Sal Soghoian and upcoming changes

Xcode 6 & 7 had an old AS dictionary, most of which did nothing. Xcode 8 includes a revamped dictionary. It’s a long way from perfect, but someone’s clearly put in some time – it even includes a couple of examples of use in the dictionary.

If I have learned anything about Apple it is tying to figure out Apple will at best give you a big headache. AppleScript has been left for dead so many times I’m actually not sure how many times its been any more. They never seem to try to kill it but are can be really good at ignoring it.

The first thing I thought when I hear about apple and Workflow is that’s probably why they eliminated Sals position. They just don’t want to develop it in house any more. I would guess they’ll do something with AppleScript if the mood strikes them and they have time.

Bringing scripting to iOS is big news. Apple didn’t spend all that money because they thought scripting is useless. It also brings new opportunities to AppleScripters as well. Scripting iOS is brand new stuff. ASObj-C is also a big deal and Apple keep making small but steady improvements on that.

Bill

There are pointers to loads more speculation here:

http://mjtsai.com/blog/2017/03/23/apple-acquires-workflow/

Well the work flow page was interesting reading. Although I was surprised when it said “It sounds like Apple was more keen on the accessibility than the automation.” Those 2 are often linked. Scripting often uses things labeled as accessibility to make automation better and the reverse can also be true. It just seemed strange to think of it as one or other but not both.

Bill

A lot of developers are already using cross-platform tools to make iOS apps without macs anyway.
If Apple ported Xcode and the APIs to Linux (Swift is already there), or made it cross-platform, it’s hard to see why they would continue making macs at all in the long-term.

Phil,

Just out of curiosity would you develop software on an iPod? There are many things not suited for iPads. iOS makes a number of haptic compromises to work on a platform that is geared around portability. Being portable makes it a better choice for a lot of social tasks. But there are some things iOS devices are just not good for. I constantly see people using iOS devices giving their device far more attention then Mac OSX Macs. But this is also due in some part to the newness of this type of interface.

It just depends on the user. But it is a lot harder to have 2 different windows open at the same time on an iPad. Almost all my work on computers is done using multiple windows. I compare a lot of stuff, or look at something in one window and take notes in another. There are just too many things to where iOS isn’t a good fit. But there are also a lot of things were iOS is a great fit. Both platforms have their advantages. It isn’t that Mac aren’t bought much any more. People still by a lot of Macs. But Apple sells an insane amount of iPhones and that dwarfs the Mac sales. By itself Mac sales is still enough to be a fortune 500 company.

The long term goals of the entire industry is slowly moving to a completely different kind of computing. Distributed computing is a very different kind of thing. With that the differences in the platforms become irrelevant. Well actually the different kinds of platforms would probably become 1 very different thing. Many companies are working on moving that direction right now. So it would depend on which market force caused a change first if Macs being done away with ever happened.

But as other things become more intelligent and more connectable the less value the computers we have today will be. I think the movement toward distributed computing with intelligent agents is far more like to take out Mac’s then a push toward iOS. But at the same time such a move will almost certainly beef up the power of a cell phone because they are build to be portable. But this subject is to big to get into in a post. Whole books are written about this stuff, many, many books.

Ok so now can imagine iOS not replacing Macs :slight_smile:

Bill

Sorry. Bill. I think you entirely missed my point.

Nobody except a masochist is going to try to write an app on iOS.

My point was that you don’t need a mac to write apps for iOS. There are already cross-platform IDEs that work on Windows and LInux machines.

If Apple actually created their own cross-platform development version of Xcode, they wouldn’t need to make macs anymore (if the premise is: the only people that would buy macs are developers).

Sal appeared on the Mac Power User’s podcast.

Thanks. I feel better. Sal had nice things to say about Script Debugger and Shane.

Very cool!

That was a great episode.

Never heard him speak before. He sounds like Bob Odenkirk in Better Call Saul. :slight_smile:

He definitely sounds like he looks :slight_smile: