iOS 9b5 notes

Still a little bit buggy, but getting there.  Some apps that crashed at startup now work for me (in fact, I now have no apps that crash at startup).  Status bar now reappeared in Reeder.

Problems:

• still a bit laggy.  This is most noticeable when the device thinks I picked it up in landscape and takes its time rotating, in multiple steps, to portrait. Seemingly every time I pick up the phone.
• Mail is flaky, particularly on my iPad Air 2.  Stray attachment icons floating around the message view, even in messages without attachments (killing mail and restarting solves).
• Battery usage is a bit high still. Burning about an extra 10-20% of battery in a day, at least on my iPhone 6+.
• News app still a little slow to show me new materials. Sometimes you have to tap between tabs to get it to load new material.

Finally: beta users can't leave misguided app reviews

It's always been the case that Apple-related forums have been filled with non-developers seeking guidance on how to install iOS betas on their primary devices.  But especially now, with Apple adopting the "Public Beta" model and with them allowing more or less full access to the developer betas without the annual $99 fee, nonsense app reviews have proliferated.

These fall into two categories:

1) people who don't understand that the reason an app doesn't function properly is because they are running a beta version of the operating system.

2) people who blame the developers for not updating the app to function properly with the beta version of the operating system (something that is usually not even possible).

This has been something developers have been wanting almost since the early days of the App Store.

Much nicer task switcher in iOS 9b4

Now, when an activity is available via Handoff, instead of showing up as a blank white screen in the "carousel" of apps, there is a tab at the bottom of the screen that when dragged upward drags up the appropriate app and activity.

iOS 9 Trick: Request Desktop Site

In iOS 9, press and hold the reload icon in the URL bar to get a "request desktop site" pop-up.

Handy!

Posted with Blogsy

iOS 9 adds "save as .pdf"

Dan Moren noticed that there's a "Save as PDF" feature in the iOS 9 beta.   Yet another reason Apple should take care of my wish-list item and add an iOS version of the Preview .app.   Opening in iBooks is Not Ideal.  (Yes, there are third party apps available in the App Store, but including nice built-in functionality that syncs to the desktop with iCloud would do a lot to make iOS a real workflow competitor to Mac OS, while at the same time simplifying things).

Original story at sixcolors.com

iOS 9 preview: Spotlight Search

A long, long time ago there used to be an operating system known as PalmOS.  It was used in things like PDAs (smartphones without phones) and, eventually, smartphones.

One great feature of this OS is that it had a built-in global search functionality.  You could search for any term, and not only would built-in programs (what we used to call "apps") be searched, but the contents of third party software would be searched as well.  In other words, if I wrote an app that had access to a bunch of information, I could search from the "home screen" and see results pop up from my own app.

Good times.

It took 8 major OS revisions, but this type of functionality is finally coming to iOS in the upcoming iOS 9.

Feature: Why Macs will Get ARM'd - Interstitial 2 - Bitcode

In previous posts, I addressed how Apple's complete ownership of the development stack is moving it inexorably into a position where it is free to do anything it wants with respect to the CPU architecture and instruction set, all transparently to customers and developers.

Some previous entries in this continuing series:

A continuing exploration of the likely future of the Mac:

Part I: Why Apple is Motivated
Part II: Why ARM is a Better Solution for Apple

Part III: The Transition - Software

Why Macs will Get ARM'd - Interstitial 1 - The A8 Datapoint

As I've stated before in various forums, Apple's complete control of the development and distribution stack would enable them to create ARM processors that need not hew completely to the ARM architecture or instruction set.

The vast majority of programmers targeting Apple devices code in either Swift or Objective-C, two languages that Apple essentially controls.  This has allowed Apple to add various language features that it finds beneficial to supporting its products.

Apple also controls the IDE, namely Xcode, which allows it to easily add meta-programming features like storyboard interfaces and the like.

Apple also controls the compiler, LLVM, which is designed to compile the (mostly) human-readable Swift or Objective-C to an Intermediate Representation, and then the Intermediate Representation is turned into the actual assembly language instructions needed for the target device.

Finally, Apple designs its own processors (the A- and S-series) for its watches and phones.

If Apple wants to add some hypothetical new hardware capability, like the ability to treat data streams as fully encrypted up until loaded into the on-chip data cache, and they want to add new instructions to do so, there's nothing stopping them.

Up until now, however, each time they added an instruction set variant to the mix, Xcode was forced to output fatter and fatter binaries, to target each possible device that the code could run on.

Enter the App Store and Bitcode.

For iOS 9, Apple has announced "Slicing."   The general idea is that instead of the developer uploading complete fat binaries containing object code executable on each target device, only the LLVM intermediate representation, or "bitcode," is uploaded to the App Store.  Then, when a customer wants to buy or download an app, Apple's App Store back end provides the appropriate executable, compiled by Apple, for that device.

This is a huge development.  Taken to its logical conclusion, this new capability allows Apple to change its CPU in any manner it wishes, at any time, whether or not the changes are compatible with previously compiled software.  This may also be the first step to the eventual ARM'ification of Mac, as well.

iOS 9 - best new feature

Full report coming soon, but so far I'm loving the new CoreSpotlight APIs.  Great to finally be able to search "FRCP 21" and have Spotlight provide a link that opens directly into my app onto the right content...

iOS 8.1 beta 1

Apple released iOS 8.1 beta 1 to developers today.  I'm surprised that when confronted with the opportunity, I decided not to install on my working devices - Apple finally managed to shake my faith with the 8.0.1 debacle.

I'll wait a couple weeks and see what's what.

8.0.1-gate: A Postmortem

So what the heck happened?

Apple isn't saying, at least not yet, so we can only speculate.  The facts seem to be these:

• Folks who updated their iPhone 6's and iPhone 6+'s to 8.0.1 lost the ability to connect to the cell networks and the use of Touch ID.
• This appears to have affected everyone who updated an iPhone 6 or 6+.
• This appears not to have affected anyone who updated earlier models. (There are some accounts to the contrary, but I'm guessing with every update there are a handful of folks who have issues like these, so let's assume these are outliers).
• This appears not to have affected anyone who updated via iTunes (as opposed to "over the air").

So how did this happen?  Well, let's guess.

Wow.

Hard to believe this is the official Apple solution to the 8.0.1-gate.

I did this hours ago, and it worked, but it's shocking that Apple couldn't rush out an over-the-air fix for those who don't have access to iTunes.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6487?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

iOS8: Siri Shazam integration is now working

I have a five year old girl

Trouble in HealthKit land?

According to this article at MacRumors, HealthKit apps have been pulled from the App Store as iOS 8.0 is released, apparently because of some flaw in HealthKit itself.

I've been working on a HealthKit app all summer (and have lost 40 pounds and 15 mg/mm off my blood pressure because of it), and will report on my app soon.

In the meantime, based on my (now) extensive experience with the HealthKit API's, which act as a sort of central database for health-related information, I think there are two possibilities:

1. Data loss.  From time-to-time with various iOS betas I've experienced problems where data has disappeared from my device.
2. Leakiness.  Two sub-possibilities.  Either there is some side channel vector that allows unauthorized access to HealthKit data (which would obviously be problematic) or Apple just discovered some flaw in the app review system that should probably be checking to make sure HealthKit apps don't do things like take HealthKit data and put it in the cloud.

Depending on what the issue is, it sounds like an iOS point update may be required to resolve it, which could result in delay of at least a week.

Update: Looks like it was either data loss or leakiness due to side channel, since Apple is saying it may take a couple of weeks to fix via software update.

iOS 9 "Predictions"

Okay, maybe more like a wishlist.

iOS 8 goes a long way toward making iOS devices more useful for more types of tasks, but there is still a lot of low hanging fruit that can be picked.  Here are a few things I hope we see demoed at the next WWDC.

A Thousand Words