Andrew Liszewski, writing at The Verge, about a thing that should not have been made: Apple may have said goodbye to the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar last year, but a team of four engineers believes the concept deserves a second chance. They’ve created the Flexbar, which is essentiall … | Continue reading
Myke Hurley was out this week, so I joined Jason Snell for today’s episode of Upgrade: Stephen Hackett joins Jason to discuss emergency calls, reaction to Jason’s “The Mac is the Model” piece, iPhone metals, our innate troubleshooting powers, Jason’s laptop dilemma, the ChatGPT M … | Continue reading
Do you use audio on your Mac, in any way at all? Then SoundSource is for you. SoundSource provides superior control over all audio, right from your menu bar. With SoundSource, you get: Per-application control: Change the volume of any app relative to others, and play individual a … | Continue reading
On this week’s Mac Power Users, David and I make it through the rest of Apple’s platforms this week, including a speed round of the company’s entertainment portfolio. On More Power Users, we covered the state of HomeKit, both in our own homes and more generally. You can sign up f … | Continue reading
It’s that time of year again: Indie App Sales is currently boasting over 400 Mac and iOs apps for sale. There are some real gems on the list. | Continue reading
This week on the podcast: Federico has been battling color profiles and Stephen has been working to solve a mystery, while Myke has just been enjoying the vibes. On Connected Pro — the longer, ad-free version of the show — we reviewed the new Linkin Park and talked about my Thank … | Continue reading
They have four standard models, from the base machine up through a pretty nice M4 Pro model. For years, we ran Relay’s live stream on a Mac mini hosted by MacStadium. If you need a Mac in the cloud, it’s the only way to go. | Continue reading
I’ve finally gotten around to getting accounts set up across a range of social media networks beyond Mastodon. Here’s the complete set of links: Follow me: on Bluesky on Mastodon on Threads Follow the blog: on Bluesky on Mastodon on Threads I’m trying not to cross-post much outsi … | Continue reading
Federico had a heck of a time with this update, but Apple Frames continues to be a central part to a lot of my work. I’m glad he got the recent issues worked out: Here are the details of the issue: occasionally – seemingly with no clear pattern – iOS and iPadOS 18 capture screens … | Continue reading
This week on Mac Power Users, David and I start our annual tour through Apple’s products, talking about hardware and software, and our feelings about both. | Continue reading
It’s that time again! All annual Relay membership plans are currently 20% off. Several Relay podcasts produce unique versions of their episodes that are available specifically for members supporting their show directly. These versions are ad-free and include extra, member-only co … | Continue reading
The addition of iPhone Mirroring in macOS Sequoia is my favorite addition to the Apple ecosystem in years.1 Here’s how Apple describes the feature: With iPhone Mirroring, you can wirelessly interact with your iPhone and its apps and notifications from your Mac. Your iPhone stays … | Continue reading
This week on the podcast: With Federico away, Stephen and Myke talk about video games. Nah, just kidding. Instead, they ponder the future of Google and of social media, consider what maple syrup can do to an iPhone, and discuss Apple’s AI summarization features. | Continue reading
Jason Snell, in an incredible piece for Macworld: To a kid growing up in the 1980s, the idea that the maker of your computer would actively stop you from using software it didn’t approve of would have seemed beyond the pale. It certainly would’ve been a deal-breaker. And yet so m … | Continue reading
Joe Rossignol at MacRumors is reporting that Apple’s long-running repair extension program for the butterfly keyboard has ended: Apple’s free butterfly keyboard service program for select MacBooks models ended late last week, nearly six and a half years after it launched. With th … | Continue reading
Jessica Testa and Benjamin Mullin at The New York Times: In April 2023, the newsletter platform Substack received an unexpected proposal from Elon Musk, who had recently purchased Twitter. Mr. Musk put it plainly: He wanted to buy Substack. At the time, he was trying to superchar … | Continue reading
Unite 5 for macOS takes your web experience to the next level, transforming websites into feature-rich Mac apps. Powered by a completely redesigned WebKit browser, Unite 5 offers a more immersive and customizable browsing experience. What sets Unite 5 apart? We’ve gone beyond jus … | Continue reading
On this feedback episode, David and I talk about the M4 family of Macs, our RSS setups, and recent updates to some of our favorite apps. Then we discuss some listener feedback and our home networks. | Continue reading
It looks like a tiny Casio, and I can’t tell if I love it or hate it. | Continue reading
From the Newsroom announcement: Final Cut Pro 11 takes full advantage of Apple’s M-series chips, introducing the powerful and intuitive Magnetic Mask; Transcribe to Captions, a highly requested feature that provides fast and accurate closed captions; spatial video editing; and a … | Continue reading
This week on the podcast: Stephen wants to make showers more interesting, Federico is spending time with AI writing tools, and Myke is excited about a possible Apple smart home hub. | Continue reading
She’s the best tech YouTuber out there: Siri wasn’t part of her project for hilarious and obvious reasons. When the four examples start talking to each other things get weird, and Stern is right to worry about the ramifications of technology like this. | Continue reading
Writing at Bloomberg: Apple Inc., aiming to catch up with rivals in the smart home market, is nearing the launch of a new product category: a wall-mounted display that can control appliances, handle videoconferencing and use AI to navigate apps. The company is gearing up to annou … | Continue reading
At $450, this book makes my copy of Designed in California look like a deal at $299. | Continue reading
I really do not understand why this app is updated so slowly. It launched in March of 2023, but wasn’t available for the iPad until November 2023. | 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 set up, doubles the speed at which Safari loads, and blocks all YouTube ads. Magic Lasso is an efficient, high performan … | Continue reading
This week on Mac Power Users, I got back from my sabbatical and join David just in time for some holiday shopping. | Continue reading
Jerrod Hofferth has done some very good work here. | Continue reading
Quinn Nelson bought a new Mac mini then took it apart for all of us: | Continue reading
Dan Moren has reviewed the new Mac mini, and has high praise for the small machine: As the most versatile Mac, the Mac mini finds itself into all sorts of niches that no other Mac can easily (or cost-effectively) fill. Whether it’s rack-mounted as a server, hooked up to a TV, or … | Continue reading
For all the crappy things that 2020 brought, the collapse of the Arecibo Observatory continues to sting. Since its demise, the failure has been under investigation, and a recent report sheds new light on what happened: Long-term zinc creep-induced failure in the 57-year-old teles … | Continue reading
This week on the podcast, Myke wades through some feedback, then we discuss my recent sabbatical and Apple’s AI image generation tools, and Federico considers the role of smart glasses in Apple’s ecosystem. | Continue reading
I don’t know how popular games proved to be back in the iPod days, but according to Kyle Orland at Ars, there are some folks out there who really care about them, and want to see them live on. We need more of this sort of thing in the world. | Continue reading
MarsEdit 5 is a major upgrade to the preeminent Mac app for editing WordPress, Micro.blog, Tumblr, and many other types of blogs. The new Microposting feature makes it “as easy to post to your own blog as it is to post to social media.” When MarsEdit 5 is running on your Mac, jus … | Continue reading
Sabbatical’s done The time away was restful Please vote for Harris | Continue reading
We just closed down Relay’s 2024 St. Jude campaign. Thanks to your generosity, we were able to raise $1,078,348 to further St. Jude’s mission of finding cures and saving children. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. This is an incredible achievement that we share as a commu … | Continue reading
It’s been a wild year. Relay turned 10 and 512 Pixels turned 16. Later this week, are winding down our 6th-annual fundraiser for St. Jude. In January, I joined forces with David Smith and survived my first major iOS release, helping get Widgetsmith 7 out the door just a few weeks … | Continue reading
Back in March I wrote about the Jonathan, a computer Apple worked on in the 1980s that was designed around modularity: In that post, I wrote: My understanding is that the project never made it past the “conversations and mockups” stage. I get why the Jonathan never made it beyond … | Continue reading
If you want to crosspost to Threads, Mastodon, and/or Bluesky, this new iPhone app by Ben McCarthy and Aaron Vegh is a lifesaver. I’ve been using it for several weeks, and it’s been very helpful when posting about our St. Jude campaign. It’s useful and delightful, as you would ex … | Continue reading
I don’t think the Apple Desktop Bus Keyboard is anywhere near Apple’s best, but this project is wild: | Continue reading
As of this writing, Relay’s annual campaign for St. Jude just tipped over the $1 million mark. Myke and I hopped on his Twitch channel to watch it happen: If you haven’t given yet, and you can, there’s still time! The campaign will run through the end of the week. If you have alr … | Continue reading
This week on Mac Power Users, we talk about Apple’s new hardware, then take a tour of macOS Sequoia, iOS and iPadOS 18, and watchOS 11. | Continue reading
From the most recent post over on iMore, announcing that no new posts will be published on the site: It’s a keen reminder that the world of technology never stands still: The term ‘artificial intelligence’ was the reserve of science fiction in the early days of the iPhone. The wo … | Continue reading
This week on the show: The original Connected crew is reunited just in time to share their initial impressions of the Apple Watch Series 10 and iPhone 16 Pro. They also discuss Apple’s definition of a photo and how they should introduce one another. | Continue reading
I know these machines have earned these labels but jeez. | Continue reading
Apple’s VP of camera software engineering Jon McCormack gave Nilay Patel a quote about how Apple views photography in our modern age. Here’s what he said: Here’s our view of what a photograph is. The way we like to think of it is that it’s a personal celebration of something that … | Continue reading
With Audio Hijack, you can record any audio on your Mac. Capture audio from individual applications like Safari or Zoom, hardware audio devices like microphones and mixers, or even the audio output of the entire system. If you can hear it, you can record it. Whatever you need to … | Continue reading
We’ll be live on the Relay YouTube channel all day, raising money for St. Jude: | Continue reading