In a series of press releases, and as teased by Joz yesterday, Apple announced a faster M5 chip and three updated products to leverage its power. Apple Newsroom links:

• M5
• Apple Vision Pro
• MacBook Pro 14"
• iPad Pro 11" and 13"

These are welcome spec bumps, but nothing truly earth-shattering here—simply faster, more capable hardware year over year. If you have an M4-based device, you’re unlikely to be tempted unless seconds lost equals money lost. For earlier hardware, especially M1- and Intel-based devices, these represent significant upgrades.

M5

The new M5 chip is built on “third-generation 3-nanometer technology,” and improves unified memory bandwidth to 153GB/s (“a nearly 30 percent increase over M4 and more than 2x over M1”). It’s notably faster than the M4 and earlier M-series chips, with Apple touting its improved performance for AI, gaming, and 3D applications. It’s a beast—and probably overkill for most people.

Apple Vision Pro

The updated Apple Vision Pro with M5 offers “improved display rendering, faster AI-powered workflows, and extended battery life.” It now comes with a redesigned “Dual Knit Band” that is remarkably similar in concept to the 3D-printed solution I and many other Vision Pro users have been sporting. Also included in the box is Apple’s new, descriptively named 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max. Apple Vision Pro (M5) maintains its $3,499 starting price. Preorders start today and will be available in store on October 22.

One meaningful improvement the M5 brings:

With M5, Apple Vision Pro renders 10 percent more pixels on the custom micro-OLED displays compared to the previous generation, resulting in a sharper image with crisper text and more detailed visuals. Vision Pro can also increase the refresh rate up to 120Hz for reduced motion blur when users look at their physical surroundings, and an even smoother experience when using Mac Virtual Display.

Sharper images and reduced motion blur are reasons enough for many current Vision Pro customers to consider upgrading—yours truly included—but Apple does not offer any trade-in options for Apple Vision Pro, making it a nonstarter for most of us.

(I was unrealistically hoping for a trade-in program that would take back my original Vision Pro for something close to full credit, as a thank-you for effectively acting as a beta tester. Preposterous, I know, but no trade-in options seems like a missed opportunity to recapture early adopters.)

The M5 also brings small improvements to battery life (“up to two and a half hours of general use, and up to three hours of video playback”) and performance (“up to 2x faster for third-party apps”).

Apple claims “over 1 million apps” are available for Apple Vision Pro, with “more than 3,000 apps built for visionOS.” I’ll be honest: it doesn’t feel like that many visionOS apps are available.

I also found this plug amusing:

And pro users can assemble and rehearse their presentations while in a seat-for-seat replica of the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park using Keynote.

That’ll be the closest most of us will ever get to trodding that stage.

MacBook Pro 14"

Apple is pushing the MacBook Pro 14"—unsurprisingly—as an AI system. I counted 24 mentions of “AI,” “Neural Engine/Accelerator,” or “LLM.”

The new hardware has “2x faster SSD,” “up to 4TB of storage,” “1.6x faster graphics performance,” “up to 20 percent faster multithreaded performance,” and “24 hours of battery life.”

Sadly, no teal—space black and silver only, again. MacBook Pro 14" (M5) can be preordered today at a starting price of $1,599. Available October 22.

iPad Pro

For many people, this new M5-powered iPad Pro, running iPadOS 26 and connected to a 4K display and keyboard, is all the computer they’ll need.

The iPad Pro can now drive external displays at up to 120Hz, with support for Adaptive Sync for “the lowest possible latency.” It now has the Apple-designed C1X modem and N1 networking chip (which combines Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread). Storage is twice as fast, and the 256GB and 512GB models come with 12GB of high-bandwidth memory (up from 8GB in the M4), while the 1TB and 2TB still contain 16GB. The new iPad Pro also adds fast charging (up to 50% charge in 35 minutes) with a capable charger. Pricing for the 11" iPad Pro starts at $999 for Wi-Fi and $1,199 for Wi-Fi + Cellular, and the 13" iPad Pro starts at $1,299 (Wi-Fi) and $1,499 (Wi-Fi + Cellular). And yes, preorders start today and will be available in stores on October 22.

Yours truly, last year:

I’ve known Kira, the daughter of my good friends Ron and Irene Lue-Sang, since she was a day old. She was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) nearly a decade ago. Since 2015, the Lue-Sang family have helped raise funds to end T1D by walking in the annual Breakthrough T1D Walk (formerly JDRF).

It’s no longer “nearly,” notes the family:

This is a milestone year. Kira has been living with Type 1 Diabetes for 10 years.

Kira’s off to college next year. I’ve watched her grow from a rambunctious girl into a beautiful, smart, thoughtful, and talented young woman. She hasn’t allowed T1D to slow her down one iota.

As they have every year since Kira’s diagnosis, the Lue-Sangs are again raising funds as part of their “commitment to do whatever we can to help develop new treatments—and ultimately a cure—for this currently incurable disease.” They’ll participate in the Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF) Walk on Sunday, October 19, 2025.

They’ve set a public goal of raising $5,000, and they’re about 70 percent of the way. I’d like to see them achieve it, so I’m doing a donation match challenge this year. I’ll match, dollar-for-dollar, any donations you make to the Lue-Sang T1D team between now and October 18, 2025 (the Saturday before the Walk), up to $1,000. You donate $5, I match your $5—doubling our impact. Just point me to your name on the team leaderboard or send me a screenshot showing your donation (redact any sensitive info, please!). Prefer to remain anonymous? Use “Kira’s Match” as the “Recognition Name” when completing the form.

I recommend donating to a specific walker on the team. Once a walker reaches specific fundraising levels, they’re granted “V1P” status, which awards them with a variety of swag and grants them access to a “special V1P lounge for an exclusive celebration experience.”

(Kira has already achieved V1P status, so I’m directing my donations to Kira’s sister, Tyrine, so they can enjoy the V1P experience together.)

Your donations help fund the research and scientific breakthroughs for T1D treatments and bring us closer to a cure. Last year, Ron told me:

One hundred years ago, science had barely discovered insulin. Before that, people with Type 1 Diabetes just wasted away a few months or years after diagnosis.

Ten years ago our standard of care was pricking Kira’s fingers to check blood sugar levels at least four times a day and injecting insulin by hand. We’re grateful for the advances technology has brought, including modern insulin, continuous glucose monitors, and insulin pumps. But we believe—it’s an article of faith—that there are still more advances to come, if only we pursue them.

Contributing to Breakthrough T1D helps them pursue those advances. Any amount helps, whether it’s $5, $10, or $100. And this year, your contribution will have double the impact.

Once again, the Lue-Sang family thanks you, and I thank you.

When linking to sites, I’ve often wished I could link directly to specific text on a page rather than the page itself. Earlier this year, I learned this was possible by using Text fragments. Quoting from that MDN link:

Text fragments link directly to specific text in a web page, without requiring the page author to add an ID. They use a special syntax in the URL fragment. This feature lets you create deep links to content that you don’t control and may not have IDs associated. It also makes sharing links more useful by directly pointing others to specific words.

Text fragments have been a feature of several browsers since 2020 and came to Safari 16.1 in 2022.

A text fragment link contains four parameters, three of them optional:

https://example.com#:~:text=[prefix-,]textStart[,textEnd][,-suffix]

The only required parameter is textStart; this text will be highlighted on the page. For example, to link to the word “Scarborough” in my Naming My Devices article, you would add #:~:text=scarborough to the end of the URL:

https://jagsworkshop.com/2025/08/naming-my-devices/#:~:text=scarborough

(You can click that link to try it.)

The text must be percent-encoded—meaning spaces and most punctuation must be replaced by their hex values; for example, a space is %20. That’s simple enough for a word or two, but I usually link to a sentence, or sometimes an entire paragraph. Here’s an example that links to the phrase “1) New York Mets vs. Boston Red Sox: 1986 World Series” which percent-encodes the ), :, and each space:

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/903479-power-ranking-the-25-greatest-world-series-in-mlb-history#:~:text= 1%29%20New%20York%20Mets%20vs. %20Boston%20Red%20Sox%3A%201986%20 World%20Series

This can be shortened by adding textEnd to give a start and end point to highlight; here, start with “1)” and end with “Series”:

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/903479-power-ranking-the-25-greatest-world-series-in-mlb-history#:~:text=1%29,Series

(From my tribute to Davey Johnson.)

You can see the format is relatively easy to understand, but finicky. Trying to do this by hand would be madness.

So I built a JavaScript bookmarklet to do it.

Bookmarklets

Bookmarklets are like regular web browser bookmarks, but instead of saving a link to a website, they store JavaScript that the browser executes when selected. They can even include CSS and load external resources. Virtually anything you can do with regular JavaScript you can do with a bookmarklet. Yes—including playing Doom.

This bookmarklet started as just a single dialog box that accepted a text entry, which was then percent-encoded and copied to the clipboard. It evolved into a more complex custom overlay that accepts all four components of a text fragment, copies the encoded URL to the clipboard, opens it in a window for verification, and properly handles Escape and Return keys to activate the Cancel and Generate buttons. It’s nicely styled, and it even places keyboard focus in the first field to make basic use as simple as: invoke, type, return.

Try it here: Drag this link to your bookmarks bar, name it, then click the bookmark.

Here’s a Gist for the code. It consists of two parts:

1. The first line of the Gist is a comment with the minified and percent-encoded JavaScript code that’s copied into the bookmarklet: copy everything starting with javascript: (remove the leading //) and paste it into a bookmark.
2. The remaining code is the un-minified version, for ease of reading and editing.

(I borrowed the idea for this structure from John Gruber.)

Let me be clear about this code: I am very much not a JavaScript programmer. I know my way around the syntax, can edit existing code well enough, and can write basic functionality—but that’s about it. Anything more complex and I rely on the kindness of internet strangers. Or, increasingly, on Anthropic’s Claude, which knows JavaScript much better than I do and can synthesize often contradictory suggestions into a single, comprehensive (though sometimes wrong!) answer. Thanks to Claude, I was able to scrape this bookmarklet together without spending hours banging my head against a wall. Is it the most efficient or the best way to do this? Most assuredly not! But it works great for my needs. Maybe it does for yours, too.

(If you have any suggestions for improvements, please let me know.)

Adding and Using the Bookmarklet

To set up the bookmarklet:

1. In your browser of choice, create a new bookmark.
2. Copy the minified JavaScript (the first line of the Gist, without the //).
3. Paste the JavaScript as the URL of your bookmark.
4. Name it appropriately (I call it “TextFragment”) and save.

(If you dragged the test version to your bookmarks bar earlier, edit the existing bookmarklet and paste in the code from the Gist.)

To use the bookmarklet:

1. Select the bookmark and complete the fields. See Text fragments for an explanation of each field. You must complete at least the textStart field.
2. Click Generate (or press Return/Enter). The page should load with the text highlighted, and the URL will be copied to the clipboard.
3. Use the URL as you otherwise would.

Issues

I’ve seen three issues—two related to text fragments themselves, and one related to bookmarklets.

The first issue is that sites can opt out of text fragments (using Document-Policy: force-load-at-top) or remove anchors (anything after the # symbol). The second is that content can change, breaking your link. In each case, the link takes you to the top of the page, which is fine, but frustrating, as it loses the specific context you were trying to highlight, making the act of linking less effective. It’s not a deal breaker, of course—link rot is a reality of the web, alas. But it’s frustrating nonetheless.

The more annoying issue is that some sites really mess with the overlay. Some, like ESPN, didn’t show the bookmarklet at all until I changed the z-index to the maximum (2147483647) so the overlay was above everything else on the site. Worse still, fonts, positioning, and sizing can all change depending on the CSS of the underlying site. While I’ve done what I can to isolate the bookmarklet styling, I still occasionally see changes. Most are minor, but some are pretty damn significant. Here’s what the overlay looks like on Apple’s Developer Documentation site, for example:

(Even more frustratingly, Apple Developer Documentation also strips anchors, so text fragments don’t work at all.)

Postscript, or Learning Something New Every Day

After creating this bookmarklet and using it for a few days, I decided to look for other examples that do the same thing. It turns out there are dozens of examples of bookmarklets for creating text fragments.

In a double-turns-out, several web browsers even have a “Copy link with highlight” menu item that takes highlighted text and makes it into a text fragment link. (In Safari, it’s only available in the contextual menu accessed via a right- or control-click.)

I could be disappointed that I spent a few hours figuring out how to build this bookmarklet, but I very much subscribe to the philosophy of “I learn something new every day.”

Had I done my research prior to undertaking this exercise, I would have missed this opportunity to learn a little bit more JavaScript—including using CSS in a bookmarklet!—and I wouldn’t have further exercised Claude’s coding and troubleshooting abilities.

And, of course, I have a bookmarklet that works exactly the way I need it to, and can improve over time.

One “improvement” compared to most other solutions I saw: this version exposes all four text fragment fields, rather than just selecting the text you want to link to. This offers greater precision over what gets highlighted. For example, I can easily target a specific instance of a phrase that appears on a page multiple times, like selecting just the second instance of “Anthropic’s Claude” in my Blackmailing Claude piece, by filling in the -suffix field (“me”):

https://jagsworkshop.com/2025/05/how-long-ago-is-2900-weeks/#:~:text=anthropic’s%20claude,-me

Wanting that level of control may be the programmer in me, though, so one future improvement would be to use the current text selection to prefill the fields.

I’m off to experiment—before I learn someone already did this. In the meantime, let me know if this bookmarklet is useful for you.

Fourteen years ago today, Steve Jobs died. I wrote at the time:

It’s a sad day for me and for so many others inspired by Steve’s genius for products and marketing. It feels almost like a family member has gone.

That was no exaggeration. Steve had been part of my life in ways small and large since I was thirteen. It’s impossible to overstate the impact he (and the company he created, nurtured, and passionately led) had on me, my career, and my life. The first computer I ever used was an Apple II. My first “professional” job was Mac tech support for publishing houses. I spent twenty-two years inside Apple helping developers build apps for iPhone, Mac, and more. I met my wife and developed life-long friendships through Apple connections.

Without Steve, my life would be infinitely less.

It’s tempting, with Apple always in the news for their perceived lapses of leadership, to misuse this occasion to wonder, What would Steve do? That’s a fool’s game, of course: Steve was, to understate things, a complicated man. Sometimes a person’s public persona hides their private self. Sometimes we’re simply blinded by our parasocial relationships and want to believe we know someone because we’ve watched or listened to them for years. Sometimes, people simply change. We simply have no way of knowing who Steve would have become, or what he would have supported. We only know that while he was alive, and even after his death, he inspired millions of us to do things we never thought we could, to follow our heart and intuition, and to stay hungry, stay foolish.

For that, I’m grateful.

My first “encounter” with Steve came about a year after I’d started at Apple. As I steered my brand-new silver Nissan Altima off Highway 280 in Cupertino onto De Anza Blvd, a driver in a brand-new silver Mercedes SL 55 cut me off. I instinctively honked and cursed at him. I noticed then that the vehicle had no license plate—just what appeared to be a bar code where the plate would otherwise be. The driver turned onto Mariani Ave, then onto Infinite Loop, and into the parking lot in front of IL1. That’s when it all clicked: I’d just verbally flipped off my CEO. I desperately hoped he hadn’t seen me or recognized my car as I drove past him. I remained in a panic all day waiting for a call from HR stripping me of my badge for being so brusque. Fortunately, that call never came. I’m relieved Steve had more important things to focus on that day than an aggravated driver.

I did meet Steve, just once. It was as classic a moment as you could ask for. It happened not too long after he returned from his first medical leave of absence in 2009. I was boarding the elevator in Infinite Loop 1, where Steve’s office was, and as I pushed the button for my floor, I spotted him slowly ambling toward me. He appeared gaunt and tired. I briefly considered pretending I hadn’t seen him, but instead I held the elevator door while he made his way over. Smiling at him as he got on, I said, Glad to have you back. He thanked me, then asked the question I’d been both dreading and preparing for my entire Apple career: What do you do here? Fortunately, this was also not long after the introduction of a native SDK for iPhone and the launch of the App Store, so I was able to say proudly, I’m in Developer Relations, and I lead a team of engineers who help our third-party developers build world-class applications for iPhone. He nodded, noted how important that work was, and thanked me for doing it. Then, our ride was over. After he stepped off the elevator and the doors closed, I exhaled deeply. I’d managed to keep my job—but I’d missed my floor.

You’d think, reading that headline, that the “government” in question would be Russia, China, or Hungary. You’d be wrong.

Associated Press:

Apple has taken down an app that uses crowdsourcing to flag sightings of U.S. immigration agents after coming under pressure from the Trump administration.

ICEBlock, a free iPhone-only app that lets users anonymously report and monitor activity by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, was no longer available on Apple’s App Store as of Friday. The developer had confirmed its removal on Thursday evening.

CNBC:

Google on Friday joined Apple in removing from its online store apps that can be used to anonymously report sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other law-enforcement authorities.

Google’s statement (“ICEBlock was never available on Google Play, but we removed similar apps for violations of our policies”) is pure pablum, but Apple’s statement is unadulterated horseshit:

“We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps,” the company said in a statement. “Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store.”

The opening phrase is stock Apple. They use it anytime they pull “undesirable” apps from the store. It’s what they said when they removed HKmap.live—a “crowdsourced reporting and mapping of police checkpoints, protest hotspots, and other information”—from the Hong Kong App Store in 2019, for example.

But the rest of it? I’m deeply skeptical. What information? Which law enforcement? What safety risks?

Is using ICEBlock to report the location of ICE agents any different from using a social media app to report the same information? Does reporting the location of police, FBI, or other law enforcement also pose “safety risks”? Unless Apple (or this regime) presents credible evidence the app led to violence, the reasoning behind pulling the app is bullshit.

(And by “credible,” I don’t mean allegations from Bondi that “ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk”—it’s not—nor implications that the recent shooter at a Dallas ICE facility used this or other apps to identify his target. Both are speculation without evidence.)

The message the ICEBlock developer received from Apple said the app was removed for “objectionable content.” Apple’s guidelines against “objectionable content” state:

1.1 Objectionable Content

Apps should not include content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, in exceptionally poor taste, or just plain creepy.

What is offensive about identifying the presence of ICE patrols? Is it more disgusting to alert law-abiding Americans to take precautions than it is to watch them get snatched from their homes, work, and places of worship?

This is especially painful for me because I know and have worked closely with the teams and people who make these decisions. I’ve been in the room for debates about taking down apps. I’ve been on the calls when developers are informed of the decision to pull their app. Most takedowns have a reasonable justification.

This one has none.

The Trump regime has targeted ICEBlock since it launched. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said then of the app developer:

He’s giving a message to criminals where our federal officers are. And he cannot do that. And we are looking at it, we are looking at him, and he better watch out, because that’s not a protected speech. That is threatening the lives of our law enforcement officers throughout this country.

Except, of course, it very much is protected speech.

In a statement to several news outlets, Bondi acknowledged governmental pressure on Apple, saying:

We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so.

“Demanding.” Not “requested.” Not “provided information about the safety risks.”

Demanding.

A demand from an Attorney General—especially the United States Attorney General—carries with it the weight of law. It implies legal consequences if the demand is not carried out.

What was Apple threatened with? Antitrust lawsuits? Tariffs? No more White House invites? A mean “Truth” Social screed?

Which law was the app violating that justifies the United States Attorney General demanding it be removed from the App Store?

Equally important, why is Apple complying with such a demand?

This isn’t the first time Apple has removed apps at the behest of authoritarian regimes. In addition to HKmap.live, mentioned above, Apple also pulled Russian voting app “Navalny” from the Russian App Store in 2021, and messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram from the China App Store in 2024.

When Apple pulled those apps from China, it used another of its stock phrases that makes an appearance when it takes actions it deems legally necessary but morally repugnant: Apple is “obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree.”

Apple used a similar phrase when it pulled TikTok from the App Store earlier this year: “Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates.”

(I’m forced to link to Internet Archive here because Apple has taken down its post, presumably after returning TikTok to the store upon receiving “presidential assurances.”)

Notably, Apple hasn’t used a similar phrase here, implying the decision to pull ICEBlock was based not on any violation of the law, but on a choice. An executive decision.

There’s a phrase that’s been making the rounds the last couple of weeks: Fuck you, make me. John Oliver suggested it in a recent Last Week Tonight episode (and John Gruber at Daring Fireball mentioned it today). It’s a valuable alternative to “don’t comply in advance” (which implies eventual compliance).

Why isn’t Apple standing up and saying Fuck you, make me?

(Or, in Apple-speak: After carefully evaluating the request of Attorney General Bondi, we’ve determined there is currently no legal basis by which we can comply with her suggestion. The app remains available for customers until a legal justification is presented for its removal.)

Instead, the app is removed without any pushback or meaningful explanation.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to argue that tech leaders like Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, media moguls like Bob Iger and David Ellison, and the rest of the capitalist capitulators aren’t fully supportive of this fascist regime, and are happily “complying in advance” because it’s exactly what they want to do.

Apple’s apparent surrender, especially, is hard for me to swallow. After two decades on the inside, and two more before that as a fan, I’ve fully embraced Apple’s “dent in the universe” ethos. When Tim talks about Apple’s “North Star” or quotes Martin Luther King, Jr., I’ve always believed, with all my soul, that he meant it. It’s painful to criticize a company I’ve loved for most of my life, and which has benefited me immensely.

Apple has always claimed a higher moral ground. It proudly declares its Commitment to Human Rights, which starts:

We believe in the power of technology to empower and connect people around the world—and that business can and should be a force for good. Achieving that takes innovation, hard work, and a focus on serving others.

It also means leading with our values.

Apparently Apple’s values don’t include protecting people from fascist regimes.

A few weeks ago, with the introduction of macOS 26 imminent, BasicAppleGuy published a collection of macOS icons from across its four-decade history:

With this release being one of the most dramatic visual overhauls of macOS’s design, I wanted to begin a collection chronicling the evolution of the system icons over the years.

I am a sentimental man, and this was a heck of a nostalgia trip for this “Apple Guy”: I’ve used every Mac operating system since the ’80s, and seeing some of these old icons brought back fond memories, especially the icons from the 1994–2001 era, which I consider my Macintosh “coming of age.” 

The modern icons have certainly lost some of their charm, leading to (legitimate) gripes about icons that look like placeholders, but there was one that really stuck in my craw:

Calendar.

My bellyaching about the Calendar icon was initially based on late macOS 26 betas. That’s the last icon (“2025–”) shown in Basic Apple Guy’s Calendar collage: a small, abbreviated day (“Thu”) in red and a large date (“17”) in black, both over a cream gradient background. At first glance it could easily be mistaken for the previous icons.

But I had two issues with that new icon:

1. It dropped “Jul”
2. It replaced it with “Thu”

Even as the Calendar icon design morphed over the years, “Jul 17” remained. That date wasn’t chosen at random: it’s the date that Calendar—or more accurately, iCal, as it was then called—was first introduced: July 17, 2002.

It was a lovely little easter egg, an homage to its history, and a wonderful touch of humanity: a reminder that Apple is made up of people who care to include such details, as trifling as they may seem.

Apple’s product imagery is chock full of such easter eggs: iPhone and iPad time is always 9:41. Apple Watch time is always 10:09. And the Calendar icon was always July 17.

Now, this tiny touch of whimsy was gone from Calendar. Removing “Jul” from the icon throws away two decades of Apple history. It torches the goodwill of millions of long-time Mac users, and even new Mac users who might appreciate these little nods to nostalgia.

But wait, there’s more.

Why Thu in the revised icon? Was July 17, 2002 a Thursday and the new icon simply a more subtle reference to the release date? Let’s open Calendar, and jump back in time.

⇧⌘T 7 ⇥ 17 ⇥ 2002 ⏎

(For the non-Mac nerds, that’s Shift-Command-T to open Go to date; 7 tab, 17 tab, 2002; then press Return.)

Nope, July 17, 2002 was a Wednesday.

An Apple that paid attention to these details would have performed this basic check and used the right day to maintain a subtle connection to the icon’s past. Using “Thu” instead of “Wed” suggests the meaning behind the “Jul 17” date wasn’t fully understood.

I’ll be the first to acknowledge how trivial this complaint is, but much like reversing the colors of the Finder icon (since fixed) or the transparent-by-default menu bar, it’s another small sign that some at Apple don’t know—or care about—the history and traditions of Apple. Perhaps they aren’t even aware there is history and tradition to care about. It feels like we’re slowly seeing the death of sentimentality at a company that has historically embraced it. Is there anyone on the inside who still cares about these little subtleties and—crucially—is in a position of influence and authority to keep these flickers of fun alive? Phil? Joz?

With the release of macOS 26 came yet another Calendar icon. Gone is “Jul,” “Thu,” even the large “17.”

In its place is a red banner atop a cream background and an array of black dots representing days—and one red dot.

While I mourn the loss of “Jul 17,” and it’s not (by American standards) a July 2002 representation, I actually much prefer this newest icon over the “Thu” variant: it more directly harkens back to the earlier designs. (I’ll attribute the loss of text to efforts to be more international friendly.)

And that red dot? It marks the 17th day.

Now, I know I should be satisfied that some small sliver of sentimentality survives in the newest Calendar icon. But I can’t.

That red dot falls on a Thursday.

It started with my question to a group of retired Apple friends as we watched the Apple September event:

I missed which Apple Store Kaiann is at; anyone know?

One friend guessed Dubai, suggesting the establishing shots “looked like the Middle East,” but I was doubtful Apple would fly one of its VPs to the Middle East for a short video shoot.

Besides, those opening shots kind of looked like Miami Beach to me, if I could trust my years of watching Miami Vice and Burn Notice. So I went through that segment again and spotted two landmarks: The Carlyle and the Leslie Hotel. A search in Maps confirmed those were in Miami Beach (yay TV!), and a check on Apple’s Find a Store page narrowed it down quickly to Apple Aventura.

Now I was curious: Could I identify all of the Apple stores shown in the video?

And just like that, a quest was born.

I expected it would be a chore—rewarding, but still. Finding Aventura involved scrubbing through that section of the video to identify landmarks, then combing through a list of possible stores until I found a matching photo.

As I was familiar with only a handful of Apple stores, and I wasn’t sure how many were shown during the event, it took a few days to properly motivate myself to do a full rewatch, dreading, as I was, the prospect of laboriously scrubbing through an hour-plus video, painstakingly identifying any tiny detail that would finally unlock the mystery of each location.

I needn’t have worried.

There were only a handful of stores Apple people spoke from. Some stores were gimmes. Others were either iconic enough or had easily discernible landmarks, making them (relatively) easy to find.

But the biggest reason this exercise was not the slog I anticipated was ChatGPT. In April, OpenAI released an update that added image analysis, giving ChatGPT the ability to deduce locations from images. I was impressed (and scared) by it then, and its performance here was remarkable, nailing 17 of 20 locations (85%) on the first try, and identifying the rest through extended prompting. (When it was wrong, though, it was hilariously wrong.)

Regardless of the ease or difficulty in finding the right store, once found, it was immediately identifiable: the architecture of each store was unique and unmistakable—and, of course, stunningly beautiful.

The process

The workflow for identifying locations was straightforward, if manual: I paused the video and took screenshots of each location, which I then fed into ChatGPT. For each location, I first tried using my own knowledge, plus landmark clues, to identify it.

There were four types of locations I identified (though I’d started this quest with only the first one in mind):

1. Apple Store locations with presenters (five stores).
2. Non-Apple Store locations with presenters (four spots).
3. Apple Store locations in flyovers/beauty shots (seven stores).
4. Apple Park locations (four locations).

I easily identified all of the Apple Park locations, having worked for several years in and around the campus. Likewise, I’ve spent countless hours at Apple Park Visitor Center in Cupertino and Union Square in San Francisco.

The Cube at Fifth Avenue is iconic, and the Chicago skyline and the Tribune building behind Michigan Avenue made that a quick find (I’ve also visited both).

(It turns out all of the Apple Store presentation locations were in major American cities: New York, San Francisco, Cupertino, Chicago, and Miami. Having seen those skylines or views hundreds of times helped narrow the field of search considerably.)

The flyovers and non-store locations were the toughest; I relied almost exclusively on ChatGPT here, validating each answer independently through online searches (including Apple’s Find a Store).

In some cases, ChatGPT identified stores confidently but incorrectly. Fortunately, it was easy enough to check and inform it when it was wrong. (It was fun watching it spin its wheels.)

The locations

I’ve timestamped each segment to the event video, and linked to the Apple Store where relevant. For non-Apple Store locations, I’ve linked to a reference site.

I’m about 99% confident in my results. If I got something wrong (or somehow missed a location), please let me know! I’m on Mastodon (preferred) and Bluesky, or you can email me.

On to the locations!

Flyovers

These are beauty shots, no Apple presenters. All are from the first few minutes and are on-screen for just a second or two; you can watch straight through from 1:17 until Tim Cook starts to speak.

• 1:17 - Pudong, China
• 1:18 - Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi
• 1:20 - Fifth Avenue, New York
• 1:21 - Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
• 1:22 - Central World, Bangkok
• 1:23 - Zorlu Center, Istanbul
• 1:25 - Pudong, China (again)
• 1:26 - Apple Park, Cupertino

Apple Stores

These are locations with an Apple presenter. I’ve included the person and their segment.

• 4:50 - Union Square, San Francisco (Kate Bergeron, AirPods Pro 3)
• 17:26 - Apple Park Visitor Center, Cupertino (rear; Stan Ng, Apple Watch)
• 19:12 - Apple Park Visitor Center, Cupertino (upper pavilion; Dr. Sumbul Ahmad Desai, Health)
• 23:04 - Apple Park Visitor Center, Cupertino (rear side; Amanda Santangelo, Apple Watch SE)
• 31:11 - Aventura, Florida (Kaiann Drance, iPhone 17)
• 42:56 - Michigan Avenue, Chicago (John Ternus, iPhone Air)
• 56:54 - Downtown Brooklyn, New York (Joz, iPhone 17 Pro)

Apple Park

Spots in and around Apple Park, Cupertino with an Apple presenter. I’ve included the person and their segment.

• 1:30 - Transit Center, Entrance 2 (Tim Cook, intro)
• 9:42 - Fitness Center (Julz Arney, AirPods Pro 3 fitness)
• 12:55 - Steve Jobs Theater (Tim Cook, Apple Watch intro)
• 29:16 - The Observatory (facing in; Tim Cook, iPhone 17 intro)
• 40:20, 53:48 - The Observatory (facing out; Tim Cook, iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro intros)
• 1:10:34 - Steve Jobs Theater (Tim Cook, outro)

Non-Apple Locations

Locations with an Apple presenter. I’ve included the person and their segment.

• 25:29 - Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, CA (Eugene Kim, Apple Watch Ultra)
• 35:43 - Miami Beach, FL (Megan Nash, iPhone 17 cameras)
• 44:52 - BP Pedestrian Bridge at Millennium Park, Chicago (Tim Millet, iPhone Air’s Apple silicon)
• 1:01:37 - FDR Four Freedoms State Park, New York City/Roosevelt Island (Patrick Carroll, iPhone 17 Pro camera)

Final thoughts

To wrap this up, some thoughts on the Visitor Center, using ChatGPT, the one spot I can’t confidently pin down, and a brief note of thanks for a couple of the tools I used to put this together .

Staging Apple Park Visitor Center

This section caught my attention. Behind Stan Ng you can see product tables, a product wall, and a Genius-like bar with stools. None of that is normally there: that section of the store usually holds an Augmented Reality model of Apple Park and has a blank back wall. At first I thought it was a composite shot, but you can see the depth of the (physical) shelves at 23:04. The space was completely redressed just for this video.

ChatGPT

I’d rate ChatGPT’s performance highly, but when it failed, it failed hard. There are plenty of juicy nuggets in those failures, but in the interest of space, I’ll limit it to a few highlights:

• It initially identified Apple Al Maryah Island in Abu Dhabi as Apple Dubai Mall, stating confidently: “The golden carbon-fiber roof, the dramatic water features cascading down both sides of the approach, and the positioning between the two massive hotel/office towers make it unmistakable. This store is famous for its kinetic ‘Solar Wings’ that open to provide shade and views of the Dubai Fountain. […] I’d put it at 95% confidence.” It assuredly noted that “The water-stepped plaza and the gold roof are signature features of Apple Dubai Mall.”

• It wrongly identified Apple Aventura in Florida as Apple BKC in Mumbai (“Here’s why this is unmistakable”, with a 100% confidence level); Apple Saket (“Here’s why Saket makes sense and BKC doesn’t”; confidence level 95%); Al Maryah Island (“Here’s why this is finally correct,” citing the “egg-shaped bollards lining the approach” which apparently are “unique to this location’s waterside plaza”, with 100% confidence); Central World (“it finally clicks” because of the “distinctive ‘lotus petal’ roof pattern”) with 100% confidence (“this time I triple-checked the architecture against Apple’s site photos”). It then cycled through Apple Tower Theatre, Bağdat Caddesi, Marina Bay Sands, Via del Corso, The Grove, Emaar Square Mall (it appears there’s no such store), Brickell City Centre, Omotesando, Jing’an, and Piazza Liberty, considering then dismissing each in turn, before finally settling on the right store. Quite the global tour.

• For Apple Downtown Brooklyn, it incorrectly guessed Tower Theatre (“wait no, wrong coast”), Williamsburg, Upper East Side, landing eventually on the right store, but the wrong address. When I pointed that out, it spiraled, again guessing Williamsburg, “Apple Upper West Side’s little sibling” (what?), a couple of seemingly nonexistent stores (“The triangular plan, diagonal steel supports, and the elevated plaza setting are unmistakable: this is Apple Store, Washington Heights” and Pittsburgh/Carnegie Mellon), before finally returning both the correct store and the correct address.

Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve

This is the one spot I have very little confidence is right. I’m comfortable stating it’s in Northern California, in the East Bay hills… and that’s it. I’m relying 100% on ChatGPT’s assessment here, but it’s worth noting that it first suggested Mount Diablo State Park. Both seem plausible. If you know the spot, please get in touch!

Tools

Most of the process of putting this piece together was in the writing and verification, but I wanted to highlight two tools that made things easier: BBEdit and Retrobatch.

BBEdit was critical in creating the timestamped links, taking a list of times, locations, and URLs that looked like this:

1:17 - Pudong, China:  https://www.apple.com.cn/retail/pudong/

1:18 - Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi: https://www.apple.com/ae/retail/almaryahisland/
…

And converting it to Markdown (using grep) that looked like this:

- [1:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3KnMyojEQU&t=1m17s) - [Pudong][pudong], China

- [1:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3KnMyojEQU&t=1m18s) - [Al Maryah Island][AlMaryahIsland], Abu Dhabi
…

It also made it easy to sort the locations alphabetically and by timestamp so I could include the tl;dr below. I’ve been using BBEdit for most of its 30+ year history. It’s literally the first app I install on any new Mac.

The second tool that proved invaluable was Retrobatch. Each screenshot was taken from YouTube in full screen mode, which shows the video title at the top and playback controls at the bottom. As those elements never shift, Retrobatch could crop each image at specific coordinates to remove those areas (and to make grids, which I then further edited using Acorn, from the same developer).

BBEdit and Retrobatch (and Acorn) are created by small, indie developers, and are among the best apps on the platform.

TL;DR

If you’re just looking for a list of the stores featured in the video, here’s a handy, alphabetical list:

• Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi
• Apple Park Visitor Center, Cupertino
• Aventura, Florida
• Central World, Bangkok
• Downtown Brooklyn, New York
• Fifth Avenue, New York
• Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
• Michigan Avenue, Chicago
• Pudong, China
• Union Square, San Francisco
• Zorlu Center, Istanbul

And here’s each location in the order they were in the video:

• 1:17 - Pudong, China
• 1:18 - Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi
• 1:20 - Fifth Avenue, New York
• 1:21 - Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
• 1:22 - Central World, Bangkok
• 1:23 - Zorlu Center, Istanbul
• 1:25 - Pudong, China (again)
• 1:26 - Apple Park, Cupertino
• 1:30 - Transit Center, Entrance 2 (Tim Cook, intro)
• 4:50 - Union Square, San Francisco (Kate Bergeron, AirPods Pro 3)
• 9:42 - Fitness Center (Julz Arney, AirPods Pro 3 fitness)
• 12:55 - Steve Jobs Theater (Tim Cook, Apple Watch intro)
• 17:26 - Apple Park Visitor Center, Cupertino (rear; Stan Ng, Apple Watch)
• 19:12 - Apple Park Visitor Center, Cupertino (upper pavilion; Dr. Sumbul Ahmad Desai, Health)
• 23:04 - Apple Park Visitor Center, Cupertino (rear side; Amanda Santangelo, Apple Watch SE)
• 25:29 - Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, CA (Eugene Kim, Apple Watch Ultra)
• 29:16 - The Observatory (facing in; Tim Cook, iPhone 17 intro)
• 31:11 - Aventura, Florida (Kaiann Drance, iPhone 17)
• 35:43 - Miami Beach, FL (Megan Nash, iPhone 17 cameras)
• 40:20 - The Observatory (facing out; Tim Cook, iPhone Air intro)
• 42:56 - Michigan Avenue, Chicago (John Ternus, iPhone Air)
• 44:52 - BP Pedestrian Bridge at Millennium Park, Chicago (Tim Millet, iPhone Air’s Apple silicon)
• 53:48 - The Observatory (facing out; Tim Cook, iPhone 17 Pro intro)
• 56:54 - Downtown Brooklyn, New York (Joz, iPhone 17 Pro)
• 1:01:37 - FDR Four Freedoms State Park, New York City/Roosevelt Island (Patrick Carroll, iPhone 17 Pro camera)
• 1:10:34 - Steve Jobs Theater (Tim Cook, outro)

I first heard about the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fat Ham back in March, from my friend and theatre critic Cathy Hammer, who recommended it based on my love of Shakespeare, my appreciation for modern retellings of familiar stories, and—I presume—a desire to highlight underrepresented creators making waves in the overwhelmingly white theatre establishment.

I missed it when it came to the San Francisco Playhouse, but learned recently there was an Audible Original Production—basically an audio play, featuring the original performers from the 2022–23 Off-Broadway and Broadway runs—available for free with my Audible Premium Plus membership.

Had I not otherwise heard about it, Audible’s blurb would not have inspired a listen:

The Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Critic’s Pick that served Broadway “raucous comedy and nonstop pleasure” has made its way home to Audible. Juicy is a queer, Southern college kid already grappling with some serious questions of identity when the ghost of his father shows up in their backyard, demanding that Juicy avenge his murder. But here’s the rub! Revenge doesn’t come easy to Juicy, a sensitive and self-aware young Black man in search of his own happiness and liberation.

I mean, OK? That description doesn’t even begin to capture the inventiveness of the piece, which, at its core, is a reimagining of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but goes well beyond its “murder most foul” origins. This is most definitely Not Shakespeare.

For one, it drips with distinct Southern Blackness (drawls, sass, and queerness in spades), centering its modern-day North Carolinian setting at a cookout in celebration of Juicy’s mother’s recent wedding to his uncle—not a week after his father’s murder, ordered by said uncle—with slow-cooked pork substituting for Hamlet’s “funeral bak’d meats” which “did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.”

For another, it’s laugh-out-loud funny. There were several moments I guffawed, sometimes in recognition, others in shock. Naveen Kumar calls it in his 2023 Variety review “a total gas — the funniest and most invigorating new show on Broadway.” And while it’s often hilarious, it’s also steeped in pathos and melancholy, and at times vibrates with barely contained fury—the tragedy and violence of the source material remains ever-present.

Fat Ham, though, isn’t a beat-for-beat reskinning of Hamlet. It uses the play’s familiarity as a springboard to explore the possibility of an outcome other than (spoiler for a 400-year-old play) the death of almost every major character. Kumar, again:

“Fat Ham” recasts its source material to imagine what Shakespeare did not — how people might overcome circumstances, expectations and their own demons to forge new paths through life.

Jesse Green calls it a “gloss” in his The New York Times review (gift link)—

[…] and the best kind of challenge to it, asking the same questions but coming up with different answers.

This “gloss” allows for moments of cleverness. For example, several character names are artfully transformed: Juicy’s mother is Tedra, rather than Gertrude; his best friend is Tio (Horatio); Opal and Larry are the brother-and-sister duo Ophelia and Laertes. Juicy also recites Hamlet’s “what a piece of work is a man” after Larry unexpectedly comes on to him, and Hamlet’s play-within-a-play is replaced by an unsubtle game of charades (complete with a fourth-wall-breaking recitation of “the play’s the thing” wherein Juicy attempts to “catch the conscience of the king”—or rather, preacher).

I went into Fat Ham with few expectations and came out wanting to immediately experience it again (which, at a brisk 95 minutes, was not a burden). I found it joyous and jarring in equal measure, inducing some whiplash as it careened between thoughtful rumination and acidic remonstration. (A sudden outbreak of karaoke was especially incongruous, and yet it managed to work, as emotional outbursts on Broadway often do.)

Indeed, right up to the final moments, I was unsure whether or not there’d be bloody bodies bestrewing the barbecue. Lester Fabian Brathwaite in Entertainment Weekly described it as “probably the most delightful the story of the Danish prince has ever been.” I’m inclined to agree.

The Audible production is effectively a “cast album,” and like many cast albums, much nuance is undoubtedly lost from only hearing the performers’ voices, without the benefit of their body language and facial expressions—not to mention the absence of staging. Nevertheless, I found Fat Ham delightfully engrossing. Regardless of your familiarity with Shakespeare’s source material, I recommend Fat Ham highly.

(I think Shakespeare, too, would have thoroughly appreciated this retelling of his most famous story, considering the stiff upper lip productions we’re all familiar with do not properly represent the bawdy Bard. Not to mention, the American Southern accent may well be closer to what Shakespeare sounded like 400 years ago.)

Reviews

As I am not a theatre or (audio) book reviewer, I recommend reading an actual review of Fat Ham to get a better sense of the play:

• Naveen Kumar, Variety: “James Ijames’ Pulitzer-Winning ‘Hamlet’ Riff Is a Broadway Feast”
• Jesse Green, The New York Times: “Skewering Masculinity, in a Hot and Sizzling ‘Fat Ham’”
• Lester Fabian Brathwaite, Entertainment Weekly: “The juiciest parts of Hamlet smothered in comedy and pathos”
• Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter: “A Defiant Queer Riff on ‘Hamlet’ Makes a Dazzling Broadway Debut”

I’ve been meaning to add a “lightbox” to this site since it launched so images can be clicked or tapped on to view them at a larger size, but because I don’t post photos here very often, I haven’t had much of an incentive.

A few days ago, we were wandering through the Marina District, taking photos and enjoying one of San Francisco’s warm, early September afternoons. We strolled along Marina Green and Yacht Harbor, then past the Palace of Fine Arts.

After getting home, I was pleased enough with a handful of the shots that I wanted to share, but I felt they were best appreciated at larger sizes.

I finally had an excuse to solve my lightbox situation!

There were several options, but I landed on Fullscreen Lightbox (fslightbox.js), primarily because it was lightweight, had minimal configuration, and was self-contained: no jQuery or other dependencies needed.

Installing it on my self-hosted Ghost blog was easy enough. Here’s what I did:

1. downloaded the script;
2. copied it to my theme’s assets/js/ directory;
3. edited my default.hbs to load the script (see below);
4. made a few minor styling changes to the CSS.

Here’s the code I added to default.hbs:

<script>
  // Find all images on the page that match one of these selectors.
  const images = document.querySelectorAll('.kg-image-card img, .kg-gallery-card img');

// Iterate over each image and wrap it in an `<a>` tag
// with a unique `data-fslightbox` attribute.
  images.forEach((image, index) => {
    const a = document.createElement('a');
    a.setAttribute('data-fslightbox', 'img-' + index);
    a.href = image.src;
    image.parentNode.insertBefore(a, image);
    a.appendChild(image);
  });
</script>

<script defer src="{{asset 'js/fslightbox.js'}}"></script>

One note on this code. By default, fslightbox finds all images on the page and loads them into a single gallery. On a photography-focused site, that makes sense, but not so much here, where photos are specific to the articles they’re in.

Fortunately, it was an easy enough change. fslightbox groups together all elements with the same data-fslightbox attribute. If they all have a unique identifier, each is considered a single-image gallery. So, instead of this:

images.forEach((image) => {
…
a.setAttribute('data-fslightbox', '');
…
}

I have this:

images.forEach((image, index) => {
…
a.setAttribute('data-fslightbox', 'img-' + index);
…
}

Et voilà! Every image on the page now has a unique identifier (data-fslightbox="img-0", data-fslightbox="img-1", etc.) so each image opens individually.

Here are three photos from our San Francisco stroll; click or tap on each one to expand it for better viewing.

I’ve been debating how to acknowledge the killing of a prominent political figure, especially one who stood opposed to my rights as a human being. One who suggested Black pilots are unqualified, called the passage of the Civil Rights Act “a huge mistake,” and said that Black women like Michelle Obama and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson “do not have the brain processing power” to be taken seriously.

Yet I’m told I must mourn the death of a son, husband, and father of two. I’m reminded at every turn that “there is no place for violence in America, political or otherwise.”

Kirk is being hailed as a hero and martyr. The New York Yankees held a moment of silence for him. Ezra Klein wrote a truly awful piece claiming Kirk was “practicing politics the right way.” And Donald Trump ordered the flag of the United States of America to be flown at half-staff for Kirk—a courtesy he tried to deny John McCain and railed against for Jimmy Carter—and will award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Meanwhile, as I’m called on to denounce political violence, Trump also said “we just have to beat the hell” out of “radical left lunatics,” while the far right calls for retribution, so apparently political violence is acceptable, as long as it targets the left.

Erin Reed, in her Erin in the Morning newsletter, wrote this:

Quickly, political figures and pundits rushed to denounce the killing, as they should. But some went further, valorizing and lionizing a man who built his career on contempt of people he viewed as lesser. Political violence is corrosive and we must not excuse it—killing Charlie Kirk was horrific. But we also must not sanitize the memory of a man who wished harm on those he disagreed with, and who spread a message of hate to anyone willing to listen or pay him to do so. We can denounce the violent killing of Charlie Kirk without praising his abhorrent legacy.

And closes:

You can stand against political violence, as anyone with a conscience does. You can call for a politics rooted in kindness—something we desperately lack today, and something I know the absence of intimately as a transgender person who has lived under the weight of rhetoric like Kirk’s. You can and should condemn killing over speech. But to ask that people carry on Kirk’s “work” is a bridge too far. We must not valorize his life. We must not sanitize his hate. Not now. Not ever.

I wrote of Trump’s assassination attempt last July (“A Sad American Legacy Continues”):

This abhorrent act against a former president and current presidential candidate must serve as a reminder that political violence is never acceptable, no matter the target, and that violent rhetoric has real-world repercussions. Yet we must not mistake from where that rhetoric often comes.

I’ll reiterate that sentiment for Charlie Kirk—but I won’t mourn him.

Apple’s annual September product fest was Tuesday, and the main thing that surprised me was how short it was: a fast-moving 71 minutes. (Don’t have time for even that? Here’s Apple’s two-and-a-half minute recap.)

While technically speaking eight new products were introduced, it really comes down to this: updates to AirPods Pro, the Apple Watch family, and the iPhone 17 family, plus a new iPhone Air.

(Yes, Apple stuck with its increment-by-one iPhone naming, thank goodness, choosing to avoid a jarring jump to “iPhone 26.” We can continue to excitedly anticipate an “iPhone 20” in a few years.)

iPhone 17

The iPhone 17 exists so Apple can advertise a “from $799” starting price. It’s the iPhone you buy when your five-year-old phone dies and you don’t want to spend a lot of money on that muffler its replacement—which is not to say it’s not a worthy phone. It’s the smallest iPhone (by a smidge), comes in the widest range of colors (five), and offers most of the features of its more expensive siblings. This year, that includes a 6.3-inch “Super Retina XDR ProMotion” screen that was previously reserved for Pro-level devices, two remarkable 48MP Fusion rear cameras (covering .5x, 1x, and 2x optical ranges), an A19 chip, and a new 18MP “Center Stage” front camera (more in a bit). For many people, iPhone 17 will satisfy all of their iPhone desires for years to come.

iPhone Air

The newest new phone is iPhone Air (not, as we might have assumed, the iPhone 17 Air). At an awe-dropping 5.6mm, I’m terribly tempted by its thinness—it’s beautiful to look at, and I’m guessing it feels equally fantastic in the hands. Carved from titanium, it also has a “Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion,” this one stretching to 6.5 inches. The front has the new Center Stage camera and the rear camera—yes, singular—is a 48MP Fusion Main camera (1x and 2x optical zoom; no macro or ultra-wide). It’s powered by an A19 Pro chip, along with a new cellular modem, the C1X (“the most power-efficient modem in an iPhone”) which no doubt contributes to its great/fantastic/remarkable “all-day battery life.” (Oh, Apple.)

As tempting as this beauty is, I buy a new iPhone for the cameras, and the best cameras Apple offers are always in the iPhone Pro and Pro Max. I’ll have to lust after the Air from afar.

About that name, iPhone Air: I suspect, like the iPhone X, this is a “technology transition” phone. iPhone X introduced a bezel-less design and eliminated the Home button, features which eventually became standard in all new iPhones. The successor to iPhone Air will likely be the next flagship iPhone, incorporating everything Apple learned in making a thin phone—certainly the much-rumored folding phone for sure, but considering the similar form factors, perhaps also a radically thinner iPad or iPad mini is a possibility.

iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max

Let’s get this out of the way: I plan to buy the iPhone 17 Pro in the stunning new “Cosmic Orange.” It looks gorgeous, almost Hermès-esque.

My wife, however, tells me I’m “not an orange phone person”—too loud for this grays-and-blacks esthete, apparently—but I think she’s angling to claim this color for herself. I may have to settle for Deep Blue to preserve marital harmony.

One design concern: these phones have a “Ceramic Shield” on the back to make them more scratch-resistant. It’s a different shade from the surrounding area, and looks like a cutout with a groove. I worry this groove will catch my fingers—and capture grunge. The iPhone Air, which also has a Ceramic Shield back, does not seem to have this issue: its back looks completely smooth. It’s a minor thing, sure, but the wonderful, smooth tactility of the iPhone is one reason I never add a case or other protection to it.

Beyond aesthetics, iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max both sport a new A19 Pro chip (“the most powerful and efficient chip” in an iPhone), an improved cooling system (which I can only hope prevents it from overheating after 20 minutes in the sun), and a significantly improved camera system, with three 48MP Fusion rear cameras:

• 24/48mm ƒ/1.78 Main camera
• 13mm (and .5x macro) ƒ/2.2 Ultra Wide
• 100/200mm ƒ/2.8 Telephoto

Optical zoom from .5x to 8x? Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff. And, now that all three lenses have the same resolution, video shooters can finally switch between them while recording without a loss in quality. Hurrah.

Shared iPhone features

As you’ve likely gathered, all of the new iPhones share very similar guts. The iPhone Air, for example, is basically an iPhone 17 Pro with a slightly bigger screen, one rear camera, and a daily gym routine. This shared DNA includes new Apple silicon, the Center Stage camera, faster charging, and better screen durability.

A19 (Pro) (Asterisk)

At the heart of all of the phones is the new 3-nanometer A19 (iPhone 17) and A19 Pro (everything else). However, while the Air and Pro phones both have an “A19 Pro” inside, they’re not the same “A19 Pro”—the one in the iPhone Air is a 5-core GPU, while the Pro phones have a 6-core GPU. Worth noting in case you desperately need that one extra GPU core.

N1 Wireless Networking

All the phones also have a new wireless networking chip Apple’s dubbed N1, which combines the latest standards (Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread) for improved performance. (One promised but detail-free feature of the N1: improvements to Personal Hotspot. I hope this means fewer dropped connections and faster reconnections, the biggest frustrations I have with using it, and the main reason I continue to hope for a cellular MacBook.)

Center Stage camera

The 18MP Center Stage front selfie camera that’s present on all of the phones is now a square sensor instead of the traditional 4:3 rectangle we’ve gotten used to. Now you can capture both portrait and landscape photos without needing to rotate the phone. (I love square photos; perhaps we’ll see a resurgence.) It also captures “ultra-stabilized” 4K HDR video, and enables Dual Capture video: recording both the rear- and front-facing camera together. Content creators rejoice.

Charging, Ceramic Shield

All of the phones come with super-fast charging (50 percent in 20 minutes with a high-wattage power adapter) and the screen is more scratch-resistant than before, thanks to an improved “Ceramic Shield.” iPhone Air and Pro models also have a Ceramic Shield on the back.

AirPods Pro 3

The new headphones bring improved Active Noise Cancellation, heart rate sensing during workouts, and better battery life, but for me, the headline feature is Live Translation:

When enabled, Live Translation helps users understand another language and communicate with others by speaking naturally with AirPods.

With both speakers using AirPods Pro 3 and Live Translation, it’s like having an early prototype universal translator—assuming both people speak one of the five (soon nine) supported languages. Next challenge: make them smaller, replicate the speakers’ voices, and handle every language in the universe.

Maybe next year?

Apple Watch Ultra 3, SE, Series 11

Two years ago I switched to an Apple Watch Ultra, mainly because of the larger screen and lighter weight. When the Ultra 2 in black came out last year, I was tempted but held off because there weren’t enough improvements to justify upgrading. Apple Watch Ultra 3 increases the screen size (without increasing the case), improves battery life, adds 5G cellular, super-fast charging (15 minutes gets you up to 12 hours), a new S10 chip, and—most importantly, as someone with a monthly Popeyes Tuesday appointment—hypertension notifications:

Apple Watch Ultra 3 introduces groundbreaking hypertension notifications, which can alert users if signs of chronic high blood pressure — or hypertension — are detected. […]

Hypertension notifications on Apple Watch use data from the optical heart sensor to analyze how a user’s blood vessels respond to the beats of the heart.

Hypertension “impacts approximately 1.3 billion adults globally,” notes Apple, and the notification feature “is expected to notify over 1 million people with undiagnosed hypertension within the first year.” That’s a lot of lives potentially saved.

The feature is also available on Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Apple Watch Series 9 and later—including the new Apple Watch Series 11. It’s not available on the new Apple Watch SE 3.

Apple Watch Series 11 gets 24-hour battery life and a thinner design, while Apple Watch SE 3 gains an always-on display and fast charging.

For all watches supporting an always-on display, watchOS 26 also adds one other very important feature:

[…] over 20 watch faces are updated so users can see a ticking seconds hand without raising their wrist.

Finally.