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My work laptop (Mac) needed an OS upgrade recently, top of the release notes was "added 8 emojis" - what? Why is this an OS level feature worth calling out

waiwai933 1y ago
I believe I read somewhere that announcing new emoji drives noticeably more OS upgrades compared to more boring security and stability update release notes.
throw0101c 1y ago
> My work laptop (Mac) needed an OS upgrade recently, top of the release notes was "added 8 emojis" - what? Why is this an OS level feature worth calling out Because the Software Update page under System Settings is all that normies will ever read and so what's in the text there is focused on normies. Meanwhile techies may be interest in the CVEs listed in the security update list: * https://support.apple.com/en-ca/125111 https://support.apple.com/en-ca/125111 * https://support.apple.com/en-ca/100100 https://support.apple.com/en-ca/100100 * https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-note... And corporate IT types may be interest in enterprise features, like TLS behavioural changes: * https://support.apple.com/en-ca/121011 https://support.apple.com/en-ca/121011
School-Cotton 1y ago
Apple is rumored to have a strategic emoji reserve. The more they want people to install an update, the more emojis from the reserve they release as part of it. Because this is basically the only thing that drives OS updates among average people.
- NetMageSCW 1y ago
  New emojis are actually created by the Unicode consortium so they they are interoperable across ecosystems.
  - School-Cotton 1y ago
    They assign the code points, yes, but Apple makes the art assets in their fonts so that they can actually be rendered.
wat10000 1y ago
Text handling and Unicode support is part of any modern user-facing OS. New emoji is a highly visible user-facing upgrade.

waiwai933 1y ago

I believe I read somewhere that announcing new emoji drives noticeably more OS upgrades compared to more boring security and stability update release notes.

throw0101c 1y ago

> My work laptop (Mac) needed an OS upgrade recently, top of the release notes was "added 8 emojis" - what? Why is this an OS level feature worth calling out Because the Software Update page under System Settings is all that normies will ever read and so what's in the text there is focused on normies. Meanwhile techies may be interest in the CVEs listed in the security update list: * https://support.apple.com/en-ca/125111 https://support.apple.com/en-ca/125111 * https://support.apple.com/en-ca/100100 https://support.apple.com/en-ca/100100 * https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-note... And corporate IT types may be interest in enterprise features, like TLS behavioural changes: * https://support.apple.com/en-ca/121011 https://support.apple.com/en-ca/121011

School-Cotton 1y ago

Apple is rumored to have a strategic emoji reserve. The more they want people to install an update, the more emojis from the reserve they release as part of it. Because this is basically the only thing that drives OS updates among average people.

NetMageSCW 1y ago
New emojis are actually created by the Unicode consortium so they they are interoperable across ecosystems.
- School-Cotton 1y ago
  They assign the code points, yes, but Apple makes the art assets in their fonts so that they can actually be rendered.

wat10000 1y ago

Text handling and Unicode support is part of any modern user-facing OS. New emoji is a highly visible user-facing upgrade.