Sign up

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Patrick McGee on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

youtube.com/watch?v=NAj9zB4vaZc

The Daily Show:

Award-winning journalist Patrick McGee joins Jon Stewart to discuss how Apple built China in his new book Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company. They talk about Apple “sleepwalking” into this crisis, building a competitive market in Xi Jinping’s authoritarian state, the vocational training that boosted rivals, how Trump’s attempted Apple boycott backfired, and whether investments may be facilitating the annexation of Taiwan.

Terrific interview. I’m a few chapters into the book, and it’s good. McGee’s a good writer and a serious reporter — the depth of his research shows. It feels not like a few stories padded out to book length, but instead the distillation of a complex story that demands an entire book to tell.

 ★ 

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Excerpt From Patrick McGee’s ‘Apple in China’

thetimes.com/business-money/technology/article/how-apple-helped-china-become-americas-biggest-tech-rival-8f83tttv5

The Sunday Times of London ran a good excerpt from Patrick McGee’s Apple in China (News+ link, in case you need it): The ripple effect from Apple’s investments across Chinese industry was accelerated by a rule imposed by Apple that its suppliers could be no more than 50 ...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

24 Years After ‘Sorry, Steve: Here’s Why the Apple Stores Won’t Work’

ritholtz.com/2025/05/sorry-steve/

Barry Ritholtz, in an excerpt from his brand-new book, How Not to Invest, marking the occasion of the 24th anniversary of Cliff Edwards’s claim chowder hall of famer, predicting doom for Apple’s then-new foray into its own chain of retail stores: There are many genuinely...

Scripting News Valid

The Knicks got beat last night. And the game seemed so won. When Brunson sat down in the fourth period because he was in foul trouble, the Knicks and a huge run that put them up by 17 with less than 3 minutes remaining. My numbers might be slightly off. Then they brought Brun...

Jason Fried Valid
• Jason Fried

Cover letters? Yes!

Whenever I write about our focus on cover letters during the hiring process, I'll inevitably receive the "cover letters are still a thing?" or "people still read cover letters?" response from a cadre of characters.Here's one from yesterday:https://x.com/amfonte/status/1924...

On my Om Valid
• Om Malik

Why did OpenAI buy Jony Ive & Co

OpenAI, made the biggest acquihire in  Silicon Valley’s history. Sam Altman and his crew  bought Jony Ive and his coterie of ex-Apple hotshots for a whopping $6.5 billion. It is an all-stock deal for io Products, a 55-person company that is building an “amazing AI device.” It is hard to say what that device is because …

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Sam Altman and Jony Ive Introduce ‘io’, the Device-Making Partnership Between OpenAI and LoveFrom

openai.com/sam-and-jony/

No details on what yet, but a lovely little 9-minute video on why. Sam Altman: “What it means to use technology can change in a profound way. I hope we can bring some of the delight, wonder and creative spirit that I first felt using an Apple Computer 30 years ago.” J...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Fortnite Returns to the U.S. App Store for iOS

9to5mac.com/2025/05/20/fortnite-is-now-available-on-the-app-store-for-iphone-and-ipad/

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac: After a nearly five-year hiatus, Fortnite is back on the App Store for iPhone and iPad users in the United States. Epic Games announced the return of the battle royale gaming app this afternoon, and you can head to the App Store now to download it...

Scripting News Valid

I mentioned Chris Lydon's weblog for the ears and got an email back, and this made me think some more. We need someone to do a canvas of how intellectuals use ChatGPT-like systems to advance their research and creativity, or just for learning or fun. It's the same kind of op...

Scripting News Valid

Fake News

Prompt: Draw me the cover of a fictitious magazine called RSS Land. On the cover a picture of a news room, and in small type along the right edge titles of stories. Make it interesting.

RSS Land Magazine.

Scripting News Valid

I turn off CNN when they start a segment on Jake Tapper’s book. The level of hypocrisy is intense. Who covered up what? Please. I remember Hillary's Emails. And weapons of mass destruction. And Trump may not be good for America but he's sure good for CBS. And on and on. They think we don't think. But their influence is getting close to nil. American news is one story at a time, debates between boring people saying the same bullshit over and over. Democrats who stumble over their words. An occasional glypse of Bernie or AOC. Something to get your bile up, and the next one and the one after that, but it doesn't work anymore. What Biden did or didn't do is no more relevant on CNN than it is on Fox.

On my Om Valid
• Om Malik

The Method of the Monster

Meet the Monster: a fountain pen so ambitious that it holds enough ink to write a short novel. The pen is a symbiosis of precision engineering, material science, and bold design choices. It is also the story of a young designer's journey.

Scripting News Valid

MySQL, which I'm using for Daytona, has the idea of relevance in searches. Previously I had been showing results in reverse chronologic order. So now, a search for Matt Mullenweg gets the same results but prioritized by what MySQL thinks are the most relevant results.

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Kristi Noem Doesn’t Know What ‘Habeas Corpus’ Is

politicalwire.com/2025/05/20/kristi-noem-doesnt-know-what-habeus-corpus-is/

Taegan Goddard:

When Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) asked Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem for the definition of “habeas corpus,” Noem incorrectly described it as a right that the President of the United States has to deport people.

You can go the Latin route (“produce the body”) or the English common-law route (the accused have a right to be shown the evidence against them and defend themselves in court). Noem went the “biggest clown of the clown-car Trump 2.0 administration” route.

 ★ 

Scripting News Valid

I've been looking up all kinds of things now that my new Daytona search engine has access to my blogging going back to 1994. I just did a search for Mullenweg, and came up with this blog post by Matt in 2006 about the Feed Validator. The clarity is remarkable, and he's of course right. The people running the validator were actually promoting Atom over RSS, and were trying to tilt the table towards Atom. The goal was interop, not to give Google or IBM control of the syndication format of the open web. When you keep changing your mind about what to flag and what to pass you end up with a standard that's as murky as the tariff policy of the US in 2025. I think you have to assume that was the goal. They didn't like that RSS didn't fall apart when Atom came out. If there's no benefit in changing, people don't change.

Scripting News Valid

How to understand Trump talking about tariffs. Remember how he talked about Covid. Same thing.

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

The First Rule of Legal Fight Club Is ‘Don’t Piss Off the Judge’; the Second Rule of Legal Fight Club Is ‘Don’t Piss Off the Judge’

macrumors.com/2025/05/19/apple-fortnite-us-app-store-dispute/

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

With Apple blocking Fortnite from returning to the U.S. App Store, Epic Games told the court that Apple was violating the injunction and asked that Apple be forced to approve the app. The judge overseeing the case responded to Epic’s request today, and she is sounding more and more fed up with Apple’s continued defiance and Epic’s grousing.

“More and more fed up” is perhaps euphemistic, given Gonzalez Rogers’s tone today.

 ★ 

Daring Fireball Valid
• Daring Fireball Department of Commerce

[Sponsor] Drata

drata.com/daring

Automate compliance. Streamline security. Manage risk. Drata delivers the world’s most advanced Trust Management platform.

 ★ 

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

John Siracusa: ‘Apple Turnover’

hypercritical.co/2025/05/09/apple-turnover

John Siracusa, in a piece that, in a bit of rhetorical deftness, only mentions Tim Cook by name once: What should be motivating Apple to make improvements — the desire to make great products — seems absent. What should not be motivating Apple — the desire for power, cont...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Chad the Bird on ‘Star Wars’ Typography

instagram.com/reel/DJZ7uYbvN_O/?igsh=aWZhaGZham1zNWlp

The reader who sent me this video said, “I’ve never seen a more Star Wars + Gruber combo on Instagram” and — right down to the profanity — I have to agree.

 ★