I ... went up a level with RAM. With Apple Intelligence, which may tax the RAM day-to-day, I thought it was best to get the most I could now as it can't be upgraded.

I made the right decision and with macOS Golden Gate around the corner, Siri AI is going to be RAM hungry I'm sure. Even Xcode on it's own demands a lot of resources and with more agentic features it's only going to want more.

Looking back, I'm sure I was trying to hit 36GB of RAM in my configuration but if I remember rightly, the step up from 24GB was 48GB which is where I settled. A great choice in hindsight.

RAM itself has become an expensive commodity and forced Apple to increases prices outside of an upgrade cycle. Looking at a SSD for myself, one I bought for less than £100 two years ago now costs twice as much but is only available in half the size. That's a 4x price increase per gigabyte.

I also work on a MacBook Air for my day job. It has 24GB of RAM is highly capable. Given I am not writing much code, you could argue it is overpowered. My own MacBook Pro is approaching the point of being appropriately resourced and so I am patting myself on the back for the decision I made in late 2024.

You can also look back at the 2022 and 2018 editions.

Overall, I'd say Adidas win with their kits and all my favourites are by the German supplier.

Curaçao

They may have been hammered by Germany in their first ever World Cup game, but their away kit is a thing of beauty. Adidas claim it's yellow but I'd say it's a deep beige.

Germany

It was Germany who inflicted that defeat on Curaçao, while wearing their home kit inspired by previous designs. But it's their away kit which looks way better to me.

Spain

Completing the hat-trick for away kits, it's Spain's! Similar to Curaçao in main colour, but it features a single star for their 2010 World Cup win.

Japan

You won't believe it, but it's another away kit. This time for Japan, it's pretty beige again but having seen this one in the flesh, it's a fantastic shirt.

App Icons / Liquid Glass

Jump to 09:21 in the keynote.

In general, Liquid Glass looks more refined. Just trying the iOS 27 build in Xcode offers a clear improvement to the way it all looks on device. Clearer definition of elements and it does feel more polished in appearance.

App Icons specifically look crisper. That has been my biggest issue when creating Liquid Glass icons, they have soft edges that look too big. This evolution brings tighter edges and refractions with higher contrast. Both very welcome.

The move back to a consistent corner radii and fixing the sidebar and toolbars will go a long way to making Liquid Glass feel like the right move forward than it currently might for some. The sidebar in particular was poorly implemented and I look forward to some common sense coming back into the world of Apple's GUI.

Optimisations

Jump to 10:00 in the keynote.

Back to optimisations, nothing was too small and these are all very welcome:

• Lock Screen consistently stays awake while scrolling notifications
• More distinct active windows
• Better battery efficiency on Apple Watch
• Filter photos and videos in Shared Albums
• Faster loading of new captures in Photos
• More reliable search indexing in Mail

Apple Maps

Jump to 16:10 in the keynote.

Flyover gets a boost in quality, which is very welcome. Google Maps is no better than Apple Maps currently, but it makes a huge difference when the Street View or Lookaround features aren't available.

The Siri Orb (visionOS)

Jump to 46:50 in the keynote.

I thought the Siri orb in visionOS was delightful, just place a little oracle in your space and you can talk to it when you need to. I won't talk about Siri specifically as my phone won't support it and we've been here before. I hope it does live up to expectations, but Siri often fails to do the basics for me even today.

Shortcuts: Describe an extension

Jump to 54:18 in the keynote.

Shortcuts is such a powerful app, but it can get cumbersome and complicated very quickly. Being able to describe a shortcut and for it to build it by itself is a game changer. I've not had the time to dig into agentic AI as much as I'd like but this could be the step I need to make a few simple ideas come to life.

SwiftData?

SwiftData wasn't mentioned by anyone on stage, but I'll be digging into the Developer app to see what new resources they have there.

]]> https://www.1thingaweek.com/notable/d29 2026-06-19T15:35:05Z 2026-06-19T15:35:05Z Charanjit Chana I Could've Rickrolled the Entire FIFA World Cup. on bobdahacker.com

Amazing story via kottke.org.

]]> https://www.1thingaweek.com/notable/d28 2026-06-12T08:28:21Z 2026-06-12T08:28:21Z Charanjit Chana macOS Golden Gate Icon Comparison on basicappleguy.com

Comprehensive for sure. Tahoe's icons look so washed out compared to the crispness of Golden Gate. Fantastic update across the board and I've already updated the icons for Waylist to take advantage of the new settings available in the Icon Composer beta.

]]> https://www.1thingaweek.com/week/449/fifa-world-cup-2026 2026-06-07T00:00:00Z 2026-06-07T00:00:00Z Charanjit Chana https://www.1thingaweek.com/ The World Cup is now days away, I had been collating images of the various kits to be worn at the World Cup to continue my tradition of posting my favourites. (See the 2018 and 2022 editions.)

After the tournament kicks off, I will post my favourite kits of 2026, but until then I wanted to pick out some teams I'll be rooting for. There are 48 to pick from and it would be rude to follow just one team so here's who I'll be following most closely.

Europe

I should support England but find it hard to given the poor team selections they make constantly. Could they win this time? I doubt it. I will be watching though.

Netherlands, and Italy (who did not qualify), are my favourite European team to follow. I would love to see Virgil van Dijk lift the trophy. I have soft spot for Czechia too and continues to be a place I'd love to visit.

I'd also like to see Germany's Wirtz have a great tournament after a difficult first season at Liverpool. I followed Spain closely as the dominated International football from 2008-2012 but have little reason to get behind them now other than to watch Lamine Yamal play.

Africa

Mo Salah may have left Liverpool but following an injury just before the 2018 World Cup, Egypt never really had a chance. I don't expect them to go far, but I do want to see a Liverpool legend do well at what will probably be his last World Cup.

Asia & Australasia

Liverpool's Wataru Endo captains Japan so I'll be rooting for them.

North America

It seems odd that a World Cup that follows Russia and Qatar as hosts might actually be the most hostile and intolerable.

Given there are actually 3 hosts, I've picked Mexico as my north/Central American team to follow.

South America

I have beef with Vini Jr. because his goal defeated Liverpool in the 2022 Champions League Final against Real Madrid and I have no idea why Neymar is involved. Brazil might be turning into the England of South America... I'll follow them but I'm not rooting for them like I have in the past.

Darwin Nuñez is in the Uruguay squad and Luis Diaz plays for Colombia so these are my top two South American teams to get behind.

]]> https://www.1thingaweek.com/notable/d27 2026-06-10T07:50:07Z 2026-06-10T07:50:07Z Charanjit Chana What Now? World Cup, the pregame episode by Trevor Noah on podcasts.apple.com

]]> https://www.1thingaweek.com/week/448/reading-progress-may-2026 2026-05-26T00:00:00Z 2026-05-26T00:00:00Z Charanjit Chana https://www.1thingaweek.com/ After failing miserably at reading more, I've made a pretty good start to the year as I start reading my 7th book. I plan to write about the books I've read but I just wanted to mark my progress at this point. 6 books, both digital and physical, is no mean feat given one of my goals in 2024 was to read more. The reality was that I read just 3 books and then 3 more in 2025. I've already beaten the previous two years combined and hope to push on to double digits.

The mix of physical and digital has been good, but I have found bookmarking digital books to be hit and miss. Sometimes I return to a book and it's on the wrong page and I'm either re-reading entire pages or missing a chunk of content before realising.

I don't understand how the experience in both Apple Books and the Kindle apps are both so terrible.

]]> https://www.1thingaweek.com/notable/d26 2026-06-02T10:00:00Z 2026-06-02T10:00:00Z Charanjit Chana ★ Jony Ive Shows Me The Most Controversial Ferrari Ever (Ferrari Luce) by Cloe Abram on youtube.com

I've linked to 35:10 in this video where Jony Ive and Flavio Manzoni talk through the design around Ferrari's Luce. The next 4 minutes are a fantastic conversation around the task in hand when building an EV supercar versus a "regular" supercar.

I found it fascinating and feel like I should clip this and watch it often. If nothing else, I didn't realise there was effectively an exoskeleton around the Luce until I saw the animation around these points.

Also, the interior is just beautiful.

]]> https://www.1thingaweek.com/week/447/c25k-week-4 2026-05-24T00:00:00Z 2026-05-24T00:00:00Z Charanjit Chana https://www.1thingaweek.com/ I've been sticking to a pretty good schedule but finished week 4 on a low.

This post is here to check in and say that it's possible to complete the challenges laid out to remind myself that I need to warm up before running.

3 minute runs are not much of a problem anymore, but the 5 minute intervals are tough.

Run 3 in week 4, I failed to warm up and suffered. Week 4 felt really intimidating but the first run was OK. The second run was not as good as my warm up was short but my third run I just forgot completely and then failed to complete the running intervals correctly.

I'll take a look at week 5 when I next think about heading out for a run but I might re-do one of the week 4 runs to give myself an achievable challenge before pushing on to the next round.

Update

I did warm up properly and re-did the 3rd run of week 4 and it became achievable despite warmer temperatures.

Warming up for the win!

]]> https://www.1thingaweek.com/week/446/using-waylist 2026-05-14T00:00:00Z 2026-05-14T00:00:00Z Charanjit Chana https://www.1thingaweek.com/ Waylist has now been out for a few weeks now and I wanted to share 3 ways in which I'm using it.

• Favourite restaurants where I log restaurants we've been too and restaurants we'd love to visit. So they're not all our favourites (yet) but it's a good way of keeping them in one place
• Holiday ideas to keep a list of locations that could make a great future holiday location
• Things to do with the kids

In the next version, there's the option to share links and keep a scrapbook of related content against a a guide and against a location. I'm really excited to get that out as it was a lot of effort and I've been using it to help collate information I've stumbled across for future holidays.

]]> https://www.1thingaweek.com/week/445/couch-to-5k 2026-05-08T00:00:00Z 2026-05-08T00:00:00Z Charanjit Chana https://www.1thingaweek.com/ The NHS have a Couch to 5K app that I had downloaded previously, opened once and then never looked at again. I actually deleted it as I wasn't sure how I'd fit it all in.

Then at the end of April, I began thinking about it again. This time, I not only opened the app but put it into motion and did my first run and I'm now about to finish week 2.

It has been tough, I've never been the best of runners, but already feel that I can run more comfortably for short periods of time thanks to the program. Getting to week 9 is not going to be easy but I'm pleased that I've made a start and I intend to keep going through the whole program.

]]> https://www.1thingaweek.com/notable/d25 2026-05-13T11:15:48Z 2026-05-13T11:15:48Z Charanjit Chana Taken on sinceyouarrived.world

]]> https://www.1thingaweek.com/week/444/introducing-waylist-ios 2026-04-27T00:00:00Z 2026-04-27T00:00:00Z Charanjit Chana https://www.1thingaweek.com/ Over the past few weeks I began prototyping an app for myself, one that turned Guides in Apple Maps into a usable bit of functionality. As usual, it spiralled into a fully featured app that I thought would benefit more people who are trying to create collections of locations (Guides) and want to be able to do the bare minimum, like sorting and filtering.

Waylist is available in the App Store now, and an update with more features is already pending in the App Store Review process.

Waylist does more than just collect locations, but that's it's core feature. You can send a location from Apple Maps to Waylist or use the Discover tab to do the same with Waylist. Either way, you create a guide and then store stuff in it. It really is that simple.

Where it excels is in organising that information. There are 4 sort options, and each Guide can be sorted individually, and different ways to filter. Right now, you can filter using text or, if you turn a Guide into an itinerary, by day.

I test drove the test on a recent trip to South Wales but found it was lacking some crucial features and actually the terminology didn't work at all so took he opportunity to start from a clean slate and using the first build as prototype that validated the idea.

The rebuild is more organised in its structure and didn't take long, despite hitting a roadblock with CloudKit, and I published the app this past week.

Version 1 had a the basics in place and the next update has a bunch of quality of life improvements and optimisations. I have a long list of enhancements which I'm working my way through.

Like Team Sheets, it's built with Liquid Glass in mind and because I've used SwiftUI and SwiftData, it should feel like an app Apple would build while I hope it fits within my own universe apps I'm building.

The app is £1.99, but I have a handful of promo codes I can share so you can get the app for free, just get in touch and I'll share them if they are still available and you can see the launch video I put together on the dedicated marketing site for Waylist if you'd like to learn more.

]]> https://www.1thingaweek.com/week/443/tim-cook-steps-down-apple-ceo 2026-04-21T00:00:00Z 2026-04-21T00:00:00Z Charanjit Chana https://www.1thingaweek.com/ The Community Letter from Tim is impossible to read without hearing Tim Cook's voice.

The past 15 years have flown by and actually the sheet number of keynotes that have passed and devices that have launched is impressive. The Apple Watch and AirPods are distinctively Tim Cook-era devices.

If the annual schedule holds, John Ternus will announce the 20th iPhone and usher in iOS 27 (to be announced at WWDC). Assuming it's not ground-breaking, what devices will we look back at as the ones that define the Ternus-era?

Apple seems like it is in great hands. I have a lot of commentary to catch up on Tim Cook's transition to Executive Chairman. Johny Srouji taking over the Chief Hardware Officer role is more interesting to me than Ternus' transition up to CEO. How will hardware design move forward under his leadership? I'm hoping that Liquid Glass is refined and MacOS diverges from the concentric hell it's endured.

No matter what you think of Tim Cook's reign, the transition to Apple Silicon can't be seen as anything other than a triumphant success.

]]> https://www.1thingaweek.com/notable/d24 2026-04-22T15:20:36Z 2026-04-22T15:20:36Z Charanjit Chana Apple Should Set and Enforce Some Basic Standards for Custom Video Players on tvOS on daringfireball.net

I'm actually not sure which apps on the Apple TV actually use the default timeline but you do find yourself putting up with the nonsense and the frustration that comes with them deviating from the standard.

Agree with John Gruber here, if your player doesn't match the default player then the app should be rejected. We're talking about million and billion-dollar corporations here, not indie developers.

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