[VIDEO] This is an excellent explainer, soup to nuts, about Apple’s move from Intel to ARM (video embedded in main Loop post). Per usual for Rene, this is packed with detail, but is ultimately rewarding.
Absolutely worth your time. One question remains for me: Does Apple need a Windows story anymore?
Apple:
It wouldn’t be WWDC without a little music. Bring Khalid and The Killers into your living room and create your very own musical conference experience with the WWDC20 playlist collection, now available on Apple Music. The opening WWDC20 playlist features great artists like Glass Animals and Alicia Keys, and includes Aurora from this year’s opening video.
In addition, Apple Music is celebrating the powerful connection the development community has to music with a new “Music to Code to” series, which features several multi-hour playlists featuring different musical styles and genres.
If you are on an iOS device, follow this link to get to the official WWDC music playlist page.
Interestingly, if you follow the link on a Mac, you’ll get to an XML dump, but no musical joy.
[VIDEO] The Verge’s Dieter Bohn takes the iOS 14 beta through its paces. Pretty watchable, and he covers a lot of ground, with sections on widgets, jiggle mode, editing app pages, app libraries, and much more.
Good way to learn about the iOS 14 interface. Video embedded in main Loop post.
To check your firmware version number:
I was on 2D15 this morning, firmware update to 2D27 happened pretty immediately once I was connected. Your mileage may vary.
First things first, take a minute to read this official Senate Judiciary Committee explainer. It’s actually not that long and pretty readable.
At its heart:
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and U.S. Senators Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) today introduced the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act, a bill to bolster national security interests and better protect communities across the country by ending the use of “warrant-proof” encrypted technology by terrorists and other bad actors to conceal illicit behavior.
Now go read John Gruber’s headline-linked take. At its heart:
This is breathtaking. At least they’re being somewhat clear here: they’re proposing outlawing all end-to-end encryption. Encryption that is “warrant-proof” is everything-proof — there are no decryption keys in the middle. Encryption that can be undone at the behest of a lawful warrant can also be undone by anyone with access to the keys.
The way I read it, this would require device manufacturers (like Apple) to build in some mechanism to allow them to (as the result of a warrant) break encryption. This is no small thing. This would break Apple’s privacy foundation.
Keep your eyes on this one.
[VIDEO] First things first, that’s Serenity Caldwell doing the voiceover on that video (embedded in main Loop post). Great to hear her in her new role at Apple.
As to the video itself, it’s fantastic. To me, it’s like a 15 second, quick cut, high energy iPhone commercial, stretched out to almost 2 minutes. And every bit as enjoyable.
[VIDEO] Rene doing what he does best: Talk through a bunch of detail, this time on iOS 14. Lots and lots of detail, worth watching all the way through.
One bit that struck me, albeit more for the macOS implications than what it does for iOS. Rene raises the issue of Safari changing codes, from H.265 to AV1. Question is, will I be able to finally see 4K YouTube videos in macOS Safari? Seems likely.
Anyway, lots to process in the video embedded in the main Loop post. Good stuff.
Brian Barrett, Wired:
Apple outlined several failsafes to ensure as few bumps along that road as possible. It will ship Rosetta 2, an emulator that will let ARM-based Macs run Intel software from any lagging developers. It will allow for virtualization of Linux, although Apple has been mum as to whether Macs will continue to be able to load Windows through Boot Camp or virtualization software. Most intriguingly—and unexpectedly—iPhone and iPad apps will be able to run natively on a Mac.
And, on the Roseta 2 emulator:
“It translates the apps when you install them so they can launch immediately and be instantly responsive,” said Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi during Monday’s keynote. “Rosetta 2 can also can also translate code on the fly when needed, like web browsing. It even handles the most complex pro apps and their plug-ins.”
And:
There’s also a question of at what point certain apps, in particular those that aren’t actively maintained, simply stop working on ARM-based Macs.
Terrific article. I’ve been watching developers download and install macOS 11 Big Sur (yes, it’s macOS 11), then jump through the hoops to build ARM versions of their existing apps. Without the actual Mac mini Developer Transition Kit in hand, hard to know if the ported apps actually work, but (grain of salt) assuming the ports do work on ARM hardware, this looks like a reasonably pain free port for mainstream apps.
I’ve got an app in the hopper, waiting to try for myself.
[VIDEO] Apple:
Today at WWDC20, Apple surprised audiences with a first look at “Foundation,” the highly anticipated Apple Original drama series based on the internationally revered and award-winning Isaac Asimov novel series of the same name.
In the teaser trailer, showrunner and executive producer David S. Goyer unveils a glimpse into the making of the epic saga, which chronicles a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire.
For folks new to Isaac Asimov’s all-time great science fiction series, spend a bit of time on the Foundation Wikipedia page.
This Apple TV+ series has vaulted to the top of my can’t wait list.
The teaser trailer is embedded in the main Loop post. Enjoy.
Lots of interesting comments, but this one struck me:
People who rely on running Windows apps on their Macs, however, will not find a comforting story. Apple made a point of highlighting virtualization features that are built into macOS Big Sur running on Apple Silicon, but these seem to be for virtualizing operating systems built for Apple’s processors, not for emulating an operating system built for a different processor. I would imagine that, eventually, there will be a way to run Windows on ARM Macs–but it may take a while and it may be a slow, frustrating experience when it does arrive.
The fact that Apple demoed Linux running on an ARM Mac, and showed off Office apps but not Windows, was certainly noticeable. I’d love to know if there’s a plan in place to install Windows on an ARM Mac, or if that’s a dead path.
HEY blog, this morning (hours before the WWDC keynote), a post from Basecamp CEO Jason Fried:
Late Friday night, on June 19th, Apple’s App Store Review Board surprised us by approving the pending bug fixes to the HEY iOS app that were held up all last week.
The note from Apple:
Hello Jason,
We’ve seen David’s tweets and look forward to working with you on a path forward.
This update has been approved.
Sincerely,
App Review Board
The tweets in question were from @dhh in response to last week’s response from Phil Schiller.
For HEY and for Apple, this seems the best possible outcome, especially given the proximity to the WWDC keynote.
And the letter ends on the best possible note:
And Phil, we set aside an amazing @hey.com address for you. Free for life, our gift to you. Lemme know.
Obviously, this addresses one specific bump in the road. The question remains, will Apple hold fast, or will we see any App Store policy changes this week?
As of this post, Apple’s web site is still up. In past years, this has typically meant no new hardware for immediate ordering. We shall see.
The keynote begins at 10a PT, 1p ET.
If you’ve got an Apple TV, watch in the Apple TV app (if you fire up the Apple Events app, you should get redirected). The event should pop up as we get closer to go time.
If you’re watching in browser, jump to Apple’s official Apple Events web site to watch there.
And checkout Michael Potuck’s 9to5Mac post for even more options.
New York Times:
Apple has been working for years on designing chips to replace the Intel microprocessors used in Mac computers, according to five people with knowledge of the effort.
Oddly specific number. But no matter.
Apple’s move is an indication of the growing power of the biggest tech companies to expand their abilities and reduce their dependence on major partners that have provided them with services for years — even as smaller competitors and the global economy struggle because of the coronavirus pandemic.
And that’s really the core of this story.
Facebook, for example, is investing billions of dollars into one of Indonesia’s fastest-growing apps, a telecom giant in India and an undersea fiber-optic cable around Africa. Amazon has built out its own fleet of cargo planes and delivery trucks. And Google and Apple continue to buy upstarts to expand their empires.
Logical for Apple to want to own the full stack. If it was financially prudent to make all their supply-chain elements themselves, and do all the manufacturing in house, even mine all the materials they use, why wouldn’t they?
But as corporate behemoths grow, the mom and pops of the world fall by the wayside. Interesting read.
Brent Simmons:
The best part of the App Store, years ago, from this developer’s point of view, was that it was easy to charge money for an app. No need to set up a system — just choose the price, and Apple takes care of everything. So easy!
Ah, the good old days. Before the race to the bottom.
But these days, in almost all cases, you’d be ill-advised to charge up front for your app. You need a trial version and in-app purchasing (IAP) and maybe a subscription.
Here’s the thing: this is a massive pain in the ass to implement, test, and support — Apple does not make it easy.
It is harder and harder to make a living building apps. Apple expects a lot from their developers. And if an ARM-based Mac shows up, that’s yet another wrinkle in an already complicated model.
Will Apple talk about the App Store this week, beyond touting numbers? Will we see a “We hear you, and here’s what we’re doing about it” moment?
[VIDEO] Tim Cook, on CBS Sunday Morning yesterday:
I’m full of secrets and it’s hard not to overflow right now. But I’ve been trained well.”
This is a big moment. Connecting with developers amid rising tensions, and with huge (rumored) ARM-based Mac news to share. And if that latter news is true, Apple is about to ask developers to shoulder some potentially heavy burdens, that of rebuilding their apps to support a brand new architecture.
While porting your app to support ARM might be as simple as checking a check box and rebuilding, that view seems optimistic. More likely, this change will require more testing hardware purchases, and more time spent porting, tweaking, and testing. More time preparing and sending out beta versions to a limited universe of folks with the right hardware.
Watch the interview, embedded in the main Loop post. Keep in mind, this was yesterday. Tim and company read the blogs, he knows the lay of the land.
It’ll be an interesting afternoon, and an interesting week.
[VIDEO] Rene shares his thoughts on what he’d like to see from Apple where macOS is concerned. Worth watching. Video embedded in the main Loop post.
But to me, the even more worth watching part is the Lion’s share of the open (pun intended), where Rene riffs about all those Apple OS nicknames. A great history lesson, with some OS names you might not have been aware of.
Reddit user:
Last night I accidentally deleted my entire library of photos, many of which are (obviously) very important to me.
What follows is a long slow car crash, a combination of misunderstanding where your original photos are stored and, perhaps, ignoring some error messages that would have prevented this situation.
I post this, not to harp on the confusing language of iCloud (it can be confusing, no doubt), but to point out how this user got their photos back.
First, here’s how deleted the photos were:
After freeing up space by deleting my entire photo library on the Macbook, I look at my phone and realize it’s all deleted there as well. Of course, I had also gone to the “recently deleted” and removed all of them because I was trying to free the space on the Mac.
Yup. Those photos are deleted. A backup of your Mac might help here, but set that aside for now.
I called Apple immediately, and was quickly escalated to something along the lines of a “media specialist for iPhoto and iTunes” – honestly it was a very long title, but something like that. He said they have something called “the magic button” which is a level of iCloud that regular users can’t see. The iCloud file recover function didn’t work for me either btw, forgot to mention that.
A magic button you say! First time I’ve heard of this. Interesting.
After he pressed this “magic button”, all the photos came back into my recently deleted section, and I just restored them back to the library.
That’s worth noting. Me, I keep all my original pictures and music on my Mac, then back up that Mac religiously. I have my original music/photo libraries backed up off site, too.
Juli Clover, MacRumors:
Apple plans to offer a self-guided activity book for kids to complete, along with live virtual sessions with Apple Store Creatives.
Live sessions, which will be hosted over Webex, will last for 30 to 60 minutes, while the activity book Apple has created is a Pages document that kids can complete at their own pace.
The camp is designated for kids ages 8-12. Visit the official sign-up page to get notified when registration opens.
I got to believe those slots will fill up quickly.
Lots to process here. Start off with this tweet, from Basecamp partner and HEY (email client) creator David Heinemeier Hansson:
https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1272968382329942017
Read the thread followups for the whole story.
Next up, take a read of this explainer from Business Insider.
And with that in mind, check out these two Daring Fireball posts, first here, then here.
There’s been a river of reaction to this situation, some pro Apple (no one is forcing you to put your app on the App Store, but if you do, follow Apple’s rules) and many con (explained in all the links above).
This feels like an inevitable moment of change for the App Store. The question is, will Apple get ahead of the situation and negotiate that change themselves, or will they resist and minimize any change, pay the fine and keep their model as is?
Click the post, then tap the play button. Wait for the model to load, then play. You can rotate the model to see all sides, and pinch to zoom to get closer to the art.
https://twitter.com/spencerlindsay/status/1272618150043848705
I love that Apple is fostering this work. And props to Spencer Lindsay for building this model so we can all see this up close.
Bookmark the headline link. Click to set a reminder. Not that you’d forget, but for some of us a good idea.
Cade Metz, New York Times:
Sitting alone in her bedroom, she stumbled onto an internet video describing a smartphone app called Replika. The app’s sole purpose, the video said, is to be her friend.
Ms. Francola was skeptical. But the app was free, and it offered what she needed most: conversation. She spent the day chatting with the app via text messages — mostly about her problems, hopes and anxieties. The next day, she paid an $8 monthly fee so she could actually talk with it, as if she were chatting with someone on the telephone.
At first blush, this seemed a non-starter. $8 a month for a chatbot?
But reading on, and chewing on the concept, I do get the need here. Loneliness is a powerful, debilitating force, especially in the time of COVID-19. And companionship can be just what the doctor ordered.
The question is, can chatbots cross the uncanny valley, feel real enough that you lose sight of the artificial nature of who you’re chatting with?
Way back in the day, Apple made this amazing concept video called Knowledge Navigator. If you’ve never seen the video, take a few minutes to watch it. It’s from 1987, in the very early days of Macintosh.
The dream was to create an assistant that was completely artificial, but felt human. We are still far from that reality. But the evolution of chatbots seems a slender bridge to that future.
For whatever reason, reminds me of this.
Of all the names I’ve seen suggested, my favorite is lockdown-related: macOS Alcatraz.
I wish we had similar naming schemes for iOS, iPad OS, tvOS, etc. Also, remember BHA?
We’ll find out a week from today!
Apple:
When the Apple 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off on June 22 in a new virtual format, a global community of 23 million developers will have the opportunity to join from around the world for free through the Apple Developer app and the Apple Developer website.
23 million developers. That is an amazing number, especially when I think back to that tiny developer universe when the first iPhone SDK rolled out back in March, 2008.
Among them will be 350 Swift Student Challenge winners from 41 different countries and regions. The students were chosen based on their original Swift playground submission, part of Apple’s annual WWDC student challenge, which recognizes and celebrates the next generation of coders and creators.
This is one of my favorite parts of WWDC, the opportunity for the newest generation of developers to show off their skills.
Want to learn to program? Fire up your iPad and check out Swift Playgrounds. It’s a wonderful way to get started.
From a study commissioned by Apple, but independent in nature:
Originally offering approximately 500 apps for the iPhone and iPod touch, the App Store has grown to distribute millions of apps for the full suite of Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac laptops and desktops, and Apple Watch) in 175 countries. Cumulative downloads are in the hundreds of billions.
And:
The goal of this study is to capture total billings and sales generated through app developers’ various monetization strategies. In other words, our purpose is to estimate total billings and sales facilitated by the Apple App Store ecosystem. Our study accounts for billings generated through direct monetization via the App Store and sales generated through monetization outside the App Store.
With that last point in mind:
We estimate that the Apple App Store ecosystem facilitated more than $500 billion in billings and sales worldwide in 2019. More than 85% of that accrues solely to third parties.
Jaw dropping numbers, especially considering how lean times got before Steve Jobs’ return and the rollout of the colorful iMac, the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, etc.
Apple has really blossomed.
Over the weekend, Daniel Eran Dilger, writing for AppleInsider, shared a post titled, Apple’s shift to ARM Mac from Intel at WWDC will define a decade of computing.
The whole thing is worth reading, but this bit captured a historic sequence, one that I’m sure Intel regrets:
The first was the iPhone, which Apple initially wanted to power with an Intel-built XScale chip. Intel’s chief executive at the time, Paul Otellini, initially said no to Apple, fearing that its phone project wouldn’t be successful enough to justify Intel’s investment.
That turned out to be wildly mistaken. Within just a couple of years, Apple’s success with the iPhone was so obvious that Intel itself desperately wanted to work with Apple on future mobile products, particularly its upcoming tablet. Intel expected Apple to select its upcoming x86 Silverthorne mobile chip, later renamed as Atom.
But this time Apple said “no” to Intel, and instead initiated the development of a project to build a new customized ARM “System on a Chip” that could power both its upcoming iPad and subsequently iPhone 4. The project was delivered in 2010 as A4.
This definitely goes down in my book as one of the biggest missed bets in tech history.
Jean-Louis Gassée:
From a PR perspective, the transition to ARM looks like a delicate balancing exercise. If Apple announces the move six months before the first ARM-based machines are scheduled to emerge, how will that effect current Mac sales?
A new Mac always raises this question, especially with a new Mac that is more than a speed bump. And more so if Apple releases a Mac that moves from Intel to ARM.
Jean-Louis brings up the fabled story of Adam Osborne, who brought the world the first commercially successful portable computer, but whose company crashed and burned.
In 1983, the polymath entrepreneur managed to kill sales of his creation by promising that its successors, the Osborn Executive and the Osborne Vixen, would be even better, Just You Wait! The pitch was so persuasive that customers did indeed wait. Sales collapsed and so did Osborne’s business.
Some say this is more fable than truth. From the Osborne Wikipedia page:
according to some new sources the real reason for Osborne Computer’s bankruptcy was management errors and insufficient cash flow.
Given how long a lead time Apple is said to be offering from announcement to release, it seems this will not be any more of a concern than previous experiences. Apple is a master of the product pipeline.
On a related note, an imagined hardware Developer Transition Kit (via DF), based on the ARM 12Z and housed in a headless device (Apple TV or Mac mini enclosure). This makes eminent sense to me. Pure speculation, but still.
Speculation aside, a key takeaway is the idea that a first ARM Mac need not replace the entire Mac product line. It might be a laptop. Or it might be a Mac mini. Or it might not even be.
[VIDEO] From the description of the trailer (video embedded in main Loop post):
A love letter to the diverse musicality of New York starring Brittany O’Grady, Sean Teale, Colton Ryan, Shalini Bathina, Kevin Valdez, Phillip Johnson Richardson and Chuck Cooper, “Little Voice” follows Bess King, a uniquely talented performer struggling to fulfill her dreams while navigating rejection, love, and complicated family issues. Featuring original music by Grammy and Tony Award nominee, Sara Bareilles, this is a story about finding your authentic voice—and the courage to use it.
This is mostly a taste of Sara Bareilles performing, with cut together visuals of characters from the upcoming show. No sense of the characters, who they are, what drives the show plot. The barest of teasers. For a show that premieres in just a few weeks, seems like we’d see more of the actual content by now.
The show premieres July 10th. Hoping it’s worth the wait.
Conner Carey, iPhone Life, in a post from a year back:
The Do Not Disturb function on iPhone allows you to silence all incoming calls, texts, and notifications. Here’s how to bypass Do Not Disturb for individual contacts using a feature called Emergency Bypass. This allows the people designated to reach you on your iPhone even if your Do Not Disturb settings are set to silence calls and texts from everyone.
Obviously, this has been around for a while, but the discoverability is pretty low, thought it worth posting. Here’s the details:
(Note that “Add to Emergency Contacts” is on this page. Not what we’re going for, that’s for the Health app and emergency responders)
Emergency Bypass allows sounds and vibrations from this person even when the ring switch is set to silent, or when Do Not Disturb is on.
Since you’ve come this far, take a minute to visit:
Settings > Do Not Disturb
Note the Allow Calls From setting, which defaults to your Favorites list. Slightly different from Emergency Bypass. This is about phone calls. Odd to me that they are not integrated in some way.
No matter, thought this was worth a visit.
Though this post is written from a software developer’s perspective, it is quite readable even if you’ve never written a line of code. And if you are interested in a potential Arm-based Mac, it’s short and worth your time.
If I had to cherry-pick one highlight:
Assertion: ARM Macs will exclusively run Catalyst apps.
The thinking goes, since major apps like Microsoft Word and Photoshop already have versions on the iPad, it would be a piece of cake for them to recompile and run on MacOS as Catalyst apps.
This would be a serious downgrade for users of these apps on MacOS, and would be a major departure from the way the apps currently behave on MacOS. And even with Catalyst, it’s still a lot of work for an iPad app to look and feel like a Mac app. You’re still going to need a team to make sure everything ports correctly, in addition to adding all the missing functionality that your users would expect to be there. I just don’t see this happening.
WWDC, and the answers it’ll bring, is a week and a half away.