Michael Tsai
Mark Stephens (Robert X. Cringely), RIP 16 October 2026 at 20:58

Mark Stephens (Robert X. Cringely), RIP

16 October 2026 at 20:58

Mary Alyce Stephens (Hacker News, Reddit, TidBITS Talk):

Mark Stephens, known to much of the world as Robert X. Cringely, passed away on October 3, 2026. He was 73.

Mark was a gifted writer, journalist, storyteller, husband, father, brother, and friend. To millions of readers and viewers, he was Robert X. Cringely, the witty and sometimes irreverent observer of the technology world. But to those of us fortunate enough to love him, he was simply Mark-and losing him leaves an emptiness that is difficult to put into words.

[…]

Writing as Robert X. Cringely, Mark became a distinctive voice in technology journalism. He had an unusual ability to understand not only technology but also the human beings behind it-the dreamers, inventors, entrepreneurs, eccentrics, and risk-takers who were changing the world. He could take a complicated subject and make it understandable, entertaining, funny, and deeply human.

Steven Sinofsky (via John Gruber):

Bob wrote “Accidental Empires” that chronicled SV and the tech industry of the PC era, 1970s-90s. It led to the highly regarded PBS series “Triumph of the Nerds” a definitive series of interviews of the era. Through that time he authored the “gossip” column” in InfoWorld on the latest goings on at OG PC companies. Everyone read it in print religiously.

Antennagate Q&A

Michael Tsai

By: Michael Tsai

25 September 2026 at 20:26

Hartley Charlton:

A 47-minute video of the Q&A session from Apple’s 2010 iPhone 4 “antennagate” press conference has surfaced on YouTube, showing Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and Bob Mansfield answering reporters’ questions.

[…]

Jobs used his prepared presentation to announce free cases for eligible customers and a 30-day return option. Apple later posted video of that presentation, but left out the Q&A, which was documented at the time through written reports and photographs.

John Gruber:

The Q&A was on the record (which is the entire point of a Q&A), and was reported widely, but I don’t think there’s ever been video of it. Here’s a report by Jeff Carlson at TidBITS, published the day the event was held, which states, “The video omits a long and interesting Q&A at the end.”

Then, yesterday, video of the Q&A hit YouTube. I don’t know what truck it fell off the back of, why it took 16 years, or how it came into the hands of “Sir Mix-A-Lot Rare Music”, but I’m sure glad it did. There are parts of this Q&A that I remembered, and parts I didn’t. Carlson was exactly right: it was long and it was interesting.

My main takeaway is still that there were two stories here, but most of the media missed one of them, and Apple was happy to focus on the other.

The first story was that holding iPhone 4 in the wrong way would reduce the signal strength. Apple pointed out that other phones had the same problem, to varying degrees, and offered cases as a solution.

The second was that, even with a case, iPhone 4 had worse reception than previous iPhones. I saw this directly myself: testing my iPhone 3GS and my father’s iPhone 4 in some areas that had poor signal, and finding that one worked reliably and the other was completely unusable. Apple examined my father’s iPhone 4 and assured us it wasn’t a lemon, so there was no choice but to return it. AnandTech did some more precise testing and published some graphs that were consistent with what we saw. I think it was the only bad iPhone Apple made.

In the Q&A, the first question was about Jobs’s health. The second was about whether Apple was going to make any changes to the antenna. Jobs responded that the iPhone 4 antenna was better in almost every way than previous designs. But Apple did end up redesigning the antenna with the iPhone 4s, and it worked just fine in my same test areas. It’s possible that the cell towers had changed in the interim, but the 4s worked well for me everywhere that it could be expected to and ended up being one of my favorites.

Nick Heer:

Sam Henri Gold decided to pick apart the changes between iOS 4.0 and iOS 4.0.1, which changed the number of bars shown in moderate-to-low reception areas[…]

Previously:

Michael Tsai
Pitching Apps in the AI Era 2 September 2026 at 19:37

Pitching Apps in the AI Era

Michael Tsai

By: Michael Tsai

2 September 2026 at 19:37

Adam Engst:

So I was quite surprised earlier this year when I started to receive personalized pitches from indie developers, a few at first, and now several per week. Many seem to be building apps with AI assistance, but more to the point, they seem to be getting AI help with promoting the apps as well. They often reference our still-current prohibition on press releases with a nominally personal email, but for someone as steeped in words as I am, it’s obvious that an AI is doing the writing.

[…]

At first, this reliance on AI rubbed me the wrong way. But then I realized that it wasn’t really any different than a software company outsourcing its media relations to a PR firm. Those communications had a certain form and set of expectations, and while these new AI-generated messages have a different form, the expectations (coverage) are pretty much the same. AI is simply the new PR agency. Which undoubtedly dismays PR professionals, but there’s still room for those doing PR right.

The problem I have with these new pitches isn’t that the developers used AI to generate them; it’s that they often don’t do it very well.

I’ve noticed a huge increase this year in people pitching me their apps. Many of them seem to have been coded with the assistance of AI. For some app categories, this worries me, and there also seems to be less care taken in following Mac platform conventions. But it’s also exciting to see such a flurry of development, both totally new ideas and fresh takes on old niches. I have a large backlog that I’d like to write about. (There are also many almost indistinguishable variations in certain categories.)

Separately, as Engst says, many of the pitches (and sometimes even the sites) are obviously written by AI. This rubs me the wrong way. I don’t mind at all receiving a generic press release or even a one-liner with a link. But these lengthy e-mails, customized for me, purport to be personal communications when they really aren’t. Sometimes I’ll reply with questions or feedback, and it feels like the entire conversation is with an AI.

When people put in some effort to pitch me their product or article, I’ve always tried to give them a decent reply. Often, I end up learning something or wanting to follow their other work even if I don’t end up writing about what was pitched. This is unfortunately no longer sustainable. There are too many pitches, and it’s demotivating talking to bots. I have to be much more selective about interactions. I appreciate hearing about all the apps, but I’m focusing on the ones that particularly interest me, and I’m less likely to even click the link if it seems like an AI pitch.

Previously:

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