Happy Sunday everyone! For the Ginter household, summer officially kicks off after tax season — the girls finish their school years at the end of June, we all take some holidays, we work hard to find a beach a few times a month, and we spend far more time with each other than throughout the rest of the year. It's quickly becoming my favourite time of year.

On Legacy

I'll reflect on learning lessons from this past tax season in the coming weeks or months. Today's reflection is on legacy.

In but 100 years, the homes we live in either won't exist or will exist in an unrecognizable form. Our names will be etched into a stone somewhere nestled by our final resting place. Our great, great, great grandchildren likely won't know our names. Our experiences will be of mythology and legend — trust me, I do remember a time before smartphones and computers!

You can structure things to carry on well after your death, however. You can create foundations, donate endowment funds, or provide charity to your church, all of which can have a lasting impact and ensure your interests and passions will be taken care of for generations to come.

Foundations in particular are interesting — they receive donations, invest the funds, and create funds that pay out earnings according to the directions of the donor or according to the decisions made by a well-intentioned board. Many of these donations will be received upon the passing of the donor, while others are received while the donor is alive. Either way, foundations provide an administrative arm to ensure a person's legacy is provided proper stewardship and their passions are covered for generations to come.

Some of the numbers we're talking about here: the Toronto Foundation administers assets worth approximately $844 million while the Winnipeg Foundation — believe it or not — administers a staggering $1.65 billion. Manitoba is home to the happiest and most charitable people on the planet.

I love the function foundations provide. And their function will only gain in importance in the decades to come. Playing a role on these boards is a great experience and ensures stewardship skills are developed before a person truly experiences their own wealth later in life.

But I want to challenge folks who sit on foundation boards to shine the light on the original donors in a more enhanced way. I read a few local news articles this week and saw a few photos where board members of a foundation stood around a giant cheque which had been donated to a local cause. This is all amazing news, of course! But nowhere was it mentioned who donated the original money or which fund the donations came from.

In short, I want those who sit on a board for a foundation to remember the important responsibility they hold: stewardship. Your job is to ensure stewardship of assets you didn't earn and shine the spotlight on those who donated and those who benefit. I'm always grateful for the decision-making foundations do to keep good causes moving forward for generations to come. I also hope we can always remember that it isn't our generation giving that money away — that legacy was left by someone long ago, who had their own life story, their own experiences, and their own passions. Someone worthy of the spotlight themselves.

My First Impressions Review of the Nintendo Switch 2

My parents purchased our family's first gaming console when I was seven years old. My brother and I unboxed that Super Nintendo and had no idea what it was. It came with Super Tennis and Stunt Race FX, the latter of which became the first video game I ever played.

My brother and I played thousands of hours of Super Nintendo in the years to come. When we got older, our older cousin introduced us to Nintendo 64, which further changed our later childhood and early teenage years. Super Nintendo and N64 were truly formative for my brother and I — we learned to relate to one another through Nintendo video games and we will both hold memories for the rest of our lives involving those original Donkey Kong and Super Mario games.

It's amazing how little has changed from when I was seven years old to now, when my oldest daughter is seven years old.

I brought the Nintendo Switch 2 into the house and connected the dock to our family room TV for the first time. My daughters saw me grab the little Joy-Cons from the side of the device, fire up Mario Kart World, and watched one game as I zoomed around and tried to remember the controls (the controls haven't really changed since Super Mario Kart in 1992).

Half a race in and their eyes lit up. The same light my brother and I had the first time we played Stunt Race FX.

This is a level of delight few products could bring to my household right now. We've had a pile of fun the last two weeks playing against each other (I've even enjoyed a few later evenings with my wife racing around a few times!). These are formative memories that will be remembered for decades to come. And I'm so grateful Nintendo is still leading the charge in providing safe, family fun in a video game world full of blood, gore, and horrific storylines.

I could wax poetic for a long while about the Nintendo Switch 2. I — and more importantly, my family — absolutely love the Switch 2 so far. I'm not sure you'll ever get a good review out of me, though. I have nothing to truly compare it to, as I never played the original Switch. I'm just giddy about its entry into our lives.

My more specific anecdotal thoughts so far:

• The Switch 2 is far bigger than I was expecting. I've certainly seen Switch 1 consoles out in the wild and always took them to be relatively small devices. This Switch 2 feels gigantic and I'm not sure I would be randomly throwing this into a messenger bag each and every day.
• The Switch 2 is full of whimsy and delight in every corner. No detail stone has been left unturned. The UX sounds are crisp and fun. The soundtracks in the games are fun and memorable. The UI is easy to understand and utilize and is bright and delightful. The blue and red Joy Con colours add a dash of pizazz to the console. It's just so much fun to hold and use for hours on end.
• Joy-Cons are pure genius. The fact these controllers detach and become their own little mini controllers is outrageously out-of-this-world fantastic. The tiny controllers fit my daughters' hands nicely, too. But then, each Joy Con can convert to a mouse? Seriously?! And then the display can be put onto the table and you can just invite anyone sitting around you to a quick game of Mario Kart or Super Smash? Come on! Joy-Cons are proof their is incredible innovativeness in the world today.
• Virtual game cards can be borrowed to others for 14-day stretches. I'm not used to a video game company being so compatible with how a user-base would use their products. If I had a physical game card that I wasn't using at the moment, I'd quickly borrow it to someone to try. A virtual game card should effectively eliminate this. But Nintendo said "Nope, you can totally borrow that virtual game card to a friend or family member." I can't help but feel like Nintendo is providing a giant warm hug each time I discover a new feature in the Nintendo eShop.
• Game Chat is hilariously fun. On Xbox, you have to have a proper headset connected to your controller to be able to talk to folks you're playing with online. With the Switch 2, you can just... talk to your friends directly. No extra microphones or anything. A few friends and I fired up a Mario Kart race and the ability to fire off some banter midway through the race is some of the most fun I've ever had playing video games.
• Two charging ports is really nice. The ability to charge both on top and on the bottom is just more of Nintendo providing warm hugs to its users.
• Being able to play offline is one of those features I had no idea was so valuable. I have been an Xbox Game Pass subscriber for the last year or so and played a lot of EA Sports Masters Golf 2023, Star Wars Battlefront II, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. I love those games! But if you are a subscriber, you have to be connected to the internet to play. All those connections take time to load and slow down the experience. The Switch 2 just... fires up the game and you can play. It feels like an instant blast of fun each time I pick it up.
• We are spoiled for battery life in the Apple world. There's a ton of horsepower firing inside this Switch 2 and that takes some serious battery power to do it on the go. Three to six hours of battery life isn't great and will require power sources on the fly if we want to travel anywhere with the family. For us, we have power in the truck and we don't tend to travel more than three hours in a day as a family anyway. But I can see how this could be a problem on somewhat longer flights.

All in all, the Nintendo Switch 2 is every bit I was hoping for as a father. The Switch 2 has quickly cemented itself inside those formative memories for my daughters and, somehow, has kept my fascination nearly 30 years after my first experience. Few companies could pull this off with this much delight.

The Second Cup

Interview: Craig Federighi Opens Up About iPadOS, Its Multitasking Journey, and the iPad's Essence

Good get for MacStories.

007 First Light - Announcement Trailer - Nintendo Switch 2

Speaking of formative memories — like every '90s kid, Goldeneye sat alone as the greatest game ever made. No chance First Light lives up to that level, but I'm going to give it a try nonetheless.

Reasonably unreasonable

Though there are a number of nuggets in this short piece, I love the characteristic defined as "Someone who collects skills and resources". "Collecting skills" doesn't need to mean "be a jack-of-all-trades" — there are breadth and depth components to this characteristic.

Kinesis mWave Mechanical Keyboard

Found this one thanks to Clicks 'n Clacks, one of my favourite newsletters. I have long loved the Microsoft Surface Ergonomic keyboard. As it's seemingly discontinued, I have been looking for alternatives. This one from Kinesis is intriguing, especially the idea of jumping to a specific number pad layer. I wonder how this works in practice.

Happy Sunday everyone. I hope you have a great week ahead.

Happy Sunday and Happy Father’s Day! Of all days during the year, today is the day I always feel most blessed. This morning, my daughters rushed into our bedroom bearing handmade gifts from school and daycare. We had a quick family breakfast before heading to church, where there’s always a quick reminder of how good I have it. Praise the Lord for the opportunity to be such a blessed father.

This was a busy week — in the sense of having lots to do, but also in the sense of having plenty to talk about. In one quick week, we had more real world Nintendo Switch 2 reviews hit the airwaves, a first look and test run of iOS/iPadOS/macOS 26, and more. New is fun, risks are exciting, and change can be overwhelming.

My First Impressions of iPadOS 26

iPadOS 26 is, indeed, new, fun, risky, and full of change. For some, potentially not enough new, fun, risk, or change, and for others, too much new, fun, risk, and change. I'm most certainly in the middle — I don't want too much new or change to hit my work devices, but a little risk here and there is always welcome. I'm particularly excited to see where Apple takes these new operating systems in the coming months.

This is the first time I have ever tried a developer beta, let alone Developer Beta Number One. Indeed, it has its issues. The software keyboard seems to cause all sorts of issues and I've had a few crashes along the way. But, in general, I've been really surprised at how well this very first developer beta has held up. I attempted to write this Sunday Edition on iPad while connected to the Studio Display and ran into enough issues that I had to switch over to my Mac. Other than this, iPadOS 26 has operated impressively smoothly for me.

I personally love this Liquid Glass design ethos. It feels new and fresh in so many ways and showcases Apple's attention to detail in such a unique way. The refractive elements throughout iPadOS are simply stunning. I just want to play with the iPad, move windows around, tap on elements, and try new things. I was reaching for my iPad for all sorts of personal computing in the evenings before. I'm now finding myself reaching for the iPad for new reasons.

Windowing in iPadOS 26 represents the most significant indicator ever showcasing Apple's ear to the floor — it may have come five or six years after many of the most demanding iPad users were calling for it, but windowing has now arrived, and operates quite well. And it's not just windowing either — the traffic lights in the top-left corner provide extra options for organizing your open windows, while the pulldown menu bar offers a "Window" list for centering apps, moving them around, and more. You can mould and shape your iPad experience now more than ever. And it works well as a version 1 considering this is optimized for your blunt finger rather than a precise mouse cursor.

I wasn't a major iPad productivity artist in the past, though I've had someone ask me if I was using a new version of the iPad, as the software on-screen wasn't shaped the way they were used to seeing (a Quick Note and ChatGPT window alongside Books in Stage Manager was how I had the screen set up). I had learned my way around the iPad's Stage Manager.

This windowing system is a step up from Stage Manager in terms of power. You can have more than four apps open at once (though so far I haven't found a need for more than that at once). Windows can now be nestled slightly off-screen or behind other windows (Stage Manager always kept at least part of an app open so you could tap on it to bring it to the top of your view). And there seems to be more of an incentive now to plug into an external display and whip out a mouse and keyboard — a more precise cursor and more-easily adjusted window sizes makes for a quicker window setup on an external display. I'm excited to put this external display support to the test once Apple has more of the bugs ironed out in the coming weeks.

Lastly, Preview — I'm a PDF Expert subscriber on the Mac, which means I have the iPadOS version available to me as well. Preview by no means provides the same kind of value as PDF Expert on the iPad. It finds itself midway between the old previewer available on iPad and the power of PDF Expert. Highlights don't stick to a line of text in Preview (I can't stand this, personally), while form autofilling is available (and works reasonably well, too). I use PDFs a ton on iPad and a better Preview should push other PDF app makers to stay ahead of the pack.

All in all, my iPadOS 26 impressions are so good that I want to install iOS 26 on my iPhone. I'm really impressed with Apple's ability to weigh the call from the tech community to push the boundaries of what's possible while still ensuring the current (massive) user base isn't entirely alienated. Bugs will get ironed out. Design mistakes will be altered or removed. But the current rendition is a really impressive first take at the next 10 years of Apple's software design.

One side-note: I'm disgusted with how distasteful criticism has become online. The minutes, hours, and days following Apple's WWDC keynote were filled with some of the worst kinds of criticism a person can muster when it comes to a piece of technology. Being happy about something is now frowned upon. And positively cheering for someone is a sign of weakness.

One person put it this way: "The only way to have your opinion heard online is to be mean, so I guess I have to be mean."

No, you don't have to be mean. You don't need to resort to harshness for someone to hear you. Being slow to speak and quick to hear can provide that same critique you're hoping to get across, and is 100% more likely to be productive in the long run.

Negativity is a demon that fuels some people. That's not good fuel. Put a filter on the tongue. Watch, wait, and see how things shake out.

The Second Cup

Brendon Bigley on Liquid Glass

More on iOS 26/iPadOS 26/macOS 26 and how it's bringing some newfound — and perhaps unexpected — joy to seasoned Apple users.

Bauhaus Clock

Here's a fun, unique, and nicely designed wallpaper for your Mac. As a bonus, it looks like the designer has a great work setup as well.

How to regain control of your life today

I enjoyed this video about how an analog notebook changed Maurice's productivity workflows. I used a paper notebook this week for tracking some tasks and found it did a better job than Things or Reminders or time-boxing for staying on task. Searching for past completed tasks? Not as good for that, of course.

Nintendo Switch 2 Review - It's A Switch, Too

Gamespot's review of the Nintendo Switch 2. I'm excited to outline my thoughts on the Switch 2 next week. For now — it may be my favourite purchase in years.

Happy Sunday. Hope you have a great week ahead.