SchwarzTech

No One’s Happy (via Matt Birchler): Most native apps collect far more data than their website equivalents ever could. They request permissions to hardware, sensors, and background processes that browsers deliberately restrict. The third-party software embedded in these apps frequently transmits your location, device identifiers, and behavioral data to third parties before you even see a consent prompt. This data is in tandem bought, sold, and aggregated by brokers. It has been used to out…

John Gruber paraphrasing a report from Aaron Tilley at The Information: If you use your personal Apple ID, you get a magic “Apple Work” folder in iCloud Drive. When you leave Apple, that “Apple Work” folder disappears. But any other files or folders that were shared with you that were outside that magic folder are still in your iCloud Drive, because it’s still your personal iCloud account. Another factor that plays into this, I think, but which Tilley doesn’t address, is that your Apple ID is…

“Apple’s most valuable asset is its brand. Not its real estate, not its intellectual property, not even any particular product. Even the mighty iPhone has no value if, over time, the traits that differentiate it from competitor products are erased. Apple’s brand has always stood for higher quality products—you pay more, but you get more.”

The fourth episode of Magical & Revolutionary is now available. I’m joined by D. Griffin Jones, known for writing at Cult of Mac, Extra Ordinary (his own blog), and collecting all sorts of vintage computers.

Mark Zuckerberg for The Wall Street Journal (via John Gruber): It is surprising that the discourse from many of those who are developing artificial intelligence is so filled with doom. I don’t understand why anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs and much of humanity’s relevance would rush to build that future. The notion that AI is so dangerous that the only safe path is an extreme concentration of power seems dangerous. Historically, hoping that an absolute power will…

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2026 third quarter ended June 27, 2026. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $109.4 billion, up 16 percent year over year. Company gross margin was 50.1 percent, including a favorable impact of approximately 2 percentage points from tariff refunds. Diluted earnings per share was $2.02, up 29 percent year over year, and included a favorable impact of $0.11 from tariff refunds. For comparison, Q2 2026 (last quarter) and Q3 2025 (this…

Noah Shachtman and Robert Silverman for WIRED (via Nick Heer: New Yorkers have known for a long time that going to a game or concert at the Garden meant surrendering some privacy. That, as you watched the show, the Garden in a real sense watched you. Since 2018, there have been reports of the venue deploying face-recognition technology in what critics believe are increasingly intrusive ways. Owner James Dolan has watch lists of basketball fans who have dared criticize his management. He keeps a…

Adam Wunn: FileMaker could be a simple database, with a friendly user interface, for someone’s recipe collection and similar needs (I used it for my CD collection at the time). [Yet another recipe collection trope – they used to advertise that as a feature to the everyday buyer – so funny!] FileMaker could also become a relational, multi-table, bespoke database that could run an entire business, while servicing all the needs in between. In my mind, the beauty of it was that many people who had…

D. Griffin Jones: Now, Liquid Glass includes a new effect that blurs the content beneath it very heavily, but makes that blur mostly transparent. This adds contrast while keeping the glass clear and sharp, not fully frosted. However, it makes Liquid Glass look hazy. It looks like a cheap piece of plastic that’s been scratched and scuffed until it isn’t so transparent anymore. Like a Tupperware that’s been through the dishwasher too many times. Or an old pool float. Or a plastic radio from the…

Mike Duffy for WXYZ Detroit: Well, one Michigan community has been experiencing the reality of a data center next door for a couple of years now, and they say the sound has changed their lives. “It sounds like someone set up a vacuum, like in your living room. And the vacuum is just… that thing needs to be cleaned … the filter is clogged up, so it’s a high-pitch whining. And they just left it on and walked out,” said Lindy Valenzula. “You’ve seen movies and stuff where they have somebody in a…

Ana-Maria Stanciuc for The Next Web: The money is tied up in off-balance-sheet vehicles, the same kind of structure Enron used to hide debt before it collapsed 25 years ago. Back then it was fraud. Now, tightened rules and fuller disclosures make it legal. […] The mechanics are simple. A company packages the debt for chips, servers, and power into a separate legal entity, often a joint venture, so the cost never flows through its own accounts. Take Meta’s Hyperion data centre in Louisiana. Meta…

Michael Harley for Ars Technica: In 2022, many US cellular carriers, including AT&T, T‑Mobile/Sprint, and Verizon, shut down their 3G networks to create system capacity for upcoming 4G and 5G rollouts. When the 3G signal finally ceased, vehicles with the technology lost their connected cloud-based services (Porsche, Nissan, and Volkswagen were just a few of the automakers affected). Lexus owners felt this shift acutely. The company’s Enform connectivity, which relied on the 3G network and was…

mmalc Crawford: Ironically, Apple Park replaced a campus that did far better on the same measure without ever trying to. Infinite Loop produced far more of the accidental, cross-team contact Apple Park was explicitly built to create. Working out why starts with what Infinite Loop got right by accident. It continues with what the research on office proximity says about why that kind of thing happens at all. And it ends with what Apple Park could become instead — including a version of the fix…

“It’s worth noting that some of the platform’s best icons look worse, while some of the platform’s worst icons look better.”

Matthew Haughey: I want to say between the years of 2000 and about 2010, I always had an AIM client running on any computer I was using while I was sitting at it. It was kind of like using Slack at a workplace today, but you’d glance over at your list to see who was online currently and catch up with people constantly throughout the day, or even just read their away messages. Back in the early days of blogging, people who read blogs used to joke that everyone with a blog seemed to know everyone…

Hadlee Simons for Android Authority: Samsung says the Galaxy Card is the company’s first credit card in the US, adding that it’s a Visa card issued by Barclays US. This isn’t the firm’s first credit card in general, though, as it already offers a Samsung Card in Korea. But it’s still a pretty notable announcement. Samsung is promising a variety of rewards to go with its new card: 5% cash rewards on purchases made directly with Samsung, including the company’s next Galaxy devices 3% cash rewards…

Aleem Shaun: I’ve used Day One for more than a decade. It was an excellent journalling app. Private, minimal, easy to use, with excellent features such as geolocation, weather, ‘On this Day’, and book printing. Features that got out of the way and either worked quietly in the background or appeared only when you summoned them. That’s changed. Now there are new subscription tiers. Previously, the tiers were Free and Premium. Simple. Premium included sync and a few other things that I can’t…

M.G. Siegler: A couple years back, I was banned by Instagram. Because I happen to know a few people there, I got it resolved and my account back online relatively quickly. But I never got an answer for what actually happened. A few months later, I found myself banned again. Again, I pinged some people. Again I was reinstated. Again, I got no explanation other than someone – or something – messed up. Again. While those bans also instantly took out Facebook and Messenger, I was lucky that it left…

EveryMac.com: On July 2, 1996, EveryMac.com launched. Thirty years is a long time — and a great deal has changed since then — but what has not changed is that EveryMac.com has been there to provide you with detailed info on every Mac from the original 128k to the current line. Thank you very much for your support through the years. I’ve used this site as a reference countless times over the years, mostly to figure out an obscure detail about some old Performa or to double-check dates of Apple’s…

Georg Szalai and Alex Weprin for The Hollywood Reporter: In a major move that reshapes the media landscape, Comcast plans to separate into two independent publicly traded companies through a tax-free spin-off of NBCUniversal and Sky, the company said on Monday. […] [Comcast co-CEO Brian] Roberts, who controls the company, will continue to be “actively involved” in the leadership of Comcast and NBCUniversal, working in partnership with the CEOs of both companies, the company said. Current co-CEO…

Om Malik’s family: Om Malik passed away on June 24, 2026, at Stanford Hospital after a long health journey with his heart. He was surrounded by family and friends. I’ve linked to Malik numerous times over the years, first at Gigaom and then his personal blog. I’ve always enjoyed his writing and loved how he mixed experience, context, wit, and a bit of humor when observing the tech world around him. He never bought into the bullshit and hype and from those who knew him, sounded like a wonderful…

Hartley Charlton for MacRumors: Apple is unifying the email domains used by Sign in with Apple and ‌iCloud‌+ Hide My Email under a single private.icloud.com domain later this summer. Sign in with Apple currently uses privaterelay.appleid.com, while Hide My Email uses icloud.com, the same domain as standard ‌iCloud‌ email addresses. That shared domain has historically made it difficult for services to selectively block disposable ‌iCloud‌ addresses. Blocking icloud.com outright would also block…

Adam Engst: The sheer volume of changes is heartening because it shows that Apple really is paying attention and implementing refinements, not just offering presentation platitudes. However, because the slide is a marketing piece rather than a set of release notes, many of the items raise questions only Apple can answer. Those answers may be forthcoming in the PDF feature lists that Apple publishes at release. Heck, it would be nice to see even this level of detail in the release notes for…

Matt Birchler: As one final note, I think the thing that made this WWDC feel a little flat for people like me is that the segment on software updates was incredibly short. Typically, we get an hour and a half of updates detailing all the usability improvements made to the platforms. This time, we got it all blended together in a single 11-minute segment. Initially, I was a little underwhelmed by this year’s WWDC keynote, but it made sense for Apple to focus on the headlining features—media…

Federico Viticci: Perhaps it’s not the most poetic image, me having a deep realization about my career and the company I write about as I’m staring at the back of two men’s heads. Whenever you’re lucky enough to find it, you have to receive life’s poetry — even when, and especially if, it makes for a funny story to tell. That moment encapsulated the energy I would feel for the rest of the conference: We’re witnessing the sunset of an Apple era, and most people I talked to were buzzing with…

Marcin Wichary: I’ve been emulating the Apple Lisa recently, and I was struck by how many of its UI strings were slightly or wholly different than what we’re used to. It makes sense. Lisa came out in 1983 as Mac’s predecessor and really the first GUI that is directly linked to what we’re using today. Even though it borrowed things from work done at Xerox, tons of conventions were not established yet. So, I thought it would be fun to actually take a closer look. There are so many things that…

Todd Spangler for Variety: Fox announced Monday that it has agreed to acquire Roku for $160.00/share in a combination of cash and Fox Class A common stock, giving Roku an enterprise value of about $22 billion. The companies expect the deal to close in the first half of calendar year 2027. […] The companies said they are “committed to continuing to operate Roku as an open, partner-friendly platform” and to the continued “ubiquitous” distribution of Fox content. Fox Corp. said that Anthony Wood,…

Microsoft Vice Chair & President Brad Smith addressing videos of graduating students booing at pro-AI commencement speakers: This context shapes our reaction to recent commencement ceremonies. Graduating students who grimace or even boo at references to AI are telling us what we need to hear, that it’s time once again to raise the bar. That has been a frequent refrain from students for decades. The key is always to channel uncertainty into purposeful steps that build a better future. Across the…

Matt Birchler: Loupe is a simple new app for iOS that shows how many things native apps can see about you and your device, lots of which is available without requesting elevated permissions. It’s a fun app, but what I love about it is how it shows the range of things that native apps have access to that web apps don’t. I gave Loupe a try and found it interesting, but unsurprising from the kinds of things I’ve already assumed. I do think tools like this are important to educate oneself about the…

Rich Nye for WTHR Indianapolis: Mayor Scott Furgeson was caught on camera making disparaging remarks about the homes that display the [no data center] signs. The signs can be found all over Shelbyville [Indiana]. The people that live in the homes say the negatives far outweigh the positive in the planned data center. The 429-acre site is already annexed and zoned for industrial use. Residents are now fighting a legal battle to try to stop the Prologis data center, which Furgeson has pushed…