# 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
- [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…
- [We are not ourselves on social media](https://birchtree.me/blog/we-are-not-ourselves-on-social-media.md) - Jason Toney: I Hate The Way We Talk Online 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…
- [Validate those AI answers, people](https://birchtree.me/blog/validate-those-ai-answers-people.md) - Ana Maria Constantin: AI advice made people three times less accurate but twice as confident, researchers found 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…
- [2026 is on pace for more than 1 million new app on the App Store. Just like 2016 all over again.](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.md) - Kalley Huang: ‘Vibecoded’ Apps Are Flooding the App Store. Is That Good for Apple? 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 5…
- [+ My beef with The Odyssey discourse](https://birchtree.me/blog/my-beef-with-the-odyssey-discourse.md)
- [Quick Notes 3.0 is out now](https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-notes-3-is-out-now.md) - Quick Notes 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 I think this first feature may be a sleeper hit.…
- [Micro app 20: The Quick Subtitles CLI](https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-20-the-quick-subtitles-cli.md) - 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 comes in, and you can install…
- [Micro app 19: That Guy](https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-19-that-guy.md) - 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 u…
- [X is a platform built for combat (they say they’re fixing it)](https://birchtree.me/blog/x-is-a-platform-built-for-combat-they-say-theyre-fixing-it.md) - Stevie Bonifield: X admits its broken algorithm made the site feel like a ‘battleground’ 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 yo…
- [Upcoming iPad mini likely to get OLED, retain 60Hz, and probably get more expensive](https://birchtree.me/blog/upcoming-ipad-mini-likely-to-get-oled-retain-60hz-and-probably-get-more-expensive.md) - Tim Hardwick: Upcoming OLED iPad Mini Allegedly Uses 60Hz 8.4-Inch Display Panel 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…
- [Quick Reads now does todo items](https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-now-does-todo-items.md) - 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…
- [+ Whatever happened to the replication crisis?](https://birchtree.me/blog/whatever-happened-to-the-replication-crisis.md)
- [My favorite (and least favorite) movies of 2026 so far](https://birchtree.me/blog/my-favorite-and-least-favorite-movies-of-2026-so-far.md) - 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 Com…
- [Netflix can't keep viewers for season 2, even of their good shows](https://birchtree.me/blog/netflix-cant-keep-viewers-for-season-2-even-of-their-good-shows.md) - Lucas Shaw: Netflix Viewers Are Abandoning Shows After One Season 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…
- [Xbox had a terrible strategy, and now they're laying off 3,200 people and ditching 5 studios](https://birchtree.me/blog/xbox-had-a-terrible-strategy-and-now-theyre-laying-off-3-200-people-and-ditching-5-studios.md) - From Asha Sharma's letter to Xbox employees earlier this week (via IGN): 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, a…
- [Ghosty Posty for Obsidian gets edits, visibility, and delivery options](https://birchtree.me/blog/ghosty-posty-for-obsidian-gets-edits-visibility-and-delivery-options.md) - Ghosty Posty 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 After posting, the Ghost post ID is…
- [What "reasonable concerns" around trans people really means](https://birchtree.me/blog/what-reasonable-concerns-around-trans-people-really-means.md) - 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. 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…
- [Code is easy, writing is hard (for a robot)](https://birchtree.me/blog/code-is-easy-writing-is-hard-for-a-robot.md) - Robin Sloan: Fable is very good 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…
- [Quick Reads keeps getting updates!](https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-keeps-getting-updates.md) - First off, Quick Reads is finally available on the App Store! 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…
- [Micro app 18: Claude Code Obsidian sync](https://birchtree.me/blog/micro-app-18-claude-code-obsidian-sync.md) - 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…
- [+ Weird nerds](https://birchtree.me/blog/weird-nerds.md) - Maybe we were the weird nerds all along.
- [Quick Reads now does newsletters and RSS](https://birchtree.me/blog/quick-reads-now-does-newsletters-and-rss.md) - Since its launch, the number one feature request I've gotten for Quick Reads 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…
- [Sony is leaving physical games behind in 2028](https://birchtree.me/blog/sony-is-leaving-physical-games-behind-in-2028.md) - Sony had a double-whammy of press releases yesterday. First, they announced that they were ditching physical game discs in 2028: 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 rele…
- [A blown up iPhone, not the next Mac](https://birchtree.me/blog/a-blown-up-iphone-not-the-next-mac.md) - Federico Viticci: Headless Macs and Hamstrung iPads 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 me…
- [An update from the study that said devs were actually slower with coding agents](https://birchtree.me/blog/an-update-from-the-study-that-said-devs-were-actually-slower-with-coding-agents.md) - METR: We are Changing our Developer Productivity Experiment Design 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…
- [+ Why changing your productivity system is good, actually](https://birchtree.me/blog/why-changing-your-productivity-system-is-good-actually.md)
- [May 2026 was the worst sales month for Xbox consoles *ever*](https://birchtree.me/blog/may-2026-was-the-worst-sales-month-for-xbox-consoles-ever.md) - Mat Piscatella: Hardware - PlayStation hardware unit sales fell to… 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…
- [Xbox prices jump again, and Microsoft warns they my again next year](https://birchtree.me/blog/xbox-prices-jump-again-and-microsoft-warns-they-my-again-next-year.md) - Joe Skrebels on XBOX Wire, Micirosft's official Xbox (ahem…XBOX) blog (emphasis mine): Updated XBOX Console Prices 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 supp…
- [Notion Mail is shutting down September 22](https://birchtree.me/blog/notion-mail-is-shutting-down-september-22.md) - Notion on X: 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 jus…
- [Apple raises prices, and it's gonna hurt](https://birchtree.me/blog/apple-raises-prices-and-its-gonna-hurt.md) - Stephen Nellis and Aditya Soni quoting a statement they got from Apple: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads as memory costs skyrocket "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, b…
- [Fairly priced and too expensive](https://birchtree.me/blog/fairly-priced-and-too-expensive.md) - User cantrip in a comment on The Verge: 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 from a couple days ago when the Steam…
- [More on Tangerine Neue](https://birchtree.me/blog/more-on-tangerine-neue.md) - Earlier today, I released Tangerine Neue, 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…
- [AI coding is creating a new generation of makers](https://birchtree.me/blog/ai-coding-is-creating-a-new-generation-of-makers.md) - Ben Thompson: My Vibe Coding Adventure, The App and the Experience, Ten Takeaways 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, t…
- [Tangerine Neue for Mastodon](https://birchtree.me/blog/tangerine-neue-for-mastodon.md) - In 2023, Niléane created Tangerine UI, 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 last week. It can be a lot of time and effort to maintain so…
- [Xbox will keep chopping off heads until morale improves](https://birchtree.me/blog/xbox-will-keep-chopping-off-heads-until-morale-improves.md) - Jason Schreier: Studios in Microsoft’s Xbox Division Brace for Closures 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…
- [MonoLisa, my favorite monospaced font ever, released v3](https://birchtree.me/blog/monolisa-my-favorite-monospaced-font-ever-released-v3.md) - From the MonoLisa blog: MonoLisa - MonoLisa version 3 – now with MonoLisa Text family 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 reach…
- [Advanced Dictation is off by default in iOS 27. Here's how to enable it](https://birchtree.me/blog/advanced-dictation-is-off-by-default-in-ios-27-heres-how-to-enable-it.md) - Hartley Charlton: Advanced AI Dictation Not Enabled by Default in iOS 27 Beta 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 disappoi…
- [Steam Machine is the first $1,400+ console](https://birchtree.me/blog/steam-machine-is-the-first-1-400-console.md) - Valve: Steam Machine launches today! 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), especially for a $1,000+…
- ["The lowest price in months"](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-lowest-price-in-months.md) - MacStories Deals posted this 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 202…
- [+ I've stopped using Things (I know!)](https://birchtree.me/blog/ive-stopped-using-things.md) - To be clear, I still love it!
- [Tim Cook announces price increases coming soon(ish)](https://birchtree.me/blog/tim-cook-announces-price-increases-coming-soon-ish.md) - Juli Clover: Tim Cook Says Apple Price Increases Are 'Unavoidable' Due to Memory Costs 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…
- [Keychron Thunderbolt 5 Dock: a good dock at a good price that is probably overkill for most people](https://birchtree.me/blog/keychron-thunderbolt-5-dock-a-good-dock-at-a-good-price-that-is-probably-overkill-for-most-people.md) - Today, famed keyboard maker Keychron has released their first Thunderbolt dock, the Keychron Thunderbolt 5 Dock (14-in-1). 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…
- [A hateful "gift to Americans"](https://birchtree.me/blog/a-hateful-gift-to-americans.md) - 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 o…
- [The MacBook Neo is a great second computer](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-macbook-neo-is-a-great-second-computer.md) - 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'…
- [Xbox embraces exclusives again (and why Nintendo may have played the long game brilliantly)](https://birchtree.me/blog/xbox-embraces-exclusives-again-and-why-nintendo-may-have-played-the-long-game-brilliantly.md) - Joe Skrebels: XBOX Games Showcase 2026 Recap: The Return of Exclusives, World Premieres, and Anniversary Hardware 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 al…
- [US government forces Anthropic to kill Fable and Mythos (for now)](https://birchtree.me/blog/us-government-forces-anthropic-to-kill-fable-and-mythos.md) - Anthropic: Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 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 S…
- [Google's new icons are good, actually](https://birchtree.me/blog/googles-new-icons-are-good-actually.md) - Devin Coldewey: Google's new logos are bad 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 apar…
- [+ Underwater](https://birchtree.me/blog/underwater.md) - 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 wa…
- [OS 27's best small update](https://birchtree.me/blog/os-27s-best-small-update.md) - 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 probl…
- [Apple's OS blender](https://birchtree.me/blog/apples-os-blender.md) - 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…
- [Touch Macs are already here](https://birchtree.me/blog/touch-macs-are-already-here.md) - Apple's WWDC kicked off yesterday, and there is one update in particular that struck me, the Sidecar feature now lets you directly manipulate macOS 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 compl…
- [The first "Quick" app wasn't Quick Reviews](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-first-quick-app-wasnt-quick-reviews.md) - 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, QuickPin was a Chrome extension that let you save links to Pinboard with a single click. Honestly, I still think it's pretty good,…
- [Gamers make me embarrassed to be a gamer](https://birchtree.me/blog/gamers-make-me-embarrassed-to-be-a-gamer.md) - 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…
- [Loupe](https://birchtree.me/blog/loupe.md) - Loupe 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…
- [Best-o-Masto comes to the web](https://birchtree.me/blog/best-o-masto-comes-to-the-web.md) - 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 and you can use it from any device. This also makes it available to Android users, which the iOS app obvio…
- [Welcome to the new Quick Tier List!](https://birchtree.me/blog/welcome-to-the-new-quick-tier-list.md) - For the last few months, I've been running Quick Tier List, 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…
- [The best CleanShot keyboard shortcuts that will change your life or whatever](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-best-cleanshot-keyboard-shortcuts-that-will-change-your-life-or-whatever.md) - 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…
- [The tech behind NBA broadcasts](https://birchtree.me/blog/the-tech-behind-nba-broadcasts.md) - 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 t…
- [+ My religious Belle & Sebastian experience](https://birchtree.me/blog/my-religious-belle-sebastian-experience.md)

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