★ ‘Your Frustration Is the Product’:
Web ads have become awful and invasive. In his commentary, John Gruber shares that he uses uBlock Origin Lite in Safari for ad blocking in Safari.
I have avoided these apps until now. But this was a no-brainer. Free. One-click install.
Join the resistance!
Wednesday, September 17, 2025 →
This is the way.
Tuesday, September 2, 2025 • 4 min read
I upgraded to the M4 MacBook Air last month during one of Amazon’s big sales. I chose the larger 15” model with 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD drive. This replaced a five-year-old 13” M1 MacBook Air with the same size drive but a miserly 8 GB of RAM.
This MacBook Air is a fantastic laptop, and certainly the best computer I’ve ever owned. The performance bump from the M1 to the M4 has been nice, but it’s not the blow-your-hair-back experience that upgrading from older Intel Macs to the M1 was. Some of the boost is likely due to having more RAM. On both the M1 and M4, battery life is phenomenal. Gone are the days when you needed a power outlet nearby where you worked. Charging this MacBook Air is now an afterthought, more like a Kindle than a traditional power-sapping laptop. It’s amazingly light yet sturdy. It feels good to lift this thing by its front edge. There’s no give or flex.
But honestly, for me, the best part of the upgrade has been the larger size of the 15” Air. Most of the reviews I read online recommend the 13” Air for its portability and lower cost. Amazon disclosed earlier this year that the 13” model outsells the 15” model by a factor of five to one. Having used the 13” model for five years and the larger model now for a month, I disagree.
The 15” screen feels so much bigger than the 13” screen without being unwieldy to carry or haul around. Spreadsheets display four or five more columns of data. Running apps side by side provides more functional space. Every app I use feels more … expansive.
The keyboard base and trackpad are bigger, and the forward edge no longer cuts into my wrist like it did with the M1. The laptop sits more securely on my lap when typing from the couch. You might laugh at this, but when folded up, it’s a perfect lap desk for my B5 notebook. Between the two models, the larger one is more comfortable in practically every way I use a laptop.
The standard 13” MacBook Air is cheaper, lighter, and fits more easily on those ever-shrinking airplane tray tables. Maybe if I were still flying every week, I would opt for the smaller form factor. But for the way I use a laptop now, the bigger Air is perfect.
This upgrade also marks a shift in my computing strategy and preferences. For almost a decade, I’ve used a laptop pretty sparingly, preferring a desktop Mac and a 12.9-inch iPad Pro for most of my work.
In my home office, I have an M2 Mac Mini connected to an Apple Studio Display Monitor. Unless I was traveling, the M1 MacBook Air stayed tucked away in my bag. Before each trip, I would charge it up, update its software, sync iCloud apps, and follow a lengthy checklist to transfer data and settings for non-cloud apps manually. This was a time-consuming process, and I always forgot to transfer something once I left home.
These days, we are traveling a lot more. This year, we’ll spend about half the year on the road. That’s a lot of time away from the home office and that marvelous 27-inch Studio Display screen. After three months of feeling claustrophobic using the 13” M1 Air here in New York, I decided to spring for the larger M4. I am really glad I did.
When we return home, I’ll relegate the Mac Mini to be an email and automation server, making this new MacBook Air my primary computer, both at home and on the road. A single Thunderbolt cable from the Studio Display is all I need to charge and connect to all my peripherals — no more wasted time syncing up files and settings before leaving home.
Now, it’s the iPad Pro that’s stuck in my bag, unused. I still treasure the iPad Mini, which, in my opinion, is the most under-appreciated iPad in the lineup. But for actual work, the Mac beats out the iPad Pro 99% of the time.
It’s been years since I’ve had a one-Mac setup like this. I’m looking forward to the simplicity and freedom of plug-and-play computing at home, while continuing to enjoy this jumbo screen on the road.
The Kobo-Instapaper integration has officially launched, replacing the now defunct Pocket app for reading articles on the ereader. I’m curious to know if highlights made on Kobo sync back to Instapaper (and thus to Readwise). If so, this could be the tipping point for this long-time Kindle owner.
Good news for Kobo readers or those looking to escape the Amazon ecosystem: Instapaper Read-It-Later comes to Kobo e-Readers later this summer.
Bear is a fantastic notes app if you're on Mac and iOS. I use it for my reading notes, commonplace book and linked backup of my Day One journal. I wrote a post about Bear last year, but this video does a great job of showcasing its features if you're curious.
Apple is launching a new product this week — probably an iPhone SE. But what if they unveil an e-reader and a subscription reading service? Books are in the cross-hairs of the intersection between arts and technology. Amazon and e-readers are ripe for Apple-style disruption. A man can dream!
I love my Kindle Oasis, but Amazon is sure making it hard to stay loyal. Maybe Kobo will save the day and release an updated black and white e-reader to replace its discontinued Libra 2. This should be the golden age for e-reader innovation. Kobo? Apple? Sony? Anyone?
Incredible update to the Readwise app today. You can now “chat” with your highlights, which uses AI to find connections you probably overlooked or forgot from your reading. Since it only draws from the highlights you saved, the results are astonishingly personal. This is my kind of AI! 💙📚
Wrist pain prompted me to set aside my Magic keyboard and Mighty Mouse for more ergonomic options. Enter the KeyChron K15 Max Alice mechanical keyboard and a Logitech vertical mouse. I love the clicky keyboard and more comfortable layout, but sheesh, it’s hard for this old dog to learn a new trick.
For fun, I asked ChatGPT to create a cover image for an essay I wrote. The essay mentions old books and a Kindle: note the hybrid book/eReader lit by candlelight, and how the leather wing chair barricades the door. “Don’t bother me, I’m reading,” it seems to suggest. ❤️❤️❤️
Saturday, May 4, 2024 • 1 min read
I’m currently reading the classic David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 📚 for the first time. I’m reading it on my Kindle with an add-on $3 splurge of the Audible audiobook. I experimented with WhisperSync many years ago when it was first released and found it buggy. For such a low fee, I thought I would give it another try.
I went from reading last night on my Kindle to listening this morning in the car, to reading again in a waiting room, to listening once more as I did chores. Never once did I lose my place.
I have a love-hate relationship with ebooks and Amazon, but wow — what an immersive, magical reading/listening experience. How did I not know this worked as well as it does?
After three good years with Craft, I’ve moved my reading notes and PKM to Bear. I really love Bear’s simplicity and hidden power on both Mac and iOS. No futzing, just my words. Blog post: Bear 2 for Writing and Thinking.
Saturday, February 10, 2024 • 2 min read
I’ve been evaluating Bear 2 to replace Craft for my reading notes and quasi-Zettelkasten for the past few weeks. I’ve used Craft for over three years, but that tool has morphed into a team note-taking and document-sharing platform that doesn’t mesh well with my needs anymore.
My initial impressions of Bear have been quite positive. Here is an app with a calming, minimalist design, yet in many ways, has more power and capabilities than Craft. And best of all, it intuitively works like you’d expect. Like a Mac app.
When Craft first launched, it was only available on Mac, iPad, and iPhone. The developers went on to create Craft for the Web and Windows to reach a larger audience. Somewhere in the process, more features piled up, basic functions became difficult to figure out, and the app lost some of its Mac whimsy and delight.
Before Bear, I tried Obsidian. Here’s an app that has incredible power and can do practically anything with its endless variety of plug-ins. I tried hard to make it work, but I couldn’t accept its interface and design. I kept tinkering with it to try and make it feel like a Mac app. I realized, eventually, that Obsidian was never going to work for me.
When I think about the apps I use and love the most — Day One, Things, Ulysses, and now possibly Bear — they are only available on Mac, iPad, and iPhone.
What is it about Mac-only apps that appeal to me so much? Perhaps they use Macs themselves and have a laser-like focus on how to make the most of the platform. Maybe it’s because the developers who refuse to expand beyond the Mac all share an opinionated sense of aesthetics and whimsy. It’s hard to pin down the particulars, but you know it when you see it.
Take, for example, the icon that Bear automatically assigned to my “Drafts” tag in the app sidebar. Who but a Mac developer would write this into their software?
I tip my hat to those Mac developers out there, the crazy ones who continue to think different.
