This isn’t terribly interesting, but perhaps noteworthy all the same: the @HeyDingus account on Mastodon now has more followers than the (inactive) @HeyDingusNet one does on Twitter. It took me two years to amass that many followers on Twitter, but only seven months for the Mastodon account to surpass it.
As far as engagement goes, I’d say they’re about the same. I never got many retweets or replies on that account on Twitter, and I still don’t now on Mastodon. That’s okay, since the Mastodon account exists mostly as a way for people to know when new stuff gets posted without having to check the site or subscribe via email or RSS.
Folks have been much more likely to engage with me about posts through my personal @jarrod account, where I do have way more interactions than I did on Twitter. But since that account is through Micro.blog rather than a typical Mastodon instance, I don’t know how many followers I’ve picked up there.
A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.
1️⃣ JamesG made a neat little tool that analyzes the words used on a given webpage. 🔗 JamesG // linguist.link
2️⃣ Gui Rambo had his own desktop widget solution up his sleeve, and it looks incredible. macOS 14 might have gotten there first, but it sounds like he’s still shipping it for previous OS versions. Honestly, his custom ones look way cooler. [🔗 Guilherme Rambo // micro.blog]
4️⃣ Zach Gage used ChatGPT to create a little script that reads his apps’ reviews, forwards on the good ones, tones down the negative ones to actionable bug fixes, and emails them to him. I’m so impressed at the creativity here, and he said it only took 10 minutes. [🔗 @helvetica // mastodon.gamedev.place]
5️⃣ Quinn Nelson’s entertaining recap of WWDC has been my favorite so far. He’s so good at weaving in his opinion and expert commentary alongside listing all the new features. (It’s long, so I recommend setting it to 1.5x if you can stand it.) [⏯️ Snazzy Labs // youtube.com]
6️⃣ I figured Apple’s intro video for the Vision Pro would just be a replay of what they showed in the keynote. It’s so much more! If you want a better sense of what it’ll be like to actually use the headset (sound design, interaction, UI elements) set aside nine minutes to watch this. [⏯️ Apple // youtube.com]
7️⃣ If you like The Beths, you’ve gotta check out their NPR Tiny Desk Concert. Even if you don’t like The Beths, you should still give it a watch. 😝 [🎵NPR Music // youtube.com]
9to5Mac put out this iPadOS 17 overview video a couple of days ago, but I just got around to watching it today. Too many little changes and improvements to note here, so I recommend you throw it into 1.25x mode and watch all the way through:
Love how you can do this iOS 7 style super-thin font in iOS 17. Sometimes it looks good :)
1st Shot:
Got the new Object Capture APIs working and decided to clone my Ollie figurine 😃
Here’s a sped up version of a scan of the figurine. #WWDC#WWDC23
2nd Shot:
And here I’m showing the captured object in AR. Object Capture produces better results after scanning the object multiple times. I have scanned the figurine twice and the result seems pretty good to me 😃#WWDC#WWDC23
Chaser:
Y’all I used the new Object Capture API to clone my girlfriend 😂#WWDC#WWDC23
I’m fascinated to see what file format/approach we will need to use for our app icons in visionOS. Based on the visuals we can see in the promo material, it looks like we might be providing a segmented stack of images which the OS then magically makes “3D”. Though I suppose a custom 3D format could also be possible but seems like that would lead to less consistency between apps.
I’m convinced that App Shortcuts in Spotlight are the sleeper killer feature this year. This is basically spotlight extensions for third parties. I really hope to see third party apps take advantage of these.
While the battery pack will need a charging indicator, it’s notable that there are two round holes of different sizes. One will be an LED, but it does raise the question of the purpose of the other.
One possibility is, as Rui suggests, that you could use a SIM removal tool to pop out the connector — and then plug it into a spare battery pack.
If you’re an iOS or macOS user, you may be familiar with VPN apps, which easily help you connect to a VPN on your devices. However, Apple TV lacks this feature, forcing users to set up a VPN directly in their router. But starting with tvOS 17, Apple will finally allow developers to release VPN apps in the Apple TV App Store.
wow, copying text from images got even better. now it can maintain the formatting of tables. This, together with clipboard continuity, are one of the best features of the Apple ecosystem. I used them multiple times a day!
I second this sentiment. Serenity Caldwell’s roundups were super nice. As a non-developer, it made the sessions feel more inviting and gave me hints at what kinds of features might be coming in third-party apps.
Seems like there’s a new app in Utilities in macOS Sonoma: Print Center, version 1.0.
I wonder if the previous Print Jobs view was written in some old archaic framework and they just decided to modernize it.
They didn’t talk about it much in sessions, but it seems like visionOS is going to be doing vector rendering on text and UI so that you can get up close with app windows and still see sharp detail. This is going to prove slightly problematic for apps with rendering that bakes text or symbols into images, as they’ll only get bitmap scaling and blur when blown up. Very curious to see what issues that might highlight in my own apps
I’d be very curious to learn just how big a revenue share Messi is getting from Apple, but regardless of the details, this is simply an extraordinary coup for both MLS and Apple TV+. There are only a handful of athletes who are so good, and so beloved, that they can singlehandedly elevate an entire league in a team sport. Lionel Messi is one of them.
Apple has been playing this same game for years with their scripted TV+ shows and movies. They realize that the biggest draw for entertainment — perhaps even more so than storyline — is star power. People will watch almost anything that their favorite actor or actress is in. You see this belief manifest in Apple’s adcampaigns depicting high-profile actors pining over having not yet been tapped for a TV+ show. Likewise, TV+’s introduction will be remembered for its long line of huge industry names being trotted onstage to pitch their projects.
Now, Apple’s making the same play with MLS Season Pass by strategically bringing on Messi, and I think it’ll be huge. After all, what are the players if not the stars of the show?
Here we go again! Things seem to be winding down, which is good because my brain feels a bit washed up from all the information I’ve been filling it with. But there were still neat things to learn from the latest spelunking and developer sessions.
For anyone considering buying a single #VisionPro for the household; A device can only have a single iCloud account. It does not have multi user support like the AppleTV.
And I really hope we’ll be able to purchase these stands 😍😍
iOS 17 includes a small but much-needed change to the process of scanning QR codes via the Camera app. With this year’s update, the button that pops up when you scan a QR code now appears at the bottom of the Camera app, right above the shutter button, and it doesn’t move.
When I say that passkeys are and will be interoperable, I’m extremely serious about it.
This year: - Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers on macOS can save and use iCloud Keychain’s passkeys (they need to adopt this) - Third-party password managers can participate in the ecosystem on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS - The passkeys from those third-party managers will also be usable by all web browsers
The “Design Dynamic Live Activities” session is one of the most beautifully composed presentations I’ve ever seen. The animations and examples shown towards the end are incredibly impressive and inspiring. I’m super excited to get started working on improving my Live Activities after watching this.
Also, it included a truly 🤯 moment, when they discuss how to visually center a glyph by blurring it and then using that blurred blob to find the visual center. Genius!
ALERT: CloudKit works in third-party apps on iOS 17 with iCloud Drive turned off, just as it has for Apple’s own apps. This is a big deal for sync on corporate devices that often have iCloud Drive disabled.
Just discovered the new Mini Crosswords solved notification card in Apple News. 🎉🧩 This is such a cool addition to #iOS17
Not sure if it’s immediately visible but the Music app’s tab bar has a progressive blur.
Really wish all apps had that. Looks pretty cool.
The Apple Vision Pro has an additional strap that goes over your head (because of weight). It wasn’t discussed, those in the hands on demos had it, but no pictures were allowed. The Good Morning America video didn’t show it either. But one brief scene in the keynote had it.
Downloads that will take more than 1 minute now show a time remaining indicator in the App Store on iOS 17.
Good!
The new Now Playing screen in watchOS 10 looks great ✨ #WWDC#WWDC23
Interesting new alert when launching Keychain Access in macOS Sonoma
🎉🚨Wait, hold on!🚨🎉
When you have a timer running in watchOS 10 there is now a quick jump indicator that appears at the top of the clock face! (same for Alarms and Stopwatches)
No more need to have a timer complication just for when a timer is running. I love it!
Installing the Windows version of Diablo 4 on my MacBook Pro. This feels…weird, but will report back how it works!
Notable that this required me to install dev tools and run an hour-long series of terminal commands to get running, but if this can “just work” down the road…could be the biggest advance in Mac gaming in forever.
I do think Apple is going to be in a tough spot with game devs for visionOS. Sessions make it clear that hand tracking just won’t be accurate enough for anything fast-paced, and everything has to be re-hosted using Apple APIs to do even basic things with the system compositor. I expect there will be a rising chorus of ‘we need hand controllers’ at the very least. If Apple doesn’t have hand controllers of some kind by version 2.0, it could negatively impact the platform for years to come #WWDC23
I thought hot corners were acting up in macOS Sonoma, but it turns out that the default behavior when clicking the desktop wallpaper now is to reveal the desktop and hide all app windows. Fortunately, you can turn that off in System Settings 😅
The fundamentals of windowing on visionOS; I was wondering if you could move/angle windows vertically, and the answer is yes 😄
If Apple can get 3D video capture into the iPhone 15 Pro, it would be an amazing synergy move towards selling both products.
But your new phone in September, start capturing 3D videos immediately, and have a library of amazing memories to see in a whole new way on day one with the Vision Pro.
Not absokutely perfect timing, but it’s a good story to tell those who want a Vision Pro.
yep ok Stage Manager in iPadOS 17 is very very good
I tested out a few of the new reaction features in FaceTime on iPadOS 17. I’m sure posting this will not be a bad idea.
Very cool special effect for artwork in the Podcasts app in iOS 17 👀
Here’s the new Chapters experience in the queue as well, along with an excellent background effect that’s particularly vibrant thanks to the Connected artwork
Turning the Level option on will pop up a broken horizontal line on the screen when your iPhone senses you’re lining up for a straight-on shot and you tilt your device slightly out of horizontal. The line appears white while your phone is out of level and then turns yellow once you achieve a level orientation to indicate success.
@vmachiel@chockenberry it has a Files app, whose icon can be seen in some of the sessions. This is iPadOS for your face, not a Mac
Spatial Persona on Vision ProIn its Platforms State of the Union video for developers this week, Apple announced that it is working on “Spatial Personas” that will allow Vision Pro users to “break out of the familiar FaceTime tile and feel more present, like they are gathered in the same physical space.” Spatial Personas will have a transparent background and be able to display more movement and body language for a more lifelike experience.
You can select specific passwords to share after the group is created, and then people in the group can upload their own. Each participant can edit and add passwords, with changes synced across the entire group. There are options to create multiple groups, so you can have a group with a spouse and children and then a separate group with just a spouse, or a group of roommates and friends.
Whoa, this new Tap to Airplay experience is great…
I just opened Music while in my bedroom and the option appeared to play to my HomePod mini — just because I was in the room!
This is the ultra wideband technology I talked about 2 years ago, put into practice:
I missed that the watchOS honeycomb layout is now just vertically scrollable instead of in all directions. That seems so much better for finding apps compared to the wild-west of the old honeycomb and the low density of the list layout. #wwdc
Everyone makes predictions on what Apple will introduce at its events, but who goes back to grade how they did? Me! That’s who. The WWDC23 Keynote has come and gone, bringing with it an absolute deluge of new features, improvements, entire OSes, and products. But before we get to my score on all that, a brief programming note:
I’ve been spelunking the internet the past few days for exciting bits and bobs, and rounding them up together into daily summaries. Along the way, I’ve been trying to determine how many of my pre-WWDC wishes had been granted. However, my requests are very specific and I won’t be able to test or confirm many of them until I get my hands on the new software — which I won’t do until the public betas come out next month.1
With that in mind, I won’t be doing a full scoring of my wish list items today. But it did give me a new idea. Rather than publish a new wish list before every Apple event or WWDC, I figure it would be cool to have a year-round list that lives on my new ‘Lists’ page. As fixes come in from new releases, I’ll check them off and group the completed items appropriately on a timeline. I’ll even go back and put in my wishes from previous years! So I encourage you to go check out the new ‘List of Apple Wishes’ here on HeyDingus.
Perhaps I’ll do a check-in post every so often on new wishes made and granted. And with that, let’s see how I did with my keynote predictions!
The Results
👍A preview of the AR headset is shown off, and attendees get to try them on. We got this in spades! Apple even built a new building to house the try-on area. The Vision Pro got the most presentation time at the packed keynote, and it was a jaw-dropping 45 minutes.
🤷♂️iPad apps on the headset that take advantage of Stage Manager and the Apple Pencil hover support introduced last year. This is was a sort-of correct guess. Yes, iPad apps will run on visionOS without change from the developers (although they can make bespoke visionOS versions), but there was no mention of the windowing system using Stage Manager specifically. Nor did Apple mention that the Apple Pencil hovering features will play a role in visionOS. I tend to think that those technologies do play a role in visionOS but since Apple didn’t call it out, we have no way to know for sure.
👍While many AI-like features are announced, none are labeled as powered by “AI”; they’ll be powered by “Machine Learning (ML)”, instead. I nailed this one. No mention of “AI”. It was “on-device machine learning” and “transformer models” all the way. I also scored the bonus point with Apple refusing to mention the “metaverse” either.
👎The headset is called the Reality Pro and its operating system is called realityOS. We all got gotten on this one. I don’t think anyone had “Vision Pro” or “visionOS” on their Bingo board. And from all the WWDC developer sessions that mention “xrOS”, I don’t think many people at Apple knew for sure before the unveil either. I tentatively like the name, though, and know it’ll grow on me over time.
👎The headset pricing is announced and starts at $2499 or less. Oh boy. $3499 is the starting price. It’s both eye-wateringly high, and more than the rumored price. I’d been hoping we were going to get an iPad pricing moment, but it was the opposite. I’ve started saving my pennies.
🤷♂️All the OSes feature a refreshed design language with more texture and shadows that nods toward the 3D environment for the realityOS UI. The various OSes certainly didn’t get the design overhaul that I had expected, but I can see more shadows and skeuomorphism (for lack of a better term) in this year’s releases than last year’s. I’d give myself a quarter-point at most on this one.
👎New AirPods Max are announced that pair with the headset for an even more immersive setting. My risky pick was too risky, after all. I don’t think AirPods Max got a single mention, nor was shown on screen at all, let alone an introduction. That could be telling. Perhaps they need a bigger redesign to fit around the Vision Pro headset. I still think Vision Pro + AirPods Max would make for a pair made in heaven. Maybe we’ll see their launch next year alongside the Vision Pro hardware release.
Final Score:
👍: 2/7 👎: 3/7 🤷♂️: 2/7
I’ll need to work on my crystal ball gazing skills for the next keynote.
Even though, yes, I know that anyone can now install the developer betas for free. I’m not that courageous this year.↩︎
I happened to listen to two1 excellent podcast episodes this morning, one right after the other, and wanted to share them with the world. Podcasts have a notoriously difficult time getting discovered because they are tricky to share on the web, but I’m trying to do my part.
If you’re a technology podcast listener, you’ve heard of Marco Arment. Not only is he a prolific podcaster himself — he hosts Accidental Tech Podcast, Under the Radar, Top Four, Neutral (retired), and Build and Analyze (retired) — but he also develops the very popular Overcast app. I’ve referenced Overcast and Marco here many times. This RSS interview of Marco by Martin Feld is one of the best I’ve heard and covers Marco’s history at Tumblr, developing Instapaper, developing
Overcast, and crafting the podcasts he hosts. Yes, he really has had a hand in all those internet nerd favorites.
I’d never heard an Into It podcast episode before, so I was glad that The Vergecast dropped this one into their feed. It’s a conversation between Into It’s host Sam Sanders and The Verge’s Editor-in-Chief, and The Vergecast host, Nilay Patel. The Verge is doing special coverage on Google all year, and this chat covers how AI, chatbots, and shifting culture will disrupt Google’s place as a god of the web and how that will change how we all experience the internet.
It was smart, funny, and has me both nervous and hopeful for the future of the web. Not bad for a tight 40 minutes.
Customers can shop for a new Mac or iPad education pricing and redeem a gift card valued at up to $150. Macs that qualify include the newly announced 15-inch MacBook Air.
I know that if I had been a student when the first Apple silicon laptops were introduced, I would have felt a little betrayed that they were released just after the Back to School promotion ended (Internet Archive) and after I’d spent a good chunk of my limited savings on a computer that was so immediately outclassed. That’s one reason I’m glad to see the MacBook Air refreshed at WWDC the last couple of years, so they can be available for students. They’re often young people who are getting their first personal laptop and will use it for years to come. I like to think they’re getting the best computer, at the best price, to start.
I wonder if that thinking has worked it’s way into the Mac team’s planning timeline, or if it’s just a happy coincidence. Either way, I hope this trend continues.
For the PenPals project this month, I’ll be corresponding with V. You’ll be able to follow along with our conversation both here and on his site at vmac.ch.
Here’s our first exchange, as summarized by ChatGPT:
V initiates the June letters project, mentioning his birthday and a job switch, currently on a break between employment. He reflects on the peculiar experience of writing a letter meant for public consumption and acknowledges a headache affecting his morning writing. V appreciates the therapeutic value of writing and hopes to write more long-form blog posts organically. He discusses his preference for shorter, single-round games like UNO or Speed. Jarrod shares his admiration for V’s morning writing flow and confesses to occasional jealousy. Jarrod responds, congratulating V on the new job and wishing him an early happy birthday. He discusses the challenge of publishing private messages publicly, emphasizing the project’s goal of pushing personal expression boundaries. Jarrod shares his approach to video games and envies V’s morning writing routine. He reflects on the overwhelming nature of catching up on WWDC-related content and inquires about V’s favorite announcements. The
exchange concludes with casual banter about Grammarly use and a friendly sign-off.
If you’d like to be a penpal for this project, please reach out! I’d love to get you on the schedule.
