Basic AF: a (mostly) tech podcast

There's a lot happening in Apple land right now. Mac mini prices just went up, a Siri class action settlement might land in your inbox soon, and a fresh iOS 27 rumor has some good news for anyone who'd rather talk to Claude than ChatGPT. Tom and Jeff break it all down.
In this episode:
Apple Notes tips: how search really works, Smart Folders, and ProNotes — a free plugin that brings markdown and slash commands to the Notes app
Mac mini's base model is gone — the entry price jumps to $799, and Tim Cook says supply constraints won't recover for several months
Apple Education Store now requires UNiDAYS verification, and Apple Watch just joined the discount program
iOS 27 rumor: you may soon choose Claude or Gemini as your Apple Intelligence AI instead of ChatGPT
Apple's $250M Siri lawsuit settlement — if you own an iPhone 15 Pro or 16 series, you might be owed $25–$95
M5 MacBook Air first impressions: Jeff's testing one alongside his MacBook Pro — and Tom's university just ordered 100 of them
Links from the show:
Apple Notes: Four Tips That Make Finding Things Effortless
Four Fast Ways to Capture to Apple Notes 
ProNotes (free Apple Notes plugin) 
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor 
Playworld by Adam Ross 
We'd be honored if you'd drop a 5-star rating for us on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify!
Question or Comment? Send us a Text Message!
Contact Us
Drop us a line at [email protected]
You’ll find Jeff at @reyespoint on Threads and reyespoint.bsky.social on Bluesky
Find Tom at @tomanderson on Threads
Join Tom’s newsletter, Apple Talk, for more Apple coverage and tips & tricks.
Tom has a new YouTube channel
Show artwork by the great Randall Martin Design

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Intro Music: Psychokinetics - The Chosen
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Transcripts and some images are AI generated and may contain errors and general silliness.

Big news out of Cupertino: Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO, with hardware engineering chief John Ternus set to take the helm this September. Tom and Jeff spend a few minutes on the transition — then welcome back guest Bill McLean for an honest, no-hype check-in on AI tools: what they're actually using, what's working, and where the marketing is writing checks the technology can't cash.
In this episode:
The Tim Cook → John Ternus CEO handoff and what a hardware guy at the top might mean for Apple's software
Which AI platforms Tom and Bill settled on, and why ChatGPT got dropped
Claude Co-Work in real life: web scraping, YouTube analytics, and why you still have to babysit it
The "dopamine hit" problem: why AI-generated ideas can kill your motivation to actually do the work
How Bill replaced his Squarespace subscription using Claude Code with zero coding background
Why context might be AI's real superpower and why Apple could have the biggest edge
MCP integrations worth building: Readwise, Craft, Apple Reminders
Why Claude projects and skills outperformed an Obsidian vault for real workflow results
A must-read New Yorker profile on Sam Altman
Links from the show:
Bill McLean on YouTube: youtube.com/@BillMcLean
Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted? - The New Yorker
Question or Comment? Send us a Text Message!
Contact Us
Drop us a line at [email protected]
You’ll find Jeff at @reyespoint on Threads and reyespoint.bsky.social on Bluesky
Find Tom at @tomanderson on Threads
Join Tom’s newsletter, Apple Talk, for more Apple coverage and tips & tricks.
Tom has a new YouTube channel
Show artwork by the great Randall Martin Design

Enjoy Basic AF? Leave a review or rating!
Review on Apple Podcasts
Rate on Spotify
Recommend in Overcast

Intro Music: Psychokinetics - The Chosen
Apple Music
Spotify

Transcripts and some images are AI generated and may contain errors and general silliness.

Tom and Jeff dig into why it's getting harder and harder to buy a Mac mini or Mac Studio in anything beyond a base configuration — and what that might mean about upcoming M5 refreshes. Plus, Jeff gives a six-month health update (he's at 92% and back on stage), and the guys get into a friendly debate about Amazon pulling the plug on pre-2012 Kindles. Is it reasonable after 14 years, or does it prove physical books always win? And they wrap up with four things to know about iOS 26.4.
Topics covered:
Mac mini and Mac Studio availability issues and what's behind the long wait times
MacBook Neo demand and Bill McLean's hands-on review
Jeff's updated take on the BookTracker app
Amazon deprecating pre-2012 Kindles — and what it means for your digital library
The Libby app and library cards for free books
Merriam-Webster's Visual Dictionary (Jeff's new obsession)
iOS 26.4: keyboard accuracy improvements, Urgent Reminders update, Stolen Device Protection, and AI apps in CarPlay
Resetting your keyboard dictionary after updating
Links from the show:
BookTracker app: https://booktrack.app
Libby app: https://libbyapp.com
Bill McLean's MacBook Neo review
Apple Talk newsletter (keyboard reset tip): https://www.tomfanderson.com/p/ios-26-4-iphone-keyboard-fix
Merriam-Webster's Visual Dictionary

We’d be honored if you'd drop a 5-star rating for us on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify!
Question or Comment? Send us a Text Message!
Contact Us
Drop us a line at [email protected]
You’ll find Jeff at @reyespoint on Threads and reyespoint.bsky.social on Bluesky
Find Tom at @tomanderson on Threads
Join Tom’s newsletter, Apple Talk, for more Apple coverage and tips & tricks.
Tom has a new YouTube channel
Show artwork by the great Randall Martin Design

Enjoy Basic AF? Leave a review or rating!
Review on Apple Podcasts
Rate on Spotify
Recommend in Overcast

Intro Music: Psychokinetics - The Chosen
Apple Music
Spotify

Transcripts and some images are AI generated and may contain errors and general silliness.

Nate Gorby is back — and this time he's got two weeks of daily MacBook Neo use to report on. Coming from an M2 MacBook Air he'd already sold, Nate picked up the Neo on day one and has been using it the way most people actually use computers: browsing, email, watching YouTube, light social media, and a bit of writing. No benchmarks, no synthetic tests — just honest, real-world impressions.
The guys dig into the details: battery life, the lack of MagSafe and Touch ID, the physical trackpad experience, speaker quality, the color-matched interface quirks, and whether 8GB of RAM is actually fine (spoiler: it is). 
They also cover WWDC 2026 dates, the 26.4 updates, and Apple's decision to discontinue the Mac Pro.
In this episode:
Nate's daily use case: browsing, YouTube, Threads, light writing, some photo editing
The physical trackpad vs. the haptic trackpad on his wife's M4 MacBook Air
Living without Touch ID and why Apple Watch makes it a non-issue (mostly)
No backlit keyboard: why the Citrus color's white keys are a natural workaround
Battery life: good enough?
Why 8GB of RAM is genuinely fine
MagSafe as the one real missing piece
Target now selling the MacBook Neo — and what that means for reaching new Mac buyers
The education discount trick (you didn't hear it from them)
Speaker quality: surprisingly good for spoken word
WWDC 26 announced
26.4 updates now available — keyboard improvements for iPhone
Mac Pro discontinued; the Mac Studio is now the top of the line
Links from the show:
Nate's previous episode (Meta Ray-Ban glasses)
Apple Announces WWDC 2026 Dates
More from Nate:
Last Month Online https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/last-month-online/id1824514139
Nate on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ngorby
Nate on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ngorby
Question or Comment? Send us a Text Message!
Contact Us
Drop us a line at [email protected]
You’ll find Jeff at @reyespoint on Threads and reyespoint.bsky.social on Bluesky
Find Tom at @tomanderson on Threads
Join Tom’s newsletter, Apple Talk, for more Apple coverage and tips & tricks.
Tom has a new YouTube channel
Show artwork by the great Randall Martin Design

Enjoy Basic AF? Leave a review or rating!
Review on Apple Podcasts
Rate on Spotify
Recommend in Overcast

Intro Music: Psychokinetics - The Chosen
Apple Music
Spotify

Transcripts and some images are AI generated and may contain errors and general silliness.

Tom and Jeff are back with a packed episode that wanders from Apple hardware to Apple history to Apple TV+ sports to, well, a scientific fart study. If that sounds like a lot, it is.
Topics covered this episode:
MacBook Neo hands-on — Tom got a brief look at the new $599 MacBook Neo at an IT conference. Build quality impressions, the Indigo color, and why the "it's just an iPhone chip" skepticism sounds a lot like what people said about the original M1 with 8GB of RAM. (Spoiler: they were wrong then too.) 
David Pogue's Apple: The First 50 Years — Tom pre-ordered it, it arrived while he was out of town, and he's had exactly 15 minutes with it. It's a 600-page textbook-style history (not a glossy coffee table book), and he's planning a more thorough read over the summer. 
A history tangent worth taking — The origin story of the PowerBook's palm rest design — and how one engineer's persistence against resistance accidentally shaped every laptop keyboard layout that followed.
Jeff discovers F1 — Apple TV+ now carries every F1 race, and Jeff is in. The tech angle (real-time telemetry, PlayStation-style steering wheels, hybrid power transitions) makes it surprisingly interesting.
The Human Flatus Atlas — Jeff has enrolled in a legitimate University of Maryland research study on human flatulence. Smart underwear device incoming. Butt tag update promised for next episode.
Links from the show
Tom’s Photos of the MacBook Neo
Apple: The First 50 Years – David Pogue
Human Flatus Atlas Project
F1 on Apple TV+
Question or Comment? Send us a Text Message!
Contact Us
Drop us a line at [email protected]
You’ll find Jeff at @reyespoint on Threads and reyespoint.bsky.social on Bluesky
Find Tom at @tomanderson on Threads
Join Tom’s newsletter, Apple Talk, for more Apple coverage and tips & tricks.
Tom has a new YouTube channel
Show artwork by the great Randall Martin Design

Enjoy Basic AF? Leave a review or rating!
Review on Apple Podcasts
Rate on Spotify
Recommend in Overcast

Intro Music: Psychokinetics - The Chosen
Apple Music
Spotify

Transcripts and some images are AI generated and may contain errors and general silliness.