If-Let Assignment Operator
Weston Hanners defines a custom Swift operator (via This Week in Swift): infix operator ?= { associativity right precedence 90 } func ?=<T>(inout left: T, right: T?) { if let value = right {...
View ArticleOmniFocus 2.9 for iOS
The Omni Group has fixed an annoying part of using Siri to create OmniFocus actions: Captured Reminders — Added a hidden preference for whether Reminders Capture should add a note about where to find...
View ArticleSGI Screen Fonts Converted for Mac OS X
Nicholas Riley: Screen remains the most readable monospaced bitmapped font I’ve ever used. It’s available in regular and bold weights, and a wide range of sizes: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and...
View ArticleSuperDuper’s El Capitan Issues
Dave Nanian: Much of this is our fault. The update itself isn’t displayed until the application launches, and a scheduled copy continues past the notice and completes the tasks at hand, then quits....
View ArticleApple TV 4
Josh Centers: However, hardcore gamers will likely be frustrated with the gaming experience. Developers might have some surprises up their sleeves, but the Siri Remote is too small and limited to...
View ArticleChuck Forsberg, RIP
Crown Memorial Centers (via Jason Scott, comments): In 1974, Chuck was recruited by Sidereal Corporation, a small startup computer communications company. When he started, Chuck did Sidereal’s...
View ArticleOneDrive Reduces Free Storage to 5 GB, Maximum to 1 TB
Microsoft (via @SwiftOnSecurity, comments): Since we started to roll out unlimited cloud storage to Office 365 consumer subscribers, a small number of users backed up numerous PCs and stored entire...
View ArticleUsing 3D Touch to Create a Digital Scale
Ryan McLeod on his rejected Gravity app: We’re on the phone talking through this initial hurdle, when my excitement turns to concern. I start recalling other times Apple hasn’t exactly been stoked on...
View ArticleMacUpdate Adware Installers
Thomas Reed: Following Mr. Urdaneta’s hints, I sought out the Skype page on the MacUpdate site and downloaded the app. The result was a file named Skype Installer.dmg, which seems legit on first...
View ArticleRewriting a Mac App in Swift
Brad Larson (tweet): We believed that redesigning this application using Swift would allow us to create a safer, more maintainable, and more testable application. Not only did we achieve those goals,...
View ArticleFacebook’s Code Quality Problem
Graham King (via Dave DeLong, comments): The Facebook iOS app has over 18,000 Objective-C classes, and in a single week 429 people contributing to it. That’s 429 people working, in some way, on the...
View ArticleWebKit Shadow DOM API and the State of Web Type
Ryosuke Niwa (comments): Shadow DOM is a part of Web Components, a set of specifications that were initially proposed by Google to enable the creation of reusable widgets and components on the Web....
View ArticleDropbox API v2 Drops Objective-C SDK
Steve Marx (via Peter Steinberger): There are currently four SDKs for API v2: Swift, Python, .NET, and Java. We’re continuing to add new SDKs, so watch the blog for upcoming announcements. All SDKs and...
View ArticleApple News Format
Apple (via Federico Viticci): Apple News Format is the custom JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) document format for News content. With Apple News Format, you can create beautifully crafted layouts with...
View ArticleMail’s Vanishing Rules Actions
Rob Griffiths: Each click on the Edit button eats a bit more of the space reserved for the Actions section. After about 25 clicks on Edit, the Actions section will be completely gone. (I have verified...
View ArticleGoogle Engineer Reviews USB-C Cables That Don’t Work
Benson Leung (via Hacker News, Slashdot): I bought the CableCreation Micro-B receptacle to Type-C plug for testing with Pixel and Nexus devices. I found that this adapter does not correctly charge the...
View ArticleHow Swift Implements Generics
Chris Lattner (via Erica Sadun): The semantic model of swift generics is that they use runtime dispatch through “witness tables” provided by the protocol conformances of the generic types. This model...
View ArticleApps Sharing User Data
Dan Goodin: Apps in both Google Play and the Apple App Store frequently send users’ highly personal information to third parties, often with little or no notice, according to recently published...
View ArticleHome File Sharing via Flash Drive
John Gordon: Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive all move our family data into the Cloud — and I’d like to not worry about that. Sync solutions mean new software, but perhaps only on one machine. I’m...
View ArticleShoot the Heap
Russ Bishop: Ah, the joys of non-garbage-collected languages. I spent some time debugging a retain cycle today and thought I’d share the process I used to locate and fix the cycle. Along the way, we’ll...
View Article