Red Sweater Blog

...experts puzzle over benefit of 64-bit functions

Let's try to enumerate whatever we can think of:

The most commonly mentioned one is addressing 4GB of memory and larger, which doesn't apply to the 5S. (It's my understanding that it only contains 2GB). So that one is rightfully dismissed. Well, other than that you get more benefit from ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) with a 64bit virtual address space. Still not a headline-feature, though.

It's also commonly mentioned that AArch64 defines twice as many general purpose registers, each twice as large. AArch64 also defines twice as many FP registers – again, each twice as large – available to the SIMD unit. The camera in the 5S does a lot of image processing in order to try to take the best one-button picture possible, and there is probably a lot of opportunity for SIMD code behind that. So that might be a big win that is directly tied to user experience.

Also mentioned, but less frequently, is the kind of optimizations a programming language runtime implementor can do when 64bits are available. For example: Apple has apparently taken advantage of the 64-bit runtime in Lion by optimizing the Objective C runtime itself to use some of these extra bits for, shall we say, clever purposes. Bavarious describes an optimization through which Apple is able to replace previously full-fledged opaque objects such as NSNumber with an object-placeholder that exists entirely as the 64-bit “object address” itself. This means…

> an Emoji keyboard accessory

I can't tell if you literally think that's what it is, or if you're just trying to be dismissive. Emoji support in text fields is just one of the many things it does. It's a dynamic set of buttons that change depending on your task, and I actually really want it. I've been running a third-party app called Touché (https://red-sweater.com/touche/) which gives you the touch bar in a window on your computer, so I can see what things it offers (this isn't actually very useful for actually using, because if I have to switch to my mouse and click a button, there's probably a faster way anyway), and there's some cool stuff in there. What looks especially useful is if you're using Xcode to debug an app, the touch bar has a dedicated button that pauses the debugger, even if Xcode isn't in the foreground, and AFAIK there's no other way to accomplish this (even if you set up an applescript to pause the debugger and hook it up to a keypress, the app will still see you beginning to press the keys before it pauses, potentially changing the state that you were trying to debug at).

> Since 2013, they don't have a desktop for desktop (not web) developers any more. […] iMacs are noisy under load

I haven't ever noticed my iMac being noisy. I'm pretty sure it's quieter than my laptop, and my laptop is pretty darn quiet.

> and who knows how long they will last when kept heated the whole time

I'm really confused as to why you said this. If you think iMacs are…

Sigh, you're just not getting it, sorry to say.

I have NO TROUBLE imagining that Apple will continue to tighten the screws on this, enforcing signing through Developer TOS and requiring MAS apps to pay for distribution certs.

Direct download isn't going away, not after all the work that's gone into securing it, but if you think you can sell an app off your own site without giving Apple some identifiable info about who you are and what your code does, prepare to be disappointed.

Runtimes won't be disallowed, just that you (the user) are responsible for installing them and keeping things updated.

Oh, and for record, my reference to "Perry the Cynic" is no accident...he literally invented how code signing works.

https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2008/03/07/code-signing-and-you/#comment-318

https://red-sweater.com/blog/514/development-phase-code-signing#comment-144236

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F7103779

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=8&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=Kiehtreiber.INNM.&OS=in/Kiehtreiber&RS=IN/Kiehtreiber

While we're on the subject of helpful deployment software, MarsEdit's Daniel Jalkut has an article about crash reporting for Mac apps on his blog:

http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/860/crash-reporter-roundup

I haven't yet tried any of his suggestions, and since the article is from 2009, I don't know how much has changed.

In any case, from experience on other platforms, I heartily recommend making crash reporting straightforward (1-click, or even opt-in to 0-click) for users. Once you have a few hundred people using your software, "rare" crashes happen all the time and tracking them down can be much easier than with just your internal testing.

Note that OSX's built-in crash reports go to Apple, not the App developer, so they're not much use to those of us outside the Cupertino ivory tower.

WordPress is something that would exist in another form if not for Matt Mullenweg. There have been plenty of competing projects. Thanks to good timing WP became the one that a lot of different people contributed to, turning a small project into an 800 pound gorilla. Despite this, Matt Mullenweg and Automattic has used the copyright and trademark to assert and maintain control over it. Some agree with the leadership, some do not, but many website developers are pretty much stuck with it.

https://red-sweater.com/blog/825/getting-pretty-lonely

By mid 2014, I expect Apple to sell retina versions of all of their laptops. It is still some ways off, but then when will you adapt your site for retina? When 20% of your market has retina laptops? By then, you have established to that 20% that you don't care about polish[1]. Especially for developers, they are that much less likely to recommend you to their friends.

You can find (someone else's) better argument along similar lines at [2].

[1] I'm exaggerating, a bit.

[2] http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/2568/target-the-forward-fringe