As of today, Apple’s first-ever online-only version of WWDC is 40(!) days away. As always, I’m incredibly excited to see what Apple has in store for us (although I must say, I’m really disappointed we don’t all get the chance to own a WWDC 2020 jacket and pin set…).
I’m not a developer, but that SwiftUI list looks like it has some pretty basic things in it I would have assumed the system already had present. I bet we hear a lot more about SwiftUI this year.
I really enjoyed this interview by John Gruber of Adam Engst. It was fascinating to hear how TidBITS got started and has evolved over the years.
It’s been a few years since I did one of these, and I was surprised at how much has changed.
Apple Support, in an ancient article:
After initializing a hard disk with a 4096 byte block size using FWB Hard Disk Took kit, I could not initialize the volume with Apple RAID 1.5 because the block size was greater than 512 bytes.
Apple RAID does not support these drives, as 512 is the standard maximum for block sizes. It will allow you to format them, but that’s all. No volumes, no mounts, no driver support. This is as designed.
Happy 5/12 day, if you put the month in front of the date when you write it. If not, we can celebrate again in December.
Apple has a new site up touting its Books store and a bunch of apps that make writing and designing a book easier for do-it-yourself types.
I used iBooks Author for Aqua and Bondi, and it was a bit of a nightmare, so I’m glad to see Pages and other apps highlighted here as well.
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From iCloud to Apple TV+, Apple’s range of services is broader then ever, but how do they all stack up? Is this shift to services changed how users should view the company?
It’s amazing just how many services Apple offers these days. It was fun to go through them with David.
My thanks to our sponsors:
Yesterday, Myke and I published an open letter of sorts, outlining some changes we are making in the business:
As the global pandemic unfolds, no business is unaffected. Understandably, many companies are freezing their marketing budgets. This means that advertising-supported businesses, including Relay FM, need to adapt. That’s why, over the next months, you’ll see us focus much more on creating new content for our loyal listeners.
We introduced the Relay FM membership program a few years ago, as a way of letting listeners support their favorite shows directly.
So far, we’ve focused on the membership program once a year, when we publish bonus episodes in conjunction with Relay FM’s birthday. As a primarily advertising-supported company, we have been comfortable with this approach, but the landscape is changing, and we need to change with it.
That’s why we’re going to be expanding our membership program this year. We’ll be adding new exclusive content just for members, and offering it in some new ways.
We’ve created two additional perks in the last month or so:
If you aren’t a Relay FM member, we’d love to have your support as we navigate the changes that many content creators are facing. You can join here, picking your favorite show to support. If you choose Backstage, your membership will go to helping run the day-to-day of the network directly.
If you are already a member, and haven’t checked out the Discord, I invite you to come hang out with us.
It’s been almost five years since I quit my 9 to 5 so I could work on Relay FM and 512 Pixels full time, and I can honestly tell you this is my dream job, and it’s a true honor to help make things that people enjoy so much.
My thanks to The Omni Group for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week.
Productivity isn’t about getting more done — it’s about getting more out of life. And with four powerful productivity apps, the Omni Productivity Suite offers a program for any job — whether you need to stay focused, manage projects, communicate visually, or structure your ideas.
For people my age, AIM was the way to stay in touch with friends back in high school and college. It’s not around today for a bunch of reasons, but its feature set defined what we expect from services like iMessage and WhatsApp today.
On this week’s episode of Flashback, Quinn Nelson and I jump online and dig in to this once-huge service.
My thanks to our sponsor:
On this week’s episode of AppStories, Federico spoke with Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi about iPadOS and its new cursor support. I’m only a few minutes into the episode, but it’s already super interesting.
On a personal note, I couldn’t be prouder of Ticci today. He has worked extremely hard to build MacStories into what it is today, and interviews like these really show it.
This week, Stephen identifies some adaptors, while Federico is in search of answers and Myke butts in about something else. Then, a discussion of WWDC 2020, and what they guys would like to see in terms of home screen widgets on the iPhone and iPad.
Over the next several weeks, we’ll be breaking down some things we’d like to see at WWDC. I’m looking forward to the event, even if we’ll all be at home for it.
My thanks to our sponsors: