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Tech Radar Interviews Craig Federighi and Alan Dye About iOS 16’s Lock Screen Changes→

Lance Ulanoff, writing for Tech Radar, has an in-depth look at the changes coming this fall to iOS 16. Ulanoff also interviewed Apple’s Apple SVP of Engineering Craig Federighi and Apple VP of Design Alan Dye for his story with the two executives providing a behind-the-scenes look at the technology and thinking behind the many changes coming this fall.

Regarding iOS 14’s Home Screen widgets, Federighi told Tech Radar:

We knew this was a multi-act play, and we knew our next venue would be the Lock Screen.

We saw a real opportunity to take that area that really has evolved slowly over time but has never seen this kind of massive step forward, and to do something really big – but something very Apple and very personal. So, this is an act of love this year,” he added.

The challenge for Dye’s design team was to create a system for customizing the Lock Screen that was simple, but also looked good:

From a Design Team perspective, our goal was to create something that felt almost more editorial, and to give the user the ability to create a Lock Screen that really… ends up looking like a great magazine cover or film poster but doing it in a way that’s hopefully really simple to create, very fun, and even with a lot of automation there,” said Dye.

Dye and Federighi also revealed that styles suggested for your Lock Screen wallpapers vary depending on the photo:

Dye told us that if the system doesn’t think the photo will look great, it won’t suggest it, a point of care and attention that helps guide the user towards more visually arresting Lock Screens.

“You get something so much more compelling than just laying a filter over the photo,” added Federighi.

Tech Radar’s story also covers the machine learning-based technology that allows iOS 16 to segment your photos so parts can overlap with the time, focus modes, and more. There’s a lot here and many interesting insights from Federighi and Dye worth digging into if you’re interested in design and how it’s implemented from an engineering standpoint.

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AppStories, Episode 281 – WWDC 2022: App Shortcuts, New Actions, and What We Didn’t Get→

In the latest installment of AppStories’ special WWDC series, we talk about how we use the Developer app before diving into Shortcuts with a closer look at App Shortcuts and some of the new actions Shortcuts has to offer and considering some of the wishes that didn’t come true in 2022.

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On AppStories+, we answer questions from Club MacStories+ listeners who listened to the episode live, and continued our conversation about some of iPadOS’s most interesting features.

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AppStories, Ep. 281 - 31 minutes

WWDC 2022: App Shortcuts, New Actions, and What We Didn’t Get

FedericoJohn
AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

AppStories Episode 281 - WWDC 2022: App Shortcuts, New Actions, and What We Didn’t Get

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31:21

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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

In the latest installment of AppStories’ special WWDC series, Federico and John talk about how they use the Developer app before diving into Shortcuts with a closer look at App Shortcuts and some of the new actions Shortcuts has to offer and considering some of the wishes that didn’t come true in 2022.

This episode is sponsored by:

  • Kolide – Endpoint security powered by people. Try Kolide for 14 days free; no credit card required.

Shortcuts

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MacStories Unwind: Stranger Things and the Khadas Tea

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps
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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

This week on MacStories Unwind, John is hooked on Stranger Things, Season 4, and Federico shares his experience using a dedicated iPhone DAC.

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AppStories, Episode 278 – 2022 Apple Design Award Winners: The AppStories Interviews→

It’s been quite a week. We’ve recorded daily episodes of AppStories in the Club MacStories+ Discord community, covering everything from our initial reactions to Monday’s keynote to the features of each of the OS updates announced. It’s been a lot of fun and we’re not quite finished, but the highlight of the week was the opportunity to interview three of the Apple Design Award winners in Apple’s podcast studio, where I recorded in person with the ADA winners with Federico joining us remotely on the big screen.

We interviewed Claire d’Este of Savage Interactive, the maker of Procreate, which won an ADA in the Inclusivity category, Curtis Herbert of Breakpoint Studios, the creator of Slopes, which won in the Interaction category, and Joe Lee, of Netmarble, the developer of MARVEL Future Revolution, which won in the Innovation category. It was a fantastic mix of apps and games and an excellent conversation about the qualities that make an app or game an Apple Design Award-winner.

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Curtis Herbert (left) and Joe Lee (right).

Curtis Herbert (left) and Joe Lee (right).

Thanks again to Apple for making the interviews possible and a highlight of our week, and thanks to Claire, Curtis, and Joe for taking the time to share their experiences as developers with us.

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We deliver AppStories+ to subscribers with bonus content, ad-free, and at a high bitrate early every week.

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Kolide: Endpoint Security Powered by People; Try for Free! [WWDC Sponsor]

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Kolide is perfect for organizations that want to move beyond a traditional lock-down model and move to one where employees are educated about security and device management while fixing nuanced problems. We call this approach Honest Security.

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You can try Kolide on an unlimited number of devices with all its features for free and without a credit card for 14 days.

Our thanks to Kolide for sponsoring MacStories and all of our WWDC coverage this week.

AppStories, Episode 280 – WWDC 2022: The M2 MacBook Air and macOS Ventura

In yesterday’s installment of AppStories’ special WWDC series, we were joined by Myke Hurley to talk about the M2 MacBook Air, as well as Stage Manager and gaming on macOS Ventura.

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On AppStories+, I went behind the scenes about the logistics of interviewing Apple Design Award winners in Apple’s podcast studio and Federico and Myke need to know more about the presenter who showed off Apple’s Big Sur Theater at its Developer Center.

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To learn more about the benefits included with an AppStories+ subscription, visit our Plans page, or read the AppStories+ FAQ.

The M2’s Unique Combination of Unified Memory and GPU Performance May Reveal Apple’s Videogame Ambitions

As I mentioned on AppStories, I’m intrigued by what Apple is doing with the Apple silicon GPU and memory and what it could mean for gaming. Although no one has had a chance to put the M2 through its paces yet, AnandTech does an excellent job of putting the facts and figures from Monday’s keynote into perspective, explaining what it means for what will undoubtedly be a multi-tiered M2 chip family like the M1 family.

With the M2’s memory, Apple’s SoC picks up where the M1 Pro, Max, and Ultra left off. Like those higher-tier M1s, the M2 uses LPDDR5-6400 memory that supports 100GB/second of memory bandwidth, which is a 50% increase in bandwidth over the M1. The M2 also supports up to 24GB of unified memory, a 50% increase over the M1 Air.

That memory is paired with a GPU that can be configured with up to 10 cores, two more than the top-tier M1 Air. According to Apple, that 10-core GPU delivers a 35% increase in performance.

However, it’s the combination of more, higher-bandwidth memory and a more powerful GPU that should make a significant difference in the M2 Air’s performance of graphics-intensive tasks like rendering game assets. As AnandTech explains:

Apple’s unconventional use of memory technologies remains one of their key advantages versus their competitors in the laptop space, so a significant increase in memory bandwidth helps Apple to keep that position. Improvements in memory bandwidth further improve every aspect of the SoC, and that especially goes for GPU performance, where memory bandwidth is often a bottlenecking factor, making the addition of LPDDR5 a key enabler for the larger, 10-core GPU. Though in this case, it’s the M2 playing catch-up in a sense: the M1 Pro/Max/Ultra all shipped with LPDDR5 support first, the M2 is actually the final M-series chip/tier to get the newer memory.

We won’t know more until reviewers put the new M2 MacBook Air through their paces, but the M2 Air appears to be a significant step forward compared to the M1 model. As one of Apple’s most popular Macs, that’s important because it sets a performance benchmark that game developers need to target if they want to make a game for the majority of Mac owners.

During the keynote, Apple showed off two games running on the M2: No Man’s Sky, an older but frequently updated game, and Resident Evil Village, a game that arrived on the PC and consoles just last fall. Resident Evil Village especially caught my eye because it’s such a recent release. It’s just one game, but it stands in contrast to others that have been used to demo gaming on the Mac in the past.

It would be a mistake for anyone to pin their Mac gaming hopes on the scant details we have so far. However, the keynote made it clear to me that Apple has gaming ambitions beyond Arcade, and its unique SoC architecture has moved Macs one step closer to that becoming a reality.

You can follow all of our WWDC coverage through our WWDC 2022 hub or subscribe to the dedicated WWDC 2022 RSS feed.