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Just saw that tweet today. It’s too late. I’ll be installing my new M1 Mac mini along the side of my 2017 iMac. Thwy will be both in direct competition. I’m afraid that I’ll find my beloved iMac too slow. I’m not there yet. I’m still waiting for my new thing to get delivered. I’m getting myself mentally ready for the shock. I’ll have to keep my iMac for a while for my daytime job.

About those iOS Apps screenshot on the App Store (#apple #appstore #iosdev)

December 2, 2020 10:11am

I hate those screenshots montage. They lack emphasis on the application itself, the product. They waste precious space. At the very least, why not put a video showing the application in action. People don’t like to read long application description page. Is it Apple’s fault. Probably. Not sure. Apple is not enforcing their own rules on these screenshots.

This post was triggered by another Matt Birchler post.

Don’t touch this screen (yet!) (#apple #mac #macos)

December 1, 2020 9:10pm

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Steve Jobs once downplayed flash memory based MP3 players when the iPod was just beginning its ascension. We know what came after the iPod with a small drive. The iPod nano, an MP3 player using flash memory. If you see a stylus, they blew it. The iPad eventually came with support for a stylus… oops, a pencil. What came after that? Support for a mouse with iPadOS 13.4. See the trend? Are you getting it?

Now, about the Mac. Sure Apple could have used this historic moment to a add touch screen to the M1 MacBook. It didn’t happen. I, myself, was one of them, thinking it was about to happen as exposed in this blog post. My short experience with macOS Big Sur updated design screams out loud that we are far closer to a touch supported Mac than Apple is willing to admit.

I don’t know when, but it will come, in a perfectly chosen moment by Apple. Apple likes to move forward, one step at a time. The next window of opportunity is next year with a redesigned MacBook body. This year’s was about the internals while keeping familiarities: performance, battery life and transition. Next year is about redefining the way we look at the MacBook and enhance the way we always knew how to interact with it. The Big Sur update this year is just the first step toward a touch friendly operating system. In a typical Apple way, they will have thoroughly thought about all this and we will be amazed about why it wasn’t done this way before. Next year has the potential to be exciting.

This blog post by Matt Birchler triggered this one you just read. 👀😎

The Mac mini renaissance? (#apple #applesilicon #m1chip #macmini)

December 1, 2020 2:40pm

I don’t know if this is because I’m eagerly waiting for mine, I’m in a distortion of reality, but the Mac mini seems on the verge of a major regain of popularity. Sales of the little box are booming in Japan and now AWS is offering an Intel version as an EC2 instance… while waiting for the real deal, a M1-based version. The latter brings renewed interest in a platform a lot of pundits were considering dead a few years ago, thanks to Apple’s apparent lack of interest.

Apple’s Reminders is so underrated (#apple #ios #ipados)

December 1, 2020 10:02am

How many To Do apps are available on the App Store? A lot. They all have a different take on how we should create, manage and check our To Do. The best one maybe just in front of your eyes, on your iPhone and iPad: Apple’s Reminders. Here is why for me it does the job quite well.

I’ve been using OmniFocus and Things in the past, but after Apple redesigned Reminders in iOS 13, I came back to using it. Besides supporting basic things like URL, images and notes, you can group To Do lists in folders, lists can be shared with others, Shortcuts are supported, it synchronizes seamlessly across my devices.

Apple’s Reminders is one of the app at the center of my blogger workflow to help me process information and publish content online.

Why getting a Mac Pro can still make sense (#apple #macpro #applesilicon #mac)

December 1, 2020 8:15am

In light of all the raving reviews about the M1-based Macs, you might wonder why someone would still need and buy an Intel-based Mac Pro? For many reasons. First, some high-demanding pro software might not be compatible on M1 Macs. Second, if you run software who takes advantage of multiple cores, the Mac Pro with its Xeon processor is hard to beat. Example of this is VMware Fusion. Other use cases demand the most powerful CPU you can get, and they come in the Mac Pro, for now. Third, the Mac Pro is still the most expandable Mac out there. I’m one of those contemplating the Mac Pro for my SDDCbox project, but I must say that my priorities shifted a bit. I’m a few days away from receiving a M1 Mac mini. It will keep me busy until the beginning of 2021.

Did Apple just killed the Mac resale value? Oh yes. (#apple #applesilicon #intel #mac)

November 30, 2020 6:43pm

The M1-based Macs ramifications are far reaching as we are still pondering about their impact on the future. Reading this tweet from Parker Ortilani, we have to wonder if Apple, with its M1 chip introduction, just killed the resale value of any Intel-based Macs. Credits: Tables from the author. Simple answer: YES.

AppleOne - Expired or Tired? (#apple #appleone #subscriptions)

November 30, 2020 1:52pm

My AppleOne signup went weird when it was announced by Apple. I was billed for some of the individual services as well as the bundle. I’ve been looking for credits since then, which are still yet to come. I think it will be a mess to fix unless Apple gets their act together before then. Now, it looks like my subscription has ended and I cannot renew it. Something bad is really happening. I’m not alone feeling the pain, according to MacRumors.

Building his ideas and pushing boundaries on the way (#apple #iosdev #developer #designer @jsngr)

November 30, 2020 8:04am

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the TestFlight App Store and how cool it was. The guy behind it, Jordan Singer, is also on Substack. I’m already a big fan of his work.

As a former indie iOS developer (2009-2013), I find it interesting to see other people’s ideas, work and initiatives. This guy is on a roll and tests some App Store review process boundaries, which is more than needed these days. I wish him success with Airport.

Apple is no longer doomed. Intel is. (#apple #intel #applesilicon)

November 29, 2020 6:26pm

Who is winning between Apple’s M1 chip and Intel’s Tiger Lake chip? Well, if benchmarks are to be believed, Apple is winning, by a wide margin. The results are pretty worrisome for Intel which seems incapable to go beyond a 10 nm process. Intel will become the emblematic image of inefficient processors for years to come. Dell, HP et al. should be worried too because they are in the exact same position Apple was just before their M1 announcement. The only thing now favouriting the Wintel world is the need for Windows for a vast majority of users.

Shortcuts to frustration (#apple #shortcuts #ios #ipados)

November 29, 2020 4:17pm

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Let’s put it straight: Apple’s Shortcuts are the weirdest, most cumbersome and utterly frustrating thing to build, test and eventually use. I cannot count how many hours I spent trying to understand their intricacies and most useful use cases. As much as I want to get empowered by them, it often ends in frustration. Here is why.

You cannot disable old shortcuts that are no longer used but that you want to keep as a reference. There is no way to export them in a clean and readable PDF format. There is a lack of some form of runtime debugging tools. The editor doesn’t scale beyond a few dozens instructions. There is no way to write shortcuts in a text editor à la AppleScript. Share sheets bad design and organization make shortcuts invocation a trial and error experience. As your shortcuts collection grows, it hard to remember which shortcut does what in what context and what is required to launch it. And the list goes on and on. Documentation within the Shortcuts editor is lacking, very limited. A big part of the story is dependant on the willingness of developers to support them. It’s so frustrating to see an app lacking any form of exposure to the shortcut engine.

Make no mistake, I like the idea of automation on the iPad or iPhone. I’m happy to see Apple improving on them with each release of their operating systems. But, there is so much left to cover.

On using Lightroom on a Mac (#apple #adobe #applesilicon)

November 29, 2020 10:50am

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Let’s set the tone: Adobe software, Lightroom in particular, is not a very efficient piece of software to use on the Mac… even on a higher-end configuration. Recent updates in the last year or so tried to improve things a little bit, but there is still a long way to go. It’s not clear why Lightroom Classic is so bad. Is it because it is a multi-platform software? Probably. If so, we pay the price at every single use.

Does the M1 chip in a Mac can change the game? Well, yes and no. The following YouTube video compares Lightroom Classic running on an Intel-based MacBook Pro to an M1-based MacBook Pro. With Rosetta 2 translation layer running to support the non-optimized version of Lightroom Classic, we could think the experience would be awful. In fact, not only it isn’t, the M1-based Mac makes the experience a bit better. Who would have thought.

Now, Adobe is working on a native or universal version of Lightroom for the M1 chip. Note that I’m referring to Lightroom CC here, the cloud version of Lightroom, not the Classic version. Depending of who you are and what is your relation to photo processing, it may be a good or a bad news. Nonetheless, the prospect of a universal of Lightroom CC is certainly exciting. Will Adobe take advantage of the GPU cores or the ML cores of the M1 chip? I highly doubt it. If the iPad version of Lightroom CC is any indication, though, not all is lost. We’ll see.

Selling a piece of my Apply history (#apple #imac #2007 #elcapitan)

November 28, 2020 3:04pm

Today I sold my oldest Mac in the house: a 24 inches 2007 iMac running El Capitan. When I look at this computer, I see many similarities with the current iPad Pro design: round bezels, boxy frame. I hope Apple will return to this design, albeit in a refreshing way, for their upcoming M1-based iMac.

Now, waiting for my M1-based Mac mini. 24 days before adding another piece to my long story with Apple products.

A must have utility for Mac: HazeOver. (#apple #mac #utility #minireview)

November 28, 2020 12:53pm

Just bought a Mac utility: HazeOver! How come I didn’t know about this one?? What is it? It’s a small utility which helps bring better focus to the active application on your Mac. It does this by dimming the out-of-focus application windows. It works with multiple displays. If you prefer to work in Light mode over Apple’s Dark Mode, it will make things a lot easier on your eyes. Think of it as a visual compromise. Makes Big Sur even better. Highly recommended.

The M1 chip never cease to amaze (#apple #applesilicon #m1chip #tech #amdryzen)

November 27, 2020 5:45pm

Another excellent Twitter thread about the M1 chip. This time, it is a comparison with the AMD Ryzen. From a thermal design power, the M1 chip is simply unique and unmatched. On a per-core basis, top of the line AMD Ryzen chip and Apple’s M1 chip are of equal performance. On top of that, the M1 chip is much more than a standard CPU. Oh, and it is only the beginning. Who thought 2020 was such a bad year.

The future of widgets on iOS (#apple #ios #ipados #widgets)

November 27, 2020 5:32pm

There is a lot to like from this short video showing vivo’s OrigiOS in action. Expandable widgets, user-adjusted widget size, dynamic content, super clean animations, a few touches of skeuomorphism where it counts, dynamic icons, immediate feedback on touch, all those things which are lacking on iOS home screen could see the light if Apple choose to. Widgets 1.0 were long to come for us, iPhone and iPad users, but here they are. Yet, there is still so much untapped potential.

What are your thoughts?

The future of the iPad, according to an M1 chip (#apple #ipadpro #applesilicon #mac #m1mac #ipados)

November 27, 2020 9:14am

In a blog post “Your Move, iPad”, by Becky Hansmeyer, the author asks “So if raw power isn’t enough, and new display tech isn’t enough, where does the iPad go from here? Will it be abandoned once more, lagging behind the Mac in terms of innovation, or will Apple continue to debut its latest tech in this form factor?”

In light of the massively successful M1-powered Macs, what can we infer for the future of the iPad Pro?

Apple doesn’t need to add touchscreen to their MacBook line if they unleash the iPad with a much more complete iPadOS experience. I think Apple missed the occasion with iPadOS 14 by not adding a more flexible widgets experience, by refusing to improve external display support and by not revisiting the multitasking interaction model. See? It’s not only a matter of adding 5G wireless support or LiDAR or a second USB-C port. These will only be as good as the software will allow them to be useful. The just begun new era for Mac with the M1 chip combined with Apple’s tight software integration should give us answers on why the iPad Pro future lies in the software.

A fascinating Twitter thread about Apple Silicon Wizardry (#apple #applesilicon)

November 27, 2020 8:05am

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Here is a super fascinating Twitter thread that I reproduce here. Find the original tweets here. It’s is about Apple Silicon wizardry. For techy people only!

“In case you were wondering: Apple’s replacement for Intel processors turns out to work really, really well. Some otherwise skeptical techies are calling it “black magic”. It runs Intel code extraordinarily well. The basic reason is that Arm and Intel architectures have converged. Yes, the instruction sets are different, but the underlying architectural issues have become very similar. The biggest hurdle was “memory-ordering”, the order in which two CPUs see modifications in memory by each other. It’s the biggest problem affecting Microsoft’s emulation of x86 on their Arm-based “Surface” laptops. So Apple simply cheated. They added Intel’s memory-ordering to their CPU. When running translated x86 code, they switch the mode of the CPU to conform to Intel’s memory ordering. With underlying architectural issues ironed out, running x86 code simply means translating those instructions to the Arm equivalent. This is very efficient and results in code that often runs at the same speed. Sometimes there isn’t a direct equivalent, so the translation results in slightly slower code, but benchmarks show x86 being consistently at least 70% of the speed. In any case, a surprising number of popular apps already run on it. Apple seeded developer systems a few months back, allowing people to get their code ready. Normally, that wouldn’t have been enough time. When you recompile code for a new architecture, it usually breaks. But as I said above: Arm and Intel architectures have converged enough that code is much less likely to break, making recompiling easier. Apple has made surprising choices. They’ve optimized JavaScript, with special JavaScript-specific instructions, double sized L1 caches, and probably other tricks I don’t know of. Thus, as you browse the web, their new laptop will seem faster and last longer on battery, because JavaScript, even though other benchmarks show it roughly the same speed as Intel/AMD. The older MacBook Air had a dual core CPU that ran at 3.8 GHz, but when in low-power mode, 1.2 GHz. Switching between fast and slow modes is how it conserves power for mobile. But it’s ultimately inefficient. The Intel CPU is designed to run at 5 GHz. Downclocking to 1 GHz saves power – but not as much as if you’d designed the processor to run at 1 GHz to begin with. Apple’s strategy is to use two processors: one designed to run fast above 3 GHz, and the other to run slow below 2 GHz. Apple calls this their “performance” and “efficiency” processors. Each optimized to be their best at their goal. When they need to conserve power, they turn off the “performance” processors and run code on their “efficiency” processors. They have 4x performance processors (twice that of their older Macs) plus 4x efficiency processors. All 8 can be active. When doing something that can use 8 processors, such as compiling code, it goes real REAL fast. 8 processors vs. 2 processors in their old notebooks make a difference. A big part of this story is that Intel is about 3 years behind on Moore’s Law. Apple Silicon uses the latest 5nm tech from TMSC, while Intel uses the older 10nm/7nm generation. Much of Intel’s product line uses the even older 14nm/10nm generation. None of this is actual “black magic”. It’s all pretty understandable. It’s just all the various things have been executed really well, leading to a combined result that is a great leap forward. Another “magic” trick is how their “Swift” programming language uses “reference counting” instead of the “garbage collection” in Android. They did something in their CPU to double the speed of reference counting. …even when translating x86 code, all that reference counting overhead (already more efficient than garbage collection) gets dropped in half. Yet another weird performance enhance to add to all the others.”

Overwhelming reactions — When Apple makes history, again (#apple #applesilicon #m1chip #mac)

November 26, 2020 8:25am