Several years ago, I ran a series of Kickstarter campaigns highlighting important dates in Apple’s history with three different wall calendars.

There were also digital versions of the calendars that folks could subscribe to in Apple Calendar, Fantastical, etc.

Today, I have some news about that part of the project:

1. Backers of the three Kickstarters are getting access to updated digital versions of the particular calendar they backed. If you’re in that crowd, be on the lookout for a Kickstarter message with details. These calendars haven’t been updated since publication, so there’s a lot of new stuff in there. This is a one-time update as a thank-you to everyone who backed the campaigns.
2. I have combined dates from all three calendars into a new Apple History Calendar that is for sale now as a one-time $10 purchase. I will be updating the calendar each month with new dates, so setting it up as a subscription in your calendar application means new dates will flow in automatically.

I am so excited to have found a way to keep the Apple History Calendar project going after all this time, and I would love for you to check it out.

As a bonus, you can also get a copy of my book Aqua & Bondi. It covers the iMac G3 and the transition to Mac OS X. If you pick up both, you’ll get 25% off your entire order.

The Apple Watch is rumored to undergo some big changes, Safari is gaining MCP support, and the Rickies may have accidentally created a black hole.

On July 2, 1996, EveryMac.com launched.

Thirty years is a long time – and a great deal has changed since then – but what has not changed is that EveryMac.com has been there to provide you with detailed info on every Mac from the original 128k to the current line. Thank you very much for your support through the years.

There are a bunch of ways to support EveryMac, and its anniversary prompted me to chip in to help keep the lights on at a very important resource.

I am a huge fan of the site’s comparison charts, which make it easy to see how a particular model evolved over time:

The Honda Element could make a comeback, at least according to a new report by Automotive News. Honda killed the once-popular SUV in 2011 after years of sliding sales, but a resurgence in off-road-capable vehicles and a dearth of affordable models are spurring the boxy Element’s revival. 

Car and Driver reached out to Honda for comment, and a spokesperson shared this statement: The Honda Element has maintained a cult following since it was discontinued in 2011, and hopes for its possible return continue to circulate online. We sincerely appreciate the enthusiasm for the Element, but we are not going to engage in speculation about our future product plans.

We owned a 2007 Element for several years. Because it was so weird, it was a lot of fun. It was also surprisingly useful. I was a full-time consultant at the time, and would use it to haul pallets of MacBooks between the office and the K-12 schools we serviced. Here it is, in a very 2009 photo:

It was not perfect, though. We ended up trading it in when we bought our first minivan, as the suicide doors made getting kids in and out of car seats difficult in parking lots. Even though one hasn’t been in my driveway for a long time, I always take a second look when I see one in traffic.

Om Malik passed away on June 24, 2026, at Stanford Hospital after a long health journey with his heart. He was surrounded by family and friends.

I’ve read Om’s writing since before starting this site over 17 years ago. It is hard to believe he won’t be lighting up my RSS reader anymore.

Apple has increased prices across its Mac and iPad lines, the guys are all on iOS 27 Beta 2, and the Bill of Rickies is amended.

Macs

iPads

Other

Additionally, many upper-level SKUs saw increases. The Mac mini with M4 Pro got a $200 bump to $1,599, while the M5 Max MacBook Pro jumped from $3,599 to $4,099. As expected, increases really stack up when you start configuring higher-end options like larger SSDs and additional unified memory.

Apple addressed the increases to The Wall Street Journal’s Rolfe Winkler:

“We have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices,” [Apple] said in the statement. “We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.”

Driven by surging demand from AI hyperscalers, the prices of memory chips, called DRAM, and storage chips, called NAND, have both quadrupled over the past 12 months, according to research firm TechInsights, which projects those prices to keep rising into next year.

Mark Gurman at Bloomberg:

An Apple spokesperson said that “the rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage” and that the company has “never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.”

Apple added it has “shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products including today’s increases for iPad and Mac.” “We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions,” it said.

Casey Newton:

Consumer electronics getting significantly more expensive due to the AI industry may accelerate the backlash even faster than the data center buildout.

Notably, Apple was able to keep the iPhone at its existing price points.¹ I suppose time will tell if Apple can hold the line there.

I won a steak dinner from my Dithering cohost Ben Thompson, betting that Apple would not raise the prices on RAM when they introduced the M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pros in March, largely on the basis that Apple considers the pricing part of the product’s brand. For the same reason, I also do not think they’re going to raise the prices of existing products mid-cycle. I think Cook’s warning is about the fall, starting with the iPhones 18 Pro and the folding “Ultra” in September, and he issued the warning months early just to make the bad news “old news” by the time September gets here.

But unlike with the MacBook Pros in March, I wouldn’t bet more than a beverage on my hunch here. However out of character it would be for Apple to raise prices midway through product cycles, the global RAM shortage is unprecedented. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple pushes price increases moments after I hit “Publish” on this post. (I’m checking right now, before I hit the button, in fact.)

I agree; it would be very unusual for Apple to raise prices at the end of an iPhone cycle. Part of me thinks Apple will do it anyway to provide some cover for John Ternus’ first product keynote as CEO. Having the outgoing guy take the heat for a price increase seems wise to me, but perhaps the company thinks that a rare Tim Cook interview was enough.

Had a productive meeting with SpaceXAI President Michael Nicolls on Monday.

In the meeting they committed to resuming construction on the recycled wastewater treatment facility no later than Q1 2027.

This facility will offset water usage from both SpaceXAI and TVA. Our engagement that led to this commitment will continue until the facility is complete.

Samuel Hardiman, for The Daily Memphian:

The facility was expected to treat wastewater from the City of Memphis’ nearby TE Maxson Wastewater Treatment Plant and turn it into a suitable industrial coolant, replacing the hundreds of thousands of gallons of freshwater the company uses each day. In February, it used 840,000 gallons of water a day, according to bills obtained by Protect Our Aquifer and provided to The Daily Memphian.

The land for the water treatment plant was purchased in June 2025, with ground being broken in October of that year. You’d think one of the world’s most valuable companies could move more quickly.

Myke questions Stephen about his home network, then discusses the ups and downs of having an LLM power Siri. Also: a love letter to the iPhone Air and questions about Snap’s new AR glasses.

On Connected Pro, I trained Myke to be a technology historian. That’s the longer, ad-free version of the show that you should sign up for!

Apple AirPort Time Capsules only support AFP and SMB1. Apple removed AFP support in macOS 27 (and removed SMB1 support from macOS a long time ago). This is a modern Samba setup that runs directly on the Time Capsule itself; macOS 27 can connect to the Time Capsule as a network share, and use it for Time Machine backups.

This project has 2 parts:

• a fork of Samba 4, modified to work on the Apple Time Capsule
• the installers for the Samba binary, via python or the macOS GUI app.

This now fully works for all Time Capsules. The Time Capsule will run its own Samba 4.24.3 server, advertise itself over Bonjour (show up automatically in the “Network” folder on macOS), and accept authenticated SMB3 connections. You should then be able to open Finder, choose Connect to Server, and use a normal SMB URL instead of relying on Apple’s legacy stack.

I can’t speak to the patch’s effectiveness, but dang, I love that someone is out there keeping these things running.

macOS 27 Golden Gate removes AFP support, ending Time Machine compatibility with Time Capsule after nearly two decades, but a community project from a Microsoft engineer offers a potential workaround for owners not yet ready to move on.

The original Time Capsule was announced way back in 2008, in the same Macworld keynote as the first MacBook Air. From Apple at the time:

Time Capsule combines an 802.11n base station with a server grade hard disk in one small package. Simply plug it in, then easily set up automatic wireless backup for every Mac® in your house to a single Time Capsule with just a few clicks. Time Capsule offers the benefits of a full-featured 802.11n Wi-Fi base station, and comes in two models: a 500 gigabyte model for just $299 and a 1 terabyte model for just $499.

“Bring Time Capsule home, plug it in, click a few buttons on your Macs and voila—all the Macs in your house are being backed up automatically, every hour of every day,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With Time Capsule and Time Machine, all your irreplaceable photos, movies and documents are automatically protected and incredibly easy to retrieve if they are ever lost.”

The first version shared the same industrial design as the AirPort Extreme base station:

(Technically, it was slightly larger¹ than the regular AirPort Extreme, but unless you had them side by side, most people wouldn’t notice.)

It did not take long for problems to start showing up, from kernel panics to dead power supplies.

It also did not take long before folks started cracking the things open and putting larger hard drives in them, which is a type of tinkering I truly miss in our modern age.

Over time, things settled down. In 2009, Apple updated the Time Capsule twice, ending the year with 1 TB and 2 TB models at the same $299 and $499 price points. Those updates also improved wireless performance for 802.11n clients through simultaneous dual-band and improved antennas.

In 2011, the Time Capsule was updated again, this time with 2 TB and 3 TB models at the same $299 and $499 prices.

In 2013, the entire AirPort line was overhauled, adopting a new form factor.

This time, the Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme looked identical at 3.85" x 3.85" x a somewhat unusual 6.6”. The new design was part of the move to 802.11ac, which Apple implemented with a total of six antennas inside.

2013 would prove to be the final update to these products. They sat for sale, unchanged, for five years. Then, the news came from Apple, to Rene Ritchie at iMore, who wrote:

Apple is ceasing production of its AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and AirPort Time Capsule Wi-Fi routers. I had a chance to speak to Apple briefly about the decision, and here’s the statement I was given:

“We’re discontinuing the Apple AirPort base station products. They will be available through Apple.com, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers while supplies last.”

I understood the move at the time, but part of me still thinks it was a mistake for Apple to leave the Wi-Fi market right as mesh networking was becoming more common in the home. The AirPort’s ease of use would have been welcomed in the new landscape.

That aside, Apple’s cancellation of the hardware didn’t kill units in the field. I am sure there are folks who continue to run AirPort base stations today, but as Charlton wrote at MacRumors, the end has come for using a Time Capsule as a backup target. Notably, this move was announced a year ago.

The reason is that Apple is ending support for the Apple Filing Protocol. AFP can trace its roots back to System 6, which launched THIRTY EIGHT YEARS AGO. The more modern AFP that Apple is killing with Golden Gate was born with the advent of Mac OS X. For years, it was the protocol for sharing files between OS X machines, but it has since been superseded. Heck, it’s been 13 years since OS X Mavericks switched to SMB2 as its default file-sharing protocol.

Thankfully, you can still use Time Machine across a network. I have this set up for three MacBook users in my household, and it works well.

All of that said, the Time Caspule meeting its end isn’t surprising, even if it is a bit sad.

In a filing, the agency sided with Elon Musk’s company, saying attempts to stop xAI from running the natural gas turbines “threatens American national, economic, and energy security by seeking to shut off the power supply for artificial-intelligence innovation that supports the Department of War’s military operations.”

The DOJ, along with xAI and the state of Mississippi, asked the court to dismiss the suit, filed by the NAACP in April.

Taft continues:

According to the DOJ memorandum, there are only four artificial intelligence models, including Grok, that “support mission-critical operations across Secret and Top-Secret classified networks.” A separate declaration filed by Cameron Stanley, the chief digital and artificial intelligence officer at the Department of Defense, details how the military relies on Grok’s Gov model to “support vital national security missions.” That includes using the model as part of recent strikes against Iran. Forcing xAI to stop running the gas turbines powering Colossus 2, Stanley says, “directly threatens ongoing national security interests.”

Samuel Hardiman at The Daily Memphian:

“In particular, if Colossus 2 is shut down because it cannot rely on power from the Stanton Road site, xAI would lose capacity to train and develop future improved versions of Grok,” Stanley wrote. “And if xAI is hindered from continuing to improve and upgrade Grok, including the Grok Gov Model, DoW’s ability to meet its national security mission and keep pace with adversaries will be impaired.”

Stanley said that xAI’s data centers in Memphis, including Colossus II, could be relied upon by the U.S. government in the event of another armed conflict or matter of national security.

Here is my rack as it stands today:

I am all in on UniFi gear, as you can see from all the Apple-like aluminum hardware in that photo. From top to bottom, here is how things are set up:

• Cable Modem: My Comcast connection comes straight into this, and then is passed to my network over a 2.5 GbE Ethernet connection.
• Dream Machine Special Edition: This is my gateway. In the UniFi world, this is what manages the entire network, including routing, the firewall, content filters, and more. The Dream Machine can be used to run Protect, Unifi’s home security and camera system, and even record footage with its built-in hard drive, but I have a standalone Protect box further down the stack, as when I initially built this out, I was not using a gateway with its own storage. The Dream Machine uses Comcast as its upstream Internet connection, but it can fail over to my backup ISP — a super-slow AT&T DSL connection.¹ That green fiber optic cable runs to a workshop off my garage, where I have a secondary switch running two of my cameras and one wireless access point.
• A 24-port patch panel with a hodgepodge of keystones.
• My main switch is a Pro Max 24 PoE. Yes, its name is terrible and a rip-off of Apple’s terrible naming, but it’s a heck of a switch. I use its two SFP ports to connect it to the Dream Machine and to my NAS. It has a handful of 2.5 GbE ports that I use for connections at my desk and for my access points. The colors correspond to the connected device’s link speed, making it easy to see at a glance if something is acting up.
• Below the switch is my UNVR, or network video recorder. I have three cameras, and all their footage is stored locally on this device. This is overkill for just three cameras, but I already had it (and had opened it up to install quieter fans), so it is here to stay.
• The next two rack units are a bit deceiving. At the front of the rack is a mere placeholder, but at the back is Unifi’s Power Distribution Pro, which is basically a networked power strip. When paired with the UPS at the bottom of the rack, the Dream Machine can shut down network equipment individually if the power is out and the UPS is nearly depleted. I could do this with just the UPS, but it doesn’t have enough battery-backed outlets for the rest of the gear in the rack, so I run everything through the PDU Pro instead.
• That box full of hard drives is the UNAS Pro, UniFi’s older rack-mountable NAS product. It lacks some of the niceties of UniFi’s newer offerings (like the ability to use an SSD as a cache to speed up file access), but it works well enough for what I need. I should note that this is not something like a Synology that can run things like Docker containers. I just needed a bunch of storage on my network.

I haven’t mentioned it yet, but the rack itself is actually two Toolless Mini Racks stacked together. Had I known I would need so much space, I would not have taken this route, but I got a great deal on the second one, so I stayed the course.

For Wi-Fi, I am using three U6 Enterprise APs. Wi-Fi 6E is plenty fast for my needs, and my first run at Wi-Fi 7 didn’t go super well. To have coverage outside, I’ve got a set of U6 Mesh APs outside — one for the front yard and one for the back.

UniFi’s management tools are pretty great. I can monitor my network, cameras, and NAS from anywhere in the world using either the web or a set of iOS applications.

A common complaint about UniFi is that its hardware often outpaces its software. For example, the ability to shut down and restart devices based on the UPS’s state was pretty broken until just recently. I also have an issue where the network dashboard retains the port assignments even after I move items to a different port.

That said, I love that I own my hardware, that my camera footage is stored locally at home, and that accessing it doesn’t require a subscription.

Is this pile of equipment overly complicated and expensive for a home user, even if that user works from home? Sure. But we nerdy folk like that sort of thing, and I certainly enjoy the stability and flexibility this setup offers me.

(Oh, the top of the rack houses a Mac mini, a Raspberry Pi running Home Assistant, and a UniFi PoE Smart Chime that goes off when someone rings my doorbell.)

WWDC26 has come and gone, and the guys have scores to pick, topics to discuss, and Liquid Glass sliders to adjust.

I’ve been emulating the Apple Lisa recently, and I was struck by how many of its UI strings were slightly or wholly different than what we’re used to.

It makes sense. Lisa came out in 1983 as Mac’s predecessor and really the first GUI that is directly linked to what we’re using today. Even though it borrowed things from work done at Xerox, tons of conventions were not established yet.

So, I thought it would be fun to actually take a closer look.

What follows is an in-depth look at the writing across the Lisa’s operating system. It’s clear it was designed at a time when everyone was still figuring out how to communicate what would happen when a user performed certain actions.

This is my favorite example from Marcin’s wonderful post:

As Dan Moren writes, this is one of those times, with nods to both touch-enabled Macs and a foldable iPhone.

An unlikely looking flying machine stands on its tail above the watery, thicketed Florida sandscape. The time is the mid-1980s, and the Space Shuttle preparing for launch is one of a fleet of four that now plies routinely, about one round trip a week, between the United States and Earth orbit.

On average, the shuttle would fly once every three months or so, if you count the five years where it grounded for accident investigations after the Challenger and Columbia disasters in 1986 and 2003.

From that opening paragraph on, this document represents a vision that was never close to being realized. To be sure, the space shuttle’s legacy includes great achievements, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station, but it could never live up to how it was talked about in the 1970s. It’s a heartbreaking look at a future never realized.

Memphis City Attorney Tannera Gibson said the company has recently assured the city that it would be completing the plant.

“The feelings are pretty positive and pretty strong based on recent conversations,” Gibson said.

Gibson made her comments after being questioned by members of the Memphis City Council about the paused plant.

“We’ve all gotten reassurances, but I want to hear those in public for everybody else,” Memphis City Council member Jerri Green said, referencing private conversations she’s had with SpaceX leadership. Green is a Democratic candidate for Tennessee governor.

Those conversations come after upheaval at SpaceX’s Memphis operations. Brent Mayo, the site’s former leader, is no longer with the company.

One of the first things I noticed after installing the macOS Golden Gate beta was the updated icon design. The colours are much bolder, several icons have been adjusted, and the refraction in the Liquid Glass effect has changed significantly, especially in icons like Journal.

There’s also a noticeable sharpness to the icons, along with a flattening of the Liquid Glass effect. I’m not sure yet whether this is simply an early-beta artifact or the intended final look. For example, while I really like the redesigned Finder icon, the sharp black edges around the nose currently feel a little unrefined.

Here is that change to the Finder icon:

Photos really shows the difference:

I think these look better basically across the board, and I think the change is even better on the iPhone.

I like this wallpaper; it has some Mac OS 9 vibes.

These unofficial ones from Basic Apple Guy are also great.

Apple today confirmed that watchOS 27 will not support the Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra (first generation), or Apple Watch SE (second generation), effectively drawing a line at devices equipped with the S9 or S10 chip.

The only Apple Watch models compatible with watchOS 27 are the Apple Watch Series 10, Series 11, Ultra 2, Ultra 3, and SE 3. Despite the fact that the Apple Watch Ultra 2 contains the S9 chip, the Series 9 which contains the same chip will no longer be supported.

Of note, a bunch of iPads also got the axe, while iOS 27 will support the same devices iOS 26 did, reaching back further than ever before, to the iPhone 11.

Update: It looks like the Series 9 is supported.

David Smith:

Based on my analytics, it looks like watchOS 27 will be available for download on around 40% of my Pedometer++ users’ watches. Which feels pretty small. That will certainly be boosted by whatever new devices get announced this fall, but it feels like I’ll be supporting watchOS 26 for a very long time, as a huge number of devices will be staying there.

Today’s keynote didn’t include a formal handoff between Tim Cook and John Ternus (who wasn’t even in the video), but Cook did offer some closing remarks. As is his style, it was more about Apple than himself:

On a personal note, some of the greatest highlights of my time as CEO have been events like this. Sharing powerful new tools with all of you and then seeing what you create with them has been a constant reminder has no limits. Over the years you have helped people connect, create, learn, and experience the world in extraordinary new ways, and with the incredible capabilities we introduced today, and so many more still to come, I truly believe the best is still ahead.

At Apple, creating the best products in the world to deliver experiences that enrich people’s lives has always been our North Star.

It’s been the honor of a lifetime to help advance that mission with teams whose creativity, care, and conviction continue to make a lasting difference in people’s lives.

That had broken down over time as more and more features were cross-platform. For example, Apple would announce something in its iPadOS section just for it to popup in macOS. Something in Reminders on the iPhone would also be present on the iPad.

I have been hoping for a change for years, and this year, I got it. After the customary naming of macOS, Apple broke its keynote down into just three major topics, including:

• Platform improvements
• Trust and Safety
• Apple Intelligence and Siri

Platform improvements included much-needed refinements to Liquid Glass (especially on the Mac), better performance across OSes, and quality-of-life updates, such as cycle tracking in Apple Health.

Trust and Safety was all about better controls and tools for parents to manage their kids’ devices. As someone with two teenagers and a middle-schooler, I am truly looking forward to how these new features will work.

Lastly, the longest section covers Apple Intelligence and the new Siri AI. There is a lot to unpack here, but I think Apple has built a case that it can deliver on its promises. Google Gemini was mentioned by name, and all of the demos were shot with the presenter using the device in their hands, avoiding some of the issues present two years ago.

It will take some time to sort out what other features are coming in the OS Class of 27, but I like this new direction for WWDC, and I hope it continues in years that it makes sense.