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Apple Plans to Let Developers Release Universal Apps That Work Across iPhone, iPad, and Mac by 2021, SDK Coming This June

I've been holding off getting a new Mac. This is causing me to lean more towards a Linux box.
iOS file system has always been bad, and it sounds like AppleScript is just plain going away.
I can't see a reason to pay a premium to buy something that will not do the things I want.
Forty years with Apple is probably long enough. I think I've found about everything so I can live with Debian.
 
Janichsan said:
At least the Amiga was one computer with two different CPUs. You booted into a single (68k based) OS and the machine used whatever CPU the application you started was compiled for. You could even run stuff on both CPUs at the same time.
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Source? The CPU was always an MC68000. What is the second CPU you are referring to?
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Partron22 said:
I've been holding off getting a new Mac. This is causing me to lean more towards a Linux box.
iOS file system has always been bad, and it sounds like AppleScript is just plain going away.
I can't see a reason to pay a premium to buy something that will not do the things I want.
Forty years with Apple is probably long enough.
Click to expand...

If a linux box is in the same realm of possibilities for you as a macOS box, that's just weird. "I'm considering either a skateboard or a giraffe."
 
Janichsan said:
That's mincing words. As if an Amiga stops being an Amiga when you add an expansion board.
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No it doesn’t. But “amiga had two processors” is a very different claim than “you could add a board with a second processor to amigas,” which is why i inquired. Since I am very familiar with amigas, having used them back in the day and having been a cpu designer for a very long time, i was perplexed by any assertion that amigas shipped with multiple cpus.
 
cmaier said:
No it doesn’t. But “amiga had two processors” is a very different claim than “you could add a board with a second processor to amigas,” which is why i inquired. Since I am very familiar with amigas, having used them back in the day and having been a cpu designer for a very long time, i was perplexed by any assertion that amigas shipped with multiple cpus.
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You are reading things into my statement which I never said. If you had bothered to track down my original post in this discussion, you would have seen that I explicitely pointed out that the second CPU came on an expansion board.

Context is important.

Are we good now?
 
Janichsan said:
You are reading things into my statement which I never said. If you had bothered to track down my original post in this discussion, you would have seen that I explicitely pointed out that the second CPU came on an expansion board.

Context is important.

Are we good now?
Click to expand...

You said “the amiga was one computer with two different CPUs.” I’m not reading things into that statement. It’s clear on its face. In any event, no point going back and forth. I now understand that you meant to say “the amiga had a third party board option that turned it into one computer with two different CPUs.”
 
cmaier said:
You said “the amiga was one computer with two different CPUs.” I’m not reading things into that statement. It’s clear on its face.
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It's clear on its face in context that I was referring to my earlier statement which made absolutely clear that I was talking about an expansion board.
 
Cmaier, When was the last time you looked at Linux?
I'm running my TV happily off a raspberry now. I could run win 10 on the pi, but why?
Music vid, writing, drafting, surfing, mail all run fine off Linux nowadays. Can't say the same for Mac Mail, or even iTunes any more; and they keep degrading file system and Finder. Then there's APFS.
Why pay $$$ for the increased irritation?
 
Partron22 said:
Cmaier, When was the last time you looked at Linux?
I'm running my TV happily off a raspberry now. I could run win 10 on the pi, but why?
Music vid, writing, drafting, surfing, mail all run fine off Linux nowadays. Can't say the same for Mac Mail, or even iTunes any more; and they keep degrading file system and Finder. Then there's APFS.
Why pay $$$ for the increased irritation?
Click to expand...

My point is if linux is good enough for you, why would you even think about dropping the cash on a mac? If I'm trying to choose between a skateboard and a ferrari, I'm clearly not thinking rationally; the solution is obvious based on my needs.
 
In 1984, Linux did not exist. Macintosh beat Apple III, Rockwell, Northstar etc.
Now in 2019, it's getting to be a seriously better bang for the buck than the increasingly crippled "computers" Apple is putting out.
If you want to play on twitter and facebook, by all means buy a Mac appliance.
I'm tired of getting locked out of more and more of the guts of a piece of equipment I bought for me to use as I see fit.
-Rah, rah, mac...
 
gnasher729 said:
Putting two chips in the same device, running at the same time, that wouldn't be just non-trivial, that would be a major challenge. It would also be totally unnecessary. You can compile iOS apps for macOS right now, which most iOS developers do for testing purposes.
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You are completely off to the wrong direction here. This isn't about "simple and lazy brains". This is about making gazillions of apps available to macOS users at minimal cost for developers. Because if it isn't minimum cost, then a company has to justify paying a full-time macOS developer to port an application, and that is a huge cost that you need to justify. If this technology works, my company might need to invest a month of my time to get a version of their code for macOS (which would be a lot cheaper than creating a Windows or Linux version), and it may happen.
Click to expand...

Hope your optimism is well placed but remembering how Apple butchered even their own Mac apps just to play nicely with iOS leaves me a bit sceptical and I'm sure many others (I'd hope you understand the trepidation).
 
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I'm not sold on having a unified app, this would impact release cycles and lead to increased bloat with resources only required for one platform being downloaded and taking up space unless Apple has a mechanism for only downloading what is required for that platform, but then why not have separate apps with shared components.
 
dilbert99 said:
I'm not sold on having a unified app, this would impact release cycles and lead to increased bloat with resources only required for one platform being downloaded and taking up space unless Apple has a mechanism for only downloading what is required for that platform, but then why not have separate apps with shared components.
Click to expand...
There already is a mechanism for downloading only what is needed for a particular device. It’s called app thinning. It’s used all the time by the App Store and prevents, for example, your 64-bit iPhone from having to download code and resources intended for a 32-bit iPad. This prevents developers from having to create separate apps for every cpu/screen variation while still minimizing the size of what’s downloaded from the App Store.
 
cmaier said:
There already is a mechanism for downloading only what is needed for a particular device. It’s called app thinning. It’s used all the time by the App Store and prevents, for example, your 64-bit iPhone from having to download code and resources intended for a 32-bit iPad. This prevents developers from having to create separate apps for every cpu/screen variation while still minimizing the size of what’s downloaded from the App Store.
Click to expand...
I still can't think of the positives of unified apps.
 
Using touch screen apps is a nightmare on a computer. I've tried it enough using Bluestacks etc to never want to even attempt it again. I have zero interest in running iOS apps on a Mac. As some others have said, Apple has shown far too much interest in merging the platforms for me to sleep peacefully at this point. I have held out buying Apple ecosystem stuff (homepod, watch etc) because I have been unsure of where they're heading. The last few macbooks have been horrible to use for any real work and it seems they just want to make everything thinner and thinner, with more touchscreen -like keyboards and functionality and I can't say I'm too happy about that. I do hope my 2017 MBP survives long enough so I can sit this one out and see where they're heading. No way in hell I'm using a toy computer running only iOS - even were they improve it a lot. And no, they haven't announced anything like it yet, but everything points to that direction.

Microsoft's universal app system worked just as badly as I expect this to - nobody wants to use them unless they absolutely have to.

No matter. I'll save my money and wait what they come up with. The path should be clear enough by the time they release the new CPUs for Macs. Probably a beefed up version of what they have in iPads (or even the same stuff) and that'll tell me enough. Then I just have to hope that someone else comes up with a good enough laptop to use. And suck it up and try to live with Windows. :/
 
kyykesko said:
Using touch screen apps is a nightmare on a computer. I've tried it enough using Bluestacks etc to never want to even attempt it again. I have zero interest in running iOS apps on a Mac. As some others have said, Apple has shown far too much interest in merging the platforms for me to sleep peacefully at this point. I have held out buying Apple ecosystem stuff (homepod, watch etc) because I have been unsure of where they're heading. The last few macbooks have been horrible to use for any real work and it seems they just want to make everything thinner and thinner, with more touchscreen -like keyboards and functionality and I can't say I'm too happy about that. I do hope my 2017 MBP survives long enough so I can sit this one out and see where they're heading. No way in hell I'm using a toy computer running only iOS - even were they improve it a lot. And no, they haven't announced anything like it yet, but everything points to that direction.

Microsoft's universal app system worked just as badly as I expect this to - nobody wants to use them unless they absolutely have to.

No matter. I'll save my money and wait what they come up with. The path should be clear enough by the time they release the new CPUs for Macs. Probably a beefed up version of what they have in iPads (or even the same stuff) and that'll tell me enough. Then I just have to hope that someone else comes up with a good enough laptop to use. And suck it up and try to live with Windows. :/
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That last sentence gave me the shivers
 
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Universal app is something I’ve done myself for quite some time, had written apps that ran on macOS and iOS were they would at runtime make self adjustments for mouse or touch interface etc... it can be done today but a standard API for cross platform is well over due, it’s just one of them things that was going to happen but most people don’t like change just embrace it.

It happened to websites, today is proof it can work as you goto a website today on a desktop then the same on a smartphone and it’s the same website that adjusts itself to the platform and interface and today it’s expected no longer do users want to experience a desktop webpage on a smartphone and use pinch and zoom they prefer the new approach of the website adapting to its environment and the same will happen to apps
 
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I can't see how a menu-driven app can easily share a code base with a touch-driven app on the GUI side of things. The Mac moving close to iOS will be the death of the Mac. I'm glad I got to experience the Mac from the early days back in the 80s. I think the Mac peaked at Mac OS X 10.6.8.
 
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