They are the ones who will suffer the most from Apple’s iOS 14. Good for them. If they want to show ads, the burden of finding new ways is on them, not on Apple’s shoulders or on ours. In other words: fuck them. European advertisers critical of iOS 14 warning users about ad tracking - Appleinsider Continue reading →

I’ve been thinking a lot about the limited support of widgets in iPadOS 14. While waiting for an answer from Craig Federighi (see previous posts), I think I know why. The way Apple introduced widgets in iPadOS 13 kind of put themselves in a “bad design choice” corner. Take an iPad with iPadOS 13 in landscape orientation with widgets showing on the left, now look what happens when rotating the iPad in portrait mode. Continue reading →

If iPhone 12 launch is effectively delayed by a few weeks or months, could Apple decide to release iOS 14 for currently shipping devices while we wait for iPhone 12? It would be a first for Apple, but I certainly hope so. #iphone12 9to5mac.com/2020/07/0… Continue reading →

I like the new Siri design but I don’t like it after all. The animated sphere placement feels wrong as it leave space on top of it on which we cannot interact. Siri answers and feedbacks onscreen position feel very inconsistent. Sometimes it will appear at the top with another smaller banner at the bottom. Sometimes only a banner at the top. Continue reading →

Following the reveal of widgets support on iOS 14, I’m feeling anxiety over how I’will “design” my home screens coming this fall. The same kind of feeling related to my Apple Watch watch face design, btw. What role will play the App Library? Will I reduce my reliance on folders for organizing my apps and add more pages that I can hide as needed? How many pages reserved for widgets only will I create and for which use case? Continue reading →

Wild dream of the day: what if a silent yet unannounced feature of the ARM-based Mac is touch support? Looking at one of the WWDC session video called “Adopt the new look of macOS Big Sur”, spacing of many UI elements certainly feels in preparation of touch support introduction. Plus, iPhone apps running unmodified on these machines would feel at home with touch support. Continue reading →

Taken out of one of @gruber recent post. In red: the Cancel button looks like being disabled. Very bad. The menu bar transparency, why? Is Apple trying to make us forget about this distinctive UI element? In yellow: the window title being no longer at the center, to make room for buttons (that look less and less like buttons)… In green: a depth effect with surrounding shadow, thumbs up. General look of the refresh popup dialog, very iOS is refreshing on the Mac. Continue reading →

Today, it will be interesting to see how Apple is positioning its move from Intel to ARM. To me, one thing is clear: this could be another game changer move. Apple has proven many times in the past that you don’t need to own a market (PC sales) to create new inflection points on its trajectory. Remember when Apple legitimize the use of the USB ports in its original iMac? Now, they could legitimize the use of ARM on traditional computers. Continue reading →

From Brent Simmons: The best part of the App Store, years ago, from this developer’s point of view, was that it was easy to charge money for an app. No need to set up a system — just choose the price, and Apple takes care of everything. So easy! And for many developers, the very best thing about the App Store — the thing that actually helped their business — is gone. Continue reading →

Apple’s ARM-based Macs (aggressive) transition plans… these rumours seems to point to a much more aggressive transition than I was expecting… Apple must know a few things that we don’t which could explain such an expedited transition. #wwdc2020 #wwdc www.macrumors.com/2020/06/2… Continue reading →

I’m not very optimistic on the outcome of the “HEY vs Apple” battle. Both, in their own ways, are arrogant, blinkered and calling out each other. Each will lose their face with a concession, even if it’s small. Big egos against each other here. Meanwhile, potential users on iOS will suffer from the lack of much needed app updates. This could be a deal breaker for many users like me. HEY is losing, Apple is losing, users are losing. Continue reading →

It is fun to compare HEY and Micro.blog. They both depend on open web standards on the backend. HEY depends on SMTP while Micro.blog depends on HTTPS/HTML. HEY wants to re-invent the end-user experience while Micro.blog provides a pretty much generic end-user experience. By turning the end-user experience upside down, HEY doesn’t rely on IMAP. This is where some people turns their back to HEY (there may be other reasons, though). Continue reading →

Now, as a potential customer of HEY!, what I want to hear or read from @DHH is: what’s next? How are they tackling the problem in order to comply? Will they comply? I want to support their new platform AND their cause, but from a user standpoint, they have to put out a plan and communicate it ASAP. My 14 days trial will end on July 1st. I want to know before making a 99$ commitment. Continue reading →

As an Apple observer for more than four decades (yep!), I rarely seen such a public relation mess like the one this week, a week before WWDC. Apple messed up big time with the worst possible timing by alienating their developers. On top of that, their definition of apps that doesn’t work upon startup is already being smashed by so many counter-examples. This is a complete mess and I don’t know how Apple will get out of this shit. Continue reading →

Here is a MUST READ thread by @dhh about Apple messing around the launch of Hey, a new and innovative email service. I wish Hey gets though this. I support their fight because Apple is fucking arrogant here… I want Apple to open up… or else. Please, share. twitter.com/dhh/statu… Continue reading →

Fantastical latest update (v3.1) could be the thing that bring me back to it: integrated support for nearly all major video conferencing applications. As a big user of Webex, Teams, Zoom, this could be really useful for me. apps.apple.com/ca/app/fa… Continue reading →

At the very beginning of Apple, their leadership was young and they cared about education. Apple became popular in the edu market simply because they built their products around it. They succeeded. Now, Apple leadership is getting older and they now care about healthcare. The story repeats itself as they build many products and features around that. Will success follow? It certainly looks like it. How Apple becomes the operating system for health - Philip Elmer‑DeWitt Continue reading →

Question of the day: what’s up with Automattic and Tumblr? 🤨🤔🧐 This question came up to my mind this morning as I reblogged a post from someone I follow on Wordpress. The reblog action was popularized by Tumblr if I’m not mistaken. Since Automattic bought Tumblr for a few pennies, I was just wondering. Continue reading →

Interesting piece (see link below) about software quality going down in a world where hardware quality is culminating to levels never seen before. Here are a few of my thoughts on this subject. First, I think the law of entropy is much more active in software than in hardware. We are actually witnessing the slow disorganization of software (both in features & code), hence the quality goes down with it. Continue reading →

iTunes U is the next victim after iBooks Author. I’m not sure Apple’s Classroom and Schoolwork are fully replacing iTunes U’s features set. Let’s wait and see. Also, this change of direction from Apple creates a big opportunity for Google which is already well established. Continue reading →