Because of their decades of truly great products, Apple thinks they are more clever than anyone else. Because of their focus on privacy, Apple thinks they are righteous. Because of their financial success, Apple thinks they are more powerful than governments. The DMA will test whether they're right.
Manual cross-posting to Threads and more
Today we've added a brand new option for manual cross-posting from Micro.blog to other services, including Threads. This new option is great for services that don't yet have an open API, so Micro.blog can't automatically post to them, or for when you want to edit and preview your posts before sending them elsewhere.
This feature is for blogs hosted on Micro.blog, so it's available in the Posts page where you manage your blog posts:
This brings support for Threads for the first time. When choosing Threads, Micro.blog will reformat your blog post as plain text, truncate it if necessary, and copy the text over to Threads where you can finish sending the post. You will need to be signed into Threads in your web browser, or in the Threads app on mobile.
Twitter X is also now back in a more limited form with this new cross-posting option. We still can't automatically post to Twitter X because of their API changes. There's also the usual suspects like Mastodon, Tumblr, and Bluesky.
This feature doesn't work exactly like Micro.blog's existing, automatic cross-posting, so be sure to check out the help page for the details. In future updates, I expect that the two different ways of cross-posting will look more similar.
Last month we teased that a major new feature is coming to Micro.blog soon. Whenever we add something new, folks ask if the new thing is the major feature... Nope, this cross-posting improvement isn't it either! You'll know when we ship it next month because it comes with its own section of Micro.blog, a new companion app for iOS and Android, and an update to the macOS app. Stay tuned.
Accidentally poured chocolate milk in my cereal. Guess it's going to be one of those kind of mornings.
Very excited about Project Tapestry from the Iconfactory, now available to back on Kickstarter. We need more apps for the social web like this that work across multiple platforms. It will support Micro.blog too!
Great to see more of the Texas grid powered by renewable energy. From KUT, broke a record a couple days ago with 36% of power coming just from solar, hitting 15,222 megawatts.
Castro has found a new home with Bluck Apps, who already has a podcast app on Android. They blog about what's next:
In the coming weeks and months, we’ll be making some changes under the hood to make the backend more stable and make sure new episodes sync more quickly. Once things are stabilized and the transition is complete, we’ll be turning our attention toward new features, such as syncing across devices.
Because some folks asked about it, I did reach out to Tiny but it didn't go anywhere, and honestly I'm a little relieved. We have a full plate already with Micro.blog.
I've got the senate committee hearing about child exploitation on in the background while I work this morning. Interesting to hear Mark Zuckerberg pivot a couple of the questions into needing to be solved in the app stores, not the social platforms.
Apple needs a flop
Early reviews for the Vision Pro dropped this week. This device is technically amazing, with well-considered solutions to the problems of VR. My takeaway from the reviews is that I want to try it, but I'm okay waiting before I need to own a bit of this future that Apple is promising us. I'd like to see something closer to true AR, not mixed reality, in a more lightweight, affordable form factor.
When the pre-orders ship later this week, early adopters will unpack the headset, post to social media about how amazing it is, and then largely go back to using their MacBook Pro for real work. We are already too isolated from our fellow humans, and there are too many environments — coffee shops, libraries, and other public spaces — that are not suitable for the Vision Pro.
Apple has an incredible track record since Steve Jobs returned to the company, and continuing with Tim Cook. Very few misses, and some of the controversies like Antennagate were overblown. As long as I have been using Macs, going back to the early 1990s, Apple’s dedication to great design and putting the user first has served them well. There is a lot to be proud of, including initiatives alongside products, such as their commitment to the environment.
But increasingly, it feels like this success has inflated Apple's view of themselves, twisting their perspective of what matters. They’ve become arrogant, as if entitled to future success too. As I posted in the context of their response to the EU’s Digital Markets Act:
Because of their decades of truly great products, Apple thinks they are more clever than anyone else. Because of their focus on privacy, Apple thinks they are righteous. Because of their financial success, Apple thinks they are more powerful than governments. The DMA will test whether they’re right.
Maybe we're at a crossroads for the company. Apple was great as the underdog, when they were humbled, fighting to out-innovate the competition. What came after the Lisa? The Macintosh. After almost going bankrupt? Think Different and the iMac. After the butterfly keyboard? Some of the best MacBooks ever made.
Apple is now so powerful, with so much control over computing... They need a failure. They need to see a new product stumble in the market. They need to remember what it feels like to realize something isn’t working, to take a fresh look at their priorities, and to reflect on how they treat users and developers. They need to be more focused in what they do, leaving a little room for the rest of us to build something too.
I don’t wish a flop on the Vision Pro product team. They’ve put an extraordinary amount of good work into it. But we all have a mix of successes and failures in life and business. It keeps us grounded. It helps us set priorities. We learn from it and move on to the next thing.
And if the initial Vision Pro doesn't find a mainstream audience, that doesn't mean there isn't a revolutionary interaction model there. Maybe spacial computing is part of the future. Maybe if Apple sticks with it, we'll look back on how they pushed the idea forward even when the first generation product didn't pan out.
Trillion-dollar companies need to make trade-offs too. Because Apple has been working on the Vision Pro as the next big thing, what have they missed that needed their attention?
We should hold Apple to a high standard because they’ve earned it. I just don’t believe in the soul of the company the way I used to. As Brent Simmons reminds us, corporations are not people. Apple does so much — Macs, iPhones, iPads, watches, headphones, ads, video services, movie production, cloud storage, news, fitness, the App Store, platform fees, goggles — that I'm not sure there is still a cohesive story around what they stand for, other than money.
I paused posting to Threads last year because I thought the platform would be joining the fediverse soon-ish. They're making good progress with the early enabled accounts, but it's going to be a while until folks on Threads can follow my Micro.blog profile, so I'm going to resume posting there.
There has been a long list of proprietary Apple connectors over the years, but this wide Lightning cable in the Vision Pro is one of the funniest.
Had a dream last night that I was hired at GitHub. My team was about 4-5 people, much younger than me, with hardly any actual experience… except they were all better programmers than I was. On the first day I deployed a change that broke a bizarre GitHub spreadsheets feature.
Step one, take off the headset
Steve Troughton-Smith asks an interesting question on Mastodon:
"Why would anybody use my app in VR?” isn't the right question to ask yourself. It's “do I want my users to have to take off their headset to use my app?”
His post is clearly intended to have the obvious answer "no", but I'm not sure there is a universal answer. I decided to opt-out of visionOS for my iPad apps, for now. I'm not sold on the device yet, and I have a bunch of other things to work on anyway.
It got me thinking about Apple's own apps. For example, Books. Would you want to read a novel inside VR? You aren't going to want to have Slack and other apps floating in space to distract you. An iPad seems like a better device for reading. Maybe if the book is surrounded by a virtual environment from the book within visionOS, adding a sense of being there? Apple seems to think so, because it does include the iPad version of Books with the Vision Pro.
Through the history of technology there are many "just because we could do it" moments. TikTok has swiping through an infinite feed of limitless content and users are probably worse off for it. I think the Vision Pro is going to be the same way, as developers feel out what makes sense on the device, and consider what is right for users. If some apps require taking off the headset, that might even be a good thing.
If Mark Zuckerberg says it’s very difficult to use the new App Store EU rules — and Meta just announced their quarterly results of $40 billion in revenue — then there is no chance the rest of us can make it work. Sideloading and marketplaces are like a mirage.
Just posted a new @coreint with a follow-up about the CTF, Black Ink for iOS, and (of course!) the Apple Vision Pro.
Experimenting with other ways to use the OpenAI API, and one thing that has struck me is the price difference between GPT 3.5 and GPT 4. It is dramatic. If it wasn't for the token limit of 3.5, I'd just use that for everything. It's still good.
I try to welcome feedback, but it's tiring to be lectured on how I'm wrong about Apple when I criticize their business. I've been developing Mac apps continuously for the last 30+ years, got an iPhone on day one, and I think about this constantly... But no, everyone else must know more than I do! 🤪
Amazing video from Casey Neistat going around New York City wearing the Vision Pro. My opinion keeps alternating between "I need this now" and "no one should ever have this"... It's a wild product and I wonder if even Apple knows where it's going.
Slow weekend. Sitting on the couch, hanging out with the dog. I could imagine using a Vision Pro right now. But if I’m reevaluating my tech, maybe a better upgrade would just be a larger phone.
Until reading through Jason Snell's FAQ, didn't really occur to me that Apple has spent so much time trying to get away from managing multiple windows, from Simple Finder to the iPad, and now it's like the other extreme. Windows on the side, on the ceiling, on the wall in the other room, everywhere!
Spent some time this weekend experimenting with browser extensions. I had avoided this too long, thinking a bookmarklet should be good enough for anyone. But it is nicer to install with a search and a click. In-progress source code over at GitHub.
Made a short 2-minute video about Micro.blog cross-posting to other services, especially manually copying a post to Threads. I've been using this feature quite a bit. Also useful if you just want a little more control.
My guess is we’ll see a ruling on the Trump immunity question this week. We’re all impatient, for good reason, but getting this right might save time in the long run. The judges will have a rock-solid answer and the supreme court won’t need to hear it again if there’s another appeal. 🇺🇸
The leap from my old Nokia phone to the first iPhone was enormous. We sort of want all tech breakthroughs to feel that way. But it's okay if most new devices are more iterative. They don't need to change the world completely to still have a place in it.
Enjoying the Grammys so far. Trevor Noah is such a great host. New Curb Your Enthusiasm tonight, too! 📺
Got some random requests to sign into my Google account, so locked it down a little better this morning. No more SMS verification, 2-factor via authenticator app, new password. I'm not super paranoid but I think I need to do that for more services.
