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Code in macOS Catalina Suggests Apple is Working on Catalyst Versions of Messages and Shortcuts for Mac
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I wouldn't quite put it that way (looks like these two apps won't actually launch in Catalina, so probably not until 10.16), but sure, once Shortcuts for Mac is officially a thing, they probably won't want to evolve two very similar apps.
The unanswered question is how to migrate. Will Shortcuts become more powerful first?
Because Automator hasn't been updated for years, many actions are marked by 2011-2012 years. Obviously Shortcuts potentially can provide a glimpse at Apple's vision of the future automation at a consumer level as a replacement for Automator. Personally I'm put off by the approach Apple seems to embark upon which is to remove products instead of updating and polishing them. I love Automator and would like to see it becoming a product of power using with the concept unparalleled in any non-Apple environment.
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I think most people find Apple's frameworks harder to deal with. I probably spent half of my early dev career in iOS and recently tried out RN, and it's night and day how much more productive I am*. Also, a few things seem strictly better, like how everything is Component instead of the awkward UIView vs UIViewController usage people keep arguing about. But I'm not a real frontend dev, just someone who sometimes has to deal with it and has little patience in doing so.
* except the initial setup, not having to do with the UI, is a whole lot of nonsense. I had to learn the secret of just not touching Expo in any way, as it basically does nothing for me and breaks compatibility with tons of random libs.
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This is good news imho. I use Messages on macOS a lot but the constant syncing issues drive me insane (forcing you to manually click the sync button multiple times in settings to resolve).
Don't really care about messages effects or stickers, but doesn't hurt to have them. Hope this launches day 1 and doesn't come in a point update later down the line.
Don't really care about messages effects or stickers, but doesn't hurt to have them. Hope this launches day 1 and doesn't come in a point update later down the line.
MVC makes for a steeper curve but can make for a more scalable design. I wouldn’t say “strictly better” is a fitting attribute for “why not just put everything in the same class”.
But that’s an endless debate. MVC, MVVM, VB-style single-class components, whathaveyou. Besides, again, SwiftUI is basically exactly that. It doesn’t have a separate view.
I can understand (Siri) Shortcuts coming over via Project Catalyst. But why Messages? What does the Mojave version of Messages not have that the iOS 12 version of it has (that can't be easily integrated in later)?
I'm fine with MVC, problem is those two classes' usages are blurred too much, so it's not great for that. For one, I remember it being so awkward to nest controllers' views, esp with Interface Builder involved, that people put controller logic directly into UIViews.MVC makes for a steeper curve but can make for a more scalable design. I wouldn’t say “strictly better” is a fitting attribute for “why not just put everything in the same class”.
But that’s an endless debate. MVC, MVVM, VB-style single-class components, whathaveyou. Besides, again, SwiftUI is basically exactly that. It doesn’t have a separate view.
You're saying that can't be integrated into the existing Messages codebase? Because I find it hard to believe that the only way they're getting that functionality in there is by porting over the iPadOS version.