Apple kicked off its WWDC keynote today with a comical video highlighting various aspects of the life of developers. The video is available to watch below.
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With WWDC around the corner and speculation continuing about why Apple purchased Workflow a little over a year ago, Wired has published a profile of Sal Soghoian, who worked on Automator at Apple until 2016. The feature piece, also covers the development of x-callback-urls on iOS and the introduction Workflow, which was acquired by Apple in 2017.
Soghoian is a guy who’s built a long career creating technology that lets users hand the tedium of repetitive grunt work off to their computers in creative ways. In the early 2000s, he created a program that let Mac users turn clunky, multi-step tasks into something that could be run at any time with just a double click of the mouse. This process, and the field where Soghoian’s excels, is known as PC automation. Nearly a decade after the original Automator app arrived on the Mac, a group of hungry iOS developers were inspired to hard-code a way for apps to share information between each other. The creation, which built upon Soghian’s [sic] work, made iOS more elegant and useful.
Since leaving Apple, Soghoian’s automation work has continued at The Omni Group where he works on a JavaScript-based automation scheme for the company’s apps. Soghoian has also written about automation and created a conference on the topic.
Automation has a long history at Apple. However, in the 18 months or so since Soghoian left Apple and roughly one year since the company acquired Workflow, Apple has been relatively quiet about automation. One of my hopes for WWDC this year is that we start to see signs of why Apple acquired Workflow and its team of talented developers that include the incorporation of some of their automation work into iOS and macOS.
The WWDC Happy-o-meter is back! Come along with Stephen, Myke and Federico on a trail of joyful wishes and hopeful dreams.
If you want to know which kind of announcements would make us happy at next week’s WWDC, you can’t miss the latest episode of Connected. Even better: the results of this “challenge” will be discussed in front of an audience at our live show in San Jose on Wednesday. You can listen here.
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MacStories Weekly: Issue 130
Monthly Log: May 2018 Apple’s HomePod received its first substantial update since launch yesterday, at last bringing the delayed AirPlay 2 and stereo pairing features to the public. It also came with a nice surprise in the form of Calendar support, the only new Siri domain added to the device thus far.
Like all Apple products, macOS is an accessible platform. Blind and low vision users can navigate their Mac using VoiceOver, while someone who has physical motor delays can use Switch Control to edit videos in Final Cut. And under the Accessibility pane in System Preferences, there is a multitude of other features one can use, ranging from Zoom to Invert Colors to closed-captioning and more. Whatever your need, the breadth and depth of Apple’s accessibility software spans many domains. This is why Apple is lauded as the industry leader in accessibility: the tools run deep and they’re well-designed.
Still, accessibility on macOS doesn’t quite reach feature parity with iOS. Amidst rumors that Apple is working on a cross-platform set of APIs to bridge the company’s two primary operating systems, now is an opportune time to consider what each platform does and what they offer one another.
In the context of accessibility, the way Apple brings consistency between iOS and macOS is by sharing features and technologies among the two. As such, there are some iOS-first features macOS sorely needs, while the Mac offers things iOS would benefit from as well. Such enhancements would not only improve the user experience across devices, but also would make iOS and Mac software richer, fuller products overall. And most importantly, more accessible.
If you’re anything like me, you probably remain perpetually dissatisfied with your task management setup. You may have chosen an app and settled in with it, but some of its design choices don’t quite fit with your way of working, so you’re always keen to try the latest and greatest app that comes along. Realistically though, you’ve resigned yourself to the fact that the “perfect task manager” doesn’t exist, and likely never will.
Task management is a tough problem to solve, because every option out there is optimized for specific use cases, resulting in different complexity levels. Some aim to remain simple and user-friendly, while others try to put every tool at your disposal, endearing themselves to power users while scaring off prospective customers who need a bit less. On this complexity spectrum, OmniFocus has historically been the poster child for the weightier end: if you have a lot of complicated projects that need a high degree of structure, there’s no better place to start than OmniFocus; however, for lighter needs, I’ve always found its myriad of options too overwhelming to recommend.
OmniFocus 3, released today for iOS (and later coming to the Mac), adds even more power and options to the app’s existing toolset, yet rather than growing more complex in the process, it’s surprisingly become more approachable. This improved user friendliness is achieved thanks to a new level of flexibility that can, upon tweaking your ideal setup, obscure the app’s complexity in everyday use. In more ways than ever before, OmniFocus provides the tools to make the app your own.
Outside of a lovely new design, where icons and fonts are bolder and everything feels more fresh, my favorite changes in OmniFocus 3 are this increased flexibility, which encompasses a lot of new and updated features, and its excellent iPad improvements. Let’s dive in.
Alongside the release of an updated WWDC app earlier today, Apple announced that developers attending the conference next week are invited to participate in an exclusive Activity challenge where they can earn a special reward.
Earn points each day, from Sunday, June 3 at 12:00 a.m. to Thursday, June 7 at 11:59 p.m., by wearing your Apple Watch and closing your Activity rings. Simply download the Challenges app on iPhone and allow Challenges to access Health app data, which includes data from your Activity rings. Work as a team of four with fellow WWDC18 attendees to earn as many points as you can. If everyone on your team closes their rings that day, you’ll get team bonus points (in addition to individual bonus points). Individuals who earn 200 points or more during the challenge will receive a reward on Friday, June 8 at McEnery Convention Center.
The Challenges app referenced has previously been used by Apple for internal employee fitness challenges, but this is the first time the company has utilized it with a broader group of participants.
