2025-05-06 22:03:18
The 2025 Commander (aka my annual WWDC tee) has dropped!
Introducing the 2025 Commander. For the past five years I have introduced a new design featuring the iconic Mac Command Key just ahead of WWDC.
History of the Commander design over the years.
This year, in keeping with the simpler design I introduced in 2024, I took six lines and wove them together, over and under each other, to form the Command Key symbol. I drew from the WWDC25 announcement gradient for my colour palette, which was the same gradient Apple used for their 2021 Spring Loaded Event artwork. I played around with having the lines crisscross or weave under each other, but ultimately, I decided to keep it simple and leave them invisible.
The Commander design is available in its colourful, vibrant style across a range of hoodies and tees, with options for a full-size or pocket design. For a more understated look, there's also a version where the design is colour-matched to the tee, creating a subtle contrast.
You can check out the full range of shirts below, all hosted and fulfilled by Cotton Bureau. I've worked with that company for years and have been impressed with the quality and longevity of their shirts. That said, I recognize that the cost + shipping for those ordering outside of the United States can be prohibitive, and I am exploring adding alternative distributors that might cut down on the higher shipping costs.
Enjoy my WWDC25 tee for 2025! And as always, thanks for the support.
The Rainbow One is available in Black, Indigo, Macchiato, Indigo, Military Green, and Heather White. Click on the image below to be taken to the order page.
The monochrome collection is available in Black, White, Blue, Green, Orange, Purple, Red, and Yellow. Click on the image below to be taken to the order page.
The Commander: Pocket Edition is available in Black and Heather White. A monochrome version is also available on a black tee. Click on the image below to be taken to the order page.
As a bonus, I created two wallpapers featuring the 2025 Commander logo: one with a subtle dark logo on a clean black background, and another with the vibrant, colourful logo centred on the screen. I like the direction of these designs, so you might see more of this design in the near future. Enjoy!
2025-05-05 22:01:51
A trio of gorgeously vibrant radial wallpapers for your Apple Devices.
Introducing the 2025 Commander Wallpaper, a colourful and radiate new design for your Apple devices!
For five years, I’ve created wallpapers and merch inspired by the iconic Mac Command symbol. The tradition started in 2021 and each year I’ve tried to create new designs for merch and corresponding wallpapers. 2024 was the first year I failed to release a new wallpaper, but the design did ultimately find a second life in my Stripes wallpaper collection.
This year’s design was inspired by the vibrant gradient Apple featured in some of its WWDC25 materials. I pictured that burst of colour rippling outward in waves across concentric circles. Each band is a radial gradient that expands through greens, yellows, oranges, reds, purples, and blues (you know, Apple’s six colours). The design was made inside of Sketch with additional tweaks made inside of Pixelmator Pro.
The wallpaper comes in three versions. “Day” is the original design, bright and vibrant. Its counterpart, “Dark,” adds a funky neon tube effect that’s perfect for dark mode time. Then there’s “Mid,” a happy accident discovered during the process & a blend of both styles that might just be my favourite. All three are available as free downloads below, or you can purchase the full collection in a single download to help support my work. Enjoy!
The trio of Commander wallpapers are available below, free of charge and in full resolution, but if you can support the work I do, I am making the bundle available for $2.99.
The 2025 Commander Pack includes three wallpapers: Day, Mid, and Dark for your Mac, iPad, and iPhone. This set also comes bundled with a dynamic Day/Dark version for Mac that automatically switches to match your system’s Light or Dark mode. Thank you for your continued support.
Once purchased, a download link will be emailed to you to download the .zip file (48MB) containing all 3 versions for Mac (6016 × 3900), iPad (2752 × 2064), and iPhone (1320 × 2868).
The digital download link will expire 24 hours after the first download. If your link expires and you need to redownload the files, please send me an email with your order number and I can send along a new link for you.
iPad | Mac | iPhone | Dynamic Mac
Dynamic Mac (Mid/Dark)
Dynamic Mac (Day/Dark) | Dynamic Mac (Mid/Dark)
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 what I do, the articles, the wallpapers, or just the overall vibe, consider leaving a tip to support the site. Your generosity helps keep everything I create ad-free and freely available. I’ve also started offering the option to purchase wallpaper packs as another means to support my work when and if you can. Every bit is truly appreciated!
☕️ Tips2025-04-25 22:38:09
The Basic Apple Pin has launched!
At long last, the Basic Apple Pins are finally available! With a limited first-run stock of ~150, these pins feature the Basic Apple Guy logo on a 1-inch tall enamel pin.
Truth be told, I have been sitting on these pins forever. I ordered them in March of 2022 but kept procrastinating on their release. The last thing I wanted to do was launch a product I couldn’t get to people reliably. And over time, that rationalization meant this became an idea turned into another thing that I never returned to, with each passing day making it that much easier to avoid.
Over the fall, I created a couple of other products I wanted to release, starting with the Apple Intelligence and Basic Apple Guy stickers, and designed the stationary and supplies I needed to fulfill those orders. That process acquainted me with how to list products and familiarized me with the process of selling online. I silently released the stickers on January 12 (and announced them on January 23) and have been using them to slowly acclimate myself to the selling process. This expanded further with my line of Silicon Inside stickers, which I launched in February.
Selling my stickers has been proceeding smoothly for the past several months, which gave me the confidence to up the ante and publicly release my enamel pins. I never planned on selling them when I first ordered them, I mostly wanted a few for myself to put on my bags, but you don’t just custom order a half dozen metal enamel pins. And so, left with a stockpile, I am sharing the surplus with you.
Pin on the custom-designed cardboard backing.
Because the pins are currently in very limited supply, I am asking people to limit their orders to one per person for the time being.
And finally, I know the pins & shipping are expensive, they’re priced higher than I had hoped they would cost. But factoring that I am a small outfit, supplies cost way more in smaller batches, and after accounting for the price of the pin itself, plus the envelopes, protective packaging, processing fees, postage, spoilage, my time, and leasing a PO Box, I am by no means making away with a king’s ransom in selling these. I would need to sell over 150 of them to make enough profit to buy a set of Mac Pro wheels.
Basic Apple Pin
Dimensions: 19mm x 25.4mm (.75 x 0.96 inch).
I hope those who buy these enjoy them immensely. It’s been a dream of mine to work towards creating a physical product, and I couldn’t be happier with how these turned out. Enjoy!
2025-04-24 22:04:33
The Apple Watch celebrates its 10th anniversary, having launched on April 24, 2015.
Today, the Apple Watch turns 10 years old. What started as a fairly hobbled & niche product has quickly become the #1 selling watch on Earth and part of the third largest revenue category of products Apple currently sells - bigger than the Mac, bigger than the iPad. However, the path to that success hasn't been smooth, requiring the Apple Watch to pivot and remould itself from a fashion and connection device to a health, safety, and convenience device that effortlessly works with Apple's ecosystem.
What follows is me meandering through the past decade of the Apple Watch, covering some of its history, my thoughts, uses, and my impressions on a decade of this unassuming yet increasingly vital product in Apple's lineup.
"IT'S HERE! Just arrived via UPS. IT'S HERE! YAY!!!"
- April 24, 2015. A journal entry capturing the excitement of The Apple Watch I’d been waiting for having finally arrived.
I've owned and worn an Apple Watch since day one & I have the band of untanned wrist skin to prove it. I still remember staying up until 1:00 a.m. on April 10, 2015, trying to secure one as pre-orders went live. True to one rumour at the time, many configurations, especially those with Classic Buckles, Leather Loops, and Link Bracelets, weren't available for launch and were instead slated to ship in late May or June. Luckily, I got my order in within the first few minutes and secured a launch day delivery: a 42mm Stainless Steel Apple Watch with a Milanese Loop.
Beyoncé posted a photo wearing a never-released gold Link Bracelet ahead of the Apple Watch’s 2015 launch.
The first Apple Watch launched with a strong focus on fashion. Celebrities wore exclusive gold Link Bracelets promoting the product, the Watch was featured in high-end fashion magazines, and Apple even set up retail spaces in high-end fashion boutiques in cities like Paris, London, and Tokyo to exclusively sell the Apple Watch & attract luxury buyers. The premium 18K gold Apple Watch Edition, priced as high as $17,000, underscored the product's positioning as a luxury accessory rather than merely a tech product.
Apple $17,000 18K Rose Gold Apple Watch with Modern Buckle. Image Credit: Apple
This angle never caught on. The pop-up stores began to close just over a year later, and by late 2016, the multi-thousand dollar Gold Apple Watch experiment had ended.
In saying that, Apple has retained its 2016 partnership with Hermès. This French luxury fashion brand still designs premium watch bands on a biannual cycle for the Apple Watch and offers special engraved editions and exclusive watch faces for the Apple Watch. Apple has also experimented with different materials over the years, namely Ceramic & Titanium, reusing the Edition moniker; through these products remained substantially more affordable their their 18K gold predecessors.
It quickly became evident that the Apple Watch was never destined to be a fashion-first device. Despite the hardware being painfully slow and third-party apps loading off the phone to work, it merited some consideration as a fitness device. Apple introduced a three-ring system for tracking activity, exercise, and stand metrics, which it used to encourage physical activity in the wearers. Apple expanded on this fitness push when it debuted the Apple Watch Series 2 a year later, enhancing its offering by adding GPS & water resistance to the product.
Subsequent generations of the Apple Watch have steadily built on this fitness-focused foundation. In 2017, Apple introduced GymKit, enabling seamless pairing with compatible gym equipment alongside LTE cellular connectivity for greater independence from the iPhone. Over the years, Apple added new workout types, created their Fitness+ service with deep Apple Watch integration, added automatic workout detection, barometric altimeters, running form metrics, and most recently, Effort metrics to measure training and recovery. In 2022, Apple expanded its fitness offerings with the Apple Watch Ultra, a more rugged model marketed for more extreme outdoor use. It featured enhanced GPS accuracy, improved water and dust resistance, extended battery life, and a stronger focus on safety in extreme environments. Whether planned from the start or not, this growing emphasis on fitness ultimately opened the door for Apple to expand its wearables into a new realm: health and safety.
From Apple’s September, 2022 event highlighting SOS calling on Apple Watch.
The only health function the original Apple Watch shipped with was a heart rate monitor, which it marketed more for connection (i.e., texting your heart rate to people) than serving any defined health purpose. However, in 2018, Series 4 introduced an FDA-cleared electrocardiogram (ECG) to the Watch to detect atrial fibrillation and an accelerometer and gyroscope for fall detection. Apple's focus on health & safety resonated with people, with an estimated 4x increase in sales from the original Apple watch released just 4 years earlier. The following year, cycle tracking, monitoring environmental sound levels via the Noise App, and international emergency calling came to the Watch. During this time, Apple began to routinely showcase stories of people whose lives had been saved by having an Apple Watch at the start of their events, a trend that continues to this day.
Then COVID-19 hit, and later that year, in September 2020, Apple serendipitously released a new COVID-19... err... Blood Oxygen (SpO₂) sensor to the Series 6. While Apple never marketed it as a COVID-19 tool, many users saw it as just that. Lower blood oxygen levels were known to be a potential warning sign in some COVID-19 cases, and having a way to monitor this metric on your wrist felt timely, if not essential, during a period when the virus's behaviour was still uncertain. That same year, Apple added sleep tracking & a handwashing timer to enhance its health offerings.
The years since have seen Apple build an expanding Fitness+ offering that pairs with the Watch, add temperature sensors marketed for retrospective ovulation estimates based on biphasic shifts in basal body temperature, crash detection in the Series 8 paired with automatic emergency calling, Sleep Apnea monitoring with watchOS 11, and a new Vitals app to consolidate and simplify all this data into an at-a-glance interface.
A decade on, the Apple Watch has evolved into a powerful health and safety tool, expanding far beyond its original fitness-tracking roots. Rumours continue to circulate about Apple working to add more health sensors to the Apple Watch, potentially some form of glucose and blood pressure monitoring in future models. Ten years ago, I never would have imagined this level of health tracking on a watch, and it's hard to fathom where the Apple Watch might take us in the next decade.
What I love about the Apple Watch from a fitness, health, and safety standpoint is that it's the perfect watch for most. So many features on the Watch invisibly monitor my day-to-day life, offering a reassuring sense of mind, knowing they're always there if I need them. These include emergency calling, fall and crash detection, and heart monitoring. I've also pleaded with my family, who are older and live alone, to consider the Apple Watch for these reasons, given several accidents and medical events in recent years (no luck yet, but I keep trying).
Other features regularly benefit my day to day. I routinely review my sleep tracking to understand what might be impacting me, and I love the gamification of fitness metrics when competing with my spouse about closing our rings and keeping my streak alive. The data and trends help me recognize patterns in my fitness and motivate me (at times) to work harder. And the Fitness+ service, an absolute godsend during COVID-19, continues to be a quick and convenient companion to help break up my day and give me a quick 5-10-20 minute workout when I really don't feel like hauling my ass to the gym.
Top: Series 1. Bottom: Series 10
Although the Apple Watch has seen feature and performance improvements, the body's design has remained largely unchanged over the past decade. It's the same rounded rectangle from a decade ago; now it's just a slightly bigger, more polished, thinner rounded rectangle than it was a decade ago. But that's not a bad thing, and I've routinely been a proponent of keeping the shape intact instead of going to a circular interface aesthetic.
Materially, I am pleased Apple still offers a slightly more premium Apple Watch in Stainless Steel, and new for the 2024/25 season, Titanium. Material options let users choose a preferred look or upgrade to a more durable sapphire display, while the aluminum model, formerly known as the Apple Watch Sport, remains the lighter, more affordable choice. What's unique about the Apple Watch is that it's the first Apple product I can recall where materials, not features, are the primary differentiator; the aluminum models have always offered the same features as their stainless steel, Titanium, ceramic, and 18K gold kin.
The ceramic Apple Watch Edition - Series 5.
This is also where I should take a small sidebar and fawn over the Ceramic Apple Watch Edition. First introduced in 2016 alongside the Series 2, and updated alongside the Series 3 & 5, the Ceramic Apple Watch Edition came a pearly white high-gloss zirconia ceramic finish that was incredibly durable and scratch-resistant. With a price of $1,249 (Series 2; Series 3 & 5 starting at $1,299), the Ceramic Apple watch cost nearly 3.5x more than an Apple Watch Sport.
Fortunately, I got my hands on a Series 5 Apple Watch Edition and wore it for five years before retiring it this past fall. Remarkably, it never showed its age and still looks as pristine as the day I unboxed it. It has peak Apple vibes, the pearlescent white finish evoking the charm of early iBooks and iPods. Sadly, Apple has shown no interest beyond its Hermès collaboration in continuing to produce higher-end variations of the Apple Watch. However, in its brief 3-year existence, the ceramic remains one of the most beautiful versions of the Apple watch released in its 10-year history.
According to Bandbreite, Apple has released 846 bands across the past decade.
New band colours continue to debut twice a year, once in the fall and again in the spring. At launch, the Apple Watch offered six styles: the Milanese Loop, Link Bracelet, Sport Band, Modern Buckle, Leather Loop, and Classic Buckle. Since then, Apple has both introduced and retired numerous styles. While the Milanese Loop, Link Bracelet, Modern Buckle, and Sport Band remain available, others have come and gone, including the Sport Loop, Woven Nylon, Solo Loop, Braided Solo Loop, Leather Link (now Magnetic Link, following the shift to FineWoven), and four distinct bands for Apple Watch Ultra: the Ocean Band, Alpine Loop, Trail Loop, and a larger Milanese Loop. And that’s not even counting the hundreds of distinctive Hermès bands released over the years.
I'm also thankful that Apple has retained the same clasping mechanism for bands; it's allowed me to continue enjoying ones I bought over a decade ago. That continuity might seem like a small thing, but for someone who’s collected bands over the years, it carries real meaning. I've bought bands for their colour or style, but many carry a sentimental value tied to the purpose and places where I picked them up. I have the band I bought for my wedding day; my Cosmos Blue Classic Buckle reminds me of my 2018 trip to NYC, and my Midnight Sport Band harkens back to my 2021 trip to Amsterdam. I have bands my wife has bought me and bands I purchased to celebrate milestones in life. While I’ve upgraded through several generations of Apple Watch, it’s the bands that have become a wearable archive of memories from the past decade.
I’ve often picked up a band when travelling abroad as a souvenir of the places I visit. In 2021 while visiting Amsterdam, I picked up the Midnight Sport Band.
For me, there was never a clear moment when the Apple Watch shifted from a nice-to-have to a must-have. But if I suddenly couldn't use it, I would strongly miss it. While it remains tethered to the iPhone, the Apple Watch, in many ways, frees me from it. One of the first things I noticed after wearing it was just how much less I reached for my phone. Tasks like setting a timer, checking a message, crossing off a reminder, or, because I’m Canadian, checking the weather, no longer pulled me into a black hole of distractions. Thanks to its limited screen and functionality, the Apple Watch offers a quick, focused, in-and-out interaction. And that’s the beauty of it. It acts as a filter, surfacing only what truly needs my attention and allowing me to stay more present, more mindful, and less consumed by the constant pull of my other devices.
If you’re curious, here’s how my Apple Watch fits into a typical day.
Morning:
The Taptic Engine on the Apple Watch wakes me up each morning. I find it to be a much gentler way of getting me out of sleep compared to the jarring jolt a blaring alarm can create.
I check the Sleep & Vitals app to compare how I feel with what the Watch recorded, then dock it to charge while I get ready.
Choosing a band is part of the morning ritual. After a decade of collecting, I enjoy rotating through my collection a few times a week. My wardrobe is pretty neutral, so the band is often where I inject a bit of color or personality.
Hopping into the car, I get a notification on the watch about the estimated commute time. If something feels off (30+ commute), I check to see if an accident has occurred that might be impacting my drive to work and make alternate arrangements.
At work, the Watch doubles as both a timepiece and my schedule. I get a tap 15 minutes before each meeting, and again 15 minutes before it’s time to wrap up. Between appointments, I use the Watch to control music.
I've also gotten into the habit of mood tracking through the Mindfulness App and trying to record my mood at least three times per day on the watch (both when prompted by the watch and randomly).
Some notifications break through, including messages from my wife or if we get delivery at home. Otherwise, I limit all notifications with a custom "Macrodata Refinement" (aka work) focus mode.
Afternoon:
At the gym, I used the Workout app at the gym and try to get a 35-minute workout in before rushing back to the office.
In anticipation of my commute home, I often check the weather to see if there are any severe weather alerts I need to be aware of. We've had several pretty significant weather events in the past number of years, so checking to ensure I won't get caught in a hailstorm has saved my ass in the past. The Weather app also tells me if it'll be warm enough to walk the dog when I get home.
If I stop for gas or to run errands, I use Apple Pay on my Watch nearly every time. At -30°C, taking off gloves to fumble with a phone isn’t happening.
And if I'm stopping to get groceries, the missus and I have a shared list in the Reminders app to know exactly what to pick up.
Evening:
Another workout (a walk with the dog if it's summertime). Even though I have cellular on my Apple Watch, I'm not likely to leave my phone behind and don't tend to load up many music or podcasts on my watch. I rarely go phoneless, but the Watch’s double-tap gesture is handy for one-handed controls when I’m wrangling our four-legged maniac. I also use the Watch to unlock our HomeKit-enabled door on the way out.
A quick glance at the UV index via the Weather widget helps me decide whether sunscreen is necessary.
While prepping supper, the watch now comes into play for setting timers as different things cook.
It's NHL playoff time right now, and I keep Live Activities on for a number of the games to get updates on the scores.
If we're going to an event - a concert or sporting event - all that information is also stored on the watch in the Wallet app.
Finally, as I move through the house, I'll use the Home app to adjust and operate the lights.
Other:
Anytime I'm travelling, having my flight pass in the Wallet app and tracking my flight (or a friend's flight) via Flighty is a must. Flighty gives me all the arrival/departure, layover, baggage, and gate information on my wrist without needing to dig for my iPhone.
In the Wintertime, having my car remote start from the Apple Watch has also been handy.
I am a package tracking fiend, and I have all my packages tracked via Parcel, which I check far too compulsively than I care to admit.
More recently, I've formed the habit of collecting songs while out and about using the Shazam app on the watch. I find I gather a lot more music this way over remembering to pull out my phone and access Shazam that way.
Lastly, at least once per week, I use the Find My iPhone function to figure out where I place my device around the house.
First time putting the Apple Watch on - April 24, 2015.
10 years later, the Apple Watch is especially interesting because it was the first major new product line launched after Steve Jobs' passing. It represented Apple stepping into uncharted territory without its founder. Initially met with skepticism and awkward marketing as a luxury device, the Apple Watch ultimately found its footing not through opulence but through utility. Its focus on wellness, convenience, and thoughtful integration into the Apple ecosystem reshaped how we interact with technology, and for me, often in quieter, more mindful ways. It's exciting to imagine how this unassuming little device on our wrists will continue to shape how we live, stay healthy, and stay connected in the next decade to come.
2025-04-22 23:50:19
A pair of wallpapers in collaboration with MacPaw.
Disclosure: Circles is a sponsored post by MacPaw, the folks behind CleanMyMac as part of their Earth Day digital decluttering event on April 22. They supported my time to create this wallpaper and to share a post on social media advertising their event.
The idea is simple: many of us have become digital packrats, storing terabytes on top of terabytes of old screenshots, ancient messages, blurry photos, and app we never use but keep "just in case". And while our devices look pristine, the digital files stored on them... err... not so much.
How much digital clutter do you have on your Mac?
CleanMyMac is a tool that can help you handle digital clutter. I've used the app for over a decade because having an app that allows me to find large files, delete unused applications, and free up extra space helps my Mac feel new. Apple's macOS already has some space-saving strategies to help offload files onto iCloud. Still, tools like CleanMyMac give me a bit more knobs and buttons to fiddle with to take that experience further.
CleanMyMac is available via the Mac App Store, macpaw.com, or as part of a subscription through Setapp. CleanMy®Phone is available through the App Store for iPad & iPhone.
Some of my other digital decluttering tips & tricks include:
Clean Install: Whenever I get a new computer or iPhone, I try to do a clean install my files and apps. It's a time-consuming pain in the ass, but it means no old cache files, no outdated logs, and only the apps I am intentionally using right get come on board.
Quarterly Photo Scans: I like to go through my Photos app regularly to pull out screenshots and non-photo-related items that find their way there. Anything I want to keep from that category goes into an app like Eagle, and the rest gets trashed. I also do a photo cleanup of duplicate and similar-looking photos to keep my library feeling manageable.
100-Day App Review: I review my apps at least 2-3 times yearly and delete anything I haven't used. It's way too easy to keep apps on the guise that you might one day use them or because the icon is great, so building a habit of releasing apps when they no longer serve a purpose is a difficult but helpful habit to have.
Regular Download Tidy: Going through my download folder every couple of weeks and sorting out the collected files helps keep that folder from becoming an unholy mess.
And now that you have read/scrolled this far; here's your reward: a couple of wallpapers as part of my collaboration with MacPaw. I was having some fun with gradients and transparency, so here are some images merging these two ideas. Both wallpapers are available for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Enjoy!
2025-04-21 21:58:51
basicappleguy.com turns half a decade old, launching five years ago, on April 21, 2020.
Today BasicAppleGuy turns 5! That's half a decade old!
Since launch, nearly 10,000,000 people from over 100+ countries visited the site! In that time, I've had a chance to create wallpapers regularly featured by influential social media & YouTube accounts, collaborate with amazing developers and design icons for some of my favourite apps, create products I could never have envisioned having the opportunity to create, meet people I've grown to consider my friends and make a creative writing and design outlet that has been so important for my well-being.
Bento box capturing some of the developments of the past year.
Keeping a blog alive these days isn't easy, especially with fragmented social media and the emphasis shifting toward podcasts and video for content consumption. On top of that, I've been navigating my own evolving identity and the purpose of this site. I'm not a dedicated reviews site, I'm not an Apple news site, and I'm not just a wallpaper site either. I'm a bit of all of those things, depending on the day. But that's what I love about it: the freedom to write what I want, when I want, in a way that (hopefully) complements the fantastic work from the broader Apple community.
One of the biggest challenges I faced last year was a deep creative block that took a toll on me. Feeling mentally diminished from work, my ability and desire to create were nearly extinguished for nearly half a year. And while that burnout has ebbed and flowed throughout the second half of 2024 and into 2025, life beyond the blog remains exceptionally hectic. Ever-increasing work demands and a frustrating mix of micromanagement and disengaged leadership have left me feeling more disheartened than ever with a career I once felt so passionate about. Amongst all this, I took on a second and then a third part-time job to help improve career satisfaction and offset the cost of living, at the tradeoff of personal time to work on this site and spend time on my other hobbies and interests (I still haven't finished The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom).
As a result, I made a slight shift this year, pivoting away from an emphasis on wallpaper creation and leaning more into writing content entries, including writing about my experiences with the iPad Pro, my Weekend EDC, my opinion on the 'new' AirPods Max, and beginning to look at writing more about some of my favourite apps. But in saying that, I still created some wallpapers I am incredibly proud of, including Fluted Gradients, updated Ugly Christmas Sweater wallpapers for the iPhone & Mac, Stripes, and a perennial favourite: my iPhone 16 Pro internals.
Additional creative ventures have also released some new merchandise, including a Severance-inspired Scary Numbers tee & tote, Pixel Macintosh, Click to Create, and a couple of click wheel tees.
And in February, I finally launched a project I'd been quietly working on for months: the Silicon Inside stickers. Getting them off the ground meant building out the infrastructure from scratch—revamping my website, creating a storefront and merchandise backend to manage stock, securing a (surprisingly pricey) PO Box, designing 32 unique stickers, and gathering all the supplies needed to ship them out: envelopes, stamps, label makers, protectors, seals—you name it. At the same time, I had to devote time to customer support (e.g., if a parcel gets lost in transit). So, for the past few months, this tiny sticker operation has legitimately turned into yet another part-time job. It's taken a considerable time and money, but I'm incredibly proud of what I've built and deeply grateful for the incredible response from everyone worldwide who's ordered.
Finally, I've worked on some behind-the-scenes website improvements, including creating a revamped "About" page, a new "My Gear" section, a new Mercantile store layout, and dedicated pages for the Silicon Inside stickers.
Through it all, keeping my site ad-free has remained a top priority. Yes, I sell some merch, but I'm proud that the articles and wallpapers remain free. And I'm especially grateful that merch sales help offset the costs of running the site this way, allowing me to maintain a clean, focused experience for everyone who visits.
So that's my year in a nutshell. I'm grateful for all the support, the conversations, and the kindness so many of you have shown me. And now, it's heads down and time to forge into the second half of this decade.
To mark the anniversary, I had a couple dozen super-duper glittery BasicAppleGuy stickers made; now available over in the mercantile. Enjoy!
