The Bulletin
​for 16 Feb, 2025

Hey you,

I think that's a long enough break. Welcome back to my flagship newsletter, The Bulletin. Where every Sunday, I give you the rundown on the last week in my life, share links, and music recommendations! It's always a great time!

If you're new here, welcome! My name is Slade, I'm kind of a nerd. I love cycling and am so excited that you found me.

Without further ado...

Notable blog posts from me...

• ​SladeWatkins.com, and my branding as a whole, gets a visual refresh. Bulletin, next!
• ​Sometimes, I'd rather use my Pixel. iPhone drives me nuts, I suppose.

Of course, these are just some highlights. If you'd like more from me throughout the week, including a flowing stream of links, visit SladeWatkins.com/posts!

Things I found across the net...

Mostly tech this week! It's interesting, though, promise.

• Rumor has it that Apple may introduce the 4th generation iPhone SE on Wednesday, likely in a standalone YouTube video and/or press release. We'll see, I suppose. Worth noting, it did leak by way of Spigen, so we're basically waiting on confirmation. I'm always skeptical of rumors, though...
• Google's testing a small design refresh within the Phone app on Pixel devices (and any Android device that runs Phone by Google). Via 9to5Google, this refresh adds a Material 3 search bar and filters to the call history tab, such as for Missed calls, calls from Contacts, or Spam.
• John Gruber apparently likes the Fox scorebug they used during the Super Bowl -- and honestly, I have to respectfully disagree. As someone with vision problems, white text with a gold border on red background for the Chiefs was very difficult to read. They should at least add the team logos back for some contrast, it'd make it look less like it was thrown together in a rush.
• Apple deleted their support article on the ByteDance apps, even though it's technically still law. Usually they just update the article with more information. In this case, they'd mention it's only temporarily back but they outright deleted it this time for whatever reason. It's a weird, and incredibly worrying (for other reasons) move. I'm going to keep an eye on them.

What I'm listening to...

I listen to a lot of music. Here’s what I’m currently listening to—usually on repeat—for the week of 16 February, 2025…

• ​Abracadabra, by Lady Gaga
• ​Dream a Little Dream of Me, cover by Cass Elliot
• ​Hell N Back, by Bakar feat. Summer Walker
• ​Romance is Dead, by Paloma Faith
• ​Colorado, by Reneé Rapp
• ​My Type, by The Chainsmokers feat. Emily Warren
• ​Wet Socks, by The Ocho
• ​Me, Myself, by Danna Paola & MIKA

Thanks to Odesli for making these links platform agnostic! For library stats, you can find me on last.fm.

Finally, I end this off by saying that someone pretty important in the tech industry expected answered my email the other day... Definitely the biggest surprise of my week. Not sure how to feel about that!

Until next time,
Slade