First Draught By M.G. Siegler A regular collection of thoughts and things and thoughts on things from around the internet. 3069 subscribers 149 issues Subscribe to my list This thingy has to be empti pwieshh Are you a robot? 🤖
#146 Dec 31, 2018 On To 2019... – Here we are, the final day of 2018. The last day for Apple to ship AirPower -- LOL. Not much to say o
#145 Dec 11, 2018 The Microsoft Comes Around – A funny thing happened a couple weeks back: Microsoft became the most valuable company in terms of ma
#144 Dec 3, 2018 All the Thanks to Give – Hello there. I know I use the “it’s been awhile” thing from time-to-time, but this time it really has
#143 Sep 25, 2018 Instagram Unfiltered – Look, I don’t know what happened at Facebook that caused Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Kr
#142 Sep 20, 2018 The End of Inbox – Well, the Cleveland Browns just won their first game since 2016. As tempted as I am to write about th
#141 Sep 10, 2018 Apps Along the Watchtower – It's hard to come up with something that has been as poorly conceived by Apple as their plan for Appl
#140 Sep 3, 2018 In XS – Another week, another year, another major Apple flub. Just hours after the invites went out to Apple'
#139 Aug 27, 2018 A Disjointed Rant About Retro... – I had written something else here originally, then I realized that basically everything I was linking
#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
