javacowboy

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javacowboy
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  • Apple is evaluating new keyboard mechanisms to make thinner MacBooks

    javacowboyjavacowboy
    Apple's obsession with thinness is causing them endless problems.

    Do pro laptop users (as opposed to consumers) care about thinness?  Well, put it this way:  My work laptop (my employer's property) is a Dell Lattitude running Linux.   It is significantly thicker but the keyboard is amazing.  Yeah, the trackpad isn't nearly as good, but that has nothing to do with thinness.  I'm pretty sure Apple has lost a lot of server-side developers to Linux.

    These keyboard experiments have been fraught with hazards.  The best you can say about the butterfly keyboard is that it's "controversial" or "polarizing".

    boboliciouscroprdysamoriaanantksundarambaconstang

  • Apple sued over spellcheck functions on Mac, iPhone & iPad

    javacowboyjavacowboy
    I have a love-hate relationship with Apple spellcheckers.
    1. Apple to this today refuses to implement a context menu keyboard shortcut, in a flagrant violation of desktop computing standards supported by Windows and Linux.  Instead, Mac users for the longest time were forced to suffer the indignity of reaching for the mouse or trackpad to right-click on the misspelled word, unlike their Windows and Linux counterparts, who could simply invoke the context menu key.  It's incredibly inefficient and breaks the workflow of all Mac typists.
    2. In response to several complaints from new Mac users, Apple decided to add an API to its first party apps that allow choosing suggested spelling corrections using the keyboard arrow keys.  The problem is, third party apps like Firefox don't support this functionality, forcing their users to suffer the indignities detailed above.
    3. To this day (I can't speak to iPadOS since I haven't tried it), iOS does not support the above spell checking API.  When using an iPad with an attached physical keyboard, you're forced to reach for the screen to correct spelling errors.
    4. To be fair, Mac first party apps do spellchecking pretty well.  Most blunders are caught by autocorrect, most others present a single option, selectable by hitting the space bar, and multiple possible corrections can be selected using only the keyboard arrow keys.  It actually feels smoother to me than hitting the context menu key and moving down with the arrow keys to select the correctly spelled word.
    beowulfschmidtdysamoria

  • Apple's macOS Catalina is first to require app notarization by default

    javacowboyjavacowboy
    How will this impact open source software, homebrew, etc?
    razorpit

  • Editorial: At WWDC19, Apple charts the future of private, premium tech - alone

    javacowboyjavacowboy
    This was the most intersting part of the editorial:
    But more importantly, Apple has already demonstrated that it's possible to support ad-click referrals without tracking the user across every site they visit. Instead, Apple developed an API to track only which ad referred a sale, and not scrape up mountains of potentially private behavioral data while strip mining for ad dollars.
    There are two schools of thought about ads and tracking:
    • Ad tracking is an invasive privacy violation since it scoops up data that users would rather not reveal, like unrelated sites they've visited
    • Advertisers need metrics on how effective their ads were (who many "leads" were generated) , who clicked on them, etc, to gather reasonable data as to how effective they are and whether the ads need to be tweaked or removed altogether
    Sounds like Apple's working on an effective compromise between the two.  Instead of a blunt instrument that arguably accomplishes the second at the expense of the first, Apple seems to have a more precise instrument to give advertisers what they really want.

    Dan_DilgerFileMakerFellerwatto_cobra

  • Editorial: Reporting about the MacBook Pro is failing at a faster rate than the butterfly ...

    javacowboyjavacowboy
    The preference of typing on physical keys is changing however, along with the physicality of computers themselves. 
    Really?  So why are companies making custom mechanical keyboards, such as Ergodox EZ, doing so well nowadays?  Looking around my own office, admittedly populated with software devs, I see tons of mechanical keyboards.  People who spend all day typing demand tactile feedback.

    Yes, you could argue this is a niche market, or that those of us who prefer mechanical keyboards somehow pine for the glory days of Blackberry.  This is not true.  Texting or replying to emails on your phone is quite different from writing code, articles/blogs, or documentation all day.

    And, yes, I typed this on my 2016 MacBook Pro butterfly keyboard and did not enjoy the experience at all


    henrybayMetriacanthosaurus