Moltz is tired of renting and Lex must be tired of walking.…

For the most part, I’m going to focus on Mac apps with these columns, because that’s where the action seems to be these days.…

I’ve been thinking about soap again.

Back in February I wrote about an Apple-related revelation I had while washing my hands on vacation:

We stayed at a nice hotel rather than the less-nice-but-cheaper VRBO condo rental we usually do.

It’s a Summer of Fun takeover! Jason asks Myke about the state of his current workflows, and we both highlight our current Macs and current favorite Mac utilities.…

Several years ago, Apple began hiding disk partitions and volumes on the startup drive. The first was a secret volume with a tiny operating system on it that would let you boot from it, after which you could restore from a Time Machine backup, run First Aid in Disk Utility, or reinstall Mac OS X or macOS.…

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 ad and tracker blocker for your iPhone, iPad and Mac.…

Apple Newsroom:

Apple and Ford today announced that Apple Maps will be integrated directly into Ford’s upcoming Universal Electric Vehicle (UEV) Platform through Apple’s new MapKit for Automotive SDK.

How much waterproofing matters in our tech and our riskiest water moments, the last time we changed our minds about a technology, how we buy our phones and thoughts on upgrade programs, and the recent tech purchases we feel guilty about.…

Dan starts drinking early, James gets bad vibes and Moltz screams for ice cream.…

The market for small e-readers has been booming lately. Earlier this year, Jason took a look at the Xteink X4, a pint-sized reading device that was about as light and small as they come.…

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple is set to announce a new “Apple Upgrade” program (paywalled) next week to replace both its existing financing offerings and the iPhone Upgrade program.…

The season finale of Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey’s excellent Origin Story podcast is about the Luddites, and why the name doesn’t mean what you think it means.…

While OpenAI readies a familar-sounding smart speaker, Jason and Myke break down the public betas for macOS, iOS, and watchOS, including Siri AI and new Photos features.…

I dispense what might be called valuable insight to my friends, as well as in this public forum. My friends know the danger: they might become the topic of a column, which is true for my buddy Jeff, who left a bag containing his passport behind at a hotel.…

Do you want an all-in-one solution to block ads, trackers and annoyances across all your Apple devices?

Then download Magic Lasso Adblock – the ad blocker designed for you.…

Just ahead of WWDC 2026, Jason Snell noted that he gets a lot of pitches about Mac apps, attributing the sudden boom in macOS offerings to vibe coding aided by artificial intelligence.…

Writing at The New York Times, tech reporter Kashmir Hill tells the strange story (NYT gift link) of coming across an AI-generated biography of herself on Amazon.…

Analyst Dan Rayburn, on (sigh) LinkedIn:

Going forward, Apple TV hardware is now essentially dead. Last month, Apple raised the price of its Apple TV 4K Wi-Fi (64GB) from $129 to $199, while the Apple TV 4K Wi-Fi + Ethernet (128GB) now costs $249, up from $169.

Apple’s public betas, how we read for pleasure, whether we have multicolored smart lighting, and digital disaster preparedness.…

Guy meets someone in the woods, Moltz makes a proposal and Dan finds books frustrating.…

Inside Apple’s OpenAI lawsuit: How do trade secrets conflict with expert knowlege, was there a concerted effort to steal secret documents to kickstart OpenAI hardware, and how does Apple’s own vulnerability inform the whole situation?…

By now you’ve probably heard the promise of iOS 27: it’s a Snow Leopard-like year where Apple spent a lot of time not on big marquee features, but on smaller fixes and enhancements throughout the operating system.…

Let’s just get this out of the way: I liked macOS 26 Tahoe. I liked it because it marked the first time in years where Apple seemed to embrace the fact that Mac users deserve productivity improvements, not just syncing up with whatever (often useful, yes) new features were being introduced to iOS.…

I had a simple task that involved Apple Home. If you use Apple Home, you know what happened next. Tears, frustration, the arrival of batteries, paperclips pushed into hard-to-reach holes, many online searches, and—if you are lucky, as I was—success.…

Back in May, OpenAI was rattling its saber about thinking about talking to lawyers about possibly considering a lawsuit against Apple for not treating it right when it came to ChatGPT integration.…

If you’ve ever wondered why your data transfers to external drives aren’t going as fast as you’d like, or a certain peripheral just isn’t working, you could probably use WhatCable, a helpful little app from developer Darryl Morley.…

Jeremy White of Wired has a great tip that also serves as a reminder that amazing things can be found in accessibility settings:

Surely there must be a way to set up an iPhone as the perfect dumb phone for children—one with access to only the apps you deem appropriate, no internet browser, but with all-important tracking and navigation abilities—without having to pay another company to make it work?

Physical vs. digital media and how we organize it, our system for the digital “deal with it later” pile, what we do with old hardware, and iPhone ergonomics.…

This week Lex has audio issues, Dan wants to unload some old hardware and Moltz is tired of fireworks.…

Apple seeks RAM in all the wrong places, Jason has two tangents about FileMaker, and we deal with a large load of somewhat puzzling rumors and legal cases.…