Time for Apple to take the Smart Home seriously ↦

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, writing at The Verge: Next year, [Apple] will reportedly launch an “AI wall tablet for home control,” and it’s said to be developing more devices for the home (including cameras, a tabletop robot, and maybe even a TV). … | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 13 hours ago

Sill gives a Nuzzel vibe to Mastodon and Bluesky links ↦

Journalist and developer Tyler Fisher, on his personal blog: Today I’m excited to launch the public beta of Sill, my new social media tool. Sill connects to your Bluesky and Mastodon accounts and aggregates the most popular links in your network. … | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 13 hours ago

(Sponsor) 1Password

My thanks to 1Password for sponsoring Six Colors this week. 1Password wants you to understand the details about how laws like GDPR can affect your business.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 15 hours ago

Wish List: More head gestures

Apple’s spent a lot of time investigating alternative ways of interacting with its devices, but one of my favorite is one of the newest: head gestures with AirPods.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 1 day ago

Indecision at the intersection of Mac Studio and Mac mini

My current desktop Mac, the one I work on day in and day out in my garage/office, is an M1 Mac Studio. I’ve had it for almost three years, and it’s still great.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 2 days ago

(Podcast) Clockwise 581: Visit That Like a Time Period with Dinosaurs

How we deal with physical media, the most tech heavy restaurants we’ve patronized, tech that ended up disappointing us, and the social media networks of yesteryear that we’d bring back.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 2 days ago

(Podcast) The Rebound 522: I’m All Out of Feelings

Get ready for the Apple TV TV.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 2 days ago

How Does Clean Up Measure Up?

In my previous post for Six Colors, I wrote about why Apple’s Clean Up (and photo retouching tools in general) were a fine tool for people to have in their photo editing toolkits.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 3 days ago

(Podcast) Upgrade 538: A Lot of Mac in Your Face

Is Apple trying to boost revenue by truly embracing smart home products, or is it too late? Also, Jason reviews Kindles while lamenting the current state of e-readers, and the Vision Pro gets new accessories and a music video by The Weeknd!… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 4 days ago

(Sponsor) You can’t ignore GDPR anymore

When the EU enacted GDPR in 2018, executives and security professionals waited anxiously to see how the law would be enforced. And then they kept waiting…and waiting…but the Great European Privacy Crackdown never came.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 4 days ago

(Sponsor) Magic Lasso Adblock: incredibly private and secure Safari web browsing

My thanks to Magic Lasso Adblock for sponsoring Six Colors this week. With over 5,000 five star reviews; Magic Lasso Adblock is simply the best Safari ad blocker for your iPhone, iPad and Mac.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 7 days ago

(Podcast) Downstream 82: What Is This Horror?

Monday Night football on ABC, streaming delays, and more TV picks. (Downstream+ subscribers also get: an Unrivaled new sports TV product; Amazon’s deal with the NBA; and pondering the limits of the NFL.)… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 8 days ago

Apple’s fiscal 2024 in charts

On Halloween, Apple announced its fiscal fourth quarter results, posting another flat sales quarter even while continuing to beat all-time quarterly revenue records. And as usual, I filled a bunch of numbers into a Numbers spreadsheet, ran my little charting Automator app, and po … | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 8 days ago

(Podcast) Clockwise 580: Losing the Competition for Birds

How we read (with or without tech), our favorite pet tech, whether we’d get a HomePod with a screen, and the small cute tech we like.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 9 days ago

2024 Kindle Colorsoft and Paperwhite Review: No perfect choices

The Kindle Paperwhite (left) and Colorsoft (right). The world of ebook readers is in a weird place, but when hasn’t it been? E-readers have always been a strange product niche, not just since that oddball first-generation Kindle, but since our first attempts to make computerized … | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 9 days ago

(Podcast) The Rebound 521: The System Does Not Work

Stay for the thrilling conclusion to Lex’s refund odyssey.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 9 days ago

Quick Tip: One-touch Screen Sharing

One of the most-used buttons on my Stream Deck is a one-touch connection to the Mac mini server sitting in a closet in my house. I’m frequently popping in to manage files on my RAID, or reconfigure a script that’s fed by my weather station, all sorts of odd jobs.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 10 days ago

Report: Apple might ship ‘Home Hub’ in early 2025 ↦

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has been reporting for some time that Apple is planning a “smart display” to be used in the home, but Tuesday he reported a remarkable level of detail: The product has a touch interface that looks like a blend of the Apple Watch operating system and the iP … | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 10 days ago

(Sponsor) Magic Lasso Adblock: incredibly private and secure Safari web browsing

Magic Lasso Adblock: incredibly private and secure Safari web browsing Online privacy isn’t just something you should be hoping for – it’s something you should expect.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 11 days ago

(Podcast) Upgrade 537: Square Minus One

Jason’s gotten his hands on the M4 MacBook Pros, the M4 iMac, and a visionOS widescreen Mac display. (And we’re both considering Mac mini purchases.) Plus: Apple’s issues with new products, and the threat of huge EU fines.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 11 days ago

(Sponsor) 1Password

My thanks to 1Password for sponsoring Six Colors this week. Imagine if you went to the movies and they charged $8000 for popcorn. This is something like what IT and security professionals feel when a software vendor hits them with an outrageous premium for Single Sign-On (SSO), o … | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 14 days ago

Review: Belkin Travel Bag and Head Strap for Vision Pro

Ready to go, a more respectable Vision Pro travel case. Belkin has just released two new Vision Pro accessories—a $50 add-on Head Strap that supplement Apple’s Solo Knit Band, and a $100 Travel Bag.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 15 days ago

M4/M4 Pro MacBook Pro review: Brighter, clearer, faster

The latest update to the MacBook Pro is not a radically different laptop than what has come before. Since the product was redesigned in 2021, subsequent updates have been largely the same, at least on the outside.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 15 days ago

M4 Mac mini Review: Phenomenal cosmic power, itty-bitty form factor

Meet the new Mac mini—for the first time in the last fourteen years, not the same as the old Mac mini. The latest iteration of Apple’s most diminutive Mac really earns that superlative in its newest incarnation, only the third in its history.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 15 days ago

M4 iMac Review: Gloriously niche

The iMac, redesigned for Apple silicon in 2021, is a gorgeous reinvention of Apple’s venerable all-in-one. It’s colorful (if you want it to be), powerful (enough), and designed to show itself off at home and in public spaces.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 15 days ago

(Podcast) The Rebound 520: The Tim Cookiness of It

Apple’s AI ads rub us the wrong way.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 16 days ago

(Podcast) Clockwise 579: Live Activities for Bean Sprouts

Our default apps on iOS, how we feel about Genmoji, our favorite end-to-end encrypted messaging platforms, and whether we use Live Activities for news and sports.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 16 days ago

iPads being used on college football sidelines ↦

You may remember Aaron Rodgers throwing a Surface on an NFL sideline, but this year football teams in three college conferences are using iPads, as detailed in this feature from Apple Newsroom: “Having iPad on the sidelines makes coaching way more effective in-game,” says Mike Sa … | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 17 days ago

(Podcast) Upgrade 536: The Sleeping Lifestyle

Scoring our very weird draft, The new Mac mini and MacBook Pro announcements, Apple’s latest financial results, our reactions to Image Playground and Genmoji betas, and pondering the actual job of a CEO.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 18 days ago

(Sponsor) You want to charge how much for SSO???

Imagine if you went to the movies and they charged $8000 for popcorn. Or, imagine you got on a plane and they told you that seatbelts were only available in first class.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 18 days ago

(Podcast) Downstream 81: Reba Reboot

Holiday specials and streaming rights; the questionable future of linear cable channels; Bob Iger’s Endgame gets interesting; Sports Corner with Rob Manfred, Jason Kelce, and Charles Barkley; Behold, the power of CBS; and some TV shows you should watch.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 21 days ago

(Sponsor) 1Password

My thanks to 1Password for sponsoring Six Colors this week. The folks at 1Password recently attended the RSA conference in San Francisco and were struck by how infatuated everyone was with the promise of new, shiny solutions to fix new, shiny problems.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 21 days ago

Apple buys Pixelmator ↦

Pixelmator Team, announcing a shocker: Pixelmator has signed an agreement to be acquired by Apple, subject to regulatory approval. There will be no material changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps at this time. … | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 21 days ago

Apple sinks $1.1 billion into Globalstar’s satellite network, takes ownership stake

If you had any idea that satellite connectivity isn’t a key part of Apple’s strategy, well, the company’s satellite partner Globalstar has disclosed changes to its deal with Apple, including a new influx of $1.1 billion from Apple tied to capital improvements, and $400 million in … | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 21 days ago

This is Tim: Apple’s Q4 results phone call, transcribed

Every quarter after releasing financial results, Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri hop on a conference call with analysts to detail the quarter gone by, give a peek at what’s to come, and dodge—er, I mean answer—questions from analysts.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 22 days ago

Apple’s Q424 results: $95B revenue–with a twist

Apple reported its financial results on Thursday for its fourth fiscal quarter, which ended on September 28. Revenue was $94.9 billion, up six percent versus the year-ago quarter and an all-time fourth quarter record.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 22 days ago

Taking the AirPods Pro hearing test

The hearing test first checks your fit and environmental noise (left). During the test, you tap the screen when you hear a tone, as the screen image throbs (center). … | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 22 days ago

(Podcast) Clockwise 578: Sadly, No Taste for Blood

Our use of tech in Halloween celebrations; the smallest tech we regularly use and the small gadget that wowed us; which Apple Intelligence features we’re using and looking forward to next; and the one item we’d give up this week, tech or non-tech.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 23 days ago

(Podcast) The Rebound 519: Maybe: Kamala Harris

Where would you put a charging port?… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 23 days ago

16GB for everyone: MacBook Air joins the RAM upgrade party

This guy gets more RAM now. This week, all of Apple’s Mac announcements have featured one trend beyond the arrival of the M4 processor family on macOS: The lifting of base RAM configurations from 8GB to 16GB across the board on new models.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 23 days ago

Apple introduces new MacBook Pros with M4 chips, brighter screen

Apple’s week of Mac reveals rolls on with Wednesday’s announcement of the M4 MacBook Pro line. In some ways this is the smallest update of the week, but I’d wager that Apple sells far more MacBook Pros than iMacs and Mac minis put together.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 23 days ago

Why Alexa hasn’t yet become the real computer of the future ↦

Great piece by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy at The Verge about the evolution of the Amazon Echo and how an exciting project turns into a boring one: Alexa is still mainly doing what it’s always done: playing music, reporting the weather, and setting timers. … | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 23 days ago

The M4 Mac mini: Tricks and treats

Just in time for Halloween, Apple has delivered a new version of its smallest Mac, which you could probably even fit into one of those plastic pumpkins.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 24 days ago

New Mac mini shrinks down, gains M4 and M4 Pro chips

Apple’s big week, featuring a new iMac and the launch of Apple Intelligence, just got smaller. A lot smaller. Just in time for Halloween, it’s a Fun Size Mac mini.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 24 days ago

(Podcast) Upgrade 535: Little Spicy Peppers

We kick off a busy week by analyzing the new M4 iMac, the arrival of two different waves of Apple Intelligence, and Jason’s review of the iPad mini, but we’ll have to wait a week to score our draft because there’s more yet to come!… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 25 days ago

(Sponsor) The infinite loop of security

I recently attended the RSA conference in San Francisco–security’s biggest event of the year– and I was struck by how infatuated everyone was with the promise of new, shiny solutions to fix new, shiny problems.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 25 days ago

Apple Intelligence .1 Review: A small start of something big?

With the release of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, Apple is hopping aboard the generative AI train. Apple Intelligence is a suite of disparate features, first announced earlier this year at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference, that the company is gradual … | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 25 days ago

Apple introduces M4 iMac with revamped colors, nano-texture display option

Begun, the week of Mac announcements has. Apple on Monday unveiled revamped iMac models, powered by its new M4 processors, in a series of bold new tints.… | Continue reading


@sixcolors.com | 25 days ago