FeedCity: Daring Fireball

Daring Fireball
24 Apr 16:21 • John Gruber

★ Norwegian Boating Licenses and Generational Law

The Norwegian Maritime Authority: If you were born in 1980 or later and plan to operate a recreational craft of more than 8 metres in length or with an engine power of more than 25 hp, you need a boating licence. The boating licence is a certificate permitting you to ope...

Daring Fireball
24 Apr 14:30 • John Gruber

★ ‘We Don’t Serve Their Kind Here’

George Lucas got so many nuances right in Star Wars. Little touches that said so much. One of the most overlooked is a moment that I vividly remember from first seeing it, on the big screen, as a kindergartener or thereabouts. It’s during the scene where Luke enters the Mos ...

Daring Fireball
24 Apr 13:36 • John Gruber

XOXO Explore

xoxofest.com/blog/2026-launching-xoxo-explore/

Andy McMillan and Andy Baio: Today, over 10 years later, and almost two full years after we retired the festival for good, we’re finally launching that website. Named after what we thought would be a throwaway title for a short-lived GitHub repo, allow us to introduce XO...

Daring Fireball
24 Apr 13:36 • John Gruber

New Zealand Passed a Generational Smoking Ban in 2022, But Repealed It Before It Went Into Effect

theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/27/new-zealand-scraps-world-first-smoking-generation-ban-to-fund-tax-cuts

Eva Corlett, reporting for The Guardian in 2023: New Zealand’s new government will scrap the country’s world-leading law to ban smoking for future generations to help pay for tax cuts — a move that public health officials believe will cost thousands of lives and be “cata...

Daring Fireball
24 Apr 01:48 • John Gruber

United Kingdom to Enact Smoking Ban Only for Those Who Are Not Yet Legal Adults

nytimes.com/2026/04/21/world/europe/uk-smoking-ban-2009.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dVA.f9yJ.YMVg9N8QOlio

Ephrat Livni, reporting for The New York Times (gift link): Britain aims to raise a “smoke-free generation” by permanently banning the sale or supply of tobacco to anyone born in 2009 or after, with a bill that was approved by Parliament on Tuesday. The bill applies to ...

Daring Fireball
23 Apr 21:15 • John Gruber

Trump’s Blog Has Somehow Lost $1.1 Billion

motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/truth-social-ceo-out-after-1-1-billion-in-losses/

Russ Choma, reporting for Mother Jones: Devin Nunes was not an obvious choice to run a fledgling social media network, but after $1.1 billion in losses, the former dairy farmer and congressman is out as the head of Truth Social. Donald Trump Jr., a board member at Trump...

Daring Fireball
23 Apr 20:27 • John Gruber

Nilay Patel: ‘Beware Software Brain’

theverge.com/podcast/917029/software-brain-ai-backlash-databases-automation

Nilay Patel, in a terrific essay (and Decoder one-sider) at The Verge: In fact, the polling on this is so strong, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of people hate AI, and that Gen Z in particular seems to hate AI more and more as they encounter it. There’s that NBC New...

Daring Fireball
23 Apr 19:57 • John Gruber

Eight for Eight

mastodon.social/@Cdespinosa/116439702239797827

Speaking of Chris Espinosa, this is pretty neat:

On September 1 I’ll join the elite club (members Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Mike Markkula, and Bill Fernandez) who have worked under a number of Apple CEOs ≥ our employee number:

Woz: 1 (Scott)
Jobs: 2 (Scott, Markkula)
Markkula: 3 (Scott, Sculley, Spindler)
Fernandez: 4 (Scott, Markkula, Sculley, Spindler)
Espinosa: 8 (Scott, Markkula, Sculley, Spindler, Amelio, Jobs, Cook, Ternus)

Link: mastodon.social/@Cdespinosa/116439702239797827

Daring Fireball
23 Apr 17:54 • John Gruber

Microsoft Offers Voluntary Retirement to Long-Serving Employees

theverge.com/news/917451/microsoft-voluntary-retirement-offer-rewards-bonus-stock-changes?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6InlNUEVJcXN0QlMiLCJwIjoiL25ld3MvOTE3NDUxL21pY3Jvc29mdC12b2x1bnRhcnktcmV0aXJlbWVudC1vZmZlci1yZXdhcmRzLWJvbnVzLXN0b2NrLWNoYW5nZXMiLCJleHAiOjE3NzczOTYzOTEsImlhdCI6MTc3Njk2NDM5MX0.IeenHzWQnmLtvfvkdz2bewFS8qLD-czBrxe7WKGTtsw&utm_medium=gift-link

Tom Warren, The Verge (gift link): “Many of these employees have spent years, and in some cases, decades, shaping Microsoft into what it is today,” says Microsoft’s HR chief Amy Coleman in a memo seen by The Verge. “For those who may be considering their next chapter, we...

Daring Fireball
23 Apr 17:54 • John Gruber

Unauthorized Users in Discord Group Had Weekslong Access to Anthropic’s Supposedly-Super-Dangerous Claude Mythos Model

bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-21/anthropic-s-mythos-model-is-being-accessed-by-unauthorized-users

Rachel Metz, reporting for Bloomberg: A small group of unauthorized users have accessed Anthropic PBC’s new Mythos AI model, a technology that the company says is so powerful it can enable dangerous cyberattacks, according to a person familiar with the matter and documen...

Daring Fireball
22 Apr 19:48 • John Gruber

DF T-Shirts and Hoodies: Get Them While the Getting Is Good

store.daringfireball.net/

Daring Fireball t-shirts and hoodies are back. Order now, and we’ll start printing shirts at the end of this week and shipping them out next week. The hoodies are a new model from Bella Canvas, the manufacturer. Our previous hoodies were “heather gray” and the fabric was a blend of 50% polyester, 37.5% cotton, and 12.5% rayon. That model is being phased out. So we’ve switched to a new model that’s 85% cotton, 15% polyester, and a darker “heather black” color. The old ones were good, but the new ones feel even better.

Link: store.daringfireball.net/

Daring Fireball
22 Apr 18:39 • John Gruber

There Are Corrections, and There Are Corrections

nytimes.com/2026/04/21/nyregion/mets-mamdani-curse.html?unlocked_article_code=1.c1A.iLO0.Kqdo8aBhNAY1

The New York Times (gift link):

A correction was made on April 21, 2026: Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated which day the New York Mets suffered their 11th straight loss. It was on Sunday, not Monday. Even the Mets cannot lose on an off day.

This is to New York Times corrections what “Headless Body in Topless Bar” was to New York Post headlines — perfection.

Link: nytimes.com/2026/04/21/nyregion/mets-mamdani-curse.html…

Daring Fireball
22 Apr 16:42 • John Gruber

Ben Thompson on Tim Cook’s Legacy

stratechery.com/2026/tim-cooks-impeccable-timing/

Ben Thompson at Stratechery, “Tim Cook’s Impeccable Timing”: Cook was, without question, an operational genius. Moreover, this was clearly the case even before he scaled the iPhone to unimaginable scale. When Cook joined Apple in 1998 the company’s operations — centered ...

Daring Fireball
22 Apr 03:24 • Daring Fireball Department of Commerce

[Sponsor] Rec League

recleague.com/?lyr_campaign=df

Rec League is a new app for sharing what you’re into. Catalog recommendations into tidy collections: your guide to Rome, your open tabs, your bookshelf. Follow people whose perspectives you trust, and discover brilliant, unexpected intel. Recently featured as the “Best New App” in the App Store. One user calls it “the only social media I feel better after using.” Download now to share what you love.

Link: recleague.com/?lyr_campaign=df

Daring Fireball
21 Apr 19:39 • John Gruber

Trump on Tim Apple

truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116442276577696798

The president of the United States, on his blog this morning (all capitalization, punctuation, and missing/wrong words verbatim): I have always been a big fan of Tim Cook, and likewise, Steve Jobs, but if Steve was not taken from the Planet Earth so young, and ran the co...

Daring Fireball
21 Apr 04:12 • John Gruber

★ Another Day Has Come

It’s a profoundly different feeling today than the last time Apple’s CEO announced his transition to chairman of the board, and his chosen successor was promoted to replace him as CEO. In August 2011, Steve Jobs was sick. For years he’d managed to stay a step, sometimes two...

Daring Fireball
20 Apr 21:45 • John Gruber

‘Community Letter From Tim’

apple.com/community-letter-from-tim/

Tim Cook, in a letter addressed, simply, “To the Apple community”: For the past 15 years I’ve started just about every morning the same way. I open my email and I read notes I received the day before from Apple’s users all over the world. You share little pieces of your...

Daring Fireball
20 Apr 21:12 • John Gruber

DF Paraphernalia: T-Shirts and Hoodies Are Back

store.daringfireball.net/

Daring Fireball t-shirts and hoodies are back. Order now, and we’ll start printing shirts at the end of this week and shipping them out next week. Go ahead and place your order now, while I gather my thoughts about today’s Apple leadership news.

Link: store.daringfireball.net/

Daring Fireball
20 Apr 21:12 • John Gruber

Apple: ‘Tim Cook to Become Apple Executive Chairman; John Ternus to Become Apple CEO’

apple.com/newsroom/2026/04/tim-cook-to-become-apple-executive-chairman-john-ternus-to-become-apple-ceo/

Apple Newsroom, with a veritable “boom”: Apple announced that Tim Cook will become executive chairman of Apple’s board of directors and John Ternus, senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, will become Apple’s next chief executive officer effective on September 1, ...

Daring Fireball
20 Apr 17:36 • John Gruber

Apple’s Annual Environmental Progress Report

apple.com/newsroom/2026/04/apple-accelerates-progress-with-highest-ever-recycled-material-in-its-products/

Apple Newsroom: In its annual Environmental Progress Report released today, Apple marked progress toward Apple 2030, the company’s ambitious goal to be carbon neutral across its entire footprint by the end of this decade. Apple’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 remain d...

Daring Fireball
19 Apr 19:09 • John Gruber

Jessica Chastain Says Apple TV Will Finally Release ‘The Savant’

variety.com/2026/tv/columns/jessica-chastain-apple-tv-finally-release-the-savant-after-postponement-charlie-kirk-assassination-1236725384/

Marc Malkin, Variety:

Jessica Chastain says Apple TV is finally going to release her political thriller series “The Savant.” [...]

“Before it was like, ‘I don’t know if we’re going to see it,’ but now I can say, ‘We’re going to see it,’” Chastain told me exclusively on Saturday at the Breakthrough Prize ceremony in Santa Monica.

As for when, sources tell me that Apple is planning for a July release.

Previously, re: The Savant’s limbo release date.

Link: variety.com/2026/tv/columns/jessica-chastain-apple-tv…

Daring Fireball
19 Apr 17:39 • John Gruber

WorkOS FGA: The Authorization Layer for AI Agents

workos.com/blog/agents-need-authorization-not-just-authentication?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=q22026

My thanks to WorkOS for sponsoring last week at DF. Every AI agent demo looks magical, but most hit a wall in enterprise deployment. It’s not model quality or latency. It’s authorization. Authentication proves an agent’s identity. Authorization defines its blast radius.

The winners in enterprise AI won’t have the most features. They’ll be the ones enterprises can safely trust. Learn how WorkOS FGA scopes that blast radius with resource-level permissions, and read their deep dive for more.

Link: workos.com/blog/agents-need-authorization-not-just…

Daring Fireball
18 Apr 18:06 • John Gruber

★ ‘A Reading Room on Wheels, a Lover’s Lane, and, After 11 PM, a Flophouse’

Vittoria Benzine, at Artnet (via Oliver Thomas): The singular American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick saw the little details. He even saw the future. But, most of all, he saw people, with all their quirks. Kubrick’s films, from Dr. Strangelove (1964) to The Shining (1980), of...

Daring Fireball
18 Apr 16:54 • John Gruber

Mac Mini and Mac Studio Supply Shortages

wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/apple-mac-mini-supply-3e7a7509?st=fKpr4Q

Nicole Nguyen, writing for The Wall Street Journal (gift link): Mac Minis with larger-capacity RAM chips — a base M4 model with 32GB of RAM, starting at $999, and the M4 Pro models with 64GB of RAM, starting at $1,999 — are “currently unavailable” on Apple.com. And estim...

Daring Fireball
18 Apr 00:45 • John Gruber

Apple’s Developer Guidelines for Ratings and Review Prompts

developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ratings-and-reviews#Best-practices

Apple Design: Avoid pestering people. Repeated rating requests can be irritating, and may even negatively influence people’s opinion of your app. Consider allowing at least a week or two between requests, prompting again after people demonstrate additional engagement wit...

Daring Fireball
18 Apr 00:45 • John Gruber

Follow-Up Regarding App Store Reviews, Which Are Definitely Busted

daringfireball.net/linked/2026/04/16/app-store-reviews-are-busted

I wrote yesterday: And the apps that do the right thing — like Godier’s Current — and never solicit a review like a needy hustler are penalized. On Mastodon, Steven Troughton-Smith responded: Review prompts are the difference between a great app getting five positi...

Daring Fireball
17 Apr 01:18 • John Gruber

App Store Reviews Are Busted

blog.terrygodier.com/2026/04/13/app-store-reviews-are-busted.html

Terry Godier: For example, if you have a 4.1 star rating in the App Store, any 4 star review is going to decrease that average. In other words, leaving a 4 star review is essentially leaving a negative review. [...] You will see a lot of 4 star reviews that say things l...

Daring Fireball
17 Apr 00:12 • John Gruber

Freecash Was More Like Scamcash

techcrunch.com/2026/04/14/how-the-rewards-app-freecash-scammed-its-way-to-the-top-of-the-app-stores/

Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch: If you’ve been on TikTok this year, you’ve more than likely encountered ads for Freecash. The app has been marketed as a way to make money just by scrolling TikTok — and jumped to the top of the app stores in recent months, peaking at...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 21:00 • John Gruber

Colliding With Reality, Indeed

nytimes.com/2026/04/15/us/politics/trump-iran-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bVA.EB30.mygpleorcQhg&smid=url-share

Anton Troianovski, reporting for The New York Times under the headline “Trump’s Portrayal of the War in Iran Collides With Reality”: President Trump is trying to cast his Iran war as all but over, a done-and-dusted success. But after years of trying to impose his own re...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 20:30 • John Gruber

How to Format 10-Digit Phone Numbers

threads.com/@apstylebook/post/DXKtXVXEh7T

The Associated Press Stylebook, on Threads: We updated our style for telephone numbers in 2024 to drop parentheses. We now recommend the form: 212-621-1500. For international numbers use 011 (from the United States), the country code, the city code and the telephone num...