Matisyahu's Blog

It is always interesting hearing the ‘tech dude bro’ press lamenting the lack of a list of new features but the reality is that the we’re at a technology plateau as so far as novel and innovative features that can be added to existing products such ass the Mac and the iPhone. This year was no exception to this with the focus on the established platforms being around fine tuning and improving what already exists rather than revolutionary changes. A good example of that would be the Windows development cycle with the incremental update of the Windows shell through the piece by piece replacement of components in favour of Windows App SDK (link) (link). I think long term the goal will be to have the whole experience based on Windows App SDK which will enable Microsoft to keep backwards compatibility while moving the platform forward.

When it comes to macOS 14 a lot of the discussion has been about the improved performance particular UI responsiveness which is probably related to improvements in AppKit (link) along with the fact that macOS, iOS, watchOS, tvOS and visionOS share the same underlying display technology and given the need to improve responsiveness in visionOS the benefits flow through to the other platforms. What will also be a big helper to game developer is the work being done in Metal with converter tools to take a DXIL and convert it over to a metal library (link) which will reduce the barriers for developers wanting to bring DirectX games, be they from desktop or xbox, to the various Apple platforms.

After much contemplation I decided to install Ivory for macOS (Mastodon client for macOS (link)) and sign up for the monthly subscription along with moving to Tusky for Android (which has been recent updated to version 22 with lots of great new features (link)). I prefer using the native application because I find it works more reliably particularly when it comes to updating the time line while remaining in the place where I left it. When it comes to the cost of Ivory, the world is changing to subscription based applications and as much as I, one one hand, loath it, on the other hand there are benefits to a business model that is more sustainable and incentives quality of life improvements, bug features, new features etc. being rolled out rather than holding back features for the next big release.