What’s the point of HBO Max if it doesn’t have all the HBO shows on it? Julia ponders the strange goings on at HBO and WarnerMedia. We also discuss Jason Kilar’s predictions for t… | Continue reading
The usually well-sourced Mark Gurman at Bloomberg with the scoop: Software engineering and services employees are engaged in a major push to open up key elements of Apple’s platforms, according to people familiar with the efforts.… | Continue reading
It’s not every week that Apple releases a new app, but this is that week. As a part of rolling out iOS 16.2 and macOS Ventura 13.1, Apple’s introducing the world to Freeform, an app it introduced back in June as a part of a WWDC keynote segment about iPad collaboration features.… | Continue reading
Myke has returned, and so have the Apple Car rumors. But before we try to figure those out, we’ve got to consider Apple’s encryption announcements, Tim Cook’s appearance at a chip factory in Arizona, and John Siracusa’s appearance in our shared show document.… | Continue reading
“When was the last time you restarted it?” If you’ve ever worked at a service desk, you’ve probably wanted to tattoo this question on your forehead. Ditto for: “What device drivers do you have inst… | Continue reading
My thanks to Kolide for once again sponsoring Six Colors. Kolide takes a different approach to endpoint security and fleet management. It’s all about helping customers meet compliance goals by enlisting the support of their end users with a structured, message-based approach.… | Continue reading
One of my favorite iPad apps of all time is Wooji Juice’s Ferrite Recording Studio, a complete multi-track audio editor that I prefer to the likes of Logic and GarageBand for editing podcasts.… | Continue reading
Three dumb guys talking bout technology.… | Continue reading
How we’ve used or could use OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the silliest and/or most time-consuming automations we’ve created, our thoughts on Apple’s new App Store price points, and our plans to own an Apple Car.… | Continue reading
On Wednesday Apple announced some major new security initiatives that the company will be rolling out from now through later in 2023. The biggest one is the addition of nine Apple services to end-to-end encryption, meaning that Apple can’t access cloud data even if authorities de … | Continue reading
If you’ve been blogging on the Mac for any length of time, you’re probably familiar with Red Sweater Software’s excellent MarsEdit blogging software. The new microposting feature lets you write blog posts as easily as social media.… | Continue reading
Yang Jie and Aaron Tilley, reporting over the weekend for the Wall Street Journal (Apple News link): In recent weeks, Apple Inc. has accelerated plans to shift some of its production outside China, long the dominant country in the supply chain that built the world’s most valuabl … | Continue reading
On Tuesday, Apple announced a new Music feature for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV (but not Mac!) that combines Apple Music’s live lyrics with the ability to adjust the volume of vocals to create a singalong mode it’s calling Apple Music Sing: Apple today announced Apple Music Sing, … | Continue reading
Twitterrific for Mac–still going strong. My explorations with Mastodon have thus far been undertaken largely with the service’s web app. It’s fine, as far as things go. But itR… | Continue reading
John Siracusa returns to the show to chat about Jason’s recent visit to his house, Mac app development, Apple’s brain drain, TSMC breaking ground in Arizona, the problems with AI training models, the current state of macOS, and what makes a Good Product.… | Continue reading
You know the old thought experiment about the AI designed to make paper clips, that quickly decides that in order to maximize paper clips, it will have to get rid of all the humans? A lot of securi… | Continue reading
Jason joins Dan in person at Dan’s desk to discuss projects in progress, automations, and Twitter and Mastodon.… This story is for Six Colors members only. Become a member to get access to exclusive stories, podcasts, and community.. | Continue reading
My thanks to Kolide for once again sponsoring Six Colors. If you build a dystopian and cynical security program born out of fear, mistrust, and suspicion, then you will inevitably make your fellow employees your enemies.… | Continue reading
Fun story from Macworld contributor Benj Edwards over at Ars Technica about running a BBS1 when he was 11, which he still runs over the Internet now: Even before I was fully ready, I jumped the gun and began advertising my BBS phone number on other BBSes.… | Continue reading
Annual streaming music retrospectives, our favorite thing about niche software, whether child us would be blown away by today’s tech, and our pitches for social media networks.… | Continue reading
This one not-so-simple shortcut removed 62 percent of the data from this folder! Earlier this week Dan wrote about building an automation to archive a bunch of podcast projects. I’ve been usi… | Continue reading
Bob Chapek is out and Bob Iger is back in! What does this mean for the future of Disney? We don’t have the answers, but we have lots of questions!… | Continue reading
Don’t @ Tim Cook.… | Continue reading
Like many people, I’ve been exploring Mastodon while being concerned about the future of Twitter. But federated social media is tricky, especially when it comes to simple things like replying to a post made by someone on a different server.… | Continue reading
John Gruber joins Jason on Upgrade for the first time. Topics include eWorld, Apple’s iPhone production problems in China, FIFA and Qatar and the World Cup, the reasons behind Apple’s sports ambitions, BBEdit, regular expressions, Perl and Python, MarsEdit, nanotexture displays, … | Continue reading
“If you build a dystopian and cynical security program born out of fear, mistrust, and suspicion, then you will inevitably make your fellow-employees your enemies.” That’s a quote from Honest Security, Kolide’s mission statement and North Star.… | Continue reading
Ever since I moved into my new house a year ago, I’ve been looking for a fun way to designate when I’m recording a podcast. Yes, I could just close the door to my office—but sometimes when I do, I’m just working on something where I don’t mind being interrupted.… | Continue reading
Sometimes you stare down the barrel of a stupid, repetitive task and think: hey, my time’s worth more than this! Then you spend longer than the original task would have taken to create an automation for that task.… | Continue reading
My thanks to Magic Lasso Adblock for sponsoring Six Colors this week. Magic Lasso Adblock is simply the best Safari ad blocker for your iPhone, iPad and Mac. As a native content blocking extension,… | Continue reading
The third edition of my book Take Control of Photos has been released! If you bought a previous edition, you should’ve gotten an email with options to upgrade to the new edition. If not, ther… | Continue reading
Social media is great.… | Continue reading
Finding a Twitter replacement (or leaving it all behind), our Read-it-Later services of choice, the tech we’re most thankful for, and the apps we’re most thankful for.… | Continue reading
One of the banner features of Apple TV and tvOS, is the ability to use Siri to get to what you want without having to remember which app it’s in, or where it is.… This story is for Six Colors members only. Become a member to get access to exclusive stories, podcasts, and communit … | Continue reading
A new version of the excellent flight-tracking app Flighty was just released. I can’t endorse this app enough, but its support for Live Activities (and the Dynamic Island) on iOS 16 has made it even cooler.… | Continue reading
Ben Dowsett at FiveThirtyEight details the high technology being used on the field at the World Cup: All tournament long, match balls will contain a sensor that collects spatial positioning data in real time — the first World Cup to employ such a ball-tracking mechanism.… | Continue reading
There’s some huge news from the world of streaming, as Disney switches bosses and Apple plans its next wave of sports-streaming products. Meanwhile, Myke’s busy building out his smart home while Jason has been reminded of the fragility of smart-home networking.… | Continue reading
Do you want to block all YouTube ads in Safari on your iPhone, iPad and Mac? Then download Magic Lasso Adblock – the ad blocker designed for you. It’s easy to setup, doubles the speed at which Safa… | Continue reading
My thanks to Kolide for once again sponsoring Six Colors. Kolide knows how challenging it can be to prove compliance to a third-party auditor–they just went through it themselves. They learne… | Continue reading
In a blog post on Thursday, 1Password outlined its plans to support Passkeys, a new standard embraced by all the major platform owners that promises to eliminate passwords forever by replacing them with cryptographic authentication.… | Continue reading
How we positively integrate tech in our kids’ lives, whether we display vintage tech, sharing streaming service logins, and do standalone cameras still trump smartphones?… | Continue reading
St. Louis City SC is the first MLS team to unveil a shirt with an Apple TV sleeve patch.It’s about three months until the start of the next season of Major League Soccer, and Apple’s 10-year, $2.5B deal with the league is starting to come into focus.… | Continue reading
Disney’s latest financial results lead us to ponder where we are in the dramatic change from old-school media to the streaming world. Also, Warner Bros. Discovery claims to have all its franchises in order, but that doesn’t seem remotely realistic.… | Continue reading
We wish we could buy Twitter, but mistakes were made.… | Continue reading
Promised “later this year” when it was introduced in September, Apple announced on Tuesday that it has turned on its Emergency SOS via Satellite feature on iPhone 14 models in the U.S. … | Continue reading
Let’s get real about the Apple VR headset. Is it really coming next year? What’s it going to look like? What features should it have? What lessons can Apple learn from Meta’s foray into VR products?… | Continue reading
For a while now, I’ve been frustrated by the fact that some local reporters I follow on Twitter invariably tweet links to their stories at mercurynews.com, the paywalled website of the San Jo… | Continue reading
In 2021, our company went through the SOC 2 Type 1 audit, and we found out just how challenging it can be to prove compliance to a third party auditor. We also learned firsthand something our custo… | Continue reading
My classic movie podcast, Lions, Towers & Shields over at The Incomparable, uses a standard show-notes format. On each episode, we talk about one old movie, and I always link to places where you can stream it, buy physical media, and learn more about the film we’re watching.… Thi … | Continue reading