# Birchtree
> Tech, Apple, and the vast grey area that is AI
Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. Use `/llms-full.txt` for consolidated page and post context.
Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`).

## Pages
- [About Me](https://birchtree.me/about-2-2.md) - 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 tha…
- [About this site](https://birchtree.me/about-2.md) - 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. Th…
- [About this site](https://birchtree.me/about.md) - 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. T…
- [Advertising on Birchtree](https://birchtree.me/ads.md) - 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.
- [Blog](https://birchtree.me/blog-2.md)
- [Blog](https://birchtree.me/blog.md)
- [Goodies](https://birchtree.me/goodies.md) - 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…
- [Simple Refrigerator Magnets](https://birchtree.me/simple-refrigerator-magnets.md) - Thank you for your interest in Simple Refrigerator Magnets! If you are looking for support, you can email the developer here, or get in touch on Twitter. Privacy The Simple Refrigerator Magnets app does not collect any personal information about users. The only data ever collected would be from iOS…
- [Support BirchTree](https://birchtree.me/support.md) - 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 b…
- [Thank you for being a subscriber!](https://birchtree.me/thank-you-for-subscribing.md)
- [Change Log](https://birchtree.me/version.md) - Something broken or ugly? Let me know! 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 pag…
- [Wallpapers](https://birchtree.me/wallpapers.md) - iPhone Wallpapers Click on an image to see the full res version. Some files are large and may take a few moments to download. Desktop Wallpapers
- [Welcome to Birchtree](https://birchtree.me/welcome-to-birchtree.md) - I'm Matt Birchler, a designer, product manager, YouTuber, and developer who's been writing about tech since 2010.

## Posts
- [+ Pastry is a privacy-focused clipboard manager coming soon](https://birchtree.me/blog/pastry-is-a-privacy-focused-clipboard-manager-coming-soon.md) - Yes, I'm working on a clipboard manager. I think it's pretty cool.
- [I don't care what other kids are doing](https://birchtree.me/blog/i-dont-care-what-other-kids-are-doing.md) - Lex Friedman: A few more thoughts on why embracing X is wrong “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 d…
- [Why does this chart just go down?](https://birchtree.me/blog/why-does-this-chart-just-go-down.md) - M.G. Siegler: Twitter is Back. Shhh… Magic Dance! 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 wrote about his return a couple m…
- [Mac buttons over the years](https://birchtree.me/blog/mac-buttons-over-the-years.md) - This cool little site 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.
- [+ Tesla Cybertaxi first impressions](https://birchtree.me/blog/tesla-cybertaxi-first-impressions.md) - I rode in one last week. Here are my impressions.
- [+ Do you want to cross the streams?](https://birchtree.me/blog/do-you-want-to-cross-the-streams.md) - Obviously probably not, but also…maybe?
- [Basically all my apps support the iPhone Duo Now](https://birchtree.me/blog/basically-all-my-apps-support-the-iphone-duo-now.md) - Over the last 24 hours, and bunch of updates shipped, so here's what's new all in one place. Nonogame * 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…
- [What is a developer?](https://birchtree.me/blog/what-is-a-developer.md) - Andy Nicolaides: I’m not sure what I am, but I know what I’m not 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.…
- [Software authorship](https://birchtree.me/blog/software-authorship.md) - Lex Friedman: Claude writes code; I author the apps 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 Cla…
- [AirPods 5 are better than I even realized](https://birchtree.me/blog/airpods-5-are-better-than-i-even-realized.md) - I knew the AirPods 5 were top-tier AirPods 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…
- [Unread 5.1 adds Birchfeed and Quick Reads support](https://birchtree.me/blog/unread-5-1-adds-birchfeed-and-quick-reads-support.md) - Unread 5.1 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 s…
- [Hand-drawn Emoji for Chrome and Obsidian](https://birchtree.me/blog/hand-drawn-emoji-for-chrome-and-obsidian.md) - Last week, I discovered a custom, hand-drawn emoji set created by Frank Rausch called FrankMoji. 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 t…
- [Say hello to "Parakeet Turbo"](https://birchtree.me/blog/say-hello-to-parakeet-turbo.md) - Parakeet has long been a fan favorite local transcription model in Quick Subtitles. 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 i…
- [The party of making things worse](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-party-of-making-things-worse.md) - Justine Calma: Trump finalizes rule to make cars less fuel efficient 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 abou…
- [Fetishizing something most people don't care about](https://birchtree.me/blog/fetishizing-something-most-people-dont-care-about.md) - Brent Simmons: That About Wraps It Up for Stock Mac UI 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 peop…
- [+ Gone too far](https://birchtree.me/blog/gone-too-far.md) - 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.
- [Birchfeed can forward newsletters to your inbox](https://birchtree.me/blog/birchfeed-can-forward-newsletters-to-your-inbox.md) - Birchfeed 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. For spam reasons, you can't jus…
- [Birchfeed can be your front page of the internet](https://birchtree.me/blog/birchfeed-can-be-your-front-page-of-the-internet.md) - Birchfeed 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…
- [App review needs a reboot](https://birchtree.me/blog/app-review-needs-a-reboot.md) - Lex Friedman: The App Store review process needs fixing 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 revi…
- [Becoming worthless (in a good way)](https://birchtree.me/blog/becoming-worthless-in-a-good-way.md) - Cory Dransfeldt: Become worthless (to tech companies) 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…
- [The Quick Reads CLI](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-quick-reads-cli.md) - As of today, you nerds who like to read later can do so from your terminal with the Quick Reads CLI. 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…
- [Hidden gems comes to Best-o-Masto on the web](https://birchtree.me/blog/hidden-gems-comes-to-best-o-masto-on-the-web.md) - Best-o-Masto 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 h…
- [Nonogame has gotten a bunch of new things recently](https://birchtree.me/blog/nonogame-has-gotten-a-bunch-of-new-things-recently.md) - Nonogame 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 is out…
- [AppZapper 3000 is incredibly rad](https://birchtree.me/blog/appzapper-3000-is-incredibly-rad.md) - 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 is, b…
- [The Register thinks my La Croix benchmark is legit (sorta)](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-register-thinks-my-la-croix-benchmark-is-legit-sorta.md) - Brandon Vigliarolo: iPhone 18 Pro benchmark boosted by giving it a cold drink 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 leve…
- [Riley Hill on the Fold8's crease](https://birchtree.me/blog/riley-hill-on-the-fold8s-crease.md) - Riley Hill: Galaxy Z Fold 8 Review: Worth Buying in Years 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…
- [My phone is clearly listening to me*](https://birchtree.me/blog/my-phone-is-clearly-listening-to-me.md) - 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 ser…
- [+ The unbelievable allure of indie software development](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-unbelievable-allure-of-indie-software-development.md) - God, it's rewarding working on indie software.
- [Disable the god damned Siri shortcut on Golden Gate](https://birchtree.me/blog/disable-the-god-damned-siri-shortcut-on-golden-gate.md) - 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 screenshotti…
- [The new AirPods MVP](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-new-airpods-mvp.md) - 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 i…
- [Resident Evil movie is widely adored and makes an ass-ton of money](https://birchtree.me/blog/resident-evil-movie-is-widely-adored-and-makes-an-ass-ton-of-money.md) - Michael Cripe: Resident Evil Defies Expectations as Zach Cregger Adaptation Collects $108 Million Globally After First Weekend in Theaters 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 o…
- [An agent skill to help update your app for the iPhone Duo](https://birchtree.me/blog/an-agent-skill-to-help-update-your-app-for-the-iphone-duo.md) - 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 if you're in a similar boat.
- [What my apps look like on the iPhone Duo with zero code changes](https://birchtree.me/blog/what-my-apps-look-like-on-the-iphone-duo-with-zero-code-changes.md) - 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…
- [Quick Stuff gets more personal](https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-stuff-gets-more-personal.md) - Quick Stuff 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 lit…
- [Nonogame will soar on the iPhone Duo](https://birchtree.me/blog/nonogame-will-soar-on-the-iphone-duo.md) - Nonogame for the iPhone and iPad 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…
- [iPhone 18 Pro with La Croix cooling](https://birchtree.me/blog/iphone-18-pro-with-la-croix-cooling.md) - I did some benchmarking today 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 f…
- [The iPhone 18 Pro is a transcription monster](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-iphone-18-pro-is-a-transcription-monster.md) - 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 bench…
- [+ Metal Gear Solid 4 is awful. Truly awful.](https://birchtree.me/blog/metal-gear-solid-4-is-awful-truly-awful.md) - It turns out my memory was actually being far too kind to this game.
- [Xcode 27.2 is in beta. The 27.1 beta is coming later.](https://birchtree.me/blog/xcode-27-2-is-in-beta-the-27-1-beta-is-coming-later.md) - 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 downloa…
- ["Apple said they invented this"](https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-said-they-invented-this.md) - 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 fi…
- [Bircharoo is my Obsidian theme](https://birchtree.me/blog/bircharoo-is-my-obsidian-theme.md) - This is gonna be a short one, but I made a simple Obsidian theme. It's called Bircharoo 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 wh…
- [1,000 hours of nonogame](https://birchtree.me/blog/1-000-hours-of-nonogame.md) - I hit a pretty fun milestone in nonogame 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 an…
- [Chris Lawley's iPadOS 27 walkthrough](https://birchtree.me/blog/chris-lawleys-ipados-27-walkthrough.md) - 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](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-os-27-updates.md) - 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…
- [Quick Reads now saves multi-page websites](https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-now-saves-multi-page-websites.md) - As of today, Quick Reads 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, this will handle it perfect…
- [How to release TV shows in 2026](https://birchtree.me/blog/how-to-release-tv-shows-in-2026.md) - I found this report 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 pa…
- [A new retro handheld has my attention](https://birchtree.me/blog/a-new-retro-handheld-has-my-attention.md) - Daryl Baxter: Retroid Pocket Nova review: the best 4:3 retro handheld 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…
- [Apple's C2 modem is in the iPhone 18 Pro Max (except in America)](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-c2-modem-is-in-the-iphone-18-pro-max-except-in-america.md) - Joe Rossignol: Apple Says iPhone 18 Pro Max Sold in U.S. Differs in One Way 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](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-iphone-duo-opportunity-for-developers.md) - The iPhone Duo won't sell the most units this year, but I think winning apps should update for it ASAP anyway.
- [We must dream bigger](https://birchtree.me/blog/we-must-dream-bigger.md) - 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 c…
- [The iPhone Air seems extremely niche in general, but my users love it](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-iphone-air-seems-extremely-niche-in-general-but-my-users-love-it.md) - David Smith shared some numbers on how many people are using WidgetSmith, 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 marke…
- [Quick Reads, quicker than ever](https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-quicker-than-ever.md) - I'm always looking for little ways to make Quick Reads 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 lon…
- [The most interesting things in the iPhone Duo (and more)](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-most-interesting-things-in-the-iphone-duo-and-more.md) - 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](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-iphone-duo-shows-apple-at-its-best.md) - 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'…
- [Drawably is a hand-drawn UI library](https://birchtree.me/blog/drawably-is-a-hand-drawn-ui-library.md) - It's not particularly useful for me, but I really dig this little UI library.
- [What's next for the iPhone Air?](https://birchtree.me/blog/whats-next-for-the-iphone-air.md) - 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 featur…
- [The Ocarina of Time remake looks astounding](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-ocarina-of-time-remake-looks-astounding.md) - 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 p…
- [The Birchfeed CLI](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-birchfeed-cli.md) - One of the things I love in Birchfeed, 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 servic…
- [Birchtree goes liquid ass…ahem…glass](https://birchtree.me/blog/birchtree-goes-liquid-ass-ahem-glass.md) - 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…
- [My folding iPhone predictions](https://birchtree.me/blog/my-folding-iphone-predictions.md) - 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…
- [+ Doomscrolling is not an obligation](https://birchtree.me/blog/doomscrolling-is-not-an-obligation.md) - For the first time in my Mastodon era, I find it's time for me to take a social media break again.
- [Comfort Zone is coming back this month](https://birchtree.me/blog/comfort-zone-is-coming-back-this-month.md) - 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 says it all: Comfort Zone rocks. You can listen to the most rec…
- [Chill racist games hosted by the US government](https://birchtree.me/blog/chill-racist-games-hosted-by-the-us-government.md) - 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! The website is just a bunch of knockoffs of other games that I'm sure some intern vib…
- [The best iPhone lineup ever](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-best-iphone-lineup-ever.md) - Casey Liss on this week's ATP: 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 serve…
- [180 merges in 135 days](https://birchtree.me/blog/180-merges-in-135-days.md) - I officially launched Quick Reads 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,…
- [Arc Raiders has faded away while I wasn't looking](https://birchtree.me/blog/arc-raiders-has-faded-away-while-i-wasnt-looking.md) - Jamie Hore: Are We Really Witnessing the "Downfall" of Arc Raiders? That’s according to a 9 August 2026 Twitter post from content creator ‘Adio’. The post was reacting to the hit extraction shooter’s decline in player count on Steam in recent months, and several more similar posts from notable soci…
- [NVIDIA is doing the iPhone thing](https://birchtree.me/blog/nvidia-is-doing-the-iphone-thing.md) - Ben Thompson: Nvidia Earnings, Dollars Per Gigawatt, Open and Hugging Face 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…
- [The tech Apple will use to make the crease (mostly?) go away in their folding iPhone](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-tech-apple-will-use-to-make-the-crease-mostly-go-away-in-their-folding-iphone.md) - KIMGEON: Google, Oppo and Vivo to Adopt Dual UTG for Foldable Phones – Apple-led dual-UTG design doubles glass content per foldable device 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 reinfo…
- [Designed in California](https://birchtree.me/blog/designed-in-california.md) - Myke Hurley: Designed in California is LIVE! 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…
- [Silo…in your browser](https://birchtree.me/blog/silo-in-your-browser.md) - This site is insane.
- [Updates to Quick Reads, Reviews, and Subtitles for iOS](https://birchtree.me/blog/updates-to-quick-reads-reviews-and-subtitles-for-ios.md) - 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. First off, you can now add notes to your highlights. After doing this fo…
- [Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1 are here](https://birchtree.me/blog/fable-5-1-and-mythos-5-1-are-here.md) - Anthropic: Introducing Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1 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 officiall…
- [1Password with an unbelievable own goal](https://birchtree.me/blog/1password-with-an-unbelievable-own-goal.md) - Andrew Lilley Brinker: 1Password Supports the Ethnic Cleansing of Europe 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…
- [You didn't write that, you're just a meat proxy](https://birchtree.me/blog/you-didnt-write-that-youre-just-a-meat-proxy.md) - sf-isms: Meat proxy 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…
- [How my Mac mini turned into infrastructure for Quick Reads](https://birchtree.me/blog/how-my-mac-mini-turned-into-infrastructure-for-quick-reads.md) - 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](https://birchtree.me/blog/jason-snells-productivity-picks.md) - Jason Snell was featured on the Mac App Store 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…
- [Introducing Birchfeed, the best RSS app that works in your favorite RSS app already](https://birchtree.me/blog/introducing-birchfeed-the-best-rss-app-that-works-in-your-favorite-rss-app-already.md) - 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 somethi…
- [Face computers just aren't going to be a thing, right?](https://birchtree.me/blog/face-computers-just-arent-going-to-be-a-thing-right.md) - 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 about how VR is "about to take off" and yet it still hasn't. Sure, prices hav…
- [The unbearable weight of Metal Gear Solid 4's cutscenes](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-unbearable-weight-of-metal-gear-solid-4s-cutscenes.md) - 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 lo…
- [Fancy new crazy new mockup generators](https://birchtree.me/blog/fancy-new-crazy-new-mockup-generators.md) - There are a few interesting tools for making mockups and videos that have come across my radar recently. The first is mckp.live, which is from the fine folks at ls.graphics 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…
- [Panic rocks](https://birchtree.me/blog/panic-rocks.md) - Ian Carlos Campbell: Panic is refunding tariff fees paid by Playdate owners 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 il…
- [Trashcan](https://birchtree.me/blog/trashcan.md) - Trashcan is a fun little site.
- [+ Introducing *********](https://birchtree.me/blog/introducing-something.md) - New thing coming soon…
- [This phone folds. It folds!](https://birchtree.me/blog/this-phone-folds-it-folds.md) - 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 (…
- [Comfort Zone will return](https://birchtree.me/blog/comfort-zone-will-return.md) - 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…
- [Quick Reads for iOS just got a ton of updates](https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-for-ios-just-got-a-ton-of-updates.md) - 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 lo…
- [+ Comfortable and uncomfortable truths](https://birchtree.me/blog/comfortable-and-uncomfortable-truths.md) - I understand being mad, I understand not tolerating it, but I think there's an uncomfortable truth, representing the world being a messy place where few things are completely black and white.
- [Walmart is the last major US company to add Tap to Pay](https://birchtree.me/blog/walmart-is-the-last-major-us-company-to-add-tap-to-pay.md) - Walmart: More Ways to Pay: Tap to Pay Is Coming to Walmart and Sam’s Club 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-2…
- [Apple's obviously going to make a second folding phone](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-obviously-going-to-make-a-second-folding-phone.md) - I've been using Samsung's new Galaxy Fold8 for the last week (More Birchtree members can read my initial impressions here). 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 t…
- [Quick Subtitles 3](https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-subtitles-3.md) - Quick Subtitles 3 is out now 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 fron…
- [Subscriber rot](https://birchtree.me/blog/subscriber-rot.md) - 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 cel…
- [What is a perversion to writing?](https://birchtree.me/blog/what-is-a-perversion-to-writing.md) - Simon Wilson has the best description of LLMs that I’ve seen so far. He called them a calculator for words, 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 i…
- [I for one, welcome our nanny state](https://birchtree.me/blog/i-for-one-welcome-our-nanny-state.md) - 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 indi…
- [iPhone pre-orders might be tighter than normal this year](https://birchtree.me/blog/iphone-pre-orders-might-be-tighter-than-normal-this-year.md) - Ming-Chi Kuo: A recent media report claims that tight DRAM suppl... 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 ope…
- [How cooked is Gemini?](https://birchtree.me/blog/how-cooked-is-gemini.md) - Max Kan: Gemini is Cooked but GCP is Cooking 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 frontie…
- [+ Galaxy Z Fold8 Impressions](https://birchtree.me/blog/galaxy-z-fold8-impressions.md) - Samsung's new foldable is an early look at what Apple will be announcing next month.
- [Quick Reviews 3 is out now!](https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reviews-3-is-out-now.md) - Quick Reviews 3 is out now 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 review…
- [Chapterize 2.1: iCloud sync, enhance audio, and more](https://birchtree.me/blog/chapterize-2-1-icloud-sync-enhance-audio-and-more.md) - Chapterize 2.1 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 wh…
- [Quick Reads 1.0.4 is a beefy iPad update](https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-1-0-4-is-a-beefy-ipad-update.md) - Quick Reads for iPhone and iPad 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…
- [Quick Reads has been getting better all summer](https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-has-been-getting-better-all-summer.md) - I've been shipping a steady stream of updates to Quick Reads over the past couple months, and while each one got a line in the changelog, 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…
- [Native app propaganda is working](https://birchtree.me/blog/native-app-propaganda-is-working.md) - No One's Happy: Native Apps Should Be Avoided Whenever Possible 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 a…
- [Not all "vibe coding" is created equal](https://birchtree.me/blog/not-all-vibe-coding-is-created-equal.md) - Sean Goedecke: LLMs reward expertise 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 sens…
- [I was on Hacker News yesterday and didn't even notice](https://birchtree.me/blog/i-was-on-hacker-news-yesterday-and-didnt-even-notice.md) - 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…
- [Linus Torvalds lays into anti-AI developers](https://birchtree.me/blog/linus-torvalds-lays-into-anti-ai-developers.md) - Linus Torvalds (the creator or Linux) was spitting fire in a post to the Linux kernel mailing list just a few weeks ago: 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 wh…
- [Benchmarking all the Macs I have around for fun](https://birchtree.me/blog/benchmarking-all-the-macs-i-have-around-for-fun.md) - Just for fun, I've use quicksubs' 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 com…
- [+ Nostalgia for nostalgia](https://birchtree.me/blog/nostalgia-for-nostalgia.md)
- [The best watch band for the Apple Watch Ultra](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-best-watch-band-for-the-apple-watch-ultra.md) - Josh Ginter: The Titanium Milanese Loop Apple Watch Band Review: The Best Apple Watch Band Ever Made 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…
- [The rules change when you become top dog](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-rules-change-when-you-become-top-dog.md) - M.G. Siegler: What if Anthropic is Right? 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…
- [Dia becomes Arc](https://birchtree.me/blog/dia-becomes-arc.md) - 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…
- [PC gamers just don't want to buy games from Xbox, even to play on their Xbox handhelds](https://birchtree.me/blog/pc-gamers-just-dont-want-to-buy-games-from-xbox-even-to-play-on-their-xbox-handhelds.md) - 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…
- [+ About the Hank Green situation](https://birchtree.me/blog/about-the-hank-green-situation.md) - Burn him at the stake! (apparently)
- [No more new apps (in August)](https://birchtree.me/blog/no-more-new-apps-in-august.md) - 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 gi…
- [Holocloth is the coolest website I've seen in ages](https://birchtree.me/blog/holocloth-is-the-coolest-website-ive-seen-in-ages.md) - Good lord, play with this thing.
- [Rosé Pine](https://birchtree.me/blog/rose-pine.md) - We probably all know Catppuccin at this point, but have you heard the good news about Rosé Pine? 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?](https://birchtree.me/blog/is-apple-a-software-company-hardware-company-or-rent-seeking-company.md) - 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…
- [Micro app 21: ghosthunter CLI](https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-21-ghosthunter-cli.md) - Ghosthunter 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 s…
- [Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc.](https://birchtree.me/blog/xbox-goes-down-you-cant-play-games-you-own-on-disc.md) - Jay Peters: Xbox’s huge outage even blocked games on disc 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…
- [I don't think people are reading every line of code](https://birchtree.me/blog/i-dont-think-people-are-reading-every-line-of-code.md) - 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](https://birchtree.me/blog/nonogame-is-the-nonogram-app-i-never-expected-to-make.md) - TLDR: You can play three daily puzzles at nonogame.app 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. Nonograms were similar to Sudoku in that they gave you a gri…
- [+ It's just tech](https://birchtree.me/blog/its-just-tech.md)
- [Chapterize 2: a new generation](https://birchtree.me/blog/chapterize-2-a-new-generation.md) - 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 i…
- [+ Previewing my big app updates of the summer](https://birchtree.me/blog/previewing-my-big-app-updates-of-the-summer.md) - An early preview of the big app updates I have coming the rest of the summer.
- [quicksubs CLI gets more models and benchmarks](https://birchtree.me/blog/quickubs-cli-gets-more-models-and-benchmarks.md) - Last week I solved my own problem by releasing the quicksubs CLI, 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…
- [They’re just so desperate](https://birchtree.me/blog/theyre-just-so-desperate.md) - The small brained, big bigoted people on this subreddit are convinced 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 t…
- [Obsession and Backrooms are moving the needle](https://birchtree.me/blog/obsession-and-backrooms-are-moving-the-needle.md) - David Chen: 'Obsession' and 'Backrooms' Are Destroying Our Assumptions About the Box Office 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…

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