Yesterday I went to see the 2024 World Press photography exposition. On our way out, there was a guestbook where I wrote: “I am speechless… but full of images… thank you to the photographers for their courage, without you, we would be in unbearable darkness.” I was troubled by the powerful images I saw.

I always found this picture of Steve Jobs in his home office very fascinating. It’s too bad that we cannot read all the book titles. But there are two pieces of equipment that I wonder what they are. On is something that looks like a Mac Pro but the size of the computer is too small, even though Steve is using a big Apple display (30"?). Next to this is a bigger vertical device which would be a UPS, but also looks like an external GPU (but that wasn’t a thing at that time). Oh and in the left segment of the bookshelf, there are many small bottles of liquid drops. What were they for?

Update #1: This post made it to the Hacker News site.

To me, this animated Apple logo is a clear visual reference to Apple Intelligence1. Expect to hear a lot about it when Apple shows off their new iPhones.

  1. Even if the service will slowly be rolled out over the course of the next 12 to 18 months. ↩︎

Today I experimented Slack Lists to track messages for which I want to make sure to get a response. It’s pretty useful. But I still don’t really like Slack in general🤦🏻‍♂️. The included screenshot is not from my own list but a template provided by Slack, just to give you an example.

The Mac Mini Needs a Redesign

Rumors suggest a “finally” moment, with Apple on the verge of completing the redesign of the newest generation of the Mac mini, this time featuring an M4 chip. This could result in the smallest Mac ever.

The current Mac mini design dates back to 2010, when Apple was still using more power-hungry and larger Intel chips. The only change over the years has been the back portion to accommodate a variety of port offerings. When Apple transitioned to Apple Silicon chips, right after the Apple Silicon Dev Kit was made available, I expected a redesign and saw the Dev Kit as a transitional step, simply because the chip is smaller, more power-efficient, and requires much less cooling. To me, this was the right time to do so. However, they did not.

If you look inside an M1 Mac mini, thanks to this teardown guide from iFixit you can see that there is some empty space. Coupled with what Apple can do with the M4 iPad Pro, and the environmental pressure to be more efficient in resource consumption (power, materials, etc.), it is clear that the Mac mini must be rethought from the ground up. Will Apple go with an external PSU for this? I don’t expect this to be the case.

One more thing: I’ve been a satisfied user of the M1 Mac mini since 2020, but I’m increasingly considering an upgrade, either to the Mac Studio or a more powerful Mac mini. I’ll be sure to pay close attention to my options.

In iOS 18 beta 4, look at user ratings in the App Dtore and the choice Apple made for the star’s gray shades… it’s very hard to spot how many actual stars were given out of the five. Is this on purpose? 👀🧐

My current view: in-flight infotainment screen where we can see the flight timeline. Easily spot when meals are served. First time that I’m seeing this. I find this really cool and probably helps answer many questions from people. Side note: I’d love to see Apple build a FlightPlay user experience (CarPlay equivalent).