It kept ascending: in early November it started relaxing its invite-only restriction, and it launched on Android, topping the Play Store charts with 470K installs on its first day! That month Sora reached 1M daily active users, per Similarweb.

OpenAI’s choice to launch with minimal guardrails was risky, especially with respect to potential IP infringement. But it was, predictably, paying off as it made the app all-the-more viral. If that sounds like Facebook’s “move fast and break things” approach, there may be something to that: OpenAI had been on a hiring spree of Meta growth personnel. Hundreds of headlines over the first couple of months made it reasonable to assume users were loving their feeds of AI-generated content.

In October, the app’s popularity compelled many to reassess their mental model of how online content worked. Did this app mark a paradigm shift away from human-made social media content? Some high-profile creators wondered if humans would get edged out. Casey Neistat posted a terrifically fun video on October 4: “SORA: the all Ai TikTok Clone. will slop end creativity?” The gravity of the moment for him was palpable, with his friends concluding “it’s over”.

Neistat’s fears echoed other creators’ concerns. Throughout this period, Hollywood stars were mobilizing and speaking out against how the app was allowing their likenesses to be ripped off.

On October 6, Ben Thompson took the opposite take, saying it “may be the single most exciting manifestation of AI yet, and the most encouraging in terms of AI’s impact on humans. Everyone — including lots of people in my Sora feed — are leaning into the concept of AI slop, which I get: we are looking at a world of infinite machine-generated content, and a lot of it is going to be terrible. At the same time, how incredible is it to give everyone with an iPhone a creative outlet?” Using the word “creative” felt like a stretch, but regardless, Sora’s viral success seemed like the most interesting development in the space since YouTube.

Meanwhile, throughout this period, OpenAI was of course in talks to raise its next round at lofty valuations (as high as $830B). It stands to reason that these talks likely featured Sora’s massive popularity as an attractive selling point. To date, no public announcements have been made about any of these deals closing.

The app’s initial success also played a key role in landing a $1B investment from Disney.

The buzz then started to fade a bit; in December, DAUs had fallen to 750K, per Similarweb. Also in early December, Sensor Tower said users were averaging just 13 minutes per day on Sora vs. 90 on TikTok.

And now, the app is fluctuating between #70 and #80 (last night it was #79) in the US iOS Free Top Charts. And it is the 8th most popular free app in the Photo & Video category, behind Meta Vibes. It currently stands at the 108th spot on the Play Store. Ben Thompson has come around on it too, acknowledging its dip and saying “Yes, I get the argument that this is the worst that AI will ever be, but it also will never be human, which is what humans want most of all.”

While AI slop remains extremely “popular” on services that feature human-created content (though often as malicious content including sexually explicit deepfakes of normal people and celebrities alike, which publications like 404media have meticulously documented): perhaps the Sora’s experiment is teaching us whether people enjoy feeds that exclusively feature slop.

Ahhgh! – what I’m feeling right now in this moment is pure excitement. I can see, on my Mac (in my app via Xcode): a new marquee feature that is delivering results and getting so close to being ready.

That said, there’s been festering restlessness as of late. Let me explain:

Despite what it looks like from the outside, I have been busier on the project these last couple of months than I have been in years. But, as with all big releases, I don’t have anything new to show until it’s .. done done done. I’m writing this little blurb of a post to help deal with the anxiety of not having shipped this new feature. I always prefer to communicate via new software releases, but in this case I needed to preempt that to say: I’ve been making stuff! I want the new feature to be great, so I think I’ve still got a couple weeks worth of work left to do (mostly making it less ugly), despite having completed the heavy lifting.

Thanks for listening! -Spencer

Pictured above: Here I am at the store, waiting for the demo. The unit I actually tried used the Dual Band loop, which was very comfortable.

Based on podcasts and reviews that I’ve seen over the past year, going into the demo I thought that:

• the eye gaze + hand pinching UX would be finicky and annoying
• the unit would be uncomfortable to wear after 20+ minutes
• that i would have eye strain 20+ minutes
• that resolution would be crisp at what you’re looking at, but maybe soft on the periphery.
• the projected Mac display would be amazing and its killer app
• environments would be neat
• immersive video would be OK and the 3D stereoscopic effects would appear natural
• that i would feel some magic

In reality I found:

• the eye gaze + hand pinching UX was great because it is really nice being able to select things without needing to have your hands up on a trackpad. It’s just really comfortable.
  both eye + hand tracking + worked really well for me, even with my hands resting on my knees. gestures like turning the hand to show your palm and access Home worked OK, but with some lag.
• the unit was comfortable to wear. I honestly never had to think about it (after i got my fit right).
• more light was coming in from around my nose than I expected, but the store was very bright
• i experienced no eye strain (like zero) over ~20+ minutes, but maybe I would after an hour – it’s impossible for me to say
• the resolution was not that crisp at what you’re looking directly at — text appeared very soft and low res. It’s very far from the “retina” quality I’m used to.
• the Mac projected display (in wide and ultrawide) was neat, but b/c the resolution wasn’t crisp .. i wouldn’t want to do much computer work in it, which hurts its appeal.
• also, i was aware of the field of view more when it came to using the projected Mac display. Meaning that, if I literally had a physical screen of the same size, to see something in the corner of it, I would just glance over with my eyes, but I couldn’t do that here b/c the AVP’s screen wasn’t wide enough, so had to swivel my head some. It’s not “bad” but I’m looking forward to increases in FOV over time. I never really ran into the FOV limitation with the other parts of the demo – just the huge projected Mac displays.
• environments were neat and immersive video was REALLY effective making me uncomfortable at times (b/c i felt like i was actually in a room with people i didn’t know), and tricking my mind into phantom sensory stimulations
• with environments and immersive video, I was able to quasi forget that I was in a very busy Apple Store, which made me less self-conscious about looking dumb, haha.
• the stereoscopic effect was effective but, on some videos, especially “home-made” videos a bit unconvincing (breaking the immersion a bit).
  — the resolution of the “home videos” was pretty poor.
• It definitely felt magical at times

My takeaway was: something derivative of this tech is the future of computing. But for it to get there, the resolution of the displays needs to become about twice as good (not just slightly better). Otherwise, tasks that require reading lots of text (basically all the things I do with my computer) are not ones i would want to do in an AVP.
I expect I’ll be going in for another AVP demo in ~3 years, ready to be convinced that the resolution is good enough and that its time has arrived. As it stands now, i’d pay $1K for a device like the AVP, far from $3.5K. It’s still really neat tho!

Another interesting tidbit: The presenter who facilitated the demo said that I was the first customer to ask him to try the Mac projection feature (not just the Wide/Ultrawide), and that he had only tried it himself once to make sure it worked.

When I launched this app 5 years ago in early 2019, it had a different freemium business model that didn’t work (I made about $129 total). I learned the hard way that this really is niche software. I had written several thousands of lines of code, figured out some tough problems, spent I think over 1000 hours working on it at the time (much more since then), but it was all OK because it was a positive experience in other ways, and I was single with no kids and had a ton of free time.

Then I got married, had two kids, got a mortgage payment, while still not making much at my day job and — with the app needing maintenance and bringing in effectively nothing: I pulled the app from the App Store entirely for 2+ years. Not only because it was increasingly hard to justify spending time on, but because I was relatively poor (not exactly broke, but making way under the US avg. salary for my age) that, as a Mac developer in 2021, I was rocking a 2014 Macbook Pro that could no longer run recent macOS versions. Much later, in mid-2024, I bought a used 2019 Macbook Pro for $600 off of Amazon (honestly, a great purchase ). Suddenly Mac development was at least viable for me again!

Looking at my CurrentKey inbox, I saw that 30+ people had emailed me wanting CurrentKey Stats back in the world, and I decided that it could work, if I asked Mac users (who wanted this app) to chip in less than a cup of coffee in dollars each month, so I could stay on modern Mac hardware and keep this thing working and relevant (with new features).

I absolutely love this work and making your time with your Mac more enjoyable. I’d love to hear from you and wish you the very best.

– Spencer

What could I do with this power?

Just brainstorming off the top of my head, here are some ideas for theme-based Room customization, as well as scripts or individual actions that could make sense to trigger (upon entering/leaving Rooms).

On alerts when you enter a Room: automatically bring a specific app to the front? take a screenshot? mute the volume? toggle macOS dark mode? activate LED desk lights? trigger and IFTTT routine? selectively start/stop a timer based on what Room you are in or App is active? You can even pass parameters along to a Python script. Here’s a tutorial.

You can also pair Room alerts with CurrentKey’s support for 14 AppleScript commands for even more nuanced outcomes.

Ideas for unique Room themes:

• Have a “language learning” Room, and assign custom internet radio stations for them with Broadcasts, so it would start playing a Spanish station when you go into your Spanish Room! (click the tutorial ^ )
• Show a banner notification with the name of each Space/Room you move into. (Here’s the tutorial)
• Have a “Weather” Space and refresh several weather radar maps in Safari, Chrome, or Brave, immediately upon entering.
• Give each of your Spaces a picture-in-picture video intro with Helium 3.
• Have a “distraction free” space that mutes volume, activates dark mode, hides dock, and turns off WiFi. It could return settings to normal when leaving.
• Have a “Communication HQ” Room that will automatically sync your Mail app to check for latest email upon entering… and sync your Evernote notebooks too.
• Assign each room in your house to a different Room in CurrentKey, so that when you walk into your kitchen, you’re taken to the Space with your recipes, kitchen timers, and more! This is possible with EventScripts and iBeacons.

A list of specific actions you could selectively combine to create really cool scripts:

• Create a smart Pomodoro timer that stops and starts when you’re in specific apps (or Spaces). This one already has AppleScript support
• Refresh a specific webpage in Chrome, Safari, etc (they all support automation), either when that browser becomes active (with App change notifications), or when you enter a room.
• Pause/resume a screen sharing application
• Bring a specific app to the front
• Activate smart home things, like LED lights, sound systems, etc
• Hook it up to IFTTT to run a Room-specific workflow
• Refresh Mail’s Inbox for new messages with its “check for new mail” command
• Have the name of the current Room (Space) be read aloud
• Take a screenshot
• Run a local Python script
• Start/pause an Amphetamine session, which actually has terrific AppleScript support.
• Start a presentation
• Play a specific set of Spotify tracks
• Crank up or mute your Mac’s volume
• Pause/unpause your media player
• Automatically tell a Slack channel you’ve left or entered a Room.
• Add a note, maybe with additional context via CurrentKey’s stat-fetching commands, in a powerful program like Agenda, which puts such notes on a timeline.
• Start a Photos slideshow.

• You can use CurrentKey’s stats-fetching commands, to add more nuance, like only activating certain scripts if certain time-spent threshold had/hadn’t been met. You can even tell a CurrentKey to go to a certain Room programmatically. So you could move between your Spaces with a remote control (or a phone) !

• Have an app you’d like me to build into a Rooms workflow? Let me know on Twitter!

How is this enabled and set up?

First, head to the new Background Services panel, found via Preferences. Next, click the Open button that is next to the “It will look for a user-provided “ck.scpt” in this folder:” label. This will open your Finder to the directory that you will place your custom AppleScript.

In the example above, the AppleScript will get called with a “roomName” parameter. It checks to see if the Room’s name is “coding”, and if it is, it brings Xcode to the front through AppleScript’s “activate” command. If you move into a fullscreen app, the parameter will read “_fullscreen_”.

This concept is simple and powerful, enabling you to trigger Room-specific functionality outside of the app. Let your imagination run wild with all the possibilities: turn on cool LED lights when you enter your gaming Room? You can write a script for that! Bring your favorite programming app to the foreground when you enter your coding Room? Write a script for that! Pause a timer when you leave a specific Room? It can be done! The possibilities are infinite! There’s a tutorial that includes a video he

JOTJOLT! and Quorbo both take a multi-pronged approach to revving you up: featuring some of the wittiest quips ever concocted alongside brain-teasing action. It’s a combo that’s surpassed only by well-packaged caffeine for firing neurons in the early morning.

In all seriousness, it’s been awesome building these web games and hearing back from those who play them. I hope you enjoy!

How to set it up:

1. Open CurrentKey and give each Space a name.
2. Enable AppleScript support in CurrentKey. (see below screenshot)
3. Move this script to CurrentKey’s Scripts folder (There’s a button to open this folder in the Background Services window). (See screenshot of file)
4. Clicking OK on the Mac’s permissions dialog if prompted

Here is how to enable Room alerts:

Here is what the script looks like:

It’s just that easy! You can do so many things with this powerful functionality, even give each of your Spaces a custom sound. More brainstorming fuel is available here.

All of that said: I am shelving the app for now. As of this year’s WWDC, I am unable to run the latest macOS version on my current Mac (a mid-2014 15″ MBP). As more people begin using macOS Monterey, there are more support tickets I cannot troubleshoot, and it really pains me to see that – but I’m not ready to upgrade my Mac yet, the hardware is fine.

Everyone who has already downloaded the app – please keep enjoying it. For now, I am pausing its availability for new users, and I will reassess when I have a Mac that can run Monterey.

• Spencer

That is all! <3

-Spencer

Amid Apple pushing mandatory privacy labels, Google is stalling on releasing updates for its iOS apps. Yet Google itself is now telling users that their own apps are out of date.

I verified that this warning is showing up for multiple apps (Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Maps). Multiple iPhones on iOS 14.4, owned by separate account holders, were tested.

About an hour ago, I opened my Gmail app to find that some of my accounts had been logged out. When I tried logging back in, Google informed me that “This app is out of date.” Indeed!

Google has not pushed updates to their flagship apps including Gmail and Google Maps since before a Dec. 8 deadline, imposed by Apple, that mandated all app updates include new privacy labels. The “nutrition labels” describe to users all the ways developers collect data about them, which has been awkward for companies like Facebook, whose business model relies on the company knowing as much about its users as possible. Tweets have gone viral for simply scrolling through the long privacy label section for apps like Facebook. It must be noted that in the past 6 weeks, Facebook’s rivals (especially Signal and Telegram) have had success thanks to users’ privacy concerns, at an unprecedented scale. Other companies hoping to avoid such shame have allegedly misled users about their collection practices.

Alphabet/Google has taken a third approach, which is to indefinitely stall on pushing updates to its iOS apps. But the company itself tried to downplay this popular theory. On Jan. 5, it claimed it would add Apple’s privacy labels to its apps “this week or the next week”. As Macrumors noted, some of its apps like YouTube have quietly received updates, but not Chrome, Maps, Photos, Drive, Calendar, or Gmail, which is unusual. While Google stalls on pushing updates to its apps, it’s notable that its rivals like Apple Maps, are continuing to innovate with new features in their apps. Google has also been facing rivals that, like Facebook’s rivals, have been having unprecedented levels of success over privacy issues, namely DuckDuckGo, which surpassed 100M daily search queries for the first time on Jan. 11. Privacy is “in” these days.

After saying “This app is out of date”, its warning goes on to say “You should update this app.” We can’t. “The version you’re using doesn’t include the latest security features to keep you protected. Only continue if you understand the risks.” Let’s hope that’s not true! If you visit the Gmail app’s page directly, you will see its last update was released on Dec. 1.

Presumably, the warning is triggered by an automatic check of how long it has been since the app was last updated. In this case, it’s been over 2 months. But only Google can resolve that situation. Here’s a video of Google’s warning being triggered:

Looking at the bigger picture: If Google really decided to intentionally delay updating its apps over adding privacy labels, it’s honestly hard to believe that such short-term thinking prevails in its leadership. They inevitably put themselves in a Streisand-effect situation, where in the end they’d attract more attention to themselves. Whereas if they had published early, the media’s attention would have been split across all of Big Tech’s apps. While the alleged decision itself was always doomed to end poorly, this “app out of date” interstitial is just an epic self own. I guess the decision to delay apps was not handled well internally, because such choices are probably uncommon and the processes to carry them out aren’t as battle-tested or familiar. John Gruber posited that perhaps Google is attempting to “wait Apple out — that public pressure from iPhone owners who use Google apps will result in Apple conceding to better terms for what Google needs to admit to in its nutrition labels. I don’t see that working.” I don’t either.

There is also a chance that Google is trying to do a cleanup of their back end — removing some data collection from ads systems — before publishing privacy labels. I really like (and want to believe) this angle, however unlikely, because it would show that Apple’s privacy labels are having a powerful pro-consumer effect on major app developers.

On the matter of if Google is really delaying its apps over concerns about privacy labels: they really want us to believe that’s not the reason, telling Techcrunch that the labels would start rolling out last month. Yet, that did not happen with the lion’s share of its apps. Take a minute to check out this stunning visualization, which illustrates the frequency of its apps’ updates before and after the December 8 privacy label deadline (h/t @thomasbcn):

From this blunt visual, one can not only assume that the lack of updates are related to the privacy label deadline, but that most of its apps are in need of bug fixes and aren’t receiving those updates.

I guess we’ll wait and see what happens…

(There’s a possibility that as I push publish on this post, Google is mid-update on a global rollout of fresh updates for its flagship apps. But I think that chance is slim, as Apple’s “Phased Release” option lets users immediately receive app updates if they visit an app’s store page directly.)