Om Malik (2023):

One of the key advantages of MacWhisper, as it utilizes the Whisper technology, is its superior accuracy in transcriptions compared to other services I have used. I was an early adopter of Rev.com and eventually switched to Otter.ai, for which I paid approximately $100/year. However, I have since canceled my subscription.

[…]

After comparing the audio transcripts from MacWhisper and Otter, I found that while Otter’s formatting is superior, there is hardly any difference in the transcriptions. I started with the free model, which was sufficient for my needs, and eventually upgraded to the large models. Nowadays, I primarily use MacWhisper to transcribe my voice memos, which I then import into Lex.Page.

Bon Adamson:

Whisper, which is made by OpenAI, has the distinct advantage of allowing you to transcribe audio in almost any language you may ever need to. For the time being, Otter can only transcribe English. The benefits of better accuracy and accurate punctuation that the service already holds over Siri hold up across other languages as well. If you’re looking to transcribe non-English audio accurately, Whisper is definitely the best option available on Mac.

Dan Moren:

By taking advantage of OpenAI’s Whisper framework, Audio Hijack can now take any audio it’s recording and generate a text transcript. While this process was possible before—see Jason’s lengthy post about his workflow—it required a lot of fiddling and several different tools to accomplish; it’s certainly a lot easier to simply drop Audio Hijack’s block into your existing session. If you record multiple sources, it can even appropriately label each one—though if you record multiple people via one input, say the other end of a Zoom call, it can’t distinguish between the various participants.

Inscribe (2026, Hacker News):

Apple’s new SpeechAnalyzer is the most accurate on-device speech engine we tested. It beat every Whisper model we ship, including Whisper Small, on both the clean and the noisy half of LibriSpeech, while running roughly three times faster than Small. And the API it replaces, SFSpeechRecognizer, came last on clean speech: behind even Whisper Tiny, a 40MB model.

[…]

The new API cuts word error rate by 3.5 to 4x on the same audio: from 9.02% to 2.12% on clean speech, and from 16.25% to 4.56% on noisy speech. There is no accuracy trade-off to weigh; the new API wins everywhere we measured, and it produces punctuated, cased text where the legacy engine’s output is rougher.

[…]

All five engines ran comfortably faster than real time: between roughly 12x and 40x on the M2 Pro, meaning an hour of audio transcribes in about 1.5 to 5 minutes on-device. SpeechAnalyzer was about 3x faster than Whisper Small per second of audio while beating it on accuracy.

Yuki:

SpeechAnalyzer’s ReportingOption.fastResults reads like a knob you’d reach for when you want to trade power for latency. That framing is what cost me the afternoon.

[…]

If a recording matters — and in a notes app, a lost meeting is the worst thing that can happen to a user — then the container you write while recording has to be PCM in CAF. Not m4a, and not AAC-in-CAF either.

[…]

AVAudioEngine’s inputNode silently ignores your device selection

[…]

I wanted summarization to run on-device. Everything else in Nib’s transcription path does, the audio never leaves the machine, and it would have been a much cleaner story to tell.

But 4,096 tokens for the Foundation Models isn’t enough.

Previously:

• Apple Foundation Models in appleOS 27
• WhisperPad Rejected From the Mac App Store
• Overcast Transcripts
• Generated Transcripts in Pocket Casts
• Apple Podcasts Transcripts
• Dictation and Predictive Text in macOS Sonoma and iOS 17
• macOS vs. Dragon Dictation

Thijs Xhaflaire (via Ric Ford):

Jamf Threat Labs discovers and investigates CrashStealer, a C++ macOS infostealer that impersonates Apple's crash-reporting framework to harvest browser credentials, cryptocurrency wallets and keychain data, encrypting stolen files with AES-GCM before exfiltrating them to a remote command-and-control server.

[…]

Unlike the payload it eventually installs, the dropper is properly code signed and notarized: it is a universal (arm64 and x86_64) binary signed with the Developer ID Emil Grigorov (WWB7JA7AQV), has hardened runtime enabled, and carries a stapled notarization ticket. Notably, the disk image itself is signed as well, not just the application inside it, which is uncommon in malicious DMG delivery where the container is typically left unsigned.

[…]

That file supplies the curl command the dropper runs next. Staging the first hop on a trusted developer domain keeps the initial network activity inconspicuous.

[…]

[The script] clears extended attributes on the staged bundle with xattr -cr, makes the inner binary executable, strips the payload's existing signature and re-signs it ad-hoc (codesign --remove-signature followed by codesign -s - --force --deep --no-strict), registers it with Launch Services via lsregister -f, and finally launches it in the background with open -g -n.

Previously:

• Notarized Mac App That Downloads Malware
• Fake Mac Apps on GitHub
• Notarized Atomic Stealer (AMOS)
• More Notarized Mac Malware
• App Transport Security

Aleem Shaun:

I’ve used Day One for more than a decade. It was an excellent journalling app. Private, minimal, easy to use, with excellent features such as geolocation, weather, ‘On this Day’, and book printing. Features that got out of the way and either worked quietly in the background or appeared only when you summoned them. That’s changed.

Now there are new subscription tiers. Previously, the tiers were Free and Premium. Simple. Premium included sync and a few other things that I can’t remember, but it was compelling enough that I’ve been a Premium subscriber from the beginning. Now, without consultation, I’m Silver (not Premium), and there’s a new, more expensive AI-driven tier, Gold. I don’t object solely on that basis. You would think I could just choose to remain on ‘Silver’ and all would be well. But no. Even with these features turned off in settings, I’m visually prompted in the app to upgrade to Gold and use the Daily Chat (with AI), which I’ve turned off and can only use if I upgrade. And yet, there it is, taunting me.

Via Eric Schwarz:

Even Apple is guilty of doing this in the Settings app and the former iWork apps.

Previously:

• $10 Off at Fandango
• Automattic Acquires Day One
• Productivity Apps and Subscription Pricing

Jared Sorge:

I know there are options out there like Paddle, FastSpring, and Lemon Squeezy that have worked for many apps like mine over the years. But I also wanted something simple for my users. Not to mention Apple Pay was a must-have.

I believe all the services he mentions do support Apple Pay.

• RevenueCat serves as the source of truth for whether or not a customer is licensed.

• I create RevenueCat customer IDs from local iCloud identifiers (more specifically, calling userRecordID() on my CKContainer in CloudKit).

• When the user makes a purchase, they earn an entitlement that I look for in Arborist to grant them a license.

He doesn’t need to run his own server, and the purchases are automatically tied to the user’s iCloud account, so there are no e-mails or serial numbers to deal with. On the other hand, well, it’s all dependent on the Apple Account.

The app, which helps manage Git worktrees, is shipping now.

Previously:

• Locked Out of Apple Account Due to Gift Card

Bruno Brito (release notes):

In Tower 15, we introduced the “Fully Merged” badge and Automatic Branch Management to help you keep your repository tidy. With Tower 17, we’re taking the detection behind that badge to a whole new level. […] Tower now matches your local branches against merged pull requests from your hosting service, such as GitHub or GitLab.

[…]

Trust is everything when deleting branches — so we redesigned the “Fully Merged” hint view to show you exactly which checks matched.

[…]

One that is particularly noteworthy is that updating submodules is now significantly faster! Tower gathers each submodule's Git data concurrently instead of one at a time—something you will especially notice in repositories with many submodules.

I’m sad that they got rid of the yellow icon.

Previously:

• Git Tower 16

Wade Tregaskis:

In short: if you have any file in your app (or whatever it is you’re trying to get Apple to sign) that is over 4 GiB, you must use a disk image (DMG) to package it for notarytool, not a zip file.

This is because support for files larger than 4 GiB requires using the “Zip64” zip file format, which would be fine except Apple’s notary servers can’t handle them.

Previously:

• altool Update and notarytool

Update (2026-07-22): Rosyna Keller:

It’s recommended to notarized exactly what you’re going to ship to users and shipping zips is extremely risky because you never know what tool the user will use to decompress the file.

Multiple unzipping tools will strip necessary extended attributes that could cause the code signature to fail to validate. This is especially true if you put non-code files in “code places” and they have to be signed with an extended attribute.

Paul Kafasis:

With last year’s release of MacOS 26 (Tahoe), Apple made a mess of app icons. In the first betas of MacOS 27 (Golden Gate), however, there are signs of a turnaround. We’re urging Apple to continue making improvements, by restoring the ability for MacOS app icons to have distinct shapes.

[…]

After decades of beautiful, memorable Mac icons in varying shapes, Tahoe flattened personality to obtain bland uniformity. The platform is worse for it.

Past icons weren’t just more expressive. They were also more usable. Having distinct shapes provided a useful way to tell icons apart. Tahoe eliminates that cue by forcing everything into the same squircle, leaving color as the primary way to tell icons apart at a glance.

Jason Snell:

Kafasis makes the important point that uniform shapes make it more difficult for users, especially those with vision issues including color deficiency, to differentiate between icons.

John Siracusa:

Squircle Jail is the worst design-related thing Apple has ever done to Mac developers, and probably the worst icon-related thing it has ever done, period. Incredibly developer-hostile.

If squircled icons are actually better, then let that design win in the market. That’s how we transitioned from the classic Mac OS icon style to the more photorealistic Mac OS X icon style. Developers adopted it because they wanted to, and because users desired it.

John Gruber (Mastodon):

The squircles, I will point out, are not in and of themselves the problem. The problem would be the same with any mandated shape, like, e.g., VisionOS’s circles.

[…]

I can’t think of any other design crime Apple has ever foisted on Mac developers that I’d argue (with Siracusa) was worse.

[…]

It’s like Apple decided every single one of its own apps must wear a stupid-looking hat, and they put those stupid-looking hats on third-party apps too, whether the developers of those apps want them or not. Scratch that. Not hats but helmets.

[…]

Just the mere silhouette of the old Keynote icon is more recognizable, and thus more iconic, than any icon on any platform from Apple today.

Jeff Johnson:

The traffic sign analogy hits me personally, because the StopTheMadness icon used to be shaped like a stop sign, but I was practically forced into making it a generic road sign.

Gus Mueller:

I get why Apple did it, but I think it’s completely wrong for the Mac.

Marcin Wichary:

On his blog, Jim Nielsen writes how Apple filed away so much expression by forcing rigid icon bureaucracy in macOS. Nielsen focuses mostly on distinctiveness; previously, you could make the icon unique by its general shape or the shape of its contents, but one of these two levers has now been taken away[…]

[…]

However, one also can’t help but notice how ugly and amateurish the Creator Studio icons are, so it all feels absolutely like a net negative – the new system took something away and the proposed replacement feels low quality[…]

Rui Carmo:

I, too, find the squircles aesthetically offensive and utterly pointless.

[…]

The part that genuinely breaks my brain, though, is that I now find icons on Linux more distinctive than on macOS, which would be impossible for my ten-year-ago self to believe. The platform that built its reputation on craft and visual identity has spent a year sanding it off, while the one everyone used to mock for its inconsistency is where individuality survives.

Jeff Johnson:

The subliminal, Orwellian message of the squircle jail is that all software is subservient to Apple, merely accessories to Apple devices, interchangeable cogs in the machine.

Mario Guzmán:

Had to grab the rest of the icons from #MacOSX Leopard. Gosh, they’re so, so pretty. So finely crafted. Gorgeous. Love it.

Dr. Drang:

I agree, but Apple’s 50th anniversary has gotten me thinking a lot lately about the early days of the Mac, so it’s only natural that my mind shifted to the highly constrained icons Mac applications had back then.

[…]

Many of the complaints about squircle jail are about the loss of icon elements that “stick out” from the rest of the design. As you can see, this idea was there from the very start; the hands stick out from the tilted rectangles.

John Gruber:

I never loved the hand on these icons. It felt too uniform. It functioned like a “this is an application” badge, but such a badge never felt necessary to me.

[…]

I think it’s less that Apple gave up on them and more that it came into focus that the “hand holding a pen over a diamond-shaped document” convention was intended for document-based apps. It signified “This is a creative tool that you use to create documents”. Apps that weren’t about creating document files — like Disk First Aid and Font/DA Mover — got different icons. Font/DA Mover’s truck icon in System 2 signified that you use this tool to move things. Disk First Aid’s ambulance was an obvious metaphor for repairing something unwell.

[…]

But the main thing about the “hand holding pen over diamond” convention was that it was only ever a convention.

John Gruber (Mastodon):

(a) I don’t think this is a good mandate for iOS either;

(b) it was always so for iOS, though, so it’s not like Apple has ever taken away rich creative icon shapes on the platform;

(c) MacOS is a far richer and more precise environment than iOS.

[…]

App icons on the iOS home screen are effectively simple buttons. I think it’s rather obvious that’s why they have had that squircle/roundsquare shape ever since the iPhone was announced in January 2007 (source). They’re one-tap launchers. App icons in MacOS are not mere buttons. You can drag them, move them, and drop things on them. You click them to select, and double-click to launch. They are richer objects that deserve a richer visual vocabulary. iOS is a world meant for fat-tipped Magic Markers and blunt safety scissors. MacOS is a world meant to support fine-tipped drafting pens and precision razor-sharp X-ACTO knives.

Louie Mantia (Mastodon):

While developers have submitted full-bleed square images for iOS app icons since 2008, for these new squircle icons in macOS 11, Apple provided a template to compose app icons in an image editing tool like Photoshop, with full control over the canvas beyond the suggested—but not required—squircle. This template made it easy-ish for designers to compose macOS app icons that were identical to or synonymous with an iOS app icon, while leaving the door open to continue using arbitrarily-shaped app icons on macOS.

[…]

The second type of Squircle Jail is more controversial, because these app icons were specifically drawn with the intention of fitting in. Overriding that intention feels like punishment for having done the right thing. App icons in a style that was recently encouraged by the system are now scaled down and put inside the squircle as if it were a container. Every icon that was utilizing the previous squircle shape suddenly looks much worse than before.

[…]

Instead of taking care to design and develop solutions specifically for Mac and iPhone, newer and bigger companies that don’t only make apps often ship apps with logo icons, rather than app icons. We’ve all seen it.

[…]

I would love if Apple provided a way for designers to poke outside that squircle boundary. Some of my favorite app icons did that. But also some of my least-favorite app icons ignored this shape entirely, when it was used for every system icon in the last five years. Whenever those apps showed up in my Dock, it was like a stain on my shirt I couldn’t get out.

John Gruber:

Ultimately this is what I object to with the squircle mandate. It favors the bottom of the heap by restricting the top. It makes bad icons mediocre but pushes great icons toward mediocrity too. That’s not The Macintosh Way.

Nick Heer:

Mantia touches on all the pragmatic reasons to unify the shape of icons in an operating system, all of which I have considered, and then drops the above paragraphs — and things started to make more sense to me. This is a different way to think about it. This is not a situation where a cleaner looks like a zesty beverage with toxic consequences. The shared general function of these icons does help communicate something and makes them less ambiguous in that sense.

But a broad category of functionality is only part of the story of an icon and — with respect to Mantia’s long and illustrious history of work in this area, and that of co-Parakeeter Luka Grafera — taking away a difference of shape also limits what an icon can communicate. It may not be a cleaning product that looks and is packaged like juice, but imagine if every consumable liquid was in identical bottles with only a different label.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

Louie’s squircle jail post just underscores that the squircle jail benefits 99% of apps, and is better for the platform overall. There is only ever a handful of apps that make great Mac app icons, and a withering number of ‘great Mac app icon designers’ — you can probably only name one or two left in the scene.

Jeff Johnson:

Mantia talks as if it were more important for apps to “belong to the Dock” than to allow Dock users to quickly select the right app in the list. That’s choosing form over functionality.

“The shape of apps is a squircle.” But Mac users already knew those were apps in the Dock!

See also: Accidental Tech Podcast.

Tyler Hall:

If you’re lucky enough to distribute an app outside the Mac App Store, you can break free of squircle jail using NSDockTilePlugIn. It’s not strictly the intended use-case of that API. And it’s not allowed in the Mac App Store, either. But it can solve the problem.

BasicAppleGuy:

If you recognize these icons, it’s probably time to schedule your routine back exam.

Previously:

• Clear and Tinted Icons Are a Hard Pass
• Liquid Glass 27 Icons
• Apple Creator Studio Icons
• Tahoe’s Terrible Icons
• One Size Does Not Fit All
• macOS Tahoe 26 Developer Beta 4
• macOS Tahoe’s New Theming System
• macOS Tahoe 26 Announced
• The macOS App Icon Book

Update (2026-07-17): Louie Mantia:

But my perspective right now is to be very pragmatic. The decision to mask all icons with squircles is a long-time coming. It was perhaps the most predictable thing to happen in Apple’s history. For 20 years, it’s been leading up to this.

I want to make nice things for macOS, whatever macOS is. And this is what it is.

Roger Wong:

Some of my favorite icons over the years have had interesting shapes, like the truck for Transmit, the vise for Compressor, or the cute bird for Twitteriffic.

[…]

But I also recall clicking some icons and not being able to select them. Why? Because I was inaccurate in my click and instead my cursor landed in the empty space just outside the shape.

[…]

If I recall correctly, developers could use a different mask for the click target to help users out. But I don’t think many did all the time, including Apple, which you can obviously see in the video above.

Louie Mantia:

I don’t want to step on toes regarding your new [StopTheMadness] icon which has great color— but I don’t understand why you elected to abandon the octagon as the outer shape. That’s a choice. You are not forced to abandon it. Why not do something like this?

I like this.

Nick Heer:

Losing some of the artistry in an icon makes it more difficult to distinguish between legitimate and well-crafted Mac apps, and everything else. It is not a perfect proxy, to be sure, and there are some very nice squircle icons. But it is nevertheless a unfortunate change that makes apps of varying levels of quality look more similar.

Adam Engst:

Of the TidBITS readers who chose to respond to the poll, only 1% said they use clear icons on the Mac, and no one admitted to using tinted icons. On the iPhone, clear icons were twice as popular—a whopping 2%—and just 1% of respondents said they use tinted icons. Dark icons, which retain color, were slightly more popular, but still couldn’t exceed single digits, with 6% on the Mac and 9% on the iPhone.

Squircle Jail is one thing; redesigning icons to be assembled within Icon Composer is another. The latter makes a lot less sense but for supporting clear and tinted icons.

Previously:

• Golden Gate Squircle Jail
• Icon Composer Notes
• macOS Tahoe’s New Theming System

SpamSieve 3.3.1 is an update of my Mac e-mail spam filter that improves the filtering accuracy and includes various optimizations, fixes, and updates for macOS 27. Some interesting engineering issues were:

• I’m still supporting macOS 10.13, but the app can now build with the macOS 12 deployment target in preparation for Xcode 27. The way Swift handles calling deprecated APIs remains annoying. You need workarounds like protocols to suppress a warning in a particular region of code. Often, I am updating to a newer API, but I want to continue using the old one on earlier versions of macOS. Right now I am heavily testing on macOS 26, so I would like to only deploy the new code there. Sometimes the initial versions of APIs are buggy, and I don’t want to have to retest every feature on every version. But Swift doesn’t like me to gate the calls to macOS 26 and later if the new API was actually introduced in, say, macOS 11.

• The most risky update was probably switching to the Swift API for Scanner. This is tricky because the current scan position changes from being based on UTF-16 indexes to String.Index. And in some cases my code was intentionally scanning into the middle of a combining character. I was really glad to have extensive tests here.

• Recent versions of Tahoe introduced a Core Data bug that broke save recovery (when invalid Unicode can’t be written to the database and we have to fix it up first). When the error comes in, SpamSieve looks under the NSDetailedErrorsKey key, but the value of this key is "NSDetailedErrorsKey" while the actual error info is under the key "NSDetailedErrors".

• Database corruption combined with a Core Data bug and two Swift behaviors were causing crashes. The root problem, I think, is that in this situation Core Data neglects to set the error pointer for -[NSManagedObjectContext countForFetchRequest:error:]. Normally, Swift would detect this and throw a generic nilError. However, this method signals errors by returning NSNotFound instead of nil. It’s annotated as swift_error(nonnull_error), which I think means that Swift doesn’t even look at the return value, only the (unset) error. So my code was receiving NSNotFound on the non-error path, treating it as a real count, and doing some math with it, which (by default in Swift) leads to a crash if there’s overflow. Now my code checks for NSNotFound and uses Int.addingReportingOverflow().

• I reimplemented Core Data batch fetching because of two problems with the fetchBatchSize option. First, it logs spurious errors when fetching from multiple stores at once. Second, it leads to high memory use. It will load objects in batches, but it never releases the earlier batches. You can manually refault objects that you no longer need, but it will still hold onto the full object shells, which can add up. My implementation only holds onto IDs, and it can fetch the IDs using a different context than the objects to push more work to background threads.

• I’m now using String.makeContiguousUTF8() in various places to avoid slow iteration of bridged strings.

• There was a regression where some menu code could crash on macOS 10.13. -[NSMenu setItemArray:] is only available on macOS 10.14 and later, whereas the getter is always available. With old Objective-C, the two methods could be annotated with separate availabilities. The Objective-C property syntax doesn’t allow this, so there’s no way for the compiler to flag calls where the setter is missing.

• The AppleScript support works much better with large data sets. The key, I think, is to never return an array to Cocoa for a scripting property/element. First, if you give it a lazy array it will sometimes try to access all the elements even if it only needs a few. And, second, AppleScript will run out of memory if the array is too large. By using indexed accessors, you can maintain laziness and only convert one object to a descriptor at a time. By caching a batch-fetching collection, you can limit the number of fetches and respond quickly when AppleScript requests individual objects.

Previously:

• Xcode 27 Announced
• SpamSieve 3.3
• Swift Proposal: Precise Control Flags Over Compiler Warnings
• Swift at 10

John Gruber, earlier this week:

When ChatGPT is attached to an open document in another app, it’s not a snapshot at the moment of attachment, like what you’d get by copying and pasting the whole thing into the chat, or by dragging the current version of the file into the chat. It’s a live ongoing attachment, so as the attached document/note changes, ChatGPT sees the changes. It’s such a great feature, and I don’t think it exists on any platform but the Mac. And it couldn’t exist on iOS, by design, doesn’t allow for inter-application communication.

I worry for ChatGPT’s future, though.

Juli Clover:

OpenAI today announced ChatGPT Work, a ChatGPT agent with built-in Codex that can complete tasks across web, mobile, and desktop using information from your apps. ChatGPT Work can execute multi-step tasks, using scheduling to work independently. Like Claude Cowork, ChatGPT can use your computer to do tasks in the background across apps.

[…]

With OpenAI merging Codex and ChatGPT, there is a new ChatGPT desktop app that’s available across Mac and Windows. Users who have the Codex app installed can update it to turn it into the new ChatGPT desktop app. The existing ChatGPT desktop app is being renamed ChatGPT Classic.

Zac Hall:

You can watch today’s livestream announcement video below[…]

[…]

It’s possible to have ChatGPT Classic, ChatGPT, and Codex installed, but the way forward seems to be just running the new ChatGPT desktop app. Codex users can still use the Codex app icon, but the app will be called ChatGPT.

The ChatGPT Classic app looks more native Mac-like, so that might be an issue for users.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

LOL @ OpenAI replacing the native AppKit ChatGPT app with the Electron Codex app after @gruber’s recent posts on the topic 😂

(It’s almost like Apple doesn’t have clear messaging on the right way to build native desktop apps anymore, and, if Apple doesn’t know, why on earth would third-party developers make that investment)

Federico Viticci:

The rollout of the unified ChatGPT for Mac app really isn’t going well on X/Reddit 🥶

They kinda fumbled it and I think Anthropic did a slightly better job on first try. Even OpenAI’s existing iOS app makes more sense than their new Mac layout right now.

The difference between “normal” chatbot chats, Work/Cowork harnesses with connectors, and Code/Codex local threads and filesystem access is the new UX hell for these companies.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

The chat experience is ChatGPT. Now it’s squirreled away in a sub section of a sub pane inside a vastly more-complex app. It’s hard to imagine anybody who actually wants to use ChatGPT wants to use it this way, Electron or not. And as a Codex user, I resent having my Codex deleted and renamed ‘ChatGPT’ instead. I don’t want my ‘chats’ anywhere near my ‘work’. This feels like a stupid move that will decimate casual ChatGPT desktop usage

John Gruber (Mastodon):

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

See also: Dithering.

Previously:

• Sunsetting ChatGPT Atlas
• Claude Desktop App
• Gemini App for Mac
• Codex App

Update (2026-07-13): Tony Arnold:

Oh yeah, the new ChatGPT app is as bad as first impressions made it out to be. It’s not just a slow, RAM hungry shell of a thing, but the design and UX are a poorly thought out kitchen sink approach.

Codex has never been great, but this is a confusing mess.

Benedict Evans:

Wow, what a total mess. What is the difference between a project, a task and a chat? Why did chats get a crappy floating window but tasks and projects don’t? Why does choosing ‘plugins’ get me ‘templates’? Am I not allowed to finish ‘setup’ if I don’t use Slack or Google Drive? Why…

Via John Gruber (Mastodon):

OpenAI’s internal org chart is a complete disorganized mess. This new app perfectly reflects that.

The old ChatGPT app was focused. That’s the app that still ships for mobile (which includes iPad, which tells you whether OpenAI thinks iPad is a real computer or a big iPhone), and is, for some Mac users, left installed on their systems as “ChatGPT Classic”. The new app is an incredibly confusing sloppy mess. At a glance it looks like a polished app. But the UI is just slop. It has the veneer of a polished app without actually being organized or structured or labeled in ways that add clarity and coherence.

John Gruber:

So I don’t see “the prompt in the app to download the new ChatGPT desktop app”. If I download the new app manually, I get a disk image. After mounting the disk image, the instructions say to double-click the “ChatGPT” app on the disk image — not to drag it to the Applications folder. If I do that while the old ChatGPT app is still running, it bounces back and forth a few times but nothing new gets installed and nothing old gets removed or renamed. I’m just left with the classic ChatGPT app, still named “ChatGPT”.

If I run the installer on the disk image when the old ChatGPT app is not running, the old app gets replaced by the new one in my Applications folder, and the old app is moved to the Trash. There is no app named “ChatGPT Classic”.

I mean, their Help document does say “the new app may install alongside your current app”, and “if both remained installed”, so they seem just as confused as I am.

Update (2026-07-14): Adam Engst:

And as much as I’ve been focusing more of my attention on Anthropic’s Claude because of concerns I have about OpenAI and its management, ChatGPT has more active users (~1.1 billion) than Google’s Gemini (~900 million), and many more than Claude (~245 million, in part because it’s more focused on enterprise uses).

As such, it’s worth noting three recent changes with ChatGPT: a massively confusing app replacement, the end of the ChatGPT Atlas Web browser, and improvements to ChatGPT Voice.

Update (2026-07-17): M.G. Siegler:

Let’s give OpenAI some credit, once they realize they made a mistake, they act quickly to correct it. Today’s case in point: with an update, ChatGPT now features ChatGPT once again. No, that’s not a joke, and yes, it does speak to a very obvious self-own.

John Gruber:

How in the world did they ship this without sync?

[…]

Bringing back “chat” to ChatGPT is literally the least they needed to do. Hiding chat in an obscure corner of the interface from an app named “ChatGPT” would be like removing text editing from TextEdit.

James Sun (via Tim Hardwick):

Lastly, with all these updates, we are going to be sunsetting Atlas.

All these capabilities were built on what we learned from Atlas users who took a leap of faith on a new browser.

You taught us how agents can help make browsing and doing work on the open web better, and we are applying these learnings to these new products.

Zac Hall:

With the new ChatGPT desktop app, OpenAI now has a desktop app with robust browser capabilities. ChatGPT (and Codex before it) also supports a Chrome desktop browser plugin. This lets Chrome users benefit from ChatGPT integration without completely switching browsers.

Kyle Hughes:

Anthropic and OpenAI have legacy software media in the blender because they are playing a new game. They are legitimately racing to build God. The products they release are one-off fundraising vehicles to buoy the next training run. They are not trying to build long-term consumer goodwill.

Previously:

• ChatGPT Work and ChatGPT Classic
• Codex for Almost Everything
• Discontinuing Sora
• Codex App
• ChatGPT Atlas
• AI in Chrome, Neon, and Dia

Howard Oakley:

Spotlight doesn’t currently appear able to search Time Machine backups reliably, at least not in Sequoia or Tahoe, although this may not be universal.

[…]

If I now step back through my backups to reach one that I know contains that file, I can restore it. But if I type anything into the search field, nothing is found. If I change the scope of the search to that backup, the window title changes but its contents remain blank, and there isn’t even a busy spinner to indicate a search is in progress.

[…]

As I can’t disable Spotlight indexing on that volume without macOS telling me that it’s required to be indexed by Spotlight, neither can I force that volume to be reindexed.

[…]

My conclusion is that using Spotlight to search Time Machine backups no longer works, and the instructions given by Apple are also broken.

That has been my experience, too. As I see it, there are four separate problems:

1. I want to be able to search all my backup snapshots, because I don’t know which one might contain the file I want to restore. Time Machine only lets you search one at a time.
2. Searching an individual snapshot doesn’t actually work.
3. Spotlight indexing is invasive, using lots of CPU time, and with spinning hard drives causes wear and tear and creates lots of noise. If search doesn’t work anyway, I’d like to turn it off, but macOS won’t let me.
4. If the problem is with the index, there’s no way to reset it without deleting your backup.

Howard Oakley:

Unfortunately, all those saved versions in the version database fall outside the scope of Spotlight indexing, and Spotlight search can’t look inside any of the old versions saved in a volume’s version database. Surprisingly, the version browser doesn’t offer any search facilities either, as that’s presumably another feature intended for a future that never came.

[…]

One way around this is to save each document version as a separate file, allow Spotlight to extract their contents and add those to its indexes for that volume, then to search those files. This is quick and simple using my free utility Versatility.

Previously:

• Golden Gate Spotlight
• Time Machine in Tahoe
• Runaway Spotlight With Pages Document on iCloud Drive
• Spotlight Indexing Running Wild
• Invasive Spotlight Indexing
• You Can’t Turn Off Spotlight on Your Time Machine Backup

Mike Bombich:

The USB device drivers report that they are destroying the “Rocket XTRM Q” device due to a “link change interrupt”

APFS filesystem drivers report a “dangling mount”, failures to finish transactions before unmount, and dozens of “media is not present” errors.[…]

storagekit collects a report of the “disappeared” devices and notices that one of them was mounted. This is ultimately what leads to the “Disk Not Ejected Properly” notification.

Unfortunately, nothing in here explains what caused the “link change interrupt”; all we know is that the USB device drivers detected an interruption.

Not discussed here, perhaps because there’s little we can do about it, is the role of changes to macOS. I’ve documented problems in the past of hard drives, which used to work perfectly, suddenly start spontaneously unmounting with every backup after updating to a new OS version. The Sierra to Big Sur period was particularly bad, as I recall. (There are also some hard drive enclosures, and cheap SSDs, that seem to be problematic to matter the OS version, but I don’t continue to use those.) Sometime around Monterey or Ventura, the spontaneous unmounts almost completely disappeared for me, though Ventura introduced other mounting/unmounting problems. Last week, I finally updated to Tahoe, and I’m sad to say that spontaneous unmounts are back. Almost every night, one of my Samsung SSDs—connected to a Thunderbolt dock—gets reported as improperly ejected. Sometimes it remounts by itself; other times I have to unplug and replug it.

Previously:

• Upgrading My Mac’s External SSD
• Remaining Issues in Big Sur
• OWC Dual Drive Dock USB 3.1
• Some Known Bugs in macOS 10.12.6
• RocketStor Drive Dock: More Expensive But Reliable
• Highpoint RocketStor 5212 Thunderbolt Dual Drive Dock
• Ejecting External Disks With macOS 13
• Ventura Issues

Update (2026-07-09): Rosyna Keller:

I keep getting these errors too. It only started when I connected the external SSD to a OWC Thunderbolt dock. It never happened with direct connect.

My Thunderbolt dock is from Anker.

Update (2026-07-10): Matt:

I also just stared getting these a bunch. Mine is connected to a CalDigit Thunderbolt dock.

I have to wonder if something changed in a recent update (15.7/26.4?)

Codeux Software:

Textual is the world’s most popular application for interacting with Internet Relay Chat (IRC) chatrooms on macOS.

[…]

Textual supports very powerful modern technologies such as the latest IRCv3 specifications, native IPv6, client-side certificate authentication, and much, much more in an easy to navigate, clutter free experience.

Unfortunately (via Jan Lehnardt):

Textual has been sunset and will no longer receive updates.

Previously:

• EU Council Approves New “Chat Control” Mandate
• The End of ICQ
• Mozilla Looking for IRC Replacement

Update (2026-07-10): rob:

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is having a bit of a revival in one of the communities I participate in (we ditched Discord), but there are not that many clients for Apple devices?

I’m currently using Goguma on mobile and Halloy on desktop, but they both don’t feel like native apps… (technology stack and especially UI/UX)

[…]

Luckily I recently discovered Mango, which looks very promising.

The Mac Genie:

I would still love to have a modern version of Ircle. Nothing else comes close as the best example of a Mac IRC client.

Rizki Kelimutu:

Firefox is evolving with a refreshed design that makes the browser feel more modern, approachable, and consistent across desktop and mobile. The refresh also extends to Firefox’s voice and writing style, making product experience feel more human, direct, and unmistakably Firefox.

Via Jeff Johnson:

Nothing says “consistent” like making your large-screen keyboard & mouse UI exactly like your tiny touchscreen UI.

And nothing says “more human” like a manufactured voice and writing style.

rjacob:

Internally, we’ve been calling this work Project Nova, and today we’re excited to share a deeper look at what we’ve been building and where we’re heading next.

The goal of this work is to create a more cohesive foundation for Firefox: making the browser feel cleaner, warmer, faster, and more adaptable.

Some of the areas we’re working on include:

• Simpler navigation and a redesigned Settings experience
• Easier access to features like tab groups, split view, and vertical tabs
• The return of Compact Mode
• Refreshed visual updates across tabs, icons, spacing, and browser surfaces
• More customization options, including new themes and wallpapers

Previously:

• New Mozilla CEO
• Mozilla Changes Firefox Terms of Use
• Firefox at 20
• The Negative Impact of Mobile-First Web Design on Desktop

Update (2026-07-28): athomas (via Thomas Clement):

Starting today, you can try out the next design evolution of Firefox in Nightly.

It’s still Firefox, now with a more cohesive look and feel across tabs, menus, panels, and other browser surfaces. You’ll notice softer tab shapes, a warmer color palette, updated icons, and – after hearing from many of you – the return of Compact Mode and new theme options to make Firefox your own.

Still no AppleScript support.

Update (2026-08-04): Marcin Wichary:

Contra the previous post, just spotted this “Same settings, new look!” callout in Firefox, on a page I have never visited before, talking about a feature I have never used[…]

Sam Schott:

As of June 2026, Maestral is no longer actively maintained. The current version will continue to work until certificates expire.

Via John Gruber (Mastodon):

I don’t know when these certificates are expiring. And I don’t know what I’m going to do when they do. I might try moving everything from my Dropbox account to iCloud Drive. That certainly seems worth trying before I resort to going back to Dropbox’s own monstrosity of a Mac client.

[…]

In theory, because Maestral is open source, someone could fork it and keep it going.

Nick Heer:

I use Dropbox only for some relatively basic but necessary things, like hosting PDFs for this very website, which is why Maestral has been the perfect client for me. It is a testament to the effect of a good third-party app that I have stuck with Dropbox despite its corporate-focused strategy pivot.

I’ve switched to iCloud Drive, which seems better, but not better than Old Dropbox.

Previously:

• When Dropbox Spawns a Million Folders
• Backblaze No Longer Backs Up Dropbox
• Update on Cloud File Provider Extensions
• Dropbox on Ventura
• Dropbox and Maestral

Jason Hiner (MacRumors):

In an exclusive conversation with The Deep View ahead of WWDC 2026 in June, Doug Brooks, senior product manager of Apple silicon, discussed how Apple’s long-term investments in neural processing, unified memory, power-efficient computing, and hardware-software integration have positioned its devices for the AI era.

He also explained why Macs have become a favorite platform among AI developers, why Mac minis and Mac Studios are emerging as the preferred AI agent machines, and how Apple sees the future of on-device AI across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

[…]

“We build a chip knowing exactly what systems it’s going to go into. The chip can influence the system design, and the system design can influence the chip requirements. They’re married together very tightly. I’d actually go a step further and include software in that equation. As we enable new capabilities in the chip, we want to make sure those capabilities are exposed all the way through the software stack so developers can benefit and customers can benefit. Because if those transistors go unused, what’s the point? It’s not about adding something and hoping somebody finds a use for it. We want those capabilities available to solve real problems. I think that’s what allows us to build better systems and ultimately better products.”

It seems like a lot of it is just that developers like macOS.

Previously:

• OpenClaw (Formerly Moltbot)
• Mac Studio 2025
• Mac mini 2024
• Why Apple Believes It’s an AI Leader

Update (2026-07-10): See also: Hacker News.

Darryl Morley:

WhatCable explains cable speed, charging limits, e-marker data, and connected devices in plain English. Name a cable and it tracks how the cable actually performs over time, so you can spot the one that has started misbehaving. No more guessing why a cable charges slow or refuses to drive your display.

Via Norbert M. Doerner:

It is open source, free, and definitely a tool to look into, if you have external drives on your Mac!

Previously:

• Script to Detect Slow USB-C Cables
• USB-C Cables Comparison

Update (2026-07-10): Dan Moren:

For example, after looking at it, I realized that my backup drive was only connected via a USB2 cable. Fine in general for overnight backups, but when it reminded to me when I was troubleshooting some backup issues that maybe I should switch to a high speed cable that supports USB-3.

[…]

For a £9.99 one-time purchase, you can unlock WhatCable Pro, which works on up to two Macs, lets you assign names to cables so you can remember which one it is when you plug it in later, provides more in-depth diagnostics, offers live power metering to see how much juice is being delivered right now, and even more.

Marcin Wichary:

But I also want to show things that Finder does well, and this might be something no one does nearly as thoughtfully: text truncation.

[…]

Finder position the tooltip exactly atop the existing text. I think this is really clever: it avoids overlapping other useful information, and makes it faster to reorient yourself.

[…]

Lastly, Finder only shows the tooltip when it’s needed.

Previously:

• Tahoe Broke Resizing Finder Column View