Chris Hannah

Sam Henri Gold:

There is a certain kind of computer review that is really a permission slip. It tells you what you’re allowed to want. It locates you in a taxonomy — student, creative, professional, power user — and assigns you a product. It is helpful. It is responsible. It has very little interest in what you might become.

The MacBook Neo has attracted a lot of these reviews.

This is one of my favourite pieces of writing I've read for a while.

It reminds me of my own experience, when I was a teenager, saving up to get my first Mac. A base model 13" MacBook from around 2005/06. That limited machine opened me up to the world of Apple, development, blogging, and what essentially led to my career as a software engineer.

Robert Birming:

Not knowing what to write about is probably one of the most common blogging struggles. Believing you have nothing interesting to say.

This is a great post. It serves as a reminder that just because you have become accustomed to something, doesn't mean it's not interesting.

I've had a 14" M1 MacBook Pro for over 4 years now, and it's served me well since then. Apart from storage limitations (500 GB), I haven't felt held back by this machine at any point.

However, I can't say I haven't been temped by shiny new things. Every time there's been a new generation of M chip released I wonder what the increase in performance would feel like.

But performance on it's own is unlikely to convince me to upgrade. I usually need three things:

• Some level of base performance. It can't be substantially worse in any area.
• It needs at least one objective improvement. This may be a performance boost.
• Something interesting. A new colour, chassis, display...

itsThe MacBook Neo certainly fits the last point. It's an interesting device, I like the size, the colours, and that it's super cheap and can be used like a travel laptop. But there's no objective reason for this to be an upgrade. It can just stay as an interesting device.

The MacBook Air is also intriguing. I like the 15" model, as I'd get a slightly bigger screen size, and a thinner chassis. Even if it's fan-less, and not a Pro version of an M chip, I think a base M4 chip would perform better than an M1 Pro, so there's an objective improvement. For something interesting,I like the darker grey colour, and I would really like a thinner laptop. But the screen would be a downgrade, so it doesn't meet the first point.

Once I was at this point, I thought I'd check the MacBook Pro. It's the same model, so it definitely meets the base expectations compared to my current laptop. It's the newer model, so objectively every component is better, especially the chip. But it's the same chassis, same colour, same weight... There's nothing particularly interesting about this laptop.

So without anything breaking, or my use case changing, I don't think there's a suitable upgrade available for me. After 4 years.

If I was being negative, I'd say the Neo was rubbish, the Air has a poor display, and the Pro is boring.

But I think the reality is that the base model 14" MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip is simply an incredible device. I wonder if after another 4 years, people will still be happily using M1 chips. I suspect so.

One reason I built Miniroll was because I wanted a place to discover new blogs to read. However, even if I added an explore page where you can view a random set of blogrolls and blogs that have been added, it's hard to judge a blog by a name.

But if you could just see a recent blog post, you may be more inclined to have a read.

That's why I've now create the Miniroll Global Feed for Miniroll Pro users..

It regularly goes through each public blogroll and fetches the lastest blog post. Then on the Global page, it will show the 100 most recent blog posts from all of the blogs.

I think it's going to be a better way to help with blog discovery. Personally, I plan on using it when I'm a bit bored and want something to read that doesn't evolve into an infinite social media scrolling session.

There seems to be a very big gap in the capabilities of modern computers compared to the actual use case of the general person. Whether it's a phone, laptop, or any type of technology. Marketing and society seems to tell you that everyone needs to have the best version of everything.

But it's not the case. As for the general person, when they use a computer, they're probably doing a very small set of activities. Most people aren't editing videos, developing software, or doing anything particularly resource intensive.

That's why I've long thought the best (Apple) computer for most people was probably an iPad. You can watch TV/movies, browse the web, play games, read emails, etc. It does everything most people need.

But there's still one "problem". It runs iPadOS. And even as far as it’s come, it’s still not macOS or Windows. So there was always some level of adaptation needed, even if minor. As a lot of paradigms on how computers are used are simply different.

Whereas now, if you want an Apple computer, and you either don’t need to do particularly complex tasks, or you’re on a tight budget, then I don’t think the iPad is the best choice anymore.

It's obviously too early to say this for definite, given it's literally only just been announced. However, I think the MacBook Neo will take that role. It's a modest computer compared to the other options, but it does everything that most people need it to do. It's also at a fantastic price point, which makes a big difference. And it's still a Mac, which brings a sense of quality and status.

I think the Neo will become the Apple computer that will be recommended for people that “just need a computer”.

At the start of 2026, I wrote about wanting to produce more this year, and so far I've been doing just that.

Back in January I launched Miniroll, a way to create, manage, share, and embed blogrolls.

Since then, I also soft-launched Miniship, which lets you create, manage, and embed changelogs for your project. And just last night I shipped Minifocus, which is very niche, it lets you a central "focus" state and then embed elsewhere.

Miniroll

Miniroll was the first thing I shipped this year, and it's doing well. There are over 30 users, some of them paying for the premium features, and over 30 public blogrolls.

It's still very fresh, but it's starting to feel like a relatively complete product. You can create private/public blogrolls, import/export OPML files, embed blogrolls with various styles and options, generate combined RSS feeds, and quite a bit more

I personally like checking the explore page, and using the Random Blog button to find something new.

Miniship

As I was working on Miniroll, I was keeping an updated changelog on the site. Which I then reaised could be a service by itself. So Miniship was born.

I didn't do a big launch, as I'm still working through feature development. But the core is ready right now, and now I'm working on adding a premium level. Right now you can create a single changelog which has it's own RSS feed, and it's own public page, which you can embed on your site directly.

I've already added changelogs for all three Mini projects to Miniship, and I already find it useful myself. So I suspect other people may also find some value in it as well.

Minifocus

Now for the latest experiment, Minifocus. This is a project that I built for myself, and was because I wanted a dynamic "current focus" on my blogs home page that didn't require a full rebuild to update.

I don't expect it to gain much attention, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's only me that uses it.

All you can do at the moment is to set a current focus, and then view it on a public profile or embed it on your site. There's an explore page, which in theoery will show the most 100 recent updates, but it's just myself a the moment.

I may add a few small tweaks, such as being able to see and quickly select recent entries. But I don't expect I'll add too much.

The little number of followers I have on Instagram are probably going to unfollow me soon. I think I'm going to start sharing square-cropped and overfiltered photos again.

Recently, I've been thinking about Instagram. What it used to be, and what it is now.

I wish Instagram was 2012 Instagram.

— Chris 💻 (@chrishannah) February 8, 2026

In the good days of Instagram, people shared over-filtered square-cropped insights into their daily life. It was a real social network. You followed people, usually your friends, and you can see what they were up to, they can see what you are up to. And you generally comment on each others posts.

YouTube recommended this 13 year old video from Casey Neistat about how to use Instagram, and that certainly made me feel more nostalgic about it used to be.

There are many reasons why Instagram isn't the same anymore. Part of it is down to the social media landscape, and habits of social media users. As I think we've now become a generation of consumption.

But part of it is down to the evolution of Instagram as a platform. Before you edited and shared photos, viewed other peoples photos, and exchanged likes and comments. Now you've got algorithms dictating your For You feed, Reels, and Explore page.

If you want to share something, you don't use the most prominent button in the tab bar, you tap on a button on the top-right of the screen. Which directs you to share a Story. A fleeting moment, that someone will quickly tap past as they're viewing the stories from all the influencers and brands they follow.

That's where I think it went wrong for Instagram, when brands joined in and "Influencers" started to pop up. For me, that's when Instragram started to become less about people sharing photos with people.

I want to start using Instagram like those days, posting more personal moments, less "perfect" shots, more just general life. And to "the grid", instead as a fleeting story. But I do feel that even if I persevered, Instagram simply may not be the place for that anymore.

If you want to find me on Instagram, you can do so: @lordchrishannah^[1].

This year is already off to a productive start, as I've launched my first new project!

It's called Miniroll, and it's a way to create, share, and embed blogrolls. Along with many other things.

It's not just about your blogrolls either, as you can choose to make them public. Which means other people can too! So you can find other peoples blogrolls and find new blogs in the Explore section.

There's a whole bunch of features that Miniroll already supports, which is wild as it's only just "launched" today. But as of right now, every user can:

• Create and manage a blogroll.
• Make the blogroll public, and let others know what you're reading.
• Import and export OPML files to make everything easier.
• Use CMD+K to open the command palette, or use keyboard shortcuts directly for most actions.
• Embed your blogroll on your own site!

And if you're generous enough to sign up for the premium tier ($2 monthly, $20 yearly), you can:

• Have as many blogrolls as you want.
• Use a custom URL for your public blogroll.
• Allow people to suggest new blogs via the blogroll or an embed.
• Customise your embed with custom CSS, removing the Miniroll link, show the title, or add custom footer text.
• Get a single RSS feed for your blogroll. Which is dynamic as your blogroll changes.
• Get some basic analytics on the number of views and clicks your blogroll has attracted.

There's all of that, and a bunch more on the way soon!

If that sounds interesting, check out Miniroll.

You can keep up with development on Mastodon or X.

I heard about an app called Awake on MacStories. It's an alarm clock app, which is specifically designed for heavy sleepers, or people who tend to enjoy pressing the snooze button in the morning. People like me.

There are three main parts of the app: your schedule, missions, and morning briefing.

I haven't used that many alarm apps, so I don't know if this is a common feature, but I really like the schedule feature. I work from home on some days, go to the office on others, and enjoy more sleep on the weekend. And I'd rather not need to manually set this every night.

For times when you've stayed up a bit later than planned, the app will notice if you are past your estimated bedtime, and help to push back your alarm temporarily to ensure you get your ideal sleep time. That's pretty neat.

Now for the core of the app, the missions. These are essentially actions that will happen automatically, or activities that you need to complete in order to turn your alarm off in the morning.

I went with something simple, just five very basic maths questions. As my aim isn't to do anything spectacular, I just need my brain to be activated just that little bit, in order to help me to wake up. Otherwise, I'm going back to sleep.

As for the morning briefings, this isn't something that I've particularly used. I have it show me the weather and my calendar. But I don't tend to have much in my personal calendar, and the weather in Britain tends to be the same most days. But they do have a to-do app called Structured which can also be added here, so that is something I may look into soon.

But for the alarm clock itself, I have to say that I'm very pleasantly surprised with how effective it's been. I've used it since mid-December last year when the review was posted on MacStories, and for a while I still had an additional alarm set in the iOS Alarm app just as a backup. But it's never been needed. I just use Awake.

Previously, I found it pretty hard waking up on days where I travelled to the office, as that meant getting up around 6:30 to 7:00. That used to require multiple staggered alarms to ensure that a little extra snooze didn't mean I was suddenly super late for work. But now I get one alarm, I do my little maths questions, then I get up. Because otherwise, that second alarm sound is loud!