Greatest and worst of 2023: The CultCast’s year-end wrap

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Since Apple and the remainder of the civilized world is taking a vacation break, we’re spending the vast majority of the present on our closing picks for the perfect and worst of 2023.

Additionally on The CultCast:

• The U.S. ban on the import and gross sales of Apple Watch takes one other bizarre twist.
• Former Apple design chief Jony Ive lures one other former colleague away from Cupertino. This time, the objective is to construct AI {hardware} for OpenAI.
• Amazon Prime Video’s plan so as to add commercials is a significant bummer.

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This week’s high Apple information

On the present this week: Your host Erfon Elijah (@erfon), Cult of Mac managing editor Lewis Wallace (@lewiswallace) and Cult of Mac author D. Griffin Jones (@dgriffinjones).

Listed here are the headlines we’re speaking about on this week’s present:

Greatest and worst of the yr!

Greatest

• Erfon
  • Xbox Recreation Move is just like the Netflix of video video games. And with its ever-expanding library of video games from indie devs in addition to massive titles from main studios, it’s lastly well worth the month-to-month value.
  • Although I’d by no means usually be fascinated about a vertical climbing recreation, Jusant‘s lovely aesthetic, intuitive climbing mechanics and mysterious plot made it certainly one of my favourite video games of 2023.
• Lewis
  • Anker 3-in-1 Dice with MagSafe is an extremely compact high-end charger that appears attractive in your nightstand, whether or not at residence or on the highway.
  • My favourite podcasts: Ported from a syndicated radio present (however with skippable adverts), Armstrong & Getty on Demand serves up every day information with a libertarian bent and loads of humor. Triggernometry values free speech and dishes out “sincere conversations with fascinating folks.”
• Griffin
  • 404 Media is a journalist-run impartial media firm with wonderful investigative reporting on the most popular tech information.
  • Mastodon is an open-source social media platform that cuts out rubbish adverts, monitoring and algorithms. That permits you to lower straight to high-quality discussions with folks you care about.

Worst

• Erfon
  • Amazon Prime retains getting costlier however providing fewer and fewer advantages.  And since Amazon affords free transport on all orders over $25, that is one subscription you would possibly take into account canceling in 2024.
  • The state of streaming in 2023 is a big mess.  Each studio now needs you to fork over $10 to $15 to entry content material, and now they’re packing their streams with adverts.  It’s like cable TV yet again.
• Lewis
  • Apple providers get massive value hikes: Apple TV+ went from $6.99 to $9.99 this yr, a 40% hike! And Apple One Premier jumped from $32.95 to $37.95. What number of extra {dollars} can Tim Cook dinner squeeze out of Apple followers?
  • San Francisco: It was the perfect of occasions, it was the worst of occasions for SF. The Metropolis by the Bay nonetheless possesses its pure magnificence, its nice climate and its unbeatable burritos. However all of the San Francisco doom loop speak appears to be like very actual on the bottom, with horrifying overdoses and tranq zombies, tooth-rattling potholes, an astonishing array of empty storefronts and loads of poo.
• Griffin
  • Michael Darius is a former Apple worker who’s promoting his meager expertise from almost 20 years in the past as some sort of design guru and private protégé of Steve Jobs.
  • The sensation of being trusted to drive a stranger’s automotive alone after you solely met them earlier that very same night is a weird expertise I hope to by no means repeat.