WWDC 2025

[rdrr]

we really really do.

Double Yes! And I will stop buying Macs if they stop the access to the command line.

FWIW, I am a Unix Freak through and through. Two tattoos, the old Sun Microsystems logo in a band of diamonds on my arm, and a Tux tattoo above that.

 

[diamond.g]

Apple supercharges its tools and technologies for developers

Apple announced new technologies and enhancements to its developer tools to help developers create more beautiful, intelligent, and engaging apps.

www.apple.com

“Metal 4 is designed exclusively for Apple silicon, and sets the stage for the next generation of games on Apple platforms with support for advanced graphics and machine learning technologies.
Developers can now run inference networks directly in their shaders to compute lighting, materials, and geometry, enabling highly realistic visual effects for their games.”

Apple software advancements often predate their hardware development (see ray tracing). Strong implication combined with @leman’s patent snooping that Apple will be accelerating ML inference on the GPU in M5.

Is this their take on neural rendering that Nvidia showed earlier this year?

 

[dada_dave]

Is this their take on neural rendering that Nvidia showed earlier this year?

Basically, plus some other catch up that Nvidia was doing before Neural rendering (technically I think Nvidia can interpolate more frames but that comes with caveats, not everyone likes that or even frame interpolation at all, but pretty sure Nvidia is still ahead here for those that use it and like it).

 

[diamond.g]

Did Metal 3 bring their take on Reflex? I know Reflex 2 isn't out yet, but I wonder if Apple is working on their own version of it.

 

[Nycturne]

Double Yes! And I will stop buying Macs if they stop the access to the command line.

I'm increasingly in the same boat. MacOS X back in the day was huge for me in college because it meant I could finally build cross-compiling gcc toolchains for coursework without dual-booting into Yellow Dog or the like. These days it's more because I am bringing more and more services I depend on under my own control (RSS aggregation, NAS, Plex, etc), and having the command line is somewhat key in managing it all in a worst-case scenario where the VMs are accessible, but the web management side isn't.

 

[Jimmyjames]

The list of games shown is a little disappointing.

 

[Cmaier]

The list of games shown is a little disappointing.

at least they didn’t do their usual “have some developers present some games we may or may not ever see’ thing.

 

[dada_dave]

The list of games shown is a little disappointing.

Did I miss it or is the new game app not on tvOS?

 

[Jimmyjames]

Did I miss it or is the new game app not on tvOS?

Oh I’m not sure. Good question.

 

[Jimmyjames]

Thoughts

Understanding the Metal 4 core API | Apple Developer Documentation

Discover the features and functionality in the Metal 4 foundational APIs.

developer.apple.com

https://developer.apple.com/metal/Metal-Shading-Language-Specification.pdf

 

[Roller]

The self deprecating sarcasm was indeed amusing

I'll have to watch it again, but I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or saying how great it is.

 

[dada_dave]

I'll have to watch it again, but I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or saying how great it is.

Both is how I read it. Creating a really good touch-first window multitasking/pointing UI was no doubt really hard (and we’ll see how good it actually is) but also it’s reinventing the wheel to recreate what they already had on macOS. So it’s amazing and “amazing! ”

 

[leman]

Apple software advancements often predate their hardware development (see ray tracing). Strong implication combined with @leman’s patent snooping that Apple will be accelerating ML inference on the GPU in M5.

Yeah, I looked at the APIs and it is uncanny how closely they resemble what the patents talk about. E.g. hardware assisted transposes etc., full range of FP and int type etc.

Is this their take on neural rendering that Nvidia showed earlier this year?

I didn't see Apple offering any of the tooling Nvidia offers, but the Metal APIs seem rather complete. You could also use them to quickly implement a GPU-driven ML engine.

Thoughts

At the first glance Metal 4 looks conceptually much closer to DX12 (while still offering more flexibility). I would suspect that closing the compatibility gap for more efficient API emulation has been an explicit target.

That said, I am decidedly not a fan of new MTL4 prefix. That's just a confusing mess.

 

[Cmaier]

No more split view and slide over in iPadOS 26. Grown up multitasking or nothin' for you.

 

[Cmaier]

FWIW, I wouldn’t recommend installing the beta on your daily driver yet. I installed it on my backup M1 iPad Pro, and while everything seems more or less to work, performance isn’t great - a lot of stuttering, etc.

One thing I noticed is that the menu bar does come down if you swipe from the top of the touchscreen - no trackpad/mouse required.

 

[Alli]

Installing on my backup devices now. I thought about installing on my phone since I use it least of all.

 

[DT]

Installing the beta on our fridge.

I know, I know ... think of the sweet cream and cheese products!

 

[Cmaier]

The spatial photos stuff is pretty neat.

 

[theorist9]

This seems like a very functional update to iOS, including window management, multitasking, menu bars, and giving the Files app a finder-like interface with favorites.

Also includes the kind of features that I've always thought were obvious niceities, and thus couldn't understand why they weren't included earlier—surely I'm not the only one who dislikes haviing to listen to hold music for long periods of time, since it's hard to do that while focusing on other tasks. Now you can wait in silence, and the phone will notify you when someone picks up. Or maybe they did try it earlier, and couldn't get it to work reliably until now....

 

[KingOfPain]

According to ArsTechnica, Rosetta 2 will be phased out after macOS 27:

Apple details the end of Intel Mac support and a phaseout for Rosetta 2

Rosetta app translation features for Intel apps won’t stay around indefinitely.

arstechnica.com

But after that, Rosetta will be pared back and will only be available to a limited subset of apps—specifically, older games that rely on Intel-specific libraries but are no longer being actively maintained by their developers.

That's a bit of a fuzzy definition. I'm wondering what that means for CrossOver. Maybe they have to switch to FEX like Parallels did for the x86 emulation.