I read news. Like, a lot. Once upon a time, I would read 100 books a year, just becoming lost in book after book after book. But now, I have what is clearly undiagnosed ADHD, and I read… news. A story here, a story there, a little local news, some world news, politics, technology, Android, iOS, programming, Apple, gaming… everything. I just absorb the knowledge of the world in blurbs. It’s nice, when you think about it. People just 100 years ago would have struggled to know about how much was happening in the world. Now, I have information overload and it’s ruined my attention span.
Plus, you know, I write a blog. I kind of need to find articles for it. Well, don’t “need” to find as much as, “decide it might be fun to write something and about 139 words in, regret starting it because now I have to do all the research, find quotes, link to other stories because I am definitely not a serious source of journalism, make graphics, publish it, share it, and go back to reading the news again.
So, you’ve heard about my tool for finding those stories. It’s RSS and an app called NetNewsWire. I subscribe to feeds, and my stories sync across Apple devices. It’s very cool, you should check it out. What’s my other favorite tool?
Pocket.
Pocket was bought out by a company a few years ago. You might have heard of that company too, Mozilla. They make Firefox, which, in my humble opinion, is the best way to browse the web. It’s very cool, you should check it out. However, Mozilla decided to do something that’s very not cool. They’re killing off the Mac Pocket app, telling Intel Mac users to just use the web.
Here’s why that’s terrible.
Dropping Intel Mac Support Only?
So, what exactly is Pocket doing? How are they only dropping Intel Mac support? Well, it’s more accurate to say they’re dropping all Mac support, but Apple Silicon Macs have another option. On an Apple Silicon Mac, you can still run the iPadOS version of Pocket. This is because Apple Silicon Macs can run iOS apps natively. It’s not as though the apps would be too difficult to emulate on Intel Macs, it’s just that Apple hasn’t made anything to do that. Apple doesn’t want to do development of new features for older hardware, they want people to upgrade. By doing so, they’re practically forcing people to upgrade to Apple Silicon Macs quickly, using what looks like planned obsolescence to force Intel users out. Now, companies like Mozilla, who owns Pocket, are joining in.
Mozilla doesn’t seem the type to jump in on planned obsolescence. Firefox supports such a wide variety of devices and browsers that I’m sure it’s difficult to maintain. But Pocket is dropping support for Macs that could be less than a year old. Until this year, Apple was still selling at least one Intel Mac: the Mac Pro. These aren’t even old Macs Apple and Mozilla are kicking out.
On top of that, Intel Macs are still incredibly performant. My 4-year-old MacBook Pro chugs along with its impressive i9 processor and 64GB of memory. I also use an eGPU with it, and that means its performance can be upgraded for years. My goal was to fight e-waste, something Apple, and now apparently Mozilla, care little about. The sad part is, looking at benchmarks, Macs with dedicated graphics can still outperform even the M2 Ultra in some tests, and, on average, beat out even Apple’s newest chips. My four year old graphics card, an AMD Radeon 5700 XT, still beats out Apple’s brand new M2 Pro in graphics benchmarks. There’s no performance reason to abandon these devices, so I won’t, but it’s a shame other companies want to contribute to e-waste.
Does the iPad App Compare?
macOS on the top, iPadOS on the bottom. The difference in utility is huge.
It does not compare, not in the least. That’s why I rarely use it. The Mac Pocket app is uncluttered, giving you a large view of your list of saved websites and previews. You can use arrows and keyboard shortcuts, like just pressing the ‘O’ key, to navigate and open articles. The iPad app feels like an upscaled iPhone app. The UI doesn’t match the screen size, and, rather than using a 2 column design like the Mac app (and many iPad Apps), Pocket still uses the single column display. In short, it’s an awful experience. Now that experience will be forced on non-Intel Mac users as well. Perhaps I should be thanking Pocket from saving me from that?
Web Apps Suck.
I’m sorry, web engineers. I know you hate to hear it. And coming from a native app developer too! It’s like I’m rubbing it in! I’m sorry, I am, web developers. JavaScript is great! Your work is vitally important! It’s just not great when it gets wrapped with Electron or otherwise forced into running as an app non-natively.
Unfortunately, that’s all Intel Mac users will be left with by mid-August. You can bookmark Pocket’s website, maybe even make a shortcut on your Mac desktop, but it’s not the same. The Pocket web app, like the iPadOS app, is limited in the information it displays. It’s also not native, and just not as responsive. Web apps are never as good as native apps. Even if Pocket releases an Electron-wrapped version of their web app, it’ll still balloon the app size for an app that’s far less responsive than the native app could provide.
Pocket could continue to support legacy users though. But they likely did the math. Intel Mac users simply would not start using Pocket’s other apps in place of what they have for a very long time, and Pocket would have to keep a likely outdated version of their API running to support it. That’s likely why Pocket is not only taking the Mac app off the Mac App Store, but also cutting off access to their APIs via the app later this month. It’s a shame, and incredibly hostile to their users. Some of those users, like myself, have been using the service for over a decade. Now I’ll have to ask myself: without the Mac app, is Pocket any better than just using bookmark folders in Firefox? Is it worth using Pocket without the Mac app at all?
Probably not.
Sources:
- Sarah Perez, TechCrunch
- Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac