high fiving pals at the bottom of a very long GitHub pull request diff
Modern software needs more stuff like this. Adding a small, superfluous human touch in a few places goes such a long way.
(The original Mac OS had this sort of personal character scattered all over the place, but it's been gradually squeezed out over the years.)
Same goes to you man! Proud of all of us for getting through the other side of that stuff.
Agreed. It really does not 🙃
I love this post about "backseat software." When software evolved into an economic engine of its own, user-centric product design got clobbered by aggressive business growth tactics.
This is why so many products now feel more hostile than helpful:
blog.mikeswanson.com/backseat-sof...
whoa! now we just need an entire phone in this style
BEFORE AI: "Would it be faster to do this manual task, or to write a script to do the task for me?"
AFTER AI: "Would it be faster to do this manual task, or to ask an approximation machine to solve it accurately, then proofread its inevitable messes?"
Small personal news: a few weeks ago I started a new job at Superhuman, as the head of design for Superhuman Mail.
Had a truly wonderful time at Figma, but have been feeling the itch to try something new. Excited to work on communication tools again (it's my happy place)
Seriously asking: what the heck happened to iOS autocorrect? I remember some point in the past when it worked properly, and now … not
Catherine O’Hara is one of those few people who could turn a creative role into a higher art. Not just a comedian or actor, but someone who elevated and changed the entire idea of those things.
Absolutely inspiring legend 💔
$14-ish annually
Just tried @aeronautapp.com, a Mac app for Bluesky. It feels like being transported back to the glory days of Twitter 3rd party apps (like 2014 or so? It reminds me of Tweetie or Echofon.)
Anyway, this makes Bluesky nicer. Well worth the subscription!
The brutality of all of this is absolutely horrific and unconscionable, but what really gets me is the pointlessness. None of this needs to happen for any reason whatsoever. It’s just dumb stupid brutality for the sake of it
Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia together
💔
This piece is spot on. And let’s also remember that literally anyone in Musk’s orbit or anyone working at X could move to fix it, but they’re just letting this disgusting trash fester anyway
Agreed, I think because it breaks longstanding muscle memory? Or creates disorientation because too much core UI shifts around when the tab is focused, so you lose your sense of place for a few moments.
Can't exactly put my finger on it, but it still throws me off and I haven't gotten used to it
I think there's an underlying tale like:
software made for humans
vs.
software made for corporations (to sell to humans)
and the difference is often in the soul and charm and whimsy of the product
iOS 26 tabs in Hello Weather
We ended up running with the button-tab pattern for @helloweather.com, but used a location pin icon (to indicate "Location search") instead of a search icon.
Still not convinced that was the best call, but we kinda tried to split the difference.
I fussed around with this oddball Search tab/button pattern SO MUCH before iOS 26 came out.
The new iOS design language has many different ways to accomplish similar things, and affordances are less differentiated, so it's really hard to know what's "right."
ryanashcraft.com/ios-26-tab-b...
love this! Such a fun detail
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” “And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed–if all records told the same tale–then the lie passed into history and became truth.” -1984
we’re here now
(and we’ve been here for a while)
With the deepfake trash happening on X, a constant stream of falsehoods and rewritten history spilling from the US govt, and AI generated content becoming more prevalent rapidly, this first week of 2026 feels very post-trust.
For a while I’ve felt that we’re entering the Post-Trust era of information, where skepticism becomes our default mode of consumption, since almost nothing can be believed as real at a glance.
Love this post Anil. Thanks for sharing this and saying it out loud ❤️
RIP feeling a tiny shred of cautious optimism about politics in the new year
Jan 1, 2026 – Jan 2, 2026
it was a good run
happy canoe peer, friends
weirdly, my resolution for 2026 is to be on social media MORE. and getting back into longform writing.
(I've been on hiatus from here for a while. I needed the mental break, but I miss posting pithy bad jokes. sorry in advance)
this is really good! Thanks for sharing
AI assistants Politicians
🤝
unabashedly lying with false info
but confidently presenting it
as the truth
App of the day promo art for Hello Weather
Hello Weather is the app of the day all over the world today! Amazing to see this rolling out globally 🥹
apps.apple.com/us/story/id1...
