The Problem With AI: ‘Software Brain’ ⇢

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In a world of companies burning money and resources at a breathtaking rate, Nilay Patel’s essay on the state of AI offers a refreshing level of clarity.

The next time someone asks me what I think about AI, I will send this video with a note that I agree with all of it.

AI is the most complex thing to happen to the technology industry, and Patel nails many of the reasons why.

Here is a bit of his argument, after he outlines just how unpopular AI has become in the real world:

I also think it’s incredibly important for our politicians and tech executives to make sure our political process makes people feel empowered, not helpless, which is a specific kind of nihilism they have all greatly contributed to. The violence is a result of that helplessness and nihilism, and the most powerful people in our society ought to reckon with that, especially as they run around saying AI will wipe out all the jobs. I’m not even exaggerating about that — here’s Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei saying he thinks AI will wipe out all the jobs:

Dario Amodei: Entry-level jobs in areas like finance, consulting, tech and many other areas like that —- entry-level white-collar work — I worry that those things are going to be first augmented, but before long replaced by AI systems. We may indeed — it’s hard to predict the future — but we may indeed have a serious employment crisis on our hands as the pipeline for this early-stage, white-collar work starts to contract and dry up.

What I see when I encounter clips like this is the true gap between the tech industry and regular people when it comes to AI — the limit of software brain. Like I said, everyone in tech understands how much regular people dislike AI. What I think they’re missing is why. They think this is a marketing problem. OpenAI just spent $200 million on the TBPN podcast because the company thinks it will help make people like AI more. Sam Altman has said so explicitly:

Sam Altman: Oh, they are genius marketers and I would love to have better marketing. Somebody said to me recently that if AI were a political candidate, it would be the least popular political candidate in history. And given the amazing things AI can do, I think there’s got to be better marketing for AI.

It feels like someone just needs to say this clearly, so I’m just going to do it. AI doesn’t have a marketing problem. People experience these tools every single day! ChatGPT has 900 million weekly users, trending to a billion, and everyone has seen AI Overviews in Google Search and massive amounts of slop on their feeds.

You can’t advertise people out of reacting to their own experiences. This is a fundamental disconnect between how tech people with software brains see the world and how regular people are living their lives.

As long as Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and their peers are dressed up as pilots, I’m not sure I want to be on the plane. Nihilism without a parachute doesn’t sit well with me.

* * *

John Gruber, in his link to the video:

Something is profoundly off in the computer industry when it comes to software broadly and AI specifically. It’s up for debate what exactly is off and what should be done about it, but the undeniable proof that something is profoundly off is the deep unpopularity surrounding everything related to AI. You can’t argue that the public always turns against groundbreaking technology. The last two epoch-defining shifts in technology were the smartphone in the 2000s, and the Internet/web in the 1990s. Neither of those moments generated this sort of mainstream popular backlash. I’d say in both of those cases, regular people were optimistically curious. The single most distinctive thing about “AI” today is the vociferous public opposition to it and deeply pessimistic expectations about what it’s going to do.

The comparison to the 90s is a good one. We still had websites after the dot-com bubble, and we will have AI tools after this bubble bursts. John is right though; I don’t think many people were opposed to online shopping in a way some are opposed to the rise of LLMs.

From a financial standpoint, thinking that the 2020s are just the 1990s on repeat is short-sighted; the horrifying deals between AI companies and the likes of Nvidia and Coreweave make the late 1990s look like child’s play.

The truth is simple: our economic and social moment is in the hands of people who do not understand the power they wield. They write handwringing essays about the dangers of new models with one hand, while cashing checks with the other.

* * *

Many people believe that AI is inevitable. “Get onboard or get left behind” is the tone that people and companies are taking more every day. In their worldview, to be concerned about AI is to be missing the most important change we’ve seen in technology (possibly) ever. Expressing worry is considered naive and against progress. The desire to slow down isn’t understood by some of these folks.

Look, I’m not dumb enough to believe the genie can be put back in the bottle, but I’m also smart enough to know that we have no idea what we’re doing.

Waiting and hoping for government regulation to save jobs, limit environmental damage, and rein in the mass data collection required to feed LLMs is not a plan. Elected officials are not equipped to move quickly enough to keep up; industry leaders are incentivized to push harder into the unknown.

The two may never meet in time.

* * *

The dangers of AI are both overwhelmingly large and heartbreakingly personal.

Mass layoffs and environmental concerns feel too big to wrap our arms around. Reading stories about people who have harmed themselves (and others) after spending time with LLM-powered chatbots feels too brutal to fully understand.

Turning the world into software inevitably includes these tradeoffs, as Nilay Patel continues:

I’ve reviewed a lot of tech products over the past decade and a half, and all I can tell you is that it is a failure when you ask people to adapt to computers. Computers should adapt to people. Asking people to make themselves more legible to software — to turn themselves into a database — is a doomed idea.

It’s an ask so big that I can’t imagine a reward that would make it worth it for anyone, even if the tech industry wasn’t constantly talking about how AI will eliminate all the jobs, require a wholesale rethinking of the social contract and — oops — also the latest models might cause catastrophic cybersecurity problems that might lead to the end of the world.

Does this sound like a good deal to you? Can you market your way out of this? This only makes sense if you have software brain — if your operative framework is to flatten everything into databases that you can control with structured language. The people paying thousands of dollars a month to set up swarms of OpenClaw agents and write thousands of lines of code are people who look at the world and see opportunities for automation, to repeat tasks, to collect data. To build software. AI is great for them. It’s even exciting in ways that I think are important and will probably change our relationship to computers forever.

For everyone else, AI is just a demanding slop monster. It’s a threat. I’m not saying regular people don’t use Excel or Airtable to plan their weddings or have fun throwing PowerPoint parties, or even that AI won’t be useful to regular people over time. I think a lot of people enjoy data and tracking different parts of their lives. I’m wearing a Whoop band as I write this. I’m just saying these things aren’t everything. Not everything about our lives can be measured and automated and optimized, and it shouldn’t be.

In the tidal wave of cash and influence that is currently swelling, logic has been washed away. If my company were burning billions of dollars a year on increasingly unpopular products, I would have lost my job many times over.

Instead, the Silicon Valley rich and powerful keep getting richer and more powerful, at the expense of their users and the planet. AI is capable of incredible things, but it is ushering in terrible things at the same time. To ignore that is both naive and foolish.

Control Center is Homeless

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Last night before going to bed, I told my iPhone to install iOS 26.4.2 and when I picked it up this morning, I was greeted by a Control Center bug that has been around since iOS 26 first launched:

No Home Set Up Error

For months, HomeKit controls will be missing after an iOS update or device restart. In this case, I am missing controls for my garage door, my thermostats, and a couple of scenes.

All of those items are in the Home app itself, and are still fully functional. Even weirder is that tapping on a broken control one reveals what it should be:

HomeKit controls

In my experience, the controls will heal themselves with a little time. I suspect that some time later today, they’ll all be back. In the meantime, it’s a reminder of a frustrating bug that has been around too long.

I’ve only seen this behavior with HomeKit controls, so I’ve filed my feedback with Apple as a “Home app & HomeKit / Matter Accessories” issue. It can be found as FB22601988.

The Framework Laptop 13 Pro ⇢

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I think the most interesting company in the personal computer space may be Framework, the small company dedicated to making repairable and upgradeable notebooks and desktops. It launched its first laptop — named the Framework Laptop 13 — in 2021 and you can still replace and upgrade components in it five years later. It started with an 11th-gen Intel Core processor, but now can run up to AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. A bunch of other things have been added as well, including support for Wi-Fi 7, a 2.8K display, more robust keyboard, and more. All of that is on top of being able to replace the SSD, battery, and RAM in just a few minutes.

In those same five years, Framework has launched two additional notebooks and a desktop. Each of these products has its own tradeoffs and features, meaning just about anyone interested in something like that can find a machine that meets their needs.

This week, the company introduced a fourth laptop, the Laptop 13 Pro. Here’s a bit from the press release:

Today, we’re happy to introduce Framework Laptop 13 Pro, a complete ground up redesign that brings a massive leap in battery life with Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 Processors, a 74Wh battery, and LPCAMM2 memory, a new full CNC aluminum chassis, our first purpose-built power-optimized display with touch support, an excellent feeling haptic touchpad, an option for pre-loaded Ubuntu, and much more. In many ways, this product has been six years in the making. We’ve taken all of the feedback you’ve given us on the first seven generations of Framework Laptop 13 to make this the ultimate portable developer and power user machine. With all of this, it’s still a Framework Laptop, meaning it’s repairable, upgradeable, customizable, and entirely yours to do what you want with. Framework Laptop 13 Pro is available to pre-order today, starting at $1,199 USD for DIY Edition and $1,499 USD for pre-built configurations, with first shipments in June.

There’s also a walk-through video on the company’s YouTube channel:

The new aluminum chassis — and its guts — are backward- and forward-compatible with the original Laptop 13. The touchscreen has a matte finish that seems incredibly impressive. LPCAMM2 memory means users can upgrade RAM later. The Laptop 13 Pro retains swappable expansion cards, which make changing the ports on the machine trivial. Keeping up with everything you can change about the laptop is super simple, thanks to Framework’s website.

laptop 13 Pro

Somewhere, Jony Ive is breathing heavily into a paper bag.

It seems like Framework has really taken what was groundbreaking about its original machine and made it even better. That’s impressive for such a small and young company, but in the video announcing the Laptop 13 Pro, Nirav Patel said something really interesting:

How do we build a MacBook Pro for Linux users?

I’m sure a bunch of Mac users would answer that question by laughing at Patel, but I think the question is fascinating.

The 13 Laptop Pro resembles Mac hardware thanks to its dark aluminum enclosure, which seems like a huge improvement over the older systems. Many reviews of previous Framework hardware have complained about issues like flexing top cases and weird seams between parts. Those things were assumed to be an unavoidable side effect of making a notebook that can be taken apart and rebuilt in a matter of minutes. It seems the company has addressed some of those issues with this new model.

On the other hand, Framework’s customizable, upgradable hardware stands in stark contrast to modern Apple hardware, which is increasingly consolidated onto single, dense logic boards. The MacBook Neo may be more repairable than previous machines, but even it falls short if Framework’s philosophy is the goal.

The second part of Patel’s question is more interesting than the first. Building a notebook for Linux users has historically been a tricky thing for a few reasons. Framework is already seeing success here, but clearly it wants to continue to grow its brand in the Linux world.

The first is hardware support. While it is better than it used to be, Linux users can run into weird driver issues and other complications, especially with notebooks. Framework has worked with Ubuntu and Fedora directly to support those distros, with many other options supported by the community. Combined with the ability to upgrade hardware over time and the Laptop 13 Pro’s impressive battery life, having a good Linux experience on a notebook should be easier than ever.

(It’s important to note that Framework has sponsored a couple of projects that they definitely should not have sponsored. Yikes. I hope the plan Patel outlined in that thread keeps them from making such mistakes in the future.)

Microsoft has crammed advertisements and AI features into every nook and cranny of Windows 11, leaving power users frustrated. Changes may be on the horizon, but Microsoft has a long way to go to repair those relationships.

In the meantime, Framework is positioning itself as an alternative to how things are normally done in the notebook world. I think that’s worth being excited about, if it’s your cup of tea or not.

A Presidential Proclamation Marking Tim Cook’s Retirement ⇢

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A very official and normal statement from the President:

I have always been a big fan of Tim Cook, and likewise, Steve Jobs, but if Steve was not taken from the Planet Earth so young, and ran the company instead of Tim, the company would have done well, but nowhere near as well as it has under Tim. For me it began with a phone call from Tim at the beginning of my First Term. He had a fairly large problem that only I, as President, could fix. Most people would have paid millions of dollars to a consultant, who I probably would not have known, but who would say that he knew me well. The fees would be paid but the job would not have gotten done. When I got the call I said, wow, it’s Tim Apple (Cook!) calling, how big is that? I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to “kiss my ass.” Anyway, he explained his problem, a tough one it was, I felt he was right and got it taken care of, quickly and effectively. That was the beginning of a long and very nice relationship. During my five years as President, Tim would call me, but never too much, and I would help him where I could. Years latter, after 3 or 4 BIG HELPS, I started to say to people, anyone who would listen, that this guy is an amazing manager and leader. He makes these calls to me, I help him out (but not always, because he will, on occasion, be too aggressive in his ask!), and he gets the job done, QUICKLY, without a dime being given to those very expensive (millions of dollars!) consultants around town who sometimes get it done, and sometimes don’t. Anyway, Tim Cook had an AMAZING career, almost incomparable, and will go on and continue to do great work for Apple, and whatever else he chooses to work on. Quite simply, Tim Cook is an incredible guy!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP

Yes, that quote is exactly as it was written. I don’t think anyone has an obligation to clean up Trump’s bonkers writing.

Cook Out

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CEO Daddies

Tim Cook, writing on apple.com:

For the past 15 years I’ve started just about every morning the same way. I open my email and I read notes I received the day before from Apple’s users all over the world.

You share little pieces of your lives with me and tell me things you want me to know about how Apple has touched you. About the moment your mom was saved by her Apple Watch. About the perfect selfie you captured at the summit of a mountain that seemed impossible to climb. You thank me for the ways Mac has changed what you can do at work and sometimes give me a hard time because something you care about isn’t working like it should.

In every one of those emails I feel the beating heart of our shared humanity. I feel a sense of deepening obligation to work harder and push further. But most of all, I feel a gratitude that I cannot put into words, that I somehow got to be the person on the other end of those emails, the leader of a company that ignites imaginations and enriches lives in such profound ways it defies description. What an honor and a privilege it has been.

He continues:

Today we announced that I’m taking the next step in my journey at Apple. Over the coming months I will be transitioning into a new role, leaving the CEO job behind in September and becoming Apple’s executive chairman. A new person will be stepping into what I know in my heart is the best job in the world. That leader is John Ternus, a brilliant engineer and thinker who has spent the past 25 years building the Apple products our users love so much, obsessed with every detail, focused on every possible way we can make something better, bolder, more beautiful, and more meaningful. He is the perfect person for the job.

John cares so much about who we are at Apple, what we do at Apple, who we reach at Apple, and he has the heart and character to lead with extraordinary integrity. I am so proud to call him Apple’s next CEO. This company will reach such incredible heights under his leadership, and you will feel his impact in every bit of delight and discovery that grows out of the products and services to come. I can’t wait for you to get to know him like I do.

This is not goodbye. But at this moment of transition, I wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you. Not on behalf of the company, this time, though there is a wellspring of gratitude for you that overflows inside our walls. But simply on behalf of me. Tim. A person who grew up in a rural place in a different time and, for these magical moments, got to be the CEO of the greatest company in the world. Thank you for the confidence and kindness you’ve shown me. Thank you for saying hi to me on the street and in our stores. Thank you for cheering alongside me when we unveiled a new product or service. Thank you, most of all, for believing in me to lead the company that has always put you at the center of our work. Every day we get up and think about what we can do to make your life a little bit better. And every day, you’ve made mine the best I could have asked for.

Thank you.

Part of this transition is Cook’s continued handling governments, both here and abroad. Apple Newsroom:

Cook will continue in his role as CEO through the summer as he works closely with Ternus on a smooth transition. As executive chairman, Cook will assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world.

Later in the press release:

“I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward,” said Ternus. “Having spent almost my entire career at Apple, I have been lucky to have worked under Steve Jobs and to have had Tim Cook as my mentor. It has been a privilege to help shape the products and experiences that have changed so much of how we interact with the world and with one another. I am filled with optimism about what we can achieve in the years to come, and I am so happy to know that the most talented people on earth are here at Apple, determined to be part of something bigger than any one of us. I am humbled to step into this role, and I promise to lead with the values and vision that have come to define this special place for half a century.”

Arthur Levinson, who has been Apple’s non-executive chairman for the past 15 years, will become its lead independent director on September 1, 2026. Ternus will join the board of directors, also effective September 1, 2026.

Additionally, Johny Srouji has been promoted to Chief Hardware Officer, a title that seems hand-crafted for him:

Apple today announced that, effective immediately, Apple executive Johny Srouji will become chief hardware officer. Srouji, who most recently served as senior vice president of Hardware Technologies, will assume an expanded role leading Hardware Engineering, which John Ternus most recently oversaw, as well as the hardware technologies organization.

“Johny is one of the most talented people I have ever had the privilege to work with,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. “He has played a singular role in driving Apple’s silicon strategy, and his influence has been felt deeply not just inside the company, but across the industry. He has always led his organization with remarkable deftness and judgment, and time and again, his team has delivered breakthrough innovations that have transformed our products. We are incredibly fortunate to have him as Apple’s chief hardware officer.”

“Johny has been an incredible partner on the executive team, and is going to be an extraordinary chief hardware officer,” said incoming Apple CEO John Ternus. “I look forward to continuing to work closely with him in our new roles.”

Surely this was an effort to keep Srouji at the company. Hopefully it goes better than last time around.

The Future of the Artemis Program ⇢

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Eric Berger:

The Artemis era well and truly began Friday evening when a shiny spacecraft that had traveled 700,000 miles around the Moon, carrying four astronauts, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

For NASA, for its international partners, and for all of humanity the successful conclusion of the Artemis II mission marked a return to deep space by our species after more than half a century.

It was a spectacular achievement, and NASA deserves credit for making something what is very difficult look relatively easy. But it also raises an important question: What comes next?

iPhones in Spaaaaaaaace

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Tim Cook on X (gross), about iPhones being used on the Artemis II mission:

Congratulations to Artemis II on a successful mission! You captured the wonders of space and our planet beautifully, taking iPhone photography to new heights, and we’re grateful you shared it with the world. Your work continues to inspire us all to think different. Welcome home!

Joz chimed in on X (gross) as well:

Welcome home to the Artemis II crew! Honored that NASA astronauts brought iPhone to space with them. One small step for iPhone. One giant leap for space selfies.

Kalley Huang at The New York Times:

The iPhone 17 Pro Maxes being used by the astronauts aren’t the only cameras on the Orion capsule, though they may be the newest since their debut in September. The crew is also taking photos and videos with two Nikon D5s, a model that was introduced in 2016, and four GoPro Hero 11s, which was introduced in 2022.

The process for approving hardware for spaceflight is “usually pretty involved and lengthy,” said Tobias Niederwieser, an assistant research professor at BioServe Space Technologies, a research institute at the University of Colorado, Boulder, that had a payload on the Artemis I mission.

Typically, the process has four phases, Mr. Niederwieser said. The first introduces the piece of hardware to a safety panel. The second identifies the potential hazards of the hardware, which ranges from moving parts to materials like glass that could shatter. The third lays out a plan for addressing such hazards. The fourth proves that the plan works.

Apple was not involved in NASA’s approval process, despite people online claiming it’s the most brilliant product placement the world …errr, moon… has ever seen.

The Artemis II Crew is Home ⇢

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Stephen Clark at Ars:

Slamming into the atmosphere at more than 30 times the speed of sound, NASA’s Orion spacecraft blazed a trail over the Pacific Ocean on Friday, returning home with four astronauts and safely capping humanity’s first voyage to the Moon in nearly 54 years.

Temperatures outside the capsule built up to some 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit as a sheath of plasma enveloped the Orion spacecraft, named Integrity, and its four long-distance travelers, temporarily blocking radio signals the Moon ship and Mission Control in Houston. Flying southwest to northeast, the spacecraft steered toward a splashdown zone southwest of San Diego, where a US Navy recovery ship held position to await the crew’s homecoming. Ground teams regained communications with Orion commander Reid Wiseman after a six-minute blackout.

Airborne tracking planes beamed live video of Orion’s descent back to Mission Control, showing the capsule jettison its parachute cover and deploy a series of chutes to stabilize its plunge toward the Pacific. Then, three larger main chutes, each with an area of 10,500 square feet, opened to slow Orion for splashdown at 8:07 pm EDT Friday (00:07 UTC Saturday).

What an image:

Artemis II under parachutes

It will take a while before all the data is sorted through, but by all accounts at this point, Artemis II was a near–perfect mission. It’s good to have good news in 2026.

Bruce the Yak was Final Cut Pro’s Dogcow

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I like to think I’m pretty knowledgeable when it comes to the weirdest corners of Apple history, but Cody Bromley’s recent blog post on a Final Cut Pro taught me I still have plenty to learn:

On the Macintosh episode of Version History, David Pierce and Nilay Patel had a lot of fun riffing about Mr. Macintosh, Steve Jobs’s obscure concept for a digital cryptid who lives in your computer.

About 15 years later, Apple actually shipped something very similar, except instead of a mysterious little man it was a yak named Bruce.

If you left older versions of Final Cut Pro running for 12 hours or more, you might come back to a small brown creature grazing a patch of grass on your timeline. There were other ways to intentionally trigger him, but this was the most fun one.

I mean, just look at this:

Bruce the Yak

It looks like Bruce was part of the very earliest versions of Final Cut Pro, as reported in 1999:

An Easter Egg in Final Cut Pro, fondly known as “Bruce the Wonder Yak” is popping up on monitors everywhere. Over the last day or two Bruce has spooked more than one unsuspecting FCP editor, fearing the mild mannered bovine was the result of some sort of computer virus. But fear not, Yak herder and Final Cut Pro Chief Engineer, Randy Ubillos assures us “not to worry,” and that Bruce is just an “undocumented feature” of the software.

However, sources in Cupertino have informed us that one problem concerning Bruce is the fact that people are addressing him as a “Cow.” An Apple spokesperson was quoted as saying, “A little sensitivity people! Save those kinds of remarks for more deserving parties like John Dvorak.”

If you want to see Bruce the Wonder Yak for yourself, go to “About Final Cut Pro” in the Apple Menu, let the splash screen scroll through the credits a few times, and in after a moment or two he’ll come out to graze on your desktop. Let him stay a while and he might even impart a few pearls of wisdom!

Like many fun things, Bruce was murdered put to rest when Steve Jobs came back to Apple and squashed all Easter Eggs.

In addition to writing about the history of Bruce, Bromley has brought Bruce back to life:

Yesterday, I wrote about Bruce the Wonder Yak, a funny little creature who lived inside Final Cut Pro. The responses kind of blew me away. Quite a few people remember Bruce, and they miss him like I did.

So I brought him back. And, no, this is not an April Fools joke.

Call the Yak can be downloaded on Github. I am in love.

xAI Says Memphis Water Plant Still Happening ⇢

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xAI, on X:

xAI is committed to building a state-of-the-art water recycling plant in Memphis. This plant will protect billions of gallons of water each year.

The team is currently prioritizing other more immediate projects at the site but our plans to build the water plant have not changed.

I certainly hope so.

Folks in Memphis responded strongly to yesterday’s news that the water treatment plant was on hold. xAI has very little credibility in the eyes of a lot of Memphians. The company not explaining what “other more immediate projects” have taken priority hasn’t helped.