Stay safe everyone going to a No Kings protest. I like this:
A core principle behind all No Kings events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values and to act lawfully at these.
🇺🇸
Now that I’ve had a little more time with it, I see what Dia is going for. It’s not just about asking AI questions about a web page. It also aspires to become the starting point for all questions, replacing dedicated apps like ChatGPT or Claude.
Gatto from Enrico Casarosa sounds amazing:
The Annecy crowd cheered the announcement and went wild as Docter unveiled animation tests of a distinct, unique hand-painted look, something Pixar has never shown before. The film appears to be rich in colors from Venetian settings, and blends 2D hand paint textures with cutting-edge CG animation.
Casey Liss blogs some initial reactions to WWDC, including on the new iPad multitasking:
They work well with a finger, but work great with a pointing device. The new multitasking mechanism will remove many of the shackles I feel when using my iPad Pro. I no longer feel like I’m trying to wade through wet cement when using it. I don’t feel like I’m bending to its needs — rather, it’s bending to mine.
We’ll be doing a couple betas of Micro.blog for iOS, whenever Apple approves it. If you’d like to be on the latest version, you can sign up on TestFlight. I tend to do short betas — just a few days or week and then it’ll ship to everyone.
Trying Dia, which is now available if you had an Arc account. It is very interesting. Not sure yet whether I will stick with it, or go back to Arc.
Steve Job’s commencement speech at Stanford is so good. On the 20th anniversary, the Steve Jobs Archive has published notes and drafts he sent himself. I love seeing this.
Tragic airplane crash in India. A single survivor out of over 200 people… Keep thinking of Unbreakable.
Today I’ve been fixing little bugs in Micro.blog for iPhone that have been annoying me. Any glitches that you’d like to see prioritized? Let me know!
I’m sure this acquisition of Clay was in the works for a while, but the timing feels wrong so soon after the Automattic layoffs. I’ve been mostly supportive of Matt Mullenweg and Automattic through all the drama. I’d just like to see them get back on track.
The Talk Show Live was excellent. My WWDC week is winding down… It was great to catch up with folks. Saw several people tonight I hadn’t seen in years.
I downloaded the .ipsw for macOS Tahoe before realizing I would need a second Mac to install. So just did the Software Update, naively thinking it would prompt for which partition to use. Nope. So I’m accidentally running Tahoe on my main system. Onward!
Liquid Glass is getting a little bit of hate after the first day of WWDC. Apple can dial it back in some places, but I think it’s mostly going to work. I’ve also tested the Micro.blog iOS app with it. We’ll update our UI as we get closer to the final iOS 26 release. Amusing button glitches:
Dave Winer blogging about Bluesky’s choice of using domain names for handles:
They were smart at Bluesky to use DNS this way. Why invent your own identity system when the net itself has a great distributed system that scales?
Catching up on yesterday for the photo challenge. Day 9, wood. From walking around Oakland, near Children’s Fairyland.
Ben Thompson writes about Apple refocusing on what they’re good at for WWDC. For the new models:
What is compelling about the Foundation Models Framework is how it empowers small developers to experiment with on-device AI for free: an app that wouldn’t have AI at all for cost reasons now can, and if that output isn’t competitive with cloud AI then that’s the developer’s problem, not Apple’s; at the same time, by enabling developers to experiment Apple is the big beneficiary of those that discover how to do something that is only possible if you have an Apple device.
There’s more in Apple’s new Foundation Models than I was expecting. The struct interfaces and tool calling especially. Fascinating.
Planning to install macOS Tahoe later today. For now, only downloaded SF Symbols 7. Still no robot icon! 🙁
iPad windowing looks good. Funny we were so worried the Mac would become too much like iOS, but sort of the opposite has happened to the iPad over the years. Files app also becoming a little more like the Finder.
Looking forward to trying Apple’s on-device models. It’s a great direction for them to take. But I’m still doubtful they are going to be good enough for some things, after you’ve been spoiled on much larger cloud-based models. Would love to see Apple’s private cloud computer opened up later too.
New blog post about Micro.blog themes from @ericgregorich. I like the way he describes the “layers” of a custom theme. That’s not a word we’ve used, but it fits well.
My post yesterday about Sam Altman has been pretty well received. Not everyone agrees, which is totally fine! We’ll see how the post ages in a year. I tried to put significant thought into it, though, not just fire off another hot take into the “love AI / hate AI” debate chaos.
Good morning from San Jose. I need to find coffee. My brain is finally switching gears to WWDC. Have barely had a chance to really think about what to expect or to get excited.
Day 8 of the Micro.blog photo challenge: travel. Heading down to San Jose. Not actually my train… It arrived on the other track.
Always a good day to be able to release some app updates, even on the weekend. Happy to get Micro.blog 2.5 for Android and 3.5.4 for Mac out the door. Currently have some downtime while waiting for laundry, fixing a couple more things for an iOS app updates this week.
Craig Hockenberry blogging on the eve of WWDC. I expect many developers will agree with his points about App Intents… It’s a lot of work that ultimately puts all the UX control in Apple’s hands:
Instead of building our own ideas on top of a LLM, we’re supposed to provide the internal details of our apps to Apple so they can do it on our behalf.
Picked up a new hoodie while in Berkeley. Despite knowing exactly what the weather’s like in the Bay Area, I packed only short-sleeved shirts. 🤪
I wasn’t planning to give money to this woman holding up a cardboard sign with her kid, on the corner of the grocery store parking lot, until some guy walked by and started yelling at her. Shockingly hateful. And as backdrop we have what’s going on in LA. 😞