THE MACSPARKY DISPATCH

Hi Friend,

Growing up and watching Star Trek, one thing that made it feel futuristic to me was the interaction with the “computer.” You didn’t see Captain Picard updating software or managing user interfaces. Instead, he just said something out into the air, and then the computer responded politely and efficiently, giving him whatever he needed.

At the time, that made total sense to me as something that would be natural in a few hundred years, but it never occurred to me that we would get there in my lifetime. And yet, we are rapidly approaching the Star Trek moment.

Through a variety of technologies – flawless text-to-speech dictation, modern processors, and artificial intelligence – we are getting to that point where you can just yell something into the air and digital problems get solved. Heck, if you’re willing to go out on the end of the spear, we are already there.

In essence, this lets you separate the user from the software. It’s putting another level of abstraction between you and the work. This doesn’t mean we’re replacing the software, at least for the time being, but it does mean you can step away from it. Rather than being an operator of your software and systems, you become more of a director of it.

Smart productivity app developers are already seeing that, and that’s why you’re seeing so many of them release MCPs and other techniques for their software to work with artificial intelligence. They are, in effect, adding their software to your voice-controlled stack.

I expect that to only accelerate. We’ll be getting Siri AI very shortly, and you’ll see how Apple is doing the same thing within the confines of their own operating system and, of course, under their terms.

We are spending a lot of time talking about these technologies in the MacSparky Labs and the Robot Assistant Field Guide. Over time, what this will achieve is to make all of us power users provided we can get comfortable with the additional abstraction and use our imaginations.

What I’m here to tell you is that normal folks in the not-so-distant future are going to work very similarly to Jean-Luc Picard.

Your pal,
David
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p.s. Speaking of the Robot Assistant Field Guide, we're starting season 2, and right now there is a $50 discount on the guide for a limited time. Go check it out.

TKTK

​Read this post on macsparky.com​

This Week in the MacSparky-Verse

Here’s what ran at MacSparky.com this week.

• ​Apple updated the Magic Keyboard, swapping the text key labels for glyphs. Still no black keycaps on the compact one.
• ​How far are we from Her? We’re getting AI in an earpiece now, and I keep wondering how checked out people are going to get.
• ​MindNode shipped MCP support, so my favorite mind mapping app talks straight to my AI now.
• On Mac Power Users, Stephen and I do the math on Apple's new M6 Mac mini and M5 Mac Studio.

In the MacSparky Labs, we covered a lot:

• I made a video on MindNode’s new MCP support, where one dictated prompt built out a full map of my whole content pipeline.
• I made a video on WhatCable, a free utility that tells you what a USB-C cable can actually carry, since they all look the same and they are not.
• I published The Lab Report podcast on Tim Cook’s last day as CEO, John Ternus taking over, and Phil Schiller handing the App Store to Eddy Cue, all in the week before an iPhone event.

Next week we get together live right after Apple's iPhone event, and then again for the September meetup after dark.

That was a single week, and the Labs run like this every week. If that sounds like your kind of place, come join us.

Learn Faster with Shortform

​This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Shortform.​
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Today’s issue was about talking to a computer and having it do the thing, the way Captain Picard never had to think twice about it. Shortform has guides on the AI wave that’s actually making this real, so you can get the argument in about fifteen minutes instead of a weekend.

Co-Intelligence, by Ethan Mollick, makes the case for treating AI as a partner instead of a tool you operate. That’s the same shift I’m writing about above, just backed by someone who studies it for a living.

The Coming Wave, by Mustafa Suleyman, lays out just how fast this technology is moving and what it means to live alongside it. Written by someone who helped build it.

Shortform’s guides give you the full argument chapter by chapter, with commentary that ties one book to the next. I’ll read one over coffee and have two more queued by lunch.

If today’s issue got you thinking, that’s a good place to start. Sign up through my link and you’ll get a free trial and 49% off the annual plan. Pick one. Give it fifteen minutes.