Apple Intelligence—really, generative AI overall—emphasizes a sad reality. The history of personal-computer interfaces is also a history of disappointments. At first, users had to type to do things with files and programs, using esoteric commands to navigate up and down the directory structures that contained them. The graphical user interface, which Apple popularized, adapted that file-and-folder paradigm into an abstraction of a desktop, where users would click and move those files around. But progress produced confusion. Eventually, as hard disks swelled and email collected, we ended up with so much digital stuff that finding it through virtualized rummaging became difficult. Text commands returned via features such as Apple’s Spotlight, which allows a user to type the name of a file or program, just as they might have done 50 years ago.
[...]
Using a computer to navigate my work or home life remains strangely difficult. Calendars don’t synchronize properly. Email search still doesn’t work right, for some reason. Files are all over the place, in various apps and services, and who can remember where? If computationalists can’t even make AI run computing machines effectively, no one will ever believe that they can do so for anything—let alone everything—else.
Cloud synchronization makes it easy to have a copy of your stuff everywhere, and, through optimization, to avoid filling your local storage with your least-accessed files or media, which is often the majority of those items.
But what if you want an active, up-to-date replica of these synced files?
Earlier this year, Apple pledged a $500 billion investment in the United States over the next four years. Now, the company is further expanding that pledge with a $500 million plan to “launch an all-new recycling facility for processing recycled rare earth elements.”
With this investment, Apple will work with MP Materials and commit to buying American-made rare earth magnets developed in Fort Worth, Texas. The two companies will build out MP Materials’ “state-of-the-art Texas factory” with a “series of neodymium magnet manufacturing lines specifically designed for Apple products.”
Apple recently updated its website with a list of products eligible for upcoming 2025 sales tax holidays in select U.S. states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Hidden Bar is the perfect solution to a cluttered menu bar, so if you’re juggling tons of menu bar items, don’t miss this handy tool.
I love playlists for discovering new music, but sometimes I just want to listen to an entire album. Adrian Schönig’s Longplay app, which makes it fun to browse and play favorite albums, has been a favorite of mine since it debuted on iOS in 2020. At long last, Longplay is now out for the Mac and I got to take it for an early spin.
The ESD420 can be attached to the back of a MagSafe-compatible iPhone and connected using the appropriate cable, such as a USB-C to USB-C cable. It supports iPhone video recording features that require an external SSD, such as 4K ProRes video recording.
Pressing a button on the tracker will activate a loud siren and flashing light to alert anyone nearby that you’re in trouble, while also triggering the app to send a notification to an emergency contact.
Matt Corey has once again gathered indie developers to organize a huge sale today and tomorrow. Corey, the maker of Bills to Budget and Signals, has organized a collection of over 250 apps that will be offered at a discount through Wednesday.
As much as we often may miss Steve Jobs, even with all his flaws, it’s important to recognize that CEOs with a “l’entreprise, c’est moi” attitude are just not great in general and are often an absolute menace.
Tim Cook isn’t perfect, but at least he’s boring.
Should tech companies have free access to copyrighted books and articles for training their AI models? Two judges recently nudged us toward an answer.
I like talking to computers because if you say what you meant, the computer will do what you meant. Unlike meat-based lifeforms.
Why do I want to talk to a gen-AI chatbots if they are behaving like unpredictable error-prone meat-based lifeforms? I avoid talking to humans my entire life just so you can invent a stupid-er human for me to talk to?
~
Thanks for reading.