Steve Troughton-SmithGetting into the WWDC groove by investigating SharePlay support in @broadcastsapp. It’s trivially easy to implement, and it seems to just work
Bumped @broadcastsapp to v3.2 to account for the new watch app and SharePlay support, so I can bundle them together. Making sure to keep the scope of this update pretty small, as it's not intended to draw out into an iOS 17 update over the summer
I am still figuring out how other apps implement SharePlay, but I'm reasonably happy with how it works in @broadcastsapp now in this initial version. You can start up a session over iMessage, then any participant can start playback of a station. Station name/address/artwork is shared directly through SharePlay, doesn't need to already be in your library. Could make for a fun 'watch party' mode for audio-only streams like podcasts or live events
There's no visionOS SDK yet, but I can prepare for the ornaments API by making the @broadcastsapp layout more flexible. This may lead to bigger UI changes down the road to the iPad version, which I'll probably roll into a v4.0? For now, it's just decoupling some layout elements
On visionOS, I expect to place the @broadcastsapp playback toolbar in an ornament (simulated at the bottom of the window here instead), and the Now Playing screen to open as a new window — like the Mini Player on macOS. It took just a little bit of rewiring, and expanding code I had for Mac Catalyst, but getting these changes in now should hopefully mean when I build and run upon release of the visionOS SDK that everything ‘just works’
The redesign continues; I added a 'reality' device idiom (that corresponds to iPad) so I can test all my visionOS code paths at will. I'm trying to match what we saw of the visionOS Music app, and predict the navigational layout structure I'll need to light up properly when the SDK launches. I even have my ornaments prepped and ready, just ifdef'd out 😂
I added an AppKit target to the @broadcastsapp codebase just to experiment, and of 245 source files only 11 are portable 💀 All the pre-existing SwiftUI code is uncompilable, because even basic things like size classes don't have a macOS equivalent or translation. I continue to believe that the AppKit SwiftUI target is simply a dead end and needs to be rolled into the Universal app platform instead. I don't want to continue with this bringup experiment at all
If WWDC had got me thinking about SwiftUI again, even slightly, working on the @broadcastsapp watch app has definitively dissuaded me. I'm so unhappy with the development experience that I would discontinue the watch app in a heartbeat if it didn't have users. Every element is a battle, and I've wasted so much time trying to get it to work 'correctly’; if I had UIKit, I would have been done in a day and shipped months ago. Almost at the point where I git revert everything and go back to WatchKit
I think that's what I'm gonna do; shelve the updated watch app for the time being. There are other updates I want to ship and I don't want this holding me back, plus I don't have an actual Watch to do testing on anymore for such a significant revamp so it's probably for the best. Broadcasts v3.2 with SharePlay can continue on without it
Finally after 4 years I've renamed the Broadcasts Xcode project to 'Broadcasts’, and given the whole project structure a cleanup 😄
Tweaked my xrOS test scene to more closely simulate visionOS, so I can prototype my layouts and make sure the right code paths are firing
While I have a little downtime, I’m giving the tvOS app a look over to see what more of the Broadcasts experience I can expose. The Station Browser is a tough one, as it has a lot of non-tvOS-safe UI elements, but I'm doing the basics in getting things compiling at the very least. Now Playing though has been a frequent request
Though it's not actually visionOS, my little prototyping view controller is proving invaluable at reminding me which other parts of my UI need to be updated to not use static background colors. It's nice to have a core app structure that is flexible enough to cope with all these changes, for once. Having lived through the dark, painful years of rewriting iOS 6 designs for iOS 7+ and a dozen new device sizes, this is pretty refreshing
I put together this prototype over a year ago, and it's kinda neat that my floating toolbar wasn't too far off what they actually did in visionOS
This is a special moment for me, so I'll share it with you too: this is the first launch of @broadcastsapp natively on visionOS. It's alive! 🧟
Lots of work to do, but this is promising
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't completely overwhelmed by how much effort I see before me to try and support visionOS properly across any one of my apps, nevermind all of them 😵💫
Kinda neat that my Help framework just works out of the box on visionOS 😄
My fun little experimental menu bar view kinda feels like it could work on visionOS. I should stick it into an ornament…
I’m pretty darn glad Vision Pro isn't shipping in September, that's for sure 😅
Even so, I'm pretty happy so far with the bringup process
Now all my codepaths are in order, @broadcastsapp is pretty much fully-functional on visionOS. There's still plenty to learn re metrics, control sizes, and best practices, but what you see here is pretty close to what I would expect to ship at launch. It's going to take a while for me to build up a mental model of how visionOS apps work, so this design will evolve over the rest of the year
Just quick demonstration of what multi-windowing in @broadcastsapp might do on visionOS — main UI in one room, mini player in another. It would really be cool if music came from a physical source location, or if I could even have different stations playing in different rooms. In the sim, at least, all audio is piped through the main speakers and seems sourceless 🤔
The miniest player
One neat thing you can do on visionOS is programmatically change the size of the window, so you can make a button that does this:
Here's what it looks like when you place a visionOS window flat on a desk. In this case, the mini player I've built for @broadcastsapp
Arno Hautala@stroughtonsmith Don’t expand it too close to the edge! It’ll tip off and break. I don’t think that’s a covered incident by VisionCare.
Jake flecher@fracai @stroughtonsmith how did you manage to pin it down like that to a horizontal surface?
Sqot@stroughtonsmith Will it “snap” to a surface? Or do you just put it where it looks about right?
@stroughtonsmith Your player is also a good use case for something pinned to the user. Meaning that would hang in the air and move with you as you move around the house or office. For example, walking from my office where I’d want my work windows to stay, into the kitchen to get coffee, I’d want the player to follow me so I can still control it. Or a conference call windows so I can mute/unmute
John Weston@stroughtonsmith We’re gonna need Find My for our visionOS windows
GeorgeCan you do that with attention? So large player when looking at it and something smaller and out of the way when not?
Brandon Horst@midnite @stroughtonsmith You cannot, unless the user enables the “look at a button for a long time to click” accessibility feature
@brandonhorst @stroughtonsmith
Ahh cool. That makes sense. Ty
Eshu Marneedi@stroughtonsmith wait how in the world did you manage to change the size of the window
@stroughtonsmith ah right, UIKit
@EshuMarneedi @stroughtonsmith I vaguely remember hearing about a SwiftUI option in one of the sessions, but I haven’t found it yet
@brandonhorst @stroughtonsmith It’s .defaultSize (according to Apple’s sample apps) but it doesn’t work yet. I think that’s a bug.
Aaron Pearce@stroughtonsmith Can you place that window flat on a table or surface?
@stroughtonsmith yeah, I think the sim might be the limiting factor for some ideas. I’m toying with some HomeKit related concepts where placing things down could be good.
Adam Bell 
@stroughtonsmith omg it’s so cute
Jordan Hipwell@b3ll @stroughtonsmith literally what I thought 🥺
TheEJJ 🇨🇦@stroughtonsmith no, it could be minier.
Dominic Hopton@stroughtonsmith now hand track it to a wrist like a watch!
(Kidding aside, looks great. I can start to see how it’ll fit in the real world)
Sam Burkhard@stroughtonsmith ok that’s delightful
David Smith@stroughtonsmith That’s awesome! Is that pinned to the desk with ARKit? Or a regular window shrunk down and manually placed?
Till Konitzer@_Davidsmith @stroughtonsmith would also be curious to know
@_Davidsmith just a regular window, placed by hand!
@stroughtonsmith 😍 lovely, I love how it just blends into the desk as though it were sitting in the table
Dennis@_Davidsmith @stroughtonsmith The future, right there!
Paul@stroughtonsmith So cool! That seriously makes me wish the hologram tech from The Expanse was real.
Josh Wold@stroughtonsmith would that be persistent? Like each time I put on the headset it’s there?
John Marc@stroughtonsmith BIG fan of something so MINI
Kam Strzyzewski@stroughtonsmith *reaches into his change pocket..*
“Ever wonder what this pocket’s for?”
JS_WordSmith@stroughtonsmith so cool. I really want to get my hands on one of these but that’s probably years off
Adrian Schönig 
@stroughtonsmith Interesting idea! The Diorama sample app shows how to use the different sound sources: positional, directional, or global. If you attach your sounds as a positional sound to an entity in a RealityView, then it should do what you say there. Maybe get a 3D model of a radio, attach the sound to it, and place it somewhere in the simulator 😀
Jerry Gonzalez 
@stroughtonsmith this is interesting to me. I was wondering if the windows can persist in a specific room in the house, and how to recall it in the event you’re, opening the window at a hotel room, for example.
@stroughtonsmith is this just a standard window app?
Khaos Tian@stroughtonsmith Is there an API that can constraint the newly opened window size? Or is the after manual resize? On my side of experimentation, it seems window always open at the default size, regardless what parameters I set on it…
Quentin Zervaas@khaost @stroughtonsmith yea I couldn’t figure that out either
@qzervaas @stroughtonsmith if you're on SwiftUI, it seems using .windowStyle(.plain) and manually attach a `glassBackgroundEffect` can get the the free size window. Based on https://mastodon.social/@harlan/110590548856981061
@khaost @stroughtonsmith oh nice. I was using volumetric to achieve this but this seems like a better way.
@khaost @stroughtonsmith is there a way to have two windows from the same app open simultaneously?
@stroughtonsmith @khaost that was my understanding, just couldn’t figure out how!
@qzervaas in SwiftUI you can use openWindow API to open new ones https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/environmentvalues/openwindow
@khaost Ah - got it working!
@khaost windowScene.sizeRestrictions or whatever it is in SwiftUI
@stroughtonsmith Thanks! Looks like `windowResizability` is currently annotated as not available in SwiftUI 🙃
@khaost well that's dumb. Not only does the OS support min/max sizes, but programmatic resizing too
@stroughtonsmith Yeah hope they can fix that… the more I play with the SDK, the more I feel going with UIKit for 2D experience might still be favorable than going with SwiftUI 😅
@stroughtonsmith @broadcastsapp wow my app is significantly less complicated than yours and it doesn’t even look half as good as yours on visionOS
Natik Gadzhi@stroughtonsmith @broadcastsapp honestly this already looks stunning 🥰
Eric Morgan@stroughtonsmith @broadcastsapp that looks incredible. I wasn’t interested until I started seeing developers like yourself already into and what’s possible