Picking an iPhone used to be easy.

For years, the only real option was what color you wanted, at least for some models. Then came the iPhone 6 and superior-yet-a-little-bendy 6 Plus, which made things a little more complicated.

A few years later, things started getting weird. In rapid succession, we saw the 8 and X, then the XR and XS and XS Max, then the 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max.

Starting with the iPhone 12, Apple introduced four new iPhones each year: two regular iPhones and two Pro iPhones. The iPhone mini came and went, with the Plus replacing it.

That brings us to 2025, and the iPhone family still has four members, but picking the right one is more complicated than ever.

Trust me: I have an iPhone 17 Pro and an iPhone Air on my desk.

The Most Pro Ever

When reviewing the M3 MacBook Pro a couple of years ago, John Gruber wrote:

The wildcard in Apple’s MacBook lineup is what I’m cheekily calling the “Pro Jr.” model. For the last few years, that’s been the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar — a laptop that most expert users thought shouldn’t even exist, but which Apple has stated was the company’s second-best-selling laptop. There are a lot of buyers who want a MacBook Pro, even if they don’t need — or want to pay for — truly professional performance specs.

With the introduction last week of the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the regular M3 chip, Apple has fixed this tier. I often note that Apple means several different things when it describes a product as “pro” — it sometimes means professional, but sometimes means nicer or better. The regular M3 MacBook Pro exemplifies this latter meaning. It has the same industry-best 14-inch display as its M3 Pro and M3 Max siblings, the same excellent 6-speaker sound system, and the same modern form factor. It is, by all appearances, a MacBook worthy of the name “MacBook Pro” heading into 2024.

That line I made bold has applied to the iPhone for years. Previous iPhone Pro models had better features than their non-Pro siblings, but they were also nicer, with stainless steel or titanium rails as opposed to the more traditional aluminum found on mainstream iPhones.

With the iPhone 17 Pro, Apple went back to the drawing board. It has been rebuilt from the inside out to serve as a tool for creation. Its new thermal system keeps it from getting hot, an issue that has been a problem for a couple of years now. The cameras are better than ever and can do some truly amazing things. The battery life is fantastic, and its A19 Pro SoC is going to be fast for years to come.

All of these changes are housed in a new chassis whose industrial design is a big departure from previous iPhones. The 17 Pro is not beautiful in the same way the gold iPhone XS or the iPhone 15 in the natural titanium finish were. It is decidedly utilitarian, and I really dig that.

It feels like this iPhone Pro really deserves its name.

The New Kid

In a normal year, I would have spent more than a mere 375 words writing about the iPhone Pro, but it is living in the very thin shadow of the iPhone Air.

In some ways, the iPhone Air reminds me of the iPhone X. I closed my review of that phone with this:

All in all, with the iPhone X, Apple has dumped a whole lot of revolution on its most important product. The screen, body, cameras, and more are all better than before, but the iPhone X is more than the sum of its parts. It’s the first chapter in a new era of iPhone design. The things that seem special about this iPhone will soon be normal, as evolution kicks in again.

That’s how these things go. Evolution may be important, but revolution is where all the fun is, and the iPhone X has plenty of it to go around.

Those two paragraphs have held up incredibly well. Every new iPhone since 2017¹ has looked and worked a lot like the iPhone X. It was a critically important iPhone for Apple, and its then-new features are taken for granted today.

The iPhone Air feels important in a similar way.

Its design is breathtaking. I’ve been using it as my primary phone for almost two weeks, and every time I pick it up, I get a little jolt of disbelief. Sometimes when devices are thin and light, they feel cheap but Apple has avoided that with the iPhone Air, probably thanks to its shiny titanium rails and glass back.

It’s a bit cliché to say that you need to go to an Apple Store to check it out, but you really need to go to an Apple Store to check it out.

To make this possible, Apple has done some incredible engineering. iFixit’s teardown video shows off how much work went into this phone. The majority of the computery bits are crammed into the plateau and the area right above and below it. The rest of the chassis is filled with battery, to the point that Apple doesn’t even ship a version that supports a physical SIM card.

I switched over to eSIM a few years ago, and it’s been great. They are extremely easy to transfer, which has been especially handy this year, as I’ve spent time with both the 17 Pro and Air. If your carrier supports it, I can heartily recommend switching, even if Steve Troughton-Smith may say otherwise.

The physical SIM slot isn’t the only thing the Apple tossed overboard to build this iPhone. The lack of a bottom speaker leaves the earpiece speaker alone in its sound duties. The iPhone Air is fine for playing podcasts, but when it comes to music, it lacks the punch that other modern iPhones have.

Then there’s battery life. I haven’t killed the battery in a single day, but I work at home. On days I have been out and about, I’ve landed in the 20-30% range by the evening. I’ve not seen that on an iPhone Pro in years, but your mileage certainly will vary. Apple seems well aware of this, hence the new-but-sadly-iPhone-Air-only MagSafe Battery Pack. I have not needed to rely on it, but I think keeping it in my backpack on a travel day would be wise.

This thin battery was required to make the iPhone Air what it is, but it also speaks to how far Apple silicon has come. Apple is building the best SoCs on the market, both in terms of capability and efficiency. It’s hard to imagine Apple creating the iPhone Air without Johny Srouji’s team.

The biggest tradeoff Apple made with the Air is the single rear camera. It clocks in at 48 megapixels and has many of the same features as the main cameras found on the 17 and 17 Pro, including a 2x crop/zoom, focus and depth control, and it matches the 17 with its 4K video recording at 60 fps.

In my usage, photos from the Air look great, but coming from an iPhone 16 Pro, the lack of zoom has been frustrating. Trying to get decent pictures or video at things like my daughter’s cross-country races has proven futile. Often, I need more than 2x’s worth of reach.

Moving from the far to the near, I also miss macro mode when using the Air. I don’t take many macro photos, but it’s a nice feature to have.

The Way Forward

Those tradeoffs make the iPhone Air a worse option than the Pro for me, but when I pick the phone up or slide it into my pocket, I forget all about its shortcomings.

Apple may overuse the word magical in its marketing, but hot damn, this iPhone fits the bill. It’s the most incredible iPhone Apple has ever shipped, and it is the most interesting phone since the iPhone X.

But is it the best iPhone for sale right now?

For me — and probably for you — it’s not. To create something that feels like the future, Apple had to draw on some specifications from the past. For me, the primary thing that holds the Air back is its single camera. For others, it may be the battery life.

However, hardware compromises tend to fade over time. Look no further than the top of your iPhone. After years of the notch, Apple was able to move to the Dynamic Island. We all bought new Lightning cables in 2012 and replaced them with USB-C cables 11 years later.

For some, the compromises that define the iPhone Air are worth it. For me, that’s not quite true. I love the iPhone Air, but I want the camera system found on the iPhone Pro.

Some people have suggested that the iPhone Air is not only the foundation of a future folding iPhone, but how all iPhone will be in the future. I have no doubt a folding iPhone is in the works using the technology found in the Air, but I don’t see all iPhones being like the Air any time soon.

One look at the iPhone 17 Pro should tell you that Apple is very willing to make an iPhone with the opposite trade-offs than the Air. Apple seems more willing than ever to offer its customers options, and I don’t think we should do anything to discourage that, even if it leads to hard decisions when standing in the Apple Store.

So, is the Air the key to the future of the iPhone? Will it take the crown from the Pro and become the default choice for people who want the best iPhone possible?

In its current form, no. It’s an incredible device, but it’s a device waiting in the wings until technology evolves to a point where Apple can build something as capable as the iPhone Pro in the chassis of the iPhone Air. One day it may take the throne from the iPhone Pro, but it hasn’t yet.

Until then, it’ll be the best iPhone in my heart, but not in my pocket.

Jason Kottke:

I’m usually pretty go-with-the-flow as far as OS updates go, but iOS 26 / Liquid Glass is terrible: incoherent, ugly, and difficult to use. Obviously a massive design effort, but they missed the mark IMO.

Juli Clover:

It’s been two days since iOS 26 was released, and Apple’s new Liquid Glass design is even more divisive than expected.

Any major design change can create controversy as people get used to the new look, but the MacRumors forums, Reddit, Apple Support Communities, and social media sites seem to feature more criticism than praise as people discuss the update.

Craig Hockenberry:

Here’s my guess what happened in the lead up to WWDC25:

Apple realized it was deep in the weeds with Apple Intelligence (and associated PR) and needed a tentpole feature that wasn’t AI.

Liquid Glass was in development for some upcoming edgeless hardware. It needed another year of work, but management/marketing was fucked.

A thing that wasn’t ready got moved up. Bug fixing took a back seat. Everyone grabbed paint brushes, not screwdrivers.

The next year is going to be rough for EVERYONE.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

My review of Liquid Glass: generally, I love it.

It’s gorgeous on the right device in the right circumstances. iPadOS, in particular, on a large screen in windowing mode is, by far, my favorite.

But it also has a ton of problems with real-world content that weren’t fully accounted for in concepts before announcement, which has lead to a pile of fixes and hacks to try to make it work for all the edge cases. It’s this which brings the majority of bugs and major issues into all areas of the UI.

DaveyGravy:

What is the design thinking here for displaying the time over my wallpaper? Letting the wallpaper bleed through in this way makes it hard to see and in no way pleasant.

What is going on here exactly?

Also, what effect is the highlighting/shading meant to be achieving? I don’t see it - if it is a layer of something liquid I don’t feel it works at a basic level. What am I missing?

Norbert Heger:

Liquid Glass now also ruins screenshots under some circumstances. Compare the left margin of these two screenshots, which just include a slightly different portion of the sidebar.

Matt Gemmell:

I’ll say this for the macOS Liquid Arse update: the Finder windows are nicer to look at. Somehow they have more contrast rather than less. And coloured folders again; what a time to be alive and trapped in a Kaleidoscope theme.

Jeff Johnson:

Liquid Glass is not an aberration. It’s continuation of everything Apple has been getting wrong about UI for more than a decade.

Apple was never perfect, but they used to get things right more often than anyone else, and right or wrong they sweated over the details.

Louie Mantia:

Liquid Glass is perhaps the most getting-in-the-way user interface I’ve experienced in my lifetime. It never shuts up. It’s constantly vying for attention. Because it’s constantly animating, it never lets the content be the focus.

I don’t think I realized until now that UI could be so narcissistic.

Jesse Grosjean:

Are any of Apple’s larger productivity apps updated for Liquid Glass yet? Pages doesn’t seem to be.

Mario Guzmán:

I’ve been wondering when iLife, iWork, and Pro Apps are going to be released with Liquid Glass updates.

Or are they unable to ship something… suitable with the new design language? 🤭

Steve Troughton-Smith:

The Pro apps shipped with the new SDK, but they’ve opted out of the design language…

Mindaugas Rudokas:

Cultured Code’s Things says “no thank you” to the Liquid Glass’ sidebar and toolbar style.

Brent Simmons:

We’re hearing from folks eager for the Liquid Glass update to NetNewsWire. The bad news is that it’s not coming this week or next (who knows when, really) — but the good news is that it is very much in progress.

[…]

If you’d like a sneak peak of what NetNewsWire 7 will look like, check out these posts [1, 2] by Stuart Breckenridge, who’s done great work on our Liquid Glass adoption[…]

MacStories:

Today, we wanted to share some of our favorite implementations of Liquid Glass and other features debuted this fall by indie developers.

Pasi Salenius:

As far as I can tell all major iOS apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Spotify just enabled the compatibility Info.plist flag for Xcode 26 and went on with their life.

While indie devs sweated all summer trying to make Liquid Glass UI work in their apps, telling themselves they “need to be ready on day one”. The iOS dev echo chamber repeated this message to death.

I don’t think the general public cares one bit. Nobody gives a 5 star review because an app supports the new iOS UI. Nobody buys an app because of that.

Adam Whitcroft:

I think it’s sad we can’t make macOS icons like this anymore.

Sebastiaan de With:

I have seen very little grief for this but the sadness is very real. It’s the end of a really special era.

Louie Mantia:

So here’s my question: a lot of these things were pointed out for months—and besides how I don’t think Apple should be outsourcing bug reporting to the rest of us—do they just not have a good QA team anymore? Or is it just that they don’t care about the bugs they ship anymore?

JuniperPhoton:

Instead of spending the whole summer reworking my apps’ designs, I recently adopted the new design in some of my apps while maintaining the same look on older platforms. I’ve learned a few lessons and pitfalls along the way that might help.

Howard Oakley:

Even a few minutes exposure to a screenful of macOS Tahoe’s windows demonstrates how its new design goes out of its way to ignore those essential insights, and present us with controls that are either bleached- or blacked-out depending on our choice of appearance mode.

In light mode, with default transparency, tool icons and text are clearly distinguished tonally, as are some controls including buttons and checkboxes. However, text entry fields are indistinguishable from the background, and there’s a general lack of demarcation, particularly between the controls and the list view below.

Oddly, dark mode outlines some controls better than light mode, but text entry fields and the list view below still lack demarcation.

Mario Guzmán:

The inconsistency of Apple Music’s toolbar in #macOSTahoe is annoying. Sometimes you get the blur, sometimes you get the solid toolbar, and other times you get nothing.

Chris Pirillo:

Ȩ̵̣̹̗̥̳̩͇͌̎̀̋̄̈́͌̚͜͠n̵̢̢̧̛̦̫̘̜̞̻͍̫̆̐̀̐̃j̷̢̢̨̦͔̲͓̻̬͕̼̥̲͎̏̒̈́͐̈̓́ȫ̶̦͎y̴͍͐̉̌̒ ̷̢̛̤̖̺͓͉͓͔̜̥̑̅͐̈́͑̒̈́͐̌̚͝ͅḀ̴̡̘̝̊̈́̐̎̈́͒̊̅p̸̬̮͇̘̞̣̣̤̹͚̪͍̤̰͋̽͌̄̆̆̎̈́̑̍̈́́̌͘͜͠p̴͎̼͖̥͈̞̼͊̓̈́̿͗̂̾̌̚l̸̢̨͔͕̦͉͖͓͕̦̰̠̝̾e̴̙̹͛͑̊͌̅̓͒̏͛̀̊̓̕'̴̛͇̫̙͋̓͑͐͌̂͜ͅś̵̡̺̬͇̠̺͎͗ ̵̟̭̠̦̺͎̯̪̪͎͔̩̜̺͛̆͊̈́̓̏́̀͑̏͒͘̚͝N̸̺̟̳̙̝̺̪͉͋̈́͐̃̑͋̓̂̅̾ͅe̷̩͑̑w̶̗̫̱̥͓̳͌̾̿̅̾̌̊̅̕ͅ ̶̢̧̼̘̼͆̏̐̈́͝M̶̢̻̘̻̱͚͙̭̚5̷̡̛͔͇̭͚̯̞̪̍́͋̀̀̈́͋̏͑͛͆͘͝!̷̥̭̠̗͋̂͐̓͑͋͆͑̐̇

Jeff Johnson:

The debate over Liquid Glass needs to be put into context. It’s not just an isolated incident. Apple has been systematically wrecking the Mac UI for many years: System Settings, Big Sur, Catalyst, etc. To evaluate Liquid Glass “on its own merits” is to ignore history.

Any theory you formulate that Apple has some unstated “good” reasons for its UI choices now has to account for ALL of the data, i.e., the historical data, the history of obviously bad UI choices.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

Statistically, nobody cares about Liquid Glass. There has been no user revolt, no viral TikToks, no nothing. Nobody’s even complaining about the Music app. On the flipside, nobody is proclaiming its virtues, either. It just kinda… is, and everybody is moving on with their lives.

The only thing anybody seems to care about is transparent & tinted icons — which a certain kind of person seems to love

Previously:

• On Liquid Glass
• How to Turn Liquid Glass Into a Solid Interface
• Tahoe Window Corners
• Liquid Glass: Content vs. Controls
• Liquid Glass Is Cracked
• iPadOS 26
• macOS Tahoe 26
• iOS 26
• Assorted Notes on Liquid Glass

Update (2025-10-17): JF Martin:

I started working on this website after Apple’s WWDC conference in early July with the following goals in mind.

1. Demonstrate that the beta cycle that follows the initial release at the WWDC conference doesn’t bring substantial improvements.

2. Demonstrate that Liquid Glass is a serious regression and that it will not age well over time.

3. Apple painted itself in the corner with Liquid Glass and the desire for UI-unification across its platforms.

Lots of screenshots and videos.

Why NetNewsWire Is Not a Web App

In the wake of Apple removing ICEBlock from the App Store, Brent Simmons talks about why he still thinks his veteran (and actively maintained) NetNewsWire feed reader app should remain a native application.

Part of the reason is cost - NetNewsWire is free these days (MIT licensed in fact) and the cost to Brent is an annual Apple developer subscription:

If it were a web app instead, I could drop the developer membership, but I’d have to pay way more money for web and database hosting. [...] I could charge for NetNewsWire, but that would go against my political goal of making sure there’s a good and free RSS reader available to everyone.

A bigger reason is around privacy and protecting users:

Second issue. Right now, if law enforcement comes to me and demands I turn over a given user’s subscriptions list, I can’t. Literally can’t. I don’t have an encrypted version, even — I have nothing at all. The list lives on their machine (iOS or macOS).

And finally it's about the principle of what a personal computing device should mean:

My computer is not a terminal. It’s a world I get to control, and I can use — and, especially, make — whatever I want. I’m not stuck using just what’s provided to me on some other machines elsewhere: I’m not dialing into a mainframe or doing the modern equivalent of using only websites that other people control.

Tags: apple, brent-simmons, macos, netnewswire, ios

I have a problem with news consumption. I want to stay informed about what’s happening in the world, but I don’t want it to absorb my entire day. More importantly, I’m tired of the slant. Every major news outlet seems to have an agenda, and I find myself spending more time filtering editorial bias than actually learning what happened.

So I’ve been looking for a way to get a neutral, comprehensive news briefing without the time sink. That’s a tall order, but Kagi’s new product Kagi News might actually deliver on it.

If you’re not familiar with Kagi, they’re the folks behind the paid search engine that doesn’t track you or show ads. I interviewed Kagi’s founder on Mac Power Users and found him to be an insightful and sincere guy. They’ve built a reputation for respecting users’ time and attention, so when they launched a news app, I paid attention.

Kagi News takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of an endless feed that updates constantly throughout the day, you get one comprehensive press review delivered at 12:00 UTC. That’s it. One daily briefing designed to be consumed in about five minutes.

The system reads thousands of community-curated RSS feeds from publications around the world and uses AI to synthesize them into digestible summaries. Each story includes a summary, highlights, key quotes, a timeline, context, and potential impact. If you want to dive deeper, there’s a one-tap link to the original source. It’s aggregation, not editorial.

I’ve been testing Kagi News and I’m cautiously optimistic. The once-daily update means I’m not constantly checking for new stories. I open the app in the morning, spend five minutes getting caught up, and move on with my day. That alone is a huge win.

If you want to stay informed without the doomscrolling, Kagi News is worth trying. It won’t replace in-depth reading on topics you care deeply about, but as a daily briefing to keep you generally informed, it’s solid.

The app is free to download and use. You can get it from the App Store or access it on the web.

The post Kagi News: A News Site That Respects Your Time appeared first on MacSparky.

Qualcomm (Hacker News):

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. today announced its agreement to acquire Arduino, a premier open-source hardware and software company. The transaction accelerates Qualcomm Technologies’ strategy to empower developers by facilitating access to its unmatched portfolio of edge technologies and products.

[…]

By combining Qualcomm Technologies’ leading‑edge processing, graphics, computer vision, and AI with Arduino’s simplicity, affordability, and community, the Company is poised to supercharge developer productivity across industries. Arduino will preserve its open approach and community spirit while unlocking a full‑stack platform for modern development—with Arduino UNO Q as the first step.

Andrew Cunningham:

Qualcomm didn’t disclose what it would pay to acquire Arduino. The acquisition also needs to be approved by regulators “and other customary closing conditions.”

The first fruit of this pending acquisition will be the Arduino Uno Q, a Qualcomm-based single-board computer with a Qualcomm Dragonwing QRB2210 processor installed. The QRB2210 includes a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 CPU and a Qualcomm Adreno 702 GPU, plus Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, and combines that with a real-time microcontroller “to bridge high-performance computing with real-time control.”

David Groom:

During a press briefing last night, their commitment to remaining agnostic (i.e. not removing support for other silicon) was made clear, although my question of “for how long?” did not have a definitive answer. Optimistically, the new resources, access to other acquisitions like Edge Impulse, and ability to leverage Qualcomm’s own IP (the €44 retail price tag on the Q was another clue before the announcement that Qualcomm had a particular interest in this board!) may indicate an exciting new era for the now two-decade-old project.

Rui Carmo:

Lots of mixed feelings. Qualcomm has been promoting quite a few new development kits over the past year or so, and of course Arduino has tremendous mindshare, but that was built upon pretty agnostic and far-reaching microcontroller support, so it will be interesting to see how this evolves.

Hernando Barragán:

The history of Arduino has been told by many people, and no two stories match. I want to clarify some facts around the history of Arduino, with proper supported references and documents, to better communicate to people who are interested, about Arduino’s origin.

Earlier this week Nilay Patel was working on the show notes for the episode of Decoder I guested on, and he texted me to ask if I could recall the time Steve Jobs sent some random developer a link to an article I wrote about the App Store. He wanted to cite it as an example of Daring Fireball being read, at high levels inside Apple, for a long time. I recalled the whole thing vaguely, as a “holy shit” moment, but not specifically. I hadn’t thought about it in years. But I was sure I could find it in the DF archives.

Turns out, I couldn’t find it, because, it turns out, in a fit of inexplicable modesty and humility, I never linked to it. (From a TechCrunch interview I did at the time, after the saga went somewhat viral: “When asked for his response to Steve’s shout-out, Gruber meekly grinned and said, ‘I just smiled.’”)

Here’s the rough timeline of events. On Thursday 8 April 2010, Apple updated the App Store guidelines to ban the use of Adobe’s then-new Flash-to-iPhone compiler. From my post on the change (which, to some degree, broke the news):

Prior to today’s release of the iPhone OS 4 SDK, section 3.3.1 of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement read, in its entirety:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.

In the new version of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement released by Apple today (and which developers must agree to before downloading the 4.0 SDK beta), section 3.3.1 now reads:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

My reading of this new language is that cross-compilers, such as the Flash-to-iPhone compiler in Adobe’s upcoming Flash Professional CS5 release, are prohibited. This also bans apps compiled using MonoTouch — a tool that compiles C# and .NET apps to the iPhone.

This was enormously controversial at the time, but I also thought largely misunderstood by developers. Later that same day, I published another piece articulating my take on Apple’s reasoning for the change, “Why Apple Changed Section 3.3.1”. From that article:

We’re still in the early days of the transition from the PC era to the mobile era. Right now, Apple is winning. There are other winners right now too — RIM is still growing, and Android has grown a ton in the past year.

The App Store platform could turn into a long-term de facto standard platform. That’s how Microsoft became Microsoft. At a certain point developers wrote apps for Windows because so many users were on Windows and users bought Windows PCs because all the software was being written for Windows. That’s the sort of situation that creates a license to print money.

That seems prescient. (The “license to print money” part — not the “RIM is still growing” part.)

So what Apple does not want is for some other company to establish a de facto standard software platform on top of Cocoa Touch. Not Adobe’s Flash. Not .NET (through MonoTouch). If that were to happen, there’s no lock-in advantage. If, say, a mobile Flash software platform — which encompassed multiple lower-level platforms, running on iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7, and BlackBerry — were established, that app market would not give people a reason to prefer the iPhone.

And, obviously, such a meta-platform would be out of Apple’s control. Consider a world where some other company’s cross-platform toolkit proved wildly popular. Then Apple releases major new features to iPhone OS, and that other company’s toolkit is slow to adopt them. At that point, it’s the other company that controls when third-party apps can make use of these features.

So from Apple’s perspective, changing the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement to prohibit the use of things like Flash CS5 and MonoTouch to create iPhone apps makes complete sense. I’m not saying you have to like this. I’m not arguing that it’s anything other than ruthless competitiveness. I’m not arguing (up to this point) that it benefits anyone other than Apple itself. I’m just arguing that it makes sense from Apple’s perspective — and it was Apple’s decision to make.

Two days later, on 10 April 2010, developer Greg Slepak emailed Steve Jobs to complain about the decision, citing negative sentiment on Hacker News (much has changed since 2010, but some things have not), writing:

Hi Steve,

Lots of people are pissed off at Apple’s mandate that applications be “originally written” in C/C++/Objective-C. If you go, for example, to the Hacker News homepage right now:

http://news.ycombinator.com/

You’ll see that most of the front page stories about this new restriction, with #1 being: “Steve Jobs Has Just Gone Mad” with (currently) 243 upvotes. The top 5 stories are all negative reactions to the TOS, and there are several others below them as well. Not a single positive reaction, even from John Gruber, your biggest fan.

I love your product, but your SDK TOS are growing on it like an invisible cancer.

Sincerely,
Greg

Jobs wrote back to Slepak (starting a brief exchange of emails):

We think John Gruber’s post is very insightful and not negative:

http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_apple_changed_section_331

Steve

Slepak posted the exchange to his blog, Tao Effect, and, well, as Jobs himself might have said, “Boom.” (This was a not infrequent thing at the time, where random users or developers would email Jobs, he’d write back with something pithy, and they’d post the exchange. It was kind of crazy — the most famous CEO in the world, just doing customer service email — and his emails were always sharp.)

So, what would you do if Steve Jobs was quoted in a viral blog post saying, “We think «Your Name Here»’s post is very insightful and not negative”? I decided to just sit there with a smug look on my face for a few days (which, arguably, isn’t all that different from what I do most days) and pretend that it was no big deal. I didn’t link to it or mention it on Daring Fireball, and as far as I can tell, I didn’t even tweet it. As best I can recall, I thought I should just play it cool. I mean of course my article about why Apple changed Section 3.3.1 was right. Why brag? Given that Steve Jobs was reading Daring Fireball, I didn’t want him to read a post from me acting like it was a big deal that he’d recommended a piece I wrote and agreed with it.

That was pretty stupid on my part. Or at least silly. My older perspective, today, is not to overthink such things. If something cool happens, I link to it. It seems ridiculous in hindsight that I didn’t link to Slepak’s post. And, I was thinking this week, if I couldn’t find a link to the overall story because I wrongly presumed I must have linked to it at the time, I wondered how many other readers, over the years, have gone hunting for that “very insightful and not negative” story and couldn’t find it because it was never mentioned or linked to on Daring Fireball.

So, today, I wrote the post I should have written back then, and backdated it to 11 April 2010.

To complete the timeline, April 2010 was a busy month. That same month saw HP buy Palm (in a last-ditch effort to remain relevant as the industry rapidly shifted from being PC-centric to mobile-centric), Apple acquire a company called “Siri”, and Gizmodo publish details on the iPhone 4 prototype some poor Apple engineer accidentally left in a bar. The original iPad had just shipped. And at the end of the month, Jobs published “Thoughts on Flash” on the Apple.com homepage. It’s kind of wild that was all in one month — scrolling down the monthly archive page for April 2010 is just one gem after another.

Re-reading “Thoughts on Flash” again now, for the umpteenth time, I’ll say this: I think Steve Jobs’s post was very insightful and not negative.