Sam Gold on Mastodon, writing about the one version of OS X that allowed a user to put something to the left of the Finder icon in the Dock:
[In] Lion DP1, you could set
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-left-of-finder -bool YESand get this.that first Lion beta build is absolutely chock full of experimental UI behind flags.
This makes me feel weird inside.
Usually, there isn’t much news in August, but this year we got new desktop Macs and Tim Cook’s last day as CEO. I’ve added both to the Apple History Calendar.
Apple’s iPhone event takes place next week, so we have gathered to make our picks.
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.
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.
D. Griffin Jones had me on episode 2 of his new show:
This week, I’m joined by Stephen Hackett to talk about Tim Cook’s last day as CEO of Apple, Relay for St. Jude, everything we don’t know about next week’s event, and some favorite features in the OS 27 updates. All that runs out the clock before we have the chance to talk about static site generators.
I hope to return to hit that last topic.
…it is also smaller than the one that shipped with the Pro Display XDR, but I guess having a zillion-dollar monitor has to come with some perks.
(It turns out there have been several versions of this thing.)
That is basically the whole story here. For more hard-hitting Apple journalism, get subscribed.
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
512 Pixels offers a weekly sponsorship that gets your app, service, or company in front of some of the best-read folks on the Internet. I’ve just opened Q4 dates; if you are interested, details are available here.
Will the Home Hub know whose head is biggest? What will September 9th bring? Can anyone afford new Macs? Who knows Tim Cook best?
All of these questions will be answered on this week’s episode.
I am thrilled to announce Relay’s 8th annual fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Since 2019, the Relay community has given over $4.8 million to this life-saving work.
That number astounds me. When we started this, I expected to raise $75,000 in the first year. We cleared $315,000 that year, and it’s been more and more amazing every year since.
If you have followed along for any given amount of time, you know that in 2008, my wife Merri and I welcomed our first son into the world, and that just six months later, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He underwent a year and a half of treatment at St. Jude, which included chemotherapy, several surgeries, and an untold number of MRIs, appointments, and sleepless nights.
The Trump EPA has made a proposal that would lift requirements that force states to provide public notice or solicit comments on air pollution permits for data center construction projects.
Maxine Joselow has more at The New York Times:
The move could prevent residents from raising concerns about — or even learning about — data centers before permits are approved and construction starts.
Nearly 200 advocacy groups and more than a dozen states have voiced opposition to the change, making it the latest flashpoint in the national debate over the data centers powering the artificial intelligence boom.