Yes, I was wondering about this. Old iPads running iPad OS 15 received updates last month. So even an iPad Air 2 from 2014 could receive updates in 2026.
The big issue with old iPads though is that apps drop support for older iPad OS versions. Usually their older versions do keep working, though.
I was using poetry pretty happily before uv came along. I’d probably go back.
Note that uv is fast because — yes, Rust, but also because it doesn’t have to handle a lot of legacy that pip does[1], and some smart language independent design choices.
If uv became unavailable, it’d suck but the world would move on.
Like, the whole point of open source is that this thread is not a thing. The whole point is "if this software is taken on by a malevolent dictator for life, we'll just fork it and keep going with our own thing." Or like if I'm evaluating whether to open-source stuff at a startup, the question is "if this startup fails to get funding and we have to close up shop, do I want the team to still have access to these tools at my next gig?" -- there are other reasons it might be in the company's interests, like getting free feature development or hiring better devs, but that's the main reason it'd be in the employees' best interests to want to contribute to an open-source legacy rather than keep everything proprietary.
The leadership and product direction work are at least as hard as the code work. Astral/uv has absolutely proven this, otherwise Python wouldn't be a boneyard for build tools.
Projects - including forks - fail all the time because the leadership/product direction on a project goes missing despite the tech still being viable, which is why people are concerned about these people being locked up inside OpenAI. Successfully forking is much easier said than done.
I had a lot of trouble convincing people that a correct Python package manager was even possible. uv proved it was possible and won people over with speed.
I had a sketched out design for a correct package manager in 2018 but when I talked to people about it I couldn't get any interest in it. I think the brilliant idea that uv had that I missed was that it can't be written in Python because if is written in Python developers are going to corrupt its environment sooner or later and you lose your correctness.
I think that now that people are used to uv it won't be that hard to develop a competitor and get people to switch.
Liquid Glass is Apple’s Windows Vista. They had a ton of fun with Vista in their “switch” ads, if the Windows team were in better shape they could have a field day just screenshotting Tahoe on Social Media. Lucky they’re distracted with their own challenges.
Liquid Glass does have some good points, but it feels like someone turned in C- level work.
I see the Vista comparison a lot but I'm not sure I agree with it. I never thought Vista was that ugly, I thought it was more most of the computer hardware people were buying at the time just wasn't capable of running those visual effects (and I recall it was pretty buggy too)
It had a glassy aesthetic but the similarity doesn't go much further than that description. They didn't make all the buttons into glass blobs floating on top of the content with distracting warping effects; the window chrome was still generally separated from the content.
The EU’s tech regulation has always been a bit “off”, like they don’t really understand tech or how to encourage improved behaviour. Eg cookie popups, those are a blight and it’s the EU’s fault — to the point they’re working to roll them back[1] after all these years, because informed consent is impossible at the scale at which cookie popups hit users.
Then there was the whole “pay or okay” controversy around paywalls or tracking ads.
My observation is: saying no to tech rarely works. Building a more compelling alternative does. But the EU would rather regulate than build.
I do get that there are use cases for actual hardware bound keys for enterprise settings. But having non-exportable credentials (effectively non-ownable) is not acceptable in a consumer setting. This is a thinly veiled attempt at strengthening platform lock-in.
Look, the spec says you can't export the keys to a file! Too bad, go re-register your 120 websites if you want to stop using iCloud/Google!
Last I checked, they were working on interop so you can move your keys from one provider to another without creating CSV files or equivalent[1].
However from my PoV — if the user or an open source project wants to create CSV files, they should be free to do so. That’s part of putting the user in control.
For me, KeePass XC is the canary in the coal mine that helps me figure out what FIDO’s priorities are. I don’t have a problem with crypto around passkeys. They’re great. The non-functionals though (including shipping passkeys without good import/export) are a bit of a mess.
If you work with macOS or iOS users, you won’t be super surprised to see lots of “curly quotes”. They’re part of base macOS, no extra software required (I cannot remember if they need to be switched on or they’re on by default), and of course mass-market software like Word will create “smart” quotes on Mac and Windows.
I ended up implementing smart quotes on an internal blogging platform because I couldn’t bear "straight quotes". It’s just a few lines of code and makes my inner typography nerd twitch less.
I’ve been using em-dashes since high school — publishing the school paper and everything. I remain slightly bemused by people discovering em-dashes for the first time thanks to LLMs.
Also, “em-dashes are something only LLMs use” comes perilously close to “huh, proper grammar, must’ve run this by a grammar checker”.
The big issue with old iPads though is that apps drop support for older iPad OS versions. Usually their older versions do keep working, though.
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