John Gruber looking from a different angle:

I don’t think you can argue that Cook ever did anything for any reason other than what he believed was in the company’s best interest. […] There’s a nobility to his singleminded focus on Apple itself, as an abiding institution, and his faith that what’s best for Apple will ultimately prove best for everyone involved with it: employees, shareholders, users, and, yes, even developers. […]

And, if you agree that Apple itself was Jobs’s greatest product, Cook really is a product person after all.

Jeez, he’s a good writer.

David Sparks offers his view as someone who has been behind-the-scenes of other corporate transitions — Ternus is unsurprising; change will come slowly; he’s optimistic:

What happens next is the harder question. Apple is too big to change direction quickly. New CEOs at companies this size do not reshape the company in their first year. They learn where the levers are. They keep the trains running. The real signal of Ternus’s hand on the tiller will come later, probably well into 2027 or beyond. What products get greenlit. What gets killed. How the company talks about itself.

Nick Heer remembered to follow up on the conflicting reports from the Financial Times and Bloomberg about the timing of Cook’s succession. He scores them both as having some accuracy, but FT as more correct in spirit. I concur. Not exactly a ding in Gurman’s armor, but perhaps a scratch.

Everyone is singing the praises of Tim Cook’s jump in Apple’s revenue from $108b to $416b (3.9×). But, honestly, he’s behind the eight ball. Sculley oversaw sales that went from $800m to $8b (10×). And under Jobs', revenue increased from $8b to $100b (12.5×). Just sayin'. 😉

Apple Intelligence really does not get sarcasm. But in its ignorance, it did make me smile. Its summary of The Onion’s news that it’s completed its takeover of InfoWars:

Global Tetrahedron has acquired InfoWars and plans to transform it into a platform overflowing with ads, scams, and misinformation. The new InfoWars will be a digital vortex of content, merging talent and media into a single, digestible product. The CEO, Bryce P. Tetraeder, envisions a future where this platform thrives, fueled by the convergence of amateur inquiry, corporate profit, and altered states of mind.

🆕📝 Ternus will succeed Cook as Apple’s CEO

Tim Cooked for long enough. It’s John’s Ternus the CEO.

Watched: Slow Horses Season 5 📺

I like these short seasons. Enough time and drama to get me invested, but not so much that it drags on. I expect I’d like the books too (more?), but dang this is a fun show. Only one more season I think?

Started: Margo’s Got Money Troubles S1E1, The Hungry Ghost 📺

Yo! I didn’t realize that Elle Fanning voiced the audiobook of this that I read a couple months ago! She stars as the lead character, and it’s a really nice bit of continuity. Based on the first episode, it’s gonna be a great show. 👌

It’s been a few weeks now, but I’ve pulled out some quotes from other folks' retrospectives on Apple’s 50th anniversary that I really enjoyed and added them to my blog post for your perusal.

Nate Reuss finally has new music out via his old 2000s-era band The Format! 🎵

“Shot In The Dark” by The Format

🆕📝 7 Things This Week [#186]

Size-extreme Macs, a Bear blog calendar, an Olive Garden-pointing compass, a human-signaling Am Dash, a Markdown mnemonic, a young origami researcher, and a defense of processed American cheese.

Andy Nicolaides blogs in ‘I’m not a Pro, and that’s okay’ about how buying the best of everything felt overbearing, but his new experiment in buying basic has been liberating:

Because it cost so much, I ended up almost feeling pressure to use it for every task I had, whether it was suitable for the task or not. […]

I can admit now I’m no photographer, writer, podcaster, video editor, or anything else I somehow thought spending thousands on hardware I ended up only using 5% of the potential of. And, at 40 years of age, I never will be, and you know what? That’s just fine by me!

It’s funny the number of blog posts I have cooking in the back of my mind, only to discover that @gregmorris has already written them. Here’s one: ‘I Rent My Entire Life’

Developers who used to sell apps for a one-off price now charge yearly, and the app stops working when the subscription lapses. I understand why they do it, ongoing development needs ongoing funding, and I defended the model at the time. The economics make sense for developers. What I didn’t fully appreciate at the time was the cumulative effect on the person paying.

Greg Morris: ‘The Things I Stopped Caring About’

The strange part isn’t losing the opinions. It’s what remains when they’re gone. A surprising amount of my identity was tied up in being a person who cared about this stuff. […]

I think what happened is the tools just got good enough. Not perfect, not exciting, just good enough that the differences between them stopped mattering. The gap between a great note-taking app and a decent one used to feel enormous. Now it feels like nothing.

I, too, sort of miss the enthusiasm. But I’ve also been happy to move that enthusiasm to other things.

Greg Morris:

Huberman mentioned Paul Conti’s view that envy is what kills personal development. Not anxiety or fear. Envy.

That tracks with what I see online. Someone’s life looks better than yours on Instagram and suddenly you’re either tearing yourself down or posting something designed to make them feel worse about theirs. You see someone’s project launch and instead of starting your own, you either convince yourself you’re not good enough or you start picking holes in what they’ve built. Both responses come from the same uncomfortable place. Neither helps you.

I quite like what Brent Simmons has done with his ‘What I Do’ page to explain his mysterious and important work:

I know I’m a big nerd and what I do must seem all super nerdy and vague — and it is pretty nerdy but it doesn’t have to be vague. I’ll explain what I do and why. 😀

I do two main nerd things: write a blog and make an app.

A fun way to reveal the non-obvious parts of what you do for curious friends and family, and squash misunderstandings. A candidate for a new @robb@social.lol Slash Page?

Marcin Wichary calls attention to Wakamaifondue’s excellent file dropping experience—you can drop it anywhere and it’s accepted:

Why is all this important? Because dropping a file into a browser is a notoriously frustrating experience. If the tab doesn’t claim the file, left to its own devices the browser will do anything from replacing the current tab with the contents of the file, through opening a new tab, to… starting to download the file you just dropped and ask you for its new location!

I ran into this very problem today in Micro.blog. Wakamaifondue gets it right and looks good doing it.

Manton Reece explains how Panic’s hard stance of limiting games on their Catalog that were created with AI assistance stands in contrast with Apple’s iron grip on the App Store because of one thing — the Catalog isn’t the only place to legitimately get games for your Playdate:

Panic has achieved that balance with the Playdate. Catalog is a curated store. Seasons are even more limited, only the select games Panic wants everyone to have. Developers who don’t want to play by Panic’s rules can distribute games elsewhere. If only Apple would adopt the same approach.

This is the way.

Love opening the ADK rock season with the classic Pete’s Farewell. Great day out with @bbrianandersonn!

That last day of work pic! Happy retirement to my dad, who helped establish the family business 43 years ago with his dad, grow it into the community staple it is today, and is now leaving it in capable hands to spend more time with his grandkids. A local success story!

He has always demonstrated the qualities that I think make a good businessman: put in an honest day’s work without complaint, provide a quality product at a fair price, and, above all, treat your coworkers and customers with kindness and respect.

Very proud of you, Dad! Enjoy your well-deserved retirement with Mom! 🫶

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of starting a new journey with Todd: the Northeast Ultra 8. After completing his winter 46ers, Todd wanted a new challenge, and the @northeast_ultra8 is it. 8 of the most challenging through hikes in the Northeast, each done within 24 hours. Our first, the Taconic Crest Trail, stretches ~38 miles across New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont with ~8000 feet of elevation gain (depending on who you ask) and we got it done in 16.5 hours.

We encountered rain, wind, fog, sun, porcupine, cow, deer, mouse, bear(!), countless PUDs (pointless ups and downs), and (still) some snow. 😅 We even got some views since the tree cover hasn’t come in yet! It was a grand day covering tons of terrain with a good friend, and it clued us into what we’re up against with the rest of the hikes.

The Devil’s Path is up next in May! Can’t wait. 💪

Restarted: Shrinking Season 1 📺

Guess we’re going back to the start!

Federico Viticci has tried a bunch of foldables and they’ve left him excited for Apple’s upcoming folding iPhone. As an iPad expert, he’s curious about which direction Apple with go for its multitasking system:

But here’s what gets me excited about Apple entering this space: the company has decades of expertise in designing polished UIs, windowing controls, and multitasking systems that they can bring to the table and instantly one-up every other Android manufacturer. Apple can literally go shopping in the iPad’s long archive of current and formermultitasking UIs and choose whatever they see fit for an iPhone Fold. Split View? Been there, done that…multiple times.

After trying iPadOS 26, I’ve come to appreciate how good we had it with iPadOS 18’s Split View and Slide Over. I think I’d want SV/SO for a naked, touch-first iPad or iPhone Duo. iPadOS 26’s new windowed multitasking is a fine option for when you’ve connected a trackpad and keyboard. But you should always be able to return to SV/SO. Or turn those off too for a true single window mode. Three established levels of increasing complexity doesn’t seem like too much.

Started reading: Artificial Condition The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells 📚

Okay, let’s see where this story goes…

Started watching: Slow Horses Season 5 📺

Almost forgot there was another season out!