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New Items and Deals on Federico’s Desk Setup→

It’s been a few months, which is why it’s once again time for a setup update. This time, Federico has added several items to his desk setup. Below, you’ll find a selection of top picks from the changes he’s made, but be sure to visit the Setups page to see everything he’s currently using.

For those who have already spent time on the Setups page, welcome back. There’s a handy changelog at the top of the page just for you, with a list of everything added and removed, so you don’t have to go searching for each item.

Also, because today and tomorrow are Amazon Big Deals Days, I’ve highlighted the items on Federico’s setup list that are currently available at steep discounts on Amazon.

Changes to Federico Viticci’s Desk Setup

Part of the story of Federico’s latest setup changes is that he’s re-added a few key components that were previously removed:

But there are plenty of new items in Federico’s setup, too. The 11” M4 iPad Pro with a nano texture display and AirPods 4 are the two big Apple additions. For NPC: Next Portable Console, Federico got a white low-profile microphone arm, which looks great on the video version of the show and is currently 20% off. If you’ve listened to the latest episode of NPC, you know why he also added a Samsung 990 Pro SSD with a heat sink, which is currently 42% off on Amazon. That SSD was used to mod his Lenovo Legion Go (22% off on Amazon), for which he’s also added a Mechanism gaming pillow and universal grips.

Other additions include:

That’s it for the time being for our setups. I’ll also be back soon with updates on what I’ve been using for work and play.

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Submerged, Apple’s First Scripted Immersive Film, Is Coming This Thursday→

Today, Apple released the trailer for Submerged, a short film from director Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front) that the company is touting as the first scripted film created using its Immersive Video format. Available free this Thursday exclusively on Apple Vision Pro, the 17-minute thriller follows a WWII submarine crew combating a harrowing torpedo attack.

With its 3D, 8K footage displayed in a 180-degree field of view combined with Spatial Audio, Apple Immersive Video is one of the highlights of the Vision Pro experience. Thus far, we’ve only seen it used in nonfictional contexts, including nature, travel, and sports. It will be intriguing to see how the format works for a fictional, scripted story.

I’m glad the company is continuing to release immersive content for Vision Pro owners to enjoy at what seems to be a monthly pace, and I hope to see more storytellers given the opportunity to show what’s possible with this new format soon. It’s early days, and the potential is certainly there for finding creative new ways to engage audiences. I’m excited to see what happens when Immersive Video takes the plunge into fiction.

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Tabletops Closes Shop→

Every so often, you come across a writer who cares so much about their subject that it smacks you in the face. You can’t ignore it, and it sucks so much of the oxygen out of a topic that no one else even tries to cover the beat. That’s how I’ve always felt about Michael Steeber’s writing about Apple Retail, whether it was at 9to5Mac or in his newsletter Tabletops.

Yesterday, Steeber announced that Tabletops is ending, which is a loss for those of us who have relied on it as the definitive history of Apple’s many retail locations:

This is the last issue of Tabletops. Over the past 139 weeks, we’ve explored fantastical architecture, climbed deep into the archives, put merchandising under a microscope, and completed a virtual world tour of stores from Seoul to Chicago. I say we, because this newsletter wouldn’t have been possible without your help. It was your photos, your questions, and most importantly, your encouragement that made writing Tabletops fun. It’s impossible for one person to keep up with 531 stores. Your reports from all over the world meant so much to me.

Steeber doesn’t explain why Tabletops is shutting down, but as his post explains, he’ll still be around, which I’m glad to hear. He also has these words of wisdom for readers:

I wrote with the hope of adding a moment of positivity and wonder to your day. Now it’s your turn. Don’t let yourself forget what lit the fire in your eyes. Hold on to the thrill you felt when it all began. Keep the magic alive.

Thanks for Tabletops, Michael. We’ll miss it.

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Forever ✱ Notes: A Simple, Flexible, and Free Approach to Organizing Your Apple Notes→

The best workflows are the hardest to design because they require restraint. It’s easy to throw complexity at a problem to create the illusion of a grand solution, when it’s often the simplest solutions that reflect the most thoughtful approach to a problem. That was my immediate reaction to Forever ✱ Notes, a systematic approach to note-taking that uses Apple Notes as its foundation.

Forever ✱ Notes’ author, Matthias Hilse, describes the system as follows:

Forever ✱ Notes is a simple, lightweight digital note-taking and knowledge management method for Apple Notes. It’s robust, versatile, and scalable to grow with you.

If you’ve followed the worlds of personal knowledge management, bullet journaling, daily notes, and the complex Notion templates people have created to manage their lives, Forever ✱ Notes will ring a bell. It borrows elements from many systems that came before it but eschews their complexity. Instead, Forever ✱ Notes proposes sensible, pragmatic ways to organize your projects, areas of your life, and journaling using Apple Notes’ built-in tools, like tagging and note linking.

I’ve been building a similar system on and off all year in Obsidian, which isn’t finished, and having spent time looking at many other solutions, Forever ✱ Notes stands out for its simplicity and flexibility. I’ll be spending more time with Forever ✱ Notes over the next few weeks to see how I can incorporate some of its ideas into my own notes. Who knows? Perhaps it’s time to move more of what I do out of Obsidian and into Notes.

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Becca Farsace on Why the iPod Nano’s Camera Is Her Favorite Camcorder→

Becca Farsace’s latest video is all about her favorite camcorder: the iPod Nano:

It’s a terrific video about a different time when simple devices like the Flip Video were everywhere, taking low-quality video. What made the Flip and, later, the Nano’s video camera great wasn’t the quality of what you could shoot with them. Instead, it was the convenience. With the tap of a button, you were up and recording instantly. As Farsace explains, there are a lot of limitations to the iPod Nano’s video camera, but in hindsight, it also holds a certain charm.

The video reminds me of the days before I had an iPhone and used a first-gen iPod Touch to take photos. The camera was lousy by today’s standards, but despite its limitations, I was able to take pictures that I enjoy to this day. I appreciate how easy it is to get a usable photo with my iPhone 16 Pro Max today, but I also sort of miss the effort required with the iPod Touch. I don’t miss the inefficiency of the Touch, but the constraints made me a better photographer by forcing me to pay more attention to lighting, framing, and other things. That’s why I’m not surprised at all that Halide’s Process Zero was an immediate hit.

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Using Apple Journal to Track Home Screen Setups→

I love this idea by Lee Peterson: using Apple’s Journal app (which got some terrific updates in iOS 18) to track your Home Screen updates over time.

Every so often, I see screenshots from people on Threads or Mastodon showing their Home Screens from over a decade ago. I routinely delete screenshots from my Photos library, and it bums me out that I never kept a consistent, personal archive of my ever-changing Home Screens over the years. Lee’s technique, which combines Journal with the excellent Shareshot app, is a great idea that I’m going to steal. Here’s my current Home Screen on iOS 18:

My iOS 18 Home Screen.

My iOS 18 Home Screen.

As you can see, I’m trying large icons in dark mode and there are some new entries in my list of must-have apps. The Home Screen is similar, but a bit more complex, on iPadOS, where I’m still fine-tuning everything to my needs.

I plan to write about my Home Screens and Control Center setup in next week’s issue of MacStories Weekly. In the meantime, I’m going to follow Lee’s approach and begin archiving screenshots in Journal.

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Clockwise 573, ‘Five Legs and Way Too Many Fingers’→

Earlier this week, I joined Lex Friedman on Clockwise, the Relay show hosted by Dan Moren and Mikah Sargent. On episode 573, ‘Five Legs and Way Too Many Fingers,’ we covered a bunch of topics including:

  • the Apple Watch faces we use and why;
  • our feelings about Apple marketing its new iPhones by highlighting Apple Intelligence features that won’t be available for months;
  • where we get iPhone wallpapers and how we use them; and
  • the iPhone’s Action Button.

Thanks to Mikah and Dan for having me on, which was also a chance to chat with Lex for the first time, which I enjoyed too.

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Austin Mann’s iPhone 16 Pro Camera Review→

Unlike most reviewers who were given an iPhone to test, Austin Mann didn’t head home, he headed to Kenya. Mann, whose iPhone camera reviews we’ve covered many times in the past, took the new iPhone 16 Pro on safari (not the browser), photographing a variety of wildlife, landscapes, and people. The video Mann shot of the trip is stunning:

Both the video and Mann’s accompanying article and photographs do more than just showcase the kind of shots that are possible with the iPhone 16 Pro. They both go in-depth about the new features and what each means to photographers:

The iPhone 15 Pro had the same 13mm (.5x) ultra-wide lens, but the sensor was only 12 megapixels—just 25% of the resolution of the 24mm (1x) lens. Over the past year, especially while working with the iPhone 15 Pro, I often found myself torn. Sometimes I wanted the wider perspective, but I didn’t want to sacrifice resolution. I was thrilled when the new Ultra Wide was announced with 48 megapixels, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint.

An added bonus is that the iPhone’s Macro mode also uses the Ultra Wide camera, meaning Macro shots are now 48 megapixels as well. The detail is remarkable, and the iPhone 16 Pro might just be my new favorite camera for macro photography.

Mann likes the Camera Control button for quick access to the Camera app, too, but found that in circumstances like shooting from a helicopter, it could be hard to operate.

The video and post are both worth spending time with. You’ll learn what the new cameras in the Pro iPhones can do and perhaps be inspired to go out and try the new features yourself.

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iFixit’s Teardowns of the iPhone 16 Lineup Reveal Improved Battery Replaceability and More→

iFixit has released the results of its teardowns of the iPhone 16 lineup. I love these posts because not only do they provide insights into the repairability of the new iPhones, but they also answer interesting questions like:

  • Is the Cameral Control button a physical button?
  • How has Apple changed the way it is managing the heat generated by the Neural Engine?
  • How do the batteries differ between iPhone models?

However, this year, perhaps the most interesting discovery in all models of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro lines is the use of a new battery adhesive:

The adhesive that secures the battery, in the vanilla and Plus models, is this fancy new sticky stuff that can debond when you pass an electrical current through it. That means no more reliance on finicky, brittle adhesive strips, just a consistent, easily repeatable process.

The post goes in-depth on just how simple it is to remove the battery using tools as simple as a 9-volt battery and alligator clips.

The ease with which the battery can be replaced in the iPhone 16 line went a long way in the repairability score iFixit bestowed on the devices this year. Whereas the iPhone 15 received a score of four out of ten, the iPhone 16 received a seven, a significant year-over-year increase.

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