It's Apple Event time again; recorded a few weeks after Apple's WWDC 2024 Keynote, James, Jae, and Alex sit down for a chat about everything Apple announced at the June 10th event.

Apologies this has taken longer than usual to get out to you, work and other commitments have definitely gotten in the way. We will have more amazing episodes coming at a more regular pace for you going forward.

What do you think to Apple's AI (Apple Intelligence) future, are you concerned because of the growth of AI in general, or reassured based on their privacy first approach? We'd love to hear from you, so please send us a note to podcast@crossedwires.net, or why not come join the discussion on our Discord server.

If you liked this episode or any of our content, we’d greatly appreciate any little bit of support you can throw our way over at our Ko-Fi page.

"Don't you people backup? I backup, and I don't even know what backing up means!" - Nicola Murray, Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship

If you have any kind of file that's important to you, be that a treasured family photo, your latest research paper, or just the list of the co-ordinates of your best places in Minecraft, you'll want to make sure it's kept safe, right? Well, just syncing that to the cloud isn't really enough, you need a proper backup strategy too.

Part of a good backup strategy is having a backup that isn't in the same place as your computer, and this is where a good cloud backup service is so important. Our friends at Backblaze provide simple, reliable, and affordable backup options for your Mac or Windows PCs for just $9/month. You can get a 15 day free-trial when you follow this link to sign up.

• The Interface - Alex's tech and automotive news site.
• Apple Events - Watch the WWDC24 Keynote

1. 00:00:04: Introductions
2. 00:03:33: Skydiving Intro
3. 00:09:55: Apple TV+
4. 00:16:03: visionOS 2
5. 00:24:39: iOS 18
6. 01:05:05: tvOS & HomeKit
7. 01:13:06: watchOS
8. 01:17:44: iPadOS 18
9. 01:22:12: macOS Sequoia
10. 01:26:12: Passwords
11. 01:33:28: Apple Intelligence
12. 02:05:41: Wrapping Up

Intro and outro theme: Ace of Clubs by RoccoW

Apple held their 'Let Loose' event on May 7th, 2024 and not long after the 'dream team' of Crossed Wires Apple coverage gathered to discuss the new iPads, the rather confusing line up of Apple Pencils.

We also take a detour to look into why WiFI 7 not being included in the new iPads is not as big of a factor as some may think.

Finally, we discuss the powerful new features in Apple's pro apps for iPad, Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro and how these new features make iPad a powerful creative tool more than ever before.

Are you planning to buy a new iPad, are you excited by the new features of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro on iPad? We'd love to hear from you, so please send us a note to podcast@crossedwires.net, or why not come join the discussion on our Discord server.

If you liked this episode or any of our content, we’d greatly appreciate any little bit of support you can throw our way over at our Ko-Fi page.

"Don't you people backup? I backup, and I don't even know what backing up means!" - Nicola Murray, Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship

If you have any kind of file that's important to you, be that a treasured family photo, your latest research paper, or just the list of the co-ordinates of your best places in Minecraft, you'll want to make sure it's kept safe, right? Well, just syncing that to the cloud isn't really enough, you need a proper backup strategy too.

Part of a good backup strategy is having a backup that isn't in the same place as your computer, and this is where a good cloud backup service is so important. Our friends at Backblaze provide simple, reliable, and affordable backup options for your Mac or Windows PCs for just $9/month. You can get a 15 day free-trial when you follow this link to sign up.

• The Interface - Alex's fantastic tech and automative news site
• Watch the Event - Apple Events
• iPad Pro - Apple.com
• iPad Air - Apple.com
• Apple Pencil - Apple.com, including showing features and helping you see compatibility for the different pencil models.
• The Case for iPad Pro - Vergecast
• iOS 18 Accessibility Features - Apple Pressroom
• Final Cut Pro for iPad - Apple.com
• Logic Pro for iPad - Apple.com

1. 00:00:04: Introductions
2. 00:04:30: The Let Loose Event
3. 00:08:17: Crushed
4. 00:16:22: iPad Air (M2)
5. 00:25:33: iPad Pro (M4)
6. 00:42:22: Apple Pencil Shuffle
7. 00:55:16: Why No WiFi 7?
8. 01:02:31: Choose An iPad
9. 01:11:36: iOS 18 Accessibility
10. 01:13:55: Pro Apps
11. 01:25:49: Wrapping Up

Intro and outro theme: Ace of Clubs by RoccoW

As centralised social media platforms become more and more hostile, with not only toxicity from undesirable elements but also massive privacy concerns, the Fediverse has become somewhat of a refuge for those who want to share freely and openly, without the worry of appeasing the almighty algorithms.

There are some fantastic Mastodon issues for you to join, but what if you want a bit more control, or want to build your own community, or represent your brand? You could setup your own server, assuming you have the skills and patience to do so, or you could take advantage of a service like Masto.host.

Our guest, Hugo, provides what he describes as 'Shared Hosting for Mastodon' at incredibly affordable prices and with some much appreciated transparency on infrastructure and update policies.

We talk about how things got started, his encounter with TERFs and the freedom to refuse service to anyone because of the decentralised nature of the fediverse. We also do a bit of a deep dive into the infrastructure setup for Masto.host and the measures Hugo has put in place in the aim to give everyone a great experience.

Do you have your own instance, or maybe have some stories to share of instances gone wrong? We'd love to hear from you, so please send us a note to podcast@crossedwires.net, or why not come join the discussion on our Discord server.

If you liked this episode or any of our content, we’d greatly appreciate any little bit of support you can throw our way over at our Ko-Fi page.

"Don't you people backup? I backup, and I don't even know what backing up means!" - Nicola Murray, Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship

If you have any kind of file that's important to you, be that a treasured family photo, your latest research paper, or just the list of the co-ordinates of your best places in Minecraft, you'll want to make sure it's kept safe, right? Well, just syncing that to the cloud isn't really enough, you need a proper backup strategy too.

Part of a good backup strategy is having a backup that isn't in the same place as your computer, and this is where a good cloud backup service is so important. Our friends at Backblaze provide simple, reliable, and affordable backup options for your Mac or Windows PCs for just $9/month. You can get a 15 day free-trial when you follow this link to sign up.

• Masto.host - Hugo's Mastodon hosting service
• Masto.host@mastodon.social - Masto.host on Mastodon
• Infrastructure | Masto.host - Details of how the Masto.host infrastructure works, as Hugo describes in the episode.
• Mastodon - Into the Fediverse - Our chat with James Smith of Mastodon.me.uk
• Mastodon on GitHub

1. 00:00:04: Introductions
2. 00:05:57: Shared Hosting for Madtodon
3. 00:11:26: Ditching Twitter
4. 00:14:43: Turfing out TERFs
5. 00:22:21: Why Have Your Own Instance?
6. 00:33:59: Infrastructure
7. 00:50:07: Masto.host Pros & Cons
8. 00:58:50: Wrapping Up

Intro and outro theme: Ace of Clu

The hype around AI continues to grow, often muddling genuinely useful elements like machine learning, pattern recognition, and properly and ethnically trained large language models with tools like ChatGPT and generative AI tools that have questionable data sources.

With returning guests, Prof. Catherine Flick and our very own Zack, we talk about the challenges of AI in the academic space. Zack also shares his own experience of being caught using ChatGPT to complete a final essay he, by his own admission, had left until the last minute.

Are you academia, have you been tempted to use AI shortcuts or maybe are a teacher or professor who has had experience with students taking those shortcuts? We'd love to hear from you, so please send us a note to podcast@crossedwires.net, or why not come join the discussion on our Discord server.

If you liked this episode or any of our content, we’d greatly appreciate any little bit of support you can throw our way over at our Ko-Fi page.

"Don't you people backup? I backup, and I don't even know what backing up means!" - Nicola Murray, Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship

If you have any kind of file that's important to you, be that a treasured family photo, your latest research paper, or just the list of the co-ordinates of your best places in Minecraft, you'll want to make sure it's kept safe, right? Well, just syncing that to the cloud isn't really enough, you need a proper backup strategy too.

Part of a good backup strategy is having a backup that isn't in the same place as your computer, and this is where a good cloud backup service is so important. Our friends at Backblaze provide simple, reliable, and affordable backup options for your Mac or Windows PCs for just $9/month. You can get a 15 day free-trial when you follow this link to sign up.

• Prof Catherine Flick - Website / Mastodon

1. 00:00:04: Introductions
2. 00:05:11: Zack’s Story
3. 00:14:55: Assistive Tools vs AI
4. 00:24:38: Due Diligence & Alternative Assessments
5. 00:45:33: Generative AI
6. 00:51:45: AI Hype vs Machine Learning
7. 00:55:00: Wrapping Up

Intro and outro theme: Ace of Clubs by RoccoW

If you’ve ever purchased a new laptop, you’ll know only too well the pain of configuring your new system to get your dream setup. With some manufacturers, looking at you here Apple, your choice of storage and memory are there for the lifetime of the laptop.

Worst still, if you have a failed component on your laptop you’re often faced with expensive and proprietary repair options that can often cost nearly as much as the laptop itself.

Nirav Patel founded Framework to tackle these issues by creating laptops that push the boundaries of what we’d expect to be upgradable in our modern thin and light world.

What do you think about the Framework laptop, is it something that may be on your tech wish list? Do you think laptops, and tech in general, should last longer than a podcast episode? We’d love to hear from you, so please send us a note to podcast@crossedwires.net, or why not come join the discussion on our Discord server.

If you liked this episode or any of our content, we’d greatly appreciate any little bit of support you can throw our way over at our Ko-Fi page.

“Don’t you people backup? I backup, and I don’t even know what backing up means!” – Nicola Murray, Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship

If you have any kind of file that’s important to you, be that a treasured family photo, your latest research paper, or just the list of the co-ordinates of your best places in Minecraft, you’ll want to make sure it’s kept safe, right? Well, just syncing that to the cloud isn’t really enough, you need a proper backup strategy too.

Part of a good backup strategy is having a backup that isn’t in the same place as your computer, and this is where a good cloud backup service is so important. Our friends at Backblaze provide simple, reliable, and affordable backup options for your Mac or Windows PCs for just $9/month. You can get a 15 day free-trial when you follow this link to sign up.

• Framework – The Framework laptops
• Framework Marketplace – See all the various components you can buy for your Framework laptop
• Linux on the Framework Laptop – Details of Framework’s official support for both Ubuntu and Fedora
• Dell Inspiron 9100: $4,800 Pentium 4 Laptop from 2004 – LGR (YouTube)
• Checking on my Investment in Person – Framework Laptop Factory Tour – Linus Tech Tips (YouTube)

• 00:00:04: Introductions
• 00:02:15: Right to Repair & Sustainability
• 00:05:38: Upgrading a Mobile Platform
• 00:08:42: The Framework Laptop
• 00:11:05: Linus Drop Tips
• 00:12:48: Modular IO
• 00:15:52: Memory & Storage
• 00:16:50: Main board and more ?
• 00:18:47: Framework 16 Input Deck
• 00:21:28: Reusing a Framework Mainboard
• 00:23:35: Framework 16 GPU
• 00:26:07: Linux Support
• 00:27:53: Final Thoughts from Nirav
• 00:29:30: Wrapping Up

Intro and outro theme:

It’s our pleasure to be joined again by The Iconfactory’s Gedeon Maheux, this time we’re talking less Star Trek and more Tapestry, no not that episode with Q and Picard!

Project Tapestry is their latest KickStarter project, and the goal is to create a one-stop-shop for reading the influx of things that matter to you on the web. As long as the site has an open and accessible endpoint for you to get the data, you should be able to bring that into Tapestry.

We also talk about some of the challenges of designing apps for changing design styles, different platforms, and of course take some minor course corrections into sci-fi and Apple in general.

Will you be backing Project Tapestry? At the time of posting this episode, there’s just 7 days left to go and the team have some really cool rewards still up for grabs.

What are your thoughts on how apps are designed? What’s your favourite Q appearance in The Next Generation? We’d love to hear from you, so please send us a note to podcast@crossedwires.net, or why not come join the discussion on our Discord server.

If you liked this episode or any of our content, we’d greatly appreciate any little bit of support you can throw our way over at our Ko-Fi page.

“Don’t you people backup? I backup, and I don’t even know what backing up means!” – Nicola Murray, Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship

If you have any kind of file that’s important to you, be that a treasured family photo, your latest research paper, or just the list of the co-ordinates of your best places in Minecraft, you’ll want to make sure it’s kept safe, right? Well, just syncing that to the cloud isn’t really enough, you need a proper backup strategy too.

Part of a good backup strategy is having a backup that isn’t in the same place as your computer, and this is where a good cloud backup service is so important. Our friends at Backblaze provide simple, reliable, and affordable backup options for your Mac or Windows PCs for just $9/month. You can get a 15 day free-trial when you follow this link to sign up.

• The Iconfactory – Website | Mastodon
• Gedeon Maheux – Mastodon
• Project Tapestry – Kickstarter
• Why Tapestry? – Iconfactory Blog
• Ollie, Space Karen, and an API – Gedeon’s first appearance on the show talking about the demise of the Twitter API

1. 00:00:04: Introductions
2. 00:03:01: Why Kickstarter?
3. 00:05:54: What is Tapestry?
4. 00:13:47: Endpoints
5. 00:18:43: Rewards
6. 00:22:23: Looking Back at Design Trends
7. 00:30:59: An AI Tangent
8. 00:33:59: An Apple QuickTake
9. 00:41:32: Designing for New Platforms
10. 00:54:01: The Joy of Design
11. 01:02:28: Wrapping Up

Intro and outro theme:

With so many choices in browsers on desktop, mobile, and even our vehicles, it’s important to look under-the-hood to understand the differences between the engines that power your favourite browser.

Be that Chromium, WebKit, or Gecko, not all browsers are created equal and have varying features and views on the rights of their users. We’re honoured to be joined by Jon von Tetzchner, the CEO of Vivaldi, an open-source and privacy first Chromium powered browser that could replace Google Chrome.

Jon also explains why we need regulation on the increasingly scary amount of user-profiling that’s happening across the web itself, not to mention many browsers and services.

Do you remember using the early versions of Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera, or something equally vintage? Or, maybe you had to develop sites that required myriads of tweaks to make them work across platforms and interpretations of web standards.

We’d love to hear from you, so please send us a note to podcast@crossedwires.net, or why not come join the discussion on our Discord server.

If you liked this episode or any of our content, we’d greatly appreciate any little bit of support you can throw our way over at our Ko-Fi page.

“Don’t you people backup? I backup, and I don’t even know what backing up means!” – Nicola Murray, Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship

If you have any kind of file that’s important to you, be that a treasured family photo, your latest research paper, or just the list of the co-ordinates of your best places in Minecraft, you’ll want to make sure it’s kept safe, right? Well, just syncing that to the cloud isn’t really enough, you need a proper backup strategy too.

Part of a good backup strategy is having a backup that isn’t in the same place as your computer, and this is where a good cloud backup service is so important. Our friends at Backblaze provide simple, reliable, and affordable backup options for your Mac or Windows PCs for just $9/month. You can get a 15 day free-trial when you follow this link to sign up.

• Vivaldi – Website | Mastodon
• Jon von Tetzchner – Mastodon
• Mosaic – Wikipedia
• Opera Mini – Wikipedia
• W3C – The World Wide Web Consortium
• Secure DNS – Chromium Blog
• Fastmail – Privacy focussed email, get 10% off your first year with this link.
• Digital Identity – Our chat with Helen Horstmann-Allen from Fastmail
• Vivaldi steers in-car browsing: Now available in the all-new Ford and Lincoln infotainment system

1. 00:00:05: Introductions
2. 00:04:20: W

Whether you work in tech, produce tech content, or just happen to use a smartphone, a single question can spark debate and an explosion of extreme views from both sides. That question is simple, iPhone or Android?

We’re joined by our Zack, one of Jae’s nephews and a longtime Android user and advocate to have an honest discussion about why we like the platforms we’ve settled on and where we see potential issues.

Our chat touches on some core issues like security updates, the challenge of a multitude of Android OEMs, cross-platform messaging, ecosystem lock-in, and the important of right to repair and the longevity of hardware.

What’s your daily driver, do you have strong feelings about the Fruit Company or the one with all the Droids? If you can keep it respectful, we’d love to hear from you, so please send us a note to podcast@crossedwires.net, or why not come join the discussion on our Discord server.

If you liked this episode or any of our content, we’d greatly appreciate any little bit of support you can throw our way over at our Ko-Fi page.

“Don’t you people backup? I backup, and I don’t even know what backing up means!” – Nicola Murray, Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship

If you have any kind of file that’s important to you, be that a treasured family photo, your latest research paper, or just the list of the co-ordinates of your best places in Minecraft, you’ll want to make sure it’s kept safe, right? Well, just syncing that to the cloud isn’t really enough, you need a proper backup strategy too.

Part of a good backup strategy is having a backup that isn’t in the same place as your computer, and this is where a good cloud backup service is so important. Our friends at Backblaze provide simple, reliable, and affordable backup options for your Mac or Windows PCs for just $9/month. You can get a 15 day free-trial when you follow this link to sign up.

• Android Open Source Project – The core of Android, that isn’t always Google powered.
• iPhone Models Compatible with iOS 17 – Apple Support
• Samsung Commits to Four Years of Security Updates – Samsung Newsroom (2021)
• Signal – Cross platform, end-to-end encrypted messaging
• iFixIt.com – Guides for device repair

1. 00:00:04: Introductions
2. 00:03:43: Our Daily Drivers
3. 00:06:57: Personal Choice Matters
4. 00:12:13: Android is not Google
5. 00:15:26: Side loading: Android’s Freedom of Choice?
6. 00:33:15: Android Versions & OEMs
7. 00:42:18: An Expectation of Updates?
8. 00:47:38: Picking Your Device
9. 00:51:05: The Right to Repair
10. 01:07:34: Platform Services & Ecosystems
11. 01:18:17: Beeping iMessage
12. 01:29:01: Wrapping Up

Intro and outro theme: