By Jason Snell

September 9, 2026 5:39 PM PT

John Ternus enters, with folding phones and AI watches

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 landing in the way that many Apple introductory segments don’t, feeling either a bit too silly or a bit too smug.

(I also appreciated the direction of this video, which made sure that the scenes behind presenters were actually populated. Past videos made it feel like Apple Park was abandoned after some sort of apocalypse, while this one made it feel like everyone at Apple was still hard at work on making the company’s next batch of products. And it allowed for some low-key levity, like the segment set at a Hollywood backlot that featured a fake rainstorm falling on film noir characters and Apple presenters alike, a collection of Roman soldiers marching with a classical composer, and a couple of astronauts riding on the back of a golf cart.)

After professing what a privilege it was to represent Apple, Ternus quickly turned to a defense of the iPhone, and the smartphone more generally, as a cornerstone of our digital worlds. In casting the tech product at the center of our experiences as an “intelligent personal hub,” Ternus was alluding to Jobs’s declaration more than 25 years ago that the Mac was the center of a “digital hub.” In modern terms, the smartphone certainly fills that role, connecting to accessories and bringing in data from disparate sources.

Not only was it bold to tie the first pronouncement of a new Apple CEO to a famous Jobs strategy, but it was also bold to use the moment to take a direct shot at competitors who seek to replace the smartphone with unspecified new AI-infused tech products. It has always seemed obvious to me that the smartphone is just too perfectly positioned, with the right set of attributes, to survive whatever an AI-infused future might throw at it.

Ternus’s opening remarks fed into that, referencing the key features that make the iPhone such a powerfully useful product: It’s always with you, has a powerful processor, a great display, is always connected to a high-speed network, has high-quality sensors, and has a battery big enough to last all day. I have a hard time believing that even a deeply AI-heavy future won’t require all of those features, and it’s already in our pockets.

Of course, he would say that. He’s the CEO of a company that sells devices, primarily smartphones. But I think he’s also right.

Apple’s take on AI

Still, Apple is a tech company, and everything in its sphere is touched by AI now, so the company needed more than a profession that the iPhone was just great at AI, thank you. And so Ternus and his team worked to define Apple’s place in our AI-focused world—in some interesting ways.

Obviously, the presentation spent a lot of time discussing Apple Intelligence, which—after a two-year delay—is finally living up to its promise. The new Siri AI assistant is quite good, and it will provide iPhone users with a satisfying experience for casually looking up information and performing tasks, whether it’s world knowledge or personal data that lives on their devices. Apple is about to turn a real weakness into—well, if not a strength, then at least no longer an Achilles heel.

Apple also pressed its advantage when it comes to designing its own processors, which give the iPhone a strong story in terms of on-device AI. You can see how Apple has begun to prioritize AI benchmarks—the new A20 Pro processor has two Neural Engines (just as the M6 chip does), offers a bunch of next-gen GPU cores with neural accelerators, and has a 50% boost in memory bandwidth.

How much AI work is currently being done on-device on smartphones? Probably not much, but perhaps a little, and over time if app developers want to minimize their reliance on expensive (and potentially non-private) cloud services, they may gravitate toward using the features Apple provides on device. This is a bet by Apple that on-device AI becomes more prominent over time, but if you design your own chips and sell your own smartphones, it’s the right bet to make. I’ve seen the pendulum swing from processing being focused in the cloud to it happening on personal devices more than once. It would not surprise me at all if it happens again, and Apple is positioning itself to be ready if it does.

But there were some appreciably non-obvious examples of Apple’s approach to AI in the event, as well. Apple has said previously that it would support SynthID, a feature that tags AI-generated content. What it hadn’t previously revealed is that it’s built Apple Reference Image, a system that cryptographically signs the original pixel data from an iPhone camera’s sensor in a way that can verify that a photo is unedited. Accepting that most photos do get edited, Apple has built the system in a way that the signed, unedited original rides along with the version you’re processing and editing—but even if you edit the image, there’s a method to view the original and make sure that it’s properly reflecting reality.

I don’t know enough about this category to know if there are similar implementations from other groups, or if there’s an emerging standard that Apple is either inventing or avoiding, but it sure does sound like a good idea to have a way to say that a photograph was really taken from an iPhone’s image sensor and wasn’t just fabricated.

Finally, Apple’s most surprising AI announcement of the day, one that I doubt anyone had on their bingo card, is that Apple is apparently making the Apple Watch an AI wearable. The new Apple Watch models, apparently in conjunction with a fairly modern iPhone, have a feature that listens to your conversation and lets you display what someone said for the previous 15 seconds. It’s like TiVo for… reality? And then there’s Siri Recap, which listens to everything and writes high-level notes based on your conversations. It’s AI meeting notes for your life.

These features are wild, and if you haven’t noticed, they are coming at a time when people are increasingly critical of tech companies intruding into places that were previously presumed to be at least a bit private. Fortunately, Apple does have a fairly positive reputation when it comes to privacy, and the company has detailed technically how these features work—no audio files are saved, apps have no access to audio data, and the AI transcription engine runs on audio in a buffer. But since we live in a world where people are already convinced their phones listen to them and use their conversations to send them ads, I’m not convinced the nuance of a statement like “my Apple Watch is listening to our conversation, but it’s not recording” is going to go over well.

I’m curious just how much of this feature is happening on the Apple Watch and how much is happening on the connected iPhone. Is the Apple Watch just there to listen to audio, make disclaimer chimes to warn people they’re being monitored, and pass the audio on to the iPhone for processing? Is the Apple Watch performing a raw transcription of audio chunks into text and passing that on to the iPhone for assembly into more understandable blocks of text? I’m sure it’ll all come out. And then we’ll all need to judge: are either of these features useful enough to make it worth the trouble of explaining to other people that things are being captured? It’s worth considering the inverse, too: Does Apple’s admirable commitment to privacy lead to summaries that aren’t especially helpful or actionable?

A lot of questions, not a lot of answers—yet.

I’d argue that Apple can’t afford to not try features like this, however. Our culture may ultimately reject even the most privacy-focused AI recording features, whether they come in camera glasses or attentive smartwatches. But if there’s any valid, non-creepy case to be made for this sort of technology, someone needs to make it. I know a lot of people will roll their eyes at this, but this is one of those times when the phrase “only Apple can do this” might actually be true. They’re taking a swing, and I admire that. It may not be enough.

Keep in mind that there’s another invasive AI feature rumored to be attached to a future Apple product—namely, the next generation of AirPods Pro, which may come with embedded cameras. I assume Apple’s explanation of these new Apple Watch features is a preview of how camera-bearing AirPods would be explained—namely, that the image data is walled off, inaccessible, processed by AI algorithms on device and then discarded. If these Apple Watch features become wildly unpopular, it might be a hint to stow those AirPods. If people accept Apple’s assurances, maybe things will be different.

The main event

Off to the iPhone, the big reason Apple does these events. Of course, the iPhone Duo is the most interesting and different iPhone in years, if ever. I can’t wait to play with one. It’s an incredibly complex piece of hardware engineering that also generates hundreds of serious usability issues for iOS and all the apps that run on it.

At first glance, Apple seems to have gotten really creative in trying to solve those usability issues. There was a time when Apple might have introduced a product like this and just explained that while you could rest the device partially open at an angle, horizontally or vertically, those angles simply weren’t supported and you should only ever use the product open or closed. And a lot of us would’ve shrugged and said, well, okay Apple, I get that we’re asking a lot by wanting you to cover all the bases right away. Maybe next year?

Not the iPhone Duo. While I’m sure there will be some frustrating edge cases, this product announcement shows what can happen when a company is fully committed to bringing its entire organization to bear on supporting a new piece of hardware. There’s a new multitasking model, support for Apple Pencil on iOS for the first time(!), the ability for apps to run on both inside and outside screens at once, Apple’s first under-display camera, an entirely reoriented iOS dock and set of toolbars, and a whole lot more.

It’s almost overwhelming, but it’s also clearly the right way to launch a product like this. It would make no sense for Apple to spend years developing a folding iPhone… and then shrugging and releasing a half-baked iOS update to support it. If a company boasts about how the integration of hardware and software is its secret sauce, this is the moment when it needs to back that up with action. Feels to me like it has.

As exciting as this all is, let’s not forget that folding phones are a teeny portion of the overall smartphone market. Not only is this the most expensive iPhone ever, but it’ll probably be the worst seller of the iPhone line, at least to start. And in doing so, it’ll probably be the best-selling folding phone of all time. Apple’s endorsement of this style of device will drive sales of other folding phones, too. Just don’t expect it to take over the world. If it sells as well as the iPhone Air, it would be quite a coup.

That’s because most people will want to buy the iPhone 18 Pro. While that product pales in comparison to the alien newness of the iPhone Duo, it’s also exactly the phone most people will want to buy. The new camera upgrade, which adds a moving aperture to the iPhone for the first time, should offer a serious improvement in an array of shots. I’m sad that Apple has seemingly retired Cosmic Orange this year, but that’s okay, it’s just resting—I predict a nostalgic orange iPhone comeback in a year or two.

Bottom line—the iPhone 17 Pro was a huge hit and I suspect the 18 Pro will be, too. Yes, it starts at $100 more than the past models, but what doesn’t? I’m actually relieved Apple didn’t raise the price by $150 or $200. The iPhone 18 Pro might not be the one most people talk about, but it’ll be the one most people buy. (And then in the spring, we’ll see how the iPhone 18 fares as a phone released out of the spotlight of the big fall iPhone event.)

In the long run, though, is the iPhone Duo the future of the iPhone line? It depends on what you mean by “long run.” It seems to me that the impulse of the iPhone Duo and all folding phones is based on the premise that phone users want huge displays (true) but at some point those displays just don’t fit in their pockets (a sad fact of physics and tailoring). Wouldn’t you want the biggest screen that also fits in your pocket? If so, then at some point that ideal device becomes a foldable, or rollable, or some other kind of shape that can be large when in use and small when it’s stowed away.

Now is probably not that time. (Certainly not at that price.) But its time may yet come, especially as Apple does its thing and just keeps iterating, making the iPhone Duo thinner and lighter and more full featured over time.

I can’t wait to try out the iPhone Duo. As someone who spends a lot of time using an iPad, I’m seriously intrigued if it might fit in my life as a primary device. But for most people, it will be not just too expensive, but too weird. That’s fine. Apple strikes me as a company that’s willing to be patient—while making a lot of money from people who want to be out there on the cutting edge.

For everyone else, there’s the iPhone 18 Pro. And that’s as it should be.

By Dan Moren

September 9, 2026 1:59 PM PT

The iPhone Duo: Tradeoffs, but fewer than feared

Apple’s events are always a deluge of information, delivered by smooth-talking presenters who are probably trying to hypnotize you with their soothing hand motions. So it can take a little bit of time after watching the presentation to come back to reality, and sift through the details.

This year’s iPhone event¹ was no exception. The company rolled out new Pro iPhones, two new Apple Watches, a new pair of AirPods, and, of course, the first folding iPhone. Having had a couple of hours to poke around and think about the slew of announcements, I’ve been mulling over the implications of Apple’s newest phone.

One of the biggest questions around the expected folding iPhone, now officially dubbed the Duo, was how much of a trade-off it would be compared to the year’s Pro model iPhones. There was a similar dynamic last year with the iPhone Air, which also offered a novel form factor, though at the cost of the iPhone 17 Pro’s additional cameras and battery life.

In the end, every Apple product—and probably every product—is a story of trade-offs. So, the thinking went, what will we give up to get the benefit of a small iPhone that unfolds into a larger iPhone?

The answer: some things, but less than I’d feared.

Saving face

Perhaps the biggest casualty is Face ID. That’s not really a surprise: it’s an expensive component that takes up valuable space inside the phone chassis, as well as on the screen. Then factor in that the iPhone Duo would probably need two Face ID cameras modules, one each for the exterior and interior screens, and we’re talking double trouble.²

I’ll certainly miss Face ID in the cold New England winter when I don’t want to take off my gloves, but hopefully the Apple Watch unlock will mitigate the frustration.

Camera shy

It also seemed a foregone conclusion that at least one of the iPhone Pro’s many cameras wouldn’t make the cut, and sure enough, the Duo lacks the 4x/8x telephoto lens. But it still features the ultrawide lens, which is the better choice, since that also enables macro features. The main 48MP camera also only has Apple’s first-generation sensor-shift optical image stabilization, compared to the second-generation tech on the 17 Pro and 18 Pro.

The Duo’s dual screens also raise questions about the front-facing cameras. While both its interior and exterior selfie cameras are capable of Center Stage and can flip between landscape and portrait at the touch of a control, neither is as good quality as the front-facing camera on the Pro models.

The 18 Pro, like the 17 line before it, boasts a hefty 18MP sensor; the iPhone Duo’s exterior camera, by comparison, is just 12MP. As for the interior screen’s camera, which is the first one that Apple has tucked under the display, the current specs say only that it records video at 1080p. The exterior front-facing camera also doesn’t support the new smart focus tracking feature the company announced for the 18 Pro (which does support it on both front and rear-facing cameras).

Unsurprisingly, the Duo also lacks several of the Pro models more, well, pro features. You won’t find support for ProRes or ProRes RAW, ACES, Apple Log 2, and Genlock. In other words, Apple’s probably not shooting its next event on a bunch of iPhone Duos because that would be ridiculously unnecessary flex unless they’ve got a whole bunch of extras lying around. The Duo also doesn’t shoot spatial video, probably due to the horizontal rather than vertical side-by-side camera arrangement. I’m sure there are dozens of people who will be upset.

Lights, camera, no action?

The Duo’s other casualties seem to mostly have succumbed to the one-two combo of high cost and low return. For example, few will likely shed tears on the lack of the LiDAR sensor.

There may be more complaints, however about the lack of the Action Button first included with the iPhone 15 Pro. That’s a bummer for folks who enjoyed the customization of the hardware button, but again an understandable absence. However, the Duo does, to my surprise, have Apple’s Camera Control button for quickly launching the camera and taking photos.

MagSafe and sound

Some were worried, given its lack of mention in the Apple event, that the iPhone Duo eschewed MagSafe, not unlike the oddity that was the iPhone 16e. But the good news is that MagSafe is apparently considered critical enough to merit its inclusion on the Duo.

However it’s not without an asterisk. Unlike other iPhones which Apple says “Compatible with MagSafe cases, wallets, wireless chargers, and more” the Duo’s says only “Compatible with MagSafe cases, wireless chargers, and more.” Note the difference? That’s right, the iPhone Duo just stole your wallet—in more ways than one.

But this one’s just a matter of space, as an image from Apple’s accessories page clearly illustrates: Apple’s MagSafe wallet simply won’t fit on the shorter, squatter Duo. Will that stop someone somewhere from making a Duo compatible wallet? You might struggle to fit your credit cards, but I wouldn’t bet against it.

And because I really need something audio-related to justify this section header, in a blow to podcasters everywhere, the Duo does not have the much vaunted “studio-quality” four-mic array of the Pro models. I’ll pour one out.³

Size matters

I’ll leave you with this last thought, which amused me. Apple touted that, when open, the iPhone Duo is the thinnest iPhone ever at just 5.2mm, dethroning last year’s record-setting iPhone Air with its bulky 5.64mm thickness.

However, when folded, the Duo is itself a chunky 11.3mm. I found myself wondering if that was, in turn, the thickest iPhone ever. The answer? Just barely not. But you have to go all the way back to 2009’s iPhone 3GS, which—like its predecessor, the iPhone 3G—rang in at 12.3mm, in large part due to its slightly convex back.⁴

The thinnest iPhone ever and the thickest iPhone in 17 years. Something for everyone!

[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]

By Glenn Fleishman

September 8, 2026 9:31 AM PT

Migrate to Apple Passwords from your current secret-keeper

You might be interested in knowing how to embrace Apple Passwords with a bear hug, leaving behind your current password manager. If you tried Apple’s Passwords app in the past and were disappointed, you should probably give it another try. The improvements Apple has made in the last couple of releases have brought it to what I consider parity with the most important useful features of well-designed third-party password managers.

Despite that, Passwords is focused on—no surprise—passwords and password-like items: website logins, passkeys, and Time-based One-Time Passwords (TOTPs). Many password managers include a junk drawer of other kinds of structured material you can store that doesn’t map directly to Apple’s Passwords structure. If you’re mostly using a third-party system for password-esque stuff and use all Apple devices or Apple and a Windows PC, a migration is straightforward. Otherwise, it can be hairier and could involve rethinking how you store assorted data.

You can use iCloud Passwords with Windows (and then use Microsoft Edge, Firefox, or Google Chrome). You can also use browsers other than Safari on a Mac with an iCloud Passwords plug-in or extension. However, if you or people you currently shared information with use Android, Linux/Unix, or ChromeOS, this migration won’t work for you: those platforms aren’t supported, and there’s no web app for iCloud Passwords.

Because Joe Kissell and I have written entire books that help with different components involved in a password manager migration, I’ll include references throughout to appropriate Take Control series books. For a general grounding in passwords, for example, I recommend reading Joe Kissell’s Take Control of Your Passwords, updated earlier this year.

Continue reading “Migrate to Apple Passwords from your current secret-keeper”…

By John Moltz

September 4, 2026 2:00 PM PT

This Week in Apple: Counting Apple CEOs

The deed is done! John Ternus is now CEO of Apple!

Memomento mori

[extreme TV infomercial announcer voice] Do you suffer from insomnia, sleeplessness, or the condition known as “Snooze Deficiency Syndrome”? Do you lie awake staring at the ceiling, unable to lull yourself to unconsciousness, despite lately really preferring it to consciousness? Well, don’t worry! Apple’s outgoing CEO has you covered!

“Read Tim Cook’s full memo to Apple employees on his last day as CEO”

Today is my last day as CEO of Apple.

Story checks out so far.

This is a moment I always knew would come one day…

BREAKING: FORMER APPLE CEO HAD FIRM GRASP OF THE LINEAR NATURE OF TIME.

…and yet it is still hard to believe it has arrived and I am writing these words.

[sound of 170,000 Apple employees closing an email and going back to whatever it was they were doing before]

If you’re not asleep yet, don’t worry. It goes on like that for kinda a while without saying much of anything. Again, though, if you’re not asleep by the end, don’t worry. Because Apple’s incoming CEO also has you covered.

“Read John Ternus’s full memo to Apple employees on his first day as CEO”

Hang on, I gotta get a cup of coffee before we read this because I’m already pretty groggy.

OK, here we go.

I’m honored to be stepping into this role at what is truly the greatest company in the world…

The greatest company in the world, the greatest network in the world, the greatest phone in the world…

Man, after reading these I feel like I really owe Stan Sigman an apology. Too late for that, I guess.

Ternus’s memo at least has the benefit of being less than half the length of Cook’s, sort of like taking 2 mg of melatonin and then, when it’s not quite working, taking another 1 mg to finally shove you off the cliff and into Morpheus’s welcoming embrace.

Ask your doctor if reading Apple CEO memos is right for you.

Et tu, Phil?

Tim Cook and John Ternus weren’t the only Apple executives updating LinkedIn this week. (“You have been endorsed for ‘Pablum’.”)

“Phil Schiller steps down from leading the App Store and Apple events”

So, developers, please make sure to update your email templates for where to send your angry missives about long App Store review times.

Despite the change:

…Schiller will remain an Apple Fellow and work on “unspecified initiatives.”

“Unspecified initiatives”?! Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

Meanwhile, while his name may still be Luca, he no longer works on the second floor. Or whatever floor he used to work on.

“Ex-Apple CFO Luca Maestri Winding Down His Time at the Company”

After years of counting Apple’s money, Maestri is reportedly looking forward to spending more time with his family money.

With these transitions, don’t be surprised if John Ternus shows up at your door saying “I’m putting a team together! We’re looking for someone with your particular skillset. Are you in?!”

I mean, it’s probably not gonna happen, but it might.

The price may or may not be right

Big week next week as… well, you know what’s gonna happen.

Sometimes I don’t know why we go through this charade of me pretending to present these things as “news” when you probably already know them. It’s ridiculous. I mean, what is even the point of anything?!

Sorry.

Anyway, if you’re wondering how much change you have to find in your couch and the couches of everyone else in your cul-de-sac and every cul-de-sac in the nation in order to get a foldable iPhone, the Apple rumor mill has got you, fam.

“iPhone Ultra’s Very High Price and Features Revealed in New Report”

Awesome! OK! Lay it on us! Here we go! Give us those dirty deets!

TrendForce estimated that the foldable iPhone will have a starting price of $2,099 to $2,299…

Oh, c’mon! I could have done that! That’s like saying “It will be dollars, unless you’re in a country that uses a different currency.”

I’m going to go ahead and predict that it’s going to be on the high end of that for sure and possibly higher, as Samsung’s most recent foldable starts at $1,999 and this is Apple we’re talking about—and not only that but Apple in an era of unprecedentedly high prices for technology (thanks, AI!).

Thus, my couches will remain un-raided as I will not be buying this device. My child’s inheritance is secure.

[John Moltz is a Six Colors contributor. You can find him on Mastodon at Mastodon.social/@moltz and he sells items with references you might get on Cotton Bureau.]

By Jason Snell

September 1, 2026 11:00 AM PT

Diagnosing sentiment in my typo-reporting workflow

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. The webhook is running on Make.com, which we use for a bunch of simple web automations, but that’s an implementation detail. Make.com posts an item in a private Discord channel and also crafts a custom push notification to my phone using Pushover.

However, the moment I turned this feature on, I discovered the problem with asking people to report errors or typos: Some people see any open channel of communication as an open channel for any sort of communication. I immediately started getting more “this is more a comment than a question” items about articles than actual typo submissions. Commentary included personal preferences for writing style, web design, political references (real or imagined), and much more.

I’m going to make an admission: This sort of feedback is maddening. I want to be alerted about mistakes on the site so I can fix them promptly, but I am not interested in receiving push notifications regarding your opinion of the professionalism and appropriateness of my writing style.

Unfortunately, it’s an open form. There’s nothing to be done. Or is there?

Continue reading “Diagnosing sentiment in my typo-reporting workflow”…

By Philip Michaels

September 1, 2026 9:00 AM PT

App Report: AI to the rescue! No… really

Artificial Intelligence takes center stage in a few of the apps enjoying this week’s spotlight — and not the kind of AI that’s going to have you rolling your eyes or organizing a protest march against the nearest data center. No, these are actually useful AI features that take some of the busy work of daily life out of your hands so you can concentrate on other things.

AI or no, we’re always looking for top macOS and iOS apps to feature here. If you’ve got something that fits that description, drop us a line at apps@sixcolors.com with a brief outline of the whats, whys, and wherefores.

Now on to this week’s selection…

Sortio

The folders on my Mac are a mess, but who has the time to make sure that everything is filed away in its proper place? AI does, according to the makers of Sortio, a macOS utility that promises to do the hard work of organization on your behalf.

Sortio taps into AI to look at file names and metadata to help it figure out where to put each file. You can also opt to let the utility read the file, sending a 4KB excerpt to your AI provider of choice for even more detailed sorting. (Sortio also offers an offline mode that uses Ollama or LM Studio to keep its activity on your Mac.) You can further refine sorting by telling Sortio to organize things by file type, project, date, and whether the file is for work or personal use..

I took Sortio for a spin, having it go through the folder of articles I’ve written but haven’t bothered to organize for myself. Sortio was smart enough to take my submissions to Awful Announcing and separate them into their own folder. Not every search is that precise — a separate sorting session had Sortio tagging an offer letter from an old employer named Purch as a financial document — but there are edit buttons to correct mislabeled and misfiled material.

You can try out Sortio for free, which gives you enough of an allowance to sort through a few thousand files to get a flavor for how the app performs. After that, you’ll need to buy a license, with the $14.99/month Pro license suitable for most individual users. There are team and enterprise options as well, and paying for an annual license lowers your monthly rate.

AskPlay

AI isn’t just for organizing your folders; it can also generate a playlist for you based on specific artists, songs or moods you’re hoping to hear. At least, that’s the idea behind AskPlay, an app that lives in your menu bar and lets you type or speak plain-English instructions on the type of music you want to listen to.

You’re going to need a few things besides AskPlay and its $1.99/month subscription to make the app work. For starters, AskPlay works exclusively with Apple Music, so you’ll also need to subscribe to Apple’s streaming service. In addition, you’ll need to provide an API key from an AI provider, with AskPlay supporting OpenAI, Anthropic, and OpenRouter.

Those requirements are likely to limit AskPlay’s appeal to some users, but having tried out the app on my Mac, I am impressed by the results. I told AskPlay I wanted to hear songs written by Stephen Sondheim, and it dutifully produced a playlist not just from cast soundtracks but also numbers by vocalists from their own albums. That said, there were a few misfires — the playlist included a song from Tick, Tick… Boom!, a Jonathan Larson musical that only refers to Sondheim, as well as a rap song that shares a title with something Sondheim wrote. Other requests like “play upbeat songs from the ’80s” proved more successful.

An AskPlay feature I appreciate was the ability to augment playlists. After generating a playlist of Merle Haggard songs, I had the app add Johnny Cash music to the queue. Then I told AskPlay to “add more songs like these,” which brought Waylon Jennings, George Jones, and more to the party.

AskPlay seems built for a very specific kind of user, but if you like thematic playlists and already subscribe to the services that make this app tick, it brings another dimension to your listening experience. In addition to working on the Mac, AskPlay is available for a range of Apple devices including the iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro.

Pocket Screen

I don’t know about you, but my workflow often requires me to jump from one window to another to perform a task — and that can often break up my workflow. I’m thinking of when I’m writing something and need to refer to notes I’ve taken in another application or a PDF I have loaded up in Preview. Jumping between apps takes me out of the flow of writing, not to mention that accurately transcribing what’s in one app to the other can occasionally be a hit-or-miss proposition.

Pocket Screen addresses some of that dilemma by creating a floating window of one app that you can keep in view when you’re working on something else. Think of Pocket Screen as a picture-in-picture feature, but for productivity. You can capture a PDF, webpage, video, chat or other kind of information and keep it close at hand in a resizable window that you can move around your desktop. The app supports up to two simultaneous views, according to its developer.

You can freely use Pocket Screen for 10-minute sessions, but true productivity mavens will likely want to unlock the app for unlimited use. That’s a one-time payment of $9.99 to remove any restrictions.

Filtre

Filtre is a Safari extension for anyone whose browsing on the Mac, iPhone, or iPad takes you to places and topics they’d just as soon not read about.

Enter keywords into Filtre, and the extension blocks articles, posts and comments that include anything you consider verboten. For instance, I typed in variations of the Washington Nationals name into Filtre to avoid being spoiled on the result of a baseball game. When I visited ESPN in Safari on my Mac, all references to the Nationals and their in-progress game had been removed from view. (A pause button accessible from the Filtre Extension in Safari’s toolbar lets you restore any filtered-out content if you prefer.)

Filtre comes from the maker of Noir, a Dark Mode-enabling extension that Six Colors has profiled before, so we’re clearly talking about someone who knows their way around Safari extensions. You can try out Filtre free for a week before the extension’s $1.49/month subscription kicks in.

LogZero

You’ve got lots of ways to track everything from calories to moods on your iPhone. LogZero offers to do it all in one place. More significantly, though, LogZero promises to keep all that logged data for your eyes only, with data never leaving your device and everything stored within the app encrypted.

LogZero is a one-stop app for keeping tabs on food intake, meditation breaks, exercise, to-dos, and medications. You can also chart your mood and weight. If that sounds like a lot to keep track of, you can toggle off the items you’re not interested in logging, and they’ll disappear from the interface.

It’s worth downloading the free iOS app to see if it fits your tracking needs, though a paid subscription gives you access to more analytics features plus personalization controls. A monthly subscription costs $5, while the annual rate is $35.

[Philip Michaels has been writing about technology since 1999, most notably for Macworld and Tom’s Guide. He currently finds himself between jobs, so if you need someone who can string a few sentences together (or make your sentences read a lot better), drop him a line.]

By Jason Snell

August 31, 2026 2:25 PM PT

Blast from the past

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:

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 state of the Mac.” If you’re used to Cook being more of an emcee for presentations by others in a pre-baked video, you may be amused to see him working hard to present Apple’s Mac lineup to an in-person crowd of media people. (There’s also a Jony Ive live presentation!)

The big product from this event: the unibody MacBook Pro, including an all-button multitouch trackpad.

Happy trails to Tim and Phil, though it sure sounds like they’re still going to be haunting the corridors of Apple Park for years to come.

By Glenn Fleishman

August 31, 2026 1:20 PM PT

How to tap into network debugging

I know there's no connection between my local area network and our house's plumbing system, but when the faucet started running uncontrollably literally seconds after I fixed a network outage, I had to wonder: did we have a poltergeist? The jury is still out. But I can tell you that my hour of fruitless examination of router settings is to your benefit: you won't have to do this when it happens to you.

The weakest TP-Link

As a guy known for Wi-Fi since the early 2000s, you might think my house is ablaze with wireless signals.¹ Yes, it is: we have six Wi-Fi access points and gateways in a relatively small house by modern standards (about 1,200 sq. ft. on the main floor and 800 in the finished basement). But we also have Ethernet strung through the house to connect most of them, with powerline networking adapters where that doesn't work due to the ancient and mysterious innards of the walls. The innards' outsides are covered with heavy, old plaster, which absorbs some of the power of the Wi-Fi signals—hence the large number of emitters.

Normally, this works fine. We have four TP-Link routers, some purchased a while back, and a Netgear Nighthawk as our primary base station, which distributes network addresses and is connected to the fiber-optic ISP router.² When something goes wrong, it's usually an issue with a router crashing, even though its various green lights remain in a happy state.

Continue reading “How to tap into network debugging”…