So I was watching with great interest yesterday the apple wwdc to see what new things they would announce, for a brief moment i completely forgot that we were in the middle of a pandemic.
I half expected to see a stage with tim apple stride on to the massive applause of the audience, it’s funny how you get used to expecting a certain type of media to be linked to an event you have watched for years in the same way.
Photo by Louis Hansel @shotsoflouis
It was a different affair yesterday but apple once again proved it’s the king when it comes to taking things to the next level, even the live stream production was next level with wonderful virtual sets, black lives matter mentioned and even about Covid-19 at the end in terms of the production, all in the usual apple slick delivery.
Between space-x and apple, i can certainly see what the future of on demand media, remote support and gaming is going to look like. It’s clear from yesterdays announcements as well apple has set itself on a new path to become the best provider of computing.
from the brand new macOS operating system redesign to the fact they are at the point where iPad Pro a12 technology can be tweaked to be ready for desktop building it’s obviously that apple is at a solid place with trust in their silicon.
Decoupling themselves from intel, heck any chip maker has always been a process but it seems they have learned a lot from the first time around, I’m sure it’s going to ruffle feathers everywhere with developers who got used to a certain way of doing things, maybe expecting regular income from app building, having to learn to re-code in the latest tools or keep their app up to date — apple knows they have an army of new blood ready to pick up the baton.
It was only a matter of time that apple moved away from intel anyway, not only have they seen massive vulnerabilities in their processes I’m guessing that the interfacing between a supplier and requirements was getting difficult to maintain innovation at apple speeds.
The fact that they have gone down the road of their own silicon means that it appears that potentially ARM tech will have the proper tun that it should have had first time around — after all, we’ve been using ARM based chips in our apple phones and devices for a while anyway.
ARM is great silicon, great power management, great price per watt and just generally more suited to where apple is trying to go, the fact that they straight up released virtualisation in the new OS to run Linux for development as they put it means they have the finger on the pulse of understanding the frequency the internet runs at - supporting Linux just makes sense especially after windows had that Linux news relatively recently.
But more than that, the idea that you can code an app and with minor modifications (is the hope) run it everywhere is so appealing to the next generation of app developers — being able to have all the current ipad applications running on the desktop means you open up a whole spectrum of games, apps and cross platform goodness.
Also, widgets are back in a big way and I could not be more glad, i’ve been very much thinking we would be going that way in terms of interfaces anyway and when they dropped that new multi layer offering with it’s sexy translucent i knew it was here.
They straight up “read the room” when it came to the jail broken application that allows you to layout your phone with over sized widgets that also can exist on the desktop or tablet. Usual app, see what’s out there, what’s cool, do it the apple way.
They made a big play on privacy as well and you can see they are really trying to tighten that up asking more of the development to specifically detail what your app is going to do and how it’s going to do it — we are about to see the dawn of the new ethical applications, way past brands but actual products that attempt to “carbon neutral” style their relationship with you and the data they use.
It does of course in some ways make the next few years a bit messy, although intel will be supported for the years ahead and no doubt we will see some kind of weird crossovers from maybe intel/amd graphics and gaming “screens” i can’t imagine the hard core elite will drop money on more intel chipsets until the new apple silicon is the default.
I know I’ve gotta upgrade my kit but I’m more inclined right now to get rid of all my computer hardware and switch to a linux machine and iPad Pro and wait for the new chips to land. It’s costly being up to date and technology relevant in this day and age but that’s the price you pay.
Not really going to touch on the watchOS or the HomeKit stuff but it’s to be expected, apple do that stuff really well where they want to be front and centre of your connected experience, after all they have their media company to push so the more you are interconnected on their screens ecosystem the more chance they have you as a captive audience.
One thing is certain thou, the technological jumps we are seeing now are definitely AI decision driven, from the slickly produced way that space-x put rockets into space to the way that Tim Cook wanders through virtual sets.
the creative power of these digital workhorses that do the number crunching behind the scenes are getting to a point where being able to digitally produce whatever you can imagine are unlocking fascinating ways to augment our day to day lives.
Fucking exciting.
__humble