As a designer, I’m meant to dislike settings. As a user, I love them. Every year I celebrate Settings Day: a day when I take a look at the options and toggles in all the apps I use. I do this out of curiosity – what was added since the last time I looked? – but also because I love this way of getting to know software: peeking under the hood, walking the back alleys, learning what has been tricky or important enough to be equipped with a checkbox.
During the last Settings Day, I had a realization that the totemic 1984 Mac control panel, designed by Susan Kare, is still to this day perhaps the only settings screen ever brought up in casual conversation.
I kept wondering about that screen, and about what happened since then. Turns out, the Mac settings have lived a far more fascinating life than I imagined, have been redesigned many times, and can tell us a lot about the early history and the troubled upbringing of this interesting machine.
Twenty years ago, Mac OS X Tiger introduced us to a search feature that would stand the test of time: Spotlight. And while at the time I found myself ambivalent about its many quirks, some of which were maddening, with the benefit of hindsight, it’s hard not to be impressed by how far Spotlight has come.
Almost every year, Apple has made Spotlight a little better, and macOS Tahoe is its biggest and most impressive upgrade ever. So let’s celebrate Spotlight for what it was, what it is, and what it’s about to become.
As reported by German tech news website Heise last month, Apple has introduced new APIs that allow for developers to implement support for making cellular phone calls and sending and receiving SMS/MMS/RCS messages in third-party apps, but only iPhone users in the EU will be able to take advantage of this functionality.
Apple TV+ has had its best year ever so far, and it’s bound to continue with returning hits this fall like the recently announced Slow Horses season 5. But with another announcement today, Apple confirmed we’ll keep getting new Slow Horses episodes for a long while yet: seasons 6 and 7 are now both official.
Apple is in talks to acquire the US rights to screen Formula 1 as the tech giant chases the success of its hit movie based on the race car series and delves further into showing live sport.
The iPhone maker is challenging Disney’s ESPN — Formula 1’s current American broadcaster — when the broadcast contract becomes available next year, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
Apple today announced that four additional games will be added to the Apple Arcade library on Thursday, August 7, including Play-Doh World.
Exclusive to Apple Arcade, Play-Doh World lets you create digital Play-Doh characters and more.
Apple has announced that Jeff Williams is stepping down as chief operating officer later this month. Sabih Khan, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations, will assume the COO role as part of what Apple describes as a “long-planned succession.”
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When Williams officially retires later this year, Apple says that the design team will transition to reporting directly to Tim Cook.
The whole thing seems amicable and orderly, and thus completely in line with everything we know about Williams’s and Cook’s seemingly similar personalities. After a long and successful career, Apple’s COO is retiring and his longtime lieutenant is being promoted to replace him this month. Apple’s operations aren’t just world-class, they’re almost certainly world-best. Even their leadership transitions are operationally smooth.
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Post-Williams, Apple’s operations will clearly remain under excellent, experienced leadership under Sabih Khan. But the company will be left with its design teams reporting directly to Cook — who is three years older than Williams. Six years after Jony Ive’s departure, today’s announcements leave it less clear than ever whose taste, ultimately, is steering the work of the company into the future.
I've finally watched Oppenheimer, the movie, now that it is out on Netflix.
Still haven't watched Barbie.
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Thanks for reading.