Mikey Campbell
It was revealed on Wednesday that longtime Apple Product Manager of Automation Technologies Sal Soghoian, whose work is responsible for services like AppleScript and Automator, will be leaving the company in December as his post was recently eliminated.
Soghoian announced his own departure during a presentation at the MacTech Conference in Los Angeles, saying Apple is cutting the post he has held since 1997, reports The Mac Observer. Whether Soghoian's duties will be handed over to another team member is unknown, though the decision only serves to reinforce sentiment that automation technologies are no longer a priority at Apple.
The soon-to-be former employee addressed the recent development in a post to his website Mac OS X Automation.
"I joined Apple in January of 1997, almost twenty years ago, because of my profound belief that 'the power of the computer should reside in the hands of the one using it.' That credo remains my truth to this day," Soghoian writes. "Recently, I was informed that my position as Product Manager of Automation Technologies was eliminated for business reasons. Consequently, I am no longer employed by Apple Inc. But, I still believe my credo to be as true today as ever."
During his time at Apple, Soghoian worked on a variety of user automation products and technologies, many of which have seen diminished utility with each subsequent OS X — and now macOS — update. Apple's active automation projects include UNIX CLI (shell, python, ruby, perl), System Services, Apple Events (JavaScript, AppleScript, AppleScriptObj-C, Scripting Bridge), Automator, Apple Configurator (AppleScript, Automator), and application scripting support in Photos, iWork, Finder, Mail, and other Apple applications, according to Soghoian.
Despite Apple's decision to part ways, Soghoian remains upbeat on the future of user automation. After a brief vacation, he will begin fielding potential job offers and open himself up for consulting on Dec. 1. He also intends to maintain his Mac OS X Automation Dictation Commands websites, as well as a personal blog dedicated to his music.
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Wesley Hilliard
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71 Comments
Very sad to hear this. Mac automation was one of the things that attracted me to Apple's products. Given that apps like ITTT and Workflow have become more mainstream on iOS devices it is ironic that the Mac is becoming less "automated". I would have preferred to see the unique automation abilities of the Mac (as well as those apps on iOS) highlighted with training classes on the new Apple big screens at the stores. I think more people would demand it if they ever knew about AppleScript as I use it all of the time to automate routine task - for me it is a key element to having may Mac products routinely outperform Windows machines in day to day productivity. Thanks Sal for all of your hard work and best of luck going forward.
If Apple has a vision for the Mac, they sure aren't sharing it. Automator has no equal in the PC / Linux world.
It's symbolic of the change happening at Apple. As Apple trades places with Microsoft, Apple has less and less interest in customers who care about this sort of thing.
Position eliminated? No offer of retirement or reassignment? Seems like a strange thing to happen; sounds like there is more to this story.
The idea was good but I never cared for the implementations. Functionally the Unix world can't be beat for integrating processes, but it's for real programmers. Doing the same for macOS when the integration was among monolithic applications? Well that's really hard, and the application developers need to design for it. There's the rub.