iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

Cartoon from the latest Private Eye, with a different perspective on the whole thing…

child: “What’s AI daddy”
parent: “it’s god’s way of making more plumbers”

Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026

Is there a setting that tells the login screen to use 24-hour time. Everywhere else on the mac is set to do it, but I’ve just noticed that on golden gate at least, it’s refusing!

Photo of login screen showing 4.42 in the afternoon instead of 16.42

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2026

I may have adjusted my agents.md file to make it sound a bit more... like me…? 🤔

Text from the agent:

"Quite right—I inverted your meaning. If that guard succeeds, the button exists and the manager has configured it. My “created too early” diagnosis was bollocks.”

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 14/08/2026

Why just until Xcode restarts? Infuriating…

Dialog saying:

Allow “Codex” to access Xcode?

The agent wants to use Xcode’s tools to perform actions like building, testing, or modifying code.

Path: /Applications/ChatGPT.app/Contents/Resources/codex
PID: 80168
Signed by: OpenAI

[x] Don’t ask again for this agent binary until Xcode restarts

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 23/07/2026

It’s easy to get hung up on the notion of coding agents writing code, and overlook the drudge work they can take away from you. Even if it never wrote I line of Swift, I'd find it useful having a helper that comprehends git and can manipulate Github pull […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

Transcript of codex helping me make a Github PR and release.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2026

This is so dumb… Tapping "Show More” reveals the *one* extra source… 🤦‍♂️ #itjustborks

Audio output dialog on an iPhone showing “iPhone”, “Living Room” and “Show More” - with a lot of space underneath it for other options.

Audio output dialog on an iPhone after tapping the “Show More” button - now showing “iPhone”, “Living Room” and “Kitchen Speakers”.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 19/05/2026

This UI always confuses me. It feels like there ought to be a single button somewhere, saying “submit and review all of these together”. There isn't, though. So what exactly is the point?

App Store Connect UI showing draft submissions for iOS, macOS and tvOS.

Seems like there should be a “Submit All” button, but there isn’t.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 30/04/2026

This sort of thing is a PITA - so much noise: Part of it is because I have multiple accounts getting the notifications. That's on me (although there are also reasons I have it set up that way). The rest though is just a really clunky process, which feels […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

12 emails, caused by me uploading a new build to App Store Connect, for TestFlight testing, on three platforms.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 24/04/2026

This warning is one of those pebble-in-the-shoe things that really irritates me. It's caused by enabling the Thread Sanitizer, and it's been in XCode for a long time. "It's harmless”, I hear you say, “just ignore it.” Well no. It may be harmless, but […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 24/04/2026

If nothing else, ActionStatus on tvOS gives you something to do with that old TV/monitor…

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 18/04/2026

In today’s episode of “Oh Apple!” I have a choice of a grand total of two remote speakers (plus the phone). And yet… #itjustborks

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 09/04/2026

I can never, ever, remember which devices are the right size for the default app store screenshots. This is such a painful process, which could be made so much easier by Apple with relatively little work, but be that as it may, I hit upon a cunning plan […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

Xcode simulators list, with two custom devices added at the top, labelled “Screenshots (iPad)” and “Screenshots (iPhone)”.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 02/04/2026

Sometime recently (26.4?), all of the things seem to want permission to find devices on local networks. Including things I made, and which do not, to my knowledge, need to find devices on local networks. What gives? I presume something like CloudKit usage […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

A system dialog that is asking me to allow “Action Status” to find devices on local networks.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 06/03/2026

This is the sort of thing that AI is definitely good for. I knew exactly what I needed to do, and could have plodded through it, but…

Detailed instructions telling the AI to turn a bunch of local Swift packages into submodules.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 01/03/2026

Sitting on my couch, I happened to glance over my shoulder, and think - oh yeah, CDs, I remember them.

Shelves with some of my old CD collection on them.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 25/02/2026

ReportCrash seems to be permanently running on my machine. I'm fairly sure that this is an Xcode-related issue that's been going on for a good while. I wonder how much bandwidth and energy this is wasting, world-wide.

Activity Monitor screen grab showing ReportCrash with a high CPU usage.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 28/01/2026

Accidentally ran the swift format formatter on a markdown file in Xcode. This is the result. No hotkey support for cancelling the modal dialog, and the button is off the screen, so my only resort is to force-quit. Nicely done Xcode… 🤦‍♂️

Stupidly long modal error dialog, that doesn’t fit on the screen vertically.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 20/01/2026

Even if you never use an agent to write a line of code, being able to say this: "Add an extended doc comment to the TipJarModel class, describing how it works, how it uses its TipJarStoreProtocol, how it interacts with the SwiftData model, and how it […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

A long, nicely formatted comment, that an agent wrote for me.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 20/01/2026

I guess my main question, at this point, is whether the app store reviewers can cope with this level of whimsy?

A somewhat whimsical in-app tip jar purchase screen. Mostly talks about hamsters.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 15/01/2026

All this hoo-ha about the UI is fair enough, but we also need to talk about the slow decline in version number standards... 😂

A screenshot of Xcode’s predictive code completion model version numbers, which are composed of five (potentially long) strings of decimal digits separated by periods - e.g. 32025010.20251009.91600.100.1651.

There’s clearly a date component in there, and probably some other meaningful information, but they are fairly unparseable by humans and do not really serve any useful purpose that a hash or sequentially increasing number wouldn’t do better.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 08/12/2025

I mean... I wouldn't mind... but the preview in this case is: #Preview { Text(“test”) }

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 08/12/2025

Bit the bullet and switched away from Catalyst for the macOS build of my SwiftUI app. I'm not getting ToolbarItem errors any more, but now I’m getting this 🤦. I do appreciate the complexity inherent in making SwiftUI work on top of AppKit and UIKit, but […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

Error message:

It's not legal to call -layoutSubtreeIfNeeded on a view which is already being laid out. If you are implementing the view's -layout method, you can call -[super layout] instead. Break on void _NSDetectedLayoutRecursion(void) to debug. This will be logged only once. This may break in the future.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 05/12/2025

When my Catalyst SwiftUI app wakes from sleep (or maybe just display sleep?), it crashes. The stack suggests that it’s crashing inside NSToolbarItemGroupView code. There is some log output, but it's cryptic, and the internet hive-mind seems to be as […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

A screen grab of lots of cryptic and unhelpful console output from Xcode.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 05/12/2025

It's the hope that kills you. I keep getting annoying console log like the attached screenshot. No explanation, no indication of which SwiftUI view is causing it. It's a toolbar item with keyboard placement, but I don't really have an explanation as to why […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

Invalid frame dimension (negative or non-finite).
Type: Fault | Timestamp: 2025-12-05 11:20:22.315336Z | Process: The Stack | Library: SwiftUICore | Subsystem: com.apple.runtime-issues | Category: SwiftUI | TID: 0xfa601

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 03/12/2025

Another bit of bad UI from Spotlight in Tahoe. That moment where the "Safari", “Music” etc buttons appear, and the search results move down. It changes the positions of the hit targets of the results, often when my muscles have already committed to a click […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 02/12/2025

It's the little things… If I search in Spotlight and it finds an app, and the settings for an app, which one do I probably want? 🤦‍♂️

Search results from a Spotlight search for “Home”.

The Home settings pane is above the Home app itself in the results, which is unlikely to be the right order.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 06/11/2025

Consistency Apple, consistency… If the rule is "An extension’s icon must be the same as the app icon of its containing app.” then for heaven's sake, don't make us embed an icon file, just use the icon from the app automatically. Which iOS share extensions […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

An excerpt from Apple’s documentation about icons for extensions.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 30/10/2025

This error makes me sad. The CommandWithUI protocol includes the line: var icon: Icon { get } I would have hoped that because DeleteBackupItemsCommand conforms to CommandWithUI, when I declare an icon property, it would be able to infer that it's an Icon […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

An Xcode error:

"Reference to member 'deleteIcon' cannot be resolved without a contextual type”

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 23/10/2025

In theory, Previews are great. In theory.

Error stating that the WidgetExtension I’m previewing may have crashed.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 22/10/2025

Yay for clear, verbose error messages. (WTF?)

Failed to load widget. The operation couldn’t be completed. (WidgetKit_Simulator.WidgetDocument.Error error 5.)

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 21/10/2025

It would be fair to say that this console output is getting on my nerves. It is coming from SwiftUI/UIKit/AppKit when running a Catalyst app. It may well be my fault. I cannot find any documentation suggesting what is causing it, or how to fix it. I […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

some console log:

NSToolbarItemGroup 0xa45eee6c0 does not support selectionMode. Create the group with one of the class constructors to support selection.
cannot add handler to 4 from 1 - dropping
cannot add handler to 3 from 1 - dropping
Unable to obtain a task name port right for pid 417: (os/kern) failure (0x5)
cannot add handler to 4 from 1 - dropping
cannot add handler to 3 from 1 - dropping
etc…

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 17/10/2025

In other news, has there ever been a worse, more annoying system icon than the new Tahoe disk? What the hell were they thinking? I've seen prehistoric cave paintings with a better grasp of perspective.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2025

DisplayRepresentation wants me to give it an image created using a string literal for systemName. I understand why. However, I've got a bunch of static constants defined in an extension on String that I use to stay DRY. They allow me to specify the icons I'm […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

An error from Xcode saying that case items is not statically extractable.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2025

One of life's great mysteries... In Mail.app, why can I filter on “Sender is member of group”, but not “Any recipient is member of group”? Or am I missing something?

Screenshot of the filter options for smart mailboxes in Mail.app

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2025

When you are the Christmas marketing department, every day is @Migueldeicaza day! 🎄

Santa and two “elves”, running down Regents Street in London.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2025

I don't understand the new Build Uploads section on the app store portal - it makes no sense. All those builds “Awaiting Upload" are old and have been superseded. There seems to be no way to remove them.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2025

Once again, I have clearly offended the scrabble gods.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2025

Enshittification in action. Apple’s own Health app is trying to sell me other apps. WTF?

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 03/09/2025

An annoyance in Tahoe… in Spotlight it no longer shows the path to applications that show up in the search, which means that I can no longer tell the difference between my Testflight build of The Stack and the xcode builds. 😢 I wonder if there's a setting somewhere…

Three search results in Spotlight for the different versions of the same application. I can’t tell them apart as no path is shown.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 29/08/2025

Do we really think that it's a good idea to place these two menu items right next to each other? Asking for a fat-fingered friend who just picked the wrong one (but luckily then cancelled)…

Two menu items from the Finder.
The first is to eject an external disk.
The second is to erase that disk.
They are one above the other.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 28/08/2025

This sort of stuff really irritates me. Over the course of about 5 hours, the percentage completed has moved from ~40% to ~80%. The estimated time remaining has hovered constantly around the “About 30 minutes” mark. A) What is this? The 1990s? Can we still […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

Time machine backup progress, showing an estimated time of “About 34 minutes”.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 28/08/2025

It would be nice to be able to actually figure out why SwiftUI is barfing out all these warnings to the console. In the absence of that, however, is there a way to suppress them? An env var I can set perhaps? I'm not a fan of ignoring warnings, but nor am I […] [Original post on mastodon.org.uk]

Lots of repetitious and annoying console warnings presumably from SwiftUI:

NSToolbarItemGroup 0x6000032f8100 does not support selectionMode. Create the group with one of the class constructors to support selection.
NSToolbarItemGroup 0x6000032f8f00 does not support selectionMode. Create the group with one of the class constructors to support selection.
etc

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 25/07/2025

In other news... Has anyone seen a bug where a SwiftUI List decides to randomly display the "selected" appearance for an item, even though there is no selection binding? It's started happen for one particular list, I don't know why, and I can't figure out how to prevent it.

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Sam Deane @samdeane.mastodon.org.uk.ap.brid.gy · 25/07/2025

TFW you're using SwiftUI, and it is constantly spamming the console with UIKit/AppKit errors that it made all by itself… 🤯 I mean, I guess maybe I'm doing something wrong somewhere, but... give me a clue SwiftUI…

A big console log with lots of errors generated by SwiftUI.

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