Snap! Crackle! Popped! CNet hit with suit over portal name
The suit, filed in federal court in San Francisco Thursday, seeks to ban Cnet (Nasdaq:CNWK) from using the word "Snap" to describe its popular portal site. Snap Technologies, which runs the CollegeEdge Web site, said it received a trademark on the name "snap" in 1997 and actually began using the term in 1996.
A spokesman for CNet's Snap said the lawsuit was groundless.
Snap Technologies last week also filed an opposition to CNet's application to trademark certain uses of the word "snap" with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Finders keepers
CNet launched its Snap portal site in September 1997. At the time, the snap.com domain name was still available.
Since its launch, Snap has landed some major backers. In June, NBC bought a 19 percent stake in Snap for $6 million, with the option to raise it to 60 percent, as well as a 5 percent stake in CNet itself for $26 million.
In recent weeks, Snap has started a major promotion of the site on network television, thanks in part to the backing of NBC.
Snap Technologies CEO Young Shin said CNet's increased ad campaign prompted the company to file suit.
Mistaken identity
"The confusion is that our customers and people who use our services are mistaking CollegeEdge as being a subsidiary of CNet," he said. "It's becoming more urgent because of Snap's publicizing themselves."
Shin said he's worried that his customers in the education sector will shy away from his company if they think Snap Technologies, which uses the domain snapweb.com, is associated with commercialized sites such as CNet and NBC.
Snap Technologies has moved away from referring to itself as Snap in recent months. Many of its most recent press releases refer to the company and its site as CollegeEdge.
Squatters' rights
In disputes over domain names, the rights to a certain address usually go to the company that began using and trademarked the name first. Trademark infringement lawsuits involving domain names have become increasingly popular, especially as individuals known as "squatters" have bought up high-profile addresses in the hopes that a company with big pockets will by them out.
Network Solutions Inc. (Nasdaq:NSOL), the keeper of domain names, even has a policy of pulling a URL if a company can prove that it had the trademark first and therefore has the right to a certain Internet address. But NSI only gets involved when a company complains to it directly, not merely because a suit has been filed. NSI officials said there were no plans to pull the snap.com domain name.
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I've tried dozens of E Ink tablets, but this Android checks more of my boxes than any other
Boox Note Air5 C Tablet
ZDNET's key takeaways
- The Boox Note Air5 C is available for $530.
- It has an improved pen and writing experience, and is faster with less ghosting.
- The AI features aren't that useful, and the magnetic pen placement is a design flaw.
Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.
There's nothing like laying out a new planner with to-do lists and goals at the start of a new year. In the past, I would buy a new planner every year, but would eventually abandon filling it out by April.
In order for me to stick with a planner for the whole year, it has to offer completely customizable note-taking features, while allowing me to break down my priorities. Well, I think I've finally cracked the code to the perfect planner.
Also: I wasn't looking to replace my Kindle, but this Android e-reader made it easy
The new Boox Note Air5 C is an e-ink tablet that allows you to create pages upon pages of notes and templates in one single device, all optimized with features like AI-powered Smart Scribe tools powered by Android 15.
Digital paper tablets are getting more and more attention with brands like Kindle and ReMarkable, and there's even research to back up why. According to a 2025 study, participants who worked on digital paper tablets had 35% lower stress levels while completing their tasks, as well as a 30% reduction in cognitive load, compared to those who worked on computers.
What makes this particular Boox digital paper tablet stand out from older models is how it writes. I am a pen-to-paper person, and the combination of the Pen3 stylus and this tablet's screen makes it a true paperlike writing experience. That's because the pen has an improved texture surface with 4,096 levels of pressure and ultra-low latency to make it feel like you are writing on actual paper with a real ballpoint pen.
Also: The best digital notebooks you can buy
However, for those who prefer typing over writing, or who may have messier handwriting, you can get an attachable keyboard cover for even easier note-taking (sold separately for $110).
Aside from the note-taking aspect of the Boox Note Air5 C, it is a productivity machine. The side-by-side feature isn't anything new, but the Android 15 makes it faster and easier to navigate back and forth between different apps than other Boox products I've tested.
Going back to the note-taking aspect, the tablet has customizable features like color-coding, inserting links and attachments to notes, as well as layers, multiple notebooks, infinity canvas, tags/flags, etc., making it ideal for conceptual work and for journaling or research.
For the new year, I like to make a lot of lists, and I was able to make daily and weekly to-do lists, goals, calendars, a list of home projects, and a weekly grocery shopping list all in this one device, customizable to exactly how I like my lists, instead of a planner that has limited pages and set out page types that might not flow with how you create and organize.
Also: I tested the ReMarkable Paper Pro, and can't go back to 'real' paper - especially at this price
In terms of improvements from previous generations, there is a lot less e-ink ghosting in the Note Air5 C compared to other Boox Notes I've tested. It's also incredibly faster, especially while web browsing or using apps like Pinterest.
I have, on occasion, used the Boox Note Air5 C as an e-reader by downloading the Kindle app, but it can be a little too big and cumbersome to hold. However, I've found reading magazines on the Note Air 5 C is better suited, thanks to the 10.3-inch Kaleido 3 color display and the large screen size.
Also: The best tablets for note-taking
AI is, unsurprisingly, one of the device's most advertised features, but it leaves much to be desired. While you can use it for text recognition, to auto-perfect shapes, and to ask questions, I think it would be far more useful to ask the AI specifics, for example to "create a to-do list based on my January calendar." For now, the AI tasks are still very basic, and I didn't use them much during my testing.
In addition, the most secure magnetic attachment point for the pencil causes it to overlap with the volume down button, and pressing on it, which, if your settings aren't set just right, can end up adding 80+ pages to your notebook accidentally (this happened to me many times before I figured out why).
ZDNET's buying advice
Boox has become a standout brand for note-taking tablets, and the Note Air5 C is my new favorite model. Its color screen is bright and snappy, and the included pen feels like a premium experience. Although it comes with a high price for a note-taking tablet at $530, it's still $150 cheaper than competitor color e-ink devices like the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft and the ReMarkable Paper Pro.
If note-taking is a priority for you in the new year, I recommend the Boox Note Air5 C to be your go-to device. If you don't care about the color display or the attachable keyboard, however, the Boox Note Go 10.3 is another great option for $410.
Featured reviews
I used Claude Code to vibe code a Mac app in 8 hours, but it was more work than magic
Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.
ZDNET's key takeaways
- Vibe coding trades creativity for coordination and oversight.
- Performance and UI issues still demand human judgment.
- AI shines when developers relentlessly lead, test, and correct.
Over all my years in the software business, I've built software using two fundamental techniques. The first technique was writing code myself, line-by-line. I enjoy that practice, though it can be incredibly time-consuming. If you hit a flow state, you can really groove on the process.
The second technique was managing other coders. This was usually a force multiplier, because those developers were often better and faster at line-by-line coding than I was. I could manage a few developers, moving projects along faster.
But I didn't enjoy that practice as much. There was never a flow state. It was more like a constant level of planning, convincing, cajoling, correcting, and a bit of chaos. People are going to people, and if you're a manager, that's what you get.
Also: 10 things I wish I knew before trusting Claude Code to build my iPhone app
There is no flow state that comes from building a Mac app using AI with Claude Code. If you've ever managed programmers, you know what using Claude Code feels like. It is an enormous force multiplier, but you're going to spend most of your time cajoling and correcting, and some of your time trying to chart your way out of AI-generated chaos.
As with managing human programmers, you're going to be much more successful with Claude Code if you know how to code and you understand the underlying technology. That way, you can guide the AI on architectural and design decisions as well as simply defining features.
My ZDNET colleague Tiernan Ray recently tried his hand at vibe coding. He describes himself as a "newbie, with limited programming knowledge." His conclusion: "I will say that using these tools gave me a greater appreciation for programmers."
Also: I tried vibe coding an app as a beginner - here's what Cursor and Replit taught me
I'm telling you this to set expectations. I've been programming since the time of wooden ships and iron programmers. The benefits I, and by extension any experienced developer, will get from a tool like Claude Code may be available to intrepid hungry-to-learn non-programmers as well. But don't expect to wave a magic wand and get an app suitable for market just because you're using an AI.
With that, let's dive into my Mac project.
Starting with my iPhone app
I started with the iPhone app I previously built using Claude Code. The purpose of this app is to manage 3D printing filament spools dynamically. I have 120 spools that live on four storage racks of five shelves each. The spools are constantly moved between the racks and eight 3D printers, five of which can use four spools at once, one which can use eight spools, and two which are limited to just one spool each.
The iPhone app uses NFC tags to make it super easy to track the movement of these spools and uses the built-in camera to grab images of each spool for reference. I've been using this app daily for about two months now, and it's a huge win for my workflow.
Also: Vibe coding feels magical, but it can sink your business fast - here's how
But now, I want to make it work on the Mac. I also want to make it work on my Apple Watch, but that's a story for a different article.
I initiate most of my print jobs over the network from my Mac, so being able to clearly see what materials and colors I have available, and what's already been allocated, can prove helpful. I could use my phone, of course. But I'd like to be able to just open a Mac application on my desktop and see what I have in inventory.
The iPhone app is built using Swift and SwiftUI in Apple's Xcode development environment. I use Claude Code in the terminal, where it works with Xcode to write the code.
Porting to the Mac
There is a lot of crossover between the Mac's UI and the iPhone UI, particularly when using Swift. Fortunately, porting to the Mac did not require an entire rewrite. But it did require a lot of rework.
First, there was the question of the Mac's limitations. My Mac Studio doesn't have a camera, and the Mac doesn't support NFC scanning. So while I wanted to retain the NFC and photo data gathered by the iPhone app, the Mac isn't able to scan or manage it.
I also wanted the Mac to sync instantly and completely with the iPhone app. Whatever spool data existed on the iPhone should be visible from the Mac. Fortunately, Apple has built a fairly extensive library for sharing data via iCloud.
Also: What is AI vibe coding? It's all the rage but it's not for everyone - here's why
I knew I was going to want to share my data when I started the iPhone app, so I built the iCloud architecture into the iPhone app from the beginning. When I started with the Mac app, it was just a matter of tapping into that data and bringing it down to the computer as well as the phone.
That was my starting point. I made sure to make a full backup of the app directory. I also checked everything into GitHub for source control and management.
Then I fired up Claude Code, told it I wanted it to branch my local Git repo, and explained I wanted to build a Mac app based on the work done on the iPhone app. As part of that first prompt, I explained that NFC and camera features didn't need to be ported, but the iCloud architecture would be.
It started out pretty ugly.
Ten minutes later, I had a Mac app. It was crap. It looked terrible. Every time the spool list came up, it took forever to fill in. But getting from nothing to first run in ten minutes took about ten days less than it would have taken me had I done it line-by-line.
More ugly interface. Fortunately, it gets better.
Alternating between functionality and UI
It took a few rounds of running Xcode's build tool, waiting for its inevitable errors and warnings, sharing those errors and warnings with Claude, and repeating. But after a while, the app was functional, although nothing like what I wanted to eventually end up with.
One area that Claude had some initial difficulty with was reconciling that the Mac has windows that resize. As such, the UI elements have to scale and resize accordingly. This is where building up Claude's knowledge base became enormously important.
Also: 10 professional developers on vibe coding's true promise and peril
As I did with the iPhone app, I instructed Claude Code to build in notes and status updates about everything it worked on, as well as lessons we learned. So once Claude finally understood that windows resize, that became a rule embedded in the project instructions.
On the iPhone, you transition from screen to screen, all in a vertical orientation. But on the Mac, I chose to make a three-pane screen. The left pane contains the main option buttons, the middle pane contains the list of spools, and the rightmost pane contains the spool data.
Even the settings look good now.
It didn't take too long to get that working, but it took a large number of rounds of back-and-forth prompts to get it to look nice. There isn't any one particularly standout prompt I can share with you, but I can tell you that I described what I wanted to see, had it move and rearrange items, and add styling to sections of the display. I did that with Claude a lot.
Also: I let Anthropic's Claude Cowork loose on my files, and it was both brilliant and scary
Unfortunately, adding the three-pane display to the Mac implementation somehow broke the iPhone app. Here's where being a programmer helps, because I finally figured out that Claude was probably trying to share screens across apps. When I explicitly told it to create new interface screens for the Mac and then repair the iPhone ones, things worked much better.
Architecturally, we had to deal with speed issues. The spool list was slow because it loaded full-resolution photos for every row. The fix was a thumbnail caching system that creates small 128-pixel versions of photos, stores them on disk, and generates them in the background so the list scrolls smoothly even with hundreds of spools.
We also had to explore how to refresh that list, reduce wait time for image creation, and add purging features.
Managing, not coding
At the beginning of this article, I mentioned my two modes of software creation: coding and managing. When working with Claude Code, I spent most of my time managing.
In fact, the best mindset I could find was one where I treat the AI the same way I'd treat a remote human programmer. I gave it assignments. I asked questions. I asked for its opinion. I pointed out errors. I tested, tested, and tested some more. Then I tested again.
Also: The best free AI for coding in 2025 - only 3 make the cut now
Claude did as well in producing this project as any programmer I've assigned work to in the past. There were times when Claude was obtuse and stubborn, but my human programmers had similar moments of uncooperativeness.
Without a doubt, managing the AI was not nearly as pleasant an experience as coding on my own. On the other hand, we created a full Mac app that does exactly what I want in about 8 hours of project time, spread over about a month of real time.
If you're thinking about making a Mac app with Claude Code, or any AI for that matter, my recommendation is that you work slowly, add features one-by-one, and refine. Then, once the project reaches a somewhat functional state, switch 90% of your attention to testing. Don't assume that anything will be built as you have asked. Claude left out some key features and didn't implement them until I pointed them out to it.
Also: Coding with AI? My top 5 tips for vetting its output - and staying out of trouble
But without a doubt, the productivity benefits were huge. I have a special custom-purpose app now on my iPhone and my Mac designed specifically for my workflow. And it works. I still haven't decided if I want to turn it into a product or not, but even if I never sell it, the few hundred bucks I spent on Claude Code Max over the past three months has definitely been worth it.
Stay tuned. My next project is moving my app to the Apple Watch.
What about you? Have you tried building an app using AI tools like Claude Code, either as a developer or as someone still learning to code? Did it feel more like collaborating with a teammate or managing one? What worked well for you, what broke in unexpected ways, and do you see yourself trusting AI for larger projects? Let us know in the comments below.
You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to subscribe to my weekly update newsletter, and follow me on Twitter/X at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, on Bluesky at @DavidGewirtz.com, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.
