[pm]

What were some of the technical challenges you experienced while reverse-engineering the wallpaper system? I've been reverse-engineering (for lack of a better term) some of macOS' and Xcode's poorly-documented functionality prototyping a personal developer tool. My investigation isn't sophisticated by any means; it's just been trial-and-error, but I haven't found much online in the way of resources for people going down this route.

[cindori]

Reverse engineering is hard! I use Hopper (https://www.hopperapp.com) to disassemble related binaries and frameworks. It's a great way to explore whats actually happening within macOS or Apple apps.

You can also export assembly files and throw various agents (Gemini, Claude etc) at them to learn more. It's surprisingly effective!

[hirvi74]

I'm no pro rev. engineer or anything, but did you try alternatives to Hopper at all? I've never had much luck with Hopper compared to Radare2 and IDA.

[cindori]

I haven’t tried those, but Hopper has been working pretty well for me. Although I mostly just sift through the assembly and pseudocode, and don’t use many advanced features.