Archive for September 2024

Monday, September 9, 2024

iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max

Apple (video, MacRumors, Hacker News):

The new Pro lineup features the thinnest borders of any Apple product and introduces larger display sizes: 6.3 inches on iPhone 16 Pro and 6.9 inches on iPhone 16 Pro Max — the largest iPhone display ever.

[…]

The new mechanical architecture improves heat dissipation and efficiency for up to 20 percent better sustained performance.

[…]

Later this fall, Camera Control will be updated with a two-stage shutter to automatically lock focus and exposure on a subject with a light press, letting users reframe the shot without losing focus.

[…]

Later this year, Camera Control will unlock visual intelligence to help users learn about objects and places faster than ever before.

[…]

Powered by A18 Pro, the upgraded camera system introduces a new 48MP Fusion camera with a faster, more efficient quad-pixel sensor and Apple Camera Interface, unlocking 4K120 fps video recording in Dolby Vision — the highest resolution and frame-rate combination ever available on iPhone, and a smartphone first. The quad-pixel sensor can read data 2x faster, enabling zero shutter lag for 48MP ProRAW or HEIF photos. A new 48MP Ultra Wide camera also features a quad-pixel sensor with autofocus, so users can take higher-resolution 48MP ProRAW and HEIF images when capturing uniquely framed, wider-angle shots or getting close to their subjects with macro photography. The powerful 5x Telephoto camera now comes on both iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, allowing users to catch the action from farther away, no matter which model they choose.

[…]

A new 6-core CPU is the fastest in a smartphone, with two performance cores and four efficiency cores that can run the same workload as the previous generation 15 percent faster while using 20 percent less power.

Camera Control sounds great—subject to case compatibility—but I wonder whether it will be too fiddly in practice. Another year with disappointing Pro colors.

Previously:

iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus

Apple (video, MacRumors, Hacker News):

Camera Control — a result of thoughtful hardware and software integration — elevates the camera experience on the iPhone 16 lineup. It is packed with innovation, including a tactile switch that powers the click experience, a high-precision force sensor that enables the light press gesture, and a capacitive sensor that allows for touch interactions. Camera Control can quickly launch the camera, take a photo, and start video recording so users don’t miss the moment. A new camera preview helps users frame the shot and adjust other control options — such as zoom, exposure, or depth of field — to compose a stunning photo or video by sliding their finger on the Camera Control. Additionally, developers will be able to bring Camera Control to third-party apps such as Snapchat.

[…]

A18 delivers a huge leap in performance and power efficiency, and is built on second-generation 3-nanometer technology to further accelerate Apple Intelligence. An upgraded 16-core Neural Engine is optimized for large generative models and runs ML models up to 2x faster than the A16 Bionic chip.

The 6-core CPU is 30 percent faster than the A16 Bionic chip and faster than all the competition. It is also more power efficient and can run the same workload with 30 percent less power than A16 Bionic.

Apple:

Today, Apple announced that Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that combines the power of generative models with personal context to deliver intelligence that is incredibly useful and relevant, will start rolling out next month with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, with more features launching in the coming months.

Francisco Tolmasky:

The “camera control” gives off strong TouchBar and Stage Manager energy. People have wanted a “take picture” button for years. But Apple couldn’t possibly just give us that. So they delayed this absurdly simple request for YEARS so that they could justify it with INNOVATION. This isn’t just a button, it’s covered in some sort of crystal or something and hey look you can rub it too.

Joe Rosensteel:

Extremely interested to find out how well the tiny camera control surface works with various iPhone cases instead of just making this a physical button.

Kevin Patrick Doyle:

or you know, gloves, which some of us wear a few months out of the year

Previously:

AirPods 4

Apple (video, MacRumors):

The new AirPods 4 are the most advanced and comfortable headphones Apple has ever created with an open-ear design, and today, customers can choose between two distinct models: AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC). AirPods Max now come in midnight, starlight, blue, purple, and orange, and offer USB-C charging for more convenience. This fall, AirPods Pro 2 will introduce the world’s first end-to-end hearing health experience, delivering active Hearing Protection, a scientifically validated Hearing Test, and a clinical-grade Hearing Aid feature.

[…]

Delivering a massive improvement in sound quality, AirPods 4 feature an entirely new acoustic architecture, low-distortion driver, and high dynamic range amplifier, and add Personalized Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking for the most immersive media experience. With the H2 chip, AirPods 4 unlock intelligent audio experiences only Apple silicon can deliver, such as Voice Isolation, enabling clearer call quality no matter the environmental conditions, and Siri Interactions, allowing users to simply nod their head yes or gently shake their head no to respond to Siri announcements. For even more control, AirPods 4 also feature a new force sensor on the stem to play or pause media and mute or end calls with a quick press.

Volume controls still seem to be limited to AirPods Pro.

Apple:

AirPods Pro add an innovative over-the-counter Hearing Aid capability for users with mild to moderate hearing loss. Using the personalized hearing profile from the Hearing Test, this new feature seamlessly transforms AirPods Pro into a clinical-grade hearing aid. After setup, the feature enables personalized dynamic adjustments so users have the sounds around them boosted in real time. This helps them better engage in conversation, and keeps them connected to the people and environment around them. With the incredible audio quality of AirPods Pro, the user’s personalized hearing profile is automatically applied to music, movies, games, and phone calls across their devices, without needing to adjust any settings. Users can also set up the Hearing Aid feature with an audiogram created by a hearing health professional.

Ezekiel Elin:

My hearing aids are waterproof, the battery lasts 5 days (discardable) or 18-22 hours (rechargeable), and I can stream directly from my phone. The main quirks I have to deal with are bugs on iOS that fail to handle headphones being paired all the time (CarPlay, mainly). I can control the volume on my hearing aids, change programs for loud environments, and can often hear better than my friends in those loud environments.

[…]

I don’t mean to dunk on the AirPods and their potential for people who don’t have or don’t want to try hearing aids. But if the people around you are that dissatisfied with their hearing aids then it really sounds like something’s gone wrong in the dispensing process.

Joe Rossignol:

Apple today announced that the AirPods Max are being updated with a USB-C charging port and new color options, including Midnight, Blue, Purple, Orange, and Starlight.

Previously:

Apple Watch Series 10

Apple (video, MacRumors):

Apple Watch Series 10 is nearly 10 percent thinner than Apple Watch Series 7, Series 8, and Series 9, while offering all the advanced capabilities users love, adding new features, and maintaining all-day 18-hour battery life. An innovative metal back integrates the antenna into the housing of the device itself, combining the two layers into one. The back is perfectly matched in material, finish, and color to the rest of the case, making it appear like the device is made from a single piece of metal.

[…]

In addition to being thinner, Apple Watch Series 10 is also lighter: Aluminum cases weigh up to 10 percent less than Series 9, and titanium cases weigh almost 20 percent less than stainless steel Series 9. The case also features more rounded corners and a wider aspect ratio, which contribute to a much larger display while only slightly growing the case to new 42mm and 46mm sizes.

[…]

Fifteen minutes of charging provides up to eight hours of normal daily use, or eight minutes of charging powers up to eight hours of sleep tracking. Faster charging also means users can charge to 80 percent battery in about 30 minutes.

I’m not sure that I like that the base size is increasing. With Apple Watch SE being updated in 2020 and 2022, a new model seemed imminent, but it was not updated today.

Apple:

Breathing Disturbances is an innovative new Apple Watch metric that uses the accelerometer to detect small movements at the wrist associated with interruptions to normal respiratory patterns during sleep. Every 30 days, Apple Watch will analyze breathing disturbance data and notify users if it shows consistent signs of moderate to severe sleep apnea so they can speak to their doctor about next steps, including potential diagnosis and treatment.

Because overall quality of sleep is important, Breathing Disturbances can also be used to assess restfulness of sleep. Breathing Disturbances can be influenced by alcohol, medications, sleep position, and more. Users can view their nightly Breathing Disturbances in the Health app, where they are classified as elevated or not elevated, and can be viewed over a one-month, six-month, or one-year period.

Apple:

Apple Watch Ultra 2 in black titanium, Apple Watch Hermès Ultra 2, and the new Titanium Milanese Loop can be pre-ordered today, with availability beginning Friday, September 20.

Previously:

Thursday, September 5, 2024

Default Folder X 6.1

I missed reporting on last year’s Default Folder X 6:

[Quick Search] gives you keyboard-based access to Recent and Favorite Items, including recently-launched applications and recently-used Finder windows. Note that it does NOT search your whole Mac, it searches the files, folders and apps that Default Folder X remembers for you. In most cases, it will find exactly what you want without showing all the extra stuff you don’t want.

[…]

In Save As dialogs, the box where you type the filename is way too small. How ’bout we fix that?

[…]

You can now drag and drop files and folders onto Default Folder X’s icon in your menu bar. When you do, it will pop up its menu so you can select a destination for them.

[…]

Automatically perform actions on a file after you save it. This can be as simple as immediately opening the saved file or attaching it to an email, or as complex as using AppleScript, Automator or Shortcuts to process the saved file in some customized way.

Default Folder X 6.1 (release notes):

In addition to Sequoia compatibility, Default Folder X 6.1 also opens favorite URLs from its Quick Search window, can open folders in the Warp terminal app, and fixes a number of bugs that cropped up in version 6.0.8.

It’s $39.95 to buy or $9.95 to upgrade. I used Default Folder a lot back in the day, but since Mac OS X I’ve mostly been using LaunchBar to help with open/save panels. Now I’m considering whether I should level up.

Spotify Connect Can No Longer Use iPhone Volume Buttons

Sarah Perez (MacRumors):

Spotify claims Apple may again be in violation of European regulation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which requires interoperability from big technology companies dubbed “gatekeepers.” This time, the issue isn’t about in-app purchases, links or pricing information, but rather how Apple has discontinued the technology that allows Spotify users to control the volume on their connected devices.

When streaming to connected devices via Spotify Connect on iOS, users were previously able to use the physical buttons on the side of their iPhone to adjust the volume. As a result of the change, this will no longer work.

Spotify sees this an anti-competitive because Apple gets to use its own protocol with HomePod and can access the buttons, whereas if Spotify uses its protocol it can’t. The buttons would work if Spotify used AirPlay 2, but for whatever reason Spotify doesn’t want to do that. How can they try to offer something better if they’re stuck using the same technology as Apple?

The technology Spotify was using for Connect was already degraded before being discontinued, the streamer claims. Spotify said that the experience using the iPhone volume buttons was often unstable, resulting in bugs like volume spikes during sessions.

It’s unclear to me what technology Apple discontinued that used to make this possible. And why is it happening so late in the iOS 17 cycle? Did Apple make a change recently or is Spotify just finally giving up since it had gotten so buggy?

William Gallagher:

Spotify has reportedly asked Apple to allow it to control the volume when using Spotify Connect to send music to HomePods. However, Apple has said that it requires Spotify’s app to add integration with HomePods.

Emma Roth (Sonos):

The Sonos app has also stopped letting iPhone users change the volume of their devices using physical buttons for similar reasons.

Update (2024-09-06): John Gruber (Mastodon):

Who should get to decide the rules for how the hardware volume buttons work on iPhones and iPads? Apple, or the European Commission?

If Apple is arbitrarily blocking access, making the user experience worse, as some kind of power play to prop up HomePod…maybe the EC?

Steven:

Also, they’d have to integrate with HomePods to get access to the new API, not just “support airplay”. Even Sonos, which supports AirPlay 2 doesn’t get access.

BenRiceM:

Spotify is definitely being obstinate, but given that camera apps had to wait 15 years for an API to detect volume presses (without ridiculous workarounds), I do think Apple could stand to be a little more open here.

Update (2024-09-09): See also: Dithering.

Marco Arment:

My guess is this API, which has been deprecated for a decade.

It’s the only way we’ve ever been able to programmatically set the iPhone volume, so it’s how apps would intercept volume buttons: observe it for changes, and upon a change, immediately set it back, then perform the custom action.

The only other known method is subview-diving on the MPVolumeView, but I don’t think that was ever reliable enough to actually write changes to the volume.

Alex Pretzlav:

I bet they were doing it this way.

Karl Baron:

What broke in 17.3 was listening to private API NSNotifications for the hardware buttons (_UIApplicationVolumeDownButtonDownNotification) like in this code. [Signal] had to go back to observing an MPVolumeView in our camera app to let you use the volume buttons to shoot (causing volume to randomly change when the hack failed) until last year they finally gave us a real API for it.

I keep hearing about more apps that were using this private API. The real API seems to be only for camera use.

Jonathan Z Simon:

The Harmony (Logitech remote control system) app uses the iPhone volume keys as the remote control volume. For me this is an extremely valuable feature, and also totally natural: as a user, it “does what I mean”.

Jimmy Callin:

I do see an argument that by bundling custom volume button actions with HomePod, they are forcing apps to support (and maintain) HomePod and thus are misusing their strong market power in iOS to unnaturally boost their position in a separate product category.

John Gruber (Mastodon):

I believe Spotify has subsequently edited their support page, because the above text no longer appear here, where it now reads:

Apple has discontinued the technology that enables Spotify to control volume for connected devices using the volume buttons on the device. While we work with them on a solution, you can use the Spotify app to easily adjust the volume on your connected device.

They deleted the part that said, “Apple has told us that they require apps to integrate into Home Pod in order to access the technology that controls volume on iPhones.”

Why? This is the biggest mystery about this whole story. I never understood what that meant. There does not seem to be a new (non-camera) API that Apple could offer to Spotify in return for supporting HomePod, so my assumption was that Spotify was being rejected on policy grounds and that Apple would allow them to continue using the private API if they cooperated. But it now seems clear that Apple changed/broke the private API. So what could be the carrot that Apple was supposedly offering?

I don’t know whether Spotify was misleading us or whether this was a clumsy way of saying that the volume buttons would work with HomePod (automatically) if Spotify Connect supported AirPlay. But the main Spotify app already supports AirPlay, and it doesn’t really make sense for Spotify Connect:

I was wrong yesterday to say — in the headline of the post, of all places — that Spotify could solve the problem by adopting AirPlay 2. Spotify Connect is, and needs to be, its own separate thing. Spotify users who use Connect love it. Here’s what one DF reader wrote to me: “AirPlay is a per-device feature, while Spotify Connect synchronizes Spotify sessions across devices. I can initiate playing on my iPhone, then control it from my iPad, Mac, or Watch. I can change the destination speaker from any device. It’s so good that I’m forever wedded to Spotify until Apple or someone else comes up with an equivalent experience. I think if AirPlay offered equivalent functionality, but Spotify refused to adopt it, Spotify would be open to more criticism, but from the perspective of a Spotify user, it’s lost functionality and even supporting AirPlay 2 would not fix what is now a diminished experience. So I think Spotify is doing the only thing they can, which is complain.”

John Gruber:

Apple’s own Remote app uses the iPhone volume buttons to control the TV’s volume. Which I don’t think should be illegal, but clearly demonstrates the use case for being a public API.

Google Drive Blocks Unverified Apps

Binarynights:

Recently, Google has limited or blocked direct connections to Google Drive through ForkLift. Depending on whether users have previously connected to Google Drive through ForkLift, they may encounter one of two warnings when trying to connect via the Connect Panel.

[…]

Google now requires apps like ForkLift to undergo the Cloud Application Security Assessment (CASA). This assessment ensures that apps meet strict security standards to protect user data and maintain secure integrations.

Undergoing the CASA process helps ForkLift identify and fix any security issues, safeguarding user data and ensuring our security practices are transparent. However, meeting these requirements can be a lengthy process. Even if ForkLift meets all standards immediately, the assessment can take up to six weeks. If significant changes are needed, it could take much longer.

I don’t like this trend of Google making it harder for users to access its services via third-party apps, and the security benefits seem questionable.

Previously:

Founder Mode

Paul Graham (Hacker News):

The theme of Brian’s talk was that the conventional wisdom about how to run larger companies is mistaken. As Airbnb grew, well-meaning people advised him that he had to run the company in a certain way for it to scale. Their advice could be optimistically summarized as “hire good people and give them room to do their jobs.” He followed this advice and the results were disastrous. So he had to figure out a better way on his own, which he did partly by studying how Steve Jobs ran Apple. So far it seems to be working. Airbnb’s free cash flow margin is now among the best in Silicon Valley.

[…]

In effect there are two different ways to run a company: founder mode and manager mode. Till now most people even in Silicon Valley have implicitly assumed that scaling a startup meant switching to manager mode. But we can infer the existence of another mode from the dismay of founders who’ve tried it, and the success of their attempts to escape from it.

[…]

The way managers are taught to run companies seems to be like modular design in the sense that you treat subtrees of the org chart as black boxes. You tell your direct reports what to do, and it’s up to them to figure out how. But you don’t get involved in the details of what they do. That would be micromanaging them, which is bad.

As he says, if this term catches on it will be misused like “agile.”

Shubhangi Goel:

A prime example of a tech titan embracing founder mode is Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang, who has 60 direct reports and still eats in the company cafeteria.

[…]

Chesky spoke about how conventional advice on building and scaling up a startup is broken. He said, as he has before, that investors and outside managers just don’t have the insights that founders do. He said that splitting companies into organizational chart tiers — isolating founders from anyone but their direct reports — often kills the business.

[…]

There are also notable exceptions to positive founder mode: Sam Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth Holmes were both founders who operated with autonomy, then ignominy.

On the other hand, Satya Nadella and Tim Cook are both outside managers touted with turning their companies around — in both cases, building on the legacies of strong founders.

Tim Cook wasn’t CEO during the Apple turnaround.

See also:

Previously:

Update (2024-09-06): See also:

Update (2024-09-09): See also: Kent Beck (via Hacker News).

Wednesday, September 4, 2024

Git Tower 12

Bruno Brito:

With Tower Workflows, we aim to provide you with the ability to create and customize your own branching workflows. You can use popular branching workflows as a starting point, tweak them, come up with your own unique solution from scratch, or embrace other popular workflows like the Stacked Pull Requests workflow.

For this to be possible, the Tower team focused on two big features for this release:

  • Branch Dependencies.
  • The “Restack Branch” action.

Version 12.0:

It allows Tower to keep track of the original branch from which another branch was created, a capability not natively supported by Git. Newly created branches in Tower automatically inherit their starting branch, and users can manually set or change the parent branch via the context menu at any time.

[…]

Tower enables you to create “stacks” of branches — branches that depend on other branches — and effortlessly restack them (using rebase) with a single action.

[…]

Repositories can now optionally be opened in a new window by passing the “-n” argument to the “gittower” command.

There’s more about stacked branches here.

Previously:

Snow Leopard at 15

Joe Rossignol:

Today marks the 15th anniversary of Apple releasing Mac OS X Snow Leopard, which became available to purchase for $29 on August 28, 2009.

After advertising Mac OS X Leopard as having “over 300 new features” in 2007, Apple previewed Snow Leopard at WWDC 2008. Notably, during that year’s “State of the Union” session, Apple showed a presentation slide that said the update had “0 new features,” as Apple opted to focus on under-the-hood performance and stability improvements.

Perhaps the more important anniversary is that of macOS 10.6.8 v1.1 on July 25, 2011. Yes, Snow Leopard didn’t really have any new user-facing features, but it had big changes the hood and was kind of a rough release at the outset. The Snow Leopard we remember fondly is the final version, released after almost two years of refinements.

Or, put another way, there were “no new features” between the initial releases of Leopard on October 26, 2007 and Lion on July 20, 2011.

Mario Guzmán:

Mac OS X Leopard/Snow Leopard appreciation post.

I never liked the capsule-style toolbar buttons in Mail, and iTunes didn’t yet use a standard table view, but otherwise I think the visuals in Snow Leopard have aged pretty well. We’ve gone from colored sidebar icons on a monochrome background to monochrome symbols on a busy, colored background.

Previously:

Update (2024-09-06): Adam Maxwell:

I still have my brown zippered hoodie from Customer Seeding for Snow Leopard testing. I miss the look and feel with color (except for the capsule toolbar controls), proper scrollbars, and ability to tell if a window is active.

Guy English:

Not to be too much of a party-pooper about Snow Leopard and it’s No New Features promise of a focus on reliability but—it came as iPhone OS 2.0 had just shipped, iPad was a year out, made major changes to the Finder, got all(?) system apps to be 64bit, and introduced GCD (Dispatch). So, you know, it was probably as heavy a lift, if not more so, than other macOS releases.

Basic Apple Guy:

Culturally, Snow Leopard is held in high regard as it represented a dramatic shift in priorities from features to foundation. It showed that Apple was willing to restrain itself from more consumer-facing flashy new features and instead strengthen its most crucial software.

To celebrate the 15-year anniversary of Snow Leopard, I’ve taken five of its most iconic wallpapers and upscaled them to fit beautifully on a 6K display.

Snapchat for iPad

Hartley Charlton:

After 13 years, Snapchat has finally rolled out an update that brings native app support to the iPad.

[…]

Until now, iPad users who wanted to use Snapchat had to run the iPhone version of the app, which was not optimized for the larger display, leaving it to run at a lower resolution with large surrounding black borders like other unoptimized apps.

William Gallagher:

The signup and login screens are still expanded iPhone ones and look very bare. Then when you're using it, you have no option but to hold your iPad in portrait mode — there is no landscape Snapchat at all.

Alex Heath:

Snapchat will soon start “experimenting” with placing sponsored messages next to chat threads from friends, according to CEO Evan Spiegel.

These “Sponsored Snaps” from brands will appear as unread messages in Snapchat’s main Chat tab, implying that they’ll sit above messages from a person’s contacts until they’re acted on. This is the first time Snap will show ads in the most used part of its app.

Previously:

Apple’s Magic Sound File Renaming

Shamino:

For those who are unaware, in macOS 11 (aka “Big Sur”), Apple changed all of the standard system sounds [names].

[…]

The interesting thing is that if you go to look for the actual sound files (in /System/Library/Sounds), you’ll find that the filenames are the same as the old names.

[…]

There is a application extension, /System/Library/ExtensionKit/Extensions/Sound.appex on my (macOS 14 "Sonoma") system. It is apparently a Quick Look plugin, but looking inside its package, I found a mapping table named AlertSounds.loctable. And this file is a binary property list file with a changed file extension. Dumping the contents of the file reveals the mapping. And not just one, but a big array of localized mappings[…]

“Basso” is now “Mezzo,” and “Sosumi” is now “Sonumi.” These are not just renamings; the sounds themselves are different, sometimes very different, as in “Purr” becoming “Pluck.”

I don’t really understand why they chose to maintain “compatibility” by changing the meanings of existing sound files, instead of adding the new sounds under new names (and perhaps hiding or deemphasizing the legacy ones, as they do with desktop pictures).

Previously:

Tuesday, September 3, 2024

AnandTech Farewell

Ryan Smith (tweet, Hacker News):

For better or worse, we’ve reached the end of a long journey – one that started with a review of an AMD processor, and has ended with the review of an AMD processor. It’s fittingly poetic, but it is also a testament to the fact that we’ve spent the last 27 years doing what we love, covering the chips that are the lifeblood of the computing industry.

[…]

I am happy to report that the site itself won’t be going anywhere for a while. Our publisher, Future PLC, will be keeping the AnandTech website and its many articles live indefinitely. So that all of the content we’ve created over the years remains accessible and citable.

[…]

The AnandTech Forums will also continue to be operated by Future’s community team and our dedicated troop of moderators. With forum threads going back to 1999 (and some active members just as long), the forums have a history almost as long and as storied as AnandTech itself (wounded monitor children, anyone?). So even when AnandTech is no longer publishing articles, we’ll still have a place for everyone to talk about the latest in technology – and have those discussions last longer than 48 hours.

John Gruber:

There was no publication like AnandTech before it was founded, and there’s been no publication like it since. To say that it will be sorely missed is a profound understatement. When founder Anand Lal Shimpi left the site to join Apple 10 years ago, I was pretty skeptical that AnandTech could maintain relevance, let alone excellence. But it did, in spades.

Previously:

Kevan Parekh Replaces Luca Maestri

Apple (Slashdot, ArsTechnica, MacRumors):

Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri will transition from his role on January 1, 2025. Maestri will continue to lead the Corporate Services teams, including information systems and technology, information security, and real estate and development, reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook. As part of a planned succession, Kevan Parekh, Apple’s Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis, will become Chief Financial Officer and join the executive team.

[…]

Parekh has been at Apple for 11 years and currently leads Financial Planning and Analysis, G&A and Benefits Finance, Investor Relations, and Market Research. Prior to this role, Parekh led Worldwide Sales, Retail, and Marketing Finance. He began his tenure leading the financial support of Apple’s Product Marketing, Internet Sales and Services, and Engineering teams.

Jason Snell:

So I’ll miss Luca Maestri on the calls. I’ll miss his Italian accent, which used to flummox English language speech-to-text algorithms. In an impressive endorsement of modern AI models, his words are now transcribed with almost no accent-induced errors. I’ll miss his occasional turns of phrase, like when he described the company facing a “cocktail of headwinds.” I’ll miss his occasional enthusiastic response to an analyst picking data out of the company disclosures, as when he practically lit up when Richard Kramer (“Richard! How are the kids?!”) of Arete Research asked him about the most exciting possible topic for a CFO… free cash flow margins.

Mark Gurman:

Companies often struggle with the departure of key executives, but Apple has a time-tested way to deal with it: make sure that the person quitting doesn’t actually leave.

[…]

Maestri will still have a few direct reports, including Timothy Campos (IS&T), Kristina Raspe (real estate) and George Stathakopoulos (information security). Instead of letting Maestri fully retire, he’ll have a less demanding role: being the boss of three groups that already have some of Apple’s strongest leaders and probably don’t need much oversight.

[…]

We’ll likely see similar scenarios play out in the coming years. After all, many top executives are nearing retirement age. In May, I detailed who the likely successors are for this old guard at Apple.

Three of the biggest transitions will involve Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, services head Eddy Cue and — of course — Cook himself. If Williams doesn’t make a clean exit, he can probably give up the COO title but stay in charge of Apple’s health and design groups. Cue could hold on to the fun part of the business — things like Apple TV+ and sports — but give up the rest of his organization. And Cook will probably become Apple’s executive chairman when he hands off the CEO job to who I believe will be hardware engineering chief John Ternus.

Previously:

Update (2024-09-10): See also: Hacker News.

Apple Books Layoffs

Dan Moren (Mastodon, Slashdot, ArsTechnica, MacRumors, The Verge):

In a report at Bloomberg (paywalled, naturally), Mark Gurman says that the company has laid off about a hundred people, primarily in the team behind Apple Books and the Apple Bookstore.

[…]

Apple has managed to achieve itself a comfortable, if distant second place in ebooks without really spending much in the way of time and effort. Which perhaps explains why they’re looking to cut costs and reduce focus—if the business works “fine” as is, then why invest more?

My disappointment stems from the fact that Apple is better positioned and equipped than anyone else in the industry to take on Amazon head-to-head in ebooks. But doing so would require the company to do something different. And I don’t mean its misguided attempts to reinvent the reading experience as it’s tried in the past—most avid readers are pretty happy with their the way they consume books.

[…]

The second option, to my mind, is one I’ve advocated for before: taking a page from Apple’s own digital music market of the 2000s and figuring out a way to make the Apple Books the premiere purveyor of ebooks without digital rights management. Ideally it would be combined with a seamless process to deliver those DRM-free books to your third-party e-reader of choice.

Previously:

Update (2024-09-06): Shelly Brisbin:

Whether it’s the familiarity of doing business with Apple directly, or the desire to store and sync purchases with the Books app on all their devices, I’ve heard loud and clear that Books is a place I need to be. A couple of times I made Kindle versions of the book and attempted to sell them on Amazon. I got very little traction there – perhaps because I didn’t promote its availability well, but more likely because people with accessibility needs don’t gravitate toward the Kindle platform. The Apple Books app not only offers a lot of flexibility in text formats and themes, it works flawlessly with the VoiceOver screen reader and other Apple speech tools.

From a production standpoint, the Books store is easy-peasy for me, too, since I create the book as an ePub – the format supported by Books and the one I prefer to offer directly because of its native accessibility. All I have to do is load the book into iTunes Connect and submit it for publication in as many country-specific stores as I want. And while I’m at it, I can choose whether or not to apply DRM. I’ve chosen not to do so.

AppleVis Will Continue Under Be My Eyes

Michael Hansen:

As many of you already know, David Goodwin founded AppleVis in July 2010. Since that first day, David has worked tirelessly, day in and day out, to develop and maintain the AppleVis website. While myself and the rest of the AppleVis Editorial Team have supported David with the daily operations of the site, David has been the driving force behind the website--both in terms of the ideas and, on a more practical level, having sole responsibility for the technical implementation. AppleVis would not be here today were it not for David, and David has undertaken all of this work for the community on an entirely voluntary basis.

Early last week, David was hospitalized in the ICU due to a very serious and life-threatening medical issue. David was unresponsive for 8 days and almost died. We are relieved to share that he is now getting better, though he still has a long road to recovery ahead.

David Goodwin:

It is with deep sadness and a heavy heart that after careful consideration I have made the difficult decision to step down from my responsibilities with AppleVis. As a direct result of my departure and following extensive deliberation, the editorial team has come to the painful conclusion that AppleVis will be closing. This decision was not made lightly, but it has become clear that continuing AppleVis without my involvement is not feasible.

David Goodwin:

AppleVis will be joining the Be My Eyes family through an acquisition that ensures not only its continued existence but also opens up exciting new possibilities.

When I announced the impending closure of AppleVis in July, I was deeply moved by the outpouring of support from our community. Your responses underscored the vital role AppleVis plays in the lives of so many blind and low-vision individuals. I am thrilled to inform you that this acquisition means AppleVis will continue to serve our community, stronger than ever before.

[…]

This is not a financial transaction - no money has changed hands, and I have not personally profited from this arrangement. Instead, this is a mission-driven partnership where Be My Eyes is taking on the responsibility of maintaining and growing AppleVis for the benefit of our community. My decision to transfer stewardship of AppleVis to Be My Eyes was driven solely by the desire to ensure its continued existence and growth. In this arrangement, Be My Eyes will acquire the AppleVis website, brand, and a license to all content, allowing them to invest in its future while maintaining the volunteer spirit that has always been at the heart of our community. As planned, I will still be stepping down from my role on the editorial team.

AppleVis:

We will reopen the AppleVis website on September 9, 2024—right in time for Apple’s Keynote and fall software releases. We will share all of our traditional content concurrent with the releases of iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia, including an article detailing what’s new for blind and DeafBlind users in iOS 18; podcasts; and blogs detailing new and resolved VoiceOver bugs in both iOS and macOS.

See also: Sabahattin Gucukoglu, Daniel Jalkut, Shelly Brisbin.

Previously:

Monday, September 2, 2024

Retcon 1.0

Nathan Manceaux-Panot (Reddit, Hacker News):

Rewrite Git history with a single drag-and-drop. Undo anything with ⌘Z. All speed, no bumps.

[…]

From small refinements to sweeping reworks, you do everything faster in Retcon. Edits take fewer steps, and don’t mess with the repo’s state.

This seems really cool, though it’s not really a replacement for a general-purpose Git client. There’s a 14-day trial, after which it’s $49.99/year. For me, at least, complicated history rewriting is not very common, and Tower can do much of it—and has undo—albeit not as smoothly. Perhaps it would make sense to subscribe for a month at a time now and then when it’s needed to get out of a jam.

Previously:

FreemiumKit and RevenueCat

Cihat Gündüz (Reddit):

FreemiumKit is the ultimate solution for Apple platform developers to integrate and manage in-app purchases and subscriptions effortlessly. With support for all Apple platforms, FreemiumKit provides a seamless and efficient way to handle your app’s monetization.

They have a comparison table vs. RevenueCat, which I’ve heard consistently great things about. Currently, it’s free, with a proposed monthly fee based on income.

The last time I looked at RevenueCat, I think it was free up to $10K in monthly revenue. Currently, it looks like the cutoff has been reduced to $2.5K/month, beyond which they take 1%. They say this is “tracked revenue,” which I take to mean it includes Apple’s cut, even though they say “only in months where you make more than $2.5k.” So for the App Store Small Business Program the threshold would be less than $2,125/month in pay to the developer (since VAT is removed, too). Maybe 1% is reasonable for what they offer, but whereas before it seemed like a no-brainer to start with their SDK, now I would be inclined to look more closely at what it offers over StoreKit 2.

Seou H.:

Switching to FreemiumKit had an incredible impact on my development process. I was able to clean up a significant amount of code, removing extra classes and unnecessary complexity that RevenueCat required. This cleanup wasn’t just about aesthetics—it made my app more efficient and easier to manage.

[…]

Built-in SDK components like PaidFeatureView and PaidStatusView were incredibly customizable, allowing me to focus on the user experience without worrying about the technical nitty-gritty. Instead of having to write an entire ViewModel for handling in-app purchases, I could use a one-liner from FreemiumKit. This freed me to concentrate on what mattered most: building a great app.

Previously:

The End of Finale

Greg Dell’Era (via Ric Ford):

35 years ago, Coda Music Technologies, now MakeMusic, released the first version of Finale, a groundbreaking and user-centered approach to notation software. For over four decades, our engineers and product teams have passionately crafted what would quickly become the gold standard for music notation.

Four decades is a very long time in the software industry. Technology stacks change, Mac and Windows operating systems evolve, and Finale’s millions of lines of code add up. This has made the delivery of incremental value for our customers exponentially harder over time.

Today, Finale is no longer the future of the notation industry—a reality after 35 years, and I want to be candid about this. Instead of releasing new versions of Finale that would offer only marginal value to our users, we’ve made the decision to end its development.

[…]

Finale authorization will remain available for the foreseeable future: Please note that future OS changes can still impact your ability to use Finale on new devices.

The FAQ recommends not updating to Sequoia.

William Gallagher:

That development of Finale began in the 1980s, and the first version came out in 1988. It required a Mac Plus, Macintosh SE, or Macintosh II, and preferred those Macs to have 1.5MB of RAM.

To put this in historical context, Finale soon gained a competitor whose name is better known today — but whose original function is forgotten. Apple’s current digital audio workstation app Logic Pro began as the third-party Notator Logic in 1990, and was a rival scoring app.

[…]

MakeMusic and Dell’Era are recommending that users migrate to Finale’s major rival, Dorico Pro. Normally Dorico Pro 5 retails for $579, but users of any version of Finale or PrintMusic can buy it for $149.

See also: Adam Engst and ATPM reviews of Finale 2000, Finale 2001, and Music Press.

The Apple IIGS Megahertz Myth

Dan Vincent (via Hacker News):

The Apple II and Commodore 64 with their 6502 and 6510 CPUs clocked at 1 MHz could trade blows with Z80 powered computers running at three times the clock speed. And the IIGS had the 6502’s 16-bit descendant: the 65C816. Steve Wozniak thought Western Design Center had something special with that chip. In a famous interview in the January 1985 issue of Byte magazine, Woz said,

“[the 65816] should be available soon in an 8 MHz version that will beat the pants off the 68000 in most applications, and in graphics applications it comes pretty close.” End quote. That’s already high praise, but he continues further: “An 8 MHz 65816 is about equivalent to a 16 MHz 68000 in speed, and a 16 MHz 68000 doesn’t exist.”

[…]

But that “should” in “should be available” was doing a lot of work. Eighteen months later when the IIGS finally shipped, there was no 8 MHz ‘816. It was as nonexistent as Woz’s imaginary 16MHz 68000. 8MHz chips were barely available three years later. What happened?

[…]

So why were IIGSes with chips rated at 4 MHz not running them at that speed? Why 2.8 MHz? Isn’t that… weirdly specific? Did an 8 MHz machine really get put on ice due to executive meddling? To solve these mysteries I descended into the depths of Usenet, usergroup newsletters, magazines, and interviews. My journey took me through a world of development Hell, problematic yields, and CPU cycle quirks.

Dave Haynie:

Way back in ’85, a 4MHz ’816 cost noticably more than an 8MHz 68000. Things are going to be even more skewed now.

Copyright © 2000–2024 Michael Tsai.