(Podcast) Downstream 81: Reba Reboot Holiday specials and streaming rights; the questionable future of linear cable channels; Bob Iger’s Endgame gets interesting; Sports Corner with Rob Manfred, Jason Kelce, and Charles Barkley; Behold, the power of CBS; and some TV shows you should watch.…

(Podcast) The Rebound 517: MoviePass for Vision Pro A harrowing tale of survival and Rock Band.…

The last Kindle with page-turn buttons is dead ↦ The two previous Kindle Oasis models, in happier times.Amazon announced a bunch of brand-new Kindle models Wednesday, including a refreshed Paperwhite and a new color model, both of which I’ve ordered and will review soon.…

In Praise of Keith from Sonos ↦ I really enjoyed this story by Rachel Karten about how, amid widespread outrage about a disastrous software update from Sonos, the company’s Social Media Program Lead was doing it right: KeithFromSonos is a Sonos employee who is very active in the r/Sonos subreddit and has somehow won over customers in a particularly tumultuous time for the b…

Apple Pay turns 10, adds new wrinkles My first Apple Pay transaction, in 2014.It’s hard to believe Apple Pay launched a decade ago, and only slightly less hard to believe that we’ve reached the point that I can link to my decade-old story about using Apple Pay for the first time at my local Whole Foods: “Oh, you’re going to try that?”…

(Podcast) Downstream 80: Shifting Landscape Apple TV+ comes to Prime Video, and the Diamond bankruptcy continues to disrupt the entire economy of sports. …

Apple’s strong but “easy” password generation algorithm ↦ Apple’s Ricky Mondello recaps how the company’s password generation system tries to come up with easy to type—but still very secure—passwords: To make these passwords easier to type on suboptimal keyboard layouts like my colleague’s game controller, where the mode switching might be difficult, these new passwords are actually dominated by low…

(Sponsor) 1Password My thanks to 1Password for sponsoring Six Colors this week. Strings of data breaches and other cybersecurity failures have forced greater investment in vulnerability management. The SEC now requires companies to report on how their managers and board of directors deal with vulnerabilities.…

TUAW returns as a gross, zombie AI-generated garbage site ↦ Via Christina Warren, some jokers called Web Orange Limited have acquired The Unofficial Apple Weblog—a classic player in Apple blogging—and have turned it into a gross AI-generated garbage blog posting as a real one: The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) has been a cornerstone of Apple-related journalism since its establishment on December 5, 2…

Apple no longer taking OpenAI board seat ↦ Camilla Hodgson and George Hammond, writing at the Financial Times (paywalled): Apple had also been expected to take an observer role on OpenAI’s board as part of a deal to integrate ChatGPT into the iPhone maker’s devices, but would not do so, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.…

Apple’s next-gen HomePod could change everything we know about Siri (Macworld/Dan Moren) At this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple gave a little bit of time to its major platforms: iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS—even tvOS got some love. But one device was conspicuously absent: the HomePod.…

(Podcast) Clockwise 562: Famously a HomePod Hater Our interest in the new Amazon Echo Spot, our current charging setup and thoughts on Nomad’s new 65W GaN charger, thoughts on a HomePod with a display, and which dead property we’d like to see AI revive from any medium.…

(Podcast) The Rebound 503: At Least 38 Seconds Slowing that AI roll.…

Accessing inflight Wi-Fi for free via your air miles account’s “name” field ↦ I don’t know what to say about this other than that it is technological insanity in the absolute best way. This meant that on my next flight I could technically have full access to the internet, via my airmiles account.…

Apple to enable third party NFC payments in the EU ↦ European Commission Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager has announced that Apple has committed to allowing third-party payment apps use the same NFC features as Apple Pay in Europe.…

(Podcast) Downstream 73: Must-Stream TV Vulture’s Josef Adalian returns to discuss the ramifications of the sale of Paramount, and where the company might go next. We also once again consider that classic streaming question—to binge or not to binge?…

(Sponsor) Kolide My thanks to Kolide for sponsoring Six Colors again this week. AI is a hot topic in lots of businesses, but most companies still haven’t come up with policies to manage AI usage—and employees are potentially handing over all sorts of sensitive data to tools that may or may not be trustworthy.…

October Video Q&A (Member Video) Time for the first of our monthly video Q&As, available only to subscribers at the More Colors or Backstage level. Please send in your questions at sixcolors.com/morecolorqs… This story is for Six Colors members only. Become a member to get access to exclusive stories, podcasts, and community..

This Week in Apple: Nothing can stay gold (Member Post) We’ve got the hot news about search engines (I hear great things about that AltaVista), the woes of watch ownership, and we’ll catch up on all the -gates this side of Bill.… This story is for Six Colors members only. Become a member to get access to exclusive stories, podcasts, and community..

(Podcast) Downstream 54: NIRP The WGA strike is over, so what does it mean? Also, your letters! …