Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
I’ve had a pretty fun week. Our dev team is doing really great work for our client, got to hangout with my grandson at his very important preschool graduation, and I had my first physical therapy session yesterday.
Overall a darned good week! 😃
Mike Barnes • The Hollywood Reporter
Joe Don Baker, the broad-shouldered Texas tough guy who portrayed characters on both sides of the law, most notably Sheriff Buford Pusser in the unexpected box-office hit Walking Tall, died May 7, his family announced. He was 89.
I remember watching Walking Tall as a kid and thinking Sheriff Buford Pusser was a real badass. I think I’ll have to watch it again.🪦
Mike Wendling, Rajini Vaidyanathan & Paul Coletti • BBC
Microsoft founder Bill Gates said he intends to give away 99% of his vast fortune over the next 20 years.
This is really nice of him in today’s world of Oligarchs. He’d have been worth so much if he hadn’t started giving his money away. We need more kindness like this in the world.
Thank you, Mr. Gates. ❤️
Apple is trying to dissuade Europeans from using iOS apps that support alternative payment options by making them look scary.
Apple will absolutely not give up on its 15-30% cut of each app sale in the App Store.
What I really dislike about these scare tactics is how they imply that a third party purchasing system is not safe and secure. Web payment systems have been around for years and years and predate the App Store. I’d imagine there are some questionable players out there but I trust companies like Stripe and Shopify. I’m sure there are many other trustworthy companies out there.
If Apple keeps fooling around they’re gonna get some major fines in the EU.
When I started writing apps, the availability and quality of developer tools was considered to be an advantage for native development vs. the Web. These days, I still think native APIs usually lead to better apps—though there are some awful Catalyst and SwiftUI apps that would have been better as Electron—but the Web tooling has really improved. I think many would now consider it a strong advantage.
I know this article by Michael is talking about Electron but I’ve spent the last year and a half working on a project to slowly transform native iOS and Android apps into 100% React Native Apps and it’s gone really well. Same idea, different frameworks and platforms.
The start was slow and we spent the first four to six months building our bridging strategy and coding it. Once that was in place, along with React Native code to go with it, we started replacing hunks of functionality, feature by feature.
Recently a new Expo App was created and all that React Native work we started in the hybrid app has been shared via npm packages with the brand new app. It’s completely jumpstarted the new app with many features already built and tested in isolation. I’d say somewhere between 40-50% of the new app now works just by using these packages. Our networking, UI navigation, analytics, and telemetry packages were thoughtfully created to work with the native bridge code and 100% React Native code.
Anyway, I’ve written about it. Check it out if you have a minute. It’s been a really fun project.
Crypto giant Coinbase has confirmed its systems have been breached and customer data, including government-issued identity documents, were stolen.
Whoops. Will anyone ever be able to create a website and/or service that’s secure enough to not have breaches?
I’d imagine the best way to do it is not create the website or service in the first place. 😃
Warner Bros. Discovery is changing the name of its streaming service back to HBO Max. During its Upfront event on Wednesday, the company announced that it will rebrand Max this summer, a change HBO head Casey Bloys said “better represents” its offering.
I’m glad they did this. HBO has always been a place for quality series and originals. It’s a premium brand and with the addition of the Max name says “Hey, it’s the HBO you love with this other stuff we think you might enjoy.” 😆
Chiara Mooney • Microsoft React Native Blog
Let’s first talk about why Office chose to use React Native. Office has hundreds of millions of customers who expect visual consistency across desktop, mobile, and web. Currently, there are over 40 Office experiences which use React Native to build cross-platform features such as Privacy Dialog and Accessibility Assistant.
This is fascinating and weird to me all at once. Microsoft, one of the greatest software shops of all time is using React Native in Office. Yeah, you read that right, React Native in Office.
Did you know Microsoft is the primary contributor to React Native for Windows?
Can you imagine if someone did this for Mac? Oh, Microsoft did? Wait, what! I’m not sure how good this support is, but I’d love to see how it works.
It’s too bad a dyed in the wool Mac shop doesn’t take this on. Having an AppKit expert building this would make for a better framework, in my opinion. Of course Apple wouldn’t do it, but they should. I’d continue to build apps with Apple’s native tooling because I think it makes for better apps, but having something that opens the door to thousands and thousands of developers is good for the platform and might encourage more developers to create desktop apps instead of websites.
Ulrik Egede • The Conversation
While smashing lead atoms into each other at extremely high speeds in an effort to mimic the state of the universe just after the Big Bang, physicists working on the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland incidentally produced small amounts of gold. Extremely small amounts, in fact: a total of some 29 trillionths of a gram.
I wonder how much it cost to create 29 trillionths of a gram of gold from lead? 😂
It is pretty amazing. I wonder what else they’ve created in there? Hopefully not a world ending virus. 😳
Royal Enfield’s eagerly anticipated electric motorcycles, unveiled late last year under the Flying Flea brand, are now confirmed to hit the market early next year.
This is a nice looking bike. Very modern construction with the look of a bike from days long past. Not a bad option for motorcycle enthusiasts.
Microsoft is redesigning the Start menu in Windows 11 this month with a new, wider design that finally lets you disable the recommended feed of files and apps. While the new Start menu looks different to what exists in Windows 11 today, this design refresh could have looked a lot different as Microsoft has now revealed in concept images.
Finally. 👍🏼
