Started reading Alchemised by SenLinYu and was surprised that it felt pretty dark, because for some reason I thought it was YA. Nope, just regular adult fantasy. I tend to read books that sound interesting while ignoring most of the back-cover blurb. 📚
For the last week in Codex, I've been using a single pinned thread for each app instead of deciding when to start new threads. Basically just let Codex compact its context whenever it needs to. Seems to work well.
Federico Viticci's iOS 27 review is out, with a very good chapter on Siri AI. That is the perspective I've been most interested in reading about.
This quote from Craig Federighi fits the discussion Daniel Jalkut and I had on last week's Core Int about the Duo replacing the need for both iPhone and iPad. Just makes sense unless you need a big iPad or shared iPad for the whole family.
Just discovered this IndieWeb starter pack on Bluesky and followed a few more people from it. It includes some accounts bridged to Mastodon too, so you can follow everyone in one place on Bluesky or Micro.blog.
I'm not sure I agree with all the implications in the closing of today's Stratechery update, but like all good essays it is forcing me to really think about my own view:
... it’s worth noting that the very idea of a national or — worse! — global regulatory regime on intelligence is so deeply off-putting that I’d rather roll the dice and bet on humans figuring it out. Surviving isn’t everything; living freely counts for an awful lot as well.
Congrats to Lex Friedman on the release of a new version of Strategery, taking over development after the game was going to stop working. So cool to give an old app new life.
John Gruber blogged about XCancel shutting down yet again, adding this in a parenthetical:
...let’s admit it at this point, there’s not just a lot posted on X, it’s resurgent in popularity
It's true. Just telling folks what we're against has not been enough to rebalance the web to open platforms.
Finished reading: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Fascinating and at times brilliant. I never quite got over being creeped out by the spiders, though. 📚
Congrats to the USA women's team at FIBA! Forgot the game was a little early, now watching the highlights. 🏀
Added a new page in Micro.blog on the web today to highlight The New York Times best sellers. We usually avoid popularity contests, but this one feels right, like a shelf you'd see in a bookstore. I want to add more collections later, like nominees for the Booker Prize, Hugo Awards, and others.
Since enabling Threads cross-posting for my own blog yesterday, I've already found and fixed two bugs in Micro.blog's Threads support. Little things that maybe a user would overlook and not bother to report. Just a reminder of the value of dogfooding.
I don't think I've shown off the author books sheet in our book blogging app Epilogue. Here's a very short video of how it looks.
I understand Apple wanting to get through the iOS 27 final releases before giving us a new Xcode to play with Duo sizing, but it's still a bit of a letdown. Developers want to play with the new shiny things.
Wow, this Longhorns game getting interesting late. 🏈
Spent a little time poking around on Tumblr because I needed to grab an export file to test. The new-ish communities feature is interesting.
As I mentioned on the latest episode of Core Intuition, I've been running the iOS 27 betas, but I very rarely use Siri AI. Curious if anyone using Siri AI would like integration with the Micro.blog app? I haven't prioritized working on this because I'm not sure what would be useful, if anything.
When it comes to OpenAI vs. Anthropic this year, I’ve been all in on Codex. After a chaotic couple of years for OpenAI in 2024 and 2025, this year has been solid. I think OpenAI is in the best position to bring the potential good from AI to the most people.
But this is a good new blog post from Dario Amodei about pacing the frontier. A short excerpt from the beginning:
I believe that AI could cure most major diseases in the next 5–10 years, greatly accelerate economic growth rates, create a world of abundance and empowerment, and usher in a renaissance of democracy and freedom. […] But like many technologies before it, AI brings risks, and because it is such a powerful technology, these risks are serious.
Sam Altman responds:
I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussions we've had at OpenAI in recent weeks.
Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same. We'll have more to share soon.
Dario and Sam don’t agree on very much. This feels big.
Micro.blog was founded on the idea that more people should have their own domain name, and yet the UI to actually do that has been clunky for years. I'm working on improving that, starting today with a little "Edit Domain" button to help walk people through the change.
Congrats to John Brayton on releasing a big update for his feed reader Unread. Works on all Apple platforms, even syncs with Micro.blog's Inkwell.
The communities that I feel the most connecting to on Mastodon have been going through a rocky few weeks. Federico Viticci back on X. Marco Arment taking a break. Everything with Omarchy and 1Password.
I usually avoid Meta, but maybe I need to cross-post to Threads for a bit. Change of pace. POSSE.
Words matter. It's not enough to be right. If you twist the truth to get your way, it undermines everything. Lies tend to snowball.
Pushed a new Mac release for Inkwell. Release notes here, just a handful of improvements.
A reminder that we offer completely free blog hosting on Micro.blog for nurses and teachers. There’s a link on our discounts help page.
Realizing that the vertical toolbars / tab bars in the iPhone Duo will mean more buttons going icon-only, losing their labels. Better use of screen space, but maybe a step back for clarity and accessibility.
John Gruber, in a blog post about Apple Pencil confusion with the Duo:
The easiest way to think about it isn’t to compare which devices support which features (like pressure sensitivity, or double-tapping) — it’s just to think about which devices can even pair with which Pencil models.
Too bad it's so complicated, because the Pencil really is great, even the original one.
Wired reported that OpenAI asked members of Congress if a coordinated AI slowdown would be legal:
Substantive coordination on safety between AI labs may risk running afoul of antitrust law, the people say, which poses a significant obstacle to bringing major tech giants on board with the effort.
The first new episode of Core Intuition this year is out, episode 27.1. We talk about the Apple event, of course, with specific focus on the Duo and Siri Recap.
Incredible that it has been 25 years since 9/11. Thinking of everyone in NY especially. We were far away, but I'll never forget how it felt that morning, not sure what would happen next, worried about our daughters who were babies, like the stability we had grown accustomed to had just shattered.
Daniel Jalkut and I have figured out how to record audio again. New bonus episode of Core Int dropping soon.
Great to have Jimmy Kimmel back on the air after summer break. His interview on YouTube with James Talarico is excellent. Starting to think Talarico is actually going to win. He has the perfect message for this moment. 🇺🇸
Watched: The Librarians. Really good, covering the book bans in Texas and elsewhere. Lots of stories about what it felt like at school board meetings and in libraries. 📺
Took a walk the long way around the block from the coffee shop. Austin skyline down the rail line near 5th.
At the grocery store this week, I walked by someone who was having trouble figuring out the label of a specific item. He flagged me down. There was a language barrier, but it's kind of heartwarming how much you can communicate just by smiling, pointing, thumbs-up, and inserting a couple words in both languages.
If I had fancy AI-powered AirPods, would I have put them in and translated back and forth more accurately? Probably not in this case. It's great technology, but there is also something more human about working through a small problem together.
One of the frustrations people have with AI is that it is pushed at us all the time, in features that don’t need it. Technology this powerful should be mostly seamless, yet it's so new that it's put in places that are awkward or that increase friction.
Apple had one job for Siri in iOS 27: ship what they promised at WWDC 2024. They've done that, but they've also gone further, experimenting. That's okay, but Apple is so far behind the frontier now, I think it would be a better strategy to focus only on a great foundation. The pace at OpenAI and Anthropic is nuts. Let them push the cutting edge and then bring in the best ideas once they're proven.
And don't forget the human element. That has always been Apple at its best.
Quick video demo of the new photos picker in Micro.blog for Mac. Much faster to grab a photo from your library in Photos.app.
Ben Thompson in today's daily update about AI on the Apple Watch:
It does appear that Apple has taken care with this feature, including not making raw transcripts available, even to the Apple Watch owner, but this is an area where I wish the company wasn’t early.
Good perspective from Dave Winer about the news that Matt Mullenweg is on leave from Automattic:
I didn't want to be the CEO of a tech company, and I expect that being the CEO wasn't really a good fit for Matt either. A CEO's job is very different from being a developer and idea guy which Matt clearly sees himself as. Something has got to give, either you're a good CEO and the product languishes, or you focus on the product, and the company is unmanaged.
This applies to Micro.blog too. I'm not a good CEO and not a good boss. I try to make the web a little better by helping people blog.
Listening to Hillary Clinton on the news this morning. It’s always like a glimpse into what might’ve been. She actually knows things. Thoughtful, measured. 🇺🇸
Jason Snell blogged about all the Apple news today, including the slightly controversial Apple Watch recording feature:
Our culture may ultimately reject even the most privacy-focused AI recording features, whether they come in camera glasses or attentive smartwatches. But if there’s any valid, non-creepy case to be made for this sort of technology, someone needs to make it.
I've long wanted an easy way to record quick notes that are transcribed and synced, but I don't want to record other people. Perhaps a better place to start would've been for it to ignore all voices except our own.
I sort of tuned out during the Apple Watch part of the presentation today. Catching up on Siri Recap and Live Rewind. How it works (PDF) is interesting... It's pretty clever. Jumping through a lot of hoops for maybe not-great transcription, though.
Not sure who created these, but I'm starting to notice a couple bridges from specific X accounts to AT Proto, so you can follow people on Bluesky (or in Micro.blog) without visiting X. Here are two: John Ternus and Tibo. There are probably more.
It looks like Apple has knocked it out of the park with the Duo. Really impressive, from the way it looks to the little details in UI layout. And Apple pencil! Jealous of people who are going to get one. 💰
"But actually, there is one more thing..." 🤯
Surprising to include this. It also had its own spin on the phrase, though, almost downplaying it instead of hyping it. Interesting first keynote for John Ternus.
Watching the Apple event. John Ternus is a great presenter who would do really well live. Maybe next year.
During breakfast I usually turn on CNN just to make sure the world hasn't burned down yet. Today's headline was an Anthropic employee posting on X there's a 10% chance AI will destroy all humans. Yikes. Seems a bit high.
New day. New coffee. What should we work on? Current priorities: wrapping up the new mobile app bug fixes, updating Wavelength, but open to other side quests this week. ☕️
Jason Snell blogged a reaction to the latest rumors that the foldable will be called the iPhone Duo! Great name, I really didn't think Apple would go for it. Also happy to see pencil support:
I’ve been wondering about Apple Pencil support on the iPhone for some time now. This product does sort of make sense for it, given the larger canvas of an interior screen.
I know I’m really late to this show, but because of the new spinoff we’ve been watching The Big Bang Theory for the first time. A few seasons in. 📺
Got this spam text today, just in case there was any question that data centers are going to be a big issue in November:
Manton, if you live at [my address], Republicans have supported a Data Center within 15 miles of you.
Feels like the AI world is balancing on a knife's edge. On one side, the worst of big tech's social media addiction machine and an even greater concentration of power. On the other side, the democratization of intelligence and an abundance that lifts all of society. Either outcome seems possible.