The Deck
  • Posted on November 22, 2016

    Hit where it hurts

    Speaking of which, HP is trying to capitalize on the current backlash against Apple among its pro users:


    HP Store

    The screen capture is in french, for some reason I couldn’t get the english version. It says that “Pros are moving from the Mac to HP”. And they’re giving a few testimonials of video peoples.

  • Posted on November 22, 2016

    Anti-halo effect

    Brent Simmons about Apple leaving more and more markets:


    I can’t help but think that it’s a kind of an anti-halo effect. I can’t help but think that once we start looking elsewhere, we’ll look elsewhere more and more. We’ll get used to it. We’ll find out that other companies make things that work and are, in some cases, delightful.

    I think it’s a very smart analysis. Especially when you remember how Apple climbed out of its grave with the iPod that brought a lot of people to the Mac and the iPhone. Their saving grace (for the moment) is that there’s no single other company that may attract their customers with a large range of excellent products.

    But one thing that Apple should keep in mind: each time they narrow their product line they increase the impact of releasing a potential turd. What if the new MacBook Pros are a failure (I’m not saying they are) ? What if the next iPhone explodes like a Galaxy Note ?

  • Posted on November 17, 2016

    Apple terminates the position of Product Manager of Automation Technologies for macOS

    Sal Soghoian (the axed guy) on his website:


    Q. What does the termination of the position of Product Manager of Automation Technologies mean for the future of user automation in macOS?

    A. Ask Apple. Seriously, if you have any questions or concerns about the future of user automation, ask Apple. If user automation technologies are important to you, then now is the time for all good men and women to reach out, speak up and ask questions. The macOS user automation technologies include: UNIX CLI (shell, python, ruby, perl), System Services, Apple Events (JavaScript, AppleScript, AppleScriptObj-C, Scripting Bridge), Automator, Apple Configurator (AppleScript, Automator), and Application scripting support in Photos, iWork, Finder, Mail, and other Apple applications.

    Fall 2016, the season of pro love at Apple !

  • Posted on November 15, 2016

    Visible text in a NSTextContainer backed UITextView

    You cannot easilly get the visible text of a NSTextContainer backed UITextView. If you look at the text or attributedText properties, you will get the whole text that you gave to your NSTextStorage object.

    To get the currently displayed text, I use the following method on my NSTextView subclasses:

    - (NSString *)visibleText {

    NSRange currentRange = [self.layoutManager glyphRangeForTextContainer:self.textContainer];

    if (currentRange.location != NSNotFound && currentRange.location + currentRange.length <= self.textStorage.length) {
        // It's safe to use range on str
        NSString *currentString = [self.textStorage.string substringWithRange:currentRange];

        return currentString;
    } else {
        return nil;
    }
}
  • Posted on November 15, 2016

    MacBook Pro angst

    John Gruber’s conclusion in his new MacBook Pros review:


    There’s much griping about these machines now, just like there was much griping about the original Air then, but these are exactly the MacBooks I want Apple to be making — ones that show that the company is putting very hard work into every aspect of them. I’d be more worried about Apple’s commitment to the Mac if they did the easy thing — easier both technically and in terms of initial critical response — and just stuck a retina display in a MacBook Air and called it a day.

    I don’t think anybody is really worried about Apple’s commitment to the Mac in general. All the angst is about the high-performance macs specifically.

    In a time when we don’t know if the Mac Pro is still of this world or not, the fear comes from people who ask themselves: “Can I use these laptops as my only computer ?”. And whose response is a resounding NO for more and more pros.

    Come on Apple, if you’re working on a new Mac Pro in any way, shape or form just say it. What do you have to loose ? The current Mac Pro sales ? xD



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