Apple Books 2022, in pictures
Killing one bird with two-and-a-half stones in Mac OS X Mail
This story is important to me because it was the first software I ever wrote that shipped to more than just a few friends or colleagues. What started as some scripting turned into Cocoa development, which is not something I ever expected to find myself doing. It never became a …
When computers lived in the janitor’s closet
I started school at a pretty exciting time in the history of computers. They were about to transition from being a tool for hobbyists, researchers, and the military to being something that could be brought into schools and even homes.
Summer 1979
After finishing third grade, I took a summer …
A peace offering from Siri
Every year, there’s an announcement about new features and improvements in Siri. They generally consist of:
- Here are some fancy new features that make a great demo, but I’m more interested in existing stuff working correctly.
- Here are some major improvements that sound similar to what you already announced last
Mail’s one and only (former) easter egg
Easter eggs have been highly frowned upon at Apple for many decades now. Engineers would sneak them into products and sometimes fail to account for potential problems. An engineer (not at Apple) once inserted a seemingly harmless easter egg into an app that would reveal the names of everyone on …
Siri vs Addresses
Let’s say I have an upcoming event in Calendar. The location was snagged from my Contacts.
Now I’m driving in my car, and Siri wants to remind me of the event. After telling me the event’s name and time, Siri also tells me the address. Am I supposed to pull …
Coldplay, synchronicity, and the Steve Jobs’ memorial
Just admit QA was right
Anyone that has worked in software quality assurance (QA) will tell you it’s often a frustrating and thankless job. A former Association for Software Testing president pegs the average QA engineer career at only four years. The linked article offers some advice for trying to retain good QA talent, …
Rising from the ashes: Stage Manager
Every year I worked on macOS/iOS, I would get attached to a handful of features that would ultimately get axed. Over time, I grew de-sensitized to it, but sometimes a feature would come along that I would never be able to get over.
While Apple was busy transitioning to Intel…
Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian to the rescue?
At the start of 2001, Apple was (still) in terrible financial shape. Revenue had cratered to the lowest level since the late 1980s. For years they had been selling off assets—such as ARM Holdings—just so they could continue to tread water.
In February, my coworkers and I gathered in a …