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Apple Plans to Let Developers Release Universal Apps That Work Across iPhone, iPad, and Mac
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Yeah, and it’s good Apple won’t. If you want a mouse the iPad UI doesn’t make sense anymore, since e.g. you can allow the user to click on much smaller things. And guess what, that’s the UI macOS provides.
Rosetta2. Things like iOS weather apps on a Mac would be nice.
For who ? For consumer users ? I'm afraid that they forget that majority of MacOS users are "professionals" like developers, content creators etc. There isn't at least one useful app in appstore for me right now because sandboxing and many various technical reasons. Apps like Adobe, Office are distributed outside the appstore. Why the hell is launchpad still there ? It's useless, I'd like to meet the person who came with this stupid idea. Windows with UWP failed and they are doing the same mistake again ? Tim Cock will ruin the company once again.
Next year... Yeah right. Not even got small things like iMessage in the cloud yet!
i don’t see how it can be done right. For years we’ve been told that OSX/macOS is not designed for touch. That is still true.
Having universal apps is going to impact either the touch end on ios or the desktop style on macos. A compromise is going to be made one way or another.
One thing I would like to see Apple do is take a year or two off from releasing major releases (bug & security fixes should still come out), and focus on updating all apps, libraries & frameworks to Swift. Get rid of deprecated code, tighten things up a bit, and stuff like that.
I kind of feel the same way. While some of the more consumer-oriented things could get better with the single OS, I see this as focusing on the "fluff" kind of apps. Some of the more more professional-level may be marginalized, if not totally gotten rid of. I've worked in IT for over a decade now, and while Apple has gotten a number of good things in the last few years like Apple Classroom, MDM/DEP support, etc., I've lost a bit of functionality & granularity with settings. Server used to have decent File Sharing settings, Workgroup Manager was way faster when dealing with hundreds, if not thousands, of users.
I kind of feel the same way. While some of the more consumer-oriented things could get better with the single OS, I see this as focusing on the "fluff" kind of apps. Some of the more more professional-level may be marginalized, if not totally gotten rid of. I've worked in IT for over a decade now, and while Apple has gotten a number of good things in the last few years like Apple Classroom, MDM/DEP support, etc., I've lost a bit of functionality & granularity with settings. Server used to have decent File Sharing settings, Workgroup Manager was way faster when dealing with hundreds, if not thousands, of users.
And so it begins... ARM Mac. This could possibly bring me back in depending on the changes.
The lowest common-denominator app development philosophy, coming to a Mac near you.
Finally!
This will be better for both developers and customers.
Let's just hope that this doesn't cripple macOS.
This will be better for both developers and customers.
Let's just hope that this doesn't cripple macOS.
Many APIs especially the newer ones are similar on both platforms. iOS and macOS apps can share a lot of their codebase; it's mostly just the UI that needs to be created (excluding platform specifically features).
So I'm thinking (or at least hoping) that it'll still be a requirement for each platform to have it's own UI. So like with an iPhone and an Apple TV, a macOS app can be downloaded to your mac if you install its iOS counterpart.
I am with you. I am afraid that this is going to be an even bigger step down the road of making the Mac less attractive to those of us who have been long-time users (I have been since 1987) by making the ecosystem more closed.
Just as when designing for phone or iPad -- you'll design a different UI for Mac vice iPad.
Honestly, while UI requires a lot of work to get looking consistent across the OSs, that isn't the big problem - it's the fragmentation of system frameworks so badly and subtly different that everything you've learned on one platform will lead you down the wrong path on the other.
Like, lol, how long did it take macOS to get NSFetchedResultsController? It's that stuff that kills.
Like, lol, how long did it take macOS to get NSFetchedResultsController? It's that stuff that kills.
So true a disgrace really. Pages had potential and quite liked it. Not touched it in years now.
There is no positive here for the Mac. None at all.
What's the bet that this is another misinterpretation of some bit of info by Bloomberg, and what's actually happening is simply a "universal app bundle" that allows iOS and Mac apps to be bought in a single purchase/package, like is currently possible with iOS and tvOS apps.
i.e. Not a single binary that runs on both, but two separate app bundles using all the existing SDKs, packaged together in a single purchase.
i.e. Not a single binary that runs on both, but two separate app bundles using all the existing SDKs, packaged together in a single purchase.
This is very likely the case, unfortunately that seems to be lost on most of the people commenting here
I see no benefit for the consumer here. If a developer uploads a bundle of apps that, in total, is universal amongst the platforms, why can't the app store just deliver the individual apps per device?
The universal idea only really is appealing if I am taking the application package myself and transferring it between device, like what you would do pre-app store. Having a "fat binary" in that instance is appealing because it could just run anywhere. But with an app store, this just doesn't make sense.
unless this is apple's forced-obsolescence plan and they just want to take up space on your device so you have to update your phone with more storage... wow, that was tin-foil hat of me...
The universal idea only really is appealing if I am taking the application package myself and transferring it between device, like what you would do pre-app store. Having a "fat binary" in that instance is appealing because it could just run anywhere. But with an app store, this just doesn't make sense.
unless this is apple's forced-obsolescence plan and they just want to take up space on your device so you have to update your phone with more storage... wow, that was tin-foil hat of me...
Actually it isn’t the same... designing for a touch-centric device like the iphone and ipad is different than designing for a keyboard/pointing device-centric device like a laptop/desktop.
Not with app slicing. Without app slicing, we’d already have bloat with iOS apps, given the now wide variety of iPhones and iPads.
As usual slow leaving the starting gate. One "OS to Rule Them All" is the way they should have done it years ago but their lack of foresight is still showing. No innovation at Apple anymore since they are still gliding along on the shirttail of the iPhone and following others that have created phones that are well advanced of the iPhone. The only reason people flock to Apple is the iOS, since it is slightly more secure than the Android offering. The OS running Mac's is better than Windows offering since Windows is still crap that Microsoft refuses to abandon and create a new os that isn't constantly getting hacked like the latest abortion is.
