Apple's week August 15: almost iPhone time

Apple's week August 15: almost iPhone time
Yes, that's coffee, more on that later

It was a slow week if you ignore the more controversial headlines in tech. So instead, I've been working on the blog by adding a few new things.

I want to try new formatting for the weekly summary post. Instead of feeling the need to drill into each topic I link to, I will link to some topics I want to highlight at the top, then dive into a discussion below.

Let me know which you prefer: links at the top or links in the content where relevant.

I think the new format cleans up the text and lets me focus on what I want to discuss without feeling obligated to write around the links. If I've got more to say on a topic, I'll expand, but I don't want to waste anyone's time just repeating what's in the links (and things I probably already wrote for AppleInsider).

Anyway, here's the news of the week.

Top stories

There's really no need for me to spend any time giving Elon Musk and his idiotic rants more air. And Trump punting more extreme tariffs in China was always going to happen.

I also have spent several weeks now discussing Apple's AI strategy. We've got more evidence this week that supports its ultimate goal of being a go-to AI platform. Hear more of that on the AppleInsider Podcast.

Since news is otherwise slow this week, let's discuss some of what's new with the HilliTech blog.

The Now Page

I took the time to put together a Now page. This is different from my History/About page, and that should be apparent. I want a place to keep my current projects and thoughts in a single location. If I post updates to it, expect me to share that update via Bluesky.

No need to dwell on it here, go read it! If you visit the page, let me know what you think.

Buy Me A Coffee

I've finally set up some kind of monetization. I purposefully avoided Ghost's membership (for now) because I believe it might lock members behind an annoying email login screen. That's the last thing I want.

See that little mug floating in the bottom right corner? Tap that, it's simple. (If you can't see it, turn off your ad blocker for my website, I don't have ads)

The goal of this blog is to share my thoughts with everyone outside of my AppleInsider work, and making people sign in via an awkward email code would ruin that. So, I went with Buy Me A Coffee.

It's rather straightforward, though I wish it provided an Apple Pay link. Perhaps I'll find something better later, but for now, it's this.

BMAC uses Stripe, so if you've used them before, it'll be pretty easy to submit a tip.

Why am I asking for contributions? Simply because life is expensive and time is money. I want to spend more time writing for this blog, but it has cost me money and I have to spend my precious free time putting posts together.

Of course, I love writing here, but in order to spend any more time than I already do on this instead of projects at AppleInsider that actually make me money, is to make it worth something. I've already spent something like $500 since the blog started to get the website and Ghost service set up, and with nothing coming in, it's not exactly tenable.

Then there's Ghost's new premium perks that would cost me an additional $200 per year. Needless to say, if HilliTech is going to grow beyond being a weekly post and other small content items, I'm going to need to at least break even.

Also, I'm getting married! Even if you don't want to contribute to the blog, you can use the link to help finance my honeymoon. We're going to New Orleans!

Sorry that this week wasn't spent rambling on about Apple Intelligence or iPhone cameras, but I'll be back to that soon enough.

Thanks again for reading. I know my audience is small, but I'm happy to have a place on the web that lets me share, well, whatever this is.

A maine coon mix kitten looks up at the camera, blue couch cushions and a game controller are visible
Marble has no idea how to play Minecraft, but she likes watching