You can probably tell by my blog posts that I prefer OpenAI to Anthropic — more open, more affordable, less doomer — but I’ve gotta hand it to Anthropic for their focus. Doing fewer things, like just Claude Code and the new Claude Design, makes the products more ap...

Joanna Stern launching her new website and YouTube channel:

Every word you read here—every review, every story, every bad joke—is written by me or by a human on my team. […] Don’t get me wrong, we’re using AI all day over here. In fact, we hope to introduce you to our intern agent soon. But the thinking, the reporting, the voice, the calls about what’s true and what’s worth your time—that’s all human.

Making a lot of careless mistakes this morning. I blame the Spurs loss last night, still lingering. I edited an old post, then accidentally deleted it… Happy to remember that Micro.blog now has a trash can and restore feature.

This is a first for us. Inkwell for Android is available now, before the iOS version. Apple has rejected the iOS version for various reasons, including not paying the in-app purchase tax.

4th quarter. Close one for game 2 in San Antonio. Wemby out. Let’s go! 🏀

ChatGPT Images 2.0 seems to be a big step forward. Neat gimmick in the announcement blog post to use text layout on images for the post text. (Bad for accessibility, but great as a demo.)

Cool to see Patrick Rhone on the latest Mac Power Users, talking about Apple tech and especially how we can be more intentional with our phones. On notifications, it’s so easy to be distracted by everything on the internet. Gotta deliberately turn off most of the ways our phones can interrupt us.

Shoutout to Matt Birchler’s App Store Images web app. I don’t have the patience to sort out Apple’s rules on screenshots. Now I just throw any size in this little app and use whatever it spits out.

“Waiting for Review”… <reload>… “Waiting for Review”… <reload>… Sigh.

The next FediForum online conference is next week. I’ve missed the last couple of events because of travel, even though I registered for them! Hope I can attend this one.

Trying to get my AI spending under control, I’m having the server randomly switch to the “flex” pricing tier in GPT-5 when there’s background work that doesn’t need to be instantly fast. So far so good.

It’s actually happening:

The InfoWars of tomorrow will converge into a swirling vortex of content about content, talent acquiring talent, rings of concentric media mergers processing all human artistry into one endlessly digestible slurry. This will be a dank, sunless place, one where panic and capital feed on each other like twins in the womb of a hulking, unknowable monster—a monster known by many names, but which I like to call modern-day America.

Rain falling at the pond at The Village, behind Epoch. Looks like it’s going to be raining most of the week. 🌧️

Tim Cook in a letter on Apple’s website about stepping down as CEO and welcoming John Ternus:

A new person will be stepping into what I know in my heart is the best job in the world. That leader is John Ternus, a brilliant engineer and thinker who has spent the past 25 years building the Apple products our users love so much, obsessed with every detail, focused on every possible way we can make something better, bolder, more beautiful, and more meaningful.

Heck of a run leading one of the greatest tech companies of all time. Our discussion of Tim’s legacy on Core Int probably still holds.

Victor Wembanyama when asked whether he feels the weight of legends like Tim Duncan, David Robinson, and Gregg Popovich in the building:

I wouldn’t say weight, no. I would say it feels safe. It feels like… If you trip, you know there’s a lot of hands that are ready to catch you. From day one it’s felt that way.

YOLO-ing with Codex computer use. I shouldn’t trust these tools as much as I do, but it still feels like magic, and I want to see the show.

Cracked a crown on my tooth last week. Replaced today. The numbing from the dentist usually takes all day to wear off for me. Currently sipping my coffee, pretending I can drink properly. 🦷

Interesting note from Simon Willison that Claude’s new tokenizer translates to higher costs:

Opus 4.7 uses the same pricing is Opus 4.6 - $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens - but this token inflation means we can expect it to be around 40% more expensive

Anthropic pricing is already much more expensive than OpenAI. With how good the new Codex app for Mac is, I think we’ll see more developers move to Codex. But people are also comfortable with their workflows, so there’s not going to be a quick shift, and models and features change nearly every month.

Dave Winer reflecting on UserLand’s name and now working with AI:

I called my second company UserLand. The idea was that we’d develop software for users, always be thinking of them, and listening and give them more and more power to shape the way their computers worked. It was what I felt was missing from software in the 80s, a focus on the users creating their own future.

Humanoid robot runs a half marathon fast. I’m actually impressed because it just feels like it would fall over at least a few times. But it’s not relevant to human runners… A car can finish a marathon more quickly than a human too! 🤪

Nice story on the Spurs in The New Yorker:

Last season, the team had traded for De’Aaron Fox, an All-Star guard in his prime, which appeared odd to some—wasn’t he too old to be on Wembanyama’s timeline? Now it seemed like a stroke of genius.

Game 1 tonight vs. the Blazers. Excited. Nervous too. 🏀

Terry Godier blogs about the growing disconnect between the traditional paid-up-front App Store and all the new features that free with in-app purchase apps get:

Apple offers you no mechanism for what is arguably the most natural transaction in software: paying for major upgrades. The only option is to create a new app listing or to use an IAP. There’s a strong disadvantage to creating a new app listing, namely losing your accumulated reviews and visibility.

It’s a theme that reminds me of Marco Arment’s blog post from 2009, although that post was focused on cheap quick-hit apps.

I walked so much in Europe. Trying to stick with walking more places now that I’m back home. Cars are embedded into every part of life in Texas.

Related, watched a video this morning about high-speed rail progress in California. As a country we should be embarrassed about this. Come on already. 🚂

Talisman Coffee.

This new TED Talk from Peter Steinberger is a great introduction to why OpenClaw exists and what impact it might have. He’s having a lot of fun and I think that excitement rubs off on everyone in the community. 🦞

Panic announced that the Playdate Catalog will no longer accept games that use generative AI for content such as art and dialog. AI for coding is okay, for now, but you can tell Panic isn’t happy about it: For the time being, we will allow Catalog titles that have used AI a...

First beta of Inkwell for Android was rejected by Google, re-submitted. But good news they’ve approved a round of bug fixes in the Micro.blog app for Android.

Ben Thompson on the latest Dithering:

I do feel one of the challenges I have with people talking about how AI is making them so much more productive, is because these were some of the most unproductive people in the world previously.

🤣

Federico Viticci blogs about the new Codex app from the perspective of his early preview of Sky last year: It also helps that computer use in Codex is exquisitely designed – not a surprise given OpenAI’s design team and the pedigree of the team behind this feature. The flow...

John Gruber commenting on a blog post from Terry Godier:

Imagine being in a restaurant, and in the middle of your entree, the server comes to your table and hands you an iPad and asks you to rate the joint on Yelp. That’s what using most apps is like.

We are pretty close to that restaurant reality already! Rating prompts are out of control.