From om.co
The Mediocrity of Modern Google
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These days, whenever I think about Google, I recall a line from Madame Bovary. “She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris,” Flaubert writes, capturing Emma Bovary’s provincial reality…
on Mar 30
From om.co
Has Search Become Just a Feature?
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You can now use Claude to search the internet to provide more up-to-date and relevant responses. With web search, Claude has access to the latest events and information, boosting its accuracy on ta…
on Mar 21
From om.co
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Photo by Javier Garcia Chavez on Unsplash If you’re a visitor to the website, you might have noticed a new link in the menu — Daily Blog. If you receive my writing by email, here’s a…
on Mar 17
From om.co
Instagram is now a (photo) information network.
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Photo by Georgia de Lotz on Unsplash It is no secret that I love fountain pens, and that’s why I get excited about events such as the Manila Pen Show, which is the brainchild of a longtime friend a…
on Mar 15
From om.co
Apple Intelligence: Fud, Dud or Both
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John Gruber is not mincing his words. What Apple showed regarding the upcoming “personalized Siri” at WWDC was not a demo. It was a concept video. Concept videos are bullshit, and a sign of a compa…
on Mar 13
From om.co
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Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash Given that I have been writing three decades, including eighteen-plus years a blogger, I am hardly surprised that I am repeatedly asked: how should I write? And …
on Mar 12
From om.co
[Early Impressions] the M4 MacBook Air
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It is the new Apple computers review day — as you can see from the top of Techmeme, which is dominated by the reviews of Apple’s new Mac Studio and MacBook Air models. While Mac Studio is garnering…
on Mar 12
From om.co
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Microsoft is shutting down Skype. It will go offline in May 2025. “We’ve learned a lot from Skype over the years that we’ve put into Teams as we’ve evolved teams over the last seven to eight years,…
on Mar 2
From om.co
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This quote pretty much sums up what happens to successful people as they grow older. They lose the ability to risk it all. The more successful they are, the more they want to protect what they have…
on Feb 15
From om.co
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When it comes to technology in general, and artificial intelligence in particular, it has been surreal to watch events unfold. From politicians in technology backwaters to opportunists and fashion …
on Feb 12
From om.co
1.5 Billion Broadband Connections
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When I started writing about broadband, there were fewer than a few thousand T1 lines, but the magic of fast, always-on internet was pretty obvious even back then. In almost three decades, broadban…
on Feb 3
From om.co
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Yesterday slipped away, and I never got a chance to mark the 15th birthday of the iPad, perhaps one of the most misunderstood products in Apple’s lineup. The confusion over the device is not limite…
on Jan 28
From om.co
Vision Pro & Lessons of the MacBook Air
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It is just over a year since Apple launched its face computer, and seventeen years ago it launched its skinny computer. The trajectory of one tells a lot about the future of the other. But before w…
on Jan 16
From om.co
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With 2024 breathing its last, I decided to rewind time and relive my year as a photographer. Going through the photos I took over the past year made me realize that this was a year of “staying in p…
on Dec 31
From om.co
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Today is my 17th re-birthday. If you’ve been a longtime reader, you know why I call it my re-birthday. If you are new around here, well, here is a short recap. Just after I turned 41—17 years ago—a…
on Dec 29
From om.co
Musings on Media in the Age of AI
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Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash I recently wrote about the future of the browser and Surf, a new app from the creators of Flipboard. Both stories explore the c…
on Dec 24
From om.co
Robot(taxi)s Are Coming! No seriously!
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Uber & Lyft Earnings Under Pressure from Waymo, Robotaxis. (Business Insider) Waymo’s robotaxis are undercutting Uber and Lyft prices in Phoenix while matching quality. It’s no long…
on Dec 2
From om.co
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When reading this story about the growing popularity of vintage digital cameras in Wired, I was reminded of this quote by Don Draper from the television series Mad Men: “Nostalgia – its delic…
on Dec 1
From om.co
iPod, Kindle, Facebook — and a Nomad Called Me
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These days, we want to carry the contents of our homes with us wherever we go. Books, music, videos…they all represent the proverbial hearth. Of course, thanks to the availability of cheap wireless…
on Nov 28
From om.co
The Best “Digital City” in America is….
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No, despite being the Babylon of the post-information society, San Francisco is not the top digital city in America, according to a study that is subjective in nature but telling nevertheless. Chic…
on Nov 25
From om.co
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There seems to be an open season on books. It is such a shame that even the so-called educated people don’t see the bigger picture. Books, in a way, are a means to build o…
on Nov 19
From om.co
Is the (US) Internet Really Slowing?
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Photo by john mishael Calimoso on Unsplash Given our ever-increasing digital lives, what I am about to say makes little sense — recently released numbers show that there might be a historic slowdow…
on Nov 14
From om.co
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CompanyNov 5, 2024Nov 11, 2024Change ($B)Change (%)Meta$1,445B$1,471B+$26B+1.80%Amazon$2,174B$2,175B+$1B+0.05%NVIDIA$3,432B$3,563B+$131B+3.82%Microsoft$3,059B$3,108B+$49B+1.60%Tesla$808.9B$1,124B+$…
on Nov 12
From om.co
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Con·tent (as an adjective) in a state of peaceful happiness. (as a noun) contents of a book, television program, or website, or even a container. Daylight saving time can play havoc on on…
on Nov 12
From om.co
Mute, Block, Breathe: How to deal with (un)Social Media
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Scott Belsky, Adobe’s chief product officer, said something in a 2020 conversation that has stuck with me since. “Twitter is one of those products where I can see overuse making people have a…
on Nov 10
From om.co
Apple Intelligence’s Transcriptions Are Very Good
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I have been using MacWhisper for recording and transcribing my conference calls and interviews for quite a while now. I have also tried FlowVoice.AI for using voice to respond to emails, …
on Nov 6
From om.co
Why Carnegie’s Rules Are Evergreen
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A few weeks ago, I went on a road trip to Montana with Rod Clark, a photographer friend. On the way back, we stopped in Wells, NV, to get food at Sher-E-Panjab Dhaba, a converted truck stop diner t…
on Nov 6
From om.co
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“If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better…
on Oct 25
From om.co
Siri Sucks, Even By Apple’s Numbers
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The Wall Street Journal’s technology columnist Joanna Stern interviewed Apple software chief Craig Federighi (watch the interview) ahead of the Apple Intelligence launch. It is a good chat, but one…
on Oct 23
From om.co
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Why does every podcast have a six-minute lead of proverbial throat-clearing, self-promotion, and advertising? I can understand that mega podcasts like Joe Rogan’s have to d…
on Oct 23
From om.co
Waiting for Apple’s Intelligence
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Apple Intelligence won’t actually launch until about five days after the new iPad hits stores on Oct. 23. The bigger obstacle is that the first Apple Intelligence features are underwhelming &…
on Oct 21
From om.co
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Last week over coffee, a friend told me about Screenable, a new app designed to help with digital parenting. Founded by ex-Googler Tom Clifton and his brother, Stevie, the app manages children’s ac…
on Oct 17
From om.co
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This isn’t a typical “A Letter from Om.” Instead, it’s an announcement about a new editorial project — a concentrated effort to write and…
on Oct 4
From om.co
The iPhone Content Machine: A Visual Essay
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Apple’s iPhone 16 launch event differed greatly from most of its past events. It was larger and more overwhelming. There were fewer familiar faces among the attendees, and there was also a new type…
on Oct 1
From om.co
Lessons from MKBHD’s App Brouhaha
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If you have a long career in media and writing in public like I have, you’re likely to make some mistakes. And you’re going to have some regrets. One of those was a story I wrote about Path, a comp…
on Sep 29
From om.co
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I am embarrassed to say that it took me 10 years to learn one of the most fundamental pillars of leadership: It is all about outcomes — and not activities. This business truth is simple and obvious…
on Sep 20
From om.co
My Thoughts About Apple’s iPhone 16 “Glowtime” Event
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Did you know that at one point more than 2 million people were watching Apple’s fall 2024 launch event stream on YouTube? If nothing else, it shows a deep interest in the company and its products. …
on Sep 13
From om.co
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If you’re a longtime mobile phone enthusiast like I am, you’ve already seen a dedicated camera control button on phones well before Apple entered the smartphone market. The Nokia N95 is a notable e…
on Sep 12
From om.co
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TLDR: Jony Ive’s design agency LoveFrom has reimagined the humble button for Moncler, once again proving that for Sir Jony, everything is up for reinterpretation. It’s a reminder that i…
on Sep 7
From om.co
Why Fixed Wireless is Stealing the Broadband Show
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When I visited the Palouse earlier this month, I spent a lot of time driving around the backroads, traveling through many small towns and communities. These towns were no bigger than a few hundred …
on Aug 10
From om.co
Google’s Real Googly. No Not The Anti-Trust!
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What does Afghan spin bowler Rashid Khan have to do with Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Yahoo? Well, it’s all neatly wrapped in my 3,500-word essay on the big changes in the tech landscape — a…
on Aug 8
From om.co
Intermittent Social media fasting
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As a diabetic, my life is a constant balance between hypoglycemic and hyperglycemic levels—and proper food consumption is key to maintaining steady blood sug…
on Aug 4
From om.co
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No matter how much I try to avoid political news, there’s no hiding from the forthcoming U.S. presidential election and the ensuing political circus. Not even technology newsletters are a respite. …
on Aug 1
From om.co
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Photos by Om Photos by Om Climbing a Mountain on a Foggy Morning Learning about AI has taken precedence over almost all creative activity during the past six months. Not only am I reading less fiction, but I’m also using my cameras infrequently. I’ve felt very guilty about being an absentee...
on Jul 26
From om.co
What CrowdStrike teaches us about risks & resilience
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I had to bite my tongue and not comment on this tweet from FTC Chair Lina Khan, who tried to make the current CrowdStrike situation a crisis because of “big tech” and “consolidation.” “How is it th…
on Jul 21
From om.co
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A few days ago I wondered aloud, “What would happen if Google CEO Sundar Pichai decided to sign up for Google Cloud using a secret identity, without getting help from any o…
on Jul 20
From om.co
Why FTC Needs to Rethink Tech Regulation
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Photo by Andy Feliciotti on Unsplash If you’ve been a regular reader, you know I’m a little skeptical of government regulators (including the FTC and DOJ) being able to control and rein in Big Tech…
on Jul 17
From om.co
Taboola + Apple News? No thanks
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I’ve been a happy Apple One customer. It made perfect sense signing up for the package considering I was paying for Apple TV+, Apple Music and iCloud storage. For an extra couple of dollars, I coul…
on Jul 17
From om.co
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On My Mind On the eve of our Independence Day, I can’t help but think of our current political challenges. It doesn’t matter which side of the political aisle you walk. After all, the reality of ou…
on Jul 4
From om.co
From WordPerfect to Perfect Words!
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Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash Earlier this morning while reading The Wall Street Journal, I learned that Bruce Bastian, co-creator of WordPerfect, the word-processing software, had died at 76. …
on Jul 3