FeedCity: Daring Fireball

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...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 19:30 • John Gruber

Chance Miller: ‘Netflix Ruined Its Apple TV App by Switching to a Custom Video Player’

9to5mac.com/2026/04/15/netflix-ruined-its-apple-tv-app-by-switching-to-a-custom-video-player/

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac: The change began rolling out a few weeks ago, and user frustration is mounting. On Reddit, there’s a growing thread of Netflix subscribers saying they are canceling their subscription because of this change to the Apple TV app. [...] The change a...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 19:00 • John Gruber

Apple Pay Express Mode for Transit, When Used With a Visa Card, Is Vulnerable to Scam Tap-to-Pay Readers

macrumors.com/2026/04/15/apple-pay-visa-transit-exploit/

Juli Clover, MacRumors: The process requires the victim to have Express Transit Mode enabled for payments, and a Visa card linked for those payments, among other steps. As it turns out, it’s a Visa-related security loophole rather than an iPhone issue, and it doesn’t wor...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 15:42 • John Gruber

Bonus Thought Regarding the Name ‘iPhone Ultra’

daringfireball.net/linked/2026/04/14/name-of-foldable-iphone

One more thought re: the item I posted this week speculating on what Apple will name their much-rumored two-screen folding iPhone this year. If they do name it “iPhone Ultra”, I think Apple using that name for the folding iPhone will imply that they have no plans whatsoever ...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 15:09 • John Gruber

Rory Goss’s Accessibility Story

apple.com/education/college-students/success-stories/goss/

Feature story and short film, well worth watching, from Apple: One winter day in January 2024, 16‑year‑old Rory Goss experienced something jarring while in construction class at Abbey Christian Brothers’ Grammar School in Newry, Northern Ireland. He could no longer see t...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 01:30 • John Gruber

So Close to Getting It

theverge.com/tech/906873/sofa-app-track-tv-movies-installer

David Pierce, last week in his Installer column/newsletter for The Verge, singing the praises of the version 5.0 update to Sofa (the praises of which I just sang): Sofa 5. A huge update to an Installerverse favorite, this app is now a great way to manage everything you w...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 01:00 • John Gruber

Sofa 5.0

sofahq.com/5

Shawn Hickman: A show you started last month. A book on your nightstand. A game you keep meaning to get back to. Finding something new is easy. Remembering where you left off is the hard part. Sofa 5 helps you keep track of this stuff. Progress rings show up on covers t...

Daring Fireball
15 Apr 20:15 • John Gruber

Lisa Melton: ‘Memories of Steve’ (and Memories of Safari’s Unique Page-Loading Indicator in Particular)

lisamelton.net/2023/10/05/memories-of-steve/

Lisa Melton, who ran the team that created Safari, regarding her interactions with Steve Jobs: When Steve asked you a question? You didn’t ramble and, whatever you did, you didn’t make up an answer. If you didn’t know, you just said that you didn’t know. But then you tol...

Daring Fireball
15 Apr 16:03 • John Gruber

★ David Pierce Tried a Bunch of Android Phones and Then Bought an iPhone Again

David Pierce, writing at The Verge (gift link): The Pixel 10 Pro solidified a feeling I’d been having through all of my tests: Android is a better operating system than iOS. [...] If all you got from your phone was the out-of-the-box experience, I’d have picked the Pixe...

Daring Fireball
15 Apr 14:48 • John Gruber

Screen Zooming on iOS and iPadOS

mastodon.social/@stroughtonsmith/116404958539831051

Steven Troughton-Smith:

If you want to pixel-peep on iOS or iPadOS, it also has the Zoom accessibility setting, and can be controlled via touch, keyboard, or trackpad. It works for display mirroring too, and has other options like a minimap and HUD (‘Zoom Controller’).

These settings are in Settings → Accessibility → Zoom. I prefer switching the Zoom Region from the default Window Zoom (which gives you large magnifier glass window to drag around the screen) to Full Screen Zoom, which is more like how zooming works on the Mac.

On iPadOS, you should go into the Keyboard Shortcuts panel (inside Accessibility → Zoom) and turn on Zoom with Scroll Wheel. This lets you zoom Mac-style, using the Control key, when you have a keyboard and trackpad/mouse connected.

(You can, of course, zoom on VisionOS too.)

Link: mastodon.social/@stroughtonsmith/116404958539831051

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 22:09 • John Gruber

Fraudulent Cryptocurrency App in Mac App Store Stole $9.5 Million From 50-Some Users

web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=fake-ledger-app

Molly White, at Web3 Is Going Just Great: After a fake version of the Ledger cryptocurrency wallet app made it onto the normally highly curated Apple App store, customers lost $9.5 million dollars to the malicious product. Believing it was a genuine Ledger product, peopl...

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 22:00 • John Gruber

On the Name of Apple’s Foldable iPhone

macrumors.com/2026/04/07/foldable-iphone-fold-iphone-ultra/

Tim Hardwick, last week at MacRumors: Apple’s first foldable iPhone may not carry the speculative media-derived “Fold” branding after all, according to Chinese leaker Digital Chat Station. In a new post on Weibo, the oft-accurate leaker claimed that Apple’s book-style fo...

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 21:45 • John Gruber

Speaking of Tips

houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/kristin-tips-out-texas-funeral-22206178.php

The Houston Chronicle:

Kristin Tips, the longtime presiding officer of the embattled Texas Funeral Service Commission, is no longer on the board. “Governor Abbott appreciates Kristin Tips’ service,” Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary, said in an email Tuesday. “An announcement on a replacement will be made at a later date.” [...]

Tips, who has run San Antonio’s prestigious Mission Park Funeral Chapels, Cemeteries & Crematories with her husband, Dick Tips, was appointed to the board by the governor in 2017 and made the presiding officer in May 2024. Tips did not respond to a request for comment.

I don’t have any questions for her, but I have at least one for her husband.

Link: houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/kristin-tips…

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 21:18 • John Gruber

Apple Has Hidden the Pre-Creator-Studio Versions of Keynote, Numbers, and Pages in the Mac App Store

9to5mac.com/2026/04/13/apple-removes-old-pages-keynote-numbers-apps-for-macos/

Ryan Christoffel, 9to5Mac: On the iPhone and iPad, Apple made the new Creator Studio features available as updates to the existing App Store releases. On the Mac though, the rollout was a lot more confusing. Apple kept the old iWork apps for Mac available on the App Sto...

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 20:36 • John Gruber

Google Will Finally Begin Punishing Sites for Back-Button Hijacking in June

developers.google.com/search/blog/2026/04/back-button-hijacking

Google, on their Search Central Blog: Today, we are expanding our spam policies to address a deceptive practice known as “back button hijacking”, which will become an explicit violation of the “malicious practices” of spam policies, leading to potential spam actions. Wh...

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 19:54 • John Gruber

Amazon to Acquire Globalstar, Announces Agreement With Apple to Continue Service for iPhone and Apple Watch

aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-globalstar-apple

Amazon: Today Amazon.com, Inc. and Globalstar, Inc. announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Amazon will acquire Globalstar, enabling Amazon Leo to add direct-to-device (D2D) services to its low Earth orbit satellite network and ext...

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 19:54 • John Gruber

John Calhoun on Steve Lemay

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47297653

Speaking of John Calhoun, he chimed in on a Hacker News thread last month regarding his experience working with Steve Lemay at Apple: I think Steve Lemay is a good guy. I kind of fought with him when I was an engineer, he was a young, new designer (at Apple). But I alway...

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 16:36 • John Gruber

Richard Moss’s 2010 Interview With John Calhoun on the Origins of Glider

macscene.net/d/4678-interview-john-calhoun-on-the-origins-of-glider-part-1

Richard Moss, back in 2010: John Calhoun’s Glider games hold a special place in the history of Mac gaming, acting almost as an icon of the platform through much of the 1990s. They spawned a hugely dedicated fan base, which produced a ridiculous amount of original content...

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 14:09 • John Gruber

Glider Is Back in the Mac App Store

bsky.app/profile/engineersneedart.com/post/3mjf3ldjbp22k

John Calhoun, on Bluesky (and also a new blog): I re-made Glider some years back for MacOS/iOS. It broke at some point (perhaps an Apple change for Retina displays?) so I pulled it from the App Store. (Claude looked at the code — found some minor coordinate issues. Than...

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 00:48 • John Gruber

Steven Soderbergh Twice Pitched James Bond Projects

theplaylist.net/steven-soderbergh-says-he-pitched-two-different-james-bond-plans-including-a-twofer-that-would-have-created-an-new-auteur-lane-for-the-franchise-20260409/

The Playlist: The first pitch, he said, goes back to 2008, and it was already pretty radical by Bond standards. “I had pitched in 2008 the idea to Barbara Broccoli of a parallel franchise,” Soderbergh said. “Set in the ’60s, R-rated, violent, sexy. Fictional backstory to...

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 00:21 • John Gruber

Apple Frames 4

macstories.net/stories/introducing-apple-frames-4-a-revamped-shortcut-support-for-frame-colors-proportional-scaling-and-the-apple-frames-cli-for-developers/

Federico Viticci: Today, I’m very happy to introduce Apple Frames 4, a major update to my shortcut for framing screenshots taken on Apple devices with official Apple product bezels. Apple Frames 4 is a complete rethinking of the shortcut that is noticeably faster, update...

Daring Fireball
13 Apr 23:51 • John Gruber

Memory, They Say, Is the First Thing to Go

daringfireball.net/2006/09/zoom_using_scroll_wheel

Welp, turns out I wrote an entire post about the Control-scroll zoom-in-and-out feature all the way back in 2006, when it was a new feature in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Somehow, between 2006 and last year, I completely forgot about it. I don’t think it helps that the settings moved from the Mouse panel to the Zoom sub-section inside Accessibility. But I’ve used it so much in the last year, since rediscovering it, that I can’t believe I ever forgot it. Anyway, after I posted about it earlier today, a few people told me they could swear they learned about it here, long ago. They were right!

Link: daringfireball.net/2006/09/zoom_using_scroll_wheel