Latest posts
- ★ Thoughts and Observations on Apple’s First Immersive MLB Broadcast, a Yankees 1-0 Win Over the Red SoxAug 29, 2026John Gruber
Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors, has an exemplary review of the experience: I didn’t mind the reduced pace of the NBA broadcast, which toggled between cameras under each basket, but Stratechery’s Ben Thompson felt strongly that the best option would’ve been a single camera at mid-court, to completely eliminate the disorienting cuts and replicate being at the game in person. Apple’s approach wit
- Apple Announces Price Increase for Apple TV and Apple One SubscriptionsAug 28, 2026John Gruber
Chance Miller, 9to5Mac: Here are the full details on the price increases: Apple TV (monthly): $14.99 (up from $12.99) Apple TV (annual): $119 (up from $99) Apple One Individual: $21.95 (up from $19.95) Prices for other Apple One plans are unchanged. When Apple increased the price of Apple Music last month, it also raised the Apple One Family and Apple One Premier plans, but not the Individual plan
- ‘I’m the Guy Who Destroys Antique Books After We Scan Them Into Our Company’s Insatiable AI Platform’Aug 28, 2026John Gruber
Jack Loftus, writing at McSweeney’s: People assume scanning is the exciting part. And, sure, it is impressive. They shear off the spine, separate the pages, and run everything through these enormous machines so the computer can absorb every sentence ever written and use it to create some fairly compelling LinkedIn posts. But then, boy oh boy, the wheeled cart carrying those decimated remains comes
- ‘How Americans See E.U. Tech’Aug 28, 2026John Gruber
I think at least half a dozen people have sent me a link to this video and now that I’ve watched it, I understand why. Perfect. ★
- We Certainly Have Made a Hames Out of ThisAug 28, 2026John Gruber
I mentioned earlier that for anyone going along with the ruse that Lake Ontario is now named Lake America, the HOMES mnemonic no longer holds, the only two valid words in English with the new five letters are hames and shame, and that hames is rather too obscure. But it’s not so obscure in Ireland, where they use it in an idiom: to make a hames of something is to make a mess of it. With that in mi
- ‘Not Sure How You Own Canada by Deleting Your Own History’Aug 28, 2026John Gruber
Matt Walsh, described by Wikipedia as “an American far-right political commentator and podcast host” (a description that sounds harsh, but I’d say is describing him euphemistically), on Twitter/X (retweeting the official White House account’s announcement of the name change): This will be an unpopular opinion on the Right but I think this is kind of dumb, even as a troll. Lake Ontario was given th
- From the DF Archive: ‘Golfo Del Gringo Loco’Aug 28, 2026John Gruber
Yours truly back in February 2025: The motivation behind the name change is simple as well. Trump didn’t change the US’s officially recognized name of, say, the Atlantic Ocean or the continent of Africa. He just as easily could, but he won’t. I’m starting to worry how well that’s going to hold up. And it’s not like “Gulf of Mexico” was on a list of “debatable or controversial names” until he creat
- Trump Declares That Lake Ontario Is Now ‘Lake America’Aug 28, 2026John Gruber
Jackie Llanos and Jenna Monnin, reporting for NOTUS: President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order meant to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America,” taking his apparent jab at Canada one step further as a trade war between the two countries escalates. The president said the name change was “effective immediately” during a signing ceremony in the Oval Office. The executive order directs I
- U.S. Judge Blocks Trump Defense Department’s Anthropic BlacklistingAug 28, 2026John Gruber
Jack Queen, Reuters: A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked the Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic, the latest turn in the Claude maker’s high-stakes fight with the military over AI safety on the battlefield. Anthropic’s lawsuit in California federal court alleges that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped his authority when he designated Anthropic a national security supply-chain risk, a label
- Afterglow — Classic After Dark Screen Savers on Today’s MacOSAug 27, 2026John Gruber
Jeff Halter has done it again: after bringing back the single greatest After Dark module (Ben Haller’s Lunatic Fringe game, via a modern runtime named Lunacy), he’s now released Afterglow: Running After Dark modules in the present day has involved fussy configuration of Mac OS emulators or vintage hardware. Even then, no single emulator or vintage computer can faithfully run every module: some ani
- The Load-Bearing Vocabulary of ClaudeAug 27, 2026John Gruber
Fun (but depressing?) data analysis project from Louis Abraham, showing how repetitive Claude is in the words it chooses when submitting GitHub pull requests. Abraham, in the project’s readme: GitHub pull request descriptions, grouped by the words they are written with rather than by anything they were told to look for: eight ways of writing, and every description belongs to one of them. One of th
- Elizabeth Warren’s Incoherent Outrage Regarding Apple’s Tariff RefundAug 27, 2026John Gruber
Speaking of tariff refunds, here’s an official statement from Senator Elizabeth Warren from a few weeks ago: U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Target, Apple, Amazon, Nike, Motorola, Walmart, and Energizer pushing these companies — each of which have or are expected to receive massive rebates from the Trump Administration for tariffs paid last year — to provide refunds to customers.
- Panic Is Refunding Tariff Fees to Playdate BuyersAug 27, 2026John Gruber
Nicole Carpenter and Diego Argüello, reporting for Game Developer: “There was a specific window of time this year where we charged tariffs to customers,” Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser explained in an e-mail to Game Developer confirming the news. “We tried absorbing the cost for a while, but that was financially difficult for a small company like ours. We made the tariff a very obvious and clearly
- Ads in Apple Maps Have Now LaunchedAug 27, 2026John Gruber
Ryan Christoffel, 9to5Mac: Apple confirmed to 9to5Mac that the ads rollout in Maps began in the last few days. And it will continue ramping in the weeks ahead to all users. There are two places you’ll find ads in the Maps app: Before searching: Suggested Places in the search screen will feature an ad. After searching: Ads will appear in search results when relevant. Before searching, I saw an ad f
- ‘How Europe Is Killing Makers and Micro-Entrepreneurs’Aug 27, 2026John Gruber
Alain Pannetrat, founder of Lectronz: Lectronz is a marketplace for open-source hardware makers and DIY electronics. Most of our sellers are not factories or well-funded start-ups. They are engineers, independent designers, and hardware enthusiasts working from spare rooms, garages, and tiny workshops. Some earn a living from their products. Some sell only a handful of boards each year. Others bui
- POSIWID: The Purpose of a System Is What It DoesAug 26, 2026John Gruber
Wikipedia: The purpose of a system is what it does (POSIWID) is a heuristic in systems thinking coined by the British management consultant Stafford Beer, who stated that there is “no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do”. It is used in systems theory, and is generally invoked to counter the notion that the purpose of a system can or should be read
- Apple’s Polishing Cloth Is Now Just $9Aug 26, 2026John Gruber
Chance Miller: Not to be overshadowed by the new Mac mini and Mac Studio, Apple today has also released an updated version of its Polishing Cloth. In an age of everything getting more expensive, the new Polishing Cloth is cheaper than before at $9 (down from $19). [...] Apple released the Polishing Cloth in October 2021 and sold out almost instantly. While it has become a meme, it is genuinely a g
- ‘Surprise and Shine’ Apple Event: Wednesday 9 SeptemberAug 26, 2026John Gruber
Zac Hall, 9to5Mac: Apple has officially announced its next product event, where it will unveil the iPhone 18 Pro lineup and its first foldable iPhone. The event will take place on September 9 at 10 am, PT. The tagline reads “Surprise and shine,” and the invitation features a glowing Apple logo with a sun shining through. Apple generally prefers Tuesdays, but on years when Labor Day falls in the se
- XCancel, the Twitter/X Mirror, Shuts Down After Cease and Desist From the Fine Folks at X CorpAug 25, 2026John Gruber
XCancel: On Monday 24th August at 8PM EST, we received at letter from X Corp. asking to cease and desist the service XCancel. The service XCancel is stopped until further notice. We are seeking legal advice and won’t share more details for now. Thank you for the trust you have put in these two years of XCancel. I didn’t want to jinx them, but this obvious threat hanging over their head was the mai
- Dolly Parton Dies at 80Aug 25, 2026John Gruber
Bill Friskics-Warren for The New York Times: Her death was announced in a video posted on social media by her nephew Bryan Seaver. No cause was provided. Concerns about Ms. Parton’s health were raised last year as she postponed and later canceled a Las Vegas residency, and intensified to the point that she took to social media in October to announce, “I ain’t dead yet.” This May, she said that she
- Update Regarding the Base Prices of the M5 Max Mac StudioAug 25, 2026John Gruber
I made a mistake in my table earlier today regarding the base price of the M5 Max Mac Studio, but my mistake was because of a rather sneaky design in Apple’s purchasing flow. Apple’s web interface looks like this: Both of the available M5 Max SoCs have 18-core CPUs, but the entry model (that starts at $2,500) has a 32-core GPU, and the upgraded chip has a 40-core GPU. That upgrade is labeled “+
- Footnote Regarding the GDPR and Cookie Permission PromptsAug 25, 2026John Gruber
If you already read my “What Is the Point of the DMA?” piece yesterday, this morning I added a lengthy footnote regarding the DMA’s predecessor, the GDPR. Click through to read the entire note, but here’s the kicker: The GDPR went into effect 10 years ago. By their inaction, they obviously think it’s working just fine. I think they look at the situation and realize, with satisfaction, that every t
- ★ Memory and Storage Configurations and Pricing for the New Mac Minis (M6/M5 Pro) and Mac Studios (M5 Max/M5 Ultra)Aug 25, 2026John Gruber
Apple today announced an all new lineup of Mac Mini (M6 and M5 Pro) and Mac Studio (M5 Max and M5 Ultra) desktops. The Apple Newsroom announcements for Mac Mini and Mac Studio only note base model prices. Here’s my attempt to put all of the RAM/SSD configurations into condensed tables, so you can see which storage and memory options are available for each chip, and how much they cost. Mac Mini M6
- Apple Introduces M6 and M5 Ultra Chips, in New Mac Mini and Mac StudioAug 25, 2026John Gruber
Apple Newsroom: Apple today debuted M6 in the new Mac mini and M5 Ultra in the new Mac Studio, providing an extraordinary leap in performance and AI capabilities. M6, Apple’s first state-of-the-art 2-nanometer chip, advances every compute block, delivering gains across every dimension of performance. The chip features a larger 12-core CPU complex with the world’s fastest CPU core, a larger 12-core
- [Sponsor] Finalist 4: Inspired by Paper Day PlannersAug 25, 2026Daring Fireball Department of Commerce
Finalist 4 is the biggest update yet to the paper-inspired day planner for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and now Apple Watch. The headline is Notes, in the app or as a folder of Markdown files that round-trips with Obsidian. Tasks in those files land on the right day, next to your reminders and events, even inside the macOS menu bar app. The rebuilt Timeline lets you pencil tasks into your day, and Apple Pen
- Apple Rethinks Plan to Merge ‘Hide My Email’ Domain Name With ‘Sign In With Apple’Aug 24, 2026John Gruber
Apple Developer News: Starting later this year, new Sign in with Apple addresses, previously issued on privaterelay.appleid.com, will be issued on private.icloud.com. Existing addresses on privaterelay.appleid.com will continue to work and forward mail to users without interruption. After further consideration and reviewing community feedback, iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.
- ★ What Is the Point of the DMA?Aug 24, 2026John Gruber
Wesley Hilliard, reporting for AppleInsider last week: A report from Irish Independent detailed the European Commission’s response to Apple’s new business terms for the EU. They share that they welcome the changes and will monitor Apple’s implementation of the terms. Here is the EC’s full statement: “The Commission welcomes Apple’s changes to their business terms, which follow a close dialogue bet
- BitCam: The 1-Bit Camera App Turns 2.0Aug 24, 2026John Gruber
10 years ago I wrote about BitCam 1.0: Gorgeous, unbelievably faithful one-bit camera app for iPhone done in the style of the original Mac. A lovely tribute to Bill Atkinson’s remarkable dithering algorithm. “Catnip for old-school Mac users,” says John Siracusa. Check out the fun recent-hire-at-Apple Chris Espinosa is having with it. Originally a creation of The Iconfactory, BitCam is now in the g
- More on TestFlight’s Screwy Sort OrderAug 24, 2026John Gruber
I complained last week that starting with an update last month, the list of apps I’m testing in Apple’s TestFlight app has been sorted alphabetically, rather than by recency. Whatever is going on with this sort order, it isn’t affecting everyone. John Siracusa, amongst many others, has the same problem I do — his list is now alphabetical, and it’s driving him nuts too. Ryan Booker, amongst many ot
- Cooper Sharp Proves That American Cheese Can Be Great CheeseAug 23, 2026John Gruber
John Moltz, in his weekly members-only column for Six Colors (no gift links, but Moltz’s column is worth the subscription in and of itself): This week Anthropic announced that in order to identify AI from human-generated content it would be watermarking all text it generates by subtly altering the randomness at which its models picked the next word. While this might seem a perfectly cromulent mean
- Mark Carney on the U.S. Under Trump: ‘Sometimes, Its Signature Is Written in Pencil’Aug 22, 2026John Gruber
Ian Austen, reporting for The New York Times (gift link): The morning after he pulled negotiators from trade talks in Washington and set off a new round of American tariffs, Prime Minister Mark Carney on Saturday explained to Canadians why he walked away, calling the U.S. proposal “a bad deal.” “We’ve recognized from the start that America has changed,” Mr. Carney said. “We recognize that sometime
- WorkOS: Agents Can Now Sign Up for Your AppAug 22, 2026John Gruber
My thanks to WorkOS for sponsoring the Daring Fireball weekly newsletter this week to promote their Agent Registration. Agents are hitting your signup flow and they’re bouncing off a browser login that was designed for humans. Every one that gives up is a signup you never see. WorkOS Agent Registration turns that traffic into signups. Enroll via the dashboard and AuthKit publishes an auth.md file
- Dutch Regulator Fines Uber $1 Billion for Suspending Dishonest DriversAug 22, 2026John Gruber
Toby Sterling, reporting for Reuters: The Dutch Data Protection Authority has fined Uber €825 million ($966 million) for deactivating driver accounts through automated systems without adequately informing them, according to an August 17 decision reviewed by Reuters. The penalty would be the second-largest issued yet under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation. It is behind only a €1.2 billio
- The Fourth Horseman of the File-Format-Hegemony ApocalypseAug 21, 2026John Gruber
Microsoft’s iPhone app for OneDrive has long supported creating three new document types via a big “+” button right in its file viewer: Excel, Word, PowerPoint. It recently came to my attention that they’ve added a fourth document type, and they even gave it real Microsoft-style “they just have no taste” file icon. Just look at it. The whole world’s coming to an end, Mallory. ★
- Walmart Finally Caves, Will Soon Support Apple PayAug 21, 2026John Gruber
Walmart: When we think about convenience, we think about a lot of things, but making shopping feel simpler and more seamless from start to finish is a big part. And one of the moments where that matters most is at checkout. We want customers and members to have choice in how they pay, so they can check out in the way that works best for them. Now, beginning Aug. 24, we will be adding Tap to Pay to
- ★ When New DF Posts Drop in a Forest and No One Is There to Read ThemAug 21, 2026John Gruber
It occurred to me last night that I’d gotten less feedback regarding recent posts than usual. There were a few items I’d posted in recent days that I felt sure to hear from readers about, both yea and nay. But: nothing. Crickets chirping. I almost always hear from squeaky wheels in the EU when I write about Apple and the DMA, for example, but I heard nothing about my take yesterday that Apple has
- Bluesky’s Active User Base Is Shrinking, and Remains Tiny Compared to Threads and Twitter/XAug 21, 2026John Gruber
Sarah Perez, writing at TechCrunch last week: Decentralized social network Bluesky was one of the bigger beneficiaries of the exodus from Elon Musk’s X in November 2024, following the U.S. elections. But now, nearly two years later, the social network and would-be X competitor is struggling to hold on to its momentum. According to data from digital intelligence provider Similarweb, Bluesky’s mobil
- Bluesky Is Full of Anti-AI ZealotsAug 21, 2026John Gruber
Mike Masnick, in a thread on Bluesky: Multiple people I know have told me that they love the idea of Bluesky, and want it to succeed, but have abandoned it for X because they use agentic tools in their work and find them incredibly useful, and feel that any mention of their usage here leads to hate and ridicule. I wouldn’t bring this up if it was just one person, but it was multiple people since t
- How Bluesky and Threads Sneak Their Logos Into iOS ScreenshotsAug 21, 2026John Gruber
Bluesky and Threads both pull the same trick: When you take a screenshot on iOS of an individual tweet, they replace the “Follow” button in their user interface with their logo. Tim Marinin noticed this in the Bluesky app, got curious, and because they publish the app’s source code, he dug in to figure out how they do this: The answer was in the file literally called GrowthHack.tsx, introduced in
- ★ Apple and European Commission Reach Agreement on App Payment Terms Under DMA, With Apple Conceding Very LittleAug 20, 2026John Gruber
Apple Newsroom, on Tuesday: Apple today announced changes to its business terms for apps in the European Union, following close collaboration with the European Commission. These changes resolve Apple’s disagreements with the Commission over business terms and alternative distribution. They also reduce complexity by moving every developer that distributes apps in the EU to a single set of business
- Gurman Says No Camera-Equipped AirPods Until 2027Aug 20, 2026John Gruber
Mark Gurman, Bloomberg: Earlier this week, a developer version of a Mac computer software update accidentally included references to several upcoming Apple products, including a video of the AirPods with cameras in action. [...] But the product challenges are still being resolved, and the camera AirPods remain off the company’s 2026 release schedule. Apple continues to believe the earbuds will lau
- ★ Apple Screwed Up the TestFlight App’s Sort Order a Month Ago, and It’s Still Screwed Up, but the More I Think About It, the More Clear It Is They Started Screwing This Up 15 Years AgoAug 19, 2026John Gruber
Zac Hall at 9to5Mac, a month ago: Sometimes a small change can make a big impact. That’s especially true for Apple’s latest TestFlight update for users with a lot of pre-release software. Apple just updated TestFlight for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and more. The new version, 4.3, introduces “a search field to quickly find apps.” A quick comparison to version 4.2.2. shows just that: TestFlight now includes
- NBC News Strikes Ad Sales Deal With Taboola for Programmatic Display AdsAug 19, 2026John Gruber
Sara Fischer, Axios: Ad tech giant Taboola has struck a deal with NBC News to exclusively power all of its programmatic, or automated, display advertising sales, CEO Adam Singolda tells Axios. Worked out great for Apple with Apple News. They struck a deal with Taboola two years ago and the ads in Apple News today are super premium and something the company can be really proud of. ★
- [Sponsor] WorkOS: Agents Can Now Sign Up for Your AppAug 19, 2026Daring Fireball Department of Commerce
Agents are hitting your signup flow and bouncing off a browser login built for humans. Every one that gives up is a signup you never see. WorkOS Agent Registration turns that traffic into signups. Enroll via the dashboard and AuthKit publishes an auth.md file agents read to register for scoped, short-lived credentials you control. Make your app agent-ready → ★
- Disney’s ABC Sues Trump’s FCC Over Challenge to Its Broadcast LicenseAug 18, 2026John Gruber
Joe Flint, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (gift link): Walt Disney’s ABC has sued the Federal Communications Commission alleging the agency’s efforts to challenge its broadcast licenses and regulate its talk show “The View” are illegal and an effort to quash speech the Trump administration finds objectionable. In a suit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, ABC said, “Agai
- Apple Gives Legal Middle Finger to DOJ Challenge on Apple’s July Discovery WinAug 18, 2026John Gruber
Marcus Mendes at 9to5Mac has a fun update on U.S. v. Apple, the ill-considered antitrust case started by the Biden administration. A bunch of what the DOJ argues are anticompetitive features in Apple’s platforms, Apple argues are in fact privacy and security related. Back in July Apple won a big discovery ruling — Apple asked for documents from 14 federal agencies — including the CIA, FBI, Departm
- Organized Thieves Are Targeting AI Server Chips With Violent Highway HijackingsAug 18, 2026John Gruber
Paresh Dave and Aarian Marshall, reporting for Wired (News+ link in case Wired hits you with their paywall): The incidents involved two different shipments of high-value technology traveling from Silicon Valley to Southern California, according to Pachuca, who says he learned about the thefts from law enforcement authorities. Each truck was tailed by private security professionals driving unmarked
- ‘Dickover’ Makes It Into The GuardianAug 18, 2026John Gruber
Stuart Heritage, writing for The Guardian, under the splendid headline “Dickovers, Baggravation and Botiquette: 18 New Words to Describe Our Tech Hellscape”: The “dickover” is the scourge of the modern age. Coined in May by John Gruber, a tech writer, it is defined as “a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, deliberately obscuring its own content to frustrate the user”. E