Sal Soghoian is a user automation expert, software developer, author and musician. He joined

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

in January 1997 to serve as the Product Manager of Automation Technologies. These technologies include

AppleScript AppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. that facilitates automated control of Mac applications. First introduced in System 7, it is currently included in macOS in a package of automation tools. The term ''AppleScript'' may ...

Services Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a ...

, the

Terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devices for a computer * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together ** Battery terminal, electrical contact used to ...

Apple Configurator Apple Configurator 2 is an application developed by Apple Inc. and is available for free download on the Mac App Store. It was first launched in 2012. It replaces the Apple Configurator, which was first launched in March 2012, and iPhone Configur ...

and Automator, among others. He left Apple in 2016 when his position was eliminated.

Work with Apple

Soghoian has advanced Apple's incorporation of automation into its products by writing the scripting dictionaries for

iWork iWork is an office suite of applications created by Apple Inc., Apple for its macOS, iPadOS, and iOS operating systems, and also available cross-platform through the iCloud website. iWork includes the presentation program, presentation applicat ...

iPhoto iPhoto is a discontinued image editing software application developed by Apple Inc. for use on its Mac OS X operating system. It was included with every Mac computer from 2002 to 2015, when it was replaced with Apple's Photos application in ...

Aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...

, and

Photos A photograph (also known as a photo, or more generically referred to as an ''image'' or ''picture'') is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor. The process and prac ...

, and the Mastered for iTunes automation tools. He designed and wrote the automation tools in the

application, which uses macOS automation to manage iOS device deployment. Apple Configurator consists of a central AppleScriptObj-C library and a set of Automator actions. Apple Configurator automation tools enable iOS devices to be prepared, managed and refreshed automatically upon their connection to a hosting macOS computer. Soghoian's current projects include a collection of hundreds of voice-triggered dictation commands for controlling aspects of macOS, including the

Keynote A keynote in public speaking is a talk that establishes a main underlying theme. In corporate or commercial settings, greater importance is attached to the delivery of a keynote speech or keynote address. The keynote establishes the framework fo ...

, Pages,

Numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

, and the Finder applications. He created, hosts and manages a group of user automation resources at macosxautomation.com. In late 2002, Soghoian joined an ad hoc team of engineers developing an application for creating and running automation workflows. After a year and a half of difficult but steady development, Soghoian showed the application to

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...

. It was just one week before Apple's 2004 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Jobs was impressed with the new tool and asked Soghoian to appear at the

WWDC The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...

keynote to demonstrate Automator for the first time to attendees. This innovative integrated workflow feature was introduced as part of Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger. Soghoian is one of the inventors o
U.S. patent #7428535
During Soghoian's tenure, Apple's native automation scripting language,

, was revived and upgraded to be

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

native in Mac OS 8.5. It was also successfully transitioned to Apple's UNIX-based operating system,

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, becoming integrated with the native IDE, which included Project Builder and

Interface Builder Interface Builder is a software development application for Apple's macOS operating system. It is part of Xcode (formerly Project Builder), the Apple Developer developer's toolset. Interface Builder allows Cocoa and Carbon developers to crea ...

(the precursors to

Xcode Xcode is a suite of developer tools for building apps on Apple devices. It includes an integrated development environment (IDE) of the same name for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS. It w ...

). In the evolving releases of OS X from Lion to Mavericks, AppleScript added library support and direct access to the

Cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...

frameworks through AppleScriptObj-C, a powerful fusion of AppleScript and the

Objective-C Objective-C is a high-level general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style message passing (messaging) to the C programming language. Originally developed by Brad Cox and Tom Love in the early 1980s, it was ...

programming language.

OS X Yosemite OS X Yosemite ( ; version 10.10) is the eleventh major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Yosemite was announced and released to developers on June 2, 2014, at WWDC 2014 and re ...

introduced JavaScript for Automation (JXA), a peer to AppleScript providing access to

Apple Events Apple events are the message-based interprocess communication mechanism in Mac OS, first making an appearance in System 7 and supported by every version of the classic Mac OS since then and by macOS. Apple events describe "high-level" events such ...

and Cocoa through an enhanced version of JavaScript Core. Soghoian was an advocate for AppleScript years before being employed by Apple. As a consultant, he created automation solutions for the publishing industry in the 1990s. Soghoian also authored a popular script collection called Sal's AppleScript Snippets, the ShadowCaster Quark XTension, two books, including AppleScript 1-2-3, and numerous magazine articles about automation. He was a special guest at one Leopard Tech Talk. He was a featured presenter for Quark, Thunder Lizard Productions, Apple, Seybold, and the Macworld conferences.

Personal life

Sal Soghoian was born into an Armenian-American military family, and spent his childhood growing up on Marine and Naval bases, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from which he was evacuated during the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis () in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of Nuclear weapons d ...

. In his college years, he attended the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

in 1969 for a short time, but later moved to Boston where he earned a degree in music from the

Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music () is a Private university, private music college in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern Music of the United ...

. In the late 1980s he returned to

Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city (United States), independent city in Virginia, United States. It is the county seat, seat of government of Albemarle County, Virginia, Albemarle County, which surrounds the ...

, where he worked at the digital printshop "Pixels." Although he is known for his work at Apple, he is also an avid jazz musician. During his time in Charlottesville, he played guitar in a band called "Blue Indigo". The band is notable because it was composed of

Carter Beauford Carter Anthony Beauford (born November 2, 1958) is an American drummer, percussionist, and founding member of Dave Matthews Band. He is known for his ability to adapt to a variety of genres, and both his ambidextrous and his open-handed drumm ...

(drummer),

LeRoi Moore LeRoi Holloway Moore (September 7, 1961 – August 19, 2008) was an American saxophonist. He was a founding member of the Dave Matthews Band. Moore often arranged music for songs written by Dave Matthews. Moore also co-wrote many of the band's ...

(Saxophone), George Melvin (Hammond B3 organ), and Soghoian (guitar). Beauford and Moore would go on to later musical fame as founding members of the

Dave Matthews Band Dave Matthews Band (also known as DMB) is an American rock band from Charlottesville, Virginia. The band's lineup consists of Dave Matthews (lead vocals, guitar), Stefan Lessard (bass), Carter Beauford (drums), Tim Reynolds (lead guitar), R ...

. Jeff Decker and Phil Riddle joined, following their departure. He is the uncle of noted privacy researcher & activist, Christopher Soghoian.

Bibliography

* Soghoian, Sal. (1994). ''The Quark XTensions Book/Book and Disk''. Hayden Books. . * Soghoian, Sal; Cheeseman, Bill. (2009). ''Apple Training Series: AppleScript 1-2-3''.

Peachpit Press Peachpit is a publisher of books focused on graphic design, web design, and development. Peachpit's parent company is Pearson Education, which owns additional educational media brands including Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall, and New Riders. Fo ...

. .

Discography

* Blue Indigo, Catwalk * Sal Soghoian, To Be with You

References

External links

Sal Soghoian

Mac OS X Automation: Automator, Applescript, and Services

Automator.us

Mastered for iTunes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soghoian, Sal Living people Apple Inc. employees American people of Armenian descent Berklee College of Music alumni University of Virginia alumni Year of birth missing (living people)