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Mentioned in today’s editions: smartphone sales, Siri, Linus Torvalds, Home Assistant, ACMA, auDA, Grok and text-based web browsers. Plus, deals on Nothing earbuds, WD drives and Boost prepaid plans.

The News

The iPhone keeps winning the smartphone battle

Nearly two decades after launch, the iPhone market is still hitting new heights  (Counterpoint Research). Global smartphone sales were up a modest 2% overall, but Apple grew 10% year-on-year to rank first with 20% of the market. Samsung ended up in a close second with 19% share, and the rest of the market was close to flat or even down. 

The Sizzle: It feels very normie to say this but the iPhone absolutely slaps. It’s a true credit to how much Apple nailed it that the company hasn’t made any significant design changes in close to a decade, and it’s still growing (albeit mostly in developing markets, Counterpoint Research said).

It’s even more impressive within the context of the last three years of AI hype. Apple’s generative AI features are simply not is in competition with OpenAI or Google — not for lack of trying, but for lack of ability — with the phone maker today confirming that it will use Google’s Gemini to run parts of Siri (CNBC). Meanwhile, everyone is trying to make an AI-first device, like OpenAI’s plans for a pen-like device according to recent leaks (Entrepreneur). And yet the next gen device that’s suited for the AI era might just be … the iPhone, still.

Related listening: The Verge’s retrospective podcast on the iPhone 4 is a great listen.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

The new killer app is proof of life

The hot new app that’s all the rage with young Chinese people is a single-purpose service for users to prove that they are still alive (BBC). After launching in May last year, “Are You Dead?” is reportedly the top paid app in China, and it works like this: you need to click a button every two days to confirm you’re alive, otherwise it tells your emergency contacts. The purpose of the app is serious — there’s also Chinese apps for monitoring fridges and TVs as a sign of life — but it’s also become a bit of a meme for a generation of young workers facing a slowing economy and loneliness.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Could vibecoding help wean people off big tech?

I wanted to use the news that Linux and Git creator Linus Torvalds has been vibecoding (Ars Technica) as a springboard to talk about how generative AI has completely opened up self-hosting and running little scripts for me. I’ve always wanted to do more things on my computer, but my self-hosting experiences have been completely miserable and usually end up with me relaying my problems to others to fix. 

Over the holidays, I’ve begun fiddling with Gemini to troubleshoot problems. It’s a world of difference. It was a piece of cake to set up Home Assistant on a headless mini PC, then Jellyfin, Linkding, even a few things for work (like changedetector). Being able to upload a screenshot of my Docker containers and say “why isn’t this working” is a game changer. I know there’s a lot of anguish over AI slop being slapped into big projects, particularly open source ones, and the fact that generative AI risks entrenching a few massive tech companies (although there are some interesting smaller competitors that can be run locally). But on a personal level, LLMs have made little tech more accessible. Have you had similar experiences? Have I committed a terrible sin? Let me know!

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Leftovers

Australia:

Rest of the world:

Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

Letting your kids watch TV but only with a floppy disk remote

A Danish dad decided that televisions physically are ill-suited to kids because their remotes and interfaces are hard to use, therefore encouraging passive, automated consumption. So, he decided to change that by recreating the TV remote… as a set of floppy disks (blog dot smartere). The disks excude code that control a Chromecast: to play, to stop playing, to play a random video from a predetermined playlist.

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure this is a great idea. But I give him credit for doing what dads do best: finding novel ways to force your individual habits and interests onto your children.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Bargains

Electrical & Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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