FeedCity: Daring Fireball

Kim Mackrael and Sam Schechner, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (News+ link): The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, had initially planned to announce cease-and-desist orders targeting the tech giants on Tuesday and had informed at least one of the compa...

Daring Fireball
17 Apr 13:41 • John Gruber

Spending More to Get Less Is Good?

nytimes.com/2025/04/15/technology/personaltech/trump-tariffs-iphone-cost.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AU8.L2Ko.yUXIIfzson-2&smid=url-share

Brian X. Chen, in a column at The New York Times headlined “Why a Tariff-Inflated $2,000 iPhone Is Nothing to Fear”: Don’t panic. Even if tariffs did cause the iPhone’s price to surge, we would have plenty of cheaper options, like buying last year’s phone model instead o...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 22:44 • John Gruber

Man of the Hour: Judge James Boasberg

talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/5-points-on-how-judge-boasberg-broke-down-the-admins-alien-enemies-contempt

Josh Kovensky, reporting for TPM: In a withering 46-page opinion on Wednesday, D.C. Chief Judge James Boasberg laid out how he came to believe that the Trump administration was acting in bad faith during its Alien Enemies Act removals. Boasberg set the stage for potenti...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 22:18 • John Gruber

Wink Martindale Dies at 91

latimes.com/obituaries/story/2025-04-15/wink-martindale-dead-game-show-host-tic-tac-dough-gambit

Dennis McLellan, writing for the Los Angeles Times (News+ link): Over the decades, according to his website, Martindale either hosted or produced 21 game shows, including “Words and Music,” “Trivial Pursuit,” “The Last Word” and “Debt.” “That’s a lot of shows,” he acknow...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 20:26 • John Gruber

Meta Botches Redaction of Slides in Antitrust Trial, Angering Google, Apple, and Snap

theverge.com/news/649834/meta-redactions-apple-google-snap-angry-ftc-antitrust-trial

Wes Davis, The Verge: During Meta’s antitrust trial today, lawyers representing Apple, Google, and Snap each expressed irritation with Meta over the slides it presented on Monday that The Verge found to contain easy-to-remove redactions. Attorneys for both Apple and Snap...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 19:40 • John Gruber

The WSJ Reports on How Elon Musk Manages His ‘Legion’ of Children and Harem of Mothers

wsj.com/politics/elon-musk-children-mothers-ashley-st-clair-grimes-dc7ba05c?st=prbiyB&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Dana Mattioli, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (main link is a gift link; also, here’s a News+ link): Musk has had at least 14 children with four women, including the pop musician Grimes and Shivon Zilis, an executive at his brain computer company Neuralink. Multip...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 18:56 • John Gruber

DOGE Dingalings Cut Off Funding for CVE Program

theregister.com/2025/04/16/homeland_security_funding_for_cve/

Jessica Lyons, reporting for The Register: US government funding for the world’s CVE program — the centralized Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures database of product security flaws — ends Wednesday. The 25-year-old CVE program plays a huge role in vulnerability manage...

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 18:00 • John Gruber

Figma Files for IPO

figma.com/blog/s1-confidential-submission/

You will recall that in September 2022, Figma entered into an agreement for a $20 billion acquisition by Adobe, but abandoned the deal 15 months later.

Link: figma.com/blog/s1-confidential-submission/

Daring Fireball
16 Apr 17:40 • John Gruber

Glenn Fleishman’s Kickstarter for ‘Six Centuries of Type & Printing’

kickstarter.com/projects/glennf/six-centuries-of-type-and-printing

Glenn Fleishman: The book Six Centuries of Type & Printing briskly tells the story of the evolution of type and printing, starting with early documented efforts and surviving artifacts from China and Korea, and introducing Gutenberg and his innovations. It then takes...

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 23:51 • John Gruber

ChatGPT Can Now Remember and Reference All Your Previous Chats

arstechnica.com/ai/2025/04/chatgpt-can-now-remember-and-reference-all-your-previous-chats/

Samuel Axon, writing for Ars Technica: Some time ago, OpenAI added a feature called “Memory” that allowed a limited number of pieces of information to be retained and used for future responses. Users often had to specifically ask ChatGPT to remember something to trigger ...

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 23:29 • Daring Fireball Department of Commerce

[Sponsor] Dekáf Coffee Roasters

dekaf.com/df

Coffee has always been about bringing people together. For us, it started with a simple question over a late-night cup of decaf: why do coffee lovers who skip the caffeine have to skip the craft too?

At Dekáf, we believe those who drink coffee purely for its flavor are the true connoisseurs. While other roasters treat decaf as a side project, we’ve made it our entire mission. We’re dedicated to creating exceptional decaffeinated coffee that stands toe-to-toe with the world’s finest caffeinated beans.

9 single origins. 6 signature blends. You won’t believe it’s decaf. That’s the point.

30% off with code: DF

Link: dekaf.com/df

Daring Fireball
14 Apr 16:02 • John Gruber

Seth Godin on How to Win an Argument With a Toddler

seths.blog/2025/04/how-to-win-an-argument-with-a-toddler/

Seth Godin:

You can’t.

That’s because toddlers don’t understand what an argument is and aren’t interesting in having one.

Toddlers (which includes defensive bureaucrats, bullies, flat earthers, folks committed to a specific agenda and radio talk show hosts) may indicate that they’d like to have an argument, but they’re actually engaging in connection, noise, play acting or a chance to earn status. It can be fun to be in opposition, to harangue or even to use power to change someone’s position.

Link: seths.blog/2025/04/how-to-win-an-argument-with-a-toddler/

Daring Fireball
13 Apr 19:39 • John Gruber

WorkOS: Scalable, Secure Authentication

workos.com/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=q12025

My thanks to WorkOS for sponsoring last week at DF. Modern authentication should be seamless and secure. WorkOS makes it easy to integrate features like MFA, SSO, and RBAC. Whether you’re replacing passwords, stopping fraud, or adding enterprise auth, WorkOS can help you build frictionless auth that scales.

New features they launched just last month include:

WorkOS Connect — “Sign in with [Your App]”
WorkOS Vault — Encryption Key Management (EKM) and Bring-Your-Own-Key (BYOK)
AuthKit Integrations — Native support for several new identity providers including LinkedIn, Slack, GitLab, BitBucket, Intuit, and more.

Future-proof your authentication stack with the identity layer trusted by OpenAI, Cursor, Perplexity, and Vercel.

Link: workos.com/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm…

Daring Fireball
13 Apr 19:29 • John Gruber

Bill Maher on His Dinner at the White House With Donald Trump

youtube.com/watch?v=RxlopbcfXpQ

Bill Maher personifies the difference between a liberal (which he is) and a leftist (which he isn’t). But he’s been a stridently vocal critic of Trump since long before Trump even ran for president. Maher was the first person on television to correctly predict that Trump, if...

Daring Fireball
13 Apr 18:56 • John Gruber

‘What It Feels Like, Right Now’

terribleminds.com/ramble/2025/04/09/what-it-feels-like-right-now/

Crackerjack essay by Chuck Wendig:

Maybe it’s like turbulence on an airplane, you think. Just a bumpy unpleasant awful experience you gotta get through. But when turbulence hits it’s not because the pilot is a guy who doesn’t “know planes,” when turbulence hits they don’t disappear the ninth row people out the airlock because they “look different” and are “probably causing the problem.” Planes don’t have airlocks, do they? Whatever. My brain is spray cheese.

Link: terribleminds.com/ramble/2025/04/09/what-it-feels-like…

Daring Fireball
13 Apr 18:48 • John Gruber

Chris Whipple on the End of the Biden Administration

vanityfair.com/news/story/joe-bidens-final-days

Vanity Fair published an excerpt from Chris Whipple’s new book on the final years of Joe Biden’s presidency, under the headline “Did Aides Cover Up His Mental State — or Was It Group Delusion?” (News+ link): The president’s wobbly state should have been a flashing warnin...

Daring Fireball
13 Apr 18:37 • John Gruber

Jamelle Bouie on Trump’s Tariff Obsession

nytimes.com/2025/04/09/opinion/trump-tariffs-rationale-power.html?unlocked_article_code=1._U4.jlDF.elEoqbYtNPr6&smid=url-share

Jamelle Bouie, writing at The New York Times (gift link): There is a hypothetical president with a hypothetically similar agenda who could answer these questions. This actual president cannot. He did not reason himself into his preoccupation with tariffs and can neither ...

Daring Fireball
12 Apr 20:48 • John Gruber

Warren Buffett’s 2024 Report to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders

berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2024ltr.pdf

Warren Buffett’s annual shareholders letters are always a must-read. The honesty, clarity, and striking humility of his prose stands out in a world where corporate communications — from companies of any size — tend to be bland and obfuscating. This year’s letter, published b...

Daring Fireball
12 Apr 17:53 • John Gruber

Smartphones and Computers Are Now Exempt From Trump’s Latest Tariffs

cnn.com/2025/04/12/tech/trump-electronics-china-tariffs/index.html

Auzinea Bacon, CNN: Electronics imported to the United States will be exempt from President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, according to a US Customs and Border Protection notice posted late Friday. Smartphones, computer monitors and various electronic parts are among...

Daring Fireball
11 Apr 22:40 • John Gruber

Anker, a Chinese Company, Has Already Started Raising Its Prices on Amazon

reuters.com/technology/chinese-electronics-company-anker-starts-raising-prices-amazon-2025-04-11/

Reuters: China’s Anker, one of Amazon’s largest sellers offering products from power banks to phone cases, has raised prices on a fifth of its products on the U.S. platform since Thursday, in a sign that tariffs on Chinese goods are being passed on to U.S. shoppers. Som...

Daring Fireball
11 Apr 21:33 • John Gruber

European Travel to the U.S. Plummets

ft.com/content/6dc16a54-8de1-4f3b-8409-ecb566118127

Financial Times reporter John Burn-Murdoch has a summary on Bluesky of his co-bylined report for the Financial Times: Visitors from western Europe who stayed at least one night in the US fell by 17 per cent in March from a year ago, according to the International Trade A...

Daring Fireball
11 Apr 20:14 • John Gruber

Chinese Finance Ministry Calls Trump’s Tariff Hikes ‘A Joke in the History of World Economics’

reuters.com/world/china/china-increase-tariffs-us-goods-125-up-84-finance-ministry-says-2025-04-11/

Reuters: “The U.S. side’s imposition of excessively high tariffs on China seriously violates international economic and trade rules, runs counter to basic economic principles and common sense, and is simply an act of unilateral bullying and coercion,” China’s Finance Min...

Daring Fireball
10 Apr 21:58 • John Gruber

Wayne Ma at The Information: ‘How Apple Fumbled Siri’s AI Makeover’

theinformation.com/articles/apple-fumbled-siris-ai-makeover?rc=jfy0lk

Blockbuster report by Wayne Ma for The Information (paywalled and pricey, alas): But an equally important factor was the conflicting personalities within Apple, according to multiple people who worked in the AI and software engineering groups. More than half a dozen form...

Daring Fireball
10 Apr 01:42 • John Gruber

‘American Disruption’

stratechery.com/2025/american-disruption/

Ben Thompson: The problem with these tariffs is that their scale and indiscriminate nature will have the effect of destroying demand and destroying the capability to develop alternative supply. I suppose if the only goal is to hurt China then shooting yourself in the foo...

Daring Fireball
10 Apr 01:40 • John Gruber

Trump, Supposedly, Thinks the U.S. Has the ‘Resources’ Needed to Make iPhones

9to5mac.com/2025/04/08/trump-thinks-the-us-has-the-resources-needed-to-make-iphones/

Chance Miller, writing at 9to5Mac: Ahead of that, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said today that Trump firmly believes that Apple can move iPhone manufacturing to the United States. In response to a question from Maggie Haberman of The New York Times about ...

Daring Fireball
09 Apr 23:11 • John Gruber

★ WebKit Adds Support for ‘text-wrap: pretty’, Now Shipping in Safari Technology Preview

Jen Simmons, writing on the WebKit blog, “Better Typography With text-wrap pretty”: For over 30 years, the web had only one technique for determining where to wrap text. The browser starts with the first line of text, and lays out each word or syllable, one after anothe...

Daring Fireball
09 Apr 20:46 • John Gruber

★ How Many New iPhones Can Fit on a Freight Plane?

This sounds like one of those puzzles job interviewers often ask, but there’s a practical relevance at the moment: What’s a ballpark estimate for how many iPhones Apple might have hustled to ship into the US on those five freight planes ahead of the new tariffs? Ryan Jones t...

Daring Fireball
09 Apr 18:56 • John Gruber

Trump Cuts Most Tariffs to 10% but Increases Tariffs on China to 125%

truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114309144289505174

President Trump, in a post on Truth Social, which is apparently how the world’s financial markets now run: Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, e...

Daring Fireball
08 Apr 22:04 • Daring Fireball Department of Commerce

[Sponsor] WorkOS: Scalable, Secure Authentication

workos.com/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=q12025

Modern authentication should be seamless and secure. WorkOS makes it easy to integrate features like MFA, SSO, and RBAC.

Whether you’re replacing passwords, stopping fraud, or adding enterprise auth, WorkOS can help you build frictionless auth that scales.

Future-proof your authentication stack with the identity layer trusted by OpenAI, Cursor, Perplexity, and Vercel.

Upgrade your auth today.

Link: workos.com/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm…

Daring Fireball
08 Apr 21:00 • John Gruber

Apple Is Hustling to Fly Planes of iPhones Into the U.S. Ahead of Trump’s Tariffs

9to5mac.com/2025/04/07/iphone-inventory-united-states-planes/

Chance Miller, writing for 9to5Mac: According to senior Indian officials cited in the report, Apple flew five planes full of iPhones and other products from India and China “in just three days during the final week of March.” “Factories in India and China and other key ...