Three recent WWDC sessions extolling Apple’s “extensive reference material” and Xcode can’t find anything on these rich and extensive libraries. | Continue reading
In macOS 11.5.1, Apple has squeezed a thimbleful of a patch into a ten-gallon can of update, more than 99% of which is overhead. | Continue reading
The macOS 11.5.1 update fixes a serious vulnerability, but does it really take 2.2 GB (Intel) or 3.1 GB (M1) to fix what could only have been a few MB at most? | Continue reading
When should we expect macOS 11.6? When will Monterey be released, and when will the next Apple Silicon models be announced? Here are some wild guesses. | Continue reading
Haven’t Macs and macOS changed over the last six years? Here are fictitious diary entries to illustrate the deep-seated changes. | Continue reading
Floating point numbers are very different from integers, but are loaded and stored much the same. Conversion between registers, including to and from integers, is complex. | Continue reading
M1 Macs have an elaborate system of keys and certificates which allow the installation of second operating systems, as well as the primary OS, based on Ownership. | Continue reading
Where code can make simple selections according to a conditional test, it may be possible to eliminate branching and ensure rapid execution. | Continue reading
Many processors like the ARM64 have instructions to perform fused multiply-add operations. Do they deliver reduced error and better performance? | Continue reading
The primary admin account on an M1 Mac is its Owner, responsible for authorising the installation and use of second operating systems. Here’s what can go wrong with Ownership. | Continue reading
macOS 11.5 will be available in a few days. Should you risk upgrading? Here are some of the major issues which you need to consider when deciding and planning any upgrade. | Continue reading
Most hard disks become increasingly likely to fail after 3 years. All Time Capsules are now in that zone, and should either be replaced or have their hard disks replaced. | Continue reading
Basic integer arithmetic – add, subtract, negate, multiply, multiply-and-add, and divide – in their many variations. With some catches for those more used to high-level languages. | Continue reading
Explaining the LDR family of instructions for loading registers, MOV for moving one register to another, STR for storing to memory, and SXTx/UXTx for filling a register with smaller data types. | Continue reading
Management of kernel extensions has changed significantly in Big Sur and later. This overview for users contrasts kexts with user-level extensions which are replacing them. | Continue reading
How conditional branching can slow modern processors down badly, comparing assembly code with that generated by Apple’s Swift compiler, and some puzzles. | Continue reading
A wedding and two major commissions: a series of large wall paintings on the Life of the Virgin, and his first 9 cartoons for tapestries, on the theme of hunting. | Continue reading
Don’t use Unicode normalised Form C names for volumes in Disk Utility, as they cause havoc, and prevent Spotlight from indexing volumes. | Continue reading
How to implement conditional looping such as for and while, and how to break out of a loop. Complete with chart of four conditional idioms. | Continue reading
Forget about structured code, branching in assembly is based on GOTO with labels. Here’s how to get started, with an idiom for the switch statement in Swift. | Continue reading
Using different addressing modes and offset specifications to load and store in memory. Includes a summary of ARM64 Operand Architecture. | Continue reading
Erase your M1’s internal storage in Recovery, reinstall macOS and you could see an error in which it failed ‘to personalize the software update’. That’s not easy to fix, as … | Continue reading
Big Sur updates have far exceeded those of Mojave or Catalina, and are set to total well over 40 GB. Prospects for security updates are no better, with a high carbon footprint. | Continue reading
Types of register explained, and which are available to pass arguments of different types. Call by value and call by reference distinguished. | Continue reading
Every developer should watch the 5 videos about DocC from WWDC. But it’s really a plaintive cry for help. Until Apple squares up and addresses the problem, it can only grow worse. | Continue reading
First in a series helping you write ARM64 assembly language for M1 Macs. Provides an app within which you can call assembly routines. | Continue reading
Apple should announce macOS 12 next week, but which Mac models will support it? Look in the firmware, not the tea-leaves for this speculative list. | Continue reading
There’s 1 True Recovery, Fallback Recovery and one other recovery mode. Disambiguation, explanation and how this changed in macOS 11.4. | Continue reading
Soon after Apple started delivering M1 Macs, users found that they couldn’t boot them from external disks. Six months later, this has largely been fixed. What went wrong? | Continue reading
macOS 11.4 has finally fixed all the problems with installing current and older macOS on external disks, and booting an M1 Mac from them. | Continue reading
What are a new kernel extension and a private framework doing in macOS 11.4? Here are some details, and suggestions for further research. | Continue reading
We commonly suffer failures of the psychology of Mac performance, when system background tasks overwhelm the processor and bring the interface to a grinding halt | Continue reading
One command in Terminal which instantly disables any support, and why you can’t (yet) boot your M1 Mac in Linux. | Continue reading
By segregating macOS background tasks on Efficiency cores, M1 Macs can run user apps unfettered on their Performance cores. And that feels really fast. | Continue reading
How the M1’s asymmetric cores can run background tasks more efficiently, or deliver high performance, according to Quality of Service. | Continue reading
Has the Profiles pane recently appeared in System Preferences? Here’s why – a minor glitch in the App Store update. | Continue reading
Included in the macOS updates this week was Safari version 14.1 for Mojave and Catalina (this was also included within Big Sur 11.3 update). Apple has pulled those Safari updates today, apparently … | Continue reading
M1 Macs may be as fast as greased lightning, but how good is their numerical accuracy? Can it match that of Intel processors? | Continue reading
First there were inodes, aliases, and links. Finder aliases already use the volfs file system, but Apple wants us to switch to its opaque Bookmarks | Continue reading
An important feature for many iOS users, this has now appeared in macOS, despite not apparently being exposed to the user. Here’s what I know. | Continue reading
macOS 11.2, 11.2.1 and 11.2.2 have come in quick succession. What do they tell us about how difficult it is to update Big Sur’s sealed System volume? Is this the way to go? | Continue reading
Fast compact external SSDs are prone to thermal throttling. This is demonstrated during tests writing 96 files, when transfer rates fell from 2 GB/s to around 700 MB/s. | Continue reading
Apple has revealed the hidden Fallback Recovery OS mode available on M1 Macs. How to enter and use it, and why it’s another big plus. | Continue reading
Making an external bootable SSD for an M1 Mac has proved tricky. Has this changed in macOS 11.2? If you’ve already got 11.1 running on one, how do you update it to 11.2? | Continue reading
Not only has Apple not provided standalone updaters for macOS 11.2, or for Mojave and Catalina Security Updates 2021-001, but it has removed the Big Sur 11.1 installer. It’s just like iOS now… | Continue reading
Something wrong with the Finder or an app, and you want to trash its preferences? Don’t: macOS will defeat you. Here’s how to do that so it works. | Continue reading
Detailed account of disk, volume and folder layouts on Big Sur’s boot disks, complete with roadmaps which are downloadable as PDFs. | Continue reading
Improved tests, statistical analysis, and interface, together with a 21 page Help book detailing its range of tests in 5,000 words. Ready to use for real. | Continue reading