Andrew Haglund

I’ll probably submit these items as “official” feedback items to Apple but in the meantime here are a few things I noticed tonight while using my beloved Apple TV running tvOS watching Apple TV+ shows. This is a platform I use every night and I want it to be better.

First some praise

You’ve always been able to say “what did they say?” to the remote and it would rewind 10 seconds and turn on the captions for a few seconds. Incredible feature.

Now in tvOS 18 the same thing happens when you click the left button. No need to talk, just click.

It’s an tiny improvement but I know so many people will benefit from this, especially with shows like All Creatures Great and Small. The world would be a much better place if companies focused on sanding off the hard edges and just made things nicer.

(Unrelated but using a pair of HomePods with your TV is incredible. That is until it randomly loses connection. It doesn’t happen too often but it feels impossible to recover from.)

Apple TV Plus

• Stop spoiling massive season 1 mysteries in your season 2 pre-roll promos. What is hell is wrong with you? (Referring to both Silo and Severance.)
• You don’t need to tell me to watch shows I’m already watching.

tvOS

• It’s impossible to see who directed specific episodes of a TV show. (How do I know which episodes Ben Stiller directed of Severance?)
• Cast & Crew should be separate rows to better highlight directors, producers, writers, costume, etc. The list of actors (especially on shows) can be endless and there’s so many other people that come together to make film and TV.
• Rotten Tomatoes scores are shown for movies but not TV. First: it’s a crass way to judge art. Second: you could lose many nights to a bad show but a bad movie is… 2 hours? Third: RT offers distinct Critic and Audience scores, which can be useful.
• This doesn’t happen often but sometimes the Match Frame Rate setting gets stuck: I’ll finish an episode and the tvOS UI will keep running at 24fps instead of buttery 60. Horrendous and hard to fix.

This TikTok ban is complete bullshit. From everything I’ve read this is pure rah-rah anti-China. Yes TikTok is 100% a propaganda factory and its algorithm is dangerous but so is Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

If you care about the problems this ban purports to solve we need genuine algorithm, privacy, and data laws to protect the citizens of the U.S. of A. — which would just so happen to include TikTok. This of course would take down too many U.S.-based morally-bankrupt ad-tech, data broker, and social media companies. So yeah, let’s just turn a blind eye to that and let’s just focus on this one Chinese company in particular.

It’s also a call to action to build alternatives to the giants (projects like loops.video spring to mind). To all of you out there who consider yourself a “content creator”: take your videos and share them on the web. Don’t let your livelihood be subject to a single algorithm that can’t control.

As much as I despise at the term “content creator” (come on, it completely devalues your work) I do feel bad for these people caught in the crosshairs here. These people built an audience on TikTok and they just lost their entire network of followers. Imagine running a bakery and you had to change locations overnight but you have no means of telling your regulars — talk about putting all your breads in one basket.

The internet is vast and wild. Get out of the silos.

RIP David Lynch. Great obituary from Variety and RogerEbert.com (via Gruber). I love his work in Twin Peaks (both as director and Gordon Cole, “Coop!”). I first saw his unsettling films Eraserhead and Blue Velvet years ago, but I still need to see Elephant Man and Mulholland Drive.

From Kyle MacLachlan (on Instagram):

Forty-two years ago, for reasons beyond my comprehension, David Lynch plucked me out of obscurity to star in his first and last big budget movie. He clearly saw something in me that even I didn’t recognize. I owe my entire career, and life really, to his vision.

What an artist.

Cristina Criddle and Hannah Murphy, at the Financial Times, via Nick Heer and Manton Reece:

[Characters generated by AI] will fill its social media platforms in the next few years … “They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform … that’s where we see all of this going,” [Meta’s Connor Hayes] added.

Nick Heer:

Imagine how little you will see from the friends and family members you actually care about. Imagine how much slop you will be greeted with — a feed alternating between slop, suggested posts, and ads, with just enough of what you actually opened the app to see. Now consider how this will affect people who are more committed to Meta’s products, whether for economic reasons or social cohesion.

Facebook’s plan freaks me out because to so many people Facebook might as well be The Internet. They’ll just slowly boil the frog by introducing fake AI-generated users who are posting fake AI-generated content and you’ll see less of your friends and family. If you don’t think the good folks at Facebook will succeed, just replace the “AI stuff” with “ads” and you’ll see a company who has a track record of giving you less of what you want over time. People notice but don’t care enough to leave.

This idea of replacing real stuff with fake stuff reminded me of the story back in November of Spotify slowly adding AI-slop to their top playlists. Spotify will justify their actions because it saves them money (by decreasing how much they pay real artists) and they’ll be more profitable. Facebook will justify their actions by saying it’s more engaging (aka more eyeballs looking at ads). Both business models incentivize this gross behavior. So if you’re doubtful of this coming to pass, don’t be: this unwanted AI takeover will absolutely happen.

People spend so much time on these platforms and they’re just going to slowly rot to a majority of AI-slop. My concern is that the people will not revolt. They won’t vote with their feet and find a new home online. The network effects are just too strong. On a more optimistic note (it is New Years Eve, after all) my hope is that it opens the door for smaller companies like Micro.blog who believe in a people-first web. There is a small but mighty cohort of people writing and posting to their own site and following along via RSS. The problem is it’s the absolute smallest minority and I believe it should be the majority.

This was a big year of change for our family: we had our first kid in May! Wild times. 7 months later and the before times feel like a distant memory. It’s true what they say about your life changing with kids.

Gaming has mostly taken a back seat to ensure evening downtime is spent with my wife. I usually steal a few minutes in bed with the Retroid Pocket 5 to bounce between a few games like Pokémon Emerald Seaglass, Chrono Trigger, or Zelda Wind Waker with Hypatia’s texture pack.

I also migrated my site to Micro.blog and have really enjoyed the cross-posting and easy posting (compared to 11ty).

I have so much to be thankful for: we spent Christmas with grandparents, cousins, and life-long friends. If you’re out there reading this, I hope you have a wonderful new year.

Movies and TV Here’s what I watched in quarter 4 of 2024:

• Finished season 2 of Shrinking and Bad Sisters on Apple. Shrinking is a such a wonderful heartfelt show with a fantastic season finale that had me in tears.
• Almost done with Silo on Apple.
• Rewatched The Grinch (with Jim Carrey) on Christmas Eve.
• Started Skeleton Crew and X-Men ‘97 on Disney.
• All 4 seasons of A.P. Bio with Glenn Howerton and the unforgettable Paula Pell on Netflix. So fun and weird.
• The excellent The Night Manager (2016) with Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, and Elizabeth Debicki, and Olivia Colman on Amazon Prime. Merlin raved about this so I finally had to watch it. Outstanding. BBC says it’s coming back for two more seasons.
• Rewatched all of Slow Horses on Apple with Gary Oldman. I couldn’t get my wife to watch it the first time around but my glowing review of no it’s really good got her hooked on it!
• The Penguin on HBO Max with Collin Farrell and Cristin Milioti was a good time. Excited to see how it’s woven into the next Batman movie.
• Disclaimer with Cate Blanchett on Apple was a slow burn and we kept wondering, when it going to become a thriller? but it gets there by the end.
• We watched seasons 1 and 2 of Hacks with Jean Smart on HBO Max. Loved it! Took a break afterwards but will watch season 3 soon.
• English Teacher with Brian Jordan Alvarez is an FX show on Hulu. We found it hilarious.
• Season 2 of The Big Door Prize on Apple.
• Season 2 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Amazon. Spoilers(?) but it was so obvious that “the stranger” was Gandalf. Who else would it have been?
• Sunny on Apple with Rashida Jones was interesting but not sure it “stuck the landing.”
• Really enjoyed Penelope on Netflix. This caught my attention after hearing Mark Duplass’ interview on The Town where I learned it was self-funded and he retains the rights — not Netflix.