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The Substantial-Investments Edition Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Apple Defends Itself Against Monopolistic App Store Claims In New Webpage, by Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac

Apple also notes that the App Store doesn’t just offer paid apps from which it takes a commission. There are actually eight different categories of apps, and Apple makes no money on four of them.

[...]

The company also points out the substantial investments in makes to help developers create apps – everything from compilers and SDKs to the Apple Developer Academy and WWDC scholarships.

Inside The Apple Team That Decides Which Apps Get On iPhones, by Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

App reviewers worked in small conference rooms with Macs, iPhones, and iPads to test applications. Reviewers would come in each morning, pick 30 to 100 apps from a web tool, and download them devices for testing. It was a job that required long hours, Shoemaker recalled. Apple has hired more reviewers since then, and the work spaces in California are more open and collaborative now.

Apple made sure that Shoemaker’s review team treated all third-party developers equally, even if they were giant technology companies supplying important apps for iPhones and iPads. “I was calling out Facebook all the time” on Twitter, he said. “Even though they were one of these privileged developers, they had some of the worst code at the time.”

Refreshing the Mac

What The Mac Needs Now Is Courage, by Dieter Bohn, The Verge

In fact, I think Apple should do more than double down on these iPad-style apps on the Mac. I think Apple should go all in and make nearly all of its consumer Mac apps with the new UIKit / Marzipan frameworks, including Mail, Notes, Messages, FaceTime, Photos, Reminders, and Calendar. Apple should just go for it, sooner rather than later, and ideally right now.

My reasoning is pretty simple: whether you think these apps should be the future of macOS development, they’re absolutely coming either way, and Apple should want to ensure that they’re great. The surest way to improve iPad apps on the Mac is for Apple to force its own employees to use them and then fix them.

Exclusive Screenshots Reveal iOS 13 Dark Mode And More, by Guilherme Rambo, 9to5Mac

On iPad, the new Reminders app has a large sidebar with separate boxes for “Today”, “Scheduled”, “Flagged” and “All”, which also includes a search box and a collection of a user’s lists of reminders.

Stuff

Apple Events App Updated For WWDC Keynote, Music Memos Now Supports iPhone X, by Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac

After a long stretch without any changes, Apple’s Music Memos iOS app has received an update today bringing support for the latest iPhone screens.

OmniFocus For Web Review: Access Your Tasks Everywhere, by Rosemary Orchard, MacStories

The best task manager you can have is the one that's always with you, no matter which device you're using. Many people started with paper notebooks or index cards, and nowadays we have iPhones and iPads that can go with us everywhere, and even Apple Watches that can be independent devices if we need them to be.

The web is a ubiquitous platform – it's everywhere, the framework behind much of what we interact with, and something we nearly always have access to. OmniFocus for the Web is a brand new product that makes the most of the web platform to allow you to manage your tasks on any computer – be that Windows, Linux, or a Mac.

1Password 7.3 Is Available For Mac And Brings Major Updates To 1Password Mini, by Mike Schmitz, The Sweet Setup

Some of the improvements here include the ability to pin a password from 1Password mini to the screen so you can get back to it quickly, the ability to search tags inside of 1Password mini, and the addition of VoiceOver support for the 1Password mini window.

Develop

Moving The Needle, by David Sparks, MacSparky

As I go through each day and spend time on work that moves the needle, I log it on this page. Consider it time-tracking light. I’m not keeping track of how much time I spend doing everything. I’m just keeping track of the time I spend moving the needle. This has several benefits.

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One of the effects on me is that I’m more vigilant about asking myself the question, “Does this move the needle” throughout the day and even before agreeing to additional projects.

Notes

Apple’s $3 Billion Purchase Of Beats Has Already Paid Off, by Billy Steele, Engadget

Working on its own, this could've taken years to build, and even then, it may not have been as good as what it has done with the help of Iovine, Dr. Dre, Reznor and others. Apple bought a company, commandeered its assets and retained its talent to keep the records spinning as it's done many times, and will continue to do. Five years later, business is booming, and that's business as usual in Cupertino.

The New iPod Says A Lot About Apple As A Company Right Now, by Dave Smith, Business Insider

The new iPod says a lot about Apple right now: It will innovate, but only when it's strategic and/or profitable to do so. Otherwise, it's not worth the risk.

Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ And Rivals Complain, by Gerrit De Vynck, Bloomberg

Google won by offering consumers a fast, customizable browser for free, while embracing open web standards. Now that Chrome is the clear leader, it controls how the standards are set. That’s sparking concern Google is using the browser and its Chromium open-source underpinnings to elbow out online competitors and tilt entire industries in its favor.

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I have gout.

Sigh.

(Well, it could be worse.)

~

Thanks for reading.