FEED Validator

for Atom and RSS and KML

Congratulations!

This is a valid Atom 1.0 feed.

Recommendations

This feed is valid, but interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendations.

line 13, column 66: Unregistered link relationship: shorturl (48 occurrences) [help]

	<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w8c" />
                                                                  ^

line 1758, column 0: content should not contain controls attribute [help]
```
<audio
```
line 1758, column 0: content should not contain preload attribute [help]
```
<audio
```

Source: http://daringfireball.net/index.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<title>Daring Fireball</title>
<subtitle>By John Gruber</subtitle>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/" />
<link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/main" />
<id>https://daringfireball.net/feeds/main</id>
<updated>2025-04-03T19:54:59Z</updated><rights>Copyright © 2025, John Gruber</rights><entry>
<title>The Economist on Trump’s Mindless Tariffs</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/04/03/president-trumps-mindless-tariffs-will-cause-economic-havoc" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w8c" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/03/the-economist-on-trumps-mindless-tariffs" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41772</id>
<published>2025-04-03T19:54:59Z</published>
<updated>2025-04-03T19:54:59Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
The Economist:
<blockquote>
On economics Mr Trump’s assertions are flat-out nonsense. The
president says tariffs are needed to close America’s trade
deficit, which he sees as a transfer of wealth to foreigners. Yet
as any of the president’s economists could have told him, this
overall deficit arises because Americans choose to save less than
their country invests — and, crucially, this long-running reality
has not stopped its economy from outpacing the rest of the g7 for
over three decades. There is no reason why his extra tariffs
should eliminate the deficit. Insisting on balanced trade with
every trading partner individually is bonkers — like suggesting
that Texas would be richer if it insisted on balanced trade with
each of the other 49 states, or asking a company to ensure that
each of its suppliers is also a customer.
And Mr Trump’s grasp of the technicalities was pathetic. He
suggested that the new tariffs were based on an assessment of a
country’s tariffs against America, plus currency manipulation and
other supposed distortions, such as value-added tax. But it looks
as if officials set the tariffs using a formula that takes
America’s bilateral trade deficit as a share of goods imported
from each country and halves it — which is almost as random as
taxing you on the number of vowels in your name.
</blockquote>
There is no way to report on these tariffs in a way that is honest and accurate without describing them as bonkers and nonsensical. News publications that are trying to present them as rational, or describing them as “reciprocal” just because that’s the word the White House is using, <a href="https://presswatchers.org/2025/04/mainstream-media-falls-for-trumps-insane-reciprocal-tariff-talk/">are beclowning themselves</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘The Economist on Trump’s Mindless Tariffs’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/03/the-economist-on-trumps-mindless-tariffs"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Trump Tariffs, Day Two</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/03/trump-tariffs-live-updates-stock-market-trade-war.html" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w8b" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/03/trump-tariffs-day-two" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41771</id>
<published>2025-04-03T19:22:23Z</published>
<updated>2025-04-03T19:22:23Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
CNBC:
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/02/stock-market-today-live-updates-trump-tariffs.html">Markets plunged</a> the day after President Donald Trump
imposed a far-reaching “reciprocal tariff” policy, including a
10% baseline tariff on almost every country on earth.</li>
<li>The plan slaps much steeper tariff rates on many countries,
including 34% on China, 20% on the European Union, 46% on
Vietnam and 32% on Taiwan.</li>
<li>Economists and U.S. trade partners <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/03/how-did-the-us-arrive-at-its-tariff-figures-.html">are raising
questions</a> about how the White House calculated the
tariff rates it claimed other countries “charge” the United
States.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
Apple, in particular, is taking it on the chin, about 9.5% for the day. Nike is down over 13%. From CNBC’s corresponding story on just <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/03/how-did-the-us-arrive-at-its-tariff-figures-.html">how the White House computed the “tariff” rates</a> it claims for various countries:
<blockquote>
Many observers said the U.S. appeared to have divided the trade
deficit by imports from a given country to arrive at tariff rates
for individual countries.
Such methodology doesn’t necessarily align with the conventional
approach for calculating tariffs and implies the U.S. would have
looked at only the trade deficit in goods and ignored trade in
services.
</blockquote>
“Such methodology doesn’t necessarily align with the conventional approach” is an overlong euphemism for “The president literally doesn’t understand what tariffs are”. James Surowiecki was seemingly <a href="https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1907559189234196942">the first person to figure out the White House’s nonsensical formula</a>:
<blockquote>
Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They
didn’t actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as
they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our
trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country’s
exports to us.
So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its
exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims
is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary
nonsense this is.
</blockquote>
Don’t rack your brain trying to make sense out of the nonsensical.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Trump Tariffs, Day Two’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/03/trump-tariffs-day-two"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Nintendo Switch 2 Details</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theverge.com/nintendo/638604/nintendo-switch-2-direct-news-trailers-stream" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w8a" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/02/nintendo-switch-2-details" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41770</id>
<published>2025-04-02T15:35:01Z</published>
<updated>2025-04-02T15:35:01Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Great roundup from The Verge:
<blockquote>
While Nintendo told us <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/16/23872810/nintendo-switch-2-next-generation-console-features-trailer">very little in the official reveal of
the console in January</a>, now we know when the Switch 2 is
coming and how much it will cost at launch: <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/634603/nintendo-switch-2-price-release-date-details">June 5th and
$449.99</a>. We also have <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/630264/nintendo-switch-2-specs-details-performance">more hardware details and specs to
pore over</a>, like a 1080p, 120Hz 7.9-inch LCD screen, Joy-Con
controllers with mouse-like functions, 256GB of storage, and 4K
output via the dock.
Nintendo also <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/24343637/nintendo-switch-2-joy-con-c-button-controller">cleared up the mysteries about the system’s “C”
button</a> with details about new GameChat features and a camera
accessory and confirmed that <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/24339906/nintendo-switch-2-gamecube-nso">GameCube games are coming to
Nintendo Switch Online,</a> along with a dedicated controller.
Last but not least, Nintendo showed off a number of new games,
like a Switch 2 edition of <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/640231/metroid-prime-4-nintendo-switch-2-enhanced-edition-beyond">Metroid Prime 4: Beyond</a> and the
exclusive Switch 2 launch title <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/634632/mario-kart-nintendo-switch-2-trailer">Mario Kart World</a>.
</blockquote>
People are going to object to the pricing, but the world has changed (and inflated) since the original Switch debuted in 2017. What I love about all of these announcements is that they’re so focused on fun. Nintendo doesn’t just still have it, they’ve got it more than they ever have. Just wonderful news all around.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Nintendo Switch 2 Details’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/02/nintendo-switch-2-details"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Steve Kornacki Exits MSNBC for New Deal With NBC News and NBC Sports</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-04-01/steve-kornacki-exits-msnbc-lands-new-deal-with-nbc-news-and-nbc-sports" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w89" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/02/kornacki" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41769</id>
<published>2025-04-02T15:25:36Z</published>
<updated>2025-04-02T15:26:30Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Stephen Battaglio, reporting for the LA Times:
<blockquote>
MSNBC viewers have seen the last of Steve Kornacki’s big board.
The popular data maven has signed a deal with NBC that will expand
his presence across the network’s news and sports divisions. But
the new contract does not include working for MSNBC, which is
being spun off into a new corporate entity formed by parent
company Comcast.
</blockquote>
They might well just switch off the lights and lock the doors at MSNBC.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Steve Kornacki Exits MSNBC for New Deal With NBC News and NBC Sports’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/02/kornacki"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>‘What Makes an App Feel “Right” on the Mac?’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://coyotetracks.org/blog/app-feel-on-mac/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w88" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/02/apps-feel-right-mac-watts-martin" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41768</id>
<published>2025-04-02T15:17:53Z</published>
<updated>2025-04-02T15:17:54Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Watts Martin:
<blockquote>
If we hold things to this list, programs like Nova, MarsEdit, and
Apple Pages — canonical Mac-assed Mac apps — all do
unsurprisingly smashingly. But Obsidian, the Electron-based
program I’m writing in right now, does shockingly well, too.
Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code doesn’t do quite as well (most
notably, it opens its settings “window” as an editor tab), but it
does better than Sublime Text (which opens a text file for
settings), and much better than the banana crazypants menu and
icon design of the cross-platform e-book management program
Calibre.
</blockquote>
Martin has a good list here of fundamentals, but ultimately, you know it when you see it.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘‘What Makes an App Feel “Right” on the Mac?’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/02/apps-feel-right-mac-watts-martin"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Jason Snell’s Unsuccessful Journey Into Netflix’s Ad Tier</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://sixcolors.com/post/2025/04/my-unsuccessful-journey-into-netflixs-ad-tier/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w87" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/01/snellflix" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41767</id>
<published>2025-04-01T18:24:47Z</published>
<updated>2025-04-01T18:25:52Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Jason Snell:
<blockquote>
While the ads played on, I began creating a thought experiment: There’s a $10 difference between the ad and ad-free plans. If Mr. Netflix (he wears a top hat) came to my house and said, “Jason, I’ve got a great deal for you. I’m going to pay you $120 a year, and all you have to do is watch ads while you watch Netflix,” what would I do? When I started thinking about it, I thought it might be an interesting intellectual question. What would I accept in exchange for having Mean Mr. Netflix beam ads into every show I watch?
</blockquote>
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Jason Snell’s Unsuccessful Journey Into Netflix’s Ad Tier’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/01/snellflix"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://protectdemocracy.org/" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/w86" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2025/03/democracy" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/feeds/sponsors//11.41766</id>
<author><name>Daring Fireball Department of Commerce</name></author>
<published>2025-04-01T02:47:31Z</published>
<updated>2025-04-01T02:48:30Z</updated>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
These are not just words, they are a pact. A civil contract. Not to party, not to policy, not to an ideology or an individual. It is a compact between a people, our people, and it is under threat. A democracy is a government of collective action by the people. Let this be a reminder, it is time to do more … before it is no more.
Daring Fireball is brought to you this week by the enduring and aspirational project that is democracy.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Democracy’" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2025/03/democracy"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
<title>[Sponsor] Democracy</title></entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/france_merde_decision_app_tracking_transparency" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/w85" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025://1.41765</id>
<published>2025-03-31T19:46:31Z</published>
<updated>2025-04-01T17:34:41Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<summary type="text">It’s like a consortium of sketchy pawn shops complaining to the authorities after a retailer successfully cracked down on an organized shoplifting/pickpocketing ring, and the authorities then fining the retailer for the damage to the pawnbrokers’ business fencing stolen goods — and for exposing the police as ineffective.</summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Jon Brodkin, reporting for Ars Technica, “<a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/03/france-fines-apple-e150m-for-excessive-pop-ups-that-let-users-reject-tracking/">France Fines Apple €150M for “Excessive” Pop-Ups That Let Users Reject Tracking</a>”:
<blockquote>
France’s competition regulator fined Apple €150 million, saying
the iPhone maker went overboard in its implementation of pop-up
messages that let users consent to or reject tracking that
third-party applications use for targeted advertising.
The App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework used by Apple on
iPhones and iPads since 2021 makes the use of third-party
applications too complex and hurts small companies that rely on
advertising revenue, said a <a href="https://www.autoritedelaconcurrence.fr/en/press-release/targeted-advertising-autorite-de-la-concurrence-imposes-fine-eu150000000-apple">press release</a> today by the
Autorité de la concurrence (Competition Authority). The system
harms “smaller publishers in particular since, unlike the main
vertically integrated platforms, they depend to a large extent on
third-party data collection to finance their business,” the
agency said.
User consent obtained via the ATT framework “authorizes the
application in question to collect user data for targeted
advertising purposes,” the agency said. “If consent is given, the
application can access the Identifier for Advertisers (‘IDFA’),
the identifier by which each device can be tracked through its use
of third-party applications and sites.” The French investigation
was triggered by a complaint lodged by advertising industry
associations.
</blockquote>
Ben Lovejoy, <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/31/apple-bizarrely-fined-162m-for-app-tracking-transparency-after-advertisers-complained/">correctly calling the decision “bizarre” at 9to5Mac</a>:
<blockquote>
Complaints were made <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2023/04/11/apple-app-tracking/">in a number of countries</a> — some
arguing that it was unfair because <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2022/06/14/app-tracking-transparency-antitrust/">Apple exempts its own
apps</a> (which are in reality subject to even tighter
controls), others saying the loss of revenue <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2022/09/13/app-tracking-transparency-increases-in-app-purchase-prices/">forced developers to
raise prices</a> to compensate. [...]
Although expected, the decision is still inexplicable. ATT
involves precisely one popup asking a simple yes/no question.
Additionally, Apple lets users switch on a toggle (shown above) to
block apps from even asking the question. It’s especially odd
given that ATT is a privacy feature, and Europe has the strongest
privacy laws in the world. The EU <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2022/08/03/ad-tracking-rules/">has also previously
vindicated</a> Apple’s introduction of ATT.
</blockquote>
It’s not inexplicable or odd if you view the decision as coming from a perspective where government bureaucracy is viewed as an inherent good, and well-intentioned process is all that matters, not actual results. Read the Autorité de la Concurrence’s decision (<a href="https://www.autoritedelaconcurrence.fr/en/press-release/targeted-advertising-autorite-de-la-concurrence-imposes-fine-eu150000000-apple">which they helpfully do make available in English</a>) and it’s pretty clear:
<blockquote>
The Autorité found that the ATT framework imposed by Apple is
not necessary, insofar as the consent obtained is not valid under
the applicable laws, in particular the French Data Protection Act.
In practice, the fact that publishers that so wish cannot rely on
the ATT framework to comply with their legal obligations means
that they must continue to use their own consent collection
solutions, known as consent management platforms (“CMPs”). The
result is that multiple consent pop-ups are displayed, making the
use of third-party applications in the iOS environment excessively
complex, as observed by the French data protection authority
(Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés — CNIL)
in a 2022 opinion issued at the request of the Autorité.
</blockquote>
It’s ostensibly “not necessary” because French and EU privacy laws are supposedly enough, and all that’s needed. And it’s unfair because now, under ATT, third-party surveillance advertisers who seek to track users across apps on iOS need to ask permission twice — first through the clear-as-a-bell “Ask App Not to Track” / “Allow Tracking” prompt required by Apple, and again through the byzantine but ultimately toothless permission requirements of France and the EU. ATT has had measurable effects because users understand it, and they prefer not to be tracked. EU and French privacy laws are largely ineffective because, in practice, they <a href="https://hep.physics.illinois.edu/home/g-gollin/1984_commercial_dialogue.html">bury users with confusion</a>. The bureaucratic hurdles they impose are to the benefit, not detriment, of the surveillance ad industry. That’s now proven out by industry groups — the ones ATT successfully tempered — successfully getting France’s regulators to penalize Apple. Users don’t know how to lobby government bureaucracies. What the Autorité de la Concurrence is saying, in so many words, is that two layers of consent is too much, and the only one that’s necessary is the one that advertising lobbying groups don’t object to, not the one they do (but which users understand and like).
It’s clear that only one of these two things — Apple’s ATT or French/EU privacy regulations — was actually effective at reducing tracking: ATT. No one claimed that French or EU privacy laws resulted in Meta losing a fortune because they had to adjust their kleptomaniacal thievery of users’ privacy. But by all accounts, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2022/02/10/apple-meta-and-the-ten-billion-dollar-impact-of-privacy-changes/">including Meta’s own</a>, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2022/04/23/apple-just-issued-stunning-12-billion-blow-to-facebook/">ATT cost Meta billions</a>. And yes, ATT hurt small businesses too — small businesses that were built upon surreptitious tracking that users had neither awareness of nor control over. It’s like a consortium of sketchy pawn shops complaining to the authorities after a popular retailer successfully cracked down on an organized shoplifting/pickpocketing ring, and the authorities then fining the retailer for the damage to the pawnbrokers’ business fencing stolen goods — and for exposing the police as ineffective.
App Tracking Transparency actually accomplished, in practice, via user-focused plain-language consent, what the EU’s privacy laws were intended to do but do not. This fine boils down to France declaring that Apple shouldn’t have actually done what the EU was pretending to do. They’re acting at the behest of the very developers and advertising companies who were (and still are) trying to conduct cross-app tracking that App Tracking Transparency successfully gave users some control over.
]]></content>
<title>★ France Fines Apple $162M for App Tracking Transparency, Taking the Side of Surveillance Advertisers Over Users</title></entry><entry>
<title>Release Day for Apple’s .4 OS Versions</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/31/ios-18-4-now-available-heres-whats-new/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w84" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/31/release-day-dot-four-versions" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41764</id>
<published>2025-03-31T18:23:39Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-31T20:34:44Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
All out today:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/31/ios-18-4-now-available-heres-whats-new/">iOS 18.4</a> (priority notifications, lots of new languages and EU support for Apple Intelligence).</li>
<li><a href="https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/31/macos-sequoia-15-4-available-now-heres-whats-new/">MacOS 15.4</a> (AI message categorization in Apple Mail, Quick Start for setting up a new machine).</li>
<li><a href="https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/31/apple-releases-visionos-2-4-with-apple-intelligence-spatial-gallery-app-and-more/">VisionOS 2.4</a> (Apple Intelligence, new Spatial Gallery app, new Vision Pro sibling app for iPhone).</li>
<li><a href="https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/31/watchos-11-4-now-available-with-three-new-features-for-apple-watch/">WatchOS 11.4</a> (new <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/24/watchos-114-gives-your-apple-watch-an-alarm-feature-its-long-been-missing/">Sleep Wake Up alarm option</a> that will emit sound even when the watch is in silent mode).</li>
<li><a href="https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/31/tvos-18-4-now-available-with-new-design-changes-for-apple-tv-app/">tvOS 18.4</a> (UI tweaks to TV app).</li>
</ul>
And the big new feature across all OSes: <a href="https://blog.emojipedia.org/apple-ios-18-4-emoji-changelog/">eight new emoji</a>. Also, <a href="https://webkit.org/blog/16574/webkit-features-in-safari-18-4/">lots of new WebKit features</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Release Day for Apple’s .4 OS Versions’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/31/release-day-dot-four-versions"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>The White House Correspondents Association Speaks Cowardice to Power</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://variety.com/2025/politics/news/whca-drops-amber-ruffin-performance-dinner-1236351795/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w83" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/31/whca-speaks-cowardice-to-power" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41763</id>
<published>2025-03-31T14:42:19Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-31T18:01:03Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Brian Steinberg and Pat Saperstein, reporting for Variety over the weekend:
<blockquote>
The White House Correspondents’ Association has canceled plans to
have comedian Amber Ruffin perform at its annual dinner on April
26, a new sign of the pressures being brought to bear on news
organizations during President Donald Trump’s second term.
The journalism group, which has seen its control over interactions
with Trump eroded in recent weeks, made the decision after Taylor
Budowich, a White House deputy chief of staff, raised comments
Ruffin has made in the past that are critical of Trump. Earlier
this week, Ruffin told a podcast backed by The Daily Beast that
she would not try to make sure her jokes targeted all sides of the
political spectrum as the WHCA had requested, and likened the
Trump administration to “kind of a bunch of murderers.” Playing to
both sides “makes them feel like human beings,” she said, “cause
they’re not.” [...]
“The WHCA board has unanimously decided we are no longer featuring
a comedic performance this year. At this consequential moment for
journalism, I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of
division but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their
outstanding work and providing scholarship and mentorship to the
next generation of journalists,” WHCA president Eugene Daniels
wrote to members in a statement.
“For the past couple of weeks, I have been planning a
re-envisioning of our dinner tradition for this year,” he added.
“As the date nears, I will share more details of the plans in
place to honor journalistic excellence and a robust, independent
media covering the most powerful office in the world.”
</blockquote>
What an enormous mountain of obvious horseshit this explanation is. The WHCA only announced that Ruffin would be hosting this year’s show on February 4, at which point this lickspittle clown Eugene Daniels <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/amber-ruffin-2025-white-house-correspondents-dinner-1236126815/">was quoted thus by The Hollywood Reporter</a>:
<blockquote>
“When I began to think about what entertainer would be a perfect
fit for the dinner this year, Amber was immediately at the top of
my list,” Eugene Daniels of Politico, president of the
association, said in a statement on Tuesday. “She has the ability
to walk the line between blistering commentary and humor all while
provoking her audience to think about the important issues of the
day. I’m thrilled and honored she said yes.”
</blockquote>
So eight weeks ago this obsequious bootlicker Daniels thought Amber Ruffin “would be a perfect fit for the dinner this year” but now, four weeks before the show, he’s trying to claim with a straight face that “For the past couple of weeks, I have been planning a re-envisioning of our dinner tradition for this year”?
The kids magazine Highlights for Children has a long-running comic strip called “Goofus and Gallant”, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2023/06/goofus-and-gallant-american-parenting-highlights/674536/">the premise of which</a> is that Goofus is a kid who always does the wrong thing, and Gallant always does the right thing. Goofus, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/03/goofus-gallant-1948.jpg">especially in the older strips</a>, is an absurd parody. This Eugene Daniels toady is the Goofus of journalism. The entire point of the WHCA is to assert the group’s collective independence as journalists — and the independence they assert is specifically from the White House. So of course they shouldn’t have responded to White House pressure to fire Ruffin as this year’s host. But it’s even worse for an ostensible journalist — the president of the WHCA for chrissakes — to try to get even a single person in the world to believe that this is anything other than caving to White House pressure, and that in fact (“<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLRKhdQnd-k">Yeah, that’s the ticket!</a>”) he’d been planning to cancel the entire concept of having a comedian host at all “for the past couple of weeks” when just eight weeks ago he described Ruffin as “a perfect fit for the dinner this year”.
This is <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/03/baghdad-bob-and-his-ridiculous-true-predictions/274241/">Baghdad Bob</a> level nonsense. I’m not one for performative resignations, but how does any news outlet or journalist agree to remain a member of the WHCA after this?
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘The White House Correspondents Association Speaks Cowardice to Power’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/31/whca-speaks-cowardice-to-power"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Lex.Games</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://lex.games/df" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w80" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/30/lex-games" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41760</id>
<published>2025-03-30T22:25:00Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-30T22:30:17Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
My thanks to Lex Friedman for sponsoring this past week at DF to promote Lex.Games, a collection of eight daily word games. Quoting from Friedman’s <a href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2025/03/lexgames_free_daily_word_games">own description in the sponsored RSS entry</a> at the start of the week:
<blockquote>
I paid Gruber many thousands of dollars to run this ad for free
games which themselves have no ads. Please keep reading.
The games:
Conlextions: Inspired by NYT’s Connections 
Lexicogs: Solve crossword-style clues by assembling letter “cogs” 
By a Vowel: A word jumble game with missing vowels 
Six Appeal: Wordle with six-letter words
There’s also a daily Mini Crossword; a Full-Size Crossword;
and Mind Control, which is a whole lot like Mastermind and not
actually a word game at all; don’t sue me.
Oh, and if you only counted seven games here, the eighth is
iOS-only. It’s called Letter Opener, and it’s my favorite.
</blockquote>
I actually hate Letter Opener, because I’m terrible at games like that. Looking at the leaderboard, though, obviously some of you are really good at it. Six Appeal is more my speed (which is to say, like Wordle, it has no clock). But go ahead and <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lex-games-daily-word-games/id6498941705">download the iOS app and try Letter Opener</a>. Maybe you’re a fast enough thinker for it.
So the basic pitch is that Lex.Games really is just a bunch of fun daily games that are free to play, without ads (let alone without annoying ads). But you can — and should! — pay a modest $20/year to subscribe to get access to extra games, leaderboards, and just to support a very fun and satisfying endeavor.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Lex.Games’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/30/lex-games"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Vertu Is Still Selling Phones, Which Suggests Someone Is Still Buying Them</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://vertu.com/product-category/phones/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w82" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/30/vertu-still-selling-phones" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41762</id>
<published>2025-03-30T22:24:30Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-31T15:47:10Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
<a href="https://vertu.com/products/ivertu-calfskin-5g-phone-caramel-brown/">Calfskin for $1,500</a>, <a href="https://vertu.com/products/vertu-ironflip-carbon-texture-series-black-orange/">flip-foldables for $5,000</a>, and <a href="https://vertu.com/product-category/phones/signature/">whatever these are</a> for a lot more. Who needs any sense (or a spelling checker) when you’ve got “<a href="https://vertu-website-oss.vertu.com/2024/07/flip_carbon03.jpg">elesant charisma / heroic essence</a>”?
<a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/01/03/warhole-coke">Or as I cited Andy Warhol back in 2012</a>:
<blockquote>
A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke
than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are
the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the
President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.
</blockquote>
See Also: <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/we-tried-vertus-web3-phone-it-scared-us/">This 2023 investigation by Andrew Williams for Wired</a>, that more or less uncovers that today’s Vertu is just a brand snapped onto white-label phones made by ZTE: “Never before have I used a phone where I felt so unsafe, one that feels like it could be used to scam me — though, to be clear, I have no evidence that it is.”
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Vertu Is Still Selling Phones, Which Suggests Someone Is Still Buying Them’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/30/vertu-still-selling-phones"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Keach Hagey Reports on the Backstory Behind Sam Altman’s Firing and Quick Rehiring at OpenAI in 2023</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-real-story-behind-sam-altman-firing-from-openai-efd51a5d?st=tjcaah&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w81" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/30/hagey-altman-firing-openai" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41761</id>
<published>2025-03-30T22:24:01Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-30T22:24:01Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Interesting excerpt at the WSJ from Keach Hagey’s upcoming book The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future. (Main link is a gift link, but also <a href="https://apple.news/Aq7AMUYvxSFON07M8MXSG6Q">here’s a News+ link</a>.)
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Keach Hagey Reports on the Backstory Behind Sam Altman’s Firing and Quick Rehiring at OpenAI in 2023’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/30/hagey-altman-firing-openai"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/the_studio" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/w7z" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025://1.41759</id>
<published>2025-03-30T19:38:28Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-31T15:31:36Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<summary type="text">Perhaps Apple’s leadership simply believes, as I do, that cinema is the grandest and greatest form of art the world has ever seen — one that encompasses acting, writing, photography and/or illustration, and music — and but that great cinema is expensive and delicate and needs, from deep-pocketed studios and their deeper-pocketed corporate parents, more than patrons, but *champions*.</summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
With season 2 of Severance complete (with a remarkable bang), Apple TV+ has slid right into a new prestige series, <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/247767-the-studio?language=en-US">The Studio</a>, starring (and co-created by) Seth Rogen as the newly-appointed chief of the fictional and dysfunctional Continental Studios in Hollywood.
Two episodes in (out of 10 for the debut season), and it is fucking amazing. So far it feels a bit like a cross between Entourage, The Larry Sanders Show, Boogie Nights, and maybe a touch of Curb Your Enthusiasm. But the biggest influence and inspiration is clearly Robert Altman’s 1992 masterpiece <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/10403-the-player?language=en-US">The Player</a>, almost certainly the best Hollywood movie about Hollywood moviemaking that ever was or will be made.
What The Studio and The Player share is that they’re about the struggle to create great cinematic art within a corporate studio world run by unartistic know-it-all self-important status-obsessed dullards driven by formula and fads — and, simultaneously, they are themselves almost unfathomably complicated and intricate works of cinematic art. They are what they’re about. They achieve what the characters within them fear is no longer achievable. When you get to episode 2 of The Studio, just keep asking yourself “Wait, how are they getting this shot?” The lighting, my god. The whole thing is just an outpouring of homage to <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/scanners/opening-shots-the-player">the opening shot of The Player</a>, which of course itself calls back, <a href="https://filmotomy.com/quiet-on-the-set-breaking-down-the-opening-shot-in-altmans-the-player/">explicitly</a>, to Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil.
The Studio is, thus far, engaging, surprising, funny, gorgeous, clever, and cinematically ambitious. It’s really quite a thing. I have no idea what’s coming in episodes 3–10, so maybe this piece will look a bit premature, if not foolish, in two months. But if the rest of season one is anything like the first two episodes, The Studio is a classic in the making.
The thought also occurs to me that this might be the don’t-over-think-it answer to <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/21/apple-tv-spend-loss-or-cost">just what the hell Apple is doing making original shows and movies</a> in the first place. Perhaps Apple’s leadership simply believes, as I do, that cinema is the grandest and greatest form of art the world has ever seen — one that encompasses acting, writing, photography and/or illustration, and music — and but that great cinema is expensive and delicate and needs, from deep-pocketed studios and their deeper-pocketed corporate parents, more than patrons, but champions. And that in a media landscape where such champions of cinema-as-art and art-as-an-essential-public-good are fewer and fewer, it is Apple’s not just opportunity but obligation to step up to the plate.
I’ve long thought that one of the minor tragedies of Steve Jobs’s second act is that the timing just didn’t work out to sell Pixar to Apple, instead of to Disney. But make no mistake, a love and appreciation for great cinema is not outside Apple’s DNA. No streamer has a higher hit rate for quality shows. Their movies mostly stink so far, but maybe that’s just the learning curve. The Gorge, for example, feels like an Apple TV movie because it’s so decidedly meh. Not horrible, but not good in any way beyond its intriguing elevator-pitch concept. Wolfs was better but still a grand disappointment given its pedigree. But when it comes to shows, no one is doing better. Severance deserves all its acclaim and attention, and Ben Stiller delivered a season 2 finale that’s arguably the best 78 minutes of filmmaking I’ve seen this decade. And The Studio, to me, feels like an Apple TV show — not because of how it looks, what it’s about, or who’s in it, but simply because it’s so good. Netflix almost never makes shows like this. Neither does HBO now that’s its been subsumed by “Max”. Peacock et al don’t even try.<a href="#fn1-2025-03-30">1</a>
<div class="footnotes">
<hr />
<ol>
<li id="fn1-2025-03-30">
One more A+ recommendation: <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/219971-the-agency">The Agency</a> on Paramount+. Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, Richard Gere, a breakout searing performance by Jodie Turner-Smith, and a great supporting cast in a super-smart, hyper-realistic-feeling spy-thriller/mystery/love story. Gorgeous cinematography too. Just so good in a “feels like it should have been on Apple TV+” way, sort of like how it was so obvious right from S1.E1 that HBO fucked up big-time by passing on Mad Men. <a href="#fnr1-2025-03-30" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩︎</a>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
]]></content>
<title>★ ‘The Studio’ Is Fantastic So Far</title></entry><entry>
<title>MacOS 15 Sequoia’s Annoying-as-Hell ‘Turn On Reactions’ Menu Bar Prompt</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://birchtree.me/blog/this-alert-must-die/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7y" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/30/birchler-sequoia-turn-on-reactions" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41758</id>
<published>2025-03-30T18:20:51Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-30T18:20:52Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Matt Birchler:
<blockquote>
I really thought that the screen recording notifications in macOS
Sequoia would be the bane of my existence, but thankfully those
have been changed quite a bit from the early betas last summer and
they’re totally a non-issue in my book today. However, these god
damned “turn on reactions” alerts have got to die in a fire, and
they need to have done it yesterday.
</blockquote>
I understand why Apple decided to show this once. Why though, is it seemingly designed to reappear every time I start a video call? Who is not annoyed by this?
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘MacOS 15 Sequoia’s Annoying-as-Hell ‘Turn On Reactions’ Menu Bar Prompt’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/30/birchler-sequoia-turn-on-reactions"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>ChatGPT 4o Adds Image Generation and It’s Fun as Hell</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://spyglass.org/openai-product-launches/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7x" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/28/chatgpt-4o-adds-image-generation-and-its-fun-as-hell" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41757</id>
<published>2025-03-28T16:33:04Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-30T20:09:40Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
MG Siegler:
<blockquote>
I’m not even talking about Apple and AI here. We’ve done that, <a href="https://spyglass.org/apple-ai-siri/">a
lot</a>. Probably enough — for now (famous last words). I’m
talking about Apple in general. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/2f3K43FHRKo?si=7lIWEBMSvCk-rxwG&ref=spyglass.org">Watching this OpenAI video</a> — again, not an event, just a product walk-through with various
team members (though this one happened to be “MC’d” by Sam Altman) — I had this old, familiar feeling as they walked through the new
features: joy.
As ridiculous as it may sound, I was almost giddy around what I
was seeing. It’s a feeling that I recall well from many an Apple
event back in the day.
“Yes, this is exactly what I wanted! They did it!” That kind
of thing.
This will sound unfair or harsh to Apple, but I really don’t think
that it is. I can really only speak for myself here, and perhaps
I’m alone — but I suspect that I’m not — it has been a while
since I’ve gotten that feeling from an Apple announcement. That
loving feeling.
</blockquote>
I gave the updated ChatGPT the instruction “Create an image of the main characters from ‘Severance’ as Lego figures” and this is the first response it gave me:
<a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/03/severance-chatgpt-4o.png" class="noborder">
<img
width = 425
src = "https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/03/severance-chatgpt-4o.png"
alt = "Four Lego figures who look like Mark, Helly, Dylan (maybe?) and Irving (even less maybe)."
/></a>
I gave Apple’s Image Playground, running on MacOS 15.3.2 Sequoia, the equivalent prompt — “The main characters from ‘Severance’ as Lego figures” — and it gave me this as its first response:
<a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/03/severance-image-playground.png" class="noborder">
<img
width = 425
src = "https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/03/severance-image-playground.png"
alt = "Three Lego figures, two yellow, one red, which bear zero resemblance to anyone or anything from “Severance” whatsoever."
/></a>
One of the above images qualifies as “Hey, that could be better but it’s pretty good for the first crack from a simple prompt”, and the other qualifies as “This bears zero resemblance to anyone or anything from Severance”.
Guess which one of the two Apple is <a href="https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2025/1/7.html">actively promoting</a> to users as something they should try?
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘ChatGPT 4o Adds Image Generation and It’s Fun as Hell’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/28/chatgpt-4o-adds-image-generation-and-its-fun-as-hell"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Yours Truly on ‘Geared Up’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O569FVCoPYc" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7w" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/27/geared-up" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41756</id>
<published>2025-03-28T00:48:03Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-28T00:48:03Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
You’ll never guess what cohosts Andru Edwards and Jon Rettinger talked to me about on their Geared Up podcast this week. OK, fine, you guessed <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/something_is_rotten_in_the_state_of_cupertino">it</a>. But I bet you didn’t guess that <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2008/02/news_flash_no_flash">Flash on iPhone</a> came up. Very fun show — I think you’ll enjoy it.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Yours Truly on ‘Geared Up’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/27/geared-up"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>You’ll Never Guess Which Recent DF Article Was ‘Flagged’ at Hacker News</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43489058" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7v" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/27/youll-never-guess-which-recent-df-article-was-flagged-at-hacker-news" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41755</id>
<published>2025-03-27T15:46:49Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-28T16:14:43Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
“Flagging” isn’t what I was writing about yesterday, with regard to Daring Fireball’s unexplained ghosting at Hacker News in recent years. If you look at <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=daringfireball.net">the list of recent DF articles at HN</a>, <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43489058">only one is explicitly “flagged”</a>. Whoops, <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43491009">now it’s two</a>, but they’re both the same article.
<a href="https://cosocial.ca/@timbray/114232163652473173">Tim Bray</a>:
<blockquote>
I’m really glad <a href="https://mastodon.social/@gruber">@gruber</a> posted this, because me too. Same timeframe, same behavior.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://mastodon.social/@reichenstein/114233318059789911">Oliver Reichenstein</a> (from <a href="https://ia.net/">iA</a>):
<blockquote>
Same for content from iA. Again and again our posts get to the top
page and then someone ghosts them. Ghosting started around the
same time as DF ghosting, I think. My take: It looks like someone
that has enough access just doesn’t like us. ¯\(ツ)/¯
</blockquote>
I’ve heard privately from a few other bloggers that they’ve seen similar ghosting at HN in recent years.
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html">Near the top of Hackers News’s FAQ</a>:
<blockquote>
How are stories ranked?
The basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a
story was submitted. Comments in threads are ranked the same way.
Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse
software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account
or site weighting, and moderator action.
</blockquote>
Hacker News presents itself as a forum that is primarily driven by the community, where ranking and moderation are mostly, perhaps even overwhelmingly, transparent. And that “moderator action” is only a secondary or even tertiary factor. The core HN audience buys into this — the HN audience is comprised of people who view themselves as independent thinkers. Part of why they like and trust HN as an aggregator is that they believe they’re driving it, and that they know how the whole thing works.
My thesis is that the above <a href="https://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html">might once have been an accurate summary</a> of how Hacker News functioned, but hasn’t been for years, and that there now exists a cabal of moderator/admins with their thumbs on the scale, and their personal predilections are the primary steering force behind what’s permitted to surface and what gets ghosted. This moderation cabal operates more <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=dang">or less</a> in secret. Their actions, and thus even their usernames, are invisible — lest the HN community discover that it’s steering things <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/03/maggie.gif">about as much as Maggie Simpson is</a>.
Read between the lines of the “Hey, why is this post flagged?” wonderment from genuinely openminded HN users <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43489058">in the comments on my now-flagged submission</a>, and you’ll catch a strong whiff of “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘You’ll Never Guess Which Recent DF Article Was ‘Flagged’ at Hacker News’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/27/youll-never-guess-which-recent-df-article-was-flagged-at-hacker-news"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/the_website_hacker_news_is_afraid_to_discuss" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/w7u" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025://1.41754</id>
<published>2025-03-27T00:11:53Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-27T13:31:49Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<summary type="text">What bothers me isn’t so much that Daring Fireball is shitlisted at Hacker News. What bothers me is that it’s unexplained.</summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Back in 2017, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2017/09/iphone_x_event_thoughts_and_observations">the iPhone X was announced alongside the iPhones 8 and 8 Plus</a> in mid-September. The iPhones 8 shipped that month, and I published <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2017/09/the_iphones_8">a review of the iPhones 8</a> on September 19. The iPhone X, though, <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/09/the-future-is-here-iphone-x/">wasn’t available to order until October 27</a>, and didn’t start shipping to customers until November 3. It was an unusual iPhone release cycle that year, to say the least. Initial reviews of the much-anticipated iPhone X appeared on October 31, but I’d only had the phone for 24 hours when the embargo dropped, so I published <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2017/10/iphone_x_review_roundup">some initial impressions then</a>, but wound up not publishing my <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2017/12/the_iphone_x">full review of the iPhone X</a> until December 26.
A few days later I wrote a follow-up regarding a specific new interaction design, “<a href="https://daringfireball.net/2017/12/side_button_to_confirm_payments_on_iphone_x">Pressing the Side Button to Confirm Payments on iPhone X</a>”, which I began thus:
<blockquote>
Occasionally I notice a burst of traffic to Daring Fireball from
Hacker News. It’s always short-lived, because for reasons I’ve
never seen explained, Daring Fireball articles always get
blacklisted from Hacker News once they hit their front page. It’s
apparent that a lot of HN readers do not like my work on the basis
that they see me as a shameless Apple shill, but it’s a shame the
articles get deleted because I like reading the comments. I feel
like it keeps me on my toes to read the comments from people who
don’t like Daring Fireball.
Even after being blacklisted from the Hacker News homepage,
though, the comment threads still exist. I went through <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16014464">the
Hacker News comments on my iPhone X review</a> today, and a few
comments about how Apple Pay works on the iPhone X caught my
attention.
</blockquote>
What I didn’t mention then was that DF’s buried status at HN was, at the time, a relatively new phenomenon. Hacker News <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2013/05/18/the-evolution-of-hacker-news/">started in early 2007</a> and for a yearslong stretch, Daring Fireball articles seemed more or less appropriately popular there. Articles that I would think would resonate with the HN readership would hit, and get what always seemed to me an appropriate number of comments. At some point in the mid-2010s though, it seemed like DF articles would get downvoted or flagged after hitting the HN front page. I’d been noticing this for some time when I wrote the above in December 2017.
But even in 2017, DF articles would get active comment threads on HN occasionally. The Hacker News thread I referenced above, <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16014464">regarding my iPhone X review</a>, garnered 107 comments. In the years after that, DF articles went from being mysteriously disappeared after hitting the HN front page (and gaining some comment traction) to pretty much never hitting the HN front page (and thus never gaining any comment traction). I found this curious, and I couldn’t figure out <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html">why or how</a> this was happening — or who was doing it — but I didn’t mention it much.
Two years ago, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2023/02/making_our_hearts_sing#fn1-2023-02-01">I did mention it again in a footnote</a>, in a piece about the inexplicably poor state of Android apps from a design perspective:
<blockquote>
It sounds a bit conspiratorial, but <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2017/12/side_button_to_confirm_payments_on_iphone_x">for several years
now</a> it’s seemed clear to me that Hacker News has
Daring Fireball in some sort of graylist. It’s not blacklisted,
obviously, given the aforementioned <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34605535">two</a>
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34611552">threads</a> about yesterday’s piece, but nothing I
write here ever gains any significant traction there. Ever. And
the reason there are two threads for yesterday’s piece is that the
first one disappeared from the home page soon after it was posted.
I think? In <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=daringfireball.net">this list of recent Hacker News threads for articles
from DF</a>, going back four months, only three have
more than 10 comments — and two of those are the threads from
yesterday. I don’t know who I pissed off there or why, but I’ve
never seen an explanation for this. UPDATE: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34626587">HN commenter
Michiel de Mare has quantified the apparent
suppression</a>, based on the ranking of this very
article. Exactly what I’ve noticed for years.
</blockquote>
You can see this yourself right now, with <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=daringfireball.net">the current list of recent DF articles submitted to Hacker News</a>. Most of them have 0, 1, or 2 comments. Some got up to 3. “<a href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/something_is_rotten_in_the_state_of_cupertino">Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino</a>” is the most read, most commented upon thing I’ve written in a while. On Hacker News <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43348891">it got just 28 comments</a> before being shitlisted, which, I have to say, is just weird. That’s one piece I’d have thought would resonate with the HN audience, and make for good grist for discussion. Then, after the original thread was shitlisted, someone re-submitted it (perhaps confused that it wasn’t on the HN front page). That re-submission <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43355009">got 1 comment</a> before it too fell to the mysterious shitlist reaper.
The one recent exception is “<a href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/why_cant_we_screenshot_frames_from_drm-protected_video">Why Can’t We Screenshot Frames From DRM-Protected Video on Apple Devices?</a>”, which somehow <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43223985">escaped the shitlist and garnered 208 comments</a>. These occasional exceptions to DF’s general shitlisting at HN have always made the whole thing more mysterious to me. There’s clearly no programmatic blacklisting that keeps Daring Fireball articles from being submitted, or from gaining a few comments. But once any traction occurs, something happens and poof, they’re gone from the Hacker News front page. It certainly doesn’t make any sense to me why my off-hand post griping about our inability to screenshot DRM video frames would be an order of magnitude more popular than “Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino” was.
Today, though, I saw <a href="https://jasette.facil.services/@jerome/114229390677476922">a helpful mention on Mastodon</a> that pointed me to an interesting project. An author named Michael Lynch has written a tool to quantify “<a href="https://refactoringenglish.com/tools/hn-popularity/">the highest-ranking personal blogs of Hacker News</a>” since HN’s inception in 2007. According to Lynch’s all-time listing, Daring Fireball ranks #5, which I have to say surprised me, given its years of inexplicable (or at the very least, unexplained) shitlisting status. But Lynch’s tool lets you select date ranges. If you look at <a href="https://refactoringenglish.com/tools/hn-popularity/?start=2006-10-09&end=2021-03-26&limit=100">2007 through 2021</a>, Daring Fireball ranked #3, behind only <a href="https://paulgraham.com/">Paul Graham’s renowned eponymous blog</a> and Brian Krebs’s excellent (and also eponymous) <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/">Krebs on Security</a>. From <a href="https://refactoringenglish.com/tools/hn-popularity/?start=2006-10-09&end=2013-03-26&limit=100">2007 though 2013</a>, DF ranked #2, behind only Graham (who created Hacker News). But if you look at the last four years, from <a href="https://refactoringenglish.com/tools/hn-popularity/?start=2021-10-09&end=2025-03-26&limit=100">2021 through 2025</a>, Daring Fireball ranks #72.
Maybe I’ve lost my fastball, and I just don’t write so good no more. Or maybe it’s not me, but the Hacker News audience that has changed in recent years.<a href="#fn1-2025-03-26">1</a> But it seems to me <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34626587">there’s something fishy going on</a>. What bothers me isn’t so much that Daring Fireball is shitlisted at Hacker News — even though I really did enjoy reading the commentary on my posts back when they regularly surfaced there, and <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jgruber">still do</a> when one slips through the cracks. What bothers me is that it’s unexplained. Which, ultimately, seems not so much censorial as just cowardly.
<div class="footnotes">
<hr />
<ol>
<li id="fn1-2025-03-26">
You’d think there’d be a certain kinship between decades-old websites, typeset in small-point Verdana, which stubbornly refuse to update their general layout and design. <a href="#fnr1-2025-03-26" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩︎</a>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
]]></content>
<title>★ The Website That Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss (You’re Reading It)</title></entry><entry>
<title>The Atlantic Has an Owner Committed to the Cause: Laurene Powell Jobs</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.status.news/p/atlantic-jeffrey-goldberg-signal-texts-war-plans" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7t" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/26/the-atlantic-has-an-owner-committed-to-the-cause" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41753</id>
<published>2025-03-26T19:52:30Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-26T19:52:55Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Oliver Darcy, writing at Status (paywalled — great content, terrible CMS experience that keeps logging me out on all my devices and requires a stupid email magic link to get back in), in a brief interview with Atlantic editor-in-chief and man of the moment Jeffrey Goldberg:
<blockquote>
It goes without saying that there are many ironies associated with
this particular story. One of them is that Goldberg, a journalist
who Donald Trump loathes for his past reporting (remember the
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/">“suckers and losers” piece</a>), somehow became the unintended
recipient of high-level, real-time military intelligence from
inside his own inner circle. One wonders whether any heads will
roll as a result of the whole matter. On Monday, Trump again made
his disdain for Goldberg known, blasting him at a press conference
and absurdly claiming The Atlantic is “a magazine that is going
out of business.”
If anything, of course, publishing a story like the one Goldberg
did on Monday proves how strong the outlet currently is. That type
of muscular journalism requires skill, strong leadership, and the
backing of a courageous publisher. I asked Goldberg about owner
Laurene Powell Jobs’ role in the matter. He declined to comment
specifically on this particular story, but offered words of
praise: “Laurene Powell Jobs is a stalwart and brave publisher at
a time when cowardice rules the day.”
</blockquote>
If it had been a Washington Post reporter who was inadvertently included on the Trump national security team’s Signal group chat, would they have run the story? No fucking way with that <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/12/journalism_requires_owners_committed_to_the_cause">abject lickspittle coward Jeff Bezos</a> running the show.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘The Atlantic Has an Owner Committed to the Cause: Laurene Powell Jobs’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/26/the-atlantic-has-an-owner-committed-to-the-cause"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Apple Now Selling PCs From Other Companies at Apple.com</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.apple.com/mac/lumon-terminal-pro/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7s" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/26/apple-now-selling-pcs-from-other-companies-at-applecom" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41752</id>
<published>2025-03-26T18:55:23Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-26T18:55:23Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
The work remains mysterious and important.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Apple Now Selling PCs From Other Companies at Apple.com’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/26/apple-now-selling-pcs-from-other-companies-at-applecom"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>2026 Porsches Still Won’t Have Next-Gen CarPlay, Which Was Announced in 2022</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.macrumors.com/2025/03/26/2026-porsches-still-wont-have-next-gen-carplay/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7r" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/26/2026-porsches-still-wont-have-next-gen-carplay" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41751</id>
<published>2025-03-26T15:41:42Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-26T15:42:36Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Hartley Charlton, MacRumors:
<blockquote>
Apple’s next-generation CarPlay experience is still nowhere to be
seen following <a href="https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2025/products/porsche-communication-management-change-of-the-model-year-38985.html">Porsche’s announcement</a> of a major upgrade of
its infotainment system for 2026.
The upcoming 2026 model year Porsche Taycan, 911, Panamera, and
Cayenne feature an upgraded version of the Porsche Communication
Management (PCM) system, making it more responsive, adding Dolby
Atmos support, and integrating Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant. The
new system brings the Porsche App Center, a kind of app store for
the vehicle, to all of the new models.
It continues to support the standard version of Apple CarPlay and
Android Auto. Support for Apple’s next-generation CarPlay
experience is again conspicuously missing from Porsche’s new
lineup, and the automaker did not mention it at all during its
latest announcement — another bleak sign for the delayed feature.
</blockquote>
I’d crack a joke about it looking less and less likely that next-gen CarPlay was going to appear in 2024, but <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/01/27/apple-carplay-2024">I already did that in January</a>, when Apple itself took the date off <a href="https://www.apple.com/ios/carplay/">its CarPlay page</a>. That announcement <a href="https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-carplay-could-revolutionize-your-cars-interface-in-2023">came at WWDC 2022</a>.
In this case (unlike the advanced personalized features of Apple Intelligence) it was actually sensible for Apple to pre-announce the existence of next-gen CarPlay, given the reliance on third parties. But it also should have been clear just how incredibly hard it would be to get third party carmakers up to snuff on being able to ship it, so Apple giving a date, any date, was always odd. Apple doesn’t make a car, and you can’t promise what you can’t control. They should have just said “soon”.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘2026 Porsches Still Won’t Have Next-Gen CarPlay, Which Was Announced in 2022’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/26/2026-porsches-still-wont-have-next-gen-carplay"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Calling the White House’s Bluff, The Atlantic Releases the ‘Houthi PC Small Group’ Signal Text Thread</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/signal-group-chat-attack-plans-hegseth-goldberg/682176/?gift=j9r7avb6p-KY8zdjhsiSZwFkSOi1GsFtx-t3XSS0Gew" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7q" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/26/atlantic-releases-signal-thread" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41750</id>
<published>2025-03-26T15:26:26Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-26T15:50:05Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Jeffrey Goldberg and Shane Harris, reporting once again for The Atlantic:
<blockquote>
Ratcliffe said much the same: “My communications, to be clear, in
the Signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and
did not include classified information.”
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/tag/person/donald-trump/">President Donald Trump</a>, asked yesterday afternoon about the
same matter, said, “It wasn’t classified information.”
These statements presented us with a dilemma. In The Atlantic’s
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/">initial story about the Signal chat</a> — the “Houthi PC small
group,” as it was named by Waltz — we withheld specific
information related to weapons and to the timing of attacks that
we found in certain texts. As a general rule, we do not publish
information about military operations if that information could
possibly jeopardize the lives of U.S. personnel. That is why we
chose to characterize the nature of the information being shared,
not specific details about the attacks.
The statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trump — combined with the assertions made by numerous administration
officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts — have led us to believe that people should see the texts in
order to reach their own conclusions. There is a clear public
interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers
included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because
senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the
significance of the messages that were shared.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/trump-has-surrounded-himself-with-idiots">I linked yesterday</a> to a quote from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt">Hannah Arendt</a>, whom Wikipedia aptly describes as “one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century”. The quote I linked to was her observation that the ranks of authoritarian governments inevitably wind up being filled with “crackpots and fools” because they’re the people whose loyalty is most assured. In some sense the Jedi mind trick is real — it works on the weak-minded. Regardless of one’s political beliefs, no intelligent person of integrity (as opposed to, say, a foreign mole) would participate in a discussion of obviously classified and highly sensitive war plans in a Signal chat. It’s jarring to see it so clearly but U.S. national security is now led entirely by morons.
Most of the quotes on the Goodreads page I linked to, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/23497-the-origins-of-totalitarianism">culled from Arendt’s seminal The Origins of Totalitarianism</a>, are related to truth, not idiocy. Here’s one:
<blockquote>
The outstanding negative quality of the totalitarian elite is that
it never stops to think about the world as it really is and never
compares the lies with reality.
</blockquote>
And:
<blockquote>
Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies,
their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as
such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of
man who can fabricate it.
</blockquote>
And:
<blockquote>
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi
or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction
between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the
distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of
thought) no longer exist.
</blockquote>
When The Atlantic’s initial story hit, everyone responsible in the Trump administration, right up to the president himself, just immediately began telling bald-faced lies about what happened, despite the fact that they knew Jeffrey Goldberg literally had the receipts to prove otherwise. That works, until it doesn’t.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Calling the White House’s Bluff, The Atlantic Releases the ‘Houthi PC Small Group’ Signal Text Thread’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/26/atlantic-releases-signal-thread"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Of Course Trump Has Surrounded Himself With Idiots This Time Around</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/23497-the-origins-of-totalitarianism" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7p" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/trump-has-surrounded-himself-with-idiots" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41749</id>
<published>2025-03-25T23:01:33Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-26T02:16:03Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism:
<blockquote>
Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate
talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and
fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best
guarantee of their loyalty.
</blockquote>
Eight years of Trump was going to be eight years too many no matter how it worked out, but the four year Biden term between Trump terms makes the difference clear. Trump corrected what he perceived as a lack of loyalty/fealty in his first term by surrounding himself with nothing but <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/volts.wtf/post/3ll7yl4tii22t">morons</a> this time. 
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Of Course Trump Has Surrounded Himself With Idiots This Time Around’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/trump-has-surrounded-himself-with-idiots"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Notification Summary Miscues</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://onefoottsunami.com/2025/03/20/erroneous-notification-summaries/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7o" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/notification-summary-miscues" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41748</id>
<published>2025-03-25T21:43:35Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-25T23:08:16Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Paul Kafasis:
<blockquote>
Since they were first enabled last year, I have frequently found
Apple Intelligence’s notification summaries for emails to be
something less than helpful. Here are some I spotted in just the
past few days.
</blockquote>
The first one of these is particularly interesting because it highlights a key area where LLMs are frustratingly stupid. Kafasis got a notification summary from Apple Intelligence claiming “Package shipped for $427 order” for a used book he’d purchased. The email from Amazon, from which Apple Intelligence gleaned the information, had the price formatted thus: $4²⁷ — omitting the decimal and putting the cents in superscript. That’s a centuries-old formatting idiom for prices that remains common — <a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=walmart+price+sign&iax=images&ia=images">e.g. at Walmart</a> — to this day. But Apple Intelligence just sees dollar-sign, four, two, seven, and thus $427.
That’s just stupid.
But where it really gets frustrating is that everyone has to learn this at some point. If you were at Walmart with a kid, and the kid asked why, say, dog food is so expensive, pointing to a sign that says it cost $9⁸⁷ per bag, you’d explain it, once, and the kid would never forget it. “Oh, that’s just another way of writing nine dollars and eighty-seven cents — they do it that way to emphasize the dollar amount and de-emphasize the cents, which really don’t matter.” This would make intuitive sense to the child as well, because they know dog food probably costs about $10 per bag, not $1,000 per bag.
There is no way to properly explain something like this to an LLM (yet?). You can’t teach it like we do with children. Or at least you can’t do it in a way that jibes with our human sense of “learning” — it’s more like how the Guy Pearce protagonist “learns” in Christopher Nolan’s <a href="https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/77-memento?language=en-US">Memento</a>. Here, tattoo another thing to remember on your arm. But at least ChatGPT is trying to learn about us, albeit in its crude Memento-like way. With Apple Intelligence in particular, you can’t teach it at all. There’s no place in the system where you can correct the very simple, easily-explained mistake it made upon seeing $4²⁷ in an email. The next time an email from Amazon comes with a price formatted like that, Apple Intelligence is likely to summarize it the exact same wrong way — off by a factor of 100 — again. And there’s nothing we can do about it.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Notification Summary Miscues’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/notification-summary-miscues"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>OPSEC Isn’t Even the Worst Part of ‘SignalGate’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/signalgate-is-bad-but-opsec-isnt-even-the-worst-part-of-it" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7n" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/opsec-not-the-worst-of-it" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41747</id>
<published>2025-03-25T20:37:23Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-25T20:37:24Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Josh Marshal, writing at Talking Points Memo:
<blockquote>
Especially in the national security domain, many things the
government does have to remain secret. Sometimes those things
remain secret for years or decades. But they’re not secrets from
the U.S. government. The U.S. government owns all those
communications, all those facts of its own history. Using a Signal
app like this is hiding what’s happening from the government
itself. And that is almost certainly not an unintended byproduct
but the very reason for the use. These are disappearing
communications. They won’t be in the National Archives. Future
administrations won’t know what happened. There also won’t be any
records to determine whether crimes were committed.
This all goes to the fundamental point Trump has never been able
to accept: that the U.S. government is the property of the
American people and it persists over time with individual
officeholders merely temporary occupants charged with
administering an entity they don’t own or possess.
Think this is hyperbole? Remember that when Trump held his
notorious meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in 2019 he
confiscated his translator’s notes and ordered him not to divulge
anything that had been discussed. Remember that Trump got
impeached over an extortion plot recorded in the government record
of his phone call with President Zelensky. An intelligence analyst
discovered what had happened and decided he needed to report the
conduct. These aren’t hypotheticals. They’ve already happened. And
he’s even been caught. Which is probably one reason there’s so
much use of Signal.
</blockquote>
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘OPSEC Isn’t Even the Worst Part of ‘SignalGate’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/opsec-not-the-worst-of-it"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>The Problem Is Far More Than Just Whether Signal Is ‘Secure’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/25/signal-cybersecurity-trump-war-planning-00246881?cid=apn" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7m" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/the-problem-is-far-more-than-just-whether-signal-is-secure" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41746</id>
<published>2025-03-25T20:34:18Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-25T20:34:19Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Maggie Miller and Dana Nickel, reporting for Politico:
<blockquote>
The app’s security is viewed as fairly strong due to its robust
privacy features and minimal data collection, as well as default
end-to-end encryption of all messages and voice calls. The app
also includes a function that deletes all messages from a
conversation within a set time frame, adding an additional layer
of data protection. But experts agree that it shouldn’t be used
by government officials as an alternative to communicating
through more secure, sanctioned government communications — which Signal is not.
“It’s so unbelievable,” a former White House official, granted
anonymity to discuss The Atlantic’s report candidly, said Monday.
“These guys all have traveling security details to set up secure
comms for them, wherever they are.”
</blockquote>
Signal’s encryption is more than just “fairly strong”. It’s very strong, arguably the gold standard in consumer-available communications. But that’s not the point. The point is it’s a consumer application. This whole fiasco happened because you can just mistakenly add the wrong person to a group conversation, which wouldn’t be possible if the Trump national security team were using appropriate channels.
And the disappearing messages thing doesn’t add security. It adds some level of privacy, but it’s an additional factor that makes all of this completely illegal. But avoiding any future scrutiny is almost certainly one reason Trump’s kakistocratic cabinet is using Signal in the first place.
<blockquote>
The former White House official pointed out that members of
Trump’s Cabinet — including the vice president, Defense Secretary
Pete Hegseth, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard,
among others — were likely using personal devices, <a href="https://fedscoop.com/usaid-policy-signal-telegram-third-party-messaging-apps/">since in most
cases</a>, Signal cannot be downloaded onto official federal
devices. This alone creates a host of cybersecurity issues.
</blockquote>
Wrote one DF reader (who has professional experience in this area) to me today, “There is no legal way whatsoever that classified information can be communicated over the public Internet — private device, personally owned device, Chromebook, anything. It is all wildly illegal.”
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘The Problem Is Far More Than Just Whether Signal Is ‘Secure’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/the-problem-is-far-more-than-just-whether-signal-is-secure"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Days After the Trump National Security Team’s Signal Leak, the Pentagon Warned That Russian Hackers Are Using Phishing Attacks to Abuse Signal’s ‘Linked Devices’ Feature</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.npr.org/2025/03/25/nx-s1-5339801/pentagon-email-signal-vulnerability" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7l" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/pentagon-signal-linked-devices" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41745</id>
<published>2025-03-25T20:19:15Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-25T21:00:17Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
NPR:
<blockquote>
Several days after top national security officials accidentally
included a reporter in a Signal chat about bombing Houthi sites in
Yemen, a Pentagon-wide advisory warned against using the messaging
app, even for unclassified information.
“A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal messenger
application,” begins the department-wide email, dated March 18,
obtained by NPR. The memo continues, “Russian professional hacking
groups are employing the ‘linked devices’ features to spy on
encrypted conversations.” It notes that <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/russia-targeting-signal-messenger">Google has
identified</a> Russian hacking groups who are “targeting Signal
Messenger to spy on persons of interest.”
</blockquote>
It’s not a weakness in Signal’s cryptography, it’s a hole in their device-mirroring setup. From that <a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/russia-targeting-signal-messenger">Google Threat Intelligence post</a>, published last month:
<blockquote>
The most novel and widely used technique underpinning
Russian-aligned attempts to compromise Signal accounts is the
abuse of the app’s legitimate “<a href="https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007320551-Linked-Devices">linked devices</a>” feature that
enables Signal to be used on multiple devices concurrently.
Because linking an additional device typically requires scanning a
quick-response (QR) code, threat actors have resorted to crafting
malicious QR codes that, when scanned, will link a victim’s
account to an actor-controlled Signal instance. If successful,
future messages will be delivered synchronously to both the victim
and the threat actor in real-time, providing a persistent means to
eavesdrop on the victim’s secure conversations without the need
for full-device compromise.
</blockquote>
You’d have to be a bit of a doofus to fall for such a phishing attack if you were in a national security leadership position, but, well, our national security leadership positions are <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/24/trump-admin-included-goldberg-in-yemen-war-plan-signal-group">currently occupied</a> by what the Russians call “useful idiots”.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Days After the Trump National Security Team’s Signal Leak, the Pentagon Warned That Russian Hackers Are Using Phishing Attacks to Abuse Signal’s ‘Linked Devices’ Feature’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/pentagon-signal-linked-devices"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>New York Post: ‘European Union to Fine Meta Up to $1B or More for Breaching DMA’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://nypost.com/2025/03/24/business/european-union-to-fine-meta-up-to-1b-or-more-for-breaching-digital-markets-act-sources/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7k" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/new-york-post-meta-eu-dma-fine" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41744</id>
<published>2025-03-25T19:53:39Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-25T19:53:40Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Thomas Barrabi, reporting for The New York Post:
<blockquote>
The European Union is set to slap Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta with a
fine that could stretch to $1 billion or more for allegedly
violating its strict antitrust rules, The Post has learned — setting up a possible showdown with President Trump, who has
compared the EU’s penalties to “overseas extortion.”
The European Commission, the EU’s antitrust watchdog, is
expected to conclude that Meta is not in compliance with the
Digital Markets Act, sources close to the situation told The
Post on Monday. [...] The fine is expected to be hundreds of
millions of dollars and potentially more than $1 billion, the
sources said. [...]
Apple is also in the EU’s crosshairs and a fine against the iPhone
maker could be announced this week or next week, the sources said.
Earlier this month, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/eu-likely-impose-modest-fines-apple-meta-over-dma-breaches-sources-say-2025-03-10/">Reuters reported that Apple and Meta</a>
were likely to face “modest fines” for DMA breaches. EU antitrust
chief Theresa Ribera previously said a decision on enforcement
actions for both companies was coming in March.
</blockquote>
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘New York Post: ‘European Union to Fine Meta Up to $1B or More for Breaching DMA’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/new-york-post-meta-eu-dma-fine"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Reuters Reports European Commission Will Decline to Fine Apple Over Browser Choice Screen, But Hints It Will Over Anti-Steering Provisions</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/eu-set-close-investigation-into-apples-browser-options-sources-say-2025-03-25/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7j" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/reuters-eu-apple-browser-choice-investigation" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41743</id>
<published>2025-03-25T19:42:14Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-25T22:48:57Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Foo Yun Chee, reporting for Reuters under the headline “Exclusive: Apple Set to Stave Off EU Fine Into Browser Options, Sources Say”:
<blockquote>
Apple is set to stave off a possible fine and an EU order over its
browser options on iPhones after it made changes to comply with
landmark EU rules aimed at reining in Big Tech, people with direct
knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday. The European Commission,
which launched an investigation in March last year under the
Digital Markets Act (DMA), is expected to close its investigation
early next week, the people said.
</blockquote>
A win’s a win and a closed investigation’s a closed investigation, but the browser choice screen never seemed like a problem for Apple. I follow this stuff closely, and have even written (<a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/09/the_ios_continental_drift_widens">at times extensively</a>) about how <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/19/firefox-ios-doubling-france-and-germany">dumb and ineffective</a> these mandatory browser choice screens are, and I didn’t realize this investigation was still open, because it seemed so clear Apple had done what they needed to for compliance.
So, more interesting to me is this bit buried lower in the article, suggesting the EC is going to fine Apple next week over non-compliance with the DMA’s anti-steering provisions:
<blockquote>
The Commission’s decision to close the investigation early next
week will come at the same time as it hands out fines to Apple and
Meta Platforms for DMA violations and orders to comply with the
legislation, the people said.
In this second Apple case, the issue is whether the company
imposes restrictions that hinder app developers from informing
users about offers outside its App Store free of charge.
</blockquote>
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Reuters Reports European Commission Will Decline to Fine Apple Over Browser Choice Screen, But Hints It Will Over Anti-Steering Provisions’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/reuters-eu-apple-browser-choice-investigation"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>WWDC 2025 Dates: June 9–13</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/03/apples-worldwide-developers-conference-returns-the-week-of-june-9/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7i" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/wwdc-2025-dates-june-9-to-13" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41742</id>
<published>2025-03-25T17:44:51Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-25T18:59:41Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Apple Newsroom:
<blockquote>
To celebrate the start of WWDC, Apple will also host an in-person
experience on June 9 that will provide developers with the
opportunity to watch the Keynote and Platforms State of the Union
at Apple Park, meet with Apple experts one-on-one and in group
labs, and take part in special activities. Space will be limited;
details on how to apply to attend can be found on the <a href="https://developer.apple.com/wwdc25/">WWDC25
website</a>.
</blockquote>
Right on time: in recent years, WWDC dates have been announced on:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/03/apples-worldwide-developers-conference-is-back-in-its-all-online-format/">Tuesday 30 March 2021</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/04/apples-worldwide-developers-conference-returns-in-its-all-online-format/">Tuesday 5 April 2022</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/03/apples-worldwide-developers-conference-returns-june-5/">Wednesday 29 March 2023</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/03/apples-worldwide-developers-conference-returns-june-10-2024/">Tuesday 26 March 2024</a></li>
</ul>
and now today, Tuesday 25 March 2025. Last Tuesday in March next year is March 31 — that’s my guess for next year’s announcement.
And, yes, the “25” in the logo <a href="https://x.com/parkerortolani/status/1904581636760428734">has a decidedly glassy look and some animation that’s just plain fun</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘WWDC 2025 Dates: June 9–13’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/wwdc-2025-dates-june-9-to-13"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/bluesky_being_right_points" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/w7h" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025://1.41741</id>
<published>2025-03-25T16:53:36Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-25T18:17:52Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<summary type="text">Bluesky is what Twitter of yore aspired to be.</summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Yours truly back in May 2023, <a href="https://mastodon.social/@gruber/110314382066961654">in a thread on Mastodon</a> (at the time, you needed an invitation code to get into Bluesky, and it was just a few months after Musk’s takeover and <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2023/03/tweetbot_and_twitterrific_face_the_cliff">remaking of what was once Twitter</a>):
<blockquote>
Bluesky is going to skyrocket to mainstream popularity and
actually replace Twitter, and Mastodon cannot, because Bluesky is
being designed to be simple, fun, and — most importantly — easy
to understand.
I’m not trying to provoke. I like Mastodon, especially using
<a href="https://tapbots.com/ivory/">Ivory</a>, and I love the community I’m in here. And maybe our
community will stay here. What makes Mastodon good for us nerds is
that all the non-nerds aren’t here.
But it’s obvious already: regular people instantly grok Bluesky.
They’ve had months to sign up for Mastodon and haven’t — because
they don’t understand it, and what they see of it doesn’t look
like fun.
As soon as they see Bluesky they start trying to score an
invite code.
Bluesky, in both word (stated intentions) and deed (the nascent
service as it stands today), aspires to be a better Twitter. An
idealized Twitter, perhaps. It even looks just like Twitter — without all the crap.
Mastodon was created by and for people who wanted something
different from Twitter. So when Twitter refugees show up, it
doesn’t feel familiar. Because it’s not supposed to. [...]
Hundreds of millions of people liked what Twitter once was, and
what it aspired to be. Bluesky might be that.
</blockquote>
As recently as last September, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/09/03/brazil-x-bluesky">that prediction wasn’t looking so good</a>. But Bluesky finally got some traction around (and especially after) the election, and the <a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bluesky+has+the+juice">juice</a> it picked up wasn’t fleeting.
This isn’t a diss on Mastodon. If I could only use one of these platforms, Mastodon would be it. By far the highest signal-to-noise ratio amongst my timelines, and by far the best engagement with my readers and listeners. It’s a nerdy platform for nerdy users, but with its commitment to true openness, including APIs, it’s also the platform with by far the best and most varied client apps.
In the old world, there was one Twitter-like network that mattered: Twitter itself. In the new world, there exists a diaspora of refugees across these Twitter-like platforms, which have each carved out their own vibes. There are pros and cons to the old world and new. I found it much easier, mentally, to have just one place to check, and that place was available through <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2023/03/tweetbot_and_twitterrific_face_the_cliff">truly excellent native apps</a> for both Mac and iOS. Now that my attention is spread across multiple such networks — (in order of attention) Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, and, last and definitely least, but still there, X — I feel more scattered mentally, but I’m also pretty sure I spend less time overall using all of them combined today than I did for Twitter’s peak decade-or-so, and that I’m better off for that.
It helps, too, that the first-party apps for Bluesky and Threads are mediocre on iOS (and Threads, oddly, is quite slow everywhere) and can only be used via the web on the Mac — they don’t even have bad Mac client apps, they have no Mac client apps. Helps that is, insofar as I therefore spend less time using them. I’m greatly looking forward to Tapbots’s upcoming Bluesky client, <a href="https://tapbots.com/phoenix/">Phoenix</a>, but in the back of my mind I’m vaguely worried that Phoenix might ultimately make me less productive because the additional joy and efficiency it will add to my Bluesky experience will lead me to spend more time there than I should. A good problem to have.
What I didn’t see coming in May 2023 was Meta’s <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2023/07/threads">successful launch of Threads that summer</a>. The core problem with Threads is that I don’t think there’s a true vision behind it, other than serving to fuck with Elon Musk and X. It’s always been kind of interesting and kind of fun, and has never been toxic. (Meta’s much-ballyhooed “there’s a new sheriff in town and we aim to please him” <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/01/meta_zuck_content_moderation_zig_zag">content-moderation policy changes in January</a> have seemingly had no effect whatsoever on the tenor or activity on Threads.) But it’s never been really interesting or really fun. It’s a platform without a soul. It aspires to be anodyne, which is very different than empowering users not to feel like they’ve got to dodge a never-ending barrage of turds being thrown by the angry chaos monkeys who’ve overrun X. If Threads does have a vibe, that vibe is blandness.
But so while Threads bursting onto the scene in summer 2023 maybe delayed Bluesky’s blossoming, I suspect Threads might have ultimately helped Bluesky by opening the minds of many Twitter refugees into just trying some new alternatives. One size doesn’t fit all. Nor one social network.
The bottom line is that I think my May 2023 prediction is proving out. Bluesky is what Twitter of yore aspired to be. Users are in control of what they see in their timelines. Sub-communities are vibrant. Shitbirds get blocked and added to blocklists, not elevated to the top of reply threads because they paid for a blue-check power-up. The centralized nature of the Bluesky platform gives the hardcore federation zealots the heebie-jeebies, but that’s what makes Bluesky understandable and approachable, and I think clearly more performant than Mastodon can ever hope to be. It’s a really cool concept for a Twitter-like platform that, after a slow build-up, has turned into an actual really cool platform, whose focus, first and foremost, is putting users first.
]]></content>
<title>★ It Might Be Time for Me to Collect Some Being Right Points for My 2023 Bluesky Prediction</title></entry><entry>
<title>Threads Is Losing to Bluesky</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://birchtree.me/blog/meta-has-squandered-threads/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7g" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/threads-is-losing-to-bluesky" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41740</id>
<published>2025-03-25T15:04:34Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-25T22:04:48Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
<a href="https://www.status.news/p/threads-engagement-meta-bluesky-x">Jon Passantino, writing at Status</a>:
<blockquote>
Now Threads feels rather lifeless. While users still post there,
for many it has become something of a second-tier platform — a place
that they dump content out of habit, not because they’re having
real conversations or finding meaningful engagement.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://birchtree.me/blog/meta-has-squandered-threads/">Matt Birchler</a>:
<blockquote>
I believe Meta that there are hundreds of millions of people
signing on every month, but they seem to be doing absolutely
nothing there. More interesting stuff is on Bluesky and Mastodon,
and better conversation happens on those platforms as well.
</blockquote>
I feel the same way. Threads has dropped to a decided #3 for me after Mastodon and Bluesky, and (a) I don’t really have room in my head or time in my day for 3 of these platforms, and (b) I’m more than OK with Meta’s entry falling by the wayside.
Like, if the answer at the moment for Twitter-style social media is Bluesky (general audience) and Mastodon (nerds), that’s ... the best outcome? Even X (chaos and Musk sycophancy) seems to have a better, more defined vision for what it’s supposed to be than Threads.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Threads Is Losing to Bluesky’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/threads-is-losing-to-bluesky"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>‘Tim, Don’t Kill My Vibe’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://irace.me/vibe" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7f" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/24/irace-vibe-killing" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41739</id>
<published>2025-03-24T22:53:19Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-25T16:20:02Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Bryan Irace:
<blockquote>
Barring a sharp correction, Apple looks increasingly likely to
miss out on a generation of developers conditioned to first reach
for tools like <a href="https://cursor.com/">Cursor</a>, <a href="https://replit.com/">Replit</a>, or <a href="https://v0.dev/">v0</a> — especially as Apple’s own AI tooling <a href="https://dimillian.medium.com/where-is-swift-assist-6ea348767cf3">remains notably absent</a>.
This goes well beyond enabling new entrants to “<a href="https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383">vibe code</a>” — experienced mobile developers who, despite history with Xcode
and a predilection for building native apps, are begrudgingly
swapping out their tools in acknowledgement of the inarguable
productivity benefits. [...]
App Review has always long been a major source of developer
frustration. Authoritarian yet inconsistent policy enforcement
aside, it’s simply too hard to distribute software even to your
own Apple devices, let alone someone else’s. This isn’t new by
any means, but as the time to build an app shrinks from
weeks/months to hours/days, it feels more egregious — and thus
like more of a liability — than ever before.
</blockquote>
This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece. I feel like Irace is onto something here that I haven’t seen anyone put their finger on before.
The App Store, when it debuted, made developers deliriously happy. The UIKit frameworks (a.k.a. CocoaTouch), Objective-C, and Xcode were all way better ways to create apps for mobile devices than anything else at the time. And for distribution, going through Apple and the App Store was way easier and way more democratic, and 70/30 was way more generous to developers, than anything from the various phone carriers around the world. You’d be lucky to get a 30/70 split from the carriers, and they’d only deal with large corporate developers. There were no indie or hobbyist mobile app developers before the App Store. (It’s kind of nutty in hindsight that network carriers were the only distribution channel for apps 17 years ago.)
17 years is a long time, though. And developers long ago stopped seeing the App Store as something that makes them happy, or that reduces friction and hassle from their lives. Instead they view it as a major source of friction and hassle. Apple should have focused on keeping the App Store as a thing that makes developers (mostly) happy all along, not (as things stand today) mostly miserable.
Basically, the threat to Apple that the App Store poses is not regulators coming for it. That’s a distraction. The threat, as I’ve <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2021/06/app_store_the_schiller_cut">long tried to argue</a>, perhaps unsuccessfully, is that market forces will work against it eventually. Developers have long since grown resentful toward the technical and bureaucratic hassles of publishing through the App Store, and the size of the purchase commissions Apple keeps for itself. Apple’s commission percentages haven’t grown over time, but a 70/30 split that in 2008 seemed remarkably generous (or even the newer <a href="https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/">85/15 small-business split</a>) today seems like a platform engaging in usury and abusive rent-seeking.
AI might be the disruption that brings about the “eventually”, because now it’s coming for the developer tooling experience too. If Apple’s native programming frameworks and developer tools aren’t the best, most satisfying, most productive ways to create great apps, what’s left that makes developers happy to be creating for the iOS platform?
Apple should move mountains to refocus itself on making the experience of developing for (and on) Apple platforms the best in the world, including distribution and monetization. Instead, they seem to be resting on the assumption that it’s a privilege, self-evident to all, just to be allowed to develop for Apple platforms.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘‘Tim, Don’t Kill My Vibe’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/24/irace-vibe-killing"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://lex.games/df" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/w7e" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2025/03/lexgames_free_daily_word_games" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/feeds/sponsors//11.41738</id>
<author><name>Daring Fireball Department of Commerce</name></author>
<published>2025-03-24T22:14:49Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-30T20:05:43Z</updated>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Lex.Games is an iOS app (and website) for playing eight daily word games.
I paid Gruber many thousands of dollars to run this ad for free games which themselves have no ads. Please keep reading. 
The games:
Conlextions: Inspired by NYT’s Connections 
Lexicogs: Solve crossword-style clues by assembling letter “cogs” 
By a Vowel: A word jumble game with missing vowels 
Six Appeal: Wordle with six-letter words
There’s also a daily Mini Crossword; a Full-Size Crossword; and Mind Control, which is a whole lot like Mastermind and not actually a word game at all; don’t sue me.
Oh, and if you only counted seven games here, the eighth is iOS-only. It’s called Letter Opener, and it’s my favorite.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Lex.Games: Free Daily Word Games’" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2025/03/lexgames_free_daily_word_games"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
<title>[Sponsor] Lex.Games: Free Daily Word Games</title></entry><entry>
<title>Software Update for AirPods Max to Enable Lossless Audio and ‘Ultra-Low Latency’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/03/lossless-audio-and-ultra-low-latency-audio-come-to-airpods-max/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7d" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/24/airpods-max-lossless-audio-ultralow-low-latency" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41737</id>
<published>2025-03-24T21:55:53Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-24T21:56:21Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Apple Newsroom:
<blockquote>
Next month, a new software update will bring lossless audio and
ultra-low latency audio to AirPods Max, delivering the ultimate
listening experience and even greater performance for music
production. With the included USB-C cable, users can enjoy the
highest-quality audio across music, movies, and games, while music
creators can experience significant enhancements to songwriting,
beat making, production, and mixing.
</blockquote>
Apple also started selling <a href="https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MDV84AM/A/usb-c-to-35-mm-audio-cable-12-m">a new $40 USB-C to 3.5mm audio cable</a> — male USB-C on the side that goes into your AirPods Max, male headphone jack on the other side to go into the audio-out port on a Mac or, say, an airplane seat.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Software Update for AirPods Max to Enable Lossless Audio and ‘Ultra-Low Latency’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/24/airpods-max-lossless-audio-ultralow-low-latency"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Getting a Modern LLM Running on a 2005 PowerBook G4</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.theresistornetwork.com/2025/03/thinking-different-thinking-slowly-llms.html" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7c" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/24/getting-a-modern-llm-running-on-powerbook-g4" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41736</id>
<published>2025-03-24T21:45:30Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-24T22:20:08Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Andrew Rossignol:
<blockquote>
I have been diving into the world of large language models (LLMs),
and a question began to gnaw at me: could I bring the cutting-edge
of AI to the nostalgic glow of my trusty 2005 PowerBook G4? Armed
with a 1.5GHz processor, a full gigabyte of RAM, and a limiting
32-bit address space, I embarked on an experiment that actually
yielded results. I have successfully managed to achieve LLM
inference on this classic piece of Apple history, proving that
even yesteryear’s hardware can have a taste of tomorrow’s AI.
</blockquote>
A fun project, well-explained. Even a great choice of computer to run it on — the 12-inch PowerBook G4 is one of the best-looking computers ever made. (<a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2025/03/24/powerbook-g4-generative-ai/">Via Joe Rossignol</a>.)
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Getting a Modern LLM Running on a 2005 PowerBook G4’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/24/getting-a-modern-llm-running-on-powerbook-g4"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>‘On Tyranny’ by Timothy Snyder</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://timothysnyder.org/on-tyranny/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7b" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/24/on-tyranny" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41735</id>
<published>2025-03-24T18:42:44Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-24T22:18:29Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
I read Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny after the election. A collection of 20 essays — each relatively brief, some exceptionally brief — it’s more booklet than book, and can easily be consumed in an afternoon or a few evenings. I finished it with an unsettled feeling. I read it again last week, and my feeling now is both more unsettled and more resolute.
Snyder, a plain-speaking history professor at Yale, has a core message, <a href="https://snyder.substack.com/p/obeying-in-advance">which he’s been hammering</a> since before Trump’s re-election: Do not obey in advance. Resist. The following passage hit me harder on this second reading, two months into Trump 2.0, than it did in November. From Chapter 19: “Be a Patriot”:
<blockquote>
It is not patriotic to admire foreign dictators. It is not
patriotic to cultivate a relationship with Kim Jong Un; or to say
that Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin are superior leaders. It
is not patriotic to call upon foreign leaders to intervene in
American presidential elections. It is not patriotic to cite
Russian propaganda at rallies. It is not patriotic to share an
adviser with Russian oligarchs. It is not patriotic to appoint
advisers with financial interests in Russian companies. It is not
patriotic to appoint a National Security Advisor who likes to be
called “General Misha,” nor to pardon him for his crimes. It is
not patriotic when that pardoned official calls for martial law.
It is not patriotic to refer to American soldiers as “losers” and
“suckers.” It is not patriotic to take health care from families,
nor to golf your way through a national epidemic in which half a
million Americans die. It is not patriotic to try to sabotage an
American election, nor to claim victory after defeat. It is not
patriotic to try to end democracy.
A nationalist might do all these things, but a nationalist is not
a patriot. A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then
tells us that we are the best. A nationalist, “although endlessly
brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,” wrote Orwell, tends
to be “uninterested in what happens in the real world.”
Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment
we feel when we contemplate others. As the novelist Danilo Kiš put
it, nationalism “has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.”
A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals,
which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be
concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his
country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal
values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it
well — and wishing that it would do better.
Democracy failed in Europe in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, and it is
failing not only in much of Europe but in many parts of the world
today. It is that history and experience that reveals to us the
dark range of our possible futures. A nationalist will say that
“it can’t happen here,” which is the first step toward disaster. A
patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.
</blockquote>
I highly recommend the book. Get it at <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Twenty-Lessons-Twentieth-Century/dp/0804190119?tag=df-amzn-20">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2186/9780804190114?prhc=PRHE159AAB82E">Bookshop.org</a>, or <a href="https://goto.applebooks.apple/9780804190121?at=11l3IH&ct=PRHE159AAB82E--9780804190121">Apple Books</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘‘On Tyranny’ by Timothy Snyder’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/24/on-tyranny"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>The Trump Administration Accidentally Included Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor of The Atlantic, in a Signal Group Chat That Revealed War Plans for Yemen</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w7a" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/24/trump-admin-included-goldberg-in-yemen-war-plan-signal-group" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41734</id>
<published>2025-03-24T18:14:50Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-24T21:01:52Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic (<a href="https://apple.news/Ay8ft1edESzS5rQlnHX1rFQ">News+ link</a>):
<blockquote>
The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15
that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.
I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that
the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete
Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at
11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons
packages, targets, and timing.
This is going to require some explaining. [...]
</blockquote>
The notion of a journalist being accidentally included in a war-planning group of national security leaders — and the very notion that U.S. national security leaders would use Signal to conduct such a group — is so preposterous that Goldberg had assumed the group was a hoax, with the intention of embarrassing him. But it was real.
<blockquote>
Earlier today, I emailed Waltz and sent him a message on his
Signal account. I also wrote to Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe,
Tulsi Gabbard, and other officials. In an email, I outlined some
of my questions: Is the “Houthi PC small group” a genuine Signal
thread? Did they know that I was included in this group? Was I (on
the off chance) included on purpose? If not, who did they think I
was? Did anyone realize who I was when I was added, or when I
removed myself from the group? Do senior Trump-administration
officials use Signal regularly for sensitive discussions? Do the
officials believe that the use of such a channel could endanger
American personnel?
</blockquote>
I’ll add: Do they sniff glue and eat paste?
There’s so much chaos at the moment resulting from the Trump administration’s actions during these first two months that it’s easy to overlook one salient fact: Trump has chosen to surround himself with idiots.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘The Trump Administration Accidentally Included Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor of The Atlantic, in a Signal Group Chat That Revealed War Plans for Yemen’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/24/trump-admin-included-goldberg-in-yemen-war-plan-signal-group"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>The Talk Show: ‘Podcasting Technology Cadence’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2025/03/23/ep-419" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w79" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/23/the-talk-show-419" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41733</id>
<published>2025-03-23T17:24:10Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-30T21:59:18Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
MG Siegler returns to the show to talk about the drama surrounding Siri and Apple Intelligence.
<audio
src = "https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/daringfireball/thetalkshow-419-mg-siegler.mp3"
controls
preload = "none"
/>
Sponsored by:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://workos.com/">WorkOS</a>: The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS — free up to 1 million monthly active users. Check out their latest features from <a href="https://workos.com/launch-week/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=q12025">Launch Week</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://betterhelp.com/talkshow">BetterHelp</a>: Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp and get on your way to being your best self.</li>
<li><a href="https://theopencase.com/discount/TALKSHOW">OpenCase</a>: MagSafe perfected that’s thinner, lighter, and more secure. Save 10% with code TALKSHOW.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘The Talk Show: ‘Podcasting Technology Cadence’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/23/the-talk-show-419"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Weekly Sponsorships Here at Daring Fireball</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w78" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/21/weekly-sponsorship-here-at-daring-fireball" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41732</id>
<published>2025-03-21T22:38:27Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-22T16:24:59Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
How has your week been? My week was ... <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/something_is_rotten_in_the_state_of_cupertino">busy</a>. That includes a new episode of The Talk Show recorded yesterday, dropping in your favorite podcast app soon. Amidst all the writing (and talking) I’ve been doing, I’m also working on filling up open weeks on the sponsorship schedule for Q2.
After a very full February and March, I’ve got a bunch of openings in the next few months — and openings for <s>the next two weeks, starting with this Monday</s>. Update: The coming week just sold, but the next week, starting March 31, remains open.
Weekly sponsorships have been the top source of revenue for Daring Fireball ever since I started selling them <a href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/archive">back in 2007</a>. They’ve succeeded, I think, because they make everyone happy. They generate good money. There’s only one sponsor per week and the sponsors are always relevant to at least some sizable portion of the DF audience, so you, the reader, are never annoyed and hopefully often intrigued by them. And, from the sponsors’ perspective, they work. My favorite thing about them is how many sponsors <a href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/archive">return for subsequent weeks</a> after seeing the results.
If you’ve got a product or service you think would be of interest to DF’s audience of people obsessed with high quality and good design, <a href="mailto:sponsors@daringfireball.net?subject=Feed%20Sponsorship">get in touch</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Weekly Sponsorships Here at Daring Fireball’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/21/weekly-sponsorship-here-at-daring-fireball"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>WorkOS: Launch Week</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://workos.com/launch-week/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=q12025" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w77" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/21/workos-launch-week" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41731</id>
<published>2025-03-21T22:38:04Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-22T16:30:21Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
My thanks to WorkOS for sponsoring DF, once again, this last week. This has been WorkOS’s Launch Week, and they’ve got a slew of new features to show. Honestly, though, you should check out their <a href="https://workos.com/launch-week/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=q12025">Launch Week page</a> just to look at it — it’s beautiful, fun retro-modern pixel-art goodness. Great typography too. I wish every website looked even half this cool.
New features launched just this week include:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://workos.com/blog/workos-connect?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=q12025">WorkOS Connect</a> — “Sign in with [Your App]”</li>
<li><a href="https://workos.com/blog/vault?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=q12025">WorkOS Vault</a> — Encryption Key Management (EKM) and Bring-Your-Own-Key (BYOK)</li>
<li><a href="https://workos.com/blog/custom-objects?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=q12025">AuthKit Integrations</a> — Native support for several new identity providers including LinkedIn, Slack, GitLab, BitBucket, Intuit, and more.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘WorkOS: Launch Week’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/21/workos-launch-week"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Ookla: ‘A First Look at How Apple’s C1 Modem Performs With Early Adopters’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.ookla.com/articles/apples-c1-modem-early-adopters" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w76" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/21/ookla-16e-c1-modem-results" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41730</id>
<published>2025-03-21T22:34:29Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-22T15:43:41Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Ookla, the company behind the Speedtest download/upload bandwidth testing app:
<blockquote>
Although it’s early in the adoption curve for the iPhone 16e, we
analyzed the performance of the new device from March 1st through
March 12th, and compared it to the performance of iPhone 16, which
has a similar design and the same 6.1” screen. Both devices run on
the same Apple-designed A18 SoC.
When we compare Speedtest Intelligence data from the top 90th
percentile (those with the highest performance experience) of
iPhone 16e and iPhone 16 users from all three of the top U.S.
operators, we see the iPhone 16 performing better in download
speeds. However, at the opposite end, with the 10th percentile of
users (those who experience the lowest performance) we see the
iPhone 16e performing better than the iPhone 16.
</blockquote>
There are some differences, but overall the 16e’s cellular performance seems great for the frequencies it supports. And given the efficiency claims from Apple, it might be the better overall modem. (I also think the frequencies it doesn’t support don’t really matter all that much in real-world practice. If you know that you really make use of the crazy-high speeds of mmWave from Verizon, then you know the C1 modem is not for you.)
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Ookla: ‘A First Look at How Apple’s C1 Modem Performs With Early Adopters’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/21/ookla-16e-c1-modem-results"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/keyboard_maestro_hack_of_the_week_dont_paste_images" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/w74" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025://1.41728</id>
<published>2025-03-21T19:37:49Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-22T16:31:39Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<summary type="text">I keep meaning to write more about Keyboard Maestro, and so I’m just going to start documenting all the little use cases I find for it. Here’s one from today.</summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
My number one tip for becoming a Mac power user is to get into <a href="https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/">Keyboard Maestro</a>. Using Keyboard Maestro feels like gaining superpowers. I keep meaning to write more about Keyboard Maestro, and so I’m just going to start documenting all the little use cases I find for it. Here’s one from today.
I use <a href="https://redsweater.com/marsedit/">MarsEdit</a> to publish at least 99 percent of the posts on this site. (The other 1 percent are posts I create on my phone, using the web interface for Movable Type.) I use MarsEdit a lot. About once a week or so, I accidentally try to paste text in MarsEdit when I think I have text on my clipboard, but it’s actually an image. When you paste an image in MarsEdit, it’s not like pasting into Mail or Notes or TextEdit, where the image just goes into the text. So MarsEdit, trying to be helpful, opens its <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/03/marsedit-upload-utility.png">Upload Utility window</a> — which, if I were using WordPress or some other CMS, might allow me to upload the image to my server for referencing from the HTML of the blog post. That’s not how my system works, and not how I want it to work, so every time this happens I have to close the Upload Utility window. And every time, I try to do this by hitting the Esc key on my keyboard. But the Upload Utility window isn’t a dialog box with a Cancel button that would be triggered by Esc. It’s a regular window. So after hitting the Esc key, which doesn’t do anything in this context, I then remember, once again, that I need to hit ⌘W instead. (I think I don’t naturally think to hit ⌘W because my instincts tell me ⌘W would try to close the blog window I’m writing in.)
Today it happened again, and finally the notion occurred to me that I could fix this with Keyboard Maestro. My first thought was that I could create a macro that would close the frontmost window in MarsEdit if, and only if, the frontmost window was named “Upload Utility”. A second later it occurred to me that I could probably do better than that, and prevent the Upload Utility window from opening in the first place if I ever try to paste an image in MarsEdit.
I was right. This wasn’t just super easy to create in Keyboard Maestro, it was super quick. I’ve spent 10× more time writing about this macro here than I did creating it. I think that’s why I so seldom write about my little hacks in Keyboard Maestro — they not only save me time and eliminate annoyances once they’re created, but they’re so easy to create that I just get back to whatever I was previously doing after making a new one.
First, I have a group (think: folders) in Keyboard Maestro for every app for which I’ve created app-specific macros. You just create a new group and set it to only be available when one (or more) specific applications are active. Inside my group for MarsEdit, I created a new macro named “Don’t Paste Images”.
It’s triggered by the hot key sequence ⌘V. That means every single time I paste in MarsEdit, this macro will run. Keyboard Maestro is so frigging fast that I’ll never notice. (Keyboard Maestro macros execute so fast that in some scenarios, you have to add steps to pause for, say, 0.2 seconds to keep the macro from getting ahead of the user interface it’s manipulating.)
The macro executes a simple <a href="https://wiki.keyboardmaestro.com/action/If_Then_Else">if-then-else action</a> with the following pseudocode logic:
<pre><code>if the System Clipboard has an image
play a sound
else
simulate the keystroke ⌘V
</code></pre>
That’s the whole thing. And it worked perfectly the first time I tried it. <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/03/km-dont-paste-images-marsedit.png">Here’s a screenshot of my macro</a>.
So if I type ⌘V in MarsEdit, and the clipboard contains an image, I just hear a beep. (I could just default to the system beep, but I chose the standard MacOS “Bottle” sound just for this macro — I sort of want to know that it’s this macro keeping me from pasting whatever text I wrongly thought was on my clipboard, so I want a distinctive sound to play.) Nothing gets pasted, so MarsEdit’s Upload Utility window doesn’t appear.
If the clipboard doesn’t contain an image, then Keyboard Maestro simulates a ⌘V shortcut and that gets passed to MarsEdit, and from my perspective as a user, it’s just like a normal paste of the text I expected. I have a few macros that work like this, where the macro is trigged by an application’s own keyboard shortcut, and the macro will (if certain conditions are met) pass through the same simulated keyboard shortcut to the application. When I first tried this, many years ago, I was half worried that it would trigger an infinite loop, where the simulated keystroke from the Keyboard Maestro macro would re-trigger the macro. I was wrong to worry — Keyboard Maestro is too clever for that.
You almost certainly don’t have my particular problem with the occasional inadvertent pasting of images into MarsEdit. But I bet you have your own esoteric annoyances related to your own most-used apps and most-frequent tasks. Keyboard Maestro lets you effectively add your own little features to your favorite apps — often with no “scripting” at all. The best part is, while writing this very blog post, my new “Don’t Paste Images” macro saved me from seeing that cursed Upload Utility window once more, because I had the screenshot of the macro on my clipboard, when I thought I had copied the URL for it on my server.
]]></content>
<title>★ Keyboard Maestro Hack of the Week: Don’t Paste Images</title></entry><entry>
<title>Yahoo Sold TechCrunch</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theverge.com/news/633950/yahoo-selling-techcrunch-regent-acquisition" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w75" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/21/yahoo-sold-techcrunch" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41729</id>
<published>2025-03-21T19:00:00Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-21T22:05:18Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Emma Roth, The Verge:
<blockquote>
TechCrunch has a new owner, again. Yahoo has sold the tech news
site to the private equity firm Regent for an undisclosed sum,
according to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/21/techcrunch-has-personal-news/">an announcement on Friday</a>.
Regent is the same company that <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250320976126/en/IDC-Enters-a-New-Era-of-Growth-and-Innovation-Following-Foundry-Sale">snapped up Foundry</a>, the firm
behind outlets like PCWorld, Macworld, and TechAdvisor on
Thursday. Founded in 2005, TechCrunch has experienced many
shakeups in ownership <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/why-we-sold-techcrunch-to-aol-and-where-we-go-from-here/">after AOL acquired the site in 2010</a>.
</blockquote>
A lot of shakeups in a lot of media companies’ ownership lately. Steady as she goes here at The Daring Fireball Company, a subsidiary of Fedora World Media Industries.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Yahoo Sold TechCrunch’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/21/yahoo-sold-techcrunch"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Matthew Belloni on the ‘Apple TV+ Experiment’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://puck.news/how-long-can-the-apple-tv-plus-experiment-sputter-on/?sharer=167184&token=1ff8c319cdac678ace91127c99abfc96" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w73" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/21/belloni-apple-tv" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41727</id>
<published>2025-03-21T18:01:48Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-22T16:33:03Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Matthew Belloni has a very good take on Apple TV+ at Puck (that’s a gift link that should get you through their paywall — but which requires you creating a free account, sorry):
<blockquote>
All of which fed into the self-centered fears of my lunch date.
What, if anything, does the current state of Apple mean for its
entertainment business? After all, more than five years into the
Apple TV+ experiment, it’s never been entirely clear what C.E.O.
Tim Cook and services chief Eddy Cue are up to in Hollywood.
Certainly not making money, at least not in the traditional sense.
The Information
<a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apple-streaming-losses-top-1-billion-year?rc=1m8jsa">reported</a>
today that Apple lost $1 billion on Apple TV+ last year, following
a Bloomberg
<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-07-21/apple-tries-to-rein-in-hollywood-spending-after-years-of-losses">report</a>
that more than $20 billion has been shoveled into making original
shows and movies since 2019. That’s not nothing, even for a
company worth $3 trillion.
The “loss” number is a bit misleading, of course, considering
Apple has always said that a key goal is to leverage Leo DiCaprio
and Reese Witherspoon to thicken its brand halo and the device
“ecosystem,” ultimately boosting its other businesses. But still…
for all its billions, Apple TV+ has accumulated only about 45
million subscribers worldwide, according to today’s Information
report and other estimates.
That’s far less than Disney+, Max, and Paramount+, all of which
launched around the same time. Those rival services are attached
to legacy studios with rich libraries, but they’re not attached to
a company with $65 billion in cash on hand and a device in the
pockets of 1 billion people that also delivers bundle-friendly
music, news, and games. Apple declined to confirm or comment on
any numbers, but a source there suggested the subscriber number is
higher than 45 million and that the global nature of the sub base
is being undercounted by U.S.-oriented research firms. Maybe. The
company reveals zero performance data beyond B.S. “biggest weekend
ever!” press releases that the trades accept without skepticism
and producers like Ben Stiller and David Ellison post with
“blessed” emojis on their social media. No one outside the company
really knows how the Apple TV+ business is performing.
</blockquote>
One interesting nugget is <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/03/puck-apple-tv+-signups.png">this chart</a>, which suggests that subscriptions to TV+ have boomed since Apple and Amazon <a href="https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/entertainment/apple-tv-shows-amazon-prime-video-subscription">worked out a deal to sell TV+ subscriptions</a> through Amazon Channels in Prime Video at the end of last year. That deal has, seemingly, moved the needle. Another interesting nugget is that TV+ seems to suffer from a higher churn rate than other streaming services. Said Belloni’s Puck colleague Julia Alexander, “Fewer than 35 percent of all subscribers keep the service for longer than six months.”
That’s kind of crazy. I’d think TV+ would have less churn, not more, than the industry average — that the Apple TV+ audience is small but loyal. Perhaps this is the unsurprising side effect of Apple giving away 3-month trials when you purchase new devices. But I also truly wonder if TV+ subscriptions are the hardest for industry groups to measure, because so many people who do subscribe watch through tvOS (or, on their phones, on iOS) where everything is private. Belloni hints at this, and says little birdies at Apple told him the TV+ subscriber base is larger than they’re getting credit for.
And how do you count <a href="https://www.apple.com/apple-one/">Apple One</a> subscribers toward TV+’s subscriber base? My vague theory about Cue and Cook’s thinking about getting into this business has been about making it one leg among several on the stool of reasons to subscribe to Apple One. That Apple will take subscribers who are only subscribed to TV+, or only subscribed to TV+ and Apple Music, but what they really want is to get people to subscribe to Apple One, which, because it includes iCloud storage, almost certainly has very little churn.
Belloni closes thus:
<blockquote>
Apple wouldn’t be the first tech powerhouse to dabble in
professionally produced content only to retreat. [...] Neither
Cook nor Cue has suggested anything like that, and Apple, in just
over five years, has become a reliable partner and a high-quality
buyer for Hollywood shows and movies. In some ways, it’s
remarkable how fast Apple TV+ became part of the entertainment
community. Whether that lasts is the question.
</blockquote>
Here’s where I will point out that Apple isn’t like other tech companies. Apple isn’t a move fast and break things company. They’re a measure twice, cut once company. When they commit to something, they tend to stay committed. And they’re very, very good at playing long games that require patience, especially when entering new markets. Look at Apple Pay. 10 years ago, it was <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-pay-showing-signs-could-214558347.html">widely panned</a> as <a href="https://www.cultofmac.com/news/apple-pay-was-a-massive-flop-on-black-friday">a flop</a> after a slow first year. Now it’s everywhere.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Matthew Belloni on the ‘Apple TV+ Experiment’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/21/belloni-apple-tv"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Is Apple’s Spending on TV+ Content a ‘Loss’ or a ‘Cost’?</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://deadline.com/2025/03/apple-appletv-annual-streaming-losses-1236345490/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/w72" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/21/apple-tv-spend-loss-or-cost" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.41726</id>
<published>2025-03-21T16:18:07Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-21T18:28:48Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Jill Goldsmith, Deadline:
<blockquote>
Apple is losing more than $1 billion a year on streamer Apple TV+,
according to a report in the Information that cited two people
familiar with the matter. The tech giant has spent over $5 billion
a year on content since launching Apple TV+ in 2019 but trimmed
that by about $500 million last year, <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apple-streaming-losses-top-1-billion-year">the report said</a>.
</blockquote>
The headline on Wayne Ma’s report at The Information set the framework: “<a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apple-streaming-losses-top-1-billion-year">Apple Streaming Losses Top $1 Billion a Year</a>” — the story got picked up widely, and almost everyone who did framed it in terms of losing or a loss. But is it a loss when Apple expected the business to be unprofitable for a decade or more? <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/apple-tv-reportedly-loses-1-billion-a-year-and-thats-okay-for-now/">From Scharon Harding’s paraphrasing at Ars Technica</a> of Ma’s paywalled report:
<blockquote>
Apple TV+ being Apple’s only service not turning a profit isn’t
good, but it’s also expected. Like other streaming services,
Apple TV+ wasn’t expected to be profitable until years after its
launch. An Apple TV+ employee that The Information said reviewed
the streaming service’s business plan said Apple TV+ is expected
to lose $15 billion to $20 billion during its first 10 years.
For comparison, Disney’s direct-to-consumer streaming business had
operating losses <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinereid/2025/02/08/disneys-streaming-unit-loses-three-times-more-money-than-disneyland-paris/">of $11.4 billion</a> between the launch of
Disney+ in fall 2020 and April 2024. Disney’s streaming business
became profitable for the first time in its fiscal quarter ending
on June 29, 2024.
</blockquote>
The above two paragraphs of essential context are buried 13 paragraphs down. If Apple expected TV+ to operate in the red, to the tune of $15–20 billion over its first decade, and halfway through that decade (<a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/09/apple-tv-launches-november-1-featuring-originals-from-the-worlds-greatest-storytellers/">TV+ debuted</a> in November 2019) it operated in the red to the tune of $1 billion for the year — doesn’t that mean costs are exactly in line with their expectations?
The insinuation here is that Apple’s pissing this money away and doesn’t know what they’re doing. Maybe they are! But if so it was exactly Eddy Cue and Tim Cook’s strategy to piss this money away. If Apple had expected TV+ to be profitable or break-even in 2024, then a $1 billion operating loss would be a story. But as it stands it’s just a cost. How much did Apple “lose” on electricity bills last year?
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Is Apple’s Spending on TV+ Content a ‘Loss’ or a ‘Cost’?’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/21/apple-tv-spend-loss-or-cost"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/a_postscript_on_the_singular_nature_of_mark_gurmans_reporting" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/w64" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025://1.41692</id>
<published>2025-03-16T14:26:24Z</published>
<updated>2025-03-17T14:38:43Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<summary type="text">But I’d feel a lot better about our collective conventional wisdom regarding the nature of this particular all-hands Siri meeting if it had leaked to, and been reported on, by more than one reporter at more than one publication.</summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
<a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/14/all-hands-siri-team-meeting-leaks-to-bloomberg">My post Friday</a> commenting (read: wise-cracking) on Mark Gurman’s explosive report on an all-hands Siri team meeting at Apple was begging for a bit of meta commentary on the reporting itself. But I’ve been doing so much of that regarding Gurman lately that I thought it best to hold it for a postscript. Here’s that postscript.
Both of these things are true:
<ul>
<li>Mark Gurman is a singular reporter in the Apple media sphere. He publishes an extraordinary number of exclusives, both regarding leaks of upcoming products, and leaks <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-14/apple-s-siri-chief-calls-ai-delays-ugly-and-embarrassing-promises-fixes">like this Siri team meeting</a>.</li>
<li>Gurman <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/09/14/prosser-flat-edge-watch">often</a> <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/05/gurman-c1-modem-ipad">gets</a> <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/05/gurman-ipads">things</a> wrong, and when he does, he never acknowledges those mistakes, let alone corrects them. He also tries to take credit for having called things <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/05/your-source-for-scoops">he completely missed</a>. He’s not an oracle but presents himself as one. And he writes for a publication, Bloomberg, that shares his insistence on never acknowledging let alone correcting mistakes, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/02/12/bloomberg-big-con">even massive ones</a>. What gives me such joy pointing out his boners isn’t that he made them in the first place but that he refuses to acknowledge they happened, presenting an air of infallibility with a provably fallible track record.</li>
</ul>
In short, I <a href="https://sixcolors.com/member/2025/03/the-pinata-of-apple-rumors/">do actually suspect</a> — but can claim zero sources familiar with the matter to confirm — that Gurman hangs his toilet paper in an improper underhand fashion.
So let’s just examine how extraordinary and singular Gurman’s Friday report was. Nobody else reported on this meeting. <a href="https://www.techmeme.com/250314/p18#a250314p18">Every other article about it</a> — including mine — was commenting on Gurman’s exclusive report about the meeting. I’ve not seen one other report even confirming the meeting took place, let alone describing it in detail, replete with copious quotes from Siri senior director Robby Walker, who, according to Gurman, led the meeting. Not one. I’m not pointing that out to cast suspicion that the meeting did not take place or that Gurman’s report cast it inaccurately or that his direct quotations were not, in fact, direct quotations. I’m pointing out just how singular and extraordinary Mark Gurman is in this sphere. If it wasn’t for Gurman’s report we, outside Apple (and probably outside the Siri team inside Apple) wouldn’t even know the meeting occurred.
How did Gurman not only get the scoop on this meeting, but copious direct quotes from Walker’s remarks to the team? Well, it was “according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the gathering was private”. In other words, more than one member of the Siri team, and at least one of which either recorded the meeting surreptitiously and slipped the recording to Gurman, or at least one of whom takes notes at the pace and accuracy of a court stenographer. Either way, these sources — plural — surely knew how the meeting would make Apple look if it were to leak.
I’ve long made my opinions about Bloomberg’s institutional journalistic credibility well known. But I don’t think they’re bereft of credibility — it’s the fact that they are deservedly well-regarded that makes their refusal to ever admit their own glaring mistakes so notable. When a Gurman reports says “people” that means “more than one” and, I believe, he must be able to confirm to his editors that he got this information from more than one source. If he’s reporting direct quotes, I think that means he’s heard a recording. That’s extraordinary.
But I’d feel a lot better about our collective conventional wisdom regarding the nature of this particular all-hands Siri meeting if it had leaked to, and been reported on by, more than one reporter at more than one publication.
]]></content>
<title>★ A Postscript on the Singular Nature of Mark Gurman’s Reporting</title></entry></feed>

If you would like to create a banner that links to this page (i.e. this validation result), do the following:

Download the "valid Atom 1.0" banner.
Upload the image to your own server. (This step is important. Please do not link directly to the image on this server.)
Add this HTML to your page (change the image src attribute if necessary):

<a href="http://www.feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http%3A//daringfireball.net/index.xml"><img src="valid-atom.png" alt="[Valid Atom 1.0]" title="Validate my Atom 1.0 feed" /></a>

If you would like to create a text link instead, here is the URL you can use:

http://www.feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http%3A//daringfireball.net/index.xml

Home · About · News · Docs · Terms