2025-08-23 07:54:55
Wait, Moltz is on vacation this week? Who allowed that? Dan, did you give Moltz the go-ahead?
Great, Dan’s not even answering. I know, it’s long past Miller Time on a Friday in Boston, but you never know.
Oh well. At least I can give people a reminder of what they’re losing this week, unless they happen to catch a glimpse of Moltz as he drives across the country. I hear he and the Macalope are doing a buddy comedy road trip. When they get to Chicago, watch out.
Apple TV+ subscription price increasing to $12.99 per month from today
In the streaming business, the ugliest word is churn. (That’s because in the streaming business, the FCC is not involved, so all the other bad words are allowed! And possibly encouraged!) Churn is a nice, but weird, way of referring to the people who cancel a service in a given time period. (Some new people also come in, along with the people going out. Is that how churning butter works? I grew up on a ranch. Our cows didn’t get milked.)
So what does this price increase have to do with churn? Everything. Apple’s made it much more expensive to get a monthly TV+ subscription, but the cost of an annual plan and AppleOne subscription have remained unchanged. This is a little like the Golden Gate Bridge (hey, it’s the bridge closest to my house), which charges locals a dollar less than the people who are just passing through.
Some reports suggest that Apple’s got the biggest churn in the streaming biz. Maybe this price hike will encourage more people to sign up for a whole year at a time, or get in Apple’s bundle, which has now increased in value.
And I know what you’re saying: Apple TV+ is not worth $13 a month. Maybe, maybe not. But have you seen what the other services are charging for their ad-free subscriptions these days? (Your terrifying thought for the day: It’s almost inevitable that Apple will put ads on TV+ eventually. And raising this price gives them more room underneath for a cheaper, ad-filled plan.)
MSNBC is becoming My Source News Opinion World (MS NOW).
I’m old enough to remember when MSNBC was a joint venture of Microsoft/MSN and NBC. The NBC has to come out, because NBC is spinning all of its cable channels into something called Versant. But the MS… somehow remains? That’s Microsoft for you, it’s like a horror movie monster, it just can’t be killed. (It just shows the Blue Screen of Death and reboots.)
As for that MS NOW logo… uh… even Microsoft has better taste than that.
Report: Apple out on MLB rights
Kendall Baker of Yahoo says Apple’s Friday Night Baseball is about to enter its final month on action, as NBC (not MS NOW!) is scooping up those rights. Goodbye, angry social media posts from fans who don’t know where Apple TV+ is on the dial.
But it’s okay—Apple’s probably buying U.S. rights to Formula 1. Since so many F1 races seem to be run in the middle of the night U.S. time, this is good news—I won’t be awake to see those complaints.
Come back, Moltz! All is forgiven! This job’s harder than it looks!
2025-08-23 07:10:37
The Bluesky social network has decided to block all devices from the state of Mississippi due to its far-reaching law that has some exceptionally broad requirements in the name of protecting children. The Bluesky Team:
The Supreme Court’s recent decision leaves us facing a hard reality: comply with Mississippi’s age assurance law—and make every Mississippi Bluesky user hand over sensitive personal information and undergo age checks to access the site—or risk massive fines. The law would also require us to identify and track which users are children, unlike our approach in other regions. We think this law creates challenges that go beyond its child safety goals, and creates significant barriers that limit free speech and disproportionately harm smaller platforms and emerging technologies.
Laws like these favor tech giants (which have the money to throw at compliance) and require the collection of sensitive identification material from every user for any purpose. As anyone who has followed the data leaks in the Tea app already knows, strict ID requirements for all users open up enormous risks for all users.
Bluesky complies with the UK’s Online Safety Act, “where age checks are required only for specific content and features.” But Mississippi’s law is a bridge too far.
Important to note: The case is being appealed and Justice Brett Kavanaugh has gone so far as to write, that the appealing party “has, in my view, demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on the merits—namely, that enforcement of the Mississippi law would likely violate its members’ First Amendment rights under this Court’s precedents.” Unfortunately, Kavanaugh and his colleagues refused to set aside the law in the meantime.
2025-08-23 06:46:34
ESPN has left the exclusivity of the cable bundle at long last, and we break down what it all means. Also: TV Picks and your letters! (Downstream+ listeners also get: MLB’s complex new TV deals, and can Jason cut the cord for real?)
2025-08-21 10:21:23
Guy English joins us to talk about Lex’s guilt-inducing new Mac purchase that he sacrificed his morals for. We talk about refurbed Macs and Vision Pros, Dan’s new Folder Automations, iCloud woes, and the reality that Apple just needs to stop doing things. There’s a little Lex.Games talk, too.
Guy mentions Lex’s interview with Marco Arment from 2018 about the podcast industry.
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2025-08-21 03:20:29
Whether we’ve used tech to build habits lately, if we edit Wikipedia, our approach to software updates, and if we blog or have any blog recommendations.
2025-08-19 06:04:31
We imagine how Apple would tier list its own products, and discuss what kind of personality might work for a tabletop “robot” from Apple.
