Apple TV+ has had quite the ride since it launched in 2019. It took a few months to really begin to hit its stride with the first season of Ted Lasso, which helped keep us all feeling just a little sane during COVID. More recently, Severance has been a huge hit. It is one of the best shows I have ever seen and virtually everyone I know is as …
I guess I should not be surprised, but I am still furious. Apple shared with John Gruber earlier today that they are delaying the launch of the flagship new personalized Siri features for Apple Intelligence that were unveiled last summer at WWDC. We have been waiting what already feels like forever for these new features and it sounds like we are …
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the surprisingly small amount of third-party Bluesky clients for iOS. After countless Twitter ones and now plenty of Mastodon options, it felt inevitable. Except very few developers seemed to be working on anything. For months, users (including me) had been holding out hope that Tapbots, the makers of Ivory and …
For the first time in 24 years, since the introduction of the first white iBook, Apple has a blue laptop again. While the new MacBook Airs are most certainly a “spec bump,” they make for a pretty good one. The new Air features the M4 (as expected), but also gets a massively upgraded FaceTime camera and a $100 price drop. I’m glad my diatribe about …
Just a few days ago, a new iPhone app was released by designer Rasmus Nielsen. The app, while simple, is one of my favorites in a long time. It is called Tinker and it features some of the most beautiful clock widgets I have ever seen. Tinker is a super cool concept. You can build your own clock widgets quickly and easily. Other apps have tried to …
Apple device spec bumps are nothing new. Steve’s Apple did them all the time. He just didn’t tease them with iconic taglines that carry historical weight. Yesterday Tim Cook tweeted a teaser that said “there’s something in the Air” hearkening back to the 2008 unveiling of the original MacBook Air. We all sort of knew …
I’ve only had the iPhone 16e for a few hours, but I figured it was worth writing something out. Particularly because I am surprised by the device now that I have seen it in-person. It is no secret that I have been awfully skeptical of the value proposition and frankly I still am. But this hardware is spectacular. I could make the argument …
Apple’s advertising has been hit or miss in recent years. They have run the gamut from controversies like the hydraulic press crushing beloved artistic tools to misses like the early Apple Intelligence ads to delightful surprises like recent heartwarming holiday ones. There has been a lot of discussion about Apple’s newest billboards …
If you have followed me for a bit, you know that I really love the work that The Browser Company has done with Arc. They built a browser that is ridiculously powerful, infinitely customizable, and even extended their ambitions to mobile with one of the nicest AI search tools. But something happened last fall that began to make me question my …
We’ve been waiting for Siri to get good for quite a long time. Before the emergence of ChatGPT, Siri sort of languished. Outside of the addition of Shortcuts in 2018, it has generally remained at the same level of intelligence since 2015 when they added proactive functionality. Last summer, Apple showed off an all-new Siri that is supposed to …
A few weeks ago Federico Viticci wrote a great piece on MacStories about how one of Gemini’s greatest strengths in the LLM competition is that it’s the only one with Google app extensions. On Friday, Apple released the first beta of iOS 18.4 and while many of the AI updates that we were expecting weren’t there, references to one …
Apparently, I’m on a roll with predicting new Apple services. Last year, when Apple introduced the Sports app I was tremendously excited. Two years earlier I had nailed the logo, the name, the color scheme, and the overall concept. While my imagined Apple Sports app was much more ambitious, we still got the bones of it. It always feels good when an …
Apple just unveiled their latest low-end iPhone and it’s… confusing! The iPhone 16e doesn’t replace the iPhone SE as many of us had expected. In fact the iPhone SE is gone entirely. There’s no longer a “budget” iPhone in the lineup. By “budget” I generally mean an iPhone under $500, whether that has been an iPhone SE or a years old model. We’ve had …
With Pebble returning to the smartwatch fray, I thought it would be fun to revisit their only non-watch product: Pebble Core. While Core never ended up shipping, looking back it gave us a glimpse of something that’s been happening over the past year or two. AI-centric gadgets like the Humane AI Pin, Rabbit R1, Limitless Pendant, and others have …
This year’s iPhone lineup sounds like it is going to be the best one yet. It starts with the iPhone SE or what is now largely expect to be called the iPhone 16E. Apple announced that a new member of the family will be joining the fray next Wednesday and it is almost certainly the new ‘budget’ iPhone. I personally imagine that it …
I’ve downloaded thousands of apps as an iOS aficionado since day one. But none have typically inspired me as much as the third-party social media clients that helped build the industry as we know it today. I’m talking about Tweetbot, Twitterrific, Echofon, Twittelator, Tweetie, Alien Blue, Apollo, Narwhal, Comet, among many others. These apps all …
Tim Cook has just tweeted about an Apple announcementent coming next Wednesday. If you know me, you’re probably tired of hearing me say we need some news. So this is great. I am excited. Tim specifically highlights that we’re going to see “the newest member of the family,” likely pointing to the long rumored iPhone SE replacement. The internet was …
It happened folks, Pixelmator is officially part of Apple. Pixelmator’s apps have been essential to me for more than a decade. I was both excited and mildly terrified by the announcement a few months ago that they were joining the fruit company. When Apple acquires beloved products, sometimes they make them even better and sometimes they …
If you’ve been using Perplexity or any other AI-based search engine, you know that it takes a few seconds to get the answer to your questions typically. That’s why I was so psyched about Perplexity’s announcement today that they had shipped an updated version of their in-house Sonar model built on Llama and powered by new Cerebras infrastructure. …
If you’ve been looking to escape the big social media platforms, but still stay somewhat connected and entertained, I have the apps for you. It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Bluesky as a platform, though it would be nice to get some polished third-party replacement clients. That being said, the official Bluesky app is good …
The rumored Apple Invites app has arrived. While I obviously haven’t had much time to play with it, I have quickly browsed through the UI and wanted to share some observations. The last new Apple app, Apple Sports, already felt out of place in iOS 18. It has a more visionOS or watchOS-like design language utilizing colorful backgrounds, …
Today the legendary development team at The Iconfactory finally released their long awaited feed reading app: Tapestry. I had regretted not contributing to the Kickstarter campaign, but man am I glad more than enough other folks did. Tapestry is a great app. It feels modern and new but has clear echoes of Twitterrific all throughout. Twitterrific …
A little over a week ago I reluctantly paid $200 last week to try out OpenAI’s new Operator web app designed to allow you to automate complex tasks. The tool, a new website included in the ChatGPT Pro subscription offering, lets you command a virtual machine to go out and complete requests via a browser. It’s similar to what Rabbit created for …
I’ve used nearly all of the premium AI subscription services, but none of them come close to offering the value that Perplexity Pro does. Despite the company’s contentious relationship with publishers, I’ve continued to believe it is one of the best-positioned startups in the space. After the emergence of DeepSeek, my lack of usage of Sora or …
Let’s be clear, Bluesky has handily defeated Mastodon to be the main alternative to the big microblogging networks. It may be smaller than Threads or X, but it’s still far larger than the platform named after the long extinct prehistoric creature. Mastodon currently has around 9 million users, while Bluesky has just broken 30 million. Recall that …