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John Gruber

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• John Gruber

Steve Lemay Hits Apple’s Leadership Page

apple.com/leadership/steve-lemay/

Help us Obi-Wan Lemay, you’re our only hope.

(Also, as noted by Joe Rossignol, Eddy Cue got an updated headshot.)

Link: apple.com/leadership/steve-lemay/

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• John Gruber

‘npx workos’

workos.com/docs/authkit/cli-installer?utm_source=tldrdev&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=q12026

My thanks, once again, to WorkOS for sponsoring this week at DF. npx workos is a CLI tool, replete with cool ASCII art, that launches an AI agent, powered by Claude, that reads your project, detects your framework, and writes a complete auth integration directly into your existing codebase. It’s not a template generator. It reads your code, understands your stack, and writes an integration that fits.

The WorkOS agent then type-checks and builds, feeding any errors back to itself to fix. See how it works for yourself.

Link: workos.com/docs/authkit/cli-installer?utm_source=tldrdev…

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• John Gruber

Daring Fireball Weekly Sponsorship Openings

daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/

Weekly sponsorships have been the top source of revenue for Daring Fireball ever since I started selling them back in 2007. They’ve succeeded, I think, because they make everyone happy. They generate good money. There’s only one sponsor per week and the sponsors are always r...

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• John Gruber

Google’s Threat Intelligence Group on Coruna, a Powerful iOS Exploit Kit of Mysterious Origin

cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/coruna-powerful-ios-exploit-kit

Google Threat Intelligence Group, earlier this week: Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) has identified a new and powerful exploit kit targeting Apple iPhone models running iOS version 13.0 (released in September 2019) up to version 17.2.1 (released in December 2023)...

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• John Gruber

‘The Window Chrome of Our Discontent’

pxlnv.com/blog/window-chrome-of-our-discontent/

Nick Heer, writing at Pixel Envy, uses Pages (from 2009 through today) to illustrate Apple’s march toward putting “greater focus on your content” by making window chrome, and toolbar icons, more and more invisible: Perhaps Apple has some user studies that suggest otherwi...

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• John Gruber

The Verge Interviews Tim Sweeney After Victory in ‘Epic v. Google’

theverge.com/23996474/epic-tim-sweeney-interview-win-google-antitrust-lawsuit-district-court

The Verge: Sean Hollister: What would you say the differences are between the Apple and Google cases? Tim Sweeney: I would say Apple was ice and Google was fire. The thing with Apple is all of their antitrust trickery is internal to the company. They use their store, t...

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• John Gruber

Tim Sweeney Signed Away His Right to Criticize Google’s Play Store Until 2032

theverge.com/news/889595/tim-sweeney-signed-away-his-right-to-criticize-google-until-2032

Sean Hollister, writing for The Verge: But Google has finally muzzled Tim Sweeney. It’s right there in a binding term sheet for his settlement with Google. On March 3rd, he not only signed away Epic’s rights to sue and disparage the company over anything covered in the ...

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• John Gruber

The MacBook Neo’s Price, Looking to the Past and Future

x.com/ethan_is_online/status/2029331836137291941?s=42

Ethan W. Anderson, on Twitter/X:

I’ve plotted the most expensive McDonald’s burger and the least expensive MacBook over time. This analysis projects that the most expensive burger will be more expensive than the cheapest laptop as soon as 2081.

Looking to the past, if you plug $599 in today’s money into an inflation calculator, that’s just ~$190 in 1984, the year the original Macintosh launched with a price of $2,495 (which works out to ~$7,800 today.)

Link: x.com/ethan_is_online/status/2029331836137291941?s=42

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• John Gruber

‘Never the Same Game Twice’

johnmccoy.org/2026/03/05/never-the-same-game-twice/

John McCoy: From around 1970 to 1980, the Salem, Massachusetts-based Parker Brothers (now a brand of Hasbro) published games whose innovative and fanciful designs drew inspiration from Pop Art, Op Art, and Madison Avenue advertising. They had boxes, boards, and component...

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• John Gruber

Another Steve Jobs Quote on Lower-Priced Macs

technologizer.com/2008/10/22/the-case-for-a-mac-netbook/index.html

Steve Jobs, on Apple’s quarterly results call back in October 2008: There are some customers which we choose not to serve. We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that. Harry McCracken, writing at the time:...

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• John Gruber

Steve Jobs in 2007, on Apple’s Pursuit of PC Market Share: ‘We Just Can’t Ship Junk’

youtube.com/watch?v=U37Ds3RvyoM

In August 2007, Apple held a Mac event in the Infinite Loop Town Hall auditorium. New iMacs, iLife ’08 (major updates to iPhoto and iMovie), and iWork ’08 (including the debut of Numbers 1.0). Back then, believe it or not, at the end of these Town Hall events, Apple executiv...

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• John Gruber

★ Thoughts and Observations on the MacBook Neo

$599. Not a piece of junk. That’s not a marketing slogan from Apple for the new MacBook Neo. But it could be. And it is the underlying message of the product. For a few years now, Apple has quietly dabbled with the sub-$1,000 laptop market, by selling the base configuration...

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• John Gruber

Studio Display vs. Studio Display XDR

apple.com/displays/

Not sure if this page was there yesterday, but the main “Displays” page at Apple’s website is a spec-by-spec comparison between the regular and XDR models. Nice.

Link: apple.com/displays/

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• John Gruber

Compatibility Notes on the New Studio Displays

macrumors.com/2026/03/03/apple-studio-display-no-intel-mac-support/

Juli Clover, at MacRumors, notes that neither the new Studio Display nor the Studio Display XDR are compatible with Intel-based Macs. (I’m curious why.) Also, in a separate report, she notes that Macs with any M1 chip, or the base M2 or M3, are only able to drive the Studio ...

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• John Gruber

‘In Other Words, Batman Has Become Superman and Robin Has Become Batman’

sixcolors.com/post/2026/03/apple-gives-in-to-temptation-and-renames-its-cpu-cores/

Jason Snell, Six Colors:

Here’s the backstory: With every new generation of Apple’s Mac-series processors, I’ve gotten the impression from Apple execs that they’ve been a little frustrated with the perception that their “lesser” efficiency cores were weak sauce. I’ve lost count of the number of briefings and conversations I’ve had where they’ve had to go out of their way to point out that, actually, the lesser cores on an M-series chip are quite fast on their own, in addition to being very good at saving power!

Clearly they’ve had enough of that, so they’re changing how those cores are marketed to emphasize their performance, rather than their efficiency.

Link: sixcolors.com/post/2026/03/apple-gives-in-to-temptation-and…

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• John Gruber

Apple Announces Updated Studio Display and All-New Studio Display XDR

apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apple-unveils-new-studio-display-and-all-new-studio-display-xdr/

Apple Newsroom: Apple today announced a new family of displays engineered to pair beautifully with Mac and meet the needs of everyone, from everyday users to the world’s top pros. The new Studio Display features a 12MP Center Stage camera, now with improved image quality...

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• John Gruber

New MacBook Air With M5

apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apple-introduces-the-new-macbook-air-with-m5/

Apple Newsroom: MacBook Air now comes standard with double the starting storage at 512GB with faster SSD technology, and is configurable up to 4TB, so customers can keep their most important work on hand. Apple’s N1 wireless chip delivers Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 for seam...

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• John Gruber

Apple Might Have Prematurely Leaked the Name ‘MacBook Neo’

macrumors.com/2026/03/03/apple-accidentally-leaks-macbook-neo/

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

A regulatory document for a “MacBook Neo” (Model A3404) has appeared on Apple’s website. Unfortunately, there are no further details or images available yet. While the PDF file does not contain the “MacBook Neo” name, it briefly appeared in a link on Apple’s regulatory website for EU compliance purposes.

My money was on just plain “MacBook”, but I like “MacBook Neo”.

Link: macrumors.com/2026/03/03/apple-accidentally-leaks-macbook…

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• John Gruber

Apple Introduces MacBook Pro Models With M5 Pro and M5 Max Chips

apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apple-introduces-macbook-pro-with-all-new-m5-pro-and-m5-max/

Apple Newsroom: Apple today announced the latest 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro with the all-new M5 Pro and M5 Max, bringing game-changing performance and AI capabilities to the world’s best pro laptop. With M5 Pro and M5 Max, MacBook Pro features a new CPU with the world’s...

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• John Gruber

Apple Debuts M5 Pro and M5 Max, and Renames Its M-Series CPU Cores

apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apple-debuts-m5-pro-and-m5-max-to-supercharge-the-most-demanding-pro-workflows/

Apple Newsroom: Apple today announced M5 Pro and M5 Max, the world’s most advanced chips for pro laptops, powering the new MacBook Pro. The chips are built using a new Apple-designed Fusion Architecture. This innovative design combines two dies into a single system on a ...

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• Daring Fireball Department of Commerce

[Sponsor] npx workos: An AI Agent That Writes Auth Directly Into Your Codebase

workos.com/docs/authkit/cli-installer?utm_source=tldrdev&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=q12026

npx workos launches an AI agent, powered by Claude, that reads your project, detects your framework, and writes a complete auth integration directly into your existing codebase. It’s not a template generator. It reads your code, understands your stack, and writes an integration that fits.

The WorkOS agent then typechecks and builds, feeding any errors back to itself to fix.

See how it works →

Link: workos.com/docs/authkit/cli-installer?utm_source=tldrdev…

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• John Gruber

★ HazeOver — Mac Utility for Highlighting the Frontmost Window

Back in December I linked to a sort-of stunt project from Tyler Hall called Alan.app — a simple Mac utility that draws a bold rectangle around the current active window. Alan.app lets you set the thickness and color of the frame. I used it for an hour or so before calling it...

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• John Gruber

Unsung Heroes: Flickr’s URLs Scheme

unsung.aresluna.org/unsung-heroes-flickrs-urls-scheme/

Marcin Wichary, writing at Unsung (which is just an incredibly good and fun weblog): Half of my education in URLs as user interface came from Flickr in the late 2000s. Its URLs looked like this: flickr.com/photos/mwichary/favorites flickr.com/photos/mwichary/sets flickr...

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• John Gruber

ChangeTheHeaders

underpassapp.com/news/2025/3/4.html

During the most recent episode of The Talk Show, Jason Snell brought up a weird issue that I started running into last year. On my Mac, sometimes I’d drag an image out of a web page in Safari, and I’d get an image in WebP format. Sometimes I wouldn’t care. But usually when I...

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• John Gruber

Welcome (Back) to Macintosh

take.surf/2026/03/01/welcome-back-to-macintosh

Jesper, writing at Take:

My hope is that Macintosh is not just one of these empires that was at the height of its power and then disintegrated because of warring factions, satiated and uncurious rulers, and droughts for which no one was prepared, ruining crops no one realized were essential for survival.

My hope is that there remains a primordial spark, a glimpse of genius, to rediscover, to reconnect to — to serve not annual trends or constant phonification, but the needs of the user to use the computer as a tool to get something done.

Link: take.surf/2026/03/01/welcome-back-to-macintosh

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• John Gruber

SerpApi Filed Motion to Dismiss Google’s Lawsuit

serpapi.com/blog/google-v-serpapi-motion-to-dismiss-why-were-in-the-right/

Julien Khaleghy, CEO of SerpApi: Google thinks it owns the internet. That’s the subtext of its lawsuit against SerpApi, the quiet part that it’s suddenly decided to shout out loud. The problem is, no one owns the internet. And the law makes that clear. In January, we pr...

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• John Gruber

‘Anthropic and Alignment’

stratechery.com/2026/anthropic-and-alignment/

Ben Thompson, writing at Stratechery: In fact, Amodei already answered the question: if nuclear weapons were developed by a private company, and that private company sought to dictate terms to the U.S. military, the U.S. would absolutely be incentivized to destroy that c...

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• John Gruber

WSJ: ‘Trump Administration Shuns Anthropic, Embraces OpenAI in Clash Over Guardrails’

wsj.com/tech/ai/trump-will-end-government-use-of-anthropics-ai-models-ff3550d9

Amrith Ramkumar, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (gift link): Trump’s announcement came shortly before the Pentagon’s Friday afternoon deadline for Anthropic to agree to let the military use its models in all lawful-use cases, a concession the company had refused t...

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• John Gruber

Seasonal Color Updates to Apple’s iPhone Cases and Apple Watch Bands

macrumors.com/2026/03/02/iphone-cases-apple-accessories-new-colors/

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

A seasonal color refresh arrived today for a variety of Apple accessories, including iPhone cases, Apple Watch bands, and the Crossbody Strap. All of the accessories in the latest colors are available to order on Apple.com starting today.

Link: macrumors.com/2026/03/02/iphone-cases-apple-accessories-new…

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• John Gruber

Apple Introduces New iPad Air With M4

apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apple-introduces-the-new-ipad-air-powered-by-m4/

Apple Newsroom: Apple today announced the new iPad Air featuring M4 and more memory, giving users a big jump in performance at the same starting price. With a faster CPU and GPU, iPad Air boosts tasks like editing and gaming, and is a powerful device for AI with a faster...