You did not put a lot of time into this

Chris has an external drive faster than you’ve ever seen, Matt has a new email app he swears isn’t his new favorite cult, and the whole gang does their best to redesign iOS and iPadOS. Check it out in audio or video! Weekly Topics ACASIS 80Gbps | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

A project to smooth relations with devs

Theo in a video about some recent Visual Studio Code drama: We have to remember the role of VS Code. VS Code was never, ever, ever meant to make money. Microsoft's plan with VS Code was at no point, "we're going to charge for this | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Tariffs, integrity, and chaos

Ben Thompson: American Disruption (emphasis mine): [T]he most important components for executing a fundamental shift in trade are those that go into building actual factories, or equipment for those factories. In the vast sea of stupidity that are these tariffs this is perhaps th … | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Say hello to Quick Chapters

I said that Quick Stuff was a place for me to put those little web utilities that I just need sometimes, and I've already got a new entrant: Quick Chapters. This little app simply lets you provide it an MP3 file, it will extract the chapters from it, | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Meta got tricky with LLM benchmarks

Oh boy, Meta released their latest llama models this weekend (I guess because they leaked, hence the rushed weekend release?), and it benchmarked quite well on LMArena. However, as Kyle Wiggers reported for TechCrunch, not all may have been on the up and up: Meta’s Benchmarks for … | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

All the Switch 2 pricing questions I had last week are answered

Last week I wrote 2 main posts in reaction to the Nintendo Switch 2 announcement, and today we have new info on some of the open questions that lingered waaaay back then. Game-key cards I saw a remarkable amount of arguments against this new "physical" purchase option based | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

+ Power users need love too

By Matt Birchler | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Remember when the Switch 2 was *only* going to cost $449?

Nintendo Life: Nintendo Delays Switch 2 Pre-Orders in the US Amidst New Trump Tariffs Nintendo has delayed pre-orders for the Switch 2 in the US while it evaluates the potential impact of new tariffs from The Trump Administration. And A $2,300 Apple iPhone? Trump tariffs could ma … | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Let's move on from post-credits scenes

Director James Mangold: talking about whether he'd want to put a post-credit scenes in one of this movies back in 2018 The idea of making a movie that would fucking embarrass me, that's part of the anesthetizing of this country or the world. That's | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

How Nintendo's "game-key cards" actually work

I've seen a remarkable amount of misunderstanding out there on how Nintendo's game-key cards work. People are losing their ever loving minds over all things Switch 2, but this one really gets me because the people who are the most upset about it seem to not | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

People’s passion for art made by humans persists

M.G. Siegler: A Spirited Debate Around AI This isn’t the end of art. It may indeed be the dawn of a new age for art. And that may not devalue the human-created art as is the clear fear right now. In fact, it may even *elevate* it | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Peanut butter toast

You never know what moments have staying power until they hit you. | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Some thoughts on the Switch 2

Nintendo finally rolled out the red carpet for the Switch 2 yesterday, and I'll be honest, I'm super excited for it. The hardware The hardware for the new Switch is everything I ever wanted, minus one thing. The performance looks pretty darn good, and it appears | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

A new/old Pokémon game, how Hollywood can make good movies, and a puzzle with all edge pieces

We are so back! Please keep making smaller, original movies so that we get new franchises A puzzle with all edge pieces that looks fun but also very hard Every font is free…as long as you remake it yourself Fellow olds, if you haven't seen this, | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Introducing Quick Stuff

Today I'm introducing the most side of side projects I've done in a long time, and I'm calling it Quick Stuff. Quick Stuff is a place for me to put all of my little projects in one place, and I'm really happy | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

The post you knew was coming about the Switch 2 display

Nintendo gave the Switch 2 it's grand unveiling today, and I think it looks great. $449 is a steep starting price, but considering the features and the fact we live in a world of inflation and significant tariffs on many goods coming into the US, it's | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Benchmarks from M2 Pro to M4 Pro

Long story short, I picked up a new MacBook Pro this week. I got the M4 Pro version with the higher core count and 1TB of internal storage. It's the exact same model in the lineup as the M2 Pro I've been using for the last | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

“Retina” is not a static PPI

I’m just going to keep posting about this every few months because people keep getting “retina” wrong. According to this YouTube video that was recommended to me today, retina on desktop monitors is exactly 218ppi (pixels per inch). Now of course the iPhone 4, which was | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

You have got to be kidding me

Mia Sato writing for The Verge: Elon Musk’s $1 Million Handout Winners Are Connected to Republican Causes On Sunday, a few thousand people in Green Bay, Wisconsin, gathered to hear Elon Musk speak — and give away two giant cardboard checks for $1 million. Attendance at the event | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

I've moved to Ghost Pro

Here's hoping this post is short and sweet… Back in 2019 I moved my blog off of WordPress and over to Ghost. In short, I wasn't happy with WordPress and wanted a blogging engine that felt more like it was made for blogging than a | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Settings > Default Apps > Voice Assistant

Parker Ortolani writing Gemini, Siri, and Default Assistants on iOS, arguing that Apple should allow you to set a different default voice assistant: it would do two things: it would mitigate some of the damage with customer relations while they wait for the new Siri and it sets a … | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Yesterday's 'golden age' turns into today's mess

Nick Timiraos for the Wall Street Journal: Corporate America’s Euphoria Over Trump’s ‘Golden Age’ Is Giving Way to Distress Investors were caught flat-footed by Trump’s animus toward Canada, which wasn’t a part of last year’s election campaign. Global | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

I keep telling people Google TV is better than you think

Jason Snell: Who’s the Laggard? Comparing TV Streamer Boxes In short: Google TV is tasteful, well done, supports live streaming decently if not perfectly, and is a great extension of the Google ecosystem. As someone who does use YouTube TV and YouTube Premium, if I had to stop | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

+ Book and video game review catchup

By Matt Birchler | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Before you burn it down…

I enjoyed this quote from Casey Newton on today's Hard Fork podcast: Even as somebody who generally likes technology, I think some of these tech oligarchs have this extremely know-it-all attitude that "our tech is better than your tech, yours sucks," and they sort of bluster | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

The Snow Leopard we've built up in our heads

Nick Heer: linking to Jeff Johnson's The myth and reality of Mac OS X Snow Leopard I read an article today from yet another person pining for a mythical Snow Leopard-style MacOS release. While I sympathize with the intent of their argument, it is largely fictional and, as | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Should we do a Conclave?

Niléane insists she's not bringing another task manager, Chris has a new e-ink toy he loves, and the whole crew finds interesting ways to add some more text expansion to their lives. We want to hear from you! How would you have done our challenges? How | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Balatro continues to bring a smile

Jay Peters for The Verge: Why Balatro’s Developer Stays Anonymous It’s an arrangement that the Playstack team figured out with LocalThunk ahead of other ceremonies like The Game Awards, where Balatro won three awards and was nominated for Game of the Year. LocalThunk didn’t | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

My job doesn't need to exist?

Rands: The Product Engineer You don’t need Product Managers. There. I said it. As someone who just moved into a product management role, you had best believe this line caught my eye. 👀 The post makes some reasonable arguments, although I think a lot of it is an | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

+ Why don't I post mock ups anymore?

Hey, where did the design concepts go? | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

This alert must die

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 | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

The tale of Narcissus

Ted Gioia: What's Happening to Students? I’m dumbfounded when I hear ‘experts’ claim that phones are not the problem. Like tobacco companies—whose hired experts long denied the connection between smoking and cancer—they say that “correlation does not prove causation. | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

I feel more empowered than ever

Bryan Irace: Tim, Don’t Kill My Vibe Like it or not, LLMs—both through general chat interfaces and purpose-built developer tools—have meaningfully increased the rate at which new software can be produced. And they’ve done so both by making skilled developers more productive | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

The Gen Z-powered retro gaming revival

Eve Upton-Clark writing for Fast Company: ‘It’s Like Their Escape’: Retro Gaming Is Back Thanks to Gen Z Low-tech holds nostalgic appeal and may even offer a solid antidote to our increasingly fast-paced tech-driven society. For 78% of those polled, one reason they enjoy using re … | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Secretary of Defense put war plans in a group chat with a journalist

Jeffrey Goldberg with an insane story in The Atlantic: The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans 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 b … | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

OS updates should respect my settings

Tim Hardwick writing for MacRumors: PSA: iOS 18.3.2 Re-Enables Apple Intelligence if You Turned It Off With new iOS software updates, Apple has been automatically turning Apple Intelligence on again even for users who have disabled it, a decision that has become increasingly frus … | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Meta has squandered Threads

Jon Passantino writing for Status: Hanging by a Thread Now Threads feels rather lifeless. While users still post there, for many 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 me … | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

+ I’m a season 1 sorta guy

Yes, this is about Severance, but it's really about more than Severance. | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

A personal update on Apple TV+

When Apple TV+ launched just over 5 years ago, it’s fair to say I wasn’t a fan. I thought their launch shows were not to my taste, to put it generously. I don’t want to call out any specific show here, but I tried | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

You’re telling me I’m holding it wrong? Really!?!!

Darth Chris makes an appearance, Niléane has an exclusive first look at…checks notes… the iPhone 16 Pro, Matt insists on talking about MacWhisper even more, and the crew actually all followed the rules in this week's challenge (a miracle!). Weekly Topics iPhone 16 | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

What people do with an empty text box

I was listening to Hard Fork this weekend when Kevin Roose said this (emphasis mine): I think that there is sort of a basic assumption if you're a heavy user of, say, ChatGPT, that there are certain things that it's good at and there are certain | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

The base MacBook Air should have an M1 processor

Why oh why does the base MacBook Air that Apple sells have their latest generation chip, the M4? That's so overkill for the vast majority of people, and I'd bet that most of them wouldn't even notice the speed difference in their day-to-day tasks. | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

The VR market shrunk yet again in 2024

Counterpoint Research: Global VR Market Declines 12% YoY in 2024; ‘AR+AI’ Smart Glasses to Take Centre Stage in 2025 Global VR headset shipments fell 12% YoY in 2024, marking their third consecutive year of declines due to the continued weak consumer demand. This is actually brut … | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

Ghost gets ActivityPub into beta

Ghost: Social Web We've got our social web integration for Ghost to a point where we're excited to have you try it out, but there's a lot of work still in progress and (as alluded to earlier) there are some significant rough edges. I& | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

The Pebble (which made me fall in love with smart watches) is back

Introducing Two New PebbleOS Watches! We’re excited to announce two new smartwatches that run open source PebbleOS and are compatible with thousands of your beloved Pebble apps. The original Pebble was my “a ha!” moment when I realized smart watches were the real deal, even in | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

You don’t need AI to play old games on modern hardware

Fatima Kardar, Corporate Vice President, Gaming AI, at Microsoft: Empowering Creators and Players With Muse, a Generative AI Model for Gameplay We’re excited to announce a generative AI breakthrough, published today in the journal Nature and announced by Microsoft Research, that … | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

🕹️ I strongly recommend Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (for the right person)

God damn, this game. | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago

My god, where did the YouTube suggestions go?

They’re back, baby! WTF is going on with US leaders pushing get-rich-quick schemes like memecoins? I always love these "unnecessary" inventions. Season 1 was spectacular, and I can't wait to see what they do in the second season Mostly sharing this because it' | Continue reading


@birchtree.me | 2 months ago