David and Stephen compare the Apple Watch Ultra 4 and Series 12, discuss David’s move to an M6 Mac mini for local AI and server work, and test Siri AI on everyday tasks. In the Bonus segment, the hosts look ahead to Apple’s rumored October hardware.

Episode Links

• AppleCare One
• forScore
• Apple Watch
• AnyList
• Google Fitbit Air
• Pedometer++
• Whisper Memos
• Mac mini
• Time to Say Goodbye… – YouTube
• M6 Mac mini has my Mac Studio sweating… – YouTube
• Satechi Mac mini Hub & Stand with NVMe SSD Enclosure
• How to get Siri AI — Apple Support
• Siri AI: Everything You Can Do – YouTube
• Fantastical
• What’s Really Happening with Siri AI and Apps
• 18 Apps that "Work" with Siri AI Right Now – YouTube
• FoodNoms
• Flighty
• Kan Do
• Things
• OmniFocus
• Dark Noise
• pdfu on X: Describe a Shortcut Could Soon Support Third-Party Actions
• iPhone Duo
• The iPhone Duo may already have its first killer app: a virtual Walkman | TechCrunch
• MOFT

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 869: It Was Basically a Wash appeared first on MacSparky.

I recently did a quarterly planning session with some of the MacSparky Labs members. I do that every quarter and find it really rewarding. It gives us a bit of a personal accountability circle. During the session, I started talking about the importance of quarterly review.

Now I know, reading this, you’re thinking that the new year is just around the corner. If you’re going to start thinking about planning and priorities, that seems like the ideal time to do it.

But think back to whatever you did this past January. Is it still on your mind? It likely isn’t, because January is a very poor boss of October.

I’m a big fan of quarterly planning. I think, as humans, we respond much better to a three-month plan than a year-long plan. It gives you a sense of renewal every three months, along with real, actionable feedback loops. Quarterly reviews give you a scheduled chance to make adjustments.

I’ve been working a lot lately on my health, but that isn’t a thing you can fix with one January resolution. In Q1, I was more focused on better eating habits and losing weight. In Q4, I’m thinking a lot more about how to gain more muscle and become more fit. Revisiting it quarterly lets me change the area of focus.

Annual planning gives your goals a lot of hiding places to disappear. Ninety days is much more concrete. You can pick a few things where you can actually move the needle and make progress.

I’ve got a lot more thoughts on this that I cover in the Productivity Field Guide, but here we are at the beginning of Q4. My advice to you is to start now. Don’t wait until January 1 to try to get serious about what’s important to you.

Figure out a few things today that you can do in the next 90 days and get to work.

The post Why Quarterly Reviews Matter More Than Annual Goals appeared first on MacSparky.

It was another fun week in the MacSparky Labs. A highlight for me was the Q4 Planning session where we talked about our plans for the final quarter of the year.

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

September Deep Dive – The Mac Studio Home Server

Deep Dive Recording · September 28 · Pathfinder

The recording of last week’s home server deep dive is up. It has 15 chapters so you can jump straight to the part you care about, plus the big ideas in a short list, grouped resource links, the handout, and the Zoom transcript and chat as a download.

Pathfinder Link

2026 Q3 Q&A

Q&A Video and Podcast · September 29 · all tiers

It’s quarterly Q&A time again. This one covers Siri AI and the new operating systems, my one-laptop setup and Mac server plans, what the robot is actually doing, Endor Fieldbook, the move to Circle, our newly empty nest, and plenty more. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

Set Up Your Apple Legacy Contact

Post · September 30 · all tiers

Apple’s Legacy Contact setting gives someone you trust a way into selected Apple Account data after you die. It’s easy to put off because you don’t need it today. This post walks through picking the right person and getting it set up in a few minutes.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

This Month in the Labs – September 2026

Monthly Recap · September 30 · all tiers

September’s recap gathers the month’s Labs posts, videos, and live sessions in one place, with a version for each membership tier. Handy if you want to catch up on something you missed.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

Your New Labs Podcast Feed

Member Announcement · September 30 · all tiers

The Labs private podcasts are moving to new feeds. Use the personal link in your Transistor email to add your new feed to your podcast app, and make the switch before the old feeds close at the end of October. The community post has screenshots to walk you through it.

Setup Instructions

Fast Website and File Navigation with Keyboard Maestro

Video · October 1 · Pathfinder & Insider

I use Keyboard Maestro conflict palettes to jump straight to websites and folders, and to copy selected files to a destination. This video shows the three actions behind the system and includes a starter set of macros you can make your own.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link

Q4 Quarter Planning Meetup

Live Meetup · October 1 · Pathfinder

The quarter-planning session was on the calendar for Thursday morning, giving Pathfinders a chance to work on the last quarter of the year. The link below leads to the event page; the recording will follow.

Pathfinder Link

The Lab Report for October 2, 2026

Podcast · October 2 · all tiers

Apple has a fix for those unexpected iPhone restarts, and the iPhone Duo preorder process starts soon. I also look at Final Cut Camera’s new controls, Freeform folders, and Apple’s guide to family digital habits.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

In the Community

Am I Taking This Too Far? (Labs Discussion Board)

One member has built five personal apps in a couple of weeks and shares the latest, a simple dashboard they’d wanted for years. It’s a good reminder that an app can be useful even if it never goes near the App Store.

Follow-up from Browser meet-up (Labs Discussion Board)

After last week’s browser jam session, one member put Claude to work on a bookmark pile through the bookmarking service’s MCP connection, tagging and pruning thousands of saved links. A nice example of turning a meetup idea into an afternoon project.

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

Two more October sessions are coming up.

Labs October Meetup · October 8, 2:00 PM Pacific

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link

October Deep Dive – Local and Private AI on a Mac · October 15, noon Pacific

Pathfinder Link

Links of Interest

• Donald J. Robertson connects Stoic virtue ethics with behavioral activation, arguing that values-guided action can move forward even when anxiety comes along for the ride.
• Massimo Pigliucci takes on Mary Beard, Emily Wilson, and what classicists get wrong about Stoicism, part one of a series.
• Chris Bailey argues that handing every task to AI gives it more of your work to learn from, while hands-on, offline work helps preserve judgment and agency.
• Cal Newport calls for Congress to examine frontier-lab experiments, safety procedures, and the ideas guiding the people making consequential AI decisions.

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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 — October 2, 2026 appeared first on MacSparky.

iOS 27 brings the long-promised Siri AI, but the part that matters most is what happens outside Apple’s apps. If Siri AI is really going to get legs, it needs third-party developer support. I had hoped Apple might use MCP as the bridge between Siri and third-party apps, which could have brought a lot of support along quickly. That’s not the route Apple chose. Given the security and sandboxing constraints of Apple’s operating systems, I’m not even sure it could have worked.

Instead, Apple’s plumbing for Siri AI is App Intents. Developers describe their app’s content and actions in a form Siri, Spotlight, and Shortcuts can understand. The first wave of updates is here, and it gives us a much better idea of what third-party Siri support will look like.

Things 3.24

Things 3.24 lets you speak more naturally when creating a to-do. You can also continue the conversation to add a note, schedule the task, move it to a project, or correct something Siri misunderstood.

The update also adds Spotlight indexing, which gives Siri a way to find to-dos and projects already in your database. This is much closer to talking with a task manager than dictating into one.

OmniFocus 4.9

OmniFocus 4.9 goes deeper. Siri treats OmniFocus actions as reminders, projects as lists, and folders as groups. It can create and edit actions, set due dates, add flags and repeat schedules, and work with notes and image attachments.

The visual piece is especially interesting. The Omni Group says you can point Visual Intelligence at a handwritten list and move those items into OmniFocus. Siri can also use Spotlight’s index to answer questions about your remaining and recently completed tasks.

Fantastical 4.2

Fantastical 4.2 connects Siri AI to Fantastical calendars. You can ask about your schedule, create an event, or move an existing event through a follow-up request. Those conversations also appear in the new Siri app.

Calendar work is exactly the sort of thing a voice assistant should handle quickly and reliably.

Fantastical is a MacSparky sponsor.

Dark Noise 3.6

Dark Noise 3.6 is a nice demonstration of Siri’s on-screen awareness. You can ask Siri to play a particular sound or one of your favorites without building a shortcut first. While looking at a sound in the app, you can say “Play this” or “Favorite this,” and Siri knows what “this” means.

Ulysses 41

Ulysses 41 adds on-screen awareness, Ask Siri, and Write with Siri. On the Mac, there is also a toolbar button for calling up Siri’s writing features while you work. If you would rather keep Siri out of your writing app, Ulysses lets you switch the feature off on the Mac.

The Ulysses implementation is less about commanding the app and more about giving Siri useful context while you write.

The Real Siri AI Test

Siri AI is still a beta. It requires supported hardware, language, and region settings, and the first wave of app support is uneven. The operating system also needs time to index an app’s actions and content, so a newly installed integration may not work immediately.

It’s nice to see apps showing up in multiple categories. If this is to get momentum, I think Apple needs to do everything in its power to really push the gas down on third party support. That means further available actions, code support, and they should continue to promote Siri AI-enabled apps.

The post Apps Adding Siri AI Support for iOS 27 appeared first on MacSparky.

Mike Vardy has spent his career inside the word “productivity.” He built frameworks around it, taught it, made a living off it. And for years the word itself bugged him. But don’t forget “Productivity” started out as a term for measuring the efficiency of factories.

Mike argues the better word is “productiveness”. Not how much you produce, but whether what you produce, and how you go about producing it, actually amounts to something.

That distinction is the subject of Mike’s new book, out now. Nine principles for keeping meaningful work sustainable once the systems around it start to strain. My congratulations to Mike for getting this book published.

The post Mike Vardy’s New Book, Productiveness appeared first on MacSparky.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by Daylite.

My calendar is great at telling me where I need to be. It’s terrible at telling me why. The appointment says “Call with client,” and everything I need for that call lives somewhere else.

Daylite just fixed that for people who run their day in Google Calendar. The new Google Calendar sync is continuous and two-way. Add or move an appointment in Google Calendar, and Daylite has it. Change it in Daylite, and Google Calendar gets the update. Meetings that Zoom or Gmail drop onto your calendar come along too.

The good part is what happens next. Once an event is in Daylite, you can link it to the people, companies, projects, and opportunities it belongs to. That meeting stops being a block of time and becomes part of the client’s history, sitting right next to the emails and notes.

You can connect your work and personal Google calendars, and there are privacy controls so your team sees you’re busy without seeing the details.

If you live in Apple’s Calendar app, this one isn’t aimed at you. But a lot of consultants and small teams run on Google Calendar, and for them, this is a big deal. Daylite runs on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and there’s a free 14-day trial. Take a look at Daylite.

The post Daylite Now Syncs With Google Calendar appeared first on MacSparky.

Rogue Amoeba opened its doors on September 30, 2002, and they’re celebrating 24 years with a birthday sale: 24% off anything in their store with the code 24YEARS. The discount runs through October 4.

I use Rogue Amoeba apps every day. Audio Hijack, Fission, and SoundSource are baked into how I record every podcast. My wife, who is very much not a power user, loves Piezo. If you’ve been eyeing one of their apps (or the upgrade to SoundSource 6), this is the week to do it.

The latest versions of their whole lineup also support macOS 27, and Rogue Amoeba says Golden Gate fixes several long-standing problems in the Mac’s audio system. Good news all around.

Happy birthday, Rogue Amoeba. Here’s to 24 more.

The post Rogue Amoeba Turns 24 (and 24% Off) appeared first on MacSparky.

I thought variable aperture meant more of that creamy background blur. Tyler Stalman joins Stephen and me to explain what the iPhone 18 Pro’s cameras actually give us, including better ways to work with Apple Log and ProRAW. We also compare pocket video cameras and the iPhone Duo, then do our best to spend Stephen’s camera budget.

Links and Show Notes

• iPhone 18 Pro: A Photographer’s Review
• Full Stack Creator Podcast with Tyler Stalman
• Stalman LUTs & Presets for iPhone
• DJI Osmo Pocket 4 vs iPhone 17 Pro
• Kondor Blue Stalman Smartphone Clamp
• Stephen’s 17 Pro vs 18 Pro Video Frame
• Halide Mark III
• Film(ish)
• VSCO
• Blackmagic Camera
• Lightroom
• Moment Pro Camera II
• Fujifilm X-M5
• Fujifilm X100VI Limited Edition
• Ricoh GR IV
• Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 DG DN OS Sports Lens

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

• Notion: Try the powerful, easy-to-use Notion AI today.
• 1Password: Never forget a password again.

The post Mac Power Users 868: Tyler Stalman Reviews iPhone 18 Pro Camera appeared first on MacSparky.

There is a world of difference between asking a robot, “Help me do this,” and asking, “What should I do?” AI can be remarkably good at the first question but lead you astray with the second. New users often learn that distinction the expensive way.

I’ve taught thousands of people how to use agentic AI, and I’ve seen a similar pattern. People get into trouble after they have some success with AI and try to push it further. Quite often, the thing they want on the other side just isn’t there.

At first, you’re skeptical of AI’s ability to provide any real help. With a little time and training, you figure out how to give it context, build skills, and assign the kind of donkey work it can reliably do unsupervised.

The moment that sinks in is liberating. Suddenly, you’ve got more time for creative work while the AI handles the grunt work.

As you get more reps in and the AI becomes reliable on this kind of work, your confidence in it grows. Then, somewhere along the way, you start giving it more credit than it’s due.

That’s where the drift begins.

The robot really isn’t equipped for the why. Put simply, the robot can’t exercise judgment and taste like you can. I’ve seen a lot of new models come out, and they keep getting smarter. Yet they still fail miserably in matters of taste and judgment.

I think the reason is context. The robot hasn’t lived your life. It doesn’t truly know your preferences. No matter how smart the model gets, its assertions of judgment are based on incomplete and inadequate context. It may have read a staggering amount of material, but it hasn’t been you.

I understand why people fall into this trap. The AI is fast, and it’s very confident in its answers. It feels authoritative. And yet, when you get beyond donkey work, these robots can be full of bullshit.

It doesn’t help that vendors of these frontier models keep promising the technology will change your life. Artificial intelligence is a transformational technology. It just isn’t nearly as transformational as the guy trying to pump up his company’s stock price claims.

People still give it more authority than they should. They ask it to do harder things than it can handle. After all that early success with donkey work, they start trying to make the AI smart enough to make those calls for them.

The fact is, it can’t make that judgment for you.

Trying to outsource judgment and taste to AI is an expensive way to get bad results. It’s like asking your toaster to pick the best bread for your turkey sandwich.

Also, even if it could exercise judgment and taste, do you really want it to? Isn’t that your job? Shouldn’t you get to decide what bread goes on your sandwich?

I see this often with people going through my coursework. They reach a point of frustration and give up on the utility of artificial intelligence because they pushed it beyond its capabilities.

My advice is always the same. Scale back. Get back to the useful zone.

Give the robot work where you know the outcome and can tell whether it’s any good. Limit its scope to jobs where you can provide enough context.

AI is great for grunt work that a computer can do. Stay in that space, and you’ll spend remarkably little time managing the AI. Draw clear lines in your head about how far you can take it and where it needs to step aside so humans can take over.

The reason I like the term “donkey work” so much is that it captures what AI does best. Granted, that doesn’t justify a trillion-dollar stock valuation, but it can make a real difference in your life.

You’re the human. You make the map. Hand the robot the shovel.

When you go beyond that, friends, there be dragons.

The post Don’t Ask the Robot What to Do appeared first on MacSparky.

Wow! A busy week for me. Coming off a cold, I did four podcasts and three webinars this 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

The Apple Refurb Store Is a Best-Kept Secret

Post · September 21 · all tiers

Apple barely admits the refurb store exists. It’s a link buried at the bottom of the store page, and the discounts are real, like $100 off an Apple Watch Ultra 3 the day I wrote this. A short post on why it should be your first stop before you buy new.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

A Deeper Dive into Siri AI

Video · September 22 · all tiers

Siri AI has been out long enough to move past first impressions, and it is much better than many people think. This hands-on video puts it through ordinary tasks involving calendars, messages, music, and visual intelligence.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

A Five-Minute Backup Check

Post · September 23 · Pathfinder & Insider

A short exercise to play along with. Check the date on your last completed backup, then pull one expendable file back out of it to prove the restore works. Five minutes now beats a very bad afternoon later.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link

September Deep Dive – The Mac Studio Home Server

Deep Dive · September 23 · Pathfinder

I came into this one with a plan to keep my old Mac Studio around as an always-on server, and I left seriously considering a Mac mini in its place. We worked through what jobs belong on a machine that never sleeps, how to get back in after a reboot, and the small self-hosted tools that make a server worth having. The recording is in the edit and lands September 30.

Pathfinder Link

Airversa QliQ Thread Smart Button

Video · September 24 · Pathfinder & Insider

I wanted a way to control the blinds and recording scenes in Endor Studios without waking up my Mac. In this video, I set up the Airversa QliQ, a rechargeable three-button Apple Home remote, for a spot under my desk.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link

Labs Jam Session – Browsers

Jam Session · September 24 · all tiers

An hour of open conversation about browsers, Thursday at noon Pacific. Every tier has a seat at this one.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

The Lab Report for September 25, 2026

Podcast · September 25 · all tiers

The 27.2 public betas are out, and the new Mac mini gives up its removable storage module. I also spend a few minutes on John Ternus’s case for giving Vision Pro time to find its job, and this week’s pick is Mayday on Apple TV.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

In the Community

You Guys. Opus 5.5 is AWESOME. (Labs Discussion Board)

First-day impressions of Claude Opus 5.5 from a member who found it faster than the last two versions and easier on the weekly token budget. The question at the end, whether anyone else has tried it, pulled in eight replies.

Mail message links (Labs Discussion Board)

A member wants an agent to triage email and create OmniFocus tasks that link back to the original message, working across Mail.app with iCloud and Fastmail. They’re open to switching mail clients if that’s what it takes, and the thread has some ideas.

New “Health Age” (Labs Discussion Board)

A screenshot of the new Health Age readout in the 27.2 beta, with a question about who at Apple takes the complaint if it turns out to be wrong. Light thread, but a fun one.

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

October opens with planning and closes the first half with another deep dive.

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

• Mike Schmitz answers the critique that PKM has produced nothing measurable by arguing the point is the thinking you do while writing, not the archive.
• Massimo Pigliucci walks through Plato’s Hippias Major and why a dialogue that ends without an answer still teaches something.
• John Ternus compared Vision Pro with the early days of personal computing, and 9to5Mac calls it the best defense of the headset yet.
• If a Mac mini is on your server shortlist after Wednesday’s deep dive, note that the new one drops aftermarket storage upgrades.

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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 25, 2026 appeared first on MacSparky.

So, with some trepidation, I report that Lex Friedman has brought Strategery back from the dead. There are some clever updates, with a better visual design and even the addition of chaos mode, but I must admit I immediately set the look back to the original. Be careful with this one.

The post Strategery Returns to iPhone and iPad appeared first on MacSparky.

I’ve made my choice. I’m buying the iPhone Duo instead of the iPhone 18 Pro Max.

Here’s my full explanation and my read on the tradeoffs.

The post Why I’m Buying the iPhone Duo Instead of the iPhone 18 Pro Max appeared first on MacSparky.

On this episode of Mac Power Users, Stephen and I break down Apple’s September event, starting with the “Ternus Doctrine” and what it means for Siri AI. We compare the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro, then dig into the new Apple Watch and AirPods features. In More Power Users, we share what we ordered and why.

Episode Links

• Everything Apple Just Announced – Stephen’s YouTube Recap
• Apple Event September 9 2026: Introducing iPhone Duo and more
• Apple Plans to Squeeze More Revenue From the App Store, Report Says
• Apple unveils iPhone Duo
• I Tested Apple’s New FOLDABLE iPhone Duo
• iPhone Duo MagSafe Accessory Photo
• AppleCare One Family
• Apple debuts iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max
• iPhone 18 Pro & Duo: A Photographer’s Reaction
• About Audio Intelligence features on Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4
• Introducing Apple Watch Series 12, with the all-new Health Sensing System

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

• NetSuite: The leading integrated cloud business software suite. Try NetSuite Next for free.
• Squarespace: Save 50% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code MPU

The post Mac Power Users 866: The Ternus Doctrine appeared first on MacSparky.

This past week, Apple took the wraps off the new iPhone Pro and the brand-new iPhone Duo. It’s a big deal, and a lot of ink has already been spilled over it. But something else happened that I’d like to shed more light on.

John Ternus gave his first keynote as Apple CEO. And his opening remarks in that job carry real weight. He chose to use that moment to make his case for Apple’s place in AI. (Yes, he called it AI.) It starts at the 3:32 mark in Apple’s YouTube keynote and it was the clearest statement of intent we’ve heard from Apple on the subject.

His words:

AI makes entirely new kinds of experiences possible. And AI can become even more useful when it brings together your life with the apps, services, and products you use every day. And this means the product at the center of your experiences becomes even more essential. What I like to think of as an intelligent personal hub.

It’s the intersection of broad new capability and a deep understanding of your personal context that makes this idea so powerful.

There’s no product in the world better designed to be your intelligent personal hub than iPhone.

As your personal hub, your iPhone can do so much more for you because it understands your context. This includes your calendar, your relationships, your routines, the most private details of your daily life.

It’s personal intelligence that’s actually personal.

He described the iPhone as an “intelligent personal hub.” His argument was pretty straightforward. If you were building the ideal device for personal AI, you’d want something you carry everywhere, with enough processing power to run models locally and a connection to more capable models when needed. You’d want cameras and microphones so it could understand what’s going on around you. And you’d want a screen. There are still plenty of things I’d rather look at than have a robot read to me.

You’d end up with something a lot like an iPhone.

The other half of his argument was about context. A capable model gets much more useful when it knows something about you. Your calendar, your relationships, and your routines are already on your phone. With your permission, that information could help it do things that a chatbot starting from scratch can’t.

Of course, that’s also the information you’d be least comfortable handing over to some company’s servers. Ternus tied Apple’s approach directly to that concern. Run the models on the device whenever possible. Use Private Cloud Compute when the job needs more power. His promise was “personal intelligence that’s actually personal.”

For lack of a better term, I’m calling this the Ternus Doctrine.

I’ve been making versions of this argument for a while. Apple’s access to local context has always seemed like a big advantage to me. But hearing Ternus put it together at the opening of the keynote (his first as CEO) felt different. This was the position he chose to stake out before getting to the new hardware.

Apple has often seemed reluctant to get serious about AI. I know they’ve been working on it, and I’ve written before about why their approach could work. But there’s a limit to how long I can be excited about what Siri might eventually do. At some point, I need it to do the thing.

If we start doing more of our computing by asking an assistant to do work for us, whoever makes that assistant will have a lot of influence over how we use our devices. If I spend my day working through somebody else’s AI, Apple still gets to sell me a phone. But somebody else is deciding how much of that phone I use and which services I reach for.

I don’t think Apple wants that future.

Ternus’s argument gives Apple a different path. Make the intelligence built into the phone useful enough that it’s the one we reach for. Give it the context it needs, while letting us control what it can access. And make it work across the devices and apps we already use.

If he follows through, I’d expect more attention to what Apple silicon can run locally. I’d also expect Apple to keep building out Private Cloud Compute. Those are the parts of the plan where Apple controls the hardware and can keep improving it.

Siri is the harder test. I’m on the betas and the new Siri AI is light-years ahead of the old Siri. But it’s still unclear how far Apple is willing to take this. If they want Siri to become the brain of our private contextual AI assistant, they need to keep the gas down. They also need developer buy-in. Apps need to plug into it.

I’m speculating about where Ternus takes this. An opening speech doesn’t tell us how he’ll assign people or spend money, and Apple has given us plenty of reasons to be skeptical of AI promises.

I liked hearing Ternus explain where he thinks Apple belongs. Now I’d like to be able to ask my iPhone to do something complicated and trust it to finish the job.

The post The Ternus Doctrine appeared first on MacSparky.

There is a lot to process after this week’s Apple event. If you’re still sorting through it all, I found two videos worth your time.

First is Marques Brownlee’s iPhone 18 Pro/Duo Impressions: Mogged. Marques has a good feel for this stuff, and I always value his initial reactions. I don’t agree with him about the Apple Watch recording feature. He lands closer to the creepy side of that debate. I don’t think it is nearly as troubling as some people are making it out to be, although we’ll know more once people start using it in the wild.

The second is Tyler Stalman’s iPhone 18 Pro & Duo: A Photographer’s Reaction. Tyler set me straight on the variable aperture. The mechanism isn’t there to create more bokeh. At its widest setting, the lens is already as open as it gets. The clever bit is that Apple can put a faster lens in the phone, then stop it down when conditions call for less light or more depth of field.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt-fS0DH8BQ

That makes the variable aperture less of a single flashy feature and more of a tool that lets Apple build a more flexible camera. Either way, if you like taking pictures with your phone, I think the iPhone 18 Pro is going to be a really nice upgrade.

The post Two Apple Event Videos Worth Watching appeared first on MacSparky.

It was a momentous week with the iPhone announcement. I’ve got a lot on my mind.

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

Touring the Endor Fieldbook

Video · September 8 · all tiers

I built myself a native Mac app with an audience of one. Endor Fieldbook reads the same Markdown files as my Obsidian vault, then puts my calendar, tasks, content, research, and finances into an interface made just for me.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

Labs iPhone Event Meetup

Meetup · September 9 · all tiers

We watched the September event together in the Labs chat room, then got on Zoom at noon to compare notes on the iPhone 18 Pro and the Duo. The recording is already published in the Labs Circle and podcast feeds.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

Labs September Meetup (After Dark)

Meetup · September 10 · Pathfinder & Insider

This month’s After Dark meetup ran Thursday evening at 6:00 Pacific, the late slot for members who cannot make a noon session. Recording to follow.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link

The Lab Report for September 11, 2026

Podcast · September 11 · all tiers

Apple’s September event takes over this week’s Lab Report. I look at the iPhone 18 Pro camera, explain why I’m buying an iPhone Duo, and work through the tradeoffs between Apple’s two new phones.

Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link

In the Community

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (Labs Discussion Board)

A member visited the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles during a preview and came back recommending it, with the Geffen nearby as a second stop.

iPhone Duo (Labs Discussion Board)

A member posted a picture of the rumored dual-screen iPhone, and the comments turned into a run of jokes about its resemblance to a discontinued Microsoft Duo.

Best Way to Access Mac from iPad? (Labs Discussion Board)

One member asked how to reach a MacBook Pro back home while traveling with only an iPad, and the replies covered several remote-access options.

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 event is behind us, so here is what the Labs calendar looks like through the middle of October.

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

• iPhone 18 Pro/Duo Impressions: Mogged. Marques Brownlee shares his first impressions after hands-on time with both new iPhones.
• iPhone Duo hands-on. The Verge takes an early look at Apple’s first foldable iPhone.
• Is the Foldable iPhone Duo Worth $1,999?. Joanna Stern looks at the first-generation hardware and asks the obvious price question.
• Apple reportedly cancels two MacBooks and reshuffles its OLED roadmap. MacRumors on the display roadmap that says a foldable MacBook and a large-OLED MacBook Pro tier are both off the table.
• Apple hit with a $2.7 billion lawsuit over App Tracking Transparency. The UK claim argues Apple held other developers to stricter tracking rules than its own advertising business.
• Claude, ChatGPT, and Grok all went down at once. Worth reading if you have moved a daily workflow onto a single cloud AI service.

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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 11, 2026 appeared first on MacSparky.

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.