10 October 2026
By Graham K. Rogers
A special event from Apple next week (probably related to home devices) and the Q4 2026 figures early next month, with the possibility of more devices on the way. I gave up on Skylum some years ago, but it is reported this week they are still up to their tricks with ending support for applications that users have paid for. Major Japanese camera makers are reported to each have different views on the respective futures of the devices they make. Comments on recent TV.
Apple has announced that there is to be a special event next week, on 13 October, with the meme, "Welcome Home". There had been rumors that the 13th was to be the day, but I tend to dismiss those and wait for Apple. In the end we lose nothing, apart from having to wade through (virtual) reams of speculative material on what Apple is up to. Now we know for sure, almost. "Welcome Home" along with its embroidered image, as seen in a teaser from Greg Joswiak, is a strong hint that devices related to home use like the expected Home Pad will be announced along with a range of accessories. I have been expecting a new AppleTV following the updates to tvOS 27 which has some AI features that will not work on any of the current devices. My old AppleTV box will not even update to version 27, and the device that follows that one was marked as vintage this week, underlining the expectation (MacDaily News).
This also strengthens the idea that a new AppleTV set-top box will appear as well during this home-related event. I have already put the cash by for this. The event is set for 9am ET which is 8pm here, so I might be able to watch that live, although a live view is not guaranteed at this stage. The time may be significant as it is just before the markets open and Apple may be hoping for some Wall Street support. There are expected to be new computing devices launched sometime after this event, late in October. Roman Loyola (MacWorld) suggests that one of the products could be a touch screen MacBook Pro, opening a can of worms, at least in the eyes of some correspondents. After all, Steve Jobs famously said that ergonomically it just did not work, so, No.
But we have moved on. Touchscreen devices are so common now that it seems quite natural to work this way. I find myself sometimes leaning forward and moving my hand in the direction of the screen on my notebook Macs before stopping myself. I do not do this when using the Mac mini - the screen is set vertically and just under a meter away and my brain does not react in the same way. The nearness and angle of the notebooks is a different matter. Maybe computer users have evolved and now is the time.
The extensive flooding has begun to ease in some areas of Bangkok, but some provincial areas are still under water. More rain is expected. An unexpected and unfortunate result appears to be EV fires. Several cars have ignited following the floods. It is well known that water and electricity do not mix, but some owners appear to have been unable to move their cars in time. Last week, perhaps unrelated, the rains in Malaysia caused unexpected problems with the Formula One cars, supposedly the pinnacle of automotive engineering. A software update was written and updated to the cars in a break before the race. Who would have thought that there would be rain in Kuala Lumpur in the afternoon at this time of year? Another EV is reported to have burst into flames in Turkey this week. Al Jazeera reports that the Togg T10X, which is produced in Turkey, was at a charging station. There was no rain in the clip.
Apple will release its Q4 2026 earnings report on November 2 (Marcus Mendes, 9to5Mac). Unusually, this is a Monday so that may herald good news. However, I expect lots of articles in the next couple of weeks focusing on Apple problems, impending disasters, and rumors as Wall Street tries to bring the share price down so that there are profits when it rises again, as it always does. With the headline, "And right on schedule . . ." William Gallagher and Mike Wuerthele (AppleInsider) write that Nikkei insists supply chain sources are reporting orders for the iPhone 18 Pro are low (doesn't this happen every year about this time?), but sources suggest that this is not so and supplies are as expected.
Late in the article there is this extended quote that many of those writing about Apple comment on pretty much every year: "When the same claim comes every single year, you have to question whether these sources have the whole picture. More often than not, there's some kind of bonus paid to writers that move the stock market, like Bloomberg does." And quelle surprise almost immediately, Oliver Haslam (Redmond Pie), reports that Apple's share price fell by some 2.5%. The conference call is scheduled for 14:00 Cupertino time (17:00 ET), which is about 02:00 here. There will be plenty for me to read after my breakfast.
I read news this week, reported by Jaron Schneider (PetaPixel), that Skylum is to cease development of Aperty "despite promising five years of updates when it launched the app in 2024" and charging $250 for a lifetime license. I stopped using Skylum products several years ago after twice experiencing this sort of behavior. I had been using its excellent black and white editing software, Tonality. When this was released in 2014 it won Apple's Editors' Choice of the Year (Graham Spencer, MacStories). I bought a number of presets that worked with Aperture (sadly missed), but when they released Luminar they orphaned Tonality. Users were told that the presets would work in Luminar but some of the best ones did not.
But then came Luminar 2, Luminar 3, and Luminar 4. Each one was a new app, and development was ended for the previous one. I was expected to buy the new version, which ended up almost as a subscription service. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice . . . I decided to move on around the time that Luminar 3 arrived. I was also concerned with some of the new features, particularly faux AI sunbeams, mentioned in the Wikipedia article on Skylum. It is a hard task to capture light like this in a photograph. There is the famous photo of New York Central station with beams of light streaming in from high windows to one side. I have managed this deliberately in two photographs, both taken in the generator area of the Bhumipol Dam in Tak, several years apart. They are no match for the New York image. The first one was luck (right place, right time), and I was determined to repeat this. In the interim the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) had stopped allowing photography because of sensors (autofocus sends out a beam of light). When the Electrical Engineering Department visited some years later, I took a manual film camera, but that rule no longer applied anyway.
Schneider notes that "Suddenly closing software is, unfortunately, somewhat par for the course for Skylum" [my italics] and writes about other times the company has done this. The comments section for the article is filled with highly critical comments including one user who, like me, was burned with Tonality. Like certain other companies whose practices overstep the mark (like Sony with the rootkit débacle) I refuse to cater to these charlatans and never buy from them again. Another comment caught my eye later: "I purchased Luminar in 2018 on the promise of Loupedeck support that never materialized. Sounds like they've kept doing the same thing over the years. What's worse is how many sites like Fstoppers kept pushing them so hard even after it was apparent how shady they are." I had just seen a link to an FStoppers article on the subject of Skylum and Aperty. I was expecting some warning similar to that from Jason Schneider, but it was a fairly bland report that the app was being shut down and everyone could move to Luminar. That comment seems to explain this. During the day, I saw that the number of people making comments - every one of them negative - had grown.
Also on PetaPixel, Jaron Schneider, reports on interviews by Nikkei with executives of the 4 major camera companies. I am not wholly impressed by what I read. Canon recognizes the importance of the shooting experience, but "wants to continue to expand its video-oriented cameras". We noted recently a desire among some photographers for a camera with zero video capabilities. Nikon are developing internal features (image processing engines, sensors, and video cameras. I am obviously not over the moon about the last item. The company also notes "a demand for dedicated cameras as a 'smartphone + 1' device that preserves smartphone battery life". I am not totally sure what this might suggest.
Sony, a company that I am not a fan of (see above) "sees "Spatial AI" as the future of its Alphas series cameras". I am already walking out of the door. This may be OK for content creators, but where is the essence of real photography? We may have to look to Fuji for this. They recognize the effect that smartphones have had, but that they cannot deliver what some discerning people want. Pragmatic. The comments from Fuji close with "AI can generate images, but only humans possess the subjective sense of feeling, 'This is real.'" I have been looking at several AI-generated images and video clips of late - one can hardly avoid this online. As attractive as some of these are, many are deceptive, but most are easy to spot. Just like AI writing.
The BBC comedy, Small Prophets was snapped up by Apple a few months ago and there are already plans for a second season. When I linked to the trailer on YouTube, I had expected a store-based comedy, with a play on the words, profit and prophet. The BBC has a history of excellent comedy series going back many years. I was not prepared for what I saw. The first episode arrived this week on Apple TV, although despite messages telling me that the final episode of Ted Lasso, and the next episodes of Slow Horses and Last Seen were available, this new series, did not appear. I found a link in an item discussing the series (and others) on 9to5Mac (Ryan Christoffel) and that allowed me to add the series to my list. It is now in "Continue Watching" and I started Wednesday evening with the first 2 episodes. It is all somewhat understated - rather typical of British comedy: the best comedy drama is rarely in-your-face.
Christoffel's article did not give the game away at all and that made the trailer all the more surprising. The first episode was similarly delightful. Small Prophets features Pearce Quigley as Michael Sleep. It was from the pen of Mackenzie Crook, who has come up with several excellent TV ideas, and was one of the cast members in the original (British) version of The Office. He was also in Pirates of the Caribbean (Ragetti). Crook appears in the series which he also directed. The series also includes Michael Pailin (Monty Python, et al) as Sleep's father.
We were also treated to a trailer for the upcoming Stick, Series 2. By no means am I a lover of golf (I tried once) although I do enjoy clips of holes in one, as much for the skill (mixed with a lot of luck) and the sheer elation of the golfer. Owen Wilson is such an accomplished loser, particularly when compared with Kevin Costner in Tin Cup. The underplayed comedy made this enjoyable for me, especially in a comparison with the Costner movie and all the angst there. The golfers, particularly Wilson and Peter Dager, who plays the rediscovered Santi, work well together and I expect this to continue in Series 2 when it is expected that Pryce (Wilson) makes a return to professional golf: the Masters. This new season also sees the inclusion of Rhea Seehorn (Better Call Saul, Pluribus) and the return of Timothy Olyphant.
AppleTV ended series 4 of Ted Lasso on a mix of highs and lows. The club was saved from a takeover, so there is a future, some characters are moving on, some are forging new partnerships. Amongst all the positives, there was a feeling of some sadness and some tension. I guess we will have to wait and see. In the meantime, Mike Wuerthele (AppleInsider) reports that a book on Richmond AFC by the fictional character, Trent Crimm is now available. A chapter of The Richmond Way is available for those interested to listen to (link in Wuerthele's article).
I was disturbed by the botched execution last week of Christa Pike who was removed to hospital after the failure, but made a surprise recovery. It is expected that her execution will resume when she has recovered. In the UK when people have survived execution in the past - we don't do that now - they have been pardoned and released. The USA is different and as well as the potential of a second try on Pike, it was announced this week that the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan (a former army psychiatrist) recently convicted by a military court of killing several at Fort Hood, will be a public event. It will apparently be live-streamed on 3 December. I will not be watching (Joseph Gedeon, Guardian). Nor, it is reported, will the Vice-President. There is worldwide condemnation, as well as much criticism within the USA.
Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. After 3 years writing a column in the Life supplement, he is now no longer associated with the Bangkok Post. He can be followed on X (@extensions_th). The RSS feed for the articles is http://www.extensions.in.th/ext_link.xml - copy and paste into your feed reader. No AI was used in writing this item.
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