Linked List: June 2, 2025

Monday, 2 June 2025

WhatsApp:

As one of our biggest requests, we’re excited to announce that WhatsApp is now available on iPad.[...]

We’ve made WhatsApp for iPad ideal for multitasking so you can get more done. Take advantage of iPadOS multitasking features such as Stage Manager, Split View, and Slide Over to view multiple apps at once, so you can send messages while browsing the web, or research options for a group trip while on a call together. WhatsApp also works with your Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil.

One of the weird things about Meta’s companywide obstinate refusal to adapt its iOS apps for iPadOS is that for WhatsApp, they’ve had a fairly decent Mac app for years. Surely it was less work to adapt their iOS app for iPadOS than it was to create a passable Mac app using Catalyst.

Famously, Instagram doesn’t support iPad screen sizes. You can run and use the iPhone version of Instagram on iPads — and I’m guessing tens of millions of people do — but it’s the clumsy thing where it launches as an iPhone-sized window in the middle of the big iPad display, and you can hit the “double arrows” button to zoom the window to 2× size. You can also use Instagram via the web, on either Mac or iPad, and it’s a pretty full-featured app-like experience.

What was frustrating about WhatsApp’s lack of iPad support until now is that you just couldn’t use WhatsApp at all from an iPad, other than as a web app. Because of the way WhatsApp handles security, you’re really only able to sign in to one “primary” device at a time, and that device must be a phone. Then, what you do to use WhatsApp on other supported platforms is set up those other devices as “linked devices” from the WhatsApp app on your primary phone. WhatsApp still doesn’t let you use the same account from more than one phone, which is highly frustrating for those of us with somewhat unusual edge cases like writing reviews of new devices. WhatsApp’s phone apps — for both iOS and Android — can only serve as primary devices. There’s no way to use one phone as “primary” and use WhatsApp on a second phone as a linked device. I’d go nuts if iMessage worked that way. But that’s why, prior to Meta creating a proper iPad app for WhatsApp, you couldn’t just launch the iPhone app on iPad. [Update, 7 June: Turns out, WhatsApp added support for using phones as linked devices two years ago. We regret the error.]

Mark Gurman reported over the weekend that proper iPad support for Instagram is forthcoming too:

Fifteen years after the first iPad went on sale, WhatsApp is now on the tablet. And, yes, it’s just a precursor to the most highly anticipated iPad app ever: Instagram. I’m told that employees on the Meta Platforms Inc. campus are actively testing Instagram for the iPad and that development work is full steam ahead.

Script Debugger Retired ★

Mark Alldritt, Late Night Software:

The day has finally come. After 30 years of continuous development, Script Debugger has been retired and will no longer be available for sale. Please see this post for more information.

Over the last few months we have received a wonderful outpouring of well wishes and stories from our customers describing how Script Debugger has helped them over the years, via email and on our forum. [...]

Script Debugger is now a free download. Links to all versions of Script Debugger from 8.0 to 4.0, along with registration numbers, are available on the Downloads page. These free versions of Script Debugger are provided AS-IS and without warranty, maintenance or support.

Those seeking a version of Script Debugger for the Classic MacOS should go here.

That last paragraph speaks to what an incredible run this has been. 30 years ago was 1995 — which was so solidly in the classic Mac era that the OS was still named “System 7”, not “Mac OS 7”. I forget when I first started using Script Debugger, but it was definitely in the classic Mac era. The oldest license number I still have is for Script Debugger 3.0 in 2005, but I’d been using it for years at that point.

Script Debugger isn’t just a spectacularly good Mac developer tool. (Indispensable, I would say. A lot of the problems many scripters have with AppleScript aren’t just mitigated by using Script Debugger instead of Apple’s free Script Editor — they go away.) It has also always come with spectacularly thorough and exceedingly well-written documentation — a good user manual describes what a product does, but a great one also explains how to use it.

But even better than that, the product always fostered a community of users. You could email tech support for help and get world-class expert personal assistance, or, you could participate in their (still vibrant!) user forum. Late Night Software always was a small team — Mark and Shane Stanley for the last decade or so, big contributions from Matt Neuburg, and, for a long (but not long enough) while prior to that, Mark’s late wife Gerry Tubin — whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Macworld Expos of yesteryear. Late Night Software never felt like a “company” per se. It always felt like a team. They exemplified all of the ideals of the indie Mac developer community and culture. At this point, it’s fair to say Late Night Software helped define those ideals.

But all good things come to an end. I haven’t really spent much time thinking about “apps” retiring, even while at the top of their game, but here we are. To Mark and Shane, I offer my profound thanks and sincere congratulations. What a run. Script Debugger is going out on top.