❌

Reading view

WebKit Always Enables the Copy Menu Item in Every App

John Gruber (Mastodon):

In most Mac apps, since the dawn of time, if there is nothing selected to be copied, the Edit → Copy (and Cut) commands are disabled. If you invoke the ⌘C shortcut while the Copy command is disabled, you hear an alert sound, letting you know that whatever you thought you were copying could not be copied because it wasn’t selected. That beep is useful context. This is proper behavior for all menu items — if they’re not available to do something, they should be disabled, and invoking a disabled menu item keyboard shortcut should beep. In any app that uses WebKit, since early in 2025, the Copy command is always enabled when a WebKit view has focus — but if nothing is selected, you get useless clipboard data that can’t actually be pasted anywhere. (And whatever was on your clipboard is now gone, or pushed back if you use a clipboard history utility.)

Jeff Johnson:

I decided to file a bug report on behalf of Gruber: Copy main menu item is enabled with no selection in the web page. I subsequently learned that the first appearance of the bug was January 2025 in the WebKit source code, February 2025 in Safari Technology Preview 213, and March 2025 in Safari 18.4, as a result of attempting to fix another bug, document.execCommand("copy") only triggers if there is a selection, reported in 2016, nine years prior!

[…]

Sadly, my bug report was closed with the resolution “won’t fix.” The refusal appears to be based on a misunderstanding[…]

Jeff Johnson:

LOL that was fast.

Sometimes Apple is hilarious.

Previously:

Update (2026-07-30): Saron Yitbarek (via Jeff Johnson):

Fixed the Edit menu’s Copy item being incorrectly enabled when there was no selection in the web page.

  •  

AppKit in macOS 27

macOS Golden Gate 27 Beta Release Notes:

AppKit adds NSRefreshController, providing pull-to-refresh functionality for NSScrollView.

[…]

NSToolbarItemGroup adds the role property and the NSToolbarItemGroupRole enum, allowing toolbar item groups to be tagged with a semantic role. NSSegmentedControl similarly adds a role property and the NSSegmentedControlRole enum, including a tabs role for controls that represent tab-based navigation and content selection.

[…]

NSTextSelectionManager provides common text selection interactions (click, drag, shift-click, double/triple-click word/line/paragraph selection) to a NSView with a set of NSGestureRecognizers rather than overriding NSEvent mouse methods. NSTextView now uses NSTextSelectionManager and provides its own set of NSGestureRecognizers to provide additional features in addition to text selection.

[…]

By default, NSMenu hides all menu item symbol images — non-symbol images remain visible. […] Use the new preferredImageVisibility property on NSMenuItem to customize the image visibility for your menu items. As in macOS 26.0, NSMenu automatically provides default visible menu item images for certain common system-wide menu items, such as Settings, Share, and Print.

AppKit updates:

Create events similar to UIControl events on NSControl with the new NSControl.Events type.

[…]

Initiate a drag operation from a gesture recognizer using the new beginDraggingSession(items:gesture:source:) method on NSView.

[…]

Update views automatically in response to Observable model changes using the guidance in Updating views automatically with observation tracking.

How is this different from what was announced last year?

Modernize your AppKit app:

Bring your AppKit app up to date with modern macOS conventions. Dive into handling input with control events and gesture recognizers, moving beyond traditional tracking loops. Enhance keyboard navigation in your app, implement graceful state restoration after restarts, and take advantage of new corner concentricity APIs that let your interface blend seamlessly with the macOS aesthetic.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

To summarize the singular AppKit session this year: hey remember all these APIs and design patterns from UIKit? Well they’re now in AppKit and you should use them! Also make your glass use interactive bounce effects.

Why? No reason!😉

TN3212:

In macOS 27, AppKit continues to standardize on gesture recognizers as the primary mechanism for input handling. This change directly affects Sidecar because gesture recognizers are the only way to respond to touch input from a Sidecar-connected iPad running iPadOS 27. If your app relies on tracking loops for mouse event handling, migrate to gesture recognizers to support Sidecar touch input.

This article explains how the gesture recognizer model works, how to implement gesture recognizers correctly for Sidecar touch input, how to update your existing event-handling code, and which APIs macOS 27 adds. Codebases that implement nextEvent(matching:) or mouseDown(with:), mouseDragged(with:), and mouseUp(with:) events are most affected by the updates discussed.

Greg Pierce:

After the AppKit session blindsided me a bit after telling me not to override mouseDown, and then telling me I should override hitTest

Mario Guzmán:

A few years ago, Apple introduced:

func tableView(_ tableView: NSTableView, userCanChangeVisibilityOf column: NSTableColumn) -> Bool

for NSTableView, which Is a native way users could control-click on a TableView column to show/hide columns.

This year, in #macOS27, they updated it to have a new “Reset to Defaults” option.

This is awesome bc I have done my own implementation of this feature JUST to have the option to “reset all columns” and now Apple just includes it!

Elevate your app’s text experience with TextKit:

Discover how to combine the convenience of built-in text views with the control of TextKit. We’ll show you how new APIs make it easy to extend UITextView and NSTextView with custom behaviors like line numbers and collapsible sections. We’ll also explore the TextKit architecture and walk through new caching and reuse policies for text attachments.

Previously:

  •  

WWDC 2026 Links

General:

Documentation:

Sessions:

Podcasts:

Previously:

  •  

Safari 27 Announced

Tim Hardwick:

Apple’s new version of Safari browser in macOS 27 and iOS 27 can be tasked to monitor a webpage and notify you of any changes, thanks to a new built-in feature.

[…]

In other upcoming feature additions, using the power of AI, Safari tabs that you have open can automatically be organized into topics.

Saron Yitbarek et al.:

Don’t miss our WWDC26 sessions on web technology, including What’s new in WebKit for Safari 27, to go deeper on our work in this release. Now, let’s dig into this beta, packed with 58 new features, 525 fixes and 4 deprecations that will hopefully make your work as a web developer a little easier.

Saron Yitbarek:

This year, the WebKit team is here with six sessions covering new CSS layouts, customizable form controls, 3D models, immersive spatial experiences, and browser extensions.

See also: Safari 27 Beta Release Notes.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-17): Jeremy Keith:

But credit where credit is due. The upcoming version 27 of Safari is looking very good.

That’s not because it’s at the cutting edge of the latest web standards. Quite the opposite. Most of the changes listed for this release are bug fixes. That’s what I want to acknowledge and applaud.

Previously:

  •  

Siri AI Announced

Apple (Hacker News):

Siri AI is an entirely new version of Siri deeply integrated into iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. It can draw on personal context understanding to search across messages, emails, photos, and more, and get things done across apps with even more systemwide app actions. Additionally, Siri AI can answer questions related to the content on a user’s screen or go out to the web to get up-to-date information using broad world knowledge and generate a helpful answer. A dedicated Siri app allows users to revisit a past conversation or kick off a new one — all in one place — and uses iCloud to privately sync conversational history across a user’s products.

Apple (MacRumors, MacStories):

Powered by the next generation of Apple Intelligence, Siri AI is a completely reimagined version of Siri that is more helpful, more capable, and more intelligent. With detailed, engaging responses and natural back-and-forth conversation, Siri AI helps users get more done than ever.

[…]

Siri has been rebuilt from the ground up with powerful AI at its core. It takes full advantage of the bold new architecture for Apple Intelligence, including the next generation of Apple Foundation Models that run on device and on servers using Private Cloud Compute. When Private Cloud Compute is handling users’ requests, their personal data is not stored nor made accessible to Apple or anyone else. Outside experts can continue to verify this privacy promise at any time. Additionally, Siri AI uses the system orchestrator to tap into core capabilities like the Spotlight index and App Toolbox, which work entirely on device to keep users in control of their data.

[…]

For products that support Apple’s most advanced on-device model ever, Siri AI offers even more expressive voices, as well as a major boost in accuracy with systemwide dictation. Users have the ability to customize the expressiveness and pace of Siri’s voice so it’s just right for them. Dictation now captures what users say as polished text with greater precision, automatically handling capitalization, punctuation, and formatting as they speak. With improved speech understanding, users can speak naturally and trust that their words will appear clearly, accurately, and as intended.

I remain uninterested in these more advanced Siri features. They matter in that Apple needs to show that they’re not “behind” and that they can actually deliver on what they announce and advertise. But I don’t find the use cases compelling and wouldn’t trust the results.

If you really care about a particular concert, would you believe Siri about how the tickets work and that it will auto-create a reminder at the right time? Why should I believe that it can figure out whether a particular irregularly shaped object can fit inside an irregularly shaped container when said shapes are probably not even published on the Web? Can it really dig into my e-mail to find the right flight info? An answer without being able to see the sources is not useful. And I certainly don’t want it to pick for itself which vacation photos to send out.

I just want the basic features—from a decade or so ago, like music controls, reminders, and access to my purchases—to work quickly, reliably, and offline to the extent possible. I did not hear anything to suggest that this was a focus. Instead, everyone is celebrating how slow the demos were because that proves they weren’t fake.

Ben Thompson:

It’s actually super important that the Siri demo was kind of slow, because it emphasized it was real. Would be even better if it were live, though.

Mark Gurman:

The other interesting thing to note from the keynote: watching the demos, there is ZERO doubt these are real, recorded demonstrations on live devices. There will be no confusion about what is real or fake like there was at WWDC 2024 and the initial attempt at the new Siri.

John Gruber:

In fact, I think most of them were single takes of multiple demos back-to-back. That’s the way it should be, even when they feel a little slow.

Jonathan Wight:

Who the fuck wears a $4000 VR headset to find out if their boots will fit in their fucking backpack?

THATS the best example they could come up for that feature?

Rob Terrell:

also I wouldn’t trust the answer anyway

Kyle Howells:

These Siri demo’s feel like OpenAI demo’s from a view years ago. However, this is built in to the operating system.

Much like Dropbox vs iCloud, I feel like long term, once it’s good enough Apple will succeed in making AI a “feature” rather than a product.

Simon B. Støvring:

Apple needed to show that they could make a version of Siri that wasn’t three years behind. They didn’t succeed.

Ben Thompson (Hacker News):

And, if your standards are the state of the art in AI circa June 2024, when Apple took their first crack at answering the question, they did quite well.

[…]

What’s fascinating about this specific demo is that it also showed just how far behind Apple is.

[…]

Still, the bubble was strong enough to convince OpenAI to make the exact same mistake Dropbox did: the company somehow convinced itself that it could make enough money selling subscriptions to consumers; Anthropic, meanwhile, realized that it was enterprises who were willing to pay for AI’s massive productivity benefits, even as OpenAI failed to capitalize on their consumer market penetration by refusing to build an advertising product.

This is a long-winded way of saying that I don’t think that Apple’s agentic shortcomings are a big deal, at least for now. Agents help you do work and be more productive, and consumers don’t want to work or care about being productive. What they do want to do is watch short-form video, and an iPhone is simply much better at that than any other device ever will be; in that context, Siri being good enough is enough, and it appears that Apple crossed that bar.

John Gruber:

They need to execute, they need to prove this can scale, and most of all, they need to get third-party apps on board with App Intents and App Schemas. But it seems like they’re doing all of that. This is not a done deal but it is very realistic.

Steve Troughton-Smith:

Siri doesn’t have access to the filesystem or tool-calling, so it’s completely unable to do the kinds of tasks you might easily do with Codex or Claude. It’s a good start, but the state of the art has already dramatically shifted over the past year. The question is will Siri move in this direction, or stick to providing answers from the web?

Will Apple introduce its own distinct Codex-style agentic programming model that can do all this, and work with Xcode? You would hope so…

Aaron Pearce:

Have new Siri now. Siri still can’t do “turn lamp off and turn plug on” in one command.

Joe Rossignol:

The revamped version of Siri that is officially named “Siri AI” will be available to test in the iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, and visionOS 27 developer betas starting today, and it is coming to the Apple Watch in a future watchOS 27 beta. “Siri AI” will also be included in the public betas of each platform that are launching in July.

“Siri AI” requires a device that is compatible with Apple Intelligence.

Hartley Charlton:

Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi has explained why the company launched a standalone Siri app in iOS 27, after previously characterizing a dedicated chatbot as contrary to its Apple Intelligence strategy.

[…]

“We see Siri not as a separate chatbot, just an unintegrated place you go and chit-chat, but rather as an integral, conversational tool that you use in the moment, deeply integrated into your experience.”

Clear as mud.

ldt:

How to bypass the new Siri waitlist (Mac only)

See also: New Siri Waitlist.

Previously:

Update (2026-06-11): famebot:

…And playlists, contacts, settings and preferences. Peel off the agentic slop bandwagon and focus on core performance, smarter caching, and resilience under adverse network conditions.

Joe Fabisevich:

Love the new Siri, sick.

Update (2026-06-12): Juli Clover has a hands-on video.

Nick Heer:

Though this is a test conducted on the very first version of Siri A.I. from a fixed point in Calgary, it seems to work quite well. So far, it is better than any version of Siri Apple has released yet and, as you can see above, it is almost as good as the original 2010 demo, before Apple acquired the company.

Update (2026-06-16): Riccardo Mori:

On the one hand, if Siri has indeed become this reliable at understanding queries like those demoed so far, it’s indeed impressive. On the other hand, I can’t help but ask myself, once again, whether people at Apple even know how regular people actually use their phones and devices.

Jeff Johnson:

Apple executives downplay and obfuscate the role of Google in Siri AI. The Siri AI announcement didn’t even mention Google or Gemini once! Does anyone actually believe Apple’s BS? The argument seems to be that since Google made a bespoke implementation for Apple, Google is not really involved, and it’s all Apple. Ridiculous.

Jeff Johnson:

It’s really odd to me that Apple is getting so much credit for Google’s work. Siri now “works” to the extent it does because Siri is to a very large extent Gemini, and Apple has wrapped that in a bow.

Apple didn’t “nail” anything. Apple failed at its own internal efforts and was forced to outsource.

This is the advantage of being a platform: you can fail and still win.

Chance Miller (via John Gruber):

Apple’s Siri team, led by Craig Federighi, held a post-WWDC keynote tech talk with members of the press this afternoon to talk through iOS 27 and the new Siri AI.

During the talk, Federighi shared more details about Apple’s collaboration with Google.

Matthew Green (Lobsters):

Apple looks like it will use some combination of Google Gemini models, combined with Google’s Confidential Inference and Apple’s own Private Cloud Compute for private hosting. These systems will process both your queries and evaluate private data from your devices.

[…]

Apple has since “expanded” PCC to encompass Google’s hardware as well. I will confess that I find the details of the new “expanded” PCC just a bit vague. It sounds a lot like Apple is primarily going to rely on Google’s existing confidential compute (running in Google datacenters) to process this data, but they’re bolting on a new layer of technical security to control which models are actually running. In any case: security experts can argue about whether this is good enough to keep Cozy Bear away from your data. What I will grant is that it’s probably good enough to keep Google and Apple from accessing your stuff, which is what most people are worried about in the first place.

So why am I so nervous?

[…]

So far we’ve discussed two adversaries: the misaligned designers of private agents (such as search operators), and the possibility of remote prompt injection attacks. But of course, in any discussion of technical privacy systems we need to talk about the last elephant in the room: your government.

Previously:

  •  
❌