🎙️ One of the best explainers for the three types of fun I’ve heard to date. And I like what he says at the end; it’s in type 3 that you really grow. dirtbagdiaries.com
🆕📝 ‘Dictate a Note’ is my new favorite shortcut (and that’s saying something)
I'm dictating ideas and tasks left and right, with gloves on, while hiking, without looking. Nothing escapes me! 🎙️
🚨 New shortcut! Don’t be like me and be too slow to make your Very Good Joke. Use ‘Whispering to Date’ Meme Maker to be the fastest draw in all the land.
Get it from the HeyDingus Shortcuts Library.
🆕📝 First Impressions of Artemis: James’ ‘Calm Web Reader’
I didn't think I'd be adding another feed reader to my arsenal, let alone liking it so much despite its (intentional) lack of bells and whistles.
John Gruber, on the new Mozi app for coordinating with friends when you’re/they’re in the vicinity:
New app, spearheaded by Ev Williams:
Mozi is a private social network for seeing your people more, IRL. Add your plans, check who’s in town, and know when you overlap.
iOS only at the moment, with “Sign in with Apple” as the only supported authentication method. One clever idea is that you can share travel plans and your location, and Mozi will coordinate when you might be in the same area as a friend.
Alright, I’ll bite.
🆕📝 I launched a ‘For Sale’ page 🛍️
Help me get rid of my gadgets and gizmos aplenty!
As Twitter’s spiritual successor, Bluesky has potential to also take up the mantle of “UI design playground”.
🎙️ I snorted so hard it hurt. Thanks @rebound@hachyderm.io. 🤣 overcast.fm/+AADe1njn…
I placed a big, scary equipment order today. And will place bigger, scarier ones soon. 🫣 Please book a trip or tell your friends! 😆
I was perfectly happy with my resort skis until this moment. 🤤
ResMed, a medical solutions company with over three decades of experience designing anthropometric accessories, is announcing a new Apple Vision Pro strap specifically designed for extended use.
It looks and is priced ($120) like it was designed by Apple. ResMed’s video (a really good one that actually shows which straps to adjust to alleviate pressure spots) even looks like it’s trying to recreate the space from Apple’s introduction video. So many head strap choices now!
A new Very Good Tweet™ from @agiletortoise@mastodon.social from has landed:
Jason Snell explains how you can generate images of generic people with Image Playground using skin tones and collections of pseudo-people as foundation:
This is where it gets a little weird: Rather that building a person, Memoji style, you choose from three different collections of thumbnails, which are the various Appearances that might come up when you generate an image. They appear to be weighted by gender, so the leftmost is (mostly?) women, the rightmost men, the middle more of a grab bag—but there’s a lot of variation between each collection of Appearances.
What a strange interface.
🆕📝 The Magic Keyboard with Touch ID Rules
Yeah, I should have gotten one a long time ago.
Jim Eagar on saying goodbye to someone(thing) beloved:
Just last month, I wrote a blog post about doing things for the last time. Yesterday, my wife and I talked about times when we did some activity with Gina that was the last time. […]
I want this sad episode to help me not take the things and people I care about for granted. This includes my relationships with our other cats, my wife, family, and friends. The realization that all of them will, at some point, die, as will I, gives me a heightened sense of value and appreciation for each of them.
My heart goes out to your family, Jim.
Yesss, bring on the camera bar! I’m ready to get rid of the wobble. Though this would interfere with Apple’s new best friends, Spatial Photos and Videos.
(Image via 9to5Mac)
“Eats their own dogfood” is kind of a revolting phrase. I propose “test pilots their own rockets” when describing developers using and testing their own software on the daily.
Headed back to that Indian grill tonight, followed by Wicked for date night!
🔗 Apple Original Films lands “All of You” starring and written by Brett Goldstein:
Apple Original Films today announced it will expand its film slate with “All of You,” a humorous and heart-wrenching romantic drama starring and written by Emmy Award winner Brett Goldstein (“Ted Lasso,” “Shrinking”), written and directed by Emmy Award winner William Bridges (“Black Mirror”), and hailing from MRC.
I think Apple’s given Brett Goldstein a blanket go-ahead for all his projects. So far, so good!
Brendon Bigley: ‘Panic Inc. Announces Blippo+'
Panic Inc. — creators of the PlayDate console and publishers of games like Thank Goodness You’re Here_ — announced some kind of FMV… thing… at Day of the Devs today called_Blippo+. There’s no real information here beyond the above trailer and the ability to wishlist it on Steam, but this is one of those things I saw and immediately thought: Yeah, I’m gonna love this thing.
Boy that video was unsettling though.
🔗 Voice Memos update brings Layered Recording to iPhone 16 Pro lineup
With iOS 18.2, users will be able to play their original instrumental ideas through the iPhone speaker while simultaneously recording vocals using the new studio-quality microphones on iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Michael Bublé thinks very highly of it!
Sure seems like a UI tailored for musical artists’ needs and these additional features would go well in a dedicated app, though. Let’s call it Music Memos. Oh wait.
Maybe Apple couldn’t get enough artists to download an app that wasn’t preinstalled. Shame though.
Matt Birchler (🔒):
The election was 5 weeks ago, and I’d say at least half of the houses in my neighborhood that put out Trump signs and flags before the election still have them up today. Maybe some are waiting for the inauguration on January 20, but something tells me a lot of these are staying up for the next 4 years (at least).
But yeah, I don’t get it, and I just don’t get how I’d ever want to walk out my front door each day and see a sign sucking up to the current (or former) President.
I fear many of these will stay up until they’re too faded to recognize. Then they’ll be replaced.
Jason Snell blogged about Mic Drop, a handy utility that mutes and unmutes your microphone, system-wide, with a global hotkey:
Mic Drop literally does everything I expected from it. It lives in your menu bar and has support for global hotkeys or AppleScript, optional audio and multiple visual notifications of mute status, the ability to choose which mics are muted and which ones aren’t, and even an optional push-to-talk toggle mode.
I don’t do many video calls anymore, but I always hated hunting for the mute key. The visual status in the menu bar and pop-ups are nice touches.