Apple's Craig Federighi dishes on Swift in open source

Apple's SVP for Software Engineering Craig Federighi - Photo By Gadjo C. Sevilla

Apple's Senior Vice President for Software Engineering Craig Federighi was a guest on John Gruber's The Talk Show podcast recently and gave some insights on Swift in open source. Swift is Apple's unified programming language which it hopes developers will shift to from Objective C. Apple released Swift into open source recently hoping to make it widely available to all developers. 

Federighi said that Swift is the most popular language on Github, which is a widely used repository for open source programming and resources.  Expected to be the major language for the next 20 years and the lynchpin of Apple's various OS ecosystems, Swift is now also available for Linux where it can be used on servers. 

 "I think our team is a really seasoned team in the world of developing languages and we know that a language really can’t be developed in a vacuum," Federighi noted. "The first step is you have to crystallize your basic ideas and have a starting point. But we knew we needed feedback then to work toward the language that ultimately Swift has become and will become in the future." For more information on Swift, check this link.

Source: Daring Fireball

Apple Music support rolling out to Sonos users signed up to beta program today

Owners of Sonos speaker systems who are also Apple Music subscribers (and who signed up for the beta earlier this month) will start receiving the long awaited ability to stream Apple Music via Wi-Fi directly to their speakers. The feature, for those who have it, will be available in the Sonos Controller App and is slated for wider release earlier next year. 

Source: 9to5Mac

Today is the last day to order photo books from Apple to receive by Dec 24

Timeless memories, epic captures and even funny snapshots tend to stay trapped in people's phones when they could really be enjoyed as an impressive printed card or photo book. iPhone users have until today (December 15) to make and order photo books using the Photos App in order to get them by December 24 via standard shipping. These photo books come in a variety of sizes and prizes and solve the problem of finding the right gift for people who have it all.

Source: Apple

Juniper Research: Robots to reside in more than 1 in 10 American households by 2020

New data from Juniper Research has forecast that over 1 in 10 American households will own a consumer robot by the end of the decade, up from under 1 in 25 this year. At this early stage in the market, shipments are expected to be dominated by so-called ‘task’ oriented robots assigned to take over household chores, such as lawn mowing or vacuum cleaning. 

Devices such as iRobot’s Roomba and Droplet Robotics’ Sprinkler offer tremendous ‘fire and forget’ type convenience for consumers, and despite obvious design compromises, are likely to usher in a new era of housekeeping.

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