MacAnorak

MacAnorak

@macanorak.bsky.social

MacAnorak.com: An independent, UK-based site for essays and investigations on Apple, AI, privacy and wider tech, with the footnotes to prove it. By Alexander Cohen

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MacAnorak
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The iPhone Duo has barely been on sale for a day, and reports of cracked screens are already emerging. Durability tests raise more questions about its hinge, inner display and how the crease will age. It's too early to call it a design flaw. It's not too early to look closer.

macanorak.comiPhone Duo Day One: Cracked Screens, a Failed Durability Test and What We Still Don’t KnowCracked screens, jammed hinges and a crease that deepens. It’s too early to call it a design flaw, but the iPhone Duo is already raising questions.
MacAnorak
@macanorak.bsky.social

Did you own an iPhone mini? If Apple had sold it as "the one-handed iPhone" instead of "the smallest 5G phone", would you have bought one? The iPhone mini had the right idea and the wrong pitch. The iPhone Duo might be getting the pitch right. macanorak.com/big-things-c...

macanorak.comBig Things Come in Small Packages: What the iPhone Duo Learns From the iPhone miniThe iPhone mini had the right idea and the wrong pitch. The iPhone Duo might be getting the pitch right.
MacAnorak
@macanorak.bsky.social

The government's new AI chatbot had a Minecraft easter egg. On launch day, asked about the game and it produced a 1,800-word bureaucratic rewrite of Minecraft's "End Poem". I asked it today and it says it only helps with government services. Here's what happened in between:

macanorak.comAmerica.gov's Chatbot Contradicted Trump. Then It Stopped Talking Politics.Within hours of launch, the White House's new chatbot was refusing questions it had just answered. It also had a Minecraft easter egg.
MacAnorak
@macanorak.bsky.social

I bought the Studio Display XDR twice because I thought I was going mad. Both stuttered when scrolling at 120Hz with my M5 Pro MacBook Pro. A stranger's message and a menu bar app later, here's what's actually going on, and the fix. macanorak.com/studio-displ...

macanorak.comStudio Display XDR Scrolling Stutter on the M5 Pro MacBook Pro: What's Going On, and a WorkaroundScrolling at 120Hz on the Studio Display XDR is choppy for some M5 Pro owners. Low GPU clock speeds appear to be part of the problem.
MacAnorak
@macanorak.bsky.social

Norway is the first major country to propose a temporary ban on smart glasses in places like parks, beaches and schools. The part that matters for Apple is that it hasn't decided which devices are covered, and "other body-worn devices" that record or run AI are on the table.

MacAnorak
@macanorak.bsky.social

Meta's Muse logo looks like a snake. Make of that what you will, but a serpent offering you something tempting does have a certain history. The whole product is built to tempt you into handing over as much of your data as possible. Don't fall for it.

MacAnorak
@macanorak.bsky.social

Meta’s Muse has a cute pink mascot. OpenAI’s Dots are colourful little blobs. They look like children’s toys. They’re also increasingly capable of accessing your data and acting on your behalf. New MacAnorak piece about why I’m increasingly suspicious of cute AI agents.

MacAnorak
@macanorak.bsky.social

The iMac G4's design was inspired by actual sunflowers, growing in Steve Jobs' garden. Apple's rumoured HomePad reportedly borrows the same design language, to make the user the central focus.

MacAnorak
@macanorak.bsky.social

A UK minister says protecting children online is just a "staging post" to "a very active interventionist state, policing and regulating the online space." I take the child-safety case seriously. But how far down this road do we want to go?

MacAnorak
@macanorak.bsky.social

So here I was very excited about the upcoming iPhone Duo... then I took the case off my iPhone 17 Pro for a few days, and it suddenly feels like having a brand new phone. It's beautiful. Try it.

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