There’s a strong Sci-Fi vibe I am getting from the media and press. It feels like we just made the next step into the future.

Casey Neistat (11 minutes video).

“Simple Tricks and Nonsense” from John Gruber.

Case’s video feels like Back to The Future part 2 and John goes even further and dreams about one day being able to control a computer with the power of our minds. We, as the human race, just got closer to this possibility. And I am thrilled and excited as never before.

I wasn’t fortunate enough to experience Macintosh Classic, but I think I would like it very much. I do spend an awful amount of time listening and reading to people who are nostalgic about the old era. Please do read the Spatial Computing peace yesterday published on John’s Siracusa blog. John doesn’t publish often but when he does, it is valuable and I would even say, timeless.

Besides some healthy Apple Vision Pro scepticism and curiosity, there are two points in John’s article I would like to focus on.

1. The original iPhone interface is awesome.
2. What makes a good interface?

People love iPhones. It’s true, that any technical product has its following, but the iPhone managed to go further than any other Apple product ever made. It is a golden goose for Apple. But it is also appreciated by most talented indie developers. You can go to the Apple Store right now and try using the most affordable $429 model. If you can, compare your feelings with scrolling on a most expensive Android device. I can bet our mortgage, iPhone will feel more responsive. It is a perfectly executed vision which makes direct manipulation with digital content possible. This could be the highest technical achievement possible on the scale of the human race. You would understand John’s scepticism about Apple Vision Pro (AVP). I bet the headset will never reach cult iPhone status.

The iPhone is the most personal, most popular computing device. My best years have been using the iPhone, starting with the sexy 3G, then the iPhone 4S with mind-blowing Siri, the least impressive iPhone 6S, and now even more utilitarian SE 2020 model. Which I’m typing this article with and which performance is buttery smooth, 3 years strong. I’m also an early iPad adopter and I like this device. Nevertheless, Mac will always be my rock. My happy place. A device which helps me to support my family. The computer I know best and the computer which helps me grow as a software developer.

I don’t think Mac is going anywhere and can be ever replaced with AVP. However, Mac is not the greatest gift Steve Jobs gave us either. His greatest creation is Apple itself. Not the company, not smart people behind it. But the idea. The idea of applying computer technology in solving real-world human problems. AVP can be a new tool in hands of greatest programmers, construction builders, mentors, psychologists, 3D artists. AVP might not be as popular as iPhone, but it can be potentially as powerful and game changing as multi touch trackpad shipped built-in in every MacBook Pro. It could be a next-generation computer screen.

I still remember the day I got my first Mac in 2007, it was half funded by me selling my desktop PC, and the other half was from my dad. I’m very grateful he trusted me with my expensive choice. I was not a math person naturally, idea of writing code for the sake of writing didn’t excite me. Once I started to learn how to use a Mac, I noticed the amount of detail, polish and craft which went into creating OS X (read like “ten”), it blew my mind. I knew instantly I wanted to be in this world of tech. To this day I’m discovering new tricks about the system which delight me. Mac sparked my interest in software development and math. Now I earn a living and support my family by writing iPhone apps.

Okay, it is unlikely anyone will read this blog, and it is even less likely you will read it on 26 January 2024. But if you do, you are likely to know about yesterday’s changes from EU lawmakers. These changes flooded my NetNewsWire feed and made me want to drink heavily last night. The reaction from the indie dev community is, to be blunt, not fruitful. There’s two things to unwrap here, first my disappointment with the third-party dev community public reaction, and second my own opinion on how these changes should be seen — not as a decease symptom but rather ripples on a pond. Ripples on a pond from a kid who threw a couple of stones. What the dev community wants to see is a magical mystical fairy-tail creature emerging from the pond and giving the angry kid with a blue T-shirt a bunch of apologies moving the pond away and replacing it with a bouncy castle. But life is not a fairy tail, and the situation beyond the surface is always more complex than it seems.

So there’s a lot to unwrap, If you still reading, I wanted to say, that daily news is not what excites me, because they are ripples. I think there’s a bigger story here, we can interpret ripples and see a big picture, where tech workers workflows and consumer electronics are heading. And it pisses me off, but I don’t see any useful clues from the huge news outbursts which happened this week. Nevertheless, the community are quick to judge Apple for being greedy and demanding immediate App Store policy changes worldwide. Apple PR has been good with handling these kinds of stories, and the best thing they can do is to do the same thing they have always done. Is complete radio silence. These iOS changes and laws do not matter now. iOS is a mature software platform now, The EU is as late as ever with their lawmakers trying to do the right thing, without understanding the matter or how the actual user experience for common people, for the rest of us is going to change.

So let’s make some bets. Nothing, nothing for the majority of the iOS customer base should change. A minor portion of big businesses will try to create either their store or host their binaries. Most likely all of these initiatives are going to be abandoned, like they abandoned their Apple Watch apps and iMessage apps. They do not care, and they won’t care when they see their metrics are dead in comparison to the App Store metrics. What Apple did here with their reactive defensive approach is a strategy to make sure the App Store platform remains the same. We all, me included, are not happy with the App Store policies and we want the App Store to change. Laws and regulations are not the way to do it. The change has to come from creative energy, not force. The only good change that can come is driven by the creative mindsets of brilliant people working hard right now on the future of computing.

Now some of you might think right now, that if Apple would be more proactive we would be in a different scenario right now and all these stories with lawmakers and Spotify, Epic pushing Apple for a revenue cut won’t happen. That’s not how reality works. I am mostly convinced that the current state of The App Store policies and APIs has zero to no influence on EU lawmakers and leadership in companies like Meta, Spotify and Epic. When you grow big and successful jackals come to have a bite of your pie, no matter how good you are and what pie-sharing policy you had in the past. The jackals always come, and they will come again for more. And no matter how much you give them, they always come back and ask for more. So giving them as little as possible is a perfect and only logical strategy. Give them scraps, mixed with rock-hard marbles, and let them break their teeth.

I ask Meta, Spotify and Epic, where are your apps which take in-app payments on a Mac? There are no technical reasons which stop you from shipping better apps for a Mac. You are not interested, because you are only driven by numbers and don’t care about good user experience. You rather develop bloated monsters, take advantage of free web technologies, pack all up and ship to as many platforms as possible, with little to no care to details.

We finally got weight specs for Apple Vision Pro.

Vision Pro: 600–650 grams (depending on light seal and headband)
Meta Quest Pro: 722 grams
Meta Quest 3: 515 grams
PlayStation VR2: 560 grams

Via John Gruber.

The 600-650 range includes an external battery. The battery doesn’t hang on your head, so it should not affect the experience using the headset. I also suspect that the battery is a compromise. Compromises made for a reason. And this reason has to be a comfort of use. Comfort should have priority over aesthetics. I’m curious about the weight of the battery. I think that AVP still has the potential to be the lightest headset on the market.

However I believe the headset needs to be lighter still. And as John told me.

Yes, it makes your face feel front-heavy. Not uncomfortable, but it feels weighty.

Gruber wrote that weight of the headset is 650 grams. I was wrong assuming this number doesn’t include battery weight.

Yesterday Jeff Johnson published an article – Beware of App Store app bundles which describes a painful journey using App Store bundles as a workaround for offering upgrade pricing. This’s just one example of the App Store lacking basic features which should’ve been available on day one.

Yours truly been struggling as well, and using TestFlight as a free trial workaround for Apple Watch app.

It’s 2024 and I think there are three massive things the App Store can still give us, these three signs will make a business of indie developers healthier and stronger. It will save us stress, and development time. It will make us more money we so desperately need.

So it’s 2024 and I want these three things.

1. Free trials for paid upfront apps.
2. Upgrade pricing for new major releases.
3. Version management which would allow customers to install previously purchased releases of major versions.

Any item ticked on this list will improve relationships between Apple and small indie studios.

Is Apple going to demand a 30% cut on future macOS releases?

It’s not going to happen because the Mac is a PC device, and iPhone, iPad and Apple Vision Pro are post-PC devices. Like Nintendo Switch for example. It does less, but what it does it does best.

And here’s a nice explanation why by John Gruber.

Image source.