Five Takes to End 2025

2025 was a year where a lot of assumptions across the tech industry were seriously put to the test. Instead of simply making predictions or tallying wins and losses, I wanted to write out a handful of takes on what actually happened and what it says about where things are headed next.

Take a Risk Apple, Give Tony the Job

Over the past few years, rumors have run rampant that John Ternus is poised to claim the CEO position upon Tim Cook’s retirement. While they’re heating up, that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about another candidate, not someone who can just perfect a product but someone who …

“Ever wonder what this pocket’s for?”

Like many of you, I was skeptical of the iPhone Pocket when I first laid my eyes on the press release from Apple last week. Now is sort of a tone deaf time for a high fashion collaboration, but I’ve decided that this is a product that’s actually designed to bring joy. Having finally seen them …

10 Qualities the 8th CEO of Apple Should Have

There’s been a lot of discussion as of late about who may be the next CEO of Apple. As a lifelong observer, dare I say fan, I care deeply about who is going to steward the company into a future that no one quite anticipated. Instead of opining on what I think of each individual rumored candidate, I …

The iPhone Air is the One Steve Would Use

For the first time in years, an iPhone truly made me feel something again. When this year’s new devices came out, I picked up the iPhone 17 Pro Max, but I quietly (or not so quietly) harbored envy towards those who bravely picked the iPhone Air. About a week ago, I finally caved and picked up my …

The Paradoxical iPhone Arrives: Launch Day Thoughts on Apple's 2025 Lineup

The new iPhones are indeed incredible. While I opted for the iPhone 17 Pro Max, the iPhone Air is truly unbelievable. When Apple called it a “paradox” I was skeptical, but that’s exactly what it feels like. The thinness and lightness is jaw dropping. It also happens to just be simply beautiful. The …

Orangeness Beats Thinness: Thoughts on Yesterday’s Event

I don’t think there’s a whole lot of tea leaf reading to do after yesterday’s Apple event. The upgrades are fairly straightforward. But there are some intriguing notes that I wanted to share, so here we go…

Keynotes are Bad Because Products Can’t Speak for Themselves Anymore

That Google event yesterday was very strange, from Jimmy Fallon’s general awkwardness to the uncomfortable QVC-style segment to the overuse of high profile celebrities. That’s already been discussed at length, so I won’t dwell on it. But it did get me thinking a lot about the state of product …

Tinted Liquid Glass Should be the Future of User Interfaces on Apple Platforms

It’s certainly no secret that I am a huge fan of Apple’s new liquid glass design language. I know that’s not technically the name of the design system, in fact there actually isn’t one. Liquid glass is simply the core material of the new user interface, not the actual …

Ollama's New App Makes Running Local Models Even Easier

As a lifelong Mac user, I have a particular affinity for native applications. For a long time, most of the AI models were only useable through a web browser. But the model providers have slowly been rolling out fully native apps for their products. We now have native apps for ChatGPT, Claude, …

Yes, That Appears to be a Real iPhone 17 Pro

It looks like we just got our first look at a real iPhone 17 Pro. In an unlikely encounter in San Francisco, an X user by the name of Skyfops stumbled upon what must be an Apple employee testing an iPhone 17 Pro in one of Apple’s signature disguise cases. While there is some (very fair) …

18 Years Ago Today, iPhone Premiered and Everything Changed

On this day, 18 years ago, the iPhone went on sale for the very first time at Apple and AT&T Stores across the United States. I was going to write a long piece reminiscing about that special day, but I remembered that I already did that a few years ago when I was at 9to5mac for the 14th …

Meta Goes on an AI Hiring Spree, What's Apple's Plan?

Apple should be the one on a hiring spree. Over the past few weeks, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have kicked the hiring and acquisitions machine into high gear. The man knows he can’t miss out on the next platform shift and it shows. It wasn’t the metaverse and it wasn’t goggles, but …

F1 Marks Apple's Acceleration into a New Era of Entertainment

Apple’s had a very good run with its string of successful streaming shows on TV+ over the past six years and has frequently been called “the new HBO." But the company has struggled to land a true hit with its feature films that it bestowed theatrical releases on. Sure, they’ve won Oscars …

The Curious Case of Apple and Perplexity: Do They Need Each Other?

Apparently it’s the season of acquisitions and hirings. Thankfully, this time Apple is also in on the action. According to Mark Gurman, Apple executives are in the early stages of mulling an acquisition of Perplexity. My initial reaction was “that wouldn’t work.” But I’ve taken some time to think …

“The Talk Show Live” Returns to Form—And It Was Great

While there was a lot of consternation heading into WWDC over Apple skipping John Gruber’s live taping of The Talk Show, it might have all been for the best. Instead of sitting down with Craig and Joz, who were both unlikely to say much more than they did during the day, we got to hear a really fun …

Apple Snuck an Endorsement for Ivory and Mastodon into WWDC

One of my favorite moments from WWDC 2025 was when Apple designer Billy Sorrentino introduced the changes to visual intelligence. The new screenshot features in iOS 26 are already among my favorites, but what really caught my eye was the surprising amount of screen time given to Tapbots’ Ivory.

WWDC 2025: Through Liquid Glass—No Longer Behind, Just Off to the Side

I was unusually concerned heading into this year’s WWDC, fully prepared to be disappointed. I feared that Apple would continue to be on weak footing after the Apple Intelligence failures of the past year. To my surprise, I feel very differently post-keynote. I worried that they wouldn’t acknowledge …

Apple’s Silence at "The Talk Show" Will Speak Volumes

If you follow Apple at all, you’ve likely heard the news: Apple’s skipping John Gruber’s The Talk Show Live at WWDC this year. For a decade, it’s been tradition for Apple executives to join John on stage at the annual conference to recap the the keynote and dive deeper into the announcements. It is …

A Tale of Two IOs: What it Looks Like When Apple Doesn't Lead

We are at more than just an inflection point; we’re at a moment where the global technological order may be about to fundamentally change. Don’t think about this just as an “iPhone moment” but as an “Apple acquires NeXT” event. A NeXTus event if you will. When Apple acquired NeXT, it kicked …

Raycast for iPhone is the Launch Center Successor I've Always Wanted

Before it was sort of abandoned I was a heavy user of Launch Center Pro. Apple enthusiasts and power users alike will almost certainly remember the powerful shortcut tool from Contrast that let you build out an extensive grid of quick ways to get things done. The app is technically still available …

Jony Ive, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Sam Altman Walk into a Bar—Will They Walk Out with the Gadget of the Future?

The worst kept secret in Silicon Valley right now is that Jony Ive is helping Sam Altman build new gadgets. On the surface that may not seem like that much of a big deal. After all, Jony left Apple six years ago. But his career is inextricably linked to and was fundamentally shaped by Steve Jobs and …

Craig Saves the Day, Gives Engineers the Green Light to Use Off-the-Shelf LLMs

According to The Information, Apple is now letting engineers build products using third-party LLMs. This is a huge change that could seriously alter the course of Apple Intelligence. I have been a proponent of Apple shifting its focus from building somewhat mediocre closed first-party models to …

From a small garage in Los Altos to billions of pockets, wrists, ears, faces, desks, and living rooms. Happy 49th birthday Apple. Next year is the big one.

A Sneak Peek At My First App

It is not quite ready yet, but I wanted to share a first-look at the app that I have been working on over the past several weeks. I still need to squash a few bugs and complete some business-related tasks, but I expect to submit it to the App Store in the near future after a small TestFlight group …