In Nathan's second self produced comedy project DOWN WITH TECH he jokes about tech nerds, social media, Mark Zuckerberg, screen time, Apple, Steve Jobs, AI, ...

DOWN WITH TECH - Nathan Macintosh FULL SPECIAL

Meta's new "nighttime nudges" feature on Instagram gives young users a new way to limit time on the app.

Meta will encourage teens to get off Instagram at night with 'nighttime nudges'

https://mobilesyrup.com/2024/01/18/meta-limit-teen-instagram-use-nighttime-nudges

This post is in response to Matt Stoller’s post here.

Apple Antitrust

https://medium.com/@markjharvey/apple-antitrust-0d273e746d1a

Adobe and Figma have until December 19th to fight their case.

UK watchdog slams the brakes on Adobe’s $20 billion bid for Figma

Slack is embedding generative AI deeper into the platform with new channel summarization and AI-fueled search.

Slack adds AI-fueled search and summarization to the platform | TechCrunch

Spotify plans to raise subscription prices in the U.S. later this year, according to a report from Bloomberg citing people familiar with the matter.

Your streaming is about to cost more: Spotify price hike is on the way says Bloomberg

Justice Department officials are in the late stages of investigating the iPhone maker, focusing on how Apple has used its other products and services to defend against threats to its core business.

U.S. Moves Closer to Filing Sweeping Antitrust Case Against Apple

The iPhone and Apple Watch both took about 3 years for most people to take notice and adopt.
Wonder if that will happen with the alleged AR/VR headset 🤔

Apple, a tech behemoth ventures into new terrain while a challenger, Humane, forges its own path. The tech landscape is shifting. Either way I can't wait to get off my phone.

Just curious if the group of people in Europe that are forcing Apple to allow sideloading apps are the same group of people that made the internet experience like this

We deserve this https://youtu.be/gApnofHJLoo

Am I losing my mind or were seat selections on flights free before?
I remember the first time I saw a fee for the exit row and thought that was very exploitive.

NOW THERE'S A FEE FOR EVERY SEAT SELECTION?!?!

All these “should you auto-layout” posts are just engagement farming.
Every designer knows you should and only those that don’t know how to use auto-layout say they don’t or are trolling for engagement.

I was recommended this book on strategy by a product design leader and every chapter is blowing my mind. I think my career would have been substantially better had I known what a “Good Strategy” is.
For example:

The iOS 17 Name Drop posts “warning people to turn off the feature or else” leads me to believe we have run out of Apple-gate scandals and are desperate for anything to feed the algorithm and panic machine.

It’s a great feature.

People in hoodies and shorts, are you hot or cold?

Instagram is saying Get Off Instagram https://mobilesyrup.com/2024/01/18/meta-limit-teen-instagram-use-nighttime-nudges

5 reasons why SMS verification should be banned as a required verification method, such as with Claude AI

The Rivian is pretty cool. I like the car that Steve O made.

The Apple antitrust stuff made me sit down and write a bunch of stuff https://medium.com/@markjharvey/apple-antitrust-0d273e746d1a

For years people conspired that iPhones didn’t last long to force people to buy another one.

Now they last longer than ever, mine on year 4 with zero signs of slow down, and people FUD $AAPL for low sales.

🤷🏻‍♂️

I've never owned a pair of Reebok my entire life but these are tempting

When Adobe announced they were acquiring Figma I raised my hand immediately as it looked like an antitrust violation. What I don't understand is how a $20B investment into your current design tool, Adobe XD, wasn't a better option. I clearly know nothing about business.

Reflecting on developer camaraderie, there were moments when code was refactored by a team, making code better for all.

Have any designers experienced a similar collaboration? Like a team updating everything to auto-layout? Share your stories, celebrate teamwork! 🎨🤝

In the midst of more mass layoffs, I'd like to hear from the design community.

What aspects of the hiring process do you find useful? What feels detached from the actual working experience?

Share your thoughts and let's work towards improving the process 🤝

How are Adobe Illustrator and Affinity Designer the only design tools that can do text on a path in 2024?

Sometimes people ask “Did you do anything this weekend?”

Same thing I do every weekend. Stay home or spend at least $140.

That's not following the design system guidelines.

Designers:

Over-ear headphones - hurts the top of my head.
Sunglasses - weirdly hurt my head after time.
Hat - messes up my hair.
Hoodie - same.
Helmet - same, don't ride a bike as a result, even though  I love biking.

I don't want anything on my head #AppleVisionPro

The only way to unsubscribe from emails from Borrowell is to delete your account.

Lord, grant me the wisdom to know what is going on in someone’s mind to send me this message in a Slack DM

"Slack AI with search and summarization is an additional cost only available to enterprise plans"

This feels like charging extra for "cloud computing" in the early 2000s

I keep a list of emoji's we don't have

• Can of soda or beverage
• Tattoo gun
• Gavel
• Grass
• Lawn mower
• Muffin
• Golf Cart
• Go Kart
• Barn
• Pyramid
• Popsicle
• Harmonica
• Sink, stove, refrigerator
• Baseball bat and/or glove
• Binoculars
• Gold Bar

Affinity Designer was acquired by Canva.
I wanted to draw something in vector and this app came through.
The others were subscription based, too difficult to learn, or didn't have certain features. Here's a few things I drew.

I pay close attention to app UI in TV shows and movies. I’m watching BEEF and I thought they just used the real apps instead of recreating them. Then I noticed this tell. Can you spot it?

Why is everyone saying “quick question” before asking a regular question? What the hell is going on?

I swore BTS said “Shining through the city with a little fucking song” 🧨

Posts app update wishlist
• iPad app. It was optimized for iPad during beta. What happened?
• When viewing a photo, hold the zoom. Also double tap to zoom
• Allow more than 1 photo per post. Allow mixed media such as image + video
• Search. Not just people but keywords and topics

@andy can I please have some more invites?

Spotify announced they're raising prices for the second time in less than a year

I am reminded of the best $14.68 I spend every month is YouTube Premium (Canadian mind you, $10.85 USD)

I haven't watched a YouTube ad since 2016. The YT music app is fine

Everyone is talking about checking email, browsing the web, and watching movies on Apple Vision Pro but nothing about FaceTime.
We spend so much money, energy, and time to meet in person for a reason. If FaceTime on AVP feels like they’re right there, people will be blown away.

There’s 2 types of friends

1. Those you send a 1-2 hr video and they reply later with detailed notes. Maybe suggest jumping on a call or plan to meet up later and discuss.

2. Those you send a 6 min video and they just reply “Lol“ after less than a minute.

This antitrust case against Apple is wild.
Apple spent decades building a hardware/software ecosystem, continuously improving their integration, but it's not fair a 3rd party smart watch can't smoothly integrate into that system.
Make this make sense.

In honour of Curb Your Enthusiasm coming to an end, I put together some diptychs from S01E01, which premiered before 9/11, and the last episode in April 2024. 

Enjoy.

An Uber rating but for pressing the elevator button for others.

I call it “Lift”

I've looked up what GPT stands for at least 4 times and still can't remember

Ted Lasso is the story of the losses on the way to glory

How are rappers still beefing? You're rich, you already won! Another rapper called you a bitch. You don't have to go to work tomorrow because you're rich, who cares!

Has anyone experienced Software Development (Dev) or Software Engineering (Eng) referred to as “PD” by their company?

Name something more disruptive on Zoom than someone's Slack notifications going off.

The 15" MacBook Air M2 might be the best laptop computer of all-time. It's insane how much value this is.