Recently we passed the 15th anniversary of the introduction of the original MacBook Air. It was billed as the “world’s thinnest notebook” - and it blew everyone away when Steve Jobs pulled it out of a regular manilla envelope.

I fondly remember watching the livestream of Macworld and struggling to believe my eyes. We were still coming off the high of the previous year’s introduction of the iPhone. now it was being followed up with a futuristic laptop that seemed ...

Note : This article is all about the standard Apple Watch Series 8. I’m not going to talk about the Apple Watch Ultra because it is a whole new beast. But I did want to mention - if you have a 45mm Apple Watch Series 8, you CAN use the new Apple Watch Ultra bands and they look pretty good. I’ll link a video below.

Like many of you, I’m still figuring out the right cadence to upgrade my Apple Watch. I upgrade my iPhone every two years, which is a bad habit fo...

Should anybody pay $549 for these? No, not really.

These days you can find AirPods Max on Amazon frequently for $100 off. So are they worth it for $449? The answer to that is most likely still no - but I’ll concede these are some awesome sounding, premium headphones. They are well made and have a great feature set, but they exist in an awkward space where they are priced above their capabilities and getting into the range of much higher end headphones. You are payi...

For the majority of the past twenty years I have used Adobe apps every day. I am intimately familiar with them. I have also been using the Affinity suite for the last few years. I wanted to discuss the rising popularity of Adobe alternatives and what Serif specifically brings to the table.

To start, people who know me are aware that I’m not a fan of subscription software. I refuse to even sell my own software as a subscription.

A few years ago Adobe drastic...

I have been a believer in the iPad from day one. When Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPad on stage in 2010, I immediately bought in to having a larger tablet device positioned somewhere between my iPhone and MacBook Pro. The original iPad of course left a lot to be desired, but the germ of the idea was there.

Of course when I got my original iPad, I was mostly just a geek and graphic designer. Fast forward to now and my work has grown exponentially. In addition to gr...

I love my Apple devices, but as anyone who reads Red Escape knows I have my fair share of issues with Siri. As you can imagine, in my household we do not have a HomePod. I tried an Echo a couple of years ago and never looked back. Now I use multiple Echo devices, along with many skills, to control music, lights, smart plugs and even my Xbox.

This Has Happened Before

While while smart assistant needs are met by Alexa, I am not a Fire TV...

Let me start off by saying I’m a daily CarPlay user. I’ve used several generic infotainment systems with the notable exception of Android Auto. So far in my experience, CarPlay is far and away the best system. It has definitely made me a safer driver and mostly removed the temptation to look at my phone. However, there are several areas where I feel it falls short, and one major philosophy that I believe Apple has wrong that is preventing it from truly solving the CarPlay ...

To save it’s future, Apple decided to go back to the past and deliver some of the biggest features of the 80s to the iPad. In the process the iPad has been juiced up by features we take for granted on our Macs, but which will signal a tectonic shift on the tablet.

I think the overwhelming majority of developers were thrilled with many of the announcements made at WWDC last week. For iPad users and developers especially Apple made several major improvements in iOS11 tha...

Apple this week unveiled what it is calling Safari Technology Preview, which is a middle ground between public releases of the web browser and Webkit Nightly builds for developers.

Apple describes the preview browser by saying :
Safari Technology Preview gives you an early look at upcoming web technologies in OS X and iOS including the latest layout technologies, visual effects, and developer tools so you can provide input on how they are implemented and deliv...

I’m just going to go ahead and link to Jason Snell’s excellent El Cap review for Macworld, as it echoes many of my own thoughts. For designers / developers using a Mac, El Capitan will be a welcome update.

El Capitan (OSX 10.11) is all about refinement, sanding off the rough edges. Considering the breakneck pace Apple has been at ...