MacBreak Weekly 416 (Transcript)

Leo Laporte: It’s time for MacBreak Weekly, Andy’s here, Rene Ritchie has the day off, Alex Lindsay’s here. We’re going to talk about the latest Mac rumors, Apple rumors, and I wonder if there’s going to be a new Apple TV. I say, it might be soon, it’s coming up next on MacBreak Weekly.

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This is MacBreak Weekly Episode Four Hundred Sixteen, recorded August 19^th 2014,

That’s My Travel Emmy

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Leo: It’s time for MacBreak Weekly…… the show…..(Leo Laughing) I don’t know why I did that, why did I have those extra syllables? The show where we cover the latest stuff from Apple. Rene Ritchie is on a plane to nowhere…….

Alex Lindsay: Evidently, without strong enough Wi-Fi.

Leo: You know Rene, you could Wi-Fi in. That’s a very good point. Fortunately, Alex Lindsay’s here, his Wi-Fi signal is so good he looks like he’s here in the flesh.

Alex: Coming in all the way from Rwanda, with a special background…..

Leo: In your dreams…..(cross talk)…..

Alex: You know maybe I should do that……you know what I should take a picture….

Leo: Or two, look at the backdrop……..

Alex: We could do that and then we could put on the screen behind and that in Rwanda and……

Leo:………we’ll never know.

Chad:……just get out of the way……just get out of the frame right now and I’ll just…….

Leo:……really got out of the frame…….

Chad: I got it.

Leo: No, but he’s body’s in there. We’ll do that. (Alex laughing)

Alex: We’ll figure that out.

Leo: That would be funny and, then I wouldn’t know and, then Chad would have to do something here like a holographic effect.

Chad: Yes……absolutely.

Leo: That’s Andy Ihnatko from the Chicago Sun Times sitting there with his Atari computer.

Andy Ihnatko: The ISO minimal polygon…….polygon render commodore 64, I believe.

Leo: I don’t know that’s an Atari joystick I think.

Andy: Weren’t they compatible? (screen blacked out for a second)

Leo: What happened there, yeah I think maybe they were compatible. Yeah, maybe they were compatible. Why do you have a minimalist isomorphic rendering of an Atari computer?

Andy: Because, it’s really cool I feel that it’s…….., there’s an artist whose hobby it is to do really great like CGI models, but with minimum polygons, and so like by doing the Simpsons house and the Bob Builder’s house and, light houses and movie scenes, where it’s not going to be hyper-hyper detailed, it’s just such nice like New Yorker cartoon style version of CJI. It’s like isn’t it delightful.

Leo: I think it’s……you think’s it commode…….Atari had those buttons on the right?

Andy: I’m just fixating on the color scheme, I don’t recall Atari having anything that…..wasn’t that almost like a dark, dark, chocolate black and, with a stripe of metal on the very, very, top edge of the keyboard……okay maybe okay……

Leo: You know how I know that……that was my beloved, my one, my only my true first,……actually the 400 X is my first. This was my second Atari 800.

Alex: I jumped straight from the Commode to the Apple. (panelists laughing)

Leo: It’s funny you know……., now I get it. For those of you listening at home forget it, it’s not……. you didn’t miss anything.

So, speaking of not missing anything the ice-bucket challenge has now spread through Apple like a virus. Like Ebola, it started with……., I shouldn’t say that. It’s probably……, it started with Phil Schiller on the beach with his BC shirt, you’ll like that Andy, Boston College and, it’s not a video it’s just him and a tweet. One man one tweet.

He challenged Tim Cook, along with Chris O’Donnell, Keith Fretias. Cook did it at the beer bash at the Apple beer bash. Here we go, here we go……(showing a video)….he’s already wet……that’s a, let’s start over here….do you have my audio or is that not working either……..( video singing and some music),

Andy: Tim challenged the performer after he did the ice bucket challenge. I’m not sure this is actually the first time that we have seen the toes of an Apple CEO during an event.

Leo: ……., he’s wearing sandals, flip-flops.

Andy: There we go……

Leo: That’s very casual. He’s a casual fella. By the way this is shot professionally I want to point out. This is not……this is not….. hand held iPhone footage.

Andy: There’s been a few ice-bucket videos that I have seen that are actually shot in land-scape mode. (video playing in the back-ground and the sound was faint)

Leo: Turn it up….up…..

Andy: He seems rather affable and, avuncular.

Chad: You need to turn up your You Tube.

Leo: It’s my fault may You Tube player is too low. It’s way down there…..oh…..wait a minute…..let’s hear it again…..(footage from the video): Tim Cook: Dr Dres, who’s been known to make a few videos and he’s one of us now…..

Leo: By the way that’s a little shot at him because in the Dr Dres Facebook video was pulled down that caused all the trouble during the Beats acquisition. (Leo putting on a strange voice) He’s been known to make videos Dr Dres. I’m talking to you Dres.

Tim: Secondly……

Leo: Got to try this out.

Tim: Bob Iger……….

Leo: Bob Iger who is the chairman of Disney

Tim: Ceo of Disney and, one of my friends and one of our board members and number three……

Leo: Lorinne Jobs….

Tim: Michael Fontaine…..

Leo: I love Michael Fontaine…..is that who that is.

Tim:….., and he has to do it today.

Leo: He’s very famous, we saw in San Francisco…..we saw him at Model Rock. He was with San Francisco activist rock group was it Burning Spear was it. (watching video and more music) to be fair doesn’t it have to be an igloo cooler?

Andy: You can’t do that on television Leo….. it’s got to be covered and, it’s all(cross talk)

Leo: I believe (Andy cross talking) the official challenge has to be with an igloo cooler, I’m sorry but I believe that’s the case. So, Dres picked up the challenge (more video footage). Oh man that’s big…..

Dr Dres: Okay Tim Cook, I accept your challenge and, I challenged him……

Leo:……and by the way, he wins the professional film crew challenge as well……

Alex: Well…….he’s definitely high up there, there’s been a lot……of production in these.

Leo: Bill Gates welded his own rig.

Alex: There you go.

Leo:……, or at least pretended to.

Andy:…..got the alton brown chip fryer, turkey rig up there I think.

Leo: That thing……., look at the size of that tub! Let’s go back here, that’s a massive tub. That thing’s got to be…….

Alex: That thing is actually not that complex a rig …..in the US.

Leo: Do they actually catch grouse in the US? (cross talk)

Alex: That’s a pretty standard of a film rig……those are standard stands and that was actually easier than what Bill Gates did.

Leo: Yes…… because he did not weld anything. Looks like they’re on location doing something anyway. I like the giant boom mike, keep that out of the water.

Keeping that out of the water, I think they shot this on an aero flex.

Dr Dres: Okay, Tim Cook I accept your challenge and I challenge M and M, and, Snoop Dog and, Kendrick Lamar. All right Garry let’s go.

Leo: This is really going (video footage of the event)……it’s ice and water……oh it’s in his lap……..in his lap they got to hit the head. Although, braver to get it in the lap…..

Andy: That’s got to be one of the nicest soakings that I have ever seen, and I’ve some pretty thorough soakings……

Alex: That’s when you add slow motion to your…….

Leo: That’s a pre-requisite isn’t it? If you don’t ask for slow motion…..

Alex: You know if you do it Leo I’ll film it in slow motion……

Leo: I’m done man……..,I’m done. In fact I went on and, on for an hour about why I wasn’t going to do it.

Alex: Then you broke down.

Leo: Then I broke down (in a whisper) that’s peer pressure.

Alex: Yes……

Leo: So now everybody at Apple……it spreads…..it really spreads fast this thing, I think they now say……what did they say……there’s some huge number of people on FaceBook like 12 million, videos on FaceBook or, something. This is all we should mention to benefit the ALS association fighting Luke Garrick disease……

Alex: I find it horrific…….

Leo: It’s a horrific disease, it’s always fatal I believe……we have a family friend who….who’s dad passed away not so many years ago that way. That goes fast, he was young he was in his 40s. So, okay enough of that. That’s Mac news though, Schiller, Cook…….

Alex: Didn’t they get fined….weren’t there girls that got fined somewhere in California for doing that? (cross talk)

Leo:…..we have a major drought…..the cities are in California soon they will be completely without water…….like there’s no water.

Alex: And, of course they called it a drought but of course it’s really just a trend.

Leo: Yes, don’t say that please. I wonder if Jimi Iovine’s done it……how come he wasn’t challenged? I want to see Snoop’s challenge. Yeah, as to date there’s no video of Jimi Iovine. Alright, hello everybody, welcome to the Macbreak Weekly, we are now going to move onto actual Apple news. Apple wins an Emmy award for outstanding commercial. Want to see the outstanding commercial. It’s the one we all talked about over Christmas, ‘Misunderstood’ remember this. (Playing the ad) the poor kid, sounds like sad tweet music. Oh now there’s some cheering, they’re coming for Christmas. They’re ready by the way…..December’s only a few months off…….it’s coming again.

Chad: I think there’s auto play music again, there’s two music (some confusion over which ad is playing) it’s not the same

Leo: It’s not the same.

Chad: Scroll down……(interrupted by Andy)

Andy:…..scroll down to the ice-bucket challenge as well.

Leo: Don’t you hate that when they…..

Chad: Yeah…….

Leo: There’s another video on that…… there’s three videos….

Chad: There’s three videos…..there’s a video below that one.

Leo: This is what’s wrong with it, that’s why we can’t have nice things. (cross talk with Chad), no wonder it was so noisy. They’re all on auto-play, thank-you 9-5 Mac. (very noisy conversation) What the hell?

Alex: What the hell? Somebody cut and, pasted the embed code.

Leo: Now I’m slowly going through all these videos….. press and pause…..

Andy: You can’t multi-task like the young people can, there’s no reason that you could be bitter.

Leo: It could save time, we could watch five commercials at once.

Alex: You could do them all at one time, you’ve got to put them altogether next to each other, like a little grid so that you want…..

Leo:……, this show is brought to you by Square Space and ITPRO TV (panelists laughing)

Alex: Actually, to be accurate, Andy and I would have to be seeing the other ads the same that you’re doing you ad.

Leo:…..that’ll save a lot of time then.

Alex: Exactly.

Leo: And, you pick the ad you want us to hear, one in the one ear and one in the ear, and the rest go up your nose, any way you know what the ad was about. It actually is a great ad, I think it deserves an Emmy Award, I didn’t know that actually there were outstanding commercials, I mean Emmy Awards?

Alex: Yes, there’s an Emmy Award for pretty much everything, I have friends that have Emmys and, it’s surprising how many awards……I was surprised…..

Leo: I have an Emmy award for the best sock puppet. Whatever, what is my for specialty act and, I was competing against the sock puppet.

Alex: …..and who were you?

Leo: No, I was dev….. no a virtual reality character……

Alex: Oh, yes that’s right.

Leo: So you’re right, it is every category possible. But this one deserves an Emmy I guess……..it probably is one of the great ads of the year…..the year. Remember, it’s the year…….it’s the Emo kid who’s at the family holiday and, you feel like he’s not paying any attention, he’s always buried in his iPhone…….annoying teenagers……(piano music playing) all this stuff is happening and, of course they turn around and as they all gather, he turns on the TV and, says, ‘watch this, made a video.’ (commercial playing in the background) and the whole time they thought he was shooting a critical video but magically was shooting a horizontal video.

Andy: ooh…..I would let the magic happen.

Leo: I am so sorry I’m such a scrooge.

Andy: The only complaint I had about it is that I wish….if….if they got 95 points out of 100, they would have got 100 if they made a little bit more clear that he wasn’t ignoring his family for three days so that he could shoot this video…..this was just that we’re only seeing the moments where he shoots the video. Other, than that he’s completely there and completely present.

Leo: Oh yes…..oh yeah, except he wasn’t he was actually playing…..

Andy: We could think…..think that they’re only showing clips of the time when he was focusing just on the video.

Leo:…… not when he was playing flappy bird. You know what there should be a flappy bird commercial……where he goes …….no he’s actually not making a flappy bird….he goes…..Jimi…..Jimi come here….. let’s see the video I have been making……and he goes, ‘no I have been making flappy bird videos, I’ve got 16.’(cross talk)

I was so excited because I saw all these wonderful updated executives profiles page and, I was all excited doing cremonology because there’s Angela Ahrendts right next to Tim Cook, the prime position and, then Jason Snell points out….’no…..no it’s all in alphabetical order she begins with an A. I thought Joni the Ives got to be pissed, because he’s under Cook. Angela’s on his right hand man! But no it’s just alphabetic. However some revelations here, they’ve finally acknowledged that Jeff Pudolini is the vice-president dean of Apple University which was there thanks to that……

Alex: He’s been there quite some time.

Leo: He’s been there for years….he came from Yale School of Fiscal Management.

Alex:…..now he’s got the card.

Leo: Well, it was the New York Times article that outed it so I guess they figured we might as well put him…and there’s Paul Deneve from Yves St Laurent, (Leo speaking with a French accent) he is vice-president of special projects.

Alex: That’s got to be one the best jobs that Apple’s done the head of special projects.

Leo: Yeah.

Alex: Everyone knows that you’re like the CIA of Apple.

Leo: Yeah, yeah…..

Andy: He should almost like wear really expensive dark sunglasses and never take them off and, make people hypothesis that he’s actually a robot of some kind……

Leo:……or just have a little something in his ear that would start the rumors.

Alex: I would have a little smoke machine, with a little smoke coming out of the back of my jacket while I’m walking (Panelists laughing)……little puffs of smoke….

Leo: Little puffs……(cross talk)

Andy: I see you’re eating food with a fork…….I’ve already spoken too much but enjoy your utensils……..

Alex: Ladies…..he’s the chief disinformation officer.

Leo: Apple….does Okay as long as we’re going to do this……well we know Deneve is the iWatch guy or one of the iWatch guys, right that’s the special project, or do we?

Alex: We assume that’s connected.

Leo: Apple has filed yet another patent the thing goes right in there with a fork….special fork……, a patent for a curved touch display. Apparently, Apple says it could support a future fitness band or iWatch. Oh, I think these are meaningless, these patents aren’t they?

Andy: It’s hard to know which ones to take seriously.

Leo: They patent everything. Wasn’t it didn’t we read the scene where the lawyers come and they ask what you’re doing…….okay we can patent that……okay we can patent that…..yeah we can patent that. Wasn’t that Apple that we read about.

Alex: It their legal team.

Leo: They’ve got probably a whole building, people……

Alex: When they get sued, you know………

Leo:…..it’s defensive…..

Alex: A lot of it is defensive……..obviously some of it’s offensive they…if they’ve proven that but a lot of this is all making sure that it’s…….that you thought of it at a certain time that someone else is going to claim against you later.

Leo: Speaking of which……..speaking of patent controls…..I congratulate and thank Adam Corolla, he has apparently settled now with the podcasting patent control. It’s one of those kind of good news, bad news kind of things….the good news is that that law suit is over, the bad news is that the reason why that law suit is over because podcasts makes so little money that the patent troll realized that there was no point in suing.

Andy: Yeah…….(panelists laughing too much)

Alex: Wait a minute, what are we doing here?

Andy: This is why I stay in print journalism Leo. This is why I drive a ten year old car, and I make sure that people know I drive a ten year old car.

Leo: The good news is that the patent troll dropped the law suit the bad news is that they dropped it because there’s no money in podcasting. So what is there to say about this…….nothing…..congratulations Adam, we thank you for fighting the good fight and, really a lot of credit goes to Adam…..and by the way my Emmy just appeared. I was going to do the rest of the show this way.

A lot of credit goes to Adam’s listeners to raise half a million dollars……

Alex: Right………,

Leo:……for his defense. And, in EFF’s article about this they say there’s you know good news but the bad news for them is and, for Adam is by dropping the case he’s eliminating the opportunity to try and get the fees back, that money’s shot. Shot to hell. And, that’s what patent trolls do, it’s not unusual, a lot of times they don’t want to go to trial in case the trial invalidates the patent.

Alex: Right.

Leo: They’re hoping they’ll cave before and, Adam didn’t cave and that’s why we’re grateful to him, thank-you Adam and now they know there’s no money in podcasting. Andy, poaching law…….the court…..the department of justice had settled with all the big companies……

Alex: Now people suing Apple for…….

Leo: Well the court on Friday overturned the DOJ settlement. Judge Lucy Coe said that 225 million…… that’s nothing….peanuts. So Apple’s going to go back, there’ll be trial over that and, now there’s a law-suit. You what, I think they’re right. This is the smoking gun from 2009, the hands off do not call us…..for those of you who are not following along…..this was…….it was highly illegal, violation of the anti-trust act Apple had agreed with a lot of other companies including Microsoft and, Adobe,’ hey if you don’t offer to hire our engineers, we won’t try to hire your engineers’ and, the benefit to the company is you know is multi-fold, the reason why it’s a violation of any trust is because it hurts the employees who can’t shop for themselves. They can’t say, ‘well how much would pay me adobe’ because adobe says, ‘well we’re not going to talk to you.’

So this is the do not call list from Apple: Microsoft, Garman Palm Adobe, Aspire and DAT,Comp USA, come on Comp USA. Was Comp USA poaching a lot of Apple employees? Fox Con, Genentech, Google, Intel, Ingram, Intuit, J.Crew, Mac Zone and Nike and Vidya PC connection, De Mont Pixar of course, Lucas Qantetech,……..,this is illegal and the court has said that we are now going to back to trial, Judge Coe said that 325 million was not fair.

And, I imagine that this is a class action law suit, it’s seeking damages on behalf of shareholders for financial losses related to misconduct by senior directors including Steve Jobs and, Tim Cook. So, this goes on and, may cost Apple a lot more money.

Andy: The most surprising about this was how absolutely open all the CEOs were about this.

Leo: Right.

Andy:……usually they shove it off on to an underling or use coded language, but no we have an agreement not to hire each other so make sure you head that off the right way.

Alex: I mean I think that the hard part is that when you have a business a lot of times there’s…….you don’t make it official but there’s definitely, and I have a company and, we’re very careful about whom we hire and, whom we don’t based on companies who owns companies that are friends of mine. I mean I’m not going to sit and there circle ……..but I don’t have any agreement with them. It’s not like I’ve gotten into something but just internally I’m not in my thought process that.

Leo: Yeah, it would be wrong of me to go next door and say, hey pixel corps employees who want to work for us,’

Alex: Right and, vice versa (unison) but we don’t have any agreement, we don’t have to even discuss it……discuss it, but you know it would be considered bad, you know bad blood you know create a lot bad blood if………, when you’re a big company it’s much different than when you are in little companies, when you’re…….

Leo: Well, you can’t have formal agreements really.

Alex: And, it’s the formal agreement that got them…..

Leo: They’ve got thousands of engineers who are now basically held hostage because, they can’t go anywhere in Silicon Valley because you’ve got agreements with everybody. That’s a real pattern of a……..

Andy: It’s a…….it seems that there seem to be some questions about employment in this industry that need to be addressed where companies always talk about hey we take such good care of our employees, look we buy them fancy chairs and look we’ll take out their dry cleaning and, look at the kitchen, we spent a million dollars a year on chicken alone in the lunch room and, the cafeteria that we provide and yet there’s so many other people who say but you’re willing to exploit people who have a certain amount of enthusiasm for a project that they have any skin in themselves and, you’re willing to let them work, you know 40,50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week on crunch time projects.

It must feel kind of bad when you realize that your company was willing to give you the things that cost them very little…….but when it comes to putting……. giving you the sense that you are the captain of your own career and that the skills that you have proven over the past three or four years in this company are valuable to other companies and, it would be nice if……I don’t think it’s this underlines the problem that Apple’s having with it’s employees, but, it must be kind of for someone who’s not feeling very appreciated in their job it must be a little bit of a kick in the sensitive region that to think that I’ve been set up so that I can only work here, so that I can’t get a better job elsewhere.

Leo: Yeah……well more time in court for Apple lawyers, they must love it there.

Andy: Why doesn’t that executive get a slot on the official web page…..vice-president of legal events.

Leo: You know isn’t the accounts chief counsel on there? Actually, I have to look.

Alex: Whatever ends up there is going to be around in there.

Leo: Yeah, when you’ve got billions, by the way we should mention I don’t hold Apple stock it would be an ethical failure to do so. However, Apple stock did break 100 today.

Andy: After the seven way split it was a…….

Leo: That was after the split, it was a seven…..seven way split……

Andy: It was right back up……I don’t know if it’s at or exceeded already the historical high for the value of the stock. (cross talk)

Alex: I think it’s going to keep going up until they announce whatever they’re going to announce in September and, they’re going ……

Leo: Their market cap is very close to half a trillion, very close to half a trillion, more than half a trillion…….596 billion dollars. Their price to earning 16 times, pretty high not as high as Amazon.

Alex: That’s actually not too bad.

Leo:……not too bad for a Silicone Valley company. So, there you go. Currently, at 100 dollars and 48 cents. Should have bought it when it was down at 70. You know while at the same time I know that I am not making any money because I don’t buy tech stocks. There’s a certain joy in watching this happen, and saying at least I didn’t get it on the ground floor. No that’s gross. (panelists laughing)

Andy: At least I didn’t buy it at 12 and 3/8. I had my integrity.

Leo: Your integrity’s intact.

Andy: My mind can play dodgem cars with a Ford Tessler that they just bought because they wanted to, but I’ve got mine integrity. No-body could put a price tag on that although I asked them do so on every opportunity I had. It is at least nice to know that they have that big stick to fight against any time any shareholder, ‘oh you shouldn’t be investing so much in environmental things, oh you should, I mean why aren’t you making a chrome book for 250 dollars of the version of the Mac or iOS?

And, really all you have to say is, ‘dude, look at how much money are making for you guys,’ why are you complaining about anything, why are you nothing but giving us crispy crème donuts by the box load every time we hold a meeting. You should be happy.’

Leo: Happy…… our show today brought to you by Gazelle. Hey, it is……… we are pretty confident that on September 9^th that we will see a new iPhone announced. That means, this would be a good time to get a price from Gazelle on your old iPhones, so you can get some cash for it.

Lot of people myself included for a longtime just threw the old phone or the old gadget in the drawer where it collects dust. You know if you open that drawer, just…….I want you to use our augmented reality………augment reality that means to say that you’re looking at the draw, turn on your augment reality, that’s not old gadgets sitting there, that’s a pile of green backs, just in that drawer, you’ve been ignoring it. Thousands of dollars in that drawer and, you’re ignoring it.

Turn those old gadgets into cash and by the way give them a good home at gazelle(dot)com.

They normally give you a thirty lock-in because they know we’re going to get a new iPhone and, they have actually extended till October 10^th. So that’s almost two months for your iPhone. Quote, well why is that good? We don’t know for instance that Apple might announce September 9^th, we don’t know when that will be available, September 9^th or 19^th it is typical, but it could be later, plus you got to get, you don’t want to have to sit and wait in line, maybe you’ll get it a few days later. You want to put your data on it, you want to make sure everything’s working and, then send the phone back to Gazelle. And, you still get the price you quoted today! You have till October 10^th and that’s awesome.

They buy cell phones from a variety of manufacturers, iPads, iPods, tablets-hey you want the new Microsoft’s Surface Pro-I don’t know why you would if you did you could sell your old one on Gazelle. Samsung tablets too. They’ll buy Apple computers, they’ll…….I mean this is a great source for every body. Just keep it or book mark it if you don’t have anything to sell……I bet you do.

G-A-Z-E-L-L-E(dot)com, you can get check mailed to you if you’re in a hurry get the PayPal right. Gazelle will do that instantly or get an Amazon gift card for an extra five percent.

Alex: That’s good deal.

Leo: if you buy a lot of stuff at Amazon. They’ve paid out over 170 million dollar to over a million customers. Their satisfaction is higher than almost any company I’ve ever seen, because people just love Gazelle, by the way if your phone is broken, they’ll buy it still. And, if haven’t wiped the data or you can’t because it’s broken, they’ll wipe the data for you, they are a great company. I am very proud to be associated with and you should keep this in mind, just use your augment reality classes and, look at that drawer, good to see how it’s turning into cold hard cash with Gazelle. They buy Apple TVs. I had a caller on this show, radio show this weekend say, ‘I have an Apple….second generation, the current is third, second generation but I’m going to keep it because I can hack it. In fact if you go to eBay with your second generation Apple TV you can get 300 bucks for it if it’s been hacked. Three times face value.

Andy: It’s the last one that you can actually jail break easily. As a matter of fact JWZ was actually had a thing on his website to say,’ I’ll trade for second generation with the second generation, he might even say I trade you 2 to 1

Leo: Wow…..

Andy:……for……because what I want my Apple TV to do is do what the Apple Three can’t do.

Leo: I got to go in my drawer again. I know I have a bunch of Apple 2…..

Alex: I think I have two or three of them laying around.

Leo: They’re worth something. But, you know I got the Fire TV, core thing, it’s only 30 bucks and it jail breaks it, so really………I don’t know if people are ignorant or what…..fire core(dot)com, the A TV flash I’ve used it. It’s 30 bucks and then you double the value of your Apple TV and then sell it on eBay. Right?

I don’t understand why it’s worth so much more jail broken, but I guess people are buying it so…….because they don’t want to take the trouble so that’s nice.

Is really though an Apple TV 720 p not 1080

Alex: Right.

Leo:…….even jail broken right, doesn’t have a very fast processor in it. I get all this leading up to the question will Apple announce a new Apple TV this year.

Alex: I think so.

Andy: I don’t think so this year. I don’t know for sure but I’ve been hearing things more about 2015 than 2014. Whether or not there’s going to be a major update for existing Apple TV, that’s a different story. That doesn’t happen right whereas I would have bet money on it eight or nine months ago simply by virtue of the fact the boy are we due for one, I wouldn’t be betting on this.

Alex: I wouldn’t be surprised if next year we see the 4k……you know 4k ……that’s been…..

Leo: Okay, the 4k…..

Alex:……that’s missing…….not missing yet but is definitely and one of the reasons is for a lot of the online solutions – so Netflix is…..I don’t know if they’ve already started rolling out the 4k monitor……

Leo: Okay, they have the House of Cards…….

Alex: So they’re shooting in 4k……

Leo: Right…..

Alex:……and then you have……You Tube is already 4k, and you have…..

Leo: (laughing) yeah…..You Tube is already 4k.

Alex: You know Amazon is probably going to go that directions and, of course Apple TV. The big thing is that it allows the online solutions to be higher resolutions, and it really actually helps the TV manufacturers because they desperately need 4k content to sell 4k TVs so there’s a lot of that back and forth. I think they have to have 4k……

Leo: I think we are going to see very soon TVs with Roku built in.

Alex: Right.

Leo: I wonder if Apple might do a deal with manufacturers. I think that’d be a selling point to have an Apple TV built in. The real advantage of the Apple TV is the fact that Apple has it’s own CDN (Alex agrees) and that all the content is coming from Apple and, they make the deals with ComCast and, the other…..

Alex: They don’t……care to them it’s a competitive advantage that…..that….. their stuff will actually works and it’s fast and it’s….you know all those things and you know they’re quite happy to spend that money on……have the money……just throw money at them. You know I was talking to somebody that was in the cable industry and they really outlined they were amazing and made it sound like there’s a couple of boxes here and there he goes. But to solve the last mile, you know for all of the bandwidth he said it a lot of money. He said that it’s billions to fix this and, he said they’re all doing it over time and, they can’t do it tomorrow so he said the thing they have with Netflix is hey if you want to do it today then you need to pay us to buy the boxes.

Leo: One thing………, though might indicate a new Apple TV next month is the iTunes festival next month and, that is something you watch on Apple TV, you can watch it live or after the fact and they string great content from London. It’s really good, three day shebang! By the way big news Elbow is now joining the iTunes festival line up to follow along with knee and, shoulder. Is that a group? Is that a person? Chad you’re our token young person. Have you ever heard of Elbow?

Chad: Yeah, it’s where the funny bone lives.

Leo: Elbow, The Script and Lenny Kravitz. I know who Lenny Kravitz is…….. have joined up the line for the 2014 iTunes festival all September long at the Roundhouse in Camden North London.

Andy: It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that they would key a new hard-ware event off them though. It’s always been, as a matter of fact there so few people in the US so articulately aware of the iTunes festival that every now and, then a screen capture of an iTunes festival logo will appear and, some people will start spreading a rumor that oh my god, Apple’s launching a brand new music service, like no it’s not a thing called an iTunes festival, it’s actually a musical festival that they launch.

I think that you guys are nailing it on the head when you talk about the advantage that Apple TV has with 4k. I’m bringing this up because just today I noticed for the first time personally You Tube telling me hi, we think you’re having really, really crappy, through put right now..……..,would you like to click this button and find out why? It takes you very nicely to a site……it takes you to this really nicely designed web page that says okay here’s your provider, here’s the stats for your community, so you have the ability to be aware of oh,…….so everybody in the world is streaming this HD video from the Late Show with David Lederman perfectly, but it seems that a lot of people in my area are having problems with their cable company streaming in correctly, so……. There’s going to be a lot more of these fights, I think as we go on……. as we go on especially as people try to suck down content on 4K.

Leo: Wait a minute, big news…..the owner collateral ligament has just announced that it is also going to be at the iTunes festival, I’m very excited.

Alex: The whole festival is full of all body parts.

Leo: ……yeah all body parts.

Andy: It’s called the operations festival and, you have the nose above the stage…..you know……..when it starts flashing it means it’s time to get off the stage.

Leo: Damn it old man……I don’t know anybody’s name so Elbow sounds like it could be a big star, I don’t know………apparently not. Alright……Elbow……the chair will be saying the Elbow been around for some time.

Andy: I used to be at Elbow a couple of years ago.

Alex: It wasn’t really the Elbow. (Panelists laughing and cross talk) I think it’s very valid for a lot of these things and, you know Apple and Google and a lot of these other folks, them getting into the ISP business makes a lot of sense, if they’re going to put out all this work and I……I love the competition, you know I think that providing competition for these ISPs and they don’t really push the market they don’t really have to serve the whole country, they have……it’s easier to think that you’re going to have to cover the whole US, just the top 20 markets.

You know and like the thing is what they……if we want to get rid of net neutrality then these cable companies need to give us access. You know there’s some access right now, but they have to give us access to you know the fiber and, all the other things and, the thing is allow us to move into San Francisco. One of the reasons why a lot these locations, a lot of our cities are so bad I mean…….a big part of my business is checking peoples bandwidth, however we have a team that checks peoples bandwidth and, the big cities and most of the big cities are horrible. I mean there are horrible connections in New York and LA and, everything else.

Leo: Your probably one of the big experts on this now?

Alex: You know we can tell you exactly what the beats are….we’ve tested 3 or 4 thousand…….

Leo:…..do live on the air streaming stuff particularly with hangouts.

Alex: Right……

Leo:……..so bandwidth’s everything?

Alex: Yeah……. So we check people’s bandwidth every day, we’ve a team that’s constantly doing that.

Leo: What do you……speed test people’s batteries?

Alex: So, when we’re actually doing stuff there’s other tools that we use to test bandwidth, but the easiest one to hand for people to speed test……it means that I don’t have to explain to them how to do the…….

Leo: Right……

Alex:…..do it and, we know what the numbers mean, so we know you what latency and, speeds and, how much headroom we want in those tests and, we have them tested 2 or 3 times, so that we get kind of a sample. So, those were all things that were, that we kind of worked through, but you know if you’re looking for 5 megabits and, above……. and down about one out of every four people in the US have that. You know mostly up…..mostly up.

Leo: I would say 5 megabytes…..if kind of like…..

Alex:……it’s not much, a lot of people have down speeds that are faster than that, but it’s the up speeds that are very…….but it’s the up-speeds are the things……..

Leo:……that you care about.

Alex:….., that we care about so that becomes the problem and, so I think that is and of course what we’re measuring on our sites when we are measuring is latency, jitter, you know all kinds of other things that’s not all that important for the average person that’s connecting to an event, so, it is anyway…..so those are the things…… things that we see across the board.

And, the worst ones are a lot of the big cities that don’t have any competition. So, you get,……in some of these……smaller cities that have the competition or they have FIOS……

Leo: But, having a CDN doesn’t fix your local bandwidth problem?(cross talk)

Alex:…..over time, not CDN…… I am talking about what Google’s doing right now, you know Google Fiber,……the bigger bits……

Leo: The bigger bits…..

Alex: I love seeing those guys go after those markets and,

Leo: Google’s funny because the markets in Kansas City and Austin you can get fiber the cable companies say oh we can do that.

Alex: Yeah……..

Leo: Competition, it’s amazing isn’t it and how it works.

Alex: And the thing is it’s amazing……Google…….the reason they choose the places that they do is also because of the complex regulations and the access to all of the utilities and, all the……you know they just can’t go into any cities, and I think that a lot of cities ummmm……

Leo: That true right that Google in Austin and Kansas city probably has the best inter-connect, Kansas City because of the sprint…..

Alex: No, but also right because……..,does the city own certain parts of the infrastructure that allows to give Google the access that it needs to do it, and so in older cities especially, where all these inter connects are really very complicated. If you look at a place like where I work in Africa, in Rwanda everything works because the government said did it from the ghetto, we’re going to put fiber…….intended fiber into everything. You know like they have fiber loops everywhere but having one company that decided to do that and, then they’re giving access to everyone else. You know we have kind of this thing hodge-podge and most of the world has this hodge-podge of you know horrible you know connections and you know eventually it’s going to bite a lot of these cities in the butt because people like me are looking at why do I need to be in a big city when I’m looking for cities with bandwidth…….,you know when I think of where I want to expand.

Leo: That’s true. That’s true…..that’s…..it’s great for Kansas city……it’s great for….

Alex: It’s great for Kansas City…….but if you’re a little town …….

Leo:…..get that gigabit in.

Alex:…..or even 100 megs.

Leo:…..no, no, get the gigabit in. The other problem with the kern Apple TV is that it’s an A5, it’s not…….I mean it’s not even up to Snuff in part wise?

Alex: Right……

Leo: Gosh, if they could put an A7 or maybe you know what I’m going to go on record no iWatch this year, but I think Apple TV this year. I am going to say, ‘yes.’

Andy: It’s certainly possible…….

Leo: Be it on your head Laporte.

Andy: I’m saying do not stare too long in the face of the Sphinx because that is how men can go mad. And, that’s when I think every time I try and, predict what Apple’s going to do or what their priorities are because they’re going to what they’re going to do and that……you then have to explain why the thing that you said that completely contradicted what Apple did was actually very, very shrewd because other people are saying that Apple’s releasing a watch. I actually was talking about Apple expanding their thinking into a more consumer space. But, the thing that really makes us want to talk about that is because….it’s hard to……now that there is the Mac Pro, it’s hard to point another product in the Apple product line that is so shabby compared to everything that Apple’s making right now, where the operating system is not very good, the user interface is not very good, the hard-ware is not very good, not only within Apple but when you compare to what other people are charging 99 dollars for something plugging into a TV set yikes it’s hard to on the face of it, if you’re just showing here is product A,B and C, here’s the Roku, here’s the Apple TV, here’s the Fire TV and here is even the Chrome Cast. That is the last one that I would recommend and if it’s just based on what’s there on the table it would be the Apple TV. You have to say the only reason why you would want an Apple TV is because you want to do air play or because you’re hoping that whatever the next soft-ware update is going to be is going to work so well with Yosemite and iOS 8 that it’s going to be worth taking the hit in terms of performance and features. So I think whenever Apple does do an update it really is going to turn upside down, because just like the Mac Pro nobody was expecting something that cool, no one was expecting something of so many steps above what they thought they were going to get, given that everybody was expecting another cheese grater box that you could put lots of drives into……so that’s why (a) I haven’t heard a whole lot about new hard-ware on Apple TV, this year, but then again I’m not the sort of person that everyone’s scrambling exactly……I’m not the beard……I’m not……I’m not given the hard evidence that this is exactly what’s going to happen on September 9^th or whatever or like that. But,…….there are indicators that I look for that……sync up very favorably with things that actually happen and I’m not seeing anything for the hard-ware for Apple TV.

Leo: No……I’m with you on that one. I’m not basing it ……alone on that, I would say, yes you’re right. But, I’m basing it on that just strategically, think that this would be the time…….the thing is long in the tooth, you’re getting, I think you’re getting lapped by both Chrome Cast and Roku at this point. You just put your CDN online……

Alex: Well, I think that if you open it up as a game platform you’ve all these developers……..

Leo: Amazon did that Fire TV though, right and, I don’t see Fire TV you know….

Alex: You know Fire TV and Apple TV are two very different…….

Leo: I think from a consumer’s point of view, maybe not? But, you nailed the difference between Apple TV and, everybody else, is airplay and, the CDN which I don’t know if that’s commonly known, I didn’t know that until recently.

Andy: And, any of the structure behind it.

Leo: That’s what I mean the CDN……..channel wise it’s missing a lot of things. I can’t watch my Amazon streaming on it. That’s how I watch the Worlds of War so there! And so I don’t fire up the Apple TV, I fire up my X-BOX One, so there! Because you what I can do with the X-BOX One I can say wish that I could do this show sometimes X-BOX Pause, then I can go and get a sandwich.

Andy: That’s the other question.

Leo: I know it’s great. (Leo Laughing)

Alex: With me it’s usually a martini not so much a sandwich.

Leo: I’ve got this breakfast here, if I could pause this show I would. It’s looking good.

Andy: Is that the travel size Emmy because it doesn’t look good, like it’s in scale with the FC? (Panelists falling about with laughter)

Alex: He just swung that out, I didn’t even see that coming, it was like Brave Heart.

Andy: No, no, no I have never won an Emmy so I don’t know…..

Leo: It is the travel size Emmy.

Andy: It seems like they would give that to the Christian China Wood, it wouldn’t look so small.

Alex: You, know the staff at Brave Heart are one…….. (more fooling around)

Leo: You know what you could do with this thing actually is (Leo pointing the Emmy award at his heart)…..it’s sharp. Alright, I’m going to put my mini Emmy away……

Andy: See you just gave it away, a hold the base of the camera again. Hold it to the base of the camera again, you can see the barcode where you bought it from Spencer Gibbs…….,I’m sorry to have nailed you like that.

Leo: (reading the base of the EMMY), it says wait minute I don’t even own this it says: this Emmy’s the property of and rights are reserved by the national academy of arts and sciences. I cannot even show this Emmy on the air.

Alex: You can’t even sell it. You just can’t sell it. I think that’s the big deal.

Leo: It is manufactured by RS Owens and company Chicago Illinois 603.

Alex: So now we know who to order a new one from?

Leo: Is that reproducing it if I show it? No (Alex: No, as well)

Andy: But you won that like before…..

Leo:……travel and it’s a travel Emmy you nailed it.

Andy: I’m saying there’s nothing on that sticker that’s saying you can’t use the phone to do 123 catch. Make a 3D model and then print as many copies as you want.

Leo: Oh…..Oh…..Oh I like it. Let’s talk iPhone rumors, it’s…….that’s one thing we know happening in September 9^th right? We know it, with every fiber of our being, don’t we? (cross talk)

Alex: ……most fibers except for one or two.

Leo: I mean you and, I can debate back and, forth whether the iWatch will come out or the Apple TV? We know, it’s the next generation iPhone and now what else do we know, do we know……we know 4(point)7.

Andy: Be very surprised if they weren’t a 4(point)7…….

Leo: In Thailand they got approval, I know this because the Thai minister of telecommunications tweeted it for two models.

Andy: Is that the same government where the son of the president had a birthday party for his poodle and his topless wife blowing off the candles?

Leo: Where’s the pictures……I wanted some pictures……

Alex: I hadn’t heard anything about that at all.

Leo: The Royal Telecommunication Governor of Festival Ministry of Directory’s tweeted, in fact Apple said, you’ve got a problem here buddy boy, he tweeted……..his name is Taikorn Tantasith, he’s the secretary of the NBTC, tweeted last week that we have officially approved to new iPhone models. Now, Apple said what, they’ve requested a meeting with NBTC officials to discuss the situation. It’s like being called in the principal’s office. (Alex agrees)

Leo: There it is (showing website in Thai script) you could see that tweet right there. It’s in elvish, actually which is kind of cool. I’m just joking, you know I’m teasing you I think our stuff looks like elvish, so it’s been fun. But he did reveal two models, now that could be I guess,………, an older model but if they have to get regulatory approval it would have to be subsitively different. It couldn’t be the 5S, it would have to something new?

Alex: I just wonder that the conversation that Apple’s having now is if you want us to really want to release at the same time in your country then let’s not do this. Otherwise we’ll just wait six months and, go through the regulatory after we’ve release after if ….……you can’t keep a secret. So I think that’s probably the discussion.

Leo: He said that this is completely normal when we approve a product we make an announcement…….

Alex:……, over Twitter,

Leo: Apple did point out that you never done it over twitter before, but he didn’t release any information, just the two model numbers. (short pause) So……

Alex: I think that the problem in Thailand is that it’s millions of dollars of revenue when you don’t release it into the country, comes in over the black market and everyone goes in and brings them in ten at a time……

Leo: Tax money……

Alex:……and so that huge push could be millions of dollars of tax revenue that they lose by not having it go through legal……

Leo:…..get’s to come to the birthday party next year. So, but my main point is that sounds like it’s two models that lends some credence to the idea that there’s a 4.7 and 5.5. I really want a 5.5 (Andy agrees)

Andy:……me too, I’m holding off, I’m trying to not my enthusiasm poison my idea of what Apple’s going to be doing. It would be as much as it looks like the 5S sized screen means it’s kind of going out, it seems odd for Apple to finally be saying no we’re not going to make a phone for the narrow screen anymore.

So, if they’re doing two different models I think it’s certainly possible that they won’t be doing just a simple making the 5S new 99 dollar phone, it’s possible that they’re actually going to be doing a version of the iPhone 6 that has all the new processors, all the new cameras, all the new sapphire technology, but has the form factor that pleases who want to have something that’s easier to control with one hand, but then acknowledge there are people who are watching movies and, reading books that want something that’s a little bit bigger. I would love a 5(point)5 inch screen…….

Leo: Yes……..

Andy:……and, and if Apple comes out with a 4(point)7 and, a 5(point)5 this year, it’ll be really hard for me not to buy a 5(point)5 iPhone. But, I again do not intend to stay too long into the face of the sphinx.

Leo: Yeah, I do that and I have gone mad, actually, I would buy…….I would buy that in a hot minute…..I would.

Alex: At, first I thought it would be good, but I really started looking at my iPad and I realized if I had a 5(point) probably wouldn’t use my iPad mini that much. Would plan it like I would kind of move over to a…..

Leo: Well, let’s go for a brief run down. Here’s an iPhone 6 schematics this is from YBO from Geek Bar…….show in NFC and the iPhone 6. Credible?

Andy: Yeah…….I’d say so.

Leo: Okay.

Andy: Given that they don’t have a religious objection to NFC and they do have religious in their ability to sell lots and lots of iPhones and, get iPhones into people’s infrastructure, when you think about all the point of sale terminals that are based on electronic payments, particularly not in the US but overseas, what does it cost them to put them in the NFC functionality in there that’s the only accessible payment system or wallet system.

So,…..I….I……don’t know if the next phone will have one, but it certainly makes for them to say well, let’s make sure that we wire in everything that we need so when we need to do on an NFC based model, it’ll be simple drop in and not just something that we’re going to have completely redesign.

Leo: Well, if you examine the schematic closely almost anybody would watching would be able to tell immediately not only in NFC, but a gig of ram or more. It apparent right there on the paper.

Alex: Of course we know that absolutely…..exactly.

Leo: For all I know this could be the map.

Alex: This was sneaked out by a very reputable……

Andy: There is a young woman in Ohio, that’s actually building an iPhone 6 off a nine arduinos based on this schematics, so?

Leo: We have also seen apparently a leaked battery for a five and half inch.

Andy: ……you’re spreading rumors…… I have the key words.

Leo: It’s big, it’s long, it’s tall. We’re going to call it Sally. (showing video clip of a battery) Capacity of 2950 million bowers, that’s actually for a screen size that big….that’s low……Galaxy Note 3 is I think 3100 milliamp hours? More than that?

Alex: Go for six? I’d be quite happy with a phone that was twice as big that had 6000 milliamps…..

Leo:….oh yeah…..

Alex: I would love not to have to charge my phone all day.

Leo: Look we know that somewhere there’s a five and half inch iPhone-that’s not in question, we don’t know if they’re going to release it, might well be for a battery for five and half inch phone, it’ll be released in two weeks. I get excited as we approach the date. Yeah?

Andy: It is exciting, especially when you think about what a 5(point)5 inch iPhone would mean. It’s big enough that Apple has to start talking about it as a tablet, they would not use the word fablet because they have class and style and dignity. (Leo roaring with laughter)

But, then it means that this is the time in which they would have to start talking about how, what is the role of something that is between the size of a phone and even an iPad mini? And, that’s the time they start talking about how nice it is to have the system extensions project new user interfaces on top of what other app you’re using, even doing side by side apps running at different tiles. So, it’s exciting to think of it just, in any other in a Windows phone and, android 5(point)5 inches is just a big phone.

With Apple it’s no, they have a real plan behind making a big, big phone and, this is why it’s going to be different from just an iPhone that’s been scaled up a little bit. (short pause)

Leo: So one of the reason why actually I have not given a lot of credence to the rumor is just it seems so un-Apply. Right?

Andy:…..un-Apply……(Leo starts to sing un-Apply)

Leo: I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that now, I’m going to be saying that all…..

Andy: It is a little weird to think about Apple having three sizes of phones in play at the same time, because if they do follow the trend that they’re going to make the 5S the 99 dollar phone they’re going to have a new phone that look like it’s going to 4(point)7 inches as their normal phone and, if this other rumor comes true and now you’re going to have 5(point)5 inches, you still have the iPad mini and then you still have the full sized iPad above that. You still have people who won’t let go of the idea of Apple doing something for a better word that I would call an iPad Pro with 13 inch screen, and that and the idea of having iOS device in dare I say in as Samsung range of fussy, every single size imaginable, seems so not we’ve come to expect from Apple. But, as I said few weeks ago I find my…..I find that I have to really, every time I find myself thinking, Oh…….Apple wouldn’t do that, I’d say well you’re thinking of Apple as it was 2 or 3 years ago, they’re doing a lot of cool things now that five years I would have thought would have been impossible for Apple to ever do.

So, again that’s why I have to have such an open mind, much more open than I have ever in my examinations of Apple in the past five or ten years.

Leo: Oh, well one thing we know would never happen is a reversible USB kit. (Panelists laughing) Oh my god there it is!

Actually, this I like, the real……I was very skeptical about it …..I did not want to buy all new cables, I did and I have. In fact I bought a bunch of those little cables…..

Alex: You have to admit it…..it’s so much nicer than Microsoft for USB.

Leo: For us because you can put in either way. (cross talk)

Andy: Except for every single time I’ve plugged something into a phone or iPad and told, ‘this accessory’s not compatible with this device’. But, everything I’m plugging in has an Apple logo on it. Why are you telling me this? Why are not making it work?

Leo: Sorry, I had to eat some of that breakfast.

Alex: That’ okay.

Andy: I could continue to pontificate?

Leo: No, no……pause for a moment as we contemplate the fact that the lightning cable is reversible, but what isn’t at the other end of the cable? Wouldn’t it be awesome, if there were such a thing as a reversible USB connector and now thank-you Sunny Dickson apparently there is supposedly from Fox Conn. 9 to 5 Mac calls it frequent iOS device part leaker……(panelists laughing)Sunny Dickson……

Andy: One of the least interesting Marvel men to put an end to a Tsunami.

Leo: I’m a frequently iOS device part maker (Laughing) I like this idea. And, besides it’s just a mechanical thing (cross talk with Alex) at first I thought they can’t do that, because there’s very much an orientation to the USB port.

Alex: Well, it seems like the next step that you do get rid of the whole sheath around it you know, just they way you have with lightning.

Leo: Right.

Alex: You know you get to the point where you just we’re just going to have two solid connectors all around. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a year or two if Apple doesn’t move away from, if the USB doesn’t move it away from Apple and just says, ‘okay here’s our connector.’

Leo: We are in the next generation of the USB, we’re going to get a reversible cable that actually…….I think that Apple did start something……it says here USB type C which is a successor to Micro USB, and it will be reversible so that’s good, but the……Apple already kind of…..you know…..

Andy: That’s not going to be brilliant thing for them to do, because either so few opportunities in hard-ware today to do something that users immediately appreciate and the ability to not even care whether you’re flipping this one way or another. That’s something……that’s a cable that people would spend an extra eight dollars for.

Leo: I agree……I agree. So USB 3(point)1 micro B, USB 3(point)1 type C, kind of looks like micro USB but it just doesn’t have an orientation. Good! Anything else you want to say about rumors in September 9^th we will do of course as always and we don’t know if Apple’s going to stream it, we don’t have a time for it, in fact it’s not even official, I wouldn’t say that they have sent out an invitation. But we will be here we will be sitting right here……

Alex: We will be here because we won’t be invited.

Leo: Andy, might be invited.

Alex: No, Andy won’t be either.

Andy: As a matter of fact I was this close to saying I’m invited to the Motorola the Moto X Plus 360 (Leo Interrupts)

Leo: That’s September 4 th…..

Andy: I’m pretty sure there is going to be an event next week and do I want to basically go home and said to my editor, do I want to come back and I said,’yeah’ and he said yeah.’

Leo: This is a busy couple of weeks because yesterday HTC had an event in which they showed their HTC One, running Windows phone. I’m sorry!

Andy: Samsung is also probably doing the new Galaxy Note the day before that. So it’s got to be one weekend which everybody who’s trying to convince you to- whoever wants to get your money before somebody else gets your money for a cool thing. Either for your wrist or for very big pop tart sized pocket.

Leo: EFA in Berlin is this first weekend of September so that’s a big event. It’s the CES of the rest of the world, or Europe anyways. So there’s probably going to be announcements there. Maybe that’s what the Samsung announcement is tied to. And then September 9^th. Anyway, we will- it’s a Tuesday, as always. So what we will do is what we usually do, which is live coverage of the event. Mike Elgon and I can anchor that. You may join us. You may join us. Whoever wants to join us can. Andy if you get an invite, well, you probably want to go. In which case you can join us for MacBreak Weekly which will follow hard on the heels of the end.

Andy: I will catch the free Google bus from San Francisco up to Petaluma.

Leo: It’s got excellent Wi-Fi I hear.

Andy: Exactly. We’ll just keep the windows closed because its sill a very egg air friendly antagonist environment. For the Google busses up there. Has Google started paying up for using those parking spaces or…

Alex: I think they got the…. For that. It’s some crazy amount of money.

Leo: Look at this, thank you to Rockin’ Blogger in our chatroom. Tripp-Lite already sells reversible USB cables. They’re type A connectors, and I guess, what, the thing in the middle... it must hinge or something.

Alex: Or it like pops down. I think it doesn’t hinge but …

Leo: It goes “oh, you want to put me in that way”.

Andy: I want that type of connector but that is definitely the sort of thing where I will wait for two months for a couple hundred thousand of these to see what happens to the USB connectors inside laptops. A lot of which are designed to only work one way. Because, yikes. If I spend less than 1500 dollars on a notebook, I’d be thinking, where can I cut corners on the design. I would think, well, what if someone tries to jam in a USB cable upside down? Do I need to make the motherboard so strong it wouldn’t break? Nah. So yeah.

Leo: I hope there’s a 5 5. I’m counting on that. And I don’t think they’ll announce anything else September 9^th because as we’ve all agreed in previous episodes, they don’t want to dilute the joy.

Alex: Keep everybody focused. Looking down the field.

Andy: It’s also- if they did, if they released a wearable, would they want that completely- would they want that 90 minutes completely focused on what this thing does and how to integrate it in iOS 8 and all those other kind of cool things? Or you realize that the iPhone was released not as its own solo event, but as part of their annual keynote. Even though everybody knew that’s what it was going to be about. But the iPad, that was something that got its own solo event. You would wonder if it’s such a big deal that they maybe would even not even make it a big sort of thing. Or it would be sort of a 150 seater at a town hall with a very, very tightly controlled and very, very intimate guest list.

Leo: Here is a very tight close up of the iPhone 6 mute switch. Well, now we know.

Alex: For the rumors that have everything, the mute switch.

Alex: Thank God they watermarked that because that is going to be on CNN on about 10 seconds.

Leo: This just in…

Alex: No, that’s from the Lego space shuttle model kit form 1996. That was the external ASUS hatch I think.

Leo: Here is the SIM tray. Wow. This is a big... oh. The power button. Somebody got a camera with a macro lens and they just can’t resist. It’s interesting though. This is not the kind of photo you’d get like, hit and run photo at the Fox con plant.

Andy: Can you come up with a more meaningless series of parts? Now you’re just flaunting the fact that you have absolutely no self-control and no ability to gauge a news item in proportion to other news items that are happening in the course of the week. I’ll admit that the guy who had the cover screen and was able to test it so thoroughly, that was cool. That was something. There’s a pass/fail going. That was the pass. The button thing, that’s a fail.

Leo: To quote Jeeves, I shall alert the media sir. Alright, we’re going to take a break, when we come back, more news of the world. Our show today brought to you by SquareSpace.com. The greatest place in the world to make your next website or your first website, if you’ve never made one. I heard Mike Elgon talking this morning, and I think he’s absolutely right on. He said if you’re going to have – everybody needs a place on the web that they own. That’s where your stuff starts. That’s where you refer people back to. Ironically it was Mike, I think, who stopped doing that. He went all in on Google+, which in hindsight, not too late to make that square space site Mike. Squarespace.com, it’s the hosting, it’s the software, it will import all of your content from your existing site. So even if you have a blog but you’re unhappy with your current host, this is a great place to go. You don’t have to do it in blind either, because you can go there right now and click the get started button and without a credit card or giving them any personal information, you can just try it for two weeks. You have to obviously give them an email address. Try it for two weeks. When you do your trial, don’t just, you know, you’re going to pick a template, and by the way, all their templates mobile responsive HTML 5. They do it all. Ecommerce built into every template. Customization is easy. You can drag and drop. Add input from all the different social media. And that’s the thing, this becomes your headquarters online. Where all your stuff, your Linked In, your Facebook and your Twitter, they’re all piped into it. But don’t forget to try all the other stuff. For instance the logo creator tool. Try their square space metric app. that’s on the iPhone and iPad. It’s gorgeous. They just won 4 webbie awards for their apps. It allows you to check site stats. Like page use, unique visitors, social media followers. They also have a blog app. that was the first one they did. And it’s fantastic. It’s a great way to post. Did you see that portfolio app? Show that one Chad. That’s really neat. If you’re a photographer, you have a square space site, they have an app for the iPhone and iPad that you would then show a client. Pulls the images from your site and does this beautiful display. Live images from your site. So you can show the bride her pictures. This is so awesome. These guys really- I think really these apps show they have so much brainpower at square space, it’s like overflowing.

Alex: We’re about to redo our website and we were still on the old architecture so we’re literally just- you know, part of the upgrade is just go get on- using all the new bells and whistles. Very excited about it.

Leo: Well, and that’s the thing. What we’ve learned is that it’s very expensive if you want to keep up. Because the web changes constantly. Square space does it for you. So you’re always state of the art, which is really nice. Great support. Try that too. Even if you don’t have a problem, which you won’t in the first two weeks. Just call them and just see what happens. 24/7, right from the square space offices in NYC. They also have video workshops, self-help articles, really nice self-help website which I think you’ll like. And all of this starts at $8 a month. And that includes the domain name when you register free. Squarespace.com, press the get started button, play with it. All I ask, if you decide to buy, use the offer code MACBREAK. You will get 10% off and they’ll know you saw it on MacBreak. Squarespace.com use the offer code MACBREAK when you decide to buy. It is really fantastic. I don’t know what to think of this. There are apparently people are having big problems with the 2011 MacBook Pro. And if you go to the blogs or even the Apple support site you’ll see a lot of people reporting weird screen artifacts. This is related to GPU failure. So far Apple hasn’t said anything about this. I’ve seen this on some of our older MacBook Pros. No recall yet. But its 2011. That’s more than 3 years old. Should they be responsible for that? It’s well out of warranty. A Hong Kong Apple store genius is directing out of warranty customers to third party repair companies. Because he says Apple hasn’t told us anything official. Sources say that Apple is not expected to initiate a replacement program in the near future. Apple authorized service providers are also seeing these. According to Apple insider. One third party service provider estimates 10 laptops a week are coming in with this GPU problem. I don’t know what to say. Does anyone in our chatroom suffer this weird- the problem is, you would look at this and you would say, oh there’s a connector failed, or maybe the screens gone bad. But it’s really, a GPU problem.

Alex: So this is the pre retina right?

Leo: Yeah. 2011. Early 2011.

Andy: Yeah. I actually have one of those.

Leo: Have you seen anything?

Andy: No, I mean, I haven’t seen any problems like that. The last month I got a dead pixel column but that’s about it. That’s not something that I would hope to happen in a 3 year old laptop, but…

Leo: It looks like a line going all the way down?

Andy: A green line, all the green led segments are firing. Again, it’s not something that I would like to see happen in a machine that’s 3 years old that I’m expecting to get five years out of. And it’s really the first power book/MacBook I’ve had that’s had this kind of failure that was not like Coke-spill oriented. I haven’t seen something like that. My eyes are quite open for this though.

Leo: Our chatroom, Uptown in our chatroom has had it happen, Pete Masters had it happen. Uzzi Galeil says my 2011 shuts off randomly from time to time. That could be related.

Alex: We have that. We have that with our computers now. So I have a bug that I haven’t quite figured out with my retina that when it’s not plugged in and I plug in a USB and it’s below 40%, it just turns off. So there’s that.

Leo: Who got my 2011? Because of course I had one, but it’s been handed down to an employee by now. I wonder who got it. Chad, you have a new one right?

Chad: Yeah, I don’t have it. I’m trying to think, I know of two….

Leo: This one is 2013, the one I’m using right now. And my 2014 went to somebody else. I don’t know anyway. Somebody has got it. If anyone has a problem let me know. It is out of warranty but three years is not long enough to really- especially if this is widespread. And in the past Apple has responded to that kind of widespread problem out of an out of warranty with replacements and fixes.

Andy: Yeah, they have a good track record there. I think this might be the case where it’s the penalty for being Apple. They make very, very good stuff and people like me keep recommending Apple hardware because it’s not going to die in 2 years or 3 years, you can, I keep saying, 4 or 5 years is what I keep saying when I say here’s how long you can expect a MacBook to actually last. And so when something happens to cut that life short, you don’t feel like well, this probably lasted 6 months to 8 months longer than a Dell laptop would have lasted. You think no, come on. This is supposed to be perfect for the next 2 years at least.

Leo: Yeah. Now I have a link here that says Apple put a Robin Williams tribute up. We talked about the fact that that was probably one of Robin William’s last works was their “what is your verse” ad. But I don’t see it anymore. So I wonder if they’ve taken it down… Chad did you see it ever?

Chad: You know, I didn’t see it. But yeah, the link redirects just to apple.com. I saw it on the front page.

Leo: Maybe it’s- let’s go to the front page, maybe it’s on here. It’s just what will your verse be. This is the front page and I don’t…

Andy: I’m sorry, when the news was still rather fresh I saw it on the front page.

Leo: Maybe that’s it. Maybe after a week they’re not going to keep it up there. Alright. So they did, which is good. That’s nice.

Andy: Letterman had a brilliant tribute to Robin Williams last night. Because they knew each other when they were both comics at the comedy store and he just went for ten minutes. Personal stories and clips and stuff like that. Quite nice.

Leo: It’s funny how you take stuff like that personally. But I’m still kind of reeling from that. A week later. It’s just hard to believe. A Get Info rethink. Is this part of Yosemite?

Chad: No, this is a completely user created…

Leo: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they always do this. Look how nice our Get Info can be. I have to admit, if you do get info about this Mac, it isn’t all that.

Chad: Well, this is a Get Info on a file.

Leo: Oh, this is a file.

Chad: Yeah, if you scroll down there’s some kind of cool GIFs that he made of some of the issues…

Leo: You know, only Apple gets this kind of treatment from its user’s right. Well, you know, as much as I love the old Get Info box, look how much nicer it could be. It is kind of funky.

Chad: Yeah, because there’s info in multiple places that should kind of be next to each other.

Leo: There’s a lot of designers out there that are just you know, just chomping at the bit to do something for Apple. I imagine it’s also a good way to get a job, right?

Alex: And attention you know. We’re showing it on a show. It’s getting a little…

Leo: Yep. I’m just going through. Tom Hanks- I don’t know why this is a story. Tom Hanks has released a typewriter app for the iPad. It must be the new thing for celebrities to do tech stuff. Right?

Andy: It’s interesting, he is a big typewriter fan, if you’ve been listening to him in podcasts, that’s usually where the conversation goes at some point if it goes for more than 45 minutes. As a matter of fact, the nerdist got him up for the show. Because they sent him a type written invitation to do the show along with a vintage typewriter that was rather nice. So he sent back a type written acceptance on that same typewriter. I actually reviewed it last week and it wound up being a 1500, 1600 word review. Only because I wrote the review using Hank’s writer and I was just having so much fun writing with it. So my eyes rolled a little bit when I saw it too, because how many times have you seen these ideas where we’re going to have a word processer that makes typewriter noises when you type. Okay, we’ve seen that before. Beginning with IBM PC probably. But they really did a good job of simulating everything. And oddly enough, one of the things I really liked about it was that it’s the first person shooter point of view. Just like in a game. Where the paper moves from left to right and up to down but where the letters appear is always dead center. And as I’m writing, writing, writing, for like, an hour, hour and a half, I’m realizing, gee isn’t it nice not to have to turn my head and eyes up and down to read what I’m writing as I go. And its- the only thing I don’t like about it is that it’s no good for exporting. It only exports PDF files it seems. And it’ll export it into your drop box, it’ll export into Google Drive or whatever file receiving app you have on your iPad. But to turn that into a Google Doc that I could then file with my editor I had to then use the utility to spit out the text and then use BB edit and some regx kung Fu to take out the hard typewriter formatting for it. It was just like being in 1987 all over again with having hard character turn formatting. But I expected that I would not write a review of it. Or if I did, it would be the novelty of oh, look, Tom Hanks has contributed to an app and it’ll be like 5 or 600 words, but it was just like nope.

Leo: How do you think this worked? Probably… I don’t think he wrote it. I’m just going out on a limb here.

Andy: Oh, no. the website has the- the developer website makes it sound as though it was pretty much Tom Hanks saying “hey wouldn’t it be cool if we did this, and here’s some samples of my typewriters and …” more of a consult…

Leo: Well, I was thinking maybe HitSense, who wrote it, had it and they said “well, who should we get to endorse it? If we could only get Tom Hanks to tweet about this we’d sell a million.”

Andy: As a matter of fact, you’re reminding me that I got an email from them after their review ran. If you’ve got any more questions, let us know. So maybe I should say… I don’t think I’ll understand this fully unless I get to talk to Mr. Hanks.

Leo: Well I do have questions. Because this is free… with in app purchases. What do I get? There’s the writer’s block bundle for 5 bucks, what do I get?

Andy: The in app purchases are in-essential. You can use it as a regular type writer like word processor for free. What you can buy are additional models of typewriters that have different type faces on them. They have different designs on them.

Leo: Oh, that’s cool.

Andy: You can also pay extra for colored ribbon, and stuff like that. But it’s not the sort of thing where you can’t export unless you pay. Or you can’t use the backspace key unless you pay. Or the hammers of the typewriter jam just like a real typewriter until you give them 5 bucks.

Leo: That would be funny.

Andy: I did say in the review, it would be nice if like, F1 racing games have- normally it helps with the steering and the breaking of the gearshifts, but there’s an expert mode so that you basically careen off of a bridge every time you tap the breaks. There should be an expert mode for this that makes it just as annoying to use this word processor as it is to use a manual typewriter.

Leo: I actually- I love- I could see why someone would collect typewriters. If I had the money, I would probably do that too. It’s cheaper than cars.

Andy: Its fun. I have a couple myself, because sometimes you’re at the MIT flea market, there’s a really cool one for like 10 bucks. And here in New England we have the Cambridge typewriter company. One of the nation’s best typewriter repair shops. Like if you- there are authors who do nothing but write on typewriters and they are the ones who fix their typewriters. Its fun, but you lose the- again, the 4^th time the keys mash up on you and you have to reach in and untwist them and you realize that, yeah. Nostalgia has its price and right now it’s about 40 blood pressure points.

Leo: Someone was going to send me their old IBM Selectric, I should have taken them up on that.

Andy: Those are awesome.

Leo: That you really want.

Andy: I had one and I had to let it go and I kind of miss it because those are the ones that, boy, it’s like, the AK-47 of typewriters. Where you can bash on it, you can get it wet, you can bury it in sand in a burlap sack and come back a year and a half later and dig it up and it’ll still work. If all the pieces are in the room together, you will be able to type with that machine. And there is something very reassuring about making noise while you’re writing, that at least convinces you that yes, I’m actually doing work. I know I’m using the same device that the Kardashian games runs on, but no, I’m actually doing productive work with this thing.

Leo: I just- you’re going to think I’m crazy. I just bought- Lisa does think I’m crazy. A bunch of note cards. Letter press note cards. And they sell these on Amazon. The Spenserian handwriting guides. The copybooks. So I’m going to relearn …how to handwrite. With a fountain pen.

Alex: Now, a fountain pen I give you. There’s some skill there, I could see that.

Leo: I want to have Spenserian penmanship on my letterpress cards.

Andy: I find that it’s a more meditative way to write when you’re writing long hand. And I don’t do a lot of writing that way but there’s times- one of my stupid little habits is when I’m traveling I have to go to stationary stores and if I find a really cool spiral bound notebook, like when I was in Japan I must have spent 50 dollars just on like school student notebooks. Because they’re just so cool and different shapes and sizes and different characters on them. And sometimes I will take out one of these- if I’ve got a writing project I can take some time and I want to be in a different, sort of, frame of mind for it, and it works great. And also its not only the idea that not only do I have to compose text a million miles an hour inside my head, but it’s also the, I have to control my hand and my fingers and I have to make sure that this is legible and I have to slow myself down because the ink will not flow out of the pen as fast as I make scratches on it. And before long I’m nice and calm and I’m in the lotus position…

Leo: It brings back America’s golden age of penmanship.

Alex: I wonder if there’s something sacrilegious about looking for a Spenserian penmanship book that’s on the Kindle.

Leo: No, you can’t. These are beautiful, you want them. And besides, you don’t want them on the Kindle, because you could get the instructional book on the Kindle, but then there’s 5 copy books. You have to write in them.

Alex: No, no, I just want the instruction book on the Kindle. I’m like, I don’t want to carry around a book.

Leo: You have to do this over and over again. And they have a bundle on Amazon where you get the Spenserian penmanship theory book, 5 copy books. They’re 1-5, they’re all different. And then a pack of disposable fountain pens. But really it wouldn’t be right to use disposable fountain pens on this. You need something a little bit better.

Alex: I think you need a quill.

Andy: No, what you need is like a steel ruler on a Servo controlled by an Arduino and a Bluetooth LE, like every time you exceed, it just goes whap on your wrist.

Leo: Okay. Okay. That’s good. Maybe that would be kind of melding my two passions together. Like the Tom Hanks typewriter. See, I’m taking you one step farther. Forget typewriting, I’m going to handwrite. There is one problem, I’m a leftie. Which means it’s going to be beautiful, but then it’s going to have big smudge right through it. I’ve actually done some research on left handed Spenserian penmanship. And there are ways. They don’t recommend the hook method.

Andy: There’s a reason why the Latin word for left is sinister.

Leo: Sinister. Belated happy 16^th to the Bondi Blue iMac. It was released in May. We should have had a party. I guess we did have a party. At the Flint Center, I forgot. That was for the original Mac though. The Bondi Blue was released also at the Flint Center. May 6^th 1998. The reason I know that, it was 5 days before TechTV launched on May 11^th 1998. And we had a Bondi Blue- lovely Bondi Blue iMac on the set. And then we did a collection of other things in Bondi Blue. Turns out it’s very popular. Translucent Bondi Blue plastic. Very popular. We had a vacuum, we had a dishwasher, and there was a whole bunch.

Andy: Yep. I remember seeing a George Forman style grill in every iMac color. That’s influential. It’s a big deal when everybody copies the iPhone after the iPhone comes out. But when even industrial designers who are making waffle irons are picking up on your design, it’s okay, you’re definitely in a strong bargaining position when it’s time for your salary review in September.

Leo: That was a Johnny I design. And it was now, 16 years ago. Wow. We’re going to get your picks of the week gentlemen, get them ready. In a second. But first, a word from IT Pro TV. It’s a video network much like TWiT, but it’s devoted exclusively to IT to helping you either jumpstart your career in IT, if you want to get the certs. Or if you’re already in IT, supplement your traditional learning methods. Its fun, its engaging, it’s great. In fact, if you go to itpro.tv/macbreak you can take a tour of the place. See what they’ve got. Tim and Don have been up here. We love them. You know I have an ITP mug actually. Because I love them. And IT Pro TV loves TWiT. It’s an easy entertaining way to learn- oh, the red light is blinking on the website. We can jump right in and see what they’re doing. When they’re on air live, as they are about 30 hours a week. You can actually go in, you can watch live. You can chat with them. Ask questions. Very much like what we’re doing. They have Q&A system. Now there are a couple of ways to do this. You can get an annual subscription or a monthly subscription. The annual is the best deal. Usually its 57 dollars a month. Or 570 dollars a year. If you get the yearly subscription you can also download the full video in the library for offline use. Which is great. Or MP3s. so you can watch and listen on a plane. You’ll save money too. In every case, whether it’s the monthly or yearly, you’ll get the measure up practice exams it’s a great way to prepare for your test. That’s worth 79 bucks, that’s free. And what I love, they have a virtual machine environment where you can go in and actually use a server, use clients, set the whole network up. Learn by doing and you don’t have to have any of those computers. It’ll work with any HTML 5 browser, even on a Mac. They do have Mac content, in fact they’ve added an integration basics, management basics. Coming up, certified support professional classes and certified professional coordinator classes for Apple. They’ve got the comp tia search, the Microsoft search, the Cisco search. Security is real big. The new ISC squared search is there too. As well as Office. PMI. And they’re working right now on VM ware. I know a number of people are coming to town for the VM ware conference. VM world. Soon right, Dan is coming. Our chat mod. That’s soon right Dan? A couple of weeks. If you want to become an expert this is the way to do it. Very affordable. Now I mentioned $67 a month, $670 a year, but I’ve got a deal for you, you don’t think I’d do this without negotiating a deal for you, do you? If you use the offer code MACBREAK30, 30% off. Not for the first month, not for the first year, but forever. The lifetime of your account. That’s less than 40 bucks a month. Now we’re talking. That’s less even than just buying the books. Let alone taking a course at a technical school. $399 for the entire year. That’s ITpro.tv/macbreak. But do remember to use the code MACBREAK30 30% off. For the lifetime of your account. A tip of the hat to Tim and Don and all the guys over at itpro.tv/macbreak. Andrew. Your picks have been so good, I think I’ve bought everything you’ve picked in the last four weeks. Including the Sous Vide cooker. That you didn’t even buy. You just said, I wish somebody would buy it.

Andy: Again, I try to be the devil that at least encourages you to do things that are good for you.

Leo: Were you here when we did that? Because I know you’re into Sous Vide.

Alex: I did, I looked at and I was thinking, well, I already have one. But…

Leo: Well, I’m getting it, I bought it. I ordered the mellow.

Andy: I was so keen on that one, chiefly because, I’m not the sort of person who sets aside time at dinnertime to do cooking. I am exactly the sort of person who would have like, 20 minutes in the morning to say oh, now that I’ve cleaned up the breakfast pans, if I can do 5 minutes of work to make sure that there’s a nice pork cutlet waiting for me at 6:20pm, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to care about 2 hours from now.

Alex: It’s cool because it keeps it cool and then it heats it… I have already ordered- because this isn’t going to come out, for I don’t know how long, like until next year. But I’ve already ordered the special silicone bags with no PCPs to cook in. so I’ve got the bags.

Alex: Did you get the sealer for the bags?

Leo: What?

Alex: You have to seal the bags.

Andy: You don’t need it for this one, for the one that’s coming.

Alex: Oh, okay.

Andy: I’m serious, it’s like, a technology comes and a product comes along and now you know exactly how you treated other people when you knew about the Mac or the iPhone and other people didn’t. It’s like the Tesla and Sous Vide cookers are just like that. Because you’ll meet someone who discovered Sous Vide cooking a month and a half ago, and every conversation has to circle around Sous Vide somewhere. Well, I know you’re not supposed to make burgers in it, but oh my God, the burgers that are cooked- it was in the bag for 14 hours at 8 degrees and it was the most succulent- I put 2 sprigs of- and you’re like, oh, that’s nice.

Leo: Well, you’ll be glad to know, thanks to your mention, they’ve now sold 200,000 dollars’ worth of these. 500 of them. So it’s moving along.

Andy: … Where springtime for Hitler’s financial model happens several times every single day.

Leo: Every day.

Andy: If we can sell 18 of these we can upscon with the money, but oh, now we’ve got 1.8 million dollars.

Leo: So what have you got for us- what can I buy this week?

Andy: Okay, this one is a little bit less painful. It’s also kind of a special item. This isn’t my pick. But this is- for a battery charger to get my attention now a days, or someone to send me an email saying hey, I’ve got a new battery charger, you want me to send you one to check out? Something unusual has to be about it. At this point there are so many out there. Once you find one that you like, that’s the one you like. It’s not even necessarily because this is the one that Jesus Christ himself would own if he had an iPhone. This happens to be my usual one. It’s by Jackery. It’s called the Jackery bar. And I like it because it’s exactly the right capacity for me. It’s enough so that it can charge a phone 2 or 3 times and it can also bring an iPad 3 to about 80% of charge, in and of itself. And it has really great power management so that what I really want is kind of like the Sous Vide thing. I want to be able to charge this once, drop it in my bag, it stays there for a couple of months. Until the one or two times where I realize I’m out of power and I need to charge something up. And then I’ll remember to charge it up again and put it back in the bag for another couple of months. So this has really good power management. It’s not too expensive, it’s about I think, $25, $30. As just as a basic frame of reference. But the problem is that this is like big, and it’s kind of heavy. So it’s not something that you’d want to carry around in your pocket all the time. I only have it when I have my laptop bag or my iPad bag. So that’s why this caught my attention. It’s called the Travel Card. And what it is, it is the size of the credit card, it is exactly that thin. And it weighs next to nothing so it’s nice enough planned out that it also has a built in either USB or lightning connector. It is made for iPod, iPad approved so this is the real thing. And so the obvious good news is that if you’re at a meeting or a family event or something like that where you can’t have a bag slung around your chest all day long. This will fit into a wallet. It’s the size of maybe 4 or 5 credit cards. So it might even slip into your wallet. If it doesn’t, it will slip into your shirt pocket or inside coat pocket and not take up any room. And so for that reason, it’s unique enough to recommend. But it does have a very big caveat, as you can guess, as a super thin and super lightweight charger, it doesn’t have anywhere near the capacity of something like this. So I tested it out yesterday, I happened to have an absolutely dead iPhone 5s and it charged up to 45%, at which point this one was absolutely dead. So it’s not going to be something that’s going to give you multiple charges or even one charge. But it’s going to be the sort of thing where if you’re out all day and you know that around 6 or 7pm you’re probably going to be down to starvation mode on that phone, this will give you those extra 3 or 4 hours that’ll let you get home and still have a working phone throughout the entire work day. And like I said, it’s nice enough and light enough that you’re not even aware that it’s in there until the moment that you need it. It’s not cheap either, it’s about $40. I think you have the website open.

Leo: Yeah, $39, yeah.

Andy: But it is unique. I haven’t seen anything that’s quite like this. Or quite like this that actually works. And so, for that reason, it’s certainly worth my recommendation.

Leo: Lisa went to the 9ers game on Sunday. And I gave her a Jackery, I gave her an Antic, she had like 80 hours’ worth of battery. But it weighs a lot. The truth is what you really need is something to give you emergency juice. And so half a charge from something this small, that’s not bad. Travel Card. And it looks like they’re doing a crowd funding kind of thing.

Andy: Yeah, well it was originally launched as a Kickstarter thing, some sort of a crowd source thing. Now it’s an actual commercial thing. That’s why they sent it to me I think. Because now it’s actually shipping. See, it has the CE logo and everything. It’s legal.

Leo: It’s street legal. Travelcardcharger.com. Alex Lyndsay, I see you have Amazon open.

Alex: I was already on Amazon, got my credit card... this is a great idea.

Leo: You know, Apple has created this market because they don’t have a removable battery. You have to have your Mofy case because you can’t get through a day… yeah.

Alex: It’s frustrating. I have the Power Gens…

Leo: I have a ton of them.

Alex: The other thing I do when I’m travelling a lot is I take my MiFi and I take these batteries, and I just hook one of the batteries to the MiFi and throw it in my backpack, and then I have my own little personal Wi-Fi wherever I go. I don’t have to think about logging in. I just keep it in my backpack or whatever and it just runs all day. You know, so you don’t have to think about it.

Leo: I bought a solar charged. Coal Zero makes a solar charged charger. For batteries. But I haven’t yet used it.

Alex: I don’t spend that much time in the sun. As you can see when you look at the video.

Leo: It’s completely useless for me because, yeah. I thought it’d be useful if I ever went outside. What have you got?

Alex: So I spent the weekend in Tuscan Arizona.

Leo: There’s lots of sun there.

Alex: There was actually a lot of rain and lightning. Its rainy season. But there was some sun there as well. Obviously, it’s Tuscan Az. Actually, the uncle I talked about on triangulation, my mentor, so it was his 78^th birthday…

Leo: Oh, yeah. Three finger Lindsay. No, no, that’s the other uncle.

Alex: So it was his 78^th birthday so we came from all over the country so, a big family, and we’re known for playing poker. And I didn’t lose all of my money. I lost just a little.

Leo: That’s fun. Did you spend like, the whole weekend playing poker?

Alex: We only spent one night. We started about 9 I think. And we finished about 2am, 2:30 in the morning. And some of the people in my family are near pro. And so…

Leo: I thought you might be.

Alex: Well, I played a lot of poker, but I hadn’t played Texas Hold ‘em. I played it once in Vegas and lost everything within like, 15 minutes. And so I had to kind of learn how to do that. And I survived. A lot of guys got cleaned out.

Leo: No limit?

Alex: There was no limit, but it was like $1, $5, $10…

Leo: It would be really easy to destroy a game like that by just going all in on every hand.

Alex: The big blind was like a dollar. But anyway, still had to get around the odds and everything else. So I asked my uncle who plays a lot of poker, I mean, this is like, he won a lot of money that night. And I said, so if I want to learn how to play Texas Hold ‘Em, which app. it was actually a website. He uses websites. Which one is the best one? So I decided that would be my pick. Its pokerstars.net.

Leo: That’s the one they advertise on World Poker Tour.

Alex: They advertise it, but that is from a real poker player. He said that is the one you want to go and you’re going to get the best. The most accurate odds.

Leo: And you can’t lose any money.

Alex: You’re buying points, or something. It is legal. Not illegal.

Leo: But they’ve made it illegal if there’s real money. So that’s the good news. You can’t lose money on this.

Alex: That’s right. So you just have a whole bunch of points. But he said there’s real poker players up there playing. There’s good odds. You’re really getting a sense of how…

Leo: How do they make money?

Alex: I still think you’re buying points. It’s kind of like you’re buying points that you’re winning and losing.

Leo: Really? How is that not gambling? Wait a minute, trading in American dollars for points.

Alex: You’re buying points. You’re buying points and then playing a game.

Leo: It sounds like they’re really kind of skirting the law there.

Alex: So I just started playing it.

Leo: But you don’t have to buy points?

Alex: No, I think you do have to. But I don’t know, I bought points. So I don’t know if I needed it or not. But…

Leo: Now you’re like a killer…

Alex: No, I just started, but it’s really cool. And I thought I would share the wisdom, not from me, but from someone who actually knows which ones to get. So if you’re wondering. Now I’m going to become… you know, I’ve decided to stop playing Field Runners.

Leo: You know, if you’re going to learn something, a skill. Learn a skill that can make you live it.

Alex: Exactly, my wife makes a lot of fun. It’s not that I play Field Runners so often, I just play the same one until I get 2 million points. So I just play the same map.

Leo: If you could only make a living playing Field Runners, you’d be great. You’d clean up.

Alex: I would make some serious...

Leo: Why don’t you do Alex Lindsay Field Runner Lessons?

Alex: I’ve been actually thinking about, we should do a Field Runners tournament. I don’t know, if people email enough people, we’ll build a whole little set and we’ll do a Field Runners tournament and I’ll put down 1,000 dollars for the grand prize.

Leo: You can’t play head to head though, so…

Alex: Yeah you could.

Leo: You can?

Alex: So the thing is, the math is the same. You could have two people playing at the same time.

Leo: At the same time, the same level…

Alex: It does exactly the same thing.

Leo: It’s a new game.

Alex: Okay. Field Runners tournament. We’ll start thinking about it. And figure out how we’re going to do it.

Leo: The world Field Runners tour.

Alex: Hey, people play a lot. People spend a lot of time watching other people play games, why don’t we just put them head to head.

Leo: I know. We could do like, right. Is there a Field Runners 3 coming out?

Alex: Hopefully. I’m done with those maps, I need new ones. So anyways, that’s it. Pokerstars.net my new game.

Leo: Yay Alex Lindsay. My pick of the week... I finally got it back. What do you think that is? This has nothing to do with Apple in any respect. I did a review of this for Before You Buy. And I raved about it. And I guess I got one. Which is nice. So I’m completely corrupted so you shouldn’t trust my review of this. You’ll like this though Alex, because you’re really into barbequing. It’s a hair dryer for your barbeque.

Alex: I’ve always wanted to hair dry while I’m barbequing.

Leo: This turns your barbeque into a blacksmith’s forge. I can tell you, you just turn this on…

Andy: If you ever want to smelt hot dogs out of hot dog….

Alex: Now, do you have a Big Green Egg?

Leo: Smelt hot dogs. I have a Big Green Egg. It hooks right onto the edge.

Alex: You get it going a lot faster.

Leo: You get it going so much faster.

Alex: Because with Big Green Egg, especially with an XL, you have to be very, very patient.

Leo: Yeah. Yeah exactly. You know what, I should lend you this. Wait a minute, did you move to Pittsburg?

Alex: This weekend.

Leo: This weekend?

Alex: This weekend I get on a flight.

Leo: So you can’t have this, I’ll never see it again.

Alex: I’m coming back every other week.

Leo: But you could use my travel Emmy.

Alex: Can I get a better seat? Because I have an Emmy.

Leo: So you’re moving this weekend?

Alex: Just flying. I mean, I just put stuff in the box…

Leo: Is the house already there?

Alex: Yeah, yeah.

Leo: Do you use one of those pods, the moving pods?

Alex: Yeah. Yeah.

Leo: Is it already loaded up?

Alex: No, Friday ill just put everything in it. I don’t have a lot of stuff. We’re not taking any of the furniture.

Leo: Oh, you’re not?

Alex: No, don’t need any of the furniture. You know, I have kids. Furniture’s not really worth travelling with. It’s already trashed. The couch, you can’t even sell it. It’s been thrown up on and peed on and ….

Leo: Just put it out front. Some college kid will say hey, look, it’s a couch.

Alex: I think there’s laws against even giving it away.

Andy: The big question is, is it in too rough of shape for Craigslist?

Leo: Definitely not.

Alex: Never.

Andy: That would be impressive.

Alex: It’s rough.

Leo: Well, that concludes this portion of the broadcast. The MacBreak Weekly portion. Alex Lindsay, it’s great to see you. You are going to come back though. Even though you’re living in Pittsburg.

Alex: And I’ll have good connection, also.

Leo: Oh, yeah we can have you from Pittsburg. Alright. Well that solves that.

Alex: There you have it.

Leo: Do you have a little farmhouse?

Alex: Yeah, I have a big farmhouse, actually. That’s what I have. With a pond in the back.

Leo: Oh, wow. And you have a little studio out back?

Alex: I’m going too eventually. I’ll have a little studio. I mean, I have an office there.

Leo: Taking over the barn.

Alex: No, I don’t get to take over the barn. The cows are still in it. My uncle runs the farm, and my son, when he visited, he goes “so when we move here, do we get to keep the cows?” I was like “yes”. He goes “do we have to pay for them?” and I said “no, no we just get to go pet them.” He said “that is awesome”.

Leo: Guess what? You’ll be getting up at 4am to milk them too.

Alex: They’re not milk cows. They’re edible.

Leo: You don’t drink them, you eat them. I think we should have a TWiT retreat at your house.

Alex: I would love that. I’m getting a big outdoor screen. There’s going to be some movies.

Leo: Oh, wow. We’ll wait. We’ll show up in a couple of weeks. Mr. Andy Ihnatko. Do you have someone in your family named Al?

Andy: Yes, actually. One of my mother’s cousins is named Al. that was the only one that I could think of. But hey, you can call me Al. if I can call you Betty.

Leo: Thank- yes please.

Andy: It’s like a shave and a haircut. You would have to complete the sequence or nobody could move forward.

Leo: Really appreciate your time, of course. He writes for the Chicago Sun Times. You can see his 15,000 word article on Tom Hank’s typewriter sometime soon. You know what, people have been really excited about your pictures from Boston Comic Con and those are up on Flickr. Flicker.com/andyi some nice shots. Some really nice shots.

Andy: In terms of picks of the week that really I would marry and make it Mrs. Olympus OMD 1 Ihnatko, that would be the one.

Leo: He’s happy with his new camera.

Andy: That as the last thing – the last kind of picture that I take often that I didn’t get to take yet with that camera was this. And oh man. I’ve been taking pictures of Cons since like 2001 and that was the first time I could say, the reason why some of my pictures suck is because I’m incompetent.

Alex: Awesome.

Leo: Big crowd that day.

Andy: That’s why I volunteered to do speaker. Because you get to get in there an hour early when there’s no crowds yet.

Leo: Oh, look. She’s painting her Spider girl outfit. Getting it ready. This is fun. “Cosplay is not consent”. I like that. That’s good.

Andy: Yeah. Because harassment at Cons has been a big problem because a lot of people who are dressed in costume- some of them are super hero costumes so they’re a little bit, racy. And so some people think, oh, because they’re showing some skin its okay for me to take pictures from any angle and be a big creep about it. And so, just to have those signs all over the place, just to reinforce that- look, just because someone is wearing a costume does not mean that you should treat them – it creates – trying to foster a greater environment of respect for everybody who is there. And fortunately I heard from a couple of different cosplayers about that. Because I also wrote a feature for Boing-Boing on the first day of the Con about these new kinds of policies. And they’re saying “boy, did that work out great for us. Because we just felt a lot better there.”

Leo: They had problems in San Diego didn’t they?

Andy: They have problems everywhere. Again, it’s amazing that there are people who would not treat a woman that way if they were inside a mall or anywhere else. Because they know that they’d be thrown to the ground and arrested and taken to jail. But they feel as though oh, I’m at a Comic Con, it’s not the same thing. If I want to grope a woman or if I want to otherwise treat her with disrespect, that’s perfectly fine, because the big thing is that they’re going to throw me out of the Con. And we have to convince them that no, what happens is that we have cops there. We will hold you and we will have you arrested. Because you should be. You committed a crime. Anyway.

Leo: I Love this Batman winning at Bingo picture. The Joker howling.

Andy: I’m sorry, this isn’t supposed to be Comic Con Break Weekly. But that’s one of the great things about modern Cons. Because if you’ve never been to a modern Comic Con, you might think that oh, this is for nerds and Star Trek costumes and you have to dress like a Klingon and be really interested in hearing what William Shatner has to say. But really it is like any sort of big public festival. Oh, he’s great. I see him like every year in a different costume. Last year he was in a Jedi costume. The year before he was in the rebooted Tron version of the Tron costume.

Leo: This is one of the crewmen on the bridge…

Andy: Deck officer in the Ackver. And that’s- oh, no, he’s definitely the empire. Like I said, I’ve been taking pictures of Cons for like, 10 or 15 years, and it sometimes takes 3 or 4 years to realize that there is a woman that I take a picture of every single year without realizing I’ve taken her picture every single year. This year I finally knew what her name was and she actually had a table because ….

Leo: Is she a spice girl? Oh, wait, this is Bob’s Burgers. Oh look at that. I love it.

Andy: That’s exactly the reason why I love these Cons. You will see families dressed up like that. They’re all having a greatest time in the whole damn world.

Leo: It’s amazing what you can do with duct tape. Oh look, a picture of Andy Ihnatko.

Andy: Exactly. I’m in cosplay.

Leo: Hey, thanks everybody for joining us, we do MacBreak Weekly 11am pacific time, 2pm eastern, 1800 UTC every Tuesday. We will be here September 9^th for a very special episode. Just tune in every week. We love having you here live, if you can’t be here live, you can always be here on demand. I demand that you download audio or video every week. Don’t forget our last few days of our brick house t-shirt. Commemorating our 3^rd anniversary in our brand new studios. At teespring.com/twit.

Alex: You made your goal.

Leo: Oh yeah. Once this is over, it’s over. We’re not going to sell anymore. Hey, and thanks to all our live studio audience. We have some wonderful people here from all over the world. From Australia, from Italy, and from LA. Great having you. You can always join us, we have an open studio policy. Just email tickets@twit.tv and we’ll make sure there’s a seat out for you. Thanks for being here. We’ll see you next time. Remember now, back to work, break time is over!