This year’s ‘sherlocking’?

First off, what *IS* Sherlocking / Sherlocked… See this article https://theamericangenius.com/tech-news/what-is-sherlocking-apple/ for details. Basically, whenever Apple takes creates a default app that does the work of an available app, and usually makes it part of the operating system, so it’s ‘free’. There are many examples of that, with one of the latest from last year being Camo, the app that let you use your iPhone camera as a web cam.

So, what was sherlocked this year? And, is this one a bigger deal than most?

This year’s sherlocking might not be terribly obvious, but it is important none the less. And, no, it’s not the Journaling app. This year, Apple released a Game Porting Toolkit. How in the heck is that even worth mentioning? Weeeellll…. as part of the Game Porting Toolkit, a ‘developer’ can take a WINDOWS game, and just run it on the Mac. No changes. No ‘recompile for the Mac’. No ‘switch the graphics engine’… nada. This was created to allow Game Developers to see how much work they would need to do to get a game to run on the Mac. Uh… sounds a bit like Crossover. Funny thing is, the Game Porting Toolkit is built on top of Wine / Crossover! But… Apple jumped ahead, and actually fully implement DirectX 12 with the toolkit. Crossover JUST released a beta of DirectX 12 implementation that only allows for *1* game to run using DirectX. The Apple code is pretty complete.

Here is a video detailing the Game Porting Toolkit already in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcYyvzHtJVM

Now, one thing is that the Game Porting Toolkit *isn’t* a consumer product, and Crossover *is*. But, anyone trying Crossover is probably already more technical than the average user, so using the GPT (not ChatGPT) isn’t outside the realm of use. It will be interesting to see what happens with this, since Apple did build this on an Open Source application, and may be required to add the DirectX code back to the code base. It will be interesting!

WWDC 2023 was a doozie…

June 5, 2023 will probably become an important day in history for Apple. The 2023 WWDC Keynote was one of the most insane product announcements that the company has done (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYkq9Rgoj8E)

First off, in the first 15 minutes, 3 products that had not really been expected were announced. The 15″ MacBook Air was expected, but the M2-based Mac Studios and the M2 Ultra based MacPro were definitely not. Most rumors had stated that the Mac Studio wouldn’t get an upgrade until the M3 or later, so that the Mac Pro would have time to shine. Fortunately, Apple had other ideas, and just released them all together. There is a bunch of head scratchers from all of this, though. With the Apple Silicon transition effectively ‘done’, we are starting to see the roadmaps form with the different lines. It feels like the M1 was a great processor, but on the professional side, it’s been a bit behind. There were some definite issues with the graphics engines that the M2 addressed, which makes it feel like the M2s were rushed out to cover the M1s. Two other things are really weird… one is that with the Apple Silicon transition, the iMacs didn’t get an M2 version at all. So, they are almost 3 years old. It seems odd to not have at least put an M2 chip in, since they’ve been able to put them everywhere else. Second thing is Apple kept referring their Xx performance numbers to *Intel* iMacs… what the hell? I’m guessing that the M2 numbers are definitely better than the M1s, but in a 10%-20% way, not 200% (2x). It’s sad that Apple is having revert to these kinds of marketing hand waving. Still, it was an impressive and unexpected first 15 minutes that was aimed at developers / pro users. Definitely started things off well.

Next up was the operating system refreshes. Nothing really ‘jumped out’ as a killer feature like last year. 2023 feels like the ‘year of the widget’, with the implementation from iOS going to iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS. watchOS seemed to get the most changes, but still feels clunky. I wish Apple would at least take a stab a using some of the user designed interfaces for the watch that are out there. The fluid app display sucks, and the list view isn’t any better. There were some very notable ‘non-mentions’… Apple CarPlay and HomeKit. After last year’s big ‘next version of CarPlay’ announcement, you’d think there might be some follow up to it. HomeKit not getting a mention is a bit surprising, since Matter 1.0/1.1 has been finalized and released. Considering how much time Apple took to show off stickers in everything (ugh…) I would have hoped for some HomeKit news. Fortunately, one of the follow ups mentioned an addition to HomeKit that is welcome… storing 30 days of events. Now, if they’d just figure out a way to allow an external monitoring company to work with the system… Also no mention was the camera app. (or, if they did, I missed it while taking the garbage out…) Final Cut Pro for the iPad put an AMAZING camera interface in, was hoping that it will show up in the regular photos app… Also, Apple is definitely starting to focus on games. It might have been a short segment of the talk, but there is *definitely* a lot going on to try to get game companies to port to the Mac.

Finally, the ‘one more thing’… VisionPro. All I can say is… dayumn… some of the craziest rumors turned out to be true. This is a device I don’t want to want, but actually see many good cases for it. This is what Apple does differently than anyone else. They actually brought out some compelling use cases for the… whatever the hell you want to call them (I’ll go with ‘glasses’ for right now). The idea of my monitors floating in front of me just gives me the chills. That one use case alone makes them interesting to me. The fact that Apple is partnering with a lens manufacturer to put prescriptions in really impresses me. And, so far, the initial 30 minute impressions that visitors got from the Apple campus have been that, at least in the initial peek, they work pretty well. My biggest concern with the VisionPros are how ‘singular’ it makes you feel. I can’t imagining cuddling up on the couch with a significant other with two sets of glasses on… ‘Netflix and chill’ would become more ‘Netflix’ and much less ‘chill’… lol. Still, I see this as a winner for Apple in the long run.

All-in-all, a great WWDC this year, mainly hits, just missing some ‘wishes’ (why can’t normal people get multi-user iPadOS!?!)