Anthony Lane, in a crackerjack piece for The New Yorker on the writing and work of Elmore Leonard: So, when does Leonard become himself? Is it possible to specify the moment, or the season, when he crosses the border? I would nominate “The Big Bounce,” from 1969 — which,...

Jason Kottke:

Large media companies, and the NY Times in particular these days, like to use the phrase “experts said” instead of simply stating facts. The thing is, many other statements of plain truth in that brief Times post lack the confirmation of expertise. To aid the paper in steering their readers away from notions of objective truth, here’s a suggested rewrite of that Bluesky post.

Last year, retro computing YouTuber Christian “Peri Fractic” Simpson bought licensed the branding rights and some of the IP belonging to Commodore (which rights have been transferred five times since the original company went bankrupt in 1994). Last week they launched their ...

Classic Web is a fun account to follow on Mastodon. Curator Richard MacManus posts half a dozen or so screenshots per day of, well, classic websites from the late 1990s and 2000s. Makes me feel old and young at the same time.

My thanks to Drata for sponsoring this last week at DF. Their message is short and sweet: Automate compliance. Streamline security. Manage risk. Drata delivers the world’s most advanced Trust Management platform.

Simon Willison: Grok 4 Heavy is the “think much harder” version of Grok 4 that’s currently only available on their $300/month plan. Jeremy Howard relays a report from a Grok 4 Heavy user who wishes to remain anonymous: it turns out that Heavy, unlike regular Grok 4, has ...

Blake Brittain, reporting for Reuters: Apple asked a U.S. appeals court on Monday to overturn a trade tribunal’s decision which forced it to remove blood-oxygen reading technology from its Apple Watches, in order to avoid a ban on its U.S. smartwatch imports. A three-ju...

Here’s a product recommendation long in the making. Four years ago this month, Matthew Panzarino was my guest on The Talk Show and at one point he recommended Moft’s Snap-On iPhone Stand/Wallet. It uses a very clever origami-style folding design. Folded flat it kind of just ...

Linda Yaccarino, in a post on X yesterday: After two incredible years, I’ve decided to step down as CEO of X. When @elonmusk and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company. I...

Jonathan Wold and Luke Carbis cohost a podcast called Crossword, focusing mainly on WordPress and the open web. They occasionally invite guests to join them, and it was my pleasure to join them on their latest episode: John Gruber’s Dithering podcast with Ben Thompson wa...

Mark Gurman got some interesting quotes from interesting former Apple employees for his report at Bloomberg on Jeff Williams’s retirement: “Jeff’s importance and contributions to Apple have been enormous, although perhaps not always obvious to the general public,” said T...

You can support Daring Fireball and save yourself a veritable bundle through some Prime Day discounts.

Apple TV+: Today, Apple TV+ announced a new, six-episode seventh season for the widely hailed, darkly comedic spy drama Slow Horses. The Emmy and BAFTA Award-winning series stars Academy Award winner Sir Gary Oldman, who has been honored with Golden Globe, Emmy and BAFTA...

OpenAI’s page for io, minus the “Sam and Jony” short film that introduced the partnership, is back up, with a brief announcement that the deal has officially closed:

We’re thrilled to share that the io Products, Inc. team has officially merged with OpenAI. Jony Ive and LoveFrom remain independent and have assumed deep design and creative responsibilities across OpenAI.

Referring to the company as “io Products Inc.” rather than just “io” is seemingly their stopgap workaround for the trademark injunction they faced from rival startup iyO two weeks ago, which led them to temporarily take down this web page and the video. The video remains unavailable, presumably because of the ongoing trademark dispute.

Matt Novak, writing for Gizmodo: Social media users first started to observe that Grok was using the phrase “every damn time,” on Tuesday, something that seems innocuous enough. But if you’ve been exposed to Nazis on X, it’s a phrase they like to use to claim that Jews a...

Wired, two weeks ago: Elon Musk’s lawyers claimed that he “does not use a computer” in a Sunday court filing related to his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI. However, Musk has posted pictures or referred to his laptop on X several times in recent months, and public ...

Post-Williams, Apple’s operations will clearly remain under excellent, experienced leadership under Sabih Khan. But the company will be left with its design teams reporting directly to Cook, leaving it less clear whose taste, [ultimately], is steering the work of the company into the future.

Here’s the full statement, given by Apple to the media, including Daring Fireball: “Today we filed our appeal because we believe the European Commission’s decision — and their unprecedented fine — go far beyond what the law requires. As our appeal will show, the EC is ma...

Automate compliance. Streamline security. Manage risk. Drata delivers the world’s most advanced Trust Management platform.

Rebecca Rubin, reporting for Variety: When it comes to Apple’s biggest films, F1: The Movie has officially moved to pole position. I will allow this pun. F1 has generated $293 million at the global box office after 10 days of release, overtaking the entire theatric...

I can see the argument that Apple’s answer is “Yes, it’s potentially confusing for many users”. But I can’t see the argument that the answer is “Yes, it’s potentially confusing for many users, but only if they’re trying to buy in-app content or subscriptions, but not confusing at all if they’re trying to buy, say, movie tickets.”

My thanks to Fly.io for sponsoring last week at DF to promote Phoenix.new, their new AI app-builder. Just describe your idea, and Phoenix.new quickly generates a working real-time Phoenix app: clustering, pubsub, and presence included. Ideal for multiplayer games, collaborative tools, or quick weekend experiments. Built by Fly.io, deploy wherever you want. Give it a try today.

CBS News:

Paramount will settle President Trump’s lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris for $16 million, the company announced late Tuesday.

CBS News’ parent company worked with a mediator to resolve the lawsuit. Under the agreement, $16 million will be allocated to Mr. Trump’s future presidential library and the plaintiffs’ fees and costs. Neither Mr. Trump nor his co-plantiff, Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, will be directly paid as part of the settlement.

The settlement did not include an apology.

It could have been a lot worse, but this is, ultimately, bribery.

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors: Well, would you look at that? The A18 Pro is 46% faster than the M1 in single-core tasks, and almost identical to the M1 on multi-core and graphics tasks. If you wanted to get rid of the M1 MacBook Air but have decided that even today,...

Resurrect your side projects with Phoenix.new, the new AI app-builder from Fly.io. Just describe your idea, and Phoenix.new quickly generates a working real-time Phoenix app: clustering, pubsub, and presence included. Ideal for multiplayer games, collaborative tools, or quick weekend experiments. Built by Fly.io, deploy wherever you want.

Special guest David Smith returns to the show for a developer’s perspective look at WWDC 2025.

Sponsored by:

• TRMNL: A hackable e-ink display. Save $15 with code GRUBER.
• Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code talkshow.

Apple Developer:

By default, apps on the App Store are provided Store Services Tier 2, the complete suite of all capabilities designed to maximize visibility, engagement, growth, and operational efficiency. Developers with apps on the App Store in the EU that communicate and promote offers for digital goods and services can choose to move their apps to only use Store Services Tier 1 and pay a reduced store services fee.

What follows is a long chart, making clear which features are excluded from Tier 1.

Like I wrote in my larger piece on Apple’s new DMA compliance plans, I don’t think Tier 1 is intended to be a feasible choice for any mainstream apps or games. The whole thing is just a way to assert that 8 percent of the commission developers pay is justified by various features of the App Store itself.

It’s a natural consequence that an overly complicated law (the DMA) has resulted in an ever-more-complicated set of guidelines and policies (from Apple). It’s all downright byzantine.

My thanks to WorkOS for once again sponsoring Daring Fireball. 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.

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...