Manton and Daniel react to Apple’s M3 Mac announcement. They have different feelings about the quality of the presentation, but agree on the substance of what was presented. They talk about resisting the urge to upgrade when Macs are increasingly holding their utility for many years. Manton observes that Apple actually talked about “AI” by name, and they both talk about Apple’s relative obliviousness when it comes to AI. Finally, they hint at Manton’s forthcoming road trip, combining work and pleasure.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
Links:
- Apple Events – Landing page that currently hosts the M3 Mac announcement event.
- LLaMA – Facebook/Meta’s open source AI models.
- Touché – Daniel’s free Touch Bar utility for Mac.
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November 2, 2023 at 10:38 pm.
Manton and Daniel talk more about the on-by-default Video Reactions feature, now that it’s been deployed to the masses. They acknowledge the risks of injecting emotional language and imagery into arbitrary digital contexts, and think about how Apple might have introduced the feature differently. Finally, they consider Twitter/X’s new $1/year subscription approach, which might not be the craziest idea they’ve ever heard.
Links:
- The Funniest Thing – Mat Haughie shares the experience of his friend also who encountered video reactions during therapy.
- $1 Annual Fee – The Guardian reports on the trial plan that Twitter/X is rolling out in New Zealand and the Philippines.
- Pinboard – Maciej Cegłowski’s link-saving service, a pioneer of creative payment options.
- Micro.blog – Manton’s microblogging service.
- Cost of Spam – Matt Mullenweg’s reaction to Twitter/X’s $1 subscription experiment.
- Kottke.org Comments – New feature on Jason Kottke’s site, limited to paying subscribers.
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October 20, 2023 at 6:50 pm.
Daniel and Manton Follow-up on whether they ordered any new phones or watches. They talk about resisting the temptation to buy things because they are “shiny and new”. Entropy and the incentive companies do or don’t have to make financial arrangements “simple”. Finally they talk about the risks and rewards of upgrading to macOS Sonoma and Xcode 15.
Links:
- iPhone Upgrade Program – Apple’s annual “subscription” for new iPhones.
- Upton Sinclair – “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
- Mercury Bank – Online virtual business banking.
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September 23, 2023 at 8:42 pm.
Manton and Daniel respond to Apple’s latest special event. They celebrate Tim Cook’s relatively good acting, and perhaps being … funny for the first time? The march of USB-C progress, and how iPhone 15 brings us one step closer to the elimination of Lightning ports. Finally they reflect on the forthcoming release of macOS 14 “Sonoma” and the funny way a new feature injected itself into Daniel’s life.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
Links:
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September 14, 2023 at 11:12 pm.
The end of Twitter is finally nigh, so Daniel and Manton talk about the continuing foolishness of Elon Musk. They celebrate the rebranding to “X” as a relief for people who ever loved anything about Twitter, and talk about Threads as a viable alternative to Twitter. Daniel shares that he has applied for a Vision Pro prototype to develop a VR version of Black Ink. Finally, they take a deeper consideration of the value of pushing yourself into areas you’re not comfortable with or feel unqualified for.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
Links:
- 𝕏 – The social network previously known as Twitter.
- Threads – Meta/Instagram’s new text-based social networking service.
- Bluesky – Another recently debuted social network.
- Mastodon – Increasingly popular federated social networking software.
- Micro.blog – Manton’s social networking site.
- Vision Pro Developer Kit – Enrollment page for requesting a prototype device.
- Everything Around You – Short excerpt of Steve Jobs interview in which he talks about inventing your own reality.
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July 27, 2023 at 8:17 pm.
Daniel and Manton talk about Apple’s threat to withhold FaceTime and Message from the UK. How much leverage should tech companies have over countries? They segue to a discussion of where to draw the line in general on public surveillance. Finally, they struggle to conclude whether or not companies should exert power over governments, and consider Apple’s unlikely goodness for being a huge company.
Links:
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July 21, 2023 at 7:40 pm.
Manton and Daniel talk about Apple’s new visionOS SDK, and debate the virtue of steering clear from “new shiny” technologies, vs. getting acquainted with them as soon as possible. How do we prioritize native platform development while maximizing the ability to deploy to all of Apple’s platforms? They talk about investing time into new platforms and frameworks when the investment will pay off, vs. when the work will be wasted on short-term workaround. When does it makes sense for a company to invest even a small amount of money in their competitors, like Automattic just did? Finally, they touch lightly on the possibility that Facebook will enter the ActivityPub realm, and the ridiculousness in general of NDAs.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
Links:
- Zig When Others Zag – Manton’s quip about focusing more on customers with $5 than with $3500.
- Inside Macintosh – Wikipedia article about the old documentation books for MacOS development.
- Automattic – The company behind WordPress.com and other products.
- Matt Mullenweg – Founder of WordPress and Automattic.
- Tumblr – Short-form blogging site that Automattic acquired.
- Drupal – An open source web publishing framework.
- Automattic Donates €20,000 – WP Tavern article about Automattic’s donation to the Drupal Gutenberg initiative.
- Gutenberg – Home page for the WordPress Gutenberg editor.
- Fedi Admins Meeting – Mastodon post by Michał “rysiek” Woźniak about Facebook’s effort to meet with ActivityPub admins.
- Google’s Evil NDA – 2007 blog post by a developer who also had to sign an NDA in order to interview at Google.
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June 24, 2023 at 7:07 pm.
Daniel and Manton follow up on other news from WWDC. They consider Apple’s autocomplete advances, and question whether this kind of “AI” can fill the gap between Apple’s state-of-the-art and technologies like ChatGPT. They lament the lack of announcements about improvements to Siri, and wonder whether they should “tear it down and start over.” They talk about the new Swift Macros technology, and whether the utility of such a feature outweighs the added complexity. Finally, they gauge the overall success of this year’s WWDC.
Links:
- The Talk Show Live – John Gruber interviews Craig Federighi, Mike Rockwell, John Ternus, and Greg Joswiak.
- GitHub Copilot – AI-based coding assistant that does not integrate with Xcode.
- ChatGPT – Do we really need a link to this? 😂
- UTM – Free, open source virtual machine hosting app for Mac.
- Sourcery – Long-time open source project providing macro-like code generation for Swift.
- DayOne – Popular Mac and iOS journaling app.
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June 16, 2023 at 7:13 pm.
Manton and Daniel talk more about Micro Camp, which will feature a conversation with Om Malik. They talk more about WWDC, Apple headset rumors, and our assumption that they won’t be interesting to us. Finally, they appreciate that it’s been 10 years since Google Glass debuted, and lament how little things have evolved.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
- RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!
Links:
- Micro Camp – Manton’s Micro-blog oriented virtual gathering.
- Om Malik – Writer, photographer, and investor who will be part of Micro Camp.
- Accidental Tech Podcast – A podcast featuring three of our friends.
- Dithering – A podcast featuring two of our other friends.
- Humane – Startup company working on an innovative computing device.
- Apple Presents iPod – Press release from 2001.
- Google Glass – Home page for Google’s defunct, ten-year old wearable computer.
- Trapped in the Metaverse – Joanna Stern’s Wall Street Journal feature about spending 24 hours in VR.
- Everything We Know – The Verge’s rundown on all the rumors around Apple’s alleged VR headset.
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Daniel and Manton talk about the Micro.camp conference happening next week. They summarize some of the planned talks, and weight the pros and cons of deciding to have it be an all-online event. They react to the iPad Pro versions of Logic and Final Cut, and imagine what the news might mean for WWDC announcements.
Links:
- Micro.camp Presenters – An early peek at what to expect from the conference.
- IndieWebCamp – Similar event to Micro.camp but for the larger world of open web interests.
- MarsEdit – Daniel’s Mac-based blog editing app.
- Miraz Jordan – Long-time MarsEdit user who will be presenting on the subject at Micro.camp.
- Ulysses – Mac and iOS editing app with Micro.blog integration.
- iA Writer – Another Mac and iOS app with Micro.blog integration.
- WWDC23 – Apple’s official page for the upcoming event.
- Drupe on Wikipedia – More than you ever wanted to know about stone fruits.
- ChatGPT – The preeminent interactive AI product.
- Logic and FinalCut for iPad – Press release from Apple.
- Chockablock – Gruber’s reaction to Final Cut and Logic for iPad: expect a lot from WWDC.
- Micro.camp Registration – Sign up for the all-virtual conference – it’s free!
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