Acorn 8 has been released!

This is a major update of Acorn, and is currently on a time-limited sale for $19.99. It's still a one time purchase to use as long as you'd like, and as usual, the full release notes are available. I want to highlight some of my favorite things below.

"Select Subject", "Mask Subject", and "Remove Background" are new commands which use machine learning (or A.I. if you prefer) to find the most important parts of your image, and then perform their respective operations. This has been a request for a long time, and while I was doubtful of its utility, it's actually pretty fun to play with and more useful than I figured it would be. So I'm glad I took the time to integrate it.

You can now set your measurement units to inches, centimeter, or pixels, and it shows up across the tools for your image, not just specific ones. This includes the crop palette, shape dimensions, filter settings… well, pretty much everything. This might be the oldest feature request I've implemented so far. And then related to this, Acorn 8 now has an on canvas ruler which you can use to measure out distances, straighten your image with, or even redefine the DPI.

Look up Table (LUT) support. LUTs are pretty fun, and they work by mapping one set of colors to another, enabling consistent or stylized visual effects. LUTs are used primarily in photography or filmmaking, and you can download and install new LUTs from various places across the internet.

Acorn 8 has the ability to read in a CSV file and it'll dynamically swap in the row values and replace text or bitmap graphics depending on what's in the data file. It's like mail merge, but for images. This is pretty awesome if you have a bunch of templated images you want to create.

Acorn has a new "Quick Processor". It's a quick version of the Shape Processor, where you can duplicate shapes, rotate, transform, and apply other operations to them. You can even use snippets of JavaScript to perform your own magic to shapes, including modifying anchors in bezier shapes. I hope to build a little library of cool JavaScript shape filters for this in the future.

OK, now for some geeky implementation things.

OpenGL has been completely removed and Acorn is 100% Metal. This was nice to do, and I was waiting to drop support for older versions of macOS first, but I'm glad it's finally happened.

Acorn's Shortcuts support has been completely rewritten (in Swift) to use the new App Intents framework. Hopefully this puts Acorn in a good place for the future as Apple adds more Siri integration to apps. Maybe someday you'll be able to say "Open up these selected images in Acorn, crop them to 4x3, convert to PNG, save and close them". That's the dream anyway.

Acorn's internal Bézier implementation has been reworked. This was one of the first things I did, as there was a mismatch in the internal API that Acorn used and what it presented on screen. In the classic implementation of Bézier curves you have a start point, two control points (cp1 & cp2), and an end point. But that's not how anybody actually uses when it's presented on screen. On screen you generally manipulate a single anchor, which can represent both a start and end point, and the previous curve's cp2 and the next curve's cp1. Not to mention all the nuances where a shape can have multiple continous paths, or maybe the path is closed or it's still open. So I wrote a fun shim on top of the Bézier "data" which became the new interface for Acorn's canvas to manipulate anchors and such. I backed it all up with tests and this new model ended up fixing some bugs and making the implementation cleaner. It's always a good feeling when you can get something done like that, even if it doesn't really change anything that the customer can see.

And finally, Acorn's documentation has been converted from custom RTF files (and an app named "FMWrite") into Markdown, which hopefully opens up the door for more integration with templates and services. I certainly have been enjoying seeing diffs between revision commits.

Of course there's more. There's always more. Make sure to tell a friend, and even check out the full release notes.

Axios: Apple is selling Apple News ads directly for the first time.

Apple has started selling its own advertising inventory for Apple News, two sources familiar with the effort told Axios. It's pitching new ad units that it hopes will maximize revenue for itself and its publishing partners.

I've been meaning to write about this for a while now, and since this popped up on Axios, now is a good time as ever. So here are my very brief thoughts.

I really think Apple should get out of the ads business, starting with the App Store. I find it corrupting, ugly, distasteful, and most of all an anti-premium experience.

Apple has always tried to project a premium experience, and seeing ads in the App Store just smells of desperation to me. I don't understand why they would want or need them? Apple already takes a commission from apps, and seemingly makes a good amount of money doing so. Having dumb ads feels petty and continues to breed a feeling that Apple will try to make any amount of money any time they can. Can't they just sit back and make something nice without squeezing every dime out of it?

And I, along with many other people, associate ads with tracking. Why mix that in at all when the App Store already has a reputation for harboring scammy apps?

I wish they'd just stop. It's damaging to their reputation and I don't think having ads is worth whatever revenue they are generating from it.

Via Daring Fireball.

I've just pushed up Acorn 7.4.6, which is about bug fixes. Specifically Quick Look fixes for MacOS 15 Sequoia (which was kind of tricky to get done right). If you're on Sequoia, make sure to grab this version.

I've also pushed up Retrobatch 2.2, which has a new CSV Reader node. It's basically like mail merge, but for images. Need to make 150 custom invitations as JPEGs for your Grandma's 100th birthday? This is a good way to do it.

Also included in RB 2.2 is a new node called "Dynamic Image Overlay" which makes it possible to insert unique (or randomized) images for each image processed in Retrobatch. When used in conjunction with the new CSV node, you can add custom images to your birthday invitations. Full release notes for Retrobatch 2.2 are available.

And finally, Gus Mueller 50.0 was released today. Besides pushing out software updates, this updated build will be heading to the climbing gym to ascend 50 routes in a day, about 2,500ft of vertical total. We'll see if he survives or not. Version 50.00273 might regret it.

Update: 51 climbs were completed. It was a mix of lead, top rope, and auto-belay. I really wanted to throw in some hard ones, but after about 20 climbs… well the smaller holds on even the 11s were getting tough to hold on to, even though I could pull overhanging jugs just fine. So only a single 12a was done, but it was my last climb and one of the hardest.

Also a big hug and thank you to Caitlin who took time off work to belay me today. It would have been 50 super boring auto belays without you.

Stats!

5.7: 6 top rope
5.8: 6 top rope, 1 lead
5.9: 11 top rope, 1 lead
10a: 4 lead
10b: 3 top rope, 2 lead
10c: 3 top rope, 4 lead
10d: 1 top rope, 1 lead
11a: 5 top rope, 2 lead
12a: 1 top rope

My watch says I burned over 1.8k calories, in two sessions, in about a total of 4 hours. I also ate a whole Detroit style pizza and a burrito. It was a good birthday, and I didn't fall on a single route.

Ken White (aka, Popehat): And Yet It Moves:

Trump won yesterday, as I feared he would. I firmly believe America — and likely the world — will get significantly worse for at least a generation, probably more. I’ll spare you, for now, the why. Frankly, I think you either already accept it or will never accept it. The things I care about, like the rule of law and equality before it, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, free trade in service of free people, relative prosperity, protection of the weak from the strong, truth, and human dignity are all going to suffer. Bullies and their sycophants and apologists will thrive.

What should we do?

I have a few thoughts.

So I didn't see that one coming.

John Gruber has a good take over at Daring Fireball: Pixelmator Acquired by Apple; Future of Their Apps Uncertain.

Acorn and Pixelmator came out 15 days apart from each other in 2007, and the target market between the two has always overlapped. But even with that I've always been on good terms with the Pixelmator folks. Any time we were both attending WWDC, we would meet up and complain about image APIs or just chat over lunch.

The other major player in this category is Affinity, which was purchased by Canva in March of this year. So it feels strange that Acorn is now effectively the only independent Mac image editor from that era.

I have no inside information on what Apple is going to do with Pixelmator. Will it be discontinued? Will it be part of an Apple One subscription tier? Will it be part of the OS now or folded into Photos? Was this purely a talent grab?

Time will tell.

But today I woke up, and got to work on Acorn. And I'll do the same tomorrow and the day after that.

I enjoy what I work on and I plan on doing it for many years to come. And I truly value my independence. I love being able to work on what I want, and when I want to.

Good things are happening to Acorn these days. I'm wrapping up some great new features in a new release, and if you'd like to test them out, let me know.

Topping out on Flyboys, an 1800ft climb. That is not me in this photo.

This past Saturday I went up Flyboys, an 18 pitch, 1800 ft, climb in Mazama, Washington. I lead every pitch with my climbing partner Caitlin handling the belaying.

It was pretty awesome. Maybe even epic.

Flyboys has been on my todo list for a long time as it's a pretty moderate route, with easy access, and a ton of bolts. And it's super long, which is its main attraction.

We woke up at 5:30 am I was delighted to see that there was only one party ahead of us at the parking lot — I really didn't want to get stuck behind multiple slow parties. After a 30 minute approach there were at least 10 more cars in the parking lot. It was going to be a busy day here.

At 6:30 we started climbing.

A conga line of folks waiting to get on the climb.

Pitch after pitch, belay after belay, we slowly made our way up. Sadly we didn't get to go as fast as I would have liked, as the party ahead of us was having issues with the climbing (it might have been a little bit above their pay grade). But they were super nice folks so we cheered them on, sent positive vibes, and chatted quite a bit with both them and the party behind us.

Eventually however they got stuck around pitch 12 and asked for some help. We hatched a little plan where I would lead the route and then Caitlin would follow me and place a rope past the section they couldn't manage (climber speak: Caitlin put draws on bolts 3 and 4 so they were essentially on top rope through the crux). This way they could still lead most of the route, but the tricky part would be well protected and they could cheat their way through if necessary.

Side note: a lot of climbing is mental. And when you're 1000 ft above where you started and have been climbing for hours, your brain can act funky even if you're staying hydrated and eating the right food. I think this was the problem they were facing. Had this pitch been earlier I bet they could have made it.

So now we were the first party!

Myself and Caitlin somewhere up the side of a cliff.

With nobody to worry about ahead of us I could just climb as fast as I'd like and setup the belay anchors without dealing with another party, and it was just wonderful. I was all smiles.

Party #3 also skipped ahead of the previous group, and caught up with us after a bit. But it was all chill as we were mostly climbing at the same pace.

The view from the top of pitch 18 as I belayed Caitlin up.

We finished pitch 18' at 5:21pm, for a total time of 10:23:12. This was roughly double what I think we could have done — but the weather was perfect and what else were we going to do that day? Besides eat pizza, because we did do that.

Some fun Apple Watch stats:

I'm really curious what the spike at 10am was. If I do this climb again (I'm sure I will) I'll take some notes.

YouTube: 2024 Youth Regional Championships | Vertical World Climbing Team.

My fav climbing gym just put up a little video from the regional campionship they had this past weekend. It was a fun event, where my daughter got to participate and I got a chance to lead belay a bunch of the older kids.

There's a ton of work that goes into setting up all these climbing routes, and this short film only scratches the surface.

Retrobatch 2.1 is out, and it's a free update for 2.x license holders.

Here's what is new and awesome:

• A new Look up Table (LUT) node! (This is my favorite).
  The LUT node can be used to quickly and easily alter the color and tone of your images. LUTs can be used to create a wide range of effects, from subtle color adjustments to dramatic stylistic changes — it's like a pre-programmed filter, but with more flexibility and control. Use one of Retrobatch's LUT presets, or download additional LUTs that emulate film stocks, create specific moods (like warm, cool, or vintage), or simply enhance the natural colors in your image.
  You can also adjust the opacity and blending mode of the LUT. Use a grayscale LUT and then dial back the opacity to create some dramatic effects in your images. (Retrobatch Pro only)
• New "Tile Chop" node which will take an image and split it up into multiple images based on a width and height set in its properties.
• New "Camera Capture" node which uses your Mac's built in camera to take a photo (Retrobatch Pro only).
• Photos Export now has an option to export the Current, Unadjusted, or Original versions of your Photos Library images. *New "Auto Process" option in the RAW Import node. This lets you skip the fiddly options and just lets Retrobatch make the best guess at how the image should be processed.
• Two new nodes for renaming files. "File Rename" which will take one search string and replace it with another, and "Web Safe Rename" which will take a sequence of characters and then replace those with a given string. This is handy for tasks where you need to take out special characters or spaces from your images to make them easier for handling on the web.
• There's a new Advanced tab in Preferences, with some new options:
  • A new "Default Write Folder" that will be used anytime you add a Write node.
  • A "Clear JavaScript console when a workflow runs" option, which is useful for plugin authors.
  • A "Allow unknown file types" option, which can be used to load ancient file types that MacOS no longer recognizes (Pro only). Find out more about this preference if you find it intriguing.

There are additional changes and bug fixes of course. You can read all the gory details from the release notes.

You can use the Retrobatch ▸ Check for Updates… menu item to get the latest release, or if you have downloaded it via the App Store you can update it from there.

And of course, I've always got more planned so look for more fun stuff in the future.

Acorn 7.4.4 is out, and it's a free update for anyone with an Acorn 7 license.

As previously mentioned, I'm not incrementing Acorn past the 7.4 number ('74 was a good year for me). But that doesn't mean I'm not adding new features, and this release has some. Here are some highlights straight from the release notes:

• Super Resolution ML resizing. This new option in the Image ▸ Resize Image… menu item lets you increase the size of your image up to 4x using Machine Learning. Or is it AI now? I don't know and don't care, but it's pretty awesome! It packs a ton of crazy statistics and math into a simple little dropdown menu. Give it a shot for your photos, you won't be disappointed. (Super Resolution is for MacOS 12 or later only).

• Stroke Selections! Finally. You can now perform this long requested feature via the Select menu, and even works with Magic Wand selections (MacOS 11 or later only). Change your stroke size, blending, anti-alias or not, and even add a fill.

• You can now convert Magic Wand selections to shape layers. This is also super awesome! If you've got a fun outline of something that you want to convert into a shape, this is the way. (MacOS 11 or later only).

• New "Simple Film Grain" filter, which will add a grainy overlay to your image. Just like Grandpa's photos used to have.

Other Interesting things:

• The Text Palette now shows what the font looks like in the font pop-up menus.
• Holding down the backslash key ('\') will temporarily switch off any layer filters you have on selected layers.
• The tool palette will now dim tools that you can't use in modal operations (such as when cropping, scaling and rotating, and similar operations).
• Neat new trick with the Shortcuts Crop action: If you choose "Custom" as the position and put in negative values, the canvas will expand instead of shrink. A negative X value will increase the size on the left, Y on the bottom, Width on the right, and Height for the top.
• Various little improvements to the File Info window, including shortcuts (Command 1-4) to switch between the sections.
• Double clicking on a non-bézier shape with the anchor select tool will now convert it to a bézier shape (previously this only worked with the move tool (shortcut key 'v').
• A new Shortcuts action to open images in Acorn.
• Various improvements to Acorn's SVG importer.
• The AppleScript command do filter name "Your Filter Preset Name Here" will now work with filter presets as well. This is in addition to the call filter preset with name command. There is a story behind this. It isn't very good.

And of course, I have squashed some bugs as well, and you can read about those in the full release notes.

Retrobatch has been getting most of my attention lately (the upcoming 2.1 release includes LUT support!) but working on Acorn always brings joy, and I have lots more fun things planned for in the future.

Today marks the 40th anniversary since the introduction of the Macintosh. I can't let it go by without saying something. After all, my current livelihood would be impossible without it.

I've been developing apps for the Mac for most of its life now. That's crazy. And the best thing about the Mac turning 40? I can easily see it going for at least another ten. It didn't always seem that way, but MacOS is an incredibly robust OS and so many applications couldn't be possible without it. How long will it go? Everything ends at some point, but the Mac just keeps on keeping on. I'm hopeful and excited about its future.

Happy Birthday little guy.

Retrobatch 2 is out!

In case you're not aware, Retrobatch is a node based batch image processor, which means you can mix, match, and combine different operations together to make the perfect workflow. It's kind of neat. And version 2 is even neater.

Here's the quick stats for the impatient:

Retrobatch 2 requires MacOS 12 or later and it runs on Apple Silicon or Intel. It comes in 2.5 flavors:

• Retrobatch (regular): currently $19.99 one time fee. Comes with all 2.x upgrades.
• Retrobatch Pro: currently a $39.99 one time fee (or $24.99 if you're upgrading from 1.x). Also comes with all 2.x upgrades. It has more "Pro" features (aka, wacky things with color profiles, JavaScript, and more).
• Retrobatch Pro (App Store): $24.99 a year with a free 7 day trial. It also has some features missing because of App Store restrictions - but that may not matter to you.

This is the first time Retrobatch has been on the App Store, so this is … slightly exciting? We'll see what happens. It's also nice being able to offer upgrade pricing on my own store again without feeling like I'm penalizing App Store folks.

Gus's Favorite New Features

The full release notes are available, but here's what I think are the coolest features:

• Command Bar: This is just like the Command Bar in Acorn, but I find it way more useful in Retrobatch for adding new nodes to the canvas. I no longer search through the little catalog - I just type and press enter.
• Dark Mode: It's nice? And it's about time it showed up?
• Larger Previews: The new way to view large previews is super easy. Select a node(s), hit the spacebar. A sheet comes up with node properties on the left, and a large preview on the right. It's a great way to dial in node properties.
• Super Resolution ML Scaling node: Retrobatch has a node which uses the Beby-GAN model to do 4x scaling of your images. This was a fun little project because the original model I used was over 60MB, but using Apple's coremltools I was able to quantize it down to just under 17MB. Machine learning models are awesome, but they can be pretty big. And going from a 32 bit model down to 8 bits didn't seem to impact the fidelity of what was generated.
• Photos Export node: This node replaces the previous "Image Library" node because of deprecations by Apple (they want me to stop using older APIs). This new node is more refined and lets you export your photos from your Photos library, and even download full resolution images from iCloud. I have a couple of interesting samples in the documentation on how to use it:
  • Export RAW Images From Photos and Import to New Album as HEIC, which does what it sounds like.
  • Export Photos To Multiple Folders With Size Limit, which will pull out photos and sort them into multiple folders based on how big the folder is getting. In the sample, the folders made will never exceed 10MB. It was inspired by an ATP episode where Marco Arment wanted to write his photos library to optical disks.
• Acorn Maker node: It makes native layered Acorn images. Combine that with the updated screenshot node and you can make layered screenshots straight from Retrobatch.
• Shortcuts Support: It's a simple implementation which lets you run workflows with gathered images, but since Shortcuts has system wide support, you can now make a workflow and run it straight from the Finder's Quick Actions menu.

Updated Documentation

The new documentation has more samples than ever. There are so many things you can do with Retrobatch, and I really need to start showing those things off.

I've also started a little "Technotes" section where I hope to expand on little things in Retrobatch which are important to know about, but don't necessarily fit in the greater documentation.

Retrobatch is obviously not Flying Meat's most important app (Acorn would fill that role), but I really do like working on it and there's a bunch more ideas that I want to implement. I feel like Retrobatch is an app that the Mac needs, and it makes me incredibly happy to read all the nice letters I get from folks when they figure out how to use it in their daily work.

Five years after Retrobatch 1 shipped, I'm happy to see version 2 out in the world. And I can't wait to see what folks are going to do with it.

five watt world has a great 18 minute video on the history of Fender guitars made in Japan : Fender Japan: A Short History

One of my favorite guitars, a '62 Stratocaster reissue, was made in Japan. It's always been exceptionally good for what I paid for it, and I can still remember the first time I plugged it into an amp and played it. There was just something special about it, and I couldn't believe someone would have traded it in (I got it used, and made an even trade with a more expensive guitar for the swap. I just had to have it).

Years after I acquired the strat (and decades ago at this point), I was reading an article about older Japanese reissue strats, and that some folks were trying to pass them off as original 60's. There was really only one external sign on the guitar that gave it away - which was a "Made in Japan" sticker under the finish at the heal of the neck. Apparently people would try and remove it, but it was placed under the finish so it was impossible to remove without damaging the guitar.

I walked over to my guitar, flipped it over, and saw right away that someone had tried to scratch off the "Made in Japan" sticker. It made me laugh.

Sadly the neck warped sideways a number of years ago, so it's no longer "original". I've since put on a matching neck and still play it all the time.

Herman Martinus: How I stay motivated as a solo-creator:

When you're working solo, however, there isn't a specific thing you have to do. No pre-set route to take. If I decide to not do any work today, no-one will notice. But if I continue doing so for too many days things start falling apart. Slowly at first, then rapidly, until everything I've built comes toppling down around me.

What Martinus describes in his post isn't too far off from my day to day routine.

Acorn 7.4.3 is out, and it's a free update for anyone with an Acorn 7 license.

This release is mostly about bug fixes, but I snuck in a couple of little things, one of which has been asked for a bunch of times over the years: the ability to know the number of pixels you've got in a selection. The count shows up in the Selection palette right below the width and height fields.

There's also a new "New Auto Level / Straighten" command, layered screenshot improvements, and a couple more things. You can read the gory details in the full release notes.

One more super geeky thing I've added is a JavaScript Console:

This tool is really meant for folks developing plugins in Acorn, and it is only accessible from the Command Bar, but a part of me absolutely loves pointing out little things like this. I was just chatting with Brent Simmons the other day at Xcoders how you can't really spelunk in apps any more because of all the restrictions that are (justifiably) put on recent MacOS releases. While a console isn't exactly a spelunking tool, I still think it's kind of cool and fun and maybe someone will discover it accidently and that will inspire them to do stupid and entertaining things like we used to do back in the 10.x days.

Anyway, here's a picture of some groovy flowers out of the 1970s, because I'm still stuck on the ’74 theme for recent Acorn releases.