The Talk Show:
John Gruber is joined by Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak to discuss the news from WWDC 2020: the Mac’s transition to Apple silicon, MacOS 11 Big Sur, iOS and iPadOS 14, and more.
John Vorhees:
In response to commentators who believe that Apple is merging iOS and macOS or abandoning the Mac, Federighi rattled off a long list of projects related to the Mac, commenting, “We love the Mac and we’re all in.” Joswiak added, “We’re far from bored with the Mac; it’s in our DNA.”
Federighi also addressed the relationship of Catalyst, SwiftUI, AppKit, and UIKit for developers, explaining that there is no single correct path. He said that the best path depends on where developers start. For example, some developers have invested heavily in AppKit and will probably want to stick with it, while UIKit developers may want to bring their apps to the Mac using Catalyst, whereas a new developer may want to start fresh with SwiftUI.
Previously:
Update (2020-07-09): John Gruber (tweet):
It doesn’t look or sound like a Zoom or FaceTime call that was simply recorded and played back.
A lot of folks noticed that, and have asked how we made it. I have good news and bad news. The good news is the answer is very simple and doesn’t require any expensive equipment. The bad news is it’s a lot of work.
Update (2020-07-27): Jesper:
Apple is judged by their actions, by their behavior and by their history, and in the absence of roadmaps and rationalizations, and in the recurring presence of re-contextualizations as new changes happen, the guessing game is the result. Every change turns into a proposed Chekov’s gun.
[…]
If you meet a person and they act a certain way, over time you learn to recognize that pattern in them. If you develop for Apple platforms and every year is a series of new inconveniences to manage just as much as it is new technology to consider adopting, you learn to assume a negative progression in convenience, utility and freedom, just as much as you have hopes for the advances in frameworks and hardware.
The “tools” Craig’s talking about have all seen the beginning of, effectively, the closing of the Mac as a platform. We know that Apple doesn’t like to dwell on the bets they make, and we know that Apple doesn’t usually back out of things. We’re waiting anxiously for the moment where the hammer drops. […] This bed is of Apple's own making.
ARM Macs Boot Camp Catalyst (Marzipan) Cocoa Craig Federighi Greg Joswiak Interview iOS iOS 14 Mac macOS 11.0 Big Sur SwiftUI WWDC
Marco Arment:
I bet they come to a compromise where neither side has to lose face and “back down”, such as Hey adding some free functionality such that the app can do something without a purchase but also without adding IAP. (Apple’s letter effectively invited them to do this.)
Jason Fried (also: David Heinemeier Hansson, Hacker News):
Phil Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, told us the kind of changes he’d love to see us make. His primary objection was “You download the app and it doesn’t work, that’s not what we want on the store.”
[…]
This new version introduces a new free option for the iOS app. Now users can sign up directly in-app for a free, temporary, randomized @hey.com email address that works for 14 days. Think of it like a temporary SIM card you buy when traveling. Or for when you don’t want to give out your real email address, like a short term “for sale” listing, like Craigslist does it.
Rory Prior:
This is not really a great look for either Apple or Hey. If the solution was just ‘add a demo’ (in all but name) then it’s more contorting of the rules to save face. Very much doubt this will become a blanket exception for other developers.
It’s especially weird because the guidelines have always forbidden demos. So why would adding a demo give the app an out for the obligation to use IAP? If you accept Apple’s reading of the guidelines for reader apps and business vs. consumer, the proposed changes address none of the violations. Absent the controversy, it seems unlikely that this would lead to approval. But what Basecamp has done is clever, because (I guess) you can keep signing up for temporary addresses. Instead of being a time-limited demo for a regular e-mail provider, the spin is that it’s a fully-featured client for a temporary e-mail service.
David Heinemeier Hansson:
Apple has definitively approved HEY in the App Store!! No IAP, no 30% cut, but we’ve opened the door to a free temp address service, and use same app for work accounts.
Good for them, but it’s now even less clear what the guidelines mean. I expect that other apps that try to just “add a demo” or unrelated functionality will be rejected, although perhaps FastMail could create a similar randomized e-mail service.
Previously:
App Store Basecamp Fastmail HEY In-App Purchase iOS iOS 13 iOS App
Dave James (via Slashdot, MacRumors):
The “bad quality assurance of Skylake” was responsible for Apple finally making the decision to ditch Intel and focus on its own ARM-based processors for high-performance machines. That’s the claim made by outspoken former Intel principal engineer, François Piednoël.
[…]
“The quality assurance of Skylake was more than a problem,” says Piednoël during a casual Xplane chat and stream session. “It was abnormally bad. We were getting way too much citing for little things inside Skylake. Basically our buddies at Apple became the number one filer of problems in the architecture. And that went really, really bad.
“When your customer starts finding almost as much bugs as you found yourself, you’re not leading into the right place.”
Previously:
ARM Macs Intel Mac Processors
