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
This is part 4 in a series I’m doing to close out the year, looking at each of Apple’s big product lines and assessing how they did in 2023 and what I hope to see in 2024. Here’s my previous posts on the iPhone | Continue reading
This is the third in a series of posts I’ll be doing through the end of the year looking at where each of Apple’s major product lines are at going into the new year. Here’s previous pieces on the iPhone and iPad.How the | Continue reading
A couple years ago I made a website for myself, Quick Reviews, and I've used it hundreds of times to create nice reviews for social media. Today I've made a few changes to the site, as I like to do every year or so. It' | Continue reading
This is the second in a series of posts reviewing Apple’s major product lines in 2023. Here’s my look at the iPhone.How the year startedApple updated 4 of their 5 iPad models in 2022 (everything but the iPad Mini) and added a new model | Continue reading
I saw this post over on json.blog, OpenAI Is Just Uber, which sounds like it makes sense, but I think is drawing the wrong conclusions on a couple fronts.A decade later, ride-sharing hasn’t evolved significantly since its launch. Costs have risen as consumers now pay the | Continue reading
This is the first in a 4-part series of posts I’m writing to close out the year where I can get my thoughts out about Apple’s biggest product lines. I won’t be giving a score, but I will share my thoughts on the state | Continue reading
Ben Werdmuller: Leaving the Nazi BarIf I find that the owner of the living room allows people who make me or my friends feel unsafe — or, as is true in this case, pays them to hang out there, and makes money from their presence — I can use | Continue reading
Are movies getting longer than they used to be? It’s something I think a lot of us feel is true, but is it? I wanted to get a feel for this, so I collected some data, looked at the trends, and made some proposals based on that info. | Continue reading
David Pierce for The Verge, 2023 in Social Media: The Case for the FediverseIt doesn’t make sense that we have a dozen usernames, a dozen profiles, a dozen sets of fans and friends. All that stuff should belong to me, and I should be able to access | Continue reading
Sometimes I read the last post in my Mastodon feed, and pull to refresh, and there’s nothing new to see. Other times I’ll read everything in my RSS feeds, so there’s nothing in my queue.Then there are places like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, | Continue reading
I feel like blogging can be inherently negative sometimes, as it’s simply more fun to write about the things that annoy you than the things you like, so today I’m just going to list a few software and gadgets that I adore right now.Things continues | Continue reading
Philip Berne: Apple Needs a Foldable iPhone Soon or iPhones Won't Be Worth BuyingApple, I’ve got good news. The iPhone is refined enough. It is refined well beyond what other manufacturers even care to accomplish. Other phone makers could build a phone that pays just as much atte … | Continue reading
Listen hereThis is an entry in the 365 Albums Project in which I plan on posting one album I enjoy every day for a full year. You can subscribe to the Apple Music playlist to hear one song from every album mentioned in this series. | Continue reading
Listen hereThis is an entry in the 365 Albums Project in which I plan on posting one album I enjoy every day for a full year. You can subscribe to the Apple Music playlist to hear one song from every album mentioned in this series. | Continue reading
Listen hereThis is an entry in the 365 Albums Project in which I plan on posting one album I enjoy every day for a full year. You can subscribe to the Apple Music playlist to hear one song from every album mentioned in this series. | Continue reading
Eric Tucker: Trump Allies Cite Clinton Email Probe to Attack Classified Records Case. There Are Big DifferencesBeyond just the hoarding of documents — in locations including a bathroom, ballroom, shower and his bedroom — the Justice Department says Trump showed highly sensitive m … | Continue reading
Emma Roth: This free TV comes with two screensWhile ads shouldn’t interrupt whatever you’re watching on the main display, Telly’s chief strategy officer, Dallas Lawrence, tells The Verge that ads might utilize both displays when you’re not using the TV. “When the Theatre display … | Continue reading
Listen hereThis is an entry in the 365 Albums Project in which I plan on posting one album I enjoy every day for a full year. You can subscribe to the Apple Music playlist to hear one song from every album mentioned in this series. | Continue reading
Hello and welcome to another Friday! This week we’ve got flying toasters, which I always see as a good start to the day. As always, you can subscribe to get this in your inbox every Friday morning. The Big LinkAfter Dark in CSS Younger readers may not be familiar, | Continue reading
"Hello, I'd like to buy one of the new iPhones, please!" "Sure thing, here's the new iPhone 12. It's fast, beautiful, and is generally awesome." "Sweet, I'll take it. This box is really small." "Yup, that's because Apple is making the environmental move to reduce waste and not gi … | Continue reading