A spooky adventure by Tony Sindelar from the Total Party Kill actual play podcast.

Apple's slow move toward a fitness band makes us wonder if the company has lost its ability to execute quickly. Also, it's time for a MacBook Neo check-in, and Myke questions Jason's Apple Watch use. Upgrade+: Charting a new course at Six Colors.

A spooky adventure by Tony Sindelar from the Total Party Kill actual play podcast.

You saw me carrying our baby and food. There was more happening in our family that night.

Everyone loves the MacBook Neo. Apple’s fresh-squeezed laptop was a not-too-surprising hit with computer buyers, and presumably sales have continued to be good despite a $100 mid-stream price increase elevating its original $599 price tag to a still-good-but-not-astounding $699. The Neo proved that Apple’s iPhone-class processor, the A18 Pro, was powerful enough to drive a Mac and the Mac’s wide-open software platform. With performance roughly in between an M1 and M2 processor, the Neo is completely capable of even somewhat difficult tasks like audio and video editing. Obviously, RAM and processor limitations prevent it from tackling the toughest jobs, but that’s […]

I’ve been using the Apple Watch Series 12 for a week now, but this isn’t a review. The first wave of reviews that dropped at embargo time were all from people who had used the device for about the same amount of time, and it seems a bit silly to just repeat those observations—and a week after all of those stories were published. In addition, the most tantalizing features of the new Apple Watch—Live Rewind and Siri Recap—won’t be available until “late 2026.”1 So instead of sprinting to a quick judgment, I’ve decided to take the long path and live...

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So, let’s say, there’s this writer. (It doesn’t have to be a writer. It could be a musician, or painter, or actor, any aspirant in any creative or indeed competitive field, in whi…

You ever have one of those moments when you start to copy a large file in the Finder and groan when the Progress Window tells you it’s going to take forever? I used to have them all the time, and it didn’t make sense until I figured out that macOS was gaslighting me about my network connection. The other day, Friend of the site Todd Vaziri wrote on Mastodon: Two M4 Mac minis, both running Tahoe on the same local network, gigabit ethernet, using standard File Sharing. I can’t reliably play a Blu-ray rip from one computer to another without it […]

The new products are here! Jason reviews the M6 Mac mini, and then Jason and Myke both talk about their hands-on experiences with the iPhone 18 Pro and Apple Watch series 12. This is just the beginning of a busy season! Upgrade+: Together soon!

Six Colors by Jason Snell, Dan Moren and friends

2024’s M4 Mac mini was a revelation. It packed Apple silicon power into a shockingly compact space, breathing new life into Apple’s all-time utility Mac and (eventually) making it into a go-to device for home AI and even back-end podcast transcription. Two years later, the Mac mini gets its first update since it became such a popular purchase. It’s a bit surprising: while the high-end model has updated to the familiar M5 Pro chip found in the MacBook Pro, the lower-end model has skipped right over the M5 and become the first Mac to be released using the next-generation 2-nanometer...

Apple desperately needs a replacement for Mac OS, but negotiations with Jean-Louis Gassée's Be are at the breaking point. But does CEO Gil Amelio have any other options?

The 27 OS releases have dropped. Jason has a review of macOS Golden Gate and Myke acts as the ambassador for Siri AI. And we've also got more reactions to just what makes the iPhone Duo so interesting. Upgrade+: Myke watched Disney+/Hulu's "Paradise."

Last year’s macOS release, macOS 26 Tahoe, was a mixed bag. While it added a bunch of solid new productivity features, it also included a half-baked visual update that muddied the entire interface. While I chose to view the glass as half full and accepted the interface imperfections, I understand that a lot of people just gave Tahoe a pass rather than inflict a visual regression on themselves. No matter how full you think the (liquid) glass was, I have good news: macOS 27 Golden Gate is here, and it’s good. Not only has Apple addressed most of the visual problems […]

The official merchandise for my podcast, Sophomore Lit (https://www.theincomparable.com/sophomorelit/), features a mockingbird wearing Holden Caulfield's hunting cap and reading a book (she has a pape...

In his first event video since taking over as Apple CEO, John Ternus got a cheeky introduction from his predecessor Tim Cook before boldly referencing some classic Steve Jobs moments and setting the company’s most important product on a new course. I appreciated the video’s opening conceit, which was essentially a cinematic debate about what makes for a great opening scene, leading to Tim Cook narrating his own entrance to Apple Park—and then, in a twist, explaining that he’s not the main character of this story, it’s the other guy—namely Ternus. What a great, ego-deflating moment of support—and it stuck the […]

We break down Apple's September 9 event, including the foldable iPhone Duo, the non-foldable iPhone 18 Pro, the surprising new Apple Watches that double as AI wearables, and the event debut of John Ternus as Apple's CEO. Upgrade+: St. Jude challenge!

A possible replacement for Mac OS arrives in the form of a company founded by a charismatic former Apple executive--but not the one you're thinking of.

Expertly-told stories about the 50-year history of Apple and the world it created, from Jason Snell and Myke Hurley. We cover the entire range of the last half-century, from Apple's earliest days in a garage, to the rise of the Mac, to the return of Steve Jobs and the creation of some of Apple's most iconic products. Apple's history is also our shared tech history, and these are all stories worth telling.

Expertly-told stories about the 50-year history of Apple and the world it created, from Jason Snell and Myke Hurley. We cover the entire range of the last half-century, from Apple's earliest days in a garage, to the rise of the Mac, to the return of Steve Jobs and the creation of some of Apple's most iconic products. Apple's history is also our shared tech history, and these are all stories worth telling.

This is more of a comment than a question. A few months ago I added a “Report a Typo” feature to Six Colors. The goal was to give people a simple place to go — sixcolors.com/typo — if they found a mistake on the website. That Google form inserts the information into a Google Sheet, and a script attached to the Google Sheet kicks off a simple automation that sends me a notification in a couple different places. This works pretty well. I’m using a very simple Google Apps script to fire off a webhook when there’s a new form submission. […]

It's time for another Apple event draft! But before we predict what Apple will introduce next week, we need to send off the Tim Cook Era and discuss a somewhat surprising announcement of new chips and new Macs! Upgrade+: The St. Jude challenge!

Today Tim Cook is stepping down as Apple CEO and Phil Schiller is scaling back his involvement in the company’s events and his supervision of the App Store. I thought I’d find the oldest Tim Cook photo in my Photos library (what, do you not have numerous Apple executives in your People view?) and it’s from October 2008: Tim (left), Phil (right), and some other guy. This was from the post-event Q&A session, back when that was a thing! In the video of this event you’ll see that Tim Cook, then Apple’s COO, is asked by Steve Jobs to present “the […]