I think Sam Altman deserves to share space in the same bucket as Mark Zuckerberg. They are not good guys. Frauds? Maybe.
Zuck hit it big with Facebook and then through acquiring our attention and competitors (or just copying them).
Altman is still trying to make it big. I think his ego is as big as Zuck's and somehow he's found himself in this AI race and is winning. I'm a little sad to see Ive join up with OpenAI but I bet the pull to be the first to make it transparent was too good to pass up.
While I see potential in AI, I have no faith in it being the central repository of knowledge or that it is the answer for anything other than allowing us to spend more of our time creatively rather than productively. I think that's part of the reason that Ive moving in this direction is so odd to me. I'm sure his team at Apple were all about results and pushing boundaries but at the cost of experimentation? I very much doubt that.
Given Humane's AI pin was a complete flop it's hard to see what the future holds in this space but if anyone can try, it's Ive and his team.
Oh and is it just me or does the image that accompanies the post look AI generated?!
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It's been 6 months since I my MacBook Pro was delivered, replacing my 11 year-old MacBook Pro becoming my first Apple Silicon Mac.
The one thing with annual updates and the longevity of Apple hardware is that upgrades don't feel revolutionary. I was a few years out of support for newer OSs but my old MacBook Pro struggled along fine. Even now, my son uses it as his own for homework and while the battery seems close to giving up, it's still functioning pretty well. Good enough for web-based home work apps at least.
In truth, I've spent 5 months with it and I have enjoyed it just working. It's certainly faster, apps open quickly and I have no issues with software compatibility. The fans just do not come on. Well they came on once. Briefly. But it's otherwise silent.
The screen is beautiful. I had been debating an upgrade since the introduction of the M2-series chips but I'm glad I waited as the undocumented changes to the screen seem to have eliminated any blooming. I still tend to edit photos on my iPad with an Apple Pencil but I should spend more time in the Photos app on my Mac now. It flies in comparison to my Intel MacBook.
I didn't opt for the Nano-Texture display and don't regret it. I don't work with any problematic lighting or outside so there was no benefit for me really. I do like matte finishes for screens, but I prefer how sharp the display on this new MacBook Pro looks to me, especially with the additional brightness.
The notch makes no difference to me, I know it can obscure menu items but not a problem I've run into.
Xcode's inability to quickly diagnose a problem is my only real gripe.
Post-Intel battery life is noticeably better and so is the power efficiency.
I think I could have comfortably dropped down to the regular M4 but I didn't want to run into a situation where I might have to give up half my RAM to AI. The M4 Max was a step too far for me to justify. Any of the short videos I put together export more than fast enough for me.
For me, it's a no brainer recommending the M4-series of chips. I think most people would be fine with the MacBook Air. Anyone doing more than web surfing or word processing would benefit from the MacBook Pro form factor for increased thermal ceiling. Anyone doing app or web development might want to go for the M4 Pro but it's an option rather than a necessity.
After so many years with the previous MacBook Pro design, it's nice to have something fresher in my hands. I missed the bad keyboard era and have no real complaints I can make.
Read the post from week 394
I have used ChatGPT to get me past a few problems, but remain a sceptic. There's not a chance I'd use it for anything personal.
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Patrick Opet, the Chief Information Security Officer at J.P. Morgan sent an open letter that outlines the need for a shift in how much companies focus on features over security.
It is not only neccasary, but refreshing.
Everything is connected now, whether we like it or not. Web development is a state of bloat that has persisted into a second decade. There's not enough crafting on the web, it's all about delivery. Often at speed at the cost of security and definitely at the cost of privacy.
- Software providers must prioritize security over rushing features. Comprehensive security should be built in or enabled by default.
- We must modernize security architecture to optimize SaaS integration and minimize risk.
- Security practitioners must work collaboratively to prevent the abuse of interconnected systems.
The second point is probably the hardest to achieve. Keeping ahead of the curve isn't impossible but it eats away at feature development in a significant way. But if this is the new normal, then I am fully on board.
Opet starts his call to arms:
We stand at a critical juncture. Providers must urgently reprioritize security, placing it equal to or above launching new products.
How it should have been from the start. Universities should spent as much time focusing on OPSEC as a concept as much as they would OOP and whatever else they push students towards these days.
Read the post from week 393
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There's no way I thought we'd win the league this season, there was an outside chance when Jurgen Klopp announced he was stepping down, but it felt impossible without investment in the squad.
That didn't happen and for some reason, Manchester City just fell of a cliff.
The title was Arsenal's for the taking, finished 5 and then 2 points behind Manchester City in the previous two seasons. Surely they were going to step up and take their place at the top. They just didn't.
15 points separate Liverpool and Arsenal with 4 games to go. Intense Champions League games for the former and a guard of honour over the next 4 games of the Reds.
Arne Slot not only inherited a good, but shallow, squad, he has somehow found a way to taken them to the next level. Next season is likely to be harder and I'm not sure we'll see a defence of the title. Rivals will spend big (as usual) and while Liverpool may do the same, it's more likely to be around succession planning than going for big names. No point in upsetting a good squad that's just won the title, but bringing in real competition would be welcome.
Slot has been clear and direct with what he expects and it's worked well. Firstly, the players seem to have appreciated the change after 9 years with one of the Premier League's most influential characters and secondly he has been willing to work with what he has.
Being a data-led club has its frustrations, but overall it has meant there has been a winning culture instilled the club by actually winning things.
I won't list my hopes for the next season just now. There are 4 games to go, a trophy lift, a parade (that I will be missing out on) and a summer off to get through before we need to worry about that.
I will leave you with two outro videos that were put on YouTube after the club mathematically secured their 20th title.
Read the post from week 392
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Inspired by a post titled how I'd fix Atlanta (vai kottke.org), here's how I'd propose beginning to fix any city:
- Invest in education
- Re-introduce libraries
- Invest in public transport
- Invest in the arts
- Prioritise affordable housing
- Walkable towns
- Green spaces for all (walking, sitting, playing)
Education
I shouldn't need to say more, but we just aren't investing enough in our children's education. It's only getting worse. Remains a mystery to me why the people we depend on most (teachers, nurses, doctors, the police and firefighters) aren't the top paid in society.
Read the post from week 391
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This is the quote Kottke shared from M. Gessen:
This is my radical proposal for universities: Act like universities, not like businesses. Spend your endowments. Accept more, not fewer students. Open up your campuses and [bring] education to communities. Create a base. Become a movement.
Cannot get behind this enough. For the past 4 years or so, I have been volunteering my time at two universities, multiple times a year. For one I am an alumni and for the other, I'm considered an "expert". It's not only rewarding on a personal level, but I hope it is rewarding to those students who get input from people with real industry experience. I'm coming up to 20 years now and there some that are a year into their journey and others that are even more seasoned than I am in their professions. We each bring different experiences but ultimately we are giving these students and the university access to a wider community.
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Just after lock down, we got into board and card games and I wanted to share a few that we've played a lot over the past couple of years.
UNO & UNO Extreme
Uno is a game that has been around for over 50 years and spawned many, many memes. We really enjoyed it for quite a while, but stuck to the official rules. None of this stacking business... but I'd be open to playing it that way.
But then we upgraded to Uno Extreme which comes with a device that randomly throws out 0-8 cards rather than you picking up from the pile. Highly recommend it as a table top alternative to Uno or just a different way to play the game.
We've seen there are many more versions, but these are the two I've played and we've enjoyed as a family.
Skip Bo
We were introduced to Skip No a couple of years ago and it's a card game for when you have a bit more time.
To make it a bit friendlier for kids, I sometimes play it with the cards openly on display so that they we can see each other's thinking, dilemmas and advantages but it didn't take long before we were keeping our cards to ourselves again.
Monopoly Deal
This is probably the family's favourite at the moment. It's fast paced and everyone is involved and strategising throughout. It's harder to win from a loosing position, but not impossible. It is Monopoly at it's core and yet it's played so differently to the board game.
I'd say Monopoly Deal is tied with Skip Bo as my favourite games but Uno and Uno Extreme are not far behind at all. You can get Uno, SkipBo and Monopoly Deal all on Amazon (affiliate links).
What card games are you playing?
Read the post from week 390
Carol Cadwalladr sums up the situation of The Guardian partnering with OpenAI:
it married its rapist
Strong words, but what a way to describe the AI landscape right now. Companies gathering all they can for free and then charging a fee to see how a computer might put that content back together in answer to a question.
The more AI invades my life, the more I see value, but there is an ethical side that is just not being taken seriously.
AI may be doing more harm than good right now. It's energy intensive, it's built upon theft and you can't trust that it's output will be correct. Maybe no one cares about those first two points, but if you're not fact checking it's output then you are not using the tool correctly.
Governments should not be caving into AI companies, arguably they should not even be using AI until it is more energy efficient and it is free from bias (impossible?).
Algorithms have their own problems, as many social media companies have confirmed, but I prefer algorithms that can be explained over a tool that is wholly based upon the theft.
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I have exactly 1 reason to keep my account active over on X but there's nothing else there for me and overall, my move from X to Bluesky has been pretty good all around. I am using social media less for one and following more visually artistic content.
It is possible that I spend more time on YouTube than other platforms now that I think about it.
I'm not one that struck a chord and amassed a following, I'm fully aware I'm shouting into the void most of the time. So bringing my usage down in any way is great.
Are you still on X? Are using social media less, or maybe differently?
Read the post from week 389
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On YouTube over the past month, FIFA have been sharing songs for each of the host cities for the 2026 World Cup.
Let's take a second to wonder exactly how well it's going to be given Trump's presidency. Canada and Mexico must be wondering how they're going to get through it and we'll all be wondering how smoothly it will be run. Given we've had the last two World Cups in Russia and Qatar, it's strange that this one might actually be the most politically sensitive one in recent times.
To be clear, Russia and Qatar should not have staged the World Cup and in truth, if FIFA was not a corrupt organisation, it would remove the US as a host.
But back to the music. Each of the 16 songs released, one for each host city, has been tailored by a producer. The brief was to take the official World Cup 26 theme and to remix it to pay homage to the city.
The standalone theme is fine but the Philadelphia remix by DJ Jazzy Jeff is my favourite of the bunch and each comes with it's own music video too. I'd embed it, but FIFA have disabled the ability to do so.
Read the post from week 388
WTF, France? From the economic bloc that lead to the creation of cookie banners, they are mad at Apple for showing a prompt that asks if the user would like to preserve their privacy or not?!
The investigation was launched in 2021 following a complaint lodged by a coalition of French advertising trade associations, including Alliance Digitale and the Internet Advertising Syndicate.
Has this coalition also lodge complaints with the plague of cookie banners we've been subjected to for years now? If not, why not?
They should really be looking at why this pop up is necessary, not why it might be frustrating.
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Everyone is, rightfully, raving about Adolescence. The fact each episode was filmed in one shot blew my mind.
Once you've watch it, come back for some insight from Stephen Graham and this behind the scenes from Netflix is great if you're interested in how they pulled it all of.
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After upgrading to a new MacBook Pro a few months ago, I have stuck to using just Safari as my web browser. It's been fine.
Developer tools are still not on par with Chromium browsers, but totally useable.
Tab Groups are good, I was already using them on my old MacBook, but I use them for specific scenarios and then they get forgotten.
I've adopted Compact tabs in Safari, which is fine, but the browser bar can become too small to be useful. Works great on a Mac and an iPad but its not for me on the iPhone.
I now use Extensions but sparingly. I am not deep into it an to be honest, I don't want to be.
The one browser exception
I only needed a separate browser once, and that was to test scroll driven animations which have actually just come to the Safari Technology Preview, but at the time I opted for Firefox. I knew if I downloaded Chrome I'd give in and make it my default, but my decision means Safari still comes first.
So on all my personal devices, I'm now using Safari and not hating it.
Read the post from week 387
Selvedge denim remains my to choice for jeans, I wrote about them three years ago and to this day still rely on my Uniqlo denim for daily wear.
That post featured an article from Business Insider that explained why the denim can be so expensive and they recently put out a video on the 800-year-old process of indigo dying:
It's always interesting to see these ways of creating materials, products and components all by hand and in a way that could easily be lost if someone didn't see the value in preserving how it's donw.
All of their Still Standing videos offer a deep look into traditional and hand made processes that are at risk of being lost due to modernisation.
Read the post from week 386
App Clips have been a thing since 2020 and I've only ever seen one. It was a portfolio piece for someone that I've been thinking about since I saw it and this week I decided to create my own.
It was rejected, because the app it was associated with was too thin with a limited audience. The app clip and the app were the same thing in reality. There was no reason to download my app, when the App Clip did it all. So here are my thoughts on App Clips at the start of 2025.
Restaurants
Nearly every demo for App Clips involves some mention of ordering on the go. I'm not saying a restaurant shouldn't have an app, but an App Clip would make a great way to share menus and take orders, especially for infrequent visitors or for someone out of town.
Maybe there's even a way to track rewards, but I am pretty fed up of needing an app for nearly every restaurant in our city centre.
My wife and I took some time to swap Apple Wallet loyalty cards so we've got the same on both phones when we're at the checkout. Makes building rewards a lot easier.
Digital Business Cards
Whether we're talking businesses or individuals, they would make a fantastic virtual business card. This is what I tried to get into the App Store, but can't because that's all it was...
Stand Alone App Clips
It sucks you can separate them from apps, the feedback I got from App Store Review was to basically launch a website instead.
I have a website (multiple!) and want something in the App Store! I don't think my ask was unreasonable, but hiding my App Clip away inside an app seems silly to me and I would have thought that would lead to the rejection of an app as it would be unrelated to it's function.
Configuration Hell
Understand how it all fit together was probably tougher than it should have been with errors only visible after submission and once I'd got it all through, Apple's AASA file caching is pretty aggressive so you get shown errors in App Store Connect that you fix but you have no feedback until that cache has cleared.
Growing File Limits
Size limits continue to grow, my feeling is that it relates to a lack of adoption and trying to make it easier for existing apps to take advantage of, but I think they need to pause on that on focus on defining what an appropriate use for App Clips would be.
In Summary
App Clips have lots of things going for them but I am not seeing them in the wild. I am trying to introduce them in the next app I'll be building and it will be a requirement, rather than a nice-to-have, for anything else I build going forward.
Update
After posting this article, I experienced my first organic encounter with App Clips on the weekend. I was searching for a place to eat and tapped on an option in Apple Maps to view the menu and up popped an Uber Eats App clip.
A great experience considering the app has been offloaded as I've barely used it in the past year or more. Rather than re-downloading it, I got a near-instant look at what I wanted.
Read the post from week 385
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