2026-08-04 20:30:04
2026-08-04 19:39:53
Josh Ginter: The Titanium Milanese Loop Apple Watch Band Review: The Best Apple Watch Band Ever Made
At $200 USD it's expensive for a band, but it's a buy-once purchase that kills any desire to own another. Best Apple Watch band ever made.
This is my watch band as well, and I absolutely agree with Josh here. It's supremely comfortable and looks really nice. I work out in it, I go to formal events with it, and it's my day-to-day standard. It has completely killed my desire to browse for new watch bands.
My only gripe is that while the clasp is great once it's locked in, it is by far the most annoying watch band clasp I've ever personally used to actually lock in. But that's 5 seconds of annoyance every day to get an otherwise perfect band experience.
2026-08-04 07:41:42
M.G. Siegler: What if Anthropic is Right?
Certainly part of it is just the shift from underdog to presumed leader in AI. But a lot of it has to do with the way Anthropic carries itself as a company. Whereas the strong stances and rhetoric were once seen as almost endearing, now they're seen more as a problem.
As we’ve seen with Apple, a company’s eccentricities and bold stances are endearing when they’re an underdog, but not as much when they’re on top.
2026-08-04 06:45:22
On Friday, I had an automatic update install for Dia, and it brought keyboard shortcut and trackpad gestures for switching between spaces. As someone who uses Dia on a daily basis, this was great news to me. One of the many magical features of Arc four years ago was its ability to set up different spaces that were logged into completely separate accounts and bounce between them with ease.
PS in the featured image above, Arc is on the left, Dia is on the right. They really have spent the last couple years turning Dia into Arc in basically every way.
2026-08-03 19:22:22
At the end of last year, I bought the ROG Xbox Ally X because I wanted a high-performance portable gaming PC, and that seemed like the best option of the bunch. We also happened to be on the verge of 2026, which looked like it was going to bring increased costs across the board for tech. And while I didn't strictly need it yet, it did seem like if I was going to upgrade, it was only going to be more expensive if I waited. Outside of the software, I think the device is quite good for my needs. It's meaningfully more powerful than a Steam Deck, and that was my main criteria.
However, it must be said that I have given Microsoft exactly zero dollars since that purchase. I don't subscribe to Game Pass, and I don't buy games from the Xbox store. In fact, I found the software experience so insanely bad that I flashed Linux onto it and am far happier now. I was kind of curious if I was alone here, and thankfully, Jez Corden of Windows Central: has some date to report here:
Around 75% of Xbox Ally owners also own Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass
And:
Of non-subscribing users: If an Xbox Ally user was also an Xbox console owner, around a quarter of those users also made purchases on the Xbox PC ecosystem. However, if the Xbox Ally owner was not an Xbox console owner, that figure dropped to a measly 2%. Suggesting that almost 100% of non-Xbox owning, new Xbox Ally owners simply went straight to Steam.
It does seem I am in the minority here, as I'm in the one quarter of owners who don't use Game Pass, and it would have been nice to break down the other 25% to see how many were Xbox console owners as well. It does speak to Microsoft's utter failure at being the gaming hub on their own Windows platform. When you see numbers like this, if you're not an Xbox console owner, there is basically a 0% chance you are buying games from the Xbox store on PC.