OrchardNest

(Aka: “GCD’s Big Fat Greek Flaw”) I mostly like Grand Central Dispatch (“GCD”) in theory and in practice — among its many roles it adds a relatively simple, clean, and uniform way of dispatching arbitrary blocks of code on various threads,...

Introduction to Controversy Now that everyone and their collective dogs love Swift (it's clinically-proven by leading scientitions!) there’s been some backlash as Objective-C old fogeys fret that if we completely embrace Swift as it is...

Loops: What do we know about them? Do we have a loop problem? Let's find out. In 26 years of programming ObjectiveC I haven't re-thought the loop much, except when Apple added "for x in y" style loops to Objective-C (which I will refer to...

The way I got into the software business (besides learning to code) was to use every piece of software I could find and send the developers tons and tons of notes and bug reports. It turns out developers liked this, and it gained me a lot...

Today Omni Group published a blog entry entitled "Twenty Years of Being Omni," with their perspective on the first days of my old company. I was a little sad to find out the only mention of me was the phrase "the five of us."[*] I can...

The Mac App Store has been a huge boon to Mac software developers, but has an enormous flaw: it needs to allow developers to charge existing customers a discounted price for major upgrades.Right now developers selling through the Mac App...

The Mac needs to be as secure as the iPhone. The good news is Apple already has the tools. The bad news is they are forcing developers to use the wrong ones.There are three primary ways Apple increases security of applications running on...

Let’s come up with an analogy and then torture it like we’re the Cheney administration: imagine you’ve just purchased a plot of land. What are you going to do, mine or farm?If you farm, you’ll have to purchase seed up-front, and work on it...

Today Bertrand Serlet announced he was stepping down as senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering, and that Craig Federighi will step into his spot. I know both these dudes a little bit, since we all used to work at/near/around/for...

There's been a lot of hullabaloo about Twitter recently telling developers of client apps that, like, maybe client apps aren't a smart business model for them, as Twitter is going to be making client apps and (one might assume) crushing...

SPOILER WARNING: This article is entirely full of spoilers. If you're going to play Fallout: New Vegas (and gord have pity on your soul if you do) you may not want to read this.I wanted to love Fallout: New Vegas. I loved the original...

Recently, I got to sit down with TSA Chairman John Pistole for a friendly interview. Here’s a transcript of the actual audio:Me: Hi John. I hope that’s not too familiar – I feel like we should be on a first-name basis since you’ve touched...

The New York Times reports that Adobe’s CEO met with Microsoft’s CEO to talk about how to work together to combat Apple, possibly even by Microsoft acquiring Adobe.I… I can’t think of a joke here. I mean, besides “Adobe teaming with...

Much discussion of Android vs. iPhone has centered on their “open” and “closed” app stores, respectively: any application run on an iPhone must be vetted by Apple, whereas an Android phone can run applications from any source.Recently the...

When I started going to TED its talks weren’t on the web, and it was a very expensive, by-invite-only conference for about 1,200 people, so basically nobody I'd ever met had heard of TED, including me. Nowadays TED itself is still...

Enforcing patents is wrong. You’ve famously taken and built on ideas from your competitors, as have I, as we should, as great artists do. Why is what HTC has done worse? Whether an idea was patented doesn’t change the morality of copying...

IntroductionIf you’re developing commercial software, you’re going to want to sell it globally — for well-localized English-speaking software companies, for instance, I have seen between 20% and 25% of total revenue coming from non-English...

First off, I should mention that I don't think I use the word "heuristic" correctly – although in computer science it's grown to replace the word "algorithm" as just a general term for a way to solve a problem, traditionally it has a more...

This document describes our process for reviewing applications for iPhones and iPods touch submitted to the iTunes App Store. We’ve avoided using legalese in this document so that you’ll actually read the whole thing. Please do so before...

Or, I Test-Drove a Tesla and All I Got Was These Lousy Adrenaline ShakesShort version: Tesla.--Long version: I've had insomnia since I was a wee lad, and at night I often calm my brain by thinking up idealized objects. Optimal house...

Call me a proponent of free markets, but I think Apple needs to have a clearly-documented policy for approving submissions to the iPhone App Store, and it should be:• Publish all software submitted to Apple, as long as the software isn't...

I guess I should first admit I hate the show Punk’d. I mean, here’s a guy who is famous for lying about his age so he seems hipper, telling us that his show’s purpose it to deflate the big egos on other stars, and show them what truly...

Last week, a customer reported a bug to me in Delicious Library 2: when he first launched version two, his version one data would start to be imported, but after waiting for tens of minutes watching the annoying aqua progress bar creep...

Ok, well, actually Delicious Library 2 shipped like four weeks ago. Sorry I didn't tell you. It's not because I don't care. Honestly, I tried to tell the press, but I think they're pretty sick of me, so there wasn't much of a splash on the...

In 1987 I was a senior in high school and my mother was in the hospital with leukemia; a long, very painful experimental treatment would either cure her (but leave her changed for life) or she would die.With the profits I'd made from my...