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

Last Notes

2026-04-19 19:35:34 CEST

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.)

2026-03-26 07:09:48 CET

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
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/293/985/102/541/482/original/20c52e35c2e66262.jpeg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/293/985/098/131/053/original/b1096941a412013b.jpeg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/293/985/121/332/811/original/c370f42688e9e128.jpeg

2026-02-13 18:17:24 CET

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

2025-10-10 18:06:37 CEST

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

2025-06-11 16:41:47 CEST

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

2025-03-21 15:53:21 CET

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

2025-03-06 18:34:42 CET

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

2025-02-13 17:35:15 CET

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 05:30:04 CET

Another photo from today I'd normally have posted on Instagram.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/966/383/331/632/888/original/9390a5d2549f0da0.jpg

2025-01-28 08:03:08 CET

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

2024-11-29 21:59:43 CET

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.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/568/250/787/787/298/original/de9ab6041e3b1bc9.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/568/250/795/494/298/original/d56e28c22bb8260a.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/568/250/735/437/119/original/ae983443f2dc9ea1.jpg

2024-11-27 22:55:19 CET

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 03:14:04 CET

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

2024-11-24 21:39:48 CET

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.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/539/860/909/229/286/original/c464a9c42869c7ca.jpg

2024-11-23 07:21:42 CET

If Bluesky was really like old-school Twitter, it would look and read more like this.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/530/824/441/916/822/original/efd6b984a7ad30cd.jpg

2024-11-17 05:41:42 CET

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?

2024-11-09 09:24:34 CET

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

2024-08-30 18:15:21 CEST

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