Once a year or so I seem to write something that gets a good chunk of pushback. In 2023 that article was my immediate reaction to the Vision Pro’s announcement at WWDC, which wasn’t as over-the-moon excited as many other people were. My favorite reaction was | Continue reading
The Vision Pro isn't a developer kit, but it's definitely got some UI oddities that will get sorted out before it's really ready for the mainstream. | Continue reading
My wife wasn’t super interested in the Vision Pro, but after having it in the house for a few days, she finally said, “fine, let’s see what this is all about.”So I get her into the headset and she had tow immediate things | Continue reading
Tim Urban: All My Thoughts After 40 Hours in the Vision ProIt’s not just me. VR blows everyone away when they try it, but it seems to have a hard time hooking people for the long run. After a major wave of hype in the mid-2010s, VR | Continue reading
Back when I was a kid, there was a “computer room” in our house. There was one PC and we all shared it. Want to look something up online? Go to the computer room. Want to play a game? Go to the computer room. Want to listen to | Continue reading
Jordan Pearson: How Tech Firms Made a Crypto-Boosting Book an NYT Best Seller by Gaming the SystemCafiero linked two examples of firms that publicly said they placed orders for Dixon’s book to give to employees. One was Syndicate, a company in the crypto industry that a16z … | Continue reading
What a difference a week makes, huh? Last week I was feeling FOMO, but had come to terms with not being on the Vision Pro train with other people I knew. I dealt with that by buying a Meta Quest 3 and seeing what the best of the rest of | Continue reading
Casey Newton: Scenes From a Dying WebOpening the Arc Search app for the first time last week, though, I experienced a rare emotion: a kind of revulsion at the app’s mere existence, and at what it portends.If I’m known for loving and advocating for | Continue reading
Anil Dash: “Wherever You Get Your Podcasts” Is a Radical StatementBut here's the thing: being able to say, "wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement. Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that's | Continue reading
Keenan: RSS Readers Make Me Want to Jump Into a Vat of Acid!Opening an RSS reader is about the quickest way I know how to trigger a panic attack in myself next to Googling "colon cancer symptoms reddit." Even when I do my best to only subscribe | Continue reading
George RR Martin on his blog: Dark DaysIt used to be fun talking about our favorite books and films, and having spirited debates with fans who saw things different… but somehow in this age of social media, it is no longer enough to say “I did not | Continue reading
I reviewed the PlayStation Portal late last year and my main criticism of it was that it had more input lag and general wireless reliability issues than I would have liked to see in a streaming-only device.I’ve used it a bit since that review, but it’ | Continue reading
This article is making the rounds on Mastodon, where generative AI hate runs strong, and I get it, it’s everything you want to hear in a headline if you think ChatGPT is the most evil thing ever created on computers. It kicks off with the headline, “AI | Continue reading
Bluck Apps writing on the Castro blog, which went over 3 years without a new post, if you wanted an idea for how much communication from the company has broken down: A Fresh Start for CastroWe are excited to announce Castro has been purchased by Bluck Apps. Castro is | Continue reading
John Siracusa: Spatial ComputingThe fact that I’m able to write the phrase “grab it and drag it to a new location” and most people will understand what I mean is a testament to the decades-long success of this kind of interface. In the context of | Continue reading
I just read two “reviews” of the upcoming Apple Vision Pro, one from John Gruber and another from Nilay Patel. I put “reviews” in quotes because I think these two write ups are very different in how they approached their respective pieces. Nilay’ … | Continue reading
Project Tapestry is a new Kickstarter from The Iconfactory. Here’s how they describe it:What if you had one app that gave an overview of nearly everything that was happening across all the different services you follow? A single chronological timeline of your most importan … | Continue reading
A week ago I launched More Birchtree, a way to subscribe to this site to get more of it (shocker!). I've written two exclusive posts so far and they've gone over quite well it seems. I'm proud of the posts and think they' | Continue reading
Ian Bogost: We’ve Forgotten How to Use ComputersRemember (if you can) the classic drag-and-drop: You’d mouse over to a file or a folder, click to slide the icon to the trash, then release to drop it in. In the age of finger-scrolls and trackpads, that | Continue reading
Rebecca Sun argues the Barbie Oscar snubs aren’t as bad as some people think in BarbieGate: Why All Oscars Snubs Are Not Created Equala good question to ask is why a man playing a blond avatar of perfection felt like a braver feat than a woman doing | Continue reading
Yesterday Apple announced some pretty big changes that they’ll be making in iOS 17.4 coming in March. This page has more details, and they separately announced that game streaming services like Xbox Game Pass and NVIDIA GeForce Now can release Apps on the App Store.Phew, b … | Continue reading
Bastian Allgeier: My Grandpa Was a NaziI wondered for many years, how all of this could have happened. How people like my grandpa turned into monsters and people around him watched or turned into monsters with him. The last years made this very clear.Sometimes you see a blog | Continue reading
Dan Moren: After 40 Years, the Mac Is ImmortalForty years. In the world of technology, where many devices seem to evaporate after only a matter of months, lasting for a decade is an accomplishment—but four of them? It’s nearly unheard of.The Mac really is | Continue reading
So you know how sometimes you can't figure something out so you ask a question on social media to see if anyone can help? And then do you know how you get the answer you need, but people keep replying to you with suggestions even after you got | Continue reading
This isn't going to be a full tutorial, but yesterday I started a paid tier for Birchtree (sign up here) and in the interest of transparency as well as setting expectations for people who are thinking about doing something similar, here's the broads strokes of what& | Continue reading
Andy Nicolaides: If VR Is the Future, I’m ScrewedUsing a Quest 3, for me, is liking shipping in a Face Hugger from Alien and treating it to a candlelit meal before inviting it home to latch onto your face for some intrusive chest impregnatation.This was too | Continue reading
This inaugural More Birchtree post delves into what we want to get out of video game representation, a shout out to my favorite current writer, one of my all-time favorite apps, and a few cool goodies like the Wii Shop music on Amazon. | Continue reading
More details below, but brass tax, More Birchtree is a way to get more Birchtree writing, ad-free browsing, and the fuzzy feeling of supporting indie writing. Member posts will be more personal pieces, as well as more raw feelings about the tech news of the day before I’m | Continue reading
At the end of 2023 I wrote this about what I expected to see from Apple before they announced the Vision Pro's release date:I also hope we get some videos deep diving into some of the interactions and common tasks you’ll be able to do | Continue reading
Above is a deranged version of the innovation curve that is often brought out when thinking about products (often tech products specifically).Here’s a better one:A very few people are “innovators” who are there on day one for new stuff and are willing to look | Continue reading
Robin Rendle: Be Loud About the Things You LoveA writing tip for myself in the future, if I may (and I do): delete every use of “…for me…,” “in my opinion,” “some might disagree,” “I think,” etc. etc. These | Continue reading
You should read Chance Miller’s whole article on 9to5Mac, but I wanted to share my immediate thoughts after seeing this.Apple is updating its App Store guidelines to allow developers to link to alternative payment methods, provided that the app also offer purchases through … | Continue reading
Kevin Systrom: Shutting Down ArtifactWe have built something that a core group of users love, but we have concluded that the market opportunity isn’t big enough to warrant continued investment in this way.It’s a shame this app didn’t make it. I liked | Continue reading
Casey Newton: Why Platformer Is Leaving SubstackAfter much consideration, we have decided to move Platformer off of Substack. Over the next few days, the publication will migrate to a new website powered by the nonprofit, open-source publishing platform Ghost. If you already subs … | Continue reading
It felt really good to post 2 videos this week on A Better Computer. The first was a planned video about Up Ahead, an app I love, and the second was a surprise one about BBEdit since they added an interesting new feature. I'm proud of both videos, | Continue reading
Joe Rossignol for MacRumors: iPhone Was Missing These 10 Essential Features When Unveiled in 2007Today marks the 17th anniversary of the late Steve Jobs unveiling the original iPhone at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. While the device was significantly more advanced than any … | Continue reading
David Pierce for The Verge: Walmart’s AI Search Makes Shopping Faster, and Its AI Delivery Makes It InvisibleThe future of grocery shopping is no grocery shopping at all. It’s your fridge just being full, always, automatically.A couple things on this one…Firs … | Continue reading
Casey Newton: Substack Says It Will Remove Nazi Publications From the Platformover the past couple years Substack has come to more closely resemble the social networks it often criticizes. Each week, Substack sends users a personalized, algorithmically ranked digest of posts from … | Continue reading
Tim Hardwick: OLED iPad Pro Prices to Start From $1,500, Rising to as Much as $2,000Apple's upcoming OLED iPad Pro will start at $1,500, rising to between $1,800 and $2,000 depending on size and configuration, representing a major increase in prices compared | Continue reading
Back in 2016 I was working in a support role at a payments company and found myself regularly using a BIN lookup tool to get basic information about card issuers. Basic stuff like what country the issuing bank was from or if the card was credit or debit…nothing | Continue reading
Here’s an uncomfortable question: when do I stop blogging?I’ve been doing this site since October 2010, which is over 1/3 of my life, and I don’t foresee anything that would make me stop anytime soon, but like…I have to stop | Continue reading
Zack Zwiezen: 2023 Was the First Waluigi-Less Year Since 2000As seen on the extensive fan wiki, Waluigi has appeared as a playable character or cameo in at least one Nintendo game every year since 2000. Like Old Faithful, Waluigi was predictably there every year, even if other ch … | Continue reading
Chris Nicholas: A new blog for 2024It’s been a long time since I’ve published a blog post, two whole years. Part of the reason is that it took too much effort to create posts for my previous blog. I needed better DX. A few nights | Continue reading
Keza MacDonald: Nintendo’s Design Guru Shigeru Miyamoto: ‘I Wanted to Make Something Weird’Miyamoto is often called the Spielberg of games and Nintendo dubbed gaming’s Pixar, but he doesn’t like those comparisons. “Miyamoto is Miyamoto an … | Continue reading
Nick Heer: How to Be Optimistic About Technology NowWhen I was much younger, I assumed people who were optimistic must have misplaced confidence. How anyone could see a future so bright was a complete mystery when, I reasoned, when what we are exposed to is a series of mistakes | Continue reading
Surprise! This is the 5th in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s 2023 across their major product lines, and laying out my hopes for 2024. Check out the other posts about the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.This is a weird one since the product isn’ | Continue reading