Top all-time · #5
Daring Fireball
Personal blog · daringfireball.nethardwaredesignculture
Daring Fireball is a personal blog at daringfireball.net about hardware, design and culture. Since 2007, 1,834 different Hacker News readers have linked it 3,814 times, most often “Markdown (2004)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 4 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Daring Fireball mostly for John Gruber's Apple coverage, such as the blue/green bubble history, the CSAM scanning plan and Apple Maps. One post is called a good primer.
- Recommended for · 4 comments
- Called a pretty good breakdown, a great explanation, a good primer and good questioning of Apple's reasoning.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Commentary on Apple, technology, design, politics, and more.
Most-linked posts?
- Markdown (2004)35 people · 40 mentions · first linked 2015-04-10
- /2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives21 people · 24 mentions · first linked 2017-05-01
- Daring Fireball is down19 people · 19 mentions · first linked 2009-08-10
- /projects/markdown/17 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2009-12-29
- First Impressions of Vision Pro and VisionOS17 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2015-04-09
- /projects/markdown/syntax17 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2015-11-08
- Medium and the Scourge of Persistent Sharing Bars15 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2017-06-20
- Bad Dye Job14 people · 19 mentions · first linked 2025-12-04
- /projects/markdown/syntax14 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2016-11-22
- WWDC 2014 Prelude14 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2007-10-12
What Hacker News says?
Gruber gives a pretty good breakdown of the blue/green bubble history: https://daringfireball.net/2022/01/seeing_green Short version: SMS has been green since the first iPhone, blue iMessage was added later. Green was not invented to "punish the poors"
Comment linking /2022/01/seeing_green
on “U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly”Submitted Facebook is an attack on the open web as a story · 1635 points
HN discussion>I'll be very mad at the rest of you lot that choose convenience over privacy, rights, and autonomy if 2030 sees our freedoms and liberties eroded further. > Our collective choices matter, and that's why I'm calling you out. I'll be direct and say that your passion inspires me and your articulation of the issue is very close to my deep feelings about privacy, encryption, and law enforcement. Of course, human brains…
Comment linking /2020/01/reuters_report_on_apple_dropping_plan_for_encrypted_icloud_backups
on “Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained”Submitted Bill Atkinson has died as a story · 1589 points
HN discussionI am correct: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/01/29/two-additional-...
Comment linking /linked/2024/01/29/two-additional-observations-regarding-apples-core-technology-fee
on “Apple announces changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store in the European Union”Submitted More on Apple's Trust-Eroding 'F1 the Movie' Wallet Ad as a story · 977 points
HN discussionI never met Aaron Swartz but always wanted to. His work has had a profound impact on my life. His blog was thought-provoking. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ His work on the RSS 1.0 Specification enabled richer, more efficient information consumption. http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/spec His work on Markdown enabled intuitive, unobtrusive formatting and structuring of information in plaintext and conversion to HTML.…
Comment linking /projects/markdown/
on “Aaron Swartz commits suicide”Submitted Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Email on Hkmap.live Doesn’t Add Up as a story · 904 points
HN discussionThe link is that Ad Tracking Transparency (ATT) happened relatively close to FB's numbers going south, and its a great scapegoat. https://daringfireball.net/2022/08/ft_effects_of_app_trackin... > What I think makes ATT a tempting scapegoat is that it creates a great story. Apple enacted a change in the name of privacy and that change has adversely affected both Facebook and small businesses that relied on Facebook.…
Comment linking /2022/08/ft_effects_of_app_tracking_transparency
on “Meta lays off 11,000 people”Submitted The Mac Pro Lives as a story · 877 points
HN discussionThat Daring Fireball link just goes to the main page. Here's a permalink to Gruber's first impressions: https://daringfireball.net/2019/11/16-inch_macbook_pro_first...
Comment linking /2019/11/16-inch_macbook_pro_first_impressions
on “16-inch MacBook Pro”Submitted Daring Fireball: Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot as a story · 749 points
HN discussion> ... the lack of a physical Escape key, and the full-size left and right arrow keys. Seems that if you scream hard enough AAPL listens: > What Apple emphasized is simply that they listened to the complaints from professional MacBook users. They recognized how important the Escape key is to developers — they even mentioned Vim by name during a developer tool demo. * https://daringfireball.net/2019/11/16-inch_macbook…
Comment linking /2019/11/16-inch_macbook_pro_first_impressions
on “16-inch MacBook Pro”Submitted Siri, What Time Is It in London? as a story · 728 points
HN discussionJohn Gruber’s review https://daringfireball.net/ And before everyone accuses him of being an Apple fanboy and biased, there is no disputing that he is very much a keyboard snob. He hated the last generation keyboard and he called it out during his initial review. He also famously still prefers an old ADB Apple Keyboard and he never bought a laptop with the old one. He’s also linked to a lot of articles criticizing i…
Comment linking /
on “16-inch MacBook Pro”Submitted Try Switching to Kagi as a story · 715 points
HN discussion> There’s also more space between keys — about 0.5mm. This difference is much more noticeable by feel than by sight. Making it easier to feel the gaps between keys really does make a difference. https://daringfireball.net/2019/11/16-inch_macbook_pro_first...
Comment linking /2019/11/16-inch_macbook_pro_first_impressions
on “16-inch MacBook Pro”Submitted The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10 as a story · 624 points
HN discussion1. I think we can agree that making a switch of OS imposes quite some costs. You made the switch to macOS and found it all right. Now imagine I'd make the switch from macOS to some other OS - I'm quite certain that it would be worse. 2. I've used Windows and macOS concurrently, and was always amazed at how bad the Windows experience was (though, yes, it has improved, and unfortunately, as alluded to by Gruber in his…
Comment linking /2019/11/16-inch_macbook_pro_first_impressions
on “16-inch MacBook Pro”Submitted Are Apple gift cards safe to redeem? as a story · 560 points
HN discussion“And they didn’t throw away the good parts of the butterfly keyboard — including excellent backlighting and especially the increased stability, where keys go down flat even when pressed off-center. The keys on this keyboard don’t wobble like the keys on pre-2016 MacBook Pro keyboards do.” — https://daringfireball.net/2019/11/16-inch_macbook_pro_first...
Comment linking /2019/11/16-inch_macbook_pro_first_impressions
on “16-inch MacBook Pro”Submitted Facebook: Free as in Bullshit as a story · 555 points
HN discussionIn his article https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/the_website_hacker_news_i... he mentions several times that he is aiming for "comment traction," treating articles with more comments than upvotes as successful while complaining that recently there haven't been as many comments. It does make sense that DaringFireball would consider starting a flamewar a job well done, but of course HN is optimizing for the opposite.
Comment linking /2025/03/the_website_hacker_news_is_afraid_to_discuss
on “Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator”Submitted On Jony Ive Leaving Apple as a story · 529 points
HN discussionAny comments on this post regarding moderation at hacker news: https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/the_website_hacker_news_i...
Comment linking /2025/03/the_website_hacker_news_is_afraid_to_discuss
on “Tell HN: Announcing tomhow as a public moderator”Submitted New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others as a story · 525 points
HN discussion> John Gruber wrote that Steve Cook should succeed him last month. http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/succeeding_steve_jobs You mean, Tim Cook. Freudian slip, I understand.
Comment linking /2011/07/succeeding_steve_jobs
on “Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple”Submitted M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness as a story · 491 points
HN discussionJohn Gruber wrote that Steve Cook should succeed him last month. http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/succeeding_steve_jobs Edit: Yup, I meant Tim Cook... Doh!
Comment linking /2011/07/succeeding_steve_jobs
on “Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple”Submitted The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss as a story · 479 points
HN discussion
