Linked List: November 2025

Saturday, 8 November 2025

Fred Vogelstein on Techmeme’s Enduring Popularity ★

Following up on the previous item, here’s Fred Vogelstein, at Crazy Stupid Tech:

Rivera says that he’s not naive about the long term, however, “given the astonishing rate of improvement in AI capabilities we’ve seen. So we just have to improve our own stuff. And a major part of that will be adopting AI ourselves.”

Despite all this the basic approach of the original Techmeme algorithm remains the same, he said. “What are the most linked blog posts and news articles from this set of blogs? And once they reach a certain threshold, they’re featured on the site,” he said.

Maybe there’s a lesson here for the rest of the media world. I and every writer and mid level editor I know has stories about design changes to publications that made us groan. They seemed more in service of a new editor or design chief marking their territory like a dog or cat, than in service of actually making their publication easier to read.

Unsurprisingly, I agree wholeheartedly.

‘Explaining, at Some Length, Techmeme’s 20 Years of Consistency’ ★

Gabe Rivera, back in September:

A milestone such as this demands that we reflect and generate pithy takeaways, for the fans or at least for the perpetual gaping maw of AI models. Fortunately, our 20 years of existence offers no shortage of fodder. Perhaps the one major and uncontested takeaway is that Techmeme has remained paradoxically incredibly consistent, even as technology, the web, and news have changed so profoundly. In 2005 Techmeme was a free, single-page website, continuously ranking and organizing links from news outlets, personal sites, and corporate sites, and it remains so in 2025. Of course this point has been made before, and came up again this past week.

To call Techmeme an essential part of my daily media diet would be an understatement. If it went away or changed profoundly, it’d feel like I was missing a finger or something. 20 years is a great run, and Techmeme is more popular, and more widely-read, today than ever.

Friday, 7 November 2025

Tahoe’s Terrible Icons ★

Paul Kafasis, writing at One Foot Tsunami:

While Apple had previously urged developers to use squircle icons on our apps, they’ve now taken things much further to ensure compliance. It’s a shame.

Apple updated their own app icons on Tahoe, for both the squircle shape as well as the new “Liquid Glass” interface. Mostly, these icons seem dumbed-down, with a loss of detail. For example, here’s Safari’s old icon from MacOS 15 (Sequoia) on the left, and the new Tahoe icon on the right:

To me, the new icon just feels blander, and that’s widely true for all of the updated icons. A small number, such as Screen Sharing and Audio MIDI Setup, may be improvements. Most, however, are not. Let’s review with direct comparisons, all of which again feature the older Sequoia icon on the left and the new Tahoe icon on the right.

Trends come and go. Some are to one’s liking, and some are not. But this year’s app icons from Apple are just plain objectively bad. They’re ugly, they’re dumb (like the new Apple Calendar icon, showing a month that somehow has only 24 days), and many of them — regardless of whether they’re aesthetically pleasing or not — are inscrutable. The fundamental purpose of an icon is to have meaning. And some of these are meaningless.

Even good styles fall out of fashion as trends change. But good styles come back into style eventually. A few decades from now, no one is going to say “Hey, let’s bring back 2020s-style icons.” They’re like 1970s leisure suits.

For a remarkably long stretch, Apple’s in-house icons represented the pinnacle of an art form worth celebrating. They were exquisitely crafted, and quite obviously the work of the most talented artists in the field. Apple’s application icons in the OS 26 releases — MacOS Tahoe especially, because MacOS has the most first-party apps — look like they’re the work of people who have zero artistic ability whatsoever. They probably are the work of people with no artistic ability whatsoever, because I can’t imagine how a talented artist could bring themselves to create such things. And whoever at Apple approved them obviously has no taste. “Fuck it, who cares” is replacing “Insanely great” as the company’s design mantra for software.

Show me the person who thinks the new MacOS 26 Tahoe Automator icon is better than the MacOS 15 Sequoia one — or even just believes that the Tahoe icon is acceptable — and I’ll show you a hack who never should have even gotten a job working at Apple. This regression is nothing short of criminal.

The Automator icons from MacOS 15 Sequoia and 26 Tahoe.

Tyler Hayes Suggests Trying a Flip-Style Foldable If You Want a Smaller Phone ★

Tyler Hayes, writing for This Week The Trend:

The Razr+ 2024 model measures 3.46 inches tall, but still has a 4-inch diagonal screen size. For comparison, the smallest modern (2021) iPhone is the 13 mini, and that one is 5.18 inches tall. The Razr foldable is a legitimately small phone that can easily be held in one hand. It slips into a front pocket. It’s 0.60 inches thick. That might sound bulky, but in practice, it isn’t any bigger than using an iPhone with a case on it.

For anyone unfamiliar with this style of folding phone, the front screen isn’t just a novelty. It’s completely usable in the same way the larger internal screen is. By the way, the full-sized screen opens up to 6.9 inches.

I remain completely dubious of this form factor. Hayes compares the naked folded Razr+ to an iPhone in case, thickness-wise, but one of the problems inherent to this form factor is that most people adhere to a religious belief that they somehow need to put their phone in a case. They sell cases for these flip-style foldables but that just makes them even thicker. Comparing an un-cased foldable to an encased regular phone is bogus.

Worse, I dispute the notion that these phones are “completely usable” from the front screen alone. Reviews of these phones, including Hayes’s, tend to avoid including photographs of what they look like when the on-screen keyboard is showing. The keyboard basically takes up the entire screen (source), and it’s awkwardly positioned an inch from the bottom, to sit above the camera lenses. Technically usable, but no one is going to type more than a few words like this. If you have to unfold the phone just to text or email, why not buy a phone that doesn’t fold at all?

Book-style foldables seem like a maybe to me. Flip-style foldables just seem dumb. And the only “perfect solution” for anyone who wants a smaller phone would be for Apple to bring back the Mini size.

I Like My Presidents to Care When Someone Faints During a Press Event ★

“Here you go, you’re OK. I’m right here.”

Some Flunky Fainted in the Oval Office During a Press Event, and Trump Just Stood There With a Stupid Look on His Face ★

An even better, more iconic, metaphor for this administration than the images of the East Wing being razed. When you watch the video, take note of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. performing his family’s signature dance move, “The Chappaquiddick”.

Before all the excitement, Trump fell asleep, right in front of the press.

Wednesday, 5 November 2025

Regarding the Look of Notifications With Liquid Glass in iOS 26.1 ★

Benjamin Mayo, on X:

The Tinted glass option generally has a relatively subdued impact inside apps, making bars a bit frostier. But on the lock screen, it transforms all the notifications into grey opaque blobs. I would never choose this mode because that effect is just too ugly.

Now that I think about it, this is almost entirely why I don’t prefer the new “Tinted” option for Liquid Glass in iOS 26.1 — notifications look orthopedic, like an extra-high-contrast accessibility option for the vision impaired. Here’s a good side-by-side comparison in a post on Reddit. But as the top Reddit commenter points out, this severe over-correction from iOS 26.0 (where “Clear” was effectively the only option) is only with Light mode — in Dark mode, notifications in iOS 26.1 look good with the Tinted option.

Mamdani Was a Great Candidate Who Ran a Great Campaign ... for New York City ★

Hannah Knowles, writing for The Washington Post (via Taegan Goddard):

Mamdani won two-thirds of voters under 45 in preliminary exit polls, while Cuomo led him by 10 points with voters 45 and older. The polls also showed an education divide: College graduates backed Mamdani by 55 percent, while voters without college degrees narrowly favored Cuomo.

“By 55 percent” is horrendously unclear writing. It could be misread to suggest that Mamdani won amongst college grads by a 55-point margin. He did not. CNN’s exit poll — the link cited by Knowles above — show Mamdani garnering 57 percent of the vote from college graduates, with Cuomo at 38, and Sliwa 5. Amongst voters without a college degree, it was Cuomo 47, Mamdani 42, and Sliwa 11.

Mamdani cruised to an easy win while losing amongst voters without a degree because in New York City, 59 percent of voters yesterday had college degrees.

That level of education in the electorate is not representative of the United States as a whole. In last year’s presidential election (for consistency’s sake, I’m citing exit poll data from CNN), only 43 percent of voters nationwide had college degrees. Kamala Harris beat Trump 56–42 amongst those voters. Amongst the 57 percent of voters without a college degree, Trump won by almost the exact reverse split, 56–43.

Democrats, nationwide, don’t need to make gains with college-educated voters. They need to make gains amongst voters without college degrees. There’s no other demographic gap that is more crucial for Democrats to address. Education trumps race, gender, income, and age. In 2020, Biden won college grads 55–43, and Trump won non-college-grads by a mere 50–48.

WhatsApp for Apple Watch ★

WhatsApp:

In addition to reading and responding to messages, for the first time WhatsApp on Apple Watch will now support many requested features:

Call notifications: You can see who’s calling without needing to look at your iPhone.

Full messages: You can read full WhatsApp messages on Apple Watch — even long messages are visible directly from your wrist.

Voice messages: You can now record and send voice messages.

React to messages: We’ve added the ability to send quick emoji reactions to messages you receive.

A great media experience: You’ll see clear images and stickers on your Apple Watch.

Chat history: You can see more of your chat history on screen when reading messages.

All of these features have long been available on the Apple Watch apps for Apple’s Messages and Phone apps. But it’s an interesting sign that Meta sees Apple Watch as an important platform for personal communication. Not just for notifications that you need to act upon using your phone, but for actually using on your watch itself. And I think it speaks to how hard Meta is pushing to make WhatsApp the new universal baseline for texting and calling. By keeping iMessage and FaceTime to its own devices, Apple has ceded this opportunity to WhatsApp, and Meta is trying to capitalize on it.

I know there are many people who spend time wearing their Apple Watch while away from their iPhone — often while working out — who want or even feel they need these features. For me though, one of the things I like least about wearing an Apple Watch is getting badgered on my wrist with notifications. I feel not so much like I need less screen time, but rather that I need less notifications time. I feel good when I have time where I’m unreachable by texts, calls, and news alerts. I spent my recent month-plus semi-hiatus wearing only a mechanical watch, and I didn’t miss the lack of notifications-on-my-wrist at all.

Apple Podcasts Is Adding AI-Generated Chapters for Podcasts Without Chapters ★

News from Apple’s Podcasts for Creators site, regarding new features in the iOS 26.2 beta releases:

When you supply chapters in your episode description or in your RSS feed, they display in Apple Podcasts. If you submit chapters through your hosting provider, you can include images. For shows in English, when chapters aren’t provided, Apple Podcasts generates them for you and an “Automatically created“ label appears in the chapter list. If you prefer not to use automatically created chapters, you can disable this feature in Apple Podcasts Connect. Learn more about chapters.

It’s unclear to me whether this feature is actually exclusive to iOS/iPhone, or will be available across Apple’s 26.2 OS releases. This strikes me as a great use of AI, but I also think most multi-topic podcasts should include human-created chapters.

Epic and Google Agree to Settle Their Play Store Lawsuit, Pending Approval From Judge ★

Sean Hollister, reporting for The Verge:

The details of how, when, and where Google would charge its fees are complicated, and they seem to be somewhat tailored to the needs of a game developer like Epic Games. Google can charge 20 percent for an in-app purchase that provides “more than a de minimis gameplay advantage,” for example, or 9 percent if the purchase does not. And while 9 percent sounds like it’s also the cap for apps and in-app subscriptions sold through Google Play, period, the proposal notes that that amount doesn’t include Google’s cut for Play Billing if you buy it through that payment system.

That cut will be 5 percent, Google spokesperson Dan Jackson tells The Verge, confirming that “This new proposed model introduces a new, lower fee structure for developers in the US and separates the service fee from fees for using Google Play Billing.” (For reference, Google currently charges 15 percent for subscriptions, 15 percent of the first $1M of developer revenue each year and 30 percent after that, though it also cuts special deals with some big developers.)

If you use an alternative payment system, Google might still get a cut: “the Google Play store is free to assess service fees on transactions, including when developers elect to use alternative billing mechanisms,” the proposal reads. But it sounds like that may not happen in practice: “If the user chooses to pay through an alternative billing system, the developer pays no billing fee to Google,” Jackson tells The Verge.

According to the document, Google would theoretically even be able to get its cut when you click out to an app developer’s website and pay for the app there, as long as it happens within 24 hours.

This seems as clear as mud, other than being music to Epic Games’s ears.

Just for Fun, Some Vintage 2014 John Dvorak Claim Chowder ★

John Dvorak back in 2014, two months before Apple Watch was announced:

I got a lecture from a potential buyer, who will only purchase an iTime as a replacement for the iPhone rather than an accessory. But all evidence leads me to believe this device will be an accessory.

Doing that limits the appeal to people who were promised a sleeker gadget profile, which they desperately need, because they never manage to pare down anything. It’s tablet computing all over again.

If he’d meant that Apple Watch would be like the iPad, in terms of being a durable long-term many-billion-dollars-in-sales-per-quarter platform, he’d have been correct. But he meant that both were duds.

Dvorak is still writing, but alas, only occasionally.

Tuesday, 4 November 2025

Apple Launches New Web Interface for the App Store ★

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:

Apple has launched a dramatic new web interface for the App Store. You can now get the full App Store experience right in your browser, with dedicated pages for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision, Watch, and TV app libraries.

Previously, Apple’s “apps.apple.com” domain simply redirected you to a generic page about the App Store on Apple’s website. Now, it takes you to a full-fledged version of the App Store you can browse on your computer.

This new website is nice, but it’s not the “full” App Store experience, insofar as you can’t buy or download apps from it. It’s more like a full website mirror of the App Store than a web version of the App Store.

Apple Releases 26.1 Updates to Its Operating Systems ★

John Voorhees, writing at MacStories:

With iOS 26, Apple placed two big buttons onscreen when an alarm went off. One was for stop and the other snooze. That wasn’t a big deal for many of the alarms you set throughout the day, but when you’re waking up in the morning blurry-eyed, two big buttons stacked on top of each other weren’t ideal. For a lot of users, it was a toss-up whether stabbing at their iPhone through a morning haze would stop their alarm or snooze it.

With iOS and iPadOS 26.1, the “Stop” button for an alarm set in the system Clock app now requires a slide to stop gesture, which echoes the Slide to Unlock gesture of the original iPhone. The more deliberate gesture is a good move on Apple’s part. I can’t imagine someone tapping and sliding their finger to stop an alarm by accident.

This is a clever little change. I enjoy that it harks back to the original iPhone’s slide-to-unlock.

Update: If, for whatever reason, you don’t like this slide-to-stop feature, you can turn it off by toggling this option in Settings: Accessibility → Touch → Prefer Single-Touch Actions.

Monday, 3 November 2025

Gurman Suggests That Next-Gen Siri Will Be Powered by a White-Label Version of Google Gemini Running on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute ★

Mark Gurman, in his weekly Power On column for Bloomberg (paywalled, alas):

Even with the rosy sales forecast, the road ahead won’t be easy. Apple is betting heavily on the new Siri, which will lean on Google’s Gemini model and introduce features like AI-powered web search. But there’s no guarantee users will embrace it, that it will work seamlessly or that it can undo years of damage to the Siri brand.

And then, down below in his “Post Game Q&A”:

Q: Is Apple still planning to use Google Gemini to power the new Siri?

A: As I’ve reported a few times now, Apple is paying Google to create a custom Gemini-based model that can run on its private cloud servers and help power Siri. Apple held a bake-off this year between Anthropic and Google, ultimately determining that the former offered a better model but that Google made more sense financially (partly due to the tech giants’ preexisting search relationship). I don’t expect either company to ever discuss this partnership publicly, and you shouldn’t expect this to mean Siri will be flooded with Google services or Gemini features already found on Android devices. It just means Siri will be powered by a model that can actually provide the AI features that users expect — all with an Apple user interface.

This is quite the aside to tuck into a one-paragraph Q&A item. First, I love the idea that Apple is pursuing technical excellence as a top priority for the next-gen LLM-powered Siri. If Apple winds up using its own models, it should be because those models are truly competitive with the best models on the market. And if they can work out a deal to use models from Google because those models are technically superior to Apple’s own, they should.

It’s kind of wild though to think that, if this comes to pass, neither company will publicly acknowledge the arrangement. I believe it’s possible — but it would be odd. Right now Apple has a public partner for Apple Intelligence: optional integration with ChatGPT. Apple labels that integration as an “extension”, and has repeatedly stated — including as recently as last week — that they’re looking at other partners to add. The most obvious partner Apple could add — one that Craig Federighi mentioned by name on the day that Apple Intelligence was announced at WWDC 2024 — would be Google Gemini.

If what Gurman is reporting comes to pass, and Apple’s own cloud-based LLM technology is a white-label version of Google Gemini, it’d be pretty weird if that ships and Google Gemini still is not a named extension partner for Apple Intelligence. But it would also be a little weird if Google Gemini does become a named partner for Apple Intelligence alongside ChatGPT, while Apple’s own default cloud-based Apple Intelligence is powered by Gemini’s models.

Sunday, 2 November 2025

Dodgers Win 2025 World Series, Defeating Blue Jays in Thrilling Game 7 ★

Anthony Castrovince, writing for MLB (News+ link):

Behind a stunning, game-tying swat from Miguel Rojas in the top of the ninth, a first-of-its-kind, go-ahead blast from Will Smith in the top of the 11th and the absurd extra work World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto provided on zero days’ rest, the Dodgers broke Toronto hearts with their comeback 5-4 victory in a game that merited its own month on the MLB calendar.

The Dodgers are MLB’s first repeat champs since the 1998-2000 Yankees, and the four-hour, seven-minute, extra-innings affair it took to decide that was a fitting end to a true Fall Classic in which these two clubs exhausted each other — not just in the 18-inning epic at Dodger Stadium in Game 3 but throughout a Series in which they both had to empty the tank.

When a series goes to game 7, every fan hopes it’s a good game. But this was a great game — as good as baseball gets. Great pitching, clutch hitting, and some amazing fielding plays. Simply riveting to watch. The Blue Jays came within an inch or two of winning the Series on this play in the bottom of the 9th (and I think they would’ve won on that play if Kiner-Falefa had run through home plate rather than inexplicably sliding).

Saturday, 1 November 2025

Jaho Coffee Roaster ★

My thanks to Jaho Coffee Roaster for sponsoring this week at DF. Jaho has been family-owned since 2005, and they’re guided by their slogan: “Live Slow”. Jaho knows that great coffee takes care. From sourcing small-lot single origins to blending coffees for balance, they small-batch roast their award-winning coffees in Salem and Tokyo.

For the at-home coffee drinker, they roast to order and pack the same coffees brewed and served in all of their cafés. For the office worker, Jaho is proud to be a wholesaler with select partners across the nation and in Japan. Jaho was kind enough to send me a few bags of their beans, and I can vouch that they roast excellent coffee — the kind of tasty beans where, when I finish my last morning cup, I’m tempted to brew a little more even though I know I’m fully caffeinated.

For the month of October, every year, Jaho donates all online coffee bean sale profits to Susan G. Komen for Breast Cancer Awareness. (The pink in their brand colors originated from this partnership.) For this DF sponsorship, they’re carrying that promotion for all online sales through the end of day on Monday, November 3.

Jaho ships their fresh beans nationwide, and they’re offering a special deal for DF readers: take 20% off with code DF. Give up bad coffee for good, and support a great cause at the same time.

Nation’s Top TV Critic Weighs in on Late Night ★

The president of the United States, on his blog:

Seth Meyers of NBC may be the least talented person to “perform” live in the history of television. In fact, he may be the WORST to perform, live or otherwise. I watched his show the other night for the first time in years. In it he talked endlessly about electric catapults on aircraft carriers which I complain about as not being as good as much less expensive steam catapults. On and on he went, a truly deranged lunatic. Why does NBC waste its time and money on a guy like this??? - NO TALENT, NO RATINGS, 100% ANTI TRUMP, WHICH IS PROBABLY ILLEGAL!!!

The funny part about Trump wildly flailing that Late Night With Seth Meyers is somehow “probably illegal” is that the very sentence of the segment that so upset Trump begins with this: “Donald Trump called criticism of his trip to Asia ‘almost treasonous’ and threatened to send active duty military into US cities. For more on this, it’s time for ‘A Closer Look’.”

Uni Watch: 1999–2025 ★

Paul Lukas, founder of Uni Watch:

Due to a perfect storm of negative developments, I have reluctantly come to the unfortunate conclusion that continuing to publish Uni Watch is no longer viable. This will be the site’s final post.

Yes, I’m serious. And no, this isn’t a Halloween-related prank. Uni Watch is shutting down, for real.

I realize this news probably comes as a shock and that you no doubt have lots of questions, so let’s shift into Q&A mode. [...]

Will the site’s archive remain on the web?

No, unfortunately. Most of the archive — everything but the past few days’ worth of content — has already been taken down. The rest of the site, including this post, will be taken offline soon, probably around next Wednesday.

26 years is a hell of a run (dating back to 1999, a few years before Uni Watch became a standalone site), but I don’t understand why sites don’t leave their archives standing when they close down. It shouldn’t cost much to keep the domain name registered and a static version of the site’s archive online.

Uni Watch, to me, epitomized a certain mindset from the early web. To wit, that there ought to be a blog (or two or three) dedicated to every esoteric interest under the sun. You want to obsess about sports team uniform designs? Uni Watch was there. For a good long stretch, there seemingly was a blog (or two or three) dedicated to just about everything. That’s starting to wane. New sites aren’t rising to take the place of retiring ones.