Six Colors

As a person of routine, part of my morning regimen for the last several decades is settling down with my morning cup of tea and reading some comic strips. As a kid, I’d dig through the newspaper to find the funny pages, and the full-color Sunday section was…

Jason reviews the new iMac (with nano-texture display) and the public beta release of macOS Big Sur. Myke thinks Apple’s making a big mistake in keeping game streaming services off of its platforms. And in Upstream, the transformation of the film industry…

Most of Apple’s early laptops were, like today’s MacBooks, complete Macs. The premise was: “Let’s engineer a Mac that’s like the one on your desk, but put it in a single package with screen, keyboard, pointing device, and battery.” My first laptop…

August tends to be right in the middle of the summer doldrums, the time when everybody goes on vacation and thus news—including tech announcements—are few and far between. Then again, 2020 isn’t your average year, so perhaps it’s not a shock that this…

In the summer I love to kick back with an ice-cold beta. Also, Microsoft’s in the news for weird reasons.… Become a member to listen to our exclusive weekly podcast and get more benefits.

The classic “cheese grater” design of the Power Mac G5 influences the design of the modern Mac Pro, and also represents (in the worst way) the last time Apple embarked on a chip transition.…

Pursuant to the announcement earlier this week that Microsoft would not be bringing its xCloud game streaming service to iOS, the two companies have exchanged fire over where the blame lies. First, Apple lashed out, providing a statement to several outlets,…

So here we are, at the end of OS X. Two decades ago Apple parked the sixteen-year-old Classic Mac OS and leaped to version 10.0, but four years ago the company rebranded the software that drives the Mac as macOS, and the writing was on the wall. And now in…

This has got to be the end, right?…

The Verge’s Tom Warren reports on the latest casualty of Apple’s App Store policies, Microsoft’s forthcoming cloud gaming system:…

Interesting interview (and, I think, perhaps the first major one) with Apple senior vice president for machine learning and AI strategy, John Giannandrea, along with product marketing VP Bob Borchers, by Ars Technica’s Samuel Axon. One tidbit that I hadn’t…

Given the frequency with which I have to deal with audio, Rogue Amoeba’s apps are amongst the most indispensable tools in my arsenal.1 And one that I’ve grown increasingly fond of in recent years is SoundSource, which has just gotten a massive upgrade in…

This week’s episode, like every week’s episode, features three Apple fellows with a decidedly lower-case “f”.…

This week, on the 30-minute tech show that’s always there for you, can Instagram Reels take on TikTok? What are our favorite low-tech pastimes? What do we think of Disney’s Mulan release? What promised future tech did we think we’d have by now? Aleen…

With iOS 14 now humming along in beta form, many people (myself included) are excited about the possibilities of widgets. I’m excited to see what the developers of some of my favorite apps do with them over the coming months.…

With Tuesday’s announcement of the new 27-inch iMac, Apple seems to be clearing out some of the final major Intel Mac releases in its product pipeline.…

Apple’s automated tools mistakenly flagged developer Charlie Monroe’s account as malicious this week, wreaking havoc with his business:…

The summer gets a little more serious as we discuss Apple’s newest iMacs, Phil Schiller’s job transition, Apple emails disclosed by the House Antitrust Subcommittee, and Apple’s surprisingly strong financial results. Also, Jason launches his new “20…

Phil Schiller, former senior vice president of worldwide marketing and longtime staple of Apple events, has moved on to become an Apple Fellow, following in the footsteps of other notable Apple personnel including Guy Kawasaki, Bill Atkinson, and Steve…

At Apple’s developer conference in June, Tim Cook said that the company still had Macs with Intel processors in its pipeline. It must be rapidly filling with Macs with Apple silicon, but on Tuesday that pipeline disgorged a new Intel-based 27-inch iMac with…

Very cool look at the “user experience” of LEGO computer blocks that we’ve probably all seen since time immemorial. Design engineer George Cave runs down the various types of interface design used in the LEGO blocks and how they relate to real world UX:…

Over at Space Explored, Zac Hall writes about a glitch during the recent re-entry of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule that was mitigated thanks to some low- and high-tech Apple features:…

After Steve Jobs returned to Apple in the late ’90s, he famously simplified the company’s product line by drawing a four-product grid: consumer desktop (the bulbous, brightly colored G3 iMac), consumer laptop (then, just an empty space), professional…

I’ve been a professional observer of the Mac for three-quarters of its life. Sticking around that long—27 years—has given me a deeper perspective on its history. I remember the Mac before OS X, before the iMac, before PowerPC, even before System 7. We go…

If there’s a segment of Apple’s business that seems to fly in the face of the company’s philosophy—not just in terms of making a product that is substandard or lackluster—but in terms of actually being at odds with the way it otherwise does business,…

Reading the tea leaves from Apple’s financial results. More speculation about Apple silicon processors and future Mac roll-out plans. And Jason reveals the secret project he’s been working on this year.… Become a member to listen to our exclusive weekly…

Notoriously secret as Apple is, there are but a limited number of ways to discover what exactly the company is developing. Thanks to our current ongoing pandemic, my surefire proprietary method—rooting through the compost bins, discarded smoothie containers,…

One of these quarters, Apple’s going to announce financial results that don’t result in some sort of record. Perhaps as soon as next quarter, even. But on Thursday, Apple announced the results of its financial third quarter of 2020—and they were an…

On Apple’s quarterly call with analysts Thursday, Apple CFO Luca Maestri made it official — the new iPhones won’t ship until October this year.…

Here’s a complete transcript of Tim Cook and Luca Maestri’s conference call with analysts.…