Tom Warren, writing for The Verge:

“The experience supports Markdown style input and files for users who prefer to work directly with the lightweight markup language,” explains Dave Grochocki, principal product manager lead for Microsoft’s Windows inbox apps. “You can switch between formatted Markdown and Markdown syntax views in the view menu or by selecting the toggle button in the status bar at the bottom of the window.”

Since Notepad is usually used with plain text, you can also easily clear all formatting from the formatting toolbar or from the edit menu in the app. If you’re not a fan of the lightweight formatting options, you can also fully disable this new support in the Notepad app settings. [...]

Like I wrote in my Notepad newsletter earlier this week, it’s amazing that Microsoft barely touched Notepad for decades, and now it’s gone from basic log file reader to writing messages itself. A lot of Notepad’s new features have arrived since Microsoft decided to remove WordPad from Windows, after nearly 30 years.

This is getting ridiculous.

I posted this update a bit ago, but it’s worth making a separate post so you don’t miss it if you read the original post before I added the update:

It goes without saying that any consumer survey is only as good as the surveyor. But CIRP, in particular, has posted some dubious ones, to say the least. Jeff Johnson pointed out on Mastodon that back in 2023, CIRP published a survey that claimed the Mac Pro accounted for 43 percent of all Mac desktop sales, with the Mac Mini and Mac Studio each accounting for only 4 percent each. That’s just bananas. That’s not like maybe wrong, that’s not gotta be a little wrong, that’s how could anyone publish this? wrong. It’s hard to believe anything from CIRP after they published that.

I think it’s become tradition for Mark Gurman to run a mega spoiler report on the WWDC keynote the Friday before. Don’t read it if you don’t want to see a lot of genuine spoilers. But here are a few non-spoilers:

The AI changes will be surprisingly minor and are unlikely to impress industry watchers, especially considering the rapid pace of innovation by Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc., Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI.

I don’t know a single person who will be surprised if Apple’s in-house AI changes are minor. Literally, not one. The only way for Apple to surprise on the AI front would be for the improvements to be major. Who’s the guy who will be surprised by underwhelming advances on the AI front from Apple next week? Artie MacStrawman?

While there has been speculation that the app icons will be round to match the style on the Apple Watch and Vision Pro, the shape is staying largely the same on the iPhone and iPad.

Always beware the passive voice. “There has been speculation”? It was Gurman’s own report, back in March, that left some with the decided impression that Apple was making icons circular across all platforms under the nonsensical argument that users find it jarring to see differently-shaped icons on different devices. Gurman, back in March:

A key goal of the overhaul is to make Apple’s different operating systems look similar and more consistent. Right now, the applications, icons and window styles vary across macOS, iOS and visionOS. That can make it jarring to hop from one device to another. [...]

VisionOS differs from iOS and macOS in the use of circular app icons, a simplified approach to windows, translucent panels for navigation, and a more prominent use of 3D depth and shadows.

My guess is that if Apple does go with circular icons across all platforms next week (which I sure hope they don’t because that seems dumb), Gurman will take credit for calling it back in March, despite writing today that “the shape is staying largely the same”. Heads, Gurman wins. Tails, Gurman doesn’t lose.

Back to today’s mega-spoiler report:

The Camera app will be revamped with a focus on simplicity. Apple has added several new photo and video-taking options in recent years — including spatial video, panorama and slow-motion recording — and that’s made today’s interface a bit clunky. In iOS 26 and iPadOS 26, Apple is rethinking the approach.

I can’t recall seeing Gurman ever, not even once, crediting anyone else for scooping anything first. Jon Prosser made an entire video about the supposed new Camera app design all the way back on January 17, replete with animated mockups of how it will look and work. (Looks pretty clever to me, starting with a back-to-basics simple focus on two main modes — Photo or Video — and putting all other sub-modes under those.)

Truth Social is exceedingly unpopular when judged as a social network; but it’s exceedingly successful as a blog. All the other people using Truth Social are effectively reading his blog and shitposting comments and memes in response to his posts.

Ryan Christoffel, writing at 9to5Mac regarding a paywalled survey report from CIRP:

CIRP recently performed a survey of Apple customers to get a sense of how the company’s three tentpole products — iPhone, iPad, and Mac — are performing. One focus was on understanding the power of Apple’s ecosystem, as determined by customers who own multiple products.

Michael Levin and Josh Lowitz write at CIRP:

iPhone remains the most dominant product, with 94% of recent Apple customers owning one. iPads are next, with 78% owning one. Mac computers have much smaller penetration, at 36% of recent customers.

74% of customers, virtually all iPad owners, own an iPad and an iPhone. Only 30% own all three, as that number is limited by Apple customers’ relative lack of Macs.

Different people may draw their own conclusions on the data, but for me, the most interesting element is easily the iPad’s popularity.

I don’t find this surprising. But if it’s true, it truly shows just how much longer people hold onto their iPads than their iPhones. If the average customer replaced their iPad as frequently as they do their iPhone, you’d expect Apple’s iPad revenue to be remarkably close to their iPhone revenue. But they’re not close. In their most recent quarter, iPhone revenue was 7× iPad revenue. And Mac revenue was slightly ahead of iPad revenue — but that might be more a function of average selling prices being so much higher for Macs than iPads, not replacement cycles.

Update: It goes without saying that any consumer survey is only as good as the surveyor. But CIRP, in particular, has posted some dubious ones, to say the least. Jeff Johnson pointed out on Mastodon that back in 2023, CIRP published a survey that claimed the Mac Pro accounted for 43 percent of all Mac desktop sales, with the Mac Mini and Mac Studio each accounting for only 4 percent each. That’s just bananas. That’s not like maybe wrong, that’s not gotta be a little wrong, that’s how could anyone publish this? wrong. It’s hard to believe anything from CIRP after they published that.