2025-11-27 08:47:35
Birchtree runs on Ghost, and I'm super happy with it; I'd use it even if the company behind it was unremarkable. Thankfully, they're also very cool, and have been supporters of the fediverse for several years now. Earlier this year, they made it so all Ghost blogs could natively exist on the fediverse, and you can follow this site at @[email protected] on Mastodon or many other ActivityPub apps.
Ghost Explore is their new effort to promote those using Ghost. I don't want them to go down the Substack road and turn Ghost into a social platform, but stuff like this is really cool to see. I've been browsing this for like 15 minutes and have found some cool new sites I hadn't heard of before. I'd recommend taking a look and seeing if you find anyone of interest in there. And of course, since Ghost is just a way to host a website, you can follow these sites anywhere, you don't need to use Ghost. The open web remains the best. ❤️
2025-11-23 23:04:14
There's a trend that's impossible to ignore across the internet, and that's comment sections and reply-guys on social media suggesting that anyone with a different opinion to them (specifically that something they hate is good) is being paid to say what they're saying. Do you like a game that many others seem to dislike? You're being paid to say it, obviously. Do you enjoy an app and want to say something nice about it? Paid off!
People have reason not to trust everything they hear online, I get it, but I do wonder if some people use this as protection against the idea that there are a variety of opinions out there about art and software.
2025-11-23 07:57:36
I’m not saying this will definitely happen, but I think we could be on the cusp of a significant shift in Windows market share for consumer computers. It is not going to drop to 2% in a year or anything, but I feel like a few pieces are coming together that could move the needle in a way we have not seen in several decades. There are three things on my mind .
Number one is that Microsoft just does not feel like a consumer tech company at all anymore. Yes, they have always been much more corporate than the likes of Apple or Google, but it really shows in the last few years as they seem to only have energy for AI and web services. If you are not a customer who is a major business or a developer creating the next AI-powered app, Microsoft does not seem to care about you.
I just do not see excitement there. The only thing of note they have added to Windows in the last five years is Copilot, and I have yet to meet a normal human being who enjoys using it. And all the Windows 11 changes seem to have just gone over about as well as a lead balloon. I just do not think they care at all about Windows with consumers.
The second thing is the affordable MacBook rumored to be coming out in 2026. This will be a meaningfully cheaper MacBook that people can purchase at price points that many Windows computers have been hovering around for many years. Considering Apple’s focus on consumers first and a price point that can get more people in the door, it seems like that could move the needle.
The third thing is gamers. Gamers use Windows largely because they have to, not because they are passionate about it. Maybe they were passionate about it in the 90s, but any passion has gone away. Now it is just the operating system they use to launch Steam. In early 2026, Valve is going to release the Steam Machine after a few years of success with the Steam Deck. We will see how they do there, but what they are doing is releasing a machine that runs Windows games on Linux. And it runs them really well. The Steam Deck has proven that over the last few years. If someone can package up a version of Linux that is optimized for gamers, then I think there is a meaningful number of PC gamers who would happily run that on their computer instead.
I do not know if this is going to happen. It is always easy to be cynical and suggest everything will stay the same, and I understand that markets of this size take a long time to change. However, it just feels like there are some things happening right now that are going to move the needle, and I am excited to see what happens.
2025-11-21 06:05:46
Google is really going out of their way to make their Pixel line as compatible with iPhones as possible. Today, the company announced an update available immediately for Pixel 10 devices (others coming later) that allows their Quick Share feature to work seamlessly with AirDrop on iPhones, iPads, and Macs.
According to the company's documentation, this implementation will work exactly the same for sharing something from an iPhone to a Pixel, a Pixel to an iPhone, an iPhone to an iPhone, or a Pixel to a Pixel. The one downside here seems to be that, unlike iPhone to iPhone or Android to Android transfers, you can't identify devices on the other platform as familiar devices. Therefore, the receiving device must open itself up temporarily to be available to all devices in the area. Both Quick Share and AirDrop only enabled this permission for 10 minutes before turning it back off. So, it's not a huge security concern, in my opinion. It's more an annoyance. My primary use case for AirDrop is passing files, typically from my iPhone to my iPad or Mac, so this would be annoying for that use case. I don't know if I enabled something special to get this, but when I airdrop from one of my personal devices to another personal device, it doesn't even ask me if I want to accept the file. It just sends it immediately, which is super simple and super nice.
Inexplicably, it is not working in either direction on my personal devices, but I have seen people do it successfully, so I'll chock this up to first day weirdness. Here's hoping it works like a charm sooner rather than later.
2025-11-20 23:47:48
Yesterday, OpenAI pushed an update to their new ChatGPT Atlas browser that added a few nice features, most notably vertical tabs on the side of the browser window. And of course they would, right? This was technically a thing in some highly-customizable browsers like Vivaldi for years before, but Arc really made them mainstream and finally pinned down the experience: the sidebar wasn't just you open tabs, it was a list of "apps" you use regularly as well as your open windows all in one interface. On top of that, they had some of the best design-oriented developers in the biz making it, so everything felt fucking amazing to use.
Not to beat a dead horse, but The Browser Company moved on from Arc in large part because they said the UI was too unfamiliar for mainstream users, and the sidebar was a big part of that. It's simply funny to see the entire browser market from Microsoft Edge, to Opera, to Zen, to Firefox all follow in Arc's footsteps. As I noted a couple days ago, the most notable change to Dia in months has been adding a photocopy of Arc's sidebar. Now Atlas, the browser from the most influential company in the entire world over the past few years, is moving in this direction as well (your bookmarks can't live in the sidebar, so it's not exactly the same yet).
Anyway, I really wanted to call out how unbelievably influential Arc has been on the entire web browser market.