The keynote for Apple’s developer conference was held yesterday. Much of it involved Apple executives hyping Apple’s “delightful and elegant new software design”. In short, it’s like Windows Vista, visionOS and the interfaces in Minority Report had a baby. As I explain in a column for Stuff, I’m not thrilled about this new direction.

Online, I’ve seen plenty of pushback against those complaining. A common thread appears to be that Apple is a leader in accessibility and there are options to turn some Liquid Glass elements off. But there are problems with that point of view.

While I’m more writer than designer these days, I was trained in the visual arts. I was always taught that clarity and legibility should be at the forefront of anyone’s mind when designing. Surely, that’s even more the case when creating an operating system for many millions of users. Yet even in Apple’s press release, linked earlier, there are multiple screenshots where key interface components are, at best, very difficult to read. That is the new foundational point for Apple design. And those screenshots will have been designed to show the best of things.

Furthermore, Apple may be a leader in accessibility, but it is far from perfect. I first wrote about vestibular issues on this blog, back in 2012. But it was the following year, with a piece for The Guardian (Why iOS 7 is making some users sick) that the word got out there regarding major accessibility issues with a new design language. To Apple’s credit, it did listen. Changes happened. The iOS team in particular has been very responsive to my recommendations – and I’m sure also to those from others.

But the key word is responsive. Apple is still very often reactive rather than proactive regarding vision accessibility. Even today, there are major problems with the previous versions of its operating systems (one example being the vestibular trigger if you tap-hold the Focus button in Control Centre). One year on, they aren’t fixed. And now we have an entirely new design language that will upend everything and that starts from a place where clarity has been eroded, animations are even more prevalent, and broad accessibility is seemingly an afterthought.

My hope is that there will be time in this beta run for enough fixes to be made. My fear is that many of us will be waiting months for a fully usable OS, if that ever occurs. So, sure, argue against what I and others are concerned about. State, correctly, that Apple is a leader in accessibility. But stop assuming that just because this new design might be OK for you and because Apple has controls in place that might help people avoid the worst effects of design changes, everything is just peachy. Because it isn’t. Millions of people are now a coin flip away from whether or not they’ll be able to comfortably use their devices in just a few short months from now.

iCloud Photos sync is a joke. So my Stuff column this week is: All I want from WWDC25 is for iOS 26 and iCloud to finally sync my photos properly. Although after I wrote this, I discovered Apple Music had eaten half of one of my uploaded digital-only albums. And that iCloud Drive hadn’t bothered to sync a column I’d written on another computer while abroad. Why is iCloud still such a disaster? Come on, Apple.

Ruark released some new speakers. That in itself isn’t news. But it made me think about the piece I wrote, because I have two of this system’s predecessors and I love them. So this is a fairly rare example of one of those “my favourite” headlines that’s actually fully genuine.

I wrote about the great outdoors. At least, using your iPhone in it. Have a read for tips, apps and gear for making it at least somewhat less likely you’ll end up lost in a forest, all alone.

I spent last week in Spain. Which, for a range of reasons I may write about later, was much-needed. We arrived in a deluge, which was surreal, given how little rain the UK saw in May. But after that, it was sunny bliss. The one negative: the THUNK of having my passport stamped. I still hate that abrupt reminder of the stupidity of Brexit. Perhaps one day Brits will, en masse, finally recognise that freedom of movement was a gift, in all its forms, and embrace it.

Doctor Who’s latest series ended. I’m not going to get into the pros and cons of the latest episodes, but I am going to gripe about the BBC website immediately throwing up a massive headline that spoiled the final twist. Yeah, yeah, SEO blah blah blah. But it’s rubbish these days that the second a show is over, major publications clamour to get on their front pages what happened. Heaven forbid people not watch shows the second they are broadcast.

Workers are losing their jobs to AI. The Guardian interviewed a bunch of folks who’ve been hit. What depresses me most about this is companies are using AI to cut out creatives rather than to deal with the boring stuff. And the UK government’s response is to try to enshrine in law no protections for said creatives, while the Lords fights back. Absurd, really, that we’re relying on an unelected house to battle elected representatives and force the Labour Party to protect a labour market.

Covid is back, says the i. Although, of course, it never went away. I got my first dose last August and it was hideous. Naturally, the UK government is doing the square root of fuck all to prepare, as it has from the time Boris Johnson’s lot declared they’d somehow beaten an ever-evolving virus and that the threat was over. I’m not suggesting we lockdown or anything. But we could prep for autumn with air filters in workplaces and schools. We could expand booster take-up and dramatically lower their price for those who can’t get one for free. We could restart proper UK-wide monitoring and encourage mask use during spikes. But no. Let’s all bury our heads and wonder why we have more and more long-term sick.

Non-shock as study shows 20mph limits result in fewer deaths. We have a few 20mph streets in my town. Years after they were introduced, entitled muppets are still screaming about them on Facebook, eradicating any notion of further changes. Astonishingly, we still have 40mph limits in some residential parts of town. But, hey, so long as people can save 23.7 seconds driving the full length of a street, I suppose that’s somehow better than reducing injuries and deaths? Gah at these people. Hashtag Team Twenty. Etc.

I’ve been watching Murderbot. It’s on Apple TV+. My recommendation is: watch Murderbot. Because it’s really good.

Apple is reportedly working on an Apple Games app. But we’ve all played this game before, and I’m not sure it warrants an extra life. So over at Stuff, my column this week is ‘What I think the Apple Games app needs to work – and why it won’t’.

Arc browser is dead. A blog post outlines the company behind it is pivoting to new product Dia. Two things. First, I’ll be sorry to see mobile app Arc Search mothballed. It was an excellent example of the potential in AI-assisted search, serving up magazine-like synopses with full source links. Secondly, when you’ve built a niche product that commands a loyal audience and pull the rug out from underneath them, what makes you think they’ll be back for more?

I asked ChatGPT to be Jimmy Carr. This in response to his arrogant bullshit about AI being better than art and design. Doubtless, he’d argue it was a joke. But, hey, people might argue that about Carr. Anyway, my thread suggested his quippy one-liners can be adequately replaced by ChatGPT. (Or can they? Probably not! But I’m not a comedian and so don’t fully know what good looks like in the context of new puns. Which is the entire bloody point. If you don’t have humans in the loop with relevant knowledge in the subject matter at hand, GenAI is mostly some level of bad.)

AI discourse needs nuance. Following on from the above, Steve Klabnik wrote about the pros and cons of AI/LLMs and how he’s disappointed in the discourse. On Bluesky, Prof. Christina Pagel suggested LLMs have benefits and that public comms arguing against them mostly comes from AI-hating journos.

I’d say there are intertwined issues here. LLM creators oversell. Consumers and managers assume LLMs can do everything and replace humans when they ultimately need expertise at each end of the process – and for those people to know what good looks like. Much of the pushback I’m seeing about GenAI/LLMs is actually from educators rather than tech hacks like me, because students are using this tech as an alternative to thinking. But also, many creators are staring aghast at LLM output making it to public eyes and asking: why? (Answer: if an LLM can churn out, say, some text that’s better than what the prompt author could write themselves, it looks good to them. And right now, that seems to be what many folks are going with. Which means a massive WOMP WOMP for writers like me who actually care about quality output.)

What we need is more nuanced discussion. GenAI and LLMs can be beneficial. They can also be terrible. Often, they’re somewhere in between. But you get way more eyeballs online when you argue something is the Best Thing Ever™ or evil incarnate. As ever: sigh.

However, Nick Clegg discourse needs no nuance. Following on from the above and the ‘above above’, Nick Clegg can go fuck himself. As can the current Labour government when it comes to AI policy. Constant whining (the latest being from Clegg, but various Labour figures have said the same) that the AI industry cannot survive if it has to ask permission to use the content it ingests and recycles (or even be transparent about what content is used) is irksome beyond belief. If your business model depends on mass copyright infringement, maybe you don’t have a business model.

Again, I feel the need to point out that the UK’s copyright laws are so strict that it in almost all circumstances remains illegal for a consumer to rip a CD they’ve bought to their own computer, for entirely personal use. Yet every single thing you’ve ever created should be freely available for a handful of AI companies, because their business model depends on that? Pfft. Anyone else up for starting a company whose business model depends on giving away Nick Clegg’s stupid book for free? Something tells me he wouldn’t be so supportive of that.

Bluesky is dying. Apparently. There was a lot of THE SKY IS FALLING this past week, with people posting stats that show the site trending towards approx minus fifty billion users by next Friday. Reality: things there seem… fine? There still seem to be many folks happily nattering away, rather than slinking back to Musk’s bosom. But author Jarrett Walker’s post caught my eye, basically being an argument that he should stay on X because 40% of his audience wouldn’t follow him if he quit. My take: if I were still posting in the Nazi bar and half my followers said they’d scoot over to somewhere else, I’d take that as a win. But then I don’t care much about numbers. 

Just as well, TBH, given my actual numbers. Then again, I’ve always thought it’s about who is reading rather than how many people. This blog’s stats will never set the world on fire, and yet my writing here is the reason I’m writing for Stuff. (An ex-editor was – maybe still is – a reader.) Over on Bluesky and Mastodon, I’m not posting there in an attempt to amass an audience that can fill Wembley Stadium. I’m just parping out random thoughts and having nice chats with lovely folks. That’s enough for me. (Unless, you know, you’re an editor who’d like to employ me. Because I wouldn’t say no to that right now.)

The Phoenix Comic reached 700 issues. A phenomenal achievement in a tough market. If you’re in the UK and have/know a kid in the 7–12 range (or fancy reading fun comics yourself), there’s a zero-risk trial that nets you six issues for a quid. Barg.

“I almost threw out all my old USB cables. This week proved why I never should” is this week’s Stuff column. It was based on (or inspired/horrified by) sagely thoughts from Tom Berry and Ian Dunt, which I duly ignored. For reasons. Judging by the Bluesky discussions, Team Cables is the bigger cohort. Sorry, chaps!

Taking back control of our digital life is Ian Dunt’s latest column for his Striking 13 newsletter. It’s always interesting to read thoughtful insights from a non-tech journo about how tech might better fit with our lives. And much of what he writes aligns with my current thinking, which is, broadly: use tech more meaningfully; minimise alerts; prioritise feeds you control (use RSS!); make more gadgets use-case specific.

But the thing that really clicked for me was Dunt’s section on clutter. So often, I see modern homes devoid of stuff. They look staged and impersonal. Our living room looks like a branch of HMV and Forbidden Planet had a baby. That’s clearly not for everyone, but I love the personality that books and CDs provide. (And, yes, we’re slowly making good on the promises from my piece about buying a CD player for the first time in years. We now just need to magic the shelving from boxes to the wall.)

What should new Apple leadership do? That’s the question posed in Apple Turnaround by John Siracusa’s excellent post that explores a new deal for developers, better software experiences, and harder paths to growth. In a new post on my blog, I expand on the developer angle with Apple vs developers: disrespect or outright disdain?

Pocket is dead. Mozilla has killed the read-later service it bought in 2017 but that had launched a decade earlier. Pocket has been dead to me for a while now, though. The service blew up my account at some point, which was met with the support equivalent of a nonchalant shrug. All of which makes me rather glad when I wrote a read-later tutorial, I decided to go for an Instapaper deep dive.

WWDC is looming. So I wrote about 7 things I want to see from Apple at WWDC 2025. One of them wasn’t iCloud. Mostly because I’m annoyed about that to the degree it warranted its own piece: Apple finally killed 64GB iPhones in 2025. Now it’s time to scrap the 5GB iCloud tier.

Wallpaper apps. Probably not the most important app category to consider for your iPhone. But, hey, a fab background can give you a bit of a lift. If you don’t fancy digging through App Store cruft, read my piece on The best iPhone Home Screen wallpaper apps.

Brass Sun is returning to 2000 AD. Finally. It last appeared back in 2018. Ian Edginton is getting a bit of a reputation for setting up amazing comic book worlds and then seemingly abandoning them. His list for 2000 AD is worryingly long. According to the linked article, Brass Sun got stuck because he was concerned he couldn’t maintain its dizzy highs. But 18 months ago, his daughter read the book and was annoyed the story just stopped. Some lessons here, I suppose. One being that there’s hope for your favourite comics on hiatus to one day roar back to life. And another being that we somehow need to convince Edginton’s daughter to read his other strips that are in limbo.

What should new Apple leadership do? That’s the question posed in Apple Turnaround by John Siracusa, which explores a new deal for developers, better software reliability, and harder paths to growth. It’s a great post, and the developer side of things especially gets me. I remember being at an EA meet around 2010, with a slew of indies excited about iPhone. They didn’t care about Apple’s cut, because everything else was, for them, better than what existed on other platforms, including the (relative) freedom to do whatever they wanted. Amazingly, Apple was less prescriptive than others in the gaming space. Then things all went very wrong.

Apple prioritised IAP over traditional game models, training users to want games for nothing. App Store editorial led to iPhone game sites shuttering – but they’d given new titles far more visibility than Apple ever would. And competitors quickly learned and evolved to compete with – and then better – Apple’s offering to game creators. Whereas we once saw iPhone-first titles head to other platforms, the reverse quickly became more commonplace. Elsewhere, major mobile creators like Simogo quit, which should have set alarm bells ringing – but it didn’t. Because Apple just counted the cash.

More widely, across apps and games, Apple has also found itself in a space where it’s not just showing – as Siracusa suggests – disrespect for developers as much as outright disdain. Various emails, now very much in the public domain due to emerging in lawsuits, suggest too many senior figures at Apple believe their own press to the degree they think Apple is responsible for all developer success and the success of the platform as a whole. They argue developers should be grateful to Apple and not the other way around. I have two words to counter that: Windows Phone.

I hate doing a “what would Steve Jobs do?” and it’s naive in the extreme to think his Apple wasn’t out to make huge piles of cash. But there are questions today about where Apple’s priorities lie in a whole range of spaces. Perhaps, as one developer said to me, the Jobs version of Apple only appeared to be on the side of devs because it needed to be, and now it doesn’t. So was this disdain always there or not? Was it a culture ingrained in Apple when Jobs was CEO or is it a more recent thing? Because I’d say that if it’s the former, Apple has an even bigger problem than Siracusa suggests.