Warner Crocker

Netfilx Prices Going Up and the Internet Yawns

Once again Netflix is raising prices. Gotta keep that bottom line solid, show some growth, or maybe it’s to help fund the new Netflix Destination nonsense. Who knows. The reality is Netflix is raising prices. And the Internet just yawns. Sure, people are bitching on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, etc…and probably around a kitchen table or two. But the cash registers still ring.

Gsmarena 001

There’s really nothing to keep streamers and other “got you for life” services from raising prices. Except customers simply amputating the stream. But obviously not enough to staunch the bleeding. Certainly there are reasons people don’t want to let go, but doesn’t this seem just tailor made for an Internet protest moment?

I mean everything gets a protest these days. Most don’t matter. But I would think that any loosely organized Internet campaign getting users to cancel Netflix for a month or a quarter would be able to gather some quick steam before it fizzles out. One hit on those quarterly numbers might have an effect. But that’s probably just hot air. It would have to be large numbers to have any real meaning. It takes a lot to overcome inertia.

The wheel always turns and the prices will always go up. Pipers have to be paid and quarterly numbers have to show growth. Until they don’t.

How The Dems Can Strip the Pants Off Jim Jordan

The Democrats have a chance to strip the pants off Jim Jordan while the GOP continues to operate with their heads stuck up their nether regions. Insane speculation? You bet. But then everything we know about US politics in this moment is insane, so why the hell not?

Head up butt

This speculation makes several assumptions:

1. Not much legislation is going to happen in the US House until after the next election in 2024 regardless of who is Speaker.

2. Some Republican puts forward a name other than Jim Jordan. This would have to happen on the floor of the House while in session.

3. There’s no way there’s going to be any sort of negotiated compromise candidate between the parties at this point. There will at some point be a GOP Speaker of the House. The wish-casting for a Dem speaker is just nonsense.

So, here’s how it works. A GOP member puts forward a name trying to keep Jordan from getting the requisite number of votes. Assuming the name is one that is somewhat palatable, say the current Speaker pro-tem, the Dems then vote in unison for that member. If the Dems throw 212 votes at another candidate who might garner 5 votes or more from the GOP side, Jordan is out of the game.

Could it work? I doubt it. But the math is there. The moment could be there. I doubt the courage is there on either side of the aisle. Given that I think chaos is going to reign until after the 2024 election regardless of who has the Speaker’s gavel, there’s nothing really to lose. We’ve already lost any simidgen of integrity Congress might have had. But there is a chance to punt Jim Jordan out of the picture.

Sunday Morning Reading

Time for another edition of Sunday Morning Reading. Today’s collection is a scattered selection of topics some of which might feel a bit dark. But it is a dark time scattering many of us into our corners or maybe to have an extra drink or two.

Readinginabar

For reasons, other than stupidity, we’re steal dealing with forces that want to ban books in America. This sadly isn’t a new thing, and Chris Klimek gives us A Brief History of Banned Books in America in this podcast transcript from the Smithsonian magazine podcast “There’s More To That.”

What’s happening and about to happen in the Middle East has the world on edge. Technology brings these moments to us in moments. Joanna Stern in the Wall St. Journal gives us a look in When Our Smartphones Became Windows to a War.

Continuing with that news of the moment Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic gives us There Are No Rules. As she describes it, our norms and values define how the world ought to work. We continually learn that’s not the reality.

Here’s a pallet cleanser with the first of a couple of tech topics. Jared Newman in Fast Company takes a look at the note-taking app Obsidian in The Cult of Obsidian: Why People Are Obssesed With The Note-Taking App.

If you’ve paid attention to my tech writings here you’ll know I’m having some challenges with Apple’s iCloud failings and flailings. I’m not the only one and my challenge isn’t the only iCloud issue. In TidBits Glenn Fleishman describes his in Cloudy With A Chance of Insanity: Unsticking iCloud Drive.

And back on the politics and follies of mankind beat, this piece by Michael Tomasky, I Never Thought I’d Live to See Democracy Die. But Now I Wonder is worth a look. He’s not alone in his wondering if Democracy is just a phase.

And after all of that, if you think you might need a drink, here’s a look at The Bad Law That Made Good Bars, from Peter Suderman on The Raines Law. Never heard of it? Pour yourself a beverage of choice and take a read.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.

Unimaginable?

Unimaginable? I keep hearing and reading how unimaginable the horrors that Hamas visited on Israel are. They are horrors. Brutal. Disgusting. They are not unimaginable. They are very imaginable. They are far too easily imaginable. We just don’t want those thoughts in our imaginations, in our nations, or anywhere in our consciousness. But they are far too imaginable.

Humans are capable of all sorts of things we want to banish from our imaginations and thus make them unimaginable. But in reality that’s a fool’s errand and only leads us deeper into shock and grief when the “unimaginable” happens. If we stop imagining away the reality that horrible, brutal, hateful people will do harm to others and instead will see some sort of light we’d be better off in my opinion. Otherwise it’s willful or wishful blindness that allows ignorance to grow. And those who visit the “unimaginable” on the world love to prey on the ignorant.

There’s an interesting cultural disconnect in our imaginations, especially at this time of the year when horror films dominate popular culture featuring horrendous humans doing horrendous things to other humans. Most see both the real world horrors and the Hollywood horrors through the same screens. Is there really a difference? Obviously there’s an appetite for that kind of “unimaginable” entertainment. And yet, we claim to be surprised and shocked when it happens in the real world. Imagine that.

We are not going to imagine hate away. We are not going to imagine violence away. We are not going to imagine ourselves into a safer world. We can work for one. And yes, that requires some imagination. But the world is what the world is and humans do to humans what humans are capable of doing. Especially when there’s profit in it.

Yes, I’d like a calmer, saner, more peaceful world where we can all live together with respect, kindness, and love. If there’s something that’s unimaginable to me, it’s that place.

Sunday Morning Reading

Fall’s cooler temperatures are settling in and it’s a Sunday, so time for some Sunday Morning Reading to share with a mix of topics covering a range of interests. Enjoy!

Cfeb998b fff0 47b7 8a9e 890aba580738

Leading off is a bit of politics because, well, US politicians seem to be knocking each other over in their quest for who can do the most damage to their so-called profession. First up is an excellent piece from Will Bunch, America Needs to Talk About the Right’s ‘Red Caesar’ plan for U.S. Dictatorship. This is happening. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

And continuing in the poltiical vein, David Todd McCarty says We’ve Seen the Best Republicans Have to Offer. Sad. But true.

Off Camera is a terrfic piece by John Paul Scotto about his visits through his memories as seen through old home videos.

And speaking of things through lenses, the debate about over what exactly is a photo is heating up as Google (and others) keep moving the goal posts on doing things in post. Check out The Pixel 8 and the What-Is-A-Photo Apocalypse by Jay Peters.

Live theatre and the arts in general are going through some tough times. Spaced Out in Chicago: When Storefront Theatres Run Out of Storefronts by Amanda Finn in American Theatre Magazine focuses on the once thriving storefront theatre scene in Chicago and the challenges when real estate becomes less real.

James Parker in The Atlantic wonders what comedy is for in Comedians Only Care About Comedy. It’s a piece on the new Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture-and the Magic That Makes it Work. The joke’s on all of us if you ask me.

And David Todd McCarty gets a second hit this Sunday with his excellent The Myth of Fingerprints. As his subhead describes it “In which I explore the wisdom and efficacy of investing emotionally in the long-term outcome of America.” Read it.

And to close out this week, the week that brought us the anniversary of Steve Jobs’ death, take a read of this piece from Lisa Melton, simply titled Memories of Steve. She republished this April 2014 piece. It’s not just terrific. It’s an amazing memory from someone who was there.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.

Working Multiple Projects Again

One project, a staged reading of An Afternoon with My Mother by Fouad Teymour going in front of an audience tomorrow at Chicago Dramatists for the Out the Box festival. Great cast working with one of my favorite playwrights.

Starting pre-production on the next today, The Lehman Trilogy for Playhouse on the Square in Memphis. Opening scheduled for January 26, 2024.

Feels good (and strange) to be overlapping projects again.

Time for Apple To Come Clean About iCloud

Dan Moren of Six Colors might have found a hint that might help unlock the Apple Migraine Mystery I have slowly been piecing together clue by clue in my ongoing Apple iCloud woes. He recently ran into his own iCloud issues (thought different than mine) and blogged about what he suspects might be one of the root causes. Again, his situation is different than mine, but if his conclusions are correct it comes closer to confirming my suspicions that iCloud is the culprit.

Here’s an excerpt from his post Bitten by the black box of iCloud.

. . . after perhaps 20 minutes on the phone, he seemed to hit on something. I heard him laugh and say something along the lines of “that explains it” and then, with my consent, put me on hold. When he came back, he said—and I’m not exactly quoting, but close enough: “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you any more than this, but all your services should be back up pretty much exactly 12 hours after they went down.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you any more than this, but all your services should be back up pretty much exactly 12 hours after they went down.” It’s a tantalizing clue for what I think might be behind this migraine mystery. Spoiler alert, Moren saw things begin to return to almost normal after waiting the requisite 12 hours.

OIG 1

Backstory

Here’s a brief recap of what I’ve been tracking with my iCloud migraines. All features relating to Continuity/Handoff/Sign in with Watch would just switch off. No warning. No nothing. Just working one minute. Then not the next. Intriguingly I began to notice this would happen on the morning of each new OS update (iOS, watchOS, and Mac). This has been going on for almost a year since the fall of 2022. This includes beta releases since WWDC 2023, even though I ran no betas on any of these devices. The pattern that I began associating with OS releases became apparent to me in late spring of this year. Things flipped off the mornings of iOS (and sibling) releases from 16.4.1 last April and has continued each morning through the release of 17.0.3.

I would try to fix the issues with a series of reboots that for a time seemed to rectify things, but then that eventually failed as a solution. And then I noticed that within a day or so, often the next morning, things would magically come back, with zero intervention from me. Since this fall’s releases of iOS 17 and its siblings this has also occurred with through 17.0.3 which was released on Wednesday of this week.

Add this to the clues.

When this situation first surfaced last Fall I spoke with Apple Support. After jumping through the usual hoops and getting to a higher tier of support we would eventually step through possible fixes until we reached the dreaded “log out of iCloud” solution. I say “dreaded” because if you ever need to do that there’s never any degree of certainity that everything will come back to “normal.”

And then…

I was literally on a support call in July when we had reached the moment I knew was coming. I said to the rep that I was going to have to sign out of iCloud. And the answer was “no, we don’t suggest you do that.” I was floored. This was the first time I had gotten that type of response. Of course my response was to ask what I should do. I was placed on hold and then the response came “our engineers are aware of this and we suggest waiting until they reach a solution. We’re working on it.” The next morning things were working again.

That sounds somewhat similar to what Dan experienced although there was no mention of a 12-hour timeline. I’ve gotten this “please wait” suggestion on this issue three times now. The third one was a most interesting reiteration of the first two. I’ll recount that below after some more backstory.

Backstory continued

I’ve had two previous show stopping issues with Apple products. Both times I’d reached the point when I was ready to toss in the towel. The first was with the original Apple Watch. The second was with Notes.

Both times I was getting zero satisfaction from Apple Support. So, I decided to write Tim Cook. I explained my dissatisfaction with the lack of solutions. Within a couple of days I got a response from someone obviously higher up in the chain saying they would work to make sure I was satisified. They were always very nice, very thorough and followed up as if their job depended on it.

The first time resulted in me receiving a new Apple Watch after returning the malfunctioning one. The second resulted in me getting connected to an engineer. That experience led to them essentially taking Notes on my account offline after I saved them all locally. They rebuilt my Notes database on their end. Called me back. I logged in and almost everything came back. (The original problem is that Notes would not sync at all and some data was getting lost as I may work situation was I was switching back and forth between devices.)

In both instances in follow up, I was asked not to write about these interactions. Until today I haven’t. So given that after Apple’s latest round of OS updates didn’t solve anything I thought I would reach out to Mr. Cook once again. That third time I referred to earlier was not the charm. Here’s the response I got back:

Hello Warner,

Thank you for your recent correspondence to Apple. We apologize for the delay in our response.

The parties with whom you have previously communicated are empowered by Apple to address concerns such as yours. In each of your communications you have been provided with the same answer from Apple. According to your case number 102054684817: Apple is still investigating the issue and we won’t be able to provide an exact ETA on when it will be resolved. There is no further escalation point that will deal with this matter differently.

We regret that you are not satisfied with this response, because Apple strives for customer satisfaction. It is our sincere hope that this situation will not diminish your enjoyment of the products and services that we provide.

You can also provide feedback to Apple by visiting Product Feedback – Apple.

We apologize for any inconvenience or frustration.

Kind regards,

Apple

Back to the plot

For quite some time based on the clues I’d assembled prior to Dan Moren’s post I have thought this issue I was dealing with was tied to iCloud. I’ve gotten no firm confirmation of that from Apple Support. And given that others I’ve talked to about this suffer from different sets of iCloud issues it has literally been a slog to try and piece it all together.

Apple has quite a few services, features, and devices tied into each user’s AppleID. Scratch that. All of them are tied in. You literally can’t go anywhere within the Apple ecosystem without it. Frankly, it’s one of the attractions. But it’s becoming less so. Comments from support personnel and engineers have indicated, but not directly pointed the finger at iCloud as the potential culprit.

And some of Moren’s comments make sense to me along this line of thinking. For example.

Now, in my initial forays on social media, I had gotten a reply from someone on Mastodon mentioning that Apple’s iCloud servers were sometimes put in maintenance mode for 12 hours—but upon going back and looking for that specific reply, it was nowhere to be found.

It did, however, support the theory that something had gone wrong with the particular iCloud server on which my account was located.

In one of my calls I pressed the support person who warned against signing out of iCloud as to why. It was quite telling that I couldn’t get a response other than tacit agreement with my statement that it was problematic that things never came completely back from signing out and signing back in. That didn’t used to be the case. I can’t begin to remember how many times I’ve signed out and back into iCloud at Apple’s suggestion.

Moren did see things “flip” back on 12 hours later. After I read his post I made a note to check things out when I returned home after rehearsal in the evening to see if my devices had seen any such flipping. (My devices flipped off around 8am CDT). I checked about 11:15pm CDT and sure enough everything was working. I normally don’t wake up my Macs until morning and that’s typically when I would discover things had flipped back on.

So I’m feeling my suspicions firm up. This is all tied into how Apple’s iCloud services work behind the scenes. Apple doesn’t want to talk about that. I’m in violent agreement with this statement from Dan Moren:

Moreover, if this was some kind of scheduled procedure, why not warn affected users ahead of time? The idea that my email—which I rely upon for work—and a slew of other services might be interrupted for essentially an entire workday with no notice whatsoever is technological malpractice. My cable company tells me when it’s doing work in my area and there might be service hiccups, and you can bet that the hosting provider I use for my website communicates whenever there might be something that affects my service.

And this:

The thing is Apple fundamentally doesn’t want you to think they’re like “other” service companies. They’re not going to send you emails about upcoming outages, or a digest of all the spam that silently got blocked from your account so you can find the ones that should have gotten through, because it flies in the face of the image that Apple wants to put forth, that their magical system “just works.” But the problem with a black box is that once you’re inside, you have no idea what’s going on—and it’s even harder to get out.

Look. I get it. There’s no easy or ideal time if there’s work of some kind going on in the backend that might lead to a service disruption. But Apple should at least empower its support personnel to communicate to users who call with an issue if that is the case. Even if that won’t solve the problem until some engineer somewhere flips things back on, it would at least remove some frustration and wasted time in the support conversations.

I’m beginning to think that Apple keeps this as another one of its secrets from not only users but user facing personnel as well. If so, it’s a self-destructive policy that gives lie to Apple’s image-making. Even if “a small minority of users” are facing this issue at any one time. If true, it certainly speaks to how Apple values what it perceives as its reputation over the cash value of paying Apple support personnel to sit on lengthy support calls that can’t offer answers.

I encourage you to read Moren’s post in full. In the meantime maybe I’ll find and configure a 12-hour timer as one of the fancy new interactive widgets that I can activate the next time Apple flips the switch.

The Action Button: Taking Back Your iPhone

Lights! Camera!! Action!!! Well, you won’t be directing a film crew with it, but you can use the Action Button on Apple’s new iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max models to turn on your lights or launch your camera. As I said in my first impressions post about the iPhone 15 Pro it can be so much more.

In fact, for those who already use Apple’s Shortcuts or those willing to check them out, this is a way to take a bigger step towards personalizing your iPhone than we’ve been able to in the past. In my opinion it’s the most signficant, and potentially most powerful user addressable hardware change Apple has made to an iPhone in quite some time.

Unlike The Dynamic Island, last year’s big shiny new feature, users don’t have to wait for developers to decide to implement the feature. To be honest I’m disappointed in the lack of apps I use that couldn’t find ways to take advantage of the Dynamic Island. But the Action Button, combined with Shortcuts, puts personalization at your fingertips.

When it was first introduced and once I first set up the iPhone 15 Pro my initial reaction was that this would be the latest fidget-spinning, widget-like new feature from Apple. Designed to tantalize, destined not to take hold, it would capture a lot of attention and not really mean much over time. I was wrong.

Again, if you know Shortcuts or are willing to learn a bit about them, you can set up the Action Button to run a Shortcut or quickly access a series of them. The beauty of using the Action Button with Shortcuts is that you can perform actions without unlocking your phone, or while you’re in any app. It sort of feels like taking your iPhone back and using it in a whole new way.

The Action Button is located just above the two Volume Buttons. It replaces the Mute switch that has been there since the first iPhone. Don’t worry, you can still Mute your iPhone with the Action Button or from the Control Panel. As a matter of fact the Action Button comes with the Mute/Unmute function enabled by default. Press it once after setup and you’ll Mute your iPhone. To use the Button you need to hold the Action Button for a second or two. Otherwise you’ll get a reminder on screen telling you to hold it a bit longer.

The location of the Action Button is a bit of a problem for me though. I have yet to develop a natural reach for it with one hand and wish Apple had positioned it below the Volume Buttons.

I take my cues on using Shortcuts with the Action Button from some folks who know more about Shortcuts than I do. I’m no wizard at creating Shortucts, but I know where to go when I need to discover and explore them. Stephen Robles, Federicco Viticci are indeed wizards at this. John Gruber also got me excited about these possibilites. Robles has produced a couple of videos here and here that show you how you can take advantage of using the Action Button to access Shortcuts. He shows you how to create menus and single use Shortcuts. You can find links to all of the Shortcuts he’s created in the description that accompanies his videos.

Gruber created what he calls the Action Jackson Button and posted screenshots of his Shortcuts on Threads. Jake Shaw managed to put those into a blog post here, so you can download them if you want to as opposed to creating them from screen shots.

Viticci has created what he calls a MultiButton method (using Shortcuts) to use the Action Button beyond its current single button press functionality. Apple designed the Action Button to call one action. You can configure it in Settings to bring up Silence your iPhone, Turn on a Focus Mode, Use the Magnifier, Activate the Camera, Turn on the Flashlight, Record a Voice Memo, Launch Accessibility Settings or Run a Shortcut. Viticci lets you tap twice to use the Action Button for two distinct actions. Users have already been calling for Apple to give us mulitple touch possibilities on the Action Button, but this might do in a pinch. (Make sure you also check out the MacStories archive of Shortcuts if you haven’t already.)

Do note that you’ll need to install the free Actions app on your device. Actions doesn’t have an interface but it adds and enables some essential Actions to make better use of Shortcuts than Apple provides out of the box.

You set up your Action Button to use Shortcuts by scrolling through the actions Apple provides and selecting Shortcut. At this point if you want to use one Shortcut you select it and you’re set to go.

Currently I’m doubling up on Menu options. Pressing the Action Button as I’ve configured it brings me into a graphical menu of icons (image on the right below) that allows me to Mute/Unmute the phone, Turn on the Flashlight, Launch the Camera, or launch my podcast app of choice, Overcast. I’m a Type II diabetic so the Contour and Dexcom G7 are apps I use to help manage that condition. Then there’s the red icon labled Magic Menu. Note that for this graphical menu option you can only add seven Shortcuts and you’ll always get an Open App button as the eighth entry. That will take you to the Shortcuts app. But why not create a Shortcut that launches another menu?

But let’s first get to the graphical menu. Create a folder in the Shortcuts app. Name it with the name of your choice. I chose ActionButton. Then create or move the seven Shortcuts you want to access in that folder. Go to Settings and select Action Button, choose the option presented, and look for the Show Folder option. If I remember correctly it will be on the left if you haven’t set anything up like this previoulsy. Pick the name of the Shortcut Folder you chose and the Action Button should bring it up.

What I call the Magic Menu (you can call it anything you want) is a Shortcut I created that opens up another menu that allows me to quickly access some apps and functions I use frequently. I followed the how to from Mr. Robles as linked above to create the menu you see below. You’ll need to configure each menu item separately.

This menu includes shortcuts to access Drafts and Notes which I use for work. Text on Screen captures any text on the screen after first taking a screenshot. Current Show launches into my Notes folder for the current play I’m directing. Cheatsheet is where I store some codes and other things I need to remember. Screen Recording does just what it says. Remind Me Faster lets me enter Reminders into that App more quickly than using the app.

Again, and most importantly this functionality lets you set up things they way that works for you. I’ve seen similar menus that call up Music, Maps, Reminders, certain contacts and many more.

For different projects going forward I’m sure I may change things around, but that’s easy enough to do either by adding to the existing choices or adding more. I’m sure others will find new ways to take advantage of the Action Button as well. Exciting times.

As I said above I am not a Shortcuts wizard. I’ve created some single use Shortcuts but nothing on the level of folks like Viticci or Stephen Robles. Another great resource is Matthew Cassinelli. I highly recommend that if you want to dive deeper into this for the first time or just for great ways to take advantage of Shortcuts that you follow their adventures.

Interesting Political Moment for Non-Cowards

Interesting moment in US Politics. Goofball Gaetz is going to try and push out McCarthy. No surprise.

If McCarthy’s only motivation is to hang on to his gavel, he’s got an option he won’t take for fear of angering what little of the base still supports him. That includes that decaying orange turd he’s suckled up to.

Forge a coalition from the center of both parties to keep his seat and McCarthy actually has a chance to silence the extremes on both sides. I think we’d all be surprised at how many votes he’d get. Then pass the appropriation bills with that majority and provide a chance to move past all of the insanity that now prevails.

But that would require some sorely lacking adulting on both sides of the aisle and a pretty courageous leap by all. I doubt the Dems, or anyone really, trusts McCarthy enough to pitch in for a bigger than party objective. Both parties are so wrapped up in their own bows to even begin to untie the knots they’re strangling everyone with.

Everyone would lose something. But there’s a chance of not losing the whole ballgame.

But there’s a moment here. If anyone can find the courage to seize it.

Sunday Morning Reading

It’s Sunday and that means Sunday Morning Reading to share. This week was new iPhone week so I’m sharing some great coverage of the new iPhones and the operating system that runs them, as well as macOS Sonoma. In addition, excellent writing on lying and other topics will lead the list.

Readingthenewsonsmartphone

First up is the always excellent Natasha MH with Our Panche for Lies, Art and Storytelling. Using comedian and storyteller Hasan Minhaj as her point of entry she wonders why we get so upset when comedians do the same thing those less funny do: Lie.

Speaking of lying, Jeff Kosseff has a neat piece on Why The First Amendment Protects Liars.

I’m not a fan of giving up meat. This dog is too old to learn any new tricks. But Matthew Clapham does have a good piece of writing about just that in Rewording the Golden Rule to Cause No Suffering.

Kenneth L. Warner uses the occasion of Diane Feinstin’s passing to talk about age requirements for holdiing office in “When I Leave Elected Office, I’m Going Feet First.”

Much of the US political focus is on the gamesmanship over keeping the government open and some washed up TV reality star that got lucky and appointed too many Supreme Court Justices. Well, that Supreme Court is going to take up a few cases that might, or might not, have profound implications for the Internet. Take a look at Caroline Mimbs Nyce’s piece The Supreme Court Cases That Could Redfine The Internet to see why.

And as for those writers about Apple things I’ll lead that off with the always excellent Federico Vitcci and his review of iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 on MacStories. I highly advise keeping this one in your bookmarks or read later app of choice to refer back to now and again.

His partner in crime, John Vorhees, does a great job of tackling macOS Sonoma. Again, hang on to this one as a reference.

And for a companion to Vorhees’ post check out Andrew Cunningham’s macOS review on Ars Technica.

Samuel Axon in Ars Technica says we may have reached the “final form” with the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro. I think he’s correct.

Matthew Panzarino always gives us a good look into the cameras on new iPhones and this year’s trip to Disneyland is no different.

Last up is John Gruber’s iPhone 15 Pro review. John’s writing on all things Apple is always worth your time.

Ok, I lied. If you’d like to check out my thoughts on the iPhone 15 Pro and the Apple Watch Series 9, you can do so here.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.