Accidental Tech Podcast

691: A Menlo Phase

May 14, 2026 01:55:14 • Download (111 MB)

Apple's chip-fab options, branding the 20th-anniversary iPhone, Terminal and Xcode preferences, and some very special filenames.

Pre-show:
Follow-up:
- CapEx vs. OpEx (via Andrew Leahey)
  - Bloomberg
- “Hot lot” (via Anonymous & Matt Jones)
- Ultra/Neo/etc
  - Is the “iPhone Ultra” the 20th anniversary iPhone? (via Janne Ojaniemi)
  - Did we forget about “Studio”? (via Karan J)
  - What’s the ∆ between an iMac Neo and a Studio Display? (via Zoran Nešić)
- Time Machine
  - …with lots of small files (via Jon Wilson & Andrew Hathaway)
    - Asimov
  - …with spinning disks (via Ben Mattison & Carlos Pereira)
  - …period (via David Fokkema)
    - lsof
Apple agrees to pay iPhone owners $250M for fumbling AI Siri
Apple is flirting with Intel and Samsung
- Apple’s Newsroom post about US manufacturing
- Apple and Intel have reached an agreement? (Apple News+ link)
Ask ATP:
- How do we actually move files around our Macs? (via Brandon Whichard)
  - Yoink
  - MD5
- Do we use a profile/theme for Terminal windows? (via Chris Harper)
  - Prompt 3
- Do we use any other IDEs? (also via Chris Harper)
  - LSP
  - Intelephense
Post-show: .nofollow
Members-only ATP Overtime: Non-developers building apps
- Ben Dansby

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690: Turn Left at the Next Tree

May 8, 2026 01:55:14 • Download (112 MB)

How could Apple make Neo and Ultra versions of more of their products?

Pre-show: Two thirds of your hosts are sick 🤧
Follow-up:
- Backblaze & cloud backups
  - Carbon Copy Cloner & Backblaze (via Barry Rubenstein)
    - Support document
  - Maestral
  - Arq’s approach (via Daniel Luz)
- Neo-ing… other things
- Mythos
  - What makes this different (via William Moran)
  - GPT-5.5 is equivalent?
  - cURL security/bug reports
- Severe Linux security issue uncovered using AI
- AI is still ruining everything
- An examination of Apple’s CapEx
Ultra all the things
- iPhone Ultra
- MacBook Ultra
- AirPods Ultra
- iPad Ultra
- Apple Watch Ultra 4
- Mac Ultra
- iMac Ultra
Ask ATP:
- What size drive should one get for Time Machine? (via Pat Murphy)
Post-show: Marco’s Great Saunter
Members-only ATP Overtime: Adobe has also forgotten how to make good software
- Jason’s take
- Foster Brereton
  - somebehemoth
  - Neywiny

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689: The Positive Effect of Enthusiasm

April 30, 2026 01:56:28 • Download (112 MB)

Mythos, the different personalities of Tim Cook and John Ternus, the complexity of backing up files from cloud storage providers on macOS, and the long-term future of the Mac.

Pre-show: Mythos
- Anthropic’s blog post
Follow-up:
- ATP Store
  - Yes, it happened again.
  - The ATP Neo Silver made it!
- UPenn is an Ivy
  - Kieran Healy’s story
  - Marina Epelman’s thought
    - US News & World Report 2026 Best Engineering Schools
- Gurman’s transition coverage
  - Tim Cook’s remarks to employees
  - Comparison between Cook & Ternus
- The Ability to be Hotter
  - New material proves to be more heat conductive
Backblaze is no longer backing up cloud storage
- Backblaze Mac Release Notes for version 9.2.2.878
- Backblaze Windows Release Notes for version 9.2.2.877
- Response on Reddit
  - Reparse point
  - Additional response on Reddit
- Backblaze blog post
- MJ Tsai roundup
- Alternatives:
  - Arq
  - Parachute for iCloud
Ask ATP:
- What generation is John’s Accord? What’s the plan for replacement? (via Brian Ashe)
  - ATP Neutral: Car Shopping
  - 2014 Honda Accord
- Which Apple CEO will 💩-can the Mac? (via Jason)
- How often should Macs be restarted? (via Paul Franz)
  - Bug report
  - Gruber’s take
Post-show: Pedometer++ version 8.0
Members-only ATP Overtime: Should Apple MacBook Neo all the things?
- MaxTech’s musing

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688: A Company Man

April 21, 2026 02:06:13 • Download (123 MB)

John Ternus was announced as Apple’s next CEO! We review the strengths and weaknesses of the Tim Cook era as he transitions to Executive Chairman.

🗣️ ATP STORE IS LIVE! 🗣️
Follow-up:
- GL.iNet KVM security issues?
  - Mark Wadham’s write-up
  - Dan Godin at Ars Technica
- MacBook Neo cores 🤝 BMW heated seats? (via Edward Munn)
- Joe Lion waxes poetic about RAM on Apple Silicon
- More component delays
It’s Ternus time
Post-show: John quizzes Marco & Casey
Members-only ATP Overtime: Media consumption & the limits of human perception

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687: You Can Bend This Line

April 16, 2026 01:55:34 • Download (111 MB)

Ads in Apple Maps, copyright of AI output, and a short supply of flawed chips.

Pre-show: Casey requests an app from Marco
- Roon
- Nugs
🗣️ ATP STORE IS LIVE! 🗣️
🗣️ New ATP Member Special: ATP Dev: Nuggets of Wisdom
Follow-up:
- Suunto is… not young (via Henri Sivonen)
  - Garmin did beat Suunto to GPS watch though
- The other neat explainer John was thinking of (via Ben Landsberg)
  - Previously:
    - Eric Portis on Color Spaces
    - Bartosz Ciechanowski on… anything
- Is Apple running out of A18 Pros‽ 😱
- Apple IDs & passkeys (via Vitor)
  - Others with this issue
  - Apple said it’d be fixed… two years ago
- Stealing TV… may not be so wise. Shocker! (via Nye Hughes)
  - See also:
    - Krebs on Security
    - Darknet Diaries (via David Brownman)
Ads are coming to Apple Maps
- Newsroom
AI-generated code & copyright
Ask ATP:
- When Marco goes on a saunter with two watches, are the measurements similar? (via Jason)
- Why did Marco bother with colocation? (via Stephen Gozza)
Post-show: Casey’s silly new toy
Members-only ATP Overtime: John tries to reach acceptance
- Apple approves AMD & Nvidia eGPU drivers
- What if Apple adopted “MPX”-style modules? (via Jan Wedekind)
  - MK1 High Density Rack Mount
- Bandwidth comparisons
  - Thunderbolt 5
    - 80 Gbit/s symmetric
    - 120 Gbit/s unidirectional for displays
  - SSD (M5 Max MacBook pro, 4 TB)
    - 109 Gbit/s (13.6 GB/s) read
    - 142 Gbit/s (17.8 GB/s) write
  - PCIe speeds on PCIe 5.0
    - 1 lane: 32 Gbit/s (4 GB/s)
    - 16 lanes: 512 Gbit/s (64 GB/s)
    - …as compared to the Mac Pro’s 64 lanes across 4 slots (2,048 GBit/s)
      - 17× Thunderbolt 5’s maximum single-direction speed
- Internal vs. external SSD
  - 2025 Mac Studio: ~5.5 GB/s
  - OWC Envoy Ultra: ~5.1 GB/s; 8 TB for $2,250
  - OWC Thunderblade: ~5.75 GB/s; 8 TB for $2,700
  - PolySoft third-party internal SSDs
    - Kickstarter (ended November 2024)

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