2025-08-16 04:48:49
Introducing Slick, a new wallpaper collection for your Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
Slick is a colourful and very dark-mode friendly wallpaper meant to complement the Liquid Glass aesthetic in Apple's upcoming OS releases. It's colourful, it's dark & very OLED friendly (#000000, I checked), and sure to look stunning across your devices. Enjoy!
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!
☕️ TipsNote: Midjourney was utilized in the creation of these wallpapers. After trying and refining a myriad of prompts, I began to generate hundreds of different variations. From this batch, the top five wallpapers were selected and had additional enhancements applied to them - rescaling, colouring, debanding, etc. From there, the wallpapers were resized and formatted for Mac, iPad, and iPhone displays.
2025-08-15 00:39:00
Documenting the evolution of macOS system icons over the past several decades.
With macOS 26, Apple has announced a dramatically new look to their UI: Liquid Glass. Solid material icon elements give way to softer, shinier, glassier icons. The rounded rectangle became slightly more rounded, and Apple eliminated the ability for icon elements to extend beyond the icon rectangle (as seen in the current icons for GarageBand, Photo Booth, Dictionary, etc.).
With this release being one of the most dramatic visual overhauls of macOS's design, I wanted to begin a collection chronicling the evolution of the system icons over the years. I've been rolling these out on social media over the past week and will continue to add to and update this collection slowly over the summer. Enjoy!
Note: Beta icons won’t be included. Occasionally, an icon may receive slight design tweaks during the beta cycle, but these temporary variations won’t be part of the collection.
Note: My main focus is on the era beginning with the launch of Mac OS X (2001 onward). When possible, I’ll include app icons from earlier versions of the Mac operating system, but these won’t be the primary emphasis.
June 23, 2025: Added System Preferences/Settings, Folders, Stickies, Notes, Messages, Calculator, Game Center, Dictionary
June 26, 2025: Added App Store, Maps
June 29, 2025: Added Podcasts, Photo Booth
July 06, 2025: Added Chess, Reminders, Apple Books
July 17, 2025: Added Time Machine, Trash - Empty, Trash - Full, iCal/Calendar
July 26, 2025: Added FaceTime, Mail
July 27, 2025: Updated Maps, Reminders, Books, Settings, Stickies, and Calculator icons with the updated icons from macOS 26 Beta 4
August 04, 2025: Added Automator, Disk Utility
August 08, 2025: Added Preview, Mission Control
August 15, 2025: Added Migration Assistant, iPhoto/Photos, Pages
August 18, 2025: Added Keynote, Numbers
2025-08-11 10:26:22
Breathtaking aerial wallpapers from macOS Tahoe, ready for your Mac, iPad, and iPhone.
Apple recently added several new aerial wallpapers in the latest macOS Tahoe Beta as the operating system barrels towards release in early fall. Aerial screensavers & wallpapers were first announced for macOS with Sonoma (2023), and Apple has steadily added new locations with each release. This time, Apple heads east with 11 stunning new videos featuring the Himalayas, the Ganges, lush tea gardens, and sweeping coastal views.
All told, the videos total some 10.49 GB, but ahead of Tahoe's release, I have taken them, found 2-3 of my favourite stills from each video, upscaled them to fit a 6K monitor, and added iPhone & iPad variations.
Steps involved:
Install macOS Tahoe Beta
Download aerial wallpapers
Track down the tucked-away folder containing the aerial wallpapers.
Select 2-3 frames from each video.
Save each frame.
Resize & Sharpen (from 3840 × 2160 to 6016 × 3900) each frame.
Create separate iPhone & iPad variations
Upload all 50 wallpapers to site.
These 11 new wallpapers are all available below to download and use across your device. Enjoy!
Mac V.1 | Mac V.2 | Mac V.3 | iPhone | iPad
Mac V.1 | Mac V.2 | iPhone | iPad
Mac V.1 | Mac V.2 | Mac V.3 | iPhone | iPad
Mac V.1 | Mac V.2 | iPhone | iPad
Mac V.1 | Mac V.2 | iPhone | iPad
Mac V.1 | Mac V.2 | Mac V.3 | iPhone | iPad
Mac V.1 | Mac V.2 | Mac V.3 | iPhone | iPad
Mac V.1 | Mac V.2 | Mac V.3 | iPhone | iPad
Mac V.1 | Mac V.2 | iPhone | iPad
Mac V.1 | Mac V.2 | Mac V.3 | iPhone | iPad
Mac V.1 | Mac V.2 | iPhone | iPad
P.S. I have no idea how to spell aerial (thanks autocorrect).
2025-08-10 03:26:45
From dawn to dusk, macOS Tahoe’s shoreline follows your day.
As the Apple betas near their final release, it's not uncommon for Apple to update their wallpaper offerings ahead of launch. And in the latest betas for macOS Tahoe, Apple did just that, adding a slew of absolutely gorgeous Aerial wallpapers. Additionally, they updated their Tahoe lakeside wallpaper with dawn, dusk, and nighttime variations. The only catch? They didn't make them dynamic. That's where I stepped in.
These images came from the 4K videos Apple is including with macOS Tahoe. I upscaled them to fit a 5K display, adjusted the sharpness, and built two dynamic wallpaper options: a classic Day/Night version for Mac, and a time-of-day version that shifts through Dawn (06:00-10:00), Day (10:00-18:00), Dusk (17:00-21:00), and Night (21:00-06:00). I've also resized all four for iPad and iPhone. Enjoy!
Mac: Dawn | Day | Dusk | Night
Dynamic Day/Night (19.4 MB HEIC file)
Dynamic Time-of-Day Version (38.1 MB HEIC file; Google Link)
Tip for best results: On Mac, go to System Settings → Wallpaper → Add Photo to set the dynamic wallpaper. Avoid setting it directly from the image preview or the menubar, as that sometimes won’t preserve its dynamic behaviour.
2025-08-06 00:49:29
How I made the biggest design changes to my site in five years, despite not knowing how to code.
I've dipped my toes into coding and web design more times than I can count. I've started the courses, followed the tutorials, and even made a few brave attempts of my own. But at this point, I'm convinced I'm a lost cause. My brain seems determined not to retain any of it.
This puts me at a real disadvantage, as understanding code feels as essential as speaking the language of the place you live in. This was one of the reasons I run this website through a provider rather than try to design it myself: the site takes care of all coding and under-the-hood stuff, while I get a friendly WYSIWYG editor. But seeing as the site has been around for half a decade, I wanted to make some design changes that I realized were outside the host's standard features, and to remedy that, I needed to figure out some custom CSS.
We all have opinions about AI, not only whether using it is defensible but also where and how. One area where it has proven incredibly helpful is guiding and troubleshooting me through adding new features to the site. Using AI, specifically ChatGPT, I was able to request changes I wanted to make, it would suggest code, and we would dialogue and troubleshoot about whether the code worked. The process, as much as troubleshooting can ever be, was almost fun. The process was was almost like having a dedicated teacher in the room who could interactively offer suggestions based on my requests for feedback. I can't say I am much more proficient at web design, but the hours I spent learning through AI taught me more about it than any previous instruction.
As a result of all my tinkering through the first part of the summer, I have five changes to the aesthetic of the blog that I am excited to share below. These changes help modernize and refine the overall look while staying true to the original design it launched with.
Thumbnails now have rounded corners and drop shadows.
Beginning in 2022, I started rounding the corners (10 px) of images across my blog posts. But there was no system way of doing this to thumbnails on the main blog page. My first small step into AI-assisted CSS editing fixed that, bringing the rounded look to images on the homepage, the Haberdashery, and the post archives.
At the same time that I added the rounded corners, I also added a subtle drop shadow underneath the images of the homepage, the Haberdashery, and the post archives.
Subtle drop shadows, rounded corners, and a slight pop over hovered thumbnails improves the liveliness of the site.
It's subtle, but another change I implemented around the time of WWDC25 was to have images on the homepage feel a bit more lively, which was achieved by adding a slight animated pop and increasing the drop shadow when the mouse hovers over them. This helped give an otherwise static-feeling page a more lively appearance and feeling.
Old v. New dropdown list inspired by Liquid Glass.
This change relied less on AI and more on good old-fashioned internet sleuthing: digging through forums, copying snippets of code from here and there, and using a fair bit of brute force to make it all work. The old list in the menu bar felt a bit drab, so I gave it a refresh to match the rest of the design better. It now features a frosted, opaque look that complements the menu bar, rounded corners for consistency, and subtle contrast highlights to indicate which item you're hovering over.
It's important to state here that my successful implementation of the first three pieces above, with the assistance of AI, did begin to give me the confidence and rudimentary understanding to cobble together this more complicated piece myself. It's not something I created from scratch. Still, through previous interactions with AI, I had begun to understand enough to take pieces from other projects to modify and formulate this menubar myself.
Retina’s Rejoice! Dark Mode is here!
Gruber's recent social poll on how many people use Light and Dark Mode on their devices may have finally pushed me to bite the bullet and bring Dark Mode to the site. I've always been #TeamLightMode through and through, but according to his survey, 36% of respondents are Dark Mode purists, and another 49% switch based on the time of day. That means 85% of people are spending at least some of their day in Dark Mode, while my site has been out here assaulting their retinas with a blinding white (well, technically #FAFAFA) background for years.
That changes now. And as of August 04, I have added Dark Mode to the site that users can manually toggle or which will change based on their device settings. I’m still working out a bit of the kinks across all my pages, but I am thrilled to finally offer this feature. Surprisingly, Squarespace does not have a native Dark Mode utility, and so I relied on the Dark Mode code kit by Fenix to enable Dark Mode on my site. Again, I didn't do anything except buy the plug-in, but previously I had so much fear around CSS and HTML editing that I never would've considered this. I think part of what ultimately led me here was seeing some small successes that didn't explode my site, and then venturing a little bit further out each time.
I hope you enjoy the slightly refreshed site. These five updates mark the only real cosmetic changes I've made in the past half-decade, and all of them came together over the last three months. A big part of that is getting to play and dialogue with AI, which helps me better understand and use CSS, and from there, doing more independent creations, benefiting from acquired confidence.
2025-08-05 01:55:05
Why I’m making room for EarPods in a world ruled by AirPods.
For nearly the past decade, I have exclusively used Apple's AirPods and long ditched Apple's iconic wired earbuds. Whether getting caught on door handles, jammed in zippers, or the countless hours spent detangling them, EarPods became a menace I was all too happy to leave behind when AirPods debuted in 2016. And in my opinion, AirPods are one of the most most important products to come out of Apple, because just like the iPod & iPhone, they, in their own small way, revolutionized the industry when they arrived. But now I'm returning to the wired EarPods, at least part time, and felt it warranted a short little entry.
The reason for the return stemmed from a few frustrating moments with the AirPods. They'd be little things, like forgetting them on the way to the gym, wanting to play PlayStation late at night without waking the family, or even needing to listen to audio on my janky windows work computer which doesn’t allow any Bluetooth connectivity. Enough of these moments began to be sprinkled across my days that I decided to get a few pairs of EarPods and keep them scattered in the places I'd be most likely to need them.
For $28, I picked up a pair of EarPods with a 3.5mm headphone jack and Apple's 3.5mm-to-USB-C adapter. Apple sells a USB-C version of the EarPods, but this combo is way more versatile. If I'm using them with my iPhone, then the adapter is necessary. However, it can easily come off and I can use the 3.5mm jack plugged into my PlayStation, work computer, or any other device still sporting the old headphone port.
Tucked into a small pouch, a pair of EarPods can live in my gym bag and another in my everyday carry, so I'm covered no matter where I am; I'll never have to go to the gym and spend time with my thoughts again!
But wait, there's more! Here are a few more reasons to consider the EarPods:
I've found every AirPods model comfortable for my ear shape, but they're bulkier than standard EarPods. If AirPods never seem to fit quite right, you might find the slimmer EarPods slip into your ears more comfortably than the plumper wireless AirPods.
This remote still remains the best and most convenient way of managing volume and playback on an Apple Device.
I always hated tapping the stem to manage playback in the first two generations of AirPods, and despite years of practice, I still don't have much of a knack for the volume up/down of the AirPods Pro. I know you can manage the playback on the phone, or watch, or with Siri, but the EarPods really gave us the best solution decades ago - a dedicated play/pause, volume up/down, skip forward/back remote built right onto the cord itself.
People assert that the EarPods feature Apple's best mic for call quality over any other Apple wireless headphones. The one criticism I have is that while the mic is indeed good, EarPods lack the sound isolation smarts found in other AirPods and will pass along every bit of ambient noise. So if I'm on a call while cooking, tidying up, or walking outside on a windy day, every bit of that background noise makes its way to the person on the other end.
I have a good charging routine, but I like having a pair of headphones that require no thought. If my AirPods run out after a long travel day, or I've gone a few days without charging them, it's reassuring to have a backup in my pocket that works with zero upkeep.
The absence of a battery can also appeal to those looking to make an environmental or sustainability statement. Unlike AirPods, whose non-replaceable batteries eventually die and send millions of tiny cells to landfills each year, wired buds avoid that problem entirely.
Wired headphones seem to be making a bit of a comeback. Even the eye test around town seems to suggest an increasing number of people are using wired headphones. With wireless earbuds everywhere, some folks reach for wired buds to stand out. They've also even crossed into retro/vintage territory, carrying a nostalgia along with them in the same way that point-and-shoot cameras and vinyl records do. I'm probably too far gone for any of this cool to rub off on me, but that's not to say you won't benefit.
Nothing quite like the thrill of untangling wires for twenty minutes before enjoying a three-minute song.
Don't get me wrong, I am still very much on team AirPods, but I have increasingly found use cases and situations where having a pair of good olde wired EarPods has proven quite useful. They don't need charging, they work with just about anything, and they've quietly aged into a little slice of tech nostalgia. They will still tangle and will snag a few door handles, but for the price of a couple of coffees, they've earned a permanent spot in my bag. Sometimes, the simplest tech still has a place in our very wireless world.
