Shawn Blanc

I really enjoyed reading over this week’s sweet setup interview with Nate Boateng. Nate’s got some personality. And, you’ve gotta hand it to the dude, he’s still rocking Sparrow. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right?

On this week’s episode of my podcast, The Weekly Briefly, I give a one-month report of life with iOS 8 and the iPhone 6, share my initial thoughts on yesterday’s Apple event, spill the beans about why I’m still not on Yosemite yet, and the what and why of my next Mac.

Brought to you by:

• TextExpander touch 3: now with custom keyboard

• The awesome members of shawnblanc.net: Their support makes the work I do a sustainable possibility.

On the new iPads:

I love my iPad mini with Retina Display, which has now apparently been retconned into the iPad mini 2. But what we saw Thursday was indisputable proof that the iPad mini is once again a second-class citizen in the iPad line. Last year, the two models were pretty much the same guts stuck inside bigger and smaller bodies. This year, the iPad Air got a faster processor, a thinner and lighter body, and Touch ID.

The iPad mini 3, on the other hand, got a Touch ID sensor, a gold color option, and a hearty handshake for a job well done.

To me, the most exciting hardware upgrade to the iPad line is the Air 2’s optically bonded screen. It’s the finishing touch which makes a Retina display really pop. It’s too bad the iPad mini didn’t get much of the new (not even an updated Wi-Fi card?). Touch ID is great for sure, but for me it’s certainly not worth upgrading my current iPad mini Retina, and I don’t even think it’s worth paying the extra money for when buying a new iPad mini.

And Jason again, this time on the new Retina iMac:

This iMac really has to make us all question what an iMac is. When the iMac was introduced, it was the new “computer for the rest of us,” a consumer-friendly all-in-one device. This 5K iMac has the power to edit 4K video in Final Cut Pro with room for a timeline and other interface elements. It’s a screen so good, people who have Mac Pros are going to want to replace them with an iMac.

Let’s step through that one again. People will forsake their Mac Pros for this iMac, until there comes a day when a screen like this is available as an external display option for the Mac Pro. For $2500 or less. People who would never have considered buying an iMac will buy this iMac.

Yep.

Another excellent overview, this one from Federico Viticci, outlining a lot of the new features of Yosemite.

Stephen Hackett’s written a great review of the new visuals found in Yosemite.

A handsome set of (Retina ready) OS X icons for Adobe Creative Suite with (hopefully) more apps in the pipe. Nice work by long-time icon king, Sebastiaan de With.

Getting an all new operating system with a ton of massive new features and an all-new visual design? $0.

Having many of your favorite and most-used apps be simultaneously updated to match the new design and take advantage of the new features? Priceless.

(What?)

Nice update to Things for the Mac, that sports a Yosemite-native design and takes advantage of the new Notification Center as well as Handoff and has an “Add to Things” extension. The folks at Cultured Code may have a reputation for being slow at shipping updates, but when they do ship, they ship quality work that is polished and deeply thought through.

If you buy things online and have them sent to your house, you probably want Deliveries. I’ve been using it for years, and it’s a mighty fine iOS app with an OS X Dashboard Widget. That is, until now.

The folks at Junecloud just shipped an official OS X Deliveries app and talk about an upgrade from that Dashboard widget.

Because Yosemite will be available today, so they say.

Speaking of Offscreen, I just came across this 10-minute documentary that the folks at Envato did to share the story of how Kai got the magazine off the ground and what he’s learned over the few years of self-publishing a printed publication.

p.s. Over on Tools & Toys, we’re giving away a copy of issue 7 of Offscreen.

Apple will be live streaming today’s event for the new iPads, Yosemite, and hopefully a little bit more. I’ll be watching (I hope) via the Apple TV Special Events channel, from the comfort of my couch, with a sandwich and a notebook.

For more event coverage, check out MacStories and Six Colors.

Josh Ginter wrote an absolutely fantastic review of the iPhone 6 Plus for Tools & Toys.

As an aside, I could not be more happy with the new Tools & Toys. For one, the site’s design is just incredible. I love how well it lends itself to photo-rich, in-depth reviews like Josh’s iPhone 6 Plus review, while also looking so great for our tried and true posts about new and cool paraphernalia. And the content itself has gone up a level in the past week as well.

They say write the internet you want to read. And that’s exactly what we’re doing with The Sweet Setup and with Tools & Toys. I’m doing everything I can to put my money where my mouth is. These sites prioritize quality and integrity over everything else, we sweat the details, and we’re having a lot of fun in the process.

Seth Godin:

[Y]ou’ll need to work hard to create something magical, and a big part of that hard work is relentlessly eliminating all magical thinking from your projections and your expectations of how the market will react.