Very often in life, we see things like products, athletic careers and even relationships end way later than they should. When this happens, sometimes the end goes unnoticed and with little fanfare.
Occasionally, things end on a high note, like when an athlete announces their retirement after winning a championship or a band calls it quits after a massive album and tour.
In the world of Apple products, the iPod mini is an example of the latter. It’s perhaps the best example of Apple killing one of its darlings.
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[[stephen]] After a brief fling with Spotify, I’ve moved in with Apple Music, leaving my old life behind. I’m no longer syncing media from iTunes with my iPhone via USB, and have joined the masses in the era of streaming music. Signing up was easy, and I quickly realized that my wife Merri would enjoy...
Enthusiasts of all types always have that one special obsession. For muscle car people, maybe it’s one particular year of Ford Mustang. Photographers always have a favorite lens, while baseball players may have a favored bat or glove.
Ask almost any macOS fan, and they’ll tell you that Snow Leopard is their favorite version of all time.
There are a bunch of good reasons for that, beyond pure nostalgia.
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[[stephen]] There’s a lot of talk right now about the sorry shape iTunes for Mac has found itself in over the last several years. Many —myself included —hope to see the behemoth split up into several smaller, more focused applications centered on videos, podcasts, and music. iTunes is old. It was introduced in January of...
The HomePod firmware that was accidentally posted last month by an Apple employee has led to a wealth of knowledge about Apple’s upcoming iPhone.
Most leaks in recent years have come from Apple’s expansive supply chain. A rear shell here and a camera component there slowly fill in the details about unreleased hardware. It’s a slow process normally, but one the rumor cycle has become accustomed to over the years.
The HomePod is obviously different. While the accidental leak contained just software, inside its depths were details about all sorts of unannounced features. Developers even found icons depicting the next-generation iPhone.
Whoops.
This isn’t the first time that Apple has leaked from the top about an upcoming iPhone.
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[[stephen]] It’s easy to look back at technology in the past and judge what was a success and what wasn’t. Sometimes, it’s easy to see a flop coming. How many times has a large tech company announced something that seems doomed to fail right out of the gate? cough Bixby. cough Other times, of course,...
The 12-inch MacBook with Retina display is a marvel of engineering. It packs the power of macOS into a tiny chassis that weighs just two pounds. You can carry it and an iPad before you reach the weight of the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
There are, of course, trade-offs when it comes to such a small machine. The single USB-C port is a show-stopper for many, as is the under-powered — but fanless — Intel CPU.
The fact that compromises are needed to make notebooks thin and light is nothing new. Over the years, Apple has made several bold moves in this direction. Three really stand out.
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[[stephen]] Back in 2013, I wrote about my experience as an Apple Retail employee during the first iPhone launch. While only in our pockets for a decade, the world before the iPhone seems like a different lifetime. There are lots of things to say about the iPhone to mark this anniversary. It launched a category...
The Apple world may be talking about the HomePod a lot in the wake of WWDC, but it’s not the first time Apple has tried to reinvent home audio.
In 2006 — just a year before the iPhone appeared — a slightly-under-the-weather Steve Jobs introduced the $349 iPod Hi-Fi.
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