On Tahoe Icons

Just finished reading “It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons”, which many UI design pundits and non-UI experts, as well as simple, passionate Mac users, have been referring to a lot recently. I appreciate the documentation effort. It’s really well done. Very convincing. But…

Designers age and are gradually replaced by a younger generation. Whether you like it or not, they bring new beliefs (justified or not), design principles (better or not), and values (questionable or not). Recently, there’s a trend where software appears much less crafted than it once was. Everything seems thrown together, flat. And still…

I like those macOS Tahoe menus with icons (🫣), but yes, there is an absolute lack of consistency.

I am currently testing the Ubiquiti Travel Router in a café near my home. The setup operation is simple, and I have full access to my home wifi network, which is one of the goals of this purchase. The only small drawback for now is the slow startup of the device.

In 2026, I’ll Keep an Eye On…

I’m already turning my attention to 2026, in no particular order:

  • Ghost.org next moves, now that are a better Fediverse citizen.
  • Plausible Analytics, which seems to be overkill for my needs but I might find a use for their service exposure via their APIs.
  • Craft because they finished the year with a bang and I’m super anxious to learn what’s next.
  • Apple because of Apple Intelligence and Siri promised updates. Will they deliver? They are the underdog right now but it could serve them well in the end. Remember the Mp3 players market before the iPod? I do. I don’t want another features rush but a bug-fix bonanza. Will they deliver? I have my doubts. What’s next for Photomator and Pixelmator?
  • Micro.blog might also surprise me with features like RSS reader integration. Who knows.
  • Anthropic and OpenAI offerings… will they keep the pace? Will they slow down? Will they surprise us? Will they crash? Is enshittification on our way?
  • Inoreader is also evolving at a steady pace and I wonder if it will continue in 2026.
  • Things to-do manager: will it turn to version 4?

So much fun is awaiting, I’m sure.

This morning I discovered that I could add RAM to my Synology DS720+, increasing it from 2 GB to 6 GB. This upgrade would make it possible to install an instance of n8n as a container and explore the creation of automations connected to Craft. But, memory prices aren’t cheap these days. 🤯 Trying to find alternatives source for memory purchase and Crucial is no longer selling memory that fit, than to AI data centers demand.

ChatGPT recently launched version 5.2, shortly after version 5.1. The update frequency remains consistent. Why hasn’t Apple upgraded the Apple Foundation Model behind Apple Intelligence? Shouldn’t they be able to push out updates to their models as well? Will this change in next year’s Siri?

Thinking out loud here: one way Apple could retain more talent could be to start innovating again, maybe? 1

  1. Recent departures to OpenAI, a company working on a new class of devices might doing just that: trying to innovate for real. ↩︎

On Tony Fadell For Apple's New CEO

Parker Ortolani on taking a chance of Tony Fadell to replace Tim Cook. At first, Tony Fadell seems like the obvious candidate, but I worry that we may be under the spell of a certain nostalgia in thinking he would be the perfect choice, as Parker points out. The world is no longer what it was in the days of Steve Jobs and his close collaborators. Apple is no longer what it once was either, and that is partly what many people criticize the company for. John Ternus is a product engineer, not a designer, and putting design back at the center of the process as it was in the Steve Jobs era may be a more restorative idea—and in that sense, yes, perhaps Fadell would be a good choice.