Hide macOS Tahoe’s Menu Icons With This One Simple Trick ⇢

⌘ Permalink

I really dislike Apple’s choice to clutter macOS Tahoe’s menus with icons. It makes menus hard to scan, and a bunch of the icons Apple has chosen make no sense and are inconsistent between system applications.

Steve Troughton-Smith is my hero for finding a Terminal command to disable them:

Here’s one for the icons-in-menus haters on macOS Tahoe:

defaults write -g NSMenuEnableActionImages -bool NO

It even preserves the couple of instances you do want icons, like for window zoom/resize.

Your apps will respect this change after relaunching. I ran this a few minutes ago and already appreciate the change. I really think Apple should roll this change back in macOS 27, or offer a proper setting to disable these icons for those of us who find them distracting.

The Case for an Ultralight Mac ⇢

⌘ Permalink

David Sparks is a fan of the MacBook Neo, but it’s not the Mac notebook his heart truly desires:

Think about it. Apple has covered the pro market with the MacBook Pro lineup. The Neo is about to cover the mainstream and budget-conscious buyer.

But there’s a gap at the top. A premium ultralight for people who travel constantly, who want the absolute minimum weight and footprint, and who are willing to pay for it. A MacBook that weighs two pounds or less, with a stunning display and all-day battery life. Not a compromise machine. A showcase.

The technology is ready. Apple silicon was basically designed for this. The question is whether Apple sees the market opportunity, or whether they think the Air (or whatever it becomes post-Neo) already fills that slot.

I don’t think it does. There’s a difference between a laptop that happens to be light and a laptop that’s built from the ground up to be as light as physically possible. Apple used to understand that distinction. The original Air proved it.

With the Neo handling the mainstream, there’s room in the lineup for Apple to go back to that idea.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this since the Neo was announced. In many ways, it frees the MacBook Air up to return to its thin-and-light roots, but I think that would be a mistake.

Among the many sins Apple committed with the 12-inch MacBook is that it was priced like a mid-range laptop, confusing the product line. If Apple were to return to this market, slotting in an ultra-portable machine in a more premium price point would avoid that confusion and let Apple go wild with what it could do with such a machine.

I’m not sure Apple wants to sell four laptop models1 but if they do, I think Sparks is on to something.

  1. What’s really wild is that until a couple of weeks ago, Apple sold just two notebook models and four-ish desktops. I love that the company remains committed to desktop Macs, but if Apple were starting from scratch in 2026, that would not be the case. ↩

‘Twenty Years of Me’ ⇢

⌘ Permalink

Myke Hurley, reflecting on Apple’s 50th birthday:

It’s getting close to 20 years since I decided that what I wanted most in my life was to be a technology podcaster, and that the thing I wanted to talk about more than anything was Apple. Through many attempts, and many homes, I eventually reached the point where this could be the way I make a living.

I launched my business on a Mac. For many years, I ran it using my iPad Pro, and all the while I’ve used my iPhone for everything in between. But for me, it’s not just about using these products — my business has also depended on Apple making them. What I create is about them.

My interest in technology has always been broad, but what I’ve always cared about most is whatever Apple is making. It’s been that way since I was 18 years old and got my first Apple product — the iPod mini — and it remains that way to this day.

Apple and I do not always see eye to eye, and there are times when the thing I’m most enthusiastic about is trying to take them down a peg. But no matter how passionate I may get, at the core of it I always believe in what this company is capable of.

NASA Reportedly Starting the Process to Move Away From the SLS ⇢

⌘ Permalink

NASA’s SLS rocket program has been a mess for a long, long time. Many industry-watchers have wondered why NASA would spend billions of taxpayer dollars on its own rocket while the private space industry is working on their own heavy-lift vehicles that could accomplish similar things.

It seems that NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman may be asking the same question, according to Loren Grush, Ed Ludlow, and Julie Johnsson at Bloomberg:

Under the original plan set years ago, Boeing’s Space Launch System rocket would have launched a crew of four riding inside the Lockheed Martin Corp.-built Orion crew capsule to the moon, with the spacecraft then putting itself in the moon’s orbit. A [SpaceX] Starship lander would then meet up and dock with the capsule around the moon, before taking astronauts down to the lunar surface.

With the new proposal, SLS would no longer be used to boost Orion close to the moon — previously a key task for the rocket. Instead, Starship and Orion would dock in Earth orbit, giving Starship the pivotal role of propelling the capsule to the moon’s orbit, before taking astronauts down to the surface.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman plans to meet on Tuesday with the companies working on Artemis and human landing system program (HLS), including Blue Origin LLC, Boeing and SpaceX, to discuss their progress and the latest plans at the agency. Any changes to the mission could face Congressional scrutiny, and the agency could reverse and alter its plans, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the matter is confidential.

Under this new plan, the SLS would fly four more missions (at an estimated cost of $4 billion each) while HLS partners got up to speed. After that, astronauts would get to the lunar surface via a SpaceX or Blue Origin rocket. This would leave the SLS as it is today, with none of its future, more powerful versions being built. Its use would be diminished to potentially be used to launch the Orion crew capsule into Earth orbit and no further.

That would be a slow, sad ending to what could have been an amazing story, but I think NASA is finally seeing the writing on the wall. The SLS is simply too complicated and too expensive to become a reliable, long-term launch vehicle.

Tennessee Teenagers Suing xAI After Grok Used Their Images to Make CSAM

⌘ Permalink

Faiz Siddiqui, writing at what’s left of The Washington Post (Apple News) about the continuing fallout of xAI’s CSAM scandal:

“When a mother from eastern Tennessee asked local police how someone had created naked photos of her teenage daughter, she recalls being told it was a company she’d never heard of: xAI, the artificial intelligence start-up run by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Police alleged a person arrested in December had used Grok, xAI’s chatbot, to edit photos, including one from the teen girl’s Instagram account, removing a blue bikini from one image to “depict her without any clothes,” according to a lawsuit filed Monday.

Katie Herchenroeder, for Mother Jones:

One of the plaintiffs said she received a link to a Discord server “which contained images and videos of at least 18 other minor females, many of whom Jane Doe 1 recognized from her school,” the lawsuit alleges.

Some of the images stemmed from her homecoming or yearbook photos.

Inside the MacBook Neo

⌘ Permalink

I’m putting my thoughts together for a review of the MacBook Neo, but I think a huge part of this laptop’s story is its repairability. Unlike Apple’s other products, the Neo is put together with screws only — no adhesive. Some of these screws are pentalobes, but if you’re taking apart a computer, you’re probably the kind of person to have that sort of bit on hand, or are willing to get one.

This means the battery can be replaced without pull tabs, and for the first time in years, this notebook’s keyboard is not permanently installed into the top case. There is some tape involved there (and 41 screws to remove) but it’s a move in the right direction.

The USB-C ports, headphone jack, and speakers are all modular and come out with a handful of screws and simple connectors.

The result of all of this is a machine that should be easier and cheaper to repair.

I love this shot from iFixit’s teardown:

Neo

iPhone Repair Guru took apart a Citrus example on their YouTube channel:

The former Mac Genius in me wasn’t thrilled that they didn’t disconnect the battery first — the machine was on until six minutes into the video!

3D Print Your Own Lil Finder

⌘ Permalink

After a week of tinkering with design files and babysitting my 3D printer, I have an adorable new coworker. The final print took 20 hours, but I’m enamored with the results:

Lil Finder Print

I was thrilled to collaborate with Basic Apple Guy on bringing Lil Finder to life. We both hope the Mac community enjoys this project.

If you want to print your own, I’ve uploaded a .3mf file here.

I ran mine on my Bambu P2S, with some fuzzy skin to give the final version a softer finish. On my example, the bright blue is Bambu’s Cyan PLA; the darker color is Overture’s Gray Blue PLA+. You may need to do some adjusting to get things dialed in for your setup.

We would love to see what you do with this, so be sure hit us up on social media:

To head off some feedback: We are offering this file as-is, for free, and without any support. Feel free to make your own changes as you see fit! I’m just not in the position where I can help you with your own print, nor can I print one for you. Find a nerdy buddy with some free time and a 3D printer.