By John Moltz
This Week in Apple: Oops, all wrenches
The Moltz Family Road Trip 2025 (motto: “Oh, god, how many more days do we have?!”) checks in to talk about the little surprises that could appear at Apple’s September event, Eddy Cue’s eyes being bigger than Tim Cook’s wallet, and ongoing complaints about Tahoe—the operating system, not the lake, which we hear is lovely.
Also on the bill
Apple announced its 2025 iPhone event for September 9th, as expected, plugging it with the title “Awe Dropping” which is just another sign of the company’s lack of attention to detail of late.
It’s “Jaw Dropping”, Apple. What an embarrassing typo. Just ridiculous. How do you drop awe? It makes no sense.
Of course there will be new phones, this we know, but there could also be some surprise announcements, one of which will be a huge boon for bondage fetishists.
“iPhone 17’s ‘Crossbody Strap’ Accessory to Feature Magnetic Design”
If you didn’t think the company taking another shot at making a premium, non-leather case with TechWoven was cool, surely you will find lanyards cool. Ask any teen you see on the street (go ahead, they’re famously approachable and love talking to the olds and are only sometimes so bitingly, dryly sarcastic that you will literally shrivel up and turn to dust before their eyes) and they will tell you that lanyards are in.
I mean, I think. I really have no idea. And I am not asking any teens. They’re terrifying.
If they’re not in, they soon will be, just like candy-colored computer accessories were in the late 1990s.
Another diminutive product, both in size and revenue, that may make an appearance is the second iteration of the AirTag, which we are apparently calling AirTag 2 even though AirTag 2026 rolls so much more trippingly off the tongue. If you’re wondering what new features a revised AirTag might have they can be easily summed up as “More findy”. Which is exactly what you want in an AirTag.
Go big or go home, Eddy, you’re drunk
A report this week from The Information tells us what we already knew: that Eddy Cue is a big spender.
“Eddy Cue wanted Apple to acquire two big companies, but Tim Cook said no”
This despite Cue’s repeated promises that he would feed and walk the companies every day, promises that Cook rightly did not believe.
In past years, Cue championed acquisitions of both Netflix and Tesla at different times…
He even once suggested Apple acquire Weyland-Yutani Corp. but the two companies couldn’t come to a deal on account of one of them not being real.
Cook shot him down in both cases.
“Go to your room, Eddy.”
Now Cue believes Apple should acquire an AI company such as Perplexity, which indicates that maybe his taste actually peaks in shirts which is… well, it’s a look. And a better look than acquiring Perplexity. But. Still.
Liquid Glass half empty
It is just weeks before Apple ships macOS Tahoe and people are still mad about icons. If that seems like nit-picking to you I have to ask, have you met Mac users? Any of them? Because…
John Gruber puts it in no uncertain terms.
“MacOS 26 Tahoe’s Dead Canary Utility App Icons”
Apple’s icon design ethic here seems to be “When the only tool you can think of is a wrench, put it on every icon.” Disk Utility? Wrench. Expansion Slot Utility? Wrench. Wireless Diagnostics? Wrench. It’s wrenches all the way down. Still, who among us hasn’t at one time or another wanted to take a wrench to their Mac?
Liquid Glass is also continuing to cause headaches on the Mac as Brent Simmons explains.
The UI has become the star, but the drunken star, blurry, illegible, and physically unstable. It makes making things way more of a struggle than it used to be.
Apple claims it’s getting the UI out of your way but the thing is, you need to be able to see the UI. You’re the “U” in that acronym. It’s almost as if it’s asking you to interface with it. It’s weird.
[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.]