I’m still digesting everything we heard and saw today. Like someone wrote today: what was that? I already read good (and dumb) reactions here and there, from which I’m trying to stay away, just to focus and maybe get my analysis and perspective one of my own. That’s not easy; it’s so noisy out there right now. Stay tuned for later this week.

A women wearing the new Apple Vision Pro headset.

A Few Last-Minute Questions for WWDC2023

It’s Apple keynote day, and it is exciting but also stressful! Here are last-minute questions.

  • Will the headset pricing be announced today?
  • Will the headset be like the Apple Watch and be running apps, or will it be more like CarPlay, with some additional viewport from the iPhone? Or a combination?
  • Is the headset unveiled with a “one more thing” segment?
  • When the iPad was announced, Steve Jobs spent some time explaining its relative position within the use cases spectrum of our computing devices. Where does the headset fit?
  • Will the headset announcement overshadow Apple’s timid foray into generative AI?
  • Is Xcode finally coming to the iPad?
  • Can we infer something about the rumors setting the price 1999$ when we compare that to the AirPods Max price?
  • Tim Cook’s air time has decreased in recent events, is the trend continuing today?
  • Can we expect another meme moment from Craig Federighi?
  • Who’s going to present the headset? Jeff Williams, just like for the Apple Watch Ultra?
  • Can any of the announcements today affect my Apple hardware upgrade plan?

For someone who’s not interested in the headset, I have far too many questions about it. I’ll return to this post once the event is complete to fill in the answers!

👉🏻 This is WWDC day! Here are some informative tidbits. Two weeks ago, I set up a fake meeting in my work calendar for the entire afternoon (EST time here). I’ll be out of the office for the whole afternoon. I’ve been doing that for more than ten years. It worked 9 out of 10 times. I should be good to go today.

I’ll watch the keynote from within Safari to take screenshots (with the TV app, screenshots don’t work 🤔). Then, using a configured button on my StreamDeck mini, I’ll take the screenshots that will be saved and moved to my Synology NAS automatically; thanks to Hazel. The excellent Mastodon client, Ivory, will be running too side-by-side so that I can see reactions coming in. Sadly, feed streaming is not yet a thing on Mastodon, apparently.

My expectations are relatively low for all the tech announcements but high for the keynote production value and quality.

😱I just realized that for the first time in quite a while, I’ll be following WWDC news outside of Twitter. I’m unsure if I’ll go on Mastodon or Bluesky to read the room temperature. I’ll see. Maybe I’ll just make up my own mind, too, which is a good thing. 🤔💭

I forgot so many things to talk about in my WWDC 2023 expectations YouTube video… 🤦🏻‍♂️ like the Watch Face store that I wish Apple would be doing someday. At least this is covered in my article published earlier. Not all is lost. 😅

Getting ready for WWDC keynote. This WWDC23 button on my Stream Deck mini triggers a screenshot of my Mac screen using Cleanshot X. Each file will be saved automatically and later processed by Hazel rules and moved to my Synology Photos library for future reference and use. 😎

On Reddit API Access Pricing

So, apparently, just like Twitter, Reddit is entering into a “kill-third-party-apps” by charging an enormous amount of money to use their APIs. It looks like it. Apollo isn’t happy, and for good reasons. Unless there was a calculation error from the makers of Apollo, it just makes no sense for them to continue. Maybe Reddit made some calculation errors, too. Perhaps they fail to read the room’s temperature. But maybe they are entitled, to some degree, I guess, to charge for their APIs, right?

I’m tempted to make a parallel with Apple’s dreaded 15%-30% App Store commission. Is Apple’s stance on its App Store different from Reddit’s stance on its APIs? Is charging a commission to be on the App Store and take advantage of all Apple’s technology to get a chance to be distributed on hundreds of millions of iPhones similar to consuming a platform APIs? If not, what is different, actually? Is free API usage a dead end in today’s world? There are whole business models built around APIs these days. API speaks intellectual property in my book. Only companies with business models supported by massive ad distribution or expansive paid subscriptions can think of thriving by giving away their API access. It will be interesting to see how Reddit is reacting to third-party developers’ pushback.

Oh, and if they actually kill the third-party Reddit client ecosystem, unlike Twitter, Reddit platform alternatives are not obvious to me.

I guess it’s time to remember: there is no such thing as a free lunch.

I’m thinking: The Mac Pro is expected to feature the same design as its predecessor and the M2 Ultra chip. I have doubts on this. The design was highly influenced by the need of air flow that was driven in part by Intel processors, a power hungry monster. With Apple Silicon, I would expect Apple to tweak the design to reflect the lower power consumption and heat dissipation by the chip.