Paul Ryan is a new member.
ADAM ENGST 7 January 2026
I’m a little embarrassed. I’ve been using Mimestream since it was in beta and have a good relationship with the company, so I report minor bugs or complaints fairly regularly. After a recent update, when Mimestream relaunched, its window appeared on my primary screen instead of the secondary screen where it usually lives. I had noticed this before, but I was feeling persnickety, so I filed a feature request to have it remember the screen it was on.
When Ratnesh from Mimestream replied, he asked me to open System Settings > Desktop & Dock, scroll down to the Windows section, and check whether “Close windows when quitting an application” was enabled. It was, and Mimestream wasn’t to blame at all.
I turned that option off, quit and relaunched Mimestream, and its window appeared in its proper location on my secondary screen. This annoyance had affected other apps as well—Messages now opens its window properly on my MacBook Pro’s built-in screen rather than on the primary screen. I dislike the behavior triggered by this setting, but it’s the default, and I missed changing it when setting up my new 14-inch MacBook Pro from scratch to avoid bringing over years of cruft from my old 27-inch iMac.
Although the setting label doesn’t make it clear that it affects window positioning at app launch, its description clarifies somewhat: “When enabled, open documents and windows will not be restored when you re-open an application.”
In retrospect, I thought this might be a Mimestream issue because apps used to have to store their window positioning entirely on their own. But some research reminded me that Apple didn’t add system‑level Resume until OS X 10.7 Lion, which largely automated window restoration for Cocoa apps. Today, most apps rely on macOS to restore window positions, making the “Close windows when quitting an application” setting more important.
It’s reasonable to wonder why Apple made closing windows the default in macOS when restoration is the norm in iOS. My best guess is that while users with firm mental models of an app’s previous state may now appreciate full restoration (controversial at the time, as Matt Neuburg wrote in “Lion Zombie Document Mystery Solved,” 23 May 2012), it can cause confusion by reopening outdated windows, particularly for document-centric apps. Closing windows also reduces edge cases across multiple displays, Spaces, and hardware changes—fresh windows tend to appear in predictable positions—and it nudges developers to present a sensible default window on the main screen rather than rely on restoration.
I wouldn’t have thought to look in Desktop & Dock, because the setting has little to do with either, and its placement there makes an already opaque behavior harder to discover. Matt’s article also reminded me that the wording used to be much more explicit—“Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps”—and that it previously lived in the General preferences pane. Apple changed the wording long ago in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and moved the setting to Desktop & Dock in the jarring jump from System Preferences to System Settings in macOS 13 Ventura. That earlier wording and location were more accurate and easier to discover. The current label describes a side effect while obscuring the actual behavior, making it easy to misdiagnose the problem as an app bug.
Ultimately, I’m glad to be reminded of this setting, since I like my apps to restore their state on launch. In part, that’s because I use almost no document-centric Mac apps anymore, so I don’t have to put up with old documents opening automatically. Those who rely heavily on local documents or like a clean slate on every app launch may prefer otherwise.
ADAM ENGST 6 January 2026
After 34 years, should we still pay attention to Apple’s Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines from 1992? Software engineer and UI designer Nikita Prokopov argues that:
the principles—as long as they are good principles—still apply, because they are based on how humans work, not how computers work. Humans don’t get a new release every year. Our memory doesn’t double. Our eyesight doesn’t become sharper. Attention works the same way it always has. Visual recognition, motor skills—all of this is exactly as it was in 1992.
the principles—as long as they are good principles—still apply, because they are based on how humans work, not how computers work.
Humans don’t get a new release every year. Our memory doesn’t double. Our eyesight doesn’t become sharper. Attention works the same way it always has. Visual recognition, motor skills—all of this is exactly as it was in 1992.
In his post, Prokopov references Apple’s 1992 advice and uses numerous screenshots to illustrate how the menu icons in macOS 26 Tahoe negatively impact usability.
When these principles are violated, as they are regularly in Tahoe, users spend more time scanning menus and make more mistakes.
While browsing through the HIG, I came across an even more pointed piece of advice, which states bluntly:
Don’t use any nonstandard marks or arbitrary graphic symbols in menus. They only add visual clutter to the menu and people won’t necessarily understand the significance of the nonstandard marks—for example, they won’t know what a circle, addition sign, or tilde in a menu means.
I’m not personally all that perturbed by Tahoe’s icons because I barely see them. I’m extremely text-focused, so I can’t help but read every word in my field of view, but small monochrome icons are merely background noise. Many of them mean nothing to me, so when I’m forced to use them, I just map a cluster of pixels to some action. That’s why I have trouble with toolbar- and palette-intensive interfaces in apps like Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop. When all the icons look basically the same to me, I have to rely on tooltips and relative placement to accomplish much of anything.
For many users—especially those with low vision—Tahoe’s menu icons increase visual search time and hurt recognition, directly undermining the HIG’s guidance. Read through Prokopov’s examples while thinking about accessibility and then glance at your own menus: do the icons help or hinder?
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ADAM ENGST 3 January 2026
In the wake of Alan Dye leaving Apple (see “Apple Executive Departures Could Signal Welcome Changes,” 5 December 2025), a linked set of three blog posts by Louie Mantia, Garrett Murray, and Jason Snell argues that Apple “shifted from making products for the rest of us” to “conflating good taste with luxury.”
Louie Mantia started by noting how Apple’s design has increasingly used luxury products as its north star:
There’s no doubt Jony has good taste, by the way. He and his team designed great products during the first half of his tenure at Apple. But as he became wealthier, he started to conflate good taste with luxury. Jony often described Apple products with words about craft, material, and precision, all things that appeal to a luxury market. Apple shifted away from making products “for the rest of us” and started making products that appealed specifically to rich people. Not to put too fine a point on it, but they started making products that appealed to themselves.
Garrett Murray expands on the argument, noting:
Jony Ive spent a decade slowly removing any trace of personality from every product Apple released. Apple went from the original translucent-colored plastic aesthetic of the “Bondi blue” iMac G3 and the Power Mac G3 “Blue & White” to the more refined and unique design of the iMac G4 to… a bunch of aluminum rounded rectangles for decades. Chasing thinness, removing ports, simplifying everything down to metal and glass with no differentiation.
And Jason Snell sums it all up with:
It’s one reason I’m so critical about Ive, his overlong tenure at Apple when he was obviously burned out, and the fatal mistake of placing software design in the clutches of him and his lieutenants: I just get the sense that those designers became untethered from the rest of us, chasing idealized product dreams based on the expensive luxury brands they wore, drove, and otherwise used every day. Not that Apple designs ugly stuff, but there is undoubtedly an antiseptic sameness to a lot of it that smacks of a design team that has disappeared up its own white void.
I had never really thought about how Apple’s design has evolved, but this criticism resonates with me. While I admire Apple’s attention to detail, I’ve felt that the company’s products have become too cold, hard, sharp-edged, and slippery. Liquid Glass reflects the same philosophy applied to digital interfaces—it doesn’t look or act like anything we encounter in the real world. Skeuomorphism can easily be overdone, but real-world objects have color, texture, and cultural meaning.
I loved the playful vibe of the colorful gumdrop iMacs and the feel of the white polycarbonate iBook. When we traveled for the holiday break last month, I took my 14-inch MacBook Pro on its first trip, and although I appreciated having my entire digital life with me, I missed the visual and tactile experience of working with my 13-inch MacBook Air in its vinyl skin (though it too is uncomfortably sharp on my palms). I always use an iPhone case because it protects my iPhone from occasional accidental drops, but also because it lets me override Apple’s minimalist style with my own. I like color. I like texture. And apparently, I like trees.
Apple used to know how to make products with personality. The original iMacs, iBooks, and iPods showed that thoughtful design can be both functional and fun. Remember the original iBook’s handle? Apple isn’t incapable of adding warmth and character to its products—it’s choosing not to.
And that choice reveals a problem with luxury-focused design: it can prioritize the designer’s vision over the user’s experience. I suspect that Apple’s designers would be appalled to see their pristine aluminum and glass sullied by cases, stickers, and skins. Apple made billions by understanding what “the rest of us” wanted. It’s time the company considered that we’re not all chasing the same minimalist luxury aesthetic.
William Gallagher
2
Wed Jan 28 2026, 08:30 AM EST · 3 minute read
Malware illustration -- image credit: AppleInsider
Certain sponsored ads on Google have been trying to lead users on to faked Apple support pages that try to get the user to use the Terminal and install malware on Macs.
Where most malware attacks require a user to download and launch an app, researchers at MacKeeper have demonstrated how a number of sponsored Google ads are providing another route for bad agents.
Specifically, during the company's research, searching for the term "mac cleaner" led to some sponsored ads that appeared to be at legitimate addresses such as business.google.com. A user following those links, though, can be taken to a site that has been designed to mimic Apple's support pages.
From there, they are is instructed to open Terminal on their Mac, and enter a specific command. That command makes Terminal display text such as "Cleaning macOS Storage," but it is really executing further malware commands.
It's not clear what those commands are, since part of what the user copies and pastes is deliberately scrambling the final instructions. But the method allows the bad agent to embed any commands they want.
The fact that the commands are scrambled means anti-malware apps can't recognize them. But the key part of this is that while the user doesn't realize it, they are choosing to enter these commands.
It's like electing to open the door to malware, as just a few commands can then give hackers access to the Mac. This is similar to the way hackers send Messages that instruct to bypass Apple's iOSsecurity by choosing to restart that messaging app.
Give these bad actors credit, they mimic Apple Support pages very well — image credit: MacKeeper
At least some of the original Google ads that lead to these fake pages appear to associated with genuine advertisers. The supposition is that they have been hacked, although there is as yet no confirmation of this.
MacKeeper researchers name several such advertisers and say that they have notified Google. In AppleInsider testing, searching on "mac cleaner" appears to no longer surface such ads.
The issue here is that the attack comes first via a sponsored Google ad, so ordinarily a user could assume that was a legitimate company. Then it leads to pages that very well mimic Apple's official ones.
This all makes it the more likely that a user will be fooled, and it's also that much more difficult to determine an ad is fake. But there are certain steps you can take.
First, never believe anything that tells you to enter Terminal commands without checking for at least a second source saying the same thing. We here at AppleInsider have occasionally detailed genuine Terminal commands that are helpful, but in general, leave Terminal to those who know how to use it.
Next, always check where a link is going, or what the address of the site you're now seeing is. For the latter, when you've gone to the site, check your browser's search/address bar.
For the former, when you're presented with a link, hover over it. On Safari on the Mac, the address that link goes to is then displayed at the bottom left of the browser.
In this particular case, that might not help with the original ad since it is directing you to a legitimate site such as business.google.com. But in the final stage, when presented with an apparent Apple support page, these reported attacks all end on sites beginning script.google.com.
Once again, that is actually a legitimate site — but it isn't Apple's. A real Apple support page will only ever be on a site whose address begins support.apple.com.
All of this requires you to vigilant about the address of sites you are going to. And, as in this case, so many of those sites can appear to be legitimate.
One other step you can take, though, is to not look for something specific such as "mac cleaner," but instead "mac cleaner reviews." Look for articles about what you want to know, and see what specific app or product names they cover.
It's all about arming yourself with more information so that you can spot when something appears to be a little off.
Although if you found this article because you searched for "mac cleaner," let us save you searching further. You probably want CleanMyMac. It's available on the Mac App Store.
Marko Zivkovic
The Apple Watch could prove useful to patients who have undergone atrial fibrillation ablation.
The Apple Watch has plenty of potential for health monitoring even after discovery of a condition, and a new study outlines its usefulness in monitoring patients after atrial fibrillation ablation.
While a January 2026 study examined the role of the Apple Watch in identifying undiagnosed atrial fibrillation, a separate research paper suggests the smartwatch could help those who have received treatment for irregular heartbeats by reducing unplanned hospitalizations.
The clinical trial, conducted by St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, focused on patients who had undergone atrial fibrillation catheter ablation. This is a minimally invasive procedure that restores normal heart rhythm by causing small scars in the tissue via freezing or heat.
168 patients were part of the clinical trial, and they were divided into two groups.
Patients in the first group were loaned an Apple Watch Series 5, and were told to conduct an electrocardiogram each day, and whenever the Apple Watch prompted them to do so, for 12 months.
The control group, meanwhile, only underwent interval clinical appointments at three, six, and 12 months, with an atrial fibrillation expert.
The results of the study indicated that those wearing the Apple Watch had a higher likelihood of atrial fibrillation recurrence detection. The median time frame for recurrence detection was also shorter in the Apple Watch group, being 116 days, as opposed to 132 days with the control group.
Recurring atrial fibrillation was also detected more often with those wearing an Apple Watch, with 52.9% of the group, compared to just 34.9% of the patients who received only standard care. According to the study, these results were "driven by more cases of paroxysmal AF."
The total amount of unplanned hospitalizations was also lower in the patient group that wore an Apple Watch — 22 wearers versus 47 in the control group. Patients who wore an Apple Watch were less likely to be hospitalized, as the device is capable of "providing rapid differentiation of atrial fibrillation from benign arrhythmias or unrelated symptoms."
Apple Watch-based monitoring "reduced the time to recurrent arrhythmia detection, increased the overall detection yield, and was associated with fewer unplanned hospitalizations compared with standard care," concludes the study. "These findings may support the integration of patient-owned wearable devices into structured postablation follow-up pathways."
The results of the study aren't all that surprising. Apple's smartwatch, with its ECG hardware, has been credited with saving the lives of its users and even detecting undiagnosed atrial fibrillation.
Overall, the benefits of owning an Apple Watch are clear, with clinical trials such as these perfectly illustrating why that's the case. As for what's in store for the Apple Watch going forward, we could see improved health predictions with the help of AI, including ChatGPT.
