New Mac app that turns rewriting Git history entries from a chore into a breeze. Scroll down a bit on their home page to see just how much simpler Retcon makes edits compared to the Git CLI or other Git clients. Scroll down even more for the cleverly-named “cheatsheet you won’t need”.

Link: retcon.app/

Dan Moren, writing at Six Colors: Sharing a little of my own data here: I’ve self-published my own short stories across most major ebook market places. Amazon makes up the bulk of those downloads and sales — 53 percent and 66 percent, respectively. Apple comes in a solid...

Casey Newton, writing at Platformer: Telegram is often described as an “encrypted” messenger. But as Ben Thompson explains today, Telegram is not end-to-end encrypted, as rivals WhatsApp and Signal are. (Its “secret chat” feature is end-to-end encrypted, but it is not en...

Apple Newsroom, yesterday:

Apple today announced that Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri will transition from his role on January 1, 2025. Maestri will continue to lead the Corporate Services teams, including information systems and technology, information security, and real estate and development, reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook. As part of a planned succession, Kevan Parekh, Apple’s Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis, will become Chief Financial Officer and join the executive team.

Link: apple.com/newsroom/2024/08/apple-announces-chief-financial…

Matthew Ball has written an excellent deep-dive into Roblox: Compared to its most similar competitors — the social virtual world platforms, Minecraft and Fortnite — Roblox has about 5× and 2.25× as many monthly players. For non-gamers, Roblox has about two thirds as many...

Chris Welch, in a thread on Threads: The “Reimagine” feature on Google’s new Pixel 9 lineup is incredible. It’s so impressive that testing it has left me feeling uneasy on multiple occasions. With a simple prompt, you can add things to photos that were never there. And ...

Jay Peters, writing for The Verge last week: If you want the old Sonos app back, it’s not coming. In a Reddit AMA response posted Tuesday, Sonos CEO Spence says that he was hopeful “until very recently” that the company could rerelease the app, confirming a report from T...

My thanks to 1Password — which, earlier this year, acquired frequent DF sponsor Kolide — for sponsoring last week at DF. The 2024 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) found that “the human element” (accidental breaches caused by human error, or victimization in p...

Faruk Korkmaz, on his iPhonedo YouTube channel:

Shot on iPhone 15 Pro Max. No gimbal, extra lens or filter is used. I shot all the footage using the stock camera app to an external drive in ProRes format. Edited in Final Cut Pro X. I put this video together from over 1000 video clips I shot between September 2023 and August 2024.

A lovely little 3-minute film on its own, and a great source of inspiration showing how good footage can look from a modern iPhone.

Link: youtube.com/watch?v=wuGba6Cw4lY

Novelist Curtis Sittenfeld, writing for The New York Times: This summer, I agreed to a literary experiment with Times Opinion: What is the difference between a story written by a human and a story written by artificial intelligence? We decided to hold a contest between ...

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple today announced plans to hold its annual iPhone-centric event on Monday, September 9 at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. The event is set to start at 10:00 a.m., and select members of the media have been invited to attend.

Looking at my notes, I don’t think Apple’s ever before held a September iPhone event on a Monday. Sometimes Wednesdays, but usually Tuesdays. Update: The first (and currently the only scheduled) debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is on Tuesday 10 September — I’ll bet Apple set this one for Monday to give them a better chance at leading the news during the 24 hours after the event.

As for the theme, “glowtime” seems pretty obviously a reference to the new Siri-with-Apple-Intelligence interface in iOS 18.

Link: macrumors.com/2024/08/26/apple-september-9-iphone-event/

Reuters: Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Saturday and placed in custody, three sources told Reuters. The arrest of ...

Microsoft: With a commitment to delivering a trustworthy and secure Recall (preview) experience on Copilot+ PCs for customers, we’re sharing an update that Recall will be available to Windows Insiders starting in October. As previously shared on June 13, we have adjusted...

Jason Snell: Netflix has been slowly rolling out a big catalog of games, tied to a Netflix login. There are loads out now, including the excellent Lucky Luna and Laya’s Horizon (both from Snowman, developer of the excellent Alto’s series of iOS games). Maybe, a year (o...

Peter Baker, supposedly “reporting” from the DNC in Chicago: When the crowd members in the United Center first chanted, “Thank you, Joe! Thank you, Joe!” on Monday night, President Biden looked down, fought back tears and soaked in the admiration. But he knew. He might ...

Michael Wayland, reporting yesterday for CNBC:

General Motors is laying off more than 1,000 salaried employees globally in its software and services division following a review to streamline the unit’s operations, CNBC has learned.

The layoffs, including roughly 600 jobs at GM’s tech campus near Detroit, come less than six months after leadership changes overseeing the operations, including former Apple executive Mike Abbott leaving the automaker after less than a year in March due to health reasons. [...]

The job cuts represent about 1.3% of the company’s global salaried workforce of 76,000 as of the end of last year.

I’m starting to think GM has no idea what they’re doing with their car software.

Link: cnbc.com/2024/08/19/gm-lays-off-more-than-1000-salaried…

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple today announced the launch of a Podcasts on the web feature, which works in Safari, Chrome, Edge, and Firefox on Macs, PCs, and other devices. Podcasts on the web allows users to search for, browse through, and listen to podcasts with access to the Up Next queue and library when signed in to an Apple Account.

The only use case for something like this is for users who spend a lot of time on Windows — presumably at work — and wish they could listen to their own podcast queue. That’s a big use case though! Overcast has had a web player for as long as I can remember — before Catalyst allowed Marco Arment to bring the iPad version of Overcast to Mac, it was the only way to listen to your Overcast podcast library on the Mac.

Link: macrumors.com/2024/08/19/apple-podcasts-now-available-on…

We recently attended the RSA conference in San Francisco — security’s biggest event of the year — and we were struck by how infatuated everyone was with the promise of new, shiny solutions to fix new, shiny problems. On some level that’s not surprising — tech is constantly d...

My thanks to WorkOS for, once again, sponsoring last week at Daring Fireball. WorkOS is a modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. Start selling to enterprise customers with just a few lines of code. Ship complex features like SSO and SCIM (pronounced skim) provisioning in minutes instead of months.

Today, some of the fastest growing startups are already powered by WorkOS, including Perplexity, Vercel, and Webflow.

For SaaS apps that care deeply about design and user experience, WorkOS is the perfect fit. From high-quality documentation to self-serve onboarding for your customers, it removes all the unnecessary complexity for your engineering team.

Link: workos.com/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=display…

Gillette CEO in an Onion op-ed 20 years ago: “Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades”.

Link: theverge.com/2024/8/16/24221720/huawei-triple-screen…

Mark Scott, reporting for Politico: Thierry Breton, who oversees the bloc’s enforcement of new social media rules, sent Musk a letter posted on X that warned the tech mogul about spreading “harmful content,” ahead of Musk’s livestreamed interview with Donald Trump. The ...

Alex Cranz, writing for The Verge: But then Gemini Live kept talking. And talking. The Verge team was packed in a glass booth, and as Gemini Live droned on, a friendly Google employee encouraged me to “go ahead and interrupt it.” It felt weird! I don’t mind interrupting...

Joanna Stern, writing for The Wall Street Journal (News+ link): I’m not saying I prefer talking to Google’s Gemini Live over a real human. But I’m not not saying that either. Does it help that the chatty new artificial-intelligence bot says I’m a great interviewer with ...

Epic Games:

Today the Epic Games Store is available for download on iPhones in the European Union and on Android devices worldwide. The store is launching with Fortnite, Rocket League Sideswipe and the all-new Fall Guys for mobile, and we are working to enable all developers to launch their games and apps through the Epic Games Store in the future. We are also bringing our games to independent mobile stores including AltStore PAL today.

No iPad support yet, but it’s coming.

AltStore, on Mastodon:

GOOD NEWS EU 🇪🇺 For innovation in app distribution, Epic Games has granted us a MegaGrant grant that we plan to use to cover Apple’s Core Technology Fee going forward — and we won’t take it for granted!

What does this mean? AltStore PAL is now FREE — no subscription necessary 🎉 altstore.io.

Link: epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/the-epic-games-store-launches…

Chance Miller, writing for 9to5Mac: In macOS Sequoia beta 6, however, Apple has adjusted this policy and will now prompt users on a monthly basis instead. macOS Sequoia will also no longer prompt you to approve screen recording permissions every time you reboot your Mac....

I always knew that the original Gameboy was remarkably clever, but this video from the Real Engineering YouTube channel shows just how clever it was. The price was low ($89), a set of 4 AA batteries lasted for 30 hours, and, of course, it was fun as hell.

Link: youtube.com/watch?v=BKm45Az02YE

With WorkOS you can start selling to enterprises with just a few lines of code. It provides a complete User Management solution along with SSO, SCIM, and FGA. The APIs are modular and easy-to-use, allowing integrations to be completed in minutes instead of months.

Today, some of the fastest growing startups are already powered by WorkOS, including Perplexity, Vercel, and Webflow.

For SaaS apps that care deeply about design and user experience, WorkOS is the perfect fit. From high-quality documentation to self-serve onboarding for your customers, it removes all the unnecessary complexity for your engineering team.

Link: workos.com/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=display…

David McCabe and Nico Grant, reporting for The New York Times: Justice Department officials are considering what remedies to ask a federal judge to order against the search giant, said three people with knowledge of the deliberations involving the agency and state attorn...

Apple Newsroom: Starting with iOS 18.1, developers will be able to offer NFC contactless transactions using the Secure Element from within their own apps on iPhone, separate from Apple Pay and Apple Wallet. Using the new NFC and SE (Secure Element) APIs, developers will ...

Spotify, in an update to an older post on the company blog: While we are still many steps from a level playing field, we are beginning to see progress because of the European Commission’s historic decision on March 4, 2024 which found that Apple violated the EU’s antitru...