July 2025 – On my Om
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When driving down to Stanford earlier this week, a good friend from my Wall Street days, Josh Baylin, called. “I’m heading to the East Coast for a conference,” he said. …| On my Om
There is no shortage of iPhone X reviews. There is no shortage of reviews of the iPhone X reviews. And there’s definitely no shortage of reviews of the iPhone X reviewers. I am going to skip all th…| On my Om
Over the weekend, I got a surprise package from the folks at Apple: a review unit of the iPhone Air. I don’t tend to get smitten by something so quickly, but the “Air” is really u…| On my Om
If you total up the energy spent debating the merits and demerits of the Apple iPhone X event and various devices announced today, odds are that you could actually power another keynote, one where …| On my Om
Apple, to be fair, isn’t selling the same sugar water year-after-year in a zero sum war with other sugar water companies. Their sugar water is getting better, and I think this year’s seasonal concoction is particularly tasty. What is inescapable, however, is that while the company does still make new products — I definitely plan …| On my Om
As you know, for the first time since the iPhone era began, I didn’t attend the iPhone launch event. I am gutted that I didn’t get to see the new iPhone 17 devices in person. Still, …| On my Om
Life has gotten in the way of one of my most anticipated annual events. For the first time since the day of its official launch (barring the pandemic years), I won’t be attending the new phon…| On my Om
Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta (aka the company formerly known as Facebook), has published a memorandum about “superintelligence” and what it will mean not only for his co…| On my Om
An hour after I posted my piece about Meta’s Super Intelligence memo, a friend pinged me and pointed out that once again, Mark Zuckerberg has subsumed someone’s idea and phrase and…| On my Om
I have a dark cloud over my head about the news that CBS canceled Stephen Colbert for “financial reasons,” an explanation no one is buying.Well, unless those financial reasons were the re…| On my Om
A month ago, I reported that Apple was in the final stages of acquiring the rights for F1 streaming following the success of its movie about the sport. Almost a month later, the…| On my Om
There are certain sweet-smelling, sugarcoated lies current in the world which all politic men have apparently tacitly conspired together to support and perpetuate. One of these is that there is suc…| On my Om
I finally had a chance to jot down my thoughts about Apple’s 2018 iPhone and Apple Watch event. With a lot more products, with many more markets and demographic segments to service, you could…| On my Om
On May 5, Microsoft retired Skype, the startup that sparked a communication revolution. I won’t repeat myself, as I’ve already published a postmortem analyzing Skype’s decline under Microsoft’s 14-…| On my Om
As one month ends and another begins, I find myself performing what has become a private ritual with two pens from my unusually large collection of fountain pens. These are not the sober instrument…| On my Om
There is a common thread in the torrent of words that have followed the announcement of Apple’s Vision Pro headset — it portends a dystopian future and social isolationism. Most, if not all, picked…| On my Om
The Consumer Electronics Show 2019 (CES 2019) is finally over, and most reports indicate that it was a bit of a damp squib. The show comes against the backdrop of an Appleocalypse and a sharp slowd…| On my Om
OpenAI strategically overshadowed Google’s AI ambitions that it announced at I/O. In doing so, it showed the contrasting approaches to the AI race and Google’s challenges when it comes to pub…| On my Om
These days, whenever I think about Google, I recall a line from Madame Bovary. “She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris,” Flaubert writes, capturing Emma Bovary’s provincial reality…| On my Om
Did you know that at one point more than 2 million people were watching Apple’s fall 2024 launch event stream on YouTube? If nothing else, it shows a deep interest in the company and its products. …| On my Om
As part of writing a review, I have been using Apple’s 2022 version of the 13-inch MacBook Air. I am not the first one to say it — many others have said before — it is a great dev…| On my Om
You can now use Claude to search the internet to provide more up-to-date and relevant responses. With web search, Claude has access to the latest events and information, boosting its accuracy on ta…| On my Om
John Gruber is not mincing his words. What Apple showed regarding the upcoming “personalized Siri” at WWDC was not a demo. It was a concept video. Concept videos are bullshit, and a sign of a compa…| On my Om
Microsoft is shutting down Skype. It will go offline in May 2025. “We’ve learned a lot from Skype over the years that we’ve put into Teams as we’ve evolved teams over the last seven to eight years,…| On my Om
When it comes to technology in general, and artificial intelligence in particular, it has been surreal to watch events unfold. From politicians in technology backwaters to opportunists and fashion …| On my Om
This quote pretty much sums up what happens to successful people as they grow older. They lose the ability to risk it all. The more successful they are, the more they want to protect what they have…| On my Om
DeepSeek, a company associated with High-Flyer, an $8 billion Chinese hedge fund, changed the AI narrative when it claimed OpenAI-like capabilities for a mere $6 million. The company challenged con…| On my Om
When I started writing about broadband, there were fewer than a few thousand T1 lines, but the magic of fast, always-on internet was pretty obvious even back then. In almost three decades, broadban…| On my Om
Yesterday slipped away, and I never got a chance to mark the 15th birthday of the iPad, perhaps one of the most misunderstood products in Apple’s lineup. The confusion over the device is not limite…| On my Om
Fred Vogelstein, my co-writer for the CrazyStupidTech newsletter, has been wanting a digital research assistant powered by AI ever since he saw ChatGPT two years ago. He might have finally found th…| On my Om
It has been one of those weeks where so much is going on that the noise is drowning out the signals. When the head of a trillion-dollar software giant starts throwing out lines like a late-night ta…| On my Om
In 2010, a college student wrote a piece of code that would help him start a company. Thirteen years later, he would walk away from a multi-billion-dollar public company he built, only to start tin…| On my Om
It is just over a year since Apple launched its face computer, and seventeen years ago it launched its skinny computer. The trajectory of one tells a lot about the future of the other. But before w…| On my Om
Today is my 17th re-birthday. If you’ve been a longtime reader, you know why I call it my re-birthday. If you are new around here, well, here is a short recap. Just after I turned 41—17 years ago—a…| On my Om
As an avid Reddit user, I’ve learned to approach everything I read with skepticism, echoing Jerry Seinfeld’s catchphrase, “Really?” This morning, I encountered an unsourced post about Boox, a table…| On my Om
While I now like dogs — hi, Sadie Michel — I wasn’t really a dog person until I met Mr. Gibbs, who out of nowhere captured my heart. He very quickly became my dog-son. Gibbs was a black toy poodle …| On my Om
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash I recently wrote about the future of the browser and Surf, a new app from the creators of Flipboard. Both stories explore the c…| On my Om
On My Mind A week away from the usual vagaries of modern life and a social media (and news) fast has been a welcome break. It looks like I didn’t miss much on social media. I am glad I took some ti…| On my Om
Whether it is botched and haphazard layoffs, anti-trust regulators baying for its blood, or opportunistic saber-rattling by long-time rival Microsoft and its outsourced AI unit, OpenAI — 2023 has b…| On my Om
As a diabetic, my life is a constant balance between hypoglycemic and hyperglycemic levels—and proper food consumption is key to maintaining steady blood sug…| On my Om
The rumor machine can finally turn itself off — Apple has announced that its spatial computer, Vision Pro, is going on sale on January 19. It will start taking pre-orders for the $3,500 device, whi…| On my Om
For photographers and videographers, Apple’s Vision Pro will serve as a catalyst to rethink traditional photography. This technology, when combined with smartphones, represents yet another st…| On my Om
Everyone has a pet peeve. At least currently, mine is the word “content.” It falls in the category of words like “quality,” “luxury,” and “awesome” that have been overused and abused so much that t…| On my Om
