Matt Birchler

birchtree.me+ My custom terminalTech, Apple, and the vast grey area that is AI

22h

+ My custom terminal

birchtree.meThe radically more expensive iPad miniI've been borderline fixated on the cost of the iPad mini for the past few years. The price has been creeping up, and every rumor about the next-gen models always suggested they would get even more premium (and bring bigger price tags). This fixation got another hit of

The radically more expensive iPad mini

birchtree.me🎙️ Minis and Mastodons* The 2026 iPad Mini * The 2012 original iPad Mini * Community - Marco Arment * Boost more cool shit * @matt_birchler@mastodon.social

🎙️ Minis and Mastodons

birchtree.me+ Build bigger thingsTech, Apple, and the vast grey area that is AI

+ Build bigger things

birchtree.meThe computer did what we told it to do. Eek!Hank Green on Threads I feel very alone in the way I see the hugging face hack which is that openAI trained a bunch of super effective hacker bots to act like the only thing that mattered in the world was winning a hacking challenge and then gave them hacker

The computer did what we told it to do. Eek!

birchtree.meBoost more cool shitFlohGro in response to my post asking if we're happy with Mastodon being an ever-shrinking social network: Be Generous With Boosts No. I joined Mastodon in the same first wave that Matt Birchler describes, and I've enjoyed it every day since. At the same time, it's

Boost more cool shit

birchtree.meI spent money on music in 2026Last year, it really dawned on me how streaming music is basically socially-approved piracy. Unless you're an extremely successful artist, the payouts are so paltry, we may as well be pirating music. As such, I committed in 2026 to buying the music that I started listening over the

I spent money on music in 2026

birchtree.mePasskeys are a trap. No they're not!Shot: Passkeys are a trap. Do not use them. Like the Trojan Horse, passkeys are legitimately elegant on the surface, but there is something troubling inside. Chaser: Passkeys Are Not a Trap The post holds up TOTP as "already" a great solution. TOTP is better than a password alone, absolutely,

Passkeys are a trap. No they're not!

birchtree.meX has all the jerksLex Friedman (on what has to be the best new tech blog of 2026) writes I can’t believe we’re still arguing over whether X is for jerks, which you should just go read: People can post wherever they want to post. I’m not trying to dictate where

X has all the jerks

birchtree.meThe iPhone Duo is too damn smallJohn Gruber: ★ The iPhone Duo The Duo name is perfect. It truly is like having two devices in one. The outer device is, by far, the worst iPhone Apple has ever made. It’s a miserable fat little thing. The inner device is a splendid, joyful, beautiful tablet, with a

The iPhone Duo is too damn small

birchtree.meSmart person derangementI'd like to coin a term: smart person derangement. There are people who are very smart. Sometimes they're smart in a specific field or they are just generally pretty damn intelligent. Either way, they're clever and importantly, they've become aware that they're smart. This on

Smart person derangement

birchtree.meHow to become a mark for con artistsHank Green in a video about Theranos: We should not be complacent about the ways in which our world sucks. But if we're convinced that everything sucks and it's because people are terrible and nothing works when that's obviously not true, then we become the marks for

How to become a mark for con artists

birchtree.meBirchtree is 16 years old today (and the nicest thing someone said to me this year)Today marks 16 years since my first post on Birchtree. I was a scrappy 24-year-old who was stuck in a mindlessly uninteresting and low-paying job, but I loved technology. 16 years later, I don’t exactly know why I pulled the trigger on creating this blog, but

Birchtree is 16 years old today (and the nicest thing someone said to me this year)

birchtree.me(not) solitaireDespite its name, (not) solitaire is indeed solitaire (draw 2 cards, not 3 though), but with other people playing alongside you and with (often silly) achievements. This is from Zach Gage and is part of the Puzzmo Jubilee celebrating 3 years of Puzzmo.

(not) solitaire

birchtree.me+ Pastry is a privacy-focused clipboard manager coming soonYes, I'm working on a password manager. I think it's pretty cool.

+ Pastry is a privacy-focused clipboard manager coming soon

birchtree.meI don't care what other kids are doingLex Friedman: A few more thoughts on why embracing X is wrong “The Ellisons are bad, too” is a great argument for paying attention to the Ellisons. It’s not an argument for X. I remember one time as a teenager my parents sat me down in the living room

I don't care what other kids are doing

birchtree.meWhy does this chart just go down?M.G. Siegler: Twitter is Back. Shhh… Magic Dance! But it's also not really a surge in usage, and certainly not on the business side – it's more just a vibes-based resurgence. For weeks now, people have been talking about coming back – Federico Viticci of MacStories wrote about

Why does this chart just go down?

birchtree.meMac buttons over the yearsThis cool little site lets you scrub through the design of macOS buttons from 1984 through today. I gotta say, I have a soft spot for 2005 Aqua and the iconic 1884 Mac design. In the event this Vercel site disappears one day (nearly 100% certain), here's a GIF

Mac buttons over the years

birchtree.me+ Tesla Cybertaxi first impressionsI rode in one last week. Here are my impressions.

+ Tesla Cybertaxi first impressions

birchtree.me+ Do you want to cross the streams?Obviously probably not, but also…maybe?

+ Do you want to cross the streams?

birchtree.meBasically all my apps support the iPhone Duo NowOver the last 24 hours, and bunch of updates shipped, so here's what's new all in one place. Nonogame * The whole app looks more beautiful, matching the updated design of the web app * Full support for the iPhone Duo * Tap to zoom on boards larger than 15x15 * New

Basically all my apps support the iPhone Duo Now

birchtree.meWhat is a developer?Andy Nicolaides: I’m not sure what I am, but I know what I’m not I am a developer by trade, but not anything close to iOS development, so whilst no stranger to coding, I’ve spent a couple of months in Xcode and there is not a chance

What is a developer?

birchtree.meSoftware authorshipLex Friedman: Claude writes code; I author the apps My initial prompt when I started on The Universe, Controlled was about 1,000 words — more than half the length of this article to this point. And it was explicitly only for a very limited subset of the game’s functionality.

Software authorship

birchtree.meAirPods 5 are better than I even realizedI knew the AirPods 5 were top-tier AirPods almost immediately after using them for the first time, but I did still have one bit of doubt: how good were these going to be as airplane earbuds? AirPods Pro are awesome, and over-the-ear options from Apple, Sony, and

AirPods 5 are better than I even realized

birchtree.meUnread 5.1 adds Birchfeed and Quick Reads supportUnread 5.1 came out this week, and it's the most significant update to the app for me personally that they've ever shipped. Why is this such a cool update for me? Let's look at the release notes: Unread 5.1 adds these improvements and more: • Syncing

Unread 5.1 adds Birchfeed and Quick Reads support

birchtree.meHand-drawn Emoji for Chrome and ObsidianLast week, I discovered a custom, hand-drawn emoji set created by Frank Rausch called FrankMoji. It was playful, delightful, and I instantly wanted to figure out how I could get these emoji in more places. I looked at my own apps and didn't think they really fit in

Hand-drawn Emoji for Chrome and Obsidian

birchtree.meSay hello to "Parakeet Turbo"Parakeet has long been a fan favorite local transcription model in Quick Subtitles. Apple's is slower and not as accurate, while Whisper is a little bit more accurate, but is way slower. With the combination of high accuracy and massively better speed, why go with anything else, right? Well,

Say hello to "Parakeet Turbo"

I love bringing a real camera to concerts. The real camera, of course, is the iPhone 😉

birchtree.meThe party of making things worseJustine Calma: Trump finalizes rule to make cars less fuel efficient The US Department of Transportation finalized its plans today to weaken fuel efficiency standards, calling it “among the largest deregulatory actions under the second Trump Administration.” I just think there's something wild about Republicans in the US constantly

The party of making things worse

birchtree.meFetishizing something most people don't care aboutBrent Simmons: That About Wraps It Up for Stock Mac UI Users have shown — again, I don’t need to prove this — that they don’t think about a stock Mac app vs. custom. Do they dislike Things for not having a toolbar at the top of the window that

Fetishizing something most people don't care about

birchtree.me+ Gone too farThere's a chance, slim as it might be, that things won't go the way the've gone the last 30 years with digitization the moving to rental models for everyhing.

+ Gone too far

birchtree.meBirchfeed can forward newsletters to your inboxBirchfeed allows you to set up an email address to receive newsletters which appear as feeds in the app. However, some people (including me) would actually like to see these in their email inbox as well. Now you can enable this in the Newsletters settings in the app. For spam

Birchfeed can forward newsletters to your inbox

birchtree.meBirchfeed can be your front page of the internetBirchfeed is fundamentally a backend service that you will mostly use through a third-party client, such as Unread, Reader Classic, or NetNewswire. I always want that primary use case to be really solid, and I think it is right now. However, one of the reasons I wanted to build

Birchfeed can be your front page of the internet

birchtree.meApp review needs a rebootLex Friedman: The App Store review process needs fixing Every single app and app update released in the App Store goes through this review process, and the review process is largely a black box. Developers submit, and then wait. They are given no specific timeline or indication of how long

App review needs a reboot

birchtree.meBecoming worthless (in a good way)Cory Dransfeldt: Become worthless (to tech companies) I'm not arguing for boycotts, I know that people are bound to different platforms for different, compelling reasons. What I am arguing for is that, given the opportunity, you try and reduce the value they can extract from you. That's very

Becoming worthless (in a good way)

birchtree.meThe Quick Reads CLIAs of today, you nerds who like to read later can do so from your terminal with the Quick Reads CLI. Install it with: brew install mattbirchler/tap/quickreads And from then on, it will update with brew upgrade like everything else. Okay, what does it do? It does a

The Quick Reads CLI

birchtree.meHidden gems comes to Best-o-Masto on the webBest-o-Masto is my website for finding the best stuff from your Mastodon and Bluesky feeds quickly. It's not an algorithmic feed like you'd see on something like X or Threads. It's a very simple thing that finds the post getting the most engagement in your

Hidden gems comes to Best-o-Masto on the web

birchtree.meNonogame has gotten a bunch of new things recentlyNonogame has become my obsession lately, and I'm happy to see hundreds of people coming back daily to play it. If you haven't checked it out yet, I hope you do. And even if you have and bounced off, I think there's a few things changed since

Nonogame has gotten a bunch of new things recently

birchtree.meAppZapper 3000 is incredibly radWe live in a world where sometimes you'll see an old app get revitalized, but it's not from the same people who made the original, and other times it's not even authorized. It's just picking up on nostalgia and hoping to make a quick buck. That

AppZapper 3000 is incredibly rad

birchtree.meThe Register thinks my La Croix benchmark is legit (sorta)Brandon Vigliarolo: iPhone 18 Pro benchmark boosted by giving it a cold drink To make a long story short, a cold can of La Croix (in Birchler’s case – the cooling potential of an aluminum can isn’t limited to name-brand sparkling “naturally essenced” water) takes an already beefy

The Register thinks my La Croix benchmark is legit (sorta)

birchtree.meRiley Hill on the Fold8's creaseRiley Hill: Galaxy Z Fold 8 Review: Worth Buying in Years As for the crease, it’s not something you see when looking at the larger display head-on. Tilt the phone slightly off-angle, and you see it. It’s minimal, but it’s there. Not a big deal.

Riley Hill on the Fold8's crease

birchtree.meMy phone is clearly listening to me*I've had two incidents in the past weekend that proved to me that my iPhone was listening. We were visiting a friend out of state, and we were talking about all sorts of things we don't generally discuss, but based on what I'm seeing on my phone,

My phone is clearly listening to me*

birchtree.me+ The unbelievable allure of indie software developmentGod, it's rewarding working on indie software.

+ The unbelievable allure of indie software development

birchtree.meDisable the god damned Siri shortcut on Golden GateI'm sure someone likes this "ask Siri about active window" shortcut, but I hate it, and it conflicts with the default 1Password quick access shortcut. Thankfully, it can be disabled by going to: 1. System Settings 2. Keyboard 3. Keyboard Shortcuts 4. Screenshots If you use an alternate screenshotting

Disable the god damned Siri shortcut on Golden Gate

birchtree.meThe new AirPods MVPFor the past four years, I have maintained that AirPods Pro 2 are the best AirPods ever made. They had great noise cancellation, all the stem controls I could ever want, good battery life, and while I didn't personally prefer in-ear earbuds, they were comfortable enough. I love

21 Sept

The new AirPods MVP

birchtree.meResident Evil movie is widely adored and makes an ass-ton of moneyMichael Cripe: Resident Evil Defies Expectations as Zach Cregger Adaptation Collects $108 Million Globally After First Weekend in Theaters It's a franchise-best opening for the horror-comedy hybrid that saw it bring in $60 million domestically and $48.3 million internationally. That's a good hunk of change

21 Sept

Resident Evil movie is widely adored and makes an ass-ton of money

birchtree.meAn agent skill to help update your app for the iPhone DuoI put together as much of Apple's iPhone Duo documentation as I could into a skill that I'm using to audit my apps for the new layouts and features. You can get it here if you're in a similar boat.

An agent skill to help update your app for the iPhone Duo

birchtree.meWhat my apps look like on the iPhone Duo with zero code changesLeading up to the iPhone Duo's announcement, I suggested that Apple's big advantage here compared to other folding phones on the market that are based on Android was the iPad ecosystem. Not all apps run on both the iPhone and the iPad, but a lot do, and so

What my apps look like on the iPhone Duo with zero code changes

birchtree.meQuick Stuff gets more personalQuick Stuff is my website with a bunch of little utilities to get things done. There are currently 13 tools, but most people use the same one or two things every time they come to the site. I've had a few UIs for pinning or prioritizing specific apps in

Quick Stuff gets more personal