Nifty new convert-to-Markdown library from a small indie development shop named Microsoft: The MarkItDown library is a utility tool for converting various files to Markdown (e.g., for indexing, text analysis, etc.) It presently supports: PDF (.pdf) PowerPoint (.pptx) ...

Ryan Christoffel, also at 9to5Mac: There are two key features that are part of iOS 18.2, but aren’t yet ready for the Mac: Genmoji Mail app redesign Genmoji are an especially unfortunate omission, as they’re available on both iPhone and iPad with iOS and iPadOS 18.2....

Chance Miller has a good rundown for 9to5Mac:

The update includes major new Apple Intelligence features, upgrades to the Camera Control on iPhone 16, a redesign for the Mail app, and much more.

The new Apple Intelligence features lead the list, and certainly lead Apple’s marketing, but there’s quite a bit else new in 18.2 too.

Link: 9to5mac.com/2024/12/11/ios-18-2-release-date-new-features/

Federico Viticci, writing at MacStories “Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.2: A Deep Dive into Working with Siri and ChatGPT, Together”: In testing the updated Writing Tools with ChatGPT integration, I’ve run into some limitations that I will cover below, but I also had two v...

Katie Robinson, reporting for The New York Times: After President-elect Donald J. Trump announced a cascade of cabinet picks last month, the editorial board of The Los Angeles Times decided it would weigh in. One writer prepared an editorial arguing that the Senate shoul...

Ev Williams, writing the backstory of, and raison d’être for, Mozi: And here we are, 20+ years later, with address books full of partial, duplicate, and outdated information. Perhaps the reason for this is that social networks (or the social network) solved this problem ...

New app, spearheaded by Ev Williams: Mozi is a private social network for seeing your people more, IRL. Add your plans, check who’s in town, and know when you overlap. iOS only at the moment, with “Sign in with Apple” as the only supported authentication method. One cl...

One last Letterman link: a new half-hour interview about interviewing with Zach Baron for GQ. I watched the first minute and I’m saving the rest for tonight:

Baron: If you read pieces about you — pieces of press, profile stuff like that — from the ’80s and ’90s, even a little bit in the 2000s, you were often portrayed as miserable.

Letterman: (laughs uproariously) Yeah, that’s great. I love that.

Link: youtube.com/watch?v=qycd0SMahac

The New York Times: George J. Kresge, who as the entertainer the Amazing Kreskin used mentalist tricks to dazzle audiences as he rose to fame on late-night television in the 1970s, died on Tuesday in Wayne, N.J. He was 89. A close friend, Meir Yedid, said the death, at a...

In addition to two choices for t-shirts, the new DF Paraphernalia store also has the above hoodies, which are pretty nice, I have to say. I particularly like the drawstrings, which are much more substantial, almost rope-like, than the shoelace-like strings on most hoodies. I wear mine a lot, especially in the winter, as an extra layer. You’d look good in one.

Here’s the thing. The store will not be open year-round. We’re taking orders now, printing to meet demand, and then we’re going to close it down. Order tonight or tomorrow, and if you’re in the U.S., yours should arrive before Christmas. International orders — even those ordered by our good neighbors in Canada — most likely will not.

Link: store.daringfireball.net/

Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu, in a piece today for The Information (paywalled up the wazoo, sadly), “Apple Is Working on AI Chip With Broadcom”: Apple is developing its first server chip specially designed for artificial intelligence, according to three people with direct kno...

Erik Hayden, reporting for The Hollywood Reporter: For his next move, David Letterman is jumping in to the increasingly crowded free, ad-supported TV channel (FAST) space. The late-night great’s production company Worldwide Pants has inked a deal with Samsung TV Plus to...

Juli Clover at MacRumors: Apple today made a mistake with its macOS Sequoia 15.2 update, releasing the software for two Macs that have yet to be launched. There is a software file for “Mac16,12” and “Mac16,13,” which are upcoming MacBook Air models. The leaked software ...

David Ingram, reporting for NBC News:

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said after a two-day hearing that The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, had not submitted the best bid and was wrongly named the winner of an auction last month by a court-appointed trustee.

“I don’t think it’s enough money,” Lopez said in a late-night ruling from the bench in a Houston court. “I’m going to not approve the sale.”

It’s not over ’til it’s over.

Link: nbcnews.com/tech/internet/bankruptcy-judge-rejects-onions…

Brandon Silverman: It was September of 2011 and I saw a link on kottke.org to a small collection of incredible typography from something called the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. I had never seen them before and they blew my mind. I immediately became a massive fan and in ...

Finally, Daring Fireball t-shirts and hoodies are back. Order now, and we’ll start printing shirts at the end of this week. U.S. domestic orders placed by the end of the day Wednesday should arrive before Christmas. International orders — even those ordered by our good neighbors in Canada — most likely will not.

Link: store.daringfireball.net/

It is the Night of the Living App!

After over a decade, CoverSutra is back — reimagined as a sleek, standalone music player for your Mac.

CoverSutra lives in your menu bar, giving you seamless access to your music library. Instantly search by album, artist, or song—all without breaking your workflow.

What’s New?

• Standalone music player: No Music app required.
• Instant music search: Find tracks anytime, anywhere.
• Global keyboard shortcuts: Control playback from any app.

Available now on the Mac App Store for just $4.99. Free upgrade for CoverSutra 3.0 customers!

Link: sophiestication.com/CoverSutra/?utm_source=df&utm_medium…

Mark Gurman, in his Power On column for Bloomberg: Apple is now working on a major effort to support third-party hand controllers in the device’s visionOS software and has teamed up with Sony Group Corp. to make it happen. Apple approached Sony earlier this year, and the...

My thanks to 1Password — which, earlier this year, acquired frequent DF sponsor Kolide — for sponsoring last week at DF. Imagine if you went to the movies and they charged $8,000 for popcorn. Or, imagine you got on a plane and they told you that seatbelts were only available...

While there is no subscription offering for Daring Fireball (never say never again), I am reminded this week to remind you that, if you enjoy podcasts, you should subscribe to Dithering, the twice-weekly 15-minutes-on-the-button podcast I do with Ben Thompson. Dithering a...

Late-breaking candidate for best new font of 2024.

Link: timesnewdumbass.co/

Elizabeth Lopatto, writing for The Verge, “Stop Using Generative AI as a Search Engine”: Now, a defender of AI might — rightly — say that a real journalist should check the answers provided by ChatGPT; that fact-checking is a critical part of our job. I agree, which is w...

Purely fun, pay-whatever-you-think-fair app for the Mac from Simon Støvring (developer of numerous fine apps such as Runestone and Scriptable):

Festivitas automatically adds festive lights to your menu bar and dock upon launch and you can tweak their appearance to match your preferences.

There is something very core to the Mac’s origins about not just making a software toy like this, but putting effort into making everything about it really nice. Harks back to Steven Halls’s The Talking Moose and, of course, the undisputed king of the genre, Eric Shapiro’s The Grouch. Oh, and of course (thanks to Stephen Hackett for the reminder), Holiday Lights.

Update, Friday 6 December: Today’s 1.1 update brings several improvements, including making the lights look way cooler if your Dock is on the left or right (as god intended).

Link: festivitas.app/

David Frum, writing at The Atlantic, regarding his jarring appearance as a guest on MSNBC’s Morning Joe: Before getting to the article, I was asked about the nomination of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense — specifically about an NBC News report that his heavy drinkin...

Oliver Darcy, in a well-sourced report at Status (paywalled, alas, but with a preview of the article if you sign up for the free version of his newsletter, which I agree is sort of a “Yeah, no thanks” offer): Patrick Soon-Shiong is tightening his grip over the Los Angele...

Stephanie Palazzolo, writing for The Information (paywalled, alas): Researchers at OpenAI believe that some rival AI developers are training their reasoning models by using OpenAI’s o1 reasoning models to generate training data, according to a person who has spoken to th...

From The Stanford Review editor-in-chief Julia Steinberg’s interview with university president Jonathan Levin:

Stanford Review: What is the most important problem in the world right now?

President Levin: There’s no answer to that question. There are too many important problems to give you a single answer.

Stanford Review: That is an application question that we have to answer to apply here.

(Via CJ Ciaramella on Bluesky.)

Link: stanfordreview.org/levin-interview/amp/

Alex Heath, writing at The Verge: “I’m actually very optimistic this time around,” Bezos said of Trump during a rare public appearance at The New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday. “He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. If I can help him do t...

While writing the previous item regarding the FBI encouraging the use of E2EE text and call protocols, I wound up at the Play Store page for Google Messages. It’s shamefully misleading regarding Google Messages’s support for end-to-end encryption. As I wrote in the previous ...

Kevin Collier, reporting for NBC News: Amid an unprecedented cyberattack on telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Verizon, U.S. officials have recommended that Americans use encrypted messaging apps to ensure their communications stay hidden from foreign hack...