Matthew Prince (Hacker News, Slashdot): The problem is whether you create content to sell ads, sell subscriptions, or just to know that people value what you’ve created, an AI-driven web doesn’t reward content creators the way that the old search-driven web did. And that means the deal that Google made to take content in exchange […]

Thomas Claburn (Figma, Hacker News): The company prospectus mentions AI more than 150 times, characterizing it both as a creative accelerant and a potential threat.[…]Back to Figma, whose prospectus says that as of the first three months of 2025 it has 13 million monthly active users.For the year that ended on December 31, 2024, Figma […]

Bryson Thill (via Hacker News): Fakespot’s technology revealed some eye-opening statistics. About 43% of the best-selling Amazon products had reviews that were unreliable or fabricated, according to a study by app company Circuit. The problem was even worse in certain categories. Clothing and jewelry led the pack with a staggering 88% of reviews deemed unreliable.[…]As […]

Joe Rossignol: The first macOS Tahoe developer beta does not support the legacy FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 data-transfer standards, according to @NekoMichi on X, and a Reddit post. As a result, the first few iPod models and old external storage drives that rely on FireWire cannot be synced with or mounted on a Mac […]

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

Well, would you look at that? The A18 Pro is 46% faster than the M1 in single-core tasks, and almost identical to the M1 on multi-core and graphics tasks. If you wanted to get rid of the M1 MacBook Air but have decided that even today, its performance characteristics make it perfectly suitable as a low-cost Mac laptop, building a new model on the A18 Pro would not be a bad move. It wouldn’t have Thunderbolt, only USB-C, but that’s not a dealbreaker on a cheap laptop. It might re-use parts from the M1 Air, including the display.

I like that Apple sells a laptop at $649, and I think Apple likes it, too. A new low-end model might steal some buyers from the $999 MacBook Air, but I’d wager it would reach a lot of customers who might otherwise not buy a full-priced Mac — the same ones buying M1 MacBook Airs at Walmart.

My first thought when I saw this rumor pop up was to dismiss it. But upon consideration, I think it makes sense. Especially if Apple considers the M1 MacBook Air at Walmart to be a success. And all signs point to “yes” on that — they started selling the M1 MacBook Air as a $700 Walmart exclusive in March 2024 and they continue to sell it this year at just $650.

So I think if this rumor pans out, a MacBook at this price point will become a standard part of the lineup, sold everywhere — including Apple Stores.

Stephen Hackett, at 512 Pixels:

The immediate downside to the A18 Pro is that it only supports USB 3 at 10 Gb/s, not Thunderbolt. This would make any Mac with an A18 at its heart only capable of USB-C. I think that’s fine on a low-end Mac, but it could cause confusion for some customers.

For people looking at MacBooks in this price range, talking about USB 3 vs. Thunderbolt brings to mind this classic Far Side cartoon.