Software quality is a nebulous and divisive topic. There are many parameters to software quality – reliability, speed, user experience, design, discoverability, and more – and a move towards any of these virtues leads to sacrifices in others, especially on a limited time schedule. Additionally, a number of forces influence software quality over time, like accommodating for different use cases, changes in platform, changes in hardware, changes in design preferences, changes in market, changes in expectations, and more. Finally, software is not like digging a hole, say, where more people really can dig a hole faster than fewer people: in fact, more people can often slow down a software project.

Nobody knows this better than the technology titans of today: Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle have all experience unanticipated software problems and regressions and high profile bugs. These are organizations with thousands of programmers writing and maintaining millions of lines of code for billions of devices. And these devices are machines which require perfection: one slight ambiguity of intent, any minor breach of contract, any single unexpected 0 where there should be 1 or vice versa … has the capability the bring down the whole system. In fact, it often does. Countless kernel panics, stack overflow errors, null pointer exceptions, and memory leaks are plaguing poor users and tired system administrators and overworked programmers right now. Machines are fast, but they can be awfully dumb.

And no company is feeling the pain of software’s nebulous nature and hardware’s mindless computing more than Apple right now. The underdog that many loyal fans rooted for is now the world’s (perhaps previous) most valuable company. With that, comes insanely high expectations: they need to grow the world’s biggest company every quarter to keep Wall Street happy, and even harder, they have to keep those nerds that kept them alive through the hard times happy too. And with release after release of the most revolutionary operating system ever, it’s tempting to picture Apple like an actual Titan, in particular Atlas, holding the world upon his shoulders. But it seems more and more every day that another Greek tale is more fitting: it’s time to admit that Apple have flown too close to the sun.

Walt Mossberg, technology journalism’s elder statesman, has this to say about Apple’s software quality:

In the last couple of years, however, I’ve noticed a gradual degradation in the quality and reliability of Apple’s core apps, on both the mobile iOS operating system and its Mac OS X platform. It’s almost as if the tech giant has taken its eye off the ball when it comes to these core software products, while it pursues big new dreams, like smartwatches and cars.

On OS X this is especially true: OpenGL implementation has fallen behind the competition, the filesystem desperately needs updating, the SDK has needed modernizing for years, networking and cryptography have seen major gaffes. And that’s with regards to the under-the-hood details, the applications are easier targets: it’s tragic that Aperture and iPhoto were axed in favor of the horrifically bad Photos app (that looks like some Frankenstein “iOS X” app), the entire industry have left Final Cut Pro X, I dare not plug my iPhone in to my laptop for fear of what it might do, the Mac App Store is the antitheses of native application development (again being some Frankenstein of a web/native app), and iCloud nee MobileMe nee iTools has been an unreliable and slow mess since day one.

This isn’t the first time that a prominent member of the Apple community has criticized Apple’s software quality. Here’s Marco Arment from January of 2015:

Apple’s hardware today is amazing — it has never been better. But the software quality has fallen so much in the last few years that I’m deeply concerned for its future. I’m typing this on a computer whose existence I didn’t even think would be possible yet, but it runs an OS with embarrassing bugs and fundamental regressions. Just a few years ago, we would have relentlessly made fun of Windows users for these same bugs on their inferior OS, but we can’t talk anymore.

This is still as true today as it was last year. Macs and iPhones have gotten thinner, more beautiful, and more powerful; the Apple Watch and the new Apple TV are magnificent additions to the product line up. But I’d speculate that part of the problem Apple is having is that if it took 1,000 engineers to write software for Mac when that was the only product, it doesn’t necessarily take 4,000 people to write software for four product lines. In fact, 10,000 of the same grade of engineers might not even do it, especially without proper management and unified goals. Apple may not have listened to rockstar developer Marco Arment, but Walt Mossberg will definitely get their attention. Here’s an anecdote about Steve Jobs from the last time that Mossberg complained about Apple’s software quality:

In Fortune’s story, Lashinsky says Steve Jobs summoned the entire MobileMe team for a meeting at the company’s on-campus Town Hall, accusing everyone of “tarnishing Apple’s reputation.” He told the members of the team they “should hate each other for having let each other down”, and went on to name new executives on the spot to run the MobileMe team. A few excerpts from the article.

“Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?” Having received a satisfactory answer, he continues, “So why the fuck doesn’t it do that?”

Jobs was also particularly angry about the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg not liking MobileMe:

“Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us.”

It really is time for Tim Cook to take action as drastic as this regarding software quality on Apple’s existing platforms. What worries me is that AAPL the stock ticker and Apple the company are in a (self-driving) crash course with one another: AAPL needs to launch new products to drive growth and Apple needs to improve the products that have already shipped. The most valuable asset that Apple own is their brand, and that’s the brand that’ll drive sales of any car that may or may not be in development. If that brand name is tarnished by regressions and performance problems, what consumer would buy a car from the brand? In fact, anecdotally, talking to my friends, the Apple Car already has an uphill battle with the kerfuffle surrounding the Maps launch.

Jim Dalrymple, in response to Mossberg, writes:

I understand that Apple has a lot of balls in the air, but they have clearly taken their eye off some of them. There is absolutely no doubt that Apple Music is getting better with each update to the app, but what we have now is more of a 1.0 version than what we received last year.

John Gruber, in response to Dalrymple:

Maybe we expect too much from Apple’s software. But Apple’s hardware doesn’t have little problems like this.

The best thing for Apple to do is to re-take their position as a leader of software quality before it’s too late: consumers know that Apple’s hardware is the very best, but more and more they’re using apps made by Google and Microsoft and Facebook. If this trend doesn’t turn around, Apple will find their breakout product and all of its growth will be owned by competitors. And when the time comes to launch their car, they’ll find that loyal fans and everyday consumers have lost trust in the brand. Having said that, I’m still a Mac user at home and at work, my iPhone is a wonderful device that I enriches my life, and I’m still finding new ways to make use of Apple Watch. And to give credit where credit is due: Logic Pro X has improved a lot recently, and Music Memos is a welcome addition to Apple’s music line up. I even use Apple Maps. Apple can do this. It’s not too late. But for sake of all us poor users, and Apple’s tired system administrators and overworked programmers, I hope they started 6 months ago.

Marco Arment:

Apple needs a healthy developer ecosystem now, more than ever, as customers clamor for their new platforms to have more and better software — but now they’re paying for their own neglect of healthy App Store economics and tense developer relations for so long.

I hope Apple sees that as a problem. With the recent consolidation of the entire App Store under new leadership (Phil Schiller), maybe they do.

Apple’s developer ecosystem is healthy, with two exceptions:

1. Backend services: iCloud and CloudKit are to platform dependent and iOS developers aren’t (in general) competent in backend development;
2. App review: compared to web development, taking up to 3 weeks to ship an app because of a review process is a huge burden.

These are no insurmountable challenges for the developer ecosystem, but it does pose some challenges for Apple. In order to provide an integrated backend solution that would really be an option for indie developers, they would have to risk ending the thermonuclear war and allowing Android and web to access the service. It’s apt that this discussion should arise on the shuttering of Parse, a Facebook-bought company, because this wouldn’t be a problem for Apple if they have bought Parse. But had they bought Parse, just like when they bought TestFlight and Siri, Apple would have immediately shut down the the Android component. The sad and ironic fact of the matter is that Apple are actually in a great position to run a service like Parse at a loss, because all of Apple’s software (in a sense) is the cost required to make the stupendous profit on the iPhone. Perhaps a reasonable compromise position for Apple to enter into the *aaS space would be to subsidize development by making iOS use of CloudKit free, and provide other platforms at cost.

On the second challenge, I’m not sure what challenges there are in scaling Apple app review process, but anecdotally, the last time I heard of someone going through the process recently, it took 5 days from submission to store. If this proves to be consistent this year, it still isn’t fast enough to submit hot-fixes like the web can, but it would definitely be a welcome improvement. But the pain of the submission process goes further than just the review process, it’s also the incredibly clunky iTunes Connect and the inconsistent enforcement of the guidelines. These complaints just cover the iOS App Store, however, Apple have a lot more (a less profitable) work to do on there other three App Stores.

 

Rene Ritchie for iMore:

Tim Cook recently said that 60 percent of customers on an iPhone 5s or earlier have not yet upgraded to an iPhone 6 or later. When we polled our readership late last year, a majority of our readers told us they were happy with the current sizes — almost 58%. Of those who did want a smaller iPhone, 12% said it was important enough to them that they’d refrained from upgrading because the iPhones 6 seemed too big. Almost 13%, though, said they were interested in a smaller iPhone especially if it was less expensive than the larger size models.

Shawn King for The Loop:

Whether Apple does this in the spring or not, it certainly makes sense for the company to serve the end of the market that doesn’t need or want one of the ginormous iPhone 6 variations.

John Gruber:

A new 4-inch iPhone with an A9 processor and Touch ID solves a few problems for Apple, in one swoop. It gives Apple a modern iPhone to sell to people who really do prefer the smaller size, and it gives them a low-end-of-the-lineup model that is technically relevant for another 18-24 months.

I almost never like it when analysts harken back to Steve Jobs when it comes to Apple’s future, but I think we may be feeling his persuasive influence still. The notion that a 4-inch device is “perfect” because you can reach all of it with one hand still exists, and may very well be true for some consumers. In my experience, the Plus models are extraordinary. My 6 Plus has completely taken over from my iPad, and continues to gain capabilities that were previously reserved for my MacBook.

Having said that, it is expensive. And should Apple release the “5se”, I think it could be a real crowd pleaser. It predict it’ll be priced around the $500 price point, include Force Touch, NFC, an A9 processor, improved camera, and a 5-class screen at a 6 aspect ratio. Of those 13% who are “interested” and 60% who “haven’t upgraded” into new iPhone users. However, as a developer, I don’t really care if an Apple customer has a 5s or 5se, I’d prefer that Apple continue to convert Android users. To do that will require something more accessible that another phone upwards of $500.

Nellie Bowles for the Guardian:

Engineers look for “big problems” that will push them and for a culture that puts them at the center, Solomon said. He also noted that the best engineers like to work in “flow state” and keep creative hours, which Apple, with its long commute from San Francisco to Cupertino, doesn’t always allow.
“Apple’s not an engineering culture,” Solomon said. “Tim Cook’s done an amazing job running the company, but [Steve Jobs] was the guy everyone wanted to follow into battle.”

This is right for the wrong reasons – characterizing the challenges of the world’s most valuable company by how they’re perceived by a few professionals in the industry will inevitably fail to tell the full story. However, being that big is the source of Apple’s struggles in recruiting, retention, and quality.

Apple have a massive install base of massive software systems, and public expectations are the same as when they were selling iPods and represented 2% of the PC market share. And in order to retain their culture of “world-changing” perception, they have to keep everything a secret, presumably even from within.

That’s my charitable take on this peculiar piece from the Guardian. Apple likely do have problems attracting the world’s top talent, but when you have as much money in the bank as Apple do, it gives them a strong place to negotiate from. Additionally, engineers that bemoan the lack of free food and the rigid start times are likely not the kind Apple wish to attract.

John Gruber on the article:

The other problem Apple faces is that it’s not just any A-team talent that Apple needs, Apple needs A-team talent that understands and appreciates Apple’s design-focused culture.

As a software engineer, I’m very aware that right now, engineer’s have a lot of bargaining power because of their scarcity. Good engineers will always be scarce. That “engineering culture” that Solomon criticizes Apple for not having is probably more that Apple do not pander to entry-level candidates the same way Google or Facebook do with their silly hats and free lunches. But it won’t always be like this, as universities ramp up to meet the demand for software professionals, being a programmer will become more and more like being any other commodity professional. That’s my take of Apple supposed lack of “engineering” culture, because if you look at their actual engineering culture, it’s brought the world WebKit and Swift and, in many ways, the personal computer.

Digitimes are reporting that Apple will release a “4K resolution panel” with the iPad in March, citing “Taiwan-based supply chain makers”:

The new 9.7-inch device will reportedly come equipped with a 4K resolution panel and up to 4GB in RAM, in addition to improved battery life.

While possible, it’s highly unlikely. Consider that the only 4K tablet on the market is made by Panasonic for $6,000, and it ships with 8GB of RAM. The amount of battery and weight added by a 4K panel, as well as the added cost and marginal benefit to consumers, makes this report incredulous.

The speculated Apple car project’s hiring has been frozen, Sam Oliver reports for Apple Insider:

Apple has placed a hiring freeze on the team responsible for the company’s nascent automotive ambitions after executives became unhappy with the project’s direction and progress, AppleInsider has learned.

The change was precipitated by a post-holiday progress review conducted by Apple design chief Jony Ive, according to a previously reliable source with knowledge of the team’s activities. Ive is said to have “expressed his displeasure” with the group’s headway.

In all, Apple is believed to have more than 1,000 people working on Project Titan at sites both inside and outside of Cupertino. Hiring was so aggressive that Apple’s poaching of engineering talent from Tesla is thought to have had a “big impact” on the Elon Musk-led company’s ability to keep up with development of future vehicles.

I would love to know the Apple leadership’s reasoning behind entering the car market. As I’ve speculated before, it wouldn’t be enough to just make a car, or an electric car, or a beautiful car … Apple is either hiding something big or making a big mistake, and they’re no fools in Cupertino.

I’m also curious how the Apple car project is affecting Apple’s existing products. For instance, the iPhone launch is said to have taken top engineers away from the Mac, resulting in a lackluster release one year. I certainly think that software quality on Mac has withered, and it could be in part because of the iPhone’s popularity, and in part because of the brain-drain from the Apple car.

Seth Weintraub quotes KGI’s Ming-Chi Kuo in a report for MacRumors:

We see MacBook as a stronger candidate for becoming a theme given solid growth in the business segment, as well as a potential upgrade to hit the market in 1H16.

I don’t know about whether we’ve hit “peak iPhone” or how this affects Apple’s stock price, but I do know that the Mac as a platform has been neglected in recent years (in comparison to its younger, cooler sibling). To cite a few examples, the Mac App Store is a disgrace, Photos.app is a bit of mess that was ported from iOS, and the filesystem desperately needs upgrading. If market speculation regarding the potential growth of Macs allows Apple to focus on it, I’d jump for joy. The specs I’d like to see this March are:

• Skylake processors,
• faster PCIE storage,
• an upgraded (and perhaps default) graphics chip,
• a 32GB RAM option,
• Force Touch trackpads on the 15-inch models,
• and the new butterfly keyboard.

I’ve read rumors that we’re going to see a re-design as well, and that I could take or leave, I find the present models plenty beautiful and utilitarian.

Daisuke Wakabayashi writing for the WSJ:

Steve Zadesky, a 16-year Apple veteran who has been overseeing its electric-car project for the last two years, has told people he is leaving the company. The timing of his departure isn’t clear. He is still at Apple for now.

Joe Rossignol writing for MacRumors:

Apple’s electric vehicle could be approved for production by 2020, but some employees reportedly believe it “might take several more years” for the iPhone maker to develop a truly differentiated electric vehicle. The project has encountered some challenges internally due to a lack of clear goals, according to the report.

Jordan Golson writing for The Verge:

“While the departure of Apple’s head of automobile efforts may seem like a blow, the reality is Apple has enough money and potential to bring in almost anyone they desire,” says Akshay Anand, analyst with Kelley Blue Book. “This shouldn’t railroad Apple’s efforts and the rumors that they are indeed focused on becoming a player in the automotive space.”

I still struggle to picture, both visually and conceptually, the rumored Apple Car. The car does seem to be the ultimate product in the sense that almost everyone could use one, it’s expensive, and it takes huge amounts of manufacturing and technical expertise to create. However, cars have got many aspects that Apple eschew: it’s highly regulated, it’s highly competitive, and the margins are low (compared to the iPhone).

If Apple truly are entering the car market and they behave the same way they did with the iPhone, they must have an innovation which will allow them to be truly different from the competition and command a high-margin. Because Apple don’t make commodity PCs or phones, it’s safe to assume they won’t make commodity cars, so the high-margin won’t be because of low-cost, it’ll be because of a high-price.

Should this be the case, I think this innovation will be so extreme as to make the cars that Apple make resemble little the cars we know. It won’t be enough that they’re electric, because Tesla do that, or that they’re slickly designed, because many high-end cars are. To me, it seems “personal transport” may be a better label than “car”, because I’d be underwhelmed by an Apple that enters a commodity market with a commodity (or near) product.

Rich Mogull writing for TidBITS,

We are in the midst of fundamentally redefining the relationship between governments and citizens in the face of technological upheavals in human communications. Other [non-Apple] technology leaders are relatively quiet on the issue because they lack the ground to stand on. Not due to personal preferences or business compromises, but because of their business models, and lack of demand from us, their customers.

Apple surely has their customers in mind with their defense of encryption and privacy, but it is also convenient that many of their competitors’ businesses rely on tracking. This has to be one of the reasons iAd was so unceremoniously swept under the rug, why Apple allowed content-blockers on iOS, and why they are such stalwarts about privacy: it’s good for users and it’s good for business.

Today we call on Apple to allow us to release f.lux on iOS, to open up access to the features announced this week, and to support our goal of furthering research in sleep and chronobiology.

The makers of the dimming Flux application want access to private APIs to release in the App Store. In my opinion, they shouldn’t be granted it. Not because they haven’t got a good app, but because these screen whiteness APIs should either be released to everyone or not at all. If they’re released to everyone, we will see as many screen dimming apps as there are farting apps.

Furthermore, the stunt that Flux pulled to distribute their app via GitHub without actually open-sourcing the codebase, by adding an executable binary blob to an empty Xcode project and having user’s side load that, was a terrible move. It made the project look open-source, but was actually executing arbitrary code which no one but Flux knows what does. A bad precedent, and Apple were paying attention, and that is why they’ve drew Apple’s ire and swift sherlocking.

I find Flux’s response poised and classy, but they shouldn’t be allowed to access the private APIs on iOS. They will continue to have tremendous success as a Mac app, and I will continue to use their app. I hope they get their patent approved and Apple license the technology from them. If I were them, however, I would release the code, for iOS and for the Mac, as free and open source. If they’re mission is really “to enable f.lux to advance the science, while providing customized solutions for each person”, then they should go open source. If they had done that in the first place, I bet Apple wouldn’t have minded that they were using private APIs.

And Apple’s ire extends beyond Flux, in the release notes of the Xcode 7.3 beta, it says that they’ve removed all private frameworks from the SDK.

Dave Mark, writing for The Loop:

Elon Musk, in a BBC interview, talks about the Tesla Model 3, in production next year, designed to be affordable for the masses. When asked about Apple’s plans, he (almost reluctantly, it seems) makes the point that it is an open secret that Apple is working on a car of their own.

I’m in two minds about this. Firstly, quite selfish: I, and many of my city-dwelling peers, am not buying a car. Even low-end, second-hand cars are too expensive for the value it would deliver back to me (as far as I can tell). So I’m quite apathetic about the Apple Car.

But! As a developer, I am curious about the potential for 3rd party apps in the car. It’s a place where consumers spend tons of time, commuting, road-tripping, Sunday-driving, all of which are moments that an app, maybe my app, could deliver value. But I’m also highly skeptical that I want code from any ol’ developer running my (very hypothetical) car.

From the WSJ:

Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, said the company missed the error as it focused on other aspects of the product. The company didn’t explain how the problem occurred or say exactly when it might be rectified.

“We’re in the process of fixing that now, but our numbers are lower than reality,” he said. “We don’t know what the right number is,” but he added that it was better to undercount than overcount traffic.

Graham Spencer from MacStories writes:

A curious admission from Apple, particularly given that the issue has not been fixed yet. No details are given about the scale of the miscalculation, so it’s unclear as to whether this will result in a minor adjustment or significant adjustment in reader statistics.

Dave Mark for LoopInsight:

… [T]his is an embarrassing hiccough that Apple News did not need.

Eddy Cue has had a number of missteps in the last year: the Apple Music launch at WWDC was poorly executed, the MAS exodus under his leadership, and now a fairly minor analytics bug making front-page headlines.

There’s major cognitive dissonance in the Apple rumor-mill right now. The claim that Apple is developing “Hi-Res Audio streaming up to 96kHz/24bit” contradicts the claim that Apple will “switch away from the common TRRS 3.5mm jack” because high resolution audio is going to be limited to the quality provided by Bluetooth without the 3.5mm jack. And that’s because I will not buy Lightning headphones, because those are headphones for exclusive use with iOS devices. But maybe there’s hope for Bluetooth.

Ford announced that it will support CarPlay and Android Auto in its Ford SYNC product. This reminds me an awful lot of when Motorola allowed iTunes on their phones. 

Rene Ritchie of iMore on Apple’s executive mixup:

What this means for developers in general and indie developers in specific remains to be seen. Historically there have been issues in both orgs. App review has generated complaints about capriciousness and lack of responsiveness pretty much since launch, and that has always been under Schiller. iTunes infrastructure, resources, and tools—or the lack thereof—has been under Cue but now move at least partially under Schiller. In the past, long-requested features like upgrades, trials, and Mac App Store parity have been nebulous in terms of who and how they could be lobbied. Now Schiller’s name is officially on the top and it’s absolutely clear—the buck stops with Schiller.

John Gruber on Daring Fireball:

Treating the App Stores as part of developer relations instead of “media content” is clearly the right way to go. The stores are built on the iTunes Server platform (WebObjects, still!), but running an App Store is nothing like distributing movies, TV shows, books, and music. There are far more improvements that need to be made on the developer relations side of things than the technical side of things (although better search would be welcome).

And Dave Mark on The Loop:

Bottom line, Phil Schiller has a tremendous opportunity for foundational change. He has the chance to make things better for developers in all the App Stores (Mac, iOS, tvOS). Key to this is understanding exactly what the problems are. What is driving some developers to release their apps outside the safety of the official Mac App Store? Why is it so hard to make a living building apps? Are these things fixable? Can Apple make app discovery on the various App Stores easier for users and better for developers?

Apple’s present success is almost entirely (or roughly 56%) due to the iPhone, and its success is almost entirely (perhaps more than 56%) because of wealth of apps found on the App Store. Because there are so many consumers on Apple’s iPhone and because the platform is such a pleasure to develop for, developers have flocked to the iPhone. Arguably, in the early days of the first few iPhones with App Stores, it was for the love of the platform: Mac developers who saw a chance to develop something new and cool. It such a surprise to me that considering this, and considering the resources that must have gone into the latest iTunes Connect update, that something as fundamental as the App Store on iOS and on the Mac has gone from bad to worse.

Worse how? I offer only anecdotes. Sketch has left the MAS after becoming one of its biggest hits. I can reliably freeze the iOS app by spam-hitting the elements in the bottom bar. I have app updates that don’t complete and require a restart or a delete and re-install. I hope that putting Schiller’s alone as responsible for the App Store along with placing his good reputation with developers on the line will solve the App Store’s problems.

I was a holdout. For three years, I used the magnificent iPhone 4S as my trusty telephone. When I upgraded from a feature-phone Nokia handset to an iPhone 4S, all the things I could do made me forget how I did without a smartphone: get all your emails on-the-go, use the decent web-browser to do tasks if a computer wasn’t around, keep yourself completely amused in all idle moments.

A week ago, I picked up the Ridiculously Big iPhone® and it is also one of those products that I already can’t remember how I did without.

My 4S really complimented an iPad well for some tasks: where the phone could send a quick message, the tablet could comfortably guide you through a book.

This 6 Plus, on the other hand, does not play so well with an iPad. It demands use, because as big as it is, it does fit in your pocket … barely, it has a screen that is just shorter than the iPad is wide, and it always has Internet connection (and to connect your iPad to 4G is quite pricey). It’ll send your quick message and then guide you through that book as you quickly switch to your train-ticket app, or whatever else it is you do.

Any media shines on the 6 Plus: it’s in your pocket, so you can play music; it has a massive screen, so you can play games or browse the web or read a book; the portrait keyboard is well-suited to two-handed use, so you needn’t shy from heavy-input use …

But there’s one thing that totally sucks about the 6 Plus.

Checking the time.

Oh I know, the humanity, you’re walking somewhere to do some lovely fun activity or something and you want to check if you’re late and you have to pull out a 5.5 inch telephone to find out. How hard.

But seriously, this device isn’t great for glance-able information, using it demands attention.

But Apple has no need to create the need for a product category which involves glance-able information.

Right guys?

Right?

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference may be one of the most misunderstood conferences held by a public-facing company. The relationship between what the event is and how the event is perceivedmakes for frustrating comment sections on tech blogs, news outlets, and developer communities. Well, more so the former and less so the latter.

The WWDC is an annual conference Apple holds to tempt developers into developing on their platforms with their technologies. The bulk of what the conference is are the workshops and presentations on software engineering. Conversely, the bulk of how the conference is perceived is the conferences keynote presentation, of which the WWDC has become nearly synonymous with.

As a recovering fanboy and a budding developer, I offer this post to interpret what happened at the event and specify what I am most excited about.

First, I will outline some of my thoughts about the changes to OS X. This is followed by the changes to iOS. Interestingly, however, the best of the WWDC announcement did not exist on each platform alone, but rather in the interplay between the platforms. That is, it is not in any single new software feature, but in the single experience that Apple is cultivating across its different products. So that’s what I’ll cover after OS X and iOS. Finally, I will cover some of the news that Apple had for developers.

OS X Yosemite

Apple opened the event with the updates to its desktop operating system, OS X. Aside from bumping the version number from 10.9 to 10.10, Apple has brought a new look, some new core features, an update to Spotlight (hit Cmd-Space to find out what that is), some radical Safari changes, a few convenient Mail changes, but most importantly, I think, an revamp of iCloud’s capabilities.

The new look is trivially a big part of how Apple’s operating system is perceived but more crucially a big part of how the event is perceived. So what specifically has changed and what does it have to do with the perception of Apple and the WWDC? The changes are:

• Flat design, (fewer color gradients)
• iOS-style translucency and Gaussian blurs
• Helvetica Neue replaces Lucida Grande

These changes are all in the right direction for a modern look for Apple’s desktop OS, says the fanbody devil sitting on my left shoulder, but it is not really why the WWDC’s annoucements for OS X are exciting, says the developer angel on my right shoulder.

Before what’s exciting, an interesting pattern emerges from noticing that the new Spotlight sherlocks a smart search tool known as Alfred. (Sherlocking is when third-party developers ship a particular feature first and Apple subsequently implement and release it themselves.)

The feature that matters the most announced yesterday is called iCloud Drive. If Spotlight sherlocks Alfred, then iCloud Drive sherlocks Dropbox andGoogle Drive. Contrary to the per-app file management strategy that Apple has been taking, iCloud has been opened up to allow you to manage everything in iCloud via Finder. This includes everything that your iOS apps store there, anything you want to share between all your Macs, and anything you’d like to send to your apps.

Interestingly, this the latest in a series of features which could be uncharitably characterized as exemplify the Steve Jobs quote which was aptly stolen from Picasso, that “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” As Gizmodo point out, Apple have done this before with Instapaper and Safari Reading List.

One of the reasons that iCloud Drive is so important going forward is that I have heard many times, take the general sentiment to be, and it be the case that Apple’s web services are underpowered. Compare iCloud’s present collaboration and file-sharing functionality to Dropbox and Google. Dropbox is the de facto standard for sharing filesystems, and Google Drive is the de facto standard for sharing and collaborating on files.

With iCloud Drive, Apple is competitively placed to implicitly takeover both of these use cases on Macs and iOS devices. Google Drive and Dropbox are software additions to any machine, require separate accounts and configuration, etc. Conversely, every new Mac shipped and all Mac OS X upgrades will feature this tool by default, and with the advent of BYOD, Apple is positioned to be the default.

This is not the only place that Apple continues to wage its “thermonuclear war” on its old friend, the updates to Safari place Wikipedia results and other items before conventional web search autocomplete.

tl;dr What you should expect is that in the Fall, a visual overhaul of your Mac will be released. It will feature a number of improvements, the biggest of which is iCloud Drive, which will give you an OS integrated Dropbox and Google Drive feature set.

From a developer’s technical point-of-view, the improvements to OS X are tepid at best, heated by the monumental improvement to Apple’s web services. From a fanboy’s point-of-view, I cannot wait to have the visual updates to OS X light up my Retina display.

iOS 8

Contrary to the glaring visual changes to OS X, the changes to iOS are not visual at all. What iOS 8 is to iOS 7 is what Mountain Lion is to Lion: a subtle but global fleshing out of the functionality. Arguably, many of the features which iOS 8 brings, like improvements to Siri, a predictive keyboard, interactive notifications, and a better photo management system, should have come to iOS a while ago. What I mean is that competitors have shipped these items before Apple has, much before. The case-and-point is how Android-y the predictive keyboard is and Google’s ever better Siri clone.

One of the most surprising announcements that Apple made was that it is allowing third-party developers to create and ship software keyboards to iOS devices. The rationale for disallowing the practice has historically been than it opens up a number of security and experience issues. Specifically, if a developer has access to your keyboard, and developer has access to everything you type, and perhaps you type sensitive or personal information. Further, should you pick up any iOS device and are accustomed to the platform, you will instantly be able to begin typing. Some software keyboards are very different from conventional software and hardware keyboards, including everything from swiping to drawing.

In similar vein, iOS 8 gives developers a way to give users a safe means to have their apps interact with one another. For instance, if you are creating a social network and want users on iOS to have your share sheet presented in the OS when a user wants to share, iOS 8 gives developers a way to do this. Or if Instagram want to allow other photo applications to use its filters, iOS 8 gives Instagram’s developers a way to offer that service. The reason this is similar is because this has been disallowed by Apple in the past for security reasons: apps are sandboxed to their own files to protect the user’s other files.

One of the reasons apps have been so successful is that there is little to no risk of any app changing your phone in a way that a Windows XP malware might. The types of permissions that Windows XP granted to executables was much greater than the permissions an iOS app has, which is why a user can be quite careless about what they install in a manner that proved to be quite catastrophic on more lenient systems.

The common denominator of the additions of third-party keyboards and app interactivity is that it is an anachronistic “highly controlled openness.” What I mean by this is twofold:

1. Yes, you can now have app’s interact and change your default keyboard.
2. No, potential attacks are not possible in the way they are on competing products.

Specifically, the reason that this approach is not prone to malware is that keyboard are not given default access to the network, for instance. If a keyboard cannot connect to the internet, a sketchy company cannot make a key-logger without your permission. Further, the inter-app communication is a form of openness in that it allows developers to have deeper access to the interactions outside of their application, but it protects the user by sandboxing the inter-app communication.

I take this to be how inter-app communication and third-party keyboards “should have” been done in that it is the sleekest and safest way it has been implemented so far. I hope that the common denominator between these two new features and iCloud Drive is this: When I use iCloud Drive, I hope it has the feeling of being late to the party, but being the best dressed.

Apple takes further aim at existing app developers of the more ephemeral social networks which have been enabled by more powerful devices and people’s desire to take increasingly complex selfies, namely, Snapchat’s feature of being able to quick send video and images to another on a timer. In iOS 8, the Messages app allows you to send video, audio, picture, and location to others.

Another strategy Apple is taking with iOS 8 is defining central location for existing but disparate services. The health quantification apps are all over the place: lots of hardware, lots of software, and little communication or unified direction. With iOS 8’s HealtKit and Health app, Apple has defined a way (HealthKit) for all of these developers and manufacturers to centralize the information and services they provide into a single place (Health app).

Apple mirrors this approach for home automation products and services. With iOS 8’s HomeKit and Siri, Apple has defined a way (HomeKit) for all these developers and manufacturers to centralize the informations and services they provide into a single place (Siri). How does Siri control your home? Well, you need only ask her. When you return home from a long day, you need simply groan into your phone “I’m going to bed.” and Siri will know to lock you garage, dim your lights, lock the door, and check that the dog has enough water.

tl;dr Apple’s iOS 8 will give you things you’ve wanted for a long time: interactive notifications, third-party keyboards, family iTunes accounts, improved photo management, improved Siri, and inter-app communication. It will also give you features you didn’t know you wanted, but come to think of it, it is the future: centralized and powerful health quantification and centralized and intuitive home automation. All of these services share a few common and very Apple-y common denominators:

1. The features take existing services and integrate them at the OS level,
2. The features are late but are much better in virtue of being integrated,
3. The features are better in part because of how secure they are.

From a developer’s technical point-of-view, the updates that Apple is bringing to iOS are monumental, especially when taken in tandem with the framework updates Apple is making. From a fanboy’s point of view, the updates to iOS are tepid at best, not only are there no exciting visual changes, but the most of the added functionality is long overdue.

iCloud and Continuity

If OS X is the Father which was there at the beginning and iOS is the Son that redeemed Apple as a company, then iCloud and Continuity is the Holy Ghost, the ever-present and all-knowing space between your phone, your tablet, and you computer. It is in this space that the WWDC was most exciting to me as a user. On this front, Apple announced four new features:

1. Handoff,
2. Airdrop between platforms,
3. Instant hotspot, and
4. SMS and phones calls on all platforms.

Handoff is a feature that allows you to begin working on an email or a document on any one of your devices, and subsequently continue working on that email or document on any other device instantly. For instance, if you are working in Pages on a blog post and you want to move from your desk with a desktop computer to the conference room with your tablet, when you open your tablet you will have an indicator at the bottom of the screen to open up and continue work on that document. For far too long have I carefully selected which device I choose to work on a given task on because of limitations and typing and portability, and I am very pleased that I am now empowered to just use whatever it is I am presently on without the need to awkwardly transfer files.

However, if I do want a one-time transfer of a file from my Mac to my iDevice, the updated AirDrop allows me to do that. This is going to be very convenient for when I, as I have found myself, need to transfer a file on my phone to someone who is working on their Mac or vice-versa. This is a much requested and workhorse feature whose utility should be evident. Much in the same boat is Apple’s now easier Instant Hotspot feature, which allows me to use my phone’s cellular data as the Internet for my Mac, which is another hugely convenient addition.

The feature I am most excited to get my hands on as a user, however, is that no longer do I have to use my phone exclusively to make phone calls or use SMS. When I pair my phone with my computer and my tablet, now I can use those protocols from any of my devices. Hallelujah.

But not only is this interesting from a user point-of-view, but from a strategic point-of-view. With Facetime and iMessage, Apple entered the telecommunications market subversively. Facetime Audio and iMessage are barely noticeable from the standpoint of the user, they are simply a more convenient and feature-rich version of what telecommunications companies already offer them. In fact, many other companies offer instant messaging and VoIP. What’s different about Facetime and iMessage is that they are seamlessly integrated into your existing SMS and telephone, technologies that have not much changed in the last one hundred years. By expanding its influence to all SMS and phone calls, Apple is positioning itself to quietly topple public-facing telecommunications companies from bottom-up.

tl;dr If you own all three or any two of the Apple’s product categories, the intercommunication and shared experience are better than they have ever been or are anywhere else. Where Google’s Android is ubiquitous and Microsoft’s Windows is homogenous, Apple’s OS X and iOS are seamless. More simply, you’ll be able to share documents, share your 4G, take phone calls on any device, and send/receive SMS on any device.

The user’s perspective transcends the developer/fanboy divide, as it will help me do all of my tasks better and allows me to use my favorite devices more.

DEV

Apple announced a new programming language to replace Objective-C, and that language is called Swift. The features presented in the keynote were very, very exciting, and most of all its “Playground” feature. What Playground seems to be is that when you are writing code in Xcode and Swift using Playground, when your code compiles Xcode performs some introspection and analysis on it to display on the right hand side a visualization of what your code does. So, for instance, if I write a loop which runs 100 times and moves a UI element from the bottom of the screen to the top, Playground will show that it runs 100 times (if I coded it correctly) and show me the UI element’s movement right from Xcode.

I see Playground as being one of the first seriously compelling reasons to move from a terminal based text editor to an IDE. Of course there are others, IDEs make it easier to use debugging tools and have less of a learning curve. But I have not known a task that was impossible with my favored vim until this Playground feature was demoed.

The fanboy in me obviously doesn’t care about a new programming language, but you may be surprised to learn that the developer in me in strangely apathetic as well. Until some more information is released and I get the opportunity to try writing an app in Swift for the first time, I reserve my judgement about it. Why? Because, frankly, learning a programming language, and especially learning it well and fully, is very hard. Furthermore, Swift, like Objective-C, is a platform specific language. Of course you canuse Objective-C with GCC on any machine, but it is Cocoa that really makes Objective-C a pleasure to develop in.

What is revolutionary from a development point-of-view, however, is Apple’s announcement of “CloudKit.” CloudKit is an API a developer can use to securely store and efficiently retrieve cloud-based data as thought it were in a local database. Apps have become much more stack-heavy in recent years: When you develop an application for an Apple product these days, you are not just developing for one device but for the entire ecosystem. It used to be that an iPhone app would mostly just run on the intended device and maybe eventually the Web. Now, application development requires a back-end for authentication, accounts, in-app purchases, and analytics. This is a massive undertaking for a lone developer looking to publish their idea. CloudKit allows me to do what I do well, compiled, on-device application development, even more powerfully because I can define the server-side logic on device and off-shore the task of running and maintaining to Apple’s servers. Revolutionary.