This week on the show, Myke and I discuss a new iOS app named Cassette, using Water Lock on the Apple Watch, the state of CarPlay in iOS 26, and new rumors about an entry-level MacBook.
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Research Shows High Nitrogen Dioxide Concentration Levels Around xAI’s Memphis Site
If you’ve been keeping up with my writing about xAI in Memphis, you’ll know that the company is relying on natural gas turbines to generate power to keep Grok up and running. Those turbines have been at the center of national coverage, and the issue isn’t going away, with xAI and its partners set to use turbines to power the company’s new data center, set to come online at any point.
Cassette⇢
Devin Davies has a new app out, and it’s fantastic.
Cassette is in the App Store now. I was delighted when I saw it in TestFlight; I suspect the $7.99 to unlock all of its features will fly out of your hands.
CarPlay’s Messages App for iOS 26 is Bad
I’ve been running iOS 26 for a while now, and there’s something that has been bugging me. The Messages app in CarPlay is a disaster:
I took some time to edit my friends and family out of this screenshot, but the layout and conversation names are exactly as they appear in real life.
Here are some of my issues:
- It’s great that CarPlay’s Messages app now respects pinned conversations, but displaying them in anything but the 3-across grid from iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and macOS breaks muscle memory in the one context where muscle memory is the most important.
- Truncated names look terrible. I understand it on the Apple Watch, but even on the 7-inch screen in my Tacoma, there should be room to see first and last names. Making the favorites larger — and preserving their order — would help fix this.1
- The unread badges should be in a consistent location. CarPlay shows badges for favorites to the upper-right of the image, whereas conversations in the list below have them on the left. This is something done only in CarPlay; every other Messages app shows unread dots to the left of the conversation name.
- The “Messages” label at the top of the screen is off-centered.
All of this adds up to an interface that feels mostly forgotten. Messages should be consistent across platforms, and I hope Apple takes some time to readdress this before shipping iOS 26 this fall. Right now it looks like an Android phone app that got installed on a tablet.
Elon Musk Promises to Sue Apple Over Grok’s App Store Ranking⇢
Jess Weatherbed, reporting for The Verge:
Elon Musk says that his artificial intelligence company xAI “will take immediate legal action” against Apple for allegedly manipulating its App Store rankings to the advantage of rival AI apps. In a series of X posts on Monday night, Musk suggested that Apple was “playing politics” by not placing either X or xAI’s Grok chatbot in the App Store’s list of recommended iOS apps, and that he had no choice but to file a lawsuit.
Sponsor: DEVONthink: Store, Organize, and Work the Smart Way⇢
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DEVONthink 4.0 Copernicus 1 is here, and it’s designed to work with you, not against you. Its AI integration is incredibly useful — it can analyze your documents, write summaries, suggest tags, and you can even create AI-based automations for specific tasks.
Making a Floppy Disk from Scratch⇢
polymatt’s newest project blew my mind:
MPU 809: Exploring Kagi with CEO Vladimir Prelovac⇢
Kagi is a search engine and browser company offering an alternative to products offered by the tech giants. This week, its CEO Vladimir Prelovac talks with David and Stephen about what Kagi offers its customers.
Memphis Light, Gas and Water Serving as Backup Power Provider for xAI’s Colossus 2
MLGW CEO Doug McGowen was recently interviewed on our local PBS affiliate about the utility company’s role in xAI’s newest Memphis data center, as reported by The Daily Memphian, whose CEO interviewed McGowen:
McGowen said the company had initially discussed with MLGW a 1.1 gigawatt load for the project — or the equivalent of 33% of MLGW on a peak day. He said MLGW does not have that amount of power available, and no utility nationwide does either.
Apollo 13’s Jim Lovell Dead at 97⇢
Richard Goldstein at The New York Times with some sad news for fans of the early space program or amazing stories in general:
James A. Lovell Jr., the commander of the three-man Apollo 13 spacecraft that survived a near catastrophic explosion as it approached the moon in April 1970, before safely returning to Earth in an extraordinary rescue operation, died on Thursday in Lake Forest, Ill. He was 97.
His death was confirmed by his daughter-in-law, Darice Lovell. He lived in Lake Forest.
Microsoft Releasing Grok in Private Preview⇢
Tom Warren’s headline is incredible:
Microsoft is cautiously onboarding Grok 4 following Hitler concerns
Connected 564: Would Snell as Sweet⇢
Jason joins Stephen and Myke to talk about hard drives, window management, and charts.