The State of Mac Automation

Given recent developments in the Apple world, I thought I should begin this book with a few words about the present and (as nearly as I can guess) the future of automation on the Mac. After all, I’m going to be urging you to learn new skills, change old habits, and perhaps even buy and configure some new software, all in the interest of getting your Mac to do more work for you. It’s only natural that you’d want to be sure you’re making a good investment of time and money.

Up until a few years ago—in fact, around the time the first edition of this book came out—there were reasonably positive signs that things were slowly heading in the direction of more and better automation capabilities, and greater attention to automation by various Apple teams. But now the signals are decidedly mixed.

First, the bad news. Sal Soghoian, who worked at Apple for nearly 20 years and was the company’s main internal and external evangelist for automation (his title was Product Manager of Automation Technologies), was laid off in late 2016. Apple’s explanation was that it wasn’t personal; they were, rather, eliminating that position for business reasons (see Tell Us Your Mac Automation Stories by Adam Engst in TidBITS). But no one seems to know what those reasons might be. And as far as I can tell, that leaves no one in charge of automation at Apple.

Among other achievements, Sal was instrumental in the development of Automator. And more than anyone else, he worked hard to explain, promote, and encourage the adoption of automation technologies of various kinds. I have to imagine that without his efforts, I’d have far too little to say about Mac automation to fill a book.

Although I know Sal personally and feel Apple did both him and the rest of us a great disservice by letting him go, I would have taken the news of his departure much better if I knew that some other competent person were stepping into his shoes. But since the position itself has been eliminated, I’m led to wonder what this portends for Apple’s commitment to advancing automation on the Mac. How exactly might they accomplish such a big and important task without even a single full-time person to manage it?

I can’t answer these questions. I don’t have any inside knowledge of Apple’s corporate thought processes or business plans. I can only guess. Based on what I’ve seen over the years, my predictions are:

• Most, if not all, of Apple’s automation technologies will stay roughly the same in High Sierra and for at least a few major releases beyond that. I don’t expect anything you build today with, say, AppleScript or Automator to fundamentally break in a year or two.
• I would be shocked to see any substantial revisions to Apple’s existing macOS automation technologies in the next few years. I expect to see bug fixes at best, and probably not many of those.
• Apple is likely to promote app extensions, cloud services, Web-based tools, and—most importantly—apps written in the new Swift programming language as the preferred ways to accomplish tasks that older automation technologies typically addressed (even though these methods might not quite be able to do the job yet).
• There will be an increase in attention to automation on iOS, which accounts for a far greater share of Apple’s income (and, thus, programming resources) than macOS these days.

Needless to say, I could be wrong about any of this. But my gut feeling is that, in terms of official, system-level support from Apple, automation has probably plateaued, and might be on the decline.

However…

Even as someone who loves automation, I don’t find this depressing. In fact, I feel quite positive about a broader picture of automation on the Mac—one that isn’t defined solely by Apple’s decisions. Here’s why:

• The Mac automation community is large, vibrant, and influential; witness 73 Mac Automation Stories from TidBITS Readers. Notably, some of the large groups that spend the most on Apple gear—such as graphic artists, musicians, and various sorts of enterprise users—depend crucially on automation technologies. I’m sure those people collectively hold some influence over Apple’s decisions.
• In many respects, Apple takes a “let’s leave well enough alone” approach to the guts of macOS. There are oodles of old Unix utilities still kicking around, for example. They’re not doing any harm, and some problems might arise if they were removed, so they largely stay—even without a strong argument as to why they’re needed. The same could be true of today’s built-in automation technologies.
• The number of apps with their own built-in automation tools is growing, as are the capabilities of those tools. (See, for example, the chapter Use Omni Automation.) Even if AppleScript disappeared tomorrow (don’t worry; it won’t), you’d still be able to automate tasks within Microsoft Office, Acrobat Pro DC, Photoshop, Nisus Writer Pro, and many other apps. You’d also still be able to use tools like Keyboard Maestro that use their own methods to automate other apps.
• Even though app extensions, Swift, and so forth don’t meet the general need for automation tools today, they could plausibly evolve in such a way that they will in the future. Indeed, perhaps Apple or a third-party developer will invent some entirely new technology that will make today’s options seem quaint.
• Apple is paying a lot of attention to both automation and programming on iOS. The company recently purchased the Workflow automation app for iOS, made it free, and hired its developers. It loosened the restrictions on iOS apps running user-supplied executable code. For example, it (somewhat shockingly) approved Omni’s iOS apps that incorporate JavaScript—not just for automation within a single app, but between apps too. It also offers Swift Playgrounds, a free app that lets people learn to code in Swift on an iPad (even though iOS devices can’t yet be used to develop full-blown iOS apps).

  Granted, that’s iOS, not macOS. But all this shows that Apple does actually care about automation, and lately we’ve seen a number of technologies flow from iOS to macOS. So Apple could very well be using iOS automation developments to lay the groundwork for future Mac capabilities. At the very least, it’s an argument for reaching and maintaining parity between the two platforms.

If Apple had put me in charge, I certainly would have made different decisions. I don’t know what the company is planning for the future, and it’s entirely possible that whatever it is, I won’t like it. Nevertheless, nothing in my crystal ball persuades me that I should in any way scale back my Mac automation efforts. In fact, I believe quite the opposite: now is the time to go deeper, to learn more, and to find still more ways to extend my uses of automation on the Mac. That’s precisely what I intend to do, and I hope you’ll join me!