Michael Tsai - Blog
Hartley Charlton (Hacker News): reMarkable today unveiled the Paper Pro Move, a compact color E Ink tablet that brings its minimalist writing experience to a more portable form factor aimed at those seeking a focused alternative to full-featured tablets like the iPad mini. The Paper Pro Move features a 7.3-inch Canvas Color display based on […]
Craig Hockenberry (Mastodon): If you’re someone who’s only using email, a web browser, and some messaging apps to get stuff done, changes to your desktop appearance aren’t going to be disruptive. It’s also likely that you’ll appreciate changes that make it look like your phone.If you’re doing anything more complex than that, your response to […]
Ainsley Bourque Olson: OmniFocus 4.7 introduces three powerful enhancements: a new “Planned” date type (for specifying the date an item is scheduled for work), the ability to create mutually exclusive tags (handy in a variety of workflows, like prioritization and energy level assignment), and improved repeat functionality (including new support for setting a repeat to […]
Jonathan Johnson (2022): From my investigation, Apple’s version of SQLite instead replaces PRAGMA fullfsync = on’s implementation to use F_BARRIERFSYNC.SQLite users who are expecting PRAGMA fullfsync to provide durability guarantees in the event of power failures or kernel panics can override xSync via a custom VFS or build SQLite from source.[…]Apple’s documentation clearly states that […]
Atlassian (tweet, Hacker News): We’ve entered into an agreement to acquire The Browser Company of New York, the team behind the incredible Dia and Arc browsers. By combining The Browser Company’s passion for building browsers people love with Atlassian’s deep expertise on how the world’s best teams operate, we have the opportunity to transform how […]
ASUS: ProArt Display PA32QCV is a 31.5-inch 6K HDR monitor designed for professional content creators. This Calman Verified display boasts a wide gamut with 98% DCI-P3 coverage and Delta E<2 color accuracy. The ProArt Preset feature now includes the new M Model-P3 mode to deliver seamless and consistent colors when working with MacBook devices. Dual […]
Darren Ford: An AppKit UI toolkit help you create and manage NSView content easilyRemove dependence on using XIBs when creating UI viewsReduce boilerplate code when manually creating NSView UI content.Easily bind data between controlsEasily attach actions to your controls (no more delegates or target/actions!)Use Xcode’s preview pane to view your designs!! There’s a demo. Previously: […]
Brent Simmons (Mastodon): A scripting language plus key bits implemented in C was more than fast enough for an app. Even all those years ago. […] I’m not writing this article to praise Frontier — I’m talking about it to make a point, which I’ll get to. But I wanted to bring up a second aspect […]
Substack (Hacker News): The Substack app drives more than 30% of all paid subscriptions, making it a major source of discovery and discussion. Until now, however, it hasn’t always been possible to upgrade to a paid subscription directly in the app.That’s changing. Apple now allows Substack to include external links for paid subscriptions in the […]
WhatsApp: Bringing all your favorite features to a larger screen, WhatsApp for iPad makes keeping in touch with friends and family even easier. Make video and audio calls with up to 32 people, share your screen, and use both front and back cameras. We’ve made WhatsApp for iPad ideal for multitasking so you can get […]
Adam Engst: After years of legal proceedings, the Google antitrust case has finally resulted in a ruling with real-world impact—though perhaps not in the way many expected. Rather than forcing dramatic changes, the ruling preserves key aspects of how users currently engage with Google’s products. Lauren Feiner (PDF, MacRumors, Slashdot): Google will not have to […]
Juli Clover: Apple today provided developers with the ninth beta of macOS Tahoe 26 for testing purposes, with the update coming a week after the eighth beta. The release notes don’t call out any changes since beta 5. Norbert Doerner: I mean, that Spotlight search icon isn’t even vertically centered. It looks to me like […]
Juli Clover: Apple today provided developers with the ninth betas of iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 for testing purposes, with the updates coming a week after Apple seeded the eighth betas. The release notes don’t call out any changes since beta 5. Mario Guzmán: Not everything needs to have round end caps 🙄 look how […]
Version 7.1.2: CCC has a new “glass” icon that looks great on macOS Tahoe! Big thanks to our UI designer Enelia at Abacus Finch who was able to find a way to keep our beloved page curl with the new glass material.[…]Tahoe users: If you disable the CCC menubar icon via the new System Settings […]
Abner Li (Hacker News): To combat malware and financial scams, Google announced today that only apps from developers that have undergone verification can be installed on certified Android devices starting in 2026.This requirement applies to “certified Android devices” that have Play Protect and are preloaded with Google apps. The Play Store implemented similar requirements in […]
Ernesto Van der Sar (Hacker News, MacRumors, Slashdot): Under EU law, Apple is required to give its users more freedom to install apps that are not listed in the official App Store. This allows for easier access to software that’s typically prohibited by Apple, including the popular iTorrent BitTorrent client. The iTorrent client built a […]
Hartley Charlton: The Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC) announced the probe yesterday (via MobileTime), stating that its Delegation for the Protection of Competition had reached a preliminary conclusion that Apple may have engaged in exclusionary practices that restrict free competition in the Colombian market.The SIC case is focused on two primary concerns. First, the […]
Craig Hockenberry (Mastodon): The source code example using in Supporting business model changes by using the app transaction does not work if you’re using current Xcode and App Store conventions. Additionally, the sandbox environment uses the same outdated conventions.And when you use that sample code, that you cannot test in the Xcode transaction simulator or […]
Typepad: After September 30, 2025, access to Typepad – including account management, blogs, and all associated content – will no longer be available. Your account and all related services will be permanently deactivated. Please note that after this date, you will no longer be able to access or export any blog content. The FAQ: The […]
Jason Snell: But here we are, living in an era where Cook has now served as Apple CEO longer than Jobs did. The Apple of 2025 is quite different from the company Cook took control of back in 2011. Today’s Apple generates nearly four times the revenue that the company did when Cook took over, […]
Olivia A. Gallucci: The Mach Object (Mach-O) is the binary format used on Apple’s operating systems for executables, libraries, and object code. It was created for the Mach kernel (hence the name) and introduced in NeXTSTEP, the predecessor to macOS, as a replacement for the a.out format. […]In this post, we’ll explore Mach-O’s layout and […]
Howard Oakley: Spotlight is so substantial, almost silent in the log, and impenetrable that the best approach to diagnosing its problems is to test it out in a controlled way. Mints has been doing that by creating a folder of files containing an unusual word, then searching for that. Although that’s still useful for a […]
Alexander Gromnitsky (via Hacker News): At the time of writing, the most recent Adobe Reader 25.x.y.z 64-bit installer for Windows 11 weights 687,230,424 bytes. After installation, the program includes ‘AI’ (of course), an auto-updater, sprinkled ads for Acrobat online services everywhere, and 2 GUIs: ’new’ and ‘old’. It looks like a steady, pretty linear increase […]
Miguel Arroz (Mastodon): PaperVault stores information as sequences of QR Codes you can print and scan easily, protected by a password only you know. Data is secured using industry-standard robust encryption algorithms.[…]Vendor lock-in is a bad thing. Your data is yours and I don’t want to hold it hostage. Therefore, I’m publishing the data format […]
VintageApple: Nick R. was generous enough to send me his entire vintage Mac programming library to be destructively scanned and shared with the community. We’ve added a few of our own for a pretty huge collection (over 150) of vintage Mac programming related books. Via Rui Carmo: [This] is a great resource for people interested […]
Apple (downloads, releases, MacRumors): Claude in Xcode is now available in the Intelligence settings panel, allowing users to seamlessly add their existing paid Claude account to Xcode and start using Claude Sonnet 4.When using ChatGPT in Xcode, users can now start a new conversation with either GPT-4.1 or GPT-5, with GPT-5 set as the default.ChatGPT […]
Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal: We sit down with Steve Ballmer, the legendary former Microsoft CEO and owner of the LA Clippers, for an epic conversation covering his 34 years at Microsoft. Steve listened to our Microsoft episodes and had some thoughts to share — and boy, did he deliver. Steve takes us point-by-point through […]
Sarah Reichelt: In the WWDC video, they demonstrated how to track the navigation events. The code in the video does not work - it doesn’t even compile. But after some trial and error, I worked out how to track these events.[…]If you want your WebView to load custom pages, create a custom scheme. In my […]
Cihat Gündüz: I ended up running Claude Code in Cursor’s terminal instead – getting Cursor’s editor awareness with Claude Code’s superior tools like web search, planning mode, and the generous 5-hour usage window.[…]Request queuing was the first limitation I noticed in Xcode right away. When I’m developing, thoughts and questions come fast. Having to wait […]
Mothers Ruin Software (Mastodon): Enhanced the decoding of Saved Application State to extract a couple of categories of data that were previously being ignored: For a sandboxed, document-based app, the security-scoped bookmarks that are associated with an NSDocument will now be shown, usually as an additional archive labeled _NSDocument [Security-Scoped Bookmarks]. This is an array […]
Mothers Ruin Software (Mastodon): Changed the info pane to show Quarantine rather than Downloaded. Modern macOS likes to quarantine files that are opened by a sandboxed app, seemingly resulting in more non-download quarantines than actual downloads. You can still click on the quarantine date here to see what app triggered it and how — for […]
Jeff Johnson: I found that the Apple Files app was broken in the simulator, which prevented me from setting up my app properly for my screenshots. I couldn’t share a file on my Mac with the simulator. I couldn’t save a file on the simulator, for example from my own app or from the Apple […]
Whatever, Jamie (via Hacker News): This last decade has seen an inundation of new JavaScript runtimes (and engines in equal measure), enabling us to run JavaScript in all manner of contexts with precise fitness for task. Through these, we’ve seen the language spread to the Cloud, the edge, Smart TVs, mobile devices, and even microcontrollers.In […]
Benjamin Esham: Every iOS and Mac developer is familiar with the situation: Xcode has gotten itself wedged somehow and the only solution is to blow away the DerivedData folder in ~/Library/Developer/Xcode. […] But rm needs to enumerate every file and directory within DerivedData in order to delete them. The more files there are, the longer […]
ZigZag: Added script actions to execute your own custom scripts (with selected files as input arguments and optional textual output). FileUtils can execute UNIX scripts/binaries, AppleScript scripts and Automator workflows. I’ve been using FastScripts for running scripts on the Finder selection, because I already use it for running scripts in other apps. However, one benefit […]
Matt Massicotte (Mastodon): So, no doubt there’s lots of historical stuff going on here.But, that still doesn’t explain how much trouble people have with ModelActor. I’m not sure anyone has ever used ModelActor without at least some surprises.[…]Actors exist to protect mutable state. The purpose of a ModelActor is to own and isolate the ModelContext. […]
Howard Oakley: App extensions or appexes perform a wide range of tasks, from providing support for file systems like ExFAT to generating thumbnails for QuickLook and enabling Spotlight to index the contents of files. Although they’re relatively old, macOS made major changes in their management in Ventura, and they’ve become popular in many third-party apps. […]
Juli Clover: Apple today provided developers with the eighth beta of macOS Tahoe 26 for testing purposes, with the update coming a week after the seventh beta. The release notes don’t call out any changes since beta 5. Previously: macOS Tahoe 26 Developer Beta 7
Juli Clover: Apple today provided developers with the eighth betas of iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 for testing purposes, with the updates coming a week after Apple seeded the seventh betas. The release notes don’t call out any changes since beta 5. Steve Troughton-Smith: Historically, since iOS 13, beta 8 has been the last beta […]
Bluesky (via Hacker News): Mississippi’s approach [to child safety] would fundamentally change how users access Bluesky. The Supreme Court’s recent decision leaves us facing a hard reality: comply with Mississippi’s age assurance law—and make every Mississippi Bluesky user hand over sensitive personal information and undergo age checks to access the site—or risk massive fines. The […]
Kif Leswing (via Hacker News): Intel, the only American company capable of making advanced chips on U.S. soil, said in a press release that the government made an $8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock, purchasing 433.3 million shares at a price of $20.47 per share, giving it a 10% stake in the company. Intel […]
Bruno Brito (release notes): This update allows you to create custom Git workflows, enabling you to define and enforce the exact workflow that meets your project’s needs.[…]The first step is to define your core branches, i.e., your “trunk” (e.g., main, master) and “base” (e.g., develop, dev) branches so that you can establish the foundational structure […]
Nathan Manceaux-Panot: Enjoy staggering performance improvements. Every last part of the app has been thoroughly tuned: Retcon is now incredibly responsive, and easily handles Git histories with hundreds of thousands of commits. No compromise was made to reach these speeds: Retcon still transparently preserves your working directory and stage, offers pervasive undo, a combined stage, […]
Mattt Thompson: In 2014, researchers at the University of Washington and Microsoft Research proposed a radical idea: What if uncertainty were encoded directly into the type system? Their paper, Uncertain: A First-Order Type for Uncertain Data introduced a probabilistic programming approach that’s both mathematically rigorous and surprisingly practical. As you’d expect for something from Microsoft […]
Victoria Bampton on 14.3 (Adobe): A new mask selection tool is introduced for Landscape. It works much like the Select People tool, using AI to read the scene and select specific elements[…] […] In the Develop and Photo Merge dialogs, transparency now shows as a checkerboard pattern (just like in Photoshop), making it easier to […]
Jack Baty (Mastodon): Some former Nik Software people are building a new tool for managing photo libraries. It’s called Aspect. I’m a sucker for any photo-related software, so I installed the beta and spent yesterday testing it. I took some notes after using it for a day.First impressions were good. I like the ideas behind Aspect. […]
Glenn Fleishman: When you enter an email address or type one into the address field in Messages, the software does a quick behind-the-scenes check. Messages tries to determine if the address is associated with an active iCloud account. As you accept or paste in an address, you might notice that it always briefly lights up […]
Mason Freed (Hacker News): XSLT v1.0, which all browsers adhere to, was standardized in 1999. In the meantime, XSLT has evolved to v2.0 and v3.0, adding features, and growing apart from the old version frozen into browsers. This lack of advancement, coupled with the rise of JavaScript libraries and frameworks that offer more flexible and […]
Parachute Apps: Parachute is a set-and-forget backup companion for iCloud Photos and iCloud Drive. It automatically syncs your memories—photos, videos, and documents—to your own storage, giving you peace of mind and full control.[…]Originals, edits, and live photos are all preserved. Even your Shared Albums![…]Avoid filling up your Mac’s hard drive with intelligent storage management. Parachute […]
Howard Oakley: Preview has had more than its fair share of bugs in handling PDF annotations. During my research for this article, Preview 11.0 (1069.7.1) in macOS 15.6 was generally well behaved, but did mangle comments added to a test document by PDF Expert and Adobe Acrobat. Preview has two behaviours that can appear disconcerting: […]