Last time I bought a new phone a few years ago, UPS lost it. I had to go physically pick one up from the store while Apple and UPS argued about it.

This year I bought another new phone. UPS lost it. They’re not saying that yet, but originally it was supposed to come between 9:30 AM and 3:30 PM yesterday. At 3:45 PM they bumped that to 9 PM. At 10 PM they bumped it to between 11:30 AM and 3:30 PM today. At 3:15 PM, that turned into 9 PM tonight. Were I a betting man, I’d stake money that tonight they’ll change that to some time Monday, two days from now.

Oh, I’m sure they’ll say that they tried to deliver it, although my presence next to the front door the whole time and my doorbell camera both agree that it never happened. Of course, they won’t be able to use that to explain why they can’t find it now. Somehow they’ll claim it was my fault they lost it.

1. On Apple Maps ads, personal injury attorneys have disproportionate representation.

2. Remember to rate every Maps advertiser: give them a thumbs down for customer service. By polluting Maps results, they’re making the service worse.

Apple Maps changes Lake Ontario to ‘Lake America’ for US users:

Apple has relabeled Lake Ontario to “Lake America” for U.S. users of its Maps app, following competitor Google days after President Donald Trump ordered a new name for the body of water amid his escalating trade war with Canada.

And just like that, I’m joining the Great MapQuest Migration.

Apple Maps added ads. When I see one, I give the place a thumbs down. I want to give in-app ads negative value by making them actively lose money for the businesses.

Sorry not-sorry, tax guy who popped up when I started to search for breakfast restaurants.

I’m finally getting around to watching the WWDC keynote. Fun fact: if a presenter lowers their hands below waist level, or goes more than 3 seconds before waving them about, they’re penalized stock options.

That’s the only explanation I have for it. Every single presenter, every time. If you had a drinking game for whenever someone swings their hands wide and brings them back together, you’d be dead by the first section.

Siri is so bad as a voice assistant that it made me stop caring about device-local AI, which is impressive. Yesterday, “hey Siri, turn off the bedroom lights” worked. Today, that responded with “sorry, I can only set one scene at a time”. The proper phrasing — for now — is “hey Siri, turn the bedroom lights off.”

Walking to work, “hey Siri, podcasts play”, which is/was the documented way to play a podcast, started streaming random music. “Hey Siri, play a 🤬🤬🤬 podcast” did the trick.

macOS Tahoe has one feature that I adore: a setting to remove an app’s icon from the menu bar at the top of the screen. Far too many apps want to put their icon there for no helpful reason other than to remind me that they exist. That led to a proliferation of apps like Bartender (which I use to like before it sold out), Ice, and others that let users control what shows up in the menu bar.

I don’t need those apps anymore and I don’t miss them.

Here’s the 1Password icon in my menu bar. I have never, not once, ever used that icon for anything useful.

In System Settings > Menu Bar, I removed 1Password’s “Allow in the Menu Bar” permission.

Ta-da! No more unnecessary icon, and no third-party menu bar manager app required!

Prompt 3.5 for Apple Vision Pro adds a wild new immersive environment!

I was today years old when I started wanting an Apple Vision Pro for the first time ever.

Say hello to MacBook Neo

This is really cool and they’re going to sell a gazillion of them. It’s what I’ll tell my relatives to get to upgrade off old Windows laptops.

And yet, I’m kind of bitter that for years I’ve been told that my iPad Pro can’t have a Terminal.app because it’s not powerful enough and it would be a bad experience and that’s why Apple’s saving me from myself.

It’s not possible to get the iOS Clock app to show you the current time’s seconds, except by looking at its animated icon, or adding a clock widget to your phone’s screen. Inside the app? No. No, you can’t see the exact time in seconds. That’s not something regular users want to do, or something.