WWDC24: Action packed.

[the_bromo_tachi]

iPadOS 18 is pitiful. All that power in my new iPad Pro still feeling like a NASA supercomputer running Pong.

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This is why I can't justify buying a pro version of the iPad anymore; the OS is too limited. I know it has its uses but I'll stick with the mini.

I haven't developed iOS apps in years but I kinda want to give the new Xcode a try. Just a heads up for those who have only 8 GB, predictive code completion requires Macs to have unified memory of 16 GB or greater: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode-release-notes/xcode-16-release-notes.

 

[Vector]

Mirroring is a cool idea but I'm not really feeling the implementation here - it ends up feeling like the iPhone simulator in XCode and feels weirdly un-Apple like. If the apps were presented as macOS windows it would've felt more natural I think. Still a nice to have feature. My mind immediately jumped to Duolingo and they actually demo'd that haha.

 

[Hasney]

Mirroring is a cool idea but I'm not really feeling the implementation here - it ends up feeling like the iPhone simulator in XCode and feels weirdly un-Apple like. If the apps were presented as macOS windows it would've felt more natural I think. Still a nice to have feature. My mind immediately jumped to Duolingo and they actually demo'd that haha.

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Yeah, Samsung Dex clears here

Having a desktop environment for your phone that you can have windowed or taking up a full monitor is excellent. It's a real shame they didn't go that route instead of just an iPhone bolted in your screen.

 

[dallow_bg]

Even for credit cards I like having them in 1Password because of all the notes and extra data (security q's, spend limits, etc) you can add. I list all of the sites/services I'm using the card on in the notes field so when I get a new card # or expiration date I know exactly what to update. Can't do that in Wallet.

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Oh same here.
I add cards, gift cards, and obscure membership cards too.

All that stuff is super useful.
It's basically a vault for me. Far more than just passwords so I'll stick to BitWarden for now.

 

[o Tesseract]

Yeah, Samsung Dex clears here

Having a desktop environment for your phone that you can have windowed or taking up a full monitor is excellent. It's a real shame they didn't go that route instead of just an iPhone bolted in your screen.

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It is very obvious they want immediate parity with all of the apps available on iPhone and don't want developers to feel like they need to design for yet another experience. By doing what they did, they ensure that immediately all apps are compatible, all apps look good, and the user is immediately comfortable with the experience they're going to get.

 

[Tobor]

I thought Dex was plugging your phone into a monitor to become a desktop? This isn't that at all.

 

[Hasney]

It is very obvious they want immediate parity with all of the apps available on iPhone and don't want developers to feel like they need to design for yet another experience. By doing what they did, they ensure that immediately all apps are compatible, all apps look good, and the user is immediately comfortable with the experience they're going to get.

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Nobodies designing for Dex outside maybe Samsung. They just open in an appropriately aspect ratioed window and the just work like any phone app would. Your mouse just becomes the touch device.

I thought Dex was plugging your phone into a monitor to become a desktop? This isn't that at all.

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Nope. It can do that, but this is all wireless on a PC with that screenshot, so keyboard and mouse and all that, including drag and drop file transfer from the Dex Window to Windows.

 

[Tobor]

Nobodies designing for Dex outside maybe Samsung. They just open in an appropriately aspect ratioed window and the just work like any phone app would. Your mouse just becomes the touch device.



Nope. It can do that, but this is all wireless on a PC with that screenshot, so keyboard and mouse and all that, including drag and drop file transfer from the Dex Window to Windows.

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I don't know. I see why some would prefer that, but I think I like Apple's approach where it's segmented with the same UI as on the phone itself. 🤷‍♂️

The big continuity miss for me isn't iPhone related at all, but in not allowing me to pull up the Mac display on the iPad. You can do Mac on Vision Pro, and now iphone on Mac, but what I really need is Mac on iPad. Given that they won't let us virtualize Mac OS on iPad, this would at least let me access my Mac Mini without a third party app, and in higher quality.

 

[Hasney]

I don't know. I see why some would prefer that, but I think I like Apple's approach where it's segmented with the same UI as on the phone itself. 🤷‍♂️

The big continuity miss for me isn't iPhone related at all, but in not allowing me to pull up the Mac display on the iPad. You can do Mac on Vision Pro, and now iphone on Mac, but what I really need is Mac on iPad. Given that they won't let us virtualize Mac OS on iPad, this would at least let me access my Mac Mini without a third party app, and in higher quality.

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Wouldn't this work, with screen mirroring

Use iPad as a second display for your Mac – Apple Support (UK)

With Sidecar, you can use your iPad as a second display for your Mac.

support.apple.com

 

[Masterz1337]

I don't know. I see why some would prefer that, but I think I like Apple's approach where it's segmented with the same UI as on the phone itself. 🤷‍♂️

The big continuity miss for me isn't iPhone related at all, but in not allowing me to pull up the Mac display on the iPad. You can do Mac on Vision Pro, and now iphone on Mac, but what I really need is Mac on iPad. Given that they won't let us virtualize Mac OS on iPad, this would at least let me access my Mac Mini without a third party app, and in higher quality.

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I think we are headed to a point though where each platform just becomes an app you load. Vision Pro can load a streamed MacOS fine, Mac's can now Stream iPhone. Hopefully VP can stream the iPhone too. Hopefully both come to iPad later down the road too. There are still a lot of quirks with the Virtual Display in VP, one of them being is you can't do gestures in the Mac OS window with the trackpad if your trackpad is connected to VP, but you can if the trackpad is connected to the Mac. Plus often times there are interruptions in control and stuff.

Hopefully one day we can just access our MacBook from home when remotely connected. I want to leave home with my VP and leave my Mac on my desk and just access it whenever I want. With the remote access on the iPhone in this update... I think this is starting to become a reality.

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

You can use an iPad for a Mac screen, allows you to use Apple Pencil in Mac Apps like Pixelmator.

 

[Faceless_Caesar]

iPadOS 18 is pitiful. All that power in my new iPad Pro still feeling like a NASA supercomputer running Pong.

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"You'll take your Machine Learning party tricks and calculator app and like them" - Someone at Apple (Probably) /s

 

[Tobor]

Wouldn't this work, with screen mirroring

Use iPad as a second display for your Mac – Apple Support (UK)

With Sidecar, you can use your iPad as a second display for your Mac.

support.apple.com

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It does, but I can't get it to use the magic keyboard on my iPad. That support doc says you can, which is confusing to me. Not sure what I've been doing wrong.

It also doesn't work with a headless Mac mini. There are apparently hoops that can be jumped through, but it requires turning off some stuff I don't want to do.

I was hoping for a more seamless option, like you see with the Mac->Vision Pro function.

 

[Hasney]

It does, but I can't get it to use the magic keyboard on my iPad. That support doc says you can, which is confusing to me. Not sure what I've been doing wrong.

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Oh yeah, that seems extremely dumb. I was surprised the keyboard worked seamlessley with Steam Link. I was playing Civ 6 at native res on the sofa.

 

[Fatoy]

The big continuity miss for me isn't iPhone related at all, but in not allowing me to pull up the Mac display on the iPad. You can do Mac on Vision Pro, and now iphone on Mac, but what I really need is Mac on iPad. Given that they won't let us virtualize Mac OS on iPad, this would at least let me access my Mac Mini without a third party app, and in higher quality.

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It's frustrating that this is another area where macOS is way ahead of iPadOS running on the same hardware. I have an M2 Mac Mini that I run as a headless (no display) home server, and I can just open Finder on my main Mac, upstairs, and then seamlessly remote desktop into the Mini, using the peripherals I have in front of me. No third party app required.

There's absolutely no reason this couldn't also work on the iPad, except for Apple's stubborness. They could just disable touch inputs for the remote desktop display if they're THAT committed to never allowing anyone to use a touch interface in macOS.

 

[Tobor]

It's frustrating that this is another area where macOS is way ahead of iPadOS running on the same hardware. I have an M2 Mac Mini that I run as a headless (no display) home server, and I can just open Finder on my main Mac, upstairs, and then seamlessly remote desktop into the Mini, using the peripherals I have in front of me. No third party app required.

There's absolutely no reason this couldn't also work on the iPad, except for Apple's stubborness. They could just disable touch inputs for the remote desktop display if they're THAT committed to never allowing anyone to use a touch interface in macOS.

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It's truly bizarre given what they just announced.

I can put on a Vision Pro headset and seamlessly connect to my Mac.
I can get on my Mac and seamlessly connect to my iPhone.
I can't get on my iPad Pro and seamlessly connect to my Mac, and if it's headless, it's even worse.

Here's the really funny part. I can get it to work by plugging a USB-C HDMI capture dongle into the iPad and running Orion to make the iPad the monitor. This way the Mac has a "monitor" and allows sidecar to work. But I have to use the keyboard/trackpad from the Mac Mini.

I can also use Screens, but it's laggier than Sidecar. What I really want is Sidecar to a headless mac that I can activate from the iPad without having to disable stuff and use shortcuts and other craziness.

Or I'll just give up and buy a MacBook.

😮‍💨

 

[entremet]

My Apple Stock is happy lol.

Obviously, I know it's just a bump from the AI stuff.

 

[Tobor]

My Apple Stock is happy lol.

Obviously, I know it's just a bump from the AI stuff.

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Investors loved the announcements. Apple took #1 from Microsoft this morning. Didn't hold all day, but still.

 

[Praedyth]

It will take AI to get rid of their stinginess on RAM. 8GB and 16GB will probably be the baseline for phones and Macs.

 

[Ninjadom]

It will take AI to get rid of their stinginess on RAM. 8GB and 16GB will probably be the baseline for phones and Macs.

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I'm surprised that the M1 Mac's from 2020 with 8GB RAM get access to Apple Intelligence.

 

[Zyrokai]

I just wish devs would allow their iOS and iPad apps on Mac. It's so dumb how few have done it.

 

[Hasney]

I just wish devs would allow their iOS and iPad apps on Mac. It's so dumb how few have done it.

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Apple shouldn't have given them the choice. What are they gonna do, not release on iOS?

 

[The Real Abed]

Apple shouldn't have given them the choice. What are they gonna do, not release on iOS?

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Seriously. As soon as they made it optional, you know devs wont use it.

 

[Zyrokai]

Apple shouldn't have given them the choice. What are they gonna do, not release on iOS?

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Seriously. As soon as they made it optional, you know devs wont use it.

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I guess I didn't realize it was a courtesy and more of a legal thing, as strange as that may sound. Like the "division of platforms" or something. I don't know much, lol.

I guess the main reason would be to not burn relationships????? Otherwise yeah…..force 'em! 🤣

 

[Tobor]

Same with Vision Pro. Devs have can opt out, which means most opt out.

I assumed it would be the same situation with the colored icons in iOS 18, and that every dev would opt out of that as well. Instead, Apple is forcing it. Devs have no choice.

It's weird they would take a stand now, for colored icons of all things.

 

[Mg.]

I just wish devs would allow their iOS and iPad apps on Mac. It's so dumb how few have done it.

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It's another platform to maintain, sadly. I was hoping it'd be a case of It Just Works™, but testing a few of my apps I got slam dunked by fucked up font sizes, random layouts and some UI components straight up not working. Would rather not just blindly release a non-tested app in the store only for it to be review bombed lol

 

[The Real Abed]

I assumed it would be the same situation with the colored icons in iOS 18, and that every dev would opt out of that as well. Instead, Apple is forcing it. Devs have no choice.

It's weird they would take a stand now, for colored icons of all things.

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Devs would be stupid to opt out of that, since it'll just make their icons look like shit if they don't. iOS 18 will require three different icons to be provided by devs. A light version, a dark version and an overlay that will help it look good when colorized. I wish they'd add one more. A light colorized version so you can have pastel icons if you want.

 

[Masterz1337]

There are some legit reason for Dev's to opt out. Like on Vision Pro, if your app requires anything that uses 2 fingers or multiple inputs at the same time, that can't be done. There's iPhone apps that require sensors the Mac doesn't have like the TrueDepth and LIDAR.

Unfortunately it gets to ridiculous levels. Like I can't use dropbox on Vision Pro.... why? Same with certain google apps. It's just a spite move because they know the users of the VP are too few to matter if they lose them as customers to another service, and they rather just stick it to apple either over subscription pricing or just to boost their own product later down the road.

 

[Shalashaska]

Frankly the main reason devs opt out is because they don't have the capacity to support these other platforms. Unless you have the resources to verify your app and new features on Mac/Vision OS, QA them, and fix any bugs in each release then it doesn't matter how nicely Apple claims they run out of the box. And that's making the assumption that your app is even a good experience without further modifications for those platforms.

The opportunity cost of doing all that vs. adding new features or fixes for your existing users on iOS is often just too high. All for what would likely be a miniscule userbase in comparison. Even iPad can be a pain in the butt sometimes, since supporting it well requires a good amount of work for what is often a low single digit percentage of your users. Devs skipping these platforms usually isn't because they're jerks, they just have limited time and resources and supporting this stuff is a big committment that takes away from other priorities.

 

[Tobor]

Devs would be stupid to opt out of that, since it'll just make their icons look like shit if they don't. iOS 18 will require three different icons to be provided by devs. A light version, a dark version and an overlay that will help it look good when colorized. I wish they'd add one more. A light colorized version so you can have pastel icons if you want.

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I agree, but they absolutely would have opted out if they could.

 

[Faceless_Caesar]

Devs would be stupid to opt out of that, since it'll just make their icons look like shit if they don't. iOS 18 will require three different icons to be provided by devs. A light version, a dark version and an overlay that will help it look good when colorized. I wish they'd add one more. A light colorized version so you can have pastel icons if you want.

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As a dev you are also required to submit each icon in up to 10 different sizes based on the devices you intend to support.

App icons | Apple Developer Documentation

A unique, memorable icon communicates the purpose and personality of your app or game and can help people recognize your product at a glance in the App Store and on their devices.

developer.apple.com