There’s a real “*Why do we need this?*” question here and I don’t think Apple’s video answers it, at all. You need to think you want it if you’re going to buy it. And even if you already had a HomeView set up, I’m not sure how often you’d use it instead of your phone, or instead of just talking to it like a screenless HomePod.

Glenn Fleishman:

I wondered what the entry-level, initial price of each Apple TV box at introduction was, from the March 2007 original to the Apple TV 4K (4th generation) announced October 13, 2026, adjusted for inflation. So I charted it.

I suppose this doesn’t mean Apple has given up on making Apple TV content accessible, but the price-accessible path is just using the Apple TV app on the crapware OS your “smart” TV runs.

Re: my post today on the still-vaporware Tesla Roadster and Benedict Evans’s maxim that “Elon Musk is a bullshitter who delivers”, a reader sent me this YouTube short of Charlie Munger’s answer to a question at Daily Journal’s 2020 shareholder meeting regarding Tesla’s volatility and Musk’s self-promotion. Munger said:

My thoughts are two. I would never buy it, and I would never sell it short.

[Audience laughs.]

I have a third comment. There was a man out in Los Angeles for years named Howard Ahmanson. He once said something that I’ve taken to my heart: “Never underestimate the man who overestimates himself.” I think Elon Musk is peculiar and he may overestimate himself, but he may not be wrong all the time.

Joe Rossignol, reporting for MacRumors back on 9 March 2015: Apple CEO Tim Cook on Monday at the “Spring Forward” media event in San Francisco announced that Apple TV will now cost $69, discounted from its regular price of $99. The new price for the set-top box arrives o...

Apple Developer News: As outlined in our App Review Guidelines, pornographic material has long been prohibited on the App Store — this includes apps that generate nudity or sexually explicit imagery, such as “nudification” apps that create sexually explicit images of rea...

Mark Zuckerberg, on X: Muse Spark Open — weights releasing today — runs great on new Mac Studios thanks to work with @johnternus and Apple. John Ternus, replying: Congrats to the team! Amazing to run a model of Muse Spark Open’s caliber and scale this efficiently, ...

From the NetNewsWire blog: The latest version of NetNewsWire for iOS supports iPhone Duo, which is very much a novel iPhone with toolbars running up the side and all kinds of behavior. How we did it: we didn’t do any work at all. We built the app using Xcode 27.1 and th...

If you think Musk is either completely legitimate and trustworthy or an utter fraud, you are wrong. He has led his companies to extraordinary accomplishments, *and* he has made promises based on complete bullshit. He is a shameless bullshitter who *sometimes* delivers.

From the transcript of Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS: Shyam Sankar: You know, I take — I think there’s a profound truth to Pascal’s saying that every human has a god-shaped hole in their heart, and it’s important to understand that many of these folks in Silicon Valley...

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors: If you were hoping to surprise someone with an iPhone Duo for Christmas, you might be out of luck, as Apple’s online store in the U.S. is already showing an estimated shipping date of January 25 for all configurations following the start of pre-...

At the old pre-June prices, you could buy a 128 GB Apple TV and a pair of HomePod Minis for $350 ($150 + $100 + $100). Four short months later, with today’s new models, that combination would cost $600 ($300 + $150 + $150).

Jonathan O’Connell, Sarah Blaskey, and Aaron Schaffer, reporting for The Washington Post (News+ link; Archive.today link): A list obtained by The Washington Post reveals all the major donors to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project, including previously u...

Login looks simple until you’re building password resets, email verification, MFA, social providers, session management, and the enterprise SSO your first big customer asked for last week.

AuthKit lets you:

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The Department of Justice, yesterday: An employee of OpenAI has been arrested for and charged with using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications. Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a national of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,...

Apple Newsroom: Apple today introduced Apple HomeView, designed to be central to the home and personal to everyone in it. With a stunning 7-inch Liquid Retina display, HomeView brings entertainment, connection, and smart home management together in one place, from playin...

Mary Alyce Stephens (née Neader), posting on Cringely’s Facebook account: Hello, this is Mary Alyce, Bob’s wife. I am coming to you with immense sadness to let you know that Bob passed away. His obituary follows. His family is not requesting anything, however, if you wou...

If you returned from exile on a desert island and took a look at X today for first time in a year, you might reasonably guess that Elon Musk got bored and sold it while you were away.

Joe Rossignol, on Thursday: Starting today, iPhone users still running iOS 26 will see iOS 27.0.1 as the prominent software update in the Settings app under General → Software Update, with iOS 26.7.1 now relegated to a smaller “Also Available” section at the bottom. Ju...

My thanks to Sunnny for sponsoring this week at DF. How can B2B software be so friggin’ delicious? Find out when early access launches on Monday, October 19.

Benjamin Mayo (on X, of course), commenting on Apple promoting behind-the-scenes footage showing that the embroidered “Welcome Home” logo for next week’s keynote/experience was stitched by hand:

There needs to be a name for this phenomenon where every published piece of art by a company is now accompanied by a proof-of-human video.

I agree, and I think Mayo coined the term right there. It’s always been fun to see footage of talented artists and craftspeople making things by hand. But in the age of AI it’s a differentiator — not just that you aren’t lazily generating your art via prompts, but that you understand that heart comes from the human hand.

An actual post from the sitting president of the United States:

The White House considers anyone that uses the term, “Artificial Intelligence,” as opposed to the highly accepted new and more accurate term, “Super Intelligence,” THE ENEMY! President DONALD J. TRUMP

This, from the self-professed “party of free speech”. Trump’s screws are so loose you can hear them rattling around.

David Smith, last week: Been really interesting to watch the iOS 27 adoption curve over the first two weeks. Clearly on a different path than previous years. Still steadily growing, at a similar rate to the ‘steady growth’ phase of most years, but without the big surge a...

It’s almost like you can predict the timing of such things, if you pay attention to Apple’s consistent patterns.

This is a cool car. It doesn’t look like anything else and it looks like it’s been pulled a few years from the future. I don’t know about this whole trend where cars don’t have rear windows though. I get it that you just use the camera but my old habits says I want to see out the back sometimes.

But the only reason I wouldn’t buy this thing is that turd of a new logo Jaguar went with. I could not abide driving around in something with this typographic calamity.

The incomparable Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg: Apple Inc.’s upcoming push into smart home devices will include a doorbell, thermostat and other accessories developed through an unusual partnership with LG Electronics Inc. The products will be part of an ecosyste...

Scharon Harding, Ars Technica: Unlike with previous versions of macOS, macOS 27 Golden Gate doesn’t have a toggle for turning off Apple Intelligence. That makes disabling AI features that you may not want more difficult. It also means that the AI models necessary for run...

What an apt photo, today of all days. What a gift Make Something Wonderful is.

How can B2B software be so friggin’ delicious? Early access drops 10/19. Spread the love.

OpenAI, today: The EU AI Act requires generative AI providers to make generated text identifiable in a machine-readable way. Text watermarking and detection remain early technologies with significant limitations, and views about their benefits and responsible uses are st...

John Ternus, posting on X:

The way Steve taught us to care about every detail, every experience, every person, still guides our work today. Forever grateful.

Tim Cook, also on X (with a photo I don’t recall seeing before):

There are people who leave a mark on the world, and then there are people who change it entirely. Steve changed the world and so many lives in the process. He certainly changed my life forever. His spirit lives on in everything he created and everyone he inspired.