iPhone Duo Featured

First But Flawed is Fine! Late But Great is Also Fine!

Greetings from this fully armed and operational battle station for Apple Event Punditry. Apple Events are almost always a three-screen situation. One is for video, one is a collage of notes and reference materials, and the MacBook’s built-in display is Center Stage, i.e., “where the magic

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It's Event Day

iPhone Ultra Featured

Things I'm wondering about the upcoming iPhone Ultra

Some of these questions will be answered by 3 PM Eastern Time on September 9. Others will have to wait until weeks after the iPholde ships. (I will hold on to the name "iPholde" until Apple gets a court order that forbids me, and until I've

Commotion Of Links

Your Commotion of Apple News Links for the week ending September 1, 2026

Corporate Responsibility

She Made Harry Eat…

So. Not for the first time, Trump has decided that he has an issue with a body of water’s name that had remained peacefully undisputed for centuries, and he’s changed it by fiat. He’s gone and done this despite the precedent for such a White House order

Pixel 11 Pro Featured

All right: I pre-ordered a Pixel 11, goddamnit

…And I was filled with doubts, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the phone itself. I shall explain. This is a year when I’ve observed the major phone launch events with the eye of a consumer as well as that of a tech pundit. My Pixel

Commotion Of Links

Your Commotion of Apple News Links for the week ending July 28, 2026

Commotion Of Links

Your Commotion of Apple News Links for the week ending July 21, 2026

Commotion Of Links

Your Commotion of Apple News Links for the week ending July 7, 2026

Productivity

Making A Custom Floating Scriptable Button Panel Using A Mac Accessibility Feature

Jeremy White at WIRED posted a handy tip the other day. iOS contains an Accessibility feature that replaces the iPhone’s stock Springboard launcher with a simple grid of big app icons. Assistive Access was introduced in iOS 17. It strips out widgets and custom icon layouts in favor of

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Is This A Nerd Which I See Before Me?

Here's one of my favorite tee shirts. It's one of the all-stars of my regular laundry rotation. It's got authenticity and smart, classic style. It's also black, which hides stains very well. The color hides my gut less successfully, but better

Commotion Of Links

Your Commotion of Apple News Links for the week ending June 30, 2026

Commotion Of Links

Your Commotion of Apple News Links for the week ending on June 23, 2026

Commotion Of Links

Your Commotion of Apple News Links for the week ending June 16, 2026

Augmented Reality Featured

AR Glasses, Missed Buses, And Uncanny Valleys

Have you ever been in a city, kind of late at night, and you're waiting at a bus stop or a subway platform for your ride home? And maybe you're not 100% familiar with the transportation system and maybe you're a little drunk on

Commotion Of Links

Your Commotion of Apple News Links for the week ending June 9, 2026

WWDC

Did Apple tease the iPholde during the WWDC keynote?

Good afternoon, fellow sensation-seekers! I've got a couple of WWDC pieces here on the workbench alongside the big breakdown to come (either "the large examination of the keynote and other announcements, which will require some fact-checking and Deeper Thought" or "my mental and

WWDC

WWDC 2026: Filling In The Puzzle (Preview)

My “games” metaphor for WWDC is a jigsaw puzzle, not the traditional bingo card or the modern hotness of a draft. I’m interested in how Apple’s announcements this year will fill in parts of the big picture that I can only really guess at right now. I hope

WWDC Featured

WWDC: It’s Showtime!

The WWDC keynote is happening less than 24 hours after the Tony Awards. I like this kind of synchronicity. It implies a nonzero chance that God (or whatever) agrees with me that these annual developer keynotes should be viewed through the lens of Showbiz. Historically, the fates of many nominated

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48 hours (-ish) later…

…and the new site is running swimmingly. I've been too busy since the Hard Launch to check the stats. But when I published the weekly Commotion of Apple News Links, Ghost (as usual) confirmed that it had been posted on the site and emailed to [X]-many members.

Commotion Of Links

Your Commotion of Apple News Links for the week ending June 2, 2026

It's the week of calm before WWDC. If I had a wicker chair in need of recaning, this would be a good time to tackle that project. Actually, I do. But I don't know how to recane a chair. I checked out a couple of YouTube

Yellowtext

Welcome, IBM. Seriously.

And by "IBM," I mean, "the subset of the general public that has Internet access and a device capable of running a somewhat modern web browser." Internet Brothers-Sisters-And-Nonbinaries (Multitudes)? Well. Whatever, I've decided that it's time to end the

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Sitrep!

Commotion Of Links

Your Commotion of Apple News for the week ending Tuesday, May 26 2026

Apple Featured

The time David Letterman licked my iPad (Saying goodbye to Late Show on CBS)

I haven’t seen the final episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. I couldn’t watch it when it aired because at this point I’ve forgotten how live television even works. I do have a dim recollection of having once agreed to schedule my life around being