Apple reports fiscal Q4 2023 results

Apple reports fiscal results for Q4 2023. Services revenue are reaching all-time high and iPhone sales are up 3% year-over-year.

However, Mac sales are down 34% year-over-year. Apple expects Mac sales to catch up in holiday season.

Tim Cook highlighted that Apple makes investments in generative AI tools. Also, he describes Apple Vision Pro purchase process as something which will have better experience with visit to Apple Store (while it will be available online).

Apple Newsroom: Apple reports fourth quarter results

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Bitwarden releases developer survey results on generative AI and other topics

Bitwarden shared a report on developer practices in relation to security.

Notable findings include:

  • Around 25% of developers pass sensitive information into AI tools, which includes passwords, financial details, customer information, IP, even SSNs;
  • And yet, more than 90% of developers pass annual security trainings;
  • Passkeys are widely praised by developers, 68% already use passkeys.

Report shows that generative AI tools are getting much more attention from developers; developers also understand potential security threats of using AI.

Passkeys use could decrease password leakage probability, and development community overall starts gradually adopt this technology.

Bitwarden: Decoding tomorrow: Developer secrets, security and the future of passkeys

Reference: Bitwarden releases new developer survey on generative AI, passkeys, and more

Mojo programming language is now available on macOS

Performance oriented Python-like language is now available on Mac platform. Primary use case for Mojo is ML/AI developments, but it could be used as a substitute for Python in other areas too.

Toolchain could be installed using Homebrew.

Modular Blog: Mojo🔥 is now available on Mac

GitHub: mojo

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Hugging Face releases tools allowing running LLMs on devices

Hugging Face releases Swift Transformers – package to implement transformers APIs in Swift.

Overall, couple of products were released and updated:

  • swift-transformers, an in-development Swift package to implement a transformers-like API in Swift focused on text generation. It is an evolution of swift-coreml-transformers with broader goals: Hub integration, arbitrary tokenizer support, and pluggable models.
  • swift-chat, a simple app demonstrating how to use the package.
  • An updated version of exporters, a Core ML conversion package for transformers models.
  • An updated version of transformers-to-coreml, a no-code Core ML conversion tool built on exporters.
  • Some converted models, such as Llama 2 7B or Falcon 7B, ready for use with these text generation tools.

Package currently supports following models:

  • Llama 2;
  • Falcon;
  • StarCoder models, based on a variant of the GPT architecture;
  • GPT family, including GPT2, distilgpt, GPT-NeoX, GPT-J.

As of now package is in active development. It is not expected to be used in production projects without appropriate testing.

GitHub:

Hugging Face: Releasing Swift Transformers: Run On-Device LLMs in Apple Devices

Weekend good reads for Apple developers #2023/30

July is almost over, we've got second beta for visionOS and here comes the weekend. Let's spend it reading some interesting topics for developers.

And that is a wrap, come back in August for more.

Couple of notable features announced during Keynote and Platform State of the Union

First day of WWDC23 was packed with announcements. Here is a list of announcements captured by media.

Optic ID

Apple Vision Pro will have its own biometric authentication based on iris. iOS and iPadOS apps running on headset which use Face ID or Touch ID for authentication will automatically switch to Optic ID for seamless experience.

Siri

Siri now drops "Hey" part of activation phrase. Moreover, you can now do follow-up requests to speed up interaction.

Vision Pro

Apple to provide developers with Development Kit later this year.

Headset will have support for prescription lenses, not all prescriptions will be supported though.

Safari

Safari gains extensive support for web apps in macOS 14 Sonoma. Safari also brings support for spatial computing with <model> tag providing easy way of displaying 3D content alongside with web page.

Health

Follow up notifications to take medications are added. Mental health and vision control features are also built in. Device will now notify users if they're holding device too close to their face.

Various enhancements

  • Autocorrect and predictive text were significantly improved in iOS/iPadOS 17.
  • iPadOS 17 adds support to external webcams, not just those which are embedded into display.
  • AirTags now could be shared between multiple users.
  • Used SMS verification codes could be automatically removed.
  • App Store Review Guidelines now target fake and "bad" apps.
  • Optimized charging comes to more Apple Watch models.
  • Developers without paid membership now could install developer betas.
  • Stickers in Messages now could be created from photos.
  • Video conferencing features with presenter overlay would be available to different applications.
  • iOS Photos will recognize pets.

Apple Newsroom: Apple previews new features coming to Apple services this fall

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Weekend good reads for Apple developers #2023/22

Okay, I get it, it's weekend before the show. But why would you drop your routine? Let's go through some great technical and one fun article.

And, as promised, fun one – refresh your Apple history knowledge with WWDC 2023: The Pregame Quiz by Jordan Morgan.

Get ready for WWDC23 – next week will be definitely packed with new stuff we'll be learning the whole summer!

Weekend good reads for Apple developers #2023/18

It is May already. In just a month WWDC23 will give us tons of things to watch, to read and to try. And today we'll go through something interesting too.

And that is it for today. Have a great weekend, have some time for self-education. And we'll be counting days til WWDC :) See you next week!

Setapp report provides insights on developers in 2023

Setapp conducted Mac Developer Survey recently and now shares the results.

Notable findings are reported by 9To5Mac:

  • 60% of the surveyed Mac developers are interested in distributing their iOS apps through third-party app stores, given the opportunity. Key motivations — growing the number of users and adding a revenue stream.
  • Almost 1⁄3 of the surveyed Mac developers distribute their apps solely outside the Mac App Store.
  • 39% of respondents have already implemented ChatGPT in their development flow, while another 41% are working on that.
  • 44% of respondents have already implemented AI/ML models in their apps, and 28% are working on it.
  • 87% of developers put effort into making their apps accessible, with visual impairments getting the most focus.
  • 75% of the surveyed Mac developers have felt the impact of the economic downturn on their businesses.

Setapp: Mac Developer Survey 2023

Reference: Setapp Dev Survey results: Third-party iOS app store interest measured, ChatGPT adoption, more

Weekend good reads for Apple developers #2023/11

It's middle of March, summer is closer and closer. We've got eleventh pack of great articles for this year.

And that is it for today. Have a great spring weekend!