Nick Heer:
App icons across Apple’s three most popular operating systems share a similar rounded square mask, and it is a downgrade. Simon B. Støvring correctly calls out the “expressive, varied app icons, a case of character over conformity” as a highlight of past versions of MacOS. I miss detailed and artistic app icons plenty. Indulging in realistic textures and thoughtful rendering was not only a differentiator for the Mac; it also conveyed the sense an app was built with a high degree of care.
Perhaps that is largely a product of nostalgia. Change can be uncomfortable, but it could be for good reasons. Stripping icons of their detail might not be bad, just different. But wrapping everything in a uniform shape? That is, dare I say, an objective degradation.
Since MacOS Big Sur debuted the precursor to this format, I have found it harder to differentiate between applications which, as I understand it, is the very function and purpose of an icon. I know this has been a long-running gripe for those of us of a certain age, but it remains true, and a walk through the history of Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines indicates the company also understands it to be true.
[…]
Apple used to guide designers on how to make smaller icons by removing details and simplifying. Something you will often hear from designers is the fun and challenge of very small icons; how does one convey the same impression of fidelity when you have exactly 256 pixels to use? It is a delicate feat. Now, Apple simply says no icon — no matter how large — is deserving of detail. This, to me, betrays a lack of trust in the third-party designers it apparently celebrates.
Previously:
Design Icons Mac macOS Tahoe 26
Apple (download):
Added a new setting that dictates how function names are displayed in C++ frames: plugin.cplusplus.display.function-name-format
[…]
The span property of UTF8View does not support the small string representation in beta 1, and traps for small String instances. A future version of the Swift standard library will lift this restriction.
[…]
The packaging tool (ba-package) and the mock server (ba-serve) crash immediately when the selected Xcode installation isn’t located at /Applications/Xcode.app.
[…]
#bundle does not refer to the correct resource bundle when used from a mergeable library.
[…]
User supplied background images in Icon Composer are composited at the same scale as the 2048x2048 pixel icon renderings, and thus appear much smaller than expected. […] Workaround: Use a very large background image.
[…]
Metric recommendations are now available for the launch time metric in the Xcode Organizer. When there is enough information, the Organizer will display a recommended value for a metric on the chart associated with your app’s metrics. Use this data to plan and prioritize performance engineering work.
[…]
You may experience build failures when building projects with Swift macro dependencies. Common symptom is a build failure around _SwiftSyntaxCShims. You can work around this by disabling the swift-syntax prebuilts for macros feature.
John Siracusa:
The second betas of Tahoe and Xcode are both out, but I still can’t do a release build of my app. A very large “swift-frontend” command fails, stopping the build. FB18090372 for any Xcode and/or Swift compiler folks who see this… 🙏
Steven Woolgar:
I filed a ticket on Xcode 16.0 beta. Every release I add a new entry. The latest being: “Still broken in Xcode 26.0b2”. Sigh
I use this feature every single time I use Xcode.
Just found a new one today. I wonder how long I’ll be “still broken”ening this one?
Craig Hockenberry:
Now that the Finder icon is under control, can we get some attention on the Xcode icon?
Previously:
C++ Programming Language Icon Composer Mac macOS Tahoe 26 Programming Swift Programming Language Xcode
Marko Zivkovic (via Ric Ford, Reddit):
Apple announced its plans for a new opt-in Apple Intelligence training program. In essence, users can let Apple use content from their iPhone to train AI models. The training itself happens entirely on-device, and it incorporates a privacy-preserving method known as Differential Privacy.
The opt out seems to be via the Share iPhone & Watch Analytics button, which is the iOS equivalent of the Mac button that Mysk demonstrated Apple doesn’t actually honor.
In a social media post, developer Joachim outlined a new section of Apple's privacy notice in the Feedback application. When uploading an attachment as part of a bug report, such as a sysdiagnose file, users now need to give Apple consent to use the uploaded content for AI training.
Joachim Kurz:
After a long time, I filed another bug report using Feedback Assistant because the bug was bad enough that it’s worth the effort of writing it all down.
When uploading a sysdiagnose (or probably any other attachments) you get the usual privacy notice that there is likely a lot of private and other sensitive info in those log files. It’s not a great feeling but it is what it is with diagnostic data and I mostly trust the folks at Apple to treat it with respect and I trust the Logging system to redact the most serious bits.
However, when filing a feedback today a noticed a new addition to the privacy notice:
“By submitting, you […] agree that Apple may use your submission to [train] Apple Intelligence models and other machine learning models.”
WTF? No! I don’t want that. It’s extremely shitty behavior to a) even ask me this in this context where I entrust you with my sensitive data to help you fix your shit to b) hide it in the other privacy messaging stuff and to c) not give me any way to opt out except for not filing a bug report.
I could understand if the plan were for Apple to train some kind of internal AI model to help them triage bugs. Some developers might still have a problem with this because they don’t want their private data leaking out of the context of their particular bug. But when Apple says Apple Intelligence models that sure sounds like training the general models that will be available to the general public.
They probably have something in the terms of service that allows them to retroactively do this for previously submitted bugs, going back decades. Really, the only solution for keeping your data private is not to share data—even for internal use by the Privacy Company—that you don’t want to be shared. That is, only submit sysdiagnoses from a clean test Mac.
Joachim Kurz:
Also, there is a lot of sensitive information in a sysdiagnose. Taking it and throwing it into a big pile of data and compute and hoping something useful comes out of it is not treating my data with the respect it deserves.
On the topic of Radar, also see this thread by Max Seelemann:
Apple’s disrespect for the time and energy going into developer bug reports is making me sad. 🙁
Reported a performance issue with a sample app a couple of months ago. Of course, no feedback.
And now, Beta 2, they just ask if it’s still present and a sysdiagnose. They could have just launched the sample themselves and would have seen that NOTHING has changed. My guess is that no single developer at Apple has ever seen the issue and they just randomly ask about this out of procedure? Depressing.
Der Teilweise:
My model of the radar world is that they tag reports like “Finder icon position” or “… performance” and the devs add tags to their commits. Whenever a release contains a commit where the tags match, you automatically get those “please verify” mails.
Like “if we touch a part of the code that is closely related to a report, just ask the reporter if we fixed it as a side effect.”
I doubt this is the case because I’ve had bugs that did get fixed but where I never got this e-mail, even though really rough tagging would have made my bugs match. Or maybe some percentage of bugs just never get tagged.
Peter Steinberger:
The best is when they personally reach out via DM and then you make them an example and you NEVER hear back.
My favorite is when they do write back once and say that you can ask for updates on the bug, and then each year you ask for an update and never ever hear anything again.
Previously:
Apple Intelligence Artificial Intelligence iOS iOS 18 Mac macOS 15 Sequoia Privacy Radar and Feedback Assistant
Jason Snell:
It’s probably worth explaining why this feature has so many podcasters and other creators in a bit of a tizzy. Many podcasts record remotely, with people all over the world, and they usually use some sort of app to have that real-time conversation. It was Skype back in the day, and these days it’s often Zoom or a web-based recording program like Riverside. Because those apps prioritize real-time audio and video over quality, the quality is frequently bad by necessity.
To ensure that the very best audio and video is used in the final product, we tend to use a technique called a “multi-ender.”
[…]
The problem has been iPadOS and iOS, which won’t let you run a videoconferencing app and simultaneously run a second app to capture your microphone and video locally. One app at a time is the rule, especially when it comes to using cameras and microphones. Individual iPhone and iPad videoconferencing apps can choose to build in local-recording features if they want, but in practice… they just don’t.
Apple has solved this in an interesting way. What it’s not doing is allowing multiple apps access to the microphone (so far as I can tell, I just tried it and the moment I started a FaceTime call, my local recording app stopped). Instead, Apple has just built in a system feature, found in Control Center, that will capture local audio and video when you’re on a call.
This is a great illustration of the (old) Mac vs. iOS philosophies. With the Mac, you get a more open system that lets developers innovate as well as potentially interfere with other apps. With iPadOS, if you wait 15 years you may get a tailored solution built-in, but if what you need isn’t exactly what Apple pre-imagined and blessed you might still be out of luck.
Fernando Silva:
Before we deep dive into this topic, I want to mention that I love iPadOS 26. Yes, it’s the first beta, so plenty of tweaking and optimization still needs to get done. But overall, it’s been what I have wanted on iPadOS for years. That being said, a few things still hold it back from being a true MacBook replacement for some people. So if you’re debating between an iPad Pro or a MacBook, here are five essential things iPadOS still can’t do.
Previously:
Audio Control Center iOS Multitasking iPadOS iPadOS 26 Video
