This is Technology Bytes, episode 147, for December 28, 2025.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bites on interesting technology.
Enjoy, and here we go.
I didn’t really know what to do this week.
It’s the final podcast of 2025, and so I thought, well, maybe I’ll just do a review of things that I covered over the past 52 weeks.
And so I went back through my titles and pulled out a few, and I thought I would talk about them just briefly here over the next few minutes.
The first topic that jumped out at me was Apple Intelligence, and that has been basically a dismal failure over the course of this year.
It’s one of those few times where Apple has over-promised and super under-delivered, and we are all, all Apple fans, that is, looking forward to see what they do with Gemini 3, hopefully as soon as iOS 26.4 beta.
So that’s where that one stands.
So the next thing that jumped out at me was my Kia EV6.
I started talking about that, and I think I got it in February, so not quite a year ago.
I still really like that car.
I like electric cars.
I’m able to charge at work, as I think I’ve mentioned a couple times.
It’s a very slow charger, but it was also inexpensive.
And I’m at work for 9 to 10 hours every day, and so it really works for me.
I have to plug it in every day, and that’s okay because I’m at work every day.
So while some may think that’s a pain, it really hasn’t been that way for me.
I really like the vehicle.
It has performed very well.
I’ve taken it twice to California, and the second time the trip home was a little rough because some of the chargers were out of service.
But in general, we’ve found a way to make it work.
It does take longer because, well, it takes longer.
So all in all, happy with the Kia EV6.
Glad I have an electric vehicle.
I am really enjoying that tech throughout this past year.
The next one that jumped out at me was the M4, and this is Apple’s silicon.
So they’ve gone now to the M4.
The M5 is coming out, or is it out in the iPad?
I think they have some devices with the M5.
But in my world, the M4 joined me in the form of a MacBook Air, and then I also have an iPad, and all of it was in reference to Apple Intelligence, which I already talked about didn’t work.
But things are coming.
I think I’m going to be glad I have the M4 with the 16 gigabytes of RAM.
Overall, very happy with my computer, world performance.
I’ve got the iMac, I’ve got the MacBook Air, and I’ve got the iPad Pro, and very happy with those devices and how they work together.
It’s an environment I won’t soon leave.
The next one that jumped out at me was the 26 operating systems where Apple has numbered everything the same, and liquid glass that they said over and over and over again at the WWDC event.
And I like it.
People complain about the buttons, and Apple did this wrong, and this wrong, and whatever, but I actually have enjoyed it.
I don’t have a problem with it.
I know there may be some accessibility issues, and Apple’s generally pretty good at that.
I don’t have accessibility issues personally, and really don’t know anyone that does personally and that I interact with a lot, but I am super happy with liquid glass.
And then the other thing that came out at the same time was the improvements to Spotlight on the Mac, and yeah, I think just there.
But the things that it’s able to do, the clipboard history, some of the activation of shortcuts, and the list goes on.
Actually, it still does app launcher stuff, and calculations, and opening and searching for files.
So all in all, the increased performance and the improvements to Spotlight, again, doesn’t take very long for us to take those kind of things for granted, does it?
We start using it, it becomes second nature, and now we don’t know what it was like to not have it, but still a great improvement in the macOS 26.
The last two items on my list are hardware.
So Apple announces hardware every year, and I thought I was going to get kind of everything.
Well, okay, I think originally I said I was going to get nothing.
And so then I thought, well, maybe I can swing and get everything.
And as it turns out, I did not get the AirPod Pro 3.
I still have the 2.
It works well.
There’s really not much in the 3 that’s different from the 2, so not sure I’m missing anything.
Haven’t really tried the translation stuff yet.
I need to do that.
But the two things I did buy, I purchased the Ultra 3.
And while it’s not all that much different than the 2, the battery life is fantastic.
The always-on display with the seconds displaying always is really nice to have.
Maybe one of the best things is I was able to give my 2 to my son, and he has enjoyed that to the fullest.
And he’s like, this is such an awesome Apple Watch, and very thankful for a dad like me to be able to pass stuff down to him.
And then the other thing I bought was the 17 Pro Max.
Once again, the carriers had crazy deals.
I think I spent $10 and got the new phone.
Of course, it’s a three-year thing, but I hand stuff down to my family, so that worked out well.
I really like it.
Again, battery life is really good.
I have enjoyed the newness of it.
I don’t use the cameras as much as I should, but that’s not because of the 17 Pro Max not having good cameras.
It’s because of me.
So all in all, it’s been a pretty good year.
I enjoyed the hardware that has come into my life.
I’ve enjoyed the software that has come into my life.
Looking forward to Apple stepping up in the artificial intelligence and the Apple intelligence world in the near future, and seeing what I get to cover over the coming year.
Well, that is all I have for today.
If you have comments, suggestions, or questions, you can send them to technologybytes at merrickfamily.com.
Thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes microcast, and I look forward to the next time we are together, taking another bite of technology.
