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In which I get loud about Avatar out of nowhere
Robin Rendle: Be Loud About the Things You Love
A writing tip for myself in the future, if I may
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Apple will let US merchants link to payments on the web, but Apple will still take their cut
You should read Chance Miller’s whole article on 9to5Mac, but I wanted to share my immediate thoughts after seeing this.
Apple is updating its App Store guidelines to allow developers to link to alternative payment methods, provided that the app also offer purchases through Apple’s own In-App Purchase system.
First off, this
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News app Artifact is shutting down next month
Kevin Systrom: Shutting Down Artifact
We have built something that a core group of users love, but we have concluded that the market opportunity isn’t big enough to warrant continued investment in this way.
It’s a shame this app didn’t make it. I liked it in theory, and I know a few
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Probably my last Substack post for a while (Platformer joins the Ghost club)
Casey Newton: Why Platformer Is Leaving Substack
After much consideration, we have decided to move Platformer off of Substack. Over the next few days, the publication will migrate to a new website powered by the nonprofit, open-source publishing platform Ghost. If you already subscribe to Platformer and wish to continue receiving it, you don’
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I don’t have strong opinions about a product I haven’t used
Joe Rossignol for MacRumors: iPhone Was Missing These 10 Essential Features When Unveiled in 2007
Today marks the 17th anniversary of the late Steve Jobs unveiling the original iPhone at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. While the device was significantly more advanced than any other smartphone on the market at the time, the iPhone
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Who’s ready for Walmart to decide what food you buy?
David Pierce for The Verge: Walmart’s AI Search Makes Shopping Faster, and Its AI Delivery Makes It Invisible
The future of grocery shopping is no grocery shopping at all. It’s your fridge just being full, always, automatically.
A couple things on this one…
First, for many people, you don’t buy as much
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Substack wants to have its cake and eat it too
Casey Newton: Substack Says It Will Remove Nazi Publications From the Platform
over the past couple years Substack has come to more closely resemble the social networks it often criticizes. Each week, Substack sends users a personalized, algorithmically ranked digest of posts from writers they don’t yet follow — a feature that can help fringe
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How we can maybe explain the rumored upcoming very expensive iPads
Tim Hardwick: OLED iPad Pro Prices to Start From $1,500, Rising to as Much as $2,000
Apple's upcoming OLED iPad Pro will start at $1,500, rising to between $1,800 and $2,000 depending on size and configuration, representing a major increase in prices compared to Apple's current
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2023 didn’t just break the iPad’s streak (“wah!”)
Zack Zwiezen: 2023 Was the First Waluigi-Less Year Since 2000
As seen on the extensive fan wiki, Waluigi has
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A splash of color
Chris Nicholas: A new blog for 2024
It’s been a long time since I’ve published a blog post, two whole years. Part of the reason is that it took too much effort to create posts for my previous blog. I needed better DX. A few nights ago, feeling inspired after reading articles by
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Nintendo is Nintendo
Keza MacDonald: Nintendo’s Design Guru Shigeru Miyamoto: ‘I Wanted to Make Something Weird’
Miyamoto is often called the Spielberg of games and Nintendo dubbed gaming’s Pixar, but he doesn’t like those comparisons. “Miyamoto is Miyamoto and Nintendo is Nintendo,” was how he put it in an interview in February 2023.
I strongly
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Reasons to be optimistic
Nick Heer: How to Be Optimistic About Technology Now
When I was much younger, I assumed people who were optimistic must have misplaced confidence. How anyone could see a future so bright was a complete mystery when, I reasoned, when what we are exposed to is a series of mistakes and then attempts at correction
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The future of LLMs is local
I saw this post over on json.blog, OpenAI Is Just Uber, which sounds like it makes sense, but I think is drawing the wrong conclusions on a couple fronts.
A decade later, ride-sharing hasn’t evolved significantly since its launch. Costs have risen as consumers now pay the actual marginal cost of their
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Walking away and feeling great about it
Ben Werdmuller: Leaving the Nazi Bar
If I find that the owner of the living room allows people who make me or my friends feel unsafe — or, as is true in this case, pays them to hang out there, and makes money from their presence — I can use the law of two feet to leave.
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2023 was a big year for the fediverse. 2024 could be even bigger
David Pierce for The Verge, 2023 in Social Media: The Case for the Fediverse
It doesn’t make sense that we have a dozen usernames, a dozen profiles, a dozen sets of fans and friends. All that stuff should belong to me, and I should be able to access it and interact with it anywhere
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Swing back to the blog
Chris McLeod, Blogging is where it's at, again
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but stumbling into such a trove of active blogs has enthused me about blogging as a medium again. It’s sparked a thought that through a combination of increased blogging activity, declining platforms, and increasing adoption of
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That time Microsoft blew it with Xbox
Steven Asarch for Kotaku, Xbox’s Biggest Flop Was a Decade Ahead of Its Time
Microsoft’s follow-up was the Xbox One, the always-online console bundled with the much-maligned motion control accessory known as the Kinect. To be blunt, the console’s introduction was a bit of a clusterfuck.
It may be
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It’s not a problem, it’s an opportunity!
I wrote a little about this already, but I also wanted to link to Ken White’s Substack Has a Nazi Opportunity because it makes a few points very well and is worth a read.
I dislike McKenzie’s apologia for Substack’s policy and for Richard Hanania because it has a sort of detached,