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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Cabel Sasser on Mastodon:
the temu app will be studied for generations.
i opened the app, and recorded this unedited, nearly two minute,
launch sequence. it somehow just gets funnier and more absurd
I agree with this sentiment, right down to the fact that Temu doesn’t...
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...
Regarding my recent pieces regarding Apple’s shitty ads in the App Store and Apple News (and, perhaps soon, Apple Maps), a friend sent me this pithy take:
The ads Apple is happy to inflict on us in its apps are the
equivalent of the stickers it would never allow on its p...
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 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.
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...
Following up on the previous item today, re: content blockers and ad-blocking, I ran into a weird situation a few weeks ago with my column “John Ternus Should Reverse Apple’s Slide Down the Advertising Slippery Slope”. That article contains this sentence, in Markdown:
And -...
Speaking of dickovers, here’s Cory Doctorow, writing this week at Pluralistic:
Seizing the means of computation isn’t theft, it’s bargaining.
Commercial surveillance companies will tell you that by spying on
you, they are simply engaged in a marketplace exchange in which...
The betting odds for the Sixers to win the NBA championship went from 20-1 to 10-1. Here’s James on Twitter/X, explaining his decision:
This is my last decision. I’m not going for money. I’m not going
for family. What am I really playing for at this point?
I still want to sacrifice. I still want to work. I still want to
grind. I still want to compete, to win and to have a chance at the
feeling of winning another championship.
I believe I can help make the Philadelphia 76ers a championship
team and I am so excited to energize a new fan base and start this
incredible journey one last time.
Here’s a real gem that a reader sent me. Tomtoc is a maker of laptop bags and sleeves. Visit their homepage and, of course, you’ll get a dickover asking you to join their mailing list “for exclusive updates and get a chance to win a free tech pouch every month.” But here’s the gem. If you do subscribe, and you decide later to unsubscribe, you get this:
Quinn Nelson returns to the show to discuss OpenAI’s ChatGPT/Codex “native” app migration fiasco, Siri AI in Apple’s OS 27 betas, MacOS 27 Golden Gate, and the hottest new cell phone of the year, the Trump T1.
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