Crossed Wires

Recharging

In what feels like a full-circle moment, James is joined by Alex Lowe and Jim Starling from the Charging Status EV Podcast, which as many of you will know started life here as a co-production between Crossed Wires and The Interface before James has to give up the show to take a job at a CPO. Now he's free of the shackles of that CPO, we chat the latest EVs, discuss the confusion around charging, look into how car infotainment has changed, and go on random tangents related to Greggs and caravans.

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Ollie's Space Junk

We're always delighted to have returning guests on the show, and so we're pleased to have Gedeon Maheux from The Iconfactory join us again. This time we're talking about the Kickstarter for their wonderful retro gaming app, Ollie's Arcade. We also delve into retro-gaming memories, have a very open discussion about Apple, Nazis, ICE, and why little acts of kindness can really make a difference in our not so great world at the moment. What are your retro gaming memories, do you remember playing Sn

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Liberated Office

It's been a lot longer than we planned between episodes, but we're happy to be back in 2026 with a great chat with Mike Saunders from The Document Foundation who maintain the wonderful LibreOffice suite. We chat about why it's important to have alternatives to Microsoft Office, the history of LibreOffice, why a truly open document format is so important as well as random detours into the concept of modern word processors for vintage hardware! What's your view on LibreOffice and the reasons for n

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Designed by Humans

What makes a beautiful app interface, a stunning icon, or that little bit of UI magic that shows the care poured into the design process? Our returning guest is Gedeon Maheux, co-founder of Icon Factory, who joins Jae and James to talk about how human design will always beat out generative AI and how the latter is having a substantial impact on their business. Do you have a favourite app design, or maybe an icon that always gives you a certain feeling? We'd love to hear from you, so please send

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3D Load Letter

Did you grow up wishing you could make real 3D objects from your computer, maybe if you're British you remember the cartoon 'Penny Crayon'? Well, in this modern world we live in, you can do all of that with a 3D printer. Our guest is friend of the show and all-round self-hosting nerd, James Smith, who has been working on Manyfold which is a self-hosted project you can use to manage all of your 3D model files. Of course, none of that will make any sense if you don't know your Z-Axis from your ext

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Liquid Gas

Yes, we're back again, and you'll get to hear exactly what's kept Jae and James so busy over the last several months. We're joined again by Alex Lowe from The Interface to dissect an Apple keynote, this time the one from WWDC 2025.What do you think to Liquid Glass (or Liquid Gas, though that's a whole different discussion), and are you as excited as we are about the new multi-tasking features coming to iPadOS 26 on more iPads than we had expected. Oh, and you'll be pleased to know we got the web

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Intelligence Powered

It's been a hectic few months here for the team, but on November 4th 2024 we sat down with Alex Lowe for coverage of Apple's end of October announcements for their new m4 powered Macs. Apologies this episode is so late in coming to you, but we hope you enjoy the Christmas Present! We discuss how these style of announcements works better for content creators, the power of the new m4 chips, and the unbelievable size of the new Mac mini. Apple Intelligence played a major role in all of the pr

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Can You Hear Me?

Without fail, Apple released their next iPhone, a new Apple Watch and some new software for their range of devices. What we didn't expect was for Apple to take a step into the hearing aid market with new firmware coming ot the AirPods Pro 2 later this year. As with any other Apple event, Jae and James are joined by Alex Lowe from The Interface and this time returning guest Gedeon Maheux from The Iconfactory comes along for the ride, which far less Star Trek diversions than you may expect!

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Handholding

Do you remember when smartphones weren't just running Apple or Google's OS, when you really did need a stylus to do anything, and when the very idea of connectivity to the Internet was a expensive affair involving PCMCIA, CompactFlash, or SD based adaptors? Our panel does! Joining us once again are the wonderful Dan Vincent, Sean (aka. Action Retro), and Steve (aka Mac84) to dive into the world of handheld computing before the iPhone and Android era. We try to stay on topic, which proves a ch

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Hair Helmet

It's Apple Event time again; recorded a few weeks after Apple's WWDC 2024 Keynote, James, Jae, and Alex sit down for a chat about everything Apple announced at the June 10th event. Apologies this has taken longer than usual to get out to you, work and other commitments have definitely gotten in the way. We will have more amazing episodes coming at a more regular pace for you going forward. What do you think to Apple's AI (Apple Intelligence) future, are you concerned because of the growth

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Crushing It!

Apple held their 'Let Loose' event on May 7th, 2024 and not long after the 'dream team' of Crossed Wires Apple coverage gathered to discuss the new iPads, the rather confusing line up of Apple Pencils. We also take a detour to look into why WiFI 7 not being included in the new iPads is not as big of a factor as some may think. Finally, we discuss the powerful new features in Apple's pro apps for iPad, Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro and how these new features make iPad a powerful creative tool

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Hosting a Mastodon

As centralised social media platforms become more and more hostile, with not only toxicity from undesirable elements but also massive privacy concerns, the Fediverse has become somewhat of a refuge for those who want to share freely and openly, without the worry of appeasing the almighty algorithms. There are some fantastic Mastodon issues for you to join, but what if you want a bit more control, or want to build your own community, or represent your brand? You could setup your own server, as

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Educating AI

The hype around AI continues to grow, often muddling genuinely useful elements like machine learning, pattern recognition, and properly and ethnically trained large language models with tools like ChatGPT and generative AI tools that have questionable data sources. With returning guests, Prof. Catherine Flick and our very own Zack, we talk about the challenges of AI in the academic space. Zack also shares his own experience of being caught using ChatGPT to complete a final essay he, by his ow

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Framing a Better Laptop

If you’ve ever purchased a new laptop, you’ll know only too well the pain of configuring your new system to get your dream setup. With some manufacturers, looking at you here Apple, your choice of storage and memory are there for the lifetime of the laptop. Worst still, if you have a failed component on your laptop you’re often faced with expensive and proprietary repair options that can often cost nearly as much as the laptop itself. Nirav Patel founded Framework to tackle these issues by

Weaving a Tapestry

It’s our pleasure to be joined again by The Iconfactory’s Gedeon Maheux, this time we’re talking less Star Trek and more Tapestry, no not that episode with Q and Picard! Project Tapestry is their latest KickStarter project, and the goal is to create a one-stop-shop for reading the influx of things that matter to you on the web. As long as the site has an open and accessible endpoint for you to get the data, you should be able to bring that into Tapestry. We also talk about some of the chal

Build-A-Browser

With so many choices in browsers on desktop, mobile, and even our vehicles, it’s important to look under-the-hood to understand the differences between the engines that power your favourite browser.  Be that Chromium, WebKit, or Gecko, not all browsers are created equal and have varying features and views on the rights of their users. We’re honoured to be joined by Jon von Tetzchner, the CEO of Vivaldi, an open-source and privacy first Chromium powered browser that could replace Google Chrome

The Fruit and The Droids

Whether you work in tech, produce tech content, or just happen to use a smartphone, a single question can spark debate and an explosion of extreme views from both sides. That question is simple, iPhone or Android? We’re joined by our Zack, one of Jae’s nephews and a longtime Android user and advocate to have an honest discussion about why we like the platforms we’ve settled on and where we see potential issues.  Our chat touches on some core issues like security updates, the challenge of a

The UniFi Appreciation Show

You’ll have heard James and Jae wax lyrical about their love for the UniFi line of networking gear on our live streams and in past episodes with Alex, as well as with Cody from MacTelecom Networks, but this episode is a fairly deep look into why we love UniFi. We’re joined by Alex Lowe and Evan McCann, the hosts of UI Chat, a monthly Ubiquiti focussed podcast that is definitely our go-to resource for the latest news from the UniFi maker.  We talk about some of the new products, though it’s

Playing with Wires

Imagine a time when internet access meant using an analogue modem to dial a phone number in order to connect to the internet at speeds of up 7 kilobytes a second! Now imagine trying to play online games such as Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Euro 96, and even Bridge, over that connection. Our guests this week, Phil and Stu Ashby, helped to create and run Wireplay, a dial-up based online gaming service from BT (yes, the telephone company) in the mid-nineties. We go on some really deep tangents on

Fastest Event Yet

In what’s starting to become a Crossed Wires tradition, James, Jae and Alex gather to discuss Apple’s latest event, which was scarily short at just over 30 mins long, making this possibly our shortest event coverage episode to date! We unpack what the new m3 powered Macs mean in terms of performance, with Apple specifically targeting those who have yet to convert from Intel based Macs and early m1 adopters, why 8 GB of memory is probably enough for most average users.  We’re also very hono