John Gruber hosts Apple executives Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi for a rather remarkable podcast.

Federighi (Apple’s Senior Vice President Software Engineering) on iOS and macOS’s forthcoming privacy-maintaining methods for on-device image classification:

There’s this idea that, well, if you don’t have the data, how would you ever learn? Well, turns out, if you want to get pictures of mountains, you don’t need to get it out of people’s personal photo libraries.

Like, we found out that we could find some pictures of some mountains!

We did some tough detective work, and we found ‘em.

Gruber’s audience of engineers and other nerdery enthusiasts cheer Federighi like a rockstar throughout the show.

Uber takes safety “very seriously,” by making sure to avoid any legal responsibility or pecuniary fallout when it is violated.

Tom Krisher for the Associated Press:

Under terms and conditions that riders agree to — but few read — at sign up, the app-based ride-hailing companies say they aren’t legally liable for the safety of their drivers or the quality of their services. That’s because the drivers are independent contractors, not employees…. Instead, if a rider is injured in a ride-hailing car, the driver appears to be liable. If a driver gets lost and makes a rider late for an appointment, or if a driver assaults someone, the company says it’s not involved.

Uber “does not guarantee the quality, suitability, safety or ability of third-party providers (drivers),” its terms say. Riders also agree that the “entire risk arising out of your use of the services, and any service or good requested in connection therewith, remains solely with you.”

More evidence that Uber is mostly about regulatory and liability arbitrage.

Brent Simmons:

We – and I mean me and many thousands of people like me – worked hard to make the decentralized web, the web of blogs and podcasts, a place where all the Merlins would thrive…. I realize that decentralized-web fanatics are often looked at as if we’re the Libertarians of the web. Or the crazy-conspiracy-theorist-uncles. Or as if we’re stuck, sadly, in a rosy past and we won’t move on.

Think whatever you will. But wonder if, if all this goes away, could there be any more Merlins.

The footer of this very website should probably say “Inspired by People like Brent Simmons and Merlin Mann.”

Jason Snell on the upgrade coming to Messages in iOS 10:

It turns out that when you unleash smartphone technology on billions of people of all ages and cultures from all around the planet, sometimes those billions of people use that technology in ways that the people crafting tech products in California might not anticipate. The messaging-app category, from WeChat to SnapChat to Line to Facebook Messenger, is huge. People love sending videos and pictures and stickers and emoji with their smartphones.… The message to Apple is clear: Your users use this app a lot, so you might want to show it some attention. Use of other messaging apps is exploding, driven by fun add-ons that go way beyond attaching the occasional picture. Perhaps you should give the people what they want, namely a more fun messaging experience right inside your most popular app.

Of course, it helps when it’s your own app on your own platform.

Apparently, Facebook, Google and Microsoft have fewer qualms about Trump or less intestinal fortitude than Apple.

TIL Windows is still a thing.

“You’re stuck with creepy old Dad.”

I found most of this New Yorker article focusing on Oberlin College to be a real slog, but this bit stood out as an insightful gem:

The institutions that give many people a language and a forum to denounce injustice are, inevitably, the nearest targets of their criticism. If that is an irony, it is not a contradiction; American progressivism, from the Continental Congress to the college cafeteria, has functioned by embracing awkward combinations of great-sounding ideas and waiting for problems to arise.