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PolyCapture 1.5

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App ahead (Reddit):

PolyCapture for Mac lets you to record webcams, microphones, screens, and apps — individually or simultaneously.

[…]

Filter apps from your recordings on the fly, ensuring nothing gets in your way.

[…]

Capture voiceovers, podcasts, interviews, music, or commentary. If a microphone can pick it up, PolyCapture can record it.

[…]

Use macOS’s Voice Isolation to enhance speech quality and reduce background noise. Apply video effects like Portrait Mode, Studio Light, and Center Stage to level-up your recordings.

This looks well done, and it’s only $3.99.

Previously:

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sirshannon
18 hours ago
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XOXO 2024 Conference Videos

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Well, add XOXO to the list of conferences I was never able to attend. The final edition occurred this year and it looked pretty special.

Happily, if you — as I — were unable to attend in person, Andy Baio has begun uploading videos of this year’s talks. I have watched those from Cabel Sasser, Dan Olson, Molly White, and Sarah Jeong. These are all worth your time — and so are, I am sure, the ones I have not yet seen.

Update: Be sure to watch Sasser’s talk before exploring an amazing archive he is assembling. Seriously — watch first, then click.

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sirshannon
1 day ago
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davenelson
1 day ago
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# TODO: Watch a bunch of these
Atlanta, Georgia

Quoting Steven Sinofsky

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Whether you think coding with AI works today or not doesn’t really matter.

But if you think functional AI helping to code will make humans dumber or isn’t real programming just consider that’s been the argument against every generation of programming tools going back to Fortran.

Steven Sinofsky

Tags: ai-assisted-programming, ai

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sirshannon
13 days ago
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denubis
24 days ago
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Croissant: A Beautifully-Designed App for Cross-Posting to Multiple Social Media Accounts

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Social media has splintered across multiple services since the decline of Twitter. I’ve always managed a lot of social media accounts between my own and ones for MacStories, but today the situation is worse than ever. There have always been services like Buffer that make it easier to juggle multiple accounts and services, but they are more expensive than most indie developers, artists, websites, and other creators can afford and offer more features than most need.

That’s where Croissant comes in. It’s a new iPhone app from Ben McCarthy and Aaron Vegh that simplifies cross-posting to Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads at an indie-friendly price. The app doesn’t try to replicate the many features you’ll find in services like Buffer. Instead, it’s focused on making it easier for indie creators or anyone with multiple social accounts to post on multiple platforms at once.

Croissant's tint color, app icon, and posting button icon are all customizable.

Croissant’s tint color, app icon, and posting button icon are all customizable.

I’ve been testing Croissant over the past week, connecting it to two Bluesky accounts, two Threads accounts, and five Mastodon accounts, and I’ve been loving it. First off, the design is top-tier, as you’d expect from one of Ben’s apps. The UI’s focus is on drafting your posts, and it’s accented with a deep yellow/orange hue that I love. However, the app offers seven other color options to choose from. There are also a total of seven app icon options and three icons to pick from for the button that publishes a post.

Managing accounts in Croissant.

Managing accounts in Croissant.

If you have a lot of accounts you want to use with Croissant, you’ll need to start by signing into each, which requires a little patience. However, once you’re set up and ready to go, the rest is smooth sailing. You’ll see icons for each of the accounts you’ve signed into at the top of the app’s compose view. Tap on the row of icons to manage your accounts, removing any you no longer use and adding any new ones. The gear icon in the top-left corner of the view reveals tint, post icon, and app icon settings, and the box icon at the top-right is used to access draft posts that you can save using the app’s Menu button at the bottom of the compose field.

That same Menu button also allows you to delete a post, add to an existing thread, add a content warning, and pick from various audience options. Plus, there are buttons to tag someone, add hashtags, and attach photos or videos to a post. Croissant displays a character counter at the top of each draft post, too.

I appreciate the 'Do you really want to post this everywhere?' step.

I appreciate the ‘Do you really want to post this everywhere?’ step.

My favorite part of Croissant is the interaction that takes place when you’re ready to launch your latest hot take into the social media wilderness. Before you post, a list of every account you’ve connected to Croissant slides up from the bottom of the screen. By default, all of your accounts are selected. Tap the big Post button at the bottom of the list, and you’ll launch your words of wisdom into the world across every service you’ve configured. Before you post, you can also de-select any of the accounts listed. That’s great because, although I could fairly be accused of being a chronic cross-poster, even I rarely post everywhere all at once, so I appreciate the chance to fine-tune where my posts will be published.

I like the simplicity of Croissant a lot, but there are a couple of things I’d love to see added in future updates. The first is Shortcuts support. An action that allows me to pick the accounts to send a post from, coupled with Shortcuts’ ability to pull items from RSS feeds, would make publicizing new MacStories articles and podcast episodes a lot easier. Second, a scheduling feature would go a long way toward completely eliminating the need for services like Buffer for a lot of people. Of course, an iPad and Mac version of Croissant would be great too, but I’ve found using the iPhone app on my iPad and on my Mac with iPhone Mirroring to fill that need well so far – except that on the iPad it means logging into all of my accounts a second time, which is a little tedious.

Sometimes the hottest takes cool after a few days in the drafts box.

Sometimes the hottest takes cool after a few days in the drafts box.

There’s an added side benefit to using Croissant that I didn’t realize at first but Brendon pointed out to me. Croissant lets you post without the distraction or stress of getting sucked into your timelines. I’ve often had times where I felt like I needed a break from social media but felt compelled to jump back in to make sure we were promoting everything happening at MacStories. With Croissant, you can have it both ways, letting the world know what you’re up to without needing to scroll your timeline.


Croissant, which is available on the App Store for free but requires a subscription for some features, is a clear win for anyone who works online and wants to promote what they make or who maintains active accounts across several services. Neither group is a good fit for expensive social media management services, but for $2.99/month, $19.99/year, or a one-time payment of $59.99, Croissant is a no-brainer.


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sirshannon
13 days ago
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What Is a Photo?

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Nilay Patel:

It’s also notable what isn’t present on the iPhone this year: there’s no generative AI wackiness at all. There’s no video boost or face-swapping, no adding yourself to group photos, no drawing to add stuff with AI like on the Pixel or Galaxy phones — really, none of it. I asked Apple’s VP of camera software engineering Jon McCormack about Google’s view that the Pixel camera now captures “memories” instead of photos, and he told me that Apple has a strong point of view about what a photograph is — that it’s something that actually happened. It was a long and thoughtful answer, so I’m just going to print the whole thing[…]

John Gruber has quoted the relevant section, and it’s getting rave reviews. Maybe I’m just too dumb to see the profundity, but I don’t think there’s any there there. These are pleasant sounding words along the lines of “music is in our DNA,” but what is the connection to what the Camera app actually does? Reports are that the photos by default look more processed than before. And Apple, like Samsung and Google, has been including features for years that make the photos not what actually happened.

Federico Viticci:

“Something that really, actually happened” is a great baseline compared to Samsung’s nihilistic definition (nothing is real) and Google’s relativistic one (everyone has their own memories). […] But I have to wonder how malleable that definition will retroactively become to make room for Clean Up and future generative features of Apple Intelligence.

What McCormack said is that a photo is a “celebration of something that really, actually happened,” not that the image in the photo actually happened.

Google lets you celebrate a moment where two people were actually standing next to each other by creating such an image from two separate captures where they were standing alone. Apple lets you take a photo of multiple people and objects and remove some of them. What is the distinction here that amounts to a strong point of view? It just seems like a difference in degree. Arguably, the Google example is more truthful in that it’s helping you recreate an actual moment, whereas the Apple one is letting you tune it up to be more what you remembered or wished for than the reality.

If we were talking about this last year, people would say that there’s a big philosophical difference because—although they both combine multiple exposures, add fake bokeh, and use AI to adjust colors and focus, etc.—Android phones let you remove objects and iPhones don’t. But now Apple is adding that, too. If there’s a bright line distinction, I think that was it. Apple crossed it, and I don’t think they’ll stop there. This is fine. It’s a popular feature, and I know people who were considering switching to Android because of it.

Nick Heer:

In my testing of Clean Up on an image on the latest iOS 18.1 beta build, Apple adds EXIF tags to the image to mark it as being edited with generative A.I. tools. EXIF tags can be erased, though, and I do not see any other indicators.

Previously:

Update (2024-09-25): René Fouquet:

1. Given the iPhone’s image processing pipeline–something they proudly speak of at every chance they get–this statement is already demonstrably false. Photos taken on the iPhone definitely do not show something that actually happened. The darker it gets, the more guesswork flows into an iPhone photo. So much guesswork, in fact, that nighttime photos can easily make up things that have never been there in reality. I have taken a couple of photos that interpreted leafs rustling in the wind as something else entirely.

2. How will they frame it when they will eventually add these features? Because let’s be serious for a second here. They didn’t add those features out of some philosophical stance against AI generated content. That is just corporate bullshit. They are simply way, WAY behind their competition when it comes to this and haven’t gotten around to it (yet), or lack the required competence or whatever. It’ll be fun to read the spins after they inevitably change course.

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sirshannon
19 days ago
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Quoting Bryan Cantrill

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Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don’t anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn - you stick your hand in there and it’ll chop it off, the end. You don’t think "oh, the lawnmower hates me" – lawnmower doesn’t give a shit about you, lawnmower can’t hate you. Don’t anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don’t fall into that trap about Oracle.

Bryan Cantrill

Tags: oracle, bryan-cantrill

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sirshannon
22 days ago
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denubis
28 days ago
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