Bending Spoons to Buy Airtable for $1.3 Billion
techcrunch.com/2026/08/04/bending-spoons-to-buy-airtable-for-1-28b/
By John Gruber
techcrunch.com/2026/08/04/bending-spoons-to-buy-airtable-for-1-28b/
New app from Brett Terpstra:
TerminalWidget lets you send output from commands, scripts, APIs, and Shortcuts directly to widgets across macOS, iOS, and iPadOS with rich formatting, progress bars, sparklines, and image support. It is available as a universal app on the App Store for $19.99.
I don’t know what I’m going to use this for, but I know I want to use it.
Daring Fireball
• Daring Fireball Department of Commerce
workos.com/blog/mcp-vs-rest?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=q32026
REST serves the developers building against your API. MCP serves the agents now trying to use it. Most teams treat these as competing standards and have to pick one.
They’re not rivals, they’re layers: most MCP servers just call REST internally to do the real work. The best ones don’t convert every endpoint into a tool, they design around what the agent’s trying to accomplish.
Shipping that server also means shipping OAuth 2.1 with scoped tokens. WorkOS AuthKit already speaks that spec, so you skip building an auth provider on top.
macrumors.com/2026/08/03/apple-john-ternus-hiring-retired-vp/
theinformation.com/articles/apple-icloud-policy-fueled-employee-leaks-ahead-openai-suit?rc=jfy0lk
For many years now, part of the co-marketing agreements between Apple and the Big Three is Apple agreeing to require a postpaid account with a Big Three carrier for all “special” iPhone financing deals, including the old iPhone Upgrade Program and the new Apple Upgrade leasing.
Ulysses S. Grant, in 1875:
Where the citizen is sovereign and the official the servant, where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign — the people — should possess intelligence.
The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation. If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.
Not sure if the 2020s count as “the near future”, but holy hell is that a spot-on synopsis of our current moment.
npr.org/2026/08/01/nx-s1-5912219/trump-truth-social-access-insider-trading
My thanks to Agent Fone for sponsoring last week at DF. Agent Fone is a crazily ambitious new smartphone that doesn’t merely ship with a built-in AI assistant. Instead, the entire concept is that it enables you to create custom software, right on the phone itself. Ideas for new apps that you’ve had in your notes for years. Weird little app ideas that only you would want. Describe your idea, answer a few questions, and Agent Fone builds an app, or widget, and it’s on your home screen. They’re looking for 50 people and small teams to sell the first 50 hardware units to. If you’re interested, check out their website for all the information you need, and broader description of the platform.
sixcolors.com/post/2026/07/apple-announces-record-q3-results/
Louie Mantia returns to the show to talk about the state of UI and icon design on Apple’s platforms, and some speculation on Apple’s trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI.
Sponsored by:
Shop like a billionaire.
wsj.com/opinion/the-ai-future-is-for-everyone-a0c24e20?st=T6AAwM
Mark Zuckerberg, in an op-ed Tuesday for The Wall Street Journal (gift link; and irony isn’t lost that “everyone” needs a paid WSJ subscription to read this):
We are fortunate to live at an incredible moment in history. In the next few years, people will be able to use superintelligence beyond human capacity to create and discover extraordinary new things, build new businesses, express our ideas, learn new concepts, and improve our lives, health, relationships and careers.
Perhaps we’ll be able to use it to build a metaverse too. Or to keep our attention on a major initiative for more than two or three years.
arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/ios-and-macos-26-6-arrive-today-paving-the-way-for-ios-and-macos-27/
weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2026/04/28/unobtrusive-update-notifications/
theatlantic.com/technology/2026/07/apple-lease-upgrade-program/688106/
9to5mac.com/2026/07/30/apple-upgrade-vs-iphone-upgrade-program-here-are-the-key-differences/
9to5mac.com/2026/07/28/apple-says-ios-27-restricted-mode-isnt-for-new-upgrade-program-leases/
apple.com/newsroom/2026/07/apple-upgrade-launches-in-the-united-states/
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/police-missed-one-underscore-and-sent-the-wrong-man-to-prison/
theverge.com/tech/972209/ebay-cyberstalking-harassment-settlement
Daring Fireball
• Daring Fireball Department of Commerce
Every phone now ships with an assistant. You ask, it answers. Lame. We built a phone that writes software instead. The app idea you’ve had in your notes for years. The side hustle you will never get around to building. The weird thing only you would want. Describe it, answer a few questions, and it’s on your home screen — yours, working, sendable to a friend. No app store between you and your ideas. The first fifty units go to teams who’ll push on it and tell us what breaks.
Putting themselves in customers’ shoes today, how many ads do Apple’s executives want stuck in the results when they search for an app in the App Store?
My thanks to WorkOS for sponsoring last week at DF to promote their MCP server. Debugging SSO, managing users, adjusting auth policies, configuring branding: every configuration task has lived behind a UI that only a human can drive.
The WorkOS MCP server gives agents the same access as your dashboard login. Hundreds of operations, discoverable at runtime. Connect in one command via OAuth, with scoped tokens instead of a master API key. Pass a screenshot of your marketing site and ask your agent to match the login page. If a human had to do it before, an agent can do it now. Connect your agent today.