Zac Hall, reporting for 9to5Mac: According to a letter seen by 9to5Mac, the Trump Administration is investigating whether the UK may have broken a bilateral agreement when secretly demanding that Apple build a global backdoor into iCloud. Trump’s Director of National In...

I referenced Downie twice earlier today — once in my item linking to Charlie Monroe (developer of Downie) writing about the indie app business, and earlier in my post about using Downie to download the MP3 from Jony Ive’s interview on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs. I someho...

Charlie Monroe, developer of excellent apps such as Downie and Permute: But also don’t do this alone. I work 365 days a year. Last year, I worked 366 days (2024 was leap year). I’m not saying that I work 8 hours each day, but even during weekends, holidays, vacation, I n...

Alex Heath, writing for The Verge: Just a few weeks after everyone freaked out about DeepSeek, Elon Musk’s Grok-3 has again shaken up the fast-moving AI race. The new model is ending the week at the top of the Chatbot Arena leaderboard, while the Grok iOS app is at the t...

Chris Welch, writing at The Verge: Apple has acknowledged a peculiar bug with the iPhone’s dictation feature that briefly displays “Trump” when someone says the word “racist.” The Verge has been unable to reproduce the issue, but it picked up attention on Tuesday after a...

Desert Island Discs is a remarkably long-running BBC Radio interview program now hosted (or presented, if you will) by Lauren Laverne. The gimmick is that guests are asked to name eight songs, a book, and a “luxury item” they’d take with them if stranded on a desert island, ...

Michael Liedtke, reporting for the AP: Apple shareholders rebuffed an attempt to pressure the technology trendsetter into joining President Donald Trump’s push to scrub corporate programs designed to diversify its workforce. The proposal drafted by the National Center f...

The advantage to having me on Rene’s show, rather than vice versa, is that he’ll push us through talking about a new iPhone model in 30 minutes. If I were hosting it’d be two hours. But the first hour would be about the whole James Bond film rights thing.

Special guest: Paul Kafasis. Special topics: Siri/Super Bowl nonsense, “Gulf of Mexico/America” nonsense, the iPhone 16e gets announced, and a veritable Bond villain buys the rights to the James Bond movie franchise.

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Mike Allen, writing for Axios, under the headline “Trump Manufacturing Win: Apple to Spend $500 Billion in U.S., Hire 20,000”: Trump met with Cook on Thursday in the Oval Office. Then Trump got so excited that he revealed the plans prematurely, saying on-camera while mee...

Apple Newsroom: Apple today announced its largest-ever spend commitment, with plans to spend and invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. The context of making a big deal over this announcement, of course, is that Apple is seeking exemptions ...

Paul Kunert, reporting for The Register last week: HP Inc is trying to force consumer PC and print customers to use online and other digital support channels by setting a minimum 15-minute wait time for anyone that phones the call center to get answers to troublesome que...

Absolutely beautiful new camera from Sigma. Full-size sensor, interchangeable lens system, but it’s the camera design that jumps out: The Sigma BF represents a new, more intuitive way to use a camera. It is streamlined to make the act of photography as effortless as poss...

I’ve been meaning, since it came out in December, to link to this video from Linus Sebastian of “Linus Tech Tips” fame, and with the iPhone 16e dropping this week, now seems like a good time. It’s a common genre that dates back decades before YouTube was even a thing: longti...

Katy Steinmetz, writing for The Washington Post (via Mignon Fogarty): But lately, one meaning has become trendier than the rest. Close ties to artificial intelligence have led to a surge in “deep” being used for AI-related endeavors, to the point that the word is fast be...

File this one under “precise words matter”. Remember the whole thing a few weeks back, where AltStore PAL — an EU alternative app marketplace for iOS — published Hot Tub, a hardcore porno app, and billed it as “approved” by Apple because that’s the word Apple used for apps t...

Jim Rea: Forty years ago today the doors opened for the very first Macworld Expo in the Brooks Hall basement in San Francisco. For most of you this event probably seems like ancient history, somewhere back in the mists of time. But for me this was a very real and excitin...

The UK’s demands are simultaneously infuriatingly offensive, mathematically ignorant (regarding the nature of end-to-end encryption), dangerous (as proven by the recent Salt Typhoon attack China successfully waged to eavesdrop on non-E2EE communications in the United States), and laughably naive regarding the UK’s actual power and standing in the world.

Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner: “In recent weeks I have spoken to a large number of former and current Yankees — spanning several eras — to elicit their perspectives on our longstanding facial hair and grooming policy, and I appreciate their earnest and varied feedback. ...

Erich Schwartzel and Jessica Toonkel, reporting for The Wall Street Journal back on December 19, under the headline “Where Is James Bond? Trapped in an Ugly Stalemate With Amazon” (News+ link): Nearly three years after Amazon acquired the right to release Bond movies thr...

Didn’t take them long to start having an impact inside HP.

(Direct link to image, for those who can’t or don’t want to see the original on X.)

Alex Ritman, with blockbuster news at Variety: Amazon MGM Studios is set to take creative control of the James Bond franchise. The shock announcement — which is sure to shake and, indeed, stir the industry — was made Thursday, alongside the news that long-time producers ...

The iPhone 16e is arguably just plain a better phone than the iPhone 15, and I think it’s almost inarguably a better value at $100 less.

MG Siegler:

A regular person might read that headline and think, “wow, a startup sold for nine-figures — impressive.” Of course, it’s not impressive in this case. It’s a fire sale for a company that has been under duress for months after their product, the Ai Pin, failed to catch fire in the market. Actually, that’s not technically true. There was a literal risk of fire when charging the device, which led to a recall. And so you’ll forgive me for sort of re-using a headline here — but this situation is much more akin to the Hindenburg disaster from which the phrase originates.

From Humane’s “AI Pin Consumers FAQ”, which they link to with one of the best euphemisms of the year thus far — “We understand this transition may be difficult, and you may have questions”: Key Dates to Remember: Effective immediately: Ai Pin is no longer available fo...

Brody Ford, reporting for Bloomberg: HP Inc. will acquire assets from Humane Inc., the maker of a wearable Ai Pin introduced in late 2023, for $116 million. The deal will include the majority of Humane’s employees in addition to its software platform and intellectual pr...

I cracked wise in a footnote yesterday about MapQuest still being around, but it turns out they’re not only still around, and they’re not only still labelling the Gulf of Mexico by its world-recognized not-stupid name, but they’ve actually built an entire website that perfectly jibes with my closing argument — to wit, that this whole thing is objectively hilarious and that mockery is our best tool to subvert a kakistocracy. Bravo.

Much serious thought and consideration, from very smart people in Mountain View and Cupertino, went into determining how to respond to a profoundly silly and thoughtless executive order. Yet that response is disturbing.

Extraordinary illustrated essay by Marcin Wichary, documenting a typeface — and its long, fascinating, splintered history — that exemplifies the difference between beautiful and pretty. The beauty in Gorton isn’t just in its plainness and hardworking mechanical roots — it’s in the history of the 20th century itself. Gorton became such a part of the world that the bygone world of the previous century imbues how this font makes me feel.

Do yourself a favor and read this one in a comfortable chair, with a tasty slow-sipping beverage, on a screen bigger than a phone. Everything about this piece is exemplary and astounding — the writing, the photography, the depths of research. But most of all, Wichary’s clear passion and appreciation. It’s a love letter.