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Source: http://daringfireball.net/index.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<title>Daring Fireball</title>
<subtitle>By John Gruber</subtitle>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/" />
<link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/main" />
<id>https://daringfireball.net/feeds/main</id>
<updated>2025-09-10T17:49:33Z</updated><rights>Copyright © 2025, John Gruber</rights><entry>
<title>iPhones 17 and the Sugar Water Trap</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://stratechery.com/2025/iphones-17-and-the-sugar-water-trap/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wkk" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/10/sugar-water" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42212</id>
<published>2025-09-10T17:48:00Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-10T17:49:33Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Ben Thompson has a wonderful take on yesterday’s event and what it says about Apple overall:
<blockquote>
Apple, to be fair, isn’t selling the same sugar water year-after-year in a zero sum war with other sugar water companies. Their sugar water is getting better, and I think this year’s seasonal concoction is particularly tasty. What is inescapable, however, is that while the company does still make new products — I definitely plan on getting new AirPod Pro 3s! — the company has, in the pursuit of easy profits, constrained the space in which it innovates.
</blockquote>
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘iPhones 17 and the Sugar Water Trap’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/10/sugar-water"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Apple’s Slate of Announcements Yesterday</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wkj" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/10/apple-slate" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42211</id>
<published>2025-09-10T17:09:52Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-10T17:09:53Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Apple Newsroom posts:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/apple-unveils-iphone-17-pro-and-iphone-17-pro-max/">Apple unveils iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/introducing-iphone-air-a-powerful-new-iphone-with-a-breakthrough-design/">Introducing iPhone Air, a powerful new iPhone with a breakthrough design</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/apple-debuts-iphone-17/">Apple debuts iPhone 17</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/apple-debuts-apple-watch-series-11-featuring-groundbreaking-health-insights/">Apple debuts Apple Watch Series 11, featuring groundbreaking health insights</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/introducing-apple-watch-ultra-3/">Introducing Apple Watch Ultra 3</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/apple-introduces-apple-watch-se-3/">Apple introduces Apple Watch SE 3</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/introducing-airpods-pro-3-the-ultimate-audio-experience/">Introducing AirPods Pro 3, the ultimate audio experience</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/09/apple-announces-final-cut-camera-2-0/">Apple announces Final Cut Camera 2.0</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Apple’s Slate of Announcements Yesterday’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/10/apple-slate"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Trump Hosts Dinner Humiliating Tech CEOs</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-tech-ceo-rose-garden-dinner-1fee2de3?st=dsv89K&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wki" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/10/trump-hosts-dinner-humiliating-tech-ceos" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42210</id>
<published>2025-09-10T17:04:36Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-10T17:04:37Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
The Wall Street Journal (gift link):
<blockquote>
President Trump on Thursday led leaders of the world’s biggest
technology companies in a version of his cabinet meetings, in
which each participant takes a turn thanking and praising him,
this time for his efforts to promote investments in chip
manufacturing and artificial intelligence.
Tech titans including Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and OpenAI
CEO Sam Altman said “thank you” to the president, with some laying
out how much their companies plan to invest in the U.S.
“Thank you for being such a pro-business, pro-innovation
president. It’s a very refreshing change,” Altman said. “I think
it’s going to set us up for a long period of leading the world,
and that wouldn’t be happening without your leadership.”
Cook said Apple is expected to invest $600 billion in the U.S. “I
want to thank you for setting the tone such that we can make a
major investment in the United States and have some key
manufacturing here. I think it says a lot about your leadership
and focus on innovation,” Cook said.
</blockquote>
This whole thing was so weird. I know this sounds crazy, but I genuinely think these CEOs were unaware that this dinner was going to be open to the press and filmed. They’re all unprepared and awkward. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t know what number to declare for Meta’s upcoming US infrastructure spend. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRKLRtoQWyU">Tim Cook said this</a>:
<blockquote>
I want to thank you for including me this evening. It’s incredible
to be among everyone here, particularly you and the first lady.
I’ve always enjoyed having dinner and interacting.
</blockquote>
Those are not prepared remarks. I mean, what? He enjoys “having dinner and interacting”?
I’m not going to argue that any of these CEOs, Cook included, are playing this situation right. But it really shows the profound power imbalance. The president of the United States is so astonishingly powerful. And Trump is wielding that power in unprecedented ways. This entire fiasco is embarrassing, but the criticism really ought to be directed at Trump.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Trump Hosts Dinner Humiliating Tech CEOs’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/10/trump-hosts-dinner-humiliating-tech-ceos"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Apple Announces ‘Memory Integrity Enforcement’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://security.apple.com/blog/memory-integrity-enforcement/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wkh" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/10/memory-integrity-enforcement" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42209</id>
<published>2025-09-10T16:49:37Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-10T16:49:38Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Apple Security Engineering and Architecture (SEAR):
<blockquote>
Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) is the culmination of an
unprecedented design and engineering effort, spanning half a
decade, that combines the unique strengths of Apple silicon
hardware with our advanced operating system security to provide
industry-first, always-on memory safety protection across our
devices — without compromising our best-in-class device
performance. We believe Memory Integrity Enforcement represents
the most significant upgrade to memory safety in the history of
consumer operating systems.
</blockquote>
That is, to say the least, an incredibly bold statement. But I think it’s true. This is a fascinating post, cogently written.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Apple Announces ‘Memory Integrity Enforcement’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/10/memory-integrity-enforcement"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Base Storage is 256 GB Across Entire iPhone 17 Lineup</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.macrumors.com/2025/09/09/iphone-17-lineup-starts-256gb-storage/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wkg" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/10/base-storage-256" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42208</id>
<published>2025-09-10T16:31:21Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-10T16:31:21Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:
<blockquote>
For the first time, every model in Apple’s latest flagship iPhone
17 lineup features a base 256GB storage capacity, up from the
lowest 128GB option in the iPhone 16 series. The regular iPhone 17
now comes in 256GB and 512GB storage options, while the all-new
ultra-thin iPhone Air and the iPhone 17 Pro come in 256GB, 512GB,
and 1TB capacities.
Meanwhile, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is offered in the same three
capacities as the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro, but with the
addition of a maximum 2TB option.
</blockquote>
I know it’s been 18 years, but it’s kind of wild to compare today’s storage tiers to the original iPhone’s 4, 8, and 16 GB options.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Base Storage is 256 GB Across Entire iPhone 17 Lineup’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/10/base-storage-256"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>A Few Details Apple Didn’t Mention During Its “Awe-Dropping” Event</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://sixcolors.com/post/2025/09/a-few-details-apple-didnt-mention-during-its-awe-dropping-event/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wkf" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/09/moren-awe-dropping-details" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42207</id>
<published>2025-09-10T02:34:34Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-10T02:46:36Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Dan Moren:
<blockquote>
There were no doubt some shouts of joy when Apple mentioned it had a new version of its MagSafe Battery, but if you want one of those to boost your phone’s longevity, be aware: it’s an iPhone Air exclusive. The key’s in the name <a href="https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MGPG4AM/A/iphone-air-magsafe-battery?">“iPhone Air MagSafe Battery”</a>—Apple says it “was created exclusively for iPhone Air” and only the iPhone Air is listed in the Compatibility section. Sorry iPhone 17/17 Pro users, you’re out of luck. (Alas, the same is true of the <a href="https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MH024ZM/A/iphone-air-bumper-light-blue">new iPhone bumper case too</a>.)
</blockquote>
This is a bit of a bummer. I really love Apple’s old MagSafe Battery Pack. (I’m using one right now, after a long day with lots of phone usage.) I love that they’re making a new one, but it literally only fits on the iPhone Air. It’s so tall that it doesn’t fit under the camera plateau on any other iPhone, new or old.
Another tidbit I didn’t notice during the keynote: it’s not the “iPhone 17 Air”. It’s just “iPhone Air”, no number. I’m not sure what to make of that. If they release a new one next year, will that be the iPhone Air 2?
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘A Few Details Apple Didn’t Mention During Its “Awe-Dropping” Event’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/09/moren-awe-dropping-details"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Another Dyson Presentation</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w9xTE2EuAt8" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wke" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/08/dyson" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42206</id>
<published>2025-09-08T16:47:00Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-08T16:52:23Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
I loved watching this. My takeaway: don’t just say what it does, explain how it does what it does.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Another Dyson Presentation’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/08/dyson"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>TextJam</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://textjam.com/show/demo?df" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wkd" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/07/textjam" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42205</id>
<published>2025-09-07T23:05:55Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-08T18:18:07Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
My thanks to TextJam for sponsoring this past week at DF. TextJam just launched last week, it’s a remarkable “1.0” release — a multi-player text editor / word processor with a novel twist on how humans interact with AI. TextJam introduces the metaphors of “pen” mode for writing in ink, when you know exactly what words you want to write, with “pencil” mode for text you want to use a prompt or just a simple dashed-off starting point for AI assistance. It sounds like it makes intuitive sense, and when you actually try it, it feels even more natural. I really love this metaphor of ink vs. pencil. It leaves you, the writer, in control, but also gives all the assistance you want.
TextJam also has other very clever ideas, like using “pinch” multitouch gestures for resizing text — pinch in to get AI suggestions for making the selected text shorter, pinch out to expand it. TextJam has integrations with all of the most popular LLM systems: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Llama, and more.
And that’s just talking about the cutting-edge AI-type features. TextJam is also a great collaborative editor, where you and your teammates can work together on the same document with really clever interface elements who made — or is currently in the processing of making — which changes.
You can say, “Well, why don’t I just use Google Docs for this?” Right? My answer is just look at the two of them. Google Docs is like 98 percent stuff no one uses and therefore everyone ignores. TextJam is focused on the features people actually use and understand. It just looks and feels so much more more comfortable and stylish.
<a href="https://textjam.com/show/demo?df">Try it today for free</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘TextJam’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/07/textjam"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>A Cynical Read on Anthropic’s Book Settlement</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://spyglass.org/cynical-read-on-anthropics-book-settlement/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wkc" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/06/siegler-cynical-read" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42204</id>
<published>2025-09-06T18:34:55Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-06T18:38:25Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
MG Siegler, writing at Spyglass:
<blockquote>
And so you can’t help but wonder if part of the equation in this settlement wasn’t decidedly more cynical. Fresh off <a href="https://spyglass.org/signal-the-google-antitrust-nuance/#:~:text=%F0%9F%A7%A0%20Anthropic%27s%20%2413B,%5BBloomberg%20%F0%9F%94%92%5D">a new massive fundraise</a> — one in which they raised <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-02/anthropic-completes-new-funding-round-at-183-billion-valuation?embedded-checkout=true&ref=spyglass.org">far more</a> than they were initially targeting, I might add — Anthropic has a lot of money. More than perhaps <a href="https://spyglass.org/openai-ipo-ish/">all but one of their competitors</a> on the startup side. By settling for $1.5B, is Anthropic sort of pulling up a drawbridge, making it so that other startups can’t possibly come into their castle? I mean, am I crazy?
I’m not so sure I am. At $1.5B, there are only a handful of companies that could afford to pay such fines. Certainly OpenAI is one. Maybe xAI. And of course all the tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, <a href="https://spyglass.org/meta-operation-kick-puppies/">and Meta</a>. But could any other startup that has done any level of model training with such data? Probably not.
</blockquote>
Kind of dastardly when you think about it this way.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘A Cynical Read on Anthropic’s Book Settlement’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/06/siegler-cynical-read"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Anthropic to Pay $1.5 Billion to Authors in Landmark AI Settlement</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theverge.com/anthropic/773087/anthropic-to-pay-1-5-billion-to-authors-in-landmark-ai-settlement" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wkb" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/05/anthropic-copyright-settlement" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42203</id>
<published>2025-09-05T21:22:46Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-06T00:14:05Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Hayden Field, reporting for The Verge:
<blockquote>
In what’s potentially the first major payout to creatives whose work was used to train AI systems, Anthropic has reached an agreement to pay “at least” a staggering $1.5 billion, plus interest, to authors to settle its class-action lawsuit. The amount breaks down to smaller payouts expected to be approximately $3,000 per book or work. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said it’s “believed to be the largest publicly reported recovery in the history of US copyright litigation.”
</blockquote>
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Anthropic to Pay $1.5 Billion to Authors in Landmark AI Settlement’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/05/anthropic-copyright-settlement"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Atlassian Acquires The Browser Company for $610 Million</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theverge.com/web/770947/browser-company-arc-dia-acquired-atlassian" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wka" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/04/atlassian-the-browser-company" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42202</id>
<published>2025-09-04T21:35:42Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-04T22:15:34Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
David Pierce, writing for The Verge:
<blockquote>
Mike Cannon-Brookes, the CEO of enterprise software giant
<a href="https://www.atlassian.com/">Atlassian</a>, was one of the first users of <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23462235/arc-web-browser-review">the Arc
browser</a>. Over the last several years, he has been a prolific
bug reporter and feature requester. Now he’ll own the thing:
Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company, the New York-based
startup that makes both Arc and the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/web/685232/dia-browser-ai-arc">new AI-focused Dia
browser</a>. Atlassian is paying $610 million in cash for The
Browser Company, and plans to run it as an independent entity.
The conversations that led to the deal started about a year ago,
says Josh Miller, The Browser Company’s CEO. Lots of Atlassian
employees were using Arc, and “they reached out wondering, how
could we get more enterprise-ready?” Miller says. Big companies
require data privacy, security, and management features in the
software they use, and The Browser Company didn’t offer enough
of them.
</blockquote>
I get it. Later in the same article, there’s this:
<blockquote>
As for what this all means for The Browser Company’s browsers,
it’s still too early to say for sure. Miller promises no
favored-nation features for Atlassian products, nor any Microsoft
Edge-style popups begging you to sign up for Jira. Miller says the
team is even more committed to being a truly cross-platform
product, and that Windows in particular is about to get a lot more
attention.
</blockquote>
But “How could we get more enterprise-ready?” has never been a north-star principle for great user-focused software. I personally have never seen the appeal of Arc or Dia, but Safari truly speaks to me and my taste. Alternative browsers, by definition, are meant for people who are dissatisfied with existing browsers. So while I don’t use Arc or Dia, I’ve always been rooting for The Browser Company. I even dig the company name.
But this seems like bad news. I just don’t see how Atlassian/Jira DNA can possibly be a good thing to inject into an innovative user-focused web browser.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Atlassian Acquires The Browser Company for $610 Million’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/04/atlassian-the-browser-company"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Investors Score the US-v.-Google Remedies Ruling a Win for Google and Apple</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/judge-bars-google-from-exclusive-search-deals-orders-data-sharing-e65a2191?st=VJ33DJ&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wk9" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/04/investors-google-apple-mehta-decision" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42201</id>
<published>2025-09-04T21:00:46Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-04T21:02:41Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Dave Michaels and Katherine Blunt, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (gift link):
<blockquote>
“There are strong reasons not to jolt the system and to allow
market forces to do the work,” Mehta wrote.
Wall Street analysts scored the ruling a huge win for Google and
Apple since it allowed an existing arrangement to continue in
which Google pays Apple more than $20 billion a year to be the
default search provider on the Safari browser.
</blockquote>
I’m picking nits here, but I think part of the ruling is that Google can no longer pay to be the default search engine. And, in my opinion, they never needed to, and never should have put that into their contracts for these deals. They’re just paying Apple (and Mozilla, and Samsung, and others) for the actual search traffic that goes to Google from those companies’ browsers. It’s up to Apple whether Google is the default Safari search engine (which it is, and will continue to be). It just won’t be in the terms of the deal that Google search has to be the default.
<blockquote>
The ruling paves the way for the two companies to partner further
on AI-related services on Apple devices, analysts said. Apple
currently has a deal with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into various
iPhone services. Apple and Google have had talks about striking a
similar deal for Google’s AI system called Gemini.
</blockquote>
I wonder if this antitrust ruling was the holdup on Apple announcing Gemini as an Apple Intelligence partner? Apple, famously, almost never talks about future plans, but at last year’s WWDC, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/10/apple-confirms-plans-to-work-with-googles-gemini-in-the-future/">Craig Federighi made conspicuous mention</a> of Google Gemini as a potential Apple Intelligence partner — and now here we are 14 months later and it hasn’t yet happened.
Also, re: this decision being largely a win for Google — <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/04/is_chrome_even_a_sellable_asset">it just never made sense to me that Chrome even is a sellable asset</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Investors Score the US-v.-Google Remedies Ruling a Win for Google and Apple’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/04/investors-google-apple-mehta-decision"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Instagram Finally Launches an iPad App</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/instagram-for-ipad/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wk8" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/04/instagram-ipad" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42200</id>
<published>2025-09-04T20:22:25Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-04T20:22:26Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
There are finallys, and there are finallys. Apple shipped the original iPad in April 2010. Instagram shipped in October 2010 — <a href="https://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/04/19/phil-schiller-quits-instagram/">and was iPhone-exclusive until 2012</a>. That Instagram didn’t ship a native iPad version of its app until now is really one of the strangest things in tech. But here it is.
One significant difference from Instagram on phones is that on iPad, it defaults to the Reels view, and you have to tap below Reels in the sidebar to get to your following timeline. Adam Mosseri explains their thinking behind this <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOJWGJyETYq/?igsh=MWFwMXNsdWFwNHp1ZQ==">in this Reel</a> (natch).
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Instagram Finally Launches an iPad App’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/04/instagram-ipad"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Google Avoids Harshest Penalties in Search Monopoly Ruling</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/technology/google-search-antitrust-decision.html" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wk7" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/04/google-avoids-harshest-penalties-in-search-monopoly-ruling" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42199</id>
<published>2025-09-04T19:48:38Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-04T19:48:38Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
David McCabe, reporting for The New York Times:
<blockquote>
Google must hand over its search results and some data to rival
companies but does not need to break itself up by selling its
Chrome web browser, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. The
decision, by Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia, falls short of the sweeping changes
proposed by the government to rein in the power of Silicon Valley.
Judge Mehta said in the 223-page ruling that Google must share
some of its search data with “qualified competitors” to resolve
its monopoly. The Justice Department had asked the judge to force
the company to share even more of its data, arguing it was key to
Google’s dominance.
Judge Mehta also put restrictions on payments that Google uses to
ensure its search engine gets prime placement in web browsers and
on smartphones. But he stopped short of banning those payments
entirely and did not grant the government’s request that Google be
forced to sell Chrome, which the government said was necessary to
remedy the company’s power as a search monopoly.
“Notwithstanding this power, courts must approach the task of
crafting remedies with a healthy dose of humility,” Judge Mehta
said in Tuesday’s decision. “This court has done so.”
</blockquote>
No forced divestiture of Chrome or Android, and Google is allowed to continue making traffic acquisition cost payments to companies like Apple (for search in Safari) and Mozilla (for search in Firefox). The decision seems very reasonable to me. And while <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205.1436.0_4.pdf">the entire ruling</a> is 223 pages, Judge Mehta included a good summary at the front. You can get a feel for it just by reading the first few pages.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Google Avoids Harshest Penalties in Search Monopoly Ruling’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/04/google-avoids-harshest-penalties-in-search-monopoly-ruling"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://textjam.com/show/demo?df" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/wk6" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2025/09/textjam" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/feeds/sponsors//11.42198</id>
<author><name>Daring Fireball Department of Commerce</name></author>
<published>2025-09-02T23:00:49Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-02T23:00:49Z</updated>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
We’re excited to launch TextJam this week, a multi-player editor with a novel twist on how humans interact with AI. Ever tried to “AI chat” your way to a polished piece of writing, and wanted more control over the result?
TextJam has new inventions that make it easy to tell the AI what to keep and what to change, so you can get from draft to done faster. From typing in pen and pencil, to multi-touch gestures that intelligently resize text, TextJam is a bold new take on what a word processor can be. <a href="https://textjam.com/show/demo?df">Try it today for free</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘TextJam’" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2025/09/textjam"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
<title>[Sponsor] TextJam</title></entry><entry>
<title>Bernie Sanders: Kennedy Must Resign</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/opinion/bernie-sanders-robert-f-kennedy-jr-resign-hhs.html" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wk5" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/01/sanders-rfk-jr-resign" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42197</id>
<published>2025-09-01T22:16:02Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-01T22:16:02Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Bernie Sanders, in a NYT op-ed:
<blockquote>
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services,
is endangering the health of the American people now and into the
future. He must resign.
Mr. Kennedy and the rest of the Trump administration tell us, over
and over, that they want to Make America Healthy Again. That’s a
great slogan. I agree with it. The problem is that since coming
into office President Trump and Mr. Kennedy have done exactly the
opposite.
</blockquote>
Powerful and to the point. Sanders, unlike the nine former CDC directors whose joint op-ed ran the next day, doesn’t pull punches. But there’s no point demanding Kennedy resign, because he won’t. Sanders, and the rest of us, should call on Trump to fire him. The buck stops with Trump. Trump fires his appointees all the time. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_short-tenure_Donald_Trump_political_appointments">Almost no one lasted long</a> in the Trump 1.0 administration, and it’s unlikely anyone will last long in the Trump 2.0 administration. (Including, perhaps, Trump himself, <a href="https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/it-s-time-to-have-a-serious-conversation-about-trump-s-health">who is clearly unwell</a>.) Kennedy ought to be the first to go.
Trump smells it too, hence <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115128985245605660">this “both sides” post on his blog this morning</a>. Public opinion is strongly against this abject vaccine quackery.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Bernie Sanders: Kennedy Must Resign’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/01/sanders-rfk-jr-resign"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Nine Former Directors of the CDC: ‘RFK Jr. Is Endangering Every American’s Health’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/opinion/cdc-leaders-kennedy.html" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wk4" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/01/former-cdc-directors" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42196</id>
<published>2025-09-01T22:05:14Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-01T22:05:14Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
William Foege, William Roper, David Satcher, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Rochelle P. Walensky, and Mandy K. Cohen — all of them former directors of the CDC, under every president from Jimmy Carter to Trump — in a co-bylined op-ed for the NYT:
<blockquote>
What the health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy
Jr., has done to the C.D.C. and to our nation’s public health
system over the past several months — culminating in his decision
to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as C.D.C. director days ago — is unlike
anything we had ever seen at the agency and unlike anything our
country had ever experienced.
Mr. Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/health/cdc-layoffs-kennedy.html">severely weakened</a> programs designed to protect Americans
from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury,
violence and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United
States in a generation, he’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/02/health/measles-treatments-vaccines-kennedy.html">focused on</a> unproven
treatments while downplaying vaccines. He <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/health/rfk-jr-vaccine-funding.html">canceled</a>
investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill
prepared for future health emergencies. He <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/well/vaccines-cdc-rfk-jr.html">replaced</a>
experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified
individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He
announced the end of U.S. support for global vaccination programs
that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe,
<a href="https://www.statnews.com/2025/07/02/rfk-jr-vaccines-former-cdc-director-tom-frieden-says-kennedy-mangled-science-in-gavi-decision/">citing</a> flawed research and making inaccurate statements.
And he <a href="https://x.com/SecKennedy/status/1940089073391018352">championed</a> federal legislation that will cause
millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to
<a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-06/Wyden-Pallone-Neal_Letter_6-4-25.pdf">lose</a> their coverage. Firing Dr. Monarez — which led to
the resignations of top C.D.C. officials — adds considerable fuel
to this raging fire. [...]
This is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American,
regardless of political leanings.
</blockquote>
It’s good that they’re speaking up, but it’s too mealy-mouthed. What’s going on at HHS under Kennedy isn’t merely “unacceptable” and “alarming”. It’s outrageous and shocking.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Nine Former Directors of the CDC: ‘RFK Jr. Is Endangering Every American’s Health’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/01/former-cdc-directors"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>The Talk Show: ‘Ersatz PopSocket’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2025/08/31/ep-430" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wk3" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/01/the-talk-show-430" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42195</id>
<published>2025-09-01T19:30:03Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-01T19:30:03Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
For your holiday listening enjoyment: Special guest Andru Edwards joins the show. Topics include Google’s Pixel 10 event and the Pixel 10 family of devices, AI’s effect on computational photography, foldable phones, and some speculation on Apple’s September 9 “Awe Dropping” event.
<audio
src = "https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/daringfireball/thetalkshow-430-andru-edwards.mp3"
controls
preload = "none"
/>
Sponsored by:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://squarespace.com/talkshow">Squarespace</a>: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code talkshow.</li>
<li><a href="https://sentry.io/talkshow">Sentry</a>: A real-time error monitoring and tracing platform. Get 3 months and 150,000 errors free.</li>
<li><a href="https://notion.com/talkshow">Notion</a>: The best AI tool for work, with your notes, docs, and projects in one space.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘The Talk Show: ‘Ersatz PopSocket’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/09/01/the-talk-show-430"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Walk the World</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/walk-the-world-virtual-trails/id6743502929" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wk1" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/31/walk-the-world" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42193</id>
<published>2025-08-31T15:59:00Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-01T19:27:53Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
My thanks to Impending for sponsoring last week at DF to promote their new app, Walk the World. You surely know some of Impending’s other apps, like the innovative checklist/task app <a href="https://www.useclear.com/">Clear</a>. Walk the World turns your steps — your real-world activity — into a new kind of virtual globe-trotting adventure. 
Wouldn’t it be cool to know you’ve walked the length of the Boston Marathon this past week? You can conquer iconic hikes and trails from around the world presented as gorgeous map milestones to complete with your hard earned steps. It’s a genuinely novel idea for gamifying activity, executed with an exquisite attention to detail and exuberant sense of joy. Walk the World isn’t quite a game, but it delivers game-like fun.
If you enjoy or aspire to go on walks more regularly, and beautiful indie apps with fun new twists, this is your new healthy addiction. <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/walk-the-world-virtual-trails/id6743502929">Try Walk the World free today for your iPhone</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Walk the World’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/31/walk-the-world"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Vintage Macintosh Programming Book Library</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://vintageapple.org/macprogramming/index_year.html" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wk2" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/31/vintage-macintosh-programming-book-library" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42194</id>
<published>2025-08-31T15:11:58Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-31T15:44:00Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
One more for my <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/30/notable-improvements-to-coding-intelligence-in-xcode-26-beta-7">weekend</a> <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/31/sosumi-ai">spate</a> of developer posts, but from the opposite of the LLM-assisted cutting edge: this wonderful collection of classic-era Mac programming books, carefully scanned as PDFs. These evoke nostalgia both for the classic Mac era and for the entire notion of “programming books”. (Via <a href="https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/08/29/vintage-macintosh-programming-book-library/">Michael Tsai</a> and <a href="https://taoofmac.com/space/links/2025/07/24/2130">Rui Carmo</a>.)
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Vintage Macintosh Programming Book Library’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/31/vintage-macintosh-programming-book-library"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>sosumi.ai: Apple Developer Docs for LLMs</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://sosumi.ai/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wk0" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/31/sosumi-ai" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42192</id>
<published>2025-08-31T13:54:38Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-31T15:02:42Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Sosumi.ai:
<blockquote>
Ever notice Claude struggling to write Swift code? It might not be
their fault!
Apple Developer docs are locked behind JavaScript, making them
invisible to most LLMs. If they try to fetch it, all they see is
“This page requires JavaScript. Please turn on JavaScript in your
browser and refresh the page to view its content.”
This service translates Apple Developer documentation pages into
AI-friendly Markdown.
</blockquote>
Perfect little audio easter egg on the page. Beautiful Markdown output too. Look at <a href="https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/">my boy</a>, all grown up, teaching robots how to program.
I do regret, though, that I didn’t define or influence the <a href="https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/writing-on-github/working-with-advanced-formatting/creating-and-highlighting-code-blocks">fenced style for code blocks</a>. If I had, instead of this:
<pre><code>```swift
// An array of 'Int' elements
let oddNumbers = [1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15]
```
</code></pre>
You could do this, which looks so much better:
<pre><code>``` Swift:
// An array of 'Int' elements
let oddNumbers = [1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15]
```
</code></pre>
Those all-lowercase language identifiers, with no preceding space, just look a little lazy. I realize why GitHub’s <code>```</code>-fenced code blocks took off (they’re the only code block style most Markdown users know, I suspect), but they <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/31/sosumi-ai.text">don’t look nearly as nice</a>, to human readers, as <a href="https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax#precode">my original tab-indented style</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘sosumi.ai: Apple Developer Docs for LLMs’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/31/sosumi-ai"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Notable Improvements to Coding Intelligence in Xcode 26 Beta 7</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode-release-notes/xcode-26-release-notes" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjz" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/30/notable-improvements-to-coding-intelligence-in-xcode-26-beta-7" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42191</id>
<published>2025-08-30T16:01:43Z</published>
<updated>2025-09-01T14:22:36Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
From Apple’s Xcode 26 Beta 7 release notes:
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Claude in Xcode is now available in the Intelligence settings
panel, allowing users to seamlessly add their existing paid
Claude account to Xcode and start using Claude Sonnet 4.
(155826755)</li>
<li>When using ChatGPT in Xcode, users can now start a new
conversation with either GPT-4.1 or GPT-5, with GPT-5 set as the
default. (158342780)</li>
<li>ChatGPT in Xcode provides two model choices. “GPT-5” is
optimized for quick, high-quality results, and should work well
for most coding tasks. For difficult tasks, choose “GPT-5
(Reasoning)“, which spends more time thinking before responding,
and can provide more accurate results for complex coding tasks.
In the OpenAI API, “GPT-5” corresponds to the “minimal”
reasoning level, and “GPT-5 (Reasoning)” corresponds to the
“low” reasoning level. (159135374)</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
That’s just three weeks from the <a href="https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-5/">launch of ChatGPT 5</a> to shipping support in Xcode. Also, these are just the built-in integrations. As announced at WWDC, Xcode 26 allows developers to use their API keys from other AI providers, or connect to models running locally, on-device (if they’re using an Apple Silicon Mac).
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Notable Improvements to Coding Intelligence in Xcode 26 Beta 7’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/30/notable-improvements-to-coding-intelligence-in-xcode-26-beta-7"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Trump Fires CDC Director, Anti-Vax Wingnuts Now Running Asylum</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.semafor.com/article/08/28/2025/white-house-fires-cdc-director-over-vaccine-disagreements" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjy" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/28/trump-fires-cdc-director" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42190</id>
<published>2025-08-28T14:49:45Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-28T14:49:46Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Shelby Talcott, reporting under the euphemistic headline “White House Fires CDC Director Over Vaccine Disagreements”:
<blockquote>
A showdown at the CDC culminated in the White House formally
firing its director, Susan Monarez, <a href="https://x.com/shelbytalcott/status/1960879360870633833">on Wednesday night</a>.
Monarez was ousted earlier in the day, after Health and Human
Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked her to step down
amid disagreements over changing vaccine policies, The Washington
Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/08/27/susan-monarez-cdc-director-ousted/">reported</a> — and HHS confirmed her departure.
But Monarez’s lawyer, Mark Zaid, pushed back. Zaid said in a
statement later that a White House staffer had delivered the news,
and given that Monarez is a Senate-confirmed officer, “only the
president himself can fire” her. “For this reason, we reject the
notification Dr. Monarez has received as legally deficient and she
remains as CDC Director,” Zaid said.
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/health/cdc-monarez-kennedy-vaccines.html">Four other top</a> CDC directors also resigned Wednesday.
“These high profile departures will require oversight by the”
Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, panel
chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., <a href="https://x.com/senbillcassidy/status/1960895774079799344?s=46">posted</a> on X.
</blockquote>
The “White House” didn’t fire Monarez. Donald Trump did. And while technically, she was fired over “vaccine disagreements”, yes, those disagreements weren’t scientific or medical. It was science on one side, and abject quackery on the other. We really needed the CDC five years ago. We’re in big trouble if we need them again before the US electorate ousts these wingnuts.
Here’s a headline, and coverage, from The Guardian that captures the situation with clarity and without mincing words: “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/aug/27/cdc-resignation-susan-monarez-trump-administration-us-politics-updates-rfk-jr">CDC Chief ‘Targeted’ for Refusing to ‘Rubber-Stamp Unscientific, Reckless Directives’, Lawyers Say</a>”
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Trump Fires CDC Director, Anti-Vax Wingnuts Now Running Asylum’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/28/trump-fires-cdc-director"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>How AirPods Work</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://nebula.tv/videos/realengineering-the-hidden-design-of-the-apple-airpod/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjx" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/28/how-airpods-work" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42189</id>
<published>2025-08-28T14:18:39Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-28T22:27:49Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Truly phenomenal video from Real Engineering about a genuinely phenomenal product. In my <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2023/09/airpods_pro_2_usbc">review of the AirPods Pro 2 in 2023</a> — a year after they originally shipped, when the cases were changed to use USB-C — I called them “the best single expression of Apple as a company today”. That remains true. AirPods exemplify everything that sets Apple apart: miniaturization, “it just works” ease of use, opinionated design (you get them in any color you want, so long as it’s white), and, most of all, joyfulness.
It occurs to me that Apple doesn’t brag enough about its engineering accomplishments these days. Under their previous CEO, they’d spend more time in product introduction explaining how things work, like a lecture in a 101 college course. I miss that. This Real Engineering video fills in those gaps.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘How AirPods Work’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/28/how-airpods-work"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Masimo Sues U.S. Customs and Border Protection Over Apple Watch Blood Oxygen Ruling</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/masimo-sues-us-customs-over-apple-restoring-watchs-oxygen-tool" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjw" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/27/masimo-sues-cbp" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42188</id>
<published>2025-08-27T15:47:20Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-31T14:21:23Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Christopher Yasiejko, reporting last week for Bloomberg Law:
<blockquote>
CBP exceeded its authority in an Aug. 1 internal advice ruling
that overturned its own January decision without notice or input
from Masimo, the medical-device maker said in a <a href="https://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/MASIMOCORPORATIONvUNITEDSTATESCUSTOMSANDBORDERPROTECTIONetalDocke?doc_id=X7CR5AGJN19VIQVF66HVETLJRF">complaint</a>
filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the District of
Columbia. Masimo brought claims under the Administrative Procedure
Act and the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://rulings.cbp.gov/ruling/H351038">The CBP ruling is available here</a>.  As I read the CPB ruling, Apple’s argument goes something like this:
Masimo’s patents (the validity of which Apple disputes, but that’s neither here nor there for this ruling) cover a non-invasive device worn on the user’s body, that reads blood oxygen levels by shining light of various wavelengths through the skin, computes the reading on the device, and shows the result on device. With Apple’s workaround for watches sold in the US, the computation and the display of results occur off-device (on the paired iPhone), and thus the “redesigned” blood oxygen feature doesn’t violate Masimo’s patents.
The CBP’s investigation centered around whether the Masimo patents were “limiting” — which seems to mean a device that does all these things: the sensors, the computation of results, and the display of results. Masimo argued that the patents weren’t limiting, and apparently made no argument for how the import ban on Apple Watches should stand if the patents were found by CBP to be limiting. The CBP asked the International Trade Commission — the outfit that instituted the import ban — whether they considered the Masimo patents to be limiting, and the ITC responded yes, they did, that that was the entire basis of the import ban.
<a href="https://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/MASIMOCORPORATIONvUNITEDSTATESCUSTOMSANDBORDERPROTECTIONetalDocke?doc_id=X7CR5AGJN19VIQVF66HVETLJRF">Masimo’s new complaint against the CBP</a> makes mention of Apple’s Trump-pleasing <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/02/apple-will-spend-more-than-500-billion-usd-in-the-us-over-the-next-four-years/">series</a> <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/07/apple-expands-us-supply-chain-with-500-million-usd-commitment/">of</a> <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/08/apple-increases-us-commitment-to-600-billion-usd-announces-ambitious-program/">announcements</a> related to investments in US manufacturing, leaving it to the reader to interpet the implication that there’s a quid pro quo at play with the CBP ruling. But the CBP ruling’s timeline makes clear that much of the investigation took place during the Biden administration in 2024. It reads to me like that same decision would have been made, at the same time, if Kamala Harris had won last year’s election. But that’s the problem with a pay-to-play corrupt government like Trump’s, and Tim Cook’s willingness to play along to any degree, no matter how mild. By currying favor with Trump, it now looks like any decision from the U.S. government that goes in Apple’s favor might be because Apple curried favored with Trump. I genuinely do not believe that’s the case here. The ITC ruling was based on an interpretation of Masimo’s patents that they were limited to user-worn devices that read, compute, and display blood oxygen levels non-invasively, and given that U.S. Apple Watches no longer compute or display the results, they no longer violate Masimo’s patents.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Masimo Sues U.S. Customs and Border Protection Over Apple Watch Blood Oxygen Ruling’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/27/masimo-sues-cbp"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>The Talk Show: ‘Weird Turtle Fake Out’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2025/08/25/ep-429" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjv" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/the-talk-show-429" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42187</id>
<published>2025-08-27T02:19:37Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-27T02:19:53Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Matthew Panzarino returns to the show. Topics include 007 logo creator Joe Caroff’s death at 103, Google’s weird “Made by Google” event hosted by Jimmy Fallon, the UK supposedly dropping its demand for an iCloud encryption backdoor, and Apple’s workaround for the Apple Watch blood oxygen sensor patent stalemate.
<audio
src = "https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/daringfireball/thetalkshow-429-matthew-panzarino.mp3"
controls
preload = "none"
/>
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<ul>
<li><a href="https://squarespace.com/talkshow">Squarespace</a>: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code talkshow.</li>
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<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘The Talk Show: ‘Weird Turtle Fake Out’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/the-talk-show-429"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>MacSurfer Returns Under New Ownership</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://macsurfer.com/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wju" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/macsurfer-returns" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42186</id>
<published>2025-08-27T01:37:16Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-27T01:37:17Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
After a 25-year run, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/03/02/macsurfer">the website MacSurfer closed in 2020</a>. But, as brought to my attention <a href="https://pxlnv.com/linklog/macsurfer-returns/">two weeks ago by Nick Heer</a>, MacSurfer quietly returned in June. No one seemed to notice until this month.
The original MacSurfer was a bit of a weird site. Content-wise it was a daily headline aggregator, with no original news or commentary. That made a lot of sense in 1995 and for a few years thereafter, when the web was new. I remember reading it somewhat regularly back then. But one never really “read” MacSurfer — you scanned it. Even the name harks back to the very early web, when, <a href="https://www.netmom.com/surfing/who-invented-surfing-the-internet">somehow</a>, the idiom “surfing the Internet” took hold. (Thus <a href="https://music.apple.com/us/album/surfin-safari/1442871699">leading to</a> the name “Safari” for a web browser.) But MacSurfer stopped making as much sense with the advent of RSS, when it became easy to create your own custom aggregated collection of website sources. I didn’t want to dance on MacSurfer’s grave when it closed shop in 2020, but at the time, I couldn’t believe it hadn’t closed long before.
The revived MacSurfer hasn’t changed the concept, so I’m not sure who will read it now either. A firehose has a purpose, but it’s not for drinking.
The other thing that always struck me as strange about MacSurfer is that it was anonymous. There was no credit as to who was behind it. <a href="https://macdailynews.com/">MacDailyNews</a> is similar: longstanding and anonymous, and, to a lesser degree than MacSurfer, a bit of a firehose. But MacDailyNews’s unnamed author adds commentary to his posts. <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/06/11/imessage-for-android">Crackpot</a> <a href="https://macdailynews.com/tag/president-trump/">wingnut</a> commentary, oftentimes, but commentary nonetheless. Pseudonyms have a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain">long</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell">storied</a> history. But I think it’s weird — and <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2024/12/on_the_accountability_of_unnamed_public_relations_spokespeople#fn3-2024-12-14">somewhat suspicious</a> — not to put any name at all on your work.
The new MacSurfer, like the old one, remains unsigned. But after <a href="https://schwarztech.net/articles/macsurfer-is-back">Eric Schwarz started blogging about</a> the mysterious return of the site after its half-decade absence, the new owner, Ken Turner, reached out and <a href="https://schwarztech.net/articles/interview-with-macsurfers-new-owner-ken-turner">agreed to an interview</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘MacSurfer Returns Under New Ownership’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/macsurfer-returns"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Apple to Debut TechWoven Cases for iPhone 17 Lineup</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://majinbuofficial.com/iphone-17-new-tech-woven-case-unveiled/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjt" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/majin-bu-techwoven" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42185</id>
<published>2025-08-27T00:51:45Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-27T01:40:12Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Supply chain leaker Majin Bu has the scoop, including photos of the cases and their packaging, of Apple’s second attempt at a fabric-based successor to leather iPhone cases. Apple’s first attempt two years ago, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/search/finewoven">FineWoven</a>, was so unpopular that they didn’t even offer a premium level of Apple-branded cases last year with the iPhones 16.
Apple dropped all use of leather two years ago, including watch bands and wallets. FineWoven was kind of shitty for those too — it just wasn’t a durable material, but Apple put it to use on products that demand durability. I mean that’s the entire point of an iPhone case in particular. These new TechWoven cases look good, and I doubt Apple will make the same durability mistake twice. The new cases have metal buttons (yay) but also a bottom lip on the case (boo). No word yet on whether Apple will replace FineWoven with TechWoven for <a href="https://www.apple.com/shop/watch/bands/finewoven">Apple Watch bands</a> and <a href="https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MA6W4ZM/A/iphone-finewoven-wallet-with-magsafe-black">MagSafe Wallets</a> too, but I bet they will. I doubt we’ll ever hear the word “FineWoven” again.
(Majin Bu has <a href="https://majinbuofficial.com/iphone-17-new-liquid-silicone-cases-official-colors-revealed/">leaked photos of Apple’s new silicone cases</a>, too.)
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Apple to Debut TechWoven Cases for iPhone 17 Lineup’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/majin-bu-techwoven"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Elon Musk Bullshit Watch</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1958852874236305793" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjs" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/musk-bullshit-watch" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42184</id>
<published>2025-08-26T22:36:56Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-26T22:36:57Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Elon Musk, Friday:
<blockquote>
Join @xAI and help build a purely AI software company called
Macrohard. It’s a tongue-in-cheek name, but the project is
very real!
In principle, given that software companies like Microsoft do not
themselves manufacture any physical hardware, it should be
possible to simulate them entirely with AI.
</blockquote>
If it’s “a purely AI software company” why do they need to hire anyone?
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Elon Musk Bullshit Watch’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/musk-bullshit-watch"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Tulsi Gabbard Says the U.K. Government Has Backed Down From Its Demand for an iCloud Backdoor</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://x.com/DNIGabbard/status/1957623737232007638" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjr" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/gabbar-uk-icloud-backdoor" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42183</id>
<published>2025-08-26T22:35:51Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-27T03:01:01Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Tulsi Gabbard — who, believe it or not, is the US director of national intelligence — on X last week:
<blockquote>
Over the past few months, I’ve been working closely with our
partners in the UK, alongside @POTUS and @VP, to ensure Americans’
private data remains private and our Constitutional rights and
civil liberties are protected.
As a result, the UK has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to
provide a “back door” that would have enabled access to the
protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on
our civil liberties.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdj2m3rrk74o">BBC News</a>:
<blockquote>
The BBC understands Apple has not yet received any formal
communication from either the US or UK governments. “We do not
comment on operational matters, including confirming or denying
the existence of such notices,” a UK government spokesperson said.
</blockquote>
Back in February, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/02/apple_pulls_advanced_data_protection_from_the_uk">Apple pulled the Advanced Data Protection feature of iCloud from the UK</a>, in what it deemed a necessary move to comply with the UK demand. Until and if Apple restores the ADP feature in the UK, I wouldn’t consider this over. I hope it’s true, but a Trump official tweeting that it’s true doesn’t make it true.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Tulsi Gabbard Says the U.K. Government Has Backed Down From Its Demand for an iCloud Backdoor’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/gabbar-uk-icloud-backdoor"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>‘Less Fun Than a Barrel of Crackers’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://johnmccoy.org/2025/08/25/less-fun-than-a-barrel-of-crackers/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjq" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/cracker-barrel-mccoy" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42182</id>
<published>2025-08-26T21:42:17Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-27T15:03:06Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
John McCoy, on the supposedly controversial Cracker Barrel rebranding:
<blockquote>
But just because I doubt that these choices were motivated by
politics doesn’t mean the detractors don’t have a point: something
basic is being lost here. In both cases the companies have
discarded character and context in an effort to streamline their
identity. <a href="https://johnmccoy.org/2016/05/12/give-us-those-nice-bright-colors-give-us-the-greens-of-summer/">I have written previously</a> about the often
misguided penchant art directors have towards simplifying their
brands. I suspect that the lion’s share (ha) of this tendency is
simply following trends, and the current fashion in corporate
design is simple, flat typography and short (often single-word)
brand names. To the extent that someone actually gave this a
thought, the rationale is to remove any attributes that might
complicate a consumer’s attitude towards the brand. It also
reflects the desire of new executives to mark their territory by
peeing on it — see <a href="https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/branding-experts-max-renamed-hbo-max-1236399788/">HBO’s constant rebranding</a>, or Elon
Musk <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcuscollins/2023/07/30/the-real-lesson-to-be-learned-from-twitters-rebrand/">destroying the only part of Twitter that had any
value</a>, its name recognition.
If you want to be charitable, and I try to be when I can, the move
towards brand simplification also reflects a longstanding adage in
design — be it visual art, design, writing, or engineering: “less
is more.” This saying, often misattributed to Mies van der Rohe,
emphasizes clarity and utility. The goal is to focus on what is
essential. Practitioners of this belief make outsized claims about
the effects of this approach.
</blockquote>
This is <a href="https://sixcolors.com/link/2025/08/the-relentless-drive-toward-simplified-design/">via Jason Snell at Six Colors</a>, and, on the presumption that all of you have the good sense to read Six Colors regularly, I’d let you encounter McCoy’s post there, but for my need to make a few side points, gleaned from Threads:
<ul>
<li>The “controversy” is regarding the removal of the Uncle Herschel mascot (the <a href="https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/ezbx27y">cracker</a>) and the barrel. But <a href="https://www.threads.com/@jw/post/DN0oNKqYtO_">Josh Williams argues</a> that the lettering itself is nicely done in the new mark, and I agree. But I also agree with McCoy’s larger point that minimalistic rebrandings are simply trendy and Cracker Barrel is <a href="https://x.com/paulg/status/1959366015382589502">very late to the trend</a>, which, like all trends, will surely soon reverse.</li>
<li>That it’s a controversy at all <a href="https://www.threads.com/@spleenyone/post/DNsmnCf4sfx">is the work of activist investor Sardar Biglari</a>, CEO of midwest chain Steak ’n Shake. (Biglari’s father was a general under the Shah of Iran, and the family had to flee after the revolution.) Biglari has been trying to take over Cracker Barrel, Carl Icahn corporate-raider-style, for 15 years. That’s why Steak ’n Shake has been <a href="https://x.com/SteaknShake/status/1958956619070677489">stoking the supposed controversy about Cracker Barrel on its X account</a>. And Steak ’n Shake, under Biglari’s leadership, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/forwardsfromgrandma/comments/1m9s3wz/whats_been_going_on_with_steak_n_shake/">has been all-in as a MAGA brand</a> whilst <a href="https://www.qsrmagazine.com/story/evolving-steak-n-shake-has-closed-200-locations-since-2018/">closing over 200 restaurants in the last 7 years</a>. You can like or dislike the Cracker Barrel rebranding, but it’s not “woke”. It’s just minimal. The idea that it’s “woke” is just nonsense promulgated by Biglari to get the result we’re actually seeing, where pro-Trump media outlets (like Fox News) pick up on the rebranding as somehow “woke”, Cracker Barrel gets bad publicity and their stock price suffers, and maybe Biglari gets a chance to take over the chain, which is all he cares about.</li>
<li>Last word <a href="https://www.threads.com/@dreamwieber/post/DNyPmXmUk-0">goes to Gregory Wieber</a>.</li>
</ul>
Update, 27 August: <a href="https://x.com/crackerbarrel/status/1960475658116632865?">Cracker Barrel cries uncle</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘‘Less Fun Than a Barrel of Crackers’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/cracker-barrel-mccoy"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Apple Event on September 9: ‘Awe Dropping’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.macrumors.com/2025/08/26/apple-september-2025-event/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjp" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/apple-event-awe-dropping" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42181</id>
<published>2025-08-26T17:55:32Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-26T17:55:32Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Right on schedule: second Tuesday of September, so long as that second Tuesday doesn’t fall on September 11. (<a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/08/26/apple-event-glowtime">Last year’s event</a> went on Monday 9 September, probably because the Harris-Trump debate was already scheduled for Tuesday the 10th.) There’s <a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2025/08/26/apple-event-2025-interactive-logo/">an interactive animated version</a> of the “heat map” event logo on <a href="https://www.apple.com/">Apple’s homepage</a>. (A little bit odd that the second item below the event announcement, after a back-to-school promotion, is a “Meet the iPhone 16 family” promotion.)
Expected announcements for this event include:
<ul>
<li>iPhones 17 (regular, Pro, Air)</li>
<li>Apple Watch Series 11 and Ultra 3</li>
<li><a href="https://www.macrumors.com/2025/08/25/airpods-pro-3-coming-this-fall-heres-what-we-know/">AirPods Pro 3</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Apple Event on September 9: ‘Awe Dropping’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/apple-event-awe-dropping"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Calvinball Makes the Supreme Court</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/25a103_kh7p.pdf" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjo" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/calvinball-scotus" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42180</id>
<published>2025-08-26T16:22:24Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-26T16:22:34Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, on page 17 of her dissent in National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Association:
<blockquote>
In a broader sense, however, today’s ruling is of a piece with
this Court’s recent tendencies. “[R]ight when the Judiciary
should be hunkering down to do all it can to preserve the law’s
constraints,” the Court opts instead to make vindicating the rule
of law and preventing manifestly injurious Government action as
difficult as possible. This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a
twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules.6
We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration
always wins.
</blockquote>
The footnote refers to the <a href="https://www.oed.com/dictionary/calvinball_n">OED’s entry for “Calvinball”</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Calvinball Makes the Supreme Court’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/26/calvinball-scotus"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/walk-the-world-virtual-trails/id6743502929" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/wjn" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2025/08/walk_the_world" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/feeds/sponsors//11.42179</id>
<author><name>Daring Fireball Department of Commerce</name></author>
<published>2025-08-26T15:14:10Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-26T15:14:11Z</updated>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Do you miss being excited about cool new apps?
We’ve made some before like <a href="https://www.useclear.com/">Clear</a> and <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/heads-up/id623592465">Heads Up!</a>, and today, we have a new one for you.
Walk the World turns your steps into a new kind of virtual globe-trotting adventure. 
Wouldn’t it be cool to know you’ve walked the length of the Boston Marathon this past week?
You can conquer iconic hikes and trails from around the world presented as gorgeous map milestones to complete with your hard earned steps.
If you enjoy or aspire to go on walks more regularly, and beautiful indie apps with a fun new twist, this is your new healthy addiction.
<a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/walk-the-world-virtual-trails/id6743502929">Try it free today for your iPhone</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Walk the World’" href="https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/2025/08/walk_the_world"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
<title>[Sponsor] Walk the World</title></entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/08/macos_26_tahoes_dead_canary_utility_app_icons" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/wjm" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025://1.42178</id>
<published>2025-08-26T00:02:43Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-27T20:29:16Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<summary type="text">These are the not the work of carpenters who care about the backs of the cabinets they’re building. These icons are so bad, they look like the work of untrained “How hard can it be?” dilettante carpenters who only last a few days on the job before sawing off one of their own fingers.</summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
MacOS has shipped with a collection of “utility” apps since the prehistoric era of classic Mac OS. A good rule of thumb for what makes an app a “utility” is that it’s a tool for doing something to or about your computer. Ever since Mac OS X 10.0, most of these apps have been neatly filed away in /Applications/Utilities/. Others — some because they’re obscure (e.g. Ticket Viewer), some because they’re effectively deprecated (e.g. DVD Player, whose copyright date in MacOS 15 Sequoia is 2019), and some because they present themselves, when launched, not as apps but as system-level features (e.g. About This Mac) — are tucked away in /System/Library/CoreServices/ or /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/.
<a href="https://mastodon.social/@BasicAppleGuy/115089810537348465">Basic Apple Guy posted a screenshot to Mastodon</a> comparing the current MacOS 15 icons for four of these utilities (Disk Utility, Expansion Slot Utility, Wireless Diagnostics, and AppleScript Utility) to their new icons in MacOS 26 Tahoe, beta 7 (click to enlarge for detail):
<a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/tahoe-utility-icons-via-basic-apple-guy.jpeg" class="noborder">
<img
src = "https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/tahoe-utility-icons-via-basic-apple-guy.jpeg"
alt = "Screenshots of the MacOS 15 and MacOS 26 (beta 7) icons for Disk Utility, Expansion Slot Utility, Wireless Diagnostics, and AppleScript Utility."
width = 500
/></a>
I don’t think the old icons for these apps from MacOS 15 were particularly good — Apple has mostly lost its “<a href="https://mastodon.social/@BasicAppleGuy/115050148901528749">icons</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/@BasicAppleGuy/115072885331562510">look</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/@BasicAppleGuy/114948306713250918">cool</a>” game. But the new ones in MacOS 26 Tahoe are objectively terrible. The only one of this bunch that’s maybe sort of OK is Wireless Diagnostics. They all look like placeholder icons made by a developer who would be the first to admit that they’re not an artist. Disk Utility, which is an important app, doesn’t even look like it involves a disk.
These new icons all use the same “wrench” motif, which is a lazy, limiting concept to start with. Tahoe, at the system level, enforces a squircle shape on all application icons. Apps that haven’t been updated with Tahoe-compliant everything-fits-in-a-squircle icons are put in “<a href="https://9to5mac.com/2025/08/08/macos-tahoe-fix-gray-box-icons/">squircle jail</a>” — their non-Tahoe-compliant icons are shrunk and placed atop a drab gray Tahoe squircle background, to force them into squircle compliance. But these Apple utility apps have an entire sub-motif — inside their base squircle shape is a large wrench fitted against a bolt. Only inside the bolt — which is inside the wrench’s jaws, which wrench is inside the squircle — goes the part of the icon that identifies the app itself. So maybe like 10 percent of the area of the icon is the area where the app can show something that identifies its purpose.
So the entire concept for these icons sucks. But the conceptual execution sucks too. The wrench is incredibly stupid-looking. Whoever drew it has obviously never used an open-end wrench because the jaws on the wrench head are way too thin. They’d break off under any significant torque. Just look at a real-life wrench, or just <a href="https://mastodon.social/@BasicAppleGuy/115092733884236020">look at the wrench heads in the older MacOS icons</a> (or Apple’s 🔧 emoji, for that matter).
Individually the icons mostly suck too:
<ul>
<li>Disk Utility — a very important app — has an icon that’s just an Apple logo (inside the bolt that’s inside the wrench that’s inside the squircle). Not a hard disk, not an external drive, not an SD card. Just an Apple logo. If I just showed you this icon without telling you which app it represented, how in the world could you guess what it is? Even if you know the “Apple utility app icon” motif of the big dumb wrench and bolt, the best you could guess is “a utility app for something Apple-related” which, for an Apple computer, could be anything.</li>
<li>Expansion Slot Utility — This app only runs on Mac Pros because Mac Pros are the only Macs with expansion slots. So the old icon naturally shows a Mac Pro. The new icon shows ... three rectangular empty sockets?</li>
<li>AppleScript Utility — A fine concept for this icon (within the confines of the terrible wrench-and-bolt utility icon concept). Everyone who knows AppleScript knows the scroll that represents AppleScript scripts. So just put the iconic AppleScript scroll in the bolt in the wrench in the squircle. But here, the placement of the scroll is botched — it’s rotated a few degrees counterclockwise. It makes the scroll look like it’s falling over. Here’s how the scroll is canonically oriented, via the glyphs in SF Symbols:
<img
src = "https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/applescript-icons-sf-symbols.png"
alt = "The “applescript” and “applescript.fill” icon glyphs from the SF Symbols font."
/>
and via the default icon for a script application (with a line added showing the center):
<img
src = "https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/macos-15-script-application-icon.png"
alt = "The default application for an AppleScript “script application”, with a vertical orange line showing the center."
width = 440
/>
But here’s a close-up of the Tahoe AppleScript Utility icon, with a center line added:
<img
src = "https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/tahoe-applescript-utility-icon-drunk.png"
alt = "Close-up of the MacOS 26 Tahoe icon for AppleScript Utility, with a center line added to show that the script “scroll” is tilted incorrectly."
/>
It’s wrong.</li>
</ul>
These are the not the work of carpenters <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/445621-when-you-re-a-carpenter-making-a-beautiful-chest-of-drawers">who care about the backs of the cabinets</a> they’re building. These icons are so bad, they look like the work of untrained “How hard can it be?” dilettante carpenters who only last a few days on the job before sawing off one of their own fingers. The whole collection looks like the work from someone with no artistic ability nor an eye for detail. From Apple, of all companies.
Is it a big deal in the grand scheme of things that the icons for these seldom-used utility apps have gone to shit? No. But consider the proverbial canary in a coal mine. The problem isn’t that one little bird has died. The problem is that the bird might be dead because the whole mine is filling with deadly carbon monoxide or highly flammable methane gas. The icons in /Applications/Utilities/ in MacOS 26 Tahoe represent a folder full of dead canaries. 
]]></content>
<title>★ MacOS 26 Tahoe’s Dead-Canary Utility App Icons</title></entry><entry>
<title>Phoenix.new</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://phoenix.new/?utm_source=df" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjl" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/23/phoenix-new" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42177</id>
<published>2025-08-24T00:26:17Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-24T00:26:18Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
My thanks to <a href="https://fly.io/">Fly.io</a> for sponsoring last week at DF to promote Phoenix.new, their new AI app-builder. Just describe your idea, and Phoenix.new quickly generates a working real-time Phoenix app: clustering, pubsub, and presence included. Ideal for multiplayer games, collaborative tools, or quick weekend experiments. Built by <a href="https://fly.io/">Fly.io</a>, deploy wherever you want. <a href="https://phoenix.new/?utm_source=df">Just try it</a>, and see how far you can go.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Phoenix.new’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/23/phoenix-new"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Base 3.0</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://menial.co.uk/blog/2025/08/16/base-3.0-released/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjj" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/22/base-3" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42175</id>
<published>2025-08-22T16:12:42Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-22T17:52:13Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Nice update to Menial’s excellent SQLite developer tool for the Mac. Worth the <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/02/22/base">wait</a>.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Base 3.0’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/22/base-3"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Apple TV+ Subscription Price Increasing From $10 to $13 Per Month, but the Annual Price Remains Unchanged at $99</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://9to5mac.com/2025/08/21/apple-tv-subscription-price-increase/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wji" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/21/apple-tv-plus-price-increase" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42174</id>
<published>2025-08-22T02:27:03Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-22T02:28:42Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:
<blockquote>
Apple today announced that the monthly price of Apple TV+ is
rising in the United States and some international markets. From
today, the monthly subscription will cost $12.99, up from $9.99.
Existing subscribers will see the price change 30 days after the
next renewal date. The pricing for yearly TV+ subscriptions and
the Apple One services bundle remains unchanged.
</blockquote>
The annual price for a standalone TV+ subscription — unchanged, as Mayo reports — remains $99. The usual rule-of-thumb for subscriptions of any sort seems to be to charge 10× the monthly rate for an annual subscription. That’s exactly where the TV+ month/annual prices were before today. Now, the annual subscription price isn’t just a little bit cheaper than 12× the monthly price ($156), but a lot cheaper.
This seems to be a clear sign that streaming services are different than most subscriptions. People subscribe to newspapers or blog/newsletters and they stay subscribed, because they want to read regularly. Same for a music subscription, like Spotify or Apple Music — people want to listen to music all the time. Churn is just naturally higher with streaming video — people subscription hop. Subscribe, catch up on all the exclusive content you’ve missed, then unsubscribe. Subscribe again when there are a few more exclusive shows you’ve missed again. Unsubscribe again. And Apple TV+ <a href="https://churnkey.co/blog/churn-rates-for-streaming-services/">has been reported to have higher than average churn</a>. So I think today’s price hike, affecting only the monthly price, is about dealing with that. If you want to subscription hop, Apple TV+ is going to cost a bit more. If you want to stay subscribed to Apple TV+, you really ought to subscribe annually (or subscribe to Apple One and get Music, Arcade, and additional iCloud storage bundled together).
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Apple TV+ Subscription Price Increasing From $10 to $13 Per Month, but the Annual Price Remains Unchanged at $99’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/21/apple-tv-plus-price-increase"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Fox One Streaming Service Launches</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.foxcorporation.com/news/business/2025/fox-one-now-available-to-stream-across-web-mobile-and-connected-tv-devices/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjh" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/21/fox-one-streaming" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42173</id>
<published>2025-08-22T02:10:34Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-22T02:36:49Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Fox (capitalization verbatim):
<blockquote>
Fox Corporation today announced the official launch of FOX One, a
bold new streaming service that brings together the full portfolio
of FOX’s News, Sports and Entertainment branded content — all in
one place, both live and on demand.
Available today across major web, mobile and connected TV
platforms, FOX One is priced at $19.99/month with a 7-day free
trial or $199.99/year, with the option to add-on B1G+ or bundle
FOX Nation for an even greater value. Starting October 2,
customers will also have the opportunity to bundle FOX One with
ESPN DTC Unlimited for $39.99/month.
</blockquote>
I just mentioned yesterday, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/08/msnbc_ms_now_rebranding">re: MS NOW’s idiotic backronym</a>, that Fox often styles its name in all caps without pretending the f-o-x letters stand for anything. Anyway, $20/month seems steep, but Fox carries a lot of sports.
<a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1828048872">Apple is promoting the launch prominently in the App Store</a> (including Fox’s preferred all-caps styling), no doubt because Fox — unlike <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/disney-and-apple-are-breaking-up-over-app-store-fees/ar-AA1sJlmU">certain</a> <a href="https://www.netflix.com/tudum">well-established</a> streaming services — offers its subscriptions via IAP.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Fox One Streaming Service Launches’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/21/fox-one-streaming"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Meta’s Ray-Bans Have Sold 2 Million Pairs, Total, as of February</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.theverge.com/news/613292/meta-ray-ban-2-million-10-million-capacity-subscription-essilor-luxottica-earnings" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjg" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/21/meta-ray-ban-sales" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42172</id>
<published>2025-08-22T00:33:56Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-22T00:56:34Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Sean Hollister, reporting for The Verge back in February:
<blockquote>
Two weeks ago, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/meta/603674/meta-ray-ban-smart-glasses-sales">we exclusively reported Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s
remarks</a> on how many pairs of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses
the company had recently sold and might theoretically sell: 1
million pairs in 2024, with the possibility of reaching 2 million
or even 5 million by the end of 2025.
But glasses giant EssilorLuxottica, which produces those glasses
for Meta, has now publicly revealed 2 million pairs of Meta
Ray-Bans have sold since their October 2023 debut, and that it’s
aiming to produce 10 million Meta glasses each year by the end
of 2026.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/18/bezos-numbers-smart-glasses-counterpoint">I mocked a report from Counterpoint Research</a> this week for its Bezos Numbers on smart glasses sales growth. Here are some real numbers from the current market leader. For context, Steve Jobs’s stated goal for the iPhone, at launch in mid-2007, was 10 million iPhones sold by the end of 2008 — a goal they reached <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/10/apple-officially-surpasses-10-million-iphones-sold-in-2008/">before the holiday quarter of 2008 even started</a>.
I feel close to certain that smart glasses are going to be a big product category. But they’re not there yet. A few million units is something, but it’s not a hit. Given the current capabilities — a camera on your face, speakers on the temples, and a microphone for talking to the system — I don’t see how they currently beat a smartphone and wireless earbuds. If you already carry a phone and earbuds everywhere you go, when would you want Meta Glasses? For taking lower-quality photos and videos, and listening to lower-quality audio? I don’t think the product category is going to take off until there’s a visual HUD in the lenses, and that still seems years away, at any price.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Meta’s Ray-Bans Have Sold 2 Million Pairs, Total, as of February’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/21/meta-ray-ban-sales"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Herdling</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://herdling.game/" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjf" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/21/herdling" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42171</id>
<published>2025-08-22T00:22:19Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-22T00:29:07Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
New video game, just out:
<blockquote>
Herdling is a brand new adventure from <a href="https://okomotive.ch/">Okomotive</a>, creators of
the atmospheric and acclaimed FAR games, and <a href="https://panic.com/">Panic</a>,
publishers of Firewatch.
</blockquote>
Looks absolutely beautiful. Painterly. <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/darthbluesky.bsky.social/post/3lww42zzkjs2q">Darth says it’s good</a>.
Available now for Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and Epic Games Store. Not (yet?) in the Mac App Store — not because of any hassles regarding the App Store, but because there’s not (yet?) a Mac port of the game, period.
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Herdling’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/21/herdling"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<title>‘Micro-Soft’</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/08/msnbc_ms_now_rebranding#fn1-2025-08-20" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wje" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/21/micro-soft" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42170</id>
<published>2025-08-21T19:49:04Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-21T19:57:17Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Added this footnote just now to yesterday’s piece on MSNBC’s rebranding to “MS NOW”:
<blockquote>
Historical pedantry: from 1975–1979, <a href="https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Microsoft">Microsoft spelled its name “Micro-Soft”</a>, with, yes, an uppercase S. But that’s not camel-case, and that hyphenated spelling is as much a footnote to Microsoft’s brand history as the <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/03/29/how-apples-logo-started-out-as-the-most-expensive-and-became-the-most-iconic">woodcut Isaac-Newton-under-a-tree logo</a> is to Apple. <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/Microsoft_(1975).svg">Microsoft’s logo from that era</a> was very disco-’70s and kind of cool — but while “Micro” and “Soft” were broken across two lines, there’s no hyphen in the logotype.
</blockquote>
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘‘Micro-Soft’’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/21/micro-soft"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/08/msnbc_ms_now_rebranding" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/wjd" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025://1.42169</id>
<published>2025-08-21T01:20:10Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-27T22:16:28Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<summary type="text">The oddest part about the whole situation is that CNBC is being spun out into Versant, too, but while they’re losing the NBC peacock logo, they’re just keeping their name, unchanged.</summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
<a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/08/18/msnbc-rebrand-ms-now-versant">Sara Fischer, Axios</a>:
<blockquote>
MSNBC, the progressive cable network owned by NBCUniversal, is
rebranding to MS NOW, an acronym that stands for My Source for
News, Opinion and the World.
The rebrand is part of a wider effort by NBCU to create a
distinction between the cable networks it plans to spin out and
the remaining NBCU parent company. As part of the rebrand, select
cable networks that will be spun out into <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/06/10/all-eyes-on-versant-media-trends">Versant</a>, including
CNBC, Golf Channel, GolfNow, MSNBC and SportsEngine, will all
drop the iconic peacock logo that has for decades served as
NBCU’s logo.
</blockquote>
There’s a lot to unpack here. First, “Versant” itself is a pretty bad name (feels so vague — seems like the name of a fake company in a movie or TV show) so it’s no surprise that the same nitwits are botching Versant’s rebranded properties. But given that NBCUniversal is apparently forcing MSNBC to take the “NBC” out of its name, “MSNOW” isn’t a bad new name. But it’s not a good new name either. And they’re apparently using a space: “MS NOW”, yet <a href="https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/msnbc-new-name-ms-now-1236491621/">also seem confused</a> (or haven’t even decided yet) whether it’s supposed to be pronounced letter-by-letter (em ess en oh dubya) or as two letters and a word (em ess now). Saying the “NOW” as the word now makes sense for a 24/7 channel, but if it’s a word, the whole name should be styled “MS Now”. (Fox News styles their name as “FOX News” in some places, but never pretends the f-o-x is an acronym.)
The “My Source News Opinion World” backronym is so dumb it boggles the mind. I genuinely wonder if someone had ChatGPT do that. You can have a series of letters as a name — especially as a TV channel — without those letters really standing for anything. CNN is technically an acronym for “Cable News Network” but they’ve effectively just been “CNN” for decades now. The name “MSNBC” came from the fact that, at launch in the 1990s, <a href="https://www.threads.com/@mossbergwalt/post/DNipvTJt4HW">it debuted as a collaboration</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_MSNBC:_1996–2007">between Microsoft’s MSN and NBC News</a>. But Microsoft hasn’t been involved with the cable channel <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-dec-24-fi-msnbc24-story.html">for 20 years</a> — the “MS” in “MSNBC” hasn’t stood for anything since 2005. (In fact, MSN itself is another good example. It originally stood for “Microsoft Network”, even though Microsoft has never styled their name with a camel-cased S.<a href="#fn1-2025-08-20">1</a> But it’s really just “MSN” now.)<a href="#fn2-2025-08-20">2</a>
<a href="https://www.threads.com/@tomgara/post/DNgNQeQOlIB">Tom Gara, writing on Threads</a>:
<blockquote>
The only real fuck up with the MSNBC rebrand is that they made up
a dumb sounding fake acronym. It’s completely unnecessary! Just
say “we’re changing our name to MS NOW to reflect the urgency of
the moment.” Nobody has ever thought about what the old acronym
stood for and nobody needed a new fake one.
</blockquote>
There is another fuck up, though: the <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/msnow.png">logo</a> is atrocious. What is that flag? It looks like the Austrian flag (🇦🇹), not America’s. But are we sure it even is a flag? Maybe it’s a paper receipt and the red stripes are those marks <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/DollarGeneral/comments/p7sl4t/why_does_the_printer_do_the_pink_streak_near_the/">when it’s time to replace the roll</a>? <a href="https://www.threads.com/@jonathanhoefler/post/DNk64Vxgah-">Jonathan Hoefler, on Threads</a>:
<blockquote>
My personal benchmark for a logo is that it shouldn’t look like a
pension fund.
</blockquote>
The oddest part about the whole situation is that CNBC is being spun out into Versant, too, but while they’re losing the NBC peacock logo, they’re just keeping their name, unchanged. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/18/comcast-versant-rename-msnbc-peacock-logos.html">From CNBC’s own coverage of MSNBC’s rebranding</a>:
<blockquote>
While MSNBC and NBC News will have duplications in coverage,
CNBC’s news organization is already separate enough from NBC News
that executives decided it didn’t need a name change. Also,
technically, the “NBC” in “CNBC” never stemmed from National
Broadcasting Co. Rather, CNBC stands for “Consumer News and
Business Channel.”
</blockquote>
Lastly, shoutout to M.G. Siegler for <a href="https://spyglass.org/ms-now-msnbc/">coining the term peacockblocked</a> to describe MSNBC’s branding plight.
<div class="footnotes">
<hr />
<ol>
<li id="fn1-2025-08-20">
Historical pedantry: from 1975–1979, <a href="https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Microsoft">Microsoft spelled its name “Micro-Soft”</a>, with, yes, an uppercase S. But that’s not camel-case, and that hyphenated spelling is as much a footnote to Microsoft’s brand history as the <a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/03/29/how-apples-logo-started-out-as-the-most-expensive-and-became-the-most-iconic">woodcut Isaac-Newton-under-a-tree logo</a> is to Apple. <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/Microsoft_(1975).svg">Microsoft’s logo from that era</a> was very disco-’70s and kind of cool — but while “Micro” and “Soft” were broken across two lines, there’s no hyphen in the logotype. <a href="#fnr1-2025-08-20" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩︎︎</a>
</li>
<li id="fn2-2025-08-20">
If I’d been in the room, my spitball idea for a new name would have been MNC. Take out every other letter to break both the NBC and Microsoft connotations, but leave behind an acronym that looks and sounds like a tighter, more efficient version of MSNBC. If they really insisted that the acronym stand for something, it could be Modern (or Major?) News Channel. <a href="#fnr2-2025-08-20" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.">↩︎</a>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
]]></content>
<title>★ MSNBC, Spinning Out of NBCUniversal, Rebrands as ‘MS NOW’ With a Godawful Backronym and Even Worse Logo</title></entry><entry>
<title>Claim Chowder: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Five Months Ago</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-ceo-ai-90-percent-code-3-to-6-months-2025-3" />
<link rel="shorturl" type="text/html" href="http://df4.us/wjc" />
<link rel="related" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/20/claim-chowder-amodei" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025:/linked//6.42168</id>
<published>2025-08-20T15:27:51Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-20T15:27:52Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/linked/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Kwan Wei Kevin Tan, reporting for Business Insider five months ago:
<blockquote>
Dario Amodei, the CEO of the AI startup Anthropic, said on Monday
that AI, and not software developers, could be writing all of the
code in our software in a year.
“I think we will be there in three to six months, where AI is
writing 90% of the code. And then, in 12 months, we may be in a
world where AI is writing essentially all of the code,” Amodei
said at a Council of Foreign Relations event on Monday.
</blockquote>
Complete bullshit, but, I guess he still has one month to go. (<a href="https://www.threads.com/@davew/post/DNhTsistxCs">Via Dave Winer</a> on Threads.)
<div>
<a title="Permanent link to ‘Claim Chowder: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Five Months Ago’" href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/08/20/claim-chowder-amodei"> ★ </a>
</div>
]]></content>
</entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/08/iphone_mirroring_more_than_one_iphone" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/wj9" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025://1.42165</id>
<published>2025-08-20T01:17:47Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-20T01:17:47Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<summary type="text">Long story short: there’s an “iPhone” menu under “Widgets” in System Settings → Desktop & Dock.</summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
I’ve been using two iPhones throughout the summer — one running iOS 18, the other running iOS 26 betas. I found myself wanting to switch between them with iPhone Mirroring on my Mac, but couldn’t figure out how. The answer, from Apple Support, “<a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/120421">iPhone Mirroring: Use your iPhone from your Mac</a>”:
<blockquote>
If you have more than one iPhone that is both signed in to your
Apple Account and nearby, you can choose the one that your Mac
uses for mirroring and iPhone notifications:
<ol>
<li>Choose Apple menu  > System Settings, then click Desktop &
Dock in the sidebar.</li>
<li>Choose your iPhone from the iPhone pop-up menu on the right.
This menu appears just below the “Use iPhone widgets” setting.
It appears only when your Mac detects more than one nearby
iPhone that can be used for mirroring.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
That pop-up menu is about halfway down the screen in Desktop & Dock, in the “Widgets” section.<a href="#fn1-2025-08-19">1</a> I suspected this was possible, but I had to search the web (<a href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/04/try_switching_to_kagi">via Kagi</a>, the best search engine in the world, of course) to find the answer. I never would have thought to look in System Settings → Desktop & Dock, let alone, even if I happened to look in that panel, all the way down under “Widgets”.
Places where I did look:
<ul>
<li>On the Mac, in the iPhone Mirroring app’s own Settings window. Nope.</li>
<li>On the iPhone, in Settings → General → Airplay & Continuity. This is where you can control which Mac or Macs your iPhone is available from with iPhone Mirroring (e.g. you can go here to revoke access from a certain Mac), but it doesn’t help you change which iPhone, among multiple, that any particular Mac connects to.</li>
</ul>
To Apple’s credit, searching for “mirroring” in MacOS System Settings <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/macos-18.6-settings-desktop-dock.png">does lead you to the correct setting</a>, but because it’s under “Widget settings”, I suspect some people who search for “mirroring” here will see that in the results list and not even bother clicking it, because “Widget settings” at first doesn’t sound like where you should go to choose between multiple phones for iPhone Mirroring. (It kind of makes sense, when you realize that the same iPhone that provides widgets to your Mac is the one available for iPhone Mirroring to connect to.)
To Apple’s discredit, Siri is no help, despite Apple Intelligence’s supposed <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2025/02/26/this-is-every-apple-intelligence-feature-thats-available-now/">ability to harness “product knowledge”</a> from LLM training on Apple’s own support documents. After asking Siri, “How do I use multiple iPhones with iPhone mirroring?” on either a Mac or iPhone, I get a brief answer that says “You can set up more than one iPhone to use iPhone Mirroring with your Mac, but you can only connect to one iPhone at a time”, with a link to the iPhone User Guide that opens in the Tips app. That page in the iPhone User Guide, however — also available on the web as “<a href="https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/control-your-iphone-from-your-mac-mchl444d53a6/mac">Control Your iPhone From Your Mac</a>” — doesn’t contain any mention of using more than one iPhone with iPhone Mirroring. So <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/120421">this Apple Support document</a> on iPhone Mirroring does explain it (that’s the one I linked to at the top of this post), but <a href="https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/control-your-iphone-from-your-mac-mchl444d53a6/mac">this one does not</a>. No wonder Apple Intelligence’s “product knowledge”, trained on these documents, is somewhat confused.
But it gets worse. I gave Siri a second chance on my Mac, asking the same question, something along the lines of “How do I use multiple iPhones with iPhone mirroring?” (I can’t be sure exactly which words I used because Siri doesn’t show a chat transcript<a href="#fn2-2025-08-19">2</a>), and the second time, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/siri-mirroring-nonsense.png">it responded thus</a>:
<blockquote>
To use multiple iPhones with iPhone Mirroring:
<ol>
<li>Open the iPhone Mirroring app on your Mac.</li>
<li>Click the “Connect” button.</li>
<li>Enter your iPhone passcode and choose how to authenticate.</li>
<li>Select the iPhone you want to use from the list of available
iPhones.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
This answer certainly describes one possible way that using multiple iPhones with iPhone Mirroring should work, but as an answer for how it actually does work, it’s abject nonsense. There is no “list of available iPhones” in the iPhone Mirroring app. If there were such a list to choose from, I’d never have had a question about this whole fucking thing in the first place.
<div class="footnotes">
<hr />
<ol>
<li id="fn1-2025-08-19">
The first time I looked in the Desktop & Dock panel in System Settings, there was no “iPhone” pop-up menu visible, despite the fact that both of my active iPhones were on my desk, right next to my MacBook Pro. But I remembered that in the last few days, I’d been having problems with <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/102430">Continuity’s Universal Clipboard</a> feature too. In the past, when Universal Clipboard has gone on the fritz, I’ve solved the problem by toggling Bluetooth off and back on. I toggled Bluetooth on my Mac and boom, the “iPhone” menu appeared in the Desktop & Dock panel in System Settings, with the pop-up menu correctly listing both of my active iPhones. Universal Clipboard started working correctly again too. I bet the next version of Bluetooth is actually going to be reliable. <a href="#fnr1-2025-08-19" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩︎︎</a>
</li>
<li id="fn2-2025-08-19">
From Wayne Ma’s blockbuster report back in April at The Information, “<a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/04/10/wayne-ma-the-information-apple-siri-fumble">How Apple Fumbled Siri’s AI Makeover</a>”:
<blockquote>
Giannandrea often has described to employees his belief that
machine learning can lead to incremental improvements in products,
eventually adding up to major gains, a concept he refers to as
hill climbing. He also has expressed a dim view of chatbots in the
past, telling Apple employees before and immediately after the
release of ChatGPT that he didn’t believe they added much value
for users.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://x.com/nickaturley/status/1952385556664520875">ChatGPT reported 700 million weekly active users this month</a>, up from 500 million in March, and up 4× from last year. <a href="#fnr2-2025-08-19" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.">↩︎</a>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
]]></content>
<title>★ How to Use iPhone Mirroring With More Than One iPhone</title></entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/08/joe_caroff_007_logo_designer" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/wj7" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025://1.42163</id>
<published>2025-08-18T20:50:43Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-18T21:02:05Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<summary type="text">A perfect logo, from a designer with a long and storied career.</summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/joe-caroff-dead-designer-james-bond-007-logo-1236346509/">Mike Barnes, The Hollywood Reporter</a>:
<blockquote>
For his first movie job — he would work on more than 300
campaigns during his career — United Artists executive David
Chasman hired him to design the poster for West Side Story
(1961), then asked him to come up with the letterhead for a
publicity release tied to the first Bond film, Dr. No. (Chasman
had designed the poster for the 1962 movie.)
“He said, ‘I need a little decorative thing on top,’” Caroff
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A76NPoZRY8c">recalled</a> in 2021. “I knew [Bond’s] designation was 007,
and when I wrote the stem of the seven, I thought, ‘That looks
like the handle of a gun to me.’ It was very spontaneous, no
effort, it was an instant piece of creativity.”
Inspired by Ian Fleming’s favorite gun, a Walther PPK, Caroff
attached a barrel and trigger to the 007 and for his work received
$300, the going rate for such an assignment, he said. Even though
the logo, though altered in subtle ways, has been featured on
every Bond film and on millions of pieces of merchandise, he
received no credit, no residuals, no royalties.
The logo did, however, bring him “a lot of business,” he said. “It
was like a little publicity piece for me.”
</blockquote>
It’s rare for a logomark to have such staying power. Just <a href="https://www.designweek.co.uk/tributes-paid-to-the-james-bond-007-logo-designer-joe-caroff/">a perfect logo</a>. Kind of wild that it was created, initially, only as letterhead for stationery. Perusing vintage movie posters, it seems like EON didn’t really lean into using the logo consistently until <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/007-on-her-majestys-secret-service.jpeg">On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</a> (1969) — the sixth film, and the first without Sean Connery. EON had used the mark prior to that (including at least <a href="https://posteritati.com/poster/8500/dr-no-1962-us-one-sheet-poster">one excellent poster for Dr. No</a>), but it didn’t appear on most of the posters for Connery’s initial run in the role: <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/007-from-russia-with-love.jpeg">From Russia With Love</a>, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/007-goldfinger.jpeg">Goldfinger</a>, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/007-thunderball.jpeg">Thunderball</a>, and You Only Live Twice (variations <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/007-you-only-live-twice-A.jpeg">A</a> and <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/007-you-only-live-twice-B.jpeg">B</a>). Amongst those, the logo only appears on the Goldfinger poster. They used to make multiple posters for every movie back then, so there might exist examples for all of them with the logo. But I think until On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, EON leaned on Connery’s face as the symbol of the franchise. From that point forward, though, Caroff’s 007-cum-gun logo was the symbol of the franchise.<a href="#fn1-2025-08-18">1</a> I can’t seem to find an official movie poster after OHMSS that doesn’t feature it.
I will quibble with one detail from The Hollywood Reporter description above: the gun in Caroff’s original 007 mark clearly looked like a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luger_pistol">Luger</a>, a rather distinctive German pistol with a long skinny barrel, not the more compact Walther PPK that Bond actually carried. Variations of the Luger-esque logo appear on the posters for all seven of the movies starring Roger Moore. EON updated the logomark to resemble a Walther PPK <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/007-the-living-daylights.jpeg">for The Living Daylights</a> in 1987, the first (and better) of two Bond movies starring Timothy Dalton. As a kid it always bothered me — ever so slightly — that the logo resembled a gun that James Bond never actually used, but until today, researching this post, I never noticed that they addressed that in 1987. That said, I think the Luger-esque mark was a bit cooler. As a kid, that was my assumption: that “they” made it look like a Luger, not the sort of pistol Bond actually carried, because it looked cooler that way. I accepted that.
<hr />
Caroff had a remarkably accomplished career. <a href="https://posteritati.com/unfolding/by-design-the-joe-caroff-story">He created iconic posters for dozens of terrific films</a> across a slew of genres. The fact that he created the 007 logo but only earned $300 from it is more like a curious footnote than anything.
From <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/17/obituaries/joe-caroff-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.fE8.pObu.ZW1jiWahs32T&smid=url-share">Jeré Longman’s excellent obituary for The New York Times</a> (gift link), after observing that Caroff died just one day short of his 104th birthday:
<blockquote>
Mr. Caroff’s designs were familiar, but his name was not. He did
not sign much of his work and largely avoided self-promotion. He
was not included among the more than 60 celebrated designers,
among them like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/27/movies/saul-bass-75-designer-dies-made-art-out-of-movie-titles.html">Saul Bass</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/17/nyregion/leo-lionni-89-dies-versatile-creator-of-children-s-books.html">Leo Lionni</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/28/arts/paul-rand-82-creator-of-sleek-graphic-designs-dies.html">Paul
Rand</a>, in the 2017 book <a href="https://themodernsbook.com/">The Moderns: Midcentury American
Graphic Design</a>, written by Steven Heller and Greg
D’Onofrio.
“That he was unknown is shocking,” Mr. Heller, co-chairman
emeritus of the Master of Fine Arts Design program at the School
of Visual Arts in Manhattan, said in a recent interview.
Still, Mr. Caroff’s abundant output became widely recognizable for
an interpretive style that could be bold, elegant, theatrical,
whimsical, sensual and deceptively simple in promoting a book or
movie and conveying its essence with a single image.
</blockquote>
No better example of that reduced-to-its-essence genius than his 007 logo:
<blockquote>
“I knew that 007 meant license to kill; that, I think, at an
unconscious level, was the reason I knew the gun had to be in the
logo,” Mr. Caroff said in a 2022 documentary, <a href="https://www.hbomax.com/movies/by-design-the-joe-caroff-story/63f45e42-315c-469d-a0d4-501989f339eb">By Design: The Joe
Caroff Story</a>.
Mark Cerulli, who directed the documentary, said in an interview
that the logo was a “marvel of simplicity that telegraphs
everything you would want to know about 007.”
</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.hbomax.com/movies/by-design-the-joe-caroff-story/63f45e42-315c-469d-a0d4-501989f339eb">By Design</a> is streaming on HBO Max. I’ve added it to the top of my to-watch list.
<div class="footnotes">
<hr />
<ol>
<li id="fn1-2025-08-18">
You will not catch me making any jokes about the fact that “007 cum gun” could serve as a three-word plot synopsis for many of the films in the Connery/Moore era. <a href="#fnr1-2025-08-18" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩︎</a>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
]]></content>
<title>★ Joe Caroff, Designer of the James Bond 007 Logo, Dies at 103</title></entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/08/apple_workaround_blood_oxygen_ban" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/wiy" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025://1.42154</id>
<published>2025-08-14T21:45:42Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-17T00:43:16Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<summary type="text">What today’s workaround does is process and display the blood oxygen sensor data on your watch’s paired iPhone, rather than on the Apple Watch itself. That, apparently, is what the new US Customs ruling holds does not violate Masimo’s patent.</summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Apple Newsroom this morning, “<a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/08/an-update-on-blood-oxygen-for-apple-watch-in-the-us/">An Update on Blood Oxygen for Apple Watch in the U.S.</a>”:
<blockquote>
Apple will introduce a redesigned Blood Oxygen feature for
some Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2
users through an iPhone and Apple Watch software update coming
later today.
Users with these models in the U.S. who currently do not have the
Blood Oxygen feature will have access to the redesigned Blood
Oxygen feature by updating their paired iPhone to iOS 18.6.1 and
their Apple Watch to watchOS 11.6.1. Following this update, sensor
data from the Blood Oxygen app on Apple Watch will be measured and
calculated on the paired iPhone, and results can be viewed in the
Respiratory section of the Health app. This update was enabled by
a recent U.S. Customs ruling.
There will be no impact to Apple Watch units previously purchased
that include the original Blood Oxygen feature, nor to Apple Watch
units purchased outside of the U.S.
</blockquote>
The iOS 18.6.1 and WatchOS 11.6.1 updates appeared a few hours after Apple’s announcement.
If you have an Apple Watch with the blood oxygen sensor purchased outside the US, you can ignore today’s news. You were never affected by the US International Trade Commission import ban (which stems from <a href="https://daringfireball.net/search/masimo">a patent lawsuit from a company named Masimo</a>), so today’s workaround isn’t necessary. The same goes for Series 9 and Ultra 2 models sold in the US prior to the ban taking effect in January 2024.
What today’s workaround does is process and display the blood oxygen sensor data on your watch’s paired iPhone, rather than on the Apple Watch itself. That, apparently, is what the new US Customs ruling holds does not violate Masimo’s patent. No processing of the sensor data on the watch, and no display of the results on the watch. But the sensor that takes the measurements, of course, is on your watch. If you bought your Apple Watch before the ban, or you bought it outside the US, you still get on-watch processing and on-watch display of results. (Which means users outside the US still have a slightly better blood oxygen experience.)
If your Apple Watch was affected by the import ban, after today’s software updates, you should be able to both initiate a blood oxygen reading manually (using the Blood Oxygen app on the Watch) and get automatic background readings, like when you’re wearing your watch while sleeping. What is different for Series 9, Series 10, and Ultra 2 models in the US that didn’t have the original Blood Oxygen feature, compared to models not affected by the US ban, is where the measurement is calculated and visible. If you initiate a measurement while your watch is out of range of its paired iPhone, the results will be calculated on the iPhone once it is back in range.
Also important, and not clear at all from Apple’s initial announcement this morning: After the iOS 18.6.1 and WatchOS 11.6.1 software updates, the iPhone and Apple Watch need to download an over-the-air asset to enable the redesigned Blood Oxygen feature. This apparently may take up to 24 hours. Until this asset download happens, the Blood Oxygen app on your Apple Watch will still say “The Blood Oxygen app is no longer available”. To jump-start the download, users can open the Health app on their iPhone, and the ECG app on their Apple Watch. I was in this boat personally with an Ultra 2 from last year, and opening the Health app on my iPhone and taking an ECG reading on the watch did the trick — after that, launching the Blood Oxygen app on the watch <a href="https://daringfireball.net/misc/2025/08/blood-oxygen-app-watchos-11.6.1.png">showed a new message</a>:
<blockquote>
The Blood Oxygen App Has Changed
You will now find Blood Oxygen results in the Health app on your iPhone.
</blockquote>
(Update: I am reliably informed that you don’t need to take an ECG reading on the watch. Just opening the ECG app is enough to trigger the asset download needed by the Blood Oxygen app. I figured why not take a reading while I was in there, though.)
The US Customs ruling that Apple is citing to allow them to offer this workaround — “HQ H351038”, per a source at Apple — <a href="https://rulings.cbp.gov/">is not yet publicly available</a>. But reading between the lines, the implication is that US Customs has decided that Masimo’s patents only apply to on-device sensor processing (and display of results?).
I continue to think that Masimo is a patent troll. At the time they filed their complaint with the ITC, <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/07/11/apple-masimo-appeals-court">they didn’t even have a smartwatch on the market</a>. And <a href="https://www.masimo.com/products/monitors/masimo-w1-medical-watch/">the smartwatch they now sell</a> — years after filing the complaint — looks like an Apple Watch with a second button instead of a digital crown. The two patents in question (<a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US10912502B2/en">10,912,502</a> and <a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US10945648B2/en">10,945,648</a>) are set to expire in August 2028, and I suspect this patent suit has been a last-ditch attempt to monetize them before they expire by extorting a settlement from Apple. Good luck with that now.
]]></content>
<title>★ Apple Issues a Workaround for the Blood Oxygen Sensor Ban for U.S. Apple Watches</title></entry><entry>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://daringfireball.net/2025/08/max_read_literary_history_fake_apple_texts" />
<link rel="shorturl" href="http://df4.us/wiv" />
<id>tag:daringfireball.net,2025://1.42151</id>
<published>2025-08-13T21:05:50Z</published>
<updated>2025-08-13T21:44:18Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Gruber</name>
<uri>http://daringfireball.net/</uri>
</author>
<summary type="text">It’s like an otherwise delightful cocktail with one distinctive unpleasant ingredient, which ingredient was added, deliberately, to imbue the libation with an aftertaste of spite.</summary>
<content type="html" xml:base="https://daringfireball.net/" xml:lang="en"><![CDATA[
Max Read, two years ago, “<a href="https://maxread.substack.com/p/a-literary-history-of-fake-texts?r=71ygg">A Literary History of Fake Texts in Apple’s Marketing Materials</a>”:
<blockquote>
I’m talking about the mocked-up texts and emails Apple puts
together to demonstrate new messaging features in its
operating-system updates, presumably written by some well-paid
professionals in Apple’s marketing department. These eerily
cheery, aggressively punctuated messages suggest an alternate
dimension in which polite, good-natured, rigorously diverse groups
of friends and coworkers use Apple products exactly how they are
designed to be used, without complaint or error. [...]
If there is still mystery in Apple events, it is located here,
in the uncanny fictional world suggested in these images: Who
are these people? And what is wrong with them that they text
like this?
A proper literary study of fake Apple texts has yet to be
undertaken, but with the help of the Wayback Machine, we can sift
through more than a decade’s work of marketing materials to
identify certain trends and themes. For the sake of precision,
let’s begin our survey in 2011, with the launch of iMessage in iOS
5. Here, so far as I can tell, is the first-ever fake Apple
iMessage conversation.
</blockquote>
I’ve been sitting on this one since shortly after Read published it, and came upon it again today in my pile of I-should-post-about-this-but-I-have-a-lot-I-need-to-say-about-it links. Now — just under four weeks away from Apple’s expected keynote for the iPhones 17 and new Apple Watches — seems as good a time as ever to finally link to it. It really is a lot of fun, and Read seemingly found every marketing screenshot of Messages or Mail from 2011–2023 that he could.
But re-reading it today, I realize why I sat on it. There’s a cynicism to the whole thing that grates. Read is disdainful of everything about these messages — their cheerful tone, professional-grade photography, even their attentive punctuation. But of course they’re not realistic. Of course every person in every chat “use[s] Apple products exactly how they are designed to be used, without complaint or error.” Of course everyone is always happy and friendly and having a good time. Of course the groups are always diverse.<a href="#fn1-2025-08-13">1</a> What other kinds of fictional people are going to be portrayed by Apple in their marketing screenshots? Ugly unhappy illiterates who take bad photos and never go anywhere? It’d be really weird if Apple’s fake texts for keynotes were anything other than idyllic — if the photos kinda sucked, if words were misspelled and entirely lowercase, if punctuation were omitted.
So of course the fake texts in Apple marketing are, upon consideration, obviously phony. What I’ve long thought interesting is just how much effort Apple clearly puts into them. They’re good phony. Pitch-perfect for Apple’s Designed-in-California brand. A lot of work goes into the fake trips and parties portrayed and described in these threads, and it shows. But they’re not so interesting as to distract from the keynote. Imagine if a screenshot flew by with a Messages thread between colleagues gossiping about someone getting fired for expense account fraud, or about an extramarital affair. The purpose of these fake texts is the opposite of the supposed intention of the Liquid Glass design language: it’s fake content meant to put the emphasis on the real software. They’re actually worth the deep dive Max Read produced to document them. They’re genuinely interesting for what they are — but somehow Read can’t bring himself to say that, despite taking the time to document them. The withering cynicism of his tone is at odds with the fact that he took the time to document their history so thoroughly.
Searching the DF archive for Read’s name, I came up with <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/roman_a_clef_computer_maker">one hit</a>, and it explains his overly-cynical schtick. Read was editor-in-chief at Gawker, before Peter Thiel and his puppet Hulk Hogan (RIP) <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdrange/2016/06/21/peter-thiels-war-on-gawker-a-timeline/">sued them out of business in 2016</a>. And when I previously mentioned Read (in 2020), <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/roman_a_clef_computer_maker">it was because he was one of two ex-Gawkerites who sold a show to Apple TV+ called Scraper</a><a href="#fn2-2025-08-13">2</a> about a thinly-veiled fictional version of Gawker, but which show was nixed, after several episodes had already been filmed, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/13/business/media/apple-gawker-tim-cook.html">supposedly by Tim Cook himself</a>, out of his personal loathing for Gawker. To be clear, I’m not suggesting Read took an overly snarky attitude to describing Apple’s fake-text literary history because Cook pulled the plug on Scrapers. I’m saying that Gawker was infused by the sort of attitude that holds all marketing in contempt. I, of course, firmly believe that many subjects are worthy of withering scorn. But the Gawker attitude was that no subject was worthy of anything but withering scorn. I never could abide that, and there’s something like it undergirding this otherwise splendid piece from Read. It’s like an otherwise delightful cocktail with one distinctive unpleasant ingredient, which ingredient was added, deliberately, to imbue the libation with an aftertaste of spite.
<div class="footnotes">
<hr />
<ol>
<li id="fn1-2025-08-13">
Except for age. You’ll spot few, if any, gray hairs in the photos and Memojis these characters share. That’s not a complaint. Youth is aspirational, and there are gray hairs enough amongst <a href="https://www.apple.com/leadership/">the executives</a> who present these keynote segments. <a href="#fnr1-2025-08-13" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩︎︎</a>
</li>
<li id="fn2-2025-08-13">
A perfect title, I have to say. “Scraper” would have been a better name for Gawker than “Gawker” was. (Much like how The Studio’s “Continental Studios” sounds like a real century-old peer to Paramount and Columbia Pictures.) <a href="#fnr2-2025-08-13" class="footnoteBackLink" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.">↩︎</a>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
]]></content>
<title>★ Max Read’s ‘A Literary History of Fake Texts in Apple’s Marketing Materials’</title></entry></feed>

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