2025-07-04 01:00:23
My thanks to Sparkle for sponsoring Six Colors this week.
Sparkle is a utility that uses AI power to organize your files and clean up your Mac. Most of us try to be good, but with all the work we’ve got to do, it’s hard to find the time to throw out those old files and clean up your folders.
Drop a file on your Desktop? Sparkle quietly organizes it. Download something for a project? Sparkle knows where it should go. Sparkle automatically sorts your files into three intelligent categories: Recents, AI Library (older files organized in a smart folder structure based on the files themselves), and Manual Library (for stuff you don’t want Sparkle to touch).
Sparkle looks at your filenames and creates a folder structure that makes sense. Tax documents go with tax documents. Project files cluster together. Screenshots find their proper home.
Here’s how Sparkle handles privacy: it never sends the contents of your files off your device, only the filenames. Filenames are temporarily stored for performance optimization and deleted after 30 days.
Sparkle solves a real problem without requiring behavioral change. It’s not going to suddenly make you an organized person, but your Mac can be organized anyway.
You can try Sparkle for 14 days for free on their monthly and yearly plans. For Six Colors readers, visit makeitsparkle.co and use code SIXCOLORS for 20% off the lifetime plan. Because life’s too short to spend it cleaning up your Downloads folder.
2025-07-03 03:37:06
Whether we’ve secured our Brother printers, our optimism or skepticism about Apple fixing accessibility issues in betas, thoughts on a MacBook powered by an iPhone chip, and the books we’re planning to read—or reread—this summer.
2025-07-03 02:34:06
The Rebound’s Canadian bureau checks in to talk with Dan and Moltz about the Vision Pro, cheap MacBooks and trade wars.
2025-07-02 07:58:53
In late 2023, Digitimes reported that Apple was developing a low-cost MacBook, kicking off a lot of speculation about what that might mean and how the company might execute on such a product.
Here’s what I wrote then:
The modern Apple strategy is to re-use older technologies to create more affordable products… Why does the M1 MacBook Air [still] exist? Because Apple wants to have a product available at a (relatively) low price point…
Now let’s imagine a world with a M3 MacBook Air in it. Does Apple discontinue the M2 model, or push it down into the $999 range? Does Apple discontinue the M1 Air at that point? In the Intel era I’d have answered yes, but the Apple silicon era is something different. The truth is, even now, the M1 is more than enough for most potential Mac users.
Just as a thought experiment, consider what Apple might do if it was planning to import the iPhone SE strategy to the Mac. It would take some older, but still quite capable technologies—say, everything that makes up an M1 Mac. The device’s parts are carefully scrutinized with an eye toward eliminating cost wherever possible, without sacrificing a basic Apple level of quality.
Today we’ve got an M4 MacBook Air, but I can still buy an M1 MacBook Air at Walmart for $649. And on Sunday that Digitimes report boomeranged back to us in the form of a post from supply-chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo:
More-Affordable MacBook… Expected to enter mass production in late 4Q25 or early 1Q26, with an approximately 13-inch display and powered by the A18 Pro processor. Potential casing colors include silver, blue, pink, and yellow… The more-affordable MacBook is projected to account for 5–7 million units for 2026.
(MacRumors says they’ve also seen evidence for this product.)
The more things change, the more they remain the same. My thoughts about this rumor are very similar to my thoughts 22 months ago. First off, the M1 MacBook Air can’t be sold forever. I’m sure the margins on a five-year-old product are great, but Apple and TSMC surely want to stop making M1 chips at some point! So how do you make a new product that’s still well below the $999 of the (incredible value) M4 MacBook Air?
Using the same A18 Pro processor found in the iPhone 16 Pro might be a good start. Let’s look at the relative speed of the A18 Pro versus the M series found in Apple silicon Macs:
Well, would you look at that? The A18 Pro is 46% faster than the M1 in single-core tasks, and almost identical to the M1 on multi-core and graphics tasks. If you wanted to get rid of the M1 MacBook Air but have decided that even today, its performance characteristics make it perfectly suitable as a low-cost Mac laptop, building a new model on the A18 Pro would not be a bad move. It wouldn’t have Thunderbolt, only USB-C, but that’s not a dealbreaker on a cheap laptop. It might re-use parts from the M1 Air, including the display.
I like that Apple sells a laptop at $649, and I think Apple likes it, too. A new low-end model might steal some buyers from the $999 MacBook Air, but I’d wager it would reach a lot of customers who might otherwise not buy a full-priced Mac—the same ones buying M1 MacBook Airs at Walmart.
(See also: Stephen Hackett’s thoughts on this topic.)
2025-07-01 05:40:02
Why the macOS Tahoe Menu Bar is the start of something big, Apple may lower the bar when it comes to an entry-level Mac laptop, and we try to parse the reasoning behind Apple’s latest set of EU App Store rules and regulations.
2025-07-01 00:00:28
If you’ve been using Macs for any length of time, you’ve probably tried every file organization system imaginable. Color-coded folders, elaborate naming conventions, quarterly “clean-up days” that never quite stick. Sound familiar?
The truth is, most of us have given up. Your Desktop is covered in screenshots. Your Downloads folder is a mess. And your Documents folder? Full of files you haven’t touched in years.
Sparkle takes a radically different approach to file organization. Instead of requiring you to change your habits (good luck with that), it works with how you already use your Mac. Drop a file on your Desktop? Sparkle quietly organizes it. Download something for a project? Sparkle knows where it should go.
Here’s what makes it special:
The Three-Folder System
Sparkle automatically sorts your files into three intelligent categories:
It Actually Understands Your Files
Sparkle looks at your filenames and creates a folder structure that makes sense for YOU. Tax documents go with tax documents. Project files cluster together. Screenshots find their proper home. It’s like having a very patient assistant who actually understands how your brain works.
Before you ask (because I know you’re thinking it): Sparkle only sends filenames to process organization—never file contents. Filenames are temporarily stored for performance optimization and deleted after 30 days.
Built-In Duplicate Finder
Sparkle’s built-in Duplicate Finder deserves special mention. It scans your entire folder structure—including deeply nested folders and external drives—to instantly identify identical files. With one click, you can clean up these duplicates and reclaim valuable disk space. For anyone who’s accidentally saved the same file multiple times or has collections of “Screenshot (1)” through “Screenshot (47)”, you know how much space these duplicates waste.
Sparkle solves a real problem without requiring behavioral change. Sparkle’s not going to suddenly make you an organized person. But your Mac can be organized anyway.
Sparkle works with any folder on your Mac, including external drives and cloud storage (Google Drive, Dropbox, Box). Once you set it up, it runs quietly in your menu bar, doing its thing while you do yours.
Sparkle offers a 14-day free trial on their monthly and yearly plans.
For Six Colors readers, this week only: Visit makeitsparkle.co and use code SIXCOLORS for 20% off the lifetime plan.
Because life’s too short to spend it hunting for files. Let Sparkle handle the organization while you focus on the work that matters.
