What for you ask? Good question, the list of possible charges is pretty long.

From Emily Olson at NPR:

A quick refresher: Trump is currently facing at least five investigations, covering everything from his possession of classified documents to his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But the latest indictment rumors stem from just one of those probes: the one led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Bragg's office is examining whether Trump and his company broke state laws in paying hush money to adult film star Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels.

Daniels says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, a claim that Trump has repeatedly denied. But his company still paid $130,000 to the star in exchange for her silence during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

In 2018, a campaign finance investigation into that payment led Trump's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen to plead guilty to federal charges. […]

Federal prosecutors have also said that it was Trump himself who directed Cohen to arrange the payments, meaning Trump could be held responsible for those false records.

Doesn’t sound great.

That said (and let me first remark that NO ONE is above the law; I’m not saying he shouldn’t be held accountable because of the political ramifications (what an odd sentence to type, but alas, we live in a political climate where 40% of voters are so throughly brainwashed by Facebook and Fox News that being a felon isn’t a disqualifier for presidential candidates)), I do wonder what the result of a possible arrest will be. My fear is that it could be easily weaponized by Trump to stoke fear and anger resulting in political violence, or that it could be capitalized upon by Ron DeSantis to put Trump’s campaign in the grave, cementing his spot as the Republican Presidential nominee frontrunner. And I’d much rather Biden face a rematch with a withered, resentful old Donald Trump than a much younger, more palatable but still extremist Ron DeSantis.

I’m torn between whether I’d rather see Trump on his perp walk pre-hair and makeup, or whether I’d rather see the orange spray tan/cheeto dust stained handcuffs after the fact.

A few notable excerpts from the BBC’s obituary:

She became for many the one constant point in a rapidly changing world as British influence declined, society changed beyond recognition and the role of the monarchy itself came into question.

[…]

She was said to have shown a remarkable sense of responsibility from a very early age. Winston Churchill, the future prime minister, was quoted as saying that she possessed "an air of authority that was astonishing in an infant".

[…]

The hallmark of her reign was constitutional correctness, and a further separation of the monarchy from the government of the day. She took seriously her rights to be informed, to advise and to warn - but did not seek to step beyond them.

[…]

The Queen described 1992 as her "annus horribilis" and, in a speech in the City of London, appeared to concede the need for a more open monarchy in return for a less hostile media.

"No institution, city, monarchy, whatever, should expect to be free from the scrutiny of those who give it their loyalty and support, not to mention those who don't. But we are all part of the same fabric of our national society and that scrutiny can be just as effective if it is made with a measure of gentleness, good humour and understanding."

[…]

Although the monarchy might not have been as strong at the end of the Queen's reign as it was at the start, she was determined that it should continue to command a place of affection and respect in the hearts of the British people.

What an incredible life.

The Queen’s death was an event that we all knew was coming, but it was the sort of day you never quite believed would actually arrive.

John Gruber, on Daring Fireball:

Interesting turn of events that it’s the Play Store that is being more strict about this than Apple’s App Store, where Truth Social has been available since February.

Not a good look for Apple, but seems difficult to walk back now without looking like they’re trying to mirror Google, which would surely be met with a cacophony of conservative outrage and accusations of cancel culture-fueled hypocrisy.

Mary Papenfuss, reporting for HuffPost (a source I usually disregard as being exceedingly liberal):

All book donations and purchases have been halted in the district for the rest of the year because the new law (HB 1467) requires books to be approved for suitability by state-certified media specialists, a job that doesn’t currently exist in the district.

DeSantis, who has signed laws that also restrict discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary school classrooms, has said HB 1467 will help prevent “indoctrination through the school system.”

The Sarasota district, which has nearly 45,000 students across 62 schools south of Tampa, ordered all principals last week to bar new books from school media centers and classroom libraries until at least January […]

[…] a member of the Venice Suncoast Rotary Club, told The Sarasota Herald-Tribune that the club has been donating dictionaries to district elementary schools for almost 15 years.

If there’s anything Florida needs more of, it’s goddamn books, especially dictionaries. Next time they (or Texas) threaten to secede, let them.

This is the sort of story you love to see. From Deepa Seetharaman and Salvador Rodriguez at The Wall Street Journal (via Apple News+):

Meta shares plunged after the results were announced, dropping more than 20%. If shares dropped that much when trading opens on Thursday, it would wipe more than $175 billion from the tech giant’s market capitalization.

Quick update: the Journal’s story was published on the evening of Facebook’s report, before the market opened the next day. They ended up dropping slightly more than 25%, and they lost over $200B.

The company said it expected revenue growth to slow because users were spending less time on its more lucrative services. Meta cited inflation as a weight on advertiser spending and estimated that ad-tracking changes introduced by Apple Inc. last year would cost Meta some $10 billion this year. 

I bet Apple is happy about this. And they certainly should be. Their App Tracking Transparency policy wasn’t designed to cripple Mark Zuckerberg’s company, it was designed to give users a little more control over their data and prevent unwanted tracking. Facebook blaming Apple for the loss would be like a peeping tom blaming his victim for his blue balls when they finally close the curtains of the window he’s looking through. Merlin Mann put it well on Twitter (quipping about a particularly stupid framing of the issue by the New York Times):

“Local burglar blames revenue shortfall on industry-hostile doors.”

From the Journal again:

Meta also lost about a million daily users globally and stagnated in the U.S. and Canada, two of the company’s most profitable markets, the results show.

The fact that they’re losing users is a good sign, but it it shouldn’t take Facebook by surprise unless they’re so high on their own supply that they've completely isolated themselves in echo chambers reaffirming how much good they’re doing in the world (probably by means of Facebook groups). The global social media market is saturated, this plateauing shouldn’t come as a surprise, and Facebook acting like this caught them off guard is bullshit. They clearly did see it coming because they decided to refocus the whole business on personal porn theaters virtual reality goggles. We’ll see how that goes, but here’s to the next Google Glass.

I must say though, it pisses me off that Wall Street is gonna get the credit for finally dealing a significant blow to Facebook when those of us who have been paying attention have been screaming about how terrible they are for years. Fuck capitalism, fuck Facebook.

#deletefacebook

I went into “Red (Taylor’s Version)” with a pretty sour attitude, and I want to address that first, because while my opinions have since changed and I’m now very pleased with the album, I still think my frustrations at the time were valid. I posted the following on Reddit the week before the album was released:

Is anyone else feeling a bit down on Red (TV)? I’m a huge fan, don’t get me wrong, but the lack of promo material for this album has me feeling ambivalent about it, and at times even resentful.

She first told us about the album five months ago, and I just think that’s a lot time to let us sit on the knowledge that it’s coming, but to keep us wondering the whole time if could finally be the day we get a single or a vault track or something. The fact that the album comes out a week from today and we still haven’t gotten ANYTHING is really frustrating to me, and it’s souring me on the album as a whole. It feels like Taylor is taking advantage of our dedication and our excitement by keeping us all anxious and waiting, but never giving us more than a 10 second scrap of a song.

Red was one of the re-records that I was most excited for, but now I’m just feeling a bit aggravated at the thought of it. I feel like we deserve at least one single to help us get in the mood for it, especially given that Fearless (TV) gave us 3 singles (with two of them being vault tracks) across a much shorter time frame.

I recognize that this probably isn’t the general sentiment right now because most people ARE excited, and I know Taylor doesn’t owe us anything, I’m just curious if anyone else is feeling the same way.

I was excited for the first single to drop so we could get a taste of what the next chapter in the Taylor’s Version story would sound like, to begin comparing and contrasting with how “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” sounded. Unfortunately, weeks and months were passing with no singles ever being released, and really no other promotional material to help get me excited about the rerelease. Even though Taylor promoted her version of “Red” heavily following its release, I still think my points stand.

Anyway, once the album finally came out, I really enjoyed it. So, without further adieu:

My Notes

As with my “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” review, I won’t go song by song for the entire album since most of them aren’t original, but here are my more general thoughts and some specific points I wanted to make.

The album sounds really good. Her voice is, again, noticeably more mature. The production on most of these songs is as good as ever, and I actually think it’s better in more than a few cases. However, there are a few songs where I don’t think they were improved, and they sound a little too different from the originals for my taste, and that’s particularly true of some of the louder, more upbeat songs like “I Knew You Were Trouble,” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” and “22.” They just sounded a bit hollow to me the first few times I listened to them. Taylor’s voice is front and center, but it sounds like the instruments were positioned about 20 feet behind her when it was recorded. They lack bass and they aren’t punchy enough. However, listening to these songs in Spatial Audio does improve the experience significantly. It no longer sounds like the instruments are far away, instead it’s as if you’re inside the song and the instruments are all around you (though they still aren’t quite loud enough). It gives me the impression that these songs were recreated with Spatial Audio in mind, and tuned specifically for that format to the detriment of the stereo listening experience. Even taking that into account, those more upbeat songs still aren’t produced as well as the originals, and they just needed to sound a little fuller.

While we’re talking about how the songs sound, “Girl At Home” is an interesting case study. On the original album, it was arguably my least favorite song. Frankly, it’s sonically boring, and the lyrics come across as a little high and mighty to me. That said, in the interest of having the most faithful rerecords possible, I don’t like how much she changed it. It doesn’t sound much like the original at all, and while I must admit that I like the new version better and find it significantly more enjoyable, the idea that she’s willing to change songs that much scares me. I don’t like her setting the precedent that the original sounds of some of her less popular songs aren’t off the chopping block; it would really upset me if she changed a song like “I Wish You Would” or something else that was a lesser known track from its album, but now I’m afraid that’s a possibility. “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” was a more faithful recreation than “Red (Taylor’s Version),” and it made me feel really good about the prospects of everyone getting their favorite songs recreated in a way that was faithful to the originals, even if your favorite wasn’t everyone else's favorite. “Girl At Home” is causing that fear to creep back in a bit.

On a different note, I was really stoked that she got Gary Lightbody back for “The Last Time.” That was the song with a featured artist I was most excited to hear recreated, and also the one where I thought it was most uncertain whether the featured artist would return, so I’m really glad she got him back, and the song sounds great. It’s always been one of my favorites from “Red.”

I was worried that the vault songs on this album wouldn’t be terribly impressive, both because there were so many of them, and because most of the Vault songs from Fearless weren’t terribly impressive. However, the “Red” Vault did not disappoint. There were some songs we’d heard before, and they were more or less what we were expecting, but the new songs were all more capable of holding their own that the “Fearless” Vault tracks. I could envision an alternate history where any of those songs had made it on the original album.

The Vault, Song by Song:

As usual, I’ve given each song two ratings out of ten, the first rating is how I felt about it after the first time I listened to it, the second is how I feel about it after more listens and some time to process each track.

“Ronan (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”: 4.5/10, 2/10

I don’t like anything about this track. It’s slow, depressing, and nothing about it is musically impressive. Most of the lyrics don’t even rhyme. Yeah, yeah, I’m an asshole. We know.

“Better Man (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”: 9.5/10, 9/10

It takes a little getting used to just because it’s not what we’re used to, but I love it. It’s crazy that her original “Better Man” demo from 2012 leaked right before the album came out, but I liked it, and I liked that this was very similar to it.

“Nothing New (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault) [feat. Phoebe Bridgers]”: 6.5/10, 5/10

This song would’ve made a lot more sense if it’d come out in 2012. Also, one of my friends pointed out that the duet could’ve been better if they were having more of a conversation between someone at the start of their career and someone well established, rather saying almost the exact same things, as if they were both fledgling celebrities.

“Babe (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”: 7/10, 6.5/10

The “promises promises” part was unexpected and less than needed, but I still like the song. Like “Better Man,” it does take some getting used to.

“Message In A Bottle (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”: 6.5/10, 6.5/10

This one is very poppy. It’s a bit more early 2000s bubblegum pop though, and I’m glad that her pop style evolved in the direction of 1989 rather than having gone this way. That said, I do like the song.

“I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault) [feat. Chris Stapleton]”: 8.5/10, 7/10

She sounds like a pirate at the beginning. Other than that, I like the song. It clearly ties in with “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” (see: “do you have all the space that you need”), and I think it fits the “Red” vibe pretty well. I don’t see why Chris Stapleton is here though. Did he also get left by a boy who thought he was better than him? Probably not, and he doesn’t really add anything to the song.

“Forever Winter (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”: 6.5/10, 7/10

I liked this one a lot. I expected it to be the “rip your heart out and stomp on it” song, but none of the new vault tracks really were that (I think she saved it all for ATW10, which is fine). I think this track is a good commentary on men’s mental health, which doesn’t get talked about nearly enough. The man in the song is clearly dealing with some mental health issues, and the girl is slow to recognize it and clueless as to how to fix it. It’s from her perspective, but it’s 100% about him.

“Run (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault) [feat. Ed Sheeran]”: 6/10, 7/10

I liked this one a little more than I expected to. I think the fact that it didn’t make the album original led to it being repurposed and turned into “I Know Places.”

“The Very First Night (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”: 7/10, 6/10

This one is good, but a little forgettable despite being very catchy. People have been trying to out Taylor as a lesbian forever, and I don’t buy that at all, but someone pointed out to me that the lines “didn’t read the note on the Polaroid picture” and “no one knows about the words that we whispered” are followed by lines that go “do you know how much I miss you” and “they don’t know how much I miss you,” and in both cases, the line “how much I miss her” would’ve rhymed perfectly. Probably a coincidence, but interesting nonetheless. And “miss her” rhymes so much better that I often sing it wrong.

“All Too Well (Ten Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”: 7.5/10, 9/10

Ah, where to begin? I guess the beginning is the best place: right from the start, you know that this is not the “All Too Well” we’re used to. It’s a little slower, but the whammy bar in those first few measures is a little hypnotic and I think it sounded great. Following that, it took a little longer than I expected for us to start hearing some of the added lyrics. When they finally do come in, they take you by surprise: one of the first added lines is “fuck the patriarchy.” This really put my guard up. I was not expecting Taylor to come out swinging with some political message in her most beloved and most anticipated song ever. After a few listens, and a few conversations with friends who were also taken aback, you piece together that she’s talking about the “keychain on the ground,” which we’re to presume had the words “fuck the patriarchy” on it. This makes more sense and is a lot less random, and it also makes it somewhat plausible that this line was from the original version of the song, but still, the way the line is delivered makes it sounded pointed and modern, almost disconnected from the lyrics that come before and after it. Maybe Jake Gyllenhaal really had a keychain that said that, but it’s hard to know, and the line certainly does play well with Taylor’s liberal fanbase today.

Next: the best lyric in the song. I have no idea why she wouldn’t have put this in the original. “You kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath” is an absolutely devastating piece of lyrical genius. Honorable mention to “they say all’s well that ends well/but I’m in a new hell every time/you double cross my mind.”

This part isn’t as impressive from a lyrical perspective, but her voice is really powerful and I love the part where she sings about her dad telling her “it’s supposed to be fun, turning 21” as she sits at her own party upset about her boyfriend who didn’t show up.

There are two times where the sound of the song shifts so dramatically that it almost sounds like a separate song entirely. The first of those is when she sings “And I was never good at telling jokes.” You aren’t exactly sure where it’s going, but it fits the vibe of the rest of the song, if not the sound.

The second time when the sound of the song shifts is when she sings about the snow “and how it glistened as it fell.” The last two minutes of the song are really slow. It feels like this maybe should’ve been “All Too Well (Eight Minute Version)” but she had to live up to ten after nearly a decade of rumors, so she stretched it out a little bit. I know some people think the extra time to wind down is good after such an emotional song, but I think I would’ve liked it better if it went out with the same energy as 2012 Taylor screaming “broke me like a promise,” even if it needed to be a little shorter to make it work.

Overall, I really love this track, and it is now the only version of All Too Well that I listen to. It isn’t perfect, but I think there’s enough here that’s great that is has replaced the original for me.

Final Thoughts

This album is really good, but it’s not as faithful a recreation of its source material as Fearless (Taylor’s Version). I hope Red (Taylor’s Version) is the outlier and not Fearless (Taylor’s Version).

That said, I hope that “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” is the outlier when it comes to vault tracks, because “Red” knocked it out of the park. Granted, having ATW10 is an unfair advantage, but the rest of the vault tracks were all solid, and the same can’t be said for “Fearless.” I still think she could have some great stuff up her sleeve, and I’m especially excited for the vault tracks from “1989” and “Reputation.”

I’ll get skewered by the Swiftie mob for this, but Red (Stolen Version) was never my favorite Taylor album, and it still isn’t. Right after the rerecord was announced, I had thought that it may give me the opportunity to appreciate this album on a deeper level than I had before, and allow me to connect with it in that almost spiritual way that some Swift fans do. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. I still think it’s a great album, I respect the hell out of it, and I’ve loved having this opportunity to experience it, but the lack of promo before the release did take its toll, as well as the issue of it not being quite as sonically similar to the original, with some of the most popular songs sounding slightly hollow. I hope that this turns out to be the worst of the rerecorded albums, for me. But I am genuinely happy for the fans for whom this will be the best rerecord, because even if they don’t think it’s perfect, I know how much this album means to people and I’m glad they’re getting to re-experience it like this.

I will say though, l hope that with the next Taylor’s Version album, she doesn’t announce it until she’s a little closer to its release date, or that she at least gives us a single or two to get us through. I think a lot of my more negative opinions were shaped by my early disappointment.

I’ve just learned this: if you say the word “lumos” to Siri, she’ll turn on your flashlight!

(If you’re unfamiliar, “lumos” is the incantation for the spell in the Harry Potter Wizarding World that produces light from the tip of a witch or wizard’s wand.)

Talk about surprise and delight.

I wrote this on October 28th, 2021 and forgot to publish it, but better late than never:

Presumably because they make all their money selling your metadata?

Somehow this feels desperate, dorky, cowardly, and creepy all at the same time. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are pathetic, greedy human beings.

#deletefacebook

Overall, I liked this movie a lot. I’d give it an 8/10. ⚠️ Spoiler Warning. Here are some unorganized thoughts:

• There’s no reason this couldn’t have been released during Phase 3. It would’ve fit perfectly, and it’s absurd that it came after Nat’s death in “Endgame.”

• Scarlett Johansson was incredible, as always.

• Florence Pugh was delightful.

• David Harbour was a bit of a drag.

• I get that the Taskmaster was a victim and we’re supposed to feel bad for her, but she creeped me the fuck out. She needed to die. With fire.

• The whole plot of this movie is based around that the fact that the (offscreen) death of the bad guy wasn’t stone cold certain, and somehow he survived. So in this movie, one would think they’d go out of their way to show his death, but they don't. It’s implied, but we know he survived the last explosion, we can’t assume there’s no way he could’ve survived this one.

• Speaking of Dreykov, he gave me big creep vibes, very Weinstein-y.

• The whole mask wearing swithceroo was a useful but lazy plot device. In my opinion, if a movie is doing so much offscreen plot development that it has to go back and explain itself to viewers after the relevant on-screen action has taken place, that isn’t a great sign.

• I think it’s time for the witty, Tony Stark based humor of the MCU to evolve, and it doesn’t seem like it is. I’m not saying they shouldn't still make funny movies, but the brand of comedy they’re doing just feels a bit tired. I was hoping Phase 4 is where they might’ve chosen to refine it, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.

I wrote the following post on September 9th, the day after I saw Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and never really came back to it. I haven’t really thought about the movie at all since then, which ought to be criticism enough. ⚠️ Spoiler Warning. Anyway, here’s what I was going to say, had I not more or less forgotten about the film:

I just saw Shang-Chi last night, but I think I’ve already got most of my thoughts in order.

Overall, I’d give the movie a 5/10. I was going to say 4/10, but I don’t want to be too harsh prematurely. I didn’t care enough about the film to write a huge review, but I’ve jotted down some thoughts, some more flesh out out than others. Spoiler Warning

• Awkwafina (ridiculous name) was funny, and her character was the best, but she was also very predictable. The witty sidekick is almost a trope in Marvel films at this point. Marvel is an action franchise with a lot of comedy, but the comedy is going to have to evolve. I expected that to happen with the start of phase four, but based on Black Widow (which was great) and Shang-Chi, it hasn’t.

• The actor who plays Shang-Chi, Simu Liu, is just not that convincing of an actor. “I'm gOing to kiLL mY fAtHeR,” c’mon dude.

• Shang-Chi is called “Shaun” half the time, so I’m gonna stick with that too.

• There were several things that reminded me of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Apparently, Shaun’s mom was a dancing air bender? And that's where half of Shaun’s “power” comes from?

• The other half of his power comes from the rings, which are of unknown origin and lack and specific power other than like… flying around. And coming back. Like a boomerang. Also, the power of the rings themselves is poorly defined. Presumably, they’re very powerful, but in the scene where Shaun’s mom fights his dad, she beats him and the rings seem pretty lame. Their power varies a lot to suit the needs of the plot.

• Bringing back Trevor Slattery from Iron Man 3 was a great call, but they fumbled the opportunity. The character wasn’t the same, and the performance felt flat.

• The plot didn’t make a ton of sense. They don’t really explain why the dragon scales make their weapons so powerful, but we’ll chalk it up to magic I guess. Too many things in this film were explained by magic though.

• Shaun's costume… is lame. it looks cool in the first scene where it’s shown folded up, but after that it looks like some cheap, off-red, fake leather BDSM getup from a shady internet site.

• Inarguably, the best part of the movie was the post credits scene where we see that Captain Marvel has grown her hair back out after Avengers: Endgame.

The event, titled “California Streaming,” will be broadcast on Apple.com next Tuesday, September 14th at 10AM pacific.

Apple Watch

The new watch rumors are more exciting to me than the new iPhone rumors, this year. We saw some interesting leaks and renders earlier this year from the ever insufferable John Prosser, and while the renders themselves looked like shit (did they make those sides concave?), they do give me hope that Apple could design something in that general style that would look nice. The Apple Watch has never had a significant industrial design refresh, and it’s time. As I believe Myke Hurley pointed out on a recent episode of upgrade, going with squared off sides will probably make it look more like a device and less like a timepiece, but until Apple designs a circular Apple Watch, that’s probably going to be the case regardless. Also, bands: if Apple is going to change the band mechanism any time in the first 15 years of the Watch’s existence, I believe this design refresh is when they would do it. That said, I don’t think they will. Eventually, the watch case may change to the point where they simply can’t make the existing bands compatible, but until such time, I think Apple will do everything they can to keep the current band design.

There aren’t any rumors of significant new features for the Watch this year. Any rumors flying around about new health sensors are focused on 2022 and beyond, so perhaps Apple will get a good surprise in this year, or perhaps they’re relying on the new design to be enough of a feature on its own.

I do think (I hope) it’s almost certain that they finally kick the Apple Watch Series 3 out of the lineup and move the Apple Watch SE down to the $199 price point. That’ll be a great option for a lot of people.

I don’t know about Edition models this year. I would like to see a new material and I think it could be time (if Apple intends to keep the Edition line around in perpetuity, which I’m not sure about), but I don’t know what they could go with and there haven’t been any rumors about it. In all likelihood, it’ll be titanium again, if anything.

iPhone

Me, last year, regarding the then-upcoming iPhones 12:

The rumors are suggesting there’ll be four new models this year, which in my opinion is too many. The rumors are also suggesting that between the two pro models (both of which are rumored to be getting bigger, which sucks), the Pro Max is going to get better camera improvements than the Pro (non-max), which really blows. I’m not a huge fan of massive phones, but I am a huge fan of great cameras, and with four new models, and that doesn’t seem like a compromise I should be forced to make.

I’m sick of Apple differentiating between top tier models. We don’t need to go back to the days of the iPhone 6 Plus, where the biggest phone always has at least one notable camera improvement over its little brother. I thought Apple had moved past this, given that the iPhone XS Max and iPhone 11 Pro Max had identical cameras to the XS and 11 Pro, respectively, so I was very disappointed when they fell back into this pattern with the iPhones 12. And I’ll be frustrated again this year, when the iPhone 13 Pro Max ends up having something that the iPhone 13 Pro doesn’t, and I’ll be forced to make the uncomfortable decision of dealing with a monstrously large phone or settling for a lesser camera.

In regards to the number of new models, I still think four is too many. I liked the lineup a bit better when there were fewer choices to make. The days of the iPhones 6 we’re simpler times: you could get the new iPhone, or you could get the big new iPhone (I’m actually something of a purist who misses the days of the iPhone 5, but we’ll save that conversation for later). But now, there are so many sizes it becomes difficult to remember how many we’ve actually had in the past three years. If Apple is okay with having a hundreds of SKUs, I think they need to go a step further than four models. Actually, two steps further. I think there ought to be three iPhone sizes, with standard and pro tier options at each size. In other words, I want them to introduce “iPhone ## Pro Mini” and “iPhone ## Max” models. Not everyone who wants a big phone wants a pro phone, and not everyone who wants a small phone wants a standard phone. Personally, I would be very interested in something around the size of the iPhone 12 Mini if it had the best cameras and other differentiating features from the Pro line. Alright, end of rant; let’s get on with it.

While none of the rumors about the iPhones 13 are groundbreaking (120Hz display, possible always on display, A15 chip, larger camera sensors and stabilization), I do think this set of iPhones could be a point where we’ll look back at in a year or two and say “I can’t believe it wasn’t always like this”, in regards to the displays. I imagine it’ll feel something like when you’re confronted with the lack of Tap to Wake on Home Button iPhones after getting used to Face ID iPhones, or the lack of Raise to Wake before that.

Other Possible Announcements

A lot of people on the bird app seem to think that Apple could introduce the clunky rumored VR headset at this event, based on the design of the invitation. I think they’ve lost their minds.

We might get an iPad Mini or an AirPods update, but that’s all I’d be willing to guess.

The year is 2021, the NFL has been around for a century, and an active player has just come out of the closet for the first time. On the one hand, it’s astonishing that it took this long, but on the other hand, it’s a miracle that it happened at all. 

Earlier today, Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib posted a video and a statement on Instagram today coming out as gay:

Full statement from Carl Nassib. #PRIDE pic.twitter.com/92cSSDqZoR

— NFL (@NFL) June 21, 2021

I think this has the potential to spur similar announcements (not that they’re required to share the details of their personal lives) from more NFL players and other professional athletes. 

Whether that happens or not, I think this announcement will definitely be a big deal for boys and young guys who are having trouble reconciling their attractions to other guys with stereotypically masculine demeanors and interests, because Nassib is totally correct, representation does matter. And it doesn’t just matter for little boys who want to be broadway stars or princesses, but also for boys who want to be soldiers or football players. There’s nothing wrong with boys who have more feminine personalities or interests, but our society seems to forget that not all same-sex attracted guys fit that mold. 

For the first time, boys who can tell that they’re a little different but otherwise feel normal will have a man to look up to who acts them and likes some of the same things they like. And I think that means a lot — I know it would’ve made life a lot less confusing for me, personally — because it’s important for boys to know that honestly acknowledging who you’re attracted to, whether publicly or privately, doesn’t mean you have to alter your behavior, interests, or personality to fit a stereotype. Seeing masculine, everyday guys come out in roles they look up to will help to show young guys that healthy expressions of traditional American masculinity don’t just belong the insecure, conservative, evangelical men who have tried to exclude other men who make them feel threatened.

On that note, while progressives have done a ton for same-sex attracted people, there’s a large part of the movement that thinks being male and acting like it gives you enough privilege to alleviate all your other problems, and that’s just not the case. Being able to pass as a straight guy in a homosexual-hostile community has its advantages, but it also results in a lot of internalized problems that these men don’t deserve to be blamed for, because they’re conditioned to never feel comfortable addressing them. Given this hurdle, it’s remarkable that a successful football player with everything to lose finally worked up the courage to go against the grain and take this step, but it’s great that he did because it helps to break a link in a vicious cycle. If more young guys in those homophobic environments see same-sex attraction as a normal aspect of human sexuality, then they won’t have to wrestle those demons as young men, and our whole society will be better off. 

All that to say, representation does matter, and for a lot of kids, having a football player to look up to who is open about his same-sex attraction is a big deal. Nassib is going to be at least a few kids’ new favorite player.

Jasmine Wright and Veronica Stracqualursi, reporting for CNN:

Vice President Kamala Harris held a private dinner Tuesday night for the female US senators, a show of bipartisanship among a deeply divided Congress. 

It was the first known time that Harris hosted lawmakers in the vice-presidential residence at the Naval Observatory since moving in April, a process that was delayed due to renovations.

CNN previously reported that Harris had invited all 24 female senators -- 16 Democrats and eight Republicans.

[…]

The senators who attended included Tammy Baldwin, Marsha Blackburn, Maria Cantwell, Shelley Moore Capito, Susan Collins, Catherine Cortez-Masto, Tammy Duckworth, Joni Ernst, Dianne Feinstein, Deb Fischer, Kirsten Gillibrand, Maggie Hassan, Mazie Hirono, Amy Klobuchar, Lisa Murkowski, Patty Murray, Jacky Rosen, Jeanne Shaheen, Debbie Stabenow, Tina Smith and Elizabeth Warren.

Only two senators didn’t show, and only one was a Democrat. I give you zero guesses who it was, you should already know. It was Kyrsten Sinema. Fucking bitch.

Rebecca Kern, reporting for Bloomberg (for whatever that’s worth):

Cicilline told reporters Wednesday that a proposal prohibiting tech platforms from giving an advantage to their own products over those of competitors would mean Apple must let consumers decide which apps to use or remove.

[…]

The bill contains a provision that would prohibit Apple, for example, from restricting or impeding iPhone users from uninstalling apps that have been pre-installed

David Cicilline is a sixty year old single gay man, the only substantial experience he has with technology is searching “NSA young tops” on the Craigslist personals section. Nobody asked him to come up with asinine legislation that would force Apple and other manufacturers to ship phones that allow users to delete every app. Sure, let users delete the phone, or the clock, or the settings app, or the App Store. We’ll see how that goes.

In all seriousness, we do need substantial antitrust legislation in the tech industry, but this is not it. The legislation we need is going to have to be written by people who are capable of understanding the issues at hand (i.e., people who are under 45).

It’s worth pointing out that this story was completely changed by Bloomberg (an outlet with damaged credibility in the first place, especially in the tech sphere); they originally said that the legislation would require Apple to ship iPhones without any apps in the first place. If tech journalists want to be taken seriously in these conversations with politicians, we’re going to need them to be significantly less sloppy.

I’m not an audiophile, but most people who claim to be are full of shit anyway, so. Long story short: Spatial Audio is incredible. Lossless is completely unnoticeable.

Apple has really hyped up this announcement, and I don’t think the hype is unwarranted. Everyone I’ve had try listening to a song in Spatial Audio has been thoroughly impressed by it. It might take a little getting used to, but I think this really could be the next big step for audio quality that we’ll point to decades from now as a turning point. It doesn’t necessarily improve every song, but it doesn’t really make any song worse. Particularly with older music, there are tradeoffs when listening to them in the Spatial Audio format, but I think it’s pretty much a wash. But with newer songs that were mastered specifically for this format, it’s far more immersive and enjoyable than stereo. When Spatial Audio doesn’t work well with a song, it’s fine, but when it does work well with a song, it’s incredible. If your ears are having trouble noticing the difference, there’s a place in settings where you can toggle between a Spatial Audio and stereo version of a sample track that really allows you to hear the difference and know what to listen for.

Specifically, Spatial Audio sounds like you’re situated in the middle of the music. Imagine being in a circular room with your favorite artist or band. It’s different depending on how each individual song is mixed, but for example, you could be listening to the artist’s voice front and center, while there’s a guitar off to the right a bit, some drums behind you and to the left, etc.

With AirPods Pro and AirPods Max, this effect gets even better, because they further amplify Spatial Audio with the addition of Dynamic Head Tracking. This feature uses the motion sensors in the headphones to follow your head and move the sound around you based on the position of the headphones in 3D space. For example, if the artist’s voice is coming from right in front of you, and you turn your head to the right, you’ll hear the voice in your left ear, as if it’s originating from the same point in space. When this works well, it makes you forget you have anything in your ears (and it makes the people in the coffee shop next to you wonder why you keep turning your head so far in their direction). It’s seriously uncanny, it’s as is if the music was made for you in that moment. In my testing, it seems like this is already working with a lot of the songs that are available in Dolby Atmos but not with all of them (I guess it’s possible that my ears just suck, but I don’t think so). There’s no rhyme or reason to when it seems to work and there’s no way to know for sure whether Dynamic Head Tracking is active, but the feature is still in beta testing so hopefully this is just a bug and it’ll be more consistent by the time the feature rolls out. In any case, this is another great feature for AirPods Pro. I could never recommend AirPods Max to anybody, but I can’t say enough good things about AirPods Pro. I wrote a glowing review when they first came out, and Apple has continued to add features like Dynamic Head Tracking and the just-announced Conversation boost that make them an even better value.

It has to be said, though, that there is a pretty big downside to Spatial Audio and lossless. Songs downloaded in Dolby Atmos or lossless take a TON of storage. I downloaded about four albums to test the feature out, a total of about 75 songs, and it took 2.6 GIGABYTES of space. If you like music, you should probably consider doubling up on your iPhone storage next time you upgrade.

In addition to being a storage hog, these features highlight another failing of the music app’s design. It’s always unclear what format any particular song is downloaded in, and the only way to change it is to remove and redownload the song after adjusting your preferences in the Settings app. There needs to be a way to adjust the version on a per-song basis. I see no reason why they couldn’t add two or three options to the menu when you long press on a song or album to include options like “Download Dolby Atmos” and “Download Lossless.” And they should have master buttons to convert all songs in your library to the Dolby Atmos or lossless when they become available; it’s not reasonable to expect people to delete and re-download albums as they become available, which has a the potential to mess up their playlists that include any of those songs. I think this is probably something that Apple will work on throughout the summer as iOS 15 matures.

Despite those drawbacks, the bottom line here is that Spatial Audio really does have the potential to revolutionize music, and I’m having a ton of fun with it. Also, if you’ve been considering a new pair of headphones, AirPods Pro are still a terrific buy.

A few weeks ago, Apple issued an iOS update with a killer new feature to protect users from unwanted tracking. It’s pretty straightforward, the policy is called “App Tracking Transparency,” and it requires applications to display a pop-up box asking the user for their permission to track their activity across other apps and websites. You should always click “Ask App not to Track.”

It seems pretty obvious: nobody really looks forward to or enjoys being tracked. We’ve all gotten those creepily specific ads that make us think our devices are secretly listening to us, and it’s unsettling. The truth, though, is that those ads aren’t a result of apps using your microphone to spy on you (99% of the time, at least). They’re the result of them using your activity on other apps and websites to spy on you. Apple allowing users to cut off the flow of data to the mysterious surveillance advertising companies is huge.

Here are two important things to consider when an app asks for permission to track you, (because they'll undoubtedly try to convince you that you should click “Allow”):

• Apple has forbidden app developers from using any means to track your activity if you click “Ask App not to Track.” That means if you don’t give them permission to track you, they aren’t allowed to use Apple’s built in advertising tracker, but they’re also forbidden from coming up with their own creative ways to track you.

• Apple has forbidden app developers from punishing you for asking them not to track you. Apps aren’t allowed to reduce functionality, force you to pay money, or do anything else to you if you select “Ask App not to Track.”

• Violating either of those two policies can result in the app being removed from the App Store, so the developers don’t have a choice but to comply with your decision.

Again, I’ll emphasize: you should ALWAYS click “Ask App not to Track.” But actually, you can do even better than that. If you don’t want to have to deal with the permission pop-ups, there is a sort of master switch that lets you automatically refuse tracking for all apps. To do so, go to Settings → Privacy → Tracking, and then turn OFF the toggle that says “Allow Apps to Request to Track.” Below that toggle is a list of individual toggles for each app that has requested to track you, if you’re interested. Just make sure they’re all switched off.

You may wonder why Apple doesn’t just save you the trouble and cut off this access from the jump, why even make us tap the button? After all, nobody wants to be tracked. The answer is complex, but essentially, Apple is on the most stable legal ground if they let users make the choice for themselves, and they probably also want to make a moral argument about just how many consumers aren’t okay with being tracked without their permission.

Regardless, these protections are strong and I’m glad Apple is giving us more control over our data. The notion that privacy is a thing of the past and that “everyone already has all your data” is simply not true, and it’s time we let the advertising industry know that they aren’t entitled to knowing all the intimate details of our lives so they can exploit us and convince us to buy more crap.*

*Of course, we know that will the vast amount of data these advertising surveillance companies collect through platforms like Facebook, they’re able to do things that are a lot more consequential and insidious than just convincing you that you need a new razor or a Diet Coke. The Cambridge Analytica scandal proved just how capable these companies are of guiding our behavior, including not only our consumer impulses, but also our political ideas and how we cast our votes. If you want to know more about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and check out this illustrative and explosive documentary.

I’ve written before about how the government could unjustly subpoena Apple for your iCloud backups to receive a copy of literally everything on your phone at any given moment. I knew the threat was very real, but I was forced to write about it in a mostly hypothetical manner because there wasn’t a great example to point toward. Now, we have an example.

Steve Kovach, writing for CNBC:

Apple said it received a subpoena from a federal grand jury on Feb. 6, 2018. According to Apple, the subpoena requested data that belonged to a seemingly random group of email addresses and phone numbers. Apple said it provided the identifiers it had for some of the requests from the DOJ, but not all of the requests were for Apple customers.

Katie Benner, Nicholas Fandos, Michael S. Schmidt and Adam Goldman, reporting for The New York Times:

All told, the records of at least a dozen people tied to the committee were seized in 2017 and early 2018, including those of Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, then the panel’s top Democrat and now its chairman, according to committee officials and two other people briefed on the inquiry. Representative Eric Swalwell of California said in an interview Thursday night that he had also been notified that his data had been subpoenaed.

Prosecutors, under the beleaguered attorney general, Jeff Sessions, were hunting for the sources behind news media reports about contacts between Trump associates and Russia. Ultimately, the data and other evidence did not tie the committee to the leaks, and investigators debated whether they had hit a dead end and some even discussed closing the inquiry.

Kovach, again:

Because of a nondisclosure order signed by a federal magistrate judge, Apple could not notify the people that their data was subpoenaed. The so-called gag order lifted on May 5, which is why Apple only recently alerted the affected users. According to Apple, the subpoena did not provide details on the nature of the investigation.

[…]

Microsoft on Friday told CNBC it received a similar subpoena from the DOJ.

The DOJ doesn’t play fair here. Not only in this specific instance, which was egregious because it represents a Watergate-level instance of a President spying on his political enemies (and at least one member of his own administration, apparently), but in general. At any time, you could receive the same notice from Apple that they had been forced to give the government all your data years ago, and that they’re just now allowed to tell you about it. The Department of Justice has operated with impunity in this arena even before Trump’s corrupt impulses and arm twisting got added into the mix, and they need to be reeled in. The accounts they demanded access to were not government accounts. They were personal iCloud accounts belonging to elected officials, their aides, and even more outrageously, their family members, including their kids.

The DOJ knows this is outrageous, and they don’t like having this conversation. They don’t want you to cause a fuss over your civil liberties or privacy, so they put Apple under a gag order, forbidding them from telling you that they were forced to give the government your data until several years have passed. The incident we’re learning about now actually occurred in 2018, but Apple was just now allowed to inform those whose accounts had been violated. This is egregious. Our elected officials need to hear from us, loud and clear, that despite living in a post-9/11 world and a Facebook surveillance state, we still value our privacy, and are willing to protect it with our votes.

Political pressure may be one of our most effective tools, in fact, because the very small number of tools that are currently available to us are partially effective at best. For example, my suggestion from last year of disabling iCloud backups to safeguard your iMessage decryption key remains useful to protect your messages, but it’s a bit of a hassle and a risk, and it only protects your messages. There’s nothing you can do (besides pulling out of iCloud altogether) to protect data like your photos, notes, voice memos, contacts, your backups, and your iCloud Drive files. But there is something Apple could do.

They need to give us the option to encrypt the entire contents of our iCloud account. Of course, doing that comes with more risk, so they should make sure customers are informed about the risk of data loss and the greater responsibility they would have to protect and maintain their own access to their accounts, and let users opt-in only if they want to. But I bet a lot of users would opt in. Financially, I think Apple could offer this as a free option for customers without much overhead, but they could even charge more for it if they wanted to, whether by rolling it into an iCloud+ tier or charging a separate fee. I’d pay for it, and I’m sure a lot of other people would too, from power users, to privacy advocates, to those working with exceptionally sensitive data. Their most loyal customers and promoters care about this, but Apple currently gives them no good options. Whether it comes down to a paid iCloud service or not, Apple must stand up for their users here.

Perhaps, though, Apple just needed an example; maybe this story about the DOJ (and the gag order expiring) is what they were waiting on. My hope is that they wanted to wait for an incident like this that they could point to to rally public support for end-to-end encrypted iCloud data, despite government objections. It would make some amount of sense, to help sustain themselves (PR-wise and legally) against the gale-force winds that are sure to come from the peeping toms that comprise the law enforcement and investigative communities. It’s basically a redo of the showdown between the Apple and the FBI over the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, but with Apple taking a more reactive step forward (whereas last time, they were just refusing to take a step backward). Again, I hope that is the case. And if it is, then Apple needs to know that their customers have their back and will support them through this change and the fight that would ensue.But whether that’s the case or not, we all need to let them know we’re concerned about government overreach, and that we want the option to have ALL the contents of our iCloud accounts protected by end-to-end encryption. Feel free to whip something up yourself, or copy and paste the prompt below into Apple’s iCloud Feedback portal.

Hi. I’m reaching out because I’m concerned about the extreme government overreach we’ve recently learned about regarding subpoenaed iCloud account data. I don’t think it’s right that a government agency can seize private user data without permission or notice.

I’m concerned that there’s no truly secure way to use iCloud. I want the option to have ALL of my iCloud data (including backups, contacts, photos, and everything else) protected by end-to-end encryption. Privacy is a fundamental human right, and Apple users value that right. I believe Apple truly values that right as well, and that’s why I’m hopeful that you’ll soon provide users with an option to protect all of their data with end-to-end encryption.

I’ll give my overall musings on the updates to each platform, then some specific thoughts about new features.

tvOS:

Didn’t get a ton of love, but there were a couple nice improvements.

• The one thing it did get, though, was Spatial Audio. That’s not a small deal, because it sounds incredible, but it’s not a huge deal because most people don’t watch TV with headphones.

• You can now use two stereo-paired HomePod Minis as a Home Theater setup, so they’ll handle all of your Apple TV’s audio by default. That’s a great move.

watchOS:

This was not a very big year for watchOS.

• They didn’t seem to update sleep tracking in any meaningful way, so that’s a big disappointment.

• Only one new watch face, and it’s very basic, even if visually enjoyable.

• They didn’t spend much (or any) time talking about Assistive Touch, but I’ve tried it on the watchOS 8 beta, and it really is impressive.

• The Mindfulness app seems like a step in the right direction for a larger focus on mental health, but it’s still quite basic.

• They’ve added new Find My apps for finding items (AirTags) and finding devices. I’m not sure why they couldn’t have just rolled that into the existing Find My app that was just used for finding people on the watch. Would’ve been a lot less clunky than three separate apps.

• They talked a lot about the photos app, but who is using the photos app on Apple Watch? Maybe it’s a chicken and egg situation, but I just can’t see anyone spending a ton of time looking at photos on a screen smaller than a matchbook.

• They’ve finally revamped how text input works. You can now combine scribble with dictation and emojis, and you have a chance to review the message before it sends (unlike with dictation before, when it would often send the message automatically, whether it heard you correctly or not).

iOS:

I think iOS 15 has some significant improvements. Probably nothing that will be as culturally exciting as widgets were last year, but some good updates that everyone will appreciate.

• Facetime got several cool improvements. It’s a bit “better late than never,” at this point, but still. And it’s pretty exciting to see FaceTime Links, which will let anyone (Android and Windows!) join a group FaceTime call, which is still end-to-end encrypted. Take that, Zoom.

• The Health app got some attention. I’m not sure the features they added will be used by many people, but they’ll be very important to those who do. And I’m fine with that.

• Live Text is incredible. It works pretty well in the first beta.

• The ability to analyze photos and provide relevant information like plant species, book titles, dog breeds, etc, is so cool.

• No update to the Music app, it’s as frustrating as ever.

• They really made good use of their Dark Sky acquisition in the weather app this year. New precipitation notifications and radar views really beef up the out-of-the-box Weather offering.

• No lockable photo album, again. Sigh.

• They didn’t spend a ton of time talking about Siri and she certainly didn’t get the update I’ve been hoping for for years, but moving the speech processing on device should make her a bit snappier, and it looks like they did try for at least a little bit more conversational continuity.

• I like some of the Safari updates a lot. Some of them seem unnecessarily complicating, though. For example, the gestures to reload and switch tabs are great, and I love the new tab overview and Tab Groups, but the lack of a visible share button is insanity. They buried buttons that people use all the time, seemingly for aesthetic purposes only, and it was the wrong move. I may write more about how I think they could keep the good and fix the bad with this version of Safari.

• No updated Cash card with a bank account.

• Speaking of Wallet though, they did announce some great new features. Car keys was probably the worst update (as far as I’m aware, the only car manufacturer that supports it is BMW, and it’s only available on their brand new cars; some company should really come up with one of those little dash plugs that could bring this to older vehicles), and it didn’t really get any super meaningful updates over what it could already do. Home Keys is a feature that I didn’t see coming, but one that is very welcome. Hopefully you’ll be able to get a compatible smart lock that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

• Also new to wallet: ID cards. This was a complete surprise, and it totally blew my mind. It’s something I’ve been desperately wanting Apple to do for years, but I’d almost written it off as a possibility because of the fractured nature of states controlling their own systems for drivers licenses and IDs (we need a national ID card). I’m sure it will take several years before most states adopt this, but I’m so excited that they’re giving it a shot.

iPadOS:

We didn’t get as much here as I’d hoped. Or maybe I’m looking at it the wrong way because we just didn’t get the overhaul I was hoping for: after all, there were some significant improvements to the existing system.

• Quick Notes is a cool feature, and Apple made it a lot more useful than it otherwise could’ve been by giving it string contextual awareness of what’s going on when you summon a new note.

• Widgets did show up, as expected. But as I said a few days ago, I don’t think Apple necessarily deserves credit for turning in their homework a year late.

• There were some improvements to multitasking, but I don’t know that they’ll really make a meaningful difference. The biggest thing is that you can now add any app to Split Screen or Slide Over, not just apps from the dock. That’s not nothing. The Shelf also seems like it'll be helpful for letting you quickly switch back to a window pair you had been using before, but it still just seems like even more complications to smooth out kinks in the current system, not a rethinking of it. Time will tell, and I hope I’m wrong.

• The Safari updates are trash. The new tabs are so difficult to use. They’re tiny, and they’re never in the same place. I hope they just go back to how it was before.

macOS:

I feel like this WWDC was fairly light for macOS. Most of the Mac features were also available (and perhaps more natural) on other devices.

• Universal Control seems pretty incredible. If your workflow involves an iPad and a Mac, this could be huge for you.

• Shortcuts coming to Mac is something.

• The ability to use a Mac as an AirPlay display is big, and it’s not something I ever expected to see. It’s another good example of the garden walls coming down a little.

• Ditto my point about Safari under the iPadOS segment.

Find My & AirPods

Find My actually got several improvements, and AirPods Pro continue to justify their high price tag.

• AirPods Pro now work on the Find My Network, which means you can actually find them now.

• iPhones can now transmit their location even when turned off and if they’ve been erased. This could really deter theft.

• You can now get separate notifications any time you leave something behind, whether it’s your iPhone, AirPods, or an AirTag, or another device.

• Conversation Boost for AirPods Pro users is really cool. As someone who doesn’t have a diagnosed hearing disability but does seem to struggle with poor hearing in noisy environments, I’m excited to try this.

Privacy

They had a whole segment dedicated to privacy, and it was glorious. We got several meaningful updates.

• The app tracking reports are nice. Most customers wont look at them, but those who care will, and they’ll quickly out the shady developers who abuse the data we give them permission to use.

• Private Relay is very interesting. It’s not quite a VPN service, but it’s pretty close. The biggest downfall is that it only protects your internet traffic through Safari. I’ll be sticking with my ExpressVPN subscription for now, but I’ve got a feeling we could actually see a full fledged VPN from Apple within the next year or two.

• The ability to generate email addresses that can be disabled is nice, and I’m glad Apple is taking action against spy pixels in emails.

Overall, I think this was a pretty big WWDC. When you dig into the specifics, there were a few let downs, but there were also several big surprises. I’m excited to see how these OSes evolve over the beta period.

Analysis (and speculation) by Jason Snell on Six Colors:

Though Gurman’s report suggests these would be 10-core systems, the important number is the number of high-performance cores—eight. Though energy-efficient cores are very helpful in keeping a Mac bubbling along nicely, they don’t make enormous contributions to the overall top performance of a device. It’s all about the performance cores. And eight is—follow me here—twice as many as four.

So if an M1 processor scores around a 6180 in GeekBench 5’s multi-core score, I can extrapolate and guess that a new chip—let’s call it the M1X, because I’m guessing that this chip is based on the same cores as the M1 and the A14 chips—would score roughly double the M1—let’s say 12,500.

To put this in context, I’ve included the current high-end Intel MacBook Pro models in the chart. The M1 models already surpass the existing 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, but the eight-core 16-inch model still wins out in overall multiprocessor performance. (I’m leaving aside single-core performance, graphics power, and energy efficiency here and just focusing on top CPU speed.)

The 16-inch MacBook Pro would pale in comparison to the M1X, though. And it’s not hard to imagine Apple executives appearing in a video next week and declaring that the new MacBook Pros are roughly twice as fast as their predecessors.

Just for kicks, I also threw together a chart based on Gurman’s report that Apple is also planning Mac Pro models based on the same chip design, but variants with 20 and 40 performance cores. Yep, that’s a lot of cores. Just for kicks, let’s make a guess about future Mac Pro performance and compare it to existing Intel-based Mac Pro models:

The back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests a 20-core Apple silicon-based Mac Pro would be quite a bit faster than a 28-core Intel Mac Pro at multiprocessor performance, making it the fastest Mac of all time. And that 40-core model would be… well, yeah, more than twice as fast as the previous speed champion.

Advances like this just don’t happen. Yes, technology improves every year and computers get faster, but Apple is the only player in the industry making chips that routinely double their clock speed. They’ve been on an exponential increase with the A-series chips, and the M-series is based on the same basic formula, using the same cores. If the M-series chips continue to improve at the same rate as the A-series, Apple’s M-series chips will be a decade ahead of Intel and the rest of the industry within the next three years.

The charts above were Snells, but I made one too (right). It's very scientific and precise, just like the one Apple showed last fall (left).

Charles Q. Choi, in a 2019 article for IEEE Spectrum:

A major weakness of Bitcoin is the extraordinary amounts of energy it demands, and the vast amounts of the global warming gas carbon dioxide it spews out as a result. Bitcoin reportedly has a global electricity consumption approaching that of the entire nation of Austria, and a global carbon footprint comparable to that of Denmark.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t fully understand how cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin really work. I think most of the people who devote a lot of time and energy to it are nerds who need to get a life (and if you ever ask a retail employee if their establishment accepts bitcoin, you deserved to be ridiculed and shamed until you leave, you fucking dweeb). That said, I have a general understanding of how the concept (and I did buy some DOGE a year ago as an experiment), including how the mining process works, but I had no idea how much energy it wastes.

[One] potential flaw in any digital cash scheme would permit a digital token to get spent more than once. 

To solve this problem, Bitcoin broadcasts messages to its entire network to get everyone to confirm each transaction, all to prevent malicious […] players from cheating. Bitcoin achieves such consensus by implementing a blockchain, which is a secure ledger of all transactions in the system that is maintained by its community of users instead of any intermediary such as a bank.

In order for blockchains to reach consensus on the validity of all transactions, users must execute complex, energy-intensive computing “proof of work” tasks. […]

However, [some computer scientists] argue that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies based on blockchains are essentially overkill. They suggest that solving the problem of double-spending does not require the complex task of achieving consensus. Instead, much simpler, faster, and less energy-intensive algorithms can suffice.

The latest algorithms the scientists developed broadcast messages about each transaction in a manner similar to gossip: one user tells a small group about the transaction, and they go on to inform others about it, and so on, with the message spreading to a growing number of participants in the system in an exponential manner. […]

[Then,] instead of seeking consensus from every participant in the system for each transaction, the algorithms check to see if a random sample of users has received messages about each transaction. If this sample is sufficiently large, the chance that malicious attackers can fool the system into thinking another transaction occurred is lowered enough to ensure that such hacks do not occur within the age of the universe, the researchers say.

[…]

The consensusless algorithms also generate just a few grams of carbon dioxide per transaction, compared to an estimated 300 kilograms per Bitcoin transaction. In addition, while the original Bitcoin protocol took up to an hour to confirm that a transaction went through correctly, the Swiss team’s prototype algorithms can do so in less than a second.

This seems like a promising system. Hopefully there will be a way for established cryptocurrencies to take advantage of it, but I seriously doubt it. That said, if we can’t find a way to make cryptocurrency work that isn’t so preposterously bad for the environment — whether through the methods these researchers proposed or through some other method — then the entire idea deserves to be abandoned. It bears repeating: a single Bitcoin transaction produces 300 kilograms of carbon dioxide. That is atrocious.