First Draught By M.G. Siegler A regular collection of thoughts and things and thoughts on things from around the internet. 2654 subscribers 141 issues Subscribe to my list This thingy has to be empti pwieshh
#138 Aug 21, 2018 Those Airy MacBooks – Many of us still recall the way Steve Jobs unveiled the MacBook Air. It was clever, cute, and iconic
#137 Aug 16, 2018 Twitter's Indecision – In taking a step back, it seems to me that Twitter's two most recent fiascos may be related. First, T
#136 Aug 13, 2018 Draught Draft – "Change is the only constant." For someone who is as much of a creature of habit as I am, you'd think
#135 Aug 6, 2018 To Auto-Archive Or To Not Auto-Archive, Twitter Edition – Interesting discussion on Twitter a few days ago around the notion of auto-expiring tweets -- aka "ep
#134 Aug 2, 2018 Trillion – Almost exactly six years ago, I wrote a post on TechCrunch marveling at Apple's market cap. The compa
#133 Jul 30, 2018 A Fine Aged Mission: Impossible – This past weekend, like a large swath of the world, I saw the latest Mission: Impossible movie, Fallo
#132 Jul 27, 2018 Peak Facebook? – Yesterday, Facebook took a bath. A bloodbath. The company lost over $120 billion in value in a single
#131 Jul 23, 2018 From the iPad, Take 643 – Hello from the iPad. I’m writing this from this device for the first time in a while. Some of you may
#130 Jul 16, 2018 The iMessage App Abomination – Fairly recently, I decided to give up on Facebook Messenger -- the ads inserted into my conversation
#129 Jul 12, 2018 Ten Years Ago, the App Store Changed Everything – Earlier this week was the 10th anniversary of the App Store. Which is wild. It seems like both a long
#128 Jun 26, 2018 Living Dangerously with iOS 12 – I did something potentially reckless last night. I installed the iOS 12 beta -- yes, the first public
#127 Jun 22, 2018 'Michael Clayton' in the Age of Netflix – Michael Clayton is a great film. I was reminded of this fact a few days ago on Twitter. Not that I ne
#126 Jun 19, 2018 The (Tech) Joys of Travel – I'm just back from two weeks abroad. Two big (tech) takeaways:1) Countries that generally accept Appl
#125 Jun 1, 2018 Now Actually Always Connected – Hello from 32,000 feet. But not just any 32,000 feet, mind you -- 32,000 feet over northeast Canada,
#124 May 18, 2018 A Quiet Phone – Happy Friday. As you can see, I'm sending this at a decidedly un-happy hour... hour (though I suppose
#123 May 14, 2018 Google Me, Chuck – This year's NBA playoffs have been good thus far. In some cases, very good (LeBron going from Game 7
#122 May 7, 2018 Zero to One – I think I generally suck at giving advice. I think of myself as an odd person who does things in stra
#121 Apr 25, 2018 Emails, Tasks, and Meetings – There are two things at work that everyone seems to universally hate: email and meetings. And I think
#120 Apr 12, 2018 The Facebook Decay – Hello from rainy Vancouver (actually, today was surprisingly nice). I'm up here for TED. This is my f
#119 Mar 27, 2018 An Education – Okay, I've sat on it for a bit. And read some slightly less hot -- lukewarm? -- takes. I still think
#118 Mar 20, 2018 Facebook's Freefall – Sometimes stories are so big that it seems ridiculous to talk about anything else. And in tech right
#117 Mar 13, 2018 A Quiet Period – Earlier today I was walking around San Francisco listening to a podcast. This is normal. If you were
#116 Mar 1, 2018 A Hollywood Ending – It's Oscars week and I'm terribly behind. So behind, in fact, that there's no way I'll be able to see
#115 Feb 26, 2018 Chrome Sweet Chrome (Not) – There are reasons. I know there are reasons. But I can't for the life of me figure out why the Chrome
#114 Feb 19, 2018 'CES Pool' Revisted – So, I'm behind on my reading (spoiler alert: I will never not be behind on my reading), but I finally
#113 Feb 14, 2018 EverywherePods – I just got back from New York this morning. I go about once a quarter these days. This time, for what
#112 Feb 8, 2018 Big Mute – It continues to feel like Twitter is finally hitting its stride as a public company (great quarter, b
#111 Feb 5, 2018 The Super Bowl, Live – I'm one of those people who is increasingly a football (American football) naysayer. I just don't see
#110 Jan 29, 2018 A Home Without HomePod – It's January 29 -- day four of me being able to pre-order a HomePod, but not doing so. This isn't a f
#109 Jan 23, 2018 Nintendo Cardboard – I simply said I was confused. And I was. Because Nintendo's big surprise reveal last week was a... ca
#108 Jan 16, 2018 Let It Linger – The opening to the song "Linger" by The Cranberries is simply one of the best song openings of all ti
#107 Jan 11, 2018 Out Firefox'd – A lot of people seemed surprised by the revelation that I use (and love) Firefox Focus on both my iPh
#106 Jan 8, 2018 Those Lit MacBooks – It's a little weird looking around a coffee shop these days. Whereas you used to see the glowing whit
#105 Jan 2, 2018 The Post-Printed Post World – Happy 2018. We flew back from the UK yesterday and on the flight back, I attempted to "reset" my Pock
#104 Dec 31, 2017 On to 2018 – As you're undoubtedly well aware, I took some time off from this newsletter while I thought through s
#103 Oct 31, 2017 You Have 24 Hours To Review This, Go! – Okay, I've read almost all the iPhone X reviews at this point. As with movies, I typically don't like
#102 Oct 16, 2017 "A bright-red gleam stabbed the night." – A week ago, my wife jolts awake, screaming. I was downstairs writing. When I get upstairs, our bedroo
#101 Oct 9, 2017 Pixel Dust – A few folks pinged last week asking for my thoughts about what Google announced at their hardware eve
#100 Oct 3, 2017 End of the Line – Issue 100. How time has flown. Speaking of, I'm sending this a little late. Quite late, actually. Wel
#99 Sep 28, 2017 Amazon's Shock & Awe – Regular readers will know that I'm just about as big of a bull on Amazon as one could be, and have be
#98 Sep 25, 2017 Seven Ate Nine? – The new iPhone is here! The new iPhone is here! Well, not the new iPhone. But a new iPhone. And becau
#97 Sep 18, 2017 Three Cities in Four Days – I started writing this in New York City. Then Cleveland. Then Ann Arbor. Been one of those weeks on t
#96 Sep 11, 2017 Sixteen Elevens Later – I find myself in New York City, which makes an always surreal day -- September 11 -- even more surrea
#95 Sep 7, 2017 The Happiest Hour – Back from travel and finally getting over the timely (as it surfaced en route home from vacation, not
#94 Aug 30, 2017 M.G. Siegler - Issue #94 – And here we are, exactly one year since I sent the first newsletter. Still a work-in-progress, but ge
#93 Aug 27, 2017 Punch Out – Hello from San Sebastian, Spain where vacation continues. It's an overcast morning here, but I welcom
#92 Aug 21, 2017 Vacation All I Ever Wanted – Hello from France, where I find myself on vacation. It's lovely here. At 5pm it's still 90 degree out
#91 Aug 14, 2017 Find the Thrones – So, I love Game of Thrones. As such, I very much enjoy The Ringer's Game of Thrones aftershow called
#90 Aug 11, 2017 Checking In On the Road – Just a quick love letter to Foursquare/Swarm after their move this week to focus less on "check-ins"
#89 Aug 9, 2017 New York State of Mind – A bunch of new subscribers over the past few days -- welcome! Where did you all come from? Here's my
#88 Aug 4, 2017 A Link to the Past – Yep, three days in a row of newsletters! Just want to grind through some experiments content/format-w
#87 Aug 3, 2017 The iPad Equilibrium – One of the bigger "surprises" out of Apple's earnings a couple days ago was the rebound of iPad growt
#86 Aug 2, 2017 Back to 5 – First of all, thank you to everyone who wrote in with their thoughts about the newsletter. The respon
#85 Jul 28, 2017 More Or Less Brevity – Almost a year into my little newsletter "experiment" and I still haven't exactly figured out what to
#84 Jul 26, 2017 Gone in a Flash – It's fascinating to me just how much people hate Flash. I'm in that camp as well, for reasons I'll ge
#83 Jul 21, 2017 Widescreen – Off to see Dunkirk tonight -- in 70mm (more on that below) -- and cannot wait. Beyond the obvious sup
#82 Jul 17, 2017 A Hour of Thrones – Last night's Game of Thrones season 7 premiere was easily the shortest hour of television I've ever s
#81 Jul 14, 2017 Newsies – In between two trips to LA and busy with work, so... just the links, ma'am. Happy Friday. 😎
#80 Jul 7, 2017 Marvel's Amazing Spider-Man Maneuver – It's opening weekend for Spider-Man: Homecoming. Ben Fritz takes a look at what it took to get this l
#79 Jul 5, 2017 A Game of Thrones Movie-A-Week – We're now just 11 days away from the premier of season 7 of Game of Thrones. Leading up to it, Megan
#78 Jun 30, 2017 Amazon, Whole Foods, and iPhones – On the verge of the 4th of July holiday, I thought I'd take the opportunity to round up some of the b
#77 Jun 26, 2017 What Game Is Nintendo Playing? – I rag on Nintendo a lot. It's because I love Nintendo and I don't want them to go away. And I certain
#76 Jun 23, 2017 Twitter No Longer Listless – We're a week into Twitter's most recent redesign. I still like it -- and I'm not seeing that many com
#75 Jun 16, 2017 That's Not A Deal ... THAT'S A Deal – I don't buy a lot of public company stocks. It's just not what I do and so I don't feel like I have e
#74 Jun 13, 2017 Hearts & Minds – The Cavs had heart, but they didn't have Kevin Durant. To me, that's what it boiled down to watching
#73 Jun 7, 2017 Making My Way Back To Cleveland – Hello from 35,000 feet once again. Today, I find myself en route to Cleveland, Ohio to watch Game 3 o
#72 Jun 3, 2017 A Tale of Two Aliens – A couple weeks ago, I saw Alien: Covenant. As you've undoubtedly heard, it hearkens back to the horro
#71 Jun 1, 2017 Coded – Hello from Southern California where the Code Conference just wrapped. In general, I'm wary of tech c
#70 May 19, 2017 Virtual Insanity – Long time, no talk. Another busy couple weeks of travel. Hello from New York City, where it's roughly
#69 May 12, 2017 SnapShat – Snap sure shat the bed on those first earnings as a public company, huh... A few folks asked me for m
#68 May 9, 2017 Echo Echoing – Behold: the new Amazon Echo Show -- aka: an Echo with a screen. Even if we've seen similar things bef
#67 May 3, 2017 Suns Out, Puns Out – Not much to say today. I was supposed to be flying into a storm (literally) in New Orleans right now.
#66 Apr 29, 2017 Nintendo's Surface – So, Nintendo had a good quarter. They've sold 2.74 million units of the Switch in the month since lau
#65 Apr 26, 2017 The F8 of Facebook – Because I was traveling last week, I largely missed all the announcements out of Facebook's F8 confer
#64 Apr 24, 2017 Status Update – Back from a hiatus last week while I was traveling in London. But I'm still on the road -- right now
#63 Apr 14, 2017 "It's so much bigger." – Happy Good Friday. Actually, Great Friday, because the new Star Wars trailer just dropped. It's two m
#62 Apr 10, 2017 Ballparks & Time – Off to the home opener for the San Francisco Giants today. Not sure how many of you have been to AT&a
#61 Apr 7, 2017 Play Ball – It's spring. Baseball is in the air. So I figured I'd share some sports-related links that I've been
#60 Apr 4, 2017 The Vaporware Mac Pro – So. Apple did a curious thing yesterday. They held a meeting with reporters to acknowledge a mistake.
#59 Mar 29, 2017 Quick Switch Thoughts – A small miracle happened last week (despite Nintendo's worst efforts): Amazon received a new shipment
#58 Mar 28, 2017 Making My Twitter Great Again – Yesterday, Twitter finally rolled out their new timeline muting functionality. Immediately, I set up
#57 Mar 22, 2017 The Quiet iPad – Yesterday, Apple ever-so-quietly rolled out a new iPad. Some of the hot takes I saw online noted that
#56 Mar 20, 2017 On This Day 12 Years Ago... – I got a notice on Facebook over the weekend that it was my 12 year anniversary on the service. In the
#55 Mar 17, 2017 The Luck of the Wolverines – A Friday. St. Patrick's Day. And the NCAA Tournament going on. What more can you ask for? If you're m
#54 Mar 14, 2017 Logan's Run – I saw Logan and Kong: Skull Island this past weekend. Both were good fun in different ways. But where
#53 Mar 10, 2017 A -- Ad -- Great -- Ad -- Reading -- Ad -- Experience -- Ad – As a general concept, I'm in favor of Facebook's Instant Articles, Google's AMP, and the like. For fa
#52 Mar 7, 2017 Breath of the Wild – The last videogame system I bought was an Xbox 360. I think it was a decade ago. It red-ringed-of-dea
#51 Mar 6, 2017 Silencio – I don't know about you, but I continue to use Twitter less and less these days. Which sucks, I love T
#50 Mar 3, 2017 M.G. Siegler - Issue #50 – Hello from Montana. Big Sky Country. Which seems apt. This is my first time here and it does seem bot
#49 Feb 26, 2017 Basking in the Moonlight – Oscar night. It's the only award show I watch and the only one I care to watch. Ostensibly because I
#48 Feb 25, 2017 Fit for an AirPod – I'm pretty sure there's no technology product I've been asked about as much as the AirPods. Now, gran
#47 Feb 23, 2017 Hello From My iPad... No, Wait – So, here's a first. Trying to edit a newsletter issue entirely on my iPad. Let's see how this goes...
#46 Feb 21, 2017 San Atlantis – While I was supposed to be back in San Francisco today, Mother Nature got in the way. Since our city
#45 Feb 16, 2017 Seasonality – Hello from New York City. First trip of the year. It's cold as hell. And yet, this weekend, they're s
#44 Feb 11, 2017 Beer Weekend – Hopefully everyone isn't checking email and is instead out doing something else -- anything else. Lik
#43 Feb 7, 2017 A Most Super Bowl – As noted a couple days ago, most Super Bowls are total crap. And sure enough, for just about three qu
#42 Feb 4, 2017 Super Issue XLII – Tomorrow is Super Bowl LI, or '51' if you're not Roman (aside: weren't they going to stop using the R
#41 Feb 2, 2017 Not Slacking Off – Busy week. Tuesday was Slack's 'Enterprise Grid' launch -- the version of their software meant for la
#40 Jan 27, 2017 Not That There's Anything Wrong With That... – After a late-night rant post -- like the old days! -- I'm sticking to just the links today. Just the
#39 Jan 25, 2017 Preppy Preppers – Like seemingly most of the internet (well, some sub-section of the tech-centric internet, at least) I
#38 Jan 20, 2017 D Day – Last night I was awoken several times by what sounded like the end of the world outside our window. M
#37 Jan 18, 2017 Dually Cold Takes – So much to write, so little time. For now, just some links that are once again backing up -- been on
#36 Jan 13, 2017 Switch It Up – Alright, I slept on it. I'm still excited about the Nintendo Switch. Yes, there's a lot for Nintendo
#35 Jan 10, 2017 The iPhone at 10 – As you undoubtedly were made very well aware, yesterday was the 10 year anniversary of the unveiling
#34 Jan 6, 2017 All Against All – Happy 2017. Been a busy start to the year for me, so right to a few interesting links I read over the
#33 Dec 31, 2016 The Sun Goes Down on 2016 – Seeing as I've almost made it down to Pocket Zero, I thought I'd share a few more links quickly to en
#32 Dec 22, 2016 This is the End? – Perhaps the last newsletter of the year as I'll soon be off to Southern California then Mexico City t
#31 Dec 20, 2016 Bear of a Winter – As part of my daily routine, I'm constantly cycling through note-taking apps. Over the years, I've us
#30 Dec 13, 2016 Cold Takes: ErrorPods – The AirPods have landed! The AirPods have landed! And despite some inkling that they were imminent, I
#29 Dec 4, 2016 Cold Takes: Truth Ceases to Matter – Obviously quite behind on the newsletter front as we sprint towards the end of the year, so thought I
#28 Nov 23, 2016 Cold Takes: Thanksgiving Eve – Happy Thanksgiving Eve. I'm scrambling to get a bunch of work (mainly email) done before the holiday
#27 Nov 15, 2016 Cold Takes: A Scanner Darkly – I love this new Google Photos PhotoScan app. I've long wondered why a company like Facebook, which lo
#26 Nov 11, 2016 Cold Takes: A Bad Dream – I'm honestly still in a bit of shock that Donald Trump -- Donald Trump -- is going to be the next Pre
#24 Nov 1, 2016 Cold Takes: Holy Hell – Holy hell, it's November. Holy hell, I'm turning 35 years old tomorrow. Holy hell, the Cleveland Indi
#23 Oct 28, 2016 Cold Takes: Water the Vine – I figured I'd spend some time today on a few quick thoughts on two bigger things that happened yester
#22 Oct 22, 2016 Cold Takes: A Worse World – Well, I tried to send this yesterday. Unfortunately, half of the internet seems to have been out for
#21 Oct 19, 2016 Cold Takes: Undependable – It's been awhile.Sorry about that. I know, no excuses necessary, but I remain interested to see how/i
#20 Oct 13, 2016 Cold Takes: The Western World – So, Westworld. Finally got around to watching the first two episodes last night. I like it. I'm not s
#19 Oct 11, 2016 Cold Takes: Punctiliously Elegant – A couple days later, I still find myself thinking about the second presidential debate. Yes, the cont
#18 Oct 7, 2016 Cold Takes: Giants – I'll take this Friday to say thanks to all the folks who have provided feedback about this newsletter
#17 Oct 6, 2016 Cold Takes: Busy Bees – A two-day break this time, my apologies. Busy times. So busy, in fact, that I haven't even had time t
#16 Oct 3, 2016 Cold Takes: Cold & Rainy Takes – Good morning from rainy San Francisco. I believe this is the first time it has rained in months. Toda
#15 Sep 30, 2016 Cold Takes: A Relationship-Backed Business – Given what I said last week -- that basically no one reads the internet after a certain time on Frida
#14 Sep 29, 2016 Cold Takes: Onward – Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. I didn't write this newsletter yesterday. Truth be told, I pro
#13 Sep 27, 2016 Cold Takes: A Very Special Episode of Twitter – So, the Debate last night. Content aside, I thought it was an amazing showcase for Twitter. Which is
#12 Sep 26, 2016 Cold Takes: Man, It's A Hot One – It's officially fall, which means one thing: summer in San Francisco. Seriously. After an actual summ
#11 Sep 23, 2016 Cold Takes: A Case of the Fridays – Happy Friday. Getting this out a little bit earlier today. But still not early enough, undoubtedly. F
#10 Sep 22, 2016 Cold Takes: Just the Facts – Past 500 subscribers now (thank you all -- and welcome to all the new folks!). And just a few days in
#9 Sep 21, 2016 Cold Takes: Apple Car Edition – Well, this newsletter just went from a few people reading it the past few weeks to a few hundred. No
#8 Sep 20, 2016 Cold Takes: Uber Uber – Four days into using the iPhone 7. Not the Plus, the 7. The Black one. Not Jet Black, Black. Long sto
#7 Sep 14, 2016 M.G. Siegler - Issue #7 – Yesterday, it was iPhone 7 reviews. Today, it was Apple Watch Series 2 reviews. And that response see
#6 Sep 14, 2016 Cold Takes: Kabuki Theatrics – It's iPhone Review Day -- meaning, the day when the embargo lifts for the publications that got revie
#5 Sep 11, 2016 Cold Takes: Like 500ish Notes But Bluer – As promised, finally getting around to trying out a few new things. First and foremost, using the mgs
#4 Sep 5, 2016 500ish Notes: Rainy Day Cinema – Back from holiday and extremely jetlagged. Busy week ahead to get back into the swing of things, but
#3 Sep 3, 2016 500ish Notes: Who Gets Apple's Billions? – Day 3 of this little experiment (after skipping a couple days -- vacation and all). Megan has told me
#2 Aug 31, 2016 500ish Notes: Look Who's Talking – Day 2 of this experiment. One thing is for certain: I quite like that I can write whatever I want her
#1 Aug 30, 2016 500ish Notes: In a World of Pure Imagination – Trying something new here. As regular readers of 500ish Words will know, I've been thinking a lot abo
