Spyglass - Unblocking My Brain

As of yesterday we’re a month into Spyglass and I’m having fun. This will mark my 60th post in that span (yes, I know you haven't seen/read them all, as very few have been emailed out – yes, I'm working on the finalized paid/free model which will sort that confusion out!). Sort of wild how the content can flow and fly once you're in the swing of things (even with travel). And those reps have me feeling like my old writer self again. As if I‘ve awoken from a slumber and shaken off some cobwebs. It’s good to be back.

I'm someone who has always found writing to be a vital outlet because it helps me think and synthesize my own thoughts on topics. When I can't write, it's like all the thoughts are still there, in my head, but swirling around, colliding into each other in a way that causes confusion and a decided lack of clarity. So thank you.

Briefly...

Figma's CEO on Life After the Failed Adobe Deal – I found Dylan Field's answers to be both thoughtful and honest. Including about their severance offer to employees post deal collapse. It's obviously a complicated situation, but it sounds like Figma did the correct things in continuing to push forward on projects internally while the acquisition was reviewed. And now they find themselves in a potentially more interesting place thanks to AI and, yes, the $1B breakup fee. 🎨

The EU Had Nothing to Do With Apple Supporting RCS – Good post from John Gruber which severs the dots some had connected between Apple's surprising upcoming support of the RCS messaging standard and EU regulation – which is responsible for plenty of other Apple changes – and instead connects them directly to China. A far more effective regulator, for better or worse. 📲

Inside Disney’s Shadow Succession Game – A look behind the scenes at some of the jockeying for who will replace Bob Iger as CEO of Disney. If – and I do mean if – he ever steps down. With the ship seemingly righted last quarter, you have to imagine he's finally getting closer to at least teeing up that successor – for real this time. And it sure sounds like it's still Dana Walden in the pole position. But there are others in the mix and the current chaos at ABC is helping some and hurting others. 🐭

U.S. Craft Lands on the Moon for the First Time Since 1972 – I'm not sure what is more wild: that this happened, or that it took 51 years for the U.S. to get back to the moon. It has been so long that this article almost reads like fictional prose from For All Mankind (a great show on Apple TV+, btw) with all the talk about private companies now squarely in the driver's seat for the next space race. “Houston, Odysseus has found its new home.” 🚀

My Missives...

Xbox (Every) Where?

The Verge had at least four articles focused on Microsoft’s Xbox announcement last week – there’s a joke in here somewhere about one for each of the whopping four games they’re bringing to other consoles – and upon reading each one, I still can’t quite parse what on Earth the strategy is

Spyglass •M.G. Siegler

It's not entirely clear what Microsoft's Xbox strategy is now...

True Enough

❗Warning: Spoilers ahead for True Detective: Night Country I loved, loved, loved the first season of True Detective.1 The second season was, as everyone knows, pretty bad, despite a great cast. The third season was better, but nothing that I can honestly say I remember too much about. The

Spyglass •M.G. Siegler

Some thoughts on True Detective: Night Country...

There and Back Again, a San Francisco Tale

Tech Leaders Fled San Francisco During the Pandemic. Now, They’re Coming Back. Founders and investors who moved to Miami and elsewhere are returning to a boom in artificial intelligence and an abundance of tech talent. Wall Street Journal Berber Jin & Angel Au-Yeung San Francisco is back! In 3 to

Spyglass •M.G. Siegler

San Francisco is back, before it's gone again...

Vision Pro’s Inconvenient Truth

If you start me up If you start me up, I’ll never stop. The Rolling Stones song, incidentally the one used to launch Windows 95, is stuck in my head. Because it’s what I keep thinking about while trying to start using the Vision Pro. And I do mean “trying”

Spyglass •M.G. Siegler

One real problem for Apple's Vision Pro starts right from the get-go...

Quoteable...

“If you assume that computers never get any faster, you might come to the conclusion we need 14 different planets and three different galaxies and four more suns to fuel all this. But obviously computer architecture continues to advance.”

-- NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang, who has obviously had a hell of a week, with his company becoming the latest $2T company by market cap on the back of wild earnings. NVIDIA is now the 4th most valuable company in the world (3rd, if you don't count Saudi Aramco, which is within striking distance anyway).

Some Thoughts On...

🥽 Anecdotes on Vision Pro return concerns

📺 Vudu Fandango at Home's awful branding

🪩 Apple & Epic dancing...

🏔️ Paramount and Peacock potentially merging...

⚽️ Apple's New, Sudden 'Sports' App

🤖 Intel's turnaround and NVIDIA's surge

🏈 The Return of EA's College Football game

🤏 An awesome new design paradigm for mobile

🏀 A bit more on Apple's new 'Sports' app and why it exists

🎬 Hollywood hysteria over AI

Quickly...

• Kottke.org turns 19 year old, one of the many inspirations for my own blogging. Also, as someone who struggles to keep plants alive, love his little aside.
• If you haven't watched Jon Stewart dismantle Tucker Carlson yet, you really should. No, not the clip from 20 years ago. Good to have him back (not Tucker).
• Speaking of Apple TV+ shows, Masters of the Air is apparently the biggest one yet for Apple. Not a huge surprise given the talent involved, but it is really good so far – the first show I'm watching on (in?) the Vision Pro!
• Meanwhile, as expected, MLS content shot spatially is coming to the Vision Pro soon – sadly, not live, it's highlights from last season's playoffs.
  • Also, those special cameras may have been present at the NBA All-Star Game dunk contest...
  • Just a guess that these won't be able to be played on the Meta Quest headsets, which "regular" spatial videos apparently now can...
• The brightest object yet found in space is the result of a black hole which created a quasar which emits light that is 500 trillion times more intense than that of our sun – 20,000 times as intense as our entire galaxy. So bright that if placed in the center of the Milky Way, it would never again turn night on Earth.
• Sam Mendes is directing four Beatles biopics – one focused on each member of the band, with cooperation from each of the families/estates. There's apparently some unique way he's going to release them too.
• In other British content news, Downton Abbey is apparently coming back again, but not in the form of a third movie, but a seventh season! Big news in the Siegler household.
• In other TV news, I didn't know we're getting a Blade Runner 2099, a sequel to Blade Runner 2049, in the form of an Amazon Prime TV show.
• It sounds like the second Nintendo Switch – come on "Super Switch" – may be delayed until early 2025. That is a long time between generations...
• The U.S. stock market may be roaring again, but its lull from all-time highs is nothing compared to Japan, where they just reached the heights of 1989!

The $2,500 "Airless" Basketball

I mean, this looks amazing, but what's crazy is how it sounds – that is, silent.