I know it is a cliché that as you get older things seem to change much quicker than they used to. At least from where I sit (which is on a fairly big pile of modern technology), there really does seem to be something to that.
I recently was away and essentially offline for a week or so and I am just getting back to my ’normal’ routine today. I was amazed by how much was waiting for me:
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Updates to most of the major software that I use, which is not surprising since things like ChatGPT, Docker Desktop, VSCode seem to update on a weekly (if not daily) basis. Notable was a major update for Warp (the AI tool that I use) - it seems to be turning into a full-fledged development environment specialized for vibe coding.
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New announcements of iPhones etc from Apple. While my current iPhone still works fine for me, it is 7 years old and cannot run the latest iOS 26. So I decided that it was time to upgrade. I pre-ordered a base model iPhone 17, which I’m sure will more than meet my needs. I’m looking forward to modernizing my phone, it will certainly be more AI-capable than my current phone, as iPhones have had Neural Engines (Apple-speak for NPUs) for several generations now. I will say though that so far Apple’s attempts at AI have not impressed me. I’m hoping that they deliver on their AI promises soon.
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Apple also released macOS 26 and iPadOS 26. While I didn’t upgrade my music studio Mac Mini yet for fear of incompatibilities with the music software that I run on it, I did upgrade my MacBook and my iPad. It then took me most of the day just to get familiar with the changes, and I still haven’t really decided if/how the new features will affect my usage patterns.
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After an unusually long 4 year wait since the previous release, Microsoft Visual Studio 2026 is available for preview. The big-ticket new feature is better Copilot AI integration, including having AI help with things like performance profiling, which could be interesting. I will give it a spin when it goes to general release.
I admit that for a while today, I felt almost overwhelmed by how much came to pass while I was AFK. It was an unfamiliar feeling, something like “man, I just can’t keep up with all this - it’s all happening too fast!”. But then I came to my senses and threw more money at Apple.
It made me wonder though, are technological changes really coming faster now, or am I experiencing the first symptoms of the fairly well-documented decrease in the ability of people to cope with change as they age? I’m going to deny the latter, embrace the former, and blame it on AI. Most of the recent developments that I listed above have AI behind them somehow. Personally, I felt I could easily keep up with technological changes (and even impatiently await some technological changes that weren’t happening fast enough!) right up until I became more involved with AI. Never mind the fact that this time coincided with my mostly-retirement. I personally think that AI has been following a steeper-than-exponential growth curve, and I’m not even at the ‘bleeding edge’ of AI where I’m sure the pace is even faster.
It is likely that I really will be overwhelmed by new technology at some point, and give up trying to embrace it and integrate it into my life. But not today. Today I refuse to go quietly into that dark technological night! Bring on the next wave - I’m still in this race.
