Craig HockenberryWant to hear about what's been going on at Twitter for the past week? I still have no idea, but that doesn't keep me from talking about it!
I have a couple of options for you, both entertaining:
First, I did a short interview with TWiT yesterday. I'm the first guest and my segment starts in the first couple of minutes.
The bleeped part is "narcissistic asshole" š
Twitter's Unpopular API Changes - M2 Mac Minis, OpenAI, Steam Deck
If longer and excruciating detail is more your jam, then three hours of The Talk Show will fit the bill.
We had a blast reminiscing about the early days of Twitter and how the iPhone and apps literally changed everyone's lives. There's a symbiosis there that many don't know about.
Andreas Bollermann@chockenberry @gruber Very nice episode, made me start at Mastodon. Just a thought on touchscreen Macs: Wouldn't they just switch to iPad mode when touch is active, maybe even with a detachable display/iPad? Similar to the Surface Book, just better? Seems like most of the pieces are already in place.
John Gruber@Bollermann @chockenberry Software doesnāt work like that. iPad isnāt a mode. Itās an entire OS.
@gruber @chockenberry
Right, iPad mode was probably misleading. MacOS won't work well with touch and probably should not per default. But it can already natively run iPad apps and many Mac apps have iPad versions as well, especially Apples apps. If there will be a Mac with a touchscreen, I think it might have a mode were the apps run with their iPad interface, and there might be an optimised window manager in that mode as well.
Right, iPad mode was probably misleading. MacOS won't work well with touch and probably should not per default. But it can already natively run iPad apps and many Mac apps have iPad versions as well, especially Apples apps. If there will be a Mac with a touchscreen, I think it might have a mode were the apps run with their iPad interface, and there might be an optimised window manager in that mode as well.
@Bollermann @chockenberry How in the world would such a "modeā kick in?
@gruber @chockenberry
The Surface Book switches to "Tablet Mode" when you take out the display or via a software switch in the task bar. So the user triggers it when he wants to have the touch experience instead of the classic MacOS way. I would expect the HW as well to have some slide, flip or detach mechanism to support this, but we don't have more than rumours now.
The Surface Book switches to "Tablet Mode" when you take out the display or via a software switch in the task bar. So the user triggers it when he wants to have the touch experience instead of the classic MacOS way. I would expect the HW as well to have some slide, flip or detach mechanism to support this, but we don't have more than rumours now.
@Bollermann @chockenberry But itās still running the same apps. iPad apps and Mac apps arenāt the same apps. Even Appleās Catalyst apps (like Messages) are quite different.
@gruber @Bollermann Additionally, most of the controls on the Mac have been customized. Everything from Photoshop to indie apps do their own thing because AppKitās controls are lacking in various ways (usually to get a visual result a designer is after).
Changing these controls is something the OS canāt do, A LOT of individual apps would need an update. Even stuff like Appleās own Logic Pro.
@gruber @Bollermann Going the other way: running iPad apps on the Mac is already possible because the controls on iOS are simpler to emulate and you donāt have the density issues.
It could be that this ātouch screen Macā is just an iPad when you remove a keyboard or whatever. But that doesnāt feel very Apple-like and would lead to customer confusion: āWhere did my Photoshop go?ā
johnwhitley@chockenberry @gruber @Bollermann Spitball hypothesis: what if Apple managed to design the "mirror image" of iPadOS pointing device support, an extended touch (and Pencil?) modality which permits rich interaction with native macOS pointer-based UX?
Internet Hedgehog@chockenberry @gruber @Bollermann I feel like with how much padding many modern apps have, density could be solved by bumping up the display scale + switching on Stage Manager when detaching the keyboard or whatever. Of course that doesn't solve the controls problem (though back on Windows 8 I noticed most Win32 apps actually worked quite well with touch, scrolling and all).
It's not really the Apple way, but I did enjoy Surface's "laptop that you can scribble on once in a while" approach.
@chockenberry @gruber @Bollermann Given how both "Just blow up Mac UIs" and "Just switch to iPad mode" don't quite feel like the right approach for the hypothetical Apple 2-in-1, I actually kind of wonder if the reason we haven't seen one is because Apple hasn't figured out what a proper Apple 2-in-1 Mac would even be until recently.
Ben Chase@chockenberry @gruber Most problems are, I think, at the desktop environment level. You can have two DEs on the same system and switch between them. 3rd party devs could get access to the tools to switch their interface when the mode changes.
Some wonāt & youāll have Mac apps in tablet mode that are hard to use, just like some apps took forever to adapt to new screen sizes.
Lots of bigger apps would adopt it & within a year, itād be shameful if your Mac app didnāt support ātablet modeā.
@chockenberry @gruber I completely agree that this is not the way to go for all apps. However, with Swift UI or Catalyst there are already quite a few apps which have a Mac UI and an iPad UI. The Mac app could include both of them and show one or the other depending on the mode. I think it would be strange to offer a touchscreen, but not the touch optimised UI when it's already there.
@chockenberry @gruber For all the other apps, there probably is no easy solution, and many apps will never work well with a touch screen. I love my Mac, but don't have an iPad, so for me the option to use some iPad apps as they are intended would be great. But otherwise, I don't think the Mac in itself needs the touch screen, so I was just thinking which value it would add.