Apple WWDC Keynote | Hacker News Reader

Apple WWDC Keynote

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218 pointsProZsolt360 comments

It has just been confirmed. Macs are moving to Apple's ARM chips.

Edit 1: They are pushing the performance/Watt angle, as well as all their SoC features already known on other devices. They also say they will bring a "family of SoCs" to Mac.

Edit 2: All Apple apps will ship with native code at launch, including Final Cut and Logic Pro. MS and Adobe apps will also get native versions. There are going to be new "Universal (2)" binaries shipping with both x64 and ARM code.

Edit 3: Office, Lightroom, and Photoshop were shown working as expected.

Edit 4: It sounded like they just said "A12Z" in a Mac. I'm not entirely sure I got that right.

Edit 5: Rosetta 2 is announced. It's a translation layer from x64 to ARM. Apparently it does AOT translation, as well as JITting.

Edit 6: Working virtualization confirmed, in particular Docker.

Edit 7: They are showing Maya running in Rosetta. It seems smooth. Some Tomb Raider game is also running fine translated.

Edit 8: iOS apps are coming to Mac.

Edit 9: A "Developer Transition Kit" is coming, which will ship new hardware (Mac mini with an A12Z) this week. You have to apply.

Edit 10: They expect the transition to take two years. They also said there's still new Intel-based Macs in the pipeline.

Edit 11: That's all she wrote. I'm personally sad and slightly surprised that they weren't giving us any hard performance numbers. Be it raw power or battery life improvements or anything really. If they're shipping hardware now we're bound to find out very soon, though.

Office and Photoshop up and running pre-launch sure takes the wind out of a lot of the app compatibility complaints!

These two program ecosystems (and AAA video games with anticheat) are the biggest things that hold a lot of people like me back from using Linux exclusively.

Virtualization also running now. Great for us Linux users!

And "iPad apps run on it directly!" - from Craig himself

Transition kit = mac mini running A12Z processor. Shipping today! - no word on cost...

A comment that I may regret in a few minutes, but it seems to me that running iOS apps directly on new Macs implies touch screen.

If you remember that they had cursor support in the latest iPad , my guess is that the cursor support enables it instead of a touchscreen.

Woah I think you're right. Sure some apps might work without a touchscreen but that kinda defeats the point?

Unless this feature is just to help on board new apps to macs that were previously only for ios but don't require a touch screen, but that seems like it would be rather niche?

I bet they're actually pivoting towards a product that's "ipad pro + desktop apps" and then they'll try to phase out their "computers" that currently feel like an after thought.

I think iPad mouse support is a better bet: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211008

iOS apps are built using a Mac and a mouse.

I highly doubt Apple would have a touch screen anytime soon.

It's just a neat way of porting iOS code to native mac apps, to expedite development.

It isn't an iOS emulator or anything cheap like that.

Was that implying x86 vms or was that an arm64 linux build?

Not yet sure.

Andreas Wendker demoed Parallels running Debian Linux 10, (and there was also a screenshot of Debian 9), He went to the linux command line to run apache. He also mentioned Docker when listing developer tools.

Possibly they're using QEMU to run Intel code?

Just saw now in the Platforms State of the Union that it's ARM Debian, not x86.

$500 And must be returned at the end of the program

From press release [1] >> The DTK, which must be returned to Apple at the end of the program ... Developers can apply to the program at developer.apple.com, and the total cost of the program is $500.

[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-announces-mac-t....

Last time they had a similar program they gave everyone a free final production MacBook in exchange for returning the dev kit - the same thing is likely to happen here.

Hmm... MacBook plus an early look for $500. That would be a great deal!

Thanks for the info. That link is broken for me though — is it up for anyone else?

This is the right link: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-announces-mac-t...

No virtualization for the DTK, apparently.

>It sounded like they just said "A12Z" in a Mac. I'm not entirely sure I got that right.

That is what was said, but the A12Z is the current SoC that is in current iPad Pros. Craig said that the machine he was on was a "Development Platform" for testing software using the iPad Pro chip. I don't think that necessarily means the new non-iPads will be using the A12Z. My guess is that they are saving the announcement of the new chip's name until later (maybe until the end of the keynote).

edit: no mention at all of the chip specifics or name for new "Apple Silicon". Maybe they're holding that off until the actual hardware announcement later in the fall?

I wonder whether they're actually launching a new mac today/soon. They're demoing on a new imac...

EDIT: They're launching a mac mini development kit based on the A12Z today.

When they did the transition to Intel they also had a dev kit which was not based on the final product processor, so I guess history repeats itself (it was a P4 based kit but I don't think we ever saw a P4 Mac)

Yeah a part of the point of Intel Core branding was to allow Mac to use Intel without carrying Pentium name.

Right. Also, the "About This Mac" window shows the "Apple Development Platform" is an A12Z with 16GB of RAM. I think the latest iPad Pro is 6GB or 8GB?

I'm making a guess it'll be it's own series of chip. I also predict that it'll be called the M-Series.

they use "M" for Motion coprocessors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_motion_coprocessors

Gah, how did I forget that...I still think the way they talked, it feels like it'll be a different series but maintain family connections to the A series. But maybe not. Knowing they're using the A series in the Dev kit, maybe it'll just be an A series.

I am very curious why they mentioned Linux but not Windows?

Might be competition type thing, MS not wanting to or because they simply didn't get it to work yet. Speculation is free.

> or because they simply didn't get it to work yet

Based on how poorly every other Windows on Arm experiment has gone, I'm guessing Apple is not willing to officially sanction bootcamp (yet).

Other possibility: bootcamp (native Windows booting) requires something like iBoot starting a CSM or UEFI stub (if the A-SoC doesn't use UEFI - which it might not) to then start the Windows Boot Manager.

I don't actually know the current status of supported Windows firmware loaders, but the most recent information I had was that even on ARM you needed UEFI with Secure Boot.

I am interested in Linux on those Mac ARM desktop machines, probably takes a lot of effort, I don't see Apple making the effort themselves. On the other hand: there is a super small chance that if the A-series SoCs are marketable you'd get no-OS ARM (micro) servers. That'd be pretty cool.

I don't think it's an issue like that. You can run windows without secure boot[1], and the windows boot loader can be chain loaded from whatever apple is using if they are not using a standard eufi firmware for whatever reason.

At the very least, booting windows is a relatively low effort problem to solve compared to everything else that has to happen to move a whole ecosystem to a new architecture. We can conclude its a low priority for Apple, if it's something they still want to support at all.

[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactur...

I don't think you can run Windows on ARM without UEFI and Secure Boot.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/br...

Apple doesn't use UEFI on their ARM systems, so it'd be an extra effort indeed.

Apple uses UEFI on it's Intel Macs.

https://support.apple.com/guide/security/uefi-firmware-overv...

Why assume this would change?

There are huge number of Web developers on Mac. And 99% of them deploy to Linux. Comparatively speaking I dont know know any one doing Bootcamp apart from rare gaming.

Only times I've used it was for occasionally needing to touch SQL Server.

That was a few years ago, there might be better ways of interacting with it now.

We probably run with different crowds, but Parallels or BootCamp are installed on all the Macs we have because of specific programs needed to fulfill grants.

Yep, there are lots of weird clunky little windows only apps for doing calculations for things in my industry as well, usually stuff thats required for regulatory compliance. But I can't think of any that use really any processing power. As long as parallels can emulate x86 windows on ARM even a big speed drop would be manageable, as long as the windows UI doesn't get sluggish.

Yeah, possible is fine. We don't need amazing speed just an ok UI speed. It is truly a shame that Java apps didn't actually take off with government & industry developers. Maybe they will do Electron at some point.

It might be worth someone's time to research this area of the economy and provide cross-platform tools.

Two reasons: 1. Windows competes with macOS and 2. I assume x86 Windows can't be run as a virtualized guest on an ARM Mac due to the different ISAs between the host/guest; it would have to be run in an emulator instead?

Windows 10 runs on ARM on the Microsoft Surface Pro X.

Servers...

A lot of people developing apps that run on Linux servers use Macs, and have had MS targeting them for a couple of years as well.

It's probably an ARM64 version of Linux. I don't know if you've tried it but Ubuntu 20.04 for ARM64 runs really nicely on the Raspberry Pi 4.

Yeah, it's an ARM version of Linux.

Was there any mention of how long Rosetta 2 will be supported? The problem for me was that I still had PowerPC binaries after Apple got rid of Rosetta

I don't think they said anything on that. However they did say there's still new Intel-based Macs coming, so I would expect it to be a while.

Cook said they expect the transition to last 2 years. The first models will ship before Christmas.

I believe the Rosetta technology was licenced from another company and the licence expired.

iOS apps on Mac? Are they finally going to relent and add a touchscreen?

I doubt it. 'Most' apps work fine unmodified they said. Probably iPadOS cursor support. Perhaps multitouch trackpad gestures will work maybe?

I doubt it. Probably just mouse support from iPadOS.

But then they couldn't make you buy an iPad and a Mac.

No. It's likely a stopgap until those apps get a proper macOS version. It'll be sufficient for games, but macOS users will eventually demand Catalyst or full AppKit conversions for certain apps.

I wouldn't take any prerecorded, retouched video as proof of performance.

It does look like they've covered most angles though, from a strategy perspective. I'll wait for actual reviews but it looks like a done deal.

Sigh. Thinkpad it is then.

No new macbook.

No mention of Bootcamp at all. RIP.

Windows 10 only runs on x86 or Snapdragon ARM SoCs. Too early for Bootcamp.

What if boot into native ARM Linux through bootcamp?

Technically speaking Bootcamp was only developed to support Windows. Apple has no motivation to support any OS.

New iOS features so far look like Android parity catchup. Finally, a way to remove apps from the home screen without uninstalling them, and an "all apps" view so you can still find them. And real home screen widgets. And picture in picture video. New Siri overlay design seems similar in function to the new Google Assistant overlay design. On device voice recognition for keyboard dictation, like GBoard on Pixel. Maps guides, bike directions, like Google Maps. App Clips, like Play Instant Apps. Incoming calls as notifications, like the Google Phone app.

I always thought widgets were a huge deal and then I realized... and I played with them all the time but inevitably ... I used them less and less and less.

My phone as a sort of dashboard just doesn't work, I suspect it would require too much customization to really create to work for me and probably anyone else. Usually I want to just open a specific app anyway.

I find it really helpful having the calendar widget on my first homescreen

I need a calendar and todo list in my face. Notifications were okay but there's so many of them now it's mostly noise.

The only "widgets" I use are on my lock screen: time, weather, meetings. Everything else is just a distraction.

Widgets can definitely be overused. But I like having a calendar, a data usage meter, music player controls, and quick access to my top couple of contacts.

My android phone home screen has contained a weather widget and a music player widget for the past 7 years. I love having both of those things instantly viewable and interactive.

Widgets can be very useful if you set them up correctly. For example I am checking our KPIs daily with a single swipe.

Shameless plug, I've recently made an app for this, to create custom widgets: https://www.wowidget.com/

Widgets are the only way I can stand having smart home things. Whenever I want to control a light it's always right now and widgets give me that.

The ideal way for most "control something" widgets to work is the way the iOS "Apple TV Remote" app already works, when added as a Mission Control button.

It's 1. a regular app; plus 2. a shortcut to get into that app that can be accessed with one swipe from the lock screen; plus 3. a lock-screen widget that displays if the phone fell asleep while the app was in the foreground; and finally, 4. a separate "lock-screen embedded pseudo-app" (sort of like the Camera one you get to by swiping left on the lock screen), which you get to if you tap the "Remote" Mission Control button without first unlocking the phone. This last view allows people to still use your locked phone to pause the Apple TV it's controlling, if you're not there to unlock it for them.

It's too bad that no third-party app on iOS can achieve this same level of integration.

I wouldn't see much point in your 3 and 4 for home automation stuff. Homekit does 1 and 2, and for the bulbs I use it with, that's plenty.

I wouldn't say that's ideal because it's predicated on seeing & using the lockscreen, which is itself not ideal.

Ideal is the device is instantly unlocked when I pick it up - which is also the reality I have as an Android user, but you can experience this on iOS as well with jailbreak mods. And with widgets it's then zero swipes to get to my lightbulb controls, which is just sweet.

Ideally there would just be a button that could turn on the lights in the room (to the level I want). In olden times this button was mounted to the walls of said room, but in these modern times, it would be awesome if that button was a real button, on my phone, like the volume up/down buttons, and would just turn the lights on/off in the room the phone is in. That Apple's got this hacky solution thats suffciently functional shouldn't be taken as the end-state on what an ideal solution is.

I enjoyed widgets when I used Android. Being able to keep a few key contacts 1 tap away, the weather and calendar always visible, and being able to single tap to create a new todo, another single tap to open my groceries note, etc. was pretty cool.

With the latest iphones being as fast as they are it's not a game changer to not have widgets, but I definitely found them extremely convenient.

I have never heard anyone ask for a way to remove an app without uninstalling it. Seems like weird feature creep to me. Edge case, just stick the app in a folder...

Think start vs desktop for windows or dock vs finder for mac os

You can already search for the app you want, though.

Ah ok. So the difference here is I do not think of my phone like I think about a computer.

Suddenly a lot of Android makes sense - they’re trying to build a little computer that fits in your pocket! Aha! I see!

I am not sure that’s a good model for designing something that is fundamentally not a little desktop computer.

You mentioned "sticking an app in a folder" -- that's as much a computer metaphor as anything.

A folder is an office metaphor, surely.

So is a desktop.

Speak for yourself. I use widgets heavily on Android and keep a clean app-less home screen. Every app is just in the drawer. As well, there are many things that one can do on Android that are simply not possible on iOS, such as using git to interface with files and querying a remote server. That's just me, though, I know the vast majority don't care about this functionality.

Yeah, totally, I get that for some people they'll see Android like that and for people like yourself the "mini computer" paradigm makes total sense.

Just not for the gigantic market that Android has.

I've always found Android's design to be really weird compared to iOS or Windows Phone, but seeing it as a "mini computer" explains why their design doesn't make sense to me - because I see phones as a separate form factor that fundamentally changes how it is used [by most people].

It's kinda like not putting all the app shortcuts on your desktop. Maybe people don't know that they want it.

I would love that. Extensions (ad blockers, keyboards, etc) in particular are super awkward because they install a full app. I also have a couple regional apps that I use every couple of months they really don't deserve home screen space even if its in a junk folder.

Nearly every iOS user has a folder called called "junk" to deal with apps they don't want on their home-screen but also can't uninstall. This isn't an edge case at all...

Is the solution not to allow people to uninstall them, rather than just a better way to hide them?

Often times the "junk" app is a third party app that the OS allows them to uninstall but they can't uninstall because they need to have it once a year for checking something.

There's also apps you just want for the integration they may provide (for example, a keyboard app) but don't want to install the entire app.

I have the Pocket app installed on my iPhone, because I want to be able to share stuff to Pocket, but I don't ever actually use the Pocket app to read stuff.

Then there are utility apps, such as the app that I used to setup my wifi, that I rarely open but still want to keep around in case something goes wrong.

There's all sorts of reasons to have apps installed but not showing in the most prime real estate in the world.

Nah, I have (for one example) a collection of apps that just exist to power the real version on my watch.

Note that these apps actually do something in some cases, like I have a Twitter app (Chirp) where I'm pretty sure the heavy lifting happens on my phone and the watch just does the display.

That's not what the post I replied to was saying:

> Finally, a way to remove apps from the home screen without uninstalling them

You're talking about a different problem.

The solution in your case is surely to allow the apps to be uninstalled!

What? This is a complaint I hear often from ios users. "I know you don't want to see this app, too bad just stick it in a folder you don't want to see either" is not the kind of super slick UX that made ios popular.

I have six apps on my Android homescreen: browser, mail, sms, clock, notes and maps. That's all I always use every week. I definitely need my TOTP app, Duo for work, the calculator and of course camera and phone apps, but I don't use any of them frequently enough to want them on the homescreen.

I haven't seen that part yet, but to me the iOS app list was a killer feature.

I always hated Android's desktop, it feels redundant when there's already an app menu, and I can't stand the fact that newly installed apps decide to show up on the desktop. Never used widgets either, they have never made my daily workflow easier at all. YMMV

How can you simultaneously state that you prefer an app list (where all apps are listed and thus added automatically) and complain about how apps are automatically added to the Android home screen (which I presume is what you're referring to as desktop)?

And the thing you never used never made your daily workflow easier? That sounds... obvious? Try using it for a while and then decide if they're worth it.

> How can you simultaneously state that you prefer an app list (where all apps are listed and thus added automatically) and complain about how apps are automatically added to the Android home screen (which I presume is what you're referring to as desktop)?

Presumably because, if your primary "default" view was already the app list, then it'd be redundant for the home screen to have apps on it. If the "home screen" was secondary, it'd become more of a "widget screen" (like the iOS "widget page", but with the ability to add shortcuts to documents/bookmarks as well.)

Just like a PC desktop (which is secondary in function to the OS apps menu/launcher) is essentially a "widget page" + shortcuts to documents, bookmarks, and common locations.

So don't use the app list? I'm confused about the problem.

The nice thing about Android is that you can totally customise the desktop. There are multiple luncher that make it act more like iOS.

You know on Android you can just... download another launcher, right? You can change all of that in about 5 minutes flat.

>I can't stand the fact that newly installed apps decide to show up on the desktop

That is an option that you can disable

If you're the kind of person who is really picky about how your desktop behaves, but you also can't be bothered to spend 5 minutes configuring it, Android is not for you.

This is great, having every app, unsorted by default, on the homescreen/desktop was one of the most annoying things to me about iOS. I have a regular habit of running General->Reset->Reset Home Screen Layout to get an alphabetical list.

Auto creating homescreen icons is one of the first things I turn off when first setting up an android device.

Not only Android catchup, stuff like widgets were a feature on OSX a decade+ ago before they removed it.

Looks like they're adding instant apps as well.

And what id argue is even a better implementation. For times when you want to interact with an app, with some kind of an account, but dont want the app on your phone. No need to create an account, setup payments.

Scan something, pay for it, move on.

I’ve been getting annoyed lately, configured iOS to “offload” rarely used apps - but it means that I stop getting expected notifications.. and don’t realize it until I try to open the app.

Yeah, with Covid, a ton of apps were offloaded for me, and once I started to safely venture out into the world again, a bunch of things were missing (Starbucks, Lyft/Uber, etc).

Just wait until you see what the marketing people put in to those apps.

That's how they work on Android isn't it? It's how it worked when I saw it demoed at IO one year, anyway.

I dont believe android has anything quite like sign in with apple, that lets you make an account at a service with only your name, and provides you a one time use random email address as a forwarder to your real email.

I've only seen things like parking meters and transit terminals, in which case you just pay with google pay or something. I'm not sure what the purpose of signing up for an app you don't even install is.

Presumably for services beyond parking meters and transit terminals. The keynote showed cafés, and maybe other food ordering places, too. Having an account with the establishment could be used as a loyalty rewards programme or something, like at Subway where you have a card that you scan at the till.

No default apps, which is the biggest reason I use Android.

They've let you delete default apps for a while now (a couple of years I think?)

Default email and browser apps, finally...

Missed that one, awesome! But with Apple still blocking competition in browser engines, browser "choice" is not nearly as meaningful as it should be.

having a mobile browser that syncs your history and bookmarks over from your desktop browser of choice is arguably more important than having a choice in browser engines.

as a developer i get it, i would like to choose a different browser engine too, but that's mostly for philosophical reasons, not actual utility.

> having a mobile browser that syncs your history and bookmarks over from your desktop browser of choice is arguably more important than having a choice in browser engines.

This isn't an either/or scenario. Firefox and Chrome support this on Android. Apple blocking third party browsers has nothing to do with desktop sync.

The importance of real browser choice on iOS is not just "philosophical". It's not about bookmarks. It's about control of the web itself.

All major parts of the web now allow users to freely choose their browser with one glaring exception: iOS. Unfortunately, iOS is big enough that it has veto power over the entire web platform. If it won't work on iOS, it won't work on "the web". It's just like the old days of Internet Explorer or Java before it, where a proprietary platform maker had the precious ability to sabotage its open platform competition.

Without iOS enforcing Safari, Google will own the web. Safari being a requirement adds "test in other browsers" to the requirements list of any web app. If you can just tell iOS users to install Chrome, that development step goes away, and the incremental work to support for Firefox will also go away. And then we will have the real Internet Explorer web again, where it is owned by one company.

Unfortunately, iOS is big enough that it has veto power over the entire web platform.

This is so untrue. Google goes ahead and implements stuff regardless of what Apple does or doesn't do.

Any major feature gets worked out by Google, Apple and Mozilla—like Flexbox and Grid.

All of these companies operate on what's in their interest vs. what makes sense for the web.

Folks should be somewhat satisfied with Apple’s Safari/Webkit announcements today:

General New Features

* Added Safari Web Extensions support for macOS.

* Added Webpage Translation (Beta) for English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, French, German, Russian, and Brazilian Portuguese. Safari will automatically detect if a translation is available based on your Preferred Languages list.

* Added support for HTTP/3.

* Improved Web Platform Tests pass rate for WebDriver, XHR+Fetch, Service Workers, CSS, and SVG.

Removed Features * Safari no longer supports Flash.

Performance New Features

* Supported incremental loading of PDF files.

* Implemented asynchronous scrolling for overflow: scroll, and <iframe> on macOS.

* Improved tab closing performance.

* Improved IndexedDB performance.

* Improved JavaScript cookie access performance.

* Improved for-of performance.

Privacy New Features * Added a Privacy Report that shows the trackers that Intelligent Tracking Prevention prevented from accessing identifying information.

* Enabled full third-party cookie blocking, and the Storage Access API in Private Browsing mode.

Authentication and Passwords New Features

* Added a Web Authentication platform authenticator using Face ID or Touch ID, depending on which capability is present.

* Added support for PIN entry and account selection on external Web Authentication security keys.

* Added notifying users when one of their saved passwords in iCloud Keychain has shown up in a data breach; requesting a password change uses the well-known URL for changing passwords (https://example.com/.well-known/change-password), enabling websites to specify the page to open for updating a password.

* Added support to Security Code AutoFill for domain-bound, one-time codes sent over SMS; in the following 2FA SMS, Safari only offers to fill the code on example.com, and no other domain. Your Example code is 123446. @example.com #123446

JavaScript New Features * Added support for the BigInt data type.

* Added support for creating custom instances of EventTarget.

* Added logical assignment operator support.

* Added public class fields support.

Media New Features * Added WebP image support.

* Added HDR video playback support.

* Changed to derive <img> aspect ratio from size attributes.

* Support for the Picture-in-Picture API is now available in iOS on iPhone.

CSS New Features * Updated image-set() to support all other image functions including image(), -webkit-canvas(), -webkit-cross-fade(), and -webkit--gradient().

Added :is() pseudo-selector support as a synonym for :matches().

* Added :where() pseudo-selector support for specificity adjustment.

* Added support for image-orientation.

Web Inspector New Features * Added support for a bootstrap script.

* Added a Sources Tab that combines the Resources tab and Debugger tab.

* Added an HSL color picker with P3 support.

* Added information about Web Animations, CSS animations, and CSS transitions to the Timelines tab.

* Improved VoiceOver support.

>It's about control of the web itself.

yes, that's exactly what i mean by philosophical.

Is not a feature check off, it’s the way it’s implemented and used. Remember copy and paste?

Apple don't 'catch up', they 'invent', 'craft' and 'hone'.

They let others prove a market and then they move in and throw vast resources at doing a better version, honestly it's a smart move if you have the cash.

I find it some what ironic though given how friendly they pretend to be to developers.

Picture in picture is nice but I am disappointed that there's no split screen for all models yet.

same here. for which models is split screen possible?

iPads

11 pro max is the only iPhone model that has it

It's not news that iOS trails Android in feature adoption. And as an iOS user, I appreciate all the unpaid beta testing Android users do on my behalf.

Yes, very much this time.

There's always a great cycle where they cherry pick the best from each other and Android adopted a bunch of things recently like gesture navigation but it's definitely seeming like it's a major catch up from Apple this time with things like on device voice dictation and the general layout / widgets. Less so for the simpler items but for various of these cutting edge items it's been a shame they've been so narrowly deployed on Android where they've mostly been for Pixel only.

The additional iOS privacy protections (camera & mic use, and Safari tracking sounds great). The developer self-reporting of data use is great, but can we trust self-reporting? What's to dis-incentivize the developers from lying?

How would one verify these privacy protections are as they say?

They can review the code in app review

Edit: seems I’m wrong

They don't - they only get the binary. They could be decompiling it, but I doubt it. They can see what functions it calls.

They do sometimes, if rarely.

Monitor outgoing network traffic via mitmproxy/Charles Proxy. It's currently very transparent where and what kind of data leaves a given app, if you look for it.

They can remove the app from the App Store at will. We need to wait to know the details, but it's very likely this will be one of the reasons the will use.

This is why I don't get why people want the AppStore to be like Play Store

In the AppStore if you are a bad actor you get kicked out and need to consider if you want to pay to get another developer license to keep publishing garbage

Compared to Play Store, the AppStore feels a lot cleaner. I don't need a hundred crappy low effort apps hoping I install them so they can steal my data.

I mean, no one is forcing you to buy an iPhone. People act like Apple is ripping your Thinkpad with Arch Linux from your hands and forcing you to use Apple hardware.

I have a laptop running Ubuntu. Fact is I trust my iPhone for online banking more.

>In the AppStore if you are a bad actor you get kicked out and need to consider if you want to pay to get another developer license to keep publishing garbage

If that is good for the Apple's App Store, shouldn't we want that in other stores? If so, why isn't that policing work done democratically so we can call it "law + law enforcement"?

What's wrong with diversity?

I like having the option of a closed wall "curated" market, and an open install anything market.

I can do my banking on my iPhone and have the password saved on it, while having an Android running F-droid running whatever I want that will never touch my banking info.

What's wrong with having MORE choice. iPhone are no where near market monopoly.

> I don't need a hundred crappy low effort apps hoping I install them so they can steal my data.

This is sadly still a problem on the App Store :(

The overproduction on this presentation is jarring.

Given that so much of Apple's success is based on "simple" and "familiar" things, having Craig Federighi hover of an ominous greenscreen'd floating keynote outside of Steve Jobs theater just feels off.

Surely the best way to make virtual events feel familiar is to have actual humans interacting, touching, etc? Instead here you have isolated individuals floating in computer generated environments. Why aren't we just watching memoji's talk to us if that's the case?

Totally dry and corporate. Long gone are the Steve Jobs presentation days unfortunately.

It feels like a weird training video from some large company. "Here at McDonald's you'll help our customers get their favorite foods!"

What does it mean to 'overproduce' something? Are you saying it's too polished and well done?

Too many visual effects and the whole thing feels sterile.

It means it seems too artificial and unnatural, so it feels like an ad.

I mean, this IS an ad.

It's so well-rehearsed and body language coached that it feels like watching an infomercial. I mean, it is an infomercial, but it's still annoying and distracting.

It's so high-stakes and painstakingly precise that it reminds me of watching the mass games in Pyongyang.

Well-rehearsed, coached, precise, all sound like good things.

I can't speak for anyone else by myself but for the last several years most of the presenters sounded like they were well dosed with beta blockers before presenting. Not at all natural, or at ease, or relaxing to watch.

And if it were not polished people would complain about how apple lowered the bar, how nothing is the same since Jobs has died, etc. etc.

They've been trending that way even at the live events. Last few years the obviousness of all the coaching and rehearsal has been extremely distracting. I mean it was there before but not quite so intensely. They all come off as robotic or like someone's holding a gun on them.

In all likelihood, insufficient coaching and rehearsal is why it feels coached and rehearsed.

A perfect presentation, which has been extremely well practiced and rehearsed, comes off as natural. Because they havent practiced it enough (and probably because many of them are simply not very good presenters, unlike say Jobs) it falls into the uncanny valley and appears unnatural.

An actor can only do so much with a terrible script.

Yeah, you're on to something. I'd guess it's intense and precise coaching paired with people who don't do this sort of thing very often. It seemed to get a lot worse soon after they started trying to get a bunch more presenters involved, some years back. My guess is they didn't think the first couple of those were polished enough, so cranked up the prep, which, when applied to people who haven't developed outstanding presenter-talent, gives you a really fake and awkward effect. I think the somewhat rougher early ones were nicer, personally.

To their credit, I guess, most other events I've seen like this since everyone started trying to ape Apple's announcement style have the same problem, and usually worse.

It sounds exactly like a late night infomercial.

> Surely the best way to make virtual events feel familiar is to have actual humans interacting, touching, etc? Instead here you have isolated individuals floating in computer generated environments.

To be fair we are still in the midst of a pandemic and should be practicing social distancing. Having Craig and co giving high-fives as they hand off to each other is not appropriate currently. Sure it is weird but it is how the world is right now. If they didn't do it people would say "omg Apple staff think they are better than everyone and are not socially distancing, so irresponsible."

Honestly I don't have an issue with the production. They are going over the top with the transitions but it isn't really a problem.

They are not touching because they don't want to risk passing a virus between high level people at the company.

Not sure why there are complaints about something that looks fine. Or should it look like a Zoom session where he sits in their home to satisfy this complaint?

To each their own. I found the keynote to be engaging and it was different from the usual same kind of presentation that we've had with Jobs for decades.

At 01:15:47 - "You may have noticed we've also updated the menu bar! It's now translucent and elegantly takes on the color of your desktop picture!"

Didn't they already make this mistake in Leopard? They must have gradually rolled it back since then to mostly readable, I guess, if they're now doing it again?

I hope there's a working high-contrast mode for those with less than perfect vision. This translucent mess is like Mac OS X 10.0 and the pinstripes all over again.

Let me tell you, it's a huge mistake, it's hideous, it's non-functional, it's accessibility-hostile … it'll get reverted.

I did a double take when he said this. It's already translucent and takes on the color of your desktop picture, in Catalina! Does he not know that?

So, they'd be building their own integrated GPU. That was one of the biggest questions last few days, how they'd gap the graphics, but they are taking control over that as well. Good luck to them! Looking forward to see some comparison charts with Intel integrated graphics...

Apple kicked Imagination Technologies out of its SoCs in 2017, and arguably was designing most of the GPUs even before.

Going with AMD would have been a way more surprising route (and nvidia even more...), unless we are talking about the successor of the MacPro. But that will most certainly be the last Mac to be updated.

More interesting will be the high end iMacs and MacBooks: AMD GPUs or Apple GPUs?

Yesterday I wouldn't have said Apple, but now I'm almost certain it will be.

Apple signed a new licensing agreement with Imagination Technologies in January of this year. I suspect there was a major litigation threat somewhere behind that.

https://www.imgtec.com/news/press-release/imagination-and-ap...

Samsung is partnering with AMD for the GPUs in their Exynos chips. Apple could do that or partner with Imagination again. For Mac Pros they could still stick with dedicated AMD cards. ARM does support PCIe and there are ARM servers that use AMD/Nvidia for GPGPU[2]. So Apple does have options and we'll see what they end up doing.

[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-rdna-exynos-samsung-so...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaY3Ffor-8c

I always am amazed how Apple mentions individual emojis that they added in the same section as major OS features.

They do it because that's how much people care.

I suggest everyone attempt to understand what their customers value. Rather than judging them try to make them happy and/or solve their problems (depending on the context).

It’s just that this is WWDC. Why is this conference about “what customers value”? Why can’t this one be the one where they go trough the serious features and talk to those folks.

It seems to me they just ignore devs nowadays and focus on pushing the product to consumers.

I thought the vast majority of the WWDC schedule was devoted to more specialized talks? IIRC this year they are posting prerecorded sessions online with access to engineers in the forums and additionally doing 1-on-1 labs.

((Edit - linked last year's schedule by mistake woops))

You're looking for the state of the union talk of the WWDC. The WWDC keynote isn't really for developers; it's for the general public.

I would normally agree, but the "customers" for WWDC are developers who want to get business value out of producing apps for the Apple ecosystem, no? It's not an "industry" presentation, an E3 or CES-like event, where the goal is to feed PR to reporters to trickle down to consumers; the final audience for the presentation are the very people watching it, and that audience doesn't necessarily even use Apple devices as their primary devices—they just sell into the Apple software market, potentially as one market among the many they target.

Any talk at a WWDC keynote about e.g. new hardware, isn't because new Apple hardware is fundamentally exciting to these people; it's for the sake of reassuring them that Apple is keeping the market for their software thriving by giving the demand side of their market [hardware] reasons to buy into the ecosystem, or stay in the ecosystem. (It's also for the sake of talking about new software features enabled by hardware changes, e.g. the touchbar translating to an additional interaction paradigm for apps, or ML cores translating to ARKit.)

I don't really see how talking about emoji achieves the same goal of reassuring developers, given that consumers don't really make buying decisions based on the availability of emoji within one ecosystem but not another. (In fact, in my observation, the reverse is true; people usually avoid using new emoji until the people they text with can see them, meaning that a new emoji only becomes useful when both iOS and Android support it.)

Because even though it's supposed to be about developers, every news site and tech blog is listening in as well. These bits and pieces are for them, because everyone wants to be ahead of the game. They are just throwing a bone to scavengers keep them in the press and in front of people's eyeballs.

As a corollary you should understand who the customer in the relationship is.

It astounds me that Apple is still pushing privacy as a big differentiator when most of the iCloud data (such as all of your photos and notes) is not end to end encrypted, and the iCloud Backup provides every single piece of information on your phone to Apple effectively unencrypted, including all of your previously-end-to-end-encrypted iMessages (in the chat history).

Until this is fixed, Apple's privacy messaging is just lip service. Do they think people just won't notice or care?

https://sneak.berlin/20200604/if-zoom-is-wrong-so-is-apple/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

> and the iCloud Backup provides every single piece of information on your phone to Apple effectively unencrypted

also true for google-backup.

You are wrong. Google backup is end-to-end encrypted. https://www.androidcentral.com/apple-may-have-ditched-encryp...

Are App Clips Apples “answer” to PWAs?

Semi-installed Apps with more privileges than a website, requiring the usual iOS dev workflow with a paid plan of course (seems like App Clips are part of a regular App, so you have to write a regular app anyway). Oh and it supports Apple Pay and Login.

I’m convinced that this is another sign that PWAs are never going to be really capable on iOS.

It's an answer to one of PWA's advantages, the install friction. It's also a feature thats existed on Android for a while, although I don't see much uptake.

Hopefully now that there's feature parity we'll see some increased support across all platforms.

I'd say it's the answer to Google play Instant.

https://developer.android.com/topic/google-play-instant

This is used so rarely, in my experience, that it's jarring on first use but overall a good experience. Usually I find the web interface fine or good enough for how often I use it and move on.

Once I liked the Instant version so well I got the actual app. For things I do regularly and can be 100% via web, it is nice to see a better implementation via an app and install it.

I wouldn't say it's the answer - it's a different take, and I suspect it will be executed really well. The UI looks intuitive.

App Clips will potentially be revolutionary in terms of app adoption. It's hard enough to get people to install your apps.

Now if you have a real life item pushing you in that direction, offering you a light weight app to start off with, it's SO much easier. I'm super excited about App Clips.

It seems like a way to let people not install an app. If there's always an app clip available, why bother installing? Many apps don't need to keep the audience engaged all that time - that's what apps are good at - with annoying notifications and all. If you are a parking meter provider, you don't care about that. You just want people to be able to pay you quickly.

Actually might be closer to the The Google Pay Spot Platform instead, which supports PWA:

https://developers.google.com/pay/spot

https://youtu.be/-YAy4M8ZiR8

PWAs are never going to be really capable anywhere.

What's stopping me from putting a PWA in a webview and call it a app clip? Is that possible? From the app clip docs it seems like they didn't prohibit that.

Of all the things presented, I'm most excited by App Clips. Between Sign-In with Apple, Apple Pay, and this, I think it's going to take real world digital commerce to another level.

I really like that they started streaming it on youtube so I can play it on my chromecast

No more installing Chrome extensions to deal with HLS or having to use Edge either.

“having to”? Edge is nice, actually.

It would be even nicer if MS didn’t try to force it down your throat.

Pretty sure Edge doesn't support HLS anymore after their switch to Blink

Well technically old Edge is still around, and obviously this was referring to previous years. It's true that in the future the Edge route won't work, but thankfully now they're streaming to youtube so that's a moot point.

They also issued take downs to other people streaming/commentating over it almost immediately.

It seems macOS icons are becoming less flat UI'y. I hope this means flat UI era is coming to an end.

as far as toolbar icons, it looked like the opposite to me.

They are getting some shadows back into launch icons, but everything else is going flatter.

But the app icons are all like iOS now: rounded corners instead of each icon having a distinct shape. The new Finder icon seems especially bad.

They talked about reducing "visual complexity" at some point in the video. Of course, if you make everything the same shape and the same color, it's visually much simpler. It's just more difficult to use ("design is how it works", anyone?) because you can't tell anything apart.

They are probably trying to normalize them a bit so when you install iOS apps on your desktop they blend in.

Is it just I or the presentation was somewhat cringy? The voice tone and body language reminded me of the low-quality and overly loud commercials I saw running in a loop in a store while trying to ignore them.

They're prerecorded and likely with poorer quality AV equipment and editing due to the present circumstances.

Yeah, I can understand that.

But in my opinion they could simply have used the same format they used in the past, with Jony Ive talking on a white background, or simply switch to an off-screen voice.

No need for the awkward gallery...

I’m surprised to see the negative reactions here. Everywhere else online seemed overwhelmingly positive.

A lot of us are just assholes don't worry.

It's for somewhat good reason, but yeah overall I thought it was good.

They mentioned privacy a lot, but I think they could have reaffirmed it more with the 3rd party video doorbells and translation in Safari and such. Opening up about differential privacy and what telemetrics they do collect when you opt-in would have earned more goodwill from me. Earlier in the event they did specify that translation was on-device though.

Excited about the Applets. Sounds like what QR codes promised to be, but ended up being too cumbersome

it's a bit annoying that they used their own proprietary format, which they will probably never open to others.

They demoed QR codes working as well

Not sure if you're just making a joke, but I believe the feature you're referring to is called "App Clips" for anybody else who sees this and is curious.

(Applets are a Java thing from yesteryear.)

And 90% of applets were an animated banner of the website name with its reflection in a rippling pool of water.

I assume the Air Pods spatial audio update is setting up the release of AR/VR goggles or to support iPad AR.

Very nice to see that you can change your default browser now on iOS.

Agreed, now if only they would stop blocking competition in browser engines...

You get to choose between this Safari skin and this other Safari skin. What a giant leap.

With widgets, Apple finally enters the decade we've just left behind.

Edit: also, mentions could go spectacularly wrong... "John is a real idiot!" -- oops.

How would that be going "spectacularly wrong" with mentions? It would have been said in a group chat John is in, so it's not like he'd be seeing a message he shouldn't have.

From what I understood in the keynote, and I might be wrong, it will be used by Siri to actually send the message.

I think Apple realizes that instantly forwarding all messages to mentioned individuals would be pretty stupid.

Yes, but hopefully iOS widgets will not introduce the same issues Android widgets had.

Also, I don't see how mentions will "go wrong". When you type a name, I believe you can convert it into a mention but it's not necessary. Additionally, mentions are conversation-specific, so you're only tagging people who are in the current conversation. Same thing you see in Facebook Messenger, I think.

What's wrong with widgets? I first used Android, then switched to iPhone, later I used both (personal and business phone) and all the time I missed Widgets on iOS. When I still commuted by bike I used a weather radar widget to check if I better hurry or wait to not get (too) wet. And I used a widget to control my Sonos.

At least when I used Android (quite a while ago), a lot of widgets were implemented poorly and led to impeded performance and rapid battery depletion, as well as confusing or cluttered interfaces because there was no consistency among the various implementations. Traditionally, Apple has simply not provided features that end up with downsides like this. Although iOS is less customizable, I tend to find that I actually prefer this restriction because I don't waste my time being bothered by things I could fix if only I could get the settings right. So I hope the new iOS Widgets strike the right balance of customizable, but not too customizable, and with a uniform implementation that prevents the Android problems I mentioned.

This HomeKit presentation is such a Silicon Valley dream. It's almost like a 1%-er thing. Just feels unreal, average people are not like that. Interesting to see who really is the target.

Developers are the target

I think more people want an automated home than you think. Not sure if you grew up with the Jetsons but I grew up looking forward to the day where technology automation can make life easier.

HomeKit devices can cost < 50$

If you have an older house homekit can add a lot without a re-wire. Ie, you have a lamp but no switch wired for that socket etc. You want to do a ceiling light in your kids bedroom but since it's temp are using an extension cord for the hanging light and want it switchable.

Having a HomeKit home is easier than you think. An IKEA or Hue gateway connected to your router, a few lamp bulbs, and an iPad or Apple TV to control it all. That, at the least, will give you "Hey Siri turn on the lights".

After almost two decades, this is the end of OS 10. Check this out:

https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=5837

This one goes to 11!

Is this the first time Apple has mentioned Linux and showed GNOME on screen?

I don't know, but they should have showed KDE.

ARM Macs, I guess this means the end to Hackintoshes.

If iPad Pros are any indication, those chips will be extremely fast, and cost effective so the need for Hackintoshes ( I presume that is to save money ) wouldn't be needed.

Don't be ridiculous, iPad Pro isn't even in the same ballpark as a modern workstation.

Even their Maya example wasn't in the same ballpark as modern workstations that are now running full path tracing on GPU.

They wont be using the A12Z on desktop. I assume they will be developing their own high power Desktop Chip.

When you assume...

I expect quite a few "living room iMacs" will get the same chips as top-range iPads.

They're not even going to use A12Z for laptops, it doesn't support virtualization. Seems like they're just for DTKs.

Pretty sure virtualization for iPad exists, it's just not in appstore - look up getutm.app.

I know about UTM ;) It's emulation, not virtualization.

Apple is known for charging a huge markup on hardware like RAM, GPU, SSD, etc. I really doubt that an ARM desktop is going to be significantly cheaper than an equivalent Intel machine (especially for use cases like gaming and ML)

Current Macs will still be supported, meaning intel still needs support for at least another 8-10 years.

Raspberry Pi Hackintoshes?

If you're watching on a Mac/iOS device, it's also available in the TV app.

They cannot keep giving ground breaking updates to the OS every year. It's OK.

Nitpick but I hope the overtly (about 10px) rounded corners of running app windows aren't there to stay. Looks heavy/dated.

Let's also hope that it doesn't presage rounded screens on MacBooks to bring screen-roundedness parity with iPhones.

Did Tim Cook just say there are exciting Intel based Macs in the pipeline?

I expect it will be a refresh of the line for "back to school" in September, and then new ARM-based at Christmas.

My money is on a new iMac Pro.

This. It'll take 2 years before they get industry software on compatible hardware - this is the last industry upgrade prior to the switch.

The next 2-3 years will make or break the professional MacOS market. My money's on make, and I think they're going to absolutely knock it out of the park.

App Clips seem yet another lock-in solution. They want devs to go through the app store so they get full control and revenue access.

Instead of downloading a 10mb App Clip you just go to a url that uses some standards to login/access-payments. Done.

What more do App Clips do that couldn't be done in a much more interoperable and standardized way?

You have a point but it’s pretty clear that most companies don’t care about PWAs and the ones that have PWAs they treat as a funnel to their App Store application. It’s pretty clear that the industry doesn’t want PWAs, it wants easier ways to get users to install their native application. This is a pretty decent solution.

NOOOO macos is going even flatter. <puke>

2006 wants their designs back.

Is it? Some icons (like Notes) are more skeuomorphic. They look bad though.

They've kept skeu in some launch icons, but the actual toolbar buttons are flatter. That Mail screen had no button borders and the icons were all flatter than flat.

App Clips seem like they would be very convenient and useful if you're visiting a medium-large city and doing things you didn't know there was an app for.

App clips looks like yet another popup nightmare on websites. After the cookies notice and the notifications request I can be asked to switch to app clips.

This feels like its been prerecorded (understandably). Though it just doesn't have the same feel as previous keynotes.

Feels like a cross between an infomercial and educational video for kindergarteners.

Yeah, the "acting" here is terrible. I don't know why they couldn't have acted like it was live instead of a cheesy infomercial.

You expected something else from an Apple keynote?

It definitely is, one of Craig's notes was "Remote Keynote watch party with team"

This is tradition. Pretty much all of the events shown in the background during WWDC keynotes are silly things. One of Craig's reminders today was "Competitive Meditation". It's just a silly thing to amuse people who are paying attention.

Also, I wish they wouldn’t do the “trendy” side-of-head camera swaps. There is nothing useful about looking at someone’s ear while they appear to be talking to someone else and not to you.

From everything I've seen I'm actually most excited about the tvOS updates. They're really turning your TV in your central control system of your house but also make it the central point for entertainment, in-house exercise and gaming.

I think I am going to signup to Apple TV+ for the foundation series.

Now I can see why all streaming providers are hemorrhaging on big-budget original shows: they probably did research and find that those are the most effective attractor to potential user users on the platform.

I can certainly see how original shows on a streaming service might get someone to subscribe--but will it keep them once they finish watching that show?

They all tend to drop a whole season of a show at once, and encourage binge watching. I think I can do fine on a schedule of one month of Netflix a year, one month of Disney+ a year, one month of Apple TV+ a year, and the occasional month of HBO.

Between those months I've got plenty of video services that came bundled with other stuff--Prime Video from Amazon, and the Hulu subscription that came with Spotify Premium. Also various OTA networks have free streaming apps such as PBS and the CW.

ATV+ shows didn't all drop at once, they had a few episodes right away and then it was a weekly schedule.

But if FOMO or spoilers aren't issues for you, cycling services is a perfectly valid tactic.

This is why people say that streaming services are the end of TV as we know it. Netflix will produce a new series and keep it for a couple of seasons until it's no longer a draw on new sign-ups, then drop it for whatever is the latest.

I don't think we'll see long running series any longer like MAS*H, Seinfeld or Cheers, as examples.

Also series are going to be more like the UK with 6-8 episodes.

If you purchase an Apple device (iPhone, Mac, etc) you get a year of Apple TV+ included, I think.

I'm not saying to buy a device just for the service, but if you were already planning to get a device sometime in the next year then keep that in mind.

Are we witnessing history being made?

Apparently the A12 SoC is running those apps effortlessly.

It's a prerecorded, retouched video. I would wait for impartial reviews of the DTK.

Only because you missed https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LHcx4a6lcGU and the like

Right, to be clear I wasn’t discrediting other accomplishments but it could really become “mainstream” now. Don’t you think?

The price is out for the developer transition kit: $500. Very reasonable.

(Note: to rent.)

Move to ARM just confirmed

I hope for Apple users this wil not be the disaster that the switch from Motorola to the PowerPC was. Back then, this is what turned me away from the Mac platform I used to love.

Bye bye poweruser interface...

Still waiting on native date input support on macOS to be listed...

As a result, all of Apple hardware will now ship with a TPU. Neat.

There is nothing about AppClips which look like they wouldn't be possible with QR codes.

Making these without providing Android support just feels mean, but I assume they are planning on making the Apple specific from the talk.

> Making these without providing Android support just feels mean

You want Android to be able to run mini versions of iOS App Store apps? That seems completely unreasonable. If that's not what you mean, then I don't understand what you think they could do here to "provide Android support".

QR codes just map to a URL/string. They could make these an open platform, and let developers define what they map to on other OSes. Instead they have gone full lockin. I dont expect them to be that successful, past experience tells us things with one OS lockin rarely succeed.

Explains why I never use Apple Pay...

So that means Apple is actually making apps enforce GDPR? Interesting

Confirmed ... they are going ARM !!!!

Apple Silicon... the piece we've all been waiting for.

Well that plus adding cycling support to Maps.

It seems Tim took some speech lessons

He has a different, or at least more pronounced accent

Does anyone else feel like Apple is pushing China a lot more this year?

I know they’re such a big and important country for corporate success, but it honestly feels like they’re pandering to Chinese consumers.

“Pandering” by supporting their needs?

Yes, I suppose if that’s your definition of pandering, they’ve been prioritizing China for a few years now.

No, that’s not what I meant. The little comment about ‘I’m learning Chinese’ was pretty deliberate during the scribble demo.

That was just to point out the text-recognition engine can handle both English and Chinese in the same text field at the same time.

Showing features your customers would like isn't really the same thing as pandering.

Written Chinese is an incredibly difficult language for handwriting recognition because there are literally hundreds of thousands of symbols, and they are not all amalgamations of smaller symbols as you might be tempted to think. Showing support for Chinese is impressive.

Additionally, the speaker may have actually been learning how to write Chinese (it's not exactly unheard of), so it could have been a case of "We need to showcase this technology that support handwriting in multiple languages. Since I'm learning Chinese, maybe I'll use that!"

Not everything is a nefarious corporate-state conspiracy.

How does pandering differ from finding product-market fit?

Did Apple actually just invent webpages with App Clips?

https://xkcd.com/1367/

Forced requirement of <10mb, so it's actually more like gopher than it is modern web pages, but given the max is still 10mb, it's...not exactly wonderful.

The problem with webpages is that they don't make money out of them.

Nor do they make money from the free apps that they demo'd....

"Oh this resturant looks cool, let's check the menu before going in"

"Find it on Maps... No website link"

"K, open a browser... new tab... let's search by name"

"No.. Not the one in Oralando"

"No.. Not the band"

"Ah, this looks correct"

"Oh god, it's using flash"

Versus

"Tap"

"Pay with Apply Pay"

versus

Scan QR code*

* on any device.

I've never had a good experience with QR codes

Stand directltly in front and align your phone just so. Opens browser, downloads a huge JavaScript framework with ads up the wazoo, final page doesn't render good on the phone, have to scroll around to see everything, tiny text have to zoom into to read correctly.

I have nothing against QR codes, but no one uses them well. Obviously would have been nice though. I was excited about QR codes too.

But why would anybody build this if they can't bother building a website that you can open on your phone.

That's what Apple is good for, see Palm Pilot vs iPhone. I'm hoping by making a good clean version of the QR code functionality that gets popular, it will make people create proper QR codes when they see how it's supposed to be done.

I'm quite sure that's not the average QR experience. Sounds like your phone really sucks at doing QR and those websites they point at haven't been updated in 15 years.

with the covid rules to ban shared items (napkin holder, big sauce bottles and restaurant menus), many restaurants have put an sticker with a QR code pointing to their menu on a website or even a pdf, and it works flawlessly both on android and iphone.

QR Code with the resturant's URL would be the same. And it would work on android as well

I was at a restaurant this Saturday and they had a QR code on the table for a menu. It was great and delighted the group.

App Clips would also let me seamlessly "retain my identity". I can just order quickly, and pay instantly. No extra details needed from me. Fast, easy, and private!

App Clips: yet another code. QR would have been nice.

I don't think they are pronouncing "Sur" correctly...

I used to subscribe to Mac Addict. Now, I yawn. Why? It has nothing to do with the tech. It has to do with the monopolistic business tactics.

What is it with every messaging platform/app becoming reddit-style lately? First twitter did it, then a bunch of sites copied that, now Apple's messaging app is shifting to it? Weird! I think it's probably a good thing, but it's still jarring to see.

As a whole, this WWDC feels like Bikeshedding, Billions of Dollars of Technical Investment Edition.

"Allow Apple to control who can unlock your car" seems to very quickly lead to "Congratulations, law enforcement will literally never knock, ask or notify when breaking into your car going into the future." I could just be cynical though.

iPad improvements are interesting; I can't think of any other product that started with so much potential but was completely fumbled in the same way.

iPad Siri literally copies those web chatbots you see everywhere now, design-wise; bottom right corner, larger-than-necessary circle.

'Universal Search' seems to be a clone of Spotlight, now on iPad. Interesting.

'Draw into any text field and OCR it' is another instance of bikeshedding but I can't help but feel impressed by it.

Next in "Are we getting trolled?": they're doing an entire segment on AirPods.

Something probably unintentional that they're highlighting with this particular presentation style (frequent female presenters, infrequent male presenters) is that seemingly every role that they require someone in a position of power talking for, it's male, while the grunt work doesn't seem to have been at all. Personal progressiveness mixed with systemic sexism?

"You all have trouble sleeping so we're going to make your phone teach you yoga and meditation" is a very weird thing to do automatically instead of just blue-light reduction (which they already have a feature for) seems weird, but they know the market better than I do I guess.

All of the Watch features feel like they're aimed at a significantly younger demographic than the rest.

Film adaptions of Asimov have been pretty poor but this could be interesting.

A full redesign of Mac? Well, this can't go well.

Ah, yeah, Mac is now fully iOS-like design wise. The new icons look really bad.

It looks like Deepin but slightly less polished, which is funny, because Deepin was Mac but slightly less polished.

Complete murder of contrast.

Control Center shows up, confirming that this was just to make it all like iOS.

WebExtensions will probably be a huge benefit to Mac users.

Aaaand there's the ARM release.

Kind of mundane. Apple's chips trump many desktop chips, so I imagine the Mac might get an edge on performance again, which would be interesting. They're probably going to blow it though.

I wonder if this means that they're going to put the final bullet in the Mac for Linux with an iOS-like TPM.

They're bragging about Rise of the Tomb Raider's performance under Metal, a 2015 game, at medium settings.

Still bikeshedding, but there were some interesting things.

All their chips have a Secure Enclave, so yes. That doesn't mean Linux won't be able to run, it just means Linux won't be able to use any of the Secure Enclave's secrets.

Macs presently also have a TPM, but it doesn't lock the device down to the same extent. That's the bit I'm interested in seeing if carries over.

When I read the Foundation books a few years back, I was thinking about what it would take to film them and the biggest challenge I saw was the overwhelming sexism in the storytelling and characterizations. That part of Asimov's writing has not aged well. Not sure how the puzzlebox plots would translate to the screen.

Absolutely agree.

The only thing iPad Pro users were hoping for was real external display support, no sign of that unfortunately.

Although the presentation video seemed to skip ahead on the car key part on Firefox, I noticed they said the key will be stored only locally on the phone, unless you share it with someone else. Guess we'll see next year when cars equipped with the feature actually start to show up.

They also (seemingly) said you could transfer it to others or disable it without your phone via iCloud, so I'm skeptic.

It really isn't too hard to think of ways to do this that involve "iCloud" for key transfer, but keep the locus of control at the car/primary-drivers-phone nexus. Doing it differently would only introduce liability that Apple would rather not have.

iCloud is a service that Apple holds users' encryption keys with, and gives up control of to other organizations (which is what they did in China, for example). Given their focus on privacy is almost purely superficial, it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/26/17052802/apple-icloud-enc...

I agree, although I doubt it will have anything to do with Apple. The automakers will just build in a "lawful access" feature and the hundreds of law-enforcement adjacent agencies will have remote access to that feature w/o any meaningful oversight.

What would you say they should be focusing on instead?

When I wrote that, they were talking about many non-improvements and slight adjustments to iOS. I'd say the bikeshedding peaked at the AirPods segment.

I don't think they should be focusing on anything in particular; they know their market better than I do, and it seems plausible that consumers prefer bikeshedding rather than major change. I'm just saying it bores me.

This is the first time in a long time where the Mac segment has been the most interesting thing, and I'd say that they should probably start doing what they're doing to the Mac to iOS. Even if it's not necessarily things I think that are positive, it's exciting.

> I'd say the bikeshedding peaked at the AirPods segment.

Algorithmically translating spatial audio to correspond with head position is fundamental to AR. It's also cool that it will improve watching movies in the meantime, but you're missing the point if that's all you saw.

It's not novel, though. That's already been done, and with fewer computational resources available.

Ugh I hope it won’t be as bad. I’ve never tolerated Reddit’s interface well.

I thought their changes would bring iMessage closer to the feel of Slack/Teams/(insert chat app here). It won't be multiple-channels-in-a-server style, but it may be close enough...

"curly line that doesn't match the rest of design style, indicating a reply" is cloning exactly how twitter announced they were copying reddit's threads.

I thought this was a developers conference ... it is all sales and product presentation?

They always use the keynote to talk about user-facing enhancements.

Apparently every product/middle manager at Apple is a woman. Have they made a strong push on this recently?

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