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I don’t care if you force close your apps
Maxwell Zeff for Gizmodo: Closing Your iPhone Apps Is a Mythical Waste of Time
Apple users seem unanimously convinced that closing background apps is a good habit, but it’s more likely a waste of time
A few years ago, I would have retweeted, boosted, and linked to this article with absolute enthusiasm. I don’
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Why Switch emulation is a bit unique
Sean Hollister for The Verge: How Nintendo’s Destruction of Yuzu Is Rocking the Emulator World
Not only did hackers find an unprecedented vulnerability in the original Switch less than a year after release but also the emulator scene managed to develop software that plays Switch games better than the Switch itself within its own
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I believe in people more than others, apparently
Sarah Perez: Apple Has Lost Its Confidence
What’s worse is that Apple doesn’t seem to think that IAP can stand up to the competition: app developers’ websites.
I don’t agree with everything in this piece but it does make me think about the objectively funny way that some people will say:
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Apple Vision Pro: The Birchtree Review
I’ve been using the Apple Vision Pro for a bit over a month at this point, and while I’
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Apparently I wasn’t ready, and why I’m a bit nervous about an upcoming review (members post)
I really thought life would get back to normal last week, but it actually got worse. Covid is no joke and you should thank your lucky stars if it doesn't cause you much strife.
My Top 10 Movies of 2023
I love doing top 10 lists, and since movies are my favorite form of storytelling, I wanted to make a
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The Browser Company feels gross to me right now
John Voorhees writing about Arc’s latest escapades in MacStories Weekly: Issue 408
It’s that intermediate layer that makes me suspicious of Arc’s motives. The company is starting to feel like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a browser with an interesting, playful design on the surface and a dark heart lurking beneath.
The Birchtree awards for movies I watched in 2023 that didn’t come out in 2023
It’s Oscar weekend, so here are the very serious Birchtree awards for movies I watched in 2023 that didn’t come out in 2023.
Biggest Emotional Gut Punch That Makes You Think Deeply About Your Life and Loved Ones
Macrel the Shell with Shoes On
Biggest “It Really Holds Up” Rewarch
The Royal Tennenbaums
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I think people still care about effort
iA: AI Videos: ******* Psychotic
Computer-generated imagery is not bad in its every fiber. There certainly are great ways to use AI in a creative process. The more you control your tool and the process, the more mindful the product, the less it qualifies as “AI”. This article is not about the complex, controlled, professional
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What getting 217 Covid vaccines does to you
Benjamin Mueller for the New York Times: After 217 Covid Vaccines, Man Had No Side Effects and Robust Immunity
By the time the doctors first saw him, the 62-year-old man had received 215 doses of coronavirus vaccine, they said. Flouting their pleas to stop, he received another two shots in the next months,
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You may have forgotten how insanely incoherent that bozo was…
Amanda Marcotte: Trump Is Degenerating Before Our Eyes — MAGA Voters Don't Notice or Don't Care
Around lunchtime on Monday, all three cable news networks cut to Trump awkwardly accepting the Supreme Court nullifying the 14th Amendment on his behalf. After a few semi-coherent, if gross, remarks about how he was
A computer I can’t use around my wife
Listen, everyone lives different lives so I can’t speak to anyone else’s specific situation, but the biggest hurdle I currently have with using the Vision Pro is that I can’t use it while I’m around my wife. I can hang out with her and use an iPhone, and iPad, or even
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It finally got me (members post)
It’s been a hell of a few weeks over here at Birchler HQ. It’s easy to forget that good health goes such a long way to making every other part of your life better.
Pedal to the metal
A history lesson for each major computing platform Apple has released since the turn of the millennium:
* Apple released the
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How Apple (maybe) moves the needle on Mac gaming
Dan Moren: To Embrace Gaming Apple Needs to Level Up Its Game Porting Toolkit
If Apple really wants to jumpstart gaming on the Mac, it should bake the underlying technologies of the game porting toolkit directly into the system. Make installing and running a PC game as easy as if it were a Mac native
The “heaviness” of visionOS, and my big fear for the Vision Pro
Before we get going, I'll mention to those who aren't following along that this is one in a long series of posts about using the Vision Pro. This post does not contain all of my thoughts on the product, and I've included some links at the bottom to add
The Vision Pro stacks up surprisingly well to absurdly expensive industrial VR headsets
ThrillSeeker is a must follow if you’re into VR, and his most popular video of all time was on his experience using the Varjo XR-3. At the time, that was a $5,500 device plus a required $1,500/year subscription. Oh, and it needed to be connected to a PC. But the
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Micro-review of the Apple Vision Pro travel case
Listen, you don’t want 2,000 words on a travel case and I don’t particularly want to write