Sorry Shawn, nothing personal, but that's what it looks like from our perspective:

- What road map? We're not going to go to a WWDC just to get two simple answers (we don't have the time, the staff, and Apple is just one platform we need to support).

- They are really simple questions, but noone wants to commit to an answer.

> So unfortunate that you feel the need to slander that which you do not know. 
And how can we 'know' what noone will tell us about?

Since you obviously *do* care, please feel free to show it and answer our year-long questions:

(Frederik [in Bcc:], please correct/add, here's our chance)

We need to keep supporting Middleware (pkcs#11 module for Firefox and others, whatever-is-required for Safari) for the Belgian eID ; All the frameworks we used to build have now been *deprecated* by Apple. We now have no idea:

- Whether Apple will not suddenly drop support entirely and we'll only find out from an OSX pre-release.

- How future versions of Key Chain/Safari will handle Smart Cards

- Whether Apple *will* still support Smart Cards on a system level or whether we'll have to "ship-our-own" support for that (we've tried before to create tenable builds for SmartCardServices, ourselves, and it looks like others are trying that road, as well - see Chris)

- Whether to contact folks like Centrify and Thursby because Apple will outsource all Smart Card support to them?

- Whether Apple will suddenly produce a brand new Smart Card framework that we have to scramble to support?

WHAT do we need to do to keep supporting our national ID card on OSX, now and for the "road map"pable future? (scope: at least the next year, every year)

Eagerly awaiting Frederik's additions and your enlightening revelations.

WKR,
Frank.





On 04/27/2015 06:51 AM, Shawn Geddis wrote:
On Apr 22, 2015, at 1:48 PM, Frank Mariën <frank@apsu.be> wrote:
Hello Chris,
Chris Inacio schreef op 22/04/15 om 21:2359:
From my POV of some years in a SmartCardServices-dependent project (on OSX, at least, we support 2 other platforms), I can tell you that Apple effectively doesn't care one damn bit. After our years-long attempts at getting the slightest bit of information about the largely invisible roadmap, we got.. zero response.. Even mentioning the 11 million potential users didn't get their attention.. My impression: Apple, being a US company, needs to appear "patriotic" and "supporting the troops" etc.. so they cannot help but support CAC cards, but otherwise, if you have a business model based on anything smart-card related involving Apple Inc.. RUN LIKE HELL!
-f

So unfortunate that you feel the need to slander that which you do not know.  

Apple does not provide OS roadmaps outside of what is provided at WWDC.  Other than that, none of your statements above are true with respect to Apple Inc. or myself as an Apple employee leading this project.

- Shawn
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Security and Certifications Engineer, Apple            geddis@{apple}.com

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