There may be some cool stuff en route for Apple’s special event on May 7, which was announced on Tuesday.

The company may have also dropped some interesting hints into the invitation, including a pencil icon that could indicate a next-gen Apple Pencil within the works.

In a post on X, Apple CEO Cook shared the artwork for the event with the caption “Pencil us in for May 7!” The executive also added a pencil emoji to the post, which further corroborates the fact that Apple will indeed launch new iPads and potentially a new Apple Pencil at its special “Let Loose” event on May 7.

The last time Apple launched a new generation Apple Pencil was in 2018, excluding a cheaper USB-C version that was introduced in late 2023. With the most recent generation, Apple updated the Apple Pencil with a matte design, better grip, a new double-tap gesture, and magnetic charging.

Additional rumors have also hinted that the next-gen Apple Pencil could feature Find My integration, which would help users track and find their lost Apple Pencil, just like with AirPods and AirTags.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

Via 9to5Mac and @tim_cook

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Technological improvements like containers, VMs, infrastructure-as-code, software-defined-networking, collaborative version control, and CI/CD can make it possible to fix cultural issues around organisational dynamics and bad product delivery. According to Nigel Kersten, software leaders should leverage tech to create positive changes in organisational dynamics and relationships between teams.

Nigel Kersten spoke about how technology can drive culture change at FlowCon France 2024.

Cultural change efforts across larger tech organizations tend to fail often. The most common problem is a failure to define what “cultural change” actually means, Kersten said. “Culture” is far too broad a term, and unless you identify specific and actionable issues that you want to address, you won’t succeed:

First, you’ll find that everyone has a different idea of what “culture” means and a different set of issues in mind, which makes progress difficult. Secondly, you’ll find that without a more specific and concrete set of goals, people will lack confidence that they can create any kind of impact, and will feel helpless.

In most software organisations, it is technological improvements that make it possible to fix the sorts of issues around organisational dynamics and bad product delivery, Kersten said. Improvements don’t automatically happen due to new tech capabilities, but they do become possible if leaders take advantage of them, he added.

Kersten argued that most technologists want to learn new things, as there’s a natural incentive there for their own careers:

If they understand what the business is trying to achieve and why, and you’re regularly listening to your teams in the way good leaders do, then suggestions for new tech will naturally emerge.

The job of a tech leader is to work out how to leverage this new tech to create positive changes in organisational dynamics and relationships between teams, Kersten mentioned.

Tech that creates simplified abstractions over complexity drives the greatest cultural change, Kersten said. Think of containers, VMs, infrastructure-as-code, software-defined-networking, collaborative version control, and CI/CD:

The tools in this space all enable subject matter experts to bundle up their expertise and make it usable by a larger group of people.

This democratisation makes it easier to have that larger group work towards a common goal, which allows teams to work at their own pace without waiting for someone else to fulfil their request, ultimately making it easier to solve problems for your users, Kersten concluded.

InfoQ interviewed Nigel Kersten about driving culture change with technology.

InfoQ: You mentioned in your talk that getting to fast flow or doing platform engineering well is much more than a shift in culture. What’s needed to support technological change in organizations?

Nigel Kersten: If you’re an organisational leader, the very best thing you can do to enable technical change is to create engaged, satisfied teams with clear context around your business goals, incentivise them to look for continuous improvements, and then give them the time, space, and support to investigate new technologies.

Common examples here are anything to do with automation. If teams have the space to learn new skills and apply them to automate manual tasks, then it’s a relatively simple next step to expose that automation to other teams and to start creating self-service interfaces. This could be something as simple as the remediation of a certain kind of issue in production, or updating a configuration setting.

InfoQ: What are the things that we can or cannot improve with software?

Kersten: Software won’t help you if you don’t have a strategy, if you don’t have a clear vision, and if you don’t have a clear set of goals you want your organisation to achieve. It won’t help you fix diversity issues on your teams, and it won’t help you create psychological safety, which we know is a primary driver of successful teams.

Software can help you with improving internal and external feedback loops, speeding up decision-making, inter-team interactions, and the impact that teams can have on the business, but not without conscious effort from leadership. Software by itself is never a magic bullet.

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Behind every InfoQ Dev Summit and QCon software development conference is a collective of distinguished senior software practitioners who carefully curate the topics based on the crucial trends and essential best practices you need to know about. These architects and leaders are charged with creating THE conference they would want to attend.

While some conferences issue calls for papers, InfoQ Dev Summit and QCon hand-select all the speakers. Domain experts individually select each talk for fit and merit. We search for the talks and find the speakers you want to learn from. These are not always the most famous people, but they are often the most compelling voices you’ll find in software.

Once the speakers are found, they undergo multiple interviews (with committee members, track hosts, and the conference chair) and a mandated rehearsal process before speaking at InfoQ Dev Summit and QCon. We offer training webinars, mentorship, and slide/code reviews with past speakers to enhance our speakers’ presentations, so they are sharp by the time they get to you. We take your time and conference investment as seriously as you do. We value the trust you place in us.

If you’re curious to see what types of talks you’ll find at InfoQ Dev Summit and QCon, take a look at a few recent talks:

• How Netflix Really Uses Java: At QCon San Francisco 2023, Paul Bakker, Java Platform @Netflix, Java Champion, and Co-Author of “Java 9 Modularity”, explored the current Netflix architecture(s). He provided a deep dive into how and why the architecture evolved the way it did and related this to the evolution of the Netflix Java tech stack.
• Banking on Thousands of Microservices: Suhail Patel, Staff Engineer @Monzo, shared at QCon London 2023 the lessons he and his team learned from building an online bank. He discussed technological choices, such as using Cassandra and Kubernetes in the early days, and explored how @Monzo has maintained its speed of execution through a focus on platform engineering and developer experience.
• Why Technical Experience Matters: How to Build a Lifelong Career in Software Development: At QCon London 2023, Sven Reimers, System Engineer @Airbus Defence & Space, shared how you can be a lifelong software developer. He discussed how to have your deep technical expertise valued by the industry and the role you can play in mentoring the next generation.

We believe InfoQ Dev Summit and QCon conferences are special experiences. If you’ve never been before, you owe it to yourself to understand why our conferences are so popular among developers and architects. Come find out why we’ve earned the reputation as a conference of “practitioners talking to practitioners.” You won’t forget the experience.

The upcoming software development conferences for 2024:

P.S. Teams as small as 3 attendees working for the same company are eligible for a group discount. For more details, email info@qconferences.com and mention the conference and size of the group to receive your discount code.

P.S.S. Due to popular demand, we’re extending the early bird dates for InfoQ Dev Summit Boston and Munich by two weeks for InfoQ readers. Save $100 for InfoQ Dev Summit Boston with code LIMITEDOFFERIDSBOSTON24 and €75 for InfoQ Dev Summit Munich with promo code LIMITEDOFFERIDSMUNICH24 when registering. Valid until May 6.

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