I enjoyed Friday’s New York Times piece by Dan Wang about all the impacts, from the geopolitical to the personal, of Apple’s chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor building fabs in Arizona as an attempt to boost American manufacturing capability and reduce risk of a future Chinese attack on Taiwan:

In Arizona, I saw how Taiwanese engineers are training American workers to build some of the most complex technologies in the world.

Cory Doctorow on what builds a writer:

The point of a writing workshop isn’t merely to make your stories better – it’s to make you better at writing stories.

For a company that’s poised at the cutting edge and focused on innovation, Apple can be quite conservative. It’s a very measure-twice-cut-once kind of company.…

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.…

The iPod is long gone now, but it was the product that turned around Apple’s fortunes, got PC users to take the Apple brand seriously, established Apple as a player in mobile devices, and went on to revolutionize the music industry and lay the groundwork for the iPhone.…

To honor the iPod, Apple has placed a first-generation iPod (loaded with music… previews!) on its “page not found” page.

It’s a thorough emulation, right down to the era-specific preloaded music and the “secret” breakout game.…

We drove down the freeway from San Francisco to Cupertino with a pretty good idea of what Apple would be announcing, but with no idea how it would transform Apple forever.…

As someone who both maintains their own Linux server and dabbles in web development¹, I’d always noticed the update repository for PHP was surprisingly just called ppa:ondrej/php and wondered why exactly that was.…

This week, the invitations went out¹ for an Apple “experience” next Wednesday in Los Angeles, which indicates a major set of product announcements. One of those rumored products is a new iPad mini with an OLED screen, A20 chip, and improved speakers.…

The iPhone Duo reviews are in, the internet has problems and X still sucks.…

Lex Friedman has done a very nice job of summarizing the first wave of embargoed iPhone Duo reviews:

The iPhone Duo reviews landed, and I read a slew of them.

Our imaginary reviews of the iPhone Duo, how we stay open-minded and curious instead of becoming the “Old Man Yells at Cloud” meme, our current read-it-later methods, and pouring one out for the iPod and MP3 players.…

Guiding Apple through its comeback, Steve Jobs comes up with a clever strategy to make the Mac the center of everyone’s digital life. The problem is, he’s failed to integrate music into the mix—and Apple will have to scramble to catch up.…

As the song goes, we all need a little help from our friends. And that applies to apps for our Macs and iPhones as well.

Fortunately, the apps in the spotlight this week all aim to lend a helping hand, whether it’s tracking down files to free up space on your devices, expanding text or storing clippings to save time or even doing things with the photos and screenshots you’ve accrued over the years.…

Just as we’re busy pondering the HomeView and preparing for the iPhone Duo launch, word arrives of another Apple event on the horizon! Plus, Apple and Meta bond over local AI.…

One of the most bizarre and sometimes useful features added in macOS 27 Golden Gate is contextual naming in the Finder, as well as other places where a name for a file is useful, using Apple Intelligence.…

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.…

Apple’s new HomeView sure seems like a good fit for the kitchen, which is why the company’s press releases, demos, and ads seem to lean into the idea that you’ll be cooking with the little guy.…

Following up on my discussion of the new $299 Apple TV 4K pricing, here’s Glenn Fleishman with a helpful chart and table:

I wondered what the entry-level, initial price of each Apple TV box at introduction was, from the March 2007 original to the Apple TV 4K (4th generation) announced October 13, 2026, adjusted for inflation.

The new edition of my ebook about Apple’s Photos app is out now:

Get to know Apple’s Photos app and how best to use it to import, manage, edit, sync, and share your photos in macOS 27 Golden Gate and iOS 27/iPadOS 27!

This summer, I stood up for the Apple TV hardware in the face of one analyst who said that it was “essentially dead” because nobody would spend $200 on a streaming device.…

It was iPhone Duo preorder day, if you didn’t know. If you weren’t up at 5 a.m. Pacific like I was. Like so many of us were.…

The best writer on the smart home beat today is The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, who I think has the best take on the HomeView I’ve seen so far:

HomeView’s simplicity may put off hardcore home automation enthusiasts, but I’d argue it’s perfect for their long-suffering spouses.

Our thoughts on the new HomeView and its confusing pricing, whether we’re using AI agents like Meta’s Muse or OpenAI’s Dots, how we feel about passkeys, and if we’d ever use an Apple Pencil with an iPhone Fold.…

This week we talk about Apple’s new devices and absolutely no Apple blogger drama whatsoever.…

Apple stuffs a lot of different kinds of tasks into Messages. It’s a junk drawer for communications with other people. Send photos? Sure. Set up a safety partner for when you are going somewhere?…

I was curious about the limitations of the new Siri Remote‘s Precision Finding feature, which requires an iPhone 17 generation or newer. Earlier iPhones have Apple’s latest ultra wideband chip, which is what Find My generally uses, so why wouldn’t they be compatible?…

Two decades after the Walkman had revolutionized personal audio, a new compressed digital audio format emerged that would redefine how we listen to music. We kick off our series about the origin of Apple’s hit MP3 player, the iPod.…

Apple’s new HomeView device doesn’t have an App Store, but it does have an app story, of a sort.…

We break down Apple’s big home announcements, including the new HomeView, a collection of smart home products, a new HomePod Mini, and the new (and surprisingly expensive) Apple TV 4K.…