This again. Jiminy. Well, once more, let's talk around another election, and try, by doing so, to maybe express something about it.

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Links:

• Previously on The Talk Show, with Merlin:
  • Holiday Party 2016 (the bad one)
  • Holiday Party 2020 (the good one)
• Yours truly, on this week: “How It Went”.
• Seki Edge nail clippers:
  • Panzarino at The Obsessor: “The Best Nail Clippers You’ll Ever Use”.
  • The Talk Show, October 2022: ‘Big Booger Came After You’, where Merlin first recommended these to me.
  • Get them at Amazon for $16. Buy two pairs.
• Kai scissors. Get a few pairs of these too.
• Merlin’s Wisdom Project. Read this if you haven’t. Read it again if you have. So good.
• Reconcilable Differences — Merlin’s podcast with John Siracusa. The kids call it “Rec Diffs”.
• Merlin’s Happy Place — a YouTube playlist, comprised of “Videos I watch pretty often when I need a little pick-me-up.”

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.

Dan Moren returns to the show to discuss this week’s introductions of the first M4 Macs: iMac, Mac Mini, and MacBook Pros.

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Links:

• Yours Truly: “In Defense, I Swear, of the Magic Mouse’s Charging Port Placement”.
• “Sidenote of the Week: All MacBook Air Models Now Start With 16 GB RAM”.
  • David Schaub’s chart of base RAM in Mac desktops since 1984.
  • His corresponding chart of base RAM in Mac laptops since 1999.
• Dan, in a column for Macworld: “The Truth Behind Apple’s Most Unpopular Decisions: It’s Not About You”.
• M4 iMac:
  • Daring Fireball: “Apple Introduces M4 iMacs, With Updated Colors, a Nano-Texture Display Option, and USB-C Input Peripherals”.
  • MacRumors: “M1 vs. M3 vs. M4 iMac Buyer's Guide”.
• M4 Mac Mini, now even mini-er:
  • Daring Fireball: “Apple Unveils Mac Minis With M4 and M4 Pro Chips”.
  • Dan Moren: “The M4 Mac Mini: Tricks and Treats”.
• M4 MacBook Pros:
  • Daring Fireball: “Apple Unveils New M4 MacBook Pro Lineup, Including, Hallelujah, a Nano-Texture Display Option”.
• All Souls Lost — Dan’s latest novel, a modern noir mystery.

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.

Tyler Stalman joins the show to discuss the iPhone 16 lineup’s cameras, and the state of iPhone photography.

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Links:

• Tyler Stalman on YouTube:
  • iPhone 16: A Photographer's Review.
  • What's on his iPhone 16.
• Tyler’s recommended Photographic Styles recipe:
  • Undertone: Amber
  • Tone: -50 to -60
  • Color: 20
  • Palette: 100
• JPEG XL.
• Steven Soderbergh has shot two feature films on iPhones:
  • Unsane -- shot on iPhone 7 in 2018.
  • High Flying Bird -- shot on iPhone 8 in 2019.
• Robert Rodriguez:
  • El Mariachi — his debut feature film, shot for just $7,000 in 1992.
  • Desperado — his big-budget 1995 sequel, starring Antonio Banderas and Selma Hayek.
  • Rebel Without a Crew — Rodriguez’s book on the making of El Mariachi.
• Benedict Evans: “The Best Is the Last”.

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.

Jason Snell returns to the show to discuss Apple’s September product announcements, and Meta’s Orion prototype AR glasses. Absolutely no baseball talk, almost.

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Links:

• Ten years of Six Colors.
• Take Control of Photos (updated for iOS 18 and MacOS 15 Sequoia).
• KQED: Fans Flood Coliseum to Bid Emotional Farewell to A’s at Last Game in Oakland.
• A’s fan who was at their first game in Oakland in 1968, and their final game last week.

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.

Nilay Patel returns to the show to consider the iPhones 16.

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Links:

• Nilay’s review of the iPhone 16 Pro.
• Also from Nilay: “Let’s Compare Apple, Google, and Samsung’s Definitions of ‘a Photo’”.
• Yours Truly’s iPhones 16 review.
• Also from truly: “The Things They Carried” (thoughts and observations on Apple’s event).

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.

Special guest Taegan Goddard, longtime writer and founder of Political Wire, joins the show to talk about the past, present, and future of independent media.

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Links:

• Political Wire.
• Greymatter — open source blogging software by Noah Grey, released in 2000.
  • Greymatter 1.8.2 User Manual.
  • Slashdot, 2022: “How The Internet Saved the Home of Blogging Pioneer Noah Grey”.
• Mark Pilgrim, back in 2002: “History of the RSS Fork”.

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.

Chance Miller, ace reporter (and editor-in-chief) for 9to5Mac, joins the show to talk about the latest changes to Apple's DMA compliance plans with iOS, expectations for the September Apple event, and more.

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Links:

• Chance Miller on Threads.
• Apple's August DMA compliance tweaks announcement.
• iOS 18 adding default app controls for messaging, phone calls, navigation, and more in the EU.
• Everthing Chance knows about the iPhone 16 "capture button".
• 9to5Mac report on expected iPhone 16 colors.
• Preview of expected announcements the September Apple event.
• 9to5Mac Happy Hour's 500th episode.
• Becca Farsace's great day-in-the-life profile of iJustine.

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.

Christina Warren (a.k.a. "Mary Brown") returns to the show. Topics include Apple's new iOS 18.1 and MacOS 15.1 betas (featuring Apple Intelligence), a little reminiscing about Gil Amelio and Steve Jobs, and the bizarre saga of TUAW, resurrected as a zombie AI slopsite.

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Links:

• “On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple” by Gil Amelio.
• Steve Jobs introduces the Mac OS X Dock — and the purple “single window mode” button — at MWSF 2000.
• Coverage of zombie TUAW and Christina's AI-generated alter ego:
  • Christina, announcing the scam on Threads, and on Mastodon, both of which resulted in interesting threads.
  • Karissa Bell at Engadget: "[Apple Blog TUAW Returns as an AI Content Farm](Apple blog TUAW returns as an AI content farm)".
  • Jason Koebler at 404 Media: “Hocked TUAW”.
  • The Verge: “Early Apple Tech Bloggers Are Shocked to Find Their Name and Work Have Been AI-Zombified”.
  • Ernie Smith, deducing that the new owner of TUAW is Haider Ali Khan, and that he also bought the ilounge.com domain name.
• A very much NSFW tweet testing Apple Intelligence's familiarity with current slang.
• MTV News shut down and the jerks at Paramount pulled the plug on their decades-long archive.
• Brett Terpstra.
• Ernie Smith, author of Tedium and creator of udm14.com, a single-serving site that shows you how to make Google's "web" view your default for search.

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.

Special guest Hunter Hillegas, author of the excellent Vegas Mate app, joins the show to discuss euphemistic emoji, the CrowdStrike fiasco, and the closing of the iconic Mirage resort in Las Vegas.

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Links:

• Vegas Mate.
• Hunter Hillegas on Mastodon.
• Benedict Evans: “The Best Is the Last”
• Leonard Rosenthol.
• OSA Menu.
• Unsanity Haxies.
• Marco Arment talking about Overcast’s big new version on ATP.
  • Under the Radar.
• 2009 “60 Minutes” profile of Steve Wynn.
• 1991 in-room video for Mirage guests, narrated by Steve Wynn.
• Steve Wynn’s daughter’s kidnapping in 1993. Would make for a great movie.
  • How the kidnapper was caught, trying to buy a Ferrari with cash.
  • “The Conjuring of The Mirage” — terrific feature for Vegas Seven by David G. Schwartz marking the 25th anniversary of The Mirage in 2014.
  • Inside The Villas at The Mirage.
  • The renovated Linai at The Mirage.

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.

John Moltz returns to the show for a holiday-week look at the best of recent prestige streaming content, particularly Apple TV+. And, yes, a bit on the latest Apple/EU/DMA drama.

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Links:

• Godzilla Minus One
• “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters”
• “Counterpart” — The best show you’ve maybe never heard of
• “Dark Matter”
• “Severance”
• “Foundation”
• “Presumed Innocent”
• “Palm Royale”
• “Masters of the Air”
• “Sugar”
• “For All Mankind”
• “Silo”
• “Shrinking”

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.

Quinn Nelson, esteemed host of Snazzy Labs, returns to the show to recap the highlights of WWDC: Apple Intelligence, platform updates, and the latest salvos from the EC regarding Apple’s compliance with the DMA.

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Links:

• Quinn tries to open a second window from the same app with Stage Manager on iPadOS.
  • Federico Viticci: “If Stage Manager for iPad exists, what’s the point of leaving it in this state for two years?”
• Quinn’s take on the WWDC 2024 keynote.
• Quinn’s review of the new M4 iPad Pros.
• Quinn’s “animoji karaoke” viral iPhone X video from 2017.
• My M4 iPad Pro review from last month.
• DaVinci Resolve for iPad.
• 2013 acquisition news: Dropbox acquired Mailbox.
• The late Larry Tesler, rightfully credited as the inventor of cut-copy-paste, and who was so opposed to modal UIs that both his license plate and domain name were “NOMODES”.
• The Talk Show Live From WWDC 2024.

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.