The Rebound

Moltz has a red light on his Drobo. But it's gonna be OK. He also learns the difference between the spelling of Paul Thurrott's last name and that of Henry David Thoreau.

Then we discuss the rumors about a 12-inch MacBook Air. Rumors often don't pan out, like the one about them removing the headphone jack on iPhones.

Then the podcast ends forever when Dan says he keeps trackpad tapping on on his MacBook Air. So long, been nice podcasting for you.

OK, back to headphones, Moltz has these Bose jobbies which, eh, are OK. Dan has Sennheiser PX 100s. Lex has Sony MDRV6s. If you're having trouble hearing from your MacBook's speakers, you can use Boom and, well, maybe blow your speakers out.

Seems like you could get some completely acceptable podcasting equipment for certainly no more than $200. A Yeti isn't the best microphone in the world but it's fine. Hindenberg Journalist is about $100. For $100 more you can get Logic Pro.

For video, if iMovie drives you berserk, you could actually edit video in Screenflow.

Finally, Lex tells the story of the PowerBook 540c that got away. By being stolen.

Bad news: The lawsuit against Apple about iPod DRM has failed. This causes us to complain about iTunes 12.

Then, somehow, we end up talking about our favorite games of 2014. You've got your Super Stickman Golf 2, your Kingdom Rush, your Room and Room 2 and then you've got your Crossy Road. Lex takes exception to some of iMore's Crossy Road tips. We hear good things about FTL but none of us really play it.

Space Team, Artemis and Atro Duel are all great multiplayer iOS games.

If you're looking for presents, please consider the book Dan co-wrote with Jeff Carlson, The Connected Apple Home. Or, Lex likes Jackery. Cough.

Eric Schmidt mistakenly believes that private browsing in Chrome will keep your information safe from government snooping. He is not correct.

We start this week by taking a look at Mark Zuckerberg's ridiculous comments about Apple and how much we don't like Facebook.

Dan and Lex are fans of Silicon Valley the TV show for its accurate depiction of Silicon Valley the place and mindset. Moltz has not seen it.

Panic has had to update Transmit for iOS due to another groan-inducing App Store policy clusterfuck. Here's another one. We grouse into the wind about this situation.

Dan wrote a piece about the Apple TV so we talk about set-top boxes. Again. It's a favorite hobby horse of ours.

Dan gets some things off his chest about Hulu+.

Black Mirror is not a show you should watch if you've had a bad year.

We talk about Apple's Red promotion and some of the reaction to that.

On Black Friday, Lex bought a new TV and Moltz bought... a PC? That can't be right, can it?

Lex uses his new TV to play the Walking Dead on the Xbox.

If we haven't talked about cars incessantly enough, DON'T WORRY. Yes, Moltz is getting an Acura ILX and Lex got a Nissan Leaf.

Car technology can be a problem, so can home technology like the Nest.

How about smartrings?! Turns out they have problems, too. Boston area public transportation has a ring that holds your fare card. You don't want to wear that one, either.

Dan spends all his time playing Destiny. And podcasting.

Lex got an electric car. It's not a Tesla. It's a Nissan Leaf. So we talk cars. As people on tech podcasts do.

Car technology sucks. Let's just say that.

Before you listen to the next part, take Pew Research's Web IQ Quiz so you can compare your score to ours.

Two fine pieces of bad advice for Apple this week:

It's Time For Apple to Open Up"

"Can iPad conquer the enterprise? Only if Apple has the guts to license iOS"

Then Dan discusses a piece he wrote for Popular Science on the Regin spyware.

Then there's a discussion of technology and the holidays. Lex wonders about buying from iTunes in another country. Dan bought an Amazon Fire Stick. Which he'll probably leave in a hotel.

This episode is not actually brought to you buy The Visual Guide to Minecraft. That's a book the Moltz has co-written and it's not really a sponsor because of ethics in game podcasting.

Also not sponsoring this issue is the brand-new Nokia N1. Certainly not after what we said about it, anyway. See if you can identify the substance in the bowl. We wonder if this kind of thing is covered in Apple and Nokia's cross-licensing deal.

Then we talk about the Uber kerfuffle and whether or not we'll be deleting the app. We're definitely down on it, even though Apple's not perfect, either.

Alas, you missed your chance to get a sweet iPhone 6 knockoff.

You may soon be able to get an iPhone battery case with a Lightning port. Finally.

Lex has a case from Unu which he has no complaints about.

Dan sold some devices to Gazelle and reports that they'll bump up what they give you if they think your device is in better shape than what you reported. Of course, they'd probably do the opposite, too.

Lex is back! For those of you who actually keep track of who's on this podcast.

Apple finally (FINALLY) released a tool for getting out of Messages if you leave the iPhone. Quitters.

We discuss both the Masque and Wirelurker attacks and some of the salacious coverage of them.

Both Dan and John have the problem with Macs appearing multiple times on the network in Yosemite. Lex doesn't. Go figure.

We talk about politicians opinions about net neutrality, even though John thinks he's already handled the situation.

Then we talk about Amazon Echo which... ugh. The parody video is better.

Lex is on vacation (or are we on vacation from Lex?) so we've got admitted Canadian Guy English stepping in this week. We think you'll be pleased with the results, but also happy to have Lex back next week because we spend the first half of the show talking about comic books. This is a thing that happens on technology podcasts.

Check out the extended trailer for *Avengers: Age of Ultron* before you give this episode a listen. You can also review Marvel's six-year plan and DC's six-year plan, which ends with a triumphant do-over of *Green Lantern*.

About half way in we turn from the technological topic of killer robots to the topic of the Apple Watch. This week saw rumors that the stainless version will be $500 while the gold version will cost "if you have to ask you can't afford it." Also this week brought a slip by Angela Ahrendts about the Apple Watch coming in "spring."

SPOILER: We do not talk about the latest Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer this week. That's going to be next week. And we will talk about it because Ultron is a robot and a robot is technology. Q.E.D. It's unassailable logic.

In a vain attempt to alleviate our problem with cross-talking in this podcast, we go video. Which you can't see except for a screenshot here.

What we really discuss this week is Apple Pay. Dan compares it to a system called Level Up. We also talk about Square, because we're so thorough. Lex thinks he's going to like Apple Pay when he finally gets it because it means he only has to touch his own feces instead of everyone else's. The good news about Apple Pay is that you might be able to add your wife's card even if you're not authorized on it.

Surprisingly, the iPad Air 2 includes an NFC chip, even though it apparently doesn't do anything yet.

Speaking of not doing anything, in New Jersey and Oregon you can't pump your own gas.

We discuss the menu at McDonald's, which we know people have been clamoring for us to do.

Dan ordered himself an Amazon Fire TV stick. Lex and Moltz have both ordered a Kano for one each of their kids. They don't think Dan could handle it.

Siri can give you predicted sports outcomes but it turns out they're not very good.

We start with our impressions of Yosemite and how much Dan likes it and thinks it's flawless. Lex and Moltz suggest trying this out if the Yosemite look is too much: go into System Preferences and Accessibility and check Increase Contrast.

Neven Mrgan suggests reducing transparency and increasing contrast.

We then talk about the relative worth of the tiers of Apple's products which is a thing that Moltz wrote about. There's a lot of value in the current iPad lineup, but it's still oddly skewed.

None of us owns a Retina Mac but supposedly Yosemite is built for these devices we can't afford. The rest of us might do well to dial some of the visuals back. You may not like the transparency but it's better than the transparency in Windows 7 which was over the top.

We also discuss Apple Pay and chip and PIN. Soon we'll all be paying for things with our Apple Watches which come in many design styles, if you haven't heard.

This week Apple event MAAAADNESS! sweeps through the Rebound podcast! Catch the fever! Relive the action of... skits! Wonder how they could literally have Stephen Colbert on and have it not be funny!

Well, some nice products still came out of Thursday's Apple event. A whole new iPad lineup featuring all those things we kinda expected, new Mac minis and Retina iMacs. Also, Yosemite is out, iOS 8.1 arrives on Monday and a developer kit for the Apple Watch will be released in November.

And no Bono. Completely Bono-free event. So, that's good.

First, Dan needs to whine and complain about bugs in iOS 8. Lex and Moltz have no sympathy. Lex schools Dan on replying to messages from the lock screen.

THEN WE HAVE BREAKING NEWS: Apple has scheduled an event for October 16th. So we talk about what might be announced at that. Like maybe new Mac minis and a 12-inch iPad?

Lex has the temerity to question Phil Schiller’s presentation skills. Hey, Phil’s gotten a lot better over the years.

Lex then talks about his love of the Roku and how it’s better than the Apple TV. Dan and Moltz chase him off by howling and throwing remotes at him. And Boxee is the company that Samsung acquired that Moltz couldn’t remember the name of.

Finally, we talk about an Apple television set and how we don’t even really want one.

First we get things rolling by talking about the hot new product everyone can’t wait to have in their enterprise environment for corporate enterprise office for workgroups, Windows 10. And, what better place than the workplace to have a sexy and sexist virtual assistant like Cortana?

Then we discuss this idea that’s floating around that Apple has a quality control problem. Yeah, well, maybe you have a quality control problem. Ever think of that?

QA is a pretty thankless task. Which brings us to a discussion of the latest releases of iOS 8. Neither Lex’s nor John’s spouses have installed iOS 8 yet, but it’s probably not because of bugs. They hate change. Which, let’s face it, is probably good for Lex and John as spouses. Divorce is a pain in the ass.

There’s an issue of how well these updates run on the oldest hardware Apple lets it run on. Is it just fast enough that it’ll run and just slow enough that it’ll entice you to upgrade your hardware?

This week’s episode includes John and Dan’s thoughts on their new iPhones 6. Lex just sits there and looks pretty.

Phablets are technically larger than 5.3-inches, so only the iPhone 6 Plus could be called a phablet but don’ you dare call it that.

You can read John’s thoughts on the iPhone 6 here, if you don’t want to listen to them but you should really listen.

Dan suggests reading Apple’s copy for the Watch which reads almost like a parody of Apple copy for the Watch.

The iPhone 6 is actually heavier than the iPhone 5 form factor but lighter than the iPhone 4.

If you’re concerned about why iOS 8 keyboards need full access, you can read SwiftKeys’ response here.

We even get into Bendghazi. And this was recorded two days ago, before Bendghazi was sweeping the nation.

In our inaugural episode, we convene to discuss the most important issue of our time: the delivery of free music to our devices. Some key opinions about this:

"Apple, U2 and looking a gift horse in the mouth"

"Mad About U2"

"Anger Over Songs Of Innocence"

Personally, we hope we're still talking about this... on New Year's Day. (The U2 jokes just write themselves. Unfortunately.)

Lex wrote a piece detailing why he's excited about the Apple Watch.

Then we talk iPhone thinness versus battery life and segue into iOS 8 keyboards like TextExpander.