Tim Hardwick:
Netflix appears to have softened its stance on Apple TV integration, with some users in the US now reporting seeing prompts to connect their Netflix accounts directly to Apple’s TV app.
[…]
The integration currently seems restricted to Netflix Original content rather than the service’s full catalog of licensed shows and movies. When users select content to watch, they are still directed to the Netflix app for playback.
That’s confusing that it doesn’t apply to the whole catalog.
Dan Moren:
Just yesterday on our Six Colors podcast, I suggested it was high time for Apple and Netflix to make a deal to get Netflix content in the Apple TV app. And it seems maybe, at long last, after years of no movement, finally such a deal is happening?
M.G. Siegler:
To me, this may be the “finally” to end all “finallys”[…]
[…]
It’s now 2025, and I’ve been writing about the problem I like to call: “Where the Fuck Can I Stream This?” for years now. And it has arguably never been worse.
[…]
Assuming Netflix is playing ball with Apple here, there are other questions. For example, will they allow Apple to recommend Netflix content for you based on your viewing habits? Maybe if Apple also agrees to share that data with Netflix? But it’s Apple, will they actually do that? Maybe if a user explicitly agrees? The pop-up users are reporting seeing only says that Netflix will share viewing content with Apple, not the other way around…
[…]
First an Apple TV Android app and now this – what’s next, an actual Apple television set?
Juli Clover:
As it turns out, Netflix content showing up in new places in the Apple TV interface was a bug, and Netflix is not introducing expanded Apple TV functionality. In a statement to The Verge, a Netflix spokesperson confirmed that temporary support for the Continue Watching feature was an error, and it has been rolled back.
Netflix is one of the only major streaming services that has refused to offer integration with the Apple TV app, preferring instead for customers to manage watch lists and browse for content directly in the Netflix app.
Previously:
Update (2025-02-16): John Gruber (Mastodon):
I see why Netflix is sticking to its guns on this one, but they’re on the wrong side. Apple TV users were overjoyed yesterday when the Netflix app briefly started integrating with the TV app for “what next”, etc. Steven Aquino described it as “jubilance”.
Joe Rosensteel:
Netflix deeply regrets accidentally making Netflix a better product for its customers.
[…]
They may very well turn it on later, like, let’s say if Apple is actually shipped a tvOS update that completely displaces the old home screen, and reduces visibility of their app at all. However such a move is just as likely to hurt the commercial appeal of the Apple TV for customers that find Netflix’s mediocrity essential. This “error” may never see the light of day again, or it could be flipped back on any minute now.
Apple TV Bug Netflix Strategy Tax TV.app tvOS tvOS 18
Hector Martin (via Hacker News):
When Apple released the M1, I realized that making it run Linux was my dream project. The technical challenges were the same as my console homebrew projects of the past (in fact, much bigger), but this time, the platform was already open - there was no need for a jailbreak, and no drama and entitled users who want to pirate software to worry about.
[…]
Unfortunately, things became less fun after a while. First, there were the issues upstreaming code to the Linux kernel, which I’ve already spoken at length about and I won’t repeat here. Suffice it to say, being in a position to have to upstream code across practically every Linux subsystem, touching drivers of all categories as well as some common code, is an incredibly frustrating experience.
[…]
No matter how much we did, how many impossible feats we pulled off, people always wanted more. And more. Meanwhile, donations and pledges kept slowly decreasing, and have done so since the project launched. […] It seemed the more things we accomplished, the less support we had.
[…]
I consider Linus’ handling of the integration of Rust into Linux a major failure of leadership. Such a large project needs significant support from major stakeholders to survive, while his approach seems to have been to just wait and see. Meanwhile, multiple subsystem maintainers downstream of him have done their best to stonewall or hinder the project, issue unacceptable verbal abuse, and generally hurt morale, with no consequence. One major Rust for Linux maintainer already resigned a few months ago.
As you know, this is deeply personal to me, as we’ve made a bet on Rust for Linux for Asahi.
Previously:
Update (2025-02-16): Kevin Purdy:
Rust is a far more memory-safe coding language than the Linux kernel’s native C. But getting more than 1,700 maintainers, including branch bosses, to accept Rust code after decades of work in C is no small feat. Linux lead Linus Torvalds has shifted ever-so-slightly from a “wait and see” approach in 2021 to noting in the summer of 2024 that he expected Rust updates to be faster while admitting that it’s largely kernel developers’ familiarity with C standing in the way. At that time, Microsoft engineer Wedson Almeida Filho resigned from the Rust for Linux project, citing “nontechnical nonsense” as the motivation.
That conflict between the energy of Rust for Linux contributors and the strictures of kernel practices collided once more this winter in an early January kernel mailing list thread about a patch with the deceptively non-controversial name “Add dma coherent allocator abstraction.”
Kernel maintainer Christoph Hellwig opposed a patch that would have allowed drivers written in Rust to access the Direct Memory Access (DMA) API. “No rust code in kernel/dma, please,” Hellwig wrote. After some back-and-forth about suggested alternatives, Hellwig comes out with it: “Don’t force me to deal with your shiny language of the day. Maintaining multi-language projects is a pain I have no interest in dealing with.” A later post by Hellwig pushed further, and his attempt to clarify that it was “a cross-language codebase” he was comparing to “cancer,” not just Rust, did not likely soften its impact.
Update (2025-02-25): Greg Kroah-Hartman (via Hacker News, Michael Larabel):
The majority of bugs (quantity, not quality/severity) we have are due to
the stupid little corner cases in C that are totally gone in Rust.
Things like simple overwrites of memory (not that rust can catch all of
these by far), error path cleanups, forgetting to check error values,
and use-after-free mistakes. That’s why I’m wanting to see Rust get
into the kernel, these types of issues just go away, allowing developers
and maintainers more time to focus on the REAL bugs that happen (i.e.
logic issues, race conditions, etc.)
I’m all for moving our C codebase toward making these types of problems
impossible to hit, the work that Kees and Gustavo and others are doing
here is wonderful and totally needed, we have 30 million lines of C code
that isn’t going anywhere any year soon. That’s a worthy effort and is
not going to stop and should not stop no matter what.
But for new code / drivers, writing them in rust where these types of
bugs just can’t happen (or happen much much less) is a win for all of
us, why wouldn’t we do this?
Kevin Purdy:
Torvalds’ response from Thursday does offer some clarification on Rust bindings in the kernel, but also on what die-hard C coders can and cannot control.
Maintainers like Hellwig who do not want to integrate Rust do not have to. But they also cannot dictate the language or manner of code that touches their area of control but does not alter it. The pull request Hellwig objected to “DID NOT TOUCH THE DMA LAYER AT ALL,” Torvalds writes (all-caps emphasis his), and was “literally just another user of it, in a completely separate subdirectory.”
“Honestly, what you have been doing is basically saying ‘as a DMA maintainer I control what the DMA code is used for.’ And that is not how *any* of this works,” Torvalds writes.
[…]
The leader goes on to state that maintainers who want to be involved in Rust can be, and can influence what Rust bindings look like. Those who “are taking the ‘I don’t want to deal with Rust’ option,” Torvalds writes, can do so—later describing it as a “wall of protection”—but also have no say on Rust code that builds on their C interfaces.
Update (2025-03-19): Michael Larabel (via Hacker News):
Asahi Lina announced today that she is pausing work on all of the Apple GPU driver development she had been pursuing for Asahi Linux with the open-source DRM kernel driver as well as Mesa contributions.
[…]
Asahi Lina had been leading the effort working on a Rust-written Apple DRM kernel graphics driver that has yet to be mainlined to the Linux kernel. Plus contributions to the Asahi AGX Gallium3D and Honeykrisp Vulkan drivers within Mesa too. As part of that, Asahi Lina was also involved in reverse-engineering the Apple M1/M2 GPU.
Apple M1 Linux Open-source Software Programming Rust Programming Language
Jason Snell:
A year on, I can’t in good conscience recommend that anyone buy one. It’s a glimpse of a potential future and a developer kit for potential future Apple platforms, but that’s about it.
[…]
Vision Pro is a tremendous video player. […] If there’s a single feature that would actually sell Vision Pros, it would be the creation of some sort of killer immersive video content.
[…]
Beyond video, I’ve found Vision Pro to be an excellent tool for shifting my own personal context. When I’m feeling frustrated or distracted and need to buckle down and get to work, I have frequently put on the Vision Pro, popped in my AirPods Pro, and dialed in an immersive environment (Joshua Tree is my favorite) so I can work with zero distractions.
[…]
And, yes, Mac Virtual Display is a winner. It’s not perfect—the video quality of the Vision Pro display is a little fuzzier than a real Retina Display—but it lets me use my laptop in any context, in any space. Laptops are actually kind of bad for you ergonomically since the keyboard is physically close to the display. In Virtual Display mode, I can float the display higher up, allowing me to view it at a more comfortable angle.
[…]
The problem is that I rarely find myself needing to use the Vision Pro. It’s not that I don’t enjoy using it… in fact, every time I put it on, I find myself wanting to give myself additional reasons to keep on using it because it’s so much fun in there! But the impetus to find a safe place to sit, take off my glasses, slip on a VR headset, and jack into cyberspace doesn’t come along that often.
John Gruber:
Vision Pro is easily worth $3500 alone just for watching 2D movies and TV and sports on a virtual high-res enormous screen. If Apple can also offer 3D live sports and compelling original 3D content and games, they won’t be able to make them fast enough to keep up with demand at $3500.
$3500 is a bargain for what Vision Pro offers.
[…]
It’s just that me, personally, I’m not the target audience for a $3500 super deluxe movie watching headset.
John Gruber:
Am I predicting that the Vision platform will have as bright and essential a future ahead of it as the Macintosh did in 1984? No. But I suspect it has a bright and essential future ahead of it. The entire concept and paradigm is so new and different that, like the Macintosh 40 years prior, the product had to ship years before a version will be made at a price that appeals to the mass market, and years before there’s all that much to do using it.
But, as it stands, Vision Pro today offers an incredible experience for watching traditional movies and shows, and a breakthrough experience for watching spatial content. If Bang & Olufsen sold this product in a form that only played movies — no “spatial computing” — it would cost $10,000 and some people would consider it well worth the price. Spatial computing feels fun to me, but not very productive. That could change, and I suspect “fun but not productive” is how I would have described trying to work on a Macintosh in 1984 vs. an Apple II. And Vision Pro’s remarkable (and with VisionOS 2, much improved) Mac Virtual Display feature is a highly-productive environment for work.
I can’t give Vision Pro an A for 2024, but I foresee A’s in future years.
Mark Gurman (tweet):
Apple Inc. has canceled a project to build advanced augmented reality glasses that would pair with its devices, marking the latest setback in its effort to create a headset that appeals to typical consumers.
[…]
The now-canceled product would have looked like normal glasses but include built-in displays and require a connection to a Mac[…]
Previously:
Anniversary Apple Vision Pro Mac Virtual Display visionOS visionOS 2
Juli Clover:
TikTok is once again available for download from the App Store, which means it can be installed on iPhones and will be able to receive updates. Apple’s decision to start distributing TikTok again comes after a letter sent from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, according to Bloomberg, but the letter has not been shared.
[…]
While TikTok has been absent from the App Store for the last month, the social network has remained functional and those who previously downloaded TikTok have been able to continue to use the app.
John Gruber:
I’d sure like to see what exactly that letter says. […] Neither Apple nor Google, wisely, have been talking publicly about this at all, but it seems clear that they’ve been acting in concert throughout the process. It is not a coincidence that they both de-listed and now re-listed TikTok simultaneously.
Also, still no idea how this is going to end, because I really don’t think the CCP is going to allow ByteDance to sell TikTok. And there are Republicans in the Senate — e.g. Tom Cotton — who stand behind the sell-or-you’re-banned law.
Previously:
Android Android App App Store China Department of Justice (DOJ) Google Play Store iOS iOS 18 iOS App Legal TikTok
