This week's guests include commentator and podcaster Peter Cohen, who discusses the CPU bug, involving malware dubbed Meltdown an Spectre, and why was Apple blamed by some for a problem that's existed with CPUs throughout the computing industry since 1997? Peter provides a full explanation of the problem and how it's triggered. There's also a discussion about the dispute over iPhone X sales, whether sales were high or disappointing. Gene and Peter also talk about the recent announcement from Apple about its five-year plan partly based on the U.S. tax cut, where Apple plans to repatriate billions of dollars of its overseas hoard and use some of it for new hires, employee stock awards, a second corporate headquarters, new data centers and, as expected, stock buybacks and dividends.

You'll also hear from tech journalist Jeff Gamet, Managing Editor for The Mac Observer. Jeff discusses a possible Skype alternative known as Discord, and mentions the announcement that Microsoft has unified the Office code base that may, at some time in the future, mean feature parity of both the Mac and Windows versions. In discussing the Apple TV 4K, Jeff mentions a problem with a recent update for one of the HDR protocols, Dolby Vision. The discussion moves to the amazing performances of character actors and how they enhance a movie or TV show, which includes brief discussions of the duo's favorite shows. Jeff offers his opinion about Apple's promised investments as the result of the tax cut. There's also a brief exchange on whether or not Apple ever plans to update the Mac mini, which hasn't been changed since 2014.