Apple releases its yearly cluster of operating system updates today, with the two most prominent of course being macOS and iOS/iPadOS. These new versions focus heavily on Apple’s “AI” stuff, but there are a few actual improvements and changes to the actual operating systems as well.

Across both iOS and macOS, users now have a slider to affect how transparent or opaque the “Liquid Glass” design is across the operating system.

And on the macOS side especially, Apple has made numerous small design tweaks to address user feedback, which has been accumulating since Liquid Glass was introduced. There’s nothing radically new in terms of design here, but this is a much-needed polish pass.

Across all the releases, but in particular macOS and also iOS, there are a bunch of quality-of-life or performance improvements. For example, macOS now supports HDR for all system UI elements and gets more robust support for a wider range of display modes for external monitors.

↫ Samuel Axon at Ars Technica

If you’re not into “AI”, there’s not a lot of meat on these bones, but at least you can turn the “AI” nonsense off through a switch buried deep in the settings applications of Apple’s operating systems (which will probably be flicked back on whenever the next update comes).

Want to run something a little more exotic on your server? How about GNU Guix?

It has been a month since migrating my home server to GNU Guix. Managing OS state declaratively through Git has eliminated configuration drift, and Guile Scheme provides a cohesive environment that complements Emacs. While adapting to a smaller package ecosystem and managing substitute timing requires occasional adjustments, the stability, reproducibility, and container isolation make it a dependable foundation.

↫ Wai Hon

I’m definitely noticing an increase in interest in Guix lately.