Nicole Sperling and Brooks Barnes, reporting for The New York Times:

Amazon paid Ms. Trump’s production company $40 million for the rights to “Melania,” about $26 million more than the next closest bidder, Disney. The fee includes a related docuseries that is scheduled to air later this year. The budget for “Melania” is unknown, but documentaries that follow a subject for a limited amount of time usually cost less than $5 million to produce. The $35 million for marketing is 10 times what some other high-profile documentaries have received.

All of which has a lot of Hollywood questioning whether Amazon’s push is anything more than the company’s attempt to ingratiate itself with President Trump.

This is a good story, with multiple industry sources with experience making political documentaries, but the Times’s own subhead downplays Amazon’s spending on the film: “The tech giant is spending $35 million to promote its film about the first lady, far more than is typical for documentaries.” They’re spending $35 million now, to promote it, but they already paid $40 million for the rights to the film, $28 million of which is believed to have gone to Melania Trump herself. A $35 million total spend would be a lot compared to other high-profile documentaries, but it’s a $75 million total spend. This is not just a little fishy — it’s a veritable open air seafood market.

Back to the Times:

To grasp just how uncustomary Amazon’s marketing push for “Melania” is, consider how Magnolia Pictures handled “RBG,” a portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg during her 25th year as a Supreme Court justice, in 2018.

CNN Films produced “RBG” for around $1 million. The promotional budget, including an awards campaign that helped it land two Oscar nominations, totaled about $3 million. The film debuted in 34 theaters and expanded into 432 locations over several weeks. It ultimately collected $14 million, enough to rank as the year’s No. 1 political documentary.

And:

On Friday, “Melania” will also be released in 1,600 theaters overseas, where FilmNation, a New York company, is handling distribution in more than 20 countries. International ticket sales are expected to be weak, according to box office analysts.

Shocker.

Ged Maheux, The Iconfactory:

This week we announced a new Kickstarter that’s aimed at expanding the game offerings of Ollie’s Arcade, the fun, ad-free retro gaming app we introduced back in 2023. Ollie’s Arcade has always been a great way to escape doomscrolling, even if just for a little while, and now we have an opportunity to bring these retro games to even more people on iOS.

The Kickstarter aims to raise enough money to make all of the in-app purchase games in the app completely free for everyone to enjoy. We also want to bring our beloved puzzle game, Frenzic, to life once again. Frenzic was one of the very first games available on iOS back in 2008, then was reborn as Frenzic: Overtime on Apple Arcade. Since it left, people have been asking us for a new version that they can just pick up and play. We couldn’t agree more!

I linked to the Kickstarter for the original Ollie’s Arcade project back in 2023, which was a big success. And I first linked to Frenzic all the way back in 2008, when the App Store was only a few months old. It’s just a great concept for a casual game on a small screen, implemented with all of The Iconfactory’s exquisite attention to detail. That’s true for all the games in Ollie’s Arcade, but Frenzic is special.

This new Kickstarter for the Ollie’s Arcade expansion has already hit its funding goal, but it’s approaching the stretch goal for an additional game. There are a zillion games for iOS, but it’s sad how few are ad-free and don’t require a subscription. If you think well-crafted fun games that you can pay for once (for a very reasonable price) should be rewarded, you should join me (and others) in backing this Kickstarter.

Adam Engst, back in November, at TidBITS:

Did you know that, regardless of view, you can now swipe left on any call to reveal a blue clock icon that lets you create a reminder to call back in 1 hour, tonight, tomorrow, or at any custom time (below left, slightly doctored)? Reminders appear at the top of the Calls list and in your default Reminders list. You can also touch and hold a call associated with a contact to connect with them in other ways (below right), or touch and hold a call from an unknown caller to add them to Contacts.

I did not know this, until I read Engst’s article.

One criticism I’ve seen a few times (but to be clear, not from Engst) ever since Apple debuted the new Unified interface for the Phone app back at WWDC, is that it’s somehow wrong that Apple offers it as an option alongside the Classic interface. “When does Apple ever offer options like this?”

I’d argue that Apple used to offer options like this all the time. The Music app on the original iPhone (which app was actually named “iPod” for a while) let you customize all the tabs at the bottom. All of Apple’s good Mac apps (the AppKit ones, primarily) still let you customize the entire toolbar. The problem isn’t that Apple now offers two very different interfaces for the Phone app. The problem is that Apple stopped offering users ways to significantly tailor apps to their own needs and tastes — and the proof that they stopped is that so many people now think it’s so strange that they’re offering two options for how the Phone app should look and work.

Overall, I like the new Unified layout in the Phone app. But what I love is there remains an option for those who don’t, and that you can switch between the two in a very obvious, easily discoverable (dare I say, hard to miss) way right in the app itself. No need to dig two or three levels deep into the Settings app. You can just switch right there in the main screen of the Phone app itself. It’s things like this that keep me optimistic that Apple is still capable of great new work in UI design.

New Mac app by Mikey Clarke, and it’s just what it says on the tin: a “lovingly crafted Bluesky app designed and built just for the Mac”. I’ve been beta testing Aeronaut for months, and it’s the only interface to Bluesky I actually like. It’s a real Mac app — written mostly in AppKit, supporting all the right UI idioms and platform integrations. It’s not just the best Bluesky client I’ve seen, for any platform, but maybe the best new Mac app I’ve seen in years, period. Certainly the one whose very existence has made me happiest. Next time someone tells me no one makes good new native apps for the Mac anymore, I’m going to tell them Mikey Fucking Clarke does.

$2/month or $15/year. A veritable bargain for an app so nice.

Bruce Springsteen:

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Best line from the lyrics:

Their claim was self-defense,
Just don’t believe your eyes.
It’s our blood and bones and these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies.

Whistles, phones, and birds.