Apple today announced the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Duo, AirPods 5, and new Apple Watches. Here are a few initial thoughts.

The Event

• John Ternus looked comfortable during his first product event as Apple CEO. And he got to introduce “one more thing” straight out of the gate.
• Apple has these video events down. They move fast and look beautiful. I still miss the tension of a live room. Million-dollar executives should have to sweat once in a while.
• There was a lot of “later this year” today. Some of that is understandable with an entirely new iPhone platform. I also expect they’ve had their hands full with Siri AI.
• Apple’s larger pitch was the iPhone as an “intelligent personal hub.” The iPhone does the thinking, the Watch senses what is happening, and the AirPods handle private input and output. I like that they are getting a bigger picture story around AI.
• Also, they said AI.

iPhone 18 Pro

• The new camera system is the selling point. A mechanical aperture that moves from f/1.48 to f/4 gives photographers real control over light and depth of field. Apple is also bringing aperture, shutter speed, white balance, and a histogram into its own Camera app. Third-party camera apps just lost some territory.
• Apple Reference Image may prove more important than it first appears. The idea is to make a signed record of what the sensor saw at the moment of capture. With synthetic images getting better every month, establishing the origin of a photograph is going to matter.
• Apple spent a surprising amount of time talking about cooling. That makes sense. Heat has become one of the main limits on phone performance. I’ll be curious to see how much difference the new vapor chamber makes. My theory is that Apple has a specific heat ceiling. Better thermal control gives it room to run the chip faster before reaching that ceiling.
• There is no regular iPhone 18 this fall. Apple’s least expensive new iPhone starts at $1,199. I am curious how that goes over once these phones move beyond the enthusiasts.

iPhone Duo

• Well, they got me.
• The hardware is impressive, but the software sold the device. The way apps move between displays, the new dock, the two-app layouts, and all the partially folded positions make this feel like a new kind of iPhone. It does not look like Apple took iPadOS and folded it in half.
• I’ve been calling this an iPad mini in your pocket, and that still feels right. When I travel, I often leave the laptop in my bag and write on an iPad mini with a folding keyboard. The Duo could give me that setup without carrying the iPad.
• The hard choice is the camera. If you want the best camera that you will actually carry, get the iPhone 18 Pro. The Duo gives up the Pro’s variable aperture and telephoto reach.
• There are plenty of other compromises. No Face ID. A smaller outer screen. A hinge with more than 100 parts. First-generation hardware that starts at $1,999. This thing screams AppleCare.
• I’m going to buy one. I will keep an eye on the return window, but I suspect it is staying. At this point I would probably say anything to justify getting a Duo, so discount my advice accordingly.

Apple Watch

• I started the day with an Ultra 3 and no good reason to replace it. Then Apple announced the new health sensors and Live Rewind. So much for discipline.
• Live Rewind is the Watch feature I care about most. My hearing isn’t so great. Asking someone to repeat themselves once is fine. Asking two or three times gets awkward. The ability to look down and read the last 15 seconds could be genuinely useful to me.
• That feature also deserves scrutiny. Apple says the audio is handled on the device and deleted, with a chime and full-screen notice when Live Rewind runs. I want to understand how it works around other people before deciding how often I would use it.
• The Apple Watch story has changed a lot. It began as a device for notifications and small apps. Apple now talks about it primarily as a health sensor on your wrist.

AirPods 5

• The $129 AirPods 5 look like the easy recommendation. Active noise cancellation is now standard, and people who dislike silicone ear tips get more of the AirPods Pro experience in an open-ear design.
• Apple did not make a strong case for the $149 version. Wireless charging, a volume gesture, and some additional battery life are nice. I am not sure they are worth the extra $20 for most people.
• I wonder why there are two tiers to this product. That $129 price point must be particularly effective for Apple.

What Did Not Show Up

• No new Apple TV. No HomePod mini. No screen-based HomePod device. None of those products belonged in an iPhone-focused event. I suspect we’ll see them all soon.

I am still inside the reality distortion field, so check back after these products ship. But yes, I am ordering the Duo.

The post A Few Thoughts Following Apple’s September 2026 iPhone Event appeared first on MacSparky.

On this episode of Intentional AI, Chris and I look at how dictation went from a nine-thousand-dollar tool that needed hours of training to something you can whisper into your watch. We compare cloud and local options, including Wispr Flow, MacWhisper, Superwhisper, and Whisper Memos, along with the privacy tradeoffs that come with each.

We also talk about using your voice to give robots better context, then wrap up with Claude’s new browser and background computer use.

This episode of Intentional AI is sponsored by:

• Making Light: Craft a daily ritual to focus on what matters most. Get $10 off your first order with the code ‘INTENTIONAL26’

The post Intentional AI 8: Whisper to Write appeared first on MacSparky.

On this episode of Focused, Mike and I work through practical questions about capacity, chronotypes, delegation, accountability, and what to do when a careful plan collapses. We also talk about task overload and the difference between getting human help and handing work to a robot.

In Deep Focus, we look at systems for bad days and why my automated daily note lost to the paper cards sitting on my desk.

This episode of Focused is sponsored by:

• Gusto: Payroll, HR, Benefits. Simplified. Get 3 months free.
• Keeper: Get 60% off personal and family plans.
• Daylite: The only made-for-mac CRM solution. Start your free trial today.
• Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code FOCUSED.

The post Focused 264: The Accountability Shaped Hole appeared first on MacSparky.

Joe Moyer explains how his iPad mini became his go-to reading device. I’ve got an old iPad mini serving the same purpose. Wouldn’t it be nice, however, if I could fit it in my pocket?

Totally unrelated, I’m looking forward to the iPhone event tomorrow.

The post A 7″ Reading Device appeared first on MacSparky.

This post is sponsored by Rogue Amoeba.

This week, my friends at Rogue Amoeba are back to sponsor MacSparky. On September 30, they’ll be marking 24 years of making great audio tools for the Mac. To celebrate, MacSparky readers can save 24% off anything in the Rogue Amoeba lineup. Use discount code SPARKY24 in their online store through the end of September.

Rogue Amoeba has a full suite of audio tools for the Mac. Audio Hijack is their flagship recording tool.

Audio Hijack records audio from anything on your Mac: your web browser, a Zoom or Teams call, a microphone, a hardware interface, or your entire system audio. It’s easy to build your sessions, using a visual block-based canvas. Drop in your audio sources, add any effects you want, and hook up recording and monitoring. Audio Hijack makes sure it all connects automatically, and you get exactly the audio you expect.

They just released Audio Hijack 4.6, with refinements to their fantastic Transcribe block. Drop it into a session, and Audio Hijack turns audio into text locally on your Mac. Nothing gets uploaded, nothing goes to a server, and there are no accounts required. If you’ve been looking for a way to get transcripts of your calls and recordings without handing the audio to somebody else, Audio Hijack is your answer.

There’s a fully functional free trial, so you can put Audio Hijack through its paces before you spend anything. Download it today from Rogue Amoeba’s website. And don’t worry – Audio Hijack is already updated for compatibility with macOS 27 (Golden Gate).

My thanks to Rogue Amoeba for supporting MacSparky, and for keeping Mac audio in such good hands for 24 years. Check out Audio Hijack, and the rest of their lineup, and don’t forget discount code SPARKY24 to save 24% off everything this month.

The post Record Any Audio on Your Mac, with Audio Hijack appeared first on MacSparky.

The Relay for St. Jude 2026 fundraiser is underway. Hooray! Since 2019, the Relay community has raised more than $4.8 million for St. Jude. This year, we’re within reach of the $5 million mark.

The case is simple. You give money and they use it to take care of kids with cancer. Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food. The hospital has also helped push the U.S. childhood cancer survival rate from 20% when St. Jude opened in 1962 to more than 80% today. Donors make that work possible. I plan on helping. You can too. Even five dollars helps.

The post Help Relay Reach $5 Million for St. Jude appeared first on MacSparky.

To mark the occasion, everything in the Noodlesoft store is 35% off through Monday night. No code required, the sale price is already showing:

• Hazel 6: $42 → $27.30
• Family Pack, up to five Macs in one household: $65 → $42.25
• Upgrade from an earlier version: $20 → $13.00

For giggles, I’ve also marked the Hazel Field Guide 50% off for the week. Code: HAZELIS20

Happy Birthday, Hazel.

The post Hazel Turns 20 appeared first on MacSparky.

Teddy Svoronos returns to the Mac Power Users. Teddy explains how he uses tech to teach at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the challenges of teaching in the age of A.I.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

• Ecamm: Powerful live streaming platform for Mac.
• 1Password: Never forget a password again.

The post Mac Power Users 865: Harvard Professor Teddy Svoronos on AI in the Classroom appeared first on MacSparky.

Growing up and watching Star Trek, one thing that made it feel futuristic to me was the interaction with the “computer.” You didn’t see Captain Picard updating software or managing user interfaces. Instead, he just said something out into the air, and then the computer responded politely and efficiently, giving him whatever he needed.

At the time, that made total sense to me as something that would be natural in a few hundred years, but it never occurred to me that we would get there in my lifetime. And yet, we are rapidly approaching the Star Trek moment.

Through a variety of technologies – flawless text-to-speech dictation, modern processors, and artificial intelligence – we are getting to that point where you can just yell something into the air and digital problems get solved. Heck, if you’re willing to go out on the end of the spear, we are already there.

In essence, this lets you separate the user from the software. It’s putting another level of abstraction between you and the work. This doesn’t mean we’re replacing the software, at least for the time being, but it does mean you can step away from it. Rather than being an operator of your software and systems, you become more of a director of it.

Smart productivity app developers are already seeing that, and that’s why you’re seeing so many of them release MCPs and other techniques for their software to work with artificial intelligence. They are, in effect, adding their software to your voice-controlled stack.

I expect that to only accelerate. We’ll be getting Siri AI very shortly, and you’ll see how Apple is doing the same thing within the confines of their own operating system and, of course, under their terms.

We are spending a lot of time talking about these technologies in the MacSparky Labs and the Robot Assistant Field Guide. Over time, what this will achieve is to make all of us power users provided we can get comfortable with the additional abstraction and use our imaginations. What I’m here to tell you is that normal folks in the not-so-distant future are going to work very similarly to Jean-Luc Picard.

The post The Approaching Star Trek moment appeared first on MacSparky.

This week in the labs, we covered the usual assortment of geeky topics and we’re all looking forward to the iPhone event next week.

Below you’ll find the week’s new videos and podcasts, a few of the conversations happening in the member community, and what’s coming next week. Most of those links lead straight into the Labs community on Circle, so they’ll only open if you’re a member. If you’re a Labs member who hasn’t set up your Circle access yet, send me a note and I’ll get you in. For members, this is your week at a glance. If you’re not one yet, it’s a peek at what you’re missing.

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The Week’s Releases

This Month in the Labs – August 2026

Roundup · August 31 · all tiers

The August wrap-up went up in all three tiers on Monday. Every video, podcast, and live session from the month, collected in one place.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

MindNode MCP Support

Video · September 2 · Pathfinder & Insider

MindNode just added MCP support, so you can now hook your AI right into your mind maps. I gave it one dictated prompt and watched it build a full map of my MacSparky content pipeline, channels, platforms, and all.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link

WhatCable – Free USB-C Cable Identifier

Video · September 3 · all tiers

Every USB-C cable looks the same and they are not the same. WhatCable is a free utility that identifies what a cable can actually carry, and I walk through it.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

The Lab Report for September 4, 2026

Podcast · September 4 · all tiers

Tim Cook is done running Apple. After fifteen years, he’s moved to executive chair and John Ternus is CEO, effective September 1.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

In the Community

I’m gently being pushed up the MacMini ladder (Labs Discussion Board)

A member set out to replace an M1 Mac mini and watched the spec climb one reasonable-looking step at a time.

Grok Bot (Labs Discussion Board)

One member asked whether anybody else has been trying Grok Bot and got back a long hands-on writeup.

If you’re a Labs member and haven’t joined the Circle community yet, let me know and I’ll get you set up.

Coming Up

Apple’s event is Wednesday and we’re getting together right after. Here’s the calendar through the middle of October.

Labs iPhone Event Meetup · September 9, 12:00 Pacific

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

Labs September Meetup (After Dark) · September 10, 18:00 Pacific

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link

September Deep Dive – The Mac Studio Home Server · September 17, 12:00 Pacific

Pathfinder Link

Labs Jam Session – Browsers · September 24, 12:00 Pacific

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

Q4 Quarter Planning Meetup · October 1, 10:00 Pacific

Pathfinder Link

Labs October Meetup · October 8, 14:00 Pacific

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link

October Deep Dive – Local and Private AI on a Mac · October 15, 12:00 Pacific

Pathfinder Link

Links of Interest

• Everything is a song. Austin Kleon’s weekly list of ten, this one carrying remembrances of Dolly Parton, Yayoi Kusama, and Tim Curry.
• Experiencing Apple’s live immersive baseball broadcast. John Voorhees on watching part of a live Yankees-Red Sox game in Apple Immersive Video.
• Apple was caught off guard by AI demand for the Mac mini and Mac Studio. MacRumors on why the new desktops arrived early.
• Ford explains why it chose Apple Maps over Google for its new EVs. 9to5Mac on how that decision got made.

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Join the Labs

The videos, podcasts, and live sessions above are inside MacSparky Labs. Join at macsparky.com/join.

The post This Week in the Labs — September 4, 2026 appeared first on MacSparky.

Last week Apple updated the Magic Keyboard, replacing text key labels with glyphs, which is kind of nice. I have a similar keyboard on my laptop, and I like it.

However, I was hoping they would fix a different injustice that’s been around for a while. Specifically, you can buy the extended keyboard with black or white keycaps, but the standard Magic Keyboard only comes with white keycaps. I find this baffling.

There are plenty of us picky users who want an Apple keyboard on our desk (with Touch ID) that is not 16 inches wide. And yet, still no dice.

The post For Those of Us Particular About the Things on Our Desks… appeared first on MacSparky.

We got a lot of news from Apple this week, and I shipped a lot in the labs. Busy week.

Below you’ll find the week’s new videos and podcasts, a few of the conversations happening in the member community, and what’s coming next week. Most of those links lead straight into the Labs community on Circle, so they’ll only open if you’re a member. If you’re a Labs member who hasn’t set up your Circle access yet, send me a note and I’ll get you in. For members, this is your week at a glance. If you’re not one yet, it’s a peek at what you’re missing.

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The Week’s Releases

August Deep Dive – Sparky’s Analog Stack

Deep Dive · August 25 · Pathfinder

The recording from this month’s Deep Dive is up: why paper still handles the last mile in an otherwise digital workflow, the daily list scratched onto a Field Notes page or an Ugmonk card, why a wildfire evacuation didn’t change how I think about backup, and the room’s own rabbit holes on Lochby covers, Rhodia paper, and pencil sharpeners.

Pathfinder Link

Design a Cohesive Stream Deck Icon Set with ChatGPT

Video · August 26 · Pathfinder & Insider

A lot of you saw the Stream Deck tour and asked how I make the buttons. This one walks through it. I use a ChatGPT project with a design prompt saved as a resource file, which gets me icons that all look like they belong together, and I show how to pair two of them on a multi-action switch so one button toggles my recording light.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link

Accurate Backyard Weather with Eve Weather

Video · August 27 · all tiers

Apple Weather gets close, but it has never been quite right for my backyard. So I solved it with money and put an Eve Weather sensor outside the window. Here’s the setup, what it looks like in Apple Home, and the automations I’m building on top of it.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

The Lab Report for August 28, 2026

Podcast · August 28 · all tiers

Apple shipped new desktop Macs two weeks before the iPhone event. The M6 Mac mini is Apple’s first 2nm chip, the M5 Ultra Mac Studio is its first quad-die design, and both ship September 22 running macOS 27 Golden Gate.

Pathfinder Link

In the Community

Problems with USB-Drives, after Update to macOS 26.6.2 (Labs Discussion Board)

One member spent the week chasing a gnarly macOS 26.6.2 bug with USB Drives.

Meross app (Labs Discussion Board)

A member asked about the Meross app for smart plugs and started a conversation about Meross’s HomeKit-compatible plugs and best practices.

Wispr Flow — editing feature request (Labs Discussion Board)

One member flagged an annoyance with Wispr Flow, which kicked off a discussion of dictation and editing.

If you’re a Labs member and haven’t joined the Circle community yet, let me know and I’ll get you set up.

Coming Up

The calendar is loaded out through the end of the year. Here’s what’s on deck through the middle of October.

iPhone Keynote Day Meetup. September 9. We’ll be doing a meet-up of all labs members on Keynote Day. Details to come.

Labs September Meetup (After Dark) · September 10, 18:00 Pacific · Pathfinder + Insider

September Deep Dive – The Mac Studio Home Server · September 17, 12:00 Pacific · Pathfinder

Labs Jam Session – Browsers · September 24, 12:00 Pacific · Pathfinder + Insider + Member

Q4 Quarter Planning Meetup · October 1, 10:00 Pacific · Pathfinder

Labs October Meetup · October 8, 14:00 Pacific · Pathfinder + Insider

October Deep Dive – Local and Private AI on a Mac · October 15, 12:00 Pacific · Pathfinder

Links of Interest

• How The iPad Mini Fixed My Reading Habit. Joe Moyer on why a smaller, single-purpose screen got him reading more than his phone ever did.
• My Annual Performance, as Reviewed by My Dog. Erica Lies with a satirical performance review, dog edition.
• Hands-On with ChatGPT Work’s New Cloud Browser Feature. John Voorhees puts OpenAI’s new cloud browser through its paces.

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The videos, podcasts, and live sessions above are inside MacSparky Labs. Join at macsparky.com/join.

The post This Week in the Labs — August 28, 2026 appeared first on MacSparky.

The Things 3 team released a nice update recently, dramatically improving its repeating tasks feature. I first learned of this when we interviewed the Things CEO on Mac Power Users, but I’ve heard from several of you Things users that are really digging it. If this was the feature holding you back from Things in the past, it may be time to take another look.

The post Things 3’s Repeating Task Feature Restructured appeared first on MacSparky.

We got news that Apple has settled the App Store fee dispute with the European Union, which is good. If Apple can get out of this mess with a negotiated deal instead of years of litigation and penalties, they should consider themselves ahead of the game.

When I first saw the headline, however, I was hoping it meant a more global agreement with the European Union. I talk to European Apple enthusiasts every day in the MacSparky Labs, and they are all incredibly frustrated that Apple fails to release features in the EU that are available elsewhere.

I’m not going to pretend to know who’s to blame, but European citizens and Apple customers are the ones paying the price.

Back in my days as a lawyer, I was a party to enough ongoing negotiations to know that the people outside the negotiations have no clue what’s actually going on. But I can hope this is merely a first step and that my European Apple-using friends can get access to Siri AI sooner rather than later.

The post A Truce on App Store Fees, Still No Siri AI in Europe appeared first on MacSparky.

On this episode of Focused, Mike and I are joined by Cat Mulvihill to look at a frustrating productivity problem: having a good system and still not doing the work. Cat separates the reasons we get stuck into three categories, logical, biological, and psychological, because each one needs a different answer.

We talk about external accountability, ADHD and task initiation, perfectionism, and the tendency to keep rebuilding the system when the system isn’t the problem. Cat also explains Immunity to Change, a framework for finding the hidden fears and assumptions that can keep one foot on the brake.

Then we get into shiny new objects and what we’re reading. Cat’s Bluetooth home phone may be the best solution I’ve heard for keeping a cell phone out of the bedroom without missing an important family call.

This episode of Focused is sponsored by:

• Keeper: Get 60% off personal and family plans.

The post Focused 263: Removing the Roadblocks, with Cat Mulvihill appeared first on MacSparky.

For some time now, I’ve believed that while the Vision Pro is on a slow burn at Apple, its future was certain. The incoming CEO, John Ternus, has said several times that he believes this is part of Apple’s future.

We’ve heard lots of rumors about them working on a pair of glasses in addition to the immersive product. Finally, the content for the Vision Pro seems to be flowing pretty steadily. I’m looking forward to the baseball games we’re getting later this month in immersive video.

Last week, we got news of layoffs. And of course that gets you thinking. Right now, Apple’s dealing with a hardware and supply chain crunch where everything is more expensive and harder to get. Vision Pro is the proof-of-concept product that isn’t mainstream.

I’ve never been convinced Apple wanted to sell a lot of these, even when they weren’t dealing with exorbitant prices and supply chain nightmares. Add this to the recent news of layoffs on the Vision Pro team, and I’m starting to wonder if this isn’t a slow-burn product, but instead an on-pause product.

The post The Vision Pro’s Uncertain Future appeared first on MacSparky.

We got a nice surprise from Apple this morning with some new Macs. Those of you waiting for that M5 Ultra Mac Studio are finally going to get your wish. You can get the M5 Ultra with up to 36 CPU cores and up to 80 GPU cores. Interestingly, memory tops out at 512 GB. That’s the same ceiling the M3 Ultra had, and it’s the configuration Apple dropped back in March. There’s no mystery why. The M5 Ultra starts at $5,500, up from the $4,000 entry price for the M3 when it launched. Again, no surprise.

If your needs are more modest, the Mac mini also got updated to M6 and M5 Pro variants. That’s right, we can now buy an M6 Mac.

The mini also took a price hike. The base model is $899 now, up from $599 last fall and $699 since June. I’m glad Apple released these things. I expect the AI gang will buy them like hotcakes.

The post New M5 Mac Studio and M6 Mac mini appeared first on MacSparky.

Four members of the SwiftUI team at Apple left the company, and now they’ve started a company that writes SwiftUI for you.

The product is Bitrig. You describe an app in plain English, and it generates real Swift and SwiftUI code. What comes out the other end is a project you can open in Xcode, read, and edit by hand. The pipeline runs all the way to TestFlight and the App Store, provisioning profiles and all.

It started as an iPhone-only app last October and now it’s on the Mac. I’ve only poked around the edges so far, but it seems like a good idea if you want some help with native app development.

I’m putting the Mac app on my machine this week to find out.

The post Bitrig, An AI Development Assistant from SwiftUl Team Members appeared first on MacSparky.