Harry McCracken

Fast Company Global Technology Editor. Boy journalist. Bon vivant. Lefthander. Westcoastian. 🇺🇦 Sign up for my free Plugged In newsletter: https://www.fastcompany.com/section/plugged-in

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Last Notes

2026-06-01 01:03:01 UTC

I’m reading up on the Coolidge coin.
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2026-04-19 17:35:34 UTC

With apologies to Alan Kay, thanks to vibecoding we’ve entered the era when people who are really serious about their own productivity should build their own software.
(I just made an email client, and it’s exactly the one I’ve wanted for years.)

2026-04-17 16:01:04 UTC

Since early March, I’ve been writing all my stuff in a word processor I made with Claude Code. It’s been a delightful experience. Here’s why I did it, and some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way. https://www.fastcompany.com/91528164/claude-code-vibe-code-word-processor?mvgt=P6YRXPDAqS4L

2026-04-10 20:02:17 UTC

I really only have three rules in life:
1) Always decline travel insurance
2) Only order a Mai Tai at places that use Trader Vic’s recipe
3) If you’ve invited someone to dinner and they then say they’re planning to destroy an entire civilization, uninvite them, even if they don’t

2026-04-06 17:13:09 UTC

I vibe-coded my own word processor, and it feels like I write ~20% faster when I use it—even though the words all remain mine—just because it’s tuned for the work I do. Seems more and more obvious that AI’s place in journalism is not writing stuff, but helping journalists work more efficiently.

2026-04-03 18:45:23 UTC

Flipboard’s Surf, which I first wrote about in 2024, is finally available without an invite as a web and Android app. (iOS still has a waitlist.) It’s a wildly inventive and invigorating way to find stuff that’s actually worth reading, watching, and listening to. https://www.fastcompany.com/91520679/surf-flipboard

2026-03-26 14:41:01 UTC

The memories in this story are so precious, and I’m very grateful to the 23 people who shared them. Some were teenagers when Apple was born, but most were in their 20s, 30s, or even 40s back then. https://www.fastcompany.com/91514404/apple-founding-50th-anniversary-apple-1-apple-ii-jobs-wozniak?mvgt=E5Loo3fO74zl

2026-03-26 06:09:48 UTC

Among the things that surprised me as I interviewed people for our oral history of Apple’s origin story is that several people referred to the very young Steve Jobs doing things that are more technical than I associate with him. https://www.fastcompany.com/91514404/apple-founding-50th-anniversary-apple-1-apple-ii-jobs-wozniak?mvgt=kiimQhPOTihz
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2026-03-26 05:13:55 UTC

I can’t begin to tell you how much fun I had talking to people who were present at Apple’s creation—Woz, of course, but so many more. I learned so much, and really did feel like I was there. So will you, I think. Here’s a gift link which you’re welcome to share: https://www.fastcompany.com/91514404/apple-founding-50th-anniversary-apple-1-apple-ii-jobs-wozniak?mvgt=E5Loo3fO74zl

2026-02-13 17:17:24 UTC

This week’s Plugged In newsletter: I asked Claude Opus 4.6 to critique that viral blog post about AI, and was startled by how perceptive it was. https://www.fastcompany.com/91491419/matt-shumer-something-big-is-happening

2026-02-07 22:22:32 UTC

I don't think I've ever seen AI say "HOLY COW!" before.
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2026-02-06 17:06:18 UTC

I wrote about AI taking over software development in general, my experience with Claude Code in particular, and this guy named Edsger Dijkstra who thought normal people shouldn’t even try to program computers. https://www.fastcompany.com/91485494/vibe-coding-with-claude-code

2026-01-21 23:09:31 UTC

A confession:
I have long believed that when I was 8, our family flew from NYC to Paris via Greenland, and I got off the plane and set foot in the country for about 15 minutes. But apparently that’s very unlikely and we probably flew through Iceland on our way to Luxembourg?

2026-01-17 03:59:27 UTC

Here are Woz and John Sculley chatting at tonight’s Tech for Global Good Celebration in San Jose, where Woz is receiving the James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/908/435/424/074/711/original/7f74cc1cfaab5621.jpeg

2025-12-10 15:47:59 UTC

Here’s my look at Astranis, an innovative space company that’s not only based in San Francisco but manufacturing satellites there. https://www.fastcompany.com/91456505/astranis-microgeo-satellites-john-gedmark?mvgt=xRg2mwIRxJoT

2025-11-16 06:19:23 UTC

It’s Petula Clark’s birthday! She signed my iPod, as did Burt Bacharach. (And then I ran out of room, which was OK.)
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2025-11-14 13:25:16 UTC

I thought that abandoning Twitter as a social networking platform would be tough until I actually did it. https://www.fastcompany.com/91439423/one-year-later-im-gladder-than-ever-i-left-twitter

2025-10-19 08:33:15 UTC

My friend Paul Boutin has died, far too young. He was also one of my favorite tech writers ever, and a profound influence on my own work. Here’s an archive of his wonderful Slate columns from a simpler time. https://slate.com/author/paul-boutin

2025-10-14 20:40:04 UTC

Sometimes our memories of movies are really memories of this guy’s remarkable posters. RIP. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/drew-struzan-dies-movie-posters-1236400361/

2025-10-10 16:06:37 UTC

I’ve been taking Tesla’s Robotaxi service, and have some notes. (I didn’t expect the most interesting about it to be that it’s often unbelievably cheap, at least for now.) https://www.fastcompany.com/91419058/tesla-robotaxi-bay-area

2025-09-24 03:00:40 UTC

I’m sorry to say that Walgreens’ use of a skeleton as vaccine spokesperson is horrifyingly relevant.
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2025-09-23 14:30:02 UTC

Here’s chapter one of our epic oral history of YouTube, 2005-present. We talked to former and current execs, creators, competitors, and more, and they had tons of great stories. Gift link: https://www.fastcompany.com/91407321/youtube-founding-2005-steve-chen-oral-history?mvgt=i8Va7osdGpcb

2025-08-30 22:59:00 UTC

Evernote, an app I once loved, has completely tumbled down a rabbit hole of dark-pattern pricing and become a hellscape.

2025-08-14 19:44:32 UTC

According to Reuters, the document he is disowning as inconsistent with Meta policy WAS a policy document, approved by top-level execs. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-ai-chatbot-guidelines/
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2025-08-13 14:37:04 UTC

It’s International Left Handers Day, so here’s a story I wrote in 2012 about the trials and tribulations of using technology designed for the right-handed majority. https://techland.time.com/2012/08/27/left-handed-technology/

2025-08-08 22:08:32 UTC

Silicon Valley’s strangest current billboard.
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2025-07-31 04:20:18 UTC

Embarrassed to realize I didn’t notice when the Amiga turned 40 a week ago. Here’s a piece I wrote for its 25th. (Sadly, a couple of the videos I embedded have vanished, including Andy Warhol using an Amiga to “paint” Debbie Harry at the launch event.) https://technologizer.com/2010/07/23/amiga/index.html

2025-07-27 16:20:53 UTC

Very sorry to hear about the death of Tom Lehrer at age 97. The cleverest, funniest singer/songwriter of all time, even if he lost interest in the whole business pretty quickly? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIlJ8ZCs4jY&list=RDaIlJ8ZCs4jY&start_radio=1

2025-07-16 13:54:16 UTC

For this appreciation of Windows 95, Jared Newman talked to several of the folks who designed it. I wasn’t completely enthralled with it when it was new, but it looks better and better these days. https://www.fastcompany.com/91356466/windows-95-anniversary

2025-07-11 14:36:15 UTC

I wrote about the AI industry’s big new goal and why it doesn’t really change anything. https://www.fastcompany.com/91363668/superintelligence

2025-06-28 03:34:34 UTC

ChatGPT kept offering to generate imaginary 1990s computer magazine ads for me, so I finally let it. I do like the tagline “It’s nof just software—it’s a revolution.” Also the mouse that apparently connects to the underside of the keyboard.
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2025-06-13 14:28:15 UTC

26 years ago, Jef Raskin sent me an email sharply criticizing the state of software design. His comments remained unpublished back then, but they remain relevant, and are too fascinating not to share. https://www.fastcompany.com/91350773/jef-raskin-wwdc-2025

2025-06-11 14:41:47 UTC

Strong words from my colleague Jesus. I do think that the iPad’s ability to let you be productive without losing time to wrangling windows is incredibly important. https://www.fastcompany.com/91349280/apple-just-turned-the-ipad-into-a-mac

2025-06-07 19:48:53 UTC

Here’s rare audio of Bill Atkinson talking about HyperCard at a 1987 NY Mac Users’ Group meeting, courtesy of Charles Mann’s wonderful Powersharing Series. https://soundcloud.com/thepowersharingseries/ps165-clip-sculley-atkinson-hypercard

2025-06-07 19:41:46 UTC

Remembering how exciting Bill Atkinson’s HyperCard was is exciting all over again. Here are some of the winners of a 1989 Macworld hyperstack contest, in a hyperstack I just pulled up on my iPad courtesy of the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/MacWorldSuperStacks#
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2025-05-23 16:22:02 UTC

Google demoed AI glasses this week. Sam Altman said Jony Ive’s AI prototype is already the coolest tech product the world has ever seen. In neither case did I come away positive I better understood what consumers want out of AI-centric gadgetry. https://www.fastcompany.com/91339633/android-xr-openai-io-sam-altman-jonathan-ive

2025-05-20 18:08:34 UTC

Google shopping is getting a feature that AI-generates an image of you wearing items you’re considering buying.
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2025-05-20 17:27:11 UTC

Pichai is showing how Gmail composed an email to his friend offering vacation advice he didn’t have time to assemble himself. This whole oft-cited example of using AI for friendly personal correspondence still seems off to me. I’d rather get a brief note I knew was really from Sundar!
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2025-04-04 17:53:06 UTC

He still has it.
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2025-03-21 14:53:21 UTC

In this week’s newsletter, I share previously unseen quotes from my 2013 interview with Larry Page about self-driving in particular and moonshots in general. He hasn’t said much for public consumption about either since. https://www.fastcompany.com/91302721/larry-page-google-self-driving-cars-waymo

2025-03-17 05:22:38 UTC

On balance, I feel like appearing in random spam may be a net positive for his dignity.
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2025-03-11 18:56:01 UTC

In a rare decree at PC World, I decided we’d no longer spell “iPod” as “IPod.” The copy staff didn’t take the news well.
(BTW, I still prefer “Internet” to “internet.”)
https://www.newyorker.com/newsletter/the-daily/the-new-yorker-house-style-joins-the-internet-age

2025-03-06 17:34:42 UTC

It’s always horrifying when a company shuttering a media site deletes it from the web. That’s why I’ve created archives of my Technologizer site as well as stuff I wrote for TIME and PC World and even (you never know) my Twitter feed. https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/abc_shuts_down_fivethirtyeight

2025-03-04 12:45:35 UTC

Through an odd series of events, I found myself staying at the TWA Hotel at JFK last night. It’s just fantastic. Maybe the best revival of an old brand for a new brand extension ever.
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2025-02-28 19:59:40 UTC

Zelenskyy is not just a hero, but one of the great heroes of our era.

2025-02-25 17:06:26 UTC

I wrote about Factory, a San Francisco startup whose AI code generation platform features “Droids”——agents that can handle tasks such as adding comments to undocumented code. https://www.fastcompany.com/91279593/factory-ai-code-generation-matan-grinberg-eno-reyes

2025-02-22 22:24:32 UTC

What I want to know is the % of people born in this century who own a film camera of some sort—which might be quite high thanks to Fuji Instax. https://www.fastcompany.com/91282155/retro-gaming-is-back-thanks-to-gen-z

2025-02-17 05:53:07 UTC

In other news from the Golden Gate Bridge.
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2025-02-17 05:47:05 UTC

They seem to be painting the Golden Gate Bridge. (Maybe they should try a different color someday for variety—a nice taupe?)
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2025-02-13 16:35:15 UTC

The Duolingo Owl is with Mr. Peanut now. https://www.fastcompany.com/91277643/i-will-never-recover-from-this-the-internet-is-spiraling-over-the-duolingo-owls-untimely-death

2025-02-08 04:30:04 UTC

Another photo from today I'd normally have posted on Instagram.
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2025-02-04 05:38:14 UTC

It’s nice to see Kagi doing well—and nice to see it can do well as a very small business taking on the most gigantic giant of them all. https://www.fastcompany.com/91268933/google-alternatives-kagi

2025-01-28 07:03:08 UTC

Just like the tour guide we had on my first trip to Beijing.
From: @npub1ry2…ma3q
https://mastodon.social/@dangillmor/113904576652821702

2025-01-13 18:57:52 UTC

So much for Meta’s embrace of the fediverse, which doesn’t appear to apply in instances where one of its platforms is already dominant. https://www.404media.co/meta-is-blocking-links-to-decentralized-instagram-competitor-pixelfed/

2024-12-24 23:34:43 UTC

You will be visited by three spirits…
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2024-12-08 07:26:46 UTC

Your 1984 tech update “real” computers on your lap will radically alter the face of computing.
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2024-12-07 03:19:06 UTC

In case you need your faith in humanity restored. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4OlL0OpbW8

2024-12-04 19:23:46 UTC

Let the riotous living begin now.
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2024-12-03 16:38:56 UTC

A little personal news: I’m selling my house for a decent price, I have a new job that pays $800 a day for 30 minutes of work, and my package has been delayed.
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2024-12-01 00:37:12 UTC

New candy bar at JFK—insert your own joke here.
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2024-11-29 20:59:43 UTC

As long as I’m in NYC I visited the former Time & Life Building. When I worked at TIME I got a thrill walking into the same building Luce once entered. Still bizarre that Time Inc. no longer exists.
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2024-11-27 21:55:19 UTC

I wrote about Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of a standard for digital wallets. Sound unlikely that Apple and Google would support such a thing? “Safari and Chrome do the same HTML,” he reminded me, https://www.fastcompany.com/91231379/tim-berners-lee-solid-inrupt-pod-digital-wallet

2024-11-26 02:14:04 UTC

Just peeked at Twitter. Absence did NOT make my heart grow fonder.

2024-11-25 19:06:55 UTC

The fact that Bluesky exists is making Threads better. https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/25/24305690/threads-default-following-feed-test

2024-11-24 20:39:48 UTC

This new feature is yet another reason to use Openvibe, my favorite new app of 2024. I think I can mention @npub1f3d…yk3x now and have it work on both Bluesky and Mastodon.
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2024-11-23 06:21:42 UTC

If Bluesky was really like old-school Twitter, it would look and read more like this.
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2024-11-22 18:58:11 UTC

My colleague Yaz talked to Bluesky COO Rose Wang. https://www.fastcompany.com/91233939/bluesky-rose-wang-radical-vision-social-media-twitter-alternative

2024-11-20 20:47:03 UTC

I wrote about the possibility that Google will have to sell Chrome, and the larger fact that the big browsers are so sleepy. They feel like obligations, not the vibrant tapestries of innovation they could be. https://www.fastcompany.com/91231751/google-chrome-sale-department-of-justice-browser-war

2024-11-17 04:41:42 UTC

I’m happy to have kicked the Twitter habit. But any guesses as to whether the recent exodus is big and permanent enough to seriously damage Twitter’s relevance and prospects as a business? Does Elon care?

2024-11-14 23:42:21 UTC

Tom Kurtz, who co-invented BASIC—probably the piece of software that has meant the most to me—has died at age 96. When it turned 50 ten years ago, I wrote a VERY long article about why it was so important, and I’m very grateful that he helped with it. RIP. https://time.com/69316/basic/

2024-11-13 13:48:00 UTC

For my Plugged In newsletter, I wrote about leaving Twitter and using OpenVibe to wrangle Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads. It’s a great app! https://www.fastcompany.com/91226135/openvibe-mastodon-bluesky-threads-unified-client

2024-11-13 11:51:12 UTC

I suspect most media outlets are at least having this conversation. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/13/why-the-guardian-is-no-longer-posting-on-x

2024-11-11 18:46:44 UTC

Once people with a lot of Twitter followers realize that they have little or nothing to do with the quality of the conversation—or even whether people will see your stuff or click on your links—the exodus may go into hyperdrive.

2024-11-11 06:58:59 UTC

Firefox is turning 20. When it was new I was VERY excited about it and pleased to see an article about it in Fortune. And when I began reading it I was surprised to see the lede was about me. https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/11/29/8192684/index.htm

2024-11-11 05:24:17 UTC

In retrospect, cold-turkeying leaving Twitter is the right way to go.

2024-11-11 05:14:04 UTC

I don’t believe in deleting stuff off the internet, so I’m not going to delete my old tweets. But is there a straightforward way to make them available at a place that isn’t Twitter?

2024-11-09 08:24:34 UTC

Rummaging through a huge folder of photos looking for something else, I found a photo I took of Woz having a happy birthday.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/452/035/203/765/223/original/952f9f2f12095f1b.jpg

2024-11-07 05:34:56 UTC

I’m trying Croissant, which supposedly allows me to crosspost between Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky.
(This is my new friend from WeWork.)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/440/043/530/933/405/original/396af4375b570b27.jpeg

2024-10-28 22:16:58 UTC

Apple’s Focus feature has to be one of the most unusable pieces of software the company has ever written. I literally can’t figure it out and very much wish I could go back to the old system of DND either being on or not being on.

2024-10-21 19:46:49 UTC

Growing annoyance: Websites I’m already showing with money displaying pushier and pushier messages trying to get me to upgrade to higher tiers of membership.

2024-08-30 16:15:21 UTC

AnandTech had a low profile in recent years, but man, I’m still sorry to see it go. I was once offered a job there and turned it down on the grounds that I wasn’t worthy.
Also, many years ago when we made PC World’s WorldBench benchmark available for use by others, they were one of our first customers.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/21542/end-of-the-road-an-anandtech-farewell

2024-08-18 00:38:00 UTC

I'm over being upset that I didn't get to see Steve Jobs unveil the first iPhone at Macworld Expo. I am, however, newly upset that I wasn't able to attend this 1877 event.
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2024-08-13 17:05:43 UTC

- reply

Google device chief Rick Osterloh says he understands why people are skeptical about AI solving real problems, and a lot of today’s news relates to that via Gemini.
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2024-08-13 17:00:52 UTC

I’m at Google’s device event.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/955/781/546/139/990/original/674f956fc83df39b.jpeg