I'm biased because I develop Vision Pro apps but, it's wild to see how the rumors build upon rumors and then people just talk about them like they're facts.
Last year's rumor was that the platform was abandoned. And then WWDC happened and there was a ton of software investment in the platform. New content announced like the NBA live-streaming immersive etc.
Apple themselves never announced a Vision Pro "air" — that was also a rumor. And at the time that rumor surfaced, the claim was that the Pro had been halted so they could focus on the Air.
Now the rumor is that the Air has been halted, but we're supposedly going to see an updated Pro with an m5 chip, etc...
Hard to live through what social media has done to society over the past decade without at least entertaining the idea that the higher barrier to entry of being online was maybe not a bad thing.
I wouldn't agree that the higher barrier to entry was a good thing, but I also would say that the barrier to entry was actually pretty low, with angelfire, geocities, etc. Dreamweaver + other wysiwyg, and the lack of a necessity of a giant js framework with bundling and tree-shaking.
The problem is that the barrier to entry got too low, so it was necessary for large companies to interpose themselves between producers and audiences, starting with google (becoming something other than a grep for the web, and instead becoming the editor and main income source for the web) and expanding outwards into facebook.
Remember that we started with walled gardens like AOL and Compuserve, and the web (and the end of those companies) was people desperate to break out of them. Now people have been herded in again since the indexers bought the ad companies.
I don't disagree but notice how it's about the second decade of Web 2.0, not the first one. Profit-driven algorithms is a separate era in its own right. I.e. you can't blame the skyscrapers themselves for your shitty life, you just need to demand more regulation.
yes, for sure! It was a different time. Early website authors were pioneers. They had something worth sharing and they thought it worthwhile enough to learn some coding. Nobody was trying to push ads and monetize, and there was no ubiquitous tracking or cookies
If we're talking about the internet before Eternal September, maybe, but putting up a site on Geocities or Tripod or using Dreamweaver certainly was not a high barrier to entry.
My parents worked and had most of their friends in Manhattan when I was a little kid — this was back in the 1980s. I have vivid memories to this day of passing the World Trade Center and being completely overwhelmed by the scale of it.
Most high rises taper, but these towers just went straight up as rectangles. And the effect was almost dizzying. They were just so tall.
I used to love drawing the NYC skyline as a kid — such an iconic thing. New York used to be much grittier, but I loved the energy of it as a kid. Was an incredible thing to experience.
I just visited NYC for the first time a few months ago, and had the most amazing time, one hell of a city and I can’t wait to get back.
I could ramble for hours about all the things I loved about the trip, but one of the things that stuck out was all the young kids taking the subway by themselves or in small packs of friends out pretty late etc. They all seemed so much more street smart and independent than my own similar aged kids (we live in a quiet neighborhood in Seattle). I also grew up fairly sheltered in the suburbs where I had very little exposure to the “real world” as they say…
I’d be fascinated to hear more about what it’s like to grow up in such a massive city.
The subway systems is one of the greatest socioeconomic equalizers in NYC. During rush hour, you'll share a subway car with a homeless man, an ER doctor wearing scrubs, a fashion model wearing YSL, a finance bro, and a food delivery worker. It's an amazing city for people watching.
Vibescape: an immersive meditation app. This one is currently featured at the top of the App Store, yay! Launched as a day one app on Vision Pro, new update has what I think is the best immersive environment I've made yet that comes alive with music: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vibescape/id6476827678
I find that test-driven advocates border on a religious way of thinking about software development, and I also find it sucks joy out of coding.
Does that mean I don't think tests are valuable – no, that's not what I'm saying. There are critical pieces of code where testing will bring you more joy because you'll catch very bad bugs that would have really ruined your day.
But as a way of constructing an application, it just has always felt really dull and uninspiring.
I know people will vehemently disagree with this. But, sometimes you gotta write the novel once to know what story you're telling. Then you can go back, edit, put tests in the critical places.
As someone who grew up in the 80s/90s, this brings back memories because these types of placemats were still being used in a lot of places. And it's funny because today we talk about "iPad kids" and I'm reminded that staring at a mid-century designed map on a placement was basically the entirety of "entertainment" provided on the very rare occasion we went out to eat somewhere.
Not to mention one of the most ridiculously stacked casts — it's incredible how many greats are in it. And it's one of my favorite hacking movies of all time.
His performance in Spy Game is really great — recently rewatched it. The way he captured so well the idea that younger generations think they've got it all figured out — but the old hats still have some tricks up their sleeve.
They really don't make them like Robert Redford anymore — truly one of my favorite actors who could elevate anything he was in. 89 is an impressive run — especially given how sharp he was right up til the end.
If you've never seen his movies, you can basically pick them at random and you'll find a good one. But All the President's Men is one of my favorite films of all time.
I wanted one of these so bad as a kid. Obviously the mystique was supercharged by their use in VFX, and how filmmakers would sneak them into various shots in movies. Wrote to SGI and they sent some brochures including for this machine. Printed on beautiful heavy stock. Very sad I lost it over the years.
What's amazing is how companies would invest in a whole fleet of these. You'd hear about this or that game development company ordering one for everyone on their team for a cool million or ten. In 90s dollars.
Last year's rumor was that the platform was abandoned. And then WWDC happened and there was a ton of software investment in the platform. New content announced like the NBA live-streaming immersive etc.
Apple themselves never announced a Vision Pro "air" — that was also a rumor. And at the time that rumor surfaced, the claim was that the Pro had been halted so they could focus on the Air.
Now the rumor is that the Air has been halted, but we're supposedly going to see an updated Pro with an m5 chip, etc...