I’m a Six Colors Subscriber who likes to draw pictures of data. As in previous years, Jason Snell kindly asked me if I wanted to try drawing some additional graphs based on the 2025 Report Card. In prior years, I’ve looked at the questionnaire data in ways that a social scientist might, mostly focusing on how the answers cluster together across respondents.
This year, Jason’s discussion of the results here at Six Colors and on Upgrade highlighted not just this or that question but a more general feature of the data: the bad vibes. The vibes around Apple seem worse this year. Naturally, we want to know: what can … (here you should imagine me turning my head dramatically while the camera suddenly zooms in) … science … tell us about these vibes?
Well, if we were just relying on the survey, not that much. But when your panel of fifty or more also write tens of thousands of additional words of commentary, your polite attempts to dissuade them from doing so notwithstanding … Well, maybe that can be grist for our mill. Of science. It’s a science mill, OK? One that can be made to do a little sentiment analysis of the 2025 commentary to see how it compares to the vibes from 2024.
Actress Hannah Waddingham let it slip that the new season comes in August, so clear your calendar, lock the doors and, I dunno, bake those cookies he made in season one or something, what am I, your event coordinator?
Don’t like that show? OK. OK. Instead of sports fiction, what about science fiction? Apple’s hit show “For All Mankind” returns next month to convince you all over again that space is nothing but silence and death and you should never, ever, ever go there.
While most of Cupertino’s most secretive divisions are concealed deep within Apple Park, hidden from prying eyes, the company’s most devious—most nefarious—group does its work right out in the open, kept separate from the rank and file by only thin sheets of engineered glass.
Within this fishbowl-like structure, personnel driven half-mad (on their way to fully mad) toil, unendingly, over their work, in their attempts to create something that transcends the limitation of matter and physics, something that helps shift consciousness into an entirely different plane. Passersby, if they listen carefully, may hear the keening, almost cackling noises that filter from within, but to a one they hurry by before they too are subsumed into this unholy work.
What strange geometry exists in this liminal space? Those here labor deep into the occult realms of anti-productivity, endlessly tweaking and adjusting their work so as to overwhelm their subjects, their victims, with what at first blush seem to be the most picayune of details, but are in fact traps from which their minds will never be able to emerge.…
After lengthy rumors, last October Apple announced it had bought the U.S. rights to the Formula One racing circuit. Next week, the races begin, and Apple has now detailed the viewing experience for the season.
First, the basics: Every Apple TV subscriber has access to all the video feeds from live races, practices, and qualifying. There’s no separate package to buy, and all the video will be available within the TV app on all of Apple’s platforms as well as many other smart TVs and connected devices.
According to Apple SVP of Services Eddy Cue, race video will be in 4K HDR with 5.1 audio. Cue said that like Apple’s other sports broadcasts, the video will be less compressed than content from other services, one reason Apple’s stuff tends to look better than the competition.
The TV app supports Multiview, which allows for the display of up to four video feeds at one time. To make it easier on users who might be uncomfortable building a custom Multiview layout, the app will be able to build different combinations of multiview with just one click—for example, if you click the Red Bull multiview option, you’ll get a large view of the race feed with smaller onboard views from the two Red Bull cars. (You can also set up custom Multiviews and even edit the ones created by the presets.)
Every session will be presented in both English and Spanish audio, and Apple is using the F1 TV feed as its primary feed—but also offering the very popular Sky Sports video feed as an option, and either feed can be used with Multiview. There are 30 extra feeds, including a race tracker; driver data; “podium channels” that show the video of whichever cars are in first, second, and third place; and all 22 driver cameras.
Users of Apple’s Vision Pro won’t get a 3D race map (yet—though that would be amazing, wouldn’t it?), but they can add a fifth camera view to the multiview for an even more immersive experience.
According to Cue, Apple was inspired to become a Formula One broadcaster after working with the circuit on “F1: The Movie.” “What it really did is it let our teams work together for years, and what I discovered is we shared the same vision, in the sense of being innovative and focused on providing the best fan experience,” he said.
Perhaps the most surprising announcement on Thursday was that Apple and Netflix, which have had a rather stand-offish relationship when it comes to video programming, have struck a deal to swap some Formula One-related content. Formula One’s growing popularity in the United States is due, perhaps in large part, to the high-profile success of the Netflix docuseries “Drive to Survive.” The latest season of that series, debuting Friday, will premiere simultaneously on both Netflix and Apple TV. Presumably, in exchange for that non-exclusive, Apple will also non-exclusively allow Netflix to broadcast the Canadian Grand Prix in May. (Insert obligatory wish that Apple and Netflix would bury the hatchet and enable Watch Now support in the TV app for Netflix content.)
Netflix isn’t Apple’s only F1 content partner. The company said it would be providing free streamer Tubi with “exclusive alt-casts for multiple races.” An alt-cast is an alternative version of the main broadcast, like the Manning Brothers doing a sort of live podcast during a Monday Night Football game or Nickelodeon’s animated take on live NFL broadcasts. It’s unclear what the Tubi alt-cast will actually be, but I love the idea of Apple embracing the alt-cast concept—and using it to find a different audience with a partner.
Since Apple’s rights are limited to the U.S., I assume most of these partnerships will involve races that take place during waking hours, since many races do tend to start in the middle of the night over here. On that note, Apple did emphasize that it’s working hard not to spoil the results of races in the TV app, since many American fans will watch on a time-delayed basis.
Other partners Apple announced Thursday were IMAX (select World Championship races will be shown on IMAX screens in the U.S., again presumably ones taking place during waking hours), Comcast, Everpass, Prime Video, and DirecTV. Some of those may just offer resold versions of Apple TV, and others (like Everpass and DirecTV) will make races available to commercial establishments like bars and restaurants.
On Thursday, both parties pitched their relationship as not being between Apple TV and Formula One, but between Apple and Formula One. Following last year’s Monaco maps tied to the Grand Prix, Apple added fancy Melbourne maps in advance of next week’s race, and I’d expect more fancy racing-focused maps in the future. Apple Music, Fitness, Podcasts, Sports, and even its retail stores will be part of a larger Formula One push. It’s clear that the playbook Apple used to push “F1: The Movie” will continue with this wider relationship, at least in the U.S.
Last November, I got to experience watching a Formula One race with my pal Myke Hurley, who is an avid F1 fan. It was a pretty good time, and I’m looking forward to seeing how Apple’s implementation of all these features works out during next week’s race. It won’t be so fun to watch without Myke, though. Maybe I’ll FaceTime him during the race.
The automation features added in macOS Tahoe are remarkably useful.
Over the past several months, I’ve been on a bit of a quest to refine and enhance the essential automations on my Mac. While I’ve relied on a hodgepodge of tools over the years, the primary impetus for this bout of self-improvement was the introduction of automations for Shortcuts in macOS Tahoe—a long-awaited feature that has been around for many years on iOS and whose lack I’ve repeatedly decried during that time.
Many of the tools I previously used were totally fine—good, even—but I am a big believer in using first-party options where possible, both to figure out the extent of their capabilities, as well as to reduce dependence on other tools that might not offer full cross-platform support or might use non-sanctioned methods that could go away. It’s hard enough to get most people to start trying automations, without having to refer them to third-party apps.
One place that I’ve relied on automation over the past several years is in managing my podcasts. Jason and I have, of course, collaborated on a podcast notes workflow, but most of my needs are more mundane. To wit, recording podcasts requires managing a lot of files, and dealing with all of that manually was something I didn’t really want to have to spend time thinking about.
My previous solution relied on Hazel, an excellent Mac automation tool that can watch folders and carry out actions based on what happens in them. Apple itself has long offered a similar capability called Folder Actions, though it’s somewhat hidden these days and requires using AppleScript to at least bridge over to Shortcuts, something that I didn’t want to have to deal with.
So I set out trying to get two of my major podcast file management workflows into automations.
The Mac mini is gonna be made in Amurica, we talk about our levels of comfort letting AI Jesus take the wheel and some people have snow while others do not.
Designing for outer space presents a fundamentally different problem. There is no weather window to wait out, no fog delay, no permit to secure—but there is also limited to no ground truth. The moon environment was built from limited imagery captured during the 1972 landing. And for the Jupiter environment, the team had to construct a plausible world from almost nothing.
I appreciate the idea that these are less photorealistic recreations of the environments than idealized versions. The kind of sheen that your memory puts on something, editing out the things that you weren’t paying attention to. Immersive environments remain one of the best parts of the Vision Pro experience, the only downside being that there aren’t more of them. But from what you can glean from this interview, it’s clear the reason there are so few of them is the amount of attention and detail that they put into making them.
We discuss the results of the Six Colors Apple Report Card for 2025 in depth, with our added opinions on every category. Jason chooses to be a rascal, and Myke tries to give ten out of five.
It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple. The whole idea here is to get a broad sense of sentiment—the “vibe in the room”—regarding the past year. (And by looking at previous survey results, we can even see how that sentiment has drifted over the course of an entire decade.)
This is the eleventh year that I’ve presented this survey to my hand-selected group. They were prompted with 14 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 (worst) to 5 (best) and optionally provide text commentary per category.
I received 56 replies, with the average results as shown below:
Since most of the survey categories are the same as in previous years, I was able to track the change in my panel’s consensus opinion. The net changes between 2024 and 2025 are displayed below—you’ll note that scores were down in 11 of the 14 categories:
Read on for category-by-category grades, trends, and select commentary from the panelists. (You can also read the entirety of panelist commentary—all 32,000 words—if you are so inclined. I discuss the results and give some of my own opinions on today’s episode of Upgrade.)
Every year, we ask a collection of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people for their opinions about how Apple fared in the year just gone by. You can read our 2025 report card for the average scores and some juicy quotes. But if you want to read the whole thing—all 32,000 words of it—who are we to stand in your way? They wrote it, you read it. That’s how this works.
After my article on 2nd-generation AirTag compatibility issues a few weeks ago, in which I explained that the 26.2.1 or later release of each of Apple’s operating systems was required to pair and view the revised tracker, my friend Adam Engst posted a question about compatibility, and Six Colors member Scott wrote in with a related query.
If you can’t use a 2nd-generation AirTag with an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch—because you can’t upgrade the device to its respective 26.2.1, or have chosen not to—does that mean that this newer AirTag model is invisible to those devices when reporting its location? And—me partly extrapolating a related question—does this prevent anti-stalking features, created by Apple and by an Apple/Google industry initiative, from “seeing” an unwanted AirTag 2?
Fortunately, the ability to pair and track a 2nd-generation AirTag is distinct from participating in Apple’s crowdsourced Find My network, allowing its encrypted, privacy-protecting broadcasts to be recognized by all generations of Apple hardware. And the new AirTag doesn’t create an accidental loophole in deterring and detecting unwanted tracking—in fact, it might even be a better “citizen” due to its ability to emit a louder noise and its longer Bluetooth range.
Think quick, hot spot! Which one of these AirTags is first-generation and which is second? The AirTag 1 is at left, with upper and lowercase type on its back plastic battery panel; the AirTag 2, at right, is all uppercase and calls out the IP67 water resistance. (Images: Apple)
Find My network counts on you
When you’re within Bluetooth range of an AirTag (either generation), a third-party Find My tracker, or a device with one embedded, Bluetooth lets you find your devices. This includes most Apple and Beats audio hardware and Apple’s Internet-connectable hardware.
But outside that range, the Find My network kicks in. It relies on crowdsourcing. When your “device” (iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch) lacks an Internet connection, it begins broadcasting over Bluetooth using a network name that contains encrypted information. Audio hardware not near a paired device does the same, and AirTag and Find My items broadcast all the time.
This signal is picked up by any nearby iPhone, iPad, or Mac with an Internet connection. It takes the encrypted Bluetooth identifier, which reveals nothing to the device’s owner, packages it with the currently derived location (using a combination of GPS, cell tower finding, and Wi-Fi positioning), and uploads it to Apple. Because the data is encrypted, only a device registered to the same Apple Account can download and decrypt it, which is why native Find My apps are required on each major device platform.
The 2nd-generation AirTag broadcasts the same kind of information as the 1st-generation model. In fact, due to a newer Bluetooth chip, it will likely be picked up at a greater range than its predecessor, making tracking more likely.
Unwanted tracking
Technology is always turned to dark ends, and it’s our job, as people who buy, make, or critique devices, to appreciate the good uses and to mitigate or eliminate the poorly developed ones. So far this century: Bad work, everyone!
The AirTag is a great case in point. Before it existed, Tile offered trackers that worked within Bluetooth range and had developed a crowdsourced passalong technology, but needed a vastly larger installed base to make it valuable—and dangerous. Besides Tile, if you wanted to track something (or someone), you had to get a GPS tracker with cellular connectivity, which could be expensive and have relatively short battery life.
This was useful for expensive hardware, families of people with dementia or cognitive decline, and for stalkers, whether domestic (or former) domestic partners or others. But the cost, size, complexity, battery life, and other details put them out of reach of most people.
Apple shipped the AirTag, and it immediately changed the equation. Because an AirTag can rely on a billion pieces of Apple hardware already in the field, and because it has a lithium-ion cell that can last about six to 12 months, it’s a boon for making keeping tabs on our bags, cars, and bikes. But also a boon for the creeps and abusers of the world.
I won’t relitigate the critique Apple received for its initial settings, but the company made changes over time to make it more likely that we would become aware that someone was trying to track us without our knowledge. Here’s a rundown of the two main features and how the new AirTag improves discoverability:
Planted on you or your stuff: When an AirTag is separated from its paired device, it makes a sound when moved. Initially, the delay was three days; Apple reduced it to a random duration of 8 to 24 hours. Thus, if someone stuck a tracker in your bag while you were out and about, when you picked it up within a day, you’d get an audible alert. The 2nd-generation AirTag is 50% louder (according to Apple’s measurements) than the 1st-generation model.
Moving with you: In whatever fashion a tracker comes to be near you for a persistent period of time—Apple doesn’t disclose, but it’s likely 15 minutes or longer—you will receive an alert on your iPhone or iPad about it, and be able to play a sound on the tracker. It should appear when you arrive home or at a significant location, defined and securely stored locally on your devices, or by the end of the day if the previous trigger didn’t occur. The 2nd-generation AirTag’s 50% louder volume helps here, too. Apple and Google co-wrote a standard for anti-tracking that led both companies’ mobile operating systems to recognize each other’s devices as moving with you.
Google has adopted additional countermeasures that I wish Apple would consider:
Trackers’ locations are relayed only when they’re in “high-traffic” areas, like an airport, a path, or a street people commonly walk on. This prevents tracking in homes or when someone is out for a drive or bike ride. It makes it less likely to be useful for finding someone on their own, for sure.
If you mark your home address in your Google Account, this prevents any Android device from relaying trackers in or near that location. That can keep a stalker from knowing when you leave or return home.
A tracker’s owner is limited in how frequently they receive updates. Google doesn’t provide details says they “rate limit” and “throttle” requests, as most lost items remain in stationary locations.
Apple may have implemented some aspects of the above, but the company doesn’t disclose or document them.
For further reading
Since my last column, I’ve updated my book Take Control of Find My and AirTags to incorporate all the details related to the 2nd-generation AirTag and the new availability of Precision Finding for certain Apple Watch models.
[Got a question for the column? You can email glenn@sixcolors.com or use/glennin our subscriber-only Discord community.]
Your guess is as good as anyone’s as to what’ll be on the menu at this experience, but whether they are announced on March 4th or not, Apple is widely expected to be unveiling its new, low(er)-cost MacBook very soon as well as the iPhone 17e. On their own, those wouldn’t seem to warrant an event, let alone an experience, so expect something else to get unveiled. Likely something that needs some… experiencing to understand.
That could be intriguing or it could be extremely untriguing. John Gruber points out that the Formula 1 season starts on March 8th, raising the possibility that Apple’s experience could just be immersive F1 on the Vision Pro.…
Main Street goes bust, the Super Bowl soars, the Winter Olympics rule, and the Great Rebundling proceeds apace. Plus: our TV picks! [Downstream+ subscribers also get: Big changes at Disney, and the lastest on WBD/Netflix/Paramount.)
Whether we’d wear an Apple AI pendant, the vintage tech bringing us joy, how we feel about AI-generated playlists, and whether to buy an M4 Mac mini before the Apple event.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple had scaled back its plans to launch a new Health+ service and was revisiting its entire health and fitness strategy.
While this could be seen as being another sign of trouble at Apple, as the company is currently mired in an ongoing narrative about its inability to ship AI features it promised nearly two years ago, I choose to see this as the opposite: A promising early sign that Apple’s executives are recognizing that its headlong charge into chasing services revenue might be coming at too high a cost.
The unlikely hero in all this? Apple’s services chief himself, Eddy Cue.
We discuss Apple’s struggles to ship an upgraded Apple Intelligence, prepare for a March 4 product announcement, and explain Apple TV going all in on “Severance.” Also, Jason answers your (many!) curling questions!
