Accidental Tech Podcast

647: You Get One Exclamation Point

July 7, 2025 01:58:30 • Download (114 MB)

Job advice for CS graduates, whether external drives should be USB, Thunderbolt, or FireWire, and a draft of how we'd make the worst MacBook.

Pre-Show: John’s almost an empty-nester 😱
- Reconcilable Differences
Follow-up:
- FireWire now with Thunderbolt! (via Timo Hetzel)
- Tahoe without XCode beta: Device Support for macOS 26 Beta
  - Developer downloads
  - ↳ Direct link
- Putting older OSes on newer hardware (via Gui Rambo)
- UPS VA ratings (via Marshall C)
- Apple’s LLM/LRM paper (from Overtime in ATP #643)
  - Training data vs. distribution (via Deon Garrett)
  - Rebuttal
  - Rebuttal of the rebuttal
  - More from Gary Marcus
  - The original rebuttal was… a joke? 🤨
- HDR in 𝑥26
- iPadOS 26 window limits
- “Glass iPhone” demo
  - ↳ Direct video link
- That “natural language to CLI” app is Substage
Apple plans to launch a low-cost MacBook powered by… an iPhone CPU‽
Ask ATP:
- Is adding permanent NVMe storage a bad plan? (via Neil)
  - CalDigit TS5+
- What’s the best way to increase “internal” storage on a Mac? iSCSI? Mounted disc images? (via Patrick Harms)
  - Atto Xtend SAN
- How does a new grad land a job?
Post-show: Casey’s approach to ad-free YouTube must be dissected
- YouTube Premium Lite
Members-only ATP Overtime: Apple’s App Store changes for the EU

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646: On the Shelf With the Pickles

July 1, 2025 01:57:22 • Download (113 MB)

John made an important purchase.

Pre-Show: John has made an important purchase
- 11 June 2011
- Documentation of the journey (spoilers!)
- John’s beloved
- Ninja
- Anova
- After Dark
Follow-up:
- We’re doing good work here, folks
  - YoLink leak sensors
  - Leak sensor 4-pack with compulsory hub
  - Travel insurance is more than you think it is (via Jason Poole and Levi Dalton)
    - Allianz concierge
- Window widget size in Tahoe
- Apple Intelligence is now allowed when booting from an external in Tahoe beta 2
- Floating tab bars in iOS 26
- Apple “Ducks”
  - The Architect’s Lions
- Maybe don’t yank out removable storage in Windows either (via Adrian Mester)
- It’s the world that’s wrong, not me: iPhone 16 Pro case edition
  - “We Messed Up”
  - Bullstrap open-bottom case
- Ads in YouTube
  - Why not use uBlock Origin? (via Igor Kulman)
  - …or perhaps Vinegar (App Store link) (via Michael Brown)
RIP FireWire
Apple marketing continues to misfire
Apple weighs using Anthropic or OpenAI to power Siri
- OpenAI/Meta leadership talent rivalry
Ask ATP:
- Is it worth buying a laptop where Tahoe is preinstalled? (via François-Olivier Leblanc)
- How much faster will an M4 be than an M1 for Xcode Simulator launches? (via Alistair Logie)
- How do we choose a new UPS? (via David Levine)
Post-show: Marco restaurant-tech MVPs… from his co-hosts!
- Tailscale (Tailscale is a prior sponsor)
  - Casey’s introductory post
  - Tailscale 4via6
- YoLink temperature sensors (even cheaper with a smaller temp. range)
Members-only ATP Overtime: Should we pay developers like athletes?
- Sam Altman claims Meta has made $100M offers
  - Jack Altman’s podcast
  - Reuters coverage

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645: More Frosting

June 26, 2025 01:42:53 • Download (99 MB)

macOS Tahoe and iOS 26 beta 2 updates, the latest AI-training kerfuffles, life with CarKey, and flagship OLED TVs.

Pre-Show: Phish & Wabbit Dave Matthews Season
- Allianz Ampitheater at Riverfront
- Belkin UltraGlass 2
Some Administrivia:
- 🗣️ New ATP Member’s special: ATP Movie Club: Sneakers 🗣️
  - Sneakers (1992)
- ATP Performance Shirt Inventory Sale
Follow-up:
- Persistent icon replacement helper apps
  - Pictogram
  - Replacicon
- Tahoe beta 2
  - Finder icon updated!
    - Louie Mantia tries again
  - New menu bar background setting!
    - Beta 2, with background
  - Tahoe’s [Not-So-] Naked Robotic Menu Bar (via Vítor)
  - Safari toolbars (via Lewis Dorigo)
    - Settings → Advanced → Show color in compact tab bar
    - <meta name="theme-color">
    - theme_color
    - Yosemite Safari tabs
      - From John’s review
  - Installing betas and DFU mode
    - macvdmtool (via Robert Sherry)
    - DFU Blaster (via Brian LaShomb)
    - InstallAssistant.pkg (via Andy Beyer-Bowden)
- iOS 26 Beta 2
  - Frost all the things!
  - The case of Marco’s missing download/check buttons
    - Roman’s observation
- iPadOS 26 window limits (via Jon Edwards)
- “Apple Vision Pro 4K” (via Greg Kaplan)
All your data are belong to AI companies
- Apple training models on Feedback attachments ಠ_ಠ
  - Original report from Joachim
- Meta AI staffers take an interesting approach
- New York Times 🤝🏻 Amazon AI
- You can train AI models without copyrighted material… it’s just a pain in the 🍑
- Anthropic gets a W… maybe?
Ask ATP:
- Does Marco use Apple CarKey? His car should support it. (via Samuel Polay)
  - CarPlay Ultra partners list is looking… sparse
  - Ferrari keyfob
- Why does macOS want USB mass storage ejected, but iPadOS doesn’t? (via David Campbell)
Post-show: TV Update for Marco
Members-only ATP Overtime: Overlap between appdev & gamedev
- Coyote time & jump buffering
- Secrets to a great platformer with Unity
- Destiny health
- Examples in our apps

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644: You Have to Invert

June 19, 2025 02:22:24 • Download (137 MB)

Impressions of iOS 26, macOS Tahoe, iPadOS 26, and Liquid Glass after a week of using the first developer betas. Surprisingly, we have thoughts.

Pre-show: G4 Doorbell Pro
- Bespoke 3D-printed mount
- Fancy-schmancy Marco-recommended Flashlight
What betas are we running?
- Virtual Buddy
𝑥OS 26 & Version Numbers
- iOS Apps built against old SDKs get 19.0; new ones get 26.0 (via Gui Rambo)
  - ProcessInfo
  - /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersionCompat.plist
- Tahoe returns 16 when reqiured for compatibility and 26 otherwise (via Howard Oakley)
  - SYSTEM_VERSION_COMPAT=1 = 16
  - null or SYSTEM_VERSION_COMPAT=0 = 26
Liquid Glass
- Adopting Liquid Glass
  - Don’t Liquid Glass All the Things
- Not present in macOS? (via Steve Troughton-Smith)
- Liquid Glass clone in Flutter (via Dave Wood)
- Fluid Glass in React (via Francisco Tolmasky)
macOS Tahoe
- Whimsy returns! (via Minimal Nerd)
- Squircle Jail
  - Squircle ∆ (via Yannic Lung)
  - Say Hello to the New Look of App Icons
  - Squircle Jailbreak! (via Simon B Støvring)
- Speaking of rounded corners…
  - Build an AppKit App with the New Design
- Chonky stoplights
  - macOS 26 window control buttons are no longer smol (via Avi Drissman)
  - -[NSTitledFrame sizeOfTitlebarButtons]
- Missing title bars
- Missing menu bar fixes
  - GlassBar
  - Boring Old Menu Bar
- Alignment
- Finder icon controversy
  - Stephen tried Icon Composer with solid results
  - Michael Flarup
  - D. Griffin Jones
- Icons next to menu items
  - Previously in the HIG (via Stefan Habel)
  - Today in the HIG
- Tabs contrast
  - Terminal tabs
- Safari contrast
  - Ridiculous pink in the toolbar in Safari
- Arrow cursor has been updated
  - Discovery by Nathan Manceaux-Panot
  - Hand cursor as well
- Floating elements & compartmentalization
- Clipboard history
  - Stephen Robles
  - Overview video
- Future of Rosetta
  - Ars Technica
- New disk image format: ASIF
  - Howard Oakley write-up
iOS 26
- UI impressions
- New slider thumbs reveal new info (via Niki Tonsky)
  - Video
iPadOS 26
- Open window limits (via Steve Troughton-Smith)
  - Previously, in Mac OS X 10.0…
- Slideover is 💀
- UI impressions
Testing Liquid Glass
- UIDesignRequiresCompatibility
Vision Pro 4K? (via Steve Troughton-Smith)
Post-show: WWDC Favorites
Members-only ATP Overtime: Apple snubbed Gruber, so who got the nod?

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ATP Movie Club: Sneakers

June 17, 2025

In this special members-only episode, we watch and discuss "Sneakers" (1992).

This episode is exclusive to our members. Join now to listen!