Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Apple’s 50th Anniversary

Tim Cook (tweet, MacRumors): Fifty years ago in a small garage, a big idea was born. Apple was founded on the simple notion that technology should be personal, and that belief — radical at the time — changed everything. […] At Apple, we’re more focused on building tomorrow than remembering yesterday. But we couldn’t let […]

Ensembles 3

Drew McCormack (February): Had my Core Data sync framework, Ensembles, pretty much in maintenance mode. With Apple moving on to SwiftData, didn’t seem any point to modernizing the 15 year old ObjC codebase. But I had the thought to give Claude a shot at it, and in 2 days I’ve got a complete port: Swift […]

6K Display Comparison

Wade Tregaskis: Nobody else has even tried to make a bright 6k display – in fact, every non-Apple 6k display is outright dim by modern display standards – they’re barely brighter than the original 5k display in the 2015 iMac! […] For the price of one Apple Pro Display XDR you can get four Asus […]

Hardware-Exclusive Mac Accent Colors

John Gruber: By default, the MacOS accent color in System Settings → Appearance defaults to a color that matches the Neo’s hardware — a fun trick Apple has been using for decades. David Deller: This is the first I’m learning that System Settings sometimes has a special accent color only available to a Mac with a particular […]

Tech Re-Nu’s MacBook Neo Teardown

Tech Re-Nu, on YouTube:

That leaves us with a fully disassembled laptop. We’ve done this in less than 10 minutes, which is absolutely amazing for an Apple laptop. I can’t say we’ve ever had a Mac that looks as repairable and as modular as this one. No sticky tape, no tricky adhesives, modular parts, minimal parts as well, no hinge covers or anything like that. It’s just super straightforward, elegant design.

The aspects of the Neo that make it less expensive also make it simpler, and thus easier to service. Apple’s iPhones, iPads, and higher-end MacBooks that use a lot of glue and tape and pack components together in hard-to-disassemble ways aren’t designed that way out of spite or carelessness. They’re like that because that’s what it takes to make devices ever smaller, and ever more lightweight. By allowing the Neo to be a bit thicker and heavier, it’s also a lot simpler.