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By John Gruber

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Framework Introduces New Laptops and First Desktop

frame.work/blog/highlights-from-the-framework-2nd-gen-event

Founder Nirav Patel, writing this week on Framework’s company blog: We went live this morning at the Framework (2nd Gen) Event with our biggest set of announcements yet: Framework Desktop, Framework Laptop 12, and the new Ryzen AI 300 Series Framework Laptop 13. You can ...

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Trump Claims to Have Spoken With Starmer Regarding Apple Encryption Backdoor Demand

thespectator.com/topic/spectator-interview-president-donald-trump-full-transcript/

Ben Domenech interviewed President Trump yesterday in the Oval Office, after Trump’s meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The Spectator has published the entire transcript, and I read it so you don’t have to, to get the part about Apple and the UK’s encryption backdo...

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What If, Indeed

cjr.org/public_editor/washington-post-public-editor-bezos-has-been-hands-off-what-if-that-changes.php

Hamilton Nolan, in a 2021 piece for The Columbia Journalism Review, under the headline “Bezos Has Been Hands-Off. What if That Changes?”: Bezos has given the paper the resources to be bigger and better, and, by most accounts, pretty much stayed out of the newsroom’s hair...

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Jeff Bezos Takes Control of the Washington Post’s Opinion Pages; Asserts Exclusive Focus ‘In Support and Defense of Two Pillars: Personal Liberties and Free Markets’

x.com/JeffBezos/status/1894757287052362088

Jeff Bezos, in a memo he shared publicly on X: I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning: I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal li...

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Gene Hackman Dies at 95

nytimes.com/2025/02/27/movies/gene-hackman-unforgiven-bonnie-clyde.html

Loved this remembrance by Manohla Dargis in The New York Times: When Clint Eastwood needed a performer who could persuasively go boot-toe to boot-toe with him in his brutal 1992 western Unforgiven, he needed an actor who was his towering equal onscreen. Eastwood needed a...

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★ The iPhone 16e

The iPhone 16e is an iPhone for people who don’t want to think much about their phone. But they *do* want an iPhone, not just any “whatever” phone. A just plain iPhone, with a good screen, good enough (and simple) camera, and great battery life.

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Washington Post: ‘Biden Justice Department Downplayed U.K. Demand for Apple “Back Door”’

washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/26/intelligence-chief-tulsi-gabbard-will-fight-egregious-apple-back-door-order/

Joseph Menn, reporting for The Washington Post: The U.S. Justice Department told Congress in November there were no major disputes with the United Kingdom over how the two allies seek data from each other’s communication companies. But at that time, officials knew Briti...

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Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard Suggests UK Broke Agreement in Secretly Demanding That Apple Build iCloud Backdoor

9to5mac.com/2025/02/26/director-of-national-intelligence-tulsi-gabbard-suggests-uk-broke-agreement-in-secretly-asking-apple-to-build-icloud-backdoor/

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...

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Downie 4

software.charliemonroe.net/downie/

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...

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Charlie Monroe: ‘A Few Words About Indie App Business’

blog.charliemonroe.net/a-few-words-about-indie-app-business/

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...

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xAI’s Grok-3 Jumps to the Top of AI Leaderboards

theverge.com/command-line-newsletter/617780/grok-3-elon-musk-ai-race-chatgpt

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...

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iOS Voice Dictation Bug (?) Briefly Flashes the Word ‘Trump’ When You Say ‘Racist’

theverge.com/news/619434/apple-fixing-voice-transcription-bug-trump-racist

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...

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Jony Ive on ‘Desert Island Discs’

bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00289vf

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, ...

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Apple Shareholders Resoundingly Reject Proposal to Ditch the Company’s ‘Inclusion and Diversity’ Policies; Trump Responds With His Usual Equanimity

macrumors.com/2025/02/26/trump-on-apple-diversity-policies/

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...

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Yours Truly With Rene Ritchie Talking About the iPhone 16e

youtube.com/watch?v=I5OdiEzJNgk

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.

 ★ 

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The Talk Show: ‘Nothing Is Possible’

daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2025/02/24/ep-417

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.

Sponsored by:

  • Listen Later: Turn articles into podcasts and listen on the go, with AI-powered narration.
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[Sponsor] Protect Your App With WorkOS Radar

workos.com/radar?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=q12025

Does your app get fake signups, throwaway emails, or users abusing your free tier? Or worse, bots attacks and brute force attempts?

WorkOS Radar can block all this and more. A simple API gives you advanced device fingerprinting that can detect bad actors, bots, and suspicious behavior.

Your users trust you. Let’s keep it that way.

 ★ 

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Mission Accomplished: Trump Likes Apple’s Plan, Especially the Part About Mexico That I Don’t Think Was Real

axios.com/2025/02/24/apple-investment-trump-tim-cook

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...

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Apple Announces Plan to Spend More Than $500 Billion in the U.S. Over the Next Four Years (Which Is Probably Exactly What They’ve Been Planning to Do)

apple.com/newsroom/2025/02/apple-will-spend-more-than-500-billion-usd-in-the-us-over-the-next-four-years/

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 ...

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HP Added a 15-Minute Waiting Time for Telephone Support Calls

theregister.com/2025/02/20/hp_deliberately_adds_15_minutes/

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...

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Sigma BF

sigma-global.com/en/cameras/bf/

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...

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Linus Sebastian’s Thoughts After Switching to an iPhone for 30 Days

daringfireball.net/linked/2025/02/23/linus-sebastian-switch-to-iphone

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...

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Going Deep on ‘Deep’

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/18/deep-peak-deep-deepseek-ai-tech-chatgpt-naming/

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...

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‘Ready’ Is the New ‘Approved’

mastodon.social/@rileytestut/114043540322770608

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...

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The 40th Anniversary of ProVUE at Macworld Expo

forum.provue.com/t/celebrating-the-40th-anniversary-of-provue-at-macworld-expo/6871

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...

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★ Apple Pulls Advanced Data Protection From the UK, in Defiance of UK Demand for Global Backdoor

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.

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Yankees Loosen The Boss’s Facial Hair Policy

mlb.com/yankees/news/yankees-change-facial-hair-policy

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. ...

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Barbara Broccoli on Amazon, in Private: ‘These People Are Fucking Idiots’

wsj.com/business/media/james-bond-movies-amazon-barbara-broccoli-0b04f0db?st=P86jBM&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

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...

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Leaked Image of the First Post-Humane-Acquisition Product From HP’s Printer Division

x.com/VCBrags/status/1892332805570314491

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.)

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Amazon MGM Studios Takes Creative Control Over James Bond Franchise

variety.com/2025/film/global/james-bond-amazon-mgm-gain-creative-control-1236313930/

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 ...