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AppleInsider podcast talks OS updates, interviews Yoav Degani of MyPermissions about Facebook, and discusses new iPads

This week on the AppleInsider podcast, Victor and Neil talk about the latest OS updates, Facebook privacy in light of moves Apple is making, and Victor interviews Yoav Degani of MyPermissions, a company whose mission is to make privacy settings easier for users.

AppleInsider editors Victor Marks and Neil Hughes discuss:

  • WatchOS 4.3, iOS 11.3, TvOS 11.3, and HomePod all received updates. No High Sierra update as yet, though. Of note: WatchOS gains audio browsing on iPhone back, a cool portrait night mode, and we discuss the battery settings in iOS that are now available.
  • iOS and TvOS also have a new privacy icon, and a page introducing it to the user post-update.
  • Apple News takes the step to highlight vetted articles in a light blue background and pin them to the top, as a way of fighting back fake news. Clearly, Apple is taking into account what's going on over at Facebook.
  • Tim Cook spoke out about Cambridge Analytica not too long ago. There are times where Tim is soft-spoken, but he doesn't seem to mince words here.
  • Yoav Degani and Omer Yarkowich of MyPermissions, a privacy app for social media accounts, join us to talk about Facebook and others, and what they're trying to do to help users take back some of their privacy.
  • Apple is already working to comply with the EU's GDPR, and allow users to download their profiles and iCloud data.
  • Apple Health Records comes to Apple Health, integrating medical records from hospitals and doctors. Victor's already added two of the 39 participating hospitals to his Apple Health. This could be very cool in terms of users accessing and owning their data.
  • The Chicago Education event was sort of like a mini-WWDC, and Victor and Neil talk through the new iPad, the tools for teachers, and whether or not this will have an impact on Chromebook in the classroom.
  • Foxconn buys up Belkin, Linksys, and Wemo. Victor has some thoughts on the consolidation in the market.

The show is available on iTunes and your favorite podcast apps by searching for "AppleInsider." Click here to listen, subscribe, and don't forget to rate our show.

Listen to the embedded SoundCloud feed below:

Show note links:

Follow our hosts on Twitter: @vmarks and @thisisneil.

Feedback and comments are always appreciated. Please contact the AppleInsider podcast at news@appleinsider.com and follow us on Twitter @appleinsider, plus Facebook and Instagram.

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8 Comments

mavemufc 8 Years · 326 comments

Poor audio in some parts this week, can hear Victors voice twice, it’s like you can hear it from his side then again through Neil’s computer or something.

owerobbi 7 Years · 2 comments

mavemufc said:
Poor audio in some parts this week, can hear Victors voice twice, it’s like you can hear it from his side then again through Neil’s computer or something.

So true. It was kind of fun to listen to though. 

gutengel 7 Years · 363 comments

I feel like to quality of the production of the podcast just keeps lowering. I would be nice if you differentiate different parts of the podcast with sounds or jingles. Right now is hard to tell when you're transitioning to an interview or an ad. Also, it would be great if you bring so diversity to the podcast. I don't think I've even heard a woman on your podcast. Different points of view and representation would help your audience grow.

vmarks 21 Years · 762 comments

gutengel said:
I feel like to quality of the production of the podcast just keeps lowering. I would be nice if you differentiate different parts of the podcast with sounds or jingles. Right now is hard to tell when you're transitioning to an interview or an ad. Also, it would be great if you bring so diversity to the podcast. I don't think I've even heard a woman on your podcast. Different points of view and representation would help your audience grow.

I'd like to suggest that you listen to our interview with Carley Knobloch, our interview with Suzanne Ciani, our interview with Deirdre Leid, or most recently, our interview with Annemarie Dooling. They were all great to record with, and I was really glad I was able to have them on the show.

We also have an unreleased interview with Moor Mother (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moor_Mother , https://moormothergoddess.bandcamp.com/). It remains unreleased so far, because we only briefly talked about her use of iPad in making her music, and spent most of our time together talking about society and her works to bring about change and improvement in her community. After we recorded, I was conflicted about how our audience would receive it, because we mentioned her iPad so little. She was amazing.

vmarks 21 Years · 762 comments

mavemufc said:
Poor audio in some parts this week, can hear Victors voice twice, it’s like you can hear it from his side then again through Neil’s computer or something.

We spent a lot of time sorting out our episode recording methods over the length of the podcast's run.

You're exactly right- you can hear my audio in Neil's recording. Honestly, it took us a couple of tries and a restart to get Neil's Mac to recognize his microphone. The OS X audio subsystem isn't perfect.

Unfortunately, nothing is static - you can't just say, "do the same thing you did last time, that time when it worked great" - because the tools and devices change. Zencastr.com loses one side of the audio and so you end up re-recording the whole episode without the other person. Or someone's using a different mic and you get audio bleed (my voice on their track that was recorded on their computer, miles away from me.) That's the echo you hear: audio bleed of my voice on their track. RX 6 by izotope, which we have, can reduce the audio bleed, if I have 2 more hours to let it sit and process, analyzing the audio from the source track and then removing it from the track that you hear the bleed in. I don't have that time to let it run. We're on a tight schedule. In addition to that, despite our computers all being macs (mostly. Guests bring whatever computer they have) the clock sync for audio in them differs. Any time we have an episode longer than an hour, the audio drifts, and it will sound as if Neil and I are talking over each other. I repeatedly have to cut and re-align tracks due to this drift. This is not the only variable: guests use their own mics, and sound quality varies. Here, zencastr didn't record their side, but I was recording it with Ecamm call recorder, so their side sounded slightly worse, due to skype's audio codec, but I wasn't going to drop the interview over it.

With Neil, normally, we wouldn't have that echo or bleed. But here, he'd loaned out his regular mic, and was using a different mic he'd used a long time ago, and we had the bleed. To fix it as much as I could, I manually went through the episode, removing it piece by piece.

owerobbi said:
mavemufc said:
Poor audio in some parts this week, can hear Victors voice twice, it’s like you can hear it from his side then again through Neil’s computer or something.
So true. It was kind of fun to listen to though. 

Reverb is an effect. It wasn't desirable, though.