For many years now, part of the co-marketing agreements between Apple and the Big Three is Apple agreeing to require a postpaid account with a Big Three carrier for all “special” iPhone financing deals, including the old iPhone Upgrade Program and the new Apple Upgrade leasing.

Ulysses S. Grant, in 1875:

Where the citizen is sovereign and the official the servant, where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign — the people — should possess intelligence.

The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation. If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.

Not sure if the 2020s count as “the near future”, but holy hell is that a spot-on synopsis of our current moment.

Bobby Allyn, reporting for NPR: Trump Media & Technology Group is now shopping to traders and investors a premium version of Truth Social delivering early access to the feeds of high-profile users, including the president. Starting Saturday, for a fee of up to $100,0...

Boris Cherny, head of Claude Code at Anthropic, was interviewed by Diana Hu on stage at Y Combinator’s Startup School 2026 last week. Starting around 20:30 in the video, he briefly discussed directing Claude to perform difficult tasks: Cherny: I think the skill nowadays ...

My thanks to Agent Fone for sponsoring last week at DF. Agent Fone is a crazily ambitious new smartphone that doesn’t merely ship with a built-in AI assistant. Instead, the entire concept is that it enables you to create custom software, right on the phone itself. Ideas for new apps that you’ve had in your notes for years. Weird little app ideas that only you would want. Describe your idea, answer a few questions, and Agent Fone builds an app, or widget, and it’s on your home screen. They’re looking for 50 people and small teams to sell the first 50 hardware units to. If you’re interested, check out their website for all the information you need, and broader description of the platform.

Michael Lopp, at Rands in Repose: I have felt since it was announced that the Apple iPhone Upgrade Program has not just been a deal, but a steal. The specifics: You apply for a loan for a full-price iPhone at 0%. If approved, your payments are split over 24 months. Pay...

Jason Snell: On Thursday, Apple announced record third-quarter earnings, with total revenue of $109.4B, up 16 percent from the year-ago quarter. iPhone revenue was up 22%, Mac revenue was up 10.4%, Services revenue was up 12%, and Wearables revenue was up 6%. iPad revenu...

Louie Mantia returns to the show to talk about the state of UI and icon design on Apple’s platforms, and some speculation on Apple’s trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI.

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Shop like a billionaire.

Mark Zuckerberg, in an op-ed Tuesday for The Wall Street Journal (gift link; and irony isn’t lost that “everyone” needs a paid WSJ subscription to read this):

We are fortunate to live at an incredible moment in history. In the next few years, people will be able to use superintelligence beyond human capacity to create and discover extraordinary new things, build new businesses, express our ideas, learn new concepts, and improve our lives, health, relationships and careers.

Perhaps we’ll be able to use it to build a metaverse too. Or to keep our attention on a major initiative for more than two or three years.

Samuel Axon, Ars Technica: Apple has released iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS 26.6. Apart from potential security hotfixes, these are likely the last updates before the arrival of iOS 27, macOS 27, and so on. All of today’s releases include minor bug fixes, and th...

Paul Kafasis, on the Rogue Amoeba blog back in April: Though Sparkle serves us very well, it has one notable downside. Update announcements are most likely to appear at the least convenient time: right after you’ve launched the app. You want to start recording with Audio...

Damon Beres, writing for The Atlantic under the hed/subhed: “The New iPhone Underclass: Apple’s rental program is a trap”: The Klarna plan — “Apple Upgrade,” which replaces the iPhone Upgrade Program — is truly, legally, a lease. This is confusing! And it’s confusing in ...

Ryan Christoffel, writing for 9to5Mac: Apple Upgrade launched this week, and the iPhone Upgrade Program is being discontinued as a result. But despite some similarities, the two offerings are not the same. Here are the key differences. I wrote yesterday that there seem...

Last week 9to5Mac reported on code in the latest iOS 27 developer beta seemingly meant to restrict leased devices after the user had missed one or more payments. When engaged, Restricted Mode limits the device to the following apps: Accessibility Reader App Store Health Ma...

Apple Newsroom: Apple today announced Apple Upgrade, a new product leasing program provided by Klarna for iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac, and iPad available on the Apple Store online, in the Apple Store app, and at Apple Store locations in the United States. Apple Upgrade make...

New from Tapbots: version 3 of their excellent clipboard manager for Mac. There are so many clipboard managers for the Mac. I run two other apps — Keyboard Maestro and LaunchBar — that offer good clipboard managers as ancillary features. But for years now I’ve chosen to use ...

Nate Anderson, reporting for Ars Technica under the headline “A Missing Underscore Sent Innocent Man to Prison for 18 Months”: Police were looking for a man using the Kik messaging service under the name “fus__ro_dah” (two underscores after “fus”), but they accidentally ...

Emma Roth, The Verge: eBay and three former executives will pay $55.7 million as part of a settlement with a Massachusetts couple targeted with a bizarre harassment and cyberstalking campaign in 2019, as reported earlier by CNBC. The settlement will resolve a lengthy leg...

Dan Frommer, writing for Business Insider in 2011 about that year’s WWDC (Jobs’s last): While discussing Apple’s free, new iCloud email service, he took an apparent jab at Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and the others, which stuff ads in their free email services. “No ads,” he boas...

Every phone now ships with an assistant. You ask, it answers. Lame. We built a phone that writes software instead. The app idea you’ve had in your notes for years. The side hustle you will never get around to building. The weird thing only you would want. Describe it, answer a few questions, and it’s on your home screen — yours, working, sendable to a friend. No app store between you and your ideas. The first fifty units go to teams who’ll push on it and tell us what breaks.

Jason Snell: Apple’s most valuable asset is its brand. Not its real estate, not its intellectual property, not even any particular product. Even the mighty iPhone has no value if, over time, the traits that differentiate it from competitor products are erased. Apple’s br...

Putting themselves in customers’ shoes today, how many ads do Apple’s executives want stuck in the results when they search for an app in the App Store?

My thanks to WorkOS for sponsoring last week at DF to promote their MCP server. Debugging SSO, managing users, adjusting auth policies, configuring branding: every configuration task has lived behind a UI that only a human can drive.

The WorkOS MCP server gives agents the same access as your dashboard login. Hundreds of operations, discoverable at runtime. Connect in one command via OAuth, with scoped tokens instead of a master API key. Pass a screenshot of your marketing site and ask your agent to match the login page. If a human had to do it before, an agent can do it now. Connect your agent today.

Fascinating essay by Nikhil Suresh: On a trip overseas, I had the privilege of a meeting with one of the Fortune 500 executives mentioned at the beginning of the post, who will remain anonymous so that they are not executed by firing squad by their board. As we were chat...

The European Commission on Thursday: The Commission found that Google gives preferential treatment to its own services, including shopping, hotels, transport and sports results, over those of third parties in Google Search, thereby breaching its obligations under the DMA...

Julien Khaleghy, CEO of SerpApi: The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted our motion to dismiss Google’s lawsuit, marking a win not just for SerpApi, but for all who depend on an open internet. We’re pleased that the court rejected Google’s...

Apple Newsroom:

Apple and Ford today announced that Apple Maps will be integrated directly into Ford’s upcoming Universal Electric Vehicle (UEV) Platform through Apple’s new MapKit for Automotive SDK. Coming to Ford’s UEV Platform in 2027, this integration will deliver a beautiful and easy-to-use navigation experience powered by Apple Maps directly to the vehicle’s displays. Road-level Maps information will also enable Ford’s Latitude AI team to build a seamless hands-free driving experience.

See also: Techmeme’s roundup of commentary.

Teddy Rosenbluth, reporting for The New York Times: On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that there have been 2,318 confirmed cases of measles so far this year. The case count toppled the record set last year, when measles infected more tha...

For a long time the best native Mac IRC client was Textual, but although Textual still works, it’s been sunset by the author. Not to fear, however. Fredrik Blank just launched bIRC: Creating an IRC client in 2026 is not something that will pay the bills : ) It would be j...