How MacPaw’s Ukrainian developers reacted to Apple’s WWDC
We pray for an end to conflict in Ukraine.
I contacted MacPaw founder, Oleksandr Kosovan, to discover how Ukraine’s resolute Apple developer community reacted to Apple’s announcements at WWDC. As we know, Apple announced new operating systems for iPad, iPhone, Mac, Watch, new M2 Macs and a range of interesting developer technologies at its show.
Ukraine’s Apple-focused developers
MacPaw is a software company based in Kyiv, Ukraine. It develops and distributes software for macOS and iOS, including CleanMyMac, Setapp, and Setapp for Teams.
The company’s products have 30 million users worldwide –indeed, (and this is quite a statistic), one in five of the world’s actively used Macs have at least one MacPaw app installed. The company is proud to be based in Ukraine.
The company’s developers also usually have a great deal of interesting insight to share whenever Apple introduces new products, so I thought it would be of interest to see what they had to say following Apple’s introductions at WWDC 2022.
What follows is a verbatim, very lightly edited of what they thought.
With support to the people of Ukraine.
[Also read: MacPaw launches foundation to support Ukraine]
This is what they had to say:
On iOS 16 & watchOS 9
Sergii Kryvoblotskyi, Technological R&D Lead at MacPaw
“Apple did a great focus on iOS this time and what we see is that iOS now somewhat resembles the watchOS. It reminds me of the «iOSafication» they used in Macs.
At one point iOS became more innovative, compared to other platforms, and some of its successful features Apple transferred to Mac. Now the same story repeats with watchOS and iOS, while watchOS features work great, they transfer them to iOS.
For example, for the interactive screens, Apple took all the best from watch faces and implemented it in iOS, bringing the concept of the new screen for the iPhone. Before, you had to change your smartphones, but now you can change the screen instead and fully customize it to your personal needs.”
On macOS Ventura
Anastasiia Satarenko, Product Designer, Technological R&D Service at MacPaw
“Apple made an interesting addition to macOS: Stage Manager. Previously, users had multiple desktops that they could open in the mission control. Now, thanks to Stage Manager, we can have everything on the left side of the screen and work with one or two windows or a group of windows. It seems that Apple is further developing the concept of focus, doing everything to ensure that the user is not distracted. The same tools are available for the iPad and iPhone.”
Sergii Kryvoblotskyi, Technological R&D Lead at MacPaw
“Content sharing and collaboration options got big attention at WWDC. Along with SharePlay updates, Apple has introduced a new “Shared with You” framework that brings your app’s collaboration experiences into Messages and FaceTime.
“In other words, developers get an API that enables them to add collaboration functionality with almost no hassle. Today, in the era of online experiences, the pandemic has taught us how to make decisions in Zoom, brainstorm in Miro, and create prototypes in Figma. So, it looks like Apple has created an easy-to-go API for the developers to create the same class of experiences, and we should expect more and more apps in this area.”
Serhii Popov, Software Engineer at Setapp
“macOS Ventura doesn’t have any radical changes, though it has many great improvements. “The biggest update is Stage Manager, which is a much anticipated update for Mission Control and Exposé. Apple seems to use the same mechanism from the Safari Tab Groups (which were presented last year). Passkeys is a great feature that can finally make securing your accounts as easy as pie. And the great thing about it is that one can use it even on other platforms using your Apple device with keychain access.”
“Mail app has also been improved: send later, reminders tend to help more users finally achieve inbox zero. Search has also been improved and now supports searching by synonyms.
“And that’s not the only search that has been tweaked – Spotlight search has also been empowered and now can show you richer results, search through the Internet and ultimately search through text on images! Video quality on your video calls is going to become much better—you can now use your iPhone’s rear camera seamlessly with your Mac. And yes, it comes with studio light effects, previously available only in the iOS Camera app! Moreover, on supported models, you can simultaneously cast two video streams: from the main camera and the ultra-wide camera which records your physical desktop (a great thing for tutorials and user interviews).”
On iPadOS 16
Yuriy Fedorenko, Senior Software Engineer at MacPaw
“The newly announced updates will allow developers to create more powerful apps for iPads. They also move iPads closer to desktop systems. Swap files will make it possible to use more advanced apps on iPads, driving more great opportunities for both developers and users.
“During the last years, Apple has been successively moving towards the unifying and merging of different platforms. It’s a promising business opportunity for developers who want to create big apps for iPads.
“Along with that, new updates also make the UI more complicated. Yet Apple made the iPad UI look more like a desktop, but more desktop opportunities aren’t there. However, the question here is whether advanced Apple users were waiting for these updates on iPads? There might be a risk that users didn’t need such enhancements. As an iPad user, I like the iPad for being simple. So, I hope that Apple will save the opportunity to keep it simple in the future.
“Users often buy Mac computers to work on specific tasks. Even though the iPad is moving toward desktop apps, the ability to accomplish those tasks on iPads hasn’t arrived yet. As of now, developers got an opportunity to create programs that will allow users to do that, but there is still work to do. New iPad updates remove limits to creating programs for more specific and complicated tasks. Engineers who use a new approach to developing programs will be able to move their apps to iPads as well. So theoretically, the new interface may lead to fewer people buying Macs in the future, but we need time to see how it goes in practice.
Now, iPad says that it can be more like a desktop, but such a shift towards a desktop may also affect the iPad’s work, for example, the battery consumption. It’s interesting how Apple will cope with this.”
Mariia Holubieva, Senior Software Engineer at CleanMyMac X Team, MacPaw
“Is there a chance that one day iPad will replace Mac? I don’t think so. However, it may become a number-one device for users who use Mac for basic tasks, like browsing. To meet those needs I don’t see the point of buying a Mac now, because iPads cost less, weigh less, and are generally more portable, convenient and fully capable of dealing with even intermediate tasks.
“More advanced users will most probably continue using it as a secondary device, still preferring Mac for dealing with more complicated stuff, like programming. Even with the new Swift Playgrounds, I wouldn’t use it for work. I see it as an opportunity for beginners to learn programming.”
On the M2 Apple Silicon chip
Yuriy Fedorenko, Senior Software Engineer at MacPaw
“Apple has announced a new generation of M-series chips. While the release of M1 and M1 Pro processors was a revolution, I see the new M2 just as a minor update of an M1. Clearly, it cannot compete with the M1 Pro now, so the laptops running on M1 Pro didn’t turn into a pumpkin yet.”
On security
Sergii Kryvoblotskyi, Technological R&D Lead at MacPaw
“Perhaps the most exciting update of WWDC22 is the Passkeys Support which continues the passwordless revolution. Passwords proved their inefficiency – they can be guessed, cracked, phished, intercepted, or simply forgotten by the owner. Meanwhile, none of that is possible with biometric data. Thus, the ecosystem has become even safer.
“And not just the Apple ecosystem: Apple, Microsoft and Google are moving towards the FIDO standard. And soon the tech world will likely witness wider adoption of passwordless sign‑in. As a result, biometric data will allow users to have access to all their online life from any device.”
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