Apple is fixing one of the biggest annoyances of Apple Maps on iOS 17. You can finally download maps for offline use, complete with turn-by-turn directions.
Google Maps has long offered the ability to download maps for offline use. This allows you to use the app for navigation even when not in network range.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+’s farcical neo-noir High Desert gets tied up this week as Peggy accidentally finds herself at the business end of some dangerous people’s guns. Guru Bob is kidnapped and tormented for his role in selling art forgeries to bad people, while Peggy’s quest to find Bob’s wife lands her in hot water with the Gatchi family.
The episode, entitled “A Nod Is Not a Hello,” is a raucous and funny time, even as the stakes climb higher by the minute
A stealth announcement at WWDC23 is that Apple has significantly lowered the barrier of entry to port PC games to the Mac. A new Game Porting Toolkit “provides an emulation environment to run your existing, unmodified Windows game,” says Aiswariya Sreenivassan — a GPU, graphics and displays software engineer at Apple.
It’s a big gap to clear, which is why the Mac has been left behind in recent years. PC games are compiled for the Intel x86 architecture that the Mac just finished moving away from. The unified Apple silicon architecture bears little resemblance to the standard gaming PC with discrete graphics cards and memory. Apple’s Metal 3 library is very different from DirectX, Unity, Unreal and Vulkan — the usual suspects across the computing pond.
Apple’s new tools could open the floodgates for Mac ports of popular PC games. According to a game engine programmer I spoke with, the Game Porting Toolkit demo is “really impressive.” If the tools work as well in practice as in Apple’s demo, they “would be incredibly useful,” said the developer, who works for a major game developer and asked to remain anonymous.
Making regular, reoccurring payments will soon be a feature of Apple Cash. This will make the payment system useful for rent or allowances or other financial transactions that happen each week or month.
Plus, the system will be able to automatically bring in more money when needed.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ comedy Platonic finds Will and Charlie stepping outside of their comfort zones this week, at a greater cost than either imagined.
The show, about two adult friends who try to reclaim their nonsexual friendship at the start of their middle age, finds them Charlie’s wife Sylvia all keeping secrets from each other — a sure sign that everything’s going according to plan, right?
Entitled “My Wife’s Boyfriend,” it’s a surprisingly effective episode, despite all the comic games that come out of left field.
A dozen “best-in-class” apps and games took honors in the Apple Design Awards Monday at WWDC23. Winning development teams hailed from around the world, delivering innovative apps with great design, Apple said.
“Apps and games are integral to how we live, work, and play. At Apple, we love to recognize outstanding developers whose apps reflect incredible creativity and design excellence,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations.
Just a day after Apple unveiled its Vision Pro AR/VR headset at WWDC23, news came along Tuesday that the company acquired Los Angeles-based AR headset startup Mira.
Mira makes headsets for other companies — notably Super Nintendo World theme parks — and holds contracts with the U.S. military.
Apple has made its OS developer beta builds free to download. You can now enroll in the Apple Developer Program for free.
This will allow you to download the latest iOS, iPadOS, or macOS beta for free. Previously, Apple made the download available for developers who paid the yearly $99 subscription fees.
It’s barely summer and Apple is already thinking about heading back to school in the fall. But at least it’s offering students a $150 gift card with a qualifying Mac purchase, and a $100 gift card with a qualifying iPad purchase.
That’s on top of educational pricing for these computers. And a deal on AppleCare+.
During their WWDC23 keynote, along side the introduction of iOS 17, Apple also previewed their new Journaling app. In line with previous rumors and expectations, the app is designed to make it simple to quickly capture a wide range of aspects about your day.