Space Javelin The Space Javelin crew

This week -- just before we take a short holiday for Valentine's and President's Days -- Charles thought he'd do something really different, cadets, and bring back co-Cap'n Mike for a surprise break from our (wonderful) guest host parade. Yes, he's out of sickbay, and he's got OPINIONS ON THINGS. The crew take a look at the anniversary of the Apple-NeXT fusion, note a bunch of developer-level changes that are kinda huge in their own way, pick up on some changes coming in the next betas as well as LG TVs, and check in on the competition (in the forms of Spotify, Disney+, and even Samsung). But strap in -- there's a lot more in this jam-packed hour!

The New York beat cops have finally gone digital, Apple Card offers new report exports, the coronavirus outbreak is messing with a lot of manufacturers, another lab with a shady agenda makes claims against the just-cleared iPhone 11, vulnerabilities abound (but the government still wants more), PC Magazine ham-fists an XDR review, and Samsung has finally figured out that headphones can be platform agnostic! All this, and a report from the mess hall that they're all out of Blackberries! Strap in, cadets, the ship is experiencing more than the normal level of GeForce!

The things Cap'n Mike will do to get out of discussing Apple's (or anyone's) quarterly financial results, cadets, continues to astound, cadets. This time, he claimed the shuttlecraft needed to be taken out for a "maintenance shakedown" and left Cap'n Charles with no alternative but to teleport in our esteemed fellow traveler, Apple technology writer and editor at large Peter Cohen, to fill in. In addition to glowing spreadsheets of pure money-making, Peter and Charles discuss the ups and downs of the specific categories, some side notes about Apple News and Apple Pay, and then take a quick break to ponder the confoundingly amazing television that is Doctor Who at its best -- but only for a interstitial moment!

Before you know it, we're on to the tech news of the week, including all-new and even-worse fails by Amazon's Ring and Avast software (not to mention various dating apps) regarding privacy and legal malfeasance, the 10th anniversary of the iPad, the HomePod arriving in India, coronavirus office closures in China, some Apple TV and Apple TV+ news, Filmic's free app to leverage both of your iPhone video cameras simultaneously, and review the start of William Gallagher's new webseries for writers on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClo8KQLHnXvkrr7JH36qzZA). We also mentioned a great Doctor Who podcast called Gallifrey Public Radio, which you can find at http://gallifreypublicradio.com. Disable your quarters' video doorbell and meet in the crew lounge, cadets, there's a lot to go over in the latest log entry of the good ship Space Javelin!

While we wish the Mac a happy 36th birthday, cadets, we also wish Foxconn would stop jerking Wisconsin taxpayers around, we wish Flash would just hurry up and die already, we wish EA had some class, we wish Sonos hadn't tried to pull a fast one on their customers, we wish the FBI wasn't guilty of wishful thinking, and we really *really* wish we'd never heard the phrase "compromising pictures of Jeff Bezos."

That said, some wishes do come true -- Apple TV+ has buckets of viewers, Broadcom gets more Apple business, Tetris is killed off but already back on the Mac App Store, the Apple Watch saves more lives and gets more gym integration, and Disney+ is coming to Europe a week ahead of schedule! AppleInsider.com's William Gallagher sits in to help out with the usual mix of good news and industry nonsense, cadets, so be sure to have your yin-yang force fields in place -- things may get a little topsy-turvy!

We finally got the holo-crew machine working for the first time this year, cadets, so in addition to special guest Malcolm Owen from the good ship AppleInsider, we've got virtual Mike (who's still away with some sort of space plague) and virtual Alan Perry (to enumerate even more CES wins and fails). We put the astro-screws to disgraced Attorney General William Barr and his fake war on encryption, as well as to AccountEdge for dropping the ball on ever updating their decrepit code and jerking their users around. There's also lots of good news: Apple and their employees give generously, lots more Apple TV+ content coming, and rack-mount Mac Pros are now available.

Google -- which just hit the trillion-dollar valuation mark -- enables iPhones to be FIDO security keys, the Bluetooth LE audio spec is coming soon, NBC is will launch its own streaming TV service, Samsung decides to go big next year, and as usual the Apple Watch has helped save a life. All this and much more, cadets, so this week we're renaming the bridge the Hodge-Podge Lodge -- because it's not easy cutting and splicing digital audio in zero-G!

Our survey of Planet CES (stardate 2020) reveals some rich promising potential, cadets, but also a lot of wannabe fool's gold trying to get funding, as always. With co-Cap'n Mike sleeping it off, Charles brings back a decorated CES veteran --Commodore Alan Perry from the good ship CFAX -- to help decipher what's great, what will grate, and what should be grated like cheese immediately. There's also a battery case recall, a Firefox emergency patch, a Tivo glitch, and some fresh new lawsuits. We're doing our bit to put out the fires, and pitching in to help Australia with theirs -- but it's not all bad news!

There's also new chips from Intel (still not chocolate, though ...), an alleged uptick in China iPhone sales, some new competition on the horizon, a rebirth for the Apple I (yes you read that correctly), and a few hilarious fails we saw, heard about, or got PR for from the big show in Las Vegas last week. All this and more, cadets, so roll the dice and thank your lucky stars ... CES is done for another year!

The mothership finished last year on a great note, cadets, and climbed to an all-time high stock price on the back of some bold moves -- including actually shipping more than the predicted five new Mac Pros before the year's end -- one of which helped Jumanji take it to the next level! New deals have been cut, the iPhone and Watch both save lives and prevent crime, and Dell cries uncle on iOS compatibility. The war against Planet Correllium has escalated, sadly, but we have Imagination (back) on our side, not to mention a handful of pre-CES news and gadgets!

There's also great news from the holiday sales section that foretells a strong Q1, a few AppleTV+ items, Ikea and HomeKit news, 8K TVs gaining AirPlay 2, and Samsung goes Lite with new phones! Of course there's also plenty of leftover fail from December and fresh new not-rights to keep our ambitions for stardate 2020 in check, but don't fret. cadets -- we have a feel-good story about a boy and his AirPods to end on that features a little toilet humor! Thanks for signing up for yet another tour around the sun with the good ship Space Javelin!