2026-11-07 01:25:52
The stock market is currently back up a bit after a bad Black Thursday yesterday. But it's clear this is going to be a turbulent time as everyone tries to figure out what the political shake-up will mean for the AI (and more specifically, data center) trade. To quote the Jurassic Park prophet Ray Arnold, "Hold on to your butts."
Inklings is a newsletter featuring links and commentary from M.G. Siegler on timely topics found around the web.
📰 So Long, Salon – If I'm being honest, it had been a good long while since I can recall reading Salon, still, this feels like the end of an important era in publishing on the web. And this part from the NYT eulogy surprised me, "It was financially backed by Apple, Adobe and the now-defunct bookstore chain Borders." Uh, what?! As it turns out, in 1995, Richard Gingras, an Apple executive working on eWorld (who would later become Salon's CEO), used about $75k in leftover Apple marketing budget to seed fund Salon – he actually wrote about it earlier this year. Also, it launched as salon1999.com. Why? Salon.com was taken by a hair salon operator in Texas. Amazingly, they bought the domain right before they IPO'd (lol) in... 1999. [NYT]
🪟 Where is Windows 12? – No one seems to know, and I'm just not sure how many people actually care at this point, but kudos to Tom Warren for at least trying to find out. Instead, he found out that 'Windows 11 version 27H2' – a very Microsoftian name – is going to be a big update focused on, amongst other things, "replacing the default wallpaper". What will they think of next? Probably not 'Copilot+ PCs' featuring Windows crammed with AI stuff and "malware-like ads". I guess AI local stuff? If ever there was a time (and excuse) to completely rethink an OS from the ground up (and Microsoft doesn't have the luxury of having a mobile OS to try to jump ship to)... [Verge]
🚮 CyberDumpTruck – I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that Tesla is winding down production of the vehicle that looked like a literal dumpster on wheels. While some people seemed to appreciate the unique look on the road, the reality was that 12 year old boys don't buy many cars. It always sort of seemed like a joke that actually shipped, or something designed by the team behind Star Fox – given the constraints of Super Nintendo 3D graphics in 1993. The fact that it seemed to work about as well as it looked, with endless safety recalls, didn't help. Elon Musk once said the goal was to produce between 250,000 - 500,000 a year – so far this year, estimates have sales closer to 10,000. And a lot of those may be to SpaceX or Elon's other companies. So now it's on to 'Cybercab', which looks better, but still not great. And if that doesn't work, it might be fair to start wondering how long Tesla is actually going to continue making cars (versus focusing on robots as a part of SpaceX). [FT 🔒]
🤵♂️ Bond Betting – Bonds, not as in stocks and bonds, but as in Bond, James Bond. Hollywood is the latest industry to crack down on prediction markets as there's clearly a lot of insider action happening on things ranging from release dates to casting announcements. The latter, of course, has been in the press a lot lately due to the race to wear that famous tuxedo. While the guessing game has been going on for months – years, even – now that we're in the home-stretch, big bets increasingly look suspicious. So much so that at least one site blocked new action after a surge of money came in around Callum Turner this week – to the point where he (re)surpassed the most recent frontrunner, Jack Lowden. Of course, there was a Sun report last night (which many are suspicious of for obvious tabloid-y reasons) which said Josh O'Connor would be the next Bond. Interestingly, it has long been illegal to bet on actual box office results due to the Onion Futures Act of 1958 – which outlawed two things: motion picture box office receipts and yes, onion futures contracts. No, this is not an Onion article. [THR]
"No more Star Wars. We tried to do one more. But they were like, 'No, he’s dead.'"
– Adam Driver, on the state of his would-have-been Ben Solo movie with Steven Soderbergh. While this sounds like a door slam, there's also clearly an opening – just listen to the way Driver speaks about the project, which he says he devoted a couple years to – if Disney is interested. Notably, while Alan Bergman is still there, Bob Iger is no longer CEO, and those were apparently the two that shut it down. And while Kathleen Kennedy was said to be open to the idea, Dave Filoni now has her job, so it's really up to him and new CEO Josh D'Amaro.
And we already know they want more Star Wars again after the (necessary) pause in the franchise. So it's a question of if they think this story would be a distraction from the main timeline. It may boil down to how well next year's Starfighter does.
And maybe Heat 2 (and Batman II?). Which Driver also confirmed to Rich Eisen as the worst-kept secret in Hollywood: that he's playing the main antagonist (not the younger Neil McCauley as was first rumored – that will be Stephen Graham, with Christian Bale as the younger – and maybe older? – Vincent Hanna, and Leonardo DiCaprio as the older Chris Shiherlis) in the film. If they can get shooting after Michael Mann accidentally shot himself in the foot (fine, leg – he's fine). "It's a missile," Driver says of the Heat 2 script. Have I mentioned Heat is my favorite film?
With their fun Search easter egg for the Zelda: Ocarina of Time (re)release on the Switch 2, Google also inadvertently highlights just how simple and nice the 1998 version of the search engine was compared to the chaotic and cluttered 2026 variety. Is it really any wonder why AI is eating Search?
🎶 Listening to "Wait by the River" by Lord Huron
🍺 Enjoying a Anspach & Hobday Ordinary Bitter
🇬🇧 Sent from London, England
2026-11-05 22:44:06
Now that Apple has an actually working Siri, phase two seems like getting "her" to work with your apps – which could save the entire concept of apps. Meanwhile, another space AI is eating into: search – specifically ChatGPT's massive query volume is obviously a threat to Google, so Google is working fast to threaten themselves.
Read on for thoughts on...
2026-11-05 03:42:10
There I was on iPhone Duo launch day in an unfamiliar place: no new device in hand. Sure, I went to an Apple Store to try it out — which was sort of a wild experience in and of itself, with nearly all the Duo demo units out of battery from so much usage — but thanks to Apple’s inventory (mis)management here, even pre-ordering within seconds of availability wasn’t fast enough to secure one on day one. So I had to wait.
And while I normally don’t read any reviews ahead of forming my own thoughts on new products, with the Duo I was more curious than normal for obvious reasons. Still, I kept things high-level with some quick scans of headlines and key takeaways. And my sense was that reviewers were actually pretty mixed on the device. Some were downright negative. An unholy thought crept into my head: should I cancel my pre-order? Is this just a colossal waste of money?
Well, I didn’t. And I’m glad I didn’t. Because I think those reviewers are crazy.
The iPhone Duo is an incredible device. I ended up getting mine a few days after the launch and I wanted to use it for a week before writing anything just to make sure I wasn't the one who was crazy. I honestly think I've liked using it more each day.
I’m not quite ready to say it’s the best iPhone Apple has ever made, but I’m close. Certainly closer to that than the reviewers seem to be towards putting it on the other end of that spectrum! Three simple things hold me back. First, I don’t like knowing that I don’t have the best possible camera system. Second, it’s heavy and feels fairly bulky when folded. Third, a lot of software, namely third-party software, is still playing catch-up here.
That last point was what many reviewers focused on for obvious reasons. But it’s also a little silly to knock the device for that because not only will this change with time, it’s already changing, fast. Google Maps was updated today, for example. Still no Gmail, but I would imagine that's any day now. Anthropic and OpenAI were ready to roll on day one if you’re into those kinds of things, which I am. Even Meta, the company which famously took 15 years to launch Instagram for iPad, was there from the get-go. Meta!
To the second point, there's no denying the bulk and weight. It's just physics and it's what takes the most getting used to. I actually quite like the feeling in hand when folded — it’s easier to hold in some ways with more depth — but carrying it around, it’s sort of like dropping a brick into your pocket. The most beautiful brick ever. But actually it’s more like half a brick. The older variations of foldables look far more like bricks with their elongated shapes. Yes, this is more akin to a passport. One belonging to the most-traveled person in the world.
The camera system will not change with time – well, at least until a second Duo launches with an upgraded system, of course. But I'm just not sure how much that matters to "regular" iPhone users because the Duo camera system is obviously more than good enough for everyday usage. That said, the camera system may have been a factor in the iPhone Air not being a hit out of the gate, so you can't discount it to zero – especially when you're paying $2,000+ for this device. But to me, it's more about that knowledge in the back of my head rather than any issues with the camera day-to-day.
Let's go back to the form factor. I love it. I love it both folded and unfolded, but I especially love the optionality. I've been using it mainly as you would expect: in terms of sheer number of interactions, most of the time it's folded. But for overall usage in terms of time spent, I imagine unfolded wins. That feels fairly natural. If you're going to do something fast, you do it on the outer screen. If you have some time or a longer task, you'll probably open it up.
What I didn't expect is that I would actually like using the outer screen quite a bit. Yes, there are some mild confinement issues with apps not updated yet – and oddly, Safari, which obviously was updated, but is apparently being fixed to let it spread out more on the wider screen – but after years on iPhone Pro Max models, I had forgotten how much I appreciated smaller screens. Not always and not for everything, of course, but that's why having the larger screen on the inside is key. For many tasks, having a massive display – including those found on the 'Max' iPhone models – is overkill. And I find the smaller screen focusing, in ways.
Sure, I wish the Duo were thinner when folded. But again, I actually quite like holding it, heft and all. And I'm definitely faster at typing on it than I am on a "regular" iPhone. I sort of suspected this would be the case in a move to a more BlackBerry-like aspect ratio, but it's sort of wild just how much faster I am typing on that outer screen. I don't know if it's just the perfect shape for my particular thumbs, but it's hands down one of my favorite surprise upgrades here.
Less great is the aforementioned pocketability. But it's a trade-off: a massive slab for that squat brick. That too will change with time, of course. Eventually we'll clearly have Westworld-style thin, folding devices. For now, this is just an intriguing taste of what's to come.
Unfolded, the iPhone Duo is not as much like the iPad mini as I would have expected going in. The biggest difference right off the bat is obvious, but subtle: most of the time when you start using an iPad mini, you're probably doing so in portrait mode. With the Duo, once unfolded, you're probably using it in landscape mode. From there, counterintuitively, whereas the iPad at first looks sort of like "a big iPhone", the Duo is something different. Thanks to the clever unfolding UI, the device opens up to reveal not only your iPhone homescreen as you were just looking at it, but also your widgets, which are normally a right-swipe away on the left-hand side. This naturally makes those widgets more first-class citizens here. And while you could of course put widgets on your homescreen, on this new left screen, you can only have widgets there. Again, it's a subtle, but key usage difference.
Swiping left gives you a more standard grid of apps, since it showcases your first and second pages of apps. But even that looks different due to the new right-side dock. I'm still getting used to that change, but I think it suits the UI well given the shifting screen dynamic. I wish you could add a fifth – or even sixth? – app to that dock, but maybe that's just the iPadOS and macOS user in me talking. In general, I find the way Apple has shifted the controls to the right to be clever and intuitive.
That said, while I'm right-handed, I tend to use my iPhone with my left hand for whatever reason. This does make reachability an issue for the dock when folded – which Apple is also addressing, and already has a "reachability" fix in beta – but unfolded, you're probably using two hands, or tapping with your index finger, so it's not an issue.
The inner matte screen is such a brilliant maneuver by Apple. Not only does it help hide the crease (which you can more easily feel than see except at certain angles in certain lighting), it just looks and feels great. I even like that it's different from that outer screen just to give you more variety in terms of how you use the Duo. I've been a full convert to their "nano texture" screens on other Apple devices and I'm happy it's here on this iPhone. It's clearly something that every other foldable manufacturer is about to copy.
Apple Pencil support was just turned on with the latest iOS update and it's certainly a nice to have – in particular on that big, matte screen (though yes, it works on the front screen as well). The Pencil itself feels comically large compared to the Duo, it's almost as if they should have made a 'Pencil mini'...
Back to fingers, the single biggest complaint about the Duo from reviewers may be the lack of Face ID. It's one thing that it's not on the Mac yet – no, not even the so-screen-focused-that-they-put-it-in-the-name new 'MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR' – it's another to take it away from the iPhone. I don't know, maybe I am crazy here, but I honestly don't miss it that much? One of the first things I did upon setting up the Duo was register four fingers (and one side-of-finger, per internet instructions) and... I just haven't had an issue unlocking it fast? Maybe not quite as seamless as Face ID, but that fails for me at times too. I realize this reads a bit like cope, but I honestly just don't think it's that big of a deal. Maybe it's because I'm a die-hard iPad mini user who is used to it?
Far more annoying to me are the volume rockers being at the top of the device. That's just awkward (as it is on the iPad mini too). AirPods volume-swipe FTW. I miss the 'Action' button a bit, but not all that much to be honest. I'm glad the 'Camera' button remains.
I opted to get the 'Folio' case because I refuse to deal with adhesives (I still sort of can't believe that Apple is okay with this option, but there must have been no other solution, at least for the front screen). I've actually never had a folio-style case for the iPhone and I thought I might dislike having the screen covered, but I actually quite like it. It looks smart, like a small notebook you'd carry around. And the 'TechWoven' material feels good in hand – certainly better than 'FineWoven'! A clever extension mechanism allows it to stay in place when unfolded. And when using it folded, you can place the front cover around the back. Yes, this adds to the bulk, but once you're at this point, why not "own" it? It is, of course, less than ideal when taking pictures, but also just not that big of a deal. And the whole case is extremely easy to take off thanks to magnets rather than adhesive.
I honestly love this device. I strongly suspected I would like it – unlike, say, the HomeView, which I just don't really understand – because I've been using other foldable devices for a few years now and I like those too. And the iPhone Duo is like those, but with Apple polish. Using it alongside the Pixel Fold (I've had a few generations now, most recently last year's 10), the difference in overall quality feels very night and day. I hate to use Apple's own talking points, but one really feels like two phones tacked together versus the Duo which just feels like something new and purpose-built.
Because, of course, it's not just the hardware, it's the tweaks to the software that Apple made to make the experience different in those subtle ways. And it feels like it's perhaps right place/right time for a smaller on-the-go screen to be viable thanks to the plethora of other devices – Apple Watch, AirPods, soon perhaps smart glasses, etc – that we increasingly are also wearing and using. As crazy as it sounds right now, in a few years, it might seem weird to see giant slabs of glass sitting in front of everyone on tabletops. I'm not saying there won't be smartphones – there will be – I'm just saying they may start to look different. Perhaps foldable. Maybe smaller. Maybe even like that device in Her! And while the Duo may not be the first step along the way, it's the first one that's likely to push the industry in that direction in a massive way.
All of that points to the future. But what about the present? Are the reviewers largely right that the iPhone Duo isn't ready for most people right now? Perhaps simply because of the price – though Apple took preemptive steps to try to mitigate such concerns, clearly. But from a sheer product perspective, this is an excellent device, right now. It's certainly better than a lot of Apple's other first attempts at new product categories.
In a way, it is like an 'iPhone Ultra' – one of the long-rumored potential names – perhaps all-but in camera. And it has the price to match that distinction. Will that change with time too? We'll see (don't hold your breath).
For now, it's just a great device at a high price. The Apple Way.
One more thing: I won't lie and say that I don't have any anxiety about folding and unfolding the Duo. Even a week into doing it constantly, I live in persistent fear that "Crackgate" will strike. This is hopefully unfounded, but we just don't know the scope and scale of the issues yet other than Apple acknowledging some "small number" of problems. (And no, I'm not using it in the 'tent' or any other bent position yet.)
2026-11-04 01:32:45
Is Apple doomed again? No, but they do have a lot of question marks from a business perspective heading into 2027 – more than in a long time. And John Ternus did little to assuage such concerns in his first earnings call. Meanwhile, OpenAI continues to push all-in on their ChatGPT "super app", even if you'll soon need a supercomputer to run it.
Read on for thoughts on...
2026-11-03 06:26:56
Normally I write such posts on more personal sites, but this year I have a tech angle! Today is my 45th birthday and the first birthday wish I got was from a bot.
Okay, it’s not technically true, but only because some overzealous (or slightly forgetful) friends wished me a happy birthday over the past few days. Oh yes, and the email marketers — they tend to start about a month out. But once the clock struck midnight on my actual birthday, my bot buddies were there, seemingly tripping over themselves to be first.
It was sort of cute, sort of weird. There was almost a breaking of the fourth wall feeling when regular tasks were followed up with: "and I hope you're having a great birthday!" Thank you, I am. And while that's nice of you to say, I know you're only saying it to mimic a human framing. Of course, had I said as much, a follow up might as well have been, "why would I deceive you?"
It was also an obvious extension of a post I wrote many moons ago, at the ripe old age of 34, about bots wishing people happy birthday on Facebook — and the notion of bots responding to those bots with a “thank you”. Of course, over the intervening 11 years, this has more or less become reality. But to an extent I couldn’t have possibly imagined.
That was an era where cutting-edge AI was largely seen as Siri and Alexa. I mean technically it was undoubtedly the machine learning happening behind-the-scenes on big data databases, but user-facing AI was almost comically rudimentary compared to what we have now. It was things like Facebook knowing it was your birthday and suggesting to your friends that they wish you a “happy birthday” with a single click. These days we’re breaking math on our way to (hopefully) curing cancer (while not breaking the world).
And bots — now better known as “agents” — are increasingly everywhere. What started with enterprise is quickly spreading to consumer with the launch of roughly ten thousand AI personal assistants in the past few months. And we’re on the cusp of those agents fully talking to one another, cutting out the middleman (us). This will happen with email, if it’s not already. And it certainly already happening on LinkedIn. Facebook too, insofar as anyone still uses Facebook.
I kid. 3 billion+ people apparently still use Facebook. But it is interesting how usage has fallen off a cliff with regard to my own cohort. Or, at least, the birthday messages have. Maybe my friends no longer like me — possible — but more likely is that they’re simply more active on other networks these days. Including Instagram, thankfully for Meta.
And I wonder if one day, Facebook and the OG social networks will simply be overrun by bots. A simulation of sorts, of AI performing tasks for you to stay “active” without actually being active. Automatically wishing your connections “happy birthday” and their bots thanking your bot for the well wishes.
My post on turning: 44. 43. 42. 41. 40. 39. 38. 37. 36. 35. 34. 33.
2026-10-31 01:31:47
With the Anthropic S-1 now official, it feels like... a pretty awkward time to go public! Money is rapidly rotating out of Big Tech, good earnings or not. Following major Google and Amazon trust falls this week, Intel is down 30% today. Everyone was busy worried about the US mid-terms causing volatility, but this is clearly a more pressing concern at this point.
Then again, maybe it's good to get this correction of the way, to pave the way for yet another comeback leading up to the actual Anthropic listing in a few weeks? I mean, that has to be the hope at this point?
Inklings is a newsletter featuring links and commentary from M.G. Siegler on timely topics found around the web.
🎢 Big Tech AI Earnings Roller Coaster Continues – The market judging "winners" and "losers" on a quarterly basis is getting more extreme. Google crashed 10%+ (the second worst stock dip in history, in terms of market cap lost – $500B+ – only behind one NVIDIA swing). Microsoft shares surged. Ditto Oracle. Meta shares jumped initially – "Muse, Muse, Muse, Muse, Muse" – but have since continued their recent downward spiral. Ditto SpaceX. And now Amazon is seemingly also going to see a bloodbath when shares open for trading today. What's weird is how there are conflicting reasons and narratives for each jump and/or fall. Generally speaking, the market seems to appreciate a pause in CapEx spend at the moment, but they also appreciate showing some returns to indicate the AI push is working – I mean, duh, except that Google Cloud is arguably the biggest beneficiary of this, to the point where it's closing in on Azure and may become the 2nd largest cloud next year (though it's hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison given Microsoft's new reporting structure), but again, the market puked on Google and yet loved Microsoft. Google, of course, has other concerns – notably, AI Mode cannibalizing traditional Search and monetized at a far lower rate – but there's just so much whiplash in the market at the moment. Microsoft, on the other hand, seemingly benefitted from showing strong free cash flow – unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon which are all now fully negative – but a lot of that is simply because various data center projects are taking longer to complete (so cash outlays are delayed). Have I mentioned they just offered a buyout to 60,000 employees?! And then, of course, the mark-ups and mark-downs are confusing all of this when it comes to "profit" reporting – and all of these companies investing in one another continues to ramp. Meanwhile, Intel is currently down 25% in pre-market! [NYT]
🚀 SpaceXsla – I realize I haven't commented on the notion of SpaceX and Tesla merging yet – even though I've been writing about the possibility for a decade. Obviously this is happening, and Elon Musk isn't even being coy about it any longer. And from a Tesla perspective, the timing seems pretty perfect as the cracks are finally starting to show with the promises of tomorrow continually not coming. That's not to say Tesla is worthless, it's just worth less than $1.6T. But when it merges with SpaceX – itself boosted to $2T thanks to getting into the AI race – we'll have a company which is suddenly the 3rd or 4th or 5th largest company in the world from a market cap perspective. One where, yes, even the Optimus robot project makes sense for a range of reasons. Who else is going to do maintenance on those data centers in space when they're actually a reality in 20+ years... [WSJ 🔒]
🎤 AI Spotify – My guess is that any AI backlash will be kicked into yet another gear if Spotify is able to launch their AI remix service early next year. On paper, it makes sense: let fans make remixes of their favorite music, which will allow the artists to benefit (since streams will count towards their song counts). But in practice, a lot of people are going to hate the notion of doing this to one of the most popular and oldest "sacred" art forms. It's one thing to use AI to make new music (though yes, the big debate is how much it was trained on human-made music – on top of the flooding-the-zone elements, which perhaps literally drowns out human-music), but using it to augment already popular music is another level because it's obviously far more likely to be actually listened to at scale. The obvious guess would be that currently popular artists largely say "no" while up-and-coming artists largely say "why not" and past-their-prime artists largely say "hell yes". Obviously, there will be extremes in all those cases, but Spotify execs equating it to covers of songs is a smart way to try to defuse the controversy. I mean, it won't work, and the fact that Spotify will charge extra for this will lead to a lot of incentive questions. I suspect we won't see Apple do the same, and they may benefit with many popular artists as a result... [FT 🔒]
🧠 The Memory Tables Turn on Apple – Maybe the most wild thing about the end of Tim Cook's tenure atop Apple was how the company misread the market for memory chips. Sure, it's a "100-year flood" situation driven by the AI boom, but it also was at least somewhat foreseeable – especially, you'd imagine, for a company that previously held such a grip over the market. Of course, that grip led the memory makers to grow to hate Apple and their terms. Now it's payback time – both literally and figuratively. Whereas Apple used to buy double the memory chips of the rest of big tech – combined – now the AI "hyperscalers" are buying at a rate double that of Apple. And they're doing so at prices that are 5x or more what Apple was paying just a couple years ago. It's supply and demand mixed with the fact that the chips are a smaller drop in an overall data center cost bucket. Again, you'd think Apple could have seen this coming at least somewhat, but they were also sort of blind to AI so... Great dive into the situation by Rolfe Winkler – from his Kioxia executive shooting iPods with rifles (!) lede on down to all the shakedown stories about 'The Blevinator' – Apple's hard-charging procurement legend (who, by the way, was forced out in 2022). [WSJ 🔒]
👽 The Alien 'David' Trilogy May Yet Be Completed – Writer Aaron Guzikowski is on board, which is notable because he's the creator of the short-lived HBO Max show Raised by Wolves. And that's notable because Ridley Scott was the executive producer of that series – and directed the first two episodes. So while there is currently no director attached to this project, come on, if the script is good, Ridley Scott – who, it must be pointed out, is 88 years old – is directing this. And if he's directing this, it's going to tie the bow around his Alien prequels centered around the android David. Michael Fassbender isn't yet connected but... This is all setting up quite nicely. There has long been a debate whether Wolves was a part of the Alien universe itself, with seemingly some parallels, but Guzikowski has only said he was heavily influenced by Prometheus and that perhaps you could view it as a "close cousin" to that universe. Perhaps there's even a way to tie this into the Alien: Earth show? Let's just get a move on, to get the movie on, everyone! [THR]
"A cheeseburger would not fit in my definition of Peter Rice."
– Joe Pichirallo, a professor at N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the Arts (and a former Fox Searchlight executive), talking about Netflix's new Chief Content Officer, while referencing an old quote from their last Chief Content Officer, Bela Bajaria, who once compared their content to a "gourmet cheeseburger". It's certainly a shake-up.
🔗 Amazon's Apple Strategy • Apple's Touching MacBook Backtrack
Lisan al-Gaib! Back like Duncan Idaho, the popcorn bucket that launched a thousand popcorn buckets (including this gem from A24). Now with 2x the power. Desert power.
🎶 Listening to "Last To Know" by The Menzingers
🍺 Enjoying a Harbour Session IPA
🇬🇧 Sent from New Forest, England