Sign up

Michael Tsai
• Michael Tsai

macOS 26.5.1

Juli Clover (release notes, no security, no enterprise, no developer, full installer, IPSW): According to Apple’s release notes for the update, macOS Tahoe 26.5.1 addresses an unexpected shutdown issue affecting certain enterprise users on M5 Macs. See also: Mr. Macintosh. Previously: macOS 26.5

Michael Tsai
• Michael Tsai

iOS 26.5.1

Juli Clover (release notes, no security, no enterprise, no developer): According to Apple’s release notes, the update fixes a previously documented charging issue with iPhone Air and iPhone 17 models. Previously: iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5

Michael Tsai
• Michael Tsai

BBEdit 16

Bare Bones Software: This release of BBEdit introduces expanded support for macOS “Shortcuts”, via additional actions provided in the Shortcuts application. A “Transform Text” operation allows invocation of “one shot” operations of many kinds, and transforms are provided for extracting matching lines, deleting matching lines, sorting lines, and text replacement. The shortcuts can either interact […]

Alan Jacobs Supports Webmention Valid

To each his own, but I’d rather go to the First Church of Lucifer Antichrist than to James Talarico’s church. Say what you will about Satanism, dude, at least it’s an ethos.

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Amazon Made AI Podcasts for Products

businessinsider.com/amazon-ai-generated-podcasts-products-2026-4

Katie Notopoulos, a month ago at Business Insider:

Amazon has launched a new feature that uses AI to generate a short, podcast-like audio segment where two “hosts” discuss the merits and reviews of a specific product.

I think it could be one of the funniest, closest endpoints to human civilization we’ve seen yet in our new AI-enabled world. If this sounds a little confusing, here’s an example. I tried it out for diaper rash cream, and, voila! A podcast! (Sound on.)

I don’t know what’s worse: that anyone at Amazon thought actual people would really listen to these, or if actual people really are listening to them.

 ★ 

On my Om Valid
• Om Malik

Clothes Are Nice. Fashion Biz, Not As Much!

Every morning I sit down and open Feedbin on my iPad. It aggregates my RSS feeds and newsletters – about a hundred sources – covering everything from AI to zeitgeist. One story stopped me recently. The Wall Street Journal proclaimed: “Menswear Is in Its ‘Nice’ Era.” This comment from a personal stylist sent me down …

Alan Jacobs Supports Webmention Valid

Silicon Valley has forgotten what normal people want | The Verge: I don’t think this is the right framing. The Valley techbros have never known what normal people want, do not care what normal people want, and do not believe that they need to know or care. They’re planning to do what they want to do in complete indifference to the preferences of anyone else. 

Scripting News Valid

There's so much I dread about the progress of AI, but nothing I say could possibly make a difference, and we aren't even that deep into it yet. This is the feeling I get every time I stop and think about it.

Alan Jacobs Supports Webmention Valid

Over at Cosmos Malick, a long post on Knight of Cups.

Scripting News Valid

They should teach every chatbot to never give the user an order.

Scripting News Valid

At what point will companies start using AI to communicate with customers? Who will be the first to show everyone else how to do it? Amazon taught the world how to do commerce over the web. When will users expect their vendors to use AI to simplify shopping, buying, returning? Right now, I don't think most companies realize they can do business differently with people. In my humble opinion that's when the boom will come.

Scripting News Valid

Is Bluesky on the web?

Is Bluesky on the web? Yes, to an extent. I can post the url of an item I wrote on Bluesky, using an HTML link. That is how the web works. First you're on my blog, or reading it somewhere else where my blog is projected, via RSS. Then you click an anchor element, and you're ...

Alan Jacobs Supports Webmention Valid

Mandy Brown:  In one layoff announcement after another, we hear that AI can now do the work of a great many people, which is why far fewer people are needed to do the work. If, for the moment, we take that assertion at face value, this still leaves an obvious alternati...

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

exe.dev

exe.dev/?df

My thanks to exe.dev for sponsoring last week at DF (with a very cool graphic ad — just love the way it looks). exe.dev is a cloud for the agent era — it gives you a pool of VMs with SSH, root, and web auth by default. Secrets injected at the network edge stay out of the LLM’s hands. Persistent servers, internal tools, vibe coding, disposable devboxes, whatever. You can share your web server as easily as you can share a Google Doc, and your VMs share CPU/RAM — you pay for underlying resources, not per VM.

It’s just a computer.

 ★ 

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

The Talk Show Live From WWDC 2026: Tuesday June 9

ti.to/daringfireball/the-talk-show-live-from-wwdc-2026

Location: The California Theatre, San Jose
Showtime: Tuesday, 9 June 2026, 7pm PT (Doors open 6pm)
Special Guest(s): For sure
Price: $45

The annual live audience episode of The Talk Show during the week of WWDC. If you can make it, you should come. You’ll even enjoy the prelude, mingling with fellow DF readers and listeners.

Also: at least one sponsorship slot is still available. If you’ve got a product or service you’d like to see me promote at the start of the show, shoot me an email.

 ★ 

Scripting News Valid

The purpose of standards is interop. That's it. No other purpose.

Scripting News Valid

Just watched the first episode of Star City, really good. Somewhat like The Americans, but takes place in the USSR. A spinoff of For All Mankind, which started out interesting and then became unwatchable, though I did enjoy the sets on Mars. I also liked the character who was inspired by Elon Musk, obviously.

Daring Fireball Valid
John Gruber

Take Two

x.com/markgurman/status/2061236259843182813

Mark Gurman, on Twitter/X (XCancel link)

Kelsey Peterson, the Apple AI employee who introduced the never-launched Siri revamp in 2024, just started at OpenAI — so we’ll be getting someone new next month for Attempt 2 at WWDC.

Pretty sure we were going to get someone different for the second crack at a next-gen Siri introduction at WWDC no matter what. If they had made a Titanic II, they would have hired someone new to host the christening.

 ★ 

Alan Jacobs Supports Webmention Valid

Currently listening: Mingus Ah Um 🎵

Scripting News Valid

Claude always tries to understand what you're saying. I like that. We do a lot of communicating, and have a lot of misunderstandings, I see its flaws as a programmer, it makes mistakes. Today I asked it to help find an error in the subscribe code and it showed me a lot of th...