Category: 📁 Tech Makes

• Portable with battery to place anywhere
• Thin screen with hinge style thin stand
• Folds like laptop to move or travel in bag
• Adequate speakers/camera in thin design
• Screen defaults to display analog clock
• Turns screen on when you look at it

February 27, 2026

I appreciate the gusto if this is purely experimental, but I think the design, function, and placement of this separate bottom toolbar in the Music app may be the single worst UI change in macOS 26.

Suggested Changes

• Move and merge the full toolbar back to the top
• Stay in same place when queue or lyrics selected
• Make volume popup from toolbar and have mute
• Collapse volume popup when clicked second time
• Don't blur song title and info when mouse over
• Move star icon to the toolbar and always show
• Make all icons including playback the same size
• Move shuffle to right of playback, left of repeat

I still dislike transparent elements, color changing elements, floating elements, and moving elements in UIs. Imagine if light switch on wall was see-through so hard to see, changed colors so hard to recognize, was covering part of TV, and was in a different spot all the time.

I think that Apple or any company making operating systems should display an even amount of 16 apps in home screen tabs, app folders, and app menus on iOS, tvOS, and other operating systems, instead of the hard to organize and odd amount of 9 apps.

What

• Display 16 apps in folders, or alternatively 24
• Grid of 4x4 apps in folders, or alternatively 4x6
• Always show an even amount of app columns
• Always show an even amount of app rows

Why

• Grouping apps in groups of 2, 4, or 6 makes sense logically
• With groups of 4 people can easier create a mental model
• Rotating from portrait and landscape shows the same apps
• People may be buying or using less apps with folders of 9

I love the old iPad mini 5 with its completely flat back, no camera bump, and a naturally uniform screen. I dislike the iPhone mini 13 with a wobbly back, humongous camera bump, and imbalanced intrusive notch. While out of style, I wonder if Steve Jobs would feel the same way.

I wonder if macOS 16 should allow users to move and remove the Finder app from the Dock, and also include it in the Launchpad and Applications folder. For consistency and simplicity, the Trash folder could allow being moved and removed as well, and be included in the locations section of the Finder.

I think Windows, macOS, and other desktop operating systems should have 2 simple keyboard shortcuts to switch to the previous and next open apps by the order in which they appear on the taskbar or dock.

I wonder if Apple should make a separate smart camera device, and design the base model iPhone with a completely flat back and no camera bump in the future.

I wonder if we should design keyboards to input the bullet point character (U+2022 •) instead of the backtick character (U+0060 `), which is currently the key above the tab key and to the left of the number 1.

Notes

• Why 1 • The bullet point is a very common symbol used in lists and HTML
• Why 2 • The bullet point character is an excellent information separator
• I wonder if the bullet point should be used as a data/table separator
• Column Data 1 • Column Data 2 • Column Data 3 • Column Data 4
• I wonder if the bullet point should be used as a better colon replacement
• Title of This Book • Cool Subtitle of This Book With a Really Long Name
• I wonder if the bullet point could even be used as a filename/URL separator
• Example • 2023-08-20•bullet-point-character-on-keyboards•munro-stewart

August 20, 2023

Apple should include the Spotlight search bar at the top of the Control Center screen, so it could be accessed like a widget from within any application quicker and easier.

Apple should merge Control Center and Widgets in its operating systems, and remove widgets from the home screen or app launcher.

I wonder if the spirit of Steve Jobs is upset because cameras, including big ugly bumps that aren't flush to the back and notched cutouts that intrude on the display, are ruining the beautiful design and simple form of the once magical and elegant smart phone gadgets of the past.

December, 2017

Notes

About

For an equal and consistent UX, iOS should make a long press on older devices work absolutely everywhere a 3D Touch hard press works.

I still think that the app switcher in iOS should show icons instead of screenshots, and either have a scrolling horizontal list of icons or a scrolling vertical list with icons to the left of the full app names, instead of displaying one screenshot at a time.

I wonder if Apple should now make an iPhone thicker for huge battery and flush camera. Slim down in future as battery and camera tech improves.

Christina Bonnington on Apple’s iPhone X Strategy - Daring Fireball

July, 2017