A Tale of Two Path Separators

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macOS supports two path separators—slash (/) and colon (:)—due to its heritage from both the Unix-like NeXTSTEP system and the classic Mac OS HFS+ file system, which used colons. As a result, files that appear to have slashes in their names in Finder actually contain colons at the system level, and tools like ls display them with colons instead; this dual separator system persists for compatibility despite macOS transitioning to APFS in 2017. AppleScript commonly uses colon separators reflecting its classic Mac origins, while POSIX-style paths with slashes are used in Unix contexts, illustrating macOS’s translation between the two conventions.

https://alexwlchan.net/2021/slashes/

Apple Internals: Swift in the Kernel

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Josh Maine’s article explores the integration of the Swift programming language into the Apple kernel, highlighting how Swift’s safety and modern syntax can improve kernel development. The piece discusses technical challenges and benefits, emphasizing Swift’s potential to enhance system reliability and maintainability within Apple’s operating system infrastructure.

https://blog.calif.io/p/apple-internals-swift-in-the-kernel

LaunchOS for Mac — Best Launchpad Alternative for macOS 26 Tahoe

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LaunchOS is a native, high-performance Launchpad alternative designed for macOS 26 (Tahoe) and macOS 27, restoring the classic app launcher experience with smooth animations and added customization features. Offering both a free Basic version and a Pro upgrade, it supports features like import of native layouts, customizable grids, hot corners, and trackpad gestures, aiming to improve productivity by bringing back a familiar yet enhanced interface on the latest macOS versions.

https://launchosapp.com/

Omni – Local Semantic Search for Your Mac

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Omni is a native macOS app that provides fast, local semantic search across all file types—including text, code, images, audio, and video—using an on-device embedding model running fully offline on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 14 or later. It indexes user-selected folders into a local vector database allowing queries by meaning rather than keywords, supports multilingual search, displays folder contents as similarity-based maps, and offers a local API for AI agents, all while preserving privacy with no data leaving the Mac. The app features extensive search filtering, keyboard navigation, incremental updating, and configurable performance and storage options to optimize indexing and search workflows.

https://hanxiao.io/omni/

Permute – Media Converter for macOS

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Permute 4 is a macOS-native media converter by Charlie Monroe Software that supports over 100 formats, enabling users to convert, edit, and manage video, audio, images, PDFs, and text files with a simple drag-and-drop interface. It offers advanced features like trimming, cropping, subtitle addition, hardware-accelerated encoding, and smart tools such as OCR and text-to-audio narration, all without subscription via a one-time $14.99 license. Permute 4 emphasizes ease of use alongside professional capabilities and integrates tightly with the Mac ecosystem to streamline media workflows.

https://software.charliemonroe.net/permute/

macOS 27 Golden Gate Kills Time Capsule Support

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macOS 27 Golden Gate removes AFP support, ending Time Machine compatibility with all Time Capsule models that rely on AFP and SMBv1 protocols, which do not meet the new SMBv2/SMBv3 and TLS 1.2 network security requirements. A community project called TimeCapsuleSMB offers a workaround by installing modern Samba software on supported Time Capsule hardware, though this requires manual activation on older models and starts a new backup chain. Intel Mac users can continue using Time Capsule by staying on macOS 26, but Apple silicon Macs upgrading to macOS 27 will need alternative backup solutions.

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/06/17/macos-27-golden-gate-kills-time-capsule-support/

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