2026-06-02 05:58:49
It’s time for our 11th annual competition regarding what will happen at Apple’s WWDC keynote! What will be announced? For the third straight year, what will Apple’s AI story be? We predict it all! Also, Myke and Jason are starting a new podcast!
2026-06-02 00:00:31
This week, Rogue Amoeba is sponsoring Six Colors. Our strange name has been synonymous with audio software on the Mac for over two decades, even if Jason couldn’t come up with the response AMOEBA when he was on Jeopardy.
The app we want to highlight this time around is one Jason and Dan and most of their colleagues rely on regularly: Audio Hijack.
If you’ve ever wanted to record audio from a specific app on your Mac, Audio Hijack is the tool that makes it happen. Its session editor offers a visual canvas: drop in your source(s), apply optional effects, then add a way to record and listen to that audio. The app helpfully connects everything automatically, so the audio flows just the way you want.
Audio Hijack has a fully functional free trial, so you can try it out before committing. Download it today)!
And as a Six Colors reader, you can save 20% on Audio Hijack – and anything else from Rogue Amoeba’s lineup – through the end of June. Use coupon code SIXCOLORS2606 in our online store.
2026-06-01 22:31:36
Today I’m incredibly excited to announce that Myke Hurley and I are launching a Kickstarter for a new podcast, Designed in California.
Myke and I have been discussing Apple in depth every week for more than a decade on the Upgrade podcast. For Apple’s 50th anniversary earlier this year, I researched many different accounts of that era and wrote a 90-minute special episode of Upgrade. The reception to that episode was phenomenal—and we loved doing it. So we want to fund an entire year of a new podcast that will tell more stories in that vein.
We’re using Kickstarter for this project because researching and writing these scripts is quite labor-intensive, and I was hesitant to make that time commitment in the hope we would eventually build up enough of an audience to justify the large workload. We’ve set a goal that would allow us to generate thirty 30-to-45-minute episodes over the course of a year, with our first stretch goal to raise that number to a full fifty episodes in a year. (Update: Stretch goal met! Fifty episodes it is! We’re on to new stretch goals that add more content to the cast for backers.)
Kickstarter backers will help make the podcast happen. And backers at the Founding Producer tier or higher will get access to a special backers-only podcast feed for the show’s first year. This includes:
We’ve already planned more than enough topics to get through year one. It’s all subject to change, but right now these include:
During June, we’ll also be releasing several preview episodes of Designed in California as Upgrade special installments, so you can get an even clearer sense of what this podcast will be like.
One of our inspirations for this project is The Rest Is History, one of our favorite podcasts and one that has proven that an enthusiasm for history and storytelling can make for a magical experience. We want to bring this sensibility and excitement to the incredible variety of stories connected to Apple, the people who have worked to bring Apple products to life, and all the aspects of our lives that have been touched by the technology that has emerged from a few square miles near the south end of San Francisco Bay.
I realized when writing about Apple’s 50th that I’ve covered the company for roughly two-thirds of its existence. I’m looking forward to digging deep into research on topics that were before my time, and getting the chance to bring my own personal experience to bear on events I witnessed personally. And I’m hoping to tap the knowledge of many of my friends and colleagues as the project rolls along.
This will be unlike your other tech podcasts. Myke and I have built a story list that can feed several years of the show, so we know we won’t run out of material. We’d love for you to take the journey with us.
Please check out the Kickstarter at designed.fm and consider helping us make it happen.
2026-05-30 01:29:14
9to5Mac reports on an X post from a “reliable source” that provides some new images of the four colors rumored to be available on the iPhone 18 Pro:
A new set of iPhone 18 Pro dummy units is giving us our best look yet at the all-new colors Apple has planned for this year. The dummy units corroborate that the iPhone 18 Pro will be available in dark cherry, black, silver, and light blue.
This color information has been floating out there for a while. I point to this item in particular because I think these photos are the best illustration I’ve seen yet about why Apple would think they’re appealing. The Dark Cherry is really appealing, and Light Blue is a proper, nice blue.
Perhaps Apple’s aggressively monochrome era is over?
2026-05-29 23:47:13
“Star City,” Apple TV’s “For All Mankind” spin-off, has just premiered. I’ve seen the first five episodes and really like it. It’s accessible even if you haven’t seen “For All Mankind” or if you’ve stopped watching that show.
“Star City” is set in the same world as “For All Mankind,” but it’s told from the perspective of the Soviet Union during the height of the space race in the late 1960s and early 1970s, just after the USSR has landed the first people on the moon. Rhys Ifans is great as the enigmatic Chief Designer who runs the space program, and Anna Maxwell Martin is menacing as Lyudmilla, the head of Star City’s security. (“For All Mankind” fans will notice much younger versions of a few familiar characters from the Soviet side, too.)
The whole show is about space, sure, but it’s also a cold war spy thriller set in a locked-down secret city in the heart of the Soviet Union. There are space heroics, bugged apartments, mysterious contacts, forbidden books, and even smuggled rock and roll records.
Dan Moren and I are covering each episode over at The Incomparable as a part of our NASA Vending Machine podcast. The first two episodes of “Star City” are available now, as are our podcasts covering those first two episodes.
2026-05-29 23:30:53
Every year at WWDC, Apple kicks off a new cycle of operating system updates that will change the faces of the devices we use every day for the next year. On June 8, we’ll get our first glimpse at what the “27” operating systems will bring, which will lead to their arrival in the fall and numerous major updates all the way through next May, when the cycle will begin again.
I’ve been attending Apple’s WWDC since sometime in the 90s, which is… a long time. But this year’s event promises to be one of the most interesting ones yet, mostly because Apple really stepped in it in 2024, promising a bunch of features it didn’t deliver. Last year was a bit of an apology tour, but it didn’t directly address what had been promised the previous year.
Which means that Apple has really piled two years of promises on the agenda of WWDC 2026. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Here’s what I’ll be watching for at this year’s event, especially when it comes to its AI do-over.
