The Jolly Teapot ❧ by Nicolas Magand

Archive

373 entries

2026

April 2026 blend of links

The dumber, the better

Browsing the web with JavaScript turned off

March 2026 blend of links

Questions about the future of MacOS in the age of the MacBook Neo

February 2026 blend of links

Is the Mac having a BMW’s Neue Klasse moment?

Tempted to stick with my old Mac a bit longer

January 2026 blend of links

The frustration of a perfect setup

New year, new me, new web browsing setup?

2025

December 2025 blend of links

The Club Racer Treatment

Typefaces as clothes

November 2025 blend of links

Praise the Backup

Who are they always texting?

October 2025 blend of links

Not my kind of web browser

Uninstalling apps (part 2)

September 2025 blend of links

Reading my blog

Why I love BBEdit

August 2025 blend of links

July 2025 blend of links

Could I use the internet without a proper web browser?

June 2025 blend of links

Something terrible happened with CSS

May 2025 blend of links

On the Jony Ive and Sam Altman announcement

The quest for the best writing tool, a spinoff

April 2025 blend of links

I think I’m done with Safari and Apple Mail

March 2025 blend of links

Spring update

How great is the Send Later feature?

February 2025 blend of links

The nice feeling of trusting tools

January 2025 blend of links

The age of insecure billionaires

Are we at peak shittiness?

2024

November 2024 blend of links

Some thoughts on RSS and newsletters

Website updates

The joy of accidentally weird-looking websites

The hard truth: People don’t trust billionaires

October 2024 blend of links

Why are static site generators so complicated to use?

September 2024 blend of links

The wonderful rabbit hole of BBEdit

Third-party apps and services I use on my devices, 2024 edition

Is Safari now a bad web browser?

Nine quick observations from the 2024 iPhone event

One year of publishing “Blend of links” posts

Maybe news websites can stop embedding tweets now

August 2024 blend of links

July 2024 blend of links

What else can I remove?

Users of the fourth kind

June 2024 blend of links

Should I remove this blog from Google Search?

WWDC 2024 observations

May 2024 blend of links

Could I use the iPad as my only computer?

April 2024 blend of links

On reliable technology

Unfinished

March 2024 blend of links

Changing my mind, all the time

On quality software

An ode to Things

February 2024 blend of links

Questions about DuckDuckGo’s future

What bothers me about ChatGPT and A.I.

January 2024 blend of links

Collecting too many links

Changing bad web browsing habits

2023

December 2023 blend of links

I f-word love the web

The struggles of the web browser

On the ideal length of a blog post

How I managed to fit A.I. into my blogging habits

Third-party apps I like and use — 2023 edition

Hot takes on Humane’s AI Pin

November 2023 blend of links

The stress of using something brand new

Finished software or abandoned product?

To a new year of blogging

I have found my favourite Markdown editor, again

Why I like monospaced fonts

October 2023 blend of links

The journey to finding the perfect writing app

One of the worst pieces of content I’ve read all year

On a blog’s visual identity

Is an A.I. better if it sounds more human?

September 2023 blend of links

The Apple event format needs its “iPhone X” moment

I wish I could quit Twitter once more

Reconsidering the Apple Watch

Microsoft changes the default font for new Office documents

A few random thoughts on the Apple Vision Pro

Will Google A.I. search kill search traffic and discoverability?

What to write

NPR no longer active on Twitter

Web fingerprinting or how surveillance advertising should be illegal

My simple, minimalist blogging workflow

The age of (me needing to learn more about) A.I. has begun

The truth about read-later services

Jason Kottke: 25 years of blogging

Of course younger people don’t know how to use a printer

The Mac and iOS apps I use — early 2023 edition

Good reads and perspectives on generative A.I. and ChatGPT

A very annoying little thing or bug on Safari

On the state of Android apps

A.I. is about to face its biggest challenge yet: trying to make Bing not suck

On AI-generated content and the future of my job

2022

A few thoughts on Elon Musk

Four things you need to start a blog

A great and completely unexpected Read Later app

I bought a new camera: the Ricoh GRIIIx

We already know the name of the World Cup 2022 winner: Qatar

On the importance of the date

Ten perks of taking a walk every day

Finding a native and fast text editor for the Mac in 2022

Leaving Twitter but reading tweets via RSS

Twitter verified accounts for Blue subscribers are live. Sort of. Somewhere. Soon.

What CSS is best: external or internal?

Uncertainty is the main keyword of the Twitter takeover

Something is rotten in the state of Bing search

The Apple Watch could be much better for left-handed users

Back at using a proper content blocker on Safari

Blocking JavaScript on a per-site basis with Safari

Mathematics, design, and convenience

Another spotlight on RSS

What is a website, according to Laurel Schwulst

The real goal of the Apple Watch Ultra

Regrets or humble brag?

On turtlenecks, focus, and minimalism

The new Instagram is not the old Instagram and it’s fine?

Replacing your phone battery instead of buying a new one

The whole thing might as well have been a joke

A list of all the 3rd party apps currently installed on my devices

Twitter to launch feature allowing users to post long-form content

Apple signs a 10-year deal with the Major League Soccer

The Lotus philosophy applied to blog design

The most minimal blog you can find

WWDC 2022: Things I want to be announced

Thinking about what my next camera will be

Twitter: The End

If only comments on the internet were always like this

Universal wonderment

Justin Smith shares new, meaningless details on his future media venture

The beauty of text files

Google search isn’t very good and yet still the best around

A short list of recommended Mac and iOS apps — 2022 edition

Zuckerberg doesn’t want to quit, even if a new CEO may be what Meta needs

Saying goodbye to DuckDuckGo

Dropbox, once great now barely mentioned in cloud storage services reviews

Tumblr: the future-minded social platform for nostalgic users

Working on the website instead of the blog itself

Having a blog is good, writing on it is better

Tumblr, without ever really leaving, is back (apparently)

Bear: an interesting, worth-knowing, and fast blogging platform

YouTube keeps on letting misinformation spread and reach millions of people

My first and last post on Web3

Can Ben Smith’s new media venture be the one I’ve been looking for?

A break was needed

2021

The future of Microsoft in smartphones continues to unfold, and it still sucks

Abandoning Lightning for USB-C on the iPhone would not be progress

The European Commission wants to impose USB-C on most mobile devices

Apple Watch release cycle: Fancy new features vs. incremental improvements

Does the algorithm work for you, or do you work for the algorithm?

Browsing the web in 2021 is a terrible experience

My favourite thing about the Mac

My CSS stylesheet is now less than 1kb and it makes me happy

The Macalope on the Washington Post’s article about Pegasus & iPhone

On the new Safari UI, again

Jerry Saltz: “My only work is to write for the reader”

On the new Safari (which I like very much)

Finally a folding phone review worth watching

Nine quick thoughts on WWDC 2021

There is no place like home: Why I love to blog

Another area where Clubhouse is failing: blocking

The smartest new product coming from Twitter in a long time?

Why the iPad Pro needs its own “iPadProOS”

It’s that time of year again

The drop-in audio feature looks like it can succeed with or without Clubhouse

Medium joins the new publishing platform battle for independent voices

The implicit and recent differences between the meanings of “follow” and “subscribe”

The quest for the perfect writing tool

A tool kit for the conspiracy-curious

Platforms are now mimicking the way we share content on platforms

How I use Drafts as my text editor

More platforms, more money?

A Clubhouse Story

What’s on my Mac – 2021 edition

Semicolon wisdom

What is the biggest threat to Clubhouse: Twitter, Facebook, or Clubhouse itself?

If you decide to join Clubhouse, avoid sharing your contact list

The little problems of the big 432 Park Avenue building

The best explainer of what Apple is doing with the new iOS privacy-related feature

“Twitter’s ban of the president is proof of the company’s unprecedented and unaccountable power”

2020

The Stories of social media

When software speaks its mind (sort of)

Uninstalling apps

A ranking of all 118 sweaters seen on Twin Peaks

Looking back at my short list of Apple wishes from April

Nobody gives a crap about Google’s monopoly on search, not even Google

Samsung commits to deliver three years of Android updates for its phones

“The canary in the coal mine about the corrupting power of the App Store”

Point of entry, browser & advertising: Google pretty much owns the web

Microsoft Surface Duo first impressions: first-gen device, immature vision

Back to busyness

“You should not undermine how quickly people can change their ideas”

Scary heatwave in Siberia is scary

Missing the point reviewing the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip

“I would love to ignore racism and focus all my attention on climate. But I can’t.”

Beautiful illustrations and a peculiar Instagram description

UK National Parks photography competition shortlist

When your PR services appear to be like the devices you sell: refurbished

On decision, perfection, and better translations

List of 68 unsolicited tips to improve your life

Beautifully written story about the closure of a famous New York restaurant

MacBook Air 2020: Thoughts from an average user

Logos, memory, accuracy: pick two

The iPhone SE, the irregular iPhone

iPhone SE: great for buyers, even better for Apple

Another advantage of the iPhone SE to consider for Apple

Why there are no software equivalents of Rolex

“I’ve fallen in love with blogging again”

Things I want Apple to adopt rather sooner than later

The Onion on Zoom

Why it makes sense for news orgs to remove their paywalls during the coronavirus crisis

The challenges of translating a video game into 17 languages

The iPad turns ten

Zoom isn’t trust-worthy, but sadly their recent success may already protect them

What’s on my Mac – 2020 edition

If coronavirus was covered the same way American media covered Ebola

Now that commuters are staying home, what does it means for podcasts?

What is it like to be a copywriter in a company

How to install an AppleScript and save a lot of time writing blog posts

Be ready for what is coming on LinkedIn, or don’t

Apple has underestimated what the iPad can do for too long 

On finding the perfect text editor: the one that’s right for you

A new way to interact with the iPad

Gorgeous photographs of empty, usually busy streets

Laughter is the best medicine

How a new keyboard made me buy the 2020 MacBook Air

Moving a blog from Squarespace to Blot

The right price to pay for your main computer camera and much more

Samsung unveils its second modern-era folding device

Where to eat good tapas in Madrid, and more

Planting trees is great. For PR.

Media coverage of Kobe Bryant’s death was a chaotic mess

What it feels like to live abroad as a student

We should not learn about key iPhone features in a news report

If you want to boycott the New York Times, just subscribe to another publication instead

Using insects to feed livestock: not so simple

2019

Twitter may succeed in building a decentralised standard for social media but probably won’t

Last December

Content Creation: A New Hope

Listening to podcasts at higher speeds

How to behave when you encounter a viral story 

“I don’t want them to be independent”

Tech & lifestyle novelties of the year 2019

“Nobody recruited me”: Barbara Liskov on design, A.I., and being a woman in computer science

The advantages of integration, the downsides of a monopoly

“The Queen is the only person I’ve ever been nervous of photographing”

Quick thoughts on the new Motorola Razr folding-phone

The Jolly Teapot

On the word “design”

Tashkent metro photographs

Subscription cannot be the only business model for journalism to survive

If it looks good, it must sound good right?

The Fitbit acquisition is the easy way for Google to appear relevant in wearables

Xennials/Millennials? Gen-x/Gen-Y

A great little game to enjoy

If you ever booked a flat on Airbnb, you should read this

Coldest decade on record may have been cause by volcanic eruptions

Night mode is à la mode

The best soundtrack for your work day

Media execs and poor decisions

Good bye iTunes, I owe you so much

In the Mojave desert, the dream city that was never built

When politicians try to sell you congestion and traffic as part of your identity

Time, thoughts, tools: pick two

Should you cover your PC’s webcam? No, unless you still use software from ten years ago

2018

Moving a whole city a few kilometres away in order to keep it alive

The imminent climate change catastrophe, if not already started

Social media is not all that bad if you listen to teenagers

When you think of a pencil you probably picture it yellow: This is why

Michel Gondry: “I don’t believe in superheroes, I think it’s a worse way of being a nerd”

The definitive minimalist ressource on minimalism

An attempt at defining content

What happens to web traffic patterns when Facebook goes down

Climate change realities

Reporters covering environmental issues are becoming more and more vulnerable

“I’m a nomad who goes nowhere” – Portrait of a young shepherd in France

European nations and their wish of not becoming digital colonies

The year 2000, imagined by an illustrator in the year 1899

What if viral content is not the best content?

Spain is switching to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2050

What will come first? USB-C iPhone or no-port iPhone? Either way, Lightning seems here to stay

What a typical afternoon spent working in a café looks like

One of the best Instagram accounts

MacBook or Mac Pro: Which will be the first Mac to fully run on Apple processors?

My phone’s homescreen, November 2018 edition

On being a boss, by Kara Swisher

On the lack of diversity in newsrooms

How good is the new iPad Pro for photographers

On blogging every single day

The effective use of satire for convincing an audience

Evolution, climate change, and long-snouted dolphins

The new iPad Pro

Video of outer Shanghai shows an infinity of buildings

Cigarette filters: useless for your health, harmful to the environment

Global smartphone shipments down 60 percent

Live the internet at your own pace

DNA test or fancy horoscope?

Essential no more

The climate change catastrophe that is coming

My least favourite quote from my favourite writer

What dedicated cameras are missing to compete with phones in the future

The worst possible way to get caught forging documents

Have it in French: “je supporte la France mais la France m’insupporte”

Twitter as a tool to manipulate trolls

Instapaper is temporarily shutting off access for European users due to GDPR

Finding old photographs in the attic, USSR edition

Incredible depiction of the asteroid that wiped off more than 75% of Earth species

Onion social

Chilling facts about air conditioning

Musk gets closer and closer to becoming a typical Bond villain

The hottest fashion trend

Fascinating trivia from John Carpenter’s The Thing

Elon Musk gets a pass for simply being ignorant

By the end of this year Bitcoin could be using 05% of the world’s total consumption of electricity

Wasting time on the internet and digital boredom

The cost of free platforms

Improving traffic in New York City

OnePlus reveals the OnePlus 6

US intelligence mentions risks of buying Chinese phones, provides no evidence

Prince detailed discography as a website

Come for the rant about emails, stay for the gif

Don’t read this if you don’t want to get mad

A depressing picture of the Instagram situation

2017

No publishing technology is eternal

Is Twitter at risk of becoming irrelevant?

How Twitter might change without the 140 characters limit

Five social media trends for brands in 2016

2016

Focus, avoid social clutter, get your time back

Apps and services I like and use

2015

Living in the desert

2015 was the year of the email newsletters comeback

Twitter for power users and the other Twitter

On the latest Microsoft surface devices

iOS 9 content blocking will transform the mobile web

Using an iPod Touch as an iPhone replacement

Windows Phone is dead, this time it seems to be for real

Facebook’s Instant Articles are looking great

A good article about notifications with a poor title

The Twitter withdrawal

Twitter is facing its end as we know it

Technology resolutions for 2015

2014

Do not get lost following anybody on Twitter

The new Windows is probably a safe bet for Microsoft

On the daily routine and multitasking

2013

Kowloon walled city, 1989

David Kelley on design-thinking, Steve Jobs, and life

Not caviar, but better tasting crackers

2012

How Steve Sinofsky changed Microsoft

Nokia Maps are coming to the iPhone

BlackBerry 10 event on January 30th

Don’t believe the hype