512 Pixels

This week on Connected:

With the dust settling from Apple’s event, the guys score their picks, covering the iPhone Air, 17, and 17 Pro, as well as new AirPods and Apple Watches.

Identity 4 has had a Macintosh Plus for years, but was unhappy with its bulk and heat generation, so they did something wild:

I ought to make a rack-mounted version of this computer so it can fit cleanly in my studio rack cabinets along with all my other conveniently packaged gear. I will even give it a sleek look and a clever name, something like Racintosh Plus… Hahaha yeah that’s pretty funny.

The amount of work that went into this is really something else.

Come for some interesting tidbits, stay for Joz throwing the phone across the studio and two guys trying to bend it:

Myke Hurley, writing at The Enthusiast:

After yesterday’s Apple event, I came away feeling this may have been one of the most solid overall lineups in a very long time. Each of the models has a compelling set of features, and I think this is a strong upgrade year — even if you’re coming from the iPhone 16 generation. So I wanted to make the case for each, to highlight why I think this year is so strong.

When I saw this floating around, it was hard to believe that Caitlin Huston wasn’t writing for The Onion, but here I am, linking to a very real story at The Hollywood Reporter:

Inception Point AI is attempting to do just that, as the company builds a stable of AI talent to host podcasts, and eventually become broader influencers across social media, literature and more. Amid the high costs for producing narrative podcasts and pricy, short-term contracts for popular hosts, the idea here is being able to own, scale and control the talent (unlike those off-the-cuff humans) and produce shows at a minimal cost.

“We believe that in the near future half the people on the planet will be AI, and we are the company that’s bringing those people to life,” said CEO Jeanine Wright, who was previously chief operating officer of podcasting company Wondery, which has recently had to reorganize under the changing podcast landscape.

The company is able to produce each episode for $1 or less, depending on length and complexity, and attach programmatic advertising to it. This generally means that if about 20 people listen to that episode, the company made a profit on that episode, without factoring in overhead.

If that was not enough nonsense for you, this might push you over the edge:

The team is in the midst of navigating the ethics around creating these AI personalities as the technology advances. Each host now identifies themselves as being AI at the top of the episodes, and they’ve stayed away from having the hosts invent their own backstories, for now, but that could come. Wright says she could eventually imagine having hosts chat with listeners, or sing “Happy Birthday” to them, but there’s wariness about diving in too deep.

“I am not going to create a personality that somebody has a deep relationship with,” said William Corbin, co-founder and CTO of the company. He added that the company does not do hard news at this point, but Wright says they might in the future.

In addition to flooding the podcast landscape with AI garbage, this company doesn’t seem to understand how destructive these things can be. I can’t wait for the AI bubble to burst on companies like Inception Point.

David and I hopped on Zoom about 90 minutes after today’s event to talk about the new iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods. I love recording these post-event episodes, and this one is a banger.

Andrew Cunningham:

If you’re buying one of the new iPhones or the other hardware that Apple announced today, your new devices will ship with Apple’s latest operating system updates already installed. But if you’re not looking to spend a bunch of money on Apple’s latest and greatest, the new updates will land on Apple’s other supported devices on September 15.

Apple’s saving tech blogs a lot of work by making its own supercut of today’s event:

AirPods Pro 3

Apple Watch Series 11 & SE 3

Apple Watch Ultra 3

iPhone 17

iPhone Air Specs & Cameras

COSMIC ORANGE IPHONE PRO GIVE IT TO MEEEEEEEEE

iPhone 17 Pro & Pro Max

MarsEdit 5 is a major upgrade to the preeminent Mac app for editing WordPress, Micro.blog, Tumblr, and many other types of blogs.

The new microposting feature makes it as easy to post to your own blog as it is to post to social media. When MarsEdit 5 is running on your Mac, just press a configurable global keyboard shortcut, write out your latest thoughts, and instantly publish to your blog.

MarsEdit supports editing posts in rich or plain text, and the latest update is especially great for Markdown fans. Now when you’re writing Markdown in plain text mode, MarsEdit applies live, beautiful syntax highlighting to make it easier to focus separately on the content and style of your posts.

MarsEdit is used by top bloggers to maximize their productivity and enjoyment of blogging. It’s great for pros like John Gruber of Daring Fireball, and yours truly, while also being simple enough to remove the mystery of blogging for everyday folks who just want to share their thoughts with the world.

MarsEdit also supports for publishing to Mastodon! Now you can use the same app you use to write and publish to your main blog, to write and publish to your Mastodon microblog. Check out the announcement at this link.

One app, limitless publishing opportunities.

Download MarsEdit today, and see what all the hype is about. It’ll make you a better blogger!

On this feedback episode, Sparks and I talk about backing up iCloud data, read-it-later services, automation trigger conflicts, travel tech, converting Markdown, the No List, and a lot more.

On the heels of a predecessor saying otherwise, acting NASA administrator and The Real World alumni Sean Duffy says NASA will beat China to the moon, according to Julia Jester and Denise Chow at NBC News:

During an internal employee town hall Thursday, Duffy warned of “letting safety be the enemy of progress” when it comes to winning the new space race, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by NBC News.

“We are safety driven, and we should be safety driven, and FAA and DOT, we’re the same, but sometimes we can let safety be the enemy of making progress,” said Duffy, who also serves as Transportation Secretary.

“We have to be able to take some leaps. We have to be able to jump forward in our innovation and drive this mission, and there’s always a balance to that, but we can’t side on the side of doing nothing because we’re afraid of any risk,” he told NASA employees alongside newly named NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya.

A spokesperson for NASA said the agency remains committed to safety.

There have been times in NASA’s past where the “safety vs. progress” balance went too far in the wrong direction, and they usually end badly.