NSCoder Chicago

Today we mourn the loss of the Mac Pro 🙏

• The Power Macintosh G3 of my high school english classroom
• 65Scribe's Power Macintosh G5 video explains it all
• The end of the "trash can" - Daring Fireball: The Mac Pro Lives

Sean Wolter is your host and editor for this episode.

NSCoder Chicago is a monthly meetup. We'd love to see you in person! https://www.meetup.com/NSCoder-Chicago/ Are you a Mac or iOS dev in Chicago? Would you like to be on our podcast? Get in touch!

Today we're joined by Kevin Donnelly to talk about engineering management topics!

• Kevin's presentation at the last NSCoder
• The silly Financial Times GDP chart Sean mentioned
• Lorraine Boissoneault's upcoming book Body Weather.

David Vision and Sean Wolter are your hosts.

NSCoder Chicago is a monthly meetup. We'd love to see you in person! https://www.meetup.com/NSCoder-Chicago/ Are you a Mac or iOS dev in Chicago? Would you like to be on our podcast? Get in touch!

Today we're rating Apple's hardware and software performance for 2025, following the format of Apple in 2025: The Six Colors report card.

David Vision and Sean Wolter are your hosts.

NSCoder Chicago is a monthly meetup. We'd love to see you in person! https://www.meetup.com/NSCoder-Chicago/ Are you a Mac or iOS dev in Chicago? Would you like to be on our podcast? Get in touch!

Today we're talking about

• Xcode 26.3 unlocks the power of agentic coding
  • Remember to turn on the new agentic features!
• Continuing development of Sean's Contacts app replacement
• Steve Yegge's The AI Vampire and the promise of industrialization/automation
• Existential career dread in the face of automation

David Vision and Sean Wolter are your hosts.

NSCoder Chicago is a monthly meetup. We'd love to see you in person! https://www.meetup.com/NSCoder-Chicago/ Are you a Mac or iOS dev in Chicago? Would you like to be on our podcast? Get in touch!

Today we're talking about

• The "Star Trek Economy", the hedonism treadmill, and universal basic income
  • https://staygold.us
  • https://blog.codinghorror.com/stay-gold-america/
• What's the point of work? And economic and technological growth?
  • https://doughnuteconomics.org
• And a lot of rambling. This may be our least structured episode so far. Let us know what you think!

David Vision and Sean Wolter are your hosts.

NSCoder Chicago is a monthly meetup. We'd love to see you in person! https://www.meetup.com/NSCoder-Chicago/ Are you a Mac or iOS dev in Chicago? Would you like to be on our podcast? Get in touch!

Today we're talking about

• OpenClaw (previously known as Clawdbot)
  • Introducing OpenClaw
  • A Bot that Scams People [Michael Reeves youtube]
  • Clawd Bought a Car!
  • Clawdbot to Moltbot to OpenClaw is a security nightmare [youtube]
• Is it possible to avoid AI in software development?
  • https://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/selfish-ai
  • https://syntropic.xyz/posts/2026-01-22-the-saas-layer-will-dissolve/
  • That David Foster Wallace quotation I couldn't remember
• Losing faith in Apple
  • https://mattgemmell.scot/the-fallen-apple/
  • https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/01/29/amazon-melania-spending
  • https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/01/28/tim-cook-memo
  • https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/01/27/ceo-captured
  • https://www.macworld.com/article/3050158/winter-of-our-apple-discontent.html
  • Hypercritical Podcast about Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography: "Episode 42: The Wrong Guy"

David Vision and Sean Wolter are your hosts.

NSCoder Chicago is a monthly meetup. We'd love to see you in person! https://www.meetup.com/NSCoder-Chicago/ Are you a Mac or iOS dev in Chicago? Would you like to be on our podcast? Get in touch!

Today we're talking about

• AirTags 2.0
• AI AI AI AI AI
  • Clawdbot is now called Moltbot
    • Macstories' Clawdbot article
    • More about Clawdbot
  • Maggie Appleton's coverage and critique of Gastown
  • 10 things I learned from burning myself out with AI coding agents
• More AI!
  • Sean's new old Contacts App

David Vision and Sean Wolter are your hosts.

NSCoder Chicago is a monthly meetup. We'd love to see you in person! https://www.meetup.com/NSCoder-Chicago/ Are you a Mac or iOS dev in Chicago? Would you like to be on our podcast? Get in touch!

Today we're talking about

• Apple Creative Studio - will we buy it? what does it mean?
• Apple Home (formerly known as HomeKit) and home automation adventures
• And a diversion into data privacy and security in cameras and TVs

David Vision and Sean Wolter are your hosts.

NSCoder Chicago is a monthly meetup. We'd love to see you in person! https://www.meetup.com/NSCoder-Chicago/ Are you a Mac or iOS dev in Chicago? Would you like to be on our podcast? Get in touch!

Today we're talking about

• When to refactor
  • Joel Spolsky
  • Never Rewrite podcast
• Some of our worst job experiences
• A first try with AI. Sean starts on his MacOS Contacts replacement app.

David Vision and Sean Wolter are your hosts.

NSCoder Chicago is a monthly meetup. We'd love to see you in person! https://www.meetup.com/NSCoder-Chicago/ Are you a Mac or iOS dev in Chicago? Would you like to be on our podcast? Get in touch!

Today we're talking about

• Our software role models
  • Haxies and Unsanity
  • Delicious Monster and Wil Shipley
  • Hyperjeff's Mac OS X page
  • Ellen Shapiro
  • Monument Valley
  • Riley Testus
• Imposter syndrome
• One of us is so frustrated with Tahoe he's starting a new app

David Vision and Sean Wolter are your hosts.

NSCoder Chicago is a monthly meetup. We'd love to see you in person! https://www.meetup.com/NSCoder-Chicago/ Are you a Mac or iOS dev in Chicago? Would you like to be on our podcast? Get in touch!