2025-12-30 22:52:11
I'm a big fan of movies, they're my favorite medium for storytelling, and it was sometime in 2019 that I said to myself, "man, you don't watch that many movies for someone who claims to love movies."
Of course, I was watching like 10-20 movies a year, which is probably relatively average in the grand scheme of things, but it didn't feel like enough for me. I was missing out of so many good stories because I just wasn't making the time for them. TV shows and video games were taking up my free time instead.
Well, that was when I jumped back into Letterboxd (apparently I joined in 2012!) and started logging my movie watching, and I ramped up my movie count in 2020 and 2021, bit I set an arbitrary goal for myself in 2022: watch 100 movies.
The purpose of this 100 movies wasn't just that more is better, but that if I committed to watching a lot of stuff, it would get me to stop waffling and just hit "play" on more things I was on the fence about. I wanted to get past the "hmm, what should I watch?" mode that has you browsing streaming services for 30 minutes before giving up, and just taking a chance on more things; get out of my comfort zone, if you will. And I think that has been successful! I probably would not have taken chances on movies like Shoplifters, Jojo Rabbit, RRR, The Father, or Perfect Blue if I wasn't chasing this arbitrary number.
I've watched at least 100 movies in each of the last 4 years, and I think that's pretty cool. My biggest year was 2023 where I watched 149 movies, which I would say is too many movies. By the end of that year, I remember feeling like watching movies was turning into a bit of a chore. I had bounced back so much from TV and video games that I was putting off enjoying those mediums in favor of pushing up my movie count to heights I'd never seen in my whole life.
As such, in 2024 I did not have any sort of goal or target to surpass the year before…the line doesn't always have to go up. I have kept that 'just watch how many you feel like" attitude through 2025 as well, and the numbers pretty clearly show that around 100 movies per year is what works for me right now in my life. This sounds like a ton, but it's basically one movie every Saturday and Sunday throughout the year, which isn't that hard for me to do.
For some fun, let's look at a little quick data analysis on the 102 movies I've watched in 2025 (so far, there's still 2 days left!) from my Letterboxd year in review.
My movie frequency has ramped up quite a bit in December, as it often does. It's a combination of big movies I want to see coming out all at once, and time off of work giving me more free time to pop on a movie (or two) each day).
I only rewatched 2 movies all year, KPop Demon Hunters and One Battle After Another, both films in my top 10 of the year.
Speaking of top 10…this is my current ranking based on what I've been able to see so far. A few heavy hitters remain, so this may shake up, but if you're looking for something to watch in this week between Christmas and New Year's, I'd recommend anything here. For clarity, these are:
43% of movies I watched came out this year, and 88% of what I watched was new to me. I'm definitely still seeking out new stories and experiences, not just the comfort food I already know I love.
This score breakdown is pretty normal for a regular person watching movies. I get to choose what I watch, so I'm self-selecting for films I'll probably like.
These two options are fun…movies I rated higher or lower than most people. I don't know what I can say, Materialists resonated with me, Heart Eyes was a fun horror film in the vein of Scream, and the other 4 are widely adored, so I don't think there's anything crazy there.
On the negative front, I stand by The Gorge and The Woman in Cabin 10 being some of the most bland, cookie-cutter, "did AI write this?" slop I've watched in a while. Meanwhile, The Coffee Table was just a miserable experience, even if it was well-crafted; I just couldn't stomach it.
As for 2026, there are already 20 movies on my watchlist that we know are coming out, and I'm sure there will be many more that nab my attention, so it looks like another great year for the medium I love.
2025-12-30 00:07:32
This is the third in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s 2025 across their major product lines. You can also read my Mac 2024 and 2023 report cards.
Only one MacBook Pro got an update this year, and it's the baseline model, which was the first (and to this point only) Mac to get the M5 processor. No Pro or Max processors yet, just the base M5. The M5 seems like a good upgrade over the M4, but that's all I can say, everything else about the MacBook Pro stayed the same.
I think this makes buying a MacBook Pro a bit awkward right now. Many buyers are surely looking at the Pro and Max models, but those are on an older chip generation than the base model. They may outperform the M5 model in some tasks, but the M5 beats them at some other things, such as single-core performance. If you're in the market for a new MacBook Pro right now, I'd say don't buy one unless you're getting the base model; everything else is on the way out and will likely be notably better soon.
Back in March we got new MacBook Airs, which upgraded to the M4 processor and got an upgraded FaceTime camera. We also got a very nice sky blue color, which I know some people think looks like nothing, but I think it's pretty nice when I've seen it in person.
The big win here is the price point, which in last year's post I suggested could go several ways. If you think back to this time last year, the M2 Air was the $999 model, with the M3 starting $100 higher. My best case scenario was that they would ditch the dual-processor lineup and put the M4 in all models while sticking with the $99 starting price, but I wasn't confident that would happen. It turns out Apple was able to sort this out, and for the first time in the Apple silicon generation, the MacBook Air has one processor family and the starting price remains at $999.
Also in March, we got another upgrade which made a few people raise some eyebrows, and I get why. The Mac Studio, which lingered on the M2 generation through 2024, caught up to the rest of the line with the M4 Max and the…checks notes…this can't be right…the M3 Ultra.
Repeat everything I said above about the MacBook Pro lineup being split between processor generations, because the Mac Studio is in a similar situation, although this one is less transient and is just what they have decided is the right thing to do. Don't expect an M4 Ultra ever. I don't think this is the end of the world, and people buying this computer can figure out what they need, but it is undeniably odd and not the ideal state for this product.
It's all a bit odd to me, as the general discourse around the M3 generation was that it was kind of hard to make and not exactly the best generation of Apple silicon, and yet somehow it's the M4 that won't get an Ultra chip for some reason. Here's hoping the M5 generation gets to go from the base chip all the way up to an Ultra, it would be the first time since the M2 that we got that all at once.
On the plus side, if you need the best M4 chip in a desktop environment, the Mac Studio will save you a bunch compared to a MacBook Pro with the same M4 Max ($2,499 vs $3,699).
It wasn't a particularly thrilling year for the Mac. In fact, I'd say it was quite boring, but I guess you can still score pretty well on my arbitrary scoring system by coming into the year with what I think is clearly the best lineup of Macs ever in the history of the company. Seriously, has there ever been a point in time where Apple made so many Macs that are unanimously considered to be great computers, and where basically every single product in the lineup outperforms its competitors in the Windows space (minus some desktops)?
That said, I can't give the Mac an A grade because it was just boring and a couple of their products are in weird spaces right now. The MacBook Pro only getting its base model upgraded to the M5 is a little weird, and the Mac Studio's M4 Max and M3 Ultra configurations are surely not what the company would have wanted. And then there's the Mac Pro, which Apple should really just build up the courage and kill. That thing is stuck on the M2 generation with no signs of it getting an upgrade past that.
A bright spot this year is the MacBook Air, which gets the processor bump in a timely manner. You get the best processor generation on the $999 model, and it's just clearly the best laptop for most people right now.
It's always hard to do these Mac predictions because for the last couple of years they've been pretty boring. Apple releases new processors every year or so, and every Mac is in a good place, so it's really just a matter of predicting when each product is going to get the new processor. That said, I do have a little spice in this year's predictions, so let's get to them.
I'm a MacBook Pro guy, and I'm excited to hear that this might be the most exciting MacBook Pro upgrade we've had since the 2021 Apple Silicon switch for this lineup. The boring part of this prediction is that we'll get M5 Pro and M5 Max models early in the year, eliminating the odd mixed processor situation we have right now. The more exciting part of this is what we're going to get in the fall, which rumor has it will be an OLED model with a touch display and an M6 processor. The rumor mill will surely start grinding away on this throughout 2026, and we'll get a better idea as to what we're looking at here, but I'm excited at the prospect of this update. I am concerned about the price, which is surely not going to be the same as what we pay today, and I'm also concerned that Apple is going to be too conservative with adding touch support to the Mac. Don't get me wrong, if this happens, I'll be getting one, but I really think the vision here should be a convertible device, much like an iPad, rather than the same clamshell form factor the Mac has always had. I think we'll get there eventually, but the early rumors are that this first version is a pretty conservative device.
The MacBook Air is the number one selling laptop in the world, and for good reason. It's an outstanding device with incredible performance and competitive pricing for its class of computer. I'm going to be really boring and say they'll do exactly what they did this year, and in March 2026, we'll get an M5 upgrade with no other notable changes.
I think the Mac Studio will get updated this year, maybe in the summer, and it will get onto the M5 generation of chips. Yes, including an M5 Ultra.
I predict the Mac Mini will get bumped to the M5 and M5 Pro in the spring, maybe at the same time as the MacBook Air.
The Mac Pro will continue to linger as the $7,000 computer that ships with a 2022 chipset that's 3 generations behind the rest of the Mac line.
And oh yeah, the iMac. I'm 50/50 on this one, but if I had to make a guess, I would expect this to get an M5 upgrade at some point in 2026. I'd love to know how many of these Apple sells compared to their other Macs, because this still feels like such a weird product to me. Like a relic from the past that they keep around for a very small niche of users compared to everything else they sell. That said, they've given it M3 and M4 variants, so you gotta think it'll get an M5 edition eventually.
There is an open question about displays, which isn't technically Mac hardware, but it's in the same ballpark. The Studio Display turns 4 this spring, and I'm going to be a downer and say that it will not get an upgrade in all of 2026. I mean, they're selling a 2013 display panel for an insanely high price that comically pales in comparison to the specs in far, far cheaper monitors, so they should upgrade it, but my money's on it not getting touched. My impression is that Apple won't upgrade this until they can make a meaningful improvement without spiking the cost, and I don't see them doing that in today's environment.
It's also not strictly Mac hardware, but the macOS story in 2026 will be an interesting one. I think two main drivers will impact this release: Tahoe's reception and touch Macs. I don't expect major changes to the design, but I do expect to see some changes to the Liquid Glass design system to feel more at home on the Mac. To me, Liquid Glass feels a bit like an ill-fitting Shapeshifter skin on top of macOS's real UI, and they should do better here. On the touch front, I expect we'll see that using macOS with touch doesn't actually require much change to the UI, since as we all know, macOS isn't as small as you think, and actually the pundits who have suggested for years that major changes would need to be made were way overthinking things.
And if I can take a major swing here, I'm going to say here and now that macOS will be available to run on the iPad Pro by the end of 2026. This could be officially from Apple or it could be though some clever people hacking things together to make it work, but I think if you want it enough, you'll be able to do it.
All in all, I think it'll be a relatively standard year for the Mac, but I think we have the potential for some real excitement with the MacBook Pro and what that means for macOS. We'll see what happens.
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.
