Archive for June 1, 2023

Thursday, June 1, 2023

WWDC 2023 Wish Lists

Krishna Sadasivam:

Let’s be clear: what I really and truly wish for the next iteration of macOS is a new found-focus on stability, polish and bug fixes.

Mario Guzman:

The next macOS should be a “Snow Leopard” kind of release.

Nick Heer:

As Apple’s operating system line has grown from one to at least five — more if you count the HomePod’s audioOS and BridgeOS for Macs with T-series chips — the limitations of scale have begun to show. New versions of iPadOS oscillate between key feature updates to fundamental parts of the system, like multitasking, one year, and tepid improvements the next. iOS is a mature platform and, so, it makes sense for there to be fewer core feature updates, but one wishes the slower development cycle would bring increased stability and refinement; actual results have been mixed. MacOS is the system which feels like it ought to be the closest to some imagined finish line, but it also seems like it is decaying in its most core qualities — I am having problems with windows losing foregrounding or not becoming focused when they should. Also, why are Notifications still like that?

Daniel Andrews:

A general theme on speed and reliability at the OS and app level. Especially Mail and Music.

[…]

Extensions for 3rd party browsers.

Dan Moren:

For example, one addition I’d really like to see is improvements to iOS’s autocorrect system.

[…]

Other small improvements that would be nice to have could include breaking the Passwords section of Settings out into its own app, tweaking the way multiple calendars appear in the Calendar app, and allowing more widgets on the lock screen, just to name a few.

[…]

One big nice to have feature I’d like to see in macOS 14 is letting widgets live outside of their little column in Notification Center.

Jack Brewster:

My iOS 17 feature request is for Safari extensions to work in embedded views.

Francisco Tolmasky:

All I want out of macOS 14 is for a screenshot naming scheme that results in them being in chronological order when they are sorted alphabetically.

Kelly Guimont:

Here’s my dream for WWDC23:

In macOS 14, when you open a new Mail draft, if you close it within 5 seconds you will not be prompted to save that unaddressed, empty, clearly accidental draft.

Christian Beer:

  • Xcode only shows actual, current errors
  • Xcode shows errors where they happened
  • Xcode doesn’t run an old version of an app if there were build errors
  • Xcode doesn’t come up with some strange error if I forgot a „?“

Miguel Arroz:

Xcode can actually attach the debugger to the test runner app reliably.

Guilherme Rambo:

  • When a build fails, actually show me the build errors, every time, without me having to attempt the build again or restart Xcode
  • When a build error/warning is corrected, stop showing it, instead of leaving it on the list, sometimes for days, unless I do a full derived data delete and restart

Juri Pakaste:

WWDC 23 wish: fast, reliable UI tests.

This message brought to you by Failed to launch app with identifier and Failed to terminate.

My top Xcode issues are showing incorrect errors, compiler crashes, tests failing to run, and tests not running in Instruments.

Jack Brewster:

If the only new feature in the next macOS is that they’d quit hiding controls (like the button on Reminders notifications), I’d be pretty dang happy.

Jesse Squires :

If the only bug fix in macOS 14 is the server icon in the Finder sidebar, I will be happy.

I really shouldn't be so bothered by this. But goddamn. It annoys the hell out of me every. single. time.

Pierre Igot:

For the record, it’s not just the server icon in the sidebar. It’s also the server icon on the desktop and in Finder windows. And it’s network folder icons too. In other words, it’s even more annoying than what Jesse says. But of course it’s intermittent, so Apple’s software engineers cannot be bothered to make the effort to reproduce and fix.

Simon B. Støvring:

Me if iOS 17 does not let me replace the flashlight and camera buttons on the Lock Screen with buttons that run any shortcut.

Mysk:

The top feature on our iOS wishlist remains: “Allow app access to location for 10 minutes”

Beardy Guy:

What I’m hoping or expecting to see in terms of iPadOS and apps[…]

John Voorhees:

This week on AppStories, we talk about Logic Pro for iPad and our wishes for Apple’s rumored mixed reality OS, xrOS.

Timothy Perfitt:

macos wishes for wwdc that will not happen but totally should:

  1. netboot returns.
  2. configuration xml at root of drive to configure setup assistant
  3. system preferences that work like a mac app
  4. don’t have to quit apps when enabling sharing screen
  5. ability to install profiles without an mdm or user approval each time.
  6. a pony

John C. Welch:

A single, coherent, OS-wide automation framework that allows non-devs to create their own automation solutions and not rely on app devs to build shortcuts.

You’ll absolutely get a pony first.

Previously:

Update (2023-06-02): Brian Stucki:

Another wish list item: fix screen time.

Lickability:

We asked our team to share their biggest wishes and predictions for the event, from SwiftUI APIs to interactive widgets on iOS.

Dave Wood:

Every single year: “The next macOS should be a ‘Snow Leopard’ kind of release.”

John Gordon:

Every year we ask Santa for a Snow Leopard and we get whatever iOS didn’t want.

Aaron Pearce:

All I want for WWDC is to be able to delete this:

UIControl().sendAction(#selector(URLSessionTask.suspend), to: UIApplication.shared, for: nil)

Chris Turner:

My wish for WWDC2023 is if I get a voice mail on my iPhone, I actually have the voice mail available before or at the same time as the transcribed text message, instead of hours or days later.

Robert Hammen:

A softwareupdate function that works repeatably and reliably to present the user with pending updates. This functionality has been broken and unreliable on macOS since macOS 11 and the changes revolving around Apple Silicon (volume ownership).

Same here.

Jeff Johnson:

My WWDC wishlist is an M3 processor for the App Store Connect server.

Reddit to Charge for API

Christian Selig (tweet, Mastodon, Hacker News, AppleInsider):

Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing. Bad news for third-party apps, their announced pricing is close to Twitter’s pricing, and Apollo would have to pay Reddit $20 million per year to keep running as-is.

[…]

I’m deeply disappointed in this price. Reddit iterated that the price would be A) reasonable and based in reality, and B) they would not operate like Twitter. Twitter’s pricing was publicly ridiculed for its obscene price of $42,000 for 50 million tweets. Reddit’s is still $12,000. For reference, I pay Imgur (a site similar to Reddit in user base and media) $166 for the same 50 million API calls.

John Gruber:

Right now Apollo is free to use, but offers a Pro tier with a slew of additional features and fun stuff for a one-time payment of $5, and an Ultra tier with even more for a $13/year subscription. If Reddit goes through with this API pricing, Apollo’s free and Pro tiers would be unsustainable, and the Ultra subscription would have to cost at least $50 or $60 per year.

Jason Snell:

As with Twitter, there is a path for Reddit to walk that allows Selig to build a sustainable app business and for Reddit to be compensated for its service. But this isn’t it.

Adam Chandler:

I’m an Apollo for iPad user and pay for the highest tier to compensate the developer for their time. I also pay Reddit for their premium service to compensate them for their time and so I don’t see any ads.

Why can’t Reddit just require Apollo only work with users who are paying for Reddit Premium? Introduce an Ads-API that’s free to Apollo and charge the end user to disable ads?

I had the same thought about Twitter, but I guess it’s more about control or LLMs than money.

Brent Simmons:

NetNewsWire has special support for Reddit — we use the Reddit API.

[…]

We already went through this with Twitter. Not happy to be doing it again.

Federico Viticci:

To be fair, I feel like Reddit should pay @christianselig $20 million to help them improve their shitty app.

Apps like Apollo have made Reddit usable for millions of people. This is an idiotic move.

Sören:

Tweetbot was the one way I could enjoy reading the Twitter timeline. Without it, my Twitter use is reduced to occasional glances at individual profiles.

Apollo and old.reddit.com are enjoyable ways to use Reddit. The latter’s days are presumably numbered, and the former soon won’t be able to afford paying for the API.

The app is awful, and the new website is worse than the old one.

Kevin R Jones:

The other big problem about this Reddit stuff, is that a third party client is about the only efficient way a screen reader user can use it. Blind screen reader users will basically be prohibited from using Reddit from now on.

Sean Heber:

It’s amazing that Reddit, having watched the fallout after Twitter killed off their third party developers, would go on to say, “You know what, that’s an excellent idea and we should do it too!”

Paul Haddad:

The thing that bothers me most about this Reddit stuff is the Gaslighting. If you are going to kill off all clients, just own it. Don’t lie and say you value 3rd party clients and then act like they should be thankful for your over priced, unsustainable access plans.

Khaled:

At least they talked with him. 🙄

Craig Hockenberry:

HOW MUCH IS APPLE GONNA CHARGE ME TO USE THE PING API

Previously:

Update (2023-06-02): See also: Luke Plunkett (via Hacker News).

Centering the macOS Ventura Form Layout

Vidit Bhargava (Mastodon):

As you can see with this design, it’s got a couple of glaring of issues when used in wide width situation:

  1. There’s too much space between the title and value. This makes reading the values veery difficult.
  2. Even when grouping, the sameness of each item makes it look like a block of text even more so than the previous versions

[…]

The center equalise process, solves the issue of tracking values very elegantly, and overall offers a much more readable UI.

The design where the control and its label are as far from each other as possible makes a lot more sense on a narrow phone screen that’s in portrait orientation. There, they’re not actually that far apart, and it makes everything line up. Federighi claims that this is not where the idea for the macOS System Settings came from, but it’s hard to see why this design would make sense on its own. He says that the main goal was “consistency,” but System Settings is not consistent, with some areas using the sidebar and form interface and other areas using:

A modal sheet has a navigation link to another… sheet? which can close the modals or take you back. But the back button is now in the bottom bar.

This is just so odd because you see the gymnastics they had to do because they brought a design that was born out of mobile, extended for tablet, and now trying to make it work on desktop.

Previously:

Update (2023-06-02): Clarko:

SwiftUI isn’t responsible for what you dislike about System Settings.

By default, SwiftUI uses the AppKit widgets. You have to opt in to different styles, which System Settings has done.

And you can quibble about those styles, for sure. But this is about the designers, not the technology.

Difference between the screenshots below:

.formStyle(.grouped)
.toggleStyle(.switch)

Otherwise it’s the same code in both cases.

Sarah Reichelt:

The things people object to in the System Settings app are design decisions, not SwiftUI bugs. It also seems that a different team designed each pane, leading to a lot of inconsistent UI. But I seem to be in the minority who actually likes the formStyle(.grouped) look.

I mostly agree with this, but I would note that (especially early on) there were a lot of glitches that seemed to be due to SwiftUI bugs, or I suppose perhaps the developers not knowing how to use SwiftUI properly. Secondly, it’s not only about widget styles but also layouts and navigation. Using SwiftUI encourages the developer to choose certain kinds of designs. And perhaps it also influences which engineers management assigns to the project and how much time they are given to work on it.

Update (2023-06-09): Craig Hockenberry:

Not only is the new macOS Settings app confusing when you do find something, it’s also confusing when you don’t.

Restricted USB access is only for laptops and I’m on an iMac. Showing search results made me think it was all Apple Silicon devices.

Update (2023-06-23): Vidit Bhargava:

I revisited some of my six month old redesigns today and have compiled, how I feel the Settings app must be redesigned.

StopTheMadness 39: Hiding Page Elements

Jeff Johnson:

StopTheMadness already allowed you to write your own site-specific CSS, but along with knowing CSS, this requires digging around in the browser’s web inspector, which is particularly difficult on iOS. I needed a solution that avoids both of these problems, and I think I finally got something decent.

To use the new feature, you first click the Hide Page Element button in the StopTheMadness extension popup, which triggers element selection mode. Then you close the popup and click on the web page element that you want to hide. If your device (a Mac or an iPad) has a physical keyboard, you can skip the clicks with a keyboard shortcut: hover the pointer over the web page element that you want to hide, and press ⌘-delete. In either case, you’ll get a list of one or more elements to hide (there’s a 3D hierarchy of elements on the page). You can select each of the elements in the list, previewing what the page looks like when it’s hidden, and then click Save when you’ve found what you want.

[…]

I’ve recently learned that Medium, for example, exploits a newer technique to detect whether you’re viewing the web page in a Safari private window. I’ve created my own test page to demonstrate the technique. I’ve also created a new StopTheMadness website option to stop it: Protect private windows.

I don’t really care about the privacy aspect of a site knowing that I’m using a private window, but some sites nag you about it or refuse to work, so hopefully this will be able to foil them.

Previously:

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