Brent Simmons Retiring from Corporate Development

Brent Simmons, on inessential.com:

With retirement imminent — this is my last job, and June 6 is my last day (maybe I’ve buried the lede here) — I want to thank my team publicly for how they’ve made me a better engineer and, more importantly, a better person. From the bottom of my heart.

Post also has some interesting points on corporate developers, but the main point is that he’s retiring from Audible. Ever since I started using macs 20 years ago, Brent Simmons has been a developer I’d always known made amazing apps. Thanks for all the good clicks.

Old Sir Jony Was Bought By Sam, io io oh

openai.com:

Two years ago, Jony Ive and the creative collective LoveFrom, quietly began collaborating with Sam Altman and the team at OpenAI.

[…]

We gathered together the best hardware and software engineers, the best technologists, physicists, scientists, researchers and experts in product development and manufacturing. Many of us have worked closely for decades.

The io team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco.

Just wow. I’d say there’s much to unpack, but in reality, it’s mostly our imagination. However, there’s a lot to imagine and dream with this.

I find it difficult to believe that in the next three years, I won’t be choosing between an OpenAI and Apple device in a similar category.

This is great news. Apple is at its best when he needs to compete. It’s a little blasphemous that Sir Jony will be on the other side of the match, but it means that the stakes are even higher than expected. Don’t be surprised if Scott Forstall comes out of the shadows.

Understanding MCP (Model Context Protocol)

Atharva Raykar, on nilenso.com:

Model Context Protocol, like most protocols, solves the M ⨯ N integration problem by turning it into an M + N integration problem.

An AI client application that speaks this protocol does not have to figure out how to fetch data or take actions specific to a platform.

Great primer on MCP. I still haven’t been able to do something productive with it, but there is of course something there. If you don’t believe it, just look at how everybody is throwing some MCP pasta to the wall:

• How to use the Readwise MCP - Readwise Docs
• Introducing Atlassian’s Remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server - Work Life by Atlassian
• Raycast v1.98.0 - Model Context Protocol

Things Cloud Rewritten in Swift

Werner, on culturedcode.com:

This post takes you behind the scenes: why we rebuilt Things Cloud, why we chose to write it in Swift, and how we transitioned without skipping a beat.

This will be a bit more technical than usual. If that’s not your thing, the summary above is already the key takeaway: Things Cloud is now faster, more modern, and ready for the future.

If there’s one thing that works consistently in my tech stack is Things synchronization. It is amazing. This post goes way more technical than I care for, but I just love the fresh language smell of the new synchronization engine — which you never get to see anyway.

Obsidian 1.9.0 Desktop Introduces Bases

Obsidian, on obsidian.md:

Introducing Bases, a new core plugin that lets you turn any set of notes into a powerful database. With Bases you can organize everything from projects to travel plans, reading lists, and more.

This looks very powerful. The idea that you can create a custom table view is something that already existed with Dataview, but this implementation looks closer to something as polished as Notion and other apps.

Will play with it as soon as it comes out on the stable channel. I just need to clean up a lot of my front matter values.

Meh, Hyper and Akimbo Keyboard Shortcuts

Kevin Kipp, on kevinkipp.com:

Meh (⌃⌥⇧) and Hyper (⌃⌥⇧⌘) are aliases for modifier combinations that are so awkward to hold that almost no application uses them, making them great candidates for global hotkeys you may want to set using something like Raycast.

@mikker’s config · mikker/LeaderKey.app Wiki · GitHub

Mapping double-cmd to F12

I did not know that Meh nor Akimbo shortcuts existed. Or more accurately, I didn’t know they had a name. I’m a sucker for things like this.

I don’t see much use for Meh shortcuts, but I am playing with Akimbo shortcuts for the command key (press both the left and right simultaneously) and even Akimbo for the left and right shift key.

Spotify DJ AI Features Launched

Newsroom, on spotify.com:

By simply using your voice, you can now ask DJ to update your personalized listening session based on the music you want to hear at that moment, whether you’re looking for something to set the mood for date night or need some high-energy tracks to get you hyped for a party.

DJ can handle a combination of genre, mood, artist, or activity-related requests. For example, you could try, “Surprise me with some indie tracks I’ve never heard before,” or “Give me some electronic beats for a midday run.” You could even request something like, “Play me some cry-in-the-car songs.”

One of the few AI features I was surprised it was not out yet and actually was hoping existed. It’s not as front and center as I expected and I’m still not convinced it’s good, but I do like the concept of asking my jukebox conversationally what I want.

Ben Brooks Framework 13 Review

Ben Brooks, on brooksreview.net:

The last time I was this happy with a laptop purchase was when I jumped from Dell to Apple, and purchased a 12″ Powerbook G4 — what a machine. The Framework 13 gives me those same feelings of being able to breathe again. I don’t feel constricted to only what I should be allowed to do, or unduly punished for selecting the wrong port setup, screen, RAM, or SSD (among many others).

So unless you cannot leave macOS, Framework should be at or near the top of your list when laptop shopping. I prefer it with Project Bluefin installed, but any flavor of Linux is so easy to use these days, that if you can assemble this machine you should have no issue running Linux either — as long as you are willing to put up with some software tradeoffs.

Great review. Even though the Framework 12 keeps taunting me, I’ve come to my senses and recognized that nothing but macOS¹ would work for me. Still, I love that this exists. If Apple continues to loose its soul, it’s comfortable to know there’s an option.

An Email from Steve Jobs

Steve Hayman, on hayman.net:

But I did start panicking. OMG I’m going to get fired, this was a terrible idea, I should have foreseen this, what am I going to do now? Once they find out, I’m done!

Great post. Won’t spoil anything. Worth a short read. Can absolutely identify with the writer. I kept thinking of my younger days when my boss used to say: “There’s nothing more dangerous than a fool with good intentions.”

Firefox Now Has Side Tabs

Mozilla, on mozilla.org:

Firefox’s new sidebar lets you move tabs to the side, pin key sites and keep your AI assistant handy.

Still far from being as elegant as Arc’s or even the Zen browser, but nice to have.

The Amazing Little MacBook Air M4

August “Gus” Mueller, on shapeof.com:

With a full build of Acorn, including running hundreds of regression tests, Jimi outperforms my M1 Ultra at 3m21s vs 4m43s. And when purely compiling Acorn, where you’d think the Ultra would have an edge, I get 1:36 (Air) vs 2:05 (Ultra).

I’m sorry, what?

This $1400 machine is beating my $4000 desktop machine with a 20 core CPU, 48 core GPU, and 64GB of memory? What why how?

This threw a wrench into my plans of getting an used MacBook Pro 14in M1 with 32GBs of RAM. The MacBook Air M4 is just too much of a good value.

Are Levi’s From Amazon Different From Levi’s From Levi’s?

Erin Schwartz, on nymag.com:

I acquired two pairs each of our most-recommended jeans (women’s Wedgies and Ribcages and the classic men’s 501s) — one pair ordered from Amazon, one pair sent by Levi’s for each style. I was careful to match up the same washes to prevent differences in distressing or fabric treatment from skewing the results. Still, I was skeptical. It didn’t make sense: Why would Levi’s maintain separate supply chains for different retailers? I pulled the jeans out of their plastic packaging expecting them to be indistinguishable. They were not.

Exactly this happened to me a few years back. I bought the same pair¹ I do every couple of years from both Amazon and Levi’s , and they felt completely different. At the time I thought it was because Amazon’s were knock-off’s, but the article point’s this out:

The tests confirmed a lot of variability between two pairs of the same jeans — you could buy the same style from Amazon and Levi’s and feel a difference. But it didn’t add up to gaps in quality; there was no indication that the Levi’s from Amazon were worse.

Basically Levi’s huge global supply chain, with dozens of mills and factories across multiple countries, results in variations between the same jeans model.

Mere Civilian on Why They Preordered a Pebble in 2025

Mere Civilian, on merecivilian.com:

Whenever I have a Pebble watch on my wrist, things are a lot calmer. There are notifications (mind you, my notification on my Apple Watch and Android Watch are also trimmed down significantly) but the Pebble is a device that is just not a constant attention seeker. It just simply lives in the background.

Unlike me, he ordered the Pebble Core Time 2. But I really like his reasoning.

Two New PebbleOS Watches This Year

Eric Migicovsky, on ericmigi.com:

We’re excited to announce two new smartwatches that run open source PebbleOS and are compatible with thousands of your beloved Pebble apps.

• Core 2 Duo has an ultra crisp black and white display, polycarbonate frame, costs $149 and starts shipping in July.
• Core Time 2 has a larger 64-colour display, metal frame, costs $225 and starts shipping in December.

Both are available in limited quantities, with worldwide shipping. Prices are in USD. Pre-ordering is the only way to get one - they will not be sold in stores. Pre-order today at store.rePebble.com!

I went with a Core 2 Due, in large part to support the project. The Core Time 2 sounds great, but I’m not crazy about the design — unlike the never released Pebble Time 2, which looked amazing imho.

Really hope this works out. We need more fun geeky fun projects like this one.

Best Hamburguer in Costa Rica According to Reddit Ticos

Data Rican, on datarican.org:

Was scrolling through Reddit Ticos and found a couple of threads discussing the best hamburger in Costa Rica. Which to be fair actually meant the best hamburger in the GAM.
After finally getting my master’s done, I had some time to nerd it out so I decided to overengineer it and write some code (i.e. prompt Claude) to analyze these Reddit threads and create a ranking based on upvotes.

My buddy Jose bring the geek and the foodie to the table… with a burger joints table to visit in Costa Rica. Challenge accepted¹.

Southwest Airlines Outlines Changes to Make itself Unremarkable

Southwest Airline, on swamedia.com:

Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) is evolving rapidly, implementing new initiatives that support business objectives and create choice for current and future Customers of America’s largest domestic carrier.1 Initiatives announced today will reward the airline’s most loyal Customers and give all Customers more options for a broader range of travel experiences.

The positive biz speak spin here is pathetic. I didn’t see any comment from Southwest loyal customers that were positive. I used to go out of my way to fly back to Costa Rica with Southwest given its two-bag policy. Now that’s gone, and with it goes any benefit of using Southwest versus any other airline.

CJ, on crankyflier.com:

At the JP Morgan Industrials Conference today, Southwest will announce the following:

• First and Second Checked Bag Fees will be implemented for all tickets purchased from May 28 (elites and credit card-holders still get at least 1 bag free)
• Basic Economy will be introduced with Basic effectively taking over the pricepoint where Wanna Get Away is today
• Flight Credits will once again expire after 1 year from the date of ticket issue (Basic is 6 months from date of issue, so… why bother?)
• Rapid Rewards points will now be redeemed on a variable scale with no transparency (or, um, transfarency?) in what the multiple vs the paid fare will be

In other words, Southwest has erased every single positive differentiator it ever had.

Adam Tow, on tow.com:

I’ve flown Southwest Airlines more times than I can count. Growing up in San Diego, we took Southwest flights to the Bay Area to visit relatives, and later, I relied on them to travel back and forth between college.
[…]
At the end of every flight, Southwest flight attendants usually say something like, “We know you have a choice when you fly, and we thank you for choosing Southwest. Welcome to San Jose!” But with these changes, I won’t automatically consider Southwest my first choice anymore. I understand the company feels the need to increase revenue—or, rather, activist investors are forcing them to. But alienating loyal customers comes with a risk.

May they generate lots of shareholder value.

ElevenLabs Scribe Transcribe Engine

Tim von Känel, Flavio Schneider, on ElevenLabs blog:

Scribe, our first Speech to Text model, is the world’s most accurate transcription model. Built to handle the unpredictability of real-world audio, Scribe transcribes speech in 99 languages, featuring word-level timestamps, speaker diarization, and audio-event tagging—all delivered in a structured response for seamless integration.

Scribe is engineered for precision. In FLEURS & Common Voice benchmark tests across 99 languages, it consistently outperforms leading models like Gemini 2.0 Flash, Whisper Large V3 and Deepgram Nova-3. Whether it’s meeting summaries, movie subtitles, or even song lyrics, Scribe delivers the lowest automated transcription word error rate in Italian (98.7%), English (96.7%) and 97 other languages.

Missed this when it came out a few days ago but the claims are impressive. I’ve been able to test it on the Whisper Memos app. Seems to work fine¹. Hopefully Superwhisper will have access to it and I’ll be able to play with it soon on macOS. Exciting times!

Louie Mantia Launches First Kadomaru App

Louie Mantia, on his blog:

Today I want to share with you a new official designation for apps I make, Kadomaru Shōkai. I’ve been collaborating with Johannes Jakob for a little while now (on a few unreleased apps), but we’re shipping our first one today. Right now.

It’s called Daruma, and it’s a goal-tracking app. It’s super simple. Just add an item, begin working on it by selecting the right eye, complete it by selecting the left eye, and burn all your completed goals whenever you’re ready. The process mimics that of real daruma, which are type of Japanese doll. When purchased, they have blank eyes you fill in just as previously described, and at the end of the year, you burn them wherever you bought them from.

Lots of delicious library era vibes here.

Love the opinionated design, especially when it’s beautiful and thought out. I’m not sure if I’ll be using it, but I’ll be checking any new app they come up with.

The Great, the Good and the Ugly Apple Air Week

The Apple announcements this week were overall great news. Any year we get speed bumps updates, rather than forgotten devices works for me.

Pair the basically perfect current MacBook Air with the M4 processor, and then also lower the price. That’s a great machine right there. While I still dream of a 12-inch device, this 13-inch MacBook Air is deliciously easy to recommend.

The iPad Air, on the other hand, is starting to not be the best bang for the buck. If the MacBook Air punches above its weight price-wise, the iPad Air misses the mark, and it’s actually the plain iPad the one that becomes easier to recommend.

I don’t have a strong opinion on the Mac Studio, other than being happy that it doesn’t remain a product in the Apple’s line-up.

If there’s one complaint for me about this week’s announcement, it’s the iPad Air keyboard. Although a iPad Pro-style keyboard is great news, the $269 price and the fact that it’s only available in white makes it unrecommendable — hence the ugly.

Personally, I think I’m going get an updated Air to upgrade my joby-job M2 MacBook Air. I also see a MacBook Air in Robie’s future, as he’s developing more in Swift and the 2014 MacBook Pro he’s using is borderline unworkable now. I’m hoping to convince him that we’ll be able to get a spec-ed out M3 or M2 for a better price.

What should you get?

• MacBook: If you have any MacBook intel laptop, the new M4 MacBook is an excelente upgrade. If your M1 version is feeling slow, of you use multiple screen, it’s also a great year to update.

• iPad: I’ll be keeping an eye on iPad Air M2 prices. Unless the new keyboard is something you really want — a well kept M2 at $450 sounds like a better option.

YouTube Premium Lite Introduced in the US

Jack Greenberg, on blog.youtube:

Today we’ll begin expanding our Premium Lite pilot to users in the US. Premium Lite gives viewers a new, more affordable way to enjoy most videos on YouTube ad-free for $7.99 per month.

I’m a reluctant YouTube Premium subscriber. Mostly because the amount of rabbit holes it takes me shouldn’t justify the price $14/month. My previous solution via the browser worked because it added friction.

One thing to watch, emphasis mine:

affordable way to enjoy most videos on YouTube ad-free […]

What’s most videos? Still, cancelling my YouTube Premium to test this out. Let’s see how it goes.

Tidbits for 2025 Week 09

What a couple of weeks. Had a business trip, so I had a chance to start watching Star Trek Lower Decks (it’s great), catched-up with Invincible (still good), finished Silo season 2 (slower, but still like it), and looking forward to each Severance (hope they don’t mess it up). I’m also ready to buy my first Linux device/laptop since the Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 PDA and continuously being blown away by AI apps. Happy weekend!

• Startup Folder: macOS, run programs at startup by placing them in a special folder; Free. ♮ Not sure the benefits versus login items, but implementation looks very elegant.

• LocalSend: Share files to nearby devices: LocalSend is a free, cross-platform file sharing tool available for all platforms, offering secure peer-to-peer file transfers. ♮ My buddy Federico says I never post anything for Android, this is an olive branch.

• Slow Roads: Slow Roads is a free, web-based casual driving game offering an endless scenic journey with no ads, now also coming to Steam for more advanced features. ♮ Great for relaxing.

• Longplay for Mac (Early Access): macOS app for album playback, available in Early Access for A$25. ♮ The iOS version is great. Almost ready to rediscover my iPod library with the macoS version.

• stats: FLOSS macOS system monitoring app with menu bar integration. ♮ Lots of iStats vibes on this one. But can’t argue with free.

• Moves for macOS: macOS app for precise window positioning using modifier keys and the mouse , free. ♮ Moom has this, but it’s overkill. I’ve been using Swift Shift, but it had a memory leak. This works just right.

• Shadow: bot-free AI autopilot service that automates recording and transcribing meetings. Free while in beta. ♮ I’ve tried LOTs for transcription summary apps. This is by far the best.

• Shortcutie: macOS app that enhances the Shortcuts app with advanced system-level features. $6 launch price. ♮ If Sindre releases it, I’ll buy it.

• ‎Art of Fauna: Nature Puzzles: iOS and iPadOS puzzle game featuring vintage wildlife illustrations and educational content; free with in-app purchases.♮ Beautifully designed puzzle game.

• ‎Daily Wallpaper: Free, supports iPhone and iPad, offers automatic daily wallpaper updates from various stunning image sources. ♮ I’m too OCD with my wallpapers o the iPhone, but may consider it for my iPad mini.

I Want My DayOne AI

I’d love for DayOne to offer some AI/LLM functionality. I can imagine all the privacy concerns, but in all honestly, this is a case in which because we can, outweighs should-we?.

The simplest use-case is similar to the recently released Readwise Chat — in which you can chat/search with your highlights. For me, this would be less cringe-worthy that reading some of my entries¹.

Other use-case is journaling itself. I can see the benefits of a conversation with my journal at both ends of my journaling modes: when I have nothing to say, and when I’m overloaded with thoughts.

The empty page day scenario is easy, this will give templates a whole new dimension. “How are you feeling?, did someone say something to make you laugh today? Did you feel you made progress on a project?”. Replace the generics (someone, project, etc.), and now you move from an ELIZA type conversation, to one when LLMs aware of your Journal can really shine: “did Bettina say something to make you laugh today? Did you feel you made progress on the Vendor Onboarding project?”. Have the agent then turn the conversation into a Journal entry, and ta-da!.

At the other end of the spectrum, the I’m-all-over-the-place entry will also benefit. It doesn’t seem hard for a model to be able to steer you towards healthy tracks: what are you grateful for? How did that make you feel? etc.

Sprinkle all this with the benefits of conversational data input, with some sort of personality, and all the privacy concerns seem a valid trade-off for me.

There are already some Apps that are doing this. My hope is that DayOne is looking at the most private way possible to deliver on this. Maybe using some Open Source AI/LLM they can host themselves and be sure doesn’t leak out data. Or a client-based solution in which the model is local, and there are no concerns².

Let’s hope it’s in the near future.

New Trello Version Announced

Gaurav Kataria, on atlassian.com:

Say goodbye to scattered to-dos. In the new Trello, tasks can be captured from any interaction—whether it’s a voice note to Siri, a Slack message, or an email — and added to your Trello Inbox.

[…]

With the new Trello Planner, your tasks and schedule come together seamlessly. Connect your Google Calendar now (Microsoft Outlook Calendar is coming soon) to view your availability right alongside your tasks. Effortlessly drag and drop tasks from your Inbox or boards directly onto your calendar—to create focused time slots and meet deadlines with ease.

I used to run my life, work and reading in Trello. When it was acquired my by Atlassian, it slowly Jira_ed itself and I moved on. However, now that corporate life has caught up with me with Jira and ServiceNow being my work tools, I’ll revisit when this new version is widely available.

Hyperspace Space Reclaimer Launched

John Siracusa, on hypercritical.co:

By the end of that week, I’d written a barebones Mac app to do the same thing my Perl script was doing. In the months that followed, I polished and tested the app, and christened it Hyperspace. I’m happy to announce that Hyperspace is now available in the Mac App Store.

Hyperspace is a free download, and it’s free to scan to see how much space you might save. To actually reclaim any of that space, you will have to pay for the app.

I love how John made an app out of his geekiness. Tried on my main drive, but it only saved a few hundred MBs. However, cloud storage files are currently ignored — which is most of my files. As he eases up on the restrictions, I expect to use this app once-a-year when I get in clean install mode.

Plinky 4.0 Released

Joe, on blog.plinky.app:

That’s exactly why I built Reminders in Plinky — so you never lose track of an important link again. The latest update also lets you pin your most important Folders and Tags for quick access. Plus, you can customize the interface to highlight or hide Folders or Tags, depending on how you like to stay organized.

Tried it when it was released but Raindrop.io still worked best for me. But with upcoming import feature and Mac app, I’ll likely take another look.

Lou Plummer Raycast Extensions

Lou Plummer, on amerpie.lol:

A Mastodon friend asked me to list the Raycast extensions I have installed. Raycast is a replacement for Spotlight that has considerable superpowers in its vast extension library. I use Raycast as my clipboard manager, emoji picker, window manager and I do quite a lot of image modification with it. As you can see, there are many more features available.

Great list. I’m also a big user. Went with Pro version during Black Friday to support development and hopefully get access to upcoming mobile version. Not getting much use of the AI features yet. Below my list of extensions without much curation:

• Apple Notes
• Arc
• Bunch
• Cloudflare WARP
• Copy Path
• Downloads Manager
• Drafts
• Emoji Search
• Folder Search
• GIF Search
• HazeOver Controls
• Hide All Apps
• Installed Extensions
• Jira
• Kagi Search
• Karabiner Profile Switcher
• Markdown to Rich Text
• Messages
• Microsoft Teams Meeting
• Network Speed
• NotePlan 3
• Obsidian
• omg.lol
• Password Generator
• Raindrop.io
• Raycast Explorer
• Recents
• Remove Paywall
• Screen Saver
• Screenshot
• Set Audio Device
• Shottr
• Summation - Sum Calculator
• Superwhisper - Offline Voice to Text
• System Monitor
• Terminal Finder
• Things
• YouTube

Amazon Removing Ability to Download Kindle Books to Drive

David Sparks, on macsparky.com:

Amazon is set to disable the “Download & Transfer via USB” feature for e-books starting February 26, 2025. You can get the full scoop at The Verge. If you feel like buying an ebook should include the ability to download said ebook, it’s time to start looking for alternatives.

Not cool Amazon. I use this feature to remove DRM of purchase books to read on my Boox Leaf 2. Writing was on the wall when feature was disabled with new Kindles. I understand that vertical integration requires simplicity, but it’s difficult not to see this hostile effort towards the openness of books.

There is something about this that stinks to me. I pay for the books. I feel like I should be able to download them. I’ve bought hundreds of books from Amazon over the years and this push toward cloud-based model data control feels like crossing a line. Maybe this is a thing with me and I should have realized that I was only purchasing a “license” to read the books instead of “ownership” of the books all along.

I agree with David that this is really a turning point for my participation in the Amazon ecosystem. Sadly, there’s no clear alternative if the ability to unlock books is a priority.

More Thoughts on Daylight Computer

Jon Bo, on jon.bo:

The DC-1 is an incredible devices that isn’t quite a full replacement for an existing device as much as it is a new form factor that tries to put us in healthier relationship with light and the outdoors. It values this over having the highest fidelity or perfect accessibility.

As a first generation product, it has its rough edges but at the end of the day, it’s a solid deliverable for a company building hardware and innovating on display tech. I’m absolutely stoked to see Daylight Computer explore more form factors next and am grateful to be part of this journey with them.

I almost did an impulse buy on the DC-1, but I’m glad I didn’t. A smaller form-factor with nicer design and lower price might be the sweet spot for me in the future. Still, glad there’s different options in the tablet market.

The Apple TV app is now available on Android: watch Apple TV+ and MLS Season Pass - 9to5Mac

Benjamin Mayo, on 9to5mac.com:

The app supports the fundamental Apple TV app features users will be familiar with from the app on Apple devices, including the Continue Watching queue, offline downloads and search. Playback progress syncs across all your devices, so you can start watching a show on your TV and then continue in bed on your Android phone, for instance.

Would have thought this was already available.

Rather than a direct port of the iOS app, Apple is using native Android UI components where applicable, such as context menus when long-pressing on an item. However, this is still only a 1.0 release and there are some notably absent features; the Android app does not support notifications or casting for instance.

So sad that Apple gave up on ebook market. I still dream of an Apple Books version for Android that can be used in an eink device.

The Anthropic Economic Index

@AnthropicAI, on anthropic.com:

In the coming years, AI systems will have a major impact on the ways people work. For that reason, we’re launching the Anthropic Economic Index, an initiative aimed at understanding AI’s effects on labor markets and the economy over time.

[…]

• We also only analyze data from Claude.ai Free and Pro plans, rather than API, Team, or Enterprise users. While Claude.ai data contains some non-work conversations, we used a language model to filter this data to only contain conversations relevant to an occupational task, which helps to mitigate this concern.

I only skimmed it, but something to keep an eye on. The currently sampling is too small imho, but they need to start somewhere. I see this report becoming an important indicator in a few years.

New (Old) Pebble Devices

Eric Migicovsky, on ericmigi.com:

Please don’t get your hopes up that the new watch will have X/Y/Z new feature. It’s going to be a Pebble and almost exactly as you remember it, except now with open source software that can you can modify and improve yourself. More hardware details will be shared in the future.

I appreciate the clarity Eric is providing. He’s been clear on the blog and in multiple interviews that the new Pebbles are literally going to be updated old Pebble’s. This contains my imagination and keeps expectations in-check of what new Pebbles will bring.

SetApp Quick Review

Cliff, on seerofsouls.com:

What is Setapp you ask? While I’ll give you a lot more details below, Setapp by MacPaw is a subscription platform that gives you access to well over 240 premium MacOS and iOS apps for one small monthly or yearly price. This allows you to try and use hundreds of apps without having to pay for each individual app.

Good overview of SetApp. Cliff likes it and the numbers make sense for him.

For a long time I didn’t get the appeal of SetApp — since I already owned most of the Apps already. But as it’s catalog has grown, I reached a turning point this year where the yearly subscriptions of my preferred Apps made the subscription financially attractive — I’m looking at you Hookmark, Bartender, BoltAI.

They also include Apps from Indy Developers like Sindre Sorhus, most I already own, but I don’t mind at all supporting his great Apps.

Pebble Will Come Back

Eric Migicovsky, on ericmigi.com:

TL;DR We’re making a new Pebble-style smartwatch.

[…]

This time round, we’re keeping things simple. Lessons were learned last time! I’m building a small, narrowly focused company to make these watches. I don’t envision raising money from investors, or hiring a big team. The emphasis is on sustainability. I want to keep making cool gadgets and keep Pebble going long into the future.

I’m so excited about this. Pebble was my first Smartwatch¹. Even when the Apple Watch came out, I actually went back to Pebble out of disappointment with the first generation. The failed Pebble Time 2 hardware was a real disappointment at the time.

With Eric founder in the realm, I’m confident that some cool hardware will result. I’m in for the trip.

Upcoming Apps I’m Excited About

Very few things give me a dopamine hit as checking app updates/releases. So much so that my main habit stacking this year is: only allowing myself to check for AppStore updates when I read a couple of pages of whatever I’m reading. With that in mind, here’s the apps I’m currently looking forward to:

• Tapestry: After a successful kickstarter campaign, it looks like launch is imminent. Alongside Flipboard Surf and the new Reeder, the open web unified timeline concept is something I’m excited about. And this will surely bring some great UI/UX gold nugget.
• Micro Social: still in development, but this Swift rewrite of the micro.blog iOS client is going to be a nice update over the current one.
• Quick Reviews: you might know the Webapp, but Matt is working on an iOS version and it looks sweet. When he does add books to “Magic Mode”, I’ll have some decisions to make.
  
• Pieoneer: a pie menu launcher thingy for the Mac that looks beautiful. Although the concept has already been done by Ryan Hanson with Charmstone, this new approach looks great.
• retroStrip: a re-imagination of the original Control Strip, I love this sorts of Apps. Still in development, but will download for sure if it sees the light of day.

Update 2025-01-27: added retroStrip. I was looking for a link when posting this but couldn’t find one, luckily Mario Guzman shared one today.

Tidbits for 2025 Week 04

This week we started watching Silo Season 2 and we’re enjoying it. Also excited by the Superwhisper iOS update. Rediscovered Klack to make writing (sound) fun. Installed Paper now that it’s part of SetApp. Almost Almost ready to share new home screen. Some links for you:

• FlashSpace: FLOSS workspace manager for macOS in development that looks very fast. ⥃ Not ready to mess with the windowing yet, but bookmarked.

• LeaderKey.app: Free macOS app with customizable keyboard shortcuts. ⥃ Also forcing myself to not go down the rabbit hole of this app, but totally see the appeal.

• habby: for iOS and Android, digital bullet journal and habit tracker that helps you set goals and track habits. ⥃ Free and nicely designed. I like the restrictions it imposes.

• Onit: macOS application offering GPT-powered AI assistance with flexible provider options, available for free. ⥃ Very happy with Bolt.AI and the new Chorus, but always good to see new entrants in this category.

• Modular CSS Layout: Modular CSS Layout provides customizable layout options for Obsidian on all platforms, enhancing visual organization without altering color themes, and it’s free. ⥃ Via Noel and his Obsidian Setup, which helped me level up my main vault Overview page.

Simon Willison Approach to Running a Link-Blog

Simon Willison, on simonwillison.net:

The way I use my link blog has evolved substantially in the eight months since then. I’m going to describe the informal set of guidelines I’ve set myself for how I link blog, in the hope that it might encourage other people to give this a try themselves.

[…]

The point of that article was to emphasize that blogging doesn’t have to be about unique insights. The value is in writing frequently and having something to show for it over time—worthwhile even if you don’t attract much of an audience (or any audience at all).

[…]

• Ideally I’d like you to take something useful away even if you don’t follow the link itself. This can be a slightly tricky balance: I don’t want to steal attention from the authors and plagiarize their message. Generally I’ll try to find some key idea that’s worth emphasizing. Slightly cynically, I may try to capture that idea as backup against the original source vanishing from the internet. Link rot is real!

Amazing post. I’ve been linkbloging for +15 years, and still found many points which clarified ideas I just barely had notions of.

FindMy Friend

One of the last photos nonch sent me

For the first time since I can remember, I’m not looking forward to the next Apple event or announcement. Two months ago today, I unexpectedly lost one of my best friends. One of those friends that you call brother and mean it. In all honesty, his passing has broken something.

I’m shielded from reality since we live in different countries. I’m still clinging to the hope that we just haven’t talked for too long. But soon, on the next Apple announcement, I’ll get a voice note saying “So, what do you think?”, and everything will be alright. It’s important to note that Alonso’s voice notes were the only ones I had to hear at 1x. As with everything about him, his regular speed was just faster.

He was smarter than me, funnier than me, larger than me, both physically and in presence. Nonch had a Graphite iBook just around college — probably the first one I ever saw. He was cool like that. He was the center of things. The driver of plans. The sweetest force of nature that ever was. The one that always called.

Soon a new iThingy will be announced, and we won’t message about it. And I’ll know for sure. He’s gone.

Tidbits for 2025 Week 03

Happy new year everyone. Back to my routine after the holidays. Got some great gift this year: NanoFoamer PRO Gen2, Apple iPad Mini 7¹, with Apple Pencil Pro and PITAKA case, Anker Power Bank USB C Charger Block, Quechua NH Escape 500 23 L backpack, and last but not least COBI Armed Forces A-10 . I’m very spoiled. With that, here’s some links.

• fullmoon: Supports macOS, iOS, iPadOS; enables chatting with private and local large language models; free and open source. ⥃ Useful if you don’t have Apple Intelligence and want/need to keep data local.

• Chorus: macOS, chat with multiple AI models simultaneously, free. ⥃ BoltAi is still my main prompt app, but seeing replies from GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Gemini 2.0 Flash at the same time is very useful.

• Keychron Silicone Palm Rest: The Keychron Silicone Palm Rest, designed with sleek and durable silicone, offers exceptional ergonomic support and comfort for extended gaming sessions. ⥃ Getting this for my K3/S1 at some point this year. Seems new, and good price.

• Keychron Folio Case for Slim Keyboard: Crafted with PU and PC, the Keychron foldable case is designed to protect your K3 Max / K3 Pro / K3 Version 3 / K3 keyboard in style. ⥃ Not getting this, but wanting it.

• Cupertino: Obsidian theme offering a native experience on macOS, iOS, and Windows, enhancing usability with a clean and minimal design, available for free. ⥃ New theme for this blog’s vault.

• ElevationLab TimeCapsule™ AirTag Case: uses AAA batteries, giving the stick a theoretical 10-Year Battery™ . ⥃ Got it already. Looks great. AirTag gadgets are my weakness.

• IconKitchen App Icon Generator for iOS, Android and Web apps. ⥃ Using this a lot for my new home screen.

Rui Carmo on the Supernote A6X2 Nomad

Rui Carmo, on taoofmac.com:

Although it’s been only a couple of months, the part of me that initially pondered the Nomad as a “better notebook” is still reeling, since I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface, but I’m getting ahead of myself. […] There is something about doing handwriting on computers that I find profoundly appealing–I used a Newton MessagePad and was obsessed about Palm devices (I still have a working Palm V somewhere), so being able to quickly scrawl out something on a distraction-free device and then re-work it on my Mac later is extremely attractive to me.

Super detailed review. I think the Supernote is getting more love within Mac writers.

A Mouse Tale Update

I wrote about my mice situation a while back. Here’s a quick update.

I did buy the Lenovo Professional Bluetooth Rechargeable Mouse and it’s working great at my office desk. Size is large, and arch is comfortable. It’s a bit too light, but workable.

At home I’m using the Microsoft Bluetooth Ergonomic Mouse. It’s a good-enough replacement to its big brother Surface Precision Mouse.

And now some great news, InCase finally launched their Designed by Microsoft™ line, and the Bluetooth Ergonomic Mouse is back… for $50. That’s 2X what I paid for the Microsoft version 4 years ago. Ouch.

I planted a flag on the previous post regarding the price:

At the original $25 it was a steal, but it’s not worth anything above $40.

Sticking to it. However, I’ll be following the price and likely will buy one if it reaches $39.99 territory on a sale this year.

Acorn 8 Released

August “Gus” Mueller, on shapeof.com:

Acorn 8 has been released!

This is a major update of Acorn, and is currently on a time-limited sale for $19.99. It’s still a one time purchase to use as long as you’d like, and as usual, the full release notes are available. I want to highlight some of my favorite things below.

Insta-purchase for me. I’ve been using Acorn for 16 years, I have no plans to stop any time soon.

New Apple Mouse Coming (Someday, Maybe)

Mark Gurman, at Bloomberg:

The good news is, there’s a new Magic Mouse in the works. I’m told that Apple’s design team has been prototyping versions of the accessory in recent months, aiming to devise something that better fits the modern era.

I wasn’t looking for a complete rethink of the mouse with the recent update, but anything is better than the flat slap design for my wrist. Great, I’m in. I’ll start saving for WWDC25 when it…

As for when the mouse will arrive, I wouldn’t expect anything in the next 12 to 18 months. But the current Magic Mouse is nearing the end of its life, and Apple is working on a full overhaul. Once the design group settles on a final form, it will still take months or years of hardware engineering, software development and operations work to actually bring the mouse to market.

Never mind. Maybe my Microsoft Mouse will be resurrected by then.