August already, darker nights starting to be noticed and we’ve a named storm coming tomorrow – it’s still summer FFS. Can’t wait for a week off starting Aug 15th. I’ve got most of the parts for my self built NAS – some fans, cables and CPU cooler to sort and then can get it going…and wrack up the electricity bill!
Great catchup with a friend at the Turban Tandoori. Been far too long and amazingly I didn’t overeat!
Can LLM’s Do Accounting? – not according to the research detailed here. Even if you aren’t interested in AI or accounting just open d1 minute visiting this – what an amazing website.
Personal Superintelligence – Meta is all in on AI. Zuck’s spending many many billions assembling the best people and the best hardware to build a competitive edge. This is the new mobile war that Meta missed, and Apple knows it, but rallying the troops now without investment is folly. Then again, Zucks investment in the Metaverse hasn’t delivered…yet.
What are the new UK online safety rules and how will age checks on adult content be enforced? – Were the online safety rules really necessary? They are easily bypassed via a VPN (who are the big winners so far). I still think a Digital ID system in the UK is needed that would have really helped with online safety – and it looks like Labour are finally moving in that direction. The worst bit about the new rules is how widely they are being enforced. Spotify and Xbox now require you to verify your age as does Reddit. Many bits of the web are being blocked and impacted by the law that I’m sure weren’t the original intent. Messy.
The Genius Device That Rocked F1 – Great in depth video if you like F1 or are just interested in some of the politics in the sport. Loved it.
Notes to myself – over 60 titbits of advice – earn trust through action. Amen.
How to Firefox – Great setup guide. Firefox is my second browser and considering how unstable Safari is right now I’m giving serious thought to switching.
iPhone Cameras are Actually Really Good – you can find holes in this article but I get the sentiment. Computational photography should be making pictures better and in many cases they do, but look at some of the detail missing in the comparison photo’s. Uggghhh.
I blame the weather for skipping last week. Far too hot, sore heads and a massive case of couldn’t be arsedness + a wee bit too busy at work meant I passed again. Need to not let that become a habit. I do have most of the NAS bits purchased. Some fans, cables and a heat sink and then I can start the build.
Making notes, taking actions – if my industry didn’t make this impossible to do without consequences I’d be all over this as a way of automating minutes, actions, decisions etc.
The retro computing/gaming market saw another two new entries. The Commode 64 Ultimate and the ZX Spectrum Next 3…which can also play Commodore games. Neither are for me but love the innovation.
Enjoyed lunch with Shak at Bramble. Food’s always fantastic but so difficult to get in…and so noisy once you’re there! Saturday’s pick was Savoury French Toast with some optional (is bacon ever optional) bacon. Followed up with some gelato from La Gelatessa that even the rain couldn’t ruin.
Binged Dept Q. Great cast and story – really enjoyed it even if it was a who’s who of Scottish actors. Well done Netflix for commissioning another season.
Thunderbolts* was pretty dam good too. Not your usual Marvel film – little bit deeper.
Ballerina – usual John Wick fair although they were pretty inventive with the weaponry in this one.
Time got away from me last week. So much going on at work and just didn’t have the time to do even a quick post. This bit of graffiti at the River Kelvin in Glasgow seemed pretty apt when I stumbled on it.
Denis Villeneuve Directing Next James Bond Film – might still be years away given the films he’s attached to, but this is a pretty exciting announcement. Villeneuve Is one of my favourite directors and I can’t wait to see what he does with the franchise.
I think Xbox hardware is dead – sobering and Microsoft also laid off so many teams and killed a lot of games this week. Not convinced Gamepass has been good for the industry.
The truth about Tesla’s – extract from an upcoming book but after reading this I still don’t understand why anyone would buy a Tesla based on its hardware and software…and even if you give that a pass, Musk’s behaviour and world views are the killer blow.
How to Network as an Introvert – I find networking so hard. Good tips in this article and as an introvert there’s a couple for me to try.
The British Grand Prix was fantastic over the weekend. Quali so competitive but the highlight was the race, not because Lando Norris won, but on his 239th Grand Prix Nico Hulkenberg finally got a podium. Amazing especially as he started at the back of the grid. Everyone was so happy for him – great to see. Pretty cool that the trophies were made out of Lego to celebrate F1 turning 75.
Watched season 4 of The Bear last weekend and loved it. A step up on Season 3 which is odd considering both 3 and 4 were shot back to back. I do wonder if it will come back…I’d be tempted just to leave it as is which is four wonderful seasons and a fantastic soundtrack.
Also missed posting about Race Across The World which finished a few weeks ago. Loved the contestants this year as always but it’s the editing/production team that need to take all the credit. They are experts and the way they reveal more about the teams each week and intertwine the race is top class. One of the best things on TV.
So hot this week but it broke today with some heavy rain. Dark nights are also on their way in – winter is coming.
Craig Federighi Opens Up About iPadOS, Its Multitasking Journey, and the iPad’s Essence – Great interview of Hair Force One from WWDC by Federico Viticci. Get’s into a lot of detail on the iPad and I loved this quote from Federighi – “I think we’ve been on a journey of finding the right interface for iPad, along with our users. And I think it actually has been important that it’s been a considered journey”. Great way of saying it took us a long time to realise the Mac was right all along.
Rolling the ladder up behind us – the more we use AI, the less we train people, we build a problem for those following in our footsteps. Lots to think through from this one.
Deacon Blue member James Prime dies aged 64 – sad news on the passing of James Prime. Deacon Blue are one of my favourite bands and their first 3 albums are still important to me. RIP.
XBOX + AMD: Powering the Next Generation of Xbox – with a 60 second video Microsoft confirm their next gen console will be a…PC. The XBox always was mostly a custom PC, but this along with the recent hand held feels like an admission that hardware will be more generic, the OS will be Windows, and we’ll have Steam/Epic stores on a future XBox plugged into your TV.
Binged The Studio on Apple TV+. It was fine but not quite the knockout hit I’d heard about. Great cameo’s and some good laughs but ran out of steam.
Deep in financial planning in work at the moment. Tough decisions ahead but has to be done. Also need to free up more time for work/strategy and less on meetings and workshops which are all consuming.
I Convinced HP’s Board to Buy Palm for $1.2B. Then I Watched Them Kill It in 49 Days – insight into one of the most bizarre pivots that I can remember. Imagine buying a product that less than 50 days later was killed. HP also bought Humane, makers of the AI pin, and then shut down the service but that was a product pretty much dead on arrival.
Transformation Happens At The Speed Of Trust – this hit home, especially the trust across functions/disciplines and leaders must stop solutioneering or micromanaging. Need to unpack leaders trusting that outcomes matter more than deliverables when it comes to governance.
Finally finished season 2 of Andor. What a triumph and followed it up with a Rogue One rewatch. Both the tv series and the film are the best Star Wars properties since the original trilogy.
WWDC Thoughts
I’ve always loved WWDC and thought the move to video only after Covid was smart but I’ve grown really tired of it. Over produced, scared to fail and polished to within an inch of its life. This year also see’s Apple on its back foot more than in recent times. Legal fights everywhere, tariff threats in play, a failing AI strategy and developer relations lower than ever. Would they address any of those?
Well they got right into AI and owned Siri not reaching their quality bar…but then spent more time talking up what they had shipped which has been pretty poor quality. Still, they’re didn’t bury AI like I expected. A new unified design language was rumoured and they did deliver a step change across all platforms. Liquid Glass adds glass like elements everywhere and also brings fluid animations to some of the more simple interactions like button toggles. Glass in theory can be a nice interface and has worked in older Mac and Windows versions but the version demo’d this week needs work.
Image above is from Apple’s own material and is pretty unreadable. There were worse examples with notifications almost lost in the underlying wallpaper. I expect we’ll see things dialled back/in for the final release in September with some more frosting to add a bit more contrast and aid readability. I’m also not sure about the floating tab bars everywhere. Rather than showing more content it hides more than a simple nav bar would. A positive though was some fun brought back in across the various operating systems, like the folders on Mac opening when a file is dropped on it. Nice.
The highlight of WWDC was the changes to iPad. Finally windowing comes to iPad and instead of presenting another new way of doing it they’ve robbed what has worked on the Mac for decades. So you can have multiple windows, use them alongside stage manager, use familiar controls from macOS to maximise, resize or close windows and they’ve even added a menu bar. Preview has also been added from the Mac and Files has been improved. Background processing for apps exporting audio and video and also audio routing so podcasting from the iPad looks possible. This is hugely welcome and finally see’s the software catching up with the hardware. The only question I still have is why not before now? A final realisation that the options they’ve added so far aren’t working? It also really blurs the line with macOS. I just wish they’d dropped Files and replaced with Finder.
The Mac also got some love with Spotlight catching up with Alfred and Raycast. This may be the next App where I go back to default. Reminders is also seeing much more love so might be time to finally ditch Todoist.
Joanna Stern’s interview with Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak is excellent. Highly recommend the full version (24 mins) over the supercut (7 mins) to see her put the exec’s on the spot more than anyone else in recent times. Certainly beats the Talk Show replacement.
As for the Talk Show itself, it was a great two hours and was actually much improved for the lack of Apple exec’s attending.
Overall a pretty positive WWDC given the climate Apple is operating in. I’m looking forward to throwing the public beta on the iPad in July…the rest can keep until September when hopefully they’ve addressed some of the Liquid Glass issues.
Packed week, too many back to back meetings and too little thinking time. Also full of admiration for our comms team as in the last 3 weeks we’ve had the future King and Queen and the current PM visit Glasgow. Milestone events.
WWDC tomorrow. Usually look forward to it but not so much this year. Apple Intelligence has failed, Apple fighting to protect their App Store control and $$$ and considering it’s a developer conference they’ve got a tough audience. I’m also done with the 2 hour videos and wish they’d go back to a live show. Rumours reveal much of what’s coming now including a redesign across all operating systems. Ahead of the reveal Sebastiaan de With posted a great read on what could be next. Fascinated to see how close he is to reality.
Sad news yesterday that Bill Atkinson, one of the original pioneers at Apple, had died. I hope Apple acknowledge his work tomorrow. You can see some of his impact in this video of Jobs introducing the Macintosh, round about the 29 minute mark.
Finished Split Fiction today. Class game full of clever puzzles and never punished you by making you replay levels or getting stuck. Impressed they kept up the originality through to the last level. Great coop game.
So I picked up a Nintendo Switch 2 on launch day and I’ve been delving into Mario Kart World plus a couple of other games since Thursday. Here’s a few early thoughts.
Hardware
The Switch 2 is much bigger than the original, but feels very familiar, like it swallowed a mushroom. That bigger size feels natural pretty quick and the joy cons are more comfortable for my hands now, although the right thumbstick still feels awkward to reach. The Steamdeck is still the best for comfort. I’ve no doubt there will be some great third party joy cons like this from Mobapad in due course – it’s only day 4. A real positive is the joy cons now magnetically attach – much nicer than the original Switch with its slide mechanism.
The screen itself is clear and vibrant. It’s 1080p so higher resolution than the Steamdeck and thats welcome. However it’s LCD and it’s a real shame, but no surprise, that Nintendo didn’t ship an OLED option. There’s a noticeable difference in vibrancy between the Steamdeck and the Switch 2. We’ll look forward to 2028 and the Switch 2 OLED edition 😬
Sound from the Switch 2 is really good. Much better separation in Mario Kart World – maybe the bigger size? Whatever the reason, I was impressed. The kick stand is also well integrated and I’ve found myself using it more when I’m at the desk with the joy cons detached – much more comfortable. Not so good was the included dock. Not sure how but Nintendo have managed to make this feel cheaper and more plastically than the previous version. Good job.
I also picked up the Pro Controller and the GameCube Controller. The Pro Controller is fantastic. In total contrast to the dock, it feels solid and if you’re used the previous Pro Controller it looks familiar – but the sticks are such a step up. So smooth, I love playing Mario Kart with the controller. There’s now a couple of back buttons that don’t get in the way but are easy to use. About the only ding is the lack of analogue triggers which are standard everywhere else.
As for the GameCube controller, I couldn’t resist. USB C charging, wireless support and also has gyro controls which weren’t pre-announced. Only really works with Switch 2 GameCube games which are limited but nice to have.
Games
Launch games are pretty light but Mario Kart World makes up for that. It’s been so long since we’ve had an actual new Mario Kart game. Big change in this version is open world – the tracks are part of a wider world. I’ve mostly stuck to Grand Prix racing, solo and online. I much prefer the actual tracks vs racing point to point as some of them are a bit dull…probably because I don’t know them well enough. What is obvious is the amount of shortcut potential in this game…and you can see it during multiplayer as those that know the best routes are miles ahead. Also – turn off steer assist which is on by default 😡. I picked up the Switch 2 Mario Kart bundle. It was disappointing to get a small bit of paper with a code to type in to get the game. Gone are the days of manuals but would it have been so hard to include an actual game card?
I also picked up Fast Fusion which is WipeOut without the weapons. Plays really well for the price of £15. I’ve not mentioned game pricing yet. Nintendo have said first party games will now cost £80, and Xbox have followed their lead. I don’t have too big a problem with that as every generation has tended to increase by £10 or so which is less than inflation over the years.
Both of the recent Zelda games, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have Switch 2 upgrades for £7.99…or free if you buy Switch Online + Expansion pack. Considering the upgrades in each game that seems fair, and I’m looking forward to playing both games through.
Closing Thoughts
The Switch 2 is evolution, not revolution. Nintendo have played safe and given the sales of the Switch you can’t blame them. Apart from the lack of OLED, this meets expectations of a new console but if you didn’t pick up on launch day you aren’t missing much. Mario Kart World is a great game but the rest of the launch titles are so so. If you have any sort of back catalogue though the Switch 2 is by far the better platform to play through…just do yourself a favour and pick up the Pro Controller as its much better than the joy cons.
Full on week at work, diverse and challenging. Week ahead has some major events too which is always fun…if they go well…which I’m sure they will. We’re also in June so its mid year check in time.
I mentioned Zen and CityFibre outage last week. Well, turns out it’s not Zen or CityFibre but my internal network. Bugger. Let myself down not investigating properly and assuming it wasn’t me. I reckon my bonded network connection from the Synology was causing issues on the LAN. Since removing the bond its been rock solid.
We’re just over a week out from WWDC. An event I always look forward to – it’s the start of Apple’s year and it hints at the hardware and direction of Apple. However…Apple Intelligence failures, dev relationship worries, legal challenges everywhere…I’m more intrigued in how Apple is going to pitch WWDC this year. One sign of change is Grubers The Talk Show Live won’t have any Apple exec’s attending for the first time since 2015. I wonder why?
Apple also seem to be moving to tying software releases to year, no doubt as this year is seeing a major rebrand. Not overly convinced – iOS 26 on iPhone 17? Doesn’t trip off the tongue.
The Future is Colurful and Dimensional – great post and hopefully a return to some character and texture that iOS 7 pushed many in the opposite direction.
The Who Cares Era – AI and LLM’s can be a fantastically useful tool…and also turn off individual thought. Where’s the care when people shit out a post that’s generated in ChatGPT? LinkedIn is full of AI generated slop. How long before work meetings are dominated with colleagues using copilot to make their arguments. Depressing.
Said goodbye to Netflix this week. Been a subscriber for years but a look at price per play meant head ruled heart and it had to be cancelled. I don’t have the time to watch all the TV from each of the streaming channels. TV is in a real glory phase vs movies.
The Last of Us season 2 finished this week. Overall enjoyable but not as strong as season 1. At least there’s only 1, maybe 2 more so there’s an end point unlike The Walking Dead.
As for Doctor Who – what a mess. Needs a reset…maybe even a rest.
Upcoming – Nintendo Switch 2 and Mario Kart World. And hopefully it really is a new Mario Kart – its been a while!
Milestone at work as HMS Glasgow was officially named. Lots of work to get to this point and lots of pressure on the comms team to get this event right. Well done all.
Week one with Zen has been fantastic although tonight – not so good. Outage for last hour with large pings and horrendous speeds. Zen or Cityfibre issue? No idea but not happy.
Sam and Jony sitting in a tree. Intrigued to see what Jony Ive will build with OpenAI although his last few years at Apple weren’t exactly great. Still a great mind and like others have said, phones can’t last forever as our primary computer interface.
Meanwhile, over at Microsoft, it’s all agents and AI. To be fair there are lots of others saying the same but some of Nadella’s statements sound like bullshit. Idiotic even.
Stack Overflow has been an amazing resource for the last couple of decades however its usage is dropping…scarily so. Down to surge in AI? Or people tired of the arrogance?
Farewell Pocket. I loved Pocket for so long but moved off it as I tried other services that offered a little bit more – it had turned into another sinkhole of articles that I had to read. I wonder if Mozilla will sell it on to Kevin Rose?
I’ve been tempted for a while to pick up a Stream Deck but never quite got there. Elgato have now launched a Virtual Stream Deck so I’ll be giving it a go to see if it helps from a productivity perspective. They are also doing some interesting hardware for third parties – I could see some kickstarters adding in Stream Deck support.
The Thick of It is one of my favourite series – this interview of Armando Iannucci, Peter Capaldi and others is great. Can relate to the swearing coming naturally for Glaswegians.
There’s a few things that aren’t really clicking at work. Probably a sign that the team overall are juggling too much and not focussing on the must do’s with the results that some plates are dropping. I need to carve out more think and do time and less back to back meetings.
The last week has felt like the height of summer. Long warm days and still light late into the evening. In fact most of May has felt like it and April was pretty dry and warm too. Nothing better than an ice cream on a hot afternoon – La Gelatessa on the South Side of Glasgow does amazing small batch ice creams. Saturday was no exception but the queue was huge…and the sun was fierce. So the ice cream was top notch as always but came with a slightly burnt neck. Toasty.
Finally moved broadband provider, from Virgin to Zen via CityFibre. Plumped for their Full Fibre Max package which promised 2300Mbps up and down. Wasn’t expecting to get that kind of speed but really wanted a much better upload than Virgin have ever offered. After a bit of faffing and some moving of cables the speeds on the Mac Studio are really impressive.
The install itself did take 2-3 hours as the team had to dig a channel through the garden into the house. CityFibre can’t reuse any existing infrastructure – Thatcher strikes again – but shows the lack of smart thinking around our city and town infrastructure that passes on so much waste throughout the system. Alongside the impressive speeds, ping times have been rock solid and an improvement on Virgin too. We’ll see how reliable the service is over the coming months but I’ve been impressed so far…but it’s only day 3!
Antinote is a beautiful little note taking App for the Mac. $5, lots of options…love it.
Really enjoyed this post from Gordon on his accidental career. I look back at mine and it’s definitely been one with no real plan…and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Andor Season 2 is setting a real high bar. Half way through and loving it.
Favourite bit of media this week was from ATP – a Top Four Game Consoles episode. You need to be a member to get this episode but it was class. Will need to write up my top four soon.
