After a 25-year run, the website MacSurfer closed in 2020. But, as brought to my attention two weeks ago by Nick Heer, MacSurfer quietly returned in June. No one seemed to notice until this month.

The original MacSurfer was a bit of a weird site. Content-wise it was a daily headline aggregator, with no original news or commentary. That made a lot of sense in 1995 and for a few years thereafter, when the web was new. I remember reading it somewhat regularly back then. But one never really “read” MacSurfer — you scanned it. Even the name harks back to the very early web, when, somehow, the idiom “surfing the Internet” took hold. (Thus leading to the name “Safari” for a web browser.) But MacSurfer stopped making as much sense with the advent of RSS, when it became easy to create your own custom aggregated collection of website sources. I didn’t want to dance on MacSurfer’s grave when it closed shop in 2020, but at the time, I couldn’t believe it hadn’t closed long before.

The revived MacSurfer hasn’t changed the concept, so I’m not sure who will read it now either. A firehose has a purpose, but it’s not for drinking.

The other thing that always struck me as strange about MacSurfer is that it was anonymous. There was no credit as to who was behind it. MacDailyNews is similar: longstanding and anonymous, and, to a lesser degree than MacSurfer, a bit of a firehose. But MacDailyNews’s unnamed author adds commentary to his posts. Crackpot wingnut commentary, oftentimes, but commentary nonetheless. Pseudonyms have a long, storied history. But I think it’s weird — and somewhat suspicious — not to put any name at all on your work.

The new MacSurfer, like the old one, remains unsigned. But after Eric Schwarz started blogging about the mysterious return of the site after its half-decade absence, the new owner, Ken Turner, reached out and agreed to an interview.

Supply chain leaker Majin Bu has the scoop, including photos of the cases and their packaging, of Apple’s second attempt at a fabric-based successor to leather iPhone cases. Apple’s first attempt two years ago, FineWoven, was so unpopular that they didn’t even offer a premium level of Apple-branded cases last year with the iPhones 16.

Apple dropped all use of leather two years ago, including watch bands and wallets. FineWoven was kind of shitty for those too — it just wasn’t a durable material, but Apple put it to use on products that demand durability. I mean that’s the entire point of an iPhone case in particular. These new TechWoven cases look good, and I doubt Apple will make the same durability mistake twice. The new cases have metal buttons (yay) but also a bottom lip on the case (boo). No word yet on whether Apple will replace FineWoven with TechWoven for Apple Watch bands and MagSafe Wallets too, but I bet they will. I doubt we’ll ever hear the word “FineWoven” again.

(Majin Bu has leaked photos of Apple’s new silicone cases, too.)

Elon Musk, Friday:

Join @xAI and help build a purely AI software company called Macrohard. It’s a tongue-in-cheek name, but the project is very real!

In principle, given that software companies like Microsoft do not themselves manufacture any physical hardware, it should be possible to simulate them entirely with AI.

If it’s “a purely AI software company” why do they need to hire anyone?

Tulsi Gabbard — who, believe it or not, is the US director of national intelligence — on X last week:

Over the past few months, I’ve been working closely with our partners in the UK, alongside @POTUS and @VP, to ensure Americans’ private data remains private and our Constitutional rights and civil liberties are protected.

As a result, the UK has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a “back door” that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties.

BBC News:

The BBC understands Apple has not yet received any formal communication from either the US or UK governments. “We do not comment on operational matters, including confirming or denying the existence of such notices,” a UK government spokesperson said.

Back in February, Apple pulled the Advanced Data Protection feature of iCloud from the UK, in what it deemed a necessary move to comply with the UK demand. Until and if Apple restores the ADP feature in the UK, I wouldn’t consider this over. I hope it’s true, but a Trump official tweeting that it’s true doesn’t make it true.

John McCoy, on the supposedly controversial Cracker Barrel rebranding:

But just because I doubt that these choices were motivated by politics doesn’t mean the detractors don’t have a point: something basic is being lost here. In both cases the companies have discarded character and context in an effort to streamline their identity. I have written previously about the often misguided penchant art directors have towards simplifying their brands. I suspect that the lion’s share (ha) of this tendency is simply following trends, and the current fashion in corporate design is simple, flat typography and short (often single-word) brand names. To the extent that someone actually gave this a thought, the rationale is to remove any attributes that might complicate a consumer’s attitude towards the brand. It also reflects the desire of new executives to mark their territory by peeing on it — see HBO’s constant rebranding, or Elon Musk destroying the only part of Twitter that had any value, its name recognition.

If you want to be charitable, and I try to be when I can, the move towards brand simplification also reflects a longstanding adage in design — be it visual art, design, writing, or engineering: “less is more.” This saying, often misattributed to Mies van der Rohe, emphasizes clarity and utility. The goal is to focus on what is essential. Practitioners of this belief make outsized claims about the effects of this approach.

This is via Jason Snell at Six Colors, and, on the presumption that all of you have the good sense to read Six Colors regularly, I’d let you encounter McCoy’s post there, but for my need to make a few side points, gleaned from Threads:

• The “controversy” is regarding the removal of the Uncle Herschel mascot (the cracker) and the barrel. But Josh Williams argues that the lettering itself is nicely done in the new mark, and I agree. But I also agree with McCoy’s larger point that minimalistic rebrandings are simply trendy and Cracker Barrel is very late to the trend, which, like all trends, will surely soon reverse.

• That it’s a controversy at all is the work of activist investor Sardar Biglari, CEO of midwest chain Steak ’n Shake. (Biglari’s father was a general under the Shah of Iran, and the family had to flee after the revolution.) Biglari has been trying to take over Cracker Barrel, Carl Icahn corporate-raider-style, for 15 years. That’s why Steak ’n Shake has been stoking the supposed controversy about Cracker Barrel on its X account. And Steak ’n Shake, under Biglari’s leadership, has been all-in as a MAGA brand whilst closing over 200 restaurants in the last 7 years. You can like or dislike the Cracker Barrel rebranding, but it’s not “woke”. It’s just minimal. The idea that it’s “woke” is just nonsense promulgated by Biglari to get the result we’re actually seeing, where pro-Trump media outlets (like Fox News) pick up on the rebranding as somehow “woke”, Cracker Barrel gets bad publicity and their stock price suffers, and maybe Biglari gets a chance to take over the chain, which is all he cares about.

• Last word goes to Gregory Wieber.

Update, 27 August: Cracker Barrel cries uncle.