Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference this week didn't bring any particularly revolutionary new feature, but it did something perhaps more important for Apple's long-term strategy. The latest updates will unify the company's devices and give customers more reasons to stay within its product ecosystem. From a report: From an average user's standpoint, the updates to iOS and iPadOS were underwhelming and minor, aside from widgets (which Android has had for years). Siri's interface changes were impressive, but there wasn't much discussion of a needed under-the-hood revamp, and the Watch update was incremental, other than sleep tracking. The company didn't let these products languish, but Apple's engineers essentially did just enough. The really impressive achievements came in getting the products to work together, plus sweeping improvements to the Mac.

The biggest news of the conference was that Apple-made chips will replace those from Intel in Mac computers. Besides higher speeds and longer battery life, the change customers will notice first is that Mac computers will work more like an iPhone or an iPad, and will have the ability to run the same apps on the new macOS Big Sur operating system. Soon, someone will be able to buy an iPhone app and run it across Apple's major platforms: the Mac, the iPhone, the iPad, and in some cases a variant of it on the Apple Watch and Apple TV. The company also moved toward increased unification by bringing over glance-able information (widgets) from the Apple Watch to its larger devices, and by more deeply integrating its smart home features across products. For example, a HomePod speaker can now be a doorbell and an Apple TV can be a door camera viewer. All of this may drive existing customers to buy additional Apple products, knowing that they'll work together seamlessly. The strategy could boost Apple's sales in the long-term and, just as importantly, make it more difficult for a user to leave behind a device, which could blow a hole in their network of Apple products.

At the WWDC 2020 keynote today, Apple announced that the company is going to switch from Intel chips to Apple's own silicon, based on ARM architecture. They also announced that iPad and iPhone apps will be able to run natively on ARM-powered Macs. TechCrunch reports: First, you'll be able to compile your app to run both on Intel-based Macs and ARM-based Macs. You can ship those apps with both executables using a new format called Universal 2. If you've been using a Mac for a while, you know that Apple used the same process when it switched from PowerPC CPUs to Intel CPUs -- one app, two executables. As for unoptimized software, you'll still be able to run those apps. But its performances won't be as good as what you'd get from a native ARM-ready app. Apple is going to ship Rosetta 2, an emulation layer that lets you run old apps on new Macs.

When you install an old app, your Mac will examine the app and try to optimize it for your ARM processor. This way, there will be some level of optimization even before you open the app. But what if it's a web browser or a complicated app with just-in-time code? Rosetta 2 can also translate instructions from x86 to ARM on the fly, while you're running the app. And if you're a developer working on code that is going to run on servers, Apple is also working on a set of virtualization tools. You'll be able to run Linux and Docker on an ARM Mac.

As a bonus, users will also be able to access a much larger library of apps. "Mac users can for the first time run iOS and iPadOS apps on the Mac," Apple CEO Tim Cook said. While the company didn't share a lot of details, Apple isn't talking about Catalyst, its own framework that makes it easier to port iOS apps to macOS. You should be able to download and run apps even if the developer never optimized those apps for macOS.

Apple has unveiled the next version of macOS: Big Sur. From a report: The new operating system brings the biggest redesign since the introduction of macOS 10, according to Apple. Big Sur borrows a number of elements from Apple's iOS, including a customizable Control Center, where you can change brightness and toggle Do Not Disturb, and a new notification center, which groups related notifications together. Both interfaces are translucent, like their iOS counterparts. A number of apps have received streamlined new redesigns, including Mail, Photos, Notes, and iWork. Apple has introduced a new search feature to Messages (which organizes results into links, photos, and matching terms), as well as inline replies for group chats, a new photo-selection interface, and Memoji stickers. There's a new version of Maps for Mac that borrows features from the iOS app, including custom Guides, 360-degree location views, cycling and electric vehicle directions (which you can send directly to an iPhone), and indoor maps. Apple introduced a number of new Catalyst apps as well. Dock buttons have also been redesigned to look more similar to their iOS counterparts, in an effort to "be more consistent with icons across Apple's ecosystem while retaining their Mac personality," according to the company.

Apple also announced the biggest update to Safari since the browser was first introduced. The company claims its browser is 50 percent faster than Chrome and can show more tabs on-screen. Hovering over a tab now gives users a preview of its page, and right-clicking on the tab will give you the option to close all the tabs to its right. The new Safari also has a customizable start page and a built-in automatic translation feature that can interpret entire webpages in seven languages, Apple says. Safari is also getting support for extensions made for other browsers, and a dedicated extension store. (Unlike many other browsers, Safari will allow you to customize which sites your extensions run on). And there are new privacy features, including a Privacy Report that details actions the browser has taken to prevent tracking on the websites you visit.

After 15 years, Apple will again transition the Mac to a new architecture. The company announced at its developer conference today that it will introduce Macs featuring Apple-designed, ARM-based processors similar to those already used in the iPhone and iPad. From a report: Tim Cook pegged this switch as one of the four biggest transitions the mac has ever had. Alongside the more to PowerPC, the move to Intel, and the transition to Mac OS X, ARM will be one of the biggest mac changes ever. Apple is promising "a whole new level of performance" with a "Family of Mac SoCs." The transition to ARM from x86 means that some apps will be native and some won't. For mac OS 10.16, Apple says that all of the Apple 10.16 apps are native ARM apps. Xcode developers can "just open their apps and recompile" to get an ARM binary. "Universal 2" is a new type of binary that will run on Intel and ARM macs. Microsoft Office and Adobe's creative suite (Photoshop) were demoed as native ARM apps. Final Cut Pro has an ARM version too, along with a features that run on the "Neural Engine" in the Apple SoC.

Apple says it wants to make sure users can run all their apps on their ARM mac, even if they aren't native. So, just like with the PowerPC-to-Intel transition, Apple is dusting off the Rosetta brand with Rosetta 2, which is now an x86-to-ARM emulator. This move has been predicted for years, as the upsides for Apple are clear. Cupertino has always valued tight integration of hardware, software, and services, but Macs have been outliers among Apple's products in their reliance on an outside party for the CPU. (iPhones and other Apple products do contain display panels, modems, and camera components made by other companies, though.) So far, Apple's chip division has excelled in every market it has entered. In the world of smartphones, the company's SoCs are easily a generation ahead of the best Qualcomm, Samsung, and Mediatek have to offer. Apple's most dominant smartphone showing is probably the iPhone SE, a $400 iPhone that will out-perform $1200 Android phones thanks to the A13 Bionic SoC.

CNN reports that Apple could announce "a long-rumored switch" from Intel chips to its own ARM-based chips for Macs at its WWDC conference Monday -- citing a report from Bloomberg.

Then they consider the possible advantages: When that does happen, the major changes Mac users are likely to see include better battery life and sleeker devices. Apple's in-house chips have a smaller architecture and are more efficient because they are designed for smartphones, according to David McQueen, research director at ABI Research... "Moving to ARM-based chips can bring efficiencies and better battery life without sacrificing performance," McQueen said. "It may also help to cut out some size issues, possibly allowing Macs to be made thinner, while also negating the need for fans," he added.

McQueen says having the same chips running on iPhones, iPads and Macs would also make it easier to standardize the user experience across all three devices. "It will allow all Apple devices to work more seamlessly together," he said. "It should also make it much easier for developers to create apps that are capable of running across Apple devices." There's another big potential benefit to using the same chips for iPhones and Macs, particularly with the growth of 5G networks. "Although Apple has given no indication that it is looking to do so, this switch does also open the doors for Apple to launch MacBooks with cellular connectivity capabilities," Mardikar said.

For Apple, bringing processor production in-house will likely allow the company to offer better performance upgrades with each generation of devices because it will no longer be tied to Intel's upgrade cycle for new chips. "They also get to control their own product launch cadence," said Jitesh Ubrani, a research manager at IDC. "In the past, they had to really wait on Intel to launch new processors before they could refresh the Mac lineup."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Mozilla has announced today that its highly anticipated VPN (virtual private network) service will launch later this summer, "in the next few weeks." The product has also been renamed from its original name of Firefox Private Network to its new brand of the "Mozilla VPN." The name change came after Mozilla expanded the VPN product from the initial Firefox extension to a full-device VPN, capable of routing traffic for the entire OS, including other browsers. Currently, the Mozilla VPN offers clients for Windows 10, Chromebooks, Android, and iOS devices. Mozilla said beta testers also requested a Mac client, which they plan to provide, along with a Linux app.

For years, Parallels has provided virtualization software so you could run full Windows installs on a Mac, but today they're tackling a new OS. From a report: The company just announced that it is partnering with Google to work on bringing full Windows application support to Chrome OS enterprise devices. That's a big deal for the many businesses out there that run various pieces of legacy Windows software -- or just any business that wants to run Microsoft's Office software natively. It could Chrome OS devices a lot more viable in a variety of workspaces that may have previously had to rely on Windows hardware, though of course that'll depend on how well it is implemented. How exactly this will work remains to be seen; Parallels only said that partnership would "seamlessly add full-featured Windows apps, including Microsoft Office, to Chromebook Enterprise devices."

Ahead of Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference starting next week, the company has today launched a new version of its Apple Developer App to better support its plans for the virtual event. TechCrunch reports: Notably, the app has been made available for Mac for the first time, in addition to a redesign and other minor feature updates. With the needs of an entirely virtual audience in mind, Apple has redesigned the app's Discover section to make it easier for developers to catch up on the latest stories, news, videos and more, the company says. This section will be regularly updated with "actionable" content, Apple notes, including the latest news, recommendations on implementing new features, and information about inspiring engineers and designers, alongside new videos.

It has also updated its Browse tab where users search for existing sessions, videos, articles and news, including the over 100 technical and design-focused videos found in the WWDC tab. The WWDC tab has also been updated in preparation for the live event starting on Monday, June 22. The redesign has added a way to favorite individual articles, in addition to session content and videos. Plus it includes new iMessage stickers along with other enhancements and bug fixes. The app, which was previously available on iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, is also now offered on Mac.

In the "quick launch bar" of Windows 10, native app icons "support a shortcut menu for commonly or frequently performed tasks in the app. This menu can be invoked by right-clicking the app's quick launch bar icon," writes the Windows Club site -- adding that Mac users can use similar functionality when opening a web browser from the MacOS dock.

But now Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are working on similar "App Shortcuts" that allow users to do things like send email or composing tweets directly from the Windows 10 taskbar or macOS dock. Slashdot reader techtsp shares their report: Right now, Chromium does not allow users to start a key task within a progressive web app through the Windows 10 taskbar. This is exactly what Chromium-based web browsers are now trying to change.

This feature will enable web developers to add support in Chromium for shortcuts defined in a Web App Manifest. As a result, Chromium progressive web apps can offer App shortcuts for their quick launch bar icon much like native apps.

The App shortcuts feature is currently in development on Microsoft Edge. Meanwhile, Google Chrome 85 is in the Dev channel.

Apple is preparing to announce a shift to its own main processors in Mac computers, replacing chips from Intel, as early as this month at its annual developer conference, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the plans. From the report: The company is holding WWDC the week of June 22. Unveiling the initiative, codenamed Kalamata, at the event would give outside developers time to adjust before new Macs roll out in 2021, the people said. Since the hardware transition is still months away, the timing of the announcement could change, they added, while asking not to be identified discussing private plans. The new processors will be based on the same technology used in Apple-designed iPhone and iPad chips. However, future Macs will still run the macOS operating system rather than the iOS software on mobile devices from the company. Bloomberg News reported on Apple's effort to move away from Intel earlier this year, and in 2018.

Roblimo once called it "a tradition, not just a speech" -- Bryan Lunduke's annual "Linux Sucks" presentations at various Linux conferences. But before you get too upset, in his 2014 interview with Slashdot Lunduke admitted "I love Linux, I have made my whole life around Linux. I work for Linux companies. I write for Linux magazines, but it really blows..."

This year he's releasing a special YouTube version of Linux Sucks 2020, the first time Lunduke has attempted the talk without a live audience, "And it feels really wicked weird." But he's still trying to get a rise out of his audience. "Follow me on this into Journey Into Graphs and Numbers Land," Lunduke says playfully, pulling up one of his 160 x 90 pixel slides showing current market share for Windows, Mac, and then Linux "You might notice that some platforms have a higher market share than Linux does," he says with a laugh, describing one slide showing Linux as "scooping up the bottom of the barrel at 1.6%..."

"But here's the thing. These numbers have been either consistent, or for Linux, slowly dropping." And then he puts up a graph showing the number of searches for Linux. "If you look back at 2004 -- the year 2004, 16 years ago -- that was the high point in interest in searching for the word Linux (or Linux plus other things). 2006 it was about half that -- so about two years later it had dropped down to about half. Here in 2020 it is so low, not only does it not fill up the first bar of pixels there, it's like only three pixels in. That doesn't happen -- that sort of decline does not happen -- unless the platform sucks. That's just the truth of the matter. That's just how it goes, right?"

And there's also some very specific reasons why Lunduke thinks Linux sucks:

An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 77 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 77 includes faster JavaScript debugging, optional permissions for extensions, and Pocket recommendations in the U.K. You can download Firefox 77 for desktop now from Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. According to Mozilla, Firefox has about 250 million active users, making it a major platform for web developers to consider. [...] Other than Pocket recommendations arriving in the U.K. (they've been in Canada, Germany, and the U.S. since April 2018), this is primarily a developer release. Firefox's Debugger is now better at handling large web apps with all their bundling, live reloading, and dependencies. Mozilla is promising performance improvements that speed up pausing and stepping, as well as cutting down on memory usage over time. Source maps should also see performance boosts -- some inline source maps load 10 times faster -- and improved reliability for many configurations. The debugger will now also respect the currently selected stack when stepping, which is useful when you've stepped into a function call or paused in a library method further down in the stack.

Adam Engst, writing for TidBITS: Because force-quitting apps and restarting or shutting down devices are necessary only to fix unanticipated problems, there are two notable downsides to engaging in such behavior as a matter of habit: reduced battery life and wasted time. Why would these behaviors reduce battery life? Remember, iOS is a modern operating system that's built on top of Apple's proprietary hardware. Apple has put a great deal of effort into ensuring that iOS knows the best ways to manage the limited hardware resources within your iPhone or iPad. No one, possibly short of an iOS systems engineer armed with Apple's internal diagnostic and debugging tools, would be able to outguess iOS itself on issues like memory usage, power draw, and CPU throttling.

When you invoke the App Switcher in iOS, you can swipe right to see all the apps you've used, possibly since you got your device. (The very first app in my iPhone 11 Pro's App Switcher is Apple's Tips, which I think came up automatically when I turned the iPhone on last year and hasn't been touched since. It's difficult to count apps in the App Switcher, but I probably have at least a hundred in there.) As the number of apps in the App Switcher should indicate, those apps are not necessarily running -- they merely have run at some point in the past. They're much more like the contents of the Mac's Apple > Recent Items menu. In normal usage, iOS devotes the lion's share of CPU and memory resources to the app that you're using. That's sensible -- the performance of that app is paramount. However, the next few apps in the App Switcher may also be consuming some CPU and memory resources. That's because iOS correctly assumes that you're most likely to return to them, and it wants to give you the best experience when you do. The screen shouldn't have to redraw multiple times, Internet-loaded content shouldn't have to update, and so on. [...]

"Having re-open-sourced MS-DOS on GitHub in 2018, Microsoft has now released the source code for GW-BASIC, Microsoft's 1983 BASIC interpreter," reports ZDNet, adding that GW-BASIC "can trace its roots back to Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's implementation of Microsoft's first product, the BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800 computer."

"Interested to look at thousands of lines of glorious 8088 assembly code for the original 1983 GW-BASIC...?" writes Slashdot reader sonofusion82, adding "there are not Makefiles or build scripts, just a bunch of 8088 ASM files."

Or as Hackaday jokes, "Microsoft releases the source code you wanted almost 30 years ago." In the late 1970s and early 1980s, if you had a personal computer there was a fair chance it either booted into some version of Microsoft Basic or you could load and run Basic... Now you can get the once-coveted Microsoft Basic source code...

They put up a read only GW-BASIC repository, presumably to stop a flood of feature requests for GPU acceleration...

From what we understand, GW-Basic was identical to IBM's BASICA, but didn't require certain IBM PC ROMs to operate. Of course, BASICA, itself, came from MBASIC, Microsoft's CP/M language that originated with Altair Basic... We did enjoy the 1975 copyright message, though:

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN ON THE PDP-10 FROM FEBRUARY 9 TO APRIL 9 1975

BILL GATES WROTE A LOT OF STUFF.
PAUL ALLEN WROTE A LOT OF OTHER STUFF AND FAST CODE.
MONTE DAVIDOFF WROTE THE MATH PACKAGE (F4I.MAC).
Bill Gates was 19 years old, Paul Allen was 22.

9to5Mac has learned more exclusive details about Apple's upcoming over-ear headphones, dubbed the "AirPods Studio," including specifications and settings. From the report: One of the key features of regular AirPods is ear detection, which automatically pauses the song when you take the earphones off. We've learned that AirPods Studio will have a similar feature, but it will work in a different way. Instead of ear detection, Apple is working to include sensors that can detect whether the headphones are on your head or neck. Based on this, we assume that AirPods Studio will play or pause content when they detect being placed on your head. Neck detection can be used to keep the headset turned on while the music is paused, just like when you take just one of the AirPods out of the ear.

Another new sensor will be able to detect left and right ears to automatically route the audio channels. That means there's likely no right or wrong side to use AirPods Studio, whereas current headphones have fixed left and right channels. Just like the AirPods Pro, Apple's new headphones will have Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency Mode. Users will be able to easily switch between the two modes to reduce external noise or to hear the ambient sound.

As AirPods Studio are expected to be mainly focused on professional users, pairing the earphones with a Mac or iOS device will unlock custom equalizer settings, with low, medium, and high frequency adjustments available, sources told us. According to a Bloomberg recent report, Apple's own-brand over-ear headphones will be available in at least two variations of the headphones -- one using leather fabrics and another with lighter materials to fitness use cases. Bloomberg also said Apple is testing a new modular design with exchangeable magnetic ear pads. [...] As for the price, rumors suggest that it will cost $349.

Epic Online Services is now available, giving developers free access to the same kinds of tools used to support Epic Games' massive Fortnite player base. From a report: The new suite, which went live on Wednesday, enables a unified gameplay experience across multiple platforms, including Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, PC platforms (Windows, Mac, and Linux), and Xbox. It gives developers and their communities ready access to features like cross-play, cross-progression, unified matchmaking, lobbies, and more. Support for Android and iOS platforms will be added soon. "At Epic, we believe in open, integrated platforms and in the future of gaming being a highly social and connected experience," said Chris Dyl, general manager of online services at Epic Games, in a news release. "Through Epic Online Services, we strive to help build a user-friendly ecosystem for both developers and players, where creators can benefit regardless of how they choose to build and publish their games, and where players can play games with their friends and enjoy the same quality experience regardless of the hardware they own."

Mozilla today launched Firefox 76 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 76 includes new Firefox Lockwise password functionality, Zoom improvements, and a handful of developer features. From a report: Lockwise, the password management service formerly known as Firefox Lockbox, is getting smarter. The Firefox feature already lets you generate, manage, and protect all those passwords for streaming services, grocery deliveries, and anything else that helps during the pandemic. If you share your device with family or roommates, Lockwise in Firefox 76 can now protect your saved passwords. When you try to view or copy a password from your "Logins and Passwords" page, you will be prompted for your device's account password.

[...] Firefox 76 adds support for Audio Worklets, which run custom JavaScript audio processing code for applications like VR and gaming on the web. Unlike their predecessor, ScriptProcessorNode, worklets run off the main thread in a similar way to web workers. Mozilla also notes Audio Worklets are "being adopted by some of your favorite software programs." The company specifically called out Zoom, which has become a phenomenon of its own during the pandemic. In short, you now join Zoom calls in Firefox without having to download or install the Zoom client.

Steam will no longer support SteamVR on macOS. The Verge reports: Steam introduced SteamVR for Apple computers way back in the mists of time -- 2017's Worldwide Developers Conference. As The Verge wrote then: "Valve has been working with Apple on this since last summer, which shows a high level of technical and business confidence in Apple's VR efforts." The move was announced in a short post on SteamVR's news page, laid out in a single sentence: "SteamVR has ended macOS support so our team can focus on Windows and Linux." Mac users will still have some access to the feature, however, via legacy builds. One door closes, another will surely open. Right?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: A bug has been discovered in Apple's macOS Image Capture app that needlessly eats up potentially gigabytes of storage space when transferring photos from an iPhone or iPad to a Mac. Discovered by the developers of media asset management app NeoFinder and shared in a blog post called "Another macOS bug in Image Capture," the issue occurs when Apple's Mac tool converts HEIF photos taken by iOS to more standard JPG files. This process happens when users uncheck the "Keep Originals" option in Image Capture's settings, which converts the HEIC files to JPG when copied to Mac. However, the app also inexplicably adds 1.5MBs of empty data to every single file in the process.

It's worth noting that the bug only occurs when transferring photos from Apple devices, not when importing photos from digital cameras using Image Capture. NeoFinder's team says it has notified Apple of the bug, and the developers suggest anyone plagued by the issue can try using a new beta version of the third-party utility Graphic Converter, which includes an option to remove the unwanted empty data from the JPEG files.

The popular anti-malware software MalwareBytes is releasing a new Windows VPN service called Malwarebytes Privacy. The company says it plans on offering Mac, iOS, Android, and ChromeOS versions in the future. Bleeping Computer reports: During our tests yesterday, you could select from 10 states in the USA and 30 countries around the world. [...] Malwarebytes told BleepingComputer that this is not a white-label service, but rather one they developed themselves. A trusted-third party built the network infrastructure, and Malwarebytes developers created the app and other components. Malwarebytes Privacy is using the modern WireGuard VPN implementation that was recently integrated into the Linux kernel.

Unfortunately, not much is known about Malwarebytes Privacy's logging and data retention policies. According to Malwarebytes' product page, "Malwarebytes Privacy does not log your online activities, whether it's browsing or accessing any websites." This is what most people want, but it would be good to get more specific language in a dedicated data retention policy or language in their privacy policy.