessarily first. It’s not as though as highly mobile computing had been unseen before. Right now the idea of a wearable device on your wrist (Andy showing off  his watch) is still something that non body has demonstrated that they actually want.

Nobody has built one of these things that has been successful. We’ve had things like the Pebble Steel, …. that shows that if you believe in this concept there’s some good hard ware out there and it can be made very, very practical.

So, I’m not saying, I’m not saying that, I’m not dismissing the idea that Apple is going to come out with something with a color touch screen, or eve that, not even dismissing that…not even going to be huge monster hit. I’m just saying that I’m just not in a position right now where I feel I can predict anything.

I’ll still…..I will say that I’ll still be surprised if it looks like a conven……like what we imagine in a smart watch is going to look like, because I still can’t get my head around the idea of Apple designing something that’ll fit both a man’s wrist and woman’s wrist. And, I don’t imagine they would be happy in doing something that they feel will only appeal…. ,to….. by 49 per cent of the market, but again I’ll go back to my buzz word,’I don’t know.’

Leo: Yes.

Jason: I think it’s more elegance to the iPod than the iPhone. This is a market ……ummmm there isn’t much out there that isn’t super nerdy and geeky that regular people are using, which is sort of like the MP3 market back then. There was some stuff out there, but it wasn’t super impressive and nobody was saying oh, there is big thing here. And that is a much harder trick to pull off.

Leo: I think it was pretty clear with MP3 players, start with the diamond rio, then Samsung and a bunch of other companies had MP3 players, first the Noman. There was something, there was something (cross talk) There was something we wanted. I don’t know if we bon fide it that way yet. Tablets, were something we wanted, we wanted tablets,……I mean Blackberry was my smart phone before the iPhone E71 from Nokia. It was clear these were categories that were begging to be burst…I don’t get that watch thing. (Cross talk about the iPhone)

Andy: The iPhone, was preceded by the Blackberry, and the iPod was preceded by the Sony Discman. So, I don’t really believe that they busted a brand new market. They just made this thing before anybody else could.

Leo: I think the……that’s my point the markets existed just as they do in the iWatch, in the smart watch market, but I think the difference is in those early markets really you could see this is going to happen. It’s a question of getting it right. I don’t see that with these animals. (cross talk)

Rene: I had it explained that you know with the phone and with the tablet Apple could clearly see what sucked about those things, things I had very clear ideas about what they could do to improve because there were years if not decades of devices on the market before that. And, watches, smart watches are not that old. There hasn’t been enough time for products to mature to the point where Apple absolutely knows what sucks and what they can do. So, it is I think more analogous device from Apple, which is coming early on the market. May be Apple TV kind of early on the market, and also it’s not a huge market. They haven’t a million smart phones yet so, it entirely is a different thing than the iPhone.

Jason: And, that is the most important point. The most important projections for an iWatch market if you calculate it out would be a tiny fraction of what the smart phone market is for…..what the iPhone market is.

Leo: (Presenters talking over each other) We should have a CNN type router like,’iWatch rumor round up,’ (Leo humming some music)

Andy: We need some music.

Leo: This is the latest from Reuters saying Taiwan’s Qunta Computer Incorporated, another one of them Chinese manufacturing deals, will start mass production of Apple’s first smart watch production next month. Rumor one: Ding, the watch will likely measure two and half inches diagonally, ding. I don’t know what this means, slightly rectangular, is that rounded rectangular?

Jason: Yes, that made me laugh, just off from square.

Leo: Ding (cross talk) the source, by the way one source, it’s not a summer make. But added that the watch face will protrude slightly from the band creating an arched shape.

Jason: Sounds like supply chain leakage here.

Leo: Terrible idea, it does sound like supply chain leakage and that could be painful. It will feature touch interface (reading) wireless charging capabilities, ding and, we’ve heard this before Apple’s expected to shift 50 million units. That’s probably based on the amount of the order size.

Jason: Damn.

Leo: And, that the display, this from another source, …..ummmm will come from LG exclusive supplier of the screen. By the way LG are making a watch that we expect to see. And another source says that October will be the release date.

Jason: Yes.

Leo: Ding. Come on Chad you can help me out here (interference on the screen)Oh, you just turned off the Tricaster there, is that what happened there?

Chad: I, tried to do a transition now, it’s too much.

Leo: Now I have to say, one I’ve tried every galaxy gear, the gear fit the gear two the gear one. I tried, I gave the Pebble away (a) to Chad who likes it.

Jason: Yes, I like mine too.

Leo: You still wearing it on your wrist, okay? These are the guys that used to wear Nano watches, the cyber Nano watches.

Jason: No, never.

Leo: That was terrible. I have tried every band out there, oh, you’ve got your Pebble there Mr……

Jason: That’s the Nano watch.

Leo: That’s the Nano watch, (Rene holding up watches)

Oh that’s the Nano.

Rene: The Nano and the Pebble.

Leo: The difference in size there. I would rather have a big screen frankly.

Jason: The pebble shows you the time just when you look at it. The Nano you got like press a button to see the time.

 

Leo: (showing of his watch) This has a kind of a watch face, which is kind of nice. (Andy showing his watch) What the hell is that? A Casio?

Andy: I didn’t want to feel left out. That’s my one, my on hand wrist PC that runs Palm OS. (Laughter) Because I have Gaushinger 2 and a Pebble both upstairs on my night stand charging so, I just did not want to feel left out.

Leo: I have tried the Fuel band, the Nike, I mean the Jobbeno, so look this has been a crowded space all of which have flopped. Now, I have to say looking at Motorola’s official teaser for the Moto 360 and, the one thing that I find interesting is that, they give us I say us but it’s Google, it’s round, it’s got a round screen.

Rene: I have heard a lot of people really angry about this teaser in the industry, because a lot of people believe that there is no technology that it takes to make a watch…..(Leo talking over Rene)

Leo: It’s a lie, it’s a lie…….

Rene: There is no watch that is that big that can do all that for any length of time. It just seems beyond the constraints of technology. It’s a video it’s not only setting up Motorola for disappointment, but it’s going to create false expectations in a lot of people for what a watch can do.

Leo: Is it dis information, is it Motorola trying to screw with Apple on this?

Rene: It’s still frame.

Leo: Yes. I mean this is not real, obviously there is a video, there’s a Google video showing where Android is wearing where somebody is talking into what looks like a Moto 360. They look awfully thick….look at the size.

Andy: At, this point they’re trying to sell platform and not hard- ware and that’s really the difference. And Google has actually demonstrated that with Google now with their card design they’ve got a lot of stuff that’s already in play that if you can really….instantly see it transferred onto not a round watch face but think they would make square panel like, kind of like the Pebble, even if a little bit bigger. And, if all it did was display Google Now Cards, and if it had simply a microphone so you could Dick Tracy style give it commands and get information back from it, that would be a pretty cool product. It might even be a product that might be worth 200 to 250 dollars.

So, it is less of a mystery I think with Google’s mobility ideas than Apple’s right now.

Leo: This the Gear two review of before you buy later in the day, but this is the refined the second variation from Samsung. Camera is now built in, instead of being little pimple on the band. I can give the camera voice commands, in fact

I’ll show images from the Zip Lining thing I did. I did it just so I could try this watch and, you can say record video, you can say take a photo and it’ll do it.

Rene: It’s much easier to talk coming down ski slopes without stopping.

Leo: It’s actually good on a Zip Lin, because you go like this……yaaaaaah take a photo, take a photo, take a photo. And, then you know it has fitness apps itself, it has a UI kind of like an iPod Nano in the UI. This is Tizan, this is not Motorola’s I mean Google’s android wear. But, and given all of that, all the functionality you could ever want, you could talk to it, you can talk you, it does everything, it’s 300 bucks and it feels to me like a non-starter.

Jason: Who is going to buy these, that is the big question. And, the biggest question is anybody who doesn’t strap something on their wrist every day today going to start, because these things will be so compelling that they’ll want to do it. And, the answer is no, it’s never going to be a big market. It’s going to be a big market for the over…..somebody in the chat room was saying it’s for the over 50 crowd, over 40 crowd……

Leo: People who wear wrist watches.

Jason: People who wear wrist watches.

Andy: Think about the reason why people, those people stopped wearing wrist watches, because they shunted all of that functionality on their phone. So, if you stop trying to sell them a watch that has digital features and you start selling well here is a smaller version of your phone and it’s variable. That’s a way in.

Jason: Yes,….

Andy: This works for me right.

Jason: This what happened before, pocket watches got replaced by wrist watches because they were more convenient. It could happen again, but….

Andy: Yes…..

Jason: It’s safe to be skeptical.

Leo: I’m going to extend this now because I think it’s all wearables, I think that if you haven’t solved the wearable conundrum and, I don’t know if Apple is going to be able to solve it. I think this understandable for…..companies need to think of what the next big thing is they can’t sit on their wrist or their laurels.

Jason: Look at what Apple’s doing with HealthBook, sorry Health, it’s not Health Book, Mark Gurman will kill me! With the health apps and the Horizon I think what we’re seeing is a hint that would, and Google’s doing it to which is smart, the thing it’s not a one product thing. It is, it is…the object all over your body right.

Leo: I would like to object.

Jason: You see it maybe something on your show right, in your shoe and something on your belt, something on your wrist and, something in your glasses and in your smart hat, just throwing it out.

Leo: Which Jason has always proponent of.

Jason: And, then they will get on it and it will all work together. What you’ll be doing is based on your personal style…..

Leo: When it comes to October it’s not a watch, it’s a hat, Angela Ahrendts says it Burberry plaid, it’s a hat we’re going to make men wear hats again.

Jason: Yes, why not.

Rene: There is always a piece of clothing that everybody wears all the time.

You can’t make one thing to suit everybody.

Leo: That’s why Android wear makes sense because it’s not……Google’s not saying we’re going to make a watch platform, we are going to make a wearable platform. It started with glass but it could be a watch. They’re going to show watches, I don’t know if ……

Jason: I don’t know if the advantage of a watch, is just to see.

Leo: Apple’s not making a watch (cross talk)

Rene: But they’re making iOS wearable.

Leo: So, you think they’ll focus on wearable?

Rene: Previously the wearable stuff that Apple made were iPods, I forget what brand, it was ALPICA, or whatever, was OS those were not connected to iCloud, they were not connected to anything else that Apple made. It was till tethered....…….they are still to this day tethered to iTunes over a USB cable and, Apple needs to get iOS on to things as small as iPods, because that’s where that’s going.

Andy: If, I were to make any wagers, I’m still more focused on their making something more like a health band than a watch. And, when one of the difficulties I have is how much money is somebody willing to put on their wrist, on something that’s unproven. I’m, I, I almost think that one of the most successful products Apple could make in this space, if the first thing they put on that whiteboard is 99 dollars. I don’t care what you but it cannot cost more one penny more than 99 dollars. We’ll as good as we can possibly make it and, we’ll make as useful as we possibly can make it, so remember that this is not the only things that we’ll ever make, but we want the first one we make to be 99 dollars if we can get them.

Leo: Jobs did that with the Mac, and of course it didn’t come in at the price he said it should come in at.

Rene: It’s usually gone high and, then they brought it down over time.

Jason: See, to me you basically put something on your wrist because it’s glance-able. The reason why I still have the Pebble and, still use it because I like push notifications coming to my wrist where I can see whether I want to pick up my phone and, interact, quickly glance and see what is going and then quickly go back to what I’m doing. And, when you look at these announcements on iOS 8 today, a few widgets that developers can write, the idea that you can have a glance-able thing sitting on your wrist that can tell you what’s going on in the world, what you’re favorite sports score is right now, what that push notification is, quick response saying I’ll be right there, nothing in great detail just the basics of glancing and, tapping. That might be a thing, but that’s that’s why you park something on somebody’s wrist, because your arms are flailing around and, you can quickly look at it. (Cross talk)

Leo: Gerry Purnell, nailed this on Sunday, I want to know what you guys think, that….he….in ten years we’ll, this will all come to fruitition and it will be a subcutaneous wrist tattoo, roughly the size of an iPhone, it’ll glow through your skin, maybe you’ll be able to see the time…..

Andy: It’ll be like Logan’s run.

Leo: That sounds familiar Logan’s Run (laughter) and I think that’s I want. I don’t want a big honking thing on my wrist.

Andy: I don’t, I don’t want surgery for my technology…..that’s , that’s…..

Leo: It’s a tattoo, it’s not surgery, it’s a Nano particle.

Andy: But, but I agree completely with what Jason is talking about, I’ve been trying to get in with as a many smart wearables as I possibly can. Actually, one of the most interesting things that I’ve got into is the Casio Watch that doesn’t cost a whole lot of money and doesn’t do a lot. The only, the big selling point is that It does have a matrix display on the corner of the watch that can receive notifications from the phone. But, for all that it is relatively affordable, it is a G-Shock style watch so I’m not going to worry about it getting wet, I’m not going to worry about it getting it…..dropping it on the floor, and it does deliver the one that it would get me to really, really want buy money and have this on my wrist every single day, it’s a really low powered device. You know there is some many difficulties with the 250 – 300 dollar color multi-touch dislay on the wrist, including, you won’t be able to see but there there is scratches on every watch that I ……..

Leo: Right.

Andy: I own, always about here, ask me, because I’m exactly average height for an American male and, because God hates average American males all metal door knobs are exactly the same height as the watch and, at least once a month I go click, god damn it, and I’ve just done that, and I’ve, I’ve, the first time, I’m sure in the first month of having this watch I’m going to be saying that damn it three time, if I finally broke this thing. So, I’m wondering if Apple’s capable of doing something smart but simple and, if Pebble is actually a company that’s better poised to do great things because all they want to do is sell a lot of watches, as opposed to conqueror the market, define a space or prove they are better than or as good as the previous CEO.

Leo: Here’s how much time you have left, Andy.(Laughing) I think until we come up with a form factor, that is comfortable, flexible, I just don’ think we’re there. We’re so far off that even the magical, the mysterious Joni Ive, the wizard of Ive I don’t think he’s going to be able to solve this.

Jason: The first Apple wearable is going to be….even if it sells okay……is it’s not going to be the ultimate…right (Leo talking over Jason)………

Leo: It’s like the first iPhone, the first iPhone.

Jason: It’s too early to write off the category because this is one too big, unwieldy and thick, because it will bigger and thicker than people want it to be.

Leo: Speaking of Mark Gurman he says Kobi Bryant is wearing, ’Whatever it is,”. He says, Apple has enlisted pro athletes to test the fitness capabilities or whatever, it is …….

Jason: It’s steak, or whatever it’s wrapped in.

Leo: I don’t think that’s it obviously.

Jason: That’s the Apple Campus.

Leo: They say the Queen’s right winger Dustin Brown, a player from the Red Sox, also on the project of course their NDA’d, Bryant was spotted at the Apple Campus last month meeting with Joni Ive, that’s true. Hard to miss Kobi Bryant he’s about 18 feet tall so you know…..

Andy: That’s interesting, it’s interesting how Beats headphones got banned from the World Cup because if you want to make a popular brand you give freebies to high priced athletes who are going to be on television for a two weeks.

Leo: Right. They were banned?

Jason: Yes.

Andy: They weren’t necessarily banned, they were…….SONY is the key sponsor for World Cup and, because, well they basically said,’ You can’t be wearing Beats headphones, because we’re not sponsoring…..’

Leo: What about the Olympics, because Samsung had owned the Olympics, that’s so sad.

Rene: It’s marketing Leo, it’s what people see is what they are familiar with and what they look for they’ll buy.

Leo: I would like you all to start wearing your base wrist watch because we made deal……no we haven’t. Actually the Bases is interesting, I had them all, all that crap…..let’s take a break because we’re going to talk about the iPhone, there’s also rumors about  that. T-mobile makes some interesting announcements, we want to get your take on the Fire Phone, but first let’s tell you where to take that old stuff. When you’re done with its Gazelle. Gazelle will give you money for your old gadgets, your old iPhones, your old iPods, your Nano chits, your Apple computers, even your Samsung, yes your service tablets, they’ll give you cash for it. Visit gazelle(dot)com, now here’s the deal, now’s the time even if you don’t know what the next big thing is, you can go and get the thirty day quote and be ready for the next big thing. So got an iPhone Five and want it upgrade to the Five S, let’s get an offer, in good condition 220 bucks that pays the fees right there and if you unlock it they will give you an additional forty dollars. They even show you how to unlock it. I think gazelle is pretty amazing, but the key message here is you’re not locked you’re going to get that quote and they’re locked in for thirty days. You have the advantage here, you’ve got thirty days to decide. You might as well just go through you whole used gadget drawer, get rid of everything and get the price and then check out when you’re ready to sell and they’ll send you a box with a prepaid postage on it so you don’t have to pay postage. They’ll even buy broken iPads and iPhones and they’ll turn it around fast if you accidentally forget to wipe the data or you can’t figure out how to fix your broken iPhone, don’t worry they’ll do that for you. Gazelle’s very trust worthy, they’ve paid out now more than a hundred million dollars just to over 700,000 customers. And, they’re just the greatest, free shipping, fast processing, try it today, g-a-z-e-l-l-e(dot)com. Get the deal on your iPad, let’s get rid of that, what is that you’ve sold.

Chad: This was an iPad non retina display…..

Leo: Way back then , yes… I think that’s worth 155 bucks, gazelle….g-a-z-e-l-l-e(dot)com.

So what do you think of the Fire Phone, Fire Phone, couple of interesting things on Amazon’s phone, it’s really a me 2 phone spec wise, but they’ve put in some features. The May Day feature is I think great idea, they’ve done very well with the Fire Phone, Kindle Fire and the HDX, you press a button, within fifteen seconds a rep answers and, can help you and actually control the screen. Now, admittedly, any-one who has ever used a smart phone, probably won’t use that. But, it might be a great come-on for people who’ve never used a smart phone before.

Rene: But, they are not the ones that are buying an Amazon’s phone.

Leo: But, well that’s what’s interesting, I don’t know, people like….. cheaper data,

Jason: Premium priced phone…….

Leo: I mean it’s really aimed at the iPhone and the high end android.

Rene: This is my question to industry analysis, and every-one’s answer is similar and, it’s still confusing me……..I know why Apple made a phone, I know why Google made a phone, I have no idea why Amazon made a phone (Leo Laughing) in the short term made a phone, because there’s no customer reason at least. I understand that Amazon might want a Window, this might be the new display Window for the store, this might be the way for them to get even more money out of the whales that supports the Prime system. But, there is, there is nothing in this phone that I think is, I think there is no way I would ever recommend this phone to anybody and I’ve struggled for the last week to figure out an answer to that. The Firefly button is complete self-service, MayDay’s a feature that sounds great but probably would apply to the people that would seek out on how to use this phone. It just seems, it seems like a lot of a mess to me and, I’m really disappointed because I think Amazon is one of the few companies, you know may be Face Book hasn’t made a phone yet who could have done something like a Palm Pree or like an android.

Andy: Well, I compare the first version of this phone to the first version of the Kindle Fire, whereas the Fire had a lot of potential but, it wasn’t something you recommend to people, and then just two generations later I do think that it’ s completely competitive with the iPad, and this doesn’t do everything the iPad does, but does a lot of things better than the iPad and that is the source of you using this.

And, I do see, I do like the choices that they made in this thing. FireFly isn’t necessarily completely self-serving because you can be a best buy trying to choose between two coffee pots to determine to buy that coffee pot then and there and now you can simply press a button and get access to just all of the Amazon reviews of those devices. It, extensible by developer so the idea of having a button on the phone that is always your one click answer to the question of I want more information about this one thing that I’m looking for, be it a state flag, be it a phone number, be it a piece of art, be it anything. That’s interesting. The idea that they’re integrating gesture controls into the core level of the operating system with a new interface that’s interesting too because I’ve always thought that, it’s not like that I’m wearing out my thumb scrolling things down or tapping something to get more information or something. It’s something that’s a universal gesture that’s working in every app that says scroll down, scroll down, or get me more information for what I’m looking at I’d certainly use it. And, the final thing is I love the idea of having three D cameras on a mobile device and allowing developers to play with that. I mean, just like a million flash lights came out as soon as you had a phone that had big powerful LED on it. I think there are going to be million different 3 D capture apps for this phone when it comes out. And, when you start thinking about how the presence of a good camera are on you at all times has changed the way we think about photography, potentially that could be a big change in how we think about 3 D capture, how we read the world around us.

I would agree with Rene that I’m not sure right now that I can recommend the Fire phone to anybody in 2014, but I’m going to be definitely going to be taking a look at in 2015, and by 2016, if developers support all these unique features that they put in to the hard-ware. It could be something pretty cool.

Jason: I don’t know I love Amazon, I’m a Prime subscriber, I, you know really like my sort of Apple stuff and, Amazon stuff working together. I prefer to use Amazon’s, you know read Amazon’s books, and stuff like that…..

Leo: It’s all so edifying.

Jason: Yes, I like too, yes I hate it……..I hate to say that I’m not super impressed with Amazon’s software user inter face stuff their word carousels and things like that. I’m skeptical about the phone being kind of like a UI messiah. Josh Topolski  from Verge tweeted during the event this is a hot mess of an inter face, from all the images I’ve seen I would agree with that. So, I’m skeptical so yes you’re right the first Kindle was terrible, the first Kindle Fire was not very good, and they got it right over time and maybe they’ll do the same here. So, I think I’s interesting but it seems much less compelling to Rene’s point a device than the Kindle Fire was as a tablet, yes this is do I need a phone from Amazon. Amazon’s going to be on my phone anyway so I don’t know I’m skeptical. I do like the fact that it gives you a year of Prime for free, but it actually……the people that are actually going to buy this phone that actually adds value to them.

Leo: That’s a 100 bucks.

Jason: That is a hundred dollar discount, yes.

Rene: If you read the fine print, it says for example if you take that phone out of the US you no longer get the Amazon video. That phone is a non-starter outside the USA, even the Kindle Fire 3 which is better than the 2, which is better than the 1. It doesn’t sell, I mean I think it fell off a cliff, it can be very, very hard………

Leo: I can say Amazon’s advertising it at the world cup…..let’s put it that way. (Cross talk) and by the way Fire TV, very similar, I don’t know it sounds like a black box in terms of sales figures, so we don’t know that…..I think, yes…..I think……I think the Fire TV, the phones are kind of incremental products and that actually raises the question that Darren said in the chat-room said going back to the iWatch, is it how important of an product is it a make or break? The product.

Jason: No,

Leo: It’s a hobby.

Jason: It’s the iPhone that’s a make or break product.

 Leo: It’s a hobby.

Rene: Perceptively so, Leo.

Leo: Well, it’s going to get a lot of attention.

Andy: It’s going to be an important product, no matter what they do with this, simply add to the fact that Apple’s entering this market, however, we can’t ignore the fact that Apple, they’re not as, not as consistent as Amazon on……in the terms of making one thing, and that’s not very good, and, that’s improving as they go. We tend to forget that things, that things are……, verily sprout out of Apple’s forehead fully formed, the Mac Book Air needed time the iPhone needed time, the iPad needed a little bit of time, I think it’s going to be hard to begin with and, people who are early believers are going to be very, very, happy with whatever Apple makes. But, it’s going to take a couple of years for it to get to where it came. Most, anybody can say is that they have defined a category with it, at least that’s what I would.

Rene: What I meant was the media, Apple already, the iOS is already out and they’re saying Apple is playing catch up with Samsung and, other companies which is a daft statement, …….

Leo: It’s what they’re going to be held too.

Rene: It’s what they’re going to held too regardless.

The market’s in the media.

Andy: They’ve got enough money to……they’re not like HP where if they get bad press at tan early release they’ll back off, right away or else people will get fired. I think that, I,I, I think that we need to come with a new way of dismissing people at work for saying silly things they believe in because they will prove out in time and, we may as well let them.

Rene: Just take their keyboards away Andy, just take their keyboards away.

Andy: Yes.

Leo: I wish we had ……here’s  another thing Chad that we should add, a mother ship cam. I think we just need to find a cam somewhere in Cupertino that just can watch the construction of the mother ship.

Andy: (Laughing) Ha, ha I would have to have, I feel as if though that this one part of the earth that is not going to, that’s not going to be hurting for time lapse pictures of the project. I think that there are people who are just basically creating solar drones that can stay hovering in one place so that their site can have the, the, the, the time lapse angles that no-one else has.

Leo: I’ve really, because they’ve broken ground and they have proved…..(Cross Talk)

Andy: See it now looks like a really cool rally cross - spring (Andy laughing and lots of cross talk)

Rene: Why leave your card there?

Andy: There has to have somebody in Apple that said, ‘I know…..I just have to have you tell me, no I have to ask can we have one day when no-one’s there and, we’ll just do one day in rally cross.’ So, we can say we did it. (sound interference)

Leo: Yes, we did that in our basement before we yes loaded it up with crap. I had I had my little three wheel crike bike down there. I was doing figure eights loopty loops, it was great, it was huge, it was nice – nine thousand square feet. Well, I don’t know, this, this, this is what we need a camera from this perspective and then we can have, we can have the official mother ship cam.

Jason: It’s forward ground. That’s the way to do it.

Leo: Can you put the DG, DGI drawer up there and just have it hover. No.

Rene: It takes a few minutes.

Leo: A few minutes at a time. Come on I want a picture, I want see a campus c….  can’t but scroll…..

Rene: Alex Lindsay, is our consultant Leo, he could do it.

Leo: If, only Alex could just put his mind to this, looks pretty cool. I want to drive in this tunnel, you know Woody Allen made the Next Secret Two here.

Jason: mmmmm

Andy: It checks 1138,……

Leo: Yes, there you go…..

Andy: yes it’s the institution.

Leo: The George Lucas of the 21^st Century is going to come here and say, ‘I want to build a movie around this, it’s so pretty. (Leo talking in a strange accent)

You’ll get an invitation for this Jason for the hotel.

Jason: I hope so. That’ll be great.

Leo: I am sure.

Jason: they’ll send me to the wrong place…. And say ahhhh…..sucker.

Andy: You could save the Greyhound bus logos for Apple for the campus.

Leo: I for one is really……. When is this going to be finished. It’s not for like years.

Andy: 2016, they say?

Leo: Really, that soon. That’s only a couple of years.

Andy: I remember seeing something in the teens. (pause)

Leo: (Laughing) Yes, I think that you’re right. Something, in the teens. (Cross Talk) Our show brought to you by legalzoom(dot)com. If you are an entrepreneur, what does that mean in French, enter the penal colony?

Rene: There’s no word in French for entrepreneur (Leo Laughing). It’s not the famous George Bush saying.

Leo: There are no French entrepreneurs. Louis is the only French entrepreneur. If, you’re entrepreneur of course you know the dream is there to start your own business I had, and I did in 2005 and the thing that made me it possible for me, I couldn’t afford a law firm but I knew, I can’t remember but I was told that I needed to incorporate, I needed to trademark my logo in my name and I went to legalzoom(dot)com and boy what a deal 99 bucks that’s the starting price for an LLC, or Chapter S or a C Corporation. 99 bucks, there it is. That’s such a good deal, I wish, by the operating office by that operating agreement that we got, legalzoom is not a law firm, this is the beauty part. They guide you, they guide, it self-help services you go through the process and you’re done. They find everything you need. Register you trademark to protect your products and services, incorporate to protect you. Legal Zoom has helped over a million businesses to get started, just got an A PLUS from the better business bureau rightly so. Legal Zoom also provides legal help through independent attorneys. And their legalzoom plan fixed rate plans, profiles and unedited reviews to get an idea which attorney’s right for you. The self-help service is the independent attorneys, this is what you need legalzoom(dot)com. Now they’re not a law firm, they’re and when you use the offer code: MBW to save on your legal needs, and get access to a network of legal plan attorneys for guidance we’ll give you ten bucks off at checkout. Legalzoom(dot)com use the offer code: MBW for MacBreak Weekly.

There’s a new iMac in town,

Jason: Oh yes.

Leo: Oh baby, the cheap one 21 technically.

Jason: technically.

Leo: 21 and half inch iMac, actually really it’s a new price, although there’s some things you should know about, for instance….

Jason: Yes

 Leo: The memory is soldered on this thing, 1099 dollars iMac……..

Jason: It’s expensive.

Leo: it’s dual core iFive, it’s got a HT five thousand graphics, that’s the Intel graphics built in (referring to Jason)…..

Jason: Yes, and a hard- drive not even a fusion drive not a spinning drive.

Leo: Not, a fusion drive, just a regular spinning five hundred gig hard-drive. But the big one is the upgradeable memory, the memory is what you see is what you get. But, it’s affordable and in fact Vesper is offering it with a student discount, educational discount for 900 bucks, 850 I think.

Jason: So, here is the thing, we Mac World tested this and gave it a really middling review….(Interrupted by Leo)

Leo: well, it’s a middling performer.

Jason: They key question in the review from Jim Galbraith is 15 per cent lower price worth 50 per cent lower performance.

Leo: That was much slower.

Jason: It’s slow! And honestly you’re better off if your budget is tight enough that you can’t go up that extra 200 dollars, you might want to look for a refurb or an older model that you can buy used because they will be faster than this super slow Mac, that seems to be destined for education, but it’s like a bad deal. Unless, you…..

Leo: What do you need the speed for though, is that not fast enough?

Jason: Well, if (cross talk). I had this argument on Twitter and I had a lot of people yelling at me. Not everybody need four quads, not everybody needs that. The storage is slow, I wish it was fusion drive……

Leo: A fusion drive is a slower drive it’s not rrpm. It has Thunderbolt points on it?

Jason: It really doesn’t have a spinning drive, it doesn’t have any SSD on it. I, think today lots of people could use it, they would be fine. I think the concern would be that it’s not going to age well as system that’s twice as fast. (laughing)

Leo: Remember, it’s designed to compete against 400-500 dollar PCs…….

Jason: Sure.

Leo: that are equally slow or slower.

Jason: It’s 1099, it’s not like is 999, or 899.

Leo: It’s 1099.

Jason: It’s a bigger performance gap for price than we’ve seen from Apple for quite a while, and not upgradeable.

Leo: And not upgradeable.

Jason:  It’s like a Mac Book Air inside there, except with a spinning hard-drive instead of the speedy SSD.

Leo: Frankly, for education I think, well may be they don’t. They want desk-tops like in a lab.

Andy: Okay, kids……

Leo: How can the kids tell?

Andy: When, I saw the performance, it made really wonder is, if they’re really trying to make a budget MAC for education why not target the Mac Mini or, does this indicate that actually when we next the see the new Mac Mini we will see a 499 dollar Mac Mini because if you really want to get to, to, to get more Macs on more desk tops, they probably have a monitor out there, or they’re probably willing to settle for a cheap 250 dollar Dell monitor. Or, they probably got key boards, they’ve probably got everything they need except for that what makes them Macs. So, I was a little bit confused by that, I read the release, I read the specs, I thought this doesn’t seem like a very interesting computer. I bet that once people start reviewing it, tearing it down and narrowing it down, oh it really does seem very good. I’m very confused about that.

Jason: Yes, schools like iMacs because they’re all in one. That’s good and Mac Mini with a monitor you got people pulling the plug and……

Leo: Yes, that’s a good point.

Jason: And, schools really like iMacs, I mean they like laptops too…..(Interrupted by Leo)

Leo: Laptops for the students for a one to one program but, I think for the lab….

Jason: Yes, it’s iMacs for the labs. In, my daughter’s school, absolutely it’s all iMacs.

Leo: That actually makes sense. I think it’s appropriate to do the caveat say look understand what you’re getting for this price, but I think….

Jason: If their techno isn’t right, we’re not,….

Leo:  There’s no market for it.  I think that this is the right device for a lot of people including schools but……

Jason: But, if I were advising somebody who had a very tight budget and wanted to buy an iMac I would say look at the refurbished iMacs, because they’re for the same price you can get the higher, ……..

Leo: Yes you can get 200 bucks off.

Jason: You can get something that’s twice as fast.

Leo: But you can only get one but the school needs to buy 20.

Jason: But, the school can’t do that.

Leo: Yes. Right.

Rene: Leo, did you know that education pricing is cheaper on this.

Leo: It is.

Jason: Fifty bucks cheaper I think. It’s not a lot cheaper, but it’s cheaper.

Leo: I just saw best buy present, let’s see……

Jason: But, this is the education iMac too, this is where, this is where it’s doing the EiMac.

Leo: Yes, the Ei Ei Mac.

Jason: See, yet this is the great conundrum yet no, with 200 dollars gets you a much better system, but what if that 200 dollars is money for the speed you don’t need, it probably expands the life span to have a faster system right, this will to be able to run crap, this would be crappier in three years than the one that’s 200 dollars more.

Leo: Is the Chrome book faster than a raspberry pie.

Rene: But, will it run OS faster, that’s the question.

Leo:  Mixer, after the iWatch.

Andy: After the Ti99

Leo: Faster than I don’t know.

Andy: You buy six to get one for free so that’s the future too.

Leo: That would be good, let’s do that. So, another rumor, more rumors on the iPhone, I think, I think at this point can we lock it down there will be two iPhones probably September 4.7 inch display on one,5.5 inch on another. Is Apple really going to do a five and half inch iPhone? Yes, that’s a departure for them.

Jason: It’s a new Apple, it’s a new Apple for you.

Rene: Yes.

Andy: You talk just about not just the sources of the rumor but the flossie of them and the direction they come from, and although I would not have predicated even four months ago that Apple would have gone with two different larger screen iPhones. Now, I’m starting to believe that there, there’s going to be a normal sized phone that’s larger than an iPhone and also one that’s kind of like a pop tart. I would never have guessed that. (Leo laughing) That is the one indication of the…….

Leo: I don’t like a poppie….(cross talk)

Jason: It’s the frosting on the pop tart….

Andy: That’s the only way to put it. The thing that it means the occasionally I have to go down, go down the store buy some chocolate pop tarts to make the comparison.

Leo: It doesn’t taste as good, only the bad (presenters talking over each other)

Andy: The first thing I notice is that the Nokia 1520 because it looked very, very familiar so I bought a box of pop tarts that is exactly the size of one half and one half pop tart, you put one and one half pop tarts on top of it, you completely cover the foot-print on it.

Jason: That’s not a good ratio, it can’t be, that’s a long pop tart, it can’t be.

Leo: Jason, do you have an iPhone on you?

Jason: I do.

Andy: I think that there a lot more pop tarts.

Leo: Let’s do the comparison, it’s not an exact comparison because, here is, this is an iPhone Five S, here you have the width shoulder, here is the four-inch screen. This is a HTC M8 (holding this phone up) that’s a five-inch screen, so it’s bigger than 4.7 will be. I don’t have my Moto X.

Jason: It’s in the middle.

Leo: It’s in the middle. I can’t see the Note three it’s 7.5 inches. This is fairly close to what an iPhone 6 might look like. That’s a heck of a jump. (Cross Talk)

Rene: The biggest question for me there is the Note size has not sold in North America in any appreciable numbers. It sold like gangbusters in Asia, but they sold for at a rather low price point. I don’t think that Apple is going to do low.

Leo: Give me that again. (juggling with three mobile phones). This is a pop tart (Comparing a phone with an actual pop-tart)

Andy: If you got a pop tart…..(Cross talk)

Leo: The pop tart is 4by3, you’re saying it will be 69 won’t it? What would happen if you had the two pop tarts together, would that be 6 inch?

Rene: The iPad mini.(laughing)

Andy: That’s the iPad mini.

Leo: Here’s and air, so (drops a pop tart) oh darn I guess some-one will have to eat that one. Would you like a pop tart?

Jason: Yes, give it over. (Leo hands over pop tart)

Leo: Yes, we do have pop tarts, it’s part of the employee benefit program we offer. (Leo roaring with laughter as Jason holds pop tart to ear)

Jason: Not coming through.

Andy: I can’t hear you I’ve got a pop tart in my ear.

Rene: You’re holding it upside down Jason. You’re holding it wrong.

Jason: The home button - holding it for a second, it’s Amazon I’m……

Andy: Hi, there I have a problem on the pop tart.

Leo: What kind of flavor pop tart is this? It’s got sparkles on it. It’s strawberry.(cross-talk)

Andy: You’ve got to lick the bumper of icing on it before you get calls on it.

Jason: Facing bumper.

Leo:  They make, they make…….Okay…….This is not a healthy snack.

Unknown Voice: No, have you seen the calories in that thing?

Leo: The thing is that this is not a helpful breakfast.

Unknown Voice: It’s got as many calories like a Big Mac.

Rene: It’s what I would for my lunch.

Leo: (Leo breaking the pop tart)…..I’m not eating that.

Rene: Make sure you note that in you’re health kit, Leo. ( A lot of booing noises)

Rene: Push, one towards the TV, push one towards the TV.

Leo: Who buys pop tarts for the staff, is that Debbie, is that Lisa’s idea Debbie?

Unknown Voice: I think we bought them like six months ago, and they’ve just been hanging around.

Leo: Oh, well……that’s a good thing about a pop tart, they keep for long time.

Jason: Not forever (taking a bite out of one)

Leo: Ant-theft technology built into phones in New York, basically this kill switch….

Jason:mmmmm,

Leo: has reduced theft 50 …..what is it 5….15 per cent….no even more.

Jason: Yes.

Leo: In San Francisco iPhone robberies dropped 38 per cent after Apple put the lock feature in. In London they fell 24 per cent. In New York city, robberies which are like…gimee your…..you know threat of violence 19 percent, grand larcenies dropped 29 per cent.

Jason: And, the Samsung thefts went up.

Rene: Their easier to see.

Leo: (Laughing) because they’re easier to see……..

Jason: Samsung (cross talk and Leo reading)

Leo:  Theft of Samsung products increased by 51 per cent at that same time.

Jason: So, the person writing this article showing that Apple’s doomed

Because it’s thefts are down and its sales are up. But, this is the power…..

Leo: obviously it’s the kill switch…..

Jason: obviously thieves have learnt that they can’t sell stolen iPhones anymore because of the lock.

Leo: I, would have…..I’m actually surprised because I would think that thieves are pretty stupid and that they would be very slow to gather this. But I guess that they found out, they stole a few and they said, ’Oh, wait a minute these are….these have no resale.

Jason: What it will mean is that I won’t buy an iPhone, maybe a Samsung, I’ll buy those so…

Leo: So if it were a Samsung……, if there were any doubt that the kill switch were……..

Jason: Till, it works…..

Leo: It works……

Jason: Yep….

Leo: Now whether the government should mandate this is another question. I think it is probably evident that Samsung should get on the band - wagon, in fact they’re talking about it. And, I think the wireless carriers probably should do something about it.

Rene: Just copy that.

Leo: The idea though that the wireless carriers don’t want a kill switch because they want people to buy more phones. I hope that’s not true. That really imputes some sort of evil, you know morality in the head offices of …….

Jason: Yes.

Leo: Verizon and AT&T which I doubt exists.

Rene: Incompetence should be added to a lot of degrees that’s indistinguishable from  malice, Leo.

Leo: Maybe it’s incompetence, but any way the kill switch is good. Activation lock is good…..(Interrupted by Jason)

Jason: Yes,…

Leo: It works big time. It’s significant.

Andy: In fact Google and Microsoft have both said they they’re going to be adding kill switches to windows phone and android and so….

Leo: That’s, how it should be.

Andy: It just makes sense. By, far all of us here have probably that library of those questions that people ask us because they know there is a logical answer to this, but they think that they just don’t know what it is.

Leo: Right.

Andy: One of the highlights of that list for me is – well, obviously if I just simply tell them what the serial number is, it’s going to be impossible for anyone to use that phone. If anyone takes that to an Apple Store, they will hear, “No, there’s no way to do that.” They don’t track serial numbers. They have no way to of returning your phone to you even if someone says, “I found this on a park bench and this is the most logical place for me to return it. Apple store, can you please return it to its owner?”

Leo: No. Well if you don’t have an iPhone or if your iPhone is older and doesn’t have activation log, by all means, install the kill switch. Every single phone platform has kill switch software you can install on it. I’m looking at this M8, this Android phone, and it says you have 10 chances to unlock it and after that I’m going to erase myself. Is that the same as activation log?

Rene: No, because that’s just wiping the phone. It will do that anyway. With the modern iOS, they can still resell it. The idea of the modern iOS device is, you can wipe that, you can do whatever it want, it will need you to enter in an Apple ID and a password that was the one that was just on there before, before it will unlock. Otherwise, it’s just a brick.

Leo: I noticed, by the way, maybe they’re doing this on Yosemite. Because I noticed that I needed to use an Apple ID to log into my Yosemite.

Rene: You don’t need to, but it’s an option.

Leo: It’s encouraged. Microsoft does this with Windows 8. And that would have the same benefit, yeah? Maybe not.

Jason: It depends.

Leo: It has to be tied to this.

Jason: People can probably just pull out the drive. But on the iOS devices they can do it.

Leo: I think this is a great response. Good on Apple. And nobody else, by the way, has that activation log feature. That’s unique to Apple. But it could be everyone.

Jason: Not to that extent.

Leo: T-Mobile will lend you a 5S if you want to. Now Verizon did this a while ago. They discontinued the program, but starting June 23rd, which was yesterday, right, you can go to a T-Mobile store and say, “I’d like to try an iPhone 5S for a week.”

Rene: You get John Legere’s personal iPhone.

Leo: Is it his? They’re handing it around?  What do you think of John Legere?

Rene: He’s entertaining. I don’t know how good a CEO he is.  The whole point is, if you have not seen John Legere, you have not seen Shakespeare the way it’s meant to be.

Leo: You have to go to T-Mobile’s website to sign up. This test drive, they think, will be used by more than 1 million people in the first year. That’s what they’re expecting, so they’ve got quite a few iPhones in the back there. You get a weeklong trial period. With unlimited text data and calls. You have to stay in the US obviously. If you damage the phone, hundred bucks, that’s all, that’s not bad. It costs more than that to fix a regular iPhone. And this is all free of charge. I think he’s really knocking it out of the park with T-Mobile.

Rene: He wants to let people know T-Mobile has the iPhone. Which is been a big challenge for them, because they were the last carrier to get it.

Leo: That’s right.

Rene: And this is a great way to do it.

Leo: This is, I think, a disincentive. If you do the test drive, you have to give it back. Even if you’re going to get an iPhone, you’re going to get a brand-new iPhone and they’re going to refurb it. So if you spend time setting up that test drive iPhone, you’ll lose that. Back it up to the Cloud of course, what am I thinking? I’m a fool.

Jason: They also announced in that same event, their free data for music streaming service.

Leo: So which services? Rhapsody? Spotify? And iTunes. That’s pretty cool.

Rene: Which some people thought was anti-net neutrality and some people thought was just free stuff.

Leo: Well, it’s funny. I castigated AT&T when they did the same thing.

Jason: I think if you play favorites, it’s a bigger problem, because it’s sort of like, while our service is free, but everyone else’s you have to pay for. Here, T-Mobile is saying, “All these popular services, not all of them, but it’s a lot of them, are covered.”

Leo: Pandora, I Heart Radio, iTunes radio, Rhapsody, Spotify, Slacker. Those are the five.

Jason: And nobody likes freaking out about measuring data, like bandwidth caps. Nobody likes to say, “I’d like to listen to that song, but it’s going to stream and I’m coming near my limit”, so eliminating that, not for everything but for your streaming music, is going to encourage people to stream music.

Rene: Distresses the experience!

Jason: Yeah.

Andy: Also if you’re going to give something away for free, giving away music is pretty cheap.

Leo: Right. It’s not video.

Andy: It’s not video, and also I think studies say that you’d be surprised at how little it costs to stream Spotify and to stream all these other services, even over LTE. It’s not as though they’re saying, “Here have Netflix 24/7.” But it’s still a generous offer. It’s why T-Mobile is a fun company to think about. Also, keep in mind that they scheduled this event for the night of Amazon’s big . . .

Jason: Wasn’t that funny? Same town too.

Andy: You’ll like that kind of gumption and moxie. That spunk. That spirit.

Leo: Does AT&T offer unlimited streaming for Beats? They have that deal with Beats.

Rene: Not that I’m aware of.

Leo: Really?

Rene: And wisely they’re not offering streaming for the Apple podcast app, which is what costs me bandwidth.

Leo: Hey, speaking of Beats, when is that going to happen?

Rene: Which part of it?

Leo: Well, any part of it. It’s not official.

Rene: Dr. Dre is showing up at 4:30 in the morning to get their bill.

Leo: In fact, Dr. Dre is in Hollywood producing an album, which is what he wants to do and always does. I don’t know where Jimmy Iovine is, but I think he’s taking some of that money and he’s buying an island somewhere.

Jason: So iTunes was extremely absent at WWDC.

Leo: No kidding.

Jason: And that leads me to believe that there is a shoe to drop about music. It may be a new iTunes; it may be a new music app. Who knows what it is, but I feel like this fall will see. A story that they’re not ready to tell yet, but that they will be able to tell in the fall. I’m really hoping that it’s a music app and iTunes is dead.

Rene: Continuity for music.

Jason: Continuity for music, which we asked about because it seems logical that you would be able to walk away from your Mac and your iPhone would just start playing your music where you left it off.

Leo: Ooooh.

Jason: I talked to Apple about it at WWDC, and in the sessions they said that music was an example. And yet they didn’t show anything about it. And I think that that’s because they’re not ready to tell us what music’s going to look like in the fall just yet. But I think that there are changes happening there. And that would be the logical time to talk about Beats a little bit more, too. Because hopefully the Beats streaming service will be part of that story too.

Leo: We don’t know, but are you guys assuming that September will be an iPhone and October will be an iPad – that usual…

Jason: And the watch.

Leo: Will be in October.

Jason: Something like that, yeah.

Leo: And then music would go with, probably the October announcement, yeah?

Rene: Yeah, it’s usually September. Additionally, it’s been iPhone, iPod, iTunes and then iPad, Mac. Although the watch kind of messes with things.

Jason: But I do think there’s got to be something going on that they didn’t really even show iTunes doing anything and they didn’t focus on it, I feel like there will either be a new approach to iTunes… Since they’re doing this photos app we don’t know the ultimate disposition of iPhoto. But they’re doing this new photos app. It would be perfectly logical that there would be a music app just like there is on iOS.

Leo: And the home automation app. Maybe that Home Kit could be expanded to include your Apple TV. That’s one rumor. Your watch, your iPhone, your iPad.

Jason: The new iOS is always two parts. The first half, they show off in June with WWDC, and then there is a second half they show off that’s the new hardware that has more specific services. It would be no surprise to see several new iOS features that would tie into both maybe new music services and new hardware. In September. Touch ID is an IOS seven feature, but they didn’t announce it until they announce the phone, because it was pointless until they had a sensor.

Leo: I just had a horrifying thought. This new iMac is not replacing the Mini, is it? Is the Mini dead?

Rene: I don’t think so.

Leo: No.

Jason: That rumor has been out there for a long time. They sell pretty well and I think their margins are pretty good and people buy them. I have two in my house right now.

Leo: We have a busy time for Apple coming up in the next few months.

Rene: It’s going to be even more insane than previous years. Which were insane. This is what they do.

Andy: Just the final dog and pony show. Demo of iOS8 and Yosemite together, the shipping versions and how they work together. That in itself could be a 45 minute keynote. And that’s stuff that they’ve already shown us, so. This is a profoundly exciting time.

Rene:  Maybe we’ll get an invitation that looks like a college schedule or something. That says, “Please come to Apple’s campus every Tuesday at 10 AM for the next eight weeks and we will announce something.”

Andy: Oh man! 8 AM on Friday?

Jason: I really was trying for the Tuesday Thursday 1 PM, but instead I got Monday Wednesday Friday at 9 AM.

Andy: I think I’m going to have to get a condo something for the fall, because I have to keep flying from Boston to San Francisco every week.

Rene: That’s a good idea. An extended stay in a motel for you.

Leo: When I first started watching this video, I thought that ABC was going to announce that they had invented the teleportation device, but no. In fact, it’s just a new Apple TV -

Rene: Channel.

Leo: Channel. Why is he looking over there? (Watching the video) Why is he looking over there?

Rene: There are more interesting people over there.

Jason: They had two cameras on the shoot, and they will let you know that.

Leo: And they’re not going to do any re-takes. This is straight through. ABC news is now on Apple TV. What a surprise. ABC is owned by Disney, which is practically owned by Apple. I mean, I don’t know what the relationship is there, but it’s pretty tight.

Rene: Lorraine Powell Jobs.

Leo: Lorraine Powell Jobs owns Disney. So she is actually the biggest stockholder in Disney.

Rene: It’s like 6% or something.

Leo: Hey, it’s billions.

Rene: More than I got. I’d take 1%.

Leo: You will get live TV! Four separate live video streams, including, I guess, local news, right? Video news updates on the hour? 4 to 5 live reports for date?

Jason: Boy, they really need better channel management on the Apple TV.

Leo: It’s getting a little out of control. This is the ABC channel alone. Nine TV stations: WABC in New York, KABC in Los Angeles, Chicago’s WLS, PVI from Philadelphia, KGO from San Francisco, KTRK from Houston.

Rene: Do you need a cable subscription to use it? Or is it open?

Leo: Ah, that’s a good question. I guess not, because these are broadcast networks.

Jason: Good news for Matthew Panzarino of Tech Crunch. KFSM in Fresno is on.

Leo: What the hell? And why? Fresno!

Jason: Those are all owned and operated.

Leo: They’re ONOs, that’s right. That’s what it is. KGO is owned and operated by ABC. That’s right. That’s exactly what it is. And Milwaukee.

Rene: Milwaukee.

Leo: Curated stories and videos. 50 years of historical footage from ABC news, including This Week in History and The Day in Pictures.

Andy: Bonnie Franklin on Battle of the Network Stars.  All on your Apple TV.

Leo: That was a good show.  I like Bonnie. Also, PBS Kids, AOL On and Willow, a sports channel dedicated to international cricket.   Finally, the cricket channel! And a Flickr channel has also been updated. So that update, did that go out today? I think it goes out today

Rene: Today yeah.

Leo: Turn on your Apple TV.

Jason: I have more channels to turn off.

Leo: Right. Hey, don’t turn off Willow. Cricket is big. You like weird sports.

Rene: Weird sports, yeah.

Leo: For those of us who are not in a Commonwealth nation, cricket’s kind of impenetrable.

Rene: I’m in a Commonwealth nation and it’s still impenetrable.

Leo: But can I get Premier league football on my Apple TV?

Jason: I think you can, but mostly that’s through the NBC sports network, and I think they do have a channel. Everybody’s got a channel on the Apple TV now.

Leo: ABC owns ESPN, but there’s a separate ESPN.

Jason: There’s also the WatchABC app, which is not the ABCNews app, which is not the WatchESPN app. So, yeah.

Leo: That’s confusing.

Jason: It needs to get better.

Leo: All right. Let’s take a break. When we come back, my friends, my boys, my guys. Your Picks of the Week.

But first a word from our good friends at Shutterstock. They’ve got a brand-new site called Offset. I noticed on Shutterstock which has the greatest collection of royalty – free images anywhere, that there was a real demand for the editorial images that they offer at Shutterstock.com. These are images taken by some of the world’s best editorial photographers and illustrators. People whose work is featured in Martha Stewart, Condé Nast, Traveler, National Geographic. Gorgeous. Authentic imagery. These are not staged shots. This is the real deal. And you can get it at Offset. In fact if you go to offset.com/welcome/Mac break and sign up for your free account, we’ll  get you a buy-one-get-one-free deal on new accounts. That’s a good deal. $250 for web quality, $500 for high-resolution. You may say, “Wow $500”, but let me tell you. You can print these, put them on the wall, use them in your magazine, in your iPad app.  This is gorgeous stuff. These are very talented illustrators like Andrea Jettle and Martin Hires, New York-based photography team. They met at Parsons. They’ve been working together since ’93, photographing still life, food, beauty, fashion, and travel. Editorial is very different from stock photos. These are real people doing real things. Really nice stuff.  I think this is a great idea. Shutterstock. They noticed that people were really interested in high quality stuff. And now they’re offering you buy-one-get-one-free. And by the way, illustrations. Not just photos, but illustrations, too. Go, create a free account, you can browse through offset.com and when you decide to buy, go to offset.com/welcome/Mac break and you get that 2-for-1 deal. Offset.com. Brand-new brand from Shutterstock. We love Shutterstock, too. We thank them for their support.

A Mac Break Weekly - Andy Ihnatko! I was mentioning, I don’t know if it got into the show, because it was during a reboot of the equipment, of the gear. That last week, Andy, you mentioned the sous vide thing. You said your you wanted your rich friends to buy a Mellow.

Andy: I want someone to buy one, so I can see how well it works and enjoy the food they cook with it.

Leo: It won’t be out until the fall. But, remember, I ordered one. And I got a very nice email from the Mellow fellow, his name is Zae, saying, “Hey I saw a big spike in orders for the Mellow and I couldn’t figure out where it came from until I looked through the logs and I realized it came from your Mac Break Weekly and I watched it and I was so happy to see you order it on the air.” Because I did order one. Now it won’t be out until next year. This is a sous vide cooker that looks pretty darn cool. So, Zae, hello. Cool. So thank you for that pick last week, it even though it wasn’t something you bought.

Leo: Did you order one to?

Rene: Yep.

Leo: Awesome.

Rene: Andy you can come use it anytime you want.

Andy: Most of the spike came from the twit network

Leo: It was just the hosts! I saw three sales. It was all of us! I think probably Alex Lindsey bought one, too. So what kind of buy this week?

Andy: Well, it’s not something new. Adobe has been sort of dillydallying and dithering about whether or not to make one of their best Creative Cloud deals a permanent thing. For 10 bucks a month, you get the photo package. Which is, instead of getting the entire Creative Cloud suite, you can subscribe to the photography plan, which only includes Photoshop and Adobe Light Room. And that was 10 bucks a month. It was first going to expire in March, but they decided to extend the offer another couple months, but a few days ago they announce that it’s now going to be a permanent thing. 10 bucks a month for Photoshop and Light Room. And if you are at all interested in taking photography to even slightly a higher level, it’s just so worth it. Because Light Room is a really great app just for organizing and doing even complicated enhancements to your photos that involve pushing the sliders aside as opposed to having the stylus and saying, “Oh I want a third had on this guy. I don’t want just two heads on him.” It really allows you to organize and turn a really good JPEG or raw into an image as good as your camera is capable of generating. Photoshop is really intimidating for so many people. It should be, because it’s a professional grade image tool. But if you think of it as 10 bucks a month for Light Room, which is still less expensive over the year than it would cost in shrinkwrap, and getting Photoshop for free, now the next time you rotate an image or do a panorama and there are empty spots, instead of thinking about what do I do with those blanks white spaces, you would just simply move it into Photoshop for one second, spend all of 10 seconds doing a smart fill, where it will duplicate exactly what it needs to duplicate to make those things happen, and you get this perfect image. All these things that you can do with like two or three clicks it would be damn near impossible to do with any other app. So I really think it’s a good value. I didn’t plug for Creative Suite until they made the $10 a month offer, because it just didn’t make sense to me for 50 bucks a month.

Leo: Me too.

Andy: But for 10, absolutely.

Leo: I was already a Light Room user, and I thought, “Wow actually that’s a great deal and then you get Photoshop.”

Andy: I was plodding along with my version 4, I think. I got the demos, whenever I had to review them, but I really didn’t stick with them and boy what a great improvement it is. The other advantage to that, though, is that Adobe is really making this subscription very valuable by adding all kinds of really cool services and mobile tools. They came up with the iOS version of Light Room that allows you to do that kind of editing right on your tablet. It comes with the raw decoder.

And then there’s the third thing, which is speculative I know, but one of the many things I’m hot about for iOS8 is all the controls that Apple has given to the developers in developing their own camera apps. Now, pretty much anything that the camera can adjust, a developer can adjust through their hardware.

Leo: This is Photoshop Mix I’m showing here. This is one of the new free apps for the iPad.

Andy: On an iPad Air it is so quick and so slick. But I am really keen to see what Adobe does. If they decide to expand the iPhone version of their light room app from just an app that will edit photos that you’ve already taken, and develop their own camera app. Make this an all-in-one solution that will say, “You take the picture, Light Room will allow it to adjust the brightness, the color, the contrast.” Or it could simply say you know what I know exactly what was wrong with that image. If you take that image again, I can make sure the tone curve is adjusted properly, the exposure is proper, the white balance is proper. And I’m just excited by the potential of that. So I think there will be a lot of additional benefits over the next year. But even just today, if you were at all disappointed with the pictures that your $500, $800, $2000 camera takes right out of the box, it’s probably because you didn’t do five minutes to 10 minutes worth of adjustments in Light Room or Aperture with it. That’s what really makes those images pop. That’s what makes them sharp and crisp and the colors really nice. And although I prefer Aperture’s methodology and interface, Apple really needs to give us some sort of a sign that they’re going to be improving this and coming out with updates to it, because it’s been a couple of years and still kind of slow compared to Light Room. And you just need some chrome in your basket to maintain the faith that this is not an abandoned product.

Leo: Give us a sign. A sign. I thought 10 bucks was good. The one thing, and it’s being pointed out in the chat room, and I experienced it too, that the new Photoshop that you install, when you do this, is 2014. It does not uninstall or replace the old Photoshop, so all your plug-ins are left hanging on the old Photoshop. I just copied them over. I don’t know if that’s going to work or not yet. It’s a little annoying.

Andy: The amazing things you can do with Photoshop where you come from your vacation and you see this drunken yahoo in the background. The nice picture you took of your kids with the Eiffel Tower, instead of having to spend two hours fixing this it is literally lasso, smart fill, done. So. Beautiful.

Leo: Rene Ritchie, your pick of the week.

Rene: I was actually going to pick the Photoshop stuff if Andy hadn’t, and I saw on the sheet that he had picked it already, so I rapidly went to my backup plan. Which is: I am a complete sucker for the Lego games from Lego Star Wars to Lego Batman to… All of them. And the Lego Marble one is now available for iOS as of last week. So if you enjoy the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, I stuck the video in the document as well. I played most of these games on consoles with my godchildren, because they’re multiplayer and they’re a lot of fun, but if you want something you can take with you, something you have a car, it’s fun entertainment. There’s cartoon violence, but there’s no brutality. I just cannot recommend the Lego franchise high enough. It’s terrific gameplay. It’s fun for the entire family.

Leo: Jason Snell, do you have a tip or recommendation?

Jason: I do. I was searching through the comprehensive Mac Break Weekly document. And at no point does the phrase
Launch Bar seem to appear in there.

Leo: Well we did recommend it, but you can recommend it.

Jason: Oh, can I?

Leo: Rene, did you not recommend it at one time?

Rene: It was you, Leo.

Jason: You guys updated your documented at episode 400, so perhaps back in there.

Leo: We’re not talking about the quick launch for the iOS thing?

Jason: No no, that’s Launch Center Pro. This is Launch Bar.

Leo: Oh! Launch Bar. That was way back when.

Jason: Version 6 just came out. It is $49. I cannot use a Mac without it.

Leo: Is this Karelia? Who does this?

Jason: This is Objective Development from Austria. It is great. I cannot use a Mac without it. It isn’t just a quick launcher. Some people say, “Oh well Spotlight in Yosemite will do all the things that this launcher will do”, but it’s not true. It does incredible things, including launching files fast, picking what Apple file opens in, doing Map, rearranging text.

Leo: This is a crowded category. You’ve got, of course, Quicksilver.

Jason: Yes.

Leo: You’ve got Alfred, which is like Quicksilver. And Launch Bar, which is the oldie but goodie. Of the three, you like Launch Bar best?

Jason: I’ve always loved Launch Bar. It is my favorite. It looks much better now. They did a huge interface upgrade to make it look a lot prettier. It added a ridiculous assortment of new features, plus has extension support now so people can add on third-party extensions.

Leo: Version 6!

Jason: You can try it out for free, and I really recommend it as a productivity utility. I use it all the time. That’s how I do almost everything on my Mac, is by Launch Bar.

Leo: I have version 5 license, so I guess I can upgrade.

Jason: You can upgrade. And try the new one.

Leo: Upgrade for free, yeah. Good, I haven’t seen Launch Bar in ages.

Jason: So, it’s a quick launcher. And it has this idea of almost understanding sentences, where you can pick a file and press tab and then pipe the app you want to open it in and press return and then it opens. It learns as you go. I find that one of the things it frustrates me about Spotlight is that Spotlight wants a string that is bound in the file that you’re looking for. And Launch Bar, if you type the first couple letters of the first words of the file, it finds it. And it learns as you go. It’s great.

Leo: I’m sorry. I apologize. You’re right, we haven’t recommended this since 2009.

Jason: So, here’s a reminder. Five years pass and Launch Bar, Version 6.

Leo: I found a kind of interesting little program. My hearing is not all it should be, and I was wondering how much have I lost as I have aged? And I found a little program, a hearing tester, that’s free for the iPhone, called Mimi. Now there are other ones. I really like this one. I was doing it last night. And it’s very similar to the audiologist test. You want to use a good pair of headphones. They say you can use it with your Apple earbuds, but I think it would be better to use a really high quality pair of headphones. It has a couple of nice features. Once you do the test, just like an audiologist, you have two buttons left and right. It plays a variety of tones. As soon as you can hear the tone, you press the ear that you’re hearing it in. Should I do it? Should I do a little test? We have to be quiet, because it does see how noisy the environment is. Okay let’s continue. Now, let’s see if you can hear this. You ready? Do you hear it yet? Tell me when you hear it. And which ear you hear it in. I heard it in the right ear. So if you’ve ever been to the audiologist, this is exactly what it is. And then, it gives you a profile. This is the thing I found most interesting. I showed you the screen. I don’t have the profile here, I’ve got it at home, but it will show you which frequencies each ear is capable of, and where there’s a different frequencies. And this is really cool. It will show you, if we fixed these frequencies, it will playback sounds that fix the frequencies and give you full sound. And a really shows you what you’re missing.  Especially as you get older. It told me I was 61 years old. So it actually shows your hearing age. My hearing age is better than I thought. Because I am 57. And that’s only four years off. So find out what your hearing age is, hear what you are missing, and then if you’re one of them youngsters which has good hearing, you can simulate what people like me are hearing. You can actually try different ages and see why I keep saying, “Stop mumbling.”

Rene: Or why you should fear the future.

Leo: It really is a nicely done app. It’s absolutely free. It’s called Mimi Hearing Test. It’s iPhone only. And my recommendation. Thank you, everybody. What a fun show this has been. Jason Snell, I appreciate you making the trip up to join us.

Jason: Happy to do it.

Leo: I always love having you.

Jason: It’s great being here.

Leo: What are you doing for Google I/O?

Jason: We have lots of coverage on GreenBot.com, which is our Android site. And PCWorld.com, too.

Leo: Are you going?

Jason: I’m not going. I’m going to sit and watch it from afar.

Leo: Do you want to come back up here tomorrow and join me?

Jason: I think they are going to make me watch it from our office.

Leo: I am going to be all along. We’re going to cover it starting at 9 AM and literally everybody – Mike Elgan’s going, Gina Trapani’s going, Jeff Jarvis is going, Jason Howell is going. We have asked everybody in the studio and they’re all going. I’m going to be all by myself! Have pity on me!

Jason: Well, let’s talk.

Leo: Think about it.

Jason: 9 AM? Will there be breakfast?

Leo: There will be breakfast pop tarts. All the pop tarts you want.

Jason: Oh, God.

Leo: But we will cover it live, and they’re going to stream live. And then, we’re going to do This Week in Google and everybody who’s there is going to come up here and we’re going to have a big party in the afternoon, talking about what Google announced. Rene Ritchie, what are you doing tomorrow morning?

Rene: I get to watch it from afar, too. I don’t have to do it. We send Phil Nickerson from Android Central there. My job is done.

Leo: I think Andy made a good point. Even for Apple folks, this is an interesting keynote.

Rene: Absolutely.

Leo: There will be something good for you, too.

Thank you Rene Ritchie, imore.com. You, too, have podcasts, the debug podcasts. Last week, fabulous! Thank you for letting us know about that. Anything you want to plug coming up?

Rene: It’s a trilogy. And part two comes up tomorrow. We’re doing talks about the early days of Project Purple and the stress involved in actually launching the iPhone, which was fascinating to me.

Leo: I can’t wait to hear it! Imore.com/debug.  The ongoing conversation. With Rene Ritchie and Guy English.

Rene: It’s amazing, because it’s one of the biggest historical events of the last decade and he’s so generous in sharing. You hear some of these stories about how he was actually in the room. Very few other people are out there.

Leo: Very neat. Look forward to it. You’ve got a few podcasts, Jason Snell, of your own? The Incomparable is fabulous.

Jason: Thank you. theincomparable.com. We’ve got like five podcasts now.

Leo: Really? Should I be worried?

Jason: Well, not yet.

Leo: You were growing into -

Jason: It’s all pop culture stuff. We have a movie and a DMV and a TV. We have in a Star Trek podcast where he watches random episodes of Star Trek. Chosen randomly. Which is why there are so many Voyager episodes. Because no one would choose to watch that many Voyager episodes.

Leo: What fun!  theincomparable.com. And, of course, IBG, MacWorld, PCWorld all that stuff. And what is it?

Jason: GreenBot. Think of the Android.

Leo: Green android! I’ve got it. And thanks so much to you, Andy Ihnatko, Ihnatko’s almanac and the 5by5 network. And he reads his own columns there, too, which is a great idea! What’s the name of that? Andy’s Old Columns?

Andy: Old Tech News.

Leo: Old Tech News.

Andy: It’s not exactly one-day-old. It might be a week old, or two weeks old. But it was professionally written by someone who probably got paid for it, or if he filed his invoices, got paid for it.

Leo: Old Tech News. Thank you Andy. Thank you Rene. Thank you Jason. Thanks to all of us for joining us. We do Mac Break Weekly at 11 AM Pacific, 2 PM Eastern time, 1800 UTC. Every Tuesday on the TWiT network. You can watch live at live.twit.tv. Use those apps, we’ve got lots of them. All of them support the live, I think all of them do. You can even watch using  TwitCast in your Chromecast. Or the Roku app on your Roku device. We look good on a big screen. And if you want to join us in studio, we love having you. Nice bunch here, including’s Scott Canaster, long time Mac tech writer, now Google. He’s gone to the other side. In the studio today.  Tickets  at twit.tv. If you are interested. Of course we make on-demand audio and video, available after the fact. We don’t call it a podcast, but you could. We wouldn’t stop you from doing that. On iTunes or wherever you find this. Thanks for joining us. Now back to work, because you know what? Break time is over!