David Pierce

Editor-at-Large

Hello and goodbye to the MacBook Air

David PierceMar 7, 2024

Google is starting to squash more spam and AI in search results

David PierceMar 5, 2024

AI gadgets, bendy phones, and more from MWC

David PierceMar 5, 2024

“If these chatbots are supposed to be magical, why are so many of them dumb as rocks?”

Shira Ovide at The Washington Post got to try Amazon’s shopping chatbot, Rufus. She’s not a fan:

I asked a few similar questions about the best cycling gloves to keep my hands warm in winter. In one search, a pair that the bot recommended were short-fingered cycling gloves intended for warm weather.

Shira never quite figured out what Rufus was thinking, and it led her to the big question: can you believe anything a chatbot tells you, ever, anywhere? And if not, what are we doing here?

Review | We tested Amazon’s new shopping chatbot. It’s not good.

[The Washington Post]

David PierceMar 4, 2024

The epic, high-tech story of... a marshmallow startup.

I love a good tale of absurd startup behavior, and the Smashmallow story is both about marshmallows and somehow still extremely on brand:

Smashmallows were designed to look like an artisanal, boutique product, but that wasn’t enough for Sebastiani: He wanted to manufacture billions of them, to build a company that would bestride Candyland like a squishy colossus.

Turns out that if you try hard enough, you can Silicon Valley Brain almost anything.

Silicon Valley tried to mass produce fancy marshmallows. It got messy, fast.

[Insider]

David PierceMar 4, 2024

Look at this bonkers, beautiful Mac-iPad hybrid.

Leave it to Federico Viticci and MacStories to go super, super deep on what it takes to smash together an iPad and a Mac into “The MacPad,” a beautiful mess of a touchscreen laptop. Building — and using — this setup is not for the faint of heart, and it looks totally ridiculous. But I can’t help myself. I want one.

A combination iPad and MacBook, held up by a hand.

The MacPad is a hare-brained beautiful mess of a hybrid device.

Photo: Federico Viticci / MacStories

David PierceMar 3, 2024

The Vergecast’s last ride in the Apple Car.

If you squint hard enough, you can kind of see the opportunity Apple might have seen in the car industry... at least in 2014. But “a Lexus with some cameras on top” evidently wasn’t going to be enough. Come hang with us while we talk about the Apple Car, the Supreme Court’s online speech hearings, and a whole bunch more!