Wes Davis at The Verge tallies up his Apple product usage, comparing to Tim Cook’s routine:

Final count: 15 devices, nine services, 26 apps, and eight accessories.

Describing all of that made me feel like I’ve stared into the abyss only to find it staring back at me. But it still leaves out countless other Apple apps, non-Pro iPads, the iMac, and the Mac Pro. How would someone, even the CEO of Apple, fit those in?

I rarely stop to consider just how many Apple devices and services augment my daily life. It’s a high number, to be sure, but I’m not sad about it.

Related, you can call me old-fashioned, but I much prefer hyperlinks to have underlines regardless of the rest of their style. When they’re only differentiated by color, you can’t tell when adjacent words have different links! Who’s with me?

Two side-by-side screenshots display text from a website discussing an opinion piece about Donald Trump. Key hyperlinked words are highlighted.

Jason Kottke, maker of “fine hypertext products”, points out how hyperlinks bring the receipts:

What makes this piece so effective is its plain language and its information density. This density is a real strength of hypertext that is often overlooked and taken for granted. Only 110 words in that paragraph but it contains 27 links to other NYT opinion pieces published over the last several months that expand on each linked statement or argument. If you were inclined to follow these links, you could spend hours reading about how unfit Trump is for office.

It struck me reading that piece too.

Happy to see The New York Times Editorial Board’s succinct urging to vote against a Trump presidency:

Mr. Trump’s corruption and lawlessness go beyond elections: It’s his whole ethos. He lies without limit. If he’s re-elected, the G.O.P. won’t restrain him. Mr. Trump will use the government to go after opponents. He will pursue a cruel policy of mass deportations. He will wreak havoc on the poor, the middle class and employers. Another Trump term will damage the climate, shatter alliances and strengthen autocrats. Americans should demand better. Vote.

They endorsed Harris in September. 🇺🇸

Find My Gains Option to Share Lost Item Location With an ‘Airline or Trusted Person’ in iOS 18.2 // Juli Clover // macrumors.com

Choosing the Share Item Location option creates a link that allows someone to see the location of a lost item when they open the link. The link can be opened on a non-Apple device, so people without an iPhone or Mac can help you find something that’s lost. Find My‌ links that you share expire after a week and you can see how many people visited the link.

It remains to be seen if an airline employee will do anything with that link to try to find your lost luggage.

🔗 Apple removed iMac option to buy color-matched trackpad and mouse together // Ryan Christoffel // 9to5mac.com

This means that if you want a trio of color-matched Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad, you’re simply out of luck.

Buying a Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad separately will limit you to the standard black and white color options. Thus, your accessories won’t match.

Boo! 👎

👀 Amazon’s got the M2 MacBook Air with the new 16GB RAM and 256GB storage standard at $200 off (down to $799). That’s quite the deal. (Via MacRumors)

Just ran across this Verge article from October 2023 in my reading queue:

SpaceX has published a new webpage to promote its upcoming “Starlink Direct to Cell” service that plans to offer cellular connectivity to “existing LTE phones” via satellite. The website, which PCMag reports went live earlier this week, notes that the service will initially be limited to texting services in 2024, with voice and data functionality following in 2025, alongside support for IoT devices.

This would be a big leap for connectivity, but 2024 is running out. Beware Musk timelines. ⏳

📺 Agatha All Along was really good (if not great) and I’m excited to see where they go with the story next.

Poster featuring several characters with a woman in the center gesturing dramatically, surrounded by a mystical forest. Text reads: “Agatha All Along, 2024 - Jac Schaeffer. While I wouldn’t set it on the same pedestal as WandaVision and Loki, as others have, this was a really good show! Each character was dynamic and entertaining. And though the story meandered—almost getting lost—I was genuinely surprised by some of the twists. Great music choices, fantastic sets, some new ground explored for Marvel—it’s worth watching.” Rating: 👍

🍿 Just Watched: The Truman Show

Mosaic poster of a smiling man’s face composed of smaller images. Text: “The Truman Show, 1998 - Peter Weir.” Review: “A fun one that’s also a thinker. I’ve always enjoyed Jim Carrey and this role as Truman played to his strengths. The idea that someone could have their whole life livestreamed to the entire world may have seemed outlandish in 1998, but it’s not that far off from reality for today’s influencers. And yet, it’s wild to think that only one person in the film could see the inhumanity of The Truman Show and decide to act upon it.” Rating: 👍.

Matt Birchler, in a member post, points out that Call of Duty has both massive computing requirements and a complex interface, and still “normal” folks figure it out just fine:

None of this is to say that good user interfaces don’t matter, of course they do. I do think it’s a good reminder of two things:

  1. The “average user” is more capable than we give them credit for
  2. People will tolerate a bad UI if they enjoy the product as a whole

A good reminder for all of us pontificating about the average user.

🍿 Just watched: BlackBerry

Two men stand with a smartphone drawing in front, symbolizing power, against a dark backdrop. Review of BlackBery, a 2023 film directed by Matt Johnson. Review text: “I didn’t know much about the history of RIM or BlackBerry, and I’m still not sure I know much of the truth. But it was an exciting way to look back at the launch of the smartphone era, and how even a single personality can infect a team’s atmosphere. Glenn Howerton played the hell out of his role!"

🍿 Watched: Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

Poster of two people in colorful costumes standing closely, with text describing “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga”, a 2020 film directed by David Dobkin. Review text: “Sometimes a silly movie is just what the doctor ordered. I could predict all the plot points with ease, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the comedy antics. Pretty good singing, too!” Rates 👍.

Dan Moren’s The Back Page column this month, ‘Tim Cook’s busy schedule’, is worth the Six Colors membership price all on its own:

4:30pm: Afternoon stroll to close rings and use iPhone 16 Pro to track down AirTag that Phil Schiller hides daily on Apple Park campus. […]

11pm: Wake from dead of sleep to fumble for bedside Mac Studio and Pro Display XDR. Check email. Breathe sigh of relief and go back to sleep.

🤣🤣🤣

Joe Rosensteel masters the sub-tweet with this post throwing shade at Apple’s rollout strategy for Apple Intelligence, which is to get everyone talking about the next upcoming beta features just as the current stuff gets released.

‘The Pre-Taped iOS Call-In Show’:

Okay, okay, there you go. That’s boo-boo number one. If you wanted to talk about iOS 18.1, you should have called last week during the iOS 18.0 show. We’re talking about iOS 18.2 now. If you see me talking about the genmoji and Image Playgrounds waitlist then it’s too late to talk about those. We’ve moved on.

Chef’s Kiss

🔗 M4 Pro Chip Benchmark Results Reveal an Extremely Impressive Performance Feat // macrumors.com

What this means is that you can now purchase a Mac mini with a 14-core M4 Pro for $1,599 in the U.S. and get similar to faster peak performance than a Mac Studio with the 24-core M2 Ultra, a configuration that starts at $3,999.

As for year-over-year performance improvements, the M4 Pro is up to 45% faster than the highest-end M3 Pro chip in terms of multi-core CPU performance, based on the Geekbench 6 results that are available so far.

Not bad when that beats the fastest chip in a Mac Pro, too.

I totally missed the 2-minute sketch at the end of today’s MacBook Pro video. So worth watching. 😆

Greg Morris on modern apps:

If I am a power user, I might also demand Shortcuts support, Siri integration and even a fancy API if the app calls for it. There are widgets to think about, live activities and in the near future, Apple Intelligence integration. Great apps don’t just exist as a square on your Home Screen, they extend into numerous areas and through different interaction methods. We expect them to be available everywhere we are, and still moan because the developer wants to make an income from their work. Worth bearing in mind next time an app you love asks you for a contribution.

🍿 Watched: Memento (2000) directed by Christopher Nolan 👍👍

It’d been a while since I saw this, and I got my wife to view it with me. Doing so while high really kept things interesting! We love a good time-based plot device.

Imagine being in a gym where accidents happen—maybe a stray elbow here, a bump there. Aurelius notes that in these moments, we don’t hold grudges; we simply acknowledge the mishap as part of the process and remain vigilant without bearing ill will. He suggests taking this approach into our everyday lives, dealing with emotional and social bumps with the same nonchalance. […] In the close quarters of life, just like in a gym, people might ‘collide’ with us unintentionally. According to Aurelius, we should view these incidents as neutral events, not personal attacks.

Is this the most expensive that you’ve ever been able to price out a Mac mini? $4699 for the works.

Mac mini displayed with detailed specifications: Apple M4 Pro chip, 14-core CPU, 20-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 64GB memory, 8TB SSD, 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Costs $4,699 or $391.58/month.

I’d both love and hate an M4 MacBook Air announced tomorrow. Love because I’m pretty sure that’s going to be my next computer as I slim down to a MacBook Air/iPad mini/iPhone setup. Hate because I was expecting it in the spring and need time to save up! 😂

Going for the hat trick tomorrow. M4 Pro/Max MacBook Pros, with a wild card M4 MacBook Air possible 👀

✅ Monday: M4 iMac and iOS 18.1
✅ Tuesday: M4 Mac mini
⬜️ Wednesday: M4 Pro/Max MBP

RE: https://www.threads.net/@stephenrobles/post/DBrMPpSxTRJ

Mac Week Day 2: It’s Mac mini’s turn with its third-ever redesign! Now it looks even more like Mac Studio’s little brother, with some serious performance to match. 🧵

A silver Mac Mini computer is shown from the front with USB-C ports, under large text reading “Mac mini.” Below, colorful text states, “Hello, Apple Intelligence.”

Nick Heer, pxlnv.com:

The rollout of Apple Intelligence is uncharacteristically piecemeal and messy. Apple did not promise a big Siri overhaul in this version of iOS 18.1. But by giving it a new design, Apple communicates something is different. It is not — at least, not yet. Maybe it will be one day. Nothing about Siri’s state over the past decade-plus gives me hope that it will, however. I have barely noticed improvements in the things Apple says it should do better in iOS 18.1, like preserving context and changing my mind mid-dictation.

Siri remains software I distrust.

John Voorhees tested the AirPods Pro 2’s new Hearing Aid feature and was thoroughly impressed:

My brief experience with hearing assistance has been wild and surprising in a very good way. I’m fortunate that my hearing loss is mild. At the same time, though, the difference from using hearing assistance is so noticeable that I don’t want to take my AirPods out of my ears. I’m sure the novelty of hearing assistance will wear off and become the ‘new normal,’ but I won’t forget the experience of those first hours using it. It was remarkable.

The “I’ll probably never need it” features stack up.