Posts in Linked

Procreate Will Not Include Generative AI in Its Apps→

Today on its website, Procreate announced that it would not build generative AI tools into its apps. The company’s position is clear and unequivocal:

Generative AI is ripping the humanity out of things. Built on a foundation of theft, the technology is steering us toward a barren future. We think machine learning is a compelling technology with a lot of merit, but the path generative AI is on is wrong for us.

We’re here for the humans. We’re not chasing a technology that is a moral threat to our greatest jewel: human creativity. In this technological rush, this might make us an exception or seem at risk of being left behind. But we see this road less travelled as the more exciting and fruitful one for our community.

In a short video on X.com, Procreate CEO James Cuda said:

I don’t like what’s happening to the industry, and I don’t like what it’s doing to artists.

I couldn’t agree more or be happier to see Procreate take a stand in defense of artists. Federico and I interviewed Cuda at WWDC, and although Cuda struck a diplomatic tone having just received an Apple Design Award for Procreate Dreams, it was clear to me then that we were unlikely to see generative AI in Procreate’s apps. For everyone who wasn’t in the room with Cuda that day, though, today’s statement should set their minds at ease. I hope we see more developers whose apps support creative fields take a similar stand.

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The Sound of Apple→

I thoroughly enjoyed this two-part series on the Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast about sound design at Apple and the care that goes into crafting sound effects and alerts that complement the user experience (speaking of the parts of Apple I still love).

I’ll be honest: like many other people these days, I don’t often hear sound effects at all since my iPhone is constantly silenced because I don’t want to bother people around me. However, sound plays an essential role for accessibility reasons and is an entire dimension of software design that is not treated like an afterthought at Apple. I especially appreciated how both episodes went into explaining how particular sounds like Tapbacks, Apple Pay confirmation messages, and alarms were created thanks to members of Apple’s Design team, who participated in both episodes and shared lots of behind-the-scenes details.

I hope we get a third episode about sound design in visionOS eventually. (I listened to both episodes using Castro, which I’m using as my main podcast client again because its queue system is unrivaled.)

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The Slow Decline of the Apple “Cult”→

The headline may be a little provocative, but this article by Matt Birchler encapsulates a lot of the feelings I shared on the latest episode of Connected following Apple’s decisions regarding the Patreon iOS app.

Part of this is that Apple is no longer the underdog, they’re the biggest fish in the sea. It’s simply not as fun to root for the most successful consumer company of all time than to root for the upstart that’s trying to disrupt the big guys.

But another part is that despite achieving massive success, Apple continues to make decisions that put it at odds with the community that used to tirelessly advocate for them. They antagonize developers by demanding up to one third of their revenue and block them from doing business the way they want. They make an ad (inadvertently or not) celebrating the destruction of every creative tool that isn’t sold by Apple. They antagonize regulators by exerting their power in ways that impact the entire market. They use a supposedly neutral notarization process to block apps from shipping on alternate app stores in the EU. Most recently they demand 30% of creators’ revenue on Patreon. No single action makes them the bad guy, but put together, they certainly aren’t acting like a company that is trying to make their enthusiast fans happy. In fact, they’re testing them to see how much they can get away with.

And:

And to be super clear, I think the vast majority of folks at Apple are amazing people doing amazing work, especially those in product, design, and development. There’s a reason that I use their products and there’s a reason I care enough to even comment on all this in the first place. The problems all stem from the business end of the company and I don’t know how to convince them that reputation matters. How do we convince them that they need the rebel spark like they used to have? How do we convince them there are more ways to increase their profits than by going after the paltry earnings of creators on Patreon?

It’s a pretty dark place to be when Apple’s biggest, long time fans are hoping that the US government will step in to stop them from doing multiple things that they’re doing today.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. On the latest Connected, I argued that it almost feels like there are two Apples within Apple: the company that designs the hardware products and operating systems I still love using, which I find superior to most alternatives on the market today; and there’s the business entity, which is antagonizing developers, creators, governments, and, in doing so, alienating customers who have been supporting them for years.

I don’t know how to reconcile the two, and I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way lately.

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The Epic Cost of Tim Sweeney’s App Store Disputes with Apple and Google→

Source: Epic Games.

Source: Epic Games.

Epic Games launched its iOS alternative app marketplace in the EU today with three of its games: Fortnite, Rocket League Sideswipe, and Fall Guys. Those games are also available from AltStore PAL and will be available later from Aptoide, both of which offer alternative storefronts in the EU. Epic has also said that third-party games will be added by the end of the year.

According to Stephen Totilo, who interviewed Epic CEO Tim Sweeney and others earlier this week for his excellent newsletter Game File:

The company has spent hundreds of millions battling Apple and Google since 2020 to get to this point, Sweeney told Game File during an interview conducted earlier this week.

And, he added, Epic may have missed out on as much as $1 billion in Fortnite revenue in the process,

Tim Sweeney can be a little over the top at times when talking about his company’s disputes with Apple and Google, but his in-depth response to Totilo’s question about the impact of App Store fees on the mobile gaming industry are excellent and rang true to me. Both he and Altstore co-founder Riley Testut explained to Totilo that mobile gaming and Apple would thrive if fees were reduced, with Testut pointing to changes in App Review Guidelines about emulators and virtual machines as evidence of the positive results of competition.

For anyone in the EU interested in installing the Epic Game Store, Epic has published a walkthrough video on YouTube:

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Interview: Game Developer Zach Gage on Pile-up Poker and Resisting Dark Patterns→

Jason Snell has an excellent interview on Six Colors with Zach Gage one of the creators of Puzzmo and a ton of other games we’ve covered on MacStories over the years. Federico and I interviewed Zach ages ago on AppStories, and more recently at WWDC, and the only thing I like more than hearing him talk about game design and theory is playing his games.

As I read the interview, I was struck by the thoughtfulness with which Zach’s games are made, including this tidbit about Pile-Up Poker, the most recent addition to Puzzmo:

We have a lot of games on the website right now that are very cerebral and based on you and trying hard and being at your peak. And for me, thinking about how we balance a portfolio of games, I really wanted to have something in there that would be a lot more random every day and would still fit the guidelines that we have for Puzzmo. The game should be healthy. It should be a thing where you are creative and clever and improve your strategy. It should be something that anybody at any skill level can play and win, but people who are really highly skilled can play at a super high level and really compete.

Poker is one of my favorite games ever. I think it’s a magical game. For me, the biggest trick of poker is that you can play poker with your friends for 20 years and then someone can show up and have never played poker before and win. And that is something that doesn’t exist with, I don’t think, any other game. So it felt like the right kind of game to bring to Puzzmo to find something that fits that space. It would be super approachable, but also there’s a depth.

If you haven’t tried Puzzmo yet, I highly recommend it.

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Developers Getting Access to NFC Transactions via the Secure Element in iOS 18.1→

Earlier today, Apple announced another major new functionality coming to iOS 18.1: the ability for third-party apps to offer NFC transactions via the iPhone’s Secure Element:

Starting with iOS 18.1, developers will be able to offer NFC contactless transactions using the Secure Element from within their own apps on iPhone, separate from Apple Pay and Apple Wallet. Using the new NFC and SE (Secure Element) APIs, developers will be able to offer in-app contactless transactions for in-store payments, car keys, closed-loop transit, corporate badges, student IDs, home keys, hotel keys, merchant loyalty and rewards cards, and event tickets, with government IDs to be supported in the future.

This is coming in iOS 18.1, which will also mark the official debut of Apple Intelligence. Even better, Apple has published extensive documentation on the new APIs, from which I noticed one detail: in addition to overriding the iPhone’s side button double-click with a different app, a third-party app running in the foreground will still be able to initiate its own NFC transactions, even if you set a different default app.

Eligible apps running in the foreground can prevent the system default contactless app from launching and interfering with the NFC transaction.

And:

You can acquire a presentment intent assertion to suppress the default contactless app when the user expresses an active intent to perform an NFC transaction, like choosing a payment or closed-loop transit credential, or activating the presentment UI. You can only invoke the intent assertion capability when your app is in the foreground.

The irony of all this, of course, is that Apple is under regulatory scrutiny in both Europe and the United States regarding the inability for third-party developers to offer alternative wallets and tap-to-pay systems on iPhone. But as it’s becoming apparent lately, it seems there’s no greater project manager for new iOS features than the fear of regulation.

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Designing for Today’s App Interactions→

Yesterday, Vidit Bhargava, the developer of LookUp, Word of the Day, and other apps, published an excellent story on Pixel Posts about designing for today’s app interactions. Vidit makes the excellent point that the way we use apps is changing. They’re no longer iPhone-only islands that are siloed off from other apps and devices. As Vidit explains:

Not only is the iPhone app not the center of a user’s interaction on the phone. It’s increasingly becoming one of the many parts of an ecosystem where apps are expected to scale both in terms of interface and functionality starting from something as small as an Apple Watch and going all the way up to an unbounded experience like Vision Pro.

Not only do apps exist in the larger ecosystem of products, they are constantly interacting and communicating between them.

I couldn’t agree more. Today, I expect apps to be available on every device I use and to let me move my data between apps.

Vidit also explores the practical effect of the evolution of apps, arguing that it no longer makes sense to start by designing for the iPhone. Instead, Vidit suggests that we:

…think of “apps” as clusters of actions that help us reach or present information, and carry out processes (i.e. other actions).

The post is full of practical examples that are worth browsing through and an exploration of how to effectively design for actions. Vidit’s apps are among the best-designed apps I use, so I consider this post is a must-read for developers, designers, and anyone who is interested in where app design is heading.

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Developers Claim Apple Arcade is ‘Directionless’→

Earlier this year, Neil Long of mobilegamer.biz published an inside look at Apple Arcade from game developers’ perspectives. The story reflected developers’ frustration stemming from their interactions with Apple, project cancelations, declining revenue, and more. The story didn’t paint a pretty picture.

This week, Long is back with a follow-up story that cites anonymous developer sources, claiming that developers have to wait months for payments, Apple is slow and unresponsive to support requests and other inquiries, and the Vision Pro struggles to run ‘complex’ games.

The list of problems cited is long and worth reading in full because it has led some of Long’s sources to conclude that they’re symptoms of a more fundamental problem:

…[J]ust like last time, most developers agreed that Apple sees games and game developers as a ‘necessary evil’, and that Arcade appears to be directionless and lacking in support from the rest of the tech giant.

“Arcade has no clear strategy and feels like a bolt-on to the Apple company ecosystem rather than like it is truly supported inside the company,” said one source. “Apple 100% does not understand gamers – they have little to no info on who plays their games that they can share with developers, or how they interact with games on the platform already.”

It’s important to take the complaints of unnamed sources with a grain of salt. However, it’s impossible to look at what’s going on with Arcade and App Store gaming in general – which Brendon and I discussed on NPC: Next Portable Console this week – and not conclude that Apple needs to shake up its approach to videogames.

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Fortnite Coming to AltStore PAL as Epic Announces New Plans for Distribution→

Yesterday, AltStore co-creator Riley Testut posted on Mastodon that the ‘cat’s out of the bag.’ That cat was the announcement from Epic Games that their hugely popular game ‘Fortnite’ would be coming to AltStore PAL in the EU.

Epic had previously announced they would be launching the Epic Games Store in the EU on iOS and worldwide on Android ‘soon’ with what they called ‘great terms’ for developers. However, this announcement of their most popular title coming to an alternate App Store was somewhat of a surprise.

In the statement, Epic also said they plan to bring their games — including Fortnite — to other mobile stores, though AltStore PAL was the only one confirmed.

This being Epic Games, the statement didn’t forget to take some shots at the larger App Store owners. In addition to mentioning the recent legal battles Apple and Google have faced in Europe, the statement also reminded everyone of Epic’s win against Google in the US before making one final announcement.

In what Epic Games called a ‘protest of Samsung’s anticompetitive decision to block side-loading by default on Samsung Android devices,’ the company announced it would be withdrawing Fortnite and their other games from the Samsung Galaxy Store.

While it was only one sentence in another spicy statement from Epic Games, the announcement of Fortnite on AltStore PAL is a testament to the hard work Riley Testut and Shane Gill have put into the store. It’s also the realization of a joke Riley made way back in 2020.

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