Category: Apple

Air to the Throne

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Life is full of trade-offs. I often think about this in terms of vehicles. If you have a big family, a minivan is probably the right call, even if it means sacrificing performance. A luxury sedan may be nice to sit in, but it will cost you big bucks. You can drive a pickup truck, but you will probably pay for it at the pump.

In the world of technology, trade-offs change nature over time. The first iPhone was amazing, but it was expensive and only ran on AT&T. The original MacBook Air was an incredible piece of engineering, but it ran hot and slow.

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More on Apple Product Drawings ⇢

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Dr. Drang, bouncing off my recent post on Apple’s dimensional drawings:

When I zoomed in on Stephen’s page, I was initially confused, but then I realized what seemed odd to me. You see, I’ve spent an awful lot of the past 40 years looking at engineering drawings, and I can’t think of any that looked like this. That’s because the drawings I’m used to are for making the depicted product, but the drawings Apple’s offering up here aren’t for that. These are for others—not Apple and not its suppliers—to use for making cases and other accessories. I figured it was worth a quick post on what makes a drawing like the one above so different from what I’m used to.

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All Hail the Genius Bar ⇢

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Mark Gurman has good news for Apple Store visitors:

In many stores, Apple will replace the video walls with dedicated Genius Bars, marking a return to a familiar element from an earlier era. The design resembles the Genius Bars of the past but with an all-wood look. There will be two counter heights for accessibility, while the wall behind the bar will include storage drawers and large posters highlighting new products.

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The iPhone Air Has Not Sold Well ⇢

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David Smith:

The eve of iPhone 18 Pro pre-orders seems like a good time to look back at the iPhone 17 family’s adoption. Here’s the 17 family data as a percentage of overall usage for Widgetsmith.

Generally, they followed the usual adoption pattern and overall did very well, ending at around 20% of total usage.

With the exception of the Air really struggling to find market share. For comparison, the 16 Plus ended its first year at around 1.4% (vs. the Air’s 0.3%).

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iPhone 16, 17, 17e, and Air See $100 Price Increases ⇢

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Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:

The new starting prices for the three models now look like this:

  • iPhone 16: $799 (+$100)
  • iPhone 17e: $699 (+$100)
  • iPhone 17: $899 (+$100)
  • iPhone Air: $1099 (+$100)

So that’s a $100 price hike on all four existing models in Apple’s iPhone lineup. With the debut of the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, Apple has discontinued the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max.

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The Ternus Era Has Begun ⇢

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Myke Hurley:

Today is September 1, 2026 — the day that John Ternus becomes CEO of Apple.

As you would assume, Apple has now updated its executives page with Ternus as CEO, along with a refreshed profile for him.

I wanted to note three narratives that I spotted in this profile that I think tell the story of the kind of CEO he wants to be, and how Apple wants to communicate this to us. All three of these are very interesting to me.

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Tim Cook Says Goodbye as CEO

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Tim Cook, on X (gross):

Sending lots of love to the Apple community on my last day as CEO. My title changes tomorrow, but the love I have for the Apple community never will. Thank you for being a constant source of inspiration. My gratitude is endless, and I’m excited for the next chapter!

This followed an “internal” memo in which he wrote:

There is something truly special about Apple. I am most proud of what an annual report could never capture. This place is proof that culture triumphs over everything. We share a belief that what we build matters, and that we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to leave the world better than we found it. That purpose is part of what makes this place extraordinary. Apple helps nurture it, but I believe it lived within each of you long before you arrived here. It is what brought you to this company and what continues to drive the work you do every day. Together, we have created something far greater than any one of us could have imagined or accomplished alone. And that’s the secret to our success. We bring out the best in each other. We lift each other up. We have made it possible to leave our “dent in the universe,” as Steve once described it, because of who we are and what we believe, because of what we value and how we see the world. How fortunate we are. How fortunate I am.

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The Once and Future iPad mini

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2012 was a weird time for iPad fans. That spring, the 3rd-generation iPad debuted with a Retina display. It was slightly heavier and thicker than the iPad 2 before it, but the screen looked amazing. Sadly, the performance of the A5X wasn’t always up to the job of pushing all those pixels, so Apple revised the full-sized iPad again in the fall.

The 4th-gen iPad shipped just seven months later. It kept the same heavier and thicker design, but the A6X inside was “up to twice the CPU performance and up to twice the graphics performance of the A5X chip,” and it showed. It smoothed out all the little hiccups its predecessor showed, except for those in the then-new Apple Maps.1

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