2025-05-10 05:30:00
John Siracusa: Apple Turnover
From virtue comes money, and all other good things. This idea rings in my head whenever I think about Apple. It’s the most succinct explanation of what pulled Apple from the brink of bankruptcy in the 1990s to its astronomical success today. Don’t try to make money. Try to make a dent in the universe. Do that, and the money will take care of itself.
There's a famous saying that "what got you here won't get you there", which can be very good advice for both individuals and companies. As an individual employee, if I want to do more and become more successful, I can't just do what I've always done. I need to either do more or find ways to be more impactful. Similarly, companies need to adjust how they operate if they want to advance to the next level. I could definitely see why an Apple executive would think that it's naive for the Apple of 2025 to act like the Apple of the 90s and 2000s, and I can't argue with them.
The challenge is that "what got them here" is what made so many people like me love the company. We don't want Apple to change, and we can only raise an eyebrow at the quote, "there," that the company is trying to get to now. What do you do once you've sold an iPhone to basically every human being on planet Earth who could possibly want one? What's the next "there" for the company that's created the most successful consumer product of all time?
Here's what I asked nearly a year ago in Is this the slow decline of the Apple “cult”?
You don’t need Daring Fireball, Panic, ATP, Birchtree, or anyone else like us to be massively financially successful (just look at Microsoft and Samsung), but I do find it a bit sad to see Apple stroll down the road to being a totally heartless mega corp like the rest. Why does Apple feel it’s worth trashing their relationship with creators and developers so that they can take 30% of the money I pay an up-and-coming creator who is trying to make rent in time each month? This isn’t a hypothetical, I genuinely want to know. Is the goal to turn into Microsoft, because this is how you turn into Microsoft.
Microsoft has a great business, and they even do some really great stuff, but they're a different thing than Apple was on its rise.
Like I said in that piece last year, I still think Apple makes a lot of great products that are best-in-class and I'll continue enjoying for years to come, but the vibe has definitely shifted. I've been using Apple products since 1995, and Siracusa has been here at least a decade longer than me. Neither of us are prone to hyperbole "for the clicks", so I think it's notable when people like us are like, "hmm, things haven't been like this before." But like John, I don't think all is lost.
It’s springtime, and I’m choosing to believe in new life. I swear it’s not too late.
2025-05-09 03:00:09
Nintendo's fiscal year just ended on March 31, and their annual results report has some goodies in there I thought were worth shouting out.
First up, the company made a lot less money than in the previous year, with 30% lower revenue and 46% lower profits. As someone who typically follows the financial results of major tech companies that have relatively stable revenue, it's interesting to see another company that is undeniably successful, but has rather large swings from year to year. This drop is, of course, explained by the switch being so deep into its life cycle, and the pain is certainly buffeted by the fact that their 2026 expectations are absolutely through the roof for how well the Switch 2 is going to help them (63% YoY growth).
It's also interesting to see they just lay out plainly how many Nintendo Switch 2s they expect to sell in the coming year, which is 15 million. Based on how it's gone so far, it really sounds like they can manufacture 15 million devices in the next 12 months.
Another thing I found really interesting was that for every full year that the OLED Switch has been on the market, it has been the top-selling model in the lineup. I thought this was notable since pretty recently it also came to my attention that the unit sale numbers of the iPhone are dominated by Pro models as well. For a lot of tech products, the entry-level model often is the top seller, but it is interesting to see in some categories, the most expensive models actually also move the most units.
I'm also always interested in how well physical media is doing compared to digital game sales, and how those numbers may differ from platform to platform. Nintendo reports that about 53% of their software sales are digital. Meanwhile, I don't think Microsoft and Sony report these numbers specifically, but the data we do have from reporters like Mat Piscatella indicates PS5 owners buy 78% of their games digitally, and Xbox owners buy 91% of their games digitally.
Still on the physical versus digital thing. It's expected, but also fun to see that the percentage of software sales that are digital drops significantly in the quarter that includes Christmas. It just feels so much better to give someone a physical game than to give them an envelope with a download code.
The most important thing for me is that Nintendo seems to continue to have a healthy business, which is just great to see. Like any company, I have my beef with them, but I think the world is better having Nintendo in it.
2025-05-08 22:29:23
The gang gets to work defending their Mac login items. Who has the most minimal startup? Who's got the craziest apps? This episode has more new apps mentioned in any episode of Comfort Zone ever!
2025-05-08 08:41:00
My friend and Comfort Zone cohost Niléane recently recommended the series Jet Lag: The Game, and it's become my new obsession recently. I think the show is so fun, and Sam, Adam, and Ben have such a great dynamic. The show is on YouTube, but it's also on Nebula with early episode releases. If you're looking for a good place to start, I highly recommend the latest season, which features one of my favorite internet creators, Tom Scott.
Anyway, this is a long way to say Nebula released their own font today called Nebula Sans and it looks pretty nice and is totally free if you're looking for something new.
2025-05-08 08:05:00
In three minutes, I had that script built with ChatGPT. I could see it, it's this bash thing, it does this thing, and authenticates with the Google, and it's great! The malleability of macOS is now, I think, giving it in the age of these LLMs, giving it like another breadth of like superpower life that iOS and iPadOS simply don't have access to.
This really resonates with me. The web and more open platforms like macOS are where innovation is happening right now, it's not on locked down platforms like iOS and iPadOS. Yes, you can use ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini on an iPad, but you've getting a neutered version of them. These are technically amazing tools, but they're limited to being as powerful as Apple allows them to be. Criag and I have used LLMs to build new tooling for our Macs to make our lives easier, but that's literally impossible on iOS and iPadOS until Apple adds the tooling to make it possible.
As I wrote last year, some platforms are allowed to evolve massively through the innovation of everyone, while other platforms make you hope one company adds the feature you want at their developer conference.
2025-05-08 07:19:58
When is the computer doing too much for you? Has our line for this moved over time?