A quick note for listeners: unfortunately, on this week’s episode, Jan’s microphone suffered some sort of glitch and started introducing an annoying clicking sound which gets worse as the episode goes on. It only appears when Jan is talking, so it doesn’t affect Aaron’s side of the audio, but you may find it irritating to listen to. Unfortunately, it’s on the master recording of Jan’s audio, and so it can’t be removed. Our apologies for the audio issues, and hopefully we’ll be back to normal next week!
This week’s episode begins as usual with our news roundup, in which we cover the launch of Apple Pay in China, Indian regulators’ shutting down of Facebook’s Free Basics program in that country, and John Gruber’s interview last week with Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi of Apple. Our Question of the Week concerns Apple’s borrowing to finance its share repurchase and other cash return programs. We discuss the logic of this activity, why Apple does it, and Aaron even offers a guesstimate of how much Apple saves by borrowing rather than repatriating cash. Our other major topic today is the court order the FBI obtained this week which requires Apple to assist in unlocking an iPhone used in the San Bernardino shootings in December last year, and Apple’s response to it. Lastly, our Weekly Pick is a movie recommendation from Jan.
As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.
We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.
As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.
Show notes:
Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:
- Quartz article about Apple Pay in China
- The Verge report on Facebook’s Free Basics being shut down in India
- John Gruber’s Talk Show episode featuring Eddy Cue and John Federighi
- Jan’s Techpinions post about Apple and the FBI
- Jan’s Weekly Pick, the movie Brooklyn, is available for preorder on iTunes and will be available there and on similar services on February 23rd. Jan mentioned a specific scene which is available on the New York Times website here.
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