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.
2025-11-20 07:00:30
Today I turn 40 years old. It's a fun age because I know for a fact some people reading that line will feel sorry for me that I'm so advanced in age, while in others it will spark jealousy as they remember how good it was to be this age. I've never been one to get too caught up in age defining me, and if I'm being completely honest, today feels more like a Wednesday than some monumental day in my life.
I also don't have any deep lessons to teach the younger generation as I turn this age, nor do I have a list of 40 things I learned in 40 years. I'll keep it short and sweet and just share this one quote from Alexander Pope that I really like.
A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
There is delight to be had in being able to say, "I'm right and I've always been right." And while it may not be as straightforwardly delightful, it is maybe even more valuable to be able to say, "I used to think this, I got more information, and now I think something else." I think it's a personal flaw if you are a static object who never adjusts to new information or the times changing around you.
I think there should always be room for forgiveness on matters that are challenging, and I don't think we should put down people who have just come around to what we think is the right way of thinking. I'm certainly not perfect at this, and I can see even recently I had snarked about people who don't want touch screens on Macs suddenly wanting it, but I'm going to try to dial that back.
Cheers!
2025-11-20 07:00:00
Christopher Butler: What AI Is Really For
My experience with AI in the design context tends to reflect what I think is generally true about AI in the workplace: the smaller the use case, the larger the gain. The larger the use case, the larger the expense. Most of the larger use cases that I have observed — where AI is leveraged to automate entire workflows, or capture end to end operational data, or replace an entire function — the outlay of work is equal to or greater than the savings. The time we think we’ll save by using AI tends to be spent on doing something else with AI.
This resonates with me. I personally get the most benefit from AI tools when I use it to accelerate my work, not so much to replace it. It's like Apple Shortcuts for me: it's not replacing my need to do anything, it's making some things easier or quicker than they otherwise would be. When I push it to do everything, it falls down.
I recently wrote about how my software development work looks a hell of a lot like traditional development, and I think that's the case for the other things I do with AI.
2025-11-20 06:30:00
Eugen Rochko: My next chapter with Mastodon
Mastodon is bigger than me, and though the technology we develop on is itself decentralized—with heaps of alternative fediverse projects demonstrating that participation in this ecosystem is possible without our involvement
Rochko seems like a good guy and I thank him for all he’s done leading Mastodon all these years. When Elon Musk took over Twitter and…let’s just say he did what he did to it…Mastodon was a good place for me and my nerdy friends to land.
2025-11-20 05:39:49
Electronic Arts: EA Sports F1® Franchise Announcement
Today, EA SPORTS™ confirms future plans for F1® 25, with the game set to represent both the 2025 and 2026 FIA Formula One World Championships. This news drops alongside an announcement for the future of EA SPORTS F1® as 2027 will see the series return and mark the start of a new and more expansive F1® experience.
On the one hand, this is a bummer. On the other, I think this is what sports game should do more often. After all, it’s not like a ton changes from year to year anyway, just let me pay a bit to get the new rosters, new rules, and save the full new game for every other year. It sounds like this paid expansion will include the new drivers, teams, and calendar, but I wonder if it will have updated physics and car designs. It is a new regulations year, after all.
Also, as someone who plays a lot of the F1 games each year, I will say that their suggesting that the 2027 game will be a brand new experience makes me equal parts excited and nervous. The core racing engine in the games is quite good, and scales pretty well from sim fans to casual racers. Yes, the physics tweaks each year ebb and flow in quality, but the racing is always pretty good. That said, the rest of the game is a total mess, with a true low point coming in the 2023-2024 games where EA seemed to think what we wanted most from this game was to spend real money on couches and wall art for our fake driver’s digital home. They’ve since pulled that all back, but to me the series has felt like a very good racing experience that I was always afraid to see what needless thing they were going to add on top of it next time.
And all that said, compared to other racing games like Grad Turismo and Assetto Corsa Competizione, it was feeling a bit stale on track, and the visuals were solid but have always felt like really high res PS4 visuals to my eyes. The idea of a new game coming that looks better, plays more realistically, and has a better season/career mode sounds exciting! Then again, this is an EA game, and I’m also worried that we’re going towards something more like Madden or FIFA, games that I truly think actively hate their players. I get the impression that the F1 games flew a little under the radar at EA for many years, and they weren’t bogged down with all the bullshit they put in their other sports games. Now that F1 the sport is bigger, this franchise must have more executive eyes on it. Executives that say, “why isn’t this game making 10x as much money as it could? Optimize for that!” Given EA’s new private ownership, I’m not convinced their motivations will be to make the best F1 racing game they can.
Anyway, the F1 games have long been special sports games that I’ve enjoyed, and I hope that whatever comes in 2027 has more good stuff than bad. At the very least F1 25 was one of the best recent entries in the series, so if I’m going to have this core game do another year, that’s not the worst thing.