# Birchtree > Tech, Apple, and the vast grey area that is AI Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### About this site URL: https://birchtree.me/about/ Last updated: 2025-04-03T20:50:34.000Z Birchtree is an independent publication launched in March 2025 by Matt Birchler. If you subscribe today, you'll get full access to the website as well as email newsletters about new content when it's available. Your subscription makes this site possible, and allows Birchtree to continue to exist. Thank you! ### Access all areas By signing up, you'll get access to the full archive of everything that's been published before and everything that's still to come. Your very own private library. ### Fresh content, delivered Stay up to date with new content sent straight to your inbox! No more worrying about whether you missed something because of a pesky algorithm or news feed. ### Meet people like you Join a community of other subscribers who share the same interests. --- ### Start your own thing Enjoying the experience? Get started for free and set up your very own subscription business using [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=birchtree.me), the same platform that powers this website. ### About this site URL: https://birchtree.me/about-2/ Last updated: 2023-06-01T22:38:30.000Z Birchtree is an independent publication launched in June 2023 by Matt Birchler. If you subscribe today, you'll get full access to the website as well as email newsletters about new content when it's available. Your subscription makes this site possible, and allows Birchtree to continue to exist. Thank you! ### Access all areas By signing up, you'll get access to the full archive of everything that's been published before and everything that's still to come. Your very own private library. ### Fresh content, delivered Stay up to date with new content sent straight to your inbox! No more worrying about whether you missed something because of a pesky algorithm or news feed. ### Meet people like you Join a community of other subscribers who share the same interests. --- ### Start your own thing Enjoying the experience? Get started for free and set up your very own subscription business using [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=birchtree.me), the same platform that powers this website. ### About Me URL: https://birchtree.me/about-2-2/ Last updated: 2025-09-30T00:19:37.000Z I’ve been writing at BirchTree (in many forms) since 2010 and really do appreciate everyone who takes the time to read what I put down here. I live in northern Illinois with my wonderful wife. I love to golf, drink good coffee, and run. I also record a short weekly podcast called Bite Size Tech that I truly enjoy recording. My favorite writing topics are technology, video games, and productivity. If you want to get in touch, Twitter is the best place; I’m on there everyday. ### Gear - **[iPad Pro (2018 12.9”)](https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/?ref=birchtree.me)** \- My workhorse - **[Apple iPhone XS](https://www.apple.com/iphone-xs/?ref=birchtree.me)** \- I’ve tried Android a few times and keep coming back to the iPhone - **[Nikon 1 J4](https://www.amazon.com/Nikon-Digital-10-30mm-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B00KBC1CPY/ref=sr%5F1%5F2?sr=8-2&ie=UTF8&keywords=nikon%2Bj4&tag=birc08-20&qid=1449328149&ref=birchtree.me)** \- decent, affordable mirrorless camera - **[Field Notes notebooks](http://fieldnotesbrand.com/?ref=birchtree.me)** \- these bad boys are in my pocket everyday and are amazing tools - **[Bose Companion 2](https://www.amazon.com/BOSE-COMPANION2-II-SPEAKER-SYSTEM/dp/B000KJTPKC/ref=sr%5F1%5F6?ie=UTF8&sr=1-6&s=electronics&keywords=bose%2Bcompanion%2B2&tag=birc08-20&qid=1449328185&ref=birchtree.me)** computer speakers - **[Blue Yeti microphone](https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Microphones-Yeti-USB-Microphone/dp/B002VA464S/ref=sr%5F1%5F3?sr=8-3&ie=UTF8&keywords=blue%2Byeti&tag=birc08-20&qid=1449328205&ref=birchtree.me)** \- I love this microphone! ### Software - **[Ulysses](https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/app/ulysses/id950335311?mt=8&uo=4&at=10l8rH&ref=birchtree.me)** \- I use this on my iPad, iPhone, and Mac, and it's the best wrting app I've ever used - **[Scrivener](https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php?ref=birchtree.me)** \- if you’re writing something longer, you can’t do better than this - **[OmniFocus](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/omnifocus-2/id904071710?uo=4&at=10l8rH&ct=fnd&mt=8&ref=birchtree.me)** \- for getting shit done - **[Tweetbot](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tweetbot-4-for-twitter/id1018355599?uo=4&at=10l8rH&ct=fnd&mt=8&ref=birchtree.me)** \- the best Twitter app for both the iPhone and Mac - **[Apple Music](http://www.apple.com/music/?ref=birchtree.me)** \- Still new, but I like it - **[Pocket Casts](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-casts/id414834813?uo=4&at=10l8rH&ct=fnd&mt=8&ref=birchtree.me)** \- I listen to a lot of podcasts and this app makes it super easy ### How This Site Runs - **[Wordpress](http://wordpress.org/?ref=birchtree.me)** \- I’ve tried many CMS’s and WordPress just seems like the best overall solution - **[Transmit](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/transmit/id917432930?uo=4&at=10l8rH&ct=fnd&mt=8&ref=birchtree.me)** \- gotta upload everything somehow. May as well use the best. - Text editors are a touchy subject, but **[Visual Studio Code](https://code.visualstudio.com/?ref=birchtree.me)** is a rockstar. ### Change Log URL: https://birchtree.me/version/ Last updated: 2016-01-02T15:24:42.000Z Something broken or ugly? [Let me know!](mailto:birchlermatt@gmail.com?Subject=BirchTree%20bug%20report) ### **1.2.2** \- March 20, 2016 - IMPROVED Updated sponsorship banner to be a little more colorful ### **1.2.1** \- February 25, 2016 - IMPROVED Changed "Advertise" link to "Sponsor" for clarity ### **1.2** \- February 20, 2016 - NEW Adjusted header and navigation to accommodate new pages - NEW Goodies page added - NEW Sponsorship page added - IMPROVED Twitter and RSS buttons ### **1.1.1** \- January 28, 2016 - NEW Added Twitter, RSS, and Podcast links to right edge ### **1.1** \- January 2, 2016 - NEW Ported the whole site to Wordpress - IMPROVED Implementation of reading time calculator - IMPROVED Front page summaries are better truncated ### **1.0.2** \- December 23, 2015 - NEW Changelog located at birchtree.me/version - IMPROVED Added a little color to the navigation bar - IMPROVED Fixed spacing on list items ### **1.0.1** \- December 12, 2015 - IMPROVED 404 page updated to not look terrible ### **1.0** \- December 6, 2015 - Initial Release ### Goodies URL: https://birchtree.me/goodies/ Last updated: 2016-02-17T04:06:27.000Z Goodies is a collection of some of the things I have made over time and posted to BitchTree. This page will be updated over time as new things are added to the site. Everything links to the original blog post introducing, and walking through the tool/goodie. --- ## WordPress Tools [Reading time calculator](https://birchtree.me/blog/reading-time-wp-php/) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/goodies/readingTime.png) [Import over 2MB into WP](https://birchtree.me/blog/wordpress-import-over-2mb/) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/goodies/max-upload.png) --- ## Statamic Tools [A JavaScript Reading Time Calculator](https://birchtree.me/blog/word-count-calculator/) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/goodies/wordCount-Stat.png) [How to Set Up RSS](https://birchtree.me/blog/statamic-rss/) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/goodies/statamicRSS.png) --- ## Other [Simple TV Logger for Day One on iOS](https://birchtree.me/blog/simple-tv-logger-for-day-one-on-ios/) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/goodies/dayonelogger.png) [AppleScript to make Markdown Links](https://birchtree.me/blog/use-applescript-to-make-markdown-links/) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/goodies/markdown-applescript.png) ## Wallpapers [Android N](https://birchtree.me/blog/android-n-wallpapers/) (iPhone) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/androidn-goodie.png) [Activity Rings](https://birchtree.me/blog/bring-a-little-activity-to-your-mac-with-these-4k-wallpapers/) (desktop) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/activity-walls.png) [Firewatch Wallpapers #1](https://birchtree.me/blog/firewatch-wallpapers-for-your-phone/) (iPhone) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/goodies/firewatch1.png) [Firewatch Wallpapers #2](https://birchtree.me/blog/a-few-more-firewatch-wallpapers/) (iPhone) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/goodies/firewatch2.png) [Random Collection](https://birchtree.me/blog/i-made-some-iphone-wallpapers/) (iPhone) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/goodies/birchtree-walls.png) [Star Wars The Force Awakens](https://birchtree.me/blog/star-wars-iphone-wallpapers/) (iPhone) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/goodies/starwars.png) [WWDC 2015](https://birchtree.me/blog/wwdc15-wallpaper/) (iPhone & desktop) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/goodies/wwdc15.png) --- ## Chrome Extensions [QuickPin: A Pinboard Extension](https://birchtree.me/blog/quickpin-chrome/) ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/goodies/quickpin.png) ### Wallpapers URL: https://birchtree.me/wallpapers/ Last updated: 2024-02-02T13:26:06.000Z # iPhone Wallpapers *Click on an image to see the full res version. Some files are large and may take a few moments to download.* [![](https://d.pr/i/m7M3+)](https://d.pr/i/4MTP+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/5Sph+)](https://d.pr/i/342q+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/M3M7+)](https://d.pr/i/Y912+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/ni9Y+)](https://d.pr/i/4uXI+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/ryOr+)](https://d.pr/i/1DLl+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/QLjG+)](https://d.pr/i/2yl1+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/Feid+)](https://d.pr/i/GFRd+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/sAEG+)](https://d.pr/i/jnSr+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/bGy8+)](https://d.pr/i/bGy8+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/EIC1+)](https://d.pr/i/EIC1+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/a2IJ+)](https://d.pr/i/f9Oo+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/XkOy+)](https://d.pr/i/f3in+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/XJWP+)](https://d.pr/i/ZBwy+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/PB9M+)](https://d.pr/i/Iy9O+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/FnMD+)](https://d.pr/i/rD3t+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/FIA1+)](https://d.pr/i/czwz+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/ChMl+)](https://d.pr/i/zntd+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/13Psf+)](https://d.pr/i/c3r3+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/ayAp+)](https://d.pr/i/CSmv+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/rlaW+)](https://d.pr/i/NiIP+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/NrV3+)](https://d.pr/i/40Ao+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/jQFo+)](https://d.pr/i/IJzX+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/3Agp+)](https://d.pr/i/d8x5+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/yAxM+)](https://d.pr/i/97i9+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/Dvh5+)](https://d.pr/i/1cSqO+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/ANOS+)](http://d.pr/i/1l5F9+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/1k7dJ+)](http://d.pr/i/1f6jE+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/10ChN+)](http://d.pr/i/18yi5+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/1hQgn+)](http://d.pr/i/wMs5+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/1bTEy+)](http://d.pr/i/bQdH+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/13IuQ+)](http://d.pr/i/12U2l+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/121Dr+)](http://d.pr/i/1f17F+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/1izSc+)](http://d.pr/i/1lsxN+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/1ct9U+)](http://d.pr/i/1bjgC+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/c58U+)](http://d.pr/i/15gMx+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/1iEp5+)](http://d.pr/i/1h0FK+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/1isoA+)](http://d.pr/i/123aK+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/19yHd+)](http://d.pr/i/1fk7g+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/queit-night-copy-2.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/queit-night-copy.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/01.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/01.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/02.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/02.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/03.jpg)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/03.jpg) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/04.jpg)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/04.jpg) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/05.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/05.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/06.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/06.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/07.jpg)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/07.jpg) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/08.jpg)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/08.jpg) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/09.jpg)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/09.jpg) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/10.jpg)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/10.jpg) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/11.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/11.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/12.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/12.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/13.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/13.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/14.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/14.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/15.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/15.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/16.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/16.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/17.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/17.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/18.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/18.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/19.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/19.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/20.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/20.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/21.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/21.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/22.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/22.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/23.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/23.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/24.jpg)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/24.jpg) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/25.jpg)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/25.jpg) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/26.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/26.png) # Desktop Wallpapers [![](https://d.pr/i/yzCg+)](https://d.pr/i/yzCg+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://d.pr/i/FNsM+)](https://d.pr/i/FNsM+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/1fmmX+)](http://d.pr/i/1fmmX+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/13m1p+)](http://d.pr/i/13m1p+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/16J3w+)](http://d.pr/i/16J3w+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/1dFvN+)](http://d.pr/i/1dFvN+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](http://d.pr/i/oSft+)](http://d.pr/i/oSft+?ref=birchtree.me) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/desktop/wwdc16-desktop.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/desktop/wwdc16-desktop.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/desktop/wwdc16-desktop-alt.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/desktop/wwdc16-desktop-alt.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/desktop/Activity%20Rings-done-small.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/desktop/Activity%20Rings-done-small.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/desktop/Activity%20Rings-partial-small.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/desktop/Activity%20Rings-partial-small.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/desktop/android-n-1.png)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/desktop/android-n-1.png) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/desktop/android-n-2.jpg)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/desktop/android-n-2.jpg) [![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/thumbs/desktop/android-n-3.jpg)](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/img/desktop/android-n-3.jpg) ### Support BirchTree URL: https://birchtree.me/support/ Last updated: 2024-01-21T23:22:38.000Z If you are a regular around these parts, I’d like to say THANK YOU! You are the reason I write here, and I can’t thank you enough for taking some time out of your day to read the site. If you enjoy the site and want to support its continued development, please consider donating a few dollars down below. If you would like a BirchTree sticker to place wherever you'd like, you can choose between the $5, $10, and $25 donation amounts below. The checkout form will ask for your shipping address so I can mail you the sticker. With very few exceptions, I can mail these just about anywhere in the world. \[simpay id="4071"\] \[simpay id="4072"\] \[simpay id="4123"\] If you do not want a sticker and want to donate anyway, you can use one of the buttons below. These will not ask you for your shipping address, in case you don't want me to have that. I do ask for billing address for security reasons. \[simpay id="4118"\] \[simpay id="4119"\] \[simpay id="4120"\] \[simpay id="4121"\] #### Note on Security The buttons use [Stripe’s secure platform](https://stripe.com/?ref=birchtree.me) for payments, and no card information is stored on BirchTree itself. Billing address is requested for address verification with your bank, and shipping address is requested so I know where to send your sticker. This information will never be used for any purpose other than mailing you a sticker. If you would like to give anonymously, feel free to enter a random name in the name field, which should not impact your card from being approved. ### Simple Refrigerator Magnets URL: https://birchtree.me/simple-refrigerator-magnets/ Last updated: 2017-07-23T14:58:07.000Z ![](https://birchtree.me/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Simple-Refrigerator-Magnets-1.png) Thank you for your interest in Simple Refrigerator Magnets! If you are looking for support, you can [email the developer here](mailto:mattbirchler@outlook.com?Subject=Magnets%20support), or get in touch on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/mattbirchler?ref=birchtree.me). ### Privacy The Simple Refrigerator Magnets app does not collect any personal information about users. The only data ever collected would be from iOS's option to share analytics with third party developers. To check and/or change this setting on your iOS device, go to the Settings app and navigate to Privacy > Analytics > Share With App Developers. Simple Refrigerator Magnets will never ask for your personal information. ### Thank you for being a subscriber! URL: https://birchtree.me/thank-you-for-subscribing/ Last updated: 2026-08-16T13:44:23.000Z _This page is for paying subscribers only._ ### Blog URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ Last updated: 2025-03-03T10:31:51.000Z _No content available._ ### Advertising on Birchtree URL: https://birchtree.me/ads/ Last updated: 2025-04-03T20:51:25.000Z Birchtree is a personal blog and I do not take on guest writers or write sponsored posts for anything less than $1 million. Please only reach out with offers of this amount or more. ### Welcome to Birchtree URL: https://birchtree.me/welcome-to-birchtree/ Last updated: 2025-10-14T22:58:23.000Z I'm Matt Birchler, a designer, product manager, YouTuber, and developer who's been writing about tech since 2010. ### Blog URL: https://birchtree.me/blog-2/ Last updated: 2025-10-14T23:06:46.000Z _No content available._ ## Posts ### + Pastry is a privacy-focused clipboard manager coming soon URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/pastry-is-a-privacy-focused-clipboard-manager-coming-soon/ Last updated: 2026-10-15T01:51:35.000Z Yes, I'm working on a clipboard manager. I think it's pretty cool. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### I don't care what other kids are doing URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-dont-care-what-other-kids-are-doing/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T20:11:07.000Z Lex Friedman: [A few more thoughts on why embracing X is wrong](https://lexontech.org/a-few-more-thoughts-on-why-embracing-x-is-wrong?ref=birchtree.me) > “The Ellisons are bad, too” is a great argument for paying attention to the Ellisons. It’s not an argument for X. I remember one time as a teenager my parents sat me down in the living room to discuss something bad I had done. A couple decades later, I have no idea what I'd done to get myself in trouble. Whatever it was, it didn’t fly in the Birchler household. I had a retort I thought I could checkmate my parents with – my stupid teenage brain thought I thought I was smarter than everyone else and that everything I did was justified – and I told them there were so many things a teenager could be doing, so I really shouldn’t get into trouble. My parents didn't buy it for a second, and I'll never forget my dad telling me in so many words, "son, just because there are worse things you could be doing, or that other kids are doing bad things as well, that doesn't mean you're doing good." --- I'm not about to tell you that everyone who uses X is bad, you know that's not my opinion, but in a world where it's impossible to make purely moral decisions in everything we do, we should all recognize where we're making trade-offs and not try to paint ourselves as being purely logical. ### Why does this chart just go down? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/why-does-this-chart-just-go-down/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T19:15:13.000Z M.G. Siegler: [Twitter is Back. Shhh… Magic Dance!](https://spyglass.org/x-gon-give-it-to-ya/?ref=birchtree.me) > But it's also not really a surge in usage, and certainly not on the business side – it's more just a vibes-based resurgence. For weeks now, people have been talking about coming back – [Federico Viticci of MacStories](https://ticci.craft.me/explanation?ref=birchtree.me) wrote about his return a couple months ago, and [Casey Newton of Platformer](https://www.platformer.news/does-intelligence-need-a-hard-cap/?ref=birchtree.me) more recently. Both did so sheepishly because their stances are clearly that while they'd prefer not to use X, the realities of their businesses dictate that they should if not must. Over the weekend, John Gruber of Daring Fireball gave a more full-throated endorsement of the X comeback I don't post on X because I just don't feel great about it, but as I've written before, I understand why others would feel differently, and I don't think they're social pariahs for doing so. And to be clear, this is not a post where I announce I'm posting on X again as well. I actually don't want to talk about X at all, I want to talk about Mastodon. Below is a chart looking at the active users each month on Mastodon since September 2022 (data derived from [Mastodon's statistics API](https://api.joinmastodon.org/statistics?ref=birchtree.me), discovered via [Mastodon Analytics](https://mastodon-analytics.com/?ref=birchtree.me)). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/10/Pastry-2026-10-14-at-11.12.27-AM.png) There's some interesting data here, but at a high level, you see a social network that gained over 2 million new active users in the 31 days after Musk closed on buying Twitter. A lot of those users bounced and we dropped to about 1.1 million active users by the following summer, when we saw a second spike as Twitter started to require logins to see anything and that rate limits were being applied. Since then, we've seen a slow but steady decline in number of people using Mastodon. Looking at September 30, 2022, the first day in the official dataset, and one month before many of us started using Mastodon, there were 3.6M accounts, and 470K of them were active, so 13%. Since then, the total number of accounts has risen 192% to 10.5M, but the active user number has only jumped 56%. Put another way, of the 7 million people who signed up for Mastodon since Musk took over Twitter, about 3-5% of them are still using it today (10% if we assume every single person using Mastodon pre-Twitter exodus has quit). Meanwhile, the gap gets bigger every month as more people sign up, but fewer people use the service. As a fan of Mastodon, these numbers are hard to look at. Not because I think a social network must have hundreds of millions of users to be valuable, but because it paints a picture where many people have tried Mastodon, but almost none of them stick around. Also, while infinite growth isn't a requirement, constant decline isn't what you want to see in a social network either. I also don't know what the normal number of people who sign up for a social network and stick around is. However, estimates have X's monthly active users at [around 557 million today](https://www.demandsage.com/twitter-statistics/?ref=birchtree.me), and for them to hit the 5% retention rate I see on Mastodon, literally every human being on Earth (8.3 billion) would need to have created an account…and 3 billion of them would have had to create a second account. I bring all this up because when well known individuals make a choice to post on X again, or to leave Mastodon, we hear about it and it becomes The Discourse for a bit. I think the more worrying thing is that these are not outliers, they're doing the same thing 90% (or more!) of people who join Mastodon do. What makes Mastodon a place most people come to and go, "no thanks"? Answering this question is key if you, like me, want Mastodon to thrive. I've gone all in on ActivityPub and have tried to get as many people as I can to join Mastodon. I've federated this blog, I maintain a [custom Mastodon web UI](https://github.com/mattbirchler/Tangerine-Neue-for-Mastodon?ref=birchtree.me), I make [Best-o-Masto](https://bestomasto.com/?ref=birchtree.me) which tries to make Mastodon easier to keep up with for those who can't spend much time on social media everyday, I subscribe to several apps that make using Mastodon better, and I've donated to the foundation several times over the years. I mention all this to make clear that I'm not a Mastodon hater, I'm a lover who doesn't want it to wither away. Forget everything about how other social networks are bad, what makes it so that almost everyone who joins Mastodon gives up on it? I don't have easy answers (although I have some ideas, maybe for another post), I mostly wanted to write this to get my fellow Mastodon users thinking. Are we happy being an ever-shrinking niche social network? If we are, then how can we be mad at everyone who chooses to use something else? If we aren't, then how can we make this place something more people want to spend time on? *Disclaimer: some of these accounts are surely bots, or second or third accounts set up by the same person, so it's possible retention is a bit higher than the percentages calculated above. I can just work with the data I have, but regardless of that metric, the downward use trend holds regardless and is the ultimate problem.* ### Mac buttons over the years URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/mac-buttons-over-the-years/ Last updated: 2026-10-13T21:19:19.000Z [This cool little site](https://mac-buttons-timeline.vercel.app/?ref=birchtree.me) lets you scrub through the design of macOS buttons from 1984 through today. I gotta say, I have a soft spot for 2005 Aqua and the iconic 1884 Mac design. In the event this Vercel site disappears one day (nearly 100% certain), here's a GIF for posterity. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/10/CleanShot-2026-10-13-at-4.17.42-PM.gif) ### + Tesla Cybertaxi first impressions URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/tesla-cybertaxi-first-impressions/ Last updated: 2026-10-12T11:00:01.000Z I rode in one last week. Here are my impressions. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### + Do you want to cross the streams? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/do-you-want-to-cross-the-streams/ Last updated: 2026-10-11T22:01:36.000Z Obviously probably not, but also…maybe? _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Basically all my apps support the iPhone Duo Now URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/basically-all-my-apps-support-the-iphone-duo-now/ Last updated: 2026-10-11T20:44:00.000Z Over the last 24 hours, and bunch of updates shipped, so here's what's new all in one place. ## [Nonogame](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nonogame/id6800808951?ref=birchtree.me) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/10/header-21x9.png) - The whole app looks more beautiful, matching the updated design of the web app - Full support for the iPhone Duo - Tap to zoom on boards larger than 15x15 - New "Lightbox" theme - Better controls on iPads (and unfolded Duos) ## [Quick Reviews](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reviews/id6740369719?ref=birchtree.me) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/10/header-21x9-2.png) - A new glassy review style by default - Letterboxd imports show fewer (hopefully no) weird formatting - Generally improved loading performance ## [Quick Subtitles](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/10/header-21x9-4.png) - Parakeet is now 2x faster on iPhones and 3x faster on Macs. I think this is genuinely the fastest transcription available on Apple devices - iPhone Duo fully supported - Benchmark mode is now free ## [Quick Reads](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reads-read-it-later/id6759210587?ref=birchtree.me) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/10/header-21x9-5.png) - Support for the new voices from the web (including a cheeky "Matt" voice) - Full iPhone Duo support - Short links should save better than before - Tap images to see them in a lightbox view - Unsubscribe from newsletters - Fixed saves that left a stray "Loading..." row in the queue ## [Quick Notes](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-notes-easy-voice-notes/id6754181571?ref=birchtree.me) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/10/universal-as-header-21x9.png) - Full iPhone Duo support - Brainstorm mode is now powered by GPT-6 - Improved VoiceOver support ## [Chapterize](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterize-podcast-chapters/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/10/chapterize-universal-as-header-21x9.png) - Full iPhone Duo support - Improved labels on toolbar items - Chapters UI makes better use of space - General UI clean up - Full video exports have been removed, but video clips are still available ### What is a developer? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/what-is-a-developer/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T18:59:59.000Z Andy Nicolaides: [I’m not sure what I am, but I know what I’m not](https://thedent.net/posts/im-not-sure-what-i-am-but-i-know-what-im-not?ref=birchtree.me) > I am a developer by trade, but not anything close to iOS development, so whilst no stranger to coding, I’ve spent a couple of months in Xcode and there is not a chance I could tell any of you that I know what has been done within it. If this is the case, how involved was I? Did I just spew out a few lines of prompt and the rest was taken care of? No, not quite. Given how new all of this stuff is, I think the right terminology still needs to be decided. One thing I know, ‘developer’ is not it. I am always happy to see Andy writing, and I think he makes his case well, but I happen to disagree on this topic. I think the term "developer" ought to evolve with the world around it. Ultimately, the words don't really matter, and surely new terms will come up ("vibe coders" says hello), but I also want to stress that if your definition of "developer" only includes people writing all the code themselves, then you're not going to be able to call many people that for much longer. ### Software authorship URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/software-authorship/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T16:59:59.000Z Lex Friedman: [Claude writes code; I author the apps](https://lexontech.org/claude-writes-code-i-author-the-apps?ref=birchtree.me) > My initial prompt when I started on The Universe, Controlled was about 1,000 words — more than half the length of this article to this point. And it was explicitly only for a very limited subset of the game’s functionality. I’ve since prompted Claude with tens of thousands of words of additional prompts on the project. Lex puts it very well in this post. It remains simultaneously amazing how incredible today's agentic tools are for creating software, all while their ability to do this without significant human involvement is close to zero. I should also bring up that exactly one year ago today, we were in a whole other era of agentic coding. It was getting better, but it hadn't crossed the line to being good in the ways we think about it being good (if not great) today. With that in mind, I do have to wonder how much of of our experience will change by this time next year. ### AirPods 5 are better than I even realized URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/airpods-5-are-better-than-i-even-realized/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T14:35:12.000Z [I knew the AirPods 5 were top-tier AirPods](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-new-airpods-mvp/) almost immediately after using them for the first time, but I did still have one bit of doubt: how good were these going to be as airplane earbuds? AirPods Pro are awesome, and over-the-ear options from Apple, Sony, and Bose are all great, but would these seal-free AirPods do well? I spent the week in Austin for a work trip and only brought my AirPods 5\. I'm happy to report that they were incredible, delivering outstanding noise cancellation consistently though both 2-hour flights. I'm sure that more expensive headphones could do a bit better, but these made the engine noise fade to a low hum that sounded like white noise playing quietly. I could still slightly hear people talking around me, but I've never had the experience of voices actually disappearing with even the best noise-cancelling headphones either, so this wasn't unexpected. As a bonus, I don't know if this is just a coincidence, but my ears almost always pop when taking off, and they didn't either time with these in. Could be a fluke, and maybe there's no scientific reason this would happen, but it's been great. AirPods 5 are my GOAT. ### Unread 5.1 adds Birchfeed and Quick Reads support URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/unread-5-1-adds-birchfeed-and-quick-reads-support/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T10:59:59.000Z [Unread 5.1](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/unread-an-rss-reader/id1363637349?uo=4&ref=birchtree.me) came out this week, and it's the most significant update to the app for me personally that they've ever shipped. Why is this such a cool update for me? Let's look at the release notes: > Unread 5.1 adds these improvements and more: > > • Syncing with Birchfeed, a new web-based RSS reader and syncing service. • A Quick Reads article Action That's right, Unread is the first RSS client to integrate not only [Birchfeed](https://birchfeed.app/?ref=birchtree.me) as a first-class citizen for RSS sync, but also [Quick Reads](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me) that anyone can use as their quick share option. As you can imagine, I'm pretty excited about this, and I'm absolutely pleased that this is in one of the coolest RSS clients out there. Unread has made authentication a breeze as well and has fully integrated passkeys, so that if you've created a passkey for your BirchFeed account, all you have to do is auth with that and you'll be in. No passwords, no emails. It's the passkey dream (there is a six-digit emailed code if you still want it, of course). Unread has always had a very distinct style that I've respected, and now it has a new reason to hold a special place in my heart. [Check it out!](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/unread-an-rss-reader/id1363637349?uo=4&ref=birchtree.me) ### Hand-drawn Emoji for Chrome and Obsidian URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/hand-drawn-emoji-for-chrome-and-obsidian/ Last updated: 2026-10-08T13:06:03.000Z Last week, I discovered a custom, hand-drawn emoji set created by Frank Rausch called [FrankMoji](https://frankmoji.com/?ref=birchtree.me). It was playful, delightful, and I instantly wanted to figure out how I could get these emoji in more places. I looked at my own apps and didn't think they really fit in any of them, but I still wanted to find a way to get these to more people. Two options revealed themselves, though: Chrome and Obsidian. A couple days later, and I've created plugins for both products that allow you to swap out the default emoji these custom ones. There's not much to do. Just go install the extension or plugin, and it should just start working automatically. On Chrome, you can click the plugin icon in your menu bar or extensions list if you want to toggle it on or off. - [Install the Chrome extension](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/hand-drawn-emoji/koejdidlfpkicdjchemopanbcmmjgklh?authuser=0&hl=en&ref=birchtree.me) (works in all Chromium browsers) - [Install the Obsidian plugin](https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/hand-drawn-emoji?ref=birchtree.me) ### Say hello to "Parakeet Turbo" URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/say-hello-to-parakeet-turbo/ Last updated: 2026-10-05T13:48:18.000Z Parakeet has long been a fan favorite local transcription model in [Quick Subtitles](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me). Apple's is slower and not as accurate, while Whisper is a little bit more accurate, but is way slower. With the combination of high accuracy and massively better speed, why go with anything else, right? Well, what if we could take Parakeet's already outstanding performance and accuracy, and make it faster? A lot faster… **TLDR: I've multi-threaded Parakeet in the** [**Quick Subtitles CLI**](https://github.com/mattbirchler/quicksubs?ref=birchtree.me) **so it runs about 3x as fast as before, and is available now.** The main app will get this in a few weeks, and is currently available in beta for More Birchtree subscribers. ## The results I threw the model at the latest episode of Comfort Zone, which is 102 minutes long. Using the updated version of the CLI transcribed it in 12 seconds on the M4 Pro and 8 seconds on the M6. Eight. Seconds. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/10/CleanShot-2026-10-05-at-6.54.38-AM@2x.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/10/m6-mini.jpg) These numbers are clearly outrageous, so how did we get here? ## Transcription is single-threaded ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/10/CleanShot-2026-10-04-at-12.55.38-PM@2x.png) I was doing some investigation into how the three transcription models I use scale. It turns out Apple's model does almost all of its work on the CPU and will utilize one performance core. Parakeet behaves very similarly, also limiting itself to whatever your fastest core can do. Whisper is a bit different, doing almost all of its work on the neural engine. This is shown in the chart above, which shows power consumption over a run of transcriptions using each model. In terms of opportunity to speed things up, I only had options on one of these. Apple doesn't allow developers to choose how many cores their transcription model runs on, so there's nothing I can do there. Whisper is powered mostly by the neural engine, which is already multi-threaded and is doing all it can. See below for what happens to transcription speed when on the Mac you force Parakeet and Whisper to run only on an efficiency core. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/10/CleanShot-2026-10-04-at-12.50.10-PM@2x.png) Parakeet is mostly powered by the CPU, though, so if I could get that running on multiple cores, we might see better speeds. I dug deeper into how Parakeet works (via [FluidAudio](https://github.com/FluidInference/FluidAudio?ref=birchtree.me)), and actually, it's already cutting up files into 15-second chunks and transcribing each chunk sequentially. By assigning each chunk to a different core, I'm able to get through the file quicker. However, as it goes with computers, once you unlock one bottleneck, the next one appears, and that's the neural engine. While the neural engine is not the main contributor in this process, it is part of the process, and I found in my testing that once you get past 4 cores giving data to the neural engine, it can't keep up and you stop getting meaningful benefits after that. What’s interesting is that I do my development on an M4 Pro Mac and I know the M6 has a new neural engine with twice as many cores, so I wondered if this would be improved on that device. I did the exact same test and surprisingly the answer is no. Here are the performance numbers when using 1-8 cores on each device. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/10/CleanShot-2026-10-05-at-8.14.47-AM@2x.png) Improvements decrease with each new core, and once you get to 4 cores, you're basically capped out, as the CPU simply builds up a queue elsewhere in the system, which as far as I can tell can not presently be increased. Although let's put this into perspective, on a base M6 processor, we're transcribing up to 12 minutes of audio per second…that's pretty damn good. ## Availability I've done quite a bit of A/B testing and the results are exactly the same, so going forward, this is just how Parakeet will work in Quick Subtitles. There's no need to select a "Turbo" option, it'll just be the fastest damn version of Parakeet you can get anywhere. It is available now in the [Quick Subs CLI](https://github.com/mattbirchler/quicksubs?ref=birchtree.me) which you can install with… ``` brew install mattbirchler/tap/quicksubs ``` …or by upgrading if you already have it. Those using the app will get this in the next update, which is coming in the next few weeks. ### The party of making things worse URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-party-of-making-things-worse/ Last updated: 2026-10-04T16:59:59.000Z Justine Calma: [Trump finalizes rule to make cars less fuel efficient](https://www.theverge.com/news/1001610/trump-weakens-fuel-efficiency-standards?ref=birchtree.me) > The US Department of Transportation finalized its plans today to weaken fuel efficiency standards, calling it “among the largest deregulatory actions under the second Trump Administration.” I just think there's something wild about Republicans in the US constantly advocating for things to get objectively worse. You want cheaper, cleaner energy? Nah, let's boost dirty, expensive energy production! You want better gas milage in your car? Nah, let's make sure car makers can make it worse. The vast majority of people want more restrictions on data centers? Nope, how about we make it easier for them to be built where people don't want them and also ensure they can be as dirty as possible. ### Fetishizing something most people don't care about URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/fetishizing-something-most-people-dont-care-about/ Last updated: 2026-10-04T13:59:59.000Z Brent Simmons: [That About Wraps It Up for Stock Mac UI](https://inessential.com/2026/09/22/that-about-wraps-it-up-for.html?ref=birchtree.me) > Users have shown — again, I don’t need to prove this — that they don’t think about a stock Mac app vs. custom. Do they dislike Things for not having a toolbar at the top of the window that they can customize in the usual way? No. (The only people who think that way are longtime Mac developers like me.) ### + Gone too far URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/gone-too-far/ Last updated: 2026-10-04T13:30:51.000Z There's a chance, slim as it might be, that things won't go the way the've gone the last 30 years with digitization the moving to rental models for everyhing. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Birchfeed can forward newsletters to your inbox URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/birchfeed-can-forward-newsletters-to-your-inbox/ Last updated: 2026-09-30T22:16:24.000Z [Birchfeed](https://birchfeed.app/?ref=birchtree.me) allows you to set up an email address to receive newsletters which appear as feeds in the app. However, some people (including me) would actually like to see these in their email inbox as well. Now you can enable this in the [Newsletters settings in the app](https://birchfeed.app/settings/newsletters?ref=birchtree.me). For spam reasons, you can't just forward these emails anywhere, so they go to your account's email by default, and you can change it to something else, but you need to verify ownership of that email as well. ### Birchfeed can be your front page of the internet URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/birchfeed-can-be-your-front-page-of-the-internet/ Last updated: 2026-09-30T15:11:18.000Z [Birchfeed](https://birchfeed.app/?ref=birchtree.me) is fundamentally a backend service that you will mostly use through a third-party client, such as Unread, Reader Classic, or NetNewswire. I always want that primary use case to be really solid, and I think it is right now. However, one of the reasons I wanted to build an RSS sync service was that I thought there was more I could do to help people have a better experience. Since launch, the most popular feature outside of the core sync functionality has been the daily briefing, which most users have enabled. This sends you a daily email with the most notable stories across your feeds, as well as a few highlights I think are worth checking out. Maybe you don't have time to go through the hundreds of posts that have come in today, but you can see the big headlines in 15 seconds. ## Catch up Today, I've launched a new feature aimed at getting you caught up, which is called "catch up". This will appear when you have over 100 unread items, and it will try to find stories and individual articles that stand out from everything else and presents it in a landing page format. If Reddit's old slogan was "the front page of the internet", Birchfeed's can be "**your** front page of the internet". ## How it technically works Similar to yesterday's update to Best-o-Masto, this uses Jev to rank the interest of hundreds of recent articles. Then GPT-6 Luna groups them and writes quick summaries. ## Availability The catch-up feature is available for all users on a free trial or paid subscription. For now, I'm limiting this feature to two runs every 24 hours while I monitor costs, and will loosen it up if it makes sense to. ### App review needs a reboot URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/app-review-needs-a-reboot/ Last updated: 2026-09-29T23:59:59.000Z Lex Friedman: [The App Store review process needs fixing](https://lexontech.org/the-app-store-review-process-needs-fixing?ref=birchtree.me) > Every single app and app update released in the App Store goes through this review process, and the review process is largely a black box. Developers submit, and then wait. They are given no specific timeline or indication of how long the review will take, and it’s inconsistent. Some reviews happen in hours. Some take days. When you’re rejected, you can reply to Apple, make fixes and resubmit, or appeal — and whichever path you pick, you’re waiting again, with no specific timelines provided from Apple. The unpredictability of app review is definitely one of the core annoyances with it. I never know how long a review is going to take. Sometimes it's a couple hours, sometimes it's a couple weeks. Sometimes an app will be stuck in review for several days, and I wonder if something's gone wrong or if it's just taking a long time or if the reviewer has simply forgotten to drag their ticket to done yet. It's impossible to tell. The one thing you're definitely feeling is that no matter how long it's stuck in there, you don't necessarily want to cancel it and start over because you might have to go through this whole wait again. ### Becoming worthless (in a good way) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/becoming-worthless-in-a-good-way/ Last updated: 2026-09-29T22:00:00.000Z Cory Dransfeldt: [Become worthless (to tech companies)](https://www.coryd.dev/posts/2026/become-worthless-to-tech-companies?ref=birchtree.me) > I'm not arguing for boycotts, I know that people are bound to different platforms for different, compelling reasons. What I am arguing for is that, given the opportunity, you try and reduce the value they can extract from you. That's very often your data, but it can also be a direct financial relationship. Be the guy who only buys the loss-leaders. ### The Quick Reads CLI URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-quick-reads-cli/ Last updated: 2026-09-29T20:36:50.000Z As of today, you nerds who like to read later can do so from your terminal with the [Quick Reads CLI](https://github.com/mattbirchler/quickreads-cli?ref=birchtree.me). Install it with: ``` brew install mattbirchler/tap/quickreads ``` And from then on, it will update with `brew upgrade` like everything else. ## Okay, what does it do? It does a lot, actually. When you run it, it opens straight to your reading queue, just like the app and the web do. You can read whatever you want. You can add highlights. You'll see highlights already added. You can look at your to-do list and archive. You can search across your entire account. Most of the things you can do on the app/web are here. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-29-at-12.15.27-PM@2x.png) ## But why? I don't pretend to think that this will be the most common way people interact with [Quick Reads](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me). Clearly not. However, there are times where it is useful to have a command line interface. Quick Reads aims to be the most flexible and developer-friendly read-later service out there, and that means meeting people where they are, even if they're in a niche. With this update, you are able to interact with the service through the iOS app, on the web via Apple Shortcuts, directly with a fully functional API, an MCP server, or now, a CLI. That's something simply nobody else in this space can match. ### Hidden gems comes to Best-o-Masto on the web URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/hidden-gems-comes-to-best-o-masto-on-the-web/ Last updated: 2026-09-29T19:51:32.000Z [Best-o-Masto](https://bestomasto.com/?ref=birchtree.me) is my website for finding the best stuff from your Mastodon and Bluesky feeds quickly. It's not an algorithmic feed like you'd see on something like X or Threads. It's a very simple thing that finds the post getting the most engagement in your feed and serves those first. The iOS app has had a feature since launch called "hidden gems", and the idea of Hidden Gems is that not all of the posts you might want to see are going to get the most boosts and favorites. Hidden Gems attempts to surface these interesting posts that maybe didn't get as many engagements, but you still probably want to see. That feature has been powered by Gemini since launch, and it works fine, but it's slow and costs real money to run. As such, I've always made it available exclusively as a bring your own API key situation rather than something just built into the app. But recently, a new model came out called [Jev](https://typesafe.ai/blog/introducing-system-one-models-and-jev?ref=birchtree.me), which is not a language model – it's effectively a decision engine which can (relatively) intelligently classify things for you. It's also incredibly fast and incredibly cheap. The metrics vary by what exactly you're doing, but we're talking in the order of being 200x faster and 400x cheaper in some cases. Of note, this feature is completely opt-in for users, so if you have no interest in this sort of feature, just don't use it. The feature is in beta as I monitor costs/reliability. ## How it actually works This might be interesting because it is different from other LLMs. In a way, integrating to a large language model is the simplest API you've ever used because you just kind of toss in whatever text you want and it figures it out, giving you text back. We're about to get into the weeds, but I think showing actual code is going to be helpful here to understand how this works. Using some completely made up posts, here's an example of what the request looks like when I look for hidden gems. ```json { "model": "typesafe/jev-1.13", "state": "POST 1\nFinally finished the quilt I started in 2019. Four moves and one pandemic later.\n[2 images, alt: A blue and white patchwork quilt draped over a chair]\n\nPOST 2\ngood morning everyone", "questions": { "p1": { "type": "score", "instructions": "Consider POST 1 only. How interesting would this social media post be to a reader who follows the author, ignoring how popular it is?", "criteria": [ "Mundane, low-effort, a bare link, a greeting, or a reply that needs missing context", "Mildly interesting but forgettable", "Worth reading: a good joke, real insight, personal story, life event, or creative work", "A standout the reader would be sorry to have missed" ] }, "p2": { "type": "score", "instructions": "Consider POST 2 only. How interesting would this social media post be to a reader who follows the author, ignoring how popular it is?", "criteria": [ "Mundane, low-effort, a bare link, a greeting, or a reply that needs missing context", "Mildly interesting but forgettable", "Worth reading: a good joke, real insight, personal story, life event, or creative work", "A standout the reader would be sorry to have missed" ] } }, "provider": { "data_collection": "deny", "zdr": true } } ``` This sample only sends two posts, but in reality I pass in the text of several hundred posts in the `state` variable, then I pass questions where it looks at specific posts in the `state`, and it determines a score for each one. Each post can get a score from 0-3, with 3 being the most likely hidden gem. Because Jev is not a language model, it doesn't generate text in its response. All it does is take a look at the `state`, the `instructions`, and decides which `criteria` it meets. It does that across every single question provided. Here's an example response: ```json { "model": "typesafe/jev-1.13-20260917", "answers": { "p1": { "type": "score", "score": 2, "legend": { "0": "Mundane, low-effort, a bare link, a greeting, or a reply that needs missing context", "1": "Mildly interesting but forgettable", "2": "Worth reading: a good joke, real insight, personal story, life event, or creative work", "3": "A standout the reader would be sorry to have missed" }, "probabilities": { "0": 0, "1": 0.01, "2": 0.98, "3": 0.01 }, "confidence": 0.98 }, "p2": { "type": "score", "score": 0, "legend": { "...same four lines..." }, "probabilities": { "0": 1, "1": 0, "2": 0, "3": 0 }, "confidence": 1 } }, "usage": { "input_tokens": 555, "output_tokens": 32, "cost": 0.00002331 }, "id": "gen-dec-1790707300-J2N6sJCCxL9IWgYlVnr5", "provider": "TypeSafe" } ``` Here in the response, we can see that each question was scored. The first was scored a two, the second scored zero. You can also see that there are probabilities assigned to each score, giving you an idea for what the odds are it falls into each category. There's also a confidence score of how confident it is in its assessment. Both of these were pretty straightforward, but as you get more complex content, the answers may be a bit fuzzier. As a developer, the next step is pretty darn easy. Now I have a list of posts with scores attached to them, and I can just sort from biggest to smallest, displaying the 3s, then the 2s, and the 1s. The idea of this product is not to show you every single post in your feed, so it cuts off after the first 15. ## Future Plans I've always really enjoyed the feature in concept on iOS, although I've always felt a little bit disappointed by it in execution, largely because I require users to bring their own API key since I'm not able to absorb the costs, and it's just fundamentally slow because you're passing a lot of information into a language model and waiting for it to generate a full response with the post IDs it thinks are interesting. This has led to me personally not using this feature much. This new implementation is really interesting because the results seem quite good in my testing so far, the performance is radically better, and the cost is seemingly negligible. I'll be closely monitoring my spending to make sure it doesn't get out of control, but it looks like this is something I can just offer for free on the web. If it stays okay, it'll be something I bring to the iOS app as well. ### Nonogame has gotten a bunch of new things recently URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/nonogame-has-gotten-a-bunch-of-new-things-recently/ Last updated: 2026-09-28T20:59:59.000Z [Nonogame](https://nonogame.app/?ref=birchtree.me) has become my obsession lately, and I'm happy to see hundreds of people coming back daily to play it. If you haven't checked it out yet, I hope you do. And even if you have and bounced off, I think there's a few things changed since the initial launch you might enjoy. - [The iOS app](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nonogame/id6800808951?ref=birchtree.me) is out of beta and widely available on the App Store. The [TestFlight is still around](https://testflight.apple.com/join/QnBNPDcm?ref=birchtree.me) if you want to get new features early. - The website behaves more like an app than it used to and does a better job of scaling to small and large displays. - The UI generally has been improved to be more satisfying when filling in puzzles. - There is a new "Lightbox" theme option (previewed above). - 150 collections have been added, and the collections page lets you more easily filter for exactly the sort of puzzles you want to play right now. - Collections now also let you try to improve your time and will automatically suggest previously completed collections we think you can do better at. I'm actually really proud of this feature, as it takes into account average completion times across the whole user base, as well as how you tend to do on this sort of puzzle. - Brain teasers have gotten a much better landing page, showing you not just your result and ranking amongst your friends, but also how you compare to everyone else across the platform. - Endless mode is now more random. Previously, there was a consistent pattern of bouncing between small, medium, and large puzzles, which has since been improved. - 116 achievements have been added. As always, free users can play the 3 daily games as well as the 2 brain teasers per week, and paid users get access to 362 collections and literally endless puzzles with endless mode. I hope you [try it out](https://nonogame.app/?ref=birchtree.me)! ### AppZapper 3000 is incredibly rad URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/appzapper-3000-is-incredibly-rad/ Last updated: 2026-09-28T19:25:57.000Z We live in a world where sometimes you'll see an old app get revitalized, but it's not from the same people who made the original, and other times it's not even authorized. It's just picking up on nostalgia and hoping to make a quick buck. That does not at all appear to be what [AppZapper 3000](https://appzapper.com/?ref=birchtree.me) is, but it is why it took me a while to write about it. This app is unbelievably rad and goes way harder than it needs to, which is kind of the point. You should just try it out for yourself with its free trial, but I also made a [quick video demo](https://youtu.be/cbLPZBI%5FffM?ref=birchtree.me) showing it in action. ### The Register thinks my La Croix benchmark is legit (sorta) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-register-thinks-my-la-croix-benchmark-is-legit-sorta/ Last updated: 2026-09-27T23:00:00.000Z Brandon Vigliarolo: [iPhone 18 Pro benchmark boosted by giving it a cold drink](https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2026/09/24/iphone-18-pro-benchmark-boosted-by-giving-it-a-cold-drink/5298918?ref=birchtree.me) > To make a long story short, a cold can of La Croix (in Birchler’s case – the cooling potential of an aluminum can isn’t limited to name-brand sparkling “naturally essenced” water) takes an already beefy device to new levels of sustained performance by helping it shed heat and avoid thermal throttling. Shout out to The Register for linking to my weird benchmark. ### Riley Hill on the Fold8's crease URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/riley-hill-on-the-fold8s-crease/ Last updated: 2026-09-27T22:16:19.000Z Riley Hill: [Galaxy Z Fold 8 Review: Worth Buying in Years](https://slatepad.org/2026/09/27/galaxy-z-fold-8-review/?ref=birchtree.me) > As for the crease, it’s not something you see when looking at the larger display head-on. Tilt the phone slightly off-angle, and you see it. It’s minimal, but it’s there. Not a big deal. The only slight annoyance with the crease is that you still feel it when performing swipe gestures. It ever so slightly detracts from the device’s premium feel, but I don’t want to overstate this; it’s a very minor thing. I really think a lot of iPhone owners are about to learn how a minor crease is not a big deal, and the "Apple will never ship a phone with a noticeable crease" folks will realize that a minor crease isn't a huge deal (even if it would be nice to totally eliminate one day). ### My phone is clearly listening to me* URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-phone-is-clearly-listening-to-me/ Last updated: 2026-09-27T18:46:33.000Z I've had two incidents in the past weekend that proved to me that my iPhone was listening. We were visiting a friend out of state, and we were talking about all sorts of things we don't generally discuss, but based on what I'm seeing on my phone, it's pretty clear that my phone is listening and serving up content based on what we say. The first incident was on Friday, where our friend revealed that they never create accounts online. They have a couple accounts that they absolutely must have, but in general they won't use something unless they can do it without creating one. Not an hour later, I have this email from Railway that talks about how I can now create a new VM without creating an account. Crazy right!? And not only did it come to my email, but they wrote up a [public blog post](https://railway.com/changelog/2026-09-25-free-vms-without-an-account?ref=birchtree.me) about it, emailed all their customers, and implemented it just because we were talking about it. The second event was just a day later and it was just as shocking. We wanted to go to breakfast and there was this place called [Honey Bees](https://honeybeesbg.com/?ref=birchtree.me), which they liked, but warned us that if the owner was there, they were going to make bee puns. It was a 20-minute drive or so, and we spent the whole drive making stupid bee puns and talking about bees in general. After we got home from breakfast, it was time for us to drive back home. So we packed up, got in the car, and I was excited to see a [new episode](https://www.wehaveconcerns.com/bee-smart/?ref=birchtree.me) of [We Have Concerns](https://www.wehaveconcerns.com/?ref=birchtree.me) had dropped into my podcast queue. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/bees.jpg) Okay, this is just getting spooky. We never talk about bees. And yet, as soon as we did, suddenly there's a bee-focused podcast in my player. If you think this is a coincidence, then I don't know what to tell you: you're a sheep. --- Of course, I don't think I fooled anyone with this post. No one actually thinks that my phone was listening to me, and therefore a marketing newsletter went out or a podcast episode that was recorded months ago was released just because me and my friends were talking about these things. However, these are exactly the sort of coincidences that people bring up all the time when talking about proof that everyone is listening to you through your phone. Genuinely, if these had been in any form of advertisement or promoted content in a social feed, there are millions of people who would immediately clock it as undeniable proof that their phone is listening and you'd be a rube if you denied their experience. How could you look at this clear cause and effect and come to any other conclusion? I'm writing this post not to present any definitive evidence that your phone is or is not listening to you – I'm not going to convince anyone today. I'm writing it simply to show that coincidences happen, correlation does not equal causation, and science is not anecdotal. If you're going to convince people that your phone is really listening to you and sharing every word you say with advertisers across the world, you need to do better than, "oh, there was this coincidence." ### + The unbelievable allure of indie software development URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-unbelievable-allure-of-indie-software-development/ Last updated: 2026-09-26T11:34:56.000Z God, it's rewarding working on indie software. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Disable the god damned Siri shortcut on Golden Gate URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/disable-the-god-damned-siri-shortcut-on-golden-gate/ Last updated: 2026-09-23T14:34:17.000Z I'm sure someone likes this "ask Siri about active window" shortcut, but I hate it, and it conflicts with the default 1Password quick access shortcut. Thankfully, it can be disabled by going to: 1. System Settings 2. Keyboard 3. Keyboard Shortcuts 4. Screenshots If you use an alternate screenshotting tool like CleanShot, you may have been here before, so just remove that last one and you'll never see it again. --- *Programming note: I normally don't do these sorts of SEO-bait "how to" posts, but I hate this one so much that I'll break that rule this time.* ### The new AirPods MVP URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-new-airpods-mvp/ Last updated: 2026-09-21T23:03:26.000Z For the past four years, I have maintained that AirPods Pro 2 are the best AirPods ever made. They had great noise cancellation, all the stem controls I could ever want, good battery life, and while I didn't personally prefer in-ear earbuds, they were comfortable enough. I love these things. This is why last year's AirPods Pro 3 were such a disappointment to me, because I felt they were worse than what I had previously in every single way. The core thing for me was that they did not fit well in my ears, and after several months of trying different tips, both from Apple and third parties, I couldn't get anything that really worked for me. I've actually been using AirPods 4 since last December as my day-to-day AirPods and have been quite happy with them. However, they were not perfect and had a few gaps that I missed from the Pro line. Last week, Apple released AirPods 5, which had a couple enhancements over what I've been using, and I gotta be honest, I think these are my new favorite AirPods of any kind. More critically than anything, these AirPods fit great in my ears. I've always had great luck with Apple's EarPods and then AirPods, and whatever 10,000 ears they're measuring when they shape these, those are good ears in my book because every single one for the past 25 years has fit great. Even with the AirPods Pro 2, which fit pretty well, they would still work their way out of my ears after wearing them for a while, and they would really start to lose their place in wet conditions when working out. This either meant when I was working up a lot of big sweat or when it was raining outside. They would genuinely just slide out almost immediately. That's not a problem at all with normal AirPods. Apple's also improved the stems on these new AirPods to support volume control by sliding up and down. This was the one thing I really missed from the AirPods Pro, and I'm really glad it's here in these as well. I very much appreciate that Apple has improved the water resistance in these, matching the AirPods Pro 3 and actually surpassing that of the AirPods Pro 2. They've also improved the battery life, so I can use these for five hours straight compared to four hours with the last AirPods 4, and is nearly caught up to the six hours they advertise for the AirPods Pro 2. And all of this comes with the smaller charging case, which I have come to really love compared to the AirPods Pro case, which is still very small in the grand scheme of things, but is definitely more robust, and the normal AirPods case just fits more places more comfortably. Yes, the AirPods Pro 3 still win on paper in some ways, but for me, I'm incredibly smitten with the AirPods 5 and I'm really impressed with them. --- P.S. You can reference [my review of the AirPods Pro last year](https://birchtree.me/blog/airpods-3-review-2/) to know that I'm not someone who just glazes whatever is new from Apple and rehashes the spec sheet to you. ### Resident Evil movie is widely adored and makes an ass-ton of money URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/resident-evil-movie-is-widely-adored-and-makes-an-ass-ton-of-money/ Last updated: 2026-09-21T01:42:24.000Z Michael Cripe: [Resident Evil Defies Expectations as Zach Cregger Adaptation Collects $108 Million Globally After First Weekend in Theaters](https://www.ign.com/articles/zach-creggers-resident-evil-defies-expectations-with-108-million-box-office-opening-weekend?utm%5Fsource=bluesky,threads,twitter) > It's a franchise-best opening for the horror-comedy hybrid that saw it bring in $60 million domestically and $48.3 million internationally. That's a good hunk of change more than even some healthy projections, which had most expecting a $40-$50 million domestic opening for Resident Evil. 2026 has been nothing if not a showcase after showcase of how angry (typically) right wing influencers and their social media lackeys are living in their own reality where they’re mad about things no one else is. ### An agent skill to help update your app for the iPhone Duo URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/an-agent-skill-to-help-update-your-app-for-the-iphone-duo/ Last updated: 2026-09-19T22:14:17.000Z I put together as much of Apple's iPhone Duo documentation as I could into a skill that I'm using to audit my apps for the new layouts and features. [You can get it here](https://github.com/mattbirchler/iphone-duo-skill?ref=birchtree.me) if you're in a similar boat. ### What my apps look like on the iPhone Duo with zero code changes URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/what-my-apps-look-like-on-the-iphone-duo-with-zero-code-changes/ Last updated: 2026-09-19T15:33:13.000Z Leading up to the iPhone Duo's announcement, I suggested that Apple's big advantage here compared to other folding phones on the market that are based on Android was the iPad ecosystem. Not all apps run on both the iPhone and the iPad, but a lot do, and so a lot of the apps you already use display different interfaces based on how much space they're given. What this means is that app developers don't have to start from square one and reconceptualize their apps for larger displays because a lot of them have already done that by supporting the iPad. Also, because of the way SwiftUI in particular works, some of these UI changes that Apple showed off for the iPhone Duo are things we actually get for free. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, here are some screenshots of a few of my apps running in the simulator with exactly zero changes made to support the Duo. ## Quick Reads ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-19-at-10.22.10-AM@2x.png) ## Quick Subtitles ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-19-at-10.16.50-AM@2x.png) ## Nonogame ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-19-at-10.23.10-AM@2x.png) ## Quick Reviews ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-19-at-10.25.58-AM@2x.png) ## Chapterize ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-19-at-10.27.50-AM@2x.png) --- So yeah, they're not all perfect, and some have visual bugs I absolutely need to sort out, but because these apps were all built to work on the iPhone and iPad, they all scale up to the iPhone Duo's larger internal screen with ease. Sure, some of the buttons layout differently, and there are additional layouts you can implement specific to this device when the screen is in different odd positions, but make no mistake, these are iPad apps running on the iPhone, and that's very cool. ### Quick Stuff gets more personal URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-stuff-gets-more-personal/ Last updated: 2026-09-19T12:56:45.000Z [Quick Stuff](https://www.quickstuff.app/?ref=birchtree.me) is my website with a bunch of little utilities to get things done. There are currently 13 tools, but most people use the same one or two things every time they come to the site. I've had a few UIs for pinning or prioritizing specific apps in the list, but it's all blurred together a little bit more than I'd like. It's one of those things I felt myself as well. I use a couple of these far more than the others, and I was finding I had to take a second to orient myself on page load and make sure I was clicking the right thing. Today I pushed out an update that makes your favorited pages stand out much better from the rest. Just hit customize, drag the ones you use to the top, and everything else gets minimized in its own section. 0:00 /0:12 1× ### Nonogame will soar on the iPhone Duo URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/nonogame-will-soar-on-the-iphone-duo/ Last updated: 2026-09-19T01:37:43.000Z [Nonogame for the iPhone and iPad](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nonogame/id6800808951?ref=birchtree.me) is out now, and I'm really excited about it. However, if I'm being honest, I have mostly played on my Samsung Galaxy Fold8 for the past few weeks because the experience is simply better there. It's not because the web app is better (although I am extremely proud of it), it's because the screen just makes playing so much easier on a phone. Apple released the Xcode 27.1 beta today, which gave us access to the iPhone Duo simulator, and with zero code changes, Nonogame works pretty well with no code changes, actually. Nonogame supports the iPad and scales based on device size, so this isn't a huge surprise, but it's great to see in action. For sake of comparison, this is what the same game board looks like on the iPhone 18 Pro Max and the iPhone Duo when unfolded. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/Pasted-image-20260918203312.png) The phones have nearly identical heights in this configuration. However, the added width really benefits this game. Again, I've been playing the hell out of this game on my Samsung folding phone, and I genuinely cannot wait to play it on the iPhone Duo. ### iPhone 18 Pro with La Croix cooling URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/iphone-18-pro-with-la-croix-cooling/ Last updated: 2026-09-18T23:20:54.000Z [I did some benchmarking today](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-iphone-18-pro-is-a-transcription-monster/) and saw how the newest iPhone thermal throttles, which isn't severe, but does happen. I know from experience that if you put a cold beverage on the back of your phone, it will cool down really quick, so I thought…the test is obvious. I took a cold La Croix out of the fridge, started a new benchmark run, and put the can on the phone. When I came back, the job was done and the results were exactly what I'd hoped they'd be. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-18-at-6.15.32-PM@2x.png) That's right, if you need to do a heavy task on your iPhone that's going to take a while, pop a La Croix on the back of it (presumably a soda, beer, or whatever you like would work just as well) and the work will get done 14% faster. Go forth and when they call you crazy, you turn around and tell them they don't know what they're missing. ### The iPhone 18 Pro is a transcription monster URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-iphone-18-pro-is-a-transcription-monster/ Last updated: 2026-09-18T20:16:06.000Z Apple made a big deal out of the AI capabilities in their new A20 Pro processor in their new iPhone marketing. They've doubled the number of cores in the neural engine, and this made me immediately wonder how much better that makes this device for transcriptions. This is exactly why I built a benchmark mode into Quick Subtitles. So I ran it on my iPhone 17 Pro, the 18 Pro, and just for kicks, my M4 Pro MacBook Pro. ## Testing Methodology This is using the built-in benchmark mode of [Quick Subtitles](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) using the built-in file. I used the built-in file to try to make this as replicable as possible. You could run this exact test on this exact file and see what your results are as well. I ran the test using Apple's transcription model. I let it do one warm-up, which can skew timings a little bit because loading the model the first time can be disruptive, and I let it run 20 tests in succession. The intention here was to find not only the max speed each device could achieve, but also to see what happened once they started to feel the burn. **Disclaimer:** If anything, this test is unfair to the iPhone 18 Pro, which has only been set up for about two hours and is surely still going through its process of indexing and all those things it needs to do at setup. My impression is that when a high-intensity job like this starts up, those background processes take a pause. But either way, that's worth noting, as theoretically there's more performance here, even if it's marginal. ## Results ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-18-at-3.00.48-PM@2x-1.png) This is a pretty enormous year-on-year upgrade with a 50% jump in peak performance over last year. It took a bit longer for it to start warming up, but once it did, it actually warmed up quicker than the iPhone 17 Pro. To be clear, this wasn't just in the metrics. I could also feel the temperature difference in the hand. The 18 Pro was definitely a bit hotter. I also always think it's funny to look at the throttling for this specific task across iPhones and MacBook Pros. iPhones always start out really high, and then after a couple minutes will throttle down and settle somewhere. Not terrible, but not quite at their peak. Meanwhile, the MacBook Pro just starts going and will literally just keep in the same performance window from now until the end of time. Given how much the A20 Pro seemingly shares with the upcoming M6 processor, I imagine the new M6-powered Mac Mini will be an absolute beast for transcription. ### + Metal Gear Solid 4 is awful. Truly awful. URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/metal-gear-solid-4-is-awful-truly-awful/ Last updated: 2026-09-18T13:29:57.000Z It turns out my memory was actually being far too kind to this game. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Xcode 27.2 is in beta. The 27.1 beta is coming later. URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/xcode-27-2-is-in-beta-the-27-1-beta-is-coming-later/ Last updated: 2026-09-16T17:52:57.000Z Apple released new developer betas for OS 27.2 today, which is not quite what I expected. Us developers have been waiting for Xcode 27.1 since last week, so I was excited to see that we somehow jumped even further into the future, but my joy was tamped down when I saw this note on [the Xcode downloads page](https://developer.apple.com/download/applications/?ref=birchtree.me): > Note: Simulator and device support for iPhone Duo will be available later this month in an upcoming release of Xcode 27.1. Got it. So I can download the 27.2 beta now, however, the upcoming older version will be available in beta later this month. Why does everything in 2026 have to be just a little weird? ### "Apple said they invented this" URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-said-they-invented-this/ Last updated: 2026-09-16T15:37:37.000Z There is a very specific thing you see quite often in online discourse around Apple, which is that people think Apple claims they invent everything or Apple says every little update will change your life. Apple does get excited about things that they release, and they speak highly of them, but I find this critique to be people projecting onto Apple more than Apple actually saying these things. After the iPhone Duo was announced last week, I saw countless posts on social media (even in my very brief time dipping in as I'm on a social media break) with people acting like Apple said they invented the folding phone. It's such an odd critique in particular because Apple spent so much of their presentation talking about how they were making the folding phone hardware and software better than what already exists. The specific context they were using was that you know folding phones exist and here's how theirs is better. Then today I was watching Dave2D's overall quite good video going over the iPhone 18 Pro, and [he said this about the updated Dynamic Island](https://youtu.be/eHYaESEzFHc?si=BRNxvylJ-e5P4VhX&t=161&ref=birchtree.me): > It's about 25% smaller than the previous generation. \[…\] It's not a massive difference. **I know they pitch it as a life-changing experience** – it's a little smaller, which is kinda cool. [Here's what Apple said](https://www.youtube.com/live/39BalPDuTo0?si=21ZSup0SFgXo6q3y&t=1620&ref=birchtree.me) about the Dynamic Island: > iPhone 18 Pro also features an upgraded Dynamic Island. Redesigned to be smaller, more useful, and even better for seeing live information at a glance. It can now show 3 live activities and help you keep track of multiple things at once, like your flight status with Flighty, navigating with Maps, or simply checking your timer. That's it. That's the entire segment about the Dynamic Island. If it really was something they were pitching as life-changing, I'd have thought they would spend more than 23 seconds on it in an 80-minute presentation. Meanwhile, it's only mentioned once on [the marketing page](https://www.apple.com/iphone-18-pro/?ref=birchtree.me) for the phone where they say: > **Redesigned Dynamic Island.** See up to three Live Activities at once and more information at a glance — like live sports scores, navigation, and music. This isn't meant to bash Dave in particular, he's great, but I do think that a lot of this "Apple said they invented X" and "Apple says Y will change your life" reactions out there are based on something other than what Apple actually does when pitching their products. ### Bircharoo is my Obsidian theme URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/bircharoo-is-my-obsidian-theme/ Last updated: 2026-09-15T19:30:00.000Z This is gonna be a short one, but I made a simple Obsidian theme. It's called [Bircharoo](https://community.obsidian.md/themes/bircharoo?ref=birchtree.me) and it's the theme I've wanted for myself. There are over 700 themes out there already, and surely one of them would get me close to what I wanted. But I've tried a bunch and nothing ever quite got me exactly what I personally wanted from a theme. There was always something that was off, whether it would be the button styling or the size of headings…it was always something I wished I could tweak. So I did. Here's a couple of the things I wanted to get right for my own taste in this theme. ## Heading sizing ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-15-at-6.50.28-AM@2x.png) In my subjective opinion, I think headings are something Obsidian themes generally don't quite nail. More often they're not, they're huge, but other times they're inexplicably small or are all caps. I just don't love them. My headings are a bit larger than normal text, they're bold, but that's it. Of note, the theme does not prescribe any fonts or colors for you. It instead follows whatever fonts and colors you choose in your Obsidian appearance settings. I’m using [MonoLisaText](https://www.monolisa.dev/?ref=birchtree.me) in these screenshots, which also happens to be the font I use on this blog. ## Buttons, selects, and tabs ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-15-at-6.52.30-AM@2x.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-15-at-6.54.02-AM@2x.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-15-at-8.55.46-AM@2x.png) A good theme doesn't just make the writing and reading experiences good; it should make the entire app feel great. I haven't emulated macOS, which some other themes have tried. I've gone for something simple and clean. None of this is reinventing the wheel, but in a way that's hard to communicate in a couple screenshots, I've made it so Obsidian just feels really crisp and clean throughout with some relatively simple styling. ## A nice empty state ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-15-at-6.57.12-AM@2x.png) An underappreciated aspect of a good Obsidian theme is what they do with the empty state, which is when you don't have a document open yet. I haven't gone too crazy here, but I've styled the actions to be button elements, and I've added a little SVG of a document. Again, it's not a huge thing, but it's a level up compared to what you get by default. ## Icons I really love [Phosphor icons](https://phosphoricons.com/?ref=birchtree.me) and use them in my apps and Tangerine Neue, and I've incorporated a bunch of them into the UI when you use this theme. ## Motion 0:00 /0:07 1× I like a little tasteful motion in my UIs, and that's what this theme has. The left and right sidebars both animate in and out. The settings page animates in, and buttons have very subtle motion that makes them feel a little bit more tactile when you interact with them. ## Mobile ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/iPhone-17-Pro.png) Finally, I've taken care to make sure that the app scales nicely to mobile so that people like me who actually use the app quite a bit on their phone get a good experience there as well. I did not try to emulate iOS components for the mobile layout, nor did I try to make the bottom nav emulate liquid glass. Obsidian does not use many native iOS components, and I think it’s better to lean into that rather than trying to emulate the system. It’s like people who used to theme Windows to look like macOS. It might trick you for half a second, but once you see the differences, it just feels cheap and I don’t think that’s the way to go. ## Try it out [Bircharoo is on the Obsidian marketplace](https://community.obsidian.md/themes/bircharoo?ref=birchtree.me) and you can install it directly from Obsidian. ### 1,000 hours of nonogame URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/1-000-hours-of-nonogame/ Last updated: 2026-09-14T22:19:23.000Z I hit a pretty fun milestone in [nonogame](https://nonogame.app/?ref=birchtree.me) today: 1000 hours played. No, not by me, but by the community of people who come and play this game every day. I know this is small potatoes compared to whatever other games you can think of off the top of your head, but I'm really proud to have made this and to see how much people are enjoying it. And no, that does not count penalty time, it's real human time. If you were curious though, 293 hours of penalty time has been added. Don't worry if you're not perfect, no one is. Well… Except for one player who has solved over 100 puzzles and has not received a single penalty. If that's you, holy crap, amazing job! Another random stat for the road: exactly one puzzle has been solved in under 2 seconds. Some say that record will never be beaten. ### Chris Lawley's iPadOS 27 walkthrough URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/chris-lawleys-ipados-27-walkthrough/ Last updated: 2026-09-14T22:01:09.000Z Am I biased? Sure. This is still the best overview of what's new in iPadOS this year for normal people. ### The OS 27 updates URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-os-27-updates/ Last updated: 2026-09-14T19:26:10.000Z Apple has just started rolling out OS 27 across all their devices, and I think they're good updates across the board. As such, I've been working on updates to a bunch of my apps to get them ready for these new updates. Some features are specific to the new OS, while others are just things I wanted to include for the fun of it. Here's everything new across my apps today. *As a quick but important note, I have created app intents for a lot of the apps, which theoretically allows you to ask Siri to do things for you. However, my experience has been that Siri is incredibly inconsistent in actually doing anything reliably. For example, I have asked it to find a specific movie review in Quick Reviews and summarize it for me, and it does it perfectly. Ten seconds later, I'll try the literal exact same request, and it will tell me it has no idea what the hell I'm talking about. As such, in the release notes below, I tend to describe these changes as implementing app intents and what actions I have added. They work great in shortcuts, but Siri is a complete wild card.* ## Quick Reads I've upgraded the sync service for the Quick Reads service itself to allow faster delta updates. This will, in some cases, radically improve the loading performance of your reading queue and archive for those with thousands of articles saved. Your reading queue can be sorted by things such as date added, title, and reading time. And now that setting syncs between the web and the app. Added support for app intents, so you can create shortcuts that save articles, archive them, open them, listen to them, search for them, and open the app directly to specific pages. Your library is indexed by the operating system, so you can find saved articles through a Siri search. [Download here.](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reads-read-it-later/id6759210587?ref=birchtree.me) ## Quick Reviews Alternate app icons are here! I still think the red heart is the best, but alternate options now do exist for those who want them. App intents are available to find reviews, open reviews, get review images, and logging a new review. [Download here.](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reviews/id6740369719?ref=birchtree.me) ## Quick Subtitles As of the last major update, all paid users get AI features with a monthly quota. Now, instead of a hard limit being in place after you go through your monthly limit, the AI analysis and cleanup features will still function, but will be powered by Apple's model. The results will not be as good, but they tend to get the job done. *If you never want to fall back, you can still use your own API key.* The iOS version of the app will now transition to a multi-column Mac-like layout when given enough space. iPhone users today won't see any changes, iPad users will see an app that looks very much like the Mac version, and next month, iPhone Duo users will get the iPad/Mac experience. App intents have been added to transcribe files, export subtitles, get an existing transcript, and open an existing transcript. [Download here.](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) ## Chapterize There are quite a few reliability improvements in this update. iCloud Sync and the export engine have gotten notable improvements. Syncing between devices should be more reliable, and exports should have fewer edge cases. Magic Chapters is a new feature that allows you to use on-device Apple Intelligence to suggest chapter markers. Placing your own chapters will always be more precise, but this can be a really good way to get something into an episode you're working on quickly so that you can tweak to get it perfect. Once again, quite a few app intents have been added, including the ability to open a show, open an episode, add chapters, get chapters, create magic chapters, get your chapters as text, or to transcribe an episode. [Download here.](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterpod/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me) ## Weave for Typefully The big update here is a completely fresh design, this time leaning heavily into the glass aesthetic. Dynamic text is also now supported, improving accessibility. Your scheduled posts section now more reliably shows scheduled posts that you didn't create in the app. Previously, if you scheduled a post from the web app and then opened Weave, that scheduled post often would not appear. App intents have been added to write a post, show your posts, and see your scheduled posts. [Download here.](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/weave-for-typefully/id6758645413?ref=birchtree.me) ## Yearly Run Goals I'm approaching my yearly goal that I set for myself back in January, and it made me realize that when you're in the final stretch, this app should change the UI a bit to drive home that you're nearly there. Now, once you're within 10% of your yearly goal, the app UI will more clearly display this on the main view and will try to predict how many more workouts you'll need to do to hit the goal. Your stats page will have a plain text overview of how you're doing, powered by Apple Intelligence on device. You can toggle between different years' data. Say it with me: app intents! You can log a workout, you can automatically add your recent Health Kit workouts, and you can see your current progress. [Download here.](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yearly-run-goals/id6758230373?ref=birchtree.me) ## Quick Notes This one went out a couple days ago because there was nothing specific to iOS 27 in it, but this update does feature some tweaks to the recording waveform and the processing spinner. It adds the date to the file names when you have notes automatically saved to the Files app to make them easier to sort. And not super exciting, but I have updated the data collection screen to be more accurate. When you enable the brainstorm feature, it does make it pretty clear it's using cloud AI models that the app must inherently send your notes to. However, the data collection screen did not state this explicitly, and now it does. [Download here.](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-notes-easy-voice-notes/id6754181571?ref=birchtree.me) --- Also, it would appear that Apple is prioritizing updates over new apps at the moment, so Nonogame has been waiting for review for a while now, but that should be out of beta any day now. ### Quick Reads now saves multi-page websites URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-now-saves-multi-page-websites/ Last updated: 2026-09-14T19:25:14.000Z As of today, [Quick Reads](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me) now attempts to save all pages of the multi-page articles you save to the service. This works no matter how you save articles (browser extension, iOS app, API, or pasting into the website). For example, if you're trying to read [a long iOS review](https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-and-ipados-27-review/?ref=birchtree.me), this will handle it perfectly. It won't work with every website out there, but the parser does try to be useful on as many sites as possible. 0:00 /0:10 1× ### How to release TV shows in 2026 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/how-to-release-tv-shows-in-2026/ Last updated: 2026-09-14T16:22:12.000Z I found [this report](https://luminatedata.com/reports/release-strategies-music-ftv-2026/?ref=birchtree.me) from Luminate media to be fascinating. It's called "Release Strategies for Music & TV" and it's a guide for music and TV producers how how to find success in the oversaturated media landscape we find ourselves in today. A few specific things stand out to me on the TV front in particular. > For all the criticism lobbed against the all-episodes-at-once (or “binge”) release cadence, it remains prevalent even outside of Netflix. \[…\] The binge strategy does possess certain advantages, such as inflating first-week engagement and thus potentially securing a high spot on weekly ranking charts, which can further positive word of mouth for the series. On the other hand, binge-release viewership tends to decay quickly, whereas a weekly-release hit can remain on the charts week after week, continuously drawing new eyes. I hadn't really considered it, but of course releasing a whole season at once is a cheeky way to boost engagement on that first wee, driving you up the streaming top charts. Giving your biggest fans the opportunity to spend 10 hours watching your show in a week is quite a boost compared to capping them out at 1 hour. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-14-at-11.07.47-AM@2x.png) They also have some data on how many shows are doing each release strategy. The data over the last 3 years shows effectively no movement, with a third of shows releasing weekly, two thirds releasing all at once, and a vanishingly small number splitting their season. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-14-at-11.09.09-AM@2x.png) Notable though, when you exclude Netflix from that breakdown, we do see a notably different story. More than half of shows are weekly and that number is creeping up a few percent each year recently. > Lengthy gaps between seasons have been a persistent headache for streamers, with the annual premieres once met even by blockbuster cable series like Game of Thrones no longer standard procedure. And while megahits such as Stranger Things can still return after multiyear breaks to massive viewership, a long hiatus (more than 1.5 years) for streaming series typically leads to a reduced audience, at least in the U.S. market. Average views dropped for every title in a sampling of recent hits — even Stranger Things, down nearly 25% in its final season. I think this aligns with what we intuit about these big breaks in shows. Creators might hope that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but in a world with near limitless options, absence actually makes you move onto something else. *Inset something here about me constantly talking about how video games also have this problem.* ### A new retro handheld has my attention URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/a-new-retro-handheld-has-my-attention/ Last updated: 2026-09-14T11:59:59.000Z Daryl Baxter: [Retroid Pocket Nova review: the best 4:3 retro handheld](https://darylbaxter.com/posts/retroid-pocket-nova-review/?ref=birchtree.me) > The latest handheld by Retroid answers something that its users have been asking for - give us a handheld as powerful as the Pocket, but with a 4:3 display. That's what the Retroid Pocket Nova essentially is This looks rad. There's something to be said for 4:3 devices for retro gaming. ### Apple's C2 modem is in the iPhone 18 Pro Max (except in America) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-c2-modem-is-in-the-iphone-18-pro-max-except-in-america/ Last updated: 2026-09-14T00:24:38.000Z Joe Rossignol: [Apple Says iPhone 18 Pro Max Sold in U.S. Differs in One Way](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/09/12/iphone-18-pro-max-us-model-difference/?ref=birchtree.me) > Apple now says the iPhone 18 Pro has a C2 modem worldwide, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max uses the chip in every country except for the U.S. What a weird one. ### + The iPhone Duo opportunity for developers URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-iphone-duo-opportunity-for-developers/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T16:36:32.000Z The iPhone Duo won't sell the most units this year, but I think winning apps should update for it ASAP anyway. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### We must dream bigger URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/we-must-dream-bigger/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T15:51:56.000Z Very often, we in the Apple community expect the bare minimum from Apple. We doubt they'll ever make new product lines, we assume any software feature they lack is actually a choice to omit it, and we predict when they do enter a new market, they'll phone it in. The iPhone Duo should be a wake up call that not on can Apple do more when they want to, we as a community must dream bigger. I find all too much Apple commentary (both professional and amateur) is steeped in "nothing will change, everything will just get 5% better every year" energy. I think the touch Mac conversation over the past few years is a perfect example of this. First, it was an argument that Apple would never put touch input on a Mac because it was never going to work. Then once rumors cropped up it was really happening, the convo moved to "okay, they're doing it, but begrudgingly and they'll probably only support Apple Pencil input". Or maybe the assumption was you could swipe to scroll and pinch to zoom, but nothing else. Or maybe the Mac could toggle into a full iPadOS mode when you want to touch it…maybe even with a full device reboot. All the while, there is a growing concern that making macOS work well on a touch-capable device would make macOS worse for everyone not using a touch screen. The iPhone Duo should make all of us think less defensively about topics like this. Apple didn't just slap iOS as is on a folding phone. Instead, they asked themselves, "now that we have an iPhone that has two screens and folds and has all of these distinct characteristics from a traditional iPhone, what can we do?" They pulled on that thread and made what looks to be a really compelling product. Not to get on my reliable soap box, but what if we thought this way about touch Macs? What if we dared to dream instead of defaulting to timidness? Okay, you have a Mac with a touchscreen. What does that enable you to do? Does this unlock the possibility for more types of software than before? Does this unlock more interaction options than before? Does this enable new Mac form factors? I think the answers to all three of these are emphatically yes, and I would hope that this is how Apple is thinking about this as well. The iPhone Duo sure shows that they can. I think one of the reasons the iPhone Duo hit so hard with a lot of people is because it reminded us that not everything has to be a bare minimum effort. [I wrote about how this phone shows Apple at their best](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-iphone-duo-shows-apple-at-its-best/), and I believe we are holding the bar too low when we don't think like this as well. Frankly, it's also just more exciting commentary to dream of something meaningfully better than what we have today. Sure, most product updates will be relatively minor and predictable, but I think we've lost our spark when we can't imagine Apple doing anything more than that. ### The iPhone Air seems extremely niche in general, but my users love it URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-iphone-air-seems-extremely-niche-in-general-but-my-users-love-it/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T20:59:59.000Z [David Smith shared some numbers on how many people are using WidgetSmith](https://mastodon.social/@%5FDavidsmith/117253170115740653?ref=birchtree.me), his insanely popular, and therefore pretty representative of the overall market, app. He found the iPhone 17 line in general grew quicker than previous lines, but… > With the exception of the Air really struggling to find market share. For comparison the 16 Plus ended its first year at around 1.4% (vs the Air's 0.3%). This is particularly interesting to me because I recently pulled some metrics on what iPhones my users were using, and this is what I got: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/Pasted-image-20260911152510.png) And here's a breakdown of just the iPhone 17 generation: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/Pasted-image-20260911152603.png) This works out to about 6% of my iPhone users using the iPhone Air, or about 20x more proportionally than David's more mainstream app. Honestly, the numbers are pretty striking here, with David showing a pretty even split between the iPhone 17, 17 Pro, and 17 Pro Max, slightly decreasing in that order. Meanwhile, almost half of my users are on the Pro Max, another quarter are on the Pro, and the 17 is neck and neck with the Air. Clearly, my customers lean more enthusiast and are higher end buyers on average. Although I will say one thing that caught my eye with my bar chart is that across every generation, the vast majority of my customers have Pro devices, except for the iPhone 12 and 13 generations. I don't have a pretty visualization for this, but those are actually primarily iPhone mini holdouts who are sticking with those tiny phones. Shout out. 🫡 --- We're a little over a month away from the iPhone Duo coming out, and it will surely get quite a bit of attention when it does, but I expect there will be a similarly vast difference between David and my charts a year from now. I suspect he will have a sliver of his users on the Duo, maybe more than the Air, but probably not that much more. And I would not be surprised if 15 to 20% of my users actually adopt it by this time next year. ### Quick Reads, quicker than ever URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-quicker-than-ever/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T13:49:08.000Z I'm always looking for little ways to make [Quick Reads](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me) better. Sometimes that means big feature updates. Other times it means subtle quality of life improvements. Today I released one of those small quality of life improvements. A lot of users will keep Quick Reads open in a browser tab all day long. Maybe it's a pinned tab or whatever, but they save things that they want to read later and expect those to show up in the queue when they go back to it. However, that didn't always happen because while the queue did auto refresh, it didn't do it as frequently as was needed. Also, if you navigated to a different page, it would actually stop refreshing (a bug I hadn't noticed until today). When I was building [Nonogame](https://nonogame.app/?ref=birchtree.me), I knew that I wanted to pause the game when the user navigated away from the tab or went to a different window. Thankfully, the web supports this, so I was able to detect when the window was no longer in the foreground and pause the game automatically. As you may expect, the web also has ways for you to detect when the window comes back to the forefront, and I'm using that in Quick Reads to automatically check for new things in the queue when you navigate back to the tab. Here's a demo of it in action a few minutes ago in production. I'm saving things from [Birchfeed](https://birchfeed.app/?ref=birchtree.me) and a random website with the browser extension, and both of them show up effectively instantly in the UI when I go back to the Quick Reads tab. I hope you like it! 0:00 /0:13 1× *Not the main point of this post, but I've mentioned 3 of my products in here…*[*that's synergy, Lemon*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aocZo3oeNxw&ref=birchtree.me)*.* ### The most interesting things in the iPhone Duo (and more) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-most-interesting-things-in-the-iphone-duo-and-more/ Last updated: 2026-09-10T20:18:00.000Z Today I do the impossible and get through my biggest thoughts about Apple's announcements from yesterday in less than 10 minutes. Here's what I found most interesting about the new iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro, Apple Watches, and AirPods 5. ### The iPhone Duo shows Apple at its best URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-iphone-duo-shows-apple-at-its-best/ Last updated: 2026-09-09T20:00:00.000Z I have a lot more to go through in collecting my thoughts on Apple's new products announced today, but I wanted to dedicate one quick post to the fact that I think the new iPhone Duo is Apple leaning in to what makes them special and what makes people like me really love so much of what they do. I've been using Samsung's latest folding phone that has a very similar form factor to what Apple just announced, and it's gotten me accustomed to what the folding phone experience is. I personally very much like it, and it's the most joy an Android phone has brought me in close to a decade. That said, I just watched Apple's iPhone Duo unveiling, and it immediately made my Samsung phone feel behind the curve. Technically, the iPhone Duo looks very good, but candidly, I don't think it looks meaningfully more impressive than the hardware in the Galaxy Fold8\. It's Apple's software where I feel a large gap has been created. One of the key things I have complained about with the short and squat outer display on the Fold Eight is that software feels kind of cramped on it. Most apps have headers and footers that take up vertical screen real estate that I don't have to spare on a display like this. Apple has addressed this inherent compromise by reshuffling the entire iOS app layout to move controls to the side of the screen to not only be more reachable, which by the way is a bit of a challenge on a wide screen like this, but also to give you maximum vertical real estate for whatever it is you're looking at. I don't go "holy shit" that often when watching Apple events at this age, but they got one out of me this time. There's other stuff, like the seemingly incredibly elegant animation as you finish unfolding the display, where the left half of the screen looks like it's out of focus until you get it all the way open. It looks cool and it looks like it will feel very natural. When I open up my Fold8, it's fine, but the inner screen just pops from off to on at a certain point when I'm doing the opening process. It's an extra flourish that's not necessary by any means, and I can understand why someone would wonder why I think this is any better than what Samsung is doing, but it's the sort of extra flourish that elevates the experience. Now that I've seen it, it makes what I was used to feel old. Apple's not the first company to make a folding smartphone. In fact, they're one of the last to the game. But what I saw today is exactly the sort of thing I want to feel when Apple enters a new category. Yes, the hardware looks excellent, but the software is where it looks like they're truly differentiating, and I am excited to try it out next month. ### Drawably is a hand-drawn UI library URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/drawably-is-a-hand-drawn-ui-library/ Last updated: 2026-09-09T00:38:32.000Z It's not particularly useful for me, but I really dig [this little UI library](https://www.drawably.dev/?ref=birchtree.me). ### What's next for the iPhone Air? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/whats-next-for-the-iphone-air/ Last updated: 2026-09-08T23:36:10.000Z The iPhone Air is a really interesting device, isn't it? It's the first time I can think of where you paid more to get less in an iPhone. The iPhone Air costs a not-insignificant $200 (or 25%) more than the iPhone 17, and in order to achieve its incredibly thin design, it sacrifices two main features: battery life and cameras. Notably, these are the two features that consumers consistently name as the top things they look for when upgrading their phone (well, besides keeping the same OS they're used to). We always want more battery life, and we always want better photos. This isn't any new insight after a year of seeing sales info, and I predicted that this would be a tough trade-off for a lot of people to make immediately after seeing the Air revealed last September. I expected it to be the worst-selling of the four iPhones that came out at the end of the year. All the indications we have from outside Apple are that this has indeed come to pass, but I don't think that means the iPhone Air is a failure. I think the iPhone Air is taking the role that the MacBook Air took many years ago. When the MacBook Air debuted, it came out in a MacBook lineup that had the normal MacBook and the MacBook Pro. The Air was worse than the MacBook in almost every way, and yes, it cost more to boot. For a time, Apple had the MacBook, the MacBook Air, and the MacBook Pro. But after a few years, the technology got to a point where Apple could fit a very good consumer laptop into the MacBook Air wedge, and they discontinued the MacBook. The laptop line became the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro, and that's the lineup we've had for an incredibly long time, up until and including today. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect this same future for the iPhone lineup. In fact, at the start of 2025, [I predicted](https://www.comfortzone.rocks/episodes/32?ref=birchtree.me#t=1174.739) that the thin iPhone we knew was likely coming out at the end of the year was actually not another phone in the lineup, it was just the new iPhone 17\. Obviously, I got that prediction wrong, but I think it's one of those predictions that you get wrong on timing, not on the final state. There's [a new rumor out today](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/09/08/iphone-air-2-could-replace-iphone-18/?ref=birchtree.me) that suggests that the iPhone 18 will not actually come out, and the iPhone Air 2 will be the non-Pro iPhone on offer. I don't know how credible that rumor is, but it's literally what I predicted a year and a half ago, and I do think that is still where we're going. I think the iPhone Air, as it exists today, is too big of a compromise to be the "standard" iPhone Apple, but I don't think it's that far off. Give it an ultrawide camera and improve the battery life a bit, and I think you have a very competent and cool mainstream iPhone. The rumors are that the iPhone Air 2 will get a second camera, and it will almost certainly have some level of improved battery life, so I guess I wouldn't totally dismiss that idea from happening in early 2027\. The safe money is probably on 2028, but who knows? Frankly, I wouldn't be enormously surprised if they did it this spring. We're already pretty confident that the only phones we'll see tomorrow are the Pros and the Ultra/Fold/Folio, with the normal iPhone 18 coming in the spring. As I wrote in [my predictions post](https://birchtree.me/blog/my-folding-iphone-predictions/) for the folding iPhone, I think this staggered release schedule is going to push more people to buy the Pro phone this year because they'll be used to upgrading in the fall, and there won't be a non-Pro upgrade option for them. They'll say, screw it, and level up. That makes the iPhone 18 in the spring a pretty lackluster release. Yes, I know not everybody follows the Apple news like we do, but society in general has a feeling for when new iPhones come out, and it's the fall. That's when the excitement is, and you don't get that sort of excitement for the more budget phones coming out in the spring, so I do think it will be a more tepid release. I feel like making that release the next iPhone Air, and having that just be the new normal iPhone, would be okay. It just feels like this is a year of change with the iPhone, in terms of what phones are in the lineup, when they come out, and how much they cost. Maybe that's just one of the new changes as well. Rip the band aid off. I'm writing this post the day before the September iPhone event, although I didn't really need to hit that deadline since we're probably not going to know the validity of these predictions for many months still. But hey, what's the point in having a blog if you don't make some predictions that will surely end up being wrong down the road? ### The Ocarina of Time remake looks astounding URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-ocarina-of-time-remake-looks-astounding/ Last updated: 2026-09-08T22:18:22.000Z I’m not really doing social media at the moment so I have no idea what the reaction online has been, but I watched The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time trailer today and I was blown away. The original game is an absolute formative video game in my life. I was nine years old when it came out and it positively floored me and expanded my concept of what video games could be. I’ve played the original game 5 to 10 times over the course of my life and every time I go back to it I’m reminded how brilliant it is. With that in mind, I was simultaneously excited and anxious about the prospect of Nintendo remaking this game. That said, I think what they showed today is everything I dreamed a remake like this would be, and I can’t wait to play it in November. ### The Birchfeed CLI URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-birchfeed-cli/ Last updated: 2026-09-08T16:26:57.000Z One of the things I love in [Birchfeed](https://birchfeed.app/?ref=birchtree.me), my RSS sync service is the news stream feature. This lets you open up a window with new stories streaming into the view as they come in. It's pretty slick, and I use it on big news days (like tomorrow, for example). Because I know a lot of nerds use the service, I also wanted to point out that [there is a CLI](https://github.com/mattbirchler/birchfeed-cli?ref=birchtree.me) you can use as well. You can install it with Homebrew: ``` brew install mattbirchler/tap/birchfeed ``` And you can call it as simply as entering `birchfeed` in your terminal of choice. You will want to run `birchfeed auth` the first time, paste in an API key you generated from Birchfeed itself, and then you will be good to go. There are keyboard shortcuts listed at the bottom of the window, so you can figure this out, but you can choose whether you see article content itself in a pane on the right or if you just want to see a list of headlines. Arrow through them and hit return to open it in your browser, press `c` to copy the link to your clipboard, and if you have a Quick Reads account set up, press `q` to instantly save it to your reading queue. Obviously, I know this is a niche feature, but hey, Birchfeed is built for RSS obsessives, so I know some people will get value from it. ### Birchtree goes liquid ass…ahem…glass URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/birchtree-goes-liquid-ass-ahem-glass/ Last updated: 2026-09-07T23:00:30.000Z The design bug caught me this holiday weekend, and I've made a few changes to Birchtree. First off, and this will be the least important thing to anybody but me, I switched the subtitle on the headline from "designer and creator" to "developer and creator". I still have my design sensibilities, but professionally I'm a product manager, and for my own business I certainly do more development than design at this point (Acknowledging the irony of this in a post about updating the design of my blog). The other difference you'll notice is that I have updated a lot of UI elements to be glassy. Look, I'm sure the trends will change in the future, but for now, I think Glass is relatively cool, and I'm going to go with the trend. I've also gotten into shaders a bit and have become interested in what you can do with them. So I've updated the Pride banner at the top of the site from a CoverFlow emulator to a sort of weird test tube thing that I think is fun. I've also taken the opportunity to pitch some of my apps. At this point, I have 10 apps I want people to know about, so if my blog can push a few more people to those apps, great! Hover over them to see a cool effect as well. 0:00 /0:07 1× I've also made a tweak to blockquote elements, which makes sure they pop very clearly from the rest of the post. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-07-at-4.32.20-PM@2x.png) ### My folding iPhone predictions URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-folding-iphone-predictions/ Last updated: 2026-09-08T13:05:48.000Z I've been covering Apple for 16 years (using Apple stuff for 31 years), and not to toot my own horn, but I think I have a pretty good success record predicting the success of their entries into new hardware categories. I'm not always right, but I'm definitely right more often than I'm wrong. I was extremely bullish on smartwatches, and the Apple Watch in particular, and that's gone on to be an enormous success. I was extremely bearish on the Vision Pro, and we know how that played out so far. I was extremely mixed on the HomePod, and I don't know how else to describe the HomePod since then other than as a product that is extremely mixed. As I write this, we're just two days away from Apple likely showing off another new hardware category, a folding smartphone. I figured, why not give it another go and officially lay down some predictions for how this product will go, not only this year but over the next few years? ## How the folding iPhone will sell An interesting split I've seen in the Apple community over the last year is in how people who were vehemently anti-folding-phone have shifted. When Apple wasn't making one, most people in the community would say that's because folding phones were a bad idea, the technology wasn't there, and they were way too expensive to be mainstream consumer products. However, as it's become clear this is really happening, some people have done the thing I've talked about before, where everything Apple doesn't do is bad, and then once there are rumors that Apple is doing exactly that thing, they mentally move themselves from "they shouldn't do it" to “it'll be okay” to “actually, I'm super excited for this thing.” Meanwhile, others are sticking to their guns. I've seen plenty of people who think the folding iPhone will be a flop, that the hardware will literally fail (as in the screen will fail) within a year or two, and that Apple will discontinue it within two years of its launch. For my part, my prediction is basically that through 2026, both sides of this debate will have data that lets them win stupid social media spats. On the one hand, I do think the phone will be very desirable, and that there are people who will very much enjoy having this device in their life. My evidence for this is that I've been using the Samsung Galaxy Fold8 for the past month, and it's incredibly good. I'm sometimes still annoyed by the small outer screen, but I've largely gotten used to it. When you need something more like an iPad and you unfold the phone, suddenly you have an iPad mini-sized device in your hands. It's awesome. I spend a couple of weeks every year switching to an Android phone as my main phone, and it's been pretty tough over the last 5 years or so. The software library just isn't for me, and I find it hard to stick with it for very long because I feel like I'm just using apps that aren't nearly as good as what I have on my iPhone. A folding Android phone doesn't really help with what apps are available, but it does make it especially nice to have an Android tablet on demand and to do things like play games, watch videos, or use productivity apps with more screen density and tables and that sort of thing. For me personally, a device that's very similar to this but runs iOS and has all the apps I love would be killer. At the same time, I fully expect this to be the worst, or maybe second-worst-selling iPhone in the iPhone 18 generation of devices. I think this for a couple of reasons. First, this device will not be able to be manufactured at the scale of other iPhones. Reports differ on exactly how severe the production challenges are, but whichever report is most accurate, it certainly seems like Apple can't crank these out like iPhone 18 Pros. This will mean that even if Apple sells every single one of them that it makes, and based on my last point, I do think there's a chance that will happen, it still won't be enough to make it one of the top phones in the lineup. Second, despite my excitement about the experience of using a device like this, it won't be universal. For now, at least, this will be a niche device, not just necessarily because of manufacturing limits, but because a lot of people either don't want this or don't know if they want it yet. I also think that the rectangle that sits in your pocket is a pretty perfect size and experience. It's very reasonable that a lot of people won't feel that having a smaller phone that they can turn into a tablet is actually better than the greatest product form factor created in the last 100 years. Third, there's the price. Nobody knows exactly what this thing is going to cost. I've seen leaked listings that suggest it could be around $1,600, while others are projecting anything from $2,000 to $3,000\. My bullishness on this device changes quite a bit depending on where the actual thing falls in that price range. If it's $1,600, I think it's going to be sold out for months as they sell every single one they can manufacture. If it's $3,000, I think it's an absolute nonstarter. So, yeah, I do think that, especially this year, unit sales will far lag behind the 18 Pro models, the normal iPhone 18, and probably the Air 2 and 18e. I think they will lag next year as well for similar reasons. I don't know if this will ever become the *most* popular iPhone, but I do not think it will fail, and I think it will sell more units every year for its first few years on the market (especially if they can get the price down over that time as well). My evidence for this is the increasing market share folding phones have in the Android world, as well as my personal experience using something very similar to what Apple is about to announce and having my own aha moment, where it really clicked with me. On the cancellation point some are making, I'll remind you that the Vision Pro is famously a failure in the consumer market so far, and Apple hasn't discontinued it. I think those predicting that the fold will be discontinued within two years are wish-casting. ## Another model I've talked about this before as well, but I'll throw it here to document it plainly: I think there will be a larger version of this folding phone in the next year or two. I think the short outer screen is going to be a point of friction for people, and in a year or two Apple will release one with a larger screen that is more similar to its standard iPhone when folded in half. ## Price I'm just going to put my flag in the ground and say this will cost $1,999. As I said earlier, there are rumors all over the place about what the cost will be, and I do not expect it to be cheap. However, I do think it's worth noting that Apple is not the first to this game. Samsung sells comparable devices at $1,899 and $1,999. Part of me wonders how much of this is Apple fans not being aware of the norms in the rest of the market, such as when they acted like 120Hz and always-on displays were hyper-premium screen technologies when they had been standard fare for several years on Android devices of almost all price points. Historically, Apple is also one who can surprise us. We all assumed the iPad would debut at $999, so it was a famously killer moment when they revealed the $499 price point. Meanwhile, we were mentally prepared for $2,00-2,500 VR headset, and then Apple dropped the $3,500 bomb when they debuted the Vision Pro. I'm going with $1,999 because I think it's competitive in the market, and psychologically it will feel very good for Apple to be able to say this device starts at under $2,000, even if just barely. I guess I'm expecting something closer to the iPad moment than the Vision Pro moment. And hey, if there's one of those two product lines to emulate, I'd emulate the iPad. 😅 ## The name Finally, there's the name. Everyone seems to think it's going to be the iPhone Ultra, and I guess if I were putting money down, that's what I'd bet on as well. But I just don't like it. I don't like it because it's not "ultra" in many ways, and I don't like it because what do you call the bigger version of it in a year or two? The Ultra Max? Maybe you do… I personally think it should be called the iPhone Folio. I think there's a 99% chance I'm wrong, but hey, won't it be amazing if I'm right? ### + Doomscrolling is not an obligation URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/doomscrolling-is-not-an-obligation/ Last updated: 2026-09-07T15:30:45.000Z For the first time in my Mastodon era, I find it's time for me to take a social media break again. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Comfort Zone is coming back this month URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/comfort-zone-is-coming-back-this-month/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T22:20:59.000Z Comfort Zone, the podcast I do with Chris and Niléane is coming back later this month! We've had a little time off, which actually was nice, maybe we should take a break every year for a bit…anyway 😅 Our new website, [comfortzone.rocks](https://comfortzone.rocks/?ref=birchtree.me) says it all: Comfort Zone rocks. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-04-at-5.15.23-PM@2x.png) You can listen to the most recent episode there. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-04-at-5.15.58-PM@2x.png) You can learn 3 cool facts about each of us. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-04-at-5.18.39-PM@2x.png) Our entire archive has come along for the ride (thank you to the MacStories team for letting us take the whole show with us), and you can search the transcripts to find when we talked about things. Anyway, we're really excited about having the show back, and we hope you take this opportunity to subscribe. If you're already subscribed, you should be good, but if not: - [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/comfort-zone/id1749879483?ref=birchtree.me) - [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/0huKMCk8pn5f8W77pIFjxt?ref=birchtree.me) - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@ComfortZoneThePod?ref=birchtree.me) - [Overcast](https://overcast.fm/itunes1749879483/comfort-zone?ref=birchtree.me) - [RSS](https://anchor.fm/s/116714af0/podcast/rss?ref=birchtree.me) ### Chill racist games hosted by the US government URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/chill-racist-games-hosted-by-the-us-government/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T15:42:31.000Z Have you ever wanted to play a game of Snake where instead of eating fruit, you took control of a white guy arresting and reporting brown people? Well, the White House website has that for you on [their new arcade](https://www.whitehouse.gov/arcade/?ref=birchtree.me)! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-04-at-10.01.00-AM@2x.png) The website is just a bunch of knockoffs of other games that I'm sure some intern vibe coded. Anyway, I think it's the casual cruelty of this administration that is the core of what makes me despise it so much. Just yesterday, Vice President J.D. Vance [said this](https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mun2emjoan2x?ref=birchtree.me) about the upcoming 9/11 anniversary: > As you guys can probably guess, I'm really looking forward to hanging out with Joe Biden. I'm sure we'll have many many intense intellectual conversations. We'll have a great time. Nobody brought up Biden (who is undergoing cancer treatment right now by the way), Vance's cruelty just can't hide itself. Why not take a shot at the previous POTUS to make yourself feel big and strong. ### The best iPhone lineup ever URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-best-iphone-lineup-ever/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T12:59:59.000Z Casey Liss on [this week's ATP](https://atp.fm/707?ref=birchtree.me): > To my memory \[…\], this is the best iPhone lineup I think they've ever had. I completely agree with this. The Pro phones are positively outstanding, the 17 normal got some really good updates that were years in the making that elevated it quite a bit, and the Air served its purpose of being the novelty phone in a way we haven't really seen in the iPhone lineup before. I do think there is room for improvement as the 17e remains a little lacking compared to what it could be. ### 180 merges in 135 days URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/180-merges-in-135-days/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T10:12:27.000Z I officially launched [Quick Reads](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me) 135 days ago, and to say I've been working hard on it since is an understatement. Obviously, PRs aren't a perfect measure for productivity, but each PR is an instance of me wanting to add or change something, and in less exciting moments, to fix something. Ideally, each change makes the product better. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/CleanShot-2026-09-03-at-7.39.19-PM@2x.png) Visualized by week, it definitely shows that after a reasonable pace, but ramped up through the summer. If I could give a bit of a peek behind the curtain, I would explain this as Quick Reads having a solid launch, which had me fixing bugs and improving parts of the user experience here and there for the first couple months. Then the service got a little more traction and people started to ask for more, or they expected certain features to work a different way. I genuinely want this to be the best read-later service out there, and I've ramped up my work to try and make this a reality. [Try it out today](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me) if you'd like a seriously maintained, exceptionally developer-friendly real later service! ### Arc Raiders has faded away while I wasn't looking URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/arc-raiders-has-faded-away-while-i-wasnt-looking/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T09:59:59.000Z Jamie Hore: [Are We Really Witnessing the "Downfall" of Arc Raiders?](https://thisweekinvideogames.com/feature/are-we-really-witnessing-the-downfall-of-arc-raiders/?ref=birchtree.me) > That’s according to a 9 August 2026 [Twitter post](https://x.com/Adiofreak/status/2085490608827724137?s=20&ref=birchtree.me) from content creator ‘Adio’. The post was reacting to the hit extraction shooter’s [decline in player count](https://steamdb.info/app/1808500/charts/?ref=birchtree.me#max) on Steam in recent months, and several more [similar](https://x.com/JakeSucky/status/2090899240478482558?s=20&ref=birchtree.me) [posts](https://x.com/ModernWarzone/status/2087322663253365219?s=20&ref=birchtree.me) from notable social media accounts followed in the subsequent days. I gave ARC Raiders a try when it came out and bounced off it pretty quick. The game seemed very well made, it just wasn't a genre that I have any interest in personally. The one thing I did know was that it was a huge success and people really loved it. It seemed like it was going to be the next big live service game. Now look, I know a lot of people seem to spend most of their time online tracking things that they don't like so they can complain about them, but I simply stopped paying attention to this game once I stopped playing it myself. It wasn't until today when I saw this news story that I checked in, and wow, the drop-off is pretty severe. The notable thing for me compared to other live service games is that the two notable updates in February and April seem to have done nothing to cause a spike in users. Sometimes people will post these Steam charts for single-player games, and I just think it's so stupid. Of course, there's a spike when the game comes out, and then fewer people play it after that. It's a single-player game. You're not going to play it forever. However, live service games rely fundamentally on people playing them for as long as possible. I bring this up not to dunk on Arc Raiders. Like I said, it seems like a really good game that a lot of people loved, especially when it was new. I am going to take this as an opportunity to dunk on Sony for going all in on a live service strategy several years ago that I think has been monumentally unsuccessful. They've had their best studios waste years of development time on projects that either get canceled or release to absolutely zero interest. They've shut down studios that were really good at making certain types of game and then were made to work on some live service God of War bullshit that was never going to work, and now the studios are gone. Frankly, I think this massive chase for the next big live service game is a fool's errand. I just feel like a few games figured this out a long time ago, and we really don't get hits like this anymore. When I look at [the most played games on Steam](https://steamdb.info/charts/?ref=birchtree.me), a lot of them are live services, but the top game is Counter-Strike 2, which released in 2012\. Then there's Dota 2, which released in 2011\. There's PUBG, which released in 2017\. There's Apex Legends, which released in 2020\. And while it's not on this list since it's not on Steam, Fortnite is a big success everyone's chasing as well, and it was also released in 2017\. I'm not saying there haven't been smaller success stories over the years, but I do think it's notable that the games listed above are the ones that companies like Sony want to have, and only 1 of them is from the past 9 years. I think it's fine for these games to keep being made, and even if they're smaller successes, those can be big wins for the companies who make them. But I find the obsession with creating the next game like this foolish. The odds of achieving something like this are so low, and betting the company on it is not a risk I think worth taking. ### NVIDIA is doing the iPhone thing URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/nvidia-is-doing-the-iphone-thing/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T22:59:59.000Z Ben Thompson: [Nvidia Earnings, Dollars Per Gigawatt, Open and Hugging Face](https://stratechery.com/2026/nvidia-earnings-dollars-per-gigawatt-open-and-hugging-face/?access%5Ftoken=eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6InN0cmF0ZWNoZXJ5LnBhc3Nwb3J0Lm9ubGluZSIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.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.Rjk4zwnn3CJWez366QjWWnh3EDtQlJ70p10aJGRFat0aWgmYzj33VU%5FXRA9xNVZVc1FgLh2tECz0uoo8q92c0EjIAvVSB%5Fi2bEgREZ4ORuCYV152Sfviwbl1sqa69neWHntglCwixvhshwtG%5Fm9kd4MGcEuAMk%5F-sAcMVZJhezL0AjDWJytN3HDS1oPFkivT62Blyi92kRipmKVxQvKYUUSL67n-GubuAgNpJxIvVT9VH9vYJNVqujPXvcio2nCRyXNGcXw7jNYuzNEl85vdm0pRYjH3-DJjfxbfw2fP8HbdAfyCtv-sU3Q1sOayLWG1jHT%5FqoQfBJ3YvKgwRkocMg&ref=birchtree.me) > Nvidia right now continues to be like Apple in the early years of the iPhone: for years forecasting was easy and reliable, because the company’s revenue was a function of how many phones they could make and how many carriers they supported; we didn’t truly know what iPhone demand was until the iPhone 6S generation, when supply was sufficient and every carrier had the iPhone. > > We’re seeing the same story here: Nvidia’s earnings really ought to be quite boring, because the top-line revenue number is a function of how much supply the company will have in terms of components; we won’t know what demand truly is until supply is abundant. It is fascinating to see this phenomenon happening again. Years ago, Apple's iPhone revenue wasn't so much based on how much demand there was in the market, it was literally how many iPhones they could manufacture. Today, NVIDIA is in the exact same spot. Their hardware revenue is capped at how much they can build, not how much people will buy. Technically, that's a business problem, but it's the sort of problem you're lucky to have. ### The tech Apple will use to make the crease (mostly?) go away in their folding iPhone URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-tech-apple-will-use-to-make-the-crease-mostly-go-away-in-their-folding-iphone/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T21:59:59.000Z KIMGEON: [Google, Oppo and Vivo to Adopt Dual UTG for Foldable Phones – Apple-led dual-UTG design doubles glass content per foldable device](https://www.thelec.net/news/articleView.html?idxno=13562&ref=birchtree.me) > The lower UTG supports the OLED panel from underneath. It disperses stress concentrated around the hinge when the foldable phone is opened and closed and reinforces the rigidity of the panel’s lower section. Adjusting the physical properties of the upper and lower laminated structure helps reduce creasing at the center of the screen and deformation caused by repeated folding. > > Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Z Fold8 series uses a different approach from dual UTG. It uses a single UTG layer above the screen, while a titanium alloy film and reinforced titanium plate are positioned beneath the OLED panel. The titanium structure supports the panel and disperses folding stress instead of using a lower UTG layer. Okay, now I'm really interested in what the crease is going to be like in the folding iPhone. I don't think we knew for sure yet whether Apple was going to use the same method as Samsung to reduce the crease significantly, or if they were doing something else. Seems like now we know. I'll tell you what, the crease on the latest Samsung phones is incredibly subtle, and while you can notice it if you feel for it, it's something you genuinely don't think about when using the device. It's like having a hole in the middle of your screen. We all have one, and years ago we would have thought that was absurd, but it's just normal, and you literally never think about it as a negative when using your phone. That's how I feel about the crease on the Fold8. Anyway, if Apple really has found a process that allows them to have it where it's literally not something you can feel, that'll be pretty cool. ### Designed in California URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/designed-in-california/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T21:20:00.000Z Myke Hurley: [Designed in California is LIVE!](https://www.theenthusiast.net/designed-in-california-is-live/?ref=birchtree.me) > We have published two episodes today in the free feed, which are the first of a seven-part series about Apple’s Mac OS crisis in the ’90s, leading to the company acquiring NeXT and bringing Steve Jobs back. I listened to the first episode today and it's excellent. I really enjoyed the mixture of scripted stuff with the more casual conversation mixed in. Myke and Jason (and guests!) are on form here. ### Silo…in your browser URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/silo-in-your-browser/ Last updated: 2026-09-02T19:14:13.000Z [This site is insane.](https://3dscenes.qualityf2p.workers.dev/silo?ref=birchtree.me) ### Updates to Quick Reads, Reviews, and Subtitles for iOS URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/updates-to-quick-reads-reviews-and-subtitles-for-ios/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T19:16:33.000Z It looks like AppReview is clearing the decks for next week's wave of OS 27 updates. Here's what's new from my apps today. ## Quick Reads This update catches the app up with pretty much everything the web app got over the summer. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/notes.jpg) First off, you can now add notes to your highlights. After doing this for a little while, I have learned that people sometimes like to leave a note as to why they highlighted something. That's been available on the web for a little bit, and now it's on the iOS app as well. Simply tap a highlight in an article and add a note. ### Trash is less of a commitment It used to be if you deleted an article, it was gone forever. Poof. Vanished immediately. No takebacks. Now, across the web and iOS, there's a trash bin that your deleted articles will go in, and they will be automatically cleared out after 30 days. You can access this from the archive page in the app. ### Save text, not articles Quick Reads is primarily about saving links to read later. However, some people like to save arbitrary text to either read in a delightful reading environment or to use the text-to-speech feature to listen to something. Now, when you add something to your queue, you can choose whether you're adding a link or raw text, and you can paste in whatever you'd like. ### Podcast transcripts I recently added a feature that will generate podcast transcripts when you save them to your queue. Thank you, Marco Arment, for the idea how to do this. Now those transcripts will show in the app. [Download Quick Reads now.](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reads-read-it-later/id6759210587?ref=birchtree.me) ## Quick Reviews ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/Pasted-image-20260901135615.png) I've updated the standard review format to look a little nicer. The scores are now made of a glass material, as is the poster on the left. I've also added a bit of a gradient to the background to make it feel a little more dynamic. If you still want that totally flat background, you can go to the Layout tab when styling your review and flip it back to flat. [Download Quick Reviews now.](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reviews/id6740369719?ref=birchtree.me) ## Quick Subtitles This release comes with two new models, both aimed at those trying to get their transcripts a little quicker. The Whisper model has been updated to a Turbo version, which delivers the same quality transcripts, but does so about 10% faster. This replaces the previous Whisper model and will require a new download the first time you use it. The Parakeet V3 model is still in the app and is still what I would recommend to people looking for the maximum performance while still delivering slightly better quality than Apple's built-in option. However, I have now included Parakeet V2 as an alternate option, which delivers comparable quality and is also about 10% faster than the V3 model. Just be aware, V2 is English only. *Of note, this update is coming to the Mac version as well, but it remains stuck in app review, so hopefully by the time you read this, it's just out and you wonder why I wrote this at all.* [Download Quick Subtitles now.](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) ### Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1 are here URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/fable-5-1-and-mythos-5-1-are-here/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T18:27:24.000Z Anthropic: [Introducing Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1](https://www.anthropic.com/claude-fable-and-mythos-5-1?ref=birchtree.me) > Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1 are the same model, but with different levels of safeguards. I think a lot of us believed Fable 5 was the same as Mythos, just with different safeguards, but I don't believe Anthropic ever officially confirmed that. It's good to have the confirmation in this model update. ### 1Password with an unbelievable own goal URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/1password-with-an-unbelievable-own-goal/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T15:19:19.000Z Andrew Lilley Brinker: [1Password Supports the Ethnic Cleansing of Europe](https://www.alilleybrinker.com/blog/1password-funds-ethnic-cleansing/?ref=birchtree.me) > Omarchy is a Linux distribution created and controlled by David Heinemeier Hansson, usually known as DHH. DHH is the founder and CTO of 37signals (formerly Basecamp) and creator of Ruby on Rails. > > In the last year DHH has also called for the ethnic cleansing of Europe. I talked about Omarchy and how DHH holds reprehensible beliefs on last week's A Better Computer podcast, and now we have another update related to this which hits close to home. As Andrew suggests, I have emailed 1Password directly with my disappointment and my intent to look elsewhere for my password manager needs (I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Mac is the toughest part, as once you're used to 1Password's convenience on the Mac, it really makes every other solution look like dog shit. Apple Passwords is okay, but it doesn't work on Android and is pretty shit in Chromium browsers, so I'm in a bit of a sticky situation). > Hello, I'm a longtime 1Password user and I generally really love the product. However, I find it inexplicable that 1Password has decided to sponsor David Heinemeier Hansson's Omacom Foundation. I have no issues with the business supporting causes to promote open computing. However, there are countless better projects than this to advance that goal. Frankly, this feels like supporting a cause with zero research, there was just a trending topic seen on social media, and someone wanted to join the hype train. > > Hansson's very recent public views on immigrants in Europe are documented [here](https://world.hey.com/dhh/wolves-sheep-and-gypsies-ba44af6a?ref=birchtree.me) and [here](https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64?ref=birchtree.me) and they represent the worst of us. I assume 1Password would say these blog posts do not represent the company's official supported positions on these issues, however given no context as to why 1Password chose this as a good investment over all other initiatives, reasonable people will conclude you specifically like this guy. > > I would highly recommend backing out of this commitment, as I believe it will drive people away from 1Password. As stated above, I think you guys have the best password manager out there, and I'm not one quick to cancel services when a company makes a single choice I disagree with, but I am currently looking for an alternative because this does not sit right with me. ### You didn't write that, you're just a meat proxy URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/you-didnt-write-that-youre-just-a-meat-proxy/ Last updated: 2026-08-31T23:47:31.000Z sf-isms: [Meat proxy](https://sfisms.org/meat-proxy?ref=birchtree.me) > A person who forwards AI-generated text, code, or other output without reading, understanding, or validating it. The person acts only as a relay between the AI system and the intended recipient. Love this. I mean, I hate this and it annoys me every time someone forwards me some text that they clearly didn't write, but I love the term. ### How my Mac mini turned into infrastructure for Quick Reads URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/how-my-mac-mini-turned-into-infrastructure-for-quick-reads/ Last updated: 2026-08-31T23:02:59.000Z On today's podcast, I discussed the new Mac minis and why I want one, but won't be buying one, as well as how I'm using my Mac mini to do something on Quick Reads that would have cost me potentially tons of money to do other ways. I'm actually pretty proud of how clever it is. ### Jason Snell's productivity picks URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/jason-snells-productivity-picks/ Last updated: 2026-08-31T21:22:32.000Z Jason Snell was [featured on the Mac App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1896604185?ref=birchtree.me) today sharing a few app picks, which was very cool to see. I'm the sort of guy who likes learning about new apps from people I trust, so this was a fun list. Imagine my surprise when I got to the bottom of the article and found that Christina Warren has one coming tomorrow and Stephen Robles the day after. What a delight. [Update: Apparently Quinn Nelson is the day after.](https://mastodon.social/@stephenrobles/117191754953015800?ref=birchtree.me) ### Introducing Birchfeed, the best RSS app that works in your favorite RSS app already URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/introducing-birchfeed-the-best-rss-app-that-works-in-your-favorite-rss-app-already/ Last updated: 2026-08-31T14:59:59.000Z I've joked here and there that I should make an RSS app. I genuinely didn't really mean it, but a couple months ago, after doing some work with RSS in Quick Reads, I thought, hey, I think I could do this better in a few ways, so why not? The foundation of an RSS syncing service isn't really something you can differentiate on, but there are some things I think can be better and I wanted to explore it. I'm not going to go on and on about this, but here's the gist of what [Birchfeed](https://birchfeed.app/?ref=birchtree.me) is. ## If you like your RSS app, you can keep your RSS app ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/004-copy.jpg) I love the open web, and because RSS came to prominence in the pre-web 2.0 era, a lot of the basics are effectively open standards. This means that a lot of RSS apps allow you to connect any service that uses a couple standards. Google Reader and Fresh RSS are the big ones, and some apps allow you to do it through Fever (god, Fever was cool back in the day…feed a fever!). As such, I've built Birchfeed in a way that it complies with all three of those standards. So if the RSS app you use today supports generic connections on those standards, you can use Birchfeed in those apps right now. Not theoretically, literally now. I personally have been using Reader Classic the entire time I've been developing this app as my client on my devices, and it works completely flawlessly. I switched from my previous sync service provider to Birchfeed and genuinely forgot about the change when I was checking my feeds. I have not tested every app. However, I have confirmed that it works well with Reader Classic, NetNewsWire, and Unread. There are plenty of other RSS apps out there, and I would expect most of them to work fine, but your mileage may vary. ## A great web app ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-31-at-9.44.50-AM@2x.png) The place I feel most RSS apps fall down is in the web reader experience. Sure, you can read there and they typically have some additional features you can utilize, but they don't seem to be very fast in my experience, and they tend to be mouse-driven rather than keyboard-driven. One of the things I really love about apps like Reader Classic is that I can navigate the app quickly and get through my feeds, all with a few keys on the keyboard. This experience was completely absent from the web. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-27-at-1.23.16-PM@2x-1.png) I don't know if everyone's going to love the web experience as much as I do, but I genuinely think it is fantastic and the best web reader I've personally ever used. It's not outrageously gorgeous, but it's got a stark minimalism that I think aligns with its general purpose as a sync service. But also, I wanted everything you do in the app to feel as though you are interacting directly with the database. I do not have superfluous animations, I don't use too much white space, and most actions are accessible via keyboard shortcuts. ## The news stream ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-27-at-1.47.54-PM@2x-1.png) The news stream is my tool for news obsessives. The idea of this is that instead of just opening your reader, you can open this dedicated window and you'll get a live stream of all the news happening across your feeds. Put this on a second monitor, toss it in the background, whatever. Set it and forget it, and just pop in to see what's happened in the last few minutes. RSS fundamentally has a bit of a delay, so this may be a bit slower than a social media timeline, but it's going to be pretty darn good most of the time. ## Automations ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-31-at-9.45.31-AM@2x.png) Birchfeed supports some automations that can streamline your RSS life. It's a relatively straightforward if this then that setup, and you can watch specific feeds, folders, or your entire collection for specific words that appear anywhere in the title, in the author field, or the article itself. If something matches your conditions, you can receive an email notification about that article. You can automatically star it or you can automatically mark it as read. Some use cases for this include: - Get an email when someone writes about you (duh) - Mark articles as read when they're written by that annoying person at that one publication you like overall - Alternatively, get an email when someone you really like from a publication publishes something - Mark articles as read when they are clearly sponsored posts or deal summaries that you don't care about This feels like an inevitable place where functionality will expand as more people start using it, so definitely provide feedback if you'd like to automate something that's not possible right now. ## The daily briefing ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-27-at-1.38.13-PM@2x-1.png) I follow a bunch of feeds and I try to keep up with the news. However, some days I'm just too busy and I literally never look at my feeds during the workday. I've used the daily briefing feature to create an email that's sent out to me at 4 p.m. every day that includes a summary of the biggest news stories from my feeds in the past eight hours. I freaking love this feature. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-27-at-1.39.30-PM@2x-1.png) But if that's not what you want for your daily briefing, that's fine. Maybe you want to wake up to an email with all the things that happened overnight. No problem. Set your briefing to arrive at 5:00 a.m. and show the last 12 hours of news. Maybe you don't check your feeds really at all, and you just want to get one email a day telling you what happened over the last 24 hours. All of these are possible with the daily briefing. These emails are generated with an AI model in the background and are opt-in. So if you're not into that sort of thing, you don't have to use it. Because the model has a real cost, I am also not able to currently offer more than one daily email. Yes, I've also had the thought that a morning briefing and an evening briefing would be kind of nice, but as ever, I am very concerned about costs spiraling out of control, so I am limiting this for the time being. ## Newsletters ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-31-at-9.28.57-AM@2x.png) I learned my lesson with Quick Reads. People love to get their newsletters delivered to their Read Later service and their RSS service. As such, on day one Birchfeed includes the ability to subscribe to newsletters and have them delivered inside your RSS app. ## Quick Reads connector What's the number one action you take in your RSS app? Well, it's probably mark has read, but besides that, the next most likely action you probably do is sharing articles to read later (if it's something else, let me know. I'd actually be curious about other use cases). Well, this is where you can call me biased because right now the only sharing option is to Quick Reads. That said, if you have a Quick Reads account, then sharing from this app is super simple. You can connect with two clicks and from then on you'll see a "save to Quick Reads" ## Feeds ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-27-at-2.20.57-PM@2x-1.png) You can do all the feed management you would expect, putting them in folders, getting their feed URLs, unsubscribing, but you can also go to a dedicated settings page for your feeds and perform bulk actions. You can also use this page to filter for feeds that haven't updated in a while to see if you want to clean up abandoned feeds. There's also a Feed Doctor tool that will show you any of your feeds that aren't resolving and helps you try to fix them. RSS feeds are sticky things at times, and I've learned there are a ton of ways feeds can be configured wrong, have errors, or be positively massive, but users expect them to work. If you have any issues with feeds, the feed doctor can usually help, but if you're stuck, please feel free to use the support ## Auth ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-27-at-2.21.34-PM@2x-1.png) As you might expect from my other projects, Birchfeed is completely password free. You sign up with a magic link in an email, and then I'd highly recommend creating a passkey to make logging in in the future seamless. Authenticating with other apps requires generating API keys, which also, per my typical policy, are only visible once to either you or me. My database has hashed versions of the keys, which I can't even reverse engineer. Long story short, as always, I refuse to store sensitive authentication information in my databases. You're welcome. 😂 ## Data portability ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-27-at-2.21.47-PM@2x-1.png) This one is short and sweet. RSS is a fundamentally open system, and while I let you import an OPML file you bring from somewhere else, you can also at any point export your entire library as an OPML file so you can bring it somewhere else. You are not locked in to Birchfeed at all. ## Pricing [Birchfeed](https://birchfeed.app/?ref=birchtree.me) has a 14-day free trial with no requirement to add a credit card at sign-up. This should give you more than enough time to import your feeds and try out the service with whatever RSS apps you want and see if it works for you. Through the month of September, you can sign up for an annual subscription for $29 per year, and you will be locked into a discounted rate for the lifetime of the account. Starting October 1st, the annual price will be $39 per year. I think this pricing is competitive, but also represents that this is a premium product that delivers real value to RSS readers like myself. I hope you give it a shot and enjoy it! ### Face computers just aren't going to be a thing, right? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/face-computers-just-arent-going-to-be-a-thing-right/ Last updated: 2026-08-31T11:59:59.000Z Maybe I'll regret writing this one day, but it just kind of seems like face computers aren't something that are really going to happen, right? This blog is 16 years old, and for almost all 16 years there have been [stories](https://www.pcgamer.com/john-carmack-is-making-a-virtual-reality-headset-500-kits-available-soon-video-interview-inside/?ref=birchtree.me) about how VR is "about to take off" and yet it still hasn't. Sure, prices have come down generally and the tech has gotten better, so more people have these headsets than ever before. But I feel like it only means there are more headsets in closets collecting dust, having not been used after the first month or so of ownership. Obviously, some people do use them on a regular basis, but it's absolutely not the mainstream thing that we keep thinking they're about to be. Meanwhile, it's both better and worse for more subtle glasses with cameras. Google Glass was obviously mocked incessantly from the beginning and labeled "pervert glasses" on the spot. Years later, Meta found some pretty decent success with their Ray-Bans, although the narrative has shifted on those as well in 2026, and they are now also considered pervert glasses. And I don't think this has anything to do with the fact that they are a product made by Meta. People are creeped out not by the privacy policy of the company who makes them, but by the fact that they are subtle cameras that can be recording you at any time without you noticing. We've seen a leaked video of AirPods with cameras in them, direct from Apple, and there are rumors that Apple is working on a pair of Meta Ray-Ban style glasses as well. But I go back to the fact that this general category of technology has been trying to break into the mainstream for two decades or so, and the progress is brutal. Apple even got in the game two years ago and released a product that you might think would bring a category like this into the mainstream. But instead, as we sit here in 2026, we live in a timeline that would be exactly the same whether this product existed or not. Maybe face computers are going to be a huge thing in the future, and maybe somehow AI is the unlock that suddenly makes these compelling in a way that hasn't made previous products compelling and simultaneously made them creepy. Otherwise, it just feels like a technology that we're building because we can, not because anyone in mass really wants it. And to be clear, if this is destined to just be a niche product category that some people really adore, that's fine. I just think this constant push to make it the next smartphone is unlikely (to say the least) to be successful. Bookmark this for 2036 in case it finally happens. ### The unbearable weight of Metal Gear Solid 4's cutscenes URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-unbearable-weight-of-metal-gear-solid-4s-cutscenes/ Last updated: 2026-08-30T22:06:54.000Z I posted this weekend about how cutscene heavy Metal Gear Solid 4 is, and a few people went, "yup, that's Kojima for you!" But I want to stress how insane this game is, even as a seasoned Kojima stan who has played pretty much all of his games several times (a few of them 5-10 times). Here's [how long the cutscenes are](https://www.ign.com/articles/how-much-of-kojimas-games-are-actually-cutscenes-we-did-the-maths?ref=birchtree.me) in all 5 mainline Metal Gear Solid games, as well as both Death Strandings: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-30-at-4.47.42-PM@2x.png) Metal Gear Solid 4 has effectively 2-3x more time spent in cutscenes than any other game in the MGS series, and 60-90 minutes more than in Death Stranding. On it's face, this hopefully illustrates that this isn't just another Kojima game, but let's go further and compare how much of the game time is spent sitting through cutscenes: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-30-at-4.50.32-PM@2x.png) Yeah, you spend close to half your time with this game watching it. That's a pretty serious leap from any of his other games, and I think that's what really makes it feel so suffocating to me. Both Death Stranding games technically have quite a bit of cutscene time as well, but those are much longer games where I routinely spent hours at a time just playing the game. Meanwhile, there are moments where you watch a little 3 minute scene in MGS4, you take control, you walk 10 steps, and another 3 minute scene plays. Oh, and did you know that [MGS4 holds the Guinness World Record](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/86547-longest-cutscene-in-a-videogame?ref=birchtree.me) for the longest cutscene in video game history at 71 minutes? Now don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be a Kojima fan if I didn't enjoy this stuff, but replaying MGS4 again after so long has reminded me that (a) this game crosses into new territory that I found became too much and (b) this is the game where Kojima was the most self-indulgent he's ever been. I still plan on finishing this game because it's still pretty fun, but it's easily my least favorite of all of Kojima's games I've ever played. ### Fancy new crazy new mockup generators URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/fancy-new-crazy-new-mockup-generators/ Last updated: 2026-08-29T12:59:59.000Z There are a few interesting tools for making mockups and videos that have come across my radar recently. The first is [mckp.live](https://mckp.live/?ref=birchtree.me), which is from the fine folks at [ls.graphics](https://ls.graphics/?ref=birchtree.me) which I use for a lot of mock ups that I do. It's got a video export option as well as customizable 3D scenes. The second one is [Ultramock](https://www.ultramock.io/?ref=birchtree.me), which is similar, but has very different control options. I'm actually really impressed by this one, and I feel like if I was dedicating enough time to use something like this, this would be a no-brainer. I haven't been able to pull the trigger on upgrading to Pro on this one, though. Finally, we have [Raylight](https://www.raylight.app/?ref=birchtree.me). I'll admit I haven't actually used this one myself yet, but it certainly looks interesting and some people seem to be getting really good results with it. I guess I'll add this to my infinite backlog of software I really should try one of these days. ### Panic rocks URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/panic-rocks/ Last updated: 2026-08-28T21:00:00.000Z Ian Carlos Campbell: [Panic is refunding tariff fees paid by Playdate owners](https://www.engadget.com/2245122/panic-is-refunding-tariff-fees-paid-by-playdate-owners/?ref=birchtree.me) > Panic, software publisher and creator of the Playdate, is refunding customers for any US tariff fees they paid to purchase its console, Game Developer reports. The Trump administration's tariff regime was confirmed to be illegal following a Supreme Court decision in February 2026, and Panic, like other companies, applied for a refund. Unlike other companies, though, it's not pocketing that money. Panic is one of the good ones. ### Trashcan URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/trashcan/ Last updated: 2026-08-28T20:29:59.000Z [Trashcan](https://www.trashcan.co/?ref=birchtree.me) is a fun little site. ### + Introducing ********* URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/introducing-something/ Last updated: 2026-08-27T21:00:22.000Z New thing coming soon… _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### This phone folds. It folds! URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/this-phone-folds-it-folds/ Last updated: 2026-08-27T14:21:50.000Z If you haven't listened to the A Better Computer podcast, today would be a great day to give it a shot. Today I'm giving some extended impressions of using Samsung's latest folding phone and what I think it means for the iPhone we expect to see in two weeks. Then I go into a mini rant about DHH's (🤮) Omarchy Linux distro and why I think the discourse around it is insane. New episodes usually release on Mondays, and I am off my summer hours for A Better Computer, so expect it to be every week for a while now. You can subscribe from your favorite podcast app by searching for A Better Computer, or you can just paste in [the feed](https://feeds.simplecast.com/kULRmujj?ref=birchtree.me). ### Comfort Zone will return URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/comfort-zone-will-return/ Last updated: 2026-08-24T20:59:59.000Z We did 113 episodes of Comfort Zone, and it's been incredibly rewarding to work on and a joy to record with Chris and Niléane. It must also be said, I greatly appreciate Federico and John investing in our show, giving us a platform, and handling some of the back-end bits that we didn't particularly want to do ourselves. From a content perspective, MacStories was wonderfully hands-off. There were no directives on what to talk about and no rules on what we could or couldn't say. We got to make the show we wanted, and that was great. I don't know if you've heard…but MacStories is posting on X again, as a Federico and John with their personal accounts. This has led to a bit of unrest, to say the least, amongst their audience and the MacStories contributors. Over the weekend, I wrote up [a member's post](https://birchtree.me/blog/comfortable-and-uncomfortable-truths/) explaining some of my thoughts on the matter, and I'm opening it up to everybody today who's curious. The TLDR is that I understand and respect the outrage some felt, but I think it's complicated and I don't have nearly as strong feelings about the move as others in our community. One of the things I love about Comfort Zone is that while Chris, Niléane, and I agree on a lot of things, we don't agree on everything. While there were varied responses to this in the community, there were also among the three of us. An unwritten but rigorously followed rule of Comfort Zone is that if all three of us aren't into doing something, we don't do it. This meant that as a team, we did not think that MacStories was the right home for Comfort Zone anymore. This basically meant we had two options: we could end the show or we could keep doing it, but on our own. And friends, let me let you in on a little secret…a clever hack to keep up with your friends all the time is to have a podcast with them. The show had to go on! We appreciate Federico and John for both encouraging us to keep the show going as well as helping with the transition to this new era. Comfort Zone is a MacStories podcast, and they didn't strictly have to help here, so we very much appreciate their support. We're taking a short break as we sort out the details, but we plan on being back in your earbuds soon! I'll of course talk about it here when we've got more, but you can follow [the new Comfort Zone Mastodon account](https://mastodon.social/@comfortzonepodcast?ref=birchtree.me) if you'd like to keep up with us. Also don't tell anyone, but we are looking to shake up the format a little bit to keep it fresh. 🤫 ### Quick Reads for iOS just got a ton of updates URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-for-ios-just-got-a-ton-of-updates/ Last updated: 2026-08-24T19:59:59.000Z Guys, I love the web. I love using the web. I love developing for the web. I just think the web is awesome. As such, new features for Quick Reads tend to release on the web first, with the iOS features following later. I'm happy to say that a new update is out now for iPhone and iPad that make a lot of improvements to the experience. ## Feeds match the web Over the weekend, I completely revamped how feeds work on the web. Instead of adding every single item to your reading queue, these will now populate a river of news that you can go to whenever you want and save things to your queue for later. This isn't a full RSS app, but I think it will work for folks who have a smaller number of feeds that they can check in on on a regular basis. You can now also manage your subscribed feeds from the app rather than doing this on the web. ## The UI matches the web I'm really proud of and happy with the UI of the web app. I think it's playful and distinct and just a breath of fresh air in the space. None of that playfulness or tactility carried over to the iOS app, which is a 100% native app. That lets it stand out from others in the space, but it's also meant that it looks like a collection of stock UI components. Some people like that, but I wanted to bring some of the character of the web app into the iOS app. With this update, you'll immediately notice that all of the article lists and feeds align much more with the web experience. ## Podcasts get a player When saving a new feed, you are allowed to mark it as a podcast, in which case it will get a custom audio player complete with chapters and show notes. This now applies to the app as well. So when you listen to a podcast episode, you can get a full screen, now plain view, and you can swipe over to see chapters and skip to them quickly. ## Text-to-speech level ups Quick Reads comes with six voices you can choose from for text-to-speech, and now you can choose your voice in the app. This was previously exclusive to the web. Word highlighting is purple rather than gray now, which makes it stand out a bit better. Backend changes have been made to try to reduce the latency from tapping play to having the first word spoken to you (web users will reap these benefits as well). ## Reading queue sorting By default, your reading queue is sorted with the newest stuff at the top, but there are alternate sorting options available now. If you'd prefer, you can sort by reading time or alphabetically. ## Custom swipe actions You can swipe left and right on articles to do things like archive, delete, or open them in your browser. But if you want to do something else, you can now customize your swipe actions in the app settings. I think I got pretty much everything people could want, but if anything's missing, please let me know. ## Improved speed Performance isn't a problem until it is, and a few inefficiencies in how I was pulling data for things like the archive in the app were fine when the service was new and users didn't have a lot saved, but now that some users have upwards of 10,000 links saved to their account, a few things needed to be optimized. I won't bore you with the details, but a combination of updates to the backend query logic as well as updates to take advantage of those improvements in the app itself combine for much improved performance as you switch from tab to tab, even when you have a really large account. --- All of this is available now in [Quick Reads for iOS](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reads-read-it-later/id6759210587?ref=birchtree.me). Check it out! ### + Comfortable and uncomfortable truths URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/comfortable-and-uncomfortable-truths/ Last updated: 2026-08-24T18:46:21.000Z Let's start today with some comfortable truths. Here are a few things I believe. I believe that Elon Musk is a very bad person. He is easily swayed by misinformation which confirms his preexisting biases about how the world works, and I think he is a dumb person's idea of what a smart person is. I think he supports racism, transphobia, and disinformation at a scale few human beings on Earth have ever managed. He's probably second to only one… I despise Donald Trump. I think he is the worst of us. He makes this country worse, and I think we will be studying and reckoning for decades with how one of the least successful and least popular US Presidents of all time, who was resoundingly beaten in 2020, somehow became the choice for Americans 4 years later. I think he has done immense, lasting damage to the United States. I think he is the number one purveyor of hate and misinformation on the planet. I think it is macabre that so many Americans decided they could overlook his coup attempt in 2021, his brashness, his lies, his affairs, his harassment, his felonies, and his overall failure in his first term to deliver what he said he would…and yet they could cast all of it aside because they thought he would balance the budget (he's made it worse). I believe that open social networks are how all social networks should work. I think email and RSS are the GOATs of the open internet, and it's a shame that the internet has moved away from open technologies like these. I believe Mastodon comes closest to that ideal. I believe X is too permissive with what it allows on its platform, and I think that makes lots of people feel unsafe and makes using the platform unenjoyable, to say the least. It is also hilarious that the Grok AI pretends to be politically neutral when all the evidence shows that it presents more right-wing opinions than left-wing opinions. When left to their own devices, these models do tend to lean a little to the left, which, as a wise man once said, is because reality happens to have a liberal bias. I am extremely uncomfortable with the rightward shift in politics among the major nations over the past decade. It is a serious problem and has led to countries dipping into fascism, which has been cheered on by those on the right. It turns out that fascism is okay when it is owning the libs. I endorse the safety and rights of LGBTQ+ people. I do this by speaking out on their behalf, by trying to persuade those in my life who do not feel the same way, and by donating to causes that try to improve the lives of these people. Let's do something uncomfortable, please. As someone who shares these opinions, I can see that there are more people who share most, if not all, of those opinions on X than there are on Mastodon. I am not saying this is a good thing. Like many other readers of this blog, I left Twitter almost 4 years ago. It was both a statement and an attempt to move the needle in public discourse. I gave up an audience and more than a decade of posts, and started over on the fediverse. I also really wanted Twitter to fail. By using whatever level of a platform I have, I tried to inspire people to do the same. That certainly worked to some effect. However, I keep coming back to this uncomfortable truth: most people did not leave Twitter, even amongst those who agree with all the statements I made above. Others left for a while, before deciding the other networks weren't any better for them, so they went back. I obviously bring this up because of what happened this week, when Federico Viticci and John Voorhees brought the MacStories brand, as well as their personal accounts, back to X. This immediately became the drama of the week on Mastodon. Most Mastodon users agree on most of the big things, but what they agree most about is that thou shalt not use X. I do not particularly love the decision, either, and I do not think there was any way they could have done this that would have gone well, either on Mastodon or among their contributors. But I think it was made worse by springing it as a surprise on everyone. As Federico said in [his oddly-not-on-MacStories post](https://ticci.craft.me/explanation?ref=birchtree.me), the decision was his and John's to make, which is completely within their right, but they should have let their contributors know ahead of time that and why they were doing it. Since they did not, it felt like one of those situations where you find out you're getting fired because your CEO tweeted it out to the world. I think the move hurt people on Mastodon even more because MacStories had so prominently embraced the Fediverse and spun up their own Mastodon server. It had generally been all in on the platform for several years, so for them to say that being Mastodon-only is untenable as a business hurts. At the same time, I am generally uncomfortable with a lot of the conclusions people on Mastodon have drawn from this move. I have seen everything from, “This is proof that MacStories is fascist,” because anyone who uses X is a fascist, to that anyone who uses X doesn't have any morals. I am personally less of a hardliner here, and it all comes back to that uncomfortable truth. There are many people in the world who feel very similarly to me about the issues I discussed in the first half of this post, and more of them choose X than Mastodon. I simply cannot support the idea that only people who use Mastodon are good and everyone else is irredeemably bad. This also touches on [my general anxiety](https://birchtree.me/blog/about-the-hank-green-situation/) about the left's tendency to disengage from wide and popular platforms. When they do not get everyone else to follow, they have siloed themselves off into a niche and lost impact in more influential places. Sometimes it's worth it, but I think we're too eager to do it in some cases, and it ends up marginalizing our impact. All of this is to say that I think it is completely valid to be upset with MacStories, and to stop following it if you find this decision to be crossing the line. X is bad for many reasons. Elon Musk is bad for many reasons. I just think it is a messy situation when 4 years after Musk took over the company, more people who feel those things use X than use the competing social networksI spend time on. --- *P.S. This is an extremely touchy subject, and even though I feel this post was very fair and grounded, I'm still worried that even my suggestion that not everyone on X is a fascist will draw ire.* ### Walmart is the last major US company to add Tap to Pay URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/walmart-is-the-last-major-us-company-to-add-tap-to-pay/ Last updated: 2026-08-22T18:40:33.000Z Walmart: [More Ways to Pay: Tap to Pay Is Coming to Walmart and Sam’s Club](https://corporate.walmart.com/news/2026/08/21/more-ways-to-pay-tap-to-pay-is-coming-to-walmart-and-sams-club?ref=birchtree.me) > beginning Aug. 24, we will be adding Tap to Pay to our payment options at select Walmart stores and Sam’s Club locations, with plans to roll it out to all U.S. stores and clubs by the end of 2026 and to fuel stations by mid-2027. Maybe I'm just too close to this because I actually work in payments and know how this works, but I find the lack of specificity in the reporting this week, from the tech blogs I follow, to be kind of frustrating. Maybe I’m just annoyed by the reporting around how Apple Pay works often being about as accurate at the “Christopher Nolan doesn’t use CGI,” reporting on social media. Sure, Apple Pay will work, but so will Google Pay and Samsung Pay, other niche digital wallets, as well as just tapping your plastic card to the reader. This is because what Walmart is specifically implementing is Tap to Pay, a long-time industry standard that Apple, Google, and a few other companies package up in their own proprietary ways (they get a tiny fraction of the transaction if you choose to play that way). All that said, I can't be mad about this news, as it's a great development for consumers, no matter how they choose to tap to pay. ### Apple's obviously going to make a second folding phone URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-obviously-going-to-make-a-second-folding-phone/ Last updated: 2026-08-20T12:29:59.000Z I've been using Samsung's new Galaxy Fold8 for the last week (More Birchtree members can read my initial impressions [here](https://birchtree.me/blog/galaxy-z-fold8-impressions/)). The reason I got this phone should be no surprise – rumors are very strong that Apple will be releasing a folding phone next month that has very similar dimensions. I wanted to get a feel for it, as well as having more insightful takes than most about how Apple does or does not do things with folding phones better than the competition. Here's the deal, though: this thing is small. Like really small. I've put a physical size comparison at the top of this post to show how the screen size compares to Apple's iPhone 17 Pro Max and 13 mini. As you can see pretty plainly, the Fold8 is even shorter than the tiny (by modern standards) iPhone 13 mini. Sure, it's a little wider, but the vast majority of the stuff we look at on our phones are vertically scrolling lists, and that content rarely benefits from a wider screen. This means that when you use this device as a phone, it is the smallest phone you've probably used in a decade or more. Obviously it functions, and there are certainly some people who like that sized screen, but I think it's fair to say based on sales numbers, that most people prefer a larger display for their phone. For me, what this has meant is that while I *can* use the outside screen on this device, I don't particularly love it, and I find the experience to be less pleasant than using any normal-sized smartphone from the last ten years. But the beauty of folding phones is that they can unfold and give you a larger screen when you want it. Unfolding this thing into a nearly 8-inch tablet that has a screen of a quality the iPad mini could only dream of is really cool. However, at that point, you're not using a phone anymore, you're using a tablet, and that's a different experience. Suddenly, it's a two-handed device, for example. This isn't a case where you have a small phone that can turn into a big phone…you have a small phone that can turn into a small tablet. I'll reiterate now that I do think this is cool. However, I also think that there will be people who find this experience a bit lacking. They'll want a phone experience that feels more like what they're used to, and this passport-style device doesn't really deliver that. Samsung solves for this by simply having a larger version of this phone in their lineup as well. The Fold8 Ultra is a bigger device with a 6.5" outside display that sits in between the sizes of the current iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max. All the while, it manages to be 0.1mm thicker and 7% lighter than the iPhone 17 Pro Max. As for my prediction, I think that using this passport-sized phone made it immediately clear to me that this is not a one-size fits all device category, and that a larger model is surely coming in the next couple years from Apple. I believe there will be Apple pundits in the first week of owning this device saying Apple completely nailed it and this is the perfect size for a device like this, and I think they will all eat their words. You may instinctually be reading this and thinking this can't be the case, but I'll point you to just a few Apple products with 2 size options: iPhone Pro, iPad Air, iPad Pro, MacBook Air MacBook Pro, Apple Watch…if Apple's got a hit product, they're gonna make 2 sizes of it. As a bonus prediction, there seems to be a lot of momentum around the name iPhone Ultra, but I’m a little skeptical of that. I know it’s dangerous to make any predictions about Apple naming things, but I really just don’t think this one makes sense. This phone will be ultra in price, but it will not have the best specs or features in quite a few other ways, and when you add on top of that the expectation that there will be a second larger model in the next year or two, what’s that one gonna be called? The iPhone Ultra Max? If they do, I’m prepping my headline now: iPhones used to be a walled garden, now they’re an ultra max prison. ### Quick Subtitles 3 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-subtitles-3/ Last updated: 2026-08-20T10:59:59.000Z [Quick Subtitles 3 is out now](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) for Mac, iPad, and iPhone. While this is not the biggest update ever, there's some really good stuff here. More than any of my other apps, this is an app for professionals who just want things to work reliably and quickly. This update aims to improve things on both fronts. It is a free update for all paid users. ## AI features without a subscription Since version two, Quick Subtitles has had a cleanup and analyze feature, both of which rely on GPT or Gemini models in the cloud. You are able to use these features by either bringing your own API key and paying for your own usage, or you could pay for a cheap in-app subscription. Starting in version three, all paid users get to use the cleanup and analyze features at no additional cost. This is powered by GPT 5.6 Luna. There is a cap. You are only allowed to perform 20 AI actions per month, but for most YouTubers and podcasters, that should be sufficient. The limit is there mostly to avoid any sort of abuse situations. If you'd prefer to use a different model or to have unlimited use, you can still bring your own API keys, and that all works just as well as it always has. I'm not able to support this yet, but I think that once the OS 27 updates are released, I'll be able to adopt the Apple Foundation model in the cloud. That will allow me to provide unlimited usage as long as that model proves to be good enough. ## iCloud sync This is the summer of Matt adding iCloud Sync to all of his apps, apparently. Now, when you transcribe something on your Mac, your iPhone and iPad will immediately get that transcription. The AI features sync as well. Another minor thing in this update is that you can drag to reorder the document list on the left, and of course those will sync over iCloud as well. ## Mac-assed windows ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-19-at-4.51.24-PM@2x-1.png) Like all of my apps, Quick Subtitles is built on SwiftUI, and SwiftUI has interesting ideas on how setting screens should work. They're very clearly built for iPhones and iPads, and you need to go out of your way to make them work even remotely well on the Mac. As of version three, the Mac app has a completely separate settings window that behaves exactly how you expect a Mac settings window to work. It will never be sized awkwardly or have weird inputs. Cards on the table. I don't think it's a great settings screen yet. I think it's totally cromulent, but hey, you gotta have something for the V4\. 😉 ## The Whisper model starts up quick Depending on how you use the app, you may have run into situations where you drag in a new file to transcribe with the Whisper model, and it would take a minute or two for the model to get ready to actually start the job. This was caused by a quirk of how macOS stores the model data, and I have since revamped this in a way that should make the Whisper model load in a second or two every time. This is the low-key hero feature in this update. ## A little bit of polish ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-19-at-4.43.57-PM@2x.png) Listen, I'm not going to do an update without tweaking the UI at least a bit. It's not the main point of this update, but you gotta have a little fun, right? The drop zone and model picker in the sidebar are now made of a glass material, and your list will elegantly slide beneath it (without killing legibility). All of the empty states have been updated to be a little nicer. The AI features now have more animations that play while they're loading. I've toned down the yellow a bit. Yellow is still the accent color of the app, but it's much more of an accent now rather than dripping over everything. ## Check it out [Quick Subtitles](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) is a free update for all existing users. If you haven't purchased the app already, it is a one-time $24.99 purchase to get it for life. **The price will be increasing on September 1st, 2026, so if you are looking to get this app, now's the cheapest time to do so.** ### Subscriber rot URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/subscriber-rot/ Last updated: 2026-08-19T17:00:00.000Z I joined Mastodon way back in 2016, but I dropped off and didn't come back until late 2022\. When I came back, I made a new account and started fresh, building up a new followers list. That number went up quick for a while, but it eventually leveled off. Today I sit at 4,177 followers. I'm not a celebrity or anything, but that's decent – certainly enough of an audience to build a business on. But how real is that 4,177 number? We all know that subscriber counts are a bit misleading. Obviously, Mastodon doesn't have an algorithmic feed that decides who should and shouldn't see your posts, but it's not immune from the idea of "subscriber rot". Subscriber rot is the idea that while you may have been interesting enough for someone to follow you at one point, they stop being a real set of eyeballs who might see your stuff when you post something. Maybe they muted you, maybe they don't read every single thing and your stuff falls through the cracks, or maybe they just don't use the service at all anymore. Back to that 4,177 number on Mastodon. I was curious, so I started digging. I have 4,000 followers, but it doesn't feel like I do. Engagement on my posts is fine, but it seems focused on a smaller number of people. Interestingly, Mastodon has [a page in settings](https://mastodon.social/relationships?activity=dormant&order=active&relationship=followed%5Fby&ref=birchtree.me) where you can see all the accounts you follow and that follow you, and you can filter for a few things. There's a "dormant" account status that seems to trigger when someone does not use Mastodon for over 30 days. I enabled that filter and it returned 2,914 dormant accounts. Of those, 2,244 haven't been active in over a year. Assuming Mastodon's own reporting is correct, I actually have 1,263 "real" followers, meaning 70% of the people who follow me, don't even use Mastodon anymore. About half of them haven't used it in more than a year. This example focuses on Mastodon, not because I'm trying to pick on my favorite social network, but because it's where I can get the best data about this. It sounds kind of bad that 70% of my "audience" isn't actually real, so you could see why corporate social companies might not want to so easily raise this sort of data to their users. An open question I cannot answer is whether the 70% number I got here is typical for Mastodon users. Is this just how it goes, or are my follows more likely to be people who migrated off Twitter a few years ago and ended up not liking Mastodon? Also, how does this line up with other services? If someone has 4,000 followers on X, how many of those are probably active accounts? What about YouTube subscribers? Threads users? I don't know. ## Where traffic to Birchtree comes from I run analytics on this blog, and I get pretty darn good data on referral traffic, aka traffic from when my links appear on other websites. I pulled all the referral traffic data for the last 90 days, and charted it out. Here's what I found: ![Graph showing where all of my followers came from. 28,000 are from Google, 25,000 are from Hacker News, and then it's a huge drop down. Everything else is below 1,000, led by: - Kagi - DuckDuckGo - Brave - Mastodon ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-19-at-10.23.43-AM@2x.png) Google Zero may be coming for us all, but it's not here for me yet. About half of my traffic is direct, coming mostly from people who subscribe via RSS. Of the other half of my visitors, 46% of them come from Google, and 42% come from Hacker News. That leaves just 12% of all referral traffic coming from elsewhere. In fact, let's actually remove those 2 from the chart so we can actually see what's left. ![This is a more detailed look at the smaller ones with Kagi, DuckDuckGo, Brave, Mastodon, Blue Sky, and Facebook leading the way. ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/CleanShot-2026-08-19-at-10.28.02-AM@2x.png) A couple things are interesting to me here. First off is the scale of views coming from alternate search engines. Kagi, DuckDuckGo, and Brave Search are all around the same, and combined deliver about 7% of the traffic as Google. Bing, meanwhile, is basically not in the game at all. Then we get to Mastodon, which is sending the most traffic, which I would hope to be the case. It's the only social network I'm remotely active on, and it's where I put the most effort into promoting my work. Although it must be said that 600 referrals in 90 days works out to about six referrals per day, which ain't much. More notably, it's nearly identical to the traffic Bluesky is sending me, and I'm not active on Bluesky. I have what amounts to a bot account over there that does share links when I post them, but I'm not scrolling the feed or interacting with folks over there. The Facebook number is more perplexing. I guess shout out to anyone using Facebook sharing Birchtree links? --- All this said, I just think it's important to remember that subscriber rot is a real thing, and that one should take these numbers with a grain of salt. This is the case on the big corporate social networks, and it's even the case on the indie, zero-algorithm social web as well. Page views, purchases, and actual engagement are the things that truly matter, and I think it's wise to index on those things more than a subscriber number. ### What is a perversion to writing? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/what-is-a-perversion-to-writing/ Last updated: 2026-08-19T13:00:00.000Z Simon Wilson has the best description of LLMs that I’ve seen so far. He called them [a calculator for words](https://simonwillison.net/2023/Apr/2/calculator-for-words/?ref=birchtree.me), and I think it’s a great way to put it. A traditional calculator takes numbers and operators as input, does some math, and outputs an answer. LLMs are essentially the same thing, except the input and output are words. You input some words, it does some math on them, and it gives you an answer. They’re tools that do a job. We can debate the implications of this sort of calculator existing, but I think it’s a really useful way to describe them. I bring this up because the definition of writing, and what constitutes a "perversion of writing", has been…let's just say…a topic of conversation this week. This debate revolves around watermarking text that AI generates. The complaint here is that of the enormous amount of math being done to generate the text models deliver already, adding a specific bit more is an affront to everything. *Quick aside,* [*this video*](https://youtu.be/FnAqruxx-QE?ref=birchtree.me) *does a good job explaining how watermarking systems work in LLMs if you want to actually understand what's being discussed.* As far as what I think about watermarking text so that software can determine whether it was generated by AI, **fuck yeah**. I think anything generated with AI, whether it’s images, video, code, or text, should be able to be checked by the user if they want to know. Arguments have been made about how text is somehow different from images or video, and I think that's incredibly misguided, and shows a lack of respect for other mediums. Sure, writing can be sacred, but nothing these language models generate is sacred. Like number calculators, these word calculators are hugely useful, but no one is going to type something complex into a TI-83 Plus, gasp, and go, "hang it in the fucking Louvre". The general population has clearly indicated that they want to know when something is AI-generated. I think it is a particularly nihilistic view of the world to suggest that people do not deserve to know this if they want to find out. ### I for one, welcome our nanny state URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-for-one-welcome-our-nanny-state/ Last updated: 2026-08-17T12:01:22.000Z There is a phrase that's come up more in the tech punditry recently: nanny state. This comes up when discussing any sort of regulation on technology. "Oh, you want social media platforms to be regulated at all? Guess you want to live in a nanny state. Meanwhile I, a big brain boy myself, think individuals can make good decisions and don't need some governing body telling them what they can and can't do." At the same time, a lot of people who think this way also love the nanny state and will fight tooth and nail to protect it. Prominent tech pundits will call people ["morons"](https://www.threads.com/share/PhJagGz2M/?ref=birchtree.me) if they think that people should be trusted to install apps outside of the App Store. They love the nanny state when it's corporations doing it, and they hate it when a government does it. Except when it's AI…[then it's good](https://birchtree.me/blog/what-are-you-going-to-do-stop-me-ive-got-the-guns-is-a-wild-govargument-for-tech-pundits-to-support/) when the government does it, bad when corporations do it…it's a lot to keep track of. Look, I understand there are risks when you let people install software from outside an app store's walled garden. I would actually be okay with Apple requiring App Store distribution as long as they stopped requiring their own payment method and would only block apps for safety and security reasons, not business or content reasons. But these anti-nanny state warriors are tricky to pin down. They want absolute control over how adults use their computers in some cases but not others. I don't know. How about we tell them that the EU mandates that Apple approve all apps on iPhones? Then suddenly they'll think it's the worst idea in the world. ### iPhone pre-orders might be tighter than normal this year URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/iphone-pre-orders-might-be-tighter-than-normal-this-year/ Last updated: 2026-08-15T21:59:59.000Z Ming-Chi Kuo: [A recent media report claims that tight DRAM suppl...](https://x.com/mingchikuo/status/2086871774915080506?s=20&ref=birchtree.me) > My industry checks suggest that Apple has indeed scaled back its hardware shipment plans this year due to memory shortages. Ten years ago, if you wanted to buy the new iPhone and get it on release day, you had to have Apple.com open in three different browsers. You needed to have the Apple Store app open on your phone, and you needed to be frantically refreshing these every couple seconds at the stroke of midnight Pacific time to have any hope of ordering one quick enough. Mercifully, in recent years, Apple has improved their availability significantly, to the point that even though new phones sell significantly more than they did ten years ago, they are readily available on launch day, even if it takes you a few minutes, hours, or in some cases, even days to get your order in. Well, strap in because I am a bit worried that 2026 iPhone pre-orders will feel a lot more like 2016 iPhone pre-orders. ### How cooked is Gemini? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/how-cooked-is-gemini/ Last updated: 2026-08-15T19:29:59.000Z Max Kan: [Gemini is Cooked but GCP is Cooking](https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/gemini-is-cooked-but-gcp-is-cooking?ref=birchtree.me) > For all intents and purposes, we believe DeepMind is no longer a frontier lab. I think this is being a bit overdramatic. It is true that there's been a good amount of executive shakeup and that the company has failed to release any semblance of a frontier model in all of 2026\. That's an eon in this industry right now, but Google could come out with something extremely impressive any day now and change the narrative. How often has the narrative shifted over the past couple years of who was winning, who was losing, who was dead? I'm not arguing that all of the cynicism around Google's delivery of Gemini models this year is wrong. Just that until they throw in the towel like Apple did earlier this year, ironically, by going all in on Gemini, I wouldn't count anyone out. It was barely a month ago, people were talking about how XAI was just going to sell its server capacity going forward, and now they've released Grok 4.6, which appears to be pretty darn good (obviously, Fuck Elon Musk). ### + Galaxy Z Fold8 Impressions URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/galaxy-z-fold8-impressions/ Last updated: 2026-08-15T19:08:09.000Z Samsung's new foldable is an early look at what Apple will be announcing next month. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Quick Reviews 3 is out now! URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reviews-3-is-out-now/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T12:43:24.000Z [Quick Reviews 3 is out now](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reviews/id6740369719?ref=birchtree.me) and is an update about giving the people what they've wanted. ## iCloud sync This was going to be in v2, but I never really got it working (hangover from my bad data model choices in the v1 app), so I'm really happy to have it here now. Using the magic of iCloud, your reviews will appear across all your devices, complete with all the color and styling choices you make along the way. ## The new cinema layout ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/Pasted-image-20260810175358.png) I've been sharing this one on my ongoing movie thread on Mastodon [for almost a month](https://mastodon.social/@matt%5Fbirchler/116923864051735183?ref=birchtree.me), and I really like it myself. I've been using a variant of the original design for years now, and this is the first new idea I've had that actually gets me everything I want. ## Refined review flow The review flow is something I think will just keep evolving over time, but I think it's better than ever in v3\. I've adopted a new write, style, share model where each section should be very easy to use. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/iPhone-17-Pro--1-.jpg) Premium subs get better auto-complete than ever, with live results as you type (movies, shows, and games), and the rest of the flow is a bit easier to use. You can also get to any step in the flow from the review list with a new custom menu. ## Review apps ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/IMG_0013.png) People have been asking me for the ability to review apps for ages, and I'm happy to say that in v3, you finally can! They also get a nice, custom layout that lets app icons sit naturally in the frame. Premium users also get auto-complete here as well. ## Tons of little things - Unlimited history available for everyone (used to be paid) - Enhanced year in review screens - Faster loading with big libraries - UI flourishes here and there - More reliable Letterboxd syncing --- [Quick Reviews is out now](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reviews/id6740369719?ref=birchtree.me) and is a free update for existing users. If you'd like better search, Letterboxd sync, and the 2026 "wrapped" feature, consider the reasonably priced premium sub. ### Chapterize 2.1: iCloud sync, enhance audio, and more URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/chapterize-2-1-icloud-sync-enhance-audio-and-more/ Last updated: 2026-08-08T19:00:00.000Z [Chapterize 2.1](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterize-podcast-chapters/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me) is out today, and I know 2.0 just came out, but there are a couple things here I really wanted to get out. ## iCloud sync iCloud sync is the headliner, in my opinion, and it's changed how I use my own app. I tend to load episodes into the app on my Mac, and before iCloud Sync, that's where I'd have to do the work. However, now I have the freedom to import the file on my Mac and then listen to the episode on my iPhone as I do a workout and add chapters where they need to go. From there, when I get back to my Mac later, the chapters are already there, and all of this works in every direction with every feature in the app. ## Enhance Audio (Mac-only) This one's kind of huge for me. Podcaster who records at exactly the right level and edits to exactly the right audio level. But not everybody does that, including myself. And the Mac version of Chapterize now has a one-click enhance audio button that performs two actions. First, it normalizes the audio to the expected volume for podcasts, and it reduces noise. It's not doing anything crazy with AI here. It's just using traditional tooling to get this done. If your podcast already sounds perfect, you don't need this. But if you struggle a bit, this might be a one-click fix similar to previous tools like The Levelator. ## Listen to your shows The new shows tab in version 2.0 lets you follow your shows, and get information about them. Now you can also listen to them. This is absolutely not a full podcast app in the vein of Overcast or Apple Podcasts, but if you need to listen back to part of a previous episode, this will get the job done. ## Better on iPhone Once I had iCloud Sync working, it made me work a bit more from the iPhone, and this made me realize how tough the experience was there. One of the things I've tried to do with this app is have a consistent experience across all platforms, and I think the ideal layout for working on the desktop (including iPad) is not the same as the iPhone. As such, I've given the editing view on the iPhone a bespoke layout that works a lot better. No features are removed, but they're all more well considered for the iPhone's relatively tiny screen. ## And the rest - Give any saved show its own accent color (in the "info" button on the Shows page) - On the Mac, Settings is now a proper preferences window - Scrolling a long chapter list is noticeably smoother - Fixed a bug that could make chapters disappear from an episode, and a sync issue that could leave an episode with its chapters and transcript but no audio If you make a podcast and you're not using Chapterize yet, this is a great time to start. [It's free to try on Mac, iPad, and iPhone.](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterize-podcast-chapters/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me) ### Quick Reads 1.0.4 is a beefy iPad update URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-1-0-4-is-a-beefy-ipad-update/ Last updated: 2026-08-08T13:59:59.000Z [Quick Reads for iPhone and iPad](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reads-read-it-later/id6759210587?uo=4&ref=birchtree.me) 1.0.4 is rolling out on the App Store now, and I didn't bump the version that much, but this is the biggest update yet for iPad users. ## The iPad app got some serious love 0:00 /0:09 1× Truthfully, I don't use the app on an iPad that much myself, so the app was mostly optimized around the iPhone experience. However, I know lots of people use this sort of app primarily on an iPad, and it needed to get some love. So I forced myself to use the iPad every day for a week and use the app as much as possible. You won't be surprised to hear this revealed quite a few paper cuts that shouldn't have been there in the first place. As such, the app now has a real split view layout, you can drag articles onto lists in the sidebar to move them around, and you can multi-select articles and archive, delete, or tag them in bulk. Mouse users get proper hover states, and if you have a keyboard attached, you can drive more of the app from it. Every keyboard shortcut now lives in the menu bar too. Chris, this one's for you. 😉 ## Real search Across both the iPhone and iPad, search got a big upgrade. The app previously just searched things cached locally, but now it performs real-time lookups to the server, so anything you've ever saved should be accessible. I'll talk about it in another post, but I recently shipped an update to how the server performs searches and radically improved performance and ranking of results. The iOS app benefits from these updates as well. ## Sign in without an API key 0:00 /0:07 1× When I shipped the app, I expected users to generate an API key on the website and paste it into the app. That works fine, but it's not exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from a Premiere app, and I wanted to have a better onboarding experience. As such, I've implemented a sort of single sign-on solution in the web application that allows me to have a simple connect button in the app. You tap it, it opens your browser, and you can connect your account from the browser to the app. No copying API keys anymore. ## All the small things There's a lot more in here too: a scrubbable audio bar for text-to-speech, an offline banner so you know when you're working locally, sharper favicons in your article list, delightful empty states, better reduce motion support, more and nicer haptics, and a bunch of dark mode fixes. If you're a Quick Reads user, [the update is live now](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reads-read-it-later/id6759210587?uo=4&ref=birchtree.me). If you're not, [now's a great time to give it a look](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me). ### Quick Reads has been getting better all summer URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-has-been-getting-better-all-summer/ Last updated: 2026-08-08T13:40:50.000Z I've been shipping a steady stream of updates to [Quick Reads](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me) over the past couple months, and while each one got a line in [the changelog](https://quickreads.app/changelog?ref=birchtree.me), I figured it was worth rounding up the highlights in one place. ## Search is dramatically better Since launch, search was a simple text match sorted by date, which worked, but it had a couple flaws that became more apparent the most time went on. First, performance was fine, but would only get worse as more data was added. Quick Reads has over ten thousand articles saved with about 15 million words to search across them, and those numbers only go up, so performance would always slowly creep down. Additionally, there was no concept of relevance in the results, they would just return from newest to oldest. I rebuilt it on Postgres full-text search, so results are now ranked by relevance, title matches float to the top, partial words match as you type, and quoted phrases work like you'd expect. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/2026-08-08-000915.png) In my performance testing before and after the change, the results were striking. This new method isn't just quicker, it's **ENORMOUSLY QUICKER**. On a script that ran 600 queries against the production database, the median search time on the old system was 250ms, and the new one is 3.4ms. No big deal, just a 98% reduction in latency. For some context, a Mac with a ProMotion display refreshes its image once every 8.3ms, so it takes longer for your display to show the results than it takes to actually run it. This back end upgrade applies to all searches via the API as well, so the iOS app and any third party integrations benefit here as well. ## Yes, we've got an MCP server From day one, Quick Reads has had an industry-best API for people to build on top of the platform. The API is really powerful and the docs are written in a way to be helpful for those using LLMs to code, but MCP can allow even simpler automations for people using AI chatbots and coding agents. Quick Reads now has an MCP server, which means Claude, Codex, and basically any AI tool can search your library, read articles, save links, and organize things on your behalf. Ask Claude "what have I saved about Apple?" and it can actually answer from your own reading. It works with the same API key you may already have, and [the docs](https://quickreads.app/docs?ref=birchtree.me#mcp) have copy-paste setup for the popular clients. What you do with this is up to you, and I'm sure people will get creative. ## Add plain text In addition to saving links, you can also save whatever text you want to the app. Paste in your Markdown and get to reading. This is good for auditing drafts of things you're writing and getting a way to generate text-to-speech (something I find myself doing with longer posts I write quite often). ## Podcasts in your reader ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/2026-08-08-000913.png) When you add an RSS feed to the app, you can mark it as a podcast. If you do this, when new episodes come in, you'll get a new podcast view in the web app. You can listen to the episode inline, chapters and show notes are both present, and your playback position is saved so you can resume later if you want. Oh, and if the podcast has a transcript, it will appear as well. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/2026-08-08-000914.png) ## Notes on highlights ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/2026-08-08-000916.png) You can now attach a note to any highlight, so when you highlight something and think "this connects to that other thing," you have somewhere to put that thought. Notes travel with your highlights everywhere they go, including through the API. ## Share highlights as images ![Image of text. It reads: “It’s not surprising at all that utility apps have taken off. They’ve been a staple of new developers since long before agents came along. That’s because many are UI wrappers around command line tools.” From “The Utility App Flood Won’t Last”, By John Voorhees.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/35087.png) Turn any highlight into a lovely image for social media. Three layouts (landscape, square, and vertical), four styles, and you can generate one from the highlights page or by tapping any highlight while you read or from the highlights page. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/2026-08-08-000917.png) And because I'd like people to have proper alt text on these, I've added a simple button to copy alt text for these images, ensuring everyone can appreciate these when you post them. ## Custom sidebar There are more things in the app than there was at launch, and the sidebar has grown as a result. You may not need quick access to things like feeds, documentation, highlights, or tags, and now you can remove them. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/2026-08-08-000918.png) On top of that, you can pin up to 3 tags to the sidebar as well. --- That's the roundup! If you've been meaning to give Quick Reads a shot, [now is a pretty good time](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me). ### Native app propaganda is working URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/native-app-propaganda-is-working/ Last updated: 2026-08-06T11:59:59.000Z No One's Happy: [Native Apps Should Be Avoided Whenever Possible](https://nooneshappy.com/article/native-apps-should-be-avoided-whenever-possible/?ref=birchtree.me) > Most native apps collect far more data than their website equivalents ever could. They request permissions to hardware, sensors, and background processes that browsers deliberately restrict. The third-party software embedded in these apps frequently transmits your location, device identifiers, and behavioral data to third parties before you even see a consent prompt. This is your regular reminder that native apps have access to a hell of a lot more info about you and your device than websites. The Apple ecosystem seems to have it in their heads that native apps are where you go for privacy, but they've got it largely reversed. Remember the [Loupe](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/loupe-what-apps-can-see/id6766152470?ref=birchtree.me) app released a few months ago that showed all the things an app can collect without even asking permission for anything? Yeah, almost none of that is possible on the web. I'm not saying don't use native apps, but understand how this stuff works. Some people seem to have an impression that native apps are inherently more private, and that's simply not the case. ### Not all "vibe coding" is created equal URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/not-all-vibe-coding-is-created-equal/ Last updated: 2026-08-05T15:59:59.000Z Sean Goedecke: [LLMs reward expertise](https://www.seangoedecke.com/llms-reward-expertise/?ref=birchtree.me) > the idea here — that domain knowledge makes you better at using LLMs — is something I’ve also experienced in my own work. If you have a good theory of your codebase, you can push the LLM much harder than if you have no familiarity. Because you have your own sense of what a good solution might look like, you can say “no, I think it could be simpler here”, or “but don’t we already do X?”, or “can we express this problem in these familiar terms?“. Sean is right on the money here. It's really cool what you can do with coding agents, and they allow less technical people to create code. However, interacting with these models when you have no idea how the code works and when you do know how the code works are completely different experiences. As time goes on, I feel quite strongly that those who will benefit the most from coding agents are those who have a good combination of technical understanding, a good design eye, and excellent product intuition/research. ### I was on Hacker News yesterday and didn't even notice URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-was-on-hacker-news-yesterday-and-didnt-even-notice/ Last updated: 2026-08-05T13:32:34.000Z I don't obsessively check the metrics on this blog, but I do every now and again just to see how things are generally going. I don't run ads anymore, so page views don't really equate to much more than a vanity metric. But hey, who amongst us isn't a little vain? Anyway, I noticed there was a spike yesterday. This blog gets a couple thousand visits per day, so a spike to to 30k views in a day, half of which were [this post](https://birchtree.me/blog/xbox-goes-down-you-cant-play-games-you-own-on-disc/) from a week ago is pretty notable, to say the least. But like I said, I didn't even notice until now. First, I continue to be happy with my decision to move hosting to Ghost Pro. I very rarely had issues when I was hosting this blog myself, but when something like this happened back then, those days turned into me monitoring my server load for hours to make sure everything was holding together. Now I don't even think about it, which for where I am in my life with priorities, is just right for me. Second, this didn't trigger any alerts for me. I don't have any alerts set up for traffic spikes. Maybe I should, but as I said above, raw traffic doesn't really do much for me. In fact, the reason I didn't notice this is because the only sort of notification I get for activity on my site is when someone signs up for More Birchtree. Despite getting tens of thousands of people hitting the site yesterday, not a single one converted to a paid subscriber. I'm not at all surprised by this, of course. Subscribing to a blog is something people do after following it for a little bit, not something you do when you first come across someone you found on Hacker News. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/2026-08-05-000876.png) Third, looking at where people come to my site from is interesting. Google Zero clearly hasn't hit me yet, but this report also shows something that I find quite frustrating about all analytics services, which is that a substantial number of items are marked as "direct". What the hell does that mean? My understanding is it's basically everything it's not able to categorize, including things like people opening pages from their RSS reader, coming to the site from a bookmark in their browser (shout out if you do that), or from users who have privacy tools installed that strip any referral information. But besides the semi-mysterious direct category, I do think the other sources are kind of fascinating. For example, my Bluesky account is effectively an automated bot at this point. I don't really use the platform, but all of my posts are automatically syndicated there, and I got 3x more traffic from those automated bot posts than my human written posts I share to Mastodon where I'm actually engaged. Hey, in this window, ChatGPT drove nearly as much traffic to my site as Mastodon 😵. ### Linus Torvalds lays into anti-AI developers URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/linus-torvalds-lays-into-anti-ai-developers/ Last updated: 2026-08-05T12:59:59.000Z Linus Torvalds (the creator or Linux) [was spitting fire in a post to the Linux kernel mailing list just a few weeks ago](https://lore.kernel.org/linux-media/CAHk-=wi4zC+Ze8e+p3tMv8TtG%5F80KzsZ1syL9anBtmEh5Z40vg@mail.gmail.com/?ref=birchtree.me): > Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects, and if somebody has issues with that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it. And: > There are other questions around AI (like what the economy of it will actually look like in the end), but "is it useful" is no longer one of those questions. Anybody who doubts that clearly hasn't actually used it. And: > But the solution is not to put your head in the sand and sing "La La La, I can't hear you" at the top of your voice like some people seem to do. Hell yeah, preach, Linus! I also came across this bit from a [post](https://social.kernel.org/notice/AWSXomDbvdxKgOxVAm?ref=birchtree.me) from him in 2023: > I’m a card-carrying atheist, I think a woman’s right to choose is very important, I think that “well regulated militia” means that guns should be carefully licensed and not just randomly given to any moron with a pulse, and I couldn’t care less if you decided to dress up in the “wrong” clothes or decided you’d rather live your life without feeling tied to whatever plumbing you were born with. > > And dammit, if that all makes me “woke”, then I think anybody who uses that word as a pejorative is a f\*cking disgrace to the human race. So please just unfollow me right now. Oh no, am I about to install Linux? ### Benchmarking all the Macs I have around for fun URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/benchmarking-all-the-macs-i-have-around-for-fun/ Last updated: 2026-08-05T11:00:00.000Z Just for fun, I've use [quicksubs](https://github.com/mattbirchler/quicksubs?ref=birchtree.me)' benchmark mode to see how fast the 4 Macs I have access to are and how they heat up when under load. - M2 Mac mini - A18 Pro MacBook Neo - M4 Pro MacBook Pro (higher core version) - M5 Pro MacBook Pro (higher core version) For repeatability, I ran the following command on [this file](https://birchtree.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/2026/bench.mp3?ref=birchtree.me). ``` quicksubs bench --warmup 0 --runs 20 --csv benchfile.csv bench.mp3 ``` ## Average speed ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/2026-08-04-000869-1.png) The overall average times are about what you might expect. The M5 Pro is a bit faster than the M4 Pro, and they're both way faster than the M2 and A18 Pro. ## Speed over time ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/2026-08-04-000871.png) So a couple interesting things here looking at the times over all 20 runs. 1. Inexplicably, the Pro devices got faster as they went. All the times were within a couple of seconds, but suffice it to say that they started fast and stayed fast. 2. The MacBook Neoquite quickly heated up and slowed down from its first run. 3. The Mac mini is a quirky chart, but I can explain. For the first 7 runs, I was sharing its screen from my MacBook Pro, and then I stopped screen sharing after that. And yes, this makes the whole M2 test a bit unfair, but hey, let's just recognize that the M2 is a bit faster than the 20 run average says, and that screen sharing to another device of course has a bit of a performance hit. ## Temps ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/08/2026-08-04-000870.png) The Neo gets real hot real quick, the Mac mini gets kinda warm, and the MacBook Pros just kinda hang out at the same point. All 3 laptops were sitting side by side and didn't have anything else running, so I'm not sure if it's expected for the M5 to run hotter than the M4, but that's what I saw here. --- Anyway, no real takeaways here, benchmarking is just fun. ### + Nostalgia for nostalgia URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/nostalgia-for-nostalgia/ Last updated: 2026-08-04T12:30:03.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The best watch band for the Apple Watch Ultra URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-best-watch-band-for-the-apple-watch-ultra/ Last updated: 2026-08-04T16:31:04.000Z Josh Ginter: [The Titanium Milanese Loop Apple Watch Band Review: The Best Apple Watch Band Ever Made](https://thenewsprint.co/2026/08/03/the-titanium-milanese-loop-apple-watch-band-review-the-best-apple-watch-band-ever-made/?ref=birchtree.me) > At $200 USD it's expensive for a band, but it's a buy-once purchase that kills any desire to own another. Best Apple Watch band ever made. This is my watch band as well, and I absolutely agree with Josh here. It's supremely comfortable and looks really nice. I work out in it, I go to formal events with it, and it's my day-to-day standard. It has completely killed my desire to browse for new watch bands. My only gripe is that while the clasp is great once it's locked in, it is by far the most annoying watch band clasp I've ever personally used to actually lock in. But that's 5 seconds of annoyance every day to get an otherwise perfect band experience. ### The rules change when you become top dog URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-rules-change-when-you-become-top-dog/ Last updated: 2026-08-03T23:41:42.000Z M.G. Siegler: [What if Anthropic is Right?](https://spyglass.org/what-if-anthropic-is-right/?ref=birchtree.me) > Certainly part of it is just the shift from underdog to presumed leader in AI. But a lot of it has to do with the way Anthropic carries itself as a company. Whereas the strong stances and rhetoric were once seen as almost endearing, now they're seen more as a problem. As we’ve seen with Apple, a company’s eccentricities and bold stances are endearing when they’re an underdog, but not as much when they’re on top. ### Dia becomes Arc URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/dia-becomes-arc/ Last updated: 2026-08-03T22:45:22.000Z On Friday, I had an automatic update install for Dia, and it brought keyboard shortcut and trackpad gestures for switching between spaces. As someone who uses Dia on a daily basis, this was great news to me. One of the many magical features of Arc four years ago was its ability to set up different spaces that were logged into completely separate accounts and bounce between them with ease. PS in the featured image above, Arc is on the left, Dia is on the right. They really have spent the last couple years turning Dia into Arc in basically every way. ### PC gamers just don't want to buy games from Xbox, even to play on their Xbox handhelds URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/pc-gamers-just-dont-want-to-buy-games-from-xbox-even-to-play-on-their-xbox-handhelds/ Last updated: 2026-08-03T11:22:22.000Z At the end of last year, I bought the ROG Xbox Ally X because I wanted a high-performance portable gaming PC, and that seemed like the best option of the bunch. We also happened to be on the verge of 2026, which looked like it was going to bring increased costs across the board for tech. And while I didn't strictly need it yet, it did seem like if I was going to upgrade, it was only going to be more expensive if I waited. Outside of the software, I think the device is quite good for my needs. It's meaningfully more powerful than a Steam Deck, and that was my main criteria. However, it must be said that I have given Microsoft exactly zero dollars since that purchase. I don't subscribe to Game Pass, and I don't buy games from the Xbox store. In fact, I found the software experience so insanely bad that I flashed Linux onto it and am far happier now. I was kind of curious if I was alone here, and thankfully, Jez Corden of Windows Central: [has some date to report here](https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/xbox-helix-and-steam-and-why-it-no-longer-makes-sense?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com): > Around 75% of Xbox Ally owners also own Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass And: > Of non-subscribing users: If an Xbox Ally user was also an Xbox console owner, around a quarter of those users also made purchases on the Xbox PC ecosystem. However, if the Xbox Ally owner was not an Xbox console owner, that figure dropped to a measly 2%. Suggesting that almost 100% of non-Xbox owning, new Xbox Ally owners simply went straight to Steam. It does seem I am in the minority here, as I'm in the one quarter of owners who don't use Game Pass, and it would have been nice to break down the other 25% to see how many were Xbox console owners as well. It does speak to Microsoft's utter failure at being the gaming hub on their own Windows platform. When you see numbers like this, if you're not an Xbox console owner, there is basically a 0% chance you are buying games from the Xbox store on PC. ### + About the Hank Green situation URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/about-the-hank-green-situation/ Last updated: 2026-08-02T14:40:49.000Z Burn him at the stake! (apparently) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### No more new apps (in August) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/no-more-new-apps-in-august/ Last updated: 2026-08-01T13:20:55.000Z It turns out that I have a lot of software ideas in my head. Given my penchant over the years to have more side projects than most people can imagine keeping up with, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise. I've got 8 apps on the App Store, several web apps, and over 20 micro-apps. It turns out that giving me the tools to create fast means I will create *a lot*. I'm really proud of what I've built this year, but I also want to take a moment to pause. I don't want to chase new ideas for a bit, I want to level up and sand off the rough edges of what I've already built. I've got a few major updates planned for Quick Reads, Quick Reviews, and Quick Subtitles that I want to get out the door, and there are some tweaks I think the other apps deserve. Basically, I have more than enough on my plate, and I want to slow down, because left to its own devices, my brain will keep coming up with new things to build. --- All that said, I will be making a new thing available to More Birchtree subscribers shortly, but that's truly it…until September, that is. ### Holocloth is the coolest website I've seen in ages URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/holocloth-is-the-coolest-website-ive-seen-in-ages/ Last updated: 2026-07-30T22:43:03.000Z Good lord, [play with this thing](https://holocloth.vercel.app/?ref=birchtree.me). ### Rosé Pine URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/rose-pine/ Last updated: 2026-07-28T22:33:51.000Z We probably all know [Catppuccin](https://catppuccin.com/?ref=birchtree.me) at this point, but have you heard the good news about [Rosé Pine](https://rosepinetheme.com/?ref=birchtree.me)? neither better nor worse, but a very fun change of pace if you're looking for one. ### Is Apple a software company, hardware company, or rent-seeking company? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/is-apple-a-software-company-hardware-company-or-rent-seeking-company/ Last updated: 2026-07-28T15:00:00.000Z For Apple's entire existence, there's been a sort of "debate" over what sort of company Apple is. Are they a hardware company, or are they a software company? The truth, of course, is that they're both, and their ability to deliver at the highest level on both fronts is what has made their products so compelling. However, in 2026, I think there's a third contender. In addition to being a hardware company and a software company, Apple is very much a rent-seeking company. Based on how lots of people talk about Apple these days, that rent-seeking characteristic seems to be the only absolute hard requirement for them. Basically, unless the winds really change in the future, Apple will never make another computer where they don't always collect 15-30% of all commerce that happens on that device. Quinn Nelson recently raised the possibility of Apple making a portable gaming device. Based on what we know about Apple, it seems like they could make a really nice competitor to the Nintendo Switch, the Steam Deck, and other gaming PCs. They even have the Game Porting Toolkit for macOS, which they could use to make it possible for people to play Windows games they purchased on something like Steam, the Epic Games Store, or Xbox on the device. Quinn was on The Talk Show last week, and the conversation honestly depressed me a bit. The primary reason both John and Quinn seem to think this will never happen is that Apple would never make a new product where they don't control what you can buy while taking their chunk of the profits. Whether that's actually true or not, I find it a bit depressing that that's where we are in the Apple punditry, where we won't even entertain the idea of Apple making something, not because the hardware would be bad, not because the software couldn't work, and not because it isn't the sort of thing the company does, but because they wouldn't be able to collect their commission on everything sold for it. ### Micro app 21: ghosthunter CLI URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-21-ghosthunter-cli/ Last updated: 2026-07-28T10:44:45.000Z [Ghosthunter](https://github.com/mattbirchler/ghosthunter?ref=birchtree.me) is a new CLI that lets you browse and search your Ghost site. It’s free and works with any Ghost blog. You can install it via homebrew with: ``` brew install mattbirchler/tap/ghosthunter ``` After installed, you run `ghosthunter init` to add your site URL and admin key. This will run an initial sync so you have a local cache of your posts. From then on, you just run `ghosthunter` (or `ght`) and you get a super quick interface to see your whole history. From here, you have quick access to every post ever, complete with search. The use case I was trying to solve was for when I need to remind myself of when I wrote something, so I just need a link to something I wrote recently. I currently do it by opening my browser, coming here, hit `Command+K` to bring up search, and find what I need. It's okay, but it's a hell of a lot quicker to do this in the CLI on a local database (don't worry about storage either, my 4873 posts amount to 21MB storage with this tool). 0:00 /0:12 1× Oh, and because it's a CLI, your agents can use it as well. Here's an example of using an open-ended search that gets results in a way a normal search from the Ghost UI would not find results on its own. This won't be the main use case for me, but hey, if it's useful sometimes, that's lovely. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-28-000769.png) That's really all there is to it. If you have a Ghost blog and work from the command line, I think you'll like having this tool in your toolbelt. ### Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc. URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/xbox-goes-down-you-cant-play-games-you-own-on-disc/ Last updated: 2026-07-27T22:59:59.000Z Jay Peters: [Xbox’s huge outage even blocked games on disc](https://www.theverge.com/games/971545/xbox-outage-disc-physical-games?ref=birchtree.me) > An extended Xbox outage that began Sunday evening hasn’t just caused issues for people trying to play digital games — it blocked people from playing their disc-based games, too. When Sony announced that they were discontinuing physical discs for PlayStation, I was less outraged than many. The reason I felt this way wasn't because I loved what Sony was doing. I think it came from an understanding that physical media ain't what it used to be. I got an analog pocket a couple years ago, and I think it's an awesome product. I was able to insert my Game Boy cartridges from 20 years ago and was able to play them immediately, just like I did back then. Well, on a backlit screen with 10x the pixel density, but still. The impression I get is that a lot of people have this vision in their head for what physical media still is today, and it simply isn't. Sure, I technically didn't own Golden Sun on the GBA. I technically had a license, but for all intents and purposes, I owned that game. And the evidence is, without Nintendo authorizing anything, I'm able to play it on a new piece of hardware, and it works great. No network downtime is gonna prevent me from doing that. But owning a game on a disc today isn't really the same thing. It's still just a license, and Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo can either intentionally or, in this case, unintentionally prevent you from playing that game, even if you own the physical copy. This isn't even to mention the fact that when you pop the disc in your drive, you're not playing from the disc. It's installing it to your internal hard drive and is probably installing a bunch of updates that are required to make the game actually work at all. All I'm saying is it's all digital on the PC side of things, and has been for ages, but we have means of maintaining access to the games we love over here, and it's one of the reasons I've gravitated to the PC for quite a while now. ### I don't think people are reading every line of code URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-dont-think-people-are-reading-every-line-of-code/ Last updated: 2026-07-27T22:11:56.000Z I would bet at least 80% of people who say they read every line of code their AI agents write, don't. I'm not saying I do or that this is a problem with today's models, I'm just saying it out loud because I feel like it's a thing and a lot of people feel like they can't say it, even if it's true. ### nonogame is the nonogram app I never expected to make URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/nonogame-is-the-nonogram-app-i-never-expected-to-make/ Last updated: 2026-07-27T11:00:00.000Z TLDR: You can play three daily puzzles at [nonogame.app](https://nonogame.app/?ref=birchtree.me) right now! --- Here is one I didn't see coming… In the mid-2000s, around the time Sudoku was getting popular here in the US, another game came on my radar around the same time, [nonograms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram?ref=birchtree.me). Nonograms were similar to Sudoku in that they gave you a grid and asked you to use process of elimination logic to fill it out in a very particular way, and it scratched the same itch as Sudoku for me. I got back into playing this game in the past month, and while I found a really good app on the iPhone, I hadn't found a web interface that I actually enjoy using. And well, that sounded like a fun weekend project, so I took some time this weekend and put together [nonogame](https://nonogame.app/?ref=birchtree.me). I won't get into all the details here. You should just go play it if you want to get an idea for how it works, but it is a desktop optimized way to play nonograms, and for my money, it is the best UI for doing this on the web. Anyway, the concept here is that you can come to the site every day and there are three puzzles for you to solve: a small, a medium, and a large. They follow the newspaper puzzle format of being easiest on Monday and getting harder through the week until you get the most difficult ones on Sunday. I also wanted to explore having a really nice flow from anonymous to logged in to paid users. Anyone can go to the site and play today's daily games. Nothing carries over till tomorrow or anything, but you can play them and enjoy them for 5 to 30 minutes, depending on how difficult they are. If you create a free account, which is of course password free and relies on welcome emails and passkeys, you can still play those daily games, but you can also save your progress and build up streaks and play across different devices. Finally, if you pay for the service, you'll get to go back in time and play previous days puzzles. And there are dozens of collections and over a thousand other puzzles you can play on demand. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/nonogame-icon-1024.png) Last but not least, I'm pleased with the favicon I made for this, which evokes the Quick Reviews heart. ❤️ ### + It's just tech URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/its-just-tech/ Last updated: 2026-07-26T22:30:22.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Chapterize 2: a new generation URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/chapterize-2-a-new-generation/ Last updated: 2026-07-24T11:59:59.000Z I'm happy to announce that Chapterize 2 is out today, and I think it is an essential tool for anyone who has a podcast. The app is free to try and has a one-time $20 unlock for unlimited use. If you've previously purchased the app, this is a free upgrade. [Chaperize is available for Mac, iPad, and iPhone.](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterize-podcast-chapters/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me) ## Your podcast home base ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-23-000695.png) Version 2 adds an entirely new section to the app, which provides podcast hosts to more easily access important data about their show with ease. Switch over to the new "shows" tab and you can add as many podcasts as you'd like. I've added my three podcasts, and what this allows me to do is at a moment's notice, review my show information and see my recent episodes. 1. Copy URLs to the show on Apple Podcasts and other services like Overcast, Spotify, and more. 2. Get the HTML embed code for Apple Podcasts. 3. Copy show notes as HTML or Markdown. 4. See current Apple Podcasts rating (you can even dig in to see what your overall score is across all countries). 5. Download old episodes. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-23-000697.png) Adding a show is dead simple. You can search the Apple Podcasts directory, paste in the Apple Podcasts show link, or add the RSS feed, whichever is most convenient for you. When you go the Apple Podcasts route, the app will automatically find your Overcast and Pocket Casts sites, and if you want quick access to the YouTube channel, Spotify, or Castro, you can manually add those links as well. If you don't have them immediately, no worries, you can add them later. One of the things I have to do every week for MacStories is to get the episode links, show notes, and embed code for our latest Comfort Zone episode. This was a bit of a pain before, but I've been using this app for a few months to do this and it's completely changed the game for me. What took like 5 minutes before takes less than a minute now. ## A new editing interface ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-23-000694-1.png) I think the killer feature in Chapterize is its ability to let you add and edit your chapter timings from the transcript. This has enabled me to hugely accelerate how quickly I can get my chapters into episodes over the past year. In version 2, I'm not messing with the formula too much, but there is a critical change that I think levels up this experience even further. The previous UI had a toggle that lets you switch between the chapter list and the transcript view (if you're on an iPhone or a narrower window on an iPad or Mac, you'll still get that). But if you're on an iPad or Mac with enough space, you'll get both views side by side. It just makes it much easier to do everything. All the quality of life things around keyboard navigation and shortcuts work the same as they did before, but having this dual pane view really makes the experience easier. I should say that if this isn't your thing, then your experience doesn't change at all. If you're not using transcripts in the app, then the UI is going to remain exactly how it was previously, and you can keep using it how you always have. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-23-000698.png) To encourage use of this feature, I've also added a setting that is off by default, but you can enable to automatically start transcribing files when you drag them into the app. I've also made it so that if you already have a transcript for an episode in the app, you can now override it with your own. So, for example, if you tend to use the automatic transcription I just talked about, but this time you have your own SRT or VTT file you'd like to use instead, you can drag it into the window, and it will replace what was there before. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-23-000699.png) And because the app now knows what podcasts you work on, when you drag a new episode in, you'll be prompted with which show it belongs to, and all the appropriate metadata, including the Hallmark, will automatically be added. Alternatively, if you're on the shows view and you drag a new audio file onto one of the shows in the list, it will assign it to that show. ## The Chapterize CLI ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-23-000701.png) I recently created a CLI for Quick Subtitles, and that was a great unlock for me personally in automating my podcast workflow. I was able to watch a folder that Chris would put a new Comfort Zone episode in and then kick off a job that generated a transcription and cleaned up that transcription. However, then I just had a couple of files at that point. What I really wanted to do was get that episode into Chapterize at the end. Well, with the [Chapterize CLI](https://github.com/mattbirchler/chapterize?ref=birchtree.me), you can now do that. The most basic use case would be to use this to pass in an audio file into the app, but you can do a bit more. You can have the app launch once this job is completed or not, you can simultaneously pass in a subtitles file, and you have the ability to indicate which show this episode is associated with. There isn't a command line interface to start adding your chapters or working in the app, the UI is definitely still the place to go for that, but this was the last step in the work that I felt I could automate quite well. This has let me round out my script for Comfort Zone so that once the transcript is created and cleaned up, it automatically adds those to Chapterize, associates it with the correct show, and I can get to adding chapters from there. Run `brew install mattbirchler/tap/chapterize` to install Chapterize on your Mac. Please be aware this CLI does nothing if you don't also have the Mac app installed. ## Check it out! If you host a podcast and you put chapters in your episodes, and let's be real, that should be most of us, you really should check out [Chapterize](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterize-podcast-chapters/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me). It's a tool I built for myself and it is the tool I would be using even if I didn't make it. ### + Previewing my big app updates of the summer URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/previewing-my-big-app-updates-of-the-summer/ Last updated: 2026-07-23T23:02:18.000Z An early preview of the big app updates I have coming the rest of the summer. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### quicksubs CLI gets more models and benchmarks URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quickubs-cli-gets-more-models-and-benchmarks/ Last updated: 2026-07-22T22:25:07.000Z Last week I solved my own problem by releasing the [quicksubs CLI](https://github.com/mattbirchler/quicksubs?ref=birchtree.me), which allows you to generate transcripts easily from the command line on your Mac. I've used this a bunch myself already, it's been a great addition to my workflow, and I've heard from others that they're using it already as well. Of course, once I started using it, for production use cases myself, a few things became clear: this needed to have all the transcription models and it needed to have the benchmark mode from the app available here as well. This is in [the 1.5.0 release](https://github.com/mattbirchler/quicksubs/releases/tag/v1.5.0?ref=birchtree.me) out now. Run `brew upgrade` to upgrade to it, or `brew install mattbirchler/tap/quicksubs` to install it for the first time. ## All models The desktop app supports Apple's speech engine as well as Parakeet and Whisper. Now, all three models are available from the CLI, and it will default to Apple's model unless you tell it to use something else. I've done some mildly clever work to have the CLI check to see if you've already installed one of the third-party models in the app, and if so, it will use that version of the model. If you haven't downloaded it in the app or you don't use the app at all, then it will download the model the first time you try to use it. and then it will just be there going forward. To use this, pass `--engine` with `apple`, `parakeet`, or `whisper` as the value. ## Benchmark Mode ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-22-at-11.36.38.png) One of the things I realized quickly after making the app originally was that it was really good at testing performance and thermal throttling of devices. Audio transcription is a taxing job and you can just run the same transcription on a file over and over and over again. to see not only how fast it can do the work, but how how much it will throttle itself down once it starts to get warm. The CLI is a great place to have this functionality as people who review products for a living can create scripts that use this as part of their testing suite. Now, you can run `quicksubs bench` on a file and the process will run a benchmark with 1 warm up run (to make sure the model is fully ready, which can skew results sometimes), and then 5 runs on the file. There are arguments you can provide to change the number of runs, what engine you want to use, and if you want to save the results to a CSV. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-22-at-12.52.47.png) The CSV layout is intentionally built to let you easily run on multiple devices and merge them in the end to easily parse and build charts comparing devices with run-level data on performance. And because this doesn't have to run through the Mac App Store, I'm also able to collect internal temperature data and include that in the report as well. ## Agents and scripts Not new in this update, but I wanted to stress that an added unlock in a CLI version of Quick Subtitles is that your agents can use this as well. Sure, ChatGPT's Computer Use feature can click around your Mac if you want it to, but this is way faster, and accessible to all agents, even the most basic ones out there. Agents love a CLI, so if you're into that sort of thing and find yourself needing to transcribe things sometimes, quicksubs is a great tool to add to your tool belt. But it's not just agents. If you want to automate some process on your Mac, scripts are a great way to do this, and with the CLI with clear output, you can add this to your automation as well (AI agent or not). I'll be sharing my new podcasting workflow for this shortly (as soon as Apple approves my next Chapterize update). ### They’re just so desperate URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/theyre-just-so-desperate/ Last updated: 2026-07-22T00:45:31.000Z The small brained, big bigoted people on this subreddit [are convinced](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/s/lL2JsHNcE8?ref=birchtree.me) that Rotten Tomatoes is lying to you. It's not that most people liked The Odyssey, actually a ton of people hated it! It's woke! People hate it! Their evidence isn't on the page. No, that would be too easy. You need to exercise that hacker skill of viewing page source. Then look at the raw JSON data for the audience score, and that's where you see the data THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO SEE. See, Rotten Tomatoes has verified and unverified reviews. Basically, if you bought a ticket on Fandango (who owns Rotten Tomatoes), you can review the movie in Fandango after you see it and that review contributes to the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. These reviews are labeled as "verified" since Fandango knows you bought a ticket to the movie. Meanwhile, anyone with a Rotten Tomatoes account can leave a review, whether they've seen the movie or not. Look, I've got my beef with the audience score, but the reason they've done this is to prevent review bombing. Getting back to the original Reddit post, they found that the verified reviews (aka people who definitely bought tickets and probably saw it) had a 97% score, but if you look only at the unverified reviews, it's actually lower (60%) at the time of writing this post. See!? But let me break this down: This number relies on you agreeing that you only care about 12% of all the reviews (throwing out 10,700 of the 12,200 reviews). In fact, the only reviews you don't trust are people who definitely actually watched it. Even if you count all the unverified reviews equally, the overall score is 92%, which is still pretty great. I'm not saying that every single unverified review is some bigot grinding an axe, but I am saying you need to do some real mental gymnastics to make this work. Another notable thing in the data is how many people left a rating vs how many also wrote a review. Of the verified reviews, 13% of people also wrote a full review. Meanwhile, 70% of unverified users wrote a review. That's a pretty stark difference, and I'm just saying most people don't leave reviews generally (even a movie fanatic site like Letterboxd has about a 50% written review rate for this film), so a 70% written review rate is insanely high. Almost like it's likely people who came to the site to review bomb something… Anyway, the movie made a quarter billion dollars in its opening weekend, people generally seem to love it, and I would sure love to stop thinking about people who find reason after reason to be made about people of color in media. ### Obsession and Backrooms are moving the needle URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/obsession-and-backrooms-are-moving-the-needle/ Last updated: 2026-07-21T22:59:59.000Z David Chen: ['Obsession' and 'Backrooms' Are Destroying Our Assumptions About the Box Office](https://www.decodingeverything.com/obsession-and-backrooms-are-upending-all-our-assumptions-about-the-box-offi/?ref=birchtree.me) > But both films are also directed by filmmakers who found viral fame on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, and neither film is based on legacy IP (e.g. Marvel, Star Wars, etc.). Their audiences are skewing young. The majority of ticket buyers for both films are under the age of 34, with Gen Z and younger millennials driving a ton of business. It turns out the kids will show up if you give them an experience that they can't get anywhere else. There are a few themes I keep coming back to on this blog, and one of them is that everything is a reaction to what came before. When I was a young adult, Marvel movies were starting to begin their run, and they were a breath of fresh air from what we had previously. I know cinematic universes and superhero movies are old hat now, but they were not a thing when I was a kid, and it was extremely novel to get to experience these things in a way we never had before. However, the MCU kicked off almost 20 years ago, and they flooded the zone with huge amounts of movies and TV shows, and all of it was connected, and it eventually became exhausting. Today's young adults grew up in that world, so it's not novel to them. It's just the way things have always been. And you know what? They're tired of it as well. Marvel can't just keep escalating the stakes of each movie they release to draw in audiences, and Hollywood is slowly figuring that out. I don't think the lesson of Obsession and Backrooms is that low-budget horror movies are the way forward, but I do think they represent a desire from people to have original stories told in interesting ways, and if we get those, people will go to the theaters for them. Not to bring everything back to video games, but this is part of the reason why I think that Xbox's strategy around ditching everything that's not an enormous blockbuster and leaning into just the biggest stuff is a mistake there as well. They're trying to do the Marvel thing where bigger is always better, and I don't think that's necessarily what people are looking for. Whether it's games or movies, I think studios should be investing in more smaller bets because some of them will absolutely blow up and get people excited about the mediums. ### We are not ourselves on social media URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/we-are-not-ourselves-on-social-media/ Last updated: 2026-07-21T20:00:00.000Z Jason Toney: [I Hate The Way We Talk Online](https://misterjt.com/2026/07/11/i-hate-the-way-we-talk-online/?ref=birchtree.me) > What I got instead were weirdly defensive or hostile replies that seemed to take my innocuous question as an invitation to debate the merits of charts including conspiracy theories about their purpose. Others merely wanted to pat themselves on the back for having edgy tastes. 100% agreed. We genuinely are not ourselves on social media. ### Validate those AI answers, people URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/validate-those-ai-answers-people/ Last updated: 2026-07-21T15:59:59.000Z Ana Maria Constantin: [AI advice made people three times less accurate but twice as confident, researchers found](https://thenextweb.com/news/ai-advice-suppresses-critical-thinking-wrong-answers-study?ref=birchtree.me) > Researchers from three French and Italian universities found that access to AI advice collapsed people’s willingness to say “ I don’t know ” from 44% to 3%. Accuracy dropped from 27% to 9%. Confidence, meanwhile, rose from 30% to 76%. “People became much worse, the accuracy was only one third, but they were twice as confident,” said Valerio Capraro, associate professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca. I think this is an interesting study that is definitely important to recognize. AI models do acknowledge when they don't know things more than they used to, but it's undeniable that they still sometimes get things wrong. Just like how you can't trust everything you read online, you can't trust everything an LLM says either, and you need to use your human faculties to validate things. I will also note that this study does not test how often LLMs are wrong. They specifically chose a model that would get things wrong, and they specifically chose questions they knew it would get wrong. The study was specifically about when an AI gives a wrong answer, do people trust it? From that perspective, it would be interesting to see a similar study where people are presented regular blog posts written by humans that are inaccurate, and how many people get it wrong in that case. Are we particularly susceptible to LLMs getting things wrong, or do we just trust everything we read, no matter what entity wrote it? For what it's worth, this is why I think LLMs are such a powerful tool for coding. Yes, sometimes the coding agent gets things wrong, but that is revealed immediately when the software doesn't do what it's supposed to do. ### 2026 is on pace for more than 1 million new app on the App Store. Just like 2016 all over again. URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/2026-is-on-pace-for-more-than-1-million-new-app-on-the-app-store-just-like-2016-all-over-again/ Last updated: 2026-07-21T11:56:58.000Z Kalley Huang: [‘Vibecoded’ Apps Are Flooding the App Store. Is That Good for Apple?](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/technology/apple-app-store-vibecoding.html?unlocked%5Farticle%5Fcode=1.zVA.U3F%5F.prL3P-7wAKsW&smid=url-share&ref=birchtree.me) > Last year, the number of new apps released in the App Store grew 30 percent to about 600,000, according to estimates by Sensor Tower, an app analytics firm. In the first half of this year, new apps doubled to about 560,000. And only about half of those are mine! Although, adding some more context here helps clarify the scope of this jump. 10 years ago [in 2016, there were 1.1 million new iOS apps](https://appfigures.com/resources/insights/app-stores-start-to-mature-2016-year-in-review?ref=birchtree.me) added to the App Store, or almost exactly how many apps we're on pace to release this year. Agentic coding is definitely making it so more people can release apps, but it seems like this rapid rise is actually just getting us back to where we were a decade ago so far. ### + My beef with The Odyssey discourse URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-beef-with-the-odyssey-discourse/ Last updated: 2026-07-19T17:59:59.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Quick Notes 3.0 is out now URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-notes-3-is-out-now/ Last updated: 2026-07-19T13:18:01.000Z [Quick Notes](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-notes-easy-voice-notes/id6754181571?ref=birchtree.me) 3.0 is rolling out now as a free upgrade for all users. This update includes three major changes: a new way to access your notes anywhere, improvements to brainstorm mode, and a top to bottom design overhaul. ## Notes wherever you want them ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/save-anywhere.jpg) I think this first feature may be a sleeper hit. In the app settings, you can now configure Quick Notes to automatically save all of your notes as text documents to any folder on your device. By default, it creates a Quick Notes folder in your iCloud Drive, but you can choose something else. For example, you could select a folder inside your Obsidian vault, allowing your notes to automatically appear in Obsidian on your other devices. I use brainstorm mode quite a bit, and I often create outlines that I want to reference when I start writing a blog post on my Mac. Before this update, that meant getting my phone out, copying the note I wanted, and hoping the Continuity features were working correctly so I could paste it onto my Mac. That process was never the end of the world, but it added a bit of friction that I would rather not have. With this feature enabled, I have a folder in Obsidian where all of these notes are automatically added. When I sit down at my Mac to start writing, my outline is already there. ## A better brainstorm mode ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-18-000651.gif) The second major update is to brainstorm mode, which has become an increasingly popular way to use the app, including for me. It is what I use in the app 90% of the time. For those who are unfamiliar, brainstorm mode lets you choose from several different types of brainstorms. You might choose to brainstorm an outline, a product spec, a task list, or something else. You can then talk for as long as you want, and the app will consolidate your thoughts into something clear and coherent. What I have learned is that both I and many other users tend to rely on one brainstorm mode all the time. With this update, you can pin your favorite mode so it is available with a single tap of the brainstorm button. If you ever need to access the full list, just press and hold the button. The technology behind brainstorm mode has also been upgraded. It originally launched using Gemini Flash 2.0, and was later upgraded to Flash 3.0\. With this update, it is powered by GPT 5.6 Luna. I did extensive testing across the different models available now, and 5.6 Luna produced the best results at a reasonable price. You may wonder why I don't use Apple's on-device foundation model for this feature. The answer is twofold, and it remains the same problem I have encountered from the beginning. First, the model simply is not good enough for this kind of text manipulation. I was not happy with the results when I tested it. Second, Apple's on-device model has an incredibly small context window, which means you cannot pass it very much text. If you talk into brainstorm mode for five minutes, it can handle the request. If you talk for 15 minutes or more, however, it will not be able to process everything. I am sure many brainstorms fit within that window, but plenty do not. I have personally created 45-minute brainstorm sessions. With iOS 27, developers will be able to use Apple's cloud model. It will have a larger context window, although it will still be fairly small in the grand scheme of things. I will be testing it this summer to see how well it works and where its limits are. For now, I expect GPT Luna to remain the go-to solution for a while. ## A completely new design ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/design.jpg) The final major change is the first thing you will notice when you open the app. Quick Notes 3.0 includes a complete top-to-bottom redesign. I have been referring to the new design as “digital paper” while using it over the last few months. There is texture throughout the interface, which gives it a slightly tactile quality while still feeling distinctly digital. I have also worked to improve motion and haptic feedback throughout the app. The haptics should now feel more intentional, including a heartbeat-like feedback pattern while brainstorms are processing. I find this useful because I tend not to stare at my screen while a brainstorm is running. Being able to feel that it is still working, followed by a celebratory flourish when it finishes, is genuinely satisfying. Animations between views have also been refined. When you start a new note, for example, the view grows out of the button as it expands to fill the screen. I also took this opportunity to rethink the organization of the Settings page. When the app launched, there were only a couple of settings. Now there are quite a few more, and I had added them over time without reconsidering the structure of the page as a whole. With this update, it should be easier to find the settings you are looking for. Finally, although it is not something you will necessarily notice as a user, I put extra work into eliminating dead code and optimizing some of the app's data management. This improves performance and makes the codebase easier for me to maintain going forward. That is everything in [Quick Notes 3.0](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-notes-easy-voice-notes/id6754181571?ref=birchtree.me). The update is rolling out now, and I hope you like it. ### Micro app 20: The Quick Subtitles CLI URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-20-the-quick-subtitles-cli/ Last updated: 2026-07-17T17:35:16.000Z Quick Subtitles is a great app for transcribing files on your Mac (and iPhone and iPad), and I use it at least 3x per week for my various projects. It works great, but it's a little limited from an automation perspective. That's where the brand new [Quick Subtitles CLI](https://github.com/mattbirchler/quicksubs?ref=birchtree.me) comes in, and you can install it with `brew install mattbirchler/tap/quicksubs` Once it's installed, you can easily get .txt/.srt/.vtt transcripts wherever you want them, and even perform the AI cleanup. ``` quicksubs episode.mp3 # transcript next to input as .txt quicksubs episode.mp3 -f srt # subtitle files instead quicksubs video.mp4 -o ~/Subs/ # write into a directory quicksubs episode.mp3 --clean-up # fixes transcription errors quicksubs episode.mp3 --json -q # silent run, JSON result on stdout ``` If you're looking to automate your podcasting or YouTubing workflows for subtitles, this is going to be awesome for you. This CLI is 100% free and does not require the Quick Subtitles app to be installed on your Mac. If you do have the app installed, it will pull your settings for things like AI clean up and contextual terms. *If you're thinking, "hey, it would be cool to have a CLI for Chapterize so that you could automate moving into adding metadata to these files," then you've got a pretty good idea what micro app 21 in this series will be…* ### Micro app 19: That Guy URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-19-that-guy/ Last updated: 2026-07-16T12:59:59.000Z I was at the theater this week seeing Minions and Monsters, and I had this feeling over and over, which was I would hear a voice and not quite be able to place the actor. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't quite figure it out. If I was watching this at home, I'd pick up my phone, pull up the movie, and figure it out in a few seconds. But I will never take out my phone in a movie theater, so I was stuck. Of course, 2026 is the year of the micro app, and I decided that I would take this opportunity to try and solve this problem for myself. A couple days later and I have a new app on my Apple Watch called That Guy, which does exactly what I wanted. ## The use case When you sit down in your seat, you open That Guy on your watch, type in the movie you're watching, and it downloads the cast in a simple to navigate, minimal UI on the watch itself. For the rest of the movie, if you ever have a moment where you're wondering, "hey, who's that guy?" you can glance down at your watch, scroll through the cast with the digital crown, and satisfy your curiosity so you can get back to enjoying the movie. I've also added the ability to tap into an actor to see their most notable credits if you need assistance figuring out where you may know them from. And to make this easy to pull up in the theater, I've of course included a complication you can put on your watch face for easy access. ## Release? This is the 19th micro app I've talked about in this series, and obviously not all of them have gotten released publicly, and honestly, that's kind of the point. I'm exploring the concept of identifying problems and solving them with software for yourself. it's cool when one of them can be turned into something useful for more people, but it's not the expectation. Also, this feels like the sort of feature that should be in an app like Callsheet, Letterboxd, or IMDB, so I'm not sure if I should release this, or just hope that Casey Liss notices this post and agrees this would be a nice thing to have in his app. That said, if there's enough interest from this post, I'll of course consider it. ### X is a platform built for combat (they say they’re fixing it) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/x-is-a-platform-built-for-combat-they-say-theyre-fixing-it/ Last updated: 2026-07-14T21:59:59.000Z Stevie Bonifield: [X admits its broken algorithm made the site feel like a ‘battleground’](https://www.theverge.com/tech/965360/x-algorithm-tweak-mutuals-strangers-community?ref=birchtree.me) > X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, admitted in a post on Monday that X’s algorithm was “missing” data about surfacing posts from people who you’ve followed back. Now, he says a tweak will “boost visibility of your posts to your mutuals,” hopefully enhancing the sense of community instead of highlighting and spreading random arguments, but didn’t explain how the data went missing in the first place. I’ve used X a little bit here and there over the past few months, and one of the things that became very clear to me very quickly is that it is a platform built for combat. Sure, the nature of social media, especially ones with algorithmic timelines is that you’re going to see content you disagree with and you’re going to want to argue with people, but it truly is to a different level on X. Apparently, there was a very specific reason for that. ### Upcoming iPad mini likely to get OLED, retain 60Hz, and probably get more expensive URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/upcoming-ipad-mini-likely-to-get-oled-retain-60hz-and-probably-get-more-expensive/ Last updated: 2026-07-14T20:59:59.000Z Tim Hardwick: [Upcoming OLED iPad Mini Allegedly Uses 60Hz 8.4-Inch Display Panel](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/07/14/oled-ipad-mini-has-60hz-display/?ref=birchtree.me) > Apple is allegedly using a 60Hz 8.4-inch display panel in the upcoming OLED iPad mini, which is expected to be released later this year. I obviously don’t love that they’re sticking with 60Hz for this device, but more importantly, I don’t understand why they keep pushing this product up market. Especially when the highest end iPhone is expected to be close to this size, not to mention Max iPhones already being pretty close to it already (and with massively better screens), I just don’t understand why they keep pushing up the price of this product. I’m sure Apple has their reasons, but to me it really feels like this product should be like $249 and it’s kind of like the Mac mini where almost everyone can find a use case for it because it’s so cheap. The iPad mini already starts at $599, and how much do you want to bet that this new model will push the starting price up even more? As far as I can remember, every time Apple has added OLED to a device they sell, the price has gone up at the same time. And just to get ahead of it, you might ask why I think it’s dumb that they’re limiting the refresh rate while also complaining about the price. As we’ve seen with the MacBook Neo, a lot can be forgiven if you hit the right price. I think if they’re gonna sell the iPad mini as a premium tablet, then it should have premium specs. Like I said, I don’t understand why that product needs to be premium, and therefore I think they can skimp on some specs to make it a great impulse buy for folks. ### Quick Reads now does todo items URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-now-does-todo-items/ Last updated: 2026-07-14T19:58:37.000Z Quick Reads has been obsessed with being the best way to save articles you mean to read later, and I think it's done a good job of that. However, there are links I come across that I want to save for later, but they're not for reading, they're something else. For me, they're often a dev tool I want to look at later — like yes, I want to have this link handy later, but I don't need it cluttering up my reading list. Of course, I could save these links somewhere else, like Reminders, another task manager, or another bookmarking service, but that's not ideal, because now I have multiple places where I need to remember I have links for later saved. ## Quick Reads gets Todos Now, when saving an article to Quick Reads, you can flag it as a "todo" item, which places it in its own list, separate from your reading queue. These links don't get a reading view, they're just links you can mark as complete when you're done with them. These links still appear in your archive and are searchable like anything else. And if you accidentally save something as the wrong format, you can move links back and forth (web UI only for now). For my API integrators out there, these todo items are just "articles" and are backwards compatible with any existing integration. There is simply a new `list` value that will show `todo` for articles that are actually todos. [Check it out in the docs.](https://quickreads.app/docs?ref=birchtree.me#post-articles) As far as the saving experience goes, I've tried to make it as seamless as possible. By default, everything still saves as an article to read later. However, on the iOS app (in TestFlight now, coming in the next few days to the public release), you can enable todos on the share sheet in the app settings, which will make it so that when you save something, you'll be asked if it's something to read or a todo item. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/iPhone-17-Pro-Multi-shot--3-.png) The Chrome extension, meanwhile, saves as an article, but you can hit the "todo" button to switch it over if you'd prefer. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-14-at-13.39.53@2x.png) There's also no way to demo this here, but I've tried to make the experience of checking off tasks feel nice, so there is a subtle sound effect on the web app and a nice haptic tap on iOS. Oh, and if you don't want to see todos, you can go to your Reading settings page on the web and hide todos entirely. And disclaimer, this is not making a Pinboard-style archive of the web page, it is just saving the URL to check out later. ## Now available on the web and Chrome extension Todos are now available on the web and the Chrome extension for all Quick Reads users. iOS users on the TestFlight also see it now, and both the iOS app and Safari extension will get this as soon as app review lets those updates through. ### + Whatever happened to the replication crisis? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/whatever-happened-to-the-replication-crisis/ Last updated: 2026-07-12T22:00:00.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### My favorite (and least favorite) movies of 2026 so far URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-favorite-and-least-favorite-movies-of-2026-so-far/ Last updated: 2026-07-12T21:41:36.000Z We're just over halfway through 2026, and by my count, I've see 15 2026 releases so far. Here's a from-the-hip ranking what I liked the most to least. 1. Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie 2. Project Hail Mary 3. Obsession 4. The Sheep Detectives 5. Exit 8 6. Hoppers 7. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come 8. Send Help 9. Disclosure Day 10. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple 11. The Rip 12. They Will Kill You 13. Over Your Dead Body 14. Undertone 15. Office Romance ### Netflix can't keep viewers for season 2, even of their good shows URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/netflix-cant-keep-viewers-for-season-2-even-of-their-good-shows/ Last updated: 2026-07-09T22:59:59.000Z Lucas Shaw: [Netflix Viewers Are Abandoning Shows After One Season](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-07-05/netflix-viewers-are-abandoning-shows-after-one-season?submit=&ref=spyglass.org) > One Piece, one of Netflix’s most-watched shows of 2023, lost more than 30% of its audience for the second season. Season two of Beef suffered a drop of more than 70%. The Night Agent shed 50% of its audience for the second season and another 35% for its third season. These figures are all through the first four weeks of a show’s release and come straight from Netflix. Adding insult to injury, the latest season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, one of Netflix’s most-watched titles in 2024,suffered a drop of more than 60% over week one. That doesn’t bode well for the rest of the month. I think there's something timeless about traditional TV releases. Netflix shocked the industry when they released the first season of House of Cards all at once, but many years later, it sure seems like the weekly release cadence has much more power. The novelty of getting a whole season at once was fun, but I think it turns out going back to the same show week after week is actually something we enjoyed more than we realized. I think there's something special about watching a TV season over a few months. I think about the spring of 2025 as the spring where I enjoyed seeing Jason Mantzoukas on Taskmaster. I'll remember mid-2026 as when I watched Widow's Bay or The Pitt. Not only did these shows occupy my attention for longer periods of time, they also got to have a whole ecosystem develop around them. Reaction podcasts and online theorizing all happened as we watched the same thing every week and got to think about it for more than 5 seconds before the next episode auto-played. I'm just saying, cliffhangers work a lot better when you have to sit on them for a while. Is this why Netflix really struggles to get people to watch past the first season? I don't know. What I do know is that people develop relationships with shows that strengthen as they go on. It's worth noting how weird it is for the first season of a show to be its highest rated. Most shows build an audience over the first few seasons, with seasons three and four really hitting their stride, both artistically and viewer count. Netflix definitely makes some trash, but they also make a lot of good shows as well, and those good shows are also seeing massive audience drops. This isn't some sort of scientific data I'm bringing to the table, but I do think there's something to the idea that the way Netflix distributes their shows, people don't build up a strong relationship with them, so they don't stick with them after the initial novelty of season 1. ### Xbox had a terrible strategy, and now they're laying off 3,200 people and ditching 5 studios URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/xbox-had-a-terrible-strategy-and-now-theyre-laying-off-3-200-people-and-ditching-5-studios/ Last updated: 2026-07-09T22:19:59.000Z From Asha Sharma's letter to Xbox employees earlier this week ([via IGN](https://www.ign.com/articles/xbox-boss-asha-sharma-announces-3200-layoffs-including-1600-today-with-4-studios-leaving-for-new-management-read-the-email-to-staff-in-full?ref=birchtree.me)): > To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content. While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected. As that happened, our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a better outcome. And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history. We must reset XBOX. As someone who has been critical of Xbox's strategy, management of studios, and Game Pass at a very fundamental level for many years, there's of course a bit of satisfaction with seeing the head of Xbox agree with all those points. But it's cold comfort for how they're handling the situation now, which I think shows a lack of respect for the medium. I'm sure I'll write more about this later, but for now, here's an excerpt from [the latest Digital Foundry podcast](https://youtu.be/DeUV3IqEZRU?ref=birchtree.me) with John Linneman talking about how part of these 3,200 job cuts were effectively gutting the game engine developers at id Software (for reference, gutting the engine development team at id is like gutting the industrial design team at Apple. Okay, you can do that to save money temporarily, but you're cutting the core of what makes them great). > This is the worst thing Xbox has ever done for me personally and a direct insult to the medium and it shows the leadership knows nothing and cares nothing about the industry. They are here to make money exclusively, and they will do it by any means necessary. And I can see why. If you look at the Excel sheet or you ask Copilot, be like, oh, Id Software releases one game every like 4 or 5 years and they have this big custom engine. Why? You know, so let's just cut all that and spend less money and be done with it, you know, either they support studio. I doubt it. > > They just make things differently. I just don't understand how even they could achieve that. They said they want to keep the IP. They want more Doom and Wolfenstein, whatever games, but they want it more often and they want to leverage that IP, but you cut half the studio. Who the hell is going to make this rich? Who's going to make this? What's the point? Like, what are they even doing? ### Ghosty Posty for Obsidian gets edits, visibility, and delivery options URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ghosty-posty-for-obsidian-gets-edits-visibility-and-delivery-options/ Last updated: 2026-07-09T19:59:59.000Z [Ghosty Posty](https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/ghosty-posty?ref=birchtree.me) is my Obsidian plugin that lets you writing Obsidian and publish direct to your Ghost blog. In my humble (if biased) opinion, it is by far the best way to publish to Ghost from Obsidian. Here's what's new in today's 1.1 update. ## Update previous posts ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-09-000613-1.png) After posting, the Ghost post ID is saved to the note, and if you want to make an edit to that post later, you can simply republish that same note from Obsidian. It's linked up to the proper post on Ghost and will simply replace what you already have there. ## Sync from Ghost ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-09-000614-1.png) Now you may be wondering, "what happens if I have edited the post on Ghost directly since I published it?" No problem. There is a new action in the plugin called Sync from Ghost, which will update your Obsidian note with whatever is currently on the Ghost site. To be clear, this does not pull in your full Ghost blog into Obsidian. This will only work for notes that you published via this plugin. ## Delivery and visibility controls ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-09-000615-1.png) Previously, the plugin only allowed you to post articles to your blog, not to send newsletters. Now you have the option to do a simple post, to send an email, or to do both. If you have membership active on your Ghost site, Ghostie Postie will recognize that and give you the ability to choose the visibility for each post, whether it be for everyone, all members, or just paid members. ## Native ribbon access ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-09-000612-2.png) I've been using the plugin called [Commander](https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/cmdr?ref=birchtree.me) to add Ghosty Posty to my ribbon since the beginning, so I hadn't really noticed that I'd neglected to add official support for it. Now Ghostie Postie will show up in the ribbon without the need to install another plugin. *That said, I think Commander is awesome and it lets you add basically anything you want to the ribbon, so check it out as well if you haven't already.* --- As always, [Ghosty Posty](https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/ghosty-posty?ref=birchtree.me) is completely free, and if you write in Obsidian and publish to Ghost, I think it's an absolute no-brainer. ### What "reasonable concerns" around trans people really means URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/what-reasonable-concerns-around-trans-people-really-means/ Last updated: 2026-07-09T12:00:00.000Z Parker Molloy wrote what I think is a must read article that has too many quotes I'd like to make, so just go read it: [Reasonable Concerns](https://www.readtpa.com/p/reasonable-concerns?ref=birchtree.me). > Terry Schilling runs the American Principles Project, one of the outfits that spent years writing and bankrolling bills like the ones the court just upheld. In early 2023, he told the New York Times what the group was really after. Its goal, he confirmed, was to do away with transition care entirely, for adults as much as for kids. Starting with kids was just, in his words, “going where the consensus is.” There's quite a bit here to help people understand why the "trans women in sports" issue is not really about sports, it's about getting a wedge in somewhere so they can take one right away, then another, then another, with the ultimate goal of making these people's mere existence illegal. Don't take our word for it, just take Terry Schilling and people like him at his word that this is literally what they're doing. Also, if you are a man who claims to be concerned with women's sports, I think you should be legally required to turn over your YouTube history to see how many "male athlete embarrasses female athlete" videos they've watched. ### Code is easy, writing is hard (for a robot) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/code-is-easy-writing-is-hard-for-a-robot/ Last updated: 2026-07-09T01:53:20.000Z Robin Sloan: [Fable is very good](https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/fable-is-good/?ref=birchtree.me) > Yet even the funkiest JavaScript func­tion car­ries within it many fewer choices than a para­graph of prose. (How’s that for a sentence?) Fable can’t match my writing style yet — honestly, I think that’s beyond the reach of these models, because it’s just too much to simulate, a whole human mind and body, their whole his­tory together. Fully agreed. I think LLMs are remarkable technology, and they’re incredibly good at writing code. I even think they’re really good at writing boilerplate text for things like documentation. However, while I’ve seen LLMs generate text that takes the form of a Birchtree blog post, they simply can’t get close to the real deal. I’m not saying they write with worse structure or make more mistakes than me (I make way more mistakes than it does), I’m saying it simply doesn’t capture my voice. At its very best, it sounds like a robot pretending to be me, but who’s fooling nobody. ### Quick Reads keeps getting updates! URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-keeps-getting-updates/ Last updated: 2026-07-09T01:39:18.000Z First off, [Quick Reads is finally available on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reads-read-it-later/id6759210587?ref=birchtree.me)! Despite being only in TestFlight until today, the iOS app was still the most common way people used the service. I'm glad there's less friction than there used to be. If you've been using the app and like it, now would be an amazing time to go leave it a 5-star review. Seriously, this stuff helps so much, so thank you. *Side note, I was a bit worried app review would reject me for not having Apple's in-app purchase, but nope, it was no issue at all.* --- The second update come from user Josh, who let me know that Feedbin has a feature that lets you add custom share destinations using a very simple URL format. He built a cool workaround to get this done (built on the industry-leading API 😉), but it was trivially easy for me to build this directly into the service itself. Now you can open this in your browser (title is optional): `https://quickreads.app/app/save?url=${url}&title=${title}` And boom, the url is saved! You know, as long as you're logged into the site in your browser. This will work in most places that offer a sort of custom sharing feature. It can also work in Apple Shortcuts if you don't want to deal with setting up the full API integration. I even made a little bookmarklet you can save to your bookmarks bar like it's 2010! All of this is documented in [a new page](https://quickreads.app/docs/save?ref=birchtree.me) on the site. Try out [Quick Reads](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me) today! ### Micro app 18: Claude Code Obsidian sync URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-18-claude-code-obsidian-sync/ Last updated: 2026-07-08T00:00:27.000Z Here's a weird one…I had a situation where I wanted to be reminded what happened in a Claude Code session a few days ago. You can revive old conversations in the Claude Code CLI, but it's annoying. You can go into your `~/.claude/projects` directory and find them there, but that's a pain too. What if they were all just in your Obsidian vault automatically? Well, the new plugin, [Claude Code Sync](https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/claude-code-sync?ref=birchtree.me), does exactly that. There's not much to it, either. You just install it, and it immediately starts working. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-07-000592.png) The sync is pretty simple, as it checks for new chat info every X minutes, and pulls in whatever's changed since last sync. If you delete a chat from your `~/.claude/projects` history, it stays in Obsidian. The notes themselves are sorted into sub-folders for each project, they have some front matter, and then there's the full text of the chat. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/07/2026-07-07-000594.png) I don't think this is something most people need, even people using Claude Code, but I do think there are times where it is convenient to have a history of how decisions were made and what was done in your code. As such, it's really nice to have a searchable, easy-to-access history of all those interactions. Once again, you can [install this plugin for free](https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/claude-code-sync?ref=birchtree.me) in Obsidian. ### + Weird nerds URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/weird-nerds/ Last updated: 2026-07-07T23:30:07.000Z Maybe we were the weird nerds all along. _This post is for subscribers on the More Birchtree 2 and More Birchtree tiers only._ ### Quick Reads now does newsletters and RSS URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-now-does-newsletters-and-rss/ Last updated: 2026-07-07T01:34:28.000Z Since its launch, the number one feature request I've gotten for [Quick Reads](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me) has been the ability to subscribe to newsletters with the service. I'm happy to say that as of today, all users can do this. Just go to your settings, go to the newsletters tab, and use the email address there to subscribe to whatever newsletters you'd like. New emails will appear in your reading queue automatically moments after they're sent. If you ever run into issues with the address, you can blow it away and generate a new one on the fly. Additionally, there are some RSS feeds where you absolutely feel like you must read everything they post. If that's how you feel about a couple feeds out there, then the new feeds feature is exactly what you're looking for. Go ahead and add the website or the actual RSS feed, and we'll automatically add every post to that feed within thirty minutes of it going live. You can also set tags on those feeds, so they're automatically tagged just as you'd like. Writers such as John Siracusa or Casey Liss, who only publish on an irregular basis, are great contenders for the feeds feature here. If you follow them, odds are you want to see everything they write, and this will let you do that. On the newsletter front, pretty much anything will work here. Just like any article you save, the service parses the content to try to pull out just the article itself. So it should be a really great reading experience for everything from MacStories Select to Christopher Lawley's Patreon. Hell, I bet you it'll work for Birchtree too 😉 Feeds are available to all paying users of Quick Reads, while newsletters are for Pro subscribers only, and you can use them today. ### Sony is leaving physical games behind in 2028 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/sony-is-leaving-physical-games-behind-in-2028/ Last updated: 2026-07-02T12:59:59.000Z Sony had a double-whammy of press releases yesterday. First, [they announced that they were ditching physical game discs in 2028](https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/physical-disc-production-ending-in-january-2028-for-new-games-releasing-on-playstation-consoles/?ref=birchtree.me): > As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028. And they also announced that [they will be closing the PS3 and Vita digital storefronts over the next year](https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/an-update-on-playstation-store-for-ps3-and-ps-vita/?ref=birchtree.me): > As the PlayStation Store continues to evolve to support modern commerce systems, including updated payment processing standards, PS3 and PS Vita are no longer able to support these updates at the level required. As a result, we will need to close PlayStation Store on these devices in the timeframes as follows: As you might expect, people are not thrilled about these announcements. [As Andrew Webster wrote on The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/games/960212/sony-playstation-killing-discs-digital-preservation?ref=birchtree.me), this is not good for game preservation, as once these stores go away, there is no way for new players to get these older games. In the case of the PS3 and Vita, there were physical games released for those platforms, so even after these stores close, people will be able to find and buy these games used on places like eBay. However, in an all-digital world, that goes away. I'm personally not super upset about this, although I also wouldn't argue this is good news either. So let me just rattle through my thoughts on this. --- I can't help but wonder how many physical games the people who are vocally upset about this today actually buy. I know there are still people who buy physical games, but the numbers are pretty astronomical that the vast majority of people buy digital games and have been doing so for a decade. A fundamental reality of storefronts is that they need to get updated with things like security updates. The PS3 launched 20 years ago, and the standards for payment security have leveled up considerably since then. This is actually a problem you run into on old computers that haven't been updated to modern TLS standards. As an example, I have an old iMac from around the same era that's really cool and can run local apps just fine, but when you open the web browser, most websites won't load because the browser is so out of date it can't support modern security standards. It's worth noting that Sony is not removing the ability to download games you've previously purchased on a PS3 or Vita, so if you want to go back to those games, you can still do that. Presumably that will go away eventually one day as well, though. The game preservation angle comes up quite a bit, and I get it to an extent. Although I have to wonder if we had all the data, would we see that more people played PS3 and Vita games for the first time over the last year by buying them from PS3 and Vita devices, or by emulating them on PCs? I think there's a very good chance that it's the latter, and I think there's a very good chance it's by several orders of magnitude. I'm all for game preservation and making sure people have easy access to old games, but I'm not sure that closing 20 year old stores and going fully digital kills this. I've previously written about my joy I felt by taking old video game cartridges, popping them in new hardware, and having them just work. We've kind of lost that at a fundamental level with console video games for quite a while now. And a move to all digital just makes this even more at the default state. One of the things that's hurt when abandoning physical games is affordability. I'm not even talking about those moments when the physical copy can be gotten for cheaper than the digital one. I'm talking about things like sharing a game with friends, something that's especially common amongst younger people. There's also the ability to resell a game, which completely disappears when going digital. I'm lucky enough to be able to buy the games I want to play without worrying too much about this, but that's not the case for everyone, and losing that ability to offset your gaming costs is a real concern for many people and I don't want to discount it. The timing of this announcement isn't ideal, considering just a few days previous [Sony announced that they were actually removing hundreds of movies](https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/legal/psvideocontent/?ref=birchtree.me) from the libraries of people who had previously bought them. This is actually worse than what Sony's doing with the game stores, and I think this is the fear people have will happen for games they've previously purchased digitally. One day they just won't be able to play them anymore because they didn't technically own them, they just had licenses that could be revoked at any point for any reason. At the end of the day, Sony is taking something away that consumers used to have, and there's no way to spin that in a way that will make people happy. Nor should they be, to be clear! I'm certainly not cheering this news, but at the same time, in a world full of things to be outraged about, I feel like this deserves about a 4 on the outrage scale. If anything, it furthers my belief in the power and importance of emulation and why it's such a core piece of art preservation in this medium. ### A blown up iPhone, not the next Mac URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/a-blown-up-iphone-not-the-next-mac/ Last updated: 2026-07-02T11:00:06.000Z Federico Viticci: [Headless Macs and Hamstrung iPads](https://www.macstories.net/stories/headless-macs-and-hamstrung-ipads/?ref=birchtree.me) > In a funny twist of fate, Apple spent years trying to make iPadOS catch up to macOS on the surface, only for macOS’ underlying nature to unlock a new generation of apps that are rewriting the rules of modern software. No amount of windowing and menu bars can change the fact that neither Claude Cowork nor Codex will ever be possible on the current version of iPadOS. For the last couple of years, I have made the point that pretty much every meaningful update to iPadOS feels like a collection of features designed to make it behave more like a Mac. Yet, despite these efforts, those who love the Mac, including myself, a lapsed iPad-only user, still are not making the switch to the tablet. The feeling I have had for a while now is that, try as it might, the iPad is stuck in an asymptotic update flow. It gets ever closer to the Mac with each software release, but it will never actually get there. I think it's reasonable to say that fifteen years ago, the iPad was where more software innovation was happening compared to the Mac. Today, however, we've moved onto a new era. As Federico points out, it feels like iPadOS has recently been playing catch-up with the macOS of a few years ago. Meanwhile, there has been considerable innovation and change in software on the Mac, widening the gap between the two platforms once again for a lot of people. The critical thing to recognize is that this wave of innovation on the Mac did not happen because Apple released some big macOS update and told developers they were finally allowed to do these things. The fundamental nature of macOS enabled these new use cases without Apple needing to do anything at all. Not everyone is interested in this kind of cutting-edge software, and that is fine. But if you are someone who *is* interested in what the frontier of software is doing today, you can get all of it on the Mac right now. Put another way, if you want something to change about macOS, you look for someone who's changed it already, or you build it yourself. If you want something in iPadOS to change, you make a wish list for next year's WWDC. Earlier this year, I stirred the pot a bit when I suggested that Apple should just call the operating systems on the iPhone and iPad the exact same thing. When you combine this with Apple's own move towards calling their platform updates, "our OS 27 updates", along with the fundamental nature of how iPadOS works, I feel even more confident in that suggestion. Despite all the aesthetic shifts, which I do genuinely think are good on the whole, the iPad is kinda back to what it was when it first released back in 2010: a blown-up iPhone. Don't take this the wrong way, some people want that experience. As iPad fans will quickly point out, Macs and Windows computers have more going on and there are people who never got on with those computers that click with iPads, and that's great. What I'm saying is that the iPad is very much like an iPhone in that innovation is controlled by what Apple allows to exist. That's how the iPhone works, it's not how the Mac works. ### An update from the study that said devs were actually slower with coding agents URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/an-update-from-the-study-that-said-devs-were-actually-slower-with-coding-agents/ Last updated: 2026-06-30T00:05:45.000Z METR: [We are Changing our Developer Productivity Experiment Design](https://metr.org/blog/2026-02-24-uplift-update/?ref=birchtree.me#wider-adoption-of-ai-has-made-it-more-difficult-to-measure-task-level-productivity) > Based on conversations with study participants, we believe it is likely that developers are more sped up from AI tools now — in early 2026 — compared to our estimates from early 2025\. However, because of the selection effects in our experiment, our data is only very weak evidence for the size of this increase. Remember that study last year that showed that developers who used AI tools were 20% slower than those who didn’t? Of course you do, it was all over the place! This update from back in February that I just found today is about how they had to change their methodologies for testing because so much had changed. Additionally, while they don’t have conclusive results, their early findings seem to indicate that the uptick in productivity is actually pretty significant now. For some context, if you haven’t followed this closely, their original study was of developers using Claude Sonnet 3.5 through cursor while this new study would’ve been using Claude Code with Opus 4.5 anyone who’s worked with this tooling at all knows that that is night and day. ### + Why changing your productivity system is good, actually URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/why-changing-your-productivity-system-is-good-actually/ Last updated: 2026-06-28T23:48:05.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### May 2026 was the worst sales month for Xbox consoles *ever* URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/may-2026-was-the-worst-sales-month-for-xbox-consoles-ever/ Last updated: 2026-06-27T03:45:46.000Z Mat Piscatella: [Hardware - PlayStation hardware unit sales fell to…](https://bsky.app/profile/matpiscatella.bsky.social/post/3mp6ys4pix42o?ref=birchtree.me) > PlayStation hardware unit sales fell to their lowest May total since May 2000, while Xbox hardware unit sales were the lowest ever recorded for a May month. The data goes back to 1995, and May was the worst month for hardware unit sales for Sony in 26 years, and Microsoft **ever**. Meanwhile, Nintendo had a solid month, closing out selling 6 million Switch 2 consoles in its first year on the market. Thats that most for any home console ever, or second most if you consider it a handheld (falling behind the GBA’s 6.5 million back in 2001). It’s a good thing Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming out this November to juice PS5 and Xbox Series sales, otherwise these consoles would be positively cooked. ### Xbox prices jump again, and Microsoft warns they my again next year URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/xbox-prices-jump-again-and-microsoft-warns-they-my-again-next-year/ Last updated: 2026-06-29T15:01:25.000Z Joe Skrebels on XBOX Wire, Micirosft's official Xbox (ahem…XBOX) blog (emphasis mine): [Updated XBOX Console Prices](https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/06/25/xbox-console-price-update/?ocid=Platform%5Fsoc%5Fomc%5Fxbo%5Ftw%5FText%5Flrn%5F6.25.2&ref=birchtree.me) > Last October, we increased XBOX console price by $20-$70 in the U.S. We hoped another price increase would not be necessary, and we have spent the last several months working with suppliers on options. Unfortunately, console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x and **we expect another doubling by the fall of 2027**. The entire consumer electronics industry is struggling with the current components crisis, but the effects are particularly hard on consoles. Unlike phones, computers, speakers, and other consumer devices, consoles are typically not sold at a profit, but instead for less than they cost to make. The optimistic take is that this indicates they have raised the prices enough to weather next year's doubling of costs. The pessimistic take is that we're in for another round of price hikes next year as well. Their post also mentions how they're working to get more refurbished models available, and that you can pay over time with BNPL and financing options. I'm just saying we're not in a good place when console makers are actually encouraging people to buy refurbished devices. As it turns out, the best time to buy an Xbox Series console was in 2020, and the next best time is now. oof. In 2020, the 1TB Xbox Series X cost $499\. In 2026 that exact same console costs $799\. Lord knows what it will cost next year. ### Notion Mail is shutting down September 22 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/notion-mail-is-shutting-down-september-22/ Last updated: 2026-06-26T21:45:21.000Z [Notion on X:](https://x.com/NotionMail/status/2070177264457715817?ref=birchtree.me) > We’re winding down the Notion Mail inbox across web, desktop, and iOS on September 22. It's a bit of a bummer, but truth be told, this didn't quite hit the mark. It was kind of like "Superhuman, but for cheap" when it launched, but once they started charging for the AI features, it just became "as expensive as Superhuman, but not quite as good". Once the price advantage went away, I reverted to Mimestream, myself. If they wind down Notion Calendar, someone better hold me back, though. ### Apple raises prices, and it's gonna hurt URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-raises-prices-and-its-gonna-hurt/ Last updated: 2026-06-25T15:06:33.000Z Stephen Nellis and Aditya Soni quoting a statement they got from Apple: [Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads as memory costs skyrocket](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/apple-raises-prices-macbooks-ipads-memory-costs-skyrocket-2026-06-25/?ref=birchtree.me) > "We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," Apple ​said in a statement. "We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin ⁠raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac." [9to5Mac has a good summery](https://9to5mac.com/2026/06/25/apple-price-increases-mac-ipad-more/?ref=birchtree.me) of the price changes, and they’re not pretty. The notables to me are: - MacBook Neo models both go up $100, hurting the budget price point that made it so appealing. Given the other changes to MacBook Airs (+$200), it’s still significantly cheaper, at least. - The Mac Studios got the worst hits, raising 20-30% from their already high starting prices. - Vision Pro only bumped up $200\. This is the smallest update in terms of percentage, and probably speaks to demand as well as what goes into the cost of that device. RAM and storage are in there, but they’re not as much of the overall cost compared to Macs and iPads. - The base iPad starting at $449 is brutal. That device is already super paltry in terms of literally every spec, but at $100 more than before…oof. I also can’t help but see that “we need to begin ⁠raising prices on a number of products, **including** today's increases for iPad and Mac,” statement as implying more increases are coming. The iPhone price increase seems inevitable, and my money is on it starting with the new models in September. We’ll see what they manage there, but if prices go up $200 or so on those models, I’d expect this past year’s boom cycle in iPhone sales will come to an end. ### Fairly priced and too expensive URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/fairly-priced-and-too-expensive/ Last updated: 2026-06-24T21:00:51.000Z [User cantrip in a comment on The Verge:](https://www.theverge.com/games/953989/valve-steam-machine-pc-build-alternative?commentID=f89026a3-5ffa-4c52-bc98-12f45364e0e1&ref=birchtree.me) > The Steam Machine is both fairly-priced *and* too expensive. It's priced at cost, it's just that not many people are going to be willing to pay it. This is such a simple way to put it, and it's true. Looking back on [my post](https://birchtree.me/blog/steam-machine-is-the-first-1-400-console/) from a couple days ago when the Steam Machine was released, my tone is pretty negative. But it wasn't negative because I thought the product was bad. I think I was reacting to how I felt knowing that even though the product looks really good, it's priced so high that the people I think would really enjoy this won't be able to get it. And it's not because Valve is being greedy here, it's because the nature of component pricing makes it so that the only way they can make this product is to make it enormously expensive. The harsh truth is that the free market has decided that the components that go into consumer tech are so valuable, that making those consumer tech products is way too expensive for consumers. I'm hoping we get a correction in the market soon, because in a way I've never really felt in my adult life, it feels like we are doing [the paperclip optimizer thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental%5Fconvergence?ref=birchtree.me#Paperclip%5Fmaximizer), where everything else be damned, we're optimizing for one thing and one thing only, and everything else must suffer for it. --- *I write this as someone who thinks that AI is a very useful tool for a good number of things, but that it is not the be-all, end-all of everything.* ### More on Tangerine Neue URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/more-on-tangerine-neue/ Last updated: 2026-06-24T20:04:20.000Z Earlier today, I released [Tangerine Neue](https://github.com/mattbirchler/Tangerine-Neue-for-Mastodon?ref=birchtree.me), my fork of the beloved Tangerine UI Mastodon theme originally created by Niléane. I initially put it together just for myself, but I figured I might as well share it with the world in case anyone else wanted to use this version. To say the response has been overwhelming would be an understatement. It is already getting a ton of traction on Mastodon, hitting the trending tab on mastodon.social, and so many people seem genuinely happy that someone plans to maintain a version of it, at least for a while. If I'm being completely honest, it is actually a bit of a strange feeling. All of the other projects I have released so far have been built from scratch, but this is different. This is me taking over, to some extent, a brilliant, well known project created by someone else. I have done comparatively very little work on it so far, yet I have received an incredible outpouring of appreciation and excitement. In a way, this situation is simply the nature of open source software, and it happens all the time. Most of these projects are completely unfunded, and they require a massive amount of effort to maintain. In most cases, they do not offer much of a financial return for your time, so it is common for another developer to eventually pick up a project and keep working on it when the original creator no longer has the time or interest to keep at it. A great example of this is the app [Thaw](https://github.com/stonerl/Thaw?ref=birchtree.me), which is a fork of the app [Ice](https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice?ref=birchtree.me). It was a very similar situation where the original creator made something incredibly cool, stopped maintaining it, and someone else stepped in to create their own version to keep it alive. *Side note, I use Thaw on my Mac to tame my menu bar and it's great.* Still, it is hard to shake a certain sense of imposter syndrome. I don't feel like I deserve any credit here. I am effectively serving up what is mostly the same beautiful theme that Niléane made, just under my own name. That is something I am going to have to work through, and I want to be incredibly clear from the start that this is not my baby, I'm just doing what I can with it. At the same time, there is a clear hunger among people using Tangerine UI today to have a reliable place they can go to keep getting the same great experience they have enjoyed for years. With that in mind, I want to clarify one thing from my announcement earlier today, and it's based on the feedback I've received so far. **I intend to maintain this fork of the project for a good amount of time, and I want it to be a stable, trustworthy place for people who want to use it on their own instances.** I was worried about looking like I was stepping on toes or taking something that wasn't mine and presenting it as my own. That does not seem to have been the response, which is a relief. The response has actually been, "please keep doing this." I plan to keep the documentation very clear about its origins because Niléane deserves all the credit here. However, I will also begin updating some of the documentation and branding to make it clear that this is an active, reliable project that people can trust (the current README, for example, is almost apologetic for existing 😅). That is what I will be working toward next. If you have any suggestions or run into any bugs, please feel free to [let me know on Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@matt%5Fbirchler?ref=birchtree.me). Since [this is open source](https://github.com/mattbirchler/Tangerine-Neue-for-Mastodon?ref=birchtree.me), you are also more than welcome to submit a pull request. I will happily review it and add it to the official project. --- Oh, and [Younis wins the day on reactions to this](https://nileane.fr/@younishd/116805461071529739?ref=birchtree.me): > \> New Granite theme > > Babe wake up, they made Tangerine UI for men ### AI coding is creating a new generation of makers URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ai-coding-is-creating-a-new-generation-of-makers/ Last updated: 2026-06-24T15:00:00.000Z Ben Thompson: [My Vibe Coding Adventure, The App and the Experience, Ten Takeaways](https://stratechery.com/2026/my-vibe-coding-adventure-the-app-and-the-experience-ten-takeaways/?access%5Ftoken=eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6InN0cmF0ZWNoZXJ5LnBhc3Nwb3J0Lm9ubGluZSIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJhdWQiOiJzdHJhdGVjaGVyeS5wYXNzcG9ydC5vbmxpbmUiLCJhenAiOiJIS0xjUzREd1Nod1AyWURLYmZQV00xIiwiZW50Ijp7InVyaSI6WyJodHRwczovL3N0cmF0ZWNoZXJ5LmNvbS8%5FcD0xOTM4MyJdfSwiZXhwIjoxNzg0ODg4MzU3LCJpYXQiOjE3ODIyOTYzNTcsImlzcyI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXBwLnBhc3Nwb3J0Lm9ubGluZS9vYXV0aCIsInNjb3BlIjoiZmVlZDpyZWFkIGFydGljbGU6cmVhZCBhc3NldDpyZWFkIGNhdGVnb3J5OnJlYWQgZW50aXRsZW1lbnRzIHBvZGNhc3QgcnNzIiwic3ViIjoiODU0YWRiMTctYzJiMS00NmQzLTg2YTEtYmNhMzYwMzJhMjMxIiwidXNlIjoiYWNjZXNzIn0.LzFI7SCfpozyEkzDCmh5S05M7yNJwIJgnvYgwPoQPtEc5ruI1kc5IS%5Fis--Zi4ZnXgluyTifEX6JG1ZD7p4npHj8rosg1UdfRu0UFTipja3UCwlcHWXMqg8HtgZDDPkz%5F-vSIsQQwwBr2scMwebe9fXNQabejObf8gto27TCAnFdjJnv8-jdzaMTHSAe2nte2moOAOIt5Db%5Fn2ZoETlL7V6QbTefst%5FaX73YpaXnsUeBP68a4IWn4SMtElrnxCt8ZSTrLXxCHWFyjpMtvJtZNTNv7SzY0jJIGhRdTyQfaEqs8b4dumG2cQ3HgFwTShHdoiz8c90FPFS6b8JkUkXEdA&ref=birchtree.me) > There are, to be clear, a ton of home inventory apps. A lot of them, however, are made for a single person or are way too complicated or don’t use obvious AI affordances; the new breed of AI-centric apps, meanwhile, trust AI too much, promising to identify objects from a picture of a room and getting half of them wrong (if lucky!). In truth, however, I didn’t really do a deep dive on what was out there: I knew that AI afforded the opportunity to build exactly what I wanted — and no more! This hits on a couple things I think are very relevant. First is the fundamental draw of developing your own software, which is to create exactly what you need and nothing more. Second, and related, is the fundamental fact that as software gets popular and more people want to use it, the more features it's going to accumulate. 1Password recently updated their pricing, and to justify the increase, they listed out all the things they've added recently that they think brings more value. A common retort to that announcement was that none of those features were used personally by a lot of individuals who got that email. Yes, it's great that they added functionality, but if the product was literally the same as what it was two years ago, a lot of people would be just as happy. Of course, 1Password didn't add these features for nothing. There were customers who wanted that, and even if they are an extreme minority, as you try to solve for everybody, you inevitably have feature bloat as you try to solve every use case. Take AI out of the picture entirely, and software development has always had the appeal of allowing people who are able to do it to create exactly the software that works for them. > I’m extremely excited about an entirely new avenue for hackers and makers. I remember being in high school and college and spinning quaint business plans about building websites for small businesses and whatnot; after all, I knew my way around GeoCities! I can imagine an entirely new generation of mini-entrepreneurs building little custom apps for friends and family, and that delights me. I also love the fact that owning your own hardware and controlling your own networking is clearly the best way to benefit from this stuff: so much tech stuff was becoming appliance-like that it felt like my generation was going to be the only one that actually understood how stuff worked; we’re back in a world where the greatest benefit will accrue to those who like to tinker. Maybe I'm being too Pollyanna-ish here, but this concept really resonates with me. I'm an elder millennial, which means I was introduced to the internet as a child, and I really got going on it when I was a young teenager. There was no App Store back then. There was no concept that there's an app for that. A lot of stuff you had to do on your own, and a lot of that early internet world was about customization and personalization. There were millions of people who would not at all call themselves developers or even nerds necessarily who learned HTML on websites such as GeoCities. They did it to create fan sites for whatever bands they liked or to customize their MySpace homepage. The App Store era has really pushed us into a world where learning these basic skills are not required. "There's an app for that." There's a centralized service that just does this for you and probably has a better user experience than what you could create yourself. Everything's closed source. Everything's configured how someone else wants it to be configured. However, AI coding agents have made it far easier for more people to start building, and it's creating very satisfying experiences for millions of people who had never done this before. Some will mock these new developers for not understanding authentication or security or data handling and all the many things that come along with developing software. But you know what? These people may not be experts yet, but they're learning things they literally never would have thought about otherwise. I think there's something to be said for the fact that a lot of amateurish and insecure software is being deployed today, and that's definitely a problem that needs to be mitigated. But I don't necessarily think it's just the way this technology has come up. We have an enormous number of new developers entering the space at the same time, and companies have made it trivially easy for these people to deploy code that is immediately available to the whole world. But that said, it's been heartening seeing people reverse engineer things and build weird little things that they never would have done before. I guess they'd be scrolling TikTok instead. ### Tangerine Neue for Mastodon URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/tangerine-neue-for-mastodon/ Last updated: 2026-06-24T13:44:00.000Z In 2023, Niléane created [Tangerine UI](https://github.com/nileane/TangerineUI-for-Mastodon?ref=birchtree.me), and it is 100% the best UI for Mastodon out there, and honestly, I think it should have been made the default theme by now. That's why I was sad to hear that she was [no longer maintaining the project](https://nileane.fr/@TangerineUI/116776620945959421?ref=birchtree.me) last week. It can be a lot of time and effort to maintain something like this, so I definitely appreciate the desire to remove the burden of maintaining it from her life. However, I still use Mastodon on the web, and I didn't want to have the theme start to break in new and interesting ways as new versions of Mastodon came out. I'm on mastodon.social, which is running Mastodon 4.6, which this theme does not support. While it mostly works fine, there are a few little bugs here and there. ## Tangerine Neue I have no idea how much I'm going to do here long term, but [Tangerine Neue](https://github.com/mattbirchler/Tangerine-Neue-for-Mastodon?ref=birchtree.me) is my fork of Tangerine UI. Here's what you need to know. Mastodon 4.6 is the minimum supported Mastodon version. If your instance has not updated to 4.6 yet, you shouldn't adopt this fork yet. Mastodon 4.7 is currently in alpha and everything works so far there as well, and I anticipated working whenever that officially releases. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/2026-06-24-000456.png) I've added a new granite theme on top of the four color themes that were there previously. I know this won't beat everyone's taste, but I think it's a slick new option. Tangerine UI already did a pretty good job with accessibility standards. However, I did make a couple of tweaks to make the default contrast a little stronger. There is also some custom styling for users who have high contrast mode enabled. These high contrast options engage whether you have high contrast set on your device settings or via Mastodon's account settings. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/2026-06-24-000458.png) Tangerine UI also did this cool thing where specific keywords in trending hashtags would get custom icons next to them (music note, film, Pride, etc), and I've added a few more keywords to the mix, which should let you see these custom icons a bit more often. On the development front, which is mostly interesting just to me, I made some changes to the build process in an attempt to reduce duplicated code and avoid any errors across the five different color themes. Instead of maintaining each theme individually, there's now a template file that I can edit and a build process that generates the five variants for each color scheme. The project itself has more code than before, but the code that I actually work on in the project has been reduced by about 80%. ## Future plans As I stated at the top of this blog post, and I try to make clear in the README on GitHub, this project is very modest in nature, and I don't necessarily anticipate being the torchbearer for Tangerine UI going forward. It's a very popular project, so I suspect others will have forks they share as well, and they may do a better job than I can long-term maintaining them. However, I was making this for myself and figured why not share it with everyone, and if people like it, wonderful! Again, shout out to Niléane for creating this amazing theme and maintaining it for three years. She's truly one of the GOATs of Mastodon. [Check out Tangerine Neue on GitHub today.](https://github.com/mattbirchler/Tangerine-Neue-for-Mastodon?ref=birchtree.me) ### Xbox will keep chopping off heads until morale improves URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/xbox-will-keep-chopping-off-heads-until-morale-improves/ Last updated: 2026-06-23T21:48:13.000Z Jason Schreier: [Studios in Microsoft’s Xbox Division Brace for Closures](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-15/studios-in-microsoft-s-xbox-division-brace-for-closures?ref=birchtree.me) > Several studios in Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox gaming division, including Montreal-based Compulsion Games and San Francisco-based Double Fine, are in active negotiations to spin off as they try to thwart closure, according to people familiar with the company’s plans. > > Cambridge, England-based Ninja Theory, the maker of Hellblade, is also in conversations with Xbox, as are several other studios across the portfolio that are at risk of being shuttered. 8 years ago, Microsoft [announced](https://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/microsoft-e3-2018-xbox-briefing/?ref=birchtree.me) their 5 new new Xbox Game Studios (Playground Games, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, Compulsion Games, The Initiative), and it was a big deal. It showed that the company was listening to its fans and was acquiring enormous amounts of talented game developers, which they promised to help flourish under their leadership. Some studios were meant to make huge blockbusters, while others were expected to make smaller games that would fill out the Game Pass library as well as bring them accolades. It's literally the movie studio model where some movies are meant to make a billion dollars, while others won't make a ton of money, but will help with their reputation. And if you have enough of those, they can make a lot of money together. Sadly, things have not gone great. I'll let the Xbox Game Studios Wikipedia page do most of the talking, but as of today, there are 14 active studios, 5 that have been sold off, and 17 of them have been closed or consolidated into other studios. And as Jason Schreier reports, at least 4 of those 14 active studios are currently figuring out if they're going to get sold or shut down entirely. And we haven't even gotten into the studios under Bethesda, such as Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, which had stories histories and recent successes, only to be shut down unceremoniously. I'm not saying we need to bar Microsoft from acquiring any more studios, but every time they announce they've acquired one, I get very nervous for them. ### MonoLisa, my favorite monospaced font ever, released v3 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/monolisa-my-favorite-monospaced-font-ever-released-v3/ Last updated: 2026-06-23T21:14:49.000Z From the MonoLisa blog: [MonoLisa - MonoLisa version 3 – now with MonoLisa Text family](https://www.monolisa.dev/posts/monolisa%5Fv3/?ref=birchtree.me) > Now with version 3, the family grows with a new member besides MonoLisa Code, the original typeface. The new font family called MonoLisa Text covers the other half of common usage where a monospaced typeface reaches its limits. In other words, MonoLisa Text is a proportional family designed for use cases where you might have regular text and therefore completes the family while working as a complementary pair to the original version. This makes it ideal for use cases such as prose, user interfaces, presentations and any sort of printed items like books, magazines and the like. According to my emails, I purchased [MonoLisa](https://www.monolisa.dev/?ref=birchtree.me) almost exactly five years ago today in 2021\. Since then, it's been my monospace font across every Mac I've owned, whether it be my text editors or my terminals. It's one of those things where I was trying out every monospaced font I could get my hands on, and once I got this, I stopped looking because it was exactly what I wanted. In 2023, they added a variable font version, which I immediately picked up. And honestly, I thought that would have been the end of updates. Fonts aren't exactly like regular software where you expect ongoing improvements. Frankly, this might be the only font I've ever kept up with updates at all over the years. Still, I wasn't expecting to have a version three come out, let alone have it include a text version. You can [try it out on their testing page](https://www.monolisa.dev/tester/text?ref=birchtree.me), but I think it looks really nice. I haven't made the jump yet, but I'm going to play around and see how this would look on Birchtree, but I suspect it's just a matter of time. Fair warning, this is a paid font, which I know is not the norm in 2026, especially for monospaced fonts. I know there are plenty of free options out there, but for me, this has been worth the money. Besides, if you've ever bought other fonts in the past, you know this is incredibly cheap compared to what a lot of premium fonts go for. **Update: it is done.** ### Advanced Dictation is off by default in iOS 27. Here's how to enable it URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/advanced-dictation-is-off-by-default-in-ios-27-heres-how-to-enable-it/ Last updated: 2026-06-22T22:58:15.000Z Hartley Charlton: [Advanced AI Dictation Not Enabled by Default in iOS 27 Beta](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/06/22/advanced-ai-dictation-not-enabled-by-default/?ref=birchtree.me) > Apple's next-generation AI dictation feature for the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air is not turned on by default in the first developer beta of iOS 27. I assumed this would have been on by default, so I was a little disappointed when dictation felt exactly the same two weeks ago when I installed the first iOS 27 beta. But enabling this does absolutely help. It's still not 100% perfect, and it's not as good as something like Aqua Voice or WhisperFlow on the Mac, but it's definitely an improvement and is something that I will use more often. Ironically, it kind of Sherlock's one of the use cases for Quick Notes, which exists in part because I hated iOS dictation so much. ## How to enable it 1. Go to the Settings app 2. Open "General" 3. Go into "Keyboard" 4. Scroll all the way down to "Advanced Dictation Preview" and enable it ### Steam Machine is the first $1,400+ console URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/steam-machine-is-the-first-1-400-console/ Last updated: 2026-06-22T22:52:40.000Z Valve: [Steam Machine launches today!](https://store.steampowered.com/news/group/45479024/view/685257114654870245?ref=birchtree.me) > Steam Machine 2TB + Steam Controller: $1,428 USD I'm quoting this part because this is the number that matters. There is also a 512GB model for $1,128, but 512GB is pretty paltry for a PC ([80% of Steam players have a PC with over 500GB](https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam?ref=birchtree.me)), especially for a $1,000+ device. And yes, you can save $79 by not getting a controller in the box, but this is a console…most people are gonna want a controller, even if the good news is most controllers you already own will work with this out of the box (it's a PC, after all). I don't think Valve has given an official statement, but the rumors seem to be that the expected price they were targeting was around $749 when they announced it last year. Obviously, at this point, we all know what's going on with component prices, and the Steam Machine is another victim. We'll see how it sells in the long run. I would expect it to sell out at launch because people really want this device and it looks pretty cool, but I do wonder how it's going to do long term. $1,049 for limited hard drive space and no controller is pretty rough and isn't exactly going to appeal that strongly to people who traditionally have purchased consoles. I'll leave the reviews to the many folks who put them out today, but it seems like performance-wise, it's a little shy of what a PS5 would deliver, but for nearly double the cost, which is a tough sell as well. ### "The lowest price in months" URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-lowest-price-in-months/ Last updated: 2026-06-22T12:31:19.000Z MacStories Deals posted [this](https://mastodon.social/@MacStoriesDeals@macstories.net/116754611277326389?ref=birchtree.me) last week (emphasis mine): > Samsung's 990 PRO SSD 2TB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen4 internal storage is the **cheapest it's been in months** on Amazon. Honestly, nothing represents the current times we're in right now better than this post, in my opinion. This is an SSD released in 2022 for about $290\. Within a year, the price had dropped to somewhere around $170, and it stayed there for several years. Then from late 2025, the price started going up and up and up, hitting a high in April of $639.99\. [Data via CamelCamelCamel.](https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B0BHJJ9Y77?ref=birchtree.me) Which brings us to last week, when the price dropped from that high down to $369.99, and it is indeed technically the lowest price in months, but it is still about double what you paid for this this time last year. The bad year of tech continues. ### + I've stopped using Things (I know!) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ive-stopped-using-things/ Last updated: 2026-06-18T23:15:12.000Z To be clear, I still love it! _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Tim Cook announces price increases coming soon(ish) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/tim-cook-announces-price-increases-coming-soon-ish/ Last updated: 2026-06-18T01:33:57.000Z Juli Clover: [Tim Cook Says Apple Price Increases Are 'Unavoidable' Due to Memory Costs](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/06/17/apple-increasing-prices/?ref=birchtree.me) > Apple is raising its prices to offset the high cost of memory and storage, CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal. Apple is no longer able to absorb the increased prices and will need to pass some of the cost on to consumers. > > "Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable," said Cook. "We're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable." There’s something a bit poetic about this. Maybe even a lesson to be learned. Tim Cook burned so much social capital by bending the knee to Trump constantly and loudly basically since the moment he won the 2024 election. The most generous interpretations of his actions were that he was doing what he needed to do to make sure that apples financial situation was not hurt by the administration. Yet here we are. 18 months later, and Tim Cook is voluntarily sharing in an interview that some combination of Apple products are going to see price increases due to the financial realities of 2026\. All that groveling, all the presentations of gifts to the king, and Apple is going to be increasing prices just like every other company that didn’t do those things. ### Keychron Thunderbolt 5 Dock: a good dock at a good price that is probably overkill for most people URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/keychron-thunderbolt-5-dock-a-good-dock-at-a-good-price-that-is-probably-overkill-for-most-people/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T18:21:31.000Z Today, famed keyboard maker Keychron has released their first Thunderbolt dock, the [Keychron Thunderbolt 5 Dock (14-in-1)](https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-thunderbolt-5-dock-14-in-1?ref=birchtree.me). ## Where I'm coming from I've been using a dock for my computer for about 5 years now, and it was the single best upgrade to my desk setup I've done in years. Plugging everything from my monitor to Ethernet to accessories to SD cards into a dock, and having a single cable that plugs into whatever computer I want is brilliant. I've got a personal Mac, a work Mac, and a gaming PC at my desk, and being able to switch a single cable from one to the other and have a seamless experience is awesome. Of course, my [5-year old OWC Thunderbolt dock](https://www.owc.com/solutions/thunderbolt-dock?ref=birchtree.me) uses Thunderbolt 4, which is great, but not state of the art anymore. Additionally, it's an 11-in-1 dock, of which I've used basically all it has to offer. As such, I wasn't on the verge of buying a new dock, but I was quietly curious. That's why I was excited when Keychron reached out for this review opportunity, and I said yes right away. **Review unit provided by Keychron. The product was delivered as a gift, which I could choose to review or not. Keychron neither asked for, nor was given any influence over this review.** ## Why Thunderbolt 5? First off, it must be said that Thunderbolt 5 is still quite niche, even in the Apple world. The following Apple silicon chips have Thunderbolt 5: - M4 Pro - M4 Max - M5 Pro - M5 Max - M3 Ultra I think it's important to mention this because you cannot just buy any brand new Mac today and get this functionality, you need to have a Pro chip or better from the past 2 years. Of note, you can use this dock with Thunderbolt 4 Macs, you just won't get the full speed benefits. I'm going to briefly list out the benefits of Thunderbolt 5 over Thunderbolt 4 below, but I do think it's worth saying that I don't think most people will even notice these things have changed. I would go out on a limb and say that most of us never even come close to saturating the Thunderbolt 4 bandwidth, so these gains are not going to be noticeable for a lot of us. But let's get into them. - 80 Gbps symmetric, up to 120 Gbps boosted one-way bandwidth (up from 40Gbps) - Dual 8K, 4K@240Hz, multi-monitor (up from dual 4K@120Hz or single 8K) - 64 Gbps PCIe bandwidth (up from 32 Gbps) - Up to 140W power delivery (up from 100W) So yeah, there are some real benefits, but they're not really things most of us will notice. My Samsung T7 SSD and SD cards are way slower than Thunderbolt 4 already, so data transfers aren't going to be any quicker, my internet connection is about 1% of the bandwidth of Thunderbolt 4, so now it's just 0.5% of of Thunderbolt 5, and my 14" MacBook Pro can only accept 100W of power delivery, so the jump to 140W doesn't help me either. Of note, Thunderbolt 5 supports up to 240W of power delivery, but Keychron's dock maxes out at 140W due to the included power adapter, which is 180W. However, the one thing that I get from this upgrade is to the improvement to display output. My 4K@240Hz monitor works great on my Windows computer connected via HDMI, but I've had to run it at 120Hz on my Mac because the dock didn't support the bandwidth for full 240Hz. ## Port selection While this is a 14-in-1 dock, you really do need to look at what ports have been chosen by the manufacturer to know if it's the right one for you. Different manufacturers make different choices here, so you want to make sure you're getting the most bang for your buck. In addition to the Thunderbolt 5 port you plug your computer into, Keychron's dock comes with: - 2 Thunderbolt 5 - 1 USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 - 4 USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 - 2 HDMI 2.1 - 1 2.5 Gbps Ethernet - 1 SD card slot - 1 TF card slot - 1 3.5mm headphone jack This is a fine set of inputs, but I must say that for my setup, this isn't really much of an upgrade from my old OWC dock. In fact, it's made me appreciate how perfectly aligned that OWC dock was with my needs, as even with fewer inputs, it's actually equally useful. Without listing every accessory I own, I'll just say that the headphone jack, TF slot, and both HDMI ports on the Keychron are useless to me, so this is really a 10-in-1 in terms of useful ports. When I compare the useful inputs on the OWC, I get…10-in-1 as well. Obviously, your use case might be different from mine, but I will admit that once I got everything hooked up to this dock and realized I was equally as out of room for expansion as I was previously, I did feel a little less excited about the upgrade. As I said earlier, I really wasn't saturating any of the performance limits of Thunderbolt 4 previously, so my day-to-day experience is exactly the same as before. But I do enjoy that I can run my monitor at its full refresh rate. ## A quick word on design A dock doesn't need to have much said about its design, after all many people will tuck it out of sight, but I do think this is a good looking dock. Its aluminum enclosure feels premium, and it just looks nice on the whole. Mine is Command Stripped to the leg of my desk, so I don't see it most of the time, but it is a nice thing to see when I go under there to plug in an SD card. One thing I do like about the port layout is that the port that goes out to your computer is on the back side with most of the other ports. One of my pet peeves of the OWC dock is that most of the ports were on the back, but the port you connected to your computer was on the front, which meant it was impossible to have all the cables coming out of one side. Of course, if you do use all the ports, then you're going to have them coming out both sides, but you at least have a fighting chance with this dock in a way I didn't with the OWC. ## Cost and recommendation Keychron is quite competitive with their pricing, as you might expect from them. It's $349, and includes a 1-meter Thunderbolt 5 cable in the box. This is $50 less than the [CalDigit TS5](https://us.caldigit.com/products/ts5?ref=birchtree.me), which I think of as the default high end Thunderbolt dock on the market, although the TS5 has a much different selection of ports, leaning heavily into more USB-C and Thunderbolt and lacking any HDMI. Meanwhile, OWC's current Thunderbolt 5 options come in at [$329](https://www.owc.com/solutions/thunderbolt-5-dock?ref=birchtree.me) and [$499](https://www.owc.com/solutions/thunderbolt-5-dual-10gbe-network-dock?ref=birchtree.me), but both lose out to the Keychron in terms of I/O. In fact, I think [CalDigit's $499 TS5 Plus](https://us.caldigit.com/products/ts5-plus?ref=birchtree.me) is the dock that would be the best for me, as it leans heavily into Thunderbolt and USB-C, with 7 total inputs compared to the Keychron's 3 inputs. Obviously I'd be paying much more for that additional I/O, though. I'm going to keep using the Keychron doc myself, but my actual advice to most people would be to not worry about Thunderbolt 5 at the moment and just find a good Thunderbolt 4 dock. I've mentioned that I've had [this OWC one](https://www.owc.com/solutions/thunderbolt-dock?ref=birchtree.me) for years and it works great. At $229, it's notably cheaper as well, and unless you are running a 240Hz 4K monitor like me, you probably won't ever hit the bandwidth caps of Thunderbolt 4 anyway. ### A hateful "gift to Americans" URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/a-hateful-gift-to-americans/ Last updated: 2026-06-15T11:32:49.000Z Last night had a UFC fight on the White House lawn, which is…a thing… "But Matt, why can't you liberals just enjoy this? Trump has said it's a "gift to Americans" to celebrate the nation's 250th birthday. Why can't you love America?" Well, let's just jump to the end of the fight and see [what sort of victory speech was given](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/ufc-fighter-josh-hokit-michelle-obama-man-white-house-1236621742/?ref=birchtree.me) in this nonpartisan event: > Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America? Ah yes, that welcoming, uniting message that will bring all of us together as a nation. "But Maaaaatt, this wasn't someone from the administration saying that, settle down." No, you wake up. The fact this cunt felt it was an appropriate time to say something like this (racist and sexist at the same time, what a combo!) is as clear an indication I can think of that the energy for this event was anything but a "gift to Americans," it was a party for conservatives who love this sort of thing. ### The MacBook Neo is a great second computer URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-macbook-neo-is-a-great-second-computer/ Last updated: 2026-06-14T00:14:59.000Z Before I go further let me just be clear. If the MacBook Neo is the Mac you can afford then it's a nice computer. You can build apps, edit video, and do effectively whatever you want on it. It's a Mac and that makes it immensely powerful no matter what processor is powering it. One of the things I've been grappling with since the launch of this product is that Mac users who can easily afford and already use much higher-powered Macs were seemingly drawn to this computer. Hell, I was too! And yet as I stated plainly in my review, this is a budget computer. It is slower in every single metric, even in everyday tasks, than what we've considered the baseline in the Apple Silicon era. And yet I'm writing this very post on it. One of the things iPad users have talked about for years now is the idea that the iPad makes them focus in a way the Mac doesn't. The limitations of the iPad are actually a good thing in that they make them slow down and focus on one thing at a time. Writers in particular really love using the iPad for this reason. In a weird way this is what I like about the MacBook Neo as well. Obviously it's a Mac that can multitask like crazy if I want it to but at the same time it's really not that fast and it gets overwhelmed if I try to do too much with it. As such it makes me slow down and focus on doing one or two things at a time. As a primary computer I don't particularly want this and I'm blessed to be able to afford a better computer (pun not intended) that doesn't make me do this, but as a secondary computer it is actually nice to have this sort of experience. I *can* do everything I want, but it's a pain once I get too much going, so it helps me focus on one thing at a time without feeling like I'm doing so because I *can't* do something. This is all, not to mention that because of some of my work being based on large language models that run in the cloud, some of my work is not impacted by the reduction in power. [It's gone now](https://birchtree.me/blog/us-government-forces-anthropic-to-kill-fable-and-mythos/), but I was running Clawed Fable 5 on this machine briefly and it was just as good as running it on my much more powerful MacBook Pro. ### Xbox embraces exclusives again (and why Nintendo may have played the long game brilliantly) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/xbox-embraces-exclusives-again-and-why-nintendo-may-have-played-the-long-game-brilliantly/ Last updated: 2026-06-13T14:00:00.000Z Joe Skrebels: [XBOX Games Showcase 2026 Recap: The Return of Exclusives, World Premieres, and Anniversary Hardware](https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/06/07/xbox-games-showcase-2026-recap-everything-announced/?ref=birchtree.me) > As part of our focus on the return of XBOX, we also announced that Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be XBOX console exclusives. These are not timed exclusives. Games already announced for multiplatform releases will stick to that plan – we’re committed to investing in and growing XBOX both on console and beyond. Combine this with the recent announcement from Sony that they will no longer be bringing their single-player games to PC, and as a consumer it does feel like we're exiting a golden era of gaming where we were able to play pretty much everything wherever we wanted. However, I do appreciate why this era had to end for these companies. ## Sony Sony’s drive to get their games on PC was an attempt to expand their player base. Way more people play games on PC than on the consoles, so getting their games in front of those gamers was a net win for them. There's of course some overlap, but a lot of PC gamers are never going to buy a console, so Sony probably thought they were simply expanding their customer base. However Sony never went fully in on treating PC the same as PlayStation. Their games, such as Death Stranding 2 and Spider-Man, all released first on PS5, with the PC version coming anywhere from six months to several years later. I would suspect this was in part to try and drive sales of PS5 consoles. Yes you can play Death Stranding 2 on PC but you're going to have to wait a while. Maybe you want to get a PS5 to play earlier. I don't think this strategy is fundamentally flawed but I do think it led to some of the sales disappointments that Sony started to see with their PC releases. The first few games they released on PC sold incredibly well. I would suspect largely because of the novelty and surprise of it. Sony had never done this before and getting their games on PC was really exciting. However once it became the norm, the novelty wore off, and now these were just year-plus old games coming to PC, which wasn't as exciting. Another wrinkle was the direction that Microsoft was going with its consoles. The ROG Xbox Ally X is already on the market and is an Xbox in name that can play games from any PC game store, which means it can play all the PlayStation Studio games as well. The rumors are strong that this is the direction Microsoft is going with their next home console as well. I'm sure Sony wasn't super thrilled about the idea of people being able to boot up PlayStation games on an Xbox. I'm an audience of one so take this as a data point only. As someone who has a PC and a PlayStation 5, this era has basically made it so I play my PlayStation 0% of the time because I can play everything on my PC. While it is annoying to wait for the PlayStation Studios games to come to PC, it's not the end of the world and I can usually wait. ## Microsoft From the start of this generation of consoles, Microsoft has been in a place where they treat every first-party game as an Xbox and PC release. I don't own an Xbox Series X but I can still play every single Microsoft Game Studio release the day it comes out on my PC, and I have been able to do that since 2020\. For me that's been great but it has also meant that I have precisely zero interest in even considering buying an Xbox console. Meanwhile Microsoft's recent move to multi-platform across all of their games, including their crown jewel, Halo, has meant that basically no one has any reason to buy an Xbox console. Seriously, why would you buy an Xbox today? - PC gets all the Microsoft games, almost all the Sony games, and all the PC games - PS5 gets all the Microsoft games and all the Sony games - Xbox gets all the Microsoft games, that's it If you want everything, a PC gets it all and if you want a console experience then the PS5 gets all the Microsoft games plus all the Sony exclusives as well. Why get an Xbox when it's the only one that doesn't get anything unique you can't get on the other ones? That can make sense if you're not really interested in owning a hardware platform and you just want to be a software publisher. Clearly Microsoft is reconsidering this position, though, as the lock down the hatches. ## Nintendo People like to say Nintendo is not competing with Sony and Microsoft. I agree they have a totally different strategy, but I still think they're in the mix. What's notable about Nintendo is that they've been remarkably consistent in their release strategy: Nintendo exclusives never, ever touch other platforms. Meanwhile 2017's Switch console was so remarkably successful that they've drawn tons of third parties back to the platform as well, so now you get all your Nintendo games on a Switch (or Switch 2), and basically every third party game that can fit on the portable console comes there as well. Yes, even Microsoft games, but not Sony ones. Funnily enough, as Sony and Microsoft have fought the spec wars (something Nintendo has not been fighting since 2006's Wii), they've put themselves in a position where their new consoles cost an absolute shit ton of money in today's environment, pushing them outside the window most people are willing to spend on a game console. Meanwhile Nintendo's Switch 2 is still pretty expensive and isn't as powerful, but its cost hasn't gotten to the levels of the other competitors. Today a Switch 2 gets you all of Nintendo's games, most third party games (including sports games which were absent for literal decades), Call of Duty, and even some PC games that don't come to the other consoles. It still doesn't get you everything, but it's a pretty compelling package at a price point that feels closer to what consoles are meant to cost. ### US government forces Anthropic to kill Fable and Mythos (for now) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/us-government-forces-anthropic-to-kill-fable-and-mythos/ Last updated: 2026-06-13T01:18:26.000Z Anthropic: [Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5](https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access?ref=birchtree.me) > The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance. Looking forward to the "don't let the government slow down innovation in AI" folks will say about this one. Probably nothing since their team is in charge. ### Google's new icons are good, actually URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/googles-new-icons-are-good-actually/ Last updated: 2026-06-12T21:00:00.000Z Devin Coldewey: [Google's new logos are bad](https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/06/googles-new-logos-are-bad/?ref=birchtree.me) > Google really whiffed with the new logos for its “reimagination” of G Suite as Google Workspace, replacing icons that are familiar, recognizable, and in Gmail’s case iconic if you will, with little rainbow blobs that everyone will now struggle to tell apart in their tabs. Companies always talk loud and long about their design language and choices, so as an antidote I thought I’d just explain why these new ones are bad and probably won’t last. This is an article from 2020 when Google last changed all of their icons, and this was the generally shared opinion. Basically, people didn't like them because they moved from distinct icons with their own brand colors and moved to this same 4-5 color scheme. At the time, I really thought it was disappointing, and I wasn't alone. My primary concern is what was referenced in this article, which is that by making all of your icons the same colors, it makes it hard to visually distinguish them at a glance. They went from a system where you could tell by the shape and color, and removed the color differentiator. Especially in the context of someone who works in Google Apps in a browser and relies on browser tab favicons to navigate. This was a huge annoyance and has been for years. However… One of the most clear facts about software design is that familiarity is the most powerful thing. Whether something is good or bad, if people are used to it, they will rebel when it's changed. Yes, even those things they don't like at first; they'll be back a few later defending them to the death. And that's where we find ourselves once again. Just six years later, Google has revamped the icons across most of their products, and they've gone back to distinct colors and shapes for each service they offer. Maybe you love them, maybe you hate them, but I think they are a huge step forward for usability. In my book, an icon has two jobs. The first is to be immediately identifiable, and the second is to be beautiful. I think that the previous set of icons failed in both regards. I think these new ones succeed in being distinct, and the second part is in the eye of the beholder. For me, I think they look pretty nice, but I can understand why someone else might not love them. Either way, because they're more distinct, I think they're a step forward and you won't hear me complain about them. ### + Underwater URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/underwater/ Last updated: 2026-06-13T22:25:16.000Z If I'm being honest, I have been completely underwater for the past few weeks. Work is always busy, but recently it has ramped up to an entirely new level. Without getting too into the details, the gist of it is that I have been working on a new project for the past few months. Our original plan was to start heads down work in July and deliver the whole product to customers by end of year. It was a logical, sensible plan: we would implement the simplest version of the product first to get it out the door, move on to the intermediate version, and then close things out with the most complex version. It was a solid plan, but then something happened… We learned that one of our biggest customers needed exactly the product we were building. Suddenly, the project that was supposed to start in July and wrap up by the end of the year suddenly became a project we had to start in May, with a partial delivery in mid June and final completion in July. To say the least, that is a massive shift in timeline. To make matters worse, because this customer has a big, complex business, they need the most complex features right away. Our clean plan of starting easy and building the harder features on top as we went, was out the window. Now, we are building the hardest part first. I have described this internally as trying to build the pyramids from the top down. I oversee about 12 products (13 now that this new one is active). Two of those products were already designated as our top company priorities for the fall, and now this project has jumped right up there alongside them. We are not a small company, so having three of these major priorities on my plate is either incredibly good or incredibly bad luck, depending on how you look at it ("the only thing worse than having everyone care about your work is no one caring about it"). The end result is that my workdays are jam packed with meetings to keep everyone aligned, and I'm left with scant, fleeting minutes here and there to do the actual work I need to do, like working on design and thinking through critical decisions. This schedule has made it incredibly difficult to keep up with anything outside of work. This happens to be the week of WWDC, which is usually one of my biggest writing weeks of the year for Birchtree, but my output has fallen off compared to previous years. I have managed to write a few things, but I have so many more ideas that I simply have not had the time to put to paper. Between Monday and Tuesday, I did manage to record an episode of my podcast, Vision Pros, and an episode of Comfort Zone, but today is Friday, our usual recording day for Comfort Zone, and I will not be on the episode. In a first for me, I am missing the recording not because I am traveling, but simply because I do not have the time. I know Chris and Niléane will do a great show without me, but I really wish I could be there. --- Last night, the universe decided to just start messing with me; some tornadoes blew through last night. Having lived in Illinois my entire life, I am used to this. We get half a dozen nights a year with a tornado watch, and a couple that turn into warnings (which means a tornado has been confirmed on the ground). Usually, these warnings last about 30 minutes, and the storm inevitably weakens or passes right around us. Last night started with a standard watch, and it looked like everything was tracking south of our area. Then, suddenly, every device in the house started blaring the emergency alert system. I opened Carrot Weather on my phone and saw a brand new storm cell had materialized right on top of us. I pulled up the local news to watch the weather report, and not only were we in the warning zone, but the meteorologists started to list street names where the cyclone was headed. They reported that the tornado was positioned between two specific streets, which happened to be the exact streets I live between. They are not far apart. Suddenly, my wife, our dog, and I were huddled in our bathroom, watching the news on our phone and listening intently to the outside world. We heard intense winds hit the house, and I genuinely worried that we were about to sustain real damage or worse, be put in actual physical danger. Thankfully, the roaring noise started to die down, and when I looked outside after it passed, there was no significant damage to our home. There are some incredibly large tree branches down in the neighborhood, but our house and our neighbors' houses are okay. It seems the tornado weakened just before it reached us and we ended up just getting significant winds and rain. Today looks like a beautiful summer day with no storms in the forecast, and it seems like we are going to have a really nice weekend. Yet, as I write this on Friday morning before work, my mind immediately shifts right back to my schedule. I opened my calendar this morning only to see 8 meetings scheduled for today. It is time to get back to it, but during at least one of those meetings, you can be sure I will be quietly checking to see when I can take a vacation in the very near future. ### OS 27's best small update URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/os-27s-best-small-update/ Last updated: 2026-06-12T14:31:08.000Z One of the big problems with the glass redesign in OS 26 was that it was really optimized to look good when specific content was underneath it. This famously resulted in illegible text in buttons when complex content was behind it, and social media is full of examples of that. But the quieter problem was when there was nothing under them, they looked kind of dead. On macOS especially, Apple made these buttons stand out a bit from the background by placing an enormous drop shadow behind them as well, which I thought looked absolutely garish. But the glass effect in OS 27 has a subtle change that I think goes a long way to making them feel better. At the top of this post, I have a comparison from my app, Yearly Run Goals, which has three buttons inside a single glass pill. In addition to getting a peek at some of the changes to SF symbols in the new update, you can also see that the glass element the buttons sit in has a subtly different look that I think looks really sharp. I don't know if it really comes across in a screenshot like this, but when you're using the device, I think glass buttons feel a lot better on everything from my iPhone to my iPad to my Mac. I mentioned the Mac specifically earlier, and let's take a look at Finder. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/26-finder.png) This is what the Finder toolbar looked like in OS 26, which is very low contrast and has again these garish background shadows that I think look really weird. Here's what the same thing looks like in OS 27. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/27-finder.png) It's still not the most contrasty thing you've ever seen, but Apple's made a couple of changes that I think help here. The enormous shadows are basically gone because the new button outline lets the buttons stand out a bit more from the background. Apple's also gone further by making the buttons use a solid black color rather than a gray, as they did in Tahoe. --- It's a slightly different thing, but a related change that I very much welcome is that toolbars get a background in OS 27\. Here's the mess you saw when scrolling in OS 26: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/2026-06-12-000350.png) And here's what it looks like in OS 27: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-06-12-at-09.27.13@2x.png) Ah, visual structure…what a concept! ### Apple's OS blender URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-os-blender/ Last updated: 2026-06-11T21:59:59.000Z As someone who has been covering this ecosystem for nearly twenty years, the biggest shift this year, and my single biggest takeaway from the keynote, was a fundamental change in how Apple presented their software updates. For many years, WWDC keynotes followed a highly predictable format. After a brief introduction, Apple would put up title slides for each operating system and cover the changes specific to that individual platform. In recent years, that structure has started to feel a bit awkward. More and more, every major feature seems to make its way to every platform. As I have written about previously regarding the Mac-ification of iPadOS, these features now look and work almost exactly the same way regardless of the device. While a new feature might be demoed during the iOS segment of a keynote, there is a very good chance that it exists and functions identically on iPads and Macs as well. This trend was ratcheted up a level last year when Apple introduced a major redesign that made every operating system look and feel virtually identical, tossing aside many of the visual elements that used to make them distinct. From that perspective, this year's move to simply talk about all software changes at once, while setting the expectation that they apply across all of their platforms, makes perfect sense. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/2026-06-11-000348.png) You can see this strategy reflected on Apple's website. While you can technically still filter the preview pages by operating system, the individual pages are nearly identical, and the main page ([apple.com/os](https://www.apple.com/os/?ref=birchtree.me) 👀) talk about the "OS Overview". And honestly, I don't blame them. Over the past year, I've reverted to just saying OS 26 when talking about Apple's platforms. ### appleOS? My podcast co-host, Christopher Lawley, has pushed the idea that Apple is moving toward something like appleOS, a unified operating system that runs across phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. I can already see some readers searching for the famous screenshot of Craig Federighi saying "no" to this concept ([saved you a search](https://www.macworld.com/article/3138859/iphone-neo-should-be-an-instant-no-from-apple.html?ref=birchtree.me)), but I think the idea is less crazy by the day. I'm still skeptical this will happen anytime soon, but I think it's plain to see for anyone paying attention recently that the unique aspects of each platform are being reduced as the company normalizes UI and interactions across everything that it can. I also can't not bring up the elephants about to enter the room this year, which are Macs that you can interact with like iPads and iPhones as big as iPads. This brings me back to my most controversial prediction of 2026 so far, where I argued that [the iPadOS name would eventually go away](https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-will-kill-ipados/) and both iPhones and iPads would simply run iOS. Of course, you can go to Apple's website today and see that iPadOS 27 is indeed a thing, so they are not killing the name this year. Still, I am not willing to admit defeat just yet. If we look back at Apple's history, the operating system that iPads run has changed names several times. The first instance was notably just a year into the product's life cycle, as the original iPad shipped running iPhone OS. It was not until the following year that they renamed the operating system to iOS, which better aligned with the idea of software running across multiple device types. If history repeats itself and they eventually make the move I expect, I think there is a chance that at next year's WWDC, Apple will announce this change and point to their updated hardware lineup, which again features iPhones as large as iPads and Macs that you can use with touch. We will have to see if this presentation format continues, but if they do make this name change next year, it is entirely possible they won't even mention it in the keynote. It might be something we only learn when we visit Apple's site afterward and notice the iPadOS section has quietly disappeared. There is definitely some smoke here, and while I am not entirely sure what it indicates, Apple is clearly de-emphasizing platform names and differences. ### A State of the Union for us nerds As one final note, I think the thing that made this WWDC feel a little flat for people like me is that the segment on software updates was incredibly short. Typically, we get an hour and a half of updates detailing all the usability improvements made to the platforms. This time, we got it all blended together in a single 11-minute segment. I don't think the blending itself is a problem, but it was so brief that I felt like I didn't come out of the keynote knowing how my phone or Mac would actually feel different in daily use. As is tradition, Apple posted their Developer State of the Union shortly after the keynote ended, which dove into a bunch of technical details for developers. It almost made me wish they would also host a "State of the Union for Nerds," where they would spend another hour diving into all the little details, tweaks, and quality-of-life changes they made to their platforms. We lost that detailed exploration in the main keynote this year, and it would have been a lot of fun to have a dedicated space for those smaller updates. ### Touch Macs are already here URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/touch-macs-are-already-here/ Last updated: 2026-06-09T17:15:01.000Z Apple's WWDC kicked off yesterday, and there is [one update in particular](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/06/09/macos-27-brings-direct-touch-control-to-sidecar/?ref=birchtree.me) that struck me, the Sidecar feature [now lets you directly manipulate macOS](https://x.com/BLCNYY/status/2064234331434852632?ref=birchtree.me) with your finger. As you can see from the video, it's literally macOS's standard UI that's completely usable with a finger. Scroll views that are complete with physics like you'd expect, menus are usable, and yes, you can move and close windows. [You can even pull to refresh views](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/06/09/macos-27-golden-gate-pull-to-refresh-support/?ref=birchtree.me)! No "touch mode". No toggle to iPadOS. No Apple Pencil-only restriction. No massively blown up UI. *It just works,* if you will. I feel like I've been writing variations on this for years at this point, but I genuinely think people have been overthinking how touch will work on Macs. I've been using macOS Golden Gate for a few hours, and if you didn't know it could be used with touch, you would never know that suddenly this UI supported touch. ### The first "Quick" app wasn't Quick Reviews URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-first-quick-app-wasnt-quick-reviews/ Last updated: 2026-06-08T12:00:03.000Z I'd actually forgotten about this, but the first thing I ever made that was in my "Quick" collection wasn't actually Quick Reviews, it was QuickPin! [As I wrote in 2016](https://birchtree.me/blog/quickpin-chrome/), QuickPin was a Chrome extension that let you save links to Pinboard with a single click. Honestly, I still think it's pretty good, and would use it today if I was using Pinboard. ### Gamers make me embarrassed to be a gamer URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/gamers-make-me-embarrassed-to-be-a-gamer/ Last updated: 2026-06-08T00:44:20.000Z ![](faf12b84129bcb6b3bf751cdf7ca9d44725d4d08.avif) A new God of War game was announced recently, God of War: Laufey, which doesn't star series lead Kratos, it stars his dead wife Laufey, who passed away right before the start of the 2018 game. Of course, none of that matters, and this new game has you playing as A LADY, so a certain group of people must get angry about it. A few things I'll hit on quickly: Laufey's looks (seriously) and the idea that "now all games have female protagonists". First off, gamers are losing their minds that Laufey has been "ugified" for the game. I don't know man, here's a side by side of the voice actress (Deborah Ann Woll) next to the character. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/laufey.jpg) Meanwhile, I'm not familiar with ENDYMIONtv, but he seems like a piece of work, but when you search for "God of War: Laufey" on YouTube, [this video](https://youtu.be/gLiaC466AtI?ref=birchtree.me) is the first result after the official trailer. In it, he raises something I see quite often among a certain class of insecure, weak men: > Unfortunately, the things people don't want to see more of, like female protagonists being pretty much everywhere, also runs a risk. What started off as a novel idea, it has now become annoying. To be clear, he's saying the idea of female protagonists in video games is a "nove idea", which…okay… But hey, let's look at the data! All these emotional children care about are "facts", right? Let's look at the data and see if female protagonists are "everywhere". ## Here's the data, sexists I used the [Video Game Sales Wiki](https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Video%5FGame%5FSales%5FWiki?ref=birchtree.me) to find the top selling video games from 2020 through 2025, and then found the top 10 selling games each year without counting primarily multiplayer and sports games to get single player games, which this douchebag (sorry, I should hold my name calling until I've proved he's a sexist douchebag) is focused on. In 2020, the top 10 single-played games were: - 6 male - 2 female - 2 choose your gender In 2021: - 3 male - 3 female - 3 choose - 1 both In 2022: - 2 male - 2 female - 4 choose - 1 both - 1 cat (Stray 🐈) In 2023: - 6 male - 0 female - 4 choose In 2024: - 5 male - 3 female - 2 choose In 2025: - 3 male - 3 female - 2 choose - 2 combo All in, this is the prevalence across the last 6 years: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/2026-06-07-000310.png) In short, if you were an insecure dork like this guy, 70% of the big games released can be played as a male character, and 22% of the time he's forced to play as a woman. There is a saying, "When someone is accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression," and i think it appeals to this sort of person as well. Before Laufey was announced, he was already "suffering" through 1/5 games featuring a female-only protagonist, and he took that as "female protagonists being pretty much everywhere". **Here's my actual take:** there are insecure, weak men out there who will find a reason to hate all women in leading roles. Maybe they don't look fuckable enough. Maybe they aren't the right race. Maybe there's something else they come up with, but there will always be something that offends them. ### Loupe URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/loupe/ Last updated: 2026-06-07T13:59:59.000Z [Loupe](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/loupe-what-apps-can-see/id6766152470?ref=birchtree.me) is a simple new app for iOS that shows how many things native apps can see about you and your device, lots of which is available without requesting elevated permissions. It's a fun app, but what I love about it is how it shows the range of things that native apps have access to that web apps don't. For what it's worth, the vast majority of apps could not care less about this data and don't use it (hey, that's me!), but there's this myth that Apple makes apps you install on your iPhone super private in a way the web isn't, but that's simply a gross oversimplification. There are different things that apps can see than websites, but it's still quite a bit of stuff. If you're curious to see what, install Loupe, and it will immediately tell you when you set up your phone, what apps you have installed, and even how many times you've used the clipboard…all before asking for a single permission. ### Best-o-Masto comes to the web URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/best-o-masto-comes-to-the-web/ Last updated: 2026-06-05T17:00:56.000Z I love Best-o-Masto, my iPhone app for browsing the most popular posts in your feed, but I'm not always on my phone. That's why today I'm happy to announce [Best-o-Masto is available on the web](https://bestomasto.com/?ref=birchtree.me) and you can use it from any device. This also makes it available to Android users, which the iOS app obviously wasn't. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/2026-06-05-000277.png) For those who don't know, the concept of Best-o-Masto is that Mastodon does not have any algorithmic feeds to surface the most notable posts in your timeline. That's fine and is likely one of the sources of the more calm vibe on the platform, but it also does mean that if you want to find all the notable posts when you sign on once or twice a day, you have potentially hundreds of posts to sift through and if you don't, you're liable to miss notable things that you would have wanted to see. Best-o-Masto is not an algorithm for your Mastodon feed, but it does do a very simple query of the last few hundred posts in your feed, source them by engagement, and just list them from 1 to 30\. You can like and boost posts directly from the interface, but I have not implemented any posting functionality. So if you want to reply, you can click the reply button to open the post in your instance in a new tab. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/2026-06-05-000278.png) Another thing of note is just like the mobile app, the service will only update once every hour. This is not meant to be a place where you watch new posts coming in or that you can obsessively refresh to see new stuff. It actively does not want you to spend all day on it; the whole point is to get you in and out quickly. [Best-o-Masto](https://bestomasto.com/?ref=birchtree.me) is 100% free, both in terms of ads and cost. I hope you enjoy it. ### Welcome to the new Quick Tier List! URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/welcome-to-the-new-quick-tier-list/ Last updated: 2026-06-04T16:44:08.000Z For the last few months, I've been running [Quick Tier List](https://quicktierlist.com/?ref=birchtree.me), which is a very simple but I thought nice to use tier list website. We've used it quite a few times on Cozy Zone, and I've made some improvements to it that make it easily the go-to choice for us. And based on my analytics, a decent number of other people are using it as well. One of the limits of the site was that everything was stored locally, though. There was zero cloud component at all, and the website was effectively just a static HTML file. This was great for me because it was simple and required zero cloud infrastructure or costs beyond serving up a bunch of CSS and HTML. All the images were stored on your local device. Simple. However, the stud did come with downsides. For example, your lists would not sync across browsers or devices. Also, you were only able to work on one tier list at a time. There was no way to save them for later or work on several that you might be planning to do in the future. You just had the one. ## The new Quick Tier List ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/2026-06-04-000244.png) I was really happy with the experience I was able to build on the old site, so that is effectively unchanged in this new version. As you can see from the above screenshot, the experience looks basically the same. Avid users of the current app will notice a few changes near the top though. The list has a name, and there are two navigation buttons at the top left that indicate the existence of a list of tier lists as well as the ability to create a new one. Let's click to see my lists. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/2026-06-04-000245.png) As you can see, I'm signed into the site and I have two tier lists saved that I can go back to whenever I want. I can create new lists, and in the current rollout, every user is allowed to create up to 20 lists and use up to 50 megabytes of images stored to the cloud. You'll also notice the beta tag, which I'm labeling this as right now because I'm working out kinks. I would also like to implement a paid model that allows for expanded use for those who need it. For the time being, I've tried to set free limits that are within reason but are unlikely to be hit by most people. ## No account necessary I should also state clearly that you do not require an account to use the website. If you liked the old model and wanted to do everything locally in the browser without any sync or giving me any information, go for it. This is what you'll see if you just don't log in. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/2026-06-04-000246.png) Yep, basically exactly what the old site was. The only difference of note is up at the top right. Once you start adding images, you can save that tier list, and that will of course require you to create an account and sign in. Oh, and if you were in the middle of a tier list on the old site, I tried to make it so that all that info will carry over to this new version. Just click "start ranking" on the home page and you should be taken to right where you left off. ## Auth ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/2026-06-04-000247.png) I still don't want to store any passwords, so this service uses a MagicLink system to sign you in. Don't worry, you should stay logged in for a very long time, so don't worry about getting these emails too often. And because I think welcome emails should reflect the tone of the service, therefore, I've made a fun little email template as well. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/06/2026-06-04-000241-1.png) ## Enjoy! I hope you enjoy the new version of the app! If you're someone who liked the app, but has always wanted to work on more than one list at a time, today is the day you've been waiting for. One more thing, the old version of the site was open source, and [it remains so](https://github.com/mattbirchler/quick-tier-list-web/?ref=birchtree.me), it just won't be getting any updates from me going forward. ### The best CleanShot keyboard shortcuts that will change your life or whatever URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-best-cleanshot-keyboard-shortcuts-that-will-change-your-life-or-whatever/ Last updated: 2026-06-03T22:18:55.000Z I wish there was a counter running that told me how many screenshots and screen recordings I've taken over the years, but I'm into the tens of thousands easily. As a passionate Mac screenshotter, here are my keyboard shortcuts for the Mac that I think you should copy to have a 10x better computing life (not guaranteed). - `CMD + Shift + 3` Capture the whole screen - `CMD + Shift + 4` Capture an area - `CMD + Shift + 1` Capture the last screenshot area again - `CMD + Shift + 2` OCR text - `CMD + Shift + 6` Start a screen recording - `CMD + Shift + 5` Bring up CleanShot's all-in-one capture UI And that's it, your life is now 40% better and you're 10x more productive. You're welcomeeeeee. *Seriously though, these are good shortcuts and I love them.* ### The tech behind NBA broadcasts URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-tech-behind-nba-broadcasts/ Last updated: 2026-06-02T11:30:46.000Z As someone who did most of the jobs Marques talked about here for college basketball (and football and vollyball) years ago, this video really resonated with me. I've been out of the game for about 12 years at this point, but in a way it's heartening to see that a lot of this looks pretty similar to how it worked when I was doing it. You know, just higher resolution and more of everything. Also, I think we all generally understand that the players on the court are the best of the best, but also everyone making that television production happen are also the best in their fields as well. ### + My religious Belle & Sebastian experience URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-religious-belle-sebastian-experience/ Last updated: 2026-06-01T23:00:17.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Some Quick Reads text-to-speech updates URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/some-quick-reads-text-to-speech-updates/ Last updated: 2026-05-30T13:01:35.000Z One of the key features for a read later service in my mind is a text-to-speech feature, and while that was by far the most difficult thing to implement in Quick Reads, I'm really glad it's there and I use it every day. However, I did want to give it some love and improve the experience to really be top class. Here's what's been updated recently. ## Different voice for blockquotes 0:00 /0:30 1× I don't know who did it first, but a few services do this thing where they will have a different voice read out block quotes for you. So that while you're listening and not looking at the screen, you can easily tell that it is not the author you're listening to saying this. It is something they are quoting. I follow a lot of blogs that do links like this, and this is really helpful. This feature just rolled out today. ## Improved latency One of the challenges with doing text-to-speech is latency. If you pass in a full article to a text-to-speech engine, it can take several minutes in some cases for the full article to be processed and returned to me via an API request. Obviously, I don't want to make users tap listen and then wait five minutes to actually hear it, so Quick Reads has some logic implemented that breaks articles up into much smaller chunks and makes sequential requests to get those chunks of the article back. You can actually see this in the user interface on the web as you'll see how many chunks the article was turned into and which one it's currently loading from the text-to-speech service (Async). If you'll allow me to get into the weeds a bit here, text-to-speech is more natural the more context you can give it for each word that's being said. So you don't want to break it into a chunk for every single word, for example. So you need to find a happy medium where you can get the latency to a good place, but you're also giving each chunk of text enough context for the engine to know how to enunciate through everything. I won't bore you with exactly what logic I'm using, but effectively what I've done in the last couple of days is reduce the size of the chunks early in articles so that you start the audio playing back quicker. Which, in most scenarios on most network connections, should lead to a smooth experience. Kind of like how Netflix sometimes starts streaming at a slightly lower resolution until it can buffer higher resolution video a few seconds later. ## A new voice Amara is a new voice available in the service, and I think it sounds really nice. ## Vocal character I've added a masculine or feminine label to each voice to give users an idea of what they're going to get before they click the preview. There's only six voices now, but I suspect this number will continue to creep up, and letting users filter by whatever vocal character they prefer will be more and more helpful in time. ## Now playing UI update ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/2026-05-30-000179.png) This week I made some updates to the general UI of the web app, and those weren't reflected in the now playing modal. So I've implemented some changes there to make the buttons use the same format that we have elsewhere. I hope you all enjoy this update because I really enjoy how tactile the interface feels now, and I've normalized how buttons work across most parts of the UI. ## New voice previews This one doesn't really matter, but I updated the vocal previews that play in the settings page when you're getting an idea for what each voice sounds like. There was nothing wrong with the preview that they had previously, but I wanted to make sure it was clear that these were specifically for Quick Reads, so I gave the service a call out in the sample. ### Metal Gear Solid 2’s source code leaked URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/metal-gear-solid-2s-source-code-leaked/ Last updated: 2026-05-29T00:00:00.000Z Daryl Baxter: [Metal Gear Solid 2 source code leak: every surprise so far](https://darylbaxter.com/posts/quicktake-metal-gear-solid-2s-source-code-leaked-and-the-surprises-keep-coming/?ref=birchtree.me) > At first, I thought nothing of it - I figured owner Konami would shut down links to it, and that'd be it. But in the weeks since, we've seen surprises like the flood animation, which only appeared in an E3 2001 trailer, being uncovered, restoring the U.S. flag at the end, as well as early ideas for the third-person camera that would appear in both Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. There’s some really cool stuff in here, and it’s great to see the PC community already modding things back into the game from this. Oh, and: > *Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty* is one of the best games of all time Hell yeah it is. ### The 4 day work week dream URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-4-day-work-week-dream/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T23:41:05.000Z Mike (just Mike): [Can we have the day off?](https://mlsu.io/posts/day-off/?ref=birchtree.me) > If AI is going to 10x our productivity across the board, that means that I should be able to produce the same amount of output by midday on Monday that, in the before times, would have taken all week. > > So can I just take Friday off? If only. ### Who's getting wealthier in America? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/whos-getting-wealthier-in-america/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T22:51:09.000Z One concept I'm obsessed with is the general idea of whether things (art, money, anything) are getting worse, or if we're just nostalgic for when we were younger and simply didn't know as much as we do today. I also like throwing data at my opinions about the world and seeing if they hold up. Today, let's take a look at [the Federal Reserve's data from 1989 through 2025](https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:2009.1,2024.1;quarter:143;series:Net%20worth;demographic:age;population:1,3,5,7;units:levels) (which happens to be almost my entire lifetime) on wealth distribution in the US and see how my understanding of income inequality maps to some raw data. Their website has some good visualizations, but I downloaded a bunch of it as well and made my own charts to focus in on specific questions I had. ## What age group has all the money? Obviously, older people have more wealth than younger people, largely because they have had more time to grow in their career and to acquire assets like homes. But how have each age group done over my lifetime? Below is a chart showing the inflation-adjusted wealth of each age group each year, and while every age group has gone up, there are some clear outliers. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-28-at-06.14.35@2x.png) The under 40 segment have seen an 80% rise in wealth, while 40-54 year olds have seen a 120% rise. On its face, that seems okay, but the oldest Americans make those numbers look like nothing. I want to especially point out the 70+ age group, which has seen a 450% increase in wealth (again, inflation-adjusted). In terms of broad trends, it's interesting that the 40-54 and 55-69 groups were pretty well in lock step through the 90s, and then in 2002 they diverged, with the older group taking off and the younger group basically holding steady for the next 20 years. Also, the growth of wealth in the retirement class is genuinely shocking, a trajectory shift that started in 2008 and has continued through today. Visualizing these changes as a percentage of overall wealth helps illustrate this as well. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-28-at-06.21.43@2x.png) Those under 40 have seen their share of wealth in the US drop by half compared to other age groups. The story is about as bleak for the 40-54 age group as well. Meanwhile, the 70+ year olds are thriving, and the 55 and older age bracket controls 74% of all wealth today, compared to 56% of it in 1989. My takeaway: wealth is centralizing in older Americans, while 54 and younger Americans have seen their part of the pie shrink considerably. You can't take it with you, but apparently old people are clinging to it as long as they can while they're here. ## Is wealth centralizing at the top? Are the rich getting richer? Income and wealth inequality is core to how I think about my economic policy positions, so it's probably a good idea to check in on whether the income distribution has moved towards the rich or if it's been more steady. Basically, I want to know when statements are made about the US economy growing, does that mean all of us are going up together, or are these gains being realized by one cohort more than another? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-28-at-06.43.57@2x.png) This chart is less dramatic than the age one, but I think there are some notable things here. First off, look at the share from the bottom 50% of Americans, which I think shows some serious pain. They made up 3.5% of the wealth in 1989, and it's dropped to 2.5% today. but also look at how the 2008 financial crisis hurt each group — it's a blip for everyone else, but it was a massive hit to the bottom half of Americans. From 2006 to 2010, they lost 80% of their share of wealth. The good news, I guess, is that this group has recovered, although that recovery seems to have stalled once the pandemic hit. Maybe most concerning here is the drop in the 50th-90th percentile, which has dropped quite a bit in their share of wealth pretty consistently through the 21st century. These are the people in the middle and upper middle class, and they've seen their power in the market drop consistently. This is supposed to be the "you made it!" group, but even this group is getting squeezed a bit. In fact, there are only two cohorts that have seen their share of wealth in the US increase since 1989, and Bernie Sanders would be proud, it's the top 1% and the top 0.1%. There are a few more interesting ways to process this data. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-28-at-06.53.18@2x.png) In terms of raw, inflation-adjusted wealth, you can see the higher wealth groups 3-5x their net worth, while the bottom 50% languish far below. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-28-at-06.56.44@2x.png) I think this is a good illustration of how wealth changes as you get richer. In the bottom 50% most of your net worth is a combination of your home, your car, and the consumer goods in your house. Meanwhile, the richer you get, the more your wealth is centralized in investments and businesses. I would just note that this is a good illustration of how not all wealth is equal. About 2/3 of the bottom 50%'s wealth comes from their home, cars, and physical goods, which may be "wealth" in economic terms, but it's not exactly liquid in a way that makes you feel wealthy day to day. I guess my car and my PS5 are "assets", but they don't help me pay the bills, and most of them depreciate in value over time. With that in mind, let's take a look at income distribution. ## Whose paychecks are going up? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-28-at-07.10.32@2x.png) We get a bit of a different mix here than the wealth charts because income is different than wealth. The 70+ age group may have enormous wealth right now, but they're not taking home much of a paycheck these days. Likewise, for many reasons, income isn't something the super wealthy want to prioritize since they're not living paycheck to paycheck, and there are much more tax-friendly way to increase their financial situation. Anyway, looking at these inflation-adjusted numbers, we certainly see a trend of the top 20% of earners breaking off from everyone else, once again since the turn of the century. The inflation-adjusted income of the bottom 60% of Americans has gone up 110% since 1989, which is good to see, but the top 40% have seen a 261% increase over that same period. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-28-at-07.18.58@2x.png) This is reflected in the income share, which shows the 80-99 percentile holding pretty steady over the decades, but every other income group has seen a drop in share while the top 1% increased their share of the pie. ## Is education worth it? Let's bring it home by talking about wealth by education level. Once again, here is the inflation-adjusted wealth since 1989 broken down by education level. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-28-at-07.24.33@2x.png) I'm omitting the college line for now, so this is how non-college graduate people are doing. Those who don't graduate high school are consistently dropping, which also aligns with the fact fewer people are dropping out of high school than ever as well. Now let's add in the college graduate group. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-28-at-07.23.15@2x.png) There you go, the vast majority of the wealth is going to people who graduate college. I hid the college line at first because it is so far above the other lines, it made them look flat. As of 2022, [48% of Americans over the age of 25 had a college degree](https://www.equityinhighered.org/indicators/u-s-population-trends-and-educational-attainment/educational-attainment-by-race-and-ethnicity/?ref=birchtree.me), which means you know we need to look at the share of wealth held by that 48%. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-28-at-07.34.18@2x.png) College graduates have 75% of the wealth, up from 50% in 1989\. Interestingly, [census data from 1989](https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/1991/demo/p20-451.pdf?ref=birchtree.me) shows 21% of American adults had a college degree back then, which tells me that while there certainly is a correlation between wealth and education level, it seems this shift in wealth share maps pretty linearly to the number of people getting degrees. ## My takeaways I tried my best to present this data as fairly as possible, and again, [anyone can pull this data and do what they want with it](https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:2009.1,2024.1;quarter:143;series:Net%20worth;demographic:age;population:1,3,5,7;units:levels). The data points that stood out the most to me were the age, income numbers, and where people's wealth is held. We really are seeing wealth stagnate with the oldest among us in a way that is genuinely different from what was like four decades ago. It was also really shocking to see how the 2008 financial crisis impacted the wealth of different groups. It was an annoyance for everyone but it wiped out 80% of the bottom 50%'s share of the wealth in a couple years, which is kind of shocking. On the income front I thought it was very notable to see how income for the top 20% of people has risen at a far greater rate than everyone below. Basically if you can get a really good job, then you're thriving but if you can't get to the top tier of incomes, then your share of the pie is shrinking every year. And finally I think it is very notable the difference in where wealth is held in different tiers. I think there's a fundamental difference in what your net worth means when you are worth millions or billions versus when you're worth thousands. For most people your financial comfort is far more determined by the $1,000 in your checking account than whatever theoretical net worth you might have because of the car in the driveway or the gadgets in your house. ### Overworld is your landing page for video game news URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/overworld-is-your-landing-page-for-video-game-news/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T14:32:57.000Z [Overworld](https://www.overworld.vg/?ref=birchtree.me) is a new website by [Brendon Bigley](https://wavelengths.online/about?ref=birchtree.me) and [Pablo Marti Cordero](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pablo-marti-cordero-a8b85411a/?ref=birchtree.me) that's designed to be a single page to go and see what's going on in the world of video games. As someone who [recently dabbled](https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-17-the-cooldown/) with making something like this for tech new in general, this really appeals to me and I've been checking it over the last few days. ### The Steam Deck starting price is 2x what it was a year ago URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-steam-deck-starting-price-is-2x-what-it-was-a-year-ago/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T02:59:59.000Z The original Steam Deck [launched four years ago to massive praise](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/t1a5ra/02252022%5Fsteam%5Fdeck%5Freview%5Fand%5Flaunch%5Fmegathread/?ref=birchtree.me), and I was one of those people who absolutely loved it. It released with a very reasonable entry price of $399, making handheld PC gaming accessible to a massive audience. In 2023, Valve followed up on that success by putting out two new editions of the product featuring OLED screens and a couple of minor hardware tweaks to make the experience a bit nicer. Those models went for $549 and $649. For a while, this lineup was in a really great place. For a modest amount of money, you could buy the entry-level model, which played games beautifully and just lacked the premium screen, and if you could put up a little extra cash, you could get a better screen and those extra little refinements. This balanced pricing structure held steady for a couple of years, but as we entered 2026, things started to get a bit…rough. First, [Valve announced that the $399 base Steam Deck was no longer being produced](https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/handheld-gaming/valve-discontinues-the-most-affordable-steam-deck-usd399-lcd-version-on-the-way-out-as-new-starting-point-is-usd549?ref=birchtree.me). Once the company sold out of its remaining inventory, that budget-friendly model was gone for good. That single move pushed the starting price of the Steam Deck lineup from $399 to $549, which is a pretty significant jump for anyone looking to get into the ecosystem. Then came the challenges facing the current tech supply chain. A few months ago, [both of the OLED Steam Decks went completely out of stock](https://birchtree.me/blog/2026-is-going-to-be-a-very-painful-year-in-tech/) with no word on when they would be available again. Today, they finally came back in stock, [but they arrived with a massive catch](https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steam%5Fhardware/announcements/detail/672869045073085539?ref=birchtree.me). > Steam Deck itself hasn't changed; these new prices reflect the current state of component costs and other global logistical challenges across the industry as a whole. We’ll keep you updated if anything changes. While the hardware is exactly the same as what Valve released in 2023, the pricing has been adjusted. By adjusted, of course, I do not mean the price went down, as console and PC prices historically have done over time. Instead, they were adjusted up by a pretty staggering amount. The two OLED Steam Decks received $240 and $300 price increases, bringing them up to $789 and an eye-watering $949\. That's an increase of around 45% for each, which is blistering. And let's not even talk about how close we are to a $1,000 Steam Deck that's mostly full of 2022 tech. As Valve mentioned in their post about the update, this isn't a case of them simply raising prices to screw over their customers. The reality is that their component costs to build these devices have gone up significantly. We are currently living through a perfect storm of AI companies gobbling up every hardware resource they can find, combined with heavy tariffs across a wide variety of computer hardware, and the result is that we are paying significantly more for tech than we did just a couple of years ago. It is incredibly frustrating to look at the landscape today. A year ago, the entry price for a Steam Deck was $399\. Today, the entry price is double that. That just means fewer people can even consider jumping in. This looms large over Valve's upcoming hardware, specifically the [Steam Machine](https://store.steampowered.com/hardware/steammachine?ref=birchtree.me) and the [Steam Frame](https://store.steampowered.com/hardware/steamframe?ref=birchtree.me), both of which were supposed to launch this spring, but they were delayed due to these same supply chain struggles. Given what we are seeing with the Steam Deck pricing, I can only suspect these new devices are going to be far more expensive than even our worst predictions. I genuinely worry that the manufacturing costs might be high enough that Valve potentially decides not to release them at all. That would be a real shame, because the Steam Machine in particular looked like a product where Valve had totally nailed it. The hardware looked great, and SteamOS has evolved into a fantastic experience…it's a console-like ecosystem that I think could have won over a lot of console gamers who are curious about PC gaming. We will have to wait and see what happens next, but for now, this reality absolutely sucks. ### 9 years since the last Dragon Quest game…they just started over URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/9-years-since-the-last-dragon-quest-game-they-just-started-over/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T02:03:26.000Z Verity Townsend writing for IGN: [about how Dragon Quest 12 has been completely restarted](https://www.ign.com/articles/dragon-quest-12-beyond-dreams-update?ref=birchtree.me) > In a special video to mark Dragon Quest’s 40th anniversary on May 27, Dragon Quest 12 executive producer Yosuke Saito and game designer Yuji Horii shed light on the upcoming game’s current state. Add Dragon Quest to the list of video game franchises that used to release mainline games every year or two, and now the gaps are enormous. The last game came out 9 years ago, and today they just told us that they have restarted work on the next one. What are we thinking, it'll come out in another 3…4…5 years? More??? Here's another way to look at it: in 2016, the company celebrated their 30th anniversary and there were 10 games in the series. In 2026, they're celebrating their 40th anniversary and there are 11 games in the franchise. Compare that to 6(!) games in their first decade, 2 in the second, and 2 in the third. [I don't like this trend.](https://birchtree.me/blog/5-gta-games-in-12-years-then-13-years-to-wait-for-the-next-one/) ### Micro app 17: Next Up URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-17-next-up/ Last updated: 2026-05-26T15:15:21.000Z This micro app is properly micro. It's literally just a Mac app that runs in the background that waits for you to hit a keyboard shortcut (`Command + Option + Control + N`) to see what my next meeting is. This app solves a problem that basically every other calendar app tries to do in some way as well. The typical way I've seen is to display a countdown and a meeting title in the menu bar, which is okay when you want it, but I find it clutters the experience and can potentially be a distraction as you see the numbers count down through the day. Next Up aims to be a quick way to get what I want to know when I wonder, "wait, what was my next meeting?" and then get out of my way once I know what it is. This one was a bit of a fun experiment, but it's way too much hassle to finish building this out in any meaningful way. And honestly, it really is a feature that a calendar app should implement, not something I necessarily want to have a dedicated app to do. Fun experiment either way, though. ### + Three things watching The Crow made me think about art and artists URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/three-things-watching-the-crow-made-me-think-about-art-and-artists/ Last updated: 2026-05-24T15:00:45.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Google suspended Railway's account, taking down their entire platform for hours URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/google-suspended-railways-account-taking-down-their-entire-platform-for-hours/ Last updated: 2026-05-20T12:14:29.000Z From the Railway blog: [Incident Report: May 19, 2026 - GCP Account Suspension](https://blog.railway.com/p/incident-report-may-19-2026-gcp-account-outage?ref=birchtree.me) > At 22:20 UTC on May 19, Google Cloud placed Railway’s production account into a suspended status incorrectly, as part of an automated action. This action extended to many accounts within Google Cloud. As this was a platform-wide action, there was no proactive outreach to individual customers prior to the restriction. Quick Reads experienced its first downtime due to this outage, which sucks. I will be very curious to hear what caused the automated suspension. Railway remains the best solution for me, and this post lays out plans for how they will remove GCP as a blocker as it was in this case to avoid something like this in the future, so here's hoping they nail it. ### Quinn Nelson on the MacBook Neo URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quinn-nelson-on-the-macbook-neo/ Last updated: 2026-05-20T12:10:38.000Z Here's a quote from Quinn Nelson's latest video about the MacBook Neo: > The Neo is dominating in its segment because of price, and surrendering that advantage to protect margin would forfeit this entire strategy. Cracking the low end of the market is just the cost of doing business. If they want this beachhead, and I wager that they do, they're willing to pay for it. > > Which also means that the recommendation I give is a little bit different than what I had planned. Past Quinn would have said, "Well, just hold off on the Neo because a refreshed 12GB model is right around the corner, probably before a year's end. It's all but inevitable." > > Well, but now I don't think that's happening, and the gap in between an 8GB and a 12GB machine that you intend to keep for many years is significant. Now that that bets off the table, it seems that the Neo that you can buy today is the Neo that you'll be able to buy the foreseeable future. So either pull the trigger and suck it up, **or, as my recommendation has always gone, find a used MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with more memory, a better chip, faster disk, and frankly, longer-term support for similar amounts of money**. > > Having said all that, this is a very important computer, and people who buy one will like it. This can't help but remind me of one of [my most controversial reviews](https://birchtree.me/blog/macbook-neo-review-i-wish-this-had-an-m1-inside/) I've written in years: > Do I recommend people buy this computer? Sure, it's a capable machine that feels outstanding in the hand, but I’d encourage anyone considering it to also look at the refurbished market. If performance and overall features matter more to you than having the newest thing from Apple, you might find something that better fits your needs for a similar, if not better price. I still think we're both right here. If your requirement for a new Mac is that you can buy it from an Apple Store, then this is a good Mac you'll enjoy, but if your requirement is more that you want to spend around $600-700 on a Mac, look around at the few year old models you can get. Seriously, just search "MacBook" on Amazon and you might be surprised what other Macs you can get for that money. ### I said I'd destroy humanity and take their jobs, and I wonder why they don't like me URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-said-id-destroy-humanity-and-take-their-jobs-and-i-wonder-why-they-dont-like-me/ Last updated: 2026-05-19T22:48:37.000Z Ben Thompson: [Data Center Discontent, Understanding the Opposition, Fixing the Problem](https://stratechery.com/2026/data-center-discontent-understanding-the-opposition-fixing-the-problem/?ref=birchtree.me) > The point of starting with the misinformation point, however, is not to legislate it: there are plenty of folks doing just that, on both sides. Rather, it’s to note that (1) misinformation takes root in the minds of people who are receptive to it and seeking confirmation for what they already want to believe, and therefore (2) trying to solve the misinformation problem through education — or simply calling people stupid — is likely not going to work. > > This leads to the second issue: there really wasn’t widespread opposition to data centers when they were being built for the Internet generally; indeed, local governments would compete for them, eager for the economic benefits that came during their construction and the long-term tax benefits once they were operational. Ben Thompson makes a bunch of points in this piece I thought were worth reiterating here. First, and this one is close to my heart, I'm constantly amazed how many people think, "you're a fucking idiot" is a compelling argument to change someone else's mind. "Oh man, you weren't able to change their mind? What did you say?" "Well, you know, I called them a fucking idiot and they didn't change their mind, they actually seemed to dig in even harder. I don't know why." Second, as I wrote in my recent members' post, people don't view tech companies with as much optimism as they did 10+ years ago. It used to be when a big tech company wanted to build a new data center, communities would rally to get them to build it in their town. The economics and environmental impacts haven't changed that much, but the vibe has shifted quite a bit. Tech companies need to learn this. Third, and related, AI CEOs need to learn how to talk to humans. They'll go, "worst case we're about to destroy the human race, best case we're going to take away all your jobs," and then wonder why people aren't excited. For what it's worth, I don't think they're doing either, but they're in such a bubble that they think this shit lands with people. It lands with their VC friends, after all! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/fewfew.jpg) Fourth, it's worth grappling with the fact that while most people say they don't want data centers in their back yards, they are still using these AI tools…a lot. As of today, the top 3 apps on the US iOS App Store are ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. There's a clear anger here at some AI and a clear draw to it as well. Anyone who thinks "nobody wants this" is lying, just as is someone who says, "our data shows more and more people love everything AI". Fifth, and this is something I've shifted on over the course of my adult life, it is indeed a travesty that we (in the US especially) gave up on nuclear power. Absolutely, there were incidents that were very bad that should never happen again, although the amount of damage to humanity that coal has done in my lifetime is exponentially more disastrous. I love to see the rapid rise in clean energy sources like solar and wind, but I think the world would clearly be in a much better place if we had robust nuclear energy generation instead of coal over the past four decades. [This 2021 study](https://hsph.harvard.edu/climate-health-c-change/news/fossil-fuel-air-pollution-responsible-for-1-in-5-deaths-worldwide/?ref=birchtree.me) puts the yearly death toll from fossil fuels in the millions. ### The best way to publish to Ghost from Obsidian URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-best-way-to-publish-to-ghost-from-obsidian-2/ Last updated: 2026-05-19T13:38:15.000Z Today I'm excited to announce Ghosty Posty, which is the best way to publish your Obsidian notes to your Ghost blog. It is [available now on the Obsidian community plugins directory](https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/ghosty-posty?ref=birchtree.me) for free. ## What it does ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/2026-05-19-000091.png) Ghosty Posty is a straightforward [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md/?ref=birchtree.me) plugin that lets you take any note from Obsidian and publish it to your [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=birchtree.me) blog as a new post. The plugin supports all manner of markdown formatting, as well as images. Some plugins dump all the post content in a single HTML block in the Ghost interface, which makes them incredibly annoying to edit in the future. But with Ghosty Posty, paragraphs, lists, images, code blocks, and quotes all render exactly as you'd expect in the Ghost backend. This is the core of what made me create this plugin in the first place. I found that all of the existing plugins involved pretty significant compromises in user experience, and Ghosty Posty delivers a nearly no-compromises way to publish to my blog. This post, as well as probably 90% of the posts I've written in the past year, have been done through Ghosty Posty. When you hit the Ghosty Posty button to publish, a screen appears in Obsidian, letting you set the title of the post, add tags, change its visibility and post status, and decide if you're scheduling it or posting it right away. It has sensible defaults, but you can also use Obsidian's properties on your note to set these appropriately for the post you're writing. I personally use the [Templater plugin](https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/templater-obsidian?ref=birchtree.me), so I have a template set up to add these properties to any new note with a single keyboard shortcut. ## Great image support ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/2026-05-19-000095.png) I'll also mention that the plugin fully supports images, and you can position them wherever you'd like in your post; they will get uploaded at full resolution to your blog. If the very first line of the note is an image, the plugin assumes you want that to be the featured image on the post and will assign it as such. ## Auto-archive ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/2026-05-19-000096.png) Finally, there is an optional archive setting, which will move a note from wherever it is to a specific directory of your choosing after you publish it to Ghost. My setup has a "birchtree" folder in my vault, which has all of the articles I have queued up and partially written. I also have a folder called "archive" in there, and whenever I publish something to the blog, the note goes from the Birch Tree folder into the Archive folder and disappears from my writing queue, which is really nice. ## Get it now [Ghosty Posty is available for free](https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/ghosty-posty?ref=birchtree.me) for any Obsidian user. If you like Obsidian and have a Ghost blog, I genuinely think this is the plugin you've been waiting for. --- *If you were wondering why everything in the plugin is in sentence case and "Ghost" is lowercase all over, it's because I was fighting with Obsidian's plugin review process, which requires sentence case for most things, and does not understand that "Ghost" is a proper noun.* ### Quick Reads is officially in the Obsidian marketplace URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-is-officially-in-the-obsidian-marketplace/ Last updated: 2026-05-18T12:31:07.000Z I'm happy to say that after a lengthy review process, the [Quick Reads](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me) plugin is [available on the official Obsidian marketplace](https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/quick-reads-sync?ref=birchtree.me). *It may take a few days/hours for it to show up in the in-app marketplace.* The plugin is designed for people like me who want to create highlights in their read later app and have those highlights sync over to Obsidian. Here's what you can configure in the plugin settings. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/2026-05-18-000062.png) - Where do you want your highlights saved in your vault? - Wanna sync on startup? - Wanna sync every X minutes? - How should the synced notes be templated? - Wanna sync right now? - Wanna reset and start over? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/2026-05-18-000063.png) Quick Reads Sync comes with one action, "sync now". With the way this is built into Obsidian, this means you will see this in the command bar and you can pin it or set a keyboard shortcut to run it on demand. It's your Obsidian vault, do whatever you want! ## My use case ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/2026-05-18-000064.png) I have my highlights sync to a folder I call Quick Reads, and as you might expect, I use the default template. As someone who writes a lot of blog posts that link to and quote other articles on the web, this is a great start to my workflow for link posts. Maybe I'll get into it in another blog post here, but I have a custom Obsidian plugin that will take notes like this and automatically convert them into my blog's format for link posts with the title, author, and URL filled out exactly how I like it. ### Chapterize 1.5: Multi-document editing is here! URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/chapterize-1-5-multi-document-editing-is-here/ Last updated: 2026-05-18T11:52:53.000Z A new version of Chapterize is out now that includes multi-document editing across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. This is a free update for existing users and you can [get it now](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterpod/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me). There's really not much more to say in this blog post other than if you're someone like me who works on more than one podcast at a time, this is going to be a godsend. I didn't have it at launch because multi-document workflows implement new challenges in the app, and I wanted to make sure the core experience was up to snuff first. But as I've gone from one to two to three podcasts per week that I'm releasing, it was becoming increasingly untenable to have to work on one, complete it, and then move on to the next. In addition to this change, I've also made some improvements to how I handle drag and drop. I had a fundamental conflict in the app where you could drag in multiple file types onto an existing episode. You could drag in subtitles files, or you could drag in images for chapters. Because I didn't do things as well as I could have, the UI for this got pretty laggy. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/2026-05-18-000061.png) It was especially annoying when you were dragging in images because most of the frame was a drop zone for the transcript file. Now there is a dedicated spot where you can drop your transcript files that looks nicer, is way more performant, and doesn't fight with you when you're dragging in chapter artwork. [Chapterize 1.5 is available on the App Store now!](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterpod/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me) ### The MacBook Neo shows why the Apple fan obsession with benchmarks for 5+ years has been…weird URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-macbook-neo-shows-why-the-apple-fan-obsession-with-benchmarks-for-5-years-has-been-weird/ Last updated: 2026-05-17T16:33:06.000Z Oliver Haslam: [MacBook Neo review, two months later: Almost a MacBook Pro beater](https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/05/14/macbook-neo-review-two-months-later-almost-a-macbook-pro-beater?ref=birchtree.me) > The MacBook Neo is a marvel. The fact that Apple was able to find a way to sell this thing for less than $600 makes it a laptop that's impossible not to recommend. It replaces the MacBook Air as the Mac most people should buy. Its 13-inch display isn't the best in a Mac, but it's better than almost anything at its price point. There are sassier versions of this post that I could write, but I’ll do a generous one instead. I hope the MacBook Neo makes more Apple fans realize that while the insanely fast RAM, SSD, and general processing that Apple silicon Macs have had are nice, they are not essential for delivering a great computing experience. Apple users have been in their “this bar chart shows how much better my computer is than yours” era for a while now, and it’s always been disconcerting as an Apple fan who remembers decades where Apple wasn’t winning the spec wars and Apple fans looked down on those who tried to argue their computer was better by citing benchmarks. To me, it’s plainly obvious how much better a higher end Mac is for me, but clearly there are a good number of people out there who can’t seem to have much if any of an experience difference on this much slower computer. ### AI plans are expensive. They’re also wildly unprofitable. URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ai-plans-are-expensive-theyre-also-wildly-unprofitable/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T23:22:29.000Z Every few months, it seems Anthropic does something to restrict how you can use their subscription plans, either their $20, $100, or $200 plans, and it gets people upset. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that people should be happy when they lose functionality from something they’re paying for. However, I do think it’s worth recognizing that those of us paying for these subscriptions and using the tools anywhere near the limits Anthropic (or OpenAI, for what it’s worth) put on them are costing these companies hundreds to thousands of dollars per month. I happen to be on an API credit usage plan at work, so I’m able to see in real-time how much my usage costs there. I wouldn’t be able to predict an exact number for how much my personal $100 per month plan is costing Anthropic, but I’m sure I am wildly unprofitable for them. That’s kind of crazy for any piece of $100/month software, but that’s where we’re at. ### + The Vision Pro's uphill battle URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-vision-pros-uphill-battle/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T12:30:38.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Is the war on RCS actually an argument that texting Android users *should* suck? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-war-on-green-bubbles-rages-on/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T13:00:02.000Z Wesley Hilliard is a cool guy who I often agree with, but his latest for AppleInsider is begging for a response: [RCS & encryption haven't fixed the green bubble problem](https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/05/13/rcs-encryption-havent-fixed-the-green-bubble-problem?ref=birchtree.me) > In Messages on iPhone, you can now use SMS, RCS, end-to-end encrypted RCS, and iMessage. Sure, sending media to Android is better, but everything else is more confusing and frustrating than ever. This is where I ask you, dear reader, has texting people gotten more complicated for you since RCS rolled out? Maybe if you care deeply about whether messages are RCS or SMS, and maybe you're surprised when it's SMS when you were expecting RCS, but I'm not sure what confusion he's referring to. I'm Apple tech support for most of my family and friends, so when something is weird in Apple world (Apple Photos, a hit of liquid glass, etc.), I hear about it. I've not heard a single complaint about RCS since its roll out. > The simple act of texting has become a divisive and sometimes irritating aspect of using a smartphone. Whether you care about technology or not, if you're an iPhone user, you've at the least subconsciously reacted to a green bubble text. This is where I remind iPhone users that this is a one-way annoyance. iPhone users are annoyed by green bubbles but Android users aren't. Apple fans never want to blame Apple for any of this but it does give big [‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens](https://theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1848971668/?ref=birchtree.me) vibes to it. > RCS is the bastard child of internet protocol messaging that is still somehow tied to carriers. It is a dumb idea that climbed to the top of dumb ideas and won out as the most suitable dumb idea. The idea this won out compared to a bunch of options or why it's a dumb idea is not defended in this piece. > The thing is, it only made things more complicated and frustrating for the end user, especially for those on iPhone. > > Now, not only do you need to pay attention to what kind of message it is, green or blue, you have to know if it's SMS or RCS. iOS 26.5 throws in another wrinkle — end-to-end encryption. You literally don't have to think about any of this. If you've been sending green bubble SMS messages for 20 years on your iPhone, you literally have to change zero about your behavior to go to RCS or encrypted RCS. If you're someone like Wesley or me who finds protocols interesting, then you may notice at the top of your screen that it says RCS instead of SMS. > Not only that, but this "beta" feature for E2EE seemingly breaks RCS chats for some users. This is likely out of Apple's hands and more of a carrier/device issue. > > When using RCS, you have to consider the device each person is using, the software version, the carriers in use, and whether or not end-to-end encryption has been enabled. > > You don't have that problem with iMessage. It just works. One, it's beta for Apple, not everyone else. Two, it would be nice to link to some viral post about how encrypted RCS was breaking chats, which I have not seen. Three, there is the "this surely isn't Apple's fault, the only platform where this is an issue". Four, again, you simply don't need to care about any of those things…that's a core value of the Messages app. Five, iMessage *usually works*, but I think a lot of people have experienced sync issues or lack of basic features like editing which Google and other messaging apps have had for many years. Six, ah, this is an argument for closed messaging systems. > Google has its messaging app, sure, but it doesn't compare in features or implementation to Apple's. > > It isn't as if Google didn't have the money and engineering talent to build a killer universal chat app. It just chose not to for whatever reason. A couple things here. I guarantee you 100% that if Google did have Duo or Hangouts or any of it's iMessage-style closed messaging apps take off, Apple fans would be avidly against it and would be writing similar posts about how bad it is compared to Apple and why you don't want your messages owned by Google. Also, the reason we need a good, universal standard for messaging that isn't owned by a single mega-corporation is that we need a good baseline to send messages back and forth. iMessage is cool, WhatsApp is nice, but I think there should be a standard that goes cross platform and does not lock someone into one platform. This appears to be something Wesley and I just don't see eye to eye on. --- I wanted to link to this article not to go too hard on Wesley but because I think it illustrates a common thing I see in discussions around RCS. At the end of the day, most of them are arguments that iMessage is the only true messaging platform anyone should use. They refuse to use Meta's solutions, they refuse to use Google's, they refuse to use cross-platform solutions. They don't want iMessage to come to Android. They don't propose a better system for communicating between iPhones and Android phones, they think SMS sucks, and the only way to make messaging between platforms better is to give up and just wait for everyone in your life to buy an iPhone. Making those green bubbles better in any way is seen as counter to the real goal, which again, is to get everyone to just buy an iPhone. It's also complaining without suggesting any solutions. Ok, you don't like RCS, what is your suggestion for making communication between iPhone and Android users better? You brought up WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, but those are already solutions and it doesn't sound like you're using them. Somehow I doubt the message here is "we should embrace Meta," right? So what is it? What standard should Apple be using in Messages to make communication with Android users as good as it can be? What's the RCS alternative they should have chosen? Or are you actually saying that green bubbles should have continued to suck even more for longer? It kinda feels like that's the real argument here most of the time. And finally, I can not stress enough how these "the RCS experience isn't good and it's not Apple's fault" are entirely people complaining about things bad in the Apple world, not in the Android world. This is like when I say that Gmail sync isn't good in Apple Mail or Calendar, when it's outstanding in literally every other email and calendar app I use, but Apple fans tell me it's Google's fault. Again, [‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens](https://theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1848971668/?ref=birchtree.me). My opinion on RCS remains the same as it has for years at this point: it's not as good as iMessage, but it's better than SMS in meaningful ways, from read receipts to higher quality media attachments to typing indicators to better threading and now to encrypted messages. Given the simple fact I'm not going to get everyone I interact with to switch to an iPhone, I want the experience of messaging my friends and family to be as seamless as possible, and RCS gets me a better experience than SMS ever did. I also truly believe that there must remain a standard for messaging between phones that doesn't reside with a single company. My iMessage account is tied to my Apple account, my WhatsApp account is tied to Meta, and if I leave those companies behind, I leave my messaging behind as well and need to start over. In the US, thanks to [the Telecommunications Act of 1996](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications%5FAct%5Fof%5F1996?ref=birchtree.me) I own my phone number and can take it with me if I become unhappy with my carrier (I've taken my current number from Verizon to T-Mobile to Visible, and could go somewhere else in the future if I want). Unless someone is going to argue for a truly open messaging system, and these articles always argue for more centralized control over messaging, I'll take the best option available. Is RCS perfect? No, but I'm not out here letting perfection be the enemy of the good. ### How many MacBook Neo buyers would have bought an Air before? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/how-many-macbook-neo-buyers-would-have-bought-an-air-before/ Last updated: 2026-05-13T12:13:29.000Z Tim Culpan: [Apple Doubles MacBook Neo Production, Orders Fresh Batch of Chips](https://www.culpium.com/p/apple-doubles-macbook-neo-production?ref=birchtree.me) > As a result, it’s now asking suppliers to prepare capacity for 10 million units of the debut version of the Neo, up from an initial estimate of 5 million to 6 million, my sources tell me. Delivery times for the laptop have ballooned to as much as four weeks as Taiwan’s Quanta and Foxconn rush to fill orders from factories in Vietnam and China. We'll never get it but I'd love to have a peek behind the curtain to see what the MacBook Neo does to unit sales of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. [IDC reported that Apple sold 25 million Macs total in 2025](https://www.idc.com/resource-center/press-releases/4q25-pc-top-5-pr/?ref=birchtree.me), so if Culpan's reporting is accurate, Apple looking to move 10 million Neos in a year is quite notable. What percentage of those 10 million buyers are new to the Mac versus how many would have bought an Air (or even a Pro) previously? My suspicion is that the majority of those buyers are going to be new to the Mac. However at least some percentage are going to be people who would have bought an Air previously because they just wanted a Mac and now that there's a cheaper option they just found a way to save $500\. I know it's anecdotal, but I still think about [my recent flight](https://mastodon.social/@matt%5Fbirchler/116420265376251893?ref=birchtree.me) where I walked past first class and there were 2 Neos out and in use among people who paid $2,000+ for their tickets. ### The midification of smartphone cameras URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-midification-of-smartphone-cameras/ Last updated: 2026-05-12T14:00:31.000Z This feels like the sort of post that can get some people to go, "well actually…", but screw it, I think there's something here. As Marques points out, in good light, the iPhone 11 and iPhone 17 are very hard to tell apart. But once you introduce more challenging lighting (night, harsh backlight, etc.), then suddenly the newer phones capture something more usable. I think a few things have gone on here. One, for years and years, smartphone reviews have pointed out any detail lost in shadows or highlights as bad things in phone cameras. Phone makers listen to these reviews, and over the years it has moved them to deliver camera systems that move everything to the middle in terms of lighting, which is why our photos feel more sterile than they used to. Two, smartphones have gotten so good at rescuing any photo someone might snap, that it's raised the bar for how bad a photo from your phone can be, but this "rescue everything at all cost" behavior it's also lowered the ceiling you get from the stock camera on your phone. I bring my Canon R6 to family events because it can get amazing photos, and sometimes people pick it up and snap photos with it. They all treat it like taking photos with a smartphone, and many of their photos come out pretty rough (they do get some bangers too, though). This is happening because they shoot with it like it's a phone. They point and shoot at anything, regardless of light or movement or giving the lens a quarter second to focus, and the photos don't come out how they want. To be clear, this isn't a slight on my family members, I'm just trying to illustrate how smartphones have trained us to take photos differently and to expect a crisp photo with everything visible no matter what. Three, I think the demands we put on smartphone cameras is impossible. We want some photos to be pin sharp without any detail lost. Sometimes we want motion blur. Sometimes we want the highlights to blow out. Sometimes the shadows should crush. Sometimes we want the focus to miss a little bit. Sometimes we want more color, other times less. I don't think we can have it all, but that's what we demand. Part of the magic of those older photos we look back on and go "why does that look better?" is that those were literal snapshots in time from technology that was limited compared to what we have today. A disposable Kodak camera sucks compared to the phone in our pocket today, but somehow, it took some photos that make us go "damn, that's what I wish my iPhone took." Except, I don't think we really do. My camera roll is full of boring photos of things like price tags and signs and other things I simply want to document and save for later. I want maximum clarity on these, but then I take photos of my friends and family, and I want something different there. Oh, but on those family and friends photos, you better not assume I want motion blur when I don't or blown highlight, because then I'll complain about how bad this camera is on social media. As you think about how to address those concerns, you probably get to something where the phone takes the most sterile photo possible with zero motion blur, collapsed dynamic range, and everything in focus. Then you give the user post-processing options to add those effects as they see fit. Or hell, "AI will solve this." 🥴 I think that fundamentally, if we want photos from our cameras to feel more like photos from "real" cameras or older point and shoots from our youth, we need to accept that some photos won't turn out quite as technically perfect as they do today. The randomness, the mistakes, and the luck are part of it, and I think we look back just on the old photos that turned out and think everything looked like that. I don't think this "some of my iPhone's photos literally miss focus and blow out highlights" reality is viable, and I don't even think people want it, so I get why this is such a hard thing for smartphone companies to figure out. --- I was going to go point out how many popular photography apps on the App Store promised "unprocessed" photos, expressing a desire from people to get this, but this search actually turned up the opposite. In the US App Store today, there is one app in the top 100 free apps in the Photo & Video category that applies "vintage filters" to your photos, and there are 31 apps that call out "AI editing" in their name. ### Apple uses WebP images in the App Store URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-uses-webp-images-in-the-app-store/ Last updated: 2026-05-12T12:11:21.000Z I was checking out the App Store page for the new [iRacing Connect App](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/iracing-connect/id6759957108?ref=birchtree.me) for the Vision Pro on the web, and I noticed that one of their first promo images was a setup screen with blatant display bugs in it (connect to my computer running on the sa…what???). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/image.png) I saved the image to my computer to post something snarky, but it was actually something else that stood out once I had it in my downloads folder. This was a WebP image. You can check it out as well, just use your browser's inspector on any of the promo images. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/image-1.png) And just to note, developers are not allowed to upload WebP images. They must upload their promo images as JPEG or PNG. You can actually see that in the source URL, which is referencing a JPEG image on the server but is rendering it in the browser as WebP. Is this a big deal? No. But as with all things supported by Google (looking at you, RCS), Apple fans have a really hard time coming to terms with the fact some of those things are good, actually, and while WebP is a good format for displaying images on the web, Apple fans have routinely told me over the years that actually it's bad and [HEIF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High%5FEfficiency%5FImage%5FFile%5FFormat?ref=birchtree.me) is the only new video and image format that matters. I don't have beef with HEIF, but while fanboys are battling over this, Apple is out here choosing WebP as the best tool for the job. ### Encrypted RCS is going wide, starting today URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/encrypted-rcs-is-going-wide-starting-today/ Last updated: 2026-05-11T21:39:49.000Z John Voorhees: [iOS 26.5 Adds RCS Encryption in Beta Starting Today](https://www.macstories.net/news/os-26-5-beta-adds-rcs-encryption-starting-today/?ref=birchtree.me) > Apple announced that beginning today, users on iOS 26.5 will be able to send encrypted RCS messages to Google Messages users who are on the latest version of that app. Apple says that means a message that is intercepted in transit is unreadable. You’ll be able to tell if your messages are encrypted by a lock icon at the top of the screen. Here's my regular reminder that if you didn't think Apple should implement RCS, you don't get to be excited about this. 😉 Seriously though, this is great to see start rolling out, and it will impact most folks here in the US since it works with Google Messages. Samsung recently announced that they were discontinuing their messaging app, and Samsung phones will now default to Google's app as well. [Support](https://support.apple.com/en-us/109526?ref=birchtree.me) is excellent as well. Here in the US, all carriers that support RCS, also support encrypted RCS except for H20 Wireless and Total Wireless. ### Community mods are giving us the remasters companies can't deliver URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/community-mods-are-giving-us-the-remasters-companies-cant-deliver/ Last updated: 2026-05-10T14:21:38.000Z A few years ago, [a passion project](https://www.shipofharkinian.com/?ref=birchtree.me) from a few Zelda fans gave us a decompilation of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which let it run natively on every platform known to man. Not only that, but it was able to run at higher frame rates, higher resolutions, and with some modern touches like autosave and updated texture packs. Or, you know, you could play it totally faithfully to the original, your call. There have been some other projects doing these "decomps" in the years since, and today there is a new one called [Dusk](https://twilitrealm.dev/?ref=birchtree.me) that is for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and does all the same things as the Ocarina of Time decomp. For what it's worth, it's stuff like this that makes me enjoy being a PC gamer first and foremost. People with a passion are out there delivering amazing things that massive companies can't keep up with. [Do Wind Waker next!](https://decomp.dev/zeldaret/tww?ref=birchtree.me) ### Micro app 17: The Cooldown URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-17-the-cooldown/ Last updated: 2026-05-10T13:37:32.000Z One of the cool things about the agentic coding era is how quick it is to iterate on an idea and see if it's worth pursuing further. When I was on a run yesterday, I had an idea for the a website called The Cooldown, which was a landing page people could go to at the end of their work day to catch up on the tech news of the day. Yes, this sort of thing exists already, but I thought I could do something interesting with my personalized RSS feed collection I've built up over the past 20 years. Techmeme, but with more indie voices. The idea was at 4PM Central, the site would pull the RSS feeds for a bunch of sites that do good tech reporting, and then use a Gemini prompt to figure out what topics and articles would be most interesting. Gemini would return the structured data to the website, which would be stored in a database and presented to visitors. I also thought that people like to read the news over breakfast, so I also set up a second run that was at 4AM that did the same thing. That would restyle the page and would call itself "The Warm Up". ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/2026-05-10-000017.png) I even have a nice little animation as you move to older reports that I thought was delightful. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/2026-05-10-000018.gif) If this had legs, the plan would also be to add user accounts, likely with a paid tier, that let users receive these updates as an email, to add their own feeds, and maybe even let them link their Quick Reads account to instantly save articles here to their reading queue. I have this working on my local machine, and it's technically production-ready for everything besides the user sign up. However, I'm not convinced this really is anything. As I said, other sites already exist that do something like this, and I don't think mine is differentiated enough to really catch on. Also, it must be said that if the goal is to catch up on the news, indie blogs aren't usually where that happens, so I'd still be linking to a lot of the big hitters anyway. Maybe this will be the seed that sprouts another idea in the future, but for now, I don't think this is it. ### + What happened to Xbox? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/what-happened-to-xbox/ Last updated: 2026-05-09T11:00:19.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Trump admin suddenly wants to regulate AI models URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-trump-admin-suddenly-wants-to-regulate-ai-models/ Last updated: 2026-05-07T12:28:42.000Z The New York Times had a story a few days ago about [the Trump administration prepping an executive order regulating AI models](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/technology/trump-ai-models.html?ref=birchtree.me): > The administration is discussing an executive order to create an A.I. working group that would bring together tech executives and government officials to examine potential oversight procedures, according to U.S. officials, who declined to be identified in order to discuss deliberations over sensitive policies. Among the potential plans is a formal government review process for new A.I. models. > > The working group is likely to consider a number of oversight approaches, officials said. But a review process could be similar to one being developed in Britain, which has assigned several government bodies to ensure that A.I. models meet certain safety standards, people in the tech industry and the administration said. In response to this report, [Ben Thompson wrote](https://stratechery.com/2023/attenuating-innovation-ai/?ref=birchtree.me): > The \[…\] administration is not embracing uncertainty: it is operating from an assumption that AI is dangerous, despite the fact that many of the listed harms, like learning how to build a bomb or synthesize dangerous chemicals or conduct cyber attacks, are already trivially accomplished on today’s Internet. What is completely lacking is anything other than the briefest of hand waves at AI’s potential upside. As well as: > The \[…\] administration is arrogantly insisting that it ought have a role in dictating the outcomes of an innovation that few if any of its members understand, and almost certainly could not invent. There is, to be sure, a role for oversight and regulation, but that is a blunt instrument best applied after the invention, like an editor. Although hold on a second, those posts are from November 1, 2023 when then President Biden signed an eerily similar executive order. For the record, I was relatively neutral on this sort of government oversight in 2023, not having a strong feeling either way. And on the face of it, I don't have a huge problem with this, even though I very much do not like this administration. The fun question for me will be whether Ben Thompson continues [what I think is his tendency](https://birchtree.me/blog/what-are-you-going-to-do-stop-me-ive-got-the-guns-is-a-wild-govargument-for-tech-pundits-to-support/), which is to loudly voice when he disagrees with Democrats and be quiet when he disagrees with Republicans, specifically Trump. ### My new screenshots folder URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-new-screenshots-folder/ Last updated: 2026-05-06T16:00:04.000Z Ever since I was a child, my Mac screenshots have saved to my desktop. This is how macOS works by default, and it's what I kept doing when I finally made the jump to CleanShot back in 2020\. It worked, it was fine, but it led to a desktop full of screenshots and videos that I needed to clean up on a regular basis. But I didn't have to live like this, so I made the bold (some might say brave!) decision to finally have my screenshots go somewhere else. I'll hold for applause. *Holds…* *Holds a bit more, gesturing in a way that implies "you're too much!"* Anyway, I made a folder called "Screenshots" in the root of my iCloud directory and I'm saving all screenshots and screen recordings there. I also added it next to my Downloads folder in the dock for easy access. The key thing here for me was choosing to put the folder in iCloud so that it syncs anywhere. It also means I have been able to set up both my MacBook Pro and MacBook Neo to save to this same place, so that I can screenshot something on one device and then do something with it on another. --- For what it's worth, I think that the macOS default is perfectly reasonable for most people, but I take literally hundreds of screenshots a week, so I'm not exactly typical in this case. ### Big spending, big profits URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/big-spending-big-profits/ Last updated: 2026-05-06T12:00:01.000Z M.G. Siegler: [Apple's Binary Bet](https://spyglass.org/apple-crazy-capex/?ref=birchtree.me) > It's just such a wild break from their peer group. And it keeps getting more wild. It seems like the most binary bet imaginable. Either Apple is right and the rest of Big Tech will have lit hundreds of billions – perhaps trillions when all is said and done – of dollars on fire, or Apple is going to be in big trouble. This chart from Siegler's article is making the rounds in my feeds among AI skeptics. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/Pasted-image-20260505070106.png) It illustrates something pretty clear, right? Apple's able to turn big profits with minimal capital expenditures while the rest of the industry is bleeding money on AI. Apple fanboys will say this is "[the most brilliant move in corporate history](https://asymco.com/2026/03/10/the-most-brilliant-move-in-corporate-history/?ref=birchtree.me)". It is certainly true that Apple has not invested in capital expenditures like the other companies mentioned here, but I also think it's worth noting that these large increases in spending from the likes of Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta have coincided with relatively massive increases in net income as well. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-05-at-07.23.11@2x.png) In short, they're spending more, but their profits are still going up. Don't assume that because OpenAI and Anthropic are running on huge losses that everyone investing heavily in AI is doing the same. ### The Constitution is more of a suggestion URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-constitution-is-more-of-a-suggestion/ Last updated: 2026-05-05T14:00:00.000Z Here is the exact text of the [22nd Amendment to the US Constitution](https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-22/?ref=birchtree.me): > No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term. The amendment was passed in 1947 and ratified by the states in 1951, and was a direct response to FDR, who was elected to the Presidency 4 times in a row. It was "tradition" that stopped Presidents from doing more than 2 terms before that, but FDR showed that tradition only went so far. Tell me if that resonates in the current political climate… Anyway, the text of the document is quite clear: you get up to 2 terms and then you must step aside. Which brings us to the absolute cowardice of Republicans today, who lack the courage (if you can even call it that) to say that the Constitution applies to their living god, Donald Trump. [This exchange](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1xgUtXBGoQ&ref=birchtree.me) between Senator Chris Coons and John George Edward Marck, a nominee to be a district judge, was enlightening. > **Coons**: It states that no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice. Mr. Marck, is President Trump eligible to run for President again in 2028? > > **Marck**: Senator, without considering all the facts and looking at everything, depending on what the situation is, this to me strikes as more of a hypothetical of something that could… > > **Coons**: It's not hypothetical. Has President Trump been elected twice? > > **Marck**: President Trump has been certified the President of the United States two times. > > **Coons**: Is he eligible to run for a third term under our Constitution? > > **Marck**: I would have to review the… > > **Coons**: All I need to tell you is that the language of the Constitutional amendment that makes it clear that no he is not eligible to run for a third term. Anyone else brave enough to say that the Constitution of the United States prevents President Trump from seeking a third term? > > *Silence* > > **Coons**: Anybody willing to apply the Constitution by its plain language in the 22nd Amendment? > > *Silence* > > **Coons**: Nobody. Alright, let's move on. First, notice how Republicans can never dare to admit that Trump lost the 2020 election. Second, I think it's worth stating over and over again, that the Republican party worships at the feet of Donald Trump, not the Constitution. He is the alpha and the omega, the the sun and the moon, he is what everything revolves around. We have his cabinet [trying to gaslight us on how math works](https://www.threads.com/@aaron.rupar/post/DXfGZDCicmQ?xmt=AQF0A72uQxyz5E3RPS%5FeuN5H0khUDR3bcJFGXOXU6bIm2g&ref=birchtree.me) to make Dear Leader look right. It's literally Nineteen Eighty-Four's [2 + 2 = 5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2%5F%2B%5F2%5F%3D%5F5?ref=birchtree.me). We've gone from Republicans bragging about their pocket Constitutions they carry around with them a few years ago to, "I'm not prepared to state that the Constitution applies to Donald Trump". Mr. Marck may think this is a hypothetical, but given that Trump [keeps talking about](https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-says-he-ll-leave-white-house-in-8-9-years-sparks-speculations-about-third-term-watch-1777946939926?ref=birchtree.me) how he's going to be President for many years to come over and over again, and no one in the Republican party is willing to say out loud that he's not allowed to do that, maybe it's worth interrogating if Republicans just stop reading the Constitution after the 2nd Amendment. ### Micro app 16: Quick Reads Backstage URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-16-quick-reads-backstage/ Last updated: 2026-05-05T00:10:16.000Z This is a quickie, but I made a simple app called Backstage that lets me view my Quick Reads analytics data from a native app on my phone. All of this lives in the web UI for me as well (something I should write about later), but just like the main app, it's all built on an API, so I was able to get a quick little one-page app up and running in an hour that shows me the high level details I want to know about how the service is doing. I've also set up a widget that lets me see my core metrics at a glance as I swipe between home screens as well. 1. I love how easy it is to make bespoke tools like this today. 2. Make as much as you can an API so that it's easy to build new things on top of it. ### The iPhone Air is for enthusiasts URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-iphone-air-is-for-enthusiasts/ Last updated: 2026-05-02T21:53:16.000Z Hartley Charlton: [iPhone Air's Poor Sales Spook Rivals Into Ditching Ultra-Thin Phone Plans](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/05/01/iphone-air-sales-spook-rivals-into-ditching-plans/?ref=birchtree.me) > A Weibo leaker today suggested that Apple's iPhone Air 2 may be the only next-generation ultra-thin flagship smartphone from a major brand, after the original model's poor sales performance appears to have led competing manufacturers to abandon plans for their own follow-up products. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I feel like buying an iPhone Air in 2025 or 2026 is a lot like buying a Nissan Leaf back in 2010\. When you bought that car, you weren't buying the best vehicle on the market. You weren't buying the most practical or the most cost efficient option either. Instead, you were buying something that you felt was a preview of what was to come. People loved the Nissan Leaf, not because it was the fastest car or the one with the most range, but because they believed in the future of electric cars. They were itchy to jump on that train as soon as they possibly could. I feel like it is a very similar story for the people buying the iPhone Air today. We are not buying the Air because it represents the best value in the lineup or because it has the best specs you can get in an iPhone. You buy it because you believe that phones in the future will be thinner and lighter, and this specific device makes some significant sacrifices just to get you that feeling today. I would love to know what Apple’s internal expectations are for these sales numbers. They surely could have foreseen it being the least popular of the four iPhones they released last September. Invariably, when we poll regular consumers about what matters most in a smartphone, battery life and camera quality always come up as the top priorities. Those are specifically the areas where the iPhone Air makes its biggest sacrifices. Imagine being a salesperson trying to talk to an average consumer who is debating their options. The pitch is fundamentally a tough sell: if you spend $200 more for the Air, you actually get less battery life and worse cameras, but the device is thinner. For most people, that just doesn't compute. However, I do think it becomes a much more compelling sales pitch when you are talking to smartphone enthusiasts. While it is clear that the only advantage the Air has over the other iPhones released this year is its thinness and lightness, it achieves those goals by a significant margin. This creates a novel experience compared to what we are used to. Honestly, I think that novelty is exactly what some people are looking for. We are nearly twenty years into the lifecycle of the iPhone. While the device has certainly gotten significantly better over the years, it is still just a rectangle with a screen on it. That rectangle gets a little better every year as the incremental improvements add up, but year over year, you aren't dealing with much change. This is why, when a phone comes out that feels notably different, that novelty factor feels really good to an enthusiast. I recently revealed on an episode of Comfort Zone that I have once again switched my eSIM back to the iPhone Air because I, too, am drawn to that novelty. Please don't take this as me dissing other people; I just think this is where the true appeal of the phone lies. It isn't for people who treat their phone like a tool they have no passion for. It is for the people who are looking for the latest and greatest, even if that greatness has nothing to do with raw performance, cameras, or battery life. ### Speeed URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/speeed/ Last updated: 2026-05-02T13:29:32.000Z The Speeed YouTube channel has been around for about a year, but I discovered them a few months ago when they had a decently viral video that told you [how to do things no one teaches you](https://youtu.be/PxDzmnLov10?ref=birchtree.me). This is the sort of "male influencer content" I can get behind. ### Micro app 15: Railway Dashboard for iOS URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-15-railway-dashboard-for-ios/ Last updated: 2026-05-01T22:10:06.000Z I use [Railway](https://railway.com/?ref=birchtree.me) to host a few of my projects, and while they have a nice desktop interface in the browser, their mobile UI isn't so hot, and I wanted to make something t help me monitor things like my cost and deployments on my phone with ease. I have [already made a menu bar app for the Mac](https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-9-railway-monitor/) that shows my cost, but an iPhone app seemed like the next logical step. As More Birchtree members know, [I was a little distracted this week](https://birchtree.me/blog/ope-thats-a-bit-of-anxiety-huh/), and I distracted myself by making a new app for myself. This new app is more ambitious than the last one, and it replicates more of the Railway experience, from showing deployments as they happen, to monitoring metrics, to yes, keeping an eye on cost. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/images.png) I even built a widget I can leave on my home screen to monitor spending through the month! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/05/widget.jpg) Releaseable? Sure. Will I? Probably not. There's no money to be made on this, it's really made for me and me only, and the effort needed to maintain and add things like a privacy policy to this thing isn't worth it to me. Still, it'll bring me value constantly, and that's the beauty of these little micro apps. ### + Ope, that's a bit of anxiety, huh? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ope-thats-a-bit-of-anxiety-huh/ Last updated: 2026-05-01T12:41:35.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### It’s cancel Kimmel time again URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/its-cancel-kimmel-time-again/ Last updated: 2026-04-27T22:54:16.000Z [Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday last week in a skit on his show:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRjKhsJc95o&t=487s&ref=birchtree.me) > And of course, our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at-- so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow. You know, Melania's birthday is on Sunday. That's right. She's planning to celebrate at home the same way she always does, looking out a window and whispering, what have I done? As you're all aware, Melania is a movie star now. Her documentary had a score of 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a website named after her husband's testicles. And I want to congratulate you, Madam First Lady, on your huge accomplishment, the world's first motionless picture. And that-- oh, by the way, before we go any further, Melania, this is Donald. Donald, this is Melania. That was my impression of Jeffrey Epstein. Pretty good, right? Melania Trump had this [reasonable response](https://x.com/FLOTUS/status/2048769128513585618?ref=birchtree.me): > Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community. I see we’ve reached our seasonal “Republicans call for comedians to be silenced” and it’s somehow once again about the bad boy of comedy…checks notes…double checks notes…Jimmy Kimmel. ### 600% is the new 2 + 2 = 5 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/600-is-the-new-2-2-5/ Last updated: 2026-04-26T23:30:15.000Z PBS News has a quote from *the very intelligent* RFK Jr.: [Fact-checking RFK Jr.'s claim there's more than one way to calculate a percentage decrease](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-rfk-jr-s-claim-theres-more-than-one-way-to-calculate-a-percentage-decrease?ref=birchtree.me) > Kennedy said, "President Trump has a different way of calculating percentages. There's two ways of calculating percentages. If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that's a 600% reduction." He's of course saying this because the president said this, and in this government, the president can never make any mistakes. Therefore, this must be correct. [Or as someone else famously put it:](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/321469-in-the-end-the-party-would-announce-that-two-and?ref=birchtree.me) > In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. ### + Trump's appeal to influencers URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/trumps-appeal-to-influencers/ Last updated: 2026-04-26T11:00:15.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Quick Reads is the future that passkey enthusiasts dream of URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-is-the-future-that-passkey-enthusiasts-dream-of/ Last updated: 2026-04-23T21:50:42.000Z I neglected to mention it [in the announcement post](https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-i-built-the-read-later-app-id-always-wanted/), but another thing I'm really excited about with Quick Reads is that it's the first app I've made so far that requires users to sign in. I decided if I was going to do it, I was going to do it the right way, so I've implemented what I think is a pretty good system. **The headline here is that Quick Reads is 100% password-free.** This is convenient for users because there's nothing to forget, and it's even more convenient for me as I have no password data to secure. When you sign up for Quick Reads, you simply need to provide your email address. Assuming you pass the CAPTCHA, I'll send an email to that address with a magic link for you to sign in for the first time. From there, you'll just stay logged in effectively forever, but if you ever want to log into a different device or another browser, you just key in your same email address, and I'll send you another magic link. However, sometimes magic links are annoying, so I bucked up and I figured out how to do passkeys, and it turns out it's really not that hard. So after you get signed into your account and sign up for a free trial, you can go into settings and create a passkey. You can create multiple passkeys, and you can name them, and from then on you can just use your passkey to sign in to the web interface. What I personally find exciting about this is that one of my frustrations with passkeys in general is that they are a technology that was pitched as an alternative to passwords, and a lot of their benefits only apply if the password is taken out of the equation. However, I'm yet to find a single service that lets me rely entirely on a passkey. There's always a password in the mix. I guess one of the benefits of having a purely greenfield solution is that I was able to omit passwords from day one and create the passkey future many people dream of. ### Quick Reads: I built the read later app I'd always wanted URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-i-built-the-read-later-app-id-always-wanted/ Last updated: 2026-04-25T16:37:39.000Z I'm happy to *finally* announce [Quick Reads](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me) is available to everyone in a sort of early access today. This has been my only read later service since February, and it's genuinely the best product for the job for me. I think the product largely speaks for itself, so I'm not going to get too into the weeds here. But first, I did want to mention what this product is and what it isn't. This is a service specifically for people who want to read things, not necessarily those who want to save random links. You can save any URL you want, but it's absolutely optimized around saving blog posts, news articles, and social media posts. This is much more Matter or Instapaper rather than Raindrop or Pinboard. ## Where you can use it ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-at-10.14.44@2x.png) The web interface is good to go, and I'm really happy with it. However, a read later service needs more ways to save content into it, so I've had to build out a good number of other products as well. Both the [Chrome](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/quick-reads/ldopokalpolaeofalkgkmeeofojlgifc?ref=birchtree.me) and [Safari](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reads-for-safari/id6759221303?mt=12&ref=birchtree.me) extensions are available now through the official storefronts for each platform, and the Firefox extension is working on my personal computer. However, I need to distribute it through Firefox directly, which I simply haven't been able to do yet. The iOS app is not fully there yet, but it is functional and works best on the iPhone. You can join the public TestFlight from the link in the integrations page on the web app. Finally, there is an Obsidian plugin that is [available on GitHub](https://github.com/mattbirchler/quick-reads-obsidian?ref=birchtree.me) at the moment, and I'm working to get it approved to distribute through the community plugins marketplace directly in Obsidian. *To be clear, the Safari extension is for the Mac only. If you're on iOS, install the iOS app from TestFlight and websites will be able to be shared from the share sheet from any app.* ## API ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-at-10.03.28@2x.png) I'm actually really excited about [the API](https://quickreads.app/docs?ref=birchtree.me) that is available for Quick Reads. From the beginning, I made this product API first so that effectively everything you are doing in the official apps is just as easy to implement for anyone. If you don't like the Chrome extension, build your own. If you don't want to wait for the iOS app to reach its official 1.0 release, no problem. If you want to make an Android app, go right ahead! If you want to integrate this into shortcuts, it totally works. I've also made sure that people using coding agents can get the most out of this API since it's brand new and isn't in any training data. You can copy the full documentation with a single click near the top of the page, or if there's a specific endpoint you want to use, you can copy just that documentation from that section. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-23-at-11.41.51@2x.png) ## Text to speech One really important feature to me in read later services is the ability to listen to my articles. I very often am walking the dog or doing a workout and would love to just listen to the article that I saved. Services like Readwise and Matter have this already, and it's great. I actually considered not doing this feature because it is both the hardest to implement and the most expensive feature, but it's a core piece of functionality for me. So I felt I really couldn't make this product something I would use if it wasn't there. I've chosen to go with a service called [Async](https://async.com/?ref=birchtree.me), which gives me the functionality that I want at a price that I can make work and with voice quality that is sufficient. I may do a technical deep dive on how I did this at a later date, but I've basically worked out what the costs are associated with this feature, and I've limited users to three hours of text-to-speech generation per month. If you use all three hours, I'm basically making no money on you, but less than that seemed too restrictive. As a side note, ElevenLabs has an awesome app called [ElevenReader](https://elevenreader.io/?ref=birchtree.me), which is available on iOS and Android, which lets you paste in a URL or whatever random text you have, and it will turn that into audio for free (ah, the joys of being VC funded). Conveniently, QuickReads has the ability to easily copy the URL or article text for whatever article you're looking at. So if you're on your phone, you can just copy either of those to your clipboard. Open ElevenReader and paste it there, and you'll get an audio version. ## Paywalled articles My aim with this product is to find the right balance between satisfying users' expectations without turning it into some sort of paywall workaround. As such, QuickReads plays nicely with paywalled content, and it does it in a way I think is fair to both writers and readers. When you add an article from the Quick Reads app itself, the server fetches the page and parses the text from there. It is not logged in, and it can not get through paywalls. However, as you will see in the API, the browser extensions and iOS app share button parse the page content themselves and pass that through the API to the service. What this means in plain language is that if you are logged in to a website and are looking at a paywalled article, if you save it with any of the browser extensions or the iOS share extension, it will capture the full text of the article. Of note, I do not cache articles and share the same text between different users of the service. This is what some other services do, and it allows people to get around paywalls. It's a nice little surprise when it works, I guess, but it is not really what I am going for. Also, for those curious, the parsing is done with the quite excellent [defuddle](https://github.com/kepano/defuddle?ref=birchtree.me) library. And in the rare event that a website can't be parsed with defuddle, I fall back to [Readability](https://github.com/mozilla/readability?ref=birchtree.me). I'm also doing some custom parsing for social media posts (Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, and X). ## Pricing One of the reasons I made this app is because I was frustrated that it seemed like ReadLater services were either free and shutting down or rising in cost with all the good ones costing at least $10 per month. I really enjoy a lot of these services, but they offer way more than I felt I needed. And because they had so much functionality, some of it powered by AI, they had to increase their costs to match. Quick Reads has two subscription plans, Basic and Pro. The basic plan is $3.99 per month and lets you save unlimited articles and use all the integrated apps mentioned above, but you don't get text to speech. The pro plan is $5.99 per month or $59.99 per year and also includes text to speech, both on the web and in the iOS app. All plans come with a 7-day free trial. It should go without saying to the audience reading this blog, but I have zero outside funding for this app, so this product needs to be profitable, and I think I've found a good balance of providing a very competitive price while ensuring that I'm able to not turn this into a money pit. ## Give it a shot! I can say with absolute sincerity that I really enjoy using this product. I do not pretend that it is as full-featured or as polished yet as some of the other services that have been around for much longer and are built by much larger teams, but I think it's a genuinely good service that people will get value from. [Quick Reads](https://quickreads.app/?ref=birchtree.me) is a completely indie read later service that cares about your privacy, tries to do one thing very well, and has a business model that I think is fair and sustainable. I hope you like it! ### I got the MX Master 4 and I could not be more disappointed URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-got-the-mx-master-4-and-i-could-not-be-more-disappointed/ Last updated: 2026-04-23T01:37:46.000Z I got an email this morning informing me that my Best Buy credit was about to expire if I didn't use it. So I pulled the trigger on the updated Logitech MX Master 4, the latest and greatest in the quintessential productivity mouse line of the past decade. I owned the MX Master 2 as well as the 3, and the 3S. I love these mice. However, I wasn't particularly drawn to the marketing for the new model, and I also got [this really nice little mouse](https://us.pulsar.gg/collections/x2-series?ref=birchtree.me) last year that I unexpectedly love using, so I didn't get the 4th gen, but I did keep the 3S around, because there are times where I'm doing things like video editing where being able to scroll side to side is important, and my favorite mouse in every other way simply doesn't have that. So yeah, why the heck not? Let's give the newest one a shot. After one day of using this mouse, I kind of despise this product. I expected to be lukewarm on it at worst, so finding myself actively antagonistic toward it is quite the surprise. In fact, I actually can't think of a single mouse I've ever felt this way about, but this one really rubs me the wrong way. First, I find this mouse incredibly uncomfortable to hold, which is a shame because that was literally the main draw of these mice previously. The issue is that they have adjusted the angles around the device in a way that, if you're lifting the mouse off your desk, which is a thing I constantly do, the point that your fingers hit when lifting it are the two backwards and forwards buttons on the side. Apparently that's just where my fingers naturally hold the mouse, and I'm constantly rubbing up against those buttons, and it's uncomfortable. It makes me feel like I have to treat the mouse delicately because if I squeeze too hard, I'm going to depress that button. That would be enough on its own to make this a really disappointing purchase for me, but fear not, it gets even worse because the software on this product is something I truly despise. As someone who has never really used the Logi Options+ app, I wasn't really bothered by it before, but I got it set up for this one because I wanted to use the new Bolt dongle, and my word, it's awful. It requires quite a few permissions to function, and that's all fine, whatever. I've used it in the past, and it just kind of lives in the background and you never really notice it. But what kills me is one of the main selling points of this new device, which is the stupid radial menu that comes up when you click down the haptic pad thing on the left side of the device. You get this low-res, cheap-looking grid of actions that, the moment I saw them, I already knew would be something I never wanted to do and ideally would never see again. Of course I can go into the software and customize it to do something else, but this kind of button was available on the 3S, and I never used it there, and I don't know what I would use it for here either. If you think this is awesome, or this is me being too biased in my review, then yes, I am biased. It's my review. Go write your own if you disagree. All of this is a shame because much of the rest of the product is quite good. I love the ability to be able to easily pair and switch between three wireless devices, mixing and matching between the USB-C dongle and Bluetooth. I love that if I install the software on each device, the settings change to match the device if I want things to behave differently between them. I actually like the materials more than I thought I would, and it seems like they'll be easier to clean than the soft-touch material of the 3S. I love the silent buttons, which could be a placebo, but actually feel even more quiet than they were before. I like the frosted look on the mouse buttons, they look quite premium. Not to bring up a sore subject, but I like that I can charge it while I use it. I love the magnetic scroll wheel, which is still outstanding to this day. I love the feel of the buttons in general, and I love the position and feel of the side scroll below. Here's the thing: basically everything I like about this mouse is a carryover from the 3S that came before. Effectively, everything new is something I think has made it worse. Even some of the things that I complimented, like the materials being better than I expected and the frosted button being pretty nice, I actually think those are worse than the 3S as well, because when I look back at the 3S, it doesn't look old and busted. It actually looks more futuristic to me; it looks more like a unified device rather than this new thing clearly constructed from many pieces of plastic. The other problem [this mouse](https://us.pulsar.gg/collections/x2-series?ref=birchtree.me) has going for it is that I've got a mouse from last year that I really freaking like. It has far less functionality than the Logitech, but it feels so good in the hand. It's so incredibly light, it's so accurate, and I love how it looks. In terms of raw functionality and compatibility with my multi-computer desk setup, the Logitech is objectively a better fit, but I love this mouse so much that I use it anyway. In a similar vein, a wireless keyboard that could pair to my three computers with a press of a button would be more convenient, but I use a wired keyboard that only works with two of my three computers because I like it so much. So that's where I am. I know this is a day-one review, and I know you shouldn't necessarily review things right away, so let's call this first impressions. But I am shocked at how much I actively dislike this product. I really appreciate the functionality that it has, but a combination of the less comfortable feel in the hand and the incredibly frustrating software add up to a product I just cannot recommend to anyone with similar preferences to me. I would still highly, highly recommend the MX Master 3S, and in fact, I may return this one and stock up on a few of those so I have them for years to come. ### John Ternus will be Apple's next CEO (starting September 1, 2026) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/john-ternus-will-be-apples-next-ceo-starting-september-1-2026/ Last updated: 2026-04-20T23:17:34.000Z Apple: [Tim Cook to become Apple Executive ChairmanJohn Ternus to become Apple CEO](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/04/tim-cook-to-become-apple-executive-chairman-john-ternus-to-become-apple-ceo/?ref=birchtree.me) > Under Cook’s leadership Apple has grown from a market capitalization of approximately $350 billion to $4 trillion, representing a more than 1,000% increase, and yearly revenue has nearly quadrupled, from $108 billion in fiscal year 2011 to more than $416 billion in fiscal year 2025. From a business perspective, it's undeniable that Tim Cook has been massively successful. Apple was big when he took over, but it wasn't the behemoth it is today. At a very core level, he has been remarkably good at his job. Big Business Boy Birchler has got to respect that. Cook has also stood by some beliefs that I think are genuinely laudable. Apple's commitment to user privacy leveled up when he was in charge, and his drive to sustainability and the environment is worthy of praise. That said, while his tenure has been financially successful, I think a lot of people feel like Apple isn't quite the company they originally fell in love with, and I hope Ternus can make us feel more that way again. I recognize that's hard when you're not the scrappy underdog, you're one of the biggest companies in the world, but I do think it's important for Apple to keep that "we do whatever is right for the user" energy and less of that "we extract as much as we're legally allowed to from every user and developer" energy. Insert something here about the shareholders' ["bloody ROI"](https://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-versus-a-conservative-think-tank-2014-2?ref=birchtree.me). ### + Argue more effectively URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/argue-more-effectively/ Last updated: 2026-04-20T11:00:32.000Z You can't cast a whole group of people as "evil" and then be surprised when they don't come around to your side. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Our computers are just too good URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/our-computers-are-just-too-good/ Last updated: 2026-04-19T23:21:43.000Z Andy Nicolaides: [I’m not a Pro, and that’s okay.](https://thedent.net/posts/im-not-a-pro-and-thats-okay?ref=birchtree.me) > I started to realise recently, but was fully reconciled in my mind after using the MacBook Neo for a few days. The realisation is that, when it comes to my personal devices at least, I’m not a pro and I don’t need the best / top of the range of every product I get to get a lot of joy, and productivity out of them. This is a completely obvious statement to most people reading this I imagine, and it’s kind of blown my mind it took me so long to realise it. Other than my spell check really not liking the "realise" spelling my British friend uses here, I love this article. Andy points out something I've been wresting around with for a while as well: our computers are better (way better?) than they need to be. The MacBook Neo is a fuckin' irresistible (I saw [two in first class](https://mastodon.social/@matt%5Fbirchler/116420265376251893?ref=birchtree.me) on a recent flight!) and the iPhone Air isn't lighting up the sales charts, but even I can't help but enjoy using this single-camera, okay-battery phone sometimes. By all accounts, the 17 Pro iPhones are selling quite well too, and part of that is because they're technically very good, but I can't help but also think that the colors and the design really hit with a lot of people. For better or worse, I think that I remain a "pro" user. I was at a few concerts and a wedding recently, and I did regret not having the best cameras at a few of those, and while I am traveling with my Neo and using it as my "couch computer", every time I use my MacBook Pro, I go, "hot damn, that's amazing." I still love the Neo, though. It's got…something… ### Quick 🤫 update URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-update-on-that-one-app/ Last updated: 2026-04-17T17:00:13.000Z An update on my biggest project yet. I swear it's almost ready! _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### What if games could be "pretty successful" and not out the developer out of business? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/what-if-games-could-be-pretty-successful-and-not-out-the-developer-out-of-business/ Last updated: 2026-04-16T12:00:02.000Z I really loved this quote from John Linneman on [a recent Digital Foundry podcast](https://youtu.be/MbpOtGKEliM?ref=birchtree.me): > There was a time when they could produce games in a moderately sustainable fashion, it seems, and they didn't need to be multi-million sellers. And in fact, the big multi-million sellers could help support this wide range of content, which in turn strengthens the platform. I think this black and white thinking of "if it's not the biggest thing, then it's a failure," is extremely dangerous and slowly whittles away at the overall life and vibrancy around a platform until it fails. Like this min-maxing that we're seeing, it's not healthy and it's not sustainable. I could not agree more. ### No vibe coded visionOS bump URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/no-vibe-coded-visionos-bump/ Last updated: 2026-04-16T00:59:59.000Z [This post on Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/VisionPro/s/U79JkEQ7cR?ref=birchtree.me) caught my attention: > Been curious about the state of the visionOS ecosystem so I pulled the numbers from Appfigures on every app released specifically for visionOS since the platform was announced. This excludes the thousands of 2D iPad/iPhone apps that are just compatible with the headset. > > The Feb 2024 launch triggered a spike of 260 native apps in a single month, the highest ever. Since mid-2024 it's settled into a steady 20 to 45 new native apps per month. > > Also keep in mind these are only what's available on the public App Store. As a developer myself, most of what's actually being built today never gets published there. It's enterprise software, and it barely makes the news. > > With visionOS 27 coming later this year and a next-gen Vision Pro potentially landing within two years, I think the ecosystem is a lot healthier than the chart alone suggests. Setting aside the fact this has the "actually, there are tons of Vision Pro users, you just can't see them" argument that's all too common in the /r/visionpro subreddit, [this top comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/VisionPro/comments/1sjn5l8/comment/oftcpf1/?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=web3x&utm%5Fname=web3xcss&utm%5Fterm=1&utm%5Fcontent=share%5Fbutton) caught my eye: > What surprised me is that I don't see a boom correlated with “vibe coding.” I think I read elsewhere that there was something like an 80% jump in the App Store due to coding agents, so I’m wondering why that hasn’t happened here🧐 The agentic coding revolution has hit web and iOS dev really hard, with record numbers of GitHub projects and iOS apps being created, but it seems this has completely avoided the visionOS platform. Or maybe even worse, it has, and the 36 new apps we saw in March 2026 would have been closer to zero if this wasn't happening. ### Will iPadOS 27 bring back split view? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/will-ipados-27-bring-back-split-view/ Last updated: 2026-04-16T00:00:00.000Z Zac Kew-Denniss: [iPadOS 26 multitasking is so bad that I’ve replaced my iPad with an Android tablet](https://www.androidauthority.com/ipados-multitasking-sucks-prefer-android-3654697/?ref=birchtree.me) > The biggest mistake Apple made in iPadOS 26 was making all of these changes in the iPad’s default mode. I’m the go-to tech support for a large group of older family members and family friends, and the iPad has always been something I recommend. Ever since iPadOS 26 came out, almost all of those people have needed help to learn the new window management UX, with several of them feeling anxious that somehow their iPad is broken. All of these changes should’ve been made a part of Stage Manager, leaving the default behavior as it was. Instead, the product that’s supposed to “just work” and be simple to use feels nothing of the sort. I think the windowing in iPadOS 26 is really good, and is the best version of it they've ever offered. However, 10 months into using it, I still feel like my iPad is a bit more complicated than it was before, and I do long a bit for the simpler split view I had before. ### Where did the MP3s come from? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/where-did-the-mp3s-come-from/ Last updated: 2026-04-15T23:09:15.000Z Nick Vukotic (random person, I don’t vouch for them) [on Threads](https://www.threads.com/@niqvuk/post/DW1vCijj7DZ?ref=birchtree.me) > I love the decade where every major electronics manufacturer was selling mp3 players but no one was asking where the mp3s were coming from I would love to know what percentage of the music on MP3 players back in the early 2000s was pirated, but the number has to be astronomical. [According to this article](https://business.time.com/2013/02/28/revenue-up-piracy-down-has-the-music-industry-finally-turned-a-corner/?ref=birchtree.me), in 2005, 20% of people were downloading music via peer-to-peer networks like LimeWire and BitTorrent. It's impossible to find specifics, but the impression most people seem to have is that the vast majority of music on people's iPods and Rios and Zunes were pirated. iTunes certainly helped here, but you gotta think the damage was done. Not to make everything a comparison to what we're living through now, but I do think that it's notable that one of the most nostalgic, good-vibes products of many of our youths was fundamentally built on stealing from artists. Maybe you didn't (and be honest, didn't you?), but MP3 players and music piracy were hand in hand. ### Chrome, Safari, and battery myths URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/chrome-safari-and-battery-myths/ Last updated: 2026-04-14T22:15:53.000Z On [this week's Waveform podcast](https://youtu.be/RYok1AdumBU?ref=birchtree.me), Marques Brownlee and crew were talking about browsers and a common topic came up: > Safari is only good for one thing, which is battery life. And: > Commonly accepted facts. > > Accepted by who? Lunatics? > > I would say ask any browser enthusiast. And: > I'm on an Apple Silicon laptop. Battery life is going to be legit no matter what or where I'm going. > > No, no, it's not. That's not true. > > Bro, I'm a super turbo power user. I can at least get like four hours of battery life minimum. > > The difference between Chrome and Safari in regular browsing for several hours is shockingly high. It's huge. > > Really? > > It's dramatic. This laptop is terrifyingly long-lasting battery on Safari, is average at best with Chrome. [I happened to test exactly this in 2024](https://birchtree.me/blog/everyone-says-chrome-devastates-mac-battery-life-but-does-it-i-tested-for-36-hours-to-find-out/), and I took great care to document my process and findings. Here's what I found: > In my 3-hour tests, Safari consumed 18.67% of my battery each time on average, and Chrome averaged 17.33% battery drain. **That works out to about 9% less battery drain from Chrome than Safari.** Yes, you read that right, I found Chrome was easier on my battery than Safari. Yeah, I found that in controlled tests where I did the exact same things in both browsers for hours at a time (across multiple test runs), and found that they were very close to each other, with Chrome using slightly less battery. As Marques put it, it sounds like Chrome halves his Mac's battery life. As someone who uses Chrome for work and spends all day in it doing work in Atlassian apps and video calls, I can confidently say it easily makes it through an 8-9 hour work day on battery. This is true of my M5 Pro and it was also true of my M1. I asked for any sort of data from the past decade people had to back up the idea that Chrome was horrible on battery and Safari was a saint, and I got nothing sent my way in 2024\. If you have it now, I'd love to see it! [Hit me up on Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@matt%5Fbirchler?ref=birchtree.me) if you've got it! Until I get any sort of compelling data, I'm going to continue thinking that people who think this are just like people who think that religiously force closing your iPhone apps improves your phone's speed and battery. It's a shared hallucination that *feels* like it's true, even though it's not. Considering many Safari users can't seem to believe that Chrome is a faster browser than Safari these days either, despite effectively every benchmark showing this, I suspect the feelings will continue. ### The "heads I win, tails you lose" mentality URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-heads-i-win-tails-you-lose-mentality/ Last updated: 2026-04-12T17:59:59.000Z Antonio G. Di Benedetto for The Verge: [I tested three Windows laptops in the MacBook Neo’s price range — there’s no contest](https://www.theverge.com/tech/908328/macbook-neo-windows-laptop-competitors-asus-lenovo-acer-review-comparison?ref=birchtree.me) > Each has an eight-core processor (versus six on the Neo), 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB, and between 256GB and 1TB of storage — the slowest of which is twice the speed of the Neo’s storage. The article goes onto say that the Neo is a better experience for most people for most things than the similarly-priced Windows laptops, but I pulled this quote because I think it's telling. There's a class of Apple fan that puts Apple in a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation. Through the Apple silicon generation, Apple has been pushing the speeds of its RAM and SSDs higher and higher, typically ahead of what you'd get in mainstream PC parts. Faster computers are good, but it's led to an argument from some Apple fans that anything less than what Apple's offering at the highest end of RAM/SSD speeds is unworthy of people time and money. In January 2024, I bought 32GB RAM for my gaming PC. It was fast, DDR5 memory, and it more than served its purpose for my needs. This RAM cost me $106, which was a tad (understatement of the year) more affordable than what it would cost to get that in a Mac, and I got a few people comment about how it was an apples to oranges comparison because the RAM in Macs was so much better than the RAM I was getting. My contention was basically, sure, but if I don't need the extra speed, then it's more than fine to get more of what I actually need (capacity and more than enough speed) than the top-of-the-line speeds MacBook Pros got us. I don't have a personal story about being roasted for using an SSD slower than MacBook Pros, but as Apple fans have transitioned from "benchmarks don't express the experience of the product" to "this benchmark proves my Apple product is better" over the last decade, there has been plenty of obsession with SSD speeds as well. Stating it again to be super clear, these are good things, and they push the performance of our devices forward. That said, while Windows computers were critiqued to hell for not being exactly as fast as the highest end Macs, there was always leeway for other Macs. Remember when Macs with lower-capacity SSDs had literally half the performance of their higher end models? [Remember when the M2 MacBook Air and Pro models actually got much slower after their M1 equivalents?](https://9to5mac.com/2023/01/24/macbook-pro-ssd-performance-drop/?ref=birchtree.me) Or, as referenced above, how the MacBook Neo has much slower RAM and SSD than not only every other Apple silicon Mac ever, but the budget Windows laptops it competes with in 2026? The sober takes today are that yes, these are not ideal, but hey, the only people who will notice are spec-obsessed critics who don't understand real users. In short, Apple wins when they have the best SSD and RAM speeds because obviously faster is better, and they win when they don't have the best speeds because the vast majority of users don't need all that speed. In my opinion, the only cogent position to have on this sort of thing is that clearly faster is better, but there's a line you eventually cross where most people don't really see the benefits in the things they do on a computer, and that line is below the state-of-the-art in 2026 when it comes to RAM and SSD speed. The line raises a bit every year as our computing demands increase, but we should all bring the "most people don't need absolute top of the line specs" energy to discussions of all computers, not just Apple's. ### + Bad at watching TV URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/bad-at-watching-tv/ Last updated: 2026-04-12T14:00:30.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### + Absolute awe URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/absolute-awe/ Last updated: 2026-04-10T20:00:45.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Micro app 14: Podcast Transcript Fixer URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-14-podcast-transcript-fixer/ Last updated: 2026-04-08T23:13:33.000Z Today I'm sharing a pretty simple micro-app: a Claude skill that you can use in the desktop app or in Claude Code. It lets you pass in a podcast transcript and helps clean it up for you. The local models we have today for creating transcriptions are really great, but they aren't perfect, and they do get some things wrong, so it's helpful to clean them up. I've tried to help with this issue before. I implemented a Gemini-powered feature in Quick Subtitles that does this, and it works pretty well, but there are some things I want to improve about that feature, and it's limited to transcripts created in that app. Sometimes I have transcript files that were generated elsewhere, so I needed a more universal way to clean them up. That's where this skill comes in. Now, I know a good percentage of my readers don't like LLMs and scoff at them as simply being fancy autocorrect, but hey, that's literally what this skill does! It's a fancy autocorrect! Obviously, you can do this without a skill, but skills are effectively shorthand to add to your prompt and to add other considerations that the skill creator may have implemented. For example, when you use this skill, instead of having a long prompt that explains that this is a podcast transcript and lists the names of the hosts and the sorts of things that it could get wrong, you can just say "clean up this transcript," and it'll go ahead and do it. You can either directly tag the skill, or in most cases, Claude will just understand that you probably want to use the skill and will load it for you. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-08-at-18.12.23@2x.png) Proper nouns are something that LLMs can often get wrong, especially if they're not typical titles or names. I wanted the skill to be generic, so I didn't hard code anything into it. Instead, I added a memory feature that should make it so that when you first run the skill, it asks you for things like the name of your podcast and the names of the hosts, so it can look up those transcriptions and make sure those are correct. It stores that in Claude's memory, so you don't have to do it every time, although, of course, because Claude is an LLM, you can add these later at any point if you want. As a quick aside, one of the things that critics of language models often critique is that the output can be a bit fuzzy. Yes, we want the output to be as accurate as possible, but what isn't always appreciated is the fuzzy input, which LLMs excel with. My co-host Nealeon's name is mistranscribed basically every single time by every model, and it's done in different ways. So it's really hard to know exactly what to look for to know what needs to be fixed. A simple find and replace doesn't work super well for this use case, but LLMs can understand that there's a person named Nealeon, and the transcript likely got it wrong, so it will look up possible misspellings and correct multiple of them easily. It's very effective at this, and I really appreciate that about LLMs. When you don't exactly know what you're looking for, but you know what the results should be, it does a really good job at getting you there. This skill is [available for free on GitHub](https://github.com/mattbirchler/podcast-transcript-fixer?ref=birchtree.me) if you'd like to download it, and there are instructions to install it in Claude if you're not familiar with installing skills. ### Chrome gets side tabs URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/chrome-gets-side-tabs/ Last updated: 2026-04-07T19:15:10.000Z David Pierce: [Vertical browser tabs are better and you should use them](https://www.theverge.com/tech/907998/google-chrome-vertical-tabs?ref=birchtree.me) > The good news here is, you don’t have to take my word for it. Switching browsers is hard, and maybe you don’t want to do it just for vertical tabs. But update Chrome, right-click the tab bar, and just see what happens when you select Show Tabs Vertically. I bet you’ll never go back. And there we go, the last of the major browsers has added side tabs, validating my opinion that Arc is right up there with ChatGPT for the most influential new apps released in the past 5 years. *Editor's note: Safari technically has side tabs, although they are a weird add-on, not a replacement for the normal tabs. I'm counting it, but it's not really what we're talking about when we talk about Arc-style side tabs.* ### Samsung is discontinuing it's messaging app…helping iPhone users get encrypted RCS URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/samsung-is-discontinuing-its-messaging-app-helping-iphone-users-get-encrypted-rcs/ Last updated: 2026-04-06T23:55:00.000Z Last month, I [wrote about](https://birchtree.me/blog/encrypted-rsc-is-coming-in-ios-26-4/) how Apple is working on adding support for encrypted RCS messages between Apple Messages on iOS and Google Messages on Android. At the time, I said I hoped Apple would make this work with Samsung's messaging app as well so that basically all Americans could get the benefits here. Well, today [Samsung announced](https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/samsung-messages/?ref=birchtree.me) they are ending their custom messaging app and are directing users to switch to Google Messages instead. Well, problem solved. ### Video gaming prices continue to explode URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/video-gaming-prices-continue-to-explode/ Last updated: 2026-04-03T20:41:01.000Z Just 6 months ago, [Lenovo launched their Legion Go 2](https://www.theverge.com/news/769776/legion-go-2-official-lenovo-new-flagship-handheld-cost?ref=birchtree.me) handheld PC game console. It came in 2 versions, each with a different chip (AMD Ryzen Z2 or Z2 Extreme) powering the device. They came in at the profoundly premium price points of $1,099 and $1,349. Now, those are profoundly high price points compared to the competition. The [Steam Deck OLED](https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck?ref=birchtree.me) was (and technically still is, but it's been out of stock for over a month) $549-$649 which outside of the OLED screen being nicer, does lag behind in a bunch of specs, so the price difference is somewhat understandable. Still, a bit north of $1,000 for a portable gaming console is pretty wild. But now the Legion Go 2 has [gotten a price increase](https://www.theverge.com/games/906752/lenovo-legion-go-2-suddenly-costs-650-more-as-ramageddon-lays-waste-to-gaming-hardware?ref=birchtree.me). And not a small one… Instead of $1,099 and $1,349, now they cost $1,499 and $1,999\. Yes, those are $400 and $650 increases, or put another way, one top-of-the-line Steam Deck more than before. As I said back at the start of the year, [2026 is going to be a very painful year in tech](https://birchtree.me/blog/2026-is-going-to-be-a-very-painful-year-in-tech/). --- On the plus side, if you did want a portable gaming PC with the power of the $1,999 Legion Go 2, you could look at the seemingly-reasonably-priced-in-comparison $999 ROG Xbox Ally X, which has the same Z2 Extreme chip as the $1,999 model, 24GB RAM (down from the Go's 32GB), and a slightly lower res screen, but honestly I think it's a way better buy, [even if the software sucks hard](https://birchtree.me/blog/rog-xbox-ally-x-review-amazing-performance-but-the-worst-software-ive-ever-used/). Install Bazzite on that sucker and enjoy life. ### Nintendo's digital games will be cheaper than physical URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/nintendos-digital-games-will-be-cheaper-than-physical/ Last updated: 2026-04-03T15:04:46.000Z Nintendo: [About Nintendo Switch 2 Game Pricing](https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/about-nintendo-switch-2-game-pricing/?ref=birchtree.me) > Beginning in May 2026, and starting with preorders for Yoshi™ and the Mysterious Book, new Nintendo published digital titles exclusive to Nintendo Switch™ 2 will have an MSRP that is different from physical versions. Considering Nintendo caught up with Sony and Microsoft and made their first party games $70 this generation (except for Mario Kart World, which cost $80 which is honestly *outrageous*), it's nice to have at least one video game headline that isn't about how a company is increasing prices further. ### That’s jus how media discussions go URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/thats-jus-how-media-discussions-go/ Last updated: 2026-04-01T23:59:59.000Z [jess77x in a Reddit post about Pluribus:](https://www.reddit.com/r/shittymoviedetails/s/6BccesScV4?ref=birchtree.me) > The discourse around this show is so weird. It's either a masterpiece or a total slog. And everyone is just talking past each other and calling people illiterate/TikTok brained for disliking it or pretentious shills for liking it. And it's a shame because engaging with this show, the ideas presented in it, and how the show goes about exploring those ideas (for better and for worse) could be so interesting, yet so much of this discussion is centered around this unproductive binary. This is just how it goes with media discourse. It's good or it's bad, there is no in between. There is no space for "art is subjective, there will always be many opinions". Get in line or get wrecked in the comments. ### OpenAI against the world URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/openai-against-the-world/ Last updated: 2026-04-01T23:29:59.000Z Ben Thompson: [Apple’s 50 Years of Integration](https://stratechery.com/2026/apples-50-years-of-integration/?ref=birchtree.me) > It’s also worth noting that OpenAI has, in its relatively short life, managed to frame itself as a competitor to basically everyone in tech, from Google to Meta to Microsoft, only to find itself forced to pivot in the face of Anthropic and its focused approach on coding and productivity in the enterprise. The audacity of taking on everyone is impressive; the effectiveness of fighting everyone for everything may be less so. I hadn't really thought about it in these terms before, but OpenAI has effectively positioned itself as competing with literally every single tech company in the world. What *can't* GPT do, you know? But they kind of have to, don't they? Their investment implies a valuation that makes them effectively as big as all the other big tech companies combined. I don't know exactly how we're going to come down from this AI bubble, but it certainly seems like it will dawn on people that OpenAI could be a generational company in the long run. We could be celebrating their fiftieth anniversary in several decades, just as we're celebrating Apple's today. However, several examples are notable deviations from the narrative that AI, and OpenAI specifically, will be taking over the world. Apple was seen as a laggard in AI development, and in fairness, they clearly saw themselves that way and invested billions in trying to catch up to the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic, but they failed miserably. And yet, they seem like they're going to be doing just fine. You need a computer to do all this vibe coding on. You need a phone to talk to an AI agent. Who makes the best computers and phones? Apple does. Similarly, there's Anthropic, the company that some analysts derided in the past for being an incredibly niche AI player who got too many headlines for the number of users they had. They forced OpenAI to pivot several times because they focused their efforts on work and coding specifically. Now OpenAI has tried hard to pivot to get their Codex app to catch on to even a fraction of the extent of Claude Code. And they've already entered their Elon era, where now they're talking about building a ChatGPT super app that combines a chatbot, a browser, and a code editor. I don't know if it's a law of nature, but it definitely seems to be a law of the tech space that once you start talking about building a super app, you're kind of flailing as a business. ### + Have I burned out on YouTube? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/have-i-burned-out-on-youtube/ Last updated: 2026-04-01T23:29:39.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Apple at 50: my most memorable product announcements URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-at-50-my-most-memorable-product-announcements/ Last updated: 2026-04-01T22:58:03.000Z Apple turns 50 today, so I thought I'd take some time to think back on some of the most memorable Apple product announcements. *I'm relying entirely on my own memory, so forgive me if I get some small details wrong.* ## Original iPhone We have to start with the original iPhone announcement. It's the sort of thing people will still be watching decades from now; an absolute masterclass in presenting new tech in a way that is exciting and approachable. I was in awe at the time and I'd never seen anything like it. The scope of what it could do was so far beyond what my little flip phone could do that it was genuinely hard to fathom. Multitouch in particular blew my mind. You have to understand that in 2007, very few of the computing devices people used had touchscreens at all, and the ones that did tended to require a stylus. The idea that not only was your finger going to be a precise instrument for all interactions with this device (including typing on the keyboard), but that you could have multiple fingers detected at the same time and you could build gestures like pinch to zoom around that…it sounds quaint today, but that really was incredible at the time. On the more mundane but also pretty damn impressive side, I still think about when he loaded The New York Times website, which isn't something we'd think twice about today, but again, literally was not possible on the phones the vast majority of us were using in 2007\. You gotta remember, most people watching this keynote were doing so with a flip phone. ## Original iPad The other big hitter has to be the original iPad, which was demoed differently than basically any other product they've ever done, with Steve Jobs on a comfy chair with an over-the-shoulder camera showing him using what is effectively a large iPhone. The extra screen real estate really made it a compelling device for a lot of people. And then there was also one of the few price reveals I can remember. The rumors leading up to the event were that it would cost $999, so when they dropped that $499 price point at the end, it was amazing. ## MacBook Air and iPod Nano I can't neglect to mention the original MacBook Air being pulled out of a manila envelope. It's just an iconic moment. Similarly, Steve Jobs revealed the iPod nano by pulling it out of the coin pocket in his jeans. Again, iconic. ## WiFi I forget the specific model, but whatever the first laptop they shipped with WiFi had a great demo. Phil Schiller connected wirelessly to a router, jumped off a ladder onto a mat, and showed he never lost his connection. Not enough Apple executives perform live stunts during keynotes these days. ## AirPower I also can't help but think of AirPower, which promised to combat the problem that existed with wireless chargers, which is if you didn't align your device correctly on the pad, you might not get the charge you expected. The AirPower solution suggested that the entire pad should be coiled and you could charge multiple devices on the same pad at the same time. Place up to 3 devices anywhere on this mat and they'll all charge perfectly. Obviously, that never shipped, and the better and more effective solution turned out to be magnets, so that you only have one coil, but you hit it every time. ## iPhone X I remember the iPhone X announcement specifically, the part where they talked about how they managed to not have a chin on the bottom of the device like most other phones had at the time, and they did it by curving the OLED screen back on itself. It's such a minor detail, but that visual stuck with me. ## Original Apple Watch I don't know if I remember any specific part of the Apple Watch announcement, but I do remember my feeling of absolute relief that Apple was actually doing it and my delight that it seemed like they were doing it really well. I was wearing a Pebble as I watched this one, and I'm still wearing an Apple Watch today. ## The Intel and Apple silicon transitions I also think about the events where Apple announced their transition from PowerPC to Intel, and then a decade and a half later, Intel to Apple silicon. I think these announcements are just quintessential Apple to me, because from the moment until those events happened, Apple would proudly state how fast and battery efficient their computers were,. Then at the announcement they'd say, "Oh my god, it's been so bad, now we have a solution." And for what it's worth, in both cases it was exactly the right decision. ## Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger The final one I'll mention right now is the announcement of Mac OS 10.4 Tiger, which is one of the all-time great macOS updates in my opinion, specifically because of Spotlight. You have to appreciate that at the time searching your computer sucked. There were some app launchers similar to what we have today, (although far smaller in scope), and Spotlight was a good app launcher, but it also let you search your entire file system effectively instantly. Before this, the way you would do this is you would search in the Finder, or years previous you would have loaded something like Sherlock, and type a query and wait…and wait…and wait. Genuinely, sometimes searches would take over a minute to scan your whole hard drive. --- There are more that I could certainly call out, but these are the ones that were front of mind today. ### Buy today's budget or yesterday's premium? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/buy-todays-budget-or-yesterdays-premium/ Last updated: 2026-03-30T21:33:50.000Z One of the things that raised a bit of a stink in my [MacBook Neo review](https://birchtree.me/blog/macbook-neo-review-i-wish-this-had-an-m1-inside/) was the idea that it might be prudent for people looking to buy a $600-700 MacBook to also consider older devices off mainstream storefronts like Amazon, eBay, and Best Buy. To me, it made sense for price-sensitive buyers to weigh all their options to get the most bang for their buck, and know that they could get a computer that was a few years older, but was better in every single spec…I think that's compelling. Which brings us to today where I was checking out Best Buy's phone prices (after seeing stories they were discounting the iPhone Air by $100-200), and stumbled quickly on the top-selling iPhone from Best Buy, the iPhone 15 for $599. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-30-at-15.42.39@2x.png) Well that happens to be exactly the price of Apple's budget iPhone 17e. If I thought a few years old MacBook Air was a pretty compelling purchase over the Neo, did that thinking carry over to the iPhones as well? ## It's all about value The iPhone 15 is only 2 generations behind the current iPhones, so it's really not that old or that bad a device in 2026 (in fact, it's pretty great for the most part). So which would I get? To [the iPhone compare page](https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone-17e,iphone-15,iphone-17&ref=birchtree.me)! Here's where the older iphone 15 still wins over the 17e: 1. Dynamic island 2. Ultra-wide camera 3. Better image stabilization 4. Cinematic and Action Modes for video 5. Brighter display (25-33% in normal modes, and nearly twice as bright outdoors as needed) 6. mmWave 5G (vs normal 5G on the 17e) 7. Intangible, but the build quality will feel slightly better That's not nothing, but let's look at what the 17e has over the 15: 1. 2x the storage (256GB vs 128GB) 2. 3 generations newer A19 SoC 3. 30% more advertised battery life 4. Stronger front glass 5. Action button 6. Fusion camera setup 7. Apple Intelligence ## My opinion As ever, my goal in discussing products is typically to give you the information you need to make the choice that's right for you, rather than to tell you that you, stranger on the internet who I don't know, should absolutely buy Product A over Product B. That said, I think this comparison is more favorable to the new budget option over the older, previously more expensive device. Faster, more storage, better battery life, and more durable is a heck of a combo for the 17e. in my opinion, the biggest edge I'd give the older iPhone 15 is the camera setup, which is probably going to be pretty similar with the 1x lens, but the addition of the ultra-wide would definitely be nice to have. Honestly, there's one spec that has always made the budget iPhones quite compelling to me as a value proposition: speed. The A19 is [about 40% faster](https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks?ref=birchtree.me) than the A16, which means not only will it be faster today, but it will also be a pleasant phone to use for a few more years than the older phone. Add onto that the other benefits we just talked about, and I can tell you that if I was given the choice, I'd personally go with the 17e 100 times out of 100. ### Micro app 13: The Comfort Zone Database URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-13-the-comfort-zone-database/ Last updated: 2026-03-30T16:54:26.000Z Something I find myself doing from time to time is wondering if I've mentioned a piece of tech before, run a specific challenge before, or just trying to remember what episode to reference when directing people to an old episode. This data exists and could be acquired if I needed to get it, but I wanted a better way. This led to my latest micro-app, [The Comfort Zone Database](https://comfort-zone-database.vercel.app/?ref=birchtree.me). Using this website, I can instantly find all the episodes were we talked about anything I want. I'll put a video below showing how it works, but this has instantly removed basically all friction in finding what we discussed. For example, I'm able to quickly see all the episodes we mentioned the MacBook Neo. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-30-at-10.10.51@2x.png) And not only does it search the show notes and titles, it searches transcripts as well! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-30-at-10.12.27@2x.png) And because I couldn't help myself, I also made it so that clicking one of the transcript results brings you to the episode page and starts playing the episode in that segment. 0:00 /1:56 1× ## How it works There certainly could be a public version of this one day, but right now it's very much centered around my personal use case. The episode list is pulled from the RSS feed, and that feed is updated at build time. The transcripts are also being uploaded by me to the project with a very specific name format. What this means is that once a week, I need to add the transcript file for the new episode and push the change to the repo, triggering Vercel to build and deploy the update. If I forget, this falls behind. Ideally, this would be a generic interface that users could sign up for, add their own RSS feed, and then all details would automatically pull from their feed. The back end should also automatically check for updates on feeds every 6 hours or something like that as well. Transcript updates should pull from the remote files and not be a part of the code base, and there could be an upload UI to add these files from the web portal. ### iOS…iPadOS…are you getting it? These are not two different operating systems… URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ios-ipados-are-you-getting-it-these-are-not-two-different-operating-systems/ Last updated: 2026-03-29T21:43:21.000Z The above screenshot is from the iPad, and it's where you get to choose how you would like apps to display in the OS. Given my recent assertions that iOS and iPadOS are already the same thing, but with different exposed features on some devices, I'd suggest that the iPhone of today effectively runs the "full screen apps" mode. There's no split screen, picture-in-picture is here, and you can swipe across the bottom of the screen to quickly switch between recent apps. That's how it works on the iPhone and the iPad when using this mode. Windowed apps and Stage Manager are effectively two variants of the same windowing system, and while these are not exposed to iPhone users, [we do know that they are in the code running on your iPhone right now](https://x.com/khanhduytran0/status/1989626181109653702?ref=birchtree.me). Based on reports from Mark Gurman, [including this latest](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/11/iphone-fold-ipad-style-multitasking/?ref=birchtree.me), it sounds like the folding iPhone will have a split screen view when unfolded, but no free window management. ## My expectation I expect that in iPadOS 27, these 3 options will remain, but the full screen apps option will bring the return of split screen that does not involved free-floating windows like we have now in iPadOS 26\. In June, this will make a lot of iPad users happy who didn't love needing to opt into full windowing to get the split views they used to love. However, this new full screen apps mode will also come to the iPhone Fold this fall, allowing those users to run apps full screen and with a more iPad-style layout, while also allowing side-by-side apps on the internal screen. The iPhone would not need free floating windows, so I would not expect that to come to the Fold. Apple could keep the naming of the OS different on the iPhone and iPad, but if this prediction comes to pass, it really does feel like in 2027 [they could unify the OS naming across all their phone and tablet devices](https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-will-kill-ipados/), but we'll see…that stirred people up last time I suggested it… ### Quick Tier List gets Quick Look URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-tier-list-gets-quick-look/ Last updated: 2026-03-28T15:39:50.000Z This morning, I pushed a small, but important update the [Quick Tier List](https://quicktierlist.com/?ref=birchtree.me), what I think is the best tier list web app out there. ## Quick Look ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-28-at-10.14.47.gif) You can now select an item from the unranked section and press the spacebar to quick look that image, just like in the macOS Finder. When you're ready to rank it, just dismiss the lightbox (spacebar again, escape, or click outside the image), and drag it where it belongs. ## What's the use case? Often when someone is doing a tier list, they'll discuss the next item for a bit before ranking it. The tiles are so small it's hard for viewers to see, so I often see creators needing to add these images in the video edit afterwards, which is a pain. This feature will let you bring up a much larger version of the image, which should let you have a more engaging video for viewers, as well as cut down on extra work you need to do while editing. Win win! [Quick Tier List](https://quicktierlist.com/?ref=birchtree.me) is free for anyone to enjoy, and is also [open source](https://github.com/mattbirchler/quick-tier-list-web?ref=birchtree.me). ### Quick Subtitles 2.2 - UX and UI improvements galore URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-subtitles-2-2-ux-and-ui-improvements-galore/ Last updated: 2026-03-28T15:30:41.000Z The latest version of [Quick Subtitles](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) is here, and it's packed with some significant UI and UX improvements. Let's dive into the UX enhancements first. ## Better loading indicators ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/loading-model.png) A few versions ago, I added support for third-party transcription models like Parakeet and Whisper. Unlike Apple's built-in model, these models aren't integrated into the OS, depending on various factors, they often need to be "warmed up" before use. This warm up process could take anywhere from a few seconds to a minute, with the time varying by device. The problem was that users of these models would see the transcription progress bar stuck at zero percent for an extended period, giving the impression that the app was frozen. In reality, the app was simply warming up the model, but there was no visual indication of this. Now, you'll see a green progress bar during the model warm-up phase, and you'll also get a clearer indication when the app is converting the audio file into a format the model can better handle. Only then will the transcription process begin as usual. While this doesn't necessarily speed up the process, it keeps you informed about what's happening every step of the way. If you don't switch between models frequently, you might not be that impacted by this. However, if you're like me and are constantly testing different models, you'll definitely appreciate the improved feedback. ## More intuitive clean up ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/clenaup.png) I've also refined the clean up feature, which I eventually determined was a bit unintuitive before. In the old version, you were presented with two wording options on the left and right, but the corresponding buttons below to accept either option were reversed. I've addressed this by combining these UI elements. Now, you simply click on the word or phrase that is correct. ## UI tweaks ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/loading.png) Beyond usability improvements, I've also made some visual UI tweaks that I think make the app more delightful to use. The app now has a yellow tint, replacing the plain black and white aesthetic. I believe this adds a touch of personality without becoming overly playful, which I think is a good balance for a tool meant for pro workflows. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-28-at-10.26.38.gif) I've also tried to make the transcription progress bar more distinct by turning it into a waveform that's dynamically generated based on the file being processed. Additionally, I've replaced the basic loading indicators for the clean up and AI analysis features with real-time rendered 3D animations built in Swift. Don't worry, they're very light to render, so they're not slowing anything down. 😉 --- [Quick Subtitles 2.2 is out now](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me), and is a free upgrade for existing users. New users get 10 transcriptions for free and there's a one-time $19.99 fee to get lifetime access. ### Removing macOS's icon-sized movie player URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/removing-macoss-icon-sized-movie-player/ Last updated: 2026-03-28T14:02:58.000Z Back in 2007 Apple released Mac OS X Leopard, which introduced a bunch of cool features including Quick Look. This allowed users to select a file and hit the space bar to preview it in the finder, which is awesome but it also made it so that audio and video files have a play button smack dab in the middle that you have to avoid to actually click the icon. I hate this feature and I have never once used it intentionally. As is so often the case, there is in fact a terminal command you can run to get rid of this feature. ## How to disable the feature `defaults write com.apple.finder QLInlinePreviewMinimumSupportedSize -int 99999` Then restart the Finder by running `killall Finder` and the change will be in place. ## What this is doing Basically, macOS has a setting that will only show the inline preview on icons of a certain size. It's unset by default, so all icons in icon view, no matter the size, show the preview. By setting it to 99999, you're setting the minimum size so high that you'll never get close to having an icon big enough to hit the threshold. And don't worry, this does not impact the ability to hit spacebar on an icon to see a large preview of it. ## How to bring it back If you ever decide you miss this feature, you can bring it back by deleting the setting with this command: `defaults delete com.apple.finder QLInlinePreviewMinimumSupportedSize` Then run `killall Finder` to have the setting restored. ### Console prices are insane now URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/console-prices-are-insane-now/ Last updated: 2026-03-28T00:21:05.000Z ***All prices in this post are adjusted for inflation.*** In 2000, Sony launched the PS2 for $561\. By 2006, they had a $209 model that was thinner, but had all the power and features of the original model. This was how the world went: consoles launch, and then get cheaper over time, often with hardware revisions that make the device more efficient. In 2020, Sony launched the PS5 for $501\. Today, [Sony announced](https://thisweekinvideogames.com/news/sony-increases-playstation-5-ps5-console-prices-for-second-time-in-12-months/?ref=birchtree.me) that they were bumping PS5 to a starting price of $600. See [my recent post](https://birchtree.me/blog/switch-2-sales-estimates-drop-and-why-i-think-console-gaming-is-currently-in-decline/) about reasons why game consoles don't have the long tail of unit sales like they used to, but I don't think the price is helping. Oh, and the PS5 Pro was bumped from $750 to $900\. It seems like it might actually be reasonable to expect a $1,000 console by the end of 2026\. See also my [2026 is going to be a very painful year in tech](https://birchtree.me/blog/2026-is-going-to-be-a-very-painful-year-in-tech/). ### About those "Chrome on Android is faster than Safari on the iPhone" claims URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/about-those-chrome-on-android-is-faster-than-safari-on-the-iphone-claims/ Last updated: 2026-03-27T00:42:21.000Z This week, [Google posted](https://blog.chromium.org/2026/03/android-sets-new-record-for-mobile-web.html?ref=birchtree.me) that Chrome on Android was now notably faster at browsing the web than Safari on iOS. This led to the bold line in the post: > **Android is now the fastest mobile platform for web browsing.** Likely due to corporate lameness, they didn't put specific labels on their bar chart, they just identified that 3 Android OEMs have devices that performed better on the [Speedometer 3.1 benchmark](https://browserbench.org/Speedometer3.1/?ref=birchtree.me) than some "competing mobile phone platform". Here's their chart for posterity: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/image-7.png) A bar chart without proper labels is going to raise some eyebrows, including John Gruber's, who [posted](https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/03/26/google-brags-about-android-web-browser-benchmarks?ref=birchtree.me): > Name the devices or shut up. I happen to be someone who has the fastest iPhone and the fastest Android phone from the most popular Android maker in the US: the iPhone 17 Pro and Galaxy S26 Ultra. I guess today is a day of benchmarks for me, because I literally [just posted a bunch of benchmarks](https://birchtree.me/blog/macbook-neo-the-benchmarks/), including GeekBench scores which showed the Galaxy matching the iPhone in single-core, and beating it in multi-core. But yeah, I get the same results as Google did, although the iPhone scored a bit lower on my device for some reason (this is the average score across 5 tests on each device with a short cool down between runs). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/image-8.png) Here are the individual results if you wanted to see them all. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-26-at-19.02.21@2x.png) It's been a while of iPhone speed dominance, but it seems Qualcomm has more than caught up in raw performance. iPhones obviously are still outstanding, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are plenty of ways that Apple's chips are great that can't be shown easily on benchmarks like this. As I keep saying, maybe it's time Apple fans stop obsessing over benchmarks like they're Windows fans in the 2000s. Benchmark wins are a nice bonus if your platform is on top, but it's probably not the actual reason you use that platform. ### MacBook Neo, the benchmarks URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/macbook-neo-the-benchmarks/ Last updated: 2026-03-26T23:16:53.000Z I wrote in my review that I didn't think benchmarks told the real story of using a Neo, and I specifically called out the Geekbench CPU single-core test as particularly misleading. That said, I do think the benchmarks are interesting academically, and in terms of what they say about the differences between Apple silicon Mac chips and iPhone chips. All charts created with my free [Benchmark Studio](https://mattbirchler.github.io/benchmark-studio/?ref=birchtree.me) website. ## Disk speed ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-26-at-09.43.04@2x.png) I used [Magic Disk Benchmark](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magic-disk-benchmark/id1608793370?ref=birchtree.me) to test the read and write speeds of the 3 Macs I have access to (and can install a random disk app on, aka not my M5 Pro work Mac). As you can see, there's a pretty enormous gap between the Neo and even a base M2 Mac mini. In real-world use, this hasn't been a real issue for me, even dealing with relatively large video files. And I think that's likely because even at these massively reduced speeds compared to my MacBook Pro, the bottleneck in these data transfers is seldom the internal disk and is more often the remote connection to something like my NAS or the USB speeds of my SSD or my SD card from my Canon camera, which is way slower than this anyway. What I will say is that in recent years, Apple has really accelerated the performance of their SSDs. And this has been a key part of the argument as to why PCs are absolute trash. And it turns out that even when you reduce the SSD speed by quite a bit, you can create a computer that people love and can do everything just fine on. Obviously, I hope Apple keeps pushing forward because more performance is never bad in this regard. But I would, as I so often seem to do, remind people that a lot of the specs in our modern computers are actually better than they strictly need to be, and maybe we should settle down with the fanboy talk. ## Geekbench CPU single-core ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-26-at-14.43.20@2x.png) Let's share a version of the god-forsaken chart that makes everyone think the Neo is basically a pro machine. A couple of things worth calling out here are, yes, the MacBook Neo performs in the ballpark of the best ARM devices on the market today, which makes sense as it was the best iPhone chip just one year ago. Meanwhile, the older M2 is left in the dust. I know this is a blog post about the Neo, but I did want to mention the Galaxy S26 Ultra as well, which pulls right alongside the iPhone 17 Pro in terms of single-core performance. If Apple had a substantial lead in this category in years past, the Snapdragon chips of today have effectively caught up in this regard. ## Geekbench CPU multi-core ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/image-5.png) This is where the Pro version of the M4 really stretches its legs with its 14 CPU cores (10 fast, 4 slow) compared to the Neo's 6 cores (2 fast, 4 slow). This is where the experience when opening more than a couple browser tabs or more than a handful of apps gets the Neo to beg for mercy while the Pro doesn't break a sweat. That's what the 3.5x cost of my MacBook Pro is getting me, so not exactly surprising (the 3x RAM in the Pro helps as well). I think the M2 is interesting in this comparison as well, as it is about 10% faster than the Neo in this regard with its 8 CPU cores (4 fast, 4 slow). I'll also call out the Galaxy S26 Ultra for pushing reasonably past the latest iPhones. Again, the extensive lead Apple enjoyed here for years has vanished in benchmarks. Maybe people shouldn't be so surprised [when Google says that Chrome is faster](https://blog.chromium.org/2026/03/android-sets-new-record-for-mobile-web.html?ref=birchtree.me) on Android than Safari on iOS. ## Audio conversion ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/image-6.png) Audio conversion is a pretty straightforward single-core task on the CPU, and as you might expect, the Neo punches above its weight here, using one of its performance cores to its fullest to perform a task just seconds slower than a much more expensive Mac. Also, the M2 lags behind, which makes sense given the Geekbench scores above. ## Apple's on-device audio transcription ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-26-at-10.36.51@2x.png) I ran Quick Subtitles' benchmark mode on each device using Apple's transcription model, and this is the words-per-second speed on each device. I think this is an interesting test, although it is quite specialized around one use case. Transcription involves a combination of the neural engine, GPU, and a little CPU. What's notable here is that the enormous increase in CPU and GPU cores on the MacBook Pro don't lead to significant gains in performance in this task, specifically. I can see why Marco thinks the M4 and M4 Pro are quite similar if this was his main benchmark when developing Overcast's awesome new transcription feature. In fact, the Neo is really competitive here, finishing the task slower than a high-spec Mac, but not by a huge amount. I think this test shows clearly how important the neural engine is in this task, and the Neo's quite modern one helps it churn through this work quite well. ## Build an iOS app ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-26-at-15.49.50@2x.png) Then I went over to Xcode, opened my Chapterize project, cleaned the build folder, and ran the app. The time is how long it took for the project to build and fully launch Chapterize. This is where we get into the "it's fine, but it's not amazing" territory. ## Export a video ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-26-at-16.58.17@2x.png) This was an export from DaVinci Resolve of my most recent A Better Computer podcast episode, which was a 15 minute, 4K 60fps video (exporting in h265 in an mp4 container). I was able to edit quite well, and the export was a good deal slower than the M4 Pro, and even the M2, but it does still work. **Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do creative work on any Mac.** ## But what does it all mean? The reason I didn't put these in my review is that I simply don't think they communicate the actual experience of using a computer most of the time. Not tested here is what it's like doing these things without closing all other apps first. It doesn't test what your computer feels like when these tasks are happening. It does, at least, show that a Mac powered by an iPhone chip is still remarkably capable, even if most things take a little longer to happen. Also, I'm so glad I had an M2 around to test out my [crazy theory](https://birchtree.me/blog/macbook-neo-review-i-wish-this-had-an-m1-inside/) that a similarly priced M2 MacBook Air would be a pretty damn compelling alternative to the Neo. As I said at the start, it's academically interesting to see this stuff, and I like it as a nerd, so I had to share. ### Yearly Run Goals gets a rustic redesign URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/yearly-run-goals-gets-a-rustic-redesign/ Last updated: 2026-03-26T01:45:21.000Z I'm starting to think my apps have a trend. I think of a very specific problem that I want to solve. I figure out a nice way to solve it using stock SwiftUI. And then once everything is working, I give it a bit of style. This happened with Quick Notes, it's going to happen with an upcoming update to Quick Subtitles, and it's happening now for Yearly Run Goals. Functionally the app is largely the same, with one main new feature, but the new look is absolutely notable. I am actually still using mostly entirely stock SwiftUI elements but I am styling them much more than I was previously. I got inspired by the outdoor nature of my personal runs and wanted to design a color scheme that reflected that. I think I've come up with a really nice color scheme that looks distinct and makes the app a little bit more enjoyable to use. On top of that I did add one new feature to this release, which is push notifications. These are completely opt-in but you can enable notifications, which will make it so that whenever you record a workout that matches the type you are tracking in the app, you'll get a notification that reminds you to log that workout. I've also updated the quick add component that appears on the main view of the app when you launch it to show the last couple days of workouts in case you forgot to add something yesterday or the day before, so you don't have to go into the calendar view to find it. [Yearly Run Goals is still a free app](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yearly-run-goals/id6758230373?ref=birchtree.me) to use although there are a few features behind a very affordable subscription if you're interested. ### + Why ChapterPod became Chapterize URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/why-chapterpod-became-chapterize/ Last updated: 2026-03-26T01:31:12.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### ChapterPod is now Chapterize URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/chapterpod-is-now-chapterize/ Last updated: 2026-03-26T01:29:59.000Z I'm excited to announce a new era for ChapterPod! Due to a bit of a trademark issue (one I am morally in the right on but will address anyway), the app is now called Chapterize. In addition to the new name, I've added a video feature. This allows you to share either your entire episode as a video or just a clip using specific segments. It's nothing too crazy, and we'll see if people like it (check out an example [here](https://mastodon.social/@matt%5Fbirchler/116289512897521832?ref=birchtree.me)). If so, I'll add more features down the line, but for now, I hope you enjoy this first video feature and that the new name doesn't break your muscle memory too much in Spotlight. [Chapterize is available to download right now](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterpod/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me), and it's a free update for all existing users. *The App Store listing still has the old name, but the next update will have the new name.* ### Sora is dead URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/sora-is-dead/ Last updated: 2026-03-24T21:32:43.000Z OpenAI announced the end of the Sora app on Twitter today. > We’re saying goodbye to the Sora app. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing. > > We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on… > > — Sora (@soraofficialapp) [March 24, 2026](https://twitter.com/soraofficialapp/status/2036546752535470382?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=birchtree.me) Of note, the first version of this post said Sora was shutting down, then they edited it to say the Sora app was shutting down. Take that for what you will in regards to their video plans. Also, what is the Venn diagram of people who thought Clubhouse and Sora were the next big thing, and is it a perfect circle? ### Switch 2 sales estimates drop, and why I think console gaming is currently in decline URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/switch-2-sales-estimates-drop-and-why-i-think-console-gaming-is-currently-in-decline/ Last updated: 2026-03-24T13:30:00.000Z Jess Weatherbed: [Nintendo cuts Switch 2 production amid weakening console sales](https://www.theverge.com/games/899291/nintendo-switch-2-production-cut-weak-us-sales?ref=birchtree.me) > Nintendo will produce fewer Switch 2 units than it previously projected in response to weakening demand for the console in the US, Bloomberg reports. Four million units of Nintendo’s flagship device are expected to be made this quarter instead of the six million it had originally planned, according to unnamed sources cited by the publication, with the reduced output set to continue in April. It's been interesting to see how game console sales have gone since 2020 and the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles. It seems that we're in an era where initial sales are outstanding – constantly setting records for most units sold over the first few months. However, then there's a drop off and ongoing sales lag behind what previous console generations achieved. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that what's happening here is that consoles are getting more niche, and most consumers are satisfied enough with their previous consoles so their hunger to move to the latest tech is dampened. Eventually a lot of them will get there, but the push just isn't there, so they put off a purchase for a few years. Meanwhile, as sad as it is to say, I think people are spending more of their gaming time playing mindless gambling…ahem…mobile games on their phone. Another aspect I think about here is the PC-ification of high end gaming. PC gaming is [continually on the rise](https://www.quantumrun.com/consulting/steam-game-statistics/?ref=birchtree.me), with upwards of 3x the number of active users on Steam alone than all the consoles combined. I was a pure console gamer until 2020, then I was a hybrid gamer for a while, but now I'm all in on PC with the single exception of Nintendo first-party games. This is all while, due to the state of the world, console prices have risen to the point where they feel less like a deal compared to PCs. The PS5 Pro is $750, a normal PS5 is $550, the Xbox Series X is $600, and a Switch 2 is $450\. I know we're going quite a long ways, but here's a [Best Buy ad from 2003](https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/1qckijp/best%5Fbuy%5Fad%5Ffrom%5Fdecember%5F2003/?ref=birchtree.me) showing the PS2 and Xbox at $179, which works out to about $315 in today's dollars. [Here's one from 2001](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/ud1kyp/2001%5Fweekly%5Fbest%5Fbuy%5Fcircular%5Fad/?ref=birchtree.me) showing the Nintendo 64 for $99\. Even adjusted for inflation, these were far closer to impulse purchases than today's consoles. Living in an uncertain economy, I get why many people aren't prepared to spend this much on a new console. The irony is that due to the state of things, waiting to buy a console today also means spending more money. It used to be that consoles got cheaper over the years they were on the market, or the companies would make new revisions that shot costs down sharply. That's the case today, where both Sony and Microsoft have raised the price of their consoles since their 2020 launches, and the hardware revisions have been to create even more expensive options. I could also rail against the live service game model, which creates a winner-take-all environment where you're either the biggest game in the world or you fail, and how this is a worse model for the industry as a whole than putting out a constant stream of good games that people enjoy for a while and then move onto something else. Or how about the fact that AAA game developers seem to think that when they release a successful game, what gamers want is a sequel that takes so long to build that the next game doesn't come out for another decade? But I'll stop now because I'm liable to wind myself up too much here. Long story short, I love gaming, and I want the consoles to be an accessible entry point for all people to enjoy the medium I love, but it's in a challenging spot right now. ### + We need to create an open web worth saving (because what we have now deserves to be destroyed) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/we-need-to-create-an-open-web-worth-saving-because-what-we-have-now-deserves-to-be-destroyed/ Last updated: 2026-03-24T11:00:08.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Analyst hat comes off, reviewer hat goes on URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/analyst-hat-comes-off-reviewer-hat-goes-on/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T22:55:21.000Z Jason Snell thought my MacBook Neo review [missed the point](https://sixcolors.com/link/2026/03/missing-the-point/?ref=birchtree.me) of the product: > But this entire conversation misses the most important thing about the MacBook Neo: It is sold in every Apple Store, on Apple’s website, and in every Apple sales channel. Most people won’t think to cruise for a refurbished Air—they will just go down to their local store, or pop onto Amazon, and shop for a computer. That’s why the MacBook Neo is important. It’s available to everyone, everywhere, and Apple will stand behind it as a new product. Jason’s reaction to my review got me thinking about the multiple hats that many of us in the Apple punditry wear. We’re both analysts and reviewers, and in my opinion, those are two different roles with different priorities, although I recognize that the line is blurred differently for different people. As an analyst, I’m interested in helping people understand Apple as a company, why they make the decisions they do, and what that could mean for the future of their products. This is not the same thing as being a reviewer, which is all about giving consumers useful information when they’re considering whether they want to buy a product. When I wear my analyst hat, I’m thinking about profit margins, supply chains, and product segmentation, but when I put my reviewer hat on, I’m really just thinking about customer value. As a simple example from recent years, with my analyst hat on, I could completely understand why Apple was shipping MacBooks in the premium space with less RAM than the competition. However, with my reviewer hat on, I emphatically did not like that because I felt it wasn’t giving a good enough experience to people who spent over a thousand dollars on a laptop. There is certainly room to disagree here, but for me, I don't like to mix the two if I can help it. I try to focus on what consumer need this product solves, and how it compares to the alternatives potential buyers have. I don't put a number on my reviews, nor do I come out and say explicitly whether you should buy a product or not. I want to share my opinion, while giving you the context you need to know whether this is the right product for you. As Jason said, Apple is selling this in Apple stores, it's taking over their website, and it's all over TikTok…Apple doesn't need my help letting people know this is a product they might want to get. Put another way, no one is going to learn what the MacBook Neo is from my review. My job as an Apple expert who has used more computers in his life than most people in the world, is to tell them what life is like with this computer, and how it compares to other options they might consider. Looking back at [my review](https://birchtree.me/blog/macbook-neo-review-i-wish-this-had-an-m1-inside/), I really do stand by everything I said. I spent the first half talking about the build quality, construction, and general quality of other components, which I was almost entirely positive about. I spent the second half talking about the performance, which I likened to that of an M1 Mac from 2020\. That’s not the end of the world, and as pretty much every reviewer has stated, that is sufficient performance to do basically everything you could want to do on a Mac, if you’re willing to wait a little longer than you would on a high-end device. The reason I felt it was worth bringing up purchasing other devices that might be a couple years old is twofold. First, this is not a product that’s interesting because of its cutting-edge tech, it’s a product that’s interesting because of its price. Its affordability compared to other Macs is central its appeal. Second, and related, this product exists to sell Macs to people who have never bought a Mac before, either because they didn’t want to or couldn’t spend the money it took to buy a new Apple computer. My suggestion is that people who are looking for a budget Mac are very likely to shop around to find the best deal, and they may not have as stringent rules as some of us do about always having to buy new direct from the source. When I went on Amazon just now and searched for the word “MacBook,” I saw a whole host of options, from current-generation models to older generations, and they’re all next to each other, side by side. So if you’re in the $700-ish price range on Amazon, you’re going to be presented with a MacBook Neo, [an M2 MacBook Air](https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MacBook-13-6-inch-Storage-Starlight/dp/B0BGQJQ6WQ?content-id=amzn1.sym.3be64970-3b95-4a6d-a45d-78077a3ff871%3Aamzn1.sym.3be64970-3b95-4a6d-a45d-78077a3ff871&sr=8-15&th=1&ref=birchtree.me), and [an M1 Pro MacBook Pro](https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MacBook-14-inch-8%E2%80%91core-14%E2%80%91core/dp/B09PGSZDHH?crid=1K0DNP8RI894N&sprefix=macbook%2Caps%2C144&sr=8-18&th=1&ref=birchtree.me). They're all presented equally on Amazon, so which one do you choose? From that perspective, I think the M2 Air is going to give you the best bang for your buck for the most people. It's thinner than the Neo, has a better screen, better keyboard, better trackpad, better I/O, better speakers, and better performance, so if they're the same price, hell yeah I think there are plenty of people who would be happier with this. I can obviously see that the MacBook Neo has something special about it, as people who have absolutely no strict need for it (like me), are drawn to it. I also understand that buying a new computer, even if it may be technically inferior in some ways to a several-years-old computer, can feel better. I think these things will make the MacBook Neo a successful product, and [according to Tim Cook](https://x.com/tim%5Fcook/status/2034979891926769864?ref=birchtree.me), it already has been. If you’re coming to my review, I really want you to question whether the Neo is the best way for you to spend $700, or whether something else would make you happier. I'm writing this from a MacBook Neo right now, so I get it, sometimes the heart wants what it wants, but I'm using this because it's fun, not because it was the best $700 computer I could have gotten. I understand the strategy here from Apple’s perspective, and I think that part of the market segmentation that they’re trying to do is to make the Neo good enough to use, but not good enough to steal people away from spending more to get a MacBook Air. From Apple's perspective, they're trying to segment their product line so that the Neo isn't good enough to steal people away from the more expensive MacBook Air. They want the Neo to get more people in the door, but they certainly don't want to turn themselves into a budget computer company. My analyst hat and my reviewer hat understand things differently, and if my review makes someone who was going to get the Neo opt to browse for better deals on more capable machines, I think I've done my job. --- Also, this has nothing to do with Apple, but just a congrats to Jason for [being on Jeopardy last week](https://sixcolors.com/post/2026/03/ill-take-beach-reading-for-1000-ken/?ref=birchtree.me)! That's a serious bucket list thing to do, and it was great to see him on there. It was also very fun to tell my wife that we *needed* to watch a specific episode because, "I know one of the contestants!" ### Why Americans hate* AI URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/why-americans-hate-ai/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T11:00:03.000Z This week's topics include: - Why Americans are more negative on AI than any other country in the world - Why DLSS 5 had one of the all-time worst reveals ever - Why people are drawn to technically inferior products like the MacBook Neo and iPhone Air ### + Linux made me love my Xbox Ally X URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/linux-made-me-love-my-xbox-ally-x/ Last updated: 2026-03-22T11:00:04.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### MacBook Neo review: I wish this had an M1 inside URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/macbook-neo-review-i-wish-this-had-an-m1-inside/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T12:00:32.000Z The MacBook Neo is a cool little computer that I like, despite the fact that, on paper, it’s a pretty irrational purchase for most people (including myself). When I take a step back from the current hype cycle, I think this product is a tale of two halves: one outstanding, and the other pretty rough. ## Build quality is outstanding Let’s start with the good and why I think a lot of people, including myself, enjoy this computer so much: the build quality is outstanding. In my opinion, if you put an M5 Max in this thing and sold it for $2,000, few would bat an eye. It feels as good as Apple’s premium laptops, and in one or two specific ways, actually feels better. Whether it’s the friendly design or just the new feet, which I think are significantly nicer than the ones on Apple’s Air and Pro machines, it feels outstanding to hold and to use. ## The screen The 13-inch screen is a little smaller than the Air, but notably smaller than the Pro, which makes it feel like a dang little cute Mac. Now, this is a $600 computer (well, $700 for the upgraded one), and that does mean it comes with some sacrifices. The screen doesn’t get quite as bright as the Airs, and it lacks the high refresh rate of the Pro displays. It also has a narrower color range. If I’m being honest, I still don’t truly understand P3, and I’m not sure I’m even seeing any value from that when everything I do is in the sRGB space. But the screen is plenty sharp, plenty bright for where I use my laptop, and more than sufficient for a computer in this price range. ## The webcam is totally fine The webcam is also pretty good. It’s not as good as what’s in the current higher-end laptops, but it’s totally sufficient, and once you take into account the compression that’ll happen during a video call, I bet it doesn’t look much different to the people on the other end. This device also lacks a notch, which is kind of nice. I appreciate that the extremely thin bezels on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro allow those to have larger screens without increasing the physical body as much, but using this computer made me realize how much I don’t really like the notch. It’s a compromise to get that more compact physical size, but it was refreshing never to have my menu bar items disappear behind that thing. ## The speakers are not good, but the audio jack is in the right place There is a sacrifice in speaker quality, which is twofold. First, the drivers simply aren’t as good as the Air or Pro, and they’re side-firing. That’s a minor issue on its own, but I’ve noticed they’re relatively easy to block with your thighs depending on how you hold it in your lap. I don’t have any cheap Windows laptops to compare them to, but compared to the MacBook Air, they sound downright awful. I actually think my iPhone speaker sounds better. On the plus side, I like the position of the headphone jack. Since your headphones are typically in…you know…your ears, having the port closer to you gives more freedom of movement. ## USB is a mixed bag, but fine for me The USB ports are fine in my opinion. The USB 3 port is great for me since I keep a dock at my desk and plug into that with all my accessories. The second port is clearly not as good though, sporting just USB 2 speeds, which is incredibly slow for the modern era. This could certainly be a hindrance for people who need to plug in an external SSD. I haven’t had to do that myself, so it hasn’t been a problem. The one real limitation is that my Thunderbolt dock drives a 240Hz 4K monitor, and while my other Macs can take advantage of that, the Neo can only run it at 4K60\. It’s fine, but obviously another sacrifice. ## The trackpad is a real mixed bag Then there’s the trackpad, which I’m of two minds about. On the one hand, I don’t like the physical movement as much as the haptic trackpads that Macs have had for about a decade. I prefer how the haptic version feels, and I appreciate that I don’t have to press as hard or as deep. I also like the ability to tune the haptic trackpad to my preference. On the other hand, I can accept that this was a trade-off needed to hit the price point, and Apple did an absolutely outstanding job with this one. I feel pretty confident saying it’s the best physically moving trackpad ever made in a consumer laptop. It’s just as responsive and accurate as Apple’s haptic trackpads, and what they’ve done with the physical press is remarkable. Unlike the diving board construction that most trackpads have used forever, where pressing at the front is easy and pressing further back gets progressively harder until you literally can’t click, this one lets you click anywhere on the trackpad, and it feels exactly the same everywhere. They’ve done a masterful job with this design. All of this comes together for a compromised device that makes the right trade-offs to reduce costs without actually feeling budget in any real way. If the M5 MacBook Air had this design, I wouldn’t be complaining, assuming it had the better screen, trackpad, and speakers. ## Performance is rough But let’s get into the not-so-good part of this computer, which is the thing I’ve notably skipped over: performance. Because this is a Mac, it can do effectively anything you want to throw at it. I have been editing video on it and doing web and Xcode development with very little issue. Yes, my Xcode builds take longer than they do on my M4 Pro Mac, and rendering video runs slower too, but it can do it. If this is the computer your budget allows, don’t think that you can’t. However, you’ll notice I’m not including any benchmarks in this review. I don’t think benchmarks properly express the experience of using a computer, particularly on the lower end of products. On the high end, when everything basic is child’s play, benchmarks can be helpful to understand differences at the margins. But one of the charts I’ve been seeing go around since this was announced was Geekbench single-core performance, which showed the Neo as effectively as fast as an M4\. Let me tell you, if you’re using that chart to understand the performance of this computer, you are being misled. To be clear, this is a Mac, so it will do whatever you ask it to do, but it won’t do it as quickly as you might be accustomed to if you’ve used literally any Apple computer in the Apple silicon era. For some personal context, back in December 2020, I convinced my work to let me upgrade my laptop early so I could be the guinea pig who tried Apple silicon and could see how our corporate software worked on it (precisely zero issues, by the way). I’ve been using an M1 MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar, 16GB RAM and 512GB storage for just over five years. I spend eight to nine hours a day behind this thing (about 11,000 hours), so I have a pretty good feel for how fast an M1 computer is. **In my experience, the MacBook Neo performs worse across the board than that M1 MacBook Pro.** Yes, the single-core performance is higher, but there are fewer cores, and the efficiency cores are even slower. There’s also half the RAM, which I think is probably the biggest bottleneck in this device. Paired with the significantly slower SSD (about 2/3 the speed of M1 drives and 1/5 the speed of M5 drives), the system has to rely on swapping to the SSD even more. So while I can open a good number of apps at once and the experience is okay, it’s worth noting that the experience is worse than doing the same things on an M1 with 16GB RAM. **If I could have the MacBook Neo with its outstanding construction and hardware trade-offs, but put an M1 with 16GB RAM in it, I would choose the M1 every single time.** I think that’s critical context. It’s cool that we get this build quality and design at a lower price point, but the performance is rough. When performance is in the ballpark of a five-year-old computer, you have to consider what this machine costs compared to refurbished models from that era. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-21-at-15.49.45@2x.png) As a quick example, I can get a refurbished M2 MacBook Air with 512GB storage and 16GB RAM for $50 less than the maxed out MacBook Neo. That M2 Air gets you significantly better performance, a better screen, a better trackpad, better USB-C ports, MagSafe, and faster SSD speeds. I feel very confident saying that the M2 Air is a meaningfully better computer the Neo. It’s this context that makes me look at the MacBook Neo in a different light. On the one hand, yes, it is very cool that Apple now sells a budget MacBook that is built so well that people who already have more technically impressive Macs are compelled to pick one up. But being pragmatic about how you spend your money, there’s a very compelling argument that a four-year-old MacBook Air is a better device in both performance and features. If your goal is to buy a $600-$700 Mac that gets you the most bang for your buck, the MacBook Neo doesn’t win that battle, in my opinion. But if you don’t like buying refurbished, if you only buy directly from Apple, or if performance really doesn’t matter to you, then this computer makes some sense. Do I recommend people buy this computer? Sure, it's a capable machine that feels outstanding in the hand, but I’d encourage anyone considering it to also look at the refurbished market. If performance and overall features matter more to you than having the newest thing from Apple, you might find something that better fits your needs for a similar, if not better price. ### The MacBook Neo is worse. We love it. URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-macbook-neo-is-worse-we-love-it/ Last updated: 2026-03-17T23:58:55.000Z The MacBook Neo is really something, isn't it? Novelty is a hell of a drug, but I also think there's something to specific products that, despite them clearly not being the best technical option available, still have a draw for some reason. Apple's actually had two examples of this in the past six months alone. On paper, the iPhone Air is absolutely not the best iPhone that came out last year. The iPhone 17 Pro is better in every spec, and the iPhone 17 is better *and cheaper*. While reports seem to be that the Air is not selling as much as those other two phones, it's certainly creating die hard fans as well. They understand the trade-offs and they still want this phone. And now I think we're seeing something similar with the MacBook Neo. While I do think that the honeymoon period with this device will start to wear thin over time as the realities of using a budget computer start to sink in amongst an audience that's used to using premium machines, I still think there's something special here. I have it; I already own an M4 Pro MacBook Pro. I have a computer that I've described as having effectively unlimited power and is just a perfect device for me in almost every way. But I gotta be honest, I am using the MacBook Neo when I'm not at my desk because I just like using it. It has a smaller screen, it's noticeably slower, and I'm having to remember to add all of these little things that I customized about my system on the MacBook Pro and get them on here so things work as I expect. So it's definitely more work I'm going through to make this happen, and all to use a machine that's not as good, technically. And yet I keep turning to it. So I think there's something that some products have that is special and just taps into something that people really love. And I think the MacBook Neo has that, as does the iPhone Air that came out a few months ago. Both of these devices point to something I keep coming back to lately: the computers in our lives right now (including smartphones) are kind of better than they need to be. We'd all be totally fine with less. Lots of us love to pixel-peep a photo comparison between the latest iPhone and the latest Samsung or whatever, searching for whichever one is 2% better in any given situation, then using the winner to validate their purchasing decision. But then an iPhone Air comes out with a single, worse camera, suddenly plenty of people are saying, "you know, I really only need the one camera, right?" Similarly, with Macs in the Apple Silicon era, we've loved as Apple fans to share bar charts showing how fast Apple Silicon is and how terrible SSD speeds are on other devices and all this stuff. And the MacBook Neo does all the bad things that we said about those other computers, but we love it. So there's something there where we set the bar super high for what we demand from these computers that we buy. And then sometimes we'll get a device that's not as technically powerful, and we still love it, and we still are able to do what we want on it. And I just think that's something that we should ruminate on, the question of how much power we actually need when we get a computer, whether it's a computer that sits on our desk, goes in our backpack, or lives in our pocket. None of this is meant to suggest that wanting more is somehow wrong. If you enjoy having a fast, high-quality computer, that's completely valid. What you need and what you want don't have to be the same thing, and there's nothing wrong with wanting nice things. ### DLSS 5 looks like ass (and this is coming from a huge DLSS fan) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/dlss-5-looks-like-ass-and-this-is-coming-from-a-huge-dlss-fan/ Last updated: 2026-03-17T00:57:02.000Z Cameron Faulkner, Richard Lawler: [DLSS 5 looks like a real-time generative AI filter for video games](https://www.theverge.com/news/895472/nvidia-dlss5-generative-ai-pc-graphics?ref=birchtree.me) > Nvidia announced DLSS 5 on Monday during its GTC conference, and based on early reactions, it’s going to be a divisive update, with some reactions calling it “slop” that unacceptably alters artistic intent. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is calling this the “GPT moment for graphics — blending hand-crafted rendering with generative AI to deliver a dramatic leap in visual realism while preserving the control artists need for creative expression.” As someone who really loves DLSS, I gotta say, my first impression of DLSS 5 in these comparisons is that it looks like ass. To be honest, it feels like it goes against the whole point of DLSS from the start, which was to allow people to run games at higher resolutions without sacrificing performance. I think DLSS 3 was where it crossed into the "excellent, but sometimes imperfect" territory, and DLSS 4 was basically flawless. But all along the way this was displaying the game in the best way possible. What they showed in this teaser video was more of a visual mod to the game. Set everything else aside and the design of the enhanced versions looks like they were made by a teenager who just discovered the clarity slider in Lightroom and cranked that shit all the way up. Tools such as ReShade allow you to change the look of games already and that's fine but what they showed here is…odd. Maybe I'll eat my words on this when it comes out, and they can certainly improve it before then, but this initial rollout mostly had me going "ew". ### Apple acquires MotionVFX URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-acquires-motionvfx/ Last updated: 2026-03-16T16:41:14.000Z [From the MotionVFX home page today:](https://www.motionvfx.com/?ref=birchtree.me#news) > We are extremely excited to share that MotionVFX is joining the Apple team to continue to empower creators and editors to do their best work. I love MotionVFX and have used their plugins for a few years to add a bit of flavor to my videos. Their plugins are a little pricy for a solo, small creator like myself, so I have to be very picky which plugins I pick up, but if Apple did something with including some (all?) of these in their Creator Studio, that would be a big incentive for me to subscribe. ### Please review my apps URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/please-review-my-apps/ Last updated: 2026-03-16T13:00:00.000Z My apps very rarely prompt you to leave a review on the App Store. Truthfully, it's something that I completely forget to consider when I'm developing an app. I only remember to add it down the road, and as such, my apps don't have a lot of reviews compared to the number of people who use them. So I come to you, dear readers, to make a plea: please use the links below (ideally for the ones you've enjoyed) and leave a five-star review. You don't even have to write anything, just leaving a star rating would be really helpful to document the impressions people have of the apps. Oh, and if you have any serious issues with any of my apps that you'd like to get fixed, feel free to [hit me up](https://mastodon.social/@matt%5Fbirchler?ref=birchtree.me) on social media. - [Quick Reviews](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reviews/id6740369719?ref=birchtree.me) - [Best-o-Masto](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/best-o-masto/id6747150331?ref=birchtree.me) - [ChapterPod](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterpod/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me) - [Weave](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/weave-for-typefully/id6758645413?ref=birchtree.me) - [Quick Subtitles](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) - [Quick Notes](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-notes-easy-voice-notes/id6754181571?ref=birchtree.me) - [Yearly Run Goals](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yearly-run-goals/id6758230373?ref=birchtree.me) ### Folding iPhone rumors verses my iPadOS predictions URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/folding-iphone-rumors-verses-my-ipados-predictions/ Last updated: 2026-03-15T17:00:30.000Z [Mark Gurman had a new report](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-11/apple-s-foldable-iphone-to-feature-ipad-like-interface-when-opened?ref=birchtree.me) this past week where he suggested that the folding iPhone would allow apps to be displayed side by side on the internal screen, and that iPad apps would not run on the device, although Apple is working to update their apps to have a more iPad-like layout when displayed wide on the Fold. Here's how I think these square with my prediction that the folding iPhone will run what is effectively iPadOS. ## What is an iPad app? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/image-4.png) Above is a screenshot from App Store Connect. This is for my app, Quick Subtitles, which runs on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. As you can see I've already created binaries for iOS and MacOS but there's no option for iPad OS so how does the iPad version work? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-15-at-09.21.31@2x.png) As you can see, iPadOS runs iOS apps. The difference is that the UI lays out differently due to the different screen size. So when Mark Gurman says iPad apps won't run on the folding iPhone, I interpret that as saying that apps which have blocked their app from running on the iPhone will not run on this folding phone either. For example, here's the "supported destinations" for Quick Subtitles in Xcode. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-15-at-09.25.31@2x.png) If I wanted to block my app from running on the iPhone, I would simply remove iPhone from this list but the code wouldn't change at all. I guess what I'm saying is that the iPhone is already running the iPad version of Quick Subtitles and the iPad is running the iPhone version. To-may-to, to-mah-to…there's literally no difference, it's just screen size. My expectation is that for apps like mine, which run on the iPhone and iPad, they will run like normal when on the outer screen, as well as when they're in split view on the internal screen. They will run with their "iPad layout" when running on the internal screen at full screen. ## Multitasking UI As we have previously established the windowing options available on an iPhone are already there. There are just flags set in the software that prevent them from displaying to the user. My expectation is that in the iPad OS 27 announcement at WWDC this summer there will be the return of a split-screen layout, which is not just the split-screen hack that we have right now in the windowing system. This will give iPad users the ability to have split-screen without adopting the full windowing system introduced last year. I think this will make a lot of iPad users happy. The added benefit here is that this will allow Apple to use this new split-screen option on the iPhone Fold without needing to have the full windowing solution as iPads. --- What *will* Apple do? We'll have to wait for this fall to find out. I do think we are going to see the line in the sand between iOS and iPadOS blur to the point of not mattering, though. ### I'm trying to let the iPad be its best self URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/im-trying-to-let-the-ipad-be-its-best-self/ Last updated: 2026-03-15T14:18:57.000Z I sometimes feel like I'm a minor villain in the iPad enthusiast world. It probably doesn't help that I'm pretty outspoken for wanting a touch screen tablet-style Mac or that I recently titled a post ["Apple will kill iPadOS."](https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-will-kill-ipados/) But I honestly think that the world we would be in if Apple did these two things would be better specifically for iPad users. ## Bring on the tablet Mac Inevitably during an iPad review, especially in an iPad Pro review, you are going to get to the part where the reviewer says that while the hardware is amazing, they can't do everything they want to do with it because iPadOS is too limiting for their needs. As a former iPad-only person I understand the fire this lights in iPad fans. "What do you mean you can't do real work on an iPad? *I'm* doing it!" I think it's pretty clear what reviews like this are indicating, which is that they adore the hardware; the hardware in an iPad Pro is outstanding. It feels really great. The OLED screen is outstanding and it has plenty of performance, being powered by Apple's latest generation of chips. All they want in the world is to be able to use this device for their needs but they can't. This is where iPad fans will say, "just get a Mac then. You clearly don't want an iPad." And yes that is literally what I am arguing for when I'm asking Apple to build a tablet-style Mac. There are plenty of people out there who lust after the iPad hardware and the adaptability that the tablet form factor brings. They just have needs for different software and workflows than the iPad supports. They quite literally want an iPad that's running macOS. iPad fans may say this is something to be criticized but I would say it's a clear message of intent from customers as to what product they wished they could buy. Now imagine a world where in addition to the iPad Pro Apple also sells a comparably priced and spec'd Mac tablet that people can buy instead. Those people who don't find the iPad to be sufficient for their needs but really love having a tablet device that they can bring around, well now they can have exactly what they want. When the new iPads come out they don't need to ask those to be more than they are, they can simply recognize them as a different operating system for different people with different needs. I will say that I posted [this poll](https://mastodon.social/@matt%5Fbirchler/116194792394832135?ref=birchtree.me) to Mastodon recently to get a vibe in the room for what people thought the impact would be of Apple releasing an iPad that ran macOS. It's a small sample size, but I know a few iPad lovers follow me, and the results still showed that 45% of people thought that it would have the large impact on iPad Pro sales. Maybe this isn't the case but I do get the vibe that iPad fans like that Mac users don't get a touch device. At some level they believe that a touch-based Mac with comparable hardware would cannibalize iPad users. ## Kill iPadOS, make it all iOS I haven't written anything in quite a while that got as much of a reaction as my post about Apple unifying the naming back to iOS across the iPhone and iPad. I think the idea in that post, that the iPhone Fold would share the same split-screen and multitasking interface as iPads, is a really powerful idea that would just be good news for iPad users. iPad users are very familiar with the idea that some years they get a lot of updates and other years they get what feels like nothing. I think a lot of us remember Stage Manager coming out in 2022, people having lots of issues with it, and it not getting any love for several years after that. iOS is clearly Apple's most important operating system. If something is wrong in iOS, Apple has a very real incentive to fix it as soon as possible. Making the folding iPhone, Apple's flagship product, and the iPad more directly share UI will make the iPad's experience the most important thing to Apple, and help ensure it has a bright future. ## Number one iPad fan I fully recognize that there are people who love the iPad for how it's different than the Mac. My intention is not to take away what these people love, it's to give more people the computer that they want and to make the operating system that iPads run more important to Apple so that the experience can be as incredible as possible. The iPad is a really cool piece of hardware, and Mac users want a version that runs their OS of choice, and I want iPad users to get the software updates they want as quickly as possible. ### + My musical obsession URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-musical-obsession/ Last updated: 2026-03-15T12:00:40.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The different lessons learned using a Mac URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-different-lessons-learned-using-a-mac/ Last updated: 2026-03-14T21:50:35.000Z Sam Henri Gold: [“This Is Not The Computer For You”](https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/?ref=birchtree.me) > Yes, you will hit the limits of this machine. 8GB of RAM and a phone chip will see to that. But the limits you hit on the Neo are resource limits — memory is finite, silicon has a clock speed, processes cost something. You are learning physics. A Chromebook doesn’t teach you that. A Chromebook’s ceiling is made of web browser, and the things you run into are not the edges of computing but the edges of a product category designed to save you from yourself. The kid who tries to run Blender on a Chromebook doesn’t learn that his machine can’t handle it. He learns that Google decided he’s not allowed to. Those are completely different lessons. This post has been going around so you've probably seen it already but if you haven't it's absolutely worth a read. ### "This is an Xbox" gets in the bin URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/this-is-an-xbox-gets-in-the-bin/ Last updated: 2026-03-12T13:09:59.000Z Chris Kerr: [Microsoft quietly retires 'This is an Xbox' marketing campaign](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/marketing/microsoft-quietly-retires-this-is-an-xbox-marketing-campaign?ref=birchtree.me) > When searching for the blog post that kicked off the marketing beat earlier today, I noticed it has been removed from Xbox Wire (Microsoft's Xbox-focused news repository). In fact, the only post currently available on the 'This is an Xbox' results page on Xbox Wire is the September 2025 update featuring news about the ROG Xbox Ally. "This is an Xbox" joins Apple's "What is a a computer?" in the marketing dustbin of history. ### Encrypted RCS is coming in iOS 26.4 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/encrypted-rsc-is-coming-in-ios-26-4/ Last updated: 2026-03-12T13:29:20.000Z Juli Clover: [iOS 26.4 Beta Adds End-to-End Encryption for iPhone-to-Android RCS Texts](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/02/23/ios-26-4-beta-2-android-iphone-e2ee/?ref=birchtree.me) > iPhone‌ users will need to install the second beta of iOS 26.4 to exchange encrypted messages with Android users, while Google users need to have the latest version of Google Messages. You love to see it. Next up, I’d love to see them make it work with Samsung’s messaging app, which would cover most of the US market. ### I waited on this rumor so long we already know it's wrong URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-waited-on-this-rumor-so-long-we-already-know-its-wrong/ Last updated: 2026-03-15T18:11:35.000Z Joe Rossignol: [Apple's Upcoming Studio Display 2 Rumored to Have an Unusual Feature](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/02/04/apple-studio-display-2-unusual-feature-rumor/?ref=birchtree.me) > The tipster believes that a 90Hz refresh rate would make sense due to bandwidth considerations. Thunderbolt 5 can support 5K resolution at 120Hz without any compression, but they think Apple likely wants to ensure there will be plenty of remaining bandwidth for connecting other devices and peripherals to the new Studio Display. I drafted this a few weeks ago, but because I'm so behind on posting, I never got this out. Now I just get to say, "nope, this one was wrong, and on the $1,699 monitor front, it's still just 60Hz." ### I'd like the less capable, more expensive computer, please URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/id-like-the-less-capable-more-expensive-computer-please/ Last updated: 2026-03-11T22:36:29.000Z [Steve Troughton-Smith on Mastodon:](https://mastodon.social/@stroughtonsmith/116206877913749297?ref=birchtree.me) > A $499 MacBook Neo with the brains of a couple-year-old iPhone can run Xcode, Photoshop, Blender, Terminal, and pretty much everything else you can think of, yet your $3,200 iPad Pro, with a desktop-class chip, cannot 😑 > > What are we doing here? I've been wrestling with similar thoughts over the past week since the MacBook Neo's announcement, and I'm sure later today when mine arrives, the feeling will hit even harder. **How is it possible that this new laptop, which costs half as much as my iPad Pro, is more capable for me in basically every way?** Let me put this another way. Without even having the laptop in hand, I can already tell you that I will absolutely be able to do my day job, all of my side projects, including web development, app development, video editing, and podcasting, all from this new device. Meanwhile, I have a more powerful iPad Pro sitting next to me that literally cannot do most of those things, or if it can, it does many of them in a hacky workaround way that would be inconvenient at best. I won't re-litigate this whole debate here, but I'm a product manager by day, and there is absolutely no way even a maxed-out iPad Pro would be as functional for me as even the cheapest, slowest Mac money can buy. Not video editing, not development, just a normal job that happens at a computer. ## Not exactly new for Apple fans Of course, this isn't necessarily a new phenomenon for Apple fans. In the early days of my time with the Mac, which was the mid-90s, I think it's pretty fair to say that Macs could do fewer things than Windows computers, and that's certainly something that I felt as a young person who wanted to play games and use music-sharing apps. But people liked the Mac because of the experience and some of the specific software that they got to run on it. They were happy to spend a bit more to get something that didn't necessarily win the feature checklist battle. From that perspective, I certainly don't have any ill will towards people who choose to use the iPad and who prefer it over the Mac. I have been you! Further, I was literally you from about 2017-2021, my iPad-only era, if you will. ## The price squeeze I wrote about this in a members post over the weekend, but I really wanted to reiterate it here: choosing to buy an iPad as your main computer is hella expensive, and with the MacBook Neo, choosing to buy an iPad as a computer is now also choosing to spend way more money. Let's play this out… I'm a parent looking to buy a computer for my teenage child. I want them to be able to use this for schoolwork, I want them to be able to use it for entertainment, and I want them to be curious about computers and experiment with what they find interesting. When I was a kid, using a computer lit up my brain in a way few other things did, and it got me going down the path that I'm on now. I'd want to allow my child to have that sort of opportunity as well. I don't need to get them a powerhouse of a device, but I'd like it to last a little while and be flexible. Looking at Apple's current offerings, the devices that stand out to me would be the MacBook Neo and the iPad Air. Technically, the base iPad could be in the conversation as well, but that's really low-end and doesn't really work as well as a laptop sort of device. ### Pricing out a MacBook Neo I will get the education discount here, so the MacBook Neo could cost me $499, but I'm going to spring for the upgraded model with 512 GB storage and Touch ID because they'll like that. This is a clamshell notebook, so obviously the screen, keyboard, and trackpad are all bundled together. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-11-at-07.28.23@2x.png) All in, I'm spending $599. ### Pricing out an iPad Air Again, browsing the education store. The iPad Air starts at $549, but I'm making some real sacrifices compared to the Neo: 1/4 as much storage, a smaller display, no keyboard or trackpad. In terms of advantages, I do get a faster processor and a nicer screen that supports touch, but yeah, some of those things aren't going to fly. Let's spec up to the 13" screen, 512GB storage, and I'll add a Magic Keyboard so they can write on it. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-11-at-07.27.57@2x.png) Lord have mercy, I'm spending $1,348, so more than 2.5x as much as the Neo. ## Surprise! Pricing out a MacBook Air Suddenly, a MacBook Air enters the conversation. 13" screen and 512GB storage, all for $999. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-11-at-07.29.33@2x.png) ### Second surprise! Pricing out a base iPad At this point, I'm flailing. My most expensive option is the iPad Air, which is $350 more expensive than an even faster and more capable MacBook Air. Let's explore the low end of the iPad. We'll have to make several sacrifices here. This device is fundamentally slower with a several generations older chip. It also has nothing beyond a 10-inch display, and we're only going to upgrade to 256 gigabytes of storage this time. Also, the compatible keyboard isn't as good, but what are you going to do? We're skimping on this thing to save money, so what's the damage? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-11-at-07.33.09@2x.png) $658 to get a much worse, smaller screen, worse performance, half the storage, a worse keyboard and trackpad, and a less powerful OS. And all that's still more expensive than the MacBook Neo. ## iPads are still a deal as a "middle device" When Steve Jobs originally presented the iPad, he showed it off explicitly as a device that could live in between someone's desktop computer and their smartphone. As people have enjoyed the product, and as Apple has explicitly changed their marketing over the years to encourage more people to at least attempt to use iPads as their primary computers as well. And what we're seeing now is that, yeah, an iPad spec'd out as a primary computer is a pretty expensive investment, often more expensive now than even the equivalent MacBook in the lineup. But if you do treat the iPad as a third device, then I think the pricing is much more compelling. You could get a base iPad Air for watching videos and doing web browsing, and you could more easily get by without a Magic Keyboard or the extra storage. And because it has an M4, which likely has way more power than you need today, you'll be able to go many years without even thinking about upgrading it. That's awesome. But yeah, if you're looking for a primary computer in 2026, as odd as it sounds, you need to really want the iPad because you're going to pay extra for it. ### Of course it can use pro apps. It’s a computer URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/of-course-it-can-use-pro-apps-its-a-computer/ Last updated: 2026-03-11T01:04:20.000Z When I started doing YouTube in 2020, I was in the middle of my iPad era, and the only Mac in my life was a 2012 Mac mini. I don't remember its exact specs, but suffice to say it positively sucks by 2026 standards. And while it was very slow, it did technically handle everything I could throw at it, including photo and 4K video editing. *Also of note, this was a year before my switch away from the iPad-only lifestyle, and in retrospect, it was quite telling that I wasn't able to use my faster, much more modern iPad Pro to do this work. Anyway…* I bring this up because, **of course, the MacBook Neo is able to run all of your professional apps**, and I'm glad Tyler Stallman showed this off in his video. Consider how much faster the MacBook Neo must be than a 2012 Mac mini, and tell me that you can't do awesome, creative work on this thing. Maybe there's something about the modern computing world of iPads and smartphones where we're used to professional features being gated by specific hardware classes, but that's fundamentally not how it traditionally works in computers. You can certainly spend more on a Mac, and tasks will complete more quickly. You'll have a nicer screen, and there will be other general quality-of-life things you might enjoy. But the work that a $600 MacBook and a $6,000 MacBook do is basically the same. Running large local LLMs is the only thing off the top of my head that's literally impossible on the MacBook Nano, but even then, you can run local models; they'll just be slower and less performant. So if you're someone who wants to do creative work, even relatively high-end creative work on a computer, and your budget doesn't allow you to go past the Neo, don't worry. I promise you, you can do whatever you want to do. It'll just take a bit longer than doing the same tasks on a much more expensive Mac. ### New wallpaper generator just dropped URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/new-wallpaper-generator-just-dropped/ Last updated: 2026-03-11T00:48:41.000Z [ColorFlow](https://colorflow.ls.graphics/?ref=birchtree.me) is a really cool new wallpaper and animation generator from the folks over at ls.graphics, and it's pretty rad (and it's totally free). ### Micro app 12: Benchmark Studio URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-12-benchmark-studio/ Last updated: 2026-03-10T12:00:28.000Z This micro app is pretty simple; it's just a nice, single-page website for uploading benchmark scores and getting nice-looking charts for them, like the one above. The UI for adding tests and devices is simple, allowing you to create tests and add devices with categories, so that things like laptops and phones can be separated. You can also drag to reorder them or toggle their visibility. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-10-at-05.49.36@2x.png) There's a simple table for entering the scores for each device, and you can import or export the current page's values as JSON. All data is stored in your browser's localstorage and never leaves your device. Good for privacy, and good for my back end costs 😉 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-10-at-05.51.37@2x.png) [Benchmark Studio is available here](https://mattbirchler.github.io/benchmark-studio/?ref=birchtree.me), and you can see the full project [on GitHub](https://github.com/mattbirchler/benchmark-studio?ref=birchtree.me). ### Terraink makes rad maps on demand URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/terraink-makes-rad-maps-on-demand/ Last updated: 2026-03-08T21:57:38.000Z [Terraink](https://terraink.app/?ref=birchtree.me) is a cool new website that lets you create cool maps of whatever location you want to. That's it, and that's pretty rad. ### Tom Scott on AI in February 2023 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/tom-scott-on-ai-in-february-2023/ Last updated: 2026-03-07T13:37:10.000Z From the video: > I've been complaining for years that it feels like nothing has really changed since smartphones came along. And I think that maybe, maybe I should have been careful what I wished for. It's been 2 years since Tom Scott stopped posting weekly videos on YouTube, but he was still doing it when ChatGPT came out, and this video from February 2023, just 2 months after ChatGPT launched, came up in my feed again today. Given how fresh LLMs were to the public at that time, I think it's actually really impressive how well this video essay holds up 3 years later. Scott comes at the topic with the right amount of humility, clearly expressing the fact no one knew how far along the curve we were in terms of capability. He also spends a good amount of time discussing how he lived through the last couple technical revolutions, he navigated them well, and he'd become comfortable in the current state of the world. What I find really notable about his feelings are that he did a little coding project in the ChatGPT chat interface, and that is what pushed him over the edge into going "wow, this is already massively disruptive." For some context, he would have been using GPT-3.5 when this video came out. In retrospect, that's an absolute shit model that no one in 2026 would trust to find typos in their writing, let along being their coding agent. But even then, Tom was like, "uh oh, that's already as good as me." The pull quote I chose for the video expresses something I can't stop thinking about either, which is this seeming desire for tech to get better, to change, and to be interesting, but also for that to happen without changing anything at all. Anything that makes people more productive or could lead to the slightest bit of disruption is seen as bad. It's impossible not to think about this [quote from Douglas Adams](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/809325-the-salmon-of-doubt-hitchhiking-the-galaxy-one-last-time?ref=birchtree.me): > 1\. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. > > 2\. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. > > 3\. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things. And yes, they did say "this time it's different" every single time. ### + iPadOS is getting squeezed URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ipados-is-getting-squeezed/ Last updated: 2026-03-06T21:00:31.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Apple releases the MacBook Mini URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-releases-the-macbook-mini/ Last updated: 2026-03-06T20:06:06.000Z Apple's Mac Mini is such an awesome computer. No, it's not the most powerful machine Apple makes, but it is very affordable, which makes it appeal to at least two separate groups. The first group is people who would like a desktop Mac, but would not like to spend typical Mac prices. Because it's so inexpensive, at least in the starting configurations, it also is very compelling as a secondary computer for a lot of people who already have a higher-end Mac or a Mac laptop. Today, Apple announced the MacBook Neo, although I would suggest the MacBook Mini would be an even better name because I feel like this computer is doing the same exact thing as the Mac Mini. At the same $599 starting price, this laptop achieves both appeals that the Mac Mini has as well. For those who are price conscious, it gives you a brand new, high-quality MacBook at basically half the price of the MacBook Air. I really think it's worth sitting on that for a second. Apple didn't just make this a little less expensive than the MacBook Air, they made it in a completely different price category and a price category that Apple hasn't been in for decades. But I think it will also appeal to people who own higher-end Macs already. I'm including myself in that camp. I have a 14-inch M4 Pro MacBook Pro, and this thing is a beast. It tears through 4K video editing and literally any task I can give it. It's an awesome machine, but it is a little chunky, especially when I travel. I'm often traveling for work, which means I need to bring my work laptop and my personal laptop. And let me tell you, carrying two 14-inch MacBook Pros in your backpack is weight you definitely notice. I haven't pulled the trigger yet, but I think I am going to pick up one of these to use as my travel computer and maybe some other things that I want to do with it around the house. And they did this in a computer that is a far cry from the lazy M1 MacBook Air component swap that some people were expecting from them. And let me reiterate, this thing is half the cost of the MacBook Air…there are compromises for sure, but it's **half the price**. --- Before we get into the weeds, here's the highlights Apple calls out on their marketing page (aka, what they think will appeal to a wide audience): 1. They come in fun colors 2. Long battery life 3. Great screen 4. Apple Intelligence 5. Pairs with your iPhone 6. Works with all your apps 7. Privacy built in I'll start by saying I think the colors are a brilliant move, and I'm glad they decided to do it instead of making these boring colors only. I also think it's critical that this does not look like an old Mac. It looks very much exactly like the other current Macs, so it doesn't feel like you're buying an old computer. Moving on to the specs. I do think people need to set their expectations appropriately. The A18 Pro chip is no slouch, but in the [testing](https://birchtree.me/blog/benchmarking-the-a17-pro/) I've done, it performs worse than an M1 in some tasks. I'm sure there'll be some things where it's quicker, but I do think that people might be surprised how it performs under load. We'll see how it performs once people have these in hand, but I do worry that some folks expect this to perform like an M4 or an M3, when in fact it could very well be the slowest Apple silicon Mac ever released. Getting a Mac down to half the price of an Air means making a lot of cuts that are painful, but the removal of Touch ID from the baseline model is the thing that surprised me the most. It's not the end of the world, and honestly, my wife has an M3 MacBook Air, and she literally never uses the Touch ID sensor. She always enters her password anyway. So there certainly are people who will not miss this, but I certainly would. 8 gigabytes RAM is going to be tight. This is definitely a device for light uses, and you're going to start to feel the pain if you try to do too much. 256 starting storage with a single upgrade to 512 gigabytes seems about right to me. I'll be interested to see the screen in person. The resolution and brightness seem fine and are effectively the same as the Air, but they don't advertise P3 color, it's just RGB. I assume it will be fine, but the absolutely atrocious display in the baseline iPad makes me recognize how terrible a screen Apple is willing to ship in its budget devices, and I hope this is a large margin better than that. I assume it will be. Despite the smaller footprint, it is exactly as heavy as the MacBook Air, so it's not the mythical return of the ultra-thin MacBook, unfortunately. The keyboard is not backlit, which I guess is a bummer, but honestly, I don't think I ever use my keyboard's backlight. Honestly, I'm not totally sure why other people use it either. Does your screen not light up the keys already? I understand that it would cost more, but I do wish that they could have put one USB-C cable on either side of the device. Going back to my wife, her biggest complaint with the MacBook Air is that it only charges from the left side when it would be so much more convenient for every single place she uses her computer to be able to charge from the right. --- I'm writing this very quickly on my break at work, and when I go home, I'm going to find my Apple Watch Ultra, see what Apple will give me for a trade-in, and if it gets me close to half the cost, I'll be ordering one when I get home. At a minimum, this will be my travel computer, and at best, it will be my putzing around the house device. ### How to make Midnight City URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/how-to-make-midnight-city/ Last updated: 2026-03-04T01:48:45.000Z M83’s Midnight City is one of my favorite songs of all time, and this video recreating it is brilliant. ### My super quick process for adding chapters to podcasts URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-super-quick-process-for-adding-chapters-to-podcasts/ Last updated: 2026-03-03T23:34:20.000Z Chapters in podcasts are super important, in my opinion, and I make sure to add them to everything that I create. Here's the process I use to get them into my shows faster than ever before. ## 0- Have your chapters ready to go ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-03-at-17.19.40@2x.png) The best thing you can do to speed up this process is to write down what chapter breaks you want as you record. I do this in Obsidian, which is the app I use to write the show notes, and I just have a little section at the bottom as we go where I write down the chapters. We edit the podcast, so I don't know exactly what the timestamps will be when I'm recording them, but just having them in order is helpful. You *can* ask AI to generate the chapter titles for you as well, but I find it god-awful at that. Put in a little human work, it's worth it. ## 1\. Generate subtitles ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/image-2.png) Step one is taking the final audio file and generating subtitles for it. I obviously use my own app, [Quick Subtitles](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me), which works great. I personally use the Whisper model as it is much slower, but it is more accurate to the point that it's worth it to me. Paired with the cleanup feature in Quick Subtitles, my transcripts are usually very good with little effort. ## 2\. Ask AI to help ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/image.png) You certainly don't have to do this if you're not comfortable with it, but this is what I tend to do. I take those chapters I wrote out and use a short prompt to tell Claude what to do with it. Obviously, LLMs are pretty interchangeable, so use whichever one you prefer, including a local model if that's your preference. This will get you a response something like this. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/image-1.png) Copy that to your clipboard and you're ready to move on. ## 3- Import it all into Chapter Pod ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-03-at-17.22.45@2x.png) Now you can drag your audio and .srt files in [ChapterPod](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterpod/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me), and hit `Command + i` to import chapters from text. That will give you all your chapters ready to go. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-03-at-17.24.14@2x.png) However, the AI will not be perfect and you will want to go into the transcript view to see exactly where it placed these chapter markers so you can fine-tune it down to the second. In my experience, language models tend to put the chapter marker 5 to 10 seconds later than I would. So it's just a matter of dragging the chapter marker from the transcript view up a little bit. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-03-at-17.26.12.gif) And that's it, you're done! Export the file and you'll have your fully-processed podcast file with chapter markers in less time than ever. ### When the words on the page don’t match what you’re trying to say (follow up on the Ben Thompson post) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/when-the-words-on-the-page-dont-match-what-youre-trying-to-say-follow-up-on-the-ben-thompson-post/ Last updated: 2026-03-03T22:55:16.000Z Ben Thompson: [Technological Scale and Government Control, Paramount Outbids Netflix for Warner Bros.](https://stratechery.com/2026/technological-scale-and-government-control-paramount-outbids-netflix-for-warner-bros/?ref=birchtree.me) > This is a lot more complicated than the nuclear question, where government control and ownership was a given; the sort of actions taken by the government over the last week fly in the face of the concept of private decision making and property rights. Unfortunately, those rights are not set in stone: they are ultimately enforced by someone, and the someone who is doing the enforcement is the one doing the violating. That’s not great, but it’s happening and/or will happen, and it’s important to come to grips with that reality — and I don’t think trying to describe that is at all equivalent to endorsing it. Ben Thompson posted a clarification today regarding his post from yesterday, which I described as "no good, very bad." Unfortunately, the clarification is for members only, so most people will only see the original post without the added context. He is surprised that people interpreted his original post as endorsing government seizure of private property, the idea that might makes right, and…well…fascism. I've reread the original post, and I honestly don't know how else you could interpret it. To me, it felt like him sharing his opinions on current events, in the style he always does. I have two main thoughts left. First, building on what I said yesterday about him vocally disagreeing with one administration far more often than the other, I'm positive that if this had happened under the Biden administration, there would be no ambiguity about whether he supported it or not. Second, the people who liked his post yesterday weren't really people who thought the government was doing something wrong and that Thompson was just accurately describing it. They supported the government's actions, and they thought Thompson was supporting that argument. Hell, after listening to Dithering this morning, I got the feeling he was doubling down on his support. This means that people who liked the post, and people who didn't like the post, both interpreted it differently than he intended. That's a pretty clear sign that your writing was not as clear as it could have been. That's always something important, but it’s doubly so when your lack of clarity makes wide swaths of people think you're endorsing fascism (and some of them like that!). Listen, I write for an audience of strangers. They certainly don't live in my head and don’t always understand the intent of my posts. When that happens, you just take it on the chin, clarify what you meant, and move on (see my recent post about iPadOS going away). Ben gave a bit of a classic "I'm sorry if you were offended" sort of clarification, but whatever, I'll get over it. ### Apple's new MacBooks: The pinnacle of the generation URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-new-macbooks-the-pinnacle-of-the-generation/ Last updated: 2026-03-03T15:53:36.000Z Apple announced new MacBook [Airs](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apple-introduces-the-new-macbook-air-with-m5/?ref=birchtree.me) and [Pros](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apple-introduces-macbook-pro-with-all-new-m5-pro-and-m5-max/?ref=birchtree.me) today, and they’re both boring and mostly excellent. ## MacBook Air This looks like a very basic spec bump, which I’m not mad about. I would like to see this display get an upgrade one day, and I'd love for them to split the USB-C ports to the left and right to add some charging flexibility, but I don't think this design is long enough in the tooth to draw my ire (2027 and 2028 Matt will start to get a little antsy, though). We were wondering what the storage and RAM crunch would mean for the Mac lineup, and thankfully, it seems Apple is handling this well. The starting RAM has remained at 16GB and the starting storage has bumped up to 512GB from 256GB in the M4 model, but that also does come with a $100 starting price increase, up to $1,099\. That's technically $100 less than upgrading to 512GB storage version in the previous generation, but yeah, a $100 higher starting price is still a bit of a bummer. ## MacBook Pro The [new M5 Pro and Max chips](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apple-debuts-m5-pro-and-m5-max-to-supercharge-the-most-demanding-pro-workflows/?ref=birchtree.me) look like killers. As an [avowed defender of the Pro line of chips](https://birchtree.me/blog/a-passionate-defense-of-the-m-pro-series-of-chips/), Apple's suggestions of multiple times faster LLM performance and 40-60% performance jumps over the M4 Pro is really exciting for a single generation upgrade from what was already the best mobile computer chips in the game (the Max chips have similar jumps). What's most impressive to me about this update is that the prices seem to have stayed completely level from last year. I have a 14" M4 Pro model that I bought a year ago. It had the better Pro chip and 1TB of storage, and cost me $2,399 before trade in. Getting that same model (upgraded Pro chip, 1TB storage, 24GB RAM) in the M5 generation would run me the same $2,399\. I'm not at all tempted to upgrade myself, as I'm more than happy with the M4 Pro and even with a trade-in I'd be about $1,200 out of pocket, but in a world where everything is getting more expensive and we're in the middle of a supply chain mess, it's good to see Pro Macs holding the line on price. As for the design, I'm still fine with it, but it seems like this will be the last generation of MacBook Pros with this design. Strong rumors swirl of a decent change coming in the M6 generation with a dynamic island and touch input, so we'll see how that turns out. For now, this is just an incredibly fucking fast version of the great product redesign Apple gave the MacBook Pro back in 2021. ### Apple's new Studio Displays URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-new-studio-displays/ Last updated: 2026-03-03T14:45:47.000Z [Apple updated both of their monitors today](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apple-unveils-new-studio-display-and-all-new-studio-display-xdr/?ref=birchtree.me), replacing the Studio Display with a new model that's very similar to the old one, and they've discontinued the Pro Display XDR in favor of the new Studio Display XDR. ## Studio Display Starting with the updated Studio Display, honestly, I'm incredibly disappointed. I continue to think the Studio Display is for people who care about everything in a computer monitor besides the display itself. In the newsroom post and the new marketing page, Apple boasts about the new camera, better mics, better speakers, and Thunderbolt 5 ports. When comparing the [new](https://www.apple.com/studio-display/specs/?ref=birchtree.me) and [old](https://web.archive.org/web/20260128093003/https://www.apple.com/studio-display/specs/) spec pages, there seems to be literally no difference, which leads me to believe we are once again stuck with the same panel Apple has been shipping for over a decade. There are people who really value physical design, and that's fine, but if you want a great monitor that looks better than this (yes, even at 5K), there are other options, all of which cost a good deal less. ## Studio Display XDR Compared to the $6,000 Pro Display XDR Apple was selling before, this is a steal at $3,300\. And truthfully, it looks like a great monitor. 5K 120Hz mini-LED with 2,304 local dimming zones is undeniably a compelling combo. One interesting thing from the press release is that while it's a 120Hz display with variable refresh rates, they don't call it ProMotion like they do on their MacBook Pros and iPhones: > Studio Display XDR features a 120Hz refresh rate, enabling smooth, ultra-responsive motion. Adaptive Sync supports a continuously variable refresh rate between 47Hz to 120Hz, making gaming more fluid with faster frame delivery and lower display latency. Anyway, this monitor looks really great, but the price is still astronomical. I paid 1/3 of that last year for a 32" OLED with 1,300 nits of peak brightness, although admittedly only at 4K resolution. Admittedly, Apple's monitor is going to be more reliable than the cheaper 5K models out there, and the brightness in particular seems properly high end here, so I get why some people would go for this. And hey, it's nearly half the price of the old XDR and it comes with a stand! --- I think what bums me out about Apple's display lineup is that they are only serving the absolute highest end of the market, they have no truly "consumer" displays. I'm sure they think about the normal Studio Display as that, but it's really in another league compared to what any normal person spends on a monitor. I'll say it again to be super clear, my monitor is way higher end than what most people would buy…I'm considered someone who went overkill on their display…and mine cost $600 less than Apple's "consumer" model. ### "What are you going to do, stop me? I've got the guns," is a wild government argument for tech pundits to support URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/what-are-you-going-to-do-stop-me-ive-got-the-guns-is-a-wild-govargument-for-tech-pundits-to-support/ Last updated: 2026-03-02T22:19:43.000Z Over the last couple weeks, Anthropic and the Department of War have been engaged in a war of words over something very exciting: terms of use. Anthropic, as a private company, has created a product and reasonably established terms of use for it. However, the Department of War doesn't want to adhere to all of them. They went so far as to [threaten labeling Anthropic as a "supply chain risk"](https://www.axios.com/2026/02/16/anthropic-defense-department-relationship-hegseth?ref=birchtree.me), a classification rarely used and historically reserved for foreign companies suspected of being coerced by their governments to harm Americans. Ironically, one of the fears has been that unlike the US, other countries will have governments that make demands on these companies they couldn’t afford to reject. Well, we’ve got a new administration in town, and it does things a little differently. With a Congress that won’t act and no other branch willing to push back, the executive can do whatever it wants. So when the federal government wants to use a private company’s property for its own purposes, it does what those other countries do: compels that company with every bit of force it can muster.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ That's how we got to last Friday, which was the deadline the Department of War set for Anthropic to cede control of their product in the way the federal government demanded. And Anthropic, to their credit, [said no](https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-comments-secretary-war?ref=birchtree.me). This, of course, sent the federal government into a tizzy. They had a hissy fit, and now they're mad at Anthropic. Who knows what's going to happen, because you can't take anything they say seriously, but it's not great right now. One thing I almost posted to social media on Friday night after I heard the Anthropic news was a snarky comment about how I was sure Ben Thompson would have an article up on Monday about how the federal government is totally right. I thought that was a little mean, criticizing someone for something they hadn't done yet, even though I suspected they might. So I didn't post it. But Monday morning, I wake up, there's [a new issue of Stratechery in my inbox](https://stratechery.com/2026/anthropic-and-alignment/?ref=birchtree.me), and yep, it is an entire post about how it's actually good that the US Department of War is mandating that a private company do whatever the United States government says, and if they don't, they will make them. There are 3 things that are notable about this to me. First, it's an on-its-face absurd turnaround for someone who has spent the last decade aggressively defending the rights of US companies against the federal government. When Biden administration staffers sent links to tweets to Twitter, suggesting they broke Twitter's terms of use, Thompson was outraged that the government would dare even suggest that a company follow the rules they had set for themselves. Now, the literal head of the Department of War and the President of the United States are telling a private company that they must change their product to work a certain way, and must update their terms of use to allow the US government to do anything legal, which, because there are no laws around AI, is basically everything (as Thompson points out near the end of his post). His position is that this is actually reckless from Anthropic, that they should update their terms to allow anything the government wants, and that the government is being consistent with American values. In short, if the government tells you how to build your product in a way that kills or surveils people, companies must comply. If the government tells you to moderate content a certain way, companies must resist. It's worth pausing on that "anything legal" framing, because it's doing a lot of heavy lifting. Thompson (and freaking Palmer Luckey) appeals to democratic accountability as the reason Anthropic should defer to the government. But where is the democratic process here? Congress has passed zero laws governing the use of AI in military applications. There are no statutes defining what "fully autonomous weapons" means, no legislation setting boundaries on AI-driven surveillance. The Department of War is not invoking a law passed by elected representatives. They are issuing demands backed by executive power, full stop. Thompson frames this as the democratically elected government asserting its rightful authority, but that framing only works if you skip over the part where the elected legislature has done literally nothing on this topic. What we actually have is an executive branch acting unilaterally, which is precisely the kind of unchecked government power Thompson has historically warned against. For what it's worth, it's hard to pin Thompson down on these things sometimes. He's railed against the "paternal" federal government making any choices for adults, and then commented on a recent Dithering episode that he thinks the government should be more "paternal" (his words) when it comes to gambling. The second part of this is that, while the inconsistency is striking, it's not entirely surprising. Like I said, I already had the post ready to go on Friday predicting that this would be his take. Over the years, for all of the great business analysis Thompson does for tech, I've seen a pretty clear pattern in how he covers different administrations. During the Biden years, he took every opportunity to criticize that administration, naming Joe Biden by name and pushing back on basically every tech-related policy. Since the start of 2025 and the second Trump administration, the tone has shifted noticeably. As someone who listens to the Stratechery podcast every day, I have not heard him direct anything close to equivalent criticism at this administration. He has a tendency to steel man anything it does. It's not just this case, either. When Trump issued seemingly random tariffs that weren't based on any sort of economic theory and were more random gestures to different countries who he had beef with. When those happened, he was one of the few voices out there saying these are actually not as bad as people think, it's actually 4D chess, it's actually really clever what he's doing. The second one I can think of is last year when the FCC was [very clearly telling CBS that they would lose their license if they didn't take care of the Jimmy Kimmel situation](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/beyond-kimmel-the-fcc-controversy-exposes-a-larger-struggle-over-free-speech/?ref=birchtree.me), if they didn't limit Jimmy Kimmel's speech. And do you know what Ben Thompson's article was that week? It was [something critical of the Biden Administration](https://stratechery.com/2025/youtube-restores-suspended-accounts-free-speech-and-cultural-mores-platform-power/?ref=birchtree.me), of course. Like with all other speech squashing over the past year, Thompson has nothing to say about current events, he only has interest in relitigating the past. I'm not trying to read Thompson's mind, and I could be wrong about what drives these editorial choices. We all have our biases, myself very much included, and I view this situation through mine. But Thompson presents himself and his platform as someone who gives you the analysis straight without a political thumb on the scale. The pattern I think is so clear to see makes that hard to take at face value. Which brings us to the third thing I find notable. Thompson frames his entire argument around a concept he states plainly: > International law is ultimately a function of power; might makes right And he closes the piece with: > I don't want that, and, more pertinently, the ones with guns aren't going to tolerate it. Anthropic needs to align itself with that reality. "The ones with guns" here refers to the US federal government, by the way. Thompson would argue he's being descriptive, not prescriptive, just laying out how power actually works. But you can't spend an entire piece arguing that Anthropic *should* submit, present only two options (submit or be destroyed), and then claim you're merely observing. That's an argument dressed up as analysis. And the argument itself has a name. "Might makes right" is the language of authoritarians, or [as Edgar Temam wrote](https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/items/e2d65818-926e-407c-bd5f-fa96e267d8cf?ref=birchtree.me): > The first principle is the common meaning, namely, that the dominance of the mightier over the weaker is right. This principle is generally considered to be not a definition of justice but an expression of injustice. It's also, plainly, the language of the schoolyard bully. "What are you gonna do, stop me?" Thompson presents 2 options going forward for this situation: > Option 1 is that Anthropic accepts a subservient position relative to the U.S. government, and does not seek to retain ultimate decision-making power about how its models are used, instead leaving that to Congress and the President. Or: > Option 2 is that the U.S. government either destroys Anthropic or removes Amodei. So either the federal government mandates how Anthropic builds and sells its products, or the federal government destroys the company or removes their leadership and (presumably) inserts their own supporters in his place. The classic small government process… What I think is really telling, and is what Thompson has critiqued others for in the past, is how his entire argument rests on an unproven prediction of the future. > Current AI models are obviously not yet so powerful that they rival the U.S. military; if that is the trajectory, however… His entire premise is that AI is an even bigger national security risk than nuclear weapons, and therefore the U.S. government must have absolute control over them. It seems almost comical I need to say this, but this has not been established by reality yet. Large language models are undeniably an impactful piece of technology that will have some impact on the world going forward. But to suggest that they are more critical to national security than nuclear weapons is quite a stretch, and is regulating today based on what possibly maybe could be true in the future. This is exactly the sort of argument that Thompson routinely criticizes anti-monopoly people for expressing, but here he goes with it when it's convenient for him. And this brings us full circle to the democratic accountability question. Thompson argues that Amodei is "unelected and not accountable to the public," and that decisions about military capabilities should be left to Congress and the President. Fine. But if that's the standard, then where is Congress? If AI really is as consequential as Thompson and Amodei both claim, then the absence of any legislation is the actual scandal here, not a company maintaining its terms of use. You can't simultaneously argue that democratic institutions should govern these decisions and then cheer when the executive branch bypasses those institutions entirely. If the answer is "Congress should pass laws," then the correct response to Anthropic's terms of use is to pass laws, not to threaten a private company with destruction. --- As I said above, I think Ben Thompson provides valuable business insights. However, I think he's drank the Kool-Aid on LLMs, he presents his writing as immune from political bias even though the pattern suggests otherwise, and I think all of his worst tendencies came together for this one no good, very bad post. ### Continuity Camera is so freaking cool, I wish it fit better into my work URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/continuity-camera-is-so-freaking-cool-i-wish-it-fit-better-into-my-work/ Last updated: 2026-03-02T22:00:48.000Z About a week ago, I switched on my Canon R6 and went to record something on video. I have the camera hooked up to an Elgato 4K capture card, which my Mac sees as a webcam. However, in this instance, the Elgato was convinced there was no video coming from the camera. The setup has been going for several years now and has worked perfectly, so something has gone wrong. My suspicion is my mini-HDMI to HDMI cable is misbehaving, and I need to order a new one. In the meantime, because even Amazon can't deliver in seconds, I started using Continuity Camera. This is the feature that lets you connect to your iPhone and use it as a webcam. It works wired and wirelessly, and I know people swear by it, but I just haven't given it a shot myself because I already had an overkill setup of my own. But when that setup hits a snag, it's nice to have a fallback that should be easy to do. The great news is that this has worked swimmingly for me, and I've actually used it to record this week's upcoming Comfort Zone episode as well as some other video stuff I needed to do. I used my iPhone 17 Pro and it connected magically and the video itself was very high quality and low latency, even when connected wirelessly. For peace of mind, I have run a long USB-C cable from my Thunderbolt dock to the phone just to make sure I am never surprised by a low battery or dropped wireless connection, but it's been rock solid. Even going for hours at a time, my phone didn't warm up at all, which was a bit of a surprise to me. The other thing I wasn't expecting at all, but works shockingly great, is that the video is always perfectly level. It's actually kind of crazy. No matter how you're holding the phone, even if it's completely vertical, the video will be perfectly level 16x9 widescreen. This is low key the coolest thing here. The big downside for me, and anyone who works from home, is that this feature only works between devices signed into the same Apple account. I can use this for YouTube and for Comfort Zone, but I can't use it for work meetings throughout the week because my work Mac is obviously signed into my work Apple account. Every other webcam solution out there works fine in this hybrid setup I have, but not this, and that on its own makes Continuity Camera unfortunately a dud for me. For what it's worth, I don't think there's an easy solution here, as I don't think any random phone around you should be able to be turned into a webcam in an instant. But I also think it's a great example of why I think "dumb" technology is still super valuable in the modern era. We should have tech that doesn't have a flippin' clue what it's plugged into, it just does a job. Personally, I want this for as many peripherals as possible in my desk setup, and I'm honestly in a pretty good place here. My keyboard, mouse, display, audio interface, speakers, and camera setup all don't care what they're plugged into, they just work. They all have some level of software running on them, but they're so universal that I can almost guarantee that whatever computer I'm using 10 years from now will still work fine with all of these peripherals. Anyway, if you have a work setup that is aligned with how Continuity Camera works, then I think it's really an awesome solution. Doubly so if you have an old or alternate iPhone laying around that you can use. ### The M4 iPad Air: an update so small, the Bluetooth version gets a shout out URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-m4-ipad-air-an-update-so-small-the-bluetooth-version-gets-a-shout-out/ Last updated: 2026-03-02T14:59:15.000Z In addition to the new iPhone 17e, Apple also announced a new iPad Air, now powered by the M4 processor. I could almost end the post there because we've basically reached the end of the list of differences. As far as I can tell, the literal only other changes are that we now get Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and you know the updates are sparse when I'm telling you about the Bluetooth version bump. What's notable about this time is that this is actually the second year in a row where I've basically been able to say the same thing. Last year's M3 iPad Air was also just a processor swap over the M2 version. I'm not super annoyed by this, as the iPad Air is already quite good. But there are two things I think really could have used a change. 1. The 128GB base storage is not great for a premium tablet like this. We saw Apple bump their budget iPhone up to 256GB base storage today, so why not their second-highest end iPad? 2. The 60Hz display is getting pretty damn long in the tooth. It's *fiiiiine*, but at some point it's time to get an upgrade. The Air has had the literal exact screen for 7 years now. For some context, when we got this display in the Air, the latest iPhone on the market was the XS, you were probably still working in an office 5 days a week, and a global pandemic was a whole year away. Anyway, it seems all right enough. But in my opinion, if you can get an M2 or M3 Air for a significant discount, I would highly look into that. --- As I did with the iPhone 17e, I'm also comparing my takeaways from what Apple thinks are the highlights on their marketing page: 1. M4 (it's faster) 2. iPadOS (it's the same as before) 3. Apple Intelligence (it's the same as before) 4. Works with the Magic Keyboard (it's the same as before) 5. Available in 11 and 13-inch models (it's the same as before) Not to put too fine a point on it, but you know it's a minor release when 4 of the 5 highlights have nothing to do with this specific hardware, and one of them is that it comes in 2 sizes. ### The iPhone 17e URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-iphone-17e/ Last updated: 2026-03-02T14:42:51.000Z Last year I was [among the more positive people](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-essential-iphone/) about the iPhone 16e. I spent a couple weeks using it as my primary device, and honestly, it was a pretty fine experience. No, it wasn't as good as my 16 Pro at the time, but it was also half the cost of that phone. I didn't think it was a cutting-edge device, but again, it was not sold at a cutting-edge price. The single camera was kind of annoying, although it must be said that people love the iPhone Air, which has a single camera setup, so it doesn't seem like that's a deal breaker. The 60Hz display was a bummer as well, although at the time, a $1,000 iPhone 16 Plus didn't have that either, so no one was really expecting it on this model. The one thing that really did bum me out was the lack of MagSafe, which felt like a core iPhone feature that we'd gotten used to on five generations of iPhones. Just one year later, Apple's back with a new model, the iPhone 17e. It's a very conservative update, but here's what I think is notable. 1. MagSafe has been added, although it does have slower charging speeds than the other iPhones in the lineup (but it does equal the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro lineup, so not too far behind). 2. Base storage is 256GB (from 128GB in the 16e), which is fantastic. 128GB works, but 256GB is a great starting point. 3. The new "Fusion camera system" looks like it adopts the features high end iPhones have gotten recently to adjust focus in portrait photos after the fact, although photographic styles are still baked in. Based on Apple's compare page, it looks like this might be the exact camera that's in the iPhone Air. 4. The A19 is here, and just like last year, this is the same as the chip in the standard iPhone, but with one fewer GPU core. With the exception of Ceramic Shield 2 on the front glass, everything else is exactly the same. It's the same dimensions, the same wireless modems, the same display tech, and the same advertised battery life. I have no interest in getting one of these this year, but I do think that the upgrades, particularly to the camera, the base storage, and the addition of MagSafe make this an easier pill to swallow at the $599 price point. --- In [my Apple Report Card for last year](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-iphone/), I made a prediction about the 17e: > And I would expect the iPhone 17e to be the first iPhone we get in the year, coming in the spring and sporting the A19 processor, MagSafe, and the same design as the current model. Criticisms will remain, the base storage will stay at 128GB, the colors will stay the same, and the $599 price point will be a bit too much for people. Considering a lot of pundits didn't think we were going to get an update every year to this phone, I'll take the point for predicting that we would get this and that it would be the first new iPhone of the year. Everything else was spot on, with the exception of the base storage, which I didn't expect to increase. But hey, if I'm going to get a prediction wrong, I'm happy to have it be in the consumer's favor. --- One thing that I think is interesting to do is to compare what I think is notable about the new phone to what Apple thinks is notable about the new device. I wrote the above section after pretty much just browsing the iPhone compare page on Apple's site. But if we look at Apple's marketing, what are they bragging about knowing about this phone? I'm using the "Get the highlights" section, which is something they've added to most of their device pages in recent years. 1. Ceramic Shield 2 (it's more durable) 2. MagSafe (it's more convenient) 3. New Fusion Camera (it's a great camera) 4. A19 (it's faster) 5. Apple Intelligence (it's smart(?)) When I read this, I see Apple stressing the reliability and convenience of this phone. It will stand up to more abuse, MagSafe makes it more convenient to use with mounts and other accessories, and it has more performance in the processor and the camera, so you won't feel the need to update for a long time. ### Announcing Weave, a native iOS app for Typefully URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/announcing-weave-a-native-ios-app-for-typefully/ Last updated: 2026-03-02T13:55:30.000Z I'm happy to announce the release of my new app, Weave. As is often the case with my apps, I built this one for myself and then decided it was worth sharing with the world. Weave is a native iPhone and iPad app for Typefully users. For those who don't know, [Typefully](https://typefully.com/?ref=birchtree.me) is a web service that lets you cross-post to different social media accounts, and I think it's really great. However, they only have a web interface, they don't have a native iPhone or iPad app. Typefully does have an API, though, and it's pretty simple to use, so I put together a native app that lets you link to your Typefully account and publish however you like. Just go to your Typefully settings, create an API key, put it in Weave, and you're good to go. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/weave-32.png) I've tried to replicate pretty much all of the Typefully web experience, including a nice post editor that makes creating threads really easy. Weave supports media attachments with alt text, scheduling, queuing, posting to specific subsets of accounts, multiple profiles, and editing your scheduled posts. I'm also really proud of the natural language input, which is what I typically use for scheduling. And, hey, if you don't like the green accent color, I also have a Typefully blue theme you can switch to. Again, the app is called Weave, and it's [completely free on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/weave-for-typefully/id6758645413?ref=birchtree.me). If you're a Typefully user who uses an iPhone, I highly recommend checking it out. ### Why killing iPadOS isn't what you think it is URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/why-killing-ipados-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/ Last updated: 2026-03-02T13:47:59.000Z In the second episode of the A Better Computer podcast, I talk more about how I think "killing iPadOS" is actually making everything more like an iPad. We look at why, from a developer's perspective, there's already literally no difference between iPadOS and iOS software. And then I give a quick update on my ROG Xbox Ally X, which is now running Linux and is so much better than it was when it was running Windows. [Watch on YouTube](https://youtu.be/49oAwqT9llY?si=g8vzMf4El32YLm46&ref=birchtree.me), or listen in your favorite app. ### Micro app 11: JXR to JPG converter URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-11-jxr-to-jpg-converter/ Last updated: 2026-03-02T13:00:32.000Z Resident Evil Requiem came out this past week, and I was very excited to start playing it. It genuinely might be my most anticipated game of the year, and I truly relish my first time playing through any Resident Evil game, so I'm trying to really enjoy myself this first playthrough. I'm playing on PC and in HDR, and the game looks absolutely outstanding. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Resident-Evil-Requiem-Biohazard-Requiem-Screenshot-2026.02.28---13.55.02.88.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Resident-Evil-Requiem-Biohazard-Requiem-Screenshot-2026.02.28---14.20.48.18.jpg) Anyway, because I'm playing in HDR, whenever I take a screenshot, we immediately run into a bit of a tricky situation with file formats. When I take a screenshot while playing in SDR, the image format is a simple PNG, which I can easily get onto my Mac and either share directly or convert it to a JPEG. However, when playing in HDR, to capture the high dynamic range of the image, a JXR is captured, which is not a format you may have even come across. In fact, it seems almost no one has, because most apps, and as far as I can tell, nothing really on macOS can even open them in the first place. Truly, I've googled around and searched the App Store for options, and there doesn't seem to be anything really good. This app has got to be the most lazily created app I've made so far, but I don't need it to be complicated at all. All it does is let me drag in my JXR files. I select a destination, I hit convert, it then goes ahead and processes every file, it normalizes the color to SDR color space, and it saves the resulting image as a JPEG. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-01-at-20.29.46@2x.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-01-at-20.30.03@2x.png) That's really it, there's no other UI, there's no settings, but it does mean that I can post stuff like this to social media, showing off the game. > [ Post by @matt\_birchler@mastodon.social View on Mastodon ](https://mastodon.social/@matt%5Fbirchler/116155593182227623?ref=birchtree.me) Without getting too in the weeds, I'm doing this by dropping in the [jxrlib library](https://github.com/4creators/jxrlib?ref=birchtree.me) to the project to use its `jxr_decode_to_rgb()` function to convert the image into RGB data, which is then used by some pretty pedestrian Swift code to wrap that in a `CGImage` and export to disk as the file format of my choice. In theory, I could maintain the HDR data by saving the file as HEIC, so I'll probably do that next. *I don't currently have plans to make this available publicly.* ### + Tim Cook's "refrigerator-toaster combo" quote is irrelevant today, stop using it URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/tim-cooks-refrigerator-toaster-combo-quote-is-irrelevant-today-stop-using-it/ Last updated: 2026-02-28T13:27:37.000Z In fact, making the Mac a refrigerator-toaster combo would reduce the number of things it's able to do. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Daft Punk & Stevie Wonder & Pharrell & Nile Rogers get lucky URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/daft-punk-stevie-wonder-pharrell-nile-rogers-get-lucky/ Last updated: 2026-02-28T12:55:30.000Z I don't have anything to say other than you're welcome for finding the best 5 minutes of YouTube you'll see today. ### Anthropic does the bare minimum, but these days that's impressive URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/anthropic-does-the-bare-minimum-but-these-days-thats-impressive/ Last updated: 2026-02-27T23:00:00.000Z Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei: [Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War](https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war?ref=birchtree.me) > The Department of War has stated they will only contract with AI companies who accede to “any lawful use” and remove safeguards in the cases mentioned above. They have threatened to remove us from their systems if we maintain these safeguards; they have also threatened to designate us a “supply chain risk”—a label reserved for US adversaries, never before applied to an American company—and to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the safeguards’ removal. These latter two threats are inherently contradictory: one labels us a security risk; the other labels Claude as essential to national security. It's amazing to see how in every arena, as soon as you resist the All Powerful Trump Administration, you're labeled an enemy of America. ### Blender for the iPad is on hold (it was also keyboard+mouse first, not touch first) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/blender-for-the-ipad-is-on-hold-it-was-also-keyboard-mouse-first-not-touch-first/ Last updated: 2026-02-27T14:16:02.000Z [In a GitHub comment](https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/142346?ref=birchtree.me#issuecomment-1808180) back in January, Blender's Dalai Felinto gave this update on the Blender for iPad project: > FYI I just updated the task description to mention that this project is on hold. > > \[…\] we are putting this project on hold for now. The team will instead focus on the Android tablets first instead. Then just minutes ago, he [replied](https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/142346?ref=birchtree.me#issuecomment-1858283) to those asking what caused the change: > Hi, the simple answer is lack of funding that we could comfortably dedicate to this project. It is definitively a strategic target and something we want to pursuit. But we could not secure the funding required last year to work on this in 2026. > > On the flip-side android support development will start this year. And some of the work will also benefit the future iPad implementation. I have no visibility into the company, but my guess is that this is a case where they thought it would be cool, thought there was a market for it, and once they got down to prioritizing everything they wanted to do in 2026, it simply fell below the line. Looking at the GitHub page a bit more, this from the MVP section stood out to me as well: > Bare-minimum requirements to get initial feedback from Apple on technical feasibility of the app. Assume mouse and keyboard, don't bother with touch. As did this similar phrasing from a bit further down: > Target the iPad Pro, treat it as a laptop. Assumes a keyboard and trackpad, no touch is considered. Finally, right at the end, they had plans to implement non-Pro iPads: > Find an efficient way of working with the most constraints (iPad Mini on portrait mode without keyboard/mouse). This is a project on its own. It will have its own dedicated task once we get closer to it. I think it's very interesting that this example of pro software on the iPad was first and foremost going to be assuming the user had a keyboard and mouse, with touch input as a much later step in the development process. I'm not saying there's anything horribly wrong with this strategy, but as someone deep in the "iPadOS and macOS apps aren't that different" camp, it's notable to see an app like this explicitly state that the primary use case for their iPad app is a mouse and keyboard. ### Soon, everything will be an iPad URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/soon-everything-will-be-an-ipad/ Last updated: 2026-02-27T00:11:27.000Z Over the weekend, my [Apple will kill iPadOS](https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-will-kill-ipados/) article caused some feelings, to say the least. The post title was meant to catch eyes, and it did, but I also think that it brought people into the article with the wrong energy. They were ready to fight, and read my (admittedly hastily written) post ready to disagree with it. I'll talk more about this on episode 2 of the new pod, but I wanted to say that "Soon, everything will be an iPad" would have been an equally valid title for the exact same thing I wrote. Not only would the iPad UI be available to people using iPads already, but it would also be coming to the iPhone Fold, and Mac users would get the iPad Pro-style tablet hardware they've been jealous of for years, just running their OS of choice. *I did sour this part of the message by suggesting the iPad Pro hardware would only continue with macOS as an option and that the new windowing features from last year would maybe be removed…my bad on that one.* The difference between iOS and iPadOS is basically a bunch of feature flags in the software, after all, so it's more of a matter of marketing than anything else. Did you know that in Apple's developer apps, it's all referred to as "iOS" already? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/image-3.png) Or did you know that you distribute an "iOS" and a "macOS" build of your app, but there is no option to distribute an "iPadOS" app? Apps can run only on the iPad if the dev wants, but it's still an "iOS" app. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/image-4.png) And honestly, the flagship iPhone run the same OS as iPads could be the best thing to every happen to the iPad software experience. No more off years or wondering if Apple still cares about you…nope, when their most important product runs your OS, suddenly the OS on your iPad is Apple's most important OS. What a gift! Anyway, I didn't mean to suggest Apple was merging iPadOS and macOS, nor was I trying to say that Apple was giving up on iPads in any way shape or form. ### Block is making more profit than ever, so they're firing 40% of their employees URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/block-is-making-more-profit-than-ever-so-theyre-firing-40-of-their-employees/ Last updated: 2026-02-26T22:59:59.000Z Jack Dorsey on Twitter: [we're making @blocks smaller today. here's my note to the company.](https://x.com/jack/status/2027129697092731343?ref=birchtree.me) > we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. Apparently also laid off today was his shift key. Hearing you're getting axed by your CEO on social media typing *wike a widdle liddle babi* is a very 2026 feeling. Of course, I quoted the part about how they're doing better than ever, and that's why they need to let people go. Classic. Of course, I had to look at the replies, and of course there was a gem near the top: > This is the elon firing 80% of Twitter moment. The whole world saw, in real time, that it had literally 0 negative impact on the product and the user experience. Hear that, "literally 0 negative impact on the product and the user experience" apparently! Let's all go back, everyone, it's a great experience like it always was! Of course, this from some dipshit who creates AI summaries over AI videos of classic books as their social media "content". Ah, the pride in being a human powered slop machine. Anyway, the severance deal seems good, so that's something. I'm just really tired of execs, who's every monetary need is satisfied, go in front of their employees and saying, "things have never been better, and that's why we need to let a bunch of you go." ### Drive to Survive is coming to Apple TV tonight URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/drive-to-survive-is-coming-to-apple-tv-tonight/ Last updated: 2026-02-26T22:18:38.000Z Chance Miller: [New ‘F1: Drive to Survive’ season is coming to Apple TV](https://9to5mac.com/2026/02/26/new-f1-drive-to-survive-season-is-coming-to-apple-tv/?ref=birchtree.me) > Ahead of the first F1 Grand Prix next week, Apple has announced a new partnership with Netflix in the US. Through this deal, Apple will make the entire new season (season eight) of Formula 1: Drive to Survive available on Apple TV. Well that's a nice surprise! ### The whole draw of the Mac is that it can do whatever you want it to do URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-whole-draw-of-the-mac-is-that-it-can-do-whatever-you-want-it-to-do/ Last updated: 2026-02-25T19:27:27.000Z Wesley Hilliard has a new post out which is a bit of a retort to my opinion on touch Macs and iPads: [Apple could enter its toaster-fridge era with touchscreen MacBooks](https://www.hilli.tech/apple-could-enter-its-toaster-fridge-era-with-touchscreen-macbooks/?ref=birchtree.me) > It's not that I think it's a bad idea, it's just an odd one. macOS was not originally designed for touch, and MacBooks have notably thin lids that could be compromised by touch technology. > > If Apple can deliver a touch panel without negative effects to the MacBook design, then sure, go for it. And: > That said, this isn't iPadOS either. These MacBook displays are not touch-first and never will be. They also won't have Apple Pencil support and likely never will. As I feel like I've said over and over again on this blog, we continually hear about what features one platform or another is or isn't supposed to have. Then Apple adds that feature, everybody likes it, and we pretend like we didn't argue against that existing before. I've had literally these exact same debates with people who thought that the iPad should not get a mouse cursor because that was a Mac thing. I also think it's worth noting that while people love to bust out the "NO" slide or the "toaster and a refrigerator" Tim Cook quote or the ergonomics concern, I will point out this still from the iPad introduction: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/4cbf452ecadcbbd72e010000.jpg) 16 years later, that exact use case is literally given full screen marketing on Apple's website. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/ipad-screen.jpg) Not only are people using their iPad in a laptop form factor, Apple has several accessories that turn your iPad into a laptop and they had to move the camera to work in landscape because so many people were doing it. I genuinely believe that if Apple pundits think that combining direct and indirect input methods on the Mac is such a bad idea, they should direct an equal amount of disdain towards Apple for doing this in the iPad. The iPad is already the nightmare combination they fear, and they're not mad about it because actually it's a really great experience. Hilliard also mentions that adding a capacitive layer to the MacBook Pro screen could compromise its thinness. I'm not sure that's a big issue, but even if it is, I should say again that a clamshell Mac with a touch screen is not the dream Mac I've been waiting for all these years. What I want is the iPad Pro hardware running macOS, complete with the freedom to attach a keyboard when I need it. Also, if I can be pedantic, the Mac is fundamentally a toaster, a refrigerator, a coffee maker, a mixer, and salad spinner…it's flexible…it's everything you want it to be. It's literally the reason people like me are so in love with it. > And no, Matt Birchler, Apple is not going to kill iPadOS. I'm glad to know we read each other ❤️. I'll have a follow up post on this topic soon enough, don't worry! --- Anyway, I can't wait for Apple to release Macs with touch, for it to make some people happy and no one unhappy, and for us all to pretend that we didn't dogmatically believe that touch on the Mac would be terrible. Just like we pretend we didn't say the same thing about ["the iPad wasn’t supposed to have a file manager until it got one, the iPad wasn’t supposed to be used with a mouse and keyboard until it did, the iPad wasn’t supposed to have overlapping windows until it did."](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-ipad-wasnt-supposed-to-have-this-until-it-did/) ### In blind test, gamers think DLSS looks better than native rendering URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/in-blind-test-gamers-think-dlss-looks-better-than-native-rendering/ Last updated: 2026-02-25T13:00:00.000Z Hassam Nasir: [Nearly half of PC gamers prefer DLSS 4.5 over AMD's FSR and even native rendering](https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/nearly-half-of-pc-gamers-prefer-dlss-4-5-over-amds-fsr-and-even-native-rendering-nvidia-scores-clean-sweep-in-blind-test-of-six-titles?ref=birchtree.me) (emphasis mine) > German outlet ComputerBase has conducted a blind test comparing the image quality of six games across different rendering techniques. The main showdown was between Nvidia's latest DLSS 4.5 and AMD's latest FSR 4 (Redstone) technologies, going up against native rendering using TAA. **After the votes were tallied, DLSS walked away with a clear and dominant victory**, scoring 48.2% of all votes. This will have to be a podcast topic, but this study doesn’t surprise me at all. The PC gaming community online has been (IMO) bizarrely opposed to this technology, despite analytics showing most people with NVIDIA GPUs enable DLSS when it's available and now in blind tests, actually prefer DLSS image quality over native rendering with TAA. It wasn't part of the test, but it's also worth saying that not only did users prefer the DLSS image in terms of quality, they would have also enjoyed playing the games more because their frame rates were higher, and because of that frame rate increase, the games' input latency would be faster as well. So better image quality, better frame rates, and better input latency, and still some gamers thumb their nose at this tech. For the past year, [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksbLl4tckb0&ref=birchtree.me) from Linus Tech Tips has been living rent-free in my head. Around the 7 minute mark, Linus and I'm sorry, I don't know the other guy's name, are playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider and are pointing out countless flaws in the picture quality, and the "guy whose name I don't know" really lays it on thick as this being the reason he can't use DLSS. Moments later, they venture to the game's video settings menu and realize they didn't even have DLSS on…their complaints were about native rendering. For his part, Linus has seemed to [come around](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbEbLE4RFY&ref=birchtree.me) on DLSS and [frame generation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rnjawJ%5FQDc&ref=birchtree.me) in the past year, but situations like this seem all too common. ### Seeing growth on YouTube URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/seeing-growth-on-youtube/ Last updated: 2026-02-25T02:16:12.000Z I love Rory Alexander's YouYube channel. He streams Gran Turismo for a living and posts a video or two per week that I always enjoy. On my YouTube home feed today I saw this video from 3 years ago: What I find striking about it is how much different it is from his current videos. Hre's a random example of a recent video from the last couple weeks for comparison: I think it's remarkable how much more engaging he is and how much more confident he is on camera. It's only been a couple years, but the transformation is really impressive and I think he still does it with a high amount of class. I highly recommend Rory's channel if you're into racing. ### Shocker: Apple will update macOS UI to make touch a good experience 😉 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/shocker-apple-will-update-macos-ui-to-make-touch-a-good-experience/ Last updated: 2026-02-24T23:48:04.000Z Juli Clover reporting on Mark Gurman’s latest report: [Touchscreen OLED MacBook Pro Coming in 2026 With Dynamic Island and Redesigned macOS Controls](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/02/24/touchscreen-macbook-pro-dynamic-island/?ref=birchtree.me) > Apple is updating macOS to make it more touch friendly. Users will be able to tap or click on-screen elements, and controls will change based on input method. If a user taps on a menu bar item, for example, it will display a larger set of controls optimized for touch. Touch-based options will be integrated throughout macOS, and it will support iPad features like pinch gestures for zooming in or out and fast scrolling. One of the frustrating things about being someone who said macOS would get touch one way was battling with people who seemed to think Apple would never change the macOS UI to make this a good experience, and therefore it was a bad idea. To say nothing of the macOS and iPadOS stock UI elements being nearly pixel-perfect clones of each other now, of course Apple was going to make some changes. I can’t wait for this, and I doubly can’t wait for them to make a tablet-style Mac. ### A Better Computer, the Podcast URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/a-better-computer-the-podcast/ Last updated: 2026-02-25T14:39:39.000Z Today I'm doing something a bit spontaneous, I'm launching a podcast! It's called A Better Computer (shocker), and it's "available anywhere you get your podcasts", as they say. - [Videos will appear on the YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@ABetterComputer?ref=birchtree.me) - [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-better-computer/id1879814844?ref=birchtree.me) - [Overcast](https://overcast.fm/itunes1879814844/a-better-computer?ref=birchtree.me) - [Pocket Casts](https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/a-better-computer/b2fa7c10-f3cd-013e-2af7-0e956d54cc61?ref=birchtree.me) - [Castro](https://castro.fm/podcast/f3e8d2a7-39cb-4157-bd75-6da548f32551?ref=birchtree.me) - [RSS](https://feeds.simplecast.com/kULRmujj?ref=birchtree.me) This is a solo show that I plan on being about 15 minutes every Monday, and it will be an outlet for me to talk about whatever I'm interested in tech that week (Apple, AI, browsers, gaming, etc.). I'm not exactly flush with time, so I've been working on a "take a penny leave a penny" policy for a couple years now with my side projects. From that perspective, I'm basically taking this time back from my regular video production on YouTube. I'm not retiring A Better Computer or anything, but I think I should recognize that I simply don't have the time or energy to put in all the work making regular YouTube videos requires. My day job has gotten too busy, and I'm just not able to squeeze in time for it like I used to be able to. You may have noticed this naturally happening over the past 6 months or so already. Now I can just feel a bit better about not doing a video for a long time without the algorithm totally decimating me. And as must be said, nothing changes with [Comfort Zone or Cozy Zone](https://www.macstories.net/comfort-zone/?ref=birchtree.me), I love doing those shows with Chris and Niléane, and I hope to keep doing that for many years. This show scratches a different itch for me, creatively, so I want to pursue it as well. I hope you subscribe and enjoy! ### Quick Notes now records in the background URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-notes-now-records-in-the-background/ Last updated: 2026-02-24T12:36:23.000Z Quick Notes has a new update out now with a few nice improvements. ## Background recording ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/teaser-2.jpg) Have you ever had your screen turn off during a longer recording? Have you ever wanted to switch to another app and look something up while you were recording a note? Have you ever wanted ti dictate into your AirPods with your phone in your pocket? Now you can! Quick Notes now runs in the background, and sports a live activity while it's at it. ## New brainstorm modes There are 2 new brainstorm modes: "tasks" and "long form". Tasks lets you jabber into your phone for however long you want, and it will output a list of tasks based on what you said. They're a markdown-formatted list, and can be copy/pasted into some task managers (definitely Things). Long Form is basically a way to talk for several minutes and get a better clean up with punctuation, paragraph breaks, and more aggressive removal of things like "um" and "…" which the normal clean up feature is unable to always get. If I know my note is going to be more than one or two minutes of dictation, this is what I've been leaning towards myself. ## New transcription model Added the option to use NVIDIA's Parakeet V3 model for transcription (enable it from the Transcription settings page). Most people probably don't need this, but it is quicker and a bit more accurate than Apple's model. That said, it's stupid fast, to the point that the "transcribing" screen doesn't even have time to appear on screen before it's done. ## iPad fix Fixed the iPad layout to have note content actually use the full window area. Sorry about that one! ## Available now, still free! [Quick Notes is available on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-notes-easy-voice-notes/id6754181571?ref=birchtree.me) for iPhone and iPad, and Brainstorm Mode is a paid add-on if you're interested. Background recording and the new transcription model work great for free users, continuing Quick Notes' goal of bringing great voice memo transcription to everyone for free. ### Why many of us have no patience for liquid glass URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/why-many-of-us-have-no-patience-for-liquid-glass/ Last updated: 2026-02-24T02:17:37.000Z Jason Snell: [Apple in 2025: The Six Colors report card](https://sixcolors.com/post/2026/02/2025reportcard/?ref=birchtree.me) > It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple. The whole idea here is to get a broad sense of sentiment—the “vibe in the room”—regarding the past year. (And by looking at previous survey results, we can even see how that sentiment has drifted over the course of an entire decade.) I love this survey, and I've read it every year (and I was delighted to start participating in it a few years ago…thanks, Jason 👋🏻). What really got me this time wasn't the "impact on the world" or Vision Pro scores, both of which were atrocious, it was actually the Mac score, which was a 3.5\. For some context, that is the same as it scored in the middle of the butterfly keyboard, only USB-C ports, underperforming Mac era. Snell pointed this out as well: > After a few years of relative stability, the Mac has now given back all the goodwill it earned from our panel with the release of Apple silicon Macs. The issue wasn’t on the hardware side: There was wide agreement that Apple is at the top of its Mac hardware game. But macOS 26 Tahoe was condemned as a disastrous OS release Here's John Siracusa, who has more than a little context to make such statements: > Tahoe is the worst user interface update in the history of the Mac. Every change is either wrongheaded, poorly executed, or both. And here's John Gruber, someone also in a similar position: > Tahoe is the worst regression in the entire history of MacOS. Those are big statements from people who know a thing or two about the Mac, so it's worth taking note when they are put off a Mac update like this. That said, I do think we've got a way better Mac situation today than we did 8 years ago when we were in the depths of the Mac lineup (hell, that's when I gave up the Mac entirely). Seriously, force me to get rid of all but one of my Apple products, and without thinking for even a moment, I'd keep the MacBook Pro. These machines are amazing, even if the liquid glass redesign has made much of the UI look worse. But let's look at this chart on people judging Apple's impact on the world: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-23-at-19.59.29@2x.png) Apple's good will from this community has vanished. They may still make our favorite products to use for our computing needs, but we don't see them the same anymore. There was no, "liquid glass isn't good, but you're still my favorite," attitude from us, it was more, "liquid glass isn't good, and I don't even know you anymore." For a comparison, here are some quotes from this section in [the 2015 survey](https://sixcolors.com/post/2016/01/apples-final-report-card-for-2015/?ref=birchtree.me): > “I think Apple does a very good job in this area, or at least tries to,” wrote Adam Engst. > > "It feels like Apple is finally one of the companies that’s truly leading in these areas,” wrote Dan Frakes. > > Stephen Hackett wrote: “I like that Tim Cook is using Apple’s size for social impact. \[…\] it’s nice to see the organization take on his personality more and more.” It truly was a different era, and after settling into a solid range for the next decade, it's pretty clear that things are nowhere near that today. Here's Joe Rosensteel on the 2026 survey: > I don’t care what Tim’s personal feelings on the matter are, and I don’t care what his fiduciary responsibility is, Apple simply can not claim they are serving the greater good in any way, shape, or form. When that's the the vibe, you don't get any slack when you mis the mark. It shifts you from a lifestyle choice…a brand you would throw a sticker on your car to show you support…and turns it into a passionless seller and consumer relationship. ### Financially secure Sony shuts down a great game studio they acquired, seemingly just to ruin URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/financially-secure-sony-shuts-down-a-great-game-studio-they-acquired-seemingly-just-to-ruin/ Last updated: 2026-02-22T16:26:29.000Z Brendon Bigley: [Bluepoint Games Shuttered by PlayStation for Some Unfathomable Reason](https://wavelengths.online/posts/bluepoint-games-shuttered-by-playstation-for-some-unfathomable-reason?ref=birchtree.me) > Are we sincerely supposed to believe that in a world where the entire industry is bending over backward to remake and remaster every game under the sun, the studio that’s arguably the best at it can’t find a path to profitability? Bluepoint has released some of the most critically and financially successful remakes released over the past decade. Why Sony decided to shut them down is beyond me, and I think it's a big mistake for the company. It should be noted that for the past couple of years, Sony has had them working on a God of War live service multiplayer game, and I just think this is another chapter in the sad, horrible mistake of Sony pivoting to live service for no reason at all over the last few years. This is also another example of why I don't love when big companies acquire small studios. Blue Point was a reliable and successful development house before Sony acquired them in 2021\. And they weren't able to release a single game after the Sony acquisition, and have now been shut down. Just as seems to be the case with other smaller studios once acquired by Sony or Microsoft. They have great success on their own. And then their output drops once acquired by the Megacorp, and they're shut down a couple of years later. ### Hosting my own analytics URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/hosting-my-own-analytics/ Last updated: 2026-02-21T18:01:19.000Z I've used Plausible for my analytics since 2021, and I've been quite happy with it. It just works, it's pretty good from a privacy angle, and it gives me a nice UI for showing essential metrics without being overwhelming. I'm currently paying $12/month for it, which I think is fair enough, and seems to be a grandfathered deal, because looking at their [current pricing page](https://plausible.io/?ref=birchtree.me#pricing), I'd pay $29/month if I signed up now. That said, I'm always interested in cutting costs when I can, and for reasons that will make sense soon, I've been using [Railway](https://railway.com/?ref=birchtree.me) to host some things, and I wondered what it would look like to host my analytics there. They have a [one-click install for Plausible](https://railway.com/deploy/mzYEXO?ref=birchtree.me) that you can get going in no time, so I gave that a shot. It was super simple to get going, and within minutes I had 5 sites reporting their analytics to my hosted version of Plausible (shout out to Claude Code for making the changes and pushing the updates for me in no time). *One quick tip for those using this method on Railway in the future, the install will have* `ghcr.io/plausible/community-edition:v2` *as the "source image" which is an older version of Plausible. Just go into the settings of that deployment and change the source to* `ghcr.io/plausible/community-edition:v3.2`*, redepoly, and the new version will be there.* For those who don't know, Railway bills based on usage, so the more CPU/memory/bandwidth your deployed apps use, the more they cost. I noticed pretty quickly that the cost was ticking up faster than I expected. Here's what I see after 3 full days running Plausible: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Plausible.png) I started mid-month, so the estimated usage only goes to the end of February, but running this for a full month is going to run me about $9-10\. That's a bit cheaper than the official version, but it's not *that much different*. Spinning these up is trivial, so I also wanted to run [Umami](https://umami.is/?ref=birchtree.me), which I'd heard was lighter and of similar quality. When I'm paying based on server load, suddenly lighter sounds better! So I used Railway's [one-click Umami install](https://railway.com/deploy/umami-analytics?ref=birchtree.me), got it running, and once again used Claude Code to quickly add the tracking code to each of the 5 sites I track. Over the exact same time period, here's what billing has accrued for this deployment. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Umami.png) That's much better! Now we're looking at $2 or so per month, which is pretty darn good. I'm going to let them both run for another couple days to make sure nothing unexpected changes, but if these rates hold, I've got my new analytics platform and it's going to save me about $10 per month (or $27 per month if my grandfathered price ever ended), so that's pretty rad. --- In case anyone was unfamiliar with these platforms, here's what the today view for Plausible looks like: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/image-1.png) And here's the same page for Umami: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/image-2.png) It's a matter of taste, but I think they're both quite good, and a hell of a lot better for my needs that Google Analytics. That said, if there is some other open source analytics tool I could be using, let me know! ### Apple will kill iPadOS URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-will-kill-ipados/ Last updated: 2026-02-27T00:12:03.000Z *Before you get too spicy about this post,* [*read this one next*](https://birchtree.me/blog/soon-everything-will-be-an-ipad/)*.* How's this for a hot take to start the weekend: I think Apple is going to discontinue iPadOS. I know, I know, it's a big swing, but put the pitchforks away and hear me out. iPadOS, as it exists now, is being stretched too thin. The idea of having one operating system, with the same features, that spans from a small, 8" tablet up through a 13" laptop-style slab that also connects to a 32" monitor is fundamentally problematic. This doesn't even take into account that we're [likely getting an iPhone that folds out to an 8" tablet soon](https://www.macrumors.com/guide/foldable-iphone/?ref=birchtree.me). What's that software going to look like? What about when the inevitable larger folding iPhone comes and it has a 10" screen? We're all familiar with the complaints from users on both ends of the iPad spectrum. iPad Pro users love the hardware but are perpetually frustrated by limitations in the software. Meanwhile, users of the smaller and lower-end iPads are frustrated with the added desktop-style features they're getting that complicate their experience. And then [there are iPad users who just feel](https://www.fastcompany.com/91373393/ipados-26-public-beta?ref=birchtree.me) like Apple is abandoning what made them fall in love with the iPad in the first place. So here's the prediction: Apple will discontinue iPadOS. The regular iPad, iPad mini, and iPad Air will continue to exist, but they will run iOS. These iPads will not have the Mac-style window management they have today, but they will maintain Split View and (probably) Stage Manager. Of course, the iPhone will continue to run iOS, and the iPhone Fold will adopt a more iPad-style layout when the 8" inner screen is exposed. That leaves the iPad Pro, which I believe will begin shipping with macOS. No, not some fork of macOS or "macOS lite," the real deal. This will live alongside the other Macs in the lineup, and it will be the tablet-style Mac while Apple will keep the clamshell laptop and desktop machines in the lineup. The [strongly rumored touch-enabled MacBook Pros on the horizon](https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/21/apple-redesigned-macbook-pro-oled-touch-screen-2026-rumors/?ref=birchtree.me) will come with a new build of macOS that fully supports touch, opening the door to a tablet-style Mac, and why mess with perfection? Put macOS on the iPad Pro and instantly have the best convertible computer on the planet. And for those who haven't read all of my work (reasonable, tbh), I really have to reiterate what I've said before, which is that macOS UI elements are [not](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-straw-men-propping-up-anti-touch-mac-takes/) as [small](https://birchtree.me/blog/macos-still-isnt-as-small-as-you-think/) as you think, and in most cases, are literally exactly the same as those on the iPad. To illustrate my point, here's a comparison of toolbar buttons used all across the OS at the default UI zoom on a 14" MacBook Pro and an 11" iPad Pro. My god, the size difference, touch would never work there! It's not like SwiftUI builds literally the same UI for basically everything between iPadOS and macOS builds already. 😉 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/compare-1.png) And let's look at the iPadOS updates in recent years. I think it's fair to say that 90% of the big things people got really excited about were features that made the iPad more like the Mac. Even things that they did in a special iPad-centric way (window management, mouse support, etc.) were soon redone in a way that made them more carbon copies of the Mac and most people celebrated those changes. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/no.jpeg) And hey, this would let Apple stay true to their word. Are they merging iPadOS and macOS? No. They're just getting rid of iPadOS. I recognize this is a big swing, and I don't think it's happening this year. It may not happen next year either, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me. The impending introduction of an iPhone that turns into a tablet-sized device itself, really just makes me wonder what the hell we're doing here. What the right OS for an 8" tablet? Apple will be selling two devices like that and as it stands now, the answer is different for each one. That's silly. I think making a more clear software split in the lineup makes a ton of sense. Let the more casual iPads (and the iPhones that will soon be the size of iPads) run a clean, but powerful touch-centric OS. Then let the Mac be what it always has been, the best platform for giving Apple customers tons of options. ### Another new model coming to Quick Subtitles URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/another-new-model-coming-to-quick-subtitles/ Last updated: 2026-02-20T20:00:55.000Z There will be a [Quick Subtitles](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) update out soon that adds OpenAI's Whisper model to the app as an optional transcription model. Why, you might ask? Well, I think each model has its own advantages. - Apple's model is built into iOS/macOS already, so there's no extra storage required, and it's very fast and pretty accurate. - NVIDIA's model requires a download, but is even faster, and sometimes is a bit more accurate. - OpenAI's model also requires a download, it's much slower, but it also delivers better quality on average. Personally, I think Apple's model is a really good balance and I really like that I'm able to bundle it into the app without requiring any third party dependencies or external downloads. That said, I did start to feel like I was losing a competitive advantage by only using this model, and I think giving users more options is a good thing in this case. *As a quick side note on Parakeet, if you are using that model today and you notice that sometimes the app sits at 0% for a little bit before rocketing through the rest, that's because Parakeet needs to "warm up" before processing sometimes. So if you just launched the app for the first time in a while, that first file may have a bit of a delay. I'm working on finding a clever way to get this warm-up to happen before you actually provide a file, but no timeline on that yet.* ## Performance Let's start by looking at the performance difference between the models, which as a reminder, all run 100% locally on your device. Your audio files never ever ever get uploaded to any cloud service. Below is how long it took to transcribe a 38-minute podcast episode across each model on an M4 Pro MacBook Pro. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-20-at-11.56.51@2x.png) In terms of performance, honestly, all three of these are remarkable compared to what was available to folks five years ago, but obviously the Apple and NVIDIA models are in a whole other class than OpenAI's Whisper when it comes to speed. So why the hell would I add a model that takes 12x more time to process the same file? In a word: accuracy. ## Accuracy Here's what each model delivered for the intro in the most recent episode of Comfort Zone: ### Apple Speech Analyzer > Welcome to Comfort Zone, a podcast all about pushing your hosts. Well, outside of their comfort zone. I'm Christopher Lolly, and as always, I am joined by Matt Barcheler. Matt, how are you doing? I'm doing good. I have a little coffee with me today and I am exhausted because I used a manual grinder for the 1st time ever on this, would not advise. It takes forever. That doesn't sound like fun. But we are also joined by the triumphant return of Neelion. Leon, how are you? Hello. I've done better. ### NVIDIA Parakeet TDT V3 > Welcome to Comfort Zone, a podcast all about pushing your hosts, well, outside of their comfort zone. I'm Christopher Lawley and as always I am joined by Matt Barchler. Matt, how are you doing? I'm doing good. I have a uh a little coffee with me today and I am exhausted because I used a manual grinder for the first time ever on this. Would not advise. It takes forever. That doesn't sound like fun. But we are also joined by the triumphant return of Neilion. Neilion, how are you? Hello, I've done better. ### OpenAI Whisper Large V3 > Welcome to Comfort Zone, a podcast all about pushing your hosts, well, outside of their comfort zone. I'm Christopher Lawley, and as always, I am joined by Matt Birchler. Matt, how are you doing? I'm doing good. I have a little coffee with me today, and I am exhausted because I used a manual grinder for the first time ever on this. Would not advise. It takes forever. That doesn't sound like fun. But we are also joined by the triumphant return of Nileon. Nileon, how are you? Hello. I've done better. One of the big features I added in Quick Subtitles 2.0 was a Gemini feature to clean up the transcript to try to account for the issues that Apple's model had. I actually really love that feature myself, and even if no one else ever uses it, I'll still really value it. But the ideal state, of course, is that you never have to make any corrections at all because it just gets it right out of the box. The Whisper model gets us closer than the other two in my testing at being right from the start. I will say that after nearly a year of using these incredibly fast on-device models, it's a little tough to go back to something this slow, but I am really encouraged by the improved accuracy. ## My new default? Going forward, I think Whisper is going to be my default model, but I'll use Parakeet when I need to batch converts and "pretty good" is good enough. The good news is that I've got the app in a really good place with good options for folks. The bad news, is that despite coming into existence because of Apple's on-device model, it's actually Apple's model that is neither the fastest nor the most accurate, so it's been wedged out for my use of the app. I currently have two hopes for WWDC in regards to Apple's speech analyzer. First, I hope that they ship an updated version of the model that is improved over what we have now. That's a pretty basic request, so that feels like the baseline. I would also like it if Apple had a more advanced option that developers could use, even if it meant we had to prompt the user to download something extra like we have to do with these other models. Think of it like how they have the enhanced voices that you have to download if you want to use for Siri. --- This is fully implemented in my personal dev branch, and I have it working great on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It's just a matter of doing some more testing, but if all goes well, I would expect this available next week! Not to make this a pitch for the [More Birchtree sub](#/portal/signup), but they do get TestFlight access to this app and the beta should be out in the next day or two. ### That thing "nobody" was asking for URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/that-thing-nobody-was-asking-for/ Last updated: 2026-02-20T17:59:59.000Z I watch the occasional Kyle Hill video, and [his latest about data centers in space being](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w6G7VEwNq0&ref=birchtree.me) a bad idea got my attention, so I watched it. Early in the video, he says: > Obviously something is going to have to give if we want to continue to build out this infrastructure that no one actually wants. Listen, I'm happy to debate the values of AI, and I don't think I'm blinded to their downsides that we need to mitigate. But I constantly see people throw around this general phrase about how "nobody actually wants this" as though it's common knowledge that no one could possibly disagree with. Believe me, Mastodon is my main social network, a day doesn't go by where I don't see someone saying something like this. But is that actually the case? I opened the App Store on my phone this morning and took a screenshot of the top 8 free apps right now. ChatGPT is number 1 (as it has been for several years in a row), Gemini is number 4, and Claude is number 8\. For a thing "nobody wants", people sure are going out of their way to get these apps. And anecdotally, I know a ton of people who aren't "tech bros" who use these tools all the time, even if they do have misgivings about them. *Side note: I see a very common thing where people find AI video and images absolutely cringe, but they find ChatGPT/Gemini/Claude the greatest thing they've ever used. Not just tech folks, regular people. I don't know if this will hold long-term, but it is interesting that AI chatbots and AI "art" are treated very differently by a lot of people (including myself, for what it's worth).* Another way I could interpret this phrasing I hear from people is that people weren't asking specifically for AI chatbots, and therefore it's tech companies giving them something they didn't ask for. If that's the case, then I fundamentally disagree that that's a problem. It's especially rich if it's coming from Apple fans who for decades have complimented Apple for creating products that people didn't even know they wanted until they had them. The only difference this time is that a subset of people don't like these solutions. So this blog post is genuinely a question. If you're someone who has said that AI chatbots are a thing nobody asks for, what do you mean when you say that? Right now, it feels like a bare assertion meant to shut down debate. Help me understand if I've got it wrong! ### Why I don't offload my writing to AI URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/why-i-dont-offload-my-writing-to-ai/ Last updated: 2026-02-20T02:07:38.000Z Claudio Nastruzzi: [Why AI writing is so generic, boring, and dangerous: Semantic ablation](https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/16/semantic%5Fablation%5Fai%5Fwriting/?ref=birchtree.me) > When an author uses AI for "polishing" a draft, they are not seeing improvement; they are witnessing semantic ablation. The AI identifies high-entropy clusters – the precise points where unique insights and "blood" reside – and systematically replaces them with the most probable, generic token sequences. What began as a jagged, precise Romanesque structure of stone is eroded into a polished, Baroque plastic shell: it looks "clean" to the casual eye, but its structural integrity – its "ciccia" – has been ablated to favor a hollow, frictionless aesthetic. I generally agree here. I sometimes use AI as an advanced spell and grammar check, but offloading your writing to it never really works out for creative writing. ### ChapterPod and Quick Subtitles now support WebVTT (.vtt) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/chapterpod-and-quick-subtitles-now-support-webvtt/ Last updated: 2026-02-19T23:59:34.000Z I live in worlds where .SRT is the g0-to subtitles format, but other people have different needs. There is an alternate format, WebVTT, which actually does some cool stuff. I've implemented a simple version of this, so don't expect anything totally crazy, but it should work great! ## One more ChapterPod change ChapterPod also comes with an improvement to the triggers that save data, so there previously was an issue where tabbing out of one field would not save the change you made to that field, even though it looked like you did in the UI. This is now fixed, so tabbing, clicking, or tapping out of a field will always save your changes. ## Bonus: Yearly Run Goals gets a new dark mode icon ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-19-at-11.05.19@2x.jpeg) The previous dark mode icon had a green little guy, and now he's white so he pops a bit better on the dark background. ### + An app for Typefully users URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/an-app-for-typefully-users/ Last updated: 2026-02-18T13:19:24.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### + I don't think everyone is just going to code their own apps URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-dont-think-everyone-is-just-going-to-code-their-own-apps/ Last updated: 2026-02-17T23:00:48.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Micro app 10: MastoThreads URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-10-mastothreads/ Last updated: 2026-02-17T18:04:13.000Z For years, I have been posting long-running threads on social media for the movies that I watch each year. I [start a thread on January 1st](https://mastodon.social/@matt%5Fbirchler/115819757284866962?ref=birchtree.me) with my first movie, and I keep it going through the end of the year. The process for this is pretty manual. After I've written the review and created the image that I want, I have to open my Mastodon app, go to my profile, scroll backwards in time until I get to the last post in the thread, and then reply to that post. This usually isn't too bad, but if there's ever a gap where I don't watch a movie for a couple weeks or if I was particularly active on social media, it can get pretty time-consuming and tedious to find that last post. The concept of this micro app is pretty simple. Basically, I authenticate with my Mastodon account and I give it a URL for the most recent post in a thread, and then I can easily add on to that thread when I open the app. When I tap the new post button, I am presented with a very simple text area and media attachment UI which submits the post as a reply to the most recent in the thread. That makes the new post the latest in the thread, and the next post will reply to that. Because it was trivial to implement, I also added a history so I can scroll the list to see my recent posts in the thread as well. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/2.jpg) I don't know if I'll end up using it, but I did create a UI that allows you to swipe left and right between your active threads. So if I wanted to have one thread for movies and one for games or anything else I wanted to do, I could have multiple threads going at once. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/3.jpg) I also allow for renaming threads and updating the "anchor post" if things ever get out of sync. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/4.jpg) Meanwhile, the settings page is extremely minimal. All I do is enter my instance URL and create an access token that I paste in here (no fancy OAuth). It's just for me, so this works fine. Total development time to get here: about 45 minutes. ## Public release when? I don't currently have any plans to release this publicly, but let me know if you're interested. [I wasn't going to make Yearly Run Goals public either](https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-1-yearly-run-tracker/), but I was overwhelmed with people requesting that app, so it made me dedicate some time to it (and it's been more successful than I ever expected, as well!). ### 2026 is going to be a very painful year in tech URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/2026-is-going-to-be-a-very-painful-year-in-tech/ Last updated: 2026-02-17T17:10:39.000Z As of writing, the Steam Deck is completely unavailable to purchase from Valve in the US with this note at the bottom of the page: > Steam Deck OLED may be out-of-stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages. Steam Deck LCD 256GB is no longer in production, and once sold out will no longer be available. I don't think it's too bold to say that 2025 was a worldwide shock to the economy and hardware generally, but despite prices rising nearly across the board, the real pain didn't hit yet. But what I'm hearing more and more is that the real pain is coming in 2026\. Companies had enough inventory and margins to push the real challenges down the road, but they can't do that forever. The one-two punch of severe tariffs on basically all foreign goods coming into the US, as well as a seemingly infinite demand for RAM, storage, and high end chips (driven largely by AI demand) is really starting to do some damage. See also: - [Asus confirms their prices will rise in 2026](https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/hardware/asus-confirms-price-hikes-just-days-ahead-of-ces-2026-what-you-need-to-know?ref=birchtree.me) - [Dell prices could go up 10-30%](https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/dell-preps-massive-price-hikes-up-to-30-percent-citing-memory-pricing-out-of-our-control-company-reminds-commercial-customers-that-placing-an-order-today-for-future-delivery-will-not-guarantee-current-prices?ref=birchtree.me) - [All PC prices to rise 8% in 2026, some pre-built PCs shipping without RAM](https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/idc-expects-average-pc-prices-to-jump-by-up-to-8-percent-in-2026-due-to-crushing-memory-shortages-some-vendors-already-selling-pre-builts-without-ram?ref=birchtree.me) - [Sony likely delaying PS6 until 2029 due to cost/inventory](https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/console-gaming/sony-considering-playstation-6-delay-to-2029-while-nintendo-could-hike-switch-2-price-according-to-report-memory-and-storage-chip-shortage-now-impacting-products-outside-of-ram-storage-and-gpus?ref=birchtree.me) - [Switch 2 price hike likely](https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/console-gaming/sony-considering-playstation-6-delay-to-2029-while-nintendo-could-hike-switch-2-price-according-to-report-memory-and-storage-chip-shortage-now-impacting-products-outside-of-ram-storage-and-gpus?ref=birchtree.me) - [Lenovo and HP expect prices to jump upwards of 20%](https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/lenovo-hp-and-dell-said-to-have-warned-customers-of-imminent-pc-price-hikes-so-i-hope-youve-already-picked-up-that-upgrade-you-had-your-heart-set-on/?ref=birchtree.me) ### Freedom is the government asking for the physical location of those critical of that government on social media URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/freedom-is-the-government-asking-for-the-physical-location-of-those-critical-of-that-government-on-social-media/ Last updated: 2026-02-17T14:59:59.000Z Mariella Moon: [Homeland Security has reportedly sent out hundreds of subpoenas to identify ICE critics online](https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/homeland-security-has-reportedly-sent-out-hundreds-of-subpoenas-to-identify-ice-critics-online-135245457.html?ref=birchtree.me) > DHS has sent hundreds of administrative subpoenas to Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta over the past few months. Homeland Security asked the companies for names, email addresses, telephone numbers and any other identifying detail for accounts that have criticized the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency or have reported the location of its agents. That’s freedom, baby… ### Tahoe brings 80% charging caps to the Mac URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/tahoe-brings-80-charging-caps-to-the-mac/ Last updated: 2026-02-16T23:01:48.000Z Juli Clover: [Apple Brings iPhone-Style Battery Charge Limits to the Mac in macOS Tahoe 26.4](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/02/16/mac-charge-limit-macos-tahoe-26-4/?ref=birchtree.me) > The macOS Tahoe 26.4 beta that Apple released today includes a Charge Limit feature for the Mac. There is a new slider bar that lets Mac users select a charge level from 80 percent to 100 percent. This is cool! macOS has been doing some of this management for you automatically, but having an option to cap my laptop at 80% makes a ton of sense for someone like me who uses their laptop plugged in 95% of the time. Honestly, Mac's could go back to having 3 hours of battery and my life wouldn't change much at all. ### A passionate defense of the M Pro series of chips URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/a-passionate-defense-of-the-m-pro-series-of-chips/ Last updated: 2026-02-16T21:00:00.000Z On [the latest episode of ATP](https://atp.fm/679?ref=birchtree.me), a show I should mention that I really love, they discussed the possibility of Apple discontinuing the Pro series in their M lineup of Apple silicon chips. One of the main arguments, which I think Marco leaned into the most, was that the performance uplift on the Pro chips isn’t significant, and therefore most people probably bought the baseline MacBook Pro or they splashed out on the Max models to get *MAXIMUM POWER*. Hello, it's me! I'm a Pro buyer, I love them, and I would be very sad if they bit the dust. Today I wanted to defend the M4 Pro’s performance, which I think is absolutely closer to the Max than the normal M4. But before I get into performance, let’s talk about pricing. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-16-at-14.00.44@2x.png) The 14-inch MacBook Pro with the base chip starts at $1,599, the first M4 Pro configuration costs $1,999, while the M4 Max starts at $3,199\. As the line currently sits, going from the M4 (or M5 at this odd time in the lineup) to an M4 Max could double the base price of the machine. The Max is an unbelievably expensive computer, and that's before you start adding more RAM or SSD space. Bu let's get onto those performance gains, which are very real. I pulled some [Geekbench 6 numbers](https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks?ref=birchtree.me) for the 14-inch MacBook Pro specifically, since that’s the model where you can actually configure all three chip tiers, and the M4 Pro puts up a strong showing. Let's skip over single-core performance since they're all pretty similar here. Let's get on to the multi-core and graphics performance. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-16-at-14.04.24@2x.png) On the CPU side, the base M4 scores 14,886 in Geekbench’s multi-core test. The entry-level M4 Pro (12 CPU cores, 16 GPU cores) jumps to 20,286, which is a 36% improvement. Step up to the higher-end M4 Pro (14 CPU cores, 20 GPU cores) and you’re at 22,413, a 51% gain over the base chip. That's a genuinely meaningful jump in performance over the base M4\. *For what it's worth,* [*it's also a 15% gap to the M5.*](https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/14591329?ref=birchtree.me) Then there's that higher-end M4 Pro, which I personally own and scores 22,413, while the base M4 Max (14 CPU cores, 32 GPU cores) scores 23,053\. That’s less than a 3% difference between the two, but it cost my $900 less than that M4 Max model. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-16-at-14.08.45@2x.png) The GPU story is where the Max really starts to pull away, and that makes sense given the core count difference. On Geekbench’s Metal test, the base M4 scores 57,366\. The entry M4 Pro nearly doubles that at 98,960, and the higher-end M4 Pro hits 112,154\. The M4 Max configurations jump to 158,399 and 186,615 respectively. So yes, if you’re doing heavy GPU work, the Max experiences higher highs than the Pro chip, but the M4 Pro is still delivering roughly 2x the GPU performance of the base M4, which is nothing to sneeze at. --- I wanted to make this case because I think the Pro lineup has been genuinely valuable in every generation of Apple silicon (the M3 line was a bit weird, though, I'll give you that). It’s a sweet middle ground for people who need more performance, better external display support, and more RAM and storage options, but can’t justify spending $3-4,000 on a laptop. It fills a real gap in the market that would be painful to lose, in my opinion. If Apple does discontinue the Pro line of chips, I expect they would simply offer a slightly downgraded M5 Max that performs similarly to the current M4 Pro relative to its M5 siblings. Given the performance graphs above, it feels like that's what the M4 Pro already is in the lineup, so if the price is the same as it is now, then I've got no beef with the change if it happens. You will get Salty Matt if they have a $1,600 chasm between the normal MacBook Pro and the Max version, though. ### The data has changed URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-data-has-changed/ Last updated: 2026-02-16T20:00:00.000Z Rachel Thomas: [Breaking the Spell of Vibe Coding](https://www.fast.ai/posts/2026-01-28-dark-flow/?ref=birchtree.me) > It is worth experimenting with AI coding agents to see what they can do, but don’t abandon the development of your current skillset. Part of the appeal of vibe coding is claimed extrapolation about how effective it will be 6 or 12 months from now. These predictions are pure guesswork, often based more on hope than reality. Thomas also links to [this study](https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/?ref=birchtree.me) that I'm sure you've seen a bunch since it "proves" that AI coding is actually slower than traditional coding. Of course, the study summary itself says the opposite: > **We do *not* provide evidence that:** AI systems do not currently speed up many or most software developers But set that aside, and I'd like to call out what tools were used for this test (again, citing from the study): > Cursor Pro with Claude 3.5/3.7 Sonnet—frontier models at the time of the study Totally fair, and absolutely what they should have tested at that point in time, but as [Steve Yegge recently pointed out](https://steve-yegge.medium.com/the-ai-vampire-eda6e4f07163?ref=birchtree.me): > But if you haven’t used specifically Opus 4.5/4.6 with specifically Claude Code for at least an hour, then you’re in for a real shock. Because all your complaining about AI not being useful for real-world tasks is obsolete. AI coding hit an event horizon on November 24th, 2025\. It’s the real deal. And unfortunately, all your other tools and models are pretty terrible in comparison. This makes me think back to a college professor I had who once told us that YouTube would never host any serious video because the internet simply didn't have the bandwidth to serve high-res video like you'd get from a Blu-Ray. Sure, Blu-Rays still have superior visual quality to YouTube, but what I can watch on YouTube is far higher fidelity than anything that was available back in 2005 when this professor said that. Also, I can literally buy Hollywood movies on YouTube and watch them on youtube.com. By a similar token, I agree with the METR study that showed that experienced developers were a bit slower with the AI coding tools of early 2025, and if the tools never got better, then I'd agree with them today. That's simply not the case, though. A year ago I was giving Sonnet 3.5 in Cursor tiny tasks that it would get right 40% of the time. Today, I can give Opus 4.6 in Claude Code entire features to build out and it gets it right 90% of the time. I'll close by going back to quoting Rachel Thomas again: > AI coding agents can produce syntactically correct code. However, they don’t produce useful layers of abstraction nor meaningful modularization. They don’t value conciseness or improving organization in a large code base. We have automated coding, but not software engineering. > > Similarly, AI can produce grammatically correct, plausible sounding text. However, it does not directly sharpen your ideas. It does not generate the most precise formulations or identify the heart of the matter. Absolutely true. Generating code is undeniably an important part of the job, but it's not everything. While I don't doubt that AI will get better at doing things (although I think it is particularly well-suited to writing code), I still think knowledgeable humans using these tools will be the most successful ways to deploy this technology. *Not to be a plug for the sub, but I wrote more about this* [*in a members post yesterday*](https://birchtree.me/blog/is-something-big-happening/) *as well.* ### Optimizing for 3 users URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/optimizing-for-3-users/ Last updated: 2026-02-16T15:00:01.000Z Anil Dash: [Launch it 3 times](https://anildash.com/2026/02/13/launch-it-three-times/?ref=birchtree.me) > I’ve seen so many teams trying to figure out how to optimize the engagement of the three users on their app, or the five people who come to their site, while forgetting about the other eight billion people who have no idea they exist. This is good advice. ### + How does Birchtree Productions make money? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/how-does-birchtree-productions-make-money/ Last updated: 2026-02-15T17:30:14.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Two small tips for Apple devs starting agentic coding URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/two-small-tips-for-apple-devs-starting-agentic-coding/ Last updated: 2026-02-15T14:59:59.000Z I've noticed increased chatter in my feed lately about Apple-centric developers experimenting with agentic coding, and I have two recommendations for those diving in. First, I strongly suggest trying Claude Code over Xcode's new agentic tool. Further, you really should use Opus during your initial tests and exploration to ensure you're leveraging the best available technology. This will make sure you’re experiencing the actual state of the art rather than something a bit behind the times. Second, hold off on forming a final judgment about the quality until you've invested some serious time. You might have the impression that you just give the model some vague instruction and it makes magic happen. That's really not the case. If you spend just ten minutes with it and don't feel like an expert, don't consider it a failure. That's like someone opening Xcode with no prior experience, trying to write an app for ten minutes, and then being unimpressed with the results. Developing high-quality software remains a genuine human skill, and while these tools have improved unbelievably, you still need to invest time to understand how they work and how to use them effectively. You're still an engineer, and you need to spend time with the tools to understand how to use them effectively. ### The Vision Pro turns 2 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-vision-pro-turns-2/ Last updated: 2026-02-15T14:00:00.000Z Did you know the [Apple Vision Pro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%5FVision%5FPro?ref=birchtree.me) celebrated its second birthday a bit over a week ago? I didn’t. I’m sure there were a couple posts on some Apple news sites noting the occasion, but I wouldn’t exactly say there were widespread celebrations for how much more is happening with the product now than it was when it was released. In fact, I feel relatively confident in saying this might be the only Apple product where, two years into its life, most of its early adopters actually use the product less than they did when it was new. I know that’s true for me. I tried using it for travel, as a virtual display for my Mac, for widgets, all manner of apps, and every spatial video I could get my hands on, and at the end of the day, it turns out I actually prefer doing literally all of those things on a Mac, iPad, and iPhone. And not to name names (I’ll let them write their own posts and make their own videos), but among early adopters and people predisposed to loving all new tech Apple makes, this experience is remarkably consistent. Say this sort of thing on a Vision Pro-centric forum, and you’ll surely get responses rewriting history to say this was never meant to be a consumer product, it was a developer device, of course. Normal people getting these to do work, to watch movies, and to enjoy photos of their family? Never happened! And hey, if Apple’s goal was to make a niche product that was less popular than Meta’s gaming-focused headset, then I can’t argue that they’ve achieved that. But if their goal, which was very clear when they announced it, was to bring this to the mainstream, to make it serious, to be their next big thing, well, I think they’ve come up woefully short. For me, the Vision Pro is currently a paperweight that I occasionally glance at and wonder what I could have done with those $4,000 that ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​would have brought me more joy. We’re in sunk-cost territory now, so I’ve got the damn thing and hope it gets something that really wins me over, but I remain at a loss as to what that thing is. ### I’m going to say something nice about a Musk product… URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/im-going-to-say-something-nice-about-a-musk-product/ Last updated: 2026-02-15T13:17:00.000Z From the Southwest newsroom: [Southwest Airlines Brings Starlink Ultra-Fast WiFi Onboard](https://www.swamedia.com/news-and-stories/news-release/southwest-airlines-brings-starlink-ultra-fast-wifi-onboard-MC7YQFW6XF3JG45AT6GTWUUN5MNA?ref=birchtree.me) > Southwest® plans to rapidly integrate Starlink into its fleet. The first Starlink-equipped aircraft enters service this summer, and it will be available on more than 300 aircraft by the end of 2026\. This is a major step in the carrier’s plan to upgrade all its aircraft with high-speed, low-Earth-orbit satellite technology. Look, I dislike Elon Musk the appropriate amount, but I will say that I was on a United flight with Starlink a few months ago, and it was unquestionably the best airplane Wi-Fi experience I've ever had. It felt like being at home with ”fine” internet speeds, and I do mean that as a compliment. ### Nice things URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/nice-things/ Last updated: 2026-02-14T23:00:15.000Z I know it's not totally rational, but I sometimes like to get really nice random tools I use everyday. I've used shitty scissors my whole life, and I decided to get [Craighill's Chroma Scissors](https://craighill.co/collections/desk/products/chroma-scissors?ref=birchtree.me), and my god, it's so nice. I use scissors a few times every day, and it’s lovely making those moments a little nicer. You certainly shouldn’t do it with everything (unless you're wealthy, in which case, go off, king), but I fully endorse splurging here and there on little things you use all the time. ### Thank god we shot down that party balloon URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/thank-god-we-shot-down-that-party-balloon/ Last updated: 2026-02-14T23:00:00.000Z Karoun Demirjian, Eric Schmitt, Kate Kelly, Hamed Aleaziz, and Luke Broadwater (phew!): [Border Officials Are Said to Have Caused El Paso Closure by Firing Anti-Drone Laser](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/us/trump-administration-el-paso-airspace-closure-questions.html?ref=birchtree.me) > Top administration officials quickly claimed that the closure was in response to a sudden incursion of drones from Mexican drug cartels that required a military response, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declaring in a social media post that “the threat has been neutralized.” The reality was a bit less scary. > C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it turned out to be a party balloon. Honestly, is there a more perfect symbol of this administration than freaking out about something foreigners are ding, causing an absolute mess, and then revealing they were freaking out over nothing? ### + Is "something big happening"? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/is-something-big-happening/ Last updated: 2026-02-14T17:30:13.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### ChapterPod 1.3 is out now URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/chapterpod-1-3-is-out-now/ Last updated: 2026-02-13T20:58:15.000Z A new update to [ChapterPod is out now](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterpod/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me), and it includes a couple of nice little features. The first is the ability to import your own subtitle files, if you've already generated them. If you didn't know, ChapterPod can generate subtitles for you, and after it's done, it gives you a nice interface to add chapters via the transcript. I've found this to be very quick, and it's now my go-to way to lock in chapter timings on my shows. However, I always generate subtitles in Quick Subtitles first, so it's annoying to have to wait for ChapterPod to generate a new transcript when I already have one. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-13-at-14.54.25.gif) Now, I can just drag in my existing SRT file, and it will bring that into the app, and I can use that to edit against. It's super simple, but it works, saves me some time, and gives me a better transcript to work with. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-13-at-14.55.18@2x.png) The second change is that now, when you go to export an episode, we will show a summary view that lets you double-check to make sure that your titles are correct, your timings are good, your links are there, and everything is as you would expect before saving the file. --- A couple of other little things I wanted to call out in this update: the app icon also got a refresh. This is specifically because some people in app review thought the old one was too close to Apple's podcast icon and could be confusing to users. This would lead to occasional build rejections, depending on who was looking at the build, which was strange. I also happen to think the new one looks nicer, so that's good. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-13-at-14.55.58.gif) Also, in one of the previous point updates, I added the ability to drag chapters around in the transcript view, which makes it very easy to fine-tune the location of those chapters. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-13-at-14.50.33@2x.png) Finally, I got some feedback that links were kind of hidden away, especially on the Mac interface. It's easier in other apps to see the chapters that have links and see the links are correct and what they should be all at once, rather than having to click into each one. Now you can see your chapter titles and links all at once. That's ChapterPod 1.3\. The update is [available now for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterpod/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me), and of course, it's a free update for all existing users. ### Quick Subtitles 2.0 transcribes a one-hour podcast in 30 seconds on an iPhone. This is magic (and it's out now) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-subtitles-2-0-transcribes-a-one-hour-podcast-in-30-seconds-on-an-iphone-this-is-magic-and-its-out-now/ Last updated: 2026-02-12T20:19:12.000Z I'm thrilled to announce that [Quick Subtitles 2.0 is now available](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. This update focuses on three key improvements, all of which make the app better than ever, and I believe the best (and most cost effective) way to generate subtitles for your audio and video projects. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-12-at-14.05.41@2x.png) **First, Quick Subtitles is now a multi-document application,** meaning you can work on multiple projects simultaneously. This change came directly from user feedback, and it also addresses a personal frustration I had. I often wanted to work on several projects in parallel, but Quick Subtitles previously only allowed one project at a time. Now, you can import your audio or video file, generate subtitles, and work on them at your own pace. You can delete projects when they're finished, or use the auto-delete feature to remove them automatically after a set time. Because of this new workflow, the dedicated batch processing page is no longer necessary, as you can simply drag multiple files into the UI and they will process in sequence. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-12-at-14.06.35@2x.png) The second major update involves modifying the transcript, and this comes in two forms. After a transcript is created, the segments are now displayed in the UI rather than just raw text, and you can edit the transcript directly. So, if the transcription gets something slightly wrong, you can easily go in and fix it. For those using their own Gemini API key or a Quick Subtitles AI subscription, **there's a new "clean up" feature**. This analyzes the generated transcript, identifies potential errors, and gives you the option to correct them. This is presented in an intuitive UI that allows you to tell the LLM whether its suggestions are accurate or not. In my experience, it's correct over 90% of the time, and I usually approve all of its suggested changes. If you're confident in its accuracy, you can enable "YOLO mode" in the AI settings, which automatically applies all changes. While these transcription models are very impressive, and significantly better than previous options for generating subtitles, especially on-device, they aren't perfect. These new tools provide more freedom to address any issues that may arise. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/models.jpg) The third key feature is a new model selection option. Previously, Quick Subtitles exclusively used Apple's on-device speech-to-text analyzer, which was fast and of high quality. Now, you have another option: NVIDIA's Parakeet V3\. This model performs the same function as Apple's, but in some cases, it's more accurate, and in many cases, **it's up to twice as fast at generating the transcript**. The results I've seen have been genuinely shocking, especially considering how impressed I was with Apple's model just eight months ago. You can enable this in the app settings under the new model selector. Note that you'll need to perform a several-hundred-megabyte download to install it on your device. As always, this model is 100% locally processed, so your audio files never leave your device or use a cloud service. On a side note, the performance and quality of this model have impressed me so much that I'm considering incorporating it into QuickNotes to enhance that app as well. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-12-at-14.13.34.gif) If you're using the Mac app, there are a couple of niceties worth calling out. While a transcript is being generated, a progress bar appears on the app icon in the dock so you can keep an eye on things without switching back to the app (take that, Final Cut 😉). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-12-at-14.13.03.gif) You can also drag files directly onto the dock icon to start transcribing them immediately, which makes it easy to kick off a new project without even opening the app first. [Quick Subtitles 2.0 is available now](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) for all Apple platforms and is a free upgrade for existing users. There's never been a better time to get started. ### I don't want to answer whether the President partied with young girls URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-dont-want-to-answer-whether-the-president-partied-with-young-girls/ Last updated: 2026-02-12T12:59:59.000Z > Ted Lieu: Here's a video. Like former Prince Andrew, Donald Trump attended various parties with Jeffrey Epstein. I want to know: were there any underage girls at that party or at any party that Trump attended with Jeffrey Epstein. > > *Long pause* > > Pam Bondi: This is so ridiculous. And that they are trying to deflect from all the great things Donald Trump has done. There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime. Everyone knows that. This has been the most transparent presidency. Absolutely wild stuff in this testimony. I'm not even saying Trump was guilty of everything, but it's not great when the AG is asked point blank if the sitting POTUS partied with underage girls, and the response is "um, let's change the subject." ### The Future is an Empty Room URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-future-is-an-empty-room/ Last updated: 2026-02-12T01:52:47.000Z God damn, Jacob Geller is the best of us. He's an astounding essayist, and his work is consistently amazing. ### Better Siri is, yet again, a little farther off URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/better-siri-is-yet-again-a-little-farther-off/ Last updated: 2026-02-12T00:35:32.000Z Jay Peters: [Apple keeps hitting bumps with its overhauled Siri](https://www.theverge.com/tech/877494/apple-siri-ai-overhaul-ios-personalized?ref=birchtree.me) > Nearly a year ago, Apple delayed planned features for Siri that would let it understand your personal context and take action for you based on what’s on your screen. Apple had planned to launch those features with iOS 26.4, which is set to launch in March, but “​​testing uncovered fresh problems with the software,” according to Bloomberg. Apple has apparently told engineers to use iOS 26.5, scheduled for May, to test new Siri features instead. Two things… One, making a meaningfully better, LLM-enhanced Siri seems to be very tricky. Two, I've seen a few "how can it be delayed if it was never publicly announced?" posts on socials, and I genuinely wonder about these folks. Set aside these features were advertised as coming in 2024, and we can still mention that internal products are planned and delayed 👏🏻 all 👏🏻the 👏🏻 time 👏🏻 at companies, regardless of if they gave customers timelines. Stop acting like this is a clever take when stories like this come out. ### Don't hold your breath for that 4 day work week URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/dont-hold-your-breath-for-that-4-day-work-week/ Last updated: 2026-02-11T13:00:00.000Z Aruna Ranganathan, Xingqi Maggie Ye: [AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It](https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it?ref=birchtree.me) > In our in-progress research, we discovered that AI tools didn’t reduce work, they consistently intensified it. Two quick things on this. First, this resonates with me. Because there are things you can do quicker, suddenly you can do much more of them. That's just going to be lots to think about and manage, regardless of whether you have an AI. Second, I don't buy these suggestions that AI will be such a productivity gain that it will lead to four-day work weeks or, as people like Elon Musk have suggested, no one ever working again. As we've seen time and time and time again, as technology increases productivity, people are more likely to find ways to do more in the same amount of time rather than to take more time off. ### Some are happier writing code by hand URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-am-happier-writing-code-by-hand/ Last updated: 2026-02-10T19:28:21.000Z Abhinav Omprakash: [I Am Happier Writing Code by Hand](https://www.abhinavomprakash.com/posts/i-am-happier-writing-code-by-hand/?ref=birchtree.me) > Yes, coding is not software engineering, but for me, it is a fun and essential part of it. In order to be effective at software engineering, you must be familiar with the problem space, and this requires thinking and wrestling with the problem. You can’t truly know the pain of using an API by just reading its documentation or implementation. You have to use it to experience it. The act of writing code, despite being slower, was a way for me to wrestle with the problem space, a way for me to find out that my initial ideas didn’t work, a way for thinking. Vibe coding interfered with that. When reading this post, I couldn’t help but think about photography. Modern digital cameras are remarkable pieces of technology, and by their very nature, they simplify the photography process by abstracting away complexity and solving many problems for you. There are countless skills that used to be required if you were going to do photography, which now just don’t even come to mind for most photographers. Look at [any post](https://fstoppers.com/film/5-ways-shooting-film-makes-you-better-photographer-534096?ref=birchtree.me) from someone “going back to film” and you’ll see reasons very similar to why the original author wants to write every line of code themselves. > The permanence of film forces you to pay more attention to the light, whether that's the quality, quantity, and direction of light in your scene or how much light you're letting pass through onto the film itself. There's less room for error than digital where you can go back over your settings and experiment almost infinitely. All this makes me wonder what the future will look like. As I've written about before, the act of writing code has abstracted away tons of complexity that previous generations had to understand deeply. Today, if you're writing in Swift for example, there's a million things that you don't need to worry about because the computer just takes care of them for you. ### Memorizing the dictionary doesn’t make you a great writer URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/memorizing-the-dictionary-doesnt-make-you-a-great-writer/ Last updated: 2026-02-10T02:35:26.000Z Samantha Cole: [Chatbots Make Terrible Doctors, New Study Finds](https://www.404media.co/chatbots-health-medical-advice-study/?ref=birchtree.me) > Chatbots may be able to pass medical exams, but that doesn’t mean they make good doctors, according to a new, large-scale study of how people get medical advice from large language models. I think there’s something to be understood here about the difference between memorizing every bit of information about something, with the ability to deploy that information effectively. ### Just say it, you love when musicians get political URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/just-say-it-you-love-when-musicians-get-political/ Last updated: 2026-02-09T23:24:28.000Z My dear conservative friends, I know you love to talk about how much you hate when musicians and celebrities get political, but we can be honest and agree that actually you freaking love it, right? How else do you explain your apparent, and sudden love of Kid Rock? A musician who hasn’t been relevant in over 20 years and who had [family-values lyrics like:](https://genius.com/Kid-rock-cool-daddy-cool-lyrics?ref=birchtree.me) > Young ladies, young ladies, I like ’em underage, see some say that’s statutory (but I say that’s mandatory). And who [said this](https://www.facebook.com/christinaloreynews/posts/kid-rock-on-the-olsen-twins-who-were-14-at-the-time-why-is-every-guy-in-america-/1306986251248617/) about the then 14-year old Olsen Twins (I actually saw this live, next to my conservative mom who called him “sick” when he said this): > Why is every guy in America waiting on these chicks to turn 18? I mean, you know what I'm saying? If there's grass on the field, play ball. But of course, his entire prominence in conservative culture today has nothing to do with his music and everything to do with his political beliefs. He got a foothold a couple of years ago when he got irate at a beer company for congratulating a trans influencer, and since then, he's been spouting MAGA positions nonstop. And don't try to get me on being hypocritical because I'm absolutely not. A musician's politics absolutely influence how much I enjoy their art. I happen to have one of the greatest examples of our generation; Ye was one of my favorite artists in the world until he went full MAGA and anti-Semite, and that made it really freaking hard to listen to his music anymore. *Quick side note on that. It's possible he's actually turned a corner, and I may be able to get back to him one day, but the jury is very much still out on that.* Similarly, I happen to like a lot of what I've heard from Bad Bunny, and his message of love and togetherness at the Super Bowl halftime show last night was inspiring and made me appreciate the music even more. Just don't go around saying that you want to keep politics and art separate. And certainly not if you're gonna have freaking Kid Rock of all people be your conservative music icon. ### Celebrating record revenue with layoffs URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/celebrating-record-revenue-with-layoffs/ Last updated: 2026-02-09T17:00:00.000Z Maddie Agne: [Bandai Namco Hits Record High Net Sales Revenue](https://thisweekinvideogames.com/news/bandai-namco-hits-record-high-net-sales-revenue/?ref=birchtree.me) > Bandai Namco has posted record high net sales for the first nine months of the 2026 financial year despite differences in home console title lineups impacting profits. At this point, when I hear a tech or gaming company made record revenue numbers, I assume that they recently laid off a chunk of their staff. "Things are going better than ever! Because of this, we need to upend the lives of many of our employees who made us achieve these results." 😵‍💫 And sure enough, there's a story from February 2025 where [Bandai Namco quietly reduced headcount by about 10%.](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/bandai-namco-quietly-sheds-120-jobs-in-less-than-a-year-new-report-suggests?ref=birchtree.me). ### iPhones need MagSafe URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/iphones-need-magsafe/ Last updated: 2026-02-08T19:14:59.000Z Hartley Charlton: [Gurman: iPhone 17e Launch 'Imminent' With Four New Features](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/02/08/iphone-17e-launch-imminent-with-four-features/?ref=birchtree.me) > Gurman said that the new lost-cost ‌iPhone‌ will feature the A19 chip first introduced with the iPhone 17 last year. The device will also address one of the most glaring omissions from the current generation and add MagSage connectivity. The device is also apparently set to feature Apple's latest cellular modem, the C1X chip, as well as its N1 chip for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Thread connectivity. I continue to think the lack of MagSafe was the straw that broke people on the 16e. An iPhone just feels wrong without it. ### Dragon Quest and vibe coding (stick with me here) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/dragon-quest-and-vibe-coding-stick-with-me-here/ Last updated: 2026-02-07T18:40:28.000Z I was listening to [the latest episode of The Besties](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-besties/id505516789?i=1000748496700&ref=birchtree.me), and they said something about the auto-battle system in the new Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined game that really resonated with me. > It is funny, as you progress through, if you're just auto battling the whole time, it will, it's just this thing of like, wow, this is seems super easy. I'm just kind of churning through these. And then you'll watch this battle start to break bad in a way that like, I don't really know how to help you guys. > > I haven't been playing the whole time. Wow, you guys are really getting your asses kicked. Ah, dag nabbit, this fell apart fast. > > I wish I'd done, I should have done something. I should have stopped this. I was watching it unfold. So basically, the Dragon Quest games for quite a while now have had auto battle features where you can just have your party choose how to battle for you. It's a quality of life thing, and you don't have to use it if you don't want, but you can absolutely make significant progress in these games and even complete them by using the auto battle system. I couldn't help but think about exactly this situation they describe here, where the auto battle system works great until it suddenly doesn't. And because you don't know anything, you can't jump in and take over and fix what's going on. It was impossible for me to hear this and not immediately have my mind jump to vibe coding. As I wrote in a recent members post, I don't think what I'm doing is vibe coding, but I do think that people who fall more into that category of generating code that they literally do not understand, the more they're going to run into these situations. If you don't know what tech stack you're using or why things work in the first place, then if things go wrong and the computer isn't able to fix it for you, then you're in a sticky situation. And this is why I think that skilled developers, while they may not be writing every single line of code in the future, they will still bring value by understanding systems. Related, a thing I think about sometimes is that you only truly know how valuable a person is to an institution when things go wrong; if things have gone off the rails, who can get you back on track? Those people are super valuable. ### + Full demo of that new app URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/full-demo-of-that-new-app/ Last updated: 2026-02-07T16:30:34.000Z I announced a new app last week and have made good progress on it since then. Here is a video walkthrough of everything I've got so far. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show still slaps URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/kendrick-lamars-super-bowl-halftime-show-still-slaps/ Last updated: 2026-02-07T16:00:49.000Z I don't know if there's a Super Bowl halftime show I've rewatched more than this one. Obviously it helps that Kendrick has a great library to pull from, but I also really love the production value of it. It's unquestionably less bombastic than shows from The Weeknd or Katy Perry in the past decade, but I think the visuals are striking and the camera work is outstanding. ### A year in the life of MKBHD URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/a-year-in-the-life-of-mkbhd/ Last updated: 2026-02-07T13:01:35.000Z I think The Studio, the behind-the-scenes channel for MKBHD, is always fun, but this most recent video, a feature-length documentary following the team as they go through all of 2025, is astounding. Amazing work from the team putting this together. ### Renewables continue to thrive URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/renewables-continue-to-thrive/ Last updated: 2026-02-06T15:30:02.000Z I was looking for one of my old posts about energy, and I stumbled across [this one](https://birchtree.me/blog/renewables-eclipse-coal/) from 2020 where it was [expected](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/climate/coronavirus-coal-electricity-renewables.html?ref=birchtree.me) that all renewable energy sources combined out overtake coal for energy production in the US. That was a huge milestone and definitely something to be excited about, but I was curious how things have changed since then. The good news is that they are smoking coal now, representing [about 26% of all energy generation in the country compared to coal's 16%](https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/United%5FStates?ref=birchtree.me). The numbers get even more impressive if you include nuclear energy, which I personally would. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-06-at-08.35.39@2x.png) US 2025 energy generation As always, I think context is important, so let's look at what the mix was 10 years ago in 2015. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-06-at-08.37.26@2x.png) US 2015 energy generation Just ten years ago, the mix was incredibly different with sources such as solar contributing less than one-tenth of what they do today. And as a reminder, energy consumption hasn't stayed flat over those ten years. Estimates put U.S. consumption up about 5 to 6% from ten years ago. So not only are renewables increasing their slice of the pie, they're growing exponentially in terms of raw power generation. Going back another ten years to 2005 reveals an even more different chart. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-06-at-08.41.29@2x.png) US 2005 energy generation Cole truly was king, and it's pretty remarkable how much has changed since then. I'll have more on this in an upcoming post, but clearly the way forward is to advance renewables as quickly as possible, and I think both economic and environmental interests support this transition. ### AirDrop is coming to more Android phones in 2026 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/airdrop-is-coming-to-more-android-phones-in-2026/ Last updated: 2026-02-06T14:00:03.000Z Adamya Sharma: [Google just confirmed what Android fans have been praying to hear about AirDrop sharing](https://www.androidauthority.com/google-android-airdrop-expansion-3638222/?ref=birchtree.me) > Speaking during a press briefing I attended at Google’s Taipei office during a Pixel Labs tour, Eric Kay, Vice President of Engineering for the Android platform, confirmed that AirDrop interoperability is set to expand well beyond Pixel phones this year. > > “Last year, we launched AirDrop interoperability. In 2026, we’re going to be expanding it to a lot more devices,” Kay said. Good! The more interoperability the better. ### Nvidia delayed gaming chips, may not deliver next gen ones until 2028 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/nvidia-delayed-gaming-chips-may-not-deliver-next-gen-ones-until-2028/ Last updated: 2026-02-05T18:59:59.000Z Stevie Bonifield: [Nvidia’s RTX 50-series Super refresh is delayed, and the RTX 60-series might miss 2027](https://www.theverge.com/tech/874439/nvidia-rtx-50-super-60-series-delay?ref=birchtree.me) > The Super refresh to Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs was expected at CES 2026 in January, but it didn’t make an appearance. The Information reports that in December, Nvidia managers decided not to release the new cards as scheduled, choosing to prioritize AI chips instead due to the limited supply of RAM currently available. On top of that, “Nvidia is also slashing production of its current line of gaming chips,” the RTX 50-series, which are already in high demand and consistently sold out at retailers. [Did I mention](https://birchtree.me/blog/begun-the-tech-pricing-apocalypse-has/) that tech pricing and availability was going to get tough this year? ### Begun, the tech pricing apocalypse, has URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/begun-the-tech-pricing-apocalypse-has/ Last updated: 2026-02-05T18:02:31.000Z Edmond Tran: [Steam Machine Pricing and Release Affected by Memory and Storage Price Hikes, Says Valve](https://thisweekinvideogames.com/news/steam-machine-pricing-and-release-affected-by-memory-and-storage-price-hikes-says-valve/?ref=birchtree.me) > Valve has published a blog post providing updates on the lineup of Steam Hardware that it announced late last year – Steam Machine, Steam Controller, and Steam Frame – indicating that it has postponed plans to announce specific pricing and release dates. It really feels like 2026 is going to be the year that all of the chaos and terrible policies of 2025 start to have a real impact on consumer tech. ### Complexly becomes a nonprofit URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/complexly-becomes-a-nonprofit/ Last updated: 2026-02-05T17:59:59.000Z James Pollard: [Hank and John Green's studio becomes a nonprofit as they aim to make 'trustworthy content' online](https://apnews.com/article/john-green-hank-youtube-nonprofit-22dc695172444cb5ce855df5ca782058?ref=birchtree.me) > “Part of what Complexly’s trying to do is create good information on the internet,” Hank told the Associated Press. “Let’s actually just say that this is our goal. Like, our goal isn’t to build a big company and sell it someday.” I continue to think that Hank and John are some of the best "influencer" role models out there. ### Gemini is catching ChatGPT URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/gemini-is-catching-chatgpt/ Last updated: 2026-02-05T15:59:59.000Z Lauren Forristal: [Google’s Gemini app has surpassed 750M monthly active users](https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/04/googles-gemini-app-has-surpassed-750m-monthly-active-users/?ref=birchtree.me) > In comparison, Meta AI has reported nearly 500 million monthly users. However, while Gemini is gaining traction, it still trails behind its biggest rival, ChatGPT, which is estimated to have around 810 million MAUs in late 2025. In our annual Comfort Zone predictions episode, I predicted that Gemini would be higher on the iOS downloads chart at the end of the year than ChatGPT. I still think this is a bold bet, but they're certainly making some real gains. As of today, ChatGPT is the top free app and Gemini is number 3. ### OpenAI swears their ads won't do what every single other ads platform has done URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/openai-swears-their-ads-wont-do-what-every-single-other-ads-platform-has-done/ Last updated: 2026-02-05T14:29:59.000Z Richard Lawler & Hayden Field: [Sam Altman responds to Anthropic’s ‘funny’ Super Bowl ads](https://www.theverge.com/news/874084/ai-chatgpt-claude-super-bowl-ads-openai-anthropic?ref=birchtree.me) > OpenAI says its ad test will only appear for logged-in users on free or ChatGPT Go accounts, while maintaining that “Ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you. Answers are optimized based on what’s most helpful to you. Ads are always separate and clearly labeled.” We will see. [Quoting myself](https://birchtree.me/blog/let-the-chatgpt-enshitification-begin/) from when OpenAI announced ads: > I will be shocked if ads don't become a revenue knob that OpenAI can crank up and up and up until users are as annoyed with them as they are with Google. ### Micro app 9: Railway Monitor URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-9-railway-monitor/ Last updated: 2026-02-04T13:27:14.000Z This micro app is a really simple one. Basically, I am working on my next app, which will be a web service first and foremost, and that comes with inherent cost. I'm hosting the project on [Railway](https://railway.com/?ref=birchtree.me), and I wanted to have a way to monitor my usage on my Mac automatically. Railway has an API for pulling this sort of information, so I read the documentation and created a very simple Mac app that runs in the menu bar and shows me in real time how much usage I've consumed so I can passively keep track of this through the day. As someone who has released mostly iOS apps so far, ongoing cost hasn't been a concern. I could have 1 million people download Quick Subtitles or ChapterPod tomorrow and my cost would stay exactly the same. If someone decides they want to use Quick Subtitles to generate 10,000 transcripts, that has literally no impact on me. None of that is true for a web service, so it's something I want to be able to keep track of. Back to the app itself. After opening the app, all you have to do is add your Railway API key, and then there are settings to show the cost or not in the menu bar, how often you want it to auto refresh, and whether you want it to launch at login. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-04-at-07.18.21@2x.png) [Railway Monitor is available on GitHub](https://github.com/mattbirchler/railway-monitor?ref=birchtree.me) if you'd like to download the project, or you can [download it from the releases page](https://github.com/mattbirchler/railway-monitor/releases/tag/1.0.0?ref=birchtree.me) and just run it without needing to build anything. ### Xcode gets agentic coding URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/xcode-gets-agentic-coding/ Last updated: 2026-02-03T21:23:41.000Z Apple released Xcode version 26.3 in beta today, and it introduces a new agentic coding feature. This is different from the coding assistant they've had since last fall, and my first impressions are that it is more capable. This is good, because what Xcode had before was far, far, far behind what the state of the art was in tools like Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor. Here's a very simple app I was able to throw together in no time using the new agent mode (complete with sound effects and haptics). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-03-at-15.04.37@2x.png) I'll have to play with it more to better understand how it does at more serious work, but it looks like it's raised the bar for what you can do directly in Xcode. I'm skeptical it will rise to the level Claude Code and the like have achieved, but hey, better tooling for those who won't want to leave the confines of Xcode is good too. ### + Apple's financial success masks a potential generational folly URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-financial-success-masks-a-potential-generational-folly/ Last updated: 2026-02-03T13:45:42.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The massive success of the Nintendo Switch URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-massive-success-of-the-nintendo-switch/ Last updated: 2026-02-03T12:56:45.000Z Ollie Reynolds: [It's Official, The Switch Is Nintendo's Best-Selling Console Of All Time](https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2026/02/its-official-the-switch-is-nintendos-best-selling-console-of-all-time?ref=birchtree.me) > So what are the specific figures? Well, the Switch has now sold a total of 155.37 million units, while the DS was previously sat atop the throne at 154.02 million. The Switch 2, meanwhile, has gotten off to a roaring start with a total of 17.37 million units sold since launch in June 2025. This puts the Switch just 5 million units short of the PlayStation 2, the top selling game system of all time. As Reynolds points out, it seems unlikely the original Switch will move another 5 million units, but it's still pretty damn impressive for a company who 10 years ago was being implored by most of the tech press to sell to Apple and just make iPhone games. ### + This one isn't a micro app… URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/this-one-isnt-a-micro-app/ Last updated: 2026-02-01T15:07:46.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Micro app 8: Capacities to Obsidian sorter URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-8-capacities-to-obsidian-sorter/ Last updated: 2026-01-30T12:59:59.000Z This will be a short one because this app exposed an issue for me more than solved a problem long-term. I take my meeting notes in Capacities, which I think is a really good app for that sort of thing. It makes it super simple to integrate with your calendar, kick off a new note for a meeting, tag it automatically with the topics discussed, and save it in a searchable format. That's all good. However, I need my meeting notes to be more than just something I can search. I need to manipulate them with tools like Claude Code, and that's why I've moved all my work into a single folder on my computer, mostly text files, with Obsidian running as the UI. This setup lets me use all the niceties of Obsidian. My workflow involves taking the notes in Capacities, and then once a week, I export my notes and import them into Obsidian. This little app makes that import process a bit easier. I drag in the ZIP file that Capacities exports, and the app unzips it, it finds the meeting notes folder and goes through all the notes, it sorts them into folders based on dates, and adjusts the properties on the meeting (such as tags and participants) implementing those as properties that Obsidian uses. This allows me to sort by different criteria in Obsidian nicely. Finally, it throws all of that into my meeting notes folder in my Obsidian vault. It all sounds a bit complicated, and honestly, it is. What I'd really like to do is figure out how to do this all from Obsidian so I can cut out the Capacities middleman. The bad news is I don't think this little utility, which I haven't even taken the time to give an icon, is long for this world. The good news is that sounds like another project. 👀 ### Yearly Run Goals URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/yearly-run-goals/ Last updated: 2026-01-30T18:11:53.000Z I am once again happy to announce a new app is available. [Yearly Run Goals](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yearly-run-goals/id6758230373?ref=birchtree.me) is available now on the App Store for the iPhone, and it's a simple, visually delightful way to track your running goal for the year. ## Backstory [This was the micro-app that kicked off my micro-app series](https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-1-yearly-run-tracker/), and as I said in that post, while I intended to keep using the app for myself, I didn't plan on releasing it to the public. However, since then I have gotten so many questions from people on whether I could release this app since then, to the point where it seemed wrong not to push it over the line and get it out there. So over the last couple weeks I have been refining the app and getting it to a place where I think it will be quite usable for regular people. ## Track your runs The concept of the app has not changed at all from that initial version. You open the app and can see how you're doing towards your progress that you set for yourself for the year. You also get a nice visualization of the current month and a one to two step flow for adding today's run to your log. The app also has a HealthKit integration so running workouts will automatically be displayed in the app, and you can add them to your official goal progress with a single tap. There are also some stats in the app showing you your longest streak, your longest gap, and the like. I've also implemented a nice onboarding flow so you can get into the app, provision the HealthKit permission if you'd like, and set your goal. If distance isn't the measuring stick you are personally using, I've also made it so you can just set a set number of workouts that you want to do over the course of the year. ## Yearly Goals Plus ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/in-app-purchase.jpg) You will not be surprised to hear there is a premium tier for the app, which you can unlock if you'd like to get more than what was listed above, and there are about 4 unlocks you get with Yearly Goals Plus. 1. Track more workout types, including walking, swimming, and biking. 2. Bulk import historical workout data from HealthKit. This will also let you see a comparison to your progress from last year on the chart in the main view. 3. Export your progress as an image. You can export a high-res version of the graph or a full-page version of the calendar showing all 12 months. 4. Further insights into your workouts with more graphs. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/progress-chart-2026.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/year-calendar-2026-3.png) Yearly Goals Plus is a $7.99/year subscription. ## Privacy I continue to be obsessed with privacy-friendly apps, including being overly open about how data collection works. The main thing to know here is that nothing you put into the app ever leaves your device. This means I never see your workout data or anything personal about you. There are basic analytics, and I do log two events that happen in the app. The first is a simple log when the app is launched, simply telling me that someone opened the app and what OS version they're on. The second log is when a new subscription is started, which, again, does not have any personal info; it just lets me know that someone subscribed. If you'd like to read the full privacy policy, [here's a link](https://birchtree.productions/apps/yearly-run-goals/privacy.html?ref=birchtree.me). --- [Yearly Run Goals is available now for the iPhone!](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yearly-run-goals/id6758230373?ref=birchtree.me) ### Quick Notes 2.0 is out now URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-notes-2-0-is-out-now/ Last updated: 2026-01-27T14:00:01.000Z [Quick Notes](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-notes-easy-voice-notes/id6754181571?ref=birchtree.me) has a major update out now that has my favorite new feature in the app, a whole new design, the long-awaited ability to pause or restart recordings with ease, and oh yeah, iCloud sync. ## Brainstorm Mode ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/brainstorm-hero.jpg) Quick Notes has always been very good at listening to you speak clearly and with intent, and the clean up feature has been quite useful in cleaning up little slips as you spoke. But sometimes I don’t know what exactly to say, or I’m gathering my thoughts and just need to talk it out. I found myself using Quick Notes for this quite often, where I would just talk into the app for a few minutes and then paste the transcript into an LLM chat app with some instructions on turning that blabbing into something useful. Brainstorm Mode brings this process natively into the experience. You can start a brainstorm, and then you can just start talking however you want. Repeat things, go out of order, whatever…just talk until you’ve gotten all of your ideas out of your head, and then this will turn your ramblings into either: - Outline with a thesis statement - Email draft - Product spec - Slide deck suggestion ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/brains0list.jpg) As you can see from the very professionally masked screenshot above, I’m working on adding more output formats (one of which is a task generator, which I’m more than a little annoyed that Todoist beat me to the punch on adding). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/brainstorm-output.jpg) So now in addition to Quick Notes being my main long text entry tool of choice, it’s also become my favorite tool for thinking through tough ideas as I try to wrap my head around them. To be honest, sometimes I'll record into this mode for a few minutes, and I just discard the note because talking it through was all I needed to do. Brainstorm Mode is free to try, but requires a $4.99/month subscription to keep using it after that. Due to the length of the transcripts in use for this feature, as well as the general quality gaps I experienced with Apple’s on-device model, this feature is powered by Google’s Gemini, which has real cost to me, and required a subscription to offset those costs. ## The new design ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/empty-state.jpg) Even if you don’t care about Brainstorm Mode, this release will immediately be noticeable by the new UI design. The new card layout for the Home Screen is fun, and more space-efficient than the generic iOS table rows I used before, and the color scheme has been completely redone to use the always-lovely [Catpuccin](https://catppuccin.com/?ref=birchtree.me). I’ve also added a new heading font (Fraunces) and swapped out SF symbols for (free) [Streamline icons](https://www.streamlinehq.com/?ref=birchtree.me). ## All the small things ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/IMG_9607.png) In addition to bumping up the size of the stop recording button on the new note screen, I've also added two new buttons here that I think you're going to really love. The first is a pause button to temporarily pause your recording while you pick up dog poop, talk to someone else, or do whatever you need to do. The second is a restart button that will restart the recording. Several people have asked me for a pause button, which makes total sense, but no one had asked for a restart button. It's something I found I really wanted for myself, and I think you'll like it as well. I can't tell you how many times I started a note knowing what I wanted to say, slipped over my words, and then had to cancel, start a new note, and then do it again. Now I can just quickly tap one button and I'm instantly recording a new note. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/4.png) I've also added a new "clean up+" option to your transcription settings, which is effectively just a more aggressive cleanup feature. The current cleanup feature that's been there since launch tries very hard to keep your wording exactly as you said it, but to correct punctuation and remove things like ums. Clean up+ has a similar idea but is more aggressive at correcting your wording. When it's firing on all cylinders, it really feels great. I personally have this enabled now on my device. ## iCloud Oh yeah, and the app now supports iCloud sync! Notes will sync between your devices, and if you uninstall the app, when you reinstall it, your old notes will return from the dead (or the cloud database, whatever). ## Privacy It's worth saying out loud that, as ever, Quick Notes is maniacally focused on protecting your privacy. As it's been since day one, all transcription happens on device using Apple's on-device foundation model. When it comes to data leaving your device, there are three separate places data is sent. First is iCloud, which is enabled by default, but you can disable from your iCloud settings in the Settings app. This is the full content of your notes, although being stored on iCloud means it's secured by Apple and only accessible by your devices. Second is Google Gemini, which can be used for your clean up (although the on-device clean up is plenty good IMO) as well as the new brainstorm feature. In this case, I send the contents of your note, but no identifiable information about you (unless you start a note by saying "I'm Matt Birchler at 123 Fake St…). Third is analytics, which I roll my own, simple solution, so there are zero third party libraries for this. These analytics collect exactly four events. 1. When the app is launched 2. When a new note is recorded 3. When a new brainstorm is recorded 4. When an in-app purchase is madeIn all four of those cases, all I am logging is that the event happened, not the content of your note or any personally identifiable information about you. I do pass along your device class (iPhone or iPad) and OS version, but that's it. If you are curious, here is a peek at my new dashboard I'm using to collect this, which only has info from the last couple hours. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-27-at-07.47.37@2x.png) [Check it out today!](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-notes-easy-voice-notes/id6754181571?ref=birchtree.me) ### UbiSoft is serious that this game is totally coming out URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ubisoft-is-serious-that-this-game-is-totally-coming-out/ Last updated: 2026-01-26T20:59:59.000Z Zack Zwiezen: [Beyond Good & Evil 2 'Remains A Priority For Us,' Ubisoft Says](https://kotaku.com/beyond-good-evil-2-remains-a-priority-for-us-ubisoft-says-2000662321?ref=birchtree.me) > Ubisoft has confirmed with Kotaku that it is still working on the long-in-development sci-fi sequel Beyond Good & Evil 2\. This follows previous reporting that the game survived Wednesday’s massive restructuring, which saw seven games canceled, including a Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake. Beyond Good & Evil is a 2003 game for the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube, which was a critical darling, but didn't sell super well, and I'd even argue doesn't hold up great compared to other classics of that era. And yet, in 2008 a sequel was announced, and people got excited. Including me, for what it's worth! The first game was never my favorite, but I liked it enough, and it seemed like the PS3/Xbox 360 generation was going to let them blow out what was possible in this world. Then some time passed… *And then 18 years passed…* So here we are, 23 years after the original game released, and while UbiSoft slashed a bunch of projects, they still insist that this one is still coming out. Definitely. For real. I'll be as eager as anyone to give this game a shot, but at this point I think it's equally likely that this game comes out or that it is some sort of weird tax thing that is somehow saving the company millions by keeping "in production". ### + Don’t call me a vibe coder URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/dont-call-me-a-vibe-coder/ Last updated: 2026-01-26T19:00:54.000Z I think I'm an early adopting into the future of mainstream development. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Trump invited his friends over and you’ll never guess who happily showed up (with movie snacks, I can only assume) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/trump-invited-his-friends-over-and-youll-never-guess-who-happily-showed-up-with-movie-snacks-i-can-only-assume/ Last updated: 2026-02-05T00:30:18.000Z McKinley Franklin: [White House Holding VIP ‘Melania’ Screening Ahead of Doc Premiere With Mike Tyson, Tim Cook, Andy Jassy and More (Exclusive](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/white-house-vip-melania-screening-mike-tyson-tim-cook-1236484037/?ref=birchtree.me)) > Guests include director Brett Ratner; Queen Rania of Jordan; Zoom CEO Eric Yuan; Apple CEO Tim Cook; New York Stock Exchange CEO Lynn Martin; AMD CEO Linsa Su; Mike Tyson; socialite and Fiat heiress Azzi Agnelli; self-help guru Tony Robbins; and photographer Ellen von Unwerth, who shot the movie poster for the film. If Donald Trump is the main character of the Epstein files, Tim Cook is the main character of the Trump files. Millions in gifts, a golden trophy, unvarying public support of his policies, and apparently he clears his calendar any time the facist in chief comes calling. Remember, kids, the onus of standing up to power doesn’t belong with the ultra rich and powerful, it’s on the poor and the weak to carry the load. ### The White House is creating their own reality URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-white-house-is-creating-their-own-reality/ Last updated: 2026-01-25T00:08:35.000Z Violet Jira writing for NOTUS: [White House Admits to Sharing a Fake Photo of Minnesota Activist After Her Arrest](https://www.notus.org/trump-white-house/white-house-fake-photo-of-minnesota-activist-nekima-levy-armstrong-arrest?ref=birchtree.me) > The White House communications team posted a digitally altered photo of Nekima Levy Armstrong, a Minnesota social justice activist, on Thursday that makes it appear that she was weeping during her arrest by federal agents. The image is highly realistic, bearing no watermark or other indicator that the image has been doctored. The change is only apparent when compared to a different version of the same image posted by the Department of Homeland Security earlier in the day. It's worth recognizing that in addition to this, the administration has also posted AI images of things around taking over Greenland, and full on lied about the killings of 2 US citizens (although human beings of any sort being murdered is…checks morals…bad), even though there is public video disputing everything they said. This administration can not succeed on the truth, so they are making up their own. They are doing it because they are small, they are petty, and they are weak. ### Micro app 7: Quick Tier List URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-7-quick-tier-list/ Last updated: 2026-01-24T18:49:16.000Z I'm excited to share another micro app with you today, and this time, I'm making it available for anyone who wants to use it. This one is called [Quick Tier List](https://quicktierlist.com/?ref=birchtree.me), and it's a very simple website for creating tier lists. I think it looks really nice, it's lightweight, and it just feels good to use. I'm particularly proud of some of the micro-interactions I've implemented to make it feel better than the average tier list website. If you listen to or watch [Cozy Zone](https://www.macstories.net/comfort-zone/?ref=birchtree.me), our Comfort Zone companion show, you might recognize this (you should definitely subscribe, it's a lot of fun!), as we've actually used Quick Tier List for several of the tier lists we've done recently, including one about iPads that's coming out on Monday. A few other things deserve call outs. - I intentionally added a streamer mode, which kicks the UI off to the left of the page so your floating head can be in the bottom right. - There are several themes in addition to the default one, which I think look great. I'm particularly fond of the Pastel and Comfort Zone themes, the latter of which is based on our podcast artwork, of course. [This one is also open-sourced](https://github.com/mattbirchler/quick-tier-list-web?ref=birchtree.me), and the project is literally just an HTML, CSS, and JS file, so there's not a lot of secret sauce here. There's nothing you couldn't get by just inspecting the page. So, have fun with it, do what you want, but the next time you need to make a tier list, I hope you consider [Quick Tier List](https://quicktierlist.com/?ref=birchtree.me). Some themes below: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-24-at-12.45.05@2x.png) Cyberpunk theme ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-24-at-12.45.24@2x.png) Pastel theme ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-24-at-12.45.41@2x.png) Comfort Zone theme ### Micro app 6: SRT Tester URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-6-srt-tester/ Last updated: 2026-01-22T22:56:45.000Z This is probably the quickest I've gone from zero to functioning app in this series so far. Last night I got a bug report telling me that the timing was slightly weird in the latest Quick Subtitles update. I lamented the fact that it was pretty annoying to test the timing in any sort of intuitive way, so I decided to solve my own problem. SRT Tester is an exceptionally simple app that simply lets me drag in a video or audio file and then drag in my subtitles file, and then it will play them together, and I can validate that the timing works out how I would expect it to behave. I know this can be done with some video players on the Mac, but I've tried to do this and it's just more steps than I wish it was. This lets me do it much quicker, and is optimized around reviewing subtitles, not watching the video ,which is what I need. If you're interested, I have decided to [release this on GitHub](https://github.com/mattbirchler/srt-tester?ref=birchtree.me), so you can download and build it yourself if you too would would find it useful. There's also a [compiled version](https://github.com/mattbirchler/srt-tester/blob/main/Compiled%20App.zip?ref=birchtree.me) of the app in the project, so you can just download it and run it on your Mac if you don't want to get Xcode involved. ### What's making us stupid now? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/whats-making-us-stupid-now/ Last updated: 2026-01-22T20:00:00.000Z Nicholas Carr writing for The Atlantic: [Is Google Making Us Stupid?](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/?ref=birchtree.me) > Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. > > The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets—reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link. In my opinion, the most notable thing about this article is the publication date: 2008. I almost made this one of those posts I like to do where I swap out one word in a quote from many years ago to make it sound like it's commenting on the modern day, but I just gave it to you straight this time. But 2008! That is somehow 18 years ago and was before almost anyone had a smartphone in their pocket. The world the author is reacting to is one in which you had a flip phone, you maybe had a GPS in your car, and you had only had Wi-Fi at home for maybe a couple years. And yet, the author is making the exact same points we find ourselves discussing today around AI. This isn't to say that his concerns in 2008 were wrong, nor that the same concerns are wrong today when raised about things like ChatGPT. I bring this up largely to illustrate some context. In 2026, people will blast ChatGPT for destroying thinking and argue that services like Wikipedia and old school Google are what we should be using to properly think and properly know things. Yet, if you go back to when those technologies were new, people often talked about Wikipedia and Google the same way we talk about ChatGPT. ### Thing that everyone with a functioning brain said about tariffs is indeed happening URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/thing-that-everyone-with-a-functioning-brain-said-about-tariffs-is-indeed-happening/ Last updated: 2026-01-22T15:59:59.000Z Tom Fairless writing for The Wall Street Journal: [Americans Are the Ones Paying for Tariffs, Study Finds](https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/americans-are-the-ones-paying-for-tariffs-study-finds-e254ed2e?ref=birchtree.me) > By analyzing $4 trillion of shipments between January 2024 and November 2025, the Kiel Institute researchers found that foreign exporters absorbed only about 4% of the burden of last year’s U.S. tariff increases by lowering their prices, while American consumers and importers absorbed 96%. I've addressed this before, and I'll reiterate: when the U.S. imposes tariffs on imported goods, it's essentially a tax on American consumers. Every time Trump complains about the massive amount of money the tariffs have brought it, remember that's when he's boasting about massively raising your taxes. It's also worth noting that the impact of these tariffs on you depends significantly on your income level. Those with lower incomes are more affected because a larger portion of their income goes toward goods and services. For wealthier individuals, obviously some spending goes toward goods and services as, but a substantial portion is typically allocated to investments, retirement, and savings. ### Everyone experiments a little in college (or, should I say, experiments with Linux, and by college I mean in 2026) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/everyone-experiments-a-little-in-college-or-should-i-say-experiments-with-linux-and-by-college-i-mean-in-2026/ Last updated: 2026-01-22T13:59:59.000Z Stevie Bonifield writing for The Verge: [I spent a year on Linux and forgot to miss Windows](https://www.theverge.com/features/861968/year-using-linux?ref=birchtree.me) > Customizing every visual element of my desktop has become one of my favorite parts of using Linux. It doesn’t offer any performance boost or practical benefit; it’s just fun. Two quick things on this… One, I continue to think that something is happening in 2026 with Linux and normal consumers. I think gaming is where we'll see more of a shift immediately. But I also do expect to see more people kicking the tires on Linux as their normal computer operating system this year. I'm not predicting mainstream acceptance yet, but I do think there is some momentum here. Two, if I had to sum up my frustration with the average Apple pundit these days, it’s that 20 years ago, the above-quoted behavior of messing with your computer's UI for fun was available on the Mac as well, and we loved doing it. Today, I would suspect a lot of Apple pundits would say, “what a waste of time this is, let's talk about how Apple could increase their profits even more.” *Previously:* [*I'm not saying it's the year of Linux on the desktop, but I'm not not saying that.*](https://birchtree.me/blog/my-crazy-2026-prediction-it-involves-linux/) ### I'm learning so much non-AI stuff by using AI URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/im-learning-so-much-non-ai-stuff-by-using-ai/ Last updated: 2026-01-22T13:15:37.000Z Casey Newton quoting one of his readers: [Meta’s scam problem, UK edition](https://www.platformer.news/meta-scams-gambling-uk/?ref=birchtree.me) > I did not know what an SQL database was, and GitHub’s interface used to give me hives. And through this process I have actually learned quite a bit about how to use them. That’s actually super cool! For whatever reason — perhaps by design — ChatGPT has never taught me anything about anything ever. I really liked this insight because it aligns well with my experience over the past year using Claude to write most of my code. Yes, I have accelerated my ability to deploy code to production, but I have also learned a great deal during that time. I now know much more about iOS development, Swift, web development, application structure, data management, Git, and many other things that I simply did not know a year ago. I am much more knowledgeable now than I was then. These assistants have enabled me to do things faster, but there are still things that require me to think critically. Long story short, a year into my AI-accelerated coding adventure, I am far, far, far more knowledgeable about development than I was when I started. ### ROG Xbox Ally X review: amazing performance, but the worst software I've ever used URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/rog-xbox-ally-x-review-amazing-performance-but-the-worst-software-ive-ever-used/ Last updated: 2026-01-21T23:26:37.000Z The [ROG Xbox Ally X](https://rog.asus.com/us/gaming-handhelds/rog-ally/rog-xbox-ally-x-2025/?ref=birchtree.me) is a story in two parts. On one hand, you have hardware that is, in many ways, truly outstanding. On the other, you have a software experience that is an unmitigated disaster. It ruins the product in fundamental ways and is very possibly the worst software experience I’ve had on any computing product I’ve ever bought. ## The startup experience [I’ve written about this at length before for members](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-rog-xbox-ally-x-made-me-appreciate-the-steam-deck-even-more/), but the out-of-box experience is janky, to say the least. It begins with a standard Windows setup, exactly the same as any Windows PC, such as a Dell laptop…it's not bespoke at all. You’re forced through several rounds of Windows updates that don't bother to disguise themselves, then some ROG Command Center updates, and then you're (in theory) good to go. Once I finally reached the Xbox experience, I still couldn't launch games. For some reason, DirectX wasn't installed by default, so within minutes of owning this "console," I was in Windows desktop mode, opening a web browser, downloading an EXE, and manually installing it just to get games to boot. It is the polar opposite of a console experience (it's also messier than normal PC onboarding experiences). *And I'll say it again because it cannot be said too often. While this may have the Xbox brand on it, this is not an Xbox and it does not play Xbox games. This is a Windows PC that plays PC games. Yes, most modern Xbox games also have PC versions, and if you bought them on the Xbox store, you likely have a license to play the PC version, but your older Xbox games may not work here because there's no PC version and you're not getting the Xbox user interface. You're getting something that is a PC.* To be fair, once you survive the initial setup, the device does boot into a full-screen mode. It’s just okay, and is in the same ballpark as SteamOS, but the implementation is where the wheels fall off. There are too many modes, too many submenus, and too much complexity. As a power user, I can navigate it while simply being annoyed, but for most users, especially those expecting a console experience, I suspect it would be inscrutable. In its attempt to be a console, ASUS has somehow created something more confusing than a straight Windows desktop, and it’s a far cry from the seamlessness of a Switch or a Steam Deck. ## The actual software problem These complexities are just the tip of the iceberg, though, and if they were the only problem, this review would be much more positive. **The stability of this device is truly atrocious.** Menus often require multiple button presses to appear. Power modes occasionally refuse to switch for no apparent reason. Then there's sleep. On Windows, sleep is more of a suggestion than a function. The Ally X suffers from all the classic Windows laptop issues, such as random wakes for no reason or the screen turning off while the fans continue to spin at full tilt, churning through the battery when you think it's sleeping. And on a nearly daily basis, the device refuses to wake at all, requiring a hard reset. I hope I saved my game before I put it to sleep! As I’m writing this, I’m in a particularly foul mood because this morning the device entered a boot loop. It would attempt to repair, fail to repair itself, and shut down. I had to dive into the BIOS, which is something I’ve rarely had to do in my life, and certainly not on a console, to initiate a network recovery. It even took three attempts to work, followed by a BitLocker recovery key entry. What went wrong? Who knows. It’s back in business for now, but I certainly don't trust it, and am on a hunt for a spare M2 drive I can flash Bazzite onto, which is much more reliable. ## Hardware is this thing's saving grace So why haven't I returned it? Because the hardware, and specifically the performance, is simply too good. If it weren't for the raw power, this would have been returned already. The main draw of the device to me was the boosted performance you were supposed to get, and I'm happy to say this has delivered in spades for me. When it comes to performance, nothing speaks more clearly than charts. So I'm going to show you a couple charts for a specific game, which I think will illustrate the difference here quite well. Doom: The Dark Ages is a great game for benchmarking, and I ran the same benchmark on both devices with exactly the same settings each time, and here's how they each performed at 720p. *All settings were the same, and I was using the "handheld" graphics presets on both devices. For FSR, I used the "balanced" option. Xbox numbers in green, Steam Deck in blue.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-12-at-07.17.05@2x.png) The Xbox Ally X consistently performed about 85% better than the Steam Deck across all benchmarks. That's a meaningful update, and in a title like this means I'm going from a game I can reasonably play at 30 to 40 frames per second to one that I can play at a locked 60, even without using any upscaling. That said, if I'm okay using upscaling and frame generation, this thing goes north of 100 FPS (frame generation is not available on the Steam Deck version). But of course, the Steam Deck only has an 800p display, and Doom the Dark Ages will only render up to 720p on that device for some reason. Meanwhile, the Ally X has a 1080p screen, so you can render the game at a higher resolution. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-12-at-07.16.33@2x.png) As you can see here, with FSR enabled, you're able to get a nearly locked 60 frames per second in the game, and you're well north of that if you enable frame generation. I bring up this benchmark specifically because Doom: The Dark Ages is a great example of game that's right on the edge of being playable on a handheld device. I wouldn't say a Doom game at 30 to 40 frames per second is the intended experience of the developer, but it's technically playable. Meanwhile, the Xbox Ally X is able to achieve a consistent 60 FPS, which is a far superior experience. The fact it can also do that at a higher 1080p resolution is the cherry on top. What I'm getting at is that while I think people who haven't used it would be surprised how many games actually run pretty well on the Steam Deck, after you use that device for enough time, you start to understand what the limits are and you know what sorts of games are simply not going to be playable or not playable in a satisfying way on the Deck. The Xbox Ally X has made me redo that calculus in my head as games like Doom: The Dark Ages and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 have gone from games that, "technically work" to genuinely good experiences. One of the reasons for this gap in performance is power. The Steam Deck can deliver 15 watts of power to the SoC, and that's pretty darn low energy, but it's the trade-off Valve has made so that they could make a relatively thin device that didn't get too hot and that didn't have 30-minute battery life. Meanwhile, the Ally X has several power modes you can choose between. There's a 13W silent mode, which is very low power, a 17W normal mode, and then 25W turbo mode that boosts up to 35W when plugged into a charger. This additional power delivery is definitely going to push up the performance a bit. However, it's not the sole reason for the performance gain. As you can see, even running at the lower powered 17W mode, we're still getting a significant performance improvement over the Steam Deck. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-12-at-09.59.58@2x.png) My general recommendation for people using this device would be to stick with the standard 17 watt mode by default, but if you have games that could use a little extra oomph, then enabling the turbo mode can often get you over the hump. I'll say it one more time with emphasis. The performance advantage over the Steam Deck is extremely substantial and very noticeable. This is the killer feature of this product. ## The rest of the hardware Moving beyond the performance metrics, the rest of the hardware is a bit of a mixed bag. On the positive front, I like that this has the charging port on the top of the device rather than the bottom, just like the Steam Deck OLED. Even better, it has two USB-C plugs so I can charge and plug in an external device at the same time. There's also a microSD card slot where you can expand storage easily and cheaply. I also think the joysticks feel really good, and notably, the fans are very quiet. Even when I'm running in turbo mode and maxing out power delivery, the fans are quieter than on the Steam Deck, to the point I barely notice them. I also really like the grips on either side of the handheld, which fit into my hands very well. It's marginally more comfortable than the Steam Deck, and way more comfortable than the Switch 2\. Finally, I'm impressed by the speakers, which get properly loud. I didn't do serious battery testing, but I will say it seems a bit better than the Steam Deck OLED to me. I played a game that maxed out the GPU for 2.5 hours and was down to about 20% battery remaining. Not bad. But the hardware isn't a win across the board. Much like the normal Xbox controller, the face buttons are quite audibly clicky, which I don't like. I really like a nearly silent controller button, which Sony's controllers do really well, as does Nintendo's Pro Controller and even the Steam Deck to an extent. Another downside are the "utility" buttons on the face. There are five total buttons that are effectively the start, select, library, Command Center, and Xbox buttons. To me, this is just too many, and I'm often having to look up at the device to remind myself which one to press in which situation. These buttons also don't always do the same thing and they don't always function correctly the first time you press them, which makes them even more annoying. Finally, I need to talk about the display. It has a couple of really nice aspects, as well as one aspect that makes it annoying for such an expensive product. I'm coming from the Steam Deck OLED, which has a 90Hz 800p OLED display. The OLED is incredibly high quality, and while the resolution is a little lower than something like the Switch 2, it looks sharp in most games and the refresh rate allows you to play lower-end games at up to 90Hz. By comparison, the ROG Ally X blows past the Steam Deck with a 1080p display and a variable rate 120Hz display. That second bit is really impactful because low-end games will easily hit 120Hz, which is a little better than the Steam Deck, but it also means that higher-end games that struggle to lock to a specific frame rate will feel smoother thanks to the variable refresh rate. To put this in terms that a lot of people reading this blog will fully understand, it effectively has what Apple calls ProMotion. However, the Achilles heel for this display is that it is an LCD, and seemingly not a super good one at that. It does not get very bright, and the viewing angles are pretty bad. This is definitely worse than what the Switch 2 has to my eye and reminds me quite a bit of the original Steam Deck, which is not a compliment. It's a shame because this is a $1,000 device and the screen feels budget in terms of brightness, colors, and viewing angles. ## My recommendation Would I recommend the ROG Xbox Ally X? Only if you are willing to put up with a lot of pain to get double the performance of a Steam Deck. When you're in a game, it feels amazing. It's everything around that experience that lets it down. The price point is too high for an experience this compromised. If this exact hardware were running a stable version of SteamOS, it would be an easy recommendation (I'll share how things go when I Inevitably install [Bazzite](https://bazzite.gg/?ref=birchtree.me)). Using this for several weeks has only made me appreciate the Steam Deck more. The Deck offers a genuinely console-like experience that never forces you to see a desktop. This achievement is all the more impressive when you consider that the Steam Deck is built on Linux and is running Windows games…how is this a better experience?! I’m now just waiting for Valve to release a Deck 2 with this level of performance. Even at 2026 prices, that would easily be the best high-end portable on the market. ### ChapterPod is out now! URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/chapterpod-is-out-now/ Last updated: 2026-01-21T19:04:58.000Z I'm excited to announce that ChapterPod, my new app for adding chapters to your podcasts, [is now available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterpod/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me)! I've [already written about](https://birchtree.me/blog/intro-chaterpod/) most of the app's functionality elsewhere, so I won't rehash all those details here. Here's the basic pitch. If you're a podcast producer who wants to add podcast chapters to your episodes, and that should be *all* podcast producers, you can use ChapterPod to easily add them. Just drag in your MP3, M4A, or AIF file. If the file already has metadata, like the episode title or existing chapters, ChapterPod will import those for you. If not, you can start fresh. You can add an episode name, artwork, and podcast title, and then get to adding all of your chapters. This is done through what I think is an intuitive, largely keyboard-driven interface. Unlike other solutions, you can actually play back the episode within the app, and add chapters with a single click as you go. I find this really convenient and have been using it for the last few episodes of my show, Comfort Zone. Don't worry about trying to time your clicks exactly right. There's a setting where you can offset the chapter insertion button by up to three seconds. That way, you don't have to react like a robot. Chapters support everything you'd expect: text, images, and links, all of which will display in podcast apps that support them. Another killer feature, one I've enjoyed using in the several months I've been testing the app myself, is the ability to import chapters from text. So, if you listen to your podcast and take notes in a document, including all of the chapter timestamps and titles, you can simply copy that text and paste it into ChapterPod, and all of those notes will turn into real chapters. Or, if you want to export the chapters you've created in the app into text that you can paste elsewhere, such as a YouTube description, ChapterPod can do that too. And finally, because I happen to know a thing or two about generating subtitles locally on Apple devices, I added the ability to generate a transcript of your podcast with a single click. Think of this as a Quick Subtitles Lite option. Oh, yeah, and by the way, ChapterPod is a universal app on Apple's platforms, so it will run on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac with complete feature parity across every device. Shout out to my podcast producers on iPads, I hope you really like this! ChapterPod is available as a free download, and you can export up to five episodes for free. To keep using the app after that, there's a one-time $19.99 fee for unlimited use. There is no subscription to use ChapterPod. Again, the app is available to [download on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/chapterpod/id6757309769?ref=birchtree.me) right now, so give it a shot! --- And how about a tease of what's coming soon? Version 1.1 will include the ability to add chapters from a custom transcript view, which I've found really helpful and don't want to go back to the old way. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-21-at-13.03.09@2x.png) ### Micro app 5: MP3 Dreams URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-mp3-dreams/ Last updated: 2026-01-20T18:44:33.000Z MP3 Dreams was a little experiment to see how much of a viable music player I could create in an hour or two. I referred to a [screenshot of iTunes](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2005/09/1158/?ref=birchtree.me) from around 2005, back when it was generally loved and hadn't yet pivoted into the bloated mess it is today in the form of Apple Music. My goal was to have the app point at a folder on my computer, parse the metadata from those audio files, and display them as songs I could play. What you see here is what I was able to do in a little over an hour. And to its credit, it's functional! I point it at a folder, it finds all the music files, and presents them in the interface. After a little prodding, I got sorting to work. It just works. However, I think this is a great example of how you can make great progress and everything looks great in screenshots, but actually using it day-to-day reveals how much attention needs to go into an app like this. The keyboard shortcuts you'd expect aren't there. Micro-interactions and tabbing around the interface don't work how you'd think they would. There are no playlists, no metadata editing, no bulk updates, no [scrobbling](https://www.last.fm/about/trackmymusic?ref=birchtree.me). A million little things that even a basic music app needs. I don't doubt I could add a lot of this and build a pretty decent music player for Mac, but know I don't have the time or energy for that right now. So for my MP3 listening in 2026, I'll be using [Swinsian](https://swinsian.com/?ref=birchtree.me), which has already solved all of these problems, does them really well, and even looks properly old school to boot. --- I did get this pretty rad animation into the app when you switched albums, though ❤️ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-19-at-16.51.08.gif) ### Fast track another one of those gold trophies! URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/fast-track-another-one-of-those-gold-trophies/ Last updated: 2026-01-19T22:13:55.000Z Jeanna Smialek: [After U.S. Reignites a Trade War Over Greenland, Europe Weighs Going All-Out](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/world/europe/greenland-us-trade-war.html?ref=birchtree.me) > Europe has a trade weapon specifically created to defend against political coercion quickly and forcefully, and as Mr. Trump’s threats sank in, policymakers argued that this is the time to wield it. > > The tool — officially called the “anti-coercion instrument,” unofficially called Europe’s trade “bazooka” — could be used to slap limitations on big American technology companies or other service providers that do large amounts of business on the continent. Some leaders, including President Emmanuel Macron of France, overtly called for its use. Cut to Tim Cook looking for a bigger golden trophy to present to Trump ASAP. ### Micro app 4: App Store Images URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-4-app-store-images/ Last updated: 2026-01-19T21:52:26.000Z This is an exciting micro app because it's the first one I'm releasing to the public. [App Store Images is out now on Quick Stuff](https://quickstuff.app/apps/appstore-image-generator/?ref=birchtree.me), and it solves a very specific problem I (and I'm sure other Apple developers) have, which is perfectly sizing our screenshots for the App Store. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-19-at-15.47.24@2x.png) When you upload an app to the App Store, you need to include screenshots that are of very specific resolutions. Above are the required resolutions for an iPhone screenshot, for example. The challenge is that, as far as I can tell, these are not the resolutions of any current iPhone on the market. So when you take a screenshot on your device, you're going to get something that's close to this but not quite there. The solution for me has been to open Pixelmator, create a document one of these sizes, drag in all of my screenshots, subtly resize them, export each one, and then drag them into the App Store. This is a pain, and I never want to do it again. Thankfully, with this new micro app, I never will. Any good micro app, it's super simple to use and just works. All I do is drag in the images that I want to be resized. In less than a second, I'll have the downloads available to me. I can download them one at a time or all at once. I currently support the default sizes for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac on the App Store, although there are other devices that I could add in the future, such as Apple TV, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro. I'll probably iterate on this a little bit, but I'm pretty happy with it for my purposes. If you have any feedback, let me know! Again, you can [access this from the Quick Stuff website](https://quickstuff.app/apps/appstore-image-generator/?ref=birchtree.me), and I hope you enjoy the new look and feel for the Quick Stuff site overall! ### Moving beyond consoles URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/moving-beyond-consoles/ Last updated: 2026-01-18T22:54:54.000Z This video from Brendon Bigley resonated with me. A PC is really the ideal gaming platform in 2026, and it's only getting better. I have a PS5 that I got back in 2021, but the only game I played on it in 2025 was Death Stranding 2\. Everything else was played on my PC or Switch. I'm not saying a PC is the right choice for everyone, but once you get comfortable with PC gaming (which is easier than ever, for what it's worth), it's hard to get too excited about the consoles anymore. Nintendo continues to play the long game by doing their own thing. ### Worldwide enemies of sovereignty now includes the United States URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/worldwide-enemies-of-sovereignty-now-includes-the-united-states/ Last updated: 2026-01-18T18:14:26.000Z Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom in a [joint statement](https://www.presidentti.fi/statement-by-denmark-finland-france-germany-the-netherlands-norway-sweden-and-the-united-kingdom-englanniksi/?ref=birchtree.me): > We will continue to stand united and coordinated in our response. We are committed to upholding our sovereignty. I remember when this is how the world would respond to Russia and China's actions, not the United States'. ### Trump raises taxes on Americans again URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/trump-raises-taxes-on-americans-again/ Last updated: 2026-01-18T01:58:00.000Z Shawn McCreesh: [Trump Announces 10 Percent Tariff on European Countries in Standoff Over Greenland](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/17/us/politics/trump-eu-tariffs-greenland.html?ref=birchtree.me) > President Trump announced in a social media post on Saturday morning his latest strategy to get control of Greenland: He is slapping new tariffs on a bloc of European nations until they come to the negotiating table to sell Greenland. Put another way, Trump has enacted yet another tax hike on Americans because he wants to take over sovereign nations who do not want to be invaded. Always remember that tariffs are just another way to say taxes. He’s raising your taxes and thinks cost of living concerns are a distraction. ### Let the ChatGPT enshitification begin! URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/let-the-chatgpt-enshitification-begin/ Last updated: 2026-01-16T22:46:38.000Z OpenAI: [Our approach to advertising and expanding access to ChatGPT](https://openai.com/index/our-approach-to-advertising-and-expanding-access/?ref=birchtree.me) > Today we’re bringing Go to the U.S. and everywhere ChatGPT is available⁠, giving people expanded access to messaging, image creation, file uploads and memory for $8 USD/month. In the coming weeks, we’re also planning to start testing ads in the U.S. for the free and Go tiers, so more people can benefit from our tools with fewer usage limits or without having to pay. Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise subscriptions will not include ads. I'm sure in a few days we'll see a Stratechery post praising this move to high heaven, and I don't doubt it will start to earn real money for the company. However, dear reader, I've been on this train before. Following Google Search for the past 20 years has been: 1. Wow, Google is better than Yahoo and has no ads 2. Okay, there are a couple ads, but they're clearly marked and not on all searches 3. Now we've got some more ads and they're on every search 4. Oh my god, basically the entire first page of results are ads! 5. Wow, ChatGPT is better than Google and has no ads 6. … Sure, ads will help offset the costs of the most used piece of software to be released in the past decade, and giving people an $8 option is good for giving more access to people who can't afford the $20 price tag. That said, I will be shocked if ads don't become a revenue knob that OpenAI can crank up and up and up until users are as annoyed with them as they are with Google. ### Meet Apple's new AI model, Gemini URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/meet-apples-new-ai-model-gemini/ Last updated: 2026-01-16T02:00:00.000Z [Joint statement from Google and Apple](https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/company-announcements/joint-statement-google-apple/?ref=birchtree.me) > Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology. These models will help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year. My only question is whether this will be more like the Maps or Search deals. Is this a forever thing where Apple is never incentivized to build their own, or is it a temporary thing while Apple figures out their own solution to replace this? My money's on the former, but time will tell. ### This post was almost angry, now it's just confused URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/this-post-was-almost-angry-now-its-just-confused/ Last updated: 2026-01-16T01:00:53.000Z Jez Corden: [Jeff Bezos once said the quiet part out loud](https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/jeff-bezos-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-bezos-envisions-that-youll-give-up-your-pc-for-an-ai-cloud-version?ref=birchtree.me) > Bezos thinks that local PC hardware is antiquated, and that the future will revolve around cloud computing scenarios, where you rent your compute from companies like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. Corden links to an interview with Bezos where he talks about going to an old brewery and finding it fascinating that the brewery used to do its own power generation since there wasn't a a power grid yet. Here's more of his direct quote [from the interview](https://youtu.be/s71nJQqzYRQ?ref=birchtree.me): > I went to a brewery in Luxembourg many years ago now. In fact, this trip was one of the little tiny catalysts for the founding of AWS. And the brewery was 300 years old. This company making beer for 300 years. A lot of the oldest companies in the world are breweries, by the way. I don't know why this is. And they were very proud of their history and they had a museum. > > And in that museum, was an electric power generator, 100 years old. Because when they wanted to improve the efficiency of their brewery with electricity, there was no power grid, so they had to build their own power station. So they made their own electricity. And at that time, that's what everybody did. If a hotel wanted electricity, they had their own electric generator. > > And I looked at this, and I thought, this is what computation is like today, everybody has their own data center. And that's not gonna last. It makes no sense. You're gonna buy compute off the grid. That's AWS. Put another way in [a trending post](https://mastodon.social/@terminaltilt@climatejustice.social/115896899275514153?ref=birchtree.me) on mastodon.social: > Jeff Bezos is saying the quiet part out loud. They want to kill local computing. > > You will own nothing and be happy. You will rent your computing power from the cloud. You pay a subscription for the privilege of using a computer. So, I almost published a completely different version of this post. I was all set to go, scheduled to publish, but at the last second, I thought I should probably watch a bit more of the interview myself, just to get the full context of what Bezos actually said. After all, the original article claimed he was "saying the quiet part out loud" and the Mastodon post said he wanted "to kill local computing". I figured I should probably double-check, just in case. Honestly, my takeaway from the interview is completely different. The core of Bezos's argument, as I understood it, was creating a parallel between electricity distribution and data center distribution, specifically in the context of AWS and why he thought that worked for data centers. At no point did he mention personal computers, and he certainly didn't express any desire to move all customer data to his cloud. The explicit text of his words was that AWS solved the problem of every business needing its own physical server farm. AWS offered a different solution, one that has been quite successful and convenient on the whole. I suspect the counter argument is that, "well, he *implied* he wanted to kill local computing!" Maybe that's what he meant, but to me, that's like hearing someone say they like dogs and replying, "oh, so you hate cats?" It feels like an unwarranted extrapolation of the point to get him to have said what you want to be angry about. Anyway, I encourage you to watch the interview yourself and see what you think. The portion we're discussing starts around the 51-minute mark. ### It's just like Reddit 10 years ago! URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/its-just-like-reddit-10-years-ago/ Last updated: 2026-01-15T23:59:07.000Z [Here's a post](https://digg.com/digg/UBFms2U?ref=birchtree.me) on Digg, which relaunched in beta today to everyone. I've been using it since July in their private beta, and it's pretty nice! Christian Selig, maker of the dearly missed Apollo, advised on the app design, so I guess that's not a big surprise. But anyway, back to the post: > This feels like reddit from 10 years ago!! > > Great work guys!!! Feels way more organic and less hate filled. Thank you folks!!! Add this onto [my extended list](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-bluesky-feels-like-early-twitter-vibe/) I made a couple years ago about how Threads/Bluesky/Mastodon all "feel like early Twitter". It just seems like all social platforms need a reset every 10 years or so. People get too *good* at the old platforms, and content becomes predictable and stale. Then something new comes along, those who are frustrated flock to it, and it feels like the good old days again. With luck, the new thing will get traction, more people will join, it will have a vibrant community, and eventually it will turn into a trashy content farm that makes people yearn for something more. Or, you know, it fails before it gets a chance to be hated. Oh my god, did I just walk into a genuine, "you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain" quote? Harvey Dent ain't wrong. ### Rapid iteration in the modern coding world URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/rapid-iteration-in-the-modern-coding-world/ Last updated: 2026-01-15T19:00:32.000Z I recently [wrote](https://birchtree.me/blog/llms-have-made-simple-software-trivial/) about how LLMs have made simple software trivial to create, but additionally, it's made features incredibly simple to test with very little effort. As an example, just today, I was using my own Mastodon app, Best-o-Masto, and was thinking about what I could do next. One idea I had was to create an alternative feed layout which presented each post in full screen and let you swipe right and left to move between posts. All the post actions would be at the bottom of the screen so you could easily interact and browse your feed one-handed. It sounded like an interesting idea in my head, but I wasn't sure how it would feel in practice. But of course, we live in a world with coding agents. Over my morning coffee, I simply requested the feature in Claude Code, giving it quite a few details to make sure it understood what I was trying to do, and had it go build out the feature. It took a few additional prompts to lock in an experience that I thought was solid, but I was able to do this while I was preparing for the day and making my wife's lunch. Because I try to be a good developer, I also monitored what sorts of changes it was making to ensure that it wasn't introducing any new bugs or complexities, but that was about it. After playing around with the feature for a few minutes on my own device and feeling pretty happy with it, I shared a build to the public beta where I can get feedback. It's really the velocity that excites me about this. I was able to go from an idea for something that might work to having it in the hands of users in what is effectively zero time in the world of traditional development. If the feature works, then great; I can refine it further to make sure it is as good as it can be and then release it to everybody. If it turns out people don't particularly like it, then I can just revert the change and not ship it to production. There's no real sunk cost I'm worried about in the way I would feel if I had spent several days of focused time implementing this. Not all features are this simple, and obviously, larger ones will take more time to implement. But what I am saying is that there are a bunch of small changes to software that simply don't happen because our velocity is low enough that we need to prioritize things in a way where it doesn't make sense for a lot of features to even get made. I really like that in the current world, these sorts of changes can be made with little risk in time and effort. If you'd like to try this out, you can [join the public TestFlight for Best-o-Masto](https://testflight.apple.com/join/X31xyvSr?ref=birchtree.me) and try it today. ### + Filter bubbles URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/filter-bubbles/ Last updated: 2026-01-15T18:30:51.000Z Are they real? Are they not? Are they actually sneakily good? How do you even begin to break free? _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Micro app 3 - Podcast Dashboard URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-3-podcast-dashboard/ Last updated: 2026-01-15T13:00:00.000Z I built a micro-app for the folks over at MacStories, who as you know, produce [a lot of podcasts](https://www.macstories.net/podcasts/?ref=birchtree.me). My aim was to streamline some of the data entry we do every week. Whenever a new podcast episode comes out, there's a form we have to fill out that requires links to the episode on all the major podcast platforms. We need the Apple Podcasts embed code, the show notes, the episode title, all that stuff. It's all perfectly doable, but it's a manual process that involves jumping around to a bunch of different apps, often across several devices. I wanted to make it easier, so I created a little app called Podcast Dashboard, specifically designed for this task. You can add as many podcasts as you like, though most users will probably only need one or two. You start by entering the Apple Podcasts URL. You can also add the Spotify and YouTube URLs. Unfortunately, there's no way to grab those programmatically, so they're part of the initial setup, but you can always add them later. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-14-at-12.07.50@2x.png) Once you've entered the podcast URL, the app loads the show info, giving you access to everything you need. Need to copy the episode title? Just hit the copy button. Done. You'll also find the Apple Podcasts URL and the embed code right there. The show notes are available for download in both HTML and Markdown formats. You can even download the MP3 file directly from here if you need it. Getting the exact podcast episode links for apps like Overcast and Pocket Casts is a bit trickier. I haven't found a way to automatically determine those yet. However, both Overcast and Pocket Casts create public websites for each show based on the Apple Podcast ID. So, when you enter your Apple Podcast link, it allows me to generate links to the Overcast and Pocket Casts pages for that show on the web. The latest episode will always be at the top, making it easy to grab and share the link. Spotify and YouTube are static links that take you directly to the show page, where you can easily find the most recent episode and share those links. The one app that's currently missing is Castro. While Castro does have episode-specific web links, it doesn't seem to offer show links. This means I don't currently have a way to easily direct you to Castro to grab the link; you'll still need to open it on your phone. That's essentially it: basic information about your show, readily accessible, all in one place. It was built specifically for the MacStories crew to make their data entry a little less painful. ### Back when the iPad didn't do files URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/back-when-the-ipad-didnt-do-files/ Last updated: 2026-01-14T21:54:45.000Z Myself in 2015: [iOS is 90% There, but That Last 10% Hurts](https://birchtree.me/blog/ios-is-90-there/) > I know it's not happening, but I would pay a lot of money for a way to dual-boot iOS and OS X on my iPad. I wonder if this is the first time I suggested this sort of thing. Amazingly, this was 2 years before I went all-in on the iPad (only to give it up a further 3 years after that). It really was remarkable to read 2015 me not being able to open or do any "file management stuff" on an MP3 file from my iPhone or iPad. It turns out [the Files app wasn't added until 2017](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Files%5F%28Apple%29?ref=birchtree.me)! It feels like a million years ago. ### Apple (finally?) reveals their pro suite of apps URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-finally-reveals-their-pro-suite-of-apps/ Last updated: 2026-01-13T22:30:02.000Z Well, well, well, Apple [announced Apple Creator Studio](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/01/introducing-apple-creator-studio-an-inspiring-collection-of-creative-apps/?ref=birchtree.me) today, and it's worth breaking down the announcement a bit. > Apple today unveiled Apple Creator Studio, a groundbreaking collection of powerful creative apps designed to put studio-grade power into the hands of everyone, building on the essential role Mac, iPad, and iPhone play in the lives of millions of creators around the world. I think this framing is interesting right off the bat. Apple is subtly suggesting this is the creative suite for everyone, presumably differentiating themselves from the Adobe Creative Suite, which is premium and only for Serious Professionals. > Exciting new intelligent features and premium content build on familiar experiences of Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and later Freeform to make Apple Creator Studio an exciting subscription suite to empower creators of all disciplines while protecting their privacy. It's interesting to see Apple bundling Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform in the press release. These apps are free already for Apple users, so this got a bit of an eyebrow raise from me. It will make more sense soon, though. > Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform, Apple Creator Studio subscribers can be more expressive and productive with new premium content and intelligent features across Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Okay then, so the free apps will remain free, but there will be content and presumably AI features that you need to pay to use. > Apple Creator Studio will be available on the App Store beginning Wednesday, January 28, for $12.99 per month or $129 per year, with a one-month free trial, and includes access to Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Pixelmator Pro on Mac and iPad; Motion, Compressor, and MainStage on Mac; and intelligent features and premium content for Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and later Freeform for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. $12.99 per month is a quite strong price point in the current market, although I don't expect it's price to immediately kill Adobe or anything. We would have seen they with Affinity's recent update to…checks notes…free. Still, it's a decent price for pro software. It is worth noting that existing Final Cut, Logic, and Pixelmator Pro users have been using those apps with no monthly fee for many years now, and I'm not sure what their incentive will be to jump on this subscription anytime soon. > College students and educators can subscribe for $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year. Fantastic. College kids are going to get this sort of software one way or another, so making it dirt cheap is a good way to get *something* from them and hopefully turn them into long-term customers. > Alternatively, users can also choose to purchase the Mac versions of Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage individually as a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store. As they clarify at the end of this post, these apps are already on the Mac App Store and you can get them now, you don't have to wait for January 28 when the bundle launches. This tells me that people like me who own all these apps already will be able to keep using them for the foreseeable future. As someone who mostly uses Final Cut Pro out of all these apps, it seems like I'll get all the updates discussed in this post, and will for at least some time into the future. I'm sure they'll push people to upgrade to the subscription eventually, but I plan on resisting as long as possible. > With Transcript Search on Mac and iPad, users can now easily find the perfect soundbite in hours of footage by simply typing phrases into the search bar to see exact or related results. This is snazzy. The footnotes on this and other Final Cut features mention they only work in US English, but nothing about being exclusive to the subscription version of the app, so it looks like everyone gets this. > Using the power of AI… I'm just calling this out because I think it speaks to the massive influence the AI industry has had over the past three years. A couple years ago, many of us thought that Apple would never use the word "AI" to describe what they were doing. It would be "machine learning" or stuff like "Apple Intelligence", but they're just calling it AI now like everyone else. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Apple-Creator-Studio-Pixelmator-Layers-sidebar.jpg) > For the first time, Pixelmator Pro is coming to iPad I'll be honest, their preview of the iPad version of the app has me mostly encouraged. The iPad app looks more feature complete than Final Cut for the iPad, which is exciting. That said, my heart did breat a bit when I saw the Mac screenshot and saw liquid glass doing its thing. I guess the good news is Final Cut and Logic don't seem to have gotten turned to brittle glass yet. > for Apple Creator Studio subscribers, both Pixelmator Pro for Mac and iPad bring a powerful new Warp tool for twisting and shaping layers any way creatives can imagine, alongside a beautiful collection of Warp-powered product mockups. Maybe it's a killer warp feature, but this seems like a weird thing to put behind the subscription to me. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Apple-Creator-Studio-Keynote-Content-Hub.jpg) > The Content Hub is a new space where users can find curated, high-quality photos, graphics, and illustrations. A subscription also unlocks new premium templates and themes in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. An alternative stock photos and themes library wasn't something I was expecting, but alright, this could be interesting. There's also some junk about generating images, but whatever. > Apple Creator Studio includes access to features in beta, such as the ability to generate a first draft of a presentation from a text outline, or create presenter notes from existing slides. Subscribers can also quickly clean up slides to fix layout and object placement. And in Numbers, subscribers can generate formulas and fill in tables based on pattern recognition with Magic Fill. Google's apps have started doing things like this, and they're really useful. > All new subscribers will enjoy a one-month free trial of Apple Creator Studio, and with the purchase of a new Mac or qualifying iPad, customers can receive three months of Apple Creator Studio for free. Listen, I'm game to give it a trial run, but my money is on me dropping it before it costs me anything. Before I go, can I just say something about the icons? I'm not a fan. I'm so much not a fan it has me looking at the current glass versions of Final Cut Pro and Pixelmator Pro with nostalgia. Oh how good we had it! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-13-at-16.24.23@2x.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-13-at-16.24.00@2x.png) These new icons remind me of when Google normalized all their icons to the point that they all look the same…no soul…no joy…just the same icon with a few shuffled pixels. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-13-at-4.27.03-PM.png) I guess I should be happy Apple at least used different colors. And that's it! It's cool to see Apple getting into the creative pro game a bit more, after pulling back for so many years. Bring back Aperture, make it as good compared to Lightroom as it was back then, and you'll have me as a customer for sure. ### Elon Musk monetizes CSAM on X and Grok URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/elon-musk-monetizes-csam-on-x-and-grok/ Last updated: 2026-01-13T19:14:59.000Z Casey Newton: [Grok gets blocked](https://www.platformer.news/grock-blocked-uk-indonesia-france-musk/?ref=birchtree.me) > On Friday, following days of mounting outrage over Grok generating sexualized deepfakes of women and children, X said it would restrict the feature to paying subscribers. I know he's a ghoul, but what the fuck is Elon Musk doing? This is absolute garbage. He's created a tool that generates CSAM and non-consensual sexual images of people and distributes them as public images anyone can see with ease. He has built it into his product, he has [laughed](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2007302109612650576?ref=birchtree.me) about how funny it is, and the slightest adjustment he has made to this is to make people pay to use this. This is not any sort of remediation of this feature, this is Musk seeing something people are doing that is genuinely sick, and has decided the best way to handle it is to monetize it. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/IMG_9470.jpeg) For what it’s worth, Apple is monetizing it as well. ### It's already happened URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/its-already-happened/ Last updated: 2026-01-13T13:29:59.000Z antirez writing on his blog: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype > It is simply impossible not to see the reality of what is happening. Writing code is no longer needed for the most part. It is now a lot more interesting to understand what to do, and how to do it (and, about this second part, LLMs are great partners, too). It does not matter if AI companies will not be able to get their money back and the stock market will crash. All that is irrelevant, in the long run. It does not matter if this or the other CEO of some unicorn is telling you something that is off putting, or absurd. Programming changed forever, anyway. It's been plain to see for almost a year now, but programming has fundamentally changed, and we're still in the early days of getting to grips with what this change means. And I'm not talking about some theoretical future version of LLMs that will finally be good enough, I'm saying that if we stopped all work on LLMs and all we had forever more was Claude 4.5, Gemini 3, and GPT 5.2, this radical change in programming work is still happening. It's not coming, it's here. ### Quick Subtitles, now with live activities URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-subtitles-now-with-live-activities/ Last updated: 2026-01-13T00:21:07.000Z [Quick Subtitles 1.7 is out now](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me), and it's an especially good update for iPhone and iPad users. On both the iPhone and iPad, the app now supports background processing, so you can swipe the app away, and you'll see a Live Activity appear showing you the transcription continuing in the background. You can get on with whatever else you are doing and know when the transcription is ready for you. This was one of the features I really wanted to support soon after launch, and I'm really happy I was able to get it in, especially since I beat Final Cut Pro to the punch on this one. This update is exclusive to the iPhone and iPad because, of course, the Mac version has always been able to process wherever the window happens to be. I've also made an update to how the SRT file is formatted. This is a part of the code that I think I got a little too clever with in the early days of this app's development, and it could sometimes lead to excessively short bits of text on screen at once. Now you'll get more complete sentences in your subtitles, which, in my experience, has been an improvement. You can download [Quick Subtitles from the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) today! ### Quick Reviews, now with a 5-score system URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reviews-now-with-a-5-score-system/ Last updated: 2026-01-13T00:14:14.000Z [Quick Reviews 2.4 is available now,](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reviews/id6740369719?ref=birchtree.me) and it includes what is probably the most requested feature I've ever had for the app: you can now enable a 5-score system if that's what you would prefer. I actually [teased this back in December](https://mastodon.social/@matt%5Fbirchler/115742502660974844?ref=birchtree.me) when I was using it on an internal build. But I think people were too distracted by the fact that I was talking about the Star Wars sequel trilogy to notice that the review looked different than normal. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/image-1.png) Enabling this is simple; just go to the settings and enable the 5-score review system. From then on, the UI will show five scores as an option, and it's fully integrated into things like the Letterboxd import feature, so your star ratings will map correctly to the app. In addition, I took the opportunity to fix a couple of other things that needed some attention. First off, TestFlight users were reporting an issue enabling the in-app purchase, which had less impact on production users, but could make it so that you signed up and it wasn't clear that you could actually use the new features. That's been fixed and should improve both the production environment as well as TestFlight. I've also improved the file-sharing option, so if you share to a third-party app or AirDrop a file after you create a review, the filename will not be gibberish anymore. Finally, I squashed a bug where, if you set a custom format for your copied text in the settings, that was not being respected when you were in the edit view sharing the text; it only worked from the home page. That's been fixed as well. So that's it, that's what's new in [Quick Reviews](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reviews/id6740369719?ref=birchtree.me) 2.4, out today. ### Birchtree Productions joins the 21st century, builds a website! URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/birchtree-productions-joins-the-21st-century-builds-a-website/ Last updated: 2026-01-12T21:09:38.000Z Almost exactly a year ago, I officially launched Birchtree Productions, LLC. This legal entity is what I use for most of the projects I do; all my apps, this blog, and my YouTube channel fall under that umbrella. Amazingly, one thing I never got around to doing for the business when I launched it last year was creating a website. I know, kind of crazy, but I finally went ahead and did that, and today, I'm happy to announce [birchtree.productions](https://birchtree.productions/?ref=birchtree.me), a place where people can see all the things I do. For longtime readers of the blog, don't worry, no writing is moving there and I'll continue to blog here like I always have. This new site is more of an official place for me to post my app marketing pages and privacy policies. It's also probably a good idea to have a destination that I can send people to that isn't this personal blog that delves into…uh…gestures at the current state of things. So, I hope you enjoy the [site](https://birchtree.productions/?ref=birchtree.me)! I'm really proud of it, and I think it's very cool to have something official out there. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-12-at-15.08.54@2x.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-12-at-14.59.34@2x.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-12-at-15.00.05@2x.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-12-at-15.00.20@2x.png) ### Micro app #2: Download folder sorter URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-2-download-folder-sorter/ Last updated: 2026-01-12T17:44:16.000Z I'm the sort of person who treats their downloads folder as a kind of purgatory for files. It's where things tend to land when they come into my computer, and if they don't have an obvious long-term storage destination, it's often where they live for longer than I'd like to admit. We're talking many months, and over a year in some cases. Don't judge, we've all got our things. I know, I know, I should handle this sort of thing better, but I just haven't gotten around to it in 30 years of using a Mac. In the meantime, what I've done is create [a simple AppleScript](https://github.com/mattbirchler/download-sorter?ref=birchtree.me) that I can run whenever I want to clean up my downloads folder. Basically, what it does is go through all of the files and folders in my downloads folder and check when they were added. If it was added in a previous month, it will sort the file or folder into a new folder, still inside the downloads folder, with the year and the month associated with it (ex: 2025-09). Inside those folders, it does further sorting to put images, videos, and music in their own sub-folders, and everything else just sits at the top level of that month. This certainly doesn't help me with actually solving the underlying problem, but it does make me feel a little better because my downloads folder doesn't look quite as full when I open it. If you're interested in trying it yourself, you can [find the script on GitHub](https://github.com/mattbirchler/download-sorter?ref=birchtree.me). ### I can't do this URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-cant-do-this/ Last updated: 2026-01-13T12:58:44.000Z I've drafts 2 versions of a post this weekend that I've ended up trashing. The second one had the fun title, "Big Government That Provides a Public Safety Net? Evil. Big Government That Shoots You in the Face? Conservative dream." Fun, I know. I got into the irony of 2nd Amendment fanatics saying they needed gun for if the government sent masked men into their streets yelling, "papers please", only to then cheer for those masked men when they did take to the streets. But honestly, all I want to say is that we're lost if we can look at shocking video of a woman whose last words were "I’m not mad at you", who tried to drive around a federal masked man, and was shot in the face for doing that…only to have millions of Americans go, "yeah, she's the bad guy, it's just that she was murdered." Anyway, I'm not a fan of the federal government killing people, I think the US government has flown straight into 1984 "don't believe what you see" ground, and more than enough people have happy to go along with it. ### Micro app #1: Yearly Run Tracker URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-1-yearly-run-tracker/ Last updated: 2026-02-17T17:31:55.000Z This is the first in a [series](https://birchtree.me/tag/micro-apps/) of posts about micro-apps I've built this year. I figured I'd start with this one, as it's the app that sparked the whole idea. It's called Yearly Run Tracker (a very catchy name, I know). [***Update: This is a real app you can download now!***](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yearly-run-goals/id6758230373?ref=birchtree.me) The app does precisely what I want it to do: track my progress toward running 365 miles in 2026\. I wanted a simple way to visualize my progress throughout the year, so I created a graph showing the days of the year and tracking my progress against a target line. If I'm above the line, I'm on track. If I'm below the line, I need to catch up. That's the core idea, and the initial version [took only about five minutes to build](https://birchtree.me/blog/llms-have-made-simple-software-trivial/). I spent another 55 minutes improving the UI and adding features before I was happy enough to just keep it on my phone and move on. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/graph-view.png) When I launch the app, I see the graph I described. A dotted gray line shows the progress I need to maintain to hit my goal for the year, and a green line shows my actual progress. Below the graph is a simple calendar view, with each day colored green if I went for a run. The calendar also shows the total distance I ran on each day. From this view, I can also log a new run. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/2---add-run.png) The logging interface is also simple. It uses the same calendar view, with HealthKit integration to pull my running workouts and add them with a single tap. I added a little flourish to this, so the logging UI kind of slams down into place, which I thought was fun. I can also manually enter a workout if I didn't track it through my fitness app for some reason. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/4---insights.png) The only other feature is an insights page, which shows metrics like distance by month, distance by day of the week, longest streak, longest run, average run, and so on. There's also a settings page where I can set the units between miles and kilometers and set my goal for the year. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/3---settings.png) ## Turning it into a Real Product What would it take to turn this into an actual product, and not just something that works for me? First, I'd need to implement some sort of onboarding that walks users through setting up their goals and preferences. I'd also want a data export option, as well as a plan for what happens at the end of 2026\. Right now, the app just starts over, which isn't ideal. I also haven't tested it on any devices besides my iPhone, so compatibility could be an issue. And of course, I'd need to create a website and a privacy policy, which take a surprising amount of time. Finally, I don't have a roadmap for it. I don't have any ideas for what else it could do. Widgets would be a nice addition, and the ability to automatically add workouts, without requiring me to manually add the HealthKit workout, would be convenient. Personally, I like the ritual of manually indicating that I've done a run, and seeing my progress in real-time, so I don't necessarily need that feature, but I can see how others would want it. There are probably other things I'm not thinking of, but those are the main things that would need to happen before releasing this to the world. Maybe this post will get a ton of attention, and it turns out this is something lots of people want. If so, I might carry on and make it widely available, but that's not the plan right now. And that's fine. I'm very happy with where it is. I'm enjoying using it myself, and I'm glad I was able to make it. So that's Yearly Run Tracker. I'm using it for myself, and I'll use it for the duration of 2026, and hopefully beyond. ### 2026: the year of micro apps URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/2026l-the-year-of-micro-apps/ Last updated: 2026-01-10T13:59:59.000Z I'm calling it now: if 2025 was the year of "vibe coding," 2026 is going to be the year of "micro apps." It's the year a meaningful number of people begin to solve their own problems by building custom software tailored specifically to their needs. These apps might not be ready for the mass market, but that's okay because they'll be perfect for the individual who created them. It seems like the world really caught onto how good Claude Code was in December 2025, but I've been on board since day one (early 2025). I've been using it constantly, and it's led me to build more and more of these little bespoke apps for myself. In the interest of showing what's possible, I'll be sharing quick write-ups on the micro apps I'm building for myself. I'm planning on doing this for at least the next few weeks, or maybe I'll keep it up all year, we'll see how it goes. I think this is exciting, and I think it might be a big part of the future of software, so I'm diving in headfirst to see what happens. ### Apple could do the right thing. I’m not holding my breath. URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-could-do-the-right-thing-im-not-holding-my-breath/ Last updated: 2026-01-10T02:22:15.000Z Elizabeth Lopatto writing for The Verge: [Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are cowards](https://www.theverge.com/policy/859902/apple-google-run-by-cowards?ref=birchtree.me) > You know what’s “offensive and sexualized,” you worthless fucking cowards? Nonconsensual AI-generated images of women in bikinis spreading their legs, and of children with so-called “donut glaze” on their faces — which, by the way, were being generated at a rate of one per minute. I’d also call that “offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, in exceptionally poor taste” and especially “just plain creepy”! Do you need a back brace to stand up straight, buddy? Because at this point, I am certain you haven’t got a single vertebra. What’s happening on X and Grok is sick, and clearly breaks Apple’s terms. But kicking either off the store would enrage both Musk and Trump. God only knows how many gold offerings and ass kisses it would take to avoid company-and-customer-devastating tariffs after that. Better just let the CSAM flow, it’s not worth the headaches, I guess. ### LLMs have made simple software trivial URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/llms-have-made-simple-software-trivial/ Last updated: 2026-01-09T20:15:41.000Z I was out for a run today and I had an idea for an app. I busted out my own app, Quick Notes, and dictated what I wanted this app to do in detail. When I got home, I created a new project in Xcode, I committed it to GitHub, and then I gave Claude Code on the web those dictated notes and asked it to build that app. About two minutes later, it was done…and it had a build error. 😅 But it was a simple fix, I fixed it, and the app was running on my phone. And you know what? It worked. The UI wasn't perfect, but it was damn close. And I already had a product that achieved the goal I set out to achieve. **All in all, I'd say it was about 10 minutes from idea to functioning MVP** (and half of that was finishing my run). Now, of course, I've already spent another 30 minutes iterating on this initial design, fixing some weird issues I came across and thinking of other logical features to add. But still, we're well less than one hour away from even having the idea, and I have something that I could genuinely use for this purpose on my phone. There's more work to do, and I don't plan on making this a public app. It's more something that's extremely specific to my needs, but I can't help but start to wonder what the ramifications are in a world where generating software like this is so trivial. Yes, I'm an experienced product and design person with some development skills, and obviously, software development has gotten easier over the years, and I would bet that even before ChatGPT released in 2022, there were more people developing software than there ever had been in the world. But it really feels like this lowers the barrier to entry by an order of magnitude that simply must have ramifications. As a simple example, it's possible the app that I thought of could already be achieved in some piece of software someone's released on the App Store. Truth be told, I didn't even look, I just knew exactly what I wanted, and I made it happen. This is a quite niche thing to do in 2026, but what if Apple builds something that replicates this workflow and ships it on the iPhone in a couple of years? What if instead of going to the App Store, they tell you to just ask Siri to make you the app that you need? It feels a bit like when Shortcuts came out and tiny utility apps that just did one thing suddenly became less useful because shortcuts could just do that and people could construct their own. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but it certainly makes me think about how we're well past the gold rush era of the App Store. I'm also not saying you can't make money with software anymore, but I do think that it's going to take more to stand out from the crowd. I'm also thinking about the rise of personalized software in general. With the example above, I bet I could find an app that did what I wanted, but I doubt I could find an app that did ***exactly*** what I wanted. In general, software developers for the longest time have tried to make software that is flexible enough to satisfy the needs of as wide an audience as possible. If you didn't like a little detail of how an app worked, well, you would just learn to live with it and get used to it. But in a world where you're the one creating the software, you can just change it. You can make exactly what you want. Does this lead to a world where instead of 100,000 people using Things 3 for their task management, there are 100,000 people all with their own task manager that works exactly how they want? Is there a world where Cultured Code releases things to the App Store and everyone gets the same base functionality, but you can use a large language model to modify the app to your needs? It sounds a little crazy, but I don't think it's impossible in the long run. I'll leave it there, and I don't have some definitive statement on exactly what I think will happen in the future. I genuinely think this is all up in the air, and nobody really knows what's going to happen. I know it's a cliche and you've probably heard it a thousand times, but one of my favorite quotes is, "we are cursed [to live in interesting times](https://www.mentalfloss.com/language/may-you-live-in-interesting-times-phrase-origins?ref=birchtree.me)." I find myself thinking that a lot lately. ### Ranking Apple's products (a definitive list, no one will disagree) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ranking-apples-products-a-definitive-list-no-one-will-disagree/ Last updated: 2026-01-08T22:00:22.000Z On [a recent Vergecast episode](https://www.theverge.com/podcast/836441/best-apple-gadgets-vergecast?ref=birchtree.me), David Pierce, Allison Johnson, and Victoria Song ranked nine of Apple's product categories. The episode is entertaining, although I discovered that while I really like Victoria Song generally, I disagreed with her on almost every single point in this episode. 😅 Specifying the rules for a list's rankings is super important, and here's how they describe the criteria we should be considering: > “best” is defined quite broadly: it includes a product’s inherent quality, the quality of its competition, its cultural and economic relevance, the size of its target market, and many other things. Best is not an exact science. So basically vibes, and I'm okay with that. My primary consideration will be around how easily I can recommend the product to somebody else and whether I think Apple makes the best version of that product that you can buy. Here's the list of categories: - iPhone - iPad - Mac - Apple Watch - AirPods - Apple TV - HomePod - Vision Pro - AirTag ## 9 - Vision Pro Respect to the Vision Pro fans out there, but how could it be anything else, right? I do own one myself, but it is the only product category on this list where I would actively warn people not to purchase for themselves. Based on my criteria above, I do think that in some ways it is technically the best product in its category on the market, but I don't think the value it gives most people remotely aligns with the price tag. And if I'm being honest, even if it was one-third the price, I still wouldn't recommend it to most people. ## 8 - HomePod I think the HomePod is a relatively niche product, and the HomePod Mini is probably a bit more mainstream, but I find them to be the least essential of the eight Apple products remaining. If you want a good voice assistant, I don't see why you would get a HomePod outside of being really invested in Apple's ecosystem. If you want a good speaker, it's a better sell, but also only works with Apple's own products, and is hard to recommend over some other options out there. ## 7 - Apple TV I was debating whether this or the HomePod should go higher, and I leaned a little more towards the Apple TV hardware because I do find it easier to recommend to people who are thinking about getting one. All of the services you want to use are going to be here, and in general, they're going to have the best experience that you can get from any product. Yes, your TV likely has all of these apps available as well, but except in very rare cases, the experience in the native TV apps is just awful. And no matter which Apple TV you buy, you're at least going to get a fluid experience. ## 6 - AirTag AirTags are the sort of product you buy and, best case scenario, never have to use. That's kind of the opposite of every other product on this list, which makes them a little hard to judge, but I think they have real utility, are quite reliable, and in the rare instances I've relied on them, they've done great. ## 5 - Apple Watch By the criteria of this list, I think there's an argument to be made that the Apple Watch should be one position higher, but I just can't put it any higher than this. I think the Apple Watch is fantastic, and while it's not as exciting as it used to be, it's a product that is exceptionally popular among a wide swath of people. Some people buy it for the fitness tracking. Some people buy it for the notifications. Others buy it just because that's just what a watch is in 2025. ## 4 - iPhone This is lower on the list than you expected, huh? I've got the iPhone 17 Pro in my pocket now, and it's my daily driver. I'm in the envious position of being able to choose between this, an iPhone Air, a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, and a Pixel 10, and for me, the best phone is the iPhone 17 Pro. That said, I don't think it's as clean a sweep as it once was. The rest of the market has really caught up, and I'm a big fan of the Galaxy S25 Ultra myself, but other phones from Google, OnePlus, and a few Chinese manufacturers are pushing further than Apple in ways that I think real people actually like. I do think that Apple makes the best all-around phone, and they sweat the details on several things that other companies don't, but I would not feel bad at all about recommending someone buy a Galaxy or Pixel phone either. In fact, if they're already using an Android phone and are happy with it, those might be better options for them. To be clear, the iPhone is still great, and I still think it is the best phone for most people, but the gap is not what it once was. ## 3 - Mac I think if you're looking for a laptop computer, then the Mac is unquestionably the best product on the market today. When you look at the combination of build quality, performance, and even price, I simply don't think anything else can match it. Even if you're someone who's used Windows your entire life, I would still suggest you look at a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro before committing to another Windows computer. Oh, and if you just like macOS more than Windows, there's never been a better time to be a Mac fan. We're eating good in the Apple silicon era. That said, I can't ignore desktop computers, which, while I think Apple satisfies most people's needs with the Mac Mini and Mac Studio, there are higher-end needs as well as the entire gaming market that are underserved or completely unserved by Apple's offerings. The Mac is still outrageously good, but I do think if you're looking for a desktop computer, or a convertible computer for that matter, I do have a few questions to ask you before wholeheartedly endorsing a Mac. ## 2 - AirPods AirPods, on the other hand, are for everyone, as long as they want wireless earbuds. They're the default choice for iPhone users, and I know numerous Android phone users who buy AirPods because they're, "obviously the best." There's not much more to say. The AirPods Pro especially are beloved, and I know that if you, dear reader, had your AirPods fall into the garbage disposal and get shredded into a million little pieces, within five minutes you'd be putting in a pickup order to get a new pair today. ## 1 - iPad Well, well, well, what do we have here? The guy who is frustrated by the iPad puts the iPad at number one! Well, if we look at the criteria, which is mainly on whether Apple makes the best product in a category, I don't think there's a single product on this list that Apple leads more comprehensively in than the iPad. The product simply dominates the tablet market, a market that many companies have tried to compete in and simply haven't come close. Whether it being developer support or user adoption, the iPad is leaving the competition completely in the dust. No, it's not a good full-time computer for most adults, but it serves so many use cases nicely. Whether you have a Mac, a Windows computer, an iPhone, or an Android phone, it doesn't matter. Having an iPad around is nice, and if given the choice between an iPad and any other tablet on the market, there's absolutely no question you're getting the iPad. In a way, I think this is both a compliment and an insult to the iPad. It's obviously a compliment if I think it's number one on this list because it absolutely demolishes the competition. However, the only reason it does that is because I'm considering the competition to be cheap Amazon Fire tablets and whatever Samsung and Google are trying these days to make work with software that simply was never meant to run in a tablet form factor. I'm not considering this in the same category as a Mac or a Windows computer or even a Microsoft Surface. --- So that's that! I'd love to hear if you agree or disagree with me. If you disagree, the best way to respond would be with a blog post of your own! Tell me what I got wrong! ### + The ROG Xbox Ally X made me appreciate the Steam Deck even more URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-rog-xbox-ally-x-made-me-appreciate-the-steam-deck-even-more/ Last updated: 2026-01-08T18:01:45.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Here we go again URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/here-we-go-again-2/ Last updated: 2026-01-08T14:38:36.000Z Here's some news from our latest occupation: > U.S. President is reaffirming the American commitment to keeping American troops in the country even after the country returns to self-rule, now expected by the middle of next year. > > The President says next year's formal end to the U.S. occupation of the country will not amount to an exit strategy. Nor, he said, will it mean the end of the U.S. military presence in the country. Oh wait, this is a slightly tweaked version of [a report from 2003](https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-a-2003-11-17-29-us/392868.html?ref=birchtree.me) when the US invaded Iraq for falsified reasons, forced a leadership change, and initially swore it would be fast and easy. [Cut to today](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-interview-venezuela.html?ref=birchtree.me): > “Only time will tell,” he said, when asked how long the administration will demand direct oversight of the South American nation, with the hovering threat of American military action from an armada just off shore. > > “We will rebuild it in a very profitable way,” Mr. Trump said during a nearly two-hour interview. “We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil. We’re getting oil prices down, and we’re going to be giving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need.” Also, shout out to the people in my DMs telling me this wasn't at all about oil when I wrote about it last week. You nailed it! Not about oil at all 😵‍💫 ### NVIDIA's astounding rise sadly isn't powered by gaming URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/nvidias-astounding-rise-sadly-isnt-powered-by-gaming/ Last updated: 2026-01-08T12:59:59.000Z I took a look through NVIDIA's [last 4 years of financial reports](https://investor.nvidia.com/financial-info/financial-reports/default.aspx?ref=birchtree.me) with a goal of understanding how much of their business was from gaming and how that's changed in recent years. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-12.45.15@2x.png) In short, gaming revenue has bounced back from the COVID bump and is on a constant rise. If this was any company's revenue over the last 4 years, they'd be pretty pleased. But now let's look at NVIDIA's overall revenue over that same time period: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-13.21.34@2x.png) That's a heck of a line, huh? Finally, let's show what percentage of their revenue came from gaming over this time period: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-07-at-13.21.51@2x.png) It gets harder to do apples-to-apples comparisons to their financials before 2023, but in Q4 2021, gaming made up over 50% of their revenue, and they were best know for their graphics cards shipping to consumers. 5 years later and they're unquestionably an AI company who happens to make awesome GPUs for personal computers (gaming makes up less than 10% of their revenue today). Wild times. ### My app defaults in 2025 (a few days late) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-app-defaults-in-2025-a-few-days-late/ Last updated: 2026-01-07T22:01:06.000Z Robb Knight: [App Defaults 2026](https://rknight.me/blog/app-defaults-2026/?ref=birchtree.me) > It's been a couple of years since my first post in this series. In 2024 I did an "updates only" list but I think it's worth going for a full list again this time. It's back! I did mine back in [2023](https://birchtree.me/blog/my-default-apps-at-the-end-of-2023/) and [2024](https://birchtree.me/blog/my-default-apps-of-2024/), and while I'm late, here's my 2025 list: - ✉️ Mail service: [Gmail](https://gmail.com/?ref=birchtree.me) - 📬 Mail client(s): [Mimestream](https://mimestream.com/?ref=birchtree.me) on Mac and iPhone, Gmail on Android, and Mail on the iPad - ✅ Tasks: [Things 3](https://culturedcode.com/things/?ref=birchtree.me) - 📰 RSS service: [Inoreader](https://www.inoreader.com/?ref=birchtree.me) - 🗞️ RSS client: [Reeder Classic](https://www.reederapp.com/?ref=birchtree.me) - ⌨️ Launcher: [Raycast](https://www.raycast.com/?ref=birchtree.me) - ☁️ Cloud storage: iCloud - 🌅 Photo library: iCloud - 🤳🏻 Photo editing: [Adobe Lightroom](https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-lightroom.html?ref=birchtree.me) - 🌐 Web browser: [Helium](https://helium.computer/?ref=birchtree.me) on Mac, Safari on iPhone and iPad - 📆 Calendar: [Notion Calendar](https://www.notion.com/product/calendar?ref=birchtree.me) - 📖 Reading: [matter](https://web.getmatter.com/?ref=birchtree.me) - 🌤️ Weather: [Carrot Weather](https://www.meetcarrot.com/weather/?ref=birchtree.me) - 🎙️ Podcasts: [Overcast](https://overcast.fm/?ref=birchtree.me) - 🎶 Music: Apple Music - 🛹 Clipboard manager: [Raycast](https://www.raycast.com/?ref=birchtree.me) - 🔐 Passwords: [1Password](https://1password.com/?ref=birchtree.me) - 💸 Budgeting: [Google Sheets](https://sheets.google.com/?ref=birchtree.me) - 💬 Transcriptions: [Quick Subtitles](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) - 🐘 Mastodon: [Ivory](https://tapbots.com/ivory/?ref=birchtree.me) - 🍿 Movie discovery/tracking: [Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/?ref=birchtree.me) - 💁🏻‍♂️ Social: [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/?ref=birchtree.me) and [Threads](https://threads.net/?ref=birchtree.me) - 🎮 First game I play each morning: [Puzzmo](https://www.puzzmo.com/today/?ref=birchtree.me) - 🖼️ Screenshots: [CleanShot X](https://cleanshot.com/?ref=birchtree.me) - 🎞️ Video editing: [Final Cut Pro](https://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/?ref=birchtree.me), [ScreenFlow](https://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm?ref=birchtree.me), and [Screen Studio](https://screen.studio/?ref=birchtree.me) - 📝 Notes: [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md/?ref=birchtree.me) - 🧮 Code Editor: [Zed](https://zed.dev/?ref=birchtree.me) - 👨🏻‍💻 AI Code Assistant: [Claude Code](https://www.claude.com/product/claude-code?ref=birchtree.me) - 👨🏻‍💻 Terminal: [Ghostty](https://ghostty.org//?ref=birchtree.me) - 🔎 Search: [Google](https://google.com/?ref=birchtree.me) - ✈️ Flight tracking: [Flighty](https://www.flightyapp.com/?ref=birchtree.me) - 📦 Package tracking: Nothing at all…I open the tracking sites in the browser and just refresh - ✨ AI chatbot: [Gemini](https://gemini.google.com/?ref=birchtree.me) ### Introducing ChapterPod, now in beta URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/intro-chaterpod/ Last updated: 2026-01-06T13:00:10.000Z Well, it didn't take too long into the new year for me to announce a new app, huh? This is a pretty niche tool, so I don't expect most people to get value from it, but if you create a podcast (or two or three), then I think you're going to like this. **ChapterPod will likely ship later this month, and as with all my apps, it is** [**currently available in beta for More Birchtree subscribers**](https://birchtree.me/thank-you-for-subscribing/)**.** To put it plainly, since you’re probably already thinking it, this is the spiritual successor to Marco Arment's [Forecast](https://overcast.fm/forecast?ref=birchtree.me) app, which I and many other podcasters have been using for years to add chapters to our podcasts. The app is simple and just works, which is great, but there are a few usability things I thought could be improved, and so I decided to make my own app to solve those problems. Some of those include: 1. Better keyboard navigation and shortcuts 2. Playback in app (not needing to listen somewhere else to find timestamps) 3. iPad and iPhone support 4. Import chapters from plain text 5. Export chapters as plain text 6. Generate transcripts (think Quick Subtitles lite) If you make podcasts for a living, I think you will enjoy this. ## Video demo If you prefer the video format, here's a quick 2-minute demo of this version of the app. ## The details ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-08.18.20@2x.png) This is what the app looks like when you're adding chapters. No, it's not terribly complex, but it's exactly what you need to get the job done. Right along the bottom you have a time code and a chapter title that you can enter. The change here is that these are much more keyboard-friendly. So you can tab between these easily. You can hit `CMD + Return` to create the chapter, and after you create a chapter, the focus shifts automatically back to the time code so you can enter the timestamp for the next chapter. Next up is my absolute favorite feature, which is the ability to bring your YouTube style chapters and turn them into real chapters in an instant. Here's how it looks. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-04-at-08.22.48@2x.png) Just hit the four lines icon (or `CMD + I`) and your chapters will be right there. Confirm they look good, make some edits if need be, and boom, they're done. I've been using a version of this app for about 9 months at this point, and this feature alone has made the app invaluable to me personally. And if you're cross-posting to YouTube, for example, you can generate your chapters here and export them to text with `CMD + Shift + C`. Chris does this every week in my [Quick Chapters app on Quick Stuff](https://quickstuff.app/apps/quick-chapters/?ref=birchtree.me), and now he can do it here! You can also add images to chapters, with links hopefully coming before the public launch. ## One more thing… ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/iphone-image.jpg) One of the limiting factors for Forecast is that it was Mac only. And while most people will produce their podcasts on a Mac, not everybody does, and there are times where you may want to be able to do this sort of thing from whatever device you have in your hand. That's why an important part of building this app on day one was cross-platform compatibility for Apple's devices. **ChapterPod has 100% feature parity across the iPhone, iPad, and Mac versions of the app.** Like my other apps, this app is 100% native and built using SwiftUI. ## Pricing Pricing will have the exact same model as I have for Quick Subtitles, which is basically that the app is free to use for a set number of jobs, and then you need to make a one-time payment to keep using the app forever. Pricing is not finalized, but I will not make this a subscription app. It will be a one-time fee, and I'll make sure that whatever number is settled on will be a reasonable amount that fairly represents the value I think people will get from this piece of software. --- Again, More Birchtree subscribers can join the beta today ([under the "Perks" section](https://birchtree.me/thank-you-for-subscribing/)), and the only things standing in the way of public release is beta feedback and any hoops I unexpectedly need to jump through in app review (there's always something for the 1.0…). I hope you like it! ### If anyone can do it in 45 minutes, it’s not special URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/if-anyone-can-do-it-in-45-minutes-its-not-special/ Last updated: 2026-01-04T16:59:59.000Z [This post](https://x.com/ericw%5Fai/status/2004221353130631271?ref=birchtree.me) on Twitter is notable: > This guy literally builds a full AI app from scratch in 45 mins First off, the app is not super useful and there is a lot of work to be done before this is ready for production, but hey, it’s still quite a result for 45 minutes of work. And in fairness, this is consistent with what I've experienced in developing software over the past year…it's amazing how fast you can go from "I have an idea" to "I have a functional piece of software" in a matter of minutes. What I will say is that if anyone can crank out software like this is 45 minutes, then that software is not particularly valuable anymore. This goes along with my takes on other creative work I've shared over the past couple years: people appreciate things that took effort. Also, in business, if anyone can make what you made in no time, then suddenly you have thousands of competitors, so you need to differentiate yourself from the flock, and you do that by putting in extra care and effort. ### Don't fall in love with the product, fall in love with the problem URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/dont-fall-in-love-with-the-product-fall-in-love-with-the-problem/ Last updated: 2026-01-04T15:54:29.000Z Bryan Cantrill: [Love your customers](https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2025/12/31/love-your-customers/?ref=birchtree.me) > At Oxide, we believe that the best companies—the most enduring ones—love their customers, and we have made this explicit in our mission. I had a mentor years ago tell me, "don't fall in love with the product, fall in love with the problem" and that's really stuck with me years later. To build a successful product, you need a monopoly. Ahem… If you aren't fortunate enough to have a monopoly, you need to solve people's problems, and as a product or design person, you need to be obsessed with advocating for those users and solving their problems. You can consider business needs as well, of course, but if you ever lose focus on being the advocate for your customers, you're down a bad road. ### That’s just how media discussions go URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/thats-just-how-media-discussions-go/ Last updated: 2026-01-04T15:29:59.000Z Reddit user jess77x made [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/shittymoviedetails/s/6BccesScV4?ref=birchtree.me) about Pluribus: > The discourse around this show is so weird. It's either a masterpiece or a total slog. And everyone is just talking past each other and calling people illiterate/TikTok brained for disliking it or pretentious shills for liking it. And it's a shame because engaging with this show, the ideas presented in it, and how the show goes about exploring those ideas (for better and for worse) could be so interesting, yet so much of this discussion is centered around this unproductive binary. They say this is a weird thing about the discourse around this show, but I'd say this is how the discourse is around every piece of media these days. I continue to think that social media warps our minds by rewarding and therefore encouraging extreme takes. You either loved something or your hated it, nuanced options like, "I didn't like all of it, but there was enough there for me to enjoy" doesn't exactly pop off on socials, you know? The only other possibility I could credit to this "it's either the greatest thing of all time or it's trash" dichotomy I see is due to the fact there's just so much media for us to participate in these days that anything short of great is not worth our time. Why would I waste my time watching a show that's "pretty good" when there are 10 "amazing" shows released each year? Maybe there's something here, but given the amount of "trashy comfort food" media we all consume, I'm not convinced by that. ### Third Republican US President in a row invades a sovereign nation without good reason (it's oil) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/third-republican-us-president-in-a-row-invades-a-sovereign-nation-without-good-reason-its-oil/ Last updated: 2026-01-03T19:21:43.000Z Anatoly Kurmanaev and Tyler Pager with live updates for The New York Times: [Explosions Are Reported in Venezuela’s Capital](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/03/world/trump-united-states-strikes-venezuela?ref=birchtree.me) > While Mr. Trump said little about how the United States would be “running” Venezuela, he insisted it “won’t cost us anything” because American oil companies would rebuild the energy infrastructure in Venezuela, which holds vast reserves of oil. Every part of this is positively fucked. ### Quick Subtitles 1.6 (benchmark history, more stats, and more) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-subtitles-1-6-benchmark-history-more-stats-and-more/ Last updated: 2026-01-03T13:27:50.000Z [Quick Subtitles](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) has yet another update out now, which brings a few new features to the mix. ## UI tweaks First up is a slightly refreshed UI. This is mostly a new coat of paint across the interface. The iPhone UI home page, for example, now uses all the available space to make it as simple as possible to perform the main task. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/iphoneergareg.jpg) Also, this update removes turbo mode…or I should say, it's all turbo mode all the time. My analytics show very few people used it, which makes sense; watching the text render in real time is fun a couple times, but is it worth slowing down the whole thing? Probably not. You'll also see this in the new settings page, which gives you more of an overview of all your settings at a glance. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-02-at-20.27.12@2x.png) ## Benchmark history The last update brought a benchmark feature, and this time we’ve leveled this up to be a more serious tool for benchmarking devices. The core feature here is that the app now saves your benchmark results (locally, of course) so you can go back and look at them later. This means I can present a basic chart in the app, comparing the results, and maybe more importantly, the data is downloadable as a CSV. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-03-at-06.44.11@2x.png) After you run a benchmark, I'll show you a chart in the app, but you can also export the data as a CSV so you can visualize it however you want. Additionally, all benchmarks are saved locally to the app, so you can go back see how they compare. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/iphoneagaregawer.jpg) Anyway, it's pretty basic, but benchmarks are best when they're done multiple times, so making this easy to visualize was an important thing to get in there. And again, if you don't like this visualization, the data is yours, so export those CSVs and get to it! *Also, a minor update will come out soon that lets you download your full history at once in case you didn't download after each run.* ## New (and more) stats Then we're got an update on stats, which have been tucked behind a little "stats" button after a job is complete. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-02-at-20.26.56@2x.png) This isn't super useful most of the time, but if you're a sicko for stats (like me) then this is fun to check out. And yes, I believe in all features on all platforms, so of course these are on the iPhone and iPad as well. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/01/agaewrgerwa.jpg) --- I'm really happy with how this app has developed so far, and I'm still amazed how much work I'm able to do on this so quickly. As a reminder, the tools to run local transcription on Apple devices was announced in June 2025 and released in September. All of this progress has happened on such a small timeline, and I'm really happy that I and a good number of other people making podcasts and videos are using this regularly to do real work. ### Apple’s 2025 report card - Wearables URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-wearables/ Last updated: 2025-12-31T19:10:45.000Z This is the fifth and final in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s 2025 across their major product lines. You can also read my wearables (only Apple Watch) [2024](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2024-report-card-apple-watch/) and [2023](https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-2023-report-cards-apple-watch/) report cards. - [2025's iPhone report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-iphone/) - [2025's iPad report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-ipad/) - [2025's Mac report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-mac/) - [2025's Vision Pro report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-vision-pro/) - [2025's wearables report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-wearables/) ## AirPods We got new AirPods Pro this year, and this third generation has proven to be a little more divisive than the last couple, at least from what I can see. The functionality seems very good, and by all accounts, they are the best, easiest-to-use noise-cancelling earbuds for basically anyone (doubly so if you have an iPhone). The one issue that people seem to have with these, myself included, is the fit. For a some number of people, they just don't feel good in the ears. Personally, they are the first Apple earbuds of any variety that didn't fit my ears well. It's impossible to know the scale of how many people have actual discomfort with these, and I'm totally willing to accept that I am in the minority of users here, but I do get the impression it's the first time it's ever been a meaningful storyline about an AirPods Pro release that they are uncomfortable for people. All that said, if they fit in your ears, they're pretty awesome. Taking a moment to talk about the rest of the lineup, I think this was actually a pretty good year as well. The AirPods Pro 2 got numerous firmware updates throughout the year, including a substantial update when the Pro 3s came out which gave them the live translation feature heavily advertised with the new model. Yeah, the flagship feature of the new AirPods is also in the old ones. You love to see it. Meanwhile, we didn't get any updates to the normal AirPods or the AirPods Max. However, on a personal level, I did get some regular AirPods for Christmas, and I've been using them for about a week now. I gotta say, these are pretty great. The noise cancellation is surprisingly good for headphones that don't have a silicone tip, though obviously not as good as the Pros. They feel so comfortable in my ears and they support the head nod and shake gestures, which I appreciate. Unfortunately, while you can squeeze the stems to play/pause and change modes, you can't swipe up and down on them to change the volume. That's the one aspect of the Pros I miss when using these. As for the AirPods Max? No updates, and they remain on a very old chip, meaning no firmware updates to bring them these new features. It remains a tough spot for Apple's most expensive AirPods. ## Apple Watch Series 11 Do we have a new champion for the smallest year-over-year Apple Watch upgrade? I've scoured Apple's comparison page, and the only genuine change I see is the cellular connectivity, which upgrades from LTE to 5G. The chip is the same, the screen is the same; everything else in this device is the same as you had last year. The one thing that might tempt you to upgrade is the increased advertised battery life from 18 hours to 24 hours, but a quick look at the testing methods indicates Apple is now counting six hours of sleep tracking in that metric. Based on my use of the Apple Watch, I would suspect the old model technically achieved 24 hours as well, Apple just didn't count it because they didn't count sleep in the number. I could be wrong, but it seems as though the battery life is going to be effectively the same between the Series 10 and 11. ## Apple Watch Ultra 3 The Ultra 3 is a pretty similar situation, although there are a couple of upgrades here worth mentioning. The first is the updated display, which adopts the wide viewing angles that the Series 10 got last year. Nice, but subtle. It also gets Emergency SOS via Satellite, while the last Ultra only got Emergency SOS on traditional cell networks. Finally, it gets 5G and is upgraded to the S10 SiP that the Series 10 got last year, and the Series 11 stuck with for a second year. Similarly, the battery promise is 6 hours more than before (42 vs 36 hours), and this is similarly due to counting 6 hours of sleep tracking. This is something the Ultra 2 already achieved, it just wasn't a part of their metrics. Speaking for both the Series 11 and Ultra 3 marketing, I'm of two minds here. Number one, I think Apple has undersold the battery performance of these watches for many years, and including sleep tracking is fair, in my opinion. The problem is that this change makes it appear to customers like the battery got way better this year, even though it stayed effectively the same. ## Apple Watch SE 3 The unexpected hero of the Apple Watch updates this year is the new SE, which I think has graduated from "the budget model with big sacrifices" to my default recommendation. The upgrades begin with the chip, which is the S10, just like the Series 11 and Ultra 3\. It also gets 5G, wrist temperature sensing, sleep apnea notifications, and critically, the always-on display—which the Series watches have had since the Series 6\. It probably won't be a big deal to most people, but they've also bumped the internal storage to 64GB, doubling the previous SE and matching the high-end watches. And they've done all this while keeping the base price the same at $249, or $150 cheaper than the cheapest Series 11 model. There are still some things you get with the Series 11 that you don't with the SE 3, such as the improved wide-angle display, hypertension notifications, ECGs, and water temperature sensing. If you want those features, then the extra money is probably worth it (or a used Series 10). But if those don't intrigue you, then I think the SE 3 is a pretty great smartwatch for a lot of people. ## Overall score - C A C grade may seem harsh, but just a reminder that a C is average with my review scale. It's still a passing grade. Don't worry! Call it a C+ if that feels better. The update to the Ultra 3 was pretty minimal, but the update to the latest chipset and improved display are both welcome. But the Series 11 update honestly doesn't make any sense. It feels very much like they iterated the product just because they'd done it 10 years in a row and it would look weird if they didn't, but they obviously didn't have anything new of note to put in there. The bright spot in the hardware this year was the SE 3, which I think is great on two fronts. The first is that it's a genuinely good upgrade to the SE 2, so people who are using that watch and would like to upgrade have a logical and very good device to purchase. I also think it's good because it drives down the effective starting price of the Apple Watch for most people. The SE was clearly a budget device before, and I would only recommend it to people who could not afford the Series watches or for kids who just need a watch, not the *best* watch. Now, I genuinely think it is the right choice for a lot of people, which means the entry-level price to the Apple Watch experience just dropped by $150, which is unusual in current Apple where everything needs to get more premium and therefore more expensive. On the software front, watchOS wasn't a huge update, and I think the company is still fixing some of the UX challenges they created for themselves in last year's update. So I think there's some good and some bad here. Along with visionOS, I think Liquid Glass actually works pretty well on the watch, even if sometimes it does feel a little bit odd on my otherwise rugged Ultra's physical design. I also generally like the new Workout Buddy, sleep analysis, and wrist flick features, although I do find the new workout app UI a little frustrating. The touch targets for things such as starting a workout have been made smaller, and the app is less stable than it was. This has been true throughout the beta as well as after the public release. ## What I want/expect in 2026 There's a lot of individual product lines here, so let's be quick about it. On the AirPods front, I am not expecting any new hardware for either the normal AirPods, AirPods Pro, or AirPods Max. If you told me one of them was definitely getting an upgrade and I had to pick, I'd guess the Max would get a proper second generation that does more than simply swap the Lightning connector for USB-C. Again, I'm still not confident this will happen, but if we're going to get any AirPods upgrades, that's what I'd pick. On the Apple Watch front, I do not expect an SE 4, but I do expect a Series 12 and Ultra 4\. How much of an upgrade they'll be remains to be seen. I think a safe bet is to say they'll get new chips for the first time in a couple of years, and the Ultra may change. Maybe the Series will even get something new in terms of materials. In terms of what I want from new Apple Watches, I'd love to see a new health sensor enter the mix, maybe something around blood sugar. And on the software front, I'd like to see my workout trainer feature become a reality. I'd love to see the workout app get improved from what they released this year. And this is a real shot in the dark, but I'd love to see Apple experiment with new liquid materials in their OS. I mentioned the odd disconnect between the lightness of Liquid Glass and the ruggedness of the Ultra 3's physical design, and I think it would be cool if they made a "Liquid Metal" UI material that behaved the same, but was opaque and had more of a silver tint than the glass material. Hell, if it works here, maybe it could come to the other platforms as well, but the scope of that change is much more manageable and low risk on the watch, so let's start there. --- And that's that! Five report cards and about 8,700 words reviewing Apple's 2025\. In general, I think it was a conservative but effective year for hardware, and a tough year for software. I do not see any evidence that the "apocalypse" some were suggesting was coming when the general public got their hands on this new design has happened (the most chronically online are the most enraged, while the normal people in my life are unbothered, and there has been nothing nearly as viral online as the Photos app redesign from last year). However, I do think that the usability problems are real and that there's a general sense that will build over time that this new design system isn't as good as what we had before. Here's to a 2026 with new iPhone and Mac form factors, with more ProMotion displays in iPads, for Apple Watch updates that feel like actual upgrades, and new software design leadership that makes serious moves to clean things up. Cheers! ### The wild year of code URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-wild-year-of-code/ Last updated: 2025-12-31T17:24:01.000Z I was just on GitHub and saw the famous contribution visualization, and this really put into perspective how much more of a developer I was this year. Here's the last 4 years of contributions: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-09.40.04@2x.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-09.40.33@2x.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-09.40.37@2x.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-31-at-09.40.42@2x.png) 33 contributions in 2022, a bit more in 2023 and 2024, but y'all, 2025 was wild. Just a reminder, the output has been: - [Quick Subtitles](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me): Transcribe audio and video locally on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad - [Best-o-Masto](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/best-o-masto/id6747150331?ref=birchtree.me): See the best posts in your Mastodon feed in seconds - [Quick Reviews](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reviews/id6740369719?ref=birchtree.me): Review what you love in MacStories' new app of the year 😉 - [Quick Notes](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-notes-easy-voice-notes/id6754181571?ref=birchtree.me): Dictate into your phone. Better than iOS's keyboard - [Quick Stuff](https://quickstuff.app/?ref=birchtree.me): A bunch of small web tools - *Upcoming Obsidian plugin that posts to Ghost, which I've been using most of the year* - *Upcoming Raycast extension that gives you quick access to your recent Ghost posts* - *Upcoming app for adding chapters to podcasts (like Forecast, but with some quality of life improvements)* ### Clean energy had a baller 2025 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/clean-energy-had-a-baller-2025/ Last updated: 2025-12-30T22:59:59.000Z Kathryn Krawczyk from Canary Media: [Clean energy is still winning. These 10 charts prove it.](https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/clean-energy-renewables-charts-2025?ref=birchtree.me) > Solar’s monumental rise is the main reason for the shift: The source more than doubled its share of global electricity production from 2021 to 2025\. And while coal still remains the world’s largest source of electricity, it’s declining while solar and other renewable sources are on the rise. And: > Between January and September, power demand around the world rose by 603 terawatt-hours compared to that same time period last year. Solar met nearly all of that new demand on its own, and with a boost from wind, was able to cover all of it. That’s a huge deal for the clean energy transition. When we produce more renewable power than is needed to cover growing demand, that’s when we can start chipping away at fossil fuels. > While the vibes suggested this would be a dismal year for clean energy deployment in the U.S., it simply wasn’t. Solar, wind, and storage accounted for 92% of new power capacity added to the grid this year through November. The continued domination of clean, renewable energies, both in the US and around the world, is still a major win worth celebrating. Solar expansion alone covered basically all worldwide energy consumption increases this year, which is huge. I've said it before and I'll say it again, a world where energy is plentiful and clean and we can use it without guilt is far better than a world where we have to ration energy because it's dirty and expensive. The energy story is one I'll continue to keep my eye on into 2026, but it feels like a quiet but significant win year after year. ### Let stories end URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/let-stories-end/ Last updated: 2025-12-30T22:02:40.000Z Amanda Hess for The New York Times in 2018: [The End of Endings](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/arts/the-end-of-endings.html?ref=birchtree.me) > Didn’t endings used to mean something? They imbued everything that came before them with significance, and then they gave us the space to reflect on it all. More than that: They made us feel alive. The story ended, but we did not. This had been true at least since the novel supplanted the oral tradition. In his essay “[The Storyteller](http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/frankfurt/storyteller.pdf?ref=birchtree.me),” Walter Benjamin wrote that the novelist “invites the reader to a divinatory realization of the meaning of life by writing ‘Finis.’” He continued, “What draws the reader to the novel is the hope of warming his shivering life with a death he reads about.” We needed stories to end so we could make sense of them. We needed characters to die so we could make sense of ourselves. I think a factor in my general dissatisfaction with franchises and TV shows is that a key part of storytelling, the ending, isn't really a thing. Here's how they usually go: 1. Beginning 2. Middle 3. More Middle 4. Yet more middle 5. Middle 6. Somehow more middle 7. OH FUCK WE'RE NO LONGER RELEVANT SO HERE'S SOME SHIT ENDING BECAUSE THE MONEY FAUCET STOPPED SPITTING OUT BILLS Patrick Willems has a very good video out now called [Let Franchises End](https://youtu.be/8shQ8YuR4p4?ref=birchtree.me) and I highly suggest you check it out. ### Apple’s 2025 report card - Vision Pro URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-vision-pro/ Last updated: 2025-12-31T19:11:33.000Z This is the fourth in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s 2025 across their major product lines. You can also read my Vision Pro [2024](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2024-report-card-vision-pro/) and [2023](https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-2023-report-cards-vision-pro/) report cards. - [2025's iPhone report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-iphone/) - [2025's iPad report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-ipad/) - [2025's Mac report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-mac/) - [2025's Vision Pro report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-vision-pro/) - [2025's wearables report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-wearables/) ## Vision Pro, gen 2 I'm going to give myself a round of applause here, because absolutely no one this time last year was expecting new Vision Pro hardware in 2025, except me. > I would be positively shocked if I’m writing my 2025 report card a year from now and the current Vision Pro is still in stores and selling for $3,499. Well, I got it right, as we have a new Vision Pro on store shelves now. Of course, this upgrade was about as unexciting as it could have possibly been. Effectively, the only change here is to the processor, which jumped three generations from the M2 to the M5\. Apple also advertised some benefits to display clarity and refresh rate, but the display hardware remained exactly the same, and the M5 just seems to have been able to push that display a little harder. I think overall it's good that Apple updated the Vision Pro, but I think even the product's most ardent supporters would admit this wasn't a super compelling upgrade. I know these people exist, but I literally don't know anybody personally who bought the original Vision Pro, loved it, and has upgraded to the M5 edition. There's just not enough value there. This was also made worse by the fact there was no trade-in program for owners of the original model. If you are a day one owner of the original Vision Pro and you want to get the second model, you got to pay full price, there's absolutely no trade-in. If I had to guess, it's likely because the resale market for this product is so anemic that even Apple doesn't want them back because they can't resell them for any reasonable amount. ## Overall score - D Is it too sensationalist to say this has been a terrible year for the Vision Pro? I guess it's been a fine year for people who already like it, but for a product that's only two years old and which has not proven to be remotely successful in the market, I feel like it made zero progress this year. This is a product that should be finding its stride. It should be a place where we see new and innovative software released that gets people on board. It should be a playground for developers to find new and interesting solutions to problems that could not be solved with 2D screen-based computing platforms. We've seen none of this in 2025\. There's positively no energy around this product and no interest from the general public that I can see. Let's look at this another way. Can you name a single app that released for the Vision Pro this year? Can you name a single moment where the Vision Pro broke out of its diehard fans and got other people excited about it? I can't. Maybe you're thinking about that Marvel What If… game, but no, that came out in mid 2024\. Maybe the television app from Sandwich? Nope, that was February 2024\. Maybe it's that [Lapz F1 app](https://www.lapz.io/?ref=birchtree.me) that was based on some pretty cool concept videos? Nope, that never even released. Their last updates on the blog were in November 2024, and you can no longer join the TestFlight at all. Apple's Vision Pro app of the year was [Explore POV](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/explore-pov/id6479555991?ref=birchtree.me), which appears to be a collection of 3D videos from beautiful places around the world. I guess that's something, but I don't think that's a ticket to mainstream success anytime soon, and to be fair, also launched in early 2024. I still think spatial videos are kinda cool, but even those have lost their luster for me. Last year, every time a new spatial video came out, I would charge up the Vision Pro and watch it, no matter the subject matter. In 2025, I can't be bothered unless it's something I find particularly interesting. The Metallica and MotoGP ones were pretty cool, but I can't think of any more off the top of my head. Movies are a tough one too. I liked watching movies on this last year, but I think I watched a grand total of 2 on it in 2025 (and that's not a lot considering [I watched 100 movies this year](https://birchtree.me/blog/471-movies-in-4-years-and-my-fav-2025-films/)). I won't name names, they can do their own updates, but I know for a fact that several people who were high on this for watching movies last year have also basically stopped using it for that as well. visionOS 26 released in the fall, with widgets and controller support, which are nice. As we‘ll explore more below, the OS is not the problem, and it’s continued to improve. Shout out to the dev teams working on this. I know some Vision Pro fans will be reading this and might be upset, and I really don't want to take anything away from those who enjoy the product as it is. My point is that if the Vision Pro is only ever going to be a product made for a small slice of relatively wealthy VR enthusiasts, then that's fine. If this is meant to appeal to a wider audience, then Apple made zero progress towards making that a reality in 2025. ## What I want/expect in 2026 It’s always tough to set expectations for the Vision Pro because, honestly, I feel like I have to be vague. I really don't have a clear vision of what I even want from this product or what I think will help it go mainstream. I literally can't think of anything Apple could do to make me start using mine on a regular basis, and I certainly don't know what use case is going to get people buying a $3,500 VR headset in any sort of mainstream capacity. In the product world, we often talk about the MVP, or minimally viable product. This is usually a little rough around the edges, but it exists to prove whether there's a good market fit for the thing you're making. Once you prove people want it, you invest in polishing the experience. When I look at the Vision Pro, I feel like we’ve done the inverse of that. People often complement how nicely made VisionOS is, but I’d argue maybe that's part of its downfall. It's incredibly well thought out and well implemented for a thing that doesn't solve problems or desires that most people actually have. So with that in mind, my broad hope for the Vision Pro in 2026 is to see some sort of software experience that can only happen in virtual reality, and which I—and a decent chunk of the rest of the world—find compelling. Yeah, that's not very specific. And yeah, I'm offloading figuring out what that thing is to other people, but I honestly don't know what it is. Speaking for myself, I've spent all of 2025 identifying problems I have with the computers in my life and building solutions to those problems. Personally, none of the problems I currently have are solved by a virtual reality headset. What I'm craving is something that wins me over. Additionally, and I know this is a hard one to solve, but I continue to believe that a fundamental problem with the Vision Pro is its price. At $3,500 or more, it is simply a product that too few people could purchase, even if they loved the idea of it and desperately wanted one. You can make the product twice as good in every spec, and I still don't think it would move the needle much because the raw cost is simply too much for most people to stomach. Frankly, at the amounts we're talking about, shaving even $1,000 off the price might not be enough to move the needle meaningfully. We really need to get down to a place where this is closer to a $999 starting price. Unfortunately, everything we know from the rumor mill is that a product like that is nowhere close to happening. I guess my realistic hope for 2026 is that the M5 Vision Pro gets some sort of permanent price drop. $2,999 isn't great, but it would be something to move it in the right direction. As for hardware predictions, my honest prediction is that nothing changes, and the M5 Vision Pro remains the only product in the lineup and remains at the same price. If there is new hardware, the boring safe bet is that it's going to be an M6 version of the current product. But I think there's a sliver of a chance that will get some sort of cheaper model, either the more affordable Vision Pro (or Vision Air?) is closer to reality than we think, or they've made serious progress towards a more Meta Ray-Ban-like product that gets announced before the end of the year. --- Tune in tomorrow for the final in the series, and thank you for reading Birchtree through 2025! ### 471 movies in 4 years (and my fav 2025 films) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/471-movies-in-4-years-and-my-fav-2025-films/ Last updated: 2025-12-30T15:46:59.000Z I'm a big fan of movies, they're my favorite medium for storytelling, and it was sometime in 2019 that I said to myself, "man, you don't watch that many movies for someone who claims to love movies." Of course, I was watching like 10-20 movies a year, which is probably relatively average in the grand scheme of things, but it didn't feel like enough for me. I was missing out of so many good stories because I just wasn't making the time for them. TV shows and video games were taking up my free time instead. Well, that was when I jumped back into Letterboxd (apparently I joined in 2012!) and started logging my movie watching, and I ramped up my movie count in 2020 and 2021, bit I set an arbitrary goal for myself in 2022: watch 100 movies. The purpose of this 100 movies wasn't just that more is better, but that if I committed to watching a lot of stuff, it would get me to stop waffling and just hit "play" on more things I was on the fence about. I wanted to get past the "hmm, what should I watch?" mode that has you browsing streaming services for 30 minutes before giving up, and just taking a chance on more things; get out of my comfort zone, if you will. And I think that has been successful! I probably would not have taken chances on movies like Shoplifters, Jojo Rabbit, RRR, The Father, or Perfect Blue if I wasn't chasing this arbitrary number. I've watched at least 100 movies in each of the last 4 years, and I think that's pretty cool. My biggest year was 2023 where I watched 149 movies, which I would say is too many movies. By the end of that year, I remember feeling like watching movies was turning into a bit of a chore. I had bounced back so much from TV and video games that I was putting off enjoying those mediums in favor of pushing up my movie count to heights I'd never seen in my whole life. As such, in 2024 I did not have any sort of goal or target to surpass the year before…the line doesn't always have to go up. I have kept that 'just watch how many you feel like" attitude through 2025 as well, and the numbers pretty clearly show that around 100 movies per year is what works for me right now in my life. This sounds like a ton, but it's basically one movie every Saturday and Sunday throughout the year, which isn't that hard for me to do. ## 2025 Stats For some fun, let's look at a little quick data analysis on the 102 movies I've watched in 2025 (so far, there's still 2 days left!) from [my Letterboxd year in review](https://letterboxd.com/mattbirchler/year/2025/?ref=birchtree.me). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-08.30.31@2x.png) My movie frequency has ramped up quite a bit in December, as it often does. It's a combination of big movies I want to see coming out all at once, and time off of work giving me more free time to pop on a movie (or two) each day). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-08.31.42@2x.png) I only rewatched 2 movies all year, KPop Demon Hunters and One Battle After Another, both films in my top 10 of the year. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/image.png) Speaking of top 10…this is my current ranking based on what I've been able to see so far. A few heavy hitters remain, so this may shake up, but if you're looking for something to watch in this week between Christmas and New Year's, I'd recommend anything here. For clarity, these are: 1. Sinners 2. One Battle After Another 3. Hard Truths 4. Better Man 5. KPop Demon Hunters 6. Predator: Killer of Killers 7. Superman 8. Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc 9. Wake Up Dead Man 10. Bring Her Back ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-08.35.12@2x.png) 43% of movies I watched came out this year, and 88% of what I watched was new to me. I'm definitely still seeking out new stories and experiences, not just the comfort food I already know I love. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-08.35.57@2x.png) This score breakdown is pretty normal for a regular person watching movies. I get to choose what I watch, so I'm self-selecting for films I'll probably like. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-08.38.05@2x.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-30-at-08.38.28@2x.png) These two options are fun…movies I rated higher or lower than most people. I don't know what I can say, Materialists resonated with me, Heart Eyes was a fun horror film in the vein of Scream, and the other 4 are widely adored, so I don't think there's anything crazy there. On the negative front, I stand by The Gorge and The Woman in Cabin 10 being some of the most bland, cookie-cutter, "did AI write this?" slop I've watched in a while. Meanwhile, The Coffee Table was just a miserable experience, even if it was well-crafted; I just couldn't stomach it. As for 2026, there are already 20 movies on my watchlist that we know are coming out, and I'm sure there will be many more that nab my attention, so it looks like another great year for the medium I love. ### Apple’s 2025 report card - Mac URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-mac/ Last updated: 2025-12-31T19:11:40.000Z This is the third in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s 2025 across their major product lines. You can also read my Mac [2024](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2024-report-card-the-mac/) and [2023](https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-2023-report-cards-the-mac/) report cards. - [2025's iPhone report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-iphone/) - [2025's iPad report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-ipad/) - [2025's Mac report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-mac/) - [2025's Vision Pro report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-vision-pro/) - [2025's wearables report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-wearables/) ## MacBook Pro Only one MacBook Pro got an update this year, and it's the baseline model, which was the first (and to this point only) Mac to get the M5 processor. No Pro or Max processors yet, just the base M5\. The M5 seems like a good upgrade over the M4, but that's all I can say, everything else about the MacBook Pro stayed the same. I think this makes buying a MacBook Pro a bit awkward right now. Many buyers are surely looking at the Pro and Max models, but those are on an older chip generation than the base model. They may outperform the M5 model in some tasks, but the M5 beats them at some other things, such as single-core performance. If you're in the market for a new MacBook Pro right now, I'd say don't buy one unless you're getting the base model; everything else is on the way out and will likely be notably better soon. ## MacBook Air Back in March we got new MacBook Airs, which upgraded to the M4 processor and got an upgraded FaceTime camera. We also got a very nice sky blue color, which I know some people think looks like nothing, but I think it's pretty nice when I've seen it in person. The big win here is the price point, which in last year's post I suggested could go several ways. If you think back to this time last year, the M2 Air was the $999 model, with the M3 starting $100 higher. My best case scenario was that they would ditch the dual-processor lineup and put the M4 in all models while sticking with the $99 starting price, but I wasn't confident that would happen. It turns out Apple was able to sort this out, and for the first time in the Apple silicon generation, the MacBook Air has one processor family and the starting price remains at $999. ## Mac Studio Also in March, we got another upgrade which made a few people raise some eyebrows, and I get why. The Mac Studio, which lingered on the M2 generation through 2024, caught up to the rest of the line with the M4 Max and the…checks notes…this can't be right…the M3 Ultra. Repeat everything I said above about the MacBook Pro lineup being split between processor generations, because the Mac Studio is in a similar situation, although this one is less transient and is just what they have decided is the right thing to do. Don't expect an M4 Ultra ever. I don't think this is the end of the world, and people buying this computer can figure out what they need, but it is undeniably odd and not the ideal state for this product. It's all a bit odd to me, as the general discourse around the M3 generation was that it was kind of hard to make and not exactly the best generation of Apple silicon, and yet somehow it's the M4 that won't get an Ultra chip for some reason. Here's hoping the M5 generation gets to go from the base chip all the way up to an Ultra, it would be the first time since the M2 that we got that all at once. On the plus side, if you need the best M4 chip in a desktop environment, the Mac Studio will save you a bunch compared to a MacBook Pro with the same M4 Max ($2,499 vs $3,699). ## Overall score - B It wasn't a particularly thrilling year for the Mac. In fact, I'd say it was quite boring, but I guess you can still score pretty well on my arbitrary scoring system by coming into the year with what I think is clearly the best lineup of Macs ever in the history of the company. Seriously, has there ever been a point in time where Apple made so many Macs that are unanimously considered to be great computers, and where basically every single product in the lineup outperforms its competitors in the Windows space (minus some desktops)? That said, I can't give the Mac an A grade because it was just boring and a couple of their products are in weird spaces right now. The MacBook Pro only getting its base model upgraded to the M5 is a little weird, and the Mac Studio's M4 Max and M3 Ultra configurations are surely not what the company would have wanted. And then there's the Mac Pro, which Apple should really just build up the courage and kill. That thing is stuck on the M2 generation with no signs of it getting an upgrade past that. A bright spot this year is the MacBook Air, which gets the processor bump in a timely manner. You get the best processor generation on the $999 model, and it's just clearly the best laptop for most people right now. ## What I want/expect in 2026 It's always hard to do these Mac predictions because for the last couple of years they've been pretty boring. Apple releases new processors every year or so, and every Mac is in a good place, so it's really just a matter of predicting when each product is going to get the new processor. That said, I do have a little spice in this year's predictions, so let's get to them. I'm a MacBook Pro guy, and I'm excited to hear that this might be the most exciting MacBook Pro upgrade we've had since the 2021 Apple Silicon switch for this lineup. The boring part of this prediction is that we'll get M5 Pro and M5 Max models early in the year, eliminating the odd mixed processor situation we have right now. The more exciting part of this is what we're going to get in the fall, which rumor has it will be an OLED model with a touch display and an M6 processor. The rumor mill will surely start grinding away on this throughout 2026, and we'll get a better idea as to what we're looking at here, but I'm excited at the prospect of this update. I am concerned about the price, which is surely not going to be the same as what we pay today, and I'm also concerned that Apple is going to be too conservative with adding touch support to the Mac. Don't get me wrong, if this happens, I'll be getting one, but I really think the vision here should be a convertible device, much like an iPad, rather than the same clamshell form factor the Mac has always had. I think we'll get there eventually, but the early rumors are that this first version is a pretty conservative device. The MacBook Air is the number one selling laptop in the world, and for good reason. It's an outstanding device with incredible performance and competitive pricing for its class of computer. I'm going to be really boring and say they'll do exactly what they did this year, and in March 2026, we'll get an M5 upgrade with no other notable changes. I think the Mac Studio will get updated this year, maybe in the summer, and it will get onto the M5 generation of chips. Yes, including an M5 Ultra. I predict the Mac Mini will get bumped to the M5 and M5 Pro in the spring, maybe at the same time as the MacBook Air. The Mac Pro will continue to linger as the $7,000 computer that ships with a 2022 chipset that's 3 generations behind the rest of the Mac line. And oh yeah, the iMac. I'm 50/50 on this one, but if I had to make a guess, I would expect this to get an M5 upgrade at some point in 2026\. I'd love to know how many of these Apple sells compared to their other Macs, because this still feels like such a weird product to me. Like a relic from the past that they keep around for a very small niche of users compared to everything else they sell. That said, they've given it M3 and M4 variants, so you gotta think it'll get an M5 edition eventually. There is an open question about displays, which isn't technically Mac hardware, but it's in the same ballpark. The Studio Display turns 4 this spring, and I'm going to be a downer and say that it will not get an upgrade in all of 2026\. I mean, they're selling a 2013 display panel for an insanely high price that comically pales in comparison to the specs in far, far cheaper monitors, so they *should* upgrade it, but my money's on it not getting touched. My impression is that Apple won't upgrade this until they can make a meaningful improvement without spiking the cost, and I don't see them doing that in today's environment. It's also not strictly Mac hardware, but the macOS story in 2026 will be an interesting one. I think two main drivers will impact this release: Tahoe's reception and touch Macs. I don't expect major changes to the design, but I do expect to see some changes to the Liquid Glass design system to feel more at home on the Mac. To me, Liquid Glass feels a bit like an ill-fitting Shapeshifter skin on top of macOS's real UI, and they should do better here. On the touch front, I expect we'll see that using macOS with touch doesn't actually require much change to the UI, since as we all know, [macOS isn't as small as you think](https://birchtree.me/blog/macos-still-isnt-as-small-as-you-think/), and actually the pundits who have suggested for years that major changes would need to be made were way overthinking things. And if I can take a major swing here, I'm going to say here and now that macOS will be available to run on the iPad Pro by the end of 2026\. This could be officially from Apple or it could be though some clever people hacking things together to make it work, but I think if you want it enough, you'll be able to do it. All in all, I think it'll be a relatively standard year for the Mac, but I think we have the potential for some real excitement with the MacBook Pro and what that means for macOS. We'll see what happens. ### + The impossible LLM standard URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-impossible-llm-standard/ Last updated: 2025-12-28T18:00:46.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Apple’s 2025 report card - iPad URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-ipad/ Last updated: 2025-12-31T19:11:47.000Z This is the second in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s 2025 across their major product lines. You can also read my iPad [2024](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2024-report-card-ipad/) and [2023](https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-2023-report-cards-ipad/) report cards. - [2025's iPhone report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-iphone/) - [2025's iPad report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-ipad/) - [2025's Mac report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-mac/) - [2025's Vision Pro report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-vision-pro/) - [2025's wearables report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-wearables/) ## iPad Pro In [yesterday's post](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-iphone/), I talked about how the smartphone is in its laptop era, and boy howdy is the iPad Pro in that era as well. After spending six long years on the same industrial design, the Pro model finally got a design and screen upgrade last year. With that in mind, it wasn't surprising that the upgrade in 2025 was a simple spec bump. The closest thing to a surprise is that we got an update at all, as the Pro routinely goes over a year without being touched. As for this upgrade specifically, the only real thing of note is the M5 processor upgrade, which makes everything a bit faster. Other than that, it's exactly the same iPad Pro as last year. I don't say that to belittle it, I just say it to reiterate that this is a laptop-style upgrade and it really only makes sense to people who need the performance bump. ## iPad Air Speaking of spec bump upgrades, the iPad Air was upgraded to an M4 this year. I'm happy to see these iterative updates across the iPad lineup, but there's not much more to say here. It's a bit faster version of the iPad Air we had before. The one thing I will mention is the display, which is plenty sharp and bright, but is criminally still running at a locked 60Hz refresh rate. All of Apple's premium iPhones do 120Hz now, and I think it's absurd that a tablet that's expensive is stuck in 2017 refresh rates. For the cheap iPad, sure, whatever, but when you're spending $600-$1,300 on a tablet, it's not exactly a budget device by anyone's definition. ## iPad Say it with me…it's a processor bump! This went from the A14 to the A16, which was a bit of a surprise, as this is the only new product in Apple's computing lineup with no support for Apple Intelligence. On the plus side, they did boost the base storage from 64GB (which was a crime) to 128GB, so that's something. ## Overall score - C This is probably the most divisive product line in 2025 from Apple. Was it great? Was it good? Was it awful? If you read enough blog posts from iPad users, you'll surely get all three answers. For my part, I think the iPad has some really good stuff going for it, and if you're a certain type of user, it's never been better, but something still feels off about the whole iPad situation. In terms of hardware, I think getting refreshes to 3 of the 4 models in the lineup is pretty good, especially since the only one to miss out (the mini) was upgraded in October 2024, so it's not criminally outdated or anything. Yes, these were all spec bumps only, but I'm not super bothered by that when the hardware is mostly really good. The iPad Pro hardware is basically perfect in my book, but lingering screen issues in the other 3 models continue to frustrate me: - iPad's non-laminated screen looks like shit (other iPads got this in 2014) - iPad Air's 60Hz screen is absurd on a premium tablet - iPad mini's jelly scroll and 60Hz combo Then there's the software, which has been divisive to say the least. For many years, iPad fans would dismiss the complaints of those who didn't like the iPad for work by saying, "just get a Mac". For the last couple years, though, it seems like Apple's software design strategy for the iPad has turned into "just make it work like the Mac". Some people love this, but I've seen more than a few vocal iPad proponents go, "ruh roh" at this year's iPadOS 26 update. I'll be honest, as a more casual iPad user these days as well, I actually agree with the critics on this one; my iPad experience is a bit more fiddly than it used to be, and the new windowing system is to blame here. Forcing me to choose between a free windowing system and never opening more than one app ever again in my life is an annoying choice to make, but it's one you need to make when upgrading to iPadOS 26\. To their credit, Apple has improved the situation in subsequent point updates this year, bringing back Slide Over and improving the gestures to enter Split Screen mode, and my Comfort Zone co-host Chris has argued that you can still do all the things you used to be able to do with split screen, but it's still more fiddly. I still find myself resizing windows to split the screen, and having the windows stick to that size when I open them on their own later and needing to tap a couple things to get it back to full screen. This isn't the worst thing in the world, and of course it does come with the power-up of being able to freely resize windows, but as an 11-inch iPad user who never uses their iPad with an external display, the multi-window feature isn't actually useful for me, so I get the minor usability downgrades to give benefits to other people. And it's not just the Pro lineup that got these new features, it's every iPad. So even iPad mini users who can't dock their iPad to a display and who would literally never get a benefit from free floating windows also get these little paper cuts to usability without any real gain. This is a long-winded way for me to say that I understand why there's some angst in this update. ## What I want/expect in 2026 You'll have to forgive me, but a few of my software predictions are going to be a bit vague (I can never quite guess what they'll do next with iPad software), but I think I can see the shape of things to come. First, just like for the last few years, the flagship updates to iPadOS 27 will be features that quite literally bring the Mac way of doing things to the iPad. Second, I think the feedback they've received from iPad users on the new windowing system will make them bring back a dedicated split screen mode that lets users get split screen and slide over without needing to adopt the free windowing mode. Third, this isn't the Mac article (that's tomorrow), but given the rumors that the first touch-capable Mac is coming in 2026, it feels like there's something there for the iPad to be involved in that story. I'm not saying we're going to get to install macOS on an iPad Pro, but I'm also not *not* saying something like that is happening. On the hardware front… - The iPad Pro will get a late-year upgrade to the M6 and no other notable hardware updates. It seems like the iPad Pro is now the default device that Apple ships their new silicon generations on day one at this point, so I think the most likely way I get this wrong is the M6 simply doesn't make 2026, but I think it'll get there. - The iPad Air will get an M5 bump, once again briefly causing "why does the iPad Pro exist?" discourse as they both have the same processor. This will frustrate me as someone who will still be annoyed the Air has a low-refresh rate display and it will frustrate Chris who values the Thunderbolt port. - The iPad mini will get an upgrade to OLED with ProMotion and will increase in price, making it a better, but somehow even more premium lil' tablet. - The base iPad will not get upgraded, landing it squarely in the "don't buy!" section of buying guides. If it does get an upgrade, I expect it to get a spec bump to a chip that supports Apple Intelligence, and this may be wishful thinking, but I also think the next upgrade will bring a laminated display to this model. I don't think I'm particularly good at predicting iPad things, so this all could be way off. We'll see! ### Apple’s 2025 report card - iPhone URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-iphone/ Last updated: 2025-12-31T19:11:54.000Z This is the first in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s 2025 across their major product lines (iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro, and wearables). You can also read iPhone [2024](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2024-report-card-iphone/) and [2023](https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-2023-report-cards-iphone/) report cards. - [2025's iPhone report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-iphone/) - [2025's iPad report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-ipad/) - [2025's Mac report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-mac/) - [2025's Vision Pro report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-vision-pro/) - [2025's wearables report card](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-2025-report-card-wearables/) ## iPhone 17 Pro I know this new Pro model isn't universally adored, but I think it's great. I would agree with the critics that it's not as beautiful as the previous Pro models, but I do think it has a unique charm and is a very practical device (shout out to everyone who demanded a more opinionated design, and when they got it, complained that it wasn’t universally adored). Add on to that the fact that battery life has improved to the point where I was able to purchase the smaller Pro phone this year and be completely happy with it in terms of battery life. That hasn't been the case since maybe the iPhone 13 Pro. From a technical perspective, I think these are really strong updates across the board as well. The A19 Pro is incredibly performant, as you might expect. The new telephoto camera is a step in the right direction, and it fills out the camera system to feel pretty great across the board. Add onto this the front-facing camera, which is now a square sensor that lets you take landscape or portrait selfies with the phone in whatever orientation you prefer. Genuinely awesome stuff. We're still early days on this phone, but I think it is shaping up to be one of the best Pro generations we've ever had. ## iPhone Air Also relatively divisive, the iPhone Air came onto the scene with a mix of desire and confusion. As I've said a few times, the passionless, objective pitch for this phone is pretty rough: "would you like to pay $200 more for less battery life, fewer cameras, and worse speakers than your current iPhone? No? Really???" But of course, the draw of the Air is not that it's a worse phone on the metrics we've long used to judge phones, it's that it's really fucking thin. I'll be the first to admit that it is striking how thin and light it is in hand, to the point where even though I personally get more value from the Pro model, I find myself using the Air now and again because it is so cool. I'm lucky enough to be at a point in my life where I have my pick of the best phones and I can just use what I like the most, and I think it says something that this phone has a draw on me even though it's objectively worse on several metrics. Also, I can't say this enough, this is a different sort of new phone than the iPhone X was in 2017\. Check out [the Apple compare page](https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone-x,iphone-8,iphone-7&ref=birchtree.me) to see how the iPhone X was an upgrade in every single way over the other iPhones on the market at the time. It wasn't paying more to get a cooler design with compromises, it was paying more to get a cooler design *and* better specs across the board. Finally, one real draw for this phone for me is that the screen size is in a really happy medium between the Pro and Pro Max models. 6.5" in a fatter screen is really nice for me, and the iPhone Air gets me that. ## iPhone 17 The absolute glow up of the year, the iPhone 17 is a real banger, and it all comes down to the screen in my opinion. All three flagship iPhones got the same ProMotion display, and I can't stress how much this makes the lineup feel more premium this year. Add onto that a 36% YoY battery life jump (that's huge), the same square selfie camera as the Pro and Air, 48MP ultra-wide camera, doubled 256GB base storage, smaller bezels, and all this without a price increase, which many of us were expecting. Great "standard" iPhone this year, even if the Pro models continue to be the best-selling model line. ## iPhone 16e The red-haired step-child of the iPhone released this year, the iPhone 16e has been razzed all year long, but I stand by my initial assessment that it's a very strong base iPhone for people who want an iPhone that will last for a long time, but don't want to spend top dollar. Did you know the [iPhone 16e was the 4th best-selling smartphone](https://counterpointresearch.com/en/insights/global-smartphone-sales-top-10-best-sellers?ref=birchtree.me) in the world in Q3 2025? Yup, bigger than every single Android phone made by anyone. That said, I do understand why it felt a little too stripped-down for the price. The lack of MagSafe is the one that puts it over the edge in my opinion, and rumors of that coming back to the 17e is encouraging. That said, compared to buying an older iPhone 15 or 14 Pro for similar prices come with some upgrades such as cameras and displays (at least on the 14 Pro), but those also come with trade-offs (2 generations worse performance, less battery life, Lightning on the 14 Pro, weight, no Apple Intelligence) as well. All that said, it's not the best phone, and it's not the phone for me, but it's the first time in many years that I've been able to look at the "SE" phone in Apple's lineup and actually say it's a reasonable purchase. ## Overall score - A I think you could argue this is a B year for the iPhone because outside maybe the iPhone Air, there wasn't anything exceptionally innovative in the lineup, but in my book, smartphones are past their pure excitement era and are in their "laptop era". Each update is more iterative than before, and that's okay. We're 18 years into the iPhone era, and it honestly would be insane if the hardware and software changed as much year-on-year as it did at the beginning. Obviously we're not at the end of the line and there is innovation to come, but as far as slab-style phones go, we're filing down rough edges and creating change for the sake of change (aluminum is the best! Now steel is the best! No, titanium is the best! J/k, aluminum is the best again!). In that world, the fact we got 4 new iPhones this year and all of them were meaningful upgrades over what came before, is pretty impressive. Rumors have it that we're going to get a folding iPhone in 2026, and that will surely shake things up, but right now all I can think of is Jony Ive in the iPhone 8 introduction video describing that phone as the final, purest form of the original iPhone design. I feel that way about the latest iPhones for the iPhone X generation of phones. We may be on the cusp of something new, but that just means that we're really freaking good at making the old stuff, so I think any of the iPhones released in 2025 are great buys no matter what iPhone you're coming from or what your budget is. ## What I want/expect in 2026 I hope 2026 is the year of new form factors for Apple products, and the folding iPhone would be the biggest move Apple could make in that regard. Now, Samsung has been shipping folding phones to the public since 2019 and I know several people who have used them and loved them for several years, so it's not like Apple is first here, but I'm fascinated to see how they handle the UI on this sort of device. The recent rumors that it's going to be a quite small folding phone also intrigues me, and wonders if the wealthy people who loved the iPhone mini will finally have something that they can enjoy again. This might be a dangerous assumption, but if we do indeed get a folding iPhone this year, I think the rest of the lineup will be more boring (again, in the laptop era, that's not a terrible thing). Frankly, the updates this year set this up nicely. The Pro models got a design refresh, so they'll probably stay the same, but get new colors (my money's on a deep purple model as well as the return of a space black model). The iPhone Air doesn't have a number attached to it, which everyone has assumed meant it would not get annual updates (for now), and I would agree that we won't see a new model in 2026. Similarly, I agree with the rumors that suggest Apple will split the iPhone 18 and 18 Pro launches, with the Pros coming out in September and the non-Pros coming in early 2027\. I'd expect this to lead to the Pro line selling an even higher proportion of the overall lineup as people who can't wait for the spring will just spend a bit more and get the Pro for the first time in a while. I know it’s not quite the same as it once was, but this would mark the first time since 2006 that a “standard iPhone” wasn’t released. And I would expect the iPhone 17e to be the first iPhone we get in the year, coming in the spring and sporting the A19 processor, MagSafe, and the same design as the current model. Criticisms will remain, the base storage will stay at 128GB, the colors will stay the same, and the $599 price point will be a bit too much for people. As for the folding phone, all I can do are make guesses, so here's some shots in the dark: - The name will be iPhone Ultra (or maybe the Folio if they’re feeling wild) - The phone will fold like a book, not like a flip phone - The outside display will be the smallest iPhone display since the iPhone 13 mini - The internal display will allow split view and picture-in-picture (no slide over, no free windows) - No Apple Pencil support, but there will be a new stylus specifically for the iPhone - The crease is still visible, but it’s marginally better than the current Samsung standard - Starting price $1,999 - Storage will start at 256GB - There will be 2 cameras on the back, wide and ultrawide - Battery life has 2 advertised numbers from Apple, one for screen open and closed. One of them will be "the best battery life of any iPhone ever" - Camera Control is here, but lacks sliding gestures (applies to all iPhones going forward) - Apps run in iPad layouts on the internal display, further blurring the lines between what iPhone, iPad, or Mac apps are Now, if the folding phone doesn't happen this year, I guess they'll have to spice up the rest of the lineup, but I think this is actually the year of the folding iPhone. ### How to enable ProMotion 120Hz mode in Safari (Mac, iPhone, and iPad) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/how-to-enable-120hz-mode-in-safari-mac-iphone-and-ipad/ Last updated: 2026-01-16T14:45:03.000Z Today I learned something amazing: Safari supports higher than 60Hz refresh. It's the only mainstream web browser that doesn't, and I have never understood why, but apparently as of the end of 2025 in Safari version 26.3 (and maybe earlier) you can enable it. Here's how to do it. *Disclaimer that this may cause issues, but I can't imagine what. The entire web has already run at higher refresh rates for years, so unless this breaks something in Safari specifically, you should be fine.* ## Mac Go to Safari's Settings (via the menu or with `Command + ,`. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-26-at-15.37.22@2x.png) Make sure developer mode is enabled (this won't break things, it just exposes some more UI, such as the very basic ability to inspect HTML, like every other browser). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-26-at-15.40.21@2x-1.png) Go to Feature Flags on the far right. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-26-at-15.38.17@2x.png) Search for "60fps" ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-26-at-15.41.44@2x.png) Turn off the "Prefer Page Rendering Updates near 60fps" feature. Restart Safari. When you reopen it, website should render at up to your display's max refresh rate. ## iPhone and iPad This is very similar to the Mac flow, except you don't need to enable developer mode. 1. Open the Settings app 2. Tap "Apps" (hear the bottom) 3. Tap Safari 4. Tap "Advanced" (bottom) 5. Tap "Feature Flags" (bottom) 6. Scroll to "Prefer Page Rendering Updates near 60fps" and disable it 7. Force quit Safari and reopen it ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/IMG_9329.PNG) Find Apps in Settings ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/IMG_9331.PNG) Go into Safari's settings ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/IMG_9332.PNG) Advanced is at the bottom ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/IMG_9333.PNG) Feature Flags is at the bottom as well ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/IMG_9334.PNG) Find the setting and turn it off ### What if we ended the "podcast"? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/what-if-we-ended-the-podcast/ Last updated: 2025-12-26T13:49:05.000Z Andru Marino writing for The Verge: [It’s finally time to retire the word ‘podcast’](https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/842457/podcast-show-name-change?ref=birchtree.me) > In 2026, instead of trying to define [what a podcast is](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-03-13/the-growing-battle-over-how-to-define-a-podcast?ref=birchtree.me), I think we need to stop using the word altogether. “Podcast” is becoming an outdated or even a potentially cringe internet relic, similar to how the phrase “web series” faded from use online. Honestly, I don't disagree with this. I've found the "*actually*, if it's not audio-only and available via RSS for free, it's not a podcast" argument exhausting for as long as it's been happening. Marino posits that "shows" is a better way to describe these things, and I agree. It's a more broad term, but I think it better captures what is happening in the space. Here's an example of how annoying I find the current "podcast" argument. Every week, Niléane, Chris, and I sit down and talk for about 90 minutes, cameras and microphones recording every moment. Chris edits it, and exports it twice: once as a video file and once as an audio file. The audio file gets uploaded to our podcast host and the video file gets uploaded to YouTube. We unquestionably recorded one piece of "content" and Chris edited one "show" but what were we doing when we recorded? Were we podcasting? Were we doing something else? To me, we'e making a show, and that show can be enjoyed (or hate-listened to, if you're nasty) in podcast apps, in video on YouTube, or even in audio on YouTube…it's all fluid. I'm fine with it staying "podcast" as well. After all, we all have a "phone" in our pocket, even though that's a pretty old fashioned way to describe the function of that product as well. ### + The sequel trilogy… URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-sequel-trilogy/ Last updated: 2025-12-20T16:00:44.000Z In which I calmly explain what I think caused all of the problems with the Star Wars sequel trilogy. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### LLMs can be poisoned URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/llms-can-be-poisoned/ Last updated: 2025-12-19T16:59:59.000Z From the Anthropic blog: [A small number of samples can poison LLMs of any size](https://www.anthropic.com/research/small-samples-poison?ref=birchtree.me) > It remains unclear how far this trend will hold as we keep scaling up models. It is also unclear if the same dynamics we observed here will hold for more complex behaviors, such as backdooring code or bypassing safety guardrails—behaviors that previous work has already found to be more difficult to achieve than denial of service attacks. I'm sharing this because I've seen it posted a few times on social as proof that LLMs are fundamentally flawed, but reading past the headline reveals a much more nuanced finding. Basically, this is something to be aware of if you're building LLMs and to protect against, but it's not exactly a deal-breaker. ### When your Apple ID gets banned… URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/when-your-apple-id-gets-banned/ Last updated: 2025-12-19T14:59:59.000Z Last Friday, Paris Buttfield-Addison posted [20 Years of Digital Life, Gone in an Instant, thanks to Apple](https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/?ref=birchtree.me), which kind of blew up. > A major brick-and-mortar store sold an Apple Gift Card that Apple seemingly took offence to, and locked out my entire Apple ID, effectively bricking my devices and my iCloud Account, Apple Developer ID, and everything associated with it, and I have no recourse. Yeah, effectively, they got a $500 Apple gift card, tried to add it to their account, and this triggered a high enough severity fraud alert in Apple's system that it automatically locked their Apple account. Not good. The post is a good reminder of how tied to these large companies we really are. I assume most people reading this post have an Apple account, and it's a good exercise to consider how much of your digital life would become inaccessible if you suddenly lost access to that account. Would you lose all your photos? All of your contacts? All of your files? Obviously, the odds of you losing access to your Apple account are exceptionally low, and Buttfield-Addison's experience is the exception, but I think it is a good reminder that completely benign behavior can occasionally lead to serious consequences you would not see coming. This leads me to three main thoughts on the topic. First, companies like Apple and Google have over 1 billion users, and their automated systems are likely correct far more often than they are wrong, and I don't think they need to go away. However, a good appeals process is necessary to have, and what happened in this person's case is not ideal. How would someone without a blog and ability to reach an audience have gotten this solved? Second, when you're locked out of your Apple ID, you should be able to download effectively everything from your account. This would mean that if I was locked out of my Apple ID, maybe I wouldn't be able to use it or add new data to that account. But if I still was able to authenticate, I should be able to download my photos, my files, and other relevant information that I may want to get out. This would make it so that even if I wasn't able to get the attention that this person did and resolve the issue, at least I could still get a backup of my information. And third, I strongly think that everyone should have some level of redundancy in as much of their digital life as they can. Photos are the big one that I think everyone should be considering. A lot of the things on my computer can be replaced or recreated if they're lost, but not my photos; I can never recreate those moments that I've captured. I personally treat Apple Photos as my de facto photo library, and it works great, but for many years, I had Google Photos also backing up those images, which gave me a second online backup. In the event that my Apple ID was locked, I would still have all of my photos in Google. Since getting a Synology NAS last year, I've actually switched that to having the Synology Photos app automatically back up my photo library to the NAS so that I have local access to all of my photos. Now those photos aren't tied to any online account, they're literally on a hard drive in my house. Consider what's important to you and figure out a solution that works for you. --- This story has a happy ending, with Buttfield-Addison posting an update yesterday: > We’re back! A lovely man from Singapore, working for Apple Executive Relations, who has been calling me every so often for a couple of days, has let me know it’s all fixed. It looks like the gift card I tried to redeem, which did not work for me, and did not credit my account, was already redeemed in some way (sounds like classic gift card tampering), and my account was caught by that. Obviously it’s unacceptable that this can happen, and I’m still trying to get more information out of him, but at least things are now mostly working. Great news, but again, would someone without a blog and a few thousand social media followers have been able to get here? I don't know… ### Ghostty goes non-profit URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ghostty-goes-non-profit/ Last updated: 2025-12-19T14:59:59.000Z Mitchell Hashimoto: [Ghostty Is Now Non-Profit](https://mitchellh.com/writing/ghostty-non-profit?ref=birchtree.me) > I believe infrastructure of this kind should be stewarded by a mission-driven, non-commercial entity that prioritizes public benefit over private profit. That structure increases trust, encourages adoption, and creates the conditions for Ghostty to grow into a widely used and impactful piece of open-source infrastructure. I love Ghostty, it's my favorite terminal emulator by a mile, and I'm happy to see Hashimoto commit to it being a net good for the world. ### Streaming music is the lie we tell each other URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/streaming-music-is-the-lie-we-tell-each-other/ Last updated: 2025-12-19T01:53:26.000Z Stephanie Vee: [Delete Spotify? Sure, But Don't Just Replace it With Another Subscription](https://stephvee.ca/blog/entertainment/delete-spotify-sure-but-dont-just-replace-it-with-another-subscription/?ref=birchtree.me) > streaming music sucks for almost everyone involved. I believe we only do it because we’ve allowed ourselves to be convinced that renting music indefinitely is cheaper than purchasing it outright – especially since streaming companies grant us the equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet with our subscriptions. Spoilers for an upcoming [Cozy Zone](https://www.macstories.net/comfort-zone/?ref=birchtree.me) episode, but I've come to the conclusion that streaming music platforms are a shared lie we all agree to that suggests we're paying for music when we're actually may as well be pirating it, we just pay $10 a month to keep the cops away. > To me, a music streaming subscription only really makes sense if you’re at that impressionable stage of your life where you still live and breathe new music – or if you’re one of those rare people who continue to seek out new music as you age. As for the rest of us? I think we should maybe just own our shit and stop paying tech CEOs to rent it. Chances are, I’ll still be rocking out to Hot Fuss in my retirement home, so why should I rent it from the likes of Daniel Ek for the next four decades (or longer)? As one of the seemingly rare 40-year-olds who still checks the new music releases every week, this resonates with me as well. I kind of feel like I want to buy all of the music I listen to in 2026…we'll see. ### Oops, I made a benchmark URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/oops-i-made-a-benchmark/ Last updated: 2025-12-18T23:32:39.000Z I didn't really set out to do it, but my [Quick Subtitles](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) app actually makes for a pretty interesting benchmark tool. Back in October I [compared](https://birchtree.me/blog/not-all-a19-pros-are-the-same/) sustained performance between the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air by using the app's batch feature, but it wasn't much work to tweak that feature to build a bespoke benchmarking mode into the app, so that's what I did. ## The test This benchmark is pretty simple, you give it an audio or video file and it transcribes the file using Apple's on-device language model over and over and over again. I maxed everything out by giving it a Cozy Zone podcast episode to transcribe 20 times in a row. After each run, it logs how many words per minute it transcribed in that specific run, and begins again. To be clear, this is a very specific benchmark that tests the performance of a combination of features of the system on a chip, including the neural engine, CPU, and memory. This is not a wide ranging, general benchmark. But that's not what I'm using it for, I'm using it in this case to test thermal throttling. See, whatever combination of components this tests, it generates heat…a lot of heat. **I wanted to know how quickly each device would thermally throttle. When it did throttle, how much performance did it lose?** ## **iPhone 16e** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/iPhone-16e.png) This is the one you're probably least interested in, but here's our baseline. - A18 processor, 6-core CPU and 4-core GPU As we can see, the first transcript hit 170 words per second, and by the 4th one we were about as throttled as we could get. Performance was around 66-70% of the max performance most of the run. ## iPhone Air ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/iPhone-Air.jpeg) The iPhone Air is where things get more interesting. - A19 Pro processor, 6-core CPU and 5-core GPU This one was basically the same exact story, just with a higher starting point. We started at a very good 208 words per second to begin, but by the 4th run we were bottoming out around 130 words per second, or about 62% of the max performance. ## iPhone 17 Pro ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/iPhone-17-Pro.jpeg) Here's where we get to see the benefit of a vapor chamber. - A19 Pro processor, 6-core CPU and 6-core GPU This one starts at a highest-yet first run of 217 words per second, dropping to 151 in the 20th and final run. That's a drop to 70% of the performance, but you can see a pretty linear trend as it gets marginally slower each time. What this tells me is that the vapor chamber is doing some good work, but since it's not active cooling, it's just passive cooling, eventually we still get pretty darn hot and need to throttle. These last two were especially interesting because back [in October I did a similar test](https://birchtree.me/blog/not-all-a19-pros-are-the-same/), and I suspected that the Air was indeed throttling due to worse thermals, but I didn't have enough granular data to prove it. I think this test shows pretty conclusively that its raw performance at this workload is comparable to the Pro phones, but only for a couple minutes. ## MacBook Pro ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/MacBook-Pro.png) Now let's get kind of unfair and bring a freaking laptop to the shootout. - M4 Pro, 14-code CPU and 20-core GPU There are a couple notable things with this test. First, in terms of throttling, buddy this thing doesn't throttle. Outside of the first run, which was oddly a bit slower than the rest, every single other test was almost exactly 227 words per second. And second, while this is objectively faster than the iPhones, it's not that much faster. Its fastest time was only 5% faster than the iPhone 17 Pro's best time, which is pretty remarkable for the phone. Basically, if you need to transcribe a one-hour podcast, your phone and Mac will be about the same speed doing it, but if you need to transcribe a season all at once, do that on the Mac. ## iPad Pro ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/IMG_0439.jpeg) While were at it, how about an iPad Pro as well? - M4 processor This looks just like the MacBook Pro chart: completely steady (besides an odd dip in the middle). --- Benchmark mode will be in a [Quick Subtitles](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609?ref=birchtree.me) update, which should be out before the end of the year. Shameless plug…More Birchtree subscribers get beta access to all of my apps, and it should be in the beta in the next day or two (depending on App Review time, which yes, also impacts TestFlight). ### The Information has some information on Apple's 2026 lineup URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-information-has-some-information-on-apples-2026-lineup/ Last updated: 2025-12-17T19:22:00.000Z [The Information had a new report](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/inside-apples-iphone-road-map-foldable-screens-curved-glass-cases?ref=birchtree.me) out this week that has a bunch of info about some upcoming Apple products. I'm not one to shy away from paying for news, but I still haven't been able to justify $1,000 per year, so thankfully MacRumors summarized the news for me. Here's my quick reactions to each item. ## iPhone 17e > Specifically, the report said the iPhone 17e will support "magnetic wireless charging," which implies that the device will feature MagSafe for faster, magnetic wireless charging I'm an iPhone 16e defender, but I think that MagSafe is the straw that broke the camel's back on this thing for a lot of people. The notch and single camera are sacrifices, but in my opinion, it's the lack of MagSafe that really pushed this over the edge to make a lot of people consider it a bad deal. The price might still be a bit high, but I strongly feel that the lack of MagSafe made this phone *feel* cheap. ## Folding iPhone > Apple's first foldable iPhone will be equipped with a 7.7-inch inner display, and a 5.3-inch outer display Now this is interesting. Both the Samsung and Google folding phones have 6.5" external displays and 8" internal displays. That means their external displays are very much like a normal phone (the iPhone Air is that size). Apple going with a 5.3" external display is really, really interesting. The iPhone 13 mini had a 5.4" screen, and it felt like an absolute baby, and apparently this one will be marginally smaller. Yikes! Those who love small phones for their deep pockets, this might be a dream device. ## iPhone Air 2 > Apple is apparently considering adding a second rear camera to the device And: > the report said Apple is considering lower pricing for the iPhone Air 2 I think both of these would help this phone immensely. The sales pitch for the iPhone Air is quite literally, "pay more to get less," and I don't think anyone should be surprised to hear that isn't the most compelling pitch to most people. And again, this is totally different than the iPhone X, which was an upgrade over the cheaper phones in literally every single spec from display to cameras to battery life: you paid more to get more. As I I've been saying for a year now (I predicted it on Comfort Zone), I don't think the iPhone Air will be a middle ground iPhone for long, I think Apple's vision for it is to be the "normal iPhone" and they want to work the base iPhone out of the lineup. The only reason it wasn't that this year is because they couldn't get the features and price where they needed them to be (aka literally the situation the MacBook Air was in before it took over the MacBook's position as the entry-level Mac laptop). These changes would get them closer to being able to do that with the iPhone. ## Camera Control > Apple plans to remove touch sensitivity and haptic feedback from the Camera Control on the standard iPhone 18 model, which suggests that it will be removing the button's capacitive layer. The report did not say if this change will extend to the iPhone 18 Pro models, but it seems likely for consistency. This was already a rumor floating around out there, and the more we hear it the more likely it seems. I think Camera Control will go down much like 3D Touch: a cool, over-engineered feature that some people like, but most people find to be way too much and therefore will be retired shortly after being introduced. Cards on the table, I was a 3D Touch fanboy, and I actively dislike the Camera Control gestures. ### Quick Reviews receives an unexpected award URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reviews-receives-an-unexpected-award/ Last updated: 2025-12-17T01:59:08.000Z Quick Reviews just won the [MacStories Selects](https://www.macstories.net/stories/macstories-selects-2025-recognizing-the-best-apps-of-the-year/?ref=birchtree.me) Best New App award, and I'm over the moon about it! I honestly didn't seen this coming at all, and I genuinely teared up just a bit when I saw the news. Yes, yes, awards aren't the end-all-be-all and there are plenty of great new apps this year, but it's so nice to see an app that I made mostly for myself has made other people happy as well. I like Jonathan Reed's writeup on the blog: > Like Matt’s other apps, [Quick Reviews](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reviews/id6740369719?ref=birchtree.me) is a simple concept that’s well thought out and executed, making it a joy to use. It’s now part of my movie-watching ritual, and I suspect that’s the case for many others. It’s a pleasure to be able to name Quick Reviews the Best New App of 2025. And I also appreciated this from [Federico and John on AppStories](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGI6XvQXD2I&ref=birchtree.me): > Federico: I think what's especially nice about it is that it is the kind of utility that is focused, that is made by a new indie developer for Apple platforms, and is focused on people…on people enjoying art made by other people. > > John: Which is a positive spin that can be shared on social media. The thing I think is too easy on social media is to share hot takes, complaints, and gripes, and with Matt's app, you can share things you love, which I really think makes all of social media a better place for everyone. Well, this is where I remind you to [check out Quick Reviews for iOS here](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-reviews/id6740369719?ref=birchtree.me). It's free to use, but $10/year gets you Magic Mode which autofills a bunch of metadata for you, (one-way) Letterboxd sync, and a simple year in review image generator. ### Times New Roman, Calibri, and who accessibility is for (hint: all of us) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/times-new-roman-calibri-and-who-accessibility-is-for-hint-all-of-us/ Last updated: 2025-12-16T21:38:32.000Z In what might be a first for the platform, Jonathan Hoefler posted [an insightful thread](https://www.threads.com/@jonathanhoefler/post/DSTU5mfgNOj?xmt=AQF0CqN8KSg4Wffb7q38DetXcsKaydgTCgPSV3Xeo95Y-A&ref=birchtree.me) on Threads about a topic in which he is an expert and didn't make it vapid engagement bait. It's about the Times New Roman vs Calibri debate and how asinine basically all of it is, but it ends with this bit that I love: > if there *are* circumstances in which one typeface is easier to read for immigrants with disabilities, chances are it will be equally beneficial to middle-aged white guys with fancy eyeglasses. This is the message I try to share are widely as possible. I hate it when people say that "some people need accessibility," which is something I heard a lot this summer in the liquid glass discourse. Accessibility is not putting white text on a white background…how dark you need to make the text to be legible varies from person to person, but there's no point along the way where you go from "normal people" to "people who need accessibility features". Proper text contrast lets everyone read easier. Keyboard shortcuts allow anyone to navigate interfaces how they want. Consistent, obvious UI helps everyone understand how their software works. --- On a related note, I liked this post from Steven Aquino: **Times New Rubio:** > Typographical nerdery notwithstanding, however, what I take away from Rubio’s directive is simple: he cares not one iota for people with disabilities, just like [his boss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX9reO3QnUA&ref=birchtree.me). Whether Times New Roman, Calibri, or something else is the best font for the most people in official documents is interesting, but come on, inclusivity isn't exactly a top priority for this government. ### Stealing your AI chats URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/stealing-your-ai-chats/ Last updated: 2025-12-16T12:00:26.000Z Idan Dardikman writing on the Koi blog, [8 Million Users' AI Conversations Sold for Profit by "Privacy" Extensions](https://www.koi.ai/blog/urban-vpn-browser-extension-ai-conversations-data-collection?ref=birchtree.me), documents how "Urban VPN Proxy" is potentially harvesting your chats with 10 major LLMs. The extension is used across millions of users on Chrome and has 10k reviews on the iOS App Store (the post covers the Chrome extension, but there's no reason this wouldn't work on iOS as well, they just can't inspect what's happening on iOS like they can on the web…another point for the open web 😉). Setting aside the contrived setup they had for this post, from what I can tell, it's a good case study in what software is capable of doing on your computer. Also that you don't just get privacy just by installing a VPN…at best, a VPN just means you're trusting your behavior with the VPN company. Also, I gotta say, it's yet another example of a problem framed with AI, but it really an issue with traditional software. Just sayin'. ### "Trump derangement syndrome" URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/trump-derangement-syndrome/ Last updated: 2025-12-16T00:35:22.000Z The widely adored Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered (seemingly by their son) over the weekend, and [this is what he said](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115724141568860081?ref=birchtree.me) in reaction to the news: > A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace! Someone is deranged here, but it's the sad sack in the White House. ### Bye, bye, Face ID URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/bye-bye-face-id/ Last updated: 2025-12-15T20:51:43.000Z There are [some new potential leaks](https://www.macrumors.com/2025/12/15/leak-reveals-foldable-iphone-details/?ref=birchtree.me) about the upcoming folding iPhone, and this bit stood out to me: > The leaker claims Apple has chosen not to include 3D [Face ID](https://www.macrumors.com/guide/mask-face-id/?ref=birchtree.me) hardware or a 3D ultrasonic under-display fingerprint sensor, as both systems would add internal volume and complicate efforts to slim down the device. This was rumored before, so this isn't exactly breaking new ground, but the more I hear it, the more likely it seems to be. Depth could be the issue here, although they solved this on the iPhone Air with the camera plateau, and one would think that the folding phone would have a plateau as well. Maybe they'll be filling that one with more cameras and therefore there wouldn't be space for the full set of Face ID components? I guess it could be a cost issue, but honestly, this thing is going to be super expensive, so I don't see why they'd be pinching pennies here. Also: > For the external display, the leaker claims Apple is using a 5.25-inch panel with a punch-hole camera implemented via a HIAA (Hole-In-Active-Area) design, a technique that minimizes inactive screen space around the cutout. It is unclear what will happen to the Dynamic Island in both instances. Losing the dynamic island as well would be a real annoyance as well. Or would it…honestly I'm not sure. I know that the whole feature is a clever attempt to take a negative (needing a larger camera cutout than other phones because of your Face ID feature) and turning it into a positive with some neat functionality. I love having timers and sports scores up there, and it's even nice to be able to quickly get to my music/podcast app in a single tap no matter what else I'm doing on my phone, so losing it, even if it meant having a smaller camera cutout, would feel like a bit of a compromise. Does removing Face ID mean Apple gets to do the smaller cutout they've always wanted to do? TLDR: I'm torn. What excites me about this device combined with the rumored touch-enabled Macs coming in 2026 is that there's going to be some meaningful change in Apple hardware in a way we haven't seen in a while. iPhones that turn into iPads. Macs that turn into iPads. And iPads that…well, I guess they're just gonna be iPads for a while longer. ### Why hasn't the desktop UI evolved in years? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/why-hasnt-the-desktop-ui-evolved-in-years/ Last updated: 2025-12-15T14:59:55.000Z H I really enjoyed this talk by Scott Jenson, who did UX at Apple and Google, and now works with Mastodon. Here's a few choice quotes I jotted down while watching: > There are already 36 window management systems, we don't need a 37th. And this about iPadOS 26: > The fact that they make you pick your window manager when you boot is the ultimate UX sin. And this about liquid glass: > Who doesn't love liquid glass? If your big claim to fame with your operating system is that you have some fancy, shiny pixels, you've really lost the plot. And this critical bit about why one device selling more units doesn't mean it is better for everything: > Mobile won consumers, but it didn't win productivity. And he mentions that the original Macintosh had a screen the same physical size as the iPad mini. Yes, the Mac windowing UI originated on a screen as big as the tiniest iPad…an iPad that many suggest is too small to support windows at all today. Anyway, it's a really great talk, and I've just scratched the surface with these quotes, so I highly recommend you make a little time for it. ### My crazy 2026 prediction (it involves Linux) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-crazy-2026-prediction-it-involves-linux/ Last updated: 2025-12-12T15:45:34.000Z I'm not saying 2026 will be "the year of Linux on the desktop," but it **will** be the year that people like me pull the trigger on a Linux installation on their gaming PC. I just think there's been a years-long bubbling up of frustration among gamers about how terrible Windows is and how misaligned Microsoft seems to be with their needs. Today there are options, and you could install basically any Linux distro and cobble together a gaming setup that works reasonably well, but it's more work and clunkiness than most people are willing to deal with. All these people need is an easy-to-use, obvious place to go. Meanwhile, Valve has put in tons of work over the last 10 years making Windows games run pretty great on Linux, and is releasing the Steam Machine, their desktop/console device that will run a flavor of Linux. Based on my experience with the Steam Deck, it should be pretty great. My prediction is there will be a slightly modified version of that Linux distro made available for general PCs, which will be easy to install and go some level of viral in 2026\. And by viral, I mean enough people will do it that The Verge will write an article about how gamers are flocking to this Windows alternative. I think the odds of this happening increase significantly if we can get NVIDIA drivers working much better than they do now. I haven't tried Linux on my Intel/NVIDIA system, but my understanding is that AMD GPUs work better than NVIDIA ones in the Linux distros that are out now. But NVIDIA has a much bigger portion of the gaming market, so, if we can get better support for ray tracing and DLSS in Linux, that's going to make this a more compelling thing for PC gamers. ### My pet peeve with traditional publishing URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-pet-peeve-with-traditional-publishing/ Last updated: 2025-12-11T21:29:10.000Z Founded in 2011, The Verge is an exceptionally modern publisher in the grand scheme of things, but its writing style is pretty traditional. More specifically, its policy towards putting links in in articles is old school and irks me to no end. Take [this article](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/842529/openai-gpt-5-2-new-model-chatgpt?ref=birchtree.me) from today about the release of GPT 5.2: > In the blog post, OpenAI also said GPT-5.2 is better for AI agents’ workflows — part of the ever-intensifying battle between AI companies to offer the [most efficient and useful AI agents](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/841156/ai-companies-aaif-anthropic-mcp-model-context-protocol?ref=birchtree.me). That particular quote isn't super relevant to my post, but it helps illustrate my point. I mentioned a Verge article, I clearly linked to it, and you can read it yourself if you'd like. The Verge's post gets this reporting from OpenAI's blog post, and they reference it a few times, but they never link to it. They do have 6 links in their post, but: - 4 of them go to other The Verge articles - 1 goes to The Information - 1 goes to The Wall Street Journal Nothing in what they wrote lets you get to the OpenAI blog post they're referencing ([here it is](https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-5-2/?ref=birchtree.me), if you wanted to read it). Why? I appreciate that if they are a primary source on a story, as in they got a statement from OpenAI for them to report on, then that makes sense. But in this case they're reporting on someone else's post. It just seems like if you're reporting on something someone else posted online, you ought to link to it. --- *Posted as a happy, paid subscriber to The Verge, but this gets in my craw.* ### + What is easy is boring URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/what-is-easy-is-boring/ Last updated: 2025-12-11T13:59:59.000Z Once something becomes easy for anyone to do, it stops being interesting. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### More on Spotify metrics URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/more-on-spotify-metrics/ Last updated: 2025-12-11T00:15:11.000Z Based on [the best data I can find](https://sqmagazine.co.uk/spotify-user-statistics?ref=birchtree.me), last year Spotify had 602 million active users as of early 2025, with about 42% of those users being paid subscribers (less than half!). Additionally, 2/3 of the people on premium are on it with some sort of incentive that gets them access for free or at a discounted rate (usually something like bundled in with their cell service). And [according to this data](https://www.amraandelma.com/spotify-ad-statistics/?ref=birchtree.me#:~:text=AD%20STATISTICS%20%2310.-,Premium%20Revenue%202024%3A%20%E2%82%AC13.82%20Billion,king%20in%20terms%20of%20revenue.), only about 12% of their revenue comes from advertising. Put another way, 58% of Spotify's users account for 12% of the revenue. Put still another way (and if my ballpark math is right), if a Spotify subscription is $10 per month: - A third of the premium subscribers are paying $10 - Two-thirds of premium subscribers are generating some amount less than $10 - Free users are generating about $1 Now, I'm sure these metrics are somehow off a bit, but you get the idea. If a free user especially contributes about $12 to Spotify over a year and listens to thousands of songs by hundreds of artists, how exactly would you split that $12 up in a way that's fair to all those artists? ### It's just technology URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/its-just-technology/ Last updated: 2025-12-10T14:00:15.000Z Richard Stallman in [Reasons not to use ChatGPT](https://www.stallman.org/chatgpt.html?ref=birchtree.me) > I call it a ["bullshit generator"](https://gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html?ref=birchtree.me#ArtificialIntelligence) because it [generates output "with indifference to the truth"](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5?ref=birchtree.me). We are three years into the ChatGPT era, and I feel as confident as I have at any point in those last three years that, while Large Language Models (LLMs) are a serious and notable technology advancement, they are more of a normal technology than many give them credit for. On one end, you have people who think LLMs are truly intelligent and we're just 6 months away from becoming God. On the other end, you have people who think it's absolute fluff that nobody actually wants. I don't know the author of the post I was referencing, but it certainly sounds like they are more on the latter side of this dichotomy. I quoted the specific line about "indifference to the truth" because it's one that I constantly see from the anti-LLM crowd: the idea that these models "don't actually know anything," and I cannot express to you enough how little I care about that critique. Yes, I will agree with you that neither ChatGPT, nor Claude, nor Gemini, nor anything currently available **knows** anything in a conscious sense, but that doesn't mean I don't find them useful. Does a spreadsheet "know" anything? No. Does HTTP "know" things? Absolutely not. That doesn't mean those technologies are useless either. As ever, I feel like the people on either end of me are looking at LLMs as if they're magic, and some think that magic is good and others think it's bad. It's just normal technology, people. Computers haven't had to understand what they were doing before and they don't have to now. ### More on the messy economics of streaming music URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/more-on-the-messy-economics-of-streaming-music/ Last updated: 2025-12-09T23:29:02.000Z Earlier today [I wrote](https://birchtree.me/blog/pay-per-stream-is-a-messy-metric/) about why I think the pay-per-stream metric is a bad singular reference point, and doubly so when it's used as a cudgel in the fanboy wars to show why your brand is better than someone else's brand. Jason Dettbarn, who is closer to the music industry than me, [wrote up a reply](https://www.crucialtracks.org/quitting-spotify-ethics-and-pay-per-stream/?ref=birchtree.me) at his Crucial Tracks blog: > I get that bands currently make more money on Spotify in total, but if bands/fans/etc. keep advocating and the listening behavior switches to better paying services (or forces Spotify to pay more), then that's a good thing. This is a fair retort. Putting pressure on Spotify to increase the payout pool and reduce their profits is worth doing. My intention was more to point out that when people pay in so little for access to all the music in the world, and when many millions more pay zero for access to that music, there's simply not enough money to pay all the artists all they deserve. What I especially liked in their post was a [link to this](https://loscampesinos.com/heres-how-much-money-los-camp-make-from-streaming/?ref=crucialtracks.org) from Los Campesinos! (a band I love) where they shared their streaming music revenue as well. > It being Streaming Stat Season, I thought now would be a good time to offer a detailed breakdown of how much money we make from our music being streamed. Hell yeah, transparency like this helps demystify the world and lets people set more realistic expectations for how much money is being made out there. I was doubly happy when I saw they shared raw totals from each platform as well as the per-stream rates. Here's how their revenue broke down for streams of their newest album: | | Streams | Income | % of total streams | Income per stream | | ----------- | --------- | ---------- | ------------------ | ----------------- | | **Spotify** | 6,970,117 | £20,428.50 | 74.94% | 0.29p | | **Apple** | 1,373,111 | £6,496.50 | 14.76% | 0.47p | | **YouTube** | 352,615 | £1,494.42 | 3.79% | 0.42p | | **Tidal** | 192,958 | £1,440.14 | 2.07% | 0.75p | | **Amazon** | 170,361 | £1,159.62 | 1.83% | 0.68p | | **Other** | 241,702 | £921.14 | 2.60% | 0.38p | As I suspected from my last post, Spotify may have had the lowest per-stream rate, but they contributed 75% of the total listens and 64% of the total revenue. So yes, Spotify had more people listening to Los Campesinos! music and it paid them the most, but the per-stream rate was lower. Again, I think the much lower revenue Spotify makes from their free users is a notable detail here, as Apple, Tidal, and Amazon don't have these users in the mix, and I maintain that if they did, their per-stream payouts would drop closer to Spotify and YouTube's numbers. --- This data also brings up something important that I didn't really touch on in the first piece: Spotify doesn't have a set per-stream payout, it fluctuates. Doing some quick math on their overall revenue numbers, you can see there's a 20% swing from month to month as all sorts of variables shift. I think some people think that when you stream a song on Spotify, that increments a counter that adds $0.004 to the artist's payout, but that's not the case. Based largely on the company's overall income, they have a "pot" of money (for lack of a better word) set aside to pay out everyone on the platform every month. For simplicity's sake, let's say that pot is $100 and there are 2 artists on the service, you and another band. Last month, you got 20 streams and they got 30 streams. That meant you accounted for 40% of the streams on the platform, and therefore you got $40, or $2/stream. But then the next month, the other band's music goes viral and while you got the same 20 streams you did last month, the other artist got 100 streams. Now you account for 16.7% of the streams and those same 20 streams only got you $16.67, or $0.83%/stream. These numbers are extreme examples, but they should illustrate the point that artists in this sort of system are fundamentally competing with each other for a fixed amount of money. Ideally, the pot that gets paid out will scale with subscriber revenue, and my understanding is that it does for these music streamers (it doesn’t always, though…looking at you, TikTok). The reasonable push back is that they should add a bit more to the pot so that a higher share of their revenue is going to the artists. My contention, and what I tried to communicate in that last piece, although I may have implied it too subtly, is that even if Spotify bumped up the pot to the point where they were just breaking even as a business, there simply isn't enough money coming in from consumers to pay artists well in this system. I personally paid about $120 for streaming music last year and I listened to over 400 artists, 1,600 songs, and probably like 5,000 streams. How is that $120 going to pay out a fair amount to all those artists as well as pay to keep the music service itself running? I'm totally willing to bet there is more margin to be had, but I can't help but keep coming back to the fact I simply think streaming music is a business model at the prices we pay today that fundamentally does not value music. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-09-at-14.41.48@2x.png) I was feeling kind of down after writing these two posts today, so I took the opportunity to put my money where my mouth is and bought Los Campesinos! latest album direct from them. By my quick math, this one act did as much good as 8,205 streams would have done them. I'll close this post with the same thing I said in that first one: > If you want to actually support your favorite artists, buy their music outright. [Bandcamp](https://bandcamp.com/?ref=birchtree.me) is a good option here, and direct from the artist is even better ### My favorite terminal emulator, Ghostty, is now a non-profit URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-favorite-terminal-emulator-i/ Last updated: 2025-12-09T21:00:23.000Z Mitchell Hashimoto, the creator of [Ghostty](https://ghostty.org/?ref=birchtree.me), [wrote about this](https://mitchellh.com/writing/ghostty-non-profit?ref=birchtree.me) last week: > **I believe infrastructure of this kind should be stewarded by a mission-driven, non-commercial entity that prioritizes public benefit over private profit.** That structure increases trust, encourages adoption, and creates the conditions for Ghostty to grow into a widely used and impactful piece of open-source infrastructure. You love to see it. ### Pay per stream is a messy metric URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/pay-per-stream-is-a-messy-metric/ Last updated: 2025-12-10T03:07:15.000Z Here's a question: let's say Music Service A pays me $0.01 per song streamed on their platform and Music Service B pays me $0.03 per song streamed. Which of these services is better for my income as an artist? Wait, wait, there's more data you need to know. Music Service A paid me $10,000 last year and 100,000 people listened to my music. Music Service B paid me $3,000 and 10,000 people listened to my music there. So I'll ask again, would you rather have had your music listened to by more people and you earned more money, or would you like to have had fewer people listen and make less money? I'd imagine most people would prefer to have more people discovering their work and bring in more actual money than have fewer people hear them and make less money, right? Welcome to the Spotify vs Apple Music debate! --- This was inspired by one of Brian Merchant's latest posts over on Blood in the Machine (a recent blog discovery for me, but it's pretty good), [How to quit Spotify](https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/a-complete-guide-to-quitting-spotify?ref=birchtree.me). I'm not going to disagree with the post's overall message…I don't like Spotify either and I would agree that the business model it pioneered has represented a massive reduction in direct value most artists get from the raw musical output they create. After all, I grew up in the 90s when a new CD routinely cost like $17 from the local music store, which is about $33 in today's money. But I find the "Apple Music pays more per stream" argument endlessly frustrating because it's horribly misleading. Yes, it's a single data point, but it's telling a sliver of the full story. To put it simply, Apple Music and Spotify have basically the same deal with music labels, the difference is that Spotify has a free tier while Apple Music does not. As such, Spotify makes less money per user, but they have way more total users than Apple Music. If Spotify got rid of their ad-supported free tier today, then they would be paying artists basically the same as Apple Music. Of course, that would reduce the number of people using Spotify, streams would go down, and payouts to artists would go down as well. But the pay per stream would be higher, so all good, right? [This very short article](https://www.sounds.co/en/post/royalties-streaming-pro-rata-model?ref=birchtree.me) explains the pro-rata model if you want to get an idea for how it works. By a similar token, if Apple Music added a free, ad-supported tier today, many people would start using that, and pay-per-stream would go down to Spotify levels. Or maybe you think that would be a terrible thing, and you think there should be no way for people to stream music without paying $10 or more per month, but let's talk about that then and not about how choosing Apple Music is the more ["ethical"](https://bsky.app/profile/hilli.tech/post/3m7j5tnagvs2l?ref=birchtree.me) choice. In that same post, Merchant links to [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVXfcIb3OKo&ref=birchtree.me) by musician (and another YouTuber I like) Benn Jordan, in which he shares the exact pay per stream he got from music services in 2024\. Unfortunately, he doesn't share any raw payout amount, he just shares the per-stream amounts. That resulted in this chart which I've seen a few people share. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Pasted-image-20251209091327.png) I think this shows the absurdity of the whole "per-stream pay is all that matters" argument. For one, if this is the metric you care about, then you should only release your music on Peloton! Or maybe Qobuz, a French streaming service which, despite him saying he'd never even heard of until a few months ago ([neither had I](https://youtu.be/zsDEiv8bjMo&t=574?ref=birchtree.me)), has the highest per stream rate of the normal music services on this list. I'm guessing that because he'd never heard of it, it's not bringing in an actually significant sum of money. he also mentions that he's sure that if they get as big as Spotify, their per-stream rate will go down as well. That could be true, but really only if they add a free ad-supported tier. In fact, here's an updated version of the chart with a line that I think clears up the difference. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/music-tiers.jpg) *Correction: Deezer does have a free tier, it's just hidden on their pricing page, so I didn't find it when I double checked for this original post. I'd love to see how their expenses differ. Maybe there's some hope for an ad tier in some cases?* I'm not here to say that Spotify is a faultless company or anything (I don't like them myself and I don't use them), but I think this obsession over pay-per-stream is a bad way to talk about these services. It's a data point worth considering, but it's not the end of the conversation. I'll leave you with a couple assertions I feel pretty confident about. 1. If Spotify stopped offering a free tier, their pay-per-stream would match Apple Music/Deezer/etc. 2. If Apple Music/Deezer.etc. added a free tier, they would instantly drop to Spotify's pay-per-stream rate. 3. I strongly suspect Spotify paid him more in 2024 than any other service on this list. 4. Streaming music is a tough business to make meaningful profits for anyone unless you're huge. Yes, I would like to see Spotify and others increase the amount they pay to artists, but they can only do so much, this is simply not a great way to compensate artists. 5. Consumers don't want to reconcile the fact that they want to pay 10% of what they paid for music in the 90s, they want exponentially more of it, and somehow they also want artists to be paid the same as they used to. 6. If you want to actually support your favorite artists, buy their music outright. [Bandcamp](https://bandcamp.com/?ref=birchtree.me) is a good option here, and direct from the artist is even better ([Jamie xx](https://shop.thexx.info/collections/jamie-xx?ref=birchtree.me), for example). ### + That's what makes you interesting URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/thats-what-makes-you-interesting/ Last updated: 2025-12-09T12:00:06.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Generative AI use continues to rise URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/generative-ai-use-continues-to-rise/ Last updated: 2025-12-08T18:00:00.000Z I recently discovered the [Generative AI Adoption Tracker](https://www.genaiadoptiontracker.com/?ref=birchtree.me) and it's a really interesting look at the data on how often Americans specifically are using AI tools such as ChatGPT both at work and in their personal lives. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-08-at-11.29.17@2x.png) Above is a snapshot of results from August 2024 through August 2025\. The notable trend on both lines is an upward trend, although what's most interesting to me is that the number of people using it in their personal lives is higher than those using it at work. There's a narrative out there that some people are trying to sell that workplaces are "mandating AI" and that's why usage is anything at all. It's the "people don't want this" argument. To me, this data tells a story of people increasingly finding ways to use AI in their normal lives, even if they are don't necessarily find it useful at work. Side note: I do think that workplace bosses mandating AI tools or strongly suggesting that AI is the only way to keep up ought to interrogate why many workers aren't adopting it like the bosses want them to. If a tool makes my job meaningfully better, AI or not, I'm gonna use it, you don't have to convince me. Maybe some people are resistant to learn anything new, but my impression is that the gains bosses have promised have been too grand and the use cases too broad, so employees get a bad taste in their mouth. Again, I'll shout it from the rooftops, **if a piece of software is revolutionary and will make workers' jobs easier, they will use it. If you find you have to keep making the hard sell to your employees, maybe it's not bringing as much value to them as you think.** Anyway… There's also a factor of job type. I personally have a job that happens 100% on a computer and benefits in many ways from AI-powered tools. That's not everyone, though, so it's not surprising that many people don't find value from it at their workplace. Of note, there's no frequency on that graph above, that just shows how many people use it at all. If we filter down to people who say they use AI on a weekly basis, the numbers come down marginally. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-08-at-11.40.06@2x.png) And if we go down to people who use it on a daily basis, we get much further down the percentages. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-08-at-11.39.28@2x.png) So yeah, it's fair to say not everyone is using AI all the time, but about half of US adults use it regularly, and at this growth pace, it's on track to hit 2/3 of American adults by this time next year. That's not too bad for a technology 0% of Americans were using just 3 years ago. Whether this will end up warranting the trillions of dollars being dumped into it now is another story. ### + I don't need a Workout Buddy, I need a Workout Trainer URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-dont-need-a-workout-buddy-i-need-a-workout-trainer/ Last updated: 2025-12-06T16:30:01.000Z My simple 3-step plan to make Workout Buddy more useful. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Long-term effects of the Covid vaccines URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/long-term-effects-of-the-covid-vaccines/ Last updated: 2025-12-05T16:15:10.000Z [A new study](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2842305?ref=birchtree.me) is out looking 28 million people who did and did not get Covid vaccines. Here's the big takeaway: > Vaccinated individuals had a 74% lower risk of death from severe COVID-19 \[…\] and a 25% lower risk of all-cause mortality \[…\], with a similar association observed when excluding severe COVID-19 death. Sensitivity analysis revealed that vaccinated individuals consistently had a lower risk of death, regardless of the cause. Looking good. ### The digital driver's license isn't what I hoped for URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-digital-drivers-license-isnt-what-i-hoped-for/ Last updated: 2025-12-03T15:40:36.000Z I know some people have problems with digital IDs, but I personally think they're very convenient in theory and choose to use them eyes open to why others choose not to. My car can use my phone as a key, everywhere I shop accepts contactless payments, and the only reason I needed to carry a wallet with me day to day was my driver's license. This is why I was so excited to hear that my home state was rolling out support for digital driver's licenses in 2025\. It didn't happen until November, but it did and I set it up immediately. It only took a few minutes and went smoothly, and I was ready to embrace my wallet-free life. Well, until reality set in… See, I did drive a few places without my wallet, and felt free! I was a bit worried that if I was stopped, the cop would not know what to do with it since it was just released. I haven't been pulled over in well over a decade, but it was still on my mind. But okay, that's fine, it'll sort itself over time. But then I bought some Draino and needed to prove my age. I can't flash my digital ID to the cashier and they certainly don't have an NFC reader for me to tap and prove my age. And then I went to Best Buy to pick up an online order, and they needed to see a photo ID to validate I was who I said I was. The digital ID has no photo, and again, they don't have hardware for me to tap my phone. So here I am, a few weeks after I got the digital driver's license I wanted, and I'm still carrying my physical wallet around with me when I leave the house. Bummer. ### 2025 was the year of making a (small) dent in my universe URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/2025-was-the-year-of-making-a-small-dent-in-my-universe/ Last updated: 2025-12-01T23:28:54.000Z *Below is a version of the above video, so read or watch, whatever you prefer.* --- I am not really one for inspirational quotes. I don't particularly like them. I don't particularly find them inspiring, but I really do like this one from Steve Jobs: > “Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact. And that is, everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things, that other people can use. \[…\]And however you learn that, once you learn it, you'll want to change life and make it better because it's kind of messed up in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.” I just love this idea that the world is not the way it has always been, it isn't inevitable, things weren't always like this. And it wasn't "great men" who made it this way, it was just people who did something, made some decisions, tried something, and here we are. And so because they were able to change things, **you can change things.** That doesn't necessarily mean doing things at the scale of like the iPhone, it means even micro-scale things in your own life that you just want to make better, you can do that. And there's so many ways in the modern world to do that. I've been talking for a lot of 2025 about coding and getting into the development world, and I know you guys do not care about that because my YouTube stats indicate nobody in my audience cares about development, so if I want a video to bomb, I'll talk about coding, ***but*** it has really let me improve parts of my life that I really wanted to improve. I wanted an easier way to make subtitles quickly and easily from my Mac, iPad, and iPhone. There wasn't a good solution out there, so I made a good solution for myself. I wanted to be able to dictate blog posts into my iPhone, there wasn't a great solution that I could find, so I made my own called Quick Notes. There's a bunch of the different apps I've made this year, there's a bunch of personal tools I've made, and it's really helped me create a computer and computing life that just works better for me personally. I think that's really empowering. But it's also the physical world. And that brings us to the thing I wanted to talk about today, which is my new 3D printer. I got the Bambu Lab A1 mini, which is their very entry-level 3D printer. *This blog post is not sponsored.* I bought it from Best Buy on a Black Friday sale. It was $199, which gets it into the impulse buy territory for this sort of thing. Like I've always been interested in 3D printers, but I was never able to justify the thousands of dollars they used to cost, even the hundreds of dollars they cost now, but at $199, yeah, I'll give it a shot. I am really enraptured with this product right now. I may do another longer-form video on this, but I just wanted to kind of talk about it with this idea of being able to change the world around you, and I think 3D printing really lets me do that. A couple of the things I've been able to make so far in just the week that I've had it are a little slot under my desk where I can put my laptop so it doesn't have to sit on my desk. I just reclaimed a lot of desk space. So I'm able to put that under there. That's been really nice. I had been shopping on Amazon for a while trying to find something that would do this for me and none of the solutions were good and they were expensive. And for the cost of like 50¢ of filament, I was able to create a solution that worked perfectly for me. It's so awesome. I made a little mount for my iPhone on my desk. I made a Steam Deck mount. I, what else did I make? I'm working on the Gridfinity solution. I have a lot of way to go here. There's a lot to print to fill up some of my junk drawers and kind of clean those up, but I'm working on that. I'm making a battery holder to hold my batteries because those are always a freaking mess. I'm working on all these little things. Building these little things that'll just make my life a little easier. And I love that. I love that when I see an inconvenience in my home, in my physical space, if there's something I could print, just a little piece that would work to make this better, I am so here for it. I'm so excited to be able to make that sort of thing. And yeah, I'm just really excited to have this in my life. I don't know if the sale is still going on. If it is, check it out, I'll put a link to their website in the description, but yeah, I am really excited about this. If you've used a 3D printer, would love to know in the comments what you're doing with it, or if this honeymoon phase ends. But yeah, for this price, getting into it and just kind of testing the waters, I think is really exciting. So, yeah, that's it. Very short video today. Just wanted to kind of talk about this concept and just an excuse to talk about this because the 3D printer and the coding and stuff, this is all added up to just a year of me feeling like I'm kind of tweaking the world around me to my needs, which I think is really cool. ### Here's why Threads fucking sucks and Meta knows it URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/heres-why-threads-fucking-sucks-and-meta-knows-it/ Last updated: 2025-12-01T13:30:41.000Z Another banger from Hank Green on why Threads fucking sucks. His benign attempt to get attention from his followers for his charity-oriented store during Black Friday was served to basically none of his audience. It wasn't rage bait and it included a link off the platform: the poison combination for Threads to have any interest in showing that post to people. Then he decided to try making snarky replies to other rage bait posts and include the link to the store in those posts. Turns out, that was a much more winning strategy for him, and he got a lot more views on those posts, which drove a lot more sales at his store. That's business in 2025, babyyyy. If I had to sum up one of Hank's complaints, and my own personal bugaboo about X/Threads, it's that one of the main points of building up an audience online is getting the ability to do something with them. Hank Green makes things that people enjoy, they follow him, and he can let that audience know about things like sales at his store or his latest drive to bring money to good causes. This is good for users who get entertainment, it's good for the social networks who earn ad revenue on the chatter, and it's good for Hank who gets to use his influence. I think platforms like YouTube do this well (as well as Mastodon and blogs, of course), and everything from Threads to X to TikTok actively fight against this. I hate it. *Of note, he remarked that Twitter was still even worse, and made a bet how long it would take him to scroll and find some white supremacist content. It was 10 posts down with someone wondering who would have the courage to make it okay to say the n-word again.* Anyway, back in 2022 I wrote that [I don't think people want another Twitter](https://birchtree.me/blog/i-dont-think-people-really-want-another-twitter/), and I don't think that was totally correct, as X and Threads have done pretty well since then, but I personally am not happy with them. Threads has the most vapid shit you've ever seen, and yes, everything I see in my feed are people talking about how terrible someone or something else is with no actual insight. X at least has some people posting interesting threads (heh) about product releases and new tech, but that's nestled in between the most racist shit you've ever seen, which the platform also rewards. Mastodon and Bluesky don't make my blood boil as much as the others, but I still wish there were more people there so I felt like I was seeing a more representative slice of the world and not a thin, specific slice. ### Financial freedom's step 1: get a $400k salary URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/financial-freedoms-step-1-get-a-400k-salary/ Last updated: 2025-11-30T20:00:00.000Z Mike Winters: [writing for CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/15/no-buy-checklist-helps-florence-poirel-save-money-in-switzerland.html?ref=birchtree.me) about a woman who has "mini-retired" at 37 years old: > In April 2024, Florence Poirel left her $390,000-a-year job at Google for what she calls a “mini retirement.” I know these posts are easy rage bait, but I still find it fun to find the catch that enabled this person to have amazing financial independence. Usually it's a rich parent, but this time it's that you and your partner make a combined $1 million or so per year in salary (they don't specify her partner's salary in the article, but considering he also worked at Google and was 17 years older than her, I'm putting my money on it being at least as much as her). So yeah, if you too can get yourself a job that pays in the top 3% of Americans (and top 1% in Switzerland, where they live) and a partner who does the same, bringing you into the top 0.4% of household incomes, then you are likely going to be in a good spot. "This one simple trick!" 🫠 I guess it is worth saying that someone who is bad with money when they make $50,000 will likely be decently bad with money if they suddenly earn $500,000, so there are some things most people can do to be smarter with money. I presume this is what this article is trying to do, but my god, they really should profile people who are remotely normal as their success stories in these things. "Here's how someone in the top 1% is able to live comfortably" just doesn't hit, you know? Wow, think you! ### I hate supporting my favorite creators URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-hate-supporting-my-favorite-creators/ Last updated: 2025-11-30T19:19:41.000Z Hey there, I love your work on YouTube, I've been subscribed for years, and I never miss a video. That said, I find it morally reprehensible that you would try to make any money on this. I won't say it out loud, and I might even tell myself that this isn't what I think, but I really can't stand it. First off, I hate YouTube ads, so I use an ad blocker that makes sure an ad never plays in front of your videos. This is a good deal for me, and it means you don't get that fraction of a penny of ad revenue you would have gotten if I waited 5 seconds to skip it. I also hate that you do sponsored segments in your videos. You expect me to listen to 30-90 seconds of you saying you like a product? Get out of here. You sometimes do fully sponsored videos, and these are absolutely the worst. Yes, you say it's "sponsored" in the title, but I still click into them so I can comment on them that I hate you for doing these. I also hate that you pitch Nebula or some other video platform as the solution to all my problems. Sure, it's ad-free, but I gotta pay? No thank you. And I hate that you hawk your Patreon or membership program. Don't even get me started on how annoying it is to see content I'd like to see is only available to those members. Oh, and I've seen some other channels coming up that have higher production values than yours, so damn man, invest in some production work so you can keep up. Anyway, just wanted to write to say I really value what you do, but I will go out of my way to make sure you don’t get anything back in return. With love, Too many people ### Indulge a bit URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/indulge-a-bit/ Last updated: 2025-11-30T14:00:25.000Z > In reality, lines are never so straight. There are no lines. We stumble and spiral, haunted by doubt and ambivalence. That's the curse of modernity. Or maybe that's too harsh, it's the challenge of modernity. And while we all face it, who can begrudge us a few fantasies here and there? In an online world obsessed with nitpicking everything, this line resonated with me. ### These damn consumers won't update their phones fast enough URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/these-damn-consumers-wont-update-their-phones-fast-enough/ Last updated: 2025-11-28T13:07:34.000Z Kevin Williams writing for CNBC: [Americans Are Holding Onto Devices Longer Than Ever and It's Costing the Economy](https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/11/23/how-device-hoarding-by-americans-is-costing-economy.html?ref=birchtree.me) > While squeezing as much life out of your device as possible may save money in the short run, especially amid widespread fears about the strength of the consumer and job market, it might cost the economy in the long run, especially when device hoarding occurs at the level of corporations. What a positively insane article. In short, "the economy would grow faster if people would be less selfish and upgraded their phones and computers more often." Was this written by an iPhone? ### + My 2025 video game tier list (25 games covered!) 🦃 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-2025-video-game-tier-list-25-games-covered/ Last updated: 2025-11-27T12:00:45.000Z A preview of the best games I played (and that came out) in 2025. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Ghost Explore URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ghost-explore/ Last updated: 2025-11-27T00:47:35.000Z Birchtree runs on Ghost, and I'm super happy with it; I'd use it even if the company behind it was unremarkable. Thankfully, they're also very cool, and have been supporters of the fediverse for several years now. Earlier this year, they made it so all Ghost blogs could natively exist on the fediverse, and you can follow this site at @matt@birchtree.me on Mastodon or many other ActivityPub apps. [Ghost Explore](https://explore.ghost.org/?ref=birchtree.me) is their new effort to promote those using Ghost. I don't want them to go down the Substack road and turn Ghost into a social platform, but stuff like this is really cool to see. I've been browsing this for like 15 minutes and have found some cool new sites I hadn't heard of before. I'd recommend taking a look and seeing if you find anyone of interest in there. And of course, since Ghost is just a way to host a website, you can follow these sites anywhere, you don't need to use Ghost. The open web remains the best. ❤️ ### + Eating my words URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/eating-my-words/ Last updated: 2025-11-24T12:00:47.000Z Listen, I don’t always get it right. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Anyone with a different opinion to mine is getting paid URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/anyone-with-a-different-opinion-to-mine-is-getting-paid/ Last updated: 2025-11-23T15:04:14.000Z There's a trend that's impossible to ignore across the internet, and that's comment sections and reply-guys on social media suggesting that anyone with a different opinion to them (specifically that something they hate is good) is being paid to say what they're saying. Do you like a game that many others seem to dislike? You're being paid to say it, obviously. Do you enjoy an app and want to say something nice about it? Paid off! People have reason not to trust everything they hear online, I get it, but I do wonder if some people use this as protection against the idea that there are a variety of opinions out there about art and software. ### Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/are-consumers-just-tech-debt-to-microsoft/ Last updated: 2025-11-22T23:57:36.000Z I’m not saying this will definitely happen, but I think we could be on the cusp of a significant shift in Windows market share for consumer computers. It is not going to drop to 2% in a year or anything, but I feel like a few pieces are coming together that could move the needle in a way we have not seen in several decades. There are three things on my mind . Number one is that Microsoft just does not feel like a consumer tech company at all anymore. Yes, they have always been much more corporate than the likes of Apple or Google, but it really shows in the last few years as they seem to only have energy for AI and web services. If you are not a customer who is a major business or a developer creating the next AI-powered app, Microsoft does not seem to care about you. I just do not see excitement there. The only thing of note they have added to Windows in the last five years is Copilot, and I have yet to meet a normal human being who enjoys using it. And all the Windows 11 changes seem to have just gone over about as well as a lead balloon. I just do not think they care at all about Windows with consumers. The second thing is the affordable MacBook rumored to be coming out in 2026\. This will be a meaningfully cheaper MacBook that people can purchase at price points that many Windows computers have been hovering around for many years. Considering Apple’s focus on consumers first and a price point that can get more people in the door, it seems like that could move the needle. The third thing is gamers. Gamers use Windows largely because they have to, not because they are passionate about it. Maybe they were passionate about it in the 90s, but any passion has gone away. Now it is just the operating system they use to launch Steam. In early 2026, Valve is going to release the Steam Machine after a few years of success with the Steam Deck. We will see how they do there, but what they are doing is releasing a machine that runs Windows games on Linux. And it runs them really well. The Steam Deck has proven that over the last few years. If someone can package up a version of Linux that is optimized for gamers, then I think there is a meaningful number of PC gamers who would happily run that on their computer instead. I do not know if this is going to happen. It is always easy to be cynical and suggest everything will stay the same, and I understand that markets of this size take a long time to change. However, it just feels like there are some things happening right now that are going to move the needle, and I am excited to see what happens. ### AirDrop* comes to the Pixel 10 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/airdrop-comes-to-the-pixel-10/ Last updated: 2025-11-20T22:05:46.000Z Google is really going out of their way to make their Pixel line as compatible with iPhones as possible. Today, the company [announced](https://blog.google/products/android/quick-share-airdrop/?ref=birchtree.me) an update available immediately for Pixel 10 devices (others coming later) that allows their Quick Share feature to work seamlessly with AirDrop on iPhones, iPads, and Macs. According to the company's [documentation](https://support.google.com/android/answer/9286773?ref=birchtree.me#zippy=%2Cfrom-the-share-menu%2Csend-content-to-an-iphone-ipad-or-macos-device), this implementation will work exactly the same for sharing something from an iPhone to a Pixel, a Pixel to an iPhone, an iPhone to an iPhone, or a Pixel to a Pixel. The one downside here seems to be that, unlike iPhone to iPhone or Android to Android transfers, you can't identify devices on the other platform as familiar devices. Therefore, the receiving device must open itself up temporarily to be available to all devices in the area. Both Quick Share and AirDrop only enabled this permission for 10 minutes before turning it back off. So, it's not a huge security concern, in my opinion. It's more an annoyance. My primary use case for AirDrop is passing files, typically from my iPhone to my iPad or Mac, so this would be annoying for that use case. I don't know if I enabled something special to get this, but when I airdrop from one of my personal devices to another personal device, it doesn't even ask me if I want to accept the file. It just sends it immediately, which is super simple and super nice. Inexplicably, it is not working in either direction on my personal devices, but I have [seen](https://www.threads.com/@captain2phones/post/DRSzWDCjupQ?xmt=AQF03OU5sS6rQf80UW7pTzvKV7uheW4swFjTaJ55PQgVxQ&ref=birchtree.me) people do it [successfully](https://www.threads.com/@davidimel/post/DRSu7LikQqC?xmt=AQF03OU5sS6rQf80UW7pTzvKV7uheW4swFjTaJ55PQgVxQ&ref=birchtree.me), so I'll chock this up to first day weirdness. Here's hoping it works like a charm sooner rather than later. ### 👏🏻 Arc 👏🏻 was 👏🏻 massively 👏🏻 influential 👏🏻 URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/arc-was-massively-influential/ Last updated: 2025-11-20T15:47:48.000Z Yesterday, OpenAI [pushed an update](https://www.macrumors.com/2025/11/20/chatgpt-atlas-update-vertical-tabs/?ref=birchtree.me) to their new [ChatGPT Atlas](https://chatgpt.com/atlas?ref=birchtree.me) browser that added a few nice features, most notably vertical tabs on the side of the browser window. And of course they would, right? This was technically a thing in some highly-customizable browsers like Vivaldi for years before, but Arc really made them mainstream and finally pinned down the experience: the sidebar wasn't just you open tabs, it was a list of "apps" you use regularly as well as your open windows all in one interface. On top of that, they had some of the best design-oriented developers in the biz making it, so everything felt fucking amazing to use. Not to beat a dead horse, but The Browser Company moved on from Arc in large part because they said the UI was too unfamiliar for mainstream users, and the sidebar was a big part of that. It's simply funny to see the entire browser market from Microsoft Edge, to Opera, to Zen, to Firefox all follow in Arc's footsteps. As I noted [a couple days ago](https://birchtree.me/blog/i-was-so-close-to-saying-something-nice-about-dia/), the most notable change to Dia in months has been adding a photocopy of Arc's sidebar. Now Atlas, the browser from the most influential company in the entire world over the past few years, is moving in this direction as well (your bookmarks can't live in the sidebar, so it's not exactly the same yet). Anyway, I really wanted to call out how unbelievably influential Arc has been on the entire web browser market. ### A new decade begins (omg I'm 40, someone send help!) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/a-new-decade-begins-omg-im-40-someone-send-help/ Last updated: 2025-11-19T23:00:30.000Z Today I turn 40 years old. It's a fun age because I know for a fact some people reading that line will feel sorry for me that I'm so advanced in age, while in others it will spark jealousy as they remember how good it was to be this age. I've never been one to get too caught up in age defining me, and if I'm being completely honest, today feels more like a Wednesday than some monumental day in my life. I also don't have any deep lessons to teach the younger generation as I turn this age, nor do I have a list of 40 things I learned in 40 years. I'll keep it short and sweet and just share this one [quote from Alexander Pope](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/680-a-man-should-never-be-ashamed-to-own-that-he?ref=birchtree.me) that I really like. > A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. There is delight to be had in being able to say, "I'm right and I've always been right." And while it may not be as straightforwardly delightful, it is maybe even more valuable to be able to say, "I used to think this, I got more information, and now I think something else." I think it's a personal flaw if you are a static object who never adjusts to new information or the times changing around you. I think there should always be room for forgiveness on matters that are challenging, and I don't think we should put down people who have just come around to what we think is the right way of thinking. I'm certainly not perfect at this, and I can see even recently I had snarked about people who don't want touch screens on Macs suddenly wanting it, but I'm going to try to dial that back. Cheers! ### AI as an accelerant, not a replacement URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ai-as-an-accelerant-not-a-replacement/ Last updated: 2025-11-19T23:00:05.000Z Christopher Butler: [What AI Is Really For](https://www.chrbutler.com/what-ai-is-really-for?ref=birchtree.me) > My experience with AI in the design context tends to reflect what I think is generally true about AI in the workplace: the smaller the use case, the larger the gain. The larger the use case, the larger the expense. Most of the larger use cases that I have observed — where AI is leveraged to automate entire workflows, or capture end to end operational data, or replace an entire function — the outlay of work is equal to or greater than the savings. The time we think we’ll save by using AI tends to be spent on doing something else with AI. This resonates with me. I personally get the most benefit from AI tools when I use it to accelerate my work, not so much to replace it. It's like Apple Shortcuts for me: it's not replacing my need to do anything, it's making some things easier or quicker than they otherwise would be. When I push it to do everything, it falls down. I [recently wrote](https://birchtree.me/blog/coding-is-not-software-engineering/) about how my software development work looks a hell of a lot like traditional development, and I think that's the case for the other things I do with AI. ### Mastodon’s leadership change URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/mastodons-leadership-change/ Last updated: 2025-11-19T22:29:59.000Z Eugen Rochko: [My next chapter with Mastodon](https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/11/my-next-chapter-with-mastodon/?ref=birchtree.me) > Mastodon is bigger than me, and though the technology we develop on is itself decentralized—with heaps of alternative fediverse projects demonstrating that participation in this ecosystem is possible without our involvement Rochko seems like a good guy and I thank him for all he’s done leading Mastodon all these years. When Elon Musk took over Twitter and…let’s just say he did what he did to it…Mastodon was a good place for me and my nerdy friends to land. ### The F1 game is taking a year off URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-f1-game-is-taking-a-year-off/ Last updated: 2025-11-19T21:39:50.000Z Electronic Arts: [EA Sports F1® Franchise Announcement](https://www.ea.com/games/f1/f1-25/news/f1-franchise-announcement?ref=birchtree.me) > Today, EA SPORTS™ confirms future plans for F1® 25, with the game set to represent both the 2025 and 2026 FIA Formula One World Championships. This news drops alongside an announcement for the future of EA SPORTS F1® as 2027 will see the series return and mark the start of a new and more expansive F1® experience. On the one hand, this is a bummer. On the other, I think this is what sports game should do more often. After all, it’s not like a ton changes from year to year anyway, just let me pay a bit to get the new rosters, new rules, and save the full new game for every other year. It sounds like this paid expansion will include the new drivers, teams, and calendar, but I wonder if it will have updated physics and car designs. It is a new regulations year, after all. Also, as someone who plays a lot of the F1 games each year, I will say that their suggesting that the 2027 game will be a brand new experience makes me equal parts excited and nervous. The core racing engine in the games is quite good, and scales pretty well from sim fans to casual racers. Yes, the physics tweaks each year ebb and flow in quality, but the racing is always pretty good. That said, the rest of the game is a total mess, with a true low point coming in the 2023-2024 games where EA seemed to think what we wanted most from this game was to spend real money on couches and wall art for our fake driver’s digital home. They’ve since pulled that all back, but to me the series has felt like a very good racing experience that I was always afraid to see what needless thing they were going to add on top of it next time. And all that said, compared to other racing games like Grad Turismo and Assetto Corsa Competizione, it was feeling a bit stale on track, and the visuals were solid but have always felt like really high res PS4 visuals to my eyes. The idea of a new game coming that looks better, plays more realistically, and has a better season/career mode sounds exciting! Then again, this is an EA game, and I’m also worried that we’re going towards something more like Madden or FIFA, games that I truly think actively hate their players. I get the impression that the F1 games flew a little under the radar at EA for many years, and they weren’t bogged down with all the bullshit they put in their other sports games. Now that F1 the sport is bigger, this franchise must have more executive eyes on it. Executives that say, “why isn’t this game making 10x as much money as it could? Optimize for that!” Given EA’s new private ownership, I’m not convinced their motivations will be to make the best F1 racing game they can. Anyway, the F1 games have long been special sports games that I’ve enjoyed, and I hope that whatever comes in 2027 has more good stuff than bad. At the very least F1 25 was one of the best recent entries in the series, so if I’m going to have this core game do another year, that’s not the worst thing. ### + 5k on my birthday ✅ URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/5k-on-my-birthday/ Last updated: 2025-11-19T13:59:59.000Z I committed to something at the start of the year, and I'm happy to say I was able to make it happen. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### I was so close to saying something nice about Dia URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-was-so-close-to-saying-something-nice-about-dia/ Last updated: 2025-11-18T14:18:02.000Z Oh man, what remarkable timing. I had a blog post scheduled to go up later today, in which I said some nice things about Dia, the Arc replacement from The Browser Company. I've been pretty salty towards The Browser Company for the past 18 months or so, but I was going to write something generally nice about how, while it is a bit funny to see them replicating all of the Arc features they said 0.4% of people used into Dia, I thought Dia was at a place where I could make it my everyday browser and be happy. I even gave them the benefit of the doubt and suggested that a reason for the shift could have been tech debt that just made it impossible to add the traditional tabs and AI features that they wanted to add. And while it led to some short-term pain, gave them a platform that was easier to build on going forward. I have no idea if that's true, but it seems plausible. But as I signed on to my computer for the morning to get to work, I quickly saw that [Cloudflare was having a major outage](https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/incidents/8gmgl950y3h7?ref=birchtree.me). This has led to quite a few websites that I use on a regular basis simply refusing to work. Some of the notable ones are ChatGPT, Claude, and Letterboxd. One you may not expect, and hat tip to my friend Niléane for showing this to me first, Dia won't even launch if Cloudflare goes down. What. The. Fuck? Now, you might know that I happen to have a couple browsers installed on my computer, and my immediate reaction was to launch all of them and see what happened. You probably won't be surprised to hear that literally every other browser launches and functions just fine, but Dia straight up refuses to launch. Even other AI-powered browsers like ChatGPT Atlas and Perplexity's Comet launch and function as perfectly capable web browsers. It's just that if you try to use one of their AI features, they'll throw an error. Dia. Bruv. Get it together. ### My favorite M5 iPad Pro review URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-favorite-m5-ipad-pro-review/ Last updated: 2025-11-18T13:29:59.000Z Riley Hill is one of my favorite writers focused on the iPad, and he just [reviewed the new M5 iPad Pro on his SlatePad blog](https://slatepad.org/2025/11/15/m5-ipad-pro-review-most-versatile-computer-yet/?ref=birchtree.me). It's absolutely worth a read, but as a lapsed iPad fanatic myself, I couldn't resist remarking on a couple things. > Alongside high refresh rate support comes support for Adaptive Sync. The principle behind this is the same as Apple’s ProMotion. The refresh rate of the connected monitor can dynamically change based on the current content. This contributes to how smooth moving the mouse and scrolling windows can feel on the monitor. It should also, in theory, improve gaming performance on external displays as games can take advantage of this technology, the same way they do on PCs and consoles. > > I don’t know of any iPadOS games that even support running on an external display, but any variable refresh rate support they’ve built in to support ProMotion *should* just work on supported monitors. This is such a classic iPad thing for me: "iPadOS can technically do this cool thing…not that I can point to something that does it". Since the first iPadOS 26 beta, I've been trying to use my iPad with an external monitor more, and the fact that games literally can't seem to run on the external display was a real shocker to me. Honestly, I find external display mode on the iPad truly shocking. Numerous apps simply don't work nicely, mouse acceleration feels very strange, Control Center can be opened on the external display but appears on the iPad screen (WHAT?), Spotlight works about 40% of the time, you can't screen record the external monitor, it's unclear what screen new windows will open on, and oh yeah, the iPad itself can't be used in "clamshell mode" because…well I guess how else would you access Control Center? For all the improvements to window management this year, I really do find it frustrating how unpleasant I find using the external display mode. I'd rather just work from my 11" iPad than use it with my 32" monitor, which is wild. > Why does this matter when the new windowing brings a lot more flexibility in many other ways? Well, it turns out that if you’re not using a 13-inch iPad, there’s not really enough screen real estate to have a bunch of apps open at one time. Even if you take advantage of the window tiling feature, the windows are borderline too small to be useful. This also resonates with me and I think speaks to my mixed feelings on the new windowing system. I totally get how this would work and be useful on a 13-inch screen, but on an 11-inch iPad, I never ever want to use multiple windows at the same time. I understand that Apple wants to have one windowing system rather than disparate experiences across their iPads, but a part of me thinks that 11-inch iPads and smaller are best served by the old split view, while 13-inch and larger screens are better served by the multi-window support introduced this year. Given that [Apple keeps making significant mid-cycle changes to windowing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJYT0QW31mI&ref=birchtree.me), it seems Apple feels they didn't nail it this year and are trying to lock it in. > The display scaling “issues” people report with macOS on 4k vs 5k displays feel less pronounced on iPadOS. Text on a 4k display isn’t quite as sharp as it is on the Studio Display, but for some, the higher refresh rate more than makes up for it. How could I not comment on this one? I run a 4K monitor as well, and while I freely admit it's not as crisp as a 5K monitor would be, it's still quite good and easily falls into the "retina" window that people like to reference. And scaling issues? I don't have any because I do a proper 2x scale with the UI perfectly doubling. Those who set their 4K monitor to a logical 1440p will indeed get blurry text, but those of us using a logical 1080p get perfect pixel doubling. Yes, my UI is a bit larger than if I set the internal res to 1440p, but that's how I prefer it, it lets me get crisp text, and it drives me crazy when reasonable people suggest this is simply impossible at 4K. /rant ### + Text files are eternal URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/text-files-are-eternal/ Last updated: 2025-11-15T12:00:42.000Z Some simple adoration for the greatest file format of all time. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads after the hype URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/bluesky-mastodon-and-threads-after-the-hype/ Last updated: 2025-11-14T22:59:59.000Z Casey Newton: [The Bluesky Exodus, One Year Later](https://www.platformer.news/bluesky-2025-content-moderation-fediverse/?ref=platformer-newsletter) > Bluesky's ingenuity in reimagining feeds and moderation tools has been a boon to social networks, which have happily adopted some of its best ideas. (You can now find "starter packs" on both Threads and Mastodon.) Ultimately, though, it has the same shape and fundamental dynamics as a place that even its most active users called "the Hellsite." Bluesky has had some really good ideas, and it has been cool to see them roll out to different platforms. That said, I actually find Bluesky to be the text-based social network I browse the least these days. Well, obviously, besides X. Mastodon is where I go to see what the cool nerds are talking about, and Threads, despite my skepticism just a few months ago, has turned into a pretty good replacement for what Twitter used to be for me. If I hear rumblings that something notable just happened, there's a good chance I can open Threads and find out exactly what's going on because people are chatting about it. Not to make every post here about politics, but let's just say in the past 10 months, there have been quite a few instances where something notable has happened and I want to get caught up quick. Another thing I'll mention here is that while Bluesky definitely got the headlines a year ago when they were getting numerous enormous spikes in users, it definitely seems like a lot of those users have fallen off. And while Mastodon never quite got that level of viral adoption, it does seem to be chugging along relatively healthily. At this point, I don't think Mastodon is ever going to be super mainstream, but I also don't think it needs to be. ### + 5 GTA games in 12 years, then 13 years to wait for the next one URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/5-gta-games-in-12-years-then-13-years-to-wait-for-the-next-one/ Last updated: 2025-11-14T22:00:31.000Z The major game studios release one game every five to ten years at this point, when they used to release absolute classics every one or two years. I do not like this trend. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### If the KKK loves what you're saying, you might be the baddies URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/if-the-kkk-loves-what-youre-saying-you-might-be-the-baddies/ Last updated: 2025-11-14T21:29:59.000Z John Ganz writing in 2023: [The Preppie in Decline](https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-preppie-in-decline?ref=birchtree.me) > His father, Don Black, was a Klan wizard and the founder of the website Stormfront. Here’s what he told me: “From the perspective of my family, he’s making the same points they’ve been trying to make their entire lives, but much better; he’s found a wider audience, and the ideal method of expression for many of the same ideas. My father’s a little baffled still that it’s Tucker Carlson, someone who he always never liked because he saw him as a shill for the Bush administration and the Iraq war, that’s bringing white nationalist ideas to the Fox audience.” This article is from two years ago, but I really want people to understand what's going on in the absolute most mainstream conservative discourse. I'm writing this, of course, less than a week after the same Tucker Carlson hosted an out white nationalist on his very influential podcast where they discussed how the Jews are the reason for many problems. No, not in coded words, literally saying this. You also have the likes of [Megyn Kelly trying to shift the narrative](https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/megyn-kelly-jeffrey-epstein-pedophile-b2865189.html?ref=birchtree.me) on Jeffrey Epstein that he wasn't really a pedophile because he liked 15-year-old girls, not like eight-year-olds or anything. This shift from Kristal, of course, happens immediately after documentation comes out showing there was quite the relationship between Dear Leader and Epstein. ### 0Password URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/0password/ Last updated: 2025-11-14T21:17:17.000Z Evan Sandhu on the 1Password blog: [A Simpler, Faster Way to Unlock 1Password](https://1password.com/blog/a-simpler-way-to-unlock-1password?ref=birchtree.me) > The new **unlock with device** setting lets 1Password open right alongside your Mac or PC. It unlocks as soon as you pass your device's own lock screen using a secure authentication method, whether that's Face ID, Touch ID, a PIN, or a password. Honestly, I'm really looking forward to this. I appreciate that there may be security reasons why some people wouldn't want to tie their Mac authentication to 1Password, but for me, this will be great. ### I just won’t buy one URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/i-just-wont-buy-one/ Last updated: 2025-11-12T03:38:54.000Z John Voorhees writing for MacStories: [Apple and ISSEY MIYAKE Introduce a Limited-Edition iPhone Pocket](https://www.macstories.net/news/apple-and-issey-miyake-introduce-a-limited-edition-iphone-pocket/?ref=birchtree.me) > The iPhone Pocket will be available starting Friday, November 14, for $149.95 for the short strap version and $229.95 for the long strap version from [Apple’s online store](https://www.apple.com/shop/product/hs8r2zm/a/iphone-pocket-by-issey-miyake-short-lemon?ref=birchtree.me) and ten retail stores worldwide The impression I’ve gotten on social media today is that I should be mad about this. I’m not going to sit here and tell you these are amazing deals and I’m going to get one, in fact I wouldn’t get one even if they were $10\. I’ll admit it seems a strange product, though. ### Leveling up the "spend more to get less" iPhone URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/leveling-up-the-spend-more-to-get-less-iphone/ Last updated: 2025-11-11T17:44:59.000Z Juli Clover writing for MacRumors, linking to a post on The Information: [iPhone Air Sales Are So Bad That Apple's Delaying the Next-Generation Version](https://www.macrumors.com/2025/11/10/next-generation-iphone-air-delayed/?ref=birchtree.me) > Apple initially planned to release a new ‌iPhone Air‌ in fall 2026, but now that's not going to happen. Now that The Information is reporting on it as well, I'm guessing the numerous rumors of it's underperformance have been true. Taking a year off to make the Air less of a compromised device that only appeals to people who can afford to purposely spend more to get less is the right call, in my opinion. I wrote [a member's post](https://birchtree.me/blog/why-i-dont-think-the-iphone-air-is-quite-like-the-iphone-x/) recently about how I thought the iPhone Air is much different from the iPhone X, which proved to be a very successful phone and which was indeed the immediate future of the whole iPhone lineup. In short, the iPhone X was an upgrade in every single metric over the other iPhones at the time, it wasn't a compromise device that had a cool design. You paid more, but you got more, no asterisks. It's not that I doubt a thin iPhone could be successful, I just don't think it's going to move the needle with normal people until it either feels like a straight upgrade over the normal iPhone or Apple can fill the gaps and [just makes it the normal iPhone in the lineup](https://birchtree.me/blog/what-i-expect-the-iphone-lineup-to-look-like-in-a-few-years/). ### + The enshitification cycle keeps going URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-enshitification-cycle-keeps-going/ Last updated: 2025-11-11T14:30:06.000Z It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Another example of babying your phone for minimal advantage URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/another-example-of-babying-your-phone-for-minimal-advantage/ Last updated: 2025-11-09T12:35:24.000Z The findings were basically that after 500 charge cycles, the slow-charged iPhones dropped 11.8% in battery capacity, while the fast-charged iPhones dropped 12.3%. I think a lot of people still see their phones as dumb PC terminals from 1995\. "If an app isn't "closed" then it's running in the background forever." "If I use a fast charger, the iPhone cooks itself with no regard for battery health." These things simply aren't true, and haven't for many years. [As I've said before](https://birchtree.me/blog/i-dont-care-if-you-force-close-your-apps/) about how I don't care if you force close your apps, I also don't care if you nurse your phone, obsessively charging it as slowly as possible and never let it get above or below certain numbers. I just hope that if you're dedicating your time and attention to things like this, you do it eyes open as to the benefit you're actually getting. If you see the above numbers and think that's worth it, then you do you. ### How do you review a product that you don’t find useful? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/how-do-you-review-a-product-that-you-dont-find-useful/ Last updated: 2025-11-07T22:50:20.000Z Here's a quote from a post on Reddit. I'm not linking to it because this could be seen as punching down, and I really don't mean it that way. I’m sure you could Google for it if you want to see the whole post. > Here is why and all the things that most YT have missed because they only care about views. 1- every action is instant coming from the M2\. You open a new window (app, safari…) and it is there before you know it 2-setting up my persona was done in half the time 3- right after my setup was done I noticed how sharper and more vivid all the icons are \[sic\] images were. I'm sharing this quote because I think it's a perfect example of the disconnect between people who have found use cases they love for the Vision Pro and those who have not. If you love the Vision Pro and have things that you use it for all the time, then these sound like nice upgrades, in the same way that a spec bump to a MacBook appeals to me. That said, if the Vision Pro hasn't proved its worth to you yet, and I think it's fair to say that's the vast majority of people in the world, then this update doesn't do much for you. I cannot stress this enough. If the Vision Pro launched apps instantaneously, if my persona was created automatically the moment I took the device out of the box, and the pixels were completely invisible to me (aka, we have achieved retina in mixed reality) I would use my Vision Pro precisely 0% more than I do now. Let's just say it plainly: At $3,500, the Vision Pro is a product that is only possible to be purchased by those who are doing quite well in life. A very common story for VR headsets of all kinds is that most people buy them, are really impressed for a few weeks, and then stop using it. Optimistic pundits at the time suggested Apple would buck this trend, but everything I have seen indicates they have very much fallen into the same pit as every other company who's tried to do this. I think it's worthwhile for reviewers to consider the upgrades to the new Vision Pro, and how the improved performance makes it a better product for people who enjoy it. But I also think it's very well worth recognizing that the vast majority of the people in the world won't suddenly plonk down their hard-earned money to buy this product because it's faster, and the screens are slightly more clear. ### LLM memory: either the best or worst thing about chatbots URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/llm-memory-either-the-best-or-worst-thing-about-chatbots/ Last updated: 2025-11-06T14:57:42.000Z This video brings up some salient points on the security concerns of using a browser that has an agent capable of doing things. New technology tends to bring new security concerns that need to be tackled, and prompt injection is undoubtedly one we have for LLMs. One thing I found really interesting in his complaints was this idea of memory in your browser. He, and I suspect a good number of people reading this blog post, really seem to hate the idea of ChatGPT (or Claude, Gemini, etc.) having any sort of “memory” about you. It seems many would prefer these apps to have a completely blank slate every time you open them. And you know what? Fair enough, I’m sure there is a large number of people who feel this way. What I think is interesting is that there are also absolutely a large number of people who think the exact opposite. I’ve talked to many people who use LLMs (aka most people these days) and for a lot of them, the memory is one of their favorite things. My wife, for example, has (unprompted) told me how nice she thinks it is that when she asks ChatGPT a question, it already knows things about her and can answer the question more tailored to her needs. This post isn’t for me to say anyone’s right or wrong here, this is mostly just me calling out the disagreement among people around how privacy should work with LLMs. For some, the fact that ChatGPT can remember things about what you’re interested in is a crisis that ought to be made illegal by the federal government. For others, it’s genuinely the best thing about them, making the experience much better.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Watch this space. ### Quick Subtitles is FINALLY on the Mac! URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-subtitles-is-finally-on-the-mac/ Last updated: 2025-11-06T00:48:07.000Z I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw this notification pop up on my phone this evening. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/11/IMG_8934.jpeg) After nearly 2 months of fighting with App Review (in fairness, I haven’t done much the last month as I’d lost the will to fight for a bit), it’s finally available and I think it’s quite good. I’ve been using it all summer to make subtitles for Comfort Zone and my YouTube videos, and it’s the tool I’d be using to do my work whether I made it or not. You can read [my original announcement](https://birchtree.me/blog/introducing-quick-subtitles/) to learn all about the app, and you can [download it from the Mac App Store here](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-subtitles/id6747410609%20Quick%20Subtitles?ref=birchtree.me). *And yes, your in-app purchase works across all platforms, so if you bought it already on the iPhone or iPad, you can use everything in the Mac version as well.* ### The App Store is now on the web URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-app-store-is-now-on-the-web/ Last updated: 2025-11-05T16:59:59.000Z John Voorhees: [Apple Recreated the App Store on the Web With No Way to Download or Buy Apps](https://www.macstories.net/news/apple-recreated-the-app-store-on-the-web-with-no-way-to-download-or-buy-apps/?ref=birchtree.me) > An even bigger difference from the native App Stores is that you can’t buy anything on the web. That’s right: there’s no way to log into your Apple account to download or buy anything. It’s a browse-only experience. Well, this is kind of annoying, and the Google Play Store has allowed buying apps from the web forever, but I'm not particularly bothered by it. For someone like me, it's actually pretty convenient. You might be surprised how hard it is to find the price for an app you've already purchased on the App Store, for example. But man, can you imagine if they had to pay 30% of all sales in the browser to someone else? That would completely destroy their entire business model. That would be rough. 😉 ### iOS 26 gets another glass slider URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/ios-26-gets-another-glass-slider/ Last updated: 2025-11-05T16:00:00.000Z Joe Rossignol for MacRumors: [iOS 26.2 Lock Screen Gets Liquid Glass Slider](https://www.macrumors.com/2025/11/04/ios-26-2-liquid-glass-slider/?ref=birchtree.me) > When you select the "Glass" option, you can use the new slider to make the time look almost entirely clear, or give it a more frosted, solid look. Honestly, it's a nice change, and it makes a lot of sense for the lock screen, which has become the hub for personalization on the iPhone. I can't wait to see what new items will get frosted in iOS 26.3. Also, did you know that text [contrast ratios change depending on the text size](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-minimum.html?ref=birchtree.me)? You can actually get away with less color contrast if your text is larger. This is a big reason why you may have had trouble reading some things in the liquid glass interface element while the lock screen clock was always legible. ### An absolute drubbing URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/an-absolute-drubbing/ Last updated: 2025-11-05T14:59:59.000Z Last night was an absolute drubbing for conservative politics across America, and I couldn't be happier about it. [Zohran Mamdani demolished Andrew Cuomo](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/04/us/elections/results-new-york-city-mayor.html?ref=birchtree.me) for the second time this year, and will be the next mayor of New York City. And [California's Prop. 50 passed](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/04/us/elections/results-california-proposition-50-congressional-redistricting.html?ref=birchtree.me) with an overwhelming majority, nearly 2-to-1\. Am I pleased that we're doing mid-cycle redistricting? Not really, but Republican states started doing it explicitly to swing electoral power to them, so our options are to deal with an impossible electoral map or fight back, and I guess here we are. What really stuck out to me were Virginia's results. Virginia had lots of state legislature elections as well as governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. This is a state that went for Harris in the 2024 Presidential election, although it's one that shifted right compared to 4 years previous. This rightward shift was something we saw all over the country last year, and it made election night pretty tough for people like me. Every single county in the state shifted right compared to the last election…oof. That's what made this year's results especially encouraging to me. Here's an image with a ton of data: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/11/leftward-trend.jpg) The data point we're looking at here is the arrow that is either blue or red and shifts right or left. As you can see, with scant few exceptions, every part of Virginia shifted left, sometimes by significant margins, over just one year ago. Yes, the Republican candidate won a decent number of counties. However, even in those cases, the margins came down from what they were a year ago. There are multiple variables here, and it could represent a general distaste for Republican policies, and it could also be an indicator that Donald Trump has a unique popularity that not all Republicans can replicate. Whatever the case may be, Virginia has a Republican governor today, and soon their new Democratic governor will be sworn in with a convincing victory. The Attorney General and Lieutenant Governor elections also went convincingly for the Democrat, in one case ousting the Republican incumbent. And then the state legislature had a massive shift. Going into the election, Democrats held a two-seat majority, 51 to 49, and coming out, it looks like they'll have a 64 to 36 majority. It's a certified catastrophe for Republicans in a state that was decidedly purple. I can only hope Democrats take the lessons from last night (very liberal policies can be very popular in the right areas, a diversity of candidate types can massively swing a state like Virginia, and charismatic candidates like Mamdani can do things many thought was impossible) into the midterms. ### Apple TV's new sound URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-tvs-new-sound/ Last updated: 2025-11-03T22:38:10.000Z I gotta be honest, I'm bummed they aren't referencing the classic Mac boot sound anymore. ### + Browser agent modes are fucking stupid URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/browser-agent-modes-are-fucking-stupid/ Last updated: 2025-11-03T12:00:21.000Z I have had it with these monkey-fighting agent modes on this Monday-to-Friday plane. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### + The only thing of value I can provide URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/the-only-thing-of-value-i-can-provide/ Last updated: 2025-11-02T14:00:04.000Z There is one main type of value I can bring to this blog. If I lose that, what am I even doing? _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### My iPhone Air secret URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-iphon/ Last updated: 2025-10-30T22:01:27.000Z I have a confession to make. A few weeks ago, I published my iPhone Air review and in it, I declared that the iPhone 17 Pro was the better phone for me. My plan was simple: finish the review, move my eSIM back to the 17 Pro, and carry on with my life. Except I didn’t. I kept using the Air for another day…then another…then another. Before I knew it, weeks had gone by, and this extended time with the device revealed something I hadn’t anticipated. To be clear, I stand by everything in my original review, but there’s one additional downside that only became apparent with prolonged use: comfort. This surely sounds counterintuitive. Are your eyebrows raised? After all, one of the Air’s biggest selling points is how incredibly thin and light it is. It’s noticeably lighter than my iPhone 17 Pro, which should be a good thing, right? Here’s the catch: when I use my phone, I rest it on my pinky, which bears much of the device’s weight. You’d think the lighter phone would be easier on that finger, but I found the opposite to be true. If the iPhone 17 Pro is a butter knife, the iPhone Air is a steak knife. Yes, it’s lighter, but it digs into my finger far more than I expected, and there are two reasons for this, as far as I can tell. First, even though the total weight is lower, that weight is concentrated on a smaller contact point on my finger. The pressure per square inch is actually higher, despite less overall mass in the phone. Second, the bottom edge is a problem. Because the Air still needs all the standard cutouts (USB-C port, grilles, microphone, screws), nearly every part of the bottom edge is sharper, more jagged, and more uneven. One of my favorite aspects of the new iPhone 17 Pro design is how smooth the corners are and how soft the aluminum feels to the touch. That’s the contrast that makes the Air feel more harsh in the hand to me. It’s a weird phenomenon, and one I didn’t expect or even notice right away. I’m open to the possibility that I’m the only person in the world experiencing this, but it’s significant enough that it became the deciding factor that pushed me to switch back to the 17 Pro. To recap the issues I outlined in my original review, the speakers are worse, the single camera is usually fine but occasionally annoying, and the battery life, while better than you might expect, isn’t quite as good as I always need it to be. Now, unexpectedly, comfort has become a fourth downside for me. I gotta say, I didn’t see this coming. And just to be super clear, I think the iPhone Air is pretty cool, and I totally get why other people love it…hell, I apparently like it enough to use it after the review was done! I only say this because, for some reason, a decent number of people seem to have plonked me into the iPhone Air Haters Club. This post isn’t going to help that reputation, but hey, what the hell am I doing here if I’m not being honest? --- **One final note:** If you use a case, this comfort issue likely disappears entirely. But I only put a case on my phone when traveling, so for my day-to-day use, it matters to me.​​​​​​​ ### All of Trump sheep's least favorite things happened when Trump was President URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/all-of-trump-sheeps-least-favorite-things-happened-when-trump-was-president/ Last updated: 2025-10-30T17:00:06.000Z Tim Cushing: [Trump Continues to Attack Biden for All the Stuff Trump Officials Did While Trump Was Still President](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/29/trump-continues-to-attack-biden-for-all-the-stuff-trump-officials-did-while-trump-was-still-president/?ref=birchtree.me) > If there was anyone with any spine, honesty, or morality in the Trump administration, these astounding gaffes would have been headed off. But [there’s no one left](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/22/trump-demands-230-million-in-taxpayer-money-for-being-prosecuted-and-his-own-lawyers-get-to-approve-it/?ref=birchtree.me) with any of these traits in the White House, so we get the sort of thing we’re now seeing with increasing frequency: Trump (deliberately or not) forgetting who was sitting in the Oval Office in 2020. One of my favorite (least favorite?) phenomenons in Trump world is being irate about things that happened with Trump was in office. 1. "Federal handling of COVID in early 2020? Who the hell did all that?!" 2. "Inflation was caused by stimulus checks in the summer of 2020\. Thanks, Joe Biden!" 3. "Remember then the federal government was suggesting social platforms ought to block certain speech about COVID and other timely topics in 2020? Screw that administration!" 4. "Remember when Rosanne lost her show when she said some racist stuff in 2018? Who was in office then?" It's truly over and over and over again…the things Trump sheep love to cite as the reasons they were radicalized and made them vote for Trump are thing that happened when Trump was in power. It's really a wild phenomenon. ### Basically every PC game works on Linux URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/basically-every-pc-game-works-on-linux/ Last updated: 2025-10-29T23:43:54.000Z [This post](https://boilingsteam.com/windows-games-compatibility-on-linux-is-at-a-all-time-high/?ref=birchtree.me) came across my radar, which shows Windows game support on Linux is at a new all-time high. > You can see that the area in red has been constantly shrinking, at a steady pace, and this past month is no exception with this category getting very close to just 10%. This means that close to 90% of Windows games manage to launch on Linux. About 60% of games run perfectly, close to 70% work perfectly with "some tweaking or configuration", and just shy of 90% of games may not be perfect, but are playable. To be perfectly clear, this is not a case of most games being built for Linux, it's that tools like WINE and Proton have allowed users to simple download and install Windows games. These numbers make tons of sense to me, someone who games on Linux almost every day. No, I didn't install Ubuntu on my PC tower, I'm talking about my Steam Deck! That's a Linux device running Proton which lets me install basically any game from Steam. When a new game comes out, there's not even a question whether it will work on my Linux device, it just does (or if it doesn't, it's usually because it's just too high end to run on a handheld device). [As I wrote about last year](https://birchtree.me/blog/how-apple-maybe-moves-the-needle-on-mac-gaming/), imagine if this was the case on the Mac! Apple's Game Porting Toolkit aims to make it easier for developers to bring their Windows games to the Mac, and that seems to have helped, but I would love to see Apple bundle something like Proton into macOS so that you no longer had to wonder if a Mac version of that cool new game was coming out, you could just know you'd be able to play it. From last year's post: > And don’t think of it as some sort of complex tool for nerds; I’d compare it to using Rosetta 2 on the Mac. Is that random app you use running natively on Apple silicon or being emulated from an x86 binary? Who knows and who cares? It's honestly very Apple. ### Pixelmator update when? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/pixelmator-update-when/ Last updated: 2025-10-28T21:23:01.000Z Joe Rosensteel: [Creative Neglect: What About the Apps in Apple?](https://sixcolors.com/post/2025/10/creative-neglect-what-about-the-apps-in-apple/?ref=birchtree.me) > While the acquisition was announced almost a year ago in November of 2024, Apple only folded the developers in eight months ago. Prior to the acquisition, Photomator was updated monthly, often with major features. In the last eight months, the only updates have been “bug fixes and improvements.” The last one of those was five months ago. There haven’t been any updates to incorporate anything involving Apple’s new operating systems. > Pixelmator Pro *has* received one major update, three months ago. It featured new support for… Image Playground and Writing Tools (what?!), along with more reasonable features like improved RAW support and accessibility improvements. But again, no macOS Tahoe feature additions, right down to the fact that the Pixelmator Pro icon still resides in gray squircle jail. I'm so glad Joe wrote this article because I was starting to think something similar myself, and now I can just link to his dive into the details. I'm not a massive user of Pixelmator Pro myself, but I do use it to make the thumbnails I post on YouTube, as well as the occasional header image for this blog (like the one at the top of this post). I've always found the app to be easy to use, yet powerful, and it absolutely flies on every Mac I've ever used it on. I've also really appreciated how good the company was at keeping the app up to date, consistently adding new features that were interesting. As he lays out in the linked post, updates have really dried up since the acquisition announcement one year ago. While the app still technically works fine, it hasn't added anything user-facing, and it is one of the few apps on my Mac stuck in "squircle jail". Another app that was quite popular, got constant updates that users loved, and then suddenly stopped: Arc. The difference, of course is that Arc was very publicly abandoned by it's developer. It's not a great look if the difference between an app that was fully abandoned and one that was acquired by Apple is indistinguishable. Here's hoping the future is bright for Pixelmator, even if it's not clear to the outside world what the future looks like just yet. ### When you put your brand's mascot on the enemy's platform URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/when-you-put-your-brands-mascot-on-the-enemys-platform/ Last updated: 2025-10-28T01:27:45.000Z Back in February 2024, Xbox [held a short podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGlD9SO3rKU&ref=birchtree.me) where they reacted directly to swirling rumors about Xbox exclusive titles that were about to go multi-platform, which was giving Xbox fans anxiety. This question from host Tina Amini was right near the start: > So when you are thinking about the future and this concept of live service games, games that can benefit from bigger audiences, new audiences, How does that apply to future titles and how you're applying that criteria there? To which Phil Spencer replied: > Yeah, there's really no fundamental change to how we think about exclusivity. And just before that, Amini asked: > Can we say if either of those titles are Starfield or Indiana Jones? They are not Starfield or Indiana Jones. And Spencer assured the audience: > They are not Starfield or Indiana Jones. Now, Spencer didn't lie here by any means; neither Starfield nor the new Indiana Jones game (Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which is spectacular, by the way) were in the 4 games that were imminently to be released on PlayStation and Nintendo consoles. However, paired with the first quote about there being "no fundamental change to how we think about exclusivity" gave the impression to many that Xbox was okay with some games, specifically smaller and multiplayer games going multi-platform on a per-game basis, but the big hitters would remain Xbox and PC exclusive. However, since that podcast, more games have gone multi-platform, including Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which released on PlayStation 5 just five months after the Xbox version, and the [DLC](https://www.lucasfilm.com/news/indiana-jones-and-the-great-circle-the-order-of-giants-dlc/?ref=birchtree.me) for the game came out on both platforms on the same day last month. Back in May, the first iconic Xbox franchise made the full jump to PlayStation with the Gears of War remaster getting [announced](https://www.theverge.com/news/661169/gears-of-war-reloaded-remaster-release-date?ref=birchtree.me) for a simultaneous release on Xbox, PC, and PlayStation. Then on Friday last week, we got the big one: [Halo is coming to PS5](https://www.theverge.com/news/805174/halo-campaign-evolved-remake-xbox-ps5-release-date?ref=birchtree.me) day-and-date with the Xbox release. For those not as clued into the gaming space, this is similar in scale to when Sega first released a Sonic game for Nintendo, or if Nintendo ever released Mario Kart for PlayStation. Xbox is Halo, Halo is Xbox, they're impossible to separate in the long history of gaming, and yet the world has changed enough that Microsoft thinks its best move is to give Halo to everyone. Crazy times. ### Coding is not software engineering URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/coding-is-not-software-engineering/ Last updated: 2025-10-28T01:20:51.000Z Matias Heikkilä: [AI Can Code, but It Can't Build Software](https://bytesauna.com/post/coding-vs-software-engineering?ref=birchtree.me) > Coding, however, is not what most people are getting paid for. Building a production-ready app is not coding, it’s software engineering. Absolutely true. I've said a few times that the software development work I do now looks a hell of a lot like what I did a couple years ago, I'm just physically typing out the exact code a lot less. I'm still thinking about the product experience. I'm still thinking about scalability. I'm still thinking about what technologies are right to use. I'm still thinking about structure. I'm still thinking about pretty much everything I was thinking about before. My ability to write a specific function is less important than my ability to understand why that function needs to exist in the first place or how it will impact other parts of the application. Maybe LLMs will eventually get to a place where I can totally step aside and let it do all the software engineering for me, but color me skeptical that we're going to get there anytime soon. ### You can’t just trust everything you read… URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/you-cant-just-trust-everything-you-read/ Last updated: 2025-10-26T16:00:20.000Z This morning I’m watching Candyman from 1992 and there’s a joke about how you can’t just trust everything you read in the newspaper. I grew up in the 2000s and was keenly aware that you couldn’t just trust everything you read online. It’s 2025 and people say you can’t just trust everything LLMs output. LLM critics bring up the fact you can't just trust every single thing LLMs spit out as if it's a gotcha that makes the whole endeavor null and void, as if this hasn't been the case of every medium ever. Obviously, the fewer mistakes LLMs make, the better, and there has been a meaningful improvement in this area since ChatGPT launched. As the critics are keen to point out, these models don't "know" anything, so it's critical that we humans make a real effort to improve their accuracy. It's why I'm encouraged by tools like ChatGPT inside their new Atlas browser as well as Perplexity's search features, both of which perform web searches on factual questions and prominently cite those results so you can check them. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-26-at-10.12.23@2x.png) Asking a factual question to ChatGPT in their Atlas browser ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-26-at-10.15.05@2x.png) Asking a factual question to Perplexity I'm just saying "you can't just trust everything you read…" has always been true, it's just that the end of that statement can have any written medium appended to it. Don't believe me? Well, I guess you can't just trust everything you read on a personal, 100% human-written blog either. 😉 ### Reddit sues Perplexity, but maybe Reddit are the baddies? URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/reddit-sues-perplexity-but-maybe-reddit-are-the-baddies/ Last updated: 2025-10-26T15:03:59.000Z Mike Masnick: [Reddit’s ‘AI Scraping’ Lawsuit Is an Attack on the Open Internet](https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/24/reddits-ai-scraping-lawsuit-is-an-attack-on-the-open-internet/?ref=birchtree.me) > Even if you love Reddit and hate AI, you should be worried about this lawsuit. If it succeeds, it would fundamentally close off most of the open internet. And: > If that’s the case, then… you don’t believe in an open internet. Text and data mining is a part of the open internet. Building on the work of others is part of the open internet. You can’t just claim “we support the open internet, but not if we say you’re misusing it.” It’s not your call. I know for many people, seeing headlines that Reddit was suing Perplexity was all they needed to hear; obviously Perplexity is in the wrong, right? Masnick makes the case that it's just not that straightforward. ### When speeds and feeds don't matter URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/when-speeds-and-feeds-dont-matter/ Last updated: 2025-10-26T00:11:16.000Z Here's a clip from a post on Reddit. I'm not linking to it because this could be seen as punching down, and I really don't mean it that way. I’m sure you could Google for it if you want to see the whole post. > Here is why and all the things that most YT have missed because they only care about views. 1- every action is instant coming from the M2\. You open a new window (app, safari…) and it is there before you know it 2-setting up my persona was done in half the time 3- right after my setup was done I noticed how sharper and more vivid all the icons are \[sic\] images were. I'm sharing this quote because I think it's a perfect example of the disconnect between people who have found use cases they love for the Vision Pro and those who have not. If you love the Vision Pro and have things that you use it for all the time, then these sound like nice upgrades, in the same way that a spec bump to a MacBook appeals to me. That said, if the Vision Pro hasn't proved its worth to you yet, and I think it's fair to say that's the vast majority of people in the world, then this update doesn't do much for you. I cannot stress this enough. If the Vision Pro launched apps instantaneously, if my persona was created automatically the moment I took the device out of the box, and the pixels were completely invisible to me (aka, we have achieved retina in mixed reality) I would use my Vision Pro precisely 0% more than I do now. Let's just say it plainly: At $3,500, the Vision Pro is a product that is only possible to be purchased by those who are doing quite well in life. Buyers of every single VR product, ever, have largely had the opinion that they enjoy it for a month or two and then grow tired, and it kind of sits on the shelf. Optimistic pundits at the time suggested Apple would buck this trend. But everything I have seen indicates they have very much fallen into the same pit as every other company who's tried to do this. I think it's worthwhile for reviewers to consider the upgrades to the new Vision Pro, and how the improved performance makes it a better product for people who enjoy it. But I also think it's very well worth recognizing that the vast majority of the people in the world won't suddenly plonk down their hard-earned money to buy this product because it's faster, and the screens are slightly more clear. There are absolutely people who enjoy the Vision Pro and would enjoy the performance improvements the M5 model brings, but those who love the product also need to recognize that most people don't resonate with the product, and doing things they're not interested in doing aren't going to get many more people on board. ### + ChatGPT's Atlas, the pessimistic takes URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/chatgpts-atlas-the-pessimistic-takes/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T11:00:17.000Z There are some very negative takes out there about ChatGPT Atlas, and I think it's fair to say I agree with some of the critiques, but raise an eyebrow at a few others. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### From new project to the App Store in 6 days (Quick Notes is out now!) URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/from-new-project-to-the-app-store-in-6-days-quick-notes-is-out-now/ Last updated: 2025-10-23T18:16:10.000Z [Quick Notes is available on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-notes-easy-voice-notes/id6754181571?ref=birchtree.me) for iPhone and iPad. It's completely free with no in-app purchase. It does require iOS 26 (sorry, it makes things easier). I'm excited about this app because it solves a use case I personally have and could not find a good tool to get it done. Now I do, and it's been wonderful. What also excites me about this app is how quickly I've been able to take it from idea to reality. Here's the timeline: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-23-at-09.18.30@2x.png) - **Friday:** created the Xcode project and cranked out a working prototype - **Saturday:** released a TestFlight [to More Birchtree subscribers](https://birchtree.me/blog/another-quick-app-beta/) - **Wednesday:** submitted to app review - **Thursday:** approved and blog post (this post!) written I'm not saying this is a complex app by any means, but it's damn fast. I think it's a credit to modern software development that let me work so quickly, as well as the simplicity of Apple's APIs and SwiftUI in general for letting me put things together with ease. Not to toot my own horn, but this is my 4th released app in 2025, so my experience (limited as it might be in the grand scheme of things) helps me get up and running quicker each time. Here's a quick demo of it in action. 0:00 /1:31 1× Again, Quick Notes is a free app and is available now. [Check it out!](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quick-notes-easy-voice-notes/id6754181571?ref=birchtree.me) ### What I expect the iPhone lineup to look like in a few years URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/what-i-expect-the-iphone-lineup-to-look-like-in-a-few-years/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T20:28:42.000Z I recently wrote [a member's post](https://birchtree.me/blog/why-i-dont-think-the-iphone-air-is-quite-like-the-iphone-x/) about how I don't think the iPhone Air is a good comp to the iPhone X. One response I got a few times for this was that the iPhone Air is actually more like the MacBook Air, which was a major compromise in its first version, but was iterated on and ultimately became the best-selling laptop in the world. As tech advanced, what started as a niche device with major compromises turned into the most mainstream thing possible. My gut is that this comparison is largely correct, and it may be even more prescient than we realize. See, when the MacBook Air was released in early 2008, it was a third laptop in the Mac lineup, which was: 1. MacBook 2. MacBook Air 3. MacBook Pro Compare that to the new iPhone releases in late 2025: 1. iPhone 2. iPhone Air 3. iPhone Pro Huh, interesting. Back on [episode 32 of Comfort Zone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs4%5FiYRQ4Dk&ref=birchtree.me), I predicted that the thin iPhone was just going to be the new normal iPhone, and right now I think that prediction was early, not fundamentally wrong. It took Apple 3 more years to stop making the normal MacBook and reduced their lineup to just the Air and Pro, and I don't think it would be crazy to think that something similar will happen here. Given that, I think we could be looking at an iPhone lineup like this around 2028: 1. iPhone Air 2. iPhone Pro 3. iPhone Fold *Maybe the folding iPhone isn't coming, but there sure seems to be a lot of smoke around that recently.* Maybe I'm being suckered into making a comparison that doesn't make sense for phones, but the more I think about it, the more sense I think it makes. I don't think the iPhone Air makes a ton of sense as a practical purchase today, but I don't doubt that Apple will be able to make this phone a great choice for most people in the coming years. One thing I can't help but wonder is about pricing. Does the Air come down to $799 starting like today's normal iPhone, or does it hold the $999 price and it just becomes the new normal? The latter seems more likely to me, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. ### More on AI as normal technology URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/more-on-ai-as-normal-technology/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T00:28:36.000Z Anil Dash: [The Majority AI View](https://anildash.com/2025/10/17/the-majority-ai-view/?ref=birchtree.me) > What's amazing is the reality that virtually *100% of tech experts* I talk to in the industry feel this way, yet nobody outside of that cohort will mention this reality. What we all want is for people to just treat AI as a "[normal technology](https://www.normaltech.ai/p/ai-as-normal-technology?ref=birchtree.me)", as Arvind Naryanan and Sayash Kapoor so perfectly put it. I might be a little more angry and a little less eloquent: stop being so goddamn creepy and weird about the technology! It's just tech, everything doesn't have to become some weird religion that you beat people over the head with, or gamble the entire stock market on. [I said this exact same thing back in April:](https://birchtree.me/blog/ai-as-normal-technology/) > This idea that LLMs are just "normal technology" is something I've had simmering in my brain for a while now, and it's becoming more clear to me by the day that this seems to be where we're heading. LLMs are really remarkable technology, but it's more like other technical advancements we've seen in the past than I think many expected. This part also stood out to me: > Most people who actually have technical roles within the tech industry, like engineers, product managers, and others who actually make the technologies we all use, are fluent in the latest technologies like LLMs. They aren't the big, loud billionaires that usually get treated as the spokespeople for all of tech. Ding ding ding! Execs and billionaires who are invested in this shaking things up are over the moon, but people using these tools to do actual work have a more nuanced option because we can't live on hype, we have shit to get done. _Includes the latest 500 public posts. Use `/sitemap.xml` for the complete archive of public content._