### Issue 1563 - Wednesday 9th March, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- New Apple stuff, even a monitor
- Google buys security company Mandiant
- Elon Musk wants SEC restriction on his tweets removed
- Mac software has plateaued
- Cheap RodeCaster Pro, Cygnett smart wi-fi plugs, refurb HP desktop PC

## The News

### New Apple stuff, even a monitor

This morning's Apple event saw the iPhone SE and iPad Air get spec bumps and 5G, but the main attraction is the Mac Studio and Studio Display. The Mac Studio is a bigger Mac Mini with the option for Apple's most powerful M1 SoC yet - the M1 Ultra, effectively two M1 Max SoCs in a single package. Apple still reaping the benefits of a gigantic sack of cash to pay TSMC and ensure nobody else gets to use the latest fabrication processes. I can't wait to see some benchmarks. The Studio Display is literally just a 27" 5K display from the 27" iMac and sold without any computer for $2,499. At least this one comes with a stand. Apple teased an Apple Silicon Mac Pro (i.e: they confirmed its coming), but "that's for another day".

### Google buys security company Mandiant

Google has purchased a company called Mandiant for US$5.4b - their 2nd largest acquisition, the first being US$12.5b for Motorola's smartphone division. I've not heard of Mandiant (probably "showing my ass" here as the kids say), but they were "a key researcher investigating many of the world's biggest security incidents, like the SolarWinds supply-chain attack, the Log4j vulnerability, and the Pulse Secure VPN vulnerabilities", so they're not here to fuck spiders. Mandiant will join Google Cloud and add a bunch of new features and services to that side of Google's business, like "advisory services, threat detection and intelligence, automation and response tools, testing and validation and managed defense".

### Elon Musk wants SEC restriction on his tweets removed

Elon Musk is whinging that the agreement he conjured up with the SEC to avoid jail was done under duress and infringes his First Amendment rights to free speech. He's fighting the SEC in court right now to have the condition that all his tweets must be screened by Tesla before going public removed, with his lawyers are arguing that the SEC is abusing this clause in their agreement to make "round after round of demands for voluminous, costly document productions, with no signs of abatement". Apparently the only reason he agreed to the SEC's terms was to protect shareholders, of which a large group were threatening to sell their stakes if Elon didn't agree to the SEC's terms and shut the fuck up - which "stood to jeopardize the company's financing". Feels weird to be cheering on a US government agency, but here we are.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Mac software has plateaued

On this day of brand new very fast Macs, Riccardo Mori's blog post about the stagnation of Mac software is a thoughtful read. Sure, we have these kick arse computers but the apps we use on it are the same as the ones 10 years ago. There's nothing fresh. All the interesting stuff is now a web app that lives in a browser. Riccardo's theory is that Apple's merging of iOS and the Mac made the Mac uninviting to develop for. I don't think that helps the situation, but I reckon the main reason is the ease and reach of web development. 1Password is a prime example. The golden age of hand-crafted polished native apps for each platform is dead, the web won and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

## Bargains

- Rode RODECaster Pro - $670.65 + delivery from digiDIRECT
- Cygnett smart wi-fi plugs with energy monitoring - $17.45 from Big W
- Refurb HP ProDesk 800 G3 (i5-6500, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) - $293.55 from Amazon

## The End

📻 Good Luck - WAAX

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