Exactly - Apple hardware is designed for its software, and vice versa. They get battery gains across the stack.
I remember when the M1 Macs first came out, an Apple engineer revealed they'd optimized the hardware so one specific low-level operation macOS does all the time was 5x faster than on Intel [0].
It’s not even a particularly obscure low-level operation: atomic add. Every computer in the world performs that exact instruction a huge number of times running normal, non-Apple software.
The key insight is the kind of “vertical integration” providing the kind of feedback loop to spot the opportunity.
> It installs, opening it is a simple message saying I need to enable it in Safari settings. Strange, but ok.
I’ve made several Safari extensions for iOS, and they all have to do this.
Apple provides no API for an app to enable its own Safari extension. It also has no public API on iOS to deeplink to the Settings page for enabling the extension. You just have to tell users where to go and hope they don’t get lost.
(There is an API on macOS to quickly open Safari extension settings. It’s nice! Maybe they’ll add it to iOS someday.)
> Why can’t extensions be a standalone thing in the store?
1) Because then you need a whole parallel set of processes for configuring, updating, and uninstalling those things, distinct from the existing processes for apps. And you need to make that process accessible to users who may be used to everything being an app.
2) A nontrivial number of browser extensions on iOS are part of standalone apps anyway, like password managers or bookmarking tools. It'd be very strange to have both app-with-browser-extensions and browser-only-extensions, or to require some extensions to be installed and updated in tandem with a companion app for expected functionality.
An interesting idea, but not something that would fit my workflow for several reasons (not the least of which is it's Windows-only).
Cmd-Tab on Mac and Alt-Tab on Windows does the same thing every time. Its consistency lets me use it extremely quickly, with confidence. It does what I want it to, every time. I don't wish to sound dramatic, but if I hit a shortcut with a window in mind, and this app picked the wrong window even once, I would uninstall it immediately. "Cmd-Tab, but it doesn't work sometimes" sounds frustrating and strictly worse than the system shortcut.
Maybe it should look more like GitHub Copilot. It watches what you're doing and shows a small indicator somewhere of the window it thinks you want to switch to. If the app guessed right, you hit a keyboard shortcut and switch to it. If the app guessed wrong, you just ignore the suggestion, like with Copilot.
The Copilot idea is interesting, I'll have to look into it. One thing I want to be clear on is once you press the override shortcut, the override is saved as the default switch option for that window and the algorithm won't change this.
Uh.. it does not? Alt+Tab on windows switches all the windows, indiscriminately. Cmd+Tab on osx only switches between apps? If you have two Firefox windows on osx, you need Cmd+~ to switch between them, when you have finally reached the Firefox app through Cmd+Tabbing
I am aware that Microsoft and Apple have implemented fast window-switching slightly differently. I use both OSes daily. The point I was making was both make similar high-level design decisions.
When you begin alt-tabbing, you cycle between your other open windows, arranged by how recently they were last open. Cmd-Tab is the same, but between apps. Both features rearrange items only based on recency, and always keep the same order.
I love using note-taking apps for this reason. They are a bottomless bucket into which you can throw unlimited unorganized thoughts. When you need them later, simply search.
I've tried tons and ended up on Notion. Works on every device, syncs well, supports rich embeds and easy publishing to the web. It really depends on your preferences. Anything works as long as it has cloud sync and half-decent search.
Some apps I've tried and liked: Apple Notes, Simplenote, Bear, Obsidian and Craft
This person is 100% correct that git will never see adoption outside the tech industry.
My partner worked as a veterinarian for several years, and it was fascinating to see how vets use computers. These were brilliant people - I knew three who did literal brain surgery. But they just had zero patience for computers. They did not want to troubleshoot, figure out how something worked or dive deeper. Ever. They didn't care! They were busy saving the lives of people's pets.
It was a good reminder there are many smart people who do not know computers work and do not care to. A good startup acknowledges this reality.
I find this excuse depressing. We live in the age of computers. If you don't know how to use one you shouldn't be employed where they're necessary. Rather than making a dumbed down workforce we should be building people's skills up.
Git for normies already exists even MS Word has document versioning. If they cannot be bothered to use the software and technology they need to then they should be unemployed.
That's a rude, tactless thing to say. People in many fields simply don't need more than a cursory knowledge of computers.
For example, I was talking about veterinarians. They need to type records into a web browser, but that's about it.
Veterinarians spend their time learning about things far more valuable to them. For example, which painkillers are safe to use on a cat recovering from surgery, or how to precisely drill into a dog's spinal cord to remove a fluid buildup that's robbed it of the ability to walk, or how to stabilize a dying animal in the emergency room.
These are the least "dumb" people imaginable. They do not need "upskilling" - they went to four years of medical school. They have more important things to do than figure out computer arcana.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
This is one of my absolute favorite quotes, and I've used it as a guiding star in figuring out what I want to do with my life, but it's also reductive in a critical way: time and energy are limited, and not everyone wants to generalize.
An example I've been running into myself lately has been trying to get a portrait photography workflow running with only FOSS tech. I've been fighting with darktable and libgphoto for months (and even tried submitting patches!) and tethered shooting still doesn't work right. I could continue sinking time and energy into this, but at the end of the day I just want to shoot tethered to a laptop, a basic function of modern photo editing systems.
I had more time when I was a student for learning how new systems work, but between full time work, the admin of being an adult, maintaining various relationships--I don't have the resources I once did, and I'm content to consider solving them someone else's problem.
The reason I go to my vet is so they can "troubleshoot" my pet. I don't have the expertise to do so myself; why would I expect the reverse to be any more true?
Some things are important, everyone should know them. Cooking is important for everyone, sadly comforting the dying eventually is too...
But priorities are also important, and some skills can only be learned by doing. Which is often unpleasant, expensive, and dangerous, and time consuming.
Some stuff has a very low chance of directly being needed. I've never written a paper check. I could probably Google how to balance accounts if I had to.
Vets should have a little more tech skill, but software should be a lot easier.
he might be grumpy but he's right... there's a lot more workflow optimization especially if you're assuming in 2-3 years every token is gonna generated at some point. that's a new product, its not just github
We also live in the age of architecture. Should everyone who drives over a bridge or work in an office know how those things were constructed and how they are maintained? Should everyone be trained extensively on the infrastructure that gets water to their taps?
No, but if you directly use those things for your job, you probably should. For example, if you're a home inspector, you should have decent knowledge about plumbing. Even though you're not a plumber.
If you don't have at least some knowledge, you probably won't be a very good inspector. If you have more knowledge, then you'd be better.
If you require document versioning, you should know, at least a bit, how to use a Version Control Software. You don't need to know the internals, but enough to use it.
a home inspector inspects homes. a veterinarian inspects animals. she does not inspect computers.
you could restrict their software movements to the bare essentials for their work and they’d be happier for it. hell, i’m sure most would be happier with no gui if the interface provided them with only what they need. and most need just a place to create a document, type it in, commit the document, view it, and relay it to storage or another user. then a browser to look things up.
but we live in the age of general-purpose computing where people need to use general programs thoroughly unadapted for their specialized jobs, forcing the user to coordinate multiple contexts, which should really be coordinated by the machine. most jobs could be done with nano and sendmail. add an form input field editor and selector and it’s golden. if something else is needed, it should be one command away.
it’s not for them to inspect computers. it’s for devs and enterprises to create software systems such that the tech-naive user would have no need to ever touch anything outside of what they need.
Ive started realizing that specialists who lack general skills like computer knowledge o the ability to learn things outside of their domain as needed are themselves tools.
If you can't understand things outside of a very narrow slice of specialization you're just a tool to be used by generalists.
You probably use a cellphone in the course of your work. How much do you know about building and operating a 5G RAN? How about modem and RF front end design?
I assume that if you're not a cellular network engineer, the answer would be "very little".
No, I know the basics of how the telephony network works and how wireless phones calls are made. I don't know specific technologies like what makes 5G different from 4G, but I don't need to.
I know that radio waves are sent by towers to me phone and back to create a connection. That's why I can't use my phone in an underground parking garage.
I know what a phone number is and why we need them. I know why international calls are more expensive.
That's basic knowledge about the tool that I have, and which I will utilize in my day to day life.
When I say "you need to have knowledge of computers", I don't mean "write an algorithm an operating system might use for scheduling running processes", okay? I mean, do you know what the internet is? Do you know what an email is? Do you know what shutdown/reboot means? Do you know what a program is? Do you know how to see what is running on your computer?
I don't understand why everyone is fighting me on this. To me this is pretty simple. If you're using a thing and that thing is integral to your job, you should have a high-level idea of how to fucking use it. Why am I blowing up people's minds with this?
Many developers will get a headache when a more complicated git merge/rebase/conflict happens and git is confusing as hell unless you encountered this issue many times before.
As a dev commit/push/pull is trivial, but may God have mercy on the veterinary who needs to do a complex conflict merge across branches.
These people clearly do know how to use computers though, they've almost certainly been using them in their professional and personal lives every day for years. They just don't know how to use your preferred tools, and those tools aren't necessary for them.
This post is literally about illiteracy of the tools used at your job. They don't need to be experts but if they can't do basics and cannot process new information they should be out on their ass.
A tool which is of no use to them in performing their actual job.
They have a workflow that works just fine for them, and if they don't, they
already have an abundant market of tools suited to their field that they can just go out and buy if they wish.
The tool they're asking for already exists. That's what I don't get. Document versioning has been part of MS Office for ten years. If they're not using that why would they bother with Git for normies? They're dinosaurs refusing to learn. If they refuse to learn a check box in MS Word why should I trust that they're learning about their specialization?
> We live in the age of automobiles. If you don't know how to use one you shouldn't be employed where they're necessary. Rather than making a dumbed down workforce we should be building people's skills up.
FTFY ;)
Computers are just another modern convenience. We need to be making them more user friendly and safe. Nobody wants to spend all their time learning, maintaining, and fixing their computers any more than they want to do that with their cars.
I mean... yeah? If you do work using cars daily (delivery driver, cab driver, etc), you should know how to use one. Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?
As a daily driver of a car, I don't need to know how it works. I know how to _use_ it - get in, turn it on, drive.
Who cares if it's electric or ICE, how combustion or regenerative breaking works, why you need to balance tires, how to change brake pads etc. I take it to the mechanic (IT Department) and they do magic, then give it back to me.
Same for computers. Why does the user need to know about USB 2 vs 3, memory, disk space, multi-threading, ad blockers, etc. Turn it on, use it, and send it out to be fixed when it doesn't work.
I bet that the maintenance costs on vehicles/computers is inversely proportional to their operators understanding of how they function.
If you hired a driver which would you rather hire, the one who knows which grinding sounds that a vehicle makes are good/bad or the one who just keeps using it with disregard for the grinding sounds because it isn't currently inhibiting their ability to drive?
You're abstracting the complexities down to a granularity that strawmans my contention.
If you cannot operate the vehicle you need to do your job you don't have that job. I'm not saying that people need to be experts. I'm saying if you cannot learn the tools needed to do your job then you shouldn't have the job.
I think there are two principles at play here. First, I suspect that veterinarians that go into practice as a whole prefer physical manifestations of their intelligence rather than abstract intangible prizes. This is similar to my story of starting vet school after doing bioinformatics.
Second, computer tinkering is similar to shade-tree mechanicing. I drive a car. I even know how to change my oil and can look up how to replace the alternator if I need to. I don't get much satisfaction out of working on my car, though, so I outsource (when I can afford it) to allow me to focus my time on things that drive my professional life forward or are pleasurable.
Add to these that current vet medical records software sucks, and it leads to extreme impatience, and even an expectation that computers don't work, and the cycle continues.
Although the country where I am in doesn't restrict me from vaccinating my pet by myself, I'd rather just outsource it to a vet. vet clinics here also have added facilities like pet cleaning etc which is a plus . In this case I find I'd rather enjoy my pet than figure out its innards or it's anatomy.
> This person is 100% correct that git will never see adoption outside the tech industry
And nor should it. The workflow is awful for anything but software development (and even on that, views differ). It is unsuitable for versioning binary blobs. It contains dozens of footguns that routinely catch out software engineers who use it all day, every day.
A lot comes down to timing. More and more law firm partners these days are digital natives who grew up using computers. They're accustomed to using really good software, and they expect the same in their workplace.
I definitely got that impression reading the reviews of the OP's product. An associate comparing it to "a polished Apple product" shows the younger generation is used to decent software and would appreciate it at work.
(To other commenters, this is not an invitation to dunk on Apple. Please keep discussion on track)
I wouldn't necessarily agree with this. For example, I have seen consultants recommend using Git for document versioning in medical device development.
Part of the sale is that Onion InfoWars will run pro-gun safety ads from Everytown USA. That and the obvious goal of humiliating Jones is probably why the Sandy Hook parents sold it to the Onion.
Can't say I'm not happy. Jones is an evil man who has richly earned this indignity and worse. His campaign of harassment against people whose children were murdered was so bad, some parents brought private security guards to testify at his trial [0]. They described death threats, strangers confronting them in their homes and shooting at their cars.
Same. It always had the nicest UI and interaction model, but the bugs ruined it for me over time.
There was a particularly annoying one where if I got to 31:20 on Show A on my phone, then play Show B on my Watch, the playback in B would jump to 31:20. This was brutal if you were somewhere around the 2-hour mark in Show B and have to find your place again.
Really hope the new owners can make everything work again.
> While a significant number of gamers still prefer physical media (for resale, sharing or longevity purposes or lack of internet), the vast majority of the industry is and will continue to be digital.
I have never seen Jim Cramer and don't know or care what hedge funds think. I'm just telling you as someone deep in the gaming space, this company's business makes no sense.
They have no future. Cohen couldn't pivot them to e-commerce. Selling undifferentiated consoles, board games and cards is a race to the bottom. It's a commodity business they will lose to Amazon and Alibaba.
Gamestop isn't really just games anymore; even if they closed all brick and mortar shops and sold nothing they'd still be green on paper because of the liquid assets they hold.
The stock market and business of it never do make sense because the whole thing is rigged.
I remember when the M1 Macs first came out, an Apple engineer revealed they'd optimized the hardware so one specific low-level operation macOS does all the time was 5x faster than on Intel [0].
[0]: https://daringfireball.net/2020/11/the_m1_macs