what a great reminder from Andy Allen of !Boring:

All of your work will be lost to time.

All that remains is impact.
Do it for the culture.

i’m fired up!

Louie Mantia has been on a roll lately in his prolific advocacy for making things on the Internet. He wrote a post a couple months ago titled Make a Damn Website and he followed it up today with the very practical How to Make a Damn Website.

We overcomplicate what a website needs to be, and it gets in the way of actually making it. So take his (and now my) advice, and make a damn website.

This is MKBHD’s third video about the Vision Pro, and I agree with pretty much every point he makes. I think he does a good job of pointing out how most of the decisions that went into this device come with real tradeoffs, but in practice it’s still a really cool start for Apple’s foray into AR/VR/“spatial” and the tech on it’s own is still impressive.

Personally, I am very interested to see what visionOS 2.0 brings, as the timeline of this device’s announcement and subsequent release lines up with what happened with iOS v1 → v2. My [educated] guess is that most of what is on visionOS right now is quite close to what was running on the media demo devices at WWDC last June, and that most of the core visionOS development time has been spent on 2.0, not on polishing 1.0.

I’m sure there’s been a ton of polish work, and I’m sure some of the various app teams at Apple have been spending time porting their apps to visionOS, but new feature work on the core OS has likely been slated for v2 for quite some time.

WWDC ‘24 could bring a lot of cool quality of life things that make this version of the hardware even better.

This post from “Matrix Agent” came across my Mastodon feed, and I couldn’t agree more:

there is NO reason any of us should have to “thrive in a fast paced environment” or “work well under pressure.” most of our daily work is not an emergency and our culture of fake urgency and immediacy just to make more profit for people in the c-suite is burning people out.

stop sending people into fight or flight and expecting them to bend over backward because you dont know how plan or manage resources properly

I often need to remind myself that most things at work are not worth stressing over. It doesn’t really matter if something is a little late and it’s definitely not worth your health. Work can wait.

David Pierce, writing for The Verge:

At first, the open web is Apple’s best chance to make its headset a winner. Because at least so far, it seems developers are not exactly jumping to build new apps for Apple’s new platform.

There are many strong points made in this article, but as much as I’m bummed that Netflix, YouTube, and others are opting out of having their apps available at launch, I don’t think this is a harbinger of general support for the platform.

I don’t know how many Vision Pro developer kits were sent out, but by all accounts it was a small number, and based on what I know I wouldn’t be surprised if Netflix didn’t get one. One of the requirements (among a long list of somewhat onerous restrictions) of getting a dev kit for the Vision Pro was a commitment to launch an app on day one. It wasn’t enough to want to explore how your app would feel or to test out various ideas and get a head start on supporting the platform, you needed to be a launch partner.

Disney and Microsoft are clearly launch partners for the device, and Netflix and Google are not. We’ll see how long it lasts.

Mark Gurman shared some cool details about Vision Pro launch day procedures:

In-store pickup customers who order online can either take the device and leave, go through the in-store demo or do a 1:1 set up with an employee to verify size/fit. If needed, customers can swap sizes of individual parts.

If a customer sets up their device at home and there’s a sizing issue, they can come back to the store for a swap.

Employees are piecing together the boxes with the right component sizes to order.

I’ve run through the sizing on two devices multiple times and have been told the same headband size all but once (with the same light seal every time).

Even with the consistency of the scan, it’s comforting to know that the preorders are mainly securing your Vision Pro model (by storage size), not the unique combination SKU representing the headband size, light seal, and storage tier.

Seems like they learned from the original Apple Watch launch.

The packaging is giant - like about the size of two Mac Studio boxes or a large shoe box. The headset comes pre attached to the Solo Knit Band. There are also commemorative shopping bags - like with the original iPhone.

The hype is real for this thing. Commemorative shopping bags don’t matter to me, but Apple is trying to make this launch special.

I haven’t generally agreed with Louie Mantia.

I’ve never met him in person, and I honestly don’t even know if we’ve interacted on the internet. He always seemed just a little bit too opinionated. A little too closed off to hearing from people who disagreed with him. But you know what, I’m coming around to the idea that maybe he’s the one who has it figured out.

Let me back up… in the wake of the whole “Twitter thing”, a lot of people (myself included) have found ourselves asking if we should continue participating on Twitter. Some are doing so to take a moral stand. Others are wondering if Twitter is the kind of place that brings out the best in us, or even simply whether it’s good for our mental health. I’m increasingly feeling like it’s not.

So that brings me to what Louie wrote in the first post on his new blog back in November:

And in 2004, I finally made my own website with my own domain name. That felt like a big step up. Now I had my own space that I controlled. I could do whatever I wanted here. […]

I got to be my authentic self.

That really resonates with me. I don’t want to stress about posting something because I’m worried about who’s going to misconstrue a point that I hastily made (or condensed because of a character limit). I’m not interested in chasing the little dopamine hits when a few people tap the like button. I just want to be me.

Again, Louie:

It didn’t used to be like this. The web used to be a collection of independently-operated sites that we all individually controlled.

So for real this time… 2023 is the year of going back to the open web. This site is unapologetically me.

What an outstanding piece of writing. I felt like I was riding alongside @joshm in the back seat of the Chevy Tahoe as I was reading it.

So many of the points and asides resonate with me. It’s as if Josh plucked the thoughts and feelings right out of my head and wrote about them for the world to read. I won’t begin quoting them because I will never be able to stop. The entire thing is wonderful and well worth the time.

Even though we start out trying to avoid “5 top line phrases with bullet points underneath”, we end up with some pretty great top line phrases (and some wonderful bullet points underneath):

1. Show up with heartfelt intensity
2. Start with ‘what could be?’
3. Assume you don’t know
4. You’re on the hook for the team
5. Make them feel something

These values (and the stories behind them) are powerful and inspiring. I hope to embody them in my own work at an early-stage startup and carry them with me into future endeavors throughout my life.

Thank you Josh for writing them down and for taking us along with you on some of your road trips.

I got the Apple Watch Ultra and if I could sum up my first impressions in one word, it’d be: awesome.

The larger and brighter screen, the titanium case, the nice knobby crown, the new alpine band, the increased battery life, the dual-band GPS… I could go on and on. I was already in love with the potential of the Apple Watch platform as battery tech gets better, and this Watch furthers that love. I am enjoying every day with this iteration, and I’m extremely excited for what future iterations bring!

Malcom Gladwell recently slammed advocates of working from home on the Diary of a CEO podcast. Among his quotable lines were this one about pajamas:

“I know it’s a hassle to come into the office, but if you’re just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live?”

And this great one about belonging to something:

“If we don’t feel like we’re part of something important, what’s the point? If it’s just a paycheck, then it’s like what have you reduced your life to?”

These questions are not only intellectually dishonest, but intentionally reductive.

Forgive the sarcasm, but I have to ask: did you know that you can get dressed for the day when working from home?

Seriously, it’s true. You not only can shower and get dressed without going into an office, most of us did and still do despite having the option not to. And on the days (or weeks) that we don’t, I’m sure we had a good reason to be working in our pajamas or from the bedroom. You know, like the depression and anxiety that comes from a global pandemic affecting life and loved ones.

And taking this one step further, what if someone decides they do their best work in sweats? Maybe that is the work life they want to live, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

And to the point of “belonging” or “feeling part of something important”: I’ve worked remotely for the last seven plus years for three different companies. I’ve been part of important teams and projects for all three, and have contributed at a high level to the success of the companies.

But aside from the fact you can feel that purpose and belonging while working remotely, is it such a bad thing to want your work life to be a means to earning a paycheck? Is it so terrible to derive your self-worth and your happiness from things outside of work? I haven’t “reduced my life to [a paycheck]”, I’ve chosen to maximize my life by minimizing the sacrifices my paycheck demands of me, namely in limiting my commute and maximizing my productivity by controlling my work environment.

So Mr. Gladwell – is it really about pajamas?