Independent podcast apps are not growing as a category. This is not a particular secret, but perhaps you haven’t seen it stated explicitly. It’s the sort of thing that has to be inferred, but there’s plenty of available data if you look for it. While the podcasting sector has seen growth, this has occurred almost entirely on platforms like YouTube, and the independent podcast app userbase has mostly just stood still.
[…]
I’m sure somewhere out there a 21-year-old just downloaded Castro or Pocket Casts for the first time and thinks RSS feeds are awesome (if you are this person, please email me). But every number I can see indicates the userbase is both static and aging. Every new customer I talk to has used some combination of Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or Castro for at least the last 5 years if not the last 10.
[…]
Perhaps there are healthy businesses that get very few new users but instead gracefully age with the ones they have. Ferrari maybe? Buddy, smartphone apps are not one of those businesses.
[…]
I would rather work on flashy features to capture new users, but, reality being what it is, I have to think about things in terms of both the health of the ecosystem and what will actually help retain existing podcast app users.
Anil Dash wrote, in 2014, that the simple phrase wherever you get your podcasts is a “radical statement”:
[…] Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that’s supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that’s not owned by any one company, that can’t be controlled by any one company, and that allows people to have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience.
Video podcasting changes that. In its simplest form, it is just a YouTube channel, which means it is siloed and controlled by Google. Spotify also supports video but only in its app.
So Marco described a problem. What if someone manually asks to download an episode when they already have three downloaded? You can’t just immediately delete it to keep things tidy. So what do you do? Marco added a special hidden “episode downloaded manually” flag to the database, so those episodes would not count towards the limit.
This is one more example of how even the most seemingly trivial features require thinking through and accounting for different cases that may not be obvious at first glance. Every user interface designer and product designer should collect and absorb examples like this.
[…]
Finally, Marco’s wife Tiff suggests a solution to all the problems: just don’t let users download more episodes, she said, and show them a message, roughly: “Your episode limit is three, but this would be the fourth, denied”.
Marco liked the solution. I didn’t. Sure, it solves Marco’s problems, but not the user’s.
Birman presents this as “Let me click,” but I wanted to offer two alternative/complementary principles that helped me before:
Let me do things in any order. Here’s Google Home app, where I can change the temperature and the time for holding – but if I change the time first, it frustratingly resets when I subsequently change the temperature. It forces one specific order in an interface that suggests any order is okay[…]
The current action has the most momentum. The user is right there, active, tapping on things, wanting to get stuff done. If Overcast indeed throws a “your episode limit is three” message, then it forces the user to remember how to get to the settings and change it. The momentum is lost. The decisions of past me should not be as important as the decisions of present me.
I’ve needed to evolve my expectations for what my role in Overcast is.
After building up a large, passionate userbase over a very long time, it’s not really entirely mine anymore. I can’t just do whatever I want with it.
And the growth era of open/RSS/indie/whatever podcast apps is over. The business is now about serving and retaining my existing customers for as long as possible.
So I can add things here and there, very carefully, but I can’t really change anything significant.
Several tech stories kick off this session, including RAID software compatibility warnings, Bending Spoons’ IPO, foreign influence campaigns around data centers, and Fox’s reported Roku purchase. Chuck Joiner, David Ginsburg, Jim Rea, Marty Jencius, Web Bixby, Jeff Gamet, and Eric Bolden focus heavily on streaming control, smart TV data collection, Apple TV’s future, Spotify’s removal of fake drug-related podcasts, and the rapid growth of AI majors in higher education.
At NAB in Las Vegas, Alex Mavlios of Epidemic Sound explains how the company licenses music by acquiring full rights from artists, then offering secure usage across podcasts, video, social media, broadcast, and film. He addresses copyright risks, monetized content, artist royalties, pricing from creator plans to enterprise licenses, and why perpetual licensing helps creators avoid future rights disputes.
Rivian’s rejection of CarPlay and physical buttons in favor of voice and AI control sees to question safety, convenience, data control, and long-term car software support. Chuck Joiner, David Ginsburg, Jeff Gamet, Guy Serle, Web Bixby, Eric Bolden, Marty Jencius, and Jim Rea question whether Rivian has other motives, and then dive into Tesla updates, AI voice recreation of Stan Lee, Spider-Man ticket promotions, Dashlane concerns, and Andy Ihnatko’s new site.
The MacVoices Live! panel examines Spotify adopting Apple-backed video podcast technology, Instagram’s disappearing posts and why anyone would want them, and Microsoft expanding Copilot everywhere, whether it is a good idea or not. Chuck Joiner, David Ginsburg, Jeff Gamet, Guy Serle, Web Bixby, Eric Bolden, Marty Jencius, and Jim Rea also look at the risks of putting AI mini data centers in homes, and Plex’s major lifetime Pass price hike.
In Episode 92 of the Sceptic: Mike Graham lifts the lid on Britain's increasingly cosy media establishment and Prof Roger Pielke Jr challenges some of the simplistic claims surrounding Europe's heatwaves.
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O tvOS 27 chegará neste ano com uma leva de novidades para a Apple TV 4K que, embora discretas se comparadas às de outros sistemas da Maçã, trazem melhorias bem-vindas ao dia a dia de quem usa o aparelho — do app Podcasts redesenhado a ajustes de performance por todo o sistema.
Preparamos um vídeo reunindo e demonstrando as principais mudanças da atualização. Confira abaixo:
Entre os destaques está o novo app Podcasts, que ganhou redesenho completo com suporte a programas em vídeo, alinhando a Apple TV às demais plataformas da empresa. O Apple Music também recebeu atenção: agora conta com suporte a áudio Hi-Res Lossless e com o recurso AutoMix, que cria transições automáticas entre as faixas.
Outras novidades incluem ajuste de tamanho de texto, verificação do status do AppleCare diretamente nos Ajustes (Settings) e atualização remota da Apple TV pelo app Casa (Home). O sistema também trará suporte a legendas geradas por IA on-device e melhorias no HomeKit Secure Video, agora com suporte à resolução 4K.
No quesito performance, a Central de Controle ficará mais responsiva, o AirPlay estará mais rápido, as animações ficarão mais suaves em todo o sistema e segundo a Apple os apps abrirão até 30% mais rápido, além de o sistema vir com diversas correções de bugs.
Vale lembrar que o tvOS 27 não é mais compatível com as Apple TVs HD e 4K de primeira geração, funcionando apenas nos modelos 4K de segunda e terceira gerações.
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Apple TV 4K (3ª geração)
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Apple Podcasts runs within CarPlay, Apple’s in-car software platform for accessing compatible iPhone apps through a vehicle’s display and controls. CarPlay provides the driving environment, while Podcasts supplies the programs, episodes, library and playback features available inside it.
That combination suits a part of the day that often feels wasted. A commute may be too fragmented for reading or watching something, but it can provide enough uninterrupted time for a news briefing, interview, documentary series or comedy show.
Podcasts also give each journey a different character. The morning drive can offer information before work, while the return trip can provide lighter entertainment or continue a longer story. Drivers are free to choose whether the time should be useful, relaxing or simply less repetitive.
Apple Podcasts Fits Naturally Inside CarPlay
Apple Podcasts appears alongside other compatible audio apps when an iPhone connects to CarPlay. The vehicle display offers access to available episodes and essential controls without reproducing the complete iPhone interface on the dashboard.
The distinction is simple: Apple Podcasts does not create or power CarPlay. It is an audio app designed to operate within the wider CarPlay experience, which also handles navigation, calls, messages and other supported services.
CarPlay reduces podcast playback to the functions most appropriate in a vehicle. Drivers can use the Now Playing screen, CarPlay Dashboard, steering-wheel controls or buttons provided by the vehicle. Available commands can include playing, pausing, jumping back 15 seconds, moving forward 30 seconds and changing playback speed.
Siri provides another way to manage audio while keeping attention on the road. A driver can request a followed show, pause the current episode or continue listening without searching through the display. Support varies according to the vehicle and its controls, but the app remains connected to the iPhone rather than operating as a separate system installed by the automaker.
The interface is especially suitable for spoken audio. Songs can often continue without intervention, while a podcast listener may want to replay an explanation, skip part of an episode or resume a program interrupted earlier. CarPlay keeps those common controls accessible without placing the full Podcasts app in front of the driver.
Image Credit: Apple Inc.
The Commute Becomes a Listening Window
A regular route creates a predictable amount of listening time. Someone with a 15-minute drive may prefer concise news, business updates or language lessons. A 40-minute journey provides room for detailed interviews, investigative reporting or serialized fiction.
Apple Podcasts includes programs covering education, technology, culture, history, sports, health and entertainment. The variety allows listeners to build different routines around the same drive rather than depending on one radio schedule or repeatedly hearing familiar music.
A morning episode can provide context for events likely to shape the working day. On the way home, comedy and conversational programs can create distance from work before the listener reaches the front door. Neither choice requires treating every available minute as a productivity exercise.
The format can also make traffic less frustrating. A delayed journey remains inconvenient, but an episode gives the driver something continuous to follow as the arrival time changes. Spoken stories can hold attention without asking the driver to look away from navigation or the road.
Apple Podcasts keeps longer programs useful even when they do not fit into one trip. Listening progress can synchronize across compatible devices using the same Apple Account, allowing an episode started at home to continue in the car or resume later on another device.
Preparation Makes CarPlay Listening Better
The safest podcast decision is usually the one made before the car starts moving. Apple Podcasts allows listeners to follow shows, download episodes and arrange a queue on the iPhone in advance. CarPlay can then concentrate on playback instead of discovery.
A prepared queue is useful when several episodes are planned for one journey. The next selection can begin automatically after the current program ends, removing the temptation to search through categories while driving. Listeners can combine a short briefing with a longer interview or place lighter material after a demanding program.
Downloads make the experience more reliable. Saved episodes can continue playing through areas with weak cellular coverage, including rural roads, tunnels and underground parking structures. Downloading through Wi-Fi can also prevent a long daily routine from consuming unnecessary mobile data.
Automatic downloads can keep recent episodes from followed shows ready for the next drive. Storage still requires attention, especially when subscriptions publish frequently, but played downloads can be removed automatically according to the selected Podcasts settings.
Playback speed provides another form of control. Faster playback can help a listener finish a familiar news format within a shorter trip, while normal or slower speeds may suit technical discussions, unfamiliar accents or narrative programs where delivery forms part of the experience.
Listening Continues After the Car Stops
CarPlay does not create a separate podcast library inside the vehicle. It extends the listening activity already connected to the iPhone, preserving followed shows, saved programs and playback position when the drive ends.
That continuity prevents commute listening from becoming isolated. A listener can discover and prepare episodes on an iPhone, hear part of one through CarPlay and continue later on a Mac or another compatible device. Downloads remain stored on the device that received them, while supported library information and progress can synchronize through the Apple Account.
Commute length can eventually shape a personal programming schedule. A 12-minute daily news show may fit the morning route almost exactly, while a 45-minute interview can cover both directions with the remaining section ready for the following day. The queue can change with the calendar, leaving shorter episodes for busy mornings and deeper programs for the roads that provide enough time to hear them properly.
A cada atualização anual do macOS, uma escolha da Apple em particular gera quase tanta curiosidade quanto as mudanças e os novos recursos do seu sistema operacional: o nome que acompanhará o update.
Hoje, faremos uma breve recapitulação das principais escolhas da Maçã sobre os nomes de cada versão do sistema operacional dos seus computadores, passando por décadas de codinomes felinos e, mais recentemente, paisagens californianas.
As (várias) mudanças do passado
Antes disso — no período do Mac OS Classic, que abrange os sistemas dos Macintoshes lançados entre 1984 e 2001 —, os nomes dos sistemas da Apple eram usados quase exclusivamente de forma interna. Publicamente, as versões recebiam denominações bastante protocolares, mas, nos bastidores, praticamente todas carregavam codinomes.
O System 6, por exemplo, teve versões conhecidas internamente como Antares (6.04), Big Deal (6.05), SixPack (6.06) e Terminator (6.08). Já o System 7 passou por uma verdadeira coleção de nomes, incluindo Blue, Beta Cheese, Cube-E, I Tripoli, Jirocho, Mozart, Capone, Danook, Thag e Marconi, entre outros. Também houve casos específicos, como Road Warrior, utilizado nos primeiros PowerBooks, além de Unity, Buster, Son of Buster, Harmony e Ides of Buster, empregados em versões posteriores do sistema.
A partir do Mac OS 8, os nomes foram predominantemente relacionados à teoria musical — é o caso do codinome Tempo no Mac OS 8, Allegro no Mac OS 8.5 e Sonata no Mac OS 8.7 (versão de desenvolvimento do que viria a ser o Mac OS 9). As exceções são o Mac OS 8.1 (intitulado Bride of Buster) e o Mac OS 8.6 (Veronica).
Essa só se tornou uma tradição marqueteira a partir do Mac OS X 10.2, quando Steve Jobs apresentou a nova versão do sistema operacional como Mac OS X Jaguar, levando um codinome ao público pela primeira vez — antes do Jaguar, a Apple utilizou os codinomes Kodiak para a versão beta, Cheetah para a 10.0 e Puma para a 10.1 —, inaugurando a era de nomes de grandes felinos.
Os animais ditaram os sistemas dos Macs por cerca de dez anos (de 2002 até 2012): foi o caso do Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion e, por fim, OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 — que abandonou (temporariamente) o prefixo “Mac”.
OS X Mavericks 10.9: a alteração de rota rumo à Califórnia
A partir da décima versão do macOS (então OS X), a Apple adotou publicamente nomes com as regiões da Califórnia, tendência que segue em vigor até os dias de hoje.
A troca, aliás, andou em paralelo a uma mudança paradigmática do sistema: foi somente com o OS X Mavericks 10.9 que a Maçã deixou de cobrar pela atualização dos seus sistemas operacionais, permitindo que os seus usuários, a partir do Snow Leopard (na compilação 10.6.8), atualizassem as suas máquinas sem custos adicionais — uma realidade que permanece até os dias de hoje.
O primeiro destino geográfico escolhido pela Apple remete a uma região litorânea conhecida pelas altas ondas, propícias para a cena local do surfe. O papel de parede do OS X 10.9 dava destaque à curvatura de uma grande onda em tons de azul e turquesa, com clara inspiração na localização que deu nome ao update.
Em matéria de software, o OS X Mavericks ficou marcado pelo aprimoramento na gestão de performance, bateria e memória, aproveitando melhor o hardware dos computadores da Apple. Quanto aos recursos, o sistema trouxe os links compartilhados no Safari, respostas embutidas em notificações, abas e tags no Finder, melhor suporte ao uso de múltiplos monitores, além da introdução de novos aplicativos, como o Mapas e iBooks.
OS X Yosemite 10.10
Pouco mais de quatro horas adiante (ou 314km, para ser mais exato), encontramos o Parque Nacional de Yosemite. A área já era considerada tão importante para a preservação ambiental que Abraham Lincoln autorizou sua proteção e uso público em 1864, anos antes da criação de Yellowstone, reconhecido como o primeiro parque nacional do mundo. Outro grande entusiasta de Yosemite foi Theodore Roosevelt, que ajudou a consolidar a sua importância dentro do sistema de parques americanos.
Um dos maiores símbolos do parque — e também o destaque do wallpaper oficial do sistema — é o Half Dome, um monólito de granito com impressionantes 2.696 metros de altitude. Localizada no coração de Yosemite, a formação foi considerada inescalável por alguns geólogos do século XIX, até que George G. Anderson realizou a façanha em 1875, escalando-a descalço. Muito possivelmente, a foto usada pela Apple foi registrada com uma lente teleobjetiva nas proximidades da Ahwahnee Meadow.
O OS X Yosemite 10.10 foi um marco importante na trajetória do macOS. Muito lembrado pelas mudanças de design na interface — com elementos translúcidos e ícones de formas planas que definiriam a identidade visual do sistema por várias gerações —, ele também deixou como legado a introdução dos recursos de Continuidade (Continuity) entre o OS X e o iOS.
Inicialmente, a novidade englobava apenas o AirDrop, as chamadas telefônicas, o app Mensagens, o Handoff e o Instant Hotspot. Ainda assim, ela inaugurou um nível de interoperabilidade que ajudou a redefinir a forma como o mercado de tecnologia passou a enxergar ecossistemas compostos por diferentes produtos de uma mesma marca.
OS X El Capitan 10.11
A apenas 20 minutos de distância do Ahwahnee Meadow, a próxima parada do Mac é outra atração turística presente dentro do Parque Nacional de Yosemite: o El Capitan é um monólito de granito de quase 900 metros que se ergue acima do vale do parque.
O papel de parede provavelmente foi fotografado a partir do mirante Tunnel View, de onde é possível avistar o El Capitan à esquerda do vale. Ao fundo, surge o Half Dome — um enquadramento que parece refletir o espírito da atualização. Diferentemente de Yosemite, o OS X El Capitan 10.11 deu menos ênfase à introdução de novos recursos e concentrou seus esforços em correções de bugs, otimizações de desempenho e refinamentos da experiência de uso. Entre as principais novidades, estavam um Spotlight aprimorado, a adição do Split View e diversas melhorias nos aplicativos nativos da Apple.
macOS Sierra 10.12
Cerca de 338km depois (aproximadamente quatro horas e meia) de Yosemite, passando pela cordilheira de Sierra Nevada (situada no leste da Califórnia, a oeste do Mount Whitney), temos o Lone Pine Peak, cenário da montanha que aparece no wallpaper do sistema.
Além da mudança de nomenclatura de OS X para macOS (colado e com o “m” minúsculo, como segue até os dias de hoje), a atualização é particularmente lembrada pela inclusão da Siri no Mac, o Desbloqueio Automático (Auto Unlock) com o Apple Watch e a Área de Transferência Universal (Universal Clipboard) entre Macs, iPhones e iPads.
macOS High Sierra 10.13
Uma rápida viagem de 80 minutos (129km) é capaz de nos levar ao próximo destino fotografado pela Apple: North Lake, localizada na pequena cidade de Bishop, entre as montanhas da cordilheira de Sierra Nevada. Ali, muito possivelmente em meio ao outono, o registro eternizado no papel de parede do sistema foi feito.
Quando falamos do sistema, aos moldes do próprio El Capitan e do Snow Leopard, o macOS High Sierra 10.13 focou muito mais no aprimoramento interno do macOS do que em novos recursos, mas vale mencionar a inclusão do novo sistema de arquivos da Maçã (o Apple File System, ou APFS), do suporte aos formatos audiovisuais HEVC e HEIF, bem como a chegada da segunda geração da tecnologia de desempenho gráfico Metal.
macOS Mojave 10.14
Depois das montanhas, que peculiarmente ficam na margem do wallpaper, vieram as dunas. Com uma distância de 253km (ou três horas de carro), o próximo destino é o Parque Nacional do Vale da Morte, o ponto mais quente do continente americano — onde se registrou a maior temperatura da história (56,7°C) em julho de 1913, e onde a foto do papel de parede do macOS Mojave 10.14 foi feita.
Já sobre as novidades do sistema, essa versão do macOS é particularmente conhecida pela introdução do Modo Escuro, a inclusão dos Conjuntos (Stacks) na Mesa (Desktop), além da estreia de apps já conhecidos dos usuários de iOS, como o Apple News, o Bolsa (Stocks), o Gravador de Voz (Voice Memo) e o Casa (Home).
macOS Catalina 10.15
A 428km adiante do Deserto de Mojave (cerca de cinco horas e meia de carro), nós temos a Ilha de Santa Catalina, destino paradisíaco — e remoto — da costa sul da Califórnia que deu nome à versão do macOS lançada em 2019. Pela posição da foto, o que se especula é que o registro oficial da Apple tenha sido feito com o auxílio de um drone ou helicóptero, sobrevoando as águas para capturar Catalina sob diferentes períodos e iluminações para fornecer o tema dinâmico disponível no sistema.
Essa atualização marcou o fim do iTunes, que foi segmentado em um catálogo de aplicativos separados (Apple TV, Música, Apple Podcasts), mas sua adição mais relevante muito possivelmente foi o recurso Sidecar, que possibilita o uso do iPad como um monitor externo do Mac.
macOS Big Sur 11
Com uma distância de 524km da Ilha de Catalina, a próxima parada é na Ponte Bixby Creek (inaugurada em 1932 e particularmente conhecida por suas estradas com curvas), localizada na costa central de Big Sur, que dá nome a essa versão do macOS — o papel de parede retrata também a parte litorânea do local.
Sobre o sistema, a versão marcou a transição dos processadores da Intel para o Apple Silicon com o lançamento do M1, trazendo novos ícones, materiais translúcidos, um novo Dock, Central de Controle e de Notificações.
Esta versão também foi um marco para o sistema operacional, pois, pela primeira vez em muitos anos, a Apple abandonou as sub-versões 10.x e passou para o número 11 — o que se manteve nos anos subsequentes.
macOS Monterey 12
Ainda na costa de Big Sur, o macOS Monterey 12 marcou a quebra de uma tradição: pela primeira vez em anos, a Apple optou por não incluir um registro fotográfico como possível papel de parede ou tela de descanso, mantendo apenas temas dinâmicos para ilustrar o sistema dos Macs naquela ocasião.
O Condado de Monterey, que inspirou o nome do sistema, é particularmente lembrado por ter abrigado a primeira capital da Califórnia, quando a região ainda era de domínio dos governos da Espanha e do México.
Em relação ao sistema, o grande destaque foi a introdução do Controle Universal (Universal Control), permitindo que um único conjunto de periféricos (como teclados e mouses) seja utilizado simultaneamente no Mac e no iPad.
macOS Ventura 13
Por volta de 450km de distância (quatro horas e meia de trajeto) depois, temos o Condado de Ventura, que inspirou essa versão do macOS. Emancipado do Condado de Santa Bárbara em 1873, ele abriga o píer mais antigo do estado da Califórnia. Mais uma vez, a Apple optou por não incluir um papel de parede fotográfico.
Quanto aos seus recursos, o macOS Ventura 13 se destacou pela adição do recurso Organizador Visual (Stage Manager) e melhorias no Spotlight, Safari, entre outros aplicativos nativos do sistema que ganharam reformulações.
macOS Sonoma 14
Do Condado de Ventura até Sonoma, são 748km (pouco mais de sete horas de trajeto) até a região norte de San Francisco, conhecida por abrigar centenas de vinícolas. O registro da Apple foi feito na vinícola Mazzocco Sonoma, no rancho de Warm Springs.
Depois de dois anos, a Apple enfim retornou com os papéis de parede fotográficos no macOS, funcionando também como protetores de tela (screensavers) dinâmicos que lentamente se tornam um wallpaper estático após o login.
A maior novidade do sistema foi a implementação dos widgets interativos na Mesa (Desktop), além de reformulações no modo Jogo, na relação do sistema com acessos remotos e no compartilhamento de conteúdos em videochamadas, com novidades também no Safari, na Siri e nos recursos de acessibilidade.
macOS Sequoia 15
Saindo de Sonoma, nosso próximo destino está localizado a quase sete horas de distância (mais ao sul da Califórnia, a exatos 547km de distância); trata-se do Parque Nacional da Sequoia, que abriga algumas das maiores árvores do planeta em termos de volume.
O registro do papel de parede é remoto o suficiente para não termos uma dimensão exata da sua localização geográfica (até porque a Apple nunca divulgou essa informação), mas é seguro afirmar que as imagens foram capturadas em algum dos bosques de sequoias da Sierra Nevada.
Além da estreia controversa dos recursos da Apple Intelligence devido à discrepância entre o que foi apresentado e as funcionalidades entregues, o macOS Sequoia 15 introduziu o Espelhamento do iPhone (iPhone Mirroring), a organização de janelas em mosaico e o aplicativo Senhas (Passwords).
macOS Tahoe 26
Do Parque Nacional de Sequoia, partimos rumo ao norte, até a fronteira entre a Califórnia e o estado do Nevada (uma distância de 330km, ou três horas e meia de trajeto). O próximo destino é o Lago Tahoe, também presente na cordilheira de Sierra Nevada. Ele é particularmente conhecido por ser o maior lago alpino da América do Norte em termos de altitude.
Conhecido por suas águas cristalinas, o lago é um destino frequente para esqui. O papel de parede do macOS Tahoe 26 exibe um ângulo baixo sobre o lago, com as rochas em primeiro plano, enquanto os pinheiros e as montanhas de Sierra Nevada aparecem ao fundo.
Quanto ao sistema, além da unificação da numeração com todo o ecossistema (iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS e visionOS) da Apple, essa versão foi especialmente marcada pelo redesign de interface com a estreia do Liquid Glass. Outras novidades incluem a adição das Atividades Ao Vivo (Live Activities) ao recurso Continuidade, além de revisões do Spotlight, Central de Controle e os recursos da Apple Intelligence.
macOS Golden Gate 27
E, enfim, chegamos à versão mais recente do macOS! Com uma distância de 330km (trajeto com cerca de três horas e meia), nosso próximo destino é o cartão postal da cidade de San Francisco: a Ponte Golden Gate.
Ela foi, até 1964, a maior ponte suspensa do mundo — caso seus cabos de sustentação fossem esticados, teriam tamanho o suficiente para dar três voltas no planeta.
Enquanto sistema, assim como o Snow Leopard ou o High Sierra, o macOS Golden Gate 27 é marcado por sua abordagem de priorização dos refinamentos, tanto relacionados ao visual Liquid Glass quanto aos recursos da Apple Intelligence e da Siri, que agora se torna Siri AI.
E você aí, usa o macOS desde que versão? Alguma, em especial, lhe marcou? Ou você (ainda) não é usuário de Mac, mas gostou de todas essas curiosidades? 😊
For the last 22 years, one of the most bizarre true crime stories ever to grace the program Unsolved Mysteries has confounded amateur investigators and spawned hundreds of pages of online speculation. Who was behind the decade-long torment of Bill and Dorthy Wacker in the 80s and 90s, which included allegations of stalking, robberies, and even assaults?
While any internet true crime enthusiast knows Unsolved Mysteries frequently left out interesting details that can create a rabbit hole of alternative explanations, in this case, the show has been the sole source of information, with no other known period news coverage of the harassment.
That is, until recently, when this author acquired the original police records, spanning almost 100 pages of material, while researching for my podcast, Cease to Exist. The records reveal a wealth of new information, including potential leads on suspects, and answers to questions true crime fans have speculated about for years.
The Wackers claimed to be victims of a long-term harassment campaign. Credit: Film Rise/Unsolved Mysteries
Unsolved Mysteries
In the Unsolved Mysteries season 6 two-hour finale, airing in the spring of 1994, the public met Bill and Dorthy Wacker, an elderly couple from Massillon, Ohio, who claimed to be victims of a bizarre string of harassment stretching back years. Since then, their story has been the subject of considerable speculation, with some believing the whole affair was so unbelievable that the Wackers must have been making it up. On the other hand, Dorothy herself did seem to bear injuries consistent with the couple’s claims. Without any further information, true crime fans dissected every available scrap of evidence, including the accuracy of the reenactments, for possible clues.
“The Wackers are quiet, unassuming people who tend to mind their own business. Hardly the type to draw the wrath of an unseen enemy,” Unsolved Mysteries host Robert Stack said at the beginning of the segment.
The scene then opens with the couple returning to find their home ransacked on January 16, 1985. This was the third claimed incident, but according to the program, the first that was reported.
“After nearly 10 years, Dorothy and Bill Wacker still wonder who and why,” Stock intoned.
The Wacker’s Story
In interview footage with the couple, Bill speculates that someone may be attempting to force the couple to move, although why that would be was unclear, and refers to the perpetrator as “a kook,” which becomes a bit of a meme in online discourse about the case.
Six months after the previous break-in, Dorothy was home alone recovering from heart surgery when she heard a knock at the door. She found a young man who claimed his car had broken down and that he needed to use her telephone. Although she didn’t see a car anywhere, she let the polite stranger in. He made a call, thanked her, and appeared to leave.
Before she knew what had happened, Dorothy awoke tied up on her kitchen floor after having been struck in the head. A neighbor heard her cries through an open window and came to her aid. Although Dorothy’s injury was not serious, there were two strange elements to the crime. First was the graffiti “cheaper, but will do,” shown in the reenactment as having been left on the kitchen wall. Second was the variety of items stolen from the home, including a gun and radio receiver, which were later returned to the Wackers’ porch. Police were baffled by the return of a stolen gun and distributed fliers featuring a sketch of the suspect, but no identification was ever made.
Harassment continued with a series of threatening phone calls that persisted even after the family changed their number, according to Dorothy and her daughter Peggy Hoover. Additionally, nocturnal banging on the outside of the house began, which led the couple to install lights. The only result was a strange note on the front porch reading “your lights are a laugh,” and subsequent notes such as “you scum I’ll get even,” with a backside reading “this time ha ha.” The police never found any fingerprints on the notes and suggested they may have been made by someone using their opposite hand to disguise their handwriting.
The graffiti written on the Wackers’ wall in the Unsolved Mysteries Reenactment (Credit: Filme Rise/Unsolved Mysteries)
Second Attack and Stake Out
The most dramatic events yet occurred in the fall of 1993. Dorothy was walking her dog outside of their home on October 27th when she was attacked again. The segment claimed she suffered “skull lacerations” and was taken to the hospital, but there were no witnesses to the event.
Notably, Sheriff Bruce W Umpleby says that after interviewing neighbors, no one had any information that led them to believe there was a person there. He continued that most crimes have simple motives and there has never been one identified for the strange periodic flurries of activity around the Wackers.
Things reached a climax when the family conducted a stakeout, hoping to finally capture the stalker one November evening. Bill hid inside a trailer in the driveway, while Dorothy and their daughter Cathy stayed inside the home. Across the street, their sons-in-law Dan and Clay sat in a vehicle in a neighbor’s driveway. After almost four hours, they decided to end the stakeout around 10:30 p.m., when they heard a loud bump on the porch. Incredibly, the stalker had apparently evaded the surveillance and thrown a rock onto the Wackers’ front porch with a note reading “get the message.”
At the conclusion of the segment, Bill says he hopes whoever is responsible is caught soon because, if the Wackers were no longer the targets, he feared the individual would simply target someone else.
Unsolved Mysteries Online Speculation
Besides noting that the sheriff’s department had asked Dorothy after the second attack whether Bill could have been the attacker, the series plays the events fairly straight, without directly questioning the couple’s story. The eerie music and Stack’s gravelly voice convey a feeling of serious menace. True crime fans are more divided, with some arguing that the events were too implausible to be real, while others find it unlikely that an elderly couple would fabricate such a wild tale. Notably, another popular Unsolved Mysteries segment, involving the stalking of Cindy James, is also widely believed to have involved a hoax.
Unfortunately, Newspapers.com’s archive of the local paper, The Massillon Independent, has a large gap between the early 1970s and the 2020s. The only other known media appearance by Bill Wacker before his death was in an unrelated citizen-reaction piece about Connie Chung interviewing Newt Gingrich’s mother in the Akron Beacon Journal, although he is wearing an Unsolved Mysteries hat in the picture. The only other items recovered were obituaries stating that Bill had died in 1999 at age 79 and Dorothy in 2020 at age 83. This left armchair sleuths to rely primarily on what appeared in the episode itself, which does raise questions.
One notable detail is that, in the reenactment, Dorothy’s dog doesn’t bark to alert her to the intruder, which seemed uncharacteristic of a small dog. People debated whether this was merely a quirk of the reenactment or reflected how the event actually occurred, with some questioning whether this provided evidence that Bill was behind the assault. Additionally, some found it odd that the stakeout was called off at the relatively early hour of 10:30 p.m. and found the return of stolen items completely unbelievable. Another oddity was the wording of the letters, with phrases like “you scum” and “no junk,” which sounded to some like older adults attempting to mimic the speech of teenagers while using outdated phraseology.
Among those who believe the Wackers, suspicion has frequently fallen on the daughters, who would presumably inherit the home and were not mentioned as suspects in the episode. Particular suspicion has fallen on Peggy, who was not present for the stakeout. Some have also pointed to the phone calls continuing after the Wackers changed their number as possible evidence of an inside job.
One Redditor, sovietbabyy, claimed to be a relative of the Wackers who stumbled upon the case, although they were too young to have ever met Bill and Dorothy themselves. They claimed Bill and his siblings were all dead but asked other family members for more information and were told that the extended family believed the story and that Bill was usually secluded but would help anyone in need. Five years later, a poster using the screen name goawaycommies followed up, claiming to be the same person. In these new posts, the author claimed that Stark County was a high-crime area and that the police were known to be ineffective; therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising that no one was caught.
While it could be debated whether these two posters are actually the same person, the goawaycommies post provided one essential detail that led to a major breakthrough: the Wackers’ address.
Finding the Wackers
In late December, I wrote to the Massillon County Sheriff requesting any files they had on the Wackers. They granted my request in early January, providing 94 pages of documents. Follow-up requests to the North Lawrence Fire Department, who responded to the assaults, as well as inquiries to two of the responding officers and Ricky Lee Pegido, were fruitless. The Sheriff’s office maintains that these documents are all that were found in the file, despite some appearing to be missing, such as a cover sheet without a report and references to a “phone trap” that is not followed up on.
While the officers may not have wanted to talk about these events, what was contained inside was fascinating, providing the names of suspects, neighbors’ opinions on the Wackers, incidents that were not included in the Unsolved Mysteries segment, and another 90s-era “classic” addition: records involving consultation with a psychic about the crimes.
The Wacker home today. Credit: Google Street View
The Reports
Right from the beginning, the documents tell a slightly different story from the television segment. Instead of waiting until the third event, in January 1985, to call police, there was a report concerning the initial August 1984 break-in. This one was different from the others, with gold and diamond jewelry stolen that was not returned and police noting that a credit card may have been used to force the lock.
The police report for the January 1985 break-in contained two notable details: the method of entry and the first-named suspect. Despite having their locked home broken into previously, the Wackers had left a side door unlocked, allowing the burglar to gain entry. Additionally, the report lists a “Randy” as a possible suspect, a young man whose aunt had previously cared for Mrs. Wacker’s elderly mother in the home.
Next, the first assault report appears, which is similar to what was shown in the episode, except that “CHEAPER, BUT WILL DO” was written in a bathroom instead of the kitchen. Additionally, a basement window was cut, through which the perpetrator may have escaped. The man who came to her aid is named here as Jim Pedigo, who says he and his brother had been working in their backyard all morning without seeing or hearing a thing until Dorothy’s cries became evident. In this report, the name is given as “Pedigl,” and it switches back and forth between that and “Pedigo” in the reports (the name “Pedigo” appears in print as a family name in the area in obituaries). When Bill returned, he found items that appeared to have been staged to be taken later from the robbery around the perimeter of the house.
Following this, there is a series of minor reports of items being stolen and returned—oddly, with the Wackers still not locking their doors, despite the first report indicating that had been their former habit.
The Second Assault
The report of the second assault does closely match the program, even down to the controversial dog not barking when the assailant came after Dorothy. Although the Wackers claimed the dog normally ignored its surroundings as it relieved itself, the officer noted on a follow-up visit to the residence that the dog barked when he arrived, which he found suspicious. In the report, Dorothy claimed she had to crawl to the back door to get help from Bill after the attacker fled, which was supported by dirt and scratch marks on her forearms noted by the officer. The officer gave Bill some suggestions, such as installing a light on that side of the house and trimming some trees to remove hiding places.
A lengthy segment of the report regarding the Sheriff’s canvassing of the neighborhood provides some interesting insight into the Wackers’ relationship with their neighbors. This portion notes that:
The neighbors collectively agreed that none of them have had any type of problems. Nor, have they seen or heard any form of disturbance in the area. In fact, several of the neighbors stated that they don’t even lock their doors. Further stated by the neighboring community, most of the neighbors stay to themselves, however, ‘the Wackers bring most of their problems on themselves.’ Apparently the Wackers aren’t the most congenial of persons in the neighborhood, especially with the Shillings and Maddox’s.
The Maddox family is the same household as the Pedigo family, a notable change of relations since Jim Pedigo aided Dorothy. On the other hand, another couple in the neighborhood stated that they regularly played cards with the Wackers, providing a nuanced image of them as people who got along with some but not others.
Suspects Not Named on Unsolved Mysteries
Following this event, both of the daughters began continually contacting the Stark County Sheriff’s office, demanding more attention be paid to their parents’ harassment. One of the items introduced here, but oddly never followed up on, is a “phone trap” put on the Wackers’ phone by their telephone company, Ameritech, to monitor all incoming calls. Although the reports say this is activated, there is no information on whether any claims of harassing calls were ever compared against the phone trap.
There appears to be a missing report explaining where the tip originates from, but officers speak with the son residing at the Maddox/Pedigo residence, Ricky Lee Pedigo, about whether he is aware of an individual by the name of “Shriner” on his mother’s side of the family, which he was not. When they later return to speak with his mother, Barbara Maddox, she claims she is not related to anyone by that name and flippantly remarks that the composite of the suspect in the first attack on Dorothy looks like a young dick Van Dyke, but no one she’s ever seen before.
Next, officers follow up on a tip from daughter Peggy Hoover that a woman named Debbie Shriver’s (not Shriner) ex-husband may be the suspect. After tracing this woman through a former landlord and then her own father, Debbie, now going by Debbie Pedigo, agrees to speak with the Stark County Sheriff’s. She says the composite bears no resemblance to her ex-husband, James Shriver.
Peggy then returns with another tip that a psychic told her the suspect lives within a twelve-mile radius of the Wacker home.
Finally, Peggy provides one last suspect: Barbara Maddox’s stepson, Johnny Lee, whom she says may be because her parents didn’t pay enough attention to him as a boy. At this point, Barbara Maddox has had enough, saying that her stepson hasn’t been to visit in years, and she is going to put up a privacy fence to keep away from the Wackers.
The suspect sketch from the Dorothy Wacker assault. Credit: Film Rise /Unsolved Mysteries
Final Events
From this point on, the banging and rocks being thrown at the home continued. At one point, the Wackers claimed someone had tried to gain entrance to their locked home, but the police report casts suspicion on this. The appraisal was that it appeared as though someone was attempting to make it look like the house was being broken into without causing too much damage, and it was inconsistent with typical burglary techniques.
The final report is from October 1997, when Dorothy heard a loud banging on the house while seated in the living room. An officer responded but could find no damage.
All the reports are bizarre. The daughters appear to be very invested in the case, yet Peggy ultimately seems to be throwing around claims that don’t add up to anything. Was she letting her imagination run away with her, using the events as a cover to harass people she had personal grievances against, or was she really on to something? The “Shriner/Shriver” discrepancy speaks to a minor issue prevalent in the police’s investigations: not confirming the spelling of names, which also occurs with “Pedigl/Pedigo.” Does this indicate the sheriff’s department is generally performing sloppy work, as the Reddit poster implied? While there is room to speculate here, the constantly changing accusations may have undermined Peggy’s credibility with law enforcement.
One possible conclusion is that the very earliest break-in was real, since the stolen items were not returned and the report is consistent with a typical forced entry. Perhaps after that, the Wackers developed a taste for the excitement and attention and hoaxed the rest of it. This would explain the incongruities of items being returned, no one ever seeing anything, their continuing to leave their doors unlocked, and the strange attempt to create the appearance of a forced entry without damaging the home.
But then again, officers reported witnessing injuries to Dorothy after both assaults. Could she have been willing to take things that far? Could the couple have truly been victims? Could one of the children be behind it? Was Bill assaulting her?
None of these questions can clearly be answered from the available evidence; and so, decades after the strange story of the Wackers first came to public attention, the case rests—and another relic of the 1990s remains an unsolved mystery.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.
The AI music generation tool Suno scraped millions of songs and lyrics from YouTube Music, Deezer, and Genius, as well as from the stock music libraries Pond5, Jamendo, Freesound, the International Music Score Library Project, and podcasts via RSS feeds, according to a hacker who breached the company and shared data about Suno’s training libraries with 404 Media. The hacker was also able to access user information for hundreds of thousands of Suno’s customers, as well as Stripe payment information, they said.
[…]
As part of these legal proceedings, Suno previously admitted that it was trained on “essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open internet,” which included a total of “tens of millions of recordings.” Suno has been making the argument that it is allowed to train on copyrighted works as fair use in those cases, one of which has been settled.
Suno has long acknowledged that its AI music generator relied on the scraping of millions of songs available across the internet, but a new hack reveals just how the company pulled from streaming services and websites[…] all while user information remained vulnerable.
[…]
“Our goal has always been to help people create original new music, not replicate someone else’s. That’s why we build our models around what we call ‘Original Creation, By Design,’” the spokesperson said in a statement. “For example, we intentionally do not use artist names as a category of training metadata because we want our models to help people create brand new songs, not music that replicates other artists’ existing work. It’s also why we built Suno with detection filters that block or prevent a user from using specific artist, song, or album names as prompts, and prevent users from uploading lyrics or sound recordings that match existing works.”
Snap's new smart glasses are probably the most impressive bit of face-computer technology we've seen. They're not VR-headset huge; they don't have a big charging puck; thanks to Snap's many years of AR lens development, they're likely to have a lot of features right out of the box. (Yes, they're $2,195, but that may just be what all this tech costs right now.) Snap is clearly at the front of this race.
And then… you see the pictures. The pictures of Snap CEO Evan Spiegel wearing the new Specs, as the enormous and heavy stems smash down on his ears. The pictures of models and athletes wearing Specs, carefully posed to hide the obvious weigh …
On today’s episode of Decoder, my guest is Hayden Field, senior AI reporter for The Verge. Often when Hayden comes on the show, it’s because something has gone wrong in the world of AI. Last weekend, that something was a pretty intense mix of Anthropic, the Trump administration, and Anthropic’s new AI model, Fable 5.
On Friday, not even a week since Anthropic released Fable to the public, the US government said it was imposing export controls on the new model, as well as the underlying Mythos model that Fable is based on. Those controls restricted foreign nationals, even those working for Anthropic in the United States, from accessing these models. Anthropic then took Fable and Mythos offline for everyone, because the company said it was worried it would not be able to restrict access and reasonably comply with the order otherwise.
As you might imagine, this is all a giant mess. Hayden actually just published a fantastic play-by-play on The Verge about how this all went down last Friday and the scramble through the weekend from both sides to figure out what exactly happened and how it might get resolved. So I wanted her to come on and just walk me through the timeline and what it all means.
Verge subscribers, don’t forget you get exclusive access to ad-free Decoder wherever you get your podcasts. Head here. Not a subscriber? You can sign up here.
The situation is ongoing. As of Tuesday when we’re recording this episode, Fable is still offline — in fact, if you boot up Claude, it tells you right above the chatbox window that “Fable 5 is currently unavailable.” Yet as you’ll hear Hayden explain, whether Fable comes back online this week or not, the ripple effects of the government’s feud with Anthropic have far-reaching consequences for the tech industry and the US’s AI regulatory regime.
There’s also a big irony here, and you’ll hear Hayden and me get into that, too: Anthropic has spent years arguing that AI might soon be powerful enough to be dangerous — and that the government needed to get serious about regulating AI sooner rather than later. Well… now we’re here, and Anthropic doesn’t love the way it’s playing out.
And now, everyone — but maybe especially the Chinese government — is watching to see whether the United States’ AI regulatory approach takes the shape of a serious safety framework. Or whether it’s just another weapon for the White House to use against the companies and people that don’t bend the knee to the Trump admin. Like I said, it’s a real mess.
OK: Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field on the Claude Fable ban and the new AI regulatory landscape. Here we go.
This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Hayden Field, you’re a senior AI reporter here at The Verge. Welcome back to Decoder.
Thanks. Great to be here.
It’s always chaos when you’re here, Hayden. That’s what I’ve come to discover.
It really is. My rule is still in effect, in that it’s always a Friday. Stuff always hits the fan on a Friday and this was no different.
Particularly when it comes to the government regulating AI, there’s a real “what if it all went crazy on Friday, so we all had to think about it over the weekend.” And then I think this has been basically true throughout the Trump administration. The scramble to put it all back together on Monday is immediate.
Yep, exactly. It’s crazy. And the fact that all these talks were happening all over the weekend and then Monday, still no resolution. I’m surprised that things aren’t resolved yet, but yeah, lots of drama.
Well, this podcast is going to come out on a Thursday. We’re recording on a Tuesday. We’ll see what happens over the next two days. But I think the big picture here of how the United States government should regulate AI and what that means for American AI companies on the world stage is open. I don’t think it’s going to be resolved with whatever happens with Fable.
Let’s try to understand the whole story and then pull those themes out of it, because they’re just going to keep coming back around again and again and again, I think with every new model released now. So, let’s start at the start. What is Claude Mythos? What is Fable? How do they relate to each other?
Great question. I asked Anthropic the same thing when they came out with this like a week ago. Because AI companies are really bad at naming things and it’s always very confusing. But the situation is that Mythos is the underlying model that is powering both Mythos 5 and Fable 5. Fable is a new model. They haven’t had Fable 1, 2, 3, or 4. They just immediately started with Fable 5, very confusing. But Fable is the watered down, or safeguarded, version of Mythos 5. When they came out with Mythos Preview in April, Anthropic kept really hyping it up. They were saying this is a potential cyber-weapon. It can never be released to the public, at least until safeguards catch up. We’re only going to release it to enterprise and governments, or “cyber defenders” is what they called them — places that need to patch up all their frameworks before bad actors come in and exploit those vulnerabilities.
Now, fast-forward to last week and Anthropic released not only Mythos 5, which is the first official Mythos — before it was Mythos Preview, so we skipped straight to 5 — then they also released on the same day Fable 5, which was the very first public version of Mythos-class models. So, same underlying framework, but now tons of safeguards built on top to hopefully stop the public from accessing this super dangerous — by Anthropic’s own admission — model that could mess up everything.
So, that’s what they released. And they spent a long time hyping this up and talking about how dangerous it was and then it kind of came back to haunt them later.
Fable is a Mythos with security guardrails. When it first came out, there was a wave of controversy, right? AI and security researchers found those guardrails were actually preventing them from doing research and seeing what Fable was capable of, because if they tried to push the boundary, it would downgrade them to Anthropic’s previous models.
Yeah. It became kind of like a meme. People were making fun of how strict the guardrails were when it came out.
So, that’s the thing that’s confusing me, where there’s a controversy because the guardrails are so strict and then something happened that made the government think Fable was so dangerous that it needed to be pulled. What happened?
I talked to some independent red teamers about this. Before the Amazon white paper was circulating, before this allegation of a jailbreak was public, I talked to some red teamers about how safe Fable 5 was. They were all pretty impressed with how the guardrails held up. I was expecting it to be a little bit easier to jailbreak. They were saying they had tried a lot of stuff and nothing was working. That’s not my experience when I usually talk to independent red teamers. They’re like, “Yeah, I got it to break here. I got it to break there.” In this case, they were saying it held up pretty well.
Now, according to a source familiar with the negotiations who was directly involved that I spoke with yesterday, this is kind of the timeline of last week. In the middle of last week, Anthropic was made aware of some research that Amazon researchers conducted. They had uncovered a potential jailbreak, something they were pretty worried about.
They sent it over to Anthropic. Anthropic was kind of going back and forth with the Amazon researchers talking about it. They were discussing whether it was really a jailbreak, or whether it was not that big of a deal essentially. Apparently, reports say that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy then got worried about it and called maybe [Treasury Secretary] Scott Bessent, or some member of the Trump administration, on Friday and talked about his concerns.
The Trump administration freaked out. They immediately called Anthropic. They send them a message actually and they say, “Look, you need to shut this down in 90 minutes.”
90 minutes?
Yep, 90-minute ultimatum. And they said, “We need to figure out how to fix this jailbreak that’s come to light.” Anthropic got on the phone with the Trump administration within 15 minutes of that first call and they were asking for more details. They’re like, “Okay, let’s talk about this. Are you talking about the research we’re already aware of? Are you talking about something different? What is the jailbreak you’re talking about?” They’re trying to get more details and talk to the administration.
I think the administration was also mad that Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, didn’t call back until an hour and 15 minutes after that first call. Anthropic called back 15 minutes in. It took Dario an hour and 15 minutes to call back. So, there was a lot going on here. But by the time they’re talking, the 90-minute deadline passes and the Trump administration says, “Okay, that’s it. Yep. We’re hitting you with export controls.”
That is when they told Anthropic that no foreign national can use either of these models and Anthropic has to just make sure that that is the case. No foreign national, whether they work at Anthropic or not. If you’re, say, Bank of America and you have access to Mythos 5 and you’re using it to plug vulnerabilities in your system and you’re not a US citizen, you can’t use it. Same with a random, just regular individual using Fable 5. Same with an Anthropic researcher who is not a US citizen.
So, Anthropic did the only thing it could really do in the situation and they said, “Okay, we got to sideline both these models. We can’t in like one minute figure out a way to make sure no non-US citizens are using the models.” So, that’s what happened.
I mean, it was a crazy couple of hours. Anthropic comes out with a statement later that night saying they’re trying to work with the Trump administration on this. They spent all weekend virtually meeting with administration officials and then flying three employees out — who I detail in the piece we just published — to D.C. to talk to them in person.
Notably, Dario was not there in person. He’s virtually joining all these meetings. I can confirm he was not at a wellness retreat, which is what some reports say, but they won’t tell me where he is. But he’s not at a wellness retreat. That’s all I know.
Absolutely not at a wellness retreat is Anthropic’s position. Okay.
[Laughs] So, yeah, there’s a lot going on, very dramatic. All the sources I spoke with over the past couple of days were saying the whole tech industry and the cybersecurity community in particular are just talking. One source told me, “Beijing is laughing at us right now.”
It was interesting because some cybersecurity leaders in the space came together to write a public letter and they said, “Look, not all of us believe in regulation, but if you are going to regulate it, this is not the way,” which I think is just indicative of this whole situation.
Maybe you believe in aggressive government regulation, maybe you don’t. There’s a way to operate the regulatory efforts that is rigorous and thoughtful and careful and predictable. Nothing about this seems like it was rigorous or thoughtful or predictable.
I actually want to start at the beginning. Andy Jassy and Scott Bessent might be smart guys. They obviously have very senior positions in our society. They’re not experts in AI. How did we get to Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, relaying concerns about AI security research to Scott Bessent, who does not really oversee AI policy in any meaningful way, and that resulted in a 90-minute ultimatum delivered to a company whose CEO is absent? I don’t think your politics should matter.
Either this is the worst security breach in history that the CEO of Amazon is going to call the treasury secretary, or this is just a bunch of guys who want to feel important. And I can’t quite figure out which one it is.
It’s a combination of a couple things. One, it’s the fact that, like you mentioned, a lot of these guys are not experts in AI. Any jailbreak of this is obviously serious and worth considering, but I think that it’s the type of thing that when you don’t have direct knowledge of how these systems work, you’re going to take a really black-and-white approach. These guys weren’t experts.
Andy Jassy hears about this from his own researchers. His own researchers, by the way, who had been going back and forth with Anthropic for a couple days on this. They weren’t calling the president about it. They’re like, “Okay, let’s discuss this and figure out what we can do here.” The researchers allegedly didn’t seem to think it was the end of the world. They’re just like, “Oh, we uncovered this, let’s discuss.” Anthropic was working on it and then Andy Jassy hears about it. He makes this call, everything hits the fan, which makes sense because if you are not an AI expert — and even if you are an AI expert, maybe you’re not an expert on cybersecurity and how exactly these systems work, of course — so you’re going to freak out.
It’s understandable, but what is really strange is what happened after that. Make this phone call and the administration becomes aware, okay. But what I think is really weird is the 90-minute ultimatum and not giving Anthropic additional details when they said, “Hey, let’s talk about it. Are you talking about the vulnerability we’re already aware of or are you talking about something else? And can you just tell us about it so then we can talk about it?” They said, “No, 90 minutes, do it or die.”
And then making it so that no foreign national can access the system ever. That is what’s really strange. Just the way all these cards fell is what everyone in the tech industry thinks is just really strange and it’s indicative of, as you mentioned, the way that the Trump administration has been operating with tech. A lot of times it seems to be President Trump has one conversation and he’s swayed from that most recent conversation. So he’s been very anti-regulation, very pro-American AI and wanting to advance and export American AI, which is something that the commerce department is requesting.
The Trump admin has a [request for information] out right now. They’re all about exporting American AI and advancing and beating China, but then they do this thing that kneecaps everyone with no notice and could very well impact not just Anthropic, but also OpenAI, Google, every competitor in the space that also has what they call a semi-equivalent Mythos product.
It seems really disorganized and it’s very interesting that this often ends up in a scramble with all these CEOs trying to race to kowtow to the Trump administration without really being grounded a lot of times in science or evidence that really matches what’s going on. The level of freak out is not usually matching the evidence there.
Amazon is an investor in Anthropic. They’re a major partner. Why did Andy Jassy kneecap his own investment in this way?
Well, Amazon typically does a lot of red teaming just normally. It’s just part of their process. So it makes sense that this would have been tested and then unearthed. But what’s interesting is why Andy Jassy called the Trump administration about it. I’m not sure why.
Maybe it was a typical call that was already happening and he just happened to mention something offhand. Maybe he was calling them and saying, “Yeah, good thing you did the executive order because X, Y, Z.” We don’t know. But what is interesting — and I’m glad you asked this — is that a lot of the sources I spoke with said that the stuff in the alleged jailbreak and in the Amazon white paper that’s been circulating, all of it could be achieved by OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 and some other models.
That’s the allegation, that these skills are not unique to Fable 5, the skills in question as part of the jailbreak. Mythos is obviously more powerful than Fable because it doesn’t have safeguards, but when it comes to Fable and the problems that were brought to light by Amazon, it seems like those problems are not unique to Fable and that GPT-5.5 can also achieve those. A lot of people in the industry are asking, “Why Anthropic?”
A real element of this is that it’s always Anthropic. Anthropic has the most contentious relationship with the Trump administration. They were designated a supply chain risk by the Department of Defense, but the posture here is different from the usual Anthropic drama.
Historically, Anthropic has said, “We don’t want you to use our tools for X, Y, and Z.” And the Trump administration has said, “No, we get to do whatever we want with the AI tools.” That’s why Anthropic was designated supply chain risk by the Department of Defense. They said, “We have some red lines about how we want to be used in the military context.” Pete Hegseth said, “Nope, I’m going to do whatever I want. You have to allow all lawful purposes” — that’s the line — “and because you won’t, you’re a supply chain risk.” There’s now a lawsuit that’s being argued about.
Here it’s the opposite. The Trump administration is worried that the model is too powerful and can be used for too many things, and Anthropic seems to think that that belief is overblown, that the administration is overplaying a thing that they can fix. They just need the time to do it and some rigor and conversation about how effective their fix is.
How do you put that together? On the one hand, the Trump administration is anti-AI regulatory efforts. On the one hand, they say, “We get to do whatever we want with the models, make them as powerful as you can.” And then here the model is too powerful and has to be pulled before any foreign national can even look at it.
It really just speaks to the fact that the administration is trusting these companies to tell it what it should be doing. We’ve seen that a bunch with any regulation that has happened or has become voluntary. Lots of drafts have been adjusted after the Trump administration talks to AI companies. They already don’t like Anthropic. There’s already a big trust breakdown between the two from the supply chain risk situation, from the lawsuit, from drawing red lines.
I can’t imagine that this exact situation would have played out if this had been a competitor. OpenAI has a Mythos semi-equivalent model of its own. Again, no company is really saying theirs is as good as Mythos, but they say it’s pretty good. The freakout would have still happened, but I cannot imagine the rest of it would have played out the way it has. The Trump admin would have given them more time. They would have had more of a conversation and I don’t think they would have made this foreign nationals rule that has sent shockwaves through the whole industry and the world.
One of the sources I spoke with said that he already knew that backup contracts were being signed with non-US companies right now. Open weight models were being deployed on alternative hardware arrangements because now companies everywhere are saying, “Oh wow, we’ve got to make political risk part of our business plan now. We don’t really know what’s going to happen with American AI. Let’s make some backup plans here,” which is not good for the industry. It’s just interesting that the Trump administration is so afraid of China overtaking us, yet they’re willing to kneecap one of their champions, as it were, in the industry.
But I also think it’s interesting that the reasoning from the Trump administration that’s been coming out day by day seems to differ. Every day they seem to have a new excuse or part of the conversation that’s coming to light. First they say, “Oh, well, what if China had access?” A source I spoke with said that’s a rumor from a few weeks ago, from way before Fable 5 or Mythos 5 came out and that it was referencing a Chinese telecom company that the administration had previously approved to have access to Mythos Preview and that when the administration said, “Oh, actually, you know what? We changed our mind. Let’s take them off,” Anthropic immediately took them off and revoked that access. That’s an old rumor.
We’re also seeing the executive order explanation, where rumors have come to light that Anthropic wasn’t complying with the Trump administration’s executive order. Well, that executive order hasn’t gone into effect yet. He only signed it on June 2nd. It’s two weeks ago. It takes 60 days for them to figure out which models are going to be covered under it. There is a voluntary partnership with a 30-day pre-release review. It’s voluntary.
It’s funny because I’m not saying Anthropic’s totally in the right here at all. But it’s just interesting because in this situation, there’s so much misdirection and scrambling and just weirdness that it’s rare that you see me feeling bad for an AI company. It really is. I am not like, “Oh yeah, they’re doing great.” All AI companies have their own issues, but in this one case, I’m saying, “Wow, I really don’t know if this would have happened to OpenAI or another competitor, after all the drama Anthropic’s been going through with the Trump administration.”
We know the Trump admin can be petty and I think they would’ve freaked out for any company that was under this situation, but I can’t see it playing out the exact same way with a competitor.
Is it just as simple as Dario Amodei doesn’t go to the White House? He doesn’t give Trump gifts? I mean, Sam Altman does press conferences with Donald Trump. Sundar Pichai attended the inauguration.
Zuckerberg was at the UFC fight.
[Laughs] Notable AI winner Mark Zuckerberg was at the UFC fight trying to buy his way into success. Is it just as simple as there’s a personality clash here?
That’s the way it’s been perceived by some reports. That’s definitely part of it. Some reports have said Dario doesn’t know how to talk to the administration and that he doesn’t kowtow as much. He doesn’t know how to play the game. That’s part of it.
The other part of it is that the Trump administration isn’t quite sure how they’re going to regulate AI and President Trump is being pulled in different directions. Sometimes he feels like it needs to be more regulated. Sometimes he thinks it needs to be less. If he’s talking to an AI CEO, it seems like he’s like, “Yeah, you know what? I trust them. We’re good. Let them go ahead. We got to beat China.”
In other cases, he sees that the public is going through a pretty anti-AI era right now. There’s a rise in AI populism and he’s saying, “Oh, well, actually the everyman doesn’t like AI. Maybe I should regulate it.”
It’s something we’ve seen with the administration a bunch over the past however many years, but now it’s being represented in AI regulation. It’s just there’s not really a rhyme or reason right now. I don’t think that Anthropic’s communications with the administration help. If you don’t take their call the second they call, if you’re not flying to the White House to have dinner, it probably hurts your relationship a little bit in a presidency that seems to be pretty relationship-based a lot of the time.
I would contrast that with the previous administration, which was almost devoid of personality. The Biden administration, notable for a lack of personality and people, was very technocratic and very rules based in a way that I think people often thought was bloodless.
But the Biden administration did put forward an executive order that had things like transparency reviews and research requirements for the frontier models. Trump came into office, and he wiped all that out. He said, “We’re not going to regulate these companies.” And now it seems like we’re just headed back there.
If you’re going to put out an ultra-powerful model, the administration wants control of it. Certainly they will use the bluntest instrument they have in the form of export controls, but we’re going to get back to a more fine-grained, more rigorous approach to how these models are deployed and used and who gets to use them. Was it a mistake to wipe out the Biden framework? Are we headed back to that framework? Where do we think this goes now?
I could see us going back there because I interviewed a ton of people in the industry at the time, ranging across a ton of different viewpoints, and most of them believed that the Biden era executive order wasn’t quite enough. Some people thought it was a good first step and that’s why I could see us going back there because it wasn’t seen as being extremely aggressive.
If anything, it was seen as being a good first step in the direction, but really just one rung on the ladder. That’s why I could see the current administration going back there because it wasn’t that far. I will say AI companies will lobby against even that little step.
They did. They were pretty mad about it.
They did. They did deeply. But from the executive order we just saw, I could see it going back there, but a little more voluntary, which, again, all these things usually get watered down. It’s like they come out swinging and then they talk to some AI CEOs and they’re like, “Oh, okay, let’s roll it back a little bit.” So who knows, honestly.
But the reason I became an AI reporter is because I felt like there was no real regulation in the space, and this was even before ChatGPT. Journalism is a way to shine a light on what’s going on in the industry. Still, six years later, we’re not seeing a lot of regulation and any that has happened got rolled back. Maybe we’ll go back in that direction. I do see us going somewhere there, but maybe not even as much as that first rung.
It almost feels like the industry needs to push for a more considered regulatory approach, right? They need to say, “This is chaos. This can’t be how we operate. Every new model can’t be forced to contend with panicked phone calls on the weekend.”
What kind of system would you build if you wanted a more rigorous review process here? Is it that they just submit their models to the government and the government says what’s dangerous and not? Is it more industry-based? What are the solutions being proposed?
That’s a good question. There haven’t been a lot of really robust solutions proposed recently because of this current administration. They’ve had a really light touch approach to regulation so no one’s really surfacing those. Now that that might be changing, we’ll see more robust frameworks proposed.
I just hope that they’re not voluntary. AI companies already do a lot of voluntary disclosure. If you’re going to regulate, do it. There are a lot of different opinions on how light touch or heavy touch regulation should be, but I do think that voluntary frameworks are pretty watered down. You know what I mean? We already have those.
So what’s next? It’s important to remember how the general public feels because this is who AI is really affecting at the end of the day. There’s a rise in anti-AI populism and the fact that people are upset. There are data center protests going on everywhere. People are even, in extreme cases, attacking AI CEO’s homes, or at least attempting to. There is a lot of disquiet here and people feel like they’re getting replaced. They feel like their jobs are getting replaced. I was listening to a Seattle city council hearing recently and a lot of AI engineers were testifying saying that they got laid off because of AI and they were engineers.
Both AI leaders and the government often are pretty distanced from what the general public is feeling about this technology and it’s important to note. We’ll see how that impacts, if at all, regulation that comes out. I don’t have high hopes for a lot of regulation under this administration because they can be really sway-ey. They have dinner one time and then things might shift a little bit. To be fair, many politicians are that way, but we’ll see. Maybe after this executive order’s 60 days are up, we’ll see some changes that surprise me.
One of the weirder aspects of this is that Anthropic itself is the company that most pushes for regulation, that most sounds the alarm, is the most doomer-ish of all the companies. Jack Clark, one of the co-founders of Anthropic, recently put out research and his conclusion was that, “We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology.”
Anthropic is way on the front line of saying, “Oh, we might kill everyone. Boy, we should stop this.” But they’re also on the front line of model capability. By all accounts, Mythos is the most powerful model that exists today. Is Anthropic just getting itself in trouble? Is this just a marketing strategy for them that’s backfiring?
It’s a combination. The marketing speak is definitely backfiring. If you say something’s that dangerous and then a researcher unearths something that maybe wasn’t quite meant to be possible, then yeah, people are going to freak out. That’s why I can see the first thing happening to anyone. I can’t see the rest of it the way that the cards fell.
But it’s partly there, it came back to haunt them. It was a little bit on them in terms of the hype, but I also think that they are trying to be honest in some ways about the risk that this technology can pose. And it would be really bad if a system that can flag high level vulnerabilities in our global infrastructure that we use, like your bank system or a government website, could just be used by bad actors. If it fell into the wrong hands, yeah, that’s pretty bad.
It comes down to communication. It’s important to talk about the risks and not downplay them, but also if you do that and then you make a mistake or something unexpected happens, you have to deal with the consequences. There’s a lot to unpack there, for sure. I also think that a lot of companies do downplay risks of different systems. We’ve seen a bunch of AI CEOs, including Anthropic’s, talk about how jobs aren’t all going to be replaced, saying it’s going to be okay.
I always take all this stuff with a huge grain of salt. At the end of the day, whatever AI company you’re talking about, whether it’s Anthropic or another one, they all have the incentives to turn a profit and make money at all costs — especially if they become a public company, which they are about to. People like to paint Anthropic one way and other competitors another, but they’re all pursuing the same goal. They just are doing it a little bit differently.
Is there a version of this where we just treat AI like military technology from the jump, and the public gets a watered down version of the military technology? Because that seems to be the risk profile that the Trump administration is operating within. Like this is fundamentally offensive technology. We can deploy it against our enemies. We can use it to attack the banks. Everyone is worried about the security implications here.
Is there a world in which we just start there and then say, “To deploy to the public, to consumers, you have to cut this way down. We’re not going to sell F22s to the public, but we can sell Ford Raptors to the public.” There’s some version of this, right? Where the technology gets cut way down for the public with the bleeding edge just fundamentally for the military.
That’s what we’ve seen a lot for decades and it’s starting to happen now with Mythos. Fable is the watered-down version and enterprise and governments have access to the more powerful version. There are a lot of different opinions on that. One of OpenAI’s biggest marketing pushes right now is, “Oh, Anthropic wants the most powerful AI to only be in the hands of the elites and we want to bring it to the public.”
So there are a bunch of different marketing pushes right now. Everyone’s just using everything to their advantage to paint their competitors badly, Anthropic included. The race is just heating up so intensely that the AI companies at the forefront are doing anything they can to win at all costs. For some, it’s because they think that they are the best and most moral winner, which can always be a big issue as we’ve seen in every sci-fi or fantasy movie. The for-the-greater-good philosophy is typically used by the villain in the story.
There’s a big race happening right now and I totally agree with Jack Clark that it might be good to slow things down a bit. If everyone could agree — which is a huge long shot and especially it’d be very difficult to get other countries to agree as well. But we are definitely building the technology much faster than we can think about the implications of it and we have been for a long time.
I think it’s the first episode of Decoder where Dario Amodei was directly compared to Thanos, so that’s great.
[Laughs] To be fair, I was thinking about a villain from Harry Potter when I said that — Grindelwald.
Oh my gosh. All right. Well, Dario, if you want to come on and address these allegations, you’re more than welcome.
I also have to say, it’s not just Dario. All the AI CEOs are saying that, all of them. It’s crazy.
Where does this end? What are the next steps here? There are meetings happening this week. People are going to be hearing this on Thursday. There’s a chance Anthropic is just back on the market. There’s a chance it’s not. But after this, it seems like everybody wants a process. Where do you think this ends?
It’s very difficult to predict how this administration is going to act, as we saw with the supply chain risk situation. Even though a lot of government agencies were big fans of Claude, I thought that that was going to be rolled back eventually, but they just signed deals with seven other companies and said, “Okay, we’re good. Even if you guys were fans of Claude, whatever, here are seven other options for you.”
It’s anyone’s guess right now. I do think that the foreign nationals thing is going to be rolled back. I just can’t imagine that after all the hubbub that the administration has created about how American AI has to win, the Hegseth memo from January 9th arguing speed at all costs. I just think this administration is so focused on winning in AI that there’s no way they’re going to continue with that rule. I could see this becoming a personality game over the next few days. Anthropic compromises in some way, they try to communicate better. And then in a couple of days this gets rolled back.
But then I’ve seen some rumors that the Trump administration is trying to acquire a stake in Anthropic and OpenAI, an ownership stake. So there could be a lot of different “resolutions” to that here. We’ll see, but I definitely can’t foresee this as it exists right now continuing for more than a couple of days. The industry is just aghast at this situation.
Hayden, we’re going to obviously have to have you back very soon as this comes to a close. Thank you so much for being on Decoder.
Thanks so much.
Questions or comments? Hit us up at decoder@theverge.com. We really do read every email!
Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explain why they try to include “a little chaos” when they record their New York Times tech podcast in front of a crowd in San Francisco.
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