418: ‘Putting a Stink on the Letter X’, With Craig Hockenberry

The Talk Show With John Gruber

Craig Hockenberry returns to the show. Topics include Apple’s new hardware this week — M3 iPad Airs, A16 regular iPads, M4 MacBook Airs, and the M4 Max and surprising M3 Ultra Mac Studios. And we go deep on The Iconfactory’s years-in-the-making new app, Tapestry — a universal timeline for the Internet.

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• Google Gemini: Chat to supercharge your ideas.

Unofficial but surprisingly good transcripts.

Links:

• Daring Fireball posts of note:
  • “Apple Updates iPad Air (M2→M3) and Regular iPad (A14→A16), and Revamps Magic Keyboard for iPad Air”.
  • “Apple Announces, With Little Surprise, M4 MacBook Airs”.
  • “Apple Announces, With Much Surprise, Mac Studios With M4 Max and M3 Ultra (!) Chips”.
  • From January: “Openvibe, a Multi-Social-Network App for Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads (Supposedly), and Nostr”.
• Tapestry: “Weaving your favorite blogs, social media, and more into a unified and chronological timeline.”
  • Craig, on the Iconfactory blog: “Enter Tapestry”.
  • Cheryl Cicha, also on the Iconfactory blog: “Tapestry: Past, Present, and Future”.
  • Tapestry Connectors — an open, easy (documented!) extensions API.
  • Fefes Blog — you’ll have to listen to the show to understand how this is a Tapestry-related link. But trust me, it’s a good story. It starts with this thread on Mastodon, which begins like a great novel: “It’s becoming clear that XML in RSS is the preferred tool of sociopaths.”
  • Molly White: “POSSE” (“Publish [on your] Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere”).
  • Technology Connections on YouTube: “Algorithms Are Breaking How We Think”.
• The Iconfactory:
  • Linea Sketch — “a lightweight digital sketchpad for your iPad”.
  • Wallaroo — fun new wallpapers every week, for iOS and Mac.
  • Tot — we didn’t mention this brilliant little notes app on the show, but I use it every day.
  • iPulse — a nerdy system monitor, with Iconfactory fit and finish. Runs in the background even on iOS.
  • Project Tapestry’s year-ago successful Kickstarter campaign.
• Andre Torrez’s Tyke, the inspiration for Tot.

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.