A seemingly rare treat to get an Apple focused essay from Craig. But I think Craig is missing (at least part of) the mark with this one.

"The iPad should be radically (though obviously) touch-only. No keyboards. No pointers. No mice. No trackpads. Just your disgusting fingers flopping over the screen and mooshing into icons. It should not have any window’d modes. Each app should fill the whole screen and only the whole screen."

My hot pink iPad is just that—touch-only. I don't pair a mouse with it. No trackpads. My greasy nubbins flop and moosh all over the thing while I cook in my kitchen with it. While it is capable of all the things Craig describes, I choose not to engage with them. That's where I think Craig is missing the mark. He's ignoring the flexibility and adaptability in the iPad's hardware.

"No more keyboards or mouse support for iPads. Touch only. Nix half the iPad lineup, simplify simplify simplify. Gut iPadOS and rebuild it around touch fluidity and fluency and focus."

I'm not sure what half of the iPad lineup they'd get rid of, maybe just the base iPad? I feel like the size of the mini makes it a valuable slab in the lineup. The iPad Air feels like the default as the Pro creeps higher and higher in price.

Touch-only feels like a regression of the highest order for Apple's most flexible kit. It would negate so many workflows and accessibility scenarios. iPadOS is still touch-first and is the only way I use my iPad. I know the other modes and methods exist, but I choose to use the iPad the same way Steve did when demoing the first.

Craig's frustration comes in part, I think, from having the "knowledge of fire," which I crib from one of the all time greatest trailers—Red Dead Redemption 2: Official Trailer #3.

"You have to love yourself a fire. It's one of the blessings. Sure, we can have fire...And we can have the knowledge of fire...But with that comes the knowledge of everything."

Craig and all us Apple nerds know what the iPad is capable of, especially those M5 iPad Pros with their absurdist performance potential. I think that untapped potential frustrates us. We see stagnation or even regression in the face of unparalleled hardware progress. "Why is the iPad trying to be a laptop?! Why does it cost more than a laptop for a keyboard and trackpad? I'll just buy a Mac instead." We have the knowledge of fire (an OS and hardwares full capabilities) and that means we are cursed with the knowledge of everything (ohmygodwhy)

But, you don't need to attach a keyboard. No one is forcing you to. Tim Cook would like you to buy one. Nothing in iPadOS is forcing you to use windowing or Stage Manager. Want those big, beautiful, mooshy iPad apps? Use 'em. Want iPad-first apps? They exist and excel where their iOS and macOS counterparts do not. I think of Mela, my favorite recipe app. It sings on the iPad. I never want to cook without it.

Forcing the iPad back to touch-only would be a loss. We can't and shouldn't go back. The experience Craig wants on his iPad is there already. I think he just needs to treat the slab the way he wants.

I love it when cartoons interact with the real world. This looks spot on.

"The first is that I have intensely desired to write outside of the constraints or pressure of doing something for the sake of a video. Going forward, my blog will contain essays on media I’ve been thinking about lately, as well as aspects of art, culture, entertainment, and whatever else is on my mind, in addition to updates on how my life and career have been going. Social media poses intense restrictions and forces people to be too succinct about complex things, and while I could continue to post about these things in my YouTube community tab – I would much rather have a space to myself, just as the internet used to be."

I am pleased to see more personal blogs from creators make a comeback. I believe it is vital to own your own slice of the Internet pie and that a blog is one of – if not the – best way to do that.

As for the site design itself, I am getting major Detstar vibes. I like the idea of the Guestbook, which does elicit that early aughts web surfing energy we all lived off. And thankfully, there is an RSS feed. The hidden page is a nice touch too. No, you'll have to find it yourself.

Nice work Liam (and Stormagi). Excited to see what you write here and hopefully more folks follow in your blogging footsteps.

"The gist of it is simple: the mechanics of following a link are not important, and should be replaced by something that can make the link stand on its own. This is important for screen readers, but also for basic scannability: a 'click here' label has a lousy scent and requires you to take in the surroundings to understand what it really does. The rule is, in effect, a variant of 'show, don’t tell.'"

A convicting read for me this weekend. I've been known to throw a link behind "here." Searching for [here] reveals 59 occurrences across this here blog. Each time I feel inclined to, I get a gut check. Sometimes the lazy way wins and I keep it. Other times I rewrite or simplify the link structure.

It reminds me of advice Stephen King gives in On Writing about using adverbs that end in "ly." If something is "surprisingly simple," odds are that it just being "simple" is more effective on the page.

Just link the appropriate words, you don't need to educate the reader where to click. Trust the reader.

I'll leave you with this other quote from Unsung's author Marcin Wichary from Raycast’s confetti cannon;

"I hate perhaps all of Google’s search easter eggs because they’re built so extremely cheaply – try searching for “do a barrel roll” or “askew” (and no, I’m not going to dignify them with links because links are my love language)."

👋🏻

I hope you don't mind a little creative soul searching disguised as a newsletter.

It's been seven months since I last published a video. I can't seem to find, fabricate, or defend the time necessary to get one across the finish line. It feels like things pop up and take precedence. I feel it all sinking beneath me as I tread the waters of my own creativity.

Maybe I am too rigid or particular. Maybe my editing ambitions are too high. Perhaps I need to be fast and loose; to just make make make.

Or maybe I am in a season of life where I don't have the time for writing, recording, and editing. Maybe all I have is time for one thing. I have many ideas for video essays. Perhaps, I need to drop the "video" part and write write write. What's more important? The video presentation or the sharing of the idea? It feels like a sort of madness to have all these thoughts swirling and trapped inside my brain with the only key being making a video.

This train of though got me thinking about Scott the Woz and his Scott's Stash channel. A proper episode of Scott the Woz takes quite a while to produce. Scott's Stash, while still well produced and edited, is a much faster way for Scott and his team to get videos out, try ideas, and make make make. I'm not implying I am Scott Wozniak levels of production here, but I am saying that I might need to make smaller "stash" projects instead of each thing being a "Woz" caliber deal.

I've been reading the (so far) excellent Is A River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane and there's this passage early on in a cloud-forest (such a sick name) of Ecuador. Night has settled and these stumps begin to glow. A fungal hyphae grows inside the wood as the trees die and in the darkness it shines.

I think this incarnation of video essays is like those stumps. While they may be dying in this particular season, it doesn't mean there isn't life growing—maybe even flourishing. I may have to turn the lights off to see it though.

I'm starting to think these ideas in my note aren't videos after all, but just essays. I'll leave you all with a quote (and book) from Craig Mod;

"Things become other things."

Until next time...

Color me shocked when I saw this pop up in my suggested feed yesterday evening.

Color me even more shocked when I saw this recommended and it came out two months ago.

Shame on you all for not telling me. And shame on myself for not noticing sooner. Always a treat to have new essays from Taylor and Tony.

P.S. - It turns out that this is not the first time Every Frame a Painting has teamed up with Criterion. The seem to have also done one for The Breaking Point back in 2017. Adding that one to my list.

And here I was thinking I was good at Connect 4...

I've never heard of 2swap before, but these animations and the presentation are slick as all get out.

Lewis Packwood for GamesIndustry.biz;

"ProbablyMonsters' new chief marketing officer David Reid dismisses the idea that the firm is taking a scattergun approach with its releases, instead saying that they are intentionally focused on the AA space. 'We're building a portfolio, we're building a brand, and we want to show gamers that if you see the ProbablyMonsters logo on a game, it'll be something a little different.'"

I think that is exactly what is going on with ProbablyMonsters after a decade of shipping nothing and cancelling everything.

"Yet there are signs that ProbablyMonsters' new AA strategy hasn't paid off so far. Storm Lancers' all-time peak concurrent player count on Steam is just 29 according to SteamDB, and Video Game Insights estimates it has sold only 831 units on Steam (the game also came out on the Epic Games Store and Nintendo Switch, for which figures are unavailable). Similarly, Ire: A Prologue hit a player peak of 22, with VGI putting sales at just 415 units on Steam (again, the game also came out on the Epic Games Store, for which figures are not available)."

There are so few critic reviews that there is no aggregate score on Metacritic for either title.

""...we need to get serious about this publishing side of things and level up our capabilities there in the same way that we're changing how we think about development. We need to change our thoughts about how we do publishing.'"

So they need to not publish games? Because until the end of 2025, ProbablyMonsters approach to development was to just waste millions of investors dollars on kingly attire.

👋🏻

I miss working on my essay.

I think that's a good sign. I'm sort of treating it like Persona 5. That game took me three years to beat. There were multiple year-long lulls for me in that game. I would tell myself in a sporadic manner throughout the year to remember where I left off. I didn't want to lose the memory of the casts and plot like I had with Persona 4 Golden.¹

I am not saying this essay will take me years (I hope). But I am thinking about it regularly. I was editing a bit the other day too. It's not been abandoned.

I finished Resident Evil Requiem. I am obsessed with Marathon. I do not want to play Sons of Sparta, but I must.

This week I've realized that I set ambitious goals within small time windows. For example, my weekly note has a goal of "Write review for Marathon." That has not being accomplished this week. I did sit down and get rough thoughts and an outline down. I did record a small podcast with a friend discussing our thoughts on the game, which helped frame and define my own deeper takes on the game. I made real progress on the review, but I did not "write review for Marathon."

It reminds me of the concept of Yearly Themes from Myke Hurley and CGP Grey at Cortex. If I could summarize Yearly Themes, it'd be that resolutions are success or failure states. Those make you feel bad when you do not accomplish said goal. A theme is like a filter for decisions. Will doing this fit in with my current theme? You (theoretically) always make "progress" toward your theme, because it is more broad in its definition.

Tasks and goals do need to be accomplished, but I have realized my goals/tasks are too full. Same with this essay. The goal is "finish The Thing™." When I could be more broad with something like "work on a creative project." Maybe these looser and looser framings will just help me kick the can down the road. At some point, there does need to be forcing functions in place to make The Thing™. It's a tough balance to find and strike. Maybe next week will be better.

Until next time...

Love the advice on gear, storytelling, and dedication to authenticity.

Kyle Hilliard over at the resurrected Game Informer got to interview Matt Johnson about video games and Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie. Sorry for the long block quote;

"I think just having that approach to it allowed me, especially at a young age, to become totally lost in the process of post-production and editing and re-editing and rewriting things and redoing it, and redoing it, and redoing it in the same way you would a video game and viewing filmmaking like you would view playing a game where it's like, yes – you die. But then you come back, and you get to play the level again, and you can die again, and then get a little bit farther, and a little bit farther. And that iterative process got drilled into me by playing these games where the difficulty was way beyond my ability to play them. That helped me to view filmmaking as that same exact thing, where if you go in and do it and it doesn't work? That doesn't mean you stop and put the controller down, or that you go, “Okay, well, that's as good as I can do. So I'm just going to deliver this.” It’s like playing Dark Souls. The fun of it is trying to do it again, and again, and again, and again until you really have it right...

...I think it's fascinating to hear you refer to editing as playing a video game, because I had a similar reaction myself to Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie. When my daughter and I walked out of it, we said, “I don't know how they made that. I don't know how they got all those pieces to line up.” It does seem like you basically had to solve a gigantic puzzle. And you managed to get all the pieces together like you would solving an environmental puzzle in a Zelda or something.

That's what makes it so fun. And I gotta’ say, it is also the thing that motivates my friends and I to make these things, because it doesn't feel like we are covered in mud trying to climb up a mountain, which is the way I think a lot of production often feels with us. It truly is a game where you…"

I never thought of editing like a game, but ain't that the truth. Really, all creative endeavors are like a game.

Campus is my favorite Vampire Weekend song, so you know I saw this Campus (Original Version) that former bandmate and songwriter.

I don't love it.

Undoubtedly, it is because I have listened to Campus infinite amounts of times. Given my love of that song, I was surprised by the story of its creation. I also like this world where I missed MySpace rips of this version from 2009 or thereabouts.

Why share this now though? Because Rostam has released another cover of a Vampire Weekend song, Young Lion from their best album Modern Vampire of the City. I like this one more than the "original" version of Campus. The story of this one is also a good one.

Also, is it a cover if he wrote/co-wrote the songs? What's the ruling on that?

Young gamers in Japan may not be forming the same attachment to Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest because modern dev cycles are as long as their childhood, users theorize by Carlos "Zoto" Zotomayor for Automaton¹

The headline sort of tells the whole story. It is an interesting theory from the Japanese community and one that I see reflected a bit here in North America as well.

Me: “Dragon Quest has been getting a lot of attention lately with all the remakes. It may be overtaking Final Fantasy in terms of popularity. Come to think of it, which franchise does the younger crowd prefer, Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy? I’ll ask them.”

Youngster A: “Pokémon.”

Youngster B: “Pokémon.”

Youngster C: “Pokémon.”

Youngster D: “Pokémon. I’ve never played Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy.”

Me: “…”

Consistency is (Nido)king. I see tons of Nintendo and Pokémon fans lament the re-release of games like FireRed and LeafGreen or remakes like Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, but you can almost always count on a Pokémon title being released during the year. Combine that with all the multimedia and the sheer cross compatibility with carrying these Pokémon forward, it's no wonder the kids connect to Pokémon over other Japanese RPG titans.

An example I have seen in my life was one day working on the production team at my church and all the younger lads were talking about the new Halo remake and stating it'd be their first time with the series. What. Their worlds certainly didn't stop when Marathon came out last month. They likely kept playing Fortnite and Clash Royale.

Shigeru Miyamoto x Shigesato Itoi (1989) on Shmuplations

"This lengthy interview, originally published in Gamer Handbook, captures a high-level meeting of the minds between Shigesato Itoi, Shigeru Miyamoto, and author Seikou Itou. Conducted a few months after the release of the original MOTHER, the conversation quickly turns to philosophical (and comical) musings about realism, creative exhaustion, the moral panic over kids and gaming, and Miyamoto's visionary notions of how gameplay will evolve in the future."

A lovely interview; the kind I see myself and others referring back to for the ages. It felt poignant to me given a (seemingly never-ending) discourse about realistic graphics, industry trends, technology's influence, and design.

"Miyamoto: As we become able to use more colors, it's boring if every image looks the same—if it's just "realistic" art. That's why we're seeing things finished with an illustrative touch, where the whole game has a specific "feel." Whether it's music or art, a game with a distinct worldview is just more fun. When you go that route, the individual creator's touch becomes everything."

This is exactly why a game like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is timeless in its appearance.

"Miyamoto: Well… I'm not really sure, to be honest. If I say too much, I might get in trouble! (laughs) But if I were to take a more cynical view, I'd say that what's "selling" has mostly been driven by fashion. There's a more timeless side to gaming where the players and the way they play doesn't really change all that much. But people tend to look at whatever is at the absolute peak of hype and say, "Look, this is what's selling!" To me, that's just fashion, so I really can't say where the industry is going.

Itou: Ah, I see. So in reality, every genre has its own dedicated following, and there's this steady, grounded work going on behind the scenes.

Miyamoto: Right now, all else being equal in terms of fun, the games that sell are usually the grand, large-scale RPGs with sprawling stories and worlds... games that take a long time to play through. But personally, I prefer games you can finish quickly. I think they have a much better chance of reaching a wider audience. Everyone is so focused on "long-play" games because they think that's what sells, but then something like Tetris comes along and just blows everyone away."

I mean, is there a more apt quote to describe PlayStation's pursuit of live-service titles this generation? Or the sea of open-world RPG action adventure titles that has inundated the market since the PS3 and 360 generations?

"Miyamoto: Focusing on things like "trends" or "best-sellers" might make it look like we've hit a wall, but in reality, I think the possibilities are as open as they've ever been."

I hope this applies today. I think it does, especially at Nintnedo.

Itou: Are developers really out of ideas? I can't stop wondering.

Miyamoto: I think there are still plenty of possibilities in game design. For instance, imagine a game where you input something, and when you check back a month later, it's transformed into something totally unexpected. We don't have anything like that, do we?

Or, take how people living in apartments today can't keep pets. If someone who was obsessed with the joy of having a pet made a game that captured that feeling, I think it would become a huge craze. And since it's a simulation, you could even include the "unfortunate" parts, like the pet eventually passing away, as part of the experience.

Shmuplations: It's incredible that Miyamoto's comments here in 1989 predict the coming of games like Animal Crossing, Nintendogs, or Bandai's Tamagotchi device."

Shmuplations took the words right out my mouth. It's amazing to see Miyamoto describe Nintendogs and Animal Crossing decades before their release and domination.

"Itou: You're so kind, Miyamoto.

Itoi: That's why he loves playing with kids.

Itou: I bet he does. He probably likes making funny faces and stuff like that.

Itoi: In that sense, he's a very strict person.

Miyamoto: Strict? You think so?

Itoi: Yeah. You're strict about creating a space that is truly fun to play in."

Play has always been Miyamoto's strongest tool. Being strict abut play is a, I think, wonderful way to describe it.

"Miyamoto: There's this new software on the Macintosh called HyperCard. It's a system that lets you create things that are almost like interactive picture books. It's designed so that if a creator just throws their scenario in, the system builds the world for them...

...With HyperCard, for example, you can wander through an art museum. You receive a program at the entrance, walk down the hallways, and then you can just look around. You can stand back and view five or six paintings at once, or you can step closer, close enough to examine the actual texture of the art. That kind of experience is possible now."

You know I had to include a mention about the Mac. Funny to think that 27 years later that Miyamoto would be on Apple's stage to announce Super Mario Run for iOS. I wonder if he uses a Mac...

I encourage you to read the full translated interview for many more gems.

I love the look of this alternate future where Nintendo copied Intellivision¹ with preposterous add-ons...wait...Nintendo made (and still makes) preposterous add-ons for their consoles.

Here are some beautiful photos of the NES-SY2.0 on Hultén's Instagram. And even more beautiful musical objects on his site.

A leaker/commentator that goes by Nate the Hate has shared some tantalizing details about Nintendo's plans for 2026 on his podcast today.

"Star Fox is coming back in summer 2026...So I've been told it is a classic style Star Fox game. Ooh, I like I like I've been told the visuals are supposed to be very good, very very satisfying. And I've heard it does have online multiplayer."

A short turnaround from announcement to release would be sick for a new Star Fox title. It'd be refreshing for the IP to have a classic style title and get new love on the Switch 2. Might be all apart of the master timing given the recent reveal that Fox McCloud is in The Super Mario Galaxy movie coming out next week...

"One game that will not be releasing in holiday 2026 is 3D Mario. 3D Mario will be releasing in 2027."

No Mario until 2027 sounds reasonable, especially considering Donkey Kong Bananza came out last summer. I guess Titans is a fake "leak" after all?

"What I can share with you today is that in the second half of 2026, approaching the holidays, if not the holidays, we are going to receive an Ocarina of Time remake. For Switch 2."

Andy Robinson over at VGC had the audacity to point out this not-so-fun fact.

"A soft Ocarina remake was previously released for Nintendo 3DS in 2011. However, that was released further ago from today than the 3DS version was from the Nintendo 64 original at its time of release."

If Mario is getting a movie for his anniversary, Link should get at least a remake. A brand new version of Ocarina of Time would pop for sure. It makes me curious how far they would push the remake or play it super safe.

Overall, these announcements are cool. But, I can't help but feel a little wind was sucked out of the sails here. I talked about this a little bit in my article about the Super Mario Titans leaks;

"The fervor and discussion around leaks that may or may not be real? There's something far more enticing about blurry phone photos than a tweet from some prominent leaker. They are brazen—real or not! There's an audacity at both the person producing the photo and the information. In a way, the effort is much higher than just posting a thread and saying what you may or may not have heard."

It is far less exciting when the leak is just a statement on a podcast. If Star Fox is announced next month, it'll have a little "eh, I knew that was coming." More crucially, now we enter the phase on imagination, which has its own ramifications.

"Leaks have immense power to shape perspective. If you like the leak and it doesn't come to pass, you can become disappointed. Same happens when inverted. I think lots of folks forget to bring along their big chunks of salt to these conversations and revel in the fun of it. "

Consider this blog post heavily seasoned with salt, but your boy is still licking his proverbial lips.

New Price Changes for PS5, PS5 Pro, and PlayStation Portal remote player by Isabelle Tomatis on the PlayStation Blog

"With continued pressures in the global economic landscape, we’ve made the decision to increase the prices of PS5, PS5 Pro, and PlayStation Portal remote player globally. We know that price changes impact our community, and after careful evaluation, we found this was a necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences to players worldwide."

We once again no longer live in that world where a Xbox Series X cost more than a PS5 Pro.

I still cannot believe that I bought these consoles at their cheapest at launch. The PS5 Pro was not cheap!

And to keep the tradition alive, here is an all inclusive table of the current consoles with their launch prices versus their current prices.

The Switch 2 is looking like a better and better deal for people who want a console with the latest titles, great exclusives, and a fair price. If these were the prices when I was in a kid, I'd have stayed a Nintendo kid my entire life.¹

In whipping up this piece, I was reminded of my expertly timed piece Where Did the Price Drops Go from April 2025.

"It seems to me that the base price of the launch models of consoles is now a fundamental part of its identity. The price cannot drop for whatever reason these companies have."

The price can go up though, unfortunately.

I was nervous re-reading that piece given the stark jump announced this morning. Upon said re-read, I am not nervous, but I am sad. Even though the breadth of accessibility and entry into the market, the high-end goes higher and higher. My advice today would be to shop used or wait for some major holiday sale. While I do believe this sort of price increase is temporary given the RAM and storage shortages, it makes me more inclined to pick one console going forward if the initial investment is so high.

The last time this happened I did have this to say about Xbox;

"It's hard to imagine a future where I buy Xbox hardware. Without the exclusives, I don't see how a next-gen Xbox would convince me to stay in that ecosystem."

Since then, Xbox has had a wake up call and is doing a whole lot of saying of the right thing. We shall see if they deliver. Why I brought this quote up though was that comment on exclusives. Both Xbox and PlayStation are reportedly reconsidering their multi-platform release strategy. It seems the return on investment in these ports is not as high as the accountants hoped. Of course, Nintendo wisely never abandoned their exclusive strategy and remain the titan of said exclusives.

While one should never buy hardware on the promise of software, consoles are somewhat the industry exception to that rule. While I do suspect casual consumers wait for a specific title before jumping on board with a new console, I wager the vast majority of consumers do buy into a platform with the hope for a new Super Smash Bros. or a Gran Turismo or a new Halo. As the console price ascends, these exclusives will become even more and more important to making sure customers pick your box over the competition. If I can get Halo alongside the new Wolverine game on my PS5, why would I buy an Xbox?

I wonder if these price increases and parts shortages will help solidify the extension of this generation too. Rumors are swirling about internal dates sliding back for PS6. Project Helix is reportedly shipping dev kits next year. This uncertainty feels like an added layer to decision making consumers may have to face.

These price increases will be a black spot on the generation for sure. One marred by live service pursuits and billions spent in acquisitions. It will be an all-timer generation and not always for the right reasons. Kind of like an inverse of the PS3 lifecycle: started bad at $599 and ended at $250~.

At the end of January I watched the documentary for Tenet that was included on the Blu-Ray. While going over the special effects, I noticed an interface I hadn't seen in a long time.

A little afternoon digging tells me that QuickTime 7 got its last update sometime between 2009 and 2011. Apple support says QuickTime 7 isn't compatible with macOS after 10.14 Mojave, which came out in 2018. That lines up with the Touch Bar MacBook Pro clearly seen. And Tenet came out in 2020, so it all makes sense.

But seeing this in 2026 and for a movie that had a budget of $205 million, I wasn't expecting to see QuickTime 7 of all things. I wonder what QuickTime 7 does that X does not for the crew.

The real kicker isn't QuickTime 7 though—it's the monitor I saw later in the doco.

That appears to be an Apple Cinema Display, which was released between 1999 and 2011. While I can't measure the display size from that screenshot, the design looks like it might be a 30'' model from 2004~2008. If so, that display had a resolution of 2560x1600, but only if using a dual-link DVI cable. If not, Wikipedia tells me, that it will only run at 1280x800.

You gotta wonder if this same tech was used on Oppenheimer or The Odyssey. Nolan may care about the latest IMAX tech, but it seems that the outstanding crew around him are believers in, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Impressive.

Came across this spot on article by Shubham Bose thanks to John Gruber in his aptly named post "Your Frustration Is the Product." You should read both. Here's Bose pointing out the chef's kiss irony that is thrown in your face anytime you go online.

"When you open a website on your phone, it's like participating in a high-frequency financial trading market. That heat you feel on the back of your phone? The sudden whirring of fans on your laptop? Contributing to that plus battery usage are a combination of these tiny scripts.

Ironically, this surveillance apparatus initializes alongside requests fetchingpurr.nytimes.com/tcf which I can only assume is Europe's IAB transparency and consent framework. They named the consent framework endpoint purr. A cat purring while it rifles through your pockets."

Having written for the likes of IGN and DualShockers, tracking and clicks aren't just the name of the game—it is the game. Browsing the web is a harrowing experience these days. As the tech guy in my family, I make sure my network and everyone's phones are loaded with blockers to help them. I can't tell you how much it breaks my heart to see my mom battling ads just to try and read a recipe on her iPad.

"As a publisher, you can't force a user through 3-4 dismissive actions before content is properly visible and expect the experience to be appreciated. Doing so is equivalent to burning your user's cognitive budget before value is delivered. The business excuse of, "We need compliance and lead generation" doesn't end up benefiting the user. If they haven't read a single word of your journalism, why would they subscribe to you?"

A question I have been asking myself for years.

Given the recent redesign of Max Frequency and it being written entirely with Claude Code, I was curious (and nervous) that it loaded a ton of bloat despite my only analytics being Plausible (which you can see live if you are curious). Loading up the home page today, I was mortified to see 37MB.

Then I realized the site was just trying to load the episode of The Max Frequency Podcast at the top. Going to a more traditional page, the size was a much more respectable 878KB.¹

If you'd like a more interactive version of Bose's superb post, I implore you to check out the equally superb—albeit funnier—How to Monetize a Blog from modem.io.² Maybe Bose, Gruber, and myself ought to take some advice...

Myke Hurley joins Max to discuss the design of a podcast, the current star-studded landscape, and the absolute roller coaster that is doing an interview show.

• Download (37MB) — Episode Transcript

Show Notes

A Selfish Question

• Myke's love of Father of the Bride on Connected 245: Totes Ricky
  • Timestamp
• Father of the Bride by Vampire Weekend
  • Music
  • Spotify
• Only God Was Above Us by Vampire Weekend
  • Music
  • Spotify
• Jungle Essentials Playlist on Music
  • Max did indeed recognize Jungle from Tales from the Borderlands

The Podcasts Myke Listens To

• Kinda Funny
• The Rest is History
  • The JFK Assassination episodes
• The Vergecast
• Hard Fork
• Waveform
• The Town
• Diggnation
• TwiT
• Podcasts Are Group Therapy Sessions for Pro Wrestling Fans by Nicholas Deleon for Vice

The Current Landscape

• Steve Jobs Announcing Podcasts in iTunes at WWDC 2005
• Amy Poehler Wins Best Podcast
• Joe Rogan Goes Exclusive to Spotify
• Netflix and iHeartMedia Announce Exclusive Video Podcast Partnership
• Netflix just unveiled its first big podcasts that are all-new
• Riverside
• State of the Workflow: Going From a Newsroom to Being Independent, With Becca Farsace
  • One of Myke's Instagram Clips

Designing a Podcast

• Cortex #167 - Ten Years of Cortex

Designing State of the Workflow

• CMD Space #1 - I'm Yelling At Me, With Merlin Mann
• Proving Something to Myself – The Enthusiast
• Scott the Woz
• Which YouTuber Knows Apple's Silly Lingo Best? – Snazzy Labs
• Cortex #174: Marques Brownlee (MKBHD)
• MFP03 - “Cuddle Up & Play the Vita” with Roger Pokorny

Podcasting and Fatherhood

• Cortex #162: 2025 Yearly Themes
  • Timestamp to Myke's reveal of "The Year of Fatherhood"

Myke Hurley

• Relay
• Cortex Brand
• Cross Forward
• The Enthusiast - Myke's Blog
• Myke's Instagram
• Myke's Bluesky

Max Frequency - Max's home online

Chapter Select - A seasonal, retrospective podcast where we bounce back and forth between a series exploring its evolution, design, and legacy.

Max Roberts' Video Essays - A YouTube channel dedicated to Max's video essays on games.