2025-04-04 04:09:43
TL;DR: Lickable Menu Bar, Sleeve, & Capture
I fell in love with the Mac because of its apps. Growing up, Windows software always felt utilitarian; functional but uninspired. It got the job done, but rarely felt crafted with care. In contrast, Mac OS X was full of beautifully designed apps that felt thoughtful and personal. Being developed for a much smaller user base by a much smaller group of developers, you could feel love imbued throughout the apps.
Now, times have changed, and Apple is many thousands of times the plucky single-digit competitor it was when I started using the platform, but some apps retain that creative spirit. To pay tribute to the smallest fraction of them, here are three little apps I adore using daily.
Lickable Menu turns your boring Mac Menu Bar into a glossy Tiger Era diva!
This is the number one request anytime I post a screenshot. "What app is used to make that menubar like that?" and "How do you get the menu bar with that glossy effect?". The answer: Lickable Menu Bar! Developed by Honghao Zhang, Lickable Menu Bar styles your Menu Bar into one of three previous Mac Menu Bar Styles: Matte (ala OS X Mavericks), Flat (ala OS X Catalina), and the best of the trio, Glossy (ala Mac OS X Tiger).
Lickable Menu Bar features three styles: Matte, Flat, and Glossy (obviously the best).
This free and lightweight app launches when you log in and makes your Menu Bar look, well, lickable!
Lickable Menu Bar
Sleeve is a highly customizable Music Widget for macOS.
Sleeve is a beautifully customizable floating music controller for Mac, built by Alasdair Monk and Hector Simpson. When running, a persistent widget-like control on your Mac shows information about the media you're currently listening to. You can display the album artwork, artist and album information, playback controls, and progress slider. You can have all of these things displayed or just one; this app's customization is infinite. After just a minute of tinkering, it’s unlikely any two users will have the same setup. You can tweak the size, position, shadow style, and even pick from three different wood finishes if you opt to use the optional shelf.
From sizing to shadows, lighting to shelving materials, Sleeve offers endless customization options.
The app retails for $5.99 USD with no in-app purchases or subscriptions. It's an absolute gem.
Sleeve Website
Capture is an all-in-one depository for organizing and actioning items you collect from the web.
Every day, I cruise across dozens upon dozens of sites and services. I read the news, check my social media accounts, get a podcast recommended, or remind myself about a YouTube video I want to watch later. Most sites maintain a bookmarking services embedded into their site, which helps me to save things but doesn't solve the problem of remembering where I saw something or why I wanted to save it in the first place.
Cue Capture. Capture is a wonderfully simple utility that perfectly solves that problem. Available across all of Apple's platforms (yes, even including visionOS), Capture helps me effortlessly save and organize content across the web. With one click, I can save content to the app, quickly place it into a subfolder, and add a quick note about why I am saving something (i.e., wallpaper idea, read later, the recipe I want to make, funny video to show the wife, etc.). And because Capture is available across all Apple platforms and syncs via iCloud, all my saves are available across all my Apple devices.
Capture is also integrated with dozens of Applications, meaning I can open the app and send the item I captured and make it into a reminder, Siri Shortcut, or send the content to Notes, Agenda, Craft, Photos, Obsidian, Bear, Todoist, and over a dozen more. Within each app, you can control how you want the content handled (add specific tags, create or append to a document, add to a particular Reminders list). Once actioned upon, items can be set to archive automatically, or you can delete them yourself.
Capture is a subscription app, but an $11.99 Lifetime option is available. The app is well worth it and quickly pays for itself, especially regarding how streamlined it helps me feel about my workflow.
Capture WebsiteGreat apps help define a platform and encourage and inspire other developers to create new and amazing products for the Mac. I hope you check them out and find value in these three little apps. And if you like this sort of content, let me know. I'm open to creating more of these mini spotlights in the future.
2025-04-01 22:53:20
The Mac Pro has been updated with the new M4 Extreme—the most extreme chip for the most extreme workloads.
Happy April Fools' Day! My fourth annual April Fools' Day was to turn the Mac Pro into the ultimate Pro workstation. With a gorgeous Space Black finish and a jaw-dropping new M4 Extreme chip, the Mac Pro rises to become, far and away, the most powerful and capable Mac ever developed.
For years, the Mac Pro has been maligned and mocked. It's Apple's most expensive Mac, but it has routinely been ignored for years, appearing as an afterthought in Apple's lineup. It was largely forgotten after its release in 2013, only to be revived in 2019, and then lapped less than a year later by the release of Apple Silicon. It can't catch a break.
Last updated in 2023 alongside the Mac Studio with the M2 Ultra chip, the $6999 Mac Pro didn't even get the M3 Ultra when Apple updated the Mac Studio earlier in March. That begs the question: What's next for the Mac Pro, and will the next update (if there is one) give it features or a chip that truly helps it stand apart from the rest of the Mac lineup?
Can’t deny, a Mac Pro in Space Black looks gorgeous.
And that is where my April Fools' Day prank comes in. I don't have the skills to render or create a new-looking design, so I opted for the existing Mac Pro Chassis and gave it a Space Black anodized finish.
Introducing the M4 Extreme.
Next was to dream big about what sort of chip Apple would put into a computer with that much thermal headroom. There has been chatter in the past that Apple had experimented with creating an Extreme variant of their chips (basically 4 Max chips stuck together or something like that), but nothing like that had ever come to fruition. In imagining an Extreme chip, I took the existing M4 Max and added additional CPU, GPU, and Neural Engines to the design to create a Max Chip on steroids - increasing the number of CPU cores from 16 to 24 and the number of GPU cores to 40 to 110! Then I did the UltraFusion thing and stuck two super-supped-up M4 Max chips together to create an absolute monster of a chip.
The ridiculously supped up M4 Extreme Chip.
Chassis mocked up, chip design and specs speculated on, I worked on creating a faux press release. Apple has had a big push into AI, so I leaned into writing about how the new Mac Pro is the most capable workstation for AI workflows, even enabling researchers to run LLMs natively on the device. The intention in daydreaming was to make this machine an all-in-one device for serious research, data-crunching, and production workflows.
Press release to go alongside everything else.
And finally, because I couldn't help myself, I created a very limited run of M4 Extreme stickers for the occasion, which can be purchased (yes, they're actually real) below and in the mercantile. Enjoy & Happy April Fools'.
2025-03-27 22:09:21
Introducing the internals wallpaper for the M4 MacBook Air.
Apple announced the new M4 MacBook Air on March 05, 2025. With a ridiculously powerful M4 chip, a minimum of 16GB of memory (aka, the best thing Apple Intelligence has accomplished to date was doubling the base memory on each mac), more display support, and it's $100 cheaper. Oh, and it comes in blue. Some might argue that it's not blue enough, but it's the most blue we've gotten in a Mac laptop since the 1999 G3 iBook, so I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth and complain too much.
I couldn't be more bullish on the MacBook Air, and in my opinion it's the best laptop for most, and while it doesn't have many of the bells and whistles of the Pro line (i.e., ports, ProMotion, miniLED, active cooling) it by no means feels like a compromised product. For many, it might be as good or better than a MBP, especially if you are highly mobile.
But you're not here to read my praises of the MacBook Air. In August 2022, I released the M2 MacBook Air Internals Wallpaper, an attempt to recreate the highly intricate components under any MBA owner's fingertips.
With the release of the M4, I decided to dust off that old file and update it for this latest generation of Mac. Although the internals have largely remained the same, I took the time to update many of the components with new textures, better shading and shadows, and added more details and contrast to the overall piece. That meant tweaking every screw and updating every circuit thingy to produce what I believe is a gorgeous wallpaper for perhaps my favourite Mac since the PowerBook line.
The 13-inch M4 MacBook Air Internals come in four colours: Space Black, Teal, Silver, & Faded Aubergine. Enjoy!
Space Black | Silver | Teal | Faded Aubergine
Hey, what about the 15-inch MacBook Air? No, I haven't forgotten about the MacBook Air’s bigger brother. But rather than keep people waiting and waiting and waiting, I decided to release the 13-inch to start and follow it up with a 15-inch version shortly.
I’m a one-person operation, working in healthcare by day & running this site as a passion project in my off time.
If you enjoy my work (the articles, the wallpapers, my general demeanour… anything really), consider leaving a tip & supporting the site. Your support is incredibly appreciated & goes a long way to keep this site and the works I produce ad-free & free of charge.
☕️ Tips2025-03-24 23:53:58
Merch drop: A tee & a tote inspired by the season 2 finale of Severance.
I am sharing a couple new pieces of merch inspired by the AppleTV Series Severance, which wrapped up its second season on March 21, 2025.
Scary Numbers is inspired by the final episode of Season 02: Cold Harbor. The following sentences are spoiler-adjacent, so unfocus your eyes if you want to know nothing and skip to the next paragraph. But for the past two seasons, Mark S. has been working at Lumon in the Macrodata Refinement department, finding groups of numbers that make him feel things. All we know is that the work is mysterious and important. But at the end of Season 02, Mark S. is on the verge of completing his 25th and final Macrodata file, and these are the final nine numbers that he selects. What do they mean? Why are some numbers scary and others happy?
The final nine numbers in the completion of Cold Harbor.
Scary numbers merch is available as a t-shirt, hoodie, and tote. All three are currently being sold through Cotton Bureau, and I am considering adding additional distributors to help improve the shipping costs to other countries. Click on the images or links below to purchase. Enjoy!
2025-03-22 22:37:50
Introducing Waterways, a fluid wallpaper collection for your Mac, iPad, and iPhone inspired by water.
Waterways, true to its name, take inspiration from water itself: the fluid, silky patterns evoke a gentle sense of movement. The goal behind this wallpaper was to generate a gradient image that didn’t feel overly structured or formless. For that reason, water stood out as an ideal medium as this element perfectly balances these intentions: it appears as a random and disorganized shape that when view from a distance reveal the clear and calm surface of water.
I'm releasing Waterways in three different patterns in a Seaglass Blue colour. And of course, every wallpaper is formatted for your Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Enjoy!
Waterway 01: iPad | Mac | iPhone
Waterway 02: iPad | Mac | iPhone
Waterway 03: iPad | Mac | iPhone
I’m a one-person operation, working in healthcare by day & running this site as a passion project in my off time.
If you enjoy my work (the articles, the wallpapers, my general demeanour… anything really), consider leaving a tip & supporting the site. Your support is incredibly appreciated & goes a long way to keep this site and the works I produce ad-free & free of charge.
☕️ TipsNote: Midjourney was utilized in the creation of these wallpapers. After trying and refining a myriad of prompts, I began to generate hundreds of variations. From this batch, the top three wallpapers were selected and had additional enhancements applied to them - rescaling, colouring, debanding, etc. From there, the wallpapers were resized and formatted for the Mac, iPad, and iPhone Display.
2025-03-09 06:12:58
The most compelling Apple Intelligence features could be delayed into 2026. Is there anything Apple can do to salvage its AI efforts?
In a statement to John Gruber on Friday, Apple admitted that Siri & Apple Intelligence's most anticipated features, including contextual understanding and cross-application actions, are "going to take us longer than we thought." Initially anticipated in the next iOS/macOS update, Apple has now pushed these capabilities to roll out gradually over the next year.
That effectively adds up to an 18-month delay for Apple Intelligence. And while some features under that umbrella—such as image cleanup, Genmoji, Image Playgrounds, and summarization—have started rolling out, the most compelling capabilities of Apple Intelligence will now be pushed back to iOS 19 and beyond.
Among these delayed features is Siri's ability to process complex, multi-app requests, such as searching emails, reminders, and messages to respond to questions like: "What's the best route to take to make my flight on time?", "What was the name of that restaurant Mark recommended?", or "What's Jamie's dog's name again?" To reiterate Gruber's statement, these requests are simple to comprehend but demonstrate complex computational gymnastics, requiring your device to understand, using the first example: 1. Where you are, 2. Where the airport is, 3. What flight you might be talking about, and 4. When that flight is scheduled to depart. All of these steps require very personalized information, tapping into multiple apps, and need to be delivered in a snappy, energy-efficient and very reliable way.
But from the moment it was announced, Apple Intelligence has felt like it was rushed to market, suggesting that Apple was unprepared for the sector's explosive growth and how quickly competitors would integrate these features into their products. From the outside looking in, Apple appeared so focused on advancing its silicon, launching Vision Pro, and figuring out what to do with its now cancelled Project Titan vehicle project that the talent and resources to devote to AI weren't there.
Apple's saving grace, for now, is the belief that many users are still oblivious to the full potential of AI in their daily lives and that Friday's announcement will create the most frustration among those deeply embedded in Apple's ecosystem who are also the cutting edge of technology.
I mention that last point because, for many of my friends and family, AI is either 1) a non-issue or 2) simply synonymous with asking ChatGPT stuff. But features will trickle down fast, and soon, manually combing through a dozen emails to find that one PDF or determining who said they'd bring what to the potluck from several messages will feel prehistoric relative to any other platform. And at that point, if Apple still runs a version of Siri that struggles to set multiple timers, they're f***ed.
So while Apple has the tiniest bit of wiggle room to figure out what the heck Apple Intelligence is/can/should be, I had three exceptionally uninformed thoughts about what it might do in the meantime:
My first move would be to work on integrating more with AI services like ChatGPT, DeekSeek, Co-Pilot, or Gemini. Right now, Apple makes launching out to ChatGPT a very stilted experience. But if there's a way to enable more seamless query handling, it could significantly improve the experience and satisfaction and placate most users until you can roll out the version of Siri you intended to.
Apple might be able to fool... I mean... misdirect users for a time by focusing on a handful of key AI features that matter most to people. Maybe most people do want conversational Siri, or perhaps they want excellent summarization tools or the ability to know which grocery store has the best prices on eggs. If Apple can deliver 3-4 features that will make the most meaningful improvement to most users, then they prioritize quality of experience over the breadth of AI capabilities.
Apple is racing to get on par with other AI services while balancing its privacy and security values. This duality weighs less on Amazon or Google, which is happy to slurp up your data and, as a result, have quickly upped their AI game. While Apple may struggle to match competitors in raw AI capability, it has the opportunity to develop AI in a way that feels uniquely Apple. Think of Dynamic Island: Apple transformed its notch into a polished, functional UI feature instead of chasing the smallest camera cutout. Apple's AI doesn't need to outmatch others in sheer power; it just needs to be more compelling. It might be a controversial example, but Genmoji is a small taste of that - people love emojis, so the ability to create images in that style to fit their specific use cases represents a unique and compelling use of AI.
Apple's not in a great place with AI, but it's not curtains yet. So far, Apple Intelligence reminds me of hockey, when a team forgets their identity and starts to play a poorer version of its opposing team's strategy. To remain somewhat competitive, Apple should focus on integrating and partnering with more AI services to give people that option while at the same time identifying the three or four AI-powered features that provide the most real-world value. Most importantly, Apple needs to figure out how they can provide experiences that "only Apple could deliver," something I haven't seen from them up to this point.
