But is Sora dead?

Richard Lawler at The Verge writes that OpenAI’s video generation platform is getting shuttered and that their billion-dollar deal with Disney will go with it.

Yet, Matt Birchler made an astute observation on the announcement:

Of note, the first version of this post said Sora was shutting down, then they edited it to say the Sora app was shutting down. Take that for what you will in regards to their video plans.

Personally, I suspect that while its app is getting canned, Sora’s capabilities will live on in ChatGPT, or whatever ‘superapp’ OpenAI is reportedly developing.

The Verge: ‘Apple is testing a standalone app for its overhauled Siri’

The app will help finally give Siri conversational capabilities through a chat-like format that looks similar to the interface Apple Messages uses. The app will provide users with a dedicated place to find their previous interactions with Siri, search through past chats, start new chats, switch between voice and text modes, and upload documents and photos to be analyzed.

This is a good direction, but I also think it would be kind of nice to have a chat with AI Siri right in Messages.

Ads in Apple Maps…thanks, I hate it.

For All Mankind is getting one final season, its sixth. It’s one of my all-time favorite shows, and certainly one of Apple TV’s crown jewels. I’m both surprised and a little sad. I’d hoped it would continue on in perpetuity, but all things come to an end.

Season five starts this Friday, March 27. 📺

Did Susan Prescott get a job change at Apple between yesterday and today? She was quoted in press releases on both days, and was “vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations” in the WWDC post and “vice president of Enterprise and Education Marketing” in the Apple Business one. Quite peculiar.

Started watching: Rooster 📺

We’re caught up now and each of the first three episodes have been laugh out loud funny! Loving it; can’t wait to see where it goes. Gonna enjoy this one coming out week to week. (Cristle is so weird! 😆)

Just listened to the Cory Doctorow interview on Decoder. It’s quite good. And while I do agree with most everything he says — Cory’s quite persuasive — my main thought throughout the episode was, “Man, this guy can monologue!” 🗣️ 🎧

This year’s WWDC is June 8-12. Usual online-only* format.

I have to say that I really dislike the merged “WW” letter thing they’ve used the last few years. It’s always looked weird and has officially outstayed its welcome. 😛

*There’s still a limited in-person watch party at Apple Park on June 8.

🆕📝 7 Things This Week [#183]

A sonic “whisper,” a custom-built accounting app, a plea for email copies of form submissions, a meditation on attention-stealing objects, a batch of Lil Finder Guy wallpapers, a real LinkedIn-speak translator, and a podcast on a floppy disk.

Sometimes the smaller mountains offer the perfect challenge. Taking @riverdalecs student up Mt. Van Hoevenberg was ideal with the windy and cold conditions. Each kid got to lead the pack, we learned about staying warm in frigid conditions, how to chop steps in icy bits, and experienced gale force winds at the summit — a full-on day for a “low” peak! Olympic-caliber crew; I’d give ‘em gold. 🏔️ 🥇

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! ☘️🍻

I’ve been holding out from updating to macOS Tahoe (and iPadOS 26), but they’ve finally got me. Guess what needs the latest update to run all the Studio Display XDR’s features. 🙄 Sorry MacBook Air, I spared you for six months.

I was feeling a little guilty about this splurge until I opened the box. Goddamn, this thing is gorgeous. Very happy to have a Studio Display XDR for my next decade-plus of display needs. 😍

And thrilled to get rid of the cheap-ass Dell monitor I’ve had since 2017 that’s been flickering for years.

Ryan Christoffel, 9to5mac.com: ‘tvOS 26.4 adds powerful new ‘Genius’ feature for Apple TV 4K’

What’s especially helpful is that as you navigate through each recommendation, you’ll see a new row of related titles appear underneath it. So you’re not limited to just the initial batch of recommendations—rather, each featured title unlocks another layer of title-specific recommendations.

Looks pretty nice and easy to understand.

She did it! Three years in the making and after thwarted winter attempts, Karen summited Catamount Mountain to complete her winter round of the @lakeplacid9er challenge! 🥳 🏔️ Fresh snow helped a ton to cover the glare ice underneath, but our spikes were definitely needed from bottom to top. We lucked out with great views, sun, and no wind! The clouds held off until we were descending. Well done, Karen, your joyful outlook made the day great!

God help me, I’ve downloaded Xcode and AI-coded myself into an app that actually runs. I didn’t need another project, but this one’s been on my mind for years. 🤖👨‍💻

Manton Reece: ‘Inkwell for Mac’

Last week we shipped Inkwell, our new feed reader for Micro.blog. Today I’m releasing a native Mac app for Inkwell.

I’ve been having fun beta testing this app for Manton. It’s pretty cool when services have both a web app and a native app. Users can use whichever they prefer!

Terry Godier: ‘The Last Quiet Thing’

The tiredness is not a character flaw. The guilt, the sense that you should be handling all of this better, more gracefully, with less friction, that guilt was manufactured. It was placed inside you by an industry that profits from your participation and a wellness culture that profits from your shame.

Both need you to believe the problem is you.

It isn’t.

Evocative writing and superb web design. Definitely read this one on Terry’s website.

(Via Daring Fireball)

The Verge’s review of the M5 MacBook Air offers a great close-up side-by-side view of the Neo’s and Air’s chassis. I quite like the Neo’s more rounded lid compared the Air’s flattened one. 👌

David Sparks is teasing something interesting: ‘Half Your Day Isn’t Your Job’

We sit down intending to do meaningful work and spend the first hour sorting email. We open our task manager and burn twenty minutes reorganizing instead of doing. We have systems. Maybe several. None of them talk to each other, and all of them need feeding.

It’s not the work. It’s the work around the work. I call it the donkey work.

I’ve been building something to fix this. It’s a method for using AI to handle the donkey work so you have more time for everything else. I’ll tell you all about it Tuesday.

Nick Heer has identified a through line of Meta’s corporate strategy:

I do not know what is the right number of staff to run Meta’s operations but, whatever it is, there has to be a better way of figuring it out than by luring tens of thousands of people to work for you with promises of a huge salary and benefits, then upending their lives some time later.

Unfortunately, I feel confident that we’ll continue to see this habit each time Zuckerberg loses interest in his latest trendy obsession. At this point, it’s become company culture.

Matt Birchler explains how iOS and iPadOS app binaries are one and the same, so “running an iPad app” is really just a matter of layout. He posits that Mark Gurman’s claim that the folding phone won’t run iPad apps is perhaps misguided:

My expectation is that for apps like mine, which run on the iPhone and iPad, they will run like normal when on the outer screen, as well as when they’re in split view on the internal screen. They will run with their “iPad layout” when running on the internal screen at full screen.

I hope @matt_birchler@mastodon.social’s right.

Toni Schneider: ‘Impressions from my first week at Bluesky’

When people tell me, “I love Bluesky, and I’m glad you’re involved,” I sometimes answer, “I love it too—and did you know that Bluesky is one app of many in a network called the Atmosphere?” This has gotten me 100% blank stares. But yes, it’s true. There are lots of other apps in the Atmosphere. Expect me to talk a lot more about that in the coming weeks and months.

Schneider was brought it as interim CEO when Jay Grabber moved into the CIO role. Sounds like she’s happier there.

Is ‘Atmosphere’ a better term than ‘Fediverse’? Maybe!

Price as marketing. AirPods Max being more expensive than the MacBook Neo (for education) is bold.

The hilarious part of AirPods Max 2 is they don't get an education discount. So if you're a student, you can get a MacBook Neo for $50 LESS

‘Apple introduces AirPods Max 2’

Apple today announced AirPods Max 2, bringing even better Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), elevated sound quality, and intelligent features to the iconic over-ear design. Powered by H2, features like Adaptive Audio, Conversation Awareness, Voice Isolation, and Live Translation come to AirPods Max for the first time.

The H2 chip finally brings AirPods Max’s feature set in line with the rest of the AirPods lineup. A ‘speed bump’ that probably doesn’t justify calling it “2” as it doesn’t update the design or address the Max’s many other issues. Same high price too.