This year’s WWDC is June 8-12. Usual online-only* format.

I have to say that I really dislike the merged “WW” letter thing they’ve used the last few years. It’s always looked weird and has officially outstayed its welcome. 😛

An iPhone screen displays an announcement for WWDC26 against a blurred multicolor background. The screen shows the text “WWDC26” in large letters, with “A week of technology, creativity, and community” written beneath it. The event dates are June 8–12, 2026. Additional details mention the reveal of the latest Apple tools and frameworks and offer video sessions hosted by Apple engineers and designers. The event is described as free and available online.

*There’s still a limited in-person watch party at Apple Park on June 8.

🆕📝 7 Things This Week [#183]

A sonic “whisper,” a custom-built accounting app, a plea for email copies of form submissions, a meditation on attention-stealing objects, a batch of Lil Finder Guy wallpapers, a real LinkedIn-speak translator, and a podcast on a floppy disk.

Sometimes the smaller mountains offer the perfect challenge. Taking @riverdalecs student up Mt. Van Hoevenberg was ideal with the windy and cold conditions. Each kid got to lead the pack, we learned about staying warm in frigid conditions, how to chop steps in icy bits, and experienced gale force winds at the summit — a full-on day for a “low” peak! Olympic-caliber crew; I’d give ‘em gold. 🏔️ 🥇

Group of six hikers pose energetically on a snowy mountain top holding trekking poles surrounded by snow-covered trees and a foggy mountainous background. A person wearing winter gear is using an ice axe to climb a frozen waterfall, with another climber observing beside them in a snowy forest setting. Four people stand in snowfall wearing winter gear smiling and gesturing outside a building labeled “MT VAN HOEVEN” with snow-covered structures in the background.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! ☘️🍻

Two people are smiling at a wooden table in a cozy restaurant. One holds a glass with a straw. In the background, other diners sit beneath wall-mounted TV screens.

I’ve been holding out from updating to macOS Tahoe (and iPadOS 26), but they’ve finally got me. Guess what needs the latest update to run all the Studio Display XDR’s features. 🙄 Sorry MacBook Air, I spared you for six months.

I was feeling a little guilty about this splurge until I opened the box. Goddamn, this thing is gorgeous. Very happy to have it for my next decade-plus of display needs. 😍

And thrilled to get rid of the cheap-ass Dell monitor I’ve had since 2017 that’s been flickering for years.

Three-panel image showing the unboxing and setup of a Studio Display XDR. Left panel: A large cardboard box on a wooden floor with two dogs nearby. Middle panel: The Studio Display XDR box positioned in a room, next to a desk and chair. Right panel: The Studio Display XDR set up on a desk with a colorful mouse pad, a keyboard, and additional items like a small clock and a speaker.

Ryan Christoffel, 9to5mac.com: ‘tvOS 26.4 adds powerful new ‘Genius’ feature for Apple TV 4K’

What’s especially helpful is that as you navigate through each recommendation, you’ll see a new row of related titles appear underneath it. So you’re not limited to just the initial batch of recommendations—rather, each featured title unlocks another layer of title-specific recommendations.

Looks pretty nice and easy to understand.

She did it! Three years in the making and after thwarted winter attempts, Karen summited Catamount Mountain to complete her winter round of the @lakeplacid9er challenge! 🥳 🏔️ Fresh snow helped a ton to cover the glare ice underneath, but our spikes were definitely needed from bottom to top. We lucked out with great views, sun, and no wind! The clouds held off until we were descending. Well done, Karen, your joyful outlook made the day great!

Snow-covered rocks form a rugged cliff face bordered by trees under a clear sky suggesting a mountainous winter landscape. A person stands on a snowy mountain ledge smiling in winter gear with snowy trees below and forested mountains in the background under a bright sky. Snow covers the ground and trees, creating a serene winter scene on a mountain slope surrounded by forested hills under a clear blue sky. Animal tracks crossing fresh snow beside thin branches and trees in a forested area. A person holds a sign reading Catamount Mountain 3173 ft #9/9 LP Winter on a snowy mountaintop with trekking poles surrounded by snow-covered trees and distant mountain peaks. Two people are on a snowy mountain one smiling and giving a thumbs-up another holding a sign reading Catamount Mountain 3173 ft 109 LP HMK surrounded by snow and trees. Snow-capped mountain peaks rise serenely under a cloudy sky surrounded by evergreen trees dusted with snow in a tranquil winter landscape. Snow-dusted evergreen trees stand in the foreground overlooking a vast valley and distant rolling hills under a cloudy sky in a winter landscape. Two people smiling stand on a snowy trail surrounded by trees while wearing backpacks and winter gear. The woman wears a pink hat with text Stewart’s Shops.

God help me, I’ve downloaded Xcode and AI-coded myself into an app that actually runs. I didn’t need another project, but this one’s been on my mind for years. 🤖👨‍💻

Manton Reece: ‘Inkwell for Mac’

Last week we shipped Inkwell, our new feed reader for Micro.blog. Today I’m releasing a native Mac app for Inkwell.

I’ve been having fun beta testing this app for Manton. It’s pretty cool when services have both a web app and a native app. Users can use whichever they prefer!

Terry Godier: ‘The Last Quiet Thing’

The tiredness is not a character flaw. The guilt, the sense that you should be handling all of this better, more gracefully, with less friction, that guilt was manufactured. It was placed inside you by an industry that profits from your participation and a wellness culture that profits from your shame.

Both need you to believe the problem is you.

It isn’t.

Evocative writing and superb web design. Definitely read this one on Terry’s website.

(Via Daring Fireball)

The Verge’s review of the M5 MacBook Air offers a great close-up side-by-side view of the Neo’s and Air’s chassis. I quite like the Neo’s more rounded lid compared the Air’s flattened one. 👌

Side-by-side comparison of two laptops in three different views. The first image displays the closed laptops from the side, showing their thickness and ports. The second image shows them open, viewed from the hinge, highlighting the slim design and profiles. The third image is a further pulled-back perspective of the open laptops, emphasizing their screens and keyboards. One laptop is pink, and the other is blue-gray, both placed on a neutral-colored surface with a plain background.

David Sparks is teasing something interesting: ‘Half Your Day Isn’t Your Job’

We sit down intending to do meaningful work and spend the first hour sorting email. We open our task manager and burn twenty minutes reorganizing instead of doing. We have systems. Maybe several. None of them talk to each other, and all of them need feeding.

It’s not the work. It’s the work around the work. I call it the donkey work.

I’ve been building something to fix this. It’s a method for using AI to handle the donkey work so you have more time for everything else. I’ll tell you all about it Tuesday.

Nick Heer has identified a through line of Meta’s corporate strategy:

I do not know what is the right number of staff to run Meta’s operations but, whatever it is, there has to be a better way of figuring it out than by luring tens of thousands of people to work for you with promises of a huge salary and benefits, then upending their lives some time later.

Unfortunately, I feel confident that we’ll continue to see this habit each time Zuckerberg loses interest in his latest trendy obsession. At this point, it’s become company culture.

Matt Birchler explains how iOS and iPadOS app binaries are one and the same, so “running an iPad app” is really just a matter of layout. He posits that Mark Gurman’s claim that the folding phone won’t run iPad apps is perhaps misguided:

My expectation is that for apps like mine, which run on the iPhone and iPad, they will run like normal when on the outer screen, as well as when they’re in split view on the internal screen. They will run with their “iPad layout” when running on the internal screen at full screen.

I hope @matt_birchler@mastodon.social’s right.

Toni Schneider: ‘Impressions from my first week at Bluesky’

When people tell me, “I love Bluesky, and I’m glad you’re involved,” I sometimes answer, “I love it too—and did you know that Bluesky is one app of many in a network called the Atmosphere?” This has gotten me 100% blank stares. But yes, it’s true. There are lots of other apps in the Atmosphere. Expect me to talk a lot more about that in the coming weeks and months.

Schneider was brought it as interim CEO when Jay Grabber moved into the CIO role. Sounds like she’s happier there.

Is ‘Atmosphere’ a better term than ‘Fediverse’? Maybe!

Price as marketing. AirPods Max being more expensive than the MacBook Neo (for education) is bold.

The hilarious part of AirPods Max 2 is they don't get an education discount. So if you're a student, you can get a MacBook Neo for $50 LESS

‘Apple introduces AirPods Max 2’

Apple today announced AirPods Max 2, bringing even better Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), elevated sound quality, and intelligent features to the iconic over-ear design. Powered by H2, features like Adaptive Audio, Conversation Awareness, Voice Isolation, and Live Translation come to AirPods Max for the first time.

The H2 chip finally brings AirPods Max’s feature set in line with the rest of the AirPods lineup. A ‘speed bump’ that probably doesn’t justify calling it “2” as it doesn’t update the design or address the Max’s many other issues. Same high price too.

Stephen Robles laments the tough choices to be made to adopt Apple’s new video podcasts format. There are limitations that affect audio-only listeners, and Apple’s pushing the term “podcast” out in favor of “show”:

But to adopt HLS video in Apple Podcasts feels like a turn away from the kind of podcasting I’ve loved for 20+ years. Of course people will still listen, whether it’s during a commute, going for a walk, or doing the laundry. But the switch from audio-first to video-first feels like podcasting as a word, as a medium, may be changing forever.

As an audio podcast guy, I’m vaguely worried.

😊 Thanks so much for the kind words, @anthony_bonacio. Adventuring with you and @bonacio_th is always a blast!

A five-star review by Anthony Bonacio describes exceptional guiding by Jarrod for ice climbing in the Adirondacks. The reviewer praises his professionalism and knowledge of backcountry, recommending him for guided hikes.

Dunno when this ‘Sync to iCloud’ option was added to the Accessibility settings in iOS, but it’s a fantastic addition. Trying to keep these settings in sync across devices has been a real pain.

The image shows a smartphone screen displaying the “Share Accessibility Settings” menu. The interface includes an option for “Share Accessibility Settings” with descriptive text explaining that it allows temporarily transferring accessibility settings to another device. Below, there is a toggle switch labeled “Sync to iCloud” that is turned on, with an explanation that enabling this syncs settings across devices signed into the same Apple account. The background is a gradient of pink, orange, and purple colors.

Kudos to Anthony and Alex who seized the day to get in a session of ice climbing when we feared the season may be over. Crystal Ice Tower and Harlot were both in excellent shape, and we had a ton of fun on them. Even some new formations I’ve never seen on Harlot that I just had to try!

Climber ascends icy waterfall using crampons and ice axe wearing a brown jacket and helmet with a camera in a snowy mountainous environment. A person climbs a frozen ice formation using ice climbing gear in a snow-covered forest with bare trees and cloudy sky overhead. Climber ascending icy cliff face secured with a green rope surrounded by sparse snow-covered trees on a cloudy day. A person with a backpack uses trekking poles to navigate a steep snowy hillside surrounded by trees in a wintry forest. The sky is overcast, suggesting a cold, cloudy day. Snow covers a flat landscape with scattered tree stumps and dry grass surrounded by a dense forest at the base of misty mountains under an overcast sky. A climber ascends a frozen waterfall with ice axes and crampons amidst a snow-dusted, tree-lined landscape. A person climbs a steep frozen ice wall using climbing gear on a snowy day surrounded by leafless trees. Three people dressed in outdoor gear smile at the camera while standing on a snowy roadside with a forested hillside in the background.

I can’t stop thinking about the MacBook Neo in regards to its power performance. I come back to the fact that when the M1 MacBook Air debuted, @marcoarment@mastodon.social happily swapped a lot of computing to it from his iMac Pro. The A18 Pro-powered Neo is at least as good as the M1. So customers buying the Neo are getting a computer that can outperform pro-level Macs from just a few years ago. It’s a good Mac, full stop.

David Sparks: ‘Apple Should Buy Anthropic (But Likely Won’t)’

There’s also an ideological alignment. Anthropic has taken a principled stance on AI safety and responsible development. Apple has always positioned itself as the company that cares about how technology affects people. Those values aren’t identical, but they rhyme.

Sparks sees alignment, whereas I see entanglement. It’s the not the $380 billion valuation that’s the deal-breaker, it’s the myriad of contracts and programs that Anthropic is involved with. Anthropic said no to the Pentagon. Apple would have rolled over.

I was catching up with my buddy, @rsilvernail, who’s the tech director for a school system in Michigan. We got to chatting about the MacBook Neo. He’s seriously considering it to replace Chromebooks in his schools. Even with AppleCare, the cost’d be comparable — but with way less maintenance! 😯