If you’ve been wondering why so many of us are sad about the end of FireWire — despite it being well past its prime — you have to go back to its start.
FireWire was first introduced with the “Blue and White” Power Mac G3 back in 1999. This is mine, a machine I used way back at my high school job. It now lives in my studio:
Apple today announced Jeff Williams will transition his role as chief operating officer later this month to Sabih Khan, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations as part of a long-planned succession. Williams will continue reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook and overseeing Apple’s world class design team and Apple Watch alongside the company’s Health initiatives. Apple’s design team will then transition to reporting directly to Cook after Williams retires late in the year.
That brings the total to three “default” wallpapers for the new operating system. The newest is named “Tahoe Day” and is very similar to Apple’s other Aerial images.
Download full-sized copies of all three here:
Happy Prime Day! In the spirit of the season, I’ve rounded up a bunch of links so you could rebuild my desk, mostly on Amazon. Shameless, I know…
It has been reported that macOS Tahoe doesn’t include support for FireWire devices. To see for myself, I dug out an old FireWire 800 drive I used to use in my Apple service tech days. This baby has a lot of volumes on it, all of which appeared when plugged into my MacBook Pro running macOS Sequoia:
Getting this old drive plugged into a modern Mac requires a trip to Dongletown:
A decade ago, I made a major announcement:
I’m leaving my 9-5 job to work on Relay FM, 512 Pixels and my freelance business full time.
This anniversary snuck up on me, and I think that’s a sign of how well things have gone since I published that blog post.
Had you told me ten years ago that I’d still be making things on the Internet with my friends, I’m not sure I would have believed you.
We’re all dealing with more information than ever, and it’s becoming increasingly complex. You need bulletproof financial documents for audits, collaborative tools for your team, and AI that can actually help.
DEVONthink 4.0 Copernicus 1 is here, and it’s designed to work with you, not against you. Its AI integration is incredibly useful — it can analyze your documents, write summaries, suggest tags, and you can even create AI-based automations for specific tasks.
Ken Case is the CEO at The Omni Group and has been developing for Apple platforms for decades. He shares with Stephen and David how he got his start in technology, what Apple gear he uses, his approach to customer communication, and his thoughts on WWDC.
On More Power Users, we chatted with Ken about managing applications across software and platform transitions.
This one was a lot of fun.
Joseph Mangin, at The Daily Memphian:
The nonprofit announced plans to install two different models of air-quality sensors in the Memphis area with a focus on the 38109 ZIP code, which includes Boxtown, where the press conference was held.
MCAP’s Wednesday event follows air-quality testing carried out by the City of Memphis. The testing was a response to concerns about pollutants stemming from xAI’s supercomputer.
That testing showed no dangerous pollution, but concerns were raised over the testing protocol used.
This week on a jam-packed episode of the podcast:
Apple Music is 10 years old, the future of Siri is uncertain, and the A18 Pro may be headed to a Mac. Lastly, the 2024 Ticcilympics are graded.
The A18 Pro is 46% faster than the M1 in single-core tasks, and almost identical to the M1 on multi-core and graphics tasks. If you wanted to get rid of the M1 MacBook Air but have decided that even today, its performance characteristics make it perfectly suitable as a low-cost Mac laptop, building a new model on the A18 Pro would not be a bad move. It wouldn’t have Thunderbolt, only USB-C, but that’s not a dealbreaker on a cheap laptop. It might re-use parts from the M1 Air, including the display.
Ming-Chi Kuo is back with a new report, this time concerning a new MacBook Apple is apparently working on behind the scenes:
Expected to enter mass production in late 4Q25 or early 1Q26, with an approximately 13-inch display and powered by the A18 Pro processor. Potential casing colors include silver, blue, pink, and yellow
Apple aims to return total MacBook shipments to the COVID-19 peak of around 25 million units in 2026 (vs. an estimated 20 million units in 2025). The more-affordable MacBook is projected to account for 5–7 million units for 2026.
