Doug Gregor:
The Swift code above has a very “C” feel to it. It has global function calls with prefixed names like wgpuInstanceCreateSurface and global integer constants like WGPUStatus_Error. It pervasively uses unsafe pointers, some of which are managed with explicit reference counting, where the user provides calls to wpuXYZAddRef and wgpuXYZRelease functions. It works, but it doesn’t feel like Swift, and inherits various safety problems of C.
Fortunately, we can improve this situation, providing a safer and more ergonomic interface to WebGPU from Swift that feels like it belongs in Swift. More importantly, we can do so without changing the WebGPU implementation: Swift provides a suite of annotations that you can apply to C headers to improve the way in which the C APIs are expressed in Swift. These annotations describe common conventions in C that match up with Swift constructs, projecting a more Swift-friendly interface on top of the C code.
[…]
The problem of needing to layer information on top of existing C headers is not a new one. As noted earlier, Swift relies on a Clang feature called API notes to let us express this same information in a separate file, so we don’t have to edit the header.
Previously:
Update (2026-01-26): Tony Arnold:
I am really happy to see API notes documented here.
I used this on a shared C++/Swift project a few years back, and it massively improved the experience of writing code against the C++ types. It’s well worth the investment of your time to do this if you’re in a similar spot.
C Programming Language Clang Language Design Programming Swift Programming Language
David McCabe and Emmett Lindner (MacRumors, The Verge):
TikTok said on Thursday that its Chinese owner, ByteDance, had struck a deal with a group of non-Chinese investors to create a new U.S. TikTok, concluding a six-year legal saga that saw the app banned by Congress and ensnared in politicking between two global superpowers.
Investors including the software giant Oracle; MGX, an Emirati investment firm; and Silver Lake, another investment firm, will own more than 80 percent of the new venture. That list also includes the personal investment entity for Michael Dell, the tech billionaire behind Dell Technologies, and other firms, TikTok said. Adam Presser, TikTok’s former head of operations, will be the chief executive for the U.S. TikTok.
[…]
The agreement, which was hammered out over more than a year, resolves existential questions about TikTok’s future. The app — with its unceasing feed of lip-syncs, political endorsements, conspiracy theories and skin care tutorials — would have had to leave the American market if it did not separate from ByteDance.
Ashley Belanger:
The law requires the divestment “to end any ‘operational relationship’ between ByteDance and TikTok in the United States,” critics told the NYT. That could be a problem, since TikTok’s release makes it clear that ByteDance will maintain some control over the TikTok US app’s operations.
Previously:
Update (2026-01-26): Reece Rogers (Hacker News):
Now that it’s under US-based ownership, TikTok potentially collects more detailed information about its users, including precise location data.
Nick Heer:
Whether this represents an actual change in the data collected or merely a difference in description is something it seems Rogers cannot answer.
Lily Jamali:
TikTok already collects similar data from users in the UK and Europe as part of a new “Nearby Feed” feature that lets users find events and businesses near them.
Business China iOS iOS 26 iOS App Legal Oracle TikTok Web
Daniel Kennett (BasicAppleGuy):
An exception to that, however, is Apple’s Aperture. I’m still grumpy that Apple discontinued it back in 2015, and I’m not alone. Start spending time in the online photography sphere and you’ll start to notice a small but undeniable undercurrent of lament of its loss to this day. Find an article about Adobe hiking their subscription prices because they added AI for some reason, and amongst the complaining in the comments you’ll invariably find it: “I miss Aperture.”
[…]
So, I dug out the ‘ol Trashcan Mac Pro I lovingly reviewed here on this very blog over eleven years ago and fired up Aperture to document — at least partially — just why it was so special.
[…]
This sort of design is common in apps like Photos, and especially in “shoebox” apps. Every feature is in its own place, and if you want to use that feature you need to pick up your thing (in this case, a photo) and take it over to where the feature is. In this example, the journey from the map to the editor is through a separate list of images, the fullscreen viewer, then finally to the editor.
In contrast, Aperture comes to you.
[…]
In Aperture, the loupe is a little round zoomy thing you can either drag around to view a zoomed-in portion of the image it’s on top of, or attach to the mouse so you can just point at stuff to zoom in. […] Aperture’s technical brilliance is remarkable in how quiet it is.
Nick Heer:
The 2015 discontinuation of Aperture continues to break my heart for two reasons: the loss of support for a tremendous piece of software, of course, and also for what it represents. It was, for reasons Kennett writes about and plenty more, a pinnacle of software design and engineering. It felt like it was built by people who took two crafts — software and photography — very seriously.
John Gruber:
This week’s announcement of the Creator Studio bundle included no news about the future of Photomator. However, my spidey-sense says this is a case where no news might be good news.
[…]
Perhaps the biggest omission in this first release of Apple Creator Studio is the lack of a Lightroom rival, which is exactly what Photomator is — and Aperture was. My guess is that Apple and the acquired Pixelmator team are hard at work on a new Creator Studio version of Photomator, including a version for iPad, and it just isn’t finished yet.
I doubt this would be a Pro tool like Aperture was, though.
Joe Rosensteel:
Why not forecast that possibility by telling us what will happen with the multi-platform app Photomator? It’s the direct analog to Lightroom, making it the most obvious missing piece in Apple’s bundle. If it’s because there are no updates to announce for Photomator after over a year, then I would ask, “Why is Apple charging $30 a year for the existing version of Photomator?”
If it’s because Photomator will instead be a $30 a year freemium unlock for the Photos app, then I would ask, “What’s the Creator Studio bundle for if it doesn’t include photography? And why is Apple still charging $30 a year?”
Previously:
Update (2026-01-26): John Gordon:
I have wanted Cook gone ever since 2013. Not so much for killing Aperture without a replacement, but for not giving Aperture users a reliable way to migrate to anything else.
See also: Hacker News.
Aperture Design History Mac Photography Photomator
Nick Hodulik (via Hacker News):
You need to find an email. You type in the sender’s name. Nothing. You try the subject line. Nothing. You try a unique word you know was in the email. Nothing.
[…]
You type a word. Autocorrect changes it. You delete it and type what you meant. Autocorrect changes it again. You fix it AGAIN. It changes it AGAIN. You’ve now manually corrected this word twice, clearly signaling you want it this way. Autocorrect doesn’t care. It will die on this hill.
[…]
You’re checking out and need to change your card. You see a button with a credit card icon and your address. You tap it. It changes your address. Not the card. To change the card, you need the other button that says ‘Change Payment’. The one without the card icon.
[…]
AirDrop is on. They’re in your contacts. Nothing. You both toggle WiFi. Nothing. Toggle Bluetooth. Nothing. Turn AirDrop off and on. Sometimes it works. Usually you just text it instead.
[…]
You took some photos. iCloud says ‘Uploading 847 items’. You wait. Next day: ‘Uploading 847 items’. Week later: ‘Uploading 847 items’. Is it stuck? Is it working? Is there an error?
Previously:
Update (2026-01-26): Rui Carmo:
“Total time wasted by humanity because Apple won’t fix these” is a wonderfully blunt premise, and the math is… lovely: Base Impact is Users Affected × Frequency × Time Per Incident was enough of a zinger, but the Power User Tax (Σ (Workaround Time × Participation Rate)) and the Shame Multiplier (Years Unfixed × Pressure Factor) just pile it on.
It’s not unlike Steve Jobs’ argument about saving seconds off the Mac’s boot time.
Wade Tregaskis:
The externalities cost estimates might be a little tongue-in-cheek, but honestly, are they all that wrong? One small irritation at the wrong moment can ricochet my happy mood off into the doldrums, and Apple’s products produce a hundred “small” irritations every day – which compound in their irritation when you see them software update after software update, year after year, product after product. It’s hard not to take it personally. Like Apple is deliberately being cruel.
[…]
There is a point at which mere indifference or incompetence transitions into negligence, and it’s long before you become one of the wealthiest companies on the planet with a veritable army of engineers.
Having worked at Apple – among other big tech companies – I can say with confidence that there’s no valid reason why they cannot fix long-standing, infamous bugs.
This was my first thought as well. I get that there’s a huge backlog of bugs. I think that should be prioritized, but I can see why various layers within Apple would prefer to work on new features and redesigns instead. But why not knock off a handful of bugs each year that are longstanding and widespread? This would reliably garner applause at the keynote. Apple can’t or won’t do that, but it had no trouble assigning 2,000 employees to work on the car.
Becky (Hacker News):
I’m trying to get on with the new OS, but there’s so many little bugs that Apple software no longer feels like it just works. It seems less intuitive and like nobody has really tested it thoroughly. Do Apple staff even use their products anymore, or are they all secretly harbouring Android devices?
Here’s a few issues that annoy me regularly, this list is far from exhaustive[…]
Joachim Kurz:
People had hundreds or thousands of bugs assigned. But of course they didn’t actually look at them. The assignment didn’t mean anything. A „not assigned“ would at least have been honest and then you could have looked at all the unassigned bugs regularly.
[…]
There were radars assigned to people in a „Future“ Milestone with P1. Which basically says „hey, it’s really important you do this. Well, not now. But some unspecified time in the future.“
Even though there were two „Future“ milestones, a lot of radars simply got moved from the current milestone to the next, when the current milestone was over. Over multiple years!
People who joined Apple got really stressed because they got assigned a lot of radars on the current milestone by their managers and had no way to actually finish them in time. Until someone explained to them „no worries, we don’t actually expect you to finish those, we just need to assign them to someone“.
Update (2026-02-02): See also: Marcus Mendes and TidBITS-Talk.
AirDrop Apple Mail Apple Pay Apple Software Quality Auto-Correction Bug iOS iOS 26 Mac macOS Tahoe 26 Photos.app Radar and Feedback Assistant Spotlight
