The Festival of Artisanal Software
This week on Ruminate, we start with some very old follow up, I have a story about Dominos, we both have a near-miss on being April-fooled, then into a discussion about webmentions, plus a little bit about Arc.
Mastodon Webmentions and Privacy • Robb Knight
Neatnik Notes · A Fediverse, if you can keep it
A simple explainer on federation, and what it means for Threads users
This week on MacStories Unwind, Federico and John are joined by Jonathan Reed to discuss Christopher Nolan’s film, Memento and our weekly On Deck picks.
Thanks to everyone who suggested films to Federico after last week’s episode of MacStories Unwind. If you’d still like to recommend a movie to him please get in touch on Mastodon or Threads.
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A few weeks ago on AppStories, Federico and I surveyed recent Apple system app updates to get a sense of where the design of iOS is heading. Part of the inspiration for that episode was a thread that Lickability posted on Mastodon, breaking down Apple’s recently-released Sports app.
Yesterday, Lickability’s Sam Gold expanded on that thread with a post on the company’s blog that’s a must-read for anyone interested in iOS design trends because, as Sam says:
We once heard someone say, “design your app for the current iOS version + 1.” So with that lens, we’ve been looking at what the design of Apple Sports can tell us about iOS 18.
That’s good advice, and there’s a lot to learn from Sports, such as how it continues a recent trend of using gradients in the nav bar:
Gradients are used a LOT in this app. This nav bar gradient effect is becoming pretty common throughout first-party apps as well — first with the iOS 17 Health app, then Journal, and now Sports. watchOS 10 is also full of gradients.
There are many other things going on in Sports besides gradients, including Metal shaders applied to textures and interesting uses of animation and typography.
I fully expect that when I sit down to watch the announcements at WWDC, much of what Lickability has highlighted in Sports will be apparent across many more of Apple’s apps.
Last November, we created the MacStories Setups page. It’s a collection of the gear, apps, and services that Federico and I use for work and play. We knew when we created the page that it would change regularly, and it has. Today, we’re introducing our third update in four months, which collects changes related to Federico’s MacPad setup and some smaller adjustments that we’ve both made recently.
The MacPad additions to Federico’s setup include:
However, Federico isn’t living a MacPad-only lifestyle. He uses the Vision Pro daily and has added it along with the following accessories to his setup:
Other additions include:
Our app lineups change constantly, too, and most recently, Federico has added:
As for me, since my big desk setup upgrade, I’ve made a handful of changes to my desk and gaming setups, along with other adjustments.
With summer around the corner, I’ve been refining my portable setup. The Logitech Casa Pop Up Desk that I reviewed recently is perfect for an afternoon at a coffee shop or sitting out on my balcony. I’ve enjoyed the Boox Tab Ultra so much that I added a Boox Palma for ultra-portable e-ink reading on-the-go.
The articles I save to read on the Palma and elsewhere are currently split between GoodLinks and Readwise Reader. I’ve also swapped out NaturalReader for Speechify for text-to-speech workflows, but I’m not completely satisfied with any read-aloud solution I’ve tried yet.
I’m also slowly refining my gaming setup. The ASUS ZenWiFi Pro Wi-Fi 6E mesh router system is a big step up from the Linksys Atlas routers I was using before in terms of both coverage and speed. I’m still floored by the bandwidth I get with my iPhone 15 Pro Max and Ayn Odin 2 Pro. I also picked up a Miyoo Mini+ retro gaming handheld because I’m traveling soon and wanted an ultra-portable handheld to take with me. Also, to track what I’m playing, I’ve been using GameTrack, which I recently reviewed.
Both of us have added a handful of other apps and gear, too, so be sure to browse through the Setups page to find the complete listing of our current setups.
Ian Hamilton writing for UploadVR about his experience playing Half Life: Alyx with Nintendo Joy-Con and the Apple Vision Pro:
The tracking quality is far from ideal and I couldn’t get the gravity gloves to pull objects. Those limitations make much of Half-Life: Alyx still off-limits at present. The hand tracking is so sluggish, for example, I wouldn’t want to engage in combat like this. Still, I enjoyed exploring a laid back look through the early parts of Half-Life: Alyx on Vision Pro’s untethered system with developer commentary turned on. And that this works at all is a remarkable testament to the ingenuity of open-source developers.
Hamilton, who tested other games like Beat Saber, too, used ALVR, an open-source project that allows SteamVR games to be played on the Vision Pro over Wi-Fi and just released a beta visionOS app.
As with a lot of these cutting-edge experiments, the number of games that are playable using ALVR is limited. However, as a proof of concept, it’s interesting to see Joy-Con, which are supported by visionOS, working in concert with hand tracking. As limited as the experience is now, ALVR points to a potential hybrid solution for gaming on the Vision Pro that combines the natural interactions of hand tracking with the precision of controllers.
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Source: Retroplace.
We’ve covered videogame emulation on Apple devices many times over the years, but today, I have a fun story from the archives about the Mac and emulation.
As Chris Brandrick explains on overkill.wtf, the Mac played a pivotal role in developing the U.S. case law that holds that emulators are ‘fair use’ under copyright law:
Believe it or not, but back in 1999 Apple’s Steve Jobs went on national TV and spoke glowingly about a new piece of emulation software that made playing PS1 games on your Macintosh a reality.
Yes, then iCEO Jobs not only took to the airwaves on U.S. news network CNBC to brag about how this new emulator “lets your Mac play Sony PlayStation games” (noting that “you can’t even get this on Windows”), but he also took to the stage at that year’s MacWorld Expo touting the $49 ‘Virtual Game Station’ software to the Mac masses.
The software Jobs demoed on stage at Macworld was Connectix Virtual Game Station, which was developed by Aaron Giles and allowed Sony PlayStation CD-ROMs to be played on Mac like the G3 iMac. Sony promptly sued Connectix, the company behind the emulator, and got a preliminary injunction against its distribution, which was later overturned on appeal. Sony ultimately bought Connectix Virtual Game Station to take it off store shelves.
Also linked in the story is a terrific video overview of the history behind Connectix Virtual Game Station by Definitive Mac Upgrade Guide:
The entire story is fascinating in light of Nintendo’s recent actions against Yuzu, an open-source Switch emulator, which resulted in the Yuzu project being taken down and has had ripple effects in all corners of the emulation world.
So, the next time you fire up an emulator, think of Steve Jobs and the fight he helped kick off that sits at the foundation of videogame emulation everywhere.
The European Commission (EC) has opened non-compliance investigations against Apple, Google, Meta, and Amazon in connection with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). With respect to Apple, the EC is investigating the company’s approach to uninstalling system apps, changing default settings, and prompting users to pick alternate services, including browsers and search engines.
According to the EC’s press release:
The Commission is concerned that Apple’s measures, including the design of the web browser choice screen, may be preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services within the Apple ecosystem, in contravention of Article 6(3) of the DMA.
The EC is also investigating the fee structure that Apple has implemented in connection with alternative app stores:
Apple’s new fee structure and other terms and conditions for alternative app stores and distribution of apps from the web (sideloading) may be defeating the purpose of its obligations under Article 6(4) of the DMA.
The EC’s press release helpfully reminds Apple and the other DMA gatekeepers that:
In case of an infringement, the Commission can impose fines up to 10% of the company’s total worldwide turnover. Such fines can go up to 20% in case of repeated infringement.
‘Turnover’ is an accounting term typically used in Europe that, for these purposes, is the functional equivalent of total revenue. The EC says that it intends to conclude the investigation announced today within 12 months.
This week on AppStories, we take a hard look at Shortcuts to discuss what needs fixing and the new features we hope to see Apple announce at WWDC this year.
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I’ve lost track of how many MacStories readers have sent me this over the past few days (thank you; you know me well), and, unsurprisingly, the latest project by Scott Yu-Jan is extremely my kind of thing. Scott 3D-printed a Macintosh-like shell to host a Mac Studio with an iPad mini used as its display thanks to wired Sidecar. It’s magnificent:
Obviously, as someone who relies on Sidecar on a daily basis now, I find this project a masterpiece in creativity and taking advantage of Apple’s ecosystem. I would pay serious money to have a version of this for my Mac mini and 11” iPad Pro.
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