2025-12-29 02:00:46
2025-12-28 23:00:00
This is the second in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s 2025 across their major product lines. You can also read my iPad 2024 and 2023 report cards.
In yesterday's post, I talked about how the smartphone is in its laptop era, and boy howdy is the iPad Pro in that era as well. After spending six long years on the same industrial design, the Pro model finally got a design and screen upgrade last year. With that in mind, it wasn't surprising that the upgrade in 2025 was a simple spec bump. The closest thing to a surprise is that we got an update at all, as the Pro routinely goes over a year without being touched.
As for this upgrade specifically, the only real thing of note is the M5 processor upgrade, which makes everything a bit faster. Other than that, it's exactly the same iPad Pro as last year. I don't say that to belittle it, I just say it to reiterate that this is a laptop-style upgrade and it really only makes sense to people who need the performance bump.
Speaking of spec bump upgrades, the iPad Air was upgraded to an M4 this year. I'm happy to see these iterative updates across the iPad lineup, but there's not much more to say here. It's a bit faster version of the iPad Air we had before.
The one thing I will mention is the display, which is plenty sharp and bright, but is criminally still running at a locked 60Hz refresh rate. All of Apple's premium iPhones do 120Hz now, and I think it's absurd that a tablet that's expensive is stuck in 2017 refresh rates. For the cheap iPad, sure, whatever, but when you're spending $600-$1,300 on a tablet, it's not exactly a budget device by anyone's definition.
Say it with me…it's a processor bump! This went from the A14 to the A16, which was a bit of a surprise, as this is the only new product in Apple's computing lineup with no support for Apple Intelligence.
On the plus side, they did boost the base storage from 64GB (which was a crime) to 128GB, so that's something.
This is probably the most divisive product line in 2025 from Apple. Was it great? Was it good? Was it awful? If you read enough blog posts from iPad users, you'll surely get all three answers. For my part, I think the iPad has some really good stuff going for it, and if you're a certain type of user, it's never been better, but something still feels off about the whole iPad situation.
In terms of hardware, I think getting refreshes to 3 of the 4 models in the lineup is pretty good, especially since the only one to miss out (the mini) was upgraded in October 2024, so it's not criminally outdated or anything. Yes, these were all spec bumps only, but I'm not super bothered by that when the hardware is mostly really good. The iPad Pro hardware is basically perfect in my book, but lingering screen issues in the other 3 models continue to frustrate me:
Then there's the software, which has been divisive to say the least. For many years, iPad fans would dismiss the complaints of those who didn't like the iPad for work by saying, "just get a Mac". For the last couple years, though, it seems like Apple's software design strategy for the iPad has turned into "just make it work like the Mac". Some people love this, but I've seen more than a few vocal iPad proponents go, "ruh roh" at this year's iPadOS 26 update. I'll be honest, as a more casual iPad user these days as well, I actually agree with the critics on this one; my iPad experience is a bit more fiddly than it used to be, and the new windowing system is to blame here.
Forcing me to choose between a free windowing system and never opening more than one app ever again in my life is an annoying choice to make, but it's one you need to make when upgrading to iPadOS 26. To their credit, Apple has improved the situation in subsequent point updates this year, bringing back Slide Over and improving the gestures to enter Split Screen mode, and my Comfort Zone co-host Chris has argued that you can still do all the things you used to be able to do with split screen, but it's still more fiddly. I still find myself resizing windows to split the screen, and having the windows stick to that size when I open them on their own later and needing to tap a couple things to get it back to full screen. This isn't the worst thing in the world, and of course it does come with the power-up of being able to freely resize windows, but as an 11-inch iPad user who never uses their iPad with an external display, the multi-window feature isn't actually useful for me, so I get the minor usability downgrades to give benefits to other people.
And it's not just the Pro lineup that got these new features, it's every iPad. So even iPad mini users who can't dock their iPad to a display and who would literally never get a benefit from free floating windows also get these little paper cuts to usability without any real gain. This is a long-winded way for me to say that I understand why there's some angst in this update.
You'll have to forgive me, but a few of my software predictions are going to be a bit vague (I can never quite guess what they'll do next with iPad software), but I think I can see the shape of things to come.
First, just like for the last few years, the flagship updates to iPadOS 27 will be features that quite literally bring the Mac way of doing things to the iPad.
Second, I think the feedback they've received from iPad users on the new windowing system will make them bring back a dedicated split screen mode that lets users get split screen and slide over without needing to adopt the free windowing mode.
Third, this isn't the Mac article (that's tomorrow), but given the rumors that the first touch-capable Mac is coming in 2026, it feels like there's something there for the iPad to be involved in that story. I'm not saying we're going to get to install macOS on an iPad Pro, but I'm also not not saying something like that is happening.
On the hardware front…
I don't think I'm particularly good at predicting iPad things, so this all could be way off. We'll see!
2025-12-28 01:43:15
This is the first in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s 2025 across their major product lines (iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro, and wearables). You can also read iPhone 2024 and 2023 report cards.
I know this new Pro model isn't universally adored, but I think it's great. I would agree with the critics that it's not as beautiful as the previous Pro models, but I do think it has a unique charm and is a very practical device (shout out to everyone who demanded a more opinionated design, and when they got it, complained that it wasn’t universally adored). Add on to that the fact that battery life has improved to the point where I was able to purchase the smaller Pro phone this year and be completely happy with it in terms of battery life. That hasn't been the case since maybe the iPhone 13 Pro.
From a technical perspective, I think these are really strong updates across the board as well. The A19 Pro is incredibly performant, as you might expect. The new telephoto camera is a step in the right direction, and it fills out the camera system to feel pretty great across the board. Add onto this the front-facing camera, which is now a square sensor that lets you take landscape or portrait selfies with the phone in whatever orientation you prefer. Genuinely awesome stuff.
We're still early days on this phone, but I think it is shaping up to be one of the best Pro generations we've ever had.
Also relatively divisive, the iPhone Air came onto the scene with a mix of desire and confusion. As I've said a few times, the passionless, objective pitch for this phone is pretty rough: "would you like to pay $200 more for less battery life, fewer cameras, and worse speakers than your current iPhone? No? Really???"
But of course, the draw of the Air is not that it's a worse phone on the metrics we've long used to judge phones, it's that it's really fucking thin. I'll be the first to admit that it is striking how thin and light it is in hand, to the point where even though I personally get more value from the Pro model, I find myself using the Air now and again because it is so cool. I'm lucky enough to be at a point in my life where I have my pick of the best phones and I can just use what I like the most, and I think it says something that this phone has a draw on me even though it's objectively worse on several metrics.
Also, I can't say this enough, this is a different sort of new phone than the iPhone X was in 2017. Check out the Apple compare page to see how the iPhone X was an upgrade in every single way over the other iPhones on the market at the time. It wasn't paying more to get a cooler design with compromises, it was paying more to get a cooler design and better specs across the board.
Finally, one real draw for this phone for me is that the screen size is in a really happy medium between the Pro and Pro Max models. 6.5" in a fatter screen is really nice for me, and the iPhone Air gets me that.
The absolute glow up of the year, the iPhone 17 is a real banger, and it all comes down to the screen in my opinion. All three flagship iPhones got the same ProMotion display, and I can't stress how much this makes the lineup feel more premium this year. Add onto that a 36% YoY battery life jump (that's huge), the same square selfie camera as the Pro and Air, 48MP ultra-wide camera, doubled 256GB base storage, smaller bezels, and all this without a price increase, which many of us were expecting. Great "standard" iPhone this year, even if the Pro models continue to be the best-selling model line.
The red-haired step-child of the iPhone released this year, the iPhone 16e has been razzed all year long, but I stand by my initial assessment that it's a very strong base iPhone for people who want an iPhone that will last for a long time, but don't want to spend top dollar. Did you know the iPhone 16e was the 4th best-selling smartphone in the world in Q3 2025? Yup, bigger than every single Android phone made by anyone.
That said, I do understand why it felt a little too stripped-down for the price. The lack of MagSafe is the one that puts it over the edge in my opinion, and rumors of that coming back to the 17e is encouraging. That said, compared to buying an older iPhone 15 or 14 Pro for similar prices come with some upgrades such as cameras and displays (at least on the 14 Pro), but those also come with trade-offs (2 generations worse performance, less battery life, Lightning on the 14 Pro, weight, no Apple Intelligence) as well.
All that said, it's not the best phone, and it's not the phone for me, but it's the first time in many years that I've been able to look at the "SE" phone in Apple's lineup and actually say it's a reasonable purchase.
I think you could argue this is a B year for the iPhone because outside maybe the iPhone Air, there wasn't anything exceptionally innovative in the lineup, but in my book, smartphones are past their pure excitement era and are in their "laptop era". Each update is more iterative than before, and that's okay. We're 18 years into the iPhone era, and it honestly would be insane if the hardware and software changed as much year-on-year as it did at the beginning. Obviously we're not at the end of the line and there is innovation to come, but as far as slab-style phones go, we're filing down rough edges and creating change for the sake of change (aluminum is the best! Now steel is the best! No, titanium is the best! J/k, aluminum is the best again!). In that world, the fact we got 4 new iPhones this year and all of them were meaningful upgrades over what came before, is pretty impressive.
Rumors have it that we're going to get a folding iPhone in 2026, and that will surely shake things up, but right now all I can think of is Jony Ive in the iPhone 8 introduction video describing that phone as the final, purest form of the original iPhone design. I feel that way about the latest iPhones for the iPhone X generation of phones. We may be on the cusp of something new, but that just means that we're really freaking good at making the old stuff, so I think any of the iPhones released in 2025 are great buys no matter what iPhone you're coming from or what your budget is.
I hope 2026 is the year of new form factors for Apple products, and the folding iPhone would be the biggest move Apple could make in that regard. Now, Samsung has been shipping folding phones to the public since 2019 and I know several people who have used them and loved them for several years, so it's not like Apple is first here, but I'm fascinated to see how they handle the UI on this sort of device. The recent rumors that it's going to be a quite small folding phone also intrigues me, and wonders if the wealthy people who loved the iPhone mini will finally have something that they can enjoy again.
This might be a dangerous assumption, but if we do indeed get a folding iPhone this year, I think the rest of the lineup will be more boring (again, in the laptop era, that's not a terrible thing). Frankly, the updates this year set this up nicely.
The Pro models got a design refresh, so they'll probably stay the same, but get new colors (my money's on a deep purple model as well as the return of a space black model).
The iPhone Air doesn't have a number attached to it, which everyone has assumed meant it would not get annual updates (for now), and I would agree that we won't see a new model in 2026.
Similarly, I agree with the rumors that suggest Apple will split the iPhone 18 and 18 Pro launches, with the Pros coming out in September and the non-Pros coming in early 2027. I'd expect this to lead to the Pro line selling an even higher proportion of the overall lineup as people who can't wait for the spring will just spend a bit more and get the Pro for the first time in a while. I know it’s not quite the same as it once was, but this would mark the first time since 2006 that a “standard iPhone” wasn’t released.
And I would expect the iPhone 17e to be the first iPhone we get in the year, coming in the spring and sporting the A19 processor, MagSafe, and the same design as the current model. Criticisms will remain, the base storage will stay at 128GB, the colors will stay the same, and the $599 price point will be a bit too much for people.
As for the folding phone, all I can do are make guesses, so here's some shots in the dark:
Now, if the folding phone doesn't happen this year, I guess they'll have to spice up the rest of the lineup, but I think this is actually the year of the folding iPhone.
2025-12-27 05:52:26
Today I learned something amazing: Safari supports higher than 60Hz refresh. It's the only mainstream web browser that doesn't, and I have never understood why, but apparently as of the end of 2025 in Safari version 26.3 (and maybe earlier) you can enable it. Here's how to do it.
Disclaimer that this may cause issues, but I can't imagine what. The entire web has already run at higher refresh rates for years, so unless this breaks something in Safari specifically, you should be fine.
Go to Safari's Settings (via the menu or with Command + ,.
Make sure developer mode is enabled (this won't break things, it just exposes some more UI, such as the very basic ability to inspect HTML, like every other browser).
Go to Feature Flags on the far right.
Search for "60fps"
Turn off the "Prefer Page Rendering Updates near 60fps" feature.
Restart Safari. When you reopen it, website should render at up to your display's max refresh rate.
This is very similar to the Mac flow, except you don't need to enable developer mode.
2025-12-26 21:49:05
Andru Marino writing for The Verge: It’s finally time to retire the word ‘podcast’
In 2026, instead of trying to define what a podcast is, I think we need to stop using the word altogether. “Podcast” is becoming an outdated or even a potentially cringe internet relic, similar to how the phrase “web series” faded from use online.
Honestly, I don't disagree with this. I've found the "actually, if it's not audio-only and available via RSS for free, it's not a podcast" argument exhausting for as long as it's been happening. Marino posits that "shows" is a better way to describe these things, and I agree. It's a more broad term, but I think it better captures what is happening in the space.
Here's an example of how annoying I find the current "podcast" argument. Every week, Niléane, Chris, and I sit down and talk for about 90 minutes, cameras and microphones recording every moment. Chris edits it, and exports it twice: once as a video file and once as an audio file. The audio file gets uploaded to our podcast host and the video file gets uploaded to YouTube. We unquestionably recorded one piece of "content" and Chris edited one "show" but what were we doing when we recorded? Were we podcasting? Were we doing something else? To me, we'e making a show, and that show can be enjoyed (or hate-listened to, if you're nasty) in podcast apps, in video on YouTube, or even in audio on YouTube…it's all fluid.
I'm fine with it staying "podcast" as well. After all, we all have a "phone" in our pocket, even though that's a pretty old fashioned way to describe the function of that product as well.
2025-12-21 00:00:45
In which I calmly explain what I think caused all of the problems with the Star Wars sequel trilogy.