Rumor has it Apple is cooking up a new framework that helps unify the development of macOS and iOS apps. At least, that’s the part of the rumor that makes the most sense, anyway.[1] Code-named, Marzipan, this new framework would help developers who make either iOS apps or Mac apps to make both using the same basic toolset. Obvious differences between the platforms would necessitate some variation, of course (clicks vs taps, and all that), but the underlying APIs for creating either would be largely the same. And…

Update: It looks like Apple may finally have fixed this bug in the next version of macOS, called Catalina. Read more details in my new post here. Over the years, the majority of my complaints about Apple have centered around music. That’s because I love music, and Apple clearly doesn’t always think enough about people outside of its contrived all-in-on-Apple-Music listener when it comes to the iTunes experience. Today’s complaint actually begins with a recent positive discovery. I finally gave in to the temptation and signed up…

A lot of folks probably don’t remember, but the very first iteration of TouchID was problematic for some users. Most had no issues, and it worked great. For others, including me, it would work for a short while then stop unlocking the phone. I would have to retrain my fingers every few days just to keep it going. There were even hack tricks, like training the same finger twice, that supposedly improved performance. I tried this as well. It made things nominally better, at best. Then Apple released a…

INT. AN OFFICE BUILDING SOMEWHERE IN CUPERTINO. SITTING AT THE CONFERENCE TABLE ARE TIM COOK, PHIL SCHILLER, AND JONY IVE. THEY ARE BEGINNING TOP SECRET DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THE NEXT ITERATION OF MACBOOK PRO. TIM: We have the latest data. Developers want a thicker laptop with the fastest processor possible. They’d rather have more battery life than a thinner profile. And for sure, it absolutely needs to max out at 32GB of RAM. Oh, and it should be upgradable, so they can buy a new one even less frequently than…

“Anyone that watched the DJ scrubbing the Touch Bar and didn’t think it would be 100 times more natural to scratch with the on screen turn tables on a the flat Surface Studio screen wasn’t thinking too hard.” (via John Kheit for the Mac Observer) I basically disagree with this entire article. But that last bit really struck me as monumentally stupid. If John knew any actual DJs, he’d know a few things: Algoriddim already has an excellent iPad version of djayPro, which works great on the…