418: ‘Putting a Stink on the Letter X’, With Craig Hockenberry
The Talk Show With John Gruber · Daring Fireball / John Gruber
March 9, 20252h 42m
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Show Notes
Craig Hockenberry returns to the show. Topics include Apple’s new hardware this week — M3 iPad Airs, A16 regular iPads, M4 MacBook Airs, and the M4 Max and surprising M3 Ultra Mac Studios. And we go deep on The Iconfactory’s years-in-the-making new app, Tapestry — a universal timeline for the Internet.
Exclusively sponsored by:
- Google Gemini: Chat to supercharge your ideas.
Unofficial but surprisingly good transcripts.
Links:
- Daring Fireball posts of note:
- “Apple Updates iPad Air (M2→M3) and Regular iPad (A14→A16), and Revamps Magic Keyboard for iPad Air”.
- “Apple Announces, With Little Surprise, M4 MacBook Airs”.
- “Apple Announces, With Much Surprise, Mac Studios With M4 Max and M3 Ultra (!) Chips”.
- From January: “Openvibe, a Multi-Social-Network App for Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads (Supposedly), and Nostr”.
- Tapestry: “Weaving your favorite blogs, social media, and more into a unified and chronological timeline.”
- Craig, on the Iconfactory blog: “Enter Tapestry”.
- Cheryl Cicha, also on the Iconfactory blog: “Tapestry: Past, Present, and Future”.
- Tapestry Connectors — an open, easy (documented!) extensions API.
- Fefes Blog — you’ll have to listen to the show to understand how this is a Tapestry-related link. But trust me, it’s a good story. It starts with this thread on Mastodon, which begins like a great novel: “It’s becoming clear that XML in RSS is the preferred tool of sociopaths.”
- Molly White: “POSSE” (“Publish [on your] Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere”).
- Technology Connections on YouTube: “Algorithms Are Breaking How We Think”.
- The Iconfactory:
- Linea Sketch — “a lightweight digital sketchpad for your iPad”.
- Wallaroo — fun new wallpapers every week, for iOS and Mac.
- Tot — we didn’t mention this brilliant little notes app on the show, but I use it every day.
- iPulse — a nerdy system monitor, with Iconfactory fit and finish. Runs in the background even on iOS.
- Project Tapestry’s year-ago successful Kickstarter campaign.
- Andre Torrez’s Tyke, the inspiration for Tot.
This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.