Signal Moves Ahead on Post-Quantum Computing, But Still Sucks Ass When You Switch Phones
Ke Yang, Apple’s Head of ChatGPT-Like AI Search Effort, Was Poached by Meta
Nikkei Asia: ‘Apple Slashes iPhone Air Production Plans, Boosts Other 17 Models’
Don Mattingly Finally Headed to the World Series
Reason enough to be rooting for the Blue Jays. Put this man in the Hall of Fame already. For chrissake his name is Donnie Baseball.
Trump Said to Demand Justice Department Pay Him $230 Million for Past Cases
nytimes.com/2025/10/21/us/politics/trump-justice-department-compensation.html
1.5 Miles of Aluminum Foil Is, in Fact, No Big Whoop
Here’s an update I just posted to yesterday’s piece on organized phone theft rings in London:
I forgot to apply one of the core tenets of Brian Kernighan’s wonderful book Millions, Billions, Zillions ($19 in hardcover from Amazon; BookShop.org link to indie booksellers): always do some back-of-the-envelope double-checking of the math in news stories. 1.5 miles of aluminum (or even aluminium) foil from Costco is just 12 rolls at 200 meters each. I wouldn’t blink my eyes at someone with a dozen rolls of foil in the cart at Costco.
Link: daringfireball.net/linked/2025/10/20/london-phone-theft
Consumer Confusion Regarding USB Power Adapters
★ Two Excellent New iPhone Camera Apps: Not Boring’s !Camera and Adobe’s Project Indigo
‘Apocryphal Inventions’
iOS 26.1 Beta 4 Adds New Toggle for Liquid Glass: Clear or Tinted
9to5mac.com/2025/10/20/ios-26-1-beta-4-adds-new-setting-to-tone-down-liquid-glass-transparency/
Daring Fireball
• Daring Fireball Department of Commerce
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workos.com/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=q12025
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Link: workos.com/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm…
Electron Apps Causing System-Wide Lag on MacOS 26 Tahoe
mjtsai.com/blog/2025/09/30/electron-apps-causing-system-wide-lag-on-tahoe/
Michael Tsai, back on September 30, compiled a roundup of links regarding Electron apps causing systemwide lag on MacOS 26 Tahoe. The reason, seemingly, is that the Electron framework was overriding a private AppKit API. Of course.
Tomas Kafka wrote a shell script to find un-updated Electron apps on your system. Craig Hockenberry took Kafka’s shell script and turned it into an easy-to-use AppleScript application.
So, yes, Theo Browne, “software dev nerd”, Electron really is “that bad”. It’s actually, if anything, worse.
Link: mjtsai.com/blog/2025/09/30/electron-apps-causing-system…
When Design Drives Behavior
Jason Fried:
So what’s the net effect of this tiny little design detail that the owner may not even understand? Well, it looks like the watch is already half-way out of power after the first day, so it encourages the owner to wind the watch more frequently. To keep it closer to topped off, even when it’s not necessary. This helps prevent the watch from running out of power, losing time, and, ultimately, stopping. A stopped watch may be right twice a day, but it’s rarely at the times you want.
Small detail, material behavior change. Well considered, well executed, well done.
Link: world.hey.com/jason/when-design-drives-behavior-49baf157
Eavesdropping on Internal Networks via Unencrypted Satellites
Apple Lowered the Price of the New MacBook Pro for Most of the European Countries Where It No Longer Ships With an Included Power Adapter
More on the Lack of an Included Charger With New M5 MacBooks in Europe, Including the U.K. and Norway
daringfireball.net/linked/2025/10/16/m5-mbp-no-power-adapter-in-europe
How London Became a Global Hub for Phone Theft
Kickstarter Campaign for Ben Zotto’s ‘Go Computer Now!’, a Book on Sphere, the Nearly Forgotten Personal Computer Company
kickstarter.com/projects/bzotto/go-computer-now-the-story-of-sphere
David Hockney’s Xerox Prints
myartbroker.com/artist-david-hockney/articles/david-hockney-xerox-prints
Counterpoint Research Claims iPhone 17 Sales Are Up Year-Over-Year in the U.S. and China
cnbc.com/2025/10/20/apple-stock-iphone-17-us-china-sales.html
CNBC:
Apple shares rose 4% on Monday as a new report showed iPhone 17 sales off to a strong start in the U.S. and China.
The iPhone 17 series, which dropped in September, has outsold the iPhone 16 series by 14% in the U.S. and China within its first 10 days of availability, according to data from Counterpoint Research.
Just because a research firm claims iPhone 17 sales are up 14 percent doesn’t mean they are up 14 percent. These are estimates, not hard numbers from Apple — and Apple doesn’t share actual sales numbers with anyone. Some headlines get this right, but most don’t.
Link: cnbc.com/2025/10/20/apple-stock-iphone-17-us-china-sales…
Apple and NBCUniversal Introduce the Apple TV and Peacock Bundle
apple.com/newsroom/2025/10/apple-and-nbcuniversal-introduce-the-apple-tv-and-peacock-bundle/
Major AWS Outage
theverge.com/news/802486/aws-outage-alexa-fortnite-snapchat-offline
Photos From Saturday’s ‘No Kings’ Protests Across the U.S.
Picking up steam, these protests are.
Link: theatlantic.com/photography/archive/2025/10/photos-no-kings…
Mux: Video API for Developers
My thanks to Mux for sponsoring last week at DF. Modern video should be simple to ship and scale. Mux makes it easy to build live and on-demand video into anything from websites to platforms to AI workflows.
Upload a video, get back a playback URL. No transcoding headaches. No CDN setup. Go further with the building blocks of your video: thumbnails, transcripts, and storyboards. Use them to create exactly what you want.
Future-proof your video stack with infrastructure trusted by Patreon, Substack, and Synthesia. Get started free, no credit card required. Use the code FIREBALL for an extra $50 usage credit, when you need it.
The Base M5 MacBook Pro vs. the M4 MacBook Air
apple.com/mac/compare/?modelList=MacBook-Air-M4,MacBook-Pro-14-M5,MacBook-Pro-14-M4-Pro
United States Mint to Release Commemorative $1 Steve Jobs Coin
I’m not really into commemorative coins, and I have to say I suspect Steve Jobs wasn’t either, but it’s a nice little recognition. No mention of it from the Mint, but the $1 value of the coin is the same as the salary Jobs drew from Apple.
Link: usmint.gov/news/press-releases/united-states-mint-releases…
Apple Is the Exclusive New Broadcast Partner for Formula 1 in the U.S.
apple.com/newsroom/2025/10/apple-is-the-exclusive-new-broadcast-partner-for-formula-1-in-the-us/
Matthew Belloni Interviews Eddy Cue on ‘The Town’
M5 MacBook Pro Does Not Include a Charger in the Box in Europe
macrumors.com/2025/10/15/new-macbook-pro-lacks-charger-in-europe/