al_borland

I remember it being whenever they first added the next-word predictions above the keyboard. I was guessing it was iOS 7, just because that was the massive UI overhaul, but it very well could have been iOS 6.

I still think the original iPhone keyboard in 2007 was better than what we have now. It’s been downhill ever since iOS 7.

I used to tell people just type and trust it to work, it was great. Now, even when I type the right thing, the auto-complete will screw it up after the fact. I feel like I need to proofread everything. I wish we could go back to whatever setup they had 19 years ago.

> but the rest of us have supercomputers in our pockets.

The issue is they don't feel like supercomputers, because of how much they've been taken for granted.

My computer and phone today feel no faster or better to use than they did 20 years ago. They might be vastly more capable for niche applications, but for the day-to-day stuff it seems like we keep buying new hardware, so we can run the latest software at the same old speeds, mostly for security updates.

I have an M1 MBP... a bit old, but still does everything I need. When I click Calendar in the dock (when it is already open, but just haven't used it in a while), it can take 3-5 seconds to come to the front as the active app. It feels broken. This wait wasn't a thing 5 years ago on this hardware, nor was it an issue on a PPC Mac from 25 years ago. Yet now its' a problem... why? So the UI can calculate the refraction of the background image in the liquid glass? Should I be spending $2,500 on a new MBP just to switch more quickly from my browser to the Calendar? It doesn't make much sense.

I think another big one was the time from announcement to release.

When it was announced, for those who wanted an electric truck, it was going to be the only game in town. By the time Tesla delivered, there were several options already on the road from various companies. The people who really wanted an electric truck were already happy customers of another company by the time the cybertruck shipped. I see a fair number of Rivian, F-150 Lightning, and Hummer EVs around me.

When it comes to price, I expect to see a lot of Slate trucks once it starts shipping, with its low price.

I was messing around with the new coding agent in Xcode and built an app that would let me put in a bunch of channels I subscribe to, then basically made a YouTube RSS app around that. It would fetch new videos and show the thumbnails, times, descriptions, etc. If I wanted to watch something it will download it with yt-dlp on the backend. Watched videos would get cleaned up periodically, but videos marked as favorites would stick around.

It worked decently well. However, I started running into API limits when it would refresh to fetch updates. Things could likely be tweaked to avoid this, but I haven’t revisited it yet.

I didn’t make a generic search, but did allow pulling up one-off videos to download and favorite them.

Exporting is nice and all, but that is cumbersome if I want to edit something in place using a different app. For example, there are some things with Obsidian where it would be much easier to do what I'm trying to do in a full code editor, like VS Code. It's nice to be able to just open up the file, make my edits, save it, and instantly see the changes reflected in Obsidian. In another case, I wanted to easily log things throughout the day and append a file I had in Obsidian. Being a simple text file, I was able to do this with Bash, Hammerspoon (Lua), and AppleScript at various points in time... having to learn and use a special CLI command to append text to a file feels like overkill.

Having to use an LLM to search text also feels like overkill. One of the things I like markdown notes for is the simplicity of it. I can just use grep if I want. I can open the files on a computer from 1990 or 2090 and it will work. Having to bring in all these other tools into the mix hurts that utility. At that point, I might as well just use Apple Notes.

There is a wide range.

I have two people in my extended family with Down Syndrome. It's not the "bro" version that Shane Gillis talks about or the TV-friendly version like on Life Goes On.

They are both severely impaired, nonverbal, and demand constant attention. I only see them a few times per year and even within those isolated windows, I find it exhausting.

Some of the stuff would sound cute if done once or twice, but when it's every 2-3 minutes all day long... it's hard.

I tried using Bear many years ago. My issue with it was that while it was using markdown to format, everything is locked away in a SQLite DB, which kills a significant benefit of markdown notes.

I like Obsidian because it’s just stores a folder full of markdown files, and I can read/edit those files with whatever I want. It feels like a lot less lock-in than with Bear.

Kagi has a news site/app that updates once per day with the highlights from various categories of news.

I would imagine one could take something like that, and have program fetch it each morning, format it nicely, and print out a front page overview of what's going on. Just pick up the paper from the printer each morning.

This idea might be fine for a front page, but would fall apart when you start getting into long articles and think pieces. You'd be burning through a lot of paper.

I found an archive of their app story entry with more screenshots, linked from the archive of the developer's site.

https://web.archive.org/web/20131020160134/https://itunes.ap...

I had one of these as well. It was pretty useful in the days when my HHD was 20GB and regularly filled up.

It sounds awful, yet I’m still curious how it would taste.

I can't help buy think the Vision Pro should have been based on an iPhone instead of the Mac.

The latest Pro model iPhone weighs only about 22% of the Vision Pro + battery pack. The Vision Pro battery alone weighs more than the iPhone 18 Pro Max (with it's integrated battery).

Certainly, by putting the phone components in a larger enclosure, the thermals could be better managed over a phone being being used directly. Not to mention the thermal improvements that have been made it more recent iPhones.

With how locked down the Vision Pro is, it felt more akin to the iPhone or iPad anyway, so trying to classify it as a PC replacement always felt off.

I'm surprised Ryan wasn't on the list. Traditionally a boys name, but I know at least 3 women named Ryan. Maybe it hasn't reached a tipping point yet.

It's the same way in the US. That's why they were saying to just buy any TV (which will almost certainly be a smart TV), then just treat it like a dumb TV by not connecting it to the internet.

I was able to disable a bunch of stuff on my LG so I never actually see the WebOS interface anymore.

I think a chatbot or voice is a horrible interface for most things. There is 0 chance for discoverability, so the application's function is limited by the user's imagination. Most people aren't going to think about the various things a program could solve for them. Even with a UI, most users only use a small fraction of the available options. Without some visual cue to let them know features exist, I'd bet that most users would use even less.

My day job is automation stuff within a large organization. Most people, even within a technical organization, don't seem to think about how the computer can solve problems for them. The other day I used Claude to turn a massive csv dump of data into a dashboard to see trends over time. I don't see other people doing that.. but if Excel had a button for it, I'm sure they would do it.

I went down the watch rabbit hole for a while. When I was looking for a travel watch, I was stubbornly looking for a mechanical watch. I also wanted it to handle the issue that arises with countries like India, which are 30 minutes off all the other time zones. This was a nearly impossible task, and prices grew to the point where I didn't think I would even feel comfortable traveling with such a watch.

I stewed with this problem for the better part of a decade, without a solution.

I then stumbled across the Casio AE1200, their world timer. As I thought about it, this was the perfect choice. With a 10 year battery, I could just grab it and go (changing the battery whenever I renew my passport), I didn't have to deal with setting a bunch of complications, because the quartz movement just kept it going all the time. It solved the IST problem. The low cost meant that I could travel without having to worry about my watch... if something happened, oh well, get another one. Along with that, I wouldn't make me a target for pickpockets. I had been so caught up in watch culture that I didn't realize being cheap could be a feature in the right context.

I've had it for about 3 years now and still smile every time I wear it. Sure, it's a cheap Casio I picked up at some random retail store... but it took me 10 years to grow into the person who could appreciate it and it solved a problem that I thought about way too much for the previous decade. It's one of my cheapest watches, if not the cheapest, yet I think it's my favorite one.

A tip for anyone in the market: There is a lot of ugly text on this watch. It can be erased with an eraser. I used a white plastic eraser. At first it doesn't seem like it's doing anything, and then the text is gone. This is much better than the chemical solutions some videos online use.

I was tempted to upgrade the bracelet, case, and crystal. There are options for metal and sapphire from 3rd parties, but if I did that, I'd then be more worried about losing it, which is an anti-feature when traveling. I have intentionally kept it stock other than erasing the text on the case itself to stay true to that realization I had a few years ago.

And credit where credit is due, I think it was the Talking Watches episode with John Mayer and Ed Sheeran that made me realize cheap was a feature. They were showing all these crazy one-of-one watches they had custom-made from AP and alike, but they both just traveled with a G-Shock for some peace of mind.

Doing a quick search shows me many implementations of hacker news in the terminal.

I never used Spaces much.

Apple was actually last to the party on that. Linux had virtual desktops for years at that point, and Windows had them as well through Microsoft PowerToys. I’m pretty sure I was running it on Windows 2000.

I’d go with Tiger (10.4) for peak OS X, personally.

I guess this means I’ll be hanging onto my M1 Pro for another year and seeing what M7 has to offer.

This is the first time I’ve ever kept a computer this long and never really felt like it needed to be upgraded. I suppose this is a bit of a gift and a curse for Apple.

You just explained it. Extra cables, potential mounting hardware… when disassembled is also more to pack up, move, and set back up.

You might not think it’s much harder, but it’s harder.

Nanotexture is an option now, to get a matte finish and cut down on reflections.

Same. I don’t care if it’s thicker to accommodate the camera system.they can make the whole phone as thick as the cameras to remove the camera bump, and fill all that extra space with a huge battery and better speakers. Sounds perfect to me.

This creates a negative feedback loop. Developers release a product and if they don’t instantly get millions of users, the project is abandoned. This teaches users not to bother with new software and services that won’t stick around, making it even less likely that the project will survive the first year.

I used to sign up for new stuff all the time, but I don’t bother anymore. I don’t trust anything will still exist in 6 months.

With TV shows I have a soft rule that I don’t bother starting a show until it’s at least 3 seasons. I’m thinking of taking a similar approach in software, where I won’t bother with anything that hasn’t been actively supported and updated for at least 3 years. If the developer isn’t committed to the idea, why should I commit as a user or customer?

While there are certainly benefits to lowering the barrier of entry to starting a company or releasing software. I think the lack of commitment and seriousness on the part of those releasing it is a major drawback for users. In a brick and mortar business, owners put a lot on the line to get up and running, they expect not to make a profit for several years, and fight like hell to make it work. Meanwhile in modern software, it’s just a bunch of people throwing spaghetti at the wall, hoping something with stick long enough for a 7+ figure exit.

Agents still seem pretty bad at architecture. I still need to stay very much in control of how something is done, even if I have an LLM write some code here and there.

For stand-alone bits of code where I don’t really care about the implementation, I will let an agent go wild. But for production code in the legacy code base, not a chance I’m doing that.

I wish this was somehow listed as a separate line item with the price, assuming prices will normalize at some point. I don’t want these prices to be considered the new normal, even after memory prices come down. I think transparency in the pricing would help with that.

Half the time their mid-year fresh is just a new color, with a huge marketing push. If everyone has a case, colors become a moot point.

I also don’t think I’ve ever seen an Apple exec use a case, as it would imply the phones are durable and a case is needed, which they don’t want to convey. (Bumpers for antenna-gate aside)

I don't like when they force a storage upgrade just to get a matte screen. I have no need for more storage, but would like a matte screen. As a $100 upgrade for nanotexture, it already seems steep, but forcing it to a $200 upgrade due to a needless storage bump is too much to ignore.

I also question what is required for nanotexture. I read the iPhone Duo has this in a replaceable screen protector, effectively. A replacement, under AppleCare is $15. Are we being charged $100 for a factory installed screen protector? If so, why does that need to be tied to certain levels of storage to reduce SKUs?

Apple added emulator support a couple of years ago. Delta works great.

I’ve seen and used terminal applications from the App Store that seem to run a Linux VM locally, which would check off items 2 and 4.