Zeba Blay, for Teen Vogue:

You’re doomscrolling. On TikTok, or Instagram, or YouTube, or some other equally distracting online platform. In between harrowing news stories pointing to the nation’s decline, clips from balloon-popping dating shows, and ads for the latest viral lipstain, you see a face. The face may give you pause. This is because what you are looking at is only the concept of a face: a Black woman, perhaps in her mid-20s, with glowing brown skin, immaculate brows, slicked down baby hairs, and sharp acrylic nails on her fingers.

“Get ready with me,” she says, “I need to go shopping. I have to find some clothes for my Miami trip. I’m thinking about wearing this little tan Skims…” She heads to the mall. She goes to Zara. “I found four outfits, I still need two more. But the four I found are definitely tea.” She is not a real person. […]

And here we are, at the end of everything: the uncanny valley of Black generative AI influencers. A vast wilderness of hyperrealistic avatars doing mukbangs, wig installs, and calling us broke. Like all digital blackface, they implicitly play into racialized stereotypes of Blackness, particularly Black femininity. Digital blackface has evolved, or rather adapted, to the demands of late-as-hell stage capitalism. What once lived in the pixels of reaction GIFs and memes has now transformed into something slicker, though no less insidious — the continuation of a long, wearying American tradition of stealing Black expression and exploiting it for profit.

I read this article as part of Karen Attiah’s ongoing Race Media and International Affairs class that she liberated after it was canceled by Columbia.

Attiah herself is quoted in this piece, in reference to her conversation with “Liv,” Meta’s “Proud Black Queer Momma” chat character:

“Some people reacted to my questioning saying ‘Oh it reveals the racism of its creators, it reveals so much about the tech industry.’ Yeah, that’s true, but you guys are assuming that revealing these things means that it will bring these people shame. They’re still going on. Liv is still active.”

“It’s important to remember that Meta said they weren’t doing this to increase people’s trust in reality,” she adds. “They weren’t doing this because they wanted to educate people. Their term was engagement. And what does engagement mean? It means more money, more eyes on their platform. So if they can use Blackness to extract our attention, even if it’s negative attention, they still win.”

The article isn’t just about non-Black people appropriating Blackness via fake Black AI personas, however. Real Black people are doing it too, in an effort, suggests UK media literacy and pop culture creator Benjy Kusi, to “exploit a system that’s exploiting them.”

The article’s author, Blay, again:

In that sense, this is not just about the perils of AI, the dangers of generating hyperreal imagery of fake Black people without regulation or transparency. This is also about the economy of influence itself, and economy that is, by design, structured to keep us all in endless loops of exploitation as a means of survival. And what does it mean to survive within an ecosystem where Blackness is extracted for profit without the necessity of paying or giving fair working conditions to real Black people?

“To me it’s digital slavery,” Karen Attiah says. “Because AI won’t revolt. It’s programmed.”

Joey Cappelletti and Matt Brown, AP News:

As the House returns Wednesday for the first time in months, Democrat Adelita Grijalva will be sworn in as its newest member, more than seven weeks after winning a special election in Arizona to fill the seat last held by her late father.

Grijalva’s swearing-in is expected to be among the first actions by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who had previously declined to seat her until the chamber reconvened following a deal to end the government shutdown. The official ceremony is set for 4 p.m. EST, shortly before the House is expected to begin voting.

For Grijalva, it’s the end of a weekslong delay that she and other Democrats said was intended to prevent her signature on a petition to eventually trigger a vote to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein. In an interview with The Associated Press, she said the thought of finally being sworn in was “emotional” and “very much a roller coaster.”

It’s outrageous that Johnson has held up the swearing-in of an elected Congresswoman for over seven weeks under the flimsiest of pretexts.

Grijalva would be the final necessary signature on a discharge petition linked to legislation that would require the Justice Department to release all unclassified documents and communications related to Epstein and his sex trafficking operation.

I’m assuming—perhaps uncharitably—that one reason Johnson is finally allowing Grijalva to be sworn in is because one of the other 217 people who previously signed the petition is now willing to revoke it. Speculation is rampant that it’ll be Nancy Mace, but I’m not ruling out Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Not that it matters. Denying Grijalva and her Arizona constituents has been one big waste of time over a petition for a vote on legislation that will never become law.

Ashley Ogawa Clarke for Vogue, on the aforelinked iPhone Pocket collab between Apple and Issey Miyake (paywalled; Apple News+; Internet Archive):

Though Miyake and Jobs are not around to see it, there is a significance to the collaboration that transcends the product. “Both these great masterminds are now gone, but what we have in common is how we continue to challenge ourselves to be innovative, and to create new and original things,” says Miyamae. “It’s a moment of connecting the dots.”

Intentionally or not, I’m reminded of two things: Jobs’ quote from his Stanford commencement, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards,” and WWDC 2013’s “a thousand no’s for every yes” video.

Apple:

ISSEY MIYAKE and Apple today unveiled iPhone Pocket. Inspired by the concept of “a piece of cloth,” its singular 3D-knitted construction is designed to fit any iPhone as well as all pocketable items. Beginning Friday, November 14, it will be available at select Apple Store locations and on apple.com in France, Greater China, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the UK, and the U.S.

iPhone Pocket features a ribbed open structure with the qualities of the original pleats by ISSEY MIYAKE. Born from the idea of creating an additional pocket, its understated design fully encloses iPhone, expanding to fit more of a user’s everyday items. When stretched, the open textile subtly reveals its contents and allows users to peek at their iPhone display. iPhone Pocket can be worn in a variety of ways — handheld, tied onto bags, or worn directly on the body. Featuring a playful color palette, the short strap design is available in eight colors, and the long strap design in three colors.

Many people (including me) immediately likened it to Apple’s once-ridiculed, now-cherished iPod Socks—some derisively, others with what I presume to be nostalgia. Some questioned its authenticity or derided the “piece of cloth” description, and most everyone blanched at its $150–$230 price tag, with Marques Brownlee calling it “a litmus test for people who will buy/defend anything Apple releases.”

What few people noted is that Issey Miyake is a luxury designer brand founded by the “super famous Japanese designer” (to quote my wife) who designed Steve Jobs’ iconic black mock turtleneck, and which today sells $65 socks, $390 scarves, and $485 knit bags. A $230 iPhone holder is hardly an outlier for this brand.

Furthermore, “a piece of cloth” isn’t meant in its literal sense. Rather, it’s a reference to Miyake’s apparel concept of “A Piece of Cloth (or A-POC),” a “technique to reduce textile waste” that starts with a single thread that’s then woven into a finished garment—a design so influential, they were on display at The Met and MoMA. I’d describe it as “spiritually related” to Apple’s unibody design, which carves laptops and iPhones from blocks of aluminum.

My completely fashion-free sense tells me these will be extremely popular among a particular crowd.

Rindala Alajaji, writing for the EFF:

If you’ve been following the wave of age-gating laws sweeping across the country and the globe, you’ve probably noticed that lawmakers, tech companies, and advocates all seem to be using different terms for what sounds like the same thing. Age verification, age assurance, age estimation, age gating—they get thrown around interchangeably, but they technically mean different things. And those differences matter a lot when we’re talking about your rights, your privacy, your data, and who gets to access information online.

So let’s clear up the confusion. Here’s your guide to the terminology that’s shaping these laws, and why you should care about the distinctions.

I headlined my aforelinked piece on Apple’s API support for these laws as “Age Verification” rather than “Age Assurance.” That choice was deliberate:

Politicians and tech companies love using these terms interchangeably because it obscures what they’re actually proposing. A law that requires “age assurance” sounds reasonable and moderate. But if that law defines age assurance as requiring government ID verification, it’s not moderate at all—it’s mass surveillance.

Apple and Google are required under Texas SB2420 to “verify” a user’s age—children and adults alike:

Sec. 121.021. DUTY TO VERIFY AGE OF USER; AGE CATEGORIES.

(a) When an individual in this state creates an account with an app store, the owner of the app store shall use a commercially reasonable method of verification to verify the individual’s age category under Subsection (b).

And:

Sec. 121.022. PARENTAL CONSENT REQUIRED.

(a) If the owner of the app store determines under Section 121.021 that an individual is a minor who belongs to an age category that is not “adult,” the owner shall require that the minor’s account be affiliated with a parent account belonging to the minor’s parent or guardian.

Utah’s SB0142 and Louisiana’s HB570 each have similar language.

Language matters because it shapes how we think about these systems. “Assurance” sounds gentle. “Verification” sounds official. “Estimation” sounds technical and impersonal, and also admits its inherent imprecision. But they all involve collecting your data and create a metaphysical age gate to the internet. The terminology is deliberately confusing, but the stakes are clear: it’s your privacy, your data, and your ability to access the internet without constant identity checks. Don’t let fuzzy language disguise what these systems really do.

Naturally, Google uses “verify” and “verification,” while Apple opts for “assurance,” which is insufferably on-brand. Still, I’m deathly curious how the lawyers—or perhaps marketing—landed on their preferred terminology. Surely, it’s more than “at Google, the marketing people are all lawyers, and at Apple, the lawyers are all marketing people.”

Right?

Apple Developer News, in October:

Beginning January 1, 2026, a new state law in Texas — SB2420 — introduces age assurance requirements for app marketplaces and developers. While we share the goal of strengthening kids’ online safety, we are concerned that SB2420 impacts the privacy of users by requiring the collection of sensitive, personally identifiable information to download any app, even if a user simply wants to check the weather or sports scores. Apple will continue to provide parents and developers with industry-leading tools that help enhance child safety while safeguarding privacy within the constraints of the law.

Once this law goes into effect, users located in Texas who create a new Apple Account will be required to confirm whether they are 18 years or older. All new Apple Accounts for users under the age of 18 will be required to join a Family Sharing group, and parents or guardians will need to provide consent for all App Store downloads, app purchases, and transactions using Apple's In-App Purchase system by the minor. This will also impact developers, who will need to adopt new capabilities and modify behavior within their apps to meet their obligations under the law. Similar requirements will come into effect later next year in Utah and Louisiana. […]

More details, including additional technical documentation, will be released later this fall.

Apple Developer News, last week:

Today we’re releasing more details about the tools we’re making available for developers to help them meet their compliance obligations under upcoming U.S. state laws, including SB2420 in Texas. While we’re providing these tools to help developers navigate the evolving legal landscape, Apple remains concerned about the potential implications of laws like SB2420 in Texas.

The tools include the Declared Age Range API to obtain a user’s age category; a new StoreKit age rating property type to check if an app’s age rating has changed; the Significant Change API to re-obtain parental consent when the app changes “significantly”; and App Store server notifications to handle app consent revocations.

Google has a similar document and set of APIs—and expresses similar concerns—for its Play Store.

These laws claim to protect children from inappropriate content, but are actually a privacy nightmare, requiring everyone who wants to download apps to verify and share their age with Apple, Google, and app developers. This is mass surveillance under the guise of child safety—and doesn’t actually address the purported concerns that inspired the laws. It will likely cause harm to vulnerable kids by further exposing them to the capriciousness of their parents or guardians—imagine needing to obtain permission from your estranged parents to download a learn-to-code tutorial, a news app, or a period-tracker.

Notably—or perhaps, intentionally—these laws don’t apply to web apps—Meta, for example, doesn’t have to collect this information for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Threads when they’re accessed from the web, only from the apps. I suppose “child safety” is only important to them as long as it’s not their responsibility to ensure it.

Some developers may be unable or unwilling to comply with these laws. They can control the availability of their apps in 175 countries and regions, choosing whether to sell them in, say, Russia, Israel, or the EU—but cannot select individual U.S. states. It would be utterly satisfying—if wholly implausible—to see Apple add per-state controls.

Someone at Google clearly considered this option, as their page includes this FAQ:

Can I ask Google Play to block all users in a specific state from downloading my app?

We do not plan to change our approach to app releases and country targeting. However, you are free to implement your own geo-restriction solutions in your app.

I wholeheartedly endorse this option.

Peter Coviello, the former chair of Africana studies at Bowdoin College, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s alma mater, absolutely excoriates The New York Times for its piece on Mamdani’s “elite” education, under the Literary Hub headline “Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani”:

Like so many other bits of Times coverage, the whole of the piece is structured as an orchestrated encounter. Some people say this; however, others say this. It’s so offhand you can think you’re gazing through a pane of glass. Only when you stand a little closer, or when circumstances make you a little less blinkered, do you notice the fact which then becomes blinding and finally crazymaking, which is just that there is zero, less than zero, stress put on the relation between those two “sides,” or their histories, or their sponsors, or their relative evidentiary authority, or any of it. Instead, what you get is a piece making the various more or less bovine noises of studious grey-lady impartiality, with the labor of anything resembling “appraisal” surgically excised.

I’d bookmarked the NYT piece (“How a Small Elite College Influenced Mamdani’s World View”) but found its thesis so obviously and infuriatingly slanted (“The mayoral candidate has said his education at Bowdoin College was formative. But critics say that his degree exemplifies how colleges steep students in leftist dogma.”) that I let it slip by uncommented. I’m glad Coviello did not.

Ryan J. Reilly, NBC News:

Jurors showed no appetite for the Justice Department’s case against “sandwich guy,” the D.C. resident who chucked a Subway sandwich at the chest of a federal officer, finding him not guilty Thursday after several hours of deliberations.

My quip was wrapped and ready to toss: “I’d like to think this took several hours only because the jury ordered lunch. Hero sandwiches, of course.”

The jury — which feasted on sandwiches for lunch Thursday, according to a person familiar with jury lunches — deliberated the charges for several hours Wednesday and Thursday before delivering the verdict.

Damn. Satire is dead.

[Border Patrol Officer Greg] Lairmore had testified that the sandwich “exploded all over” his chest and claimed he could smell mustard and onions. But a photo showed that the sandwich was still in its wrapper on the ground after it hit Lairmore in his bulletproof vest.

I’m sure a perjury charge will be prosecuted with equal vigor.

Paul Kafasis, a few days ago:

On Saturday night, Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Will Smith smacked an 11th inning home run that wound up winning the 2025 World Series for his team. It was Smith’s third championship with the Dodgers, following titles in 2024 and 2020. That’s a good run, but even more impressively, it means that the World Series-winning team has now featured a Will Smith for six straight years.

Quips Kafasis: “Get your team a Will Smith, stat.”

The Wills Smith faced off in the 2020 NLCS, with the catcher smashing a three-run homer, but what I really need to see is a Will Smith-Will Smith battery.

Daniel Gilbert, The Washington Post (semi-gift link; Apple News+ link):

At 69 years old, Debby Orcutt was diagnosed last year with pancreatic cancer, a condition so dire that her doctor refused to tell her how long she had to live. With few good options, she enrolled in a clinical trial for an experimental drug.

[…]

A scan last week showed her tumor had shrunk 64 percent since starting the drug in January, according to her husband. It is the sort of clinical evidence that is stirring optimism and has prompted the Trump administration to put it on a novel path for rapid approval.

[…]

Based on early clinical trial results, the Food and Drug Administration in October awarded the drug’s sponsor, biotech company Revolution Medicines, a new and unconventional accelerated review designed to get promising drugs to patients faster than ever. […]

The FDA’s selection of Revolution Medicines’ daraxonrasib appeared to cement its status as one of the most promising experimental cancer drugs.

Proudly sharing this because it represents four years of my wife’s life: she leads one of the many research teams at Revolution Medicines striving to get this breakthrough drug into the hands of doctors and patients.

Pancreatic cancer is among the most deadly forms of cancer. It’s what took the life of Steve Jobs and many other talented people. An effective treatment is welcome.

Elena Schneider, Erin Doherty, and Jessica Piper, writing for Politico after Tuesday’s strong electoral showing for Democrats:

All across the country, Democrats won big, from the marquee races to the down-ballot contests. Counties that had shifted right a year ago veered back to the left, and the suburbs that powered Democrats’ massive wins in the first Trump administration came roaring back. Exit polls even showed Democrats improved their margins with non-college educated voters.

The strength of the wins hints at Democrats’ appetite to take on Trump as he ends his first year in office and voters’ concerns about cost of living.

Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill cruised to double-digit victories in Virginia and New Jersey. Two Georgia Democrats flipped seats on the state’s Public Service Commission, the first non-federal statewide wins for a Democrat in nearly two decades. Democrats flipped a pair of Republican-held state Senate seats in Mississippi, cracking the GOP supermajority in a deep-red state. And a successful California ballot measure delivered five additional seats for the party’s House margins ahead of the 2026 midterms, offsetting Texas’ redistricting push.

Zohran Mamdani also won the New York Mayoral race.

Americans have grown weary of Donald Trump’s divisive, vindictive, and revanchist politics—and they’re electing leaders unafraid to wield the power of their offices to stop him.

Trump, naturally, throws Republicans under the bus.

The City (“Reporting to New Yorkers”):

Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani culminated a meteoric political rise Tuesday by scoring a decisive victory in a polarizing mayoral election. At just 34 years old, he will become the youngest mayor in over a century, the first Muslim to lead New York City and one of the most prominent democratic socialists holding elected office in the country.

Mamdani took over 50% of the 2 million votes, and many of my New York friends are deeply excited about his win. While I haven’t lived in New York for over 25 years now, it’s still “home,” and I’m thrilled to see some positive energy raging through the city I still love.

Maybe I’ll move back. With nearly a million New Yorkers ready to flee the city after Mamdani’s election, the deals on apartments and condos will be wild. I’ll be happy to make anyone a completely reasonable, fleeing-the-city offer for their Upper West Side penthouse or brownstone.

If you want the usual staid “Vice President dies” obituary, read John D. McKinnon’s in The Wall Street Journal (Apple News+):

Dick Cheney, who served four Republican presidents and whose role as an architect of the post-9/11 war on terror made him one of the most powerful—and controversial—U.S. vice presidents in history, died. He was 84.

If you’d prefer something that offers a less rose-colored perspective of Cheney’s impact, I suggest Spencer Ackerman’s contemptuous piece for The Nation, the headline for which is “His Works Completed, Dick Cheney, Mass Murderer of Iraqis and American Democracy, Dies”:

Cheney, 84, picked an appropriate time to die. His decades-long struggle to consolidate the unparalleled might of US warmaking within the White House has succeeded. “In Cheney’s view,” wrote his biographer Barton Gellman, “the president’s authority was close to absolute within his rightful sphere.” Cheney defined that sphere expansively and fought for his definitions aggressively.

On Cheney’s unrelenting pursuit to create “an architecture of repression”:

Cheney did all of this because his deepest conviction was that the presidency was an elected monarchy. Misconstruing an argument of Alexander Hamilton’s from Federalist No. 70, Cheney pursued what became known as the unitary executive theory. It was predicated on the idea of an unencumbered presidency empowered to control every aspect of the executive branch, regardless of any affected office or agency’s intended independence from political decisions. Cheney had understood the post-Watergate reforms from Nixon’s criminal presidency as a congressional usurpation, and he intended to roll them all back.

Cheney got us into a war that convinced a generation of Americans that Muslims and the Middle East were America’s enemies.

We have a weak and ineffectual Congress today because Cheney sidelined it two decades ago.

There is a direct line between Dick Cheney’s unwavering belief in the plenary power of the president, and Donald Trump’s seemingly unchecked attempts to wield that power today.

We have Donald Trump because we had Dick Cheney.

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Apple launched a new App Store on the web today, allowing users to browse through and search for apps across all of its platforms.

The web version solves one glaring limitation of the native App Store: it shows the current prices of apps you’ve already purchased.

Finally.

Via MJ Tsai, who notes:

But sadly, just like in the App Store app, Apple prevents you from selecting any of the text. I don’t understand why Apple insists on making its stores user-hostile in this way. However, unlike in the App Store app, you can find within the page using the browser’s built-in search feature. You can also fix text selection using StopTheMadness Pro’s “Protect text selection” feature.

“User-hostile” is exactly the right phrase—the same I used to describe this scourge in 2024 after I was prevented from copying text from the USPS Postal Store. I shared then a method for restoring the ability to copy text for Safari users, which I’ll share again: a custom style sheet to override the user-select CSS property many sites use to prevent content selection:

* {
    user-select: auto !important;
    -webkit-user-select: auto !important;
}

To use this override, save the above text to a file (I named mine nof—you.css—uncensored, of course), go to Safari > Settings, select the Advanced tab, click the Style Sheet popup menu, select Other…, and choose the file you saved. Safari will now use this css on any website you load, re-enabling content selection on any sites using user-select. Et voilà, you can copy again.

Patrick George, writing for The Atlantic under the very pessimistic headline “Enjoy CarPlay While You Still Can,” explains why GM and other short-sighted carmakers are ditching CarPlay, despite its popularity among car buyers (Apple News+ link):

Because GM’s software isn’t tied to a phone like CarPlay is, access to the full suite of software requires its own data plan—through GM, of course. (The cheapest plan costs $10 a month.) Get used to these kinds of subscriptions, regardless of what kind of car you drive. In recent years, automakers have realized how much money they can make from in-car technology: Maybe they charge a subscription fee for hands-free highway cruise control (GM has already had considerable success with that). Maybe they charge for apps that let you control aspects of the car from your phone. Or maybe they sell data that your navigation system collects about where you go and what you do.

Whatever the case, car companies are moving beyond making money only when they sell you a car. For GM, eliminating Apple as a middleman provides more opportunities to charge for things.

Just like I’ll never buy a car without CarPlay, subscriptions for driving my car are a non-starter—the idea of buying something and then paying more to use it is probably anathema to most car buyers. Imagine being unable to open your car door, start your car, or use the radio because your credit card payment lapsed.

I’m not nearly as pessimistic as George when it comes to CarPlay, though: I think we’ll see consumers voting with their wallets, and I’m willing to bet GM and other manufacturers will quietly start supporting CarPlay again.

Probably via a subscription.

Anthony Castrovince, MLB:

The Dodgers are MLB’s first repeat champs since the 1998–2000 Yankees, and the four-hour, seven-minute, extra-innings affair it took to decide that was a fitting end to a true Fall Classic in which these two clubs exhausted each other – not just in the 18-inning epic at Dodger Stadium in Game 3 but throughout a Series in which they both had to empty the tank.

This might be the best World Series—and Game 7—in recent memory, arguably ever. It may also be the most heartbreaking loss in World Series history: the Blue Jays had several chances to win it—including a bottom-of-the-ninth play at the plate and a game-saving outfield catch for the ages, both of which were an inch or two from giving the Jays their first franchise championship title.

Congratulations to both teams for an amazing Series—but damn, Dodgers fans are going to be even more insufferable than usual.

Match Game was one of my favorite game shows growing up in the 80s, and remains so even today. A recent conversation with a friend who worked with its creator, Mark Goodson, reminded me to link up this 2006 Game Show Network documentary, The Real Match Game Story: Behind the Blank. It’s a little lacking in depth, and focuses on Gene Rayburn more than I expected, but it was fun and enlightening. For example, I learned that Richard Dawson’s popularity with contestants during the head-to-head portion led to several rules changes—and eventually his departure from the show. I also enjoyed hearing from several of my favorite celebrities, like Brett Somers, Betty White, and Charles Nelson Reilly, and the hijinks they got into on and off the set. A fun diversion for fans of Match Game.

Canva:

When Affinity joined the Canva family last year, we made a promise to preserve its power while expanding what’s possible. Today, that vision comes to life with the all-new Affinity: a studio-grade creative app that brings vector, photo, and layout tools together in one high-performance platform. Fully featured. Lightning-fast. And completely free.

Affinity previously sold three separate apps: Designer (vector design), Photo (photo editing), and Publisher (page layout), all available on Mac, iPad, and PC. The new, combined app offers the full functionality of all three apps, for free:

Affinity is now completely free, forever. The full, professional-grade Affinity experience, available to everyone.

There’s no catch, no stripped-back version, and no gotchas. The same precise, high-performance tools that professionals rely on every day are now open to all, because creative freedom shouldn’t come with a cost.

From the FAQ:

Is Affinity really free?

Yes, Affinity really is free. That doesn’t mean you’re getting a watered-down version of the app though. You can use every tool in the Pixel, Vector, and Layout studios, plus all of the customization and export features, as much as you want, with no restrictions or payment needed. The app will also receive free updates with new features and improvements added.

The only thing that seems to require a (paid) Canva account is (optional) AI functionality:

For everyone with a Canva premium account, Canva AI’s tools are now included directly inside Affinity through the new Canva AI Studio. This includes familiar favorites like Generative Fill, Expand & Edit, and Remove Background – powerful features that speed up repetitive steps while keeping designers in full control of every detail.

When I paid $115 for an Affinity universal license in 2024, I thought it was a screaming good deal: three terrific apps, three platforms, and no subscriptions. I balked slightly at the Canva acquisition because these kinds of deals often go south, either via price increases or crappier apps.

Instead, we get what looks like a massively improved app for Mac and PC (an iPad version is “coming soon,” with a beta expected “next year,” promises CEO Ash Hewson). Making it free was a truly unexpected bonus—I was fully anticipating the apps would be locked behind a $120-a-year Canva Pro account. I couldn’t be happier my concerns were misplaced.

I hope Adobe is quaking in its overpriced subscription boots.

Apple:

The Company posted quarterly revenue of $102.5 billion, up 8 percent year over year.

“Today, Apple is very proud to report a September quarter revenue record of $102.5 billion, including a September quarter revenue record for iPhone and an all-time revenue record for Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

And:

“Our September quarter results capped off a record fiscal year, with revenue reaching $416 billion, as well as double-digit EPS growth,” said Kevan Parekh, Apple’s CFO.

The market loved the results, briefly pushing Apple’s after-hours stock price over $284 (from a $271.40 close), before settling in just under $278.

There were two notable and related “forward-looking statements” in the earnings call. First, from Tim Cook:

We expect the December quarter to be the best ever for the company, and the best ever for iPhone.

Then, from Kevan Parekh, Apple’s CFO:

We expect our December quarter total company revenue to grow by 10 to 12 percent year over year, which would be our best quarter ever. We expect iPhone revenue to grow double digits year-over-year, which would be our best iPhone quarter ever.

If these “statements” prove accurate, that would translate to:

• $136.73 to $139.216 billion in total revenue (December 2024 revenue: $124.3 billion)
• $76.051 billion in iPhone sales (December 2024 iPhone sales: $69.138 billion)

That alone might justify Bank of America’s $320 price target, which is now looking almost conservative.

As usual, Jason Snell at Six Colors offers additional details, as well as his always helpful transcript and multi-color charts.

Sam Boughedda, Yahoo Finance:

Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan raised the bank’s price target on Apple to $320 from $270 in a note on Wednesday, reiterating a Buy rating on the stock.

The move comes after BofA provided a new five-year outlook for the company that projects sustained growth across products and services, underpinned by the ecosystem, brand, and installed base.

And:

The bank now forecasts fiscal 2025 revenue and earnings per share of $418 billion and $7.41, respectively.

This comes out a day ahead of Apple’s earnings announcement.

A $320 price would value Apple at about $4.5 trillion, which is still well below Nvidia, which reached the $5 trillion mark on Wednesday.)

Clare Duffy, CNN:

Nvidia just became the world’s first $5 trillion company.

Yours truly, in June, 2024:

Nvidia is now worth over $3 Trillion, briefly surpassing Apple and Microsoft.

And in July 2025:

It’s been a week since Nvidia topped, then closed above the $4 trillion market cap mark, and I’m still having a hard time wrapping my mind around “a graphics card company” becoming the first to achieve this milestone. Some analysts are already anticipating a $5 trillion market cap. […]

No doubt I’ll be writing a “$5 trillion valuation” piece within the year.

Well, here we are: those analysts were right. I suppose “three months later” is indeed “within the year.”

Now the question becomes: Does Nvidia hit $6 trillion before Microsoft or Apple reach $5 trillion?

A short video demonstrating consistent typing errors when using the iOS keyboard is making the rounds in the Apple tech community. A lot of YouTube and social media comments are of the “OMG, so validating!” nature—a lot of people are reporting similar issues. I’ve certainly noticed an increase in typos over the years (which, for whatever reason, I attribute to Apple’s introduction of “differential privacy” in iOS 10). Alas (or perhaps, fortunately), while others can reproduce the specific issue shown the video, where typing “thumbs up” gives (for example) “thjmbs up,” I cannot.

Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle (syndicated via Yahoo News):

Burning firewood does not produce oxygen.

That is an incontrovertible scientific fact, one of several a Fremont family spent six months fighting for, a battle they never thought they’d have to wage against their own school district.

The dispute stems from half-a-dozen test answers a teacher at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, CA marked as wrong:

One, which asked about the products and type of reaction related to firewood combustion, immediately stood out:

30. Which of the following statements is correct?

a. The cellulose and oxygen products indicate that this combustion reaction is endothermic.

b. The heat and light products indicate that this combustion reaction is exothermic.

c. The cellulose and oxygen products indicate that this combustion reaction is exothermic.

d. The heat and light products indicate that this combustion reaction is endothermic.

The teacher identified statement C as the correct answer, which would likely surprise anyone who has ever blown into a campfire to stoke the flames. Viswanathan’s son chose statement B. (Endothermic indicates a process that absorbs heat from its surroundings while exothermic is one that releases heat. However, that was not part of the dispute.)

The teacher argued in an email to the parents shared with the Chronicle that light is not always a product of the combustion process. While true, oxygen and cellulose never are. And notably, statement B does not state that light is always present.

The principal defended the teacher:

Principal Amy Perez stepped into the fray on Aug. 13, backing the teacher.

“After reviewing the matter, I can confirm that (the teacher’s) test questions and answer key align with the CA State Standards and the curriculum used in her classroom,” she wrote in a note to the parents.

As did the district:

“In regards to the exam question, the students observed a demonstration lab during class, accompanied by a lecture that clearly explained that combustion does not always produce light,” [district spokesman Barth] Paine said in an email to the Chronicle. “Our staff affirm that combustion does not always produce light.”

The district failed to acknowledge that the teacher’s answer violated scientific fact as well as the publisher’s answer key, which confirmed the correct answer was heat and light, since “combustion is a chemical reaction that typically releases energy in the form of heat and light, which makes it an exothermic process.”

You can’t even argue that “there’s not always light” makes the correct answer appear ambiguous, because it’s the only answer that could be right: the process is exothermic, releases heat, could produce light, and consumes oxygen and cellulose.

That the answer key has the correct answer, but the teacher, principal, and school district ignored it—and science—makes this even more outrageous.

Principal Perez again:

“While alternative perspectives (that) may be found online are respected, our grading reflects the instructional materials, standards, and assessment criteria provided to all students in (the teacher’s) class.”

“Alternative perspectives” on science is right up there on the Orwellian scale with “alternative facts.”

Via a friend whose daughter attends the school and knows this teacher. The daughter’s reaction to the teacher’s incompetence?

“Not surprised.”

J. Michael Luttig, a former Court of Appeals judge appointed by George H. W. Bush, writing in the December issue of The Atlantic (paywalled; Apple News+, Archive.ph links):

With his every word and deed, Trump has given Americans reason to believe that he will seek a third term, in defiance of the Constitution. It seems abundantly clear that he will hold on to the office at any cost, including America’s ruin.

The Founders of our nation foresaw a figure like Trump, a demagogue who would ascend to the presidency and refuse to relinquish power to a successor chosen by the American people in a free and fair election. Writing to James Madison from Paris in 1787, Thomas Jefferson warned that such an incumbent, if narrowly defeated, would “pretend false votes, foul play, hold possession of the reins of government.” Were that moment ever to come, the Founders believed, it would mark the demise of the nation that they had conceived, bringing to a calamitous end the greatest experiment in self-government ever attempted by man.

The Founders anticipated the problem but failed to provide a solution: there’s no way, short of force, to remove a sitting president who refuses to leave and who exercises personal control over a military force—such as ICE—and has the support of nearly 50% of the voting population.

It was strange to wake up to multiple news stories about Trump’s outrageous and unceasing ploy to subvert the Constitution and remain in office after 2028. For example, from Bernd Debusmann in the BBC:

US President Donald Trump has not ruled out the possibility of seeking a third term for the White House, saying he would “love to do it”.

But Trump rejected the possibility of running for vice-president in 2028 - an idea floated by some supporters as a way for him to circumvent the US constitution that bars the president from running for a third term.

Speaking to reporters during his trip to Asia, Trump described the idea as “too cute” and said it “wouldn’t be right”.

That same piece also noted the likely genesis of this latest round of nonsense:

Last week, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon - who remains a vocal supporter - claimed there was a “plan” to secure a third term for Trump.

“Trump is going to be president in ’28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that,” Bannon told The Economist. “At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is.”

(Worth noting: Yes, Trump will still be in office in 2028; his term ends at Noon on January 20, 2029. This is, of course, not what Bannon meant, and I’m sure that ambiguity is by design.)

Then there was Speaker Mike Johnson, who, when asked about this ludicrous idea, tried to soft-pedal, if barely:

“I don’t see a way to amend the Constitution because it takes about 10 years to do that,” Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, said. “As you all know, to allow all the states to ratify what two-thirds of the House and three-fourths of the states would approve. So I don’t, I don’t see the path for that, but I can tell you that we are not going to take our foot off the gas pedal.”

Johnson didn’t say “Trump can’t run,” or that he won’t try to stay beyond his term via force or coercion, only a very legalese statement on the constitutionality of the issue.

This constant drip-drip-drip of “third Trump term” stories is a clear effort to burrow the purported inevitability of such an outcome deep into the American consciousness. It’s the same propaganda technique on display in Trump’s feces-dumping video, where he openly winked at “bombing Americans.”

It’s clear that Trump will try to stay in office beyond 2029, constitutionality be damned.

A lovely paean to TextEdit and its unassuming minimalism, from Kyle Chayka in The New Yorker (paywalled, alas; Apple News+ and Archive.ph links):

Amid the accelerating automation of our computers—and the proliferation of assistants and companions and agents designed to execute tasks for us—I’ve been thinking more about the desktop that’s hidden in the background of the laptop I use every day. Mine is strewn with screenshots and Word documents and e-books. What I’ve accrued the most of by far, though, are TextEdit files, from the bare-bones Mac app that just lets you type stuff into a blank window. Apple computers have come with text-editing software since the original Mac was released, in 1984; the current iteration of the program launched in the mid-nineties and has survived relatively unchanged. Over the past few years, I’ve found myself relying on TextEdit more as every other app has grown more complicated, adding cloud uploads, collaborative editing, and now generative A.I. TextEdit is not connected to the internet, like Google Docs. It is not part of a larger suite of workplace software, like Microsoft Word. You can write in TextEdit, and you can format your writing with a bare minimum of fonts and styling. Those files are stored as RTFs (short for rich-text format), one step up from the most basic TXT file. TextEdit now functions as my to-do-list app, my e-mail drafting window, my personal calendar, and my stash of notes to self, which act like digital Post-its.

I trust in TextEdit. It doesn’t redesign its interface without warning, the way Spotify does; it doesn’t hawk new features, and it doesn’t demand I update the app every other week, as Google Chrome does. I’ve tried out other software for keeping track of my random thoughts and ideas in progress—the personal note-storage app Evernote; the task-management board Trello; the collaborative digital workspace Notion, which can store and share company information. Each encourages you to adapt to a certain philosophy of organization, with its own formats and filing systems. But nothing has served me better than the brute simplicity of TextEdit, which doesn’t try to help you at all with the process of thinking. Using the app is the closest you can get to writing longhand on a screen. I could make lists on actual paper, of course, but I’ve also found that my brain has been so irredeemably warped by keyboards that I can only really get my thoughts down by typing. (Apparently my internal monologue takes place in Arial typeface, fourteen-point font.)

Other than that final font faux pas—TextEdit’s default font is Helvetica—it’s a wonderful ode to an underappreciated app and a beautiful bit of writing.

(Via @michaelsteeber by way of @jeff.)

When I saw Chinese Trump impersonator Ryan Chen (Chinese: Chen Rui) on TikTok, I thought it was dubbed—the speech patterns, the mannerisms, the occasional malapropisms were just that good. He has hundreds of videos. In addition to that first link, here are a few favorites:

• Let’s Make Content Creating Great Again
• “Interviewing” Dutch sci-fi author Roderick Leeuwenhart
• I’m Back, Let’s Celebrate, with dancing
• Soup

Lastly, here’s Chen in his “natural” English voice.

Via a write-up about Chen by Andrew Higgins in The New York Times (gift link), who notes:

Ryan Chen has never set foot in the United States. He learned English at high school in the western Chinese city of Chongqing and from watching pirated versions of “Friends,” “Two and a Half Men” and other sitcoms in college.

This bit caught my attention:

Chinese law bans the commercial use of the names and images of party leaders, a rule that landed a Mao Zedong impersonator in trouble in 2018.

No doubt the real Donald Trump would approve.

OpenAI:

AI progress isn’t only about advancing intelligence—it’s about unlocking it through interfaces that understand context, adapt to your intent, and work seamlessly. That’s why we’re excited to share that OpenAI has acquired Software Applications Incorporated, makers of Sky. […]

We will bring Sky’s deep macOS integration and product craft into ChatGPT, and all members of the team will join OpenAI.

I hope the product is called OpenSky.

This also means OpenAI now owns the wonderful—and wonderfully named—“software.inc” domain.

Software Applications Incorporated was founded by three former Apple alums— Ari Weinstein, Conrad Kramer, and Kim Beverett. Weinstein and Kramer were the team behind Workflow, which Apple acquired and turned into Shortcuts. When Sky was announced back in May, I wondered why Weinstein and team couldn’t build it while at Apple, and suggested it was pitched and received a cool reception—leading to their departure. I speculated:

Regardless, I’m guessing some executive inside Apple is kicking themself now—and possibly plotting how to acquire Weinstein and team, for the second time.

(They may have competition: The app relies on OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman is an investor in Weinstein’s company.)

My congratulations to the team.

Nick Statt, The Verge:

GM plans to drop support for phone projection on all new vehicles in the near future, and not just its electric car lineup, according to GM CEO Mary Barra.

In a Decoder interview with The Verge’s Nilay Patel, published Wednesday, Barra confirmed GM will eventually end support of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto on both gas-powered and electric cars. The timing is unclear, but Barra pointed to a major rollout of what the company is calling a new centralized computing platform, set to launch in 2028, that will involve eventually transitioning its entire lineup to a unified in-car experience.

My life is on my iPhone, and I’ll switch cars before I leave that ecosystem. There’s no easier way for a car company to lose my business than not supporting CarPlay. (OK, there is another.)

If I were a competing CEO that supported CarPlay (and Android Auto) I’d be ecstatically flinging up billboards.

In place of phone projection, GM is working to update its current Android-powered infotainment implementation with a Google Gemini-powered assistant and an assortment of other custom apps, built both in-house and with partners.

No car “infotainment” system will ever be as good as my iPhone when it comes to the apps I care about. My preferred podcast player, Overcast, will never be on GM’s system, nor will that system ever read me my Messages. My driving life is simply better when I can use the apps I want. For a car CEO to believe otherwise is outrageous.

Jess Weatherbed, writing at The Verge, on one absurd failure from this week’s Amazon cloud outage:

Some smart bed users were quite literally losing sleep over the massive AWS outage on Monday. Eight Sleep’s elevating, temperature-controlling mattress systems were temporarily knocked out of service by Amazon’s server issues, with users on Reddit and X reporting their smart beds were stuck at sweltering temperatures and uncomfortable incline positions.

Don’t connect your bed to the internet.

The company’s “Pod” mattress toppers — which start at $2,000 depending on the model and size, alongside a monthly Autopilot subscription (starting at $17) to use the features — rely on cloud connectivity. An active internet connection is required to control temperature and elevation settings via the Eight Sleep app, and it previously didn’t provide a way to adjust features offline.

Don’t buy “smart” beds that cost $2,000 and require a monthly subscription.

[CEO Matteo] Franceschetti said that all Eight Sleep devices are “currently working” again as of Tuesday, and said, “We will work the whole night+24/7 to build an outage mode so the problem will be fixed extremely quickly.”

Don’t buy beds that need an “outage mode.”

“During an outage, you’ll still be able to open the app, turn the Pod on/off, change temperature levels, and flatten the base,” [co-founder Alexandra] Zatarain said.

Putting aside the questionable need for such features, why wasn’t this bed designed to work offline from the start? It’s a bed.