Enthusiastic Recommendations — July 11, 2025

Hello! I hope you’ve had a good week. I’m writing this today while on the train on my way to the gym. It’s starting to heat up again in London this week, so pray for me.

Sophia is getting close to rolling over now—she keeps getting halfway there, so it’s coming any day now. It’s crazy to see how fast they grow. It was Adina’s and my wedding anniversary last week, and I was surprised to remember that it was exactly one year ago that we knew for sure she was pregnant. What a difference a year makes.

I wanted to point your attention to this week’s episode of Connected. I started out needing half a Red Bull (Wednesdays are starting to feel like very long days), so I wasn’t sure how my participation on the show would go, but we ended up having a really great conversation about the change to Liquid Glass in Beta 3.

I would sum up my overall feeling as disappointment. I don’t want Apple to abandon the work they’ve started by changing it to a more ‘Frosted Glass’ look — because if they do, what was the point of it all? I hope they find a more middle-ground approach that achieves the look they intended while still giving people something fully usable. If we remove the transparency, why call it glass at all? Maybe it should have just been called ‘Liquid UI.’ Anyway, I’m spoiling the conversation now — you should go listen to it.

Let’s get on with my recommendations for this week:

• I’m technically recommending a project I was part of here, but it was so much fun and I bet you’re going to love it. My buddy Quinn Nelson asked me to host a game show focused on the guidelines of the Apple Style Guide. From a content perspective, I was confident I could do this — the nerves came from who I’d be putting through the game: Quinn, Linus Sebastian, Scott the Woz, and Marques Brownlee. Quite the cast of content creators. From a technical perspective, it was a stretch for me to produce something that looked good on video, but I’m very happy I put in the work and was honored to be part of this video.
• The British Grand Prix last weekend was a ton of fun (LET’S GO LANDO 🇬🇧), so I thought this would be a good opportunity to mention my favorite F1 content creators—P1 with Matt and Tommy. I watch and listen to their content on both YouTube and Instagram, and I really appreciate the fun they have while talking about the sport I love.
• Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 came out this week. This is a combined remake of two games I played a tonne as a kid. It’s been so weird to replay the levels and immediately remember where I was when I played them over 20 years ago. I bought this game for Switch 2, and it plays really well — it looks great! However, this isn’t a game that’s comfortable to play handheld with the Joy-Con controllers — they just don’t suit something so fast-paced. This is a perfect game for the Pro Controller, and I’ve even been playing it using the kickstand of the Switch instead of docking it to the TV. I really hope a third party makes some more ergonomic (chunkier) Joy-Con soon. I loved the Hori Split Pad Pro for my original Switch.
• For years and years, I’ve used a poor quality toiletry bag I bought on Amazon solely because it’s massive. I pack pretty heavily when it comes to toiletries, so a big bag is a must. All other bags I tried weren’t big enough. Thankfully, my favorite bag company, Bellroy, has made an XL version of their toiletry kit. Now I can get everything I want into a quality product. If anything it may even be too big!
• We just finished Your Friends and Neighbors on Apple TV+. This show is a good time, with great presentation. I enjoyed the performances across the board and loved seeing Jon Hamm in this role. The story gets a little convoluted toward the end, but I really enjoyed how it ultimately wraps up. I’m looking forward to a second season.
• I finished writing this today after seeing the new Superman movie. There’s an awful lot riding on this movie as it attempts to relaunch the DC universe of superhero films, and I think they’re in great hands with James Gunn. I really enjoyed this movie — it hit all the notes I wanted and feels like a great foundation for DC to rebuild from. It’s well-worth seeing in theatres (thank you to my wife who looked after our baby so I could go).

That’s it for this week! I hope you have a wonderful weekend ahead. Thanks so much for reading!