[[stephen]] Even though the first Apple silicon Macs have been out for a while now, I can tell you confidently that I was in love with them from the day my wife’s M1-powered MacBook Air showed up, followed shortly by my unplanned purchase: an M1 MacBook Pro. Both machines strike a balance between performance and...

[[stephen]] By all accounts, the 4th-generation iPad Air is a fantastic tablet. It brings much of what makes the iPad Pro great down to a more approachable price point, retaining compatibility with the Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil 2 and introducing Apple’s new industrial design and even USB-C to the middle of the iPad lineup....

[[stephen]] Over the last six months, many people have found their work lives disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, suddenly having to abandon their offices or workplaces, trading in a commute for a laptop on the kitchen table. This has changed the context in which many Macs are used. Instead of having that MacBook Air hooked...

[[stephen]] There’s a lot of change coming for the Mac over the next few years, but for most users, the first taste of this is the new UI that is shipping with Big Sur. You may look at screenshots of Big Sur and think that Apple has put Aqua out to pasture, replacing it with...

[[stephen]] The last few releases of macOS have brought a new file system, Dark Mode, more integration with iCloud, the cleaning house of 32-bit APIs, and a massive change to the subsystems that keep Mac users (and their data) safe. The yearly cycle the Mac has been on since the release of Mac OS X...

[[stephen]] A couple years into covering Apple history, I realized that I needed a system to store sources for research and reference. For a long time, I stored images, PDFs, text files, and more in a series of nested Dropbox folders. This fell apart pretty quickly, and I’d often be searching in Finder for things...

[[stephen]] In the wake of current events, many people are finding themselves working from home for the first time. This brings a lot of adjustments, but there are some macOS applications and features that can make this easier to manage. Sidecar is Catalina’s new feature to use an iPad as a second display for your...

[[stephen]] With the COVID-19 virus spreading in more and more countries, the tech industry is feeling the effects. Apple has revised its guidance for the next quarter, citing both manufacturing and sales slowdowns in China. Mobile World Congress was cancelled and more bad news is sure to come. All of this has me thinking about...

[[stephen]] Earlier this month, Sam Gold launched The Apple Archive, a wide-ranging collection of Apple marketing materials and keynote videos. Less than two weeks after its launch, the videos Gold had uploaded to a private Vimeo account were taken down at the request of Apple. As of this writing, the images on the website are...