Archive for March 22, 2024

Friday, March 22, 2024

_eventFirstResponderChainDescription

Stephan Casas:

AppKit includes a private category on NSApplication that adds _eventFirstResponderChainDescription — a string describing the current responder chain. This can be a really useful debugging tool!

When your views aren’t handling input events in the way you’d expect, consider dropping this extension into your project to see what’s what[…]

Update (2024-03-25): You can also set the _NS_4445425547 user default to see a Cocoa debug menu. I tend to just leave this enabled in my apps.

Update (2024-04-11): Antoine:

Today’s Darwin crazy hidden debugging tool of the day: iOS has a built in HUD for showing performance statistics like FPS, frame duration etc. […] This HUD can be activated by calling the private CARenderServerSetDebugOption function

See also: Marcin Krzyzanowski.

Apple Manuals, Specs, and Downloads

John Voorhees (Mastodon):

Apple has consolidated documentation for its products, including manuals, technical specifications, and downloads on a new webpage that was first discovered by the Japanese-language website Mac Otakara and reported on this morning by MacRumors.

Update (2024-03-25): Ric Ford:

Apple has a completely unrelated web page for information about downloading macOS.

Epic Challenges External Link Rules and Commission

Jon Brodkin (Hacker News):

Epic Games yesterday urged a federal court to sanction Apple for alleged violations of an injunction that imposed restrictions on the iOS App Store. Epic cited a 27 percent commission charged by Apple on purchases completed outside the usual in-app payment system and other limits imposed on developers.

“Apple is in blatant violation of this Court’s injunction,” Epic wrote in a filing in US District Court for the Northern District of California. “Its new App Store policies continue to impose prohibitions on developers that this Court found unlawful and enjoined. Moreover, Apple’s new policies introduce new restrictions and burdens that frustrate and effectively nullify the relief the Court ordered.”

[…]

Apple said the charge “complies with the Injunction’s plain terms” and is “consistent with the Court’s rationale for upholding Apple’s other App Store policies.”

[…]

Epic argues that “Apple’s new scheme so pervasively taxes, regulates, restricts and burdens in-app links directing users to alternative purchasing mechanisms on a developer’s website (‘External Links’ or ‘Links’) as to make them entirely useless. Moreover, Apple continues to completely prohibit the use of ‘buttons… or other calls to action’ in direct contravention of this Court’s Injunction.”

Juli Clover:

Meta, Microsoft, X, and Match today joined Epic Games to protest the way Apple complied with a court ruling requiring it to walk back its anti-steering rules. In an amicus brief in support of Epic Games (via The Wall Street Journal), the four companies said that the fees Apple is charging are too high, and that there are too many restrictions on how developers link to their websites. “The Apple Plan comports with neither the letter nor the spirit of this Court’s mandate,” reads the brief.

Previously:

iOS 17.4.1 and iPadOS 17.4.1

Juli Clover (release notes, security “coming soon”, developer):

According to Apple’s release notes, the iOS 17.4.1 update includes important security updates and bug fixes.

Mr. Macintosh:

macOS ??? 😰

Previously:

Update (2024-03-25): SupportDiffs (via Holger Eilhard):

Apple updated: “If your iPad is unable to scan QR codes after updating to iPadOS 17.4”

Update (2024-03-28): Joe Rossignol:

Apple on late Tuesday released revised versions of iOS 17.4.1 and iPadOS 17.4.1 with an updated build number of 21E237, according to MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris. The updates previously had a build number of 21E236.

[…]

It is unclear what changed between the builds, if anything, but any potential differences are likely very minor.

[…]

There have been sporadic reports on social media about iOS 17.4 and iOS 17.4.1 causing some iPhones to get stuck in a boot loop, so perhaps the new build will allow those devices to be properly restored, but this is merely speculation.