Our hope for the future.
Development
Results from the great Mac developer survey
Lots and lots of data here, gathered from more than 7,000 developers. Interesting read, visually well presented.
Speculating on how Siri works, getting to an API for everyone
If you are at all interested in how Siri works, and how it could work eventually, I highly recommend this read.
5,000 developers talk about their salaries
Perhaps the most important takeaway:
Even when you control for location, title, and years of experience, women still get $5,000 less per year than men.
Magic Leap, the world’s most secretive startup
This is a massive peek inside the current state of Virtual Reality and Magic Leap’s so-called Mixed Reality. I found the whole thing fascinating, especially the insider info on how VR tricks your brain into believing what you are seeing is really happening.
Apple’s mysterious rollout of tvOS app web links/previews
Federico Viticci, writing for MacStories:
Apple has begun rolling out web links and iTunes web previews for Apple TV apps. The change, first noticed by Jeff Scott and which we were able to confirm via Safari on OS X, allows users to link to tvOS apps in a web browser, which will show an iTunes Preview with screenshots, app description, and other information.
Why is this self-discovery for tvOS developers? Puzzling rollout.
A game you can play in your iPhone’s pulldown Notification Center
There’s a free game that will run in Notification Center on your iPhone. Read the post for the link and install instructions.
Apple’s WWDC press release
Interesting quote from Phil Schiller. Live streaming of sessions. Looking forward to this.
Official Reddit app ships. Apple pulls 3rd party Reddit apps to remove NSFW toggle
Interesting timing. Reddit ships their app, Apple pulls a bunch of third party apps from the app store. Why?
Google said to be considering Swift as a first class language for Android
Nate Swanner, writing for The Next Web:
About the time Swift was going open source, representatives for three major brands — Google, Facebook and Uber — were at a meeting in London discussing the new language. Sources tell The Next Web that Google is considering making Swift a “first class” language for Android, while Facebook and Uber are also looking to make Swift more central to their operations.
Lots of implications here.
Microsoft’s troubled AI chatbot briefly hacked this morning, then shut down
Microsoft tied an artificial intelligence to a Twitter account, trolls turned it bad, they shut it down. Until late last night, when Tay suddenly woke.
More than 500 Apple II programs, ready to run in your browser
This is extraordinarily exciting for me. Of course, as a long, long time Apple user, I’m thrilled for the chance to play some old and deeply loved games from my past.
But coolness of all coolness, at least one of these is a game I helped write!!!
Intuit sells Quicken to company promising to double size of Mac engineering staff
Color me cautiously optimistic. Quicken was a “Mac last” outcast under Intuit.
Apple’s app review process needs big improvements
Graham Spencer, writing for MacStories:
Earlier this year we set out to get a better understanding of what developers think about App Review. We wanted to hear about their positive and negative experiences with App Review, and find out how App Review could be improved. It is hard to ignore from the results we got, from a survey of 172 developers, that beneath the surface there is a simmering frustration relating to numerous aspects of App Review.
Great, long read.
Life and death in the App Store
A well written exploration of the stratification that’s come to the App Store. It’s tougher than ever to make a living building apps.
A third party iOS app store that evaded Apple’s official App Store review process
Dave Verwer:
Claud Xiao wrote about an app released late last year which presented one of two sets of functionality based on your location. When launched outside China it showed a fully featured app to help you learn English, but inside China it showed an App Store style app that (ab)used enterprise certificates to install pirated apps.
Wow!
Apple’s elephant in the room
Is Apple software quality declining? I think not.
How to make a website when you don’t know how to code
Serenity Caldwell continues her “Coding Corner” series with a how-to on building a website if you don’t know the first thing about web site development. Pass this one along.
The ticking time bomb of Parse shutting down
What happens to apps that are dependent on Parse when Parse shuts off its service for good? There are a LOT of apps in this category.
Facebook shutters Parse, pulls the rug out from under about 600,000 apps
You might not be familiar with Parse, but you no doubt make use of it every day. Facebook is shuttering the service and that means a lot of apps will either have to reinvent the wheel or shut down.
On pricing an iOS app
Tough to know the right apps to develop and to find the right pricing sweet spot at which to sell them.
How to learn to code when you have no idea where to start
I absolutely love this. Please pass this along.
The rise of Swift, the fall of Objective-C
The TIOBE Index lays out the fall of Objective-C usage and the somewhat smaller rise of Swift. Interesting numbers.
Apple opening Europe’s first iOS app development center in Italy
Apple is investing heavily in bringing iOS dev to the masses, so far announcing sites in Brazil, Indonesia, and now in Naples, Italy.
Screenshot shows Facebook building Messenger for Mac
If true, always good to see major Mac projects.
Reverse engineering the date for WWDC
My take on the likeliest week for WWDC this year, based on the booking schedule for Moscone West.
On Apple’s Phil Schiller taking over the App Stores
Some thoughts on the politics of Phil Schiller taking over the App Stores, and the opportunity for change that comes with it.
Full transcript of John Gruber, Craig Federighi interview
Big thanks to whoever took the time to type all this in.
Craig Federighi talks open source Swift and what’s coming in version 3.0
Andrew Cunningham, writing for Ars Technica, had the chance to sit down with Apple Senior VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi to discuss Apple’s move to make Swift open source.
Great read, a terrific move by Apple. This will only make Swift a better language.
Swift is now officially open source
Apple’s primary programming language, Swift, is now open source. Big news for the dev community.