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.
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.
Daniel returns home from vacation and he and Manton talk about Meta’s Threads launch. They discuss how misunderstandings about what ActivityPub provides could impact expected user-facing features. Finally they revisit whether Tumblr will still support ActivityPub, and which platform gets there first: Tumblr or Threads?
Daniel and Manton start with a discussion of the possible Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk cage match, the value of Nintendo Switch’s subscription service, and whether Elon Musk is getting better at not making empty promises. Then Daniel gives a first-look at the macOS Sonoma beta and specifically the feature to save Safari web apps to the Dock.
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.
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.
WWDC 2023 recap, with an emphasize on the Apple Vision Pro. Manton’s road trip to Colorado instead of Cupertino. Daniel and Manton discuss whether Apple missed the AI bandwagon, and they try to predict the technical future of the headset.
Manton and Daniel recap Micro Camp 2023 and look forward to WWDC, including events from John Gruber and try! Swift. Then they wrap up with how Daniel’s 50%-off sale for MarsEdit went.
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.
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.