Scuttlebutt Regarding Apple’s Cross-Platform UI Project →

John Gruber:

I don’t have extensive details, but basically it sounds like a declarative control API. The general idea is that rather than writing classic procedural code to, say, make a button, then configure the button, then position the button inside a view, you instead declare the button and its attributes using some other form. HTML is probably the most easily understood example. In HTML you don’t procedurally create elements like paragraphs, images, and tables — you declare them with tags and attributes in markup. There’s an industry-wide trend toward declaration, perhaps best exemplified by React, that could be influencing Apple in this direction.

While it is a little disappointing that we will not be seeing this at WWDC 2018, I think this is great news.

As I outlined in my original link to Gurman’s Marzipan piece, a shared UI framework for iOS and macOS was either 1) bring UIKit as is to macOS and add in the necessary comments to run with a pointing device (safe, but boring) or 2) make a new ground-up UI framework that both platforms use (more difficult, but better long term). Gruber’s sources seem to indicate that Apple is doing the latter.

A silver lining to this being a 2019 thing instead of a 2018 thing is that it is more likely to be written in Swift instead of Objective-C, which would mean it would have a more modern API. Even though we have to wait a year longer than we thought, I am more excited about this project than I was before,


Star Wars Resistance →

Speaking of Star Wars, over at StarWars.com:

StarWars.com is thrilled to announce that production has begun on Star Wars Resistance, an exciting new animated adventure series about Kazuda Xiono, a young pilot recruited by the Resistance and tasked with a top-secret mission to spy on the growing threat of the First Order. It will premiere this fall on Disney Channel in the U.S. and thereafter, on Disney XD and around the world.

Featuring the high-flying adventure that audiences of all ages have come to expect from Star Wars, Star Wars Resistance — set in the time prior to Star Wars: The Force Awakens — will feature the beloved droid BB-8 alongside ace pilots, colorful new characters and appearances by fan favorites including Poe Dameron and Captain Phasma, voiced by actors Oscar Isaac and Gwendoline Christie, respectively.

This is the follow-on to The Clone Wars and Rebels. Dave Filoni and crew did a great job their first two series: The Clone Wars redeems the prequels and Rebels was some of the best story telling ever in the Star Wars universe. I can’t wait to see what they do this one.

The most interesting thing about it so far is the animation style: it is going to use an anime-inspired style instead of the 3D CGI of the other two used. I’m not sure if I will like that as much (the CG space scenes in Rebels looked incredible), but I like that they are trying new things.

This should fill the time waiting for the live action series nicely.







Can someone please make a Bible app that works in multitasking mode on the iPad? I really don’t want to try to write an app to just get one feature.



It is really weird to watch the Spurs play without Pop on the sideline. Even thought it wouldn’t mean much next to losing his wife, I sure hope that the Spurs are able to pull off a win tonight for him.



The Oklahoma City Thunder’s Biggest Fan Lives in Japan →

Ben Cohen for the Wall Street Journal:

Nanae Yamano, a 43-year-old stay-at-home mother in the Tokyo suburbs, was bored doing laundry one morning a few years ago when she turned on her television and found herself oddly transfixed by the NBA.

It was by pure serendipity that she tuned into this 2012 playoff game between the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder. She was not an NBA fan. In fact she knew pretty much nothing about the NBA. Which is why her attention gravitated toward the one player who was unlike anyone else on the court in such an obvious way that even she could see it. Yamano was captivated by Russell Westbrook.

“I saw Westbrook play for the first time and thought: What a weird guy,” she said through a translator recently before adding in English: “Isn’t he weird? So weird!”

He was so weird that she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about him since. Westbrook and the Thunder have become Nanae Yamano’s obsession.

This is such a cool story. I don’t know how I didn’t know about her Twitter account before, but you can bet that I’m following her now.

Even better, the NBA flew her out to OKC to watch tomorrow night’s Game 2 against Utah.



Ollie picked up a rock from our garden and threw it across the yard (not knowing he was doing anything wrong). I walked over and told him that he isn’t allowed to throw rocks.

I then picked up the rock…

…and tossed it back into our garden.

🤦‍♂️



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