iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 02/10/2026

Some behind the scenes from my 27.0 grumble session.

A screenshot of a Pixelmator Pro window. It shows a number of design elements being compared against each other, each of which is the basis for an image in my blog post.

Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 20/09/2026

But even still, I think the version of tinted in 27 is a downgrade. In 26's dark mode, there was a good amount of contrast and still quite a bit of the glassy effect. Now it's a lower-contrast, lighter, matte finish. Overall, I prefer the 27 OSs, but this feels like a step backwards.

$A notification in iOS 26's dark mode using the tinted Liquid Glass option. The background is very dark, and there's a lot of contrast between it and the white text. There is also some refractive effect being shown.$ $The same notification in iOS 27's dark mode with tinted Liquid Glass. There's much less contrast between the grey glass and the white text. The glass is also matte, with no refractive effects.$

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 20/09/2026

I grumble a lot about Liquid Glass, but it's because I'm torn between loving the effect and being annoyed by readability issues. I also massively prefer dark mode, and even the clearest appearance now has a bit of a milky hue in dark mode now. After testing clear modes, I'm back to full tinted.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 15/09/2026

I love the new Device Hub in Xcode 27. So much better than the Simulator! Now you have key display options available in a sidebar, and they update the device in real time. Also, you can actually change Liquid Glass settings now! Huge time saver, and great for screenshots.

A screenshot of an iPhone 18 Pro in the new Device Hub as part of Xcode. On the right, there's a sidebar showing a number of configuration options, including light/dark mode, Liquid Glass state, Text size, Increase contrast, Reduce transparency, and a lot more.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 14/09/2026

Not sure if this is an Indigo issue, but I've been unable to keep a Bluesky session logged in on macOS. Kept seeing this (before and after the 27 update), and re-authenticating doesn't work.

An Indigo accounts setting screen showing my Bluesky account with an "Authentication failed" warning and a "Re-authenticate button". I had already clicked that button, and the error text below it reads: "The operation couldn't be completed (OAuthenticator.AuthenticatorError error 8.)".

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 09/09/2026

I also have a minor feature in some of the promo art! (Along with @Tinrocket@mastodon.online)

A screenshot of the App Store showing Indigo. The title says “Notifications: Stay up to date”, and shows the notifications screen below. My face is shown on a post as someone who liked it.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 09/08/2026

What a weird, fun project! Radar charts (which rule in general) are extra good for turning numbers into a personalized shape. b.mino.mobi/palm/?u=gavi...

An image showing my Bluesky “palm reading”. Cadence 99, vigil 83, lexicon 83, polish 95, drift 5, and chorus 15. Augmented 81. Labelled “The migrating clock”.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 06/08/2026

I like to test my inks for water resistance. Sometimes there's more than I expect, other times there's fun ink separation! This is Diamine's "Good Tidings" from the 2024 Inkvent Calendar (though, my bottle looks far more blue/purple with a green sheen than all the examples I'm seeing online).

A small sheet of paper with some writing that's been washed away after being run under water. The dark blue-ish ink has separated into reds, greens, and blues. The paper is sitting on some paper towel where the separation is even more apparent.

A swatch card with dark blue/purple ink on it. The ink has a green sheen to it. The bottom of the card reads "Good Tidings – Diamine (2024)" (though it originally read "2025", and I overwrote the 5 with a 4 after double-checking the date).

A small (30ml) bottle of ink. The label reads "Fountain Pen Inks By Diamine" in a fancy golden script. Below that large header is the text "Good Tidings" in silver on a dark purple background.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 28/06/2026

I'm am so looking forward to the weird "rounded pane of glass" sidebar to go away. These look great, colour-wise, but I am so happy that this jank will be gone in a few months!

An image highlighting the discontinuity caused by the current sidebar design in Tahoe. There's an obvious divide between the main window area and the sidebar, and then then actual sidebar (in a different colour) is layered on top. It creates a strange gap between the area where the sidebar lives and the actual sidebar content.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 16/05/2026

Forza Horizon 6 is an amazing game, and I'm really enjoying it. However, it appears Japan can be a bit… insubstantial at times. (I was going for the collectable that popped up on the mini-map here, not just veering off the road for no reason).

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 06/05/2026

Charlie Brown to kick football held by Lucy. Stock futures way up based on renewed hopes.

A screenshot of Yahoo! Finance showing S&P 500 Futures data. The price has risen sharply starting around 05:00 ET based on news of an Iran peace deal.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 05/05/2026

Onomatopoeic noises in your own language seem obvious and reasonable. In other languages, they can lead you to believe that the speaker is completely unhinged from reality. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_Kr...

English: Snap! Crackle! Pop!
Danish: Pif! Paf! Puf!
Swedish: Piff! Paff! Puff!
German: Knisper! Knasper! Knusper!
Spanish: Pim! Pam! Pum!
Finnish: Riks! Raks! Poks!
French: Cric! Crac! Croc!
Dutch: Pif! Paf! Pof!
Afrikaans: Knap! Knetter! Knak!
Belgium: Poos! Pas! Pes!

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 29/03/2026

Settings in macOS and iPadOS have had a tweak to how the Liquid Glass "Search" element works. It now is much more opaque, leading to fewer instances where it can be completely unreadable. There are still places where this can happen, but Apple seems to be fixing them as people complain.

A screenshot of the Search element in macOS 26.4. In previous versions of the 26 OSs, the "Search" text in that element would be a blurry mess because it's currently overlapping other text below it. Here it's very readable.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 29/03/2026

Safari in macOS 26.4 also got a tweak to how its tabs work. They now have a Liquid Glass effect and a better animation when "torn off". I really dislike 26's tab design, but at least this is more consistent with the rest of the OSs.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 29/03/2026

On iPadOS 26.4 in Safari, PDFs in mostly remove the UI background. As with many Liquid Glass changes, it's hard to tell if this is a bug or not. It's an interesting effect when just looking at a screenshot, but in practice, I find this incredibly distracting.

A screenshot of the Safari in iPadOS 26.4 showing a PDF of the rules to the board game "Innovation" (4th edition). The top UI has a clear but blurred background instead of the usual mostly opaque background. This seems to only happen when viewing PDFs, and only on iPadOS.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 29/03/2026

Not surprising, but these issues exist on iPadOS as well. Swiping between dark/light content will confuse the UI until you tap somewhere on the screen.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 29/03/2026

Seems Safari-specific, but on a light-background page with the UI over darker content, you'll see a white fringe added around the UI. I don't know what problem this is solving, and it doesn't seem needed. Isn't the point of Liquid Glass that you can "see more of your content"?

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 29/03/2026

I'm back on my Liquid Glass posting. First up, a mixed bag. in iOS 26.4, Liquid Glass is much better about respecting your dark/light mode choice as long as you're in Tinted mode. Great! The bad news is that it's even more flickery than before in places. Especially in Safari.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 12/03/2026

Nice letter from Jin Coole on Apple's 50th. www.apple.com/50-years-of-...

Tim Cook's signature, which looks a lot like "Jin Coole".

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 11/02/2026

I know it's the smallest thing in the world right now, but I continue to be flummoxed by the terribly inconsistent window corner radii in macOS Tahoe. Today's bought of argh was brought on by Chrome (2nd from top) updating to v. 145 and still having a forth radius size I haven't seen elsewhere.

A screenshot of four overlapping windows in macOS Tahoe. At the top is Safari with the massive window corners that most Apple app have. Second is Google Chrome, which has a slightly smaller corner that I haven't seen other apps use. Then is Outlook with a slightly smaller corner, and finally a Photoshop image window with the smallest corner — but one that's still slightly larger than it was before Tahoe. Red lines denote where the corners end.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 26/01/2026

It would be amazing if Apple could hire even one designer back from wherever they've gone. #liquidglass #macostahoe

A screenshot of the bottom of Apple Music on macOS Tahoe. If you mouse over the play UI (which is at the bottom no for no good reason than I can figure), everything gets blurred. Once you do that, you get to see the playtime. I can't imagine any reason you might want to see that otherwise. Anyway, once you're in this view, everything else is blurred such that you can't make it out. The person who designed this hasn't used this app before, and is likely an intergalactic alien who is here to degrade the happiness of everyone living on this planet.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 20/01/2026

A thing I hear in praise of Liquid Glass is: "at least it's not flat". I agree that it's nice for buttons to have more definition, but that's only true when 1–2 of them share the same "blob". The buttons themselves are still flat. You can go nuts with this in Safari, and I get a chuckle out of it.

A screenshot of a blank Safari window in macOS Tahoe. The title bar includes a Liquid Glass blob containing 13 flat buttons.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 20/01/2026

Moving on to Tahoe, the size of window's corner seems chosen at random. There are at least three different sizes a window's corner can be. I have no idea how this is considered OK.

A screenshot of six windows stacked on top of each other in macOS Tahoe. The image shows the top-left corner of each window. There are three different sizes of window radius shown.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 20/01/2026

I love the new windowing mode in iPadOS 26, but the massively rounded window corners look so silly. I get that they're trying to ape the rounded corners of the hardware (though they don't match it), but I find it hilarious that they need to shrink if you get them near the inner corner of the device.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 20/01/2026

While we're on the subject, I really dislike how iOS 26 handles the status bar. Content under it is often faded only the tiniest amount. I find it really distracting.

Another screenshot of the Simulator running iOS 26. This time a page is shown with content scrolling under the status bar at the top of the phone. The content is made slightly less opaque, but is still very legible. It makes reading the contents of the status bar difficult.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 20/01/2026

Liquid Glass works best on iOS, but even there it feels half-baked. Here's one thing I keep encountering (shown in the Simulator app using aniPhone 17 Pro on iOS 26.2).

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 29/10/2025

The new icon doesn't respect dark mode on iOS 18, and really sticks out. I assume the answer is probably "upgrade your OS" (I really don't want to), but is there a chance of a dark-mode friendly version for the Liquid Glass averse?

A cropped image of a set of eight icons on an iPhone home screen. All the icons have a black background except for the new Bluesky icon, which is has a bright blue background.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 16/10/2025

@bskycheck.com Not sure if this is intentional, but it looks like someone set a future time for their account creation and it's messing things up.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 14/10/2025

Like the autumn leaves Microsoft icons transform Their colours vibrant

The new OneDrive icon for macOS. It's like a three-layer blue cloud one a white background. The lightest layer of blue is in front, with the darkest layer in the back. There some drop-shadow between the layers, but none between the icon and the white background.

The new Teams icon for macOS. Imagine a piece of paper that's three times longer than it is wide. Bow that very loosely in half, such that the tops mostly line up, but there's about a third a length of slack between them. Above each end, there's a shaded purple circle. The whole thing looks like two "people icons" facing each other, but they're weirdly conjoined. In front of the closes person icon is a squirqle with a "T" in it.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 24/09/2025

@tomwarren.co.uk Hi! I really enjoy your Notepad newsletter, but I always see these weird "ads" in it. Is this a placeholder for a future ad spot? Is it my email client preventing a real ad from being served? It's always the same one, and it links to the Wikipedia page for Limonene. Thanks!

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 21/08/2025

@bnewbold.net I just saw this "Invalid Handle" error on Polygon's account (did:plc:ft4gwdn3b552cg4eidqfz7gm). Is there a way in the web UI to mention a user in this state? I wanted to let them know that they likely just need to re-confirm their domain setup. Thanks!

A screenshot of Bluesky's web UI on the page for Polygon.com's user account. Under their user icon and the word "Polygon" is an error message saying "Invalid Handle".

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 02/08/2025

The more I look at this, the crazier it gets. The wrap is the obvious bit, but those rear tires? Also, electric conversion? I'd love to learn more about this thing. www.carsonexports.com/en/used-inve...

A 1972 VW Beatle in a psychedelic rainbow wrap. The rear tires are much larger than the front. It's being shown off in a well-lit garage.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 15/07/2025

Great timing! Some choice stories that appeared in my RSS reader this morning. I guess they’re backdating them so they don’t show up on the front page? They all read like AI generated ads.

A screenshot showing a number of articles from The Coast dated July 1, but that newly appeared in my RSS feed. They’re titled: “Best VPN for Canadians in 2025”, “Best VPN for Streaming in Canada in 2025”, “Top 10 Best VPN for Firestick (Canadian Version) 2025”, “ Top 10 Best VPN for iPhone in 2025 (For Canadians)”, “ Best VPN for Torrenting in 2025 (For Canadians)”, “ Top 10 Best VPN for Android Users in 2025”.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 27/06/2025

@russfrushtick.bsky.social‬ Uhh… I'm getting some very weird emails coming from the Polygon.com mailing list. Has something gone wrong? They mostly contain a single letter repeated a bunch, and say that they're coming from "Moms.com" in the footer?

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 09/06/2025

It's pretty cool that 11 of the newest 27 accounts that have been verified by the Bluesky team are Canadian municipalities or organizations. You can play around with this data yourself at anderegg.ca/bsky-verifier/ and using "bsky.app" as the verifier account name.

A screenshot of my Bluesky verification tool showing the newest verifications from the Bluesky team since partway through May 22nd. The accounts are: Government of New Brunswick, Nunavut Information & Privacy Commissioner, Bill Gates, Coimisiún na Meán, Jeremy Godfrey, RTGame 👑 at Twitchcon EU, Internet Archive, Jonathan Jarry, ROOST, juliet shen, Global, The News Agents, Town of Oakville, City of Ottawa, Alberta Health Services, City of Calgary, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Halifax Regional Municipality, City of Toronto, Government of Prince Edward Island, Santé Québec, Yahoo Finance, City of Hamilton, The Globe and Mail, Chris Packham, Stacey Abrams, and Chasten Glezman Buttigieg.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 19/04/2025

Voted! There were a good number of folks out this morning, but the lines moved quickly.

Photo of a sign indicating an advanced polling location.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 19/04/2025

Took some looking, but I found some group photos from after the talk. @dicey.bsky.social brought his Apple IIc, a machine Woz recalled fondly.

A group of people (including me, third from the left) having a photo taken with Steve Wozniak (third from right).

Andrew showing off his newly signed Apple //c, with Devin looking on.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 16/04/2025

Also didn’t get mine. I confirmed I’m registered, and I know I don’t need it to vote, but it’s annoying not to have gotten it. Elections Canada implies that it should have been delivered by the 11th. www.elections.ca/content2.asp...

A screenshot from the Elections Canada link in this post saying: “If you didn't receive a card by April 11 or the information on it is incorrect, you may not be registered or your registration may not be up to date.”

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 24/02/2025

I can't stop thinking about this weird 1px offset in the otherwise amazing Control Panel. This remained unchanged until System 3, two years later.

An image showing the menu blink control being just one pixel from alignment with all other parts of the Control Panel on the original Macintosh.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 09/02/2025

I had to look up the manual for Bandit Kings of Ancient China. Fun fact, Evil Gao Qiu is also known as the Ball Kicker. No wonder everyone has to beat him up!

An excerpt of Evil Gao Qiu bio from the manual for Bandit Kings of Ancient China. It includes the following text: “Especially skilled at games, he earned the nickname the Ball Kicker. One day he happened to meet Prince Tuan, who was so impressed with Gao's ball kicking skill that he made him into a servant.”

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 07/02/2025

I love @shiftf1podcast.bsky.social so much. This whole exchange is gold. Great Orbb reference!

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 05/02/2025

Stuff sure does suck at the moment, but one bright spot is having my copy of Content Goblins from @theverge.com show up in the mail today!

A print magazine from The Verge with a dust jacket that reads "The Verge Guide to Search Engine Optimization". The jacket shows a happy-looking person with a coffee in front of a keyboard, mouse, and CRT display. There's a bit of text at the top which reads "All the Tips, Tricks, Schemes, and Techniques for Promoting High-Quality Content!"

The same magazine with the dust jacket removed. The person with the coffee cup is now wearing a goblin mask and gloves, and the desk is now covered in slime. The title has been scribbled over in red, and there's a new slimy looking title over everything which reads "Content Goblins".

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 31/01/2025

Other things now that I'm thinking of it: Swiss Chalet has frozen things, including their chicken pot pie. St. Hubert has their frozen tourtière.

Image of a frozen Swiss Chalet chicken pot pie package.

Image of a frozen St. Hubert tortière package.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 31/01/2025

I've seen Nando's sauce in Sobeys.

A display of Nando's peri-peri sauce on display in a Sobeys. The photo was taken in August 2019, and the sauces cost $6.99 Canadian dollars at the time.

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Gavin Anderegg @gavin.anderegg.ca · 17/01/2025

The "car stuff" icon in Apple Maps always looks so weird to me. Top is what's in Apple Maps, bottom is how it resolves in my brain.

Two versions of the same screenshot. On top is an icon with a wrench on top of a front-view of a car. The icon is beside the text "Speedy Glass", which is a local auto glass repair shop. However, the wrench in the icon sort of looks like pained eyes, and the bottom looks like a mouth agape in sorrow. In the bottom version of the screenshot, I painted the eyes and mouth to make this more obvious.

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