Linked List: September 2025

Wednesday, 10 September 2025

iPhones 17 and the Sugar Water Trap 

Ben Thompson has a wonderful take on yesterday’s event and what it says about Apple overall:

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.

Apple’s Slate of Announcements Yesterday 

Apple Newsroom posts:

Trump Hosts Dinner Humiliating Tech CEOs 

The Wall Street Journal (gift link):

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.

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. Tim Cook said this:

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.

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.

Apple Announces ‘Memory Integrity Enforcement’ 

Apple Security Engineering and Architecture (SEAR):

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.

That is, to say the least, an incredibly bold statement. But I think it’s true. This is a fascinating post, cogently written.

Base Storage is 256 GB Across Entire iPhone 17 Lineup 

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:

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.

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.

Tuesday, 9 September 2025

A Few Details Apple Didn’t Mention During Its “Awe-Dropping” Event 

Dan Moren:

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 “iPhone Air MagSafe Battery”—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 new iPhone bumper case too.)

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?

Monday, 8 September 2025

Another Dyson Presentation 

I loved watching this. My takeaway: don’t just say what it does, explain how it does what it does.

Sunday, 7 September 2025

TextJam 

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.

Try it today for free.

Saturday, 6 September 2025

A Cynical Read on Anthropic’s Book Settlement 

MG Siegler, writing at Spyglass:

And so you can’t help but wonder if part of the equation in this settlement wasn’t decidedly more cynical. Fresh off a new massive fundraise — one in which they raised far more than they were initially targeting, I might add — Anthropic has a lot of money. More than perhaps all but one of their competitors 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, and Meta. But could any other startup that has done any level of model training with such data? Probably not.

Kind of dastardly when you think about it this way.

Friday, 5 September 2025

Hayden Field, reporting for The Verge:

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.”

Thursday, 4 September 2025

Atlassian Acquires The Browser Company for $610 Million 

David Pierce, writing for The Verge:

Mike Cannon-Brookes, the CEO of enterprise software giant Atlassian, was one of the first users of the Arc browser. 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 new AI-focused Dia browser. 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.

I get it. Later in the same article, there’s this:

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.

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.

Investors Score the US-v.-Google Remedies Ruling a Win for Google and Apple 

Dave Michaels and Katherine Blunt, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (gift link):

“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.

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.

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.

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, Craig Federighi made conspicuous mention 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 — it just never made sense to me that Chrome even is a sellable asset.

Instagram Finally Launches an iPad App 

There are finallys, and there are finallys. Apple shipped the original iPad in April 2010. Instagram shipped in October 2010 — and was iPhone-exclusive until 2012. 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 in this Reel (natch).

Google Avoids Harshest Penalties in Search Monopoly Ruling 

David McCabe, reporting for The New York Times:

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.”

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 the entire ruling 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.

Monday, 1 September 2025

Bernie Sanders: Kennedy Must Resign 

Bernie Sanders, in a NYT op-ed:

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.

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. Almost no one lasted long in the Trump 1.0 administration, and it’s unlikely anyone will last long in the Trump 2.0 administration. (Including, perhaps, Trump himself, who is clearly unwell.) Kennedy ought to be the first to go.

Trump smells it too, hence this “both sides” post on his blog this morning. Public opinion is strongly against this abject vaccine quackery.

Nine Former Directors of the CDC: ‘RFK Jr. Is Endangering Every American’s Health’ 

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:

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 severely weakened 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 focused on unproven treatments while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced 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, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose 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.

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.

The Talk Show: ‘Ersatz PopSocket’ 

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.

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