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Apple Still Expected to Allow iPhone and iPad Apps to Run on Macs Later This Year
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I think the issue with this is that there's a lot that developers on Mac want to do that isn't within Apple's Mac App Store guidelines. That's part of the reason that there's such a breadth of software out there for the Mac, arguably some of the most popular Mac apps, that aren't available on the Mac App Store. Is this really going to be successful beyond the crappy little apps that will end up being ported from iOS for the sake of a few more ad impressions?
A better and more coherent strategy would be to stop with annual releases of new software. Instead do a new OS release every other year and focus on supporting apps in the interim years. Look at how poorly developed iCloud, iTunes, etc have been. But alas, I'm just a consumer. What would I know?
Your experience sounds really bad and that's a shame.
For me it does "just work" - if I take a photo on my iPhone it's available on my Mac (and iPad and Apple TVs) almost immediately and if I import on to my Mac from my camera's SD card or save a photo from the web, it's similarly available on all my devices almost immediately.
If I start a Messages conversation on my Mac, I can continue it on my phone or my iPad and switch between them seamlessly.
Yeah, that would be cool, but I wonder if they're waiting for the iPad to get just a little bit beefier hardware. It's already pretty fast when you compare it against Macs from a few years ago, but the RAM is still kinda low for doing a lot of really advanced stuff. I'm used to using Premiere Pro and I don't often do a lot of editing myself but I know that a large scratch disk and allocating more RAM for previews can help performance a lot.
Also, if they're going to do that, they should probably allow people to plug in a flash drive or portable drive to access the files they need for their projects as syncing footage like that over the cloud could take forever. Right now we can only import photos and certain video formats using an adapter and the Photos app.
That could be another reason they're waiting—they want to have everything sync over the cloud but it's not super feasible yet for many users. The problem with that is video files are just going to get bigger and bigger and likely keep outpacing internet speeds for some time to come. Even if we finally cap things at 8K because anything beyond that is pointless—even for giant movie theatre screens—they're going to add more bit depth and other things to increase picture quality and ability to pull in highlights and shadows in post and do some crazy grading. It never ends.
It would be nice to have a beautiful macOS, again, as we used to have, until Mavericks.
It would be nice to have a beautiful macOS, again, as we used to have, until Mavericks.
At this point, I'm too afraid of redesigns. They only seem to make things worse.
Naturally, I want them to fix security and improve stability across both OS before they attempt this, but I would be interested in seeing where this could go.
This seems like a huge project that won’t really amount to many changes or benefits for the average user.
Apple would be following in the footsteps of Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform, aimed at helping developers create universal apps that run across Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile, the latter of which is being phased out.
Article Link: Apple Still Expected to Allow iPhone and iPad Apps to Run on Macs Later This Year
Wow!!! Apple following windows path?? I guess Apple stopped innovation long time ago.
Maybe Apple should follow them with hardware as well and look at the Surface Studio instead of the 9-year-old, outdated design of the iMac.
Either iOS apps will be allowed that become coded to provide for non-touch Mac-equivalent input, or (and this is speculation that excites me a bit) Apple is going to come out with an ARM-based Macbook with trackpad and touchscreen, but the touch interface will be iOS-only. They can do this by making the hardware Mac App Store-only, and persuading developers to recompile their Mac apps for ARM - something that's won't be too onerous given the changes to the underpinnings of the current abstracted OS codebase.
For the last couple of years, when submitting an app, developers no longer send final binaries but a bit code. This bit code is then used by Apple to convert the app to the specific platform. This means that Apple can easily make the step to another instruction set, for example the switch from x86 to ARM.
If this speculation turned out to be true I'd guess that Apple would only offer a single lower-end Macbook/iPad model-size to start, and price it low enough (no Intel Tax, so prices could be lower AND have a higher profit margin).
They do already. They’re called Simulator app bundles. Native x86 code. Any competant developer of an iPad app can send you one.
so you need a competant developer for every app that i need...so too much of a hassle..
but i need the apple pencil support for our mac trackpads
Maybe Apple have found a better way to do touch but personally I really hope it’s not going to be like the Surface Laptop and so on, a touch screen laptop is just ridiculous in my opinion. Maybe Apple have found a better way of implementing it.
99% of the iOS functionality is already available to developers. It is called the "iOS Simulator". If you want that experience, that doesn't require "porting", that requires changing one switch in the compiler. Zero effort.
For a good experience, you'd want a bit more. Like the ability to run in a window, which means the "screen size" would change while the app is running, which would come a bit unexpected to iOS developers (your phone isn't going to change from iPhone 6 to iPhone 6+ while the app is running), setting whether the app should behave like an iPhone or iOS app, and lots of little things.
Does this mean I will finally be able to see the iOS App Store on my Mac again? Yes, Apple, I buy fewer apps, leave fewer reviews, and generally enjoy my iOS device a little less because of the bonehead move of cutting the iOS App Store from iTunes without having a plan as to where to paste it.
With Microsoft having moved to updating Windows twice per year, how backwards would Apple look if they moved back to releasing every other year or so? The industry-wide software development trend is to release faster and faster, not slower.
There's also no reason that fast releases have to result in poor quality releases. With the recent embarrassing security issues, I hope Apple is getting the nudge it apparently needed to prioritize software quality over new features.
Why? Why is this necessary and what type of backward compatibility is this? Why would I watch YouTube video on a 65 inch TV?
I'd like to add this concept art to the discussion. Not to show how it should be but how it could be. Kinda like the idea. But it's a lot of work to make it right. And the most important thing is that macOS should now be the loser in this transition.
