Cory Doctorow (Hacker News, Amazon):
I never would have read Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams’s tell-all memoir about her years running global policy for Facebook, but then Meta’s lawyer tried to get the book suppressed and secured an injunction to prevent her from promoting it.
[…]
The role Facebook played in the Christchurch quake transforms Wynn-Williams’s passion for Facebook into something like religious zealotry. She throws herself into the project of landing the job, and she does, and after some funny culture-clashes arising from her Kiwi heritage and her public service background, she settles in at Facebook.
[…]
Suddenly, acquiring non-US users becomes a matter of urgency, and overnight Wynn-Williams is transformed from the sole weirdo talking about global markets to the key asset in pursuit off the company’s top priority.
Wynn-Williams’s explanation for this shift lies in Zuckerberg’s personality, his need to constantly dominate (which is also why his subordinates have learned to let him win at board games).
There are so many details here that are hard to believe but apparently true.
See also: Brooke Oberwetter and Reddit.
Update (2025-04-25): Nick Heer:
A caveat: Wynn-Williams’ book is the work of a single source — it is her testimony. Though there are references to external documents, there is not a single citation anywhere in the thing. In an article critical of the book, Katie Harbath, one of Wynn-Williams’ former colleagues, observes how infrequently credit is given to others. And it seems like it, as with most non-fiction books, was not fact-checked. That is not to disparage the book or its author, but only to note that this is one person’s recollections centred around her own actions and perspective.
[…]
Anyway, the first thing you will notice is that most of the points in Meta’s response do not dispute the stories Wynn-Williams tells; instead, the company wants everyone to think it is all “old news” and it resents all this stuff being dredged up again. Yet even though this is apparently a four-hundred-page rehash, Meta is desperate to silence Wynn-Williams in a masterful gambit. But of course Wynn-Williams is going to write about things we already know a little bit about; even so, there is much to learn.
[…]
Wynn-Williams says she spent a great deal of time reading up on Facebook’s strategy in China since being told to take it over on a temporary basis in early 2017. Not only was the company okay with censoring users’ posts on behalf of the Chinese government, it viewed the capability as leverage and built software to help. She notices in one document “the ‘key’ offer is that Facebook will help China ‘promote safe and secure social order’”[…]
Book Business China Facebook History Legal Meta Web
Joe Rossignol:
Today marks the 10-year anniversary of the original Apple Watch launching in the United States and eight other countries around the world.
Adrienne So (Hacker News):
While it seems hard now to recall a time when the Apple Watch, or something similar, did not exist, the market hasn’t always been so obvious. It was only 10 years ago that we were still wondering if Pebble would actually pan out, and all anyone wanted a Fitbit for was to get in their 10,000 steps (an entirely arbitrary number, but I digress).
When it debuted, the first Apple Watch was glitchy and expensive. Battery life sucked. Many publications, including mine, spent significant time and space wondering why anyone even wanted a smartwatch. Today, it is an Apple success story. “Since 2015 til the end of 2024, we estimate that 281.2 million Apple watches have been shipped,” Jitesh Ubrani, a device research manager at IDC tells WIRED. That’s at an estimated value of $127 billion. No wonder it has spawned a flotilla of imitators.
Though I’m frustrated with the iOS restrictions that prevent true competition, and it seems like the development experience still leaves a lot to be desired, the Apple Watch itself is a great product and probably underrated. Will there be an SE 3 soon? The SE 2 is now down from $249 to $169.97 (via Mitchel Broussard).
Previously:
Update (2025-04-25): Jason Snell:
How sad, then, that it’s only those two watch faces that support per-second ticks. None of the older watch faces—including the ones I use—support the feature. I don’t know what Apple’s investing in building watchOS watch faces, but it’s not enough—a major new hardware feature should be supported by every watch face, not just the two new ones introduced at the same time as the feature. In a year full of embarrassing Apple moves, this is low-key one of the most embarrassing.
[…]
There you go: 250 words about the Apple Watch Series 10. But what I really want to discuss here is Apple’s insistence that we all sleep wearing our Apple Watches. Apple’s sleep tracking features have been pushing in this direction for a while, and the addition of sleep apnea detection last fall really pushed it over the edge. You don’t have to wear your Apple Watch overnight, but Apple really wants you to.
[…]
But beyond subtle alarms, what have I gotten out of shifting my schedule and wearing the watch to bed? In the morning, I get a special “Good Morning Jason” screen that shows some facts about my day that I can’t quite remember because I am still waking up when I see it. I have months of sleep tracking data that tell me that I mostly sleep well, and if I’m curious about when I woke up in the night that information is there—last night I woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep for a while, and thank goodness that’s been logged. But I struggle to find anything actionable to do with this data.
I have no interest in the fitness or sleep features.
David Smith:
Since August 2015 when I had the idea for Sleep++ (long before the watch got official sleep tracking support), I have worn the watch all day (& night) in 77% of those days. More dramatically, in the last three years I’ve only had two days when I didn’t wear it at all.
The Apple Watch has become an essential part of my life and lifestyle. Wearing it has helped to be healthier and more active. It has been my companion on countless adventures and helped me navigate while hiking in my favorite places.
Jason Snell:
Almost all of my Apple Pay transactions are done via my watch. If I could pay for absolutely everything with a tap of my watch, I would be quite happy—and frankly, we’re pretty close to getting there now. I also use Apple Watch and Home Key to unlock my front door. It’s the best.
I prefer to use Apple Pay from my watch, too, but oddly it never works at gas stations. I always get an error message about checking my phone.
My Apple Watch dream was to be able to run unencumbered by an iPhone, and that dream was realized about six years ago. The cellular Apple Watch isn’t for everyone, but I love being able to leave home and know that I’m still connected if there’s an emergency.
It’s a nice idea, but I haven’t found many situations when I would want to be watch-only. Even if I’m trail running in a place where I don’t feel I need connectivity for emergencies, I like to have the phone to use its camera. Maybe if I went to the beach more.
Back in 2015, I complained that there weren’t enough watch face choices, and while there are many more now, it still feels like Apple has underperformed on this important aspect of the watch.
[…]
But the truth is, from the perspective of a decade, the Apple Watch has been a successful addition to Apple’s product line. Nothing was going to be the “next iPhone.” But the Apple Watch has been quite good at being its own thing.
Basic Apple Guy:
What follows is me meandering through the past decade of the Apple Watch, covering some of its history, my thoughts, uses, and my impressions on a decade of this unassuming yet increasingly vital product in Apple’s lineup.
Anniversary Apple Watch Bargain watchOS watchOS 11
Ettore Software (Reddit):
As previously teased, we’ve rebuilt our flagship app from scratch in Swift – fully sandboxed – with a speedy new engine, a revamped interface and a slew of new features. Our hair is a lot thinner and greyer than it was 3 years ago when we embarked on this folly, but after a lengthy period in beta TypeIt4Me 7.0 is now available for everyone. On Apple’s Mac App Store, no less.
I don’t understand what the state of play is here. TextExpander left the Mac App Store many years ago because it wasn’t possible to observe the user’s typing from a sandboxed app. I haven’t read about anything changing in this regard, yet somehow TypeIt4Me is now doing it, as are some newer apps like Rocket Typist.
As an alternative to autocue placeholders, it’s now possible to create more sophisticated fill-in-the-blanks template snippets in which you can pick options from pulldown menus.
[…]
Predefined snippet sets bundled with the app (including common accented words, emoji, HTML & CSS, symbols, properly capitalised brand names etc).
[…]
Further to the above, the following features that were previously only available in the old direct sale TypeIt4Me (i.e. version 6) – are making their debut on the Mac App Store.
The Mac App Store version had been stuck in limbo, unable to add new features because it wasn’t sandboxed.
As alluded to earlier, some of you may run into a few wrinkles due to sandboxing (a requirement for admission into the Mac App Store.) For example, typing statistics will not automatically be carried over; you’ll need to locate your stats file and move it to TypeIt4Me 7’s new sandbox container.
Why is this so common with App Store apps? I thought one of the points of temporary entitlements and automatic container migration was for apps to be able to transparently access their old files. Is Apple blocking this at the policy level? Are developers simply not bothering to implement migration?
AppleScript execution is no longer supported and iCloud sync is the only game in town now (i.e. no more Dropbox, Google Drive or linked remote folders.)
Previously:
Mac Mac App Store macOS 15 Sequoia Rocket Typist Sandboxing Software Rewrite Swift Programming Language TypeIt4Me
