Category: Tech

Twitter’s Burning Down the 3rd Party App House

Watching the silliness and seriousness of Twitter’s continuing continuance is both entertaining and distressing. The plot seems to unfold anew, but it’s actually old stories mashed up enough to make them feel new, or a least new adjacent. Pick your myth and if you’re screaming “spoiler alert” you need a little more mileage on you before you protest too much. Icarus irony abounds.

The latest chapter featuring the shutdown of API’s essentially killing off a number (but not all) of third party Twitter clients was certainly predictable. But the handling of it just feels cheap and cowardly.

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For those not in the know, Twitter decided to pull the plug on some 3rd party apps that allowed far better Twitter experiences than Twitter ever pretended to offer in the past or promises in its new future. Ok, fine. Musk owns the company, he can do what he wants with it, and he needs cash to continue pouring into the burn pit he’s created and these apps (via Twitter’s own doing) don’t bring in the ad revenue Musk needs. Make a change.

But this change was made unannounced in the middle of the night, without notice to the developers of those apps or users. And as of the writing of this blog post Twitter has still not issued any comment regarding the situation. (Apparently they are working on “comms” about it according to one report from The Information (sorry, paywalled.)

What’s saddest about this situation is embedded in the history of Twitter. In fact, many might rightly claim they define the history of Twitter if not the service itself, given that the previous ownership never did anything resembling a good job at that little essential duty. The makers of Twitterific, the iconfactory, are credited with coining the label “tweet” for every post. This history of 3rd party apps defining the Twitter experience is rich, but also fraught with turmoil. (You can read a quick but thorough summary here.) I’d also recommend iconfactory founder Craig Hockenberry’s farewell post about this.

Bottom line, everyone knew this was coming. Hoped against hope it wouldn’t. Sort of like watching what everyone knows is a bad marriage distegrate before our eyes and then it goes bust. We’re already moving into the “it will be the best thing for everybody” phase. But in an interesting way.

Given that some 3rd-party Twitter app developers are also beta-testing apps for Mastodon and newer players are also doing the same thing I personally find this wacky moment to be encouraging and possibly hopeful. Speaking selfishly, in testing some of these new apps I’m seeing the best of the familar blended with fresh new ideas in ways I haven’t seen in any category of mobile app development in quite some time. It’s actually exciting in the same way that the early days of Twitter and Twitter apps was. Out of the ashes…?

And don’t overlook the new foundation those developments are building on. Mastodon and the larger Fediverse show interesting promise as social networking backbones. Yes, there’s the potential for peril there as well. But at this point in the story the tensions seem borne out of a desire not to repeat the same mistakes.

Addendum: The Verge has a nice summary of this Musk/Twitter debacle so far. 

Update: Just prior to noon CST Twitter finally released a statement of sorts.

CleanShot 2023 01 17 at 12 19 10

Whew. Must have taken some best minds to work that up over the last 5-6 days.

Bloomberg: Apple Working on Touchscreen Macs for 2025

Oh my.

Mark Gurman of Bloomberg has published a rumor that Apple is working on touchscreen Macs aiming at 2025. Already the socials are filling up with excitement, consternation and predictions. This rumor/news will launch a half-zillion blog posts and fill up hours of podcast time between now and whenever, if ever, Apple does this.

Apple, Inc is working on adding touch screens to its Mac computers, a move that would defy long-held company orthodoxy and embrace an approach that co-founder Steve Jobs once called “ergonomically terrible.”

Apple engineers are actively engaged in the project, indicating that the company is seriously considering producing touch-screen Macs for the first time, according to people familiar with the efforts. Still, a launch hasn’t been finalized and the plans could change.

Already those who don’t like iPads are are jumping on the doom wagon for that class of devices. There’s room for plenty of speculation on that, but if and when this comes to be I doubt very seriously we’ll see the iPad disappear. And while Gurman talks about this defying company orthodoxy I find it a little tough to swallow that Apple hasn’t had a touchscreen Mac or two floating around its design studios until now.

But I’m not going to play the prediction game on any of this. It’s time to sit back and enjoy the show regardless of what device you’re enjoying it on.

Tech Predictions for 2023

I thought I’d jot down a few tech predictions for 2023. So here we go.

There will be tech news in 2023. There will be grand promises and grander failures. It will be entertaining, a bit crazy, and ultimately meh as the latest in a round of bad bets come due or come closer to being so.

Apple will make a ton of money in 2023 even though some governments want to design products for them. Apple won’t have as easy a time of it as it has in recent years for a number of reasons including some self-inflicted wounds.

Artificial Intelligence will continue to be a dominant story until chat bots start writing most of the tech stories.

The Metaverse will further try to wriggle out of the pond with or without legs. With other companies jumping into the “let’s put an expensive, goofy-looking, headache inducing gizmo on your head” it will be one of the comic tech highlights of the next few years before this whole thing ends where it was always destined to: an enterprise play.

Cyrpto will continue to falter as the denizens of the latest refuge of scammers discover that they’ve sucked all the money they can from the available suckers. There certainly won’t be any Super Bowl commercials.

Streaming Entertainment will continue to figure out that they haven’t figured it out yet. Consolidation will begin in earnest, hopefully before the streamers cancel all of the shows.

Twitter. Who the hell knows. It’s owner sure doesn’t.

Mastodon and federated social networking will continue growing pains as it continues to grow and becomes less of a pain for new users to gain entry.

Humans. Humans will be the biggest tech story behind the stories that capture the headlines. The humans who create tech will continue to be in some form of tension with the humans who use it. Humans who do use tech will continue to look less and less for tech to solve their problems, understanding before tech creators that all tech solutions aren’t necessarily going to change the world.  At least until the tech creators understand that they need humans to talk to humans to help them solve the problems with the products they create. Or until the robots show up.

Where the Mastodons Roam

So I’m hanging out on Mastodon these days. It’s the social networking site that quite a few folks have found to continue their social networking addiction, thanks to Elon Musk’s behavior as the new owner of Twitter. So far I’m liking it quite a bit. Scratch that. I’m liking it a lot. So do many of the folks I’m hanging out with.

If you’ve come to this blog post from Mastodon you’ll recognize most of the things folks are saying in my thoughts. Yes, it’s more civil. Yes, the Mastodonians are working hard to keep it that way in reacton to the Musk melon’s mucking up the joint. Yes, it’s not Twitter. Yes, the engagement is richer. And yes, it’s fun.

I’m here to tell you that I haven’t had as much fun with an Internet thingie since, well… since Twitter first came along.

While Mastodon has existed for awhile (I first staked out a piece of turf in May of last year), it picked up a fast blossoming head of steam once Musk’s purchase of Twitter went through. That momentum seems to be continuing. And those who’ve set up shop in these recent waves of refugees seem to be enjoying themselves as much as I am.

In addition to hanging out there it led to this blog. I stopped blogging and writing on the Internet primarily due to Twitter’s existence. I’m not alone in that. But as Mastodon is gaining in popularity, there appears to be a parallel resurgence in personal blogging. That urge hit me as well and here we are.

Twitter may have turned into the place of “owning” someone with a witty response, but “being owned” accelerated into a whole new nasty meaning in the last few months. So, Mastodon or no, it was time for a change.

For those who don’t know, Mastodon is set up as a decentralized network where no one person has control or ownership. It exists in a place(?) called the Fediverse. There are many Instances (or servers) where folks can find a home, and those Instances are interconnected through the Internet. If you’re not paying attention to that structural distinction Mastodon feels like a similar experience to Twitter. I’m reasonably certain that Mastodon will run into some issues down the road given its structure and philosophy. But that’s for another day.

There are other types of services in the Fediverse as well. Pixelfed is an Instagram-like service Yes, I’ve staked out a spot there as well, though I’m not that active currently. And if you’re starting to sense that these services on the Fediverse sound reactionary, then you’re correct. I’ll probably spew out some words on that in the future.

But for the moment I’m enjoying that fun I referred to earlier. Not only is the service new (we all like new things and self-validate our new choices) but the energy in the eco-system surrounding Mastodon feels very much like the days when mobile tech exploded after the launch of the iPhone. I’ve tried out more new apps in recent months than I have in the last couple of years. I’m re-discovering folks who I followed but somehow lost sight of on Twitter while discovering new folks in abundance.

So, if you choose to visit this blog you’ll be hearing more about Mastodon in the future. If you choose to find your way there you can check me out at this link.

End of the Year Lists for 2022

There’s a lot I didn’t see/listen to/consume but from what I did ingest here are some thoughts. NOTE: I don’t believe in “best of.” So these lists contain what I most enjoyed.

Films:

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Prey

RRR

Everything, Everywhere All at Once

Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio

The Howard Stern Interview: Bruce Springsteen

Spirited

Glass Onion

Continue reading “End of the Year Lists for 2022”