Stephen Hackett, 512pixels.net: ‘Tim Cook, on 50 Years of Apple’

As the company turns 50, its achievements should be celebrated, and its failures should be noted. Apple’s shortcomings in the world of politics, App Store policies, and more dim the company’s light. The value of its products is often the result of dedicated app developers doing their best work atop Apple’s platforms. In the world of big tech, I think Apple still leads in many areas, including privacy, environmental impact, and the not-so-simple matter of taste.

Well said, @ismh86@eworld.social.

The Verge: ‘You can now ask Google Maps ‘complex, real-world questions’ — and Gemini will answer’

Ask Maps lets you describe your plans conversationally, including as much or as little detail as you want, and Gemini will sift through your query to provide as detailed a response as you need, often using personal details you’ve provided through your past interactions with Google Maps.

I’ve been experimenting with Google Maps (its CarPlay interface is quite good), and will be interested to try this out.

But I’m more intrigued by the fully-redesigned map that’s coming too. Examples in the post.

We’ve no lack for simple blogging platforms lately!

• Micro.blog
• Jottit
• Tinypost
• Bear Blog
• Pika
• Scribbles
• Blot
• Write.as

And that’s just what I can name off the top of my head! Manu Moreale has a more complete list with not-so-simple ones too.

Just stumbled across @simonbc’s Jottit via @manton’s post. Very cool project — as is his tinypost.blog (example).

If you just need a place to quickly publish something to the open web, Jottit seems like an ideal tool.

Here’s my kicking-the-tires post: https://jottit.org/ro72tl

🆕📝 No Face ID nor iPad apps wrenches my iPhone Duo(?) purchase plans

I hate to say it, but these flaws might be deal-breakers. But will there be a sequel next year if the first doesn’t sell well because of them?

Parker Ortolani sees Apple’s leadership, style, and product lineup as perhaps turning a corner for the better:

The MacBook Neo is a new kind of product for Apple, unveiled in a new way, with new materials, by an array of fresher faces. These new products being unveiled at the same time the faces of the company are beginning to change feels like a turning point. You could argue Neo is one of, if not the first product of this new Apple. I am far more excited about the future of the company now than I was a year ago.

This launch was fresh. I hope he’s right, but I’m not holding my breath.

Adirondack Explorer: ‘Saranac Lake scraps plan for Flock surveillance cameras after public backlash’

White introduced a string of amendments to the original resolution. The first directed the village manager to immediately terminate the contract with Flock, while the second prohibited future agreements with the company.

The third amendment directs village staff to provide a report detailing the procurement process used, the timeline of decisions, and the individuals who authorized the agreement. All three amendments were passed.

Proud, again, of my fellow hometown residents.

It’s not lost on me that if you plug a MacBook Neo into a new Studio Display, your monitor will have more CPU oomf and RAM than the computer plugged into it. 🙃

But @siracusa@mastodon.social also notes that the A18 Pro powered more pixels when in the iPhone 16 Pro Max than it does in the Neo. 😳 🎙️

Like me, Gruber hopes an ultra-thin MacBook returns. It’d even help Apple’s MacBook lineup to mirror their iPhone one:

If I had my druthers, Apple would make a new svelte ultralight MacBook. Not instead of the Neo, but in addition to the Neo. Apple’s inconsistent use of the name “Air” makes this complicated, but the MacBook Neo is obviously akin to the iPhone 17e; the MacBook Air is akin to the iPhone 17 (the default model for most people); the MacBook Pros are akin to the iPhone 17 Pros. I wish Apple would make a MacBook that’s akin to the iPhone Air — crazy thin and surprisingly performant.

John Gruber, in his iPhone 17e review, regards the iPhone 16/Plus models as overshadowed by the strong iPhone 17 lineup — even for budget buyers:

I suspect Apple is on the cusp of completely moving away from the strategy of selling two- and three-year-old iPhones at lower prices, and updating their entire lineup with annual speed bumps.

It would be hard for the finance and operations teams, guided by Tim Cook hand, to give up that bonus margin from selling years-old products. But the extra manufacturing capacity, bulk component pricing, and simplified sales flow should soften the blow.

My favorite review so far of the MacBook Neo has been from Tyler Stalman. He really shows off how impressively powerful that little laptop is by simultaneously opening every single app and then testing his video editing workflow in Final Cut Pro. And it’s totally workable, even with only 8GB of RAM!

I’ve finally perfected my Songlinker shortcut to easily share song.link and album.link URLs! They’re nicer URLs with links out to all the music services and YouTube — a more considerate way to share music links.

It took diving into the API rather than trying to parse and match text from the webpage. 😅

Joseph arrived ready to learn and soaked up everything I taught. He was able to dial in great technique from the start and will be ready for even bigger ice flows next time! Always a great day out when you’re with a stoked guest. 🤘

Re: MacBook Neo; @gruber@mastodon.social noted it’s the first A-series product with two USB ports, and that it was a technical challenge:

But on the other hand, the Neo is the first product with an A-series chip that Apple has ever made that supports two USB ports.1 It was, I am reliably informed by Apple product marketing folks, a significant engineering achievement to get a second USB port at all on the MacBook Neo while basing it on the A18 Pro SoC.

However, I think the 1st-gen Studio Display actually holds that title. It had an A13 chip, and featured a Thunderbolt 3 and three USB-C ports.

Sean Hollister, theverge.com: ‘Grammarly will keep using authors’ identities without permission unless they opt out’

Last week, my colleagues discovered that Superhuman’s Grammarly had turned me into an AI editor, using my real name, without ever asking my permission. They did the same to my boss Nilay Patel, my colleagues David Pierce and Tom Warren, and — as Wired initially reported last Wednesday — many authors far more famous than us. Grammarly’s new “Expert Review” feature uses our names to give its AI suggestions credibility that they don’t deserve.

That’s super gross, Grammarly. 🤮

The Color Czar approves! From Jason Snell’s MacBook Neo review on, appropriately, Six Colors:

Yes, there’s a standard silver that will allow the Neo to blend in with almost every other MacBook out there. Indigo is a somewhat lighter cousin to the Midnight MacBook Air, a dark blue that will satisfy those who prefer their devices to be on the darker side. The more interesting choices are blush, which adds a pink pop to the traditional silvery MacBook look, and citrus, a bright yellow gold that’s undoubtedly the most aggressive laptop color Apple has made since the days of the tangerine iBook.

First morning deck reading session of the year ☀️ 🐶 📖 😊

Meta just bought Moltbook, because of-fucking-course it did. Zac Hall for 9to5Mac:

For those keeping score at home, that puts Moltbook with Meta, OpenClaw (formerly Clawdbot) with OpenAI, and Apple’s M4 Mac mini at the center of it all.

Meta arguably already operates the biggest social network for AI, of course, for anyone who has spent any amount of time on Facebook in the last couple years. 

As my colleague Ben Lovejoy said in reaction to the news, “the phrase ‘what could possibly go wrong’ was invented for this exact scenario.” 

No word on if or when Apple plans to revive Ping for the AI era.

Josh Wardle is out with a new game, Parseword!

The game teaches you that in the clue “Taxi reduced fee,” for example, “reduced” is an indicator word, instructing you to shorten another word. Remove the “i” from “taxi” and you find the solution, which is confirmed by the definition: “fee.” Having learned the principle, a thoughtful player should be able to solve the next example: “Funk reduced joy.”

The New Yorker’s profile covers Wordle’s success, the aftermath of its virality, and how cryptic crosswords became Wardle’s new obsession.

XKCD, ‘The Home Remedy World Championships’:

Looks more like a nightmare in hell. 😂

Proud of my town, Saranac Lake, today as our local government has passed a resolution limiting how our police can cooperate with ICE. Here’s David Escobar, writing for the Adirondack Explorer:

The measure bars village police from enforcing federal civil immigration laws and prohibits U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from using local officers to conduct investigations or arrests. […]

[O]fficers will not engage with ICE in enforcing civil immigration violations, such as overstaying a visa or entering the country without proper documentation. […]

The resolution also bars local police resources being spent on behalf of federal immigration enforcement, limits information sharing between SLPD and federal immigration enforcement agencies and requires village police to develop a training policy to ensure officer compliance with the resolution.

Our residents put on progressive demonstrations on a nearly daily basis. The main town square I pass every time I drive to or from my house is regularly the site of pro-Ukraine, pro-choice, No Kings, and LGBTQ+ Pride events.

However, this resolution was not a given. We have a Republican mayor and a large portion of our snowbird residents lean conservative. In fact, a similar measure to restrict our cooperation with ICE was introduced last year, but then watered down so much that it became basically useless.

I’m glad to see that we had representatives unwilling to accept that outcome, and continued to pursue a resolution with more teeth, in defiance of the Trump administration.

Watched: Superman 🍿

I can’t say that it lived up to the hype of being the best comic book movie in recent memory, but it was a fun, exciting watch. I’m no Superman aficionado though, so take that with a grain of salt. Great casting! 👍

Ryan Christoffel, 9to5mac.com:

[I]n iOS 26.4, there’s another new setting that lets you disable a different aspect of Liquid Glass. 

It’s called ‘Reduce Bright Effects,’ and it controls the bright flashing response that shows up when interacting with certain UI elements.

Nice! I’ve found those bright highlights very distracting since September. I’ll be giving this new option a whirl.

THANK YOU to whoever finally fixed the bug that prevented the ‘Copy’ menu from appearing with a long-press on the address of in-app browser views. It’s been broken for over a year and I’d nearly given up hope. 🤩

(This might get me to finally update to iPadOS 26.)

Put the ZIP code first:

A US ZIP code is 5 characters. From those 5 characters you can determine the city, the state, and the country. That’s 3 fields. Autofilled. From one input.

But you don’t do that, do you? No. You make me type my street address, then my city, then scroll through a dropdown of 50 states to find Illinois wedged between Idaho and Indiana, then type my ZIP, then — the pièce de résistance — scroll through 200+ countries to find United States[.] […]

It’s 2026. What the fuck are we doing.

Now I’m livid too. Sorry for evermore ruining web forms for you. 😝

(Via White Noise)